I happened to be cleaning out my gear closet this evening when I found my old external studio hard drives… on them I have the original – very first and very rough takes – of my first Arrangement for Sex series of songs. To hear what they sounded like with no production and slightly arrangements is really cool.

Also included were a number of other rough demos that I never followed up on but sure as hell should have… Frankly, I’m blow away by the work that I said “eh, this doesn’t have potential…”  I truly don’t know what I was thinking. On that really sticks out to me is called “Your Soft Touch”

I’ll convert the old demos (and “junk tracks”) into MP3s and post them shortly.

Ok, I found another place to waste time.  It appeals to my inner history buff.

Letters of Note – http://www.lettersofnote.com/

The basic concept is a blogger has tracked down letters from famous, or significant, people and posted them for us to read. A great time waster and a nice way to peak into the personality of another.

Check this link out – it is the Hubble Deep Field image. In the image there are roughly 3000 objects; almost all are galaxies.

The image is a composite of 342 separate images, and only covers two parts in a million of the whole sky. Just to give you a bit of perspective…

The outline above is the section of the sky in the original picture.

Remember that galaxies have solar systems, the milky way has roughly 300 billion solar systems alone. If we assume the milky way is representative of galaxies throughout the Hubble Deep Field image, that means you and I are looking at 900,000,000,000,000 solar systems – that is 900 Trillion solar systems.

If we assume that every galaxy has only one solar system that supports life that means  there are 3,000 other instances of life (on some level) at the minimum with the potential of up to 900 Trillion others…. and, again, this is a fraction of the sky.

Anyone who thinks life is confined to planet earth needs to look at the image above and then do some reading up on probability theory.

I am a fan of history, and if you are as well I’m sure you’ll enjoy this site - shorpy.com. From simple pictures of people to high resolution photographs of the early 20th century this site has it all.

Well worth spending time over there!

Another great story of a company (FedEx) doing the right thing:

Because of caring people and a caring company, a terminally ill little Green Forest girl was flown home Friday by air ambulance from M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, so she can spend her last days surrounded by the people who love her most.

Jada Harper, who turned seven on Sept. 1, has an inoperable malignant tumor in her brain and is in a coma with a ventilator doing her breathing for her. She has been at the famous cancer center in Houston since July, but her situation is now at the point not much else can be done to help her.

Friday afternoon, Jada was flown home to the Ozarks — on a gurney, attached to the machine that breathes for her. FedEx Freight paid the $11,000 bill for the special medical flight her family was unable to afford.

Jada is the daughter of Savannah and Jason Surface and has been a student at Green Forest Elementary School. The family, which includes Lyndon, 4, and Gracelyn, almost 2, lived in Oak Grove until Jada got sick this summer, and the family moved in with Jason’s family — his mother Wanda and sister Brandy Surface — in Batavia.

I’m quite impressed that FedEx paid the the $11,000 bill to get this young girl home, even in her fragile state.  It gives me a bit faith once again…

Fans of the Venture Bros. your time is near!  Sure, the season starts in November.. but fans can get a taste of what is coming thanks to the Season 4 trailer.

I have no doubt there are many questions running through your mind.. What did I just watch?  Who is the new body guard? Are the clones of Dean and Hank really gone?

Favorite quote of the promo comes from Dean Venture:  ”I love Hitler and Hitler loves me. He’s not all bad, Hitler just needs someone to believe in him.”

Makes you wonder if the show had the balls to actually create a character named Hitler! I cannot wait to see what is in store for us.

The contract holdout by the Futurama voice cast worked – luckily.

Just to recap: When it turned out Comedy Central ordered a full season from the Futurama production company (and Fox Studios) the cable TV channel offered a salary that was similar to what the cast was paid roughly 8 to 10 years ago.  The cast didn’t much care for that and say “Yea, no… not fair”and held refused to the offer.

As a result, Fox Studios placed casting calls for a new cast and fans revolved.  Let’s face it, the show IS the voice cast.  Without the original actors there really is no show.  Well, the cast and studio managed to hammer out a contract.  Here’s what Variety has to say:

Twentieth and Comedy Central have been kicking around ways to make “Futurama,” originally produced for a broadcast network (Fox), make financial sense for a cable run.

