Thursday, 14 May 2009, 22:19:36 EDT
Early last week I learned of some cheap MIDI controllers from Korg. Evidently they released the nanoSERIES recently. I've been needing some sort of MIDI controller for a long time. I just couldn't advance my occasional music production without one. So I looked around on eBay and found the complete nano set, brand new, for about $20 off retail with free shipping. I decided I couldn't pass it up. The package arrived on my doorstep this past Tuesday. I immediately set to playing with the "nanoKEY" and "nanoKONTROL."
Today, I give you Space Dream. Another ambient tune. I had the song mostly finished a few hours after I started messing around with it. But I wanted to get some feedback before releasing it. My buddy Jason, who doesn't even like this kind of music, was kind enough to help me out. After a few more hours of work I decided it was done. If Jason likes it, then it must be pretty decent.
In regard to the MIDI controllers. So far, I have only used the nanoKEY and nanoKONTROL. They are ... (view rest)
Saturday, 25 October 2008, 19:23:17 EDT
The last time this site got a visual refresh was in 2006. Welcome to 2008! If you're a regular, and you don't see any change in this site, hit the refresh button. You still have the old style sheets loaded.
This visual refresh is really just some updated colors (very similar to the old ones), and a slight re-work of the layout. The old style was difficult to read; particularly at higher resolutions. I'm not really a fan of the content-in-the-middle design, but it does compress the width and make it easier to read.
Internet Explorer (version 7) is still a bit wonky. It doesn't work well with the content overflow. The vertical scroll bar it produces doesn't encompass all of the content until you scroll all the way to the bottom. Very odd, and very hard to describe; if you have IE7, try it for yourself.
Firefox, Opera, and Safari all work well. Who would have guessed, right? I haven't had any problems with the scrolling in Firefox 3. They seem to have fixed their renderer so that it will actually scroll smoothly now. Camino 1.6 is not even generating a scroll bar, but it still scrolls if you use a mouse wheel or the arrow keys. Weird.
Overall, I like the new design. It's clean, and ... (view rest)
Sunday, 27 January 2008, 16:55:42 EDT
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Gasp! Three whole posts in one month. I must be avoiding something. Oh, that's right. PDEs homework. It is this endeavor that leads me to present you with a new song! Instead of reading, and working problems, last night, I started playing around with Garageband and worked up a new mix. I call it Funky Metal. I think it's pretty good for a quick mix. Of course, there are zero original ... (view rest)
Thursday, 24 May 2007, 07:38:16 EDT
I'm posting a track I created on 14 April 1998. I had the house to myself, so I cranked up the speakers and starting playing with ReBirth. I'm a big, big, fan of the TB-303's sound. So, instead of playing around with the drum machines built into ReBirth, I created a bunch of 303 patterns. After creating the 303 patterns, I set ReBirth to record my actions and started playing with the default drum patterns and the ones I had created. The result is a sixteen minute track I like to call "3ohMadness". It really isn't very impressive. In fact, unless you just really like listening to 303 sounds on a rather dry drum track, you probably don't want to listen to it. Aside from a couple spots where the 303 ... (view rest)
Sunday, 07 January 2007, 19:31:00 EDT
I love music. If you look, you will find that my collection is one of the most eclectic ever. Everything from Them to Orbital. By far, though, my favorite kind of music is techno. Thus, the following post is going to be all about techno, my history with it, and the history of the music as I see it and have lived it. This is going to be a rather long, and involved, post. If you take the time to explore all the links, and their information, it could take you quite some time to get through it. Hopefully you will find it interesting and informative.
I've been listening to techno since at least the early '90s, when I was about fourteen; I'm sure I've been listening longer than that, though. Album 88 has had a techno show since at least that time. The show used to air at the odd time of 15:00 (or thereabouts) on Sunday afternoons. I can remember tuning in and playing video games with audio on the television turned down so I could hear the music. I also remember calling the station once and requesting Racer X (something I have yet to find for purchase). The DJ said he didn't have it with him but he would bring it in next Sunday. During this time, and for a couple years afterward, the techno show, I think it was called Planet 8, played single techno tracks. So in one show you could hear The Prodigy, Orbital, The Orb, and Psykosonik among others. The show changed times as regularly as the hosts. The format of the show also evolved over time. Now there is the Beatscape Lounge on Wednesday nights, Subterranean on Friday nights, and Houseworks on Saturday mornings (00:00). Until the time of this writing, I was unaware of Beatscape Lounge so it may still be like the older format. Subterranean and Houseworks, though, are mixed sets; quite frequently they are performed by live DJs in the studio. Of the two I have listened to, Subterranean is my favorite as it is dedicated to Jungle/Drum & Bass. To this day, Album 88 is the only way to hear techno on the radio in Atlanta. Frequency 99.7 has experimented with it when it was called Power 99 and a couple times while under the moniker 99X. Their audiences have never taken to it.
