That is the size of wagon that is used as the frame for those mini-campers I was looking at some time ago. That is correct, a beautiful little wood camper that slides onto the wagon box and clamps to the frame. Sleeps two. If you look closely, you see the wagon bed has a very shallow box. This saves weight and I dragged what you see here around with one hand. This wagon is also perfectly balanced and will easily pull at 70 mph, although I don’t recommend you do it. A panic stop at that speed and you’ll be wearing the contents.Don’t let anybody tell you the music business is easy, although there are easy ways out. The one-man band concept is geared toward guitarists, which goes a long way to explain why most of them sound alike. What is slowing me down is the quality of the backing tracks. My instrument (the electric bass) cannot survive or drown out poor quality sound anything to the degree a guitarist can get away with. I’m still researching karaoke standards (formats) and realize that although none of them are suitable, I’m going to have to decide on one and suffer the consequences. Kind of like dating women in a small town.
We’ve all heard bad Karaoke. Arnel is teaching me how to “upgrade” the sounds and these are the piano patches I’ve talked about recently. When in doubt about a sound, change it to a piano, probably the least offensive instrument you’ll hear on a Karaoke sound track. There is also a large variation of recording standards and these need to be compressed for stage work. I’ve been using foot pedals to control the volume and thus can’t stray too far from the stage.
[Author’s note: Karaoke standards are file formats, such as .kar, CDG, CD+G and various less common types. None of them does a complete job; you must always accept a tradeoff. However, I am leaning toward CD+G, where each tune has two files. They are the CD and the Graphic, with a feature that plays the graphics (lyrics) in step with the music. Compression is the feature where different music always plays at the same volume, which we’ve talked about recently. Two things I cannot find are the software that produces the original Karaoke tunes and clear instructions for creating my own MIDI tracks.]
A useful spinoff of all this work is the interesting apps and features that you stumble across. The winner for today is “BMS”, an English program. It plays background music with a twist. You create a playlist of any length. However, you can program in announcements either in sequence, or at specific times of the day. Such as ten minutes before closing to get people off the Internet. It is a decent little effort, but lacks that DJ feature that lets you ask it to play a given tune more or less often during the day depending on how well you like it.
The “Sopranos” is going downhill. The series is overall good enough to keep me watching to see if this is just a poor phase, but really, they should stick with the gangster theme. They are turning it into a soap opera. The last episode has AJ (the son) showing up for Christmas dinner with a Puerto Rican single mother ten years older than him, and who has a black three-year-old. It’s like fat broads. We all know they exist and need love, but do we really need to be reminded of it every time we open the Sears catalog?
I ran more numbers for the mailboxes, something I often do repeatedly as more or better information arrives for any business venture. The winning formula seems to be charging $18 rent for the box and a higher fee for notification service. This might not seem like much money in the realm of high finance, but operating at half-steam, this will produce $570 per month pure profit (that’s my share, never you mind the total). At full steam, I could retire tomorrow. You might not see anything wrong with old people stocking the shelves at Publix (Safeway) but I do. Next time maybe they’ll run their numbers.
Another thing I followed up was the SmartCar. I’m no expert and I find all the tests used for autos are so contrived that every car gets an award for something. Essentially I look for price, safety and economy. The SmartCar starts around $12,000 and tops at $17,000 with options like heated seats. It is a German design and the frame is very rugged. The three cylinder motor gets over 40 mpg. Sales began in early 2008 so there is not much chance of finding a good used one. When the time comes, it is something I will look at.
It is electrically governed to max at 90 mph. Highway mileage means a trip from Seattle to Ft. Lauderdale would require 85 gallons of gas. There were apparently other models including a four-seater, but all were discontinued. I face the fact that I have used all four seats in my cars less than five times in my life, and a two-seater is a logical choice. I’ll look into what luxury options are available. Unlike my background and influences, I think it is idiotic not to spend a few hundred extra to get a comfortable ride.
