Geek Horde

2009-10-01T19:20:00.002-05:00

My brother Frank's funeral was today. To say that it was beautiful is sort of an understatement. I'm going to start a new blog for Frank, for the family to share pictures and stories, and for friends to be able to do the same. I'll post about it on Facebook.

Also, I intend on posting here with a little more regularity. Very soon.

2009-03-24T23:29:00.002-05:00

First, in the realm of musical experiments, very interesting goings on over at the Photosounder blog. Apparently someone has figured out how to manipulate sounds as images and viceversa. Very cool.

Also, oubliettezombie has some very good sound design tutorials for Ableton. In a similar vein, Tom Cosm has posted a very cool insight into how he works on tracks in Ableton. Very very cool.

In other news, BBC radio had a very interesting interview with Delia Derbyshire (who, despite the fact that she has passed on, and that I am a very married man, I am basically in love with) back in 1997. You can listen to part 1 and part 2 on the youtubes. She was far ahead of her day.

My friend Clint posted something funny on youtube, since this is such a youtuberific post, which you should watch. It's pretty funny.

The Tueday lunch Indian Buffet at Ellas up on Campus pretty much rocks. Very very good, I am happy to report.

Reading Conn Iggulden's Genghis Khan novels (well, the first one, so far). It's magnificent.

2009-02-27T13:13:00.003-06:00

My latest music technology find is sfxr. It's brilliant. In a nutshell, it's designed to make those 8bitish old old video game sounds. It's specifically designed for video game designers to get quick sound effects. However, I've found that with a little processing and coaxing, the blips, bleeps and crunchy blurps sound really nice in a psytrance setting. It's too bad it's a standalone program and not a vst instrument.

2009-02-11T22:11:00.002-06:00

Currently reading Pirate Sun (#3 in the Virga Series) by Karl Schroeder. His website is over here, and you can read a free ebook version (with a creative commons license) over here. His books are riproaring romps, very imaginative worldcreation (which we all know I love) combined with a great story. Must reads, indeed, if you like fun in your science fiction, or vice versa.

Also, over on youtube there's a guy who has a tutorial on how to use Ableton live to turn found sounds into a drum kit. Very interesting, if you're into that sort of thing.

2009-01-28T22:06:00.002-06:00

Lord it's been a long time since I've posted.

I must say, I just really didn't feel like writing in the waning months of the Bush Regime. Hopefully things will be better now.

Over here you can read a really interesting interview with R. Scott Bakker, the author of the Prince of Nothing series. In this interview not only does he talk about his new trilogy set in the same world, there is a very interesting critique of post-modern 'literary' fiction, essentially calling it out for being the wankery that it so often is. I found this particularly delightful.

Still working on some psytrance. Had hoped to have my latest track done and posted by now, but the ice storm that hit us has had me derailed a little. Hopefully by this weekend. Still need to rework some of the percussion/drum bits.

2008-11-04T23:45:00.000-06:00

Sail on, Oh Mighty Ship of State. Democracy is coming.

2008-10-22T23:08:00.000-05:00

Ok. Arkansas. I'm going to lay out an argument here (and I may be absolutely wrong, but I don't think I am) for why I believe that there's a really good chance that Arkansas will actually end up going for Obama, probably even to the surprise of Obama. At any rate, even if that doesn't happen, I still think it will end up being much closer than most people think.

First, you need to look at the total numbers of votes during the Primaries. Let's assume that those who cared enough to vote in the Primaries are 'likely voters' as it were, since they already have proved that they come out to vote. When you take the total of the votes for the top 3 Democratic candidates you get 303,932. When you take the total of the votes for the top 3 Republican candidates you get 203,991. You can see that Democratic voters outvoted Republicans by roughly 100,000 votes.

Next, take into account that roughly 88,000 new voters have been registered in Arkansas this year. I highly doubt that it's even, but assume that it is.

Assume that everyone who was partisan enough to vote for a Democratic candidate will vote Democrat. Assume the same for Republicans. If Sarah Palin were not the VP candidate for the Repubs I might entertain the notion that some Hillary Dems would go GOP, but that is looking very unlikely right now. Assume, for the sake of argument, that those who voted GOP will stay that way. Assume that 50% of the new voters go Dem, 50% GOP. That gives us a total of 247,991 Republican votes, and 347,932 Democrat votes. I think it's much more likely though that a large majority of those new voters will go for Obama, since Democrats have posted record numbers of registrations in Arkansas, and the number of registered Republicans is actually shrinking.

Of course, the real question is how many of the 1.57 million registered voters in Arkansas, most of whom are unaffiliated, will go. Well, the polls tell one story (the last one seems to have been in September, with McCain showing a 9 point lead over Obama), but the voting record for 2006 tells another story. The Governor is a Democrat. Most state office holders are Democrats. In short, Arkansas is turning Blue.

At any rate, we'll see how it goes soon. And I'm sure it will be interesting to watch.

2008-10-20T23:17:00.002-05:00

The ginned up, trumped up charges of 'voter fraud' that the Republicans are going to use (among other dirty tricks) to try to steal yet another election just keep popping up everywhere. Indiana. New Mexico (almost). I'm sure there will be more. Meanwhile, McCain/Palin and the RNC hired a firm accused of massive voter registration fraud in several states. Yeah. Interesting.

Here's a question for you. Who wrote this?

The man of great wealth owes a peculiar obligation to the State, because he derives special advantages from the mere existence of government.

That's right. Teddy Frickin' Roosevelt. Good ol' Teddy, ladies and gentlemen..

Finally, here's a creative commons graphic comparison of the McCain and Obama tax plans. Just to lay it all out there for you. Rather than call McCain an idiot for confusing a progressive tax plan with socialism, I'll just let the graphic speak for itself.

2008-10-16T09:54:00.001-05:00

Oops. Looks like Joe the Plumber (Who seems to own at least two businesses, and is certainly not middle class) is related to the son in law of Charles Keating. Of the Keating 5 Scandal (Oh yeah, and McCain hasn't been tied to the Keating 5, he WAS one of the Keating 5). OOPS! (Seriously, watching these people screw up like this is just embarrasing. It's like watching a bad episode of Perfect Strangers or watching George Costanza make a fool of himself on Seinfeld. It's awful.) I'm not saying he's a plant. But it certainly looks fishy.

How is the mainstream media not picking up on any of this yet?

2008-10-15T07:56:00.000-05:00

This is one of the best written indictments of the legacy of Reagan and Conservativism that I think I've ever read.

As a result of the Second Gilded Age and its serf-like subservience to big capital, most corporations in the US don't pay any income taxes, despite doing $2.5 trillion annually in business.

The Reagan Revolution included the stupid idea that you can cut taxes, starve government, abolish regulation of securities, banks, & etc., and still grow the economy. The irony is that capitalist markets need to be regulated to avoid periodically becoming chaotic (as in 'chaos theory,') but the people who most benefit from regulation are most zealous in attempting to abolish or blunt it.

What those policies did was create the preconditions for a long-term bubble or set of bubbles that benefited (for a while) the wealthiest 3 million Americans and harmed everyone else.

One of the things that has disappointed me the most about the Democratic party in this election is that they've basically been saying that the Bush/Cheney/McCain policies have failed. It's much MUCH bigger than that. Conservatism has failed.

Look at them now. They're all libertarians until the markets start to fail. Suddenly they're essentially reading Marx and nationalizing industries. Like Banking.

Well, if we can nationalize Banking, why not Health Care?

It's fascinating to watch how McCain/Palin are trying to frame this endgame. What they seem to be doing is to try to link alleged voter fraud with Obama, and at the same time trying to frame themselves as 'the underdog' in media coverage. So what this is actually saying, for those who have half a brain and remember the last two elections, and know about all the voter caging that's going on, what this is actually telegraphing, is that this is the pretext that they're going to use to try to steal the election. Again.

I don't think it's going to work this time. What they haven't counted on is that essentially in the last two elections the only reason this kind of thing has worked is that it's come down to one or two battleground states, and the margins have been so slim, that the Republicans can get away with vote tampering shenanigans, especially in states where they have control of the legislature and other offices.

What Obama has been doing, which is particularly smart, is fighting what's called a 50 State Strategy (Looking at the country at a county level, most counties are purple, rather than blue or red, with most elections being won by a slim margin of victory). Essentially, he's had so many resources from building an actual movement, that he's been able to mobilize in what should be safe Republican territory, according to received wisdom, putting the Republicans on the defensive, and making them spend precious resources defending said 'safe' territory. At this point, especially because of the total clusterfuck that is the economy, Obama is leading McCain with 'independent voters' by double digits. This is a good thing.

I predict that it's NOT going to be close, despite what the media is trying to say about how voters supposedly lie about supporting a black candidate but when they're in the ballot box they're secretly racists. I really don't think that's going to be a factor. At all.

I think most people are so sick of the direction that this country is going in, of the over 4000 US casualties in Iraq, of the massive COST of a war that was based on a lie, of a failing economy, people losing their jobs and houses, while corporations ship their jobs overseas, but the rich are still rich. (I could talk about the beatitudes, and how it's easier for a camel to walk through the eye of a needle than for a rich man... well, whatever, you get the point.)

I don't think it's going to be close. I think it's going to be a landslide.

2008-10-01T09:08:00.000-05:00

Three things, two quasi-political (tis the season) and one purely musical for those who are interested in that kind of thing.

First, is Hank of the vlogbrothers (Nerdfighters! Hoo Ha!) doing the best job of explaining the economic clusterfuck we find ourselves in. The only problem I see with his explanation is he never uses the word 'deregulation' which is a code word that means 'Republicans want the Government to stop interfering with whatever the hell stupid, immoral or frankly unethical thing that Corporations want to do'.

Second, is this (brilliant) explanation of why Obama is probably going to win. So don't freak out. Unless the Republicans manage to steal a third election. Which they're planning on trying to do anyway. So maybe freak out.

Thirdly, on Friday I played a live laptop set of some of my psytrance stuff up at Spectra Inertia 3. I got a really good reaction, lots of people dancing. That was great. However, even better, was seeing lots of other psytrance DJs, and getting a chance to really listen to some psytrance on a really big system. I found myself, quite often, when I wasn't closing my eyes and grooving to groovy music, thinking to myself, 'HOW in the HELL did they make THAT sound?' So, here's a thread on how to make a really good scratchy lead sound, which will mean practically nothing to you, unless you're maybe Jeremy or Mike. Anyway, I thought it was a really good tip. Helped me make at least 4 presets for lead instruments in Ableton Live that I can drop into any track that I'm making.

Expect a liveset up soon. And probably some new tracks. Also talking about collaborating with a few people.

Oh yeah. Also, saw these guys do some mixing, and they're AMAZING (download one of their mixes). Check them out. Also met this guy, and his music kind of blows me away. Also, he's really nice and funny and smart.

