Feliz Cumpleaños a darksheik y kellygirlnyc.

Work is busy but I'm surviving it.

My Dr. Who/Juno Reactor mash-up was well received at whomix.trilete.net, a place that hosts all sorts of Dr. Who remixes.

Class tonight, featuring the triumphant return of a favorite student.

It's chilly, damp and overcast out. Dreary, some would say. Work this morning featured a SNAFU'd network so productivity was cut, and some people have been screaming at me via email. Nonetheless, today is a good day.

Also, I'm wearing Power Purple plus a new tie that I lurve. Dressing up is fun.

First, a recap.
Summer School
An original piece.

Spy Hunter (Thump Mix)
A remix of the Peter Gunn theme by Henry Mancini as it appeared in the 80's video game classic, Spy Hunter.

Carol of the Bells
An original arrangement of the Christmas classic.

Planetary Rock
A mash-up of Planet Rock by Africaa Bombaattaa/Zulu Nation/Soulsonic Force and some choice pieces by Kraftwerk.

Parasite Event
A remix/overture of the Parasite Eve video game sountrack by Yoko Shimomura.

And now...

I'd like to dedicate this piece to sundancekat, who provided one of the tracks used for this piece. Also, to jvowles and docthestampede and all my other Whofan friends who geek out with me when the time is appropriate.

So what is this I'm talking about?

"Swamp Doctor" is a mash-up of Swamp Thing by Juno Reactor, and 3 versions of the Dr. Who theme. This is, by far, the best piece of music I've ever put together. It will be a very long time before I make another mash-up better than this, and I don't know if I'll ever write anything this good.

Yeah. You want this. You really want this.

Stereo Static presents:
Swamp Doctor

( Liner Notes )

I had about a million pounds of fun making this; it's become my new favorite. I hope y'all enjoy it as well.

As usual, comments and critiques are welcomed and encouraged.

<<-- Planetary Rock - Swamp Doctor -->>

Remember when I said I loved video game music? Here's another great example of that.

After playing Parasite Eve I decided I needed the soundtrack, composed by Yoko Shimomura, one of the greats in the field. At this point I don't remember what inspired me to make this track, but I enjoyed every second of it. It serves as an homage to the score, and the game, and its one of my favorite pieces of my own work (and I will readily hate my own stuff if it's warranted, let me tell you).

Stereo Static presents:
Parasite Event

( Liner Notes )

As usually, comments and critiques are welcome and encouraged. Enjoy

<<-- Carol of the Bells - Parasite Event -->>

After producing a collection of point'n'click original songs and covers, and one fairly complicated tribute piece (coming tomorrow), this was practically a breath of fresh air.

Way back in 80's, someone in my family owned a Kraftwerk album and played it regularly, to the point that it become a permanent earworm for me, although I had no concept of the band name, song name, album name, or any other indentifying piece of information. That was well before I turned ten. Fast forward to 4 years ago, having a discussion with my friend in Tribrix lead to him handing me a few .mp3's. Three songs in and I was rocked back to my early childhood. Finally! A piece of music that I'd been hearing in my head for literally decades could finally be identified and, more importantly, heard again! Even while I was recovering from that wave of happy nostalgia, I got hit with a hilarious realization; the basic rhythms of some of the pieces reminded me a hell of a lot of Planet Rock, the often sampled cult dance hit from the early 80's.

I didn't have a choice, now did I?

Africaa Boombaattaa, Zulu Nation and The Soulsonic Force, mashed up with Kraftwerk.

Stereo Static presents:
Planetary Rock

( Liner Notes )

<<-- Spy Hunter (Thump Mix) - Planetary Rock -->>

Christmas, Christmas time is here
Time for joy and time for cheer.

Those are lyrics from a song that I ALMOST used for the bridge to this piece. I'm glad I reconsidered.

CotB is my most labor intensive musical undertaking to date, but I accomplished exactly what I set out to do and for that I'm extremely proud.

