Revolutionizing the music world

I'm taking Swing 5.
In last night's class, we were messing around with some wild and crazy stuff... stuff like 6-count swing-outs and 10-count swing-outs. A 'normal' swing-out takes 8 counts. Start messing with that and things get weird (and FUN!) quickly. In the previous class, we messed around with reversing different parts of the dance. When you start turning the other way, using the other hand to lead, staggering with the other foot, and reversing your footwork, things really start to get interesting. And again, FUN! Now take both of those classes and combine them. I was doing 6-, 8-, and 10-count swing-outs with various combinations of things reversed... to varying degrees of success. You just don't know how fun it is until you break it.

Anyway, back to the subject as laid out in the title. Normal swing music (jazz and whatnot) tends to be written with a 4/4 time signature. There's one crazy weird song called Take 5, by Dave Brubeck, that is written in 5/4, calling out for a 10-count swing-out. This just feels so very odd.
Now, a few practices ago, Sara and Rajeev (I threw my piece in when necessary, as did others) were discussing (read: arguing) various odd time signatures and what exists and what doesn't. Rajeev mentioned something about a 5/5 time signature, but Sara, being musically trained, held fast that 5/5 time doesn't exist. Doesn't exist? Her main argument was that you can't divide a note into fifths. Why not? If you can divide a note into fourths (or sixths, or halves, etc), why not fifths? Because you CAN! It's only the rigid 'rules' of music that won't allow it. Free your mind! You cannot truly advance and adapt if you do not allow yourself to expand beyond the rules. The rules are incredibly arbitrary anyway! Months ago, we had a feedback session where we dance with each other and give constructive criticism and positive feedback. Sara told me that she liked how, once I had learned some of the rules of dancing, I've taken that rule book and tossed it out. Sara, do the same with your music rule books! They're only holding back your creativity! Saying 5/5 time doesn't exist is only for those that cannot think for themselves!

Anyway, from this argument, Rajeev and I have decided to revolutionize the music world. We're going to invent 5/5 time, as well as many others. Among these others, we have: 3/pi, 5/11, 27/3. Last night, I expanded our revolution even further. Why only stretch beyond the rules in one dimension? I decided we need a 4/1/1 time signature. I'm, as yet, unsure what that actually means, though. Once I figure that out, I'll work on a 5/3/pi time signature.

Vive la Résistance!!!

That is all.

Lesbian polyamourism

I had an interesting and very tiring weekend. I'm too tired to write a long intro, so I'll get right into it.

Friday.
Swing City was pretty standard stuff. I did have one very interesting conversation, though. From it, we finally managed to categorize Sara properly. She is now a 'lesbian polyamourist'. How did the explanation go? It starts back with the story of her mom, aunt, and I'm sure somebody else, not-so-subtly trying to convince Sara to become a lesbian. (You'll have to get that story from her.) From there, we have Sara being fed up with men and deciding to just date herself. Throw in her multiple personalities and she becomes the lesbian polyamourist we all know and love. With her love of eating knickers and now her lesbian polyamourism, I'm starting to think that Sara is a little weird...

Saturday.
Holly, sav, Christabel, Grabriel, and I take a little roadtrip up to Courtenay. Sav and Christabel are going up to teach a workshop, organized by Holly... but not my Holly. A different Holly... also from Courtenay. At one point, sav asked me if I was going to be staying with Holly or Holly. "Yes." Confusion aside, let's move on. Gabriel was going up to attend the workshop. Holly was going up to visit her dad (mom was in Squamish for a conference) and animals. I was going up to meet Holly's dad, animals, and also to help with the workshop and the dance after.
The workshop went pretty well, I think. The attendees all got the gist of what was taught, but with all the normal problems that most first-time lindyers have. The dance afterwards was pretty small, but fun.
I got to meet Holly's dad briefly before the workshop, then again after the dance. He seemed like a really nice guy. He's in construction and can do some pretty cool things with his drywall stilts, like a bit of silk-rope and giant ring acrobatics. I also got to meet her dog (Skye) and one of her cats (Nelly). I received a rather wet, slobbery greeting from Skye. Well, not so much slobbery, but wet, at least.

Sunday.
After breakfast, Holly showed me around a little before going to see her horse, Dino. I watched on as she lunged her horse. After the lunging, she rode bareback for a bit, while I communed with her ass... errr, donkey. Such a nice ass! These pictures were taken with my phone.

Around 1PM, Holly (the other Holly) dropped off sav, Christabel, and Gabriel and we made our way back home. A short one hour rest, and we were back out for Bal class, then the team potluck. The potluck was great fun, as always.

It was a great weekend, but a loooong one... and yet it was too short. I know this entry is rather jerky and all over the place, but I'm tired. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.
One more item; Tyler is one month old tomorrow!! One month already!

Ok, I'm done. I'll leave you with a picture of Rajeev's door.

That is all.

Move complete, it's weekend time!

I've moved over all my posts from my MSN Spaces blog. I even took the time to move the comments. I won't be updating it anymore, but I'm going to keep it around for posterity. Looks like things are running fine so far. I had one entry that was hated fiercely by blogger.com, and would end up crashing IE. I managed to sort it out and everything is happy once again. I'm sure I'll be tweaking things here and there for the next while.

So the weekend is upon us! Swing City starts in a few hours. We're going to have a jam circle at some point and we (team members) should all be jumping into it. We've got a gig at the Royal Theatre next Saturday, so this'll be a good chance to practice some jam circle stuff. Tomorrow morning, I'm heading up to Courtenay with Holly, sav, and Christabel. sav and Christabel are teaching workshops up there on Saturday, for which I'll be a ringer, and there's a dance later that night. Holly gets to visit her horse... and her family, sans mom since she'll be in Squamish for a conference. I'll be meeting them for the first time. We'll be back on Sunday sometime in the afternoon.

This trip will be the first 'long' trip in my new car. It's about a three hour drive up to Courtenay, going over the Malahat. This should be fun!

That is all.

Moving day!

Welcome to the new location of my blog! I'm in the process of moving over my archives (and reformatting where required), so bear with me.

That is all.

[MSN Spaces] Mozilla friendly blog?

