So it's been over a month since my last update. I tend to get a little bad at these things sometimes - especially after rolling with one for a while. A big obstacle between me and the bloggodrome is my new gainful employment at Skyline Chili. Where i used to toil away in front of a computer from 10-5 everyday (and find time for blogging in between), now I'm stuck with a headset on my head and 'approved gloves' on my hands. It's a good job though - and it was necessary to supplement my income after having my hours greatly cut at my computer desk job.
The new job brings new shifts and a shitty daily schedule for me. I'm working longer and getting paid less than ever before. Working nights again is a real drag - but perhaps it's for the best that I'm keeping busy. Weekends this summer have been filled with the wondrous glory of a hard-working rock band on the road. The Sailing has been getting out, playing places like Chicago and NYC, and feeling just a little bit better about ourselves (as we've made Dayton pretty sick of us over the last few years). It's full steam ahead with the band - and our sights are set on the west coast next.
And there's also the matter of the significant other - who's getting off work at 1:30am daily has created enough strain on the relationship to perhaps break it for good. I don't think it's very classy to go in depth about this stuff on a public blog, but it might be the true end of the road this time. Who knows.
Using my computer in my room is also not a lot of fun in these hot, sweaty days. The single window AC unit in my house is sort of a piece, and fails in making my room a comfortable place to work or play. This has driven me to playing FFXI on my ps3 almost exclusively. I'm in one of those awful 'grind spots' though - where I've reached lvl 50 with Red Mage, but now need to farm a copious amount of gil in order to get all my spells and gear up-to-snuff and ready for party leveling once again. Whenever I hit one of these tedious grind periods in an MMO it sometimes leads to a break - but I promised myself not to stop until RDM was 75, and so I'll carry on.
Another area that deserves immediate attention is thesailing.org. The website hasn't been updated in ages, all the shows listed have already been played, tons of new music/videos need to be added to the media section, and a general overall news update is long past due. I intend to take care of all this as soon as humanly possible.
And so now I'm here, enjoying a slight respite from the daily trials and tribulations that tumble my quaint little universe. In one hour's time I'll be putting on my Skyline uniform and preparing for an evening of "Skyline Time Hospitality" and the stench of steamed buns, burning hotdogs, and soupy chili. I will tend to this blog more now - or at least I will attempt to. Until our next meeting.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Monday, June 30, 2008
POWERPLANT
Between working, playing GBV songs for Bob Pollard himself, and playing way too much FFXI, this weekend I was able to churn out two new songs for my latest HCMJ project, known as 'POWERPLANT.' The album started as a massive concept album about a rotten corpse missing the lower part of his body, dragging himself one handful of radioactive dirt after another across a post-apocalyptic horrorscape. While I still hope the album is able to follow some sort of abstract narrative form, it has definitely started to deviate a little from the original intentions.
Most of the time I'll write the songs first, then watch as an album sort of 'finds' its concept. I'll listen to it all and think "what is this really about?" But POWERPLANT is the first time I went headfirst into making an album knowing what it was going to be about, what the 'story' was, and how some of the narrative would play out. But as I start recording more spur-of-the-moment inspirations and start laying down Julee Cruise-esque vocal tracks on some of the songs I've already recorded, I find that more and more it's becoming a vague expression of my own personal fears and insecurities.
And they aren't even played out in an exactly 'clear' fashion. No more of that "I will always love you" or "you are so beautiful" bullshit - now it's all about the twisted creatures crouching in the well lit hallways of my youth - and no matter how long I cowered in the corner, when I looked up it's right fucking next to me. Or the half-dead being, decaying next to me in my bed at night - back turned to me, facing the wall. It's all been just exploding these last few days, these new hyper-visual daydreams. The terror I hoped to capture before with POWERPLANT was almost superficial, more haunted house that actual gut ripping horror. Now I can see the album finally crystalizing into this depiction of the horror at the core of human insecurities - or my own personal insecurities at least.
