Thursday, May 31, 2007
Secret Video: Choral Arts Society Audition, 2007
Every year, we have to reaudition to get into the Choral Arts Society of Washington. Each year brings a new kind of audition -- two years ago it was individual auditions, last year sectionals, and this year quartets. I LOVE this method! After running through scales, we read through a couple pieces we performed this season. Here we are singing a snippet of Lux Aeterna by Morten Lauridsen. I love singing with small groups, and I also love the Lux -- I'd go so far as to say it is my favorite piece of music, from any genre or time period. So, yeah. Stress-free audition.
(For personal friends of BeforeISleep.net who are not yet personal friends of Yours Truly, I am the one who starts the song.)
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Gliding in Washington, DC
Ladies and Gentlemen, after several days of anticipation and one sleepless night of editing, I present to you: Gliding in Washington, DC. Join our hero, Matt, as he meets up with the DC Segway User's Group for his first time on a Segway Human Transporter! For the first time in the history of the World Wide Web,* you will get a first-person view of what it's like to ride (or "glide") through our Nation's Capital on a Segway. Excitement! Humor! Speed! Adventure! Heckling Hillary Clinton!
Highly recommended.**
* Well, at least on my World Wide Web.
** Must be 16 or older. No one over 250 pounds, please. (Segway's limitation, not mine. I am a friend to all, including fatties!)
Monday, May 28, 2007
Cool Segway Man
After two hours touring about town on a Segway i2 today, I was an old pro. SO MUCH FUN!!! Lots of video coming soon...
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Lauriol Plaza 2007: The Video!
As promised, here for All to Enjoy is the video of last week's Lauriol Plaza adventure starring Ben, Lee, Dave, Elizabeth and me. It's a nice 27 minute video, and I encourage you to sit down and enjoy your lunch or dinner as you watch it. That way, you can pretend you were at Lauriol with us!
Topics of conversation include:
- What we're up to! (Boring job stuff!)
- One- and ten-year predictions! (Lee will have six children!)
- Who's BlackBerry is better! (Mine!)
- Whether it is possible to perform a passable karaoke version of Hotel California without any real-time musical accompaniment at all! (Indeed it is! But only if the person who starts the song has an impeccable memory of the proper starting pitch. Which she does!)
- And so on!
- Who Controls the Internet? by Jack Goldsmith and Tim Wu
- The Game by Neil Strauss
- Land of Lincoln by Andrew Ferguson
Don't forget to comment!
Friday, May 25, 2007
I'm thinking of buying a Segway
Wait! Hear me out before you start rolling your eyes and laughing.
A Segway, as you probably know, is that nifty personal scooter thing that was released with major fanfare six years ago. It still carries a retail price of several thousand dollars, but with financing (or, as the Segway marketing department groan-inducingly phrases it, FUNancing), you can get one for less than $200/month! Believe it or not, this may be more affordable than my current transportation costs:
Right now I spend approximately $3/day, average, on public transportation. Right off the bat, that's $90 a month that could be mostly eliminated. I also spend maybe $100-200/month on gas, depending on how much I drive. Assuming that averages out to 150, and assuming I could cut my car usage in half with a Segway, that's another 75 in monthly savings. Even taking into account the electricity cost to powering a Segway, it's still about 15 times cheaper than gas so the net energy savings would still be substantial.
So not taking anything else into account, I would save about 165 a month by using the Segway, which would actually balance out the cost of ownership.
(And not to give anything to Algore, but I'd also be doing my part to reign in my Pollution Footprint, or whatever the hippies and flower people call it.)
Let the insults, ad hominem attacks and questions about my sanity and extreme technolust begin!
A Segway, as you probably know, is that nifty personal scooter thing that was released with major fanfare six years ago. It still carries a retail price of several thousand dollars, but with financing (or, as the Segway marketing department groan-inducingly phrases it, FUNancing), you can get one for less than $200/month! Believe it or not, this may be more affordable than my current transportation costs:
Right now I spend approximately $3/day, average, on public transportation. Right off the bat, that's $90 a month that could be mostly eliminated. I also spend maybe $100-200/month on gas, depending on how much I drive. Assuming that averages out to 150, and assuming I could cut my car usage in half with a Segway, that's another 75 in monthly savings. Even taking into account the electricity cost to powering a Segway, it's still about 15 times cheaper than gas so the net energy savings would still be substantial.
So not taking anything else into account, I would save about 165 a month by using the Segway, which would actually balance out the cost of ownership.
(And not to give anything to Algore, but I'd also be doing my part to reign in my Pollution Footprint, or whatever the hippies and flower people call it.)
- Pros: Net cost savings. Fun to ride. Very convenient for city living where everything is within a few miles.
- Cons: Very high dork factor, possibly even too high for Yours Truly. Everyone would stare. Not practical in harsh elements (snow, rain, etc). Potential of theft.
- Response: Then again, nothing is too dorky for Yours Truly. I'd get used to people staring and maybe even use it to pick up chicks. I can leave it at home when bad weather is expected and probably still save money.
Let the insults, ad hominem attacks and questions about my sanity and extreme technolust begin!
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