so, here's my notes...

- i got lost trying to fix specific items in the diet matrix and have completely lost my train of thought, but i know i wanted to start with a line-by-line and recheck everything, anyways. the fruit bowl was essentially finished, while the afternoon meal was missing key nutrients. starting next week or soon after, i'm going to want to post a new update every day that includes complete run downs of each of the items in the matrix, starting with vitamin a1, which was retinol. the ambiguities i was dealing with will come out in the wash.

---

so, yeah - i'm in a recursion with this.

i was updating the data for valine when i realized fluoride data was wrong, which sent me back to the start, and i went off on a tangent....

right now, the first task in the recursion is to build the dtk & travels blogs up over 2020, until i get back to september, when i'm going to pick up on a number of parallel builds.

- teeth got put aside. there's one pocket that's full of decayed filler and probably needs to be cleared to reattach. i had decided to let the hydroxyapatite and the antibiotics work a little before i started considering the potential ramifications of a deep cleaning (which will damage the teeth in order to save them). but, i didn't initially realize that the brown spots were previous filler, and i wanted to wait until i got the iron issue dealt with before i looked at the antibiotics. the next appointment is at the end of september, and i'd have to argue that the situation has stabilized but not gotten much better. the cleaning routine i've brought in  (dish soap, daily fluoride baths) has kept my teeth very, very clean, but the crowding is getting worst, and i suspect that's the ultimate cause of the gum recession. i am at least convinced i don't have any cavities and i don't have gum disease, but i don't know what the best approach to trying to rebuild the gumline is. i think it's best that i wait to talk at the end of september, and try to figure out what i can do about these teeth coming in behind my gumline, that seem to be pushing the aligned ones out. enough of the previous filler may have also ground down to allow for a second application, without needing to drill. again - they could get the brown out, but only by drilling into healthy teeth and covering over it, and the last dentist i saw (the one that actually realized what was happening) agreed with me that that would be daft. but, i mean, i want to fix the brown eventually, too...

i have mostly kept up with the c, and my c levels were saturated. my b9 levels were off the chart, and should have come down with the removal of beets, but i haven't tested since.

- right now, the court stuff is mostly on hold, but let me look at that when i get back from the surgery. for right now, i should wait until the mediation with the karen completes before escalating further.

- first diet document dated to jan 30th

- was rebuilding blogs with the diet document, start again in 2013. need to properly file computer for this purpose - yes, that's...ok. this is why i'm doing this. so, the filing is the fundamental task for both weekend and weekday activities.

- switch to generic estrogen at end of january

- first pandemic document dated to feb 8th

- kept pushing further and further back until i went to the start. will rebuild documents as i move forwards.

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...

- iron issues start mar 9th

- mar 15th;

these are the following draft posts that will be finished simultaneously:

- a clean-up post for the fluoride, because i caught some arithmetic errors.

- a total amino acid post where i combine all of the existing amino acid posts and the still to be written ones into a major update in the chart, which more or less takes me to the end of this

- a complete fruit bowl post where i post everything

- the document at google drive, which is being compiled at the one drive site

there are four further unpublished posts that have to do with the 2013 rebuild.

- was also working on the payhip uploads, had to stop at the aleph-disc. need liner notes, first. so, need blog completion phase, first - including alter-reality.

- blog items list:

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/03/this-is-draft-item-dated-to-august-31.html

- started on karen document may 15th

- mar 17th

so, those unexpected reboots. i don't know what the idiots are trying to do, but it's often frustrating in terms of losing trains of thought. and, i'm going to construct that, now.

- i was going through from sept 24th, 2018 ----> now and rebuilding the four blogs, along with several side documents at one drive.

- but, i wanted to go through and understand what files may have been removed, if any. so, i rewound back to early 2018 and was reading through them, forwards.

- i decided i can probably build the dtk blog up as i do that. at least.

- but i needed to go back and reread the components i added to each of the vlogs to understand what should and shouldn't be added.

i was going through the travel blog when the machine rebooted. and, this is why i'm not using my normal pcs to connect to the internet.

- mar 26th previous attempt at this:

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/03/alter-reality-posts-feb-18th-2019-so.html

- mar 29th previous:

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/03/so-this-is-almost-same-as-previous-post.html

- mar 30th was aleph-0. wanted to build html front-end, but wanted to update existing liner notes.  went back to update to double check, got lost. some concept of aleph-0 should update as i get through quintuple check on first reconstruction phase (but then it's done). need to test html frontend with updates (typo fixes) as well. can compare. time to winlite windows 7 for laptop? virtual machine?

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/03/i-still-have-html-files-for-first.html

- mar 30th:

tiktok site?

- april 3rd:

there's apparently all kinds of files missing on my backup drive...

ugh.

i thought i left it in good order; it's in total disarray.

i know i had deleted some files i wanted to replace, but i've lost my train of thought around it.

i really do have to start from scratch, now.

what that means is that i don't see the point in doing these aleph discs yet - i'm just going to have to redo it all because some of the liner notes need to be rewritten.

so, i'm going to have to take a step back, and i'm skipping everything else and going right back to 2013/2014 first. once i get those items fixed, i can finish the frontends properly and go from there. they should hopefully be minor changes.

and, i have to do this first - i've put it off for far too long.

that means everything is on hold until i finish this, but it should hopefully not be too long.

...everything except the alter-reality. i need to start that next friday.

- april 3rd: 

so, going back to the july music journal.....

- the master document, which includes all files related to the journal, is dated to mar 31, 2019

- the bandcamp archive is dated to april 14, 2019

- the deathtokoalas file is dated to april 14, 2019 - and has apparently not been touched at all since

- there is a pdf for the politics blog dated to april 27, 2019 but the word document is dated to aug 14, 2020

- the blogs.7z file, which includes the blogs saved to html format, is dated to aug 22, 2019 - which is wrong. i never updated it. i can be sure of that. i need to do that.

- the smashwords upload of the music and politics journals are dated to june 6 & 7, 2020, which is right after the noise trade site shut down.

- my most recent download of the bandcamp archive is dated to july 27, 2020 but probably includes updates from the other blogs (travel blog, etc)

- the music journal document, travel blog document and politics document are all dated august 14, 2020, but there is no pdf for the music journal or the travel blog

so, if i were to take that at face value, it would suggest that i left three of the four blogs in an unfinished state, possibly because i updated them, but didn't move those updates into the other files.

the first thing i need to do is make sure that the complete archive is the same as the master document and i can do that fairly quickly in notepad++.

...so quickly that i'm already done. good. so, that means i haven't added anything to or deleted anything from that section of the master document since mar, 2019.

now, i need to rewind all four of the blogs that are online to the start of each of them in july, 2013 and make sure each is complete relative to what i want them to be, while cross-referencing the master document on the other machine. when that is done, i'll be able to close the july portion of the blog and move to august.

- was trying to update the liner notes to add to the aleph, but had to file computer, first

- reposted july docs on april 6th. went to file correctly, filed whole computer instead. 

- never got to august, which needs to be where i started with the weekly

- apr 18th:

yeah, so that's what i'm doing this morning, if i can stay awake - i need to get back to organizing the pc, and then to finalizing the journal for august, 2013.

- i need to organize the pc before i can get to working on period 3 over the weekend, and that's very soon. next week, potentially.

- i need to organize the pc and get the master document up before i can focus on the blogging section, which is the weekly task

- and, i wanted to scour documents before i got back to the alter-reality

the landlord and i decided that if we're going to defrost the fridge then we should do it at the end of the month. so, i'm going to put cleaning on that side on hold until then.

let's hope i can get something done this morning.

- spent some time copying data to pc, organizing it

- pc has odd issue causing reboots, gave up on perfecting it, decided to be pragmatic

- only installing programs required for recording, one at a time

- april 28th:

i'm less sleepy tonight, and making progress on the filing.

let's remember why i'm doing this.

so, i finished the july, 2013 archive and went to file it, but realized i couldn't do it because my filing apparatus was all in disorder. i then realized that in order to get the filing apparatus back in order, i'd have to get the laptop back up, but i can't do that until i get the filing apparatus back in order. ack.

so, i went through all of the loose media i have, copied it all over to the music pc and now need to put it all where i needs to be. then, i can build a copy of the laptop's backup drive, and then i can file the july archive and move on to the august one.

in the process, i should be able to build the alter-reality as well as get the machine in order for inri075.

...which means a reinstalll of the disc is imminent.

if i can sort through and finalize the material from mid 2003 to mid 2006 before i face another disruption, that's serious progress.

