Baskin Robbins is offering a free cone to expectant mothers. Seriously.

I wonder if they'll pay the costs associated with my nine year-old getting pregnant to get her free cone?

And how do I, as a male, participate?

Bad move, BR. Bad move.

EDIT: "Sheri" (she wouldn't give me any more identification than that) in "Dunkin Brands Consumer Care" told me that anyone who goes in and asks for a free cone should not be denied one.

Doesn't change the fact that this promotion is insulting to men and women who cannot conceive, have chosen to not have children, or adopt.

I think I'll stick with Cold Stone.

I invite people to call - 800-859-5339

As if you needed more proof that I'm a complete geek. My last two breaks from my aircheck on September 27th, 1988. 96.1FM KSLY, San Luis Obispo, California.

http://audio.amblermedia.com/aircheck3.mp3

Can you tell that I got just a little better between 1986 and 1988? :-)

It's strange fun to listen to these...

http://audio.amblermedia.com/Aircheck2.mp3 wherein I lose my mind.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you that great radio icon, Chris James, on 99.1 KXFM as heard in... um... 1986 if I recall correctly. I'd been promoted to on-air about three weeks before this air check was made.

Holy crap. I can't believe I'm letting you hear this. Cut me some slack, I was young and needed the money. But you do get to hear the very first piece of studio production I ever did - at 2am during this aircheck we had the daylight savings time switchover, and I'd prepared a little bit of production to announce it. Remember, this was 1986, and I did it using recording tape, a razor blade and sticky tape. No computers.

http://audio.amblermedia.com/aircheck1.mp3

(sorry about the tape dropout in the middle there)

CONTEST! Whomever can name the most songs (include artist and title) from this aircheck wins. Some of them are less than a couple seconds, but a couple of them I give away.

I'll give away a prize. I don't know what yet (someone suggest a good prize)

Damn, I was a dork. But those were good times...

So we did an encore, which was basically putzing around after the show was over. This was a bunch of sequences we happened to have stored up that we chose to plunk out, live. It sucks. Badly.

http://audio.amblermedia.com/04-Equinoxe-Live.mp3

We actually said to the audience, "Name a song that all of us will know, and we'll play it, unrehearsed and quite badly."

Someone shouted out, "Beethoven's Ninth Symphony!" ... and after about 60 seconds of flipping switches and pressing buttons, we did this:

http://audio.amblermedia.com/05-Equinoxe-Live.mp3

Part way through, someone shouted out, "When the saints go marching in," so we threw that in there. Then someone said, "I've been working on the railroad." People are idiots. So were we.

Clearly that sucked, too.

But it was a lot of fun, and nobody had heard of Ross Geller in 1992, had they? Or had they...

Our finale.

http://audio.amblermedia.com/03-Equinoxe-Live.mp3

(we did one encore, I'll be sampling it after lunch)

Okay, here's track two.

25.8MB, just under 19 minutes. There are two main themes in this one. We played this set after a short break. The first theme is somewhat reminiscent of Tangerine Dream in their Green Desert or Logos period. If you really want to know what was on my mind when I wrote this, listen to the lead electric piano/vibes sound and remember the scene in "Revenge of the Nerds" in the moon room when the head nerd finally gets the girl. All you kids of the 80's now have the big grin, I'm sure.

The second theme was written by Steve Seidman and, to this day, I still think that if it were properly cleaned up, it would have been perfect as a theme for a television show (the part that starts around 16:40 or so), some cheesy early-90's detective show or something. Pure cheese.

http://audio.amblermedia.com/02-Equinoxe-Live.mp3

Notes: small tape dropout around 3:45. Sorry.

Okay, here it is. Again, the caveats - this was, if I recall correctly, 1992. That's over 16 years ago. It's been sampled from a cassette tape that's been sitting, unplayed, for almost that long. I've not done any noise reduction to preserve all frequencies, though I did normalize the sample after it was taken.

This was recorded directly off of the main mixer before the final mix. So you will hear mistakes (like the doozy at 5:35), you will hear instruments that were almost inaudible in the final mix, and you'll wonder, "why was that part so loud?" when, if you were in the audience, it wouldn't have been. You'll also hear some very high-frequency peaks, so please be careful with the volume or headphones.

The band was called Equinoxe, and there were four of us, all playing various keyboards, computers and electronics. This was a live show we did at the Earthling Bookstore in San Luis Obispo, CA.

All instruments except two were analog. All instruments except for one keyboard and the drum sequencer were played 100% live. There was one master sequenced keyboard and the drums/percussion were sequenced, slaved to the keyboard. I actually remember almost the entire equipment list.

Parts of this I still listen to and love (the composition that starts at 17:45 I'm still very fond of - I think I was channeling the ghost of Argent there). Parts make me wonder what the hell we were thinking.

This is track one, about 26 minutes long and 34 Megs in size. Feel free to stream if you wish, I don't pay for bandwidth.

http://audio.amblermedia.com/01-Equinoxe-Live.mp3

I'm really, really, really curious what you all think, especially those of you who like the genre. If you're into Tangerine Dream, Jarre, or those of that ilk...

Item the first - California's Supreme Court has found the prohibition against same-sex marriage to be unconstitutional. The Governator said, "I respect the court's decision and as governor, I will uphold its ruling," said Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in a statement. "Also, as I have said in the past, I will not support an amendment to the constitution that would overturn this (ruling)."

Thank you, Arnold.

Now, allow the cynic in me to wonder if the irrational fear of the right-wing will now come to pass, and someone will try to marry their dog. Probably not - it would have happened in Massachusetts by now.

Item the second - I got an IM yesterday from someone who was wondering if I still had the tape of the live performance of a band I was in from my college days. I said I did, but had no idea where it was, and would probably require a huge garage scour to find it. Well, imagine my surprise when I found the tape after just two minutes of looking last night. It's a "metal" tape, so it's in decent shape for being just shy of 18 years old. I'm sampling it now and will post MP3s later today.

That's right, I'm going to post MP3s of the band I was in, in college, for you all to hear. It's a live performance, recorded right off the mixer, glaring mistakes and all.

I also found tapes of me when I was on the radio in the late 80's and early 90's. Those may I or may not post :-)

Item the third - I have a nagging headache. Not a migraine, just one of those annoying tension headaches that don't so much hurt as they are annoying. I just thought I'd complain. Wah.

Item the fourth - My to-do list is a long list of 30 minute items, at least 20 of them. Let's see how parallel I can be today and maybe clear it.

Item the fifth - Nominations for the LJ Advisory Board are closed. The slate of candidates will be announced at 4pm Pacific time today.

Please to be posting this EVERYWHERE YOU CAN, and link it to http://www.Cambler2008.com - I'll thank you kindly!