One year ago today: February 22, 2014, I have since heard
horror stories from people who moved to Belize.
Five years ago today: February 22, 2010, a near-event at Border's books.
MORNING
Neat, Sunday and disposable income. For those that need to learn the lesson, to have disposable income, first you have to have income. The sad news is we ARE being paid what we are worth. This AM found me in the Panera with the puzzle page and a junk-food bagel. Relax, this is all the money I did not spend on that pretend bombing run over Dresden, the raid that made the world safe for rich bankers and democracy, too.
That’s where this picture comes in. Six outlets and twelve eggs. Woo-hoo, I got one large egg in the carton of mediums. Score! The outlet is for the new recording studio in the SW wing of my complex. Not shown here is a wonderful tin of cinnamon coconut tea if found on sale. It was still six bucks, but man, what an incredible aroma in the house.
Which of course led me to playing bass instead of practicing my guitar. You know where my passion lies, once I got started on the bass hours went by before I noticed I wasn’t doing what I should. I know, it is the guitar parts holding me up—but my rational goes that is what has been holding me up for twenty years.
Oh, before I forget, these guys from the church came to the door, no not the 7-dayers. They have, brand new in the box, an XP computer with sound and video cards. Clean install, mine for $30. Still in the packing peanuts. I just saved another $250 right there. Please understand, I am a very discriminating computer user and my entire system is geared toward XP. And I’m not changing to anything “higher” until MicroSoft comes out with a system that actually works.
Have you tried to use the new control panel in Win 8+? Garbage, it just comes back with that nonsense message “device is working properly”. Up yours, Redmond. If it was working, people wouldn’t be looking in that setting. There are no options any more, you have to choose only global commands and if those don’t work, well good luck Charlie.
NOON
“You can’t expect to hit the jackpot if you don’t put a couple of nickels in the machine.” --Flip Wilson
She’s a warm one out there. I love to groan about having to run the air conditioner in the middle of February. Here’s a fuzzy picture of the monster bike, but there is a different reason it is here. Some people suggested it was my inexperience as a digital photographer that was responsible for my comment that something funny is going on with cameras. This photo was taken on the same equipment, in the same room as nearly perfect photos of a month ago.
My new XP computer should be showing up today, I’ve got five bucks that says the quality of the pictures will instantly improve when I get back on familiar equipment that I know works right. And that can be adjusted when it does not.
Here’s some trivia. The three richest men that died on the Titanic (Strauss, Astor, and Guggenheim) were all opposed to the establishment of the Federal Reserve Bank. Did you know only countries with a Federal Reserve bank ever have recessions and depressions? These are not to be confused with the ordinary seven-year business cycle.
“Recessions” happen in a cycle determined by banking, not business, conditions. The latest depression is being put off by low interest rates, which allows the most vulnerable majority of society try to borrow their way past the scrunch. But they are just setting themselves up to lose everything the moment there is another downturn. I don’t know, do YOU think there will be another downturn? Myself, I’m “banking” on it. And you don’t think that bank is going to let you keep all the gold you’ve been hoarding, do you?
Don’t look at me. I don’t do gold. But I do have an opinion that if the DC tries another March 19, 1933, this time they will have a fight on their hands. And that resistance may not be all that passive, again, just my opinion. Back then, the federal government seized all the gold at $35 per ounce and eight months later let it float, I think gold doubled in price. Go look it up, I’m not sure.
This is a difficult thing for most people to follow and these strange laws take advantage of that fact. When people don’t trust a currency, they tend to put their money into commodities that hold their value better. This takes money out of circulation, which harms the Federal Reserve System. But some facts are certain. Like in 1933, people valued hard work and freedom significantly more than today. They had not been bought off by the credit system. That began after the Second World War and lasted to around, oh, 1985. That’s when the real rot set in.
But sheeple need not worry. Every other day, we hear official announcements that the worst is over. So get out there and spend. Borrow if you have to, as long as you spend. I mean, it is not like the big corporations control the food supply or anything. Besides, all the “good people” have nothing to hide. You have Al Gore’s word on that. Regardless of that global warming thing happening in Vermont.
Besides, by now everyone has forgotten that announcement last January 14 that more businesses are dying than being born in America. Who cares? That is just boring little, insignificant statistic anyway. Like fewer white births than non-white. America wants to know what is important now, not twenty years from now.
national debt
AFTERNOON
Brainiac here decided to rig up yet another power bar in the recording area. Ah, but I had not counted on the Florida mentality that got here before me. Anyone who has built, say, a chair, knows it is more difficult to build one that is uncomfortable than one that is. Or anyone who has built a room knows it is more work to make it smaller than 8 feet long. Well, you have never seen anything like Florida. I have. In Mexico and Venezuela. The system goes out of their way to make your life uncomfortable so later, if you get rich, you will pay them to clean up their own mess.
This photo shows that the recording area is quite tiny. That’s the only way I could shoehorn it in there. The Tascam, the box at center, is the core of the operation. The other box is just a mixer. You can see the keyboards hanging from the wall but not the drum box, as it is only used for music not intended to be played live.
And that is what I did. I made a recording to see how much time would be required to record, mixdown, and master a four track song. It’s one thing to record a track when you are in the mood, another to work against a deadline and that’s the mode I was testing. The Tascam has a maddening habit of simply not allowing the sound through to the headphones in record standby. You have to hear the sound to record it, but nothing comes through the headphones about half the time. Always when you've just changed channels. You must use headphones here because I do not have a sound booth.
What grinds your gears is you can see the level meter is detecting the sound, but you cannot hear it. Most of the times, it is a setting for “input A” or “input B” which seems to reset itself whenever it pleases. I’ll get used to it, but the recording took me three hours. This is skilled labor so it leaves one somewhat exhausted even though all you’ve done is push buttons.
What, you want to hear the song? It is not that easy. I’ve only got the master and I’ve learned to add the extra step of running the tracks through Audacity to get rid of any ambient hum. The Tascam also has several settings whereby to get a balanced input, you have to accept a certain amount of background white noise. I’ll get better but recording requires patience. More for me than others, because I never sound good recorded, only live. I do not know why this is.
EVENING
Of the group I e-mailed the music [composed earlier], the most prevalent observation is that there were mistakes. This is because this is not indie-grade material. My opinion is the music scene needs to get back to live, that is, away from this spotlessly perfect banter, as if perfection is a desirable component of the listening experience. Things should swing back toward a less bisected type of recording. For that matter, I’ve decided to introduce said “mistakes” directly into the recordings.
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Speaking of pictures, this one has no relevance. Another balancing snap to make the blog less lopsided if it is ever printed. Yes, I have dreams of that some day. Anyway, that is the pot of tea I made for the evening. That is my old coffeemaker, not as old as my original Black & Decker that lasted some 25 years. But this one is right-sized for company. If more than two people show up here, they will have to sit in shifts.
Before you go, I am serious about modern recorded music being "too perfect". Some of the best music from long ago was accomplished by stringing up a microphone or two and letting the band play live. It too me years to distinguish why live music sounds better. But at the same time, I do not care for "live" recordings of concerts. I am looking at producing a small series of tunes, maybe four, to investigate introducing imperfection back into studio recordings. I never did care either for these types who spend months recording one track to get it perfect. Music isn't perfect.
Last Laugh
This is a Stingray antenna, helping people with nothing to hide do just that.
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