Blog – Page 101

It’s Rocket Robin Hood

December 2, 2007 by Chris

I decided to wake up this Saturday morning very early and the TV was on. What I saw on the old idiot box, that’s what my dad called it, was Rocket Robin Hood of the 30th century.

As a kid growing up, the Saturday morning cartoons were part of the weekend routine and good old Robin, Little John and Friar Tuck were right there in the middle! The sound of the intro called In Troubled Times or the Countdown brought chills up and down my spine.

I was watching The Incredible Gem of Cosmo Khan. Seeing the name Cosmo brought to mind a inter-galactic Kramer with rag tag army of bad guys, if only he did the voice over it would have been my favorite episode!

Kramer, I mean Cosmo Khan was shrunk the tiny planet of Thor, on the outskirts of the galaxy, and held it for ransom until the U.S.S. (United Solar Systems) make Khan the Supreme War Lord of the universe! So now the U.S.S. had to ask Robin to join in their fight for the little planet. One thing though, Robin is a outlaw himself. Ok, they grant him amnesty and all is forgiven.

So the U.S.S. give the boys a ship and they take off immediately to Kramer’s, for some reason I can’t get him out of my head, Khan’s asteroid planet of Xanador to try and stop him. The ship is a bird and while descending to the planet some red neck hunters shot them down, wait there’s more!

After using their gravity boots to land safely, they finally reach Khans castle. They enter by digging under the wall using their disintegrating rays. Ok, their in.

They now must swim in the moot and get into the castle proper. Now inside, Khan is having lunch while admiring the shrunken planet of Thor on his galactic side table that has a magnetic field around it but for some reason it doesn’t work covering the top.

Now Khan is a little sleepy after his umpteenth home made solar chardonnay and finally passes out! Robin notices this flaw in the protective shield and jumps up on a ceiling beam with little John and they do some fishing, well that’s what they said. They got it, until Little John screamed out We got it and woke up Khan and he called his thugs.

Ah, it’s a two parter, can you believe it! Now I have to wake up next Saturday morning to see the Escape from Xanador episode!

Well I hope that I brought you all back to your Saturday morning cartoon memories, I know Robin did.

Keep on Jammin’ Rocket Robin Hood

Basic Humbucker pick up system

November 19, 2007 by Chris

Basically making a Humbucker pick up(p/u) is when you place a single coil beside another one.

Visually you will notice that some Humbucker p/u’s may have a cover on them, thus you will not see the two coils side by side. I will try to explain that one in another post.

Both coils generate a signal that comes from the strings that are vibrating or making sound. If you pluck a string it will vibrate in a certain direction and height. During one complete cycle it will move closer and then farther away from the pick up itself. By placing two of them side by side obviously gives you more signal/sound output that comes out the the p/u and into the guitar amplifier.

These coils are wired together in a configuration called series.

For people just trying to grasp at this idea, here goes nothing. Both of the coil’s wirings are opposite to each other.

When you wrap the wire around the coil, it can be wound either by clock wise or counter clock wise direction. This is better known as polarity, or the direction of how the signal is sent to the amp. In guitar terms it is better recognized as reverse winding and reverse magnetic polarity called RWRP.

For guitarist in the know, the RP is how the pick ups are wired to each other.

With a single coil p/u, it generates a certain hum from it. For some, this drives them mad and others love the effect. I tend to fall in the middle of this one. Both sounds are very unique. So now having two coils in RWRP, the EMF effect, offsets the other one thus making a hum less p/u with more power. BTW, this is the reason why they called it the HUM-BUCKER pick up, get it? Also by adjusting the height of the p/u, you change the sound and output of it.

This link is to a How to make a Humbucking Pick Up thus giving you a complete visualization of the structure and a better idea of how it works. I tend to be a more visual person in how I learn, some people learn more by audio means.

I hope that I did not confuse anyone with this post. I just want to give the average person a better/basic working knowledge of how this system works!

Keep on Jammin’

Back from Vegas Baby, part 2

November 14, 2007 by Chris

So, now for the our next experience in Vegas.

Tricia, the brains behind everything technical, was trying to connect to our hotel wireless connection while I put away all of our belongings in the room.

3 hours later and countless calls downstairs and the company who is running the entire network system and we had to get a new room! Yes, 3 hours into our stay in the hotel that bragged about their wireless internet connection, we had to move to a new room!

Before we even accepted any new room, we asked if we could go to the rooms that we were offering us, to check out our connection there before even thinking about moving anywhere. It was something that they encouraged as well. Ok, that sounds like a good idea, let’s do it!

They sent us a attendant with the new rooms keys and off we went. I forgot to mention that while Tricia was attempting to connect to the system, the one and only Mr. Fab called us on our cell and wanted to get together at the Outback outside our hotel!

Now with this little factor adding to the drama of finding a room in a hurry to meet the infamous Mr. Fab, the first room was chosen. Our signal strength was pathetic at best! In total, while being in the Imperial Palace for 4 days, we had 3 connections to the internet lasting 15 minutes each. That’s right, on-line for 3 times lasting 45 minutes in total.

I do have to say that they did not charge us at all for this unacceptable service. If they did charge us then the tone of this post would be considerable different. The staff on the phone was polite both at the hotel and the Hotel Wireless company who ran the system. The only thing that was unprofessional was some of the lies they told us. They may have been small but insulting none the less.

So my advice to anyone who is going to stay in a hotel on the Las Vegas strip and want wireless connection, do not go to the Imperial Palace. They didn’t even offer us a free meal or anything at all for all our wasted time – and that wasted time trying to connect to the internet and making all those calls must have amounted to about 6 hours!

In my next Vegas post I’ll tell you about partying with Mr. Fab and all the other bloggers we met Thursday night and so on!

Keep on Jammin’

It’s Rocket Robin Hood

Basic Humbucker pick up system

Back from Vegas Baby, part 2

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