I've heard it said that Minnesota has two seasons: eleven months of winter, and one month of bad skating. Rochester probably isn't that far behind.
Yep, we got one whole inch of snow over the weekend. It didn't do much damage, but it served as a nasty reminder that winter is here and we better prepare for utter misery for the next six months. A rude awakening for those who thought that it might not really snow this year.
One of the sure signs of the Apocalypse (sp?): Journey has released a new album - their first in ten years. This is not good.
Not much else is going on up here. Margaret and I bought a new mattress last week. ("Newlyweds...") And we firmed up plans for the Xmas holidays - I'll be spending two full weeks in Denver with the other side of the family. Oy vey. (I didn't want to stay out there that long, but plane tickets were hard to come by.) My Thanksgiving plans worked out well - FOOD with the parents, then my high school 10th-year reunion two days after that in Rockland County. How convenient! Anyone need a ride to and from Rockland County from Rah-chester?
For you music buffs, stay tuned for my picks of the best of '96. (I'll do the best of '95 too, since I'm finally getting around to it.) Same Crap time, same Crap channel.
Go vote,
Ron "Snow? Whoda thunk?" G
Monday, November 4, 1996
Tuesday, October 15, 1996
Ron's Big Life Update - October 1996
"Hello, I must be going." - Groucho Marx, and much later, Phil Collins.
Is it winter yet by you? We've had absurd ups and downs in the temperature, and I'm just guessing that the rest of the leaves on the trees will give up their fight for life shortly; winter feels imminent. (sp?)
Saw three good movies recently, and for those of you whose lives are too short to see mediocre movies, all three of these are way above average:
The whole DVD demonstration was very impressive. The DVDs look just like CDs, and can hold 135 minutes of digital compressed video, and up to eight (I think) channels of 5.1-channel true surround-sound digital audio. The first-generation player that he brought with him was a Panasonic, and looks almost exactly like a CD player. The remote control for the player looks pretty much like a VCR remote, but with the addition of some extra buttons that guide you through menus on the screen. He brought along one of the discs he made, which was "The Shadow", a bad movie that nobody saw, but a nice demonstration nonetheless. When you put the disc into the player, the first thing that comes up on the screen is a menu, which gives you choices of what language you want the dialogue in, and what language you want (optional) subtitles in. (A neat feature is that the players sold in different regions on the globe will each have a chip that brings up the initial menu screen differently; the "Universal" logo might come up in Spanish, or something like that. Oh wait, that would still say "Universal"...) After you push some buttons on the remote to select your languages, the movie starts.
The movie looks terrific. I don't know the exact specs on things like the number of horizontal lines of resolution, but the picture looks great. Better than LaserDisc, and way better than anything available from a VCR. The video is compressed (with the MPEG-2 algorithm for those who care), but to my untrained eye, I can't tell the difference. The sound is seismic, to say the least, but I personally wouldn't be able to fit five speakers and a subwoofer in my living room. Not that Margaret would let me do such a thing, of course...
There are a few chapter marks that they include with the movie, so you can instantly jump from scene to scene and leave out all the dialogue in the Schwarzeneggar films. The freeze-frame is pretty astonishing; with VCR's, we're used to a lot of distortion in the picture. With the DVD's, a freeze frame is one still frame, with no artifacts. The slow advance will move you from frame to frame in the movie, where each frame is really the 1-30th of a second frame used in the video process. Pretty impressive.
Universal Pictures, and the rest of the movie industry, is banking hard on these things. They're counting on both movie sales and rentals, and will be using the DVDs to replace VHS movie releases. One of the benefits from their point of view is that they won't have to release several different tapes of one movie like they do now (Spanish language versions in South America, etc.) because they all can be included on one DVD. Neat. Apparently, it won't be too much work to put together all the different-language versions of the movie, since the new soundtrack has to be recorded anyway for foreign VHS releases. Also neat.
Can we record on them yet? No, but DVD-R (write-once) and DVD-RAM (erasable) specifications are in the works, as well as DVD-ROM (for computers; just like CD-ROM). There's also a DVD-Audio format planned, but I can't imagine that the record companies would use a format where you can put hours and hours of music on one disc. (Most CD releases only use about half of the available capacity now; I can't imagine that increasing the capacity of the disc will change anything.)
Will I buy one? Not right away - these things are set to hit the market in Japan for about $700, and the price is expected to fall pretty quickly. Although it looks and sounds amazing, there are still a few small bugs to be worked out in the players - things like, where do I plug my VCR if my TV only has one external input? And will the players definitely play my old CD's? (They probably will, but there is some concern that they won't play CD-R discs, which are the write-once CD's that we make at Kodak.) All in all, pretty exciting stuff.
One final detail from the DVD marketing people: The one feature that people like the most about the DVD players is that you don't have to rewind the movie.
Oh jeez...
Stay warm.
Ron "It's better to sound good than to feel good" G
Is it winter yet by you? We've had absurd ups and downs in the temperature, and I'm just guessing that the rest of the leaves on the trees will give up their fight for life shortly; winter feels imminent. (sp?)
Saw three good movies recently, and for those of you whose lives are too short to see mediocre movies, all three of these are way above average:
- Trainspotting. Not for the faint of stomach, but an excellent film.