As techno has aged it has evolved quite rapidly. In the old days there were very few sub-genres. There was distinctly techno techno, hardcore, acid house, house, and trance. Many more sub-genres have emerged from these beginnings, and all evolved from vanilla techno. In my opinion, techno is music made with mostly with synthesizers, samplers, and drum machines, or such devices as emulated by a computer. So all sub-genres of techno are really just techno to me. As such, my opinion differs with that of the description at Wikipedia. Early techno is best exemplified by listening to "Basket Case" on Eon's MySpace page. This, what is now considered "old school," type of music is still my favorite music and is the type of music that used to be played on Album 88's techno show. Early hardcore is best exemplified by The Prodigy. Early trance is a sub-genre that I don't particularly like but is captured quite well in my "Strance" song (found on the music page). The early acid house scene is best represented by my favorite (former) band, Orbital; go to the discography page and listen to a selection from the Green Album under "Albums" (anything but Speed Freak, which is a Moby mix). House is really the same today as it was then. Listen to just about anything on Bad Boy Bill's MySpace page for an example; at the time of this writing, "Happy" is a prime candidate. The melodies and mixes have become more complex, but the "four on the floor" beat is still the same in today's house music as it was when it was first conceived.
It is my opinion that regular techno is dead, or at least is very rarely produced any longer. Most of the stuff produced today is either drum & bass, some form of trance or house, and a smattering of other less popular forms. The trance of today has much more complex melodies and even varying beats. I would say that Tiësto is the current pinnacle of trance music. He is quite probably the most popular DJ/producer on the planet right now; I know of no other techno artist currently touring that fills stadiums. Orbital is the only other that I know who use to draw such crowds; maybe The Prodigy. Drum & Bass is a direct descendent of the old hardcore scene and sounds almost nothing like its ancestor music. From hardcore, the sub-ge ... (view rest)
Tuesday, 14 March 2006, 09:34:07 EDT
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I have been using my iPod for a while now. Of course, this has forced me to use iTunes to manage my music. I think I am starting to like it. One of the features I have been trying to use effectively is the Smart Playlists feature. I have mostly been using it to group albums by the same artist into one playlist. This way, I can have all my Jimi Hendrix stuff in one list and my Orbital stuff in another. Nice and organized. I have 930 items in my iTunes library, though. That is a little over eight days worth of music (and some videos). I haven't even begun to rip my whole CD library, so that list is only going to grow. I can't possibly sort through that every time I get bored of the music on my iPod, and create a new playlist or two. So, I had a rather brilliant idea a couple weeks ago. I created a Smart Playlist to randomly select some music for me and I set iTunes to automatically update that playlist on my iPod. I have found this playlist to be so handy, and refreshing, that I want to share it with you, the internet.
Line #1 is a no brainer and a default when creating a new Smart List. Lines #2 - #6 are the real meat of the playlist. The most important line is #2; the goal of the playlist is to play "fresh" music, not the stuff I have been listening to over and over again in my hand built playlist. I feel that ten days is a good cut off and keeps the music cycling fairly well. Lines #3 and #4 eliminated audio books, interviews not marked as podcasts, whole albums ripped as one "song," and short segments like those on some soundtracks (e.g. Steven Wright's segments on the Reservoir Dogs Soundtrack). I chose thirty-five minutes as the upper cutoff because I have some songs, like The Box and In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, that exceed normal song lengths. Line #5 just makes sure no stray podcasts get added to the list (I don't listen to any anymore, but some are still in my library). Line #6 eliminates some live bootlegs that I have from making the list. I don't typically listen to the bootlegs because of the poor ... (view rest)
Thursday, 17 November 2005, 12:09:18 EDT
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First, a small update about this site. I have implemented gzip compression on the RSS/Atom feed. The feed, for the month of November thus far, accounts for 75% of the requests (510) for PHP files on this site. The requests for PHP files total (672) this month is 29.2% of all file types requested. Basically, that is about 4.9MB of traffic this month for the feed by itself. Sure, I have a lot of bandwidth to work with but I would prefer to squash this problem sooner rather than later. This change could be "bad," though. I have no way of knowing if all the aggregators that request the feed support gzip compression. So, if you are getting garbage in your aggregator let me know and I will implement the change a little more robustly (i.e. actually check to see if the client supports gzip compression before sending it compressed data). I will also be compressing all of the other pages on the site but you all shouldn't notice any difference (other than faster load times) there; all modern browsers support the feature.
