it seems that i’ll be moving back to atlanta tomorrow. i haven’t actually told anyone this except zach. it’s well timed. my mother is starting to drive me insane. yesterday she followed me around for hours telling me about how she wanted me to pull up her carpet and remodel her kitchen. that’s just the tip of the iceberg really. what she wants is a slave.
i’ve kind of been reminded of what being a teenager was like. the difference is that now i actually am all grown up and all those “oh my god, will you please treat me like an adult,” feelings are a lot more justified. i can barely even scramble eggs without a barrage of helpful ‘pointers’ from my mother. its a lot to take. its really annoying. especially since i’m stuck here and can’t just leave when/if i want.
that’s been a big problem in general down here. mobility. every time i go hang out with someone, i just wind up stuck at their house for two days or so. we watch tv, perhaps drink, and maybe play games. just the two of us. because nobody hangs out with each other anymore, apparently. in this town where everything is boring, the one thing that never stopped being entertaining was each other. i guess it was only a matter of time before everyone got bored with each other, too. i think its sad.
i’m pretty excited to be going home. i’ve missed heidi a lot lately. i am a little scared about it all…i just hope i don’t fuck everything up. i don’t have a lot of faith in myself these days.
i started making music under the moniker ‘esoteric interests,’ which i quickly abandoned for a shorter version of itself, ‘e-sin’ - something that rolled off the tongue a bit more easily. as last.fm and etc all say, e-sin started as an industrial project and later evolved into basically post-industrialesque idm. i find it rather ironic then that now that i’ve finally started serious work on an industrial rock album, after almost 9 years of putting it off, the e-sin tag is ready for retirement, for now. it’s certainly not a part of this project. we are now syncless.
earlier in this blog, i mention several times how its been difficult finding my unique voice. i feel like it’s been found. i just had to strop trying. if these stories all wrote themselves, it just makes sense for the songs to do so too. like they used to. it’s difficult for me to reconcile the fact that all these years of silence have been, among other things, just me trying too fucking hard.
i guess i’ll leave you with a clip of today’s work. i know i should be a little more cagey but i just can’t seem to pull it off. i’m far too used to sending out unfinished works in classic #electronic-musicmakers fashion.
So this is the tiny clue Apple’s given us to use as fuel for endless speculation as to the nature of the main announcement at MacWorld tomorrow. There’s been a lot of speculation already, but this is my official guess:
AirBook - Optional USB SuperDrive, MB and MBP remain intact. Under an inch thick, lid closed.
Other people are guessing that it’s a new AppleTV with loads of features over WiFi. I sincerely hope that’s not it, but I think this makes a lot of sense with that little hint. It’s certainly plausible. There’s been a lot of rumoring about ATV leading up to this, and it goes along with some of that.
The problem with the AirBook idea is that “Mac” is nowhere in that name. For the banner to really work, “the air,” has to make sense for something to be in. The Something would be OS X and the air would be the AirBook. The name could be off, of course, and it could be the MacBook Air, which I hate as a name but can see Jobs approving of.
There’s been so much speculation about this yet-to-be-seen ultra-thin laptop that I have a hard time not putting some stock in it. It’s also something I’d really like to see, as I think new designs for technology are something Apple does really well, and something that we need to start wrapping our heads around. The PC and laptop have gone almost completely unchanged since their inception. Processors are powerful enough these days to allow us to do all sorts of crazy things that we’re just not doing. Apple’s good at pushing the envelope in general and they are certainly very adept at pushing the design envelope. I mean, let’s face it - that’s where Apple really shines.
Fingers crossed…we’ll just have to wait until tomorrow.
this is fairly interesting to me. aside from feeling like i could wear this graphic as a symbol of my geek pride, this apparently means i’m hopelessly addicted to caffeine. it’s hard to put exactly what i drink in a day, but it’s something along these lines, though my cups of coffee are 12oz’ers, not 8’s. at 5′9, 120 lbs., it’d appear that i should be crawling the walls with energy and yet i feel like a sloth 99% of the time. tolerance is a bitch.
