What are you doing to Mommy?!

That's the look these little boys have on their faces. I commented that the photog was threatening to kill their puppy, then I looked again and decided that he was really going at it with their mom. Poor bastards.

Light up the Stage

I added one more preset to the light board; all on full white for set–up/tear–down. It'll be so nice to not work up a sweat during that time because of hot lights. One thing that's weird is the color of the light when r, g, and b are maxed is that it's a very cool white. One of the channels on the COLORdash pars sets it to a preset color. As you go up through the values, it goes through the spectrum. The last dozen or so values are different temperatures of white, with the lowest being the warmest. So I used that setting for the full white light. It just feels more natural when it looks like tungsten.

The last time we played, I noticed I'm getting that callus below the 2nd knuckle of my middle finger on my right hand. That went away after I moved here and wasn't playing. That huge one is still on the inside of my right thumb from hammer drilling. Whee.

We put some ads out for guitarists. Got quite a few responses from guys who sound like seasoned musicians. I'm voting "no" on the one guy who can't afford a shift key and responded to our "add". If you can't take the time to type capitalize the word "I", then to hell with ya! One guy claims to have played percussion in the Minneapolis Youth Symphony at age 9, was in Animal House, then played in S.F. metal and punk bands in the '80s. Leave no genre unturned.

The Blizzard Maker

I've seen lots of video of the huge steam–powered rotary snowblowers they use to clear train tracks in areas of heavy snow, but this is the first time I've ever seen footage of the big ass snow plows in action. So the engineer pretty much just floors it, lays on the horn, and grabs a good book. I can't imagine that there's much looking ahead that one can do to make sure you don't hit anything.

A Little Blue… A Little Red…

I set up 8 scenes on the light board so we have something useable next Saturday night. I refuse to use what they call "chases" (a sequence of scenes with fade times and longevities) because you have to enter program mode to play them back. That's like opening a file with read/write access when you only need to read it; dangerous and just plain stupid. So in the event that the new one doesn't arrive in time, Lodin will be able to choose from 8 different scenes. But you can only switch between those scenes; no cross–fades. If you hit Scene 1, it changes to Scene 1. If you hit Scene 1 again, it turns those lights off. I would almost buy the argument that the scene selector buttons act as toggles. But then if you hit Scene 1 a 3rd time, not a goddamn thing happens. So much for the toggle theory. Do they only let the criminally insane design lighting controllers? Wasn't there something equally stupid on our Sunn board? Then think back to the TFLB (Tim's Fucking Light Board), which was the bastard offspring of the Black Diemond light board (sans funny name). They were boards—and I mean wooden boards—nailed and/or screwed together to form a sort of wedge, and they had light switches mounted to them. On meant on. Off meant off. TFLB was also covered with duct tape, most likely to make it look more hi–tech.

Mayors Can't be Funny?

A California mayor was forced to resign after he forwarded a funny picture with the title "No Easter egg hunt this year". Why? Because some uptight black woman on his distribution list (that was his only mistake) has the sense of humor of a zit. I mean come on—that's hilarious!

Too Ugly to Hook

If you're too ugly to be a hooker, then get to pimpin'. It works for teenage girls too, as Jazmine and Alfalfa Tatiana found out.

Safari 4 Beta

I don't know why, but Apple has been listening to idiots lately. Maybe it's all the NeXT bozos that pushed Cocoa and killed Carbon C++ development. You know, C++, the language the entire world uses. Objective–C? Not so much. Anyhoo, now they've added a couple few completely insane features to Safari.

Top Sites: It gives you a window full of thumbnails for the sites you visit most often. Hmm, so if someone visits mostly news sites, they do so because they like to read stories, not look at pictures that cover the entire web page. So when their favorite sites are shrunk down to a thumbnail, they're unreadable. Therefore, what the fuck good does a bunch of thumbnails do? Also, they have to be generated by downloading the entire web page, so there's a shitload of internet traffic being wasted, and we certainly don't need any more of that these days.

Cover Flow view of bookmarks: A good idea 1% of the time.

Tabs on top: You just have to see this abomination to appreciate how utterly stupid it is. It destroys the look of the titlebar. It destroys the behavior of the titlebar. They react to background clicks, which is not a good thing. To sum up: fucking stupid.