This is probably coming off as extremely pretentious, but I swear my intentions are honorable. Maybe one day I'll actually finish the album and you'll have a chance to hear what I'm talking about. (lol)
Most of the time I'll write the songs first, then watch as an album sort of 'finds' its concept. I'll listen to it all and think "what is this really about?" But POWERPLANT is the first time I went headfirst into making an album knowing what it was going to be about, what the 'story' was, and how some of the narrative would play out. But as I start recording more spur-of-the-moment inspirations and start laying down Julee Cruise-esque vocal tracks on some of the songs I've already recorded, I find that more and more it's becoming a vague expression of my own personal fears and insecurities.
And they aren't even played out in an exactly 'clear' fashion. No more of that "I will always love you" or "you are so beautiful" bullshit - now it's all about the twisted creatures crouching in the well lit hallways of my youth - and no matter how long I cowered in the corner, when I looked up it's right fucking next to me. Or the half-dead being, decaying next to me in my bed at night - back turned to me, facing the wall. It's all been just exploding these last few days, these new hyper-visual daydreams. The terror I hoped to capture before with POWERPLANT was almost superficial, more haunted house that actual gut ripping horror. Now I can see the album finally crystalizing into this depiction of the horror at the core of human insecurities - or my own personal insecurities at least.
This is probably coming off as extremely pretentious, but I swear my intentions are honorable. Maybe one day I'll actually finish the album and you'll have a chance to hear what I'm talking about. (lol)
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Escaping Velocity
So I played EVE Online for a few weeks. Jumping from system to system, getting bigger ships, blasting away NPC pirates, doing all of those great wonderful Escape Velocity things. I wasn't driven by the 'carrot on a stick' that drives me to play most MMORPGs - whether it's the Scholar AF gear in FFXI, or the full Season 3 Arena gear from WoW, most MMOs keep me hooked by the promise of mind blowing stats and unimaginable style.
But EVE was different. The long term plan I had formed involved me training a whole bunch of skills (training happens even when logged out - some skills taking days and days to complete), gearing up, then heading out to 'lowsec' or "Low Security" space to be a dirty rotten pirate. A long term goal like that, however, simply wasn't satisfying enough to keep me driven to play after things started to get repetitive.
At first, I was propelled to log in because the game was simply a blast to play. But after the initial "OMG this is Escape Velocity" shock wore off, I found myself grinding repetitive NPC missions with little overall payoff, and I never was really sure if I was truly "advancing" in the game. Maybe it was the lack of RPG levels, maybe it was the unobtainability of the more gigantic ships, or maybe the it's that an MMO with no cut-scene driven story line or hard level cap seems more like a pointless sandbox than anything else.
EVE just felt 'unfinished' somehow. The NPC content was lacking, and I never got around to ever doing anything that seemed worthwhile. Eventually, watching your ship jump between systems only to dock at one of 4 or 5 space station skins gets boring. Without that big fat beautiful carrot dangling in front of you, the urge to get out of the sandbox and work on something 'important' is overwhelming.
So I gave it a fair trial, but at the end of the day, EVE Online just wasn't for me. The drive for MMO grinding did, however, inspire a resurgence in FFXI playing. Phinn's Scholar level is now a comfortable 27, with Red Mage still hovering at 35. I was also able to convince our own Mike Kirkland to not only play again, but to make a whole new character all together. My other friend and faux-brother Matt also reactivated his content ID, which meant more Adventurer Recruitment Program items for me!
In other news, I went through a period of broken-tape-adaptor iPodlessness, which brought about another phase of DPR (Dayton's local public all-classical radio station) listening. Their website is totally revamped now, with their playlist finally fixed. This means that if I hear a song I feel like I can't live without, I just have to make note of the date and time I was listening, log onto their playlist, and there I can see exactly what was playing every second of the day.
This handy service helped me to identify a few songs that I've been a long time fan of, but just never knew exactly where they were from. One was a Chopin nocturne that I had originally discovered on the soundtrack to a Japanese SNES game. I thought it was just an amazing video game song, until I heard it once again as a demo song on Tech's Korg. When I heard it on DPR I was thrilled to finally discover what it was, and promptly downloaded it from the iTunes Store.
The iTunes store is wonderful for classical music, by the way, as you can simply enter the name of a song, and then preview the many different performances of it. That's the thing about classical music - just because it's a beautiful song doesn't mean the recording/performance of it isn't subpar. I've purchased a few classical CDs that have really disappointed me - whether it's that the piece is being played too fast, or if the recording sounds flat, there are so many things that can go wrong with a classical recording. So it's really a nice to be able to get that 30 second preview of the multiple performances of the more popular tunes.
