But truth, cher ami, is a colossal bore.
- narrator, Camus' The Fall
...



...

LEST I AM JUDGED FOR THIS
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mini updates:
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    dear reader/listener/viewer/enjoyer/co-conspirator:
    lest i be judged for it, i inform you now that this project continues to be a scratch pad, a space for experimentation

    in other words, enjoy what you find here, and feel free to participate, but try not to take anything personal, and don't believe that this project presents an accurate view of me or my life

    this is a window, certainly, but one that hasn't been cleaned in quite some time

    your view may be foggy, obscure...you may see things that aren't really there...

    --harold

    want some background music?
    please consider downloading my most recent music podcast.

    and yes, i love my mom and my dad;
    they've always been good to me, no matter what impression you may have received here

    they never locked me in a cellar or anything

     
    highlighted post from the archives: me rambling about a new job (from two years ago)
    i recently messed with the archives, so they may not work correctly, but you may take your chances:
    December 2002 January 2003 February 2003 April 2003 May 2003 June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 December 2003 January 2004 February 2004 March 2004 April 2004 May 2004 June 2004 July 2004 August 2004 September 2004 October 2004 November 2004 December 2004 January 2005 February 2005 March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 June 2007 July 2007 August 2007 September 2007 November 2007 February 2008 March 2008 May 2008

    i once was an active member of the

    association of music podcasting

    musicpodcasting.org

    along with these fine music podcasters:

    all florida indies - bing futch
    audio gumshoe - rich palmer
    audio popcorn - krash coarse
    aural icebergs music cast - tiffany rapplean
    capital rock show - bucket aka jason
    darkhorse radio - alan carr
    ears to hear - jill lawton
    eclectic mix - george l smyth
    homegrown podcast - nic treadwell
    indiefeed - chris macdonald
    le jazz affair - sal calfa
    rubyfruit radio - heather smith
    sober cafe podcast - gracie hollombe
    sundown lounge - larry winfield
    tempo of the down - harold (that's me!)
    the darkcompass podcast - rowland cutler
    the fabrications podcast - matt macfarlane
    the phill(er) - phill ramey
    the radiozoom podcast - john bollwitt
    thepillarcast.com - jon tucker
    uc radio podshow - michael yusi
    zaldor's world - les zaldor

    ¡the text on this blog wants to leap out of its borders!

    this is...

    something that happened

    stories by harold j. johnson, in various formats - including text, audio, video, and podcasts
     
     
    Tuesday, May 31, 2005  

    Dear friends, if you've got BitTorrent and are looking for some entertaining videos to download, I can point you in the right direction. Don't waste your time downloading Star Wars; it's probably a great movie so I'd advise watching that one on the big screen (unless you're as poor as me or your ass is in jail). My advice is to browse on over to Prodigem.com and download Berkeley Laptop Thief. This short video is an entertaining glimpse inside a Berkeley classroom on an untypical day; a professor of genetics finds his laptop stolen and delivers a dramatic lecture intended to provoke the thief into returning the computer. Once you've enjoyed the video a few times, I'd recommend reading about what happened next or checking out some folks's comments on the matter. 5/31/2005 08:31:00 PM (0) comments





     

    Smile and you just may feel happy; have you heard that
    one before? In a recent recording, a podcaster
    familiar to many reminds us of that simple technique,
    waxing philosophical on the ancient question
    (unanswered by too many). I agree with that Dave; his
    method is sound. Yet how does one fix the smile that's
    pulled downward by weak and dying cells? They say it's
    less work to smile than to frown; the loss of strength
    makes any work painful, any work at all. A price is
    paid for a gesture.

