News for December 2005

WordPress 2.0 Released

WordPress 2.0 has just been released, so I’m going to essentially tear down my site while I upgrade. Essentially, I hope to do a redesign based on a different theme, and all you’ll see for a while is a standard template. Bear with me…

Download WordPress 2.0

Posted: December 26th, 2005
Categories: blog
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Comments: No Comments.

Self-Tuning Guitar

Ryan forwarded me a cool link to an article about a self-tuning guitar. I took one look at the demo video (which featured Graham Nash popping wood) and I popped some serious wood. For a meager $3,000, one can get the Transperformance system installed in your guitar. Tuning takes place within one second – you can actually hear the guitar strings changing tension. True, it’s a bit hi-tech, but for the musician who needs 15 guitars backstage to accomodate different tunings, this would come in quite handy. How could you go wrong with something endorsed by Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin fame?

via Engadget
via gizmag

Posted: December 23rd, 2005
Categories: bizarre, blog, music
Tags: , , ,
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Rick Wakeman’s Yamaha C5 Grand Piano on eBay

Progressive rock fans rejoice! Rick Wakeman’s Yamaha Grand Piano is up for sale on eBay. This is allegedly the instrument that he used on the 70’s tours. Comes with a custom built flight case. At $19,500, how could you pass this up?

via eBay

Posted: December 22nd, 2005
Categories: bizarre, blog, music
Tags: , ,
Comments: 3 Comments.

Microsoft Excel Drum Machine

My eyes nearly popped out of my head when I saw this. Thomas wanted a free drum machine, so he decided to use Microsoft Excel!?!

So I decided to download the program and give it a shot. Unfortunately, I couldn’t download the sound samples, because that corresponding server had exceeded its data transfer quota. And when I tried hitting ALT-F11 to change the keymappings, I couldn’t. Excel was completely frozen. So, in a nutshell, this program didn’t work for me. However, I will try it again in a little while, and give the author more time to iron out the bugs.

Download DrumPad from Milezero.org

via hack a day

Link thanks to Ryan.

Posted: December 7th, 2005
Categories: bizarre, music
Tags: , ,
Comments: 2 Comments.

Life Is…

Life is precious.

Ever since the incident in the park (if you don’t know what I’m referring to, just ask me), I’ve been more grateful. The response from family and friends was overwhelming. I feel so loved and cared about, and it’s very reassuring. I haven’t gotten around to replying to everyone’s email, but I will when I have a spare minute…

There’s something about staring death in the face that has a pronounced effect on one’s outlook on life. I’ve been quite teachable since then, and I’ve been practicing patience in situations where I would have lost it previously. I feel that my path and priorities are changing. Slowly. But they are changing. And change is good.

Posted: December 4th, 2005
Categories: blog
Tags: ,
Comments: 2 Comments.

Motown Dennis Update

Motown Dennis stopped by the Wyndham hotel the other night (he has an irritating habit of coming right up to me while I’m performing and having a conversation with me), and I decided not to give him any more financial assistance. I sincerely doubt that he used the money I gave him on lodging. Who knows where it went? A crack pipe? A liquor bottle? Certainly not food, because that’s what he was asking for when he approached me. I don’t like being lied to and manipulated, so he walked away with nothing from me.

Posted: December 4th, 2005
Categories: blog
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