That Chopin piece was "Nocturnes, Op. 9 \ No. 2 in E-flat" by the way. The other tune that I was amazed to hear was the "Adagio of Spartacus and Phrygia" from the 1956 Aram Khachaturian ballet "Spartacus" (I don't like the faster speed of the performance I just linked to, but it's the only one I could find on youtube.) I was amazed to hear it, as it was one of my favorite songs as a kid - first hearing it in the Coen Brother's often-overlooked "The Hudsucker Proxy." All my life I always assumed that it was just an amazing film score - and I suppose that's not too much of a stretch as the ballet was from the 1950's, when sweepingly romantic film scores were the norm. It lends "The Hudsucker Proxy" a touch of authenticity, as its most haunting musical theme actually comes from the age it was trying to recreate.
But EVE was different. The long term plan I had formed involved me training a whole bunch of skills (training happens even when logged out - some skills taking days and days to complete), gearing up, then heading out to 'lowsec' or "Low Security" space to be a dirty rotten pirate. A long term goal like that, however, simply wasn't satisfying enough to keep me driven to play after things started to get repetitive.
At first, I was propelled to log in because the game was simply a blast to play. But after the initial "OMG this is Escape Velocity" shock wore off, I found myself grinding repetitive NPC missions with little overall payoff, and I never was really sure if I was truly "advancing" in the game. Maybe it was the lack of RPG levels, maybe it was the unobtainability of the more gigantic ships, or maybe the it's that an MMO with no cut-scene driven story line or hard level cap seems more like a pointless sandbox than anything else.
EVE just felt 'unfinished' somehow. The NPC content was lacking, and I never got around to ever doing anything that seemed worthwhile. Eventually, watching your ship jump between systems only to dock at one of 4 or 5 space station skins gets boring. Without that big fat beautiful carrot dangling in front of you, the urge to get out of the sandbox and work on something 'important' is overwhelming.
So I gave it a fair trial, but at the end of the day, EVE Online just wasn't for me. The drive for MMO grinding did, however, inspire a resurgence in FFXI playing. Phinn's Scholar level is now a comfortable 27, with Red Mage still hovering at 35. I was also able to convince our own Mike Kirkland to not only play again, but to make a whole new character all together. My other friend and faux-brother Matt also reactivated his content ID, which meant more Adventurer Recruitment Program items for me!
In other news, I went through a period of broken-tape-adaptor iPodlessness, which brought about another phase of DPR (Dayton's local public all-classical radio station) listening. Their website is totally revamped now, with their playlist finally fixed. This means that if I hear a song I feel like I can't live without, I just have to make note of the date and time I was listening, log onto their playlist, and there I can see exactly what was playing every second of the day.
This handy service helped me to identify a few songs that I've been a long time fan of, but just never knew exactly where they were from. One was a Chopin nocturne that I had originally discovered on the soundtrack to a Japanese SNES game. I thought it was just an amazing video game song, until I heard it once again as a demo song on Tech's Korg. When I heard it on DPR I was thrilled to finally discover what it was, and promptly downloaded it from the iTunes Store.
The iTunes store is wonderful for classical music, by the way, as you can simply enter the name of a song, and then preview the many different performances of it. That's the thing about classical music - just because it's a beautiful song doesn't mean the recording/performance of it isn't subpar. I've purchased a few classical CDs that have really disappointed me - whether it's that the piece is being played too fast, or if the recording sounds flat, there are so many things that can go wrong with a classical recording. So it's really a nice to be able to get that 30 second preview of the multiple performances of the more popular tunes.
