friday, january 19

feeling the negativity

recently saw one of these "stop the negativity" buttons on someone's site. And then I read the thing that happened to Becky the other day concerning the person who was offended by Becky's "copyright" page. All I can say to that is, "lighten up!" Something like that is not meant to be a personal attack and an author of a weblog has every right to state their claim of copyright. Of course, it's this other person's right to bitch and moan about it too, but please... realize it's not a personal attack. I mean, you don't even know Becky. Maybe if you read a little more of her blog you'd find out she's a very cool person. Geez! She's somebody's Mom.

Well, about the negativity. I agree, there's a lot of negativity out here in cyberspace. It's not a shangri'la, that's fer sure. There's hateful people online as well as offline. What can you do? The thing to realize is it's easy to take things personally, when they're actually not directed at you. Well, I've been in situations myself regarding e-mail where a person took me the wrong way and the "flame wars" resulted.

But as much as I want to be positive, the reality is that we all don't always get along with each other, and once we find out people's little quirks that may annoy us, those little quirks are used to pass judgement, which is sad.

God bless the folks who truly love us and care about us. For without them we'd be lost, truly lost. It may be a big ocean of negativity out there, but as long as I'm in my little boat of love and joy, then I can cross that ocean, eventually.

some people only look homeless

ately I've been feeling pretty compassionate for my fellow human beings, the ones who are homeless and such. When we were in Santa Barbara a few weeks ago I was cruising town with my niece and my two sons. There was this homeless guy who had the typical sign, "Homeless Vietnam Veteran - will work for money or food", and at first I said to myself, "hmmm... you mean for booze". Well, we passed him up and my niece says "Uncle Carl, let's give him a dollar". Okay, so we go around the block and meet up with him again. And I gave my niece a dollar to give to the homeless man. We felt better after that.

After one of my gigs not too long ago, I saw a black woman who appeared to be homeless and standing on the street corner at night. I thought, hmmm, I'll offer her a dollar. And so I turned around and pulled up along side of her. I said to her, "here, I have a dollar for you", and she said, "no, I don't need your dollar", and she started to laugh at me! I was pretty embarrassed. I could've sworn she was homeless and needed money. I guess I was wrong. Maybe she just dresses all raggedy like a homeless person but she's probably quite well off! Let that be a lesson to me. Make sure they have a sign, first!

thursday, january 18

the thermostat nazi

y older son pointed out to me that he hates The Beatles. He had to mention this AFTER we watched something on TV that said The Beatles "1" CD is still number one on the charts. I had to tell him, "you're outnumbered in this household 3 to 1, buddy".

My older son is also the "thermostat nazi", meaning that he doesn't like the heater on at nights! So, for several days we've been CHILLIN', literally! I don't know what's up with his body temp. We turn on the heater at night and set the thermostat to a nice, comfortable level, and he wakes up in the middle of the night and turns the heater off! Oh well, it's a battle of the thermostat wars! Who will win?

I tried one of those Cafe Mochas over at Borders today. Ugh! Too sweet!. I much prefer the Cafe Mochas at Starbucks, which has a tiny bit of "bittersweet" to it. I don't think Cafe Mochas should be ultra-sweet like candy. Let some of that natural espresso and chocolate taste come through, and go easy on the sugar. Maybe next time I'll return it and ask them to do it again. A friend of mine in high school used to buy MacDonalds burgers and return them after one bite saying it was inadequate. Yeah, I should stand up for my right to better fast food and cafe mochas.

Well, I didn't say anything earlier this week but our band DID have a problem finding a bassist to cover for our regular guy. This is the last straw. Our regular bassist will be required to send us a substitute bassist. We called virtually every bassist in town and they all were booked! There's a short supply of upright bassists in town, apparently. Anyway, we have one for tomorrow, so we're not worried anymore! Whew!

I'm trippin' out on this "rolling blackout" situation here in California. We haven't experienced them yet in San Diego but it's got me freaked out. I mean, this is sad! California, the most populated, richest state in the U.S. and we have a problem with electricity. I think that more and more people have been moving here, and developers kept building and building new houses, and these households have two or three computers, and two or three TV sets on at the same time. It's no wonder we're having a power grid problem! I have a friend who has five computers in his house! Man, we only have one in ours and me and my two sons are always fighting for computer time. Maybe I should come over to my friends house and instead of saying "may I borrow a cup of sugar?", say "may I borrow an hour of computer time?". Yeah, I think I will do that. It's worth a shot.

Hey, some of you have emailed me and I can't thank you enough for the virtual love! And to you folks who don't email me anymore... ;-P

Anyway, there's a bunch of you who signed up to be on the Rice Bowl Journals. So, I'm terribly backlogged regarding the RBJ. Folks, my apologies. I'm working on it and I've already added about a half dozen of you. I DO want to keep improving Rice Bowl Journals once I have more time on my hands.

Anyway, I hope everyone is staying warm and cozy inside their homes. I know I am. At least until the "thermostat nazi" strikes again in the middle of the night!

some random notes

orget about the fact that I live in San Diego, it's been FREEZING here lately! Okay, so I'm a wimp and I wasn't born and raised in a colder climate like New York City, where my good friend Pat is situated right now on a business trip. Hey, I'm a native San Diegan and this here is COLD, COLD weather that's definitely NOT normal for San Diego. Please, Lord, let it be warm again!

I had my first online interview just yesterday for a web designing job. Wow! Monster.com really DOES work! Well, we'll see what comes out of it.

And the band was offered a three month engagement in Bangkok, Thailand! Well, I'm thinking about it. Three months is a long freakin' time to be in a foreign country, folks! Maybe I'll ask them if we could just do a couple of weeks there.

I'm a jazz musician and I haven't been watching that "Jazz" documentary on PBS. Isn't that sad? Well, I don't watch TV that much, and I've been to the official Jazz website at pbs.org/jazz. The idea of watching a super long documentary bores me stiff. I'm more interactive.

I might take this class in Macromedia Flash at UCSD. We'll see if I can find the time. I just want to learn something new.

I should be reading more ZEN readings but I haven't. I've been getting pretty "geeky" lately and reading up on Javascript and Server Side Includes.

My Beatles obsession has really gotten out of control. I've got five Beatles CDs in the CD changer of my SUV. The sixth one is still Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, which my older son is obsessed with. That worries me... a 12 year old into Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. Even that one is a bit much for me.

My site stats have fallen considerably. Where is the virtual love, people? Well, I must confess I haven't written here these past few days. And for that I must apologize.

And a few of you never email me anymore? Where is the love? Well, Cyn, gg, Clara, Pat, and Winnie have, and now I must make some replies.

Okay, that's it for now... keep on with your bad selves peoples!