2008-09-20T00:13:00.000-05:00

Joe Conason said it much better than I could say it:

Now that we're all about to take on hundreds of billions or perhaps a trillion dollars in new public debt to redeem the nation's super-smart corporate financiers, there is one thing I hope we can expect in addition to postponing the apocalypse. Will they all please shut up about the wonders of the unfettered free market and the horrors of big government?

This is all corporate welfare. That's all it really is. Which is ultimately what the morally bankrupt philosophy of 'convservatism' boils down to. That welfare is ok as long as it's for a corporation that's gotten so big and bloated that it can't be allowed to fail, but any form of the same for individuals is 'socialism' or some other nonsense (we can bail out Wall Street, but those people who lost their homes? No way). The spirit of trust-buster Teddy Roosevelt is slapping himself on his forehead, somewhere.

Meanwhile, millions of Americans still don't have health care, or can afford to go to college, or have to make hard choices about overpriced drugs vs. utility bills or groceries.

The very idea that 'the free market', that essentially the massed aggregate of everyones greed and avarice will somehow magically provide for the welfare of everyone is not only absurd, but at best stupid. At worst a sign of a profound disconnect with actual reality akin to believing that magic actually works or that the tooth fairy is real. There are real needs that can only be met by the massed concentration of both will and effort on what is essentially a state level. That's what societies are for. To provide for the common welfare of all.

The disaster that was Katrina. This HUGE financial mess that the country is in thanks to the wonders of deregulation. These things (and more like them) are what happen when you elect a party to control governance whose main philosophy is that governance is bad (or unnecessary). None of this is any real surprise. The only real surprise is that anyone is falling for their bullcrap anymore.

Ok. Rant mode off.

2008-08-22T09:22:00.000-05:00

If you share an amateur interest in mycology, ecology and generally are concerned about the current state of the environment, you should watch this lecture by Paul Stamets, entitled 6 Ways Mushrooms Can Save the World (at TED). Paul Stamets wrote the book Mycelium Running, which is incredibly informative and enlightening. Going out on a limb, I think that bioremediation using fungus to clean up toxic sites will become increasingly important in the next few years.

In other news, Osiris Synth has finally completed their new version of the Cymbiant. The morphable oscillators are very intriguing (a little judicious use of delay, modulations and reverbs, both in the same track and also as fx sends, and you can get some amazing ambient washes and sweeps, I'll leave the particulars to you). But, again, there's nothing like that supersaw sound, for my money.

Also, my morning glories are really starting to take off. I'm excited about that. The basil in the garden is going crazy. Probably time soon for a mega batch of pesto, half of which will be freezer bound.

In other other news, I'm hoping to soon have a new liveset mp3 representing the direction my live psytrance shows are headed, over at my virb page. I'll probably eventually be taking down a few of those tunes, reworking them. If you like loud, very very crazy sounding electronic music, you should check it out. I think I might actually kinda know what I'm doing now.

2008-08-12T21:20:00.000-05:00

There are SO many things I've been wanting to talk about. But I may not get them all in.

Ok, first of all, Beth and Jack and I went to Washington DC to see my brother and his family like 2 weeks ago. It was amazing. Absolutely great. Very very cool to see all of them. Jack developed a real shine to all of them, and was very very bummed out to be leaving them.

However, as fun as it was to travel, it's nice to be home. It's been very unseasonably cool the last few days, and kind of rainy. It's been nice.

20 Things I Am Thankful For:

1. My wife, who constantly amazes me (with her compassion and her gentle wisdom) and amuses me. She's also pretty hot. So I've got that going for me.
2. My son, who is acquiring the power of speech at a truly astounding rate. I really do have to watch what I say around him now. One slip up and he could be repeating some off-color remark that I made for days.
3. The fact that I'm Southern. I mean, I hate the Rebel flag, and am in many ways not what those outside the South would consider stereotypically Southern, i.e. a hick or redneck. But I have Southern roots, and I'm thankful for them.
4. Old books. And the leisure to read and think about them.
5. Summer watermelon. With salt.
6. Heirloom tomatoes (see my wife, entry 1) from the Farmer's Market.
7. Pulled or chopped pork BBQ. Barbecue, in my heart of hearts, will always be pork. I'm cool with chicken and beef brisket. But pork is where it's at.
8. The success of the basil plants in our backyard.
9. Hank and John Green, for being so awesome.
10. The Teafaerie for making me laugh today. Hard.
11. The fact that I can make a kickass pizza with little to no effort. I'm pretty proud of that too. Making dough is fun.
12. The fact that I have a job that (despite the crazy/stupid things I overhear from the occasional customer [see below] and the occasional crapfest of actual WORK to do) I don't hate. Actually, there's few things in the world that I love more than turning on a reader to either John Green, George R.R. Martin, Iain Banks, R. Scott Bakker, or D.M. Cornish.
13. Iain Banks. The man is a gift. And funny.
14. Fanfilms of lightsaber duels. Some of them are pretty good. And some are awesome. It's pure geekery fun.
15. The fact that Autumn is approaching.
16. Despite how unpleasant it was, I'm grateful that I had my teeth cleaned today.
17. The smell of Burt's Bees Natural Cologne.
18. Butter Chicken. With Basmati rice. And garlic naan.
19. Any chance I have to write. Alone. Uninterrupted.
20. Music.

In other news, be on the look-out Friday for Bigfoot. Supposedly they found a BODY in Georgia (America, not south of Russia), and they're having a press conference about it. A hoax? Probably. But if not, probably one of the most important things to happen to science in an awful long time. I don't think that it's outside the realm of possibility that remnant populations of Homo Erectus could have evolved to be very very large in size, and I also don't think that it's outside the realm of possibility that they could have made their way to the Americas. We'll see, I guess.

As some of you may know, I work in a bookstore. Here are some stupid things overheard lately:

1. 'Where's the nonfiction section?' Um. It's everything. That's not fiction. And there are signs.
2. 'This sticker on this book is in the wrong place. It's on this guy's face.' I know sir. That's where we put all the stickers. 'But I can't see his face.' Why would you want to look at Kevin Trudeau's ugly mug, anyway?
3. 'I don't read much'
4. 'Do you think they're after him?' A remark about Dan Brown, from a woman who was curious about his new book, the Solomon Key, which has yet to materialize. She seemed to be implying that nefarious forces would keep him from selling the book. Or that we wouldn't sell the book.
5. 'That book isn't in [Current Affairs, Self Improvement, Christian Inspiration, pick a subject].' Really? Because I'm pretty sure I actually DO know where it is. Would you like me to find it for you?

That's all for now.

2008-06-25T13:36:00.000-05:00

It's been far too long since I've posted some Jack pictures. So here are a few.

2008-06-18T22:41:00.000-05:00

Ok, if your computer can handle it, you might want to wander over and try out the new Trial Creature Creator for Spore. It's fun. More fun than a barrel of monkeys. Which is statistically significant.

Tomorrow is Jack Day, and he'll be 18 months old. He's also more fun than a barrel of monkeys. We're going to go to the library and have fun at story time.

2008-05-11T09:09:00.000-05:00

Excellent analysis over on DailyKos about why Clinton's bid for the Presidency was doomed. It's all about the War, stupid!

2008-05-07T09:09:00.000-05:00

It's this kind of bullshit that makes me happy I left academia behind. Seriously. Ugh.

2008-04-26T10:13:00.002-05:00

I finished the rough sketch for an interactive Ambient set in Live yesterday, which hopefully I'll be able to present at an artshow that a friend of a friend was wanting to throw sometime in the near future. It's pretty cool. Basically, it's two FM8 synths, each fed into its own FX channel, with PiWarp and my own custom built reverb/phase/delay combo in Live. I'm using a set number of very long MIDI files of irregular length, with some randomness effects added, to vary the velocity and notes played. The MIDI files will be triggered in a random fashion using follow actions in Live. You can see something using a similar technique here.

There are going to be some more interactive aspects to my sound installation, one aspect being some circuit bent toys/keyboards through dub delay, which the audience will be able to play with, the other aspect being ambient room mics fed into delay and then into a radio transmitter, which will broadcast to small radios spaced throughout the room.

At any rate, when I know more, regarding any sort of performance, you will too.

Oh yeah, found a good/short youtube video showing how to make a simple kick/bassline for psytrance in Live. Here.

2008-04-20T23:28:00.000-05:00

Impressions from the election, with no real substance other than personal observation:

First, Barack Obama. What Barack most reminds me of is a cooler, much smarter older brother, if I had come from a racially mixed family. I can imagine myself relating to him, and even being incredibly proud of him.

Hillary Clinton. Evil stepmother. Heart of ice. And incredibly fake as well.

John McCain. Manchurian candidate.

2008-04-01T17:26:00.000-05:00

In the world of freeware VST instruments and effects, I have several new recommendations (which I'm sure is only of interest to, of my regular readers, maybe Mike, Jeremy and possibly Allen).

First of all, many of these I found on a music blog I recently discovered, Rekkerd.org.

For synths, Cymbiant by Osiris is kind of a one trick pony at first glance, in that it does a passable Supersaw trance lead sound. With a little fx in your signal chain, and you can create some monster leads. Quite nice. I'm sure it has other uses as well. But that's mainly what attracted me to it.

For mangling and twisting drum loops (or anything else), Beatburner by Code Audio was recently released for free. It's quite nice. Breathes some very new life into old and tired loops. Use it with some glitchifier like yer beatrepeaters, Glitch, or supatrigga and you've got instant tech-glitch loops to play with.

There was recently some discussion of Antress, who made some very interesting mastering type of plugins, for free, but whose website seems to be down. At any rate, backup copies of them are available here. Of particular use to me were the Exciter and the Expander. Very nice for breathing some life into the sound of a mix.

Finally, since Jack Dark released the source code of his old Darkware VSTs, Pluggotic have made a modified version of one of his crazy glitchifiers, called Shattersync. It's a stuttering effect that is synced to the host BPM. Quite nice.

At any rate. Hope you like these, those of you who are into this kind of thing. I've found all of these quite useful.

2008-03-27T11:47:00.000-05:00

So, in the world of music, I've finally put up my psytrance oriented Virb page, even though I consider my efforts in the subgenre to still be kind of amateurish in nature. You can check it out here. I've only got two tracks up so far, but three more are very close to being done. And I'm probably going to add at least another one after that, which will probably be a little more tribal/experimental in nature.

I understand that psytrance is not everyone's cup of tea. But I like it. I like the complexities of the interlocking melodies that contrast with the relative simplicity of the structure. Well, sometimes. Sometimes even the song structures can be pretty complex, despite the 4/4 kick drum patterns (which is what most people seem to notice).

