Movies

Some of the most graphic bloodshed and violence I have ever seen within an hour 1/2. Stallone is just absolutely lethal. Worth the $7.50 (children's price XD ) ticket to go see.




This one looks moving, and truthful. Has my interest anyway.

2nd semester so far

5/70. Five days out of the total seventy that are considered the regular part of the semester, excluding finals week. So far it's been a good one. I don't feel overwhelmed and stressed out like I did last semester, and I think cutting my hours at work was a good move. It will give me more time to focus on my school work and also give me a little bit more time to relax and stay sane. The one thing I need to work on so far is managing my homework. I'm trying to get myself to not be up until midnight every night, but so far that's been the case. I'll get through it though. The biggest challenge is theory/sight singing, which after 1 week, I'm averaging a B+. With all of this said, I'm very much looking forward to summer break.

Go Pats!

Maybe.

What happens when a computer's CPU bites the dust?
What happens when an automobile's engine blows up?
What happens when food expires?
What happens when a gear on an analog clock breaks?
What happens when a CD gets scratched?
What happens when a pen runs out of ink?
What happens when a vital component to anything decides to malfunction?

The part ruins the whole, and the whole is no longer the same.

recording shmording

Ok, as a few of you close to me might know, I'm in a band. Our band has seen many technical difficulties over the past year, however few of them have been from my stuff.

Wrong.
Wrong.
Wrong.

Let me explain. Technology has come a long way. What took the Beatles months to do can be done in a few days. Home recording studios are becoming abundant, big and small. It's easy to do....so how come it never works for me?

Here's the lowdown: I have a pretty damn good laptop for recording with, which I didn't even realize until I began doing it a few months back. It's an HP that has an 80 GB harddrive, Intel Centrino processor, and came with 4 USB ports and a FireWire port.

Hardware: Presonus FP10, commonly known as the FirePod. 8 mic preamps, S/PDIF, and MIDI. Works awesome. Other gear includes KRK monitors, Sennheiser headphones, and mostly Audix and AKG microphones. Pretty solid gear. Nothing spectacular, but enough to get the job done.

The issue has come with the software. The Firepod came with a cheap version of Cubase that I've thrown aside. I've acquired two Multi-track programs, Sonar 6 Producer's Edition, and the infamous Cool Edit Pro 2.0 (Licensed to Peter Quistgard). The latter is a popular download on many P2P services i.e. Kazaa, Bearshare, Limewire, etc.

Sonar: seems like a pretty good program, however not compatible with the on-board soundcard on my computer. It accepts the Firepod, however clicks and pops are abundant in the playback...but playback the same mp3 files that are recorded with it, and there's no clicking. Stuff sounds like platinum.

Cool Edit Pro: easy to use program, but has its limitations. Accepts the firepod, but fucks it up in the actual recording process (specifically, for every two channels on the pod, adds up to one track on the software. So, inputs 1 & 2 end up being track 1. better example, kick and snare are on the same track). Shitty to record with.

I've since found myself recording with Sonar and then copy and paste everything into Cool Edit. This is a royal pain in the testicles as you have to literally puzzle-piece every part together so that it sounds like music. Ok, it sucks but I'll deal. I have 10 songs recorded, and they all sound pretty good so far.

Latest obstacle in the road: why did one of my bass tracks suddenly, out of the blue, turn into a mixture of every other track and horrible static? It didn't sound like that this morning, why does it now? And furthermore, is this going to keep happening just when it feels like it?

Like I said, technology has come a long way and the way I'm doing things now is absolutely rediculous, and I shouldn't have to put up with it. I plan on running ProTools in the very near future. No joke.

You know you're up late when you're listening to D&C on the commute home.

Monday night, I went up to Wachusett Mtn. for the first time in what seems like ages ago. The snow was pretty sloppy up on the summit, but better toward the bottom. The terrain parks were pretty cool, but the asshole people chillin on the kickers made them uncool. Half-pipe looked bigger than I've ever seen it before. Overall, it was nice to get back to doing what is probably my favorite winter pasttime. Without it, winter would just suck more than it does now.

After the whole skiing business was done, I recorded bass for 10 songs cause I'm a machine. I got done at around 6 in the morning and drove home. I brushed my teeth at the same time as my sister, however she was headed for another day at school while I was headed for bed. I woke up from my slumber at exactly 3:06 pm. I ate a muffin for "breakfast." I drove up to Guitar Center and then back to McDonald's at around 7:30 pm for "lunch." I then proceeded to park my ass in the producer's chair and watched Zach record vocals for 7 songs. My turn is on Thursday, which means I need to finish writing lyrics for 3 songs. By finish writing, I mean change all of the lyrics so they're not so cliche and sappy. I think I'm headed in the right direction. We finished the latest session at around 1:30 am on Wednesday. 16 minutes, I find myself blogging about the whole week to date.

School starts on Tuesday. I'm fucked.

Cheers.

ignorance is bliss

"Hi, welcome to McDonald's, our soda machine is broken, may I take your order?"

"Yeah, I'll have a double cheeseburger, large fry, and a medium diet coke."

"Our soda machine is broken."

"So can I still get a diet coke?"

"No."




This scenario happened on multiple occasions today. Now I know it can be irritating when overexpensive equipment malfunctions, but are people really this ignorant all the time? Jeezus.

Here's to the future.

I remember waking up on the final morning of our hike and it was just above freezing outside. Some may find this kind of weather unpredictable for the stereotypical heat that New Mexico presents, alas, I was in pants and a jacket with my hat and mittens on. We would start the final hike in the dark before the sun would come up. We would hike down the mountain and see base camp in clear veiw, getting bigger and bigger with each pass, but each pass felt longer than the last one. When the gate into camp came into clear view, I couldn't help but sprint full-speed toward it, regardless of the 50+ lbs I might have been carrying on my back (it wasn't that much, as most of the food was gone by the final day). We were done, and we had done it successfully. 16 days of no outside communication. No running water (besides the river). No showers. No bathrooms. No television, ipod, radio, newspaper, computer, or anything of the sort. Lying on a thick mattress on a wire cot that night felt like the best broke-in bed in Jordan's Furniture. The point? Perserverence and success. Any one of us could have quit in the middle, but the challenges and comaraderie of friends made those thoughts dissappear immediately.

I can say I went through that ordeal twice. I loved it both times.

Whenever I feel like giving something up or finding something new to begin, I can always look back at those weeks in New Mexico. They serve as a reminder to me to keep the sails going. 2008 has been great so far (sans this horrible cold that has given me the most sore throat in recent memory). Just four days into the year, I feel as though I'm going to find more open doors, more roads to travel, and more people that may or may not have a significant impact on my future. 2008 is going to be a good one.