Luckily, you can completely turn this shit off. Apple sure has been pissing me off the last few years. Still, they aren't Microsoft.

Edit: I also hate the loss of the page load progress in the address field, replaced by a indeterminate busy spinny thing. The page load progress is so helpful. I'm always keeping an eye on it so I know if the page is really done. This is useful when filling out a form, which may not be completely loaded, or long blog type pages that have hundreds of images on many different sites; if you see it's going slow, you should refrain from scrolling, because image loads will cause the page to jump away from where you've scrolled to, or you can see it'll take forever so you can cancel the load. A simple spinny thing only says, "yup, still a–loadin'. Not sure when we'll be done, and I'm not about to give you even a rough guess." Stupid spinny thing. Thankfully there's also a hidden pref to revert to the old, useful way.

Crazy Scientists Are Like Women

Don't let them drive, especially if they're in a DeLorean that can fly. And the Enterprise is parked in orbit around Earth.

TC Electronic Bass Amp

TC Electronic makes some neat stuff. The reverb/delay unit I got for the PA is from them. Now they're making a digital bass head, much like the discontinued Yamaha that Kim uses. This one has a built–in tuner, which is fantastic. The Yamaha has 5 presets to this one's 3, but this does have a very cool optional footswitch that includes a mute button and tuner display. The NAMM videos are interesting. The Spanish chick is pretty good, but she needs to not speak or sing. Bleagh. But check out Steve Bailey on the 6–string fretless playing Eleanor Rigby.

Terminate DMX

And while I might mean to pop a cap in the rapper of that name, what I'm really talking about is building a DMX terminator for our new lights. They say it will prevent data signals from bouncing back or other oddities. I found a diagram that shows how to wire up a terminator and a tester/terminator. Since the tester has LEDs in it, I made that one.

Much to my surprise, my little drawer of resistors had no 270Ωs, so I made a trip up to Radio Shack. I also got a cheap Radio Shack XLR plug, rather than waste a good one. Then I dug through my LED drawer and found 2 tiny ones that matches brightness and opacity; one green and one orange (all the reds were clear rather than milky). It was fun soldering it up. I wish I had more opportunities to screw with electronics like I used to. Since I don't want to fuck around and fill it up with resin like he suggests, I put a small hunk of shrinkwrap around one solder joint and then wrapped electrical tape around the whole mess and shrunk it a bit with the little butane torch.

Everything checked out with the multimeter and both LEDs worked when I supplied some voltage in both directions from a nearby DeWalt 18V tool battery. So I cleaned up the tools and plugged it into the last light. I powered it all up and slid some faders around and punched some buttons. No LEDs. Hmm. I then plugged it right into the back of the board and they lit up a tiny bit. I guess I could've used a smaller resistor for the LEDs, or maybe more sensitive LEDs. Oh well. It was more fun that going out and shooting a rapper. Just a little.

More Band Drama

God damn it. What happened to the days when bands just worked together, got along, and had a blast? Craig replaced Jack, which was like space ships replacing the hose & buggy. After a few weeks, Emily announced that she and Craig were going to date. John says, "bad idea, don't fuck up the band" and Kim & I are happy for them, although I had this underlying suspicion. After a week of that, Emily says she had to break it off because he was waaayy too serious about it. Craig, adding that heartbreak to the existing cutback on his job hours and worry of being laid off, got depressed and thought he should quit the band so he wouldn't have to deal with seeing her. Within a few days, he seemed to get over that enough and we practiced a couple times and played our first gig with him. They talked afterwards and he decided he could deal with it and would stay. Then other stuff happened that I won't go into, and he's out again. Fuck!

Perhaps our next guitarist can be an android that will play like a sumbitch and not speak or have feelings. Maybe they'll build one of those next at EVHGear.

The Wolfy

There's a neat little video interview with Eddie and the guys who helped create The Wolfgang, Eddie's new production guitar, as well as the history behind its creation. Just go the EVHGear site and click around. I'm not a fan of factory re–creations of famous guitars, but it's interesting to see all the changes and hacks and damage that his Frankenstein guitar has been through over the years.

We be Jammin'

Craig came over yesterday to jam a bit. We played a few songs from 2112. That was a blast. I knew he loved to play ZZ Top, so I did the little t-t-tip da-dip, t-t-tip da-dip thing on the rim to start out La Grange and he joined right in. Then Kim came down and I said we should teach her the song. That took all of 30 seconds. Haven't played that for nearly 2 decades.

