VIDEO: MOVIES: REVIEW: Glory Daze (1995)

[IMDB link]

Wait, the writer of The Stoned Age and Airheads wrote other movies????? And actually directed one??? This one??? Okay, I’m in!

RATINGS:
Claire: Netflix: 4/5 stars. IMDB: 8/10.
Carolyn: Netflix: 4/5 stars. IMDB: 8/10.
The native public rating for this movie is: Netflix: 3.1/5 stars, IMDB: 5.6/10.

STILL MORE RATINGS:
Soundtrack: 5/5 stars, 8/10. Including NoFX (a lot), Bad Religion (barely), Vandals, Mr. T Experience, Tilt.
Shirts/posters/band logos: 5/5 stars, 10/10. Probably no film in my life has used as much music/logos/shirts that I’ve liked. When the fuck else do you get to see a fucking NOMEANSNO shirt in a movie? I mean, I get exicted if I see a Sisters Of Mercy shirt, but NoMeansNo!?! Lard?!? This movie has the best shirts.

PLOT SUMMARY: People are just about to graduate college and decide what to do with their lives.

CLAIRE’S THOUGHTS:

From Rich Wilkes, the writer of The Stoned Age and Airheads — this is the 3rd of the 3 movies that I’d consider a must-see for him. And the only one he directed. He really captured a lot of the feel of the time in these 3 movies… In a very enjoyable fashion, and this movie definitely offers a comparatively-accurate “slice of life” compared to most college depictions. But it’s not just a slice of life movie; it contains meaning and poignancy.

The “feel of the time” (both 1995, and graduating college–I did that in 1997) really resonated with me because I video recorded a lot during my last week at college.Thus, because visuals help with my memory, I REALLY remember the feel of that time of my life. This movie captured it well.

Though of course I have read, “It’s no Empire Records!” It’s a sloppy, lower-budget film. It doesn’t LOOK good. The sound mix isn’t great. I hear there were plot holes, though I didn’t notice enough to care. There is a story that gets resolved, but that story is not the totality of the movie’s value. People who don’t like punk, never questioned the direction in their lives, never partied it up on college….Might not get as much out of this. So what pushes this film up to the rating we gave it is the relatability.

And French Stewart actually playing the wisest of a bunch? Before he went on to be Harry in 3rd Rock From The Sun? It’s so weird to see him being wise. So weird. In fact, this movie has a lot of very-famous-now, not-so-famous-then celebrities. Affleck, Rockwell, McConaughey, Damon, Brendan Fraser. And some who were maybe on their way out (Milano, Woronov).

CAROLYN’S THOUGHTS:

This was a pretty good movie that captured the feel of mid-90’s. It had some good party moments, but it was more about the coming of age and realizing that sometimes it’s time to let go and allow change to happen to you.

RECOMMENDATION: If you like punk and went to college… It’s kind of a no-brainer.

PEOPLE:

Directed & written by Rich Wilkes (Airheads, The Stoned Age, Jerky Boys).

Ben Affleck as Jack.
Sam Rockwell (Zaphod Beeblebrox in The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy (2005), Iron Man 2, Galaxy Quest, Seven Psychopaths, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1, Better Living Through Chemistry, Heist, A Case Of You, 1 ep of Stella) as Rob.
French Stewart (3rd Rock From The Sun, Bob in God The Devil And Bob, Allen Gregory, Home Alone 4, 1 ep of That 70’s Show, 1 ep of Just Shoot Me, 1 ep of MADtv, 1 ep of Caroline In The City) as Dennis.
Alyssa Milano as Chelsea.
Megan Ward (Joe’s Apartment, Freaked, Encino Man, 1 ep of Friends, 1 ep of Jesse) as Joanie.
Vien Hong as Slosh.
Kristin Bauer van Straten (True Blood, 4 eps of Justice League, 2 eps of Just Shoot Me, 1 ep of Dark Angel) as Dina.
John Rhys-Davies as Luther.
Mary Woronov (The Devil’s Rejects, Dick Tracy, TerrorVision, Eating Raoul, The Living End, Rock ‘N’ Roll High School movies, 1 ep of My So-Called Life, 1 ep of Parker Lewis Can’t Lose) as Joanie’s Mom.
Matthew McConaughey (Tropic Thunder, Dezed And Confused, How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days, 1 ep of King Of The Hill) as Rental Truck Guy.
Brendan Fraser (The Mummy movies, Journey To The Center Of The Earth, Bedazzled, A Case Of You, 2 eps of King Of The Hill) as Doug.
Matt Damon as Edgar Pudwhacker.