That Chopin piece was "Nocturnes, Op. 9 \ No. 2 in E-flat" by the way. The other tune that I was amazed to hear was the "Adagio of Spartacus and Phrygia" from the 1956 Aram Khachaturian ballet "Spartacus" (I don't like the faster speed of the performance I just linked to, but it's the only one I could find on youtube.) I was amazed to hear it, as it was one of my favorite songs as a kid - first hearing it in the Coen Brother's often-overlooked "The Hudsucker Proxy." All my life I always assumed that it was just an amazing film score - and I suppose that's not too much of a stretch as the ballet was from the 1950's, when sweepingly romantic film scores were the norm. It lends "The Hudsucker Proxy" a touch of authenticity, as its most haunting musical theme actually comes from the age it was trying to recreate.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Extended MMO Dabbling
I've been fairly busy lately, but I always try to make time for my favorite form of entertainment media - video games. Lately it's been everything from GTAIV, Final Fantasy V, World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy XI, even a little Phantasy Star Online. But I've been hearing a lot about another MMORPG, and once I had my misconceptions about this game put to rest I knew I had to at least try it. If only to see if it really was the game I hoped it was.
First, a little history. When I was in middle school I played an amazing piece of Mac shareware called Escape Velocity. This space piloting sim/RPG had you flying a little shuttle craft across a seemingly endless universe, jumping through hyperspace between systems and carrying out different missions. You could never leave your ship and walk around, but you could dock at different planets, moons, and space stations. There you could trade commodities, get the latest news and gossip from the space bar, buy and upgrade weapons and other ship upgrades, or buy a new ship all together.
It was such an ingeniously simple game. Run currier missions, ferry passengers, and horde as many credits as you could until that wonderful day when you could finally purchase a bigger ship. I melted away my adolescence in the many following incarnations of Escape Velocity, and at one point was even building my own campaign utilizing the insane number of user-created scenario editing tools.
That's where this new MMO comes in. Chuck, new friend and road wizard/dungeon master of The Sailing, has been talking to me and Kirkland a lot recently about the game EVE Online. Now I've known about this game for a long time - and knew only that it's basically an MMO in outer space. But that's all I knew. For whatever reason I was always turned off by this game. Maybe it was the banner ads floating around that showed really ugly, ordinary people transform into even uglier 3D avatars. I probably thought something like "ewww, that character design is so American, so nasty looking," or, "haha, looks like an ad for a low budget Sci-Fi Channel miniseries."
But what I never thought was, "Wow, a space ship MMO. That could be a lot like the Escape Velocity of my dreams." During one of his first 'mmo-pitches' to me, Chuck had mentioned rather quickly that it was like "EV Nova," and kept talking like no one in the room caught what he was talking about. Then it clicked.
"Wait, this sounds a lot like this old shareware game I used to play called escape velocity..."
"Yeah, like I said - it's a lot like EV Nova."
"Holy shit."
Meet Chase Pritchard. After 4 or so hours of play I can say yes - IT IS THE ESCAPE VELOCITY OF MY DREAMS. Plotting courses through hyper space, eliminating pirate vessels, mining astroids, upgrading weapons, buying ships, docking and getting missions, everything; it's all there, in tact. Whether or not I have enough time or motivation to really put in the time to be extremely awesome in this particular MMO world is yet to be seen. For now I'm just "playing playing" it - as in playing it because it's fun to sit down and play, not because I feel like I have to put in the time in order to achieve some lofty far-off goal.
I do have a (leniently enforced) 2-MMOs-at-a-time limit, so after the first month of EVE it's either cancel the subscription or suspend WoW or FFXI. I guess we'll see how it goes. Just to tantalize your imagination I've included a few screenshots of a couple of my first n00bular kills. It has one of those great UIs full of data and clutter - makes you feel like you're doing something important (one of the reason tactics RPGs kick ass).
It's looks really nice as well.
First, a little history. When I was in middle school I played an amazing piece of Mac shareware called Escape Velocity. This space piloting sim/RPG had you flying a little shuttle craft across a seemingly endless universe, jumping through hyperspace between systems and carrying out different missions. You could never leave your ship and walk around, but you could dock at different planets, moons, and space stations. There you could trade commodities, get the latest news and gossip from the space bar, buy and upgrade weapons and other ship upgrades, or buy a new ship all together.
It was such an ingeniously simple game. Run currier missions, ferry passengers, and horde as many credits as you could until that wonderful day when you could finally purchase a bigger ship. I melted away my adolescence in the many following incarnations of Escape Velocity, and at one point was even building my own campaign utilizing the insane number of user-created scenario editing tools.
