Saturn's Ramblings

I had to post a follow-up to last night's post...

On my way out for my break here at work (to go for my walk), that same coworker stops me and mentions how she was thinking about bringing the one lady in Emergency that was swooning the most whenever I paged overhead, so that she could meet me..

It was at that point that, though very flattered, I figured I'd better point out how I'm married and all.. In other words, "Taken."

Seems she was planning to play matchmaker and hook us up... heh ahwell, I just had to post this follow-up anyhow..

So I'm sitting at my desk at work today at the switchboard... and suddenly there's someone standing RIGHT beside my chair, and it's the new girl. She works casually in the switchboard office as well as at Admitting and whatnot...

Anyhow she starts off saying "I wasn't sure if I should have just emailed you about this or tell you in person, but..." And then proceeds to explain that she has been talking with dozens of other female staff (nurses and clerks and the like) who all agree that, on the phone and in the overhead pages, I sound like "just the sexiest cowboy!"

Needless to say I was probably blushing pretty good, as I muttered "uh well.. thank you?" What the hell do you say to that?? =)

Truth be known somebody says that to me on the phones at least once a week, sometimes more -- hey it's the reason I like to do the radio thing (and yes, I'll be having a show soon!) ..

Anyhow, I must admit it made my day (which I hadn't been at all enjoying up till then), and I thought it'd be good Blog fodder..

OK All done tooting my own horn! (for now) =)

I know it's been "forever" since my last post... so it's time for the first installment to catch everyone up....

I see my last entry was for "Somebody Singed a Kitten" .. I've had some great feedback on that one; while i realize it's not the best song *ever* I must say I do like it...

I've been listening to a bunch of Linkin Park music recently .. Like with most artists, not everything they produce is wonderful.. However, I must say those guys are really quite talented at blending rock, rap, hip hop, and metal... often all in the one song. Good lyrics writing, and excellent timing and mixing in their tracks... I notice they still manage to mix all these quite different styles into the same song very well, through a combination of scratch, digital processing, and live instruments... all combined into one track!

Anyhoo.. they've provided me with some inspiration and ideas for new techniques to try... and since i really can't sing worth a damn, nor play an instrument... nor do i have the scratch equipment,... I just have to simulate them all digitally.. Hey.. that just means if I can make a decent track, with just that one method... then it's all the more impressive... eh? =)

K well this started off intending to write you an update and wound up being a "gush about Linkin Park" entry... oh well, guess I'll just have to do another shortly... Stay tuned!

Hey!! I finally made another song! Yay me!

OK, that bullshit aside... Yeah, I've arranged another tune.. runs 3:48 (not bad) and took about 3 hours, start to finish...

I'm proud, cause this is both the quickest project, and I feel one of, if not the best tune I've made so far. It's different from my norm anyhow.

I use short and long "loops" or clips of sound -- beats, harmonies, etc.. Up til now I've used primarily pre-made beat loops and then added one or two extra sounds to them to make them unique. That, or combining multiple beat loops together to make a new beat... either way, it meant that I was basically using a beat pattern that was pre-made.. There's nothing WRONG with that; a LOT of other artists do it.. but I wanted to challenge myself and design a beat totally on my own.

So, I just grabbed single samples... a snare drum hit, a bass drum hit... single hits, then I built a beat digitally, the same way a drummer would tap out his own beat... Since I can't play drums, and don't have a drumset... well, I have to do it digitally instead =)

So I came up with a snare and kick beat (most evident at the beginning of the song, but runs throughout), and then purely by chance, happened to break it up so that out of 4/4 time (4 beats per measure), it would keep missing a hit every 8th beat.. that's that pause you hear in the snare section. Then I added a nice big bass drum kicker to it all, and started playing with other samples.

I also used a lot fewer total samples than I have in the past. Instead I tried mixing it up and keeping it interesting by shortening clips, repeating segments of a master clip, and so on.. I also played with some filtered effects...

Of course, early on, I was inspired to include the voice clip (for those that wonder, it's Paul Harvey, the guy who does those radio spots called "The Rest of the Story")... Ever since i first heard the original clip, I was stuck on the mental image of those words..

Now, since I don't yet have any turntables, I have to get creative with Acid Pro to add the turntable-style effects that I like so much.. I figured I'd augment it as well by making the echos sound like they're on TV or an AM radio or something.. It's a neat effect, and the cool result is that one can use the echos way more with the effect present than I could get away with, without the effect... If that makes any sense.. =)

Anyhow, the song is (of course) called "Somebody Singed A Kitten" -- Much thanks to Diamond for her feedback and for being so nice while still being repeatedly subjected to clips (over and over and over and over and over and...) and segments of the song during the creative process... "How's this sound? How about now? What do you mean 'What's the difference?'??? No there! I changed THAT! What does a shrug mean?" and so forth... =)

Please please leave a comment here if you do listen to it. I always value feedback, good and bad!!!

Download/Listen to: David Taylor (Saturn) - Somebody Singed A Kitten

With thanks to "Anonymous"................

"Been sitting here with my ass in a wad, wanting to speak out about the bullshit going on in New Orleans. For the people of New Orleans... First we would like to say, Sorry for your loss. With that said, Let's go through a few hurricane rules: (Unlike an earthquake, we know it's coming)

#1. A mandatory evacuation means just that...Get the hell out. Don't blame the Government after they tell you to go. If they hadn't said anything, I can see the argument. They said get out... if you didn't, it's your fault, not theirs. (We don't want to hear it, even if you don't have a car, you can get out.)

#2. If there is an emergency, stock up on water and non-perishables. If you didn't do this, it's not the Government's fault you're starving.

#2a. If you run out of food and water, find a store that has some.
(Remember, shoes, TV's, DVD's and CD's are not edible. Leave them alone.)

#2b. If the local store has been looted of food or water, leave your neighbor's TV and stereo alone. (See #2a) They worked hard to get their stuff. Just because they were smart enough to leave during a mandatory evacuation, doesn't give you the right to take their stuff...it's theirs, not yours.

#3. If someone comes in to help you, don't shoot at them and then complain no one is helping you. I'm not getting shot to help save some dumbass who didn't leave when told to do so.

#4. If you are in your house that is completely under water, your belongings are probably too far gone for anyone to want them. If someone does want them, let them have them and hopefully they'll die in the filth. Just leave!
(It's New Orleans, find a voodoo warrior and put a curse on them.)

#5. My tax money should not pay to rebuild a 2 million dollar house, a sports stadium or a floating casino. Also, my tax money shouldn't go to rebuild a city that is under sea level. You wouldn't build your house on quicksand would you? You want to live below sea-level, do your country some good and join the Navy.

#6. Regardless of what the Poverty Pimps Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton want you to believe, The US Government didn't create the Hurricane as a way to eradicate the black people of New Orleans; (Neither did Russia as a way to destroy America). The US Government didn't cause global warming that caused the hurricane (We've been coming out of an ice age for over a million years).

#7. The government isn't responsible for giving you anything. This is the land of the free and the home of the brave, but you gotta work for what you want. McDonalds and Wal-Mart are always hiring, get a damn job and stop spooning off the people who are actually working for a living. President Kennedy said it best..."Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."

Thank you for allowing me to rant.

---

No, I didn't write this; I don't know who did.. However, I gotta say I agree!

An open letter to all Titanium Radio listeners:

Due to low listener counts, I've decided to discontinue the Sunday evening house party show on Titanium Radio.

Most of the listeners are on the east coast, and thus Eastern time zone. There had been a lot of complaining about how they had to stay up so late on Sunday nigths to catch the show, and most would drop off before the last hour...

In an effort to accomodate those listeners (hey, it's only worth it to me to do the show if someone is there to enjoy it!), I started the shows earlier... And had even fewer listeners...

Thus, I am discontinuing the show... This will allow me to put some more of my time into my music, so there is a silver lining here.

I am still planning to do occasional shows, back under the Spaced Out with Saturn title. These shows will usually be announced well in advance (a week or more, when possible), and will probably be done once a month or less. It's my hope that by having infrequent "specials," then the show will be fresher and more interesting, plus people might feel more inclined to make an effort to catch it, since it's no longer a regular thing... (Thanks to Dark for pointing that aspect out)

So there you have it. Also from time to time, I will take over manual control of song selection while at work; however because I WILL be at work, I won't be able to actually speak on-air during those times. I will, however usually be taking requests via IRC during those times. Usually these sessions wil not be planned in advance, but rather, will happen when the opportunities present themselves for me at work. In other words, it'll all depend on who I'm working with that day, and how busy it is at work =)

So with all of that, I want to thank everyone who did tune in throughout the last few months for Saturn's House Party -- to the regulars who were there for just about every show without fail, to the regulars who were there as much as they could be, and also to all the not-so-regular listeners, who tuned in when they could. To all of you, thank you for your support!

I do want to point out that the decision to stop the regular shows is a personal one. Yes, it is influenced by low listener count, but I do realize I cannot (and do not wish to) force people to listen to the show. However, as I've said before, it is a lot of work putting on a show like that, however simplistic it may come off in the end. There's a time commitment, as well as work for promos and preparation. For the amount of effort involved, it's just not worth it to me with only 2 or 3 listeners throughout the show.

In addition, when you have the same DJ, and the SAME 2 or 3 listeners every week, making the SAME requests each week.. It gets repetitive and boring, not only for the listeners, but for myself as well! I'm hoping that a less frequent show will not only attract more listeners each time, but shoudl also keep the show "fresh" -- I'll have the chance to create and find new music and clips and promos, and perhaps have themes and so on. All in all, not the "same old" show!

OK I've rambled on long enough. Thank you again out there for all your support! I'll post an entry in here when the next special show date is decided.

- Saturn

Well, I know it's been a while since anything menaingful was posted here. And today's post is no exception to the trend... well maybe sorta...

I finally got confirmation.... I'm now the proud new owner of a Permanent Full Time position. Oddly, this is actually the SAME position where I've been TEMPORARY Full Time for the past few months...

"So why is this so exciting then?" you may ask yourself... You may not, but this is MY blog, and in my hypothetical world, you're asking yourself that very question. So I'll tell you. It's because Permanent FT employees get slightly more inclusive benefits, paid days off for Stats (as Part Timer doing a TEMP FT position, I'm still technically Part Time, and thus get paid a percentage on each paycheque instead of the actual stat days AND I still have to take the stats off, meaning the money's about the same in the long run, but every 2 or 3 paycheques, I'm "missing a day" and thus that cheque is smaller... sucks for budgeting among other reasons...) It also means i get to lock in this schedule as a full timer for as long as I want it (months/years/whatever).

But I suppose that still doesn't fully explain why this is so exciting... Well, here's the full story...

On Wednesday Sep 28, the posting went up for the job. Postings always go up Wednesday afternoons and come down the following Wednesday at 4pm. At about 5pm on the 28th, I filled out the application form for internal postings at the hospital and faxed it in (because that's how they want the apps - by fax only).

After that, it was just a matter of waiting to see if anyone with more seniority than me (and who was qualified) applied as well.

Wednesday Oct 5 rolled around and the posting came down. This is when I started to get excited, because I'd find out (probably by that Friday) if I got it or not... Then Thursday happens. My supervisor was at her station next to mine, reading through her emails. Suddenly, she turns to me and asks if I actually applied. "Of course I did" I responded....

Turns out HR (Human Resources) only had one applicant (not me) who wasn't able to qualify on a technicality because it was a local (this site only) posting. They were asking if she wished to re-post it regionally (at which point the applicant would qualify). That's about when I pulled my copy (I ALWAYS keep copies) of the application out of my bag, complete with my logged time and date when I faxed it originally.

My supervisor contacted HR again to let them know that my application was in fact submitted, that THEY lost it, and that she was sending mine over to them herself, so get going processing it...

Which she did. So then Friday comes. Before a long weekend. My supervisor usually leaves around 4pm each day, so as you can imagine, I was pretty much freakign out by 4 on Friday, since she hadn't said anything about it yet, and of course I'm still wondering if HR is going to come up with some lame excuse not to process my application "because it's late" ... wouldn't be the first time this has happened to me...

Anyhow, on her way out the door, she pulls me aside to let me know that she's discussed it all with our Manager, and were still waiting on paperwork from HR to make it official; however, they are already starting the paperwork to post the Part Time position that I currently own... Which they can really only do if I GET the Full Time job... So that was good news, but it wasn't "written in stone" just yet (that only happens once HR does their thing with it). So, at least it was SOME reassurance going into a 3-day weekend.

The weekend: Turkey turkey turkey turkey turkey turkey turkey turkey turkey turkey turkey Yum!

Tuesday; today! About 2 hours after getting to work, my supervisor pulls me into her office to officially offer me the posting, which I gladly accepted! It even resulted in some fiddling with the schedule over the next few months to make the holidays I wanted in November work (no unpaid time off now), as well as some schedule optimizing around christmas (where I'll get to work xmas AND Boxing Day.. essentially just over 5 days' pay for 2 days' work! woohoo!)

Anyhoo, that's my mini-saga. glad it's over and even more glad I got the job! Yay me!

Some days you just wanna...

Trying out a new time slot for my radio show - Saturn's House Party - so starting this Sunday, September 25, 2005, the show will be from 4pm to 7pm Pacific time, 7pm to 10pm Eastern.

So once again, here's the access information:

1- Open your favourite player (Windows Media Player, WinAmp, ITunes, whatever you like to use) and open a URL from the File menu. The address is http://radio.titaniumwebs.com:8000

2- If you use Windows Media Player on Windows 98 and up (sorry, not NT 4), simply open in your browser: http://listen.titaniumwebs.com

3- If you prefer WinAmp, you can open this in your browser: http://radio.titaniumwebs.com/listen.pls

4- If you're on Dial-up, you will find the above links are too fast for your modem. For you, we offer a parallel, lower-quality stream specifically for dial-up listeners. Simply follow method #1 above, but instead use this URL address:
http://radio.titaniumwebs.com:9000

Remember: The next show will be SUNDAY, September 25, 2005, at 4pm Pacific, 7pm Eastern.

Request URL: http://request.titaniumwebs.com (Also contains most of our song listings for requests)

Wow. I am astonished at the abject stupidity of 99.9% of the general population, with specific focus on those pathetic saps who visit (and in some cases, work in) my hospital.

As many of you out there may already know, and for the benefit of those that do not, I work as an operator on the switchboard for the two major hospitals in this city. That is to say, we take internal and external incoming calls directed to and from BOTH hospitals. We also handle paging staff and doctors (oh do i have stories on THAT one for another day), as well as basically being the "quick-reference" service for all the hospital staff.. Yes, we often are asked what to do in all sorts of scenarios by nurses and doctors, as well as the public at large!

