If you bought one of the fancy ones, you might be able to change how the lights behave with software. For example, you can make it permanently blue or have it shift from red to blue!
Yeah, I think you can. Hard to remember, I looked at so many keyboards! I'm pretty sure it said you can make a strip light along the side react to music. Yeah, I'm also pretty sure you can make all kinds of changes in the lighting, or switch it off. This thing really does feel like a solid piece of excellent equipment, so different from any other keyboard I've had. Very happy with it.
Well, apparently it's exceedingly difficult to find Mac-style keys for a mechanical keyboard. I managed to find 2 companies that make them, but both are out of stock, and only sell them as full sets. That's fine, as I said, I don't really care what symbols or words are on the keys, I know which ones I need to hit. It was fun looking into anyway. And geez, I'm really loving this thing! The feel of it and the sound of it as I type. Incredible. Like a Maserati after all the junky Pacers I've had before.
Bought a CD rom drive from Best Buy. Once I got it installed and working (not so easy for my analog mind) I opened up some photos saved to discs, photos I had half-forgotten about. Blasts from the past.
Photos, for example, from a trip to Maine in 2008, when my twins were 11 and smiling and laughing in the sun and on the shore, and we stayed in a rental house on the coast and ate lobster and all of that, great times that seemed destined to never end and certainly never to slide this far into the past. But it happens. It . . . happens. But at least it happened. I now have photographic evidence.
A new amp! Didn't really need it, but I couldn't pass it up. It's a Marshall C5 combo. A preamp tube and two power tubes, 5 watts, 10" Celestion speaker. Volume, bass, treble, mid knobs and nothing else. Great platform for the pedals, of which, I just bought the board today. And the orange Flow guy in the center. Kind of like a Hendrix Uni-vibe modulator. The thing screams. No gain, but it's not needed because the signal breaks up around 5 on the volume and can be massaged with the pic attack from there.
My air conditioner seemed to be blowing a little less cold last summer, so I started looking to see what a tune up might cost me. Seems like most places won't service a portable unit, and if they do, it's going to cost about a third of what I paid for the thing 7-8 years ago. I wish I could just do these things myself, but I am simply not handy whatsoever. I guess I'll just keep it as a spare? I dunno. Anyway, Costco had a crazy deal for a replacement unit, which is slightly more powerful, far more efficient, and will be a lot cooler as it's a dual hose rather than a single. I had to buy a $60 membership in order to purchase it, but I think I can just cancel it for any reason and be refunded.
Weed seltzer! 12 oz canned drinks, each containing 5mg of THC, equivalent to your standard edible gummies. Trim models of 8mg and 10mg are also available. These are "legal" in RI, which around here means stores sell them and haven't been shut down yet. One of my liquor reps is distributing them and gave me some samples to potentially sell in our restaurants, which, well... gonna have to see how the laws shake out first. Our liability insurance covers alcohol but probably not THC. My insurance dude was like, wait, what, weed drinks? The possibilities and consequences are endless here. I can't get my head around it yet. And mixing one of these seltzers with some tequila has not provided clairvoyance yet. Maybe gin would work better? What a world we live in!
For a second or two, I thought, "Wait a second. Why would you use seltzer on the weeds on your garden?" ... and then it clicked. In my defence, it's not yet 9am here, and I haven't had my first cup of tea for the day. *shrug* But yes. Weed in a can? I can just imagine someone trying to get a high off of it, then the cops show up, and he'd be like "Who grassed me?"
Add two hours and flip the sun is the only way I can keep track of general Eastern Pacific time. It's 7pm here sooooo... add 2 hours and flip the sun. What's it like living in tomorrow, Rath?
Not as exciting as the Jetsons made it out to be. We don't have jetpacks, or toasters that spit toast at you, or flying cars. Damn it! I feel cheated. I still remember the hullaballoo that the press created when 12/21/2012 was coming along, and everyone was panicking -- "Oh no! It's the end of the world!" and such. So when it rolled around, I was (again) feeling cheated. Where's my 50-foot-tall Mictlantecuhtli? Or was it Tezcatlipoca? I could never keep them straight. But at least I had an answer for all the people who were looking for the end of the world: I ate it. *BURP* You're welcome!
A Vietnamese dan moi mouth harp. I started getting into Otyken music and got interested in jaw harps. My local musical instrument shop has them, starting at $80. Dan moi were only thirteen and work on a similar principle, so I thought I'd give one a shot. It's fun. Not me:
A reciprocating saw. Makes it so much easier to do landscape trimming -- it's like a small chainsaw, only a bit safer and a lot quieter. Sort of like a domestic lumberjack, eh?
It's cool isn't it? https://thespark.company/products/eve-was-framed-t-shirt?_pos=1&_sid=38c08cced&_ss=r
Would that be for dogs? I'd like a T-shirt that says: "Keep Calm and Don't Panic, Hitchhiker." Or maybe, for when I finally leave this vale of tears, it would say "Keep Calm; Today is the First Day of the Rest of Your Afterlife." ============= Anyway, I'm reading a book I recently bought called "The Persians" by Geoff and Brenda Parker. A fascinating, but not-very-detailed, look at the history of Iran, from the time of the Achaemenids (who ruled Persia until Alexander, and who feature heavily in the movie 300) to today. I'd read about some of the dynasties before (e.g. the Achaemenids, the Parthians, the Timurids, the Safavids, the Mughals -- what can I say, I've played a lot of Age of Empires! ) but didn't know much more than that. It's well worth-reading, at least as an introduction to Iran, and why Iran is the way it is. And who knows? I may wish to delve further into it, perhaps later. But for now, this is a good reference book as well as a cracking read. Recommended.
I recently bought Liven Nivens - Ringworld, also a pair of boots that don't look like I'm set to hike to the Pole. I won't wear them when I'm reading, though possibly that might change.
I wish my old hard cover copy was still around. Paper backs are okay, but it feels more like I'm holding a teacup than a novel.
