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Saturday, September 3rd, 2005
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So I got Adobe Photoshop CS2 and started reading up on tutorials. I wanted to get some sort of a grip on this crazy ass program. I haven't been able to pry myself away from the computer since... I've been trying to put together a really good signature that will show up on the bottom of my e-mails and forum entries in the future, and I thought I might post some of the preliminary designs here. These are mostly just images I was having fun with... I hope they show up alright.
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Monday, November 15th, 2004
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| Time: | 8:13 am. |
| Mood: |  amused. | | Music: | Astrix - Monster. |
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Ok, so I've been absent for a while now... And with good reasons...
1. I'm working again. I'm back at Ford, working as the cleaning crew. Basically, I get paid a very nice sum of money to come in late at night and listen to psy-trance on the P.A. system while emptying trash cans, sweeping and vacuuming. In other words, I do the same thing I did at Hastings, only no customers, no co-workers and I get paid 4 times as much. Yeah, I enjoy it. Plus I get to work from midnight to 3am (or whenever), and those are exactly the hours I'm almost always awake. Perfect.
2. I no longer have internet at home. I'm actually at Ford right now. I've determined that my computer is simply not safe with all of the crap floating around on the internet these days, so I'm just going to use work computers for things like e-mail and LJ updates, and keep my home computer offline. This is especially important since my home computer is going to be the heart of my recording studio. I need to keep it as healthy as possible. I've already had to wipe everything out and run recovery on it several times over the last year. And I'm getting damn tired of doing that.
3. And of course, Halo 2 is out now. At Midnight on Monday, November 8th, I was standing in line at Hastings, waiting to pick up my limited edition copy of Halo 2. Chances are, if I'm not at work or asleep, I'm playing Halo 2. I've already beaten the single player campaigin and begun to memorize the multiplayer maps for the long nights of 4v4 system link at Randy's apartment. And as if that weren't enough, I got a two month free subscription to XBOX Live, which is the other reason I'm not online at home. The DSL modem is now hooked up to my xbox and I've been whooping other peoples asses all over the country in the wee hours of the morning. The new picture that is accompanying my update and LJ is my character logo on Halo 2. So if you ever see anyone playing Halo 2 online, and they happen to be getting romped on by someone named smoghog2 with this logo (and they will be) you'll know to smile and make fun of them, as I probably am too at that particular moment.
That is all.
=)
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Saturday, November 6th, 2004
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| Time: | 4:54 am. |
| Mood: | chill. | | Music: | Sub 6 - pounding. |
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wow, I haven't updated in quite a while...
Halo 2 hits shelves Monday night at 1 minute past midnight. I, of course, will already be waiting in line at Hastings to pick up a limited edition copy of it. Then I'll probably geek out on it for about a week straight without worrying about things like food or sleep... =)
Not a whole lot to report about this week. With any luck I'll be taking over a postition at Lewis Ford that will have me working graveyard hours, which is perfect for me. And for good pay too, so that should help me to acheive my next goal, which is saving up two grand before new years for phase 2 of my studio project... I've currently said aside roughly nothing...
That's about it for now... hopefully I'll actually have an update soon that is worth reading...
adios
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Sunday, October 24th, 2004
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Ok, so I'm back from 9 days of travelling to and staying in Califronia.... I took the ACT 16 hours ago, slept all ay, and now I'm wide awake at my computer, listening to Infected Mushroom. Don't really feel like typing a whole lot so maybe I'll tell stories later...
until then...
Adios
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Saturday, October 9th, 2004
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Past midnight and unable to sleep. I'm listening to "Evil & Harm" by Younger Brother. A truely excelent song, beautiful acoustic guitars. I'm really kinda starting to worry about my finances. It looks like I'm gonna squeeze through this month ok, all bills paid on time. But next month is definitely looking sketchy. I'll be taking on the payments for my Blazer, in addition to Insurance, Phone, Loan Payments and Food. It seems like there was something else too... Oh, right, I'm supposed to be putting together my digital recording studio. Fuck. I sat on my computer earlier tonight and read through the NW Arkansas Classifieds. Out of 400+ entries, I didn't find a single one that would work for me. Experience required, clean driving record required, certification required... It's always something. I did apply to a couple of stores around here though. All of them would be the same old bullshit I dealt with at Hastings, but at this point, I really need to find something to pay the bills and help me save for my studio.
