One of these days I’d like to meet Paul Harvey and listen to his stories about the radio days of yesteryear. I’d love to hear about the old equipment he used to record his commentaries on…even though I think I used most of it at the radio station I worked at with fellow blogger Danger Spouse in the early 90’s.
Oh how I miss the gold old days of typewriters and film and buying the newspaper and not having free porn at my fingertips. I really feel technology has gotten way out of control. Even as I type this on my comp that I bought in March of 2003, I can feel that the world has just bypassed my emachines T1842 with the 1.8 g processor and the 40g hard drive with the dial up modem.
I recently bought a laptop off ebay for work from a local guy, so I cut out the shipping fees. I try very hard not to take it out of its bag when I’m home with my sweetie. I thought about the possibility of gradually moving my files to the laptop… but in reality I really don’t do much on my home comp except write and surf the web. I recently bought the Dogs Playing Poker cd game and that took up so much memory I ultimately decided to delete it from the desktop and play cards with the doggies on the laptop instead. I also thought it was time to transfer my word files to the laptop….Off I went to Best Buy to get some recordable cd’s but of course unbeknownst to me both computers have cd roms so that was easier said then done. They also snagged me on a promotion where I get 6 free issues of Entertainment Weekly, so now I have to keep an eye on the calendar so I don’t get nailed with a full price subscription after week 7.
So, I decided to buy a digital camera to take pics for my ebay auctions. I had been using a cheapie one for the last few months… but it died an untimely death. It was the palm clix model that Amazing Savings sells for about 30 bucks. Let the buyer beware, the directions are so poorly written that if you miss a key step involving the driver installation, the camera will be beyond the point of no return. Here’s an excerpt from the well written manual that had been outsourced to who knows where…. “Via the internet, you can also send them (pictures) to your friend’s afar…(A girl I knew in college grew hair on her afar… she said it was very stylish)
Well, PC Richard had a good deal Thanksgiving week where you get the “employee discount”. I didn’t really want anything too spectacular… just a camera with MOVIE MODE AND SOUND. We saw one we liked, but decided to see what a couple of other places had on sale before we made a purchase. It was during this period that a buddy of mine called and said he wanted to get me a belated birthday/early Hannukah gift. I mentioned the camera…. And he said he would get one at Best Buy with movie mode and sound. I saw him on Wed. night, got the camera and he showed me the little holes in the speaker that are there for the microphone.
So Thanksgiving evening, my ol' pal Harmon and I are sitting on the couch watching the Cowboys lose, and we strike up a conversation about Rawhide… an infamous bar that used to be in Nyack. If you haven’t heard of it.. consider yourself deprived. They used to have an outrageous gimmick that will live in infamy, and I was only there one time in the early 90s shortly before it closed. I won’t even discuss it on this PG-13 rated blog.. but if you email me, I will fill you in on the details. So Harmon and I were reminiscing about the good old days, and my lovely wife had the new camera with her and decided to sneakily tape our happy Rawhide recap. That was when we discovered that the camera had no sound!
Y’see the Nikon Coolpix 4600 has no internal microphone, while the Coolpix 6600 does. But, it’s only when you read the manual that you discover that the 6600 and 4600 have the same shell… but the 4600 is just a bunch of holes… (insert your own joke here about my college friend’s afar) Well, back we went to Best Buy but we didn’t have a gift receipt and even though we planned to upgrade to the 6600 they basically told us to go screw ourselves. Keep in mind the original BB salesman erroneously told my buddy that the 4600 has sound.. but they didn’t seem to care. We called Nikon and they actually downplayed my desire to have sound… "Mr. Customer Service"'s answer basically was…”so what’s the big deal if you don’t have sound?” Kind of like the book…”War War What is it Good For?” Ultimately, we decided to go to PC Richard to buy a new camera with movie and sound.
The store wasn’t really crowded…kind of strange for the holiday season. The salesman was attentive and admitted when he didn’t know something. However the checkout took a year and a day… it was like buying a car. Well, now we have 2 cameras and for now everybody is happy.. Who knows how long it would have taken us to discover this had my wife not decided to pull an Allen Funt while we reminisced about one of my fave places?
So even though I yearn for the old pre techno days… I confess that I regularly edit audio and video files, upload them to my hosting site and play them back on audio video players that I embed on websites using html. Uh, doesn’t everybody else do this? As an experiment I thought about doing a podcast. If you check out Dangerspouse’s blog,(http://dangerspouse.diaryland.com/050903_52.html)
you will see a story about an alleged contest we held to see if anybody knew his name. I was reminded of this story last month when I read his posting to my first entry “The Grand Premiere”. Did such a contest really happen? Is this crazy story true? You will have to click the play button below to find out.
By the way, in order to do a legit “Podcast” I will be creating an RSS link Then the readers of this fine fine blog can get a free subscription to the broadcasts which is then automatically downloaded into your mp3 player. This may be the wave of the future for radio commentary, but I’ll sure miss the good ol’ days of radio commentators like Paul Harvey. Excuse me while I upload him into my ipod and listen to it while I shun the x-box 360 and play with my still working Sega baseball game from the mid 1990s… It’s the Mets against the Yankees and Rey Ordonez always outplays Derek Jeter!
Good Day!
Cue Announcer
Paul Harvey News and Comment… sponsored by Prune-ola - the prune granola bar for those of us in our mid 80’s who need a little extra help. Prune-ola… you’ll crap in a snap!
6 comments:
Good god, did I really sound that goofy? PLEASE tell me that was “another radio newsperson whose name was edited out to avoid legal action”. Man, how did I even get hired with a voice like that? Thankfully my pipes have deepened with age, but...jeez!
Hey Natey, cool beans! I can't believe you dredged that hoary old chestnut up. Did you aircheck ALL your mic breaks? Vain bastard. Anyway, very, very funny entry if I do say so myself. And thanks for the plug to my own worthless little niche! Hot as a pistol, baby...
By the way notey.... the "frank zrooack" who the caller mentions is actually Frank Truatt who is a big shot at WTBQ. He does the morning show there and you can see his site at www.wtbq.com/frank.html.
By the way, every morning at 830 Frank's show has commentary by....Paul Harvey.
Nate - Frank OWNS that station. I helped him move equipment and set it up when he first purchased it. It's only 15 minutes from my house, as a matter of fact. (I think a lot of Paul Harvey's bits are now actually done by his son, no?)
I don't know who does Paul Harvey's commentary to be perfectly frank.
Speaking of Frank, you live only 15 mins from his station, and you don't do a show there? Whats that all about?
He asked me to when WTBQ first went on the air, but I got a competing offer from Shadow for 5 times as much money. He understood. And now, I'm so whipped every day from working overnights that I can't even think about pulling a high-energy oldies shift in my time off. Pity, he really would be great to work for.
You sold out for the extra shekels?? Oh gee....
I know Frank would love to have you do a show... Nowadays with computerized home studios and voice tracking you could probably pack hours of pre-taped wisdom in about 60 mins. Are you tired because the hours are tough, or are you.... old?? (hee hee)
Lets send this link to Frank... Im sure he'd get a kick out of it!
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