Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

No particular reason other than that this morning, when I watched (while deciding whether I felt well enough to start my day) the tape of "Austin City Limits" I'd recorded overnight this song stuck in my head long enough for me to remember to STFW for the lyrics and chords when I finally got up.

Well it hurts down here on Earth lord
It hurts down here on Earth
It hurts down here cause we're running out of beer
But we're all gonna die someday
   -- Kasey Chambers

I need a bigger mixer.

On Kasey Chambers' web site, I finally found the navigation buttons (they weren't in the code for the main page -- I had to look at the JavaScript for the main page to get the URL of the navigation function, then read that for the address of the page that had links to lyrics/chords, and that page used JavaScript buttons to pop up windows for the chords for each song, so I dug through the JavaScript for that page as well to get to the chords for the song I wanted). Why the Hell do people design sites that require client-side scripting for basic fucking navigation??? (Pardon my Frenc^H^Hedom, but it feels like profanity-worthy levels of stupidity to me.)

So I printed out the rather simple chords for "We're All Gonna Die Someday", and found that playing the chords chased the melody partway out of my head, which wasn't entirely unexpected. That meant going back to the videotape to hear it again, but I want to reuse that tape later, so I figured I should dub the audio to another medium -- either pipe it into a computer or put it on a Phillips cassette1 -- so that I could listen to it enough times to make it stick in my brain (or work out the notes and transcribe it). And that meant finding a cable long enough to go from the bedroom to the office (I had to grab one from my guitar case because the bag of cables the one I wanted should've been in is missing), looking for an adaptor, and running it into the mixer in the office. The cable is about ten feet shorter than it should be -- it reaches without undue strain on the connector at either end, but there's not enough slack to get it as far out of tripping-over range as I'd like.

So now my 8-channel mixer has two channels taken up by the CD player, two for the cassette deck, two for the radio, one for the television/VCR, and one left over to plug in a guitar or a microphone. If I leave the telly plugged in, then I can listen to shows at the computer, or when the next door neighbours crank up their subwoofer too loud and I need to drown it out, I can run the television through the big speaker I use for that if I'm trying to watch television at the time instead of listening to a CD. I think I like the idea of the flexibility.

But I'm running out of channels. I've got a project in mind (ifwhen I finally get around to it) that'll require unplugging a few things at this point in order to plug in what I'll need for it. And if I ever start trying to do interesting things with the video camera my brother gave me, I'm going to want to take an output from the mixer to send to a VCR. Fortunately the "Effects 2" send is still available for that so far, as long as I don't want to record in stereo (which one of my VCRs will do, though my television is mono).

I want a bigger mixer. Or a second mixer (use one for mixing recording projects and the other for directing home-stereo components maybe, and tie the two together). I might be able to hack together a powerful but ugly kludge by creative use of ordinary hi-fi amplifiers with multiple inputs, once I get one or two of those working from the project-pile. (Of course one benefit of having a second mixer would be that I could yank it out to take with me for an out-of-the-house recording project or PA use without having to disassemble my stereo to do so.) Obviously my current finances preclude doing anything more than thinking about what I'd like to have if I won the lottery or something -- as long as I'm still borrowing money from Mom for health insurance, car insurance, utility bills, and groceries, buying equipment that I don't actually need for anything more than convenience is out of the question -- but I can't help thinking how nice it'd be to have a 16x8 recording mixer instead of my 8x2 PA mixer, or how something with some stereo channels that usually annoy me (such as a Mackie 12-channel) would come in handy for mixing stereo components.

Of course, no matter how spiffy a beast I got my hands on, I'd eventually fill it up or come up with a project that needed something bigger. More power inspires me to try to do more. But it'd be really nice to be able to send any source to any destination, with or without effects, without having to remember that the speakers are on "Tape Out", the computer listens to the main outputs, I listen to the computer on "Tape In", and I have to manually cut the tape deck's channels before pressing the "Record" button on the cassette deck. (There are reasons for all of those, don't worry.)

Now to go eat pizza with a friend. Except for not making out to see the previously mentioned out of town friend earlier this afternoon, today is so far shaping up as somewhat less frustrating than yesterday. And I'm grateful to the folks who commented on my "Damned Body!" entry last night, even though I haven't gotten around to responding to any comments yet.

[1] Phillips Cassette -- those good old 1/8-inch audiocassettes that most people never really think about the name of, as differentiated from 8-track cassettes, various formats of videocassettes, 8mm cassettes, QIC-20 cassettes, and so forth. Do folks still record on those any more, or is everybody using DAT, minidisc, and MP3 these days?

I saw a friend today whom I don't see often enough (though it looks like we'll be seeing each other more often in the near future than we have over most of the past decade). We talked. I played guitar for her. Then her daughter insisted I play some more so she could dance, and kept yelling, "Faster!" I was fed pizza and ice cream. We talked more. It was a very nice way to spend and evening.

I stopped for groceries on the way home, spent too much money, and the store didn't have everything I needed. I'll pick up the rest tomorrow. I noticed I was getting tired. I got home and the neighbours two doors down, who were on their front step, told me that a couple of circus wagons had gone by. Yah, I thought that was going to be tonight. A few more have gone by since. There should be a few more yet to pass.

I put away groceries, took out the trash and recycling, and took care of a couple of phone calls, and now I am more tired. Excruciatingly tired. And I have much to do, but I guess it'll all have to wait until I've slept some. Laundry, cleaning the kitchen, tidying enough to have a houseguest here for a few days. Tomorrow.

merde just posted another song. The MP3 is downloading now. I'll listen to it after I've rested. I've liked her music for a long time, but it's been ages since I've been able to hear it, what with her being on the wrong side of the continent and all. Now I have three of her songs on my file server. This is a good thing. More songs would be a better thing. But eventually she'll finish the CD she's working on, and I'll scrape together money to buy a copy, and I'll have a whole bunch of good thing in a shiny round form.

Oy, I'm babbling. Must crawl to bedroom. Might even take off clothes. Oh, that sounds like another circus trailer going by now.

Jeez, my back hurts.