I've noticed that the comments form isn't Mozilla friendly... mainly because people have complained to me about it. I've entertained the idea before about moving my blog to another non-Microsoft site. I originally started up with MSN Spaces only because I was lazy and it was the closest/easiest at hand. I will say that I do like the way my blog looks, but I'm in no way so enamoured by it that I won't move. In fact, I think I will. Back when I first started writing here "consistently", Erik pointed me at blogger.com, where his blog is served from. I started my own there and will be moving over my post archives over the next while. My new blog will be at http://swinginswirlie.blogspot.com/, so be sure to update your bookmarks.

And for those (Sara) that were lazy and used the MSN Messenger update star thing to see when I updated... well, too bad.

See you at my new blog!

That is all. Truly.

[MSN Spaces] Chastise something or other... Ni!

One of these days, remind me to chastise all of you for not leaving more comments.... you lazy bastards. While Holly and I were going over some minor tweaks for her guest blog entry, I compared our different writing styles. My writing style tends to be closer to how I speak. For me, it feels more like I'm carrying on a dialogue (in a solo, monologue kind of way...) with my audience. BUT THAT DOESN'T WORK IF YOU LAZY PUNKS DON'T COMMENT!!! Writing this blog is fun and all, but getting no feedback is boring. Feedback also sustains my motivation for actually writing this blog... though, like many of you, I love the sound of my own voice (errrr, keyboard?). I occasionally get some comments/feedback in person, which I greatly appreciate, but more here would be nice. I know at least some of you like reading this stuff, so if you want it to continue, give me a little feedback, please!

In summary,

blog + no comments = => low motivation, lower quality entries (and I may even resort to emo posts!)

blog + comments = => more entries with continued 'quality' writing

You know what to do.

---

Is it a good thing or a bad thing that when I think of what I did this May long weekend that I can't think of much that's blog-worthy? There's no question it was a good long weekend, but there was nothing that was overly dramatic. Anyway, a couple highlights:

* I finally had a chance to give my baby a much needed washing. My car shines up real nice like. I kept noticing people checking out my car as I drove past. It probably didn't hurt to have Holly in the passenger seat for some of those.

* I got a cell phone! After months and months of building anticipation, research, and working up a proper justification for getting one, I now have a new toy! I got a Motorola RAZR V3c with a good plan for cheap. Connections are a thing of beauty. I also got a good phone number, based off my last name. Hehe. And now I can finally use my car's built-in bluetooth capabilities!

That is all.

[MSN Spaces] Rules of Engagement

I was out at the Cactus Club with Holly last night. If you've never been to one, they go for the 'trendy' decorating style. The men's washroom is no exception. It's pretty funky, with frosted glass doors for the stalls and LCD TVs showing CBC over the urinals. (I don't know about you, but when I'm in front of a urinal, I'm concentrating on other things...) Anyway, that's all fine and dandy, but what was a little out of place was the leather chair in front of you as you enter. Leather chair? This isn't a woman's washroom. That's going to be one rarely used piece of furniture. Men generally don't go in packs like women do. We go in, do our thing, and leave. It's not a social place like it is for women. So I finish up, head back to our table, and I bring this up with Holly. She brought up an interesting question: "Maybe it's for gay men? Do gay men go to the washroom in packs?" I can't say I've ever noticed. Your thoughts?

This conversation reminded me of something I wrote awhile ago (February 16, according to the timestamp on the email) on this subject, entitled Rules of Engagement. So, as a refresher for those that have seen it, as a new article for those that haven't, and as a way to be lazy yet still productive; here is Rules of Engagement:

---

There was a brief snippet of conversation last night at Swan's with Sara and Christabel, where I mentioned that there were strict Rules of Engagement when it comes to the men's washroom. Christabel seemed rather amused, as is her way, about the way I described it using military terms. (Unfortunately, I was the victim of a breach of these ROE only moments later.) That got me thinking, later that night, about how many similarities are shared between military/para-military operations and going to the washroom. As my mind *ahem* "has a mind of its own", I went along for the ride as these thoughts played out. (Mixed metaphors, anyone?) So, here I am, the next morning, writing these thoughts down from the brief notes I took. This seemed too good an idea to toss to the fickle winds of my memory before bed, so I was forced to get out from under the covers and send myself an email in order for me to write this up when I had time. Without further ado, here we go:

Theatre of Operations: Men's Washroom
- Forward Front: Urinals
- Western (possibly Eastern) Front: Sinks

Mission: Reconnaissance and deliver the ordnance at one of several designated targets.

The mission will start from home base and proceed through 7 waypoints ((1)washroom door, (2)sinks, (3)towels/dryer, (4)urinal, (5)sinks, (6)towels/dryer, (7)washroom door) before returning safely to home base.

Stage 1: As you proceed from home base, you may encounter unexpected engagements. Dealing with these are at your discretion, but be aware that your primary objective is time sensitive. As you approach waypoint 1, you must decide on your breaching technique: dynamic or stealth. A dynamic breach may involve kicking the door or simply bursting through at high speed. A stealth breach will involve slowly opening the door so as not to alert any possible tangoes. Once the door has been breached and the main theatre has been entered, proceed to Stage 2.

Stage 2: Proceed to waypoint 2 at the Western Front. There may be other combatants staged at waypoint 2. Under no circumstances should you initiate an engagement. Wait for the waypoint to clear and proceed. Once at the waypoint, prepare and clean your ordnance handlers. Chemical warfare is strongly suggested here. Once the chemicals have dissipated, mobilize to waypoint 3 (supply depot). Acquire the supplies necessary for final prep and cleaning of handlers. If the supply depot has been compromised and supplies have been damaged or stolen, emergency maneuvers must be undertaken. Either shake the handlers vigorously or use your fatigues as temporary replacements. Proceed to Stage 3.

Stage 3: Welcome to the Forward Front, men. This is the most delicate and dangerous area you will encounter. Heading into waypoint 4, you will go into complete radio silence. Breaking radio silence may be considered a War Crime or a Crime Against Humanity. First, you must select a target. Perform a quick ground reconnaissance of the area. Be aware of possible conflict and no-fly zones. Observe at all times a safe proximity from other troops. Once a target has been designated, acquire a lock and proceed directly to the target. You are responsible for only your designated target. Trust your squadmates to handle their targets. As you prepare to engage, command your ordnance handlers to arm and deploy your ordnance delivery vehicle. Weapons free. Fire at will. Remember to check your targets and always watch for Friendly Fire. When your entire ordnance loud-out has been released, disarm the delivery vehicle and return it to cover. Proceed to Stage 4.

