Mr. Musicface

Probably because I wasn't going to show her the Trilogy on Video tape. As IF!

Ah okay, I actually understand that logic... as you were geekboy.

I actually only watched the bonus material so far. I think it's interesting that Hayden Christensen looks a lot like Mark Hamill in the saber battle rehersals they were showing - or at very least you could imagine that the two could really be related.

I know a lot of folks poo-poo the new movies, but I'm REALLY interested to see the last film. It can't not be amazingly dark considering the subject matter and where they end up before IV.

And Ms. Hux, how did you get this far into a relationship with a geek like bouche without seeing the trilogy? That strikes me as something for an oversight committee somewhere...

- M.

Hey gang!

Before he passed away in April, my friend Matt Osborne put together the INCREDIBLY extensive "Matt's Marvellous Method for Guitar" book and tape series as a present for his lady-friend Kimberly. Since Matt's passing, Kimberly has gone to a tonne of work to make Matt's original material into a very impressive package, including a 60-page book and 5 CDs of Matt playing and talking.

I've just updated the Matt website with info on the guitar method, including a PDF sample from a number of chapters and ordering information. I'd HIGHLY recommend checking this out if you're interested in learning guitar.

http://musicface.com/matt/guitarmethod.html

From having seen the complete book and heard a chunk of the audio myself, I'd say anyone from beginner to intermediate guitarist could definitely benefit from this package. And even advanced players could probably pick up a thing or two from the later chapters. Matt's style of writing and teaching was informal and filled with humour but still amazingly professional (much like the guy himself). This is really different from a traditional music lesson book.

All of the proceeds from sale of the method will go to the Matt Osborne Musicians Trust Fund, a fund set up in Matt's honour to support aspiring musicians.

Peace,

Mr. M.

Lucas added the "Episode IV" title to the original Star Wars before Empire came out to show that the movies were part of a larger anticipated story.

What I want to know is how come Luke's first lightsaber (seen in the screen cap changes here) is now green? Shouldn't it be the same colour as Anakin's i.e. blue which is what it was in the first place? I know the second one that Luke made for himself after the Cloud City battle is green, but the first one is the one that he got from father via Obi-Wan, right? Or am I missing something here?

Peace,

Mr. M.

Back in university my wife (at the time my girlfriend) had a fish with the best name ever, and he sorta got it by accident. She named her Siamease Fighting Fish after the lead singer from Pursuit of Happiness.

Without thinking about it, she ended up with "Moe Beta Fish".

That thing lived for like over a year! It was defintely a pet. She had other betas after that, but most of them only lived a few weeks. I guess they were pets too, but she never really formed an attachment to them the way she did to Moe. I'd say that's the main difference.

Peace,

Mr. M.

"what are your plans to strategically leave Iraq over the next gradual time period to ease the suffering upon everyday Iraqi's?"

So wait, what did he say?

(just to get back to people we'd like to punch in the head)

Ask you shall receive:

http://www.mousebreaker.com/game53.shtml

- M.

Punching in the head > Touching boobies!

How does this happen?

If you ask me it's all the gawddamn hippies.

Just so Choix doesn't feel lonely I'll chime in. For me The Slip have always been somewhat hit-and-miss. I love songs like "6-Sided", "Love and Tears", "If One Of Us Should Fall", etc. They are obviously excellent players and personally I like Brad's voice, I think it's well suited for his songs. Now granted I've only seen them live once (El Mo last May or June I believe it was) and some of it was absolutely killer, but some I found a bit meander-y, particularly the jazzy stuff. I've downloaded a number of shows and found the same thing. I've heard real killer jazz musicians jam, and to me The Slip don't have the same "edge" when the go off in the direction. I usually find I want them to get back to one of their great songs.

In fairness, they are no more meander-y than the majority of jam bands, and they are better musicians than many so they pull it off a fair amount of the time. But ultimately from all I've heard I bet if I went to one of their shows, I'd be relatively bored for 25% of the set. That's not a lot more than if I was at the average Phish show, but I doubt strongly I'd be as over the top about them afterward as many folks here seem to. To me anyway, The Slip is certainly a really really good band, but not a transendently great band. My two-cents.

Peace,

Mr. M.

There is none higher. Happy birthday to one of the largest musical influences on my life and so many others.

Sadly it looks like I'm gonna have to pass seeing him in Ohio and Michigan next weekend. Come back to Toronto soon Bruce!!!

Peace,

Mr. M.

