Folds in your hands

Well it's a bit hard to contain myself with my headphone volume at 11. It's makes this communicative medium seem as relevant as a shadow in the night. But whatever. Hopefully the people reading this consider the setting alternative.

So rip it open. These guys are so rad... been listenin to em for a few months now. I think they've gotten good radio time so y'all are all probly tired of em. But... for the love of god, respect the synthesizer.

There's just.... look, people. When it comes to heavy synthesizers/pop keyboards, there's a very fine line between the grungy, mash-your-fists-into-the-keys garage approach and the highly refined grumblings of an electronic behemoth. Granted, the instrument itself can cover a lot of ground. But the real magic is in a synthesizer than can pick up a three-ton rock and throw it into the crowd to make some waves. Some tones just weren't meant to be created by an instrument descending from the most regal of the regal. But this tone, which I consider to be a cross of this lady and this thing, is just collabulous. That's "colossal" and "fabulous" mixed together.

Kindly refer to the rolling arpeggios in the prechorus on top of the orchestral track underneath.

You can hear the nastiness and the grumble ring out at the end of the song.

Lasagna's done.


I believe in a world where literacy is paramount. I believe in a world where men and women can achieve the same. And I believe in a world where I don't fucking burn myself every time I try to take something out of the oven. It sucks!

The week is half done (finishing writing while this pound of sexy pasta cools off). It's been pretty nice so far. The weather has been overcast. But with my American diet of officemeal and 32 ounce headphones, I've hardly noticed.

So... I'm... gonna make this unbelievable culinary masterpiece disappear. And then get back to work.

Enjoy the synthesizer :)

lol


>> "Folds in Your Hands" by Passion Pit on Manners

Singin sweet songs...

...of melodies pure and true.
Sayin, "This is my message to you-ou-ou."

Anyway, Bob graced me with his presence a minute ago. And now I'm sorta chillin with the crickets out the window.

Another week has drawn to a close out here. After work, I went over to the mall and got a couple shirts to keep things changing. That image doesn't have any immediate relevance, but google suggested it meant "changing." And I can't pass up a picture of Sean Connery next to a massive wolvo-bear.

I got home and my landlord has returned from her two weeks in New York. Admittedly, I was bummed. I really wanted to take the guitar for another ridiculously long spin through reality. I settled on stuffed green peppers and Rachmaninoff on pandora.

I've been working on the rings consistently. Last night----



Ever have to just stop and ask yourself why in god's name don't your headphones go any louder? It's like... for fuck's sake... I just spent an entire week doing everything EXCEPT listening to Rachmaninoff. And now that I'm here, the old man in the old recording is just ... not LOUD enough. Damnit all, Rachy. You should have written this whole piece fortissimo. Obbbbbviously. The nerve...

I am pleased to announce that I have just tied an old dress shirt around my head to mash the headphones against my ears. It just... man....

It just feels so good to be a gangster.


Anyway, I've been working on the rings out back consistently. I actually got out of the office at decent hours this week. So I'd get home with a little sunlight left and go out and give the dogs something to bark about. Hey. Look at my horn here. Hang on. Yep. This is my horn. And this is me tooting it.

I did 15 pullups in a row yesterday. My record was 18 when I was like... 10. So I'm getting back into the rhythm of being less computerized. And it's good. If only Rachmaninoff would play louder. I can't take this anymore. I need something loud.

And, of course, as soon as I decide I want to change it, he finally presents the melody. I touched on this a while back when talking about Liszt. These guys just go all over the place and then decide, "Oh... enough of this madness. Let me play something more beautiful than anything that's ever been heard before." And then they take the silver cover off the melody and... if you're anything like me, you pretty much just geek out in an unrivaled stupor.

Whatever. I need volume right now. This is better.

The lyrics are kinda depressing. But this beat just flows incredulity. You've gotta wait for it to come in. She talks about rage and concrete and cityscapes. And then it just rolls. Wait for the beat. Seriously. Just lean back and wait for it. Let her talk about the city for a minute. And listen to her. It's easy.

Are you waiting? Fucking wait already. Stop reading. Cause it breaks...

The beat breaks in big time.

I can't like.... tell you to stop reading. I'm just assuming you want to get as much out of these songs as I do. So sit your ass back and relax. See what she has to say...

