Lou Photographer Musician VFX's blog: "Personal blog of sorts."

So, my xbox got fixed (again), and now back home, hooked up, and ready to go.  Haven't bought any new games in almost six months, sadly, but I did just buy Castle Crashers, and still playing Rock Band like a mofo (finally have double-kick for my drums, so certain Expert songs are WAY easier now!).

If anyone wants to throw down, add me on XBL, gamertag: tf5bassist.

 

That is all. :D

I just moved across town, finally got rid of the old place, got our Cash 4 Keys money, and now are focusing 100% on the new place... And I actually had to change my city on my online profiles. For the first time in about four years. Odd. So, while in the same area, I'm now living across town in Rio Linda. Those of you familiar with the Sacramento area are probably thinking "Wtf?!? Rio Linda??". Well, it's not the ghetto part of Rio Linda, it's the redneck part. Which is quite likable, to be honest. Upgraded from a 2 bed/1 bath to a 4 bed/2 bath older house, with lots of space, and a basketball hoop. That's freakin' awesome, I've missed having a hoop for a LOONG time! Plus, we each have our own "play" rooms, in addition to our office and our bedroom. My wife's room will be her sewing/project/caged animal room lol, and mine will be a music room, with some photography/camera stuff too. I can't wait! Anyways, back to organizing and unboxing, and whatnot...

So, I just basically spent more money on computer stuff than I have in a long time, and than I probably should in the first place. And I didn't even spend that much! Bought a new Seagate 1TB SATA drive to replace the 250GB PATA drive that was giving me issues (allegedly--it had bad blocks)... Bought a new CoolerMaster CM690 case (not bad for $80, highly recommend it, loads of cool stuff!) so that my drives won't get to 55C (that's 131F, fuck!), and bought another fan to help with cooling (four case fans in all right now). However, I'm still not seeing it run as fast as it should... I know I need to replace this shitty little 430watt Raidmax PSU with something better soon, but I doubt that's a major issue. No, I think that right now is the memory... I've got four sticks of RAM in there right now, two are 512MB sticks at PC2700 speeds... There's a 512MB PC3200, and a 256MB PC2700 or something... And I'm pretty sure that at least one of those sticks are slightly bad... So now I need more RAM. A nice set of 2x1GB PC3200 would be good... But... that's another $40-$50 that I don't have. Lame. So... Anyone happen to have a matched pair of those sticks floating around they're not using? It'd be much appreciated. :D

Okay... so I'm hard to shop for for christmas. Cause all I really want is a new Canon DSLR, followed by a laptop (since I don't have one, preferably a MacBook Pro. heh.), and a G1 phone. That's really it. I would seriously be ecstatic to get a used Canon 30D, and ONLY that for Xmas. But that shit's expensive. Now, there's something reasonable I want. For once. Coheed & Cambria "Neverender" Boxed Set If you know me, you know that pretty much the only thing that's been in my car's CD player since like, July or August, is the MP3 CD with all four Coheed & Cambria albums. You also may remember a blog post saying "OMGOMGOMG I want to go to Neverender so bad!!!" a few months ago. Yeah, didn't happen. But now... Now the boxed set is on pre-order. Four live DVDs and CDs for $110. omg. So... yeah... In case you're wondering what to get me for Xmas that I'll absolutely love and that won't cost at least $700... there you go. For now, however... I'm going to go smoke about five cigarettes now and try to go back to sleep.

