Yearbook Yourself

Need to waste even more time on the webanet? Gather some photos of your face from pretty much straight on and then go to Yearbook Yourself where you can see what your yearbook photo might've looked like in any year between the '50s and today. I quickly found a couple that worked well with their templates; my baby picture and one of Dad when he was in his 20s I think. The results can be entertaining.

Vans, Kiss, etc

I was making an Amazon order for this book about the birth and history of the Vans shoe company. The hardcover is pretty cool; "canvas" textured checkerboard with a big red rubber Off the Wall logo similar to the one on the back of the shoes. Different sections were written by different people. They could've used a better editor, because the parts written the Steve Van Doren (son of the originator) are kinda hard to parse. He's definitely not a writer. He should've been interviewed instead of letting him write his own thoughts.

Anyhoo, I didn't want to submit the order with just the one item, so I picked up Levon Helm's new album and the 6 remaining Kiss albums that I've either never owned (Hotter Than Hell, Rock and Roll Over, Destroyer, Dressed to Kill) or never replaced the vinyl with CD (Music from "The Elder", Creatures of the Night). I'd only heard some of the songs once or twice in my life, probably in Leo's car. It was fun to hear Take Me again. (Yes, pocket rhymes with rocket.) I hadn't listened to The Elder in years, and now I remember why. Well, at least 6 of the 11 songs are listenable and/or good.

But Is It Free?

At the Guitar Toss on Saturday, a herd of churchies invaded the area, handing out flyers. The music store always cordons off a large area for the band tent, sound man, the guitar toss area, and of course space for people to watch the bands. One of the store workers noticed the invading horde and went to talk to the portly woman who seemed to be in charge (the most pushy of the herd). I could see the employee pointing to the portion of the parking lot outside of their area, likely instructing her to get the hell out of their space and peddle their shit elsewhere. That was the church woman who'd previously handed a flyer to me before I knew that it was or what they were. I dropped it into the trash. As we were walking to our car later, that same rotund woman had stopped a car driving through the strip mall's main lane through the parking lot. There were 2 or 3 cars behind them, wanting to get through. Cripes. Leave people the fuck alone! Then we noticed the flyers on everybody's windshields. Kim grabbed it so we could recycle it, but not before scanning it so all of you can make fun of it too.

It's a classic case of why home desktop publishing can be a really, really bad idea. It's also one of the best (hence, funniest) cases of how some people think that quotation marks should be used to accent or embolden a word or phrase, to make it stand out. What they don't understand is that quotes make something fake/false sound as if it were real/true, hence the many laughs I got out of this one, along with the art and overall typographic and layout skills. As always, click to biggify. The red circles and comments are mine, because I'd hate for you to miss any of the gaffes.

But, ya know, being that it's one of these religious nutcase groups, it could very well be that you won't receive or win any actual free gifts if you show up, but instead you will get a sermon in the form of a bike that helps you travel down god's path, or they'll all sing their jesus songs at you, in the form of a human "I–pod". That's the "free tunes".

Women Ride on the Back

I like the way this tiny German car provided a place for a passenger only as an afterthought. Her foot isn't even on the footpad—maybe the wife was the brakes? "Helga, schtopp the kar at the hofbräu so I kan get some wienerkugenebnozn!" The rest of the gallery has some more neat cars.

That Was a Summer Day

Fanfuckingtastic day yesterday, weather–wise; hot, dryish, sunny, nice breeze. We sat on the deck for a while, trimmed up some overgrown shrubs, went to Dairy Queen, had a nice drive in the "country" down to Halla Nursery to get a bag of bark chips and put that around a few plants that currently had only river rock around, but looked like they needed a little extra moisture retention. Also relocated the solar landscape lights out front. They were right at the edge of the sidewalk, and I was always worried that the one on the corner would get kicked by someone.

Kim wanted shrimp on the barby for supper, so we stopped at Byerly's on the way home from Halla. She needed some bamboo skewers, which come in a package of 100. Good luck using those up in our lifetime, even if they are disposable. She made a marinade that sounded pretty good. I had a hot dog cuz I only like shrimp in small quantities.

That weekend did not suck. I ended up with a slight sunburn on my shoulders from the yard work.

Inglorious Bastards 1.0

Quentin Tarantino is doing a version of an Italian movie from 1978 called The Inglorious Bastards. His has Brad Pitt and B.J. Novak (Ryan from The Office). We watched the original last night. I was totally digging it from the opening credits, featuring super bold graphics (you see a bit in the trailer). The little Italian guy with the bushy mustache is fun. The one guy who kinda looks like Ryan O'Neal (see 1:36) is so fucking annoying. He's one of those actors you wanna punch in the face just so he'll shut up and go away.

So if you like WWII movies and spaghetti westerns, you should see this one. I'm hoping the remake is also good, but I know it won't have the same feel. Hell, even the audio on the DVD was cool. It sounded like it was coming out of a not–quite–hi–fi mono movie theater speaker system, with just a smidgen of natural old school amp distortion.

Smashburger

We didn't play the Guitar Toss this year—they only get "amateur" bands—but we went down to listen to a band or two. First we ate lunch at Smashburger. Now that's a tasty fucking burger. High class beef and cooked right. Also perused Down in the Valley current stock. I had some Bowie albums on my wishlist, but oddly they only had 3 Bowie albums total, none being what I was looking for (The Man Who Sold the World, Heros, and Low). But I found a live Drive-by Truckers album I didn't know about (it includes CD and DVD), from their performance on Austin City Limits. Man I love that band. Also got the extended version of the new Rancid album. Lastly, a Big Bad Voodoo Daddy album that's all Cab Calloway tunes.

The first band we listened to looked about 14–17. 4 guys playing very bluesy stuff for their age. The songs sorta sounded like Indigenous or Arc Angels, and they were all very talented on their instruments. I was impressed. I knew I wouldn't like the next band. I thought they were gonna be some kind of Dead/Phish hippy love band because one of the guys had his jeans rolled up to just below his knees, like some teenage girl from the '50s. I didn't get it. They were totally not what I expected, but I still didn't like the music at all. They had a black chick singing R&B type shit. Her voice was hurting my ears, so we left.

Went out to Ikea looking for some sort of interesting floor lamp and place mats. Found a lamp. That place is fun to hit once or twice a year. All sorts of people to gawk at, from hot MILFs, to all sorts of foreigners strolling slowly with their large brood, to white trash hillbillies (dad with his dirty sleeveless T–shirt, mom with a bun in the oven and generic smokes on her breath, son with a strange brown and bright blue camouflage outfit over his 12–year old beer gut) who heard about the dirt cheap prices and limped the rusty, sputtering '80 Granada into town. We also walked in circles more than once. The place is fucking huge and winds around back and forth, so it's impossible to know which direction you're going.

WTF

Just a few seconds ago, my eyeballs exploded when I saw this image in a Jalopnik comment. I'm sorry. Now you're blind too.



I thought the thing on the right was a chick, then I realized that the shadow (or some dumbass kind of goth makeup) under her chins was actually a beard, so that made it a guy with pigtails and a dress. That made it so much worse.

