Cranberry Pear Frangipani Pie

I saw a recipe for Cranberry Pear Frangipani Pie in my local newspaper and decided to make it for Thanksgiving. You can google for the recipe--it's from the Associated Press, so it's everywhere on line.

It's pretty easy to make, except I don't have a food processor, so it was hard mixing in the almond paste by hand. I took a knife and was doing my best impersonation of a food processor, jabbing at it furiously. Needless to say my arm got real tired.

The ingredients are fresh cranberries, sugar, raw pie shell, almond paste, butter, canned pears, and a little flour. I think it would be a nice variation if you used peaches instead of pears. I was pretty careful about following the recipe exactly, but I ended up with more mixture than needed to fill the 9" pie shell, so I filled up another pie shell about half way.

Anyway, when I pulled it out of the oven, it didn't look like the picture they had in newspaper, but it was still pretty tasty. A nice, light dessert.

Who Would Steal a Nickel?

About once a year I make a donation to Food for the Poor, and because of that I am inundated with mail asking for donations just about every week. I think they would save a lot of money if they would stop all these mailings.

Anyway, today I got another gimmicky mailing from them with a nickel pasted inside a window saying, "redeem this nickel and save the world" or something--only the nickel was missing. It wasn't loose inside the envelope either. Someone had busted the plastic window in the envelope and stolen it. Who in the world would stoop so low as to steal a nickel from a charity mailing?

On the bright side, Achoo Bwooit! is already listed on iTunes! They are super fast. I'm a die hard PC/Windows user, but you have to give props to Steve Jobs for what he has done for independent musicians by opening up iTunes to include acts beyond the major record labels.

Update 12/3/2009: I got worked up over nothing. The nickel was at the bottom of my mailbox, ha ha!

Achoo Bwooit is now on CDBaby and Losertown Website Revamped!

Achoo Bwooit! is now available for download on CDBaby! And, after a sloppy upload with lots of mistakes, the new Losertown website is finally up!

If everybody in the United States would just download one mp3, I'll be set!

Losertown Website Overhaul

I have finally gotten around to overhauling the Losertown website in anticipation of the release of Achoo Bwooit! But you know, I really hate doing it. It's not that it's difficult--I'm using a modified template by Andreas Viklund--but it's tedious. I used to do this kind of thing for work and now I remember why I got so sick of it. I'm hoping everything will be done and uploaded next week.

The Achoo Bwooit! CD was delivered to CDBaby last week. I know it takes them some time to rip it and deliver it to the various download stores like iTunes, but I hope they can at least set it up quickly for their own download store.

BitBridge for VST Plugins only

Well, I did a little more research and it turns out the 64 bit to 32 bit BitBridge in Sonar only works for VST plugins--not DirectX, so that rules out using the Timeworks CompressorX in 64 bit Windows. That's a shame. I really love that compressor plugin.

Eventually though I really want to move to a 64bit platform. I need to learn how to use the other plugins in Sonar. Now that Achoo Bwooit! is done, I have the time to play around with that. But first, I need to overhaul the Losertown website. I've been putting that off for two years now.

People are Stupid

You know, I'm just as dumb as the next guy, but sometimes you meet people who are so stupid it just makes your blood boil. Why do these idiot teenagers at McDonalds always ask you if you want your Monopoly game piece? Sure, the chances of winning might be really low, but who would give that chance away? The idea of that is so stupid to me--"Okay, you can have my chance at winning thousands of dollars! Here you go!"

Why is it so hard for people to follow directions? When I was a kid, my teachers use to always yell at us because we couldn't follow directions, but at least we had an excuse--we were kids! Have you ever stood behind a stupid person at the ATM? It takes him a million years trying to get cash out. Or watch a stupid person trying to scan his groceries at the self service line at the local food store.

Sometimes it's hard to tell if the person is stupid or just a gigantic a--hole. Suppose you had a booth, and in front is a table with a sign, "One Free t-shirt for every patron!" There's always some guy who will do this:

Can I take more than one t-shirt?

No, one t-shirt per person.

Can I take one now, then come back later and take another?

No, it's one t-shirt per person.

If I take two, is there anyone to stop me? I mean, I don't see anyone. Basically, you say I can only have one t-shirt, but I want two. So how can I get around this?

Seriously, this kind of exchange happens to me all the time.

The other day I was at the gas station and this guy was taking his sweet time pumping gas. He was finished, but instead of leaving, he goes into the trunk of his car, pulls out this little squeegee and starts cleaning the inside windows of his car. Never mind the line of cars waiting for their turn at the gas pump. What kind of person does this?

Sonic Timeworks CompressorX

This plugin came with Sonar 2.0 and I still use it with Sonar 6.0. It's absolutely fantastic. That's the main reason why I haven't moved my DAW to 64bit--I'm afraid it won't work anymore. I think Sonar has that 64 bit bridge for 32 bit plugins, but I'm afraid to test it out.

I used to use this freebie plugin for final mastering, but I often ended up with mixes that were a little boomy. I probably had the settings wrong. I'm real stupid with settings. They confuse me because I be stupid.

But with the CompressorX plugin it's easy to get a good sound. It comes out clean and loud. I used it for compressing/limiting all the tracks in Achoo Bwooit! I know they always say you shouldn't master your own stuff, but for this I said what the hell. It's meant to be a digital only release, and I didn't feel like spending money to master it. It's funny, I sent the first CDs out to be mastered when I had less money, but now that I have more discretionary income, I'm cheaper--er, I mean, more frugal than ever. Maybe that's just what happens when you get older!