    5/31/2005 08:17:00 AM (0) comments





    Monday, May 30, 2005  

    The world is still backwards in my neighborhood. Wish I could report more, but I'm too tired. Thanks for sticking around; I'll return to regular programming soon. In the meantime, have you heard Lance yet? 5/30/2005 10:54:00 PM (0) comments





    Saturday, May 28, 2005  

    It is a surreal experience, witnessing this process, a
    dying at home. I feel at times uncertain of my role,
    that I don't belong here, somehow trespassing,
    violating what is perhaps the most private of
    experiences, that final time together. Yet I am
    requested here, and perhaps needed. He's otherwise
    alone as she struggles upstream, and it is often
    horrifying: the oxygen tank and its tubes, the mixture
    of awareness and confusion in her face, attempting to
    live while gradually moving toward those inevitable
    stages of acceptance and loss of breath.

    5/28/2005 09:47:00 PM (0) comments





     

    Thanks for putting up with my poetry, posted remotely from a cell phone. You may find short posts like that here on Something That Happened from time to time. (You may also find the capitalization of the phrase something that happened changing from time to time as well. Why? I dunno; I guess I'm just nutty in that way. Hey, this is my experimentation, alright? Of course you never know when your feedback is going to change that.) 5/28/2005 01:57:00 PM (0) comments





    Friday, May 27, 2005  

    Grand, a bridge as roof for those who call the sidewalk "floor", the street "den". Downtown live people, without Internet.

    5/27/2005 11:36:00 AM (0) comments





     

    They tried to get into our home today; we could hear them trying the doorknob. I guess you could say it's a good thing for them they didn't get that door open... 5/27/2005 08:42:00 AM (0) comments





    Wednesday, May 25, 2005  

    While searching for information on Amazon.com, I stumbled upon this very funny short film, The Smartest Person Who Ever Lived. 5/25/2005 11:48:00 AM (2) comments





    Tuesday, May 24, 2005  

    There's a question that has not been asked but deserves an answer anyway. To the hypothetical question, "Why do you read so much?", I answer, "Because I don't want to look back on my life, perhaps my one life, and say Goddamn I watched alot of television." 5/24/2005 08:54:00 PM (0) comments





     

    this is an audio post - click to play

    An update on the current situation, and light chat about a coffee shop in Eagle Rock, California (my hometown).
    5/24/2005 02:46:00 PM (0) comments





    Sunday, May 22, 2005  

    Dying is a part of everyone's life - it's perhaps the most central event that binds us all together - and you can accept it and call it natural and put a positive spin on it if you must, but it can also be an ugly, mechanical and unnatural-seeming process, especially when it takes place in a hospital, tied to machines.

    Perhaps more rotten, however, is the toll the process can take on loved ones. For example, the man who has difficulty letting go of the guilt of being human, of needing rest during the dying process, of needing breaks to eat, of needing to take care of himself. The man who neglects taking his own medicine, who senses himself losing his mind from lack of sleep, who risks his health and life because he feels guilty about leaving his wife's bedside for a moment.
    5/22/2005 08:18:00 AM (0) comments





    Saturday, May 21, 2005  

    I may be noticeably absent for awhile. (Though usually when a blogger or someone else with a dynamically-updated website says they'll be absent, they begin posting stories or updating their content more than ever.) Something has come up, one of life's inevitable horrors. This horror was not unexpected, however, though the timing was unclear. It's also possible there will be some type of recovery. It's possible, and time will only tell.

    This has nothing to do with my mother, by the way, whose condition is unrelated to the event of which I am speaking. Mom is still miserably tucked away in a nursing home. Hopefully I'll be able to change that soon, now that she's spent two years officially disabled and will finally qualify to receive Medicare.

    My best advice for anyone out there without medical insurance: have a hellot* of money; either that or move to Canada.

    Hellot is a word I made up, a blend of helluva (hell of a) + lot.
    5/21/2005 08:59:00 PM (0) comments





     

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    Thursday, May 19, 2005  

    Somebody edited a Wikipedia entry on inventor Nikola Tesla to state that he "had the biggest schlong out of all of his brothers". At least he's finally getting recognition for something...

