Sunday, February 29, 2004
There's something very odd going on with certain aspects of my web traffic lately.I don't understand it, but I like it a lot.
Steve 10:22 PM [+] (0) comments
Friday, February 27, 2004
Okay, I thought I'd fixed it with a full reinstall, but was mistaken. What looked like line activity was mic activity, picking up sound from the speakers which were bypassing the line input/ouput.So from pissed off to relieved back to... not actually that pissed off.
I've had an idea.
The most important function of Cubase to me is the ability to mix audio tracks together... to multi layer them. Now, while I cant record these tracks in Cubase with this sound card, I can record them using other software, and then import them into Cubase for mixing and processing.
There'll likely be difficulties with timing when using real instruments, but if I inderstand things correctly, I can play a track from Cubase while recording simultaniously in my other software... so then I just import and sync up manually (I hope).
Labels: computers
Steve 11:00 PM [+] (0) comments
Today I finally picked up the piece of hardware I needed to start recording some new tunes. A Creative Labs USB Soundblaster card.
Nothing fancy... it just adds line in and line out sockets that are lacking on this laptop.
Plug it in, install the drivers, windows is happy and making noises... winamp is happy and making noises... everything is happy and making noises....
Except Steinberg Cubase SX.
Fuck! Bastard! Shitbag!
It can see the card. It accepts it as the card to be used for input and output. It does everything it's supposed to except bloody record or play.
Not impressed and not happy.
Steve 7:32 PM [+] (0) comments
Some people make me sick.
A situation arose in a chatroom where one person disliked the stance of another... and after a period of huffing and puffing came to me and asked my opinion. I gave it to them, and they got very pissed off and upset that I didnt agree with their view.
Come on... if you dont wanna know, dont bloody ask. And don't for one single second expect me to toe the line and be politically correct, coz I toed that line for a few months and hated what I became, and it ain't gonna happen again.
Steve 5:29 AM [+] (0) comments
Thursday, February 26, 2004
Streaming Blakes 7 on a winamp retro tv station.Awesome.
Despite having been cheesey even at the time, Blakes 7 stands up as a classic today... with Avon's menacing overacting combined with Servelan's camp dramaqueen style making for highly entertaining viewing.
Love it.
Steve 9:33 PM [+] (0) comments
Monday, February 23, 2004
It's evil I tell you, pure evil.Streaming complete series of family guy when it takes almost an hour to get a free slot and start viewing.
So atfer you finally manage to get a stream, you dont dare log out, coz it'd take forever to get back in again, and you never know how much you'd have missed... or you'd log back in at a point you'd already seen and have to watch half the series again.
Nope... there's only one thing for it, and that's to watch every single episode untill it loops.
Lose a day? Lose a week? I dont know yet... I'm still watching.
Steve 8:39 PM [+] (0) comments
Friday, February 20, 2004
Stupid has a new favourite spot to nap. I laughed my head off the first time he walked across it, coz he didn't know what the hell it was.So, spot the cat...
Steve 8:03 PM [+] (0) comments
Thursday, February 19, 2004
What a bizarre week.People keep just crawling out of the woodwork, both online and in the real world.
I'm certainly not complaining... it's just odd that they all decide to turn up at more or less the same time.
Steve 2:15 AM [+] (0) comments
Wednesday, February 18, 2004
As requested by Amy, here's how it looks when you take the doors off a wardrobe and tip it on its side to make a book-case/wall unit, or whatever you wanna call it.
Labels: photos
Steve 4:12 PM [+] (0) comments
Monday, February 16, 2004
Not a bad day, all in all.My sister Dawn came round with Shannon, my niece, and after chatting and watching a video they wanted to see, I showed them the joys of The Getaway on PS2.
I guess it was a bit irresponsible of me to let an 8 year old see a game with such colourful language, but she seemed entirely unfazed by it and happily trundled round the streets of London at a nice sedate and safe pace, obeying all of the traffic lights and staying on the correct side of the road.
