I should make a post. Time for lots of updates!
So I went for academic advising. It was a bit frustrating. They couldn't really tell me for sure if I need 1 more class that what I'm currently registered for, or not. So I'll maybe finish in spring? I was talking to the Dean of the Department as well, so I don't really know how I can escalate it to get any better answers. I might just take the class over the summer or something, if I have to. The longer I take, the less I'd have to pay work back if I leave. Not that big of a deal. Just very frustrating that they couldn't give me the answers I wanted.
I also finished my Bass project. Got all the electronics done, and have it strung and everything. I need to do some setup tweaking, like raising the action a bit, lowering the pick ups a bit, real minor things. I've been playing with it a bit though. The low B string is LOW. and with the drop trigger, it sounds pretty awesome. Definitely pushing the edge of audible tone. I have to retrain my hands though. I have some neat 3 octave things I can do now that my hands just can't find comfortable. I just have to start practicing with it more. Hopefully I can find a group to play it with. Nolto, get a live band together. We need to jam more.
Attached to that, it's still been crazy video game month. I hate that everything gets released to try and get in on the Christmas rush. As a result I have about 10 new games I've bought, and not finished. I have a lot of work to do, but I'll enjoy every bit of it. The one I want Nolto to rock with is Lips. It's a karaoke game, bu tyou can import songs from IPods, or network shares or whatever. I think it'll be a fun way fo rhim to learn his lyrics before a show. I have to start a binder of lyrics though for my basement, as it's not very good at finding them. Yet anyway. It doesn't help that some of the songs I'm doing are a bit obscure. (First song imported: Rain, from Cowboy Bebop)
I've been pretty busy at work too. Our biggest customer does this tech blackout thing all December, where they don't change anything for the month, so we've been rushing to try and get things done before that. Makes for hectic times.
On the sleep front (Don't know how many of you come here for that anymore) things are still good. I've moved my sleep setup inside to the server room, as it's colder here now. My morning nap has also slide a hair later, to closer to 9:15. Not a big deal. Due to time though, I'm running more of a 2 naps throughout the day, 23 minutes each, and about 4 hours at night. I have my afternoon nap around 3 or 3:30. I sometimes take an evening nap, if I'm getting worn out. It's still working well. I'd like to tighten it back up to 3 regular naps, and 3 hours, but I just seemed to miss my evening nap too much.
And that is all I can post. I have to head out to get lunch, and head to class right away here. I'll post some pictures of my bass later.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Monday, November 3, 2008
Entertaining Videos
I'm too lazy to embed these, and you know it's good to give credit where it should go. So I'm just going to paste a link.
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/e062d7b4d5/take-on-me-literal-video-version-from-dustfilms
It's music videos, with the words replaced with what is actually happening in the music video. The first one has been around for a bit so you may have seen it. And maybe I'm just behind the curve... But I just saw the other two. I'm excited for the series to continue. Hopefully you enjoy them.
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/e062d7b4d5/take-on-me-literal-video-version-from-dustfilms
It's music videos, with the words replaced with what is actually happening in the music video. The first one has been around for a bit so you may have seen it. And maybe I'm just behind the curve... But I just saw the other two. I'm excited for the series to continue. Hopefully you enjoy them.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
School
I am trying so hard to make it work.
Once I finish the class I'm currently taking, I am 2 comp sci classes away from finishing my 3 year Comp Sci degree. I am already registered for one next term (A class on Video Game Design, sweet). So I'm going through my work schedule plans to see how many extra hours a week I'm spending at work. Currently, if I work 6:30-5 everyday, except Tuesday Thursday, when I'd leave at 3 (for nap, and travel time to class) I'll log about 46 hours a week. Which means I have 6 hours to work with. If I make a better effort to always get to work by 6, that bumps me up over 8 hours to squeeze one more class in. Then I can get my degree in the spring. Which would be awesome.
The hard part is finding a good time of day to fit a class. Monday Wednesday Friday classes suck, because I have to allot for travel time 3 times instead of 2, which is an extra hour a week.
