Has anyone seen my Reverb Unit?



I really don't remember getting rid of my Sansui Stereo Reverb Unit, but I can't find it. It's not here, it's not at my parent's, and it's not at Megan's dad's. I know I didn't sell it in our big garage sale when we moved. Did I loan it to someone? Did I loan it to you? Did I bring it over for some reason and then leave it? I really wish I knew where it was. I guess I'm just going to buy this one off ebay. It's going to be cheap because no one wants them but me. The guy also has a pretty cool vintage Numark EQ that I'm going to try to get if it stays cheap.
- posted by Mason @ 10:58 PM (0) comments

VEGAN TOFU JERKY = MY NEW FOOD JESUS!!!!!!!



We went to the Chinese supermarket today, and I spent 30 minutes drooling over many, many different varieties of "Bean Curd". They had about ten different kinds of Tofu Jerky. I picked two. This is the Hot Chinese Five Spice flavor. It's tofu jerky in chili oil on a stick, how can you go wrong. The crazy thing about this is that it's delicious, it's not bad for you, and it only cost $1.29. I'm fucking hooked. We're going to go back and buy a whole shitload of it.


Look at this shit. It's not even bad for you! Who could ask for more!



This one was pretty good too, but much less jerky-like.
This is just tiny squares of tofu vacuum packed in tasty sauces.


The four flavors. One I think is "plain" (or soy sauce flavored). One is cumin, one is spicy black pepper, and I'm not really sure what the other one is. The packet lists "Chinese Prickly Ash" as a flavor, so maybe it's that. I don't really have much of a reference point for that particular taste.
- posted by Mason @ 10:45 PM (0) comments

Crushing, Simply Crushing...



I found this copy of the second 20/20 album, "Look Out!" at Half Price about a month ago. I'd been looking for it for YEARS. When I flipped past it, my stomach got tight and I got a little light headed. There's nothing better than finding a much sought after LP for $1.00. Now I share it with you my friends.

01-Nuclear Boy
02-Out of My Head
03-Strange Side of Love
04-Alien
05-A Girl Like You
06-Life in the U.S.A.
07-The Night I Heard a Scream
08-Beat City
09-Mobile Unit 245
10-American Dream*



*Again the problem with a 10mb+ file. I tried to zip this, but it's still too big. I'll let you know when I find a permanant solution. In the meantime, enjoy the rest of the record. I suppose I can email you the extra track if you demand it now.

The technical info: [yeah, again. it's important.]
----------------------------------------------------------
Numark TT-1700 Turntable
-->
Vintage Radio Shack Phono Preamp
-->
Zoom H4 at 48kHz/24 bit
-->
Audacity - Noise Removal and Normalization to -0.05db
-->
FLAC preserving sample and bit rate
-->
LAME 320kbs MP3 preserving sample rate
----------------------------------------------------------
- posted by Mason @ 6:28 PM (0) comments

All the power went out


look, a stock photo of downed powerlines.

Because of the insane winds here today, most of the power went out for a huge section of downtown Dallas. The power went off at work two hours before my shift was over. The registers are all on 30 minute back up batteries, so all the customers got checked out, and then we kicked them the fuck out of the store. We stood around for a while, I stocked some groceries, then we stood around some more, then I asked if I could leave early. It was really eerie to be in the store without all the sound of all the refrigeration units running. Fortunately everything came back on at about five, so none of my milk got spoiled. Then I ate some prunes. They're delicious, by the by. They're not just for old people to make poos anymore. They're for everyone!
- posted by Mason @ 11:34 PM (0) comments

Your Belated Birthday Gift



20/20 is the best band to ever come out of Tulsa, OK. Hey, if anybody has a copy of their quite rare 3rd album "Sex Trap", let me know. My brother, DanDan Noodle, didn't really enjoy yesterday's album, so maybe he'll like this one more. Tomorrow's post will be their follow up LP, "Look Out!". Let me know what you think.

00-The Sky is Falling 7/79*
01-Yellow Pills
02-Cheri
03-Out of this Time
04-Tell Me Why (Can't Understand You)
05-Tonight We Fly
06-Remember the Lightning
07-She's an Obsession
08-Leaving Your World Behind*
09-Backyard Guys
10-Jet Lag
11-Action Now



*The first track on this album is a weird synth sound that lasts about fifteen seconds. I chose not to include it because it's a very quiet track that lost much of it's impact after soaping the noise off the record. Also, track 8, "Leaving Your World Behind" is 11MB which is one megabyte over the limit for a file on googlepages. I had to zip it which I normally don't do, but I didn't have a choice.


