gahhh!! more tea!!!! (okay, fine!)

I've been trying (with success, mind you!) to finish up 10 teas this month. My ultimate goal is to whittle down my teas to 12 on the shelf with 4 Twinings staples stacked nearby. I.e., 16 total. I finally hit 30 teas a few days ago. I just barely set a new goal to drink up six more teas in May.

THEN… Dale gets home and hands me this bag from our Chinese friend. "Any cookies?" he enquires as I peer in. "I don't think so," I tell him ruefully, all the while knowing that my eye has alighted upon the actual contents: TEA!!! Now, this friend is known for sending Dale home with tea that has Chinese writing all over it. This time, however, there are some Chinese classics that are all labelled (yay!) and one labeled as "Taiwan." I opened the Taiwanese canister and found that it had a vacuum-packed pouch in it. Okay, I think, it's from Taiwan, and it's definitely air-deprived. Must be green or a green oolong.

I haven't opened the pouch yet, because I've got so much older tea to drink, and opening the pouch would mean accelerated aging of what is probably an awesome tea. It'll be hard, but I plan to hold onto it until I finish the sixth tea. Then I'm going to drink it up until it's gone, so it doesn't get stale and I can appreciate it fully. I'm mostly curious to know if I'll recognise it… is it an Ali Shan? Li Shan? Jin Xuan? Some green tea? I won't know for a while… :: eager eager ::

So much for 30 teas in the house. :: cackle ::

~me… the tea fiend...

Piano tuning

So, it's been about two years since I had Maelstrom tuned.  I know he needs tuning because generally speaking, pianos need to be tuned every 6 months.  But I can't figure out how bad it is.  I only know that for the past year or so, I've been increasingly aware that when I play, it hurts something inside my bones.  I can never place a finger on exactly what it is but I know that feeling.  It means the pitch is off.  Probably flat, as that's what pianos usually do when they're not tuned, but nonetheless, I can't tell what it is.  This morning I hit the corresponding key on my keyboard to the keys on the piano.  I found a few particularly icky areas but even those were not certain to me.  It still sounds close enough to my ear to not sound "bad" on any individual keys outside those I know best - the C4-C5 range.  C4, D4, E4, F4, G4… and the sharps in between… they interchangeably sound awful to me, even though I swear I liked the tone of the piano previously and still like the rest of the notes.

Something's definitely off.  I hate not knowing how to discern what, though!  It's simply not in my brain's abilities to have "perfect pitch" I guess.  I should probably be happy I can tell there's even anything off at all.  But whenever I call the piano tuner guy, I always get asked, "Does it need a pitch raise?"  I always say, "Um… mayyyybe…?"  I don't know.  I know what that means.  I don't know if my piano needs it.  Do most people who play pianos know this?

Now, the thing that REALLY baffles me is this.  I know, beyond a doubt, that the tea kettle's first whistle is a very definite A.  I believe it's A5, to be exact.  I don't know how they got that to tune that way, but I can hum to it every morning as I bustle around waiting on that water.  Not only that, but I can hear that sound in my audio memory so precisely that I can hum it just before the thing goes off, and I can hum it on command just before hitting A5 on my keyboard.  To me - remember that my pitch isn't perfect - it sounds perfect.  I know I'm in the ball park.  I know that I'm darned close.  And my voice remembers where to go to hit that one note, even without prompting.  So somewhere in my head is the ability to duplicate what I hear, at least.  The problem, then, is that I don't hear some sublety in pitch.

Is this related to CAPD?  Or am I overanalyzing this?  I mean, am I putting down my abilities, like Dale says I do, believing that I've actually got a processing problem even when it comes to music?  Or is it that I'm quite normal and that the majority of the population cannot tell the difference, either?

I may never know the answer, and it doesn't matter.  But my curiosity often kills me on this.  Mum always told me I was tone-deaf.  I have often wondered if she has perfect pitch.  Much of my family was music on a hobby level at the very least.  I love music.  If I were tone-teaf, I know I would not be able to know that the tea kettle hums a nice happy A5, nor would I be able to match it so closely.  I've worked hard, off and on, for years, to get as good as this as I have.  Musicians practice far more regularly and longer than I have.  Why do I think that I should have an ear as good as a good musician's ear?  Why do I think that?  I don't know.  It might be the whole Mum-says-you-must-be-perfect thing.  But… I don't have to play for people.  So why do I care about proving I can do it?

