Hieronymous Bastard

Thoughts on the origins of matter and panspermia

Neil DeGrasse Tyson has some awesome thoughts.

posted by Hieronymous @ 12:37 PM 0 comments

Is it a bad idea to start with the Rosetta Stone?

Working on deciphering Greek text of the Rosetta Stone for practice. It was really hard to find a simple transcription of the text -- there were pages with an English transcription, and some photographic fragments, but nothing with just the clear text. I posted a question on Aardvark, and at last someone came up with a Google Books link containing the text.

It's scanned, so not copy-pasteable, but at least it's readable, unlike the original (all caps, idiosyncratic lettering).

The beginning seems to be a ong genitive absolute introducing the king, listing his attributes and his connection to the gods. I think I found the verb on line 8 -- "εἶπαν". It's a 3rd sing. 1st aorist active ind., meaning "he said". But I'm not there yet.

Here's line 1, as best as I can make out as a first attempt:

The young man being king, and having received the office of the kingdom from his father, lord of kingdoms, very glorious, establishing Egypt...



Here's the book I'm working from:

Labels: greek

posted by Hieronymous @ 1:03 PM 0 comments

'Gig', son; when you're a musician, a job is called a 'gig'

I'm playing in a band! I'm playing electric guitar and doing some backup vocals. The group is called "Cheaper Than Therapy": John on guitar, Rick on bass, Julia on vocals, and Jessie on drums. I saw their last incarnation playing when I went to see Mark's band playing.

I got in by signing up with Bandworks, which is an organization that gets musicians together, gives them sheet music, practice space, a teacher, and sets up a gig at the end of 8 weeks. I sent in a list of tunes that I like, and they found me an existing group that was playing similar stuff.

Here's our set list:
Bitch - Rolling Stones
Won't Back Down - Tom Petty
Come Together - The Beatles
Beggar's Farm - Jethro Tull
Game of Pricks - Guided By Voices
Learn to Fly - Foo Fighters

It's been an amazing journey, learning not only new tunes, but lots of unwritten stuff about how to participate in a band. Our gig is coming up on April 5th!

posted by Hieronymous @ 1:36 PM 0 comments

Out of my brain on the 5:15

Superbowl Sunday, and not a scrap of football. Worked on Bandworks tunes with Mark in his garage all afternoon while Marika & Isabel played with Zoe and Barb.

posted by Hieronymous @ 4:26 PM 0 comments