Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

"When you're talking about visuals, context is everything. So, you've got a situation in which you have what I'd call the televised version of reality, which is not the same as the actual reality in room." -- Neal Gabler, quoted in a followup story about the Dean scream.

First, a reminder: The Homespun Ceiidh Band is performing this afternoon from 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM at Finn MacCool's, 713 8th St., SE, Washington, DC as part of the Fete de la Musique DC. (If I understand correctly, we'll actually be outdoors, under a tent.) We'll be missing a few members, but it'll still be fun. Come on out and catch some tunes.

Second, general "state of D'Glenn": I've not slept well this week, and when I have slept it's been at inconvenient times. I had to pull over and rest a while halfway home from rehearsal on Wednesday, and yesterday I fell asleep when I'd planned to be making phone calls. My one big item on my to-do list yesterday (after I'd decided I just wasn't going to get eighteen guitar strings changed in time for them to settle in before the gig) was to get out to the nail salon, and I wasn't even able to manage that. The past two days have included pretty severe muscle pain -- which is part of the reason for the poor sleep, though being in a brain-spin about something I'll write about separately may be contributing). This morning I hurt less than at any point in the previous 56 hours, and I hope that means this flare is ending. (I'm still not comfortable, but I hurt less than I did.) I've also been fighting headaches on and off. (Weather? Maybe. Dunno. Annoying.) And now I'm farther behind than ever on email, LJ reading, answering LJ comments, etc.

Third, random comments and observations: I caught Jackie Chan on television, on a talk show (uh ... The View perhaps?), saying (I quote inexactly because I didn't take notes), "Making action movies is so much harder now. It's not just [fighting gestures and grunting] any more. You have to do all this comedy at the same time now." Uh, excuse me? Isn't Jackie Chan the reason people expect comedy and other stuff in their action movies now (especially when Jackie Chan is in them)? Or was there a trend I overlooked before I saw those early, dubbed, Jackie Chan movies so long ago?

Now that cicada season is nearly over, I found one inside my house. I don't know how it got in, or whether Perrine killed it or it just starved to death, but it was lying on the floor in the server room. So that makes a total of three I've seen in my neighbourhood. I still find it odd to have seen so few around here given the cicada population density a short distance in any direction.  . . .  Gas appears to have gotten a few cents cheaper this week, but it's still in the downright painful range. I started daydreaming about one of those engines that switches cylinders in and out as needed, so that whenit only needs as much power as three cylinders provide, that's all the gas it burns. Are there any production cars that use that trick, or was that only in prototypes and experimental vehicles? How well does it work? There are times I really want power (especially on short entrance ramps, and in the mountains), but the rest of the time I find myself wishing for better than the 25 mpg I'm getting in my 1990 Honda. I've also been wondering how hard it would be to carry two guitars on a motorcyle. (Not like I can afford to consdier buying a motorcycle -- it's a continuation of the same daydream.)  . . .  I found a better drawing tool for my Visor -- before I had one that let me save drawings but had a small drawing area because part of the screen was a text region, and one that had different pen widths and greyscale but had no way to save an image. The one I just installed, DinkyPad, has line/circle/rectangle tools as well as pen and eraser, can create drawings larger than the physical screen of the Visor, can save multiple images, and (once I figure out why Palm Desktop / Hotsync aren't working under Windows) has a conduit and a Windows viewer. (Right now I'm only hotsyncing to the Mac.) OTOH, I still can't enter Greek text on the Visor, and OmniRemote doesn't seem to want to learn from the remotes for my television and VCR.

Got to eat, pack, plan, sort bills, maybe answer email, and hope I don't feel all crashy again just before our gig. Maybe even sneak in a nap, if my body will cooperate at the right time.