Hi

Hi again. welcome me back to barnson.org.
lost my password and matt gave me a new one, so I should be good to go for a while
Still painting miniatures and doing D&D stuff.
and I am trying to make my web page actually worth looking at, heaven knows I have enough creative content for 500 web pages
well, give it time.
when I get a page up and good I will post the link.
in the last 24 hours I have made http://home.comcast.net/~barnson.b/citymap2.jpg

Hi again. welcome me back to barnson.org. lost my password and matt gave me a new one, so I should be good to go for a while Still painting miniatures and doing D&D stuff. and I am trying to make my web page actually worth looking at, heaven knows I have enough creative content for 500 web pages well, give it time. when I get a page up and good I will post the link. in the last 24 hours I have made http://home.comcast.net/~barnson.b/citymap2.jpg http://home.comcast.net/~barnson.b/citymap3.jpg

and for those of you wishing to see my current game go to http://home.comcast.net/~barnson.b/cartoon_heroes.pdf please bear in mind that it is still incomplete and needs to be indexed.

and yes, I use a nom de guerre. -Brian

ID Bill Fails in Utah

A bill that would have required teachers to read a special disclaimer about evolution before teaching it “died on a 46-to-28 vote in the Republican-controlled House after being amended by the majority whip, Stephen H. Urquhart, a Mormon who said he thought God did not have an argument with science.”

A bill that would have required teachers to read a special disclaimer about evolution before teaching it “died on a 46-to-28 vote in the Republican-controlled House after being amended by the majority whip, Stephen H. Urquhart, a Mormon who said he thought God did not have an argument with science.”

Apparently the bill was neutered by Urquhart prior to the vote being cast, saying only that the state Board of Education “shall establish curriculum requirements relating to scientific instruction.” My guess is that it was still sufficiently politically-charged that sanity ruled in the House. Seeing this bill die the ignominious death it should almost makes me want to thank your deity of choice!

My favorite quote from the article?

Casey Luskin, a spokesman for the Discovery Institute, a research group based in Seattle that has promoted the ideas of intelligent design, called the vote “a loss for scientific education,” but said it was a purely local Utah matter.

The bill not passing was “a loss for scientific education”? That’s, uh… Wow. I think if I opened an encyclopedia to look up the word “spin”, Casey Luskin’s picture would be there.

Bach with the Beat… the Void War Soundtrack

A year and a half ago, I wrote the soundtrack for a video game called Void War. It was a small production, but seems to live forever in some ways. Didn’t pay much, but as part of my contract, I asked for and received permission to post the full soundtrack to the Internet for public use a year after the release of the game.

A year and a half ago, I wrote the soundtrack for a video game called Void War. It was a small production, but seems to live forever in some ways. Didn’t pay much, but as part of my contract, I asked for and received permission to post the full soundtrack to the Internet for public use a year after the release of the game.

Proving yet again that good music is never finished, just abandoned…

So here are the songs. All of them are designed for release with a game that had a very limited size, so they’re between 2-3 minutes long. I’m also listing them in the order they were (mostly) written, so you can hear the theme develop from beginning to end. I consider Bereft to be the best tune on this collection.

All tunes were originally Ogg Vorbis format; Ogg provides smaller file sizes and higher quality than MP3. Unfortunately, due to previous complaints on this board about the goofy format (unreadable in Windows Media Player), I’ve gone to MP3. Enjoy the lower quality 🙂

Each song in this collection has an inspiration from “Das Wohltempierte Klavier” (The Evenly-Tuned, or Well-Tempered, keyboard), Vol 1 by Johann Sebastian Bach. I managed to include a little Tocatta, too… The inspiration is often buried, and if you’re not familiar with the collection it will be very difficult to pick out in some cases.

I apologize that, even at high-quality, the songs have kind of a tinny midrange. This is due to the target format I was shooting for in the distribution: a 16KHz, 16kbps .ogg file. It had very limited range, so I emphasized frequencies which sounded good in that range. They made the “high-quality” recordings sound a bit off, though, and I don’t want to spend hours re-mixing and re-mastering these from the start again.

Stream the soundtrack here.

