Various boring things; no need to read.

With a cool 23½ hours remaining before the deadline, last night I sent in my entry for the Turner Classic Movies Young Composers Competition. I'm moderately happy with it, I suppose, although receiving confirmation number 00000258 does worry me slightly. I was hoping for closer to 100 entries; assuming TCM started counting at 00000001, it'll probably be 300 by day's end. (On the other hand, apparently this was advertised on TCM itself, so perhaps a fair number of the entries are complete amateurs who thought, hey, why not, how hard can it be to write music.) So, projected odds of me being one of the 10 semifinalists: 5 to 1. Projected odds of me winning it all: 60 to 1, which still gives me a $160 expected value on seven or eight hours of work, so I can't complain too loudly.

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We guessed wrong, Kim.

The best commercial on TV right now isn't directed by Michel Gondry. It's directed by Spike Jonze channeling Michel Gondry.

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Only in "The West Wing"...

...can the Republican candidate for President be a pro-choice atheist.

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I am green.

Kim's parents have tickets to Letterman tonight. (We think it's for tonight's show, but we're not completely sure, as he tapes both Thursday's and Friday's shows on Thursdays.)

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Our summer vacation.

We threw around a lot of ideas on this one -- Hawaii, a Caribbean cruise, the Florida SeaQuest trip, random states we haven't visited before (North Dakota! Idaho!) -- but we decided a couple weeks ago on Los Angeles plus San Diego. I've never been, Kim hasn't been in years, it's relatively cheap (especially since we'll be using Kim's United miles for our otherwise expensive tickets), and, you know, North Dakota. Of course, Disneyland will slightly less fun than if we'd gone four months ago -- Kim actually has to pay attention to the "pregnant women should not ride this attraction" signs -- but still, it should be a fun trip.

Steve Taylor updates of the week.

A new interview, and his movie's website.

Zoom zoom zoom.

Kim's brother, who is the proud owner of an orange Honda Element that crashed nine days after he purchased it, made me aware of the pretty new Honda Element color scheme: Boring gray, but with with blue paneling. <Lorelai>Pretty</Lorelai>. But the non-gray paneling only comes in the more expensive package.

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I am at the 94.1st percentile in my ESPN men's college basketball pool (166,146th place), and I can go even further up if North Carolina beats Louisville for the championship. If, say, Illinois wins, however, my percentile will drop dramatically, which leads me to my major complaint regarding college basketball pools: the scoring system. Doubling the number of points per victory (PPV) each round (1 for a first-round victory, 2 for a second-, 4 for a third-, etc.) is ridiculous, as it gives equal weight to picking the eventual winner as choosing the winner of all 32 first round games, or picking all 16 Sweet Sixteen teams correctly.

A much better system for scoring is The Fibonacci System, whereby the PPV for every round (starting at rd. three) is obtained by adding the PPVs of the two previous rounds. Thus, rather than:

1-2-4-8-16-32

we have:

1-2-3-5-8-13

Which seems much more in line with the actual skill/luck necessary in each round.

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Miss Congeniality 2 is exactly what you think it's going to be. But worse.

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There is no way we could afford to buy our current house (purchased a scant 17 months ago) if it were for sale today. The Western Henrico housing market has simply gone muy loco.

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Soon, Kim and I will tell those of you who do not know a certain something the aforementioned something. But not today.

My first recording session.

This, from my contact at GIA (the publishing company releasing my first two full-choir handbell pieces): "I'm hoping to have [the proof of 'There Is a Balm in Gilead'] ready for you to look at in about a couple of weeks. It is currently scheduled to be recorded on April 25th and I do want you to review a proof prior to that recording session."

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Bad graph of the day.

Ugh.

Fives.

Five characters I don't particularly like on TV shows I do.

Lt. Randy Disher, "Monk"
Ross Geller, "Friends"
Martin Prince, "The Simpsons"
Sookie St. James, "Gilmore Girls"
every female ADA after Jill Hennessy, "Law & Order"

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Five characters I like on TV shows I don't particularly.

Claude Casey, "Less Than Perfect"
Lionel Herkabe, "Malcolm in the Middle" (recurring)
Scott Joplin, "Saturday Night Live" (recurring)
Kevin Liotta, "Just Shoot Me" (recurring)
Ian Stark, "Stark Raving Mad"

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Five subject lines in my spam folder.
"Like Atkins and Weight Watchers at the same time"
"Renovate Your Smile"
"Re: /H86WX-F/Pharma.accy"
"The Ultimate Condom Sampler - No charge"
"?"

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Five things sticking to my monitor.
A blue Post-It Note from someone asking me to fix a program on their computer.
A yellow Post-It Note with someone's e-mail address.
A list of telephone extensions for everyone in the office.
A list of codes for the office copier.
A sticker that reads "ECOLOGY ENERGY EMISSIONS ERGONOMICS TCO 99."

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Five lists in this post.
Five things sticking to my monitor.
Five characters I don't particularly like on TV shows I do.
Five subject lines in my spam folder.
Five characters I like on TV shows I don't particularly.
Five lists in this post.

One more completed. I guess.