On to something a little more interesting. Last Saturday I went to Best Buy with my room mate because, well, we were bored. I managed to prevent myself from buying Guitar Hero (narrowly) but I didn't walk out of the store empty handed. I wandered into the music section, specifically the "Dance" section, and came across Tiësto's latest album — In Search Of Sunrise 4: Latin America. It was an acceptable $15.00 for two CDs worth of Tiësto goodness so I decided to get it to refresh my exercise music. I listened to the first CD Monday and the second on Wednesday during my workouts. The first one isn't very good exercise music. It is a good CD, but it can only be described as "pretty." At about twenty-eight minutes into the album, it picks up the tempo for a couple minutes but then relaxes back into pretty mode. The second disc is much better workout music; it starts off with a nice, upbeat, tempo and it continues on through the album. Actually, about fifty minutes into the mix it relaxes a little bit and finishes off the last twenty or so minutes in a peaceful groove. Perfect. It is around that time when I start my cool down and don't really need the up-tempo beats. As for the music, it isn't all latin beats and such as the n ... (view rest)
Friday, 14 October 2005, 21:14:28 EDT
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I dig the hell out of Garage Band. After my last post I started messing around with the program again. Today, I finished up a new track. I didn't do much beat slicing in this one, though. I concentrated more on learning how to modify software instruments and apply effects to them. I think it turned out rather well. Give it a listen.
In other news, midterm week is now over. It arrived in a hurry and departed even quicker. So far I have a B in each of my three classes. Since midterm grades don't include all of the work done thus far they are a rough estimate of how you are doing in classes. My calculus and Smartbodies grades are on the high end of the range and my linear algebra grade on the low end. I will be completely satisfied if I keep the B in linear algebra; I cannot stress enough how bad the book is for that class. If I can finish off the semester with As in the other two classes, though, I should make the Dean's List again. That is my goal. If I can swing that, my GPA will continue going the way of the Jeffersons.
I've been listening to The Financial Aid Podcast recently. I really like it. It is a half hour show about everything relating to finances that would concern a college student. Everything from credit card debt to bills before Congress that will affect federal financial aid. I highly recommend giving it a listen if you are in school. It has reminded me quite effectively that I need to qu ... (view rest)
Tuesday, 04 October 2005, 14:59:17 EDT
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I just put up a new MP3. As the description says, this is a rough mix and is the first one I have done in a long time. I started putting this together right after I got my PowerBook and finished it up a couple months ago. I wasn't sure about posting here until today. I was listening to my music on shuffle earlier today and this track played. About half-way through I realized I was really digging the ... (view rest)
Thursday, 29 September 2005, 12:41:13 EDT
This past weekend I went out to Covington for the christening of Davin Wayne Davis; the youngest son of one of my oldest friends. On the way out there I started thinking about our time growing up which led to thoughts of another friend — Mick. Very few of you reading this will know who that is. Mick is the only person I have ever met that I have been able to start a conversation about techno music with and not have to explain a word of what we are talking about. Everyone else I have had educate. Some refuse to be enlightened [ ;) ] but most come around.
Any way, the first time I met Mick was when I stopped by his house because I saw Dennis' car parked in the drive way. I basically just knocked on a strange door and asked if my friend was inside and was invited in. So, I was chilling in Mick's room with Dennis and Gabe (another friend of mine) when Mick left the room to do something. While he was gone I decided to peruse the CDs behind is DJ booth to see what he had. Lo and behold he had a copy of Best of Rave: Volume 1. When Mick got back I asked him if he would play "Silicon Jesus" (a track by Psykosonik) and he wanted to know how I knew he had that. I told him that I looked at the CDs he had and saw the Best of Rave album. That was how we established our friendship — a mutual love for techno music without having to explain it to the other person first. But, Mick has been in and out of jail over the years (currently in it seems) so our friendship has essentially disintegrated.