  • Falling Over (stream): This is the title tune of the game. Written last, but, well, played first 🙂 No classical tune embedded.
  • War Chant (stream): I made a MIDI ringtone for my phone from this one!
  • Cut Scene 1 (stream): A short, loopable bit to play during cutscenes. I really want to make a full-length bit out of this tune one day.
  • On The Level (stream): Never made it into the game. The feel was just wrong. This tune is really, uhh, unfinished. I may re-use the theme at some point, though. No classical tune buried in this one… I figured out that hook later.
  • Death Music (stream): The original death music for the game. Threw it out, but I still think it sounds nifty (and short), so I wanted to stick it somewhere.
  • Haunting Me (stream): I seemed to have mixing problems with most of my tunes; this is one of the few that seemed to presence across the full spectrum. Klavier inspiration: Prelude #3 in C# minor. Of course, I adjusted the key…
  • Blood Bash (stream): This is “Haunting Me”, umm, as a rap tune. I threw it over the wall to Justin to see if he could do some lyrics, and this is what he came up with. Included mostly for comedic purpose 🙂 And yet, I feel compelled to expand on this tune at some point… kind of Enders-Game-ish lyrics. The parts that are missing lyrics need a woman’s croon in there as a counterpoint I think…
  • Cut Scene 2 (stream): Another short, loopable bit to play during cutscenes. It’s a theme I had running through my brain for years, and it never went anywhere, so there it is.
  • Gutteral (stream): Like War Chant, it started life as a MIDI before we went to OGG for in-game music. This is what happens when you combine Tocatta in D Minor with electronica. It ain’t pretty, but it gets the job done.
  • Dogchild (stream): Bet ya can hear Bach’s Prelude #2 in C Minor, can’t you? I knew you could! Initially started as “Child of Dog”, because I was pretty ticked off about the whole theism thing when I wrote it. Gosh, I thought I was clever.
  • Bereft (stream): My fave!

Hope you enjoy. Not exactly music everybody’s gonna want to listen to in their cars, but I felt like I needed to archive it somewhere!

Rights regarding these pieces: All songs but “Blood Bash” Copyright© 2004 Matthew P. Barnson. All rights reserved. Duplication in whole or in part for any purpose is allowed, but attribution of authorship in ID3 tags or other prominent method must be retained. “Blood Bash” is jointly Copyright© 2005 Matthew P. Barnson and Justin Timpane. All rights reserved. For the love of everything holy, don’t reproduce Blood Bash willy-nilly, you could put an eye out.

Quote for the day….

All normal people love meat. If I went to a barbeque and there was no meat, I would say, ‘Yo Goober! Where’s the meat!?’. I’m trying to impress people here, Lisa. You don’t win friends with salad!”
— Homer Simpson

All normal people love meat. If I went to a barbeque and there was no meat, I would say, ‘Yo Goober! Where’s the meat!?’. I’m trying to impress people here, Lisa. You don’t win friends with salad!” — Homer Simpson

How Does Music Work

So this may sound like a stupid question, but how does music work? Seriously. I know about notes and rests and scales and all the basic theory, but it still seems like a sort of magic to me. When I sing, it sounds okay to me. But when I hear a recording of it, it makes cats cover their ears.

To learn music, would it be to just practice scales and chords and such over and over and over until they become rote? Then start putting those “building blocks” together to make songs and such?

So this may sound like a stupid question, but how does music work? Seriously. I know about notes and rests and scales and all the basic theory, but it still seems like a sort of magic to me. When I sing, it sounds okay to me. But when I hear a recording of it, it makes cats cover their ears.

To learn music, would it be to just practice scales and chords and such over and over and over until they become rote? Then start putting those “building blocks” together to make songs and such?

I’ve asked Sam this before, but all I ever get from him is “I don’t know. I just do it.” Which annoys me but I understand it, because that’s the same thing I say when someone asks me about computers. I’ve labeled myself a “computer idiot savant”. I don’t know how I know so much about computers, but I do. I mean, I do research and keep abreast of things, but on same basic level I can look at a computer and just “get it”.

I look a keyboard, and I don’t “get it”. I know it’s in there, and it’s in me, but I have no idea how to get it out.

Make sense? My $.02 Weed

Stop The Pledge Drive

Does anybody else out there give money to pledge drives for public broadcasters?

I’m frequently subjected to Minnesota Public Radio pledge drives. As of today, I am predicting that within two months MPR will re-organize as a fully private operation or become the target of legislative changes to disrupt their public funding.

