Kev's Midweek Smorgasbord

All the news you can read, for the low, low price of free...

Almost exactly a year ago, I posted about the Elephant Orchestra from Thailand. Word comes now that they've cut a second CD, which is more jazz-oriented (including bass and drums!) but also contains part of a Beethoven symphony.

I also reported last year that a student of mine had accidentally grown a maggot colony in his saxophone mouthpiece. Lately, maggots have been showing up in the noses of nursing home patients (eww). Now comes a report that they actually have medicinal uses.

And in another example of animal savagery, a teen in Hong Kong was bitten by a piranha in a fountain.

(all the above via Dave Barry's Blog)

In the director's chair: I got to conduct the college big band again last night, the one week every summer where Kris slips away for a quick mini-vacation. I took "requests" for which charts we would play, with Halfling and G heavily involved in that, and it was a great time, even if Dingus griped a bit about having to play Machito. I tried to up the level of the tunes a bit from the usual laid-back summer fare, and I got some positive feedback afterwards; I hope nobody's chops got blown in the process.

Today is the penultimate Marathon Wednesday of the summer, and then Mom and Dad visit tomorrow, which means...pre-visit housecleaning. *shudder* It'll be nice, though, because I'll get yet one more birthday dinner and will also find out what they got me (I have no clue). Halfling thinks they broke off a chunk of the Great Wall for me while they were in China, but I'm thinking they would've had trouble declaring that at Customs. I'm hoping for the big entertainment-center cabinet (a convenient excuse to buy a bigger TV, unless said cabinet comes with one *crosses fingers*), but we'll see.

UPDATE: My folks did in fact bring me stuff from China, including a cool black T-shirt with something written on it in Chinese (they swear hope it's not obscene; maybe I'll get Zack to try and translate it before I wear it in the Asian part of town). They also got me what turned out to be a rubber stamp with my name on it in both English and Chinese, with the top of it being this marble-y double dragon that looks somewhat like a decorative chesspiece. The package was really pretty heavy for something that small, so when I opened it, the whole time I was wondering...surely it's not part of the Wall? But nope, my Customs instinct is evidently on-target, and the Wall remains intact.