I’ve decided that now is the time for me to run for President and below is my first campaign commercial. Please donate to the Elect Eric Kauschen campaign to the right.
Elect Eric Kauschen
I’m Eric Kauschen, and I approve of this message.

I just read today that one of the people who made me want to do voiceover work has died and you probably don’t know his name, but you know his voice. That man is Don LaFontaine. Pretty much every big movie has had him voicing the trailer usually starting with, “In a world…” He wrote that line in the 60’s as a way to transport the viewer into the experience. He also knew how funny it was if he talked like that everyday and people who interviewed him often got him to do that just for the laughs.

While they didn’t say what he died of it must have been coming along for a long time since he had been working from his home studio for a number of years, but I guess when you’re, “that guy from the movies” you don’t have to leave home to go to work. He was said to do 50-70 voiceovers a day and his fax machine was running off the hook. While that’s a little more work in a day than I’d like to have, he probably had his act down to the point that it was easy. Check out youtube for some of his more fun bits.

“In a world, where bloggers sit in darkness with nothing more than their computers and a pair of underwear that should have been washed a week ago.”

Enjoy!

I know you’re all thinking about when I’m going to start taking about audio again and trust me, I’m working on another post regarding that, but for now indulge me in a little bit of a rant.

The company I work for is, like everyone else [and especially in San Francisco] going green. We found a company call Zipcar that rents out cars by the hour. So far, I have to say they’ve been great and I’m using them quite frequently. When we call a messenger and they say it’ll cost us $18 for a two hour turnaround I run and get a zipcar and deliver it immediately for $8/hour. They even include a gas card so if the car is low on gas you can refill it without spending a cent out of your wallet [except I have yet to find one in their Volvo S40's].

Sounds pretty cool right? Well, not exactly. I took a client to Chinatown in a nice little bright red Mini Cooper. Parked it nice and neatly and when we returned discovered that someone had most likely backed into the front of the car and hooked their bumper which when they drove out of the spot ripped the front bumper halfway off. No problem, you just call Zipcar because you’re also covered by their insurance when you rent a car. Gee, this is sounding nice…[cue up music of doom]…Since there was no one else to go after it turns out I am the one at fault and am now responsible for up to $500 in the deductible. Well, not me, but my company, but still you get the point. Adding insult to injury, they also have suspended my account until they can sort through this. Sounds like a bit of rip off, but I can understand they need to cover their ass and this is precisely why I carry no-fault insurance on my own car.

From a green standpoint I like they way they operate as it saves me gas, parking and wear and tear on my car even if I only have to drive 7 miles to work, but the parking alone in downtown San Francisco is between $17-25/day. I’m also not burning any gas or adding to the carbon output by driving to and from work, but I really think Zipcar needs to rethink their insurance standards.

Who’d thunk it, but a recent study done at Texas A&M university has discovered that watermelon relaxes blood vessels just like Viagra. The article seems to infer that now we’ll have bioscientists trying to develop new strains with more lycopene, the secret ingredient.

Texas A&M University (2008, July 1). Watermelon May Have Viagra-effect.ScienceDaily. Retrieved July 6, 2008, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080630165707.htm

Yep, we have a sponsor now. Believe it or not, Adam & Eve the world’s oldest and largest sex toy company and Vibe Reviews are now our sponsors. We’ll be able to offer the readers of this blog great discounts on all your products for more fun in the bedroom. What does this have to do with audio? Nothing. Tech? Check out the site because they have some of the most hi tech toys you’ll ever see. Click on the links to the left and check it out for yourself.

Maybe this should be under general, but I classified it as audio because it involves a song I recorded a couple of years ago. I heard a song by the band Pop will eat itself called, “Ich bin ein Auslander.” It translates to “I’m a foreigner” or “I’m an outsider.” I liked the song, but felt it wasn’t angry enough and re-recorded the song with a heavier industrialized sound. After listening to it the other day it made me realize how with the political campaigns getting messy, the war in Iraq and how it seems like everyone outside the U.S. doesn’t like us anymore that it’s become a song that signifies the current state of affairs in the world.

Give it a listen. 