Light up the Sky

Today guitarist John & I went over to Metro Light & Sound again, this time before they closed. They lave lots of stuff. We ended up with 8 of these Chauvet 1–watt LED pars, 2 of these little LED par 38s to put shine up onto my drums from below, and this board. There's quite a learning curve when you get into this DMX controlled stuff; channels, banks, scenes, addresses, ids, DIP switches (yay, I get to enter binary numbers), etc. Those 8 pars are maybe the size of a par 46 and put out maybe as much as a par 56 with a 300W spot. The beam is surprisingly tight. I thought the LEDs would just flood our the light and the can would control it, but each LED is a lens, so they're very directional. I doubt we'll ever need to use the barn doors, but they do provide nice damage control while in transport.

So no more hot lights, which is good in most cases, but will be missed on those occasions when it's really cold in the bar, or to light a cigarette with a solar cigarette lighter. And never again will we blow a breaker because of lights. Oh, they have little fans in them, I guess to keep the CPU cool. So it sounds like a rack of computers up on the light tree.

Rad Bike

Look at this very nifty looking 1937 BMW prototype. As Brent said, "this Bavarian motor works."

Pretenders Still Good

This just in: The Pretenders are still good. Chrissie sounds as good as ever. Martin is really rock steady after all these years, but still throws in little flashy bits. They also have a pedal steel player, since some of the stuff on Break up the Concrete has a tasty twang. He and the lead guitarist were trading licks, which rocked. I love the sound of distorted slide or steel guitar, although not the George Thorogood flavor.

The opening act was American Bang, a 4–piece stoner rock band from Nashville. I really liked them. Very Fu Manchu/Wolfmother sounding, with a slight Southern "let's drink beer" edge. The bass player had his right forearm in a cast with his pinky and ring finger held out straight, so he had a very whole¶ndash;arm strumming–with&ndashpick style, very reminiscent of Lemmy.

The only goofy thing of the evening was some chick handing out leaflets at the end that said "Chrissie has a message she'd like you to read." It was a PETA thing with anti–meat quotes from famous people. OK then.

Pretenders

The band is going to see The Pretenders tonight. I didn't really care about seeing them, but everybody else wanted to go, so I bowed to peer pressure. Plus I hate going into Minneapolis. Oh well. The new album has some good stuff. And Martin Chambers is still playing drums, although it was studio legend Jim Keltner on the album.

Cool Gun

I think my brother had this incredible toy gun or something like it around 1966. It might've been different, because none of the videos made reference to loading up the grenades/missiles with a cap (as in "cap gun" cap—we had these Mattel Greenies (if they move from there, lemme know—I grabbed the photo)), and they were red with his gun. There was a little spring–loaded hinged lid sort of thing on the front end of the grenades, which you opened up and slid a single cap into. When it landed, it would compress and ignite the cap. I was only 3 or 4, so I never got to shoot it, and he must've broken it by the time I was of shootin' age, because I never inherited it.

You Must Acquit

Heh. O.J. in his very first TV role, Dragnet, 1968. I guess he figured he'd be better off killing people than being a cop. Also, the guy in the brown and black jacket went on to play Dr. Mike Morton on Emergency!.

I Want to be a Puppy or a Kitten or a Chicken

I want to wrestle and cuddle on a bed with Natalie Portman and Rashida Jones!

Fallout Fun!

You know the song The Lion Sleeps Tonight? You know how peppy and happy it is? Prepare to be a little freaked out every time you hear it from now on. This is super cool. Gladly they could harmonize without sucking. And those are one of my favorite gas masks.

First Gig of Non-Suckitude

Tomorrow is our first gig with Craig out at Doc Holiday's in Delano. It'll be so nice to not want to crawl off stage and hide when it comes time for guitar solos.

We Did It Wrong

Right at the end of version 3.0 of Jalopnik's You're Doing It Wrong is this image of a traffic map. After about 3 seconds I realized it was the Twin Cities map on the number 9. Musta been rush hour during one of those really icy days.