New paragraph, new song. Listening to "How I could just kill a man" by Rage against the machine. I've started toying around a little bit with remixing other peoples music through some software I have on my computer, since I don't have the hardware to create the original stuff that I have in mind. I'm planning on doing a psy-trance remix of the Vast song "Touched." It'll be my super-secret side project. I've also decided that I'm going to get into more areas of music than I had originally planned. My primary project will, of course, by psy-trance/goa. I'll more than likely go by Smoghog for that project. But in my spare spare time, I kinda want to do some chill-out, house and ambient work. I don't know what my alter-ego will be yet, I just know that I want to experiment alot with all kinds of music (other than rap, country, pop and rock). I'm thinking something along the lines of Zero 7 meets Fatboy Slim meets Chemical Brothers meets E.S. Posthumus.
Sigur Ros - ( ) untitled track 4. I love this song. One of two songs that was in Vanilla Sky, but not on the soundtrack. Sounds alot like Radiohead. I think I'll close on that... Just like the movie did.
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Wednesday, October 6th, 2004
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Ok, so I seriously need to find a job soon... I really want to start putting my studio together and start making music, but I'm going nowhere fast. I can't figure out what the hell I want to do outside of music. Where am I going to find a job that I can actually stick with?
rrrrrgh...
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Tuesday, September 28th, 2004
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Airplane passengers watch nervously as two men wearing pilots' uniforms and dark glasses use canes to feel their way into the cockpit. The plane starts barreling down the runway, and the passengers begin to get scared as the water at the end of the airstrip nears. With only a few yards left, everyone screams, but the plane lifts off just in time. The passengers think it was all a joke, while in the cockpit, the pilots high five.
"You know," says one pilot to the other, "one day their gonna scream too late, and we're gonna die."
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Monday, September 27th, 2004
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Quotes to remember....
"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach him to use the net and he won't bother you for weeks."
"Right now I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time. I think I've forgotten this before."
"You have just recieved the Amish Computer Virus. Since the Amish don't have computers, it is based on the honor system. So please delete all the files from your computer. Thank you for you cooperation."
"Good, better, best; never let it rest till your good is better and your better is best."
"Some people make things happen, some watch while things happen, and some wonder "What happened?"
Which type of person are you?"
"Never be afraid to try something New. Remember, amateurs built the ark; professionals built the Titanic."
"Defeat is not the worst of failures. Not to have tried is the true failure."
"Common sense is the most uncommon thing in the world."
"Always remember you're unique, just like everyone else."
"If Ignorance is bliss, why aren't more people happy?"
"If a word in the dictionary were misspelled, how would we know?"
"Isn't it scary to know that what doctors do for a living is called 'practice'?"
"If a person with multiple personalities threatens suicide, is that a hostage situation?"
"Don't cry because it is over, smile because it happened."
"It's ok to kiss a fool. It's ok to let a fool kiss you. But never let a kiss fool you."
"Don't settle for the one you can live with, wait for the one you can't live without."
"Last night I looked up at the stars and matched each one with a reason why I love you. I was doing great until I ran out of stars."
"When I look at you, I cannot deny there is a god. Because only a god could have created something as wonderful and beautiful as you."
"Love can sometimes be magic. But magic can sometimes be just another illusion."
"Love is like an hour glass, the brain empties as the heart fills up."
"You know you're in love when you think about someone more times in a day than you think about yourself."
"Don't fall for someone who won't be there to catch you."
"Love is giving someone the ability to destroy you, but trusting them not to."
