ich bin ein auslander

To my listening, watching, reading blogrolls. Pain in the ass to keep those updated considering how often I change out discs I’m listening to, and I go through at least 2 books a week. Still trying to keep just quality crap in there, though, so remember everything I put in here has my official seal of approval. I don’t list the crap.

Going to start putting up snippets of music I’m working on in the very near future. Been trying to decide if I want to do a separate site for my music, but screw it. Maybe when I actually finish full songs I’ll do that; for the time being, this’ll do nicely.

went to the gym for the first time in months… good to do something other than yoga or the damn exercise bike.

working on my music studio, so haven’t really blogged. i’m now officially running logic audio platinum, and actually have most of my synths working with it… a few more tweaks and a few more days learning the more esoteric aspects of the software and I’ll feel comfortable enough to start working on music rather than futzing around with the damn environment. groovy as shit though. can’t wait to really dig in.

Been a very long last week bleeding into this week. off to vegas last monday, did a web cast of a show, had a blast running around, drinking, eating, gambling, met a lot of really cool people… drive back home on wednesday, get back into general work crap that night and thursday, while still finding time to be social butterflies… off to the greek both friday and saturday night (no webcast but still sorta work), parents on sunday and thank god the return of the sopranos… some recuperation on monday (at least enough time for me to finish the whole ender’s gamer series and move on to another old favorite, asimov’s foundation series) before being dragged out to finn mccool’s by culiner… and another web cast tonight as the goos played the star lounge. eyes and brain hurt. need to sit on a beach somewhere.

Re-reading the whole Ender’s Game series… fantastic stuff. Just read a great little exchange in book 3 (Xenocide) that I’m going to share. Gotta bear with me, non sci-fi types, and just deal with the fact that these are alien species talking. Get over it and grok the ideas, not the delivery.

- It’s a wonder that human beings ever became intelligent enough to travel between worlds.
- Not really. I’ve been thinking about that lately. Starflight they learned from you. Ender says they didn’t grasp the physics of it until your first colony fleet reached their star system.
- Should we have stayed at home for fear of teaching starflight to soft-bodied four-limbed hairless slugs?
- You spoke a moment ago as if you believed that human beings have actually achieved intelligence.
- Clearly they have.
- I think not. I think they have found a way to fake intelligence.
- Their starships fly. We haven’t noticed any of yours racing the lightwaves through space.
- We’re still very young, as a species. But look at us. Look at you. We both have evolved a very similar system. We each have four kinds of life in our species. The young, who are helpless grubs. The mates, who never achieve intelligence - with you, it’s the drones, and with us, it’s the little mothers. Then there’s the many, many individuals who have enough intelligence to perform manual tasks - our wives and brothers, your workers. And finally the intelligent ones - we fathertrees, and you, the hive queen. We are the repository of the wisdom of the race, because we have the time to think, to contemplate. Ideation is our primary activity.
- While the humans are all running around as brothers and wives. And workers.
- Not just workers. Their young go through a helpless grub stage, too, which lasts much longer than some of them think. And when it’s time to reproduce, they all turn into drones or little mothers, little machines that have only one goal in life: to have sex and die.
- They think they’re rational through all those stages.
- Self-delusion. Even at their best, they never, as individuals, rise above the level of manual laborers. Who among them has the time to become intelligent?
- Not one.
- They never know anything. They don’t have enough years in their little lives to come to an understanding of anything at all. And yet they think they understand. From earliest childhood, they delude themselves into thinking they comprehend the world, while all that’s really going on is that they’ve got some primitive assumptions and prejudices. As they get older they learn a more elevated vocabulary in which to express their mindless psuedo-knowledge and bully other people into accepting their prejudices as if they were truth, but it all amounts to the same thing. Individually, human beings are all dolts.
- While collectivelly…
- Collectively, they’re a collection of dolts. But in all their scurrying around and pretending to be wise, throwing out idiotic half-understood theories about this and that, one or two of them will come up with some idea that is just a little bit closer to the truth than what was already known. And in a sort of fumbling trial and error, about half the truth actually rises to the top and becomes accepted by people who still don’t understand it, who simply adopt it as a new prejudice to be trusted blindly until the next dolt accidently comes up with an improvement.
- So you’re saying that no one is ever individually intelligent, and groups are even stupider than individuals - and yet by keeping so many fools engaged in pretending to be intelligent, they still come up with some of the same results that an intelligent species would come up with.
- Exactly.
- If they’re so stupid and we’re so intelligent, why do we have only one hive, which thrives here because a human being carried us? And why have you been so utterly dependent on them for every technical and scientific advance you make?
- Maybe intelligence isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
- Maybe we’re the fools, for thinking we know things. Maybe humans are the only ones who can deal with the fact that nothing can ever be known at all.

Just got back from Vegas a little earlier today. The drive was not as bad as I remembered it being; of course, being in a new car helped ease the pain. Amazing how much everything has been built up as well - Baker and Barstow are at least 5 times as big as I remember them being…. and it’s really only been about 6 years since I last drove out there.

The webcast went off without too many problems - glad I lugged the laptop and hub out there, because I did have to make a few last minute adjustments to the Axis cam… a few fun moments ducktaping the cam to the side of a concrete riser, but it all worked out pretty well. We were a little too far away from the stage - this was a full stage setup, not a built in deal, so we didn’t have access up on the stage itself for this show. The greek might be a little better, if that ends up happening - we should be able to get the camera right on the side of the stage.

The rest of the trip was a blast - got in on Monday, hung out, had dinner at a ridiculously expensive restaurant and hit the tables (and the bars) with the guys. Went and hung out at Rum Jungle for awhile - if they played decent music, that would be the coolest place in the world. Girls in their underwear on trapeezes. Amazing. Stumbled in to bed late that night - but we were in bed considerably earlier than our main drinking companion, who nevertheless was calling us at 10:00am (after he had already done 2 interviews) to run down and set the camera up. That’s fucking stamina. At least he had a headache as bad as mine.

So, Tuesday was pretty much camera setup, run around for a bit… got to hang for a few at the HOB Foundation Room, which was suitably swank… I lost a bunch of money, but Wendy went up almost $400 so I guess it evens out… Wendy had to go to the spa to get the gambling kinks worked out of her system… then the gig. Damn fine show - excellent stage setup.. and we looted the merch stand for samples of all the shite we had designed for them. An early christmas for the fungii…

Unfortunately, they were off right after the show, so we got a quick tour of the bus and said our goodbyes… then went back to the tables, where, miracle of miracles, I actually had a winning streak, turning my last $10 into $150. Wendy, of course, lost, so Vegas continues to ensure that we never actually get ahead of the game. Ran into a few other folks we knew who were wandering around the casino, waiting for morning flights, and had a few more drinks… eventually, we were too tired to even make the run over to Excalibur for Krispy Kreme. If Wendy turns down Krispy Kreme, she’s either extremely tired or dead.

Woke up and had planned on hitting the buffet at Paris (because it fucking rules) but both of us were feeling bloated and tired. Continous news coverage of 9/11 was draining us a bit as we packed, and wandering through the nearly empty casino led to the decision to get the hell out of dodge a bit earlier than planned, so we just started driving home…

All in all, a much needed break, but hardly a relaxing time. Had a blast, but now I really need a relaxing break.