I couldn't help but laugh as when I had a quick blast, screaming down the middle of Oxford Street, smashing into assorted cars, Shannon looked at me, giggled and said "You're a bad man."
So later I went into town and finally got my bank to sort out this cheque they've been sitting on. It seems because I deposited two cheques of identical value in a short space of time, some bright spark or other noticed this and came to the conclusion that the second was a duplicate, and as such shouldn't be credited to my account.
Dumbass.
These people aren't paid to think, so why do they insist on trying?
Anyway, the money should finally be available by tomorrow morning, which is always a good thing.
Oh yeah, I did some more rearranging of this living room, and solved two problems in one move.
There was a (very heavy) wardrobe which just had to go, coz it didn't look right in a living room... and a huge space in need of some kind of wall unit and/or something to sit the tv on.
Solution? Tip the wardrobe on its side and take the doors off.
It sounds crazy, but with assorted ornamental whatnots, my collection of LPs and a couple of vintage games console inside it, the tv and a very funky spiderplant on top... you'd never know what it was you were looking at.
Job done.
Labels: games
Steve 9:39 PM [+] (0) comments
Sunday, February 15, 2004
I'm gonna be bald and it's all spidergir's fault.She gave me THIS link, and now I'm pulling my hair out trying to escape from the stupid room.
Steve 5:53 AM [+] (0) comments
Saturday, February 14, 2004
After exactly 4 months of living exclusively in my bedroom, I've reinhabited the living room.Mostly I just didn't know what to do with the space, so just left it, but I've been feeling a bit cramped and hemmed in lately, and it seemed daft to let such a cool room go to waste.
There's certainly gonna have to be a lot done in there to make it right, coz at the mo it's mostly empty space and wires from the computers... but it's a start.
Steve 11:00 PM [+] (0) comments
Ah... drunk as a skunk and music blasting.
It's been a while since I've done this, and it feels good :-)
Steve 1:19 AM [+] (0) comments
Friday, February 13, 2004
Why you should listen to Benway Radio on Yahoo LaunchCastThe easiest way to explain it is simply to list the bands that are featured on the playlist. Take a look at this little lot and figure it out for yourself.
Belly, David Bowie, Cranes, The Crystal Method, The Cure, The Damned, The Fall, Front Line Assembly, Jane's Addiction, Japan, Joy Division, Leftfield, Love and Rockets, Massive Attack, Nine Inch Nails, Gary Numan, Mary Margaret O'Hara, Portishead, Radiohead, Recoil, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Sisters of Mercy, Talk Talk, This Mortal Coil, Throwing Muses, Lo Fidelity Allstars, Tubeway Army, Tori Amos, The B-52s, Big Country, Kate Bush, Cat Power, The Chemical Brothers, The Creatures, Dead Can Dance, Depeche Mode, Fuzzbox, Peter Gabriel, Kristin Hersh, Mick Karn, Led Zeppelin, Loop, Love Spirals Downwards, Madonna, Alanis Morissette, Orbital, The Sugarcubes, The Sundays, David Sylvian, U2, Underworld, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, A Flock Of Seagulls, Bauhaus, The Cranberries, Everything But The Girl, Front 242, Cyndi Lauper, Nitzer Ebb, The Pixies, The Police, Simple Minds, Skinny Puppy, Spiritualized, The Stone Roses, Fatboy Slim, Grooverider, Nelly Furtado, Autechre, Black Tape For A Blue Girl, Nick Cave and the Badseeds, Sheryl Crow, Curve, The Cult, Ani DiFranco, Gallon Drunk, The KLF, The Mamas and The Papas, Marilyn Manson, Moby, Motorhead, Nirvana, Sinead O'Connor, The Prodigy, Michelle Shocked, Swans, The Thompson