When the guy says, "Yeah, check it," you may continue reading :)


Some things come in pairs. Some things flow in a series and you know what's coming next. Sometimes you just vibe and don't give much of a damn what comes next. That's where life is. Dropping it all in neutral and keeping an awareness about you that lets you examine any situation in any light you want. That's what this music does for me. The simplicity just cuts all the madness around me. When the beat hits, it's like marionnettes getting cut from their handles so they can finally relax. It's like I'm in the middle of some vicious, uncontrollable mess of earthly happenstance when my mind's camera just drops to 1/4 speed and I blink into black and white. Maybe the x-axis on the camera even get a little loose and starts drifting and panning a little faster and faster. Spacial orientation. Make of it whatever you want. I don't know. It's just nice. Maybe I'm over analyzing. But... that's the only way I ever get anything done. And it's the only way I can really ever relax... analyze whatever's on my mind to death until it turns into a nonsensical mass of... dated interpersonal egotism. It's like... just rubbing your fingers together to clean them instead of washing them. Nine times out of nine, humans are thinking of themselves. When you accept the fact that we're all completely selfish, working to evolve our own emotional mind, the issues you were just dealing with are trivial. And you wonder about much more comfortable possibilities in the future. Whatever pieces were just bugging you are made up of pretty much the same things you are. What was just happening was just happening. And it's of little importance to your future.

What the hell am I talking about? Damn song...

The reverb on the rimshot on this song is so great. They clipped it, though... rather than letting it fade out naturally. So.... I think it's looped.

Now I just don't know what I want to listen to next. Not your problem, I suppose.

I was sitting in the office this evening after everyone left. And out the window was a kind sight, a very kind scene. The imagery I can provide does little to sustain the suspended beauty I had in my imagination at the time. It was definitely one of those instances I described earlier about the camera in my head just breaking to 1/4 speed, black and white, and everything just sorta became its own entity... with its own little story in time. The sun was shattering through the physical at every possible point imaginable. And the visual consistency made me consider the fragile, yet amazingly persistent forces in inhospitable places like... plumes of boiling water at the bottom of the ocean... places where the extreme forces are relentlessly destroying eachother but perfectly allowing life to exist on their periphery at the same time. In this light, I was a bystander in my own life. And I was able to view the fragile, yet amazingly persistent forces in which we live... inside an equally random, equally harsh existence.

And then I got about five or six great images of something from a long time ago.

The Barn Playhouse, if it still exists, is a little, independently run theater in downtown New London, NH.

The first feeling I got was actually a couple intertwined: a flash of the soft grass below me as I walked with my mom toward the red building. I vividly recalled my excitement as I anticipated seeing what songs and stories the acting troupe had perfected since I had been there last. That's all they ever did... perfect things. They were college kids who all lived nearby and rehearsed daily through the summer. They were clear-cut celebrities in my mind: women whose charm could render me absolutely speechless and men who were capable of rattling the rafters with their voices. The second part of the first emotion was looking up into the trees, probably considering my friends back near my grandparents' house. There were always fun things going on up there. If it wasn't one thing, it was the next. I was probably thinking about playing with friends or just... sitting on a hill or under birch trees and just watching people relax.

The next image in the memory, maybe six or ten frames of the rolling reel, consisted of me standing on the hand-built porch and being surrounded by small-town, chattering friends. The smell of the antique building mixed with the friendly atmosphere of laughing men and women created a buzz around the street. The sturdy doors were wide open on the front of the old building. And people were already heading inside. So I was there. And I was next in line to get a pillow. The theater itself only had wooden planks for seats, if I recall correctly. And the real racket here, the real cash cow for the acting troupe wasn't the ticket entry or anything like that. It was the nickel they charged for a butt cushion :D I imagine my grandmother gave me a couple nickels and this image consisted of being bored because the people in front of me weren't getting their pillows and getting inside fast enough. I was sort of looking at the ground and some old guy's pants in front of me while I leaned against the huge wooden box holding the pillows. I never could see into that thing because I was so short. I guess I had already stopped trying to look in it and was just waiting, staring at this guy's plaid pants in front of me and smelling the old, comfortably musty pile of ass-pillows just on the other side of the wooden wall. I imagine some old woman took the change, gave me the pillows and I thanked her with explicit instruction from my grandmother. Otherwise I would have obviously just walked right in and picked out the best seat so I could have the best view of whichever astoundingly beautiful, astoundingly mature 16-year-old was playing Annie that night... or whichever story it might have been.

