DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

Don’t let Bush and Cheney lie to you — conservation is a very real means to an end. I always thought I was pretty energy conscious, but even so I was able to easily carve a substantial chunk out of my electric bill.

This graph shows my total KWh usage (top line) versus PG&E’s “baseline” usage (bottom line) for the past five months. My lifestyle has not changed dramatically… I am not living in the dark or eating from styrofoam plates. I simply replaced a dozen incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescents, and became more vigilant about turning off unused devices, including computers. The result is visible: nearly a 40% drop in total KWh consumed.

I suspect some of this savings is due to the change in weather over the past few months. However, the whole county grew warmer, and the baseline KWh allowance did not change radically. This tends to indicate that the weather is not solely responsible for my drop in consumption, or the baseline ought to register a 40% drop as well.

PG&E’s proposed pricing changes impose penalties for usage over baseline, so the convergence of these two lines translates to real dollars saved. Sure, I spent some money on CF bulbs, but those are getting cheaper all the time, and I only had to buy them once.

It’s true — that camera is significantly smaller than my

A few weeks ago I was reading through Jonathan Mover’s extensive discography, and I saw a band with an intriguing name, the Wine Field. I scammed a few tracks via Napster and liked what I heard, so I emailed the band and ordered two of their CDs. They didn’t ask me for a credit card number — just sent the CDs with an invoice.

That amazes me. Practically speaking, I guess they’re willing to risk not getting paid, so long as their music gets out there. Still… I respect them for having this trust.

This is a confounding groove. There is no kick on the downbeat, and the ride accent is on the offbeat, creating a pattern that feels good to play and makes your guitar player look dumb when he comes in an eighth-note late.

I composed this with both feet on the kick pedals. This approach is valid and possibly easier to play than what is written here (in which the kick is played with one foot while keeping a steady downbeat chirp on the hi-hat with the other). Either way, this is a 4-limbed pattern.

The ride is split between two sound sources — ride/bell, ride/china, remote hats/stax, cowbell/bass player (works best on small stages), etc. Emphasizing the offbeat helps throw the perception of time off by an eighth, if you’re into that sort of thing.

    1 e + a 2 e + a 3 e + a 4 e + a
RC  o   O   o   O   o   O   o   O
SD    o   o   O   o   o     O o   o
KD      o o     o   o   o o     o 
HH  o       o       o       o       

Patronize these links, man:

• Virtual Drummer loop
• MIDI
• MP3

From my perch on the middle treadmill, I have a clear view of the lat pulldown machine at the gym. This is the most popular strength-training machine in the room, by a factor of about 2 to 1. I’m not sure why that is, but just about everyone does a set of lat pulldowns, whereas very few people approach the bench press, possibly because it’s a lot harder to choke yourself to death with the pulldown machine.

Sometimes it seems like half the residents of this town stop by the gym to do a single set of lat pulldowns (but nothing else). If all these people had good form, tourists would think the town was inhabited by aliens — for no matter what people’s native body type would be, thin, fat, athletic, pregnant, whether they’re toddlers or wheelchair bound, they’d all have bulging biceps, rhomboids, and latissimus dorsi.

But alas, good form is not in abundant supply. If each instance of someone using the lat pulldown machine were represented by a musical note, the gym would be a a cacophony of atonal noise. Which might be an improvement over the “lite jazz” muzak playing on the stereo actually. I’ve seen people twisting, hanging, bouncing, whipsawing their torsos back and forth in an effort to simply pull the bar down. The average set of 12 reps is completed in less than 8 seconds. I think that all these people could instead go eat a piece of pie for 8 seconds for all the good this is doing them.

Please don’t misunderstand — I have nothing against pie. I just don’t treat pie as a strength-training device. Pie is not a critical element in my fitness regimen. As a general statement, I can say there is no entry on my training chart for “pastry.”