The technical info:
----------------------------------------------------------
Numark TT-1700 Turntable
-
Vintage Radio Shack Phono Preamp
-
Zoom H4 at 48kHz/24 bit
-
Audacity - Noise Removal and Normalization to -0.05db
-
FLAC preserving sample and bit rate
-
LAME 320kbs MP3 preserving sample rate
----------------------------------------------------------
- posted by Mason @ 11:07 PM (0) comments

Ok, Jake, here you go!



I had a few requests for some of the power pop records I've been ripping, so here's the first one.

Behold the pop prowess of Jon Rubin. The Rubinoos (and I know I've talked about this before) are one of my favorite power pop bands. So here's their sophmore effort (and arguably their best album) "Back to the Drawing Board!", I hope you like it.

01 - Fallin' In Love
02 - I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend
03 - Promise Me
04 - Hold Me
05 - Ronnie
06 - Drivin' Music
07 - Operator
08 - Jennifer
09 - Arcade Queen
10 - Lightining Love Affair
11 - 1, 2, 3 Forever


The technical info:
----------------------------------------------------------
Numark TT-1700 Turntable
-
Vintage Radio Shack Phono Preamp
-
Zoom H4 at 48kHz/24 bit
-
Audacity - Noise Removal and Normalization to -0.05db
-
FLAC preserving sample and bit rate
-
LAME 320kbs MP3 preserving sample rate
----------------------------------------------------------

Like I said, I don't fuck around. Please download and enjoy.
- posted by Mason @ 11:16 PM (0) comments

90210? You Know You Love It.



So thanks to private bittorrent trackers, I'm now the proud owner of precious tvrips of the first six seasons of Beverly Hills 90210. "But Mason," you say, "there are twenty plus episodes a season, isn't that quite a bit of disk space?" Yes it is, friends. 61 Gigabytes of teen soap ecstasy. 144 episodes. 108 full hours. I had to find something to replace ER, as we just finished Season 8 of the 10 I have. (I need to find quality rips of 11-14, but I haven't really taken the time to look for them.)

I love 90210. About three years ago I was watching it religiously on SoapNet every afternoon, but then my schedule changed and I stopped. The tvrips are the only acceptable versions to watch because the crappy new dvd rips don't have any licensed music, so they went through and replaced all the terrible early 90's dance and r&b with stock music. Unpalatable. If you're in the tail end of generation x like we are, much of your life revolved around 90210 for a number of years. Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Grade. (And then secretly in Eighth grade.) It was thrilling. It was like there was some vast adult conspiracy to prevent us from watching it (at least FOX made it seem that way) which made it all the more enticing. Watching it now, it's pathetically tame, preachy and overly simplistic, but at the time it was totally revolutionary to us. Then Nirvana came along and I stopped caring about it.

So if you want copies you can mail me an external hard drive and I'd be happy to copy it off for you. If you want it burned off (16 DVDs is going to take a while) then you'd better mail me a 24 pack of discs. 16 discs to copy it off, and the other eight full of bad ass stuff you burned for me. I like action movies and entire series of network dramas. Oh, and if someone could mail Cody Jack some burned dvds full of porn, he'd really appreciate it.
- posted by Mason @ 10:30 PM (0) comments

Destory all other bit and sample rates!



Ok, so I did a few trials, and I can't tell the difference between recording LPs at 96/24 or 48/24. I'm really digging this new Zoom H4 for ripping LP record albums. It beats the shit out of using the 1/8" input on the back of the PC and encoding it at CD quality (44.1/16).

Check out this MP3 ripped at 320 from a 48/24 FLAC file converted from 48/24 WAV. It's the first track on this Jules and the Polar Bears album "Got No Breeding". It's called "You Just Don't Wanna Know". I ripped the whole album, and amplified it just a touch, but not cranked out. I hate that everything in the whole world is maxxed out to 0db. Fuck digital clipping.

Click me and download me. Power pop madness, my bitches.
- posted by Mason @ 11:29 PM (0) comments

Chavez is the shit.



I love Chavez. I love them. I think they are one of the best bands to come out of the 90's indie rock scene. I bought this amazing and mad OOP 7" at half price for the staggering price of $5. I was so excited when I found it that I almost threw up. Please, please, if you haven't listened to Chavez, do so. If it doesn't change your life, then I can't help you.








