Last night was an eighties set, because I planned it hoping Doug would be there to partake in (mostly) eighties pop type stuff.

First up, the closest thing to rock (from the planned stuff!), Powerstation's "Some Like It Hot". I think I did okay, but I had the unexpected pleasure (ahem) of having Robert Palmer join me for a duet. Not quite what I expected, and it threw me a little when I realized no, that's not just a backing vocal. So it was more of a sing-along than karaoke, but I still had fun.

Next up, was "Need You Tonight" by INXS. Had fun with that, but not really sure how well I pulled it off.

Duran Duran's "Hungry Like The Wolf" wrapped up the pop portion of the set. I did pretty good on it, except for eating just prior to singing and having a very short solo (5 bars!) in which to try to grab a sip. Missed the first line and a half coming back into it, but I think the vocals were much better for that quick drink.

I had one more pop tune lined up, but I didn't get a chance to even listen to it all the way through, let alone try it out once, so I skipped that, and had Tracey put in Aerosmith's "Love in an Elevator" (think that was the first time I sang it ~ nailed it!) and then Deep Purple's "Hush" to wrap things up.

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Kids these days... I am not really a fan of a lot of the tuners out there. I have lawn mowers that sound like they have more power and presence than some of the tinny, high pitched gurgly little tuner cars out there.

My automotive background did begin with some interest in stock car racing and drag racing. For the most part, there's been two cars that have been my focus: the 1969 Camaro and, later, the 1978 Lamborghini Countach. My favorite configuration for the Camaro is to set it up for Trans Am racing: wide tires, suspension tweaked so it can turn corners, and so on.

Back in elementary school, I had a subscription to Car Craft. I also had many issues of Hot Rod, CARtoons, Super Stock, and a number of others. I read and re-read every one of my dad's Road & Track magazines. I think I had a subscription to that at one point, but I'm not sure.

In elementary school, I hung around a garage, drawn there by the owner Fran's pro stock 1969 Camaro, named "Obsession". It didn't hurt that Fran also owned a pro street 1969 Camaro called "Procrastination" or the restoration-in-progress and (I think) unnamed (big surprise here) 1969 Camaro. I helped out, handed out tools, did some stuff around the shop, and some time in late elementary to early junior high, I stayed late at AutoCraft to help them tear down the engine of an early sixties Corvette. Another time, I biked a dozen or so miles to a car show. When I went to high school, the intention was that I would be in the automotive program.

So you figure with that kind of background my cars would be muscle cars or sports cars, right?

My first car was a gift from my parents, a 1976 Dodge Aspen. To say it had issues was putting it mildly. I never owned it, but I did drive the Mercury Marquis. Next up was my parents 1991 Ford Taurus. When we moved down to Pennsylvania, Deb bought a 1982 Chevrolet Citation from her stepmother. I did all the work on that car except for inspections and the water pump. Rebuilt the carburetor on it, even. I think that's when my parents got a minivan, and they gifted us with the Taurus, later named Bessie. When my grandfather died in 2001, my grandmother gifted me with the 1998 Ford Contour, almost never called by its name Mithril.

When Bessie was ailing, we looked into something safer, more stable to cart the kids around and get back and forth. The car would be Deb's, so I mostly kept out of the decision making. She picked out a 2006 Subaru Forester. It was ~ still is ~ the only car I've bought new. I drove it at times, when the Contour was in the shop or when it was snowy. Loved the handling on that, and she often wondered why I didn't drive it more. Partially, it was because I figured the more I drove the newer, better car, the more I'd want to keep driving it, and partially it was because even though I liked lots about the Forester, I wasn't too into the whole wagony SUV thing. Well, I kind of had already picked out my new car, a 2005 Subaru Legacy GT Limited. It just never got to the point where we could afford to get a new car.

A key point, to me, about the Subaru was the all wheel drive. It handled beautifully in all weather situations. It also kind of spoiled me. I'm not sure I could bring myself to buy a vehicle without AWD. Although this does rule out the Camaro and the Countach, it does still leave open the possibility of a Gallardo or Murciélago sometime down the road...

So that's the history...

I'm very appreciative of all the gifted cars ~ wouldn't have been able to get around without them ~ but, at the same time, I've never had a chance to choose my own car.

Until now...

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All new tunes last night... some worked, some didn't.

Started things off with "Strutter", by Kiss, and I think I pretty much nailed it. Fun to do, and I might sing that one again.

Thought about it on and off, but I finally decided to do "I'm Still Standing", by Elton John, last night. Stacy says I did good, but I thought I was a bit slow on the uptake for the first verse and I perpetually failed to hit the timing on the second part of the chorus... always at least a wee bit off.

Did much better with Pink Floyd's "Time", although that has two very large instrumental sections that might keep that from being a karaoke tune again... although Tracie always likes those so she can have more time to head out for a smoke break!

Wrapped up the night with The Door's "People Are Strange", and nailed that one too.

Already thinking on what I can do for the next time...

This entry was originally posted at http://ellyssian.dreamwidth.org/798946.html. Comments are accepted at both locations.

Not many people out last night, so we got in a bunch of songs. With all the coughing and hacking, it's been a few weeks since I sang anything new, so I decided I was going back to that format.

Started things off with Joe Walsh's "Life's Been Good", then "New York Groove" from Ace Frehley's solo album. Next up was "Tom Sawyer" by Rush and the new stuff ended with "Dust In The Wind" by Kansas. Really tried to get the tone of the different vocalists, to match more of the feel of the song. I think I achieved that.