Eventually I'm going to put up a mix of all of these tracks as one mp3. That's one of the reasons I like Virb. They let you put up much larger mp3s than myspace. In fact, I'm thinking of wiping my myspace page and moving the ambientish/IDM type of stuff to another Virb page.

2008-03-10T23:22:00.001-05:00

Ok, so I hate Linkin Park, after all, all their songs sound the same, and this proves it. BUT, it's kind of genius in it's own way (especially the intro and the outro), in an almost Syd Barretesque way (without sounding like Syd Barrett or Pink Floyd at all).

So, I found out that in all likelihood someone I know may have murdered his ex-girlfriend. This has really derailed and disturbed me. I just don't know what's up with people. All I wanted to do all day was come home and give Jack a great big hug.

Also, just to stoke the politically divisive fires, 25 Reasons I Cannot Support Senator Clinton. Also, 10 Questions for Hillary Supporters. Just some food for thought.

Oh yeah. And this is one of the funniest things I've seen all week. I hate musicals, but this was great.

2008-02-12T15:45:00.000-06:00

Tornadoes in Winter. Yeah. Ok, now tell me global warming isn't happening. Sea ice in the arctic disappearing. It's all too mindglaringly obvious to even talk about, really. People who refuse to look at the science and see that it's actually happening (despite what the so-called scientific critics who are largely paid by the Oil Industry are saying) should really just be ridiculed as the tards that they are. This will only become more apparent as time goes on.

I had some things I wanted to say about the whole Hillary vs. Obama thing, which I was thinking about as I was in the shower today. Unfortunately, I forget the specifics of what they were. But I'll say this. I'm not voting for Hillary. No matter what. Well, I know. Never say never. But voting for her would leave a very bad taste in my mouth.

2008-01-28T22:40:00.000-06:00

I am in love with the English language. Listen to the words:

' The wretched desert takes its form, the jackal proud and tight
In search of you, I feel my way, though the slowest heaving night
Whatever fear invents, I swear it make no sense
I reach through the border fence
Come down, come talk to me

In the swirling, curling storm of desire unuttered words hold fast
With reptile tongue, the lightning lashes towers built to last
Darkness creeps in like a thief and offers no relief
Why are you shaking like a leaf
Come on, come talk to me'

Peter Gabriel is amazing.

So, I'm still writing. It's slow going, but I think I have a pretty good handle on the structure of the novel I'm working on.

The ironic thing is that now that Jack is here, and I have orders of magnitude less time than I used to work on creative projects, I'm overflowing with creative energies. In fact, I'm working on too many projects. I'm writing some psytrance tunes (I've got 2 done, and I'm working on 3 at once.) I'm working on an ambient double CD, based on the performance I gave this past summer at the AUM festival. I'm starting to fill up a portable hard drive with hand crafted samples with the intent of eventually starting a new site with Mike to sell loops for electronic musicians. I'm working on an interactive/generative ambient music installation for an art show in April. I'm writing some stuff for Oridyr, a collaborative fiction project with Mike and a few other friends. And finally, I'm sketching out a novel that might end up being a Western, in a sense, and at the very least will be a historical novel.

And if I'm lucky, I have about 1.5 to 2 hours a day to work on all this stuff. If I'm lucky.

2008-01-13T11:30:00.000-06:00

Obligatory youtube post.

First is this, 4 guys, a video camera, a beach, some simple props, and I'm assuming some sort of computer to edit in, and they recreated D-day a lot cheaper than Saving Private Ryan. It's pretty inspiring. I hope you pay particular attention to this, Clint and Mike.

Second is this, by a girl in England, Rosianna (who happens to be a nerdfighter and thus, by definition, is made of awesome) which is a tribute to Harry Potter, and the end of Harry Potter, and all things Potterish, I would imagine. Anyway, the choice of music is inspired, and it's really funny and sweet and sad. Very very good.

2008-01-09T11:24:00.000-06:00

New Hampshire.

I'm sure I'll probably get called a conspiracy theorist, but screw it.

Here's the question. All the polls before hand had Obama with a sizable lead over Hillary, and the exit polls said the same thing. And lo and behold, in the precincts where Diebold machines were in use, Hillary won. In the precincts where there was hand counting, Obama won.

Sure looks fishy to me.

I'm not saying Hillary stole this. What I am saying is that the Republicans, who obviously stole the last two Presidential elections, have a vested interested in Hillary being the Democratic nominee. That's what they're counting on, because she's so divisive. They don't want to fight Obama.

Yeah. Looks pretty fucked up to me.

And of course, the media is ignoring this. "Oh, the polls must have been wrong." All of them? "Yes. All of them."

Idiots.

2008-01-04T09:37:00.000-06:00

So I made two experimental, ambientish, abstractish videos in Vegas Video and then put them up on Youtube, here and here. It's mostly fractal type of stuff undulating and writhing in a kind of random squiggleness, set to some of my more ambientish/abstract electronic music.

Tell me what you think. They're pretty much just designed to look pretty and maybe make you giggle if you were tripping balls. I know they're kind of low quality, but Youtube limits you to 10 minutes and 100 MB for vids. I've got a version of the 1st one that's about 2 gigs big, and it's PRETTY.

2007-12-31T00:16:00.000-06:00

So, John Green, being the hella cool nerdfighter that he is, has posted his last vlog of 2007 up on Brotherhood2.0. In this post, he brings up the fact that Baby Made Of Awesome Jack was promised a babywarming gift (and incidentally that I was the first nerdfighter/brotherhood fan named during the project) like way back in January by he himself, and such gift has so far managed to keep from apparating. It seems that this lack of giftingness is about to come to an end.

So yeah. That's cool.

What do the brothers mean to me? It's hard to quantify. They're amazingly funny and smart guys, and while I adore John's work as an author, it's been really amazing and wonderful to get to know these guys to the extent that they've shown themselves to us, in the process of them rediscovering their connection as brothers. I feel very lucky and blessed to have been allowed to witness any of this. And the side effects, the unexpected results of their project has to be the most amazing thing of all. The nerdfighters have proven time and again that mass effort can have very positive results. I like that. That makes me happy. And hopeful.

I used to be a rather negative person at times. I still can be. But being a dad makes me hope for the future. And worry, obviously. But hope is important.

It seems that the project is ending in some way. But also perhaps transforming into something larger and hopefully even more wondrous than it has been. Which is neat.

As an aside, Mike and I discussed last night the idea of taking my abandoned online roleplaying game of Oridyr and turning it into a collaborative fiction project, with the end goals of perhaps having a shared world at the end that works of fiction can be set, and also, perhaps, to have a good and rich setting for a roleplaying game. Duley and Clint, if you're reading this, you should probably email me if you want to get involved. I want this to be a bit more decentralized than the last time. But I still want to make the maps, if that's cool with you guys.

2007-12-27T20:42:00.000-06:00

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted. Jack has had his first birthday and the first Christmas that he's really aware of, and as a result, I have a veritable crapload of Jack pictures to present.

The pictures of him from over a month ago are so startling. He's really growing like the proverbial weed. He knows how to give high fives and he also knows how to give kisses now. Which is pretty much the cutest thing ever.

The pictures that are marked 12-18 were actually taken on his birthday, but our camera seems to be malfunctioning in some subtle way.

The pictures of Mike and Beth holding him are representative of a theme, wherein at his birthday party we had everyone hold him so that we could have a picture for his memory book.

Of course, the boy had a blast at Christmas, and Grandma and Grandpa spoiled him. Which is no surprise. Christmas night we went out to see the Lights of the Ozarks. Supposedly this might be the last year they do that, which would be a shame. They're so pretty.

2007-11-17T10:26:00.000-06:00

So, things are heating up in My Pants, in regard to the scavenger hunt clues on Brotherhood2. It seems that poor Hank has been abducted by a ninja, (watch until the end) whose note read 'Call Divorce Dog Where Kennedy Was Shot'. What does it mean?! Of course, the first thought was Dealey Plaza in Dallas. And the new thought is perhaps there is a clue hidden somewhere on the site of the old Ambassador hotel in LA, where Bobby Kennedy was shot. It's all very mysterious and interesting. Also, it seems that John's clue from 11/15 is still kind of unsolved, maybe.

In other news, two new VSTi finds.

The first one is Softrave Hang, an emulation of a Hang, which is something like an inverted miniature steel drum. It has a very metallic resonant sound, and sounds great through some reverb and delay.

The second is actually a suite of VSTis, which is the Sounds of Nature by xoxos, the winner of the KVR Developer's Challenge for 2007. It's really neat. There are emulators of wind, rain, thunder, bird song and insect noises. Very interesting. Not perfectly like the real thing, but that's actually an interesting aspect of the instruments. If you automate some of the parameters and have them change over the course of a track, the results can be quite odd.

2007-10-26T09:11:00.000-05:00

This, ladies and gentlemen, is proof that summer is over and autumn is here. The last few days I've stripped the basil plants out back, and made a mountain of pesto. A small taste of summer in the midst of winter. (I put a little bit of capers and olives in my pesto. It adds a little sumthin' sumthin'.)

Ok, I'm about to say something that might piss some people off. I've been avoiding political rants simply because the concentrated effort of writing about 'President' Bush will likely give me an aneurysm. However, be that as it may, I'm going to break my habit of not talking about political things lately on my blog and make a little comment about the Democratic candidates for President.

First, let's preface this by saying that I'm probably about as liberal as they come. I think the Republicans are wrong about pretty much everything. Demonstratively. Things, despite the Republicans being in control of both houses of Congress, the Supreme Court and the Presidency for a number of years, things are by and large, WORSE than they were a decade ago. Ok. That aside.

Hillary Clinton. Just because you have a vagina, slept with the former President in the White House for a number of years, and are the junior Senator from New York, that does NOT mean that you have any more 'experience' than Barrack Obama, or anyone else for that matter, or that you would represent women's interests any better than anyone else, simply because of your shared anatomy.

I think she's pretty much unelectable (she's too polarizing, since you asked), and it makes me frickin' livid that the so-called 'liberal media' has all but anointed her as the Democratic candidate, without so much as a vote being cast.

Rant mode off.

Ok, a few VST finds for Mike (and whoever) here, mostly flanging effects but one synth:

First is Charsiesis, a delay/chorus/flanger with a very good organic sound. Works great as an insert effect on some hi-hats.

Next is Classic Flanger, by the unpronounceable Kjaerhus Audio. It's what it sounds like.

Next is TAL-Flanger. It's got a very good analoguish flange sound.

These all sound good alone, but stacked together and you get a really full sweeping sound on drums or synths.

Finally, is the STS-26, Space Transition Synthesizer, with a sound not unlike Krakli Cygnus. It's quite versatile, and there's a free version that gives you only 2 oscillators. I think the pay version gives you 8, which kind of blows my mind.

