So it looks like they found somebody to take the keys. All it takes is for al-Sistani to walk in and the whole situation is under control. (That is, until the next situation arises.) The thing to note here is how much power al-Sistani holds. They're treating him a lot like a ruler of people. Probably won't be long before he gets the official job offer.

One of the most frequent questions that gets asked in my establishment... 'How long will it take me to learn to play an instrument?'. The answer of course is 'it depends'. But for those of you who want some hard data points - here goes. If you want to be a rock star, the current average is about nine years unless you're an adorably cute semi-pubescent teen with a good manager. That's nine years of 24/7 thinking of nothing but music. You wear your instrument to bed. You can impress a few people with your ability after about two years of playing every single day for an hour or more. It takes about six months to be able to play something that sounds remotely melodic. Two weeks until you get over the first fear of the instrument and you might even be able to play some individual notes (or basic chords on a guitar) without screwing them up.

But here are the real fun numbers. In western civilization, we only officially recognize 12 notes. That's it. Only about six or seven of them sound any good with each other, and only three or four sound any good at one time.

Along that vein, I tried a new guitar tuning for slide. It's wicked. G-G-D-G-B-D. The other fun one is the same thing but dropped to a minor. Now that's the blues.