Weekly Rice Update
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Build your vocabulary, feed the hungry...
23,753,890,690 grains donated at this point!
Do you listen to the "Doctor Blogstein Radio Happy Hour"? Did you listen this past Tuesday? If you did, then you heard the following before the rest of the country heard it on the show "Hardball" on MSNBC...
It also made the NY Post:
March 20, 2008 -- SEN. Hillary Clinton has an unwanted backer in her race for the presidency - Dennis Hof, owner of Nevada's Moonlight Bunny Ranch brothel.
On Internet radio show "Dr. Blogstein's Radio Happy Hour," Hof said, "It's amazing to me that there is one woman in America who would not vote for her. Whether you like Hillary or not, this is going to change the women's movement in America."
A man who runs a whorehouse must know how much the women's movement needs changing. We wondered if Clinton would distance herself from Hof the way Sen. Barack Obama stiff-armed Louis Farrakhan, but her people didn't reply. Source: New York Post
Breaking News, Breaking Laughs, but never Breaking Wind..."Doctor Blogstein's Radio Happy Hour"...
Had a good weekend. Saturday we went and watched a high school baseball game during the day and then later that evening watched two more games. Weather was nice, though it got awful chilly at night.
Congrats to Ernie for his HS team's win and to Peter for the sweep of his team's doubleheader.
Sunday evening we had Easter dinner with darlin' Nancy and the boys. Yummy ham and green beans and deviled eggs and mashed yams with marshmallows...
When we were not watching baseball or having dinner, we had on March Madness...We went 37-11 for the first two rounds of March madness. Out of the 8 games in the Sweet 16 we already have two loses with Duke and Georgetown biting the big one over the weekend. All four of our final teams are still playing, so that is a good thing.
We are in 4th place out of 69 in the HS Baseball team pool. First and second are the same guy and there are two of us tied for fourth. Over on cbs sportsline, the scoring is a little kookie, as both the guy in first and myself both have 37 wins. It is based upon wins and the seeding of the teams that win.
He has already lost three teams in the Sweet 16, so if we do well next weekend, we could move up easily.
We also spent our time beginning the digitization of the vinyl. We are going in order for the most part, am planning on skipping a tad since we are expected to bring the soundtrack down to the TKE Party in Tampa in a few weeks.
This whole process is real interesting. The software program is called Audacity and it really does the job.
Our vinyl is in pretty good shape for the most part, but by nature there is some noise and a few click and pops, and Audacity removes a great deal of it.
Above you see the beginning of the REMOVE NOISE process. Before starting you take a reading on a spot where there is no music.
The beginning of the track you see the thin line. That is our baseline for noise. The Audacity pulls out all that noise.
Close up of the noise at the beginning of that track.
After being 'cleaned' - you can adjust sensitivity,
but have to be careful removing too much noise, it impacts the sound quality.
You can also, record a 33 1/3 album at 45rpm and then Audacity converts it back and does so very well. This is helpful when we got into it and wanted to get the music digitized. You get 10 minutes of music recorded in 7 minutes. For one album, no big deal - but when you are doing 10 - 11 albums it can save over an hour of recording time.
What a final side of music looks like after having noise removed - there are three songs there. Removing 'clicks and pops', adjusting the speed and "normalizing the volume. This is also a great feature, as it makes all the audio in the same volume range at it's highs and lows, no matter what volume you record it at.
So, we got the Aerosmith done and much of The Allman Brothers...and then jumped to grab you a classic and to let you hear the raw and refined audio.
W scooped up on of our 45's. It was BLOOD SWEAT & TEARS "Spinning Wheel". The 45 is probably 15 - 20 years old.
The first file is the raw file. We just recorded it right into the iMac and did not make any adjustments.
This file, we removed noise, removed clicks and pops, normalized and added the bass boost.
Finally, this is a version off of a CD we owned...
Can you hear the difference? It is hard to tell without having a turntable right there and playing the original vinyl, but we think the final product is much closer to the warmth of vinyl than is the manufacturer digitized version you would get on a CD.
Congrats to Ernie for his HS team's win and to Peter for the sweep of his team's doubleheader.
Sunday evening we had Easter dinner with darlin' Nancy and the boys. Yummy ham and green beans and deviled eggs and mashed yams with marshmallows...
When we were not watching baseball or having dinner, we had on March Madness...We went 37-11 for the first two rounds of March madness. Out of the 8 games in the Sweet 16 we already have two loses with Duke and Georgetown biting the big one over the weekend. All four of our final teams are still playing, so that is a good thing.
We are in 4th place out of 69 in the HS Baseball team pool. First and second are the same guy and there are two of us tied for fourth. Over on cbs sportsline, the scoring is a little kookie, as both the guy in first and myself both have 37 wins. It is based upon wins and the seeding of the teams that win.
He has already lost three teams in the Sweet 16, so if we do well next weekend, we could move up easily.
We also spent our time beginning the digitization of the vinyl. We are going in order for the most part, am planning on skipping a tad since we are expected to bring the soundtrack down to the TKE Party in Tampa in a few weeks.
This whole process is real interesting. The software program is called Audacity and it really does the job.
Our vinyl is in pretty good shape for the most part, but by nature there is some noise and a few click and pops, and Audacity removes a great deal of it.
