right on bro!

Jacked from some advertiser I ran across while browsing Citysearch:

“Stressed spelled backwards is Desserts”

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Slow weekend. I went to see the Mogwai/Trail of Dead show at the Henry Fonda Theater on Friday night. Mogwai, was, as usual, very good. They played a lot of their new stuff. I don’t have the album yet so I don’t know specific songs, but Mogwai seem like they’ve lost their scary edge and gone for Sigur-Ros-type melancholy prettiness combined with their trademark “start real quiet, then build into layers of sound, then quiet back down again” sound. That’s cool though. They also played “Helicon 1″ again (this was the third time I’ve seen them), which is my favorite Mogwai song ever.

Trail of Dead blew chunks. I saw them at the Troubadour last year, and they were pretty decent, but this time, it was a straight full-on chunk blow. Now, I love everything about “Source Tags and Codes” - the songwriting, the engineering, the energy. And “Mark David Chapman” (from Madonna) is one of my favorite songs ever. But first of all, they take 45 minutes to appear after Mogwai ends, which is just plain disrespectful. Second, after they take 45 minutes to set up, somebody’s amp blows up during the 2nd song, which should have been tested and fixed in the 45 MINUTES they had to set up. Third, while they were waiting for the amp head to be replaced, the singer starts talking to the crowd like he’s Britney Spears - “How ya doing Los Angeles? It’s good to be here!” and “Let’s do rounds! This side sings “Row Row Row Your Boat” and this side sings “Freres Jacques!” How stupid. Fourth, whoever was mixing the sound needed to be straight fired. Not that I would even know how to mix live sound, but the shit was all drums and vocals and you could barely hear the guitars, to the point where it was totally annoying. Fifth, they sounded like they’d been out of practice. During the second song, when the bass player hits a bad note, we left (also my friend was tired).

Where have my music heroes gone?

This “waiting for a laptop for a month” thing isn’t working out for me. I spend all of my time reading Dell’s community forums for any news about the 5,400rpm drives and every other laptop-related forum for news about the upcoming Sony GRT and Toshiba 5200 series laptops, and feeling anxious about everything. If the Insprion 5150 doesn’t work out, I’m going to hit the wall, even though I know I’m getting wrapped up over some material bullshit.

That’s it. That’s all I did. Well, I also read a couple of books (”The Man with $10,000 Breasts and Other Gambling Stories”), had dinner with a friend, and bought NBA Street Volume 2, which is pretty decent. And a friend of a friend called me and asked me to join their band, which I’m thinking about. But I’m still going nuts from being bored out of my skull. All I can think about is setting up this stupid Cubase recording laptop thing.

I should just go to Vegas or something…I need to check out for awhile, need some new stimulation.

My friend called me the other day just to tell me that my favorite brand of liquor was on sale at Rite Aid.

Am I that much of an alcoholic?

I haven’t updated the site in a week and a half. It feels like ages since I’ve touched this site, yet not much really happened. I’m badly losing track of time, amongst other things - feeling like I need to jam everything in now now now! and getting impatient that nothing immediate is happening.

Recap on the digital multitrack recording front:
The Sager 5670 is NOT suitable for use with the RME Hammerfall. I got worked - the vendor I bought the PC from has the TI CardBus controller chip listed; it’s actually the dreaded ENE CB1410. I was able to play back 24 tracks of 16-bit/44.1kHz audio to a stereo mix in Cubase, but when I started opening more than 2 outputs and tried bouncing shit back to my ADAT-XT, all hell broke loose.

Too bad - the Sager is otherwise a very nice laptop. Very fast, and the 15″ UXGA screen is one of the best LCD screens I’ve ever seen. I’m in the process of returning it, though.

Attempt #2: I ordered a Dell Inspiron 5150 - mobile Pentium 3.06, 15″ UXGA UltraSharp screen, 64MB ATI Mobility Radeon 9000. Dell doesn’t carry 5400-rpm drives anymore (as of this writing), and their RAM prices are insane, so I also have to order aftermarket RAM and another hard drive. It feels weird to buy a brand new laptop and immediately switch out the parts, but I was unable to find a stock laptop that has what I want/need. Plus I’m very worried about ordering a laptop sight-unseen, and Dell’s estimated shipping time is a frickin’ MONTH from now.