    Along with his other assets, Tesla was a brilliant inventor, providing us with the ideas - if not the patents - for radio, alternating current (AC), and that lightning machine you see in old horror movies, the Tesla coil. Unfortunately, he wasn't a very shrewd businessman, which is one reason we don't know his name as well as Edison, Marconi, or Franklin. Hopefully future textbooks will change that.
    5/19/2005 10:28:00 AM (0) comments





    Wednesday, May 18, 2005  

    Good morning (I say to myself now and to anyone reading this in the future). I'm glad I'm subscribed to my podcast feed, otherwise I'd be missing all those Something that Happened podcasts that aren't listed here on the site yet (and may never be)...

    If you're unfamiliar with podcasting, make sure to visit my site audioblogs.info, where I introduce you to podcasting and explain how it works. Also, don't be shy about contacting me if you have any questions about how to subscribe and listen to podcasts, et cetera.
    5/18/2005 07:50:00 AM (0) comments





    Tuesday, May 17, 2005  

    My girlfriend was riding the bus today and couldn't help noticing the little person sitting near her wearing a shirt which carried the website address for Rent-A-Midget. Now that's using size to advantage! 5/17/2005 09:30:00 PM (0) comments





    Monday, May 16, 2005  

    Since first hearing about Infinity Radio adopting an all-podcast format for it's San Francisco radio station KYOU (at 1550 AM), I've been considering submitting my podcast(s) for inclusion in its broadcast (which is called Open Source Radio). I mean, who wouldn't want to hear their voice on the radio, even if it is AM? Even Dave Winer's podcast was broadcast on the station; but but Dave's situation is different, as he didn't submit his podcast and was somehow able to secure the rights to his podcast, while other podbroadcasters may be in for a headache of legal trouble.

    I work hard on my podcasts - the good ones, that is - and I spend a great deal of time both on pre-and-post-production, too. It's a full-time job if you want to do it well - that is, if you want to put out quality podcasts. I'm not saying I have the best quality sound; I've certainly got a lot to learn in that respect. I'll also be the first to admit that my content sometimes begs much to be desired, which is why I don't always offer my audioblog posts as podcasts. (I don't believe everyone wants to hear every last thing I have to say.) Yet once in awhile I really hit my stride with a recording, and it's usually after I've put in a ton of effort. I'd have a real problem submitting my work to an entity (such as Infinity Radio) not knowing whether I'd be able to use my own work however I please in the future.

    Until Infinity Radio makes it absolutely clear that podcasters will retain the full rights to their works, and that those works will not be used by Infinity in any respect beyond broadcast on KYOU without my own exclusive permission, I won't be submitting my work to the radio conglomerate. Not my work, mind you, but perhaps I'll submit a podcast I didn't put too much time or labor into - and under a pseudonym, of course.
    5/16/2005 10:58:00 AM (0) comments





    Sunday, May 15, 2005  

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    Thursday, May 12, 2005  

    Time. It's precious, and I hate when it's wasted. Right now I'm pissed because I spent the entire day trying to get my computer up and running again after rebooting it yesterday to see if I could get an audio editing program called Audacity to become usable again. It seems Audacity (or my computer, or whatever the freakin' problem was) decided to begin acting flaky right as I was in the middle of project; now I can't even get the computer running again. Fuckin' eMachines. I've had problems with this computer since I purchased it just over a year ago.

    Do I seem angry? Damn straight I'm angry! After dealing with this nonsense all day, I decide to save some time (and maybe a little money) by ordering a pizza using an Entertainment.com discount coupon. The coupon didn't print out correctly on my computer, so now I have to contact Entertainment.com's customer service department to recover that coupon (which you can only print out once). I'm not blaming anyone else for that; it's my own damn fault I decided to try printing that coupon on this broken computer. I'm simply frustrated and upset that this entire day has a been wasted.