"A good friend will come bail you out of jail, but a true friend will be sitting next to you saying 'That was awesome'."
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Saturday, September 25th, 2004
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Ok, still no credit card, still no equipment... I'm starting to get frustrated as hell...
My Halo track is going fairly well, especially considering that I'm doing the entire thing in software alone without any kind of external controls... It's so hard to get a hands-on feel doing things like this. I want to be able to randomly play things and strike keys to create music, then record it once I've found the melody I like. Doing things in software alone, I'm just playing the point-and-click game with the mouse... I have to create entire sections before I can place them in the song and see how they'll sound, then I have to go back and change what I didn't like... and over again... It's frustrating and I keep getting stuck on various points. Plus there are just some sections that I'm seriously going to need a good keyboard and soundcard for... The intro is cool atleast. It's a gunfight to the beat. Now I just need to figure out what to do about the bass line...
If anyone feels like loaning me a grand, it would be GREATLY appreciated...
TWO IMPORTANT THINGS...
1. A joke.
Two turtles go camping and pack a cooler with sandwiches and beer. After three days of walking, they arrive at a great spot but realize they've forgotten a bottle opener. The first turtle turns to the second and says, "You've gotta go back and get the opener or else we have no beer."
"No way," says the second. "By the time I get back, you will have eaten all the food."
"I promise I won't," says the turtle. "Just hurry!"
Nine full days pass and there's still no sign of the second turtle. Exasperated and starving, the first turtle digs into the sandwiches. Suddenly, the second turtle pops out from behind a rock and yells, "I knew it! I'm not f-cking going!"
2. Everyone must try this atleast once.
-A. While sitting at your desk, lift your right foot off the floor and make clockwise circles.
-B. Now, while doing this, draw the number "6" in the air with your right hand.
-C. Your foot will change direction and there's nothing you can do about it.
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Tuesday, September 21st, 2004
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This is a must-read article...
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/09/19/1095532178382.html
Imagine the possibilities if we could draw electric energy from plantlife... Bad ass.
"LEOBEN, Austria -- A man whose apparent attempt to kill himself using a cobra was thwarted by Austrian police is in critical condition. The snake dealer who had more than 60 poisonous snakes in his apartment is suffering from a gunshot wound and a snake bite. Intoxicated and distraught, he sent a cell phone message to his girlfriend announcing the suicide attempt. Police said they arrived and found him entwined by two deadly cobras, which he swung at officers trying to overpower him. In the chaos, the man was bitten by one of the snakes, hit by pepper spray and shot in the thigh by police. The snakes are now at a zoo in southern Austria."
Alright, so I've started planning out my first official project for when I get my audio equipment in. I've been thinking of doing this for quite some time now, but it's only just beginning to take shape. I'm going to do a full-on psy-trance song using nothing but sound effects and samples from Halo. I've already started extracing all of the .wav sound files from the game DVD. Naturally, I'll have to title the song "Halo." The track will use one of the covenant theme songs as its bassline and a few samples of dialog from one of the main characters, Cortana. The mid section will have an entire melody formed from the sounds of all the different weapons firing, bullets ricocheting, glass breaking and of course, blood splattering. You'll just have to hear it... =)
1. IM The Supervisor 2. Ratio Schmatio 3. Muse Breaks RMX 4. Meduzz 5. Cities of the Future
6. Horus the Chorus 7. Frog Machine 8. Noon 9. Bombat 10. Stretched
P.S. I still need to locate a good (free) online image-hosting place so that I can put up some personal pictures on the internet to display in my LiveJournal... Anyone?
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Monday, September 20th, 2004
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hellz yeah, I got the new Infected Mushroom cd which comes out later today... two words: BAD ASS.
That is all.
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Sunday, September 19th, 2004
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Still no card... starting to get impatient... I'm definitely getting some good ideas organized so that when I do get my equipment, I'll be able to immediately get to work... Leaving for Spectra Inertia in 11 days... Nothing new other than that...
