Tuesday, April 19, 2005

Morning Commute: Entry Twenty-Eight:

I should go back to the train commute but it's Spring and so very hard to leave the garden so very early My bands are recording too That means lots of roughmixes to listen to and I don't like headphones and the car stereo is so very nice and I can sit back and hear the songs over and over and over again so very loud Besides I have a new toy that allows downloading mp3's and listen to them in the car over an empty FM frequency That is so very neat Although it wasn't so very neat at first because it didn't work and I had to send it back and get a new one and even this one is quirky Like sometimes it won't start up until I take the controller out of the "backpack" replug the backpack into an outlet and then stick the controller back in I thought it was my fault so I went to the Neuros forum and saw that other folks had the same problem and other problems too Yet users are posting over and over and over again the Neuros Support Staff is eager to please And I have to agree I called Neuros Support from my car phone well actually my cell phone in the car but that seems so long and drawn out to say or write sort of like this aside I do most of my support calls from the car phone I'm in the car so very long It's a great use of commute time and in my former life I was a technical support engineer so I know the ropes It's a bit tricky to call somebody about a software problem from the car because they always want to walk you through the problem so I memorize the steps at home and when they ask if I am in front of the computer right now I say yes yes I am My computer screen should in fact be as big and nice to look at as a windshield Anyway I told the guy my problem He didn't ask many questions before getting an address to send a new one He said they'd made big improvements just in the last week Then came a pleasant surprise He said that he lived right down the street And as it turns out Neuros is headquartered in Chicago And so a new controller wouldn't take so very long to arrive We talked about the neighborhood a bit how much we like the Skylark down on Halsted and the biannual Pilsen Art Walk I told him about the Italian Deli on my block which he was happy to hear about Well after a while he had to go and I told him to enjoy the beautiful day After that even with the quirks I was determined to support my neighborhood audio technology industry and so far so good Even though the Neuros forum has lots of complaints about not being able to find an open frequency in large metropolitan areas I thought it might work in Chicago because to the left of the dial Chicago radio stations have about as much transmitting power as my Neuros HD30 In some ways of course that is too bad I can't enjoy all the good radio on my commute particularly my neighborhood station Radio Arte which is sponsored by the Mexican Fine Arts Museum and run by neighborhood kids who have surprisingly good tastes You have to be under 23 to be a dj there or I would volunteer Anyway I downloaded some songs recommended by astrobleme and they were a first attempt at playing stuff from the Neuros over the car stereo The Neuros automatically finds an open frequency in this case 88.5 which is a fine example of an excellent station with lowwattage The songs are ambient and at times so very quiet yet there wasn't much static I'm going to do lots of stuff with this Neuros in a short time because it is quirky and if it's going to break it should break sooner than later so I can get a new one or money back So tonight on the commute home I'm going to buy a tiny preamp and a tiny microphone and then at band practice record which this thing can do which is so very cool

Friday, April 08, 2005

Morning Commute: Entry Twenty-Seven





blue sky traffic jam
paramedics on the scene
nods dazed immobile


Thursday, April 07, 2005

Wednesday, April 06, 2005

Tuesday, April 05, 2005

Monday, April 04, 2005

Morning Commute: Entry Twenty-Three





This week's posts,
I have decided
to haiku.





If haiku
can be used as a
verb, that is.





If not then,
this week's posts will be
poetic

Friday, April 01, 2005

Morning Commute: Entry Twenty-Two:

I drove to work again today which I haven't done in a long time. I mean, I drove to work yesterday (and the day before but not Tuesday, also Monday too) but today is Friday and I don't normally drive to work on Friday. Traffic's bad.

I listened to music on the drive. Some of it (about 45 seconds) I wrote and recorded myself. It's a personal song I wrote but not for me. I wrote it for a guy I will call Joey who asked me and others to write a personal song; to record it to analog four track; in a place that I do not normally record things; and to give it to him for a compilation. I like the song I recorded. I play piano which I don't normally do but I played it well. After all I only had to play good for 45 seconds. I listened to that song over and over in the car on the way to work today, and yesterday and the day before yesterday.

The other songs I listened to, I did not record. That is not a trick answer because I was given the CD's from the drummer in my band churchbus. They are not my songs but they are his songs in that he wrote some of them or played on them or something like that. I was surprised at some of the songs, like Strong, I'm in Love with my Band, and others whose names I do not know because I was driving and so I couldn't look over at the cover to read them. I did not know the C*nts were so good.

But now I do. And I like them.