Wisconsin Ranked #4

Go Badgers!

Anyone Watch Any Wisconsin Basketball This Weekend?

Someone Find Me Some Happy Pills

cause I need to take some.

Short Notice

The band I subbed for awhile ago found someone else for their December gigs because I couldn’t commit to their schedule—there was potential that my regular band could get a show.  Understandable.  This morning I got a call and it turns out their new keyboard player can’t make it—so I’m on for tonight, Mulligan’s in Lakeway, 9pm.

Bowling

Somehow I got talked into joining a bowling league and thus I've bowled more this fall than in my entire life. I'm still not any good, but I drink a lot of beer at least. For anyone interested in getting (more) serious about bowling, here is some stuff I learned this fall:

Bowling balls are made of different stuff. Plastic balls have been around forever, polyurethane was introduced in the 80's, reactive resin in the 90's, and it gets worse from there. Each new material grips the lane better, allowing one to be able to hook the ball easier or more. Bowlers typically have at least one ball made of the newer stuff for their strike ball and a plastic one for spares (straight shots). Only the plastic ones are able to have a huge Sponge Bob design or a rose imbedded in the center.

There are different ways to get a bowling ball drilled. The old way you insert your middle and ring finger up to your second knuckle. With a fingertip grip, you only insert up to the first knuckle and your hand is spread out more. This also allows more hooking and ball control.

I've never been able to hook a ball until I broke down and bought one a few weeks ago. I am still bowling horribly (lower than my average with house balls), but I guess I'm improving. And it just feels cooler to throw a hook. Bring on the White Russians.

What Do You Do With Your Spare Change?

I put mine in a cylindrical tin which I’m guessing is 4”D x 10”H.  When it gets full I take it to a Coinstar machine at the grocery store, and usually recover $100-$120.  Yeah, I know banks will do it for free but I don’t have a local bank and this is worth the convenience to me.  I have a little extra today so I am guessing $140.  We shall see how close my guess was after lunch.

Finally, A Gig with my Regular Band

I had a gig Friday night with my regular band, first time since I think August... so yeah it's been awhile. It couldn't have gone much better--the pay was good, the drinks were free, people were dancing the entire time, no major screw-ups. If we can get booked once or twice a month I think a lot of my thoughts about quitting will subside. It's just that going to practice sucks when there's no pay off. And the other guys just don't pick things up as quickly as I want them to. Oh well, not everyone can be perfect like me.

Here's a funny issue--I never thought I'd have to worry about being in tune playing a keyboard, but this has come up lately (even during our Friday gig)! It seems that my pitch bend wheel is sending out -33 cents continuously. I discovered this a few weeks ago, and the quick fix was to disable the pitch bend wheel. The thing is, this has to be done for every patch, and while I caught everything I used in my last sub gig, I didn't catch everything I used Friday night. I've finally become proficient enough at programming the keyboard that I was able to fix both occurrences mid-song, but this is just another one of those little things that is making me think it may finally be time to get a new keyboard.

I've had my Alesis QS-8 for nearly ten years now, and it has served me well. At the time, it was a very capable keyboard comparable to keyboards twice its price or more, but not the choice of most keyboardists. This weekend, I've been doing a bit of research on what to get next. It seems that the situation is about the same. The Alesis Fusion is the logical choice, being significantly cheaper than the comparable keyboards the "big three" (Korg, Yamaha, Roland) have. But again, it is looked down on as not "professional" enough. It also has a few additional strikes against it. It appears it was rushed to release a year or so ago, and consequently had a fairly buggy and unreliable operating system. They have fixed most of the problems with new OS versions, but because of this problem, most retailers do not stock them. I haven't found any store in Austin that has it. So, I think I'll end up buying it sight unseen if I decide on it. The other problem is that I've read a lot of comments that say its instrument samples are not as good as the big three. Believe it or not, I have trouble judging the quality of instrument samples, or guitar effects, or whatever. So while this seems like a big deal, I don't know if it matters so much to me so long as they are "good enough." There have also been new (free) samples released, too, so that might not be a problem.

The good thing about this keyboard is that I'm sure I'll be satisfied with its flexibility in programming and live use. It's arrangement is similar to my QS-8, so there is that much less to learn. It has a ton of features, most importantly the instrument generation modes--not only samples but analog and FM modeling. I believe the key action will be similar to the QS-8 too, which I am accustomed to. And, it's not as wide. I just don't get that about the big three keyboards--you have 88 keys, which is plenty wide, but then they have to put some extra controller junk to the left of that and take up another half a foot. Put it somewhere else! Until the end of the year, Alesis is having a rebate where you get a free pair of monitor speakers (worth $350), something I don't need, but that's cool. It may be a sign of desperation on Alesis part, though. Desparation due to lack of sales--but is that because of their botched early release or because it's really just a bad keyboard?