It has never ceased to amaze me just how much and how varied the information we at switchboard are not only required to know, but are expected to know! I've been asked, by a nurse on a unit, technical questions about samples for the Lab, about the logistics for transferring patients between units, and on and on -- please note, these are things that they should already KNOW the answers to, and barring that, should be asking (just an idea here) perhaps the LAB or BED CONTROL about... Why on earth they ask the SWITCHBOARD shit like that, I never have figured out... But they ask us in ways that suggest that not only do they not know their jobs, but they actually believe WE KNOW THIS STUFF! There's never any hint that they just want us to suggest who they COULD ask, either. They just assume we know it all. When we suggest they contact the appropriate department, they quite often get all huffy and indignant, like we're trying to be difficult or something! Yeeesh!!!

I know all that stems from the fact that (on the phone at least) we are constantly totally professional, usually courteous, and above all (and probably the saddest part) ... we usually DO know the answers...

Anyway, this week has been particularly filled with the stupid people... Drunks calling in the hospital looking for friends and family as patients - and not a little drunk either, but REALLY slobberingly drunk... at 2pm on a weekday, say Tuesday.. Yikes! And not just one or two but a whole mess of them, at least 20-30 a DAY.

Then you have the nuts. These are the crazy folks who are either IN the Psych ward, callign for someone they know in the Psych ward, or are looking for ways to be ADMITTED to the Psych ward. I kid you not! It's generally accepted now that 9 times out of 10, the "friends" of the people in the crazy house seem just as, if not MORE crazy, than those who are actually admitted... It was pointed out to me a few months back that the reason for this is partly because they all get to be great buddies while admitted to the nuthouse together and when one gets released, they all like to keep in touch and be crazy together, and THAT'S why so many crazies call through to speak to patients there. Makes sense. Too bad I have to deal with them tho... yeeeeesh

And on the crazy note, we have a new-ish department attached to Emerg* called PES (Psychiatric Emergency Services, pronounced "Pez" like the candy). Now, some brilliant dunderhead came up with a stellar plan when they designed that place. Someone thought it would be convenient for the patients to have a courtesy phone in there. A courtesy phone. In a Psych ward. Where MOST of the patients don't even know what day it is, or who they are, let alone have the mental capacity to figure out how to operate a simple phone. I say this from direct experience dealing with the crazies that wind up talking to the switchboard.

See, on this courtesy phone, you cannot dial long distance at all, and you must dial 9 to get out. Of course, they're nuts right? so all we get are the people who really don't know WHAT is goin' on...

Me: "Operator...?"
Little Old Lady, calling from the PES Courtesy phone: *sounds all business* "Hello, I'd like to speak to the Queen please."
Me: "...I'm sorry, who??"
Lady: *still dead serious* "The Queen please. The Queen of England?"
Me: *notes the location of the caller* "Uhh .. One moment please..."
Lady: "Oh, thank you" *you can just hear the pleased/relieved smile in her voice*
Me: *mutes her out and dials into the unit desk in PES*
PES Nurse (male): "PES, ____ speaking..."
Me: "Uh, yeah.. I have a lady on the line on your courtesy phone... wants to be connected to teh Queen of England... Do you wanna take this call or deal with it somehow..?"
PES guy: "Oh I know who that is .. yeah I'll just go over and turn off the phone, OK?"
Me: "Uhh OK then..." *disconnects him and the lady*

And that one's a pretty mild example of the sort of shit that goes on...

Now what prompted today's blog entry? Something simple enough, and yet......

I get a call from the Admitting desk, which happens to be actually just around the corner of the hall from where we hide. Seems they've been having people complaining off and on all day to them that the payphones (about 20 feet away from their desk) don't accept coins, only cards (because the card reader is so prominent on the phone I guess).

So, rather than just walk over and check it out to help these stupid people, she calls ME in the switchboard to ask me about it, asking me what she should do with these people... After a lot of back and forth (mostly me saying "I can't imagine why the phone company would put out payphones that don't accept coins!"), I just finally gave up and told her I'd take a look and get back to her in a minute.

That's when I wandered into the hall to look at the phones. Wish I had a photo to show you all, but anyhow.. Suffice to say the coin slot was blatantly obvious, with pictures of coins beside it to indicate where to put them, AS WELL AS written instructions on the phone face as to how to desposit coins and use the phone.... I mean, holy shit! How stupid/ignorant/out of touch do you need to be to miss all that??? Even more to the point, how much effort would it have been, really, for that admitting clerk to just walk over to the phone and look for herself?? Instead, she was just sitting there arguing with the patients who were already too ignorant to work it out for themselves.... Wouldn't you think it'd take WAY less time out of her busy day to just check it out so she woudl know to just say to the morons "well Gee, sir, the coin slot is on the front of the phone right near the top, there, in the middle. In that bright yellow band there? Almost like neon? With th epictures of coins beside it? No, sir, not the bottom, the top. You know, where it usually is on most payphones? Yes, congratulations, sir, you found the slot! Hope your sex life goes better.... "

All I can say to all this is ... Oh my fucking GAWD!

ARGH!

Today, purely on a whim, Holly (Diamond) suggests "Hey, why don't we work on a song together, haven't done that before..." (I think she's a bit jealous of "Sherlock" who collaborated with me on my last tune, Horny Sax, but I digress)..

I'm thinking "Great! Finally she wants to do this!" .. You see, at first, while very supportive of my exploration into music, she didn't seem too terribly interested herself. Then Sherlock came along, with her vast knowledge of traditional music (in such areas I am fully ignorant) and we just had a lot of fun putting together a song.

Holly felt a little left out. Understandable. Well, since she said so, I had been looking forward to working on one with her! So we sat down, started going through samples, and though perhaps a rocky start (hey, living together for 8 years... you do the math), after a little while we started getting an idea of what the other had in mind. With a bit of play and fiddling, we created Epic.

Epic is so named because upon completion, as we were running through it the last couple times, the piano sequences struck me as an almost David Foster feel, which made me think of the Olympics opening song thing from sometime in the 80's (Yeah I don't remember what year, sue me). Anyhow, the word the came to mind to describe it was "Epic".

Check it out. You can download and listen to Saturn & Diamond - Epic and please post a comment to let us know what you think!

I recently was reading a friend's Blog and she was disturbed by a pest attack on her computer... I've given out this advice on many occasions, but fingured maybe I'd just share it with the world... (Or the dozen or so people reading this anyhow).

If you want to keep your Windows free of pests like viruses, adware, and spyware (not to mention the newer classes: MalWare and ExtortionWare), try out the following list. I run ALL of these together, and together they form a nice protective shield to prevent pests from being installed, as well as a formidable scanning chorus for detection and removal of those VERY few that might manage to slip through...

And wow, I'm so nice, I have provided links to download all these programs (well, except Norton's, because it's too big... but it MIGHT be available upon request) ...

The 4 big items I use to keep things tidy... I run all of these scanners every few days...

Norton Anti-Virus -- The 2005 version does pick up quite a few spyware and adware pests (along with the obvious viruses), but sucks at removing them -- however it does point out the exact locations for manual removals....

Pest Patrol Professional -- By far not the best pest remover, but it picks up stuff the others miss... It's memory-resident modules Cookie Patrol and MemCheck are quite powerful at stopping baddies..

AdAware SE Professional -- Unlike the free Personal edition, this one's USEFULL!! And the Pro version comes with Ad-Watch which is VERY effective for BLOCKING spyware and adware installs. Ad-Aware catches a ton of stuff that others miss, and it's pretty fast too.

Microsoft AntiSpyware Tool -- I have been running the beta of this for at least 6 months now, and its scanning and removal capabilities are excellent. Additionally, the memory-resident blockers in this program are very thorough. Since it's a Microsoft program (only works on Windows XP with SP2), it manages to hook into Windows more thoroughly than other pest software... (Read: much more effective blocking)

With all 4 of these installed, you have awesome virus protection, and overlapping pest protection, making for a very decent estimated 99% (or better, in my experience) protection from new pests, and pretty much total detection and removal abilities.

I've used this combination for many months now and have only had maybe a dozen pests slip through in all that time -- and I'm on risky websites and getting risky downloads CONSTANTLY..

** Be sure to run the updaters in each program regularly (minimum weekly) to ensure you have the LATEST version of the programs, as well as the latest pest definitions! With AdAware Pro, you can install the version linked here, and then when you run the updater, it'll tell you a newer version is available for download. Download and install it. It'll still work, as long as you installed this one first =)

The following secret message is in Binary. Those that know how, feel free to convert it. Standard 8-bit binary to ASCII conversion. I used a website to cheat to make it. More fun if you convert it by hand tho I suppose... I'm too lazy tho.

010101110110100001100001011101000010000001100001001000000110001001101001011101000110001101101000001011000010000001100101011010000011111100100000001000000100011101101111011011100110010100100000011101000110111100100000011000010110110001101100001000000111010001101000011001010010000001110100011100100110111101110101011000100110010101101100001000000111010001101111001000000111010001110010011000010110111001110011011011000110000101110100011001010010000001110100011010000110100101110011001000000110001001101001011011100110000101110010011110010010000001100010011101010110110001101100011100110110100001101001011101000010110000100000011011110110111001101100011110010010000001110100011011110010000001100100011010010111001101100011011011110111011001100101011100100010000001101001011101000010011101110011001000000110101001110101011100110111010000100000011011010110010100100000011100000110110001100001011110010110100101101110011001110010000001110111011010010111010001101000001000000111100101101111011101010010000000101101001011010010000001000010010000010100100001000001010010000100000101001000010000010100100001001000010000010100100001000001010010000100000100100000011110010110010101110011001000000100100100100111011011010010000001100001011011100010000001100101011101100110100101101100001000000110001001100001011100110111010001100001011100100110010000101100001000000111011101101000011001010110111000100000011001000110100101100100001000000100100100100000011001010111011001100101011100100010000001100011011011000110000101101001011011010010000001101111011101000110100001100101011100100111011101101001011100110110010100111111001000000010000001010111011010000111100100100000011001000110111100100000011110010110111101110101001000000111010001101000011010010110111001101011001000000110110101111001001000000110001101100001011101000111001100100000011000010111001001100101001000000111001101101111001000000111001101100011011100100110010101110111011001010110010000100000011101010111000000111111001111110011111100100000001000000011110100101001

Came across a somewhat old ad now, but still awesome... Windows goes international, with a special Australian version of Windows 2000... check out the features:

Yesterday (Saturday) I collaborated with our friend Jo (aka Sherlock), who's quite knowledgeable and talented with music ... (from Australia, she teaches music lessons out of her home...)

Anyhow, we'd been talking about trying a song project together for months, and finally got a chance to work on one yesterday. We'll definitely be trying it again! This song we made is pretty good I think -- it came out well, considering, and has an interesting blend of both styles (myself with the catchy beats and such, and her with more of a Jazz influence).

It's more of a dancy Jazz kind of a song (we really weren't sure just how to classify it). It’s definitely got more melodic components than my previous work (Thanks Jo!)...

We couldn’t think of a name for it at the end... I think we were just tapped out by then. We tossed a few lame ones around and then asked Holly. After listening to it, she eventually tossed out the present title, which Jo jumped on, and I thought was both cheeky and clever because of both what you first think of, and then because there are in fact French Horns and Saxophones used as the core melodies...

The song is called “Horny Sax� and is a joint project by Sherlock & Saturn. You can download it here and have a listen – we’d be very interested in any feedback we get on this. Please feel free to comment openly and honestly on the blog here.

The song is premiering on Titanium Radio tonight (Sunday) during Saturn’s House Party, which starts (as usual) 6pm PST, 9pm EST.

Wow.. Microsoft is getting all ghetto and gangsta... Check out this sneak photo of the packaging for the 2002 version of Word, that was only briefly released in selected areas in the USA...

- Because I'm a man, when I lock my keys in the car I will fiddle with a wire long after hypothermia has set in. The CAA is not an option. I will win

- Because I'm a man, when the car isn't running very well, I will pop the hood and stare at the engine as if I know what I'm looking at. If another man shows up, one of us will say to the other, "I used to be able to fix these things, but now with all these computers and everything, I wouldn't, know where to start." We will then drink beer and break wind as a form of holy communion.

- Because I'm a man, when I catch a cold, I need someone to bring me soup and take care of me while I lie in bed and moan. You're a woman. You never get as sick as I do, so for you this isn't a problem.

- Because I'm a man, when one of our appliances stops working, I will insist on taking it apart, despite evidence that this will just cost me twice as much, once the repair person gets here and has to put it back together.

- Because I'm a man, I must hold the television remote control in my hand while I watch TV. If the thing has been misplaced, I may miss a whole show looking for it (though one time I was able to survive by holding a calculator).....applies to engineers mainly.

- Because I'm a man, there is no need to ask me what I'm thinking about. The answer is always either sex, cars, or hockey. I have to make up something else when you ask, so don't ask.

- Because I'm a man, I do not want to visit your mother, or have your mother come visit us, or talk to her when she calls, or think about her any more than I have to. Whatever you got her for Mother's Day is okay ; I don't need to see it. And don't forget to pick up something for my mother, too.

- Because I'm a man, you don't have to ask me if I liked the movie. Chances are, if you're crying at the end of it, I didn't....and if you are feeling amorous afterwards...then I will certainly at least remember the name and recommend it to others.

- Because I'm a man, I think what you're wearing is fine. I thought what you were wearing five minutes ago was fine, too. Either pair of shoes is fine. With the belt or without it, looks fine. Your hair is fine. You look fine. Can we just go now?

- Because I'm a man, and this is, after all, the year 2005, I will share equally in the housework. You just do the laundry, the cooking, the cleaning the vacuuming, and the dishes, and I'll do the rest...... like wandering around in the garden with a beer wondering what to do.

_______
This has been a public service message for women to better understand men.

OK then!

ook longer than anticipated to get aroudn to posting this update in the Incredible Saga that is my PC.

I couldn't sleep right away Saturday night, so I finally got back out of bed and started tinkering with the PC.

I installed a brand new Network Interface Card (NIC) in there (I had 3 unopened ones laying around for jsut such an occasion -- and because my linux machine enjoys snacking on them. That's not just poetic license. The bugger eats them every few months. Just fries em out. anyhoo...)

