OK. It's been about five weeks since I last blogged. During that time, I have read about ten or so new books, taken a road trip to Cleveland and back to drive my son to college, written two or three new songs, figured out
(sort of)
what hardware and software tools I need for this incarnation of my home
recording studio and, as always, put in the time necessary to keep job and home
together. Needless to say, I haven't had a lot of time to blog.So here, without further ado are some odds and ends for the past few weeks:
- Michael Moore's SiCKO is a great movie, if you're a liberal. If you're a corporatist or insurance company executive, it's probably not going to be high on your rating list
- The Simpsons Movie is better than Ratatouille. They're both fine movies and worth a see, even at full theatre prices, but Brad Bird's preachiness about the big, bad world coming down on those who are special is getting tiresome, and dammit, sometimes you just need to laugh.
- I finished off the summer reading challenge. The additional books were Golf Monster by Alice Cooper, as told to Keith and Kent Zimmerman, Phil Gordon's Little Blue Book of Poker by (oddly enough) Phil Gordon, and Whose Freedom? by George Lakoff. Now I hope I win the drawing.
- Also on the reading challenge topic, I'm sorry to disappoint those who were hoping for me to read E. F. Schumacher's Small Is Beautiful, but after reading through the first couple of chapters, I couldn't bear it anymore. The bottom line is that, if you've been at all exposed to the slow food, local food, peak oil, or environmental movements over the past thirty or so years, you've heard all of these things before. Plus, information from complex systems theory seems to give a heck of a lot better arguments than Schumacher's polemics. The bottom line, unless you've been living in a cave for the past three decades, or you're so technophobic you can't stand to look at any argument that might use math higher than 1+1+1 < 2, or if you're interested in seeing how far ahead of his time Schumacher was, you might want to read it. But, unlike Bucky Fuller's books (which are still ahead of their time), this one hasn't aged gracefully and I needed to throw it back. You may now revoke my membership in liberalism.
- Gosh! It sure is a big country. And, it takes a long time to drive across it and back. But that time is good for thinking and reflecting. If you can stop by and see a couple of old friends along the way, it's even better. I should probably look at making this road trip a regular thing just to clear my head (at least until peak oil price pressures put a stop to it).
- So quick question to anyone who knows about this - if I use a PC for my home studio, Sonar or Cubase for the sequencer? If I'm using a Mac, Cubase, ProTools, or Logic?