Detective Ferret Face

Larry Linville before he gained fame on M*A*S*H. Either he wasn't good in this role, or I just can't see him doing anything else but Frank Burns. I kept expecting him to yell "oh you… guys" at Reed and McCoy.

A Gomer Pyle Movie Theater

If we had a movie theater built out of an Quonset hut like this, I just might go out to the movies. That's very cool because it combines 2 things I like. I always thought Quonset huts were an amazing piece of engineering. So simple, yet sturdy and relatively waterproof from rain. They also have a wonderful pre–technology sort of feel to them, like you expect actual work to be going on inside them.

I was kind of young when it got torn down, but my grandpa had one between their house and barn. He kept all his tools, gardening equipment, pots, etc in there. It smelled great in there, like dirt and rust. But I don't think it was a typical corrugated metal building, but maybe plywood instead. It might've had a section of milky Fiberglas sheeting along the top to let in light. If it did, it was pretty dirty or aged, because it was really dark in there with the only windows being the door and maybe a small window in the front or on the side.

Basement Project, Part IV

Panelling is done! I mounted the speaker hangers back to the ceiling and the guitar rack back onto the wall. We need to figure out if we want to take my old desk down there and rearrange things before we proceed with making it look cool down there. And I still need to make a couple 2nd windows to better insulate the existing single-pane windows. I'll take a picture once things are less disorganized.

We might be playing at Mainstreet Bar & Grill in Hopkins. That would be a pretty big deal for us, since they get way more established acts (like with albums and shit) in there (just gander at their professional sounding booking info—we don't have an EPK). Their band schedule page is broken, and their stupid MySpace page is worthless. Arg. I eat lunch there with a fellow MultiAd geek every few months—good food.

Cool Mad Men Stuff

I wish I was an artist and could make far out Mad Men–inspired art. Then I could get a load of seriously cool Mad Men stuff directly from Matt Weiner. I want the floaty pen.

What the Viper Could Have Been

Here's a cool idea. Imagine what a Viper would've looked like had Dodge designed one in 1967. I like what he's come up with, and he did a fantastic job modeling it in a 3D app. The only really noticeable foible is the spark plug wires. Even I did a better job of modeling wires on a slow Mac many years ago. But the other attention to details is wonderful, like the hood springs.

Digital Delay (not the good kind of digital delay)

Well, the dumbass did it. Yup, Obamalamadingdong went ahead and delayed the analog shutdown until June 12. This will be the first of many stupid things he'll do.

Lodge Wagon

This is a beautiful truck—a '66 Suburban in the ultimate lodge/camping setup. I'd drive it around. I still wouldn't go fishing, but I'd look like I did.

Porn on 8–track

Some people are crazy about 8–tracks. I liked 'em, but they sucked. Turns out you could listen to porn on them too. Wow, that must be amazing. Oh god. Turn me on Mr. Roboto. Hopefully it doesn't fade out to change tracks right in the middle of an orgasm. Sadly, there's no audio there, only some small photos (the entire site is pretty low budget) of actual porno 8–track tapes that have to be seen to be believed. I don't think K–Tel ever made any of these.

Teenage Enema Nurses in Bondage

You heard me. It's a song by Killer Pussy. You heard me. Hear it here. I just got the Barnes & Barnes album Spazchow from 1997 (hey, they upgraded from a 4–track to an 8–track!), and Killer Pussy's Bikini Wax was listed on the "also available from Oglio Records" page of the CD booklet. That's how I found that. Hear 30–second snippets at Amazon. Funny and well played, sorta like Blotto with songs written and sung by a horny chick.

Groovy Packaging

Why don't they make labels for CDs that look like this? Media packaging is so blah these days. What better way to say "high fidelity" than a guy with a creepy haircut hugging an easy blonde chick? Check out the entire collection—there are some fantastic designs. I'd never heard of Maxim tapes, but it sure looks like they were riding on the Maxell branding coattails. I think the Maxell packaging layout was some of the best ever, with the alternating rows of increasing– and decreasing–width vertical lines, especially when over the gold background. I also like the old Scotch labels that used the black and yellow plaid. They're ugly, but they make me hungry for butterscotch candy.