The video for "Break Up Your Band" (I know I've posted this before, but I don't care):


- posted by Mason @ 6:18 PM (0) comments

Records, Records, Records and More Records



Tulsa's unsung power pop giants.


Like Tom Lehrer? Me too. So does this guy. So much so that he recorded a Tom Lehrer cover album.



Tomita is the japanese classical synth jesus. Erect an altar to him.



Eberhard Weber plays the jazz bass. You like him. This record is on ECM, just like Brian Eno.



John Fahey plays the guitar. You might not like him. This is a really early album that I was lucky to find.



Hell yeah, bitches, Jules and the Polar Bears. I'm such a geek that I know a shitload of stuff about early 80's powerpop, but I'm sure you already knew that. This sampler is a must.

Seriously though, Half Price is an addiction.
- posted by Mason @ 6:18 PM (0) comments

I just can't stop buying things


Have you ever known me to pass up a book about recording, or a Zelazny novel?


This collection is in terrible shape, but it has a Zelazny story I've never read. The Stanley Elkin novel looks entertaining, and seems to be OOP.


Ever heard of A.E. Van Vogt? Me neither, but apparently he's the Canadian Heinlein, so we'll just see how good it is, no?

Half Price Books is a sick addiction.
- posted by Mason @ 9:04 PM (0) comments

Yummmmmm.... Hazelnut Agave


I love Agave. My favorite brand of Agave, Madhava has a new hazelnut flavored SKU. We got a sample of it at work, and it's the new rock in my glass pipe. It's deliciousness cannot be overstressed.

And before other vegans get all snarkey with me for eating agave distributed by a honey company, you should know that Madhava doesn't exterminate their bees, and they treat them well. So fuck off. Also, if you drive a car, then fuck off, because your tires have been vulcanized using animal fat.

My point was simply that you should try this agave, because it's one of the tastiest thing I've ever had.
- posted by Mason @ 3:04 PM (0) comments

My Wish is Granted



Sometimes things work out for me, after all. The day after I talked about wanting a handheld portable field recorder, my dad called to tell me he got me a Zoom H4 to try out. He's bringing it down when my parent's come on Tuesday, so I'll post many pictures, samples and a review when I get it. The plan is to take it around with me and record things (which I haven't done in years, but one my favorite things). Maybe I can use it to make a follow up to 2000's "Church of Perpetual Motion" album, a mixed media musiq konkrete tour de force best described as "confusing". If I've never bored you with it, consider yourself lucky.
- posted by Mason @ 3:03 PM (0) comments

Sweet New Yamaha Portable Recorder



The sweet new Yamaha Pocketrak 2G is the only cool thing I've seen from this year's NAMM show. Of course, my dad is out in LA basking in all the new gear glory while we're stuck here in the freezing cold North Texas winter.

It's a 2 gig, super slim handheld CD quality stereo recorder, and I want it. It's so beautiful. Knowing Yamaha, it's horridly expensive, the interface won't work right, and it will break the second time you use it. Yamaha should send me a free one. My dad should at least swing by the Yamaha booth and check it out for me.
- posted by Mason @ 9:02 PM (0) comments

"This Filthy World"




We watched the feature length John Waters lecture/one man show/standup "This Filthy World" today. It was excellent. If you're at all a fan of Waters' films, or especially if you ever read any of his books or articles, this is a must. He's hilarious in person. He talks the audience through his body of work, tells a number of anecdotes, some ribald stories, and generally holds forth on his decidedly twisted world view. The best line was him relating an overheard conversation, I'll paraphrase.

It seems a family was walking down the street, and the mother was sobbing. The boy turns to his father and asks "Why is Mommy crying?". The father looks down and says "Because you're an asshole!"

I thought it was uproariously funny. Waters' delivery is so fantastic, he weaves you into a depraved world of his own making, and you never want to leave. I wish I could just hang out with him in Baltimore.

The film can be rented from Netflix, or downloaded from mininova.
- posted by Mason @ 8:58 PM (0) comments

Pumpkin Seeds Taste Good



Pumpkin seeds have zinc and iron in them, they taste delicious, and are also a great source of the good fats your body needs. You should eat them.
- posted by Mason @ 8:58 PM (0) comments

The Outskirts of Our Cultural Wasteland


zoned out on the couch

So we now have all the channels. All of them. As the long reigning king of garbage television, I now proclaim A&E's "Parking Wars" as the lowest of the low.