I wanted a dance mix version of the song, but it was written in 3/4 time. Every, and I mean EVERY dance/club version of a 3/4 song that I've ever heard changes it to 4/4, and that drives me guano. I was trying to find away of getting around that and still pulling off something you can shake your ass to. Then I remembered that 3/4 time is also used popularly as a dance rhythm. Waltz, much?

So, before I even started, I immersed myself in the world of dance music and deconstructed the genre. I took what I learned and applied it to 3/4 time, and when I was done I realized that I had hit upon something very few, of any, have before. At some point I'm going to make a bunch more 3/4 club mixes to see if I can get a new genre spread. ClubWaltz! HouseWaltz. TripWaltz. Waltz'n'Bass. Call it whatever, I think this can work.

Enough jawing. I bring you holiday cheer in the form of music.
Stereo Static presents:
Carol of the Bells

( Liner Notes )

Alright, sports fans, there you have it. As always, comments and critique are welcome and encouraged!

<<-- Summer School - Carol of the Bells -->>

I have always unabashedly proclaimed my love of video games, and I probably will 'til my dying day. I'm one of those parents that can school their kids in video games.
One of my favorite aspects of video games is the music. As the technology improved, so did the quality of music being written for video games. Yoko Kanno (one of the best Japanese score writers for movies and TV) got her start writing for video games, to give you a hint. So over the years I've been amassing a collection of game soundtracks.

Streets of Rage.

Fatal Fury.

Final Fantasy VII.

Final Fantasy Tactics.

Parasite Eve.

Dungeon Explorer II.

Ecco The Dolphin.

Ecco: The Tides of Time.

Frankenstein.

Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Killer Instinct.

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.

I could go on, easily. The point is, I love the stuff, so when I decided I wanted to do some remixes, I felt compelled to play in this field.

Enter: The Old School.

An old friend (known in some circles as Domino) procured for me a audio rip of the theme from Spy Hunter. Raise of your hands if you remember THAT one. Yeah, I sucked at that game, but I remember being utterly fascinated by guys who could play for hours on a single quarter.

The music is both highly memorable and very infectious; it's the Peter Gunn theme filtered through a... what, 4bit? 2bit? processor.
So with that rip and some choice sound effects from the game, I went to work.

Stereo Static presents:
Spy Hunter (Thump Mix).

( Liner Notes )

As usual, comments and critique are welcome and encouraged!

| Spy Hunter -->>

Some of you know this already, but I'm a teeny bit of a musician. I've recently decided that I'm a musician in the larval stage; I've talent, and I've received some royal jelly in the form of 3 years of concert band, 2 years of jazz band, a smattering of original music written and the occasional arrangement. I have performed on stage, I've solo'ed and I've handled behind-the-scenes tech for concerts, including setting up and running the soundboard for a live performance.
With all that experience, I say larval because my actual training has been relatively limited; I spent those 7 some-odd years playing trumpet, and not really learning music, just the pieces I was playing. I have had a single piano lesson, which has served me magnificently well (thanks, Great Granpa Clyde!). I have my own electric guitar and a few books to learn by, but I don't really do well with self-teaching.

At any rate, about 4 years ago I decided that playing and creating music was an important piece of my life that was missing. So, under the band name Stereo Static, I got my hands on a few chintzy programs (and one not-so-chintzy) and began dabbling with making techno pieces. I realized VERY QUICKLY that my lack of understanding of music theory was a fantastic hindrance. To wit: what I made sucked. So, in an effort to better understand this craft, and to hopefully become a full-fledged musician, I started doing remixes and mash-ups. By taking apart the work of the experts, I thought I would learn more about what I was doing.

So off and on, for the last 4 years I've been spitting out occasional pieces. The first piece that I did, mostly for practice, was a reworking of my last palatable original piece.

Some of you might have heard the original version, and a few of you might have heard a prior draft of the remix. What I have here is a brand new file.

Stereo Static presents:
Summer School for your downloading pleasure.

This will be up on a temporary basis. Grab it while it's hot!

( Liner Notes )

Free music, from me to you. All comments and critiques are welcome and encouraged!