SFW Porn

When porn is made safe for work, the result is hilarious.

Disney Shows About Space

There're a few films made by Disney in the mid '50s about space travel and such, and they're on YouTube. One is about space travel and rockets in general. One is about the moon. That one has a pretty cool little movie at the end filmed with real people and futuristic spaceship sets. The third is about Mars, with this part featuring some really far out animation that rivals the weirdness of Peter Max and Yellow Submarine type stuff. Watch for the appearance of a Disney favorite amongst the Martian creatures chasing the chick. The animators of that era were amazing and really creative.

Up Pikes Peak with 800HP

I was only going to skim through this and watch little bits of it, as it's 9 minutes long and I wanted to go to bed. But I ended up watching all of it. Such amazing shots. Rally drivers are a rare breed, and unphased about doing it with a thousand–foot drop–off inches away.

Totally Impractical Gadgets

Gizmodo did a Photoshop contest to come up with impractical designs of real gadgets. I did one for the helluvit; #62, the Tomtom Plasma. There are some great ones, like the wrench, the Splode watch, Nike butt plug, and the solar–powered night vision goggles (I giggle when I see that). The wicker Weber grill is also very creative.

Lt. Dangle, Mission Control

The guy who did the mission control announcements for Apollo 11 sounds a lot like Lt. Jim Dangle from Reno 911. I kinda chuckle every time his voice comes on. And he just said the name of somebody at NASA; Semens. *giggle*

Speaking of Reno 911, we sure miss the ones they got rid of (especially Kimball) and sure do hate the new ones. The fat guy is just an unfunny annoying Chris Farley Chicago Bears fan type about–to–die–from–a–massive–coronary obnoxious jerk.

Wienermobile Having Its Way with a House

What the hell kind of idiot could crash the Wienermobile into a house? At the end of a dead–end street. While making a 3–point turn. The story says the drive hit the gas instead of the brake. How many people do you know who have done that? Anyone? Not me. I've never even done that while driving with an Xbox controller, and that has way fewer years of muscle memory than driving a real vehicle with my feet. Seriously, if you can't tell the gas from the brake, and confusing the two pedals while turning around (therefore going very slowly and having more than enough time to react) results in you crashing into something, then the law should prevent you from ever driving again.

Wait, in the news report video (if you follow the links) the driver (a chick—typical) had it in the wrong gear (D instead of R). So which is it, bitch? Wrong gear or wrong pedal? Retard. Here's the Google street view of the house. So she clearly would've been making a 3–point turn, probably by first pulling into the red house's driveway. At which point you stop and put it in reverse. So smashing that far into the house from a dead stop would take the work of a supreme idiot.


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Commodore PET

Heh, look at the stupid keyboard they designed for the PET. Unless you'd never taken a typing course and never used a standard key layout, then it probably worked OK for hunt & pecking.

Swell Light Control System

Take a look at this low voltage solenoid–activated light control system that's in a really cool house built in '61. Keep going forward in the set to see more components, including the solenoid bank where it all happens. Kind of a scary, messy wiring job.

MultiAd Reunion

Had a little MultiAd reunion today. I thought a lot more people would be there, but only 6 showed up. Too bad, as I there are a bunch I'd like to see again. The one girl said last year when they did the same thing there were only 2. So by next year there should be 18!

Sounds Good to Me

When asked, Kim did not vote against letting us upgrade our L/R speakers to these Martin–Logan Vistas. They're near the bottom of the line, because the ones near the top are what one might call "really fucking expensive". Plus they'd be way too big for our room at 70" tall.

We went out to Stereoland today and gave a pair of the Purity model a good listen. They're slightly below the Vista and are self–powered, more for the rich bastard that just wants to easily hook up his iPod to something in the bathroom I guess. We also listened to the same tracks on some Paradigm Studio 100s, which are really sweet. I wanted to see if Kim could tell the difference, but she couldn't hear it, or maybe just wasn't really listening. Being regular dynamic speakers, I could close my eyes and point to where they were, and even these incredibly high quality speakers have some colorations when compared to the openness and transparency of the electrostats. Those produced a depth, a more realistic 3D soundfield. On Bela Fleck's Flight of the Cosmic Hippo, I could easily place the acoustic bass behind the rest of the band, with Bela's banjo a little closer to the front.

But she knew that having a pair of Martin–Logans is something I've always wanted, and she knew our current Definitive Technology fronts aren't that hot. They're alright for watching movies, but as soon as I play music from any source, I'm completely unimpressed with our system. And with the receiver we have, I should not be feeling that way. I've always strived to have good sound in my house and vehicles. So now I will. I'm pleased as punch.

Spock Rock Talk

Just go watch this.

That rock sounds a lot like an analogue synth. Fascinating.

Suck, Music Industry. Suck.

Here's another example of how the music industry is run by complete morons. I'd be surprised if any record label executive could whistle or even hum a melody.

Cheap Trick on 8–track

I forgot to mention this when I read it the other day in the 8–track article. Cheap Trick's latest album, called The Latest, is also being released on 8–track. I'd better go find a book of matches to wedge in there to get the head azimuth right.

Now That's Well–done!

Here's a great shot of the spilled, squished, and cooked vegetables that were in the truck that was burned and smashed in the Detroit truck crash/bridge falling. I caught the first post last night, the one with the video of the really annoying, bordering–on–crazy woman news reporter.

CDs Are In

UPS just delivered our demo discs. Wouldn't you know it, the gradients in the artwork didn't print correctly. One of them did. Others look posterized. And the easiest one to render—a straight linear gradient from one color to another—turned out a solid color. And I bet I know why. Because pdf sucks. That's what the place wanted. That's what everybody wants these days, thinking it's the best file format ever. Creator has always had trouble reading and producing pdfs that work with everything. Why? Because pdf sucks. Oh well, at least the fucked up gradients didn't ruin the whole thing or make parts unrecognizable. And the music turned out correctly.

Original art:


Actual CD (the green's off too, but I knew it would be):

Crackpots, Nuts, Weirdos

Really, WTF is wrong with these people? As Bugs Bunny might say:

Audrey Kawasaki

Having one of the coolest names a girl can have, Audrey Kawasaki is also one of the best artists I've ever seen. It's rare to find someone who can render the female form with such passion. The lips and eyes say more than any book ever could. And she's produced so much—her online gallery goes on and on. The recurring themes are kinda cool/creepy/odd/neat too, like bugs, bones, string, scissors, animals.

Jim Henson, Masochist

Whoa, these are pretty cool TV ads created way back in the '50s by Jim Henson. The violence is right out there. No toned–down over–protective goofy children's violence here. Purely the real thing, and that makes it funny.

Moon Landing in a Few Days

In just over 34 hours, Apollo 11 will blast off for the moon. Oh, we have a time correction; subtract 40 years from that. There's a neat site set up where you can relive the entire mission in real time. There are a bunch of ways to get updates as they "happen". I got the Missing Widget and have it over in the corner of my left monitor. Since I was 5 when it happened the first time, I don't remember much about it, if anything. Maybe seeing/hearing it again will spark an old memory.

