Introducing the SonOBee™

Insane, insane, insane, this time thing. None of it when I need it, yet it eats me up.

Whoosh. Zoom ahead a year or three and here I am with a new project to write about. These posts always seem to appear at the end, when everything is settled and accounted for. Maybe next time I will actually BLOG and show intermediate results. No matter. This week's prize is an 8-channel audio amplifier that sounds positively cacaesque but which may be used to effectively heat up wires, turn on motors, flash lights or similarly enervate any simple electrical thing needing 13 volts or less. Just don't plug it into a speaker (unless you're one of those noize types who likes cacacacacacaphony.) Oh, and don't forget one or two 15-volt power supplies to provide the juice.

This is the SonOBee.

I have spent almost 8 months designing, simulating, breadboarding, testing and finally drawing this thing in Eagle schematic software. Tonight I sent off the design files to a PCB prototyping house, BatchPCB. The actual boards should arrive in a few weeks. Then the soldering starts. Lead and tin smoke will fill my basement, shortening my lifespan but...what fun!

Here's a color rendering of the amplifier board as it will never appear in real life. But you like color, don't you?



Reason for the widget? My pal Max (who now has his own Wikipedia entry) is building a musical instrument that uses MuscleWire instead of regular guitar strings. The key feature of MuscleWire is that it contracts when heated. Max's instrument has eight strings, each plucked by its own motorized "finger", and each heated by a separate electric circuit driven by a car stereo amplifier. As the wires heat , they contract and change pitch, giving rise to the eery sounds you can hear for yourself on YouTube...




I call my amplifier the SonOBee because it doesn't sing, it buzzes. Right. There may also be a pun there. If it works as advertised, the SonOBee will replace two car stereo amps for all your non-musical car stereo needs. It will be smaller, lighter and more efficient. Comes in a black and aluminum case that someone with art talent really needs to help me decorate.

And if it doesn't work, it'll make a helluva bangle on the rear-view mirror.

If you want one for Christmas or whatever, they cost about $100 bucks. Write me.

Whew! Long time since that last post. I'll try to do better in the future.

The wedding went off without a hitch. No wait, that's not what I meant. There was a hitch, nicely tied between Steve and Karen. But the best part of the wedding was meeting Steve's old friend, S...., with whom I hit it off big time. A year later, many flights to San Francisco later, she's on the short list of new immigrants to Canada to join me here. Brave girl! But we're in love.

And in a not entirely unrelated but less serious note, I am pleased to announce the creation of the Association of Ex-Boyfriends of Ex-Girlfriends of Voivod. This is an exclusive club for men whose former wives or girlfriends are themselves former girlfriends of the rock band Voivod. Maxime Rioux and I are the founding members, but I'm sure there are millions more of you out there. Let us know!

Some cool news. I am going to officiate at my brother's wedding in May. Not wanting to scramble around at the last minute trying to get into divinity school, I applied (just minutes ago..) for ordination by the Universal Life Church, Modestor, CA. You can, too!

I can't wait. I'm still not convinced the District of Columbia will let me say "I pronounce you..." but I promise to try as least as hard as Rowan Atkinson in Four Weddings and a Funeral.

Today I called Fido, my cell service provider, to complain about the Bible spam that is piling up in my phone. In fact, I called yesterday, but hung up in anger after the unhelpful customer support person said there was nothing she could do.

Today, the guy at the other end said essentially the same thing -- there was nothing he could do except to block all SMS messages on my account. Not a very helpful solution because, after all, I am paying for that service.

When I insisted that there must be a way for Fido to block these messages, he suggested calling back on Monday and speaking to someone in their network support group. And so I will do that.

While I was talking to the Fido guy, I snooped through the myriad menu options in my cell phone (a Motorola Razr) and discovered a message filter feature. This appeared to offer the ability to block messages from a given number! All I had to do was enter the number I wanted to block.

So I started typing in "247478", the number from which all the Bible messages are sent. Now, my phone (like most) uses semi-intelligent software to try to guess what I mean when I type in a number on the keypad. Do I mean A, B, C or the number 2? The more numbers you type, the more narrow the choice of words becomes.

And so I blindly typed in 247478. The only word that emerged was:

CHRIST

I just about fell off my chair.