- 

i guess my system started collapsing in mid 2015, and i've long concluded that i only have marginal control over it - that somebody basically doesn't want me on the internet, and doesn't care if they have to ruin my tools in order to do it. i mean, i'd guess i'm dealing with the kind of people that reject the concept of art as vocation. the idea that i'm just an artist seems incomprehensible to them - i must be working for somebody. so, they just want me offline, and all they interpret this gear as is as a means to corrupt the youth. and, they just want to listen in, and they don't care how badly they have to screw all the signals up in order to do it.

have i shaken them yet? i might never....

but, it means i have this giant pile of electronics that the cia has rendered inoperable in a flatly stupid attempt to shut me down and that i'm going to have to slowly try to salvage.

one thing at a time. i can connect to the internet using the chromebook, and i need to get the recording pc up. i'm minus a stick of ram and will want to replace it soonish; it looks like concerts are probably cancelled for the year, so the next thing to spend money on is replacement parts for all the gear that was broken. the windows 98 pc is working, as well. and, finally building the 64-bit pc is no longer a distant task, but coming up when i work on the matlab project.

i'm not going to replace the backlight on the laptop as it's too risky, but i'll need to reimage the laptop with a customized windows 7 to rip out all of the networking apps, so they can't slave the machine.

slowly. slowly....

==

- last diet updates:

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/05/so-heres-new-matrix-to-be-filled-in.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/05/so-here-is-my-new-crazy-set-of-charts.html

- was working on dirty diet run through over mid may before rewinding to 2013

diet update post:

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/05/that-was-absurdly-time-consuming-but-i.html

- may 19th:

i mean, i initially couldn't do the time division thing because i had to file the computer, first. it was a huge bottleneck..

but, if i'm doing the diet before i rewind back to 2013, i can click into the schedule, immediately. 

and, i'm going to have to start here and reread forwards, for friday:

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/02/ok_38.html

Sunday, May 23, 2021

so, i spent the morning filing and tried to stop to nap before i ate, and then eat before i napped, and it ended up a confusing mess, but i think i got enough sleep to carry forward for the night, so long as the air quality in here doesn't degrade too badly.

the guy is supposed to be gone, but his replacement cop and/or daughter and/or mother seems to be up there instead, and she's the actual source of both the smoke and the other smells and the vicious a/c. i actually asked him to turn the a/c off before he left; so much for that, huh? it's freezing in here :(.

the guy i interface with is broadly reasonable, but this woman that fills in for him is a horrible, self-centered piece of shit that should be dragged through the streets attached to the back of a car.

i know this person is female because i can hear them and because i can smell them - they smell like a female, and not in a good way. but, they smoke, so they have no idea. again - it's the worst undercover cop in the history of the world, which i suppose is why she does these substitute roles.

i mean, we all remember how bad the substitute teachers were. imagine substitute stakeout cops. 

"officer malone is gone, parrrrtaaaayyyy!"

and, i'm only slightly exaggerating. she seems to be entirely retarded, and that seems to be roughly her level of operation.

so, because she cranked the air up as soon as he left (despite repeated requests to not do that and...why would somebody pay to run an a/c in an empty room? that alone makes it obvious somebody is up there.), i had to start filling in the baseboard cracks with sealer to stop the place from condensing up. i'm also going to go in the next few days and get some vinyl mats for that corner. and, we'll take it from there for the next round.

if i can potentially get through this stack of cds by the end of the night, i'd consider that massive progress.

may 24th:

alright, so i got through one stack of cds and all of the cassettes, save one, and i'm deciding to go ahead and reinstall rather than continue filing because i have to to archive the cassette. there have been some minor hardware changes that will require updating the script, but i guess i'll have to just deal with it.

this machine has been in a broken state for years, as i spent a very long time troubleshooting what i decided in the end was an environmental signals problem. so, i ripped everything to do with the windows xp subsystem out and just finished the last mixes i was dealing with over asio drivers. and want to put it back, now.

i simply don't know what the signals are like down here, and am long overdue to find out.

the install is automated but it's lengthy so that's likely the morning.

- then focused on cleaning and installing the tarps

- finished downloading emulators for old hardware for 16-bit machine:

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/05/i-think-well-be-installing-this-as-well.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/05/lets-go-way-back.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/05/open-concept-basement-bedroom-1997-1999_27.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/06/this-post-was-started-on-evening-of-may_8.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/06/soiled-rug-on-concrete-floor-basement_8.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/06/spacious-concrete-jail-basement-2001.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/06/downstairs-studio-in-split-level.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/06/return-to-three-room-basement-suite.html

june 4th:

ok, so i've got the machine installed, finally. i still have some filing to do, though.

i need a nap...

june 8th:

alright. so, i don't really want to troubleshoot this machine, but i unfortunately have to as it keeps freezing, and i'm not convinced it's hardware. i simply don't know what the problem is.

there were some periodic freezing issues back in 2015 that i thought was ram, but i'm no longer convinced is. there were also base issues with chipset drivers when i first bought the machine, years ago.

what i'm going to do is reinstall the machine in the most minimal way possible - just the programs integrated on the disc + the drivers for the most minimal hardware configuration possible. and, then i'll bring things in further as i need them, rather than all at once and carefully observe what happens.

i suspect i may need to reprogram the board again like i did in 2014. why do i have to keep reprogramming the board, pigs?

the reality is that there's a lot of software on here that i barely use and that the next phase is not going to be heavy on things like vst synths so much as it's going to be about guitars, actual hardware (like drum heads) and abstract sound design. so, i shouldn't get caught up in getting all of these virtual vstis to work, because i'm probably not going to use them much anyways.

and, once i'm convinced that i've found the problem, i can rerun the script again.

and, before i do that, even, i should run chkdsks on all four drives in the machine.

it might be bad sata cable or something stupid like that, but i have to strip it right down  to figure it out.

---

ok.

so, what i wanted to do was organize everything perfectly and completely (i've never been diagnosed with ocd, really) before i got back to recording, so everything was perfectly functioning and i could just quickly get through everything. yes, it would require some time invested upfront, but it would be with the payoff of efficiency as i went.

as the machine has some kind of unknown problem, that's not actually feasible. instead, i should do a quick and rough organization upfront and file things as i go - which means i can be back to work within a day or two, but will need to stop frequently to reorganize, until i'm done.

i have to adjust. so be it.

so, i'm going to take the audigy back out (soundblaster installs are just loaded with bloated  drivers, and it's a perfectly plausible cause), disconnect the front panel (i'm not using it) and even unplug the blu-ray burner (which was added years after i constructed it) to start.

i'm also going to hold up on the deletion script, for the reason that the machine is no longer on the internet so i don't have to worry about locking it down as hard as i did. the machine will still run faster with as much of windows taken out as is possible, but i'm going to slow down and take things out one piece at a time.

and, i'm just going to get right to it, so i'm back in order for the weekend, which is the schedule i want to click in to.

i have every reason to think i'll be able to get back to normal rebuilding on monday, and to the alter-reality not this friday but next friday. and, if i'm productive, i can hopefully get tons of stuff done by labour day.

posts about new (old) releases:

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/06/so-how-am-i-going-to-do-this-ive-done.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/06/so-this-is-how-im-doing-this.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/06/tentative-track-list-me-myself.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/06/ok_9.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/06/what-i-want-is-everything-from-mid-2003.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/06/the-next-chunk-of-material-to-come-up.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/06/so-what-i-want-to-do-with-this-tonight.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/06/so-its-uploaded-now-and-its-staying.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/06/and-todays-period-3.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/06/todays-period-3.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/06/what-actually-happened-was-that-i.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/06/so-period-3.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/06/a-few-loose-ends-so-theyre-written-down.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/06/i-got-my-fit-test-dropped-off-tonight.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/06/so-i-cant-create-comparable.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/06/so-that-means-inri079-is-now-properly.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/06/so-inri080-is-done-up-to-finalizing.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/06/a-part-of-me-is-resisting-idea-of.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/06/broadly-speaking-ive-removed-vocals.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/06/so-if-you-want-instrumental-version-of.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/06/so-recording-machine-has-been-bit-more.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/06/i-had-to-take-nap.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/06/yeah-that-creative-software-acts-like.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/06/this-is-big-deal-7th-record-is-now.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/06/to-recall.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/06/so-heres-my-shortlist-on-period-3.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/06/so-im-finally-lining-up-core-part-of.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/06/so-what-having-rebuilt-version-of.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/06/so-ive-got-two-fixed-mixes-from-art.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/so-first-of-all-ive-got-very-temporary.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/ive-uploaded-series-of-snapshots-of.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/i-couldnt-sleep-this-morning-because-it.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/this-was-taken-in-lower-mainland-of-bc.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/this-is-landscape-shot-of-ottawa-river.html

- need to sync & file hard drive with external drives

- june 15th:

so, i'm going to create a separate blog just as a timeline for release dates.

this will replace the facebook page, which will be shut down relatively soon.

i'm a good chunk of the ways done what i was doing.

there's a lot of data....

https://jessicamurrayreleasestimeline.blogspot.com/

june 25th:

- updated timeline release  [had spent week working on period 3.1]

- cleaning took a lot of time this summer....

release timeline: 

- had worked backwards to the end of 2018  (the 12/2013 journal), started adding special categories - houses, gear. started buying gear. left off there. did i get all the gear in?

