Monthly Archives: November 2011

went back to the burger stand for dinner with my nephew, reggie, tuesday night.  that place has a WIDE variety of sauces to go with their fries. whoever came up with this idea is a marketing genius. it forces you to eat your fries one at a time so you can try each sauce: guinness wheat, chipotle, cherry something, roasted marshmallow, weird mustard… and alot more than i can remember.

getting these sounds from the touch and tell toy finally made me feel like a circuit bender… the next item on the agenda, attach a potentiometer to alter the pitch… kinda like slowing down a record from 45 rpm to 33 1/3 rpm.

the latest accomplishment on my circuit bending journey was making a reset button on a texas instruments touch and tell toy. a reset button allows me to flip a switch instead of taking out the batteries when the toy “crashes” and the audio locks up. i basically cannibalized an AFC switch from an old sears radio, and re-purposed it on the touch and tell. had a minor scare when a wire came loose during the exchange, but i had the schematics from a printout and was able to re-attach it correctly.

i was privileged to work with phil hall aka philthy phil on his last day on his last shift. it was halloween so he was biggie smalls, and i was a spaghetti western guy. we talked about circuit bending & phil’s upcoming website, and other stuff i can’t remember. then i played 3 songs for him (long way home, rock me on the water, congratulations), and it was over. i’ll miss you at homer’s phil, but i look forward to contributing work to your website. shine on you crazy diamond.