Licking Things At Goodwill

I went by a family, a mom, another lady, and a couple kids together at Goodwill. I saw one of the kids but I didn't see him licking anything.

But as I passed by, I heard behind me, "What are you licking that for? What if another kid licked it, then put it in his butt crack, then licked it again?"

Yes, it's that second licking after the butt crack that would truly contaminate it.

Will You Count Me In?

Good things come to those who wait. I got Colbie Caillat's CD "Coco" at a thrift store tonight for cheap.

There seems to be a rash of new and fairly new CDs showing up in the thrift store these days. I don't know what's behind it, but I could guess people are ripping their CDs to their iPod and figuring they'll never need the CD anymore.

Whatever the reason, it helps me in my never ending quest to ... I'm not too sure what. I have wide tastes and not really that much time to just sit and listen to music. Except on my iPod, more or less on the run. And even then I like to have the original CD if I can manage it. And for a dollar pop, that's cheap enough.

Girl Watcher

I listened to the record (45 rpm) of "Girl Watcher" by The O'Kaysions. I've always loved this song. And what a great song for summer, huh? (Huh? Huh? Give it to me.)

I love the lyrics and the lascivious, "Umm, umm" the guy does. "Whenever I detect, a member of the other sex..." is part of it. And that cool, "Here comes one now."

Then I was down by the lake and saw a girl floating on an air mattress and the song ran through my head. "Whenever I detect..." as I did right at that moment.

But since I had my dog, that was right when she took a crap and I had to worry about cleaning it up. Then we went the other way toward the garbage and the joy of the moment was lost.

Faked His Death?

Has there been any speculation yet that possibly Michael Jackson faked his own death?

I haven't looked around to see, but it seems like someone would be saying that by now. First, his ex father-in-law (Elvis) of course faked his death back in '77. And at some point while MJ was in the Presley family, he probably got together with Elvis, who told him how it's done.

You figure, MJ was reportedly $400 million in debt and was apparently continually the subject of one lawsuit after another, who would have greater reason to fake his own death? Hasn't it been the case that he has used disguises of one kind or another to try to keep a low profile?

He's sitting in a motel watching all the coverage on TV. Is it still on? I haven't watched TV for a couple days.

As far as I know he faked his own death. As in the case of Elvis, I haven't personally seen the body.

Some Vinyl Oldies

I got a new record player, and it's called an American Audio TT Record.

It plays records like normal but it's also got a USB plug in and copies a record (LP or 45) directly to an MP3 file. Then you plug the memory stick into your computer and you can do what you want with the files.

I got it yesterday and have done a number of tracks, including a five-LP set of oldies from the '60s (for the most part). Fairly short albums since it was 52 tracks all together. They sounded pretty good since the records were in very nice condition.

Today I did several 45s, getting some B sides off of some of them, since for a lot of A sides I have a CD track. However, many of the oldies off the five-LP set were ones I have on CD, but I had different thoughts about it yesterday. At this point I'm seeing it as time consuming when they're clearly the same songs. Another however: There's kind of a charm in hearing even a tiny bit of surface noise back there.

For a lot of these I was running them through another program to cut them into tracks with quiet beginnings and endings. Then all the tagging. This stuff becomes time consuming. So for the one I did today, for the most part, I just recorded them directly and skipped worrying about the beginnings and endings. That cut down some time. Also if you forget taking pops and clicks out, unless they're extremely egregious, that saves time.

The record player has limited controls. One button stops the turntable spinning, instantly. That's nice. One button is the record button and you push it again to stop recording. I can't give a full review, but I've been thinking about it. I think it'd sure be nice to have a remote for this, so I'm not always pushing buttons right on the thing. Because some little bit of sound is picked up when you touch it.

It doesn't have any controls for changing the kbps. I saw it was 192-256 in the place I bought it, Amazon. But when I started using it I was wondering how I was supposed to get 256. It turns out you need to go to their website and download a 256 update, which you install by plugging it in the USB port. They have instructions. The player comes with a USB memory stick, which for some unknown reason would not work to do the update. It just sat there stuck in some kind of flashing light loop. But I tried a different memory source, a flash card for my camera, and it updated in about five seconds. This whole process, taking a half hour, caused me some anxiety, but I was glad when it was accomplished.

I have another source of anxiety, which is the skipping record. The first album I tried skipped like a schoolgirl. And I thought, Oh no. But everything else has been pretty good. Some skips, of course, but I believe it's the record's fault. Because some of my records skipped in the same places on my old record player. But on this one it makes it through most of the bad places.

Still, if you're not monitoring it fairly faithfully, one can slip by. And you'll discover it on your iPod somewhere down the line.

I was ambitious and wanted to record my vinyl copy of Hendrix's "Electric Ladyland." I have one that looks beat, the cover, like it's had water damage and I don't know what all. It looks like it's been through several gang fights. But the records are somehow in pretty clean, very clean condition. I listened to it a couple times late last year or around January on my old record player and it didn't skip, which I expected it to.

So today I started it, recording whole sides rather than sitting there trying to parse it out into tracks. (It does make some small noise when you're trying to do that.) I did Side A, then Side D, then Side B, and it skipped right at the beginning of Side B. I picked it up and examined it and didn't see anything, kind of rubbed the spot lightly. Then tried it again with the recording function off, and it made it through. So I recorded it, without further incident. (I still might be surprised down the road, because I left the room a few times, once for close to four or five minutes, so I have no way of knowing yet if the whole thing made it.)

