One problem… I’ll need a band.

Details, details.

The big news today on the front page of CNN.com is that Michael Jackson had lethal levels of some sort of drugs in his system.

Gee really? Ya think that’s why he died?

I felt sorry for the guy really.  He never had the chance to be a kid when he grew up.  He was thrown right into the spotlight and had to perform and tour at a very young age.  Later in life he tried to be a kid, but had the hormones of an adult.  Not a good combination.

He owned the rights to the Beatles and married Elvis’ daughter.  He really tried to be the King of Pop and whatever else he could.  Then he died, apparently just like Elvis, via a prescription drug overdose.  You have to wonder if that was actually his plan.

I for one am glad that chapter of the freak show is over.

A couple of posts back I said I’d be reflecting on the hell project of 2008, since it was done.

It isn’t.

Unfortunately my new vendor who was doing the replication (two of my old ones went out of business in this economy) screwed the pooch. I’m now waiting for the client to supply me with some samples of the screwed up discs to verify what happened so I can get it fixed.

I can’t write the closing chapter on “Hell Project ’08″ since “Hell Project ’08″ is now alive and well in ’09.

Reading CNET news today I saw this quote under an image:

Palm CEO Ed Colligan is more worried about the Pre launch then a looming patent war with Apple.

I saw this one in a kid’s book:

Fact can be stranger then fiction.

When I was on vacation last summer in LA, there was a booth on the pier at the beach advertising tickets to a TV show which pitted adults against fifth graders in a Jeopardy like contest:

Are you smarter then a 5th grader?

Yes I’m smarter, and then I’m a 5th grader…  And apparently the people who did your PR aren’t smarter “then” 5th graders either.

This really sucks.  Let’s say you need to delete 10, 100, 1000, or even 2800 markers from a project like I had to once.  That means individually selecting 2800 markers then pulling down a menu 2800 times?  No f’n way!  That is at least 5800 mouse clicks and a case of tedinitis waiting to happen.

To be clear, there is a “clear all markers” in ProTools.  But in this particular project I had over 3000 markers, 2800 of which needed to be deleted.

I’ve got the book edited and now I need to get rid of most of the 3000 markers and put new ones in. So about 2800 of the markers need to be deleted. Should be easy, right? Just select a marker, hold down the shift key, then select the end of the group you want to delete….right? WRONG.  Click and hold your mouse, then drag across the markers then?  NO.  You can’t select multiple markers in ProTools. You can delete ALL the markers, but you can’t say select 30 of them and delete them, leaving the rest.

I have the choice of deleting all 3000 markers, and losing the 200 I want to keep. Or I can delete 2800 markers, one at a time. Oh you can’t just hit the delete key when you have a marker selected either. You have to select the marker, then use a pull down menu to select “clear marker.” This process would take me close to 10,000 mouse clicks on this project. Is digidesign willing to pay my doctor bill for ligament damage which I’ll incur from clicking my mouse so many times?

See Why ProTools Sucks #9…

I guess when rock & roll musicians get older they lose their edge? Or as my friend Matt theorizes, perhaps Robert Patrick being “clean” had something to do with it.

I still like the album, but I was hoping for another ball crushing release.

Problem

He was to come and sit in on the mix for 30 minutes to do a few tweaks. That 30 minutes ended up being over 4.5 hours. It never ends. Once again I pay in the ass for my big mistake of taking a flat fee. I don’t think I can forgive myself for that huge blunder. I never would have done that back in my full time engineering days.