Stage 4: Ordnance delivered. Proceed to waypoint 5 and clean the ordnance handlers with chemical agents. Continue to waypoint 6. Resupply and move out. Proceed to Stage 5.

Stage 5: Stealth is not needed, so proceed with a dynamic breach of waypoint 7. Mission success. Return to home base.

---

That is all.

[MSN Spaces] Friends and dating advice...

Over the years, it's hard not to collect dating advice from your friends. Some are amazingly smart and can say the perfect things when you need it, while others... well... are not so perfect. Most will land somewhere in the middle and will at least give you something to think about.

At Swing City last week, Chris, Chelsea, Sara, and I were talking and this topic came up briefly. Chris told us about a conversation he had with one of his friends about keeping a happy relationship. Many different philosophies and methodologies abound for this and range from one extreme to the other... often depending on if the origin is male or female. In Chris' case, it went something like the following:

* flowers monthly

* biweekly back rubs/massages

* probably something else that I don't remember

As Chris put it, it's 'preventative maintenance'. If it works for you, and more importantly, if it works for your significant other, then run with it.

But I'm not sure I agree with that. To me, it seems like he's both working too hard and too little. 'Too hard' in that there's almost 'too much'. Monthly flowers seems like overkill to me. And 'too little' in that there's a set schedule. That seems bad to me in a couple ways; first, you set up the expectation, and second, you remove the spontaneity. I prefer to do things as they come and when they are best done. My philosophy on life has, for several years, been to have fun and to just go with it; whatever 'it' may be. It's worked so far. I have yet to give Holly flowers, but I have given her an Orgasm and, just yesterday, a cute, striped horse (some might say a 'zebra'). There was no set schedule; I got her these because the idea popped into my head. That works for me, and it seems to work for Holly... but as the saying goes, 'your mileage may vary'.

Yesterday, I was chatting with my friend (Don't worry, I won't name you, Nigel.) and I mentioned that I referred to him in yesterday's blog entry. From that, I got to thinking about some of the dating 'advice' he's given me over the years. (If you haven't guessed, this is what spawned this entry.) I'm not entirely sure he wasn't serious, but he would definitely fall under the category of 'not so perfect'. Digging through my old ICQ logs reveals some of his gems of advice and comments. The following are just a few shining examples:

* on hearing that somebody asked if the girl I was on a date with was my gf: "Bah. You should've said "I dunno. Do you think she's good looking?""

* "True. But you really ought to smack her ass and say "Yeah, that's how I like it, bitch!" to determine her true feelings."

* "Nah. You don't want to give her mixed signals. If she acts surprized, just tell her "You know you my bitch." :)"

* "You know you my bitch, girl."

* "And smack dat ass frequently."

* "Well, when you smack dat ass, you'd best smack it good. :)"

* gf had gotten mono: "Well, there isn't much you can do now. Oh, you should've repented your foul ways with *****! Fear the path of the ass-slapping!"

* "..and in return you got a whole evening with *****, with a side-order of lesbianism?"

* "Nothing says "I love you" like heart-shaped tofu."

* on going out for sushi: "I dunno. What if she's unnerved by your presentation of seaweed, sliced meat, and rice? Will she run through the list backward, and decide that you find her bland, are going to cut her up, and will dump her body in the ocean?"

* on hearing that I haven't angered my gf yet: "I'm sure if you poked her with a stick for long enough... in the interests of scientific observation, of course..."

* "*shrugs* Just tell her, point blank, that her ass is slappable. Yes, don't listen to me. :)"

* "Get her to wear bunny ears. How could you family not get along with a cute bunny girl?"

I can't help but think there's a reason he's still single...

But, to be fair, he does on the rare occasion say something resembling wisdom:

* "Nah, but it seems that smacked asses lead to irate lasses."

* in regards to being a CSC: "But it does give you access to lots and lots of porn."

Ok, it seems I strayed a little from strictly dating advice... but it was all related in one way or another. Besides, they were too funny to skip over.

me: "you know... it's a good thing i have a friend (not you) that actually gives good advice... :-P otherwise, i'd be really screwed"

Nigel: "Bah. It's generally pretty easy to tell my good advice from my bad advice."

me: "that's true... but still, to be on the safe side, better to ignore everything"

Nigel: "The cardinality of the set of my good advice equals the cardinality of the empty set."

me: "and the cardinality of your bad advice is one of those orders of inifinity... one of the higher ones... more like the Reals as opposed to the Naturals"

Nigel: "*nods* Powerset of the irrationals, really."

me: "You MY bitch, root 2"

Nigel: "*hands ye the spatula of non-sequitors*"

me: "whaddya mean? that flowed perfectly... root 2 = irrational... "you MY bitch, etc" = your advice"

me: "definitely NOT a non-sequitor"

me: "it's was quite... uhhh... sequitorial"

Nigel: "Bah. If I can't extract meaning of it at face value, then it's worthless."

Nigel: "Why do I argue these stupid things I don't even believe in? :)"

me: "hehe. cuz you have nothing better to do... except homework"

Nigel: "Nail on the head there, my friend."

me: "yes, i'm quite astute that way"

Wow, we are such dorks....

That is all.

[MSN Spaces] First dates?

Awhile back, I gave Chelsea a ride to the Red Jacket after Swing City. There was a Rotaract Fundraiser thing happening that Holly had helped organize/run. On the way, we started talking and she asked me how long Holly and I had been going out. Standard question. I gave my standard response.... *pause for thought*. "Ummmm..." I asked Chelsea how she would define when a relationship started. Her thoughts were to go by either the first date or first kiss. That doesn't always help, though, since those two do not necessarily fall on the same day. This came up again in conversation last night while on the phone with Holly. It brings up a good question: How would YOU define the start of a relationship?