It’s believed that the “Futurama” cast initially asked for around $75,000 per episode (a number disputed by at least one thesp), and later brought their request down to $40,000. The final number wound up below that, but above what 20th was offering. (It’s not clear what 20th’s initial offer was.)

Once again, I have something to look forward to in 2010 (right Oz?).

Well, I guess you can’t but your name sure can (thanks to NASA)!

The Mars Science Lab has opened up a form where you can submit your name.  That info will then be included on a microchip that is heading to Mars next year.  Yea, sure, it’s a fun little thing to do but let’s face it, this is the closest I will (most likely) ever get to space.

Now if we can actually overcome 40+ years of space exploration neglect, maybe a person could actually walk on mars some day.

I’m not a fan of tennis, hell, I don’t even remember the fundamentals of the game any longer BUT I am a fan of  a  good underdog story.

Melanie Oudin, a 17 year old tennis player, just finished her biggest match at Wimbledon by beating Jelena Jankovic.  So, what does that mean? Well, Melanie Oudin was ranked 124th in the world… Jelena Jankovic was 6th seated.  Basically, Melanie wasn’t expected to rollover and die as Jelena Jankovic continued her push toward the finals.

Didn’t happen.

What I find most impressive about the situation was the quote Melanie gave after her performance.

“I was just thinking that she was any other player,” Oudin said, “and this was any other match, and I was at any other tournament — not like on the biggest stage at Wimbledon. I think I handled it really well.”

It’s no big deal, it’s just another day and another match.  That is the mentality to have.  Helena Jankovic, however; wasn’t as down to earth about the situation:

“From what I have seen, she can play if you let her play,” said Serbian Jankovic.

“But she cannot hurt you with anything. She doesn’t have any weapons, from what I’ve seen.

“She’s a consistent and quite solid player. She doesn’t make so many mistakes. But she doesn’t do anything either, so it’s like she’s depending kind of on you.”

By that very logic, Jelena, either you let her win or YOU really sucked when playing her.

While I’m sure Melanie is excited about the event, and we may never hear of her again after today – I don’t know, remember, I don’t follow tennis – the humility she showed and story surrounding the whole situation is enjoyable to watch.

Every once and awhile I hear about some organization/company that truly goes out of their way to help someone. Most times, these acts are done “under the covers” and the intent is not to gain some form of publicity. It appears Pixar has just executed one such act.

Colby Curtin, a 10 year old, was dying of a rare form of cancer. In recent months her condition went down hill rather fast, and from what her parents are saying, she was really living for one reason. To see the movie “Up”.

As Colby’s condition worsened, she was unable to travel to the theater for a viewing. Her friends of the family started to utilize every means possible in order to contact individuals at Pixar. Apparently, someone within Pixar understood just how important this was to the family and went out of their way to help:

The company flew an employee with a DVD of Up, which is only in theaters, to the Curtins’ Huntington Beach home on June 10 for a private viewing of the movie.

At about 12:30 p.m. the Pixar employee came to the Curtins’ home with the DVD.

He had a bag of stuffed animals of characters in the movie and a movie poster. He shared some quirky background details of the movie and the group settled in to watch Up.

Colby couldn’t see the screen because the pain kept her eyes closed so her mother gave her a play-by-play of the film.

At the end of the film, the mother asked if her daughter enjoyed the movie and Colby nodded yes, Lisa Curtin said.

The employee left after the movie, taking the DVD with him, Lynch said.

“He couldn’t have been nicer,” said Lynch who watched the movie with the family. “His eyes were just welled up.”

After the movie, Colby’s dad, Michael Curtin, who is divorced from Lisa Curtin, came to visit.

Colby died with her mom and dad nearby at 9:20 p.m.

Among the Up memorabilia the employee gave Colby was an “adventure book” – a scrap book the main character’s wife used to chronicle her journeys.

Notice the items in bold. Colby died 7 hours after watching the movie. Making the assumption this entire story is true, Pixar is one hell of a class act. It’s good to see that somebody still cares in corporate America.