Above you see the beginning of the REMOVE NOISE process. Before starting you take a reading on a spot where there is no music.The beginning of the track you see the thin line. That is our baseline for noise. The Audacity pulls out all that noise.
Close up of the noise at the beginning of that track.
After being 'cleaned' - you can adjust sensitivity,but have to be careful removing too much noise, it impacts the sound quality.
You can also, record a 33 1/3 album at 45rpm and then Audacity converts it back and does so very well. This is helpful when we got into it and wanted to get the music digitized. You get 10 minutes of music recorded in 7 minutes. For one album, no big deal - but when you are doing 10 - 11 albums it can save over an hour of recording time.
What a final side of music looks like after having noise removed - there are three songs there. Removing 'clicks and pops', adjusting the speed and "normalizing the volume. This is also a great feature, as it makes all the audio in the same volume range at it's highs and lows, no matter what volume you record it at.So, we got the Aerosmith done and much of The Allman Brothers...and then jumped to grab you a classic and to let you hear the raw and refined audio.
W scooped up on of our 45's. It was BLOOD SWEAT & TEARS "Spinning Wheel". The 45 is probably 15 - 20 years old.
The first file is the raw file. We just recorded it right into the iMac and did not make any adjustments.
This file, we removed noise, removed clicks and pops, normalized and added the bass boost.
Finally, this is a version off of a CD we owned...
Can you hear the difference? It is hard to tell without having a turntable right there and playing the original vinyl, but we think the final product is much closer to the warmth of vinyl than is the manufacturer digitized version you would get on a CD.
Yeah, you can tell the difference in the sound quality. That's really cool. I'm looking forward to that when I finally get to my vinyl conversion.
I think once the tournament is over I'll be spending my weekends getting through the rest of my cassettes.
Oh...I ended up with 30 winners out of 48 games. Three of my four picks to go to the Final Four are still in it - UNC, Wisconsin, and UCLA.
So glad you had a wonderful Easter weekend...oh and
GO TIGERS GO!!!!
I'm gonna be able to say...."Dr Blogstein...I knew him when..."
Glad you and Nancy enjoyed your Easter!
I haven't tallied my wins/losses - I'm still mourning.
*sigh*
The Tourney games were AWESOME today
Audacity and I are trying to become friends--that's the program I am using doing duets for Fab's show.
Glad you had a nice weekend sugar.
I gotta come back a listen to this. BS&T were among my favorite groups in the late sixties. I actually preferred them over Chicago at the time. Once they lost John Clayton Thomas, it was all down hill from there.
Your weekend sounded wonderful. Glad you enjoyed it.
What's a vinyl conversion? Did you learn that in church on Easter Sunday? Covering the sofa? What??! What??!
TRAVIS: It does take a bit of time with each album, but the results are fantastic...37-11 for me
DIXIE: Hope your Easter was fantastic also Sugarbaby
KATHERINE: HEY! It was me that asked the big question!!!!! HEHEHEHEH
SONGBIRD: mourning? Indiana? Arizona? fess up
TURNBABY: The games were fantastic... so is Audacity...hope your weekend was wonderful
DRILLERAA: I also liked them more than Chicago until JCT moved on
MIMI: It was wonderful, thanks...It is sort of like pods taking over the world...LOL
My bad, it was David Clayton Thomas. I have no idea what I was thinking when I typed that. I guess that's why my blog is called BrainFreeze. Mine freezes up on a regular basis.
Sounds like you've got the predictions for March Madness going well. Best of luck.
And that's outstanding quality on your digitization work. I've used Audacity for some projects before, and I've been pleased with it.
I'm glad you had a wonderful Easter with Nancy and the boys Bond... and the patience you have with the music is amazing!
And while I lament the loss of UofA (sorta) from the tournament, I'm majorly bummed that all FOUR teams from Hoosierland have been defeated.
Crap.
Glad you had a nice weekend.
and... LOL at Mimi's comment! *giggle* "conversion" *giggle*
DRILLERAA: All hell... the memory is the first thing to go they say! LOL
RWA: We will see...I am never really any good at MM...Thanks...first time using Audacity and I love it
TUG: We did enjoy and patience is needed when digitizing over 1,000 albums and as many 45's and then we get into the cassettes
SONGBIRD: Poor baby...c'mere and let me calm you down...
ANNDI: I did..thanks
My 13 year old Mini-Me has missed only one game in the tournament. WTF? Cheers Vinny!!
That's right--that was Vinny Bond asking the hard-hitting question! He's the Mike Wallace of the Radio Happy Hour.
But Vinnie is much better looking!
The Longhorns almost lost their Mojo but pulled it out.Hook'em!
MATT-MAN: Truly WTF...and next year he can do my bracket
DOC: At least you did not call me the Katie Couric of the RHH
KB: Smooch dear
Hope your Easter was great!!
Thanks for the comparison. What a great tool to have.
Side note. There was a rock band named "The Moma's Boys" who had an album that came out in 1985? It was loud head banging big hair 80's rock. Ever heard of them?
I remember having the cassette, but have long since lost it, I can't seen to be able to track it down anywhere either. Being the musical guru that you are I thought you might have some ideas.
Pardon the non post related question.
Never breaking wind? That doesn't sound like a very fun show!
My dad uses Audacity - I never could get it to work right. But I'll try again!