- Emma. The exact opposite of Trainspotting. Literally, the exact opposite. Although some might call it a "chick flick", I liked it anyway.
- Big Night. A movie about two guys running an Italian restaurant in Jersey in the '50s. A movie that revolves around ITALIAN FOOD!!!! WOW!!!! Two thumbs up! -burp-
The whole DVD demonstration was very impressive. The DVDs look just like CDs, and can hold 135 minutes of digital compressed video, and up to eight (I think) channels of 5.1-channel true surround-sound digital audio. The first-generation player that he brought with him was a Panasonic, and looks almost exactly like a CD player. The remote control for the player looks pretty much like a VCR remote, but with the addition of some extra buttons that guide you through menus on the screen. He brought along one of the discs he made, which was "The Shadow", a bad movie that nobody saw, but a nice demonstration nonetheless. When you put the disc into the player, the first thing that comes up on the screen is a menu, which gives you choices of what language you want the dialogue in, and what language you want (optional) subtitles in. (A neat feature is that the players sold in different regions on the globe will each have a chip that brings up the initial menu screen differently; the "Universal" logo might come up in Spanish, or something like that. Oh wait, that would still say "Universal"...) After you push some buttons on the remote to select your languages, the movie starts.
The movie looks terrific. I don't know the exact specs on things like the number of horizontal lines of resolution, but the picture looks great. Better than LaserDisc, and way better than anything available from a VCR. The video is compressed (with the MPEG-2 algorithm for those who care), but to my untrained eye, I can't tell the difference. The sound is seismic, to say the least, but I personally wouldn't be able to fit five speakers and a subwoofer in my living room. Not that Margaret would let me do such a thing, of course...
There are a few chapter marks that they include with the movie, so you can instantly jump from scene to scene and leave out all the dialogue in the Schwarzeneggar films. The freeze-frame is pretty astonishing; with VCR's, we're used to a lot of distortion in the picture. With the DVD's, a freeze frame is one still frame, with no artifacts. The slow advance will move you from frame to frame in the movie, where each frame is really the 1-30th of a second frame used in the video process. Pretty impressive.
Universal Pictures, and the rest of the movie industry, is banking hard on these things. They're counting on both movie sales and rentals, and will be using the DVDs to replace VHS movie releases. One of the benefits from their point of view is that they won't have to release several different tapes of one movie like they do now (Spanish language versions in South America, etc.) because they all can be included on one DVD. Neat. Apparently, it won't be too much work to put together all the different-language versions of the movie, since the new soundtrack has to be recorded anyway for foreign VHS releases. Also neat.
Can we record on them yet? No, but DVD-R (write-once) and DVD-RAM (erasable) specifications are in the works, as well as DVD-ROM (for computers; just like CD-ROM). There's also a DVD-Audio format planned, but I can't imagine that the record companies would use a format where you can put hours and hours of music on one disc. (Most CD releases only use about half of the available capacity now; I can't imagine that increasing the capacity of the disc will change anything.)
Will I buy one? Not right away - these things are set to hit the market in Japan for about $700, and the price is expected to fall pretty quickly. Although it looks and sounds amazing, there are still a few small bugs to be worked out in the players - things like, where do I plug my VCR if my TV only has one external input? And will the players definitely play my old CD's? (They probably will, but there is some concern that they won't play CD-R discs, which are the write-once CD's that we make at Kodak.) All in all, pretty exciting stuff.
One final detail from the DVD marketing people: The one feature that people like the most about the DVD players is that you don't have to rewind the movie.
Oh jeez...
Stay warm.
Ron "It's better to sound good than to feel good" G
Thursday, April 11, 1996
Ron's Big Life Update - April 1996 Part 2
"Hello." - Ric Ocasek, from the Cars' "Hello Again".
Well, apparently I survived the wedding in Tucson. Actually, it went much more smoothly than I would've guessed beforehand. Our only big glitch was the first dance, which was atrocious - have you ever danced with someone in a wedding dress before? Hopefully, no one took pictures of that.
Margaret flew out last Tuesday, bought some rugs and junk in Mexico on Wednesday, picked me up at the airport on Thursday, sewed all day on Friday while I visited my former colleagues at school, partied all day Saturday, sent me back to the airport on Sunday, UPS'ed all the gifts on Monday, and flew back here on Tuesday. As you might have imagined, I only played a perfunctory supporting role throughout the whole ordeal. (That was the agreement, and I'm sticking to it.)
The party was a lot of fun. We had a great turnout from the Arizona contingent (thank you all for attending; it was great to see everybody again, and frankly, it would have been pretty dull without you.) The east coast attendance was rather abysmal - a total of four. My parents, my brother, and my friend Steve, who some of you know. It's hard to say whether Steve was fully appreciated by the Tucsonans; in the words of my friend Julie, "Steve thinks he's famous." That pretty well describes him.
I didn't get to sit down or eat very much - it's true that you don't really get to enjoy your own wedding. We hired a great photographer, who took about 100,000,000,000 pictures. Hopefully, some of them will come out.
