sicnarf

Ugh, this bugs me so much.

Parents: Hey lets get a pool table
Me: It's probably not worth it and will end up being largely unused
Parents: *ignores and buys anyway*

Fast forward to a few years later.

Parents: Hey let's get rid of the pool table since it's largely unused so we can make another room in the space it's occupying. Sell it for us.

Well, a little more than half of 2011 has gone by. Time for an update I guess.

2011 started with me being super excited for my trip to NY, which was pretty much as exciting as I thought it would be. It was my first time in EST ever.

During that same trip, I also was also talking with Lauren about a band we were starting. We started practicing a week or two after I came back from NY. My little brother joined as well (guitar) and our friend Veball started learning bass, so we have a four-piece band: Lauren (vox), me (drums), Michael (guitar), and Vbo (bass). Our big goal thing we want to do is get into and win battle of the bands at AX. More on that in a bit. Oh also, we're called Kurenai (https://www.facebook.com/thebandkurenai)

Also taking place in 2011 was some more In The Groove, although it kinda stopped being a regular weekly activity as the year went on. Out of the whole weekly ITG thing came about my relationship with Kristen, and we started dating (officially) mid-March.

Kurenai had its first gig in the middle of April at Decepti-Kon. We played on a hot grass field and it was kinda sucky but fun at the same time. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-DIAeEz6Ek

School for the Spring semester kicked my ass, big time. I had almost no free time besides working under 15 hours a week, school, working on projects, and band practice for maybe 4 hours a week at most. The good thing that came out of that though was I finally graduated with my BS in Computer Science after 5 years. I also decided to apply to grad school and got into the Master's program at Sac State for CS, so I'll be going back in the fall. I also got a job offer at the start of May from my internship...I think I wet my pants or something. So I started my first real job on 5/23, two days after walking the stage for my BS. Talk about lucky...

More recently, I just went to and got back from AX during the 4th of July weekend. We didn't get into battle of the bands (booooo) but we did somehow win for best group performance at acoustic karaoke. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdMxMew44Mg We also did a few songs during the open mic.

As for the future of 2011, Kurenai has 4 or something shows throughout the summer/fall. Our next one is on July 27 at the State Fair starting at 7 PM. (This is totally a plug for the show.) I should also be upgrading my drums by then.

I'm kind of not looking forward to the end of summer, because that means school will be back and I will have nearly no time again. Full-time job and 2 master's courses on top of trying to make time for girlfriend and band...bleh.

Still though, I think this is an exceptional year in progress. See you in another 6 or so months, LJ.

Came back from NY last night. I didn't want to leave. :(

Hello there.

I don't have entirely too much to update on. I've mostly been busy with work. At some point a while back, I saw a screening of The Kids Are All Right at the Tower Theatre downtown. It was a pretty good movie, although I thought the ending could leave more to be desired. Summary (spoilers): A lesbian couple has two kids. The kids wanted to find out who their sperm donor was, so they called the sperm bank, who contacted the donor. The donor consented, and then a new little awkward family was born. One of the moms was feeling neglected and unfulfilled, and then somehow ended up having an affair with the sperm donor (wtf? but it's a movie...) and then drama and stuff. Then in the end, the moms and kids are all right (get it?) and then the donor is kinda just...there. He wasn't given closure. I think we're supposed to hate him by the end, but they didn't show it correctly.

Oh anyway, hi. I was blogging about something I saw over a month ago.

I recorded a new video (with me singing, GOOD GOD WHY), which I'll post at the end of this blog. I just played drums and sang most of it. I made my little brother sing two different words (hip and no; he didn't even sing all the hip hips, just the lower ones) and play guitar. It turned out pretty nicely I think. It's my first time recording vocals, and I don't think I'm that great a singer, but it's not horribly bad.

Besides that, it's mostly work that's been keeping me occupied, like previously stated. Summer's drawing to an end, though, and school starts in two weeks. I had my intern presentation at work describing my experiences as an intern this summer and whatnot, presented to my fellow interns as well as managers and one director. I was the first to present (we were given an order, although I would've wanted to be near the beginning anyway) and I ended up impressing all the managers and single director, which is a good thing. Well, I take that back, I'm not sure if I impressed them, but I kept them entertained with my odd humor. My presentation wasn't nearly as thorough or complex as the other interns, but I kept it humorous and interesting, which was to my benefit; I'm not a very complex person. (I just made a power point with several bullet points following the structure we were given, and I talked my ass off about stuff.)

And now that I've bored you to death, hide your ears:

Trying out a new recording setup that I just purchased the stuff for lately.



I have my drums miced and running into a mixer, my brother's guitar amp miced, and the mic on the amp and my mixer run into an audio interface, which goes into my laptop. (I also have the headphone out of the audio interface running into a headphone amp and we're both monitoring on that, woohoo.) That's the raw mix in the video...no processing. Guitar is a little too quiet, but in any case I like how it all sounds.

I was thinking of recording a live performance type cover of Queens of the Stone Age - No One Knows with my brother. I play drums, he plays guitar...but we have no bassist or singer. (I'm probably just going to do the bass with a bass synth and play along to a click I guess? Not completely sure yet.) Oh well...I haven't had that much fun jamming along with a song in a while, so that's always good. Either that or I'm getting old and tired.

In other news, having two cars can be a pain sometimes. I just washed both this morning. D: Oh well, it's not like I've done it in a while. *sparkle sparkle*

In other news, cake day at work is this Wednesday. At a meeting of the interns and one of the managers last Friday, before the presentation started, we were just chatting and I mentioned really quickly something about cake day and joked about how it was my favorite part of working at VSP. "So why do you want to work at VSP?" "I really love cake."

But really...mmm cake.

Sometimes, Murphy's Law likes to kick me in the ass. Tonight was one of those times.

( Boring crap )

I could sure use some frozen yogurt right now.

Oh, and I renamed my account. Whoda thunk sicnarf would be available? Good thing for impulse buying.

After a few decades, I've actually changed my layout to S2 and made it something not eye-bleedingly bad.

My eyes feel nice now.