El Caseto!

I was just reading the history of the 8–track on Wikipedia and got to thinking about a large cassette tape format that Sony made. It didn't last very long or go anywhere and, naturally, it produced better results than the format that "won" (compact cassette). It was called Elcaset, and was designed to be an easier to use form of reel–to–reel. Leave it to Sony to design the better medium which loses out because most people don't care about quality.

But yeah, compact cassettes sure were handy. Can you imagine strapping an Elcaset Walkman to your jogging shorts?

Geek or Killer?

This is fun. A quiz where you guess if photos are of programmers or serial killers. I got 40%. Only Son of Sam and the SNOBOL guy were obvious to me.

Oh, and here's the best Gizmodo article title I've seen in a while. Fucking classic.

Desk Computer

Not to be confused with a "desktop computer", this one is built right into the desk. And it's made of wood. What, the guy doesn't own a roundover bit for his router? That mouse is stupid, but the rest works. I wonder if any of the keys stick when it gets real humid.

Six–Million Dollar Flasher

Here's a Kenner Six–Million Dollar Man action figure that looks to be in pretty good shape. They show you how complete it is by offering pictures of him with his pants pulled down. Steve Austin was such a slut.

What's a "Seefee"?

Why did the people at the Sci Fi channel forget how to spell? Is it some alien influence or a zombie virus that has eaten away the part of their brains that controls logic and common sense? Why the fuck would they think sci-fi should be spelled Syfy? That looks like "seefee" or "siffee". Maybe they've all been spending too much time texting each other on their RAZRs and MOTOKRZRs. (Really, that's a model. One of the 102 models of cell phones they currently have on their web site. 102. One–hundred two. Cell phone models. WTF. IDTZ.) And did they entirely forget that it's supposed to be shorthand for "science fiction", the main focus of their programming?

See? I'm totally going to be old Clint Eastwood, surrounded by a world of dumb bastards.

We had a nice day, but didn't have much to do. We drove up to Wayzata to look for a drive–in restaurant that somebody told us about, but didn't know the name or location. Couldn't find it. Neighbor Bruce later told us what and where; the Minnetonka Drive–in. The menu looks fantastic. I want a tenderloin sandwich now. I'd also try their sloppy joe and pizzaburger.

Anyhoo, we ended up going to Excelsior on the way back and just sitting on a bench by the lake, watching the boats and dogs. Dogs love parks by a lake. One young black lab was having a blast swimming out to retrieve a tennis ball. Stopped by the little "trolly" snack stand and got a big pretzel and a Pepsi. Came back home and watered Geoff's sod while they're out of town. For supper we went to Baker's Ribs. I'd been hankerin' for their pork sandwiches ever since they were closed on Memorial Day. I was not disappointed.

I also offloaded my old AirPort Extreme base station. Thanks Greg!

Oh, Shenanigans!

Oh my god I'm slow. I just got a joke I first heard around 1979. It's a line from the Firesign Theatre's High School Madness. Just a little while ago I was making a sandwich for lunch and these lines popped into my head:

Mom: Well, you boys fight it out amongst yourselves.
Dad: OK, mother.
[Dad and Porgy fight]

After Porgy gives up and asks if he can eat his breakfast, Dad says, "only if you stay out of trouble, boy. Your shenanigans could cost me this election." To which Porgy replies, while stuffing his face with cereal, "oh c'mon, Dad. No Irishman could stop you from getting to be dog killer this time. You're a natural!" Because his mouth was full of food, I was never sure about the words "Irishman" or "dog killer". But now I know the Irishman part is right, because that's the joke I didn't get until now, 30 years later. Porgy thought "shenanigan" was the name of some Irish guy, like Flanigan. I probably didn't need to explain that because everybody else got it the first time.

Also on that compilation album are classics like the Bear Whiz Beer commercial, which you can hear all of in the 30–second clip, Beat the Reaper, and one of my favorites, Ralph Spoilsport Motors.

And speaking of long periods between punchlines, this is for Brent, courtesy of Mike Rube:

…princess?

Although I think I already said that a bunch of years ago.

Gran Torino

We watched that tonight. Good flick. Clint's character will be me in 30 years, only I won't have that "I killed gooks" edge of an excuse for being crabby. And I probably won't drink a lot. It's highly doubtful I'll own a Ford. I might own a gun by then. But the yelling at people I hate to get off my lawn? That'll totally be me.

This Just In: Microsoft Still Annoying

I finally got my AirPort network reconfigured to work with everything again. I still need 802.11g compatibility for Kim's iPod touch and the stupid Xbox wireless adapter, which also can't do WPA2. But I did change the channel to 11, since it was using 1 and so is the new neighbor across the street, and the one next door is on 6.

Microsoft is still sending me 2 copies of the useless MSDN discs. But I'll put some of the blame on our managers and the people they told to renew our MSDN subscriptions last time. They just went out and bought new MSDN boxes, not renewals. And they did it for everyone, even though my and somebody else's weren't due to expire yet. One of them is about to expire again, which brings me to third annoying Microsoftism.

Somehow, those crafty bastards got my cell phone number and have been leaving messages about renewing on it. I'll get in my truck once or twice a week and turn my phone on in case Kim needs something, and there'll be a message waiting on it. I've never given it to them, and I barely give it to anyone else for that matter. Then the other day I was just going to get a stack of dual–layer DVD+Rs, had the phone on, and it rang. Guess who. I told them they should not have that number and to remove it from their db.

Popular Science 1950

Cool. Google has old magazines online, like this Popular Science from February 1950. It's referred to as a "book monthly" in the first letter. It's close to 300 pages. What's surprising to me is that the advertising ratio rivals and surpasses that of today. The first 98 pages are ads, many full–page. At least they're more interesting than today's magazine ads:

Raise hamsters!

Learn how to hypnotize

DEAF?

Don't miss the article on page 156 about how they build Butler grain bins (in Enterprise, IA). There's also "Cones of Silence" on 157. Good thing KAOS didn't subscribe or they'd've had them before CONTROL did. Also, "Spot–Welding on Your Drill Press" on 230. That one made me stop and look at the pictures.

Mic Lover

Whoa. There's something very interesting about the way this really cute girl touches that big mic. Sexy voice too.

Nice Aspen

This very clean and rust–free Aspen wagon was in front of me on the way home from the convenience store today. It had some sort of chrome mags, though I never got a good side view. Kinda makes me nostalgic for my silver woodie. (You have 2 seconds to think of a joke.) I've always liked station wagons a lot. Even before Dad bought the Aspen I'd built a few models of wagons, thinking how cool it would be to have a car you could sleep in and make out with girls on that nice big flat floor. That turned out to be true. I was stoked when Dodge came out with the Magnum (the new one—the wagon—not the old one, although I did like those a bunch). And these days, most of the small SUVs are really just tall, short, and far less cool wagons. They need to make more. The big ass Chevy with the curved rear side windows was one of the best looking wagons ever made, as was the Vega wagon. I won't even get into the earlier models like this Dodge, because once you go there, nearly all of them are just so, well, dreamy. Oh, I can't forget the Ford Cruising Wagon, with its rainbow stripe and porthole! It doesn't get more groovy than that.



