The Z Axis

sad FM

Well, I have yet to come out of my disassociated state. This is beginning to freak me out.

I was going to come home from Leslie's work and write a long entry, but instead I went driving for a long while, and took a couple pictures. Now I'm tired and none too wild about any of the things coming out of my head.

So, instead of an entry, I'm going to do something I've not done before: a re-pimpage of one of my songs - the hopeless romantic - because I really like it, and I don't think many people listened to it the first time around. If you have yet to test the waters of my crappy electronic fiddlings, this is a nice short one to try out.

what would you say
if i took those words away

[the one time i turn on the car radio]

beauty in the breakdown

I owe my friend Steve an apology.

And not even for the being a terrible friend, which is an apology a lot of folks deserve right about now. I'll get to that eventually, but for now, the superficial apology.

You see, a long while back he tried to get me into a band called Frou Frou. And he sent me a couple tracks, and I did in fact listen to them, but for some reason they didn't grab me. I think it's because I listened to Breathe In first, and it is vastly inferior to Let Go. And right now I cannot see why on earth Let Go did not grab me then, as it has utterly dominated me for the past 24 or so hours.

Last night I finally saw a movie I'd wanted to see with Leslie a while back, called Garden State. It was long after I'd wanted, but it was still with her, and it was a wonderful evening. It's an excellent movie, and several parts of it really spoke to some of the things that have been going on in my head but I haven't talked to anyone or written about. Beyond that, the two lead characters had a lot of traits I identified with, and it made me feel slightly better about being me.

But anyway, right toward the end, when I was in that weird zen mode when you see a movie at exactly the right time for you, and you are somewhat outside yourself and contemplating things on a slightly more philosophical and grand scale than you are accustomed to, Zach Braff went and stuck this song, Let Go.

And I haven't been able to get it out of my head since. I think it is one of those right place right time things, but a movie is no more deserving of respect for recommendations than a friend.

So, I'm sorry, Steve. You were totally right about the Frou Frou, and I'm sorry it took me this long to come around.

Now, as for the me being a shitty friend thing, you kinda gotta take a number there, and Finn is holding a pretty low one.

But I am trying. And though I make light of it, it's eating me.

That reminds me, Finn, if you read this, I do still have things I intended to send around Xmas, but couldn't because they were split amongst 2 geographically distant homes and my schedule was bizarre. It may turn into a SolCon gift, or perhaps a birthday one. I don't know, I am falling down on many of the deadlines I set for myself lately.

Sorry, guys.

[ninth of twelve]

BREAARRRGH

BRAINS!

[just kidding finn]

got nowhere but home to go

Every now and then, there's a PA strip that is hillarious on its own, and has a title that makes me laugh my ass off at least as much as the strip itself. This is one of those times.

Been over a week since I've posted. I'm not so happy about that, but, my readership has dwindled from its not-too-plentiful peak, and I've been feeling pretty miserable both mentally and physically, so I'll just gloss over it, and pretend this is a recent update.

Hey blog, how's it goin'. New server still pretty comfy? Good. I tinkered with some bits of you, added some links, removed some others til they are okay again. Of course, the majority of people who read you do so through a LJ syndication feed, so none of those changes are visible.

I really should go to bed, so I'm not sure why I started this post.

Hey monkey.

[got ben folds on my radio]

red, red wine

Just woke up to a scenario that had an old friend of mine going for the yellow pages.

Ominous.

I really need to gather some peoples in this town.

Also, I'm breaking a rule by posting to the internet(s) whilst considerably drunk. I will have to chastize myself tomorrow.

[goes to my head]

clear lids and peep hatred

A new TRB song is available.

But first, about the last song. I was teaching myself some tricks with the Malström in Reason, and it was the result. I realized after the fact that I unconsciously patterned it heavily after "a walk in the cold," though there are some definite differences. This is most notable to me as the creator, because one was inspired by a sense of impending doom, and the other a sense of blossoming hope. "Reach out and touch someone" is essentially me learning the ins and outs of a device, making one riff, then tweaking it so it sounds all computery (normal part starts about 1:00 in, turns computery around 1:33,) and then building a song around it. I guess I am fairly predictable, and there's a downside to playing by ear, as the unintentional similarities attest to.

Now, the new song, which I'm much more excited about.

the rage box - the hopeless romantic

I think this is my second favorite thing I've ever done. The number one thing is as-yet unreleased. Maybe someday it'll get finished.