If you'd like to hear an mp3 of my latest psytrance tune, Consciousness, you can download it here. It's long, and kind of a stomper, full-on psychedelic trance tune. It's designed to be of use for a DJ, which is why the ending is so boring.

Finally, the other day Beth and Jack and I went to the pumpkin patch. Here's a picture.

2007-10-21T13:08:00.000-05:00

So, we got into a discussion about whether or not Dumbledore is gay last night. My sister-in-law, the German lit professor, doesn't think it's 'textually supported.' Which I think is a load of hooey. Speaking as a writer (albeit a so-far unpublished writer, but a writer nonetheless), my point of view is that Mrs. Rowling, as the author, knows far more about the universe that she's created than anyone else. And just because there was no reason inherent in Harry Potter's story to reveal Dumbledore's sexuality, that doesn't mean that that's not a part of that character's makeup or background. Writers write all sorts of backstories all the time that don't end up in the actual story, for whatever reason. Most often because the backstory they write is irrelevant to the story they're trying to tell. But that doesn't mean that backstory doesn't exist or might somehow be relevant to the story of that character. In Harry Potter, obviously, no matter how important Dumbledore was, it was not the story of Dumbledore. It was the story of Harry Potter. I'm sure there's loads more about other characters that we don't know, simply because it wasn't important to telling Harry's story.

Anyway, my two cents worth, as an unpublished author. It's Mrs. Rowling's world, and whatever she says, goes. Also, she's not dead yet, and I'm sure we're not done reading stories set in that world.

In other news, and this is probably only of real interest to Mike (Hey, Mike, remember our Phonon Sounds idea? How about mailing each other a portable hard drive back and forth to each other? We could come up with some crazy sounds in no time, a few months tops. Let me know what you think.) and a few others, I've been producing (or attempting to) some psytrance, after seeing Goa Gil the other weekend. One of the techniques I've hit upon for making some very cool glitchy textures is to take an analoguish synth lead, any source, could be a VSTi, could be my Roland Juno 6, and then running it through 2 instances of Glitch, set to random, and then through some modulations/phasing/flanging and some delays. The result is always interesting.

Oh yeah, Phil Fucking Collins. This is some music made by taking Phil Collins songs and sonically deconstructing them. Very interesting. Compelling, in fact.

Playing with Jack this morning:

2007-09-28T20:54:00.000-05:00

A few things.

First, there is a recent webcomic discovery that I've made, called Dresden Codak. It's kind of like Copper meets Cat and Girl with a dash of the multiworlds time travel mayhem that Jeffrey Rowland gets up to on Overcompensating. Incredibly cool.

Second, Culture is not your friend. Terence Mckenna speaking truth to power.

I'm not sure what's more brave than a bunch of unarmed monks standing up to thugs with guns. I'm not sure if I'd ever be capable of such non-violent strength, but I do quite admire it.

I think there was something else I wanted to mention, but I forget what it was.

2007-09-25T10:09:00.000-05:00

I am very inspired by this lofi setup for generating imagery (found via GetLoFi). I might just make something very similar, for possible future music performances.

In other news, the new Reason 4.0 is going on sale tomorrow. I wish I could buy a copy. It looks ridiculously cool.

2007-09-13T21:17:00.000-05:00

A few things.

A few weeks ago, Beth and Jack and I went to Little Rock, where his gramma and grampa took him swimming, which was incredibly cool. The little boy freaked at first, but then had a good time after I took him back in. The next day, we went to the zoo, where it was entirely too hot, but fun in its own miserable way. I think going back in October would be MUCH better. Or early spring. He had fun on the train though.

I've been working on some new music, mostly psytrance. I think I'm beginning to wrap my head around it. The real problem for me is that I'm having to develop a sample kit at the same time that I'm figuring out arrangement. Hopefully I'll have something to show for it soon. (I might have a track on the Art Amiss sampler at their next event, so that's cool)

Still haven't finished the Aum Fest live set recreation. Have pretty much decided to compress everything and make it fit on one CD. It will necessarily be more dense and layered as a result. Should be fun. Drifting droning ambiences, radiostar bleeps, distorted voices.

Just finished Tatja Grimm's World by Vernor Vinge. And I'm reading Spook Country by William Gibson. Who supposedly has a blog. Which I never read. But probably should.

Speaking of authors, and blogs, John Green of Brotherhood2.0 fame has posted an excerpt from his upcoming new novel, Paper Towns. You should watch it. Heck, you should be watching the Brotherhood if you're not. That's for damn sure. And in tit for tat fashion, his brother Hank has posted an excerpt from his novel, which he says will probably remain unfinished. Which is a shame, because it sounds really good. He also has some very good comments about writing. Take a walk in your mind, he advises. Which is sound advice. I would say.

If you're not watching Mad Men, you probably should. It's incredibly nuanced. And it's odd how alien probably very accurate depictions of men and women in early 1960s New York appear to me. But, despite the cultural differences, I can definitely relate.

Here's a few pictures of Jack:

2007-08-03T15:55:00.000-05:00

So the Aum Festival was incredibly cool. Lots of nice people. And I got to play some fun music. At first, when I started playing, there was practically no one at the Chill Out tent/geodesic dome thing. But the next thing I know, I looked up from my two laptops and two CD turntables to notice that A) the sun had set, and B) there seemed to be a lot of people hanging out, chilling out to my tunes. Which was gratifying. The main atmosphere piece that I started with was crafted from heavily processed frog sounds, and ironically enough, when I started playing it, all the frogs and cicadas in the surrounding forest seemed to be singing along with what I was playing.

The recording I made seems to be way too noisy. So I'm attempting to craft a recreation of the event. I have some ideas to improve upon it. We'll see how it goes. I hope to have it up on yousendit or somesuch on Monday night. It'll be a big mp3, two hours long. So be warned.

2007-07-21T21:22:00.000-05:00

So, in my guise as Emergent, explorer of sonic textures and ambient soundscapes, I'm going to be playing the AUM Festival in Eureka Springs on Sunday, the 29th, from 8 to 10 pm, at the Chill Out stage. I'm quite looking forward to it. It's not cheap, because it's a 5 day festival, but if you're into really spacey music, I'm going to be doing a very deep set, lots of drones and atmospheric drifts, radiostar bleeps and quasar blurbles, maybe a sprinkling of fractal groove beats.

2007-07-12T22:19:00.000-05:00

So, Once Upon A Time, the Hortons went on vacation, and went to Memphis to see Peter's brother Mike, and sister-in-law Liz, their kids Tommy and Sarah, and Liz's dad Johnny. A great time was had by all, some chicken and pineapple kabobs were grilled, and the Hortons scored some great spices from this Middle-Eastern market (I got black cardamom, kala jeera, amchoor, cinnamon bark, and some tandoori spice mix). Jack got a little scared because his big cousins Tommy and Sarah were big balls of loudness and energy, but Sarah sang Jack a song, and Jack laughed at Tommy because he thought Tommy was silly. So everything was ok in the end. Jack had fun in the hotel room, and laughed at his mommy and daddy when he sat on the bed and played with his toys.

Also, on the way home from Memphis, the Hortons stopped in Little Rock, to have lunch with Beth's mom and dad, Kathleen and Sophia, and then the Hortons and Kathleen and Sophia went to go visit the Myers Family, where they got to meet Beckett Long Myers. Where this picture was taken. The three amigos, perhaps?

2007-07-03T12:09:00.000-05:00

If there's anything that watching Star Trek at 4 in the morning has taught me (after Jack insisted that I get up and give him a bottle), it's that space hippies suck. Just sayin'.

We tried the new Vietnamese restaurant where Hunan Manor used to be, Red Palace, last Friday. I had the small beef Pho, and it was amazing. Seriously. I want to eat there again, real soon.

Beth and I went up to Rogers for our anniversary, and ate at the Bonefish Grill. Great great great. She had the halibut, and I had the cedar plank salmon. Made it a very enjoyable evening.

Harry Potter is swiftly approaching, and I'm beginning to think it's going to be a madhouse at the bookstore. If you want to see (hear!) over 300 girls between 11 and 17 screaming, you should be there on July 20/21st at midnight. The last two times have been crazy fun but scary at the same time. Has to be seen to be believed.

I have a new picture of Jack, but it's not on my laptop yet. I'll post it later.

2007-06-23T13:12:00.000-05:00

So, in musical news, it seems that there's going to be a new version of Reason coming out. You can read about it here on CDM. It looks really cool. (There's a modular synth called Thor and an arpeggiator!!!) If only it had audio support. Or was available as a VSTi or something. I love the sound of Reason, and it's incredibly easy to make things sound good, but, there's so many more possibilities for sonic textures when you have access to VST plugins. Anyway, despite the drawbacks, I'm still excited. Will definitely have to play with the demo.

In other news, our friends Ken and Jess are in VIETNAM right now! They're going to pick up their son Beckett. This is so cool and exciting, and we're all so happy for them. Beckett is a very lucky little boy, to be getting two of the coolest people in the world for parents. I'm happy for them, but I'm really really happy for him.

I've been thinking lately about the rash of women lately, in the last few years, who, while seeming to be wonderful people, definitely beautiful, seem to be making the exact WRONG choice of men to go out with/marry/have children with. And a lot of them end up missing, dead, or worse, as a result. And then I juxtapose this in my mind with my male friends who can't seem to get dates. And it makes me sad. I'm not trying to blame the victim here, but at some point you have to wonder if the way that people pick their significant other in our culture has gotten all screwed up. It just makes me sad.

2007-06-11T23:48:00.000-05:00

The boy continues to grow at an astonishing rate. It is seriously one of the BEST things in the world to come home from work, to see him playing in his ExerSaucer or somesuch, all intent and serious about his fun, and then to see him suddenly look up, as if to say 'Oh, hi daddy!' And then he gives me this little sly but incredibly significant smile, that I swear, if you could harness it, you could perform miracles. Water to wine. Flower held up is buddhanature. All that stuff.

Ok, here is my desert island list. These are albums that I find incredibly significant and powerful, but which most people may not get at all. The truth is that they're just not really listening, and should try harder.

Wah-wah, by James.
Passengers by the Passengers.
On This Planet, by Steve Roach.
Airdrawndagger, by Sasha.
Meddle, by Pink Floyd.
Live 93, by the Orb.
New Ancient Strings, by Toumani Diabate.
Vast, by Saul Stokes.
Offered Schematics Suggesting Peace, by Sound Tribe Sector 9.

2007-05-24T17:13:00.000-05:00

If you watch anything about the abject and complete clusterfuckery that is the so-called 'War' in Iraq, which is actually an occupation, and about the complete spinelessness of the leadership of the Democratic party, you have to watch this commentary by Keith Olbermann. Watch it. It's gloriously incendiary.