    So what does cognitive behavioral therapy tell you to do? Readjust your perspective. In other words, look at this event in a positive light rather than as a day wasted. I was about to type a long rejection of that concept, based on the lack of value I see in spending a day in front of a computer learning absolutely nothing. Yet I just realized that I have learned something: never buy a freakin' eMachines again! All kidding (perhaps) aside, I've probably gained some insights into the formatting options available to me in Xandros' distribution of Linux. I've also learned not to try printing a document unless you've absolutely made sure you have that Flash application installed when the website is telling you do so...
    5/12/2005 05:55:00 PM (0) comments





    Wednesday, May 11, 2005  

    Whoa. Oprah is pretty heavy today. Not in the physical sense; today's episode of Oprah is heavy, "The Day I Found Out My Husband was a Child Molester". Frightening stuff. A far cry from the frivolity of "The Wildest Dreams Bus", which just aired yesterday. I guess they figured they should tickle our tummies with something from the nurturing end of the spectrum before delivering an uppercut with this nightmare of an episode.

    Nightmare or not, everyone should watch this episode. If you weren't able to watch it you can always order a tape of the show from Oprah.com or download someone's TiVo recording of it online using BitTorrent. (If you opt for the latter, wait a few hours from now and then search for it online using your favorite search engine.)

    Yes, I'll admit, I watch Oprah from time to time. What can I say? I'm my mother's son.
    5/11/2005 03:34:00 PM (0) comments





    Tuesday, May 10, 2005  

    this is an audio post - click to play

    ONEsite offers one year of free website hosting; the package also includes a top-level domain, an email address, and a blog. After the year is up, ONEsite will determine whether your site qualifies as a personal site or a business, at which point you will have to pony up thirty-five dollars a year if it's the latter. Still, that's not bad.

    If you're a student or an educator (or even a faculty member at a school, I would guess) with a .edu email address, ONEsite will up the ante to five years of free hosting. Okay, now I see a failing business model here...you may be better off going with an established web hosting provider, one that's likelier to be around in a couple of years.

    It all depends on what you're looking for, really. If you're an individual who wants to share your nasty habits with the world through a website, or if you have a small home-based business selling beads and you don't already have a website, ONEsite may be the way for you to go. If you're an Internet business selling software services or something like that and your business depends on having a highly reliable website, then you should already know what to do and you don't need me to spell it out for you.
    5/10/2005 09:33:00 PM (0) comments





    Monday, May 09, 2005  

    Monday's perspective is a bit more...gray...than Saturday's view from my front porch. It's amazing how the camera's eye understands little of the world's color when there's not much light for it to take in. As gray as the day is, I see a bit more color than this particular image would indicate - perhaps I accidentally had the camera set to take grey-scale images or something!

    Dad lightened up the day, however, by offering his horseracing tips during a SkypeOut Internet phone call I recorded. [3.7 MB MP3 stream or download]
    5/09/2005 12:53:00 PM (0) comments





    Sunday, May 08, 2005  

    I woke up with a terrible headache last night, absolutely horrible. I can't remember the last time I've had a headache this bad, or if I've even had one this bad before. Perhaps it was the result of that codeine pill I took last night, or the huge quantity of sugar I consumed while preparing my chocolate chip cookie bars for mom. (Those cookies that I've been munching on all day today, knowing that they're intended for mom.)

    This headache frightened me. It's difficult to describe the sensation that took hold of me last night, a keen combination of pain and panic. Stroke gripped my imagination, a thought particularly poignant in light of mom's ailment (and its possible stroke-inducement).

    Perhaps this explains my silliness with the pizzaman. [.7MB MP3 stream or download]
    5/08/2005 06:56:00 PM (0) comments





    Saturday, May 07, 2005  

    this is an audio post - click to play

    Eavesdrop on my being playful with my girlfriend.
    5/07/2005 08:19:00 PM (0) comments





     

    That image of a palm tree is this morning's perspective while standing just outside my front door. There's quite a bit I can complain about this shoebox I call home, but I can't really complain about the view, now, can I?

    So before I get out and enjoy the day (yeah, right, like I ever get out anymore), let me inform you about another perspective. I've finally completed Session 03 of Tempo of the Down, that space exporation-themed downtempo podcast of mine. (If you have your iPodder/podcatching application ready, here's Tempo's podcast feed.)

