DVR, Hallelujah!

When we turned on the DVR just now it was recording the season premiere of The Biggest Loser. I had no idea the new season was starting this week! The trusty DVR knows. The trusty DVR records. Hallelujah.

The Gunslinger

Not too long ago I picked up the graphic novel The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born. I liked it and was disappointed to find out that the library didn't have any other books in the series.

The last time we were at the library I decided to pick up the actual book--The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger by Stephen King. I have just finished the first volume of Stephen King's seven volume epic novel. Wow. The book was written by a 19 year old King. Only one thing in the book got onto my (so easy to get on) nerves. The story reminds me of The White Mountains, one of my favorite childhood novels.

I'm so impressed that I think I'll keep reading. The first four volumes are 2,000 pages in paperback. The first was only 300 pages. I'll have something to read for a long time to come.

Someone once told me I have a great American novel inside of me. I thought it was a really odd thing to say. I've often wondered if it is true. I don't consider writing one of those things that I'm really good at, but I think I'm better than average. I've started that novel more than once, but like everything else in my life, I never follow through. I never finish anything I start (pondering that has gotten me extremely depressed lately).

Like Simon Grim I'd like to find out that I'm really good at something. I'm afraid I'm as useless as Henry Fool.

Yoga Practice

I'm trying to be more regular about my yoga practice. I went to yoga today--third week in a row, but I need to do yoga more than once a week.

It didn't smell like taco bell in the studio today. Well, it might have, but I put some (good) smelly stuff under my nose so I wouldn't be distracted by any funk. Today we did more work against the wall. The best thing we did was wheel with our toes up against the wall. Then we put one foot up against the wall, and then the other. I got my right leg straight up, but my left foot was stuck up on the wall. The teacher helped me by lifting up my left leg and then she said to flip over. Oh! I thought the point was to get up into handstand. I tried it again and was able to do it on my own. The teacher said I should be able to flip over without the wall soon. I'll have to try that in the living room!

The other thing we did against the wall was forearm stand. Well, I didn't do it, but I attempted it. I tried and tried to kick up from dolphin pose, but just didn't get there. I was totally jealous of the guy that could do it without the wall and the girl that came down into scorpion pose.

I didn't do camel pose because that's the one pose that is really uncomfortable since I pierced my neck. I also pulled up out of a half backbend against the wall. I just feel like I'm choking. I'm going to try and do at least 30 minutes of yoga a day. Hopefully that will get me back into shape and help me progress toward more challenging poses. Yoga is one of the only things that I feel like I'm good at, and if I practice I know I can get even better.

Nothing Has Changed

We just finished watching Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip. I've always loved Richard Pryor. I grew up on his movies, but I don't think I'd ever seen his stand up stuff (not exactly child appropriate). I was mesmerized by Pryor's candor and somehow found his jerking movements graceful. The performance was filmed in 1983. Pryor talked about how racism needs to end and how nobody, not even blacks, should use the word nigger. Funny, but it seems nothing has changed. I don't think we've progressed much in the last 25 years.

Whites still tiptoe around blacks afraid to offend, lest they be labelled racist. Oversensitive blacks find racism in everything whites say. This summer I had some totally frank and open discussions involving race with the interns from Ross's company. There were no eggshells to tiptoe on. I felt so free, so liberated. It was such a foreign feeling that I was uncomfortable. I found the whole situation hard to embrace, but I wish that's how it always was. People, friends, having fun and laughing together. No holding back, no trepidation, no offense meant or taken.

At age four or five when I asked my mom to explain the civil rights movement I was totally appalled at the idea of discriminating against someone because they are different. I asked my mom when it happened and when I realized it happened in her lifetime, I was in complete disbelief. I thought it must have happened hundreds of years ago. How could people advanced enough to go into space be dumb enough to discriminate against people whom I just saw as fellow humans?

I'm going to try and go back to that five year old mentality, even if some say that in itself is racist. At five my life wasn't ruled by fear. I was happy.

Wally World

I discovered a new website called peopleofwalmart.com. I have trouble with it loading half of the time, but when the pictures do load they are pretty horrific. They are so bad that I had a nightmare about them. We all hate going to Wal Mart, but there is usually a cake wreck or wal creature that makes me chuckle. Well, now you can get a dose of wally world without ever leaving your house.

The Book of Tea

I just read The Book of Tea. It was amusing and very educational. It not only chronicles the history of tea, but how tea has changed the world. It has three sections: Tea Gardens, Time For Tea, and The Taste of Tea, each authored by a different person. I now have a much better understanding of life of tea. My interest in buying a tea set was reawakened, as was my enthusiasm for drinking tea. Maybe one day there will be a Brown Cat Bakery, with an adjoining Brown Cat Tea shop.

MP3 Ringtones for My T Mobile Samsung

I went to the T Mobile website to browse through ringtones. I tried two different computers and two different browsers and could not listen to any of the ringtones. Ross suggested I make my own ringtones and send them to my phone via blue tooth.

I spent a lot of time yesterday clipping mp3s into short ringtones only to discover that my phone does not allow mp3s to be used as ring tones (converting the files to wav and aac didn't work either). I became very grumpy and frustrated. After hours of google searches, reading, and trying different things I successfully turned one of my mp3s into a ring tone.

1. First I had to cut the mp3 into a ~30 second clip. I used the free WavePad Sound Editor and that worked just fine.

2. I converted the mp3 clip to a 3gp using the ImTOO 3GP converter (again, free).

To do this I selected Blackberry 3GP video from the drop down profile menu.

--I clicked the icon next to profile settings and changed the advanced audio settings to:

audiocodec: mpeg4acc

bitrate: 128

sample rate: 22050

channels: 1 (mono)

volume: 100%

disable audio: false

3. I saved all these files to a shared folder so that I could use the blue tooth on Ross's laptop to send the file to my phone. The file must be less than 300kb to be used as a ringtone (so I double checked to make sure before sending it).

Now I can make my own (completely free) ringtones in just a couple of minutes. Who knew I could get so technical? I guess that's what happens when I get frustrated and stubborn.