Also, I mentioned psytrance a few days ago. Ektoplazm is a cool mp3 blog with psychedelic trance as the theme. I just stumbled upon it.

2007-05-23T00:21:00.000-05:00

I am not a Vegan, by any stretch of the imagination. However, this 'kreamy curry salad dressing' by Ani Phyo is truly yummy. Well, I used fresh lime juice instead of lemon juice. Also, my friend Charity from work gave us some fresh lettuce from her garden, so the salad was extra yummy. I didn't use anywhere near that much olive oil either.

Oh, in other news, I'm attempting to write some more psytrance. However, things are slow going because I have NO TIME to write anything. Most of the time it's a choice between make blurbles on the laptop or make raspberries at the boy. The raspberries win. So no promises as far as when a track will be posted. I'm thinking about making a new myspace music page for my psytrance stuff, too, eventually.

Actually, since having a kid, I have found that my creative juices have been elevated quite a bit. I just have no time or energy to really do anything about it most of the time.

Rereading "Breaking Open the Head" by Daniel Pinchbeck. Damn that's a good book. The more I read the more I become convinced that our society is pathologically wrong about a great many things, and our approach to what some people call 'drugs' is right up there in wrongness. Humans have been ingesting these substances from their natural sources for many thousands of years, without apparent ill effects, and, speaking from personal experience here, there is no more direct or sure way to experience the divine presence. But our society equates plant teachers with destructive substances like cocaine or heroin. That's just absurd. And stupid. Not that there aren't dangers inherent in psychedelics. Some people should not do them. And when they are done they should be done sparingly, if at all. But they have an awful lot to teach some people. I greatly value the handful of experiences I had in my so-called misspent youth. And I don't regret them. And I definitely don't think that other people who decide that they want to have those types of experiences should have their liberty infringed by the State.

My two cents worth.

New musical find. Buddhabomb. Check out his mixes. They're neat.

2007-05-04T13:42:00.000-05:00

Several things.

First, is this video of a bunch of people in an office lip syncing to Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger. It's infectious how much fun it looks like they're having. I want to work someplace that cool. (This is via Accordion Guy.)

Second, is this video over at the Brotherhood, wishing Hank happy birthday. A photo of Jack is smack dab in the middle of the video. Which is hella cool. Gotta love the Green Brothers. Much love and respect for nerdfighters!

Third, is this early video of an appearance by John Cage on a game show. Wonderful. Simply wonderful.

2007-05-03T09:08:00.000-05:00

So, it's been entirely too long since I've posted. Sorry.

Here's a picture of Jack from his baptism in Little Rock. It was fun, but the car ride was just a little too long.

And this is a picture of Beth feeding Jack:

In other news, as I found out from the Brotherhood, YA author Maureen Johnson's book the Bermudez Triangle has been banned by a school in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. We've had our own run-ins with like-minded idiots here in Fayetteville. Fight the good fight. Go write those people and give them what-for for being such idiots.

I have high hopes that I might be making some pan seared teriyaki salmon with sauted vegetables tonight for dinner. Also, my latest vice seems to be vanilla soy chai. Which, all in all, is not a bad vice to have, as far as vices go.

Oh yeah, saw a friend (John, not sure if he has a website) of a friend last night, and he told me about Paul's Extreme Stretch, which is a program you can use to timestretch sounds to extreme lengths. Really only useful if you're someone like me who likes writing odd, spacey music. I haven't used it yet, but I can't wait to see what it will do to some old classical records. Nothing like massed swells of strings, really. (It's well known that one day I want to have my own violin section at my beck and call at all times.)

2007-04-07T23:46:00.000-05:00

So, the plague has left our house. Sunday night Jack started wheezing. Which was bad. And scary. Turns out he got the croup from the cold that he and his mommy had. And of course daddy had to take him to the doctor on Monday and he had to get a shot. And then daddy got mommy and baby's cold. Which sucked.

But we're all much better now.

I made an Italian Cream Cake for Beth's birthday today, and we went to P.F. Changs and got the double pan fried noodles. Which rocked. And then Nick and Sarah and Kathleen and Collin and Sophia and Beth's parents came over for cake and coffee.

In other news, John Green (who totally rocks) name-dropped my name again the other day, which is neato (in that 'hey, a really cool author actually knows who I am' sort of way), but what's really cool is that he actually shows in his post how he goes about writing with other writers. Sometimes. Anyway, it's neat. Also, you might check out his brother Hank's puppet show. Which is hilarious.

Oh yeah. And I'm playing KOL again, for those who might be interested. I'm geekhorde.

2007-03-26T22:09:00.000-05:00

Ok, regarding Battlestar Galactica, my theory is that they're ALL CYLONS. All of them. Have been since at least Kobol. All the 'humans' in the Colonies were actually all humanoid Cylons who thought they were human, and had forgotten that they were artificial in nature. And that the original Cylons who populated Kobol came from Earth, in our future, where there was probably a war between the humans and the Cylons, the humans won, and the Cylons fled. Colonized Kobol and forgot that they weren't human. Then, when they colonized the 'Colonies' eventually they recreated Cylons, and eventually, humanoid Cylons.

This has all happened before.

And the 'other 5' Cylons are actually original Cylons from the first cycle.

That's my theory for now.

2007-03-17T23:00:00.000-05:00

So today a TON of the Schneider relatives from the wife's side of the family came to town, and we had lunch, and then we went over to Andy and Linda's for dinner (one of my wife's cousins) where there were even MORE Schneider relatives. My wife has a megabig family. Anyway, it was really too much for the boy. Too much noise. He started to freak.

And unfortunately, it seems Beth is getting sick too. So I sent her to bed with some Theraflu that her mom went and got us, and I'm taking care of the boy tonight.

Which is nice. Even if I have to get up 3 or 4 times tonight. It's funny how he's turning into a little person, obviously with a will of his own.

2007-03-15T20:36:00.000-05:00

Life has been hectic. Sleep has become more of a priority since it's become so rare. Luckily, Jack is starting to sleep longer and get up less and less through the night. So that's good.

Ok, I know it's totally cheesy, but I really like that Lily Allen song. Maybe it's because of the melody, or the total revenge video over here, or the fact that she's totally English, or the quasi-reggae/hiphop skank thing going on. I don't know. I like it. There's something about the gumption of English pop stars who try to make it over in America.

Oh yeah. John mentioned a comment I made on Brotherhood2.o, which was pretty neat. How DO we decrease the ambient suckage?

I know one way. Despite the sleep deprivation, having a kid has decreased my personal suckage by orders of magnitude.

Speaking of the kid:

Oh yeah.

This is a really interesting article about the possible genetic origins of homo sapiens. Human-chip hybrids and uplift are also touched on.

2007-03-11T00:10:00.000-06:00

So, Beth made this amazing stuff for dinner, these Cuban sloppy joe sandwiches out of ground turkey, some sort of tomato sauce, olives, and then hoagies with a mojo sauce and pickles. Mmmm...

So, turn about is fair-play, and I made crepes with chocolate ice cream, chocolate syrup and whipped cream for dessert.

It's funny, the ways that someone that you KNOW can still surprise you. I got home from work and Beth was watching Harold and Kumar go to White Castle, or whatever. She said she had never heard of it, but was enjoying it immensely. Which is funny. Because I was certain that she would HATE that movie.

I had some other stuff I wanted to write, but I forgot what they were.

Here's a picture of Jack's feet.

And this is the boy himself.

2007-03-05T23:32:00.000-06:00

Yeah, sorry I haven't post in a while. I've been busy with the boy (I know I know, I owe you guys pictures) and work and this online roleplaying game that I'm running over here, called Oridyr. It's fun and neat, and is more like a collaborative fiction project than a traditional RPG. Mike and Clint are playing.

No comments about the stupidity of the world. I can't bring myself to do it. Let's just say, regarding the Secret, there's a ton of suckers, and I get to see most of them. Also, the marketing blitz sets off my bullshit meter. Also, the author, Rhonda Byrne says that the Rwanda victims of genocide brought it on themselves by not thinking positively.

What a fucking idiot.

I guess I did comment on the stupidity of the world. Or one facet of it.

So there it is.

Oh yeah, some crazy people think Lost and Heroes might be connected. I don't think this is the case, but if it were, it would be the apotheosis of geekery.

2007-02-15T22:38:00.000-06:00

Want to see some really cool psychedelic art? Go to Luke Brown's webpage. It's very very mindblowing.

In other news, Beth took the boy to the doctor today. He's up to almost 13 pounds. He got some shots, so he's been a little fussy tonight. But he's still the most handsome young man you're likely to meet for some time.

It constantly blows my mind how amazing it is to be a dad. Words fail to capture the experience. Utterly.

2007-02-12T01:29:00.000-06:00

I hate Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Hate it. But it's on now. And I'm not turning the channel until it's over. Suck it, Boston. And the Turner broadcasting dorks who convinced the head of the Cartoon Network to resign.

Suck it.

2007-02-06T00:31:00.000-06:00

If I have to stand there and wait while some slackjawed troglodyte (after just approaching me to help him find a book), with an obvious addiction to 'working out' rooted deeply in either vanity or insecurity, proceeds to talk on his thrice damned cell-phone FOR FIVE MINUTES with some poor soul that he's trying to con into letting him be his personal trainer, I think I might just have a brain aneurysm. In my brain.

Jack is still good. Getting fatter. He's regularly laughing and vocalizing. We call it talking. But it's not really talking. But he's definitely saying SOMETHING.

Want to see something really cool? Here's a comet, a thunderstorm, the beach, a sunset and fireworks, all in one shot. Well, I say one shot. I think it was digitally altered. But it's still cool.

2007-01-31T18:17:00.000-06:00

First, here is this ultra lo-tech version of a still using a plastic bag, a plastic tub and a rice cooker. Cool. If you don't go blind, I guess.

Second, here is a picture of a book that I got at the Dickson Street used bookstore, the Uses of the Past, by Herbert Muller (sitting on top the gift subscription to Saveur that Nick and Sarah got us; thanks guys!). I used to own that book an awful long time ago. There's something about really old books that I just find comforting. Anyway, it's an interesting study of past societies and how they compare to our own civilization. The analysis is a bit dated (it was published in the 50's originally) but compelling and articulate all the same.

Also, it's SNOWING!!!

And here's Jack, looking cute.

Finally, if you're not watching Brotherhood 2.0 you're really really missing out (also here). The future of TV isn't on TV, as far as I'm concerned. More people need to do stuff like what they're doing.

Finally, if you write, you might find WikidPad really useful. It's like a cross between a wiki and a notepad program.

Also, since I have not been able to play with the Thursday night crew, I've been thinking of running a Play By Post game soon. (just for friends, not open to the public). Not sure if it would be related to my D&D campaign. Probably not. Suggestions for the system to use?

