作譜

Need new body

Vital Signs

I made my left wrist hurt mighty good on Sunday.

I’d been working all weekend on my NaSoAlMo album, and I was really struggling with NaSoPiAlMo No. 2.

It’s a piece that employs a very active left hand, which I haven’t developed very well. I also use the left hand to CTRL-X, CTRL-C and CTRL-V when I’m working in Cakewalk SONAR. An entire weekend of that left my wrist in a very raw state. That’s what years of being a tech professional does to a person.

I’ve so far recorded 20 of the 29 minutes required for my NaSoAlMo album. Tonight, I wrote and recorded "NaSoPiAlMo No. 6", a 5’30" song that quotes Sigur Rós at the end. I think this song has a vocal version in its future.

So far, I like what I’ve done, even if a few tracks bear too much of a resemblance to their source material. I get downright minimalistic on "NaSoPiAlMo No. 2" and "NaSoPiAlMo No. 5". Too much Michael Nyman.

Timing is everything

Capital of Texas

Waterloo Records holds a store-wide sale twice a year. It’s been a while since went to the sale as a customer instead of an employee, so I’d forgotten about a strange phenomenon that occurs when I try to shop at that time, which happened again this past weekend.

So far, with little failure, the following things occur when I go the Waterloo Records store-wide sales:

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Light on dark

Technophilia

A few weeks ago, I gave up.

Many years back, I set the settings on Windows to display white text on a black background. My eyes were hurting from staring at white backgrounds for long stretches of time, so I took matters into my own hands.

Well, it was a futile effort.

Interface developers seldom, if ever, take into consideration a user’s custom settings. How do I know? I know from all the times I’ve encountered my default white text blanched out by an interface’s white background. Or an interface’s black text camouflaged with my black background.

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I feel like I’ve joined 2002!

Administrative

Yeah, that’s a comment form down at the bottom of the page there.

Comments have been supported on this site since the beginning, but I hid the interface behind my custom-built account system to prevent spambots from detecting my Movable Type installation.

Well, I upgraded to Movable Type 3.33 and enabled chip’s force preview plug-in. I will brave the spammers now. If you have an account already, you can still log in and pre-populate the fields with your info. I love providing options.

All comments are moderated, by the way.

Thinking out loud

Administrative

I keep meaning to write these blog entries, but my blog-writing time (i.e. in the office) is being curtailed by actual, you know, work.

So here’s a note to myself to write:

  • A "Looking ahead" entry (for Musicwhore.org) Written.
  • A declaration of surrender to software developers who set background colors but do not set foreground colors (for this site) Written.
  • A list of (presumably) straight actors who I would like to see play gay at some point (for TVWhore.org) Written.
  • A review of 16/50 by Supercar and/or Long Island Shores by Mindy Smith (for Musicwhore.org) Written and written.
  • A hint to friends who read this site to consider gift cards from Guitar Center when writing my name down on their holiday lists (for this site).

This entry will self-destruct once all these other entries have been written.

A half-week of suck

Vital Signs

Sunday: After cleaning up my studio of all the cord spaghetti, I discover the Kawai K4 synthesizer I bought from eBay more than a year ago produces nothing but static. I embark on a search for a software emulation of the keyboard.

Monday: A blackout caused by all the rain resets the DHCP server of Windows, thereby reassigning all the home network IP addresses. As a result, my internal web site configurations get messed up because the domains aren’t resolving correctly.

Tuesday: I find a Kawai K4 virtual synthesizer, which requires a SoundBlaster card. I also find some Kawai K4 soundfonts. Neither really helps me. I attempt to fool the Windows DHCP server to assign the same IP addresses before the blackout, but I fail. As a result, I must reconfigure my firewall. I also have a bad case allergies, which makes me leave work midday.

Wednesday: I take my Kawai K4 down to Strait Music Co. for repair on the hottest day of the week. I’m dehydrated and exhausted after having spent the day running around preparing for a conference at work.

My new database designing technique is unstoppable!

Technophilia Professional

I’ve been neglecting all my sites in the past week and a half because I’ve been preparing to give a presentation for a conference at work.

It was a training session on how to design a relational database, then applying that skill to creating an XML schema. Yes, I know I’m turning you on.

I spent a fair amount of energy building my slides, and I practiced the presentation daily for about a week. Well, I made my presentation on Friday, and it went over better than I expected.

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dzone round-up

Technophilia Professional

I’m either really busy these days, or there are too many good links popping up at dzone at the same time.

I usually glance at the dzone feed in my newsreader and find little to get me to click. Not that I wouldn’t find any of the topics featured on any given day interesting — it’s just mostly stuff that doesn’t apply to me at the moment. (Lots of Ruby and JAVA links.)

But recently, I noticed I’ve been clicking through a lot more and thinking to myself, "I really ought to point this out to people." And then I get distracted by something else.

So before I forget, here are some dzone links that have caught my eye as of late:

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