It's a show.
About.
Meter Maids.
They issue parking tickets.
And A&E films it.
Then you watch it.

Is this how low we've sunk? The premise for this series is like a joke from an 80's screwball comedy about how cable tv is 500 channels with nothing on. We seriously have 200 channels and there's nothing worth watching on any of them. As a consequence, I choose to fry my brains on the filthiest garbage possible. My other new favorite show is "Operation Repo" on TRUtv (formerly CourtTV). It's about latino repo men in LA. It's pretty awesome. The episode I watched tonight featured some bad-ass chulo motherfuckers firing a gold-plated .45 semi-automatic pistol at the repo men as they towed away a '97 Tahoe. Well worth watching.

Parking Wars. Watch people get parking tickets. We really have taken a cultural overdose of sleeping pills in this country. I love it.
- posted by Mason @ 11:20 PM (0) comments

I gotted an new keysbored from kristmastime.



Made in Japan. Not Korea, not Taiwan, not China. The sounds out of this are great, and it was so well worth $4.00 at the Goodwill.






- posted by Mason @ 11:12 PM (0) comments

Peanut Butter Latte



I made a peanut butter latte today. It was pretty tasty. I also made a peanut butter cup latte (obviously I just added some chocolate). I think the PB/PB Cup Steamers I made were probably better because the coffee and peanut butter together takes a little getting used to, but overall I think it turned out well.

Here's my recipe for peanut butter syrup:

One Part [Organic] Creamy Sweetened Peanut Butter
Two Parts Simple Syrup

Add the syrup slowly to the peanut butter, stirring constantly. It's better if your syrup isn't super thick or the whole thing won't end up the right consistency. If it's still to thick when you're done, slowly add warm water (still stirring constantly) until it's right. It should be very, very smooth, and the constancy of white gravy. Thicker than Hershey's Syrup, thinner than hot fudge.

For the peanut butter cup latte, I used chocolate syrup (which I normally don't use) in a 1:2 with the peanut butter syrup.

Use this for the PB Cup Latte:

1 oz PB Syrup
.5 oz chocolate syrup
2 oz (two shots) espresso
6 oz foamed soymilk [or, if you're a bad person, whole milk]

Try it and let me know if you dig it.
- posted by Mason @ 10:44 AM (0) comments

American Life Network



My new favorite channel is the American Life Network. It's "TV for Baby Boomers and Their Kids"... well, it doesn't get any more direct than that, does it? I'm a child of a baby boomer. They show LA Law, St. Elsewhere, Hill Street Blues, Newhart, The Bob Newhart Show, Mary Tyler Moore (which I don't really like) and... wait for it... WKRP IN CINCINATTI. I'm going to start watching all of them. You know how I love WKRP. They also have some pretty lame looking original series that mostly look like bad HGTV ripoffs.

Here's the best part, you know who owns it? THE MOONIES!!!!! Yup, how baby boomer is that? It's a tax shelter for the Unification Church. I can't tell you how happy that makes me. I know it makes my dad laugh. There's nothing more my parent's generation than being a moonie. I love the fuck out of it.

So anyway, Newhart, motherfuckers, Newhart. Check your local cable guide to see if you get it.
- posted by Mason @ 10:44 AM (0) comments

HD-DVR Up in this Bitch



So we bit the bullet and upgraded to HD. It costs more money, but we have digital cable now, so that's pretty cool. We've had a few bumps with the whole thing, and some jackass has to come out and take the terminator off the switch box outside, but it'll all work out in the end. HDDVR BITCHES!
- posted by Mason @ 8:21 PM (0) comments

Sharp Dressed Fan: A 4-Track Tribute to ZZ Top


Sharp Dressed Fan: A 4-Track Tribute to ZZ Top

OK, it's done. I present to you our new EP "Sharp Dressed Fan: A 4-Track Tribute to ZZ Top" performed by The Big Black Bearded Caller. Here are the links to the 256kbps MP3 files. Let me know if you want the FLACs or if you want to give me $2 I'll mail you a cassette tape.

01-Gimmie All Your Loving
02-Doubleback
03-Cheap Sunglasses
04-Sleeping Bag
05-Tush
06-Sharp Dressed Man

(you need to right click and save to listen)

I think it's pretty obvious that I really dislike ZZ Top's music. I purposely chose not to listen to any of these songs before I recorded them. Consequently, you get a six new Moon Mission Death Squad songs that just happen to have ZZ Top lyrics. I'm pleased with it.

