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When I finished today I looked like I had been rolling in mud, which is not entirely inaccurate. I had my regular cycle 7 route today, in the area of Basse Road and West Ave. I found some really strange mud in the alleys. If I dug through it with my hook, it was thick and viscous but somewhat liquid. However, I discovered that if I grabbed a big swath of it with my hands and carefully lifted, I could peel up these thick layer/chunks about 2 inches thick. Of course this meant I got mud on my gloves, but I just wiped them off with grass and kept on as usual. Quite strange.
I wore out my last original tire today. Probably should have replaced it a while back, but didn't. Lasted for 146,000 miles.
They're predicting "ice pellets" as precipitation tomorrow. Did someone decide "sleet" is somehow not politically correct or something? Or is there a difference between "ice pellets" and "sleet?" I prefer sleet to rain. The ground isn't cold enough to make it stick; once it hits it just melts. However, sleet will bounce off of my clothes instead of wetting me like rain does. So although it may be cold, I will remain mostly dry. Only 40% chance though, so I'm not too worried about it. Thursday looks to be our bad day for the week. Seems like every week for a few months now we've had one really bad day when it's cold and rainy. It would be nice to have a full week when every day is like today.
Tuesday, February 09, 2010
In which I finally get an opportunity to use the word "viscous" in a blog post
Monday, February 08, 2010
10 more albums #69
Pat Metheny & Lyle Mays - As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls (1981, dub cassette)
Pure Prairie League - Something in the Night (1981, cassette)
The Heath Brothers (and others) - Live from Midem, Cannes France (1983, dub cassette)
Roger Waters - Radio KAOS (1987, dub cassette)
Jerry Giddens - For Lydia (1995, dub cassette)
Various Artists
- Big Sound New Music Sampler (2009, mp3 download)
- Blood and Fire Sampler (2009, mp3 download)
- Ryko Flash of Light Sampler (2009, mp3 download)
Gentle Giant - In a Power Free Interview (2009, mp3 download)
The Osborne Brothers and Mac Wiseman - The Essential Bluegrass Album (1987, CD)
I'm a big fan of Pat Metheny. I don't remember exactly how I acquired this tape. I know I made it myself, but from what and whose? Anyhow I had this CD on my yourmusic.com queue but they ran out of stock before I got down to it. Then I discovered this tape while going (yet again) through my old cassette collection so I thought I'd go ahead and convert it. It sounds okay, but I still want the CD.
The PPL tape is another very old cassette that I bought when I was in high school and I'm surprised it hasn't worn out because of its age. They were a group that served as a sort of bridge in my listening habits when they (the habits, that is) were undergoing a somewhat dramatic transformation back then--not quite country, not quite rock, somehow both and neither.
The Heath Brothers album (jazz) is another dub tape that I'm pretty sure I recorded from the radio, but I don't remember the exact details, except that they played the full album with no commercial interruptions, and I'm guessing it was from KRTU but I'm not sure.
Radio KAOS is from a dub tape that I made of the CD that belonged to my friend Babel when we were house-mates many years ago. I think--not totally sure about that.
Jerry Giddens is another dub tape made from a CD that belonged to a co-worker in the mid-90s. He picked it up at one of Giddens' gigs in San Antonio back then. I'm having a hard time finding any info about him on ye olde internette, but here's a link to a review of this album at answers.com.
The Big Sound Sampler is a free download (Australian alt-rock) from Amazon.com. In my weird rating system this gets a 7 out of 20 for notable artists and an overall score of 2.1. Artists that caught my ear were The Middle East, Charles Jenkins, Drawn from Bees, Skinny Jean, The Basics, Elke (who has/have a very "80s" kind of sound) and The Dead Sea. This sampler was apparently produced by the government of Queensland, Australia.
The Blood and Fire Sampler is another Amazon free download of reggae and reggae-ish music. Overall only a 1.4, with an instrumental by The Boris Gardiner Happening the only thing that caught my ear.
Ryko Flash of Light Sampler is yet another one from Amazon. I liked it a lot better, with a 6 out of 9 for notable artists and an overall of 2.8. Artists worth pursuing further are Will Hoge, Sam & Ruby, Jupiter One, Matt Duke, Leslie Mendelson and Thea Gilmore. This is mostly pop/alt-rock with some Americana flavoring.
Gentle Giant were a British progressive rock group from the 70s and I had never heard of them before I downloaded this sampler. I would probably have liked it a lot more if I had first heard it during the 80s, which was when I was listening to a lot of 70s prog-rock music.
The Essential Bluegrass Album is a collection of excellent bluegrass from the Osborne Brothers, who figure heavily in the previously mentioned collection The Banjos that Destroyed the World.
I have stopped ripping LPs because I've used up all the cleaning fluid I had and I'm planning on buying a better kind of cleaning system before I do any more. I will get it as soon as finances permit.
Album count: 700.
Harmonics
Albatross has a good explanation, with audio examples, of how guitar harmonics are used and how they sound, from classical to metal. Suitable even--or perhaps especially--for those who aren't particularly musically knowledgeable, technically speaking. Anyway, check it out at Speaking of harmonics.
Bungee cords: more versatile than duct tape
This isn't as bad as it looks. This is the improvised gas tank for an ancient and antique fire engine that is used only for local area parades--not actual fire fighting. Still, when I got a close look at it I had to take a picture of it.
I just love that fuel filter hanging there. It makes the picture.
