Why my Nails is Nubs Today

First off Empire State of Mind is a really good song. Now that that's taken care of, why can't I stop trying to figure out my god damned network at work?! This thing is driving me crazy!

A quick rundown... We have four iMacs that students produce (mostly) loop based GarageBand projects on. I had this bright idea that if they save their projects as an Archive, meaning that any loops used are self-contained within the project rather than referring back to that particular loop's original location, they could save their projects wirelessly to our Time Capsule storage device and pull them down no matter what computer they're on. Wow! Problem solved! Aren't I a genius!?

You're right! I'm really not. This worked fine when most of the kids weren't quite tech-savy enough to figure out how to use the Time Capsule to move back and forth between machines and only one computer was really using it at a time. Now however, most of the projects are pulled from it wirelessly and I've run into a SNAFU (that is an acronym right?) in which, what appears to happen is that the wireless bandwidth of the Time Capsule bottlenecks anytime files are moving or the internet is in use. This causes a 10 or so megabyte GarageBand project take 10 or so minutes to open or save.

This is not an ideal situation when you already have a legion of kids who are already frustrated with you because you only give them an hour in the studio at a time. From there it just gets better. I was under the impression that GarageBand, once loading a project that had been saved as an Archive, was done with it's source folder and was running the show strictly from the computer's resources. Well, I'm assuming now, this is not the case since several students' projects that were only running five or six tracks in total slowed to a halt and could not play back because, according to GarageBand's error message, they had "too many tracks".

So now it's solution time and the first thing to try is drag and drop files to the desktop temporarily while working with them and then save back to the Time Capsule. Well, I tried that and sure enough the time to pull the relatively small files down was about 1 MB per minute, which is something I'm not willing to work with.

Next in line are tinkering with and resetting the settings of the Time Capsule to ensure that the problem is indeed a bandwidth issue and not an issue with the device settings or software that just so happened to kick in right when our usage started going up. That seems too good to be the true fix so then we start hitting some more pie in the sky plans. That's my phrase of the week by the way: Pie in the sky. Delicious. First line of attack in the war on load time and latency is a wired Ethernet connection run through the ceiling. I'll give it a shot with the computer closest to the Time Capsule and see what we get. If that doesn't work I have this crazy idea about a FireWire network, also through the ceiling, all daisy chaining to one or two external drives in an office somewhere, but that seems unreliable and costly because apparently FireWire only carries about 15 feet at a time before you need some sort of repeater (you learn something new everyday!).

After that I'm pretty lost... Media Bridges has a pretty awesome set up where users have a hard drive that pops into a sled at the front of the building and is then somehow wired to whatever computer they're using in the building. Something like that would be awesome. Can I have that? Last is consulting with good old Bill at the Apple Store and seeing if the file sharing capabilities of a server machine that we can't afford is the answer to all of our problems.

Oh, and did I mention that the whole time I've been trying to fix this problem there are approximately twenty or so teenagers yelling for my attention to help them with about a thousand different things.

There's never a dull moment I tell's ya'!

Back in Business

Look, I moved, I got lazy, I got an iPhone, discovered twitter, and decided that I no longer need to communicate with people and convey my ideas in more than 140 characters at a time! What's a guy gonna do?

But I'm trying to get back in the saddle for the sake of introducing you all to my new project tentatively titled "The Rotting Pizza EP" by the Solution (oh I'm back baby!). It's pie in the sky man, I know, but there's a taste of it here. The goal is to have at least five songs inspired by and primarily featuring samples from the Final Fantasy VII soundtrack. I'm about half way through three songs and thought, "I'm sure this has been done before..." and well, it had. But go Google that trash. Nothing but over compressed garbage and the same old beat playing over one or two tracks of badly sampled crap. I only bring the sweetest of melodies to my beats... or something.

Anyway, I'm posting the first mix of the first song today just to get some of it's juicy flavor on ya'lls lips and to get some feedback. Tell me what you think kids because I honor and consider your criticism valid. Unless it's negative. Then keep your mouths shut. Just kiddin'. Not really.

No. I am.

The Bottom FREE DOWNLOAD!!

Also, holla' when you hear that 808 kick in on the hook.