Wait. Looking into it, I see that I may be able to change one of my EP classes to a CMPT equilvalent. Which means I may not need another class... That would be awesome.
So I have now booked advising next week. We'll see what the prof says I need to do to finish my degree. Maybe I can already apply to graduate.
I'm excited.
Once I finish the class I'm currently taking, I am 2 comp sci classes away from finishing my 3 year Comp Sci degree. I am already registered for one next term (A class on Video Game Design, sweet). So I'm going through my work schedule plans to see how many extra hours a week I'm spending at work. Currently, if I work 6:30-5 everyday, except Tuesday Thursday, when I'd leave at 3 (for nap, and travel time to class) I'll log about 46 hours a week. Which means I have 6 hours to work with. If I make a better effort to always get to work by 6, that bumps me up over 8 hours to squeeze one more class in. Then I can get my degree in the spring. Which would be awesome.
The hard part is finding a good time of day to fit a class. Monday Wednesday Friday classes suck, because I have to allot for travel time 3 times instead of 2, which is an extra hour a week.
Wait. Looking into it, I see that I may be able to change one of my EP classes to a CMPT equilvalent. Which means I may not need another class... That would be awesome.
So I have now booked advising next week. We'll see what the prof says I need to do to finish my degree. Maybe I can already apply to graduate.
I'm excited.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Interesting
First off, a new post! Celebrate!
I've noticed, as I monitor my traffic, that I seem to get more hits when I don't update, than when I do. I guess it's more exciting to not hear my thoughts? Maybe just as it's longer since my last post, people check more often, hoping for a new post. Maybe I'm just making it all up. Who is to say!
Ok, so today, I want to share a meme. I was quite surprised at how mine turned out. It works like this. First, you go here. It's a random wikipedia page. The first article title, mentioned in the page you end up, is your band name. (I got "Passenger Train"). Make a note of it. Then, head to here. It's a random quote page. The last 4 words of the last quote listed becomes your album name. Here I got "cannot be reasoned out". Finally head to here. It's just some interesting flicker images, somewhat random. The third image is your album cover. Now for the fun part. Take all that information, and make your album cover.
Mine all strangely worked out. I didn't load any random page twice or anything. This was the result.
I didn't alter the photo pretty much at all. I felt that to connect Passenger Train to the image, it pretty much needed the full image. I suggest all you folks with blogs do the same, have a bit of fun, and see what you come up with. I may do another one...
I've noticed, as I monitor my traffic, that I seem to get more hits when I don't update, than when I do. I guess it's more exciting to not hear my thoughts? Maybe just as it's longer since my last post, people check more often, hoping for a new post. Maybe I'm just making it all up. Who is to say!
Ok, so today, I want to share a meme. I was quite surprised at how mine turned out. It works like this. First, you go here. It's a random wikipedia page. The first article title, mentioned in the page you end up, is your band name. (I got "Passenger Train"). Make a note of it. Then, head to here. It's a random quote page. The last 4 words of the last quote listed becomes your album name. Here I got "cannot be reasoned out". Finally head to here. It's just some interesting flicker images, somewhat random. The third image is your album cover. Now for the fun part. Take all that information, and make your album cover.
Mine all strangely worked out. I didn't load any random page twice or anything. This was the result.
I didn't alter the photo pretty much at all. I felt that to connect Passenger Train to the image, it pretty much needed the full image. I suggest all you folks with blogs do the same, have a bit of fun, and see what you come up with. I may do another one...
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Well this would be fun
Ok, so I know I'm a huge geek. I'm fine with that. When I was reading Wil Wheaton's blog today (Wesley, from Star Trek... I said I was a geek) he was mentioning this event in Illinois. For those who want a quick summary, It's essentially a large game of D&D where you use yourself instead of mini's to act it all out. Very geeky, but for folks who enjoy D&D, it would be a lot of fun. They got a 40 000 square foot warehouse, and are building a medieval city, and dungeon for people to play in.
