Compare & Contrast ~ Luthiery Laboratories

September 12, 2020

Compare & Contrast

September 12, 2020

What is that skinny white guy doing in Bruno Mars' video?

He's not doing it here, but Bruno Mars can play pretty much any instrument you throw at him. He's like an even-smaller version of Prince.

( turn on the subtitles )

How come people don't spontaneously tap dance any more? There was a time when the big stars in Hollywood were triple-threats - sing, dance, and act. How many Hollywood stars can do even one of those things nowadays?

The willowy brunette that is in every other scene is Eleanor Powell. And a sharp eye will spot James Cagney several times - Hollywood's go-to villain was a song-and-dance guy at heart.

Tim Akers & The Smoking Section
This is what Nashville session musicians get up to in their spare time.

Music, 09/12/20

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Music

No, not my music. I don't play much any more. I spend more time with the band saw than the band.

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September 21, 2020

Zooey & Dusty

September 21, 2020

Hollywood and the music industry are not totally bereft of talent today. Here is actress Zooey Deschanel and her musical partner M Ward doing a wonderful rendition of Dusty Springfield's 1964 Stay Awhile:

Deschanel has a very nice singing voice. And while she's not Eleanor Powell or Ann Miller, she competently dances her way through a clever and stylish video. I can't speak for her acting, the only thing I've seen her in is The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy; the rock I live under gets very bad TV reception. She was good in that though, so I'll give her all three - sing, dance, act.

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September 17, 2020

Really Bad Programming

September 17, 2020

Audiovox 736 Replica Bass

Audiovox Gibson-style Bass

Audiovox Gibson-style Guitar

Audiovox Strat-style Guitar

Audiovox 12-string Guitar

Audiovox Danelectro-style Bass

Audiovox Fretless Bass

Audiovox Ukulele Bass

Audiovox Mandolin

Audiovox Electric Upright Bass

The new slideshow

A while ago, I took a look at the database tables, and realized that about half of the database was due to the slideshow plugin MetaSlider. MetaSlider crapped out thousands of entries across multiple tables. What bothers me is not so much the waste of storage space as the incredible inefficiency of having to retrieve all of that bit by bit from the database server. I did my best to minimize that kind of inefficiency, while the writers of MetaSlider did the opposite. In computer programming, more is almost never better.

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