Numbers Rock!

1) As mentioned before, I've been playing GTA: San Andreas a lot lately. The first time I played it was on the PS2 a few years ago, and I just couldn't get into it. I had beaten GTA 3 and GTA: Vice City on the PC and I just can't stand the controls of it on the PS2. Steam recently started offering Rockstar games and had a sale when they were first available, so I downloaded San Andreas 'cuz it was cheap.

It's a lot better on the PC, for me anyway. It was chugging along really great too, I've probably spent 40 hours on it, having fun, goofing off, completing missions...

Then *BAM* - "Hey CJ, go learn to fly a plane!"

Now, I like games that are challenging, but I also think that missions and quests and whatnot in games should be *beatable the first time around.* Even if it's hard as fuck and I end up dying 20 times, I want to be able say after it's all said and done, "I totally could have done that the first time, if I wasn't such a dumbfuck!"

These plane controls... FUCK WHOEVER DESIGNED THIS SHIT. Yeah, gimmicky missions with bad controls are just as much a staple of the GTA games as stealing cars and punching hookers, BUT FUCK!!!

I remember a mission in Vice City where you had to use a toy helicopter to plant bombs in a building being constructed. It sucked, but I got it done in one sitting. In San Andreas, there are the infamous Zero missions, especially the last one where you control a toy helicopter that has to protect Zero's toy car. That was kind of fun, but challenging, and I was able to beat it in two sittings.

I've spent about 3 hours in the past week trying to FLY THIS FUCKING PLANE in a CLOCKWISE CIRCLE and I finally DID IT and then it WANTS ME TO DO THE SAME THING AGAIN, and then LAND.

The controls on this plane fucking suck and I can't for the life of me fly THE DAMN PLANE in a FUCKING CIRCLE a second time.

Most of these missions I'm able to beat on my first try, so I have the sense of momentum in the game, and then FUCK.

FUCK this PLANE and FUCK fucking ROCKSTAR for this MISSION.

2) Seems like there are no good horror movies hitting theaters anytime soon. That really fucking sucks. There's a new Spanish movie called [REC] that's getting a lot of positive buzz, but I doubt it'll be hitting theaters stateside - ever. Hopefully it won't take long to hit DVD.

Upcoming highlights:

Repo! The Genetic Opera (August) - This is either going to be the best thing ever, or the worst thing ever. Pluses: Nivek Ogre and lots of gore. Minuses: It's a musical with a bit of an Andrew Lloyd Weber sound (*gag*puke*gag*) and Paris Hilton.

Midnight Meat Train (August) - Best title ever, plus its an adaptation of a short story from one of Clive Barker's Books of Blood. Now if only someone good would adapt The Damnation Game.

Saw V (October) - Because the Saw movies are always decent and I don't regret having seen any of them in theaters. Hopefully this isn't the first one to completely suck.

Hellraiser (January) - The only thing that could top the original movie would be a closer adaptation of Barker's The Hellbound Heart with a bigger budget. I wouldn't even consider this if Clive Barker himself weren't involved.

In other news, I'm disappointed that Guillermo Del Toro is going to be spending the next four years working on a couple of Hobbit movies, I was really looking forward to his adaptation of Lovecraft's At The Mountains of Madness and I'm sure "Fruity Little Midgets with Swords: The Movie (Parts 5 and 6)*" is going to delay that. Most Lovecraft movies fall flat on their face, but I'd like to see what he comes up with.

*(Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll fucking see them and they'll be awesome but C'MON!!! Del Toro + Lovecraft!!!!!)

3) I really, really hate my job. I had problems with the way shit was run when it was the pork plant, but the wiener factory higher ups are 100x worse. They outsource so much shit to other companies who don't give a fuck about our customers, it's retarded. There is no accountability in these other offices and I get the sense that people are free to just say and do whatever the fuck they want there. It's total bullshit. I feel like the factory that I work in is the only one in the entire nationwide chain that gives a fuck about anything, and that we're the only ones who even try to solve *legitimate problems* that people have with our... processed meat.

Yeah, some people are deadbeats, some people are assholes, but at the end of the day, paying customers should be able to... properly digest our meat... the way it's supposed to work. When someone has a problem, I shouldn't have to "fill out a ticket" and wait 72 god damn hours for someone in fucking Denver to fix it (or more likely *not*). That wasn't part of the problem solving process before, there's no reason for it to be now.

