Tag Archive for 'clarinet'

Free Askar

Published by Cody on January 8, 2006 in Personal and Random. 2 Comments Tags: band, clarinet, college, concert, football, marching, Personal, PLU, Random, RPG, simms.

National Flag

The Democratic States of Free Askar

“Without personal liberties, we are nothing.”

UN Category: Inoffensive Centrist Democracy
Civil Rights: Excellent	Economy: Good	Political Freedoms: Excellent

The Democratic States of Free Askar is a tiny, socially progressive nation, notable for its burgeoning askarian eagle population. Its hard-nosed, hard-working, intelligent population of 5 million have some civil rights, but not too many, enjoy the freedom to spend their money however they like, to a point, and take part in free and open elections, although not too often.

The large government juggles the competing demands of Healthcare, Social Welfare, and Law & Order. The average income tax rate is 23%. A large private sector is led by the Cheese Exports industry, followed by Woodchip Exports and Door-to-door Insurance Sales.

Crime is a problem. Free Askar’s national animal is the askarian eagle and its currency is the askot.

Ian got me hooked. I don’t like the bit about the cheese, but there’s not much I can do about that. Meh.

I got back from PLU yesterday. It was all right. I was planning to rant on how I’m doomed to mediocrity because I’m not some rich snob who can drop a few thousand dollars on quality equipment, but I realized that would be whining, and I’m not much of a whiner. But I have decided I’m not continuing on with concert performance in college. No more clarinet for me, until I’m filthy rich and can afford a really good one. Instead, I’ll concentrate more on marching band. I think I’d have a lot of fun playing at football games and doing field shows. Yeah.

I also got new glasses. They’re snazzy.

Band contest

Published by Cody on March 22, 2005 in Personal. 3 Comments Tags: band, clarinet, concert, contest, job shadow, Napoleon Dynamite, Personal, school.

Quite the contest we had today. For those of you not in the know, our bands compete in an annual band contest (the name of which escapes me) against other bands in our general area. I was slightly worried that we wouldn’t be quite ready, but apparently I needn’t have feared. The other bands were, to put it nicely, unpolished. Actually, unpolished is a little too kind. Horribly is a better fit. None of the oboes were in tune, clarinets had awful sounds, and trumpets were bright all over the place. Not good qualities you want in a band. Also, have any of them heard of uniforms? This one band had a trumpet player in jeans and sneakers, while another had a girl in a zebra-pattern halter top…with no back!

Our Concert Band was the first good music I heard. And good it was. That was probably the best Concert Band has every played. Then there were more crappy bands. And then the Wind Ensemble got to leave to prepare to play. We did excellent, if I do say so myself. Yes, there were a few bumps and wrinkles and missed notes (two on my part, a record high), but the judges liked us. And Pageant (one of our songs) was the best I’ve ever heard! Especially the end, except for the last note, which was almost missed. But people just thought it was extremely quiet, which it’s supposed to be anyways, before the crescendo.

Unfortunately, we didn’t muck around enough to skip 6th period, so I had to go take a rather large math test, which I didn’t sweat over at all. I don’t know why I worry so much about these tests when I don’t even remember the last time I failed one. Of course, there was that one AP Chem test on which I got a 70…I try not to remember that one.

So tomorrow is a regular day. Pity. Oh, that reminds me, I need to fill out my Job Shadow stuff before next Wednesday…better get working on that.

Also, I’ve probably said this before, but Napoleon Dynamite is an awesome movie. If you haven’t seen it, you’re a flippin’ idiot. Gosh!

First semester is over!

Published by Cody on January 28, 2005 in Personal. 2 Comments Tags: band, clarinet, Personal, RPG, school, simms, Star Trek.

Oh no! Solo/Ensemble tomorrow and I don’t even know where the heck Bellingham High School is! I’ll have to check Mapquest soon. The Internet is a marvelous thing. Did I just say marvelous? Wow.

So I got out of presenting in ContempLit. Yay! In all my years of high school, and even 8th grade, when I’ve had a major presentation at the end of the year (or semester for a half year class), I’ve miraculously avoided giving it. I don’t stall (well, not exactly), we just happen to run out of time. Oh well, I actually regret not giving it. It would have been better than most I saw…

Three day weekend up ahead. The first semester is FINALLY over! No more 20th Century. No more ContempLit. Instead, I’m trading off for Research Writing and Comparative Religions. Can’t say either are much better, but at least it’ll be a change.

In other news, I joined another Star Trek RPG and am planning to join another. The one I just recently joined is the USS Cherokee, part of Star Trek PBEM Network’s Task Force 11. The character? Captain Lance Chisholm, Marine detachment commander. Ironically, I’ll be using this same character for the Bravo Fleet RPG I’ll soon be joining. So I guess this means congrats to Ian for finally getting his command, the USS Explorer, first ship of her class. Lance Chisholm will be Marine CO there as well. I look forward to RPing with you as my fearless leader, Ian.

Now, I be off to drink and be merry.

Because Lord Cody says so…

Published by Cody on January 27, 2005 in Blog and Personal. 0 Comments Tags: band, Blog, clarinet, Personal, YouthNOISE.

Lord Cody hath deigned to change his Xanga color scheme. ‘Tis miraculous, yes? ANYWAYS, lapsed into strange archaic there. Well, I decided that the red and blue looked too Superman-ish (okay, okay, I got a complaint about the colors), so I switched to some strange grayish thing. I think it looks cool. Sort of, “I’m too cool for real colors.” Whatever the case, Solo/Ensemble Contest is coming up soon. The quartet I’m in has only practiced together twice, but we sound fairly good. I hope to get together tomorrow after school to practice one last time before the big day. Thank God I’m not doing a duet with SaraBeth this year! Or even a solo. I’d be hard-pressed to find a competent accompanist if I did a solo. But now, duty calls me to drink Mountain Dew and waste myself away in front of the computer. Wait, I already am! Curse you YouthNOISE! You’re polluting my youth by making me stay online 24/7! But I like it…

Out of tune sax

Published by Cody on January 9, 2005 in Personal and Rant. 2 Comments Tags: Audition Curse, band, clarinet, Personal, Rant, saxophone, snow.

SIX FRICKIN’ INCHES OF SNOW!!!! I’m gonna have to get chains for my car if I want to stay away from the bus. Other than not being able to get out of my driveway very easily, the past few days were fun. If you didn’t already know, I spent Friday and Saturday down in Tacoma at PLU for an honor band. It was fun, but I wish I had done better on the audition. It was a funny thing this year because I didn’t screw up due to nerves like I usually do. Nope, I had practiced the audition piece until I could perform it perfectly. As an added bonus, my tone quality made some of the other clarinetists jealous. That in itself wowed me. But, after a half-hour waiting in line to audition, my reed dried out and I had a weird fuzzy sound. By the time I figured that out, it was too late. So yet again, I got shunted to the worse band and had to sit in front of the SAME STUPID OUT-OF-TUNE ALTO SAXOPHONE PLAYER AS I DID LAST YEAR!!!

Argh. Well, maybe it will snow a lot tomorrow and school will get cancelled. That would be majorly awesome. I shall have to perform my “snow dance” tonight and burn offerings for the snow gods.

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