Month: April 2005

Welcome Arkansas Times Readers

So now the harsh light of publicity will shine upon this site and not inconsequential numbers of people might actually read this stuff. Some of the golden anonymity I usually enjoy will wear off, at least for a few weeks. By all means, click the icons at left to take a look around the site, and nevermind the fact that this page looks a bit different from the rest. Heath recently installed WordPress for me, and it’s so much more convenient than duct taping the site together as I previously had been. Be sure to check out the Photolog (Plog) and thanks for visiting. Oh and in case the Times doesn’t credit it, the “Rock” picture is courtesy of Brian Hickman Photography.

And for the musicians in the audience, please check out the forum at LittleRockMusician.com

This is the Sound of Your Brain Expanding

I stayed at work a little late, playing with Google Maps (see the entry below), and as I drove home, I experienced a sort of mental jetlag; switching from outer space eye-views of the Earth to my more immediate, pedestrian surroundings gave me a profound sense of irrelevancy and insignificance. A half hour in front of satellite imagery that comprehensive gives one a perspective previously available only to astronauts. It’s a massive shift.

A poem I read in 5th grade talked about aliens looking at Earth and assuming the major lifeforms to be the many cars moving about constantly. Looking at Google Maps, it’s a natural assumption. The little limbed blobs inside the cars are hard to see.

Anyway, I then thought about a 5th grader today having access to the vast amount of information in Google Maps. All I had when I was a kid was a globe and my imagination to switch between it and a US map or an Arkansas map. And those were just representations. Satellite photography shows reality. Seeing the true scale of this country and this planet…if you spend several minutes exploring the vastness of this place, you can practically feel your mind being blown.

More Fun with Google Maps

Here are some interesting places to see from the sky:

Hamer, Idaho

Somewhere south of Las Vegas

Somewhere north of Las Vegas

Not that this is a big surprise, but I found it amusing that the area near Los Alamos National Laboratory is pretty blurry. Here’s a well-carved housing development outside Albuquerque, though.

More obviously, the US Capitol Building has been pixelated out.

Here’s the massive strip mine at scenic Butte, Montana.

In a similar vein, here is the near-surreal ugliness of Gary, Indiana.

Some colorful fields near the appropriately named Happy, Texas.

And of couse, the Statue of Liberty

Confuse-a-Hippie

I went to see Buckethead and Galactic last night. The former is an insane guitar player who wears a white mask and a KFC bucket on his head while playing bizarre yet funky techno-metal (he was raised by chickens in the coop) and the latter is a funky instrumental jam band from New Orleans. The Galactic fanbase appeared to be mainly collegiate hippies and the Buckethead fanbase appeared to be weird metal kids (Gwar fans, shred guitar players – you know, my kinda kids).

Now, for those of you who may have seen the recent episode of South Park where the town was overrun by hippies and the only thing that would disperse them was face-melting heavy metal guitar solos, you may be familiar with the scene last night at Juanita’s. It wasn’t all that bad, really. Although most of the Galactic fans just seemed confused – who is this masked maniac, why does he have a rubber chicken, why is he doing The Robot and playing with Nunchucks, why is he playing a Willy Wonka, Star Wars, and Mr. Sandman medley and then handing out toys? Why do I feel like I’m watching Texas Chainsaw Massacre meets This is Spinal Tap?

It was inspired insanity. I took some pictures and posted them over at Flickr. Why Flickr? Because it’s quickr. And because there’s a new plog already.

More Qwantzing, and the Weekend

Now I’ve started thinking in outline form during band rehearsals.

Things She Is
– A Brick House
– A mighty mighty, letting it all hang out
– Stacked, and that’s a fact
– Built like an Amazon

When we’re together
– everybody knows, this is how the story goes

Things that make an old man wish for younger days
– the clothes she wears
– her sexy ways

Things she knows
– she’s got everything that a woman needs to get a man
– she’s built
– how to please
– how to knock a strong man to his knees

Last weekend was fantastic. Heather and Kristin had a yard sale and it was basically just an excuse for everyone to hang out on their porch in the perfect weather and drink and grill and play guitar. I was there from 11AM to 1AM. It’s the way life should always be. The fine weather continued into Sunday where I spent most of the day on my porch reading Dave Eggers’ A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.

I have a porch. I also have a backyard which needs work. I neglected to purchase a weed eater on Sunday, but I did buy a shovel and a cultivator (claw thingy) because Katherine wants to grow an herb garden at our place.

Google Maps

For those who haven’t seen it, Google Maps now not only contains clickable, scrollable maps of the entire US, but also satellite image composites. Years ago when I was impressed by a similar feature at MSN’s Terraserver, I linked to The Boneyard outside Tucson, Arizona.