Here’s why.

For those of you who don’t know, a lot of the national programming to which you listen via your NPR affiliate is out of MN. Besides just the MPR stuff, PRI, a syndicator of original programming for NPR stations, is also HQed in MN. Because of this, I bought into the fact that the MPR mothership needed to coordinate lots of pledge drives to cover the costs of putting on these shows. I understood the rationale behind asking the listening public to pony up some kessev.

Does anybody else out there give money to pledge drives for public broadcasters?

I’m frequently subjected to Minnesota Public Radio pledge drives. As of today, I am predicting that within two months MPR will re-organize as a fully private operation or become the target of legislative changes to disrupt their public funding.

Here’s why.

For those of you who don’t know, a lot of the national programming to which you listen via your NPR affiliate is out of MN. Besides just the MPR stuff, PRI, a syndicator of original programming for NPR stations, is also HQed in MN. Because of this, I bought into the fact that the MPR mothership needed to coordinate lots of pledge drives to cover the costs of putting on these shows. I understood the rationale behind asking the listening public to pony up some kessev.

Then, about one year ago, MPR went out and bought a radio station. This wasn’t any little acquisition. It wasn’t a purchase of a local broadcaster to repeat the MPR signal in a rural area. Instead, they bought a radio station known for its alt-rock, funky approach. MPR put a lot of marketing behind it this station, including a huge billboard on the highway. I found this interesting, considering that MPR still was asking the public for money right after the acquisition went through. What kind of taxpayer-supported operation has the right to go out and make a splashy acquisition and then continue to ask the public and government for more money?

Through a newspaper editorial yesterday, the listening public was made aware that the top executive at MPR makes $551,144 in annual compensation. That’s just the top exec. The editorial was in support of a proposed law forcing all MN nonprofits that receive state funding to disclose the top 3 amounts of exec pay if the exec pay is greater than the pay of the Governor.

Now, I can foresee MPR people fight back against the scrutiny surrounding this law by pulling out comparable salaries to other media/radio execs. The problem with that argument (again, which hasn’t happened yet) is that those other execs work for public companies with shareholders that get to vote on exec pay and on who oversees the exec pay. This is why I absolutely support the law. Even though I am addicted to MPR/NPR, I don’t like the fact that my tax dollars are getting funneled to media operations that don’t disclose their exec pay, that make acquisitions and that ask for individual contributions from the very listening public that makes less than the nonprofit execs and don’t know where their individual contributions PLUS tax contributions are going.

“This American Life” is brilliant.

Why I Don’t Like The Winter Olympics

With one more day remaining in the XX modern Winter Olympics, I would like to express my opinion as to why these series of sport are lackluster:

-The outcome of many Winter games is influenced by who performs the prettiest.
-The world’s most popular sports are not included.

Particular to the Winter games, I don’t like watching a competition in which a performance is judged on prettiness. We’re not talking about an athlete completing a set distance in the fastest time or moving a certain object the most reps. We’re talking about artistic performances adjudicated by interpretive opinions of human judges. I wasn’t around over two thousand years ago, but the ancient Greek Olympics had nothing to do with prettiness. I’m sure if we thawed out some Greek Olympian from ice and showed him (only men competed in the main events back then) today’s games, he would fall over laughing at the bastardization of sport. Besides, back then there was only one winner and no such thing as second or third. You win for your city-state or go home a failure. That’s sport.

With one more day remaining in the XX modern Winter Olympics, I would like to express my opinion as to why these series of sport are lackluster:

-The outcome of many Winter games is influenced by who performs the prettiest. -The world’s most popular sports are not included.

Particular to the Winter games, I don’t like watching a competition in which a performance is judged on prettiness. We’re not talking about an athlete completing a set distance in the fastest time or moving a certain object the most reps. We’re talking about artistic performances adjudicated by interpretive opinions of human judges. I wasn’t around over two thousand years ago, but the ancient Greek Olympics had nothing to do with prettiness. I’m sure if we thawed out some Greek Olympian from ice and showed him (only men competed in the main events back then) today’s games, he would fall over laughing at the bastardization of sport. Besides, back then there was only one winner and no such thing as second or third. You win for your city-state or go home a failure. That’s sport.

