Myspace is still a thing?
Wild.
I have an account I haven’t maintained in many years.
I guess it’s still there!
08/02/2026
Who Remembers Myspace? I guess they’re back… Or did they ever leave?
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02/15/2025
RentaCar: 10 Things I Hate About You
This is an official first draft. I’ll be editing it down, at least one more time when I get around to it.
Enjoy.
I had to get a brake job done 4 days earlier than I planned for so I rented a car.
They told me it would along the lines of a Nissan Versa or so. Boy was I surprised
when it was not only nothing like that, but it was this itty bitty little 2024 Mitsubishi
Mirage.
1 You have to actually use the key in the ignition, no fob. Locks and unlocks but
that’s it. No panic button, no trunk button. (and no trunk! see #5) That is so 1990s!
People, this is a 2024 and you have to use an old fashioned key. Every single time I got in the car
my key was already in my pocket and I had my foot on the brake and was about to start the car but
there was no button to push. Wiggling around, I fish my keys out and start the car.
2 The side mirrors aren’t automatic. You will open the window on the rainiest
day and stick your whole arm out to adjust it, just like olden times.
3 The door handles only have one gripping point, and it’s bottom up so you almost risk carpal tunnel bending your wrist around trying to open the door.
4 There is no auto setting for your headlights so I just know I’m NOT going to remember to turn off my lights each time.
5 No trunk. this thing is little, and short and low to the ground. There is sort of a trunk, but it really won’t fit anything special.
Sitting in it, you’ve got such a tiny bit of metal and glass around you, it makes you feel like you’re George Jetson in a bubble car
flying through space.
6 No cubby in between the driver and passenger seat. We’ve all become accustomed to that, right? Well there isn’t one.
7 Two days now I’ve been trying to figure out where and how to add a radio station to the presets.
Judging by how many are on the same station I think other people had this problem the entire rental as well.
Very counterintuitive people, where did you hide it? That’s mean.
8 The clock is set 3 hours ahead of Connecticut time and I cannot for the life of me find somewhere to start updating it.
I’m going to guess I’m not the only one who can’t figure this out on my own.
9 The User manual is horrid. It reads like a common core middle school English language arts “textbook” teacher edition.
Half anime graphic novel, half text journey. Looks foreign to almost all of us!!! How can you find things in this??
Plus it’s in 2-3 parts so after finding nothing about the clock in the table of contents, index OR thumbing through
the whole thing and speed reading, I looked again and saw there is a whole separate “audio console” manual. (Still
can’t find even a second reference to clock in there!! So counterintuitive)
10 Yes I returned this rental without resetting the clock to the right time, or adding any radio stations or anything.
The one upside to this car was it’s so frickin’ good on gas it only cost me a whopping 6 dollars to return it more full than when I picked it up.
Read an ancient essay “My Little Laptop” here: [X]
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12/01/2024
Blogging A Wild Dream:
WILD DREAM:
Bean and Tea Leaf hanging out with several people crewing a bus n truck retrospective of Jesse Ed Davis’ life in music.
Eddie Van Halen and John Cougar walk in and I say hello.
No big thing for some reason. Eddie asks me which of the herbal teas are truly herbal and I have to tell him honestly almost none.
The Majestic Mint is the only one that has no sugar and no caffeine.
John Cougar doesn’t know who I am so Eddie has to explain. One of the most underrated so and so, never got a break because of his kiss-no-one’s-ass attitude.
Oh.
Well nice to meet you then.
Yeah, likewise, I say unenthusiastically. He asks me if I use 9s or 10s and what picks I’m into.
Ernie Ball 11s I tell him and only only only ones that Jimi Dunlop makes.
www.jimdunlop.com
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11/24/2024
FIELD RECORDING: Learning the Uke. Merry Minuet 2024-11-24
Here’s my newest upload, recorded it this afternoon at the beach.
Teaching myself ukelele the past 2 weeks.
It. has. been. so. much. fun!
Epiphone Les Paul Ukelele at the beach
https://soundcloud.com/atizine/field-recording-learning-the
I’m missing two of this cover’s chords and I still get tripped up trying to quickly form a chord on the uke but it was a guitar chord if you know what I mean.
I’m quite surprised, astonished maybe, at how quickly it’s coming together though.
Here, see what I mean.
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11/27/2023
Almost Famous – A Movie and a Musical and a Way to Be.
