Author: robertjames1971

I'm wicked tall.

Did it Happen?

The car was packed up… did the band practice happen? It’s been so very long…

Yes! Yes it did happen! All four of us were there. The first band practice in ages!

183/365

Yes, we sucked but who cares! It was fun and we weren’t nearly as bad as we could (should) have been. We have tentative plans to try again next week. Fingers crossed, folks. A few practices… get back into playing shape… relearn a bunch of songs… book a gig. That’s the hope. We’ll see how it goes.

Stop Changing Things

Robin Sparkles looks at me and asks, “why are you moving furniture around and bringing in new stuff and hanging stuff on the walls? Don’t you know you’re messing with my vibe?”

But check it out, cat. We have a rack to put shoes on and a new hook to hang clothes on. Cool, right?

I don’t think Robin the Cat agrees that it is cool.

Sunday To Do List

My agenda for today:

  • Wake up – Done
  • Do my daily exercise – Done
  • Put together a little thing we’re going to use as a shoe rack in the bedroom
  • Hang a coat hanger thingie in the bedroom
  • Put new strings onto one of the guitars (still haven’t decided which, but probably the Les Paul Standard)
  • Go to band practice for the first time in 10000 years (I hope)
  • Drop of a bag of clothes at a donation center somewhere
  • Come home and… I don’t know what. We’ll think of something
  • Sleep

Let’s get crackin’ Robert!

Will Lucy Pull the Football Away at the Last Second Again?

I don’t want to feel like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football but… that might be the case.

We have a band practice scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. Will it happen? I keep getting my hopes up and they keep getting canceled at the last minute. Should I be excited about this or should I be resigned to the fact that it’s going to fall through.

I don’t want to feel like Charlie Brown. I am choosing to be excited, but maybe not quite as excited as I was the last bunch of times.

So which guitar should I bring to the practice? Whichever it is, it’s going to need new strings. I’ll decide in the morning.

I Did It

It was easy. All it took was to pay attention and not let habit slide in and screw up my plans.

I didn’t spend a single cent yesterday. Friday February 28, 2025 was an economic blackout to protest our shit hole country’s shit hole government. I planned to participate and I did and I was successful in my microscopic level of participation.

Now the question is… how many people played along, and was it enough for our capitalist fucking overlords to take any notice. I’m betting no. I suspect it was a wasted effort. I don’t care. I also suspect it is going to come up again… and again… and I also, also suspect it will lead to more efforts of incrementally more invasiveness.

Resist.

RPM Challenge Day 28/28

Let’s see… how did I make out on the last day?

I put lead guitars onto two songs. I mixed eight, count ’em, eight songs. I then sorted all of the songs into three lists.

  • Definitely makes the final album
  • Might be okay enough to make the final album if I hide it at the end
  • No way in hell it makes the final album

Oddly, the third list was very short. I think I ended up with nine songs on the first list, seven songs on the second list, and four on the third. After sorting was done I re-listened to everything on the second list to find at least one that I could put on the final album. I ended up keeping four. There were two that were easy decisions. That put me at 11 keepers. I figured 12 was a better number so I went back and forth between two B list songs but I couldn’t decide so I kept them both.

Next, I “borrowed” a photograph of good ol’ Punxsutawney Phil from wikipedia and used an iOS app to turn it into a very lame album cover. Then I listened through the 13 keepers again and came up with something that passed for a half decent running order. From there, the only thing left to do was go to rpmchallenge.com and submit it.

Done and done. See you next year, RPM Challenge fans.