And I managed to enjoy the whole weekend without missing a minute of work here at Kodak. I only get five vacation days this year, and I didn't want to use any for the wedding. Needless to say, we didn't have much of a honeymoon. (Some might argue that since we got married in December, that our honeymoon was spent at Margaret's parents' house in Yuma, Colorado. Honeymoon in Yuma? If you can use the words Yuma and honeymoon in the same sentence, then you've never been to Yuma.)
I think we made out OK in the gift department. We got a couple of sets of white towels, which we were hoping for. And a nice vase (thank you Tim).
And actually, I haven't seen the rest of the gifts yet (they're in transit), but I did appreciate the nice wrapping paper - Ren & Stimpy (you EEEEDIOT!), diffraction gratings, all the good stuff. Thank-you's will be prompt and courteous, I promise.
In other news, my car still smells like a new car, even though it has 2500 miles on it. I was flipping through the Auto issue of Consumer Reports, just to see what the powers that be think of not only my new car, but everything else on the market. Aside from one model of Cadillac, the Dodge Neon/Plymouth Neon is the most unreliable car on the road. Unless I misunderstood some of their graphics, it looks like 83% of all new Neons have some problem with them. Interesting.
For those of you playing at home who vaguely remember the short-lived supergroup Deth Boat, good news! Jason (my high-school friend in NY who headed Deth Boat and still works in sound in NYC), decided to finally do something with the Deth Boat tapes. He's mastering the tapes with a Sonic Solutions machine at work (!) onto Hi-Fi VCR tape, then sending it to me so I can cut a few write-once CD's. Cool! I'd done something similar to this with a few dozen sound bites that I use for my radio show, but Deth Boat on CD is mind-boggling. Jason even managed to dig up a Deth Boat outtake that was recorded for the "Mutilator II" short film, and a live cut. And only eight years after it was recorded in the studio; even the group Boston can produce an album faster than that...
Crap From The Past plays on, as expected. Monday may be tax day to some, but to me it's Dave Edmunds's birthday! (He'll be 52.) Skip out of work for the day, put on a party sombrero, and celebrate DE's B-Day! Next Wednesday is Michael "Maniac" Sembello's birthday; not quite the same punch...
We're about to plunge headlong into spring. After a whole week of cold, rainy weather, we're about to dive into the mid-60's. I'm just guessing, but I don't think it'll last.
Hope things are well in your respective necks of the woods. Stay warm.
Ron "Can you play something by Barry Manilow?" G
Well, apparently I survived the wedding in Tucson. Actually, it went much more smoothly than I would've guessed beforehand. Our only big glitch was the first dance, which was atrocious - have you ever danced with someone in a wedding dress before? Hopefully, no one took pictures of that.
Margaret flew out last Tuesday, bought some rugs and junk in Mexico on Wednesday, picked me up at the airport on Thursday, sewed all day on Friday while I visited my former colleagues at school, partied all day Saturday, sent me back to the airport on Sunday, UPS'ed all the gifts on Monday, and flew back here on Tuesday. As you might have imagined, I only played a perfunctory supporting role throughout the whole ordeal. (That was the agreement, and I'm sticking to it.)
The party was a lot of fun. We had a great turnout from the Arizona contingent (thank you all for attending; it was great to see everybody again, and frankly, it would have been pretty dull without you.) The east coast attendance was rather abysmal - a total of four. My parents, my brother, and my friend Steve, who some of you know. It's hard to say whether Steve was fully appreciated by the Tucsonans; in the words of my friend Julie, "Steve thinks he's famous." That pretty well describes him.
I didn't get to sit down or eat very much - it's true that you don't really get to enjoy your own wedding. We hired a great photographer, who took about 100,000,000,000 pictures. Hopefully, some of them will come out.
And I managed to enjoy the whole weekend without missing a minute of work here at Kodak. I only get five vacation days this year, and I didn't want to use any for the wedding. Needless to say, we didn't have much of a honeymoon. (Some might argue that since we got married in December, that our honeymoon was spent at Margaret's parents' house in Yuma, Colorado. Honeymoon in Yuma? If you can use the words Yuma and honeymoon in the same sentence, then you've never been to Yuma.)
I think we made out OK in the gift department. We got a couple of sets of white towels, which we were hoping for. And a nice vase (thank you Tim).
And actually, I haven't seen the rest of the gifts yet (they're in transit), but I did appreciate the nice wrapping paper - Ren & Stimpy (you EEEEDIOT!), diffraction gratings, all the good stuff. Thank-you's will be prompt and courteous, I promise.
In other news, my car still smells like a new car, even though it has 2500 miles on it. I was flipping through the Auto issue of Consumer Reports, just to see what the powers that be think of not only my new car, but everything else on the market. Aside from one model of Cadillac, the Dodge Neon/Plymouth Neon is the most unreliable car on the road. Unless I misunderstood some of their graphics, it looks like 83% of all new Neons have some problem with them. Interesting.
For those of you playing at home who vaguely remember the short-lived supergroup Deth Boat, good news! Jason (my high-school friend in NY who headed Deth Boat and still works in sound in NYC), decided to finally do something with the Deth Boat tapes. He's mastering the tapes with a Sonic Solutions machine at work (!) onto Hi-Fi VCR tape, then sending it to me so I can cut a few write-once CD's. Cool! I'd done something similar to this with a few dozen sound bites that I use for my radio show, but Deth Boat on CD is mind-boggling. Jason even managed to dig up a Deth Boat outtake that was recorded for the "Mutilator II" short film, and a live cut. And only eight years after it was recorded in the studio; even the group Boston can produce an album faster than that...
