I can’t believe it – Ozzy is going to be in Las Vegas the day I get there. Unfortunately, tickets are going for $100 to $250, at the Palms casino. Either that is a really small place, or Sharon is really screwing people over, or both. For that price, he damn well better bite the head off of something. Paul McCartney is at the MGM Grand the next night, but it’s $150-$300. I guess I like the Beatles sort of, but not that much. I think you can get the entire Beatles discography on CD for that much.
Today seems to be one of those days. I tripped over everything in the house on the way out, and then found out my headphones are shorted out or something. So I need to go buy another pair after work. I also brought a bunch of coins so I could buy some Cokes today and it turns out that one of them is actually a French Franc. I don’t even think they use those anymore, so I guess it just becomes another coin-related keepsake to throw on the shelf with my obsolete Vegas tokens, Susan B’s, and gold dollars. (And I just got a shitload of gold dollars, because the LIRR ticket machine gave me back $10.50 in change, all in coins.)
I’ve been trying to write each night, but it’s hard, with no concrete direction for this book. I had a lot of thoughts about it this morning as I was half-asleep, so I need to think about it more, develop a plan. I spent most of last night dicking around with my Korg M1 and the MIDI hookup to my computer. I found a DOS program that shows a staff of music and reads in a MIDI file and displays it. Then it plays the song and shows you what keys to play on your keyboard; a tutor of sorts. But it wouldn’t recognize my workstation, so I gave up on it and tried to get Cakewalk reinstalled correctly. It worked, but the patches were all messed up by default, and I didn’t have a spare ten weeks to sit around and rename all of the shit to work right. So you would pick Xylophone on the program, and the workstation would change to the drum patch. Or whatever. I also downloaded the free version of PowerTools and completely crashed my machine three times before I gave up on it and put everything away. I didn’t really practice or anything either. I am thinking of getting one of those $60 piano tutor packages, but I’d probably only use it twice.
My Sick Speed CD finally showed up in the mail. I should be listening to some Zappa before I go to this Project/Object tribute show tomorrow, but I’m too lazy. I think I’m going to go review some more concerts.