Emergency request, in that this is the most important and time-sensitive request I will make of you until the next one.

Before approximately 11:00 Eastern tonight (tonight being Sunday night), I need a name for a two-to-three octave handbell piece that starts in a very slow cut time for the first third or so, then goes approximately four times as fast for the remaining two-thirds. I am looking for a title like "A Still, Quiet Night Until a Hummingbird Ruins It" except not really.

John Olerud update of the week.

Heh heh heh.

"The Upper Youghiogheny."

I have what I will call a working rough draft of "The Upper Youghiogheny" in that all the notes are there, but little things like dynamics, LVs, and fermatas (in the first four bars) are not present, while little things like Ebs that should be D#s are. So I will not be PDFing the music at this time, but this MIDI file is, other than about four small changes that I have in the works (which I will not mention at this time to not bias your opinions), more or less how the piece will sound note-for-note at the tempo I would like it to go (but will probably be too fast for a combined group).

So. Please opinionate.

I left my heart in San Francisco

It's been over three months since our Valentine's trip to San Francisco and I still can't stop thinking about it. It was such an amazing surprise from Matthew! And the fact that we just got our photos developed last week means that I can now share with all of you.

Saturday (Valentine's Day) was a very rare sunny day in San Francisco. We crammed in all kinds of requisite tourist stops, including the wharf, the cable cars, Chinatown, and the Golden Gate Bridge. And yet, maybe because it was February, it didn't feel overly touristy crowded. For lunch we went against Valentine's Day logic and went to a restaurant called the "Stinking Rose" -- dedicated entirely to garlic. Matthew found it when he was researching the surprise trip and, hey, since we both had garlic breath what's the difference.

Here's our required "pose in front of Golden Gate Bridge" photos. Actually pretty good photos:



Sunday was a much less pretty day, but still a great vacation day. Grey, overcast, and drizzly. Thankfully we had already visited the bridge, since it was kind of hard to even find the bridge or see across the bay on Sunday. We spent a lot of Sunday on the water, with a ferry ride to Sausalito just across the bay and later a bay cruise. I expected to find an artist colony at Sausalito, but apparently high rent has forced the artists out of town. Instead we watched the little crabs run along the rocky coastline. How I can love fish and crabs as pets and yet still adore seafood for my meals is beyond me, but I can assure you there is no vegetarianism in my future.





On Monday the weather went even further downhill than Sunday. It poured much of the day. We went up to wine country, but some of the roads were washing out and we only visited one winery. We tried to make the best and avoid the rain by going to the food and wine museum up there, which had been well reviewed. Just goes to show you can't always trust guidebooks. Definitely not recommended. No photos of the very wet day were taken, but wine was brought home and Kim was a little tipsy.

So, where will Matthew be taking us for our anniversary? Hmm....

Reviews of objects that should be reviewed, part one hundred nineteen.

Laws of Attraction, C+

When I write the greatest romantic comedy this side of Eric Rohmer, in it I will have a man and a woman who hate each other, and through a set of convoluted circumstances they will accidentally/drunkenly/to-get-a-green-cardly marry each other, and after spending time together as a married couple, they will find that they still hate each other, and thus when they find out that they were never actually married at all because the minister was actually just a hobo with a Bible, the man and the woman break it off and find other more suitable partners, and then at the end everyone is married to someone that the audience can reasonably believe is a good relationship for all involved. That is very much not the plot of Laws of Attraction (spoiler). Also, dear Julianne Moore's agent, if you let her do comedy in the future, please make it as unslapsticky as cinematically possible, because no matter how hard she tries, Moore's demeanor is at a 86-to-87-degree angle with broad physical comedy.

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Super-Size Me, B-

Hypothesis: Eating at McDonalds is detrimental to one's health.

Hypothesis test: Have a man eat at McDonalds at every meal for 30 days. Have him munching down 5000 calories a day, which is about 1000 calories more than eating the most calorie-rich value meals at McDonald's for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. (How does he do it? Multiple sodas, multiple breakfast sandwiches, shakes for desserts, et al.) In addition, have him stop his general exercise even though changing one's exercise routine necessarily biases the results in favor of the hypothesis.

Test results: The man who ate 5000 calories a day did gain weight and had worsened health.

Conclusion: Thus, eating at McDonalds is detrimental to one's health.

Not bad otherwise, other than approximately 30 too many shots of people in the 350-450 lb range (because of course we have no idea what a morbidly obese person looks like).

