alter-reality posts:

feb 18th, 2019:

so, i've now got all of those boxes properly organized and put away. there's one stack of cds and one box of books left out for easy access, which is very specifically books and cds from the period up to mid-1997, which is the next period i'll be working on in the alter-reality.

the last run through the main pc (i keep calling it that, but it is now merely the 32-bit box) is now done, as well. this included a final browse through the directory structure for loose files, as well as an attempt to undelete any files sitting on the drive.

and, in the process, i found something i thought i had lost - a file called archive.pst, dated to late 2011. it was hiding in the virtual machine, and had to be brought back using a file recovery utility. this might be my missing email. or, it might be corrupted beyond readability. i'll find out over the next few days.

i found a few other large psts as well, with dcxx file names, indicating they're likely unreadable. we'll find out...

that means i'm back to the email process this week.

there's two things left to do before i can get back to sitting on the laptop and organizing files for the rebuild. i want to run the same file recovery process on my old quantum fireball, in the hopes that i can find some old thunderbird boxes. i suspect they're there; the question is if they're readable. i'm also still running an undelete process on two relatively old hard drives that don't have vista/7 drivers and can only be read from inside xp, but that i can't get my 32-bit box to read, either (because i broke the plug and play on purpose). so, this is running on the 90s laptop - and is slow. it's getting there.

a day or two, tops. i think. 

i also took the opportunity to do some organizing and general cleaning. i can't remember how i described this basement apartment; i know there are neither pictures nor video up yet, which is quite conscious. but, it's organized in such a way that there are two bedroom-like enclaves (with sliding doors that are kept always open), but no dining room or eat-in kitchen (there is of course a kitchen, with the luxury of laundry in it, and a bathroom). the way i have it set up is that i'm using one of these enclaves as a bedroom and the other as a dining/living room, then using the main area as a studio. something you'll note is that the only thing i actually do in the "living" room is eat - i spend almost all of my time in my bedroom or in the studio. i guess this is a function of the fact that i neither watch tv nor have any friends. my "living room" is really the studio. i think i was over this a few times last year - the actual functions of the spaces i need are to sleep/type/read, to record and to eat. so, i need three rooms, organized in some capacity. the last basement had four rooms, with the fourth being a big eat-in kitchen, but i didn't actually use it for anything other than to store garbage; i ate in the living room. the smoky apartment had two rooms, and i consequently found it a little cramped, as i had to force everything into one space. three is a better number, here - even if the total floor space is technically somewhat smaller (it's a negligible difference).

for the last several months, i've just had everything piled into the other room, waiting for it to be cleaned - loose plastic recyclables, receipts, user manuals, books, cds, bills, documents, old school work, etc. i've finally got all of this cleaned up and organized, which has converted the area into an actual liveable space. the studio is still messy, but it is at least in order - although i need to caution that it could be a while before i get back into there. even keeping in mind that i will need to catch up in the alter-reality before i get back to working on the discography, the material from 2003-2004 is actually entirely completed (a rarity in my discography), meaning the next projects to reconstruct actually date to late 2004 and early 2005. the next major project i'm going to be actually working on is a matlab project, and is going to be about programming, rather than recording - i'm going to be writing an entire record using mathematics and physical modelling. i've got about 15 minutes to start with and a handful of loose ideas to base sounds around. expect this to be exceedingly abstract. i may even use it as an excuse to finally get into reaktor or whatever passes for it nowadays; the point is that i'm not going to be getting back to actual note-based music composition until i delve well more than a year back into the discography.

i'm still hesitant about planning around this basement, but my best option may be to wait for a spot in a subsidized building. the air quality comes up and down, but seems to be workable so long as the fan is on. i've done a few extra caulking layers and think i've reached the endpoint of what i can do with that. i still just can't figure out if there's a teenager upstairs smoking, or the air in the neighbourhood is just bad, all around...and, if i can figure out the answer to this, i'll be able to plan the future a little better.

i think i can get a few shelves, regardless - one for cds and one for books. the plan will be to fill these shelves as i work through the alter-reality. i don't need to commit to this basement long-term to spend $40-50 on some relevant general utility shelving. but, i'll need to wait until the spring before i start thinking about hauling shelves around; that's fine, it'll be a few weeks, at least, before i get there. i'm not building custom shelves like i wanted to in the other space, and am glad i didn't.

i think the primary concern once i get these files aligned is actually going to be fixing the broken laptop, one way or the other. i bought parts for it, only to have the processor finally fry. if i can't find a way to bring it back, i'm hoping i can find a cheap replacement and swap out the parts. this is an hp pavillion that was manufactured in the 2010-2012 period. you'd think i could find a replacement that can take similar parts for less than $200, and that's fine - i still have cash my grandmother gave me for that explicit purpose. the price has just come down since then. i'll be using such a laptop - with 8 gb of ram - as a video editing machine, kept offline, and connected to one of  the other machines via a local network. i'll have to transfer the files to the internet gateway via some kind of flash device.

so, that's my update for the last few days - i'm kind of turning a corner on some things, and getting closer to getting back to the rebuild. so long as things unfold as planned, this will be worth it in the long run.

now, regarding these court cases...

still no response from the cops. this was day 108 of the 120-day statutory period. they're running out of time. so, i sent them a note.

i'm still waiting for the privacy commissioner, but will give them until the end of the month.

the file destruction request, on the other hand, is something i'm getting impatient about - i should have heard a response by now and will need to get on the phone shortly.

i'm waiting for the report from the cops before i decide on what to do regarding the court audio. you have to understand that i could sue this woman and win, then never see the cash, so i'm better off suing the cops under a charter breach. but, the thing is that there's no time frame on a charter case, and about a year-long time frame regarding a human rights case. so, i can wait for the cops to drag the charter case out, but i can't wait for them to drag the human rights case out.

if it starts to look like the cops are just stalling - and it's getting close to that point - then i'm going to have to move forward on the human rights case. but, if i get a good report, i might skip it.

the point is that i'm waiting for the report before i make my next move, whatever it is.

https://musicofjessicamurray.blogspot.com/2019/02/so-ive-now-got-all-of-those-boxes.html

mar 2, 2019:

so, i've finally reached a pivot point, and there's going to be a slight change of plans.

i have now copied every file that i can find - from laptops, external drives, usb keys, cds, dvds, etc - on to the new external drive, and organized everything by year. it's very rough, and there's a lot of overlap, but it is all in roughly the correct place. so, the next thing ought to be to restart on the rebuild, and quickly run through 2013-2016, with the intent to get back to where i was.

....except that i'm deciding that the process is incomplete, in the greater context, and want to rewind back to 1993. 1993!? yes - 1993. and, why 1993?

i started in mid-1996 for a couple of reasons. it was early 2016 when i decided to switch directions, my first demos were from the summer of 1996 and my earliest memories of internet access were from mid-1996. a lot of things added up with that. but, at the same time, i was picking up a story halfway, one that had undefined bounds. now that the bounds are better defined - the current story begins in mid-2013 when i moved to windsor, meaning the alter-reality ends in mid-2013, with an intended completion date of mid-2033 -  it makes sense to pull the alter-reality back to 1993, to allow for some symmetry in the process.

that would mean the alter-reality will run from the summer of 1993 to the summer of 2013, in the end.

there's some other reasons for this. the earliest files i have are dated to 1995, but i have pictures going back to the 80s, and i wanted to find some way to work some of these things in to the story. starting in 1993 lets me do that. i also wanted to do reviews of records and books from 1993-1996, which was actually the most formative years of my life - starting over again in mid 1993 means i'm starting in the summer between grade 6 and 7, which is of course right before i went to junior high school. if we're going to do a portrait of this artist, that's a better place to start.

but, if i didn't get online until 1996, at the earliest, how am i going to have a journal from 1993?

what i'm going to do is split it off into a separate blog that will run strictly from 1993-1996. i will be sorting through some papers over the christmas break of 1996 and find an old journal and decide it would be neat to put it online. so, the mechanism is that i'll be typing in a journal that i had already written up by hand. when it's done, it will exist in a standalone file.

what that means is that i'm going to be thrusting myself back into the alter-reality almost immediately; i just need to spend another day or two organizing all of these files, first, before i get to posting to the new journal, dated to july 15, 1993. i'll push forward with this as i push forward with the rebuild, until it connects back together in early 1996.

i'm going to try and be as honest as i can as i run through this. i have the benefit of a lot of hindsight, and i'm not going to pretend i can be a 12 year-old again, but people go through a lot at that age, and i'm going to try and get down as much as i can. some of these things will no doubt surprise you. it's been so long, that i may even end up surprising myself.

i am obviously a different person today than i was then, as we all are. 

but, in a lot of surface ways, not much has changed - i spent most of the summer between grades six and seven awake at odd hours, in my room reading, specifically through the stephen king catalogue, iirc. i had no friends at all over this period, as i prepared to go to a new school that none of them were going to go to. i'll have to start off with a broad statement around that. i was living with my mother during this period, which is something i haven't talked much about. i played some guitar, but was not really into alternative rock music yet - i listened to a lot of what was called "college rock" during those years, as well as a lot of pop music. there was no computer around, but i had a big tv in my room that was either tuned to muchmusic or to conan. we'll have to go through the process of moving from mom to dad in mid '94. so, that was life and how to live it, and where we're starting over again with this...

i wouldn't be doing this if i didn't think it was going to be worthwhile.

and, we'll say that dad got a scanner for christmas.

so, here's the new link:

https://thejournalofj.blogspot.com/

which is also on the side...

(some further posts....)

https://musicofjessicamurray.blogspot.com/2019_03_02_archive.html

mar 3, 2019:

you know, i'm racking my brain for actual books that i read in grades 7 and 8 - and even 9 - and i'm not able to come up with anything. i remember being given photographed handouts and asked questions around an ability to prove very basic comprehension, or being asked to read short texts and then produce an opinion piece around it. but, i don't think anybody ever handed out books to us and told us to read them.

i went to both elementary school and high school under the rae/peterson curriculum (harris won when i was in high school, and didn't succeed in changing the curriculum until the year after i'd left), and i'm learning just now that it was kind of an experiment. i did not receive any actual marks until grade 10; my high school transcript, which i still have, simply states "completed" for grade 9. i have records of standardized testing where i scored in the 95th-99th percentile, but i don't have grades for these years.

what i remember about the report cards is that they had a long list of criteria, and you'd be evaluated on a points system, with 1 the highest and i think 6 the lowest. this was just the teacher's arbitrary, completely subjective opinion. i remember getting lots of 1s in english and math, 2s or 3s in phys ed and some pretty low marks in the "shows respect for authority" and "works well with others" categories. even my university profs would have scrawled "does not work well with others" on my report cards if given the chance, and i'm not particularly embarrassed about it - i don't work well with others, and i don't want to, either.

i'm not even sure i can pick out much of anything of shape in these years really at all. we were split into classes that taught core subjects, and then shipped into different rooms for specific topics. so, i remember having a science teacher, a french teacher, a geography teacher, a music teacher, a phys ed teacher, a home ec teacher, a history teacher and then a kind of general "grade 7 teacher" that was tasked with everything else, which i guess is math, religion and english. but, that really meant that the curriculum was focused on the peripheral subjects due to the more rigid scheduling, and that math & english were largely unstructured babysitting periods with a lot of pointless busy work. when we went to geography class, or phys ed, we were there for a short period with a defined curriculum; when we went back to the general class room, the teacher could organize it any way they wanted to, or not at all, which was often the actual reality.

so, the system put more of a priority on learning french or geography than it did on learning math or english. we did regular spelling bees in grade 8 english class. and, i don't really remember taking math in grade 7 at all. grade 9 was more structured, in the sense that there were separate math and english classes, but i still didn't get graded, and i still don't remember reading any actual books. i explicitly remember reading shakespeare, but we read it orally in the classroom. and, there's a text called the chrysalids that i can't otherwise place that i might drop into grade 9.

of course, there's some possibility that i don't remember any reading projects because i was so efficient with them. there's a few texts from later in high school that i remember putting off until the last minute and then reading through in an afternoon. there's certainly some possibility that i just devoured it so violently that it never really got digested. but, the thing is that i liked reading, so i don't know why that would have been true.

i think the truth is that i was mostly baby sat all the way to the end of grade 9, and consequently don't have a lot to report on.

if i remember something, i'll insert it, but i think the way we're going to do this is that i'll be doing independent reading over these years, instead.

https://musicofjessicamurray.blogspot.com/2019/03/you-know-im-racking-my-brain-for-actual.html

i've otherwise got the media i have organized, which is not a lot - a couple of king books, some arthur c. clarke and a few records from u2, rem, bryan adams, peter gabriel, gowan, genesis and the barenaked ladies.

i left a lot of books at my mom's place when i moved out, and sold a bunch more before i went to bc. as i've now sorted through everything, the only thing left is to hope i can get something from the carleton archives, or a fortunecity mirror or something. i know there was a list, i just don't have it.

if i'm going to rebuild the books, i'll need to go through the king, pick up a bunch of science fiction (a fair amount of asimov, a bunch of clarke, some bradbury), some tom clancy, some dean koontz, some mark twain and, yes, some ayn rand. my dead uncle is responsible for that. they told me they found him in the bathroom of a hostel in victoria, dead of an apparent aneurysm; i assumed it was drug related, but that was never confirmed, and i never asked. he was in his early 40s. selfishness as a virtue can bite you in the end, huh?

i'm sure i'll remember some more...

music wise, i'll need to get some michael jackson. what's the status on buying a michael jackson record in 2019? is it alright if it's just going to his...well, it's not even actually his kid, is it? i dunno. see, i got into mj through weird al, though. and, i lost interest after dangerous, for obvious reasons. but, my ten-year old self was really much more interested in black or white than nirvana. we grow quickly at that age, though.

i also had a bit of a bon jovi phase, which i'll defend on the basis that they weren't as bad as their peers. if the criticism is that bon jovi were hair metal, it's actually a bit off the mark - they weren't this pompous, ridiculous, materialistic, nihilistic marketing behemoth, but rather a kind of working class band from new jersey, with a contemporary sound. they were at least as punk rock as springsteen, anyways. and, they actually had a kind of synth pop center, too, which is where i really came from - tears for fears, gabriel, genesis.

i guess that's the missing part of it, stuff my dad or uncle dubbed me. i had a cassette with a day at the races on one side and a night at the opera on the other. i had beatles tapes, genesis tapes, and an out of place dub of animals that it took me years to get into, because it wasn't what i was looking for. i was very young - 8 or 9 - when somebody at chez decided to toss on one of these days for a lark, at like 2:00 am, while i was in the car on the way back from a road trip with my step-father. i was pretty instantly intrigued. the announcer mentioned it was floyd, but didn't elaborate - it was presumably not necessary. tony, to his immense discredit, couldn't identify the track, either. there was a copy of delicate sound of thunder around, but it was missing the second side. so, i asked around for years trying to figure out what the song was. the dead uncle decided i was describing the vocal effects in sheep and dubbed me a copy of animals, which i just found a little too meandering at that age - it hit me like a grateful dead record, just not enough movement for a young mind. my dad never had a copy of meddle, either. it wasn't for years that i found it in a torrent...