Marco Frucht pictured here with Cameron Crowe at Blue Gene’s Pub, National Theater Institute, Waterford, Conn. 18nov23
Corny joke alert:
— So yesterday I met Cameron Crowe
— Oh I know that name, what’s he famous for?
— Almost Famous
— Oh, what’s he almost famous for?
One morning I was telling a 7th grade class about how I used to sell cassettes of my music out of a van while busking on street corners all over the U.S. I found an old 4-track cassette tape the other day with early masters, and a girl raises her hand and says, “what’s a cassette tape?” And a boy goes, “Oh my dad has those, it’s like a VHS tape with the two little spinners but they’re smaller,” and she asks “what’s a VHS tape?” Not picking on her. I polled the class right away and there were only two other children besides that boy and myself. Everyone else had no idea what either of those two old pieces of technology are/were.
Last week Cameron Crowe and Tom Kitt were here at the O’Neill reworking their B’way production of Cameron’s movie “Almost Famous.”
It was so neat to meet Cameron and see Tom again. He were here a few years ago workshoping his play “Superhero.”
Even more neat was seeing some of their work as a staged reading with Equity actors and production crew. I have a good feeling about this play and it’s journey back to Broadway and everywhere else it will go. I sure do hope it gets licensed for High School productions and then Little Steven’s TeachRock.org group can include it in curriculum, right?
https://www.playbill.com/article/tom-kitt-and-cameron-crowe-to-redevelop-almost-famous-at-eugene-oneill-theater-center
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05/12/2018
Blame your state’s governor for gas prices, not Trump or Obama.
Please don’t blame presidents for local summer gas prices. Governor Malloy and State legislators in both parties are to blame here, and I trust that the other 49 states have similar issues.
Back in 2014 I caught Governor Malloy in a lie right in a coffee shop, right in front of the New London Day newspaper, and he responded by dropping Groton’s gas prices for 5 or 6 months. It was nice while it lasted.
Asking Governor’s Promise He’ll Represent People Who Pay At The Pump
During his visit at Muddy Waters, Marc Frucht of Groton slipped Malloy a card with a list of gas prices, hoping he could inspire an investigation into price gouging.
“Right now we have the highest gas prices in the state,” Frucht said.
“Maybe it’s worth investigating. He said he was going to look at it.”
https://www.theday.com/article/20140818/NWS12/140819700
Well now that gas prices are soaring again we all seem to be busy trying to blame either Donald Trump or Barak Obama.
I guess that’s a natural first reaction. But if we think it through maybe cooler heads will prevail.
I’ll leave all that behind this round, and ask the following rhetorical question.
How come New London CT’s gas prices are so much higher than Grotons, and how come Groton’s are higher than the rest of Connecticut?
Again!
10am 12may 2018 Cumberland Farms regular fuel.
Groton 2.89 /gal
New London 3.06
Weathersfield 2.97
Fairfield 3.11
Holy cow! It looks to me this time that Hartford is even gouging Fairfield and passing on the savings to itself and Groton. 😛
Seriously though. Gas was 230 something in Groton a few months ago people. Will it go past 4 dollars this time? We managed to keep it from doing that the last time. I’m not even cautiously optimistic this time. I’ll have to research this more deeply when I can, this just scratches the surface really.
Cheers,
marco
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02/16/2017
Hungry Henry Have Not. A Very Old Poem
Have You Hugged Your Havenot Today?
The haves drive BMWs – Haves wear Reebox
Have nots drive push brooms
Have nots look like retreads
with their torn up
muddy disgusting Pro Keds
The haves have central
heating and hot and cold
running water in every room
Have Nots have no heat.
And the only running water now
Dribbles across the plywood
Shanties that have been flattened
Out by the borgouisey bulldozers
Haves have someone
Park their car while
They ascend the sidewalk to their state
Windowside meeting room
Havenots stretch gladbag leantos against
Park benches next to sidewalks.
Half their tent is a window
Haves drive off to the inner city
To look at blacker people and
Guatemalan refugees.
They smile and offer their Beamer
saying, “Let’s go see how the other half “lives.”
Have nots don’t have to go anywhere.
They just poke their heads out the leanto
And watch the Honorable Harry Have,
Walking up the sidewalk to his whispering
Windowside committee room.
Harry Have happens to have
So much compassion, he’s
Head of a commissioned meeting
Discussing what to do
With all these hopeless homeless
Have Nots.
Hungry Henry Havenot
Was about to use the donation
Whoopie Goldberg gave him from
Comic Relief.
