In the studio
Monday, March 26, 2007 - 05:39 PM
We (Call it Karma) spent the weekend in the studio laying down tracks for a yet-to-be-named upcoming CD release. We hope to have some pressings of it available by the time we play our show at The Store on April 27th.
We’re doing this now, by the way, because Erin is moving in May and will therefore be leaving the band. We’re deeply saddened by this, of course (except for Erin, who embarks on the next chapter in her life - we wish her Good Luck), but we wanted to have some good documentation of where we’re at as a band at this point in time. So, we decided to finally record a full length album.
We’ll be finishing some overdubs over the next week and a half, and then the engineer does his magic. (Yes, we’ve actually got an engineer this time, instead of mixing it ourselves. The final product should be light years ahead of the last release.)
Eventually, we’re going to shop this to independent record labels. Hopefully it’ll go somewhere.
At any rate, it was a pretty frantic weekend. We setup and did some basic sound checks on Friday night, spent all day Saturday recording the rhythm tracks, and all day Sunday over dubbing the vocals and trumpet parts. Saturday and Sunday were long days. (Don’t think for a second that professional musicians don’t have “real” jobs - there aren’t many people who would work the constant long hours that recording and touring demand.)
Of course, two days is a really short amount of time to try to record an album in. But, given the fact that we wanted to do this before Erin left, and trying to fit it into everyone’s schedules, we had little choice. We didn’t get to everything we wanted to (but did get more done than what I had personally expected), but what we have is good. I can’t wait to hear the final product!
R.I.P., I.P.A.
Monday, March 19, 2007 - 05:13 PM
I finished off the last of the batch of my IPA this weekend. I’m always a little sad when I finish of the last of a batch. It’s weird, when you brew your own beer, because you think of what went into making that batch. Sure, you could make another batch with that same recipe, but that batch, that little piece of you is now gone forever.
At the same time (well, not exactly at the same time - it’s just a figure of speech - but you get my meaning) I racked the Porter that I brewed last weekend to the secondary (for those of you not in the know, that means I transferred the beer from the primary fermenter to the secondary). So, the circle of Life (beer is Life, after all) continues.
I can’t wait to try the porter, by the way. I added some licorice and vanilla beans to the boil. When I was transferring the beer I could smell a hint of those ingredients in it. That gave me high hopes for the end product!
Why Blockbuster is Doomed to Fail
Sunday, March 11, 2007 - 01:50 PM
Blockbuster is doomed. The online retailers are going to destroy them. This is not because Blockbuster cannot compete online, it’s because they cannot compete in the one place that sets them apart from the online competition - in their own stores.
You see, Blockbuster has a huge advantage over their online competition, and that is their stores. With an online only service like Netflix, you don’t get the option of going to the store to pick out a movie. If you decide one afternoon that you want to see a certain movie, you have to add it to your list and wait for it to be delivered. With Blockbuster, you can just go to the store and get it (assuming they have it in stock).
I want to take a moment here and mention that I’m not including download services in this comparison, as I don’t think they are in the same class yet. It’s not easy, especially for the average consumer, to download a movie and get it to their TV. And, even for those who have their computer connected to their TV, either directly or streaming (like with Apple’s soon to come AppleTV), the quality of downloaded movies is not the same as a DVD, let alone the high-def formats.
Let’s get back to the stores. This is where Blockbuster should shine, this is their advantage. However, this is where they fail miserably.
Yesterday, Carrie and I decided we wanted to see “The Departed”, which had just come out on DVD, so it wasn’t available yet on the “OnDemand” feature that comes with our cable service. So, we decided, for the first time in at least a few years, to drive up to Blockbuster. Now we remember why we stopped going there in the first place.
We found the movie we were looking for rather easily, it was one of two copies left in the store. (Had it been out, Blockbuster has an “in stock or it’s free” guarantee, which is nice.) So, we quickly grabbed it and headed to the counter.
At the counter, all of the cashiers had customers, but there was no line. So, we stood behind one of the open registers and waited. Meanwhile, at the other end of the line of registers, on the other side of a row of shelves of candy and other impulse items, someone lined up behind a different register, and someone else got behind them.
After a short period of time, the other register was free and they took care of the customer waiting on that end. Then, the register we were waiting at freed up, and the cashier called over to the people waiting on the other end “next in line”. (Apparently, that was where the actual line for the registers started, even though there was no sign or anything indicating that.) She then turned to us and said, “Sorry, but they were waiting longer.” She had clearly seen us standing there the whole time.
