Ted Kennedy, 22 Feb. 1932 – 25 Aug. 2009 by HMX
I just want to take a moment to celebrate the memory of Ted Kennedy, youngest of the Kennedy boys who passed away yesterday after loosing a battle to brain cancer. It ended a long career of public service, which began in 1962 after a special election to fill the senate seat once held by his brother John. Mr. Kennedy, like his brother’s John F. and Robert Kennedy will be missed.
On Ukuleles by HMX
For my birthday, I decided to invest in a ukulele after watching some pretty awesome performances on youtube1,2. It took a while for the uke to arrive – a Lanikai LU-21T Tenor Ukulele – and when it did, both Blythe and I fiddled around with it for a bit before it was relegated to its case as we began the process of moving her two blocks and me two(three?) states. Recently, having arrived and settled into my new northwestern home, I picked up my ukulele again as a means of entertaining myself by doing something productive. Well, that isn’t exactly true. During a conversation with a villutus sicarius, while watching Jake Shimabukuro tear it up on youtube, I pulled out my own uke to practice some chords and today Blythe has trilled me by alerting me of a source for tabs of our favorite Britney Spears
I know, Britney Spears? What must I be thinking? Honestly, I can’t provide anyone with a satisfactory answer other than I have been oddly attracted to the song Toxic ever since hearing it in 2004. But back to the story at hand. I now have tablature for the song Toxic, as played by Molly Lewis, and the opening is hard as f*** to play on my poor Lanikai. Molly’s Fluke has some sustaining power or I just really suck at hammer-on/pull-offs because I can’t get it…yet. I haven’t given up, but in the mean time I have taken to trying out some of the easier tunes available at Ukulele Hunt such as Take On Me
1 Jake Shimabukuro playing As My Guitar Gently Weeps
2 Molly Lewis playing Toxic
On Insomnia: Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist by HMX
Insomnia is a cruel mistress; despite that, there are some nice aspects of finding myself awake – night after night – at 2 a.m. and beyond — the opportunity to watch movies I might otherwise not watch. That is the case tonight, as I find myself unable to sleep and with a middling curiosity to explore the features of my Roku Digital Video Player. The player was provided – for free – by Qwest and works quite nicely as I recently made the switch from Blockbuster Total Access to Netflix. The change had been coming, I was just too stubborn to change until Blockbuster change their policy on in-store returns. Following confirmation of the change – which they never sent me notice off – I closed the account and jumped ship to Netflix and I’ve been pretty happy every since.
On Geography Lessons by HMX
I normally try not to propagate this type of information, but this was too unbelievable to pass up on. I still don’t know if it is a fake or not, but having spotted two occurrences from supposedly separate broadcasts, I am now questioning the geographical knowledge of the map-makers working for Fox News. I won’t spoil the surprise, but I will provide links to the two incidents and let you find the mistakes for yourself. If you don’t spot it immediately, it’s alright. Just remember that ‘the nile’ is not just river in Egypt. (more…)