After gettign that all configured, I went into the BIOS and disabled the onboard LAN (disabled the network interface that's built into the motherboard). While I was at it, I stuffed the other RAM card that had been laying naked on the desk for the last week, under suspicion of badness.... considering each RAM card had been out for days and durin that time, the system froze repeatedly, I was less and less convinced they were to blame...

Anyhoo, I put em in, diabled the onboard LAN, and fired it up. That was at 02:20am Sunday morning. It is right now, according to the system clock on my PC, 18:46 - 6:46pm for you 12-hour droolers - Monday evening. It hasn't been restarted since Sunday morning, and still seems fine. Gonna leave it runnign another day at least and then maybe put Java back on and see what it does.

Yay me! (watch it crash the moment I post this......)

EDIT at 19:00 - no freezing so far!! yay

Found in my email ..............

A major research institution has recently announced the discovery of what is believed to be the heaviest (and densest) chemical element yet known to science.

The new element has been named Governmentium. Governmentium has 1 neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and 11 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.

These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. Since governmentium has no electrons, it is inert. However, it can be detected as it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A minute amount of governmentium caused one reaction to take more than 4 days to complete when it would normally take one second.

Governmentium has a normal half-life of 2 to 4 years; however, it does not decay, but instead undergoes multiple reorganizations in which a portion of the assistant neutrons, assistant deputy neutrons, and deputy neutrons exchange places. In fact, governmentium mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization causes some morons to become neutrons, forming iso-dopes. This characteristic of moron-promotion leads some scientists to speculate that governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration.

This hypothetical quantity is referred to as Critical Morass.

You will know it when you see it.

It was Saturday. We'd gone out to my parents' place to meet up for brunch and then go see the model airplane show out their way - very cool actually, done up just like the real thing - I took pics and video, and when I'm done going through them all (in a week or two), I'll be posting them on here in a later entry...

OK so, after the show, we headed back to my parents' place out on Tanner Ridge (by Keating, for the locals that care out there), to pick up the car.. We headed out on the Pat Bay Highway, southbound, with Holly behind the wheel..

After only a short moment on the road, suddenly traffic bunched up, and everyone came to a near halt. Neither of us could make out what had happened maybe 6 cars up, but it seemed like something major..

That's when I saw the looooong smear of what looked like manure going from around the middle line between the lanes, curving off to the shoulder... That's when Holly spotted the deer, just a few feet in front of a large new-looking pickup truck, also off on the shoulder.

She swerved over to the shoulder and parked, maybe 10-15 feet past the deer. Meanwhile, I'm still just picking up on what's happened. As we're getting out of the car - fast - she says "You can call 911 on your cel" (oh really?? Gee, I didn't know.. pfft)

I whip out my cel and waggle it at the driver of the truck, who is still sitting at the wheel, looking basically shocked. The truck isn't even scratched, and I'm getting puzzled. More so, when I look down at the deer in front of me on the ground.

I will refrain from the gory details, but at this time it was still breathing, with difficulty. Its eyes were open and it just looked... confused. The smell was horrific, like a very dirty stable on a very hot day. Then I realized why. Apparently the impact was primarily in the gut region, which was sliced open pretty good. Without getting overly graphic, suffice to say that the poor thing was ... eviscerated.

All this happened in maybe 3 or 4 seconds. By this time, I was flipping open the phone, and Holly was talking to the driver, asking if he was OK. Poor guy said he wasn't the one that hit the deer (YOUNG deer too, maybe a little over a year old, but FAR from full grown). He said he was right behind the guy that did, and he pulled over to make sure everything was OK. Worst part was, he'd just broken up with his girlfriend moments before... so he was kinda useless to the proceedings...

By this time, 911 had finally picked up. I told them what happened, and suggested they send a police car by. As I'm telling her all this, an ambulance pulls up behind the truck. They'd seen the accident and pulled a U-turn to check it out. As the 911 operator was asking me if everyone was OK (and as I replied "everyone but the deer I think" – it was all so surreal...), the driver of the car that DID hit the deer wandered up. That's when we realized his car was parked on the shoulder, maybe 300 feet away. Long way to come to a stop, I think. Perhaps some speeding was involved??

I checked if he was OK too, and he was. I gave my personal info to 911 and they said a police car was on the way...

Meanwhile, Holly was kneeling by the deer's head, giving it a few ginger strokes on the head. And then she came back over to us. I think that's about when it finally died.

After making sure everyone was still going to be OK, we started to walk back to our car. The guy in the truck left, and the paramedics wandered over to the deer, which was with us, on the way back to our car. We all stood over the deer for a few minutes, contemplating it, and discussing around it... The male EMT kept making off-colour jokes about it, and the female EMT kept glancing at us and then glaring at her partner, I think trying to make him shut up. Between the gore, the smell, and the sadness of the event itself... I can't blame her.

What got to me later was that I found myself... well, not joking so much as nodding and finding nothing wrong with HIS jokes... Maybe it was a shock thing or just an adrenaline thing. Or maybe I've worked in a hospital too long. Who knows.

That was about it. Sad thing. I'm not exactly the most outwardly empathetic person in the world, but once in a while something happens that just tugs at the heart strings...

I had an interesting encounter last night as I left work...

* Disclaimer: For the sake of description, some of my references to the guy below may seem a little callous or harsh... mostly due to the fact that there's no delicate way to convey many of the details of the story. If that offends you, then go away; nobody forced you to read this. *

It was 21:30 and I was heading out of the hospital to the parkade to get my car and head home. As I entered the stairwell in the parkade from the side door, I glanced out into the darkness through the front entrance door and see some guy out there in a wheelchair waving at me through the window... Looking like he needed help entering the building, so I wander over and open the door (thinkign that front door must somehow be locked from the outside or something, or maybe he just needs help holding the door open)...

He doesn't make any motion to head indoors. He also doesn't say anything. He just sits there, occasioanlly making a sort of half grunt, half moaning noise, and gesturing (limply) with his arms, which I realize are not terribly functional due to some sort of neurological damage. He gestures and makes low noises for a moment until I realize he's trying to mime the act of writing. That's when it dawns on me he's UNABLE to speak... (hey, it was late..)

So upon realizing what he wants to do, I rummage through my bag and realize I have no pen... I *do* have paper. So I convey this to the guy. It involved much genturing and loud speaking and a few repetitions, but he eventually got it, and started (again, limply) gesturing at something... After a moment, he got a look on his face like he's gone through this crap before, rolled his eyes, sighed, flopped his arms into his lap, waited a moment, and then tried again with the motioning... Apparently, it's not the first time he's had this trouble getting his point across.

By now, I'm really starting to feel for the guy. In all, maybe 2 minutes have gone by, but already I'm realizing this could take a while.. Finally I realize he's trying to get me to understand that he wants me to open his little fanny pack (hanging from his chair arm) and when I do, I see a pen in there. I extract the pen and grab the envelope I'd found in my bag, and he mimed writing again. I handed him the pen, which he took in both hands... well loose fists...

As I held the paper for him on his armrest, he held the pen in both fists (like big chopsticks I guess), I realized the pen was broken somehow... the clicker inside wasn't clicking, so the ball point wouldnt STAY out... he leaned over, and used his tongue to press and hold the button on the end, so the tip would stay out, while he wrote on the paper. Talk about perserverance!

Understandably, the writing was pretty choppy... It took me a moment to decipher it all, but I eventually worked it out:

need
SeuRiTY
DRLeFTkeY

...Hmmm "Need Security?" I asked. He nodded. "A doctor left you a key?" He nods again. "OK then... I'll call security then!" He looks up at me all hopeful. I whipped out my trusty cel phone, and, given that I work Switchboard, I sadly already know the direct dial number for Security Dispatch... I dial it and after about 14 rings, they finally pick up (they're morons on a GOOD day, so I wasn't too optimistic)...

Security Moron Woman: *fumbling noises and a crash* "Security...?"
Me: "Uh, yeah Hi.. I'm Dave from the Switchboard.. I was just heading to my car in the Parkade, and there's a guy out front here who needed Security -- apparently you guys have a key for him, left by a doctor...?"
SMW: "Uhh ... a doctor left him a KEY? That's kind of unusual.. What's it for?"
Me: "Actually, I have no idea... See, he apparently can't speak, so he was writing brief notes to me on a scrap of paper... with a broken pen... and we're running out of paper.."
SMW: "uhhhh"
Me: "I need to get going home, too.. Can you just send someone by to talk to him? And tell them to bring a pen and some paper..."
SMW: *noises and ringing in background* "Uhh can you hold for a moment?" *click - hold music begins*

Me (to the guy): "They put me on hold..."
Guy: *rolls eyes and shrugs, then just sits there lookign defeated*

Right about now, it hits me that it's getting damn cold out there, especially in shorts and a short-sleeved shirt, on a windy evening. With overcast. At night.

Me: "How about we head inside where it's warmer?" *gesturing going inside, and starting to open door*
Guy: *looks confused for a moment, then the light seems to go on and he starts aiming his power wheelchair at the doorway...*

I was a bit concerned at first... the guy was jerkign the joystick on his chair all over the place and I was sure he was going to bounce it off the doorway a few times... Somehow through all the chaos, he managed to get inside without touching the sides. I must say, I was both puzzled and impressed...

Once inside, I was still on hold... So I took the opportunity to gather more information from the guy... So I ask him what the key is for. He writes:

HadkeY
FoR
APT

Me: "Ah, Security has the key to your apartment?"
Guy: *nods and then writes more...*

LAsT
THeY
Letmein

Me: "Ah, Last time they let you into your apartment?"
Guy: *looked very pleased and nods emphatically*
Me: "And where is the apartment?"

CaRRiBean
BY
EMP

Me: *repeats this back to him*
Guy: *nods*

Round about now (on hold for the last 5 or 6 minutes), the Security woman comes back on the phone...

SMW: "Sorry to have you on hold so long... had a few Stats to deal with..." (meaning some emergencies...)
Me: "So, like I said, I do need to go soon, but I don't want to just abandon this guy.. Can you send someone around to help him?"
SMW: "Well, they're all busy on Stat calls now, so I don't have anyone free..."
Me: "OK well, while I was on hold, he told me he lives at Carribean Apartments by EMP...?"
SMW: "AH! OK.. what's his name?"
Me: "We hadn't got that far... let me ask him"
Me (to the guy again): "What is your name?"

TonY
**** (censored to protect his identity)

Whereupon, I tell her his name...

SMW: "OK.. Well, we still don't have anyone free, but if you tell him to go down to Emergency and wait there, I'll send someone to help him as soon as they're free..."
Me: "Alright, I'll do that; can you alert Emerg that he's coming so they don't have to go through all this again?"
SMW: "Yeah OK... bye" *click*

I deal with these idiots all day long at witchboard, so I'm used to that....

Anyhow, I start to explain that they'll be a few minutes and he'll have to wait, etc... But for some reason, he's not getting me... So it's MY turn to write...

Emergency
Calls
Busy right

And by this time, he gets it. He motions for the pen back (which I have since dis-assembled and fixed), and writes more:

SecuRiTy
GUys
TheYno
Come

And I again explain verbally (with gestures) that they will come soon, but are busy right now...

SoIneed
TOwaiT

Me: "Yes, for a little while. You need to go to Emergency and they will meet you there..."
Guy: *puzzled look*
Me: *writes....*

They will
meet you
at Emergency
As soon as possible

Guy: *Looks relieved and happy, gestures at the door*
Me: *goes and hold the door open so he can head to Emerg...*
Guy: *Makes some gestures, then looks like he gives up*
Me: *Realizes what he's doing finally* "You're welcome!"
Guy: *smiles at me and then zooms off to Emerg*

By the end, it was just after 22:00 and I'm finally wandering over to my car to go home.. It may have been confusing and difficult, but it felt good to know I helped a bit...

Well, I removed that Java stuff... And Lo! and behold! It made it all the way throught he night and into the next day, and no crashy!! Ran 20 hours before I chickened out today and rebooted it just before leaving for work (hey, I would rather prolong the testing phase rather than have it freeze on me while at work, with no way to reset it. I need SOMETHING to do at work!!)

Anyhow, it appears (so far) that it's stable once again! I rebooted at about 12:45pm today and will do my best not to reboot it until at least that time tomorrow. If it lasts, YAY! If not.... Grrrrr

Stay tuned for Part VI tomorrow....

*** ammendment.... 30 seconds after posting this entry ... it froze up. BASTARD MACHINE!!

...and the bloody saga continues!! I have now tried each stick of ram by itself in there and it still freezes up (admittedly, it's takign much longer to do it tho...)

This morning, I ran 5 passes for each stick, of a DEEP ram test. Not one single error reported!!

What the hell?!

So while I still SUSPECT the RAM, I am now wondering if there's something in one of my installed programs that's doign it. It ran flawlessly when I first reinstalled windows.. it wasn't till after I started loading a bunch of software on there that it started freezing up again.

My main suspicion is Java. I have to have Java on there to run LimeWire and Azureus (a Torrent client). These are some of the best file sharing programs out there, but ... well I've always been suspicious of Java. And they need Java. So now, I've uninstalled both programs, and removed Java from my system. I've rebooted and now I'll wait and see. if it stays stable for 24 hours or more, we'll blame Java for now. if not, I'll start removing one program at a time until it DOES stay stable.

The only other thing is, could it be other hardware?? Video? Unlikely, based on how it's crashing... Network? VERY unlikely, but i suppose possible... Sound? Again unlikely, but possible, altho it uses onboard sound on the motherboard, so if the sound is the problem, then maybe the mobo is gonna fail soon.... It's not the RAM slots either. I've tried the ram in each of the 3 slots and have similar results... unless they're ALL fucked...

Any ideas out there??????

Well, all has been wiped and reinstalled. Windows is all fresh and shiny and new.

And the bastard still keeps FREEZING UP ON ME!!!!!!

Now I'm realizing it must be a ram problem. Why is it that the POST (power on) ram tests don't have the ability to THOROUGHLY test ram??? Bullshit if you ask me... So as I write this, I'm at work, my PC has frozen up at home, and I am now waiting till my beloved gets off work and comes home so she can hit Reset.

Of course, assuming it IS the RAM, I'm having her remove one of the 2 cards in there before she reboots it. Then it's a 50/50 chance that it'll still freeze up.. and if so, we'll play "musical RAM" and try swapping that one with the one she removed.

The bitch of the situation is that it takes anywhere from 20 minute to 4 hours before it freezes up. Kind of a negative test -- if it DOESN'T crash, then it's OK -- but you're never fully sure it's not just takign longer than usual this time... the only SURE thing is when it does freeze up. Ugh.