The other thing that renders the modern Olympics as lackluster is that the Olympics do not include the world’s most popular sport(s). Right now, the majority of Europeans don’t care nearly as much about the Olympics as they do of the upcoming World Cup. The World Cup is the biggest sporting event in the world. Where is soccer in the Olympics? Not there. The absence of baseball, American football and cricket is also noticeable, and I’m sure it’s because the international federations overseeing that sport don’t want their prominence weakened by inclusion in some lesser event. I would never consider waking up in the middle of the night to watch the snowboarding mogul but you better believe I’ll be setting the alarm for any U.S. Men’s World Cup game that kicks off in the early AM. My point is that the Olympics don’t have the world’s most popular and biggest sporting events and so its position as the chief international sporting competition is…well, not.

That is all.

A Few Jokes

A blind man enters a lesbian bar by mistake. He find his way to a barstool and orders a drink. After sitting there for a while, he yells to the bartender in a loud voice,

“Hey bartender, you wanna hear the best dumb blonde joke ever?”

The bar immediately falls deathly quiet. In a deep, husky voice, the woman next to him says,

“Before you tell that joke, sir, I think it is fair, given that you are blind, that you should know five things . . .

A blind man enters a lesbian bar by mistake. He find his way to a barstool and orders a drink. After sitting there for a while, he yells to the bartender in a loud voice,

“Hey bartender, you wanna hear the best dumb blonde joke ever?”

The bar immediately falls deathly quiet. In a deep, husky voice, the woman next to him says,

“Before you tell that joke, sir, I think it is fair, given that you are blind, that you should know five things . . .

“One: The bartender is a blonde woman.

“Two: The bouncer is a blonde woman.

“Three: The woman sitting next to me is blonde and is a professional boxer.

“Four: The lady to your right is a blonde and is a professional wrestler.

“Five: I’m a 6-foot, 200 pound blonde woman with a black belt in karate and a very bad attitude!

“Now, think about it seriously, mister. Do you still want to tell that joke?”

The blind man thinks for a second, shakes his head and says:

“Nah, not if I’m gonna have to explain it five times!”


While proudly showing off his new apartment to friends late one night, the man led the way to his bedroom where there was a big brass gong. “What’s that big brass gong for?” one of the guests asked. “Why, that’s my talking clock,” the man replied. “How does it work?” asked one of his friends. “Watch this,” the man said, giving it an ear-shattering pound with a hammer. Suddenly, someone on the other side of the wall screamed, “Hey jerk! It’s 2 in the freaking morning!”


Three guys died and when they got to the pearly gates, St. Peter met them there. St. Peter said, “I know that you guys are forgiven because you’re here. Before I let you into Heaven, I have to ask you something. You have to have a car in Heaven because Heaven is so big, what kind of car you get will depend on your answer.” The first guy walks up and Peter asks the first guy, “How long were you married?” The first guy says, “24 years.” “Did you ever cheat on your wife?” Peter asked. The guy says, “Yeah, 7 times… but you said I was forgiven!” Peter says, “yeah, but that’s not too good. Here’s a Pinto.” The second guy says, “I was married for 41 years and cheated on her once, but that was our first year and we really worked it out good.” Peter says, “I’m pleased to hear that, here’s a Lincoln.” The 3rd guy walks up and says, “Peter, I know what you’re going to ask. I was married for 63 years and didn’t even look at another woman! I treated my wife like a queen!” Peter says, “That’s what I like to hear. Here’s a Jaguar!” A few days later, the 2 guys with the Lincoln and the Pinto se the guy with the Jaguar crying on the golden sidewalk. When they ask him what’s wrong, he says, “I just saw my wife, and she was on a skateboard!”


A computer geek guy was crossing a road one day when a frog called out to him and said: “If you kiss me, I’ll turn into a beautiful princess!” He bent over, picked up the frog and put it in his pocket. The frog spoke up again and said: “If you kiss me and turn me back into a beautiful princess, I will stay with you for one week.” The computer geek took the frog out of his pocket, smiled at it and returned it to the pocket. The frog then cried out: “If you kiss me and turn me back into a princess, I’ll stay with you for a week and do ANYTHING you want!” Again the computer geek took the frog out, smiled at it and put it back into his pocket. Finally, the frog asked: “What’s the matter? I’ve told you I’m a beautiful princess, that I’ll stay with you for a week and do anything you want. Why won’t you kiss me?” The computer geek said: “Look, I work in I.T… I don’t have time for a girlfriend. But a talking frog… now that’s cool!”