- check all files on hard drive, search by date

july 1st

so, the next thing is getting back to filing my drive. i think. let me double check that. i think i put it aside about a week ago to do the sealing.

see, i wanted to finish filing first and then do the sealing after, but i was running out of time to do it, so i had to do the sealing first, and now it's taken about a week to finish cleaning. the last music post was june 23rd.

so, yeah, that's right - now i need to get back to filing. but, i actually want to take a good run through the facebook page first and see if i can build the alternate releases blog up. so, i'm going to fast forward the alter-reality to today and then we'll do the running around on friday and saturday.

- last blood test update:

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/so-i-was-able-to-get-following-done-at.html

july 10th:

so, i've been rebuilding that releases archive again all night and listening to a few things. i've got pictures of all the places i lived at up (i think this is relevant.) and the places i went to school at (i'm going to have some essays posted there, too), as well as most of the original release cycle back to 1996. i want to get that done before i stop.

july 11th:

so, i'm up to 777 posts and still have hundreds (thousands.) left to go, bhut i got the heavy lifting done for the part of the discography which was redone the most number of times, which is the part from 1996 to early 1999 (the first two demos and subsequent first two lps).

https://jessicamurrayreleasestimeline.blogspot.com/

- started updating gear about july 10th, was focus for next month

- gear posts:

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/so-as-im-about-to-get-back-to-period-3.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/regarding-mini-fenders.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/i-had-to-run-out-to-get-mini-orange.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/im-not-going-to-bite-on-this-myself-but.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/so-i-do-wish-i-could-get-little-mini.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/actually-let-me-think-this-through-more.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/the-amplug-2-ac30-amp-features-100.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/i-keep-talking-about-pod.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/one-way-to-guess-if-were-dealing-with.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/well.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/sorry-i-forgot-link.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/yeah-its-just-smidgeon-too-much-for-me.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/ok.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/when-i-was-in-yesterday-long-mcquade.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/so-i-unexpectedly-got-ac30-plug-in-mail.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/so-i-went-to-determine-if-i-missed-any.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/i-also-spent-some-time-tonight-trying.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/so-camera-i-used-to-record-it-with-is.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/so-i-stopped-to-do-this-last-night-and.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/so-if-i-wanted-to-get-21-fret-classical.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/blog-post_17.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/im-still-down-here-ive-just-been.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/im-looking-at-shure-sm57-for-recording.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/as-im-going-to-usually-recording.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/this-is-frequency-response-for-marantz.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/the-other-thing-i-have-to-point-out-is.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/so-i-spent-day-running-around.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/i-used-to-have-very-very-cheap-tele.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/i-suppose-i-could-another-cheap-strat.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/wait_19.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/so-whats-update-for-today-i-was-up.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/the-marantz-came-in-quick.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/so-i-guess-epiphone-is-really-prs-style.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/i-cant-find-exact-model-of-ibanez-which.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/the-p90s-themselves-seem-relatively.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/so-i-spent-yesterday-sorting-through.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/this-would-be-nice-idea-as-base-for.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/so-i-just-bought-one-of-these.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/im-going-to-go-looking-through-local.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/so-i-think-im-little-out-of-date.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/see-heres-where-we-are-with-this-now.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/so-ive-sorted-through-ebay-listings-as.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/i-should-also-point-out-that-i-spent.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/post-started-on-july-17-2021-so-what-am.html

takeharu:

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/so-i-got-bottom-of-my-vox-this-morning.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/i-love-finding-weird-guitars-and-making.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/i-was-honestly-planning-on-putting.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/this-is-model-i-had.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/so-air-reed-organ-is-physically.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/im-going-to-have-to-blow-very-very-hard.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/so-i-spent-night-trying-to-sort-through.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/the-laptop-seems-to-be-ok-after-all.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/ok-this-is-1976-model-with-same-screws.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/this-is-74-model-where-they-seem-to.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/most-of-pictures-dont-have-screws.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/this-guys-takeharu-has-adjustments-too.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/the-serial-number-on-this-guitar-is.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/the-takeharu-guitars-also-appear-to.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/so-yeah.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/no_26.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/listen-im-learning-about-this.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/so-i-got-mic-stand-for-15-today-which.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/now-as-for-this-takeharu.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/so-i-eyed-neck-on-it-and-it-really.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/so-this-old-thing-was-so-detuned.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/so-i-was-going-to-do-some-things-today.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/so-i-didnt-want-to-buy-some-clamps.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/yeah-so-bridge-was-initially-lifting.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/what-are-one-of-these-guitars-worth-we.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/hey.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/so-i-opened-up-about-18th-inch-at-top.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/so-guitar-is-actually-probably.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/those-are-best-guitars-worthless-ones.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/lets-do-total-update-first-before-i-buy.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/ok-so-i-wanted-to-make-sure-i-could-get.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/i-should-also-make-sure-neck-is.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/so-im-looking-at-part-of-guitar-i.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/ok-so-i-posted-pictures-in-few-places.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/there-would-appear-to-be-two-pieces.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/ok-so-ive-decided-neck-on-this-guitar.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/blog-post_29.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/so-i-also-picked-up-some-c-clamps-and.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/ok-where-was-i-its-saturday-night-31st.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/08/so-im-looking-at-some-old-pictures.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/08/i-need-to-keep-going-with-gear.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/08/so-i-got-my-mini-tele-in-today-and-it.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/08/moving-to-next-basement.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/08/and-still-going.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/08/just-few-more.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/08/so-this-is-what-im-looking-at-in-total.html

july 15th:

so, i was offline all day today and i got a very large amount of filing done in the process, which was a bit out of order but a productive act, nonetheless.

so, i'm going to try to upload some temp mixes of the interplanetary isomorphism, as well as some temp mixes of xenophanes tonight.

july 30th:

so, i also picked up some c-clamps and a sanding block at home depot yesterday, and have some glue coming in the mail.

i grabbed a few more books as well, including some bradbury, which is relevant for the alter-reality.

is this going to work? i think it should.

i want to actually start writing this weekend. and, how am i going to do this? i wanted to started in 2019 and do it in real-time...

the real-time portion of the blog doesn't really get interesting until about 1993 or 1994, but i still wanted to be clicked into it by now.

if i do monthly entries every week, i can catch up by early 2022. i guess i got my first electric guitar around early 1992, so that's a reasonable catch up point.

and, these little asimov and bradbury tests can be read by an adult in an afternoon.

i needed to do the filing on the main computer before i got back to recording, and i'm actually pretty close.

and, if i can get back to the blogging process on monday, i guess i'm getting back to the diet, first.

i need to look over the last few weeks and refocus, but i think i stopped in mid-june.

july 31st:

ok, where was i?

it's saturday night (31st).

- i slept in until the afternoon today and haven't done anything

- yesterday was a short day that never got started. the one thing i did do was clean the fridge, a little more. or, try to, anyways.

- thursday, i got out to get some bloodwork, bought some books, got some clamps

- tuesday & wednesday were spent looking at the takeharu guitar

- monday, i went to get the mic stand, and got some books

- sunday was a kind of a down day

- saturday (24th) was a running around day, and i got the takeharu, the bottom of the vox (video coming...) and the mini xylophone

- most of last week (18th-23rd)) was spent sorting through kijiji, etc ads and also in researching gear

- 17th, these were uploaded, and i started working on a big post about the old gear i had and how to replace it.

- on the 16th, i uploaded a rough mix of the lost symphony to the trivial group lp as a placeholder, uploaded some rough xenophanes mixes, bought a microcasette, did some orange testing...

- on the 15th, i was looking at dna sequencing and spent a lot of time filing the recording machine

- on the 14th, i decided to get a pignose when i went in to get the mini vox (and didn't, yet)

- i got a mini vox and a mini orange to go with the mini ms-2

- on sunday morning / monday night (11/12th), i started adding gear to the alter-reality page, which included a ms-2 mini marshall amp and i started researching mini-amps for period 3 recording...

