Did we sleep in or what? I was up before sunrise and began reading “Ra”. How is that pronounced? I’m reading the condensed version. The tale of how Thor, the Norwegian, tried to sail a reed boat across the Atlantic. He failed, but so does everyone who gets themselves into a scenario where they have to continually outdo themselves just to maintain a lead. That’s why there are no “old bold” pilots. I went back for a nap at 6:00 A.M. and was out for another four hours. Late summer heat, I’m telling you.Peggy has called and we’ve slated the next stage to be compiling the list of candidates. This has to be done as efficiently as possible. Peggy points out that a percentage of these bachelors will not have even basic email service. However, since some of the women who read cookbooks won’t either, things should balance out. It will be necessary to compile and pre-edit the various inputs from what are going to turn out to be 25 difference sources and formats. I’m reminded of that book “Valleye of the Dolls” where the authoress had a different person write each chapter and all she did was amalgamate.
The gossip. Eric was over and reminded us the Canadiens will be back in force within the month. I did a major shopping trip which took two hours and four stops. My stage costume is getting threadbare and I took it in for repairs. Arnel accidentally threw out his original disk with his editing software. He called to see if I’d be around tonight (yes, I will) and we begin a quest for new MIDI programming software. Much as I’d like to believe how necessity will cause me to begin singing, as with him, remember that he is a studio-trained musician, while I’ve never had a bass-playing lesson in my life.
What grabbed my attention was the advertising claim by Sonar7 that it will translate ordinary wav files into MIDI files. I find that unbelievable and there must be some kind of codicil. No way can it be done with current technology. How would Sonar pick out, say, the bass drum sound and place that on a single MIDI track? I will give it a very close look soon, mind you. MIDI is not the answer to my musical backing tracks because I do not sing. However, I’d much rather be looking for a vocalist than a guitar player in this town. Any day.
Later I went to Boston’s and we did a dynamite twenty minute set, with very few of the sound engineering problems of last week. Some the 1960’s tunes proved, I think, the superiority of early rock over what rock has become today. A new guy, Jim, showed up. What a huge dude, he is the size of Arnel and I put together and six/six easy. He sings excellent Marley.
I’ve decided against the advertising flyers, mainly because they are just too expensive for the simple message that I have the lowest prices. Their main attraction was indelible ink, so I looked around to see what other people have done. One thing I found was a business card that had a plastic-like feel to it. I soaked it in water, alcohol and anti-freeze for twenty minutes each and it did not fade or run.
Under the magnifier, it appears to be nothing more than ordinary rubber ink, the kind you get on business cards advertised $19.95 per thousand. If so, that is what I want. I could cover that Kinko’s parking lot twice a day as these cards cost 1/10th as much as any alternative.
I thought about the small size of the cards. So what if some tiny fraction of the population can’t read them? I never went to management school so I have no trouble telling such people to go someplace that caters to the half-blind. I say now is the time to strike that part of town with all the advertising I can afford. Handily afford, I mean.
I am convinced 30% of Kinko’s pricing is bloated corporate overhead. I had to think this through to make sure they are not expensive because they offer some service I do not. Other than webcams, which I don’t like, they don’t. It appears they are over-standardized and along the way lost track of reality. At $15 per hour, there is no value to the average user. If you had a job that paid you enough to afford $15 computer time, you would not be renting a computer. Even as a convenience.
Reading “Ra”, I am up to the point where they are building the reed boat in Egypt. I found out papyrus no longer grows there, so they had to import it from Ethiopia. The boat-builders came from Chad; all the craftsmen in Egypt had forgotten the methods. There were two Ras, built along two differing designs from opposite sides of the Atlantic. Myself, I have no doubt plenty of people crossed that ocean before Columbus. It is just that the further south you go, the more the journey becomes one-way.
Most compelling information is the report that during the entire trips, not a day passed without the crew seeing oil blobs, garbage or some other man-made pollution. In a mild disappointment, I read the crew was communicating by short wave radio and for some reason I had assumed they would use Morse code. This reminded me of trying to learn Morse as a Boy Scout. You know those charts they give you, with the dots and dashes? Useless. The charts can also give the impression the code is evenly spaced, but in fact, the dots are keyed much closer together. That is, the dots “stutter”. Ah, just go listen to some code, you’ll see what I mean.