That's where this new MMO comes in. Chuck, new friend and road wizard/dungeon master of The Sailing, has been talking to me and Kirkland a lot recently about the game EVE Online. Now I've known about this game for a long time - and knew only that it's basically an MMO in outer space. But that's all I knew. For whatever reason I was always turned off by this game. Maybe it was the banner ads floating around that showed really ugly, ordinary people transform into even uglier 3D avatars. I probably thought something like "ewww, that character design is so American, so nasty looking," or, "haha, looks like an ad for a low budget Sci-Fi Channel miniseries."
But what I never thought was, "Wow, a space ship MMO. That could be a lot like the Escape Velocity of my dreams." During one of his first 'mmo-pitches' to me, Chuck had mentioned rather quickly that it was like "EV Nova," and kept talking like no one in the room caught what he was talking about. Then it clicked.
"Wait, this sounds a lot like this old shareware game I used to play called escape velocity..."
"Yeah, like I said - it's a lot like EV Nova."
"Holy shit."
Meet Chase Pritchard. After 4 or so hours of play I can say yes - IT IS THE ESCAPE VELOCITY OF MY DREAMS. Plotting courses through hyper space, eliminating pirate vessels, mining astroids, upgrading weapons, buying ships, docking and getting missions, everything; it's all there, in tact. Whether or not I have enough time or motivation to really put in the time to be extremely awesome in this particular MMO world is yet to be seen. For now I'm just "playing playing" it - as in playing it because it's fun to sit down and play, not because I feel like I have to put in the time in order to achieve some lofty far-off goal.
I do have a (leniently enforced) 2-MMOs-at-a-time limit, so after the first month of EVE it's either cancel the subscription or suspend WoW or FFXI. I guess we'll see how it goes. Just to tantalize your imagination I've included a few screenshots of a couple of my first n00bular kills. It has one of those great UIs full of data and clutter - makes you feel like you're doing something important (one of the reason tactics RPGs kick ass).
It's looks really nice as well.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Discipline
I finally finished the update for thesailing.org. Now the Sailblog page has a bit more functionality - recently update blogs are marked with the World of Warcraft 'server up' icon, and dusty blogs with the appropriate flashing 'server down' icon. This way, instead of just a big page with 4 hyperlinks on it, the Sailblog page will help keep you informed when your favorite member has updated their blog! There's still more I'd like to do with the page, possibly imbedding the last post using the blogger API, or at least throwing in some RSS feed buttons next to each blog.
A news update for the Infinite Sound Tour was added, as well as all of our confirmed show dates up to this point. I'm thinking about changing the way the Shows page works too, maybe having the nav bar link directly to the shows archive, displaying less images and more information. I'll have to tool around with it a little bit.
In other news, I decided against the PvP ring in WoW. I was so close to having enough honor for the Vindicator's Dreadweave Stalkers (feet equip) that I just ground out the 40 Eye of the Storm tokens needed to purchase it. Another off-piece slot epic'd out! Now all I need are 2x Vindicator's Band of Dominance, the Vindicator's Pendant of Dominance , the Vindicator's Dreadweave Belt , the Vengeful Gladiator's Touch of Defeat (stat-loaded wand), and finally the trinket. After that, I should be preeeetttty fucking leet. I would have an epic in every slot. Then maybe I could play more FFXI!
I've also been writing and recording some music - a few pieces from the new NIN album, Ghosts I-IV, I found inspiring in the same way a lot of the FFXI soundtrack was. The trick is expanding the moments of burst-inspiration into a practically recorded song. I'm sick to death of the drum options in logic. I can only bitcrush a pre-built drumkit so much before the songs start sounding 'samey.' What I need to do i drag my compy over to our new practice space, mic up Gus' drums, and start recording loops and samples. Some songs on POWERPLANT (the follow-up to my still-unreleased 'somethingambient') require actual drum parts performed all the way through. Others have drum tracks already programmed, and are just waiting for good samples to be dropped into Logic's drum machine.
Lack of good portable recording equipment is also holding me back. My once-awesome minidisc recorder no longer turns on, and without it I don't really have any options. Tape won't sound good enough, tiny digital recorders won't sound good enough, and laptops are too big and fragile to take to the places I want to gather samples from (abandoned factories around my home and such). One thing at a time I suppose. These are the things that swirl around me all day long, while I'm stuck at work from 10-5. Then I have from about 6pm-3am to get as much done as possible before passing out once again. I think when I'm old and dying I'll look back on these days fondly.
