opdigits

John Lennon all day long yesterday.

Don't know if this one has been posted here before, but even if it has it's worth dragging out every once in a while: EUROPEAN THREAT ALERTS - 2013 by JOHN CLEESE The English are feeling the pinch in relation to recent events in Syria and have therefore raised their security level from "Miffed" to "Peeved." Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to "Irritated" or even "A Bit Cross." The English have not been "A Bit Cross" since the blitz in 1940 when tea supplies nearly ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorized from "Tiresome" to "A Bloody Nuisance." The last time the British issued a "Bloody Nuisance" warning level was in 1588, when threatened by the Spanish Armada. The Scots have raised their threat level from "Pissed Off" to "Let's get the Bastards." They don't have any other levels. This is the reason they have been used on the front line of the British army for the last 300 years. The French government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror alert level from "Run" to "Hide." The only two higher levels in France are "Collaborate" and "Surrender." The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France's white flag factory, effectively paralyzing the country's military capability. Italy has increased the alert level from "Shout Loudly and Excitedly" to "Elaborate Military Posturing." Two more levels remain: "Ineffective Combat Operations" and "Change Sides." The Germans have increased their alert state from "Disdainful Arrogance" to "Dress in Uniform and Sing Marching Songs." They also have two higher levels: "Invade a Neighbour" and "Lose." Belgians, on the other hand, are all on holiday as usual; the only threat they are worried about is NATO pulling out of Brussels. The Spanish are all excited to see their new submarines ready to deploy. These beautifully designed subs have glass bottoms so the new Spanish navy can get a really good look at the old Spanish navy. Once "sort of English" Australia, meanwhile, has raised its security level from "No worries" to "She'll be right mate". Two more escalation levels remain: "Crikey! I think we'll need to cancel the barbie this weekend!" and "The barbie is cancelled." So far no situation has ever warranted use of the last final escalation level. Regards, John Cleese , British writer, actor and tall person And as a final thought ... Greece is collapsing, the Iranians (Persians) are getting aggressive, and Rome is in disarray. Welcome back to 430 B.C.

It is Roland's choice, whether or not they're doing it for cost cutting or market share reasons or whatever. Is it wise? I'm not sure that cutting corners and/or marketing to a specific audience was their best choice nor made the best sense. They could have chosen to have made this board directed to a wider target base with a few simple additions/modifications, and without losing money IMO. The polarization in this thread is evidence of that to me.

Great thread and wonderful stories! I'll relate three that all happened almost without fail every gig during a number of tours I did with a Vegas style show band I played with. The entertainer I worked for was an excellent vocal impersonator whom had the gift of gab and comical wit and timing unparalleled. He had everyone in our audiences eating out of his hand and spellbound with the wonders of our show every time we played. 1.) During the course of our shows, in which we played mostly 30 second to 1 minute snippets of the songs by famous artists he was impersonating, interspersed with song related historical verbalisms and jokes, he would hand signal us unobtrusively (and seemingly magically out of thin air to the audience) to stop playing instantaneously, and then immediately launching into the next bit. Without fail, after each show as we mingled with the audience I would hear or be commented to by a wonderously baffled audience member how we managed to stop playing instantly ... "How do you guys do it?" I heard time and time again. After the first few times I'd say, "Well, erm, ahhh, we just lift our hands off our instruments", which would leave the questioner with the same tilt-headed, eyebrow-scrunched, baffled look. In time, and after continually seeing the bewilderment on their faces after my answer, I just decided to tell them that we had learned and practiced a special and secret musical technique perfected by master musicians from ancient times past. Upon hearing that they would inevitably get a suitably impressed look of understanding accompanied by a breathy "Ahhhhhhh ... Wow!!!" 2.) One of the tunes we played was Orange Blossom Special in which the entertainer would show off his masterful skills on the fiddle. In reality, he knew next to nothing about playing this instrument other than making himself look highly skilled through his fake actions, whilst I played the fiddle licks on a string synth (Crumar Performer I believe?) trying to look invisible. He would prepare for the song by over resining his bow, and plucking more than a few bow hairs loose from one end, so that as he was whirling around on stage resin dust would be flying around in clouds and bow hairs would be doing the same. We had the thing tuned so that he could actually play each string as we modulated chords and had it just barely loud enough in the PA so that the real fiddle sound would blend in with my synth. Again, without fail, folks would always tell him that he was "one of the best fiddle players they'd ever seen!!!" 3.) During one leg of a tour we lost and had to hire replacement girl backup singers (we had a large band), but we were short on time before the next show and were in a very rural area. We quickly threw together some auditions but only one of the girls could sing well. So, we hired her (she was rather homely looking) and two hotties that couldn't sing their way naked out of a shower to save their lives. For the show, we dressed them all three up in their gowns, put the homely but angelic voiced one in between the two cuties, with a live mic for Miss homely and dead mics for the two hotties. And yet again, after every show we played with them guys would come up to the two lip-syncing dead mic'd hotties and tell them that they had the greatest voices they'd ever heard, completely ignoring Miss homely.