Quest for Cognizance

In memory of Rosebud and a goal for an aspiring Doc.

Why in the hell would a judge ever consider granting a convicted murderer the right to receive sex change treatments and possibly a sex change surgery...?

Never mind the tax payer or health care provider money it would cost for the surgery or the treatments. What about the cost of lawyers for the suit, complete with expert witness testimony? You think the aforementioned convicted murderer is going to pay for it all out of his/her randomly searched pockets by way of his/her 50 cents/hour prison laundry job?

I understand gender identity disorder. I understand the lengths people go to in order become who they feel they are on the inside. I also understand convicted criminals still retain a certain number of rights, but also have a whole lot of rights taken away - hence the term 'incarcerated'.

But a convicted murderer suing the Department of Correction on the basis it "violated his/her Eighth Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment...?"

hmph.

Am I picking a fight? Yep.

Read this garbage here.

Guess who's coming back home to Hockeytown...?

One of the origin "grindline", Darren McCarty, signed a one year deal with the Redwings today. Hopefully we'll get to see McCarty, Draper, and Malty on the same line again.

Bring on Grinder.

Satin Jones has managed to get together twice within the same month. That's a far cry from how it used to be leading up to our last hiatus.

Getting married, having kids, buying houses and such can really put something like a band on the rocks while stacking the odds against it continuing on or getting back together after things slow down again - if they ever do.

I have to say - it feels good playing again.

My wife said to me a couple of months ago, while I explained to her how the home studio set-up can now record 8 tracks simultaneously, "Now all you need is a band..!"

Poof.... It's like magic.

(Good thing Dave's about to turn into an old bastard...)

Stumbled upon this today:

"February 21, 2008, Mountain View, CA – The X PRIZE Foundation and Google, Inc. today announced the first ten teams to register for the Google Lunar X PRIZE, a robotic race to the Moon to win a remarkable $30 million in prizes. This international group of teams will compete to land a privately funded robotic craft on the Moon that is capable of roaming the lunar surface for at least 500 meters and sending video, images and data back to the Earth." - googlelunarxprize.org

I'm a geek.

"I put up my thumb and it blotted out the planet Earth." - Neil Armstrong

Our parents had the Apollo moon missions. So far my own generation has had the space shuttle and the International Space Station.

I was eight years old when Columbia flew her maiden voyage, and it was THE coolest thing ever. The space shuttle looked like and represented every toy space ship any young boy ever had as a kid -- flying it around the house, making rocket, mechanical, crash and transmission noises to ourselves with our own mouths. The recliner was one planet while the couch was another, and the other rooms in the house? Different universes of course. "...static... Houston do you copy?...static...."

I'm thirty-five now and just finished watching the shuttle Atlantis land at Kennedy Space Center on the NASA channel -- THE absolute coolest channel ever.

From the moment I learned we had access to full video and audio coverage of every shuttle mission, uninterrupted from start to finish, I've tried to catch at the very least the launches and landings, and inbetween the oh-so-cool space walks, complete with helmet cams, privileging us all with the same amazing views each astronaut is seeing. Whether that be the earth from 210 miles up or of white gloved hands working with tools to add another piece to the ISS. All live. Crazy.

The last space shuttle mission ever is scheduled for September of this year. It's a bit depressing and feels a bit like trading in an old dependable car you've had for years and don't really want to give up, even though it's the smart thing to do. The shuttle is the most complex piece of machinery ever made, and there are parts of the shuttle that just can't be updated anymore. To move forward with moon and Mars plans a safer, simpler, and more economical vehicle must be employed.

I know all the pros and cons of new moon or Mars missions. The cost, the danger, the what if's, and the "but why's..?" I even understand one of the biggest arguments of why spend money "out there" when we can use it so much better "down here". (How much has the war in Irag cost so far...?)

My reason for going is: Because we CAN.

What's a guy to do on a Sunday night when faced with only these two choices?

1. Stay at home and try to stay out of the way and out of sight while your wife invites 30 females to the house for a jewelry party or;

2. Get the hell out of Dodge.

Answer: Get the hell out of Dodge while leaving your 4-month old son to face the oohs, ahhs, hugs, kisses and pinches of said 30 females. (Can we say feeding frenzy?)

It's not like our son had much choice in the matter. And from what I hear he was a big flirt and didn't quite know what to do with himself amongst all those many pairs of breasts.

Today it was Neil Young's "Rocking in the Free World"

Song Stuck in Your Head? You're Not AloneReuters ^ Monday, Feb 24, 2003 Alison McCook
Posted on 02/24/2003 8:26:14 PM PST by InShanghai

Song Stuck in Your Head? You're Not AloneBy Alison McCook

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The vast majority of people say they have been mentally tortured at one point in their lives by a song that keeps repeating itself over and over in their heads.