Here is a final MP3 piano reduction of my piece for the Meistersingers contest (on the right-hand side, as always), which I am sending in today. I am not completely happy with it, but I never am, even with the one that won the BotS contest, and besides I am happier with it than my Yale piece, and I sent that in, and I am running out of time, and I still have to do my TCM piece in the nine days left this month, and Kim's family is coming over this weekend, so. I am calling it quits on this piece, and thus I am printing it out and mailing it over.

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Please keep my Uncle Cal in your prayers. Thank you.

Sadder day.

We will not be discussing Saturday's and Sunday's games on this journal. No. But we can discuss the tournaments in general.

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This from USA Today: "With school on spring break, Bucknell could not assemble its band for this weekend's games in Oklahoma City. For the first round, Northern Iowa's band stuck around after its team's first-round loss to Wisconsin on Friday night, donned Bucknell T-shirts and played both ends of the doubleheader."

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I'm at the 91st percentile in my ESPN men's pool, going 26-32 in the first round and 9-16 in the second. (Given the upsets, my second-round score was surprisingly respectable.) My overall chances still look pretty good, since all four of my Final Four teams (the three non-Washington no. 1s and no. 4 Louisville) are still alive. My women's bracket's looking interesting; despite going a so-so 24-32 in the first round, all 16 of my Sweet Sixteen teams are still kickin', so we'll see how today and tomorrow go with that. (I'm retrospectively worried that I picked none of the no. 1 seeds to make it to the Final Four, however.)

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Okay, obviously it didn't work well on Sunday, but Iowa State's three-quarter-press-to-half-court-zone-trap was pretty really awesome on Friday. I am so going to use that once I become a college basketball coach.

Test.

This is just a fun testing thread.

Mix the bourgeoisie and the rebel.

Negative two points if you know where the title for this entry comes from.

Anyway, multiple music things:

a) I have my list of contests up on this temp blog, only because I find it very useful to have it in front of me on a regular basis.

b) I mentioned a few weeks ago that the men's choral contest I was working on an entry for might not actually be giving a prize this year, which ticked me off because I was virtually done with my composition before learning of this news. Anyway, this has just been posted on the contest's website: "I received a message from [the contest chair] implying that he is still planning to issues some awards this season for the AMCA Choral Composition Contest....[The contest chair] indicated, for various reason[s], that he would be extending the deadline to May 15, 2005 (instead of March 15)" That is good, because it means it looks like there will be a contest. But that is bad, because it looks like they are extending the deadline another two months, which means they will probably get more entries, which means my chance of winning is lessened. So.

c) As I said in my last entry, I am more-or-less done with my Meistersingers contest entry, titled "Psalm 88." Here is a MIDI file of it, which does not have rit.s and a tempos and cutoffs and, you know, singing, but does at least let you hear my wacky chord progressions.

d) The plan for the rest of this month, musicwise, is to do the Turner Classic Movies contest (high reward, only need to compose one minute) and probably nothing else (Kim's parents are coming into town for Easter, the house needs to be cleaned this weekend, etc.). I’m hoping to find a second contest to work on for next month, but I haven’t yet been successful, other than a couple with both low prizes and high registration fees.

Hello.

Hello. This is Matthew's temporary blog while some glitches are being fixed in Matthew's permanent blog. No comments, no fun right-side links, but at least some writing from me, which is all you really care about, no? [Obviously no longer applicable -- mdp]

Various from the past week plus:

a) I had a week-long cold, during which I coughed and hacked up approximately 3 gallons of mucus. Finally, yesterday I gave in and went to a non-dentist doctor for the first time in nearly six years, where the NP (I couldn’t actually see the doctor unless I wanted until Thursday) diagnosed a bacterial sinus infection and gave me some antibiotics. Now I am hacking up much less than I was before. Yay me. Perhaps tonight, with no fear of keeping her awake with my coughing, I will even sleep in the same bed as Kimberly (which I’ve done one night of the past seven or so).

b) Despite my sickness, Kim and I went to the National Mixed Curling Championships on Sunday up in D.C. It was pretty awesome, although the setup was somewhat odd: There were four matches going on at the same time on four ices that all abutted next to each other (so that they almost made a square), and all the seating/standing was at one end of all four ices -- thus, since they switched sides after every end, you either had a good view of the release, or you had a good view of the point-scoring circle. (Curling experts, please laugh at my incorrect vernacular.) Attendance about 100, mostly fans of the Maryland team (duh). We sat behind the wife of the Wisconsin skipper, and eavesdropped on her explaining some intricacies of curling to another couple. Highlight I’m sorry I missed: Earlier in that session, Alaska scored five points against California in a single end, despite California having last stone. I mean really.

c) I do have one piece more-or-less done of the two or three I was trying to finish this week, although it was for the $1000 choral contest rather than the $10,000+ other contests; alas, the best idea I had was a choral one, so. I’ll post a MIDI file sometime.

d) Please join my NCAA men’s and women’s pools. I’m using ESPN because it has a women’s pool. The name of both groups is “How Perfectly Swell,” and the password for each is “happiness.” (Two points to the first person who tells me why.)

e) Both the ISU men and women have sucky second-round games. I mean really sucky. I mean really, really sucky. I think I’d rather play Illinois than N.C., and I know I’d rather play any of the no. 1 women’s seeds than Stanford. Ugh.

f) If you would like to comment on this post, e-mail your comment to me (mdprins@yahoo.com) and I’ll append it somehow.