*** WARNING
*** Skip the rest of this if you don't want to read
*** about the origins of Holly and me.

As for Holly and me, our first 'official' date and first kiss did happen on the same day, so that made it a little easier. With my obsessive/compulsive side, I decided to look into when that date actually happened. It wasn't written in my calendar, but after a bit of thought, there were a couple events that I could pin it against. (If you ask me about a date in my life, my best bet is to pin it against a major event in my life and work from there. Things like high school grad, university grad, birth, etc.) This one was fairly easy. It was the day after the Swing City that was on St. Patrick's Day. So, Saturday March 18, 2006. As it turns out, that was also Holly's dad's birthday.

As for the date itself, I won't tell you much, except that it started off with the stereotypical 'going out to see a movie'... albeit a matinee. Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit. I highly recommend it. It's also a great date movie, as my friend Nigel noted. It has romance, comedy, some action, and lots and lots and lots of cute bunnies!

About a month before this, I had invited Holly to a party at Chris' house (the Olympics party for those that attended). Personally, I don't really consider things like that to be 'date' dates... it just doesn't have the right feel. And because of that, when I invited her, I didn't have the full mindset of 'asking her out'.

So what was the point of all this? That Holly and I have been going out for two months to the day. In fact, our first date started at about this time, too!

*** END WARNING
*** You may now return to your regularly scheduled blissful ignorance.

That is all.

[MSN Spaces] Urinary lawn sprinklers and escape velocities.

So, as you know, I've been reading The Dilbert Blog. His entry on March 10th, 2006, entitled Nature's Jet Pack, asked us "If you lived on a planet with almost no gravity, would you be able to fly just by peeing?" Once I recovered from laughing and picked myself up off the floor, I started reading through the comments. It's surprising, and a little disconcerting, the level of ignorance of physics some people exhibit. I'm not going to go into that; instead, I want to point out some of the better (and funnier) comments. And so, I present the following:

From Rick Ellis:

All the people with shy bladders would have to walk though.

From Tom B:

Perhaps more importantly, if I take a point mass and apply an acceleration to it, it will move in the direction of the acceleration. However, you (unless you are very tiny) are not a point mass.

If you peed and we assume your center of gravity is actually about ten to fourteen inches higher up, you'd actually create a torque that would tend to rotate you around your center of mass. So instead of doing a lot of flying in a linear direction away from your rudder, you might do a certain amount of rotating in place. Sort of like a Roman Candle sparkler, only less sanitary. More of a urinary lawn sprinkler, if you ignore the pun.

From Steve:

First of all, define "almost no gravity". The amount of inertial change to a 70 kg man by ejecting 100 ml (about 100 g) of urine at typical urinary speeds would be fairly miniscule. Assuming a fairly high pee rate of 2 m/s, the end speed of the peeing individual would be about 3 mm/sec in zero gee with no resistance. Which is literally a snail's pace (some snails go considerably faster, up to 13 mm/sec, according to http://hypertextbook.com/facts/AngieYee.shtml). With a gravity of any more than 0.0014 gee, the man would not be able to achieve liftoff, even if he peed the entire 100 ml load in one second (a difficult task. Try it). He could, however, probably achieve escape velocity by jumping.

If the man is in microgravity, he would have other problems. He wouldn't have enough traction to walk, and there would be no oxygen (1/700 of a gee is not enough to hold on to any atmosphere), so he'd have to be wearing a space suit. So if he was to undo his fly to take his willy out, he'd die of suffocation. Although the velocity of the air rushing out of his zipper would help him achieve his propulsion objectives.

On the other hand, the center of force would be close to the center of gravity, so the flight would be relatively stable. Especially if the man allowed his arms and legs to lag behind his direction of travel, which would place his center of gravity behind his center of thrust, a very stable configuration (ignoring the visibility issues). A woman using this propulsion system would be more unstable, since her thrust system is at right angles to a man's, and she has no way of getting her center of gravity behind the center of thrust, apart from wearing heavy shoes. On the other hand, this would make women more maneuverable. And women would probably be better at takeoff and landing, since their feet are in line with their urinary path.

Just what kind of pee velocity would give a man liftoff in Earth-like gravity?

Well, assuming a man can pee 50 ml/second, and weighs 70 kg, he'd have to pee a stream at 13,720 m/s [ -ed.] just to counteract his weight. This is fast enough that if he peed upwards, his urine would achieve orbit (escape velocity is 11200 m/s).

However, pee traveling at that speed would create serious heat due to air friction, so the pee would probably boil off into steam. Which would eventually form into clouds and rain down on some unsuspecting bystander.

Probably a good thing we can't do it.

That is all.

[MSN Spaces] Confused? Holly?

I thought about this the other week while on the phone with Holly. I'm happy to see it actually come about!

Instead of me writing up an entry, this time around I have a guest author. After a bit of gentle poking and prodding (I hear you sniggering in the back. Stop it!), and waiting for final exams and projects and other events to conclude, an entry was born. Take it away, Holly!

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For a while now I have been learning to lead during the lessons at Swing City. There are several times during the lesson that we split into groups of 'leads' and 'follows' which is classically 'guys' and 'girls' and that tends to be how it is instructed. "Guys on this side; girls on that side." So, I often get some strange looks as I walk over to join the 'guys' side or when I try to find a partner again. I reassure them that they are in the right place and that I'm not confused by saying something like "I'm learning to be a guy." (Okay that might not assure them that I'm not confused.)

Learning to be a guy is intriguing, some things that are quintessential to being a girl have to be unlearned. For instance, left actually means left and right actually means right. This has probably had a positive impact on my ability to follow driving directions, though my substitution of 'driver's side,' 'passenger's side' has always worked without fail. I am also noticing that I have a greater appreciation of cars, but I think that might be due to my habits as a follow (Wayne slows down while walking and his eyes follow a nice car) as most of my car classification still falls under 'old,' 'new,' 'sporty,' 'big,' 'shiny' etc.

Not only that, but learning to be a lead is a great way to meet girls! Those of you who do partner dance should have a good idea of what I mean. Oftentimes when you dance with someone you chat a little bit and all those little bits add up and you get to know people over time and they are who you gravitate to when you sit down between dancing. Of course, leads do meet other leads and follows do meet other follows - often through someone they know from having danced with them. But this doesn't always mean you get to meet the new people! Lessons are where you meet new people! Every few minutes during the lesson everyone switches partners - it's like speed dating, only the emphasis is on learning how to dance with people who have different styles and can teach you different things - not meeting someone to date - and you get to chat with the new dancers who are trying out swing! So, just in learning to lead I have increased the number of people that I know at swing! and have hugely increased the number of girls I know!

