Basement Project

I decided to take advantage of the nice weather today and went to get the supplies for the basement panelling project. Took a while to decide if I should go with 3/4" or 1.5" insulation. Since 3/4" is a special order, I decided I'd rather get it all in one trip. If the extra few Rs worth of insulating thickness help out, then yay. I'll start on it tomorrow. Finally a chance to give the newish 18V DeWalt hammer drill a workout. It replaces an older Skil corded hammer drill whose variable speed trigger now includes "off" and "full speed". I might also use the laser level thing to make sure things aren't outa whack.

Kall of the Krauts

What's going on right at the end of this German Opel GT commercial when they go "ie yie yie yie"? Is that the mating call of Kraut hippies? Are they trying to be Japanese, since it sounds like something Ichiro would yell in Godzilla's Revenge. (Be sure to watch the trailer there. I love that movie.) I keep playing that Opel ad over because that sound makes me giggle so much. And who wouldn't want an Opel GT, the MiniVette?

iLife '09

I just ordered it. Sounds like iMovie will no longer suck big huge hairy donkey dongs. Or at least it won't suck with so much vigor. We'll see. Gladly, iMovie HD still works. iPhoto's face detection sounds like it'll mostly work, even on cats. Some of the new iWeb widgets will be nice, like the Facebook one. I'm kidding about the Facebook one. GarageBand's guitar sound builder thingy looks like a nice way to do it, but I'm not sure why they spent so much time and effort on the lessons features. The Artist Lessons cost $5 a pop and don't appear to be very long or in depth.

Yeah, lotsa good stuff on Gizmodo lately. For once it's not 75% fucking cell phones. They even linked to a tour of the Electro–Harmonix facility.

Oh! Deer!

A Google Street View car hit a fawn and the images made it into the wild. But they've been pulled already. Some hippy and/or pussy was probably offended at the offing of a field rat. Cripes. Now we aren't even allowed to see wild creatures in their natural state. Ya know, naturally staining the highway red.

Cheap LED Bulbs

Cool, maybe now they won't cost an arm and a leg and we'll be able to find them in our local stores instead of having to order them on the webinet. I wanted to put them in our outdoor lights and in the can over the sink that we keep on all evening, but hell if I was gonna spend that kind of dough. I also hope they start making them to so they produce the same warm hue as an incandescent bulb, because the bluish tint given off by "white" LED flashlights would be annoying as home lighting.

Mattel

I wonder where the company that makes Hot Wheels is?


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Bagpipes Are Now Sexy

This is one of those videos are you don't mind all the time it wastes explaining what will happen and getting ready to perform. And then when the performance starts, well… I'm tempted to call it brilliant comedy.

The Man Step

I noticed how they blatantly showed the Ford F-150 tailgate step on a recent episode of Dirty Jobs. Yes, Mike Rowe gets paid (a guess, but a good guess) to appear in the F-150 ads and I'm pretty sure they show Ford ads during Dirty Jobs. Love the show. Mike is a helluva funny guy. But damn, don't turn the show into a fucking Ford commercial. I hadn't seen this Chevy ad where they make fun of the stupid step. Hell, even running boards are for pussies (my mantra when somebody new gets into my truck and comments about the height of a standard 4x4). Now men are too fat/lazy/weak to climb into the bed of their trucks? Grow a pair.

New Trek Toys

The deluge of new Star Trek action figures and toys has begun. I can already imagine the unholy things that 10–year old boys will be doing with the new Uhura action figure. Yowza, that's a shapely figure. The Kirk chair is pretty cool. The VP of our division was going to or did buy a replica made by someone a couple years ago. I'm looking forward to the movie, and I don't recall doing that for any previous ST movie except the first one (because it was the first and we didn't know it would suck) and then the first TNG movie. Maybe because Simon Pegg is Scotty.

Egnater

Egnater sounds like a futuristic android baby chick or something. It's really a company that makes guitar amps. Craig got the Rebel 20, a neat little 20W tube amp that has a really cool knob: watts. If you wanna be loud and clean, crank it to 20W. But if you want max overdrive but still need to hear later in life, twist it down to 1W. That's the coolest thing ever. It also has 2 tubes and a knob to balance between them, so if you want a Frankenstein hybrid that sounds like a Marshall and a Fender, there ya go. And the thing is nice and small.