Twins, Tones On Tail, The Velvet Underground, John Foxx, The White Stripes, Adam and the Ants, Cocteau Twins, Dirty Three, The Doors, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Lynyrd Skynyrd, R.E.M., Spacemen 3, Tears For Fears, VAST, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, Evanescence, Air, Heidi Berry, Butthole Surfers, Can, The Cramps, Devo, Brian Eno, Faith No More, Finitribe, Future Sound Of London, Gang Of Four, Genesis, Lisa Gerrard, Grandaddy, Hooverphonic, Husker Du, Howard Jones, Juno Reactor, Praga Khan, Killing Joke, KMFDM, Low, Lycia, Mazzy Star, Men At Work, Ministry, Peter Murphy, My Bloody Valentine, Oasis, Pink Floyd, Iggy Pop, Porno For Pyros, Queen, Lou Reed, Ride, Slowdive, Sonic Youth, Spandau Ballet, Strange Cargo, Tangerine Dream, Timelords, Ultravox, Vanessa Williams, Niel Young, Boards Of Canada, Godspeed Your Black Emporor, Death Cab For Cutie, Peace Orchestra, Anthony Pappa, Ladytron, Coldplay, Zero 7, Sigur Ros, Aerogramme, Fischerspooner, Damien Rice, AC/DC, Bjork, The Breaders, Dead Or Alive, Duran Duran, Eels, Human League, Natalie Merchant, New Order, Stina Nordenstam, Prince, Public Image Ltd, Sugar, Talking Heads, Tanya Donelly, Lunatic Calm, Rob Zombie, Paul Oakenfold, Eminem, Susumu Yokota, Trance All Stars, ABC, The American Analog Set, Laurie Anderson, Aphex Twin, Big Black, The Birthday Party, Black Sabbath, Blondie, Bomb The Bass, Boss Hog, Bowery Electric, R.L.Burnside, John Cale, Captain Beefheart, Clannad, Coal Chamber, Phil Collins, Concrete Blonde, Daft Punk, Death In Vegas, Delerium, DJ Krush, Elastica, Eurythmics, Faithless, Fields Of The Nephilim, Filter, Fugazi, Hole, Human Mesh Dance, Billy Idol, James, Janis Joplin, Keoki, Kruder and Dorfmeister, Laika, Leather Strip, Annie Lennox, Suede, Lords Of Acid, MC 5, Meat Loaf, Kylie Minogue, Morcheeba, Bob Mould, Mudhoney, My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult, Opal, Orchestral Manoeuvers In The Dark, Outkast, Auqustus Pablo, Placebo, Robert Plant, Primal Scream, Project Pitchfork, Rage Against The Machine, Rapeman, Razed In Black, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Roots, Shellac, Shonen Knife, Soundgarden, John Spencer Blues Explosion, Stabbing Westward, Sublime, Suddenly Tammy!, Switchblade Symphony, Tarnation, The Telescopes, Temple Of The Dog, The Orb, Tool, Tortoise, Type O Negative, Weezer, White Zombie, Dar Williams, 13th Floor Elevators, Adam Ant, Olive, Wumpscut, Cirrus, Thievery Corporation, Cold, Buena Vista Social Club, Cursive, DJ Icey, Jude, Funker Vogt, Elf Power, Pammstein, Limp Bizkit, The Cruxshadows, Mono, Apoptygma Berzerk, Covenant, London After Midnight, U.N.K.L.E., At The Drive-In, Deep Dish, Paul Van Dyke, Pedro The Lion, The Beta Band, Sasha, Dido, VNV Nation, Lacuna Coil, Waldeck, Sasha and Digiweed, Groove Armada, Pink, Zenith, MDFMK, A Perfect Circle, The Gunga Din, Le Tigre, The Faint, Thursday, Goldfrapp, Doves, Dzihan and Kamien, Felix Da Housecat, Further Seems Forever, And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Gorillaz, The Shins, Lovage, Kosheen, Clinic, Miss Kittin, Norah Jones, Racermason, David Visan, Dirty Vegas, The Vines, Division Of Laura Lee, T.A.T.U., The Sountrack Of Our Lives, Audioslave, Alexandra Slate, The Raveonettes, The Sonics, Flunk, The Postal Service, The Mars Volta, Abba, Cake, PJ Harvey, Prototype 909, Roxy Music, The Shamen, Tin Machine, Vangelis, World Domination Enterprises, Amon Tobin, Reflection Theory, Marc Bolan, Dire Straits, Gravity Kills, Isaac Hayes, Jimi Hendrix, Lush, Modest Mouse, The Monkees, Henry Rollons, Veruca Salt, Superstar DJ Keoki, Orgy, Loreena McKennitt.....