But don't worry! As intriguing as learning to be a guy is it also reminds me that I like being a girl! [*sigh of relief* -ed.] There are multiple reasons that I'm glad I am a girl: way more versatility in clothing (pants, skirts, shorts, capris not to mention a million styles of shirts) and wearing guys clothes is quite acceptable; chocolate can make everything better; gay waiters don't hit on me; no fighting off cougars (the older female variety that Matt attracts); I can tell my friends that their butt looks good; and last but definitely not least, I couldn't be Wayne's girlfriend if I wasn't a girl! [ - ed.] (Besides, I don't think I'd ever quite get the hang of leaving the toilet seat up.)

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This may bite me in the ass, but I'm open to more guest authors. If you'd like to contribute, send me an email with your writeup! If you don't actually know me (and therefore don't know my real email address), send me an IM using the email in my profile. So assuming I get more guest authors, any entries titled "Confused? <INSERT NAME>?" will be written by others from now on. You have been warned.

That is all.

[MSN Spaces] Return of the 80s!

To all the other children of the 80s, chances are you've seen (many many many times) The Breakfast Club. Do you remember the weird girl, Allison Reynolds? Played by Ally Sheedy? I met her on Friday night. Not Ally Sheedy, but Allison Reynolds. She was a high schooler from out of town. If ever there was an incarnation of Allison, then this girl was it. She dressed like her, acted like her, bounced around like her. It was scary. It was funny. Some might say it was scunny... scarny? funry? fury? Ok, I'll stop now. Dale and I decided that either A) she had forgotten to take her meds, or B) she had double-dosed her meds.

Aside from Allison Incarnate, it was a fairly quiet Swing City. I didn't really have to do much for 'running' Swing City. It was basically what I said last entry.

After Swing City, though, I had a brief encounter with a few drunken dumbasses. I was driving Sara and Harrison home and just outside the Conference Centre, this drunken dumbass was jaywalking in front of me. I slowed down because, well, he was a drunken dumbass and you can never tell what a drunken dumbass is going to do. As I got within a few feet, this particular drunken dumbass decided to head BACK, DIRECTLY in front of my car. I hit the brakes and drunken dumbass number two (a.k.a. stupid drunken dumbass woman) yelled something incoherent. According to Sara, she was extolling the virtues of me learning how to properly operate a motor vehicle... only not in so many words. She (sorry, drunken dumbass number two) then decided (as Sara put it) "to make out with the side window." Stupid drunken dumbass woman tapped on the window with her ring, so I took a quick right turn (red light) and drove away. Who knows what the group (there were two? others) of drunken dumbasses would have done to my car if I had stayed. Frankly, I didn't feel like dealing with a bunch of drunken dumbasses humping my car tires. As for drunken dumbass number one, if I had an SUV with a brushguard ('traffic controller'), I would have gladly run down this drunken dumbass... illegality aside. But truth be told, my car's worth more than this drunken dumbass. I mean, if he doesn't value his own life enough to NOT walk in front of a (1488kg + ~250kg of driver/passengers/gas/stuff) object moving about 20km/h (I did slow down in advance of drunken dumbasses), complete with 9656.328Ns of corresponding momentum, it's just not worth it to me to spend the money to fix whatever damage would be incurred. Stupid drunken dumbasses.

Saturday, I got my vacation plans 'finalized' and booked. I just need to deal with the details and lay out the money. Quick itinerary: Herräng, London, Paris. I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm going to need a vacation after this vacation. I've already gotten some prep done; I now have enough memory for my camera to take 700+ pictures at full quality or many many minutes of video.

Last night's team practice went smoothly, despite it only being Carolyn, Angela, Rajeev, and me. It was all about the Michael Jackson. (Is it just me, or did that sound like such a non-sequitur?) There was some miscellaneous swing played and routine music played repeatedly, but other than that it was all MJ stuff.

Today, Holly's driving around little horses and carts for Wheel Power. They go around to different elementary schools with these little horses, with carts attached, for the kids. The last couple times, she was dressed up as a nurse, driving the medical wagon. I missed the first one she did this year, which was at Tillicum Elementary. Tillicum is my old elementary and is a block away from my place. Oh well. This morning, they were at Braefoot Elementary, which is on my way to work, so I dropped by. Let me tell you, it feels a little odd (creepy) being a lone male driving into an elementary school... with Michael Jackson playing, no less. As Holly said, it's good I don't drive a white panel van. I couldn't say I was dropping off my kid, since I had no kid with me. I couldn't even say I was picking up my kid, since it was morning and they'd be just arriving. I'm not here to pick up at all (either good way or bad way). Well, I *could* say I was here to pick up Holly (in a good way), though.

Anyway, there are a couple interesting carts. The firewagon has what's supposed to be a water tank, I guess, on the back. It really just looks like a giant martini shaker. Then there's the "Root Beer Wagon", which has a wooden keg on the back. I want to say that the "Root" looked a little smaller and tacked on as an afterthought, but that wouldn't be true. Maybe next time.

One last note. Last night, I was talking with sav, giving him a quick rundown of the weekend. I told him about Allison Incarnate and he went on about Ally Sheedy, sending me a few picture links. One of which was a screen capture from Short Circuit! I don't know about you, but I LOVED Short Circuit and Short Circuit 2 as a kid. "Johnny 5 alive!" "No disassemble!" And so, I'll leave you with one of my favourite quotes (from SC2):

Los locos kick your ass!

Los locos kick your face!

Los locos kick your balls into outer space!

That is all.

[MSN Spaces] "If you cut that in half, I’m polka dancing."

I've only recently started reading Dilbert.blog, and I've been going through the archives. I came across a couple entries that I really had to share with all of you. The first combines so many elements that I love: bad humour, good humour, puns, a silly yet 'serious' subject, and several eminently quotable phrases (such as the title for this entry). All of those elements are things I strive to achieve in my own writing. How well I accomplish that is for you to decide. The second is for guys and teaches you how to dance. So without further ado, I shall refer you to 'Cloning' and 'How To Dance'.