Anyone wanna donate some ram or money for ram to me? I need PC3200 DDR400 cards, 512meg or bigger =)

Wish me luck... I assume there'll be at least a part IV to this saga, one way or another.....

Well, it's good that the cpu fan problem came to my attention, but it seems it's not the hardware that's freezing windows... it's windows I think... Off to do a repair reinstall...

The past 2 or 3 days, my PC has been "randomly" freezing up on me after a few hours following each reboot. And by "freeze" I mean freeze. Whatever was on the screen at the moment of the freeze, stays there. If it's on the desktop or whatever, then this provides a handy-dandy timestamp since the system clock in the bottom right corner is displayed (and frozen as well). No mouse movements, nor keyboard inputs are accepted. Basically, all that one can do is hit Reset.

I was getting disturbed by it not just because I thought Windows was screwing up on me again, but because it was starting to happen more and more quickly after each reboot. In fact, last night I came in to use it to check email, it halted seconds after that, and I immediately hit reset to reboot it.

It wouldn't boot up fully after that, freezing just as it was drawing the desktop again.

"CRAP!" I think to myself... "This couldn't happen at the START of my week off, so I have time to fix it? No! Has to happen at the end, when I have to rush around ot fix it instead of enjoying my last few days off." *grumble*

So I go away for a bit to cool off, and come back about 20 minutes later to try again. It's been off all this time now. Boots up fine, so I figure I'm gonna have to reinstall Windows to solve this... So I decide to play it safe and backup everything onto the other computer. I start the backup at about 11:30pm and it runs for 27 minutes (and finishes)... By this time, I've gone to bed.

I came in this morning to discover that at 01:07am, it froze again. How do I know? Because the bloody clock is frozen again! Wheeeeee.

Now I'm starting to get suspicious. So I install the PC-Probe program that comes with my ASUS montherboard CD and does such snazzy things as tellign you on the fly how fast (RPM) your fans are spinning, how hot the CPU and motherboard are, what voltages things are running at, etc. That's when I start to suspect that Windows may not be to blame after all.

The CPU was at 50 degrees Celcius! That sucker usually runs between 32 and 35 degrees C, even under load! As I type this (the problem all resolved now), it's only 33. That's when I notice the CPU fan speed isn't even registering, it's so slow. Now, that thing should spin at LEAT 1500 rpm, and often more, up to around 2500. The program can't register anything below about 500rpm and it's below that. That's not enough to bring any useful amount of air through the heatsink! As I watched and pondered this, the temperature jumped up another degree...

So I pull the PC away from the wall a bit and slide off the cover. I put my finger to the CPU fan and, as suspected, the sucker was barely turning. No force behind it at all. I took my finger away and watched... as the thing slowly came to a halt and stayed there. I gave it a few tentative flicks to get it moving again, but no results.

So, obviously, the system was freezing on me because the chip was overheating (ugh)....

Great. Where the HELL am I gonna get a new CPU fan right now, with no spare cash?

Wait! I bought that 10-pack of case fans... surely I could fabricate something......

I detached the heatsink assembly form the chip and vacumed it out. Then I ran som tests on it to see if it'd work on different ports on the motherboard or what. Nope. Fan's fried. Hmm. I detatched the fan from the heatsink (It was just clipped on) and then I realize that a case fan is about 1/2" wider than the cpu fan was... and doesn't have all the clips and shit for holding it onto the heatsink.

Hmm... "Well," I think to myself, "I suppose it really only needs to be able to blow air across the heatsink right? Who cares HOW it's attached as long as it's solid and blows air... Now how.....?"

And then the light bulb went on over my head... TWIST-TIES!!! Ah yes, nothing more handy than a twist tie... except maybe paper-clips, but they wouldn't work here...

I then re-attached the heatsink to the motherboard again, and realized there were some handy poking-out tabs on the mounting bracket that nobody was using... perfect places to strap something like, say, a fan, to. I threaded the twist-ties through each of the 4 mounting holes in each corner of the fan, and fashioned little loops to hook around the tabs below. Alas, my twist-ties were deficient!! too short by about 1/2 inch!! ARGH!

Wait! BALING WIRE!! YES! If it could replace a muffler hangar for over a year on my old Corolla, it can serve to hold on the fan!! Yay! I have a big bundle of THAT stuff! I snip off 4 long pieces and thread em all through. After about 15 minutes of struggling with the wire loops and tabs, I finally get em all hooked and cinced down snug so the fan doesn't move, but loose enough so the chip won't get crushed.

I plug it in, put everything back together... and boot her up!

Crap! Seems the CPU port on the motherboard won't drive the case fan as fast as I want.. what's up with that? meh screw it... too tired of this to worry. I just plugged it into the Chassis plug instead. Ooooo Lookit the fan go! 2500 rpm! damn, that should do it!

I finish booting up and check with PCProbe. The CPU has had a chance to cool down during all this, but it's an hour later now, and the temp is still 33C.. and the Fan is hovering right around 2500 RPM (plus or minus about 25)... YAY! And all it cost was about half an hour, a $3 fan, and about 2 cents' worth of baling wire!

Hooray! I want to thank everyone that took time out of their busy Sunday to tune into the show! We had a great show except for one unfortunate PC crash... but that was brief...

We peaked at 7 computers connected to the stream, and maintained 5-7 listeners throughout the whole show! (For those following along, it said the peak was 9, but we had a local monitor and recorded connected, so that accounts for 2). Another great aspect was that people did come and go.. some caught the start, some the middle, some the end. We had some folks connected all the way through, others who never did show up (sigh), but all in all, I'd chalk the show up as a success!

Thank you sincerely to all those who tuned in, whether for only a few minutes, or for the whole show -- your support and encouragement is so appreciated!

OK enough gushing =) Well, this definitely means a few more shows at least -- and if this kind of following keeps up, I don't see any reason why the show can't keep going indefinitely!

Thanks again -- next show, same time, same place:

Sunday evenings, 6pm PST / 9pm EST - a 3-hour show.

We are also working on a way to re-broadcat the show once or twice more throughout the week. If anyone has a preferred time of day, or day of week, they'd be interested in hearing the repeats, please let me know!

Yay! I finally made another song. Well, I dunno how "songy" it is, but it gets yer toe a-tappin! =)

Mostly, I just sat down, grabbed a few samples and started to play.. Around an hour or so later, I found I had a neat, short little song done. It's only 2:20 long, but I like it =)

I called it Shake because the backbone sample is this nifty loop strung together with the sound of a spraypaint can being shaken... Don't despair -- it sounds nifty.

Download/Listen to it here and please tell me what you think!

As a side warning -- I think it sounds nifty overall, but there's lots of nuances that didn't come through very much on my crappy stereo -- but sounded incredible in headphones. Depending how tinny your stereo is, you may want to try it in headphones =)

I didn;t write these because I'm not creatively inclined that way. Nevertheless, here are some wonderfully funny Cat Haiku poems that have floated into my possession. I do not know who wrote them.

moo!

Well, I debated long and hard about how to approach this entry, this subject in general. Here's what I got:

After the first radio show being such a bust, I had apologies (from some) and reassurrances from all that "we'll be there to listen next week for sure"

So Saturday (the one just past) rolls around, and 6pm strikes, and I go on air. I think to myself "well, Dave... everyone SAYS they liek the show. They all were adamant they'd tune in for sure, especially after last week. I've Instant Messaged everyone that it's starting, and everyone should know. Let's hope for the best!"

I go on air at 6pm. I finally pulled the plugs at 6:50pm after DJing for 50 minutes to ONE listener. All I knwo is that they're local to Victoria. I don't knwo who. I know who it WASN'T, though. As such, of course, there was nobody to hear that the show time will be changing, and that the next show will be my last attempt.

So: The next show will be SUNDAY, July 24, 2005, at 6pm Pacific, 9pm Eastern.

But there's more! Titanium Radio was set up (in part) as a place for me to be able to do what I love -- DJ on the radio from time to time. But as I've said before, this is a lot of work. I love the work, but it's still a waste if there's nobody to hear it. So here's the plan....

Sunday's show will go on as planned, regardless how many tune in. It will run the full 3 hours. It will also be recorded. Requests will be taken, and are encouraged. Throughout the following week, I will be replaying the recorded show at various times for those that missed it and who would like to tune in.

But there's an added caveat... If the turnout on Sunday is like the previous two attempts, then this will be my last show on Titanium Radio. Additionally, if the turnout is bad enough, during the following week I will be seriously evaluating whether to keep the radio station online. In the event that the above occur, I'll likely look into DJing on some other (bigger) internet radio station... Though I'd really much rather keep it local....

Anyhow, to all those who truly meant it when they said they wanted me to DJ a live show and would listen in if I did ... this is your chance to let me know that you meant it! Frankly, if I suck at it, I'd just as soon someone said so -- blowing smoke up my ass (that's what it's starting to seem like) really doesn't help in the long run. If you truly like the show -- then please tune in!

So once again, here's the access information:

1- Open your favourite player (Windows Media Player, WinAmp, ITunes, whatever you like to use) and open a URL from the File menu. The address is http://radio.titaniumwebs.com:8000

2- If you use Windows Media Player on Windows 98 and up (sorry, not NT 4), simply open in your browser: http://listen.titaniumwebs.com

3- If you prefer WinAmp, you can open this in your browser: http://radio.titaniumwebs.com/listen.pls

4- If you're on Dial-up, you will find the above links are too fast for your modem. For you, we offer a parallel, lower-quality stream specifically for dial-up listeners. Simply follow method #1 above, but instead use this URL address:
http://radio.titaniumwebs.com:9000

Remember: The next show will be SUNDAY, July 24, 2005, at 6pm Pacific, 9pm Eastern.

Request URL: http://request.titaniumwebs.com (Contains most of our song listings for requests)

So we're wandering through the Real Canadian Wholesale Warehouse Club ("No membership required!")...

Anyhow, we head up the cereal aisle, and Holly points at a box, calling "lookit this!" I glance over, read the label -- "CHoco-BLAst!" -- and am shocked to see what appears to be 3 demented cows hovering near a giant-sized bowl of brown pellets that closely resemble rat turds. Chocolaty rat turds. Most compelling is the appearance that the ringleader cow seems to be firing a jet of milk from her teat onto the bowl of chocolaty turds!

I take a closer look and discover that instead, the cow appears to be actually just holding some sort of futuristic milk-squirting gun... Presumably, the idea of the milk firing directly from the teat was considered too racy by the cereal execs... I can't help but think that maybe it's something like the Lactron 9000 milk-firing, turd-coating breakfast gun...

"Hey kids! Check out the all-new Lactron 9000! Hours of endless fun, spraying your friends in good, wholesome, calcium-rich moo juice!"

Anyhow, I am happy to report that the turd-like formations within the box have proven quite tasty -- a lot like hard Styrofoam infused with the powdered Quick -- Haven't yet tried them with milk, but all things eventually =)

Click on the picture for a bigger version. Yes, I did scan the box cover =)

I'll preface this by pointing out that I'm aware that my feelings on the following subject are somewhat out of proportion to the events themselves (as viewed objectively) but frankly, I'm not viewing it strictly objectively... so there. OK so let's get to the meat of the matter in my usual, rambly way...
____

As announced earlier in this entry, I brought back my live radio show on my little internet radio station...

Amongst my reasons for doing so were these:
> I do enjoy putting on a radio show (for an audience)
> My friends, both in "real life" and online, have been encouraging me to go back on-air for months now.

There were many more reasons, but those two were the big ticket items.

Putting on a radio show involves a certain minimum amount of work. In the case of Saturday's show, it involved about 5 hours or preparation for both myself AND for my wife, who generously offers to help me when I do shows. That time is spent making sure request systems are working, recording and cutting promos, planning playlists, testing controller software, and so on. All of these are things that have to be done before I can even go on air.

Once on air, it's not as simple as dragging a song to the queue and sitting back and listening. Instead, my time is continuously taken by preparing requests, pre-mixing songs, and so on (don't want to give ALL my secrets away!). Suffice to say that I maybe have 10 minutes of relax time spread out over each hour. The rest is pretty much go-go-go!

Don't get me wrong here -- I love it! I like the tension, the "good stress" of it. The action. What I'm trying to illustrate is the amount of effort and work that goes into a show (compounding things was the fact that I was trying out a new program which was screwing things up constantly on me, forcing me to repeatedly scramble to explain away (or cover up) those glitches)...

That said, it obviously feels pointless to go to so much effort when only 1 or 2 people are actually tuned in. Especially after all the assurances and encouragement, I was kind of expecting a bigger turnout... I did send out emails to pretty much everyone I know, posted here, and generally got the word out. I sent word about a week ahead of time, and then again the day before. I got replies to the effect of "awesome" "I'll be there" "can't wait" etc...

So now comes the day of the event. It's 5pm. It's Saturday. I'm going live. There are 2 listeners. Woohoo... NOT. I play my snazzy new intro that took about half an hour to put together (for a 45 second intro)... I start playing songs. I get requests. The people listening are those that always listen anyhow when I go on live. My online friends. All the way in Florida, but they make the time to be there and tune in, even as a hurricane threatens their area!

Then I discover a few more people are listening. One person being someone I really only know well by emails (used to work nights at my old workplace), and another whom I never even expected to tune in at all, because I know he hates the sort of music we play -- and that was fine, because he wasn't one of the friends who kept telling me he WOULD be there. He listened for around 1/2 an hour, ignoring the music and listening just to hear me on air. I was very touched -- and later, Lorne has provided me with lots of insightful tips about all this... Knowing how much he hates anything but classical music made it all the more touching.

But the people I had really expected would be there - based on their encouragement before the event, their purported excitement at the prospect of my doing a live show, their statements of "can't wait" and "looking forward to it" etc.. All THOSE people never even tuned in for a minute!

In many ways, I thank you again Lorne for your words of wisdom. I'm beginning slowly to discover who my Friends (with a capital F) are, and who my friends (lowercase) are -- or as he put it "Fair-weather friends" and perhaps that’s what some of mine are. I've always been one to have just a few people that are close to me that I considered friends... and perhaps now I must start to divide those people in my mind into the "true friend" and "fair-weather friend" categories; into "those that are there for me regardless" and "those that are there when it's convenient to them" ...

Yeah, I'm feeling a bit bitter. I'm hoping those friends that need to, see this blog entry and perhaps realize who they are. I don't plan to go up to everyone and declare "YOU are a true friend" or "YOU are obviously only a fair-weather friend" etc... But while my memory may not be a perfect thing, I do keep track of the important stuff.....