I replied, “No, actually, we were here longer and didn’t realize that the line started over there.” She promptly ignored us, and turned to call over to the other waiting customers “Next in line, please.” She got no response, since the other customers weren’t paying attention, so she preceded to pretend that we weren’t there, and walked over to get the other customer.
Now, since this took place, more people had gotten into the line, so we were forced to get behind them and wait. When it was finally our turn (at a different register, thankfully), the cashier took our member card, and movie we were holding, and then proceeded to fix the informational computer that was set up for the customers by the registers. Once that was done, he processed out member card, which had to be updated since we hadn’t been there in so long. He then helped the cashier next to him (the same one that ignored us earlier) and came back to try to up-sell us to sign up for their online rental service. Carrie quickly told him we weren’t interested, that we just wanted to rent the movie we had and be on our way. He went back into his sales spiel, and we had to cut him off to finish our transaction.
Finally, out of the store. But, our adventure doesn’t end there.
We went home and popped the movie in and began watching it. Half way through the movie, it began to stutter a little, then just froze up. Great. I took it out of the player and tried cleaning it a bit with a dry cloth (my shirt), and popped it back in. It played for a couple of seconds, then stopped. Arrrgggh! I tried cleaning it again, popped it back in. I wouldn’t go any further. ARRRGGGH!
Besides the piss-poor service, now I remembered the other reason we stopped going to Blockbuster; most of the movies that we’ve rented on DVD there are horribly scratched and stop playing half way through (or, at least, “stutter” through out the entire movie).
Now, we either return the movie and wait for it to show up on OnDemand, or exchange it for a different copy and hope that whoever rented that one before us didn’t treat it like shit.
At any rate, it’s the last movie we’ll ever rent from Blockbuster.
An open letter to Jim Koch
Wednesday, March 07, 2007 - 01:36 PM
I’ve been really enjoying the Samuel Adams Brewmaster’s Collection, but I have a minor complaint. Why the hell does this collection include the Boston Lager and Boston Ale?? Don’t get me wrong, I like both of those beers. But, I can get them anytime, anywhere. The other beers in the Brewmaster’s Collection are not so easy to come by. In fact, I don’t think I’ve seen the other beers available for sale on their own, outside of a “mix-pack”.
There are some really great beers in this collection. However, with the inclusion of the Boston Lager and Boston Ale, it means that you only get two of each style of beer. I would much rather have three each of the other styles than to have the two more common beers included in this. Again, I can get the Lager and Ale anywhere.
How do the two most common Sam Adams beers even warrant being a part of the “Brewmaster’s Collection”? I know they are your “flagship” beers, but, come on. Do they really stand up next to the Scotch Ale or the Honey Porter? (FYI, my absolute favorite in this collection is the Scotch Ale - I really do wish I could find this for sale separately.) Again, nothing against the Boston Lager and Ale, but I would so much rather have more of the other styles of beer in this collection.
So please, next time around consider leaving out the more common beers in these otherwise magnificent collections.
More site updates
Sunday, March 04, 2007 - 04:47 PM
I’ve updated the Phone Themes page to use the Lightbox effect for the previews. I think it’s so much better than the old pop-up window. And, the code in the actual HTML to call the effect is so much simpler!
I’m debating on whether or not to do this with the posters page. I know I need to update some of the images on the poster page first, many of them are of poor quality and/or are too small. That in itself is going to be a project. The real issue with using lightbox on the posters page is making sure that the images are small enough. As it is now, with them opening in a new window, you can scroll down to see the whole poster. With lightbox, if the image is too big, you won’t be able to see the “Close” box at the bottom. Even though you should be able to scroll down to it, I don’t expect most people would figure that out right away, and therefore not know how to close the image.
If I do scale the images down, what should I set as the standard size? At this point I have to start making assumptions as to what the lowest resolution people visiting my site might have their browsers set at. If I go too small with the images, then you can’t see the detail of the poster, which kind of defeats the purpose. Unfortunately, I think there’s probably a lot of people out there with their resolution set to 1024x786. Add to that the Windows people who have a bunch of ridiculous toolbars loaded in IE (which take up way too much screen real estate), and you’re left with very little room to play with.
Ah, the perils of web design for the person who actually considers how the design might affect, and be affected by, the users visiting the site.