On Sun, 06 Mar 2005 21:18:45 +0900, Michael Cash wrote:

> On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 19:42:21 +0900, Edward Mills <spam@hotmail.com>
> brought down from the Mount tablets inscribed:
> 
> 
>>
>>btw: I have found the perfect way to get to sleep. I start listening to an
>>episode of the Shadow, and within 15 minutes tops, I am sound asleep. Every
>>night for the last two weeks I have tried listening to one, and every last
>>single time, I end up waking up in the morning without a clue as to what
>>happened to the bad guys. 
> 
> "The Whistler" is pretty good for that purpose too. Which is odd,
> considering it is a uniformly well-written, well-produced, and
> well-acted program.

It's not the fact that the Shadow shows are poorly written, or hokey, or
completely implausible. I get sleepy listening to them because they are
just so comfortable to listen to. That whole vibe from the beginning
"hahahaha the shadow knows", to the organ music, to the coal commercials,
to the knowledge that the shadow will inevitably triumph is one of the most
relaxing feelings I've had since I got married. 

> Maybe the conspiratorial semi-whispering tone of
> the narrator has something to do with it. You're going to experience a
> severe letdown with the Shadow when you reach the part where Orson
> Welles and Agnes Moorehead leave. It was all downhill after them.

I'm still working on the earliest shows so it's going to take quite a long
time before I get to that point, especially since I never listen to them
except in bed with the lights turned down low and the family downstairs
watching some stupid TBS comedy show. 

> I sometimes listen to a show while drifting off to sleep. I use my mp3
> player in combination with one of those old-fashioned monaural
> earphones. You know, the kind you see old men wearing at the race
> track. Available at finer 100 yen shops everywhere. For some reason I
> enjoy listening to the shows better on one of those than I do with the
> stereo headphones.

That's one of my biggest problems right now. The only way I can listen to
them is from my computer which is in my office, which is hooked up to a big
stereo, which makes lots of whirring noises, and my wife is starting to
wonder why I spend hours in my office with the lights turned off and the
blankets and pillows from the bed are missing... 

I'm thinking that maybe I can burn them onto a CD after converting the MP3
files to something that a CD player can identify. 

> One hint on listening to the programs in general: Many of them sound a
> lot better if you adjust your equalizer. Turning the bass waaay down
> helps remove a lot of objectionable noise sometimes.

I already figured that one out. It works some of the time, but some
objectionable noises just piss me off. You can hear some idiot laughing
during one of the earliest shadow episodes. It's rather obvious that he was
laughing at the "blue coal" commercial, and thought it great fun that
people used to use coal to heat their houses. 

I'd like to zip that guy back to the middle ages and introduce him to the
concept of sleeping on urine drenched straw to keep warm!!! Grrrrr!!!!