MP3s updated.

A quick note, for those who've been keeping up with my "Musical Monday" series. I've recently updated all the mp3 files with proper ID3 tags, and the blog entries now have links to the album art, where applicable.

Musical Monday: Past the Frame.

Another oldie but goodie. It's weird looking back on a lot of songs from this period (95-97) because there's just something to them that I haven't been able to capture since. Part of it, I think, is the under-developed accompaniment (mostly just block chords) but the lyrics have a certain poetry to them that I seem to have moved away from. Throw in the fact that I'd usually churn these songs out in a couple of days, and I'm always amazed when I look back at them. Of course, back then I could never have written the songs I write now -- that take me 4 months to complete -- and I wouldn't trade my new skills to go back to the old ones. But sometimes, I think it would just be nice to sit down and crank out a tune and some words (I can't decide which is more difficult for me nowadays) and come up with a nice little song like this:

» Past the Frame

duration: 2:06
file size: 1.93 MB
written: 1996
recorded: 1996
instrument: Casio keyboard
recording medium: cassette tape
album art: Kicking the Bucket
lyrics:

Visions of a future past
Building dreams not meant to last
But the shackles of fate
Can be broken away
And the future's unwritten
So they say

Hesitate to get too near
A hesitation sown by fear
But all I really need
Is a glimpse of your smile
To reassure myself
It's all worthwhile

CHORUS:
Past the frame I find
A heart that is true
And deep inside I know
I'm longing for you
And every night I pray
You long for me, too

Former prospects come and gone
Is there reason to carry on?
But you can't judge where you are
By where you've already been
And what once seemed certain
Now remains to be seen

Wondering if I dare advance
How long until I miss my chance?
But my ray of hope
Is a picture of you
Like a beam of sunshine
Out of the blue

CHORUS

Past the frame, a glimpse
Of what we could be
And deep inside I know
I like what I see
And every night I pray
You're thinking of me

CHORUS

Every night I pray you long for me, too

Musical Monday Archive

Muscial Monday: Moonlight Lullaby.

Time for another instrumental. This piece has been around almost as long as I've been writing down music. The original song that this piece was based on was written long, long ago -- perhaps as early as elementary school -- and was called "Morning Lullaby". I rewrote it sometime in high school (unknowingly renaming it in the process) and it's become one of my most popular instrumentals (read: my wife really likes it.) This recording is from my first homemade CD, titled "Primary Key", that I made in 2003, collecting all of my instrumental music (that I hadn't forgotten through the years) up to that point.

» Moonlight Lullaby

duration: 2:12
file size: 2.01 MB
written: 1996
recorded: 2003
instrument: piano
recording medium: computer
album art: Primary Key

Musical Monday Archive

Another update: almost there!

This past weekend, we spent Saturday down at our new house again, getting it painted up and ready for our move in 2 weeks.

We dropped Elizabeth and Alex off with Sarah's grandmother, grabbed lunch, bought some more paint, and got to work. Sarah finished off our bedroom and gave Alex's room a first coat while I painted the kitchen ceiling. By that time, it was time to go pick up the kids, so I took the car while Sarah got the "grass" painted in Elizabeth's room. (We're painting her room up like her current one is: green grass on the bottom, wispy blue sky on the top.)

When I got back, Matt and Becca had come over, and we ate pizza. After they left, Sarah put Alex to sleep while I gave the ceiling a second coat. While I had the ceiling paint out, I touched up the edging on Alex's and our bedrooms. Then I figured I might as well do the ceiling of the hallway. That finished off the 2 gallon bucket, which was fine, because that's all the ceiling painting that needed doing. While I cleaned up my stuff, Sarah did a quick second coat on Alex's room. By the time we got everything picked up and kids loaded into the car it was after 1:00 AM. Whew!

Now that just leaves painting the walls of the kitchen and the hallway, some minor edging in the living room, painting the sky and the grass detailing in Elizabeth's room, and some sort of jungle detailing in Alex's. We'll be going back down this Saturday; if we can get as much done then as we just did, that should be enough!

Musical Monday: More Than Anything.