2007-01-17T21:10:00.000-06:00

Here's a few more pictures of Jack. He's so friggin' cool. He's grunting a lot lately, kind of like a little piggy, especially when he's nursing.

2007-01-11T20:10:00.000-06:00

Several things.

First, is this link to the blog di.onys.us about Scott Drave's electric sheep screen saver. Basically, the screen saver uses user's computers to render fractal animations. The result is quite pretty. Hypnotic. Psychedelic. Strangely organic. Compelling. Check it out. Via Boing Boing, as with most cool things.

Second, is this link completely rethinking everything about Star Wars. Doesn't really make it suck less, but it's fun to think about.

2007-01-07T01:53:00.000-06:00

Incidentally, I forgot to mention how infinitely cool it was that Uncle Mike and Uncle Clint both had a chance to come and visit young master Jack, no matter how brief. I greatly appreciated it, as a new father and all that.

Listening to Star's End radio right now. In case you're not familiar, it's wonderful ambient music played every Saturday night out of WXPN in Philadelphia. Very very cool, if you're into ambient music. Very atmospheric. Wonderful for setting the mood for a hopefully tranquil and contemplative evening.

New years was fun, except for the puking. Don't know why, but I got really really sick. But I was fine the next day, eventually. What does not kill us, etc. etc.

Jack seems to be eating more. He actually slept long enough this evening (albeit in my arms, mostly) that Beth was able to take a 3 hour nap. Which is kind of a mini-milestone.

2007-01-04T20:20:00.000-06:00

So, this is so cool. John Green, of Looking for Alaska fame and An Abundance of Katherines fame, internationally renowned author and all around cool guy, has this new project on his blog with his brother Hank, called Brotherhood 2.0. Basically they're videoblogging back and forth to each other. For a year. And it's pretty funny so far. Especially in a geeky/brotherly sort of way. I heartily recommend watching it, either at John's blog, or on Youtube. That alone would be cool enough. But today, in John's latest post, he gave a shoutout to the fact that Beth gave birth to our son Jack. How cool is that?

Also, saw my old friend Katie yesterday, and we were talking about mommy stuff, since Beth is now a mommy, and it turns out that Katie organizes a group on meetup.com for moms in the Northwest Arkansas area. I think that's cool.

2007-01-03T11:43:00.000-06:00

So, between work and spots of baby duty (which is infinitely more cool than I could ever describe, by the way), my latest geeky, SciFi, intellectual obsession is Chris Wayan's Planetocopia. It's essentially an exercise(s) in world creation, a fun task, if mildly obsessive, as I've already pointed out. Anyway, I found the pages fascinating. If you're into that sort of thing, you should check it out. There's a lot of food for thought in there, if a little tilted toward the 'furry' side of things at times. Whatever. His science seems to be pretty good (and he seems to be reading many of the same books I've read).

I was especially fascinated by Lyr, a massive wet world, quite unlike Earth.

2006-12-23T12:59:00.000-06:00

Jack was up a lot last night. He seems to be nocturnal. Most of the time he's not that fussy though. He's a good baby.

I added some more photos of him over on my flickr account. Go have a looksee.

2006-12-21T21:33:00.000-06:00

So, Beth finally had baby Jack after 32 hours of labor on December 19th. It was profoundly hard for her, but we made it through. At the end, I had ended up being awake for a little over 58 hours, and Beth was awake for almost as long. She was a real trooper.

There were a few very helpful nurses, two in particular were Glenda who made sure that the tags that were bugging Jack's feet were moved to his hands, and Gwyn the lactation consultant, who was really really nice to Beth.

Beth is really really tired. And in a little pain. I'm kind of tired too, needless to say. But I'd say it was all worth it.

Here are a few pictures, since words really don't do justice to this experience:

2006-12-07T22:20:00.000-06:00

So, I have gotten sick TWICE in the last week. Ugh. This has been profoundly unpleasant. It's not fun running a fever and being all achy and stuff.

On the good side of things though, I'm beginning to feel a little better. It seems to have changed into a sinus thing. Unpleasant, but bearable.

Take your vitamins, kids.

2006-12-05T01:17:00.000-06:00

This is pure psychedelic joy. Seriously. I just wanted to giggle when I saw this. Hundreds of people + the Flaming Lips + laser pointers + giant inflated balloon = COOL.

2006-12-04T00:45:00.000-06:00

As we all know, the internet is a series of tubes. I'm sure we've all seen this. But I just wanted to reiterate the point. THE INTERNET. IS. A. SERIES. OF. TUBES.

Enormous Tubes.

Enjoy.

Oh yeah. I'm pretty much hooked on Heroes now. So there we go.

2006-11-25T21:55:00.000-06:00

Two things. First, is this video showing how cocaine is made in the jungle. I'm not into cocaine, never have been, never will, personally I think it's kind of a stupid thing to do, but, that being said, it's a fascinating video. Second, is this video, showing some Brazilian Capoeira, the martial art/dance. The way these guys jump about is nothing short of Jedi-rific. Plus, the music is cool. That's a berimbau playing (I really want one, but I want to put a guitar pickup on it).

2006-11-21T16:04:00.000-06:00

So, for those of you that enjoy playing Unreal Tournament 2004 with me, which would basically be Mike and Nick and Ken, I found this cool map today. It's called Orodruin, and it's a capture the flag map. Very creepy. Fun. Check it out.

Also, we should get a game going soon, some night.

2006-11-08T21:33:00.000-06:00

How is it that I've never heard the Decemberists? What the hell? This stuff is great! Has me bobbin' my head and stuff.

2006-11-04T02:04:00.000-06:00

Things I am grateful for:

The smell of bread.
My niece Sophia.
Baby Jack growing in my wife's womb.
How beautiful my wife's belly looks.
My old friends Nick and Sarah and Wes watching silly scifi shows with me tonight, and the opportunity to speculate on said shows' plots.
My new friends Kristen and Scott, for hanging out with me at the DartRoom tonight, for their laughter and smiles, and for showing me more love and kindness than is absolutely necessary.
The smell of Sea Salt handmade soap from Ozark Natural Foods.
The taste of peanut butter.
Cold ice water.
The sky, at night.
The cool breeze on my cheeks as I walked to my door this evening.
Cajun trout.

2006-10-29T23:45:00.000-06:00

I am reading two books. The first, the Ghost Map, by Steven Johnson, is about the cholera epidemic that hit London in the 19th century, and how this in some ways brought about the modern era of medicine.

The second, Rainbow's End, is by Vernor Vinge, one of my favorite authors. It's sci fi set in the midish 21st century. It's interesting so far, but I've been distracted by the Ghost Map too much to really get into it yet. But what I have read is intensely interesting.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, the Singularity. I think it's the thing that I hope for and fear the most, at the moment. I really believe that in a hundred years there will be a total discontinuity between our present world and the future, and that things will either be rather utopian, or civilization will be, for all intents, destroyed.

2006-10-17T00:15:00.000-05:00

There was some question about when little Jack is due. Well, according to who you're listening to, it's either December 23rd or December 26th. At any rate, it swiftly approaches. Beth has been getting tired, and her back has been hurting. I guess that's the way of things. At times, I think it's the little kindnesses that really cement our lives together. Not just ours. All of ours. Friends. Family. Everyone.

Be kind. If you want to be loved, love.

2006-10-10T21:34:00.000-05:00

I collect coins. I have a weak spot for odd and strange coins. Foreign. Arcade tokens. Unstruck coins. Strange fantastic coins of uncertain provenience. I'm not sure why I do this.

I love making chai. Homemade. Lots of spices. Ginger, cloves, cardamom, pepper, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, with some very strong tea and milk and honey.

I love very brisk days when I get to wear pullovers. I have a favorite pullover that I bought 15 years ago. It's a bit ratty on one sleeve, but it's the most comfortable article of clothing I own. I feel more myself when I wear it than I ever do otherwise.

Usually, when I get home from work, the very first thing I do is take off my pants.

There are few things more emotionally satisfying than lying down to take a nap and having all three cats curl up with me to take a nap with me.

2006-10-08T23:40:00.000-05:00

Ok, this is a shoutout to Saul Stokes, who is all kinds of hella cool. I wrote him an email about my computer woes, and he totally sent me all of the Blipdrums samples that I lost when my harddrive went bellyup. He even included some that I hadn't bought. Which is cool. In other words, not only does he craft amazingly beautiful analog synths (which I covet as lustfully as you could covet something with knobs), and make incredibly beautiful electronic music, AND make interesting and inexpensive electronic drum samples, but he's also a really nice guy. Which is more than you can say for a lot of much less talented electronic musicians, IMHO.

Yeah. Lots of good karma for Saul.

OH YEAH, and I also finished An Abundance of Katherines, by John Green. This was a great book. At one point, I was reading it in bed, and my very pregnant wife got really annoyed because I was laughing so hard I was waking her up. And I couldn't stop laughing. It's not just the fact that I kind of identified with the main character, or at least identified him with someone I used to be or know. It's the fact that it all seemed so real. You need to read this book. I've never really been into young adult or teen books, before, but this one author has me reevaluating an entire literary subgenre. You mark my words. This is an author to watch.

Ok, rampant fanboy mode off. Sorry Saul and John.

2006-10-08T20:14:00.000-05:00

Disaster! My laptop died, and my PC was apparently struck by lightning. That's the bad news. The good news is that I bought a new laptop, a Gateway CentrinoDuo. It's quite nice so far. Unfortunately, barring minor technological miracles in the form of help from friends, I fear that I have lost all the old files on my old laptop's harddrive, it being deader than roadkill.

I finished putting together the dresser in Jack's room today. Quite happy about it. Unfortunately, I still seem to be a dunce when it comes to such things. But eventually I figured it out.

Oh, here's a little article talking about the possibility that Aleister Crowley might be Dubya's maternal grandfather. I thought Mike might get a kick out of it.

Also, I know mashups or bootleg remixes or whatever might be SO 2003, but here's a link to DJ Earworm's site. He does mashups, and they're cool.

I added more links to friends and other blogs on the right, by the way.

2006-10-01T23:24:00.000-05:00

I'm pretty much 100% heterosexual. However, I am fairly certain that I have quite a few female friends who are going to find Crossmack aka Ian to be incredibly dreamy (and maybe some dudes, too. I don't judge). That being said, this dude is funny, thoughtful, real and just seems like an all around cool guy. A dude you could have a beer with, if you drank beer, which I don't. Anyway, check his stuff out. I don't agree with everything he says. But he does make me think. Also, I think he lives in L.A. Mike, so you should buy him a beer sometime for making cool videos on youtube. He deserves it.

