busybee fluffy rambles

Time for another proverbial cheese sandwich post¹. Thinking about the end of the year and what’s coming up for me.

This isn’t my annual aspiration wrap-up post; that’ll come later.

I’m simultaneously doing great and not-great.

I got an M4 Pro mini for my office, so that I could put my M1 Studio in my studio. I’ve also changed web browsers. Let’s talk about both of those things, and one other thing!

I was just going through some old files while preparing some hardware migration stuff (ugh) and I came across a file entitled distributed social network.md, dated December 13, 2014. This was the start of my ideas about what would eventually result in Publ.

Obviously things drifted a lot between 2014 and 2017 when I finally started implementing Publ, and a lot has changed with my goals since then as well.

Don’t use this as a roadmap, is what I’m saying.

Today I somehow managed to tweak my back, right before I was going to do some gardening. I ended up doing the gardening anyway. This was, as it turns out, not a greaet way to help my back to feel better.

I got yet another letter from Social Security today, which I was expecting to be one of:

• Outright denial
• Yet another “adult function report” to be filled out by hand at great length/pain
• Yet another “work history report” to be filled out by hand at great length/pain

Instead it was a notice of yet another “psychological function evaluation.” On the plus side, at least this one is going to be done via telehealth, which is at least an improvement over the last time. On the minus side, it means they’re still trying to deny me based on ADHD as my sole disability, an given how the last one went I’m guessing that the ADHD screening is also going to be incredibly reductive and not actually reflective of what ADHD actually is or how it interacts with my other disabilities.

Today’s choir show went amazingly well.

I also finished the full youtube video for the album and I’m really happy with how it turned out.

I am currently not busy with anything and that feels weird.

I guess tomorrow I can finally get some groceries that keep getting put off, and maybe I can fill my time in with finally starting up that nostalgia vintage gaming stream idea that I’ve been sitting on for a while (namely streaming all of the games I played in my childhood). I have a bunch of other albums I want to do now but they can wait.

Or maybe I’ll get inspired to do more Novembeat. But probably not. I’ve released five albums this year. I feel like I’ve done enough.

I guess I could finally finish building the new sockpuppet.us website…

Grab-bag of stuff going on for me, apologies for my usual unstructured rambling

Hello! It has been a hot minute! I should probably post things here!

Woke up today in considerable pain, but I did some of my physical therapy stretches and some of the stretches that Castiel showed me on Wednesday and that helped somewhat. I also spent 10 minutes on my vibration plate which helped as well.

Mowed the lawn.

Went down to the studio and started working on the album version of Valley Highway, because it feels like as good a place to start as any (even though it’s going to be the last track) and decided to take the opportunity to define the overall sound for the album, which mostly meant cycling through a bunch of microphones until I found the right one for the vocals, and also cycling through a bunch of guitars until I decided that my favorite one (an Ovation Elite TX) is the one I’ll use. Because it’s my favorite one to play, so, why wouldn’t I use it on the album? Plus I think it has the nicest tone of my three acoustic 6-strings.

The downside to the Elite is that it doesn’t have a traditional soundhole, so I can’t use my preferred pickup (a Seymour Duncan Woody) on it, but the Ovation’s built-in pickup is pretty good, and I record it in conjunction with a mic anyway.

I also recorded a bunch of guitar and drum takes and got annoyed at a few things so for now I’m using Logic’s AI drummer. I hope to rerecord it with real drums though. I’m just having trouble keeping steady time; my drumming is fine for live sets but studio albums call for a bit more precision than I can muster right now. Also my cheap nylon brushes started to fall apart even though I’ve barely used them. Meh. So I ordered some proper metal ones which should arrive tomorrow. I also finally got around to ordering a better drum throne, too, because the one which came with my kit is driving me absolutely nuts.

Also, not all of the songs on the album will use drums.

For strings I’m using NI Cremona Quartet as usual, although for some parts I’ll probably rerecord the cello using my actual cello, and some of the songs need some cello articulations which Cremona Quartet doesn’t provide so for those I’ll definitely be playing the real thing. I might even try to record some of the violin and viola parts with physical instruments but as much as I enjoy playing them, I’m really not all that good, and I want this album to sound as good as possible.

Anyway after all that I went to another VR yoga class.

Also I’ve had too much caffeine today and am feeling hyper and rambly, so, here’s some rambling about my musical instruments.