Thank you to all who turned up, even if just for a few minutes -- it meant a lot, and though the show was shortened to only 3 hours from 4 (because there weren't enough listeners for the effort involved), I still enjoyed what I could of it. I just wish more people showed up, from the list of people who said they would...

Colour me disappointed, I guess.

Well, just about everyone I know happens to have an instant messenger that they use and love... Problem is, I hate all of them. AND everyone seems to use a different IM client (Yahoo, AIM, MSN, ICQ...)... There was no way I was gonna install and run clients for each of them -- that's just stupid!

So I got ahold of Trillian... Not too shabby, tho there are a lot of features lackign in it... maybe that's the techie in me talkign.. i dunno...

I installed the Pro version and set it all up: I'm now registered and can access....
> Yahoo Instant Messenger
> AOL Instant Messenger
> MSN Messenger
> ICQ

Yup, I'm online with them all now baby! All the major IM services, all in one place. But there's no way in hell I'll use this program for IRC chat... ahwell.

If you want to contact me on one of those networks, here's the poop:

Service - ID name
Yahoo - titanium_saturn
AIM - TitaniumSaturn
MSN - saturn@jetirc.net
ICQ - 259060972

Pick your favourite (or all of em, for all it matters), add me, and send me a message when I'm online through the service, so I know you're out there...
See you online!

This is a little heads-up that now that I have a work schedule that's easier to predict, I will be returning to the internet airwaves with my live radio show

For now, I am planning regular weekly shows on Saturday nights starting this coming Saturday, July 9th. The shows will run from 5pm until at least 9pm or later each Saturday (Pacific time - 8pm to midnight on the East coast).

This will be a live DJ'd show with yours truly at the mic, with guest hosting from Diamond (aka Holly) from time to time =) The theme is a Saturday night house party, though the show's name is a secret -- you'll find out when you tune in on Saturday =)

We'll be taking requests and playing a great mix of music. From time to time will be themed shows, new and older music, and varying styles so everyone gets to hear the music they like.

To tune in, there are several methods:

1- Open your favourite player (Windows Media Player, WinAmp, ITunes, whatever you like to use) and open a URL from the File menu. The address is http://radio.titaniumwebs.com:8000

2- If you use Windows Media Player on Windows 98 and up (sorry, not NT 4), simply open in your browser: http://listen.titaniumwebs.com

3- If you prefer WinAmp, you can open this in your browser: http://radio.titaniumwebs.com/listen.pls

4- If you're on Dial-up, you will find the above links are too fast for your modem. For you, we offer a parallel, lower-quality stream specifically for dial-up listeners. Simply follow method #1 above, but instead use this URL address:
http://radio.titaniumwebs.com:9000

Remember: Saturdays starting at 8pm Pacific, 9pm Eastern, 4am Sunday morning GMT

Request URL: http://request.titaniumwebs.com (Contains most of our song listings for requests)

The last few days, there's been some tool coming on and posting comments to this blog, and spamming his moronic online pharmacy.

WHAT THE FUCK IS THE POINT OF THAT?????

I mean, honestly! I understand the basic concept behind why a person would spam (whether by email or by postings to websites like this one); it theoretically reaches millions of people, and statistically, if only even 1/2 of 1% of those respond to the spam (by following links, etc), that's still a LOT of responses! However!

What could possibly be the point in spamming to a personal Blog page (or forum, etc) .. Obviously, the owner of the site is going to delete the spam as soon as it's noticed, and likely will then take measures to block any future attempts... Either way, though -- it's not like most blog sites (including this one) have really high traffic, and of those visitors, how many actualyl go in and read all the comments? I'm certain SOME do, but ..

I dunno, seems like lot of wasted time on the spammer's part..

On that note, I installed a kick-ass spam filter/blocker into Movable Type (the script software powering this Blog site). I won't go into details for security reasons, but suffice to say it intercepts and looks over any comments, pings, and trackbacks lodged to this site, and if it doesn't like your submission, it won't post it =P

If you're legit, and the thing rejects your comment, please email me at saturn at jetirc.net (obviously, you'll need to replace "at" with @).

Nuff said!

I was free-associating from one weblog to another, following links, reading what looked interesting and then I came across an online self-quiz.. so I had to try it out -- I felt the results were pretty accurate for me, so ... I post it!

You're a Winter. You very much enjoy your time alone but do like other people's company sometimes. You just need your space. You have a few priviledged friends who saw past your colder exterior to find the true you. You can have pretty bad mood swings (though you hate to admit it) so you could be soft one second then storming around the next! But over all, you're a very pleasant person once people take the time to get to know you. You're a good friend for in-depth talks. You're very talanted when it comes to creative things.
What season are you? (pics)

If it interests you, feel free to click on "What season are you?" to take the test and then come back and post your results as a comment to this entry. (Please just copy/paste the description part from your result, since I have disabled HTML in comments).

Friday was one of my days off this past week, and I'm sorry to report that I spent much of it simply following Max (the big one) around with a roll of paper towels (Bounty!) in one hand, and a spray bottle of Prosolve carpet cleaning spray in the other.

Now I've established in previous entries that Max especially seems ... well, driven is a good word for it ... to sampling anything and everything (new, old, fresh, or long-rancid) that he finds on the floor, balcony, bathroom, and frankly anywhere else that he can locate some object that will fit in his mouth. It's like having a goat living in the apartment, except that he doesn't eat paper (he DOES however love to lay on paper when wet... *sigh*) or tin cans... but man, that's about the limit....

So he roams about, sniffing around for tidbits of lint, dust, the occasional ancient jawbreaker that rolled behind the couch months ago, etc... Yell at him to drop it, stop eating that, etc, and he instead just chews a little faster, no matter how obviously disgusting the item may be. I have lost count the number of times the following has happened (but it's well over 100 by now, no exaggeration!):

Max: Hmm what's this?
Me: *Spots Max eyeing up a dust ball, about the size of an almond*
Me: *warning tone of voice* Maaaax....
Max: I hear you and I ignore you. *sniffs at dust ball and gives tentative lick*
Me: Max, no! *sharper this time*
Max: *Mentally thumbs nose at me* Better get this down quick... *slurps up the ball*
Me: Max! *angry sounding now* No!
Max: Oh my god this is horrible.. it's all dry and linty! Ohhh shit! He's coming over here... *tries to chew faster, but it's so dry and dusty, he just keeps smacking lips*
Me: *rushes over and tries to get him to spit it out* Bad Max!
Max: Must.. finish.. thing.. from.. floor... *chewing motions speed up*
Me: Come on, spit it out! You're just gonna puke later... *tries to reach for his mouth to pry it open and yank lint out*
Max: Almost... *two BIG gulps and it's down* Got it!
Me: Bad boy! You know you're gonna puke now... *heads to cupboard for the Prosolve and paper towels and prepares to wait*
Max: *runs and hides somewhere that will be a real bitch to clean when he DOES puke*
Me: *sigh*

Well, Friday morning I managed to just miss stepping in cat puke on my way around the bed, heading for the bathroom. Cursing softly to myself, I do my thing and detour to the cupboard for the Prosolve and paper towels (I use Bounty cause they're strong enough not to rip when scrubbing puke on carpet)...

On my way, I spot 2 more lovely yellow-brown chunky deposits throughout the hallway. Taking a mental note, I do a tour of the whole apartment to see if there are any others hiding around...

Finding no further deposits for the moment, I proceed to the one in the bedroom and start wiping and spraying. As I'm workign on the third spot, I'm struck (yet again) with the fact that cats (well mine anyhow) seem to utterly refuse to move to linoleum or other smooth (easy-to-clean) surfaces... For some reason, they will beeline for carpet -- and not a mat, either; has to be the wall-to-wall installed carpet that's expensive and difficult to replace. And because we had cheap landlords when it was installed, it's CHEAP carpet, meaning it soaks up the puke stain (yes, that glorious yellowish tint) pretty much on contact. And if the cat is on the lino when the mood strikes him, he will move onto the carpet before releasing his stores... I have yet to work out why that is -- maybe the soft carpeting is comforting on his little feet. Maybe he doesn't want to mess up the lino. Who knows?

Anyhow... As I'm finishing up the last pile, I hear the unmistakable sound that is associated with kitty regurgitation. Most cats, that would mean "hairball" -- with Max, 9 times out of 10 it's puke. As the sound echos down the hall from my present position, I sigh to myself, quickly finish up the spot, and follow the horking noise...

...to find him spewing up, with his body 3/4 inside the bathroom (lino!) and head and shoulders stickign out into the hallway (carpet!), and actively puking up onto the one 4"x4" patch of carpet that is NOT covered by a mat in that area. *Sigh* ... So, while shoving him backward into the bathroom (because he's looking like there's more to come), I get to work on the new spot...

This repeats a few times throughout the morning.. All in all, 6 separate incidents, involving no less than about 13 piles to clean. Yup, what a great morning!

Started slowing down when I realized he was just plain nautious, and would keep gorging himself on dry cat food, then puke about 10 minutes later. Max would eat so much, it'd make him sick. When I took the dry food away and gave him a TINY amoutn of wet food after one puke-fest, he seemed to be a lot better -- and didn't puke any more for the day. Yay.

I think I'm gonna have to invest in a steam cleaner before long... And shares in Prosolve and Bounty.

OK I haven't forgotten this Blog, folks... I just have been too damn busy! Been spendin all spare time while at work, workign on the new TitaniumWebs.com website (nearly done too!) and spare time at home just working..

Case in point, this weekend (well, I call it a weekend -- I have Wed-Thu-Fri off this week, so it's my weekend). First day, feeling sick with a cold, so spent most of it relaxing and trying to get better. Spent the rest of it transferring the radio dj computer guts from one machine to a slightly faster one. Why would I do this? Because I have a good friend who needs a computer to do the basics with.

She's getting the old machine, which I WOULD have finished off yesterday (day 2), except instead I had a wife that spent all night snoring so loud I didn't get to sleep until she left for work... so I didn't get up till around 2pm. Then I headed out to the stores for a network cable and groceries, etc. You know, I hate Boomers; they're the biggest ripoff outlet ever, and really don't know shit about computers (they THINK they do, but...); but I gotta admit, they do sell network cable cheap...

Anyhow by the time I got home, Holly was home from work and wanted to play Civ.. So that's what we did. Today I'm stringing a pair of long network cables through the wall into the living room: one is for the dj PC, the other will be (hooray, finally!) for working on PC's I bring home to repair for clients. No more tripping over ethernet cables anymore!

So anyhow... this is my fantastically interesting life the past couple weeks. Work, repair PCs, sleep. Thats about it.

That new work schedule is coming. They posted it last week, and the posting shoudl have come down on this past Wednesday evening, meaning I will probably know early this coming week. It'll be 13:30 to 21:30 Monday to Friday, weekends and stat holidays off. WOOHOO! It'll be so nice to have a regular schedule again... days off where my cel plan actually has free minutes on weekends.. now I get days off, but it's all prime time, so that sucks.. =)

OK enough rambling... Gotta go finish up that computer for my friend. =)

So it looks like they're going to move forward with this custom-tailored new full-time schedule just for me (temp till at least January, and probably longer (and possibly permanent after that, depending on whether the person who owns the position elects to stay in her current (temp) position, permanently (as her boss would prefer)).

It's a glorious schedule: Monday to Friday, 1300-2100, Sat/Sun and Stats off. Same schedule as Holly (except for the actual shift hours, but this is PERFECT for my tastes!). If they can get all the red tape done, it'll be posted REALLY soon, and I'd start as soon as June 24!

The only possible downside is they can only GUARANTEE it till January, POSSIBLY till March. The person who owns the position is temping in the Telecom offcie right now (office work, rather than Switchboard). Our manager wants her to stay in that position permanently, but she's not yet certain what she wants to do (doesn't HAVE to decide till the end of the year anyhow). Anyhow, IF she decides to return to Switchboard, I'd then drop back to my old part-time 1700-2130 rotation. If she elects to stay where she is now, I'd be able to take the 1300-2100 full time schedule as PERMANENT full time (yay!)

Pros: Killer rotation; awesome schedule; Same days off as Holly (yay!)

Cons: I get all Stats off (no stat overtime pay anymore, altho I'll still probably be able to pick up the odd bit of OT other than that); no schedule variation (that's only BARELY a "con" anyhow)

All in all... I'm excited about it! =)

OK as many know, there's a couple main reason I love my job -- one reason is the money, of course. Where else do they pay you this much to sit on your ass all day and direct callers, while being allowed to play a GameBoy, surf the web, do email, etc...? The other reason?

The other reason is that I've developed a system amongst my PCs at home wher I can remotely access and control them -- this means I can build websites, check email, surf the web, chat, etc, all from my HOME pc, thus leaving no tracks on work computers for anyone to use later as an excuse to get me in trouble -- in other words, everything happens at HOME, so, while I don't, I could surf even porn or maybe file sharing sites at work without anyone seeing any web histories, etc.

My remote connection uses encryption, so all the techies at work would be able to see is that there is a connection going out through a certain port (no, I'm not stupid enough to say WHAT port on a weblog, sorry), and that a (minimal) amount of data is flowing back and forth. Beyond that, they have no way to determine just WHAT data is flying around, apart from actually looking at my screen WHILE I'm connected... All in all, my privacy is pretty damn secure.

That is, when the damn thing works.

So here's where it all breaks down: My software is pretty versatile. It's not "realtime" fast, but it's quick... Quick enough for most thinsg anyhow -- However, it does NOT like certain programs that I use at home, like NeroVision Xpress (DVD authoring program), and almost anything that involves editing/playback of video... Most of these programs cause it to either slow down tremendously, or halt the remote control software altogether, or (in the case of NeroVision and a couple of DVD player programs) causes the whole machine to come to a grinding halt until those programs are manually terminated through the Task Manager (ctrl-alt-del)...

Now, the remote access software (RAS) is normally capable of sending the ctrl-alt-del keystroke to the computer, in order to launch said task manager -- but these programs that interfere with the RAS of course wind up "paralyzing" the RAS itself (along with the machine) and so ctrl-alt-del cannot be sent. Actually, usually the RAS stops communicating with me at work entirely, and so I can't even re-connect to it to issue the interrupt.

