Archive for February, 2007
February 26, 2007 at 9:55 pm · Filed under Lifestyle, Techy
So, what is toomanychamploo.org and how did it come into my possession. Well, pull up an ice block and lend an ear.
In late 2004, I was at SIUE and plagued with morning and evening classes. I didn’t want to commute home in between classes. Therefore, I spent much of my time on campus and in the computer lab. Occasionally, I did work. =) I mostly killed time and downloaded stuff. If classmates needed to find me, they knew where to go. Sometimes a class would require the computer lab, and teachers thought I was in their classes. As you can imagine this got boring quick and I needed something to occupy the seconds ticking by.
At the time, there was a buzz about a new anime series, Samurai Champloo. It was being produced by the director of Cowboy Bebop, Shinichiro Watanabe. There had already been a few websites dedicated to Samurai Champloo, but they were becoming really neglected. Some were getting hacked or no one was updating them. I thought I could do a better job, and I needed a hobby.
I racked my brain trying to decide on a good domain name. I wrote down as many one word descriptions and adjectives and tried to combine them, like a magnetic word poem. Nothing stuck. Eventually, I was listening to some Pink Floyd, and I thought, “Man, these song titles make no sense.” And, it struck me. The name didn’t need to make sense. So, one of my favorite artists had this song called “Too Many Chiefs…Not Enough Indians”, and I decided that that will do. And Too Many Champloo… was born.
Let’s see. My first blog post is dated 8/12/05, but there were some before that that got lost in the internet. I was trying out different blog software and content managers. Though I’d like to redesign the Samurai Champloo area, I’m now dedicating more time into this blog. There isn’t any more Samurai Champloo information coming out and it’s pretty stale. With this blog, I’d like to branch off into newer territories and have a website for me, my family, and side projects away from the Samurai Champloo name.
Again, I racked my brain trying to pick out a new domain name. I wanted something airy, friendly, and easy to remember. After much debate, I decided upon timbertank.com. Originally, I thought about tanktimber, but it was already taken (what are the odds). But now, I think I like the words swapped better. Bonus points to whomever thinks they know what the name means. Or if you feel like making something up, that will do too. (cause I really have no idea! ) I’ve got a starving artist working on an image, and that might help. So, yeah. Moving day will be coming soon.
If Ceej or Clear, want to move their blogs over here, I can do that. It would be timbertank.com/clear like timbertank.com/blog will be. Or if any other readers want a free blog or bandwidth, you can hit me up. I’ll consider it.
February 26, 2007 at 8:45 pm · Filed under News Events, Techy
Sometime this month, Google started to include Metra and CTA (the public transportation) locations on their Maps service of Chicago. This makes me super happy! You dont know how many times I had to find a particular restaurant or location, then head to the CTA website and find the nearest ‘L’ stop in relationship to it. It was an unnecessary hassle going from website to website.
But, of course, the service isn’t perfect. A couple locations are off by a block or two. All the CTA stops are denoted by a blue ‘M’. That could be confusing to tourists because the CTA color codes the ‘L’ trains by the Red line, Blue line, Pink, etc. And what does the ‘M’ stand for? I suppose it’s just an indicator used from another city. Oh well. For the most part, I’m savvy enough to get around.
February 24, 2007 at 12:40 am · Filed under Music
Messing around with Wordpress, I realized I had a new message. This one got tangled up in my spam filter, so I didn’t notice it right away. Sorry. Anyways, it was from Rodney Reeves, one of the members of the Detroit JazzStage. He saw my podcast post and had this to say.
Hello,
Thank you all so much for the positive things you are saying about Detroit Jazzstage. When we started, we were one of many independents. Now that corporations have discovered the value of podcasting, we are one of the few of the original independent podcasts. If you would like to read a recent article written about us click here: Jazz reflections from below
FYI: This article was written for readers in one county. Because of that, I am not mentioned. I don’t live or work in that county but the others do.
Thanks again for the positive words and please keep listening.
Rodney Reeves
The article gives some history of the members of Detroit Jazzstage (excluding Rodney =)) and the how and where it is produced. Thanks for the comment, and I plan on seeing one of the featured artists, Jesse Palter in Chicago. Keep up the great work.
February 18, 2007 at 12:05 pm · Filed under News Events
Google says today is the Lunar/Chinese New Year. It is also celebrated by Koreans, Vietnamese, Mongolians, and others. This will be the year of the Pig. I was born in the year of the Rooster, but I really dont care for that astrology mumbo jumbo. I remembered that Chicago has a Vietnamese/Korean town, similar to the Chinatown. I need to go there sometime.
Todays Eyes of Nye, Bill tackled overpopulation. I wish there was a greater initiative to make this content openly available on the web. The Eyes of Nye website has some clips, but even a podcast of the episode would be nice. Hmmm… should I?…never mind.
The Sarah Silverman Project is humorous. The majority of the episodes are probably too risqué for most audiences. This week she got an AIDS test, because she was bored. Frankly, I’m surprised that it’s being aired on Comedy Central, but I suppose it’s no more off-color than The Chappelle Show.
Thanks to Ceej for informing me about the new Nine Inch Nails songs circulating the web. In most cases, stealing music is wrong. But in this case, it is right. The songs were apparently released through a viral marketing campaign, where a usb drive was left in a concert bathroom. Two songs were on the device and are receiving a lot of attention for the hidden messages.
I use an IngenuiTEA teamug, from Adagio, when brewing most of my teas and the inside stains a light brown color. In this months teacast, they explained how to disassemble the mug for better cleaning. I was surprised by how easy it was to clean with a little bleach. Within a minute, most of the stains in the mug had disappeared, and now they’re all gone. For some reason, using bleach had never occurred to me.
I just saw that one of my favorite artists, Brant Bjork (check ‘Get Into It’ in the links), is going to release a new album next week. He really needs some better press or to update his website more often. I mean I keep close tabs on new info, and I only heard about this today because someone on ebay was taking pre-orders for the vinyl.
Oh yeah…preparations for Mustache March have begun.
February 17, 2007 at 7:13 pm · Filed under Bonsai
On a few bamboo stalks, new sprouts had begun to appear at the base near the roots. Most were growing on dying stalks. The leaves and stalk dried up, but the base around the sprout remained green. I noticed them, and they’ve been growing for the last 3 months. I had been wondering how long I should let these grow? What would happen if I did? Should I try to plant these in fertilizer or keep them in water? Well, I made some last minute decisions, today.
As I checked some of the smaller stalks, I realized that one of them had been grossly neglected. The stalk had already died, but a fungus was now taking over. It engulfed the stalk and the sprout in a mucousy slime. It was like someone had blown their nose on it. Yuck City.
Since, I lost that one, I figured I should make a ruling call on the others. On two other dead stalks, I pulled/cut off the sprouts and put them in some dirt. One was really small, and I dont know if it has much of a chance. The other looked like it was starting to get moldy too and I put in some soil. I gave them a couple of drops of ‘Green Green’ to stimulate the soil. Hopefully, new roots will grow.
In other news, the Kowhai Bonsai has less than a week left in the fridge. It has some peach fuzz growing on the top of the soil. I hope this doesn’t mean I’ve over watered the seeds and they’re rotting. Plants can be so needy at times.
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