- friday the 9th was back to alter-reality, 

- the rest of the week was spent looking at blood tests, genetics, shopping online & cleaning./

- i got some more bloodwork on the 5th

- i stopped filling in the blog on monday morning (the 4th)

- the bookcase (required to access cds for reviews) came in on the 2nd

- on the 1st, i decided july would be extremely productive and continued transferring the facebook page to the new blog, which was my friday project

...

i don't want to buy anything else until i can get some tickets to toronto for the orchiectomy.

and, because i think we're going back into lockdown, i need to take advantage of this time window as best i can. so, i need to call on tuesday and get this booked.

right this minute, i need to start my first post in the alter-reality and take it from there. then, i'm going to want to finish that gear replacement post. it's the end of the month, so i need to clean - although this is being bottlenecked by the fridge. and, i can get back to the blog clean-up, maybe, early in the week.

again, this is the intent:

- friday: alter-reality

- sat--->mon: period 3 recording

- tues--->thurs: liner note rebuild (and general writing workthrough)

the last diet update was on may 19th.

is this too much work?

i think so, yes.

but, i'm stuck...i have to just hit it head on and see what happens.

so, i was hoping to approach the alter-reality in a more ordered manner, but it's not going to be possible due to the disgusting fridge, that i may have to take him to court over. and, i'm apparently stuck inside until next spring, at the earliest. so, let's just try to catch up...

july kind of sucked in terms of productivity, although i got a lot of gear that i'll make good use of. let's make august the most productive month ever, instead.

old music list:

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/so-i-found-this-from-1999-at-tripod.html

i'm starting in 1989, though.

what of that was relevant to me?

not much. some rem. some u2. that gowan record. tears for fears. actually, i loved that klf record...

beatles, yes; genesis, floyd, crimson...not yet.

that also seems to be a somewhat sanitized version of the list. the next oldest version i have is from 2001, and it has a lot more stuff that i didn't include....things like bryan adams cassettes.

we'll do this next week.

this week is just going to be an introduction.

aug 1

ok, so that took far longer than intended, but i've got my template down:

https://thejournalofj.blogspot.com/

the mechanism is that i'm writing in a little book, and i find it somewhere and scan it. hence, the lines - and the trouble i'm taking to line the writing up.

here's the trick - i used a 12 line image because that's when it starts to overlap, but even that will only take me so far before i need to reset. it's like a calendar - you need a leap year every four years to make up for the measurement error. but, i posted many test posts to make sure that the cycle resets on a new post, so long as i post it with a title.

i'll have to keep an eye on it and make adjustment if necessary but i think this is sufficient.

i just want to finish the template, and then i'll upload it for anybody, as i think this is useful and am happy to share it.

this will run from 1989-1996, and is intended as a preface - these are childhood year notes, from before i did any recording. the alter-reality will run from 1996-2013 and occupies the actual writing phase. and, current reality runs from 2013-death and is the cleanup and finish phase.

this is the best document for me to use to try to triangulate the things i was influenced by at that age, as the radio & television set were by far the biggest influences on me:

http://hitsofalldecades.com/chart_hits/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=2498

aug 5

i spent the last few days building the gear part of the releases blog for the basement on hilliard, and will have a "replacement" post coming soon.

- most of august was spent dealing with pre and post surgery issues

aug 9:

asimov list:

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/08/just-note-on-asimov-reviews-before-i.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/08/actually-and-i-had-decided-this-once.html

aug 10

so, i was working on that replacement process so long that i forgot what i was doing before.

i've spent most of what i won. so, i need to make sure i get the operation done first 0 that was the point, after all.

i need to finalize the plan with the shuttle service, first.

aug 12:

i stopped some time in early july and started focusing on finding cheap gear for the period 3 rebuild. i do remember clearly that i was doing an alter-reality rebuild on the blogger timeline and entered the ms-2 as an entry. that got me wondering about other miniamps, and it went off from there.

and, i think the thing i was doing was filing the pc, and i even think i was almost done.

but, i'm going to do a quick throwback to earlier in the year and just read through the blog and go from there. i'll take notes. and, i should be back into the schedule i devised very soon.

- write travel updates from june 15th on based on vlogs

- do reviews of new gear,. based on last gear update post:

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/lets-do-total-update-first-before-i-buy.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/07/ok-where-was-i-its-saturday-night-31st.html

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2021/08/so-this-is-what-im-looking-at-in-total.html

so, i'm done the update post up until i started the update post, which was right before i left. in fact, i'm done up to where i left...

i'll need to finish that tonight, after i eat.

so, i took a shower, took a nap and woke up feeling a little better than the last few days.

let's hope things are started to stabilizing into a new normal and my adrenaline glands are done spazzing out, now.

i'll do the ram thing later - right now i should be focusing on finishing the update post.

stick two in slot one crashed.

it's 15 year old ram, and i've used it quite heavily. it's possible that two sticks are bad.

let's try slot two.

stick one in slots three and four also crashed.

bad stick of ram, right?

well, let's see if i can find a stick that doesn't crash before i come to that conclusion.

stick one in slot two crashed.

see, i'm convinced it's not the ram, so if i go through all of this and it crashes every single time, i'll have to conclude it's something else. i guess there could be a nasty short in the board. but, i'm going to have to operate on some other cause.

and, if i can find a stable configuration then i've fixed the problem.

stick one in slot one did in fact crash.

ok.

let's try slot 2...

ok, so i'm going to do a rigorous ram testing here, on second thought. i have a simple test i can do to see if it's the problem or not.

there's one stick in the first slot.

let me open cubase, with the m-audio drivers, and see if it crashes after an hour or so.

i've done this before and mostly reduced the issue to seating. it was running quite smoothly...

but, if i'm right that they messed with the bios then they probably shorted the ram again. it's a little finnicky.

so, i'll do a little cleaning while i wait for the board to cool down and then start again with one as i finish that update post, again. see, i need a word document open on the recording pc as i'm doing it....

ok.

i have extra ram.

let me strip back down to one stick and go from there.

so, yeah - it just crashed in the m-audio driver, so that was just a fluke.

i don't want to use wdm because i learned a while back that windows automatically resamples streaming audio for you - and you have no control over it. i figured that out because i could hear it.

it was designed for consumer audio, of course. they fixed this in later versions of windows, but it's a quirk of xp. so, you want to use asio if you're recording with xp in 2021.

but, i mean...

i can just avoid the default asio driver then, right? i have no real actual use for it.

ok, so it just froze with the mixer off and the default asio driver loaded.

the only actual asio device in the machine and turned on right now is the m-audio delta 1010 card. so, let  me try it again with a direct connection to the m-audio card.

i guess that if i can repeatedly avoid crashing with a direct connection and crash with a layered connection then it's something in the asio framework.

you have to understand that a very large percentage of the best electronic music ever created was recorded on an 8-bit atari.

this 32-bit dual core windows xp machine is pretty high tech, in comparison.

i'm not actually old enough to have ever recorded anything on an atari.

i had a friend with a commodore 64, but the first computer i actually used for recording was an entry level pentium. which is pretty old, nowadays, but not atari old.

fuck, i could be using an atari.

actually, if you have one...

ok, so it doesn't want to crash with the m-audio card.

the m-audio was purchased for playback, not for recording. like, it was meant to be a part of a stereo system, but it didn't end up used that way. it has rca outs and ultimately connects to a stereo receiver on the desk...it's a backup...i can't multitrack into it or even record a guitar through it...that's why i have a mixer...

the soundblaster interface can take a single line in, but it's in the 16-bit pc and i want to keep it there for now. so, i need the alesis to work...and, i mean, it's what this is built around...

let me see what happens when i load it with the generic asio drivers.

i should point out that, because i'm using xp, the operating system uses wdm as it's sound engine. this is archaic, even by windows standards. but, i've got it turned off in the driver framework.

if it's stable with the other devices now (it wasn't previously) then i guess i can try to update the firmware or play with some driver settings...

i know i'm dancing around something deeper, but i ultimately want the device to work, first and foremost. i keep pointing out that i don't actually even care if i'm being spied on, i just don't have a fast enough computer to be spied on and record on at the same time. 

yeah, the build date is different now - it's oct 13, 2005.

i will update my daw when i move to the 64 bit os, but this is the best 32 bit daw there is, and i've messed around quite a bit.

i also need this to be halfways usable because i've got so many projects done up in it.

if it's hardware, i can replace it, but i don't think it is....

so, the machine froze on launching cubase, again. dammit...

i had the mixer on.

let's try with the mixer off.

i should note that my dns client service has reinstalled randomly a few times, which makes no sense.

i can see these little glimpses, but i need to be clear - i don't have a network card installed in the machine. 

i noticed a few months (years?) ago that my laptop was connecting to the microsoft servers....without a network card installed.

so, i mean - i disabled the integrated wired nics in the bios. the spec for the board says it doesn't have an integrated wireless (although i suspect it does and it was just shorted out on this model). i've turned off everything i can get to in the bios, and windows says there's nothing there. so, whatever it's accessing is inaccessible to me, and that's all there is to it.

but, there's something going on...

see, this was completely stable, and i really didn't change anything, so i don't know...

ok, so this is better, now, but i won't know how stable it is for a while.

this is what i did after the script was finished:

- increased pagefile size

- set number of processors to 2

- uninstalled and reinstalled alesis drivers and maudio drivers

- uninstalled three step cubase install and reinstalled with 2 step (just the copy protection device and the update file, not the base sx 3)

- took everything out of the vst plugin folder

- reinstalled the update on top of itself a second time

it's launching without instantly crashing, and that's good enough for now.

so, back to the update post, then.

well, i gotta finish cleaning, first. then the update post....after i sleep, probably. i didn't think this would take all night...

ok, so now cubase is crashing instead of the pc.

that's major progress, actually - and demonstrates the point, a little.

that was enough to get me through the script, anyways.

i may have to revisit this afterwards, but let's just finish the update post, first.

so, let me take note of this - i want to revisit the deletion part of the script. while i seem to be stuck with some kind of process running in the background that i can't turn off (something i've noticed on my other machines, as well), i am not technically connected to the internet with this machine anymore (the nic is disabled in the bios) and don't need the kind of scripting i was running previously to avoid spyware intrusions. so, i can turn off most of the script as a troubleshooting step and turn it back on, incrementally, as i stabilize the system.

ok, no, it just did the same thing it was doing. ugh.

let me try it with the mixer running and see if it helps.