OK so now you're probably askign yourself why I don't just AVOID using those programs while at work? Well, simply put: I do. Unfortunately, in the occasional workign frenzy, I find myself accidentally clicking on a file that is associated with said software, which in turn loads that program. Usually this happens due to the RAS's lag (response delay), so I THINK I'm clicking on one icon, when in fact it just hasn't yet updated the screen, and I wind up clciking on the one next to it.

The other way stems from my being slightly distracted while clicking something... In Nero 6 (CD burning software), there is a button on the tool bar to start the CD Burning process, and one that launches NeroVision Xpress (sound familiar?)... The PROBLEM is, the icons for these two functions BOTH look like a CD on fire. Styled a bit differently, I admit, but close enough for one to be easily mistaken for the other, especially when you forget (in a hurry) that there are in fact 2 icons... Instead you tend to just click on the first burning disk you see, which unfortunately is the one that launches NeroVision... Of course, one could hover the mouse over the buttons for the pop-up quick-text description -- except that it doesn't usually show up when using the RAS!

And there we have it. Now I'm screwed until either I get home to correct it, or Holly does.

Of course, under Murphy's Law, this means that these incidents happen usually near the start of my shift at work, making me have to wait the maximum possible time for someone to be home to fix it for me.

This rant is brought on by the fact that it has now managed to occur for 3 days in a row... Has a way of making a person feel a bit screwy in the head =)

As you might have guessed, I am at work right now, updating my Blog through the internet here, rather than via remote -- why? Cause the damn thing is halted again. Yeesh, and I thought you were paying attention! =P

OK so that was the rant. Granted it may sound light, as far as rants go, but I tell ya... It's enough to make me wanna reach trhough the internet and bitch-slap my PC into next year...

Maybe it's time to start training the cats how to push the Reset button on the PC... Maybe have em do it when a certain sound is played on a computer at home -- Usually when one PC dies, I can still access one of the others...

I can just see it now.. choosing some obscure sound effect and assuming I can capture Alexis' attention longer than 3 seconds, and can entice Max's fat ass out of "fuzzy slug" position (read: get him off his fat ass), and actually TRAIN them to respond correctly, I can just see the sound effect being randomly and accidentally played through some system quirk...

PC: *sound effect plays*
Alexis: (Drooling, cause hey, if I can get her to learn THIS, she's SO gonna be a tribute to Pavlov) OhMyGodOhMyGodOhMyGodOhMyGodOhMyGodOhMyGod.... *runs in circles*
Max: (Drooling, cause... well hell, he does it anyhow) *backhands Alexis* Shut UP. *sighs* Do I have to do EVERYTHING myself? *sighs again*
Max: *slides off the chair he was previously sleeping in and waddles over to the computer room*
Alexis: *picks herself up and swipes a paw at Max from behind, just to get a rise otu of him. The sound has been compleetly forgotten*
Me: *getting impatient at work, waiting for the computer to be reset*
PC: *sound effect plays... again*
Alexis: (Renewed drooling) OhMyGodOhMyGodOhMyGodOhMyGodOhMyGodOhMyGod.... *runs in circles*
Max: Shut UP, will you?! I am SO gonna come over th... aw screw it. *flops down, in the doorway to the computer room*
Alexis: *rushes at Max and uses him as a hurdle a few times, running in and out of the room aimlessly*
...time passes...
Me: *further impatience, begins cursing cats, muteering "useless" and "waste of space" under breath*
Coworkers: *give me odd looks, then edge slightly farther away*
PC: *sound effect plays... yet again*
Alexis: (Re-renewed drooling) OhMyGodOhMyGodOhMyGodOhMyGodOhMyGodOhMyGod.... *runs in circles*
Max: Oh for the love of... FINE I'm COMING! *hisses at computer, gets up and waddles up to chair*
Max: *reaches across to desk, flicks out a claw, and presses the reset button, as trained*
Max: *looks around expectantly for the treats he always got during training*
Alexis: *loosk for treats, too, since Max is...*
Max: *finding no treats, mutters to self* Last time I do THAT...
Max: *hisses at computer again, jumps off desk, flops to floor and goes to sleep*
Alexis: *uses litter box even though she just used it 15 minutes ago* (she uses it more often that I suspect is natural)
Me: Goddamn, that PC STILL hasn't reset!
Me: Oh great, now the WORKING PC is rebooting..... *bangs head on desk in utter surrender*

That's pretty much how I see it happening.....

OK so I haven't forgotten my blog yet! Just haven't been in the mood to write lately.. working, working overtime, etc etc...

Anyhow, do not despair! Soon I shall write the greatest blog ever written. Until then, of course, you'll just have to slog through my usual crap... And nope, I won't give any hints as to WHEN this "greatest blog ever" will be ready. That's for me to know and you to find out. Maybe.

I found a nifty website tho. smalltime.com ... Check out the Games link at the bottom. There's some fun time-wasters there.

BLAH!

Looks like I'm slacking off on this Blog a bit doesn't it? Well that may be true, but damnit... Life's just been too busy! Uhh, yeah.. Never enough time... And I don't like the colour of the drapes, so ..

Reader: What the F*CK?!
Me: Yeah I'm in a wierd place right now OK?
Reader: Umm... K....
Me: I put this in General Ramblings for a reason....
Reader: *Nods, smiles, and backs away slowly*

I've been out of town for a few days... OK, truth is, I was out of town (helping pack up my grandparents' house after 36 years, since they've movied into a "home" -- I got worked like a rented mule, I tell ya), but I got back on Thursday evening....

Then I just got lazy. Thursday evening we had to go get a friend at the ferry terminal. She'd been in Vancouver for hours and hours waiting for a somewhat inconsiderate other friend who had been told on several occasions that she would be met AT the arrivals gate at the airport (in Vancouver) when she arrived from Australia. Somehow, this Oz friend managed to erroneously assume that since she didn't see the first one right away, that she just wasn't coming, and proceeded to get on a BUS and ride back to Victoria... Meanwhile, said first friend stood waiting and worrying for over 4 hours at the airport before giving up, paying the disgustingly large parking fees, and coming home. Whereupon WE (Holly and I) come in.

So we picked her up at the ferry, and meet back at her place. As we're wondering what to do next in the quest of finding our lost Auzzie soul, suddenly this girl is ONLINE askign if we're there! After a few back-and-forths in all caps (well, OUR end was in caps), we finally determined that she was downtown, and all loaded in the car to go get her..

Well, without stirring the pot up a ton, suffice to say that she demanded an apology from us for getting mad at her for leaving the airport without even looking for her ride (!!!!) and the matter was dropped... (I dunno about you guys, but I have a long memory for shit like that. And if you demand an apology from one of us, you are demanding one from ALL of us, because we are 100% behind said person. You all know who you are... =P)

Anyhoo, I suppose all's well that ends well. Nothing like a massive drama-fest to welcome a person back to town (me and my Auzzie friend, each and separately)... Tho it does tend to tire a person out doesn't it???

Now, are you thoroughly confused by this entry? Good. Mission accomplished.

Hopefully I'll have something more coherant for you soon. =)

Inspired by the great (yet so simple!) job by Eric Prydz on remixing the song "Call On Me" I decided to have a go at one of my own. And I'm only just now realizing the similarities in titles... oh well =)

I decided to experiement with Take On Me by Ah-Ha! Perhaps not the best remix ever done, but it's a start. My only other remix so far has been a pathetic attempt at Free Falling by Tom Petty. That was more about learning the beatmapper function in the software than makign a remix, since all I did there was add an extra beat line to it. Woo!

In Take On Me, I actually excerpted samples and arranged them against a motivational back-beat.

Please have a listen, and PLEASE leave feedback (a comment here) as to what you think of it, what you LIKE and what should be/should have been done differently.

Here's the link: Link has been deleted, because this song truly sucks...

Well, here's attempt #2 at some rave type music. It's a bit "darker" than the last... It's nice and fast, and has a decent beat. Holly told me she rally liked the 303 clips (the affected bass guitar loops, the primary melody in this song), from a previous track I'd made (The Trip)...

This song is titled Frustration because it was, well, frustrating to arrange... those 303 loops are not very forgiving -- you can't speed them up or slow them down much before they distort beyond usability, and you can't change keys on them much either -- they just sound "off" if you bend them too far.... A shame, as they're neat loops.. Ahwell, suffice to say I probably won't be using them again (time to find more samples!)

You can download Frustration and have a listen if you like -- as always, feedback is most welcome!

No, for once this does not reflect my current mood (oh shut up)... I was challenged recently both through a comment on my last post and by my darling wifey to try something more "rave" in style. The reasons cited came down, mostly to the fact that my songs so far have all had a little fast tempo ravey-ness in them...

I got to thinking about it and was listening to them all again, and realized that I think there was a fast-tempo raver just trying to burst out of these things...

Now, upon completing this first rave attempt today, I admit it's a little more "flat" than I was going for -- but you gotta admit, it's FAST. Geez, if I just drop the tempo by 40 BPM (beats per minute) from the current 160, to my (up til now) normal 120, we'd have at leats another 90-100 seconds of length here. One thing with Rave... the song gets "used up" FAST.

Anyhoo, here's my first rave tune, titled... Raving Mad Please feel free to download it, and please do post your comments, positive or negative =) Be kind, but don't hold back =)

Download Raving Mad here.

Well, I did it again! I'm still not satisfied with ReTry, so I decided to take the final segment of that track and expand on it into its own song.

Thus, Myth is born! I've named this track for the feelign it evokes in me.. it feels almost mythical; it has some neat modified guitar samples in the middle that feel almost asian... Somehow it gives me the overall feeling of describing a mythical encounter perhaps... Well, it's a name anyhow =) As long as the song's any good, the name doesnt matter.

I'm apparently getting faster (if not better) at this. This track is 7:33 long, but only took less than 4 hours to put together.

I'd still classify this as "Trance" because of the dreamy quality, but it does have that "frantic" element in the hihats that woudl make it Rave if not for the slow overall tempo. So basically I don't know what it is =)

Please download and have a listen. All I ask in return is that you come back here and post a comment on the Blog with any feedback, suggestions, or comments you have on this piece. It always helps -- either it'll make this piece better, or it'll help me improve for the next one =)

Thanks again for listening =)

Download Myth here.

I'd like to thank everyone for their birthday wishes! Thank you all for your kind words.......

Now let us never speak of this again! =)

Hmm It's my birthday tomorrow. 28 years old. How the fuck did that happen?!

I don't feel 28. I hardly feel 21... Yeah, I suppose I'm adult now, and I guess I do have adult perspectives and ideas.. but it seems liek that's only recently. Inside, I still have trouble reconciling my actual age with how I feel. I rarely use the term "man" or "sir" or those terms denoting an adult human male, because I still think .. well not "boy" exactly, but that late-teen gap-spanner "guy." Something older than "boy" but younger than "man."

Not to say that I don't have manly thought and ideas (shut up, we're being philisophical right now). I do... It's more that, when I hear someone refer to me as "that nice man over there" ("nice" is a term for another day's discussion), I almost always look around for the guy they're describing, and then just plain feel WEIRD trying to think of myself with that term.

Does everyone have this problem when they grow up? I assume, if so, that most people manage to move past that a lot sooner... but it still seems to me that it's kind of odd...

That's the thing with birthdays -- I always get introspective about life whenever they roll around... This year really just feels liek "just another day" and I keep actually forgetting that it's arriving... Almost feel like "aw let's just get on with it, could we?"

The one very positive event that's happened this year is my recent realization about my desire to make music (as mentioned in previous entries on this Blog). The only tarnish on this silver lining is the fact that, now that I know this about myself, I can't afford right now to buy myself event he beginner equipment that would allow me to advance and learn and practice the skills I want to learn to become GOOD at this music stuff. However, it's only CAD$350 (plus tax) and I hope to be able to afford it soon... just not soon enough for my taste! =)

Anyone wanna donate towards the cause? We can credit you with birthday AND christmas presents ... =) I take credit card payments too! (seriously) =)

Ah well, all things considered, this birthday is going relatively smoothly, if for no other reason than the fact that it's just not standing out in any significant way .. and I have no real complaints there...

Happy Birthday to me.............. =)

No, not religion (I laugh at your pathetic assumption! ... and if that wasn't your assumption, then I simply look neutral in your general direction. Well happily neutral. Man it's too early in the morning right now, and you're starting to confuse me. Shame on you!)...

As I was saying... I think I finally found it!

You: "Found what, already?!"
Me: "Found my calling!"

I've wanted for years (many of them) to learn how to DJ .. not at a radio station, although that's neat too... No, I mean like a night club or party DJ -- one of those guys behind the twin turntables and mixer board with the expensive headphones on, nodding to the beat, scratching and remixing and creating music. I've been fascinated by that for as long as I can recall (at least since around age 9 or 10), but there've been a few things "in the way" till now. (Actually a few things are still in the way, but I'm working on that!)

Stuff that got in the way:

- Nowhere to learn! -- There's no schools (at least none reasonably close) that teach how to do this stuff

- The equipment is expensive -- You need 2 high-end direct-drive turntables, with pitch control and a raft of other features, a rather sohisticated mixer with crossfade etc, records for sampling, etc etc etc. I estimate that in today's prices, cost for just the initial equipment would be around $1000+ which is a rather large sum to shell out if it turns out I'm no good at it....

- The equipment is intimidating! The process has always looked so complex; an art form (it is!). I think I was always scared to get into it because I might suck horribly and then I wouldn't even have the fantasy anymore...

- The music industry is notoriously difficult to break into (look how many bands out there never even sell an album, let alone make any decent money)...

Anyhow, those are the reasons I always told myself were why I never pursued it.

And then I started noodling around with Sony Acid Pro, composing music that way. "Arranging" is, I suppose, a better term for it, since it consists of arranging and "painting" occurrances of sound samples (drum hits, hi-hats, and other music samples). Arrange them into a nice pattern, with repeats and fill-ins as required, and voila! A song is born! Now, Acid is amazing for this, and from what I gather, many of the professionals use it, so at least I'm on the right track. =)

Now, the trouble is that there are effects and techniques that sound wexcellent, and that I am already finding I would really like, to make my music sound the way I imagine it. Yes, many turntable effects can be reproduced in Acid manually... But something that might be a mere 3 or 4 seconds long during playback, might take about a minute to set up and create on turntables (once I know what I'm doing of course)...