Fucking cheap cell phone camera in the piece of shit RazOr. The picture of the Pantera that Brent took with his iPhone looks a lot better, and it's about 50% larger.

Retrospect Update

I got the new version of Retrospect today. 8.1 adds PPC support, which I need for the MultiAd G5. 8.0 was Intel only, so I didn't buy it then. They drastically changed the UI ('bout goddamn time). The old one was confusing because things were in so many different places. The new one is totally different, but puts things in nearly as many different places. The one good thing is that there are no longer 17 places where you can set schedules. Each scripts has its own schedules and the prefs no longer has that. Yay. I hated that in the old one. There's also new nomenclature for almost every aspect, so not only do you have to hunt around in new places for something, you have to remember what it's now called.

The documentation leaves a lot to be desired, at least the stuff that comes when you purchase it online for download. There's only a quickstart manual that covers a lot of stuff, but not nearly everything. And their online "knowledge base" is still a joke.

While getting the sources set up, I was having trouble seeing the Mac Pro in the basement, which was plugged in via EtherNet to an old AirPort Express using WDS. While I was fucking with that, I realized that I no longer needed to go that route because the Mac Pro has an AirPort Extreme card in it. The old G5 that it replaced did not, which is why it was doing the extra hokey pokey. So at least now I'm getting 802.11n speeds, going straight to the base station via the card. Duh. Anybody wanna buy an old 802.11g AirPort base station and Express? Oh yeah, so now I can change the speed of my base station to 5GHz, since it no longer has to support 802.11b/g. Yeeha!

District 9

Holy fuck! Now this is a sci–fi movie that looks good, unlike the stupid remake of the classic no–need–to–be–remade The Day the Earth Stood Still. How can anybody watch that when it has numb–nuts in it?

Oh No, It's BoNo

I don't pronounce his name "bah-no", cuz it should rhyme with Bozo. He and his band should go away now. It's all disco crap wrapped in a thin veil of world peace and caring, which was once the band's primary goal. It's also slathered with a thick layer of commercial marketing fakery. Way back around their first 2 or 3 albums, they cared and wrote decent music that could be played by a 3–piece band on your basic rock instruments (drums, bass, guitar). Now it's all—to borrow from Dan Aykroyd, genius—pre–programmed electronic disco, and it's main goal is to sell you something you don't need. That something was once an iPod, then a Dell computer, and now a goddamn BlackBerry. I can mostly handle Vertigo, but anything else they've recorded in the past, what, 20 years just makes me nauseous.

Call Denny on the Duck Phone

For those of you not from eastern Iowa, there was a guy with a car dealership who had pert near 173 really crappy TV commercials on every day. In one of them, he had a duck phone (phone shaped like a duck decoy) on the desk. From that point on, he featured it in nearly every ad and usually said something like "gimme a call on the duck phone." So I give you this: A duck call stuck onto the blow–off valve of a turbo.

Gay Jay

Heh, funny. I bet Jay will laugh when he sees that.

Paper Lace

I don't recall hearing the Paper Lace version of Billy, Don't be a Hero. I really don't like the chick they have singing the girlfriend lines. I like the Bo Donaldson version much better, although the poor guy looks like he's constipated when he sings. But then, why am I even talking about this song? It's really not that good any way.

Don't Mess with Rachel

Here's one of the few 89–year old women who should be still driving. I love her wordless answer when he asks if she worries about being safe. You go granny!

B•I•C Speakers

Dig these vintage B•I•C speakers. I just barely remember that company. They're still around too, although they don't have anything that wild in their current catalog.

Fred Travawhosits?

Fred Travalena died. Don't remember him? I'm not surprised. He was the world's corniest, most unfunny impressionist. He was on Match Game a few times. Every time it would be his turn, he'd do an impression, and he's always start out by saying "this is Ronald Reagan, and, well…" or "this is Muhammad Ali, and I'm the greatest." Either he was an idiot, or he knew his impressions were so bad that nobody would know who he was trying to do, so he felt he had to tell us. Ugh. Good riddance.

Untruths in Advertising??

I'm shocked. I'm sure most people have noticed the deluge of really sickening internet ads over the past few months, ones for weight loss somethings (pills? Probably). They feature women showing before and after shots, usually side views. They make it really hard to eat my breakfast in the mornings as I'm catching up. But now they're just outright lying, showing completely different women in the befores and afters. Exhibit A:



There's no way anyone could make that change in 3 weeks. Plus, each woman's back ribs are in a different place; notice the line halfway down the back on the fat one, but just below the bra on the skinny one. Maybe the "1 easy diet tip" they're trying to dupe you into buying is to go to sleep and dream that you're 16, thin, and hot.

What a Gorgeous Day

Slept until about 10, ate some Peanut Butter Crunch, watched some TV, went to OPH for some buckwheat pancakes, played a little Forza and then sat outside while that digested, ran up and got 2 gallons of gas, came back and realized I was out of Lawnboy oil, cussed a lot, ran up the Ace to get some, mowed the yard, sat around some more with AirTunes pumped out to the deck. I started importing Friday night's gig video after we got back from lunch. 3 hours later and it's still importing. Why the fuck isn't FireWire the standard instead of fucking USB? How goddamn stupid is that? And why don't all auto manufacturers make sure that they get LCD displays for radios and nav systems that you can see when wearing polarized sunglasses? That's even more stupid. I hate driving Kim's car in the daytime and trying to see the display—gotta tilt my head to the left to get rid of the polarizing effect.

Great Gig

Even though the crowd wasn't all that big because of so many people heading out of town for the 4th, it was a really enthusiastic crowd, hoopin' and hollerin'. That's good news, because it meant the bar would book us again in the future. The sound onstage was really good too. They have both sides of the stage treated for sound, and there's a thick curtain sort of thing that covers the entire window behind the stage. They have an OK monitor off the side of the drum riser (which is big and solid), but it's so far away that I couldn't set my Gatorade on it or tape my set list to it and be able to read it.

The sound man was using a really cool PreSonus digital board. Check that thing out. Every channel has its own gate, compressor, and limiter, along with the usual EQ and stuff. Amazing. Plus built–in FireWire I/O and recording software. Plug it into a Mac and the software links up with the channels on the board and records all of them. One thing they mention in the "live" video is not needing the band to be there to do a sound check. Just play the previously recorded gig back through the board. Heh, cool.

Kim & I were starving afterward, so stopped at Perkins. We had cinnamon rolls and bacon. Really, can it get any better?

This evening we went over to Geoff & Carolyn's porch, then saw a couple town's fireworks from there off in the distance. I heard there's now a larger fine for using illegal fireworks. Maybe that's why the family down the street didn't do any this year. He always gets a shitload from Wisconsin and they fire them off for about an hour after they get back from watching the big ones. It gets pretty annoying after 10 minutes. And I especially don't like finding burnt up pieces of them on our deck the next morning, because you just know there are pieces on the roof, and who knows if any of them might've still been smoldering after landing.