Also, I'm going to try to stop booking Best Revenge shows for a few months so we can try to crack down and finally record and am trying to get this new band going where I just get to sit there and play drums while other people tell me what to do. Backyard Hooverville... or Pontius and the Pilots if I can talk Kyle into it. But they're both good. Keep yer' heads checked.

They Say it Takes More Certainty than Talent to be a Star... Look at John Stamos

I missed a lot of quality post worthy stuff over the past few weeks because I was busy moving and getting my life situated which takes forever. I've been here over two weeks now and am still unpacking and moving things.

I don't really have the energy to rap with you guys for long right now, though I do want to give everyone a quick rundown of references to Lima, Ohio that have shown up in the show "Glee" so far. Also, I should note, the show is pretty awesome... Albeit that I am a bit biased because it's about a guy who teaches music to a bunch of under privileged misfits and is based on the show choir I was in at my own high school.

Anywho...

Episode 1 - Not a whole lot going on here... The high school colors are the same. They established that it was a small town in Ohio and one of the kids speechifies about how he doesn't want to end up like all the other jerks in his school who don't go to college and become townies and notes that only half go to college and maybe two will do it out of state. I don't know if our numbers were quite that high...

Episode 2 - It's officially established that Washington McKinley high is supposed to be in Lima, Ohio! When the glee club does their routine of the song "Push It" in the school gym check out the right side of the screen. That's right, the official city of Lima, Ohio flag is hanging on the wall.

Episode 3 - At one point in the counselors office a few penants with college names on them are revealed hanging on the wall. They're all Ohio colleges, but one specifically is UNOH, or University of Northwestern Ohio right off Cable Rd in Lima. Others include Purdue, Kent State, and perhaps Bowling Green, which is also close to Lima.




This one is a tough call because I don't have HD TV and just watch it at 480p on my laptop, but later as Mr. Schuster is reading the review of Acafellas in the local paper for a brief moment the front of the page is shown which appears to say "The Lima News" on it in the top left. If anyone else is a nerd with better HD resolution than mine please verify or correct.



That's it for now. Later nerds!

All the people who have BBQs to feed their friends and family say SHUT UP THE PUNX!

So Facebook has been pretty entertaining today. At the top of the list was some guy who got extremely "butt hurt" (as so eloquently put by Wyatt) over a status update by a friend. For anyone who hasn't already experienced Leyla's massive comment thread of comedy from earlier today it transpired a bit like this:

"Oh. My. God. Who ARE these kids who are too indie to function??? Cincinnati has an underground spawn of pseudo-snobs running around. It's terrifying. Buy something at Wal-Mart. Eat at McDonald's. Go to Springdale Cinemas. Get a fucking grip."

Okay. So she says that, and there's a few hostile reactions; this being the first of many by one poster:

"Don't do any of those things. Those are fundamentally immoral institutions, all of which America would be a better country without. I won't deny there's a definite fashion in denying such things, but if the result is that a few less dollars contribute to the perpetual declination of quality goods and services in this country, than by all means. Your call for "getting a fucking grip" is the opposite of intelligent."

And on and on it goes as he continues to get more and more angry and tell people they're unintelligent for telling him to get over it and not taking him seriously on the internet in a forum that is limited to a hundred some characters in each conversation. So some dude is flipping his shit at anyone who's ever eaten a cheeseburger or worn pants that weren't hand sewn from hemp in their backyards or some bullshit like that. Although this guy consistently told people these were "just empty words" or some BS every time someone said it to him I'd like to once again re-iterate, "get over yourself".

So here's what's up... sure you eat and wear only things that grow in your backyard, but WHOOPS!! You accidentally rode in your friends car to the exclusive all night dance party at the bar the other night where you totally sweated it to ironic eighties pop songs with your friends. You're part of the problem maaaaan! Using gas!? Oil consumption!? What the fuck is wrong with you dudes!?!? Oh and remember when you smirked at the joke some guy made about racial stereotypes last week? Oh shit!? You're a racist!! Or when you drove by that homeless guy and didn't take him home and offer him a permanent home on your couch?? Or the fact that you have enough money in your bank account to travel to India and live in poverty and try to fix the world but you're not doing it?? What the fuck guys?! You're all pussies!