Saturday, February 06, 2010
Digital artifact
Many years ago, it seems to me now, I bought a (just barely) obsolete mp3 player via eBay. It held 32 megs. You could just barely get one album on it if you saved them at only 96 kbps or something like that. But I never really used it to listen to music. I would set my shortwave receiver on a timer so it would kick on late at night--while connected up to my computer to record the broadcast--and record Art Bell's "Coast to Coast." In the morning I would save the whole program at 16 kbps--since it was just talk it didn't really matter--and I could squeeze the whole thing on that mp3 player. Then I would listen to it while I was at work. That was the only phase of being a C2C listener I ever went through; it lasted about a year, maybe less.
Anyhow, my son came across that old mp3 player and figured out how to put a new battery in it. Of course the last old Art Bell program I had ever recorded was still burned in the flash memory. How weird. So I went snooping around and after a while I found both the cable (a USB cable that has a special connection on the end that goes into the player--not just a regular USB cable) and the software (WinXP doesn't automatically recognize the player as an extra device) and got it to work. I converted some files to 64 kbps so I could fit a whole album on it, hooked it up to a set of spare computer speakers, and now he's in his bedroom listening to The Dark Side of the Moon.
What a day this has been.
Thursday, February 04, 2010
More dream blogging
I was bored and going through the archives when I noticed this old post about a strangely-detailed dream I had a couple of years ago. So for lack anything better to post, here's another recent one that I wrote down while I still remembered it. I had completely forgotten about that old one.
*****
I dreamed that the whole country, or more likely North America (at least) had been infected by what we called a "zombie virus." We used "zombie" metaphorically; those who were infected were not actually undead. Anyone who had become infected changed to a very different person. They lost all interest in their previous life, severing ties with family and friends, abandoning their jobs, and essentially became mildly retarded. They could look after themselves in a very rough way, but in general were unable to clothe and feed themselves properly. They were not aggressive except that if they saw an uninfected human they would immediately give chase and try to touch that person--the virus being extremely contagious and was transmitted by only a touch. Because of the deterioration of the mental faculties that this caused, it meant that there was a critical shortage of experts such as physicians, scientists, engineers, etc.
So pretty much all infrastructure broke down, except for in a very few isolated communities. I was in one such community that centered around an enclosed compound and was dedicated to protecting a small group of doctors and scientists. The leader of the community was (mostly by acclamation) a doctor named Dane (first name or last name--I don't know). I was one of the people tasked with patrolling the grounds around the community to stop "zombie" incursions.
They didn't come to seek us out, but they had a tendency to wander around and occasionally one would stumble over us. Since they would immediately attempt to infect us, we had to kill them on sight.
The doctors in our community were convinced that this was a virus that could be cured and prevented. They had captured a couple of "zombies" (somehow) and were studying them to find the cure. And then I went out on a secret mission to observe the "zombies." I kept my distance and watched with binoculars and so forth. I saw some of them driving cars, although very badly and none of them had the wherewithal to maintain or repair automobiles. I even saw one small group engaged in a sort of rough football game. They were essentially scavenging off of what was left of the country but had no capability to renew, preserve or manufacture anything. Eventually I was discovered but since they were all not very clever I was able to outwit them and safely return to my home community.
There I discovered that one of the captured zombies had infected someone, and almost the whole community had become infected. The disease took several weeks to manifest and the doctors were working feverishly to formulate a cure while they still had the capability. They had discovered that the herpes virus killed the "zombie" virus: in order to be safe from the disease everyone would have to be infected with herpes.
At this point, I woke up.
Another "expert" in trouble
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Quaff, oh quaff!
William Shatner recites/performs "The Raven." With some kind of weird zombie face make-up or something.
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
Bootleg Stones
I have never really been a fan of the Rolling Stones, but here is a very interesting article about the Rolling Stones bootleg record business.
It doesn't take long for even relatively casual students of Stonesology to realize that there is a hefty chunk of their back catalogue that has never been released. The reasons are many and various, including all kinds of contractual grief, an acrimonious split with a manager whose estate still has a stranglehold on the rights to the cream of their back catalogue and a weird kind of hubris which attaches itself to the band and dictates that they really don't wish to have to compete with their younger and infinitely groovier incarnations as they still have the occasional album to release or the occasional tour to contemplate, Keith's arthritis and Ronnie's ongoing dalliances with the demon drink notwithstanding.Read the whole thing at Cloud 109.
The fact that really amazing material is held under lock and key, while all that devoted fans can access through legitimate channels are pseudo rarites which in effect are nothing new just adds to the sense of frustration.
So the reasons why bands such as the Stones created such a long standing gap in the market are fairly plain to see but with all gaps in the market there are always entrepreneurs ready to satisfy these latent demands.
In the late sixties when there was still a genuine buzz of excitement around bands such as the Stones, there sprang up in America a generation of young guys that were not just into the music but were also enterprising enough to cater to the desires of collectors whose needs were not sufficiently sated by the corporate decision making (or lack of) of the sprawling and sluggish behemoth otherwise known as the music biz.
via Collecting Vinyl Records
Monday, February 01, 2010
First Quest: the hiphop
Remember my old post about that First Quest album? I noticed a new referral link and followed it up to a website called jaaam.
Forgive my ignorance, but I'm not sure if this is only the name of the website or if it's the name of the group. Anyhow, the site is for a musical group who appear to dabble a little in almost everything, and they have created a hiphop remix version of the opening theme ("The Quest Begins") from First Quest. To hear it, just follow the link here where you can download it.
Hiphop is not really my kind of music, but I must say that I like this version better than the original. My only complaint is that the vocals are so far down in the mix that I can barely hear them. Over-dubbing Valentine Dyall's narration at the beginning was also a cool idea.