Whilst thinking about all of this I decided to put my Psykosonik CD in and listen to it just to complete the reminiscing. The CD is still in my CD player and I was listening to it today while picking up lunch. The last track on the CD is one of my favorites and it was the last to play at lunch; ending just as I pulled into a parking space on campus. The song inspired me to kick it old school here and post the lyrics. So, here they are (I love this track — it rocks hard):
'i, Caesar Have Destroyed Faiths.'
'hail Caesar'
'hail Caesar'
'i, Caesar...'
'i, Caesar Have Destroyed Faiths.'
You Think Your Loving This, But You're Too Blind To See.
If I Told You I Was Jesus, Would You Turn To Follow Me.
Inside Of Me, Inside Of You.
The Myth That We've Been Coming To.
If I Spoke Of Eternity, Would You Crucify Me Too.
Why Build A Shrine To The Race Of Man?
There's No Separation.
Why Can't You Understand?
I Am God.
You Are God.
We Are, We Are, We Are God.
I Am God.
You Are God.
We Are, We Are, We Are, We Are God.
Give Your Money To Me.
Just Give Your Money To Me.
And I Can Set You Free.
'i, Caesar Have Destroyed Faiths.'
Look Deep Within You And See The Nature Of Your Soul.
Extend Your Mind And See The Essence Of The Hole.
Inside Of You, Inside Of Me. Free Will, Responsibility.
You Must Save Or Damn Yourse ... (view rest)
Monday, 22 August 2005, 18:57:05 EDT
For the first time ever, I took an unforced week off from work. Typically, the only time I get off is due to campus being closed for holiday. After six straight years it was time to take a personal week. I took the time to get some things done around my apartment and catch up on some sleep. I feel quite refreshed this week. The interesting part of the vacation is that it feels surreal. It is like starting everything at school and work as new again. Today didn't even really seem like the first day of Fall classes even though campus was packed. It is just very weird; I don't know how to describe it.
While on my vacation, I decided to burn a new CD to listen to in my truck. I was going to burn a copy of Meatloaf's Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell but I was unable to find my original. Actually, I stopped looking for it when I came across my copy of the Butthole Surfers's Independent Worm Saloon. I purchased this album because I like the first track, Who Was In My Room Last Night?. Another track on the CD quickly became my favorite on the album, though. The track is number five on the CD and is titled Goofy's Concern. Before I share the lyrics with you I should tell you a couple of things about this band: 1) they rock and 2) they are as far from serious as any band can be. So, here are the lyrics for Goofy's Concern:
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
I don't give a fuck about the FBI
I don't give a fuck about the CIA
I don't give a fuck about LSD
I don't give a fuck about anything
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA ... (view rest)
Sunday, 02 January 2005, 21:49:29 EDT
Jay and Jacky (permanent links will be added later) gave me the Alien Quadrilogy for the holiday that just past. Needless to say, I was astounded and overjoyed; I have been wanting this thing since I found out it was going to be produced. I love the Alien series and this collection was made specifically for people like me — die hard fans of the series. So far I have only watched the alternate cuts of Alien³ and Alien: Resurection.
Alien³ is probably my favorite out of the four movies. I like it for several reasons. I think Sigourney Weaver is hot in it, particularly after she shaves her head; I have no idea why, I just do. I think the alien in the movie is the coolest in the series. The atmosphere of the movie is great and I like Ripley's John Wayne attitude about the situation. That being said, I don't particularly like the alternate cut of this film. Let me be quite clear, the alternate cut of this film is exactly that — a wholly new movie! The director was basically railroaded in to creating this alternate cut, as all four evidently were for their respective movies, and it is very clear why he prefers the original theatrical release. I can't really tell you about this movie and why I don't like the alternate cut without ruining the surprise that is this movie. Don't get me wrong, this movie is still good, it just isn't the movie I like as Alien³.
Alien: Resurection I had only seen once. I like the movie minus the twist at the end. Ripley is even more awesome in this movie than she was in Alien³ which probably explains why I like this movie. The alternate cut of this one is rather good. They basically went back and finished all the scenes that they did not have the technology to finish originally and stuck them in the movie. The added scenes don't detract from the movie but they do alter the outcome. The original cut of the movie is much more definitive while this new cut leaves it open for another movie. I would love to see another Alien movie but I don't think it is going to happen; it really shouldn't happen to tell the truth. Any way, the extended version of Resurection is rather good.
I have not had a chance to watch the other two yet but I will write a review of them. That isn't completely true. I have seen the extended version of Alien when it was released in theatres but I will wait to write a summation of it. On to some CD reviews!