"aha! there's that crazy bass part!"

anyways. i have my work for the next little while set aside. it's time to start doing it.

the first post is going to be in the "dear diary, so much has happened..." format. and, we'll go from there. i might be back into the stand by the end of the night.....

https://musicofjessicamurray.blogspot.com/2019/03/ive-otherwise-got-media-i-have.html

mar 6, 2019:

i only have three stephen king books left on my shelf.

1) the tommyknockers

2) the bachman books (rage, the long walk, roadwork, the running man)

3) the stand (complete & uncut)

but, i had a big list of them, which also included:

- carrie

- salem's lot

- the shining

- night shift (short stories) 

- the dead zone

- firestarter

- cujo

- danse macabre 

- different seasons (shawshank redemption, apt pupil, the body, the breathing method)

- pet semetary

- the talisman

- thinner 

- skeleton crew (short stories)

- it

- misery

- the dark half

- four past midnight (the langoliers, secret window secret garden, the library policeman, the sun dog) 

- needful things

- gerald's game

- dolores clairborne

- nightmares & dreamscapes

i never read christine, and regretted it. the only other thing that's missing here is the dark tower series, which i skipped on purpose. that is otherwise an almost entirely complete stephen king bibliography, up to the end of 1993.

i'm not exaggerating - i went through all of this stuff over the years 92-94. that's like 10,000 pages of stephen king, mostly in the middle of the night. the move from my mom's to my dad's was the summer of 1994, and while there were some perks attached to it, i initially had to give up my all night reading habit because he would actually storm downstairs and tell me go to fucking sleep, whereas my mom was herself usually up all night chain smoking and watching tv. i also became much more interested in the guitar after mid-94.

am i going to buy all of those books? yeah. and, i'm going to move through this sequentially.

i don't know how much these cost, nowadays. you used to be able to get them at the drug store for $5. let's see what i can get shipped to me. and, i'll have to hit the local used stores afterwards.

but, i'm going to start with asimov, because that's more primordial for me. even as i'm pointing out that i don't remember doing a single book report from grades 7-9, i know i did a book report on the foundation series in grade five. i was in a split 5/6 class, so i didn't have english class in grade six (and didn't have math class in grade five). in hindisght, it is baffling, but my mom freely sent me to that school solely because it had a large yard. yeah. the foundation series was recommended to me by the teacher, and i ended up reading a bunch of his other stuff. asimov died in 1992 with a massive bibliography, but i remember these specifically:

- the complete robot

- caves of steel

- naked sun

- robots of dawn

- robots and empire

- the stars, like dust

- currents of space

- pebble in the sky

- prelude to foundation

- forward the foundation <----did not read this one

- foundation

- foundation and empire

- second foundation

- foundations edge <----- that was the book report

- foundation and earth

so, i read through that over 1992-1993. i should collect it all, and review it all as a starting point. all i have right now is foundation and empire, and a book of short stories called the martian way.

what else did i mention?

arthur c. clarke.

i had:

- 2001: a space odyssey

- 2010: odyssey two

- 2061: odyssey three

- songs of distant earth 

- tales from planet earth

my grandmother bought me these books by accident, starting around 91. she was trying to buy me greek mythology, to have me understand my name sake. i don't think she ever read any homer herself, nor had my mother, but she was trying to give me a story about jason and the argonauts, by giving me what she thought was the odyssey. d'oh? well, i enjoyed them, nonetheless, so she kept buying them. i eventually read both some plato and homer in high school, as well as some aristophanes in first year. fuck aristotle.

the only one i have left is songs of distant earth, which helpfully is dated to the christmas of 1993. so, we can go through that one together for an early '94 post.

bradbury.

- the martian chronicles

- farenheit 451 <----- not actually, but if i'm going to do this... 

- a medicine for melancholy

- r is for rocket

- i sing the body electric 

- dinosaur tales

i remember the bradbury a lot less. i know i at least flipped through these ones.

i do remember some specific hg wells:

- time machine

- island of dr moreau

- war of the worlds

and also some jules verne:

- journey to the centre of the earth

- twenty thousand leagues under the sea

the wells & verne were probably the result of the influence of my aunt on my mother and grandmother, who was an english major at mcgill in this period.

i'm going to push the clancy, koontz & rand forward a few years, because my memory of it is specifically connected to my dad's house. there was some crichton, too.

there would have also been some twain read over this period, again thanks to nana:

- tom sawyer (daa-da da-daaaa) 

- prince & pauper

- huck finn

what else?

we'll skip the shell silverstein. that sidewalk has ended.

i was given a copy of james and the giant peach, but i...i want to say i was too old for it, but i actually probably wasn't. i felt too old for it. frankly, i thought it was a stupid thing to waste one's time with, and didn't bother with it very far. i remember reading through about half of it one night when held physically hostage by my grandmother due to a babysitting task due to not having anything else to do, and i just found myself ridiculing roald dahl at the age of, like, 9. i never found myself immersed in fantasy novels - never went for the tolkien or the lucas or really any of that stuff. as soon as you started bringing in, like, elves and shit, i lost interest.

the purpose of this post is to build a list, and we will probably leave a lot of this behind. i'm going to start with asimov, check prices, and move from there.

----

so, should i be buying physical books in 2019?

well, i still like to hold a book, and part of the point of this is to rebuild the shelf, after years of neglect. i'm not sure that this overpowers the unnecessary environmental effects of actually buying books at this stage in history, though.

i should probably look at this the same way that i look at clothes, and am increasingly looking at cds: i should be looking towards used books almost exclusively.

am i apprehensive about buying used books online? yeah. it's easy to lose a few pages. and, i should also be seeking to minimize transportation costs.

it's been a while since i've hit the used book stores in windsor.

it looks like it may be nice on sunday.

-----

well, it cost me $212.79, which works out to $15.10/book, but it should all be here by monday, with the exception of the complete robot, which should be here within three weeks.

the complete robot was $36, and i got tricked - i had my default address set to the ups store in detroit, which would have been free shipping. i agreed to the transaction, then got dinged on shipping into canada, which ended up as $15. you'll note it would cost me $10 to get back and forth anyways, but i might have found a cheaper seller. this particular text appears to be scarce in canada, but i could have probably taken it down a little. $5-7 or something.

so, if you take that one out, the average is more like $13.65, which is reasonable, considering everything is shipping.

and, the way we'll do this is that i'll have just read through the asimov texts - that will be the starting point of the blog, a total review of the greater foundation series.

+ more posts:

https://musicofjessicamurray.blogspot.com/2019_03_06_archive.html

mar 13, 2019

a man for all seasons / thomas more's utopia. grade 8. that's clear. but, it was handed out in loose leaf, i think. i also vaguely recall some kind of shakespeare for grade 8. i guess we did shakespeare every year almost - hamlet, macbeth, merchant of venice, romeo & juliet, henry viiii, a mid...yeah. that was eight. midsummer night's dream. i remember the plays relatively well, but i always took shakespeare as a chore, and it's not well-ordered in time in my mind. i think the merchant was 9, romeo & juliet was 10, macbeth was 11 and hamlet was 12, but that could be completely wrong. i have a vague recollection of something atwood as well. and some sherlock holmes, too....

well, that's something, anyways.

it's the old english, that was my issue with shakespeare. i know a lot of people like it for that reason, but, to me, shakespeare should be catalogued with chaucer - it's a mild degree of separation, and well past the point of incomprehension; it's far enough back in time, now, that a translator really ought to be deployed. it just struck me as needlessly frustrating. but, i was a kid that liked to read, so i think i would have enjoyed it much more had they just translated it for me. we'll see how i react to it the second time over...

grade seven is still a dead block, but my teacher got fired early in the year and the class kind of fell through the cracks. after five or six substitutes that were sequentially brought in as babysitters, they finally hired one. we lost at least half the year. but, i'm remembering a grade 7 "english textbook" that was all highlightered up from previous use, and a really boring story by a gordon something that was in the textbook. this was just painful to trudge through - enough to make a kid hate reading for life. this is the consequence of the "canadian content" requirements, and a teacher that didn't really give a fuck. so, i think what i need to find is the textbook. english class at that point no doubt had an actual language component, which was no doubt the focus of the textbook.

was there a grade eight "english textbook" with excerpts in it? i'm thinking that's the answer, and why my memories are so dismal around it. my grade eight teacher was a rather finicky old woman, and she may have photocopied the textbook out of fears we'd spill juice on it.

i wouldn't mind trying to track down the math & science textbooks from high school, while i'm at it.

that just randomly vomited up on me, which is how this often works. i've been offline for the last few days, because i've had difficulties staying awake. i'm still filing; it should be done, but i've been sleeping 20 hours a day. the air quality in here has just collapsed, but it's only in the one room, leading me to wonder if it's mostly the window, after all.

i'm going to get some more coal the next time i'm out and see if it helps a little.

the first asimov text is here from the uk, but dhl made a scan error and is trying to charge me customs on a purchase under $20. it should be here as soon as that is ironed out, so i could in theory get started this week.

but, not with the air quality like this, i won't. i'm going to have to get to the bottom of this - as of right now, i'm basically in the same problem i was in before.

i can't and don't want to live the life of a lethargic drug addict.

https://musicofjessicamurray.blogspot.com/2019/03/a-man-for-all-seasons-thomas-mores.html

mar 14, 2019

so, i've carefully filed this properly, backwards, to may, 2003, which is the point where things get messy, as everything for the two-three years previously dates to those burns from before i left. i will need to go through the may folder - which includes thousands of genealogical records - and pull out as much stuff from before it as possible.

i stopped to run a scandisk on the drive, just in case. it's a 2 tb drive; that's going to take the rest of the night.

i've also decided that i'm going to create that music blog after all. i think i really don't have another option at this point, as i'm going to need to cross-reference too much data, and it's the only remaining piece.

in terms of how to do this, i'm also going to move in terms of semesters, anchored by the alter-reality. if i try to do this day-by-day or even week-by-week, it will get impossible. so, i'll start with the second half of 2013, then go back and do the second half of 1993. that just extends the journal launch date that much more, but not by much - this is already done, i'm really just double-checking it. with the music blog - reviews, comments - it should become comprehensive. and, i know that's what people actually want...

my robot book should be here in the morning.

still 403s on the tripod site :(

and, i'm otherwise going to nap.

https://musicofjessicamurray.blogspot.com/2019/03/so-ive-carefully-filed-this-properly.html

july 14, 2019

so, i'm getting itchy and getting impatient and wanting to move on. if i move in periods, and i know i do, i'm getting ready to move to the next one after somewhat of a break.

my plans to have an alter-reality staggered over twenty years have been essentially ruined by legal battles that are of little fault of my own. i left off at the end of 1996, and would have to run through three years at this point. this really defeats the purpose of actually doing it; the purpose was to run through in real time.

that said, i do not want to permanently close these releases until the journal is written. that is, i don't want to discard the concept. so, what do i do?

i'm going to change the time frame, again. i don't have any other choice, really.

so, the alter-reality is now staggered by thirty years instead of twenty, meaning it's mid-1989 in the alter-reality, and i'm only eight years old. i was neither writing in a journal, nor reading books, nor playing guitar at that point. so, there won't be any further entries for a few more years, at least.

but, what that means is that i'll be able to run through the entire 90s in one piece as it comes up, in real-time. and then the 00s. the cut-off point remains mid-2013.

i'm going to continue pushing forward with the blog from that point forward, in the format i've been pushing. so, expect me to fill out entries from 2013 to noow and release them over noise trade in the format i have been releasing them in.

and, then i'm going to get back to actually recording.

this week, i need to write some legal papers. if i'm lucky, this process should get me on the right step forwards to having the conditions required to finish the discography.

---

that means that when the alter-reality comes up in 2021 or 2022, it should come up over here:

https://thejournalofj.blogspot.com/

and, i'll want to actually stick to it this time.

---

...and, in the mean-time, let's hope i can get through 2003-2006, at least.

