iG.STUDiO: Ilya I. Gerasimenko

It looks like I haven't posted anything for a year. Apparently, nothing to say. How about some music, then? Leaving Manhattan —bossa-nova @ 130 bpm, by yours truly, written sometime in the fall of 2010, after we stopped pretending being rich and moved out of the shoe box size studio on West 95th Street. Technically we didn't leave Manhattan, just the Upper West Side, but the new neighborhood feels quite different... miss the easy acces to Central Park dearly, so the tune is a bit sad. Like 99.9% of all my tunes, really. This particular version came alive with the help of Pat Felitti (piano), Ian Pellow (bass), Raul R. (drums, percussion), all @ kompoz.com. I play tenor sax and EWI. Leaving Manhattan by iG.STUDiO

I absolutely love this little gadget. It does what it says it does, and does it very well. You just have to know what to expect. In my testings, the device recorded the sound of saxophone equally well through the internal and external microphone (I used Shure SM58, just because I have it, I would imagine that the quality can only be better if one uses more advanced studio recording equipment). The recording of a full range performance through the internal mics, taken from the middle of the small auditorium, came noticeable dry on the bottom, just as one would expect from a small handheld mics; once again, using a high-end external mic would definitely improve the results. The recording of the same performance from the mixer's "line out" was absolutely perfect: I use backing tracks and play live over them; the backing tracks sounded identical to the original ones, and our playing and singing over them was captured just as it was going into the system through the stage mics...

I do hate the annoying gnome, but that's not the reason. We (my wife and I) just had a very strange and unpleasant experience with online booking through Travelocity. It started in a pretty normal way—on Friday she booked a flight for her father, who doesn't have a computer, so she usually does it for him, I printed the e-ticket, put it into an envelope, mailed it to Cincinnati, where he resides, and we went on with our life. That wasn't it, though. Next day, in the evening, my cellphone starts ringing, I cross the room to pick it up, it stops. Missed call. From... let me see... a person named "0050". Not that I know anybody by that name, and no voicemail message left. Whatever. Back to dinner. Three hours later I go to the computer to check email, to find three messages from memberservices@travelocity.com First message - at 6PM (about 24 hours after original booking): 1."...For the protection of our valued customers, all reservations are subject to review by...

I seriously think that LOST is a phenomenal show, being made by the group of individuals who have balls of the size of melons. The latter is the only explanation of the confidence they exude when faced with necessity to further develop the convoluted story lines of the plot which a) never existed b) collapsed several times already during previous attempts to develop what never existed to start with and c) still not coming together (really? alternate reality is the cheapest cop out there is, next to the person waking up and realizing that all of it was a dream...). I can only admire the commitment of that team, and extend my deepest sympathy to the writers who actually have to put words on paper, and make them sound natural without conveying any sense (which looks more and more like a policy of the show, like "no direct question should be dignified with an answer, ever" or "if in doubt, make a character tell a random lie or cry")—amazing writing indeed. ...

More of a mental note: for document.elementFromPoint IE/Mozilla calculates coordinates of the point from the top left corner of a viewport; WebKit and Opera - from the top left corner of a document.

Six years ago I bought a Sony MiniDV camcorder, which is still an a good working condition, and does what it is supposed to do. After initial euphoria of taping everything which moves for a couple of years, I kind of drifted away from home-made videography, moving towards home-made music production, so the camera was not used a lot. A little over a year ago I finally upgraded our family entertainment center to a flat-screen TV, which made me understand how poor the quality of the standard definition home video actually is. So the caressingly used camcorder is now used even less. But—Dar's new show is coming up, and needs to be properly documented for many important reasons. Preferably in a modern day video standard. So I stumble upon this one: Sony Webbie HD Camera MHS-CM1 Not only it costs about 1/6th of what I payed for my MiniDV cam, it is four times smaller, ten times lighter (no moving parts, duh) and records up to 5 hours in 1040 HD on a 16GB memory card. So I grab one. Did...

There is no US Embassy in Minsk, Belarus. As a result, people who need to go through an interview for a green card, like my mother, need to go to the nearest city which has one. In good old communist times it would be Moscow, the capital of the whole USSR. The trip there would entail overnight train Minsk-Moscow, spending a day in a city, and overnight train back. No visa required, naturally. Today, despite the fact that old Soviet Union fell apart and old Soviet Republics are separate states, the trip to Moscow would go pretty much the same way. But the wizards at National Visa Center came up with a different plan. Everything my mom needs is done in Warsaw, Poland. Why? NO IDEA. May be it's closer. So my mother had to pay for Polish visa, go through the medical exam they require, wait for ten days to get the visa, go to Warsaw, and all this just to find out that the medical form for her green card is not in a correct format (which was never specified, by the way), and—this is my ...