Last Wednesday I went to Media Play to get a new wall calander. Media Play is the last place I should have gone for such a thing. Media Play has the best techno selection in town and nine times out of ten when I go to that store I end up buying at least one CD. This visit was not the tenth time. Along with my lovely Maxim wall calander, I walked out of the store with Orbital's last album, the Blue Album, and Tiësto's Parade Of The Athletes.
After ten years of producing some of the best music ever the brothers Hartnoll, Paul and Phil, decided to create one last album and move on to solo projects. This last album, as I have already mentioned, is titled the Blue Album. The album has been out for a while I just had not purchased it due to budgeting. This album is nothing short of amazing. It is completely different than their first album, the Green Album, yet strangely similar. Just as the Green Album was a "collection of tracks compiled over the years" the Blue Album is a collection of tracks that spans the evolution of their music. Everything is included. The dark tracks, dark and angry tracks, wispy and ambient tracks, the quirky tracks, and even some acid tracks. Heck, track seven is titled Acid Pants which sounds like they either hung out too much with Josh Wink or just had too much fun with a TB-303. If you are an idle fan of Orbital you will probably enjoy track nine, One Perfect Sunrise, the most. The rest of the album you probably won't dig too much; this album is really for the fans throughout the years — sort of a parting gift you might say. Personally, my favorite track is number five, You Lot. You Lot, is their political track for the album. It features a sample from The Second Coming that is quite profound; I like it. I could sit here and talk abo ... (view rest)
Saturday, 30 October 2004, 01:18:56 EDT
Tuesday I had about forty-five minutes to burn at lunch so I went to Best Buy to walk around and look at all the shiny things I wish I could buy. I looked at a new 19" LCD which I could have bought straight out. I looked at some DVDs and various other things. On my way out of the store I saw Appetite for Destruction sitting on a shelf at the end of one of the CD isles. The sticker said $12.99 but I decided to buy it any way because I really love the album. The price at the register ended up being $9.99 – bonus. Well, I finally brought the CD in from my car so that I could rip it and burn a listening copy for my car. As I sit here listening to the encoded files, to make sure they are good, I realized why I like this album so much. Every song on it is just plain good. It is true rock and roll. Everything I hear today is a poor imitation. The guitar and drums are there in today's rock and roll but the voice isn't. I have heard many songs start playing on the radio that I was really getting in to until the singer started whining. I think that if the band is going to play rock they need to fully sound like it. Probably anyone that is even halfway active could beat Axl in a fight but he just sounds like he is going to kick your ass. I don't believe you can truly call your band a rock band if the lead singer sounds like a, pardon the term, pussy. Plus, every song on the album actually says something. I can't say the same for most music now. For example, here is the text to Out Ta Get Me:
Been hidin' out
And layin' low
It's nothing new ta me
Well you can always find a place to go
If you can keep your sanity
They break down the doors
And they rape my rights but
They won't touch me
They scream and yell
And fight all night
You can't tell me
I lose my head
I close my eyes
They won't touch me
`Cause I got somethin'
I been buildin' up inside
For so fuckin' long
Chorus:
They're out ta get me
They won't catch me
I'm innocent
They won't break me
Som ... (view rest)
Thursday, 17 June 2004, 22:35:37 EDT
In the middle of composing the previous post I was called over to my boss' office. It seems that tomorrow will be my last day, at least for a while, working at the CCSU help desk. Starting Monday I will be working for the networking department. My job will be to help install the wireless network in the new University Center with the goal of achieving the maximum coverage area possible. Once that is done we will be going back and re-working the current wireless network across campus to make it better. I am very excited about this progression; I think I am going to have fun with this project and hopefully something more permanent can come of it. I just figured I would mention that before getting in to the real post – CD reviews!
Last week I went to Best Buy to pick up the new Velvet Revolver album; it seems I was a little too early as it was not on the shelves and would not be until the next day. So, I wandered around the store for a while and eventually made my way to the techno music section. Looking through the CDs I found that Dieselboy just release a new album a couple weeks ago and that has tracks from Josh Wink, BT, and Tiësto. How could I resist? One of my favorite acid house artists, one of my favorite break beat artists, and, basically, the only trance artist I like all on the same album and remixed to wicked drum and bass (which I am slowly deciding not to call jungle - just ask if you think you can stand the explanation). I must say, this album rocks! The Wink track is very identifiable and makes me remember why I love that acid sound that comes out of well tweaked Roland TB-303. The other two tracks are not so easily picked out but if you listen you can hear them. Another cool thing about this album is that it was produced as a sort of tribute to the DJ's AD&D buddies and the whole game in general. The album runs just like a campaign; it goes from real dark and evil to ever so slightly melodic all the while being narrated by a dungeon master. If you like d&b and DnD then you should pick this album up.