Crap From The Past plays on, as expected. Monday may be tax day to some, but to me it's Dave Edmunds's birthday! (He'll be 52.) Skip out of work for the day, put on a party sombrero, and celebrate DE's B-Day! Next Wednesday is Michael "Maniac" Sembello's birthday; not quite the same punch...
We're about to plunge headlong into spring. After a whole week of cold, rainy weather, we're about to dive into the mid-60's. I'm just guessing, but I don't think it'll last.
Hope things are well in your respective necks of the woods. Stay warm.
Ron "Can you play something by Barry Manilow?" G
Wednesday, April 3, 1996
Ron's Big Life Update - April 1996 Part 1
How y'all are? It's snowing as I write this. Spring has hit upstate New York...APRIL FOOLS! (It really is snowing. This sux.)
Anyway, I'm back on line after some mail server problems at Kodak. Some fun things have happened since the last time I wrote. Last weekend, Margaret and I drove out to Boston to do some hurried visiting and frantic sightseeing. It's hard to absorb much of Boston in less than a weekend. And if you ever decide to visit Boston, for God's sake DON'T DRIVE IN THE CITY!!! Boston is unquestionably the least car-friendly city I have ever seen. I've driven in NYC, LA, San Diego, Washington DC, Minneapolis, Toronto, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Philly, Baltimore, Tampa, and most of the other cities in the country and nothing is even remotely close to the pandemonium of Boston driving. (Thank you, Boston people, for being good sports and not charging us for all the stuff that we broke.)
Yesterday, Margaret left for Tucson; I will follow on Thursday. Yep, I don't have a whole lot of responsibility for those wedding reception plans, and I must say that it doesn't bother me one bit. I didn't even WANT a reception, but Margaret did. So be it. I'll show up in my tux, eat some food, pay the band and the caterer and the cake person and the flower person and the photographer and the room people, and fly back to Rochester. No pressure on me at all, since Margaret is taking care of all the arrangements. Should be fun. And to top it all off, I'm not missing any work at all - Friday is a holiday and I'll be back here Sunday night. No time for a honeymoon this year (not enough vacation days anyway). Maybe next year.
I saw Quiz Show yesterday. Outstanding movie, and I recommend it to everyone. It makes me glad that the U of R's radio station (WRUR - where I do Crap From The Past weekly) has no corporate sponsors to kiss up to.
Speaking of CFTP, this week, we celebrate Biz "Just A Friend" Markie's birthday. The Biz turns 32 on Monday. Sing it with me: "OOOOHHHHH baby YOOOOOOOOOOU... You got what I NEED. But you say he's just a friend. But you say he's just a friend OOOOOOOOO BABY YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOU....." Last week was MC Hammer's birthday (did you know that his real name is Stanley Burrell?) and next week I go crazy nuts for Dave Edmunds's birthday. Woo-hoo!
In music news:
Well, I'm outta here; I have to go get married. And to all you east coast people, I'm sorry you can't make it. There are only four people showing up from anywhere east of Colorado, and my parents and my brother count for three of them. Sorry, but I won't be saving you any cake...
Ron "I do. No, make that I already did." G
Anyway, I'm back on line after some mail server problems at Kodak. Some fun things have happened since the last time I wrote. Last weekend, Margaret and I drove out to Boston to do some hurried visiting and frantic sightseeing. It's hard to absorb much of Boston in less than a weekend. And if you ever decide to visit Boston, for God's sake DON'T DRIVE IN THE CITY!!! Boston is unquestionably the least car-friendly city I have ever seen. I've driven in NYC, LA, San Diego, Washington DC, Minneapolis, Toronto, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Philly, Baltimore, Tampa, and most of the other cities in the country and nothing is even remotely close to the pandemonium of Boston driving. (Thank you, Boston people, for being good sports and not charging us for all the stuff that we broke.)
Yesterday, Margaret left for Tucson; I will follow on Thursday. Yep, I don't have a whole lot of responsibility for those wedding reception plans, and I must say that it doesn't bother me one bit. I didn't even WANT a reception, but Margaret did. So be it. I'll show up in my tux, eat some food, pay the band and the caterer and the cake person and the flower person and the photographer and the room people, and fly back to Rochester. No pressure on me at all, since Margaret is taking care of all the arrangements. Should be fun. And to top it all off, I'm not missing any work at all - Friday is a holiday and I'll be back here Sunday night. No time for a honeymoon this year (not enough vacation days anyway). Maybe next year.
I saw Quiz Show yesterday. Outstanding movie, and I recommend it to everyone. It makes me glad that the U of R's radio station (WRUR - where I do Crap From The Past weekly) has no corporate sponsors to kiss up to.
Speaking of CFTP, this week, we celebrate Biz "Just A Friend" Markie's birthday. The Biz turns 32 on Monday. Sing it with me: "OOOOHHHHH baby YOOOOOOOOOOU... You got what I NEED. But you say he's just a friend. But you say he's just a friend OOOOOOOOO BABY YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOU....." Last week was MC Hammer's birthday (did you know that his real name is Stanley Burrell?) and next week I go crazy nuts for Dave Edmunds's birthday. Woo-hoo!