The next image was of the lights while looking on from the second story. I think it was Annie, actually. She was sitting on a stool or something and there were a couple guys on stage. And... I don't remember the tone of the song, but she was lighted. There was something so great about the lighting in there. The place maybe held 75 people at max capacity. And sometimes it really felt like max capacity. It would warm up after about thirty minutes and everybody would start fanning themselves with their programs. Anyway, the lighting gave way to the massive amounts of stage makeup that I never understood. I think it just helps the actors get into character, when it comes right down to it. I don't even know. It must be like their war paint, or something. Anyway, I could see the lighted faces on stage and those titans were giving it their everything.

Next was the sound. I don't remember if I'm imagining this or not. But I think there were actually live musicians who played at these performances. I seem to recall always leaning forward and putting my head on the balcony railing to get a glimpse of the musicians and the audience below. I really don't remember. But I'm almost certain there were musicians under the stage playing the music... in a pit of sorts. And I definitely think I spent a good amount of time trying to spot them and figure out which instruments were doing what. I think maybe I saw a piano player once or twice... and a drummer tapping away on the high-hats and mini-snare. They could only use a small one because the space was so tiny! I hope I'm right about that. I have no idea. You know what? I'm sure of it. It was a live band. I am as sure as I am because I remember that in at least one show, the snare drum was used as a gunshot. And it scared the living piss out of everyone in the tiny building.

That's it. That's where my mind went for a fraction of a second in the Virginian twilight today. I wish it wasn't this hard to convey a split second of an afternoon to people. All these things are around us so often that we just take them for granted, I guess. I, for one, probably just assume people are as introverted and... distracted as I am. The way I see it, everyone is introverted. No one would possibly ever go around just saying things without thinking about the repercussions... would they? Right...

But I have a feeling that if most people analyzed things as much as I do, they'd just sorta crumble and... drool on themselves.

Anyway, I'm done for now. I'm tired from the week. And I want to play a little more guitar.

I'll leave you with a cool song... but a perfectly bizarre video. "Sound can be seen." Good luck.

>> "The Last Trick" by Anja Garbarek

Music Mind

I just finished playing guitar for a cool two-hundred and ten minutes... without stopping. My mind is happier now.

The past few mornings (5, exactly), have been punctuated by the neighbors' doberman going completely apeshit between 6:34 and 6:36am. The consistency is frightening.


Today was good. I was doing things with stuff and working hard at it. I talked to some people and agreed with most of what they said. I had a flipshit conversation with an engineer at... I can't remember what it's called. They're in India. The company developed a server monitoring program and this guy was going to email me later in the day with more information about something. This character used the word "yanti" as his phonetic expression when attempting to communicate the letter "y" in his email address. He had already sidestepped two of my questions about the program so after trying to make both heads and tails out of what the hell he was saying, I simply asked him to spell his phonetic translation so I could understand the single letter he was attempting to convey. This provided me with an irreplaceable opportunity to remove the phone from my ear and laugh heartily. "Hey man, you got any yanti?"

Ah, the yanti.

I was listening to the radio for much of the day. I took notes.

"Someday we might learn to tell the truth.
We might even find the fountains of our youth."

That's from a Brandi Carlile song, "Closer to You." It hit a vein and I wanted to write it down. I was daydreaming at the time and considering the piecemeal structures we create over our own heads from the examples set by our parents. And I decided that most people end up just wanting to go back to the same mental state they were in during their childhood. In many cases, this most likely includes the habits instilled in them by their parents and their parents before them. And this led me to believe that knowing what is good is easy. It does not require speech to communicate what is or is not good. What requires communication is the reasoning for either acting or not acting on that goodness. The only reasons many people ever consider are those which were supplied to them initially. We humans treat emotions like instincts, strangely enough. We never consider changing them because they usually come and go at about the same time in the same situations. I consider a boy learning things from his father to be tantamount to a young animal learning how to hunt. Many years later, after the father is gone, the child will still have an unfounded desire to do certain things much like the animal who simply must hunt. We do it because we want to feel close to eachother. Animals do it because they have to survive. Anyway, that quote resonated with me because telling the truth to ourselves will allow us to reclaim the youthful creativity we once had, the youthful creativity that once allowed us to look past the darkness of mundane responsibility and into the corners of creative motivation, comfort and personal inspiration. I believe this is why the lyrics were written in this order, either knowingly or not.

