In a classic manner, Fred and I both threw out valuable karaoke hardware and software after years of storing it, now gone less than a month before needed. I have a disk of CDG (which I may refer to as MP3+G, but that is a helpful technical description, not the correct name for the format). Today was a massive study of how the bewildering number of file systems work. The workings still baffle me but I now know what most of the files look like. I was also able to play an mp4 file without a license.Trader John’s, the bookstore, is gone again. Is it another move, or out of business? A shut down would be the end of an era. I wasn’t exactly a regular. After work, I walked downtown. It is mostly high-priced bars and café’s. One novelty was an incense shop called the Magic Sandcastle. Did I get that right? It is 1920 Hollywood Blvd. Have you ever seen a million dollar inventory of incense sticks and cones?
Somebody gave me directions to the only other used bookstore in town. Evidently they’d never been there. It has no computer section and no books in English. Having no reading material, I went home and watched “10,000 B.C.” The producers put far too much twentieth century into the script, which causes it to reinforce the point that religion and superstition have a lot in common. (Like not having improved one iota in all those years?) Most of the film was made in the faintest possible light. Great woolly mammoth special effects.
Every autumn, we get a few new faces that become regulars. The ones that interest me most are the people who get over here from downtown. We are just beyond walking distance, so customers don’t stroll in by accident. I am hearing an increasing number of complaints by the over 40 crowd that the staff at other places will not or can not help them. I knew that. I ordered up a thousand new business cards today. A week’s supply.
The Ozman sent me a video about the money supply. I already knew about the multiplier effect and that the man on the street has no idea how the fractional banking system works. The video is called “Money As Debt”. Worth a look. Mind you, it goes a little deeper at places than needed to give an overview. It answers the question of what happens if everybody paid off their debts. The system would collapse, as there would be no money. Too bad more people cannot grasp the significance of debt, yet most of them could not get by without it. Not because it is necessary, but because they wouldn’t know how.
I checked out a program called “Finale”, hoping it could edit. No, but it is a very interesting method of composing music. Using standard musical notation, you can layer the various instruments and the notes play back as you compose. I may even write my own blues tune tonight just to hear it. This is far more intuitive to me than the standard display of tracks in graph form.
Nope. Just as I thought, Finale is as hard to use as the rest. It takes practice time which I’d rather devote to the bass just now. It does have a MIDI interface, which I must learn to use, so don’t write it off quite yet. I’m also re-installed Cool Edit Pro to gain experience inserting lyrics.
Trivia. Nobody knows where Mozart is buried, but not because he was broke and could not afford a funeral. Rather, some acquaintances volunteered to bury him in the local public cemetery. On the way over, a rainstorm broke out. They dropped the coffin and bolted for cover. When they returned, the coffin was gone.