For this week's Musical Monday, we'll head back in time 11.5 years. Back in high school, I wrote music under the name "So Long Sanity", and even though I didn't record the majority of my music, I still collected every 10-12 songs that I wrote into an album, complete with cover art. This song was on my 6th album, titled "Brain Food". I had actually forgotten that this song existed, because I never wrote it down anywhere. It wasn't until I decided to dub my old cassette tapes onto the computer a few years ago that I "rediscovered" it.

» More Than Anything

duration: 3:40
file size: 3.36 MB
written: 1996
recorded: 1996
instrument: Casio keyboard
recording medium: cassette tape
album art: Brain Food
lyrics:

I try and try
To leave the past behind
But it's becoming so hard now
To put you from my mind

'Cause I can't give you up so easily
I can't let you slip away
You're so much more to me

CHORUS:
I wanna hold your hand
I want you to hold me
I wanna feel your love
Raining down upon me
Oh can't you understand?
I want to make you see
Your love means so much more
Than anything to me

I cried and cried
The night we broke apart
But forever and a day
You'll hold a place inside my heart

'Cause I can't give you up so easily
I can't let you slip away
You're so much more to me

CHORUS

And every night
As lonely nights can be
I think about all that we've been
And what I'd like to be
You mean so much to me

That I can't give you up so easily
I can't let you slip away
You're so much more to me

CHORUS (x2)

Musical Monday Archive

Weekend update: Alex's birthday + house.

Another busy weekend. Alex turned 1 year old on Friday, and we had his birthday party Saturday afternoon.

It's amazing how different he is from Elizabeth at this age. While she had lost most of her baby-ishness by 1 year old, he is still very much a baby. A big chunky tank of a baby, but still. He's been walking for two and a half months, and still falls down all the time, where Elizabeth had the skill mastered after a week. Elizabeth was inquisitive, but mostly liked to observe; Alex likes to explore. Which means we pretty much have to keep all the room doors shut, or he'll get in and make a mess of everything, whether that's tearing books down off shelves, or splashing around in the toilet! Whereas Elizabeth had stopped putting things indiscriminately into her mouth by the time she started getting teeth, Alex likes to chew on things. And where Elizabeth didn't really start talking until she was close to 2 years old (after Alex was born), Alex has been a complete chatterbox for a couple of months now. Just baby-talk, mind, but even a year ago, Elizabeth didn't say much more than animal sounds.

The party went well. About 16 or so people showed up. We had a lot of food, and a cute chocolate cake decorated as a lion. Alex was hesitant to dig into the cake, but he finally ripped the ear off, and when Mommy took the cake away to cut it up, he grabbed at it and took a big chunk of frosting right off.

He didn't have much interest in opening his presents; the first thing he opened was a tiger with a flaslight in its mouth, that growls when you turn it on. He loved it, and we couldn't tear his attention from it for quite a while. In fact, that night after we had all his new toys lined up in the living room, he ran in retrieved the flashlight without disturbing anything else. It was really cute.

Sunday, Sarah and I went down to our new house to paint a little more. Between last weekend and this one, we've gotten the living room totally painted, Alex's ceiling painted, and now our bedroom has the first coat done. Ceiling lights have been installed in the bedrooms, thanks to Sarah's dad and Matt. We've still got the kitchen (walls and ceiling) and hallway (walls and ceiling) and the kids' bedrooms, plus another round of edging in our bedroom before we're finished. It's a lot of work! But we're pretty excited to be moving. I think the official moving date is now December 2nd. There's a lot of work to be done before then!

Muscial Monday: Do You Think of Me?

It's Monday again! This song is the first song that I recorded directly to the computer, by recording the music first, and then dubbing the vocals in later. As such, the quality is light years beyond most of my earlier recordings.

The idea for the song came one morning when I woke up having dreamt of an old girlfriend. Once I got to writing, I decided the song would be more effective if I took that simple idea and developed it to its extreme, verse by verse.

From almost any standpoint (muscially, lyrically, etc.) I consider this song to be one of my absolute best.

» Do You Think of Me?

duration: 4:26
file size: 4.06 MB
written: 2002
recorded: 2002
instrument: piano
recording medium: computer
lyrics:

It's been a while since I saw you last
All those years have passed
We've not spoke since
And in that time, I've somebody new
Maybe so do you
That would make sense

So why're you on my mind?

