Music

Hello! I actually got a comment a while back, which in a way proves that I have at least one reader. So, mister-one-reader, and potentially any others I've picked up along the way, I've have a message. I've realized that writing isn't really as fun or expressive for me as music is.
I've played piano for about 8 years and have been writing songs for the last 3. In the past few months I've been learning guitar, but don't ask how that's going. Anyways, I'm moving my blogging efforts over to YouTube, where I'll be posting videos and such. So far, this one's been the most popular:

Yeah, yeah, URLs, here you go: http://www.youtube.com/user/ultrafishmaniac

home, sweet and dreamy

My First CD

Way back when I was a little kid and first got into music. I had my sister help me burn a CD out of her library of Dave Matthews songs. Today, I dug up the case of that CD, onto which I'd written the names of the songs. Below, the first 11 songs I ever liked.

The CD is gone, but the list goes:

Grey Street - Creepily enough, I liked this song because it reminded me of my babysitter.
Warehouse - My all-time fave.
When the World Ends - I really loved this song for some reason which escapes me now.
Stay or Leave - I'm pretty sure my sister made me put this on. Possibly the live bonus disc version.
The Space Between
Dreams of our Fathers - This was basically my emo jam.
If I Had it All - I would listen to this while building Legos.
Angel - When I had a crush on a girl in 2nd grade, this song reminded me of her.
Mother Father
Gravedigger (acoustic) - This was probably my sister's idea as well.

7 from "Everyday," 2 from "Some Devil," one from "Busted Stuff," and Warehouse, which was from some live release that I can't remember. Likely "Listener Supported."
The reason the label is all torn up is because I didn't realize how to insert it, so I just glue-sticked it in. Then tore off the edges.

Actually Goodbye

Well, I've grown so attached to this machine that I had to make one more post before SHUTDOWN. I'm going to be away from technology, and you know how hard it is, letting go and everything...

Goodbye

Well, I'm off on vacation, so you won't be hearing from me for a month-ish. But I'll be back, hopefully with stories...-ish.

Dave & Tim Vinyl is MINE

I got it! It's all mine! True; I don't have a record player, but hey, it's collectible. The BTCS vinyl just went for $200 on eBay. So, uh, I'm awesome.

Sokoband Review

The third release by Charlottesville-based Sokoband, entitled Sokoband, is a step in a new direction from their previously mellow origins. The band took the songs from their debut album, In November Sunlight, and re-recorded and mastered them for what is overall a huge improvement over already great songs.

Music
In November Sunlight was a very jazzy, smooth album that could be described as "easy listening." The new versions of these songs really pick up the pace.
"Jiriki," somewhat of a classic song from this band which features Dave Matthews on vocals, used to be a light, vaguely tropical 5/4 jam with chords similar to "Take Five." The redone version of this adds rock 'n' roll flair, with electric guitar spicing it up and much more lively drums. Over the past years, Dave's voice has declined in some areas and improved in others, and I have to admit, on this track I prefer him in 1996. Still, it's wonderful, and would be fine if I hadn't been spoiled by the old version.
"Energy Change" went through an energy change, and was thoughtfully renamed to "Energy Changed" on the new album. Just like "Jiriki," it gets a heavy dose of electric guitar to bring it closer to rock. In the middle of the song, it even borders on techno. The new recording has a revised baseline which opens up the "sound space" for these new instruments. In addition to this we also find a new transition into the double-time section which makes it seem like a segue into a new song rather than the continuation. This could be either a pro or con, but I like it. Note: The band recently tweeted me mentioning that this is actually the old (1979) version of the song. So it changed back, not forth.
Added to "Coast to Coast" are horns or saxophones (I don't know how to tell the difference). The old version of this song was somewhat repetitive; the melody didn't really "pick up." In its new slot on the album, as opener, it gets it going with solid horns/sax, then mellows down to become like the In November Sunlight version. The sax solo on this track gives the listener a real feeling of adventure. It's exciting.
"And Yet Your Smile" is one of two all-new songs on this album. It's very percussion based. Perhaps I'm just impatient, but I feel like this is a bit drawn out. I would love to see it as a 1-2 minute intro to "Jiriki" or maybe "Body Home."
The other new track, "Nightfall," is also a percussion song. This song, while not particularly outstanding as-is, is a perfect finisher for the album that really cools down the ears well.
There are 5 more tracks on this album that I didn't get to, but trust me, they're all great. This album is one of the better ones I've purchased in a while. It has more guests than band members (17 vs 3), but this gives the songs somewhat of a "communal" feel that is nice to hear. All in all, it's a solid album and is a great introduction to this band.