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Big Fish, B-

(Necessarily kinda spoilerish, but I’ll try to be vague.) Rating doesn’t accurately portray my feelings of the film, which would have been a low B+ if it had ended with the affecting, lyrical shot of the fish swimming away rather than continuing through a D+ final five minutes of the film -- five minutes which (in the penultimate scene) actively destroy any ambiguity regarding Albert Finney’s stories along with (in the ultimate scene) rendering Billy Crudup’s reasonable counteropinion completely moot. (Please compare/contrast with the swimming fish scene, which simply shows that there is a part of the father in the son, along with a slight admission that there can be momentary healing in stretching the truth to mythic proportions.) Still, a lot to like in the first 110 minutes, even if Ewan McGregor : young Albert Finney :: two plus two : thirty-seven.

Handbells a-go-go.

I have written 60 percent of a song for the AGEHR Area II contest (the 3-5 octave contest piece; the 2-3 octave is next). It is a good song. You will like it. But before you can hear it, you must name it. I am looking for a title that says, "Hey, I am aquatinted with the states of New York and New Jersey and Pennsylvania, as those are the states that comprise AGEHR Area II, and you can tell I am aquatinted because I am using a landmark from one of those three states but not something really obvious like the Statue of Liberty or Gettysburg." So basically I am looking for a Sufjan Stevens song title, except about 10 percent less wack. Please keep in mind that the 60 percent of the song that has been written is fast and somewhat disjointed and would probably remind me of whitewater rafting had I ever whitewater rafted.

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I had mentioned this to moM on Saturday, but since others of you may be interested as well: The Raleigh Ringers, probably the best handbell ensemble in North America, is having a Midwest tour in June. Since I believe everyone who regularly or irregularly reads this journal (other than Kim and I and the dude whose wedding I just got an invite for) is within two hours of a tour stop, I require you to see them.

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I can four-in-hand well enough now so that the sister of our church's director of music was almost frenzied with enthusiasm over my handbell abilities (an enthusiasm that, admittedly, was helped by the fact that I was playing sans music, which simply blew her mind). It was nice. But strange. But nice.

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Kim's-parents-moving-next-door update of the week.

We cannot figure out if the house next door is still for sale or not because it is not listed in the MLS but it still has a sign in front. However, four houses north of ours and across the street there is another house for sale (that is, for the third time, about a new Corvette more than what we paid for ours, and this one is about 100 ft² smaller although it does have a brick front).

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Speaking of our house.

The man whom our subdivision and street are named after is second-best known for bringing tobacco to America. It is always good to be a part of history.

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Speaking of Corvettes.

Kimberly would like to buy a mid-to-late '70s Corvette that is either blue or red and in good condition. Please sell one to her.

Good news of the week.

I am officially going here for two days. On my church's dime. Plus an additional 2889 dimes they are chipping in. Yay church.

It just shows to go that procrastination has its place.

Despite hating doctors -- which is why I haven't had a physical in [muffled] years -- I have no problem with going for a biannual dental checkup, despite, on average, brushing my teeth only once or twice a presidential administration. My hygienist -- the only one in the small dental office I go to -- always gets on my case about plaque, tartar, bleeding gums, et al., and I always say with sincerity that I have the best intentions of taking better care of my teeth in the next six months, intentions that last approximately five seconds after I leave the office. (Since I haven't had any cavities since middle school, it's hard for me to start the habit.)

The past six months have been no different, so before heading to the dentist this morning, I came up with an idea: I would brush my teeth for between 10 and 15 minutes, making sure I hit every tooth and every crevice to see if that had any impact on how she viewed my teeth. And, um, she commented at least three times on how much better I must have been brushing since the last visit, because my teeth looked much, much better. Um.

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I would never be able to stay in one career that long.

According to the certificate in the office, my dental hygienist was certified by the Virginia Board of Dental Hygienists. In 1952.

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"I want to go to Mt. Splashmore! Take me, take me, take me, take me now! Now, now, now, now, now!"

We would like to go somewhere for Memorial Day weekend, because it is our fifth anniversary that Saturday and fifth anniversaries demand some sort of exotic getaway, like southwestern Virginia or even more southwestern Virginia.

So. If you know anywhere exciting we could go for a two- or three-day visit in Virginia, or North Carolina, or eastern West Virginia, or Maryland, or Delaware, or eastern Pennsylvania, or southern New Jersey, please tell us. Now, now, now, now, now.

Reviews of objects that should not be reviewed, part one.

Blueberry soy yogurt (maker unknown): C-

A small initial bite wasn't bad -- it’s sufficiently blueberryish, and it largely has the taste one would expect from yogurt -- but a second, larger bite confirms a unrefined chalkiness that overwhelms its better qualities. It’s similar to bananas, really: The taste is palatable, but it’s impossible to get over the texture.

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Swingline 545 Stapler: B-

It sucessfully meets all my stapling needs, but it does not excel at them.

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American Reproductions: C+ (pending)

Their prices are very good, but they did not deliver our free recliner with the rest of our order, and the grade will go up or down depending on free-recliner expediency. If they do not respond in the near future, they're going to get nasty letters saying, "Where's my free recliner? Why don't I have a free recliner?" And are they prepared to deal with that? I don't think so.

