Pi-Rambler

Nothing much for tonight. This is Rambler No. 315. Perhaps I shall start a countdown to the 365th Rambler? And try to fit in all unfinished Rambler business from the past year - such as, or mostly, the Floyd reviews.

D.

Shilling

I'm not sure if I've mentioned it here before, but I just wanted to sing the praises of Plasq's Comic Life - a playtime application for putting together comics pages with photos from your digital library that's so well designed that it actually turns out to be the best method of putting together layouts quickly. A real boon to productivity.

While not powerful enough to do full, finished pages, in terms of a place to assemble sketches and throw dialogue down and get the story moving past whatever mental roadblock you're staring down, I find I can put layouts together in record time.

Of course, my hang-ups were always in the storytelling department in comics - my finishes look great, but sometimes are hard to read to the degree that the point is lost. By being able to solve all of those problems in a low-labor environment like Comic Life, I can save enough energy for the final page. For cartoonists who excel at storytelling but might find polish to be more difficult, Comic Life will prove kind of pointless. Maybe a fun distraction, but in no way a valuable addition to the process. But for me, it's ideal - the right tool at the right time.

Perhaps I'll now invest the ten bucks in getting my lettering made into a font over at Fontifier, a neat service pointed out to me by Dave Zapanta (the creator of Hairbat, linked to over in the links for your convenience). And Comic Life was shown to me by Kalliope, so I can claim to have discovered nothing on my own.

D.

Counting to None

Yesenia & I just spent four hours going through every single one of our bills from 2007, for our financial advisor report. That includes going through every one of our 48 credit card statements - each of us has an American Express and a Master Card - and breaking down our purchases into about twenty different categories.

And that doesn't include any of our other expenses that need to be tallied - mortgage, home equity, utilities, etc.

Wow. What a drag.

Still more to do tomorrow, but the bulk of the work was the parsing of the credit card statements. And I can't tell you how un-chatty that has made me. Enjoy your Saturday.

D.

Dave Abhors a Vacuum

Breaking the 'don't fuckin' blog about PCMA' rule I usually maintain on the Rambler, tonight. Mostly because tonight's PCMA session is done, so I can't jinx the one that's past - although I suppose that I could be setting loose the bad-luck black dog with the evil eye on the next PCMA practice/recording session.

Scenario: A couple of the songs on the album have been left as instrumentals. I say 'left as,' because about 90% started life as instrumentals and stayed instrumentals for however long it took for someone to generate lyrics or melody for them - in some cases, were talking years. In fact, there's only one song on the album that was actively written as a song, with lyrics and melody developed roughly in tandem with the chord structure and arrangement. Everything else was just a glorified jam until we worked out how to give it form.

Still, given how much we all prize instrumental music, and having a strong desire to keep the flow of the album a little more interesting (to us, at least), we aimed to get at least a couple of pure instrumentals on there. One is essentially a texture piece, based around a Shaun chord change and filled out with some pointless (and rare) guitar noodling from me and rolling drums and bass from Edz and Karl. The other is much more tightly arranged, and about the only through-composed thing we've attempted. It's also paired in a suite with another song, and will eventually be given the string-quartet treatment by wünderkind Christian.

Meaning that the whole thing has an air of satire about it - it's essentially a full-fledged stately-ass waltz by a group of musicians that don't really have any business playing such music, which, of course, is the reason it has genuine value. When a band plays the kind of music you'd least expect them to play, it's almost invariably welcome. At least when it's done with genuine purpose. I can only vouch for that.

My part of the arrangement is some light Rhodes setting up the theme at the top, reinforced by some organ that's as close to church-sounding as I can coax out of my Roland and Fender Amp set-up. You know, the Fender amp that gives off a sympathetic, high-pitched ring on some notes.

Of course, the ring really cut through when we tried to get the big organ sound we were looking for. Thankfully, Karl had worked out that it might be one of the pre-amp tubes (for some reason, I'd always assumed it was the power amp tubes), and we tested it by turning the amp all the way up and tapping the tubes (12AX7's, for those who care). Rang like a champagne glass at an Italian Wedding, it did.

But when I took a closer look, I realized that it wasn't the tube itself, but the socket. I mean, yes, the tube was the thing that was ringing. But the amp has three pre-amp sockets, and two of them have plastic rings - whereas the pinging tube socket didn't. And to prove my theory that the plastic rings actually serve a function, and that function would be making sure that the tubes don't make that noise, the replacement tube rang just as much. And it always has, no matter how many times I've replaced the tubes - sometimes more, sometimes less, but it's always been there.

And here's the curse I'm undoubtedly calling down on myself by writing about this in advance of acting: some online sources suggest just popping a couple of silicone o-rings on the offending tube, and that will take care of it. And I like the sound of that - it's cheap and straightforward, and much easier than tracking down the right socket ring or replacing the socket outright. So let's hope that cheap and easy wins the race, this time. I dislike the alternative of pricey and hard.

The best case scenario is that the o-rings kill the amp ring (connected to the cock ring). The bad case scenario is that the o-rings melt to the tube and make it useless. That's an okay scenario, because I've worked up a small stockpile of 12AX7's over the years, and I bet they're all just fine. The worst case scenario, naturally, is a smoking crater where my Fender Blues DeVille used to be. And possibly the smell.

D.

Bowlless

Yesenia & I planned to go bowling earlier this evening. This would be at the Lucky Strikes, at Da Mall. However, Yesenia doesn't much like the food there, so we opted instead to eat at a place just down the - uh, hall? - from Lucky Strikes, called Cheeseburger/Cheeseburger.

Which is odd, when you consider that the main reason Yesenia doesn't like the food at Lucky Strikes is that they have no vegetarian dishes. But Cheeseburger/Cheeseburger at least offers a grilled portobello sandwich, and so we went there.

And I made the mistake of allowing my recent diet and exercise regimen to go to my head, and had a cheeseburger, fries, rings and a huge chocolate malt.

Needless to say, the waves of nausea started before we even left the table, and rather than bowl, we hightailed it out of there so that I could be ill in the comfort of my own home.

But I'm fine, now. Apparently, I can't eat like a 12 year old anymore. Really, I wonder if I ever could?

D.

Stumbly, The Magic Horse-Clown

Fuck it. What year is this? How did it get to be 2008?

That's what you get when you hit the snooze button one too many times, I guess.

D.

Salad Days

Happy Easter. Y'all.

(Hey: I got paid, okay? The economy in Rhode Island in the early 90's was not such that I could turn down any paying job...)

D.

P.S.: Oh. Duh. The whole point of yesterday's blog was to reference the fact that the original Twilight Zone featured appearances by at least three future Trek:TOS actors - Shatner, Nimoy & Doohan - and that it seems like some kind of weird proving ground for the franchise. Only I forgot to leave that in, so my stray observations seemed even more pointless than usual.

Another one today, btw: Andrew Robinson (Garak) as JFK.

Anyhow, the game of 'Spot the Future Starfleet Officer Working for Scale on the Twilight Zone' is proving more entertaining than the show, sometimes.