A Portrait of the Dumbass as an Old Man

New Bird

I can't help it, a new bird is just so exciting ... And the new bird is ... a tufted titmouse. Sparrow sized, gray on top, white underneath, a crested head like a cardinal. Plus, we have two carolina wrens now, and around 4 juncos.

Interesting, to hear evolutionary psychology coming out of another mouth. My wife said "I keep getting these tunes stuck in my head and can't get rid of them. Surely there could never have been any evolutionary advantage in that." -- how wonderfully put!

I of course immediately thought of TOOCITBOTBM. The bicameral mind carried out its programs to the accompaniment of chanting. So according to Jaynes, the tune that you can't get out you head was what helped you get your days work done, prior to 3400 years ago.

The music thing seems to be taking way more of my time. I'm still 2 months behind on the magazine stack. And my iTunes has 242 songs in the "unrated" smart playlist, need to get those processed.

Meanwhile, kind of having a band going has got me back working up more songs, arranging playlists, etc. Our young bass player I don't know about tho. Definitely have to figure out how to get him to play less. He missed Sunday before last and I played bass the whole time. Did better than I expected with playing bass and singing -- the vocals only decided they needed to be in unison with the bass line a couple of times. And, with having to do both at once, I definitely kept the bass lines nice and simple.

Meanwhile, my friend Patrick, who is drumming, and who is almost the archetype of jacks of all trades, that same Sunday revealed another superpower -- he has perfect pitch!

I read something a couple of weeks ago, perfect pitch is a lot more common amongst speakers of tonal languages such as Chinese. Makes sense.