---

And now on to my own writing and thoughts.

Hehe, just kidding. This weekend is going to be interesting. It looks like it'll have less Holly in it than I'd prefer (Rotary conference this weekend), but I'll be otherwise occupied. I'm in charge of Swing City tonight. That shouldn't involve too much; mostly putting out flyers, teaching (with Sara) the beginner lesson, taking in the flyers, and hoping no disasters (natural or otherwise) occur. On Sunday, I'll be running our team practice with Carolyn. We haven't quite decided what we're going to do yet, but there are ideas floating around. I've got the keys to the studio, so I get to go through the whole lockup routine.

Hmm, now that I read over this entry, I should have stopped at the tumbleweeds...

That is all.

[MSN Spaces] Spectacular electronic death.

I have the distinct feeling that my LCD monitor at work is going to blow up in my face. Maybe I should give you a brief history of my spectacular electronic deaths. They might be few in the grand scheme of things, but I'm sure I've had more than my fair share. For an older writeup and more detailed history, check out my forum posting at TeamPfeffer.com.

Let's see... The first spectacular death happened back in 2000, when I was working with the Canadian Coast Guard. I had built a computer up from our spare parts bin with which to mess around. The hard drive was way too small, so I went back to rummaging through the bin in search of a larger drive... that worked. Since I was swapping drives in and out all the time, I never bothered to formally install any of them. I just connected power and IDE, then booted up with the drive resting in the cage. This was never a problem until I grabbed a Seagate drive. I haven't dealt with too many Seagate drives since, so I don't know if their design has changed, but the design of that drive was just stupid. The ICs were flush with the bottom of the drive. Since the drive was just sitting on the (BARE METAL) cage, when I powered up the computer, up it went in smoke. There was a nice, big, bright arc of electricity from the drive to the cage. Several burnt and destroyed ICs later, the drive was thoroughly gone. The pungent smell of burnt electronics filled the air as my reward.

The second spectacular death happened about one and a half years ago. I had acquired a brand spanking new computer for myself at work and had just spent the day getting it all set up to my liking. I even loaded up a bunch of music to listen to while I worked. So there I was, blissfully unaware of what was to come. I pulled out my earphones and plugged them into the front jacks. The monitor went blank. "wtf?" A few seconds later, *POOF*. The motherboard had blown. I won't get into the details of how and why, but suffice it to say that the techs at Discovery Computers are (were) dumbasses. Oh, how easily old memories are brought to light by the smell of burnt electronics.

The third spectacular death happened about three months after the second spectacular death and is related. After getting the motherboard replaced, we (me and the tech) tested my headphones with the jack and it all worked out fine. So I continued to use them and listened to music at work. Everything was fine and dandy for awhile, but then it all changed in an instant. One day I went to plug in my earphones and the screen went black. All I could think was "" and "Not again?!?!". I flipped the power off and waited, hoping against hope, that it would still work. I unplugged the earphones and flipped the power back on. Nothing. Well, nothing at first. A few seconds later *POOOOOF!*. This wasn't the same *POOF* as the previous time. Nooooo. This was a LOUD *POOOOOF!*, accompanied by a BIG, bright flash out the back of the power supply. If any time you knew a computer was dead, this was one of those times. Ahh, the smell of burnt electronics. How quickly we become intimate bedfellows.

So yeah. On to possible spectacular death number four: my LCD panel. I've always generated a lot of static electricity. I used to get shocked by my old car all the time. Now that I no longer have a vehicle with cloth seats, that's not so much of a problem anymore, but I still get the occasional shock. It only gets worse when I wear my fleece jacket. As I take off my jacket when I get to work, I can feel the large field of static electricity surrounding my jacket and body. If it was all dissipated in one go, it'd be enough to kill small rodents. Knowing this, and knowing that electronic devices don't particularly like static electricity, I discharge myself on the metal bits of my chair.... which works to a point. Even with most of the charge dissipated through my chair, turning on my monitor gives a nice stinging shock. That can't be good. To delay the (probably) imminent, spectacular death of my monitor, I discharged myself on the metal frame of the whiteboard behind me this morning. It stings and is irritating, but I'd rather that than a LCD monitor blow up in my face. But then if it does, I'll have another story to tell... and I'll get to see my long lost friend, the smell of burnt electronics.

That is all.

[MSN Spaces] "This love is taking its toll on me"

Yes, thank you Stephanie... and thank you Léo for reinforcing it. If you've forgotten (or blocked it from your memory) already, we "learned" that dance routine to Maroon 5's This Love at the workshop last weekend. Léo forgot his CD case here when he went home to Vancouver, so he was coerced into coming back to retrieve it. And since he was already here, he was coerced into DJing at Swing City on Friday. Before I get to Maroon 5, I should say that Chelsea requested Tainted Love by Softcell (she had requested this a couple weeks ago, too). Nobody had it, but I came through. I grabbed my Creative MP3 player (No, it's *NOT* an ipod. ipods and Apple are crap and evil.. and evil crap.) which contains almost my entire music collection ('almost' because I'm too lazy to convert the rest of my CDs...). I have Tainted Love. It was hooked up to the sound system and away we went.

Ok, back to Maroon 5. Last song of the night, Léo puts on This Love. At first, it was Léo, Matt, and Chris dancing, but Chris eventually fell away. It was all very entertaining. But I have to say one thing. Matt, we all know you've done a bunch of break dancing and hip-hop type stuff, but you need to stop doing it in situations like these. Dancing like you know how to dance only ruins the effect! Look at Léo. Unless he moved his entire body to another location, he didn't once move his feet. It's a lot funnier pulling off moves like that when it looks like you can't dance. Next time, Matt, next time. ... Next time?