 

VIDEO: MOVIES: REVIEW: Imaginaerum (2012)

VIDEO: MOVIES: REVIEW: Imaginaerum (2012)

Clio & Carolyn: 2.8/5 stars, 6.4/10.
Native ratings: 5.7/10 IMDB. Not available on Netflix.

This will be the 2nd time we watch a movie based on a concept album we’ve never listened to, performed by a band we’ve never listened to. The last one was Marillion:Brave, by Richard Stanley, director of the movie Hardware (1990). This one is based on an album by the Finnish metal band, NightWish. We mostly watched it for the visuals, which were pretty cool, but we were not as impressed as we were hoping.

The story was a bit lacking. The sound mix was surprisingly bad (though that is a distribution problem). It was overly-dramatic and kind of full of itself. But of course, it’s a video for an album, and music videos are sorta-kinda SUPPOSED to be like that — all grandiose and shit. So I might be faulting the genre for its own self-definition here. It also got a lot less exciting (and a lot more depressing) near the end. The acting wasn’t the greatest, but this also wasn’t a movie with very much acting in it.

In the end, this was style over substance. Some pretty awesome visuals. Definitely a great movie to watch — not as great to listen to, or think about. But visually, it was an 8/10.

Directed by: Stobe Harju (who directed Nightwish’s “The Islander” music video).
Written by: Stobe Harju & Mikko Rautalahti (Alan Wake video game), and Richard Jackson.
Story written by Tuomas Holopainen (Nightwish songwriter and band member) & Stobe Harju.

Starring Marianne Farley (Undressed, 2001: A Space Travesty, 6 eps of Vampire High) as Gem Whitman.
Quinn Lord (young boy in The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus–is he now typecast to only be in movies with Imaginae?rium in their title?, 2 eps of Smallville) as Tom Whitman – age 10.
Tuomas Holopainen (Nightwish song writer and band member) as Tom Whitman – age 47.
Francis X. McCarthy (BASEketball, 7 eps of Melrose Place, 4 eps of the original 21 Jump Street, Alien Nation, 2 eps of The Greatest American Hero, 1 ep of Smallville, 1 ep of Cheers, 1 ep of ALF, 1 ep of The A-Team, 1 ep of Parker Lewis Can’t Lose) as Tom Whitman – age 70.
Joanna Noyes (Grandma Thora Read in Arthur) as Ann – age 73.
Anette Olzon (Nightwish band member) as Ann.

LINK URL: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1959409/combined

 

VIDEO: MOVIES: REVIEW: Mega Python vs. Gatoroid (2011) (TV) (SyFy) (The Asylum)

VIDEO: MOVIES: REVIEW: Mega Python vs. Gatoroid (2011) (TV) (SyFy) (The Asylum)

Clio: 2.2/5 stars, 3.6/10.
Carolyn: 1.6/5 stars, 2/10.
Native ratings: 2.7/5 stars Netflix, 3.1/10 IMDB.

WHO THE FUCK CAN RESIST A MOVIE STARRING BOTH DEBBIE GIBSON *AND* TIFFANY? (Also, Micky Dolenz of The Monkees is in this briefly.)

Carolyn was feeling kind of sick, so we didn’t want to waste a good movie on sickness. Thus, we finally had a chance to watch another movie by The Asylum — a company that makes deliberately bad movies. Often mockbusters, but sometimes “original” ideas like this one. Now add the fact that it’s a SyFy original movie just to make the endeavor that much more awful.