And here's a neat collection of photos of many kinds of cassette tapes. Check out those purple Agfas! I have one of those Alsop head/capstan/pinch roller cleaners. I'm amazed at how many different brands and models look familiar to me from my collection. I always tried to stick with TDK or Maxell, but inevitably someone would give me a 3–pack of Memorex or Radio Shack for your birthday, even though I specifically asked for Maxell UDXL-II C90s. Why didn't they ever give me Happy Sound or Music to Please tapes?! I have one Teac that has the little reels inside the cassette that looks a lot like the Super Ferro on that page.

Optical Illusions

Perhaps you could even call it an optical allusion. Yes, it's about time the old familiar illustrations were replaced with something new and interesting. Not totally safe for work, but it's nothing more than you'd see at a beach.

Twins?

Heh. Here's a great Separated at Birth? with Amy Winehouse and Keef. Honestly, she's still kicking? Keith took years to get that pickled. At her rate, she should've exploded already, requiring a foam truck to contain the blaze and haz–mat suits to do the clean–up of all the toxins.

The Wolfgang

Eddie's new Fenders look pretty nice. Here's a little interview with him talking about the guitar and other stuff. "Reverend Al." Who knew? There's a longer version that you have to read. Wha!

Basement Project, Part III

I made heap big headway today. Only 2 more sheets to go (plus all the hammer drilling, slicing of insulation, and moving crap out of the way that goes with it). Kim proved a worthy helper and tacked up the panelling as I insulated the next section. She was even spouting a couple random lines from the classic WJJY Cash Call. (My favorite is "Seventeen dollars. How's that?") I think I'll keep her.

How to Reallllly Flip a Truck

Watch this amazing double flip (in the air) of a CORR truck. Notice how he stuck the landing right on all fours. That point prompted one of the most unintentionally funny reader comments I've seen in a while (lack of upper–case and punctuation is his, natch):

lets see a 13 year old chinese girl beat that

Fans of The Office will be expecting Michael to holler out "that's what she said!" This one gets points for intentional humor (an old gem for redneck stunts):

Overheard moments before… "ya'll hold my beer, I'm gonna try sumpin"

Movies

We watched The House Bunny tonight. The trailer looked like it would be funny, and it was right. Both Anna Faris and Emma Stone were really funny and have great delivery. Emma Stone was like a bunch of great comedic actors rolled into one. And Anna Faris is not hard on the eyes at all, even though she never seems to be naked. The movie lost a few points when it stooped to teenage chick movie cliches like choreographed scenes (camera dollies across the girls, who each do [action] in sequence in time to music). Either it was making fun of that genre but didn't make that point, or they really did it for the 13-year old girls in the audience.

I also forgot to mention a really good movie we watched a while back, Son of Rambow. It's a really well–made movie about 2 kids; one so fucked up by a weird religion that he has to retreat into his own imagination to find any happiness in life. Then he meets another kid who's so fucked up by a shitty family that he bullies the wimpy little god–kid. They film their own version of First Blood and become best friends. Sounds weird, eh? Perhaps, but it's very touching and enjoyable. Many times more enjoyable than The Dark Knight.

Great Big Homos

That's one way to describe the Jersey Douchebag look. And now they're all being collected in a database, making it easy to track their movement and activities, keeping the world safe from their ugliness and idiocy. Visit Hot Chicks with Douchebags for extreme laughter at the expense of supreme fucktards. The complete collection is in the left column, down a ways, under Hall of Scrote. Check out the ridiculous chin strap on Cro Bagnon. If anyone has the desire to French kiss themselves, it'd be those dweebs.

Hick Rap

I'm the first to say that rap should just go away and never be remembered, and most people will agree that white people should not try to do it, especially if they're 40- or 50-year old hicks from the South. I know one of you will think, "hey, that sounds like the P&G Safety Song." As Moral Orel would say; yikes.

Dad the Stooge

I got iLife '09 installed last night and was going through the face recognition confirmation in iPhoto. After you name a few instances of the same face, iPhoto will attempt to recognize that person in other photos. I was getting slight chuckles out of the objects that iPhoto thought were faces in some photos, like the wheel of a car or the crotch of some plastic transforming bug/robot that Kim's nephew had. I was going through the list of photos of my Dad that it thought he was in when an unfortunate gust of wind gave him Crazy Professor Hair. This led iPhoto to think that the life–size cardboard cutout of Larry Fine of the Three Stooges in my brother's house was Dad. Poor Dad. :)



What's kind of neat is that it picked photos of both me and my brother as Dad, so there must be enough family resemblance there that the recognition spotted it.

