|
|
Ironically I planned this topic. One of my little querks I really like is the ability to just riff off completly random phrases or sometimes, if I'm in the mood, improvised songs. For the latter my rule is that they have to have a straight forward AB rhyming pattern. For example, if I were to start a song about a dancing chicken dressed in a green sparkly striped waistcoat, carrying a pineapple turning up in the middle of a West End production of Chicago starring Orianthi, then I would have to find rhymes with at least a few of those words.
What I don't like is when people say "ohh I can do that too" and but every time they try they always include a common factor. Well two usually to be honest. They nearly always have a three part structure and they will always include, for example, a dolphin. So one time they'd come up with a dolphin in shoes drinking Pims and the next they'd say a book about someone called Bob who is a dolphin. I'm not sure why that annoys me but it kind of does.
Now I admit I have my favorites and chickens are one of them but if I include one of those then I try to make the rest of the song or sentence more exciting like I did to begin with. There are those that are better at it than me and there are those that are worse but for those which are the latter please try to avoid keeping things blocked in threes. This is the exception where the magic 3 doesn't apply. I find the trick is to completely space out whilst your talking to someone and pretend your as high as a kite, either physically or chemically it doesn't matter.
So for a post about randomonsity this has been surprisingly structured and to the point with little featurettes of the spaced out thinking. With this you really need to think out the yellow square and the blue circle and the white elephant shaped box in order to succeed but remember don't think about it because otherwise it's not random is it.
Well well well we meet again. As you may know from previous posts I'm a bit of nerd at times which, when combined with a few geekish qualities, makes me exceptionally cool right? I've been making an effort recently to watch some of the all-time-great films recently but one small film series that has avoided my radar since the age of ten or so is Star Wars.
Actually you'd be surprised just how many people haven't seen these epics despite not being able to move in the world without hearing a quote of reference from the world of Skywalker. I'd watched a couple of the modern films when I was younger but I just got bored, apparently rightfully so, and decided that these films weren't for me. However in the past week I've watched the first two chronological films and just wow. I wouldn't go so far to say that my life would be over or it's changed in any way since seeing the originals but their defiantly worth seeing.
Once I got sucked into the story and world(s) I even stopped thinking to myself how good the special effects were for a film made in the 70's and mostly they've stood the test of time pretty well. What I couldn't stop thinking, as with any film these days as I'm getting older, was "Is that what-his-name from you-know-that-film....aha I thought so". Although I do admit it did take me about 30 mins in before I knew what was going on but maybe that's just me being a bit slow when finishing off the beer purely so I could take the bottles down for recycling the next morning.
I'm watching The Empire Strikes Back as I write and I'm at the seen where we meet Yoda and I really can't help thinking which roll in The Muppets did this character take the roll of. It's a tiny bit laughable but I guess the film needed to be balanced out with some simple humor for the kids. Right if you don't mind I'm going to stop writing now and finish the film. I'll leave you with the following:
How is duct tape like the Force?
It has a Dark Side, a Light Side and binds the galaxy together!
Yo-Ho m'hearties it's time we be talking about plundering the internet. I'm not the only one that couldn't resist an intro line like that right? So internet piracy has been a really prevalent topic over the past few years. From the fiascoes of The Pirate Bay in Sweden, which has half lead to a new officially recognized file sharing religion in the country, to the new tough rulings that both Europe and the USA are pushing through the political system. As, what people of my generation are now dubbed as, a "digital native" I have my own views, experiences and opinions on pirated content.
Firstly, I must say that over the years I have downed a fair amount of content through services such as The Pirate Bay and file hosting services. I don't regret doing this as it's meant I've been able to move into new areas of music, film and gain some valuable knowledge when it come to creating professional videos as well as server based software which has helped me get to my professional situation where I am today. However, now that I have some money coming in, I'm going through my film collection first and replacing my downloaded copies with Blu-ray editions for one simple reason; value for money.
In the meantime the western world are busy arguing and legislating what some are calling Chinese level of security and monitoring all in the name of banishing internet pirates. I suspect that this will come to very little implementation and governments are just doing it to get the industries off their back but I may be proved wrong. The thing is if their going to do the stick properly then they need to whole heartily offer a carrot too which is where this double or triple play idea steps in. If that what is going to happen then I welcome it.
This does not mean however that the days of internet piracy is over. On the contrary, there will always be those who will persist at downloading illegal content regardless if they can afford it or not. Especially when you look at the emerging communities on the internet coming from less developed countries around the world. Piracy will always exist to a certain extent but it's just another cat and mouse game as are many things in life. The question is who will be playing the part of cat and who will be playing the part of mouse.
I've been playing guitar for two years now, self taught, and am just starting to be able to have fun jamming along with other people. It sounds even better now I have an effects pedal aswell as the effects on the amp which make me sound better than I really am. But that's the point right?
One of the effects this particular pedel has is a whammy effect which, until I tried it, didn't think was a very good idea but the moment I understood what it meant I was blown away. It meant for the first time I was able to make Voodoo Child actually sound like the real deal.
Unfortunatly for you, my 3 fans, I even have something to grumble about on this topic. Namely what people think makes guitar sound good. It's not a long complicated tangeting reason here. It's just that far too many people just hear heavily distorted guitar with simple two note power chords that a baby could play and they say your amazing.
Yes for some songs this may be indeed how they are meant to be played and you may do a really great cover like that. But to say someone is (Brian Cox) amazing at guitar for that would be like calling someone an amazing singer for being able to sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star really well but that's all.
Don't get me wrong I love the simplicity of some riffs, pick an AC/DC song at random and you'll get what I mean. But it's people that say only that is good at not look at the flowing beautiful complexity of Dire Straits for example or the Blues rhythm and swing. It really gets on my whammy.
|
|
