Mary: As usual, I looked up and you were failing.

Mary: so much easier to stay out of trouble when you don't have genitalia that you can stick in things

"Your mom!"
"Your face!"
"Your mom's face!"
"...maybe."

So, it's Sunday afternoon and I'm sitting in the lobby of the MFF hotel with a pair of new friends trying to decide what I want to do to wrap up the con. A lot of interesting shit has happened this weekend, but everything that was planned pretty much went down without any unexpected explosions or breakdowns or anything, so I suppose that's all good. It's really the unplanned events that are worth mentioning, but you know how cryptic I am when it comes to revealing any sort of useful information about my life, so who knows what I'll ever actually post about.

I suppose the important information to extract from this post is that I made it to MFF alive, I met a lot of awesome people, and I've had an incredible time.

I suppose that I will adopt Mary's bullet list form of journal update for a moment:

--drunk,sleepy people can be utterly hilarious. a new friend and i spent an entire night just listening to this awesome guy talk shit about people, he was so fucking hilarious, i think i have a new hero.
--"that kid was so fat i couldn't tell where one body part ended and another began."
--panels are really undeniably boring, of course, i could just have like a really bad case of not caring, but jesus christ, it's a meet and greet panel, why are we sharing stories about animal rescue? if i wanted to hear sap stories about rescuing dogs with disabilities or whatever i'd watch animal planet. i mean, i support the rescue charities and stuff because they do great work but it's not something that i want to spend an hour in a hot room full of awkward people listening to dumb stories.
--misconceptions are easily broken when you give people a chance.
--caffeine can lead to insanity.
--psychological self-defeat runs rampant among furries
--on a related note, i have little tolerance when people set themselves up for failure mentally before they even try.
--i want a fursuit now, i'm such a fag :(
--also "i'm such a fag" can easily be applied without the previous bullet's antecedent.
--opposites don't really attract, fuck physics.
--once again, "fuck physics" can be applied without the conclusions of the previous bullet's antecedent.
--i'm a geek.
--inner ear infections suck.

more to come later i suppose.

buffer overflow (n.)

1.) An anomalous event where a computational process stores data in a buffer outside the memory which was designated for the process by the programmer.

2.) An anomalous (yet common) event where a class begins to take over one's life through information overload or overwrought assignments,

Perhaps you've had this problem too: on GTK based applications, such as X-Chat or Pidgin, there's a "feature" where if you backspace when there is no text in the text entry area, that obnoxious system speaker beep goes off-- you know, that one which is unaffected by your system volume.  Before I figured out how to fix this, it caused many a disturbance in class.

However, I've decided that the best solution is just to turn the system beep OFF.  I'm doing this in Windows 7, but it should work the same way in vista.  There are multiple ways to do it but I think the fastest way to do it is with the command prompt.  Anyway, here's the short procedure:

If you need to re-enable the system beep for some reason (?) then all you need to do is basically the same thing, except you'll type "sc config beep start= auto."

Anyway, I hope this helps someone!

Since xconfuzzledonex got me an ice cream maker for my birthday, I decided to inaugurate it tonight!

I was going to make green tea frozen yogurt, but Kroger didn't have green tea powder.  Instead, I made something else vaguely Asian sounding.

Honey-Ginger-Lemon-Tamarind-Orange-Pomegranate Seed frozen yogurt is currently spinning in my ice cream maker.  I wonder how it will turn out?

I guess I should probably go back to the doctor: when I cough there is a very metallic taste in my mouth, kind of like blood.

Theorem 10.11.69

The closed set K defined as {Songs from Kai's playlist | song is a mashup} contains all the limit points and some of the elements of the open set M defined as {Songs from Mary's playlist | song is a mashup}, but no other elements.

Corollary 10.11.70

The union of the sets K and M defined in Thm 10.11.69 , K∪M is closed.
Additionally, K∪M is the closure of M.

The Windows 7 Math Input Panel is AMAZING.

I disovered this feature on accident while attempting to open notepad for some reason, but Ir'm very glad that I did, because it's quite possibly the most incredible esoteric feature I've seen on anything, ever.  Of course, it always makes me happy when featuritis gives birth to something that's not an iFeature.

Basically, it interprets the mathematical symbols you write on the panel (yeah, this is a feature for tablets mainly, although theoretically you could use a mouse) and outputs MathML which can be recognized by any application that is MathML-aware.

Here's a screen shot of me writing out the definition of the limit of a sequence into the input panel:



I didn't even have to use the "select and correct" tool for this particular conversion, either.