A Day in the Life of Green Acres

By Damascas and Barnes & Barnes (you know B&B from Fish Heads, and the one B is Billy Mumy). This is genius. There's another version where the music is mixed better (you can hear both vocals equally in the "the chores, the stores" part) and it doesn't sample the build from the Beatles' version. But the video is much better in this one.

Pulsar

Rogue Amoeba has a new app called Pulsar that streams XM/Sirius radio. So if you have an account, it might be a better way to stream it than via their own web sites. We've had "free" XM via DirecTV for a few years now, then Kim got an account when she got her Infiniti. I really dig it. The Deep Tracks channel is one of my favorites, almost always playing something good and rarely something I've heard more than a couple times in my life. X–Country (cross country) was also a great one, playing fantastic alt country and twang (their slogan was "In twang we trust") like Robert Earl Keen, Jerry Jeff Walker, Old Crow Medicine Show, Drive–By Truckers, etc. Since merging with Sirius the channel has changed to the much hokier name Outlaw Country, sounding like something that would be a soundtrack for NASCAR commercials and only available at Wal-mart. It's somewhat the same music, although often moving in a hokier direction. The old Classic Tracks is now Classic Vinyl—also a good one, like finding a good ol' album–oriented FM radio station coming out of the past, where you suspect the DJ chose most tracks so he'd have time to go outside a burn one.

The one big caveat to satellite radio is the sound quality. You'd think a digital feed would be perfect. Nope, cuz it's compressed, both aurally (like FM stations do) and digitally (like Real audio or shitty mp3), so the highs always sound like somebody is holding a plate in front of your tweeters and moving it around. That's too bad, especially because it usually sounds worse than analogue FM.

When Space Was Groovy

I'm not a Battlestar Galactica fan, but this belt buckle caught my attention on eBay, only because I have one in the same style, but it has a Harley–Davidson logo and cycle on it. I bought mine somewhere along the Bagnell Dam strip, probably at the same time I got a T–shirt that I had them put a Harley "1" logo on the front, a Harley wings logo on the back, and "TUT" in iridescent letters on the back across the top, I think.







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Nashville Pussy

I've heard the name of this band, but don't recall hearing their music. Here's a video in 2 parts where they teach you how to play R&R guitar in 15 minutes. It's really basic stuff, but sometimes that's all you need. But the part that made me actually laugh out loud and like them was his quote at the very end of part 2. Click to about 6:30 if you want to skip the rest.

Basement Project, Part II

I got a start on it yesterday. It went slow, because I had to go around the breaker box and a window. After that, the wall is unimpaired except for a small notch I'll need for the beam. I also realized that foamboard insulation is made stupidly. They already have score lines for snapping them into smaller widths, but they're at 16" and 24". Since a 16"–on–center wall has 14.5" of space between the studs, then the pieces will be 1.5" too wide. I don't get it. So I have to measure and slice each piece manually, and I'll have all that scrap left over. What a fucking waste of time and non–decomposing material.

I'm also realizing that a cordless hammer drill is a dumb idea. It takes maybe a minute at full speed to drill a hole about 1.5" deep into the mortar. With 4 screws anchoring each 2x2, I can get maybe 2 boards done before the battery is dead. By that time the battery is plenty warm, and it should cool before charging (which I didn't do), and then it should cool before being used again (again, not). I borrowed Geoff's DeWalt portable light/charger because it has 2 charging bays, and the light is fluorescent and cool, as opposed to 500W halogen work lights.

I also figured out that the nice 4' drywall square I got free from a neighbor lady was out of whack. Who knows how many things I've cut with it that aren't square. A few whacks on the floor got it back into square.

Target vs. Wal-mart

You've probably seen the timeline map showing the viral spread of Wal–mart across the country. Now here's one for Target. Note how Wal–mart spread like a creeping death across the landscape. It's also neat how in that one the map is very dark grey, which gives that ominous missiles exploding in WarGames look.

Cloverfield

We bought the Cloverfield Blu–ray a few months ago, and watched it tonight since enough time had passed since we watched it the 1st time on DVD. The Dolby TrueHD soundtrack is amazing. The cats' ears were rotating around all through the movie.

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).