Todd Bradley’s Galaxy

Yahoo! News – U.S. Would Protect Iraqi Oil Fields – This quote is a hilarious understatement: Analysts have said international oil companies like Exxon Mobil, BP, and Shell would want to take part in any rehabilitation of the country’s oil industry. Yes, I’m sure they would! And I’ll bet there are a few Columbians who would like to take part in any rehabilitation of Afghanistan’s poppy industry.

WHERE’S THE SMOKING GUN? — BUSH NEEDS TO PROVIDE THE PROOF NOW! – I agree 100%

Yahoo! News – Bush Human Cloning ‘Deeply Troubling,’ Urges Ban – The White House is saying that most Americans believe human cloning is “deeply troubling.” For what it’s worth I’m one of the 17% of Americans who do favor human cloning experiments. I have a pair of cousins who are clones. Maybe that’s why I don’t get freaked out by the idea. Their names are Donna and Debbie.

Yahoo! News – Scientist Claims to Produce Human Clone – Is it true or not? Even if this one’s a hoax, as some other scientists seem to think, I’m pretty sure there will be a human clone born in the year 2003. There’s an interesting article in the latest issue of Wired about this. I’m also going to predict that the USA will, over the next 10 years, fall way behind the pack in terms of medical technology, due to our government’s policies against human stem cell and cloning research. Here’s that Wired article.

Technical Difficulties – Here’s an interesting website that sums up how I feel many days about current events

I had a hallmark moment this week. No, not a Hallmark moment, but one which I didn’t think would ever happen. You see, Scott Siders and I were working in my recording studio Monday night, getting it all set back up to start work recording the next 404 Not Found studio CD. We got enough signal path wired up to start tuning the settings on the pre-amp and compressor for the main studio mic, my Rode NT1 that lives in the Whisper Room. Well, I had Scott in there babbling away while I was tweaking knobs and I just couldn’t get things to sound like I wanted them. We tried for probably an hour, but there was always something not-quite-right. It sounded like some kind of phase cancelation problem, almost like a phaser or flanger effect, but steady with no cycle to it.

Finally, on a lark I said, “OK, let’s plug in a different mic and see how it sounds.” So we plugged in my new Shure SM58S, and it sounded just right. The weirdness we’d both been hearing before suddenly went away. I think what has happened is that we’ve been playing with the live setup so much for the past several months, that our ears got used to the way Scott’s voice sounds through an SM58 (I’ve been borrowing one from Byron for our live setup, but finally got my own – one with a switch – as a Christmas gift to myself). When we went back to the NT1, which we’d used in the studio for the past couple years, it just didn’t sound right.

So, yesterday I took down the NT1 and replaced it with the SM58S in the Whisper Room. We’ll use that as our primary voice mic from here on. I’ve read in the past about people having a strong preference of one microphone over another – and I even read somewhere that Bono (from U2) will only use Shure SM58′s even in the studio – but I have never until now experienced it for myself. And the strange thing is that the NT1 has better specs and certainly costs a lot more than the SM58. But Scott and I both like the way the SM58 sounds, so we’ll stick with that.

I also removed the boom stand and the spit screen for the NT1, and just put the SM58 on a very basic single rod mic stand in its place. It sure makes things less crowded in the Whisper Room that way. Scott said he thinks he can stand to spend all day in there now. We’ll see! We also installed a big fluorescent AC light fixture in there, to replace the tiny one that used to be in there. So now there’s a lot more light to read by.

Yahoo! News – Hundreds of Muslim Immigrants Rounded Up in Calif. – Something is seriously wrong with this

Landover Baptist: Where The Worthwhile Worship. Unsaved Unwelcome. – Wow, this is hilarious!

After playing some TFC with my 30+ buddies, I’m now re-scanning the photos from our wedding album. The first time I did it, it took me about 2 hours and then I found that the photos looked like crap. So this time, I’m scanning at higher resolution and saving as PNG files instead of JPG files. Wish me luck!

Wow, I haven’t written much here lately. Let me try to catch up on things.

Last Saturday, Beth and I went to Colorado Springs to visit some friends who have a very nice home theater. They invited us to watch the new extended version of Fellowship of the Ring. It was great. And they made lunch for us, too. On the way back home, we stopped at Pappadeaux for some seafood. As usual, I had Pepper Shrimp. By the time we got home, it had been an all day affair.

Sunday, I tried to fend off an impending cold and I went into the office to write performance reviews and catch up on other stuff. I also went to Kinko’s to user their color laser printer to make CD booklets for 404 Not Found‘s new CD “Warts and All“. The CD is officially released next Saturday, December 14.

Monday night, the band played a PG set live on KGNU 88.5 FM in Boulder. I say “PG” because Scott actually edited the words on all of the pieces that use R rated language and made them more “radio friendly”. We played what may be our best performance ever – probably even better than the one we recorded for the CD. But the songs lacked a little bit of the sparkle that the original language imparts. We’ll just have to wait and see if CD sales skyrocket based on this performance.

I decided to have lunch at my desk today, and so I’m taking off a few minutes to write this blog entry. On the lunch menu: Maruchan Instant Lunch Jalapeno Cheddar Flavor and a 7-Up and two DayQuil pills to try to clear up some of my cold symptoms.