(these notes will be useful to me in the future)

ok, so i was able to get the program to launch.

i was installing the copy protection software, then cubase sx 3 and then an update to it. this time, i skipped the cubase sx 3 install and just installed the update. it seems to have produced a stable install, but the asio driver won't load.

so, i'm reinstalling the alesis asio drivers and....

no.

let me try with the m-audio asio drivers..

yes. hrmmn.

so, let me try the alesis again...

yes. 

weird.

ok. 

one more reboot, then.

we'll have to test it when i finish the update post, i just wanted to get through the script. if that stabilizes, then maybe i need to alter the cubase install process.

there's been two repeated scenarios where the machine freezes:

1) the cubase issue, which looks like ram on first glance, but i think probably isn't. i mean, either all the ram is bad or none of it is. and it's probably not that all of it is.

2) when i search on one of the larger drives, which i think is an xp issue. again - that looks like ram, but i can't figure it which stick is bad, if it is.

it sounds crazy, but i'm guessing it's probably more along the lines of that i'm freezing the logger when i use too many resources. essentially, i'm crashing the software they're using to spy on me, which seems to be running at the firmware level.

yes, that's insane. but, it's what seems to be true. it is insane, but they're crazy, not me...

i mean, it seems like some piece of hardware is malfunctioning, on first approach.

but, it's not obvious what it is and the more i tease it apart the less likely it seems that that's the case. 

i really think that somebody thinks i'm doing something with this machine that i shouldn't be doing, and it seems like all i can do is wait until they give up, as they're operating on a level that i can only gleam.

it's a recording machine. that is all.

i wish i understood the underlying problem.

but, i set this machine up so that i wouldn't waste time troubleshooting - it's designed to instantly reformat on any kind of problem. and, i'm not going to waste large amounts of time troubleshooting, i'll reformat until it works.

i wonder if the reason it's doing this is because i changed driver signing in the middle of the script.

regardless, i think this is my last try before i format.

ok, i got an error message this time, that's some progress.

....so, i'd might as well try to approach it from a vantage point, and try to get it right, rather than just rush it out to meet demand. there isn't a demand.

some of my favourite pieces took 30 years to write and underwent multiple revisions; this used to be a normal part of the composition process, before music was reduced to a commodity. i know it sounds bizarre to have no interest in being relevant, but that's what music has usually been about - realize the historical weirdness of the current neo-liberal paradigm in art. this isn't how it has ever been before, and it's not how it will be in the future. i'm just stuck in it. unfortunately.

so, yeah - it's going to take me 10-20 years to complete each of these pieces, and i wish other contemporary artists would see their work in this kind of historical context, rather than being obsessed with being a part of the fall's fashion trends.

we're in a bottoming out, in music.

there's no audience.

what's the point?

i'm writing for a post-capitalist future that art exists in, again.

i have no idea why it's not working correctly.

but, i'm going to try to install from a different drive.

yeah, that didn't launch.

let me try one more time before i format/reinstall.

again, the projects i want to be working on right now are the period 3.1 pieces from late 2003 and early 2004 listed at the top of this page:

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/

period 3.2 won't click in until late 2004, but the matlab project won't start until after that, even.

i'm not interested in writing new music until i've completed the old pieces, but my music is not intended to be contemporary, or to comment on current topics. 

when i finish the discography up until 2011, i will need to complete loose ends over the last 10-15 years (or whatever it ends up being) before i look at ideas relevant to then-contemporary concepts.

there is no possibility that i'm going to drop anything and start over, either. and, if this process never completes, so be it.

i don't want to move to the 64 bit system until i start the matlab project.

in fact, i'm intending on doing a lot of period 3.1 on the windows 98 pc, to get a continuity of sound that wasn't desired for the period 1 and 2 stuff.

yes, i'm about to switch over, i just need to finish that update post. i've got a bunch of new relevant gear, and i'm almost ready to restart, i just need to reorder my thoughts. and this constant needless troubleshooting isn't helping.

so, it seems to be the cubase install program that's forcing a reboot in a place i don't remember.

it seems like something is crashing, but i think it's actually hardcoded.

i don't remember it doing that before. but, let's see what happens.

hrmmn.

spoke too soon.

my bios reacted very differently when i cleared it this time than it did previously. it normally defaults to 2000 on the date clear, but it defaulted to 2099 this time. i don't know why.

it's been a while since i flashed it, because it's dangerous. i once had to reprogram the thing using a bus pirate after the flash borked...

i've long suspected that the actual problem with this machine is that somebody (cia. csis. i dunno.) installed a bios virus on it when i wasn't here which included some kind of backdoor to a wireless device locked into the chip and i haven't been able to shake it off. so, what's happening is that the computer is getting shut off remotely and i don't have a way out because i can't get into the board.

so, i'm wondering if this change means that somebody messed with it when i was gone...

i don't know if it's good or bad, but the script completed so let's take it from there.

i'm still working on that catch up post. i've got the idea in place, but i'm going to finish it.

i'll have to get back to the alter-reality this week, and i'd expect a flurry of posts when i do - it's going to be one text per week (in the alter-reality), so if i end up doing 20 texts, it'll take four weeks.

i expect to be bed ridden for at least a week, and if it means i really catch up on it then great.

ok.

so, the august cleaning is done (slowed down by the fridge, but done), everything's pretty much organized and i'm sitting down with a cup of coffee to do some work for the first time in a while.

i stopped some time in early july and started focusing on finding cheap gear for the period 3 rebuild. i do remember clearly that i was doing an alter-reality rebuild on the blogger timeline and entered the ms-2 as an entry. that got me wondering about other miniamps, and it went off from there.

and, i think the thing i was doing was filing the pc, and i even think i was almost done.

but, i'm going to do a quick throwback to earlier in the year and just read through the blog and go from there. i'll take notes. and, i should be back into the schedule i devised very soon.

obviously, because i'm going toronto for surgery this week, i won't start back up again on monday. but, i think i can plan to start back up again for next monday.

the surgery is going to make it difficult to walk for a few weeks, but i don't expect to be on any sort of serious painkillers (i expect they may give me something like t3s, and i expect i probably won't take them....i don't do much heavier than aspirin for pain meds....and i rarely take aspirin, even if i'm in pan...) and it's not clear how much that's going to mess with me.

it may be a chance to catch up on the asimov for the alter-reality.

so, i was working on that replacement process so long that i forgot what i was doing before.

i've spent most of what i won. so, i need to make sure i get the operation done first - that was the point, after all.

i need to finalize the plan with the shuttle service, first.

so, this is what i'm looking at, in total:

first basement:

- mid-sized keyboard amp (like the vox kb50)

- e609 mic to upgrade the altec, maybe.

second basement:

- if i find an affordable ry30 somewhere, i must get it. not a priority.

- akai mini-like controller for pads

- plastic recorder (or wind controller?)

- orchestral string midi controller hack ideas*

third basement:

- metal case dan electro fabtone, if found cheap enough

- $50 (max) mini modelling amp

- pignose amp

- mini tube guitar amp?

- mini trumpet

- mini sax

- piano (long term project that will probably never happen; i don't have the space, and i can't move it, even if i bite on one of those $100 pianos on kijiji)

- 21 fret classical with piezo*

- megatrancer vst effect

- update koan

- any basic ring mod box

- theremin

- ukelele*

- electric mandolin*

- bontempi b4 reed organ

fourth basement:

- 12-string acoustic

- a guitar with goldfoil pickups

* - check midi controller for these items, as well as things like sitar, banjo...tunings notwithstanding (that is, one four string guitar-like instrument may be sufficient for all)

extra guitar items:

- midi guitar <----polyphonic guitar parts

- i'm looking for a basic paul shape, to put p90s in it. must be a super cheap pawn shop purchase. <----amplified rhythm parts

- a jazzmaster or jaguar shaped guitar with jazzmaster pickups. idea probably put aside for now. <---effects work

- a couple of cheap electrics for weird tunings, etc.

i think this should be anything and everything.

so, one thing at a time. slowly...

just a few more...

first basement:

- mid-sized keyboard amp (like the vox kb50)

- e609 mic to upgrade the altec, maybe.

second basement:

- if i find an affordable ry30 somewhere, i must get it. not a priority.

- akai mini-like controller for pads

- plastic recorder (or wind controller?)

