mclii

Entries from the weekend I wanted to make:
In response to Bernd Bruckler letting a 105 foot face-off win trickle past him for a goal vs UAA Friday night... Don't worry Bernd, I've had the same thing happen to me (albeit in a much less important and less stressful setting, and in roller hockey) and I'm still here. It is, after all, just a game. Plus, it keeps things interesting.

Saturday night's game:
Man, UAA can really clog up the middle of the ice. It's one of their strong points, and the reason they did so well this weekend. It's frustrating to watch, especially with regard to flow of a game, and especially since one team touches the puck like 3/4's of the time, and can't get anything done. All in all, it made for a bad game to watch, and one of the longest in recent memory. The officiating in this game was blatantly horrendous, and the only reason hockey bothers me. It seems the officials like to make a "story" out of the game, instead of simply enforcing rules. Sometimes it seems like they make stuff up, like, "well, I missed that one call that was really obvious, so I need to make up a call to put karmic balance back in the world." One game I was at a long while ago, a player got a 2 minute penalty for "Shooting the puck after the whistle had blown." Is that really a penalty? Yep, didn't think so. In cases like this, it seems like officials single out players and pay more attention to them, and are looking to bring them down. Why that unfair treatment is made and tolerated, is beyond me. (BTW, I'm always an armchair official, no matter what sport I watch)

Sunday:
Debating on whether or not I should go see Interpol or watch the conclusion of the UW vs UAA series instead. Last night's game was bad all around, I want to give them a chance to make it up. Ahhh, I already got a ticket to Interpol, so WTS, I'll still go to Interpol. The Q and Not U, was weird. Weird. Very jammy feeling, and one of the guys reminded me of Jack Black in the School of Rock, only, turned up to 11. He was like that the whole show. I thought the Q and Not U were very sloppy, and unpolished, and I generally didn't like that. I spent a long bit of the show watching the people running the show, the sound people mainly, and it was much more entertaining. This was the first show I've seen that a digital mixer was used instead of an analog one. A huge YAMAHA, it was, and looked very complex. Sound for the Q and Not U was pretty cruddy sounding, and the engineer was going nuts on the board searching for the mix. That room in the Rave must just be a bear to control. I couldn't imagine. Live sound for a room that size, would be fun though. I've never done live sound before. The challenges look very interesting/appealing though.

Interpol was a lot more dynamic than on record, and very polished sounding. Quite possibly the polar opposite of The Q and Not U. The mix was downright perfect, which made me wonder if the digital board was theirs. They had a huge light show, but what it failed to do, was actually illuminate the members of the band. It showed their silhouettes mainly. I was blind for most of the show with automated lights flashing in my face. The singers voice was very strong. Had a key component of a good sense of things being held back, but still very strong. A lot of guitar parts, that I thought were guitar, were actually keyboard parts. Kind of disappointing to me, because they were fairly complex sounding. My interest in keyboard electronics in a live setting is seriously waning. On record, it's kind of cool, and creates a cool effect, but live, it seems to lack a real human feel, IMHO. Overall, it was a good show, and very steady. Nothing really more to write about it. I've seen Interpol, and I don't feel the need to see them in the future. Don't know if that's a good, or a bad thing. If I didn't have a ticket, I'm sure I would have gone to the Badger Hockey game. 3 days until major college hockey blowout showing. I'll be glued to the screen, for sure.

As a side note, congrats to the UW Women's hockey team for getting into the final 8 NCAA field. It is very well deserved. The only time I've seen them this year, they were excellent players, fast, and very skilled.

Overall:
For dream home studio setup, check out these mixers:
Mackie Onyx - they're right, why didn't anyone think of this before? Messing around with breakout boxes is kind of a hassle, why not just make a mixer (that everyone is used to using already), and make it possible to dump the tracks into a machine, digitally? This allows that. 16 in, 2 out. Use the physical mixer for getting tracks in, use the software mixer for getting tracks polished. Seems so simple!

I figured out that I use, approximately, 780 gallons of gasoline, a year. That's way too much, IMHO. How to cut down on that number? I'm not sure. I'm sure many people have similar statistics though... Kind of depressing if I think about it too long... Check into this... Wired News: Biodiesel Boosters Plan Co-Ops