Okay, enough sarcasm. This is why the phrase "get over yourselves" is not a cluster of "empty words" they do have meaning when you're pissing all over people with the assumption that you're the perfect little lefty revolutionary who understands and tends to all the worlds problems. That's right. You're the one fucking guy who has it all figured out. You're the ONE fucking guy who's doing every little thing you can to fix the worlds problems. You're the ONE fucking guy who can do no wrong. Right? Wrong. Because guess what... you're not. So indeed, "get the fuck over yourselves".

I mean, fuck man. Life's hard enough. Let people pick their battles. There's no sense wasting time doing the same thing the people you say you're fighting are doing and looking down on people for not supporting or hating the same things to the same degree as you. If you're going to be so militant about things, simply staying in America and not packing up and shipping off to bring aid to people in Africa, India, China, what have you, makes you a hypocrite because no matter what, if you are in any way a part of American society you're nothing but a drain on resources. Even if you did go to those places, you're still just a drain on resources... a smaller one, but still a drain. Humans are parasites and if you have that big a problem with it then off yourselves because that's what we're here for... to leech off the planet. We're born, we consume, we die. Nothing more, nothing less.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to be less of a leech but like I said before, either put your money where your mouth is and go all the fuck out, or just let people pick their battles. For example, I teach kids how to play and write music after school to keep them off the street and try to provide a positive environment and role models so they'll stay off the street. That's my thing I'm trying to do because I believe in it and it's the right job for me to be doing. And sure, I also try to eat local when I have the time and money for it, I tried to ride my bike more before it got stolen, I wear the same clothes for years and years, etc. But at the same time, I'm pretty broke and I have to work a second job and that makes things hectic. In that time racing back and forth, yes, I have to drive a car and use that evil substance "oil", and yes, sometimes I buy shitty environmentally unfriendly cheeseburgers that I was conditioned to love since birth (even though the fast food ones are pretty gross) because I don't have the time, money, and energy to cook up something with your approved ingredients list. That's why I do the music education thing... it's something I can do to try and improve the world and it's what I'm good at. That's my attempt to improve the world and I'm not going to give you shit for not doing it too. In turn it also takes a lot of the energy I'd have to put into other "fights for justice". I'm not good at taking the time to shop around and learn how to, first enjoy, and then cook local vegan food or whatever else it is you people demand that we do to be accepted as intelligent equals. If your thing is supporting local business or whatever that's your thing and I don't expect you to moonlight as a mentor or any of the stuff I do for a living to consider you "intelligent" or my "equal". Not being a vegan local-voire in no way makes someone a lesser person, un-intelligent (yes, we all read Fast Food Nation... get over it), wrong, or evil.

There's a difference between being completely and willfully ignorant of problems in the world and simply picking your battles and being understanding and tolerant of others who have chosen theirs. To judge others like this makes you sound like an ignorant and idealistic 15 year old yourself. One person can change small pieces of the world, but that one person can't fix every god damn problem on the planet. It's too much and a lot of us are trying. So either get along with the people who are trying or get out of the way with your self-righteous "look at me I'm doing the right thing" fashion show so the rest of us can get back to work.

So once again, yep, "get over yourselves".

Riding the Dragon! Chasing them Fairies!

I just started to pack about an hour and a half ago and feel like I've gotten nowhere. It's really quite obnoxious how much shit I've managed to accumulate in my life that has to follow me around. So far I've got a pretty solid pile of gear and toys packed up and ready to go, so I've just got to keep telling myself that looks good so I can give up for the night.

Mostly I wanted to take a break and spend a moment to review my first experience with the, now legal, Absinthe that I had last night. I'll preface this by saying up front it was nothing special. I did not "hallucinate" and didn't even get particularly "out of the ordinary" drunk. That seems especially odd since it was preceded by the always awesomely terrible experience of grape flavored Four Loko. I figured this would be an absolute recipe for disaster, but it really wasn't. To any of you who are now probably concerning yourselves with my health because I drink silly things like this I'd like to also note that this is the first time I've had so much as more than two or three beers in a night for the past several weeks since today was my first today completely off from both jobs in about three weeks. So no. I'm not a drunk.

