Time for a General Update.

I’ve been neglecting the blog lately. Posting isn’t hard, but getting together coherent ideas that are at least interesting to me — if not interesting to you folks — is hard. Everyday, as boredom sets in at work, I come up with all sorts of ideas and projects. I generally write them down on a few index cards and add them to my ToDo.txt file and Projects folder at the end of the day. That file is getting long and that folder is getting filled up. So instead of trying to focus on any one topic I’ll detail a few of the things I’ve been up to

Warcraft

Babyshoes (on the Skywall server) is rapidly approaching level 70. If you don’t already know, Babyshoes is my level 66 Gnome frost mage with the tailoring and enchanting professions. He’s been a lot of fun to play and I’m trying to get him to level 70 in time for the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. This expansion opens up a new continent, customizable hairdos (the girls are crazy for this), a new player class, a bunch of new dungeons, and a raised level cap. I have 5 other toons, but I’ve focused on Babyshoes because mages are a lot of fun to play. Some people find the magic users complicated, but I like the versatility. The character becomes sort of like an operating system with various commands you can run, besides the standard whack and loot. If Babyshoes hits 70 before WotLK comes out, I will probably work on Gorefeaster, my level 50 Undead warrior, and try to get his epic mount. Warriors are a pain to level. He can tank like nobody’s business, but his damage per second is so low that it takes forever to kill something. I need to team up with a mage or a warlock and just power level him. If you have a toon on Skywall or want to tell me what server you play on, drop me a comment.

The Wire

I’ve been watching heroic amounts of The Wire. It’s so good, it’s mind blowing that it earned such low ratings. Imagine the best of Law & Order, coupled with the best of Homocide: Life on the Streets, add in a dash of Sopranos dark humor, simmer in the technical savvy of Numb3rs, and you get The Wire. On the surface, its a crime drama detailing the trials of the Baltimore police homicide and drug divisions. The understaffed, overworked, and  underpaid department is pushed past its limits and its ability to enforce the law is compromised by the lean budget. There are ladder climbing superiors, lifers just waiting to get out on a pension, and frustrated detectives just trying to get some work done. But this surface, entertaining as it is, hides the real meat of the show: why does crime exist? Why does a first world nation have so many people on drugs or in jail? It’s about that, the death of the American working class, the priorities of city officials, and the seemingly insurmountable odds we face as a country. All of that and more with clever writing and gripping drama. The show ran for five seasons and it is available on DVD.

Music

I’ve been listening to a lot of music and playing around with Ableton Live. I discovered a Canadian indie rock band from the early ’90s called The Inbreds. Their hit single was Any Sense of Time and a few others. They’re from Halifax and never made it far outside of Canada. My other favorite new find is jazz-fusion artist Bob James. Before you vomit all over your keyboard at the jazz-fusion label, hear me out. Bob James is one of the most sampled artists in music history and funky as hell. Hundreds of hip hop acts have sampled him and electronic bands have looped him. Röyksopp made a whole track (Eple) based off of a 2 note Bob James sample (You’re as Right as Rain). This guy’s the man. If you’ve ever watched an episode of Taxi, you’ve heard his work (the theme is called Angela). Check out any of his albums from the ’70s. You can’t go wrong.

I downloaded over a hundred hip hop and funk loops, plus two-hundred drum machine samples. I’ve been playing around with the Ableton Live recording features so I can start looping guitar phrases and lay down vocals. I have a plan to build a top notch gaming/music production machine in the near future. Unfortunately I’ll have to run Windows, but I’ll be using my laptop for my day to day work and it runs Ubuntu. I gave up on the Mac idea. I realized that I value freedom too much to hand over all that control to Apple, even if they do make fine products. Windows is almost as bad at the freedom aspect, but at least I can upgrade and modify the hardware. As soon as I can run Ableton Live on Linux or someone makes a convincing clone, I’ll switch to Linux for music production. Linux has all the facilities to record traditional instruments and arrangements, like a 3 piece rock band, but the software for sample based music and software synths is clumsy and underdeveloped. In addition to this, there are hundreds of virtual instruments on the VST platform that sound fantastic and I depend on them for some of my favorite sounds. There is no way I could afford the kind of hardware keyboards that come for free as virtual synths. So I’m stuck with Windows for Ableton Live until they get with the program. Though hmm…a little googling reveals that the latest version of WINE seem to support Ableton Live 7.0.3 without any issues. I’ll have to try installing it.

I promise I’ll post some music once I iron out the kinks in my production workflow. I need to get all my synths reinstalled, my samples organized, and a workplace setup. Also, if you are interested in working on music (especially if you live in the Austin area), leave me a comment. I love to collaborate on projects with interesting people.

Whew! That was pretty long winded. I’ll have to post more often, because this doesn’t even scratch the surface of some of the other stuff I’m up to. And lastly, I’d like to wish Josh and Feliz a hearty and heartfelt congratulations. They are going to make awesome parents.