---

the nice thing about bandcamp is that you can always redownload an album once you buy it, even if i add tracks to it.

so, i'm going to build the liner notes and leave them in progress, meaning that if you buy the download you'll get the notes that exist, until they're done. that means that i should be able to start closing them in real-time starting in 2026.

events. shit happens. this is what it is.

i just don't want to sit down and do a memoir off the top of my head; i'm going to forget things, it won't be organic, etc. doing it in real-time means i'll have time to work it out, plan it through, etc.

so, i was going to flip back to the journal i found over christmas break, 1996, which would have started in mid-1993, between grades 6 and 7. i switched schools at the time, as is normal to do. but, now i can maybe start between grades two and three, which is when i switched elementary schools on the recommendation of my very silly mother, who was obsessed about there being a playground (even though i tended to spend my recesses in the library). what year is that?

summer of 1993 --->7

1992--->6

1991--->5

1990--->4

1989---->3

so, i'd have to start in the fall, i guess.

that's not so crazy. it won't be my main focus, but it'll give me some more time to read through all these old books and write these old reviews.

so. 

1) legal documents.

2) rebuild and organize from 2013-2017. i keep pointing out that this should be a relatively quick process, i just haven't been back at it for a few months, now. soon.

3) back to recording, including getting right into the alter-reality, it seems.

https://musicofjessicamurray.blogspot.com/2019_07_14_archive.html

august 1, 2019

so, where am i on the rebuild?

i've posted all of the damaged cds. there's a few more days of setting the apartment up, but a lot of what is left is the scripts, so i think i should run through it a little quicker when i get back to it. i start reposting inri000 at the end of the month, so i should get some liner notes up for the october and november journals, and when that happens i hope you'll see what the actual point of this is.

as mentioned previously, i'm rebooting the alter-reality, so the notes that come up for now will just be for 2013-2018. it wasn't initially clear how i was going to do this, but it now makes sense for me to say that i can and will stop this process, for now, at the beginning of 2018, with the end of the fifth reconstruction phase. i guess i'll want to do a quick archive, but i can stop the rebuild there, until i get done the next phase.

i'm going to get through this before i start making more calls about the report, which should be in the mail.

for right now, i'm going to get something to eat, watch the debates when i'm eating and take a hot shower to warm the place up a little bit.

https://musicofjessicamurray.blogspot.com/2019/08/so-where-am-i-on-rebuild-ive-posted-all.html

sept 27, 2019

what did i even to today? this was a bad month, in terms of productivity, really.

i can't get it back.

but, i need to pivot dramatically and really focus. i've been scatter-brained far too long, now. let's see if i can order myself a little....

there's not any use in finishing up the legal stuff for tomorrow, i'd might as well wait until monday.

i did want to start the alter-reality when i got through the rebuild. i wanted to start it for mid-1989. i guess it's not so bad if i do catch up, but i wanted to be done the rebuild by now. i don't want to juggle that - let's just pick up the pace on the rebuild.

i can plan around cleaning in here tomorrow or the next day. the p-trap seems to have held since this morning. i think it had something to do with his air conditioning, and it's actually getting cold tonight, so maybe i've put that off for a bit.

and, i'll see what i want to do this weekend when i find out oif the cash has come ino r not.

is that everything?

i wanted to publish the 10/2013 documents before the end of september, so that's what i'll be doing tonight. i have eaten. i may have to shower later, if it gets cold in here (and the heat doesn't turn on, which it maybe should).

i'm just banging my head against the wall on the political file - we're not in a revolutionary moment, we're in a reactionary moment, and it's just a question of navigating through it.

i can't be too hard on myself, or i'll get apathetic. the uploads and planning last week weren't awful; it had to be done, at some point, and i wasn't feeling well. i got some documents filed at the beginning of the week. yesterday was largely about the gas leak, and i'm just starting today, really. it's not so bad....

i just get upset with myself, sometimes. you might imagine that i'm mad at myself for other reasons, but i actually wish i had more writing and more music available. i can't get depressed, i just need to pivot.

so, i'll have to run these files through spell checks, cross-reference everything and clean them up. hopefully, they'll be published by sunrise, or so.

https://musicofjessicamurray.blogspot.com/2019/09/what-did-i-even-to-today-this-was-bad.html

oct 19. 2019

yeah, i'm in tonight. it's a combination of things - i am actually feeling a tad better (i'm at like 95%, now), but it didn't warm up quite as much as forecast, and, despite feeling a little better, i still don't really feel like smoking anything at all tonight.

i'm kind of happy in my blanket tonight, actually, and don't really want to leave it. it happens. i'm more interested in getting through 2013 - as it will be final when i do. like, that's the end of that. forever.

i wanted to start the journal off in mid-1989, as well, and was hoping i'd already be there. but, i'm going to wait until christmas before i get antsy about it. i may do the full six months at once, and start off in 1990. or, i may get a journal for christmas and reflect back a little, just starting fresh in 1990.

i don't think i can put aside the time to live full time in my 9 year old self, so i think i'm looking at infrequent alter-reality updates for a bit, anyways. i will need to plan this out by looking at things like release dates, and trying to figure out specific life events. christmas...

i could be done november by monday, anyways. really.

for right now, the update is that the master document is entirely synced and finished. and ready to cut up. it's 350 pages, smaller than the last few, and will shrink even more because a lot of it is email relics. there's 70 html files to deal with, but i think this is the last month like that for a good while.

i also wanted to get january, 2014 done before i fire up the music pc, so let's hope i can get through this by the end of the week.

and, if i'm in for most of the winter, let's hope 2-3 days turnover time is realistic for most months. can i get to the end of 2017 by christmas?

https://musicofjessicamurray.blogspot.com/2019/10/yeah-im-in-tonight.html

nov 3, 2019

i had to crash this morning, but i did get the facebook stuff synced properly. so, all i have left to do is the liner notes for 000, 001, 003, 016, 027, 028 and 030.

but, it hit me last night - what am i even doing?

i tend to get stuck in things and lose track of reality. where am i going with this? what are my actual goals, here?

i wanted to get this done by 2020 because the aleph disc was closing. but, now i've put the aleph disc off to 2030 - and the first demo until 2026. so, there's no longer any hurry at all...

so, what's the point of spending the winter rebuilding these blogs, if i'm not up against a deadline (that i'll never meet)? 

i just feel like i'm wasting time. i feel like i'm running out of time. if it was faster, great, but it's just taking forever. i'm lost in my own world, and spinning in circles within it.

let me get through the first reconstruction phase, which is two more months. and, then i think i'm going to want to put this aside completely, for a good while. i've got the data put aside for later. there's no rush. let me get back to real work.

which means...

1) alter-reality, starting in late 1989 or early 1990. that's 30 years ago. that will be my writing project. and, i can get this journal process moving in that direction, instead.

2) period 3. let's get to it.

i have legal stuff to do this week, first. november was slow, when i wanted it to be fast, but let's hope i can pivot and get through the last two months for december 1st. these could both end up being ~50 page music archives.

what about the smell? it's better since i woke up, but i noticed it was bad on the other side of the apartment, last night. i'm starting to think that what capping the line has done is push the gas back up through the lines in the bathroom and kitchen, and i'm wondering if that's going to balance itself out. like, does it need to find a new equilibrium point, now? 

is there an issue with the fixtures in the bathroom?

but, why is the gas pulling up in the first place? i think it's crystal clear that the lines need to be snaked. and, that's probably going to be what the court date ends up being about. we'll see if it betters itself or not....

right now, it seems like i'm waiting for the system to rebalance, and i'll have to go from there. no, i don't know - i'm trying to figure this out. but, that's my deduction based on what i've observed.

when can i get back to this rebuilding process, then?

why don't i get through period 3 and see. 2025, maybe?

or, maybe i'll chip away at it here and there.

but, i need to pivot out of this. i need to do something more constructive.

right now, i need to finish these liner notes and get to the legal stuff for a few more days. so, expect reposts for the 2013 releases up this afternoon.

https://musicofjessicamurray.blogspot.com/2019/11/i-had-to-crash-this-morning-but-i-did.html

-----

so, i'm making a conscious attempt to refocus. i've been stuck in a rut and want to get back to work. so, i want to make a few notes on the condition of the various sites i have running, here, before i shift gears rather dramatically.

i think it's clear at this point that i can't do all of these things at once, that i need to do one or two at a time. attempts to do everything all at once have merely left me unable to finish anything at all. so, what am i going to be focusing on?

my focus for quite some time now has been rebuilding blogs. first, it was the politics blog and the music journal, which i had running recurrently. i spent a large amount of 2016-2017 pulling data down from the internet into a set of word documents, and almost all of 2018 rebuilding these two blogs from those word documents. these would grow to take in the vlog and other things that developed over the last few years, creating a narrative of my musical output from 2013-2017 (as well as some cursory and largely unimportant political rambling). then, i expanded these to include a review site and a travel blog, so that i was rebuilding four blogs instead of two. as an addendum to this, there were two alter-reality blogs put aside - one that would end in mid-1996 and one that would start in mid-1996. but, the actual focus - the actual thing i was doing - was building liner notes for the music site. all of the 6 blogs i have running are essentially intended as commentary for the music. they have no meaningful context, otherwise, and mean nothing to me when separated from it.

i wanted this all to converge into a period disc that i would release at the end of 2019 (on the 20 year anniversary of the end of inri, 1996-1999) and that would include final versions of my first 37 releases, the corresponding sections of each of the six blogs (but mostly the music journal + the two alter-reality blogs) and vlogs that were relevant to the construction, interspersed. this would be repeated for period 3 (the next 39 releases), to be released in mid-2023. this would be intended as a comprehensive historical document, in the form of an electronic journal. don't call it a memoir - i'm not important enough for that. but, remember - as an artist, i basically die at 30. everything since that age has been documentation. there has been and will be no new original recordings past the year 2011. so, don't call it a memoir....but call it one if you really want. i'm not upset about not having a meaningful existence past the age of 30, because i never wanted to live past 30, anyways; most people get exceedingly lame in their 30s, and downright awful in their 40s, so i'm happy enough to avoid becoming that.

unfortunately, a series of necessary legal issues around the security of my housing that have largely been outside of my control have slowed me down dramatically, and forced me to extend the release date of the period disc by an extra ten years. i do not currently have a clear resolution as to how to get over this and get back to a stable recording situation, but i'll have to get by with what i can. i really see little recourse but to try and extend the legal battles to my eventual advantage. this will allow me the space to build the alter-reality from 1989-1996 in real time, and then let me click back into what has already been written for mid-2027. so, the period one disc is now scheduled for release at the end of 2029, the period two disc is scheduled for release at the end of 2033, the period three disc will be scheduled for release sometime in mid 2037 and the period four disc will be scheduled for release around 2041. if i make it there, i'll be 60 years old. and, no - i don't plan on actually doing much concrete over the next twenty years, except finishing the documentation of the work (and the work itself...) that i created over the first thirty.

i want to publish two more journals - 12/2013 and 01/2014 - and am hoping to have this completed by dec 1, 2019 at the latest. this will bring me to the end of the "first reconstruction period", which will produce an eventual aleph (to be unnamed and unpublished until the material from 07/2003-07/2013 is fully completed).

at that point, i will be focusing on two primary projects:

1) the alter-reality, starting in late 1989. i will have to get a journal for christmas, it seems, for me to write in, and then spend the next six years typing out. this journal will include reflections of events that i experienced over the ages of 8-15, including book reports and music reviews. all attempts will be made to be as honest as i can. but, i obviously can't revert to that state (if i ever grew past it...), and i don't want to get neurotic about it. i'm going to get neurotic about it...but i have to finally start with this.

2) i'm going to get back to work on period 3, which is going to mostly involve republishing a lot of already existing records from 2003-2007. there will, however, also be some major projects worked on - a lost symphony from 2003, a matlab project from 2004, an imaginary straight-up rock record from 2005, a groundbreaking mix of electronic noise and jazz guitar from early 2006 and some foundational new demos for early 2007, to move into period 4. i do not want to plan past the completion of period 3, at this point, which is defined as the period of time between when i got back from bc in mid-2003 and when i moved into a new apartment on bronson ave in early 2007.

period 1 is from 05/96-12/99 (3.5 years), period 2 is from 01/00-05/03 (3.5 years) and period 3 is from 08/03-02/07 (3.5 years). period 4 will run until the middle of 2011, but it is not like the first three, as there were long spaces with no recording activity at all. i was 27 in january, 2008; to an extent, period 4 is a period of slow death, even if it has some major works in it. i will be approaching the narrative from this perspective, as it occurs. and, given that my maximum expected lifespan is around 60, i may be nearing my actual death, as i get there. there was no meaningful musical activity from the middle of 2011 until the middle of 2013; i was struggling badly with existing living arrangements, as i was trying to figure out how to rebuild my studio.

so, i have the rest of my life planned out, anyways. and, these are the two things i'll be focusing on - getting the alter-realty rolling and finishing period 3. if i get back to publishing the journals from 2014 forwards, it will be in spurts, and because i'm sick or some other such thing. well, until i get close in 2025-2026, anyways. i'm actually fully confident that i'll be done period 3 by then, at least.

i don't feel the time has been wasted. i've figured out a lot of things, and i've got a process in order. this needed to eventually be done, and i'll need to eventually get back to it. the time i've wasted has been wasted fighting court battles, and that's going to continue until i can find a safe, smoke-free living arrangement. this isn't it, either.

what about all these other sites?

1) as mentioned, the bandcamp site should see the most activity in the next little while; that is my primary site, and always has been. 

2) the noise trade site will see decreasing levels of activity, and that activity will be mostly related to the alter-reality, for the next long while. expect journals from 1990-1996 to be the primary uploads for the next several years. i hope they allow me to reorganize the front page, soon.

3) the patreon site is still there. if you want me to stop wasting time in court and get more productive in my art, that's the way to do it. i have yet to receive a single donation over patreon.