But with the cast of these two has-been (but well-respected by me) pop stars at the helm, how could I fucking resist? HOW COULD I? I’d be doing a grave disservice to 16-year-old me. Y’know, I STILL have two copies of the Tiffany cassette because I couldn’t figure out which print had the shade of red that I liked better as her hair color. And I still have the 7″ single to Only In My Dreams by Debbie Gibson.

I have no shame.

Carolyn: “That movie was terrible. I don’t think it had any redeeming qualities. Except for the boobs. Those boobs were really good, but not enough to save that trainwreck of a movie.”

And how! This movie had some of the best boobs ever. Sure, they aren’t naked. But they are boobs people have lusted after for 20 years. Pop-singer Tiffany has gained a few pounds since her Playboy shoot in 2005 (conveniently found at http://www.vintage-erotica-forum.com/t19397-tiffany.html )…. And you know what? It doesn’t look bad! She’s basically Christina Hendricks, but sultry.

Whereas Tiffany has the sultry, refined look of an older woman….Debbie Gibson has retained her youthful looks a bit more — or at least disguised herself as such. She still has the figure of a [boobless] 18-year-old, thanks to being stick-thin anorexic looking. Upon initial purview I thought she was the hotter one, but after staring at Tiffany’s tiffanies the whole movie, I realized I was wrong. Sultry beats cutesey in this instance!

So yes. This movie was awfully bad. Bad writing. Plot issues that didn’t make sense. Bad acting. Bad CGI. Bad sets. Bad dialog. But GODDAMN, YOU GET TO SEE TIFFANY AND DEBBIE GIBSON IN A CAT FIGHT. The money shot is Debbie Gibson covernig Tiffany’s tits in whipped cream during a catfight scene. Did I spoil it for you? Good, becuase that’s really the only reason to watch this movie, so you may as well know.

Things get really over the top in the 3rd act… So much so that I was laughing hysterically. Sometimes you gotta enjoy a bad movie, and I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t hate this. I didn’t like it either… But I edged towards liking it. Sick, guilty pleasure.

Thank you Syfy.

BTW, the young cop was in American Pie: The Book Of Love. And this was directed by the director of Pet Semetary, and the writer of #1 Cheerleader Camp (which was itself a mockbuster for Fired Up).

LINK URL: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1680138/combined

 

VIDEO: MOVIES: REVIEW: Rock ‘n’ Roll High School (1979)

VIDEO: MOVIE: REVIEW: Rock ‘n’ Roll High School (1979)

Clint: 4/5 stars, 7.4/10.
Carolyn: 3.6/5 stars, 7/10.
Native ratings: 3.8/5 stars (Netflix guessed 4.1 for us), 6.7/10.

An exception to our usual focus on modern offerings.

This movie had funny moments, and the Ramones were fun.  It was very much what people would think of as a stereotypical 1980’s highschool/teen-comedy movie. Except it had The Ramones in it, which is something few other movies can boast.

Most of the main characters in this movie still have acting careers today, which is a change compared to most b-movies. As for the “Riff Vs. Kate” debate, It’s almost a tie. Riff’s clavicle is the tiebreaker. I want to see cleavage, not Skeletor. Kate wins.

Interesting that CBS censors mentions of DDT in Teenage Lobotomy when this movie airs on TV, but cocaine and swastikas are just fine. Can’t mess with Monansanto!

And how the fuck are they remaking this? I guess this movie could be remade for every band out there that has a fandom, but it’s never going to be something as seminal as the fucking RAMONES!

It will probably still be better than the sequel I just found out about – Rock ‘N’ Roll High School Forever (1992) – staring Corey Feldman (feat Mojo Nixon). Or the 2nd sequel, Shake, Rattle and Rock! (1994), starring Renee Zellweger and Howie Mandel (feat Paul Anka). God help us all.

At least the 3rd one has some of the original characters and actors from the first one (including P.J. Soles).

Still though — good times!