I think the essential problem is that the Pork Plant was a privately held corporation and the Weiner Factory is a publicly traded stock. As long as the Pork Plant was turning a profit, its dozen or so shareholders were making mad bank, so they didn't feel the need to belligerently FUCK everyone. With the Weiner Factory, they have to dick over everyone, employees and customers alike, just to squeeze a few extra pennies onto the value of each of their MILLIONS of stock shares.

Seriously - some of the crap I've dealt with in the past two months has really, seriously, honestly DEPRESSED me. I hate that word. I grew up in the 90's, when it was *oh so trendy* to be depressed. But for the first time in over a year, I *dread* going to work. I used to be able to jump out of bed and get in the shower, no problem. Now - I absolutely cannot move for at least the first 10 minutes while my alarm goes off - I'm paralyzed. Creatively, I feel flaccid. When I get home from work, I just want to forget everything that happened that day.

If there was more work in my area, I would bail. But I'm saving up money and paying off my student loans for the time being, so as much as I want to get the fuck out of Hoosierland, I don't want to move to another place and not be able to find a job for few months and come back here with less money than when I left.

4) Gemma gave me some CDs for my birthday, one of them was Haujobb's Vertical Mixes, the companion remix album to Vertical Theory. One of the remixes is by Seabound, and I was really looking forward to it, but when I listened to track 7, which is labeled as "Platform (Seabound Remix)" on the back cover, I was disappointed. It wasn't horrible, just kind of "meh." But Damn, I really got into track 8, which was labeled "Metric (Hecq Reemiqs)." The more I listened to track 8, the more I noticed little things. There was the dream beat... and then there was an Oscillator Sync sweep... very similar to something from Seabound's No Sleep Demon CD. And the lyrics... "Is it possible for software to live? You Think. You think you are free. You are a PLATFORM, a presence that could be."

Wait a second. Is there a misprint on the back of the CD?

TO THE INTERNETS!!!

Sure enough, track 07 was "Slide (Glis Remix)," which was labelled on the CD as track 12 - not horrible, just kind of generic futurepop. Track 08 was "Platform (Seabound Remix)," and everything up until the final track on the CD was one track off.

It's a good thing Seabound is one of those bands who are just so good that you can pick them out from everyone else, because otherwise I would've attributed Backlash's remix of S.adow to the very different "Shok's Scrambled Egg Mix," or whatever. The Backlash remix is awesome. A lot of the other tracks on here are awesome as well, the best tracks are the new song "Mind Crush," Haujobb's remixes of "Metric" and "Platform," the aforementioned Seabound remix, the Backlash remix, "Renegades of Noize (Asche Remix)," and "The Noise Institute (1994 Mix by Iszoloscope)." That's just over half the CD right there of "best tracks."

The weakest track? "Metric (Hecq Reemiqs)."

Go fucking figure.

♥ Old School Death Rock ♥

A Picture of Emptiness

Working at the wiener factory is like sticking my face in a bowl full of dicks, all day, every day

1) Earlier this week, I decided I was going to hold off on buying a Waldorf Blofeld for something like a year or more. Then the price jumped up 100 bucks from $699 to $799. Is this supply and demand, or is the US dollar doing that crappy vs the Euro?

2) There's a Little Phatty II coming out that includes an arp and a USB MIDI interface. Is it just me or does this post seem to imply they'll be releasing a patch that will bring the arp to Little Phatty I's?

"The arpeggiator is a firmware feature of Little Phatty OS 2.0, which is currently in progress; I am testing it as we develop it. It will start shipping with the new LP Stage edition version II, which should be out next month. Once that's done we will release an update for all LP Stage Editions which will give them the new features; after that we plan to port it to the Tribute Edition as well."

I sure hope my Little Phatty (Stage Edition) gets an arp - that would rule, then I would have no reason at all to be jealous of the LP II. Being able to sync the LFO to MIDI would be fun, but I can live without it - and as for the whole USB MIDI thing; fuck that, every fucking piece of gear I own now has a USB MIDI interface. I don't have a USB port for every piece of gear I own!