Also, Kid Science is cool! And funny. Hope they make more of these. And I hope Jack is this smart.

2006-09-29T02:24:00.000-05:00

So, one of my favorite authors, Steven Johnson, has a new book coming out, the Ghost Map. It's about cholera in London during the Industrial Revolution. Here's the trailer. Cool, huh?

2006-09-27T12:54:00.000-05:00

I am no fashion guru. I think everyone knows that. I like comfortable clothes, and I'm picky about my shirts because my skin on my chest is sensitive. Scratchy is bad.

That being said, I'm going to say something here that I think needs to be said, by someone. Might as well be me.

Dudes, berets SHOULD NOT BE WORN BY MEN. If you are a Green Beret, ignore the last statement, as your trial by fire and pain has given you the right to wear said beret. However, if you are just some hipster doofus that thinks berets make you look rakish, dapper or dare I say it, COOL, you are sadly mistaken. Wearing a beret just says to the rest of society 'hey! I'm an asshole! I think entirely too much of myself!'

Don't do it. Don't wear berets.

Berets look fine on women. Women can pull off hats. Most of the time. And I guess if you're actually French it's ok. You still look like a doofus though.

Rant mode off.

2006-09-25T23:08:00.000-05:00

It's probably no surprise to those of you who know that I used to have a radio show on KXUA that focused on 'intelligent' drum n bass and atmospheric/ambient music (it was called Abstract Excursions) that I would be recommending what I'm about to recommend. For quite a few years I have been quite enamoured of the sound of the Good Looking (when I DJ'd my radio show, a lot of the stuff I played was from Good Looking) stable of intelligent drum n bass, especially Blu Mar Ten. If you go here, there is a post about and link to a download of Blu Mar Ten's Face of the Earth Mix. This is quite simply one of the most transcendent mixes I've heard in quite some time. Lots of good stuff. Omni Trio (with an Aquasky remix) starts it out, over Brian Eno talking about ambient music, Blu Mar Ten, of course, Future Sound of London, Fleetwood Mac, LTJ Bukem, Maya Angelou, Vangelis, Orbital, the Verve, Tangerine Dream, Photek, and lots of other stuff. This is very eclectic. It's almost scary how good it is.

Oh yeah, and Graham Hancock is going to be on Coast to Coast on Thursday night to talk about his latest book, Supernatural. If you're at all interested in entheogens, ethnopharmocology or shamanism, you might want to stay up late and listen. It might be kind of far out for some people, but I bet it won't be boring.

2006-09-25T01:03:00.000-05:00

I am not a carpenter.

I am attempting to put together some baby furniture, and in doing so, my own limitations as a supposed tool-user are quickly becoming apparent.

At any rate, I am thoroughly in love with this weather we're having. I love sweater weather. In fact, I went in to work today (it was my day off) to give a friend a gift and to check my schedule for the week, and I got a very nice complement from my friend Virginia about said sweater.

I may not be a carpenter. But you know what I am good at? I made banana bread tonight. And it turned out perfect. Moist, a hint of sweetness, flavorful. No real recipe; I just winged that mother. And last night, we went over to Nick and Sarah's place, and made yummy yummy pizzas. Again, the pizza dough I brought had no real recipe. I was just winging it. It's nice to have such a close relationship to yeast (the trick to that pizza dough is I added a little olive oil and some egg, seems to have made it brown better).

Here's a boing boing story about a documentary on the Klingon Language Institute.

Listening to Limbik Frequencies. You should too.

With any luck, I'm going to be going to a few flea markets tomorrow. I'm looking for a Barbie Karaoke machine to circuit bend. Actually, I've got something a bit more ambitious in mind. I want to make it part of a homebrewed analog synth that I've been designing. The design will eventually incorporate two different oscillators from toy rayguns that I've acquired, the circuits from 'voice changers' that you can get around Halloween, simple ring modulators in effect, and a few other things. And the echo unit from the Barbie Karaoke, if I can find one. And the design aesthetic will hopefully be similar to something like you'd find on this page, or better yet, something like this.

2006-09-19T22:35:00.000-05:00

So, an old friend of mine, Ben Winnick popped up on my Flickr account the other day. He has some really cool photos, and a neat blog where he makes various forms of food and then photographs the result. It's pretty neat. You should check it out.

Also, via Metafilter, is this site by Paul Sop. Paul has built a really cool and very complex analog synth, and it is constantly running, producing random sounds. That would be cool enough, but it turns out that you can listen to the whole thing streaming on the web. LIVE! How cool is that? If you have trouble listening to it, I copied the link and then opened it in winamp.

Here's yet another cool random link. Saul Williams from the movie Slam speaking truth to power. Very cool.

Oh yeah, and I've got a new song up on my Myspace music page. And I should have another one soon, as soon as their servers get done processing it. They're Nine Fields Fractal, and Unmaking the Void Edit (it's edited because it's a 20 minute long ambient piece, and that's too long for Myspace, I guess).

2006-09-17T23:09:00.000-05:00

So, I'm really groovin' on finding some cool music on Youtube lately. The latest find is a video by this band called Hot Water from South Africa. It's pretty cool. Kind of a funky happy sort of thing. The other find is this cool video of this band the Dharma Farmers. It's a tabla, a didgeridoo and a guitar all jamming together. Cool cool cool. Good didj player. Needs a sitar instead of a guitar pretending to be a sitar, though.

Also, here's this funny but neat video of a girl (from the 60s?) talking about color on LSD. I love the way her eyes get really big, and the way she says 'monochromatic'.

Also, part one of one of the last interviews Terence Mckenna gave before he joined the Ancestors.

2006-09-15T00:28:00.000-05:00

Boy oh boy do I have some crazy links for you tonight.

First, is this video of a guy named Ghastly (who seems to have until quite recently done a webcomic about tentacle rape) playing a banjo he made out of an old hubcap, the Hubjo. Clearly a man of talent.

Second, is this link to a discussion between Brian Eno, of he of the ambient music gods, and Will Wright, the creator of the Sim games and the upcoming game Spore, which I have a huge mental boner for. Generative music is discussed, as well as demonstrated. It's pretty neat. If you're into that sort of thing. I think it's probably pretty apparent that I am.

Also, you might like the Girls Guitar Club. Or you might not. Whatever.

2006-09-12T20:26:00.000-05:00

Feeling sad? Feeling blue? You need to go to Freezepop's myspace page and listen to Here Comes A Special Boy. Seriously. Do it now. It's the best electropop song about an imaginary 5 year old otter ever.

Also, maybe you should play some 1000 Blank White Cards.

2006-09-08T00:34:00.000-05:00

I saw Mike off today with a bottle of my own homemade herbal/spice liqueur. He seemed to enjoy it. It was so good to see him, but of course, the time is always too fleeting. He came out to our show last night, and even rocked it out on the keyboard/laptop while I played some didgeridoo. Fun.

We're getting new windows tomorrow for our house. Yay lower heating/cooling bills.

The wife and I are going down to Little Rock for the weekend, for a baby shower. It will be very nice to see the family and our friends Ken and Jess again. Not looking forward to the drive, though.

Ok, obligatory youtube link. Wondering Where The Lions Are, by Bruce Cockburn. Watch it. Listen to the lyrics. It's good. Good good good. In a goofy sort of way.

2006-09-05T18:15:00.000-05:00

So, I know I've posted this before, but I think it's worth posting again. Yet another youtube link. Sorry if that bothers you. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the Museum of Techno- Recording a Kick Drum. I found this very amusing. Definitely watch the others if this tickles your fancy. Also, Museum of Techno- Adding a Hand Clap to a Techno Track. I love this stuff.

Speaking of Techno (or electronic music, at least) if you're in Fayetteville, come out Wednesday night to the Dart Room for Output1.3, where myself (Emergent) and the erratic ninja and iterate are going to be playing some live electronic music, starting around 8pm. No cover. Come drink some beer and listen to cool music.

2006-09-02T01:01:00.000-05:00

So yeah, some of my most fond memories of post-highschool camradarie and general barely postadolescent fun are of just simply taking several roadtrips with my friend Ken (remember that time we were listening to Pink Floyd on our way to Jonesboro, and the fog came in and it just got WAY TOO WIERD? And listening to entirely too much REM?). I met Ken at Arkansas Governor's School, way way back in 1990. A long fucking time ago. Anyway, the man now has a wife, a kid, a farm of some sort, and a blog. The blog you can read. The others not so much.

Also, apparently my link to a Terra Naomi song really touched my friend Kristen, so here's another one, Smile. If there's any song that's prettier but more sad, I don't know what it is. Sometimes, for me at least, there's the comfort of a sad song. Call it wallowing in a little self-pity if you want to, but when you're sad, someone else singing about sadness can be quite a balm on the spirit.

I've been thinking a lot about my dad, as my son's birth approaches, and thinking about what I really remember about him. And what I want to remember about him. We had our issues. Sometimes, as I got older, he couldn't really see me standing in front of him, instead he would see some reflection of himself as he was at my age. When he was a teenager, before he ever became an Episcopal priest, for some time (I'm not sure how long) he was an atheist (or so he told me, and this seemed to cause quite a rift between himself and his father). Needless to say, he didn't remain one. Anyway, he found my skepticism of what you might call Christological issues bewildering, I think. At least he interpreted this by thinking that I was an atheist, which was the furthest thing from the truth. I found, and in some ways still do, find it hard to discuss my deepest thoughts about the divine with other people (And not especially helpful, I have found. The Buddha was remarkably silent on the subject of divine or spiritual beings, and seems to have thought that the subject was beside the point.) I have always FELT a very strong sense of a divine nature in life, a sense of deep connection, and, at the time, when I was a Christian, I interpreted this as a mystical connection with Christ (which makes his thinking I was an atheist kind of funny). But I don't think that this sense of mystical oneness or a feeling of a divine immanent presence necessarily means anything that most religions think that it means. We had our differences, my dad and me. We'll put it at that. But I always knew that he loved me.

So, anyway, memories. I remember, when I was a kid, going fishing with my dad. It wasn't always that fun, the act itself. But it was fun to go fishing with my dad. Because I was hanging out with my dad. And I knew I was special, because my dad wanted to spend time with me. So I think I need to start fishing again.

Kid's gonna need a fishing pole too. Eventually.

2006-08-30T23:37:00.000-05:00

The mystery deepens. I hate to post another Youtube link, but there is this phenomena that is going on on it right now, about Lonelygirl15 (I would link to a Wikipedia article, but there is no Wikipedia page about this because of some total idiots who think that the phenomena is not 'notable' enough). Brian Flemming, a noted film maker, has a very interesting analysis of what seems to be going on in this post on his blog. To quote Mr. Flemming:

Here's the story:

There's this 16-year-old girl named Bree. She's supercute. She's also supersmart -- for fun, she reads books like Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel. She's also sheltered -- she's been homeschooled most of her life, which means she's fairly innocent and doesn't meet a lot of guys.

