Knuckledragger

Klipsch La Scalas.

What Mike Schultz looked like after battling COVID-19 for 6 weeks in the hospital. 1937 Western Clipper Motorhome. Political Compass, but it's Rammstein lyrics. 1976 Ferrari 308GT Rainbow. 1965 DKW Hummel 155.

I wonder what's anchoring that Tower of Scotch.

DIY tube amps made by the father of a user in reddit's /r/audiophile:

I dunno if I've mentioned this before, but I'm a crazed redneck who lives in the woods. I have an artesian well and the groundwater here is hard as a black metal album. I have not one but two filters between it and what I drink. The first is a grit filter, the second is a taste & odor (charcoal) filter. They needed to be changed when I locked myself in 9 weeks ago, and I was out of spares Today I arranged pickup of new filters and replaced them. This is what the grit filter looked like when I removed it: The filters are pure white when new. For two decades, I have snarkily referred to the filter swapping process as "changing the house's tampon" because I haven't matured terribly much in the last ~35 years. Mr. Frog was not at all impressed the proceedings.

I've been testing all night with the Blue Icicle plugged straight into a (USB3) port. So far, the yammering idiots in Discord haven't reported me going robotic once. Also, I should note that after I wrote the above message I remembered that my HeadAmp Pico DAC uses Micro USB. "The size no one uses anymore" indeed. Hi, Justin! 😁

"Toddler-Fi"

Interesting. I have my Icicle pugged into a USB hub. I have a PSU for the hub, but I have to leave it disconnected ...or the PC won't boot. For reasons that are unclear to me, the PC won't power on when the hub has a wall wart attached. Fortunately, my motherboard has a bunch of free ports. I just have to find a longer USB A to USB B mini (AKA the size no one uses anymore) cable to make it work. Thanks for the info.

I played two 16bit style JRPGs recently, Cthulhu Saves Christmas and and Cosmic Star Heroine. I'm still working on the latter, I haven't 100%'d it yet. I love Zeboyd games. 9 years ago, when I had a very crappy even for the time PC, I played both Cthulhu Saves The World and Breath of Death VII. All Zeboyd games are mechanically similar, but they have excellent writing and a very sharp sense of humor. Zeyboyd took over Penny Arcade's struggling On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness series and did two in that series (3 and 4). I beat 3 and never quite finished 4. I might resume it some day, but I just as likely might not. What I like about Zeboyd games is that they're very low impact, both in terms of system resources but also player commitment. I beat Cthulhu Saves Christmas in just over 11 hours. I'm not at a point in my life where I can dedicate 100+ hours to an RPG like anything from The Witcher series. Also, since all the dialog is text I don't need to have the sound up terrible loud so I can listen to music/yammering idiots in a Discord call while I play. I need to find some more RPGs in this vein when I finish Cosmic Star Heroine.

Still assessing the damage from this weekend's electrical disaster. The Blue Icicle is kind of a piece of shit. I randomly goes into "ear shredding robot" which means I cannot use it for anything serious (like ranting about obscure electronic music.) I was in a Discord call last night and the Icicle acted up. The other people in the call began screaming and begging me to stop. Just as quickly, the Icicle began behaving again. It repeated this pattern 2-3 more times throughout the evening. I have to get a new USB audio interface, and I really need a new mic preamp (never buy Behringer.) This would be a relatively minor issue were we not in the middle of a global health an economic catastrophe. I have a good friend who is a studio nerd with a very good day job. For the last ...22 years I've advised him on synthesizer and other electronic music production gear. He's amassed a collection of over 100 EuoRack modules (he estimates he has "under 150" of them.) His gear budget is just a wee bit bigger than mine. I've asked him about getting an audio interface and when I told him "I mean under 4 digits in cost" he said he had no idea. 🤦‍♂️ Ideally I'd like something class compliant (meaning 2 channels, 16/44.1 max, but doesn't require drivers so it's future proof.) My experience with outboard audio equipment that requires drivers has been lousy at best. I should add: I have no idea what this means for future radio shows until I un-fuck the situation. I've worked out a bunch of different ideas in my head, but there's no real replacement for an audio interface ...except for an audio interface. SMH my head as the kids say.

