GODDAMN STUPID PROGRAMS THAT DON'T EVEN WORK PROPERLY!

Anybody here a fan of MaxMSP? Well if you are then you're STUPID. Seriously, it's the most unintuitive, buggy, over-hyped, elitist, broken program ever to dirty the screen of a computer.

For anybody who is unfamiliar with MaxMSP I'll attempt to sum it up:

But seriously though. Why waste 5 minutes of your life importing audio and setting automation in one of the readily available pieces of audio editing software, like ProTools or Cubase, when you could just spend as little as 20 solid hours trying to figure out how to do it in MSP? All you have to do after that is spend another couple of hours fixing the bugs inherent bugs in the MSP programming and cleaning up the "presentation view" without forgetting what all of the identical, stupidly awkward, buttons and sliders are connected to. And then you have your perfect daw (digital-audio workstation.)

-.-

rant continues after the break>>>

SNOOWWW!

So today was a pretty chilled day. I went up to Mont Royal with Mark and we found this sweet poutine restaurant. Seriously, they had like 30 different poutines.. And I'm not generally a fan of poutine but even I was impressed. Also I picked up some gloves and a hat in preparation for winter.

(pic related, apparently this is what Elvis would have ordered...)

Tonight was also pretty fun. It involved us Brits and Mark (the Australian) going to a Mexican restaurant with a few Frenchies, then getting some beers at one of said French people's apartment.

ALSO! We got the first snow of the season in Montreal. Just before we went to the Mexican place it started to snow lightly but it picked up a bit as the night went on. It's started to get cooold too. Which means soon i'm gonna have to be wearing ski socks and pj's under my trousers... (which I'm actually looking forward to because it's soooo comfy.) See the picture to see what snow looks like.

(snow.. this is what it looks like)

Tomorrow is looking like boot-purchasing day. I could do with a good pair of moon boots. Although it will mainly be Post Modern String Quartet writing day since I need to get one written before tuesday and I've had so many issues with Sibelius and Ubuntu that I haven't started yet.. But I downloaded musescore which is free (i think open source) notation software which should be fine for now..

I might upload the quartet once it's done. What are you guys' stances on post modern 'classical' music? Anybody a fan?

As promised, Mint Royale :)

So you've probably seen this:



And maybe this:



Their version of Singin' In The Rain has gotta be their best known track. But Mint Royale's other music is 1. Often overlooked, and 2. Sweeeet.

One of my favourite albums ever after the break, check it >>

Woop Woop!

Some lovely Mint Royale to get you through the day.
More Mint Royale in my next post after class!

Yoko Kanno

It would be wrong of me to talk about music without including Yoko Kanno.

She is probably my favourite and most listened to composer of recent years. Best known for her soundtrack of the BEST. ANIME. EVER. Cowboy Bebop. (Seriously, if you haven't watched all of it... then stop wasting your time reading blogs and go catch up.) She also contributed soundtracks for, to name a few, Ghost In The Shell, Macross, Wolf's Rain, Escaflowne, Darker than BLACK, and Gundam. Her list of compositions and attributions is pretty damn impressive. See her anime news network page here. Or if you can read Japanese you can visit her um... interestingly coloured official site here.

music and links after the break >>>

Prog anybody?

This is my most listened to album of the lats year. One of my room mates at Uni last semester just kinda left the CD in my room and I proceeded to get addicted to it. These two tracks literally blew me away:




Streams was the first track I listened to all the way through on the album. It's placed brilliantly between two nicely contrasting tracks and makes the album smoothly follow the story they are trying to tell.

Celestial Elixir is the final track on the album. It brilliantly incorporates themes from the rest of the CD as well as a bunch of superbly placed musical jokes and mind numbingly awesome newly introduced riffs and melodies (it starts to settle down at about 4:00, then blew my mind at 4:55).

(part1)                              (part 2)


more>>

IT'S A POLL!!

I MADE A POLL! :) IT'S OVER THERE >>>>>>>>

Here's the idea: each week you guys vote for what I should blog about the next week. On Sunday night I'll do a roundup of the week's posts and re-link my favourite content. Then I'll reset the poll for the next week :)

I've taken a musical direction so far this week so I think I'll stick with that until Monday.

Anyways, enjoy. (Interactive blogging ftw!)

Oh wait...

Gooood Morning

Morning everybody! :)

In keeping with my recent musical theme, have some wisp to start your day:






Related listening:



Enjoy :) and have a nice day.

I've gotta go and save somebody from a hornet now apparently.. No seriously.. I do.

More Lemon Jelly!

My last post kinda got me in the mood.. So, I'll just showcase a few of my favourite Lemon Jelly tracks.

Again, I'd suggest following THIS LINK and checking them out on we7.

First off, possibly my favourite of their livelier tracks (in contention with King Raam):



One of Jelly's forte's has got to be simply chilling the hell out.

"Spacewalk" and "Come" really work well with a cold beer and a sunny sky..

 

For some related listening check out Mr Scruff. His music isn't quite as available on we7 but there's plenty elsewhere:






 Maybe some more music in the morning I think


Enjoy.

Lemon Jelly

So Ive been listening to this album on repeat for about a week now.. Literally can't get enough of it :)

The whole thing is available on www.we7.com but here's one of my favourite tracks

Free music - His Majesty King Raam

OMNOM LINUX NOMNOMNOM

So I finally gave up on trying to cope with vista. I've had my laptop for a good few years and, in all honesty, treated it rather recklessly.
Possibly out of spite for my attitude, it decided to contract a number of wonderfully large and persistent viruses (virii? I think I like that word better) and pretty much throw in the towel.

SO. Ever keen to try new things, I delved into the world of Linux based OS and Ubuntu. It's seemed for a few years that Ubuntu is the most popular/stable open source OS around, so I went for Ubuntu Studio as it advertised as including a bunch of media editing stuff on the iso image.

