Richard BF

My Dad passed away in hospital last week, and we had the funeral yesterday. I think it was worthy of him, although I did unfortunately accidentally say the f word in the middle of it.

Dad requested that my sister and I speak, and she didn't feel she could, so sure I'll speak for both of us, and Mum as well. During the arrangements there was talk of a celebrant MCing, and I'm not sure how it happened, but I ended up saying sure, I get up in front of hundreds of people each week and make stuff up without a script, wouldn't it be better if I did it instead of someone Dad didn't know. How hard could it be?

So then we got to the music. Oh, I had to do the soundtrack, based on Dad's wishes, and in consultation with Mum and my sister. Oh, and we need a program, because the funeral directors don't do that, and the few I'd seen looked like some school kid had done them in Word, pretty amateur, so sure, I'll professionally do the program as well, nothing but high production quality for Dad.

And you know what, I may as well do the running order and Stage Manage it, considering most of the detail of that was in my hands anyway. Pre-show, intros, cue sheets, it felt like a show. We were running a show, and I would make Dad proud.

So somewhere in there I managed to write my speech as well, not as good as I'd like, I ran out of time, but pretty good I reckon.

I'm not sure what the tradition is, but people were saying afterwards how different the service was, in a good way. I figured it was the obvious to be honest. Four special speakers requested by Dad, including myself, and then intersperse it with fragments of my speech, tailored to also serve as introductions to each speaker. The narrative turned out well, and I think the pace was good.

I think Dad would have smiled, laughed, teared up a little, and said "Good job mate. Probably could have left out the fuck." He's right, I could have left out the fuck.

I usually buy Panasonic phones and domestic video gear (DVD, VCR, TV), so I visited the Panasonic web site today, to look for a headset for my Pansonic office phone. Strangely, they don't have any on the site. Although if you search for "headset", a page of search results appears with one being a generic headset, and if you click it, it just does the whole search again.

I did a interwebs search and found dozens of Panasonic headsets available.

So I called Panasonic and spoke to what sounded like 16 year old boy in support:

RBF: I'm looking for a headset for my office phone, model xyz.

Panasonic support: I'm sorry, that phone doesn't support a headset.

RBF: Hmm... then why is there a headset jack on the side, with a picture of a headset, complete with microphone?

Panasonic support: I don't know sir, but my documentation here says that it doesn't support a headset.

RBF: What, the phone doesn't actually support a headset, or you don't make a headset for it?

Panasonic support: It doesn't support a headset, so you could try a third party one, but I wouldn't recommend it.

You can buy Panasonic, just don't expect support to know what they're talking about.

We went to Darling Harbour for Australia Day, so Molly could see Jay Laga'aia and friends on the kids' stage. Well, the first song was "If you're happy and you know it clap your hands...", followed by "stamp your feet", "yell ya hoo!" and then all three. I was amazed at the number of sad sack fathers that just didn't join in. They were happy to watch their kids do it, but sing along, clap, stamp and yell? Nope.

The old adage rings true, kids laugh around 400 times per day, and adults around 15. What happens to these disgruntled parents that makes them want to have kids but only from a distance? Two many hours couped up in corporate offices to think about having fun?

Regardles whether the parents enjoy it or not, the show is still for kids, their kids, and I'd have thought that by joining in they'd make their kids' experience more fun. Jay was a slow starter and the crowd wasn't exactly responding that well to his call and response, so even more reason to join in, to make it better for everyone.

I used to say this before I was a parent, and my opinion hasn't changed, most people are just plain selfish by having kids, and shouldn't be allowed to take on the most important roll we can have in life: bringing up a child.

I've been a Pro Tools fan for years, since around 1997 or so, but as each successive version came out, the user interface never really got any better, and the restrictions on hardware were never lifted. I'd search Google for possible replacements every time I had to pay for yet another upgrade, but stuck with it because I didn't believe that another product would be as good. Finally, at Pro Tools 8, my hand has been forced, because this version no longer supports some of my DigiDesign hardware. I've finally moved to Logic Pro.

If you read the web, most opinion considers Pro Tools best for audio editing and recording, and Logic Pro best for MIDI, and I kept on believing that, version after version. However, since Apple bought Logic, they've been greatly improving Logic Pro into an awesome editing tool, which is most of what I do. Don't believe what it says on the web, Logic Pro is now at least as good as ProTools in this area, and while the user interface is more complex at first, you do get used to it.

But the kicker was the hardware restriction. Pro Tools 8 removes support for my audio interface, which is also made by DigiDesign, so they've removed support for their own equipment. That's just braindead, considering that Logic Pro 9 on the other hand, not only still supports my DigiDesign hardware, but when I decide to get something new, I can get pretty much anything from any company and it will work.

Its taken a few hours to figure out my Logic Pro workflow, but after a few short projects, and changing a bunch of the keyboard command to match Pro Tools, I'm almost as productive as I was before, and I can see it being way more useful and productive than Pro Tools in the long run.

Its sad saying goodbye to an old friend, but I've never really liked Avid, who bought DigiDesign a few years back, so adios Avid!