The only other song I put in for the night was "Cold Gin" by Kiss, really another Frehley tune, because everyone seemed to like it (and, hey, I've only been singing it since 1975 or 1976, so I should have it down by now... =) I had Tracey pick out whatever she wanted for the other tunes, so I wound up doing Golden Earring's "Twilight Zone" and Thomas Dolby's "She Blinded Me With Science".

Fun night!

This entry was originally posted at http://ellyssian.dreamwidth.org/798667.html. Comments are accepted at both locations.

I noticed that some of the Mac and Windows transcription software seems a bit sensitive... case sensitive, that is.

The file extensions for audio files, such as .wav or .mp3, were choking up in some software and opening in others. After more than a decade of being desensitized to extension case thanks to various Windows products, and despite much more than a decade using the Mac and UNIX and Linux and other software where .wav and .WAV are not equivalent (at least at the operating system level), it took me a while to catch why this was happening.

I am so used to modern software (i.e. the applications, not the operating system) understanding that an extension is an extension, and the file type doesn't change just because .wav is not .WAV or, more importantly, vice versa. It seems that some programmers of audio transcription software aren't making much efforts on file type recognition. They are failing on the surface level: they will accept .wav or .mp3 (or many other file formats), but they are not able to comprehend .WAV or .MP3, when other software can easily understand them and not allow an extension (a legacy of ancient DOS history) to cripple them and prevent them from working properly.

So while the programmers are fixing that, they should also see about their installation procedures and register the software for the file types it can handle ~ on the Mac, this makes the difference between opening a file directly at the file, or having to go and open the app and then load or open the file...

Simple things, and they can be worked around, but, really, it all comes down to lazy coding...

This entry was originally posted at http://ellyssian.dreamwidth.org/798425.html. Comments are accepted at both locations.

food for thought

by Everett A Warren
May 8, 2012

words
to escape by
pictures
to escape into
leaving behind
your supper
your room
your world
for another
if only for a moment
to return
while dinner is still warm
i fear your food will grow cold
but i have no doubt
you are now free to roam
where the wild things are
rest in wild peace, Mr. Sendak
and thank you for the meals
for our minds
that you've left behind

Copyright (c) 2012 Everett Ambrose Warren

This entry was originally posted at http://ellyssian.dreamwidth.org/798104.html. Comments are accepted at both locations.

See this post for the inspiration for the poem...

fickle, fickle

by Everett A Warren
May 7, 2012

across the pages
your love grows
so much to admire
you don't even know them
yet you hope they will succeed
the tension builds
the plot unfolds
and they are so close to success
and BAM!
that damn author goes and kills them off!
sonofa!
SLAM!
the book comes down
what was the author thinking?
what the hell?
but...
there are other characters...
maybe, just maybe, this one might...
turn the page...
REALLY?

Copyright (c) 2012 Everett Ambrose Warren

This entry was originally posted at http://ellyssian.dreamwidth.org/797538.html. Comments are accepted at both locations.

navel gazing

by Everett A Warren
May 7, 2012

when all else fails
when worlds fall down around me
when everything i touch seems to crumble
when i everything i love seems to whither
at the least it seems there's a poem in it
even the least emotion can be moulded
into a bit of over the top angst and distress
and the greatest...
well, that just writes itself
without even trying

my dad said that
when things weren't going good
he said
well, at least you'll write some good poems

really, though?
i don't need them to be sappy
(but it's okay if they are)
but i prefer it when the poems i write are happy

Copyright (c) 2012 Everett Ambrose Warren

This entry was originally posted at http://ellyssian.dreamwidth.org/797229.html. Comments are accepted at both locations.

2008 Ford F550 Crew Cab

• 29k miles


• 4 Wheel Drive


• Dual Rear Wheels


• 11' Olympian (Reading) Service Body


• Boss 9'2" Power V XT Steel Snow Plow


• System One Aluminum Ladder Rack


• OnSpot Automatic Tire Chain System


• Captain's Chairs


• 6 CD Changer


• 10k towing with pintle/ball

Asking $49,900
Inquiries email Everett at greenmanenvy.com.

This truck has served me incredibly well, and we've had numerous adventures that others might call "work". It has pulled skid steers, carried pallets of stone and loads of mulch and compost, backed down winding driveways with a large chipper, driven up a mountain on an old charcoal trail to deliver fencing materials, hauled a hydroseeder and stacks of mulch across a muddy field that will be a meadow some day, carried our crews and equipment to and from jobsites, carried my family and most of my belongings Beverly Hillbillies-style during my move from Lehighton to Mount Joy, plowed mountainsides (almost every client lived on a hill!),and even towed a loaded, pinched tractor trailer off the road and the bank where it had wedged itself...

Crossposted from the Green Man Enviroscaping LLC blog...

This entry was originally posted at http://ellyssian.dreamwidth.org/796965.html. Comments are accepted at both locations.

I did not expect to sing last night, but I did. I picked out a couple of nice, easy tunes to sing, on account of this cough really wiping me out... so I did Deep Purple's Hush and Thomas Dolby's She Blinded Me With Science. I let Tracey pick out the rest... and I said to stick with easy things to sing.

She picked out Sabbath's Heaven and Hell ~ so apparently seven minutes of Dio's voice is easy ~ Blackfoot's Highway Song (which I sang once before, but I'm still only a little familiar with it), and Domino by Kiss. I also sang the verses on Motley Crue's Shout at the Devil, while Laura sang the choruses. Stacy and I helped out Laura with the wordless vocalizing on Rolling Stones' Miss You, and I sang Metallica's One with Jesse/ie (some guy who thought I would be able to assist him with it).

This entry was originally posted at http://ellyssian.dreamwidth.org/796881.html. Comments are accepted at both locations.