Month: February 2017

Two Twitter Politics Thoughts

I posted something to twitter last night that got a little bit of a response. I replied to a CNN post saying essentially two things. First, Trump is a fascist. Second, what Trump labels fake news is not in fact fake news.

There were about five responses from conservatives. Four of them swore at me. I’ve never met any of these people, I just don’t agree with their political ideology. Yet they felt the need to swear at me. Okay, that’s the world we live in now. The CIVIL in CIVILization is clearly lost on much of our society. What can you do though, hate is just so in fashion.

The other response is probably notable because it came from the first two conservative responders, and because I found it really hysterically funny. They both commented about how CNN is fake news. They didn’t react to me calling the president of the United States of America a fascist, they commented about CNN. So obviously they agree that Donald Trump is in fact nothing but a dirty, disgusting, orange pile of fascist goo.

The movement is spreading, folks! Resist!

Happy Valentines Day

It’s Valentines Day. I hope you are with the one you love on a night like this. Here I am, sitting in my living room, watching the boob tube with the one I love. Jennifer is sitting right over there. We are together, and that makes me happy. Happier than I could ever explain.

Here’s a picture of our cat because cats are cool.


Holy Shiznits!

This post will cross post onto twitter and my step son is now following me on twitter… so I need to cut down on the swearing. I need to try to stop saying shit, you know? Oh…. whoops.

So twice in less than a week we have been given the wintry gift* of a snow fall that piled up over a foot deep. I shoveled the first storm on Thursday night in about an hour. It was deep but very light. It was also super cold and superer windy.

Tonight, after work, I went outside to shovel storm #2 which finished early this morning. The second time… well, there was more of it… it is significantly heavier… it’s not as cold, but it’s almost as windy and the wind chill is downright oppressive.

I had to stop part way through to give my back a rest. I just took 1231246 extra strength Tylenols** so hopefully I will have some degree of movement when I go back out in a couple of minutes.

I think I read today that it’s 48 days until Major League Baseball’s opening day. It can’t get here fast enough.

*When I say “gift” what I really mean is “kick in the balls”.

**When I say 1231246 I really mean three. I’m 6’5″ tall and way (REDACTED) pounds. I once had a doctor tell me that it was safe for me to go a tad above the average over the counter medication’s recommended dose. I usually don’t, but when my back hurts like this I will hold that doctor’s statement in front of me like a shield, and I will also wield it like a sword.

RPM Challenge Day 11/28 — #RPM2017

I haven’t been keeping up with the updates, but I have been making progress. Not a huge amount of progress, but we’re getting there.

Let’s take a look at the Trello board, shall we? There are currently three active columns: Idea Stage, Ready for Rhythm Guitar, and Ready for Lyrics and Vocals. you can tell that I put a ton of thought into my naming conventions.

The Ready for Lyrics and Vocals column has three entries. Each one consists of a sketched out song form made up of fake bass and fake drums from GarageBand, and a couple of tracks of rhythm guitar. There is also a photo of my amp settings for each song, just in case I need to revisit it.

The Ready for Rhythm Guitar column has six entries. Each one represents a full song form made up of fake bass and fake drums from GarageBand. It is my sincere hope that each of these will be moved to the ready for lyrics column by the end of business today.

The Idea Stage column has five entries. Each one represents a little guitar noodle recorded into my iPhones Music Memos app. I haven’t listened to any of them in about a week, but I believe two of them are similar to things that were used already in one of the songs.

To sum up, I have nine songs in various stages of progress, and three to five little ideas that might become songs at some point down the line. The running time for the nine songs is currently 31:38 (according to my works in progress soundcloud playlist) and that means I have yet to hit either of the RPM Challenge goals (10 songs or 35 minutes). I haven’t given much thought to the FAWM.org (remember, .org. Never .com) goal of 14 songs, but I usually don’t really worry about that until I get closer to the end. My main focus is always on RPM.

My unstated personal goal for the year is to do what I almost did last year. That is to finish off two RPM albums. I ran out of time at 18 songs last year (although there was a leap day to work with, which helped me get that far) and I would like to have 20 finished songs and then pick the 10 best for my submission.

So that’s where we stand right now. What is the plan from here?

Well, we got a little snow this past Tuesday. Some ice on Wednesday. A ton of snow on Thursday. A little snow last night. It’s snowing right now. The forecast also calls for another decent storm tomorrow night into Monday. In other words, the weather sucks right now and I don’t want to leave the house. That means lots of time for music (theoretically at least). If the storm holds off tomorrow I will have band practice, and I probably have to go grocery shopping at some point. There’s also a truck load of laundry to do. Other than that? I want to get the ideas turned into songs and the six songs that are guitar free to have at least some rhythm guitar done. That’s my minimum goal for the weekend. I’d also like to kick off at least a couple more ideas and get them up to speed as well.

What are the chances of me completing all of this work by tomorrow night? I’d say… 3%. Maybe 2%.

Bring it. Let Us Rock (or something similar).

Bruins: A New Era

It’s a new era for the Boston Bruins tonight. The first game in the Bruce Cassidy era. Do you have to refer to it as an “interim era”?

Claude Julien is a hero for what he did with the Bruins. Stanley Cup, anyone? Despite his triumphs, I agreed that it was time to go. Two playoff free seasons and this one really feeling like a third. It was time for a change. Let’s see how Cassidy does… although personally I don’t expect much difference. Personally, I feel the Bruins problems stem from higher up the management food chain. I’m looking at you, Donny Sweeney… and I’m looking at you out of the corner of my eye, Cam Neely.

Go Bruins

RPM Challenge Day 5/28 — #RPM2017

Where did I leave off? I don’t remember.

Here’s the status… Seven riffs or groups of riffs still in the idea stage. One of them has the rhythm guitars already recorded. It will take some big time copy and paste to bring it into a song, but it’s a start. One more song sketched out and ready to record rhythm guitars. Two more have guitars already and are ready for vocals.

So effectively, three and a half songs that are more than just ideas.

The really cool thing is that the amp I bought last week has a line out that includes a digital speaker simulation. That means you can use the tube amp, bypass the speaker, and record without annoying the hell out of the family on a Sunday afternoon. Much to my surprise, it actually sounds good! I never thought I’d live to see an amp with a line out that actually still sounds like the amp. I am pleased.