MORE:

Haiti officially unluckiest country, gods declare war.

So everybody knows about the earthquake in January this year that pretty much owned Haiti.
But, as if that wasn't enough, while there are still thousands living in makeshift homes and trying to fix their country, over 2,000 Haitians contract Cholera leading to 200 deaths; severe diarrhea  kills "over 134" more; and this week at least 12 die from flooding as a result of heavy rainfall...

"God dude, seriously. The old testament was over like a few thousand years ago... Give it a rest."



BBC coverage 
Canadian global news coverage 

More gaming...

On a similar theme to yesterday's post, I wanna talk a bit more about gaming.


This talk on TED is, I think, rather inspiring. Especially if the story about the Lydians is true.


But even if it isn't, her point is still a pretty good one. The amount of time we spend on games is pretty huge, and people have already cottoned on to advertising and marketing inside games (e.g. Second Life) as well as using the easily accessible online community to conduct social and philosophical studies. Online games are proving their usefulness beyond ther simple capacity to entertain. I've met people through games from the other side of the world and kept in contact with them even when we're not blowing eachother's heads off.

My defense of gaming.

So i was snooping around Cracked.com yesterday, as you do, when I came across an article about Robert Ebert, who posted this article a while ago. Suffice to say, I raged hard. If you can't be bothered to read the page then I'll summarize: Ebert argues that games and gaming are not, and will not until maybe in the very distant future, become art. His main arguments for this are that the interactivity and the ability of the gamer to affect the outcome of the experience negate games from becoming a form of art. His articel is in response to Kellee Santiago's TED talk in which she argues against his statement "games are not and will never be art" which he made public a number of years go.

My daily happiness

 Does anybody else watch the Shaytards? (http://www.youtube.com/user/SHAYTARDS)
It's pretty much what I look forward to every day... (is that sad?) This guy basically has the perfect life. He makes videos, posts them on youtube, and supports his wife and four kids off ad and merchandise revenue.. He's also a radio dj but I think he does less of that now since he moved house.
But seriously. I want Shaycarl's life.

This kinda sums it up quite well:




Anyways, that's just because I'm bored this morning.

Breakfast time followed by class time I thinks.

Large things...

So this is my first post from inside Concordia... I don't have a lecture for another 1h5m so I thought I'd do some catching up.

Mainly: fun weekend was fun.

Saturday saw us (Me, Ollie, Joe, Maaak and Benoit) go to Tremblant. Which was both odd and cool. And responsible for my earliest morning since I got to Canada. (up before 10am). For people who are unaware, Tremblant is where I first learned to ski when I was 5 and I haven't been back since I was 7 (I think, possibly 6?) It was sweet to see how stuff had changed.

Q: How many hipsters does it take to change a lightbulb? A: It's this really obscure number. You probably haven't heard of it...

The teenage population of Montreal.

Omnom pumpkin nomnomnom

So we found this SWEET bar called Foufounnes which has metal nights on saturdays with $1 beers :) woopah.

Also, it was thanksgiving today and apparently some people over here actually care about that so we got a day off lectures which was nice. Another food making evening with everybody was also cool and Joe made a s-weeet pumpkin pie and much Robot Unicorn Attack and Canabalt was enjoyed by all... well, by me Ollie and Joe at least...

Also, who invented the .xps file extention? And why were they allowed to live? This is something that baffles me.

Watch Ken Robinson: here

Hugo should be coming to see me this week :) no idea where he's gonna sleep though... i might have to  give him my bed and brave the couch myself :/

Oh wow

So that's been more than a whole month has it? unexpected.

I've started and stopped this post about five times now so I'll try to keep it brief so I actually post it and then fill in with a couple more over the next few days..

Shall we find out what's been happening?

In brief:

I managed to finally sort out my courses, so now I'm taking a recording module, two computer audio courses and music composition. Winner.

It turns out Kung Fu Hustle lady is actually Vietnamese. And maybe moving out at the end of the month... Which would be very desirable... And hopefully less pungent. I've decided that she makes a particularly foul smelling meal every 3 or 4 days which I am countering with much burning of incense and making of nice foods.

waaaaaay back in september, we saw the following:

Some far out chairs,

This I didn't go see... much to my eternal regret,

Many dead people,

This lake, it was most tranquil,

Some savory buildings with wacked out lights...

And slightly more recently:

Many a bicycle,

FOOTBALL!

This is what I look like when I watch FOOTBALL!

But seriously though, FOOTBALL... Not all that exciting.. The atmosphere was cool, we're expecting a better representation from the Concordia crowd as the season continues.. well we're hoping for one.

I still have yet to observe the Concordia Rugby team as I don't think they've had any games as yet.

Sooooo what's left? uuurm, oh yeah student loan came through the other day and almost brought me out of my overdraft before being immediately set upon the that most insatiable of financial assailants: The Rent. Also, Concordia made us pay for some health insurance deal which is apparently ESSENTIAL if you want to study in Quebec, but is also STUPID to make international students pay it because we inevitably all have health/travel insurance before we even get here don't we?
Silly Canadians, that's a student's bank account, money doesn't come from there, leave it alone.


The weather has started getting colder ever so slowly. We're at the English phase now. This week it rained for three or four days SOLIDLY. And I managed to leave my towel and gym stuff outside after washing it... like a genius.

I'm sure I'll think of some more stuff to ramble on about soon enough. Thanksgiving is coming up next week so the uni is having some sort of do for us foreigners which should be interesting.. well there's gonna be free food at least.

Right now, however, it is 12:37am and I need my internet chess + youtube fix for the night.

Peace.
xxx

(Joe's bum.)