I may have spent my Sunday off – my first day off in like three weeks – debugging UNIVAC Star Trek game code that was ported to TRS-80 Level II BASIC some decades ago. That may be a thing that happened.

(Well, I found some bugs. No, I did. One crashing! That doesn’t happen anymore. Also, now if you enter your name wrong, instead of hanging, it names you Captain Dunsel. It seemed appropriate.)

Here, have a copy of the audiocassette. Or a printout, if you’d prefer that. 16K required.

Did you know Level II BASIC’s built-in programme editor was based heavily on TECO? I feel a bit like Scarf Doctor stumbling across Shemp Doctor’s TARDIS console room and tin whistle. Or maybe it’s kind of like I spent Sunday afternoon flossing out my brain. For SCIENCE! Or something.

Scarecrow Video has been a Seattle institution for many years. It started as a video rental store – and still is one – but it was owned by the kind of crazed film fanatics who run a business primarily as a way to build the biggest collection of things imaginable. The original owner was the sort of person who would fly on an hour’s notice to former Soviet republics on the rumour that he could get a SECAM videotape copy of a particular obscure Stalinist-era Belorussian film. And half the time, he’d return with it.

Despite having one of the largest film collections in the world – possibly the largest in the world – video rental doesn’t cut it anymore, so they’re going non-profit. But that’s expensive, too, so they’re launching a Kickstarter to make it happen. Go help.

I started renting from them when they were next to J&S Phonograph Needles in Roosevelt – yes that was a store for phonograph needles it didn’t make much sense then either – and remember when they moved to the U. District, on 50th and Roosevelt. They bought out what used to be the biggest Radio Shack ever, a multistory building with its own screening lounge and everything.

This is a small fraction of their collection.

It’s pretty damn cool, and it’d be a disaster to lose such a comprehensive film collection – particularly as it is actually available to the public. Even the exotic stuff can be rented and/or screened – they have multiformat players available, too. In some cases, they have one of only three to four copies of films still in existence, and you can see it. That’s the kind of collection this is.

I’ve known one of the current owners for a long time; this project is a big deal for them, too. So go help them flip that switch to non-profit. As I write this, they’ve made 60% of goal in a day, thanks in no small part to The Onion‘s AV Club. Let’s see if we can’t get them there by tomorrow, eh?

But yeah, I’m gonna, because it’s been weeks of work and it’s done.

See, this kitchen used to be a total pit. I mean seriously.

That’s not quite point zero, that’s right after starting work, but all that meant is the appliances are out and there’s some junk on the counter, and the chemical stripper has started on the one set of cabinets.

I’ve been talking about this as I went at it on Livejournal and Tumblr, so if you want intermediate pictures go look there. I’m picking up with the last of the lighting – the same kind of tape I used in my recording studio.

I decided to build some over-the-counter lighting with angled supports, to protect the lighting tape and angle it more forward.

I had a row of those and a side-ramp angling more lighting even further forward over in one particularly dark corner.

Once assembled, this end looked kind of like a Kubrick set:

Watch Out for Monoliths

And the other end looks like a Starfleet maintenance access tunnel:

Reverse the Polarity of the Neutron Flow

But from a normal position in the room – well, mostly normal – it all combines to look a lot like this:

The fact that this former pit can have a legit glamour shot makes me very happy

Reflections in Aluminium

The Lower Cabinet

I was worried about the horizontal bar at first, connecting the two cabinets, but I’m so happy with how it worked out. Creating new trim for the right-side cabinets to match the glass-door cabinet trim seemed pretty obvious, but I wondered if the bar with no cabinet – intended for a light tape, as above – might seem a little precious. But I think it worked out.

This rig controls the whole light set, both below and above lights:

The plug is a hair-dryer style protection cutoff, leading to a 12V DC power supply, leading to an LED controller with remote pickup. The colour is 12-bit – eight levels of red, green, and blue, in any combination; I played with it until I got a warmish white that I liked.

It wouldn’t be one of my photobomb posts without, of course, panoramas! They’re tiny here, of course, so There are larger versions on Flickr, as always. The first is from the doorway, the second is from where the stove will go when it arrives on Monday.

For the first time in six weeks, I don’t have anything to do in this building tomorrow. So totally about goddamn time.

But that said, I’m really happy with how it came out. My plan had been to remove this kitchen, eventually, but, well, now… I guess it can stay. The tipoff had been the glass doors and the 1958 blue formica, which I gambled I could clean up and restore. Everything else in the room is designed around them. I think it worked.

eta: Now with appliances!

More pics here and here and here, if you’re really into restoration and cabinetry. I tend to post that stuff on Livejournal.

…were delayed at Dallas/Ft. Worth but eventually arrived in Seattle, apparently. I was in the airport, and saw this, and sure, you tell me this isn’t their luggage. I dare you.

I’ll post about GAMCON tomorrow – it was a lot of fun, thanks for everyone who came! – but today, it’s the photos from the trip back from Greenland. Large versions on Flickr, as usual.

If we did a live album of these shows, or, for that matter, of all this whole tour? This would be the album cover. Totally the cover.

Taking the High Road

Yep, it’s a desert – all these were taken from the car on the way north and west.

Westward, Ho!

I took a lot of mountain pictures, but they were all from windows and only a couple came out. But they aren’t bad:

Desert Range

Desert Range 2

Getting a decent lens flare on a phone camera isn’t easy! I didn’t even do it on purpose, it just worked out that way. I thought it was worth posting for that alone:

Arc of a Driver

I wasn’t sure whether to I took a few of these as the sun set; the colours at the edges were really interesting:

Approaching Wormhole – Confirm Destination Vector

We saw a lot of these little white plumes along fences – it wasn’t smoke, it was just some sort of vapour rise at sunset. But that’s not poetic, so I called it…

Ghosts Dancing

Yes, I was taking panoramas from a moving car. The amazing thing is that some of them actually worked!