Maybe that's what he meant when he said, "Yanti."

The next note is:

"snare drum in 'in your eyes' by peter gabriel is outstanding... and cymbals"

Enough said. I'd link it but the youtube video has poor audio quality. I'm a sucker for tight heads on thin snares.

Next is the keyboard slam in Ryan Adams's "New York, New York" at 2:31. Most people would just look right past it because it's "part of the song." You're damn right it's part of the song. Except this part picks the song up by its suspenders and throws it's ass back towards the speakers. There's something really great about a musician who's normally in the background and gets the chance to just geek out for a minute in the spotlight. It takes incredible composure as a musician to walk the line like that... to be comfortable enough to play in the background all day but willing to stand up and rip it when the time arrives.

Next is Amy Cook's song "Hotel Lights." I had heard this once before. The initial vocal melody reminded me of an old British or Celtic melody. The rest of the song is just really, really peaceful and I am unable to do any single thing while it's playing. Anything. The audio mix is exquisite. The strings are liquid. The video was shot in Austin. It's a great song and it's good to hear an artist who makes the microphone work for them, not the other way around.

Last in my notes from the day is the following:

"there's nothing like some coldplay"


Done and done.

>> "Hotel Lights" by Amy Cook

Space-time continuum

Space and time go together. In this space and time tonight, I was looking at porn. And its beauty compelled me to post.

So I was sitting in my chair at the office today doing god knows what when I was transported to elation... or "exultant gladness," as dictionary.com puts it.

I experienced a similar emotion years ago under different circumstances. Specifically, the emotion comes from transcending time and space... allowing the mind to drool vividly into another time while the body breathes normally. Well... I've done it dreaming and meditating, but only twice that I can remember during either conversation or body... intensive... things...

I opened pandora.com for the first time in a while and was listening to my Ulrich Schnauss station. This song started playing. And I was content to let it... I think it was helping me with my livecycle edits. So... I was editing pdfs and... pretty much fighting them with my bare hands.

Now, the song sort of gets... twinkly... at the three minute mark. It gets floaty. And... I was jamming. Livecycle did something I liked and I got all excited and clicked on something that wasn't meant to be clicked. Windows made its error noise like any good operating system should. But the Windows 7 noises are sorta spacey. They're kinda floaty in their own right, the default sound scheme, anyway.

In an instant, the song's tide gifted a glimpse of the spacial error sound and I was immediately staring at myself from at least a hundred years ago. I said to myself, "Jesus in a hamster wheel! I'm in the future!"

Now, in the past, revelations like this one have been inspired by various substances ranging from Russian combustibles to the stickiest of the ickies. But I had neither today: just PDFs and Windows errors.

I'm sure you all think I'm just batshit at the moment, so let me explain. As a disclaimer, I acknowledge that said "explanation" does not guarantee my personal absence from the mental state of bat...shittery. But I'll continue, since you've asked so kindly.

Here I was, listening to a musical recording emanating from a place few people have ever seen. Can you hold the digital information as it runs through the speaker wire to your speakers? No. You might actually get electrocuted if you try. So I was sitting there staring at glossy finish glass monitors with displays of infinite depth and commanding them with my hands without ever even touching the screens. An unknowing bystander would have seen me engaged and, based on my body movement, probably would have noticed I was sending some kind of relevant information into these shiny, bright things. Even if they had no idea what kind of voodoo was in use, they'd be able to see I was going to considerable mental lengths to achieve some personal result inside the magic window pane. In addition to the computer... sensory stuff, I was listening on overdrive. It's the only setting I have. I'm either listening to crunchy high frequencies that might or might not exist in the original recording or am listening to the barrel tone of the snare drum.