The Queen of England was showing the Archbishop of Canterbury around the Royal Stables when one of the stallions close by farted so loudly it couldn’t be ignored. “Oh dear,” said the Queen, “How embarrassing. I’m frightfully sorry about that.” “It’s quite understandable,” said the archbishop, and after a moment added, “as a matter of fact I thought it was the horse!”


A man staggers into an emergency room with two black eyes and a five iron wrapped tightly around his throat. Naturally the doctor asks him what happened. “Well, it was like this,” he replies. “I was having a quiet round of golf with my wife when she sliced her ball into a pasture of cows. We went to look for it and while I was rooting around, I noticed one of the cows had something white at its rear end. I walked over and lifted up the tail and sure enough, there was my wife’s golf ball stuck right in the middle of the cow’s butt. That’s when I made my mistake.” “What did you do?” asks the doctor. “Well, I lifted the tail and yelled to my wife, ‘Hey, this looks like yours!'”


Buford walked into a doctor’s office and the receptionist asked him what he had. Buford said, “Shingles.” So she wrote down his name, address, medical insurance number and told him to have a seat. Fifteen minutes later a nurse’s aide came out and asked Buford what he had. Buford said, “Shingles.” So she wrote down his height, weight, a complete medical history and told Buford to wait in the examining room. A half hour later a nurse came in and asked Buford what he had. Buford said, “Shingles.” So the nurse gave Buford a blood test, a blood pressure test, an electrocardiogram, and told Buford to take off all his clothes and wait for the doctor. An hour later the doctor came in and asked Buford what he had. Buford said, “Shingles.” The doctor asked, “Where?” Buford said, “Outside on the truck. Where do you want them?”


A tired homemaker opened the front door of her home to find a young minister from the neighborhood who said, “I’m collecting donations for the new children’s home we’re building. I hope you’ll give what you can.” “To be sure,” said the beleaguered woman, “I’ll give you two boys, two girls, or one of each.”


A little boy came home from the playground with a bloody nose, black eye, and torn clothing. It was obvious he’d been in a bad fight and lost. While his father was patching him up, he asked his son what happened. “Well, Dad,” said the boy, “I challenged Larry to a duel. And, you know, I gave him his choice of weapons.” “Uh-huh,” said the father, “that seems fair.” “I know, but I never thought he’d choose his big sister!”


A store that sells new husbands has just opened in New York City, where a woman may go to choose a husband. Among the instructions at the entrance is a description of how the store operates. ATTENTION: You may visit the store ONLY ONCE! There are six floors and the attributes of the men increase as the shopper ascends the flights. There is, however, a catch: you may choose any man from a particular floor, or you may choose to go up a floor, but you cannot go back down except to exit the building! So, a woman goes to the Husband Store to find a husband. On the first floor the sign on the door reads: Floor 1 – These men have jobs. The second floor sign reads: Floor 2 – These men have jobs and love kids. The third floor sign reads: Floor 3 – These men have jobs, love kids, and are extremely good looking. “Wow,” She thinks, but feels compelled to keep going. She goes to the fourth floor and sign reads: Floor 4 – These men have jobs, love kids, are drop-dead good looking and help with the housework. “Oh, mercy me!” she exclaims, “I can hardly stand it!” Still, she goes to the fifth floor and sign reads: Floor 5 – These men have jobs, love kids, are drop-dead gorgeous, help with the housework, and have a strong romantic streak. She is so tempted to stay, but she goes to the sixth floor and the sign reads: Floor 6 – You are visitor 31,456,012 to this floor. There are no men on this floor. This floor exists solely as proof that women are impossible to please. Thank you for shopping at the Husband Store.