I don't have that guitarist ear to easily tell the difference between American and British amps, much less tube vs. solid state vs. digital (as long as it's decent SS or digital). So my little Marshall is just fine. The only thing it lacks for my ear is low end. The little 8" just can't cut it, and it doesn't have a jack for an external cab. I shoulda got the Microstack instead. Oh well.

Halloween

We watched Rob Zombie's redo of Halloween last night. I liked it very much, but then I don't know if I ever saw the original all the way through. This one spent a good chunk on Michael Myers' childhood and what made him nuts. Dæg Færch, the actor who played him at 10 was perfect for the part. His mom was played by Sheri Moon Zombie (slightly NSFW if assless pants scare people), Rob's hot wife. She's been in his other movies, but this time was the stable one of the clan instead of a loony killer. Malcolm McDowell was the heavyweight actor of the bunch as the doctor. Sadly, Sid Haig had a very small part. I just love to hear that guy's voice.

Sorry Folks, We're Closed

Today John & I were going to visit Metro Sound and Lighting to look at LED pars and stuff. I met him after his lesson at 3:30 and we drove way the fuck over to St. Paul only to find out they close at 2:00 on Saturdays. What the hell. Open at 11:00 and close 3 hours later? Musicians don't shop on Saturday mornings! Sure, now I see it on their web site.

I left early and bought some CDs at Down in the Valley. Good lord, what an atrocious web site. At least they seem to know it and are getting a new one this Spring. You can tell it was made by stoners. Got an early OCMS that was recently released, 2 Rammstein albums, a newish one by The Offspring, and the new Pretenders album. And once again, that live Bowie album from 1972 was not in the bin. We had them order it and Kim checks every few weeks, since the music store where she and John take their lessons is right next door. When she ordered it months ago, they said that some idiot ordered a dozen copies of it on vinyl and no CDs. Brilliant. I guess I'll eventually order it fron B&N or Amazon, along with the Buckethead and Praxis albums that are also never in any store.

Apple Design and Such

There's a documentary by Gary Hustwit about design called Objectified, which includes people such as Jonathan Ive, Apple's design guru. Be sure to click the link to the trailer. Note what appear to be a couple large CNC machines on the left and some green tools in the background. (Grizzly? General? Could be anything because it's such a popular color for large power tools.) Gary is also the guy that made Helvetica, a documentary about typography in general and what is probably the most used typeface in history.

Take the Skyway… Please

Oooo, this section of Minneapolis skyway would make a cool office. Or shop. Or house. Or RV. "Get outa my way you fuckin' hippies! We gotta get to Florida cuz it's below 70° up here!" Now I have the Replacements song in my head, which is not a bad thing at all.

Ope

For TAGS fans; Ope. I like how the guy refuses to spell out the new president's name.

Spotnicks

If you're in a band and one of the guys says, "let's wear matching outfits," the first thing you do is remove his hand from your pants and the second thing you do is replace him. But not if the outfits are like the space suits worn by The Spotnicks (link fixed—thanks Leo). That's a play on Sputnik, although I don't get why they added the 'c' in there. You can also see and hear them play The Orange Blossom Special, sans space helmets, and the Spotnicks Theme, which sounds like something that Opie's group would play.

Neil Young Has Officially Flipped His Lid

Cripes. This song is pathetic. I don't even recall hearing a bridge or anything other than that same chord progression over and over with some old crotchety man words spoken over the top. I was already starting to get tired of hearing his music for 2 reasons; our ex–guitarist Jack loves him, and having to listen to Jack play the longest, most uninspired, amateurish, out of tune, and tasteless guitar solos ever for the past few years. This is the cherry on top, and it's a rotten cherry. I'll still enjoy his early stuff, but I seriously doubt if I'll ever buy anything by him again from Living with War or later.

Amazing WMD Photos

I really wish there were larger versions of these photos. They're truly gorgeous in their own big and dangerous way. And the set designers for WarGames deserve some awards—the launch control bunkers look amazing. Ha! Fun trivia found on the IMDB trivia page:

When David comes home the day after the NORAD computer break-in, the newscaster on the television is talking about a prophylactic recycling center.

Him? Really?