4) the music journal will pick up with increased activity at the bandcamp site. 

5) j's journal will be the primary journal site, and will start in late 1989.

6) the alter-reality will stay dormant until mid-2027, when i pick up where i left off. 

7) i'm still vlogging. i haven't stopped. i have video to edit going back to mid-2017, and will need to get to it to buiild the aleph discs. but, the focus of the vlogs was to act as a set of ads for the bandcamp site, which i drew attention to through trolling, and that didn't work out (because they shadow-banned me for being an anti-american communist). i never had any interest in vlogging for the sake of vlogging, it was always meant as a gateway. my focus on the vlogs, moving forwards, is going to be for the aleph discs, rather than for youtube. yes, things will get uploaded eventually, but probably in large chunks, and it could be a very, very long time. i wouldn't expect anything to get uploaded here until i'm done period 3, at least - it could be after 2025. 

8) the koala central command will continue to try to bring their fugitive to justice, but it's not clear exactly what that means. there will be music related uploads here, as they become meaningful.

9) i don't expect to spend a lot of time on music or book reviews in the near future, and may never get to it at all. my focus on reviews is mostly a 2011-2013 thing, when i had no studio to work in. so, this is at the bottom of the list, in terms of priorities. but, review information will come up in the alter-realty.

10) the travel blog was mostly a joke to start with, and it's utilization will depend on how often i'm actually posting from a distance. anything posted to this blog will end up somewhere else, in time.

11) i'm sure i'll continue to find reasons to rant.

12) my facebook pages will continue to be useful as update lists, but little else.

13) the appspot site is not dead, but it's sleeping.

14) the viability of the soundcloud site depends on whether i can get people to let me spin or not.

15) i don't and have never used twitter. i'm not going to start.

and, let's try to get the liner notes up by the end of the day.

https://musicofjessicamurray.blogspot.com/2019/11/so-im-making-conscious-attempt-to.html

feb 28, 2021

i've decided that i want to try to reconstruct some kind of concept of normality in here, even if it's going to be a while.

so, i've moved the chrome book from the bed to the desk, i've got the tunes running through the receiver and i'm going to reboot directly into the alter-reality.

i'm trying to rewind here and remember what year is what. i'm pretty sure that mellon collie and the infinite sadness was released in grade 9, so that sets grade 9 to starting in the fall of 1995.

uni 3 - 02/03  <--- that is a reference point i'm certain is correct

uni 2- 01/02

uni 1-  00/01

13 - 99/00

12 - 98/99

11 - 97/98

10 - 96/97

9 - 95/96

8  - 94/95 -

7 - 93/94 - 

6 - 92/93 - 

5 - 91/92 -    

4 - 90/91 -   <----this is what i need to catch up to, and then stay caught up with. it's currently march, 1991 in the alter-reality.

3 - 89/90 - 

i wanted to start the alter-reality journal in the summer of 1989, because i switched schools to start grade 3.

the mechanism, in the end,  will be that i'll find the journal somewhere and scan it. but, for now i need to produce a portrait of the artist as a young trans woman, and work this out as it comes up.

i wanted to do this in 2019, but i got bogged down and i need to stop getting bogged down and get to fucking work.

https://musicofjessicamurray.blogspot.com/2021/02/ive-decided-that-i-want-to-try-to.html

i don't actually want an artist's grant, though. i've looked into this, and it's just state coercion, in the end; we don't really want the government deciding what is and isn't art, either.

we need to look at the gai, more generally. what i'm providing is an argument in favour of guaranteed income, explicitly from an artists' perspective.

so, don't tell me that the value of what i do is determined by how much i sell; i'll take the exact opposite position, and argue that any art that can be commodified to the point of being successful in this economy isn't worth the cost to produce it.

the only art worth bothering with in this culture is that which is permanently and inherently unmarketable.

as zappa would say, it would necessarily have "no commercial potential" to be worthwhile.

look at the type of musicians that do well in this society. how many of them are talented? like, at all, in any way?

they tend to be attractive, yes. talented? no...

now, spend some time in the underground looking for actually talented musicians, and tell me how many of them are able to survive without an alternate source of income. in case after case you'll find that they come from wealthy families and don't have to work, or they have some other job that pays the bills.

the connection between talent and income is non-existent - it's a scatter-plot, with no discernible relationship in any direction at all, except maybe a weak inverse relationship.

and, that holds for virtually every other art form, as well, with the possible exception of film, which requires massive startup costs to exist.

if everybody loves you, and you're able to make lots of money on the free market as an artist, you're not challenging the status quo very much are you?

art is impossible in a market society, because it has to be commodified to exist.

so, you'll hear people say things like "well, if people agreed with them, and liked their art, they'd be able to survive." - and they think that's an argument against the artist, rather than an argument against the market. and, to an extent they're right - it's an anti-artist position, one that is roughly in line with somebody like ayn rand and that rejects the concept of art on it's face.

artists need a way to escape the market, by definition - because if they're actually able to survive in the market without any sort of subsidies, they're not producing anything substantive.

in years past, we solved this problem by having artists seek commissions from the aristocracy. you can imagine i don't like that much, but it's at least better than telling me to go sell a product in order to survive.

i don't need or want wealth, i want enough stability to exist to create. and, we'll let the future determine the value of the product - because the market is incompetent.

that will take me from mid 2003 to mid 2005, although period 3 will hang over until late 2006.

i was posting this yesterday evening before i crashed...

this is just a reminder as to what is coming up directly, soon. if you've forgotten, or never knew. i need to set the pc back up first to review my notes and make sure everything is in order, but...

1) inri075.  this was written in kelowna in 2003. it ends up as the start of the interplanetary isomorphism, but the purpose of inri075 will be to collect the sound created in mid to late 2003. this will mostly be posted as is.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/kelowna

2) inri076. the lost symphony. this was written over 2003 while waiting around in various disparate places - bus shelters, back alleys, wilderness escapes, apartments, etc. it will segue between reflections and the interplanetary isomorphism, finishing my eighth record. this is going to be a major recording project and will probably take much of the summer.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/the-lost-symphony

3) inri077. this is an ep of cassette demos recorded in sarah's bedroom. i will mostly post it as is.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/bedroom-cassette-demoes

4) inri078. this is a demo that is already uploaded as is.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/art-show-demo

5) inri079 needs to be checked for current data, but is otherwise my completed 7th record.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/ftaa

6) inri080 & inri081 are listed on my hard drive. there may be an 'inri records' compilation in there, and perhaps a second compilation, as well. or, was it something to do with impressionist jazz punk? there are some tracks from inri086 that were written in the summer of 2004, and i think i wanted to 

take note of that.

7) inri082. the interplanetary isomorphism, itself, which is mostly done:

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/interplanetary-isomorphism

8) inri083 is listed on my hard drive. it may be the previous impressionist jazz punk disc. or it may be the cycles per second disc, but this would be mislabeled.

9) inri084 is the first cycles per second ep. this is done.:

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/the-spontaneous-combustion-of-leonardo-pisano

10) this is likely inri085, and will be a serious recording project:

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/throatmotor-fragment

11) inri086. these are demos, and they're being released as is:

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/impressionist-jazz-punk

12) inri087 is the next symphony, xenophanes, and is mostly done:

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/xenophanes

13) inri088 will then be done,which is my 9th & 10th lps.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/e

if i can get this done, i'll want to stop and refocus.

so, i got some rest.

i'm supposed to be doing alter-reality right now, but i'm obviously not going to. i at least finished the thought in getting the two sites set up, but it sidetracked me and i don't want to get stuck in these recursions - i want to enforce a stricter division of labour on my time. i need to start getting back to having completed tasks in front of me.

so, i'm going to finish the thought before i close some tabs and get back to it on monday.

i will spend most of the night and morning putting final touches on cleaning.

so, what am i up to?

i crashed yesterday afternoon and was up in the evening. i fell asleep while updating this page and it ended up taking me until the morning to finish it:

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/merch

i'm under cyberattack by some fascist muslims that want to launch a jihad against me for saying mean things about their idol. you know you're all going to hell for idolatry, right? so, i'm trying to reduce the number of cookies...

i actually don't think it's google, at this point. google always takes my side, and they've shown me what they do if they want to remove something. it's ordered and predictable; it's not this kind of primitive hack on my internet. this is some vigilantes that don't care about civilized law, and want to barbarically take things into their own hands. but, they're just fucking swimming in cash, remember. it's easy to get what you want when you're a millionaire...or a billionaire....

i don't know the extent of it, but i seem to have gotten the attention of some powerful zealots....

i was specifically doubling the prices of everything physical, and otherwise verifying that everything was correct with the new pricing. this is a relatively important update to do if i'm going to be uploading isos to the payhip site.

i understand that people don't really want to buy physical media anymore. i have to admit that i'd still be buying it if i wasn't broke, because i like it; i like the cd shelf. it's a mark of obscurity. and, if you have disposable income, you spend it on art...

so, what do i do, as an artist? it's not economical. i want the option available, but i understand that i'm selling torrents...

i mean, i'm not a pop star. i don't write jingles. i'm not a singer-songwriter. i'm not a sex idol pretending to be a musician. i'm kind of an old-fashioned thing at this point - i'm a musician with a large, album-oriented discography. so, it's easy to tell me to sign up for a streaming service, but it's really not the universe i live within. i mean, i'm a consumer too, and i wouldn't have the slightest interest in something like spotify - it's just a bunch of major label crap. if i'm anything, i'm an independent artist. but the technology is crowding me out because the fuckers have monopolized the means of production.

but, i'm more pissed off about the market. frankly, as hard as it is to sell things on the internet, it's even harder to sell them in real life. i'd be nowhere at all without a website. but, consumers expect everything to be free, nowadays, and i'm guilty of that, too.

so, i'm not selling singles to tweens. i'm not trying to go viral on youtube (although i was at one point, and think i did a few times - it didn't translate to much). and, i'd like to sell you a cd, but nobody's buying. that's not my universe, it's not my market, it's not the world i live and breathe in.

what people in my universe want is full discography torrents. they want to download twenty records at a time. and, i've done that - i did it with cardiacs in the 00s, i did it with swans in the 90s. these were artists before my time that i was happy to find and benefited dramatically from finding. and, that is my audience - people looking for music that exists beyond the image, that is real and interesting to listen to. it's a small potential audience, but if you click into it...

i've got the dvds for sale, but kids nowadays don't even have optical drives.

this is why i'm setting up the payhip site - i'm trying to give the people, my people, my audience, what they actually want.

in the process, i created a sequence of physical companions to the existing dvd sequence with the intent of building a one click option to purchase all cds:

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/purchase-of-complete-physical-discography

unfortunately, bandcamp wouldn't allow for a price that high. so, we got what exists, instead.

and, that was my night - not what i planned, but a little progress.

so, i've set up a payhip site:

https://payhip.com/jessicamurray

that site will be digital downloads only - and will house isos for data cds, dvds and bds, which i can't upload to bandcamp, unfortunately. so, the payhip site will be comprehensive. but, the bandcamp site is still central.

i'm also doubling the price of all physical items at the bandcamp site.

nobody wants to buy a physical cd anymore - i get it. i don't want to, either. so, i'm making a cd here and there, and i've been losing money in the process. i don't want to eliminate the option, but the economics are what they are, and the cost of manufacturing cds on demand like this is pretty high, nowadays. it's just what it is.

the cost of the downloads will stay the same.

so, i'm going to upload one item to payhip every day, as i post it here, until it's filled up. i should have inri000, inri001 and inri002 up soon.

so, the place is almost as clean as it was when i brought those shelves in last week. almost.

the 16-bit pc has been placed in the space on a bookend table, beside one of the speakers. the kvm is sitting on top of it, and i'll need to connect it the next time i turn it on. it's a shame it takes power, but whatever.

i've moved the 32-bit pc back where it was, which is close to but not in it's resting spot. i need to rebuild it, first - and i'm currently rebuilding it temporarily.

one of the two bookshelves had a back, but the nails were mostly missing. i ran around the back with some finishing nails. while you can see crumbly particleboard if you look, it's almost as good as new - i just need to screw the wobbly top piece back in place by rescrewing it beside the old broken screw. so, yeah - you'll be able to tell if you look at it. but, who cares? it's been scrubbed down, and it's otherwise ready to put some books and cds on it....as soon as it gets some shelves.

i finally took apart that old chest thing that i had converted into a headboard, and has since just flat out broken. by my account, i should get roughly 6 shelves out of it,  and could potentially get a few other things out of it. these walls are full of pre-existing holes. it'll make it easy to screw a couple of pieces of wood in as loose shelves, and i might need it.

the table is in kitchener, apparently. that's about a three hour drive. so, i'll need to set the two tables up when it gets here, and then have space to set things back up on that side of the apartment, as well.

for now, i'm going to eat....

and, then we're back to this, hopefully quickly - the last update was actually not february but back on january 30th:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vdvEPJ8NtNUbuPItFour9gJdFa4Yy0gE/view?usp=sharing

so, that was absolutely the right install disc - it picked up the drivers and even installed the old software i remembered. perfect. 

i was able to get the network card installed by pointing it to the e:\win98 directory when it asked - simple but not obvious.

there was a root usb hub that wouldn't install, and i think i just went over the max number of installable hubs. it hardly matters, because windows 98 can't pick up flash drives, pretty much at all.

but, the partition is essentially perfectly installed at this point - i just need recording software. and, what i'll be using is cool edit as the crux.

i'll get back to it in a few days. for now, i want to clean a little in here before it gets to 7:00 and then shift to the diet writeup, as i left it off last month. that's my task this week - to get as much of that done as i can. and, it's an easier process.

that will let me finish the posts i left off with.