- orchestral string midi controller hack ideas

third basement:

- metal case dan electro fabtone, if found cheap enough

- $50 (max) mini modelling amp

- pignose amp

- mini trumpet

- mini sax

- piano (long term project that will probably never happen; i don't have the space, and i can't move it, even if i bite on one of those $100 pianos on kijiji)

- 21 fret classical with piezo

- megatrancer vst effect

- update koan

- any basic ring mod box

- theremin

- ukelele

- electric mandolin

- bontempi b4 reed organ

fourth basement:

- 12-string acoustic

- a guitar with goldfoil pickups

fifth basement:

- the altec 683b & harmonica are both still in my possession. so, nothing.

sixth basement:

- from previous post:

still hoping to get that demented foot pedal guitar sound, i swapped the morley for a digitech xp100 and still didn't really get what i wanted. the harmonizers are exceedingly synthetic sounding, probably because they're ultimately doubling the sound from a sampler, which is kind of lame. it was used in the next two basements, but was sold in 2003. the pod actually does what this did a lot better than it does.

so, nothing.

seventh basement:

- the digital piano was nice (the quality of font is noticeably upgraded in reflections and flying), but it doesn't require a replacement.

- a version of cakewalk was actually purchased, but it didn't run correctly and disappeared some time when i was gone in bc. i've used cubase sx 3.0 as my main daw for years, since i upgraded pcs in 2006, which is still my main recording pc. i will update this when i move to 64 bit, eventually. but, this was my first attempt at multitrack digital recording and i didn't try again for years.

- i don't have setup files for orion anymore, and don't really remember what it was. iirc, that sequence part was done in the only time i ever really looked at it. there's lots of ways to make sequencer parts...

- i still have files for drumstation, but i don't install it. it might not work well on xp; i don't recall. it's a roland style emulator, and i have lots of options, even if i'd rather score it, generally. but, it's still around.

so, nothing....

and still going...

first basement:

- mid-sized keyboard amp (like the vox kb50)

- e609 mic to upgrade the altec, maybe.

second basement:

- if i find an affordable ry30 somewhere, i must get it. not a priority.

- akai mini-like controller for pads

- plastic recorder (or wind controller?)

- orchestral string midi controller hack ideas

third basement:

- metal case dan electro fabtone, if found cheap enough

- $50 (max) mini modelling amp

- pignose amp

- mini trumpet

- mini sax

- piano (long term project that will probably never happen; i don't have the space, and i can't move it, even if i bite on one of those $100 pianos on kijiji)

- 21 fret classical with piezo

- megatrancer vst effect

- update koan

- any basic ring mod box

- theremin

- ukelele

- electric mandolin

- bontempi b4 reed organ

fourth basement:

- that ancient 12-string was in my possession until 2011 and then disappeared, and i wish i knew what happened to it. it was either an ovation or a harmony, but i think it was a harmony. the guitar had been left beside a furnace for i don't know how long and was so locked it up (due to dryness) that it couldn't actually be played. when i recorded "strung out" the next fall, the concept was to play every guitar in the house, and that one did not get played, so it's a measure of just how bad it was. i also remember writing the guitar part for clarity on the epiphone, hoping to play it on the 12-string....but i didn't, in the end. see, when a guitar is dry like that, you have to slowly humidify it, and i was paranoid that i was going to moisten it up too fast and snap it in half. my best guess is that my sister stole it and sold it for some unknown amount, but you'll never get a straight answer from her regarding much of anything at all. i would like a 12-string to replace it, but i do not think i ever recorded anything with it, either. the lost symphony would probably sound very good on a 12-string...

- the 6-string saturn does appear on strung out, and i think that's the only place it appears. it was a cheap guitar that was nice to have around, but doesn't have any particular purpose; i don't need multiple acoustic guitars. i don't know when this one disappeared, but i don't remember seeing it after 2003. i guess the takeharu could potentially take it's place as a substantive upgrade in japanese made instruments.

- the age of the capo is a good hint as to the ago of these guitars - mid 60s. there was also a partridge family trading card that i had for years and have since lost. the guitar capo is still in my possession, even as the guitars it came with are not.

- the dx100 was a christmas present and garage sale pickup. i still have it.

- i found an old beat up tele with what i called "weird pickups" at a garage sale that summer. i think they were gold foil, in hindsight. i kept it for alternate tunings, and recorded a few tracks with it as a noise generating device, but i never fixed the broken pickups. it disappeared in 2011. i'd need to replace it with a functioning gold foil device.

- jon's guitar and amp were left in my basement for a few months and only used to record his own parts. it's a measure of how often he actually played the instrument that he felt comfortable leaving it at my place for months at a time (they were his only guitar and his only amp).

- my dad sold his bass with his drums, and i spent a while without a bass. the material that spring was done mostly with synth basses (or organs), when it wasn't just written out as a score.  but, i picked up that washburn that summer for the purposes of playing bass for jon & sean. i sold it in 2003, and replaced it with the ibanez a few years later. i found the neck far too big for me...

- a mini classical appears around this time, that eventually had to be replaced because the top fell off. i think it was a yamaha, purchased for $2 at a garage sale. i always called it "the $2 guitar". it would be replaced with the hohner, eventually. i actually used this little guitar more frequently than the aria, due to the small hands.

moving to the next basement...

first basement:

- mid-sized keyboard amp

- e609 mic to upgrade the altec, maybe.

second basement:

- if i find an affordable ry30 somewhere, i must get it. not a priority.

- but, in the short run, something like an akai mini would give me access to velocity sensitive pads, if i can find one for very cheap. not a clear priority, for now.

- plastic recorder (or wind controller?)

- i've added a picture for fake strings to sept 6, 1997 because that's the oldest attempt i have at creating a string section that's designed to sound like strings (rather than a synthesizer), probably actually due to an influence from a canadian band called the tea party, and which is something i've struggled with for years and years. i'm going to be seeking generally approaches towards creating different sounds as i try to plug in production holes that i know i can't do well with sampling. i have an electric violin with a bow that i got for $50, but i've never set it up because it hasn't really ever made sense to do so. it's kind of a toy. that would be the obvious answer for high strings, but it's actually the low strings i generally want to reach for. i've used e-bows in the past (something that shows up in the next basement) and still have one. but, i've recently purchased an audio-to-midi converter that will let me track guitar parts directly to midi. with the aid of a sample library, an ebow and an actual bow, i wonder how close that will get me to what i need. but, it's an open question, and something i approach on a track-by-track basis.

third basement:

- the dan electro fab tone i used on liquify and the day inri messed the world up was not mine, it was borrowed from a friend. i have many distortion pedals, but i would grab one in the metal case (not one of those plastic ones...) if i saw it cheap enough. that said, i'm going to claim that the rocktron metal planet that i have is an effective substitute/upgrade for this (they're both based on boss metal pedals, but the rocktron has a less compressed sound than either of the other two, which is useful because it lets you control the amount of compression....), but you can never have too many distortion pedals:

i used that pedal as an extra gain boost on some of the parts for proverbs, along with a guyatone sd-2 and a marshall jackhammer.

i'm not a metal guitarist, though, and i don't generally use high gain tones like that, except as niche effects. i prefer a dirty overdriven sound to a high gain metal sound. 

but, like i say - you can never have too many distortion sounds. you never know what you'll need to get the sound you're imagining, and i've found that just having as many combinations as is possible is the best approach.

- i still install cool edit pro.

- by dad bought himself a nicer drum kit around this time, that was meant for communal use but ended up banished to my bedroom by my stepmother. this was the kit used for deny everything material. my solution for kit replacements is my dm pro kit:

that was the last of i think three kits that he bought, and i never saw him play any of them.

- there was a marshall amp in the living room for a while that was purportedly given to me as a gift, but it never functioned properly. i don't know where he got it from exactly, but he did a lot of garage sale shopping, and i'm guessing he picked it up from somebody's garage for almost nothing. i'm guessing he thought it was worth a lot more than it was actually worth. again - i'm not convinced i would have ever picked a marshall practice guitar amp over a fender bass amp, when the two are sitting side by side like they were; broken speaker or not, i don't think i ever recorded anything at all with it, and am not sure i plugged into it for more than a few minutes. yeah, i know - i've got a marshall amp on a table in my bedroom, and i don't even plug it in. i'm sorry. i had a di on the soundcard, and a bass amp for recording pedals...together, they were far more useful to me than this cheesy scooped marshall with a midrange speaker. my dad didn't get it, either.

i traded this marshall for a half broken vintage 50s electric mandolin that i fixed up and used on several recordings before it disappeared in 2011:

do i need to replace this, then? well, i never used it! and, i swapped it for a mandolin. i definitely need to replace the mandolin...

if i need to record guitar parts, the mini amps are more useful to me. i could never make any functional use of a 75 watt amp, in this space - or any space i'm likely to inhabit in the near future. and, really, the thing that replaces this is the pod:

so, i'm comfortable with leaving that as it is - although i've decided that i'll get a cheap modelling amp, if i find one, too.

the pod through a flat keyboard amp is a better idea than a cheap marshall, though, if it comes down to it.