Saturday night. Holly and I met up with Chris and Clint at what-used-to-be-called-the-Tally-Ho for their comedy night. Big Mae was up first, with some black dude headlining. Big Mae (5'2", 100lb woman) was all right. Nothing too funny. Worth the price of admission, though. Admission? Free. Next up was the headliner. My first thought when he got up on stage was that he's a little nuts. My second thought was that he's a wannabe Bill Cosby. About a third of the way through his act, he phased out his Bill Cosby-ishness and became funnier. Though, he DID do a Bill Cosby impression later. Anyway, there was one bit he did that stood out. He started it off by asking if anybody smoked. Only a couple people did. He then 'borrowed' this guy's pack of cigarettes and proceeded to show us a great way to help him stop smoking. He opened the pack of cigarettes, explaining what he was doing the whole time, and pulled out one cigarette. He then shoved it in his nose and proceeded to pull out another one. With both nostrils filled with a cigarette each, he then went on to take the cigarettes out of his nose and place them back in the pack.... and rearrange them. What's even funnier (and a little disgusting) is that the guy didn't throw his cigarettes away!

Sunday was the beginning of a new session of classes and it began with Balboa. I've taken it a couple times already and dance it socially every so often, but Holly's taking it and so am I. We show up and sav tells me to pay attention to the class from both sides because I'll be teaching it soon. So now I have to actually pay attention in class? After bal, I did some prep-work for Swing 1 with Sara. Yep, Sara and I are going to be teaching Swing 1 together on Mondays. Some of you have already heard this, but I can only see two outcomes from this. One, our students think we're nuts. Two, our students think we're nuts... but have fun. If they somehow learn something from this class, that's just a bonus. By 'something', I mean something swing dance related. And by 'something swing dance related', I don't mean that swing dancers are insane. I was telling Christabel that we (Sara and I) produce a positive feedback loop of crazy. It grows until eventually something blows up or otherwise dissipates the crazy energy. Positive feedback is what caused the Tacoma Narrows Bridge ("Galloping Gertie") to collapse. That's not a good sign. If I was a religious man, I'd say something like "May God have mercy on our souls", but I'm not, so I won't.

Aside from all this insanity, this'll be the first session of standard Red Hot Swing classes that will not have either sav or Christabel or both teaching. By 'standard', I mean the classes that occur in the studio. We also teach Swing 1 at Camosun and UVic and workshops/beginner lessons at Swing City. I (and Carolyn) am now the most senior teacher, and so I'm in charge of the class. Me? In charge? Somehow sav has this idea that I'm responsible. Speaking of which, sav and Christabel are heading to Kelowna for Steve and Susan's wedding and might not be back for Sunday's practice. So Carolyn and I are getting keys to the studio and will be running practice. Heh, go figure. Let's just hope I don't go drunk with power again... Umm, that never happened. Forget I said that. Actually, don't forget anything, because I never said anything. Look over there, Chris is trying to be a big teddy bear!

That is all. I'm not here.

[MSN Spaces] Dancing makes me hungry.

You ever have those days when you're frustrated and annoyed at the world in general? When everything conspires to piss you off? Yeah. What aggravates the situation even more is when there's no good reason for it in the first place. Grr.

That is all.

No, that is not all.

When I started with the swing team, we used to have a quick little go around of "How're you doing? What's borken^†?" before practice began. I was pretty much always smiling and good. After a couple months of this, sav made a comment about it and I replied that "swing is my happy place". I can usually count on swing to give me a reprieve from all the other crap (imagined, reasonless, or otherwise) I might be dealing with at the time. Last night's team practice didn't fail me in that regard... but it made me hungry. Practices usually make me hungry, but this time it wasn't because we were dancing. It wasn't a strenuous practice at all; we mostly sat around working on a new routine. No, I was hungry because of all the food-related aerials we talked about. We had the knicker (I'll explain that in a sec), the crepe, the popcorn jump, the waffle, and the pancake. We also had two names for aerials we need to make up: the flapjacks and the crumpet. As for the knicker... well, apparently Sara likes to eat knickers. Hey, whatever works, Sara.

† For the uninitiated (are there any left?), no, that is not a typo.

That is all. Really.

[MSN Spaces] "So who's the girl?" "Which girl?" "The one that's been hanging off your face all weekend?"

The title was a snippet of conversation with Kyle from Hot Koko on Saturday night. I thought it was amusing.


Wow! Where to begin?? I guess I'll go with the usual chronological order. I'm warning you now, this is going to be long.

Friday.
Holly came by and picked me up to head out to Swing City. I was excited, because the Flying Saucers were going to be playing live! At Swing City! With a big dance floor! The Flying Saucers are an awesome local swing band that plays Monday nights at Swan's. (Read "I could use about 17 hours in bed..." for my description of the Swan's dance floor.) Add to that the invasion by Hot Koko, other Vancouverites, and even a 'Pegger (Winnipegger), and we have a great recipe for fun!
After the first set by the Saucers, Hot Koko did a little performance for us. That was great fun, as usual.
During the third set, a multi-purpose jam was held for Angele (off to Europe), Amanda (coop in San Fran), and me (birthday, duh). Birthday jam to a live band on a big dance floor, with lots of visitors and LOTS of energy?!? SWEEEEEEEEEET! I think my personal highlight of the dance was when I hit my Matrix Drop in perfect sync with a dip in the music, while dancing with Kyle.
Not because of the perfect timing and how good I looked (if I do say so myself ), but because of the cheering section I had when I did it!! Speaking of dancing with Kyle, before the jam started, I was fully expecting more guys than girls to steal me during the jam. Something about so many local leads knowing I can follow too. That and having more guys steal the guys in jams being a rather common thing here. I was relieved when the final count came out in favour of the girls... though only by a few.
Fast forward some and eventually the energy hits critical mass for a spontaneous jam circle to start up. There was some great energy in the circle! Matt and I busted out our flying Charleston swingout entry. I was really pleased with how well it worked, considering we haven't done it in several months. Imagine two guys running at each other from opposite sides of a jam circle, meeting in the middle in mid-air, (ideally) doing a 180° before landing, and going into Charleston swingouts. Yeah, we're insane, but it works!
Fast forward some more and to the end of the night. Last song. Holly and I were dancing and closeby were Angela and Rajeev. Partway through the song, Holly and I were doing some side-by-side Charleston. Rajeev noticed and mirrored us. Classic setup for a partner swap (or Combat Charleston, which we also did for awhile). We swapped and I danced with Angela while Rajeev danced with Holly. I could hear the song coming to an end, so I quickly swapped back to Holly to finish off the last few eights and dip her. All four of us were walking back to our tables and Angela says "It's a good thing we swapped back for that." I replied "Yeah, but we ARE swingers..."
To finish off the night, a bunch of us headed out to the QV cafe... or as sav likes to call it, the Sperm Cafe. (The logo looks like a sperm.)