Late breaking news: I tried resending an unsubscribe message, "lifestop", to 247478, just as the first devotional message had instructed. This time, instead of stopping my life or signing me up for more spam, the Big Guy responded with a message saying I would not receive any more devotional messages!

Maybe my problem is solved, but I'll believe it when I don't see it.

On Monday it was cryptic messages on the TV, now I have started receiving Bible verses on my cell phone.

Yesterday I received a message from Matthew; today it was Ecclesiastes.

These "daily devotions" are being spammed into my phone by some jerkoff company whom I suspect to be http://www.mfaith.com.

A warning to whoever signed me up for this thing: if I meet you in a dark alley you'd better have a big f**in Bible to protect you...

A strange kind of captation last night: My television sent me a cryptic message!

Around 6:15 p.m. last evening, my kids were watching "The Simpsons" on cable TV, channel 34 on the Videotron service. Suddenly, a message in white letters appeared on the bottom on the screen that said (in French), "Do not watch "Enjeux"' this week." ("Ne regardez pas "Enjeux" cette semaine.") The message stayed on screen for about two seconds, then disappeared.

At first I couldn't believe it. The lettering did not look like that of The Simpsons. The only explanation I can think of is that a Videotron employee somehow injected the text into the signal stream.

Now, "Enjeux" is a weekly news magazine on Radio-Canada, the French network. It also happens to be where my kids' mother works. Weird.

What's next? Black helicopters?

Earthwaves finally got their first public appearance Thursday night at the Chambre Blanche gallery in Quebec City. Maxime and I performed his 40-minute composition, with me on lights, to about 20 people who braved the cold. The show went very well, as far as we could tell, although we were a little disappointed by the low attendance.



Maxime composed his piece specifically to accompany a painting that he chose from the catalog of the Musée des Beaux Arts du Québec. The painting, by artist Pierre Bruneau, comprises 10 portraits, each painted with phosphorescent oil paint, on its own canvas. The work is part of a collection of paintings that the museum typically lends to businesses or other institutions to hang on their walls for several months. Funny thing is, no one wanted to borrow this particular painting because...the phosphorescent paint is only visible in the dark!

I can imagine a company telling its employees, "Ok, folks, it's time for the daily appreciation of our wall art. The lights will be off for two minutes."



The time phosphorescent paint remains visible depends on how long and with what intensity it is first charged with light. We decided to incorporate that property into our show. I wanted the painting to appear progressively as each different movement of Maxime's piece was performed by the "automates". We therefore asked the gallery to cover the painting all day Thursday as we were setting up.



People starting drifting in about 8 p.m. I paced around the gallery nervously, trying to memorize my notes for the lighting choreography. Maxime stayed upstairs drinking beer. We finally dimmed the lights and got started around 8:45.

Maxime's piece ran about 40 minutes. It started in the dark with buzzing sounds emanating from the bass drum. The glow-in-the-dark tips of the four drum mallets began to rotate, then slowly pound out a rhythm. I began to light the painting using a handheld halogen light equipped with a dimmer. The music evolved into a duet of bouzouki and tabla (small drum), with Maxime playing trumpet. I used the lamp to light up three of the 10 portraits, dimming the light regularly so the audience to see the phosphorescent glow. The music continued with sound effects, voices and a kudu horn solo by Maxime. About halfway into the show, the bouzouki began playing a gentle solo made up of recorded Earthwaves. Who would ever have gussed that Montreal's industrial background noise could sound so good?




With nearly all the painting now illuminated and glowing, the music suddenly switched over to the recorded voice of Serge Gainsbourg reading a Beat-like poem called "Pas Long Feu". The final portrait to be illuminated was that of Serge Gainsbourg, an image copied from the 1980s (?) album containing the Pas Long Feu song. The bass drum beat out a final two minutes of fairly complex rhythms, accompanied by the bouzouki and tabla. Then it was lights up and the Pas Long Feu reggae song kicked in, played through the same woofers that drive the automates.



Polite applause, a few bows. Thankfully, Maxime's family was there to cheer us on.




It took us most of the day Thursday to set up. One of the problems with moving the "automates" is their sensitivity to setup. They have to be retuned every time a screw is turned. Maxime spent at least an hour tuning the bouzouki.




Closer to show time, a friend of Maxime's arrived (with several other crew members) to set up video cameras to film the performance. We still haven't seen the raw footage but it is apparently quite good. We have been promised a full-length video later this year...