- i've been saying this is 120 watts. it's actually 160 watts. it showed up around this time, and was meant as a bass amp. i still have it...and i may try to use it as a cab for the mini orange and/or vox...

i have used this periodically for recording heavily effected guitar parts through complex effects chains, specifically when i want a low frequency response. but, it's just so damned loud...

i mean, that was the point - it was parked beside a drum kit. it had be loud, and was purchased for the volume. but, that's not real life for me, and hasn't been since i was 20.

- i still have the creamy dreamer, and still use it

- from previous post dated to june 8th:

i picked up a morley pro series wah around this time for pretty cheap but i found the effect to be a little more subtle than what i wanted. i mean, i was hardly interested in doing 80s hair metal whammy dives, but, after playing with direct x filters in cool edit, i wanted a much more dynamic instrument that i could warp like a dj or sound engineer warps filters with their hands, but in real-time with my feet, and found this was really designed to be the opposite of that. there was no doubt a mental disconnect between the world this was made for (southern rock guitarists) and the kind of sounds i was imagining (warped sound effects from contemporary experimental techno, like download). i mean, i knew better, but i guess i didn't. that said, i made some sufficiently demented use of it in the climax to "entropy", as well as in the intro solo to  "ignorance is bliss" before i swapped it for a digitech xp-100 a few basements later. the pod has a couple of wah sounds in it; it wouldn't make sense to try to model this in a daw, unless you have the right kind of controller. so, you need hardware here, one way or another.

so, i'm happy with the pod as a replacement for this, and also for the digitech.

- i can still install the aipl spin cycle plugin as a direct x effect, but i've mostly put it aside. there are leslie-like effects in guitar rig. likewise, the hyperprism and north pole effects are there, but i never reach for them anymore.

- i still have the 90s pc and pretty much every important piece of hardware in it still works flawlessly.

- pi warp is a weird effect and i absolutely still use it.

- sounder does not work right in xp, but i'm hoping to get it running on the 90s pc (in windows 98)

- i've dropped acid. the program, i mean. discarded it. i was actually hoping to use it for samples (listen to entropy to hear my intended use), but i just keep going back to basic midi. the old scorewriter is just the most useful way for me to write, always has been. so, my replacement for acid is noteworthy composer, but there's nothing you can do in an old version of acid that you can't do in a slightly less old version of cubase:

- i posted the imaginary trumpet and imaginary sax because i'm looking at getting pocket versions for use with the midi controller i just bought. you can get mini saxophones for cheap and i'm on the brink - as soon as i finalize the operation transactions.

- there was a baby grand outside my door, which....i can use a vst effect. that's fine. if i find a million dollars, yes, there will be a real piano. but, it's not even on the radar...

- i now have two mini classical guitars, and they're really both functional replacements for the aria, in any meaningful way for how i used it, which was never intended to be as a performing guitarist at a church or something.  i want to keep one of them. but, i need to get a 21-fret classical guitar with a pickup in it relatively soon.

- i still install audiomulch. 

- granulab doesn't work will in xp. it seems that there's a vst version. but, the granulator i used most often is in the hyperprism suite (see xenophanes for a good example)

- i still have the rubber ducky setup files, but i don't recall the last time i ever used it.

- i still install leaf drums, but i couldn't imagine myself writing that way anymore. it's actually a useful program, and i'd recommend it as a basic drum machine for noise music.

- i stil have the mxr flanger & distortion II boxes, as well as the ibanez eq.

- i cannot find a downloadable version of megatrancer

- koan does not work in xp. but i can try to update it and should.

- from june 8th:

i picked up a mooger fooger mf-102 ring modulator that spring, hoping to drive it with the morley and get that dramatic foot driven techno-oscillation filter, but it didn't actually work; it just didn't convert to an expression like i hoped. i never got another expression for it. guitarists kind of have their hands busy, so this became an expensive trick item. that said, it is used extensively as a bass (acidosis) and vocal (trepanation nation) processor over the next few years, before i cashed it in as having done it's purpose. it's also become very expensive ($600?), but isn't any more useful than a freeware vst plugin - it's expensive because it says "moog" on it, and likely of little actual functional value to you, unless you're doing very modular synth work. just about any old ring modulator with a carrier signal should be just as good.

i wish i could find a demo with the expression pedal plugged in like i wanted to set up, but what this demo (not posted) does is really demonstrate how kind of useless the thing really is.

the pod has a collection of synth and ring mod effects that are quite frankly more usable than the moogerfooger, which i really was quite disappointed in - but it had a lot to do with the fact that i just didn't have a foot controller for it. i'm going to pencil in a generic ring mod, but the pod is really probably more than good enough.

- i've long wanted to get or make a theremin and never have, so i'm going to pencil this in as a project.

- a ukelele would be a useful utility sound generator, but it's hardly at the top of the list of priorities.

- i don't know exactly what happened to my old electric mandolin, but i definitely need to replace it. the electrical was a little funny, but i would have hardly discarded it over that. it's in a small list of items that just kind of disappeared. i don't imagine the item was worth much, and i'd probably benefit from upgrading it to something newer. but, i got it for almost nothing and am sad it disappeared.

- likewise, i've decided to replace my bontempi with a bontempi. they do show up on ebay, but i don't really want to pay shipping. i was looking at melodicas as a replacement and it's probably going to be roughly the same price. but, i still may decided to go down that route. we'll see.

- i still have the e-bow.

ok, let's get to the next basement, then.

 i would have preferred william gibson to sweet valley high, but i didn't know he existed, at the time.

shouldn't i have been reading contemporary kids' books from the 80s and 90s, though?

well, i did eventually - and went with the king.

but, i just finished grade two, here, and i'm consequently somewhat at the mercy of the adults around me. i was frequently gifted books, and i read most of them. nobody reads every book their grandmother gives them...

but, i'm just googling "tween books from the 80s", and it's predictably a bunch of pornographic smut. i wouldn't have gone anywhere near that stuff.

the one thing i remember trying out briefly was rl stine, but i decided pretty quickly that i was well beyond it. there was a tv show with goosebumps adaptations, but it didn't have the character depth of a king novel, which was a big part of what i liked about reading king. the attempt to get into the head of a rabid dog, or a kid that can't stop themselves from lighting things on fire...that's what kept me coming back, rather than the plotlines, exactly. and, again - i expect to realize the criticisms of king, but there was still a giant gulf between these king texts, which were written for less educated adults, and these stine texts, which were fully intended to be kids' books.

i never really liked being a kid...

so, i mean, that's my answer - i quickly deduced that all of the texts being marketed to me as "young adult" were just empty, pornographic trash. and, i'd hold to that view now, too. i wanted something more substantive than that...

and, let me say it clearly enough.

was asimov a great writer? 

he wasn't, no. that doesn't matter.

what i actually liked about asimov was the (often times naive) exploration of various scientific hypotheses. but, i was, like, ten years old. i found the gaia hypothesis to be fascinating, for example. could the earth be a living thing? well, if you're tripping out into that as an adult, you need to take some basic science, but it's an intriguing question for a kid to try to work out.

as it was with king, it didn't matter to me that he didn't excel at the specific literary devices that an academic analysis will key on. i mean, i get the criticism - and i expect to roll my eyes.

these are good kids books, though, whether they were intended that way, or not.

but, yeah - i know i'm going to cringe, and i'm ready for it. but, expect the reviews to largely gloss over it...

So, when I was eleven, it occurred to me that if I wrote my own books, I could then reread them at my leisure. I never really wrote a complete book, of course. I would start one and keep rambling on with it till I outgrew it and then I would start another. All these early writings are forever gone, though I remember some of the details quite clearly.

i'm not sure how many people realized it at the time, but the man was a damned troll.

so, i'm going to start with this on pdf, if i can't find it at the goodwill shop.

actually - and i had decided this once before - i should read it in this order, then fill in the gaps:

this is based on the ordering suggested by asimov, except i'm strategically adding in short stories collections to fill it out.

i am ignoring asimov's later forays outside of science fiction, altogether.

(i did not read any of the lucky starr series as a kid, and i'm skipping them in this reconstruction. but, they would plug in first)

the early asimov (short stories) <----added

the complete robot (short stories) (1982) + robot dreams + robot visions

the complete stories, volume 1 (short stories) <----added

buy jupiter and other stories (short stories) >----added

the martian way and other stories (short stories) <----added

the bicentennial man and other stories (short stories) <----added

caves of steel (1954) 

the naked sun (1957) 

the robots of dawn (1983) 

robots and empire (1985) 

the currents of space (1952) 

the stars, like dust (1951) 

pebble in the sky (1950) 

prelude to foundation (1988)

forward the foundation (1993)

foundation (1951) 

foundation and empire (1952) 

second foundation (1953) 

foundation's edge (1982) 

foundation and earth (1986)

==========

asimov's mysteries (short stories) <----added

the winds of change and other stories (short stories) <---added

the end of eternity <-----added

the gods themselves <--------added

honey, i shrunk the fantastic voyage II: destination brain <-----added

nemesis <----added

there are some asimov texts published after 1990, but not many. i'll have to skip them, altogether.

or maybe not.