In music news:
- New Dave Matthews Band song. Excellent. Album due out at end of the month.
- New Aimee Mann album, "I'm With Stupid", is excellent. Radio ignored it, much to my dismay.
- New Tears For Fears album, "Raoul and the Kings of Spain", is pretty good. Radio ignored it also.
- New (old?) Brand New Heavies album, "Excursions: Remixes and Rarities" (or something like that) is great.
- New Joe Satriani album is excellent. He plays with a live band (finally), and keeps his singing down to only one song. It's produced by Glyn Johns, who has worked with the Eagles and some southern bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd, I think. A terrific mellow album from The Guy With The Big Guitar.
- New Barenaked Ladies album, "Born On A Pirate Ship", is out and is excellent. This must have been an abnormally good few weeks.
- I picked up the last 'til Tuesday album, "Everything's Different Now", from 1988. It's extremely melodic, and accurately previewed what Aimee Mann would do as a solo artist. I love it. The two albums preceding "EDN" aren't so hot, however.
Well, I'm outta here; I have to go get married. And to all you east coast people, I'm sorry you can't make it. There are only four people showing up from anywhere east of Colorado, and my parents and my brother count for three of them. Sorry, but I won't be saving you any cake...
Ron "I do. No, make that I already did." G
Friday, March 1, 1996
Ron's Big Life Update - March 1996
(sung): "Three Guys Talking!" - from an obscure radio show, 1988.
Well, howdy do. For those of you who haven't heard from me in a while, let me very quickly bring you up to speed. Not that anything of significance has happened...
Let's see...I graduated in December, but you knew that. I got married in December, but you knew that. I started work at Kodak in January, but you knew that also. Pittsburgh lost the Super Bowl, but you knew that because you had lots of money on the game. My car got turned into an accordion by some guy who had nothing better to do than to run into my trunk at 40 MPH, which you might not have known. So I bought a black '96 Toyota Corolla, which you might not have known either. It's very nice. Margaret drove out here and arrived at the beginning of February. She's been building and restoring some furniture since she moved out here, and when she gets bored with that (or fills up the apartment), she'll look for a job. For the first time in many many years, she has no financial pressure to work, and she likes the free time.
My friend Steve was up here in Rah-chester earlier this week. Some of you may remember my mentioning a Steve-who-set-fire-to-the-Chinese-restaurant or a Steve-who-got-married-and-divorced-in-'91. Well, it's the same guy and he was up here on business. Margaret and I went out to dinner with him, and we all had a lot of deep-fried food to commemorate the occasion. Bleh! (I told him the wings and then donuts story. Wings + Donuts = Death.) And as an extra bonus treat, I brought him on the air with me as a special guest. He played the part of "My friend Steve" on "Crap From The Past". This past Wednesday was the Grammy awards, and since I was on right before the awards show, I decided to do a tribute to the moronic/genius committee that votes for the awards by playing nothing but Grammy award winners from years past: "Theme from Shaft" - Isaac Hayes, "I am Woman" - Helen Reddy, 3 songs by Milli Vanilli, "Jessie's Girl" - Rick Springfield, "Morning Train" - Sheena Easton, "Stone Cold Crazy" - Queen (which won a Grammy for Metallica in '90), "I Write the Songs" and "Copacabana" by the Great Barry Manilow, "Love Will Keep Us Together" - The Captain and Tennille, "Boogie Oogie Oogie" - A Taste of Honey (used in the Rold Gold pretzel ad), "Night Fever" - The Bee Gees, and a bunch more. The high point of the evening was "Afternoon Delight" by the Starland Vocal Band, the Best New Artist of 1976. "Afternoon Delight" is a song about the virtues of a quickie in the middle of the afternoon, sung with about as much passion as milk. Coming up in future shows: Eddy "Electric Avenue" Grant's birthday, and more songs about sickness and illness. Stay tuned.
Something is wrong with my computer at work. If I try to print anything longer than one page, the printer freaks out and prints about fifty pages of PostScript commands. It was funny the first time, but it's not funny anymore.
This is a test of the emergency trigonometry system. This is only a test.
Well, howdy do. For those of you who haven't heard from me in a while, let me very quickly bring you up to speed. Not that anything of significance has happened...
Let's see...I graduated in December, but you knew that. I got married in December, but you knew that. I started work at Kodak in January, but you knew that also. Pittsburgh lost the Super Bowl, but you knew that because you had lots of money on the game. My car got turned into an accordion by some guy who had nothing better to do than to run into my trunk at 40 MPH, which you might not have known. So I bought a black '96 Toyota Corolla, which you might not have known either. It's very nice. Margaret drove out here and arrived at the beginning of February. She's been building and restoring some furniture since she moved out here, and when she gets bored with that (or fills up the apartment), she'll look for a job. For the first time in many many years, she has no financial pressure to work, and she likes the free time.