Not that it means a lot, but I thought it was funny how a blog named If It's Hip, It's Here posts stuff about our new president and his inauguration. It reinforces the fact that most people voted for him only because it was the hip and trendy thing to do.

Really Dumb Fucks

Why do these turds even wear pants? Their entire ass is hanging out. If you're going to live such an idiotic lifestyle and rob a 7–11, at least pull your pants up and look a little less retarded. It just gives the cops more evidence, since they can also identify you by your underwear. I dunno. Maybe doing that lets their farts escape more easily. Also, no time wasted unzipping or unbuttoning when taking a leak. They're geniuses!

Adam-12

Whoa. I never knew they swung that way. A couple unfortunate lines in this episode.



BTW, one thing cool about Adam-12, Emergency!, and S.W.A.T. is all the great cars you see on the streets.

Atari

Goddamn, I wish I still had my 2600 or Sears equivalent (I forget which mine was). The hours I spent racing a little car around a track shaped sorta like an H tipped over onto its side. I think that track was called Devil's Elbow or something like that. And the ice tracks were a shitload of fun once you got the groove. I used to have the audio from the racing game on a cassette tape. Wonder if that's still around.



This Atari ad has someone who looks and sounds an awful lot like Don Knotts in jail. (Probably slammed the door behind him when he went in to change the pillowcases.)

Gated Communities for Drums

I ordered a Behringer Multigate Pro XR4400 4–channel gate to use with my drum mics. Because I like using very live, wide open tunings on my toms, they can be a real bitch to mic. Especially the 15" and 18", which pretty much ring continuously due to sympathetic vibrations from other instruments. Those little globs of blue snot help take out some of the annoying harmonic rings that bug sound men. With the gates I'll be able to open each mic only when the drum has been struck, then give it a soft decay that follows the natural decay of the note. This also helps to keep each drum out of the other drums' mics. I typically don't like Behringer stuff. It always has that cheap, church band sort of feel to it. But Glen the sound guy out at Doc Holiday's said that's the gates they have there and he said they sound great.

I also ordered a backrest for my new throne. The one gig I used it at, I sure did miss being able to lean back and relax on the boring songs. Plus I've found it helps me play certain types of double–bass rhythms.

WALL•E

We watched WALL•E tonight. Very good. Animation and rendering gets more amazing all the time. Attention to details, like the way his tracks vibrate and respond. Even when he was in his "house" and had his tracks off and was rolling slowly over diamond plate, they made it move like it was really rolling over the small bumps, almost imperceptible. I loved the little cleaner guy (MOP?)? See the "Foreign Contaminant" clip on their site. The 2 shorts were very good too, BURN•E and especially Presto, a very clever nod to classic Warner Bros. cartoons, including a quick hillbilly tune reminiscent of Bugs' Hillbilly Hare. It's all over the web, so go watch it! The credits list Jay Ward as the associate producer, but that must be a different Jay Ward than the famous one, since he died 20 years ago.

More Power to the Confusionerator!

Obamaladingdong wants to delay the analog TV cut–off date for another 6 months. Holy shit. If people don't know about it by now, after it's already been delayed for years, they sure as hell aren't watching TV to begin with. Knock it off and get to the important presidential shit, stuff that will make the economy not suck and that sort of thing.

Any Idea What PCL Stands For?

Pretty Cool Links? I dunno.

2 cool things from PCL LinkDump tonight. Google Earth now has some ultra hi–res paintings and there's a Japanese movie called Big Man Japan that looks really weird and possibly funny, maybe something we'll have to see. NetFlix doesn't have any info for it yet, even though it will be probably be released on DVD in the US in March of this year.

(Took me a while to find it, but you should search for "Museo del Prado" in Google Earth to get to it, then click on the building or the hovering tile to get the list of paintings. Too bad there aren't any really cool ones—them Spaniards love themselves some religious paintings.)

Vehicle

The Dial Tones' cover of Vehicle never sounded like this!

The Opposite of L'eggs

Anybody remember Big Mama pantyhose? I shit you not. L'eggs still has one of the coolest logos around. See how the g's look like baby birds? And there was this great Wacky Package.

Hydraulic Hybrids

The biggest drawback to electric hybrids or even plain electric cars is the batteries. They're heavy, cost a lot, use toxic stuff, wear out, and need to be disposed of properly. A cheaper, less complex, less toxic, more efficient, and less pollutive solution is the hydraulic hybrid. Here's a neat video showing how they work. UPS has been working with the EPA to innovate and build prototypes and working units. One source states a 60–70% increase in fuel economy. Put that in your Prius and fuck it.