However, in Acid or any other software I've tried, the same effect usually takes hours, and even then it usually doesn't sound as "natural" as a true turntable mix (aka "scratch"). In fact, most of the time, it just sounds plain wrong, and so I am usually forced to discard those passages, which (I feel) leaves my music a little "flat." Not good =)

Anyhow, as mentioned in my previous entry (ReTry), I had found this awesome scratch kit, which has two "turntables" (they're "virtual vinyl" -- there are two platters, slightly smaller than normal, and they can each be digitally "loaded" with mp3 or wav file samples or entire songs, and then when manipulated, will function basically the same as real tables, with the added advantage of having USB connectivity to a PC or laptop, access to software to pre-control the device, a built-in mixer, with all the requisite sliders, faders, and crossfader, and the added bonus that the device can be pre-loaded with around 500 samples, so no need to swap records when you want a new sample!

Anyhow... this is now my next big purchase goal, and the sooner the better =)

And another cool happening: I discovered a school! It's in New York (I always wanted to visit there!) and they do offer 1-week "intensive" courses for people from out of town. The instructors are world-class DJs, most being tops in their field, having won competitions and awards all over the place. The classes are is cheap enough, so it's just the cost of flights and hotel and food.

My darling wife shocked and impressed the crap out of me by immediately (upon hearing of this place) turning to me and saying "well, I could take a week off to go with you when we can afford it." Bam. Just like that. And I know she has no real desire to visit NY (unlike me.. it's one of my goals; big cities facsinate me), but is still willing to go with me as a show of support for my dream. Holly, I love you so much for that!!!!

So there it is. If anyone feels like contributing toward that DJ kit for me, or money toward the DJ school, I'll of course welcome said donations. =) Otherwise, I'm off to start saving up!

Man I am SO pumped over this!!

Well, I spent almost all of Monday at the computer, playing with Sony Acid 5, arranging another song. I really need to lay my hands on either some decent scratch samples (DJ record scratch sounds), or better yet, cough up the couple hundred for one of those home DJ dealies, like this one... I had another (cheaper) example ni mind, but they don't list it online .. oh well, this one's better anyhow =)

It's my birthday this Saturday... hint hint...

Anyhow, I completed the song last night (with a little feedback from Holly - thanks chicky!!) I named it "ReTry" because it has the feel of playing a segment, then sort of "resetting" and trying something different a few times..

The resultant track sounds not bad IMHO, but contains what I feel are "seeds" for standalone songs in their own right.. So I'm thinking of taking those elements (especially that last segment) and expand them into full tracks on their own. Essentially, this song today is the "remix" of those future songs =)

Download it and have a listen. I welcome all feedback -- feedback helps me improve for the next one =)

Thanks for taking the time =)

It's 07:35 in the morning. I'm at work for an early shift, and I'm alone on the switchboard... Suddenly, the theme from Taxi (the TV show) comes on my radio...

I've been asked before (a number of times actually) why I even downloaded that song, let alone why I put it into regular rotation on the radio. Truth is, I haven't been able to articulate the reasons until now.

I was born in 1977. No secret there... But that means my formative, impressionable early years were the 80's, and Taxi must have been in full syndication by then... All I know is it was on just about every day, and while, when I look back now, I definitely didn't follow the whole story each time, I do know I laughed at Louie's antics, responded to Alex Reger's moralizing, and of course, who didn't love Jim and Latka?!

But, like many of those great syndicated 70's and 80's TV shows, when I sit down to watch them now on DejaView channel or Prime or something, or just hear the theme song, there's that deep longing for simpler days past; a yearning to, just for a little while, return to being 10 years old, where my biggest worry in the world was whether my homework was done, and if not, whether I could just fake it tomorrow...

So the Taxi theme (full version, about 5 minutes long) plays and I am instantly swept back to those days, as images of my old bedrooms (both from before age 12 in Vancouver, and AFTER age 12, in Victoria), as well as all those years with the cabin on Grouse Mountain... Probably most especially those memories of the cabin come to mind whenever those old songs come up.

It's amazing how music can bring up all those warm fuzzy feelings and memories... See, it's not so much that I like the show Taxi.. I do, but it's never been a favorite. It's more that it was always there when I was growing up, so of course there's that association deep in my mind...

Well, thats my ramble for the moment.. I'm going to go illicit more warm fuzzies, because I dont feel 100% today and it's better for my waist than comfort food.... =)

*Tunes into Taxi theme once more...*

The changing of the litter -- pardon me: The Changing Of The Litter (much more appropriate) is of course a constant pain in the ass in our household.

We have this glorious automatic litter box thingy. A LitterMaid thing... (see link for pic and info - Ours has a ramp on the front with some carpet on it... its a couple years old so I guess the models changed some). It has a sensor in it that triggers a giant rake 10 minutes after the cat is "finished" in there. It runs the rake toward the "entrance" end, and in the process lifts the recepticle lid and then drags the ... waste ... and dumps it into the containwer. Then it rakes back and closes the lid, finally parking the rake thing back at the far end, ready for another go. Really snazzy. You only need to ensure that it's always topped yup with litter in the main box, and empty the recepticle once every 4 or 5 days when it gets full.

As long as the litter is kept full, and the receptible is emptied when it's full, there's very little odour and the cats always seem to have a "fresh" litter box to use. And we all know that, no matter how disgusting they are everywhere else (licking asses, feet, carpet, legs, backs, ears (inside AND out), noses, crotches, tummies, random garbage, dirty dishes, table legs, couches, scratching posts, 6-year-old-never-been-washed chew toys, the occasional dead plant, the tub, the toilet, the dirty OR clean bathroom floor --- not to mention EATING lint, trash, twist-ties, dust bunnies, hair, vomit (their own or each others'), grass, mouse parts from fake mice, string, yarn, plants (dead or alive), 2-day-old kernels of dried up cat food (promptly vomited up in the middle of the night), and anything else that doesn't move and will even slightly fit in their mouth... and if you yell at them to STOP! they will of course just down it faster, regardless how bad it tastes. Hey, they can ALWAYS puke it up later!)

Whew! Now where was I? Ah yes... And we all know that, no matter how disgusting they are everywhere else, a cat MUST have a clean and tidy litter box to shit in. Yup that's right. They'll sniff, lick, rub on, roll in, or eat ANYTHING they find, no matter how foul smelling, dry, gooey, or slimy... but if that litter box isn't pristine, they're pissing on the floor and crapping in the potted plants.

<HEAVY SARCASM>
Gee I sure love cats.
</HEAVY SARCASM>

Now, I swear the little one (Alexis) eats and drinks for the SOLE purpose of expelling that stuff in the litter box. Knowing that when she uses it, shortly afterward the rake goes off, she will often spend all night in and out of there. Last week I had to unplug it one night after it went off not less than 5 times in 1 hour. Of course, you can sorta hear it in the quiet of night from the bathroom (where we keep it) to the bedroom... You shoudl have seen the accumulated "stuff" in there by morning. Apparently it took her a while to register that it wasn't going to go off anymore ... she must have used it 8 or 9 more times through the night... I had to put on a glove and HELP the rake when I turned it back on, because it was SO bogged down!

Max used to do this stuff too... Actually when we first got it, he spent a lot of time watching it. Occasionally attacking the rake when it would go off... Never stopped him from USING the thing tho...

I have also noticed that on the high-usage days with the box, the water dish gets depleted awfully fast too. Somehow they haven't worked out that all they REALLY need to do is jump in and jump out to trigger it off. Probably just as well; at least this way they have to work at it.

"What are we going to do tonight, Max?"
"Same thing we do every night, Alexis... Drive Them nuts with the litter box, and thereby take over the world!"

I spent my entire Sunday (well 6+ hours of it anyhow) hammering out a new song. I finally made a track that I always wanted to do.. and I think I'll make more like this, as I really like how it came out. Big thank you to Holly for her patience and .. err... "direct" feedback as I worked on the various stanzas in the track. =) I think that did tons for making this a good tune.

I always wanted to compose a techno trance style song -- inspired by that Orbital tune "Halcyon + On + On" -- I really wanted to try and make a long track that sounded good and wasn't boring... I got this track to nearly 9 minutes (8:55), and I don't find I'm sick of it by the end (yay). This is especially cool considering I spend over 6 solid hours with the thing, making it. Usually, I'd be sick of it just because of that... But no, all the way home form work today, all I wanted to do was get home and listen to it again.

You can Download it here, if you want to have a listen. It's about 8.5 megs to download (hey, it's 9 minutes!), but that won't take long. I suggest you download and save it, THEN play it. This version is only at 128kbit, because the master (at 320kbit) is over 21 megs...

This song is best when heard on a (loud) stereo system with decent range of sound (subwoofer is good for another dimension). I built elements into this one to give extra body to the music when there's a decent subwoofer attached (there is a bass pulse all the way through that cannot be heard on a normal stereo, and only barely on professional headphones). Next best thing is a GOOD set of headphones. If you can't swing any of that, just put it on whatever you have and crank 'er up!

It sounds decent (I think) on a regular stereo, but it just sounds even better when you give it a decent system to play it on.

I welcome any and all comments -- and if you have a comment about a particular movement, note the time index of the part and please let me know. I'm not totally above reworkign pieces of this track to make them better, and this may undergo one or more remixes before it's "done."

Enjoy =)

Background info: My car is a 1987 Toyota Supra Turbo. This car was developed and marketed as direct competition for the same-year Corvette (and it is in fact more powerful, yay!). I like fast cars and power under the hood. Hmm that maybe came out a bit wrong...

Today's rant is on the subject of alternators in cars and how they always seem to be at the root of things when shit goes wrong in your car... I'll now describe for you my wonderous adventure:

Our adventure begins actually Wednesday evening last week (April 6, 2005, for those anal-retentives out there who just HAVE to know -- though I suppose that means I must be one (shut up, Holly) for thinking of it -- but I digress).

I got off work at 23:00 (yeah, I use 24-hour time. Deal with it. For the feeble-minded (or just plain lazy), that just can't cope, just subtract 12 from the hour... If the hour is less than 12, then the time is AM. wow!). So after work, I head out to Save-On for some vittles, then return to the car.

This is when the wierdness begins.

=> Read more!

I am 77% Evil Genius.

I am pure evil. I lie awake at night devising schemes of world domination, and I will not rest until all living souls bend to my will.

Take the Evil Genius Test @ FualiDotCom

In the Cat Chronicles, Max mentions on several occasions his fascination with the tub drain... and the things inside it. I must state here that it was once true -- he would spend HOURS (sometimes 6 or more solid) staring down that blasted drain. After a while, I guess he grew out of it or something.

Well, a few years ago he started up with the tub again... this time not so much staring down the drain as .. mopping up any standing water around the drain!

Basically, it goes something like this...

Max: (Key: Thoughts *actions/noises* )
Ah! He's in the bathroom, sitting on that thing again! I'll have to go in and investigate!
*shoulder-checks the door WIDE open and stomps into bathroom*
...This is where I slam the door shut again... I AM trying to have a private moment with the toilet after all...
*coo's at me*
Well, let's see if I can make it past him and make sure that tub is OK!
*darts past me as I reach out to harass him a bit*
*squeezes by and hops into tub*
Hmm, yup there's water by the drain again!
*waddles over to investigate*
*sniffs around drain*
My my my.. this is a possible slipping hazard. I better do something about it before someone gets hurt!
*begins lapping up the water...*
*lick lick lick lick lick lick lick lick lick lick*
Crap, all the water's gone... but wait! what about that faucet thingy....
*starts slurping at the faucet like a bloody hamster at the water thingy*
This is where I stealthily reach over and quickly crank the cold water on for a short burst....
*JUMPS back* AHHH! What the HELL?! Oh it stopped...
*Creeps back to the drain to investigate*
OOoooOOOoo MORE WATER! Must.. get.. it... all..
*slurp slurp slurp*

From here, I can literally keep him busy for hours simply by doing a burst of fresh water every 5 or 10 minutes ... he'll lick it all dry, and then all you have to do is "just add water" and voila! Perpetual cat entertainment ... for the cat.. I must admit it gets old fast as a human watching the activity...

Then again, if I know he's in there licking up the tub, at least I can be sure he's not dumpster-diving into a garbage can or shredding a roll of toilet paper somewhere else..

And they say I'm Obsessive Compulsive!

Found this on a friend's blog and thought I'd give it a go... If you want, try the quiz yourself and post the results in the comments section... Since the comments restrict the use of HTML, you will not be able to paste the web code that results.. just paste the activity caption (and any other comments you have) that appears below the resulting picture after you finish the quiz...

Here's what I got... and it's about right deep down, though sadly it doesn't come out as often as I'd like (sorry Boss!)

My outercourse activity is french kissing!

Take this quiz!

For this entry I created a new filing category: Rants

Preamble (You can skip this paragraph without missing much if you must):
When using this software (Movable Type) to write a Blog entry, I am prompted each time ot specify a category -- presumably when this database is gloriously filled with anecdotal goodness, such that it becomes more confusing and complicated to find entries, I can archive everything, sorted into categories as well as months, dates, etc.. It's all very shiny and nice, and so far to date, I now have 3 categories: General Ramblings (for general inanities), The Cats (for cat stuff), and now... Rants (for ranting, duh!). This new section I must admit is somewhat inspired by my favorite ranter, Rick Mercer from his Monday Report show (sadly, the season just ended last week). You can see his rants on any of the "Back Issues" on the site. Anyhow, these rants will obviously be my own, and due to a lack of funky camera angles (or a camera), and may or may not be as exciting/funny/relevant as his... Or maybe they'll be better.. who knows?

OK Back to the business...

I recognize this outdated and obsolete practise of Daylight Saving Time (I am informed that the PROPER term is Saving, not Savings, since Sving is used as a verb... whatever, I'll probabaly use both in this rant, since I honestly don't care either way. Maybe I'll just use DST and save the keystrokes. You'll just have to read on to find out).

Anyhow, I recognize DST will likely never go away, or at least there's nothing I can personally do to effect its demise; however, I would like to describe yet another glorious reason why this *&%^ global insanity should die...

It is Sunday morning (yesterday) and my alarm goes off. It says 6:00am and I'm due in for work at 7am. Wonderful. Well, at least for today, the alarm didn't screw up again. Yay. As I pass my pants on the way to the shower, I hear a faint buzzing.

What was that?

I hear it again. Ohh Thats my cel phone.. Must have forgot to turn the ringer back on *again*

So I reach down and quicky grab the phone, race out of the room so as not to wake the Boss (my darling wife, snoring away peacefully), and flip it open.