I think this is the sort of thing that would be very well suited for Saskatchewan. We have lots of space. Prairieland Park has like 200 000 square feet. And you can rent smaller divisions of it. So I started thinking of all the logistics of getting something like that setup and running. Things like props become a concern. Getting a variety of weapons for people to use, building the buildings, and dungeon. So I thought, what untapped labour sector can I exploit? My first thought is always Kids, and Elderly whenever I need to exploit labour. Maybe I could contact some high school art teachers, and part of their program could be making props that are appropriate for a medieval D&D theme. To get the Elderly, I thought about using a small town instead of Prairieland. If a town of say a hundred residents all got on board, it could be a tourist boom, for a weekend anyway. Take a town like Clavet, get a hotel deal in Saskatoon, and setup a shuttle to go back and forth. Convert the downtown area into a medieval street. Setup booths on the street, a bit of prop work in the hotel to make it more like an Inn, and you've got your medieval town starting point. Find a nearby field, and pop up some temporary walls to make a dungeon, and you are pretty much done. Then just get volunteers from the town, or sponsored workers to staff the medieval town, and DM the dungeon rooms. I'm sure I'm making this more basic than it really is.
Attendance is obviously the hard part. I wonder how big the community is in town to support that, and how many people from say Edmonton, Calgary, and other major centers nearby would be willing to travel for something like that.
Just something that sounded interesting, and has made me think. I have some time to kill at work here, as I'm waiting for a co-worker to show up to fire a question at him, and he's awfully late today. Let me know what you think about it.
I think this is the sort of thing that would be very well suited for Saskatchewan. We have lots of space. Prairieland Park has like 200 000 square feet. And you can rent smaller divisions of it. So I started thinking of all the logistics of getting something like that setup and running. Things like props become a concern. Getting a variety of weapons for people to use, building the buildings, and dungeon. So I thought, what untapped labour sector can I exploit? My first thought is always Kids, and Elderly whenever I need to exploit labour. Maybe I could contact some high school art teachers, and part of their program could be making props that are appropriate for a medieval D&D theme. To get the Elderly, I thought about using a small town instead of Prairieland. If a town of say a hundred residents all got on board, it could be a tourist boom, for a weekend anyway. Take a town like Clavet, get a hotel deal in Saskatoon, and setup a shuttle to go back and forth. Convert the downtown area into a medieval street. Setup booths on the street, a bit of prop work in the hotel to make it more like an Inn, and you've got your medieval town starting point. Find a nearby field, and pop up some temporary walls to make a dungeon, and you are pretty much done. Then just get volunteers from the town, or sponsored workers to staff the medieval town, and DM the dungeon rooms. I'm sure I'm making this more basic than it really is.
Attendance is obviously the hard part. I wonder how big the community is in town to support that, and how many people from say Edmonton, Calgary, and other major centers nearby would be willing to travel for something like that.
Just something that sounded interesting, and has made me think. I have some time to kill at work here, as I'm waiting for a co-worker to show up to fire a question at him, and he's awfully late today. Let me know what you think about it.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Opps
My how time can fly.
We had a release at work last week, so I've been pretty busy testing and fixing last minute bugs before that. Then last weekend a friend was moving, and I helped her move, and well, I've just been busy.
Well the 3 night gig I mentioned last post was the worst gig I've ever played. It was so poorly organized. The first night, Thursday, the room started as a private function, and was a public lounge when we started. No one mentioned that it was public though. And all the private people went upstairs to try the wines, and snack. So we had about 5-10 people come all night, through our 2 sets. Friday wasn't any better. There was no signage or announcements, and people just didn't know we existed. Awesome. Then Saturday, my parents came. They were told by the staff that there was no band playing anywhere. They weren't allowed to bring their drinks to the lounge, and the bar they had setup the previous 2 nights down there had been removed. Great. So end result was 6 hours of playing, over 3 nights, to a total of about 30 or 40 people. It felt far too much like work.