One caveat is that things like headlights, big ass stereos, and climate systems will quickly drain the existing battery when the engine shuts off (and AC would stop). So why not add a 2nd tiny engine that would power an alternator and store the energy in the battery, which would be shared with the main hydraulic–pumping engine? It could also stop when the battery is not being drained quickly.

Country Roads - Jason & the Scorchers

Speaking of John Denver…

"You were, like, sooo speeding and stuff."

Here's a cool picture from what might be the mid '70s in SoCal, from the look of the Caddy and the Camaro SS down the street, and the guy's suit. I think an early '60s Ferrari America is getting the ticket. Click it for big.

Keine Lust

With most Rammstein videos being pretty dark, this was a surprise.

Feuer Frei

This cracks me up. A Lego version of Rammstein's Feuer Frei video. I love the way the audience all start headbanging when the chorus starts. And having Darth Vader in the crowd is always good.

The Dark and Boring Knight

We watched the latest Batman movie this weekend. Yeah, Heath's Joker was pretty good, but Christian Bale's Batman was the pits. I kept waiting for him to start acting. It was like the entire movie was him rehearsing his lines while his mind was focused on texting his friends or something. And that Batvoice he did was so fucking annoying. As soon as Aaron Eckhart (the DA) appeared onscreen, Kim shuddered because he's so creepy looking. Michael Caine is good, like always. Maggie Gyllenhaal was ugly. What the hell happened to her? I guess she was only bordering on cute 7 or 8 years ago, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised. And once again, Morgan Freeman was the same character as every other movie and pointless to the plot. Bruce/Batman has Alfred; he doesn't need another person who helps him and knows his secret identity. I thought that the was the stupidest thing they did in the previous movie, and then they keep it going. Jesus christ, man, learn to do things with your voice to be different characters in different movies. Kim fell asleep during the last 40 minutes of something like that because it was getting so boring. Don't get me wrong—we don't need car chases and explosions to keep our interest, just some interesting dialog is enough. Watching Richard Farnsworth drive a lawn tractor from Iowa to Wisconsin in The Straight Story was a helluva lot more interesting than this movie.

All in all I give it a mighty "bleah".

Pictures of Animals Wearing Clothes

These are pretty weird. Some are pretty cool. Others make you wonder about the artist's sanity. The one shown here definitely popped out at me as a favorite.

Snow & Wine

We had about 3–4" of snow today. I got t' plowin' at 4:00 and did ours and 2 others' driveways; people who don't have snowblowers, including the new couple across the street, Shawn/Shaun/Sean/Shonn/Tiauwn and Sarah I believe. He was very happy about that and brought me a bottle of merlot and some chocolate chip cookies. I'm hip to the cookies, but I ain't a wino. We'll have to take it to the next neighborhood party if they aren't there, or something. It must be pretty good wine, because it has like a grey flannel sock–like thing around it, tied with a cord.

But damn it, I must dress too warmly or something. I even made sure to wear a proper high–tech long–sleeve shirt under my sweatshirt. Either I overdress, get hot, and sweat a lot, or the thing I have wrapped around my face funnels all the moisture I exhale down into my coat. There's got to be a way to bundle up and not get all sweaty and keep my face warm without breathing all over myself.

Chevies

If I had to drive a Chevy, it'd probably be this '71 shortbed pickup painted just like you see (no wax, please), or this '71 Blazer in that exact green. Note, in the close–up of the bowtie, that he has an oil or tranny cooler attached to the grill with a boot lace. That's cool. That Chevy green have always been a favorite of mine. Brent, didn't you have a Nova that color? Or was it blue?

Let's Move to Denmark

Their weather men have long hair and they let cats roam the set.

Microsoft Has Officially Gone Insane Even More and Turned 113% Gay

Witness this demo for Microsoft Songsmith. Not only is it rated S for Songtastic, it's also rated C for Corny, L for Lame, and UMGaG for Ugly Middle-eastern Gay Guy. Put it all together and it has a total rating of SCLUMGaG, which sounds exactly how horrible this video is. I think they've now surpassed the idiocy of the Ballmer fake commercial or whatever it was supposed to be, and the unfunny and unclever dumbass Seinfeld ads. And they have such a knack for picking goofy looking actors for their ads. But you know the old saying; monkey see, monkey do. Something like that.