with more being added all the time.
Check it out HERE. If you have a popup killer, you'll need to disable it for this to work, as the station tuner appears in a popup.
Labels: launchcast, music
Steve 7:51 PM [+] (0) comments
My bank sucks.
They've screwed up clearing a cheque and seem to be just sitting on it. It's not a disaster in itself, as I have enough money to get by, no problem. What's really pissing me off though is it's preventing me from buying the piece of equipment I need to start recording the new album I've been brewing for the past god knows how long.
The ideas are coming thick and fast, and plans to promote the new material too. This'll be a make or break album financially, if not creatively... and I plan to take an entirely unconventional route to gain recognition for the new material.
Details as and when.
You can start holding your breath... it won't be long... probably.
Labels: annoyed
Steve 5:52 PM [+] (0) comments
Thursday, February 12, 2004
Ah, what beautiful hypocricy.Sharman Networks, the people who created and run Kazaa... one of the most popular pieces of software for exchaning pirated music, movies and software have shut down Kazaa Lite K++, claiming breach of copyright.
Hah!
From what I can tell when firing up Kazaa Lite, the software still works, but is cut off from the main Kazaa network, so only ties up with other Kazaa Lite users, thus reducing the chances of finding the files you want.
It does indeed appear to be pretty limiting... enough for me to try a couple of other systems. I went back to WinMX for a bit, but find it consistantly horrible, so eventually settled on LimeWire and was once again able to find everything I needed.
Labels: p2p
Steve 6:51 PM [+] (0) comments
You know what REALLY annoys me?
People who keep their browser maximised and dont even know that isnt the only way to have it. So they never realise they can have more than one thing on the screen at once.
"Resize your browser" I say.
"Huh?" they say.
Arg!
Labels: annoyed
Steve 3:04 PM [+] (0) comments
Wednesday, February 11, 2004
That's a result.I updated my security patches from the microsoft homepage and now I can hear the cow mooing as I load this blog.
MooooOOOOOO!!!
Steve 3:56 PM [+] (0) comments
I finally got my arse into gear and went to see Return Of The King.
Guess what?
It's great.
To begin with I found myself thinking "yes, this is all very pretty, but get ON with it"...
and then they got on with it, and I was suitably gobsmacked.
The trouble is, movies now look so truly amazing that it takes something bordering on the impossible before I find myself getting excited. Maybe that's a good thing if it means movie makers will have to concentrate more on the story instead of the eye candy.
Now if I can just recruit that drum playing ogre thing I spotted at the start of the first battle sequence, to come and play on my new album...
Labels: movies
Steve 1:00 AM [+] (0) comments
Monday, February 09, 2004
One more week.That's probably all it's gonna take before I can get the piece of equipment I need to start recording some new music.
I already have 3 semi-completed tunes waiting to be recorded and have overdubs added, which I'll probably just release straight onto my website.
Next comes the new project... something I've had bubbling away inside me for years. I'm gonna need a bit more equipment for that and can hopefully recruit a few other people to collaborate on vocals and whatever.
Labels: music
Steve 11:40 AM [+] (0) comments
Thursday, February 05, 2004
Smack the Pingu!Bastard!
The people in #england are getting into the 500s, but I cant beat 493.6
Bollox!
Update: 531.6
another update... 576.3 !!