It's all analog up to the digital conversion. Analog synths, effects and drum machines (and guitars, obviously); analog mixer to the 4-track cassette; analog mixdown to the cassette master. No digital effects, compression, or mastering. Just ripped from cassette to FLAC to 256kbps MP3. I'm really pretty happy with the way it came out. Let me know what you think.

And yeah, this is a cross post from the Moon Mission blog... so what?

-------------------------------------------------------
The Moon Mission Death Squad hates ZZ Top
- posted by Mason @ 11:19 AM (0) comments

Issac and I went record shopping yesterday.



The Sweet are my favorite major label 70's Power Pop band. They're sort of like a low rent Queen. They're what Cheap Trick should be, but just aren't. I'll never understand why CT were so much more popular, because they're really not very good. Most Sweet albums are OOP, so I was please to find this one that I don't have.



Like Genesis? Then you like The Strawbs too. Not nearly as great as the Gen or Gentle Giant, but still pretty good. On the level of Soft Machine, but with more structured songs. Also like if the Moody Blues weren't all shitty.



I've been looking for this for a while since my dad played me a CD copy of it he checked out from the library. It's fucking great. Now I just need to find volume 1.
- posted by Mason @ 5:53 PM (0) comments

The Handsomest Man in Amerikkka


before and after haircut

I cutted all my hairs off, dad. Well, I trimmed my beard and Megan cut my hair. I certainly look much better, no? I'm much happier with the condition of my beard. I think I'm much better off from the experience of growing my beard out like a fucking crazy homeless man. It's thicker, bushier, and a zillion times more bad-ass than it was before. From now on I'm only going to cut the bottom off it instead of using clippers on the whole thing, thereby retaining the length and fullness of the top, while keeping the bottom well structured.
- posted by Mason @ 8:28 PM (0) comments

The world is coming to an end.



Ha. Ha. The Wall Street Journal has let us know that the coffee world is about to be brought to it's knees. Everything that I've been saying about Starbucks and other coffee bars using the Franke Super Automatic espresso machine is confirmed: they're crap. McDonald's is now included in that's rouge's gallery of bad java. Starting this year, the golden arch-villain will be putting espresso bars in over 14,000 locations. Yup, you'll be able to get a latte at Mickey D's. Horrifying, no? The comedy of this is that McD thinks that they'll be able to wrestle business away from (the currently very weak) Starbucks BECAUSE the green giant has oversaturated their market and devalued specialty coffee to a level that people will be willing to have drinks made by people who can't remember to leave pickles off a big mac. They intended to do this by... wait for it... FURTHER OVERSATURATING THE MARKET. That's logical, no?

I'll spare you a lengthy diatribe on the topic (I'm sure you'll hear more from me in the next year), instead, just read the article.
- posted by Mason @ 6:41 PM (0) comments

I'm cutting you all off.



Ok, so you all come in every day and you want tons and tons of extra spirulina. From now on, you can't have more than two tablespoons a day. Why, you ask? Because it's going to make all your hair fall out, your cock limp and your kidneys fail. It's called Hypervitaminosis A and it's caused by regularly ingesting more than 25,000 IU a day. That's two tablespoons. I will not be a party to you poisoning yourself. It's good to get enough vitamins and minerals. It's bad to overdose on vitamins and minerals. There are lots of other things that will hurt you when you take to much. A, B3, B6, D can all be toxic at very high levels.

You should think about eating better instead of supplementing your diet with pills and powders.
- posted by Mason @ 6:41 PM (0) comments

I Am Boring



We watched I am Legend the other night. Snore and a half. I had really high hopes for this, as I am a great fan of any and all post-apocalyptic feature films. I sure was disappointed.

If I were you I wouldn't even bother stealing this movie off of the internet. Let me sum it up for you: Will Smith has big muscles. Will Smith has a dog. Will Smith is crazy and talks to mannequins in stores. Will Smith has a lot of guns. Will Smith is afraid of the dark because that's where the zombies live. Will Smith kills himself to save the world. I was bored to tears.

I think it's really sad that people keep making such bad movies out of good Richard Matheson novels. This is the third film made of his novel "I am Legend" (fourth if you count the spanish language treat "Soya Legenda"). Heston's "The Omega Man" is pretty bad, but I've never seen "The Last Man on Earth". I'm sure it's bad too. I did like "Stir of Echoes" quite a lot, but that's because Kevin Bacon is Jesus.
- posted by Mason @ 6:41 PM (0) comments