LINK URL: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079813

 

AUDIO: MUSIC: REVIEW: Alice In Chains: Facelift: SONG RANKINGS

I was so annoyed that this album became popular RIGHT after I started listening to it. I actually had a copy before they ever had a video on MTV. Then they became super-mainstream.

Still, this is my favorite Alice In Chains album – and frankly, the only one I think is truly worth owning and KNOWING.

Without further adieu, here is a listing of the songs in the Alice In Chains album “Facelift”, in order from best to worst. Yes… This probably took me 40 minutes to evaluate and verify! Sweet love my labor…

THE LIST:

01_We Die Young [JtC’s #2]
04_Bleed The Freak
06_Love, Hate, Love
02_Man In The Box
07_It Ain’t Like That [JtC’s #3]
03_Sea Of Sorrow [Parthena’s favorite]
12_Real Thing [they should’ve fleshed out the structure more]
05_I Can’t Remember [possibly the best bridge on the album, though]
09_Put You Down
11_I Know Somethin’ (Bout You)
10_Confusion
08_Sunshine [JtC’s #1]

I will accept other submissions of other peoples’ rankings, but you MUST *actually* evaluate all the songs. That means comparing one song to the song next to it, bumping it up one, and doing it again and and again until everything is sorted. This is very similar to a bubble sort.

Here is the full album on youtube:

 

JOURNAL: DREAM: 20121015: Sean’s radio show

Dreamed I listened to Sean E’s radio show and he played some awesome punk band.

I immediately tuned out, listened to more of it on Pandora, really really liked it, and then immediately went to bittorrent and downloaded their complete discography.

I listened to it and really loved this punk band.

Then the next day at work (still in my dream), I told Sean about it.

This dream was a bit odd because this dream was on the same night as his radio show in real life, and he’s my co-worker in real life, and I really did tell him about the dream in real life afterward… So this practically could have really happened.

“Dreams… They’re the hurricanes that wash the soulfilth from the superdome of our nightminds.”
– Xavier:Renegade Angel

 

MUSIC: Ween breaks up – Stereogum

MUSIC: Ween breaks up – Stereogum

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!

But can’t say I didn’t see this coming – it’s been longer since a proper Ween release than at any point in their 25 year career.

I’m glad I got to see them live 7 times (10 of you count Gene Ween band and Gene Ween solo shows).

It looks like of my 3 favorite bands even (The Misfits, Atari Teenage Riot, Ween) — there is still 1 left: Atari Teenage Riot who recently reformed. (No, the new Misfits don’t count.)

This is the saddest music news since the death of Type O Negative singer Peter Steele.

LINK URL: http://stereogum.com/1045982/ween-break-up/news/

 

MUSIC: little kids cover “Sonne” by Rammstein

MUSIC: little kids cover “Sonne” by Rammstein

…And apparently a lot of other Rammstein songs too. That little drummer girl looks too young to comprehend rhythm, but then she switches to a harp at the end of Sonne? And the singer-guitarist also plays the violin?  This is the best child music performance since that Metallica cover band with the 8 year old lead guitarist girl!

LINK URL: http://failblog.org/2012/04/17/music-fails-music-fails-lil-rammstein/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+failblog+%28The+FAIL+Blog+-+Fail+Pictures+%26+Videos+at+Failblog.ORG%29

 

LINK: MUSIC VIDEO: MC Chris – Discord

MUSIC VIDEO: MC Chris – Discord

Yet another unexpected “collaboration” – MC Chris has released a song all about My Little Pony:Friendship Is Magic.  Fear the Brony movement!

LINK URL: http://bronies.memebase.com/2012/04/02/my-little-pony-friendship-is-magic-brony-mc-chris-discord/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MyLittleBrony+%28My+Little+Brony%29

 

LINK: JOURNAL: PARTY: Local Experts Can’t Agree On Whether Styx Sucks Worse Than Rush

JOURNAL: PARTY: Local Experts Can’t Agree On Whether Styx Sucks Worse Than Rush

John The Canadien’s blogpost about our Saturday hangout/partying experience.