I had a dream just the other night
Something wasn't right
I was with you
It got me thinking of what might have been
Even as just friends
What we could do

It's not worth dwelling in
But I can't help wonderin'

Do you think of me
Every now and then?
Reminisce occasionally?
Does my name, unbidden, come suddenly?
Or unconsciously do you think of me?

Can't seem to clear your face from my mind
And leave the past behind
Those days with you
I hear your voice in my ear when I'm
All alone, each time
I'm feeling blue

I know it's not meant to be
But I can't help wondering

Do you think of me
When you drift to sleep?
Does my face frequent your dreams?
When you close your eyes, is it me you see?
Or wish he could be?
Do you dream of me?

Is my picture still in your frame?
Has it through the years stayed the same?
Are you looking for
Just a little more
Of what we had before?

Do you long for me
More each passing day?
Do you relive the memories?
Do I haunt your thoughts and invade your dreams
Like you do to me?

Do you think of me
Every waking hour?
Every thought and word and deed?
Am I still the angel you are to me?
Or am I vain to think
That you think of me?

Do you think of me?
Do you think of me?
Do you think of me?

Musical Monday Archive

Book read: Cradle.

Yesterday during lunch, I finished my most recent book: Cradle, by Arthur C. Clarke and Genry Lee.

This is same team that wrote the last 3/4 of the Rama series (following Clarke's standalone classic, Rendevous With Rama). Those were good books. Cradle, which was written a couple of years before the Rama sequels, is not.

Not that it's a terribly bad book. I was entertained for almost all of the 408 pages. But I'd never read it again. The book is basically a character study on the 3 protagonists, with the odd chapter of sci-fi alien stuff thrown in every hundred pages or so. Contrary to most reviews I've read, I actually found the characters engaging, and the sci-fi bits to be clunky and confusing. What little plot there is involves Carol (a reporter) hunting down a lost Navy missile somewhere off the Florida Keys. To do this, she charters a boat run by Nick and Troy. They go diving and find something odd, butt heads with some rival treasure hunters, and try to avoid the Navy. It's not as exciting as it sounds.

Every main character has had one emotionally-traumatic experience in their past, and the authors take a chapter or two out of the story to replay this. Most maddening is the Navy Commander: his personal life and problems are dwelt on perhaps more so than any of the protagonists, and yet he has almost zero impact on the story. At first, the dialogue felt forced an unnatural, but either it got better, or I just grew accustomed to it.

The aliens' side of the story is told in 3 or so single-chapter chunks, spaced out regularly throughout the book. But they're confusing, written in terms that manage to sound advanced yet wholly generic at the same time, and go on far too long for the scant information they provide. Eventually, near the end of the book, there's interaction between the aliens and the main characters, but you can already tell that there's not enough book left for anything to really happen. And it doesn't. The book even manages to end abruptly, after dragging on and on, plot-wise. No resolution or denouement; just the climax, and then "The End". Heck, my copy ends on the back of the last page, which means I hit the last sentence in the book, and then: back cover. Rather jarring, to tell the truth.

Like I mentioned earlier, though, the characters were decent. Even if they were annoying or artificial-feeling to begin with, I got wrapped up in their adventures and cared about what happened to them, even if their stories didn't actually go anywhere.

I won't likely ever read this again, and I can't in good conscience recommend it. I'll give it 1.5 out of 5 stars:

(poor-fair)

Thursday gaming recap: Through the (Gobi) desert.

Lane and Matt came over last night to play some games. (Surprise, surprise.)

The first game we played was Oasis. I had just received Oasis in the mail on Tuesday, after ordering it online last week. (There's this site called Tanga that has great deals on geek-related items. Every evening they put a new item up for sale at a ridiculous price, and when it's gone, it's gone. And every now and then, they sell board games. When I saw Oasis for $8 + $6 shipping -- with a retail price of $35 -- I couldn't pass it up. It sounded like something Sarah might like, so I grabbed with the intention of giving it to her for Christmas. I really couldn't wait that long, so after we closed on our house Tuesday, I gave it to her as a "housewarming" present.)

