Hyper Gumbo » music

Super Weekend Wrapup

Don — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 15:43:45 +0000

Completed the Star Destroyer, and a Republic Frigate. Determined this morning, if I want to create a set of accompaniments for the Destroyer, he needs 76 Tie Fighters, 4mm long, if they are to be to scale. So, even mini lego models would be outsized. It occurs to me, if I were really a nerdy nitpicker, I’d calculate out whether or not the Falcon really could hide on the back of a Destroyer’s bridge…done, looks like a scale Falcon would be .85 inches on the longest side, or as Wolfram Alpha helpfully tries to make visualizable, 0.42 AA battery lengths. Without the model at hand, and the applicable DVD scene freeze framed, it does seem plausible.

Watched the last half of Robin Williams’ Popeye, found out the soundtrack is available on Rhapsody =)
Watched most of Resident Evil: Afterlife, can’t believe they are up to five movies, that I have found reasonably entertaining, out of a video game I never was even remotely interested in.

I watched some Super Bowl commercials, in between all the rest. And made tasty nachos.

Ozzie’s Karaoke?

Don — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 19:39:34 +0000

Much like a friend posted on his facebook, my high school era song-memory turns out to be pretty strong, making me think I’ve been missing out on karaoke possibilities, not looking for Phil Colins/Genesis songs. And of course, it’s off-weekend at Claire’s karaoke, so I’m thinking I might give Ozzie’s a first try. The only thing holding me back is the thought of how long a walk home it would be, at a later hour than seems safe for the route required, which means a taxi. Other people take taxi’s all the time, I suppose I could too.

Live Karaoke Mashup

Don — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 17:19:52 +0000

I’m thinking about trying to replicate one of my favorite GHP mashups, Bus Stop Runner, as a karaoke song tonight. It won’t be an exact replica, since the mashup cut’s and jumps around, but I think I can make it work as a straight sing-along; the tempo of Bus Stop will have to be adjusted in parts, and there’s at least one part where Shoot The Runner is in a chorus, while Bus Stop is in a verse, but it’s all fixable.

Keeping Busy

Don — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 18:47:00 +0000

In addition to my Lego work over the holiday season, I also managed to finally get all my musical keyboards setup again, well 99% setup. I need to stop by the store for some more patch cables, in theory, but practically, I don’t pre-program enough stuff that I’d ever have all three machines making noises at the same time. And I could just multi-track the individual instruments in editing.

I do need to pick up some vertical support bars for the extra set of wire rack shelves, to build a little sound isolated zone in the room for recording vocals with. Thinking it’s quiet enough in that room, I just need a simple set of blankets to stop the fan noise from getting in.

I think I’ve finally reached the tipping point in the new place, where enough stuff is put away or gotten rid of, that there’s space to work on the projects that have been backing up for years.

Free Yellow Submarine in iBook

Don — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 17:25:04 +0000

There’s a multimedia remix of the Yellow Submarine movie, as an ebook, in the iTunes store currently, and it’s free even. Looks pretty cool so far, but I always loved that movie.

A Kickstarter Christmas

Don — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 15:54:46 +0000

After months of silence from most of the projects I backed, suddenly several of them are shipping out rewards, in time for Christmas. I got my cool Pogo bunny USB stick and T-shirt just the other day, the T-shirt, CD and poster from Haley Harris and Ben Nippes, and woke this morning to a shipping notice from the pack light peeps.

We could soon break 50% on the percentage of projects actually seen through to completion =)

Real Fail

Don — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 17:13:24 +0000

You’d think the people who work at Real Networks would treat the only division that actually has a future, Rhapsody, with a little respect. They are the only part of the company that has any sort of potential for revenue and profit these days. And yet they managed to release an update that completely breaks the Rhapsody client. That means they literally didn’t do a single smoke test on the product before release. Talk about a massive display of incompetence. If I worked in QA at Real networks, I’d be polishing my resume, because I would know I deserve to be fired. I mean for crimmeny’s sake, you just days ago announced your big acquisition and transition for all the Napster people, and you break your own product during that critical getting-to-know-the-new-guys phase. You might as well have poured all the money you spent on the Best Buy customers down the drain for all the goodwill you’ve wasted.

Another kickstarter comes through

Don — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 16:13:09 +0000

Another one of the kickstarter projects has gotten their cover song done.

Kickstarter update

Don — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 22:02:47 +0000

Out of the 7 musical projects I’ve sponsored on Kickstarter so far, only one has delivered everything they were supposed to, and recorded their cover song. One is in jail, awaiting deportation, so who knows where that project is going. Another responded to my first email and says they’ll have my stuff in a month or two. One responded within hours of my posting something to the project page, having never responded to emails, and sent me a picture of the package about to go into the mail this morning. A third, though not responding directly to my query, has posted another update which, while setting the stage for more disappointment (the artist apparently never had plans to follow through on the physical discs unless he got a regular label to sponsor him, grar), claims that someday he will. One artist has made no response at all, and seems to be actively ignoring kickstarter now, since she is posting to her facebook and website.

The 3 projects that are for physical goods seem to be progressing more reliably, if status updates are to be believed, though one is getting into the danger zone of non-communication (2 weeks since “shipping soon!”).

The software project isn’t saying much, but their expected lead time is a bit longer.

In the end, we shall see. I certainly won’t be sponsoring anything more, until Kickstarter come up with some way of escrowing the funds to ensure people get what they paid for.

Sad sad world

Don — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 20:05:58 +0000

It’s a sad sad world, when “Good news, Pogo is being prepared for deportation” really is good news.