LINK URL: http://igottarambleon.com/2012/03/27/local-experts-cant-agree-on-whether-styx-sucks-worse-than-rush

TAGS: personal, journal, hangingout, parties, people, Clint, Carolyn, JohnTheCanadien, MarkI, AutumnS, ChablisO, SeanR, media, audio, music, bands, Rush, Styx, Voivod, songs, Mr.Roboto, Genesis, video, TV, shows, TheClevelandShow, FamilyGuy

 

LINK: JOURNAL/REVIEWS: HANGING OUT: House of MagicMist Passes Referendum Banning Talk of Shia LaBeouf and DubStep

JOURNAL/REVIEWS: HANGING OUT: House of MagicMist Passes Referendum Banning Talk of Shia LaBeouf and DubStep

John The Canadien’s blogpost about hanging out with me & Carolyn & Mark I on Friday night, wherein we watched 2-3 hrs of TV (episodes reviewed within).

LINK URL: http://igottarambleon.com/2012/02/27/house-of-magicmist-passes-referendum-banning-talk-of-shia-labeouf-and-dubstep

TAGS: personal, journal, hangingOut, JohnTheCanadien, blog, posts, MarkI, Carolyn, Clint, media, video, TV, shows, reviews, cartoons, music, audio, dubstep, ShiaLaBeouf, MarilynManson, NinjaGaiden, D.R.I., ChemLab, NickCave, TheBirthdayParty, Unsupervised, Frankenhole, CartoonNetwork, FX,

 

LINK: VIDEO: CARTOONS: REVIEW: Wrath von MagicMist Explains The Subtle Nuances Of Coroner’s “Masked Jackal”

VIDEO: CARTOONS: REVIEW: Wrath von MagicMist Explains The Subtle Nuances Of Coroner’s “Masked Jackal”

A review of 7 shows we watched with John The Canadien last Friday… Plus talk on Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and the song that got Clint into the band Coroner.

LINK URL: http://igottarambleon.com/2012/02/20/wrath-von-magicmist-explains-the-subtle-nuances-of-coroners-masked-jackal/#comment-4039

TAGS: personal, journal, hangingOut, Clint, Carolyn, JohnTheCanadien, media, video, TV, shows, cartoons, FOX, TheClevelandShow, TheSimpsons, Simpsons, FX, Archer, CartoonNetwork, AdventureTime, Delocated, NBC, TheOffice, reviews, Unsupervised, Coroner, AbrahamLincoln:VampireKiller

 

RANTS: No, digital audio doesn’t “sound flat”, and vinyl doesn’t “sound warm”. Accurate representations of reality trump inaccurate ones.

The “flat” sound that some people describe mp3s as having has nothing to do with them being mp3s. This is a misconception that I’ve seen repeated about as many times as people claiming that vinyl sounds better.

The “flat” mp3 sound (often attributed to ALL digital formats) is typically is due to the fact that when mp3s were first adapted, harddrive space cost a lot more, and they encoded them at low bitrates such as 128kbps, with most encoders cutting out 16kHz-20kHz range altogether. So yeah. That’s pretty bad. Unlike vinyl or cassette or CD, mp3s can be encoded in more than one way. And most of those ways were shitty when the format first came out. Unfortunatley, that’s when most people ripped their music, and music piracy helps keep such shitty encodes circling the globe.

This is why I’ve found myself buying a CD even though I’d already downloaded the mp3s of it. Because I wanted to make PROPER mp3s that actually SOUND GOOD.

The encoder itself matters, too. The same bitrate with different encoders that use different acoustic mathematical models will result in different sound quality. Such models have improved greatly over the years. I recommend LAME.exe. Many power users consider it the best encoder out there.

Let me play you a lossless recording and a LAME.exe, VBR-encoded mp3 over my 5.1 system compared to a WAV or FLAC of the same song. (But only after making sure they both come out at the same apparent volume; people often pick whichever one is the loudest one otherwise.) When you can correctly choose which is which 75% of the time, I might consider you an exception to the normal abilities of the human ear.