We discussed an album though, and it's sounding like sometime over the winter, or early spring we'll be laying down some tracks. Hopefully we can get something good done before the Jazz Festival pitch season, so we can get some bookings a little further away. Should be good though, I haven't been on a full album in a couple of years now. You will continue to get updates as things progress, largely so I can take your money once it's done. =)
I started the actual assembly steps of my bass. I have the neck attached, and all the tuning pegs hooked up. I dropped the pickups in, but I haven't wired them yet. I got held up because I need a screwdriver. All the PC based tool sets in our house just don't work awesome with the instrument work. I should be able to get something from work here. Hopefully I can finish it this week. It's looking pretty hot. I'm pretty excited to see how it sounds and everything when I get it all finished up.
My gospel group met for the first time this season, and played our first Sunday morning show. It went well. We're learning a bunch of new tunes this year, which are going to be a lot of fun. I was starting to get a little sick of our old material. I know some of you are thinking, "Toad? in a Gospel group? Isn't he an Atheist?" I get that a lot. I know there isn't a god, but some people believe there is. I can still enjoy making music, and they can interpret it as they want. I just enjoy making music, and entertaining. If they see divine inspiration from it, all the power to them. As long as your incorrect beliefs aren't hurting me, go nuts. Maybe it'll help me catch some nice christian girl to corrupt. I'm not holding my breath though. The crowds we play to are often out of my age range. And my parents age range.
If Hell exists, I'm definitely going there. (And I learned today that Hell is Exothermic! http://www.bash.org/?301963. Of course the flaw in his argument is ignoring the equilibrium condition of Hell expanding at exactly the same rate of soul increase, but I digress)
I got more invites to Halloween events this weekend too. Looking like I'll spend the 31st at a Nolto show (The Halloween Breakdown, Macguires), and the 1st at a techno show (Jeepers Creepers After Party, Walkers). Makes for an interesting weekend. Should be a lot of fun though. I should start thinking about a costume... Feel free to post ideas.
We had a release at work last week, so I've been pretty busy testing and fixing last minute bugs before that. Then last weekend a friend was moving, and I helped her move, and well, I've just been busy.
Well the 3 night gig I mentioned last post was the worst gig I've ever played. It was so poorly organized. The first night, Thursday, the room started as a private function, and was a public lounge when we started. No one mentioned that it was public though. And all the private people went upstairs to try the wines, and snack. So we had about 5-10 people come all night, through our 2 sets. Friday wasn't any better. There was no signage or announcements, and people just didn't know we existed. Awesome. Then Saturday, my parents came. They were told by the staff that there was no band playing anywhere. They weren't allowed to bring their drinks to the lounge, and the bar they had setup the previous 2 nights down there had been removed. Great. So end result was 6 hours of playing, over 3 nights, to a total of about 30 or 40 people. It felt far too much like work.
We discussed an album though, and it's sounding like sometime over the winter, or early spring we'll be laying down some tracks. Hopefully we can get something good done before the Jazz Festival pitch season, so we can get some bookings a little further away. Should be good though, I haven't been on a full album in a couple of years now. You will continue to get updates as things progress, largely so I can take your money once it's done. =)
I started the actual assembly steps of my bass. I have the neck attached, and all the tuning pegs hooked up. I dropped the pickups in, but I haven't wired them yet. I got held up because I need a screwdriver. All the PC based tool sets in our house just don't work awesome with the instrument work. I should be able to get something from work here. Hopefully I can finish it this week. It's looking pretty hot. I'm pretty excited to see how it sounds and everything when I get it all finished up.
My gospel group met for the first time this season, and played our first Sunday morning show. It went well. We're learning a bunch of new tunes this year, which are going to be a lot of fun. I was starting to get a little sick of our old material. I know some of you are thinking, "Toad? in a Gospel group? Isn't he an Atheist?" I get that a lot. I know there isn't a god, but some people believe there is. I can still enjoy making music, and they can interpret it as they want. I just enjoy making music, and entertaining. If they see divine inspiration from it, all the power to them. As long as your incorrect beliefs aren't hurting me, go nuts. Maybe it'll help me catch some nice christian girl to corrupt. I'm not holding my breath though. The crowds we play to are often out of my age range. And my parents age range.
