1000 Pageviews! The Joys and Benefits of Noise Canceling Headphones

Sometime (hopefully soon) after I post this I will achieve a massive milestone for me and my shitty little blag. It only took forever and a half but I finally did, I reached 1000 pageviews! I don't exactly know what this even means, and I certainly don't know if it's even close to alot. It's probably not... but that's not deterring me and my excitement!

I am thrilled that I've posted somewhat consistently for three months with absolutely no benefit at all to myself. I take that back, I benefit from knowing I actually have readers. Apparently there's someone in Malaysia who keeps coming back to read this week after week. Most of my other readers are probably one timers or friends of mine, but I don't care. I am reaping your support and it keeps me from concluding that this is pointless... even though it is pointless...

So thank you all! Tell your friends, keep reading, and stuff... I am forever indebted to you or something.

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Now it's time to discuss the joys and benefits of noise canceling headphones.

I love these things. They're already designed to encase your ears in a plush tomb of awesome to rid much of the excess sound. But if that isn't enough, as I've found is often the case (I go to community college and ride city bus >_>) there's the wonderful noise canceling switch.

I don't know exactly what it does, but I'm pretty sure it essentially adds more of the right noises to the mess to give the illusion that the other noises aren't even there. It's fucking awesome.

The bass is so much clearer, the treble clips less, the mid tones are crisp... it's fucking magic.

As I sit here at lunch, I see people, less than 5 feet away, laughing hysterically. They're obviously yelling and laughing about, well God knows what. But I can't even hear them, and the volume is only half way up.

So, if you listen to relaxing music, find yourself in loud places, or both. Buy some of these electronic noise canceling headphones. They're awesome!!!

Poetry Monday |7| My Blue

Caeruleas Mea
The one I chose, amongst many.

As the last light of day drained westward,
Westward with the masters of innovation,
I cast my unwavering sight duly North.
There and to the East, a jewel of time caught my eye.

A distant diamond in the infinite rough;
Vibrant with life of a celestial kind.

There, a million million miles, lightyears, or lifetimes
Distant; a glistening heart, gliding with grace.
Its pale glow so immense, beckoning me
Like the beacon it is, to a safer shore.

Its own shallow harbor, cast blue with its shine,
Must be a place of unimaginable wonder.

Its journey through the night, the eons, I follow.
For an infinite time it lives; apart, together,
Like night or far brighter than day.
As endless bridges of dust or orb of power.
My star is, always has, and always will be.

Christened by me on the tenth night,
My star is my guiding force. Caeruleas Mea.
A month since, I still follow her.
A month since, I still yearn to be cast, alone,
Onto her azure shores.

I yearn to follow that ever-glowing beacon,
The one that beckons me so.
So that I may be warm in her radiation;
So that I no longer feel so lost, adrift, in time.

How To: Cook White Rice Like A Boss

My mom was like, "You need to learn how to cook."

So I was like, "Okay."

My mom is full blood Puerto Rican from New York City so she knows how to cook like a beast. We're talking about the greatest tasting food, on the tightest budgets, in America. In case you don't know, the big NY is sciencedamned expensive.

The first thing she taught me how to cook was white rice, and it is BOMB.

I know some of you are going to start reading this and think, "white rice isn't that hard to cook, come on Howie, you know better than this."

Well fuck you, after you have a bowl of amazing white rice everything else seems like total shit.

Let's get started!

Let's talk about portions, it's all pretty simple and it's very easily up-sized to feed larger quantities of people.

1CUP of RICE will require:

• 2CUPS of WATER
  
• 2TABLESPOONS of OIL
• 1 TEASPOON of SALT (I like more though)

STEP ONE: Get your BIG ASS IRON POT and POUR in WATER, OIL, and SALT. Put burner on HIGH and bring to boil.

STEP TWO: Stir in RICE. Let BOIL until the WATER is NEARLY DRY.

STEP THREE: Reduce burner to LOW and cover POT.

STEP FOUR: FLIP the RICE after 10 MINUTES. [that's where you use a HUGE SPOON to TURN the RICE that was on the BOTTOM up to the SURFACE. COVER again.

STEP FIVE: WAIT another 5-10 MINUTES and your RICE will be DONE. Make sure that it doesn't dry out. That will ruin it.

STEP SIX: EAT that SCRUMPTIOUS SHIT.

If you don't like it, YOU DID IT WRONG GRINGO!

Try again... make it yours... make it awesome...

Cheers!

Poetry Monday | Another Old One

We Lie Dieing On the Battlefield
(Yet the Cavalry Never Arrives)

We lie dieing on the battlefield
Yet the Cavalry never arrives.
One would assume that measures,
(as rare as they normally may be)
Would be deliberately taken,
To assure the survival of our Cavalry.