Sound
Because I'm reposting this at anythingbutipod, I have to add this section.
Non-tech folks, you can skip this paragraph. Let me start off by saying that I listened to this through on my RE0s, which are considered to be fairly revealing headphones, along with mt Cowon S9. I ripped the CD to LAME VBR V0 mp3, which is considered the best setting for mp3. It averages about 230 kbps, but it is VBR, meaning on complicating sections it will jump up to 320k so as low as 32k for silence. To 99% of the population, this sounds exactly like the CD. The CD itself, according to the back, was "manufactured from a solid glass master." I'm not entirely sure was this means, but I presume that a glass master is like a vinyl record, but made from glass, thus overcoming the various problems with vinyl. In addition, I ordered the limited edition copy, which is numbered and signed and costs $2 more. I did this more to support the band than for any other reason, but I think that because mine is numbered 15/25 it is the 15th one made. If my logic is correct, we assume that, like vinyl, glass will degrade with playing, just at a slower rate. Which leads me to believe that I have the 15th best version of this CD. Sweet.
OK, laymen, you can start reading now. The music is mastered, well...masterfully. I usually have problems with the way bass guitar/upright is handled in production, but they nailed it. Just the right amount of twang, and the right amount. (that was a period). With as much brass as they have on "Coast to Coast," one would think that instrument separation would be an issue. In my opinion, the RE0s don't have very good instrument separation, but on this album, the instruments are synchronized so well that I can't distinguish them very easily, despite being channel-split. So, uh, kudos to the musicians for playing in such perfect time that you fooled my ears/headphones.
Dynamic compression is a big issue in music today. This album has a bit of it, whether intentionally or not. It could just be that they didn't choose to have anything stand out that much. I wouldn't know. The compression isn't that bad; you can easily forget about it. Thankfully, the volume isn't jacked up too much; Replaygain tells it to do about -3.5. So yes, it's twice as loud as standard, but a lot of stuff today is as much as 32 times too loud at -15. (15/3=5, 2^5=32). So, good job. Could be better, but as long as your above average, I can't complain. Yet.

So that's that. You can buy the CD as well as download at Amazon and CDBaby, just search for "sokoband." However, to maximize the band's profits, I recommend buying direct from their website, sokoband.com. From their website you can also subscribe to the emailing list and stream the entire album for free. That's also the only place to get the limited edition copy, which is still available at the moment. Thanks for supporting independent music.

Cats vs Dogs

As it turns out, they're both ingenious. Here's my little experiment.

How did you test the ingenuity of the animals?

With a metronome.

What the hell?

I set a metronome to a speed, then stroked the animals in rhythm with it. After a few seconds, they began to synchronize some behavior with it: Wagging of tail in the dog, and purring in the cat.

So...uh...what the hell?

For the love of HTML, I will answer with a table.

	Cat	Dog
Min BPM	50	160
Max BPM	56	184
Behavior	purr	wag

This basically shows that my pets can keep a beat.

Are you serious? What the hell? (that's what she said)

Dead serious. Apparently I'm not even the only one to figure it out.

pwned

Taking Over Mars

2014: Jack some nukes from the government. Arrange the uranium and build two rockets.
2015: Secretly, launch large rocket into orbit. Fly small rocket to Mars and survey.
2016: Remote-control large rocket to Mars orbit. Build a docking station and use it to push Mars.
2031: Stop Mars near the orbit of Venus, and flood it with melt water from the poles.
2033: Use extra uranium to build more nukes. Blow up Ike if he threatens.
2035: Complete building habitats. Hang out until I die.
2067: Potentially, complete memiors: Stranded in Paradise.

Hopefully, after this, I will be able to live away from annoying comrades and haphazard bus schedules. And no, you can't come with me.

The Saga of Downtown Seattle

Does the public transit system have a complaint line? I don't know, but I hope they read my blog. This is an overly-detailed account of our adventures on Friday.

From Shoreline, WA, we opt to be eco-friendly and take the bus downtown to the Seattle Center. The fancy Metro Trip Planner tells us to walk south and take the 346 at 8:45. OK. About 5 blocks into the ride on the 346, we realize we are going south. The directions tell us to go north, despite the fact that our destination is southwards. So we go north again, passing our starting place for the second time, and finally arrive at the location of our second transfer. It is now 9:15.

We find the location at which the 301, our next bus, is to pick us up. Upon reading the little panel about that route, it is revealed that the last 301 left at 9:01 - fifteen minutes ago. The next bus comes at 4:17 pm. So, we talk to innocent bystanders and they tall us to take the 346 south to the Northgate transfer station, then switch to the 41. We cross the street and wait for a half hour. Finally, an hour behind schedule, we get on the 346 south, and pass our starting point for the third time. It has taken us an hour to get five blocks. Tapping our feet impatiently, my comrades and I step off the bus at Northgate, weave through the mess of "bus ports," and take the 41 downtown. We exit the bus at Westlake by recommendation of one specific friend. The monorail station is across the street. We are twenty blocks from Seattle Center. It is 10:45.

We wander to the sign listing the monorail fares and discover it's expensive. So, I scrutinize the back of my bus pass to find the following uplifting message: "Not valid on Seattle Center monorail." You mean this monorail? Yes, this monorail. My comrades are pissed off. We summon the will to walk all twenty blocks to the Seattle center. It is 11:00.