My friend Steve was up here in Rah-chester earlier this week. Some of you may remember my mentioning a Steve-who-set-fire-to-the-Chinese-restaurant or a Steve-who-got-married-and-divorced-in-'91. Well, it's the same guy and he was up here on business. Margaret and I went out to dinner with him, and we all had a lot of deep-fried food to commemorate the occasion. Bleh! (I told him the wings and then donuts story. Wings + Donuts = Death.) And as an extra bonus treat, I brought him on the air with me as a special guest. He played the part of "My friend Steve" on "Crap From The Past". This past Wednesday was the Grammy awards, and since I was on right before the awards show, I decided to do a tribute to the moronic/genius committee that votes for the awards by playing nothing but Grammy award winners from years past: "Theme from Shaft" - Isaac Hayes, "I am Woman" - Helen Reddy, 3 songs by Milli Vanilli, "Jessie's Girl" - Rick Springfield, "Morning Train" - Sheena Easton, "Stone Cold Crazy" - Queen (which won a Grammy for Metallica in '90), "I Write the Songs" and "Copacabana" by the Great Barry Manilow, "Love Will Keep Us Together" - The Captain and Tennille, "Boogie Oogie Oogie" - A Taste of Honey (used in the Rold Gold pretzel ad), "Night Fever" - The Bee Gees, and a bunch more. The high point of the evening was "Afternoon Delight" by the Starland Vocal Band, the Best New Artist of 1976. "Afternoon Delight" is a song about the virtues of a quickie in the middle of the afternoon, sung with about as much passion as milk. Coming up in future shows: Eddy "Electric Avenue" Grant's birthday, and more songs about sickness and illness. Stay tuned.
Something is wrong with my computer at work. If I try to print anything longer than one page, the printer freaks out and prints about fifty pages of PostScript commands. It was funny the first time, but it's not funny anymore.
This is a test of the emergency trigonometry system. This is only a test.
- sin(x+y) = cos(x)sin(y) + sin(x)cos(y).
Wednesday, February 14, 1996
Ron's Big Life Update - February 1996
"Yo." - Vanilla Ice, 1991.
Things have been turbulent out here, and with the wind chill, OY! Let me attempt to recap the events of the last week or so.
Pittsburgh lost the Super Bowl, but did better than everyone expected. On my way home from a Super Bowl party at a friend's house (hi, Jen), I got rear-ended. (For you current or former Rochestarians, I was heading east on Elmwood Avenue, waiting to turn left on Goodman St.) I was perfectly OK except for some sore knees, and the guy who hit me was OK, but my little 'yota was completely totalled. It was a pretty sorry sight; the pictures that I took of the remains will be ready on Tuesday, and I can put them in my photo album with the caption, "I survived THIS!" Well, I'm glad I had the timing belt replaced right before I left Tucson... (at least I didn't have the thing rustproofed.)
So ended the life of my little car, known to some as The Refrigerator.
Now, I'm shopping for a new car, and will probably buy a Toyota Corolla before the week ends. The one I found is a '96, and is black with a dark gray interior. Pretty slick. And EXTREMELY slick compared to my old car. I'm in a quandry about what to do with my megawatt-sound system; since my new car will come with a decent system, I think I'll try to convince my insurance company that it was part of the car and was thusly totalled. (thusly?) I think I'm getting pretty good at dealing with the new car dealers; right now, I have a price that's $150 below invoice, and is cutting into the $400 incentive that the dealer gets independent of the car. So as things look, I'll be driving a way-cool vehicle real soon.
And that's only a small part of my turbulence. Margaret rolled into town late on Friday night. She averaged 80 MPH all the way across the country, and made it out here faster than I did. We still haven't unpacked some things from her car because it's so *&^%$#@! cold outside. Just when I thought I had settled into a routine with work and everything, Margaret moves in and messes everything up. It's more fun with her here, and I wouldn't have it any other way, actually.
So Sunday, we adopted two cats. Our local Humane Society didn't have any kittens, but did have two female cats, each about 3 years old. (both fixed, had shots, etc.) They were dropped off together by their former owners, who moved to Florida. (And after spending a few weeks out here in the middle of winter, I can understand why.) The cats are not too thrilled about the move: One of them keeping walking around screaming (MEOW! MEOW! MEOW! Like Donna's cat!), and the other one won't come out of the basement. I'm hoping that time will cure them of their respective neuroses, because they're not very good pets right now. Plus, the names that the former owners gave them stink; I'm convinced that these people were not native English speakers, because they named the cats "Scooter" and "Firecracker". The lady at the Humane Society said that if we rename the cats (and we probably should), we should try to find names that sound like the old ones. Well, we gave up on finding anything that sounds even remotely close to "Firecracker", and have named the cats "Spay" and "Neuter."
Work is going well. I just found out that one of the optical guys from our group is leaving, and I will have to absorb his responsibilities until they can hire a replacement. Ho-boy...
The world's greatest radio show, Crap From The Past, is already doing well. I got about ten calls last week, and that's 9.7 calls more than the average WRUR show. And I haven't done any publicity at all yet...
Nope. I guess there's not much going on out here.
Hope things are warm and stable in your neck of the woods.
Ron "There's a lot of crap on the radio, but there's only one Crap From The Past" Gerber
Things have been turbulent out here, and with the wind chill, OY! Let me attempt to recap the events of the last week or so.
