TonightsLastSong

Et voilà... je pars.  Je vais au Canada pour voir une amie, qui est très spéciale à moi.  I'm headed first to Toronto to see some things with her, and then we're taking a train to Ottawa for to spend a few days with her and the family.  I couldn't fit my guitar in my bag, so I'll just have to toy with theirs while I'm in town   I'm super excited!  Sadly, I'll be missing Thanksgiving with my own family, as I'm leaving tonight, the day right before the big holiday.  On the flip side, Lisa and the family are hosting me for a belated Thanksgiving meal on Sunday.  Canadian Thanksgiving was back in October, so they're making a special effort to accomodate for me in their plans.  They used to live in Texas, so they know how these american holidays go

Since I'll be a little more than busy up in Canada, I won't really be back here to check out BandAMP stuffs until Tuesday or Wednesday of next week.

Later

Listening to a funny song by Omar Goodness, right now, called "Canadian Girls" :P  It holds a dear little place in my heart, having come back from Canada recently, and even more so because I'm currently planning trips back to Ontario to spend some quality time with a girl I've been interested in up there.  She's great-- we're planning on meeting up for a long-term "visit" for this coming summer... Don't worry, all.  I won't be quiting my music or ditching BandAMP, hahaha...

Anyway, as interesting as my private life is, I'm sure you, dear reader, aren't here to find out about that sort of stuff (I hope). 


uuuppps... I gotta help my siblings eat dinner :P  My mother's in the hospital right now, so I'm holding down the fort :P  Nothing to worry about-- she's coming home soon!

I suppose I'll finish this entry later 

So, after having left the country for 2 years, I'm slowly settling back into my life.  Funny how you can root yourself up like that, and then return and feel so detached from where you once called "home."  I feel like I have no real "home" despite the house that I stay in each night.

We tell ourselves when we're young that Friends are Forever, while we try to escape our families, thinking that one day we'll never have to deal with them again.  It seems to me that it's the other way around.... The family is what lasts forever, and the friends change as frequently as scrambled eggs need to be stirred in a frying pan.  I've come home, and 95% of my aquaintances are moved away or starting new lives for themselves elsewhere.  I may be moving someplace else once summer of 08 rolls around.  I've gained the liking of a friend of mine from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and we're planning on trying to close up this distance issue that looms its ugly head, threatening to destroy what we hold so dear     Who knows where I'll end up.

Has it every crossed your mind how we as humans tend to look for bold, new ways to be different?  It's interesting to me that we all think that we're something so special, when everbody else is trying to do the same thing as me (though they admittedly go about it differently).  It's like... if Traditional was how the world turned on its axis just last week, then today we're plagued with a bunch of Columbuses (Columbi?   ) that think they're going to revolutionize the joint.  But... if we're all out there trying to revolutionize, then nobody's back in the Traditional part, holding the fort down, you see?  If we're all out doing something new, then the real frontier is back where we came from, where nobody bothers walking the forgotten path.  We call Traditional the Beaten Path, but really... isn't revolutionizing things the Beaten Path today?  That would make the real revolutionizing take place in the Traditional side of things, because nobody goes there anymore.

The way I see it though, there's nothing wrong with taking some new found skills from time spent Revolutionizing and trying to combine them with Traditional.  It keeps things spicy; it keeps things interesting.

How was that for a blog?  I find it hard to stay on just one topic   Forgive me.

*does a little japanese bow*

Returned to the USA after a 2 year sojourn in Canada, I've posted a new recording of my old song "Acutally, 'Sorry' Wasn't the First Thing that Came to Mind."  Check it out, yo.

Later, friends.
XO, TLS

As promised by rule number 7 (post number 12) of the thread The Church of Bandamp... the 100th poster of the said thread would be glorified in ritual sing-song around a camp fire.

if ever there is a bandamp get-together around a campfire, this song must be sung in honor of dodosito.  The tune is put/crammed to the tune of the japanese folk song "Sakura."

dodosito, dodosito
One hundredth poster here
These stars will witness ever more,
Smiling faces, marsh-a-mallows
Yet Mud reigns supreme
Now, now
Let's not forget them both

XO, TLS

Here is round two.  I like it, though I'll be the first to admit that I feel like my second recordings always lose something that the first one had.  I tried hard not to settle over something less.  I think there are still a couple of dodgy vocal notes in there.

I've been wrestling with some infuriating destructive clicks and pops through my (trashy) sound card lately.  You can really tell on some parts, and I apologize.  I won't be able to really fix that until I go through my next computer-buying phase

At any rate, it's the exact same song, just "recorded" this time, instead of just mic'd.

I'm curious what anybody might have to say about the EQ.  Between my tiny ear-bud headphones and my thumping subwoofer on the computer, I found it kind of hard to get the various parts of the EQ in the best spot possible.

I really ought to change the strings on the guitar soon..  hmm... and i don't think i tuned it before recording this time around..!