I don't know if you know this, but the human ear can hear a lot. At least the two next to my brain can. Everybody talks about our ability to hear as opposed to other animals. We can hear everything dogs can hear. Dogs are idiots. But convincing our minds that the sounds are relevant takes a little work. At any rate, my brain was lost in the full spectrum of sound. My fingers were electric as they sent commands into the shiny, flashing machines. And I was just enveloped for a moment. Frozen. Mesfin was wrapped up in a .NET blanket next to me while I was lost in the beauty of the present technology. I was absolutely unconvinced that we are not living in the world we all hoped to be in one day. What else do we need? I know a jetpack would be nice, but physical laws suggest flight in numbers is safest.

The average American is able to type five or six letters and click on what they see. It will allow them to see and hear what they want to see and hear. It's brilliant. And all I can do is sit here and consider the disenchantment that must be responsible for the lack of awe and wonder I see in other people. Or are we perhaps just so humanly jaded that we shun the entity altogether because it only appeals to two senses. Look, people. If you click on something, you can see and hear it. That's two senses. Now... access the third by chewing on your keyboard. Access your fourth my tapping your toes on the floor. And access the fifth my smelling whatever in the hell you want to smell. Then, you won't be all that different from two other notorious individuals who pioneered the practice. Anyway, that's my steaming pile of an explanation. It's all I can muster.

Right now, I've used an old dress shirt to tie my headphones to my head. They kinda suck and sound was escaping between the headphones and my head. So I did this. My pigmentation has thankfully remained intact.

The other night, I continued watching Philip Seymour Hoffman movies with Love Liza. It was about a man whose wife recently committed suicide by asphyxiation in her running car in a closed garage. Philip copes by sniffing gasoline. My interpretation is Philip's character wanted on some level to be with his wife in her last moments. And in an attempt to relate to her state, he referenced the only other form of automotive inebriation I can imagine. It also starred Jack Kehler from The Big Lebowski and Stephen Tobolowsky. Any respectable movie viewer will recognize him as the tons-o-fun insurance salesman from Groundhog Day.

Anyway, I saw the summary of the movie and on some level just really wanted to watch Philip Seymour Hoffman sniff gasoline for an hour and a half. And... he sure did it. He sniffed the hell out of some gasoline, model jet fuel... you name it. It was uncomfortably humorous.

Kathy Bates stars as his late wife's mother. The story basically revolves around his inability to operate in reality any longer and his refusal to address the suicide note his wife left. It was filmed very well and I recommend it. It had a pretty good soundtrack, too. He's just a great damn actor.

I'm kind of tired now. It was a decently long day. All the softphones are working now. The temperature gauge in the server room seems to be pretty stable between 70° and 77°. I've still got some Livecycle updates to do and... I have salespeople calling me back to back. I'm researching options for both remote backup and enterprise monitoring software. Many of these salespeople are really, really happy to hear from me. And when they ask if they can, "...follow up in the next few days," they really mean 9am the next morning. It is what it is. I also figured out how to check voicemail on the new phones. Our telephony support group, who in my opinion is just disinterested in telephony, informed me they don't even support the telephone. Thankfully, there is the internet.

>> "For Good" by Ulrich Schnauss on Goodbye

Friday Face

Well I had this fancy bit in mind to start this post but when I went to my blog a minute ago, I clicked on the Trombone Shorty link from last week. And now here I am, jamming to it on repeat, all bouncin around like an idiot in my chair with a bottle of Guinness and a stupid ass smile on my face. Yes, my hand is in the air whilst jamming. Yes, I do this alone on Friday nights and I'm really okay with it. Such is life.

This song is out of control. This kid nailed it. I had things to say and ideas to spout but they just cleared out of the street and made way for this massive music.


Mmmm it's the weekend. And I've got nothing to do. Guinness abounds and pizza is in the oven. I put in 12 hours today and now I know how to add printers by IP in XP, configure SIP voicemails, lock down USB ports and restrict drive access to any number of drives. Yeah.

I have nothing planned for the weekend. So that's incredibly great.

I created an FTP server and am working on a script to upload -- break


Sometimes, you look down and realize that the words you were just typing are in no way comparable to the steaming pizza resting in your lap. And you realize God has just smiled upon you.