    Forthcoming will be an extended version of Tempo including a new RSS feed to add to the existing one. Not certain what RSS is? Here's a simple explanation of RSS feeds. Once you understand what those are, come back here and subscribe to Something that Happened's RSS feed, too.
    5/07/2005 11:54:00 AM (0) comments





    Friday, May 06, 2005  

    this is an audio post - click to play

    Ridiculous arguments and poor behavior.
    5/06/2005 03:54:00 PM (0) comments





     

    The Ben Walker I "SkypeStalked" yesterday may or may not be the same fellow that is behind the Theory of Everything radio program, but no matter; whichever Ben Walker this is, he contacted me yesterday to let me know that even though he didn't have a microphone, he still found our "conversation" interesting, LOL.

    Today I expect to be working on Tempo of the Down, but I may have time to make one to two Skype calls. Who knows, maybe that next call will be to you...that is, if I had your Skype address...
    5/06/2005 08:54:00 AM (0) comments





    Thursday, May 05, 2005  

    this is an audio post - click to play

    An audio post about Michael W. Geoghegan's Disneyland podcast and people lining up in my town to see Star Wars.
    5/05/2005 06:26:00 PM (0) comments





     

    I fired up the Skype Internet phone service today and produced two podcasts:

    Neither of these is recordings are anything to write home about; they're basically me playing with Skype and its SkypeOut feature. Still, I had fun recording, and perhaps my pleasure can be transferred to you through them.

    Worth mentioning, however, are the artists mentioned/used in these recordings. The music heard in the background of "Cinco de Mayo SkypeOut" is by Mambotur; the song is called "Pachecho (Nortec Collective Verbo Mix)", and I found it on the Pacheco Remixes EP. The artist I refer to but do not mention the name of in "SkypeStalking Ben Walker" will hopefully be named in the near future. I want to check with the fellow first to make certain he wants to be known; I also need to see how he's going to make his short film available so I can refer you to it.
    5/05/2005 04:43:00 PM (0) comments





     

    You may think it is unkind to refer to someone as "the drunk", yet I mean that in the kindest possible way you can imagine. You see, years ago I attended an AA meeting at which the speaker bluntly referred to himself as a drunk, unapologetically and without "prettyin' up" his alcoholism. He referred to it in the present tense and offered as explanation something to the effect of I'm not going to be calling it what it ain't - I'm a drunk and I'll always be a drunk and there's no shittin' around about it, though hopefully I won't have another alcoholic drink again in my lifetime.

    I don't remember if he explained it like this, but it always seemed to me that by referring to himself as a drunk (rather than as a former drunk or an alcoholic), the man was reminding himself not to bullshit himself. In other words, once a drunk always a drunk - so don't even try kiddin' yourself that you can handle that one tiny little glass of gin & tonic or that one can of lite beer.
    5/05/2005 12:19:00 PM (0) comments





    Wednesday, May 04, 2005  

    Ah, yes - a new story finally surfaces from the drunk, who might be helping me stay sober with his podcast. (Certainly he's keeping me entertained.) 5/04/2005 08:06:00 AM (0) comments





    Tuesday, May 03, 2005  

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    Monday, May 02, 2005  

    Reading Anand Lal Shimpi's nice long article about Tiger, the new Mac OS turned me on to an Instant Messaging app I hadn't yet heard of, Adium X.

    See? It's good to read, folks. Of course, you already knew that, else you wouldn't be here.

    So did you hear "Dream Job (Part 2)" yet?
    5/02/2005 01:08:00 PM (0) comments





    Sunday, May 01, 2005  

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    Sunday morning at the coffee shop, the caffeine kicks in and I'm blabbing about words. Yes, words; in particular, the origin of words and the role of dictionary definitions in the construction of language. Well, sort of - I don't get too deep since I only have five minutes of recording time. (Thank goodness for that, huh?)
    5/01/2005 07:33:00 AM (0) comments





     
     

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