I woke up this morning without a vagina. All is well.

Today, I get my latest Act I of "...Advent of the Lindemon" critiqued. Additionally, I've met an interesting contact online who gave me free coverage. I should send that person pancakes or something.

My headspace for writing has been off-center of late, since right after the script reading, in fact. Creativity did still burn within me, though, so I let the muse play with some music. I'm on the 8th test of a new piece (NEW FORTHCOMING WORK BY STEREO STATIC! HYEAH!) and I predict that I should be done in another pass or two, I just have to tweak some minor things.
Anyway, being this close to a finished musical project has restored some of what was missing on the writing side of my brain. To that end, I have 1 short story to edit for submission, another to plot and write, plus I need to get back to the Lindemon script. By the end of this, HOPEFULLY I'll have something good enough to start pushing. The accidental brilliance of this story is that it can fit in so many forms of media that the market is practically open to me.

And now something for, and from, you.

I feel like I'm in need of a bit of ego-stroking, and I want to change up my info page a little.
SO! Leave a quote in comments, something about me that you don't mind telling the rest of the world. No limitations, the sky's the limit. Be as truthful or as snarky as you want. I trust you guys to make it interesting

And yes, I know I'm setting myself for a beating. Now you can administer one, free of cause or recrimination!

1.5 hours sleep. 1.4 liters of coffee. And this day? She goes to 11.

Spent the work day working on bits of teeny projects that are part of a larger project designed to eliminate my position. Yes, that's right, my job is as secure as luggage under a TSA approved lock.

My brain is like oatmeal. Might even taste like it.

And, the special guest appearance by Captain Dumbass:
I get back to my cubical after lunch and open up the cupboard that I have above my desk to put away my utensils. Most people have these; they are top-hinged and swing outward, and they're relatively heavy. I'm about halfway to opening it when the thing slips out my hand and SLAMS!!! closed. The entire desk shakes. Figurines and plushes fall by the wayside.

I tug. No budging. I PULL. Nuffin. I grab the key on the other cupboard. No go. I find MY key. Results: negative. Ladies and gentleman, Captain Dumbass has landed.

Hahah, don't laugh yet. It gets better.

So after a number attempts at the damn thing, I shoot an email to my bro's at Office Services who handle internal issues such as this (I used to work there, so I try to bother them as little as possible. It's an utterly thankless job that pays way too little for the amount of stress it generates).

So one of the guys comes over, and I'm going over the problem with him, and I'm demonstrating how the door just won't open, see? I'm tugging hard and

POP

cupboard door gives. It's open.

Thank you, Captain Dumbass. My day just wasn't complete without you.

Then there are my friends. I love them to death but sometimes I worry. I slapped together the rough arrangement of a new song (new Stereo Static music coming!!!!!) and get it to the ears of one of my musician buddies in the office to listen to, give crit on, etc. I mean, this is a ROUGH DRAFT. Clips end abruptly, the levels are off, some place holders are there... rough draft.

His response?

"I love it! Here's a link! Post it now!"
Uh, thanks dude. But it's not done.

I, however, am.

I'm trying to explain chord progressions to a friend of mine. Would someone mind correcting me?

( Read more... )

Your help is greatly appreciated.

Trying my hand at... MASHUPS!
Now a good remix, or a good mash-up, basically has stripped down vocal tracks from one source and instrumentation from another. Lost of folk try to use finished recordings, but those are harder to do anything good with.

Guess which one this is. :D
Yup, the harder one. Why? Because stripped-down tracks are nearly impossible to come by. :)


From Afrikaa Bombataa and the Soul Sonic Force performing Planet Rock, and from Kraftwerk performing Computerwelt, Nummern and Computerwelt 2, Stereo Static brings you:
Planetary Rock. Right click and save! Do it and win!

This is not a final draft, but the composition is pretty much done. I'm just looking for suggetions on tweaking this bad boy to make it sound better. I already have an ideat that the bridge needs work, but aside from that I'm clueless. Suggestion, critique and comments are welcomed and appreciated!