in order to restart in 2013 and move forwards, i need to get the recording pc running again. for now. what i need is some way to boot into a functional windows xp....the version on the 9x machine won't be it.

in order to do that, i had to setup the xp machine first.

and, i still have tons of cleaning to do, too. the table should be here today,....

i'm going to want to compile some extra exe files for specific sound applications that only run on this platform and in the end burn everything to a single dvd for backup, but once i get the video card installed i'm going to put this way until next friday because i'm serious about splitting my time up and sticking to it and i need to shift back to finishing up the food blog before i can get back to 2013.

put another way, i have a series of half-written posts and need to finish them before i move on.

so, i'm burning the ati iso to disc, and i think that the modem should install if i tell it to use a "generic ne2000" driver.

so, i think this is the file i want.

https://archive.org/details/ati-international-installation-cd-ver.-101

i can probably check it on xp first.

i'm going to have to download something.

while i'm at it, let's write down that i need drivers for a kingston etherrx kne20plug and play isa adapter.

no, it didn't take it.

i've got the card out in my hand and let's get the exact device name, here - ati rage theatre 213rt1zua32 / aiw128 agp 53401.

and, let's try again.

if not, i'll have to download something.

this thing has an ati all in wonder in it, which was a high end video card at the time. i can plug a cable line directly into it, and used to use it to watch tv sometimes. i hardly want to pay for cable in 2021, but i could conceivably do that if i really wanted to.

the 98 disc doesn't have the drivers, but the xp disc does.

let me try that, maybe it's that easy.

yeah - the exact thing i wanted to install has been installed, and it works great.

perfect.

now, i need to get the display driver updated....

yeah. the driver works. i just need to install it manually from the disc.

ok.

let's try to get the software running.

ok, wait. i think i might have got it.

i'm so used to windows doing everything for me that i forgot that you used to have to tell it where to look. remember that? maybe you really don't. but, there was a time when you had to tell windows that a sound card was a sound card, what company manufactured it, etc - and hope it installed the right thing.

it's rebooting, and it might work when it comes up.

the software bundle on the iso is something very much like what i remember from years ago, so i'm going to stick with it.

let's see if i can wipe the thing out of the registry entirely and try to just install the drivers, first.

yeah, i'm not getting the drivers to install at all. so, the software installs, but then it tells me it doesn't have a device to utilize. i need to get more specific 98 drivers, first.

let's get the chronology right.

this device was manufactured in 1998. i received it as a gift in late 1999 - around christmas of that year (my 19th birthday was the second week of 2000). the drivers are dated to may, 2000.

so, this is not the version of the drivers or software that came with the device, but would probably be the last version for a 9x architecture and possibly intended for windows 2000 sp1.

let's see what happens when i install from disc. but, i may be stuck:

1) it may be too new for 98

2) it may be too old for xp

so, can i find a different os? or can i find a different iso? i was lucky to find this one...

what i'm trying to avoid, i think, is the ntvdm. i've got these separated in my mind as "9x is 16-bit, nt is 32 bit" but that's not quite right, of course. it has to do with the underlying treatment of dos. this was a long time ago...

so, i want the last version of windows before that, which may have been 2000 sp 1?

let me try in 98 from the disc.

or was it windows 2000?

lol.

i don't remember...

i'm going to have a try a few, though. it's why i'm doing this.

if i can't get 98 to work, i'll need to try me,  somehow. i want a 16-bit os on here...

i neither have me nor nt 4.0 kicking around - i have 98, and i have xp. 

i think i was actually running me.

i got a nap in. it was inevitable.

the bluescreen i'm getting in xp is a driver_irql_not_less_or_equal which is consistent with the idea that the drivers don't work right in xp. but, when i try to install in 98, i'm getting a host of missing files errors. 

given that the disk is dated to may, 2000 it was almost certainly intended for a 9x application rather than an nt appliction. at the time, nt was still mostly used for servers. 9x was the consumer grade product. so, why isn't it installing correctly, then?

i'm going to actually burn a cd and try to install it from there. it's almost done. and, it's useful to have as backup.

i want to flip these dates over though because i have the electrical to worry about.

fri night--->mon morn: working on the discography (starting at period 3)

mon morn--->thurs night: moving forward through the blogs (starting in 2013)

thus night---> fri night: the alter-reality (starting in 1989)

i just copied the files over, but i may have to actually burn a cd.

so, it crashed with a blue screen error. is that what it did before? i don't remember. 

i want to reinstall to this drive to see if the script works after the permissions shift, regardless...

the files are dated to the year 2000 - this is before xp was released. there's two options:

ctrun_95.dll

ctrun_nt.dll

it's really, really old.

i'm going to launch it in 98 and see if it's more stable. and, i think that's really the better idea, even if i can get it to almost work in xp.

i'm better off buying a second front-end for the audigy and putting that in the newer machine, as it's intended for xp.

ok.

i got excited there, but i think it's a false start. let me do what i intended to do.

well...

it installed.

it loaded.

it crashed....

gah. if this loads, i want it in the other machine. surely.

i actually think this is a good time to take a nap.

my script didn't launch. i think it was a permissions issue, but i don't know, really.

the card in the machine when i built the last script was an audigy, but i've replaced it with the old live drive! and i'm running the install disc i downloaded, on xp. it seems to be working, oddly enough.

so, what was the problem, really? was it that i lost the disc? did i find it now? i'm remembering all of these old programs...

we'll see if it works on xp or not. if it does, that's something i was never able to figure out before. but, it could be as simple as the source. i mean, if i just downloaded the 32-bit software bundle that i could never find before...

there are other 16-bit software programs that don't work in 32 bit. but, i wonder if i want to reverse the logic, if this actually works - do i want it connected to the faster machine?

it's finally manageable in here. sort of. i need to run the shower every few hours to push the smoke back out through the doors, or i'm going to be hacking and wheezing. it's truly utterly disgusting...

if he'd turn the fucking heat on, i wouldn't have to do that.

i have to hope this isn't permanent in terms of severity. but, it's at least not seeping in through the window. one thing at a time.

i'm almost done the install, but these old systems are finnicky and i had to try a few things. i thought i could just load windows 98 to a fat32 partition and let boot.ini deal with it, but it wouldn't do it. so, i had to copy the files on the drive off to a usb key in the win pe environment (from a vista disc), remove all the partitions, boot from a windows 98 floppy boot disk (which i somewhat amazingly actually still have), create a new partition with fdisk and install 98 to it. and, i got it up and running - only to realize i didn't have any drivers, and am hardly going to connect to the internet (with windows 98) looking for them.  so, i tried to plug a usb key in, but that's no good - i don't have a usb key small enough for windows 98 to read. short of burning cds, the only other solution is to create a "swap disk", install xp and drop the drivers in that way. which i was going to need to do anyways...

this old pIII 500 machine, in an asus p3bf board, was built for windows 98. at the time, i had 512 mb of ram, which was impressive. this is the machine i used to record everything up until about 2006 - all the inri stuff, all the rabit stuff, all the deny everything stuff, most of the trivial group stuff and even a bunch of stuff i haven't finished yet (which is why i'm rebuilding it in it's old state) - although it was almost all remastered and remixed on the new system from 2014-2017. i upgraded from 98 to xp in 2004 to install matlab for a course in wavelet design. the machine was never the same after that, and i bought a new machine altogether in 2006...

after that, the pIII became a glorified typewriter and i built an image for it in 2008 that was intended for that purpose. this image was full of word processors and freeware math software, much of it initially written for linux before being ported to xp. i spent a lot of time writing mathml reports on it. but, i also used it for email and internet debates. 

when i moved to windsor, that purpose was taken over by a laptop, and i converted it into a multimedia pc, intended to exist in the living room. i built a second image for that purpose, that was a little more focused on multimedia applications.

i want the new image to be a union of these two images and may end up building a new image for it in the long run, if frequent reinstalls become necessary. for now, i'm going to start with the image i built in 2014 and see if i can just tweak the scripts a little to get the new drivers in.

xp doesn't let you create partitions on the install screen, so i booted into gparted and created two ntfs partitions for the xp install (an os partition and a partition for the script) and a swap partition to get data back and forth. but, when i came up to the install, i noticed that it labeled the partition i want to install to "d:". i decided that this may screw the install up, but i could relabel the partitions when it was done and just do it again.

unfortunately, it wouldn't let me relabel the boot partition. well, i know i can fix it manually if i have to, but why bother? i then remembered that the trick is to set the 98 partition to hidden during the xp install, to make the xp install process only see the partitions it needs to see, namely the os partition and the script partition. this works because now xp and 98 both see themselves as "c:\". the trick, then, is building the boot menu, afterwards. 

so, i went back and did it again:

0. to do this you need a live rescue disc (win pe or gparted), a 98 cd, a 98 floppy and an xp cd.

1. delete all partitions in gparted (or win pe, if you need to copy files first)

2. make sure you have your 98 boot floppy along with your boot cd, and boot to the floppy

3. create the fat 32 partition in fdisk and reboot to the cd

4. finish installing 98 to the fat32 partition

5. boot into gparted and create the ntfs partition for xp, along with whatever other partitions you want. set the 98 partition to hidden and the xp partition to boot.

6. boot into the xp install and carry through with it, whatever that means to you. for me, i have an unattended dvd installation...

7. boot back into gparted and unhide the 98 partition.

there's two approaches from this point.

1. you could just set one or the other as bootable with gparted whenever you want to use it. when you boot into 98, it won't see the xp drive at all because it's ntfs. when you boot into xp, it will see the 98 drive as just files. that's the tactic i'm going to use for now.

2. if you want a boot menu, you need to install a non-windows os to a third partition. so, you could set up a dummy ubuntu install, for example. i'm not doing that right now.

you can't do this using boot.ini without getting stuck with a d:\windows, and i'd advise against that.

also, i'm not done cleaning in here, but i need to get to the spirit of the new time allotment, down.

so, once i get that 16-bit pc up, i'm going to spin directly into the food saga.

this will be life for a while:

sat/sun/mon building the blogs

tues/wed/thurs working on the discography (starting at period 3)

fri on the alter-reality.

what that will mean for right now is:

sat/sun/mon typing

tues/wed/thurs cleaning and rebuilding

fri on the alter-reality

so, where am i with the cleaning and reinstalling, then?

- i have completely cleaned my bedroom space from top to bottom. every nook and cranny. i've scrubbed the floors. it's spotless...

- i have reassembled my dresser and washed every article of clothing in it, as well. so, all my clothes are clean for the first time in over a year. the problem was that there was a hydrogen sulfide leak in the basement floor directly beside the dresser and i wanted to be 100% sure it was fixed before i set the dresser back up and washed all the clothes. it's all done.

- i need to get a table and a bookcase for this space with the carbon tax refund, which should be easy enough, if i can find it.  

- i'm using my old homemade makeup table as a shoe rack in the closet

- putting all these clothes away meant i could clear out the space intended for recording, finally. that has been done, and everything has been cleaned as much as is possible - including a thorough scrubbing of the floors. this space was absolutely filthy....but i want to keep it clean...

- i have a lot of gear to reinstall and/or fix as i set it up in here. i'm starting with 2 of the 3 pcs, which i'm using as 16-bit and 32-bit windows recording consoles, respectively. 

- i have purchased a large bookcase for $15 that has a broken top but is otherwise perfectly fine and now overlooks the studio space. it will probably hold recording related materials in some currently unclear way. some time ago, i also purchased an organizer for wires and cables. so, this space is actually considerably more organized than it was, previously. 

- i'm going to install racks for the two bicycles along the stairwell. that will clear up space and keep dirt off the floor.

- i still need to clean the kitchen & the bathroom before i get seriously back to work. from here on in, i intend to get back to the monthly cleaning schedule that i had before i got frustrated by the sulfur smell and second-hand smoke from upstairs.

