One year ago today: December 21, 2016, the Rebel gets inspected.
Five years ago today: December 21, 2012, definitely a DNS transcript.
Nine years ago today: December 21, 2008, cat and chain saw.
Random years ago today: December 21, 2010, I begin trailer shopping.
The darkest day of the year. Think I’ll sleep in. I still have a ton of work to do inside, but I’ll sleep in anyway. Think of it as an Xmas present. Trent and I were on the phone yakking about mortgage matters when we should be talking music. He’s exactly where I was at the time, the career becomes demanding enough that music gets neglected. The difference is nobody ever later regrets not spending time at work. Dude, since I know you are reading this, I’m gonna do what you should do. I’ve dropping everything, plunk on the desk, and going downtown for an extra coffee break. Two cream, no sugar. And you, reader, should be doing the same. Tell the boss I said it was okay.
I spent an hour on-line and could not find anything I wanted to read. I usually download enough reading material once a week to last. But the Internet can’t keep up. That’s what I said. The Internet is like real life, there are a million chapter ones. Chapter twos are rarer. And if you want to go beyond that, you’re alone. So, I watched Harrison Ford in another of his clone movies, this one the take-off on the bank executive’s family who gets held for ransom. “Firewall”. The title appears to have very little to do with the movie, so it was probably filmed back when that was considered good security. I’m still wondering why nobody has pulled off the billion-dollar heist. Or has it been done and hushed up?
When I opened the case, the movie had been pirated. That’s nothing these days. I noticed there were two tracks burned on the disk and sure enough the cracking program was also on the disk—I think. It’s an amazing piece of conversion code, only 8,000 characters, but it’s binary so I can’t read it. I copied it and spent a while fooling around. I often wish I’d stayed with computers. Alas, when you are born poor, you don’t choose your career. This kind of software intrigues me and I can’t even figure it out.
Outer Hebrides.
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I contacted the guitarist who’s married. He lives 15 miles from here, once again right at the limit of how far I’ll travel to rehearse. However, once he got on the phone, it’s a sure thing he’s got the right experience. Sharp, too, kind of reminds me of myself. He named some fairly obscure country tunes, which I asked him to send me. There is a situation where non-classics are reluctantly allowed, and that is where the other guy sings and plays, and the tune has an interesting bass line. He’s got some time maybe tomorrow, it won’t take long to find out if things mesh. While I’m still leery of somebody under 30 who says he knows the music, I’ve been surprised.
We also shared common views about band work, it sounds like he’s got around the same experience as me by that age, which is 28. I was impressed that he didn’t tell me his brand of strings and all that kind of dodo guitar player crap. He lives north of town, right through the worst part of Lakeland for driving, but I’ve got this spider sense that if he can crank out the chords, we’ll have us an instant band. I’m not looking for an easy situation but it’s always a boost to find someone who takes to the duo work instantly.
And he’s got reasonable expectations. Let me describe a telltale signal that tips me another musician is a serious learner. They develop a preference for MP3s. It’s invariably amateurs that still mess with anything else, especially with CD audio. It’s not the music format or quality, but dozens of smaller issues of use, storage, capacity, burn time, and the like. Things that make a difference to getting the job done. MP3 is the overall choice of winners and, even better, it comes in one model.
CD audio is finicky, the files are clunky, and around one disk is seven acts up. I’m not blaming the equipment, because almost everybody I’ve seen copy a CD don’t have a clue what is happening after they click. Clueless power users. Like last week when I asked for a list and was sent a picture of a list. I had to find the right software to even open the file. An experienced musician will have learned not to do that. Well, same with MP3s. All other formats are massive, I think a CD holds what, twenty tunes. My 8GB MP3 stick holds my entire music collection, a tone of blog pictures, and usually some video files, and it isn’t even half full.
Plus, I still meet people with heavy cases of CDs, and some who don’t even have the capability to play other file types on a computer. So I was impressed when the new guy insisted on MP3s for the right reasons. I don’t think I’ve burned a CD for myself in ten years, but this morning I had to dig out my Nero to get Mack four tunes. And after I properly burned the disks, all the titles came out as track numbers. I say shoot the bastard who came up with that one. The only CD player I’ve owned in years is the burner on this computer. The worst format for learning is MP4 mainly because not everybody can play them.
Anyway, watch this new guy, because if we have a sound, we’ll be gigging out in no time. We both sing the songs we play, so we’ll likely have a full song list in a matter hours. There’s so much that can go wrong, it’s a treat when even a few things make the startup easier. Check back tomorrow.
[Author's note: I did not latch onto MP3s instantly by any means. I wrestled with the other formats and the ridiculous anti-pirating burners. It wasn't until around 2006 that I made the switch. So I know that when I meet other musicians who use MP3, I know that at least they've probably thought this thing through.]
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