NEW MUSIC!!!

I've been working on this one for almost a month, and it's finally ready for public consumption. I don't *think* this is a final draft, but it's close enough to unveil.

Ladies and gentleman, I give you Parasite Event, based on original music by Yoko Shimomura for the Parasite Eve game soundtrack.

Please, critiques and comments are welcomed and encourages; it is by your opinions that my craft grows. :)

[] Hung out with low_end_rhythm over the weekend. Some of it intentionally, some of it not, all of it good.

[] Saw Collateral. I enjoyed the art-film aspects of the movie (most notibley the use of color) but the last 30 minutes lost me, although I did like the final scene, even if we're left with an improbably ending.

[] Played with the digital recorder (I feel a need to name it. I'll come up with something soon) but not a whole lot. Will do so some more tonight.

[] Started working on a new remix. It's coming well, and I've made some phenomenal progress on it in a short amount of time, but I would guess I'm halfway down with the initial pass before I start tweaking all the dynamic stuff, adding effects, and the like. It's more video-game stuff, but far less cheezy and far more danceable. And no, there are not going to be any lyrics (he said, winking to someone specific in the audience).

[] I get to hang out with unseelie_fae in a few weeks. Nyah nyah.

[] It snowed this morning on my way in. Not to any detrimental effect; I could count the number of airborne snowflakes at any given time. Still, it was a surprise. I heard Georgia got snow too. What's up with that?

[] Shoryureppa!

I am now the proud owner of a one of these.

I am incredibly happy right now. So many plans will come to fruition now that I have it. Thanks to shrijani for hooking me up. :D

ALRIGHT FOR FIGHTING
Saturday was pretty cool. I found an old computer mic and set about doing some audio tests with the equipment I have. That was a no go but it did point me towards where I need to go to do what I want to be doing, which is recording voice and live instrumentation.
Saturday afternoon involved me jaunting to see the good docthestampede and getting trounced in a pair of HeroClix games and a few rounds of Soul Calibre III. The moment of the night: Doc is losing a game of HeroClix (a game he would go on to win later) and has been suffering from some horrendous, nearly catastrophic die rolls. He's rolled a handfuls of 4's and fives and the occasional 3, with each roll made on 2d6. Once, he rolled an 11 and man did that suck for ME.
Anyway, at this point late in the match he was sorely outnumbered and in danger of being trounced. On his turn he was left to either flee, turtle up or make a desperation attack; the only way he would have succeeded at the attack is if he had rolled a 12. He opts to go for the attack, since it really was strategically the best option even if it had such an extremely remote chance of success.
He winds up and pitches the dice into the box...
and gets an 11.

I spent five minutes on his floor, weeping with laughter. Of course, as I said before and typical of how my luck is in general and how the universe will swiftly punish me for even the slightest show of ego, he WON the game against nigh-impossible odds, but it was SO worth the almost deadly fit of laughter that moment gave me.

IT WAS THE BEST OF TIMES, IT WAS THE WORST OF TIMES
The day started with me receiving phone calls in the 30 seconds it took me to get out of bed and traipse to the lavatory. By the time all phone conversations and messages from previous conversations conveyed, relayed, etc, it was a cool 45 minutes before I was actually able to make it to the bathroom to drain the lizard, the very function thing that I had woken up to do in the first place.
The plan was to meet up with jaywalking, get some peeps together and just have fun. low_end_rhythm and soopagrover turned out to be the other peeps. We had brunch, played games (in which I proved once again this weekend how much I suck at games these days) and in general cracked each other up.
Before I left the house, mom tried to get me to do some things around the house, optional things that apparently she had always PLANNED for me to do but neglected to tell me until I was making my readiness to leave. Excellent timing.
Yes, she does that to me all of the time. Then, of course, I feel bad and guilty (at least for a little while) for not doing it because in her state she really can't do them herself.
In between that and my leaving the house, 1_woman_army and I exchanged lovely but inopportunely timed phone calls. We shall have to rectify our bad timing with better planning in the future.