Here's another example of what it can do:



And here it is imported into Word:


I don't normally go on and on about features of computers/operating systems/devices, but this is the first time I've been blown away by anything since I first *got* my tablet a year ago.  Hats off to Microsoft :)

Ken: you on your macbook in deets? looking sophisticated drinking your latte? and writing your epic novel?
Kai: basically
Kai: listening to some fleet foxes and tweeting about the environment
Ken: oh ok
Ken: don't forget
Ken: to scoff at everyone else
Ken: regardless of what they are doing
Ken: cause if it is saving the environment, they're certainly not doing it as hard as you are
Kai: yeah it goes without saying

Don't tell anyone, but technically the chord progression in the start of Progression of the Heart isn't G-D-Em-C.

It's G- D6 -Em7 -C(add9)

Don't hate me.

Almost distortion free!
http://dingoes.ateyourbaby.com/arch.ety.pe/preview.m4a

Ok so not even almost, but it's much better lol

chiuaviators (n.) [ch-wv-trs]


  Also known as "Chihuaha Shades"-- Sunglasses that appear as if the only matching accessory could be a chihuaha.  Often sported by socialite fashionistas and sorority girls.

There goes Paris Hilton in her Chihuaviators again.

earwig (n.) (îrwg)

1. Any of various elongate insects of the order Dermaptera, having a pair of pincerlike appendages protruding from the rear of the abdomen.
2. A song, usually frivolous, trashy, or especially manufactured, that has the tendency to get stuck in the head after one hears it.

Before even starting the song, I joked with Mary that it should have a bridge, that the bridge should be in a completely different key, and it should have a much more complicated chord progression.

All of these things have come to fruition!

The bridge modulates into the key of B-flat:


Bb(add9)   Fm6/Ab
This is the bridge

          Ebmaj7/G                      Gb6   F6
It's designed to stand apart

etc.

I'm pretty comfortable with this key change, I'm not nervous about it as I was with the last one.
You can listen and see how I get there and back to G for the next chorus in this crappy recording (now that I've screwed with my wires I can't get RID of the distortion...lol...I can't wait to get my desktop hooked back up).

filebox.vt.edu/users/kamakiri/bridgedestroy.m4a

Traditionally (or rather, most frequently) the half-step key change is performed by completing a cadence  (I - IV - V7 - I, example: C  F G7 C) and then using a chord that's dominant (V or V7) in the next key before introducing the tonic of the new key  (C F G7 C G#7 C#).  This progression, however, stands out too much from the altered Doo Wop progression in our song...so I elected to do something a little different.

In the last part of the song where I raise the key to G#, I start out with the normal chorus (Chords are shown in bold above the lyrics)

G D Em        C
G D E minor C

G                                D                                Em                      C
Some may call me desparate; I feel I'm acting reasonably

G D Em         C
G D E minor C

G                            D                         Em
Maybe when you hear this song, maybe you will

Faddb5
Maybe you will

Ab Eb Fm     Db
G D E minor C

Ab                        Eb                         Fm                          Db
I pushed it up a half step but it's still the same old thing


etc.


Basically the key change progression is  G D Em Faddb5 Ab

I'm just worried it might not sound natural to someone other than me.  What do you think?  Here are recordings (I managed to reproduce the distortion, but it doesn't sound as good on this one, so I need to go out and buy a pedal for it...) of the GENERAL chorus (no key changes) and then immediately after, the key change chorus.  The key change occurs somewhere around 0:58-1:00.

http://filebox.vt.edu/users/kamakiri/choruscompare.m4a

Any comments?
(Please forgive my hiccups toward the end...I'd never played that part of the melody before lol)

And then a song starts to play off some CD
Yeah, it's uninspiring but it's got a catchy beat
A thousand voices singing it's a unison uproar
I just can't help feeling like it's all been done before

G D E minor C
Some may call me desparate; I feel I'm acting reasonably
G D E minor C
Maybe when you hear this song, maybe you will
Maybe you will***

(See...................)
G D E minor C
I pushed it up a half step but it's still the same old thing
And though we're playing in a different key than at the start
We can't seem to escape this progression of the heart

We can change the key from now until the moment we depart
But we'll never escape the progression of the heart

We're all beating synchronized with the progression of the heart.


***The key changes from G to Ab at this point.

So I was doing a little test recording to listen to the piano part for the song in the previous post ("Progression of the Heart")  and some wires got crossed or a microphone got to close to an amp or something and for reasons I can't reproduce as of yet, an amazing distortion effect arose in the recording.  It's not like your usual guitar distortion, it sounds almost elegant or nostalgic...I'm really excited to figure out how to reproduce it...because I want to use it in the final version of the song.  In fact I've officially changed the staff label on the piano part from "Piano" to "Distortion Piano," haha.

But anyway, if you're interested, here is a link:

http://filebox.vt.edu/users/kamakiri/distortion.m4a


It includes the intro and the first section ("I didn't know....so many things").  Any comments?