Anyway, the game technically plays 3, but I read that it was best with 4-5, so I wanted to try it while we had 4 players. The game itself is simple enough: it's a tile-laying game where each player builds areas of oases, steppes, plains, and camel caravans on the gameboard. Your score is based on the size of these 4 features, but there's a catch: in order to score a feature, you need to collect "scoring tiles" of the same type. Your final score for each feature, then, is the size of that feature multiplied by the number of scoring tiles of that type that you've collected. (So if I control 6 oasis spaces, and have 3 oasis scoring tiles in my possession, my oasis score is 18 points. Likewise, if I control 12 steppe spaces, but have 0 steppe scoring tiles, I scoring precisely 0 for the steppes!)

The scoring is simple if fairly math-heavy (for a game), but it's the gameplay that's so much fun. The only way to play tiles or camels to the board, or to collect scoring tiles, is through a simple auction system. There's a deck of cards, where each card allows you to place 1-2 tiles, place 2-3 camels, take 1-2 scoring tiles, or draw more cards. Each player starts with a stack of 5 cards and a disc numbered 1-5 that determines turn order. In turn order, starting with player #1, each player offers 1 to 3 of his cards out to the other players, flipping them off the top of his stack one-by-one. Because you can never look at your stack of cards, there's a nice push-your-luck element here: will next card be worth anything? You won't know until you flip it over. Once all players have revealed their offers, player #1 picks the one he wants, handing over his turn order disc in return, and playing/taking the items shown on the cards. Then player #2 picks the cards that he wants and plays them, and so on down the line, until the last player gets stuck with whatever's left. Then, whoever just received the #1 disc gets to place a bonus tile or camel. Essentially, what you're doing during the auction phase is bidding for turn order, and getting the #1 disc is particularly desirable, not only for having the first pick of offers, but also because of the bonus tile/camel placement that comes with it. You have to be careful not to overbid, though, because (1) you don't want to help your opponents too much, and (2) there's a nifty mechanism that limits your bidding power. Remember that you start with a stack of 5 cards, and can offer up to 3 of them. Whenever you offer only 1 card, you add 2 more cards to your stack. If you offer 2 cards, you add only 1 card to your stack. And if you offer 3 cards, you don't get any replacements. So if you bid 3 cards in the first round, you'll only have 2 cards left with which to bid the next round, and if you bid both of those next time, you'll only get 1 card to bid with in the third round. So there's some wonderful tension in the auction phase, between attempting to put together an offer that will win you the #1 disc, and managing the size of your stack so you can make competitive bids in the future.

So, long story short: great game. I think Sarah liked it. I love it. Even though I got pounded. I thought I did pretty well with a score of 83. But then Matt and Sarah each ended up with 106, and Lane beat everyone out with 108. I can't wait to play again, though.

After that, Lane headed home, and Matt and I played a hand of Give Me the Brain! that I won.

Then Sarah came back from trying (unsuccessfully, thanks to Elizabeth) to get Alex to go to sleep, and we finished the night with a 3-player game of Mystery Rummy: Rue Morgue. I jumped out in the first round to a 28-18-8 lead. Matt put the hurt on us in the next hand, taking a 72-47-35 lead. But I stormed back in the third round, and not only did I score 55 points to end the game, but I also achieved a shutout, putting the final scores at 102 (me), 72 (Matt), 35 (Sarah).

Me = Homeowner.

We bought our house yesterday. About an hour of signing papers, and then suddenly we're homeowners. The previous owners headed up to their new place directly from the closing, so we went down and checked out our purchase.

It's pretty surreal, standing around in an empty house and saying, "This is ours, now."

I'd have pictures to post, but I forgot to bring the camera. Ah, well. Sarah doesn't switch jobs until just before Christmas, so that gives us over a month and a half to repaint most of the upstairs (the current paint's fine, we just don't care for the colors), rewire the bedrooms for ceiling lights (the light switches just work the outlets), and slowly move our stuff in.

I'll try to post pictures from the next time we head down there. I'm sure that'll be this weekend sometime.