Steve 10:17 AM [+] (0) comments
Three days of non-stop cartoons coupled with a bad case of gas from all the vegetables I ate last night combined to give me some pretty freaky dreams.
I can kinda remember three separate episodes that stand out among a whole load of weirdness.
1: Back at Deanshanger where I grew up, I was walking past the primary school and happened to see someone hanging about under the giant willow tree. I went to take a looksee, and it turned out to be some stunning gothic girlie with braided black hair and blue finger nails.
We chatted briefly and then she came back to my family's house with me for a ride in my car. Now here's where it gets weird. My car was a Ferrari 308 GTB, obviously, but my dad also owned a white Lamborghini Diablo and a white Lotus Esprit Turbo which he let us drive on occasion. Amusingly, my brother owned a ratty old green Ford Capri.
So anyway, I went to ask my dad if I could borrow the Diablo, as my Ferrari was blocked in by my brother's capri. My dad being the asshole that he is got all stroppy and started jumping into the cars and driving them away so I couldn't drive any of them.
Needless to say, I went into a screaming rage and started trashing the circuitboards from the company's latest compuer project (where this comes in is beyond me, but it made sense at the time) until I got some satisfaction. As it was, I ended up getting fired and feeling like a complete idiot.
2: A much smaller scene. I was wandering through one of the local housing estates and happened to spot what looked like an abandoned industrial estate. Someone I knew approached me and told me that yes, this was indeed the long lost estate of something-or-other (it had a name, but I cant remember it) which had been knocked down some 10 years ago and no-one had seen since.... quite a mystery, and I was very lucky to find it. We went inside to check it out, and despite being mostly empty, there were still some people working on the loading bays.
3: This one despite being the last one before I woke is also the vaguest.
I was wandering around the house, fed up coz my girlfriend (an amalgam of every girlfriend I've ever had... which makes for a very curious creature) didn't want to have sex with me and was being all grumpy at me for even suggesting it. I was going to go back to the willow tree to look for that gothic girlie when I was woken by a very loud cow mooing.
All of these though being fragmented are pretty easy to understand... not that I'm gonna explain them here... I just felt like putting them in writing coz they're so well formed and easy to remember. The most amusing bit of all that is the cow mooing. Turns out it was arry playing the cow sample we use in the chatroom. She triggered it... and my laptop's hooked into my stereo, so it came out fairly loud.
Some of you may be able to hear that very moo on this blog, as I embedded it into the page... depends on your active X settings, and if you've patched your OS. Mine doesn't play it.
Labels: dreams
Steve 9:03 AM [+] (0) comments
Tuesday, February 03, 2004
I love anything that makes me go "What that fuck is THAT?"Invader Zim rocks.
Stop snivelling little worm monkey!
Steve 1:32 PM [+] (0) comments
Why didn't someone tell me how cool V5 of Winamp is?
I've had V3.something for ages, and always used it for playing mp3s in preference to Media Player... but just out of curiosity, I upgraded yesterday evening.
Streaming TV? Lots of watchable, cool streaming TV?
Woohoo!
So sometimes the tv streams are maxed out and you have to hunt through the station list to get a good one, but once you get one, you won't stop watching.
How about 3 hours of South Park followed by the entire series of Secret Life Of Plants by David Attenborough?
Square eyes are becoming a factor.
Steve 7:06 AM [+] (0) comments
Sunday, February 01, 2004
I dunno what it is about the sound of a cows moo, but it's quite awesome.Just the idea of this bloody great big milk factory on legs standing in a field dumping shit from one end and going MOOOOOOOOOOO at the other.
It cracks me up
Much political bullshit, backbiting, misunderstandings, good intentions gone awry and general incompetence did abound in the chatroom this weekend, and y'know... I loved every moment of it.
Beyond that... I dunno. Life seems to have stabilised into some kind of bland holding pattern. Nothing's really happening, but things aren't falling apart either. I'll take it.
Steve 12:27 PM [+] (0) comments
The Benway Empire |
 |