this makes me wonder if i should try an experiment or two with this. according to wikipedia, which i’ve come to think of as the unofficial repository of all human knowledge, 12 to 24 hours following your last intake of caffeine is when you’ll start feeling withdrawal symptoms, most notably a headache and irritability. i’d like to know what the minimal dose of caffeine required to stave off those symptoms is. will i try this? i’d like to, but almost certainly not. without my coffee in the morning, i’m utterly useless.
also from the wikipedia article, i found out these facts:
90% of american adults consume caffeine
the mean intake for american adults is 200mg/day
not really unremarkable. the interesting bit comes when you find out that tolerance to caffeine develops very rapidly - it’s not quite on the order of say LSD or anything but someone can develop a complete tolerance to most of the stimulant properties of caffeine via daily consumption of around 200mg/day for a month. being as most people who drink caffeine at all drink it every single day, mostly in the form of coffee, this could lead one to believe that the vast majority of america’s adult population is all but immune to the effects of caffeine and their daily intake is simply a means of not feeling like shit in the morning if they don’t get their coffee.
i can attest to this. after my first cup of coffee, the only effects of caffeine i feel for the rest of the day are on my bladder. this wasn’t always the case. it actually really got started with this job and all the tons of free coffee all over the building coupled with my insomnia (if you can call it that. it’s really more of a love for the early morning hours and a hatred of going to sleep). that, and living with an old friend of mine, zach, who was then as equally addicted to his morning coffee as i am now.
it used to be that my first cup of coffee woke me up, my second really got me moving, and anything after three was kind of just insanity. now, my first wakes me up but anything after that is really just ritual maintenance of a habit. i don’t think i could drink enough caffeine at this point to make me feel jittery or energized. i’d kind of like to try but i feel like i might blow up my heart before i succeeded in any way.
at any rate, i just thought all of that was interesting and decided to share.
I know we’re a week in to the new year already, but I thought that for my own personal benefit I should post a few personal goals for 2008. Here they are:
No gaps in employment longer than 1 month.
Start fixing credit.
Build and deploy RoR-based redesign of e-sin online (implies learning RoR).
Write and record at least 80% of an album.
I guess that’ll do it. That should keep my free time filled. And now off to lunch.
my first post of the new year comes on the last day of Gates’ time at Microsoft. [edit: last day? no. last keynote. sorry.] i’m actually quite saddened by this, despite my intense distaste for nearly everything Microsoft has ever created. he’s a cultural icon and a symbol of what any geek with enough brains and ambition can accomplish. i don’t really believe Gates to be at the center of MS’s evildoing (i’m looking at you, Balmer)…i think he has a vision and his primary goal throughout his career has been attaining that vision. whether or not he had to step on a few throats to get there is kind of a moot point; that’s ambition for ya.
I’m curious about the future of Microsoft now. How does a company go on without the man who started it all? What I really want to know is whether or not things will get better or worse at Microsoft. Will we see more cooperation between MS and FOSS? Less? What about the future of Windows? I wonder if Gates really even has much say in any of that anymore or if he’s mostly just a PR figure. I also want to know if Gates will have to wear a guest badge while on campus in the future.
when i started trying to write music again, i had what i thought to be a pretty clear idea of what kind of music i’d be creating. industrial rock 2.0 is kind of how i thought of it. i wanted to pay a bit of stylistic homage to some of my more recent favourite artists while keeping step with my own vision. i guess i didn’t really realize how blurry my vision actually was. the whole process has been a little enlightening. as the music keeps getting made, i keep seeing influences i didn’t really realize were there.
it’s really not all that industrial at all. i mean, yes there are guitars and electronic elements, but that’s not all it takes. it’s more of just like electronic rock. i don’t know.
i’m having a hard time trying to articulate what i’m getting at exactly. basically, i’m writing a lot of little clips about that length. none of them really ever turn into much more than clips. audible ideas; concepts.
it’s a lot of self-discovery, i suppose. it’s been a long, long time since i was seriously working on music. a lot’s changed since then. writing music used to be a sort of therapy…or like, i’d write something…just mindlessly zone out for a while, writing for hours and not really thinking, just doing, creating. when i’d finally step back and listen as a listener, i could hear subconscious elements shining through. i write a lot by improvisation and it’s an amazing vehicle for your thoughts to take on an audible format. sometimes it’d make feelings that i hadn’t realized i was having so remarkably apparent.
there’s some of that going on now, too.
it’s also just a matter of discovering where i intend to go with this. so far, all of my attempts have been all over the place. from sounding like a more modern cure (see clip) to something akin to cannibal corpse with a drum machine…well, that’s a little over-the-top, but you get the idea.
i’m starting to understand where i’m coming from a little bit…so maybe soon it’ll be time to start expanding on some of these ideas i’ve been laying out and finally get on with producing some full length, completed work.