Pittsburgh lost the Super Bowl, but did better than everyone expected. On my way home from a Super Bowl party at a friend's house (hi, Jen), I got rear-ended. (For you current or former Rochestarians, I was heading east on Elmwood Avenue, waiting to turn left on Goodman St.) I was perfectly OK except for some sore knees, and the guy who hit me was OK, but my little 'yota was completely totalled. It was a pretty sorry sight; the pictures that I took of the remains will be ready on Tuesday, and I can put them in my photo album with the caption, "I survived THIS!" Well, I'm glad I had the timing belt replaced right before I left Tucson... (at least I didn't have the thing rustproofed.)
So ended the life of my little car, known to some as The Refrigerator.
Now, I'm shopping for a new car, and will probably buy a Toyota Corolla before the week ends. The one I found is a '96, and is black with a dark gray interior. Pretty slick. And EXTREMELY slick compared to my old car. I'm in a quandry about what to do with my megawatt-sound system; since my new car will come with a decent system, I think I'll try to convince my insurance company that it was part of the car and was thusly totalled. (thusly?) I think I'm getting pretty good at dealing with the new car dealers; right now, I have a price that's $150 below invoice, and is cutting into the $400 incentive that the dealer gets independent of the car. So as things look, I'll be driving a way-cool vehicle real soon.
And that's only a small part of my turbulence. Margaret rolled into town late on Friday night. She averaged 80 MPH all the way across the country, and made it out here faster than I did. We still haven't unpacked some things from her car because it's so *&^%$#@! cold outside. Just when I thought I had settled into a routine with work and everything, Margaret moves in and messes everything up. It's more fun with her here, and I wouldn't have it any other way, actually.
So Sunday, we adopted two cats. Our local Humane Society didn't have any kittens, but did have two female cats, each about 3 years old. (both fixed, had shots, etc.) They were dropped off together by their former owners, who moved to Florida. (And after spending a few weeks out here in the middle of winter, I can understand why.) The cats are not too thrilled about the move: One of them keeping walking around screaming (MEOW! MEOW! MEOW! Like Donna's cat!), and the other one won't come out of the basement. I'm hoping that time will cure them of their respective neuroses, because they're not very good pets right now. Plus, the names that the former owners gave them stink; I'm convinced that these people were not native English speakers, because they named the cats "Scooter" and "Firecracker". The lady at the Humane Society said that if we rename the cats (and we probably should), we should try to find names that sound like the old ones. Well, we gave up on finding anything that sounds even remotely close to "Firecracker", and have named the cats "Spay" and "Neuter."
Work is going well. I just found out that one of the optical guys from our group is leaving, and I will have to absorb his responsibilities until they can hire a replacement. Ho-boy...
The world's greatest radio show, Crap From The Past, is already doing well. I got about ten calls last week, and that's 9.7 calls more than the average WRUR show. And I haven't done any publicity at all yet...
Nope. I guess there's not much going on out here.
Hope things are warm and stable in your neck of the woods.
Ron "There's a lot of crap on the radio, but there's only one Crap From The Past" Gerber
Thursday, January 25, 1996
Ron's Big Life Update - January 1996
Well, I made it to Rah-chester. I drove 2200 miles in four days, and I might have made it in three if the movers had showed up when they were supposed to. If you've never had a paid move, they're actually pretty good. Some guys showed up with a whole lot of boxes and tissue paper, and wrapped everything I own (one item at a time, not all in one giant package), including most of my drum set (!). The next day, they took the 103 boxes from my apartment out to a big moving truck, where they still reside today, under two feet of snow near Washington, DC. I made it out to Rochester by last Saturday; my stuff was not so lucky, and should be out here by the weekend. So I have no furniture. None. If I want to sit down for breakfast, I have to sit on my blue plastic recycle bin. I've tried to find a bright side to all this, but I don't think there is one...
I started at Kodak on Monday. Unfortunately, my employee ID number isn't on "the system" yet, so I don't exist. I can't get a proper ID badge, or an account at the credit union, or sign up for 401k stuff, or get a voice mail thingy, ... And on top of all that, my computer (90 MHz Pentium for those of you playing at home) refuses to be connected to the outside world. In the same way that my body might reject a new kidney, my computer rejects an ethernet card. So far, we've tried two, and left our computer guru scratching his head. I've tried to find a bright side to this as well, but I don't think there is one...
I did reestablish ties with WRUR (my station from the U or R days), and they let me do an impromptu show last night. It went well, and I think that Crap From The Past may become a weekly fixture again. "There's a lot of crap on the radio, but there's only one Crap From The Past."
Oh yeah, I should probably mention that Margaret and I got married the day after commencement. We jumped the gun for a number of reasons: (1) We had absolutely no luck finding clergy who would perform an inter-faith marriage, (2) We could completely eliminate the ceremony at our wedding and just throw a big relaxed party, (3) Margaret's mom would let her move out to Rah-chester before the wedding (in April), and most importantly, (4) We could stay in the same room at Margaret's mom's house for the Christmas holidays. Yep. So I got to check the "married" boxes in all the Kodak paperwork. Could be worse.