- i have put all of the various items that need to slowly be reinstalled into the other room, which i have been using as a combo storage space + dining area. the process of reconstructing the studio and generally setting things up in here will be reduced to a process of cleaning up that space, bit by bit. when it is done, i will be be done what i'm doing.

so, i've been posting less because i've been vacuuming and lysoling and scrubbing things, but i'm over a bit of a hump with it.

let's check to see if there's anything new up on kijiji regarding tables and bookcases.

ok, so i can't do a brute force hack on the pasta bowl or the eggs and i don't want to do a final run for the fruit bowl. i've got too many loose threads open and i'm just totally unravelling. how do i reweave myself back into some semblance of coherence?

i was building liner notes, and i stopped to fix my diet - thinking it would take a few days to build. six months later, and i'm reaching a conclusion, but need to move on.

i realized my fluoride data totals were wrong, and went to backtrack to fix them. in the process, i decided i'd make a final fruit bowl post because i was almost done and set about compiling it. but, then i wanted to build a book documenting the entire saga. but, then i decided i wanted to build a book documenting my comments on the pandemic. and, i kept going further back, until i decided to go back to the start...

the idea was that, if i start at the beginning, in august 2013, i can spin off a series of different narratives, not just the food saga and the pandemic commentary. these would all be little books to read. in the process, i could spin off the liner notes, as well. i'd actually be multitasking.

but, then, i realized the need to get to the alter-reality, too.

as i was cleaning, i came to the decision that i need to create a schedule and more effectively multitask or i'll continually get lost in these complex recursions. so, i need to be doing three things at once:

1) moving through the alter-reality, starting in 1989

2) actually getting back to the discography, at period 3

3) starting in 2013 with the blogs and rebuilding them, moving forwards

if i do any one of these three things, strictly, then i'll never get any of the others finished. 

so, what if i get in the habit of spending:

sat/sun/mon building the blogs

tues/wed/thurs working on the discography (starting at period 3)

fri on the alter-reality.

eventually,  these things will crash into each other.

and, i need to finish cleaning and fixing machines in here, first.

i don't actually want to do it like this but i think i absolutely have to.

yeah, the going price seems to be roughly $10/stick, meaning it would cost me $40 to buy a backup set and $80 for two. and then i need to pay shipping...

what am i willing to pay for 25 year old ram? about half that, max - but something close to $2/stick would be reasonable, and feasible to find if you search around enough.

i'm going to need to make a pawn shop rummage run for old ram when i can.

i don't need the ram enough to pay $100 for it...

but, i'll keep an eye out for it.

no sd ram for sale in windsor or ontario, for that matter...

this is a 1998 model board. i need to get it while i still can, because it wont boot at all when there's no more ram to kickstart it with. and, let that be written of these asus boards, as these macs and dell and hp laptops pile up in landfills - they last until you can't find any ram for them anymore.

that's impressive. truly.

so, i went to boot the reconstructed machine and...

nothing.

shit.

no beep codes? no pc speaker.

so, i had to build a new pc speaker out of electrical tape and a piece of cardboard (i exaggerate only slightly.) to get the beep codes to figure out why it wasn't booting. and, it was ram.

so, i stripped the thing right down and did a component-by-component test to realize that....everything works after all.

hrmmn.

so, did it just need a reseating? that's maybe an oversimplification. reseating it on it's own didn't help. rather, it seemed like once i triggered the circuit with a 65 mb chip that the 256 mb chips started flowing, too - meaning it's more like i had to warm it up than that i had to reseat it.

the machine is currently sitting at the bios screen with just a video card and hard drive, in addition to the maxxed out 1 gb of ram. so, it works. hooray. 

and, it's quiet - which i don't even understand. it should be as loud as it ever was. but, i'll take it.

i need to check kijiji for 256 mb pc100 sd ram. that's the most the device can take, and a little back up will definitely help.

it's otherwise nice to get things back and running again, even if everything around me remains in disarray.

i've also found my windows 98 se + sp2 disc (lol.) & a series of winlited xp installation discs intended specifically for this pIII. the most recent one will be in the drive when i turn it on.

i'm probably going to want to build a new winlited xp installation disc from scratch, we'll see.

so, i've rebuilt the hardware in the machine, at least.

but i don't have the iso i was looking for...

i was able to find an iso at archive.org. we'll have to see if it works or not.

i may otherwise be stuck trying to find the 16-bit drivers and software for the device. i at least seem to have a useful user manual that will remind me of what i'm looking for and ought to have.

so, i'm making some fruit and will get back to it afterwards.

hey, if it works on both partitions then great.

i may have an iso of it on my storage drive.

if i still have that pile of old install discs, i don't know where it is.

i think i left it outside my door once in the old apartment, with the intent to put it away in storage when i got around to it, and the retard upstairs decided it was garbage.

fucking retards. they ruin everything.

i actually have two legacy soundblaster cards, and i kind of had them installed in a foolish way, because i was splitting the functionality of the machines off pretty strictly.

so, i put the older live! card in the recording machine because i wanted to connect it to the bay in the front. then, i put the newer audigy in the older machine, to use it as a media pc in the living room.

but, i really want the audigy in the newer 32-bit box and the live drive! in the 16-bit environment.

i'll have to find the old disc if i even still have it, but the problem might have been that they sold me a demo with reduced functionality....so i had to load the install from the disc, and the setup file wouldn't launch in the 32-bit environment.

there are other reasons why i want a 16-bit system besides this, so trying to force the eax to work in a 32-bit system is missing the point.

the eax + the live drive meant i could plug my guitar into the device and use it as a real time reverb processor, which is something i haven't been able to emulate since.

but, the audigy can also connect to a front end, and i should probably see if i can find something cheap on ebay. one thing at a time; i need some furniture for in the other room and haven't heard anything back yet.

i need this, too, to make sure i get the connections right. 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Q8aZAvX24IRDNLTL2i8at3-6HSz6QSZg/view?usp=sharing

did i always have it set to condenser mic? it might explain why the audio in was often less than stellar. lol.

there's a jumper to trigger it for use with an actual 1/4" microphone. that's been set, now - maybe for the first time. rtfm, right?

but, this is what i wanted, and isn't in the manual. i'm going to archive it here in case i need to find it later, and that page (dated to  2005-06-16, 14:32) disappears. but, it turns out that there's not much of use here.

JP2 - When jumpered, connects SPDIFIN#1 from a cascaded Digital I/O Card to the AUD_EXT header (back to the Live! card).

JP3 - When jumpered to DD (default), connects SPDIFIN#2 from the Live! Drive's Digital DIN header to the AUD_EXT header. When jumpered to CDB, connects SPDIFIN#2 from the cascaded Digital I/O Card's Digital DIN header to the AUD_EXT header. (I'm not aware of anything that even uses this input...)

JP4 - When jumpered to OUT0, sends the SPDIFO#0 signal (front-channels) to the CS8414 CODEC for the headphone output. When jumpered to OUT2, sends the SPDIFO#2 signal (front and rear channel mix) to the CS8414 CODEC for headphone output (default).

JP6 - The default position on my Live! Drive was to OPT/P_IN, which routes the incoming coax S/PDIF signal to SPDIFIN#1 on the AUD_EXT header. Moving the jumper to the RCA_IN position sends that signal instead. The RCA_IN signal appears to come from the CT4861 riser card, which hosts the optical S/PDIF and AUX I/O, and is found on the Live! Drive II.

for now:

https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=40230

this device actually has a very powerful dsp in it, that i could never get to work with a 32 bit os. virtual machines didn't work right - and this is relatively complex, on an old processor. i kind of gave up on it because you just can't put windows 98 on the internet, and you have to conniect to the internet. right?

but, access to that dsp is actually sort of fundamental to completing unfinished work that was left incomplete and started over a certain period of time.

at this point, the device is essentially useless to connect to the internet with, anyways. so, i'd might as well put 98 on it and just leave it offline. 

i'm actually going to dual boot it with a winlited 32-bit xp install that i built as a glorified type writer for that machine specifically, if i can find it. that way, i've got access to a basic xp typing environment as an absolute backup, in addition to regaining full access to the hardware. so, i should be able to access this machine in both 16-bit and 32-bit windows environments.

it's a somewhat unusual but actually very functional project that i don't expect to take so long. uch-o.

it's been so long that i needed to download the user manual:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Vo0H6V0-PhGen--eatQtiegDfTFpiiUC/view?usp=sharing

i'll leave that there for now, given that i'm on this chromebook, and it will wipe in time.

so, i think i have an answer for the bookshelves figured out, and it's nice and easy. i also might have an upgrade for the rickety headboard i've been improvising for too long, now - but that's tentative. one thing at  a time...

that would be all of the furniture required for the bedroom, for now.

i'm also toying with getting a big bookshelf from ikea to cover over the sliding doors in here. i know you haven't seen pictures, yet.

i've decided what i want to put into the 16-bit machine as well, based on what was in there previously. when this was a production machine, it had a regular cd drive and a cd burner - not dvds, cds. i replaced the cd reader with a dvd reader when it broke, and bought a dvd-writer for it in 2006 to replace the cd-writer, which ended up in the other machine when this one was converted into a media playback centre. so, to reconstruct the spirit of the initial machine, the three slots should be a dvd-writer on top, a dvd player below and the sb! live drive! card on the bottom. ok....

i need a nap.

unfortunately.

so, if i go back to june 15th, 2017 and read forwards to about july 15, 2017 i think i'll have a good idea of the logic i had constructed.

but, i need to eat..

let's hope the fucking idiot doesn't succumb to retard hour. it's -15 out, but i'll open the window and drive up the heating bill, if he wants to pay for it.

....because polluter pays. that's how it goes.

so, i've sorted through my notes from 2017 and pulled out the following:

old laptop - nothing <---it was in the closet, at the time.

old desktop - nothing  <----still the tv

access point - rca sound out, ps/2 mouse/keyboard combo.   <----this was the converted recording pc, with several parts stripped out.

cq60 - guitar interface   <-----i wanted to turn the compaq laptop into a real time guitar effects processor. that's no longer feasible, due to the broken screen.

pav g6 - editing software?  <--- at the time, it still booted, but the screen was dead. i was going to connect this to the access point via rj-45 and use it as an external processor for editing videos for vlogging, strictly. and a big part of why i haven't uploaded any vlogs in several years is that i never got around to it....

new desktop - square dvi or hdmi monitor,  new audio receiver & studio monitor speakers <---new recording pc, built from new components and old parts.

how can i update this?

old laptop - i need to get more ram for this thing. i can max it out for cheap and should. it could still work as a tv.

old desktop - i previously upgraded the ram in this machine for cheap and put a firewire connector in it. it's pretty much maxed out, but i can't use it as a tv, as it just can't run an html5 browser, even maxxed out. but, it is maxxed out and that's something i can take advantage of in putting 98 on it. it has a working dvd-reader (no writer) in it, which is ironically less important than it was even five years ago. it has a tv tuner (and could take a cable in if i had one) and i'm putting the sb live it came with back in it, with the front-end interface. so, it's going to be just like when i bought it, but upgraded as much as is possible to take maximum ram specs. i don't think i need to add anything else to it

access point - i was using the cq60 as the access point and would like to go back to it if i can get it to work. i have newish ram, a newish battery & a newish hard drive. but, the machine has seemingly been heavily hacked, for what reason, exactly, i don't fully understand. until then, i need to use the chromebook to get on the internet - and the ability to powerwash the device is highly useful given the constant police harassment that i'm apparently under.

guitar interface - i no longer have a laptop that i can convert into a guitar interface. this idea is not entirely ejected, but no longer makes much sense to think about it. i mean, the logic was that i had this extra laptop that was perfectly fine - i no longer have an extra, perfectly working laptop but rather have four mostly broken laptops.

pav g6 - if i can fix this, i'd like to convert it into a video processor. if i can't, i need to find something else to process video with.

recording pc - keep the same, more or less. this machine works, but i need to keep it off the internet to prevent interference in what i'm doing.

new pc - build into 64 bit recording pc for eventual use. i'm penciling in the matlab project, iirc.

the new item is "mobile device", which i had used both the broken hps for in the past and never really got to use the chromebook much for. i should try to fix the chromebook one way or the other; if i can fix it well enough to salvage it as a mobile device, great. for now, it's the access point. and, it would no doubt make a better tv, if it comes to it. but, then i need a new mobile device.

ok.

i've got these ideas clear in my head, again.

now, i need to find a more detailed post that explains what i wanted to keep in the old pc and move to the new one, before i put the old pc away for a bit.

polluter pays.

right?

if he can afford the drugs, he can afford to compensate the people around him for the externalities caused by them.

...and if i'm wrong? if the heat is too much, and the hot water is hurting him?

simple answer: spend less money on drugs, then.

i mean, that's ultimately what he's broadcasting to me - that he has so much money, he can waste it on drugs, and i don't need to worry much about his utilities, as a result of it.

it's hard to focus in the filth, but i'm trying.

and, if he wants to pay extra to heat the place, and extra on hot water for me to redo laundry, that's his stupid choice. i'm concerned about my health, not his finances. the more he spends on utilities, the less he has to spend on drugs.

that fucking loser upstairs has turned into a worthless, welfare case drug addict as a consequence of the pandemic - he's taking my disability check and blowing it all on drugs on the first of the month. i've noticed it a few months in a row, now. the drugs clear up mid-month or so, and are worst the day after i pay him.

so, he's taking my welfare check and spending it on drugs.

fucking pathetic.

so, i got distracted there.

as i'm dusting everything off and making sure it still works, which is not the first time i've done that, i'm realizing the need to rebuild the machines. i ultimately want to put the 32-bit machine in it's spot in the desk and plug it in, but i need to figure out what i'm putting in it and not putting in it, which has changed since i initially bought the parts for the 64-bit machine, which i haven't gotten around to building yet.

i should go back and check my notes from 2017 to see exactly what i wanted to do with each item, and each part for each item, before i commit to doing anything with them, now, just to make sure i don't miss any ideas i may have had at the time. 

i now have three pcs (the 90s pc, the 32-bit production pc and a new 64-bit machine that i haven't set up yet) and four laptops (two broken modern hps, a 90s laptop that still works but is impossibly slow and a falling apart expired ibm chromebook) to utilize, and need to figure out the best way to set them up, relative to what i want to actually do. back when i lived in the other basement apartment, i initially had the oldest pc set up in the living room as a streaming device to send youtube out to an old tv set, the hp laptop in my bedroom as a glorified typewriting gateway device and what i'm calling the 32-bit machine set up as my main production machine in the recording room. what happened was that both modern laptops lost their screens in sequence within a few months, leaving me without a good access point, and i decided i'd be foolish to buy another laptop, given that laptops are just mass manufactured garbage, in today's world.

it's just based on empirical observation; i've learned, by experience, that laptops are simply designed to break  - they're made of shitty components with intentionally short lifetimes. it's planned obsolescence. so, i decided i wouldn't waste my money on them, and i'd stick with good asus boards in all of my machines, moving forwards, instead. i'll never waste money on a laptop that is designed to break within a few months, ever again.

so, what i wanted to do was move the 32-bit machine into my bedroom to replace the broken laptop, and then use the new machine as the recording machine in the music room. the intent was to take large amounts of what is currently in the 32-bit machine (the recording stuff) and put it in the 64 bit machine. i think i even wanted to switch the cases, which i now think is insane.

i then wanted to convert the newer hp laptop - which has 8 gb of ram in it - into a video processing console, and connect it to the bedroom pc via a network cable. i was intending to use the other hp laptop as a real-time guitar effects processor. i had no plans for the oldest laptop, except as an emergency backup. 