Oh, and don't forget to download the NEW FUCKING NINE INCH NAILS SINGLE! The same freaking month that Trent 'drops' Ghosts I-IV he releases Discipline, the new single, and hints at a new album on May 5th. WTF?! Making up for all of those 5-year album gaps I guess. Anyway, if you haven't heard it yet you can download it for free from the official NIN site. Enjoy!
A news update for the Infinite Sound Tour was added, as well as all of our confirmed show dates up to this point. I'm thinking about changing the way the Shows page works too, maybe having the nav bar link directly to the shows archive, displaying less images and more information. I'll have to tool around with it a little bit.
In other news, I decided against the PvP ring in WoW. I was so close to having enough honor for the Vindicator's Dreadweave Stalkers (feet equip) that I just ground out the 40 Eye of the Storm tokens needed to purchase it. Another off-piece slot epic'd out! Now all I need are 2x Vindicator's Band of Dominance, the Vindicator's Pendant of Dominance , the Vindicator's Dreadweave Belt , the Vengeful Gladiator's Touch of Defeat (stat-loaded wand), and finally the trinket. After that, I should be preeeetttty fucking leet. I would have an epic in every slot. Then maybe I could play more FFXI!
I've also been writing and recording some music - a few pieces from the new NIN album, Ghosts I-IV, I found inspiring in the same way a lot of the FFXI soundtrack was. The trick is expanding the moments of burst-inspiration into a practically recorded song. I'm sick to death of the drum options in logic. I can only bitcrush a pre-built drumkit so much before the songs start sounding 'samey.' What I need to do i drag my compy over to our new practice space, mic up Gus' drums, and start recording loops and samples. Some songs on POWERPLANT (the follow-up to my still-unreleased 'somethingambient') require actual drum parts performed all the way through. Others have drum tracks already programmed, and are just waiting for good samples to be dropped into Logic's drum machine.
Lack of good portable recording equipment is also holding me back. My once-awesome minidisc recorder no longer turns on, and without it I don't really have any options. Tape won't sound good enough, tiny digital recorders won't sound good enough, and laptops are too big and fragile to take to the places I want to gather samples from (abandoned factories around my home and such). One thing at a time I suppose. These are the things that swirl around me all day long, while I'm stuck at work from 10-5. Then I have from about 6pm-3am to get as much done as possible before passing out once again. I think when I'm old and dying I'll look back on these days fondly.
Oh, and don't forget to download the NEW FUCKING NINE INCH NAILS SINGLE! The same freaking month that Trent 'drops' Ghosts I-IV he releases Discipline, the new single, and hints at a new album on May 5th. WTF?! Making up for all of those 5-year album gaps I guess. Anyway, if you haven't heard it yet you can download it for free from the official NIN site. Enjoy!
Monday, April 21, 2008
'Trails' and Tribulation
It finally happened. After over half a decade of practicing on Schrubb Drive, we had the cops called on us. It couldn't have happened on a worse day too, as we had special guests on site to witness our majesty. But it was all interrupted when, after a stirring rendition of "Ghost Train," there came a knock on the door by a local 'boy in blue.'
The copper gave us some rigamarole about "pissing contests" (his words), feeding us basically the "I'm cool, but I'm a big prickly cock too" line which is pretty standard from quiet suburban area 5-0 bronze. And that was that. With a single republican swipe, the fat assed old sow diagonal-neighbor murdered The Sailing after 7 or so years of space rocking.
Of course, it should be noted that our practices have been a little bit... louder as of late, this due to the fact that we had to move from the stanky basement to the wide-open living room upstairs for medical reasons. So yes, it probably was louder than usual, but there's no reason the old whore couldn't have at least left a note or tried to talk to us about it, without wasting some poor dickhead cop's time.
Even when the brass was standing right there she refused to talk to us, like we were all going to start bleeding acid on her like a Xenomorph or something (see below).
So what now? Well, until we can make that stanky basement livable once again (and possibly sound proof it as much as we can) we can't practice at that house anymore. Luckily The Sailing are blessed with some of the greatest friends and colleagues any band from any town could ask for. Specifically the boys of Captain of Industry, who with absolutely zero notice were able to reserve a room for us in their secret practice space downtown.
