Tag: brain tumors

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Protools

Protools is softare that is used of sound editting. It does everything that you can do with a multie track tape recorder and a mixing board and a bunch ofthings you can’t. It’s got 24 possible tracks and splicing and just like photoshop quickly automates things that used to take hours with razor blades and splicing tape. It’s very cool.
I’ve got some heardware that lets me record up to eight tracks at once (actually, I could go 16, if I attached some other stuff, but only two mic pre-amps) anyway, I have two versions of protools. One for OS9 and one for OSX. I’ve been having problems with both versions. Right now, I can create a file and record to it on OS9 and play it back and edit it in OSX. I haven’t tried recording in OSX yet, but all the other things won’t work in theother operating sysem. I can’t create files in 10. I can’t play them back or edit them in 9. Just thought I’d share.

Installation

I finally got five minutes of bart sound mixed into a file. The file has problems, but we’re going to have the judges look at a websirte to listen to them and the mp3 conversion hides the flaws. Thank goodness, technology is working in my favor for once! The voice-over part is not finished being editted to pieces yet. I have have a very nice sample of jean saying wistfully, “well, i guess that’s unemployment.” My midiverb seems to be on the fritz (what’s going on with my equipment, anyway? did the pentagon test it’s EMP missle offshore or something?), so i added a 13 milisecond delay with 50% feedback at a 20% mix for reverb. Many, that’s got some aliasing… I’d use if for noise FX, but it’s wayyyyy to cheesy. URL of website will be posted here. We’re calling it “Mind the Metro” with a subtitle that somehow explains that metros are the same everywhere, even though they’re different and the universality of the urban commuter.

Other Minds

I spent all day yesterday working in the OM office. I processed email unsubscribe requests so they can send out their giant reminder email. And i put inserts into programs. about 2000 of them. And I put comp tickets in envelopes. I don’t want to speculate on the number, but I’ve heard a rumor that 25% of the audience is going to be comped in. Ushers get two free comp tickets for another night. It would be cheaper to pay the ushers a living wage than give them these tickets. It’s the most generous ushering thing that I’v ever heard of. Anyway, I continued helping Christi with comp tickets until midnight, when I fell asleep on the floor with my head in her lap. Maybe that was somehow helpful.
the festival starts today. they’re playing a piece arranged by Christi. If you don’t have a ticket and want to go to a night aside from tonight, I have an extra ticket. I’ll be plaing on friday night. Contact me if you want to go.

Brain Tumors

Somebody on one of my mailing lists might have one. I met somebody with a brain tumor when I was in Portland and I guess I looked visibly freaked-out when Renee told me because she and a number of other peope asked if I was alright.
The last holy candle has burned out.

Things that keep me awake at night

More brain tumors…

I can’t hear as well in my right ear as in my left. Normally, I just wonder why this is so (I always hold the telephone on the right. I’m on the right side of the band I play in… hrm, but I was on the left when I played in hgihschool band. My tuba bell was on the right though…) and make vague plans to get an earwax removal kit. but at 3:00 AM, it’s a brain tumor. “Can I see as well with my right eye? I don’t think very creativly! Maybe my right brain is being impacted.” Yeah, the thing that are giant at 3:00 AM are stupid by morning.

Purgatory

Fundamentalists have the death thing all figured out. You die (or get raptured) and go to heaven where you get to spend an eternity with people who agree with you about everything and get to bad-mouth all the folks in hell and occassionally yell down that they can’t have any of your bottled water.
Catholics always have to go and make everything more complicated. Because of that story with the grape pickers, whether or not you get into heaven has to do with whether or not you’re in a state of grace when you die. That’s it. If the pope cursed god as his last thought, he’d go to the fiery pit, whereas if Dubya Bush’s last thoughts were, “oh my god, what was I doing? Jesus, forgive my misdeeds!” he’d go right to heaven. Everybody is equal in heaven.
except that everybody is not equal in heaven. There are all these saints floating around. Saints are God’s special friends. You can’t square it, if St. Joan of Arc is God’s special freind, how can she be equal with Bob the foul-mouthed butcher from down the street? And what about Bob’s swearing? He was never sorry for it. It was a sin on his soul, even though he was good enough for heaven, he still wasn’t perfect. Hence: purgatory. If you didn’t finish your penance on Earth, you get another shot after you die.
Purgatory is the great equalizer. Basically, non-saints are imperfect and need to cleanse sin from their souls. So they go to a temporary hell for a while and burn for their sins. when a fundamentalist’s mother dies, he gets comforting thoughts of Mom having afternoon cofee with Jesus, bad-mouthing sinners, just like at home. But Catholics geet to lie awake at 3:00 AM wondering if their devout mother is burning for her sins. It can keep you awake for sure.

