I had some dreams ... they were klowns in my koffee.


(With apologies to Carly Simon)


This is my journey through job transition from a toxic environment to a better life. Join me for a few thoughts and a few laughs along the way.
What are "klowns in my koffee"? They are the factors large and small that make you less than you are. A "klown" can be a grossly incompetent boss,
a short-sighted policy or a moronic coworker. They won't kill you, at least not immediately, but they abrade the soul
as you scrape past them to get through the day. Sometimes it's best to dump them out of the cup.


Thursday

Day 165 - A Product Way Ahead of Its Time

Daily Kup (When Soffits Attack)
For anyone following the saga of the soffits, the wood soffit and adjoining wall and anything that didn't move were primed today. Tomorrow, I put up the channel and then nail the aluminum soffits in.

I've learned that wasps like the smell of Kilz primer and don't like when you absentmindedly slap at them, thinking that they are merely paint scrapings stuck to the skin. They take that personally. Also, a bad place to be when this happens is standing on that top ladder step that is labeled, "This is not a step."

Classical Gas
I have several different Guitar Hero games and I play them once in a while. I'm really not a Megadeth kind of gal so a trip to GH land ought to require a passport for me. In a major step in cross-generational understanding, I once impressed a Porkus coworker with my knowledge of Iron Maiden's "The Trooper" due to the three weeks that it took me to get to five stars.

The guitar's great, I was a (bad) drummer in high school so I have an advantage there, and my singing is so-so. I've wondered why they don't have Piano Hero but I realized that the way to model a keyboard for the game would be strikingly close to actually playing a keyboard. This would violate the faux music rules, so that's right out.

But have we truly exploited all the great potential mock instruments out there? Where, pray tell, is Orchestra Hero? The Wii controller could easily be used for a baton. Except for the size of the shipping carton, the shift from drum set to tympani is just a size issue. Some of the other instruments would seem to be a little harder. Cymbals could be fun; since it's largely bashing two things together perhaps the existing boxing controller could have a second purpose. String bass? Big Guitar Hero controller played vertically.

Brass might take some additional thought. Real trombone players spend a lot of time taking out the valves and pouring spit on the floor, so that's an important basic function to be modeled. There would need to be both violins and violas so that the violinists have someone to ignore.

For Orchestra Hero 5: World Sousa Tour, some planning must be done to assure that the flute player can quickly jettison her (it's a girly instrument -- James Galway be damned) flute and grab a piccolo in time to play that solo in The Stars & Stripes Forever to please the crowd and bore the living heck out of the other players.

See? What else are you going to do in your family room when 30 or 40 of your friends drop over and want to play a game?
To spark some creative genius out there, here is the first product in the new line: Bassoon Hero. Can Oboe Hero be far behind?




3 comments:

Mom said...

I'm totally up for playing the triangle man--deal me in!!!

Kim Barron said...

"See? What else are you going to do in your family room when 30 or 40 of your friends drop over and want to play a game?"

You mean, other than drive them away? ;
For those of us that can't keep time to anything, anyway.

Burning Khrome said...

I remember marching band. I could march in time or play in time, but not both at the same time.

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