It's as much room (and Herman Miller) porn as it is speaker porn, innit?

1972 Citroën DS.

We got hit by a major storm last night. Power was out for over 6 hours. 10 minutes after 8 until well past 2AM. I had all sorts of fun issues during it. My iPhone refused to connect to my laptop. I had a lightning cable handy and when I connected them, the iPhone went nuts spamming "trust this device" confirmation popups. The problem was that it the popups disappeared immediately and wouldn't let me click on any of them. It also made a chime noise every time a popup appeared, which quickly wore away at my already fraying sanity. Weirdly, the two devices did pair wirelessly and I was able to get on the internets, sort of. I checked my electric company's website and they had a handy map showing my house smack dab in the middle of it. There was a crew assigned, but the estimated time of power restoration was noon *today.* After half an hour of staring at slow internet on my phone/laptop pair, I had enough. I found my car keys, wallet, etc. (keep in mind I have not left my property in over 8 weeks at this point) and fired up the Fit. I have a "Battery Tender" trickle charger, so the Fit's battery (notoriously fickle) was full. I had also put air in the tires (which go soft after sitting for prolonged periods of time) two days ago. Happily, the engine started right up and purred like a 1.5L kitten. I got halfway down my street when I realized that I was only hearing music out of one set of speakers. I cursed, futzed with the cable, caused all sorts of ear shredding static to pop out of the speakers, but could not get actual music in both channels. I cursed further and drove back home. By flashlight, I located a spare 1/8" to 1/8" cable. The one I'd been using was in service constantly from late 2013, so it didn't really owe me anything. New cable found, I went back out to the Fit and installed it. Yay, music in both channels! I drove around my town and saw exactly what I expected. Other than my immediate area, everyone had power. This has been the story living here for 20 years. I went to a near-ish ATM and checked my bank balance. Not terrible. Funny thing, I haven't been spending much money apart from regular bills in the last 2 months. Not sure why. I got through the better part of X-Dream's landmark 1998 album Radio before I got bored. I also charged the iPhone a bit. I got back home and of course the power was still out. I was headed back in the house when a giant electric company truck went down my street. It had a bright AF searchlight on the roof and was scanning the wires. "Looking for the electricity" as a friend of mine described it. Depressingly, the went all the way down my street without stopping. I once again sat in my comfy chair with a couple candles lit and did some IP-over-telephone browsing. I took a nap earlier, hoping to sleep through the blackout. I didn't, but I was wide awake as a result. Sometime after 2AM, the power came back on. As it always does, it arrived with a surge. I've been through this before many times in the last two decades, so I have a small army of surge protectors. There's a whole house unit with a very low (that's better) clamping voltage that cost me a pretty penny. I also have 3 UPSes and countless power strip form factor surge protectors. Well, once of the devices NOT connected to a power strip was the PSU for my ca. 2001 class compliant (doesn't require drivers) USB audio interface. Of course, it died. It was only my laziness and ineptitude that kept it from being plugged into a power strip. Much foul language and rummaging later, I found a spare USB audio "interface." It's a Blue Icicle I bought off ...some Head-Caser around a decade ago. I never used it other than to test it. It plugged in and lit up, but Windows refused to recognize it. A google search later, I found an amazingly helpful YouTube video from a British fella who found out that some Hercules drives from 2009(!) called Hercules_2009_GMXLPLT3_2_Win7 worked with the Icicle with both Windows 8.1 and 10. There were a couple other casualties. The batter for the APC UPS I have powering my network hardware (essential) gave up the ghost. I need to order a replacement, which is a nontrivial task in the best of times. I also had some weird issues with a few other devices. I'm going to have to carefully test a bunch of shit over the next week or so. This weekend has gotten off to an amazing start. Obviously, I didn't do my radio show last night. To be honest, I'm not sure I'm going to do it tonight, either. After last night's debalce, I'm just not in the mood. I think I'm going to go outside and clear brush.

I gotcher vales righ cheer:

MASSIVE storm here in scenic western MA. Tornado warning. Power already out. House shaking from the thunder. Seriously doubt there will be a show tonight.