Watched Quantum of Solace today. I liked it. The action starts right off, and it's filmed incredibly well. It really looked like all the shit was really happening, like Daniel Craig was really in a car being smashed against a wall with bullets flying all over. It is lacking gadgets though. Olga Kurylenko is plenty hot, even when she isn't naked. The absolute worst part of the film is the opening theme song. I started hating it within only a few bars. Then I found out why: It was fucking Jack White. God I hate him. Why does he think he's such a musical genius? Ugly stupid fuck.

Sixty Symbols

If you have some time you need to kill and would like to learn something during that time, go to Sixty Symbols and click a symbol. I like the guy with the scientist's afro, sorta Phil Spector–like. Who woulda guessed that the drinking bird (bottom–right symbol) confounded Einstein?

CD Printing

I was looking all over the web at CD printer reviews, trying to figure out the best one that wouldn't cost too much to run, and that would produce decent quality that didn't smear off (like ink jets), and that wouldn't plug up after sitting around unused for a few months (like ink jets). I was finding it really hard to decide which one was best (least sucky), so I called a place called DiscMakers that has everything from <$100 single–color to $multi–thousand bulk duplicators, hoping they would be able to answer some questions. The lady forwarded me to a sales guy who pointed me to a section of their web site for entering an order for disc duplication and printing. Bwuh? I didn't know they did that too. So I asked if they required me to get all that licensing bullshit done and he said no. They only require that we own the actual disc content (made by us). So yeefuckinha. They offer a really good range of choices for every detail, and the prices for small orders (we got 125) are very reasonable. We'll see how good the quality is after they arrive in a couple weeks. But judging by the quality of their web site and customer service and sales people I talked to, I'm guessing it'll be top notch. A number 1. The big cheese. Top dog.

Focus

Focus is still around. Who knew? The more I see of this band, the more I like them. One look at Hsjrkva van der Prtxhhh Thijs van Leer today and you can't help but feel the same. Here's a 17-minute epic from 2007.

Scramblorghini

I should swap the paint on the McLaren below and this Lamborghini. That way the "AIR" decals could go on the roof where the scoop is. But the old AMC Scrambler paint looks better on the McLaren because the body is more angular like the AMC. And I liked the name I made up for this one, although McScramblen would work too. This design was so wild, especially for AMC, and a total sign of the times in 1969. It was even 7 years too early for the bicentennial. The AMC fan would say they were ahead of their time, as witnessed by the Pacer.



Not sure why that one little wedge of white didn't get covered by the red. Not sure why I put the sorta 928–ish wheels on it.

Odds & Ends

I had to buy another 914 to do the Factory Specs race. I copied the John Player Special paint job onto it from my hopped–up 914. After I finished that I loaded it up with everything I could add. It had a ridiculous amount of power, and since the front end can't get any downforce added by air dams and whatnot, well, this is what happens when it goes really fast over a sharp peak and still have the rear wing adjusted for full downforce (going the wrong way on the front straight at Road America). After that, I sold it in an online auction to see how that went. It sold within the 24–hour period.



I also had to buy a McLaren F1 to do that Factory Spec race. For the helluvit, I did a '60s custom paint job on it. I always liked this technique. Ended up with over 400 circles.

The Music Biz Sucks

I called a place that does CD duplication and printing to see about getting our demo duped. We have a contact there, so that got us a decent discount. I downloaded the template to put the artwork on and the sales guy sent me a quote for 100 of them. Great price. I also downloaded another form that says what content is on the disc, whose owns it, etc. In the table for the track listing, there's a column named "own" and another named "license". I asked the guy what these were for and he told me all about getting licensing for the songs we recorded and sent me to another site. They won't even touch the job if they songs aren't licensed because they can get sued by the greedy music fucktards. To license 4 songs at 100 copies is just over $150. A license fee to record somebody else's song is that much? And we aren't selling the CDs? That even $20 more than the cost of having 100 discs burned and printed! Goddamn greedy music industry cokehead bastards. My response to that is "fuck you." We'll find another way to dupe them. Hell, I'll burn them myself and write on them with a Sharpie, which is what I said we should do in the first place, because no bar owner were I want to play cares about shit like that.

Fanboys

We watched Fanboys this weekend, expecting a very funny movie. What we got was a mildly funny movie whose jokes seemed to have been phoned tweeted emailed in by 10–year old geeks whose sense of humor hinges entirely around Star Wars, rather than jokes written by comedy writers who get the geeky fanboy thing. Even the mighty Seth Rogen—a man who only needs to stand there and look at somebody and he's hilarious—was painful to watch, and he even played 2 characters! The fat guy was way too Jack Black (only Jack Black should be Jack Black) and annoyingly loved to scream like that unfunny dead fucker with the stupid hair and stupid hat, um, Sam Kinison. The guy whose character was dumbly named "Windows" was pretty OK. He was also in Tropic Thunder and Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. The blonde guy who played the son of the religious mom in Detroit Rock City was OK. At least supercute gorgeous hot spunky Kristen Bell was there to ease the pain. Ah, all better.

Killer Klowns (Not from Outer Space)

Here's a really cool short film created for Phillips' new 21:9 TV. The best part? Clowns with guns. More info and way too many photos at If It's Hip, It's Here.

Scare Kids Straight

If they still showed beer commercials on TV that looked like this one, there'd be a lot less underage drinking going on, because they'd all be freaked out that they'll end up looking like the whacked out people with moveable mustaches and stuff.

Pile o' Lambos

I was doing the one Lamborghini–only race today at Laguna Seca. On the 2nd lap, at the bottom of the corkscrew, I noticed a pile of spare parts all over the place. I made a point to watch the replay from some of the other cars' POV. Sure enough, the cranberry Gallardo or whatever it is drove straight off the right–hander, and the dark green one of the same type tried to drive through his driver side door, so they both hit the wall. As they both backed onto the track, the rest of the field all piled into them. It's the biggest computer–driven crash I've seen so far. Forza cars lose front and rear fascias about as easily as a CORR truck sheds plastic body panels.

Hose Reel Hosed

We got a really nice hose reel to attach to the back of the house a couple years ago I think. It's like cast aluminum or some pot metal—very heavy duty, has no problem holding the heavy black Goodyear hose we have on it. It must be on bearings too, because it reels so smoothly and without a squeak. Anyhoo, the handle broke last year. It too was cast in some light spongy metal. I kept meaning to fix it some how, but knew I couldn't put the broken arm back together. Today I decided to just replace it with galvanized pipe parts. Thankfully the crank is on the correct side so it will always tighten any joints when reeling the hose back in. The sucky part was trying to enlarge the inside of the 1st piece, whose ID was about 1/64" too small, according to my calipers. Lots of filing by hand and grinding with a small grinding bit on a drill. My horse for a milling machine.

330 P4

I got around to the Legends Rivalry race a week or 2 ago, choosing to go with the Ferrari 330 P4 instead of the Ford GT40. I test drove both beforehand and felt the 330 was less of a handful. Painted 'er up with a '60s racing feel and went at it. I've been using the DX sticker I made for the Sunoco Porsche livery on a lot of cars, cuz I've liked their logo since I was a kid. Here I am leading the pack at Sebring.



