Wednesday, February 25, 2004

Improv Message Boards - True Porn Clerk Stories

Ali's Journal

This remains one of the best things I have ever read on the net. I started reading before the saga ended, but it's over now. This would make a great stage play or movie, ISTM.

I think the attraction is more than just "ooh it's about porn". There's a lot of life in this, and some great funny/sad moments. Ali's observations are never wordy, but rarely terse either - a cozy read. Probably not for the prudish or highly judgmental, or kids under 16. But I do think I speak for most of the rest of us: Yay Ali!!!

Saturday, February 07, 2004

Introducing: The Recording Project Media Services

With a Bullet!!!

TOP 5 RPMEDIA TUNES

1. M.Brane - War Inside
2. Dafduc - Song 130
3. dispelled_myths - Put that away
4. dispelled_myths - Take Time
5. PapillonIrl - My First Wife Left Me

Short-lived, I'm sure. Song 42's holding forth at number 9, but likely to drop quickly as more songs are added.

Here's the RPMedia radio link - better have broadband!!!

Thursday, February 05, 2004

Not Quite So Incommunicado

I'm still here. Thanks to the faithful readers (both of ya!!!) who sent get well notes.

Still have the vertigo, still have the hearing loss. Vertigo seems to be dissipating though. Hearing loss is a little stickier. Prayers and/or good vibes (depending on your cosmology) cheerfully accepted!

Here's a link to My New Recording Project Page. Visit me and play my stuff! No money in it or anything, but nothing looks worse than a "Plays: 0" entry. There's a streaming radio link at the main site, too - 64kbps, so we dial-up users are out of luck.

Currently on the site:
Song 130 - a rock-n-roll setting of the Lenten Psalm;
Beautiful Still - My anniversary song for Kim; and
Song 42 - a delta/bayou setting of one of my favorite Easter Vigil and Funeral Psalms.

Check out the other guys there, too - some excellent songwriters and musicians there.

Friday, January 23, 2004

Incommunicado

Been out sick for a couple of weeks - bad ear kicked off vertigo, spent Sunday night in the emergency room. Off to the ENT guy today, hope he's got the magic cure!!!

Saturday, January 10, 2004

Yeeha!

Finally got my own domain: www.graytail.com. Nothin there yet, but watch out!!!

Tuesday, December 30, 2003

Putting the Gray in Graytail

So, a couple of weeks ago, I started a goatee - it really started itself, but I stopped fighting with it. Looks pretty cool, but WAY more gray/white in it than on my head.

Then, I went to my annual eye exam - and all of a sudden I need $%^&^^& bifocals. Grr.

Then I saw my doctor, and he prescribed a sleep study. So I went last night...

...and I have severe sleep apnea. The dangerous kind - oxygen levels getting scary low. So now, I get to spend the rest of my $%^&^^& life tied to a $%^& CPAP machine every night:




There's an off chance that if I lose enough weight (Atkins is going pretty well), the problem will go away - but that's rare.

Meanwhile, I'm gonna see if Kim wants to play "Darth Vader Meets the Space Wench..."

Wednesday, December 17, 2003

ATF Head Recruited by RIAA

by Kent Van Cleave

First we need to terrorize the file-sharing industry into submission, eliminating criminal opportunities. Then we need to terrorize those still tempted to copy music illegally by showing that we can nail them on mere suspicion. By applying the ATF model to our efforts at RIAA, we'll have both prongs covered.

Note - this is humor. Pointed humor, but humor nonetheless...

Tuesday, December 16, 2003

eBay item 2448756945

eBay item 2448756945 (Ends Dec-21-03 10:21:29 PST) - Honda CB500T rolling chassis - horrible

You GOTTA read these comments. Read the whole page - skip nothing. It's a valid auction, but the seller's commentary is a hoot!

Auction ends 12-21.

Tuesday, December 02, 2003

Harmony CentralĂ‚®: Notre Dame de Budapest Pipe Organ Captured for GigaStudio

Notre Dame de Budapest pipes for GigaStudio

Sounds yummy. $450 Euro. Wonder if my old GigaSampler LE will handle it...

Friday, November 21, 2003

The Egg, Myself, and I

Humpty-Dumpty Effect: Acoustically, people resemble large eggs: Science News Online, Nov. 15, 2003

Until now, no one had measured the absolute acoustic profile of the human body—that is, how the body scatters sound waves independently of where it happens to be.

Thursday, November 20, 2003

Wired News: Record Label Sings New Tune

Wired News: Record Label Sings New Tune

Interesting idea - maybe more suited to remix-oriented genres, but it's good to see some creative thought about copyrights out there.

Wednesday, November 19, 2003

New template

The old one crashed and burned, couldn't find it in the new template collection (tiny list - wonder why???).

