Are you getting strange calls that ring for all of 2 seconds, then disconnect? Filling your call history? Friends finally prodded me to find out who has been annoying me thusly. These are the culprits:

http://www.telefund.com/contact.html

Caller ID: 1-617-292-7701
Caller: Telefund

Firk, ding blasted robo-callers!

How many licks does it take? Apparently, a three-day fast consuming nothing but cayenne pepper, maple syrup and lemon juice gives results as if you’d fasted on nothing but cayenne pepper, maple syrup and lemon juice for days.

Paul’s ahead by 3.1 pounds as of today, each and every ounce due to that blasted fast.

I practice drums a few hours per week. Of course, I understand I will never actually be good practicing that little, but it’s the amount I enjoy right now, so I do it.

Anyway, an interesting thing happened in my last jam session. I gained a tiny bit of limb independence!

Here’s how it happened. I started laying a simple rock groove, doing eighth notes on the high hat, kicking the bass drum on beats 1 and 3, whacking the snare on beats 2 and 4, and releasing the hats on the last eight of the measure to get that “tssss” sound. It’s a basic rock groove, one that (with the exception of the hi-hat pedal) every Rock Band drum player learns very quickly on “Medium” difficulty.

And right there–in the middle of concentrating on a smooth rhythm, making the hats chick closed at the exact time of the bass kick, etc.–I thought to myself, “I should add a double kick on the ‘one AND’ and ‘three AND’ beats.” Almost as fast, I realized I was actually thinking about an “extra” sound I could add *while playing.*

Folks, if you’ve never tried to play drums, involving both hands and both feet, each doing something different, but still coordinated…let me just tell you it can be a challenge. So, for me, having enough presence of mind to actually think about doing something even a touch more advanced–while doing what used to occupy my full attention–is really cool.

That’s how I’ve learned almost everything in life, and how I know I’m ready to learn some more: when the thing I’m doing suddenly becomes easier. My skills don’t tend to slowly build; they come in breakthroughs. When I have the presence of mind to realize I’m in a breakthrough, I try to capitalize on it.

Anyone know a good drum coach?

So, I have a pretty effective anti-spam solution in place on my email server, rejecting over one thousand emails per hour using simple blacklists, then ignoring another dozen more by the simple expedient of requiring their SMTP implementations to be compliant. I have to admit, when I first heard of Postgrey, I thought it couldn’t be very effective. After all, how hard is it for spammers to just use compliant software? Apparently, they just can’t be bothered, so the vast majority of spam is rejected because it comes from known spam senders, or ignored because the spammer won’t queue up a retry request.

Please, people, for the love of all that is good and holy: STOP RESPONDING TO SPAM.

Sixth overall pick in the NHL entry draft: Oliver Ekman Larsson. He’s a Swedish offensive blue-liner who can quarterback a power play and move the puck. Here’s hoping Phoenix can continue their growth.

In Phoenix.

Bob McKenzie at tsn.ca called the first five picks, in order, back in February. Scary.

So, in a fit of temporary fiscal insanity, I wandered in to Guitar Center to see if I could make the bass drum sound more like a bass drum and less like a sheet of plastic film stretched over a cylinder.

To my pleasant surprise, a 20″ Evans EMAD drum head runs a little over $40. I expected a new drum head to cost a lot and maybe sound a tiny little bit better, but I was too conservative on both topics.

Have you ever tapped on the cone of a speaker? One of the ways to test a speaker for its bass response is to lightly tap the bass cone and listen to the resonant sound it makes. A deep sound means the speaker is more naturally “tuned” to that deeper frequency. A higher tone doesn’t necessarily mean less bass, but lacking any other test, it’s an indication. For more about Q values, and SPLs and Vas and such, see a speaker building site.

Anyway, when I held up the Pearl Rhythm Traveler bass drum head and tapped on it, I got a sound reminiscent of the cheap sound effect method for thunder in a school play (you know where you take a big piece of sheet metal and rattle it around?). Holding up the EMAD head, a tap on its surface resulted in a satisfying thump. A few turns of the drum key later, my bass drum now sounds deep and bass-y, and that makes me upbeat and happ-y.

So, Andy at the Oxnard Guitar Center will get another visit from me soon to order the EMAD resonant head to match. It’s a ported drum head to give a little more attack and a little less sustain. It’ll only cost 30 bucks or so. See, musical instruments are cheap. So how come I have no cash ever since I bought my drums?

So, I was all proud of myself yesterday when the scale finally showed a number beginning with”30.” I’ve been plateau’ed at around 311 for a week and a half. Yesterday, I finally got a 309.something reading, but today I’m back. Sigh.

On another note, the free cymbal arrived from Zildjian. It’s the 18″ ZBT crash. Zildjian has a cool configurator tool that lets you drag cymbals around a virtual drum set and click on them to hear samples. That’s such a great idea. Not that I mind a Guitar Center run, but for a beginner, the options are a bit overwhelming. The ability to go online and hear “my” cymbals compared to others is a real boon. The dogs still run and hide every time I sit down on the throne and pick up the drumsticks, but now I can make more noise than ever!

So the duel between Jim Balsillie and the NHL continues. The bankruptcy judge ruled on Monday to hold a two-tiered auction structure for the Phoenix Coyotes: one tier to happen first for owners committed to leaving the team in Arizona, and a second tier–if the first fails to attract a sufficient bid–for everyone else.

At this point, I hope Balsillie loses again, just because he keeps trying to do something the league doesn’t want. Do we really need another team in the area?

Of course, I’m biased. I’ve always said I’d be in attendance the first time the Coyotes make the playoffs. Arizona is much closer to LA than Hamilton, Ontario…

…to get to the center of a fifteen pound weight loss? More specifically, how long does it take? More specifically, can I do it before someone else can?

I’ve been following the Hacker’s Diet, which calls for the dieter to weigh every day and apply a weighted, floating average to the daily weights to produce a “trend weight.” As every dieter knows, you can go a few days in a row being very disciplined and still show a weight gain on the scale. The Hacker’s Diet accounts for that by trending your weight to produce an overall measure of your calorie deficit.

It’s a good thing, too, since the last four days, my weight has climbed slightly, then held still. My calorie intake estimates show about the same amount of discipline as before, but the scale is not cooperating.

So, the last few days have been a good example of why we Hacker’s Dieters remind ourselves, “The trend is what matters. The trend is all that matters.”