So change your Rolodexes and send me some warm clothes; it was 77 in Tucson two days ago, and only 4 out here. I moved to Rah-chester in the middle of winter, making me the most stupid person on the planet.
Take care, all. Brr.
(written a few days later...)
You know, it's cold out here. I mean COLD. Really !@#$%^&* COLD! But you already knew that.
So I'm settling in at Kodak. Not only do I have a cool plastic badge with my name on it, but I have an e-mail thingy that lets me type in nicknames. Now I just need to come up with nicknames that are shorter than the real e-mail addresses.
How to score big points with your co-workers without really trying: The office that I inherited was from a guy named Pat who transferred to a different department. The cube had a lot of junk left over, and I spent a few hours lugging old soda cans and bottles to the recycling bins in the building, all of which was duly noted by my coworkers. Well, yesterday I attended a meeting with some people whom I'd never met before. They introduced me as Pat's replacement, and commented on Pat's uniqueness. They said that when they made Pat, they broke the mold. To which I responded, "Yeah, and I found it in my desk."
Last night's Crap From The Past show went quite well. I discovered that some people at the last shift at Xerox were listening, so I kissed up to them and I think I got them hooked for life. I experimented with some deliberately cheesy gimmicks, like rhyming things: "You can tell that my sanity is gone/Because I'm playing Olivia Newton-John", and "You can tell that I've lost my mind/Because I'm playing music from the soundtrack of the movie Two Of A Kind." I laughed anyway. Marc (old friend from WRUR days who also works for Kodak and lives 8 houses down the block from me; weird!) and I put in about five hours with his production toys, and we cranked out about 25 new station ID's and jingles. They should be ready next week, and definitely in time for my full frontal assault on the Rochester airwaves, complete with "It's back" flyers. This is gonna be great!
Well, I hope that it's above zero where you are. You'd think that zero would be as cold as it gets; you can't have stock prices below zero, why should we have temperatures below zero? Just a thought.
Stay warm...
Ron Boogiemonster Gerber
I started at Kodak on Monday. Unfortunately, my employee ID number isn't on "the system" yet, so I don't exist. I can't get a proper ID badge, or an account at the credit union, or sign up for 401k stuff, or get a voice mail thingy, ... And on top of all that, my computer (90 MHz Pentium for those of you playing at home) refuses to be connected to the outside world. In the same way that my body might reject a new kidney, my computer rejects an ethernet card. So far, we've tried two, and left our computer guru scratching his head. I've tried to find a bright side to this as well, but I don't think there is one...
I did reestablish ties with WRUR (my station from the U or R days), and they let me do an impromptu show last night. It went well, and I think that Crap From The Past may become a weekly fixture again. "There's a lot of crap on the radio, but there's only one Crap From The Past."
Oh yeah, I should probably mention that Margaret and I got married the day after commencement. We jumped the gun for a number of reasons: (1) We had absolutely no luck finding clergy who would perform an inter-faith marriage, (2) We could completely eliminate the ceremony at our wedding and just throw a big relaxed party, (3) Margaret's mom would let her move out to Rah-chester before the wedding (in April), and most importantly, (4) We could stay in the same room at Margaret's mom's house for the Christmas holidays. Yep. So I got to check the "married" boxes in all the Kodak paperwork. Could be worse.
So change your Rolodexes and send me some warm clothes; it was 77 in Tucson two days ago, and only 4 out here. I moved to Rah-chester in the middle of winter, making me the most stupid person on the planet.
Take care, all. Brr.
(written a few days later...)
You know, it's cold out here. I mean COLD. Really !@#$%^&* COLD! But you already knew that.
So I'm settling in at Kodak. Not only do I have a cool plastic badge with my name on it, but I have an e-mail thingy that lets me type in nicknames. Now I just need to come up with nicknames that are shorter than the real e-mail addresses.
How to score big points with your co-workers without really trying: The office that I inherited was from a guy named Pat who transferred to a different department. The cube had a lot of junk left over, and I spent a few hours lugging old soda cans and bottles to the recycling bins in the building, all of which was duly noted by my coworkers. Well, yesterday I attended a meeting with some people whom I'd never met before. They introduced me as Pat's replacement, and commented on Pat's uniqueness. They said that when they made Pat, they broke the mold. To which I responded, "Yeah, and I found it in my desk."
Last night's Crap From The Past show went quite well. I discovered that some people at the last shift at Xerox were listening, so I kissed up to them and I think I got them hooked for life. I experimented with some deliberately cheesy gimmicks, like rhyming things: "You can tell that my sanity is gone/Because I'm playing Olivia Newton-John", and "You can tell that I've lost my mind/Because I'm playing music from the soundtrack of the movie Two Of A Kind." I laughed anyway. Marc (old friend from WRUR days who also works for Kodak and lives 8 houses down the block from me; weird!) and I put in about five hours with his production toys, and we cranked out about 25 new station ID's and jingles. They should be ready next week, and definitely in time for my full frontal assault on the Rochester airwaves, complete with "It's back" flyers. This is gonna be great!
Well, I hope that it's above zero where you are. You'd think that zero would be as cold as it gets; you can't have stock prices below zero, why should we have temperatures below zero? Just a thought.
Stay warm...
Ron Boogiemonster Gerber
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