Big Ass Clamp

No, not a big clamp for your ass. A big clamp for making wooden legs. It's sitting on the floor near the bottom–right bench, with a large hand crank wheel to open and close the jaws.

Knob Twiddler

I was asked to run sound for DNA, which is the other band that Craig is in. We played with them at a fire station last year. They practice every week, so they're pretty tight, but they only play live a few times a year. They've usually rented a PA, but have been buying their own piece by piece. They have a new Allen & Heath mixer, but rented a snake. Their old board must've only had 1/4" outs, because they got a snake with only 1/4" sends. Oddly, the board has 1/4" aux outs, XLR main stereo outs, and a 1/4" main mono out. So the snake ended up working by using the mono out (which is all you need anyway). The mains are self–powered JBLs like ours (they even borrowed our subs), but the monitors are powered by some little Peavey 6– or 8–channel mixer/amp. Lame, but it works. They had one actual speaker cable for the monitors—the rest were regular shielded patch cords. One guy went back to their place and got another one—a 50–footer—to connect the last monitor a foot away from the other one. They keyboardist had a small 4–channel powered speaker on a stand. He placed it right in front of his keyboards at face level, coincidentally, also right in front of his mic. When I couldn't give him a level that didn't include brain piercing feedback, he said, "it always works in the studio." Studio ≠ live.

Prior to that day, Craig says they were going to set up at 3:00 in the afternoon. "What?!?" was my response. They wanted to be able to do a sound check and go home and eat, shower, etc. I told them I'd be there around 4:00 to plug in the PA and do a sound check. I stopped by John's to pick up the subs, and he drove over with me. Nobody was there. Craig showed up within a few minutes, then another guy with a van. Over the next 3 hours or so, the rest of the band eventually arrived. By 6:00 it was obvious I wasn't going home to eat supper with Kim and drive back together, so I ordered a cheeseburger and she drove herself. We managed to do a sound check at maybe 7:30, then everyone left. They reappeared between 8:30 and 8:55, and went on maybe 10 minutes late. At one point John said that he now understood why Craig is surprised at and has mentioned multiple times how organized we are. I told John that if Turnstyle was that unorganized, I wouldn't be in it.

John & Kim joined them onstage for a couple songs. Before their last set, they talked us all into playing a couple Turnstyle songs. The drummer uses a cheaper Roland electronic set with 4 real cymbals, which sadly doesn't include a hi–hat. It sounded OK, but way too canned. The snare was probably the worst, very reminiscent of something with the name Casio on it. He's the one with the kick trigger mounted inside an acoustic bass drum. His kick pedal is probably as tight as it can go, so I had a hell of a time playing it, even after taking off my right Caterpillar boot, very similar to these. Not so good for playing the bass drum, even if Terry Bozzio does wear Doc Martins when he plays. He also uses a fairly small keyboard type amp for his drum monitor. Small enough that he has to crank it way past a usable level, so every loud note is horribly distorted. That was probably the worst drumming experience I've ever had.

I finally left the bar over 9 and a half hours later. I love doing that stuff, but god damn, let's get the shit together, boys. Had Lodin been there, I'm sure I would've heard his "can't stand incompetence" or whatever phrase more than once.

Steve BallMe[r]

This just in: Software is what Microsoft does best! That's according to Steve "Butthead" Ballmer. If that's the case, let's hope our cars don't start relying on Microsoft OSs to do cruise control, or anything else for that matter. Imagine the burst pipes you'd get if you had a Microsoft-controlled thermostat on your furnace, followed by a cozy mushroom cloud of fire after you rebooted it.

Elvira and Her Wondertwins

Without a doubt, we've all seen Elvira in something low–cut. And most of us have seen some of her pre–Elvira nudes. Here are some I've never seen, courtesy of Celebrity Sleuth magazine. They're below the Adrienne Barbeau nudes, who was pretty chunky back then. Arg, nothing like a photo of Bette Midler to ruin a mood. Ignore the top–left photo in the 4th image from the top if you also throw up a little when you see Bette. Thank god for sleuths.

