Give the Jew girl toys. Funny little song by Sarah Silverman about Santa. I chuckled heartily. Found it on Metafilter.

Just remembered an odd dream I had last night. I was driving, by myself, up through some parts of Southern Missouri (which I have no real experience with, other than driving up 71 to go to Kansas City). So, I find this kind of youth center at this church, and some kids are hanging out. 17 to like 19 or 20 year old type kids. Anyway, they're obviously in some crappy band, because there's all this equipment laying around.

And then I see it.

It's a bright orange what appears to be a Korg MS-20. Which is wierd, because they were never made in orange. And it had a vocoder module.

Anyway, in the dream I seriously contemplated just taking the damned thing. I mean, these kids obviously weren't using it for anything important. I wanted that thing so bad I could taste it.

But I couldn't do it. And a part of me hated the fact that I couldn't.

It's not the first time I've ever dreamed about a synthesizer that didn't exist.

Zehegabq. That's the word I had to type to verify this. Sounds cool. Like a Star Wars alien or somesuch.

Strange bookstore anecdote. So I was working today, and this very odd looking young lady comes in. Kind of Eastern-European/Gypsy looking. Dressed kind of Edwardian with a touch of Bohemian. Wierd eye makeup/fake tattoos on her face. So she kept looking at things and kind of closing her eyes, like she was meditating. The first thing that leapt to mind was that maybe she was 'feeling' the auras of things to see if they'd make good presents. Then I thought maybe she got her hands on some really good shit, if you know what I mean.

So, I put it out of my mind. About 10, 15 minutes later, Mike tells me we have a zombie. So I'm like 'Zombie, what zombie?' It was that lady. She had sat down in the floor by the magazines, writing on one of the benches, and put her head down and fallen asleep.

When Mike and I woke her up to see if she was ok, she claimed it was a bad reaction from some really strong antibiotics. I offered to call someone for her, but she didn't want us to. So I got her a PDR so she could look up her medication.

There's this really cool art experience that I read about yesterday, called Unsilent Night. Basically, this composer makes CDRs or tapes of ambient tones and sounds, and gathers a whole bunch of people with boomboxes for these events. Everyone loads up their boombox with a different tape or CD, and as they're walking through the streets, they become the experience. Pretty cool.

Self-organization is something I've been pretty obsessed with lately (reading about and contemplating), and a completely untapped potential for putting those 'intelligent design' dorks in their places.

Been contemplating where I'm at, versus who I want to be lately. I've decided that I'm a pretty bad Buddhist. I don't have much self-discipline, and my practice is crap. Also, there was a time when I had more 'slack' for lack of a better word, and to borrow a term from Mike and his brethren. I'm definitely lacking in 'slack' lately, and it sucks. Maybe 'slack' isn't quite the word I'm looking for. Taosit wuwei, maybe? A certain zenlike 'flow'? I don't know. There's a certain disconnect from my most true self that I've been feeling lately.

Don't quite know what to do about it.

Cool abstract art project using data from Unreal Tournament, by Alison Mealey. Very interesting. Kind of in the same vein as QQQ.

Oh yeah. And war on Christmas my ass. Seriously. This holiday positively permeates the cultural landscape in America. Go anywhere in the next month in a public or semi-public space, and you will have a very good chance of hearing a Christmas song, or see some form of Christmas decoration. I'm very tired of hearing that same old song and dance and sad rhetoric from the right-wing. Christmas is not threatened. Oh yeah. And Bill O'Reily and his ilk are exactly the type of tards I'm talking about here. Saying 'Happy Holidays' is a polite and nice thing to say. Not a bold endorsement of Sodomites and child rapists. Idiots.

In the 'I've noticed a lot lately' category, comics sure seem to be hating on each other lately. Here's Joe Rogan calling 'Carlos Mencia' and Dennis Leary joke-thieves. And here's David Cross giving Larry the Cable Guy what for, and a discussion on Metafilter about same. Vitriol, to be sure, but deserved, it seems.

In other news, those of you who mess around with VST instruments, check out ChordSpace, a very cool VST that allows you to play MIDI chords at the press of a button. In Live this can be very very useful, especially when coupled with some MIDI effects like arpeggiation or randomize.

Many of you have probably already seen Alive in Joburg. But if you haven't, watch it. It's a short film that's kind of like Alien Nation, only in South Africa. Very cool. Found it at Milk and Cookies.

If you're awake right now, you should be listening to Star's End. Seriously. Just sayin'.

Also, Saul Stokes is going to be playing a live show on Star's End coming up in March I think, after playing at the Gatherings Series in Philadelphia. There's an open remix project for Saul's next album which I'm going to try my hand at. Should be fun.

I know some of you loved the music from Doctor Who, done by the Radiophonic Workshop of the BBC. Get LoFi had a cool story about the Radiophonic Workshop. There's a very interesting documentary from BBC4 linked. Worth watching (despite the creepy guy in the background of some of the shots).

I totally love Delia Derbyshire. What an amazing lady she was.

Made a killer salmon vindaloo tonight. Thanks Ken and Jess for the vindaloo spice. I already miss you guys.