when i moved to the apartment building, i went from three rooms to two rooms and that plan no longer made any sense. first, i lost my server room, which buffered the noise from the old pc, which it no longer made any sense to leave on all of the time. on top of that, there wasn't really room for the tv, which ended up sitting in a corner, and was ultimately left there; the 90s laptop was still able to connect to the internet with minimal effort, so it made sense to just use that by putting it on the coffee table, instead. so, i decided that i'd convert the old pc (which was no longer being used as a tv) into a 16-bit machine for recording, keep the 32-bit machine as it is, and build the 64-bit machine when it was time to do so. the idea was to swap between them using a kvm.  but, things did not work out there, and i never really got around to setting up any of these things.

after i moved into the space i'm in now, i kept using the 90s laptop as a tv and i bought a cheap chromebook, which was intended for use strictly as a mobile device, given that my laptops were now both non-mobile. this is, itself, now falling apart. it lost the battery several months ago, and i've got a usb mouse and keyboard attached to it, just like the other ones. that means it's no longer of use as it's intended purpose, leaving me in the same scenario as previously (without a mobile computer), although it still connects as an access device, which is what i've been using it as, recently. i can't type on a phone, which renders it useless to me - i just have no interest in it, i think it's useless. if i get my climate money in, i could conceivably use it to buy a new laptop for mobile use, and then convert the chromebook into a new tv. that would solve all of these laptop and tv problems, and clear up the 16-bit pc for further musical use.

it's a shame that i can't just use the old laptop, which is built like a tank and still runs. i mean, it's a perfectly functional device. i actually winlited an installation disc specifically for it, and specifically to use it as a tv, but it's of minimal use to me at this point because i need an html-5 ready browser to access youtube, now. that is the specific thing that broke the 90s pc, and the specific thing that broke the 90s laptop, too. this thinkpad should have no such problems for quite some time. so, i could use it as a tv replacement, in the medium to long run.

i want to go back, though, to make sure that i didn't have some other plan for this 16-bit pc, before i turn it back into a recording console.

it may seem obsolete, but i think it makes sense to keep dedicated 16-bit and 32-bit recording machines, on top of the incoming 64-bit machine. i have both hardware and software that only really works right with 16-bit drivers, and that is no doubt true in a 32-bit environment, too - although i truly don't know, because i honestly haven't tried. i have a very detailed winlited install disc with a complex script that was built for the 32-bit environment. i need to upgrade to get more ram - 4 gb is a real and hard limit - but i don't want to lose the functionality. so, it makes more sense to set the three devices up in parallel and kvm between them.

i just need to go back over my notes and remind myself how i wanted to do it.

so, that's the plan for the next few hours, and i should at least have the 16 and 32 bit machines properly rebuilt by the end of it.

but, if i'm going to be sitting at home all summer with a little bit of extra cash in my account, i should use it to fix these broken machines up, one at a time.

i'm still cleaning and finding an unexpected source of filth - underneath various table tops.

and, i'm wondering about that...

there's nothing underneath me now. but, all of this furniture was set up directly on top of the pot smoker, when i was in the apartment.

i'm pulling off layers of shit, and it's not clear to me exactly where it could possibly be coming from, except maybe that it's been sitting there the whole time.

if that's true, it's been there for 2.5 years. 

well, if that's true then i've found it, eventually, and gotten rid of it. let's hope it helps.

so, this is what i'm doing for the next few weeks until i catch up:

https://thejournalofj.blogspot.com/

and, i'll have to devise some process around regular postings.

i just want to get to sitting down at a desk typing rather than sitting in bed typing. it's just a question of normalizing the process of actually working....

but, now i'm tired and need a nap - after breathing in piles of shit while cleaning. i just blew my nose and it was full of dust particles. it just demonstrates the necessity of what i'm doing - and how dirty it is in this space.

i haven't posted any pictures of this place, but it could be considered a two bedroom apartment without an eat-in kitchen. i'm using the living room as a studio space (even if i haven't been using it except as storage) and i'm using the "second bedroom" as an eat-in kitchen, even if i've actually been eating in bed (because my 90s laptop got hacked by the cops). if you compare it to the space i was blogging in, i've kind of flipped the living room with the studio due to size restraints. i need three rooms - somewhere to sleep, somewhere to record and somewhere to eat - and this has that; the previous basement really had four rooms, plus a semi-connected den for smoking pot in once in a while. this is a substantively smaller space, but is functionally similar. and, that place was honestly a bit bigger of a space than i really need...

i wanted to finish cleaning in here before i stopped to eat or sleep that's taking far too long, so i'm going to make take my pills , take at least a nap and get back to it after.

i've decided that i want to try to reconstruct some kind of concept of normality in here, even if it's going to be a while.

so, i've moved the chrome book from the bed to the desk, i've got the tunes running through the receiver and i'm going to reboot directly into the alter-reality.

i'm trying to rewind here and remember what year is what. i'm pretty sure that mellon collie and the infinite sadness was released in grade 9, so that sets grade 9 to starting in the fall of 1995.

uni 3 - 02/03  <--- that is a reference point i'm certain is correct

uni 2- 01/02

uni 1-  00/01

13 - 99/00

12 - 98/99

11 - 97/98

10 - 96/97

9 - 95/96

8  - 94/95 -

7 - 93/94 - 

6 - 92/93 - 

5 - 91/92 -    

4 - 90/91 -   <----this is what i need to catch up to, and then stay caught up with. it's currently march, 1991 in the alter-reality.

3 - 89/90 - 

i wanted to start the alter-reality journal in the summer of 1989, because i switched schools to start grade 3.

the mechanism, in the end,  will be that i'll find the journal somewhere and scan it. but, for now i need to produce a portrait of the artist as a young trans woman, and work this out as it comes up.

i wanted to do this in 2019, but i got bogged down and i need to stop getting bogged down and get to fucking work.

what about the alter-reality?

well, i need to do something or other, yes. clearly...

let me think about this.

no, this is is silly and arbitrary.

let me just try and clean in here as much as i can and then actually get started on 2013 again once i've cleaned the place out.

i'm considering taking a different approach. i used to think the guy upstairs was just a disgusting idiot; i'm now convinced that he's a cop that is spying on me. so, what if i spend 10 hours a day cleaning in here for the next three months? what if i just lysol the walls every time he smokes?

if i'm right, and the fundamental problem is that i'm under surveillance, then this isn't passive, and essentially cutting off the action will have the effect of a boycott type action.

yeah, so i was going to do some rebuilding over late 2016 but then i remembered that i'd have to load up my youtube site and my word document at the same time. i can't just copy it out of the document, i have to regain a train of thought around it, and it's best to start from the beginning.

i slept all day; it's smoky in here, again. it's jut impossible to get your head around how absolutely disgusting these people are, or the absolutely terrible quality of life they must have. what's the point of living in such a degraded state, enslaved to the drugs like that? why bother existing as a useless zombie? just go kill yourself. fuck.

but, i'm going to want to hit a posting limit before i stop to clean and i'm going to do it by cross-referencing over 2019, like i was.

maybe the type of music you like is produced by junkies and drugged-up buffoons.

but, it's not what the music i make is like.

check out the links, if you don't believe me - it's just too complicated for drugs, and i'd rather make nothing at all than find myself reduced to producing boring garbage for junkie retards.

marijuana makes people dumb.

i need the ability for clear and focused thinking, or i'm not into it. i'll ramble online, instead.

drugs have the tendency to convert intelligent, creative artists into blithering, retarded idiots.

i'm not doing that to myself - i'll wait it out.

the sanctity of the discography is too important.

why don't i do it like this, though...

i had a bunch of files put aside for rebuilding 2014-2017. if i post too fast, they'll shut me down for the night. so, if i post very fast, it will give me a down space to clean in, until i can rebuild this part of the apartment, at least.

yeah.

alright.

so, expect some rebuilding then.

when am i going to get past this? well, like i say - i can't work in the filth. so, it's up to the cop upstairs to stop smoking drugs in the house, or up to me to get to a more stable environment that is more conducive to creativity and abstract thinking, rather than this dirty space where i''m constantly tired and unfocused.

ok. i'm realizing the need for a rethink, here.

up until about september of last year, i was working on a series of liner notes for old records. i took what i hoped to be a minor break to work out a diet plan and found myself doing tons of research on it, to the point that i decided i wanted to write a book about it. when i first stopped for the diet project, i was also realizing the need to wait for the temperature to shift a little a little bit before i did a major cleaning operation in the basement. i was actually hoping to shift back into normal music production relatively quickly.

a few weeks ago, i started pulling back to consolidate the four blogs, as i started building up a text about the diet. and, then i wanted to build a text about the pandemic. and, i just keep pulling further and further back....

now, i want to build a text about the karen case, which would mean pulling back to mid 2018 and when i first moved in here.

and, if i'm going to do that then i need to do a round of serious archiving while i'm at it. is that actually worthwhile? should i go back to 2013?

if anything, the second-hand smoke in here has only gotten worse, so the cleaning seems pointless. but, now i have this messy pile of writing and i don't even know how to approach it. but, i need to refocus - and remember that i'm a musician first and foremost, and that i'm running out of existence to finish my discography in.

to be clear: this is all fundamental to the discography. but, i'm in a deep recursion and i'm realizing the need to break it.

i had just finished a major round of archiving in 2018, right? and i talked about wanting to do a round of archiving a last step before i got back to recording.

i can't seriously record in this basement, i can't think straight with all the drugs and pollution.

so, why don't i go back to see where i was. if i pick back up at a reasonable archiving point, i can start generating these subtexts as i archive, and kind of run it all off in one step.

...but, then, if i'm going to do that, why not rebuild first? yeah - that's right. i was going to rebuild first and then archive, which makes sense. but i needed to triple check the 2013 stuff, first.

shit.

ok.

let's go back to the start. and, let's hope it doesn't take too long.

that means:

1) cleaning down here as best i can. it's largely pointless - i'm living with a smoker and a drug addict. that's why i've stopped cleaning at all - there's no use in even vacuuming. it just stinks again five minutes later. but, i need to do a little bit, just to make setting some equipment back up feasible.

2) setting the pc back up with the laptop's hard drive was the simplest way that i was able to get a stable system, due to the apparent back door in the laptop that was allowing the cops to reboot the machine at will.

3) once i get the first reconstruction phase revamped - and finalized forever - i can rebuild and consolidate over 2014-2018.

4) then, i can archive over 2018-2021 while rebuilding these documents, and finishing the diet plan.

i actually don't think that'll take that long.

but i always say that.

it doesn't seem like there's going to be anything worthwhile to do this summer, and i'm not expecting to find myself frustrated the way i was last year, so i'd might as well get back to what i was doing.

right now, i'm going to stop to eat - and open the window to deal with the drugs from upstairs.

i'm doing this because i can, now.

here's the embed to all 75 records, inri000-inri074:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3JSjmqp0cbvbF58VKPkic-68bkZZ-4pn

three later projects of unclear catalog numbers have been added to the end, as well.

note that my compromise to using youtube (without ads! ads are gross!) as a distribution mechanism is that the tracks are only available there in what is essentially radio quality. this is entirely intentional, as a push factor to take you to bandcamp to buy the files in cd quality. you might be ok about listening to an ad for socks to get "free music", you might think that's a fair exchange, as i get tossed a 1000th of a cent for it, but i find that distribution system to be revolting and want nothing to do with it. you can have it in shit quality for free - but if you want it in high quality, then please pay me for it.

is there really footage out there of carroll spinney conducting an orchestra as big bird?

if not, there should be. and, i'm sure we could come up with a great program. some messaien, some bits of beethoven's sixth...

but, i almost feel like i should commission myself to do this, as though it needs something more specific that does not yet exist.

the ostrich overture.

with oscar on the cans.

wait for it.

(it could be a while.)

facebook post:

i'm going to need to clean this space up over the next few hours, but the story is that...

i've spent the last year and a bit converting old blogs into pdf files, which sounds like a waste of time, but is tied into the process of building liner notes for rereleases from when i first moved to windsor. i'm almost done the first phase of this, and am going to put the second phase on hold for a later time.

i've been hosting these files in two places: bandcamp (in the form of music journals that you can buy) and noise trade (which offered the files for free, and let you donate an amount, if you want).

bandcamp is very reliable, and i thank them for it. but, within hours of finishing the last major journal update, the noise trade site just up and disappeared. the account continues to exist, and i can change the password, but i can't log into it. it's very weird.

when i signed up for noise trade a few years ago, it was an independent site that allowed for free file sharing. that was my attraction to it. up until now, the only other site that i've had on the internet with a paywall has been bandcamp, which is just a necessity in this awful economic system we exist in - i have to try to sell you something, whether i like it or not. but i try to make everything freely available, as i find ways to try to navigate through the contradictions in our day-to-day lives. i want you to pay me, but i don't. it's frustrating for everybody, but it's unavoidable. i mean, the other option is that i get a job (that is, that i sell my labour, instead) and give my art away for free, but that's kind of giving up on life, in my estimation.

what i want is for you to donate. i want grants, i want benefactors - because i want artistic freedom. i have to deal with the vulgarity of market interactions, i have to reduce things to commodities, because i don't truly have the freedom not to. but, i hate that fact, and i want to find creative ways around it.

noise trade was attractive to me for that reason - it allowed me to sort of escape the commodification of the process, and let you decide if you want to throw money at me in support, or just take the end result for free. it was a good compromise, while it lasted.

shortly after i set the site up, it got bought out by paste magazine and shifted it's hosting to the increasingly dominant amazon. the amount of ads has steadily increased, since, to the point that the site is almost unusable. and, now the site has disappeared, leaving me without an option for free dissemination. i initially sought some kind of explanation before acting further, but, after some reflection, have decided that it doesn't matter - i'd rather separate my art from that kind of profit making machinery, anyways. the site has become gross, to me.

you'll note that i don't tend to post to sites that are ad-supported, facebook being the major exception because it's so ubiquitous. but, i do almost all of my posting at blogs that are ad-free. facebook is just a necessary evil. for now. noise trade snuck the ads in on me while i was distracted, and it's time to get away and burn what was and forget it ever existed.

so, i don't know why the site evaporated, but i don't care - i don't want to interact with a site that is supported by invasive ads, anyways. it's a shame, but whatever. death to paste magazine!

i've spent the last few days trying to figure out how to react and have come to the following solutions.

