April 23, 2005

April 23, 2005 Saturday I was up until three this morning working on the computer, made by a company I’ve never heard of before called Electronic Desktop. Once I got internal it was all familiar and I ran in to some fascinating things. That is what kept me up, not the computer itself, which is a simple 1998 version using off the shelf parts. It had 4 RAM slots and a 5th DIMM slot, but I don’t know what for. I tried popping a DIMM to see what happened and the system just hangs. The way my workbench is set up I can instantly gauge the success of any change against the machine beside it, and I discovered an interesting effect. If I replace the 32 MB RAM with two 16s, the Pentium Pro becomes lightning fast for some unknown reason. The total memory is the same but it turns this puppy into a sizzling little desktop unit. Thus, I proceeded to install a CD player and a CD burner, convert the whole thing to FAT 32 and free up half the 1.2 GB hard drive by cleaning out all the internet junk. It is far more likely that something was wrong, such as an earlier upgrade with the wrong speed of DIMMs, rather than me discovering something. All I found was the effect. It is really an impressive unit and I would consider keeping it, except that the parts are so dated. It has the large socket keyboard, a modem with features lost in antiquity and no PCI slots for a USB upgrade. I was pleased enough to even go over some of the junk printers I have to make a matching set, but that failed. I should say at this point how the printer database is progressing. I have most of the current brands logged and there are over 1,500 models. That is just current models, meaning that you can still get ink cartridges for them. I have not entered the cartridge types yet, but they also number in the thousands. It smells to high heaven of a massive ripoff. Probably 90% of all cartridges are inkjets which use the same technology. Obviously there is something funny going on and I seem to predict these things about two years before the government steps in. The worst offender is Hewlett-Packard, with 368 models on the market at this one time, followed by Canon with 259 and Epson with 206. You’ll have to wait for other contenders like Brother because their model names are just plain hard to type, like a Canadian postal code, you are constantly working the shift key. The point is, just these three companies have 833 printers out there, which have two things in common. One, they all use the same technology and two, none of the cartridges will work in more than a few printers each. Every American knows it is far cheaper to make a standardized model of one thing, and then turn it out by the zillions. For such huge companies to break this rule in unison and crank up the cartridge prices should tell you something. Can you smell it now? That is why I want the Chinese products to flood the market, and why it does not bother me when overpaid American factory workers lose their jobs. I’m holding a Hewlett-Packard 51649 cartridge (empty) in my hand, trying to figure out what makes it worth $35.99. No new technology, no better service, nothing. As a technology becomes dated, the price should go down, unless there is a new improved model every year. I first saw these inkjet plastic cartridges some fifteen years ago, and they were all in the $7.99 price range. What am I supposed to think? I think Hewlett-Packard is stealing and I hope they go bankrupt. That will teach them a lesson. Speaking of lessons, the Hippie called and we did this practice my way. Instant results. We have 15 core tunes on a list, and every one of them video taped the way we intend to present them on stage. Add in a 90 minute power walk all the way to Publix, and that is a productive day. Even he said something about the super efficient way I handled it, although he qualified that by saying he could do it that way if he had to. Yeah? Plus, the video does not lie. I was right that several of his original songs have exactly the same rhythm and notes as existing blues hits. Not only that, many are in the same key. No wonder, I told him, Alfredo and I had trouble remembering what song he wanted to do next. The tapes also show that he (Glenn) does mix up the bass lines and has said I’ve made mistakes where I knew perfectly well I was playing it the way we practiced. We have a half-set (15 to 16 ‘performable’ tunes) of blues and rock classics. The refreshing thing about it is for once it does not contain any ‘beginner’ standards, such as House of the Rising Sun, Proud Mary or a ton of stuff we used to play for filler. This time it is a real list, although many of the tunes are quite dated. The idea is for us to fit into the newly emerging Cajun clubs, formerly blues clubs. South Florida is moving away from the steady blues diet and there are several of these we would fit nicely into on weekends. Here is the list: Jambalaya Hey Good Lookin’ El Paso Blue Moon of Kentucky Sixteen Tons Blue Suede Shoes Iko Iko Little Red Rooster Before You ‘Cuse Me Stormy Monday Born Under a Bad Sign Dust My Broom Add another three originals and that is 15 tunes, not bad for a late Saturday night. One more [practice] like that and I will begin to insist we play even if we have to pass the hat around. He has also finally stopped insisting I play certain licks on the bass that are really meant for guitar. (The bass frets are half again wider and require significantly more pressure.) The familiar songs in the list now have a definitive, but not actually distinct, bluegrass bass line that gives them a ‘bouncy’ edge. Think of the muddy stand-up bass sounds in old Elvis hits. Of course, all this is really going on to a database with video clips. His very talented musical ear does not extend to video. He would normally cut out things that I spot as indispensable. A good example is his original song Cajun Queen (identical melody line to Iko Iko), we rehearse it and he says, “That’s the lead break”, in an offhand and totally natural tone. He thinks it useless, I think it priceless. And it’s my tape.