Awww relax bouche - are there any guys on this board who don't have a crush on Ms. Hux?

Come on, be honest!

- M.

Hey ahess. I only have a very small amount of stats/survey knowledge, but my understanding of how "significant" a result is relate to what you are asking, how random your sample is, how big a population your sample is meant to represent, etc. So it's gonna vary based on exactly what you're testing for. For instance, polling groups for elections often use relatively small samples (a few thousand people usually I believe) to represent how a whole country is gonna vote, but they're really careful to have a varied group and ask very precise questions.

Hey I don't know if this helps but I stumbled on this calculator:

http://www.surveysystem.com/sscalc.htm

There's some links to definitions and such as well.

Good luck!

- M.

If I remember correctly, Salmon Rushdie had a Fatwa (islamic religious decree) issued against him calling for his dispatching. (basically a contract put out on him in the name of God to all muslims in the world.)

All Yusef said when asked about the Fatwa was something to the effect of "I would not be the person Mr. Rushdie would want to meet in a dark alley."

Here's the story according to the Biography Channel site entry for Cat Stevens:

A scandal broke out in 1989 when Yusuf was asked by a radio presenter to give his opinion on Salman Rushdie’s controversial book "Satanic Verses." Although he stated that he thought the book to be blasphemous to the Islamic faith, he also declared that he did not condone the views of Ayatollah Khomeini, who had called for the death sentence for Rushdie. However, Yusuf Islam was misrepresented in the press and his music was subsequently blacklisted by a number of radio stations.

After the Satanic Verses, Rushdie himself converted to Islam for a brief time...

Wasn't he born a Muslim? He was born in India or Pakistan if I remember right.

- M.

Good call shitidiot, but actually I think another song from that album would be Zero's tribute to the rest of humanity:

Harmlessly passing your time in the grassland away;

Only dimly aware of a certain unease in the air.

You better watch out,

There may be dogs about

I’ve looked over jordan, and I have seen

Things are not what they seem.

What do you get for pretending the danger’s not real.

Meek and obedient you follow the leader

Down well trodden corridors into the valley of steel.

What a surprise!

A look of terminal shock in your eyes.

Now things are really what they seem.

No, this is no bad dream.

The lord is my shepherd, I shall not want

He makes me down to lie

Through pastures green he leadeth me the silent waters by.

With bright knives he releaseth my soul.

He maketh me to hang on hooks in high places.

He converteth me to lamb cutlets,

For lo, he hath great power, and great hunger.

When cometh the day we lowly ones,

Through quiet reflection, and great dedication

Master the art of karate,

Lo, we shall rise up,

And then we’ll make the bugger’s eyes water.

Bleating and babbling I fell on his neck with a scream.

Wave upon wave of demented avengers

March cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream.

Have you heard the news?

The dogs are dead!

You better stay home

And do as you’re told.

Get out of the road if you want to grow old.

i would think a world leader like that is coming to speak, people should be there to listen...

The problem is they have lot of them there this week:

http://www.un.org/webcast/ga/59/

I don't think it was necessarily a slight against Canada, but the truth is we're not a superpower so not being in the room is probably not a big deal for the many countries we don't have much to do with, for them or us. Becides all speeches are recorded and transcribed, the important thing is for us to put things on the record and try to move them forward.

- M.

Mr. Musicface- i've had situations were I've lost trust in my friends. That's when I decide...ok. we are not all perfect, so I'll still be their friend; however, you keep your distance. Maybe not share so many intimate feelings with them - more just have fun if they are around in your group of friends!

Yeh, I've been there too. There's one guy in particular who I would still say is a friend, but I just got fed up with his crap. I actually remember the final straw with this guy was when he pushed me, unprovoked, into a pool. Which wouldn't have been a big deal if (a) I hadn't been fully clothed and wrecked a nice leather wallet I'd just got as a gift, and some photos in the wallet that meant a lot to me and ( if this had been a first offence, but it wasn't - this guy did stuff like this all the time, which was fine when we were kids but now we were 25 or 26. Anyway I just got fed up, and made a conscious decision not to avoid him completely, but just not to be as close anymore. And that's held for like 7 or 8 years, and doubt we'll ever be as close as we were when we were younger.

I guess this is different than lying, but to me it was still a trust issue 'cus I couldn't trust him to be serious. Does that make sense?

- M.

Well maybe we should just go in unilaterally then, if the precedent has been set with Iraq. I don't want Canada to be seen as the yappy little dog bitching about a problem and not doing anything about it. If we had any kind of pull in the world someone would have paid attention to our bitching for the past year and maybe something more would have happened in Darfur. Politics is so slow and bureaucritized sometimes

You have met our country, right? We don't have the military resources to act unilaterally to do something like this even if we wanted to.

And I don't think we do want to - I'd highly recommend checking out what Kofi Annan said in his address yesterday on this very topic:

http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2004/09/21/kofi040921.html

The basic premise is "the UN ain't perfect, nothing is, but it's better than anything else we've got." And he's right - Canada did the right thing by staying out of Iraq, and it would be stupid to go back on that now by trying to be heroes when the truth is there's no way in hell we can fix things in Sudan by ourselves.

Has the international community been been idiotically slow to react to the I-Can't-Believe-It's-Not-Called-Geneside in Darfur? Absolutely. Does that give us leave to say "fu©k it, we're going it alone." No way. It's against what we stand for as country internationally, and it's one of the things that makes me for one proud to be Canadian.

- M.

...Anyway a few years ago this person told me they had a brain tumour...

Ohmygawd Ms. Hux, I actually knew a girl who did the exact same thing!

She was going out with a guy who I was really good friends with at the time, and I was talking to him and another close mutual friend late one night, and they started talking about all this stuff that was going on with this girl. She supposedly also had a brain tumour, but somehow she was playing soccer on a competitive level mens team the same day she was supposed to have chemotherapy, and then going and competing at these high level piano recitals and all sorts of other things later that week...

Now, anyone who knows anything about how chemo effect people is reading this and thinking "bullshit", right? Which is how I reacted when I heard. The weird part, because they were close to her and trusted her so much they didn't question it. I was coming at it as something of an outsider 'cus I only knew her causally and didn't know all this stuff until I heard them say it. I so I started going over it with them, saying "guys, this doesn't add up".

It's a very weird thing to watch someone's world unravel - the one guy was totally in love with this girl, and suddenly started to realize that everything he'd ever told him could be a lie.

One irony is the guy in the story is the guy in question, who was once one of my very best friends... well I'll just say we got into a situation a while later where I didn't feel I could trust HIM, and since then we've never really been close anymore. We still have a lot of the same friends and stuff, and I still see him, but it's still very weird. It's sucks to have to go through that sort of thing, I know firsthand.

- M.

Good for him to criticize, but what has Canada done? Well we threw $20 million at the problem, then got up in front of the half-empty UN to urge others to help?

Actually Canada's been bitching to the UN for about a year about this I believe. The trouble is we can't just act unilaterally without UN sanction 'cus our name isn't George W. Bush. (Oh sorry, was that last part out loud.)

As far as the debt relief and aid, it is a drop in the bucket but Canada is just one relatively small country. If other countries chipped in it would be significant. The point is to set an example.

- M.

The story and audio link are up on the CBC.ca site:

http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2004/09/22/martin_un040922.html

- M.

That's what I'm talking about, baby!

- M.

Hey Ms. Hux/Sunshine/whoever else wants to answer this:

I'm curious about what you say about lies and liars - not because I don't think you're sincere, but because I've struggled with it myself.

Trust is hugely important to me as well, I've lost friends (or at least become a lot less close with certain friends) over the issue of trust. But what about the lies we tell all the time to spare people's feelings? Like lying to someone about what you're doing so they won't know they're invited to a particular party you are, things like that? Or in work situations when you need to protect some piece of information? I find I sometimes have trouble with these kind of things, but often find myself telling the lie. How do you deal with these sort of things?

Peace,

Mr. M.

U.F.P. - ditto on the whatever. This thread is way less "gay" (as you put it) than many going at any time on this board.

The horizontal rectangular format better fills the field of vision. Think about it - you have two eyes, side by side. If they were one on top of the other, a vertical rectangle would be better.

Jaimoe - I was gonna add that it took almost fifty years for TV to catch up to film in the superior rectanglular format. That's why HDTV is a very similar aspect to film.

- M.

LOL - don't forget to credit me on the liner notes for your next cd.

Already done, just gotta finish the gawddamn thing...

- M.

It reminded me of porridge

The feeling made me quiver

(CyberHippie, you MAGNIFICENT BASTARD! Well played my friend, well played indeed.)

To be clear, I don't know for sure if CBC's doing pan-and-scan for these but if I had to bet I'd say they will.

- M.