Check out Pressure 4-5's video for "Beat The World" here (linked cause Universal Music Group sucks balls) I just dug out my copy of Pressure 4-5 - "Burning The Process", and am falling in love with it all over again. Heavy, melodic, and the bassist plays a fretless half the time, which is pretty uncommon in rock. This shit is bringing me back to how I felt years ago, playing in a band in Redding, discovering new music, feeling the raw energy of bands like Pressure 4-5, Mad At Gravity, Floater, Dredg (before they got all lame and radio-y), 40 Below Summer, DFiVE9 (who need to come down to sac, hint hint motherfuckers!! :D ), and the countless Sacramento bands who served as my role models, being the closest "scene" to Redding. Flicker, KeepingEllis from San Jose, Misanthrope, Absent Me, Wurkt, Dead on Planet Earth, Brand X Savior, Beat Officers, Luxt, Red Top Road, Long Drive Home, Shortie... Back when I KNEW that music, playing in bands, would be my life. When I lived and breathed the band, and spent all my free time marketing, advertising, networking, learning, and doing what I had to do to get further. That's not how it is now... Life changes, priorities shift. Dreams are dashed, ideas become faint memories... Man, I miss that... Pressure 4-5 - "Melt Me Down" Born into fire No given shape no Sense of a beaten road Trained by our voices Given one choice it’s Break the shell and move ahead Or eighteen dead and decided [CHORUS:] Melt me down Pour me out Into the mold But I’ll break out Time is our magnet I’m sticking to it An iron-clad existence Is a prison in itself [CHORUS] Have we all become molded Alive to the world But inside dead To be nothing… I’ll break out I’ll make it Yeah I’ll make it Do it my way Born into fire No given shape or Chance to remain as we wish to be And that is free… [CHORUS] I will not become molded Allowed by myself to be nothing now I’ll be nothing now

Hot water is off at my house until i get the money to turn it back on, so i was wondering if anyone would be so kind as to let me shower at their house? Cold showers are just not possible, I'm too warm-blooded i guess haha... well, if anyone's willing to let me use their shower on a semi-regular basis, that'd be awesome. I can shower at work, but that's not always feasible, timewise. Like on days i don't work. hehe. Well, msg me if you would like to help me out with this! Thanks so much in advance! :D

I think I'm pretty much sick and tired of almost everything. That is all.

Odd little thing... the menu bar graphics are all changing... not sure how much i like 'em, but they look cool so far. :) Still hasn't changed on pages like the Blogs page yet though.

So... I started my new job on Monday, and let me say this. My expectations are pretty high for atmosphere at work, recently... Apple Elk Grove was awesomely fun, Comtek was an amazing growing experience with some of the coolest coworkers ever (not to mention my awesome bosses, Larry and Rob) despite being one of the most shitty work situations EVER (blame Mike @ Mad Dog for that one). So, how does my new job stack up to those interesting positions?

It's not nearly fair. Pearson School Systems is a company that I didn't think existed, at least outside of the city limits of Mountain View, CA or Cupertino, CA. Amazing atmosphere, everyone there is (gasp!) happy! My trainer/supervisor is a fucking rockstar, and so far it just feels like home.

That's right. Four days into training and it feels like home.

I'm pretty blitzed out by the heat right now, so I'll probably textually ramble on more later, but here's the scoop for now:

Still no band. Still broke. Still hot as balls outside. Still stuck at lvl 56 on my pally (but I guess I have to play to level, i hear it kind of helps haha), and still can't beat "Through The Fire & Flames" on Expert yet (still only made it through the intro hammer-ons once haha). But my job? Severely great.

I finally got around to rearranging my pics, sorting them, creating a folder for just my pics (which I was certain I'd never do that--I rarely take pics of myself haha), adding some new folders for other random stuff, putting things where they belong, and uploaded a new one or two... Go ahead and check it out, let me know if I've missed anything, or if it could be done better. :D Digg users: Digg just rolled out the private beta for their new Recommendation Engine. What this does is looks at your Digging/submission habits, analyzes them, compares them to other users, and then pairs you up with Upcoming stories that you're much more inclined to like. The current official Upcoming page is horrendous, with so much spam coming through there, it's like, 3-5 pages before you find any quality content. The Recommendation Engine solves all of that. So far it works pretty well. To see if you're included in the private beta, log in and look at the Upcoming tab, it should say "(beta)" in red/white. Once you click that, it'll take you to your recommendations. It's great stuff, so see if your account has been included in the private beta. If you use Digg, add me. www.digg.com/users/tf5bassist. Good stuff. :)