Me: *Sees Restricted Number on display, figures it's either some telemarketer (at 6 in the morning??) or work*
Me: Hello?
Caller: Did you remember about Daylight Saving Time?
Me: Uhh what? *still muzzy from waking up mere minutes ago. It is now 6:03am my time*
Caller: Daylight Savings -- it's 7 o'clock -- are you coming in?
Me: Oh CRAP! That's TODAY??
Caller: I knew you'd forget! How long will you be?
Me: I'll be there as quick as I can *shit ok need to shower, dress, GET there....*
Caller: Ok, Hurry up...
Me: I'm so sorry, I'll be there as quick as I can! *hangs up*

So then I JUMP in the shower (I just can't start my day without a shower and feel right -- it violates my OCD tendancies =) -- I quickly get dressed, toss a can of stew in my bag and race out the door... But before I leave....

Me: Did you know it was Daylight Saving today??
Wife: *woken from dead sleep* Huh? It is?
Me: Yeah I knew it was coming but .. well I'm late.. see ya
Wife: *mumble - sounded like "bye have a good day" but could have been anything*

So I race on to work -- and get stuck behind a bus.. then a slow old man in those stupid hats they wear for when they drive 30 in the 50 zones and leave the blinker on... Finally I arrive -- 30 minutes late. And my coworker is pretty pissed, understandably so, since she was forced to stay a 1/2 hour late because of me...

So that sets the modd for the whole day doesn't it?

Now rewind and scan over the preceeding week -- I listen to the radio news on my way to and from work, about 5/7 days a week, and happened to have had the news on for Wednesday through Saturday this past week... I also watch too much TV and spend way too much time online...

Even with all this "connection" to the world, NOT ONCE did I hear mention that THIS Sunday morning was the big day... I knew it was comming, but every OTHER year in my experience, there's been a frickin media frenzy about it.

Oh sure, they were all over it like fat kids on smarties, every 3 minutes on the way to work "And News 1130 Daylight Saving Time is now..." ... Maybe they figured that'd make up for not mentioning it at all during the previous week..

So why do I insist on blaming everyone else? I suppose I don't really .. it's just that until now, it's been so blatant everywhere when it's time, that I've never missed it before.. It's a cheat to SUDDENLY not bother saying anything in any of the usual places without any warning! =)

Meh, ultimately, it's my fault for not noting it (I've remedied that for the next couple years on my day planner now), but ultimately it comes down to this:

DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME IS OBSOLETE, STUPID, AND NO LONGER NECESSARY -- so WHY are we still using it???

I woke up this morning and I'm pretty sure I have a cold. *sniff* yup, it's a cold. What a sucky turn of events! *What about allergies?* No.. not allergies -- I live with those every day of the year -- I can tell the difference by now. Nope, it's a cold.

Now, when my darling wife has a cold, she sniffles and snorts and puffs and blows away... sneezing on the cats, etc... And the kitties snuggle up to her (one or the other, sometimes, as I understand it, in shifts). They seem to have a 6th sense that someone is sick and they'll cuddle with them... or so the theory goes...

So I'm quietly listening to Titanium Radio and typing this Blog... sniffling and blowing away (even the DayQuil barely make a dent)... and where are the damn cats?!

Nowhere to be found, thats where. *investigating...*

Ah I see. Earlier I cought a blur out of the corner of my eye as *something* streaked past the door to the room... It seemed like a kind of fuzzy blur. What produces fuzzy blurring? Cats chasing other cats down the hall, that's what!

Remember Pinky and the Brain from the other day? They're at it again... Looking all innocent at me when I wander into the living room -- and see Max in the cat tree looking all serene, and Alexis, paused in mid-groom-lick on the floor below... Both just stare in my direction, just slightly over my right shoulder in that supremely creepy way that cats always do that...

So after checking to my right and behind me, I wander over to Max. As I reach to pick him up, he starts in with the moaning.. Bloody cat. So I turn to pick up Alexis instead. She bolts. WHAT THE HELL?

When I get sick, these cats just stay the hell away from me! Do you call that fair? I come home from work, and Holly is home sick, and she goes on and on about how sweet the cats were and how they were her shadow all day... I usually just glare at them. I know the truth. They just like to mess with my head.

It's like with the looking-over-the-shoulder thing... I'm sure that stems from them THINKING they saw somethign over there.. paint chip on the wall or something, and yet.. when you get two cats, SEPERATELY and simultaneously doing it to you.. you can't help but wonder...

Max: Lets screw with his head
Alexis: Ok, boss sounds like fun!
Max: Ok when i twitch my whisker 3 times, we both stare over his right shoulder...
Alexis: Ok.. wait.. HIS right or OUR right?
Max: What? HIS right!
Alexis: Ok. Ready
Max: *twitchtwitchtwitch*
Max: DUDE! You're not LOOKING! *looks away quickly*
Alexis: Uh.. but you didn't do 3 yet!
Max: What are you talking about?
Alexis: Well, you did 1, 4, 2...
Max: Dumbass! *swipe**hiss*
Alexis: What?? *swipe**bolt*
Max: *sigh*
Max: *stares over my right shoulder just for kicks, by himself*

Retardation my ass.

First, allow me to introduce you to my cats. The Cat Chronicles was written back when we first got Max (we got him at 8 weeks), who is now about 7 years old. Just to avoid confusion....

That's Alexis on the left, and the cow-print one is Max. Yes, he's about twice as big as her. Alexis is just over a year old. And she knows how cute she is... I mean.. look at this...

As I write this at home alone on my day off, I look around and see no sign of them. How can that be? They spend so much time at night racing around, battlign each other, yelling battle-cries and generally carrying on - ricocheting off furniture, walls, closet doors (loud!), cupboards, baseboards, tool boxes, computer parts, monitors, dishes (yeah, they get on the tables too), the clatter of remote controls, the crash of a lamp.... and softly, the dignified hokking up of a hairball... or was that puke?

Seems a nightly occurrance.. i realize everyone says "cats are nocturnal" but SHEESH! I mean.. I do my best to keep em tired before I go to bed.. and yeah, it works for a little while -- they lay on the bed and act all cute -- except the small one. She burrows under the bed and plays with god-knows-what under there..

*fidget fidget*
*crinkle*
*silence*
*crinkle?*
*silence*
....
*silence*
*fidget...*
(wait for it....)
*silence*
*silence*
*CRINKLE!!*
"ALEXIS!!! GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE!" (whispered loudly by myself)
*silence*
...
*silence*
*rustle*
(Ah, she's found something NEW -- she KNOWS that we can't reach that far under there to get her... so if she stays under, she's safe...)
...and on it goes.

Of course, sone nights she doesn't bother -- instead Alexis and Max will just go at it in the hallway ...

*soft fuzzy thudding*
*hiss*
*HISS* (thats the big one apparently)
*soft fuzzy thud*
*meOWrrarrrrrr* (big one again)
*hissing slowly fading away as they progress back out toward the living room*
*silence* ... wait for it....
...
*fuzzy BANG* .. and someone ricochets off the wall again...
*meeooowwwrrr hiiissssssssssss*
*Raarrrrwrrrrrarrrrrrrrawwww SSsssssssssssssss*
"Don't make me come out there!!!!"
*silence*

Yes, they have a grand ol' time at night. Ya think you could get them to get off their sorry asses during the day? Hell no! Just a buncha furry slugs...

I imagine them, snoozing near each other (never together.. that wouldn't be proper apparently) ....

Alexis: What are going to do tonight, Max?
Max: The same thing we do every night, dumbass... Try to take over the ... apartment... i think...

Sounds like Pinky and the Brain (The link may assist in familiarizing yourself with the concept if you don't know it yet).... Click here and listen to this very short clip if nothing else....

When we first got Max, I seriously wondered if he was maybe mentally.. less than average... you know? He took 6 damn months to learn what his tail was for (he spent that time falling off of things mostly). Even at a couple years old, he'd repeatedly run full tilt, and head-first into glass and screen doors, over and over sometimes in the same evening. I mean, I can understand once, because their close vision sucks, but every 5 minutes? Come on, that's some serious retardation there.... Well, all of the stuff in the Cat Chronicles is true (the actions anyhow), and you gotta admit... that's pretty screwed up...

Well, Max eventually got smarter.. or maybe it's that he eventually stopped doing so MANY stupid things ... (I will have to write about "Grace" one of these days). Then we got Alexis....

OK -- If Max WAS that deficient mentally, then Alexis would have to be severely brain dead. And since she's not (turns out she's just incredibly willful and disobediant instead), I must concede that Max (eventually) got pretty smart. Allow me to show you what I mean:

Alexis: *wanders over to coffee table and looks up at it hungrily*
Max: *cough*I wouldn't*cough*do that if*cough*I were you*cough*
Alexis: Huh? *jumps up on table*
Max: Oh nothing *snicker*
Alexis: *plays with stuff on table*
Alexis: *knocks something off, makes a noise*
Human: "ALEXIS! BAD GIRL!"
Max: *snicker*
Alexis: Ooohhhhh SHIT!
Alexis: *Bolts*
Max: *Follows the action from very safe distance*
Human: *catches Alexis and begins to admonish*
Alexis: *cowers*
Max: You know.. I TOLD her not to... but...
Alexis: *glares at Max* Bastard!
Max: *grins and winks at Alexis*

The above occurs at least once a day, if not more.. I swear maybe he's even egging her on ... suggesting stuff to do. I dunno, but the fact is, he's always nearby, and always watching her get into stuff... and seems to greatly enjoy watching her get in trouble.

Not having had any siblings myself, I don't know all the ins and outs of such a dynamic.. but it IS how I imagine siblings would behave as cats...

Don't get me wrong... these two antagonize each other constantly, and then you turn around and they're licking each others' ears or something...

That is the status quo around here... of course, like with most females, all bets are off when Alexis is in heat... but that's a story for perhaps another day ... =)

On the subject of music, now that the beast is awakened...

Shortly after posting that last entry, Titanium Radio manages to randomly pull up all sorts of music that are amongst my personal favourites. Like Russell Watson "Faith of the Heart" (The theme from Enterprise - the ORIGINAL theme, not the lame version they used after the first season). There is something about this song that just lifts my spirits always, and gives me strength to conquer the day. When I'm feeling overwhelmed or just defeated... that song has a way of popping on air just at the right moment to lift me right back up again.

It's not just the music, you understand -- when I listen to a song (as opposed to a track -- one has words, and one does not), I listen most of all to the words. Yes, the tune is important, but nothing is as important as the words and message in the song. That's what MAKES it a good song! So when "Faith of the Heart" comes up, I already know most of the words in my head -- so even though I'm at work, being interrupted by phone calls and whatever every few seconds, I can still follow the song -- and still be lifted by its insirpation to me.

I grant that this song isn't for everyone -- the words on their own are special to me, but made more so by the implied hope message that was attached by using it for the Enterprise series. Yeah I'm a Trekkie, but mostly because Trek is all about faith and hope for a positive future... And it feels like this song embodies that in its way...

If you want to listen to it in its entirety (4+ minutes), that link above is for the full mp3 at 128kbit (near CD quality). You're welcome to download it, and actually I'm interested in how others feel about the song, so if you want to post a comment... you can do so by clicking the Comments link below...

OK So this Blog thing seemed like a fun idea -- Ever since the Cat Chronicles, people have been after me to resume them or do something similar...

Well, the cats have left me high and dry -- I got inspiration for the Chronicles by watching Max ... And then he stopped doing things that I could use!

So fine.. That's on the back burner indefinitely... so what do I do now? I sent out an email to friends and family today to announce the big launch of this Blog, and of course now there's that pressure to come up with something entertaining to read. After all, you're here now because you have a few minutes to kill and figure "hey, whats that Dave guy got goin on in his head?"

Hah! "Nothing" I say! That or "Everything" .. now you've got me all confused! Damn you for asking!

So I'm now sitting here... I'm at work. The phones are slowing down and I can spend more and more time thinking about this... Having ADHD, my mind goes in 1000 direction at once, all the time.. As I type this one sentence, I am creating and rejecting somewhere in the neighbourhood of about 50 ideas. Keep in mind I didn't say they were GOOD ideas... Well, ONE thing for sure: this particular entry is living up the the name of this site...

Well as my friends know, I love music. As I sit here, my Titanium Radio plays in the background, and I'm quietly grooving away. Suddenly, Orbital comes on -- one of my favourite songs: "Halcyon+On+On" This is about a 9 minute song, with no vocals. Just a kind of mild techno trance thing. This, along with Linkin Park's "Session" were the two most inspirational pieces I've heard, and the Orbital track was the one that made me finally figure out HOW to arrange songs...

That of course led me to creating Trance One and then Da Beat ... And later, a whole bunch of short tracks for a movie for my friend Jo (hi Jo all the way over there in Aussie land!)

So as I listen to Orbital playing I wonder at myself why I haven't done any more arranging... And I realize that there IS no good reason -- maybe it's that I think that if I really take it seriously, I'll realize that I don't actually have any good ideas for music -- that I should stick to listening rather than composing... But meh! I like the music I created, and really I create it for me, so, just liek this Blog, it's just a creative outlet. I guess, who cares if it sucks right? .. as long as I like it!

Whew well wasn't that therapeutic. And rambling! YAY! I managed to keep to the topic!

Oh this is gonna be easy after all!!

Those that know me, know I'm kinda "all about the preamble" ... They also know that I don't often get to their percieved POINT of the story in the most direct route possible, most of the time. That's only because, for me, the TELLING of the story is as important as the event itself. I like to spin a long yarn, and in my way I like to include the audience in the moment of the event that I'm unfolding. I talk about all the things going on AROUND the story at the time to put my audience into the spirit of the moment...

Yeah, I'm aware this frequently backfires, but I don't think I can stop =)

"What an odd first entry to this blog..." I can alomost hear you saying to yourself... And again, I reiterate -- I like to take the long way to a story. So I guess this is a warning to you all =)

I suppose this entry is my introduction to myself for your benefit -- You so generously clicked onto this Blog, when there are thousands more out there -- probably millions -- and I don't want to waste your time. Well OK I do want to waste your time, but I don't want you to regret it! =)

So what else should you know before we really get into this? Here's a key point: I rarely have the time to run spell checkers on stuff. Yes, I can spell. Yes, I am excellent with grammar rules. Yes, I type entirely too fast. =)

I spent a lot of time on IRC (What's that?) and have done so for a lot of years. I run a network (with, of course, the help of a great staff), and basically get a LOT of practise in with typing. As a result, it's become all about "getting that idea from my brain to the screen" rather than worrying about "is the spelled correctly" or "did I just misspell liek again??"

That said, you will likely note a ton of typos. Get used to it =)

(More to come later this evening from work... That's when we get into the REAL Blogging...)