I hear a lot of people try to make up a silly claim that mp3s sound flat because they are in fact only discrete points of the audio, with math filling in the rest. And our “brain can tell the difference”.

Sorry, bub. That’s just not true. Your brain may be able to tell the difference between some files on your harddrive, but that is because they are bad files, not because they are digital. Reality is simply a matter of our brain being fed certain signals. There are most certainly upper limits in the resolution and processing power of what we can perceive — even if science may have the wrong limit stated (or not know them at all), and even if human beings exhibit a wide variance in perceptual talent. (There may be 1% that need double the bitrate to be fooled!) Yes, some people definitely hear at a higher resolution than others, just as some people have a greater tonal range. Eventually, however, technology will be advanced enough (and storage space ridiculously cheap enough) that it will be quite possible for everybody to carry a recording of something in such great resolution that no human being on the planet could ever distinguish it from the original analog production of those same sounds.

We’re not there yet, but how many of you have done a controlled study? Did you have someone play you back the 2 files? Did you make sure they both had the same volume? {mp3 encoding often mucks with the volume levels slightly}. Did they record the results? Were they randomized? What percentage of the time were you able to tell? So far, I know few people who have done a test like this. I did in 2000 — and years later decided that the results I had recorded for myself were wrong. I thought 160kbps was good enough. Then I thought 192kbps was good enough. I was wrong. I now encode at the highest bitrate with the highest quality. The point being — I’ve been willing to correct my own personal assumptions several times over the years.

Further complicating things is this:
http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/03/11/153205/young-people-prefer-sizzle-sounds-of-mp3-format

They did surveys and found that people who grew up on inaccurately-encoded mp3s preferred the sound of that to lossless recordings!
In other words, they preferred something worse!

This explains all those vinyl people right off the bat. They like the “warmer” sound because it is what they are used to. And it’s hard to perform a double-blind test when comparying vinyl to other formats, because vinyl is such a broken format that it’s impossible to NOT tell it’s vinyl. I’ve never not been able to hear the needle, to hear pieces of dust. I’ll carve an exception for people who use laser-based vinyl record players (which do not use needles), but they are still subject to the RIAA equaliation curve which causes vinyl to actually represent the full tonality of sound IN AN INFERIOR WAY. But because they can always hear the hiss and crack, in a survey, vinyl will win. It doesn’t mean shit. It means as much as the college kids in the study above preferring shitty 128kbps mp3s over lossless FLAC. People are dumb and don’t even know what they want. I didn’t know what I want and changed my own mind a few times.

The conclusion of the study for me personally is that when a single human being claims to like one format better than another — it really doesn’t mean much in terms of the format being better. People like worse things if that’s what they are used to. Aggregate controlled surveys are what truly dictates which format is better.

I grew up on vinyl, but I know CD is an improvement on it, because I personally think the people who say they prefer the “warmer” sound of vinyl are as full of shit as the students in the slashdot article linked above. The same thing applies to those who think that digital music is automatically “flat”. No. It depends on far more than whether it is digital/mp3 or not.

[P.S. If you haven’t done a blind, controlled study with volume-normalized encodes at the highest possible bitrate — please do not leave a comment about your opinion. I’m only interested in the opinion of people who understand proper testing methodology, and have gone through a proper test.]

 

JOURNAL: 2010: The Year In Text & Music

I created a command, “after month”, that would edit a text file; I then created calendar reminders to remind me to edit that every month. The result is that I now can look back in my life and have a textual sense of what each month was like. Pictures are great, but there are lapses in pictures, and I shall be keeping text summaries as well from now on. Also included will be my graphs of music I listened to, because all text is kind of boring.

 

VIDEO GAMES: Star Control 2: MUSIC: Robots Are Supreme – Pototojuice – lyrics

To the best of Carolyn & my ability, these are the most complete lyrics for this song to appear on the whole Internet….We started with the only post on the Internet about finding the lyrics, which is HERE. That message board isn’t allowing new signups, either, so if someone’s gotta take this topic over, it’s gonna be me.