Baby jesus. I shit you not... if you can imagine Trombone Shorty playing with the volume at 11... and a pizza in my lap... you will understand my happiness. Granted, there is some Guinness involved. But everyone is a little Irish on Fridays.

Last night, I watched "Owning Mahowny" with Philip Seymour Hoffman. He plays a financial advisor/account manager who perpetually steals from his clients to satisfy his gambling addiction. The emotion is conveyed in a cold, direct manner which made me plainly uncomfortable. But Hoff submits his standard measure of theatrical genius and allows the audience into the mind of a truly innocent, compulsive mentality.

Gamblers are always grasping reality one hand or one roll at a time while trying to convince themselves that a deck of cards or a pair of dice are divine entities capable of dictating their future. Sad is the man who does not believe his future well-being is in his own hands. Currently, my well-being lies in the thyme kindly included on this pizza. But I digress. Philip nailed it. And Minnie Driver was pretty good, too. She could have survived with a different haircut. Hi Mom. I know you're reading this. "Skype" does not contain a "c" and I don't have a girlfriend out here yet. It turns out I'm only attracted to women who have Gmail accounts.


Alright. I'm still hung up on the Hurricane Season. It's unreasonable.


Moving along, I've been reading the news. How about some New things? There's a stupid asshole in Florida and an equally stupid congregation in Topeka, KS who want to inflame a large portion of the human population because they're too fucking ignorant to... I'm surprised these people can even speak the English language with such an outstanding mental incapacity. My Orthodox Christian, Ethiopian coworker just heard about this Koran-burning business today and he wanted to know what I thought about it. We share a respect for cultural identity, Mesfin and I. And I told him, outright, this is a national embarrassment. I told him this country has made great strides to promote equality and cultural awareness. And if this spiritual inebriate was actually as offended as he would like us all to believe, he wouldn't have waited nine years to take [such stupid fucking] action. No one who chooses to publicly incinerate in bulk the holy text of more than a billion living human beings has any possible capacity to lead a congregation of any kind. Given the size of the Islamic following, this moron should be incarcerated just out of globalized DECENCY if nationalistic integrity exists at all. I told Mesfin I'd be surprised if this guy himself stays in good health through the coming days/weeks. And even if this guy is just being a social thorn and exercising his Constitutional rights to be a loud fucking American, he's just as stupid. Someone needs to shove a four-foot, bronze statue of an obese Buddha up this guy's ass so he can understand the pain he's birthing. Unbelievable. Keep it up and I'm headed to Europe, folks.

In other news, some drunken Swiss man was sitting in his castle pushing buttons at 2am European time last night. I thought it was an SNB intervention until I looked at it on the minute charts.

Google Instant came out. And I like it. But I like my search field at the bottom of the page, too. I hope they reinstate the footer search field. It just made sense. They still have not redeemed themselves for the gross mutilation of images.google.com.

Oh... I read a really great article by Stephen Hawking in the Wall Street Journal of all publications. One of these days, people will start to listen. This was also a comforting read.


Man... I'm all about the links tonight. More importantly, I just said I'm "all about" something. The sincerity is oozing. I'm done.

>> more of this

Humanoids

Tell me how big your beats are. Do they walk themselves down the street? Do they make people look out the window and come outside? Yeah Shorty. Shorty Trombone. Now you know.

I just got back from Machete. I went alone to the first showing around the corner today. It was pretty good. I have to admit, I had been looking forward to it since I saw the preview at Grindhouse. I personally think Desperado should have been written around Trejo's character (just a general badass) years ago, but good things take time. Accompanying Danny in Machete are Cheech Marin, Michelle Rodriguez, Don Johnson, Robert DeNiro, Jess Alba and Lindsay Lohan. It was pretty great. I don't have much to say about it, really. The obvious is that Jessica Alba still can't act. But I think Robby Rodriguez just told her not to try in this one. Little Lohan is pretty gross in both her nun costume and in her birthday suit. I just can't... yeah. Not good.