The hills are now immortal forts,
The smoking plains, so deep, entrenched,

The valleys run thick with Europe's blood,

The battle is lost, as God can see.

Yet, unknown to the men of this war,

Are the whereabouts of our Cavalry

O, where are they, our flaming scouts,
Who ride, so gallant, with rapiers drawn,

Upon the noblest steeds of line,

To cause even the Huns to flee.

Where are they, those proud lion-hearts

Who call themselves the Cavalry.

Perhaps this mud of mechanical war
Has slowly drowned our splendid last resort,

Perhaps they fell and choked on death,

Those men who ride so valiantly.

O, where are they, our warrior gods,

The ones we call the Cavalry.

Armac's Shameless Plugging 1 (Tracks 1-4)

*Note: To skip my ramblings to the songs, scroll down, you'll see them*

Hey all. So, Howie graciously allowed me to post some music stuff on Saturdays. That's all well and good, but that left the question of whether to just post stuff I've already written and then self-loathe about it, or like, post new stuff and self-loathe about it. I've decided to compromise. At the moment I'm working on redoing a large portion of my already written music, because the original recordings kinda, well, suck.

The first music I really wrote was all part of a story in a continually resetting universe. The story was called TCCV, or The Caves Coma Vortex. I'm not sure what that means, and neither should you. I ended up 'releasing' four albums worth of songs in that story.

Then I started getting betterish musically.

Now I've decided to make this stuff passable as music and then when I've done that, I'll expand on each chapter and make it into a larger coherent story. More on that when it happens.
Anyways. I'll start my series of plugging and writing new songs with the beginning of TCCV.

The TCCV story starts with a tale of a man who is basically The Human Torch from Marvel Comics.

This guy

It wasn't explained really in the original album, but the Man of Fire is the first incarnation of Armac.
Armac is the Hero of the TCCV story.
I also stole it for my username on this and other websites.

Its impossible to not feel lame when talking about this story, sigh. Whatever.

So, something bad happened to the Man of Fire, and he sold out to the devil, who is the first incarnation of Eval, TCCV's villian.
Now he believes himself to be killing sin by literally killing every sinner. Of course, everyone sins at one point or another, so he becomes a mass murderer.
I really should have included some of that backstory in the original album. All we're given is that he's killing sinners.

The layout hereon will be:

Track [number] - [title]
[Bandcamp embed of the new version]
Description of the song's story.
What I detested (and every once in a while, what I liked) about the original recording.
Description of the new versions improvements and lacks.
[Bandcamp embed of the old version]

Track One - Burn!

The first song is "Burn!" which was the song Howie was gracious enough to feature on Wednesday's post.
This song takes place during one of the Man of Fire's raids on sinners.
He attacks a bar filled with patrons because in his eyes, they are sinners.

The original version of the song (below) was recorded with an electric guitar.
This enhances the aggressive nature of the song.
My voice however, does no such thing.
It's like I'm talking vaguely tonally.
Not to mention the song verges on the indecipherable at times.
The effects on the voice yelling "burn" is not too bad. But it doesn't mask that I'm not really screaming.
The lead voice overpowers the mic frequently too.
The final round of "burn"s sounds like dogs barking.
The last "burn bright burn strong" is stupid.
The decayed feel of the final "burn" is pretty cool.

In the newly rerecorded version of the song (above) I lost the aggressive electric guitar.
The intro is instead a slowly loudening acoustic guitar.
I accidentally recorded some telephone crap over it. I thought it sounded cool and kept it.
The song is very similar except for the change of instrument.
Other differences: It's slower, sounds better recording-wise, the "burn" yells aren't effected, there are backing vocals.
The only musical difference guitar-wise comes during the bridge. The bridge was originally improvised.
Redoing it was kinda difficult, so I Songicized™ it a bid more.
I also changed the ending because I decided that the "Burn bright" part was lame and cheesy.
I do miss the decayed "Burn!" at the end. But it really was a lucky recording the first time and was therefore unredoable.

Track 2 - Web of Lies

This song is a narrative of the Man of Fire traversing the woods.
The original story for the Man of Fire came from a poem I'd written in high school.
The poem is actually track 5 (next week) on the album. So yea.
This song summarizes what everyone who is not the Man of Fire wonders about him.
Then the Man of Fire realizes he might be being tricked. So his flame goes away.

The original recording has pretty abysmal singing on my part.
I'm like mumbling the words slightly.
Eventually the medium-speed guitar speeds up for no reason.
Then theres a 15-20 second improvised bit.
I whisper something over it, "why can't he stop what he started" I think.
I get louder and higher singing after that.
I also mess up the guitar rhythm, so the vocals come in weirdly.