I hope they'll add the 312PB to Forza3. I had a blast racing my G+Plus around and around, oiling it, replacing and shaping the pickup shoes, drilling the chassis and wheels to make it lighter, and adding a finned chrome valve cover from a 1/24 scale model with one end cut off as an air scoop on the top, beside the driver, helping to bring cooling air to the motor. OK, so that probably added more weight than it did sucking in air, but I thought it was a good idea.

Ward, Don't Spank the Beaver

OK, it's too small for the Cleavers, but check out this house from 1955 that has never been lived in. It's pristine—the furniture, the kitchen, the bathroom. The mind boggles at why the owners would live in the basement. Nuts? Vampires? The pink bathroom is fucking amazing.

Then there's this '60s house in Des Moines. It's truly far out—very Mad Men. It was built for one of the Dahl's food guys.

Lotsa Work

That wedding gig at the zoo was sort of a bitch. Load the crap in through a door, "up this ramp" (use Spicoli accent), into a big slow elevator, down a hall, and into the big room. Luckily there were some heavy duty carts we could load up. It actually took us longer to load in than it did to set up. The big room was rectangular with flat, smooth walls. Yep, pretty much the worse room for sound. Did a quick sound check before they brought in a little penguin and put it in a little fenced–off area. I guess the couple liked penguins; they had a pair of Emperors holding hands on the front of their program. This one was about duck/goose sized. Cute little thing. We got to eat. Food was decent. Then had a long wait while they did a slideshow that went on and on and on for 4 or 5 songs. Fer christ fuckin' sake, a 1–song slideshow is plenty long. Then the best man made a long speech. Then the bride's maid. Then some other chick made a really boring speech. Then we could finally start.

We played their favorite song, Happy Together, then stopped so they could have a mother/son dance to some song on an iPod. Then we went back on. It ended up being a pretty good crowd and they had a lot of fun having a live band. I thought we'd probably be done after the 2nd set, but they were all still in party mode for the 3rd set, then even made us do an encore. And then we had to load all the shit out the same way. Blargh. I don't wanna play there ever again.

Our grass grew like greased ape shit after the rain last week, and I was too tired to even attempt mowing on Sunday. Today was 95° and all humid–like, but since the forecast shows more rain, I at least did the front yard tonight at about 9:00. Seems weird to go out and mow that late, but Geoff was also doing the same thing, and it was still really light out.

Jet Powered Turntable

Had Apple been around in 1957, this turntable surely could've been the grandfather of the iMac and the iPod. It's just too far out for words. Like yowza, dad.

Wedding Gig

We're playing a wedding tonight over in St. Paul in the Como Zoo Conservatory. Gotta set up at 4 and then not make any noise while they eat at 6, then play at 8. Makes for a long day. Loading in requires the user of an elevator. Blargh. But I shouldn't complain, because it's not some rickety, rattly iron fire escape that was built around 1920, goes up at a 50–60° angle, and is about as wide as me. Already tried that once.

Quick Farm Truck

It looks like just another beat to shit farm truck, until you notice the racing slicks on the back, complete with OEM Chevy hub caps. It makes me smile. And watch the movie to see what some folks do when there isn't a real drag strip near by. Looks like they get the cops to close of a stretch of road going right through town. There's even some sort of concrete plant or something, if you'll notice the tops of 3 conveyors behind a concrete block wall. And no guard rails down the "track". Um, I'd keep everybody behind the, say, 10' mark. Drags have ways of going awry real quick like.

Custom Stroller

Most kids will grow up and go on to be boring adults. Not this little girl. Dig the stroller her dad made.

"Are you a hooker?!"

"Just when I thought I was doing great with you!" —Arthur


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He Can See His House from There

Cirque Berzerk. I don't think I need to say much besides it looks really cool. Watch the videos for a taste of their tasty sense of humor.

Funny Funny Hippos

While googling for the Remington, painter of horses and stuff, I found this painter's blog. The truck painting at the top caught my eye—you don't see a lot of oil paintings of trucks beneath a loading hopper. And then I scrolled down to the hippos. I think they're amazing. Absurdly funny.

Cranky Weather Professor

Dr. Rick Monday, a Bemidji State University professor, was on the radio the other morning to talk about what to expect this Summer. Instead, he got pissed off about Joe Bastardi from accuweather.com. His funny tirade is very impressive.

Square American Cars

Over at Square America is a gallery of car related images from the '40s and '50s, including some blueprints and specs for a couple Nash badges. Those are the kind of things that I'd frame and hang on the wall if I had the originals. The text on the main page says (including way too many capitalized words in the title):

We Cast Our Dreams In Chrome And Steel: Photographs & Ephemera From The Golden Age Of American Automobiles From The Files Of Banthrico- A slideshow of over 30 photos, blueprints, and ads from the files of Banthrico, a company that manufactured toy banks for the auto industry. A reminder that once there was a time when American car manufacturers got it right.

They have other recent galleries too, including Polaroids. One snapshot in that collection is of some old lady in a casket, like deadsville. Weird. I never thought about taking a camera to a funeral. Maybe her husband took it to capture the moment he finally had some peace and quiet for the first time in 70 years. Thank you! Try the shrimp!

Retro Binary Clock

Greg will appreciate this, having programmed his own binary clock. But even he might have trouble reading this one at first glance. Good thing they have the base 10 equivalent above. Seen in the August 1973 Playboy.

Demo Done

I think. Now I'll need to find something else to do. The final product can be found over on our Audio page. Lemme know wotcha think.

Cable Free

I was doing a little mixing today and realized how much of a mess it would've been had all the patches and buses actually been run to outboard boxes via cables, like before digital recording. And all the sheets of paper with notes on when something should be turned up or down when making the final mix–down to stereo. That was kind of a dance you'd do with your fingers. Now you can get enormously complex and not move from your chair. I love it.

My left monitor with the mixer, and the very cool KingDubby old school Echoplex/Space Echo tape–based delay simulator, which is on the vox at the end:


And the right with the tracks:


My desktop images are some that I made, based on the paper drinking cups that were around during the '70s. They had about half a dozen different color combinations. I loved those cups—fantastic design.

Settle Down

Our Peoria office has some dress code Nazis. You know the type; no fun at parties because their clothes fit too tightly, have never owned a T–shift with anything printed on it, wear khakis and a Polo to mow the yard (I have a neighbor like this), etc. One of our huge clients, well, huge—a national bank/credit/loan company that everybody knows, whose initials are the same as my favorite southern rock band. They visit once in a while to discuss services we do for them. When they do, Miss Frigid sends out an email telling people they can't wear jeans or other casual clothes while the client is here. This time around, somebody else (one who will actually be meeting with the client) sent out a message saying it's OK to dress as usual while the client is here, because the client will also be wearing jeans because they'll be spending a lot of time in the warehouse. A few minutes later, Miss Frigid sent out a message as follows (the caps are hers):

…jeans WILL NOT BE ALLOWED on either day. [client] is a VERY important client to us and it is VERY important that we all make good impressions on these days.