Everyone tech seems to know about Skype. But if you aren’t aware of it then let me clue you in. It’s a VoIP piece of software that let’s you make phone calls through your computer to landlines all over the world from as low as 2.3¢ a minute. If they also use Skype it’s free. I personally run my business using a Skype In phone number that linked with Skype Pro lets me call anywhere in the US or Canada for free (at about $3 a month). The problem is that you need something decent to hear and talk through. With my new iMac that’s no problem. The sound quality of the built in mic and output through my 600 watt Hafler amp to the Tannoy speakers is great, but you kind of sound like you’re on a speaker phone. So what do you do? I purchased an Ipevo Free.2 Phone for $34.95. I was skeptical about “skype phones” at first so instead of shelling out a huge amount of money I went cheap. This phone is great. It’s something we’re all used to using and it just plugs into a USB port. I bring it to work to make calls because it actually sounds better than my work phone. I’ve hardly ever had a problem with my DSL line going down so I’ve ended up downgrading my landline service because my cell phone covers the rest pretty good. If you’re looking for a new toy, I’d recommend you try this one out. The black version is kind of stylish and if we can get Skype to let us send and receive faxes somehow it would make it great for small businesses. 

It’s 6am. I’m up early because I couldn’t sleep. So I walk into the studio and warm up the computer and see a headline that Jeff Healey has died. Death sucks, but in this case it sucks even more. Jeff Healey was a guitarist who had a weird cancer that attacked his eyes and made him blind. This happened at an early age and for some reason he decided to learn how to play the guitar. He didn’t learn the play the guitar in a conventional way though he played it by laying it down on his lap and playing it kind of in a pedal steel way, but  he placed his fingers over the top of the guitar neck instead of under the guitar neck like most people do it.Jeff wasn’t really well known, but he did make a hit with the song “Angel eyes” in 1989. His playing was really unique. It was bluesey, but different because of the way he played the guitar. I read the story of his life as it ended and I shed a tear. Jeff Healey was a great musician that got little attention.

RIP 

check him out on you tube

I know, I know. This is supposed to be about audio and technology. Why are you talking about politics?!?!?! Well, I don’t have anywhere else to put this so I’ll just say it here. I was thinking about the close race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and I have a couple of idea. One is the way I see it should go and the other is a what if kind of thing. So here they are.

The way I think it should go.

I think Hillary Clinton should get the nomination for President and she should choose Obama as her VP running mate. Why? Hillary has done her time and Obama hasn’t yet. Add to that this team would crush the McCain “juggernaut”. OK, calling McCain a juggernaut is a little overstepping the bounds, but this race has really been looking at 3 people and super Tuesday has proved that. It’s all about Clinton, Obama and McCain. Putting Clinton’s experience next to Obama’s inspirational speeches and there is no way the Republicans could possibly compete with that. I don’t think they could do this the other way around. While Obama could be nominated, Clinton could not accept the VP running mate simply because her time in office would make it look like a step down to America. Now let’s take a look at an interesting “what if.”

What if

Clinton or Obama gets the nomination and does not have the other as a running mate. During the actual voting because it was a close race for the democratic nomination some of the voters who wanted whichever person (meaning Clinton or Obama) was not selected writes in for the other democrat. This could cause no one to get the requisite number of electoral votes and cause a run off between the two highest. What if it turned out that the two in the run off were Clinton and Obama? This would cause a major hit to the Republican party that might just put the final nail in the coffin of a political party that people have been saying for years is on it’s way out.

Just think about that for a moment.
Eric
-30-



Yep, it had to happen. I have a bit of extra time at work lately and need something to fill it so I’ve been looking through digg for interesting news stories and bits of info. I learn a lot, but unfortunately, I’ve learned something I wish I didn’t have to.

Digg has been infiltrated lately by spammers. Not really bad spammers, but small companies who are using the digg community to advertise to by posting diggs. This is a bummer because that means there’s more crap you have to wade through to get to the good stuff. Yes, there’s someone reviewing and dumping a lot of it, but there is still some that gets through and they need to work harder.

Eric
-30-

Oh, by the way: