I’m Anakin Skywalker

…at least according to the Star Wars Personality test. When they asked what I lusted after most I chose power over money and love. They didn't count for the fact that I have love already and don't need more. But I do want to control the universe, so there's that. I don't think I'm quite as bratty as he was though. (Anakin: "Obi-Wan never lets me do anything!!" Mope, sob, whine. Throws miscellaneous spacey thing)

Update - 10 March 2008. Now I'm Boba Fett according to the test. I think this reflects my current work environment, as it indicates I would prefer to go alone and I'm willing to commit criminal acts to further my goals…

This is pretty cool…

these are pictures of actual cakes, but you'll have a hard time believing your eyes.



Rush is Back

The new album is out (well, technically it's out on May 1st) and I have been listening to it over and over and over again.  So far this album is exactly where I hoped the band would go in all aspects. The songs are all medium length, medium tempo, but that doesn't indicate the variety of sounds and textures. The acoustic guitar is very prominent, possibly due to the satisfaction they had from playing the acoustic sets during the last few tours. The influence of "Feedback" seems to have bled into this album somewhat as they have looked back towards their influences in the instrumentation and production. 

One great change from their last album "Vapor Trails" is the production. This album, in a word, is sonically HUGE.  The mixes are pristine and the separation of the instruments is perfect. I find myself torn between just rocking out to the songs as opposed to listening to the mix. Having experimented with recording, I know enough to realize that just taking different instruments and maybe adjusting volume and pan won't get you anything near a good mix. There's an art to taking a certain instrument tone and laying it into the mix so that is distinct, yet doesn't overpower the other instruments and vocalist. The producer,  Nick Raskulinecz, who has also produced Foo Fighters, Velvet Revolver and other great bands just did a fantastic job on this album. He has a short interview, where he discusses the new album.

We have to wait to get concert tickets since I'm not sure where we will be this summer. Suffice to say, we will go, oh yes, we will.



New Gear, New Frustrations

We just upgraded our camcorder to the Canon HV20 and so far it has been living up to the mostly positive reviews it received. It has better low light performance than our previous Sony camcorder (an older model from 2001) and the high def footage has looked very good. My biggest problem with it so far isn't the camera itself, but trying to upload and manipulate the footage on my computer.

I have a fairly recent vintage (early 2006) Gateway XP machine with a 3.0 gHz processor, 2 gigs of RAM, and a Nvidia 7600 GS Video Card with 512mb RAM which is decent. However, the uploading and then processing within video software is very slow at best. I have jumped back and forth between Adobe premiere and the plain vanilla Windows Movie Maker, and for the most part I have had better luck with the novice friendly Movie Maker. I make sure not to run any other programs, but even then the process of encoding and then exporting the video and audio is very slow. I don't have a good baseline to compare it to and since the source material is HDV, it may not be unreasonably slow.

I am holding off on my next computer because I have decided to changeover to Apple now that they can run Windows pretty well with the Intel processors and boot camp.  I know they are due to release Leopard later this year and it seems like they will also be offering new hardware (quad core and higher laptops) as well. I am hopeful to finally have a system that will be fast (and stable) for music and a/v production, which (in my experience) the Windows machines haven't been.

Line 6 Variax 700 Acoustic Review

I have had this guitar for a few months now and it's become my main guitar acoustic guitar for practice and recording. All the current samples (as of April 07) on my songs page were recorded with the Variax acoustic. I was so impressed with this guitar that I splurged on a Variax Electric 700, despite having another great electric guitar in the Fender EJ Strat. The ability to change tunings by rotating a knob is about the coolest and most useful (esp. for fingerstyle players) tech advance I can think of. Sure, you could have 5 different acoustic guitars sitting around in different tunings, but cost and care start to get overwhelming. This guitar also models many different brand guitars including classic Gibsons, Martins of different size/shape as well as steels, and even a banjo and a shamisen.  I have found that it's a little difficult to really hear the difference between some of the models, although the primary reference point for me is headphones and they may color the sound a bit when compared to a good pa system or through a better preamp than I have. The ability to play the various songs I love on acoustic that require different tunings (DADGAD, Nashville, that weird open C-ish tuning for the Rain Song by Zep, etc.) is such a convenience for me. This guitar is actually a solidbody but it appears acoustic and is very  convincing when amplified, but don't take my word for it, listen to one of the songs I uploaded. That's one of the few drawbacks. Since it uses electronics to change the guitar sound and the tuning, you can't play them unamplified. In fact, you need to make sure they are amplified loud enough that you don't hear the strings or it could get distracting.

Line 6 Variax 700 Electric Review

I bought this guitar after playing the acoustic model for several weeks and I haven't been disappointed. This guitar is actually even more versatile in it's own way than the acoustic model. I found on the acoustic that there were only a few models that I really liked, but I have found a greater of variety of useful tones on this guitar.

I must admit to being stuck on the 58 Les Paul Standard since that was one of the main guitar sounds I had been lacking. I absolutely love my Fender Strat, but it doesn't quite work for more modern hard rock and metal tones. You can get close with enough processing power, but if you want your tone to approximate that of Eddie Van Halen, Randy Rhoads or pick you're favorite humbucker-centric player, then you need a guitar with humbuckers or one that is good at modeling the tone. The interesting thing is that I have a Brian Moore guitar with Dimarzio hums in it, but I have never been thrilled with the tone.  That's not the case with the Line 6.

This guitar was the missing ingredient in my arsenal. The ironic thing is that the Strat sound is pretty good as well and since I can switch back and forth I haven't been playing my strat that much lately.  This thing has pretty convicing models of Teles, Strats, Pauls, Rick 6/12 strings, Gretschs, ES-335, ES-175 and even includes a couple of acoustic and steel models. I really like the Danelectro model that is based on the one Jimmy Page played on Kashmir and other tunes. I think it sounds pretty good for "Ten Year's Gone" although he played a Tele on the live version (not sure what he played in the studio).  This guitar looks great and actually is very playable. It has a more Gibsonish radius (meaning flatter fretboard) in my opinion and just seemed really comfortable and familiar as soon as I picked it up. I posted my attempt at a Pat Methenyish tone (ES-175 model on neck pickup with some chorus/delay) on the "Time in a Bottle" cover. I intend to post more tunes featuring the overdriven and distorted tones this guitar is very adept at modeling. I truly am only limited by my ability at this point. With this guitar and the acoustic model I can get convincing close to any tone out there.

Back from Vegas

We're back home. My thoughts on the trip are to be in a later post. Puppy update: we have decided to name our new puppy April instead of eclipse. We both agreed that we had kind of a regular name theme going with our other dogs (Lucy & Bridget) and we thought eclipse was not only too masculine, but that it sounded more like a name for a sportscar.



Movie Review - Breach

based on the true story of Robert Hanssen, the FBI agent responsible for what is considered the worst security breach in US Intelligence history. The story focuses on the short interval of time after the FBI had already begun an investigation into Hanssen. A young agent in training is assigned as his assistant to what is ostensibly supposed to be a sting operation to catch him as a sexual deviant with the true purpose of the operation being unknown to the young agent at the time. Chris Cooper delivers another great performance as the egotistical and domineering senior agent who looks at the entire agency and its personnel as being mentally and technically inferior to him. Ryan Phillippe plays Eric O'Neill and successfully captures the earnest but inexperienced stumblings of an agent in training. 

He is tasked by his superiors to keep track of all Hanssen's activities, but at the same time develops a grudging respect for the experienced operative. The story revolves around the bond of trust that develops between the two men and the thin line the young man must tread to fulfill his mission while deceiving an agent who is probably one of the best in the agency at smelling a lie. The story is a fairly slow paced character driven drama, but retains its interest especially since its based on true events. I'm curious as to why they didn't cover more of the 15 years of spying and Hanssen's interaction with the Soviets, as it seems that would have been interesting to see as well. Overall a good espionage story.

Movie Review - Curse of the Golden Flower

in the same vein as the recent series of Chinese epics like "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", "Hero" and "House of the Flying Daggers", this movie looks amazing if nothing else. It follows the story of the Emperor of China, his wife and their three sons, the crown prince being the Emperor's son from a previous wife who apparently died. The plot involves your typical sibling and family rivalries and the "interesting" relationship between the Empress and her step-son. The true fate of the crown prince's real mother and the struggle for the throne tips the plot towards a violent conclusion. This movie is more overtly violent with bloody battle scenes and seems to get a bit lost in the look as opposed to character development. I can't point out any glaring errors or weaknesses, but this movie just left me kind of weary at the end and wasn't near as enjoyable as the others mentioned. If you haven't watched these movies, you should check out Crouching Tiger or Hero just to see the cinematography and brilliant choreography of the martial arts sequences if nothing else. I don't normally watch martial arts movies, but these are more like art house films and the blocking of the various battles and stunts are some of the best I have ever seen.

Are You Special?

We have all heard that phrase from a parent or other guiding figure in our childhood, that we are special.  As a kid, I think most of us take this to heart and really believe that we are somehow different than everyone else and are approaching a singular destiny of some sort.  As we get older we start to realize that we weren't the only ones hearing this phrase from our parents and the conspiracy is revealed. Not that it's a malevolent conspiracy or there isn't a positive benefit from these encouragements.

Having been to many different countries, most of which are economically far poorer than the US and other wealthy western nations, I have seen that being special all depends on your frame of reference.  As a child my daily concerns were getting through school so I could come home and play, read a book, or watch tv. In some countries "hide and seek" is not a game, but a means of staying alive for one more day. If the situation is calm enough, they are given the privilege of scrapping and scraping for fresh water and a small morsel of food to get them through to the next day so they can do it again. For these children, special means you made it into adulthood with your physical body intact and your spirit still alive enough to carry on.

Anyone reading this is far more wealthy than most of the world. Having a computer and internet access is something fewer than 1% of the world's population enjoys. That is based on stats I pulled off the web, so it may be a percentage point or two wrong, but it still shows how unique the experience of surfing the web, reading email, or reading anything for that matter is. Not to mention running water, electricity, safe neighborhoods, access to healthcare, education, etc. For most of the world, these things are dreams and not something they would ever take for granted. Most of us reading this probably do. 

Considering this, my cards are looking pretty good if I'm sitting at a table with people from places like Haiti, Chad, Rwanda, Bangladesh, Kosovo, or Iraq.  Does this make me special?  Have I taken the opportunities I could have in life and done something with them?  I like to think I have tried to make the most of my situation and put in a good effort in most things I do.  Still, have I really lived up to my potential?  Have I taken all the wealth and power afforded to me in western society and really made something of it?  It's a question I really can't answer right now. I have to wonder what the playing field would look like if everyone was on an equal footing. 

So, are you special?  

Vegas, Baby, Vegas

we don't fool ourselves into thinking we live the ethic from which that phrase originates, but it's the only chance I'll probably have for a long time to say it because I'm actually here. We arrived Monday evening and Tuesday has been mostly taken up with getting the lay of the land. If nothing else, Vegas is GINORMOUS in scale now. Having been to a few well known landmarks around the world (Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, Eiffel Tower, St Peter's Basilica) I can easily say that Vegas wins in the large and sparkly category. Of course it's all mostly decorative and aesthetically engineered to draw in tourists and get their money, but I have to say it's a bit overwhelming just from a scale standpoint.

We took the plunge…

and bought Police tickets for the Dallas show at American Airlines center in June. I won't disclose how much we paid for tax purposes :), but we did get a much better deal on Ebay than the Internet scalpers were charging. It seems like most of the scalpers offer very similar ticket options and prices for individual shows, so I wonder how many of them are unique sellers or if they are all part of a international crime syndicate. You definitely feel like you're buying your tickets at gunpoint when looking at the prices. And it's hard to resist when you see they have 2nd and 3rd row center seats available. As long as you don't mind dropping a cool 3 g's for a single ticket, you shouldn't have any problems. 

We got 17th row center floor, so it should work out pretty well. (and our total for two tickets came out well under 4 figures). We saw Sarah Mclachlan at the same place on the 20th row and they were good seats, especially from an audio standpoint. Usually the better the view the poorer the audio in these big arena type shows. These seats are definitely an improvement over what I had for the Synchronicity tour across the street at Reunion Arena back in 1983. Now I just have to arrange to take time off to see the show since it's on a Wednesday. We are going to wait and find out our relocation schedule before we decide on where to see Rush. I was really tempted yesterday because someone was selling 9th row center nearer Alex's side for a decent price, but I decided to wait since the Dallas show may not be our best option. 

The Police and Rush are two shows I most want to see this summer, and I feel like these may be my last opportunities (especially the Police) to ever see these guys live again. I think Rush puts on one of the best shows in the current concert market as well as compared to previous shows I had seen. They used to perform about two hours with most of the material drawn from the current album they were touring on. On the last two tours, the shows have run over 3 hours (with an intermission) and they have played songs from their entire catalog, including songs like Xanadu and Natural Science. They try really hard to please their longtime fans and it's great to hear those songs from that period of their career (AFTK through MP), which is definitely my favorite.

Major Site Upgrade

is in the works. I am changing over to Wordpress which should allow for much more flexibility, power and creativity in this website design. I plan on a full changeover once I return from vacation.

A New Addition to the Family

we chose our newest family member a few days ago, a black & white cocker spaniel puppy that is 9 weeks old. We will pick her up after we get back from vacation, and we can't wait. She's adorable (aren't they all?) and she'll be a welcome addition to our family. We're thinking of calling her Eclipse. Aeyong thought of the name and since it's both appropriate for her coloring and the name of a cool Pink Floyd song, I thought it would work well. 

My G.A.S. is cured

that's Gear Acquisition Syndrome for the unitiated. It's a phenomenon shared by most musicians, especially guitar players. It describes the seemly unquenchable thirst to obtain more equipment so you can achieve the magic "tone" that you are after from your equipment. The tone could be anything from clean to distorted or even more literal like the tone of famous player on a certain song. Although GAS isn't only about getting a tone you don't have. It could be because there's something aesthetically or functionally advantageous in a piece of equipment. In some cases it may be because you just want the same guitar that one of your heroes played.

I won't deny that I will buy more gear in the future, but for all practical purposes, any tone that I can't achieve is going to be related to my failings as a player or tweaker of my own equipment. Now that I have two Line 6 modeling guitars to go along with Guitar Rig modeling software, I have the ability to mimic a warehouse (literally) of different guitars, amps, processors, etc. I know it's going to require months if not years to get a decent handle on how to make it all work well.  So, the result is that my GAS should be cured for at least two or three weeks anyway :). 

Editorial Note (1 June 2010) - predicting the future was not one of my strong suits, at least in the GAS department...

Update on 2013-03-13 11:09 by Darren Hightower

I can endorse the June 2010 update by saying there will never be a cure for G.A.S.  It can only be subdued temporarily...

April Showers

actually the weather is quite nice today, but we did have some serious rain this weekend, so the official mowing season has arrived. And that's just FAN-FRICKIN-TASTIC, MAN!  Seriously. The annual milestone inspection has essentially passed at work and we did pretty well without any serious deficiencies. Everybody has probably breathed a big sigh of relief and returned to their functional levels of ambivalence. I know I have. (anyone from work reading this should disregard that last statement as me just trying to sound cool and get back to something more productive than reading my blog).  :)  Aeyoung and I are looking forward to two weeks of leave starting next week with 5 days in Vegas. We haven't traveled much since we've been married (not counting the work sponsored relocations) and since I'm going to be going on an extended leave of absence next year, we want to take advantage of the time we have. The sad part is that we probably won't be doing any gambling other than throwing a couple of coins in a hotel lobby slot machine. We're not so big on giving money away with nothing to show for it. We plan on checking out the Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam and whatever looks interesting in Vegas that week. We'll probably watch a few shows and just relax.

Movie Review - Apocalypto

Mel Gibson's movie about one man's attempt to escape from human sacrifice and save his family during the dying days of the Mayan civilization. Beautifully filmed, epic in scope, brutal and convincing (any Mayan scholars in the room to pick it apart?) in its portrayal.

Book Review - Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke - another B&N browse pickup. This novel is set in a similar time period to two recent "magical" movies (The Prestige and The Illusionists, respectively) and describes a Napoleonic war era England in which magic is a historical art/science that has fallen out of regular use by most of it's practitioners, who are called theoretical magicians since they all study and discuss it in great detail, but none of them actually can perform any magic. It follows the titular characters who both have different ways of actually practicing the magic and both have different opinions of what it's proper use will be in the service of their own priorities and those of the country. It's been called a sort of Harry Potter for adults, and I guess that's somewhat fair in that it is very English in tone and it's about magic. If you're main foray into literature has been HP, then this may not be your cup of tea, but lovers of good writing with an element of the fantastic will probably like this.

Movie Review - Casino Royale

We Netflixed (yeah, that's a verb) this after watching it in the theater and my first impressions hold true, in that I think this is the most promising first Bond picture I've ever seen. Daniel Craig is exactly how I picture Bond, much more in the mold of a Jason Bourne with the story grounded in realism as opposed to trying to outexplode or outsex the previous versions. Not that there are not some nearly unbelievable stunt sequences and the requisite number of gadgets and toys, but never to the extent that previous movies showed. I liked the fact he had to drive a rental car at one point until he managed to win a better one in a, wait for it, card game. There is one sequence where Bond is chasing a guy through a construction site that is one of the most impressive I have ever seen and it's all on foot (counting the jumping, bouncing, springing, etc.). Suprising, the villian is very Bond-esque with a scarred and translucent eye and on paper would seem like another standard over the top villian, but he actually works and the physical appearance doesn't take away from his believability. The movie manages to capture the original Ian Fleming concept without glamorizing it more for Hollywood. I am really looking forward to future installments now. Not to say that I didn't like Pierce Brosnan, but his Bond (and the series in general) had gotten very stale for me, and I consider myself a pretty big fan.

Movie Review - Borat

I laughed nearly constantly during the whole movie. Sasha Baron Cohen is one of those rare comedians who is willing to do anything to serve the movie and the laugh. If you're not already aware, he plays a "cultural ambassador" for Kazakstan on a trip to America to promote his country. He enters into a variety of situations with apparently completely unwitting participants. It appears to be a sort of Soviet Bloc version of Jackass without all the stunts on the surface, but it's a very intelligent commentary on how perception and presumption color our behaviour much more than reality. To see how a variety of people treat Borat (from both the wealthy and social elite to the more average Americans) tells us a lot more about ourselves as a society than it does about Borat, who represents the extreme version of most Americans concept of people from his part of the world. Having spent six months in Kosovo, I can say that while his character has a ring of truth (and he is completely convicing, never breaking character the whole time) to him, it's all exaggerated for effect. The amazing thing is that no one in the film seems to realize he is an actor and take him as an actual representation of the typical man from Kazakstan. Definitely one of the most intelligent comedies I have seen in several years. Sadly, most people will just see it as like an exploitation for laughs movie, which it isn't.