Since I wasn't able to pick the Velvet Revolver album that day I went back last Saturday and picked it up. After having listened to it for almost a week I can safely say this is an excellent album. At first listen it is rather bland but after listening to it a couple of times the style grows on you. I guess I was just expecting a Guns N' Roses type sound since three-fifths of the band is old GNR band members but the sound is quite different. The music is really mature and is definitely not heavy metal; I would say that it is straight up hard rock. My favorite tracks from the album are Big Machine (#3), Headspace (#7), Superhuman (#8), Slither (#11), and Dirty Little Thing (#12). Quite a few out of thirteen tracks but I ... (view rest)
Monday, 17 May 2004, 21:00:35 EDT
Today was my first day working a "normal" work day. For five years I have been working from either mid-afternoon or mid-morning until closing, which used to be 10:30PM but is now 8:30PM. Getting out of work at 5:30PM just might be worth getting up at 7:30AM every morning; although, I am going to have to make that thirty minutes earlier due to my Friday schedule which is 8:00AM until 5:00PM. By the end of the summer I should have a pretty good idea if having all day Friday off, making a three day weekend, is actually better than getting out of work at a decent time. I think getting out of work at a decent time is going to prove to be the better situation. I am just so tired of not having any time during the week to do anything like wash clothes, buy groceries, go to a baseball game, etcetera.
After work today I went over to Target to pick up some things I needed. After getting what I went in for I decided to walk around the store and see if there was anything else that would strike me as worth buying. Nothing really caught my eye until I was walking to a register. At the end of one of the checkout lanes on a bottom shelf was Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here for $9.99. I don't know how my eye caught it but I decided that I needed to expand my growing Pink Floyd collection and bought it. After I got home I immediately ripped it and listened to the rip to be sure everything was good with the resulting Ogg files. Since I had my ... (view rest)
Wednesday, 21 April 2004, 18:47:43 EDT
I write this in a moment of shock and astoundment. My favorite band in all the world will not be touring again after the release of their next album on June 21, 2004. They will play a show in Brixton, England on June 25 in promotion of the album. On June 27 the will play a retrospective all out bash in Glastonbury, England as their last show ever. This show is already sold out and the news just came over the official mailing list. The last show I was able to attend was on October 5, 2001.
... (view rest)
Tuesday, 20 April 2004, 14:04:59 EDT
One of the songs from my music section has been featured in this month's edition of Proud Freak Nation. Evidently folks like the tune so far and some have even come here and downloaded the rest of my so ... (view rest)
Sunday, 04 April 2004, 22:56:07 EDT
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I have discovered a profession that I will not consider if I ever have to choose another one. That profession is called "mechanic." I have no idea how people can put up with all the crap that comes with being a mechanic. I went out to my grandparent's today to replace the remaining three struts in my car (replaced one last weekend) and we only accomplished getting one installed. The day started off pretty good; I got the front right strut out in record time, which is basically a helluva lot faster than it took to get the front left one out, and thought things were going to go well. Sadly, that was not the case. We had to drive up to Sears in Union City and buy an offset box end metric wrench so that we could put the nut on the top of the new strut. So, after buying this $18.18 tool we had the nut in place and secured inside of two minutes and put the new strut in in about five minutes (that is damn sight better than the five hours it took us to do the left one).
Awesome, so we move on to the rear right strut. Oops, the bolts were seized so we had to get craft and use a five foot pipe, or "persuader bar" as called in this situation, and use it on the wratchet. After getting the bolts out of the bottom of the strut it was time to climb in the trunk and get the top one out. Let the fun ensue. This nut was also seized to I grabbed a Giant Fucking Wrench™ and used it to "persuade" the wratchet to unseize the nut. Aside from taking a chunk of meat out of the knuckle on my left thumb when the nut broke free and all my force shove my hand against some sharp metal things were looking up. After the nut was broken I started, foolishly, trying to turn the nut off of the shaft of the strut. This, of course, did not work because the shaft turned with the nut. After trying to work some voodoo and get it off without "proper tools" we resigned ourselves to going back to Sears to return the tool I bought and let my grandfather buy a whole set of tools. Lo and behold the nut came off after we had the "proper tools." Time to put the son-of-a-bitch new strut on and move on to the final one right? Wrong! The nut that came with the new struct doesn't fucking fit.
