Happy Birthday, Dad!

'Tis me Dod's birthdee. I guess he's gone away for the weekend, but perhaps he'll read this somewhere in among the festivating. And also, yesterday was our friend Johanna's birthday, so happy birthday to you too, "Jayster," even though we'll see you for billiards 'n beer in less than an hour.

The other big news that I didn't get a chance to blog about last time (I believe that within the next couple of years or so, the word "blog" will replace the word "brag," as in, "I caught two fish, but they're nothing to blog about," or, "That guy's always blogging about his latest conquest. He's such a bloggart." Work it into your next conversation and be the first in your knitting group) but yeah so the big news is that we bought a new computer. New to us that is. It's a G4 tower. We've been working on a G3. This one has two hard drives with 40 and 120 GB of space. Our old one had 8. So this is more. But it's been a HUGE pain to set up because it's all full of the previous owner's very mixed up garbage and multiple operating systems, and I've been trying to make sure that it can run our old operating system because I need it to keep using the free version of ProTools I always use for recording. In the end I was able to do it, but it involved buying a new keyboard and working on the new machine like a Rubik's Cube all week. Combined with my job and my crazy weekend of non-stop recording, that means I've spent pretty much every waking minute of the last seven days in front of a computer. Ai yi yi.

Then last night, after I finally got this thing up and running (I'm on it now), I looked around the back to see where the microphone input is, and THERE ISN'T ONE! For some Jobsian reason no one now remembers, Apple made computers with absolutely no way to get sound into them a few years back. So I have to shell out some more bucks for a USB pre-amp with 3mm inputs. My prediction is that they will turn out not to be compatible with OS 9.

Anyway, I hate when people talk about their computers on the internet — it's like when people write songs about being in a rock band — so I'll shut up about it now, except to say that Johanna's workplace is buying our old one and she needs it right away, which is why I had to spend so much consecutive time in the Republic of Digitalia. And now, due to overwhelming demand, here's a sample of the stuff I recorded last weekend. Hope you like it.





- Andrew