But…I don’t really have another choice at this point, except to build a desktop unit instead. I’m pretty determined to build a mobile system, so that’s out of the question. I’m worried about the performance of the mobile processor, the fan noise, and the Dell isn’t exactly a beautiful sight to behold, but if it works, then it’s all good. If it doesn’t….I get to return it, and hopefully Sony and Toshiba will have introduced their new models by then. If that doesn’t work…this has turned into an expensive failed experiment and I guess I can hock the RME on Ebay.

I also tried bidding on a used Inspiron 5100 off of Ebay, but the asking price went too high. So…since the new laptop doesn’t arrive for a month, I’ll shut up about it for awhile.

Other things:
I bought the new Jealous Sound album, Kill Them with Kindness. I’ve been looking forward to this album for ages - after loving their first EP, I had really high expectations. It’s pretty good, which is the only way I can really sum it up. “Troublesome” is in the running for Favorite Song of the Year (don’t really keep these kinds of lists, but if I did, it’d be on there). “Naive” and “The Gift Horse” (which I had downloaded awhile ago) are still my other two favorites. I think they kind of butchered the re-recording of “Anxious Arms” - it doesn’t really have the energy, edge, and punchy guitars and drums that the version on the EP did. But overall, it’s a good album, and recommended.

What else? I’m getting worked at work. It might be time to move on to the Next Big Thing. If only I knew what the Next Big Thing was.

Oh, I played golf today at the 3-par course in Los Feliz. I haven’t played in awhile, and it really showed (not that I was that good in the first place). The funny thing was this middle-age woman who played in the group before us who had a caddy (on a frickin’ 3-par course!). She also used a driver to tee off the 1st hole - I was expecting her to whack the ball about 100 yards past the first hole, but as it turns out, it only went about 10 yards and off to the right. Appearances can be deceiving.

Time to go get my laundry and try to enjoy the rest of the day. I’ll probably play a little SOCOM - dropped down to about 44,000 in the rankings, and busted 4 kills in one game yesterday, which was an all-time high for me. Haven’t been playing much at all lately, but when I did, I’ve been getting lazy - setting up Claymores and sitting back waiting for fools to run by (because you can eat dinner at the same time), and I think that has impacted my play somewhat. Time to get a little more aggressive.

I got worked today. I was supposed to get out at 3 to drive to City of Industry to pick up my new laptop. But someone scheduled a meeting at 3, which went to 4:30. Then I got jammed up in some other stuff and couldn’t leave. Nice work!

My new Sager 5670 has been built and is awaiting pickup at Sager’s plant in City of Industry. Gonna leave work early tomorrow to go pick it up. Started prepping furniture and shit for my new desk. Went the ham shack route - I just didn’t feel like jeetering with going to Ikea and buying a Jerker and putting it together. Two filing cabinets and a door on top. I’d gotten the filing cabinets free from work awhile ago, and the door was $20.

Hope it all works. I’ll probably do some benchmarks over the next couple of days while I wait for the Multiface to arrive.

Final insult in May 2003 a.k.a. “National Getting Worked Month”:

It turns out that the Sager 4060 uses a PCMCIA controller (ENE CB 1410) which does not work well with the RME Hammerfall DSP CardBus, apparently due to its inability to perform PCI bursts (whatever that really means). After a fuckload of research, I missed this crucial detail. Nice work!

Fortunately, today (which is June 1st) the dude from PC Torque let me cancel my order for the 4060 and replace it with a 5670 (which is going to run me a bit more money). I also was able to set it up so that I can just drive to Sager (located in lovely City of Industry which is nearby) and pick up the laptop. Have to pay sales tax on it (about $110 more vs. 2nd day air), but otherwise they would have to ship the laptop via UPS to Florida, then back to California. For me, it’s worth the extra money to get peace of mind and not think about UPS fools throwing around my laptopfor a few days.

First insult of June 2003:
I forgot that I parked my car at a meter last night, and I am sure I have a parking ticket there now. Nice work!