Monday, May 18, 2009

as an elephant eats.

hey there. remember how i said i'd post more 8 bit stuff as i finished it? well, i finally finished another one.

i've realized that the fun of having multiple projects at once comes at the price of a slower development for each piece. simple, i know, but it's just started setting in. that means you may not be seeing these (or hearing them, rather) as often as i'd like. oh well.

here's my first of a few covers i'm working on. it's from a film which you'll probably have seen. i wish i'd had more to do for it, but i thought for now it would do as is since i really want to get to other projects. it may have more surgery later on... we'll see.

so here's the movie clip. as always, it's only a clip because blogger demands it be more than just a sound file. the visuals are strictly there to not make you stare at a plain black screen. if you want a copy, let me know. i'm sure i'll be able to get you one. also as always, you may want to be careful with your volume. you've been warned.

and thus, i give you, as an elephant eats.




i guess we'll see how long it is until the next one is up. could be a bit thanks to some tricky harmonies, but if you've waited this long for this one (as i know my severals of diehard fans have done) you'll be used to it.

so long, friends.

Friday, May 15, 2009

mopping with cute little animals.

so, i know i had a post something like ten hours ago saying to just wait because it may be a bit before i have another reason to post.

well, a reason came up sooner than i expected. on top of that, it actually has nothing to do with tunes like i said it probably would. oh well.

i clean bathrooms every morning starting at 4:30 am. as you can probably guess, things can get pretty interesting with everyone consistently being up at this time. (for a great example of this, check out my coworker laura's post about it.) part of cleaning the bathrooms is mopping.

here's a typical perspective. nothing fancy, just a simple stick to mop head view that doesn't allow much to be seen outside of it mopping up a (often bizzarre) collection of marks, hair, and spills. this is, after all, what it has as a purpose. to clean up what mop's good friend broom misses.








anyway, this morning we put a new mophead on the stick because the one we put first on essentially had been used as part of a bullet-proof vest, it was not working at all. it was referred to as "the devil" by travis and "a wet t-shirt" by kyle. this is unimportant, though, outside of the fact that it caused us to go downstairs, replace the mophead, and come back up. because we were carrying it up we were able to see it dry which is unusual, as its almost always in a bucket of consume eco-lyzer mopping solution.

on our way upstairs, i began using it as a sort of gandolf staff, and met this when i looked at it.


it's a kitty!

or maybe the antagonist from soul reaver for playstation. whatever.

either way, it's adorable. i'm mopping with something that is just tooooooo cute! these animals are cute enough that other cats have been able to even spark and internet pop culture icon. i smell a spin off.
so. expect to have this image in your inbox soon, along with "hilarious youtube clips" from your coworkers.
because it's adorable.

i'll try to have an interesting post up soon. but at five in the morning, this seemed like a post opportunity i couldn't afford to pass up.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

shorts.(kind of boring)

hello everybody.

i feel a bit lame because i haven't been keeping up with my posts as of late despite some cool stuff happening. suffice to say that madtracker software and job hunting and sleeping have occupied a large amount of my time as of late.

well, all of that and law and order. i love law and order.

in the meantime, i have a few projects that i'm working in the digital music world that should be posted soon with any luck. much thanks to skyler for his input, by the way, which is proving extremely useful.

i'm currently trying to find a way to make this post somehow interesting despite it's entire purpose being only to say "read the next post, it's sure to be worth it."

so in the meantime, i'll make the note of the fact that i'm attempting to begin exercising. this includes a rather humorous trip to the di buy some cheap exercise clothing since i don't actually own any shorts, or anything outside of dress pants, corduroys, and jeans. being that i haven't worn anything at all in the realm of gym clothes since high school, we did what we could in trying to re-aquaint me with the uniform of a gym-goer. now, i'm not especially use to wearing shorts. therefore, the idea of wearing shorts that are even shorter than usual is a bit uncomfortable. to counteract the short factor, i decided to try out the large and xl pairs because they were the only ones that were looking like they would reach my knee.

i tried on the pair that seemed most likely to be the right length, and, well... i pulled a jared.


the shorts i wound up purchasing were indeed a bit shorter than the knee, but i guess fashion comes at the price of modesty at the gym. that's just the way it goes.

i'll let you know if anything funny happens involving a rowing machine or anything of the sort.

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

fenside

hello again, everybody.

i found myself with some time today, and decided to finally lay down a track i've had wandering around my skull for the last two and a half years.

for the unaware, i served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in various parts of england and wales. while there, i had my fair share of noteworthy experiences. quite a few of these experiences took place in boston, england (home of the stump and boston united). among these, many of the more exciting and or remarkably upsetting (only because disturbing is too strong of a word) experiences took place in fenside, a neighborhood in the northwest corner of boston town.

after working in the neighborhood and having such an interesting time, it seemed natural that this pulsing little number that i came up with on 24 key keyboard in my apartment should be named after it, if it wasn't at least partially inspired by it.

the song isn't exactly finished, at least in the sense that it has everything i wanted for it, but it won't for some time, i'd imagine. this being the case, i'll share it as is for the moment. let me know what you think if you have an opinion.

anyway, this is it. like last time, the video is just so it's not flat black screen to stare at, so don't bother complaining about it.




the thought of my mission reminds me of the people and places that met me there. to all of you, thanks. i love the places i stayed and the people that populated them. thanks for your kindness and patience with this and many other boisterous 19-year-old american boys.

and ones of other nationalities too.
ta.