Saturday.
2PM wake up call. 2PM? Well, sort of. It still felt early, though. Holly and I arrive at the studio for the Hot Koko workshop just before 3:30, the scheduled start time. I say good morning to a few people during the warmup songs. Morning? It sure felt like it was morning. The grey overcast sky felt very morningish. Only waking up recently didn't help either.
Anyway, the workshops got underway, with the first being the standard of covering the swingout to get a baseline. Monica and Walker taught this one. Next came Leo and Lisa, who taught us some entertaining variations and moves. After this, we broke for pizza. Mmmm, pizza.
Nearing the end of the break, most of the Hot Koko members were in the studio, dancing around to Maroon 5's This Love. There were definitely some entertaining (and questionable) moves being done, especially coming from Leo, Walker, and Kyle. Little did we know that we'd be doing the same, only moments later, as a warmup.
Onto the third workshop! Solo Charleston with Stephanie (that girl has about 150,000,000x more energy than anybody I've ever seen!) and Gabe. After learning a Charleston routine, Maroon 5 was played again. Charleston to Maroon 5? Yep. The scary part was just how well it worked!!
A short break later and we were on to the fourth workshop. Kyle enlightened us with his musicality wisdom and philosophy, including a break for Story Time. We did one exercise where one person would dance to the piano in the song being played, while the other would dance to the vocals. During one of these, Dave (of Dave and Tina) and I were 'dancing' together. We were doing slow-motion/Matrix-style fighting to each of our parts of the song. Kyle stopped the other students to watch us move to the music. Heh.
As Kyle's workshop drew to a close, so did the workshop part of Saturday. We threw all the Hot Kokonuts into the centre and had a teacher jam for them. Always a great way to thank a dancer.
So with the workshops complete, the time was near for the Slumber ('Slumming') Party/Dance. A short break for things to be setup and people to get ready/rested and the music was started. Sara showed up in her jammies (after her last final exam) and was rather disappointed that nobody else was in their's. She then went about (while firmly planted on one of the couches) trying to get other people to change into their PJs. She managed to get a few. I changed into my shorts (I left mine at home), but they could pass for jammies with the pattern on them. Chris eventually reappeared with Chelsea in tow (they had gone off to shower and change and get supplies). 'Reappeared' doesn't do justice, though. In walked Chris in his bathrobe. Thankfully, he had a wifebeater and pants on. In his hand, he also had a blinking LED drink glass. I have a rather amusing picture of him posing for the camera, bathrobed with blinking drink in hand.
I had a couple funny incidents with Christabel through the night. The first one, she was trying to stretch out her tired back. I obliged, enlisting the help of Justin (the 'Pegger). I grabbed Christabel by her armpits, while Justin grabbed her legs, and pulled.
The second incident requires a bit of explanation. The other night at Swan's, Christabel was talking with Sara and the topic came up that Christabel's ears weren't pierced. (sav, did you know this?) I looked over and was like "What? Your ears aren't pierced? Wow, I never noticed." Apparently, neither are Tina's. (I'm a guy, I'm not always observant of these things.) I related this story to Holly the next day and after a bit of conversing, we knew what I had to do... if only because I'm one of the few guys that could do it and *not* get slapped. Ok, back to the slumming party. I was dancing bal (balboa) with Christabel at one point. Bal is a rather close dance. You're usually looking over each other's right shoulder, and if you turn your head toward your partner, your partner is liable to end up with an ear full of nose... depending on relative heights, of course. My opportunity was there, so I turned my head and went to clomp (no teeth) on her ear to verify that she did, in fact, not have pierced ears. Unfortunately, I missed and got a partial mouth full of hair, instead. Christabel started laughing (desired effect) and I explained what I was doing. I told her that I knew I could actually get away with something like that and she agreed. As Christabel explained it, I give off the impression of being the harmless nice guy, so I can get away with things like that. On an interesting note, a previous girlfriend also said a similar thing of me. She thought I was harmless and was going to 'cultivate me as a dance partner'. She was a little surprised to find otherwise.
The fun didn't stop there, though. I had a little fun with my camera, playing with the slow shutter. I got some pretty cool shots with the blur/ghost effects of movement. There's one with Andrew and Christabel dancing where their torsos (ooh, 'torsi' is also valid) are still relatively in focus, while their legs are blurred with movement. Very cool effects.
And to cap off the evening, Maroon 5 was played and the warmup routine was done. The Charleston routine, with the proper song, was done earlier. I took a video of it, but unfortunately, it was too dark. All I managed to capture was the sound, a small red splotch (exit sign), and the occasional dark splotch moving in/on/through a dark background.

Sunday.
Morning. Actual morning. Too much morning left. WAAAAY too much morning left. I rollerblade home. It was a semi-decent day. The sun was mostly out, but it was still a little chilly in shorts. That went away once I got going, though. The Goose (Galloping Goose Trail) can be a nice skate. Well, except for the trestle bridges. Those are evil on rollerblades. Those and the inconsiderate bastards that basically run you off the trail by taking up BOTH lanes, instead of sticking to their side only. Idiots, you CAN'T fit two bikes side by side and NOT kill (or seriously maim) oncoming trail users. MOVE OVER!!!!
So anyway, I got home and was informed that my sis-in-law (Ev) had gone into labour and went to the hospital at about 2AM! No baby, yet, though. Not much to do at that point, but get some food and 'chill'. At about 1PM, my bro (James) called. Nope, still in labour. More waiting. Finally, at about 10:30PM, James calls again and we're off to the hospital. About nineteen hours of labour later, Tyler (my nephew!! ) was born at 10:22PM, April 30th, 2006, weighing in at 5.09lbs! Man, he is a cute little guy! I can't wait to see what great things are in his future. I'm an uncle! More importantly, James and Ev are parents!
Wow, if I get this excited for a nephew (first one, mind you), just imagine what I'll be like when I have my own kid.

Whew, what a weekend!

That is all.