One year ago today: August 10, 2013, beer opener.
Five years ago today: August 10, 2009, the kitty-cat, awwww.
Ten years ago today: August 19, 2004, Tahiti from space.
MORNING
The by now almost standard club meeting for breakfast was different today, in that we rode over on custom bicycles built in the new clubhouse. After comparison trials, it turns out the best all-purpose frames are the Jamis brand (which I often misspell as Jamus). I opted to rejuvenate my old red frame, so that is now back on the road The lighter frames or smaller frames we tried were compromises. For example, the mountain bikes glide to a stop almost immediately after you stop pedaling, where the Jamis will coast for a half-block until you apply the brakes.
The bicycles, on which I am sold, prove another point which is the growing dissatisfaction with the excesses of the Florida bureaucracy concerning motor vehicles. They suspend your driver’s license if your car insurance lapses. I see the logic, but what if you need to drive your mother’s car? And that nasty “penalty” if you don’t renew your tags before the anniversary.
What if you were out of the country? Pure corruption. And anyway, the insurance is on the driver, not the car. They want your life history or they can—and do—refuse to insure you. What does a phone number have to do with car insurance? Nothing, but it is difficult to buy insurance unless you give them a phone number. My personal opinion is that motor vehicle registration serves no useful purpose other than to check up on you annually. It certainly does not improve roadway safety.
We wound up at Lee’s bicycle for spare parts, and thanks to that shop for donating a piece of bicycle chain for the robot club. It turns out a sprocket should have a minimum of 16 teeth so that 8 are in the sprocket at a time. Another novelty with our bikes this morning is that these are the first vehicles we have that were purchased with club money. Without trying, we have acquired the ability to manufacture quality bicycles from old parts. The next step is to electrify them, but there is major disagreement on how that should proceed. The old speed versus comfort row.
REST OF DAY
This picture has nothing to do with the day. It is the lineup at the McDonald’s drive-thru over on Federal at around supper time today. I call it “Feeding Time”. Can’t go home and cook a meal, must work to make those car payments. Must buy that new car every three years even if they can’t afford to travel anywhere in it.
What do I like? The tectonic shift of this band toward new and different music. For example, later this month we do the roller rink which is undoubtedly a younger crowd. A year ago, the band (not me) would have forced our ancient set list upon them. Now, we play substantially newer music in the sense that the older teenagers might recognize some of it. I say I like it because the band is moving in the correct direction, something that was not happening before the new vocalist arrived.
It didn’t take me long to spot the band was willing to play “her” music where they had rejected the same material when I suggested it. Did you know, I was actually going to quit the band before that unexpected situation developed? Don’t get me wrong, there is no collusion rather just that the singer knows she is happy with the changes and is quite aware that between us, no, that’s not the right words. Not between us, but more like without us, this band would be right back where it was last year--other than us, they have made zero progress. Thus, the singer and I have a significant impact on the way the band operates, more than either of us thought about, but we are still the minority.
What don’t I like? This new material is peeling the veneer off the band by exposing that they are bad at rapidly learning new material. On one hand, I snicker at this vindication, but on the other hand, the weeks go by while the music is played wrong and I’m hearing the standard excuses why. The intro and keyboard break to “Runaway” seems to challenge them. The guitar to “Venus” is wrong and they don’t want to hear about how to make it right. The rhythm to “That’s What I Like About You” is not voiced at all.
Added up, this is our musical direction and yet weeks later, it still isn’t being played right. What would happen if I took three weeks to learn the bass parts? In the balance, I like more than I dislike, so we continue. But it is obvious I’m the soloist in the band in the sense that I have played a successful solo act, pulling the full weight myself.. True, the others have soloed at times, but they did not pursue it or damn rights or they would have. That’s what I’m pointing out. And the singer more or less sees that situation for what it is. This band is great, but it is not getting the weekly work. Sooner or later, somebody s going to discover a shortcut (to getting gig) but at this point, I think this band is losing me money.
Make no mistake about it, I cannot possibly stay in a band that is not making money. Nor does endless practice suit my temperment.
ADDENDUM
Here’s the answer to a question nobody asked. Is there, somewhere in the back of my mind, a just plain wild idea about what kind of a robot I would build if I could? Yes, there is. Given the resources, I would build a robot that could play rhythm guitar. Now, hold on, this is not as far-fetched as it sounds. It may sound crazy, but hear me out. There are such things out there, but they are demos of technology, not serious rhythm instruments.
I looked closely at steel guitar, how it rests horizontally and the chording appears to be changed by foot pedals. Before you laugh me down, watch this pedal steel video. Those pedals could be replaced by robot servos. And if the strings will produce chords, those chords can be strummed. How would it be programmed?
Years ago I saw a demo of a robot painting chairs. First, the human operator worked a spray gun and the robot memorized his movements. If I had say two guitarists play a strum a couple times each, it would be beyond easy for me to program the code to average out the best average movements of the guitar motions, producing the perfect guitarist. One who does what he is told and keeps his pie-hole shut.
One of the primary advantages would be that the robot is not following a program that tells it what to play, but duplicating a sound.
Wait, there’s more. What about feasibility? Well, I am certainly not the only person who has noticed that all known manufacturers have failed to produce a realistic-sounding guitar synth. The existing robots are not that much better. I want an assembly that clips onto a regular acoustic guitar. Remember that guy to invented the ChordBuddy? Nobody’s laughing at him, although he does seem to have completely evaporated. But that could have something to do with his $50 price tag.
Anyway, my rhythm guitar robot would, of course, have none of those defects. It would faithfully duplicated the best practices since it is would be designed from the ground up not for robotic spectacularism, but as a serious alternative to egotistical male guitar players. My robot already has a name. Ernie. Because that is what all guitar player’s names sound like to me. Dumb, stupid, Ernie. But hey, I’m designing the thing empirically so I have to go for realism. Remember haptics?
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