So, in the end my car is still on jack stands in my grandparent's drive way. I hate cars and the seemingly haphazard choice of nut and bolt sizes the car designers like to use and I am missing part of my body that I started the day off with.
On to other things...
I have heard a lot of Pink Floyd today. It got me to thinking about how amazing they really are. I mean have you ever heard a more talented and in sync group of people? The can rock out while retaining a peaceful acid trip sound at the same time. Don't believe me? Listen to Comfortably Numb some time and just try to figure out how they play that well. It hurts my head just to try and comprehend the talent in that one song much less all others they have done.
It seems that there will be a second Neverwinter Nights. One of the public relations people for Atari let it slip in this ... (view rest)
Sunday, 28 March 2004, 23:10:33 EDT
Well, my grandfather and I are quite possibly the slowest mechanics on the planet. We spent five hours this afternoon replacing one of the struts on my car and we still have three left to go. It probably would have gone by a little quicker had we actually read the directions before we took everything apart. Spending more time searching for sockets and wrenches than actually using them probably didn't help matters either. No matter though; at the end of the day we each had more knowledge than we started with and it was a good way to spend the day. I can tell you one thing though, when you go to the mechanic to have the struts and/or shocks replaced in your car and he tells you that it will be about $230.00 in labor he isn't kidding with you. It is a severe pain in the ass. I like the fact that I now know what it takes to do such a job and will have a better idea of a good price for the job in the future should I have to have it done on another car (I won't be doing it again).
Aerosmith has a new album coming out on the thirtieth of this month (Tuesday). The first single has been getting a fair amount of air play the past month or so. Just about every time it is played the dj has to make some sort of comment about it. On 96 Rock the djs seem to think it is an original tune and hype it like the best thing since Walk This Way. This afternoon I heard it on Z93 (which has really changed recently - for the worse in my opinion) and the dj claimed it to be a Who "classic!" Who is he kidding? To the best of my knowledge The Who never even recorded a cover of the song. They did record Please, Please, Please which is very similar in the lyrics at least (I don't think I have ever heard the song). The song that I am ranting about is called Baby Please Don't Go and was made famous by the band that gave Van Morrison, whom is the man by the way, his start. The song was orignially written by Big Joe Williams, a delta blues artist. I just want to make sure some people out there, that may have heard it on the radio and the resultant dj blather, realize that Aerosmith did ... (view rest)
Sunday, 21 March 2004, 16:02:53 EDT
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Aside from going alone (well, I did meet up with Tsaroth there), the show last night was awesome. Actually, Tsaroth was there so I didn't go completely on my own but the birthday boy didn't go so neither did Jason. There was not quite as many hotties there as I was hoping there would be but it isn't like I would have had the gumption to talk to any of them any way. Speaking of hotties, there was a chick there that is evidently fairly well off who had a body guard. Why would you need to have a body guard at a rave? People are there to dance and have a good time not get in fights. At the end of the show the body guard decided he didn't like some guy standing next to him and got violent - that was just uncalled for. Any way, the music was bangin' and the crowd was lively. There were very few rave kiddies there which was good. I liked the fact that the crowd was mature and not running around like a bunch of tweeked out junkies. I would have pictures for you but I didn't take my camera. I thought about taking it but I am glad that I didn't because the way I dance (badly) it would have been hitting me in the face all night. There was a dude taking pictures who seemed to be with the DJ so maybe I will make it in some of those and will let you know if so. Bad Boy Bill took over the turn tables at about 12:45AM, about ten minutes after I got in the club (traffic was freakin' crazy; half a mile took forty minutes), and would have kept spinning until he ran out of records had the promotors not told him to wind it down at 2:55AM. Atlanta has taken the stance that all the clubs need to close at 3:00AM which is just lame. He did do a quick encore though; and by quick I mean like a two minute encore. Overall I had a blast - you all should have gone.
And now for some seriousness. There is an abby just outside of Conyers. They are falling on hard times because of mounting medical costs. The youngest monk at the abby is forty-five and the older monks are suffering from old ... (view rest)
Wednesday, 17 March 2004, 12:46:36 EDT
The weekend is nearing and that means it is getting closer to the Bad Boy Bill show at The Crescent Room on Saturday. I can't wait; it is going to be insanely fun - bust out the Jägermeister shots and the glasses of Jack on the rocks! If you are not doing anything Saturday night and you like hard house, hot women, and a rockin' good time go get yourself some tickets and meet us up at the club.
