Category: Uncategorized

RPM Day 22

Nothing new to report.  My last music post last night is still the most recent information.  I haven’t had time to do anything since then, and I probably won’t have any time for the rest of today either.  There are non-music (aka, real life) things going on that need to be taken care of.  Monday is still the sing-till-I-puke day.

What else is going on.  Well, the Bruins continued their ass kicking with another win last night.  The Red Sox had their annual start of spring training games against Boston College and Northeastern University last night.  John Lackey is starting the first real game of the spring this weekend.  Be afraid… be very afraid.

We’re supposed to get another big snow storm this weekend.  I have decided that it’s going to skip us.  Yeah, it’s just going to go around Methuen and give us a miss.  Right.  Right?

Anyway… I’ll try to get some guitar playing done this weekend, but I might be off the project until Monday.  I hope to have both RPM and FAWM finished, but there might not be enough time for both.  If I finish 10 songs then I can declare RPM complete.  I have to finish all 14 for FAWM.  We’ll see.

RPM Day 21

So I recorded vocals for three songs today.  One of them is sort of okay.  The other two sound… just… awful!

So I now have vocals recorded for seven of the 14 songs, but two or three are unacceptably bad.  I have to do those again.  At least I have lyrics and melodies already.  Monday is the big day for vocals.  I took a vacation day and will spend the whole day on RPM/FAMW.  I hope to at least have all of the vocals finished by the time my wife comes home from work on Monday.  I will try to get the lead guitar parts on the five songs that have some form of vocal between now and then.

We’ll see.

Requesting More Happy Thoughts

Remember last week when I cryptically asked everyone on the internet to send my wife some happy thoughts, or positive energy, or good vibes, or whatever they want to call it?

I am here today to ask for more.  Let’s say at about 2:15pm Eastern time today, the whole population of the internet spends a few minutes just mentally broadcasting a stream of happy thoughts toward my wife.

I am optimistic that they will not be necessary, but I am nervous enough to want to cover all the bases, you know?

Good vibes, positivity, and happy thoughts (whatever you want to call them) will be much appreciated today.

Thank you, internet.  Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Lock Monsters Flashback

Only former Lowell Lock Monsters season ticket holders who sat in the back two rows of section G are going to get this.

I was watching the Penguins vs the Flyers tonight. After getting up to say goodnight to one of the kids I sat down on the comfy chair, looked at the game clock, saw that there was 13:45 remaining in the period and said out loud, “13 minutes left. I don’t count seconds.”

Ahhhh, memories.

G’Night, Ray!

100B2300

RPM Day 20

February 20th and the heat is on.

I have two songs completed, or as completed as they are going to get.  The first one really needs to have the vocals re-recorded.  If I get a chance before the 28th I’ll do it.  It also needs to be mixed a little better.  I don’t consider what I am doing here to be anything more than demos, so I am not going to freak out if the lead guitar is a little too loud (I am a lead guitarist, so the lead guitar is ALWAYS going to be a little too loud, but I digress) but in the case of the first song I think it might be a little too, too loud.  Oh well.

This morning I took 25 minutes before leaving for work to come up with a chorus and two verses worth of bad lyrics for another song.  I recorded them quickly and I think they sound okay, but they don’t really fit the gloomy mood of the music.  That’s kind of a normal problem with the rush job that is RPM.  I had that song’s master file up in GarageBand, and I had a couple of lines worth of lyrics in my head, so the lyrics went with the music regardless of how well they actually go together.  If I were not on a deadline I might have found a better fit, but as it is I just don’t care.

I may have a little time for more lyrics/vocals this evening, but I said that last night too and it didn’t happen.  I telecommute tomorrow, so maybe I can squeeze in more than one song with the extra time I will have before work.

Thinking positive, but also looking at the calendar and starting to worry a little.

Play Station 3 Question

We have a Play Station 3. In our house it is about 90% blu ray player and 10% game console. Tonight it has been 100% frustrating.

There is a movie that my stunning wife wants to watch. FiOS on demand doesn’t have it. Netflix doesn’t have it. Apple TV doesn’t have it. Amazon’s video rental service does. Jen was looking for a way to view the rented flick on the TV instead of on the computer. It turns out that Amazon will stream to a PS3 app. Nice.

In order to get the app we had to take a system update. After that we had to install the app. Then we needed to take an update to the app. All of that is annoying, but we haven’t reached the real annoying part yet.

After the app update installed we were prompted to sign in to the Play Station network. Ummm.. None of us actually use the network. We haven’t had to sign in since like 2008. Jen tried to guess the password with no success. I tried too, no dice. The only screen we could get to only allowed signing in, it did not give the option to create a new account, and it did not give the option to go back to the home screen and do something else.

Jen in her usual genius turned to Google and learned that we needed to call customer service to get the password reset. Ummm… Okay. Jen called and spent a long time on hold. Once she got a service rep she was told she needed to give them our unit’s serial number and then they would mail us a reset. Mail… Not email, mail. It would take 3-5 business days.

She hung up.

So, internets, my question to you is, is there a better way?