I'd like to hear from anybody who uses the Zune software on their Windows computer to listen to music.  The new version, 4.0, has been out for a while now, and I'm curious to find anybody else who knows and loves it.

I don't own a Zune, by the way, but the software is amazing for any true music lover.  Puts iTunes to the shame it deserves.

The reason I ask has something to do with the site rewrite that I have been not-so-amazingly working on recently.

I did some browsing on the forums last night, and it seems to me that we've had some unfortunate losses... MAP and the bummer over the Michael Jackson thing, etc.  TK's comment on swordy's "admin and the site" post in the Tech Support forum hits right at the core of it:

So my thoughts have drifted in the following direction:

I dare not say that forums are ancient things that need to be gotten rid of, but in this age of Facebook, Twitter, amazing software ideas like the Zune software for music playback... would BandAMP not benefit from a more ... thorough makeover?

In short, would it be better if we were to revise the entire workings of the site, so as to create something fresh, new, and which fits into the modern era of websites?  I can envision something like the Zune software, except as a website, where you can browse music, follow updates to people that you find interesting, post comments (similar to our existing threads) on others' music, rate music, etc, etc, etc.

I think the world is leaving the era where community websites can get away with being "just another forum".  People can decide to leave a forum, but they'll stick with their community.  Those of us still here feel the community, but clearly when people just decide to leave, they're missing the spirit of the whole thing.




So.  Assuming that a complete re-thinking would beneficial, what kinds of websites do you guys really like, and what do you like about them?  How do you think that we could take some of those design ideas and put them in a music community?

Woah.  I know, I'm wondering the same thing you are... "where on earth have you been?"

I just sat down and recorded an idea I had for about an hour.  It's a short one, but I'm glad I was able to pull together something that, altogether, I'm proud of.

Fair warning, though, I didn't put it through any processing at all, and everything was recorded through the same mic, same settings, same volume.  Totally not professional.  All the same, tell me what you think.  I may get more time to kick  the idea around over the next week or so.

(PS-- this is not about the main character killing himself   It's about leaving everything behind!)

The words:
Rupture

Yes, hello.
I've got you're three o'clock.
I need to move it up,
I've got something that needs saying.
And I really need to get it off my chest before I die.

To all my friends out there, I really need to say a word or two

The reason why we gather here today,
is my passing away.
I'm glad to see all the sobbing teachers,
and the depressed doctors,
and my sorry friends,
and the awe-struck neighbors.

I'll have you know
that I'm ready to pass away into another life.
But it's not me who's leaving...
It's you, it's you.

I'm off to breathe the air again,
Maybe I'll have to do this again
When I'm barely on the edge...
I'm barely behind the edge.
May it be that I'll never do this again

Friends,

while I have not decided to kill myself, I'm not far from it    Work on the beta has progressed a little bit recently, but I've been very tied up with a rejection notice that the US government sent to my wife.  We're on our last straw right now, and if the (very likely) scenario hits us in the next few days, we're leaving the US of friggin A.

I intend to continue work on the beta, but I imagine you can see how my real-world dilemmas are hindering progress.

At this point, there's no reason to keep me as the sole developer.  I'll stick around, but I'm interested in finding a few helping hands.

I want people with one or more of the following, but don't think that it is all purely programming.  I need plenty of help in the ideas department:

-- A little bit of time (I'm a pretty good example of someone who has no time, but can still contribute, so don't be afraid if you feel like you haven't got much time to offer)

-- Ideas... of all flavours.

-- Willingness to take part in the glory of creating something that reaches out to thousands.

-- Python programming experience.

-- HTML experience.

-- Javascript experience.

-- UI design skills.

-- Unix management via remote SSH. (specifically Ubuntu server, and eventually FreeBSD.)  this doesn't really require much right now, but I don't want anybody accidentally deleting home directories or web roots


It should be understood that I already possess the majority of what I've listed, but I hope it has become obvious that this isn't going to progress very quickly without some helping hands

I probably shouldn't be posting this link yet, because I'm behind schedule for my coding this week... too many lan parties and movie nights ("Bride Wars" is not worth it, by the way).

This is the beta, so I want you to try to break it.  Yep.  I want you to make a conscious effort to do strange things to it.  I'm not afraid of having to make it better.

Suggest solutions, as well as problems.

Don't freak out about *anything*, be it my domain name or the lack of completeness of the beta:

(kings, your password is 'a'.  Very strong one.)

http://mangos.dontexist.net/

I freaking love my domain name.  This links directly to my own computer.  It should always be up, but sometimes it'll start freaking out when I don't love it enough   If there's a problem viewing it, try to just wait a few minutes.  If there's still a problem, email me or something: T.onightsLastSong@gmail.com

Please note the utter dearth of user profile/mail box/etc, etc.  All of that stuff is kind of just half-way done, so it's not on there.

Main stuff currently is thread viewing, reply postings, and general interaction with the threads.

There's no "make new thread" button yet, but that'll be trivial to add, so don't fret.