Posts from March 2005
March 30, 2005
Tube Quest: Part 1
As if I don't have enough to do already, I'm throwing myself into another wangdoodle project. Now I'm building my own tube amp for the club. For those music geeks in the know, it's a 1959 Fender Bandmaster clone, 35W, 3 x 10" speakers, with original circuitry. It will hopefully look something like this when it's done:
So I'm learning all about how to read circuit diagrams, how to solder, how not to electrocute myself, how to test capacitor loads, and way too much about transformers and the differences between AlNiCo and ceramic speaker magnets on guitar acoustics. Fascinating stuff.
Rather than go the easy road and buy a kit with all the parts in a bag from some custom amp shop in the US, I thought it would be more meaningful to go down to the little one man parts stores littered around Taipei, drink tea and pick the tubes, capacitors, and resistors out of rows of boxes on a shelf, next to the standard issue photo of CKS. Maybe even have some guy actually roll the output transformer to my specs, and let me have a couple cranks on it as well.
All this geek stuff leaves me wondering...
I'm wondering if using local parts/transformers will really effect the sound "so drastically" like a lot of these tube geeks say.
I'm also wondering if I really have to use Sprague/Vishay Atoms for the filter caps and orange drops for the other circuitry?
And I'm really wondering if I really have to use the standard issue EI core transformer rather than maybe a toroidal transformer?
But these are things I'll never know until it's finished.
March 18, 2005
No Victoria's Secret models?
I just got off the plane from HK after a nice hang out trip with Tiffany, and almost forgot to attend my friend Matthew's Space Yoga Studio opening. Nice place, high rent, great view and healthy attractive foreign instructors who can put their chin on their toes. I promised to try one of their classes, but only if there were Victoria's Secret models there. (I think I saw that in a Seinfeld episode once)
A bunch of old entertainment buddies were there, like David Wu, David Huang, Roger Lee, and an assortment of stylishly in-people. I had to run back to the club because Peter "Bonzo" Radvanyi from Slovakia was playing a set of Dobro (the Dobro is from Slovakia) inspired blues, and had to make sure the sound was set up correctly, so I didn't get to try the vegetarian food appetizers or do the chakra aroma therapy treatment.
March 04, 2005
And the Grammy for engineering goes to...
This is bizarre and sad, and hopefully not another epilogue to Ray Charles' tough career.
March 02, 2005
I fought the hotpot and the hotpot won
It's that time of year again. It gets a bit cold and people start craving Ma La Huo Guo. So Irene goes to Wu Ji, one of the more popular ma la joints in town and orders takeout, so we can share with the staff. It wasn't really that spicy for me, but then again I was cutting it with a lot of vinegar and sesame oil, plus some suan mei juice to protect the aging stomach.
After years of eating the boil-your-innards-ma-la, you pick up some techniques to help you deal with the flame-throwing-butt-effect the next day.
Unfortunately, none of my precautionary remedies helped me deal with the burning nuclear reactor in my belly the next day when I woke up. In this case the ma la runs were just a minor inconvenience compared to how horrible my gut felt. The reaction continued to grow in my stomach until I eventually passed out on the sofa at work, dizzy from exhaustion, and weak from the lack of food and dehydration. Then it started getting bad. I kept thinking to myself, "Man this is worse than the time I ate macaroni at Swensen's and got that weird distended belly and felt like Alien was going to pop out of my innards."
Eventually one of my staff went out and bought some digestion pills for me. I took a couple packs and immediately got worse. Pretty soon I was having wild delirious waking sort of fever dreams while comatose on the sofa. Then the shivers came. Oh man. Worse than the worst 2 bottle Tequila hangover. Then the weird flu symtoms appeared. I felt like Scrooge, when the ghosts kept coming out to haunt him. Everytime my stomach erupted inside, my knees and back would ache like I got hit by a truck. Then I would do a little shake, utter something feable like "Ugh ugh uhhhh," and pass out again.
This little drama played out for 8 hours: wake, shiver, head pounding, can barely see, run to bathroom, run back, drink some water, shiver shiver, utter something incomprehensible, rub the aching joints, try to talk to belly with hands, then pass out again.
Eventually I woke up sweat drenched in a back room at my office wearing my winter jacket, under two layers of blankets, wondering what the hell happened to me.
Simple: The ma la kicked my ass this time.
I've never figured out whether it's pronounced "Moe's (like owned by one of three stooges) or Moss (like that guy out of Bonanza), but the one down the hill from me is open until 2am most days, which means that if I get out of the club early enough, I can catch the best burger in town, the muo si la bao or the Spicy Mos Burger. They have lots of jalapenos and 
