Better Day

This is a song I recorded recently at home. It gives me a chance to test some (caution: web geek jargon ahead) new HTML5 code that will play music and video on websites like this one without Adobe Flash, which won't work on my phone, and apparently many devices, including Apple products. Owning no Apple products, I can't say that last part for sure.

Anyway, here's the tune, on which I sing (you have been warned), play lead and rhythm guitar, and bass on my 25-year-old, 8-note polyphonic synthesizer, add drums using loops, and mix the whole mess together with a free program called Sony Acid Express. (Get your free copy at AcidPlanet.com.)

Let's hope it works, especially after all that preamble.



Update: It works! I got the code from html5media.info, in case you seek an free and easy way to embed MP3 (audio) and MP4 (video) files into web pages and blog posts.

Bulldog Puppy Rolls Down Hill

We all find our own ways to amuse ourselves. You wonder if the puppy gets dizzy doing this and, if so, does she like it?

Bruce Springsteen plays Lorde's "Royals"

Bruce Springsteen opened a concert in New Zealand Saturday with a cover of Kiwi teen sensation Lorde's hit "Royals." He did change the lyric, "you can call me queen be" to "king bee." Never mind that there's no such thing. When you're the Boss, you can take such poetic license.

I Will Not Watch the Sochi Olympics

Russia apparently hates gay people. This makes it more funny that the Russians paid money to host the winter Olympics, which includes a competition in which two men, in skin-tight suits, lie one on top of the other as they sled down the ice.

Oh, but they're just good friends.



The two-man luge is a real Olympic event. But Russia's homophobia did not turn me off of the Olympics by itself. If Billie Jean King and Elton John will go to Sochi, I can't feel too much guilt for watching its games on TV.

But add this: The Russian government hired a pest control company to kill stray dogs on Sochi streets ahead of the Olympics, many by poisoning. They are poisoned humanely, the exterminator's manager says.



I won't support that, or an Olympics that happens in such a barbaric place. 

I've heard people say that we should watch our athletes regardless of the politics. They don't need our support now. At the games, they live in a bubble. If I don't watch the U.S. women's hockey team on NBC, the players will never know.

Don't mistake unwillingness to watch for lack of support for the athletes. I want the U.S. to win gold in every event in which it competes honorably. They will still get their medals, and the endorsement gold that follows. I will happily buy the cereal on whose box their golden smiles appear. But if we just nod our heads and cheer and chant as injustice and cruelty surround the games, we make it possible for them to continue.

So What if the Red Hot Chili Peppers mimed at the Super Bowl?

I don't care that the Red Hot Chili Peppers faked playing their instruments during the Super Bowl halftime show. As long as they've played, does anyone doubt that they know how to play their instruments, and can play their songs live?

I don't.

It's the Ashlee Simpsons, Ke$has, and other autotuned divas of the pop music world who bother me, because I don't know if they have ever sung their songs, even when they, or someone, recorded them.

I have no problem with the RHCP's explanation that, for this one extraordinary event, they gave in to the NFL's demand that they mime over a backing track.

When you remember the 43-8 final score, you can't even call the band the biggest fakes on the field that day.

The Searches Continue

The searches continue.

What happened to john mcquiston on wwsb

did john mcquiston leave abc in sarasota

john McQuiston Channel 7 Sarasota

where is john mcquiston as weekend anchor abc

john mcquiston sarasota

john mcquiston suncoast news reporter

john mcquiston leaves wwsb

Search engine queries leading people to my website (JohnMcQuiston.com) all concern my departure last month from WWSB-TV in Sarasota, where I had anchored the news and sports on weekends. The interest has floored me, as have the numerous emails from people asking where I have gone. The correspondents have uniformly praised my work on the air, and expressed disappointment at its absence from their televisions.

It feels good to be missed!

I have replied to every one of them, and explained that I have devoted myself to freelance work and my own video production company, including a plug for its Facebook page. I spare them complaints about the stress of my former job and the boss who greatly contributed unnecessarily to said stress. That doesn't matter. I decided to leave, and now I look forward to what comes next.

Meantime, I have more time to blog!

Canadian Offended by Association with Cold Weather

This did not come to my station, but to one where a friend works, and it is the kind if thing people write to TV stations all the time.

Sir/Madam: There is nothing that annoys Canadians more when they tune in to see the weather in the morning and plan their day than your weather reporters telling us about the Cold Winds From Canada thus blaming us and annoying us totally.

If they new their weather, the cold comes from Siberia and passes over Canada. Why don't you blame the Russians ??? Why can't you say winds from the north which are sometimes comes from your own Rockies ??? 

You are annoying Canadians who are contributing Millions of Dollars to your economy ---- which you badly need. We will tune in to a different station and support the products they are advertising should you continue to blame Canada ---- your biggest contributors to your economy. Ask your advertisers how that sits with them. 

We do not need to be annoyed to start our day. F.Y.I. --- I am one of the people who you interviewed about the International Drivers License Fiasco. I speak for many, many Canadians. May I have a response ???

You read that right. The person is apparently a Canadian angry to see his or her country associated with cold weather.

Resignation

Eventually, someone will ask Google, "Why John McQuiston left WWSB in Sarasota?" So I'll try to explain, if only because you know that the absence of facts never stops someone from telling a story.

I resigned. In an email to station management I wrote, "I appreciate the opportunity to serve the station and its viewers. I tried to do work with which everyone there could feel proud to be associated."

All true. I don't know if my now former colleagues felt proud or not, but I did snag two Emmy nominations in the last two years for a station that had not even mustered an entry for the better part of a decade, according to the administrator for the NATAS Suncoast Region. When I called needing help with my submission in 2012, she could not remember the last time someone from WWSB had entered.

Why resign? In short, I felt overworked, underappreciated, and underpaid; and I ran out of gas. There's a longer answer, but it exhausts me just thinking about trying to write it, and I'm sure it would come off as whiny. Maybe later.

I have some plans already, including devoting myself again to my too-long-ignored video production business. (If you know someone who needs a story told in video, please send them to http://personal-documentary.com! If you care to, you can support it by liking its Facebook page.

Here is what turned out to be my last moments on the WWSB anchor desk, a week ago Sunday.

ARod: Don't Tell Me It Was Mistake

An arbiter basically sided with Major League Baseball and reduced Alex Rodriguez's drug suspension from 211 to a one full season of 162 games.

So far A-Rod's team still seems in denial, with vows to challenge the ruling. But, someday, it will happen. Just like other baseball cheats like Ryan Braun, maybe on Oprah's couch, Rodriguez will admit to "mistakes" and apologize.

Is he really sorry? Are any of them? You know the apology I'd like to hear? The honest one:

"I'm sorry I got caught, but that's it. Why did I take performance-enhancing drugs? Because they helped me become far better than I could ever have gotten otherwise, and because they helped me sign TWO contracts  worth more than $200 million. Yeah, my stats are tainted, but the numbers that matter are the dollars. They're still real, and I can still spend them. So, excuse me. I have to fly my private jet back to my South Beach mansion, where I will have to decide which of my 27 exotic cars I want to drive today, and which of the 26 exotic dancers I want to ride in it with me."