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Looking For Quacks In The Pavement

  • Summer Music Project 2008: Week Six

    This week’s musical selection is one of those acts that most people think peaked and went away within a few short years back in the ’80s. While the case could be made that they’re not as commercially successful in the “hit records” sense nowadays, they’re still packing ’em in on the dance floors, not to mention collaborating with musical stars both new and old.

    Coming up with an approach to the Pet Shop Boys mix stymied me for days. This evening I had almost settled on starting with the single version of “Left To My Own Devices” from 1988 when I realized that the song is twenty years old and counts among their early material. That’s when I decided to look at what albums came out when, and the solution finally presented itself as I noticed that Please, Bilingual and Fundamental are spaced at a ten year interval. (What? Bilingual is twelve years old now? That can’t be right…)

    Please enjoy, in chronological order, the songs “Tonight Is Forever,” “Up Against It” and “Integral.”

    That last track is a bit sociopolitical in lyrical tone, which leads rather neatly into our next musical selection. Join us for a trip Down Under next week…

  • Too Too Too Too

    This isn’t part of anything, nor is it meant to have meaning, nor does it flow very well in a musical fashion. I’m inflicting it upon the world anyway, at least the part of the world curious enough to give it a listen.

    I was walking to the MAX station after work and The Church’s “Much Too Much” came on, followed by Genesis’ “Feeding the Fire,” which includes the lyrics, “Well I have seen you stung by poisonous flies / And you suffer much too much from their bites.” I realized that not only was that a nifty coincidence born of random song selections, but I happen to have a string of songs with a similar, connectable title scheme.

    I give you, therefore, a mix which could be titled “Much Too Much Too Many Too Many Too Many Too Many People.” (I tacked the Pet Shop Boys track on because… well, the Genesis track is painfully ’70s. Trust me. I’d rather end on a high note than leave the title theme unbroken.)

    Don’t worry. The Project entry is in the works even as I take a break to type this up…

  • Think of it as a compromise on NaNoWriMo.

    In a flash of crazed, half-asleep inspiration, my next ambitious project just came to mind. It pushes me in a desirable direction, it’s a bit “multimedia” even though that buzzword went out of style ages ago, and I’ll have to work just that much harder to pull it off versus the effort I’m putting into my Summer Music Project. One should challenge oneself, I’ve been told.

    So here’s the idea: What if I wrote a serialized story that came with its own soundtrack?

    To pull this off I’ll have to put together more prep work than I’ve done for the Summer Project. I’ll need a plot outline and a list of appropriate songs. At least I won’t need any additional hardware. I might try some new software, though.

    Maybe I’m crazy. Maybe I’ll give up on this idea like I’ve done with so many others in my life. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll pull this off and build up the confidence to try something bigger…

  • Summer Music Project 2008: Week Five

    Jon Crosby seems to be a guy who just likes noodling around musically. I’m not too sure about the direction he’s going lately, but I like a lot of the material he released under the guise of VAST. Please enjoy a song with the name “Song Without A Name,” a song I sort of panned in my review back when Nude came out named “Don’t Take Your Love Away,” and the song which got me hooked on VAST back when I was experimenting with MP3 downloading way back in the day named “Touched.”

    We’re about one third of the way through the project, my friends. Our next outing will once again send us back to the UK for a date with one of the most successful pop duos around.

  • One Smooth and One Rough Upgrade

    Post tagged:

    WordPress 2.6? No problem. Upgraded in two minutes, everything worked perfectly afterward.

    Mandigo 1.35? Problem. It forgot all of my settings. All. I managed to get things looking more-or-less the way I want them, but I really wish I’d noted some of the custom color selections I’d set. Also, the “TMTT” drop-down menu doesn’t work.

    Not that anybody actually reads the Thumbnail Theater thing, but still. Such is life in the fast lane.

  • State Of The Little Grey Duck, Mid-July 2008

    Wow. I haven’t really done much around here, have I? I mean… yes, the music project. Which is much more fun to do now that I’m not dreading a weekly recording session, I should point out. So, what’s going on in my life and at random?

    • Family drama levels are higher than usual, thanks to financial drama (as yet unresolved) coupled with younger rugrat drama (mostly resolved). One of these months I’ll be able to go without suffering panic attacks brought on by money issues… right?
    • Summer has truly arrived. The air is often moist enough to drink and the heat is as oppressive as I ever want to deal with, thus my air conditioner is mounted and running most of the time when I’m in my room, awake or asleep. On the upside, I found a way to mount the rig which doesn’t bother me so much. Previously it was sort of hanging on by the strength of the sliding window structure itself. Now it’s considerably better balanced and braced, and I sleep much easier at night. Less stress is a very good thing.
    • I’m still not seeing enough of my friends other than Kyla and the roomie. Some of this is my own damned fault for not making a point of pestering people to make plans, and some of this is due to extenuating circumstances. (Let’s say, somebody coming down with the Killer Death Crud? For weeks? Bah!)
    • Apparently my domain still shows up on website blocking lists as pornography, as noted today by friend karawynn. I’m fairly certain that this is all thanks to The Imperial Princess of Cute and her cleverly-named “thingie.” Not much I can do about that, sorry. It’s not like I’m going to insist she change it at this late date.
    • The new season of anime has begun and… I simply don’t care. Nothing on offer grabs my attention in the slightest. This is okay, however, as there’s still “Daughter of Twenty Faces” and “Allison To Lillia” and “Macross Frontier” and (yes, even) “Blassreiter” to finish off before autumn arrives. By the way? If you’re interested in moderately-mature discussion of current running anime series, I may have a forum for you.
    • I’m starting to think that I need to ease up on the Twitter and start saving up material to post here. After all, the Twitter stuff isn’t under my control and doesn’t contribute to the journal archives. There’s also that whole pesky “if you don’t update very often you will continue to lose readers” thing…

    I’m sure I forgot a few things. I also deliberately left out a few things that aren’t entirely fit for the public record. Such is the way of the little grey journal. It’s past my bedtime (I’m only up this late because it took longer than expected to come up with the track listing for this week’s Project) and I must get horizontal very soon.

    Until next time, “Be excellent to each other.”

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