David Mamet update of the week.

Mr. Mamet will be directing tonight's episode of "The Shield" (which I have never seen, having not subscribed to any cable or satellite service). Starring will be, of course, Mrs. Mamet (as Clark Gregg's husband, apparently).

This post is, of course, apropos of nothing.

As even my boss knows -- or at one time knew -- occasionally during five years at my current station of employment, I have looked in the local classified ads under section 820 ("Jobs -- General") and sent out cover letters, résumés, and hundred-dollar bills in an attempt to secure a different job. Occasionally, these people will call me back to set up an interview. However, it is never called an "interview"; it is always "we would like to talk with you about the job," or "we would like to meet with you about the job," or "can we set up a time to discuss the job?" or "sorry, our going rate to get a job is five Ben Franklins, not just one." Why is that? Are they afraid the word "interview" will scare off potential candidates?

[Upon further reflection, I have removed the second half of this entry for reasons that the clever among you might be able to figure out. If not, please e-mail me at you_know_where@that.place.]

"I drowned my DIGI-WALKER!"

In another to-be-short-lived attempt at marginal physical fitness, at lunch today I purchased myself a DIGI-WALKER 401 pedometer, known throughout the pedometer community as one of the world's most accurate step-counting thingies, while costing about the same as a day's worth of meals at McDonald's (assuming you Super Size everything and also get a couple snacks). (Oh, and on the off chance that one of you follows that link, the 401 is exactly the same as the 200 and the 701 except it has more features than the former and fewer than the latter.) In the past hour, I have walked 556 steps, which is not quite the 10,000 steps per day that the popular walking program suggests, but there are still many hours left in the day, I bought it after the 50 steps I took this morning getting from my bed to my car, et al.

Also, I should not get my DIGI-WALKER wet. The instruction book makes that very clear.

If you do not love Michel Gondry, you may no longer read my journal.

Please. Please. Find a high-speed Internet connection and see Michel Gondry's latest video. It is extraordinary. Please.

Shorter-than-short reviews that I should have written a while ago.

In order of preference:

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The Secret Lives of Dentists, B:

Campbell Scott's awesome, and there’s a lot to like in the unaffected, realistic familial relationships the film illustrates (child actors pretty awesome as well), but the film leans too much on Scott’s temporary dementia -- a certain character actor is too ubiquitous: you’ll know exactly what I mean if you see the film -- and the last 10 minutes didn’t work for me (mostly, I didn’t believe Scott’s and Davis’ Big Scene). In general, a bit stranger than I had expected, but not bad. Kim liked it slightly less.

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Miracle, B:

Too Hollywoody, of course, but the filmmakers made a number of good decisions: Casting skaters rather than actors for the hockey team; cutting down the six months of preparation to three or four in-depth scenes rather than, say, a montage (the “Again!” scene would have been one of my half-dozen favorite of last year had it ended better); ignoring most of the Olympics to focus on one specific game (and showing that game in massive depth and intensity, much like the superior cricket film Lagaan); Clarkson; Russell; Russell’s hair; Mean Joe Greene. Pretty much as good as this film could have been. Kim liked it as well.

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American Splendor, B:

Obviously a well-made, distinctive film, and of course I dig the smearing of the fiction/nonfiction line, but, I dunno, I don’t get the fuss over Harvey, either here or in what I’ve read of his comics. Hard to not like it, but not one of the best of last year (as critics everywhere seem to think). I think Kim was somewhat more negative on the film.

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The Triplets of Belleville, C

Kind of a shocker, really: I can't immediately think of a film that is so successful on a micro level -- viewing just about any two-minute segment, sans context, would no doubt interest me -- yet such a complete macro failure. It's the same problem as some of Guy Maddin's earlier films, but worse: Brilliant style with actively nonsensical substance cannot sustain a half-hour film, let alone one of feature length. Kim felt largely the same way.

Contest you probably would think that there was no way I would ever enter but quite honestly (with Kim's help) I may consider it.

Because why not.

Here's our prayer.

Done and done. As early adopters, you have the right to use this piece costlessly as you see fit, provided you let me know first. (I may have to revoke this privealedge [sic?] on the 2 percent chance that some outlet like GIA buys the rights to my [presumably then-fininshed] mass setting, but if that happens, I'll take some of my royalties and buy your choir legit copies or something.) (Of course, if you are moM or daD, this piece has no place in your service anyway, so never you mind.)

I believe that a certain team needs to buy a certain fan some season tickets.

The Toronto Blue Jays' record in the first 16 games of their season: 4-12.

The Toronto Blue Jays' record in the second 16 games of their season: 10-6.

Oh, and what game was it again that Matthew and Kim saw?: Why, game 17.

Because what every Alleluja needs is a F#dim7.

