stephen-turner.net

Found out about this challenge recently, and it might just be something to do.

Basically, a whole bunch of people have pledged to produce an album in 29 days, in the month of February. It doesn’t matter how you do it, what style your music is or even how professionally (or otherwise) you create the music, your goal is just to prodce a 10-track album (of at least 35 minutes) in the calendar month.

From that, you can send the music on CD to a central point, who will then put all the music online and give you an automatic audience.

Apart from the variety of music that will be produced, this may be something fun to do just to get myself thinking about music more, and producing something decent with the gear I’ve got (which isn’t much, but I’ve amassed a few things over time).

Using mostly open sourc tools, including multitrack music recorded Ardour on Ubuntu, various instruments including my old electric guitar and whatever audio I can record, I think I can do something. Naturally, it wouldn’t be “professional” in the truest sense, but it would be creative, original, and not too bad in quality terms (I hope!)

Much of this can happen of course because of the massively lower cost of recording decent music these days. Nearly anyone can have quality instruments, quality digital recording gear and other peripherals for a surprisingly low cost. It won’t necessarily be pro level, but those with pro talent can certainly shine through.

Music has always been a side interest for me — never the main thing but always something I’ve liked — but this project would be a good way to focus that interest and produce something. I can’t let it get in the way of my writing (maybe I could even make it related?), but it would be another creative project worth looking at.

Try to work this one out — helps if you’re a coder and looking forward to next January:

Had to smile at the Google home page today — brought back a lot of childhood memories, and some more recent ones as well:

Apparently it’s the 50th anniversary of the creation of Lego, probably my favourite childhood toy (and something increasingly popular among adults, so I keep wanting to try some again :)) Of course, remembering how good it was for me as a kid also makes me want to get into it again now with Will and Alex, which we have a bit.

Hopefully they’ll be into it more as they get older, especially the new high tech stuff with the robotics (as soon as I can afford that!) That’s a whole new Lego world for me to discover!

Checked out Cloverfield tonight — and was quite impressed. Seems as if it’s OK again to start trashing New York on film again if this is anything to go by.

Cloverfield is smart, stylish and funny when it needed to be. It’s pretty damn scary at times too, offering a unique perspective on the moster/horror/disaster movie by taking a “Cthulu thing destroys Manhattan” story and putting it into a “Blair Witch” style home video arrangement.

The video stylings were well done and authentic, the acting was natural and worked in the scenario, and some of the action was damn impressive for a relatively low budget.

It’s late now, so Cloverfield is worth seeing for anyone who enjoys a good thrill ride of dark action, with grim monster stylings thrown in. 8.5/10.

That was my first big-screen movie of the year, and with a free pass no less. Now I just need to make this happen more often.

I did say a few days back that the “y” key on my keyboard seemed to be dying …

Suddenly, it seems quite fine.

I see this old laptop that I’m using as something like a temperamental old man, seeming dead one day, then fine the next, and grumbly the whole way.

Of course, without Ubuntu, this thing would never have got anywhere as it is, so I’ll take whatever I can get. I have my eye on some new laptop stuff, but hard to know when that will happen, so until then, temperamental old man it is …

Despite seeming to have basically no money already, I’ve been back in the garage working on some new woodworking projects. With the long weekend, there should be some time to build a few little things. Just stuff that I need, but can look nice to do myself.

Have a nice piece of rosewood that’s been around for a few months, and I’m just making a small shelf with that. Then I want to make a bedside bookshelf/bookend/shelf for my bedside that will look good and be practical for keepking small children away from my books. Then a small cabinet for my music stuff. Will post pictures when they’re done.

And they’re the easy projects. There’s still the guitar of course, but I’ve got a whole list of things to do.

Next on my agenda is the writing though. I’m going to psych myself up here into making it happen.

Australia Day today, where we’re all supposed to wave flags and say “yay!” or something like that. Wanted to keep a lowish profile, but instead the misses had us all up early and off the Paddy’s Markets and Flemington.

This was about what I thought it would be sadly … crowded, busy and crazy. I never argued with the food we got — fresh and in bulk — which Sallie is going to do a heap with, but the place was almost downright dangerous, especially with small kids. I was content to wait outside with Alex in the end, after one dodge and one close encounter too many.

But the food should be good, which is all that matters. I joke with Sallie that she’s getting into canning and food preserving so that we can be all set for the inevitable downfall of society, but it wouldn’t be a bad idea to cut down on our food bill by making up our own tomato sauces for pasta, jams and a few other things. While I like cooking this is Sallie’s area really, but I’m happy to go along with it. Though I really wish she had her licence so she could take herself to certain things.

The brother came over for an earlier dinner tonight. I stopped in Bunnings for some wood and tool supplies (photos on the woodworking projects here soon), and then Wayne was here. Made our specialist mushroom with pasta (it only works with expensive wild mushrooms that were cheap today), and then Wayne made me prove once again how much him and computers don’t mix.

More on that tomorrow — think there’s a whole new project to be had with his messed up laptop. I’m determined to introduce him to Ubuntu. Which I’m scared he will somehow create a way to mess up anyway!

Australia Day — apparently not a day to sit back and party! It’s all about action …

It’s Australia Day tomorrow, which for some people apparently just means a chance to embarrassingly appeal to every cheap patriotic sentiment out there to sell stuff.

“Be an Aussie, buy X … if you’re a true Aussie, you’ll buy X … if you love Australia, buy X … don’t buy foreign X, buy Aussie … and so on.”

I guess it’s just the commercialisation of everything really, but don’t these advertisers see just how embarrassingly cheap and obvious they are? Though I have noticed a new possible trend of “Australia Day decorations” in the neighbourhood, so maybe my expectations are too high.

We need to get back to what Australia Day really is all about … a good long weekend

… the “y” key has pretty much given up and died on my keyboard. This is likely to be a problem, for, well, almost anything I want to type …

It isn’t completely dead, as it works if I bash it hard enough. But in normal typing, it seems never to work.

It’s an old laptop of course, obtained for free by accident from work. It was never going to last, but I’d rather drop it when I can afford a replacement. Like an ASUS eeePC, which work has kindly given me (and everyone else I work with) a $250 headstart on.

This could definitely be a problem until then …

Spent much of the day working from home today, which despite the impression that most people have, really is actually working.

I mean, if your work is usually about sitting in a centralised office, using a computer, especially when it’s all Internet-based stuff, then you can work from home too. Of course, while I’m glad my work affords me the opportunity, I can’t help but feel like I should be doing it more often as well.

You get some pretty obvious advantages too: Started out at about the normal time, but was able to be leisurely about it — no rushing for the train, no waiting until 11am for breakfast. Was able to feed Alex this morning as well, which is fun. All day long, even though I’m working, I can see the kids, talk to the kids, and talk to Sallie as well. I can get up from time to time, do other things here and there, and not miss anything from work people. Good stuff.

Then when the work da is over … I’m home already. In the summer especially, that means hours more to do all sorts of things, instead of more bullshit commuting.

Doubt I could avoid the office altogether, or would want to really (especially in my current day job), but it’s a lifestyle worth having more of, especially when I sometimes feel superfluous in the office, or just downright more distracted.

Of course, it’s all a prelude to my prefererd full time career, which is work at home all the time (unless you take the method of some authors and have an office out of home). Fun times to come