When listening to this LP earlier on, though, it sounded better than the CD, like grainier in a nice way. So I now have it on my iPod, not spaced in tracks, but as four LP sides. I listened to Side C, my favorite, and it sounded great. Rich, with a few charming bits of surface noise, including a few tiny crackles toward the end. No skips though.

I'm happy with the record player so far.

Don't Forget Ed

I've been thinking about Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson ... but I don't want to forget Ed ... Ed McMahon.

What can I say about Ed McMahon? Basically I used to watch the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and Ed was always there, an able partner to Johnny. No one who ever watched it can forget his big old laugh, like everything Johnny said was hilarious (and it usually was.)

Humor was slightly different back then, with lots of drinking jokes, and I think some insult humor, like against Doc Severinsen, with his flashy clothes. Ed was the victim of the drinking jokes, which he always took with great humor.

Probably the most famous recurring sketch was the Great Carnak routine, and Ed was great on this. He had some room to stretch on this routine.

I know he's been in bad health lately, some weird things about him in the news. But now he's passed on, so whatever problems he had are over.

Sanford And Hon

I can't believe Republican Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina, that he actually had an affair, now confessed, with a woman in Argentina.

Good grief! How do these people in high office think they can do this kind of stuff and get away with it? Talk about living on the edge. A governor disappears for several days at a time and he thinks no one's going to notice? Is he just oblivious to sanity?

It'd be bad enough for some low level, anonymous person, whose comings and goings wouldn't make the news. Any kind of erratic behavior, especially if you were trying to conceal it, like being away for prolonged periods with no good explanation, is going to be known by someone. But to be a governor, and to have had (at least in the news) presidential aspirations, it's just absurd.

The happiest guy in town is Senator Ensign. Now Sanford takes the microphone of shame to confess. I just simply can't believe it.

Another Republican, by the way. The "family values" crowd. "Sanctity of marriage," "defense of marriage," and all that malarkey. I guess they can fool the voters, but they can't fool Freud.

A New Record Player

I have a new record player coming, to be delivered sometime this week.

This is a different kind of record player. I don't know if you can hook it up to an amplifier and simply listen to it, but I'm assuming you can. I took one look at it online and knew I wanted one (needed one?)

It has a USB slot where you plug in a memory thing -- are they called a memory stick? -- and you put the needle on the record, push a button, and it records the track or album directly there. No need for a computer, and apparently no need to adjust the volume, etc.

My current record player is getting old. I haven't changed the needle (cartridge, whatever it's called, stylus) since I got it used over 10 years ago. But I haven't been playing it non stop either. But I think it needs changed, only I'm no good about knowing precisely what to replace it with.

My current record layer seems to have a terrible problem with skipping. I've been playing records most of my life and I don't remember records skipping so darned often, so I think it might be something wrong with it and not the records.

I've recently been experimenting, and actually doing some recording of tracks on to an MP3 recorder. But there's no good way of adjusting the volume. So it's been hit or miss. Then with the record player skipping about every fourth track, it's disappointing to get 90% of the way through a song and have it go directly to the end without passing Go and without collecting $200. I'm tearing out the last sprigs of hair I've got.

When I get this new one, I'll be curious if these same records will skip. And I have one or two in mind, to see how they do. I'm thinking they'll be OK.

Anyway, I'm really looking forward to it getting here. I plan to post how well I like it. And I'll put the name of the system at that time, because I really don't remember what it's called, and don't want to take the time right now to look it up.

Searching For Mister Stewart

We got on the subject of an old dog from the past, one side of the family, from the '70s. His first name was Mister and his last name Stewart.

But we can't remember when he died, or even if he died, although of course he did and would had to have long before now. There aren't dogs that old.

Yet there's no memory of his death, so I suggested, we put an ad in the paper, "Searching for Mister Stewart," and see how many Mr. Stewarts reply.

My Inner Piranha

My inner piranha is a very sleepy, lethargic fish. I haven't been exercising like I should be lately. And when I get anywhere near the end of the day I feel like sleeping.

Your inner piranha is that energetic, munching, instinctual drive to get the job done. It's guided only by what is true, something that inhabits the void of each of your cells. But it needs occasional meat, needs to munch on what you provide it. Maybe it munches on you if you don't provide it with anything better.

So by that theory, that's how you go downhill, because you allow yourself to take off, then your inner piranha gets hungry and starts eating away your energy. Of course it can't go on forever like that, because once you're eaten you're eaten. Then what becomes of your inner piranha?

It doesn't really care. By nature it eventually dies.

[UPDATE: I'm back, to post the links. It's interesting. It's only been a few minutes, and now I come back to Boy Leg and notice my first inner piranha post of the day is very short. You can tell something was going on, that I wasn't as inspired here as I became. That actually is the inner piranha in action. Check out the second post at Dada Boheme. It's longer and has some good insights on the nature of organisms and nurturing your inner piranha, or failing to do so. Then the third post, at dbkundalini, is also longer and more in depth than the above one. There I dwell more on releasing your inner piranha, so that makes a very good mix for the night.]