DeNiro didn't really sell the Texas politician role in my opinion. I just... couldn't smell the whiskey on his breath, you know? Don Johnson played a great shooter-for-hire/contract militiaman. Michelle Rodriguez kicked ass, chewed bubble gum and then kicked the bubble gum's ass. She's just great. And Cheech? Yeah. Cheech was just the right mix of priest and pothead. And how could I forget Steven Seagal? The everlasting antagonist, Steve played the Mexican ringleader who... well.. I won't spoil the movie. Let's just say the man knows how to tap out nicely from a fight.

Watching the movie felt like being back in Austin. I recognized the parking lots, the intersections, etc. The Frost Bank building is all over the film. Michelle Rodriguez is the head of an underground Mexican network comfortably named "The Network." Her hideout/HQ is in the old, spray-painted carriage house on E. 4th Street where the horse-drawn carriage company mounts and dismounts the carriages each night. Just before the grand finale, Trejo and his army blow down a widened E. 5th street all fanned out in a swath of hydrolic, shiny hoopties and ape-hangers. It was pretty cool.

Anyway, the movie was certainly eye candy. The nudity and body count were established very plainly in the first 60 seconds of the film. He's called "Machete" for a reason. It was pretty cool. I don't know if the advertisement for the trilogy just before the credits was genuine, but I hope it was... for Danny's sake. I want him to stay up front and show these kids what movies are all about.

This weekend is... allegedly three days long. I think I'm going to go into the city again tomorrow and ride around... exhaust myself. I don't know. I'm kinda stagnant at this point. I need to take some time and finish some songs. I might... miiiiight find an open mic night at one of the colleges around here at some point and see if anyone cares to relate to me in this place.

I haven't been able to look at the forex charts at all in the last two weeks since I started my new job. I've been working 12-14 hour days consistently and am... things are starting to fall into place. I'm getting a feel for how the place runs and just what exactly is expected of me. Right now I'm gonna brainstorm on the charts and see if I can't start automating my system.

Little can you tell, but I just got sidetracked and listened to an hour's worth of Florence and the Machine remixes. This is why my god invented the weekend: so I could hear Florence and the Machine remixes. There's one reason why these remixes work. And I've said it before. It's because the producers on this album (3 producers) did a masterful job of layering her voice. Every vocal part, be it a lead part or harmony, is either doubled or tripled. The voice carries this album like Atlas carried the world. It was written as a deliberate wave of emotion in the wake of the singer's father's death. Live performances do not, unfortunately, maintain the same power of the recordings from 2009. Such is the magic created in a studio over time.

I'm gonna listen to my favorite radio station for the rest of the day today and get ready for my trek into the city tomorrow. I'm gonna take my computer and geek out somewhere. My phone charger is at the office and the phone is dead. So I will have no music on the bike tomorrow. This is regrettable. But I will manage. Who knows. I might even be forced to engage in conversation with other humanoids, perhaps of the female variety. I hear they like being called "humanoids of the female variety."

>> "A Last Dance with Leon" by Doctor Flake on Minder Surprise

Sink in

My feet haven't really hit the floor since I drove out of Austin a few weeks ago. I told my sister it still really feels like I'm in transition and I'm doing what I can to expedite the... whatever it is.

Things are good, though. This whole area is rich with activity, active people and active places.

I took my bike on the DC Metro down to the center of the political world a couple days ago. It was a Saturday so I didn't have to deal with too much traffic. A police officer forcefully banished me from a particular road in front of the White House. But it was otherwise easy riding.

I actually got off the metro at 930a and was out riding until about 430. I saw every monument I could find and then some. I paused somewhere North of the White House and went to Subway. I went to the park to eat and... that was alright. It was basically a big ass ravine... like... you slip, you die. I did not slip. I ate a footlong construction with chicken teriyaki and the sweetest onion sauce in all the land.

It feels weird saying it, but I was more comfortable riding in the streets in downtown DC than I am here in the burbs. I don't know. Maybe it makes sense. Maybe it's because it was a Saturday. Maybe it's just because there's more pavement. Whatever the reason, the pavement was kind to me there.

I was out for about 8 hours and... I think the only person I talked to was the person who made my sandwich for lunch. Ah I bought a homeless guy a Sprite, too. When he asked me if I would buy him something from the grocery store, I said, "Yeah man. What do you need?" He replied, "Ah man, I want some french toast!" Last I checked, precooked and prepackaged french toast was pretty hard to come by at the grocery store. I actually check for these things from time to time. Anyway, we settled on a Sprite and... yeah. I talked to that guy.

