MORNING
This is the type of house I’d like. Living downstairs, privacy upstairs. The architecture caught my eye, as two storey places are rare in Florida. My ideal place would be a small acreage ten minutes from the city limits, as I don’t actually like living in small towns because of the type of people who live there. See, if the city ever grows out to my place, it could be sold for enough money to do it all over again. Anyway, I estimate I could build a house like this in six months with one helper for the heavy parts.
When is a drum machine not a drum machine? When it cannot double as a live stage unit. One day I’ll laugh at it all, but the Zoom drum box gets a bad review. Turns out it is totally unsuitable for live work. The major difference between any two drum beats is the tempo. Well, the Zoom has only one universal tempo setting. Every different beat is played back at the same tempo as the last one. I first thought the batteries were going dead, or it was shorted out, but that is the way it is built. What manner of total mental reject designs these things? That is why I must invent the world’s first real drum machine. I re-examined the box, the literature and all available publications on-line, including flowery youTube videos showing some Reggie Roughshave operating the machine. Not one of these sources made mention of this serious defect. Finally, I found a foot note bottom of page 16 in tiny (8 pt) font stating “individual tempos cannot be set”. This machine requires a warning sticker. Meanwhile, that is $100 down the drain. Ker-floosh.
Another stupid Zoom feature is the metronome. The first time you set it on, which is easy to do by mistake (press the play and record buttons together), it becomes impossible to get rid of it. Funny it remembers that setting when you turn it off, but not the tempo. Time to dig out my old Alesis with its wacky power plug, in a case of preferring the enemy that I know.
REST OF DAY
You know who would make money? Invent a pitch corrector that works in conjunction with Karaoke. Guitar Eddie still talks of buying that Vocoder which I’m awaiting to test. Take the concept one step further, instead of just hooking up a microphone, somehow bond it to the midi melody track. And you’ll have a mini-vanload of jolly-as-shit Elvis imitators. Did you know his ex-wife had all his "fat" pictures "sanitized" off the Internet?
I’ve begun looking for a new digital camera and my conclusion is they have all become about the same, varying mainly in price range. They are starting to look alike, as well. The scarier models will silently embed personal information in the photo tag area, including the brand of camera and the GPS location of the shot. So the boss’s wife can locate the exact motel in Vegas. Right-click on any jpeg and view these properties, bearing in mind older cameras kept less data. Worse, it is difficult to get rid of these tags unless you already know how. (I am later informed either this feature has been hidden or I got it wrong.)
The woes of getting a band together. Our guitarist didn’t show up for rehearsal. Why do I get the feeling the phone will ring tomorrow with the explanation? He’s running at around 20% efficiency and for Florida, home of the Medicare Fraud industry, that is close to what you’ll ever get. DaveO, where are you? That is offset by good news in that many of my old students and customers have been calling to see how I’m doing now that the shop is closed. Hey, after 16 years in operation (5.5 with my presence), that place was in institution.
I also re-looked at powerline adaptors. These are devices you plug into a wall socket and they distribute Internet service through your electrical wiring. They are not as popular (meaning cheap) as Ethernet but you don’t have to run wires all over your place either. You connect a RJ-45 cable from your router to the master plug, which looks like a large transformer. This energizes every other socket in the building (it stops at the electrical panel). You still need a receiver unit near each computer, but that is easy since you’ll likely need the power outlet for your computer anyway.
Today’s trivia. Concerned about the melting ice caps? Have you seen those dramatic satellite photos of the diminishing polar ice fields? Here’s the bad news. The ice underwater that you can’t see melts 20 times faster.
Return Home
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