3) I've been playing GTA: San Andreas on the PC lately. I bought it for PS2 way back when - couldn't get into it, then I downloaded it off Steam for PC when it was on sale. I've got to say, I can't play games like GTA on anything but the PC. Same thing with the Hitman games. If Manhunt didn't end up being such a shit fest, I'd be tempted to download that to my PC for $10. I have a feeling that in the level where I left off in Manhunt, I could probably waste every enemy in the level if in two minutes if I was using a mouse and keyboard. Not worth it, however.

4) Back in 2002, I bought a 1024 x 768 15" flat screen monitor. When I moved to Hoosierland in 2006, my aunt gave me an old Compaq 19" CRT monitor that did 1280 x whatever. I'd been using the 15" as a second monitor on my Mac for Logic (pic below).


Doing my best to make my music studio look like an S&M dungeon.

Eventually, the old flat screen began to look so blurry that I decided to retire it. Then, last week, my CRT monitor, which had been cranky for the past few months - skewing and contorting the picture, turning itself off - decided to die, so I needed a new monitor for my PC. I had been wanting to pick up a cheap set of speakers w/ a subwoofer for a while, so I decided to GO SHOPPING.

Now I'm cranking up the sub, cappin' asses in GTA and Audiosurfin' at 1440 x 900 on a 19" widescreen LCD monitor.

Awwwwwww yeah, this is why I suck dicks all day at the wiener factory.

PS - When I'm driving around in GTA cappin' asses and smackin' bitches, I listen to the House music radio station and I really like this song. (Ignore the gay little anime video. I haven't watched it, electing instead to look at another tab in my browser while the music plays in the background. So, if you watch that video, beware. I'm not taking responsibility if there's tentacle rape or any of that shit.)

♥ Germans ♥

Pit Bulls and Pratfalls

There was a pit bull loose in my neighborhood. I first saw it on Sunday, it was hanging out in a strip of trees on the other side of a chain link fence. It walked away as I approached, so it wasn't immediately threatening, but I was worried because I walk my two dogs along there once a day. I didn't want my dogs being attacked; I already have enough stress in my life, what with the wiener factory having taken over the pork plant where I work.

I called Hoosierville-A Animal Control, only to find out that they were closed on Sundays. Good thing it wasn't Cujo frothing at the mouth, I guess. I left a message informing them there was a male - not neutered - pit bull roaming around the neighborhood right near a public park where people like me walk their dogs, and people not like me bring their kids.

Monday night, I came home from a grueling day of work at the wiener factory planning on taking my dogs out for a walk, only to find the pit bull running brazenly around my neighborhood - chasing people who were riding their bikes and walking their dogs. I called Hoosierville-A Animal Control again. They were closed. Again. This time I fucked around with their phone menu until it gave me an emergency number. The lady who answered sounded like she had a metal plate in her head. I explained the situation. Loose pit bull. Not neutered. Chasing people.

It'd have to wait until morning.

Okay. I called the Hoosierville-A police non-emergency number. They told me to call Hoosierville-A animal control. Round and round in circles. Just like the pit bull outside my house. He wanted to hump my dogs. Both my dogs are boys. Who the fuck doesn't neuter their dogs, let alone their pit bull? An asshole, that's who.

The only way I was going to walk my dogs that night was to neutralize the pit bull - take him out of the game. It was important I walk my dogs - If I didn't, they would eat me in my sleep. Keep in mind, I work in the wienie factory all day now. I'm delicious.

I used food to lure the pit bull into my backyard. He was starving, I could see his rib cage and his spine through his skin. He was never aggressive - like I said, all he wanted out of my dogs was a quick hump. Not that I didn't mind that, but at least he wasn't looking for a fight.

I locked him in my backyard while I walked my dogs. Then I tried the animal control emergency number again. Metal plate lady answered. I explained I had the pit bull trapped in my backyard. She said there was no way anyone could get him - it was after hours. I asked if there was *anywhere* I could take *him*. She said there was not, and advised me to leave a message on the Hoosierville-A answering machine, that way they'd here my message sooner and get to me first. Tax dollars at work. I left a message, there's a stray pit bull, not neutered, locked in my backyard. Please take him away.