But anyway, Absinthe... the magical blue and green legend from France or wherever they drink the stuff. It in no way lives up to the hype, but I also only had one glass of it. So what I can tell you is that it's probably not going to make you hallucinate like they say it will, but I can see how it'd get you dangerously drunk. The reason for this being that the stuff is about 100 proof, but in no way has any of that alcohol "bite" and "burn" that you're used to with other more familiar drinks in that alcohol content range. The reason for this is most likely because it's actually a spirit and has no added sugar until you do the whole silly sugar dumping ritual. Thus, it's flavor is pretty mild, like a not very sweet sugar water. It does however smell delicious. It has a very strong scent of licorice which is really all that makes it enjoyable. If you didn't know any better you could easily plow through several glasses or shots of the stuff and not realize that you were even drinking until it smashes into your face like a brick wall thirty minutes in. I think that's where all the hype comes from.

I did however notice after glancing through Absinthe's Wikipedia page (yeah, I said it) that it was as described on there a much more "lucid" or "clear-headed" feeling of drunkenness, which I definitely felt. But as I only had one glass, that's pretty inconclusive. I think I was mostly just in a real good mood on account of having a day off. There's that and the amount of sugar involved between that one glass and the Loko I had before it... that can all make one quite wired. Also there was a tiny dopey puppy there which is always exciting.

So in conclusion, Absinthe tastes somewhere between "mediocre" and "terrible", in no way lives up to the hype... but made for an enjoyable evening... until I woke up on Joe's couch and groggily realized how much crap I had to get done on this one day off. I managed to sign my lease, pay all my rent and utilities, drop all my library materials off, schedule a doctors appointment, make some pretty sweet quesadillas, get my electric service switched over, order some internet (which takes way longer than it should), get a hold of Doug to pick up his drums, and do some packing. Sheesh! I did not however get around to posting all that stuff I was talking about earlier on Craigs List, which was kind of my main goal. I guess there's always tomorrow. But I seriously need to get rid of some of this crap in my life! Please. Just take it!

Linoleum. Supports my Head.

Hey guys. Guess what. I have to move all my shit up a hill in the next two weeks and into two tiny rooms half the size but double the cost of what I pay now. Why you ask? Because it's all mine! MINE I TELLS YA! Plus a solid five to ten minutes off the drive to work. Oh yeah, and no gang warfare being waged a block over from my house. That's always a plus too right? There's also a hospital right behind my house for when I feel like using the "health care everyone has access to" and stopping into the emergency room to go bankrupt over getting a few tests and check ups done over having the flu or a cold or something. That all being said, I'm thinking about trying to get rid of some possessions to try and make this whole thing go a little smoother... plus I want that cash. Not only am I in the market for a new phone because mine can barely type, which is a major problem because for some reason no one knows how to make calls on phones anymore and only texts, but I'm also fittin' to get a new amp that actually sounds good instead of just super loud. All in toll that's about $900 of stuff. Shit man. I don't need $900 worth of stuff in my life!

Anyway, to whom it may concern, here's what I'm thinking about Craigslisting in the coming weeks:

-2.0 GhZ Pentium 4 tower, 1GB RAM, 120 GB HD, DVD-R/CD-R plus I'm throwing in a fresh install of Windows XP, mouse, keyboard (no monitor, I'm keeping that) and 5.1 Surround Creative Labs desktop speaker set - $275

-Excel Acoustic Guitar w/gig bag - It's in fine shape for beginners, I just have other nicer ones. - $75

-Fender FM 210R - 60 watt, 2x10, solid state combo. Like I said above, it's super loud and stays clean loud (a little bity on the high end, but you'll never have to turn it up past 3 on the volume) - $200

-Nintendo Gamecube - In perfect shape. it's worthless to me since my Wii can play all my GameCube games. - $10

-Stuffed Noid - AVOID THE NOID! No seriously. I have one of these. I'll post pics to prove it later - ONE HUNDRED AMERICAN DOLLARS (Euros preferred) final offer SON!

I'm keeping my eye out for more... I'm sort of looking forward to living like a hermit as I'll have no TV or furniture at all so I figure I might as well get rid of some other junk while I'm at it.