So links, sidebar pics, etc. are gone for now. I'll resurrect them as soon as I can...

Friday, November 14, 2003

Huh - something broke at blogger? This site went dead after my last post. Grrr...

Larry Norman benefit 11/15 in Cincinnati

Come see us!!!



Sittin in with my pals the Motor City Saints this weekend, while they look for a permanent 4th member. Long drive, but a worthy cause!

Monday, November 10, 2003

The Recording Project

It's the sleek new offshoot of HomeRecording Dot Com. All the cool stuff HR has, plus:

post mp3s directly to a thread
special collab threads allow you to post wavs
two hangouts - one PG-rated, one R-rated --- helps solve the 13-year-olds-in-the-cave issues
non-absentee owners and moderators WHO ACTUALLY IMPLEMENT USER SUGGESTIONS (what a concept!) - they promise they'll keep the trolls in line, too!
No performance issues / too-much-traffic lockouts




See ya there!

Tuesday, October 28, 2003

Shakey's Spooky pics


Da Blog


Helen gives us a first-hand view of the San Diego county fires. Spooky.

Monday, October 20, 2003

Premier Amplifiers

Premier Amplifiers


Went to a party / jam session with the Alligators a few weeks back. I had met a few of the guys at another jam, but it was my HR pal Dougie who finagled me the invite.

Great food and beer, and a real nice buch of people. Jamming was lots of fun, shared keyboard duties with another HR buddy, Sean.

The harp player is way into vintage gear - we've discussed it before - and I noticed he had a Premier amp he played slide guitar through - sounded like a harp amp, there was so much distortion. Very cool. So I went on a search today, THIS:

is what I found. Premier was a cheap Fender knockoff from the 60's, lower power and way more tube distortion. But that's its beauty. There's a big section of the linked site devoted to Premier. Best thing is, these things are cheap! Just gotta find a good one...

Friday, October 10, 2003

TbT audio

Wow!!!

Lotsa VST goodies here:
TbT audio software projects Home

Tube Limiter especially sounds pretty cool. And all of it's freeware!!!

All together now: WOW!!!

Monday, October 06, 2003

How I Spent My Weekend, and a tribute to Warren Z

The First Annual HomeRec Canadian Mini Jam Fest, aka Voxfest 2003, is now history. Much jamming, drinking, eating, and carrying on with brothers and sisters from Hamilton, London, Detroit, and Utah (!!!). A jam purist would denounce some of the jamming as something other than true jams - multiple takes til we got it right, and not much extended group creativity, though there WERE moments that were more like a traditional jam. Some last minute cancellations from New York, Detroit, and Connecticut made for a smaller turnout than anticipated, but plenty of talent at every position.

It differed from the much larger Connecticut jamfest, not only in approach and size, but also content - very few 12-bar blues, or 60s/70s warhorses got pulled out here - much more GreenDay / 3EB / 90s rock content. A couple of key players, Simon and Myke, were my son's age. Creative guys with a great future, I think.

Musical highlights:
Home For A Rest, aka the Newfie jam, a hard-rocking Celtic flavored Canadian Classic - new to most of us there. We just followed Myke;
Stooges' I Wanna Be Your Dog, featuring my brother Rats on vocs and keys, and my recording debut on the guitar and airsynth;
Billy J's Still Rock & Roll, starring Myke, but I get a piano solo - big fun, much cooler than the fake sax thing I used to do in it;
Britney Spears' (!!!???) Hit Me Baby, completely reworked as a grungy punky moshpit jam - big fun!!!;
our Warren Zevon tribute (RIP, man...), Werewolves, with me singing and butchering the first line (bad notes, wrong words), but it got better as we went along;
a Sex Pistols cover, featuring rats again (title escapes me); and
rats' We Are All Clones, recorded by ratso, Voxxy, and me after everyone else had left - a great "end of the fest" tune.

Major props to the other jammers: Simon, Myke, PartyPants, Voxxy, Chris, ratso, and Voxxy's bass man (name has now escaped my so-called mind). What an absolute blast. We also had DJ Li'l A (Alyssa, 2) sit in on the DJBox, and minivox (Johnny, 3) was bangin' the drums. Voxxy actually played mini-v's tiny set on Clones!!! Great trashcan sound.

Other firsts:
poutine,
absinthe,
a brown beer whose name I've forgotten, but there's a 6-pack waiting at home to remind me, and
an unfortunate visual of a very drunk, very naked Voxxy, stumbling around his house after skinny dipping and drinking WAY too much - not necessarily in that order. Big thanks to my wife, who insisted we stay at a hotel!!! I need that sixpack of temporarily unnamed beer, just to help me forget the horrors my eyes have seen...

Heh heh.