1. Put the finishing touches on the song we’ve been working on recently. Spent a mere 20 minutes arranging a whole new introduction for it (which will actually be placed at the end of the previous track and lead abruptly into the song…cool shit.)
In other “my music”-related news, I still haven’t actually gotten to see but have been given a description of the cover that a friend of mine is doing for the record and it sounds like it’s gonna be fucking cool. I don’t need the artwork right away, so I told him not to rush his already busy schedule with it, but at the same time I’m really anxious and excited to see what it looks like. I have a great feeling about it. I probably won’t unveil it until after the record has been submitted to the various online music stores (iTunes, Amazon, RealPlayer Rhapsody, etc.) that it will be available on.
2. Bought tickets for Nine Inch Nails and Jane’s Addiction. Spent a little over $100 on my ticket, but I think it will be well worth it. I bought pre-sale, meaning I’ll be let in early by NIN’s own staff and probably get to be right on the rail.
Davy Crockett is most known for his stand and death at the Alamo against Hertz and Enterprise. Recently I learned that Mr. Crockett’s name was lent to another bad military idea: The tactical nuclear device M65 Recoilless Rifle aka “The Davy Crockett” It was never used in combat because of a design oversight. The Davy Crockett had a range nearly 3 miles. The problem was if the wind shifted the soldiers that launched the M65 tactical nuclear warhead, would be be within the nuclear fall-out. Luckily it was only tested once, and the military big wigs said…oops. In the video above, look out for a famous politician.
I’m very excited today. After a night of in-apartment recording at my good friend Chris Barron’s place, we managed to get down most of an entire song. Everything sounded great but when we got to the vocals we realized that for this song we just don’t have a good enough mic. So I crashed there and this morning went with Chris to the School of Communication Arts (conveniently located four fucking seconds away from his apartment) and we talked to his audio production teacher, who told us to have me come in at 2PM this afternoon to do the vocals in a very expensive, professional-grade studio. I’ve never gotten to even set foot in a vocal booth before, let alone record in one, so this is a very exciting day for me. Moreover, the rest of the mix sounds great already and with some well-recorded it’s gonna turn out to sound pretty fucking fantastic.
And bonus – after this song is done (which it should be by this evening; there’s not a lot of mixing left to do) there will only be two songs left to record on my upcoming EP (one of which uh…still needs to be written…but you know, whatever.)
Wednesday, March 18, 2009 @ 11:32pm
by Shawn (Geek)
All praise Apple, giver of wonderful things, provider of beautiful technological mana, and donor of digital destines. Once again the fruit stand computer company Apple rolls out in every bit in Keynote “One more thing” style the new OS for the iPhone. Think of this, Apple has such brand loyalty and its followers are a few steps from zealot martyrdom that a software update can tickles our fancies so. The prefect presentation this time gives rapturous iPhone owners a few things we’ve all been waiting for and a few more then make an already immaculate phone even better:
Full landscape keyboard support across all key applications.
YES! Though I’ve got used to the not using a landscape keyboard, namely because of my unwavering trust in Apple and there mysterious ways, I am very thrilled about this!
Cut, copy, and paste! Works between applications.
Long time coming. Sure other apps have made this possible, but the Apple does what Apple does best…made it work and look great (disclaimer: It appears to work, update not launched)
MMS support, along with added ability to forward and delete individual or groups of messages.
Like (EVERY PHONE OUT ON THE MARKET!!) iPhone owners can now send and receive photos from those of our deprived friends that don’t have email at there fingertips.
Push notification support.
Only took nearly two years. But, fair enough…I’ll take it.
Integrated option to mail multiple photos straight from a photo album.
I have been missing the ability to send a litany of photos depicting any number nefarious going-ons.
Note synchronization. iPhone notes will be able to be synched up with Macs or PCs through iTunes.
Don’t care.
Shake-to-shuffle music playing support (a la iPod Nano).
This is a cool “show-off-feature”
Wi-Fi auto login.
Convent
Stereo Bluetooth support.
Cool, but this calls for another $100 bit of electronic
Overall enhanced Bluetooth capability. Will now be able to connect to someone else via Bluetooth and transmit contact info, play games, or share any other kind of information.
This is GREAT! So many multiplayer games can now be played without a network. And if Apple delivers as they promise, it is going to work, like Xbox Live opposed to PSN.
YouTube account support.
Don’t care
Auto-fill support.
I guess
New global phone search, called Spotlight. Located to the left of the first page (you’ll finger-flick left to find it). Will allow you to search everything on your phone.
Spotlight on iPhone (much like quicksilver) VERY COOL
Expanded Stocks app with news headlines and detailed market info.
Cool, but eh…expanded stocks in this day and age is depressing
Added support for CalDAV and .ics subscriptions with Calendar app.
Don’t care
New Voice Memos application that lets you easily record and share voice notes to yourself.
Apple “improving” (stealing) on apps that have already been done
Wednesday, March 18, 2009 @ 11:25pm
by Patrick (Music)
Your feelings for Trent Reznor or Nine Inch Nails itself aside, the man wrote a pretty interesting article on the current state of affairs in the concert ticket industry.
Here’s the rub: TicketMaster has essentially been a monopoly for many years – certainly up until Live Nation’s exclusive deal ran out. They could have (and can right now) stop the secondary market dead in its tracks by doing the following: limit the amount of sales per customer, print names on the tickets and require ID / ticket matches at the venue. We know this works because we do it for our pre-sales. Why don’t THEY do it? It’s obvious – they make a lot of money fueling the secondary market. TicketMaster even bought a re-seller site and often bounces you over to that site to buy tickets (TicketsNow.com)!
This is something that’s been on my mind grapes quite a bit these days. I feel like shit about 90% of the time. Part of this is probably because I eat whatever I want to (which I can afford to do, and still stay skinny, because I have the most unbelievable metabolism known to man.) Part of it is probably my wacky sleep schedule. I stay up til absurd hours and sleep in til equally absurd hours. Those things should probably change, particularly the sleep one, but I think the number one thing here is the fact that I get no exercise. I am woefully out of shape.
I remember back toward the end of senior year in high school, for one reason or another, I buckled down on everything. Maybe it was because I was taking Adderall or some variation thereof, who knows, but I stuck with the most basic of exercising (wall pushups every morning when I woke up, every night before I went to bed, and some weight lifting here and there.) I ate breakfast every morning. I think maybe it might have just been those two things that did it, but I felt great, and everything else was great too. I could miraculously stay awake in class. I came home and had absolutely all of my school shit knocked out by 6PM. I wrote a lot more music then than I do now, and a lot of it was pretty good considering. I taught myself a little piano. I got a girlfriend. But most important of all, I didn’t constantly feel like shit, like I was about to pass out every five seconds if I didn’t have an IV of Monster or Red Bull pumping into me. Quite the opposite – I felt fucking great.
I really want to feel that way again, because physically and, more or less mentally and spiritually, it was the best I’ve ever felt and I need to get back to that. As I’m typing this I am groggy as shit and it is damn near 1:00 in the afternoon and I have not been awake for very long at all. I’m really kind of ashamed of that.
I started yesterday. I bought a new iPod arm-band apparatus and took it on a jog yesterday, which I’m gonna try to do once a day in addition to a few other physical things. Once I can afford it I’ll join a gym, too.
Bottom line, is from now on Ol’ Patty Boy is gonna gris exercise hardcore. Here’s hoping I actually stick to it!
