Good stuff: 8 AM, Saturday morning, I hear someone anxiously yelling outside. I go out and find the little old lady next door yelling "Help! Help me!! Somebody!". She'd somehow locked herself out of her house with no phone when she took her dogs out to pee. I go and get my Gorilla ladder, which neatly straddled the fence, and rescue her. It felt great to concretely help someone, or see another person besides my wife, even though I was aching and quasi-feverish from the booster shot at the time. Been in quarantine #3 for a couple of months while Omicron peaked locally, slowly losing my mind. Bad effects of the booster wore off after about 48 hours, as expected, and I went to a Super Bowl party. I couldn't wait two weeks. I miss my friends. Hung out with one of my besties. We were gonna write lyrics, but instead I ended up watching him play GTAV. This has happened before, and usually it pisses me right on off, but he managed to find a hilarious quasi-glitch; The police, in hot pursuit of his character, jump a small barrier out onto a narrow ledge, but are forced by the game's programming to take several small stutter steps after landing, propelling them forward just enough to then plummet to their deaths off the ledge. I must've watched 300 cops suicide themselves. Saw a couple synchronized suicides, even. There's a variation in exactly how this plays out such that it doesn't get old for a loooooong time, and you can kinda pick apart the game's probabilities for things like the using the audio file libraries of male screams and bones crunching, the tumbling mechanics, etc. Update: It's this position along the ledge of the Southeast side of the Kurtz Center. Bad Stuff: Bestie has been "about to get a guitar and learn how to play it" for like two fucking years, now. We're a band of three ex-highschool drumline guys (third guy is bestie and I's other bestie). We've written a lot of lyrics, and we've even worldbuilt for an album, which centers on aliens abducting inbred Creoles from the bayou for the purpose of interstellar travel "outbreeding". I learned bass, which means that I am now an entire rhythm section, and both bestie #2 and I are producers. We plan to do live shows. I so badly want to finally get this project off the ground, but bestie 2 has these things called children, bestie 1 is hella busy accruing hours to pilot 737s in the near future, and I need to finish my PhD anyway. The PhD is taking forever because my mind doesn't work as well as it once did, I think primarily because of a growing existential dread about the world unraveling. The gas tanks in the garage that I didn't have to use two weeks ago (thank god the electric grid held) will stay full, in case Russia or whoever decides to nuke the nearby military base, and I've spent some time gaming that scenario out. Eye-rolling is absolutely permitted, here, because I know how vanishingly small of a likelihood that is, in actuality, but I'm fucking sick and tired of how quickly shit is degenerating across the board. I think we all grew up with the expectation that society could only improve over time, and now we're all realizing that this expectation is simply false.
This seldom changes, especially if it's the same bestie who derails writing sessions into GTA. And, I get it, deciding between delayed pleasure vs having some mindless fun out with a friend isn't exactly a puzzler. If I may offer some unsolicited advice, the important thing is to get something rolling. Overcoming stagnation is not just about gaining momentum, it's exploiting inertia and realising that, once going, you're harder to stop. Do one thing, whatever it'd be, and keep charging. You might even get others rolling along. (We can even patent it as kinetic induction and branch KNsys out into human management. Just sayin'.)Bestie has been "about to get a guitar and learn how to play it" for like two fucking years, now.
Thanks, and agreed. Things may change now that bestie 1 just bought his first house and is getting settled. But who knows. He is really, really good at collaborating on lyrics. I'd just take them all and run off and write melodies, but he says he wants to be involved in the process... and then only ever wants to write more lyrics. He's the type of guy who hears much of an entire song in his head, but can't get it out into reality. I usually throw shit at the wall and see what sticks. Sometimes, though, I'll wake up from a dream with a song in my head that I wrote in my sleep. I'm also planning on seeing a vocals coach. I think singing and mixing vocals is my biggest weak spot, but I've worked a pretty decent processing chain where I've done stuff like built my own de-esser with Ableton's native modules. Done a bit of randomly generative stuff too, this guy's channel (fast forward to the end, no need to watch most of it) is a great example. It's just really hard for the three of us to find the time to all sit down at once, but when it happens, we come up with some interesting ideas. Over lunch last week, we decided that when the great pacific ocean garbage patch becomes sentient, its first words will be "Ego quisquiliasssss!!" (I am garbage). I want it to happen so bad, but I don't want it to feel like work to them, and I certainly don't want to destroy any friendships. We were really tight, rhythmically, on drumline. We were three of the four best members. I know the talent's there. Oh, I will absolutely be writing our company theme song someday. Happily accepting inputs for that from you, fellow shareholder :).
It's funny we have complementary problems: I wrote heaps of sheet music over the last year, but get bored playing it and default to stuff I almost know better by muscle memory than ear. IMO it should be "(ego) quisquiliae sum." It has to be nominative plural (-ae), and ego is optional for emphasis. "I am" is 'sum', as in "cogito ergo sum." I think an all-kazoo orchestral interpretation of Vanessa Carlton's A Thousand Miles would do the job. We're all about inspired dreams, longing, and making people think "am I having a stroke?""Ego quisquiliasssss!!" (I am garbage).
Oh, I will absolutely be writing our company theme song someday. Happily accepting inputs for that from you, fellow shareholder :).