And new research shows that people most frequently plagued by this phenomenon are those with slightly neurotic tendencies , and people who enjoy and listen to music often.

These mental broken records are also more likely to play the first or last song we hear in different situations, such as the first song that comes on in the morning alarm, or the last song playing before we turn off the car, study findings show.

Songs that topped the list as being most likely to stick around in someone's head included the Baha Men's "Who Let the Dogs Out?" and the Chili's restaurant jingle about Baby Back Ribs.

But the number one song rated most likely to cause this phenomenon, referred to as an "earworm" in Germany, is "other"--indicating that many different songs can become stuck in our heads.

"Just about anything can get stuck in people's heads," study author Dr. James Kellaris of the University of Cincinnati told Reuters Health.

"We each have our personal demonic tunes that get stuck in our heads, I guess," he added. Kellaris presented results from his current study on Saturday at the Society for Consumer Psychology Winter Conference in New Orleans.

Kellaris's previous research into the phenomenon of earworms revealed that "sticky" songs are those that are relatively simple, repetitive, and contain an element that surprises the listener.

This incongruous element can be an interrupted pattern, or something that violates expectations of what comes next.

During the current study, Kellaris distributed surveys to 559 people aged 18 to 49 asking them about their personalities, how often tunes got stuck in their heads, how long the episodes lasted, and when the phenomenon was most likely to happen.

Ninety-eight percent of respondents said they had experienced stuck songs. Most said the episodes occurred "frequently," and lasted an average of a few hours.

Songs with lyrics were most often the culprits, a trend that Kellaris said is not surprising. Often what gets sticky is not just a tune, but also lyrics, a trend he calls "stupid lyrics syndrome." Combining a tune and lyrics ups the chance of song snippets staying with the listener for hours, he said.

Episodes of earworms also tend to strike people with neurotic tendencies more often. These people are not seriously neurotic, Kellaris said, but may simply be more prone to worrying and anxiety, and may have neurotic habits like biting pencils or tapping fingernails.

Women were more likely than men to report feeling annoyed, frustrated, or irritated about having songs stuck in their heads--a trend Kellaris said he is hard pressed to explain.

In terms of how to protect yourself from earworms, Kellaris recommended that people not worry about a stuck song as soon as it appears, and perhaps avoid listening to music for a spell if it becomes too sticky.

Strategies people report using to rid themselves of stuck tunes involved trying to listen to something else, distracting themselves with another activity, and trying to erase the repetition of one song snippet by singing the song all the way through.

"If they can't remember the lyrics, sometimes it helps for them to sing through the entire song, and then it will go away," Kellaris said.

Kellaris said he has also heard a "folkloric" recommendation of chewing on cinnamon sticks to rid the brain of a sticky song.

"Some people swear that will unstick a stuck tune," he said.

The landscape of my basement was possibly irrevocably changed last Saturday.

Mind you, some of the equipment in the composite picture below has made it's home in various basements and garages over the last twenty years. And some only for the last ten.

But all is good in the world. More stuff for me to mess around with. A couple things to fix.

And best of all, the operators of various pieces of said equipment didn't sound too shabby after a few years off.

In the same vein as: Lock your doors … hide your children … hoard cash, beer and canned goods...

Sometimes you have an itch that never goes away. (No this is not about a secret STD issue... Well maybe it is.) Sometimes this type of itch unwillfully, or even willfully, gets to the point of being ignored. Sometimes you do or don't know the when, where, or why of how you recieved such an itch.

Sometimes it doesn't matter.

What does matter is that 3 of my close friends and I have the same itch, (Minds out of the gutter please...) and Dave reminded us last fall that it could be scratched.

Many of our friends and family know this itch by various names. The Epitomy of Rock. The Rock Gods. The Supermodel of Rock Bands. The Band that Never Really Goes Away.

In other words: Satin Jones.

What do these little utterings and mumblings, stirrings and rumblings mean? We're really not sure yet except we all have agreed to sit down with some beer and some guitars and see where it all heads.

It's a completely new landscape in which to work now. Spouses, houses, kids, jobs, school, over-thirty pot-bellys and receding hair lines, etc. It may just be a group of friends getting back together to play music they love in the shadows of a dirty basement or a drafty garage. Or it could be a resurrected rock band playing old songs, writing new ones and playing a gig or two here and there.

No assumptions. No allusions or illusions. No expectations.

Whatever happens, it'll be interesting.

To refresh your memories there's a couple of old SJ songs posted here.