January 14, 2016

Yesteryear
One year ago today: January 14, 2015, eHow sucks.
Five years ago today: January 14, 2011, on tankless water heaters.
Nine years ago today: January 14, 2007, black, non-European hair . . .
Random years ago today: January 14, 1980, more natural times.

MORNING
           Blog rules I have to tell you the most blogworthy event of the morning, and it’s days like this that kind of dread on that count. My new scooter tire is, dang it, slowly leaking air. Today I wore shoes (instead of sandals) during the day for the first time in nine months. And Ray-B and I are going to see if we can record some filler music totally by email. It’s only 9:30AM, maybe things will pick up.

           That didn’t take long. There was a big takedown right in front of the bakery just before I got there. Drug-related, nobody saw a thing from inside and it was all over in six minutes. Oho, what’s this in today’s paper they are going to look into these million dollar cash deals on Florida mansions. Anybody who read this blog years ago already knows that is the case. The stats say 60% of houses selling for over a million are cash. (By comparison, 78% of the rest of the buyers are saddled with mortgages.)
           As usual, they are not going after the criminals, but using it as an excuse to have all million-plus sales reveal their true identity. That’s BS as far as the criminal element, and what they really want is to outlaw all cash sales, so you know where that is headed.

           And the Trump-ism for the day is, “Unlike this country, I attack back”.

           This picture? It’s my space heater, propane powered. I have electric ones, but I will never forget 2004 when FPL (Florida Power & Light) left me without service for three months. That’s atrocious for the most modern country in the world. All they had to do was hotstick the transformer but that didn’t happen until the next year. If forget the exact dates, but the longest I ever went without power in Thailand or Venezuela was maybe four hours.

           There was also an article that if oil prices remain low, certain oil companies and interests will be facing bankruptcy. Gee, they could have read that in this blog a year ago as well. Guys, that is the whole idea. The big boys have stockpiles of money and they are intentionally depressing the market to get rid of the fat cats. We have the same thing in every large business these days. It’s a true pity, but the fact is the lack of true competition in the capitalist system creates the opportunities for this kind of “economic” shakedown by the ultra-rich. When prices are high, you get horrendously inefficient operators springing up everywhere.
           It’s like the precious metals market right now. Once the big players have wiped out the small fry, prices are going to soar into the stratosphere. I’ve seen this happen around five times in my life. The sad part is, the businesses that survive are not always the best or most productive. Look at how Google sprang to life by being the worst. Same with Starbucks.

NOON

           “I don’t own any stocks or bonds. All my money is tied up in debt” – George Carlin

           Sometimes I wonder why I bother with these so-called “pocket” recording devices, which I generically refer to as “Tascams”. You know the ones I mean, they call then 8 tracks, but they are one track 8 times. There is just no such thing as a quick 5-minute recording job with those contraptions. Unless you mic everything through one channel, a four-part recording, about the minimum, would require at least 20 minutes to record. Do the math, four tracks, five minutes each, one after the other.

           In two hours, I produced a drum and bass track to send to Ray-B. What a boon it would be if he can record the guitar parts independently and ship them here for final mixing. I see services that offer that on the Internet so I know it can be done. Today’s effort was a little tune in A minor, an ordinary background music track, but we have to start somewhere. Getting together is not only inconvenient, it is wasteful because we also wind up visiting.
           The tune is called “Maybe Time”, I sent him only the bass track, so he can match up a chord pattern. I’d like to have sent the drum and bass together with some spoken instructions, but that damn Tascam. Every time I go to use it, I have to relearn that stupid and tricky procedure for mixdown and mastering which is made needlessly complicated by using so many common buttons on the machine.

           It has been drawn to my attention that not everyone knows how a recording “studio” is supposed to work. The concept is simple. Every instrument or major component of the band is directly wired into a mixing board that records the entire sound of the band at once. Then an audio engineer tweaks the various tracks to get the desired sound. If you listen to old CCR albums, you’ll hear music recorded this way. The advantage is that it does a far better job of capturing the “live” spirit of the band as opposed to repetitiously adding one “layer” at a time. The Tascam is one layer at a time. The results sound like it.

EVENING
           Here is the lithium car battery I referred to. Yes, I am picking it up with one hand, which is nice. However, this was at Sears, so it had no price tag and there was nobody around to ask. They had one man at the service counter and he was taking his time with the lineup. Not that if I waited in line for half an hour to ask a ten-second question, is it likely he knew any more about the battery than I did.

           Kmart appears to have the same battery at $50. However, that doesn’t seem right, plus this is new technology. Lithium batteries can provide one helluva good kick. I’d still hesitate until I see more product reviews. Also, be aware that lithium loses charge gradually if you just leave it sit.

           Next, I composed a theme song for my videos. The background filler is nice, but I’ve been using the same tune for years and I wanted something that matches our travels looking for my cabin in the woods. We are now “The Two Intrepid Travelers Of The Twenty-Teens”. And now we have our own jingle. I miss hit songs that have a light-hearted theme, we used to have those on the hit parade. Now it isn’t a parade, it is the whole circus. It’s sex, it’s drugs, but it is too tribal-sounding to be rock and roll.
           And, I suspect it is more drugs than sex. You see, back in my day, if you were a little picky, you didn’t even have to worry about fooling around. How, you’d better get a blood sample before you take a sip from her glass. Remember fun tunes like “Gitarzan” and “The Streak”? Now it is all the same two themes made as cheap and trashy as possible—but then again, my generation didn’t really leave them that many alternatives, did we now? However, there is also a mroe fundamental lack of talent in the field of rock music. Can you imagine BuckCherry trying to cover “River Deep Mountain High”.

           And here is what came over the Morse wavelength this evening.

WRAPS A PORTABPE SATELLITE ANTENNA ROTATOP S4STEM FOR TRACKING SATELLITE S. MARK SPENCTR /WSOT ARRPEDJ COORDINATOR MSATS RECENT SUCCESSES IN COMPETITIOD FOR / DE W1AW/CWBSAT LAUNCH OR THE UNIT ES SUCH AS FOX 1 AND RADFXS AT / FOX 1 B SIGNAL PRADIGM SHIFT IN FUTURE HAM SATELLITE EFFORTS AND WILL GIVE A SMNFICANT / QST DE W1AW.

           Sure, I’m out of practice, but I get the message. The slashes often represent a character I don’t understand, but knowing that when you hear it is as important as the rest. It’s an ad for a satellite tracking antenna, which is undoubtedly only practice code as advertisements are not allowed on Morse frequencies.
           Trivia. One of the reasons Morse was so quickly replaced was the demand for skilled operators. It was never fully met despite high wages. I know that I can receive for a maximum of 30 minutes before my error rate becomes unacceptable. If the code is faster, up goes my error rate. Still, at only 5 wpm, I could receive 150 words at a stretch. More than enough to win the battle if the enemy has nothing to compare.


Last Laugh

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