Monday, May 4, 2009

heavy's big fists.

hellow.
for those of you who may not know me in real life, or haven't known me in real life for very long, i have a bit of an interest in creating music. however, the fact that i'm somewhat limited in my resources, making cheap digital music has had a certain flair for me.

well i've started playing with the stuff again. yes, again. if you'd like to get a hold of the stuff i made my freshman year, you can find it here. it's free to download if you'd really like to, though that may be unlikely.

anyway, i started playing with things some more, and have a new little number for everyone. i would have simply set it up as a sound file, but blogspot will only let me load it as a video. such being the case, i made some lame visualization for it with windows movie maker. don't bother complaining about how poor it is, i'm fully aware. it's just so it wasn't just black space. and by the way, if you'd like a copy of the track for whatever reason, just let me know in a comment or something. i'm sure i can get it to you somehow.

anyway, here it is.
you may need to turn up your speakers.






more than an attempt to make enjoyable music, this was an experiment. it turned out about as well as i could hope for considering the time and resources i had. hopefully more stuff will be posted as time moves on.

and that's about all this post was for. like i said, hopefully more in the future. for the time being, i'm sure "heavy's big fists" is more than enough digital blips to satisfy the most of you. and the rest of you, be patient.

and a big thanks to brad for the title.

Saturday, May 2, 2009

the last two and a half weeks.

hello all. sorry about the hiatus of sorts. some combination of taxes, finals, moving, job hunting, rediscovering music software, having a computer with a bad attitude, and just having post-semester apathy set in, i got a bit lazy with my blog posts. that being said, i had a few posts i planned to a degree. therefore, rather than having one big theme to this post, i'll have the titles and condensed versions of said posts. i'll try to keep up better in the future.

taxing.
so. taxes are due. i'll assume that you, the reader, are familiar enough with taxes and the general attitude toward them that i won't bother writing about them. instead, i just decided to share something funny from the paperwork for utah state taxes.
i'm glad to see that the state of utah is either seeking to make these forms all the more clear, or simply trying to add a bit of humanity to the taxing process. either way, i was indeed "frowny face" to find i had more due than my refund. oh well, i suppose it's like rent for a year for a very big hotel.

variations on warpaint
.
it's finals week. that means things are a little crazy.
for me, with finals week comes certain preparation. in many cultures, the practice of painting faces and bodies in preparation for battle is part of the local heritage and tradition. the purpose, i'd imagine, is generally unique to different groups in the specifics. in general, though, intimidating the enemy and preparing the self for the difficulties of battle seem a safe bet.
here at byu, we're not allowed warpaint, but over the semesters and terms i've developed a sort of variation on warpaint.

my ring and middle fingers are generally the ones that cause me annoyance in testing. even if well maintained, if they're only a bit longer (as in not clipped within two days), they will inevitably begin bothering me through testing. this has defined my "warpaint" for finals week. i clip those two nails shorter than the others. perhaps not intimidating the enemy, but just the same, putting me in the warrior mindset.

i share this not so that you feel as if you should as well, but to encourage you to find some kind of warpaint for yourself... but if you can just use normal facepaint, that's probably the most fun.

to put off intentionally the doing of something that should be done.
it's interesting. finals week is clearly lined up for students for the whole semester. here at byu, many finals aren't scheduled. instead, students can take their tests according to their own schedule, simply going to the byu testing center to take their tests as they like.

the gut instinct is of course to put off your most difficult test to the end of the last day of finals in order to maximize your available study time. the issue here is the fact that that's everybody's gut instinct. what does that translate to?
this is the end of the line to the testing center. this is the benson building. let me give you some scale to put this in context.
the testing center therefore had to stay open until three am (normally closing at ten), with the line peaking at something like two and a half hours to take a test.

moral of the story? sometimes, test aren't worth taking. but they typically are if you don't wait until the afternoon of the last day.


sad bean.
we recently moved apartments. by we, of course, i mean myself and two of my roommates, sean and brad. or sad bean.
the move wasn't all that intense because all we had to do was move our stuff from apt 12 to number 8.
anyway, things are now pretty well settled, and we have our new roommate who i think is still getting used to us, and that's fair enough.

that's about the extent of what i intended to post, but i thought i'd add this just because i could.

this was taken just after sean had finished singing his own interpretation of "i believe i can fly" while brad looked up a conference talk.

they are just toooo cute!






that's basically what i intended for the last several posts that i failed to actually do. i probably could have mentioned more, but i thought this was good enough for now.

so now i'll hopefully be able to feel caught up once again and continue to post garbage that nobody really cares about. three cheers for blogging!