In a trip to the ever-dangerous scholarly book store in Davis Square, I found Coffee and Coffeehouses: The Origins of a Social Beverage in the Medieval Near East by Ralph Hattox. It uses primary source material to paint a picture of the of coffee’s rise in Arabic society, which was met with some dismay as a negative influence on health and morality.

A great perks of living in Boston for a people-watcher is observing people’s subway reading material. This ranges from comic books to Tom Clancy bestsellers to “Wavelet Theories in Economics” to treatises on multivariable calculus. I’ve seen people reading books in dozens of languages, living and dead. Once I saw a man reading a book entitled “God’s Yeasty People,” which Varia and I have yet to find reference to.

I confess that when someone is sitting next to me with a book I don’t recognize, it is very hard for me not to read over her shoulder. I’ve read many fascinating pages of books I will never know the names of.

Apparently I will be writing a piece to be performed at the 25th anniversary of the International Society of Hildegard von Bingen Studies. Neat!

Christmas left us with a fancy coffee maker. This is one of those machines that grinds the beans, filters the water, and assures you that what goes into the carafe at the end will be the “finest coffee in the world.” Personally I think it makes a good cup of joe, but the real draw to me is that it works on a timer, so when I stumble out of bed in the morning there is a pot of coffee waiting for me.

For all its new-fangledness, the coffee maker reminds me of an powder shot musket. To make coffee the machine must be cleaned, which requires removing and cleaning 6 parts, then filled with whole beans and water. Not that it is a hassle, but it shows that the work that is done “at the touch of a button” is just pushed forward in the process. A successful musket volley depends on ball, shot, and sundry being properly loaded.

What if everything is not properly loaded? I learned that lesson this morning when I stumbled out of bed to find the the carafe missing (not missing per se, but sitting on the kitchen table and not in the coffee maker). Please use your imagination to fill in the results of said action, but they were artistic in a way.

I suppose the Mark II version of this machine will have infrared sensors to detect the lack of a carafe and will chastise me with a robotic voice in the event of an improper configuration. For the meantime, diligence must be applied. With great power comes great responsibility.

By yours truly.

There once was a fellow named Paris,
Who was asked to three Goddess’ compar’st.
He chose Aphrodite,
She said “Paris Alrighty:
Go and grab lovely Helen the Fairest.”

Obeying, he travelled to Greece,
(The place with the myths and the fleece),
Though Helen was married,
To Troy she was carried,
Which seriously threatened the peace.

Her husband, the bold Menelaus:
“We must make war on the betrayers:
We can’t let this slip,
Let’s to the black ships,
And raze their town!” Thus Menelaus.

O’er the sea did the Greeks sail,
For the city of Troy to assail,
With sword, shield, and spear
For nine arduous years,
They attacked, though they did not prevail.

Achilles, a man of great might,
Would kill every Trojan in sight,
Agamemnon he did dis him,
Which managed to piss him
Enough off to no longer fight.

So Hector of Troy pressed the attack,
Since Achilles would not hold him back,
The Greeks got concerned
After they spurned
Achilles, brooding by his ships black.

Now a certain Greek hero named Pat,
Went to fight wearing Achilles’ bronze hat.
Hector said “hi!
I think you should die.”
And Patroclus died, just like that.

It ought to go without saying
That Achilles was mad at the slaying,
He put on some gear
And hoisted a spear
And went to war screaming and braying.

So it happened Hector was killed,
And had his corpse dragged through a field.
The gods they god mad
(so did Hector’s dad),
As his lifeblood had already spilled.

Priam told Achilles to chill,
That the gods were now wishing him ill,
Achilles said “right,
Angry gods I can’t fight!”
He gave Hector’s corpse back with goodwill.

Well, Achilles was killed, Troy was burned,
(A wood horse was used we have learned),
And Helen the fair,
With her bright golden hair,
Was to Menelaus returned.

Addendum, Sun, Sep 12, 2004 3:27 PM: Yes I have stairs in my house.

Such a nice, busy, day! I spent the morning working, the afternoon performing sundry domestic chores, and the evening puttering in the studio.

I’m not creating anything right now. Over the past few months I have picked up what has turned out to be a robust suite of electronic music tools, so there’s a lot of new software for me to get acquainted with as well a few thousand pages of accompanying documentation. So for the present it’s a matter of figuring out what I can do, and in a few months I should have a better idea of what I want to do. Not that I don’t have some ideas.

This software is sometimes so complex as to be daunting, like the cockpit of an airplane. I’m certain it will make sense when I’ve learned what everything is. As a visual aid, I offer this screenshot of one of the synthesizers from Reaktor. Remember, this is but a small piece of any overall system.

Today’s task was figuring out the basics of Logic 6. I’ve been using a basic sequencer for the past year, which I erroneously thought was powerful. I’ve gotten the basics down, such as creating instruments and making sounds come out the speaker in an organized fashion, but I’ve only scratched the surface of the surface. Strangely, everything I ended up with tonight sounded like background music for Miami Vice.

