The Syndicate

Elon Musk has a company who's goal is to create an interface between computers and the human brain.

>me: we need to find some study rooms at music schools in Bucharest to keep rehearsing for the competition
>Mom A: I'll make some phone calls, maybe we can find a restaurant that has a piano

If you don't hear from me ever again, it means I didn't make it mentally through this upcoming trip.

Ricochet wrote:>me: we need to find some study rooms at music schools in Bucharest to keep rehearsing for the competition
>Mom A: I'll make some phone calls, maybe we can find a restaurant that has a piano

If you don't hear from me ever again, it means I didn't make it mentally through this upcoming trip.

Hahaha I wouldn't trust Mom A, not for a minute. And I guess she thinks the diners would enjoy listening to you coach Kid A while he plays the same thing over and over. Good luck!

juliets wrote:

Ricochet wrote:>me: we need to find some study rooms at music schools in Bucharest to keep rehearsing for the competition
>Mom A: I'll make some phone calls, maybe we can find a restaurant that has a piano

If you don't hear from me ever again, it means I didn't make it mentally through this upcoming trip.

Hahaha I wouldn't trust Mom A, not for a minute. And I guess she thinks the diners would enjoy listening to you coach Kid A while he plays the same thing over and over. Good luck!

20 minutes in
Mom A already makes pics of me lying in my sleeping car bed, the size of a coffin

IT
HAS
BEGUN

Is this real life

Ricochet wrote:

juliets wrote:

Ricochet wrote:>me: we need to find some study rooms at music schools in Bucharest to keep rehearsing for the competition
>Mom A: I'll make some phone calls, maybe we can find a restaurant that has a piano

If you don't hear from me ever again, it means I didn't make it mentally through this upcoming trip.

Hahaha I wouldn't trust Mom A, not for a minute. And I guess she thinks the diners would enjoy listening to you coach Kid A while he plays the same thing over and over. Good luck!

20 minutes in
Mom A already makes pics of me lying in my sleeping car bed, the size of a coffin

IT
HAS
BEGUN

Is this real life

No escape from reality.

Yay, the adventure has begun! I hope you can stream some movies. And maybe Mom A will send you the pics and you can show them to us! Good luck!

Rico, report in on your trip! Or come to chatzy today and report in.

Weirdness in the Sockface household. We received a package yesterday addressed to Alex and Annie Browne. It contained a board game. But... we didn't order any board games. And as of yet I have not had anyone confess to sending it to us. We're going to try it out this afternoon. It would be nice to know who sent it and why so that we can at least say thanks. Talk about random...

Spacedaisy wrote:Weirdness in the Sockface household. We received a package yesterday addressed to Alex and Annie Browne. It contained a board game. But... we didn't order any board games. And as of yet I have not had anyone confess to sending it to us. We're going to try it out this afternoon. It would be nice to know who sent it and why so that we can at least say thanks. Talk about random...

If you hear African drums emanating from the board game, DON'T PLAY IT!

LOL, someone else made a Jumanji reference on my fb when I posted about it there.

Spacedaisy wrote:Weirdness in the Sockface household. We received a package yesterday addressed to Alex and Annie Browne. It contained a board game. But... we didn't order any board games. And as of yet I have not had anyone confess to sending it to us. We're going to try it out this afternoon. It would be nice to know who sent it and why so that we can at least say thanks. Talk about random...

What game is it?

Vast: the Crystal Caverns

Never heard of it but I looked it up and it sounds like a lot of fun.

Is this a slow period for the syndicate right now? A lot of the games are slow moving, though I'm not helping too much myself

Our fun little mystery was solved. Russtifinko and his lovely lady were behind it.

8am. get texted. jump out of the bed, could be important contest stuff

BOOK

seeing if I can post here, to test if it's a thread issue or a site issue.

Ricochet wrote:8am. get texted. jump out of the bed, could be important contest stuff

BOOK

It's 6:58, almost noon your time, and I haven't seen anything about how it went! Let us know!

And haha on the tweet!

Imma copypasta what I wrote in the Shred FB group, I dont have computer access till tomorrow nor much desire to go in more detail

~~

Kid A played the meh-est he could have played. He was also more anxious all of a sudden.

Third prize. Best prize was a mile ahead, and yet it only received second prize, which was wyrd.

I should view stuff in a positive light, but since I am kaiju nervy Richorse, I feel pretty frustrated by my inability to make Kid A receptive, inspired, able to play richly and expressively.

I made him study this last stretch as intensely as I've been taught myself. I kinda feel these days were all a waste.

Mom A now suddenly thinks "it's ok, Kid A won't ever be a concert pianist. We can just let him be and he'll become a composer, since he likes to write and stuff." One trial itsy-bitsy concert and she's jumping already to this verdict.

Mkay.

I once entered a piano competition.

I won.

Instead of spurring me on to greatness, it scared me away from ever doing anything like that again, lol.

It's ok, I liked percussion better anyway.

I was also in a piano competition and came in second. Scared the living daylights out of me. Never did it again and quit piano soon after.

juliets wrote:I was also in a piano competition and came in second. Scared the living daylights out of me. Never did it again and quit piano soon after.

Haha, see, you get where I'm coming from!

juliets wrote:I was also in a piano competition and came in second. Scared the living daylights out of me. Never did it again and quit piano soon after.

Why would you quit?

I love playing the piano. I think in some respects I like it more than the guitar (shh, don't tell my guitars). However, I do have a problem playing in front of people, but it isn't related to nervousness: I am used to my damned keyboard at home, so a real piano feels substantially different to me, and I tend to make mistakes.

