Broken Keg Conundrum

            On Friday morning I made my first effort to record my voice with the Shure microphone while recording both sound and video with Nick’s Nikon. I think I found a good height for the camera at about a meter and 19 cm above the floor, mounted the tripod, on seven big books and on my window ledge the camera was pointing just below my chest and I stood back about a meter and a half. I’ve got to move a bit to my right next time though because the video of my was crowded onto the right side of the screen.

The voice recording was much better than what the camera picks up but I had to jack my amplifier up to the maximum on the playback just to have comfortable listening from two meters away. It seemed to me that I should be able to hear it that loud at half volume.

            I spent some time looking into how to change the settings in order to increase the mic volume. Things like that were so much easier to find before Windows 10 hijacked my computer but I found that I could get to the Control Panel by going to Library Tools and typing “Control Panel”, then I clicked “Sound”, then “Recording”, then “Microphone”, then “Properties”, then “Levels”, then moved the mic volume to 100 and the Microphone Boost to +10.0 dB (though I have no idea what that means). The mic was louder after that but I didn’t try another recording yet.

            I started working on memorizing a song by Serge Gainsbourg that has very rapid-fire lyrics. They are simple but the interplay of the sounds of the words is very rhythmic and it’s a challenge to come up with an English version. I’ll do it though, of course.

            In the late afternoon I took a bike ride despite the fact that there was a chance of rain. I hadn’t gone for a long jaunt in a couple of days so I was itching to get some exercise. At Bloor and Sherbourne I passed a guy in his 40s or 50s, riding his bike at a casual speed while belting out Chuck Berry’s “Sweet Little Sixteen” – “All over St Louis, way down in New Orleans, all the cats wanna dance with sweet little sixteen.”

I rode to O’Connor and Victoria Park and then went back one block to turn right on Bartley to explore the streets that run north from it to Eglinton.

I stopped at Freshco on the way home where I bought a watermelon, a bag of cherries, two bags of grapes and two containers of yogourt. I did a price match on the grapes because they were cheaper at No Frills. I could have done a price match on the watermelon as well but since the No Frills price was $1.97 compared to Freshco’s $1.99, I miscalculated that they would round up the price to $2.00 on both. I figured later though that they would probably have rounded it down to $1.95.

When I got home I went upstairs to knock on David’s door. Even though I was pretty sure he wouldn’t take his half of the money I thought it appropriate to let him know that I sold one of his cameras the day before. As with the last two times he told me to keep it, which I admit was a relief because I was seventy cents short to give him $20.00 anyway. He gave me a 5-liter keg of Heineken, which he’d bought but had broken the tap while trying to open it. He also asked if I would sell some china for him the way I’d sold his cameras. They were four small saucers, two with the same Christmas theme by Royal Copenhagen, one with a Mothers Day theme and another with a father’s day theme, both of those by Porsgrund of Norway. He seems to think they are valuable so he wants me to find out how valuable and then set an appropriate price. I predict that they are not worth as much as he imagines. The two Christmas plates are personalized gifts from Brian Romagnoli, one to Colin and the other to Kenneth.

I sent a message to Nick Cushing about the broken keg, since he’s somewhat of a handy guy and he likes beer. He said he can open it but it would all have to be drunk right away, so I told him to pick a hot day to come into town.