In other music news, the next best thing to Guns N' Roses has finally set a release date for their first album. I love the Velvet Revolver track Set Me Free from the Hulk Motion Picture Soundtrack. Velvet Revolver is best described as this:
This is the band that brings together three f ... (view rest)
Thursday, 04 March 2004, 19:48:48 EDT
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Well hot damn Jason finally got his internet connection fixed and posted some new content to his web site. I should download the new Quake III maps he has there and try them out but Unreal Tournament 2003 is calling my name.
My headphones are starting to show their age. I really need some new ones. The problem is is that I want the model up from the ones. While the new pair is now the same price as my current pair was when I bought them they are still too expensive for me right now. My current pair are really showing their age though; the "leatherette" is almost completely gone from the left ear piece and is flaking off more and more on the right piece every day. Who wants to save me from my headphone hell and by me the MDR-V700DJs?
Wolven reminded me today how much I love Green Jellö album Cereal Killer (technically it is a sound track but I just like it for the good Metal that it is). Since I have evidently lost my compact disc somewhere along the way I hit up EBay like a crack fiend and put in a bid on an original copy printed before they were legally require to change the name to Green Jellÿ. Hopefully no one will jack the bid up past the $3.99 it currently is in the next six days. I doubt they will because just about no one likes the band and would hardly even dream of buying the CD. Here is to hope against hope.
Also, I have been getting more and more aggitated with the piss poor grammar skills of people who post text to the internet. Damn it people, pick up a book and do some reading. I promise it will d ... (view rest)
Sunday, 15 February 2004, 20:17:46 EDT
Yesterday I picked up a copy of DJ Dara's Breakbeat Science - Exercise.01. This album is really good if you like stuff such as Teebee or Loxy & Ink. No, they are not featured on the album but the album is full of dark mind crunching acid synth and soul beating bass. Towards the end it gets melodic and leaves you on a very groovy beat. I highly recommend this album to anyone who like to trip the broken beats.
Today I went out to help my grandfather with some more chores around the house, as well as set up ... (view rest)
Tuesday, 03 February 2004, 12:34:59 EDT
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Magnatune, the open music record label. This is how things should done. Magnatune is a record label that distributes wholly online in any format you could possibly want: "All songs are available in MP3, CD-quality WAV, OGG, FLAC and MP3-VBR." Not only that, but you are able to choose the price you want to pay for the album, ranging from $5.00US - $18.00US. If you really like the album you can pay more than the recommended $8.00 or if you kinda dig and just want to have it around to listen to you can pay a little less. Whatever you choose to pay the artist gets 50%. And you don't have to blindly guess at what the music will sound like either; you can listen to tracks individually, listen to the whole a ... (view rest)
Tuesday, 02 December 2003, 19:32:12 EDT
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While I am on the subject of classical music I might as well provide a link to the biggest archive of public domain classical MP3s: ... (view rest)
Tuesday, 02 December 2003, 19:29:39 EDT
Ok, so it is that time of year again *sigh*. So, if any of you intend to get me anything (for some unknown reason, I don't really need anything other than cash) take a look at this link.
Oh, and classical is always better when a harpsichord is present. Speaking of h ... (view rest)
Tuesday, 19 August 2003, 16:31:57 EDT
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Well after a fun day of MSBlast yesterday I went home and checked the VMWare newsgroups again just to see if another solution had been devised. Lo and behold there was. It seems that I was able to remove all the cdroms from the virtual machine and add a "Generic SCSI device" mapped to '/dev/sg1'. So, yes it works. The problem is that, while ARTRAC3 sounds really good at 66Kbps, the walkman requires a lot of jumping through hoops to get audio on to it. If a device ever comes out that is sol ... (view rest)
Monday, 18 August 2003, 18:30:13 EDT
Damn Windows machines. Every machine brought on to campus today must have had the fucking MSBlast virus. It brought the campus' network to its knees right about lunch time, a.k.a. when everyone was on campus.
I am actually stunned that I am able to write this post right now. I am shocked that my bootleg server even has a connection.
If you, the person reading this page, are a Windows user and have not already done so then apply the patch found here. You would do the rest of the world a huge fucking favor by not sucking up all the damn bandwidth.
That or ins ... (view rest)