For Star Control 2 fans, this is a song that used the Melnorme theme as the basis, but is about alcoholic robots (much like Bender from Futurama.)

Here’s the original Melnorme music:

No clue if this link is authorized or not, but everyone seems to have this song already. But if you can’t find it, it seems to be here on FilePlanet.

What is the matter?
My circuits are fried!
Servos malfunctioned,
I am scrambled inside!
Too much memory to process those bits
I know it’s happening in potato juice
We make Potato Juice
We make Potato Juice
We make Potato Juice
We make Potato Juice
and you’re soaking in it

Robots are jumping,
maybe? ’cause they’re young? (drunk?)
I’m getting dizzy, and hearing strange sounds
My wheels are clogged
There might be some dents
I ran into a wall and got up again
We make Potato Juice
We make Potato Juice
We make Potato Juice
We make Potato Juice
and you’re soaking in it

We’re wacky robots
We go to a pub
Refuel for culture?
and throw away the mug
When we go riding down the street late at night
You better watch it if you get in our way
We are Potato Juice
We are Potato Juice
We are Potato Juice
We are Potato Juice
and you’re soaking in it

If you’re organic, then we think you are scum
We hope you’re ready for anhilation!
If we were able to, we’d kill you right now!
But on potato juice, we just don’t know how!
We are Potato Juice
We are Potato Juice
We are Potato Juice
We are Potato Juice
and you’re soaking in it

-*-

Okay Internet… You are now complete again.

 

JOURNAL: COMPUTING: WINDOWS 7 growing pains – hard to run 2 CoolEdits? Nope, actually easier!

So I’ve run Windows 7 for a few months now. I really like it. But I dislike having to run it. I dislike being forced to endure change. The flux of computers actually makes me like computing, as a hobby, less. I get tired of spending time creating the same solution over and over again. To me, most of these problems have been solved.

[[[ I often have problems with the fact that I’ve solved a certain problem before most people ever realized they had it. For instance, I was tagging my photos in 2000. It was awhile before web sites like flickr popped up (2005ish) and got into tagging more. So while new people got to go straight to tagging in flickr, I had to figure out a way to programmatically import tags from my pre-existing system into the existing one. Another instance: Playlists. I have playlist generation down pat. My music is strictly managed on a per-track basis, with me making adjustments on a daily basis. The problem is solved. But then iTunes comes along. They don’t let you import your music directly. So I can’t just take a playlist, and have a program copy all those songs to an iPod. Nope. I’d have to write an apple-approved app, even though I already have a program that works just fine (on Android phones, non-Apple mp3 players, etc). I’m actually penalized for having solved the problem before it became trendy to do so. This situation is another one: Somebody just starting to edit audio today would choose from a choice of modern programs, and would hopefully choose one that lets you edit one file while saving another. I don’t have that choice. I’m locked in to what I know and am experienced with. To learn something new would waste more time than this blog post…]]]

So anyway… one thing I do is I run CoolEdit to edit audio. I RUN IT TWICE. I actually copy the folder to two instances, and run each EXE separately with cooledit1.bat and cooledit2.bat. Why? That way, I can be editing on 1 while the other is saving the last file I edited. Some people buy 7200RPM drives and brag about how much faster their files save, but I kept all the money and never had to wait for a file to save anyway, because I’m in the other CoolEdit, clipping away that annoying 10 second trailing silence… while the other cooledit is saving. Or perhaps I’m looking through files and realizing they don’t need to be edited at all, while the other cooledit is loading more files. Either way, running two definitely helps. And you couldn’t just run it twice.

