We’re approaching the halfway point in this year’s RPM Challenge, to record an album during the month of February, and things are progressing pretty well for me. The challenge is to record at least 10 songs or 35 minutes of material in 29 days. So far I’m up to 35:30 on 8 of my 9 intended tracks. That time will probably get reduced a bit as I master the tracks and remove some of the dead space at the ends of them, but I should still be well above 35 minutes, probably around 40.

As I’ve mentioned previously, my album is entitled Unnatural Disasters, and you can read more about it (and even hear the full in-progress tracks in streaming audio) on my album page. You can also find out more about my project on the RPM site.

As I’ve mentioned previously, I recently purchased a USB turntable, so I can finally convert some of my more obscure (and generally, as it turns out, justifiably so) vinyl to digital. For the most part this consists of things such as the Hawaii Five-0 soundtrack (probably the most digitization-worthy piece in my collection) or the long-forgotten solo albums of members of Yes from 1975.

But as I was shuffling through my LPs tonight sorting them into three groups (definitely rip, maybe rip, and not a chance in hell), I came across a most curious item. It’s a thick cardboard mailer for a 7-inch record, sent from my grandfather to my grandmother back when he was in the army. The postmark is from Camp Gruber, Oklahoma, August 11, 1944. Read more »

I make no attempts to conceal my lifelong obsession with the video games I played in my youth. My Atari 2600 and Intellivision are still hooked up to my TV, I have collected over 200 game cartridges for those systems, I own a pinball machine and an Asteroids cocktail table, I lurk in the forums at AtariAge.com, and I even have my own web site devoted to the topic.

But I can acknowledge some of the, er, pitfalls of such an obsession.

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