PIMP IN THE PLACE WHERE YOU LIVE, NOW FACE NORTH
1) I wrote a short story which I posted a while go over in write_night. Normally I don't beg for readers and such but this particular story is very experimental and I have a hard time judging it objectively. I have no idea if the concept works, if the story works, of if the whole thing was a waste of time.
the story is here and I would be extremely grateful for any comments and critique one could pass on.

2) I finished Carol of The Bells, my last musical project, a few days before Christmas. A bunch of you were out on vacation, or what have you, so I'm going to toss up a link in this post. This is by far my best musical piece, for reasons involving the fact that I have a better understanding of the software I'm using, and that I'm working off of prewritten music instead of trying to write my own with such a limited understanding of musical theory. I have learned a hell of a lot about writing/creating music from making this, and I look forward to doing it again.
Anyway, for those of you that missed it the first time, Carol of the Bells. Just right click and save. I plan for there to be another draft or two of the piece, so critiques are welcomed and encouraged!

"If I tell you how I feel, will you keep bringing out the best in me?"
- Sade -

Ladies and gentleman..
After much hype and many sleepless nights, 68 separate musical tracks were merged and mixed together to bring you a sound unlike any other.

It has the olden style sensibilities of classic waltz.
It has the replacement-heartbeat of modern dance music.
I, as Peter Elfman, under the production name Stereo Static give you techno-waltz.

I give you...Carol of the Bells at 5:42, and at 13.05mb. Right click on the link to save the song.
And now, a few words from the creator.
( Liner Notes )

As always, your comments and criticisms are greatly appreciated and encouraged. If it sucks, tell me it does and tell me why! I can't improve it if I don't know where it needs improving. :)

Alright, some of you guys play guitar, so I'm hoping you can help me out here.

I transcribed, from sheet music written for piano and guitar, the notes for Carol of the Bells. The "piano" parts (the main melody and the accompaning harmonies and counter-melodies) were written in standard musical notation while the guitar bits were written in tabs and just gave you the chords. The musical notation transcribed without a hitch, but I ran into issues with the guitar tabs.

I cannot yet sight-read guitar tabs, so I used a book to translate them into standard notation. I then transcribed that notation as I did the piano notation... but all my transcribed tabs sound horribly off-key. I even tried pitch-bending in my engineering program to no avail.

My two hypothesis as to what went wrong are: I wrecked the translation but in a consistant manner so that I managed to translate into a different key.
Guitar is written in a different key from Piano. I know that brass and woodwinds are off from piano by a full step up, I was wondering if the same or similar was true between guitar and piano?

I could use some help here. I'm not even sure where to check on the web for answers to this issue.

IT'S DONE! IT'S DONE! THE HARD PART IS OVER!@@##$%%^&&

What's left is for me to scrutinize it then make some minor adjustments, but the composition is DONE, the pans and dynamic volumes are DONE!

Carol of the Bells runs 5:42 of toe-tapping, chest-thumping goodness.

I will try to upload by Friday.


YESS!!!

( DICE )

ICONAGE
My current/new Christmas icon is brought to you by myrafur; it's a great edit of my John Crichton icon. It's the first icon I've ever had that I didn't make, and it feels weird to look at it, but it makes me laugh and I enjoy it immensely. Thanks, Myra!

MUSIC
Alright, it's the one y'all been waiting for.

Or not, probably. :)

I now present to you the work of: Stereo Static. Right click and save!

Drum and Thunder - A comedy piece featuring bass by low_end_rhythm and clips from Pulp Fiction, The "Thundercats" outtakes, and other random snippits.

The Ross (So Sexxy) - A humor piece written by low_end_rhythm and myself to commemorate the love our friend's mother has for him. Oh yes.

Zenith (revised) - <-- NEW!! A revision of a previously released song. A MAJOR revision; new instrumentation, some altered orchestrations, etc. I expect there will be at least one more major revision, but that won't take place until after I get some recording equipment.

Summer School - One of my original three pieces, this is the better of the three.

