The DaveBlog

The “Songs for the Cure” album arrived today.  I may have noob’d up the recording, but even still, seeing “produced and arranged by Warrior Bob” in print was kind of exciting.  There are some excellent tracks on there by some artists that I really need to dig deeper on.  Big Giant Circles and Karen Kosowski come to mind immediately, though there are several others that I’ll probably end up talking about on here pretty soon.

Unrelatedly, due to drinking, I have apparently made myself a Twitter account despite claiming I would never do such a thing.  Username is the same as AIM for those of you who know it.  Time to see what all the kids are up to.

Well, my music got submitted a couple of weeks ago and Josh’s charity project from my last post should be heading out soon.  I think I did about as well as I could hope to, but the mix (and performance) was still kind of rough.  This is the first time I’ve ever been on a compilation and is only the second time I’ve put something on the internet and called it done, so hopefully it will show well.  I’m very eager to hear the other musicians’ work.  I’m sure it’ll blow me away but at least I get to see my name up there with theirs.  Little victories.

I’ve taken some time off from more dedicated musical pursuit to do other fun things.  I’ve finished Shadow of the Colossus, and gotten myself a fresh install of Ubuntu Studio to play with.  The former is as nice as you’ve probably heard, and the latter would be if my video card didn’t decide to upchuck all over the screen now and again.  Baby steps.  At least the sound works this time around without me sacrificing a goat.

I’ve mentioned him before on here, but my friend Josh Whelchel, splendid musician, is running the Relay for Life this year.  Last year I guess he raised some $800 which is pretty great, and this year he’s upped his goal by a bit.  As an incentive to donate, if you donate so much he’ll send you a copy of an album that’s he’s putting together, and likely actively putting together as you read this.  He’s collected quite a cadre of musicians together and I can’t wait to hear it.  I’ve been a fan of Josh’s music for most of a decade now and am very excited about his new projects.  If you’re so inclined I urge to to throw a few dollars his way.

Being a fan of interactive media I’ve discovered that it tends to outpace me. There are more games and fun toys that come out than I can possibly play through, let alone afford, and invariably I miss some really good ones while enjoying the ones that I already have. The problem is that the hardware required to run these tends to outdate, so a given production has a window of time where it can be reasonably acquired and played. Old computers, particularly the IBM/PC platform are troublesome since the updates are incremental and programs can exhibit a “sort of works” behavior that is hard to troubleshoot, but even old console videogames can be hard to play just because of their rarity. Some of the old classics are inaccessible since they cost a couple of hundred dollars on ebay. I’ve often wished there was some mechanism to reprint the older titles in some accessible way.

Fortunately for me, that’s sort starting to happen. Good Old Games is a company that’s offering digital downloads of some great older PC games for the price of a fast food combo meal. Furthermore, they’re either tweaked or run in wrapper software so that they’ll run on modern XP and Vista computers. I bought Freespace 2 from them already, and as soon as I clear out some of the RPGs I’m playing through I think I’ll try out the first Fallout game, which has never run on any computer I’ve ever owned. How cool is this?

Of course, “clear out some of the RPGs” might be a taller order than I think since I’m still in the middle of the excellent The World Ends With You on the DS and Final Fantasy 3/6 on the SNES. And I’ve still got this download of The Spirit Engine that I want to play through. And I’m playing WoW with some friends.

Holy crap what have I gotten myself into.

I just picked up a pair of pants and a big black spider fell out of them.

I don’t know what to trust anymore.

I always figured I was one of those uber-nerds who’d freak out if he ever lost access to the internet for any significant length of time.  I recently moved to a new place, and it took forever to get proper internet access set up.  It’s all good now, but I was basically disconnected for quite some time, between not being home during ISP business hours so I couldn’t get new service setup, and then several comical delays once I did finally get a call in to them.

However, it turns out there’s lots of fun to be had if you keep a folder of weird stuff you’ve downloaded over the years.  Until I got connected, I was able to read through Hugi #33, about half of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and play the entirety of Dink Smallwood.

Ergo: it turns out I’m still an uber-nerd.  Whodathunkit.

Or so I was told by a gal working the paint section of the local hardware store.  No introduction, no hesitation, just “you smell like food.”  The cashier echoed the sentiment.  I am notquite sure what this means other than I can now say I’ve gotten more attention from women from the use of a Subway pastrami sandwich than I’ve gotten from some brands of cologne.

One of the best things I got to do when I was in Japan is visit the Tsukiji fish market.   As you may have surmised, this is a market where many fish reside.  Most of them are frozen or in various states of being dead or almost killed.  But man, are they tasty.

Tsukiji is one of the larger fish markets in the world, and is the largest in Japan.  The majority of the nation’s fish comes from here, and I believe a sizable export market exists as well, although I didn’t spend nearly as much time learning about it as I did looking at it.  The market starts early in the morning, so if you’re just arriving in the country from California it’s actually not that bad of a place to visit, since your time zone isn’t that far off from the pace of life.  I had already been in Asia for a few weeks by this point, but that was okay, it was still worth doing.  It was quite a treat to have sushi from the freshest sushi place in the world.

I am definitely going back there should I return to Japan.

Quite an eventful set of weeks recently.
In the last few weeks, I’ve finished up my first quarter-century, gone and visited a bunch of good friends, interviewed for a job, gotten the job, and am all set to move for that job, to the town right next to the town where I met all those friends in the first place.  I am pleased to say the least.

Best part of the story?  I will be working at a hospital for the criminally insane.

So much music talk on my blog lately.  I guess it’s like something I do now.

One of my final assignments in my songwriting class at Folsom Lake is to compose a blues song.  This is not a task to which I am suited.  My musical background generally fits into electronic 4/4 boom-tish music, or loud guitar wrangling.  I must say I have no idea how to even approach writing the blues.  I mean, I know the whole 12-bar structure, I have a fair idea what a turnaround is, and I’m sure I can make up some words about hardships or trains or drinking or it being really hot outside or something, but anything I make is going to be either a complete knock-off of another song, or so far removed from blues ethos that it barely qualifies as a member of the genre.

On the other hand, maybe that second one is not so bad.  Though I should probably not use ReBirth on this one.