Rock Stars

http://www.psw.ca/rpepper/rockstars/

Shroom asked me at the Harbronsoneheckuvaholidayhullabaloo if I had drawn anything recently (apart from the Christmas quiz pic). I recalled later that I had quickly drawn these caricatures for a project a Gr. 8 girl was doing on Rock Music c. 3 years ago.

I realized that I had scanned them quite a while ago, but just needed to crop and resize them.

I like some of them -- such as Bob Dylan, but the resemblance in others (such as Huey Lewis -- one of the giants!!) is pretty sketchy.

Can you list all the dead ones? Can you describe how they died? (Be specific. Whose vomit?)

They are in alphabetical, not chronological, order.

The finished project:

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My Tree

I wasn't going to have a tree this year. I didn't really have one last year either. Frankly, I was and still am somewhat depressed about my "divorce". Now maybe some of you think I shouldn't be, or that I deserved it or whatever, but, be that as it may, it still has taken the edge off the celebrations for me.

And so the bother of buying a tree or going out and taking one from Elizabeth Regina didn't feel worth it.

But on Christmas Eve I was driving through the Northwood Mall parking lot and the tree-seller had put up a sign on his remaining trees, ordering me to take one for free. So I did.

The tree-seller revealed his respect for both Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism by using the Chi and spelling it "Xmass". I was impressed.
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My tree history (including last year's lame attempt) may be viewed at my geocities website.

Some Quiz Answers

Click the pic for a larger version.

How many things "wrong" can you spot in the above picture?
By "wrong" I mean Biblically or historically inaccurate or doubtful (assuming it's intended to represent a scene early in Christ's earthly life).

1) Joseph has three eyes -- assuming that is Joseph. Maybe Joseph has gone for a break and the 3 eyed innkeeper is visiting. Maybe Joseph did have three eyes! However, I would have thought Matthew or Luke would have mentioned it.

He also has only one leg (or is standing on only one).

2) Some people thought that the kneeling figures had only one leg each as well, but my intention was that we would assume that the back leg is obscured by the front one.

3) Some people thought that it was wrong that there were only two Magi, but we don't know how many there were, only that there were "some".

4) Those ugly blobby things on their heads are crowns. I don't think kings wore big crowns like that back then, but then Scripture doesn't say they were kings. So maybe those are legitimate ugly Magi hats.

5) Some people were concerned that the pig didn't get a halo, when every other being inside the stable, including the horse-like thing, did. (I'll deal with the pig being there later.) Well, haloes are, I believe, an artistic representation of the holiness of the person. It depends on what sort of reality and representation thereof we are accepting for this depiction. (I'll deal with that issue later, too.)

Anyway, haloes were dispensed by artists according to various schemes. I think that poor Joe doesn't always get one. I've never seen a haloed horse in a picture, but arguably Balaam's ass deserved one. (That's a straight line for you commenters.)

In any case, Scripture doesn't indicate that any of the visitors saw any haloes, whether the family (and animals) were holy or not.

To be continued. This is only the Fourth Day of Christmas after all.

O no! It's Christmas!

Well, St. Stephen's Day actually.

Maybe I'll blog about prezzies etc. some other day. I want to post a pic of my tree and reflect on that, but it'll be up for the 12 Days anyway. So later.

Just wanted to mention that I'd sung "Happy Xmas/War is Over" yday in our little church service around the table at the back of the sanctu-torium.

That's by John and Yoko, as you probably know. I theorize that all the good parts of that song were written by John and that lines such as "let's stop all the fight" were written by Yoko (leading to the breakup of the Plastic Ono Band).

I think it's curious too (about myself) that I feel weird singing the "yellow and red ones" bit, but then I theorize that Yoko wrote that -- or certainly okayed it, and so, since she's "yellow", I shouldn't feel awkward about it.

But then I don't feel awkward about Jesus loving all the red and yellow, black and white children of the world in the Sun. School song. I'm not sure what all this means about me (except possibly that I am in flux, transition, growth, backsliding or progress or all at the same time, including stagnation, otherwise known as being "solid").

And what's with "And so this is Christmas...another year over. A new one's just begun."? What calendar were they following? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think that even fits with the Christian Year. In the West that begins with Advent. In the East it begins in Sept. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liturgical_year

Theory: J & Y wrote this between Jan. 1 and Epiphany, aware that it was still in fact Christmas (using the Chi to represent Christ, of course), but were speaking of the new secular year.

Or I suppose you could say that on Christmas Day a new Christian year is only 4 weeks old and so has "just" begun.

Don't worry. I'm not really losing sleep over this. THIS IS SATIRE. DON'T SUE ME YOKO (even if I do believe you broke up the Beatles, the Plastic Ono Band and, let's say, Petra, too)!

Christmas Dinner in Church Basement: Dec. 25/05

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Christmas Play 2005

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Scrooge

You see, it's "Sim" not "Sims" and that's not even my favourite version, but somehow I know that. So I figure I can be indignant. (Follow me?)

Anyway, I think my favourite version is Blackadder's Christmas Carol (or "Kweznuz" as Baldrick spells it).

I sat down a couple of weeks ago contemplating watching my usual Christmas movies from my childhood (Charlie Brown, Grinch & Rudolph) and none of them appealed to me. I think the more cynical, edgier(?) humour has taken me over.

So, I did watch Blackadder and enjoyed that (including "Hagrid"'s part). Then I felt I'd give Jim Carrey's Grinch a try. That was enough to make me want to watch Karloff and I did enjoy that after all.

"Freestyle" played the sound track yday on CBC-1. It must have been a remastered version or something, because the songs by the Whos were much easier to understand and therefore appreciate.

