underblob

Better photo this.

Celeste painted this elephant mounted above Ryan’s painting between my Yamaha BB1200 and Gibson archtop.

Recently got the myTouch G3 phone with Android OS by Google. It is a lot of fun. I got it to speak French. There is an application that you can get from the Market called Rings Extended. It is free to download and install. Rings Extended allows you to assign ringtones from all of the audio files on the phone, not just the default Android ringtones.

Next, I went to Yahoo! Babel Fish since I can’t actually speak French myself. It traslates as best as it can from one language to another. Translate phrases like “incoming telephone call” to “appel téléphonique entrant”, etc. Copy the French phrase from Babel Fish and go over to AT&T’s speech-to-text demo page (see the links below). You can paste the text in and select to have it spoken in French by the Juliette voice and it will create a .wav audio file for you to download.

From here it gets pretty obvious… USB or Bluetooth your phone to your computer, copy the files over and then choose the ringtones for your different applications.

Now my phone sounds sexy and everyone thinks I’m super-cool when I get a call or (nerd) alert….

Links

Android OS by Google
Yahoo! Babel Fish
AT&T’s Text-to-Speech Demo

My glasses where could they be?
My glasses parted my face without me?
I search the loss of origins very high and barely low
My glasses then can allow me show
I struggle for structure here
In this simple soliloquy and prose
But where are my fucking glasses?
O hey, wait… they were on the fucking stove
Seriously, what the fuck?

Religious freedom is protected by the constitution of the United States along with freedom of speech. Anyone has the right to proclaim, discuss, or speak about their “god” in any public place in the United States. To make any certain “god” or any certain “religion” a mandatory requirement would be an oppressive infringement on the rights of others to retain their own beliefs without suffering the implied fear of conformity to the established rites of the dominant culture. Pray to your “god”, it is legal. Enforce rules to make me pray to your “god” instead of my “god”, it is not legal. Remove “god” from public school curriculum entirely and therefore remove the struggle of dominance and intimidation. It clears the way for learning, as school is meant to be an institution for education and not an institution for endorsing religious beliefs, dogma, or doctrine. Mandating a definition of “god” does not belong in school. Grammar and math and geology and physics and chemistry belong in school. The belief in “god” is something that is inherited through the family and traditions of each individual citizen. If a person wants their children to learn about their “god”, they should take them to their church or temple or synagogue or mosque or full moon bonfire. Send them to school to get educated about communicating and perceiving the world around them.

When my Grandmother died, I cried my fucking face off for days… and drank a lot of whiskey. I loved her more dearly than anyone and it was the greatest loss that I have suffered in my short life here on earth. When we got to the funeral, to my heartbreaking dismay, I was not allowed to grieve her death and mourn with my family. Instead I was made to suffer through a brimstone hellfire sermon and sternly told that I will burn and be tortured to suffer in hell for eternity for not being a believer in my family’s faith of choice. I was denied my emotions. I was denied being a human being. I was castigated and cast apart from life and family by that ceremony. I was infuriated and disgusted and remain so to this day. I do not believe in my family’s “god”. The personal denial that I suffered at my Grandmother’s funeral is allowed and accepted among family but that level of struggle, denial and rejection does not belong in any school or public establishment.

My own personal belief is that my family’s brand of religion is a social and psychological control mechanism to keep the congregation complacent and passive and disconnected from their true selves. It helps society to run along smoothly and keeps the humble cogs from finding their higher selves and breaking out of the machinery. Breaking out of the machinery is freedom for some and destruction for others… it’s been a lot of both for me personally. I can not deny that doctrine is a good and helpful thing for those who cannot perceive its true purpose or muster the bravery of accepting the unknown that lies beyond abandoning faith. But if you are able to see beyond the comfort of its oppression, you can find the truth. It is difficult. It is painful. It is real. It is freedom. It is my god.

The view was pretty amazing so I took a quick vidy on me celly. The higher you go, the more bones and charred trees you see, the tighter the buzzards start to circle. Also, I made this hike on no sleep the night before so I was having a vision quest sort of experience at the time.

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This sign is next to the trail near the summit in Griffith Park.