If Hell exists, I'm definitely going there. (And I learned today that Hell is Exothermic! http://www.bash.org/?301963. Of course the flaw in his argument is ignoring the equilibrium condition of Hell expanding at exactly the same rate of soul increase, but I digress)
I got more invites to Halloween events this weekend too. Looking like I'll spend the 31st at a Nolto show (The Halloween Breakdown, Macguires), and the 1st at a techno show (Jeepers Creepers After Party, Walkers). Makes for an interesting weekend. Should be a lot of fun though. I should start thinking about a costume... Feel free to post ideas.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Busy week
So I am now starting a very hectic couple days. I have a gig that starts tonight, and is 2 sets a night for the next 3 nights. That adds one element of busy. Then Friday night, in the middle of it all, is a work keg party. I really want to go, as it'll be a lot of fun, and free beer! But I can't go until after my gig. Hopefully I can get there around 10, which isn't too bad. Then, because I'm a huge geek, I have a raid (2 actually) I'd rather not miss Saturday morning. So I'm going to get pissed drunk Friday night, and hope I can get home, and log into Final Fantasy XI before 9am. Why do I do these things to myself. And to top it all off, I haven't been feeling very good lately. Hopefully it's just stress from my upcoming hectic couple of days. No matter what I'm shooting for beer to solve all my problems. As per usual.
On a side note, work parties are super fun. We have no bosses going this time. The plan, as far as I know, is a keg going, a fire in the back yard, a Wii with games upstairs, and a full rock band setup downstairs. While I am NOT excited to have one co worker belting out tunes (he gets a touch annoying) I am stoked anytime Rock Band is involved, as it is killer fun, and it helps that I'm decent at it.
Roomie-N picked up the wireless Rock Band 2 drum set (got the last one at our EB) and it is much better than the old one. Add on my Bass I ordered (which is in transit, so I hope to get it today or tomorrow) and we have 2 drum sets, 4 wireless guitars, 2 mics. Which means we can play Rock Band on both TVs, with full bands. We're discussing setting up a green room, or warm up room upstairs, then the real show goes on downstairs. We probably won't. But it does open up some cool options for Rock Band Parties and such.
I've started the work on my Bass project too. I've got 3 coats of oil on now. It's taking a bit longer than I had planned, just because I haven't had a chance to get to it every day like I had hoped. Things keep popping up. Hopefully I'll be done Oiling by the end of next week, and can actually put all the electronics and such on. I'm excited.
And that's the update into my life.
On a side note, work parties are super fun. We have no bosses going this time. The plan, as far as I know, is a keg going, a fire in the back yard, a Wii with games upstairs, and a full rock band setup downstairs. While I am NOT excited to have one co worker belting out tunes (he gets a touch annoying) I am stoked anytime Rock Band is involved, as it is killer fun, and it helps that I'm decent at it.
Roomie-N picked up the wireless Rock Band 2 drum set (got the last one at our EB) and it is much better than the old one. Add on my Bass I ordered (which is in transit, so I hope to get it today or tomorrow) and we have 2 drum sets, 4 wireless guitars, 2 mics. Which means we can play Rock Band on both TVs, with full bands. We're discussing setting up a green room, or warm up room upstairs, then the real show goes on downstairs. We probably won't. But it does open up some cool options for Rock Band Parties and such.
I've started the work on my Bass project too. I've got 3 coats of oil on now. It's taking a bit longer than I had planned, just because I haven't had a chance to get to it every day like I had hoped. Things keep popping up. Hopefully I'll be done Oiling by the end of next week, and can actually put all the electronics and such on. I'm excited.
And that's the update into my life.
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