Short lead-in: Catholics (and Episicoapaliaians, and some Lutherans) use in their services something called a "mass setting," which is a group of musical selections played week after week that relate to a certain part of the liturgy (e.g. the "Glory to God" after the first hymn, the "Christ has Died" during the pre-communion talk, the "Amen" after the pre-communion talk). (Confused Protestants, think of the Gloria Patri or the Doxology.) During the meeting of the music ministry leaders at our church a couple weeks ago, we were deciding on the five mass settings for the church year: Pentecost through the beginning of Advent, Advent, Christmas through the beginning of Lent, Lent, and Easter through Pentecost. We were working on putting together the group of songs for the Pentecost-to-Advent season, and we came to the following problems, all regarding the "Alleluja" that follows the gospel:

a) Most of the "Alleluja"s have music inappropriate for Ordinary Time -- either too peppy or too somber.

b) Of those that have appropriate music for Ordinary Time, most of them do not meet a specific directive that our priest had requested (which I won't explain, if only because I can't remember the correct verbiage).

c) Of those few "Alleluja"s that have appropriate music for Ordinary Time and meet our priest's directive, we'd already scheduled all of them for different mass settings during the year.

The solution: I was commissioned (for the grand fee of $0.00) to write an "Alleluja" that meets requirements (a) and (b). And thus I have. (The bottom of page two is what satisfies requirement (b); I'll explain upon request.) Please feel free to use it at your leisure, as long as you tell me first.

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Handbell composition update.

This update is boring.

Television a-go-go.

I was running some errands during my lunch, and during the two commercial breaks that the sports radio station had during that half-hour, a total of four commericials played that reminded listeners that tonight is the last "Friends" episode ever. I suppose they need the advertising support because of how the media has underplayed this finale.

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La la laaaaaaa. La la laaa la laaaa. La la laaaaa la la la laaaaa la la la laaaaa la laaa. La la laaaaaaa.

This is my new favorite "Gilmore Girls" website (which was working yesterday, if not right now).

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Still the greatest sitcom of all time, "Friends" and "Frasier" revisionists notwithstanding, and no, I don't know why everyone is so ga ga over "Seinfeld" a decade later.

"The Cosby Show."

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The greatest sitcom that never played on American network television of all time, and no, I don't know why everyone is so ga ga over "Faulty Towers" two decades later.

"As Time Goes By," except for those occasional season three and four episodes where worst American accents in the history of bad American accents are on display.

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The number of returning sitcoms I will regularly watch on television next season, assuming that either "Arrested Development" is cancelled or you do not consider it a sitcom.

.5 (+/- .5): It depends on where NBC puts "Scrubs" on their schedule.

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The number of returning comedic shows that are not sitcoms I will regularly watch on television next season.

4.5 (+/- .5): "Lorelai & Lorelai," "Homer & Marge," "Hank & Peggy," "Dave & Paul," and, depending on your classification of the show and whether or not it's picked up, "The Bluths."

Request of the day.

I am trying to think of a song that could be played on handbells in a call-and-response fashion a la "Dueling Banjos" that is not, in fact, "Dueling Banjos." Please help. (Short explanation: Back in January, my bell choir director asked me to write an arrangement of "Dueling Banjos" that could be played by two handbell choirs for a set of concerts we have this summer with the Virginia Handbell Consort. The next week, after I had done absolutely no work on the project [since it was more than four hours before the project was due], she comes back to me and says, forget it, never mind, famous handbell composer Hart Morris did an arrangement of the song for famous handbell group The Raleigh Ringers, and while this arrangement hasn't been published, she shouldn't have a problem getting her hands on it. Yesterday, she mentioned at rehearsal that, um, yes, she did have a problem getting her hands on it. Since I am always looking for opportunities to force myself to write music, I woke up this morning thinking to myself, "Self, I should tell Dottie that I am still willing to write the arrangement if she would like." And then myself said to me, "Me, either (a) Hart Morris is going to be publishing his arrangement in the near future or (b) Hart Morris was unable to get his arrangement published, neither of which bodes well for you getting your arrangement in print and making the big bucks and what not." And then I had this request-of-the-day idea. Although if you have the responses to my request that are doubleplusungood, I may go back to "Dueling Banjos." Assuming she'd want it at this late of date. Which she may not. Or she may.)

(No, the explanation was not very short at all. I am a liar.)

(Also, you people who do not play handbells must be very bored of my weblog. I am sorry.)

I am not fond of Internet quizzes.

But this one seems appropriate.

Vacation change.

With Kim's job in marginal jeopardy -- there's perhaps a one-in-five chance that she will lose it in the next two years, depending on a myriad of factors -- we think it is best to forget about Hawaii et al. and look at a more reasonable, more cost-effective summer vacation. Thus, our new thoughts:

London.
Moscow.
Jerusalem.
Or perhaps even Shanghai.