The redo has a greatly expanded intro. I think for the expanded version of this part of TCCV, I'll turn the intro thing into the Man of Fire's theme.
When the intro finishes, the song resembles the original much more. This time, however, I'm understandable!
The song also is slowerish. Not too much, but it stays slow.
Now that the lyrics are understandable, its clear how cheesy they are.
I yell more in this version. Well, sing louder.
I improvise some ooh-ing continuing from the word "fool" and it sounds pretty cool. I hope I'll be able to recreate that.
This oohing is the replacement of the 15-20 second bridge thing.
Then a much more clear "why can't you stop" thing happens.
There is also much more of a transition back to the slow part.
I like the pause after the last verse. Huh.
This song, Burn!, and Backfire were recorded over the summer, so they aren't as fresh in my mind.
The ending isn't bad either. I kinda miss some notes. Whatever.
OOOOh I really like what I did at the end end.
Sorry for seeming vain.

Track 3- Backfire

Backfire is a song with a pun-title. It continues from Web of Lies, in which the Man of Fire gives up his fire.
The Man of Fire expects to be re-integrated into society.
The townspeople just kill the shit out of him.

This song again used electric guitar.
It was definitely fitting. The vocals screwed it up again.
During the verses, they're kinda hard to understand. During the choruses, they're falsetto messes.
During the weird bridges. I'm not sure what they are.
I sound like a 10 year old in this song.
I will say that musically, this was one of my favorites of the day.
Towards the end, the word "dead" in the phrase "dead and gone he fell" pops out of nowhere.
Then the next line "fell from grace" sounds awesome with the guitar crash.
Then it finishes on the cryptic line "and his face has gone away".
The loud crap at the very very end was a segue into the next track.

The new version loses the electric guitar, which is a shame, but the two acoustic guitars sound ok.
The vocals are much clearer. The aggressivity of the chorus is diminished, which is again a shame.
This song deserves electricity. Sigh.
At least I yell the second chorus. To some success. Lol.
The nonsensical bridge is given a bit more clarity.
The weird voice "why is he so useless" part is changed into a more sense-making set of sung lyrics.
The original's bridge was probably Satan's complaints about the Man of Fire being a wimp.
This changes it into a description of the killing, sort of.
Then there is one of like, 4 solos I've ever done. This one isn't too bad. Nothing special.
The ending, is made more definite.
I kept the "fell from grace" thing I liked, but the ending is super abrupt without the segue. Sigh.
On the whole, loads better than the original.

Track 4- The Final Descent

This song is harder to tell the story of.
I don't remember what I originally intended for it.
What I've reverse engineered for a story is that the Man of Fire is in hell, and sees his deceased love.
He can deal with his hell for this reason.
But he can't actually have her.
Something like that.

The original song is a very experimental thing.
Made primarily of blowing into the microphone and looping it.
It was funnish to make, but very unrepeatable.
The booming was way louder than the previous song, so it scared Howie when he first heard it.
I'm not sure of the time of this release in relation to Nine Inch Nail's "Year Zero" but I believe that the pained yelling (representative of hell) was based on "Hyperpower!" From "Year Zero".
Again, I'm not sure when this was recorded timewise.
The lyrics are "I don't know what I'm doing here, but you are here, so I'll stay here, I don't know what you said my dear, you are here, so i'll stay here, I will burn from head to toe, burn your soul, do you know, I know, I know, I'll burn your soul"
There are a bunch of self-rhymes. Which is super cheating.
I do like my voice here, it sounds not too much like my own. I may have digitally lowered it, I don't recall.

Anyways, the new version had to be drastically different, as it was to be acoustic.
That being said, the only real similarities are the lyrics. BUT I changed those too.
I extended them by a lot, but I attempted to keep the self-rhyming.
That being said, give me a break rhymewise, I know it's a cop out.
The songs intro is one I've been toying with for a while, and I finally got to use.
The faux-bass that comes in used to be way faker sounding, but I added a second layer of it without the reverb, saving that.
Everything on this song is my Classical guitar and voice.
The rhythm of the lyrics is more or less the same.
I semi-yell some lyrics.
I like the harshness of the "I know" part.
I may have held the end of the "soul" note too long, whatever.
This may be my only successful use of echoing.
The end is fairly abrupt, but I like it.

Well! Thats my first post.
Hope it wasn't unbearably long. I'm very open to comments.
From here on, I will be recording the next song on TCCV each week, discussing the continuing story, the lacks of the original, and the fixes in the new.
Basically, each subsequent post will be about 1/4th as long as this one.
Also: Because I'm doing them in order, you can listen ahead on TCCV.

NEXT WEEK:
Track 5- The Legend Told