On Saturday, Kirkland, Gus, and I assisted "The Coop" and Nathan of Captain (damn, that's a lot of capitalization) in clearing out the long-unused room in the practice space that The Sailing will be utilizing. While down there we discovered a cat who had given birth to a litter of 4 or 5 tiny kittehs. Knowing first hand what unattended cats in a practice space can do to the living conditions there, we successfully removed them from the space. To accomplish this, we employed the abilities of Gus' gal Rachel in putting the kittehs in a box, and then the the abilities of Michael Kirkland in frightening the mama cat out the door. The kittehs were taken to an appropriate caregiving facility, and the space was once again reclaimed for humanity.
So now it's Monday, and we hope to move in all of our shit tonight. This is weird, since for the last 7 or so years Tuesday and Thursday have been ingrained in my skull as 'fâtum days.' There was a stint in 2003 that had us practicing on Wednesdays - but never before have I had a 3 day block of no practice in the middle of the week. It will be interesting to be certain. But the important thing here is that we can now get to serious practice grinding for the summer tour. Oh! That reminds me! I need to write up a big update for thesailing.org's front page ;)
STAY TUNED SAILSMITHZ!
p.s. - Got my Vindicator's Dreadweave Cuffs, and by the end of tonight I (by all means) SHOULD have my Vindicator's Band of Dominance.
In FFXI I'm very very close to hitting 17 with Scholar, which means that I'm 2 levels from getting it out of the forsaken hell hole that is the Valkurm Dunes (aka teh n00bocaust).
The copper gave us some rigamarole about "pissing contests" (his words), feeding us basically the "I'm cool, but I'm a big prickly cock too" line which is pretty standard from quiet suburban area 5-0 bronze. And that was that. With a single republican swipe, the fat assed old sow diagonal-neighbor murdered The Sailing after 7 or so years of space rocking.
Of course, it should be noted that our practices have been a little bit... louder as of late, this due to the fact that we had to move from the stanky basement to the wide-open living room upstairs for medical reasons. So yes, it probably was louder than usual, but there's no reason the old whore couldn't have at least left a note or tried to talk to us about it, without wasting some poor dickhead cop's time.
Even when the brass was standing right there she refused to talk to us, like we were all going to start bleeding acid on her like a Xenomorph or something (see below).
So what now? Well, until we can make that stanky basement livable once again (and possibly sound proof it as much as we can) we can't practice at that house anymore. Luckily The Sailing are blessed with some of the greatest friends and colleagues any band from any town could ask for. Specifically the boys of Captain of Industry, who with absolutely zero notice were able to reserve a room for us in their secret practice space downtown.
On Saturday, Kirkland, Gus, and I assisted "The Coop" and Nathan of Captain (damn, that's a lot of capitalization) in clearing out the long-unused room in the practice space that The Sailing will be utilizing. While down there we discovered a cat who had given birth to a litter of 4 or 5 tiny kittehs. Knowing first hand what unattended cats in a practice space can do to the living conditions there, we successfully removed them from the space. To accomplish this, we employed the abilities of Gus' gal Rachel in putting the kittehs in a box, and then the the abilities of Michael Kirkland in frightening the mama cat out the door. The kittehs were taken to an appropriate caregiving facility, and the space was once again reclaimed for humanity.
So now it's Monday, and we hope to move in all of our shit tonight. This is weird, since for the last 7 or so years Tuesday and Thursday have been ingrained in my skull as 'fâtum days.' There was a stint in 2003 that had us practicing on Wednesdays - but never before have I had a 3 day block of no practice in the middle of the week. It will be interesting to be certain. But the important thing here is that we can now get to serious practice grinding for the summer tour. Oh! That reminds me! I need to write up a big update for thesailing.org's front page ;)
STAY TUNED SAILSMITHZ!
p.s. - Got my Vindicator's Dreadweave Cuffs, and by the end of tonight I (by all means) SHOULD have my Vindicator's Band of Dominance.
In FFXI I'm very very close to hitting 17 with Scholar, which means that I'm 2 levels from getting it out of the forsaken hell hole that is the Valkurm Dunes (aka teh n00bocaust).
Monday, April 7, 2008
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