1) the bandcamp site is sill there, but you can't read books on bandcamp the same way you can stream music. i wish you could - that would be the best answer. you can't, for now. so, i need to put the files up somewhere else, as well.
http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com

2) i want something more interactive than the google drive share, although i'm going to keep this up for the biggest files. these are just the full blogs for the period i was reconstructing:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1NI_sEi1t9NxTeOB9Es3A2Ge8ji4iTXit?usp=sharing

3) i want a way to buy the whole thing, and don't want the overlap on bandcamp, which will hold strictly to the monthly journal format. that's going to be here, at lulu, where there are no file size restrictions:
https://www.lulu.com/search?contributor=jessica+murray

4) i'm going to use smashwords (which has strict file size and other restrictions) for free hosting of smaller files and make use of the interactive features, but i can't use it as a medium to facilitate donations, at least not until they relax their approach a little. i explain a little about this at the profile page.
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/deathtokoalas

5) the best way to donate me money is to avoid these kinds of sites, anyways. i like bandcamp for what it is and would encourage you to support it so we don't lose it; i don't want a future of spotifies and google plays, that would kill off independent music. a site like bandcamp must continue to exist. but, if you share my aversion to market economics and want to just be a benefactor then the best thing to do is just send a donation to death.to.koalas@gmail.com, either over paypal or (even better) or interac. this is how i *really* want this to work - you send me money as a grant, and i put the thing up for free.

i will need to spend the next day or two updating these sites as replacements for the deleted noise trade site, and replacing noise trade links with lulu or smashwords links, as is appropriate.

i don't know what happened, but fuck them and their ads anyways.

so, then, this is the official launch of my smashwords site.

expect me to work this out over the day.

=========

these files are actually my biography, ongoing....

i'm going to go with this site for small files, and let you build them up. for now.

what i'm doing with this site is using it as a place to host the files for free download. so, everything here is going to have to be available for free, which is something i want and can't really find elsewhere. i'm forced to deal with the reality of market transactions whether i like it or not, but i don't produce commodities, and don't want to be treated as though i do. what i need and want is a series of artists grants; i want benefactors to donate me funds to work in freedom, i don't want sales of commodities on a market that are treated legally and taxed like products. that's vulgar, to me.

so, the journals should be available for free, and this is where to get them.

however, realize that the decision is admittedly being spurred by the fact that i can't fill out the tax forms because i live in canada and don't have a tin number. maybe, one day, i might find one. note, though, that if i do find one then i'll also have to increase the price at this site to offset the fact that they're going to take 30% out for taxes - because they're going to treat the transaction like they're taxing a commodity that's being traded over a market, which is gross. most other sites operate on more of a donation format, or allow me to decide how to treat the taxes, in the end.

if you want to donate funds to me, please either donate over paypal or interac at death.to.koalas@gmail.com or go to one of the other sites (preferably bandcamp) to do so. you don't have to agree with me philosophically to understand that i just can't fill out the tax forms on this site and consequently won't get paid if you try to send me money through it.

please also be aware that the site is performing what appears to be minor formatting edits, and i actually don't like that. you will have to download the file in pdf, but they are forcing me to upload it in word. i have properly formatted pdf files, but i can't upload them. it's really absolutely perfectly ridiculous. so, if you want to download them unedited, please try either

1) the bandcamp site in the link for the small files (where they are organized as monthly journals):
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com

or

2) the following lulu site, for the big files, where they will be organized in phases or otherwise presented in much larger chunks of time.
https://www.lulu.com/search?contributor=jessica+murray.

https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/deathtokoalas

so, i decided this morning (before i fell back asleep....i tend to sleep in 3-4 hour shifts in the summer, and that's fine...) that i'm going to:

(1) see if i can fix the files for the smashwords uploads. if i can't, i'll need to retreat. i don't want broken files available; that's the whole point of what i've been doing for months. but, i think it will be relatively easy, if it just reduces to reformatting the empty white spaces.

(2) remove the pay-what-you-can section from the site, primarily due to the tax issue. due to the various concerns, this does not appear to be a good site to carry out a transaction through. so, the small files will be available at smashwords for free. they were previously available at noise trade for free, so that's not a change.

(3) what is a change is that i'm going to ask you to either go to bandcamp or otherwise just send me money directly through paypal (or over interac) if you want to support me in what i'm doing.

this will allow me to salvage the site.

but, i can't fill out the tax forms, so don't give them money if you want it to actually get to me - it's just going to sit in limbo for who knows how long. go to a site that will actually carry out the transaction. or, just send it right to me.

i've slept on it.

and, i can't salvage the smashwords process, after all.

the idea is that i want an option for you to pay me if you want. you don't have to; it's voluntary. it's more important to me that the files are there than that you pay me for them. but, i want the option to be there....

with this site, there's just too many problems.

even if you were to pay me, i wouldn't get it, because i can't fill out the forms. i've been kind of rationalizing my way through that; i'll figure it out. but, in truth, i probably won't.

then, i've got to boost the price by 30% to offset the taxes that are preventing the funds from flowing in the first place.

then, i've got to deal with the fact that the file are broken, which i might or might not be able to fix, but that i've decided isn't worth trying to resolve.

so, what next? i know i've been over this, but i'm still trying to clarify it in my mind, and the fact that that fucking pig upstairs is smoking isn't helping.

my options are:

1) just leave the small files at the bandcamp music journals, which i've boosted in price mildly to $4/pop. that makes the big files available for free at google drive, and the small files available at bandcamp.
2) also upload the small files to...

no.

i'm going to try to fix it first, dammit. maybe it works. maybe it doesn't.

i'm wishy-washy on this because i really don't like either choice.

let me take a shower and hope the air clears out a little in here when i get back. it's been fucking gross in here all weekend.

no.

the site (smashwords) is breaking the formatting. ugh.

again: why is this so hard? it's daft, truly.

no, get your head around this.

first, it insists that i upload a doc file instead of a pdf file, and then insists on converting it to pdf (you can't download it in word format). then, it breaks the pdf in conversion. but, i converted it to pdf for them.

so, i can upload a working format, which it won't let anybody download. and, i can give them a working conversion of the file format they want to use, which they won't let me upload. instead, they demand i upload a format they won't let anyone download, convert it badly and then only offer the broken conversion.

i don't want to ask people to pay for broken files (especially considering that i have to boost the price to pay the taxes), and if i'm going to put them up for free, you'd might as well just go to a drive share, where they're not broken.

so, is this middle point worthwhile to have available archived?

there's just one thing, and it's a hunch that they may be on to it. the file hasn't been published to my page, yet. are they actually reading through every single file? is that why there's a delay? if they are, they should catch the error.

should i give it a bit, then?

but, this is absurd. why not just let the user upload their own converted pdf file?

yeah, i'm just going to throw it all up to smashwords for free.

fine.

what i'm looking for right this minute is a site that allows pdf previewing. payhip is not that site.

however, it seems to have a 5 gb file maximum, meaning i can upload 4.7 gb isos. 

i have these aleph-discs up that are basically torrents, but i've been forced to try to sell them as physical media due to their size, which i recognize that few people want. i've been waiting for a site that i can essentially upload an iso to. this might be it.

one thing at a time, but let's not forget that.

smashwords wants me to file a tax sheet and take 30% of any "royalties", like i'm some kind of corporation selling a product, rather than a peasant selling art on the digital street. i don't even have tax information to conduct commerce in the united states.

(it's not like i'm going to sell a lot of these things, anyways.)

so, it's looking more and more like it's not worth it.

let me see if i can find a better site, and let me think it through a bit more.

as i don't have a tin number and don't really want to get one, and i'd have to double the price in order to make it worthwhile (in order to pay taxes), i'd might as well just put it up for free, if i do this.

but, i'm leaning more towards just sending you to bandcamp for the monthly entries. the big files are available at the google drive site, so there's no access issues.

that's a shame. this is the kind of thing that shouldn't be taxed. we're talking about $5 transactions at most a few times a year, going to a disabled person.

here's the first link:

https://www.lulu.com/en/ca/shop/jessica-murray/full-first-reconstruction-phase-dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja-blog/ebook/product-qg9g54.html

but, as mentioned, i'm eating first.

ok.

so, when i started publishing chronological versions of these blogs at noise trade, i only had a few files to deal with, and i wasn't sure how this thing would turn out. it seemed like the best option at the time because it allowed for a free download with a suggested price; if the site had ads, i don't remember it...

i don't actually know what paste did to my account, but i kind of don't really care. the site has so many ads on it nowadays that i kind of don't want to direct any traffic there anymore, anyways. i mean, i've gone to such great lengths to keep ads off of my pages; why would i then direct people to a site with ads that somebody else profits from? i don't know if the site will come back or not, but if it does i'll delete it, and they can write that down in their ledger - it simply has too many ads to maintain artistic credibility.

further, i now have a series of large files instead of a couple of small ones, and the initial logic of periodic, sequential release periods has largely collapsed. i almost deleted half of the files the other day, and then decided not to. if i'm redoing this...

so, i'm going to be moving to a combination of lulu & smashwords instead, but i'm also going to be reevaluating how i'm presenting the information.

i initially decided that presenting the downloads in a monthly journal format, a trimesterly format and a series of other compilations would provide for maximum consumer choice. ok, i didn't say it like that, exactly - those are crude words, in truth. but, i made an attempt to present the downloads in as many ways as possible, so that people could decide what they wanted to download.

i'm no longer seeing the value in this. there's too many options, too much overlap, and a lot of it seems pointless, like i'm sticking to a formula for the sake of it.

i have monthly music journals up at bandcamp and have tried to avoid posting compilations there in order to avoid overlap, and also because there isn't a lot of conceptual meaning in posting a yearly or a semesterly music journal if i'm presenting the information by month. rather, it makes more sense to arrange the information by phases, of which there is currently only one, the first reconstruction phase. but, that won't come up to bandcamp until i get it up in the iso, which doesn't even have an aleph-number, and i'm still apprehensive about overlap, in the form of added costs to the full discography download (which nobody has bought yet, but will ultimately be the right way to donate funds to me, once the discography is truly done). so, i don't want to do it like that...

rather, we're going to use lulu for large files, as it seems like the best way to do it. it doesn't allow for previewing, which is a defect, so i've got the files up here, and they will stay there: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1NI_sEi1t9NxTeOB9Es3A2Ge8ji4iTXit

however, i'm going to avoid lulu for small files in order to minimize the clutter and instead use smashwords, but i'm going to be strategic about it when i do by trying to squeeze the files between the 15 mb upload limit and the $0.99 minimum price tag. that functionally means that the files are going to need to be more than 100 pages and probably less than 500 pages, although that will depend on the nature of the data in the file. so, instead of having strict monthly journals at smashwords, it's going to be a mix of monthly (music, politics) and semesterly (deathtokoalas), and for the travel blog will only have one entry in the end - for now. these files will also be fluid, rather than static, changing based on what actually makes sense.

if you want the monthly journal, go to bandcamp; if you want the full phase document, go to lulu. if for some reason you want something in between, go to smashwords.

and, after thinking that through and working that out all morning, its what i expect to do for the afternoon - as soon as i get something to eat, first.

this is going to probably take all day to switch over, as i'm going to need to update all of the links across four blogs and two facebook pages. but, i'm done with noise trade. so long.

i'm looking into different e-book hosting sites and everybody wants to convert the file.

i spent a lot of time formatting this. i don't want you to convert it, and i don't want to follow your rules - i just want you to host the file. i'm the creator, not you - i want to be in control. i don't want your convenience. i don't want your advice. i don't want your convention. i just want a server to upload the data to, and a transaction wall attached to it.

also, i want to avoid amazon, which looks like it's going to be hard. i don't see any use in smashing it up, but it would be nice if they could be prevented from buying anything else out. i don't want a baby-amazon, i want an independent service, like bandcamp.

strangely, these services seem to promote putting your book up on amazon as a benefit. what? no...i'd rather not have anything to do with the major labels...

i'm taking a closer look at paste magazine, and the site is clearly supported by intrusive ads. it wasn't like that when i signed up for noise trade, or at least it didn't seem like it was. i don't know what they've done, but i think i'd really rather find somewhere else. it's caught up to me by stealth, but it's actually the kind of site that i usually try to strenuously avoid.

what else is there?

i could upload directly to amazon, but i don't want to.

smashwords has a size limit, amongst other things. i don't mind uploading in doc format, but my files are too big for them, apparently - and they're only going to get bigger. they insist on converting to pdf themselves, and it's doing weird things to the formatting that i don't like. further, they're going to distribute it to the major sites, too. if i could find something that's very much like this, but more hands-off....

kobo wants to convert to epub explicitly, and while i don't mind if you try to convert to these weird formats for your own use (at your own risk), i don't use them myself and don't officially support them. i support .doc and .pdf. it's just going to create a broken output file...

scribd charges a monthly fee, which is a nonstarter.

lulu is...

maybe what i want.

hrmmn.