Saturday 31 October 2015

Still seeking ....something

I had a strange evening last night, I met up with Brenda to give her some  things of hers I'd found, though I stupidly forgot to take the bag of LED lights she'd asked me specifically for. I did get the photos I found on an SD card transferred to more usable USB and CD

Such a strange evening, we went for a meal, and of course it was awkward, I can't deny my feelings for her have not diminished at all in the last 11 months, She looked amazing as always, and her smile still made my heart flutter, though she didn't smile as much as I remember, as much as I've tried to move on this women still occupies all my waking thoughts.....sad innit

As always the problem is that she simply doesn't feel the same way, she's not really moved on per-se but she's also not interested in going back...strange sort of limbo we both seem to be in. I was left feeling incredibly sad at the loss of this relationship that shaped my life and offered so much promise, and that some of the consequences of my bad handling of what was a minor argument could cause so much pain, to both of us.
I'd give anything to try to fix it, but its not up to me, thats also more reasons to be sad.

I don't know why I'm posting this, its not as if she's ever going to read it, or understand, I just felt I should...after  all the whole point of this is to document how I feel about things, good bad or plain sad
Maybe I just need more time, 5 or 6 years might do it.






Ahthankyew

Thursday 29 October 2015

Work+Drink = .....

Surprising results

Been doing a lot of very nice coding work, some to help students and some for me

Hope I didn't put any drunk comments in the students work..

I've shown you this a fuckign thousand times and you're still my Bessie mate

or something!




Ahthankyew

Monday 26 October 2015

bollloxxx

can't sleep, chronic insomnia has made me nocturnal....

very fed up

probably need to stop doing this to myself

Ahthankyew

Sunday 18 October 2015

Earworms...and the danger of insufficient skills

I've got 2 songs rattling around in my head. I can't get rid of them 1 old one new.

Time in a Bottle, and V. Bozemans What is love.

Time I can play pretty well though the guitar is a bit tricky, lots of arpeggios and up and down the neck, but its do-able, but can't really sing it well enough, and every attempt to record it has failed..miserably, either the singing is crap which has been the case since the mega cold (or since birth), or I mess up the guitar.. Many attempts, but nothing I want to publish on YouTube yet.

The other has an odd timing that throws me on the simple chords, I would be mad to even attempt to sing....but its soooo cool I really want to..but can't sing like an R&B queen...I wonder if a folk version would work ;) maybe a ska version...oh oh, a heavy death metal version?


I will keep trying, if I get one of them sounding decent I'll be happy, then maybe they will get out of my head and get forgotten.





Ahthankyew

Friday 9 October 2015

Must avoid ranting!

I have a tendency to be a bit too passionate about things I care for... that makes me a little vocal when people say things I don't agree with, no, I need to rephrase that...people say lots of things I don't agree with, and I don't bat an eyelid, so its not that.
Its when people extoll an at odds with me, moral view of something, or a blatantly false view...and then make some claim about it being an opinion or a fact when it clearly isnt'..

Something's will always be subjective... Like, music, sports, even religion, the great unmentionables at a party...But ones view on politics, is interesting, it is subjective but also very telling, the morality that takes you towards a particular political view can be quite disturbing.

I've got into a bit of a political rant on Facebook, with some rather well to do, affluent business types, (I mixed with a lot of affluent business types back in the day when I was, for a short time at least, also an affluent business type). Who are banging on and on about the new Labour leader, (Jeremy Corbyn for those of you reading 3 years from now, when he may we have been replaced) being a ...well you name it, the bullshit that comes some people (including Cameron) makes me roll my eyes in wonder at the manipulative nonsense politics has become

These are mainly very intelligent savvy people, who got to be rich and affluent by being intelligent and savvy, but have lost all connection with reality and are jumping on the bandwagon to undermine and bray at Labour and their perceived enemies, "the left" like donkeys..

I tried at one point to highlight the extraordinary hypocrisy and duplicity of their own poster boys, the Conservative party, and of course, just like religion they don't listen, taking more time to continue to bray and run down any who don't agree with them.

They extoll the virtues of the free market, and trickle down economy as the only way to make the world a better place, and find it odd when I suggest business above all has not made the world a better place (materially maybe but socially...no) something that's been in place in UK and US for some 30 years now, and clearly does not work...for the majority. Those at the top, they clearly do fine, and even laugh at my suggestion that the world we live in now is considerably worse that it was in the early 80's, because ..well, we have a better standard of living now...Do we?