So there I was, with an unwanted overnight guest. It was getting cold, he was whining and howling. I felt bad for him. Plus, my dogs couldn't get over the excitement of having a new friend around and wanted to go out back and play with him. No way. Not going to let my boys get humped by a sketchy drifter.

But there was also no way I was going to be able to sleep that night between the evening visitor howling out back and my boys barking in response. I decided I had to put the pit bull in the garage. I got a leash and spent some time coaxing him close enough that I could slip it over his head. I was afraid the entire time that he would go into pit bull tard-rage mode and attack. He didn't. He wasn't exactly cooperative about going to the garage, despite the emaciation, he was still pretty strong. Little, too. My dogs were about 50% larger than him, but he had it where it counts. Mainly his balls. Seriously, this dog had gigantic balls for his size.

Once in the garage, I gave him some food and water. I know you're not supposed to feed starving dogs, it can make them sicker, but I didn't know what else to do. I got an old cushion and some raggy towels and made him a little bed. He seemed a bit more relaxed. Then I took some pictures to go with the story.








Seriously, those are some fucked-up huge balls.

He was quiet the entire night. I sleep right above the garage - like the Fonz. My boys had no idea he was in there, so they were quiet for the rest of the night as well.

The next morning, I woke up a bit early, something I hate doing, to put the pit bull back in my backyard in case Animal Control came to get him. First I had to let my boys out to do their thing. I kept an eye out the front window the entire time, imagining a worst case scenario where Animal Control comes and takes my dogs instead of the one I want them to take.

Once I had the pit bull out back, it was the same ritual as the night before - the guest was whining and howling, wanting to come in, my boys were freaking out over the new kid that I wasn't allowing them to play with.

Finally, around 9am, Animal Control came by. I wasn't entirely 100% sure our friend was a pit bull, as I am not an expert, so I asked the animal control guy. He said, yeah, that's a pit bull. He really wasn't happy about that fact, but he had no trouble getting him.

It sucks that he's going to get his balls chopped off and possibly be put to sleep. No matter his temperament, I doubt city shelters are that interested in adopting out pit bulls. He seemed like a good dog too, but maybe he just came off as more sweet than he normally was because of his weakened state. I don't know. Part of me wishes I could've kept him around and named him "Gir" after the Invader Zim character, but I've got more than enough dog on my plate. Aside from that, my boys like to play a bit rough, and I don't think a pit bull, especially one whose past I know nothing about, would mesh well with their play style. It's far to0 easy to imagine them playing and him freaking out and clamping on to one of their necks and not letting go.

So overall, a sense of sadness. That, and it really fucking sucks to work in the wiener factory.

I rule this school

21 blocks on a song by my friend's band, Love Like Deloreans. Hooray!

Blofeld (infinity^2)

New post on MatrixSynth has a youtube video that's about 10mins of someone cycling through the Blofeld presets.

Maybe it will actually be available by the end of March?

"I'd rather be up to my elbows in shit all day than talk to people like you..."

...perhaps I should become a plumber.

1) the world is insane
It's great and all she has a husband and kid and what not, but, ummm... you have to worry about the motives of someone who'd fuck that.

2) I was going to post an "epilogue" of sorts to my GE Washing Machine Rant. I have a voicemail saved that I was going to record and upload and link to and everything, but I'm lazy. It was left at 7:58am the day of the appointment and essentially goes like this:

"*crunch* *crunch* *crunch* Hello, this is GE. The tech is, uhhh, out of the field today, so you'll have to reschedule. The next available day is, uhhhh, Friday the 22nd (exactly one week later), Bye!"

I have a hunch their stupid online thingy just got sent to some contractor who had a better job that day and that was his wife eating potato chips for breakfast or some shit. Really freaking professional. Luckily my mother had already been talking to some of the people she works with about the whole situation and someone recommended a repair man who was able to meet her THAT DAY after 1pm. Everything is fine now, my clothes are clean, but don't buy GE, 'cuz they eat dicks.

3) Meraud asks for absolution for being too nerdy because he read the Silmarillion and loved it.

I am now asking for absolution for not being nerdy enough.

I read The Watchman and didn't like it.