Rusty Licks

While Kim was at her lesson tonight, I went down to work my feet some more after I readjusted my pedals again. I played along with Pantera's Walk to get warmed up a bit, then a couple Primus tunes to get the feet going, then my old standbys Moving Pictures and Permanent Waves, finally ending with The Trees. I've forgotten which fills go where! Used to be, back in high school, I knew all the Rush songs note for note. But these days I'll start a certain fill and within a few notes notice that Neil's playing a different fill, let out a "shit!", and come back in somewhere. It's aggravating! But I guess back then I was playing almost every night and listening to those albums constantly. And after hearing this Italian guy (thanks, Greg) play some amazingly precise polyrhythms and very busy stuff, well hell if I don't feel old! At least I'm almost better than Mr. Bean on an invisible drum set.

Sexy Gay People

This entire scout troupe should call these cousins and Tom Cruise's identical twin and ask them to join. "All hands on Dick." (Assuming the scout leader's name is Richard.)

More Movies

A scene from Fast Times at Ridgemont High. No class room scene for these characters, so the locker room will have to do.



I visualized this scene from Firesign Theatre's The Further Adventures of Nick Danger. They didn't have a more private eye looking guy for Nick, and Catherwood could be quite a bit older.

Make Your Own Movies

Here's a fun little site, still in beta. You can make your own animated movies, although character animation is limited to expressions and hand gestures. No walking around or fighting or boinking or anything like that. These characters didn't really match the voices, age-wise. Either the characters need to look older or the voices need to sound younger. So it ended up looking like teenage girls with their voices overdubbed by older actresses. But maybe that adds to the comedy of the whole notion, since the funniest part is the computer generated voices in the first place. They always have that dry, stoic steadiness, very little sense of excitement, just spitting out their lines the same way in every scene, like a Keanu Reeves wanna-be. Maybe they'll add more voices or characters as they progress.

Purdy People

New favorite blog; Sexy People.

Mystery Jump

I was out scraping the ice/snow crusty mix off my driveway today when I heard Geoff trying to start his daughter's Ford minivan. It was plenty cold this afternoon, like 2°. It had previously been in the garage for a few days so we could figure out which door was causing the dome light to stay on. It was the sliding door. It has 4 contacts, 2 of which were quite dirty/greasy. I got out my can of Foamy White tuner shower from the mid '80s to help clean the crud off. He also took some very fine sandpaper to both sides. That fixed it. So later, he parked it outside. Then today it wouldn't start. It had plenty of battery, as it was cranking just fine. It just wouldn't light. We tried letting it sit, holding the pedal to the floor (I don't remember if that's a trick to get fuel injected engines to "choke"), etc. Finally, he wanted to try jumping it. I thought it was getting plenty of juice, but thought what the hell. Either that did the trick or the engine was finally ready to ignite. So what do y'all think? Could extra juice cause the electronic ignition to fire hotter? Or the injectors to squirt harder and make a more vaporous spray?

Acme Tools

Neighbor Geoff and I went up to Acme Tools today (wow, slow ass site). What a cool fuckin' place. Had a whole herd of Powermatic shop machines. I opened the side wart door on the tablesaw that covers the motor and was greeted by a huge goddamn motor and parts designed and machined with care. The hand crank for the blade height is so smooth as you spin it. Shit, I wish I had the space. They also sell Stiletto titanium hand tools which are all locked in place with big security cables. Why? Cuz the framing hammers reach into the $300 range. They do feel nice, and so light. The hickory handled ones were super light and easy to swing. It's amazing how light titanium is when you feel a big hunk of it like that. They even sell some Rockler stuff, which I thought was odd.

We also made the trek up to a Hennepin County recycling place up on 169 north of 694. Busy place. Between the 2 of us we had his trunk fairly full of old monitors, prints, and assorted electronics. Then on the way back he pulled into this water softener place where you honk and drive in around back to buy salt. They load it up. 7th bag is free. I got a couple bags, which was good because Kim was going to mention that she thought the water felt a bit hard. Turns out she was right—no salt at all left in the softener.

IMCDB

Did you know there's an Internet Movie Car Database? Neither did I. They cover lots of ground, from an AMC Ambassador limo to a John Deere 4020 in A Perfect World to Killdozer (the D9 was Killdozer).