Pointing out that;  the UK has no industry any more, no natural resource harvesting (aside from oil which benefits only the oil companies, I see no cheap petrol in the stations), no steel, no coal, no meaningful lumber, no fishing, no national car/truck industry..no manufacturing industry of any note.

NHS in crisis, social services at breaking point, crime of all levels at record levels,  job security is non existent. High streets are full of pound shops and windows are boarded. Prisons are full,  long term unemployment is endemic. That children leave school illiterate and those that aren't can't afford to pay for university education, so end up in debt.

That there are no meaningful council house building programs, whose tenants now must rely on the mercy of landlords who inflate the cost to screw the government/taxpayers.
That the levels of extreme and moderate poverty are higher than ever, causing even more crime, making the population more and more insular and afraid.
That council cutbacks mean streets are no longer clean or well maintained, roads are slow to be repaired.
That personal debt has never been higher, and peoples debts are traded!!
That national infrastructure is crumbling with motorways constantly under repair and only investment funded (and therefore a return required) options remain, years after the privatising of rail, we've seen no benefit to the traveller..

We see a culture no longer based on the rewards of hard work, but on an ever avaricious desire to take money from people, chasing profit above all other concerns and blaming others when we don't get to buy the latest replacement for our 200" wall mounted OLED screens. Consumer hunger being fed constantly with a wave of media hype and lifestyle expectations.
We live in constant fear of terror, due to successive right and right leaning governments determination to distract the population with wars and threats to stability, mismanagement of foreign policy on extraordinary scales and distortions of fact that would make Herr Goebbels proud.
And the worst thing of all....reality TV....well maybe not the worse but its pretty bad.
There's a 100+ more things I could add here but I have work get on with.
Pointing all this out.....do we really really live in a better world than we did in the 80's?

Some do, and they've never had it so good....Sadly...the majority don't... Its time we put an end to the madness....
The rise of the right wing nutjobs all over Europe has made 1 phrase popular for all the wrong reasons. Its time we took our country back....a phrase that has an ugly and hate filled meaning when Britain First and other sicko groups use it.

But it is time we took our countries back...from the greed and selfishness that is grinding them down and turning us into fodder to keep them well fed.

By the way, one of the main causes of my ire was due to Cameron and his spin machine quite deliberately twisting something Corbyn said during a discussion....here's an image to explain

 
 
Now what Corbyn said made perfect sense and was a comment on the tragedy of the situation in the middle east, idiotic wars, creating tensions and terror as well as the abandonment of the rule of law...quite right that is a tragedy...its a tragedy that a modern democratic country is behaving this way. A trial and verdict demonstrates the right way to do it, but instead we simply behave like the people we are condemning. Soon we can happily let governments kill people so long as we all know they are bad...hmmmm

What Cameron, or rather his speech writers with his blessing did was highlight a small part of that intelligent well thought out statement out of context...to paint Corbyn as something he clearly isn't'.
 
 
Well context is a bitch...the internet has decided it will explain that to Mr Cameron.




Context......removing it really is a tragedy!



Ahthankyew

Saturday 3 October 2015

Back to some music, and hating my mac...

No more health updates...I'm sick of reporting that I'm sick...I am..but who cares...I am slowly getting better

Which has brought me back upstairs to the music room, which has fallen into a bit of disrepair after 2 months almost no use...Time to make some new videos, after I clean up..
I also decided to use a bit of surprising spare cash following a drop in my mortgage to invest in a full copy of Abelton live..I get a 40% discount as a teacher so its not too bad.

I have seen lots of people using this, and after buying a Novation launchpad a few months ago its time to make some proper use of the puppy...assuming of course I can get the flaming mac to run fast enough.
Ever since the last OS X upgrade, the thing has been running like treacle, which is upsetting as it was a perfectly fine little machine for music before. I am hoping the music packages themselves are not suffering from slow down..We'll soon find out

I also have logic pro 9 on this mac which is fantastic in partnership with my m_Audo Project Mix interface...I now have  a pair of Novation midi controllers, a fantastic 8 channel interface, two top of the line pieces of recording software used by the best artists in the business to create wonderful music...............I have no idea how to use them...damn they are complex!

and I'm supposed to be a tech person?

Anyway Ableton is basically a live performance piece of software, and Logic is for studio quality work (yeah like thats gonna happen), I want to see if I can make something decent with them.

once I work though the tutorials which are leaving me befuddled on the 1st pages.

I'm screwed....But I'll muddle along and see if I can do anything with them...if at first you don't succeed, try again, then give up, you're just being an arse.... :D

Videos hopefully soon, at least test versions if nothing else


Ahthankyew