Enforcement agents sort of
Misplaced the money when they
Violently locked up
Hungry Henry Havenot
For Loitering.
Harry Have comes from a long history of Haves.
Aristocrats from
Waaaaaayyyyyyyyyy back.
Hungry Henry Havenot’s mom had him when she was 12.
She left him somewhere near the beach,
And couldn’t find him.
Her mom was a child abuser
And her mom was too.
And so was her mom.
Wow.
Sounds like a terrible problem those
Russians are having, huh?
Hmmm…
I’m pretty sure I was talking about here.
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05/09/2016
Thank you, person who taught me troubleshooting, whoever you are…
I’d like to thank whoever taught me troubleshooting so long ago.
I think I’ve used that skill set five times in the past two months!
And this time I just really want to tell the whole world about.
OK, so my fob to my car was starting to work less and less, 2nd and 3rd try each time to get my car locked or unlocked.
No problem, I have a second one tucked away somewhere from when I purchased this vehicle right? I fish that out and pretty quickly that one’s working its way toward taking a 3rd and 4th try. I switch back and not even in days that one passed the 4th try and was taking sometimes half a dozen tries each time. Great, does it just need a battery or is there something massively wrong with the electrical system?? Something I certainly can’t afford right now if it’s not warrantied or covered in a recall or anything, yikes.
I go to AutoZone to use their cardboard testing display thing right? The light comes on just fine every time. First try and all. I’m not sure but the light coming on looks feint maybe. Nothing to compare it to.
So before going in and asking at the dealership I figured I’d trouble shoot two more times with brand new batteries because that will cost me far less than asking them to clean, repair or replace the brains of the car!
I buy one battery and swap it in. Right away the car starts locking and unlocking on the first try. So now I’m just thinking I need to buy a second CR1616 battery in the not too distant future, whenever I can better afford to just buy extra things again.
So thank you to whoever taught me troubleshooting. Some was my dad when I was a little kid but the bulk of it really was in Fort Gordon, GA., when I was in A School for the Signal Corps. Lineman tool and my trusty Swiss Army knife and I’d learned how to troubleshoot just about anything. Yay! Oh man, what was that Signal Drill Sergeant’s name?? I’ll have to try and look it up in old journals because I really do want to think the old guy if he’s still around. He’s the one who didn’t like us swearing around him, saying he’d compromise on most of the cuss words, but absolutely no fbombs and no G- D-, etc.
Didn’t find out until graduation when one of the kids in my squad wanted to marry his high school sweetheart right on the same day he graduated. Drill Sergeant goes, “Does he have blood test squared away?” Yes. “Marriage license?” Yupper, “well then I can.” What? Drill Sergeant. You mean to tell me that Drill Sergeants can perform wedding ceremonies? “Ordained black southern Baptist preachers can,” he told me, wow. I didn’t know. Anyhow, the coping skills that guy had, wow, and the ones he imparted on me? Almost as much wow.
Thank you, thank you thank you.
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04/29/2016
& also in DIGITAL MUSIC NEWS:
& also in DIGITAL MUSIC NEWS:
OK, now what’s Groove Sale? In my tiny but growing revenue stream, the two groups treating me best these days are Tidal and Groove. Thank you, thank you thank you!
Looks like my most popular song in the U.S. is still Frybread but the biggest interest all over the world is for my “Swedish Folk Song.” Neat! And the second hottest song elsewhere around middle Earth kind of amuses and fascinates me.
My “Redundant Song” isn’t even released as a single, just an mp3 and youtube that I put online when I had done a mini-midwest tour supporting GarageBand’s Choozapalooza thingie a couple Presidential elections ago.
(anyone even remember the Garageband page? http://www.mi2n.com/press.php3?press_nb=71290 No, not the recording tools, the website. That and mp3dotCom seemed to go away about the same time Friendster did.)
So “Redundant Song,” I sure do hope people aren’t thinking they found a free mp3 of Green Day’s completely different song of the same title. If they did I hope at least it entertained them and they weren’t too disappointed as they keep searching. hehehe
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03/19/2016
How & where U can buy my Frybread song. :)
You can buy the song at iTunes and Amazon too but I’ve always made it available lots of places free (pro bono) as well.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00C36NL1E
http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/chiapaneca-single/id446265622
Call me crazy, sure. But it’s always been more important to me that I share this story with people all over the world than make a buck or three, but I’m not naive either. Making a buck or two here and there comes in handy when your stomach growls…
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