Wow. She really needs to settle down. If she's married, I bet her husband drinks heavily.

Band of Pansies

Here's another one of those sites created by someone whose brain is leaking. It's funny to make fun of people, but after a couple pages, you start to get the feeling he's 100% serious. Just the little things like using the shift key on his goddamned PC while caps lock is already on, so it lower–cases the letter instead (stupid feature) and leaving the copyright notice that way on dozens of photos that I doubt he really took. Anyhoo, the band in the middle of this page is really beyond words. Such a weird mix. The rest of the photos are pretty much fatties, D&D nerds with long hair and swords, goths, and just plain dorks. AAAAA! Don't look at the bottom–right of this page. I think my optic nerves have exploded.

Cellar Dweller

It took most of Saturday to get my drums hauled down, set up, miked up, tuned up, and muffled up. When I heard the first test take back, I felt like all that work was not at all worth it. But I soldiered on, made some muffling adjustments, and after a lot of creative work with separate gate, EQ, and compressor tweaks on each of the 9 tracks, I think I got something I can live with. I really wish we didn't have gigs the next 2 weekends so I could leave everything set up and perfect it. The snare was over–muffled on the first song (Middle of the Road), but it took me many takes to get a good one that I didn't want to try to fix it. The toms just sound weird. I'm thinking I had the mics way too close, but when they were further away the gates on neighboring drums would open, so the drum would be heard in multiple tracks. At least the overheads picked up the cymbals nicely. I used my headset mics for those, the only condensers I have, hung from the ceiling joists by spring clamps. And at least the kick was easy; that was just a MIDI track with a canned sample, cuz that's what I use instead of an acoustic. I'll spend some time trying different things to see what I can get out of the tracks. Hopefully it is something I won't hate.

Quarantine

Whoa. We watched Quarantine tonight and we were very impressed. It's shot from the cameraman character's POV, like Cloverfield, and they really figured out how to use that style of shooting to totally involve the audience. I found myself moving my head to look around people who were right in front of the camera. The Blair Witch Project was probably the first really popular movie to use this technique—too bad the movie sucked. I just didn't find that one entertaining or scary at all. But I highly recommend Quarantine if you want a truly kick–ass zombie horror movie.

Near-Done Demo

Here, take a listen and see what you think. I tend to start ignoring obvious things after I've listened to them dozens of times during mixing, so there's probably something way too loud or whatever in these. Keep in mind the drums suck and will be totally replaced. I just want to get opinions on the mix and stuff.

Come Together

Middle of the Road

Stray Cat Strut

The Letter

Sticky Tape and Rust

I really don't miss waiting for tapes to rewind when recording, nor do I miss tape hiss. I think we have all the tracks recorded now, except for one vocal part for Kim. And then I plan on spending this weekend locked in the basement with my real drums, mics, gaffer's tape, blankets, and all the other shit it takes to get drums to sound perfect when recording. I don't know if I'll succeed, but they've got to sound better than what I have down now, especially the toms on Come Together. They should be subtle and human. Instead, they're harsh and robotic.

I noticed the sampler included in Logic can have a ridiculous number of samples per instrument. Like some of the snares have a couple dozen individual samples for various volume levels. Back in the early '90s when I sampled my old drums, I used 3 per tom and cross–faded them across different volume ranges, which I though sounded good back in those days. But the more level ranges there are, the more real it will sound with all the different attacks, harmonics, and resonances of each one. It'd be nice to put together a really good full drum set of samples that way, including cymbals, so that way I wouldn't have to go through the long miking process again the next time we do this. Although that too would be a really long process.

Blaas of Glory

In America we have Hayseed Dixie, a very competent group of bluegrass/country/hick musicians performing their own versions of popular metal and hard rock songs. In Holland they have Blaas of Glory, a sort of oompah band wearing wigs, Spandex, and cucumbers, also performing their own versions of some of those same songs. When you take into account the odd sense of humor Europeans seem to have when compared to ours, I'd say the two are just about equal in their balance of musical prowess and overall weirdness. But being a Midwesterner, I'll eagerly take, listen to, and buy the bluegrass over the polka/oompah stuff.

Lotus Evora

Even if the writing isn't all that great over at Winding Road, at least the photos are nice. And what better subject to point a camera at than the new Lotus Evora. That's a good lookin' car. Dig the subtle helmet bubbles in the roof. Even the name is sexy, like a jammed together version of Eva Longoria. I find myself loving everything Lotus makes these days. Man I wish I had $73k just lying around.

Gasser Is a Gas

The words to describe the awesomeness of this car have not been invented yet. The paint. The straight front axle. The headers. The whitewall cheater slicks. The chromed stealies. The "Colored Waiting Room" sign on the tranny tunnel (that's a funny piece of vintage signage, wonder where he found that). The antenna through the fin. It all fucking rules. It's what Satan would drive. He'd drive up to a bunch of little pussies with their ugly too–big mags and low profile tires and beat the shit outa them, then take their chicks.

Stu-Stu-Studio

I guess I couldn't resist making a reference to that annoying Phil Collins song. I'm sorry. Hopefully it's not looping in your head now. Stephen King called them ear worms in a recent Entertainment Weekly column—those damn songs that get stuck in your head for hours, days, or even months.

We did a bit of low key recording today. Emily couldn't make it, so we just laid down the instrument tracks for The Letter (Cocker) and Lies (Knickerbockers). Last night it was the movie projector that broke. Today Logic couldn't get the playback audio into the firewire interface. A reboot of the Mac and the interface finally did the trick. Then when I made a new project to record the first song today, it would only record the analog audio track from my drums, not the MIDI track. It took about 5 minutes before I realized the MIDI cable was still plugged into the keyboard instead of the drums from when Emily added the Rhodes part for Come Together last week. BTW, I named the preset I came up with Abbey Rhodes when I saved it. Yes, I'm damned proud of that.

Does Kirk Live?

Today, Kim asked if I wanted to go out and see Star Trek. We haven't been to a theater in a long, long time, perhaps over a year. I just don't see the point these days with home theater being a much better picture and sound, way more comfortable, eat/drink what you want at any time, no loud annoying dumbasses, etc. But I said OK, we'll go. Wow, was that a mistake. First, it's cold and rainy. I'd've much rather stayed in the house. The theater was tiny, but we went in when the last 2 people were leaving from the previous show, so we got the center seats right behind a railing (no people could block our view). They showed crappy local ads for about 10 minutes, then the previews began. Kim likes them, but the sound sucked—mono. We hoped the movie would be in full surround. Nope, no difference. Not only did it seem to only be coming out of the center channels below the screen, but the there was no low end and way too much mids. And there were at least 3 pair of speakers on the side walls. I didn't hear one peep out of them.

