Music

Played the annual festival of strings. Jen's solo work was amazing. She really was the star of the show. The Hindemuth, Bach.. she played it all. What an amazing talent that girl has.

Then there's the 600-student mass orchestra. Beginners to vetrans playing together.. I sat next to my childhood "best friend's" little sister during the mass orchestra. I remember when she was born, and now she's learning to play.

Every guest conductor every year says they've never seen anything like it in the world.. and we've had some very worldly people taking the podium. I'll post the pictures once they come in. I'll be the big bearded guy near the front of the viola section.. one advantage to being a big boy, I can always make myself out in those poorly detailed newspaper photos.

Actually, the beard proved an interesting sociological experiment. This year everyone assumed I was a teacher or chaperon this year. Well, it's to be expected.

I love playing the viola. I hope I never stop completely.

AYECHE OH TEE

I gotta admit, I think Chris from Northern Exposure is one of the sexiest characters in syndication today.

DVD FUN!

Descramble That DVD in 7 Lines

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
# 531-byte qrpff-fast, Keith Winstein and Marc Horowitz <sipb-iap-dvd@mit.edu>
# MPEG 2 PS VOB file on stdin -> descrambled output on stdout
# arguments: title key bytes in least to most-significant order
$_='while(read+STDIN,$_,2048){$a=29;$b=73;$c=142;$t=255;@t=map{$_%16or$t^=$c^=(
$m=(11,10,116,100,11,122,20,100)[$_/16%8])&110;$t^=(72,@z=(64,72,$a^=12*($_%16
-2?0:$m&17)),$b^=$_%64?12:0,@z)[$_%8]}(16..271);if((@a=unx"C*",$_)[20]&48){$h
=5;$_=unxb24,join"",@b=map{xB8,unxb8,chr($_^$a[--$h+84])}@ARGV;s/...$/1$&/;$
d=unxV,xb25,$_;$e=256|(ord$b[4])<<9|ord$b[3];$d=$d>>8^($f=$t&($d>>12^$d>>4^
$d^$d/8))<<17,$e=$e>>8^($t&($g=($q=$e>>14&7^$e)^$q*8^$q<<6))<<9,$_=$t[$_]^
(($h>>=8)+=$f+(~$g&$t))for@a[128..$#a]}print+x"C*",@a}';s/x/pack+/g;eval

Wow

I just picked up my phone messages. My viola teacher called about going to IMC (Interprovincial Music Camp) this summer. I'm 19, so technically I'm not allowed to go. But the camp co-ordinator said "Yeah, Brodie's a great guy, we'd love to have him back". Hmmm.. considering the only interaction I really had with her was when I jumped through a sheet of glass in the office (and came out with a scratch) it's suprising her oppinion of me is so high.

And yes, it was an accident.

But that's not all, my other teacher is giving me a $100 scholarship to go for helping her all year with her brood of little ones every saturday morning. Man, if she only knew what hung-over, exhausted Brodie thinks every morning before going. My facial hair also refuses to forgive me.. do you know how much pain it is having a tiny 1/2 size violin attached to your face? My beard always gets caught in those little miniature fine tuners.. about 60 times every morning. Not fun.. but the look on their faces when they play for their peers, family and 2000 others every year. Worth it.