I love music.  I love challenges.  Music is probably the biggest challenge I have ever had skill-wise.  It confounds me as much as speech and colour, because these are things that words cannot truly describe.  How do you explain warmth?  How do you explain the tingles that go up your spine when you hit upon a realization, the perfect note, or the perfect lyrical construction?

Bah.  Who knows.  The tuner guy is here.  LOL.

~me

Bucky Balls

http://on.aol.com/video/buckyball-manufacturers-refuse-to-comply-with-recall-517745232?hp=1&playlist=127155&icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl15%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D298644#_videoid=517742698

GO BUCKY BALLS!!!!!

Seriously.  It's not that I don't care if children have been injured by these things.  I do care.  What I care more about is how these kids got them in the first place.  Did they kill their parents, go to the store, rip open a package, and eat the darned things?  No.  Somehow, someone somewhere close to home, allowed them to get to them.  Sure, if they didn't exist, the kids couldn't get new ones.  How about if kids don't exist in the first place?  I think we should ban reproduction.  You want your kids, huh?  Well, I want bucky balls.  My buying bucky balls didn't seem to stop people from having kids.  Why should people having kids prevent me from having bucky balls?

I'm sorry, but parents know better than to give magnets - of any kind - to a child who is going to stuff anything they get their hands on in their mouth.  And if they don't, it's not the manufacturer's (or the store's) fault.  Nor mine.

I lead you to this prank, which unfortunately, is where we seem to be headed:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThnOpdoHibg

Don't believe me?  Would YOU give your kids a dangerous item?  Would YOU ban a product like a knife, a car, a pencil (how many kids get stabbed with lead pencils every year?), computers, electricity…?!  Egads, America, GET REAL.  These objects do not require their being banned.  They require your watching your kids!!  Seriously!!  Tell your local reps or whomever to get off their lazy asses and do some real work.  This shit has got to stop.  I mean, heck, I went out unsupervised with friends and leapt from tree to tree over a swamp when I couldn't even swim.  Should we ban swamps and trees?

Where do we draw the line between intentionally dangerous and people who don't think?

~w

Caaaats vs breakfast

I have begun a hazardous ritual this morning.  I lead Sinclair into his favourite room and give him a handful for cat food.  Then I shut the door in Gizmo's face and lead him to the bathroom.  I give him a few morsels, knowing that he's pudgy already because he gobbles up most of what is served to all three of them each morning.  Kitty is always sleeping so I've stopped worrying about her in the mornings and try to snag her later for a trio-cat-treat.  She can hold her own with Gizmo, it's Sinclair that's bashful.  Anywho, Gizmo gets shut in the bathroom with his morsels.  The only reason I give him anything is because I don't want him to think he's being punished.  I often throw him in there when he's being a turd.

I then go eat my breakfast in peace, saving a small slice of egg for Sinclair.  He gets let out just as I'm finishing, he does his "not sure about this egg on the floor" thing while I finish up, then he gets my plate to lick.  This he usually does with the air of someone who firmly believes I was holding out on him but was too polite to say anything, that sort of relief like, "Oh, good, I don't have to pretend anymore."  Then he ravenously licks the plate, which is pretty much liquefied egg, and completely ignores the solid, yolky egg on the floor (I thought he LIKED the yolk?!  Not today?).  Meanwhile, I transfer my tea to my desk and let the Beast (Gizmo) out.  At first he hangs around me, lavishing me with praise for the treat and for being me (yay) and then his ears prick up a split second before he turns into a black streak headed for the kitchen.  He turns into our vaccuum cleaner, driving off Sinclair's final attempts to "tolerate" the leftover egg, and then in about 30 seconds I can go in and pick up an unimaginably clean plate while he washes the floor with his tongue.  And I wonder why I keep forgetting to mop.

Despite the extra effort, it worked this morning.  The catch is that I know they will expect this every time I eat at the counter now… or worse, they'll simply expect it whenever they want to expect it, much like Kitty.  I would be stronger if it weren't for Sinclair's former habit of getting fed at my desk prior to Gizmo coming on board.  He's such a dignified, polite character, and it's hard to resist him.  Alas, we'll see how it goes.  It's a rabbit hole, I know.  But it sure was nice to eat for once without two sets of eyes on me.  :: sigh ::

~w

Google Chrome update

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2032380/chrome-update-polishes-spell-check-and-fixes-bugs.html

I don't know if the image will stick around, but in the article, look for the image where it shows how Chrome has auto-updated itself.

I think that's funny that they added "bettar cpell chek"... at first I thought my colleague had gotten a virus, but it's legit.  Go figure...