Summer School (revised) - <-- NEW!! This is less a revision and more of a remix. It's exactly one phrase-repetition longer in length and has some brand new instrumentation. Generally speaking, it greatly surpasses the original, and is one of my best pieces to date.

????? - <-- REALLY NEW!!!! This one is for all of you video game music fans. It's my first true remix of a previously recorded piece (i.e. this isn't exactly original). I blame domino_mystagic for this one; she's the one that provided both the inspiration and the source files.
(Of course if you actually look at the file name you're downloading, the secret will be blown, but who cares).

Critique and comments are, as usualy, not simply welcomed but encouraged. I sincerely would love to know what you people thing, even if you hate it. ESPECIALLY if you hate it. :)


MUSIC (cont'd)
Currently I'm working on my own take of Carol of the Bells. I started putting it together with the Trans-Siberian Orchestra's version in my head, then jaywalking made a suggestion that has spawned something I would not have thought of on my own. For next year I might tackle Winter Wonderland and possibly one other Christmas song. In the meantime, I have a spoken-word piece that I want to do, at least 2 remixes, a rework of my piece "Gentle Storm" that will feature lyrics by 1_woman_army, a cover of a popular Genesis song, and conceivably one or two additional collaborative efforts. low_end_rhythm and I have been talking about that a lot.
To that effect I picked up a patch-cord today. If it works it might solve a lot of our problems. If it doesn't... then pooh on us and it's back to the drawing board.

- I went to a party on Saturday. Was reminded of why I don't party, and ran into a few women who were nearly unbelievable reminders of the type of women I had to deal with during my youth. I'm so glad to be so much more mature now, and sad to see they ain't.

- low_end_rhythm fed me last night. Yay. He also motivated musically, which he usually does.

- I have new music uploaded, but as I don't recall the precise filenames at the moment I'll have to link to it later.

- My FList has expanded wonderfully this year. I'm glad I've met every one of you.

- It's Monday, and there's snow on the ground. Kind of cool. Pun intended.

- Groucho Marx.

Well, it's morning for some of us out here.

I spent a fair amount of time last night working on "Carol of the Bells." Thank goodness the music is simple and it's the actual arrangement that will be the hard part; as part of this excercise I've had to:

Re-learn how to sight-read music on the Treble Clef

Teach myself how to read sigh-read music on the Bass clef, which I've never been able to do before (mostly because I didn't have to)

Teach myself how to read guitar chord notation

I haven't had to deal with the last yet, I'm still "painting the notes" for the rest. I think I'll be visiting Mom early this Sunday and spending a chunk of the rest of the day working on this piece.

I'm also trying to work the Trans-Siberian Orchestra's version out of my head so that I can come up with a more unique rendition. I want to be dramatic but happy and a little light'n'airy, not dramatic and devestatingly (but awesomely) heavy like theirs, yet that's what's been playing in my head. It's giving me visions of a chorus of Terminators singing the song as only 30 Arnold's could. Either that, or it's putting into mind something one might imagine Rammstein might create. or KMFDM.

While we're on the topic of my musical endeavors, I'm still open to collabrations. I wanna do something with low_end_rhythm but we have to figure out the issue of not being able to *ahem* record our work before progress can be made on that front.

Current planned projects include:

A new rendition of "Gentle Storm" now that I have had some good crit *wink at domino_mystagic and lyrics *bow to 1_woman_army for the piece

A cover for a popular Genesis song, which will probably be my most ambitious work considering I'm a novice

A spoken-word piece written entirely by yours truly that will either rock like Bach or suck like Schuck

And in the words of Bartles and James, "Thank eeeeyoooo for yeerr s'pport."

HURTY
My sister is moved in as of Saturday. 2 hours to unload truck. And boy did I feel it when I woke up this morning. Owwers. 5 stories is a hell of a lot to walk 8 times in one day. Never mind carrying at least 30lbs of stuff every time. My legs are fine, despite the fact that they got the worst of the workout; it's my shoulders and lats are all "Motherfucker, what!".