High Tension in the Distance

I brought up the lows a bit in this shot, because it was too dark, but it’s still just dark enough to call it…

The Dark of Sunset

The sharp edges of the mountains here are so stark. I imagine trying to climb them.

The Range and Road Go On and On

But then the rendering engine decided it couldn’t keep up. Clearly I need to upgrade reality’s graphics card. Or maybe I just need a new driver. I haven’t had time to be sure.

Texture Glitch

These came out really well for being shot through a bug-splattered windshield.

Down to the River (1)

Down to the River (2)

And finally, before darkness set too far in to shoot.

Moonrise over the Desert Sunset

As work progresses on Bone Walker, the Free Court of Seattle soundtrack album, the first book in the series goes on sale for 99¢ in eBook form. That’s a thing that just happened! It’s a direct-by-author push, which is awesome. You can order a special ultra-high-resolution retina-ready PDF version from Anna if you’re into that, too.

The 99¢ sale price is good until the end of July, after which it goes back up to $4.99. YES IT’S 80% OFF RIGHT NOW. Obviously you’ll want the book that the soundtrack goes with, right? Of course you will. So go get it!

Meanwhile, book one her other series – Valor of the Healer, first of the Rebels of Adalonia series – also just went on sale for 99¢. That’s a shorter-term sale, and the price is only good until the 19th, after which it goes back up to $2.99. So go ahead and grab both. Two for less than the price of one.

Grabby hands! GRABBY HANDS!
 
 
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I’ve started a special-purpose Tumblr blog dedicated to an old newspaper I found being used as packing material at an estate sale. It’s called Seattle—July 20, 1971 (or “Let’s Read the Newspaper!”) and it’s photos of pages, ads, ephemera, and mostly-local-news articles from salvageable pages of that newspaper.

No deep meaning; just ephemera.

I won’t be crossposting that here, so if you want to follow it, go follow it separately, either on Tumblr or via its own RSS feed.

Over on Livejournal, where this post is echoed, lj:blues_kun asked:

Would you mind posting a recording of that funky thing? Also what the hell is it called?
 

…I actually have no idea what it’s called. It’s called Seven Dollar Bin. Or “that shaker with the seed pods.”

Seven Dollar Bin

But I imagine it must have some proper name. Anybody know? I don’t.

However! I can be useful in other ways. Recording? Sure thing! This is me doing several different things with it – schlumping it over in the air, turning it on its side, turning it shakers-down, shaking it, spinning it around, tipping it into (and back out of) my hand, things like that.

The weird breath-like sounds are not me. They’re the seedpods rubbing against each other. SO WEIRD. Check it.

Technical details: recorded on a single Oktava MK319 large-diaphram condenser microphone at close range so the preamp wouldn’t have to be turned up. (Neighbours were running a woodchipper and I didn’t want that included.) Recording was at 44.1Khz mono, exported dual-channel mono and encoded into a 320kbps-maxed variable-bitrate mp3, because there is no twinkie I cannot sandblast. It sounds reasonably like it did when I was playing with it, at least on my reference headset, so there you are.

Not as much time this year at Folklife as usual – no particular reason, really, other than I wanted to spend a couple of those days working on the album. But I did have a lot of fun jamming with Alouest on Sunday, doing the Quebecois trad thing. Sarah Kellington from Pinnpied made it too, and a good time was had by all.

I also picked up my customary New Noisemaker. See, I collect noisemakers. I have a whole shelf of them. Wooden train whistles, weird little rings you blow into that make sounds, bells, clackers, spoons, shakers, all sorts of toys. Sometimes they end up on other bands’s recordings!

Every year at the Folklife percussion tent, I play with what got brought this year, and see if anything makes noises I don’t already have.

So look at this crazy monster:

Is that awesome or what? It was in the discount bin for $7. The decorative bits were broken – the vertical slats originally went down further, some of the wicker wrap is missing, nothing that affects sound. So I trimmed, glued, and bound it at top and bottom – flutemaking skills, ahoy – and it’s sorted.

It makes a great, heavy, shlunk, clacky and interesting. You can also turn it to get a continuous falling-pebbles noise, and some other sounds too. People were asking me about it all day, hearing me play with it while walking around.

Normally that would be my only purchase. But not this year!

I’ve been thinking about a particular flute I didn’t buy last year for a year, which is a pretty good sign that I need to buy it. You might remember a year and a half ago or so, the abortive show trip down to Portland? One of my gear bags wandered off after our car broke down, taking with it a lot of gear and a couple of instruments, including one of my hand-built flutes, Popcorn.

Popcorn was my favourite flute, the one I carried around all the time, a bamboo D piccolo I’d make probably ten years before. I’ve never seen a flute made by anyone other than myself which sounded like it, or let me do a half-step-below-tonic trick like I could on it, and so on. I’ve been wanting to put together the flutemaking kit again ever since, to build a new one, but haven’t had time.

Well, these carbon-fibre flutes made in Oregon? They sound and act exactly like Popcorn, only with a better second octave. I can even do the half-step below tonic trick. It’s a little heavier because of the headstock, but that makes it tuneable. It’s amazing, and I’ve been wanting one since I didn’t buy one last year.

This year, Anna said “Carbony is here again, you should get that flute.” So I did.

I’m thinking of naming it “Kettlecorn.” Sound fitting, you think?

One of Zinger the Magician’s magic paper butterflies showed up at our house, somehow making its way onto a table in our TV room, all the way from the Oregon coast. I’m not even sure how. It just appeared there a few days ago. Endurance!