Enter Windows 7. But now I have a new motherboard with multiple “soundcards”, one per each jack. These cooledits don’t seem to be able to share audio. Let’s try setting one to SPDIF digital audio. Let’s try setting the other to the speaker analog audio. Maybe I’ll still be able to hear it from the downstairs speakers (which are hooked up to the “2nd soundcard”)? I am NOT fucking editing files listening to speakers on another floor! Maybe I can set one for Microsoft Sound Mapper and the other for SPDIF. Goddamnit. Okay. I think I got both sharing sound finally. But no. They crash a lot. Which 20 files did I have open in them again? Arrrgh! Keeps crashing! WTF! Damnit. Let’s try compatibility modes for the EXE files. Let’s set them for coolpro.exe in both folders. What a pain! Still crashing.

Finally, I realized something: I was assuming I needed 2 folders at all anymore. Sure, that was the case from 2000-2011, but maybe that isn’t the case from 2011-present?

I ran cooledit1 twice. And I got 2 instances of it, even though it’s the same folder and same EXE file. WTH? And they share sound with each other perfectly too!

Apparently Windows 7 has improved the way things run, allowing you to run multiple instances of certain programs that could never do this before? Praise Peter Quistgard! I can finally dump that second CoolEdit folder! Next time I re-install Windows, it will be nice to not have to set up my hotkeys and preferences TWICE.

 

RANTS: Thoughts, man. I’m having *thoughts*, maaan.

Jokes during music or movies can rely on someone hearing the joke, mentally scanning forward a bit in the song/movie & realizing how the joke would be funny BEFORE that specific part of the song/movie happens, causing the person you are telling the joke to to laugh at the punchline before it actually happens.

It is in this way that music and movies allows us to cast our jokes (& thus our *thoughts*, maaaan) into the fourth dimension — yet with immediate results.

It’s like fucking Back To the Future.

.

 

SOFTWARE: On normalizing audio

Someday I’d like to expound on this more…

As part of the loudness wars, they are compressing the dynamics of music more and more.

So we have music that’s at an average level of 90% with a 98% peak vs music that’s at an average level of 50% with a 75% peak.

 

SUBGENIUS: AUDIO: I remixed something! Sorta.

So, I actually remixed a song. Or, rather, a segment of a song.

Fellow SubGenius Orpheus Stain had the idea of doing an Exquisite Corpse audio project — breaking up a long track into 5 parts, and having different people remix each part. I, uh, appropriated samples from The Simps0ns (mainly Lisa tripping, and Marge talking about LSD), Doom (the game), The Three Stooges, and even the Moon8 album (Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon re-done as 8-bit Nintendo music).

Most selections were based on my WAV file collection from the early 1990s… I’m too lazy to actually decide on a sample and then find it; rather I look at what I have and incorporate random things. I’d never done anything like this, and learned how to use the program Mixcraft after determining that CoolEdit wasn’t quite powerful enough for this specific situation.

Anwyay, here’s the original blurb from Orpheus Stain, Ministry Of Slack:

While putting together AlcheMinistry Labs episode 23 : The Chaos! : I came across a track called “JD lives on” from The John Dillinger died for you society on Last.fm. It was a semi-repetitve 7+ minute long piece, but far too predictable to go onto a podcast in honour of Eris Discrodia! I realized, cutting it into 5 pieces and handing them out to anyone who wanted a slice could indeed make it much more chaotic. “JD lives on” is now “John dilinger died for you and is still alive!”.

1. Orpheus Stain – 23 Skidoo : instrumental.
2. Pontifex Soddi -John Dillinger is processed.
3. UUAR UUZARE – Shot down in his tracks.
4. Clint — i.e. ME!! — aka Rev. Xanatos Satanicos Bombasticos – John Dillinger is still alive.
5. Orpheus Stain – Dillinger beat the shit out of those motherfucking Illuminati cocksuckers.

You can download the mp3 here: http://www.divshare.com/download/12360028-d56. A better filename than the default download filename would be “Orpheus Stain, Pontifex Soddi, Erazuu, Clint aka Xanatos – John Dillinger Died For You And Is Still Alive!.mp3”

You can tell where my part begins: The first sample from The Simps0ns.

This message is brought to you by The John Dillinger died for you and is still alive Society.

 

COMEDY: Bob Ross paints Slayer – Reign In Blood cover