Dude! Joe's Jottings, Mostly Junk

• The Gathering - Herbal Movement
• Stick Men - The Firebird Suite (yes, Stravinsky played on a Chapman Stick, a specially made Touch Guitar, and all the percussion Pat Mastelloto can muster)
• Alan Parsons Project - A Cask of Amontillado
• BOC - Veteran of the Psychic Wars (one of my all-time seasonal favs)
  
  
• Peter Gabriel - I Don't Remember
• Ozric Tentacles - Pyramidion
• The Fixx - The Sign of Fire
• Pain of Salvation - Ashes
  
  
• Pink Floyd - Marooned
• The Gathering - Nighttime Birds
• The Beatles - Tomorrow Never Knows
• Uriah Heap - Lady in Black
  
  
• Metallica - Enter Sandman
• Pink Floyd - One of these Days (Pompeii version)
• The Cure - Lullaby
• The One Eyed One Horned Flying Purple People Eater
  
  
• King Crimson - Dangerous Curves
• The Police - Synchronicity 2 (another of the regulars each year)
• David Bowie - Time Will Crawl
• Pink Floyd - Welcome to the Machine

after this, things had been quiet out there for some time, so I switched to classical/movies and brought it inside...

• Pirates of the Caribbean 3 - Hoist the Colours Suite
• Webern - 6 Pieces for Orchestra (Sir Simon Rattle)
• Stravinsky - Rite of Spring part 2 (Michael Tilson Thomas)
• The Dark Crystal - Finale
  
  
• Ligeti - Lux Aterna (from 2001)
• Varese - Deserts (2nd Interpolation)
• Close Encounters - The Abduction of Barry (oddly, these last three are all in very similar styles so I almost couldn't tell when they changed!)
• Mahler - Symphony 7 mvt 1 (MTT again)
  
  
• Takemitsu - Funeral Music from Black Rain (Marin Alsop)
• Prokofiev - Alexander Nevsky Cantata (Previn)
• Star Trek IV - Crash and Whale Fugue
  

and with that, I think I'll call it a night...

oh, and it was wiggle's first trick-or-treat outting!

Every once in a while you see a poll result that just leaves your jaw agape. Here’s a perfect example. A Public Policy Polling survey over the weekend asked who respondents thought was more responsible for the death of Osama Bin Laden, President Obama or Mitt Romney.

Now the answer to this should be obvious, since Romney could not possibly have had anything to do with it. Not so to Republican voters in that state, apparently, since only 38% of them answered Obama — with 15% saying Romney gets more credit and 47% saying they don’t know. I’m dumbfounded.

Romney actually said this. Out loud. To another person:

I do believe in basic science. I believe in participating in space. I believe in analysis of new sources of energy. I believe in laboratories, looking at ways to conduct electricity with — with cold fusion, if we can come up with it. It was the University of Utah that solved that. We somehow can’t figure out how to duplicate it.

faith in our Creator is the most important American value of all.

"Hope"

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

There is a scam originating from this phone number. You are called (in this case, my wife was but they were asking for me) and informed you have been sued and must call this number 704-464-1068 (a Charlotte number, hence my reporting it to North Carolina). When you call, you are told about some credit card debt, usually a negligible amount (in this case, about $668) and that they have been trying to reach you for years (in this case, since 2009 going to 2011).

They may have some personal information on you but in my case it was almost 20 years out of date.

They also claim the client* is Wachovia, but Wachovia has been Wells Fargo for several years now**.

The main part of the scam is that they are willing to settle 'pennies on the dollar' (typical scam catch phrase) provided you give them your financial data. I of course did not. If I was really being sued, the settlement would still go through a proper collections agency that's BBB certified or directly through the bank itself.

After failing enough 'sniff tests', I googled and found others harassed by the same operation: http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-704-464-0168/1 . At no point did I give them any new personal information other than the city I live in.  As I did not lose any money, I have no need of 'resolution' - I just think this likely illegal operation should be stopped.