This one is for every sunrise I watched from the roof of a parking deck. I think that may be the best way to enjoy it.

I owe a great debt of gratitude on this one to Leslie, who instructed me to watch a movie tonight called Serendipity. It's a fantastic movie, if on the contrived side, and seems tailor made for sentimental lame-os like me.

Plus, dude, Jeremy Piven.

I will probably release a better-mixed version of this song some time in the future, as I am still mulling over whether to re-master all the songs I am putting on the 2 CDs. While I'm fine with the quality on these MP3s I'm shoveling to you people, when I finally put something on a CD, I want to spit-shine every digital bit. There are a couple parts in this that I think will flare into audio clipping on the average setup, and that sucks.

[and christmas ham too]

i have a paper hat with writing on it

The batphone network is almost up - using the charity of others, it's already working. We're using FreeWorldDialup as a SIP proxy for now. If you want to try me, my number's 542856, or for other SIP places, sip:542856@fwd.pulver.com. Provided I didn't just open myself up to VoIP telemarketers, I'll keep that number active even after my brother gets his Asterisk server playing nicely externally, and we have an A-Team style private network for the Commisioner or some little kid who frequents B.A.'s youth center to contact us on.

An image, including the ultra-sweet batlogo I am for some reason incredibly proud of, despite viewing the entire voip-phone enterprise as too unnecessary-geekiness even for me:

What the hell, the phone was free.

Today I cleaned a ton, tore apart a laptop to fix its power connector, and put WinXP on the eventual briefcase-computer.

Oh, and I found out the new features in Reason 3.0. Holy. Shit. TRB fans, rejoyce. I mean, holy crap - if the Combinator works like I think it will, I might just wet my pants. Now if only they will tell us when it's coming out.

It was a little touch and go there, but today turned out to be a great day. Even if the cheese fries at Steak and Shake were a little so-so.

[times a googolplex times a hojillion]

sweet zombie jesus it's late

A new TRB song is available.

the rage box - reach out and touch someone

I will say more about this song later, but right now I'll merely acknowledge the tons of similarities between this and "a walk in the cold" and happily say the inspirational circumstances are quite different.

I reaaaally gotta go to sleep.

[bleep bleep bloop]

It is the year 2005.

The treacherous Decepticons have conquered the Autobots' home planet of Cybertron. But, from secret staging grounds on two of Cybertron's moons, the valiant Autobots prepare to retake their homeland.

I've literally been waiting about 6 years to do that.

theempire.homeftp.net is fixed. it still has the corrolary antelope.homeftp.net, but both point to the same place for now.

the batphone network is nearing completion, silly though it may be. Also, not red and glowing, or encased in glass. But I did a kickass bat logo for it! IT'S GOT SEVERAL SHADES OF GREY!

Oh, and here's that "comedy" sketch I mentioned a couple posts back. I needed to write something. It's kinda funny, I guess. I think the next act will be a sketch involving an Adult version of Moviephone.

[this was more important than playing the theme to 2001]

last day

All theempire.homeftp.net links will be broken til I figure away around bellsouth screwing me. For now, you can replace that part of any url with "antelope.homeftp.net:4900" and it should get you to the files you seek. This is probably only going to affect those who want to grab the latest TRB file.

I will actually post the sketch I wrote the other day, but its on another computer, and I'm getting increasingly less lucid, so it shall wait. It's the first act of a comedy thing that will probably never get a second or third act.

All I can about it right now is, Weather monkey.

My week was continuing to go really crappy, but it's getting some bright points to keep me from utter hermit-psychosis.

My incredibly pathetic new years night was given a ray of sunshine, and I was spared a rather soul crushing dose of loneliness. Couldn't have come at a better time. I could go more into this, but I'm just gonna say thanks again.

I'm just gonna lay off the mental state stuff until Sunday or so, when I estimate I shall be feeling much better. It's been a very sad, very tiring, very frustrating week, and I think for once I'm just gonna shut up about it and be glad when it's over. I started feeling better about 12:30 tonight, and have been getting better since.

Now it's time to enhance that spike with some beer, some ninja turtles, and some sleep.

No matter how apparent it is at the time that some crap I'm going through is self-inflicted, it still feels good to come out of it.

If I don't blow it, this could be a good year.

Just can't let stuff pile up like this as much - it makes people around me feel responsible when they're not. And I eventually cheer up either way, whether commanded to or not.

Anyway, Raphael is being cool but rude, and I'm being increasingly cryptic, so I'm forcibly ending this one.

[ten years hence]