Stab it down, one way needle
This is a dual purpose post. One, to tell any of my local readers that they should consider giving some blood at the weeklong drive at the Air Force Academy/Fort Carson. There’s a shortage of blood among our troops and one of the benefits of living in a military town is that they are airlifting all of the blood units donated immediately to Iraq. My blood from yesterday’s session is literally somewhere on its way to the Middle East right now. That’s pretty cool. So lay an arm and donate a pint! Plus you get charming medical attendants in uniform all week long at absolutely no added charge:
I had posted a Basketball-Diaries-esque picture here of the needle running into my arm (the nurse Mr. Christian snapped it for me of his own volition) but I took it down because it even made ME shudder and it was MY arm. Even though I do always watch the needle go in, and ask a lot of medical questions. It’s really just in case I ever run into Dr. John Carter/Dr. Doug Ross on an elevator and need to sound knowledgable.
And then the other purpose of this, of course, is to post up the soundtrack that was running through my head the entire time. You knew this was coming:
Blood (live in San Francisco, 7/16/06) – Pearl Jam
I love that wah-wah…and the scream
PS – I have that aforementioned “Blood Mix” I compiled on cassette back in the day, snippets of all their lyrics (at the time) referencing blood. I don’t know why I did it. However, does anyone have the technology to rip a cassette tape to mp3? If you do, and can help me, then we can listen to my masterwork.
And here are two more kitschy theme-time radio hour contributions:
Positive Bleeding – Urge Overkill (ohhhh, I forgot how fantastic this song is)
It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) – Bob Dylan, live from BBC London, June 1965
Name: Heather Browne
Can you hear me, UO! That song will rip your heart out.
Ben — March 21, 2007 @ 11:42 am
I know! I forgot how much I loved those opening notes, great song.
heather — March 21, 2007 @ 11:49 am
In January, I decided to give blood for the first time in my life. My dad’s a regular blood-giver, but I’ve just never gotten around to it.
I talked a friend into going with me, but when we got there, she realized that she couldn’t give blood because she’d been to Mexico – a malaria zone – in the past twelve months.
So, I’m all alone. She stays with me but I’m the only one giving blood.
Everything goes well, the bag fills up relatively quickly considering my low blood pressure.
The needle comes out, my arm goes up, and I had just enough time to say “I’m gonna pass out” prior to passing out.
I apparently stopped breathing, the nurse set off the code blue alarm in the hospital.
Then in my “passed out dream” I think “Jenny(my friend that was with me)’s going to be pissed that I fell asleep in the middle of our conversation.” So I open my eyes to see three nurses standing over me attempting to revive me.
“The next time you’re feeling charitable, go help out at the soup kitchen,” they told me after telling me to never give blood again.
JJ — March 21, 2007 @ 12:31 pm
Converting tape to digital isn’t that difficult, I’ve been doing it for some time now. My old tapes as well as all my friends must be preserved. Let me know if you need help with the process or converting a few tapes myself.
Stephen K. — March 21, 2007 @ 1:02 pm
Tunes, thoughts, and blood. You really do give your all : )
Yon — March 21, 2007 @ 2:00 pm
That whole UO record is fantastic.
Jeff C. — March 21, 2007 @ 2:29 pm
Hey Heather,
Any chance you could post up Emmaline (sp?) for us? I was obsessed by that song – it’s long-lost on a compilation tape somewhere! A girl in the flat opposite me in my first year at Uni had an UO pendant – God I was jealous!
Beth X
Beth — March 21, 2007 @ 4:30 pm
Oh I had forgotten how good that song was too. Damn, thanks for the trip back, I’m gonna pull that one out of the collection and blow some dust off it. You’re a good gal giving blood and all, too.
Super Clea — March 21, 2007 @ 7:22 pm
Heather, thanks for giving blood. Politics aside, those young men and women deployed right now just want to do their jobs and come home. Your few minutes may well allow one of our injured Soldiers to return to his or her loved ones. That is worth more than a thousand silly yellow ‘support the troops’ magnets on people’s cars. Thank you.
Ben — March 22, 2007 @ 7:47 am
Sure, Beth:
Emmaline mp3
Enjoy!
heather — March 22, 2007 @ 10:28 am
If your sound system has a built in tape deck AND has auxilliary output RCA jack sockets, you get a cable with RCAs at one end and a 3.5mm stereo jack at the other, which connects to the sound input on your PC soundcard. Depending on what audio software you have, either record as an mp3 direct or record as .Wav and do one pass of editing to take out the tape hiss (I still use Cool Edit 96 with no problems) before converting to mp3.
Grumpy Old Man — March 22, 2007 @ 11:19 am
Glad to hear you’re spreading the word about giving blood. The molasses that passes for my blood has made giving sometimes an extremely painful ordeal, but if it helps save a life, then it’s well worth it!
I’ve only transferred a cassette song to my computer just once, but it was super easy. Since I wasn’t worried about fidelity (it IS coming from a tape after all), I used the input jack in the back of my Mac.
All you need is a boom box, a 3.5mm to 3.5mm jack (RadioShack $3), plug one end into the “headphones” port and the other into your Mac’s input port. Go to your sound control panel and change the input device from mic (default) to line-in. Fire up a sound editing program (I use Sound Studio), hit play on your boombox, then hit record in your app and save the glorious results as an aiff file. Convert aiff to MP3 or AAC in iTunes. Done!
You’ll probably have to fiddle with the volume, but it was easy and I now have my incomplete taped from Live 105 version of Cube (2) – Love’s Taboo to rock out to for proof of concept
el walto — March 25, 2007 @ 2:21 am
ps. I forgot… I have two bloody songs for ya…
“Blood is Pumping” by Voodoo & Serano
“Blood Makes Noise” by Suzanne Vega
el walto — March 25, 2007 @ 2:25 am
Thanks Heather – much appreciated! Beth X
Beth — March 25, 2007 @ 1:43 pm