acidbasement

Have a good 'un!

I spend a lot of time in Jasper National Park, in Alberta. It's quite a bit less commercial than Banff, and you can get away from the throngs of tourists quite easily by stepping into the backcountry. Though I've never been, I've heard nothing but good things about Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta, which is contiguous with Glacier National Park in Montana. I want very much to do a road trip through the southern parks, close to the US border. Grasslands National Park looks stunning from the photos I've seen, and Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park looks good too. I've been to Gros Morne National Park, on the west coast of Newfoundland, and I cannot recommend that trip enough. It's got all the rugged mountain beauty of Banff and Jasper, combined with ocean, and there were hardly any tourists at all. The overnight ferry ride from Nova Scotia was really cool, too. I live just a few miles from Riding Mountain National Park, which is 3000 km^2 of mixed boreal-aspen parkland in Manitoba. We've got a few sprawling vistas one can enjoy in solitude, and the wildlife viewing opportunities are definitely here. Moose, elk, black bears (highest density in North America), lynx, and wolves are relatively common, as are various owls and other birds that bird people like to watch in the early morning. I've got space to host if anyone wants to make the trip.

Necrobump! My friend was going to throw this out. I said "mine!". It's a Mitsubishi LT-90 linear tracking turntable with the accompanying DA-L90 seven-cassette deck receiver combo. Seems to work perfectly. It's very '80s, with the seven-cassette drawer sliding automagically out from the receiver when you push the button. Not that I needed it, but it's pretty neat. Playing Black Sabbath through my old psb alphas, it's a pretty thumpin' mid-fi throwback.

I've got one picture disc that sounds (and looks) amazing - Touched by the Crimson King, by Demons & Wizards. I guess it's spoiled me for all the others.

They're going to be made from the original masters, too. However, I have their 'Death on the Road' pic disc, and it's a terrible pressing for surface noise*. I hope these ones are better. *I don't have a proper record cleaning system, so take this with as many grains of salt as you wish.

Smithers, release the hounds.

S.H.I.E.L.D.has not had a bad episode. Whether it will have one remains to be seen, but I'm hopeful. We should just have a general Joss Whedon thread already.

They sound pretty cool, Dusty. I'm listening here.

You mean his avatar? Looks like a chimp to me.

I'm happy with the alpine receiver in my car. It was the lowest-end model (~$100 Cdn, not including the installation harness), and I got it installed last winter. It has an aux input as well as USB, and I'm finding the USB to be cool because I can load my tunes on my smartphone and have the battery charge while playing music in the car. You can also just load up a USB memory key with music if you prefer. I can tell you nothing of the audiophile-ness of the system, aside from saying that it sounds good for a stereo in a non-soundproofed car which drives on gravel roads a lot.

Happy birthday, good sir.

Good luck Vicki, and everyone else down there.

Not sure if relevant, but I've got some Superlux drum mics, which I bought new ten years ago. The buzz about them at the time was that they had been contracted to make microphones for all the big companies in China for years, and eventually decided to take their experience and make decent knockoffs. The mics I have sound pretty good for live applications. I also have a large-diaphragm studio condenser mic from them, which I haven't used enough to have any impressions. So, I conclude my pointless ramble by stating that I guess it's no great surprise that they're making headphones now too. Or maybe they always were.

Trying to figure out how best to set up my new huge drumkit, I stumbled on Neil Peart's Time Machine setup. Pretty.

Happy to serve!

My dad got a few songs on mini-DV tape before his camera battery died, and I got a pretty nice-sounding minidisc recording off the soundboard of the entire show. It'll probably take me awhile (kids, busy, lazy, etc.), but I'll get something up on youtube, or one of the concert archive sites, and point you toward it.

Happy belated!

I had a great time at the Harvest Sun Music Festival on the weekend. My band opened up the festival. It was a treat to work with a world-class sound technician - it's so easy to perform when you don't have to struggle to hear what the rest of the band is doing. I also got to meet and hang out a bit with one of my all-time music idols - Bill Bourne. My kids had a great time, running with a large pack of preschoolers between various attractions, under occasional supervision but mostly just being free.

Getting ready to play the opening concert at this festival tonight. It's going to be a blast. I'll be there most of the weekend with the kids.

That's nasty, Knucks. Hope it gets resolved soon. I scored a ridiculous deal on a top quality drumset today, and will do a final inspection/approval when I pick it up next week. It's got two kick drums (11 pcs. total), which will help me in my quests to a) teach lessons (can split it into two kits, one for me and one for the student); and b ) learn how to play metal better. I'm partially excited and partially wondering what the fuck I'm doing, getting a kit so huge it's going to be difficult to find a practical use for, gigging-wise.

I never got to meet him, but I appreciated his presence here, and will miss that. RIP Matt.

Sorry to hear that, Dan.

Thanks again for the kind words, guys. I just got off the train with the boys, and it was weird having only two dogs come bounding up to see us. My wife has all but put a deposit down on an Australian shepherd/border collie cross pup, who will be ready to come home in early September. Our one remaining good herding dog has Lyme disease and had a malignant melanoma removed last year, so we figure rushing to get a new pup is probably a good idea. It takes awhile before they're any good at telling the cattle what to do. I've never had a bat in the house, but there was one living somewhere in/on our house's exterior a few years ago that was almost certainly rabid. It would come out in the daytime and dive-bomb us.

Happy birthday, Tyll! Thanks for all your work in this strange hobby.