Oh, and to all of you other people who supported and put your faith into Obama and the Democrats to get us a single payer or public options in health care... yeah, I got duped too. They sold us out and are compromising to people who yell out "socialism" in a crowd without having any idea what they're talking about, carry assault rifles to town hall meetings, and pretend that being loud and rude makes them the majority. Oh. And there was also that lady who yelled "heil Hitler" at an Israeli Jew for supporting public health and then proceeded to sarcastically yell "waaahhhh!!" at him when he got offended. There was that lady.



But I guess that's what I get for trying to play nice with the two party system... It's back to being a godless, socialist, fringe, commie pinko unpatriotic traitor for me.

Nader 2012 ay?

Keep Yer' Web Hosting Hands off my Free Blog!!

Arghhh... I really wanted someone to sit on a porch and drink beers with me tonight. I mean, it is Monday after all.

Lacking that I sat here staring at the same internet I've been reading all day, listening to NOFX and thinking of witty quips from their songs to use to keep Adam entertained for the rest of the month (happy late August 8th to you all by the way) and when all was said and done I landed here on old Front Porch Affairs.

Well, this wasn't entirely spontaneous. My sister gave me a digital nudge to get back at it and I figure I'll see what I can do. In the meantime here's a quick throw down of what the happenings are. You guys ready? Let's rap.

-I'm almost making money for the first time in my life. So much in fact that I might actually buy an iPhone. Then the internet will know my overbearing and domineering presence! The downside is I actually have to spend time at work now to get that money. I've only had one day a week off for the past couple months when I got so used to four or five. Ain't life a sum'bitch?

-I just put on the album "Pump up the Valium" for the first time in a while and realized that whatever I did while importing or downloading that album several years ago to my library absolutely destroyed it and made it low-resolution unlistenable garbage. I might have the CD somewhere and could resolve this. The same thing happened with "The Greatest Story Ever Told" by the Lawrence Arms.

...that last bit wasn't really any new news. Moving on.

-We just had the grand opening for my job that I actually look forward to going to which is more than most of you schlubs can say! Now when people ask what I do I no longer have to go, "well, um... er... I kind of do this thing, where all this stuff goes on, and I run such and such... it's confusing." I can just be like, "I'm the Dumbledore of the school of rock". (Credit goes to Mike Sarason for that one)

-I recently signed a lease for a smaller and more expensive apartment than the one I currently live in. That was either a brilliant or terrible idea. Not really sure yet. But I move out in about three weeks which means no more living in a sea of beer cans, bugs, bad smells, and dude sweat. On the down side I'll no longer live in a sea of beer cans, bad smells, and dude sweat... but the bugs I can definitely live without. Seriously, I'm afraid some of the spiders on our front porch are going to fully evolve into demons and devour me one of these days.

-The Best Revenge is relatively back in full swing as we've been practicing for the recording of our full length and played our first full band show with Bomb the Music Industry a few weeks ago. Our next show is this August 16th (soon!) at 345 Warner (house show!) with a bunch of stupid good bands. We've got new songs, new songs, new songs galore! The best part is we get to practice at my work for free which means I barely ever have to leave if I really don't want to. For the recording of the album we're trying to sneak our way into the tracking room of my old Alma Mater at CCM and knock out drum, bass and guitar in there over the course of a weekend or so. Wish us luck!

-Speaking of BTMI, I'm totally digging this music video they did. It totally captures the aesthetic of the album which in turn did a great job of capturing the mentality of an entire, albeit relatively small in comparison, sub-counter-culture to the counter-culture. (Also, LOL at Jeff's face on the word "closed")



-That being said, as per usual I doubt my musical abilities and have recently started to force myself to practice any instrument for at least 30 minutes or so any time I have the energy for it after work before I go home. Lately it's been drums which are entirely self taught and probably quite hilarious to hear. I could also really use some piano lessons or something. My playing is pretty stagnated by playing Slackers songs with just the right hand and the left can no longer keep up.

-I'll probably never be able to get health insurance because I'm terrified that the people in charge are big pussies and will cave into the loudest opinion of the craziest mother fuckers lobbyist money can buy. I've had this rash now for like five months. My looks are important dudes.

So that's me. How are things with you?

Oh, hey Chris. It's 12:08.