So then I felt a twinge of desire to watch Charlie Brown and did so. It was okay, but (realizing that they were ordinary children voicing the characters, sometimes a few words at a time) Lucy's flat rejoicing over money ("nickels, nickels, nickels") and Sally's "All I want is what's coming to me" are now embarrassingly painful to me. (Why should I care?)

I still can't bring myself to watch Rudolph -- partly because the version I bought is missing a couple of scenes,

but mainly because in it Santa is such a jerk!! "You should be ashamed of yourself, Donner" (for siring an usual offspring whose "deformity" is in no way harmful anyway?).

Santa, you are a jerk!

Have a Merry Messy Kweznuz!

Another Lurker Appears

I guess Pamela must have found me through the Disenfranchised Housewife (Carla) route. (She replied to my Dec. 19 post below re. my early drum machine recordings.) Yep, I remember "Jack Daniels" (KA or TW?) on the attendance list. Too bad Amanda Hugginkiss didn't show up that day.

I just tested the longest song on that post ("Kindness") by right-clicking and choosing Save Link (or Target) As to see if it might stall (as Robin says psw.ca has been doing). It didn't. Is that the method you used?

Sim City

Twice today I've heard media personalities say that their favourite version of "A Christmas Carol" is the one starring Alistair "Sims".

May they be deluged in indignant emails.

OK OK Shroom. I'll Post Something!

Monday afternoon I went on-line to Wal*Mart to order some prints I need for the Christmas cards the St. Tom's kids made on Sunday. The system was a new one (done through a different company?) and it was a bit buggy and slow, but I did receive my confirmation email.

Now it's true that I didn't actually receive my "your order has arrived" email & phonecall, but I stopped by Wal*Mart anyway, since 24 hours is usually a reasonable amount of time for this process.

They hadn't received any on-line orders that day, because (they said) there was some kind of glitch, due to upgrading to this new system.

Well, so far I miss some of the features of the old system, but I'll give it a chance.

But I did send customercare an email suggesting that this time of year was a poor choice for a switch to a different system. I rec'd a form response re. the status of my order and no comment on my comment. Okay, that is pretty much all I expected.

But I thought I might as well tell my story.

Wal*Mart Wal*Mart Wal*Mart

This is not satire. (Cue entrance of whiney-voiced Wal*Mart lawyer.)

Defragging my cholesterol level

So, I took Robin's advice and defragged my laptop's HD in safe mode, while I was working in my youthworker office at St. Tom's. Now, I easily could have sat there the whole time and just watched it (but I didn't!), because I find it very pleasing seeing everything being put in a nice, neat, compact order (apparently). I say "apparently" because I don't know how much the graphic actually represents something going on.

And how does it know what to do? I gather that it is not anything at all near AI, but simple a combination of if/then commands. But that raises the question in my mind of whether "real" intelligence might just be the same thing, but on a far more complex scale.

It interests me that defragging seems to take far more time on the first 10% than on the rest of the files. Especially, after 50%, it seemed to really zoom along. I think there could be some life analogies I could draw here, but ...meh.

I stopped by SilverCity to finish my Christmas shopping last night. On the way in I spotted Jen and Jamie Silen and chatted with them a bit. They mentioned to me that they'd heard that the Hullabaloo will be the 29th. Today's email confirms this.

Then I saw Kev K, Dean B, Andrew Bickmore along with Renny Maki inside. Andrew, Renny and I went to Seattle for coffee. I eliminated Tim H's as a possibility, because I didn't think I had enough cash on me. Actually, I was mistaken, but too bad for Timmy's.

Mike "Ledge" Minor was at Seattle with his parents (and some Poniatowskis).

This morning I attended a workshop on reducing Cholesterol (doctor's orders) at the hospital. It was a PP presentation and a video. The presenter gave us a handout with printouts of each slide beforehand, but did a good job making her comments not redundant. Besides she was cute.

She did leave the room for the video and I don't blame her: Mr. Dyed Hair Man standing 3/4 body but full face to the camera with lame almost-puns. We were frequently admonished to be "Heart-Smart Shoppers". It lacked only Troy McLure.

No one cares if Caesar was a king ...

but the Tim Horton's debate rages on ... even bringing apparent lurkers out from the woodwork. Hi, Marko! How's it going?

Richard

Why RP Shouldn't Be Allowed Near a Drum Machine

...or why Churchill ISCF attendance dropped off in the early 90's.

Some "early crap" recordings of mine:

ISCF Announcement (Handel's "He Trusted in God")

Another Version (Mozart's Requiem: "Kyrie Eleison")

ISCF Kickoff Announcement

ISCF Spring Banquet (Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" and Vivaldi's "Spring")

Famine Jammin' (for 30 Hour Famine)
Mike Not-a-Moron later parodied this!!

I also did a grad banquet announcement with Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance #1(Is that right?) in the background, but why torture ourselves further?
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And I'm slowly working on Tim's list. Here's Kindness.
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Oh yeah and here's "Keep Christ Out of Christmas", in which I guess I found it hard to sing "couldn't" clearly. (That's for Shroom.)

Oh yeah, I scored on Friday.

I had some help from Biggest Al, even though he was actually trying to stop me.

St. Thomas' Pri/Jr. Youth Sun. Dec. 18/05

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St. Thomas' Hand Bells Practice: Sun. Dec. 18/05

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St. Thomas' Sr. Youth with Lakehead Baptist: Sat. Dec. 18/05

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Carolling and Face Sculptures with Lakehead Baptist Youth

Matty getting masked by J-Le

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RP Self-Portrait

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