Apparently, Carl Maria von Weber's Concerto in F Major, Op. 75 is the piece all the bassoonists are posting on the YouTube. This kid does a surprisingly good job at making the virtuosic piece flow quite lyrically.

The rackett should be arriving this month or next month, and assuming it has the range to play it, I think the von Weber piece is one I'd like to work towards. And a friend of mine managed to find a PDF of the score (in Русский, but notes are notes), so I've got something to work from. (If we still lived in Tampa or Tallahassee, the music would be easy to find locally, but would you believe a university which boasts of being one of the ten largest university systems in the country has no music program - and hence no music library - at its flagship campus? Philistines!)

Last Friday, I sent the landlord a certified letter, stating (per Indiana statutes) that he had been informed of issues with the house but had not rectified them; that the letter served as written notice and that if they had not been fixed within a reasonable period of time, we would seek redress in court.

Monday, he came out and put a couple of inches of dirt around the house, which he apparently feels will be enough to keep water from seeping through the unsealed basement walls several feet below ground level.

Friday, someone wearing a T-shirt bearing the landlord's painting company name arrived with a sheet, apparently from the city inspectors, containing several violations which needed to be fixed. He fixed two of them, and promised to come back Sunday to fix the rest.

As we expected, he did not return on Sunday.

Landlord's worker showed up this morning, replaced some outlets, went outside to wait for landlord.

Landlord finally showed up, VERY angry. Claimed we were late on rent - he "didn't receive" the certified letter, that he had moved three years ago and the address on the lease was no longer valid. We moved into this house - and got the lease with his mailing address on it - two years ago. He also claimed he had told us he had moved. (If he'd moved a year before we moved in, though, why would he?)

Landlord also claimed that we were not permitted to have pets. We signed a paper when we moved in, listing the names, breeds, sexes and ages of our cats. He claims we never did, "and judges don't go for that sort of thing!"

He took issue with many of the items on the City Inspectors' report and yelled at me about them. But, you know, that's his problem.

After about an hour of fury, he suddenly changed personalities and wanted to "start from scratch" and let bygones be bygones. But then he said "I didn't give you permission to paint the walls," even though he most certainly did.

I find the oddest things while following links on Wikipedia. For instance: ...Hiroto Murasawa, professor of beauty and culture at Osaka Shoin Women's University...

The topic I started from was Morton Downey, Jr.; going from link to link, I eventually ended up at Cuteness in Japanese Culture (redirected from Kawaii). Come to think of it, that would be an interesting "Six degrees of Kevin Bacon" type game - given two entirely disparate topics, find the shortest most bizarre route between them.

Interesting interview with John Hodgman at The Onion's AV Club

(Random trivia from the introductory paragraph: Bruce Campbell's former literary agent will have a bit part in the new season of Battlestar Galactica.)

Since Karen started studying rhetoric, I've become more aware of how subtextual messages can be conveyed. For example, in the left-hand sidebar on CivilWar.com, "African-Americans" is a separate category from "People".

I absolutely love the front page of Hernando Today (Brooksville, FL). Local copy here, since the site's slow to respond.

Top headline: Voters Oust Rowden, Kingsley (both Democrats). Only mention of the Presidential election: an infobox showing How Hernando Voted (44,929 for McCain, 41,771 for Obama).

But surely their online edition would have an item about who won the Presidential election, right? Nope. Maybe they think if they don't acknowledge it, it won't be true?

Also: Arizona, Florida, and California, you all suck.