Jason Pearce

Mom continues to crank out new music for flute choirs. This time she surpised me by dedicating a piece in my honor called Quicksilver Rag.

Quicksilver Rag

A brisk but not rushed tempo and precise dotted patterns will help depict the impish merriment of this piece. Composed in the style of popular American ragtime music that was in fashion from about 1890-1915, it exhibits stylistic syncopated rhythms.

Quicksilver is the common name for mercury, which is sometimes called “living silver” because of its liquid form. Thus, we have a quartet of silver flutes performing fluid ragtime!

The upper three quartet members take turns playing the melody while the fourth part “does its on thing”. A few legato measures with even eighth notes provide contrast in the middle section. Either alto flute or bass flute is needed to play the fourth part and measures #1 and #67 can be repeated as a vamp if desired.

This composition provides the performers with an enjoyable musical interlude while teasing members of the audience into tapping their feet and smiling along.

I’m not sure why I received this honor. The only thing I can think of is how I used to love Quicksilver clothing (aka “rags”) when I was a skateboarder in my Junior-High years. Thus, “Quicksilver Rag.” But I like her explination much better.

Thanks Mom, I look forward to hearing it performed someday.

I’ve been playing a lot of Halo lately with some of the Lambda Chi Alpha staff. Co-worker Joe Klimek bought a nice plasma TV about a month ago, which seemed to have spured more Halo.

It’s really amazing that a game created in 2001 has a) kept my interest and b) is still the best game that I’ve ever played. We’re all eagerly waiting for November 9 when Halo 2 is released.

Some of us need you Master Cheif.

On a similar note, I continue to enjoy the Red vs. Blue episodes. RvB details the life of two rival camps of soldiers, the Reds and Blues, who spend their time ruminating about life, the universe and everything, stationed in separate bases in a creek called Blood Gulch; the most popular multi-player game within Halo.

The series is unusual because it is created using the actual video game. The animators simply use the high-quality graphics engine of the game to create a believable animation world. It is akin to digital puppetry.

If you play the game, you’ll love Red vs. Blue.

Looks like my neighboor had a fire yesterday. Her stove, most of her kitchen cabinents, and some other items are all charred and stacked outside for garbage collection.

Her unit touches mine, but her kitchen does not. She hasn’t had much luck lately, for she also experienced the sewage backup in May. The backup trashed most of her garage.

This time, my place seems just fine. Glad her fire wasn’t much worse, for I could have come home to charred underwear, melted CD/DVDs, and black walls.

Remember Earl Brown? You know, the Peace Corps country director in Guyana who sent me home for maintaining this personal website? He still has it in for me; poor guy.

The GUY10 group’s, the 23 volunteers I started my tour with two years ago, close of service is in August. Some have already returned to the US and a few will stay past August, but most will be coming home.

According to my sources, Earl is allegedly refusing to permit the remaining volunteers from including my name on a farewell t-shirt that we’re creating to remember our experience and friendship. A t-shirt the volunteers and I are paying for and creating for our own personal enjoyment.

The simple presence of my name is allegedly so upsetting that he’ll discipline whomever chooses to print it on the shirts against his will.

It’s sad when someone could get sent home for having a personal website or sending a personal email to friends and family. But it’s even more sad that a t-shirt that simply includes my name along with a list of 22 others could bring a similar fate.

Thankfully, Earl’s service as country dictator will also end in August, or soon after. Perhaps the remaining volunteers will then be able to better focus their energy on helping the Guyanese and less time worrying about how the Peace Corps might be looking for an excuse to send them home.

Keep my name of the shirts guys. No need to have a t-shirt become an ET-shirt (Early Termination - Shirt).

RadioParadise.com is the single-best radio station I’ve ever listened to. It offers a wonderful collection of creative, eclectic, and diverse music that no FM station would ever offer.

I’ve been listening to the station for about a year now. Often, as I would hear a song or artist that I liked, I’d pop on over to Amason and add the album to my Wish List. About a month ago, I decided to act on this list and decided to buy all of the albums that were priced (used) less than $5. $200 and 40 CDs later, I’ve discovered 20 new artist and rediscovered the other 20. What a fantastic collection.

I can’t wait to buy more.

I’m so hooked on RadioParadise that I’ve programmed my Xbox to automatically play the station when it boots up. And for those of you who know me, I turn on my Xbox quite a bit. Now when I come home, I just turn on my Xbox and instantly get to hear my favorite Internet-only station.

Here’s how I do it.

• First, you modify your box and install Avalaunch as it’s new operating system.
• Next, open up “avalaunch.xml” in your text editor.
• Edit the XML sound tag to match the following:
  <sound>
    <backgroundmusic enabled="4" cdda="1" cdmp3="1">
      <path>F:\shoutcast\sample.sc</path>
    </backgroundmusic>
  </sound>
• Pay attention to the “enabled” attribute/value and the folder that sample.sc must reside in (the drive may differ, but not the folder).
• Save your changes to “avalaunch.xml” and ftp it back to your Xbox.
• Next, retrieve “F:/shoutcast/sample.sc” and open it in a text editor.
• Simply throw in a list of your favorite streams, save, and ftp back to your box. My list looks something like this:
  http://64.236.34.67:80/stream/2001
  http://64.236.34.196:80/stream/1018
  http://64.236.34.4:80/stream/2002
  http://64.236.34.196:80/stream/1065
  http://64.236.34.67:80/stream/1038
  http://64.236.34.4:80/stream/1040

How did I find the URLs of the stations I like to listen to? Easy. Visit Shoutcast.com, right click on the “Tune In” button for your favorite station and select “Save Link As.” Open up that file in your text editor and you’ll find the URL. It looks something like this “File1=http://64.236.34.4:80/stream/1040″.

Next time you boot your Xbox, Avalaunch will automatically look to sample.sc and begin playing the first station if it can establish a connection. If you want to switch to the next station, press the left joystick in and Avalaunch will switch to the next station in your list.

Enjoy.