Say a Prayer

fortunately, like Americans have Mis Manners, Catholics have the Baltimore Catcheism to give us algorythms to handle problems. Your prayers can get folks out of purgatory faster. It’s like writing letters for convicts or something. This is the prayer:

Come holy Spirit, fill the hearts of thy faithful
and enkindle in them the fire of thy love
Send forth Thy Spirit and they shall be created
And thou shalt renew the face of the earth
Let us Pray
O God, who didst instruct the hearts of the faithful
by the light of the Holy Spirit, grant us in the same
spirit to be truly wise, and ever to rejoice in His con-
solation. through Christ Our Lord. Amen.

saying that prayer every day for a month gets you a five year plenary indulgence with the usual conditions applying. I don’t know what that means except five years less purgatory for mom. See, you can say prayers like that and transfer the indulgence to a nother person, provided the person is deceased. Also, in the Middle ages, thrity people fasting for one day was equivalent to one person fasting for a month. after a while, they decided that you couldn’t pay other people to fast for you anymore, so the group fasting fell out of fashion. but if they did it for free, it still counted.
this means that if thirty people recite this little prayer to themselves today, my mom spend five fewer years in purgatory. this is what the internet is really all about. Sending money to debtors, a dollar at a time until they can pay off their credit card debt, or saying prayers for dead people.
My mom sure believed in all this stuff. I’m not too sure about it. It all seems kind of overly structured and fair to me and I’ve seen no sign of anything else God made being fair, but at 3:00 AM, it all seems very reasonable. So maybe I could sleep better at night. Say a prayer for my mom. And that guy on my mailing list who might have a brain tumor.

My Dad

He’s taken up being a camera guy for pledge breaks on KTEH channel 54 in San Jose. Sometimes he films the phone bank volunteers and sometimes he films the host’s finger as s/he points at pledge gifts. One day, he may work his way up to being a sound guy. I offered him use of my mixing board if he wants to practice at home, but he declined. He’s also got a red BMW motorcycle. It’s a nifty looking bike. I haven’t seen his leather outfit yet.

Rock Band

I was drunk. I played the tuba instead of bas. If I’m drunk next week, I’ll play the tuba again. I think learning to play rock while drunk helps with the rock and roll lifestyle thing. I’m ready to be a rockstar.

ELNA

Ok, so I was sitting talking with Christi and Jenya last night about our installation plans when the phone rang. I answered it “Saluton!” since that seems to make telemarketters hang up. But then a strangers started talking quickly and fluently to me in Esperanto! I was flabbergasted. Not knowing what to make of it, I agreed to everything the person said, cathcing only that she was from ELNA. She thanked me about 100 times as she hung up. I have no idea what I agreed to. Maybe I’ll be cleaning restrooms at ELNA headquarters. anyway, I think I might have told her I was Christi. It was very confusing.

right now

Mate is a stimulant tea thingee from south america. It inspitres me to write too many words while avoiding tasks such as walking to the drugstore to get an earway removal kit or working on editting my 11 year old neighbor yelling VJ-style into a mic about how BART is dangerous for little kids.

I was just thinking, the National Brain tumor Foundation publishes all these little booklets called things like Brain Tumors: What You Should Know. I had at least thirty little pamphets, all with names like that. There’s a key section that’s missing from every single one of these. They need to say:

You will be getting radiation. There is no treatment aside from radiation. Everything we’ve been telling about other treatment techniques only applies to people with surface tumors and even for them most of this is just experimental stuff we’re hoping will work, but that you can’t actually get. Anyway, even if you want to try something experimental, you’ll still need radiation first. Make sure that when you get a referral to a neuro-oncologist, you get a referal to a radiation oncologist right then at the same time from the same doctor. It takes forever to get on calendars. You don’t have forever. Get the referals now. And don’t wait for second opinions unless the first doctor seems hesitant. You will be getting radiation. You don’t need another doctor to tell you that too. There is no other treatment. If you get diagnosed in the summer time, you don’t need to go see a head of a department at the university. It’s better to get on the calendar of somebody less prestigious than to wait weeks.
The chances that you found out about this before it was critical are slim. Who really goes to the doctor for headaches? You’ve just had a big piece of your brain cut out. You had no idea anything was going on until you had a seizure or stroke-like symptoms. All the optomistic statistics people have been giving you mostly apply to people who are younger than you are and who by some freak stroke of luck had their tumors detected early. You are probably not in that group. Every day counts for you. If you want treatment, you need it today, not three or four weeks from now. Get on calendars as fast as possible and as soon as possible. Skip as many steps of beauracracy as you can. Get as many referals as possible from your brain surgeon and make sure that they’re for people who actually will be working directly on your treatment. You can get a treatment plan in place for radiation before you go see the head neuro-oncologist. This saves you several days. Important days, right after the surgery, when the tumor is cut down and you have more of chance. You’ll be getting radiation. Get it as soon as you can.