Saturday, February 23, 2013

Well, Don't Blame Me, Dammit, You Asked For It....

WARNING:   This blog does NOT contain the promised video of Lo singing.  This is simply a sort of documentary leading up to the production of same. I apologize if you are disappointed,  That ain't nothng compared to what you will be when you finally hear me sing.


Well, good people, I simply cannot believe the amount of effort, research, expenditure of energy and unprintable cussing that has come out of my attempts to satisfy your craving for the sound of my squeaky voice singing.  Worse yet, I can't believe the number of batteries it is taking.   Who'd a thunk it? 

I have discovered that this adorable little mini-camcorder, that I unearthed from the formidable pile of electronic gadgets in the corner of the spare room, has one niggling little detriment.....it appears to use up a pair of AA batts in about 2 minutes of shooting. That problem connects to another problem I have encountered, which is that, not believing that the brand new batteries I just installed 2 minutes ago could have been used up already, I spent innumerable sessions of 10 and 15 minutes each  taking things apart and rechecking all the switches, connections  and directions (which are tinier than miniscule and I am blind as a bat)  before grudgingly accepting the improbable idea that the recently new batts had, in 2 minutes, become  old and used up.  Unfortunately the camcorder does not have capability of being plugged into real Eeelectricity,so I have been left with no choice but to send my beloved caregiver to the 99cent store to pick up 15 more packages of AA's.  I hope to hell that'll do me.  (My renditions of the songs only last about 2 minutes each so that should allow for 15 attempts..........pleasegod one should be usable.)

Then, just when I thought I had run out of cuss words and the need for them, I booted up the Windows Media Player which, on occasion, has displayed a lovely kaleidoscope of color which I had planned to photograph while holding the earphone from my headset next to the camcorder mic while playing one of my experimental song files.   It's like this, see...the speakers on my laptop are puny to say the least and can hardly be heard so I have to fall back on the sound which comes out of the plugged in headphone which ain't great but is better than nothing.  This requires that I hold the earpiece of the headphone next to the mic on the camcorder to synchronize the video and sound.   What's that?......"WTF", you say........why don't I just sing into the camcorder mic while holding the camera on the pattern?    Do you really expect me to remember the lyrics and the notes of the song and do other intricate maneuvers like pushing buttons at the same time as singing almost on key?  Don't be ridiculous.......you can tell already that this is not a project that could be labelled "Easy"........not with me doing it. (If I have learned one thing during my life it is that nothing is ever EASY despite notarized statements swearing that it is, and also everything takes at least 3 times longer than they say or than you anticipate.)

No, no, no....we are not quite done yet......Now add to the above the fact that I discovered that I had forgotten how to make the kaleidoscope of colors appear while playing a tune on Windows Media Player.  For some bizarre reason the color thing  only seems to work when I have done a search of my files and located the pertinent one and clicked "play"to listen to it without directly entering or addressing directly the Windows Media Player ..  Dun't esk....I have no idea why.  That whole struggle only took about an hour of desperate attempts and wild stabbings of "play" and "stop"  before I finally happened upon the solution accidentally.  Many, many black clouds of naughty words issued forth and floated around the room during this latter period. 

There has also arisen another monstrous impediment to successful completion of this project.  I have discovered, to my surprise and horror, that I am sick unto death of the sound of my own voice!   I am not quite sure how I will manage to cope with this latest glitch........I suspect that my unbelievable,dumb  stubbornness will somehow overcome my nausea, but I will keep a bucket nearby just in case.

Well now, having said all that, you will have to excuse me while I don something of satiny pink, perhaps with an ostrich feather boa, to get in the proper mood for all this.  And, once so magnificently garbed, I may or may not be back soon. 

Don't wait up.

(But do leave the light on.)