In other words, she's exactly the kind of girl that the young male YouTube demographic would fantasize about.

Enter Daniel. Daniel is Bree's friend. He's not really good-looking. He's kind of awkward. He's a computer geek. And Bree likes him. Holy crap. That's exactly the kind of thing that the young male YouTube demographic would fantasize about.

But, as in Moonlighting and other successful TV shows, while there is chemistry between the two main characters, there is no actual romance yet. They're "friends." Gotta have somewhere to go.

That's the basic setup, and it wasn't obvious at the start that it was fake. After all, a girl at a webcam is a girl at a webcam. How would you know if she was faking it? Had Bree just stayed put and talked, she probably could have told us anything without us knowing whether it was real or not.

So, yeah, interesting. Seems to be fake. Probably. If you watch the latest 'episode', they've gone swimming, and she's asking who 'Cassie' was. Very mysterious. I'm enjoying it immensely. And I haven't even gotten into the whole Aleister Crowley connection thing. Wierd. Very very wierd. If it's viral marketing, it's really sneaky and neat. If it's some independent young film makers, then they're doing a good job of creating buzz.

Also, speaking of Youtube, here's a really neat mashup of the Star Trek theme and the Simpsons theme. Check it out.

I'm reading Looking For Alaska by John Green. It's a 'teen' book about a geeky kid who goes away to a co-ed boarding school in Alabama. And it is one of the funniest things I've read all year. Read it if you get a chance. Here's Bookslut's review. [Edit: Two things. First, the first half of Looking For Alaska is funny. The second half is brutal, heartwrenching and transcedent. Just sayin'. Second, as a bit of synchronicity, John Green has a website, with attached blog, at Sparksflyup, and he has also become interested in the whole Lonelygirl15 phenom, and has some interesting insights into it here. That is all.]

And yes, Virginia, Guinness is a beer:

Guinness is a dry stout that originated in Arthur Guinness's St. James's Gate Brewery in Dublin, Ireland. The beer is based upon the porter style that originated in London in the early 1700s. It is one of the most successful beer brands in the world, being exported world wide

2006-08-27T02:12:00.000-05:00

Had a long post written in my head about seeing old friends, wonderful birthdays, nostalgia for old times, and so on. But I'm far too tired to do that right now.

So, for those of you who have a soft spot for artists like Michael Hedges (who has been gone for far too long) you might want to check out this video of a Canadian guitarist named Eric Mongrain.

Also, I'm working on a glitchdub remix of a Saul Stokes song from his latest album, Vast. I'm going to be using some samples from his Blipdrums sample sets for some of the beats, I've decided. They're really cool. If you're one of those electronic music making type fools like me, check it out. I'm going to be taking the track in kind of an almost Autechre type direction, skittery with shards of digital noise, but dubby and spaced out. Saul is really cool, and if you're into well crafted ambient music, check him out.

More tomorrow.

2006-08-24T23:59:00.000-05:00

So, the Free Weekly has a coverpage article about what was until recently Cloudwave Network, but what Steven and Allen seem intent on calling Output now (even though I really like the Cloudwave Network name, but I see their point about the event being separate from the collective; I disagree, but I see their point). At any rate, our new show is coming up. Also, I'm intent on posting two new mp3s on my myspace page on Monday. So watch out for that.

Also, tomorrow is my birthday.

Here's the flyer.

2006-08-20T23:45:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Nick, there is a good chance that my PC will be fully alive tomorrow. It's working now, I just need to call Microsoft to get my copy of Windows activated again. So hopefully that will go smoothly. So, yeah, this is a shoutout to Nick. Big up yourself. Much respect. Reprezent. All that jazz.

Here's another youtube link. There's this amazing singer called Tera Naomi, who apparently lives in L.A. (which means that Clint and Mike could theoretically go see her). Here's her song "Say It's Possible." I swear. It's almost like watching MTV back in the glory days, when they actually played videos. Anyway, I digress. I really dig her stuff. Check her out. Here's her website, too.

2006-08-20T13:22:00.000-05:00

Want to see something funny? Go watch this video about Clell Tickle: Indie Marketing Guru over at youtube.

2006-08-16T16:11:00.000-05:00

Well, I got to call the cops today at work. We've been having a problem with, shall we say, 'lurkers' in the men's restroom. Seems this guy was caught by two separate dudes peeping over the stall and taking pictures with his picturephone. So, I called the cops, and they took him away. Hopefully that gets the word out that our restrooms are not hookup joints or whatever. Ugh.

So much for an uneventful day at work.

I'm cooking linguine and stuffed pork chops tonight. Hope the wife likes it.

Hey, whoever the anonymous old friend was who left the comment a few days ago, don't be a douche man. Get in contact. Email me.

2006-08-14T01:30:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I get a little obsessive over little crap. My latest thing is that damned numa numa song thing. I can't get enough of it. Here's the wikipedia rundown on it. And here's the original video for the song. Now go watch some stupid crap and laugh. It's about the only thing all day that's been able to make me laugh.

2006-08-12T00:07:00.000-05:00

I have been having the, one might call it an intuition or insight, lately, that location is irrelevant. On the face of it, this is not true. It is safer to live in Fayetteville, Arkansas rather that say, Eritrea, or Somalia.

But consider two things. First, the apparent non-local nature of reality. In some sense, there is a very good possibility (there are differences of opinion about this) that the most basic phenomena that underlies our reality can be nonlocal in nature, in many ways. In other words, when you look at physical reality, it behaves in very strange ways that are nonintuitive. I find this very comforting. Also, when you consider the nature of society and world cultures over the last, say, 4 to 6 thousand years, it is apparent that a greater degree of interconnectedness is manifesting itself upon the Earth with every passing moment. I also find this comforting. Scary, but comforting.

In the end, I think that I'm in some ways very much a transhumanist. I look forward to the possibility of our species being able to transcend the limits of our physical forms, and I think that technology may someday afford us this possibility. Then again, perhaps not.

In other news, my wife and I were in Walmart yesterday and we saw two Tibetan monks.

Maybe it will take gentle boddhisattvas turning all of our demons into guardians of the Dharma to bring us to that point.

I have a son on the way. I know this. This is making me think about the kind of father I want to be, the mistakes that my own father made, what he did right. I'm also thinking about how fucked up the world is, and how unfair that is for him. I want to make the world better for him.

2006-08-08T02:21:00.000-05:00

Holy crap holy crap holy crap. OMFG WTF?????

Go to WeAreTheWeb and watch the video. That's all I'll say.

Damn.

2006-08-06T02:43:00.000-05:00

So, after work tonight, Shaun told me about a party that was going on in honor of Brian Moats and Meredith Martin-Moats going away to Bowling Green, because Meredith got into gradual school. Meredith is one of the members of the Early Morning Bourbon Girls, who I have not yet gotten to see live, but I hear tell that they're amazing. I also saw Gina, who is also in the EMBGs, who also used to work at B&N. I also saw Derrick, aka ill chemist, who worked at B&N here in Fayetteville until a few years ago (he's an amazing lyricist, if you get a chance to hear him rap, do it). And I also saw Martha Pettit, who also worked at B&N, although her and Derrick didn't know each other. It was a wierd synchronicity watching them meet each other. Martha doesn't appear to have a Myspace page. Maybe she's 'too good' to have one or something, which is wierd because she's totally down with Kevin Brockmeier and all that. Oh yeah, and I saw Scott Brock too! The Brockmeister. The Brockachino.

I also got to watch a bunch of half-naked white people dance like fools, which was neat. Looked very sweaty though.

Hey, want to hear some neat music? Check out Phylum Sinter. Especially baroque n consecrator. Really amazing stuff. Allen, aka the erratic ninja clued me into him.

Also, Quantazelle is the shiznit. Her stuff is so good it makes my brain hurt.

Oh yeah, the Cloudwave Network show Output 1.2 was pretty neat the other night. It started kind of slow, but eventually there were quite a few people there. I had a blast. If you missed it, then you should be sad, because it's one of the coolest things going on in Fayetteville right now. I'm not just saying that because I'm involved (although we got tired of no one doing anything this cool, so that's why we're doing it). Also, I think I'm starting to find my voice as far as what I want to do musically. Although, I do want to explore a little bit more of the pretty 'glitchy' melodic side of the whole IDM spectrum in the future. At any rate, apparently we're going to be a cover story soon in the Free Weekly, so hopefully even more people will show up for the September show. Bringing home brewed electronic music to the masses. What could be more egalitarian and populist than that?

2006-07-29T02:16:00.000-05:00

My droogs in the Cloudwave Network and myself are going to be playing a show on Wednesday night, Output 1.2, at the Dart Room in Fayetteville. There's no cover, so come out, drink a beer, and listen to some cool locally produced electronic music. My set this time out is going to be a lot more downtempo, more space music meets Ninjatune type stuff (kind of lo-fi-ish and sampledelic). We'll see how it goes. I still have a few samples that I need to rip/scratch from vinyl before I'm ready. And then warp so that they're not recognizable.

Also, the wife and I go in for the ultrasound on Tuesday. Wish us luck.

Do you remember that one song by the New Radicals back in like 99 or so? I think they sounded just like Better Than Ezra. Just sayin'.

2006-07-24T23:28:00.000-05:00

I survived an overnight shift at work last night, while they worked on renovating the cafe and the bathrooms. Ugh. It was rough though. I almost fell asleep three times.

Want to laugh at something? Go to How It Should Have Ended and watch how Superman should have ended. It's a riot.

I made some Sauce Espagnole tonight. Well, kind of. My version. It's kind of a mother sauce for other sauces that I might make. Say for instance, I might sear some pork medallions and then deglaze with some red wine, and then add some of the sauce espagnole and some cream. Voila. Instant sauce with rich rich flavor. Kind of a culinary secret weapon.

The process? I had quite a few veggies left over from dinner. Grilled zuchini and squash, and some eggplant. So, I threw those in a pot, with some grilled onion, and some red onion, some carrots and celery. Then I added some garlic, some bay leaf, a bouquet garni, a little leftover chicken and some leftover steak from dinner. A few peppercorns. A tomato. A dried mushroom or two. (I didn't have any roasted bones, but I think I did ok without them.) Then I boiled the crap out of it, and kept adding more water and reducing. Eventually, I had a very very rich broth. I filtered the result into a measuring cup, made a very dark roux in the same pot, and then added in the broth. I reduced the resulting mixture and let it cool. It has a rich umami taste, and a velvety texture.

2006-07-18T18:18:00.000-05:00

It's widely known, that I am a geek. As such, I found this Level 1 Human just adorable. Especially since the wife is in a family way.