More later
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Friday, September 17th, 2004
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Alright, a little masking tape and some black spraypaint and I was able to salvage my project a little bit... Doesn't look nearly as good as it was supposed to, but it will work for the time being. I wound up spraypainting a black tribal design over the top and right sections of the case, that perfectly masks the unconcealed section of lighting and the superglue streak. Then I put my Infected Mushroom sticker in the bottom left corner. All-in-all, it doesn't look half bad considering all that went wrong...
And in other news, Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence was released in theaters today... and not a single one around here is carrying it... That's some bullshit.
Oh, and my card hasn't come in yet, so I haven't been able to order my equipment yet...
It's just one of those weeks I guess...
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Ok, scrap that... The hot glue held the window in place just fine, and I flipped it over and started to fill in the crevice around the window with super glue so that it would be somewhat smooth when I painted the border. Unfortunately, the panel was on a slightly slanted surface, so a nice long streak ran down the window like a river and hardened, leaving it looking like complete shit. So I'm putting the panel back on the computer when it dries, for safety purposes. And I'll just have to wait to hear back from Sony Tech Support about a replacement panel. Meanwhile, I'm going to start pricing around for new computer cases... Should I end up buying one, I'm definitely going to have to get one with a window already built in....
Fuck.
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So I've affectively wasted over $40 today. The Window kit I ordered for my pc was a piece of shit. The Rubber molding that is supposed to hold the window in doesn't fit for shit. The twenty dollar kit is pure crap. In addition to that, my sixty dollar dremel tool broke while cutting the hole in my side panel, forcing me to buy a twenty dollar cordless one from wal-mart, also a piece of shit. So now I've got a huge gaping hole in the side of my computer, which means I'll probably have to replace the side panel, god knows what that's gonna cost me. Or I could just get a new case... There's another $120+.
Talk about a lousy day.
Just for the hell of it though, I'm going to try and hot glue the window into the side panel from the inside, then spray paint a border around it to look like the molding was supposed to and see how it turns out... Maybe I can turn this into a professional looking window on my own... who knows...
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Thursday, September 16th, 2004
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| Time: | 2:13 am. |
| Mood: |  bored. | | Music: | Infected Mushroom - Im The Superviza. |
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Insomnia setting in...
Can't find anything funny on the internet anymore... need more humorous sites to browse during these late night hours when I have no-one to talk to...
Going to find some apple juice now...
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Wednesday, September 15th, 2004
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| Time: | 2:29 pm. |
| Mood: | excited. | | Music: | MTV Real World in the background...blech.... |
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Alright, Schedule for the year 2004....
September 24th: Ford Parts Department Inventory
September30th - October 3rd: Camping at Spectra Inertia
October 23rd: ACT Testing at UofA
November 9th: Halo 2
November 13th: Open House at SAE in Nashville (maybe?)
In the meantime, I need to find myself a full time job that I can actually enjoy enough to stick with for quite a while. I'm in the process of putting together my recording studio and I'd like to move in with a couple friends of mine, one of whom (Jeff) will probably be my partner in the music industry. He and I have already started piecing together ideas for songs and pricing equipment for production. We've even discussed the future possibility of creating our own psy-trance record label. For now, he and his girlfriend have moved into a house and they've asked me if I want to move in with them here in the next month or two. Their other roommate only moved in temporarily and is getting ready to move into the dorms at the UofA. Jeff and I are both thinking it would be the perfect place to set up the studio. Now all I need to do is find a job. Only problem is, if I do move out and start making music, it could be several long hard years before I start to see any kind of profits from that line of work, if ever. So I really need a job that I am going to be able to stick with for a few years. And finding a job that I would actually like seems to be damn near impossible. I'm open to suggestions if anyone who's reading this has any ideas. You all know me relatively well, you might know what would fit me.