All for a good cause, though, and I enjoyed every minute.

HUNGRY
Visit mom briefly today. In spite of the fact that she had eaten not very long before my arrival, she still devoured half of my sandwich that was supposed to be my breakfast. It's a good thing I brought a snack with me. She's doing well, no word on when she comes home however.

Later, when I hung with kiia, we ordered Chinese food; my order was almost completely inpallatable. The egg roll was way too salty (shaddap, you pervs), the General Tsao's was HORRIBLE, and while the rice was edible, the pork in it that made it pork-fried rice was revolting. It's a good thing I brought some Reese's Pieces (with peanuts!), or dinner would have been ruined entirely!

Food? Eating? What's that?

DWARVEN
Just call me sneezy: that's how I spent most of my time during my visit with kiia.
< elfman > *AAACHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO*
< KiiA > .... dayam!
*repeat for 4 hours*

Aside from the repeated attempts at rapid lung ejection, I had a blast hanging out with her, and watching Resident Evil: Apocalypse with her. Twas a better flick than I thought it would be. Not a movie, but a flick.

NO RESISTANCE
Just call me a super-conductor; when the music wishes to flow from me, I offer it no resistance. To be frank, Ohm on a roll.

Wow, those puns even hurt me. MMMmmm. Puns.

Anyway, the next time I have access to real internet access (and not this fake one that I have that you guys call "dial-up"), I will definitely have 2 pieces to upload, possibly a third.
Yes. 2 pieces. Maybe 3. And I only uploaded Zenith just a few weeks ago. Wow.

Oh, and if you ever actually get the urge to listen to my schlocky attempts at music, just follow the "stereo static" tag; every post with links to download the .mp3's are posted on the "stereo static" tag.

ECHOES OF WHISPERS
It's amazing what the human ear can pick up. I just spent 45 minutes tweaking the timing for an effect that covers about 10 minutes of time in my latest piece; on 3 tracks I have a Left-Center-Right-Center repeating pan. When I was listening to a test on the headphones, I could hear the pan not coming in exactly as I wanted it. I go take a look at sure enough, some of the pan-points are 256th of a measure off.
256th of a measure. At 130bmp or so.
Holy shit.

YOU CAN'T GO BACK HOME
So Mom was given a tantative release date of 11/7 so she could be home for her birthday. The home visit this passed Friday went well (and I got an assload of cleaning done), but she found out Thursday that the doctors have been dicking her over on the last procedure she needs done before she can be released in good conscience. The timetable has been moved up a month.
It looks like another hospital dinner for Thanksgiving for her.

DESIRE
I want a dog. Can't have one until I move.
My sister finding an apartment (while making less money than me) and moving next weekend has given me hope that I might be able to find something. Plus some of the restrictions that I had before no longer apply. All this is to say I have hope for moving, and greater incentive to do so.
This, of course, will screw my mom over, but I have to put my child, who NEEDS his own space, ahead of my mother. Damned if you do, Damned if you don't, the story of my life.
What makes the decision easier is that it is what I want, and I don't get anywhere near enough of that in my life.

READING THE FUTURE
I have on order the Lost season 1 DVD set. It's for mom's birthday, but you better believe I will be watching it.
Along with that I have the Chronicles of Narnia collection on the way. I loved the first book way back when I first read it, I'm all amped for the movie, and I need a distraction from The Dark Tower.
Of course, I sabotaged myself of that by purchasing Wolves of Calla yesterday when luisito dragged me to a B&N on a mission to releave some UI stress. Evil friend. How DARE you bring me to a book store when I have a mad on for reading books I don't own?!? :D
I started the book last night on the train and I'm already through the first chapter. And I am a slow reader. I think I was up until 5am reading. And that's including the 4 hours I hung with jaywalking, 1 of which spent hanging with low_end_rhythm. So, I've got reading material for the rest of the year and well into the next year. Hot tomales.

I used to read like this when I was a kid, but after HS my reading frequency petered down to nearly nothing. Now I ALWAYS have a book on me.