11.24.05
There for a second, I thought I was only going to make a single post for the month of November. It would have probably been good had I listened to the voices inside my head, as I don't have a whole lot to say.
One thing that happened since I last wrote here was that I had a birthday. It was officially my 31st and like most years, it didn't really feel like anything different. Overall, it was just about perfect for me, though. Instead of going out or having a big party or anything, TG and I stayed home and relaxed a bit and watched a movie and ate some fancy cheeses with some wine. I got some nice things, including a couple super-sweet vintage ties and the new Chris Ware book, along with the new book by Mary Roach, which I've promised myself I won't read until I've finished the current book I've finally almost finished after who knows how long.
As with every birthday, I had thoughts about my own mortality, which seems to be about par for the course for me. Although I haven't been exercising as much as usual lately, I feel pretty good for my age. I can rollerblade 10 miles in about 45 minutes and I can run a couple miles on a whim without completely feeling like I've been kicked in the guts. Back when I was in my late teenage years, I honestly couldn't imagine myself even turning 30. It seemed like so far in the future that I couldn't even picture myself. Yet, here I am standing the same height and weighing about five more pounds than I did then. TG tells me that I have gray hairs every once in awhile, but either I'm not seeing them or I'm choosing to block them out.
Maybe I will have more next time.
11.08.05
As I mentioned several entries back, I treated myself to a new laptop earlier this year. With some of the built-in features that it had (like wi-fi), I figured that my computer habits would slightly change, but I hadn't realized how much. Although I now have my desktop hooked up the fast connection as well via an ethernet connection, I no longer find myself sitting in the basement working as much. Instead, I find myself sitting on the couch or laying on the living room floor, writing reviews on my laptop, then forwarding the reviews to myself and getting on my desktop machine once a week or so to update my review site. It's sort of an ugly process, and one that could be refined even more by getting some true image manipulation and html-editing software on the laptop, but at this point I don't feel like loading even more things onto it. Regardless, I find myself sitting in the basement less, and I think that's a good thing.
With the laptop, I'm continuing to teach myself Logic Pro 7, and let me say that next to the minute dabbling that I've done in Final Cut Pro, it's the most advanced piece of software that I've ever used in my life. This is a piece of software that came in a box that's about the thickness of a shoebox. The combined pages of the manuals clock in at something like 700 pages and the install files include 2 DVDs. So yeah, there are so many possibilities that I'm really excited about future music-making prospects. I feel that once I dive in just a little bit further, I'll be able to really take off.
Speaking of taking off, Aaron G (aka the GZA) is back with a new site re-design and it looks better than ever. He went through a bit of a hiatus in completely dropping his site for awhile, but is now back with a vengeance, posting loads of stuff per day and sharing his thoughts on early-leaked albums (heh) and other random whatnots. It's all done on the fancy Wordpress system, which is something I'm currently eyeing as a solution to get this ugly piece of crap blog out of the stone age. So many projects, so little time.