Criteria... I'd like to steer away from computer work, data entry and internet communication work are boring as hell, I've been down that road before. I'd like to not have to deal with people very much. Maybe a job where I kind of work behind the scenes, or from home even. And NO FOOD. I cannot work in the food industry in any way whatsoever...
That's not too picky... is it?
For now though, I've ordered a Cold Cathode kit and a window kit for my computer. Since my VAIO will be the central hub of my recording studio, it's becoming time to pimp it out. When I'm done, there will be an acryllic window in the side of the pc, allowing people to see the guts inside. On the window will be a big black infected mushroom sticker, and the inside of the PC will glow blue with Cold Cathode lighting above and below the window itself. At the end of this week my replacement credit card will be in my hands, so I'll be ordering a new M-Audio Delta 1010LT sound card for recording. A Micro-Korg compact synthesizer/midi controller. And new pair of Sony Professional Headphones. So I'll be set to start making music. Once I get a job and can save up some serious money, I'll be able to order a mixer, sampler, a pair of studio monitors, and a Clavia Nord Lead 3 synthesizer.
Badass.
Now where to work..............
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What if Dr. Seuss wrote technical manuals?
If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port,
And the bus is interrupted as a very last resort,
And the address of the memory makes your floppy disk abort,
Then the socket packet pocket has an error to report!
If your cursor finds a menu item followed by a dash,
And the double-clicking icons put your window in the trash,
And your data is corrupted 'cause the index doesn't hash,
Then your situation's hopeless, and your system's gonna crash!
If the label on your cable on the gable at your house,
Says the network is connected to the button on your mouse,
But your packets want to tunnel to another protocol,
That's repeatedly rejected by the printer down the hall.
And your screen is all distorted by the side effects of gauss,
So your icons in the window are as wavy as a souse,
Then you may as well reboot and go out with a bang,
"Cause as sure as I'm a poet, the sucker's gonna hang!
When the copy of your floppy's getting sloppy on the disk,
And the microcode instructions cause unnecessary RISC,
Then you have to flash your memory and you'll want to RAM your ROM,
Quickly turn off your computer and be sure to tell your mom!
- Gene Ziegler
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Tuesday, September 14th, 2004
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"It could be a wiggly-wobbly kind of day."
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Sunday, September 12th, 2004
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| Time: | 1:42 pm. |
| Mood: | amused. | | Music: | Infected Mushroom - Medduze. |
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Alright, Here's the news for the week...
I've decided not to move to Nashville and attend SAE. Atleast, not yet. I went up to Crisp recording studios the other morning and talked to the owner, Darren Crisp, for a while. I mainly wanted to get his advice and learn more about the recording/music industry from someone who's been a part of it for a while. He basically said that Institutes like SAE are designed more for people who need to be taught. I don't really think of myself as one of those people. Crisp started around the age of 16 with basic recording instruments and taught himself everything through trial and error, without any kind of education at all. I figure, if I can teach myself tattooing, I can teach myself this. Besides, the $25,000 I would put into going to SAE is money that could easily build my studio instead. So now I'm looking at getting a job here in Fayetteville, possibly going to the UofA part time, but mainly putting together my own recording studio over the next year. I can always go to SAE later on down the road if I really feel the need to.
As for now, I've gotten my hands on roughly $800 worth of software from my previous list and I've purchased $60 worth of books in the last two days to try and help me get started with this new software. My replacement credit card comes in next week and I will be ordering a Micro-Korg compact synthesizer and a M-Audio soundcard for my computer. As soon as I can get a job I'll start saving up for a Mixer, Sampler and a pair of Tannoy Reveal studio monitors.
In other news, I did my first tattoo in several months last night. A small tribal backpiece for a friend of mine. Felt good to bust out the gun and put it to good use again. I really need to get back in the habit of doing tattoos, it would cetrainly help me save up money for my audio equipment. I just need to get off my lazy ass and get some of this stuff accomplished...
Oh, and I chopped off my ponytail.
That's about all for now.... Adios.
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