The first half was righteous enough, but the second half went into La-La Land. For some reason the "we can do anything we can draw!" thing that turns people on to comic books and anime just doesn't work for me.

Gemma was in town and made me go into the comic book store near Roots because she wanted to pick up a HorrorClix booster pack.

My girlfriend fiancee is a 12 year old boy

I have this thing about small, independent stores. I don't like going in them and not buying something. It's weird. I assume the guy at the register is the owner. I feel like I owe him at least a little something for existing in his space and time continuum. They didn't have HorrorClix anymore, Gemma wanted to look around and it seemed like we wouldn't be buying anything.

I am neurotic.

Years ago, I read V for Vendetta and didn't like it. (Spoilers the next paragraph, skip it if you plan on reading/watching the movie.)

I thought the point of it was that V was the lesbian Valerie from the concentration camp. Then I saw the movie that came out a few years ago and loved it. Except for the part where V tortures Evey. That just never worked for me.

So anyway, The Watchmen is supposed to be, like, the pinnacle of the whole "graphic novel" genre. And they're coming out with a movie of it in 2009, so I'm somewhat interested because I liked the V for Vendetta move so much. It was there, it was $20, so I bought it. It turns out Gemma bought a smutty comic called "Purgatory," but I had already been carrying around The Watchmen, and I'm neurotic and didn't want to put it down because I didn't want the guy at the register thinking I snuck it under my coat. I need therapy.

The first half is great, the second half is masturbatory. The ending is poo. Meh.

I read about the Watchmen movie on wikipedia. It turns out Terry Gilliam was once attached to direct, but has since left the project saying it's, "un-film-able." I'm inclined to agree. There are five main characters and the entire narrative is so flashback heavy, I just don't see it working as a movie. Now the guy who is directing it is the guy who did, "300." I haven't seen that yet but I am interested in seeing it someday... for free. Maybe the Watchmen movie will be good, but I don't have high hopes for it and don't really care either way.

4) Audiosurf recently released an update, everything is smoother, it bugs out less, and it seems like they updated some of the graphics. Audiosurf is my new religion.


5) Oh hey, a Blofeld review.

Audiosurf

There's a bit of buzz about a new game called Audiosurf that was just released on Steam. Apparently it's been in beta for a few months, so a lot of people already knew about it, but I first heard about it today. Basically, Audiosurf reads an mp3 file and then generates a "level" from the song - similar to visualization plug-ins for Windows Media Player and Winamp and shit, only instead of generating it "on the fly," it takes a few seconds to pre-render it before you play it, so it comes off as a bit less random. Once the level is rendered, you then control a little spaceship and try to maximize your points by collecting colored blocks. It probably fits into the same genre as Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero and Rock Band, in terms of being a "rhythm game" where you try to hit things in time with the music.

It essentially has three "modes," of play; Mono, "not-mono" and co-op. Mono is where there are colored blocks and gray blocks, and you want to collect the colored blocks and avoid the gray blocks. The colored blocks are always the same color, so the player doesn't need to worry about color matching. "Not-mono" is simply my term for what seems to be the "regular" style of play, where the blocks are different colors and you have to match them, kind of like Bejeweled or some shit. There are a handful of different "not-mono" spaceships to choose from, each with its own special ability, such as the ability to shuffle the colored blocks you've collected or the ability to pick up a colored block and put it down later, when it will have a better impact on your score. Finally, co-op is what it sounds like; you need a partner and one person has the left two lanes, the other person the right two lanes.

Here are some YouTubes:

Mono - NIN "The Wretched" (remix)
Mono - Rick Astley "Never Gonna Give You Up"
Mono - A-ha "Take On Me"
Colors - Daft Punk "Around the World"
Colors - Dethklok "Murder Train"


It's loads of fun, and only $10 on Steam. I've found that Haujobb songs make the best race tracks. In fact, "Faith in Chaos" from Vertical Theory was so cool, I wanted to make my own video capture and put it on YouTube, but it appears that recording my own video with sound without spending any money is just not going to happen. (I did try a freeware program called CamStudio and it says my soundcard lacks the ability to capture the sound playing out of my speakers. *shrug*)

So if you have $10, thinks this looks fun, and want an excuse to sit in front of the computer listening to music all day, check out Audiosurf.