5:17:00 PM evan: what’s ^
5:17:13 PM lost.sync: werkin
5:17:17 PM evan: hee hee
5:17:18 PM evan: cool
5:17:37 PM evan: when are you guys coming down?
5:17:37 PM lost.sync: u?
5:17:42 PM lost.sync: fri before xmas
5:17:46 PM evan: pretty good.
5:17:49 PM evan: you told me that.
5:17:53 PM lost.sync: yeah
5:17:59 PM lost.sync: twice :)
5:18:02 PM lost.sync: that was 3x :)
5:18:08 PM evan: well damn.
5:18:10 PM lost.sync: go smoke a bowl
5:18:14 PM lost.sync: you clearly need it
5:18:22 PM evan: shut up…
5:18:25 PM evan: i wanna quit.
5:18:28 PM evan: i think i will.
5:18:36 PM evan: new years res.
5:18:39 PM lost.sync: word
5:18:50 PM lost.sync: im trying again to quit drinking
5:19:07 PM evan: this weekend i smoked like a bowl, and it was the best weekend i’ve had in forever
5:19:11 PM lost.sync: http://imagechan.org/img/images/bath%20time.jpeg look at this pic
5:21:00 PM evan: you fucktard
5:21:05 PM evan: rofl
5:21:06 PM lost.sync: what?
5:21:14 PM lost.sync: do u see it?
5:21:23 PM evan: do you see the bottom
5:21:29 PM evan: click the link
5:21:34 PM lost.sync: no im at work
5:21:38 PM evan: well yeah
5:21:40 PM evan: good point
5:21:48 PM lost.sync: u perv; ur supposed to be looking for the scary part of the picture
5:21:55 PM lost.sync: not trying to check out hot free lesbian porn
5:22:08 PM evan: i didn’t see anything that said look for the scary part
5:22:27 PM evan: so i was like, i guess you click the link and something funny pops up
5:22:30 PM evan: and by the way
5:22:36 PM lost.sync: look in the window
5:22:37 PM evan: lesbian porn kicks ass
5:23:55 PM evan: rofl
5:24:04 PM evan: click the link
5:24:07 PM lost.sync: no
5:24:08 PM evan: it’s nothing bad i swear
5:24:14 PM evan: i promise you.
5:24:17 PM lost.sync: im not dumb enough to get goatsed fewl
5:24:23 PM lost.sync: i’ve been around the internet a few times
5:24:36 PM evan: i no. but this is so incredibly random
5:24:46 PM evan: i know*
5:24:52 PM lost.sync: yea someone’s colon turned inside out when u least expect it is pretty random
5:25:03 PM evan: WHAT?
5:25:17 PM lost.sync: guess u’ve never been goatsed before
5:25:23 PM lost.sync: i dont even click links anymore
5:25:25 PM evan: goosed?
5:25:28 PM lost.sync: once u’ve been goatsed, u learn
5:25:39 PM lost.sync: what link? i aint clicking shit
5:25:45 PM lost.sync: i dont even have a mouse these days man
5:25:51 PM evan: damn.
5:25:55 PM evan: how do you do that?
5:25:57 PM lost.sync: i was like never again
5:26:04 PM lost.sync: i use my mind
5:26:20 PM evan: i see.
5:26:25 PM lost.sync: u ever seen johnny mnenonic?
5:26:32 PM evan: no haha
5:26:33 PM lost.sync: i got me one of them mind dolphins
5:26:38 PM evan: cool
5:26:44 PM lost.sync: dolphin of the mind
5:26:45 PM evan: i use the force motha fucka
5:26:47 PM lost.sync: its crazy
5:26:56 PM evan: FORCE PULL!!!