I had one way conversations with the quotes inscribed on the walls of the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials. I'm certain the Jefferson memorial is the most beautiful. And looking to the South, I could only stand still. The memorial itself is structurally open with many large columns surrounding the effigy and supporting the dome overhead. After reading the mountainous quotes overhead, I wandered out the back of the sanctuary and let the wind from behind take my eyes far out in front of me and show me what the hills might have looked like centuries ago. Highways and signs dissolved and there were only slow hills. It forced me to consider with strength the pieces of land which undoubtedly sowed the peaces of mind from which our national fiber was borne. What a time that must have been. Pre-industrial revolution... horses and thunder were still the loudest distractions imaginable on any given day. At the risk of committing to a full-on rambling escapade, I'd just like to state that the founding fathers' individual enlightenment, as unnatural as it was in their time, seems thunderous indeed to the natural environment in which they were living. It's comforting to know these things gave way to such great discoveries. And it reassures my quiet lifestyle. Focusing so hard at my new job, I needed to state this tonight.

I was completely worn out and was not... really... able to stand when I made it back to the metro station that evening. I hadn't ridden in about a month. But as it happened, the city was doing maintenance on the rail system that afternoon and evening. So I was able to reflect on the day a bit sooner than I had expected. It took twenty minutes to get into town and two hours to get back. But there was a sweet girl who wanted to smile at a dirty fucking guy on a bike at the King Street platform. And that made me less exhausted for a short while. Then the metro came and our visual romance ended.

I've started my new job and it feels like I'm in space. Before I get into my new job, and while I'm thinking about space, I need to record something which beached my mental ship this afternoon. It's inspirational in nature. And it's sensory. It's comfortable to me.

At Valentine's Day, I used to say the green candy hearts tasted like grass. They actually taste like something closer to feet. But back when I was stupid enough to ingest these green candy hearts, they reminded me of the smell of grass. I know, I know. Yes... I ate grass when I was a kid, too. But I'm talking about the scent... I'm talking about cross-sensory relation. This is like when love feels like you're skydiving or when certain candy makes you feel like you're wearing your Halloween costume from nineteen eighty-something. I had one of those moments of irregular sensory relation earlier today... a mild synesthetic event.

This pairing really, truly exposes my admiration of a particular musical entity. I recently stumbled upon a simply amazing video (in my opinion, of course). I won't describe it just in case anyone cares to watch it. It's important you watch it full screen with sound on the first time through... and don't skip forward. Just wait. Click the link and don't even read the description. Cause the surprise is half the fun. You might need to turn your volume DOWN a touch, but having sound is quite rewarding after... i don't know... the first third of the video.

I was listening to my songs earlier with my headphones, and "I Remember" by Yeasayer started. It reminded me of the sensation I got the first time I saw the video from above. I'll leave it at that. It's not really something I can convey in any more detail.

Alright. Enough mental meanderings. I'm headlong into my new job and as I told my friend earlier tonight, it feels like I'm straddling a freight train every second of every hour on the clock. I actually brought a small portion of the train home with me tonight and am currently listening to my (half-assed) French submersion and Fredo Viola while I wait for one of the servers to finish stomping several thousand customers' bills into tri-fold pdfs. It's madness. I feel like a crazy-ass Santa Claus with several multi-core reindeer at the end of the reins. Granted, my gifts suck. But I'm fat and happy, generally speaking.

I'm living very, very close to my office... about 4 miles. I've been putting in 10-14 hour days consistently since I started last Monday. But it feels like... it fucking feels like marathon recording sessions... the last thing I can think of I did consistently for such long amounts of time with so much interest, intent and happiness. Hours go by like someone greased the clock's gears a little too well. I've had one minor flub so far across 13 servers. But... that call center didn't need those call recordings anyway, right? :) Right.

I'm tired now. And I was tired this morning. I'm getting up in 6 something hours and maybe this thing will be finished. I don't know. I'll sleep when I can. I'm the first one at the office and the last to leave. Nothing especially new, but it's fucking awesome. And that's all I can say about it tonight.

>> "The Sad Song" by Fredo Viola on The Sad Song EP