There are two Quebecois hunters who have been lost in the woods for weeks and they’re at death’s door. As they stumble on, hoping for some form of salvation or something similar, they suddenly spot, through the brush, a peculiar looking tree off in the distance. As they get closer they can see that the tree is draped with rasher upon rasher of bacon. There’s smoked bacon, crispy bacon, life giving juicy nearly-raw bacon, all sorts. “Hey, Jacques” says the first hunter “Dat’s a bacon tree! We’re saved!” “You’re right, mon ami!” says Henri. So Jacques goes on ahead and runs up to the tree salivating at the prospect of food. But as he gets to within five feet of the tree, there’s the sound of machine gun fire, and he is shot down in a hail of bullets. His friend quickly drops down on the forest floor and calls across to the wounded Jacques. “Jacques!! Jacques!! Que ce qui se passe?” With his dying breath Jacques calls out… “Run, mon ami, run! Dat’s not a Bacon Tree! “Dat’s… a HAM BUSH!”


A Cajun man wants a job, but the foreman won’t hire him until he passes a little math test. “Here is your first question, the foreman said. “Without using numbers, represent the number 9.” “Without numbers?” The Cajun says, “Dat is easy.” And proceeds to draw three trees. “What’s this?” the boss asks? “Ave you got no brain? Tree and tree and tree make nine,” says the Cajun. “Fair enough,” says the boss. “Here’s your second question. Use the same rules, but this time the number is 99.” The Cajun stares into space for a while, then picks up the picture that he has just drawn and makes a smudge on each tree. “Ere you go.” The boss scratches his head and says, “How on earth do you get that to represent 99?” “Each of da trees is dirty now. So, it’s dirty tree, and dirty tree, and dirty tree. Dat is 99.” The boss is getting worried that he’s going to actually have to hire this Cajun, so he says, “All right, last question. Same rules again, but represent the number 100.” The Cajun stares into space some more, then he picks up the picture again and makes a little mark at the base of each tree and says, “Ere you go. One hundred.” The boss looks at the attempt. “You must be nuts if you think that represents a hundred!” The Cajun leans forward and points to the marks at the base of each tree and says, “A little dog come along and crap by each tree. So now you got dirty tree and a turd, dirty tree and a turd, and dirty tree and a turd, which makes one hundred. So, when I start?”


(Some jokes blatantly stolen from a thread over at www.runryder.com…)

Rare as a hen tooth

You know that old phrase? “Rare as a hen’s tooth”? Well, turns out it ain’t so rare anymore: Chickens Can Grow Teeth.

You know that old phrase? “Rare as a hen’s tooth”? Well, turns out it ain’t so rare anymore: Chickens Can Grow Teeth.

I wonder what other old sayings, maxims, and truisms will wither in light of new research? Snowballs in hell? Flying pigs? Flying butt monkeys?

Sex Offender Registry

Provo, UT is the per-capita sex-offender capital of the nation.

Provo, UT is the per-capita sex-offender capital of the nation.

I made this assertion in conversation with a co-worker the other day; I’ve read about several studies which back it up. He challenged this assertion, so I wanted a quick and easy way to be able to figure out how to validate the number of sex offenders in my area, and others. Here’s a useful site:

http://www.familywatchdog.us/Search.asp

Now, obviously, these statistics are going to be very, very rough, but they may be useful. By way of comparison:

  • Provo boasts 105,000 people, and nearly 170 registered sex offenders, or about 1 in 600.
  • Minneapolis, Minnesota, a town of roughly 380,000, has about sixty, or about 1 in 6300.
  • The Gaithersburg, MD, area has a population of around 60,000, and has about sixty, or around 1 in 10,000.
  • L.A. has a population of 3.69 million, and has around 1700 registered sex offenders, or about 1 in 2000.
  • Salt Lake City, UT has a population (in the valley) of about 1,000,000, with around 670 registered offenders, or about 1 in 1500.
  • Tooele, UT has a population of 28,000, with 56 registered offenders, or about 1 in 500.

So I stand corrected. Tooele’s worse than Provo. I’m fairly certain you’d be hard-pressed to find worse statistics outside of Utah, at least.

Maybe I should move to Minneapolis. Or buy my children mace or a tazer for their keyrings.

The most disturbing thing for me is looking at the sea of red on these maps around my home. In most states, there’s a fairly even division between adult victim, child victim, and other offenses, but around where I live it’s mostly children who have been abused.

This worries me, and I’m not sure what to do about it, other than moving to a safer area.

(To acknowledge possible opposition to my conclusion: Sure, yeah, maybe Utah’s better at publicizing the whereabouts of their offenders, or the state has better enforcement policies. I’m doubting that, but it’s a possibility.)