The movie was OK. Coulda done without the initial young Kirk scene with the stupid music. But then right after Scotty beamed into the thing, the power went out. Not the entire theater, block, or even city power; just the power that runs the projectors it seemed. The audio didn't die because you could hear the audio track slow down as the film slowed to a halt. And the emergency lights didn't come on. They told us "the power went out" and then after about 10 minutes said they couldn't get it back, and we could get refunds out front. While in line to get our money back, I noticed a big professionally printed plastic sign on the wall. It said "ATM Machine". It's the downfall of Western Civilization I tell you.

So, do they all live and go on to have long careers in Star Fleet? I guess we'll never know. At least until it comes out on Blu–ray and we see and hear the movie in a non–sucky way. And if anyone wants to tell me what happened, that'd be cool. I'm not one of those who gets his panties all in a bunch if somebody spoils the ending.

I didn't like the actor playing Spock. Too much of a pussy, like he should be an officer in a Star Trek fan club, in charge of writing name tags in Klingon before their next meeting. The Kirk guy was OK—hard to believe it was the same guy from Bottle Shock. Uhura was pretty, but a bit too interactive. Sulu and Chekov were fine, although I would've hired somebody without that goofy curly hair for Chekov. The Bones actor kept flip–flopping between a nice version of Bones and an actor trying too hard to "be" the character. We didn't really get enough time with Scotty, but I imagine Simon Pegg did a great job, as always. Nero the Romulan bad guy… ugh. Like a bad mix of Tom Cruise and Robert Di Nero. Fucking shave.

There you have it—Steve's crappy movie review.

Crash Lids

I wish I had Coop's collection of old helmets. J.C. Whitney carried those for years. The tool chest is pretty wicked too.

Robot Parts

This guy builds some amazing looking robots out of old hardware and fixtures. On the one hand, I hate that he's destroying vintage appliances and things. On the other hand, the results are cool.

Panoz, Meet Viper

That's me in the Panoz being a pest. Note my front wheel on the pavement. In Forza 3, we'd see tire deformation instead. Maybe they'll also add the ability for tires to shred. No matter how much you abuse them in F2, you never end up driving on the rims.



My butt fell off.

Electricity Is His Friend Too

This guy built some mongo cool electronic doohickies. I wish there was an audio/video of the drum machine. The synth is a lot of fun. Toward the end there he almost gets some R2D2 type sounds. Great looking designs though. Love the orange peel paint. I have some in blue that I painted my drill bit index with.

Everybody on the Truck

What's cooler than a group of vintage Scarabs? A group of vintage Scarabs on an equally vintage Scarab hauler. The purpose–built race car transports of the '60s were extremely cool. And by gum, they're probably rare as hell these days.

Experiments in Physics

Velocity - traction = AAAAUUGGHH!!!

I'd already smooshed the Esprit when I hit the grass. The throttle was mashed to the floor, so suddenly it all broke loose.



Luckily this photographer was there to put out the grass fire that started after those sparks ignited the dry weeds.



On the last lap, I thought an airplane or pterodactyl flew over. The replay shows it was the shadow from the car below me. I was on an overpass. Oops. They have a rendering logic bug there.



And Brent, here's one of the woodies. Had I cared more, I would've trimmed the wheel arches.

Mixing Lessons

I spent last night mixing Stray Cat Strut, fixing errant notes, a little cut & paste here and there, deciding on reverbs, and trying to figure out what compression to use on various tracks. That's the hard part. Compression is an art. Too much and it sounds like a shitty radio station. Not enough it it's hard to listen to on all but really good stereos. I also learned that I should probably copy the projects up to the office when all tracks have been recorded and do the final mix there. The large Infinity's and the basement environment just don't make for good playback. What I thought sounded good had way too much bass guitar and kick when I listened to it on the Mac in the den, which is the system I'm most used to listening to music on these days. It used to be my car stereo, back when we did that one Missing Link/Crossfire recording at the skating rink and Hotel Hell. I'd do a mixdown, then take it out to my car to see what was right and what was wrong. Too bad we didn't have the Rolling truck Stones thing just outside.

Tonight we plan on doing The Letter and Come Together. CT should be a lot of fun, as it was such a "studio" type song. I doubt I'll get the same magic they got at Abbey Road Studios. Maybe if we all speak British. Plus we'll get to try the cool Rhodes plugin I have. Listen to the sample they have. Note the tiny bit of overdrive it can do when hammered. So sweet.

More Fun with Paint

For the helluvit, a Mustang in the old gaudy black gold Cobra II paint. Not even that can make this generation of Mustang look good.



I don't have any good cars to paint like this, but the Pierson Brothers Coupe is one of the most famous of the land speed cars, and I've always loved the simple paint job they had on it.



The Mark Donohue Sunoco paint that was on his Porsche 917 CanAm racer first caught my eye when I saw it on an R/C car when I was a kid. I stuck it on my 944, to keep it in the family.



I can't make it do wheelies and I can't move the engine to the back, but it still makes this early 'Cuda look cool going around a track.

Video Thingy

I think I forgot to tell y'all about this. A friend of Emily's went handheld with John's camera and got some neat footage of everyone a few weeks ago. I managed to chop it up and blend it with another gig and make a really crappy video. I could've gone all '80s and used various video f/x, but that would be even dopier. Other than it being a different bar and me playing different fills each time, it blended together fairly well. Although I did have to vary the speed of the handheld shots because we played the song a tiny bit slower or faster that night. It was pretty easy to do in iMovie. iMovie did manage to fuck up the audio when it rendered the version for YouTube. I'm finding it obvious that Apple throws a lot more R&D at the pro level products that they charge a lot more money for. Logic Express has been rock solid, whereas Garage Band, iMovie, and iDVD always seem to produce little spots of puke on the carpet.

Backup Chicks

Kim & I added our backup vocal parts to the 2 songs we have down on disk. For the "ladies' cat/man, that's that" part in SCS, we're doing harmonies instead of just the hollerin' the Stray Cats do. I laid down the lower one first, then when Kim was trying to find her part, she inadvertently found a higher note which was a note I was going to add later, which made it into a cool jazz type chord. So we left that in and she added the other one. Kinda gives it that Andrew Sisters thing. She also worked out some really cool walking bass parts for that, following all the augmented minor 17th chords or whatever they are, because she was bored with the basic walks she'd been doing. I'm glad I bought her that first bass 8.5 years ago. Wow, it's been that long?

Pencils Galore

Neighbor Geoff just called from a job site and said he'd scored a bunch of carpenter pencils. The guy cracks me up, how excited he got over that and had to call just to say he'd give me some. I'll be amazed if I ever use up the 2 I've been using since around '96, much less the ones he'll give me.

Chartreuse Day

The new Green Day album is really good, and I've only heard it once in passing while working. Once again, they pull out some amazing chord changes and melodies which, when put together, make some incredible songs. Peacemaker has a sort of minor key Middle–Eastern/Spanish flavor, and I love the way the solo starts with the totally off tempo whole notes.

They also did a side project a while back called Foxboro Hot Tubs, releasing an album called Stop Drop and Roll!!!. It takes them back to their more raw punk roots, but also sounds like a nod to any number of British influences, kinda like Rush's album of covers they did of all the stuff that influenced them in their early days, Feedback.

Buy 'em all! Get some for your friends!