1992 silverberg additions:

- positronic man

- ugly little boy

- nightfall

should i start by talking about asimov's role in the perpetual, cosmic war between religion and science? asimov is known for aggressively promoting rationalism, liberalism, secularism and atheism in and outside of his literature. should kids really be reading this stuff, or was he just out there corrupting the youth? 

the reality, for me, is that my parents were not just both atheists but that they conscientiously raised me as an atheist, so asimov didn't undo anything because there wasn't anything to undo. i want to get the point across on that: they didn't raise me to dislike this or that religion, or to have a disdain for the faithful (that came naturally...), but rather purposefully raised me without an active belief in any sort of god, and, when it came up, simply expressed skepticism as a matter-of-fact in any situation that my subconscious considers important enough to still remember. basically, my parents were of the view that a child shouldn't be pushed into a belief system; that's not a deduction, i specifically recall hearing both of them say, independently of one another, that it ought to be up to me to figure out, and not up to them to direct, although i'll admit that it may have been driven by laziness, on both of their respective behalves. belief in god isn't embedded in our genome and doesn't come instinctively, without instruction; if you don't foster it, it doesn't develop, and that's really the actual truth with me: nobody ever told me i ought to believe in god with any conviction or persistence and, as a result of that lack of persuasion, i just never did. the result is that, unlike most adult atheists, there really never was a time in my youth when i was naive enough to believe in any sort of god. there was no break with faith, no rejection of the church - i've just always been an atheist, by default. so, i was an atheist child reading books by an atheist author; in that sense, asimov was appropriate, for me, in the same way that a christian child reading christian authors is appropriate, for them. asimov shares my extended family's belief system; he's a representative and a member of my tribe. conversely, it would have been weird for my atheist parents and grandmother to give me religious books, given that they were not religious, themselves.

so, i mean, maybe asimov wouldn't be right for some kids, but that concern wasn't an issue, for me.

but, what that means is that i just didn't have a perspective on this conflict because science was really the only thing that i actually knew. i actually had to learn about religion from the other kids, and that conflict had to develop in my mind over time, as i aged and became more cognizant of it. at the age that i'm starting this with, there just wouldn't be much of a conflict to resolve - all i knew was science, and all i knew was atheism (in the sense of it being the absence of religion). i didn't really know the traditional christian stories or narratives, so i wasn't aware that they contradicted the science, and i didn't know there was any reason to push back on them. it's hard to imagine an alternate history of yourself at such a formative age, but i'd like to think i'd have pushed back against the religion, if only i knew that there was a reason to. instead, i naively allowed both ideas to exist side by side, oblivious of the intellectual inconsistency in doing so, although the only thing i ever spent any actual time actually thinking about was the science.

so, i'm not going to be pushing this point much in this journal, because i wasn't really aware of it at the time. rather, i'm going to try to present my own perspective, as best as i can remember it, which means that religion wasn't much of a factor, because i didn't really know very much about it. i liked science, as best as i could understand it; i wasn't even cognizant of what religion was or was about, in any meaningful sense.

that said, my stepfather was religious, and that's something i'll need to talk about.

my mother was uncomfortable with his religiosity, and it ultimately ended the marriage. he "found god" shortly after they got married, and she went along with it thinking it was a phase, but ultimately rejected him over it, although there was a point where he got violent with me over nothing, and that was the actual cause of the break-up. she wouldn't have identified as one, but her religious views were roughly comparable to that of a laveyan satanist. i think she would have identified as some kind of vague deist, but her concept of god was...it's an old testament god. it's a mean, vengeful, retributive god. but, it doesn't follow the rules in the old testament. it's really a pagan concept of god.

my father's religion was hockey. he didn't take it seriously. i don't think he'd have identified as anything, and if you brought it up, he'd have changed the topic. i guess that qualifies as agnostic, but it was a kind of a "i don't have time for this" agnosticism. if there was some vague notion of deism, he never really articulated it. and, he was a libertarian in his concept of religion; so long as they didn't bother him, he didn't have a problem with them. years later, when my stepmother started going to church, he would drop her off and go for breakfast with me, instead - and then make it home in time to watch the nfl game. but, it was just disinterest more than anything else. he was a big zappa fan...

so, it was strictly because of my stepfather that i spent some time in a methodist church around the time that the journal starts, before being banned from sunday school for asking too many awkward questions. if you think catholics are fucked up on specious guilt, you should spend some time with methodists - they make catholics seem moderate, in comparison. it was around that time that i picked the bible up and read it all the way through, so that should probably be one of the book reviews. but, i've pointed out before that all it took for me to do away with christianity was to read the bible. it was just obviously just a bunch of nonsense. and, i remember being baffled at the premise that there were adults in the world that were dumb enough to take it seriously.

also, i did attend a catholic school until the end of grade 13, but my mom only enrolled me in the catholic school system because it started at four-year old kindergarten, and the public system started at five-year old kindergarten. so, i was going to have to skip a year, otherwise (i had been in pre-school starting at age 2); it was really just a pragmatic decision to avoid having me skip a year. i was subsequently baptized at the age of four strictly to facilitate it. i distinctly recall my mother being mortified that the priest would molest me, and ordered me not to go anywhere near the church to prevent it. the cynicism underlying the process is truthfully actually another demonstration of the strictly non-religious environment i was raised in.

these minimal and temporary influences aside, the reality is that religion was really not a part of my upbringing, that i was always strictly interested in science, and i'll consequently be approaching the issue from the perspective of a strictly atheist childhood. but, i want to double down on what that means: if it's not pointed out by adults, it's just not obvious to a child that there's any sort of a contradiction between science and religion, and so a child wouldn't reflexively choose a side in the debate. when they send you to sunday school, they don't bring up theological discourses surrounding the big bang, or at least they don't do it on day one. it takes time for the inconsistencies to unfold and for the need to pick a side to become apparent. eventually, after so many trips, the contradictions start to pile up, and there was never any question in my little mind as to which set of ideas had primacy. the moment i became cognizant of the conflict was the moment i picked a side and the moment i intellectually turned against religion.

so, i won't admit naivete, but i'll admit some ignorance. i think some ignorance at the age of eight or nine is forgivable. for me, the ignorance was of the conflict between science and religion - i was not aware of one, at first, or of the necessity in choosing one over the other. and, i realize that many religious people will argue that there isn't a contradiction, but i reject that, as an adult - and did, eventually, as a ten year-old, as well. 

so, i'm going to actually approach the asimov as a blank slate, regarding the conflict between science and religion. i was simply not old enough to be aware of the struggle, and simply had little awareness of religion. however, my biases throughout are going to be towards science, and that position will be dominant when conflicts arise and will win outright, in the end.

just a note on the asimov reviews, before i start on them...

i'm going to be more or less comprehensive. of course, i hadn't read every asimov text by the time i was ten, but i'd read a good deal of them. that's not important. this is a mechanism - it reflects reality. you want to take the idea seriously, and allow for tremendous artistic license in the details, although i am going to try to be as specific as my memory can allow for. the details are admittedly a little blurry, more than thirty years later.

so, no - i didn't read every asimov text in order.

but, i am going to review them that way.

as i want to speed this up, i'm going to try to get four of these texts done over next weekend, but i don't know if that's feasible. these are 200 page books in large fonts that are written for teenagers; i don't know if i can do two or three per day, but i should be able to do more than one.

but, i have to finish cleaning, first.

i updated the theme link and put it at the bottom of the template:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/10tPlsE_lBPc9t_Bq8-m5J0K-35m5usws/

that is probably final. updates are related to the colour of the text, which is now a pencil grey.

again - the theme works exceedingly well in terms of actually lining the paper up, but some care is going to be required in ensuring that the size of the posts is not too large. it looks like a floating point error issue to me that's baked into the html rendering, and you're never going to fix that. but, i've forced it to recalculate frequently, and that's the best answer that i think is available.

so, we've got post #2 up at the alter-reality.

i'm going to try very hard to actually stick to this. and, i should start some reviews for next week, time permitting.

https://thejournalofj.blogspot.com/1989/07/maybe-ill-keep-doing-this.html

so, i got my mini tele in today and it plays very well. all the electronics work, as well.

unfortunately, the eye holes ("ferrules") on the back need a regluing (somebody tried to tape them back on...), one of the springs on the bridge needs to be replaced and somebody put some stupidly tense strings on it and otherwise set it up rather poorly, as well. this is either coming from an adult that tried to turn it into a grown up guitar in a silly way, or a dad that didn't know what he was doing.

that's fine - these are minor repairs, and i can fix that fairly easily.

it's otherwise a pretty nice little tele.