"I don't do anything commonly"

Epignosis wrote:

juliets wrote:I was also in a piano competition and came in second. Scared the living daylights out of me. Never did it again and quit piano soon after.

Why would you quit?

I love playing the piano. I think in some respects I like it more than the guitar (shh, don't tell my guitars). However, I do have a problem playing in front of people, but it isn't related to nervousness: I am used to my damned keyboard at home, so a real piano feels substantially different to me, and I tend to make mistakes.

I quit because I didn't like the way my teacher was teaching and I didn't like practicing. And I didn't have good reach. I just didn't enjoy playing and I sure didn't want to do another competition which I would have had to do.

It sucks when bad teachers and the pressure of competition ruin an otherwise fun hobby. I'm fortunate that I was never pressured into competing, or I might have soured on music.

Some people should not be teachers, so true. I used to go for sculpture lessons, and the teacher hated kids, or so it seems in retrospect. I had a talent for it and enjoyed it but she made it into something I dreaded.

Sorry, didn't mean to awaken feels with my sighs.

Feels are good, feels mean you are still alive.

Long Con wrote:"I don't do anything commonly"

Whatever this means, I'm in the same boat.

i just need a timestamp

Here ya go

Marmot wrote:

Long Con wrote:"I don't do anything commonly"

Whatever this means, I'm in the same boat.

LOL it was something that I posted just in case. I was probably drunk.

I'm sure many have seen this, but wow.

I'm playing in the Philharmonic orchestra this week. It's doing a screening of G.W. Pabst's silent Pandora's Box (basically a loose adaptation of Wedekind's "Lulu plays", predating the opera written by Alban Berg) with live music (a recent new original score).

It isn't playing with the Philharmonic, it isn't even playing the piano part but rather the celesta part, for which there isn't even a celesta available but rather only a keyboard set on celesta - but hey, I'll take it.

Ricochet wrote:I'm playing in the Philharmonic orchestra this week. It's doing a screening of G.W. Pabst's silent Pandora's Box (basically a loose adaptation of Wedekind's "Lulu plays", predating the opera written by Alban Berg) with live music (a recent new original score).

It isn't playing with the Philharmonic, it isn't even playing the piano part but rather the celesta part, for which there isn't even a celesta available but rather only a keyboard set on celesta - but hey, I'll take it.

Technology these days makes it a very close sonic match.

We are bereaved.

My great-grandmother passed about two hours ago. She would have been 102-years-old on the 27th of this month. She helped raise me and took me to church when I was a child. I am sitting here recalling how much she delighted when I found an old tape of Jack Benny, Fred Allen, and W.C. Fields radio sketches and played it for her; it was as though I had taken her back in time. And she didn't shy away from playing video games with me, even if she hardly understood them. We watched Hee-Haw and The Golden Girls and The Lawrence Welk Show every Saturday night. She watched me play with Transformers. We shared the best of our worlds with one another.

I'm sure sad she's gone.

RIP great-grandma Epi

I'm really sorry to hear that Rob.

So sorry to hear this, Rob. It is good your children got to know her; how many people get to know their great great grandmother?

My condolences, Rob. I was never close to my grandparents and never knew any of my great-grandparents, so it's always nice to see families that maintain those bonds.

Oh, so sorry Epi. So glad you have good memories.

Sorry for your family's loss. I was fortunate to grow up knowing five of my great-grandparents. It's only in hindsight that I realize how special that was. Your children are extremely blessed to have known a great-great-grandparent.

G-Man wrote:Sorry for your family's loss. I was fortunate to grow up knowing five of my great-grandparents. It's only in hindsight that I realize how special that was. Your children are extremely blessed to have known a great-great-grandparent.

Wow! I never knew a single great-grandparent, they all died before I was born. And my sons only know grandmothers - my dad died before they were born, and BR's dad is a deadbeat loser who screwed off long ago and we just don't really talk about much.

Sorry for your loss Ep, sounds like she might have had a very fulfilling life.

S~V~S wrote:So sorry to hear this, Rob. It is good your children got to know her; how many people get to know their great great grandmother?

Her last words to me were to tell Abigail that she was sorry that she never got to have that sleepover where they sat up all night and talked (Abigail's idea). Abigail tickled grandma.

Sorry for your loss. It sounds though like you had a wealth of life experience. Never met any of my great-grandparents. I recall the last one dying when I was 3 or 4 years old, but I don't actually recall any time spent with her or meet whatsoever.

Epi, I really appreciate how well you are able to express the significant things happening in your life, the good, the bad. I'm sad to hear you've lost a close friend, and also it's very meaningful to me that you say something because I'm expecting to lose a family member I feel quite close to within a week or two.

Thanks everyone. The memorial service is Saturday afternoon. I don't know the time yet. I am in charge of the music. I know that much. For the prelude, I have selected "Great is Thy Faithfulness." I will accompany my sister on "It is Well (With My Soul)" (grandma's favorite hymn), and I was trying to put my finger on an appropriate postlude piece, and I started hammering out "We'll Meet Again."

I will make sure to ask about that one beforehand, of course- it is in a very old church. But somehow I think that's a nice send off.

"It is Well (With My Soul)" is such a beautiful hymn. I hope things are well.

speedchuck wrote:"It is Well (With My Soul)" is such a beautiful hymn. I hope things are well.

Indeed. A very good choice.