Three Unrelated Points

1) Some friends are out in San Jose at a conference - but alas they have to work the "Booth". It brought back horrible memories of when I've had to work booths in the past. The "uniform" which everybody shares (one year, I swear EVERY vendor decided that Khakis and a Jean Shirt was "different" It was impossible to tell anyone apart!), the people who come by just to chat, or just to take your free thing, and never to actually BUY. The pain of your feet on the concrete floor.

I am sending "visions of softness" to them. And mentally encouraging their barkeeps to add an extra shot at the end of the day. My brain powers have that sort of influence.

2) Cute Bella thing today: After Gymnastics Class, Pamela took Bella to the Flower Show downtown where they had a good time. Bella was getting pretty tired, and Pamela asked her during the ride home - "Are you sleepy?" NO. "Are you going to take a little nap?" "NO.......... Actually yes. I am going to take a little nap". And immediately closed her eyes and was out COLD.

I was reminded of a quote of Timmy P's I heard related once by his Roommate the legendary Greg Neuhaus - after a long night of studying, he closed his book and said to no one in particular "Sleep... my mind welcomes it" and dropped off.

3) I have lust in my heart for a keyboard: The Poly Evolver by Dave Smith Instruments. But it's MIGHTY expensive, and pretty limited - but it has beautiful knobs and lights and it sounds VERY big. And Dave Smith signs each one, and he's the inventor of the Prophet 5, which was a classic from 1977.

He was interviewed about being a hardware maker in the age of software synths (In truth, my entire setup is software running on a G5, and I love it). He said that in 10 years, all that software won't work (the manufacturers will have likely moved on - and that's probably true), but his keyboards will keep on working. And in 10 years, you'll have something to SELL if you need. And that's true - I've thrown away old software (Unity DS1 anyone?) that was unsupported.

I thought that was pretty persuasive... but then I realized - his keyboard costs $2600. Used they already go for $1900. So it loses $700 in value immediately. A software version of his Prophet 5 costs $300 new, and even if it just STOPS WORKING in 5 years, it costs less than HALF of the first year depreciation on an actual piece of hardware.

So then I decided that software is ok anyway. Even if I need to buy a new version every 3-4 years, I think it's not a losing proposition. It's more like LEASING sound. And that's my economics article for the day.