5:27:49 PM lost.sync: He was more than a dolphin, but from another dolphin’s point of view he might have seemed like something less. I watched him swirling sluggishly in his galvanized tank. Water slopped over the side, wetting my shoes. He was surplus from the last war. A cyborg.
He rose out of the water, showing us the crusted plates along his sides, a kind of visual pun, his grace nearly lost under armor, clumsy and prehistoric. Twin deformities on either side of his skull had been engineered to house sensor units. Silver lesions gleamed on exposed sections of his gray-white hide.
5:28:23 PM evan: ok…
5:28:47 PM evan: sounds like the electric church to me…
5:28:50 PM evan: you a monk?
5:29:04 PM lost.sync: http://www.danielbroderick.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/dolphinator.jpg
5:29:06 PM evan: are you monk!!?
5:29:10 PM evan: tell me now!!
5:29:18 PM evan: i ain’t gettin’ monked man…
5:29:32 PM evan: holy shit
5:29:34 PM lost.sync: monk this: http://www.jabootu.com/images/jmjones.jpg
5:29:38 PM evan: that’s awesome!!!
5:29:47 PM lost.sync: yea fuck a mouse, init?
5:29:51 PM lost.sync: i got me a dolphin
5:29:56 PM evan: haha
5:30:02 PM lost.sync: biatch
there are a lot of things that make the deftones cool. some might argue that maintaining artistic integrity while making music in an adolescent-oriented, teenage angsty genre is their biggest accomplishment. others might say it’s just that they sound fucking awesome no matter what they do. still more might say that it’s just that they’ve kept it real for all these years. to me, yes, all of these things are mad important to what makes the deftones…well, the deftones.
but to me, their biggest accomplishment is managing to sound that good and that metal without ever resorting to tuning their guitars down to drop B flat. throughout the entirety of their career they have used standard tuning or drop D as well as actual skillful use of chords to attain whatever sound it is that they were after. kudos, guys. for real.
this is fairly interesting to me. aside from feeling like i could wear this graphic as a symbol of my geek pride, this apparently means i’m hopelessly addicted to caffeine. it’s hard to put exactly what i drink in a day, but it’s something along these lines, though my cups of coffee are 12oz’ers, not 8’s. at 5′9, 120 lbs., it’d appear that i should be crawling the walls with energy and yet i feel like a sloth 99% of the time. tolerance is a bitch.
not really unremarkable. the interesting bit comes when you find out that tolerance to caffeine develops very rapidly - it’s not quite on the order of say LSD or anything but someone can develop a complete tolerance to most of the stimulant properties of caffeine via daily consumption of around 200mg/day for a month. being as most people who drink caffeine at all drink it every single day, mostly in the form of coffee, this could lead one to believe that the vast majority of america’s adult population is all but immune to the effects of caffeine and their daily intake is simply a means of not feeling like shit in the morning if they don’t get their coffee.
my first post of the new year comes on the last day of Gates’ time at Microsoft. [edit: last day? no. last keynote. sorry.] i’m actually quite saddened by this, despite my intense distaste for nearly everything Microsoft has ever created. he’s a cultural icon and a symbol of what any geek with enough brains and ambition can accomplish. i don’t really believe Gates to be at the center of MS’s evildoing (i’m looking at you, Balmer)…i think he has a vision and his primary goal throughout his career has been attaining that vision. whether or not he had to step on a few throats to get there is kind of a moot point; that’s ambition for ya.
when i started trying to write music again, i had what i thought to be a pretty clear idea of what kind of music i’d be creating. industrial rock 2.0 is kind of how i thought of it. i wanted to pay a bit of stylistic homage to some of my more recent favourite artists while keeping step with my own vision. i guess i didn’t really realize how blurry my vision actually was. the whole process has been a little enlightening. as the music keeps getting made, i keep seeing influences i didn’t really realize were there.
there are a lot of things that make the deftones cool. some might argue that maintaining artistic integrity while making music in an adolescent-oriented, teenage angsty genre is their biggest accomplishment. others might say it’s just that they sound fucking awesome no matter what they do. still more might say that it’s just that they’ve kept it real for all these years. to me, yes, all of these things are mad important to what makes the deftones…well, the deftones.