I have a fear that even after I learn all this software, I will be caught in the possibility trap; that is, that there are too many possibilities. Writing music for a woodwind quintet, for example, has a lot of limitations. The instruments have real, physical limits, as do the players. Working within those limits is part of the artistry. But what limits are there with this new software? They exist for sure, and I will be grateful when I bump into one. For now the limit is processor power, and that’s about as constraining as asking a writer to write anything, so long as it’s less than 200,000 pages.

This question is fortunately theoretical, as there is a hard constraint, being my ability to use the tools. My skill will increase; perhaps I’ll be able to rise to the challenge of X-Files background music in a few weeks.

Regarding yesterday’s cryptic message: I stumbled across a dusty book on my shelf at work with the byline “When you only have time for the answers.” I found it a hard sell, given that without questions answers aren’t generally all that useful, and felt that it was my obligation as a human being to share. I don’t even know what the questions were as I didn’t have time for them. We may never know.

Speaking of moral imperative, it is without doubt my responsibility to put in a plug for Seattle-based Sushirobo, the undisputed kings of my playlist over the past few weeks. Highly recommended, would listen to again!

Our fruit and vegetable box this week consisted of 1 bunch of broccoli (already eaten) and fruit up the wazoo. I believe that there will be fruit salad related program activities in the next few days.

1. No.

2. No.

3. No comment.

4. You’ll never catch me alive!

Varia and I have just finished another epic hour of Soul Calibur 2. While neither of us are great, we’re about on the same level and as such have heated competitions featuring gnashing of teeth, giggling, and a primal yalp or two. We take particular delight in tossing each other off the edge of the arena into lava/acid/thin air, and it never fails to amuse when either of us inadvertently backflips into the ether.

The game has two different language settings, English and Japanese. One would perhaps think that the game would be more enjoyable (or at least understandable) in English, but one would be wrong. The effect is akin to very bad modern poetry, with the combatants screaming entirely disconnected action phrases at each other during the fight.

A sampling, e.e.-esque:

entwine!   scream!
worms!          no escape!     sorry!
watch this!           wooooooo!
hahahahaha!            no escape!
sorry!      uh oh!    strike!
stand still!   try this!
squirm!         !!!!!!!!! (at your
                                      dis
                                           cretion .    )

Imagine a 10 foot tall man in a black rubber jester’s hat screaming “worms!” every time he swings his axe, and you can perhaps appreciate the absurdity. The Japanese is much more palatable, if only in that we can pretend they are making more sense.

A big change; yesterday I gave notice to my manager. Starting in March, I will work as a developer for a small business.

I’ve been there for nearly three years now. It’s had its ups and downs and overall it was a great experience, but I’m ready to move on.

I will undoubtedly say more on this in the future.

Color coordination is not a common trait amongst those with advanced degrees in Electrical Engineering. Despite this I convinced my boss that setting the rebranded product UI down the paisley path was not a good idea.

In one of the strangest conversations of my life I attempted to explain, in engineering terms, why particular shades of blue, pink, and purple really oughtn’t to be in the same place, and why changing blocks of the layout from darks to lights and vice versa did dramatic and unpleasant things to the composition. Not sure if this was working, I said it looked “fruity” (it did) and that it would take longer (it would).

He finally saw the light garish and was able to convince our marketing contact to agree to use a different logo that would require virtually no change (and only causes a slight yet manageable red/blue clash). Every single human being using this software in the future (excepting the colorblind or those pining for a Miami Vice fashion comeback) will benefit from my valiant effort.

Buttons and knobs galore greeted me when my copy of Reaktor arrived in the mail. There are dozens of premade instruments ranging from complex to mind-boggling complex, as well as the ability to create instruments of ones own out of core components. I can finally have the 8 oscillator synthesizer in Just intonation I’ve always wanted!

As I’ve grown older, I’ve come to realize a few things about myself. One is that I really like coffee. Another almost as important bit of wisdom is that I thrive on challenge, on situations where I am expected to put my best foot forward. I’ve discovered that it is important for me to be proud of what I produce, to believe in it enough to sign my name to it.

I’ve also discovered a few things I don’t like, the strongest of which is the feeling that no matter what I do or what I make, it won’t matter at the end of the day.

The future is not set; it is constantly being made. Belief that things are safe and secure is just that, belief.

Big fun at the ranch. V and I ventured out for an afternoon on the town in the (practically tropical) almost-above-freezing weather. We stopped at Marathon Sports where I picked up a pair of Adidas Supernovas to replace my soon to be retired Asics GT-2080.

I was a bit lax with Project Sinbad this weekend, so it’s time for a few hours of coding mayhem this evening before bed.

Please look at The Campaign Desk, and do it often. The site, run by the Columbia Journalism Review, is designed to take a critical look at Campaign 2004 reporting. It’s rather revealing.

It is hard to get enough facts to make a decision if one can’t trust what one reads and sees.