By some unknown force, we are driven to take pictures of frickin everything, despite being in our own city (yes, we were tourists in our own city). When we see the Center House, we scream like both a little girl and a young piglet and immerse ourselves in the warmth. We take more pictures, them head outside to the huge fountain and run around. We go to the Pacific Science Center, but do not enter, just take pictures. We have a low budget. It is 11:45.

We're hungry. Our initial plan was to go to the International District for lunch, but because we are late and angry at buses, we return to the warm center house (with Christmas decorations!) for lunch. Each comrade had a different lunch. I, a plain folk, opt for Subway. Another has Mexican, and another has Thai that he does not finish. One decides to spend $7 on some fat-greasy-american thing called a burger. After eating, Thai Guy brings us these delicious (albeit unhealthy) items called beignets. As I bite into mine, I learn the "beignet" is actually pronounced "Ben, yay!" Burger Guy devours his at astonishing speeds and ingests the leftover cinnamon and sugar in the tray before you could say "diabetes." After this hearty meal, we leave the Center House to return to the fountain. It is 12:30.

Running like schizophrenic chimpanzees around the fountain, we eventually need to return home. It takes several minutes to find and gather all of my comrades and several more to persuade them to leave. Finally, we find that bus 1 will take us all the way back to Westlake. We wait for an outrageous amount of time and discover that the bus is not only late, but also never. Route 2, apparently, also goes to Westlake, so it is Route 2 that we take. We arrive, exhausted and wet from the fountain, at Westlake station. It is 1:15.

At the Westlake transfer center/light rail station, I decide to get some exercise ant take the stairs. On the way down, I see what looks like someone's spilled mocha. I carefully step around it. Five steps later, its scent hits me. That's not a mocha. The many brown, solid objects floating in it should have been my first clue. Someone shit on the marble staircase. Not just shit. This is full blown diarrhea. I, quite literally, run away from the site of the disaster. At the foot of the staircase, we meet, both laughing and disgusted. For posterity, one comrade is sent to photograph the crime. He is nervous, and does so very quickly. Because of his haste, he actually missed. He just took a picture of plain old marble. We forget about it, partially, and scurry off to catch our bus. We traverse the complicated streets of downtown. We transfer to the 346 north at Northgate. We arrive at our starting point for the fourth time. It is 2:30.

For the photos associated with this trip, see this Picasa album. Sorry, no photos of the diarrhea.

Even more of the same...

The pentakisdodecahedron is finished! Yes, that's exciting. So exciting, in fact, that I made a high-speed video of the creation.

(To spare viewers the time, I've left out the cutting and folding at the beginning. It takes forever.)



Apparently Blogger has a built-in video hosting thing, so we'll see how this goes. Once again, these cutouts are from korthalsaltes.com - check it out.

More of the same...

In my high-speed description of the last 6 months I failed to mention another thing I've found: RSS feeds. All I really use them for is podcasts; however, anythingbutipod has a feed. That's a good thing.

In the last 2 hours, I have made more polyhedra.


















(Yes, I have a life.)

In the front, from left to right, are the truncated hexagonal prism, truncated icosahedron, icosidodecahedron, and decahedron. In the works is a pentakisdodecahedron - so stay tuned. Or don't. I don't really care, because nobody reads my blog anyways.

Waiting, Podcasts, and Polyhedra

Considering how long it has been since I've posted, I wandered over to my "Edit Posts" section to see all my rantings. I haven't posted since February. So here's a little post for the heck of it.

I've recently discovered this strange thing called podcasts. Just because I can, I'll list some of my favorites:

PC World - it's funny in that weird nerdy kind of way
The Linux Experiment - crazy dedication to trying to use Linux
And others.

Polyhedra - if you are ever bored, ever, then go to this website. This guy has made PDFs that you print, cut out, fold, and tape/glue to make 3-D shapes. Like the truncated icosahedron (soccer ball), dodecahedron, snub cube, and truncated hexagonal antiprism. It's addicting - trust me. I'm through two tape rolls and counting.

Political Obsession

Politics is addicting. It's one of those things where you think it'll ultra boring, and then you look at it a bit, and you're hooked. Even now, I've got a live stream from CNN on the computer with C-Span on the TV. Political obsession. I can only hope that I will never become my mother. You should see her bookmarks. I can't even count how many news sites she's got. Let's see...it looks like Palin's rallying in Indiana, and the supreme court candidates are squabbling over something. With the audio tracks mixed, it's not easy to tell. Hey look, I can watch this discussion in all of it's entirety on cspan.org. Technology is amazing, in an annoying and redundant way. Palin's thing is now playing some odd fight song-like thing. I'm turning off C-Span to hear this...that's quite entertaining. Some 70-something with a cowboy hat and sunglasses sing not off-key, but without key. It's like he's rapping in slow motion. Alright, I'm done with that. That song gets really old, really fast.