Jazz is hard

I wonder what it would be like to work a real job.

Mad Men

I tried to watch Mad Men... I made it through the pilot and was bored out of my mind. I then watched the second episode, and was bored enough to give up about halfway through. Am I missing something?

Electric Feel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzU2qH6wecw

How I want to play piano

I found a song that kind of epitomizes the way I'd like to be able to improvise: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jx8Mlh1ACtc

I feel like the guy playing that could go on like that for hours, and I'd still enjoy listening to it.

Rationale

One distinction I don't see people making enough is the difference between reason and rationale. Reason is the process of using one's mental faculties to assess a situation and come to a conclusion about what must be done. Rationale is using one's mental faculties to come up with justification for what one has already decided to do. This is an important distinction to keep in mind.

To pick a vaguely topical example, if you're arguing with someone who's very strongly in favor of socialized medicine for reasons such as peer pressure, arguing with their stated reasons for instituting socialized medicine is futile in many ways. Arguing with someone's rationale is pointless, because they spring up like weeds. This is, of course, only assuming that your goal is to convince that person that they're wrong. Arguing with that person in a public forum with the goal of convincing the audience is often worthwhile.

Debussy

This piece of music inspires me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWpV7L4YHuU

Finally

I figured out my path in learning the piano. It took my teacher throwing a song at me in an open-ended manner and encouraging me to figure it out on my own.