Rough waters ahead

I haven't spent much time practicing or doing anything really cool for the past week or so. Work's been very hectic over last week, I've been spending a lot of my free time outside the house and I just picked up a new game over the weekend.

Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures is a pretty fun game so far. It's a massively multiplayer online RPG (adventure game) set in the world now ruled by Conan (played in movies by the Governator formerly known as Arnold Schwarzenegger). It's similar to other games of this type where you run errands for people, kill monsters and the like. What makes this game unique is that battles are real-time. Instead of clicking on an enemy and waiting for your turn to attack, you press keys on the keyboard to slash downward and toward the left, right and center. Later, you can open up the ability to slash upward and left or right if your class allows it. It really makes the game more interactive and entertaining. Graphics are very purty and the inner workings of the game are pretty complex. I also like the world of Hyboria a lot, while not being a fan of the Conan series.

I should find some time to get some practice in and post some videos. Maybe I'll finish up the Phantom of the Opera cover and pretty it up. Just gotta learn the solos.

Stuff I did back in the day

Dammit Matt! You're always making me steal ideas from you! After listening to your track, I decided to look through my old files and give a listen to some of the stuff I used to mess around with. Now I'd like to share that with all of you!

Here are a few things that I fooled around with, live and with MIDI.

First, here's a short orchestral track I wrote containing trumpets, violins, a viola, cellos, a tympani and a flute. This was inspired by the many beautiful scores written by Nobuo Uematsu, primarily known for his compositions used in the Final Fantasy games of the past. Written in March '02.

This one's an introduction to a concept song that I wrote in 1999 and would still like to publish. It's tentative title is "Crusade" and is based on a medieval fantasy land where a war is waged between an overworld kingdom and demons of the underworld. The drums and bass are MIDI and I recorded two guitars on this. The intro depicts a battlefield scenario - it feels very intense!

"2 Your Memory," a short song in remembrance of all those who have passed on to the next life, afterworld, or any place we believe our loved ones go to when life ends. Recorded with four guitars. If I ever record this song for real, it would be played with three guitars and a bass and drums. Kind of like the original MIDI, originally written by my best friend and I in 1998.

Finally, I've got a "controversial" track from 2005 called "I Am He (Messenger of Satan)." It's really just my take on songs from bands like Slayer, Mercyful Fate, Venom and what not. It's got a nice groove to it, I think. The ending is very Mercyful Fate-ish (<3 Hank Shermann). It's only recorded with MIDI drums and a guitar, but with bass this song would sound so much better! I also have some "funny" lyrics for this song.

Ah, memories.

Day 5

On May 8, I did some practicing, but was unable to provide the videos taken due to the below PC upgrade. Below you can find a bit of sweeping I did at 100 BPM. I couldn't believe I did as well as I did!




I also did about 10 minutes of a jam along with the backing track that Matt of Genetically Different did earlier. It's on my cheap guitar because I was short on time and needed a guitar with standard tuning. I think my playing was pretty good, but could certainly be better and use a bit more variety. Here's a minute or so sample of the jam.

Welcome to the Limit

Finally, after all these years, I got a new PC! I'd like to thank the US Government and it's President George W. Bush for funding the project. I'd also like to thank Paul Engemann, Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte for producing the fine music I accompanied this video below. Enjoy the making of my new PC!




For those who can understand, here are my PC specs:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400+ (3.2 GHz Dual Core)
eVGA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB
2.0 GB DDR2-800 RAM (Kingston brand)
Sound Blaster X-Fi (Xtreme Fidelity) Xtreme Audio
Seagate Barracuda 500GB SATA2 Hard Drive
Lite On 20X DVD-RW drive
CoolerMaster Centurion+ 534 case with CoolerMaster 500W power supply

Day 4 (May 6) - A frustrating day

I suppose it was due to a lack of time in practicing. I did have to go to work earlier and things just didn't work out with the guitar. Rest assured; the next video will be much better than this.

Practice from Day 3 (May 5)

May 5 involved more sweeping exercises and I felt like I was doing a lot better... until I practiced today. I'll update the post with today's exercise in frustration after work. For now, feast your eyes on improvement!



...And half an Iron Maiden cover.

Snakes on a Band... Practice

First thing's first. Practiced with the band yesterday, and came up with a new tune! Here's a clip:



Also, I managed to catch Snakes on a Plane and have time to watch the thing in almost its entirety - I missed the first 17 mins (boo hoo). My impressions and observations:

Note: Edited due to wanting to expand my audience (lol)

- A girl got bit on her nipple, much like a baby would attack a teat. Hilarious.
- An old lady got her eye bit off. Hilarious.
- This one woman went to barf into a bag and a snake jumped out and bit her tongue. Ultra-hilarious and unexpected!
- A man went to pee, got bit on the junk from a snake hiding under the rim of the toilet. He proceeded to bash his head on the mirror above the sink and wipe his bloody head on the wall as he died. Hella funny.
- This one cold-hearted businessman decided that to save everyone from a python (fell out of a light fixture), he'd throw this girl's annoying toy dog to it for lunch. After berating the old fogey, he said something like "It's just a dog! It would do the same thing to us!" Moments later, he was the python's dessert.

People who didn't die from snakes:
- This dude got trampled and a woman's high heel got lodged into his ear! Nasty and painful!
- People started getting impaled after falling off the stairs (stairs on a plane!?) when the banister broke off. This one guy got paled in the jugular! Raw! (lol)

Samuel L. Jackson said:
- "Well, that's good news - snakes on crack." After hearing about the snakes possibly aggro after being exposed to pheromones that women may be wearing.
- "Turn left! Turn this big mother****er left, Troy!" Yelling at Troy (played by Kenan of Kenan and Kel fame) when he had trouble stopping the plane after landing.
- "All praises to the Playstation!" After landing, thanks to Troy's flight sim game skills.
- Of course, there's the ever-famous: "Enough is enough! I've had it with these mother****in' snakes on this mother****in' plane!" That was said approximately 1 hour and 27 minutes into the movie.

One thing I didn't know about snakes: they can climb stairs! I'm not talking about any old stairs, but those that are disjointed, like spiral stairs. Let's just forget for a moment that these were CG snakes.

Finally, no black people (i.e. African-Americans who had lines in the movie) died! Is this a first for the horror genre?

What!?