Any and all aspiring artists should take a gander over at my recently posted "Every Day Noises Contest" for a chance at me basically acting as your personal promoter for a week!

Is creating something from nothing your cup of tea? Then you'll love the premise for this contest! Create a 2+ minute song out of nothing but the sounds you hear in your every day life! Dogs barking, cars honking, sirens wailing, computers beeping, people shouting, doors slamming, if you hear it, you can use it!

Check it out here!

So, I've finally gone and created a profile over at reverbnation, seeing as NG really isn't the place to be to get music heard, or sold...

And as I've made this profile, I've taken down 2 of my full length songs as they are now up for sale on my reverbnation page, and it would kind of eliminate the point of having them up for sale if they were available for free elsewhere. I have also uploaded a song I had finished working on that's more on the relaxed side called "So Far", so give that a looksy, and if you like it, be sure to support a struggling artist and buy the song, it's only $0.99!

Hopefully I'll have the profile fully constructed soon and will be able to get a few more tracks up on the main page and up for sale on the store.

I have just taken part in a "blind collaberation" with a number of different artists. What do I mean by that? Well... Let me post the rules of this little experiment posted up by Rig in the audio forum earlier last week.

"This is the result of a little project over in the Audio Forum: to make an Exquisite Corpse of a song. Basically, people sent me clips of a single instrument playing something that followed these rules:

- 130 BPM
- In the key of C minor
- 36 bars long
- 4/4 time signature
- First two bars are intro, last two bars are outro

Without hearing anyone else's parts, nineteen people sent in their tracks. The results are...interesting.

I've broken the piece up into three sections: synths, drums & guitar & vox, and classical.

0:00 to 1:06 - Synth
Instruments provided by:

Back-From-Purgatory
Blackhole12
InvisibleObserver
KirbyFemur
Mystery-Moon-Pie-Aud
Rig
SymbolCymbal
Syztm
tmse7en

1:06 to 2:13 - Drums, guitar, and vox
Instruments provided by:

Bjra
Gunner-D
Mussirus
Pure-Metal-Utah
SineRider
ZStriefel

2:13 to 3:19 - Classical
Instruments provided by:

AdrianAudio
eatmeatleet
Mich
Quarl

3:19 to end - The whole shebang.

What an adventure that was."

And the song:
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen /324983

So tomorrow I finally start college, and am getting a bad case of the butterflies, along with the "what if"s. I don't know anyone at this college, which makes starting 100 times more difficult, especially since I'm not really a people person.

On the upside, after I'm done this course, I should be able to land a well paying job that isn't shift work for once.

For years, I have had to live with an internet connection with download speeds topped at 155 kb/s. This made my life hell, as I download a lot of VSTs, Music, Samples, and games, not to mention the patches for some of those games (Sometimes bigger than the games themselves). To download a big sample library (Lets say about 7 gigs), would take all day and all night, around 15-17 hours. Leaving the internet useless in the meantime as when you only have 155 kb/s to work with, lowering the speed means a single download could take days, or god forbid, weeks. So with all that speed hogged by the download, it was near impossible for me to even check my email.

So... Earlier today, I tried logging on to check my email only to get a message asking for my ISP username and password (Our internet is not on a locked connection), so I found those, entered them, and was greeted by another screen asking me to register my router. I found this odd as my router was already plugged in and was supposed to register automatically. So I called Telus (My ISP) to find out what what going on.. mentioning that just a few days ago we upgraded our internet to a higher speed trying to get more than 150 kb/s.

Turns out that some of our account information was missing, meaning the person that upgraded us deleted (Allegedly accidentally) some of it. So I'm on hold for about 10 minutes as the tech guy (Who was actually english for a change) fixed this. Once he's back, he asks me to check the internet again, and TA-DA! It works. Asks me to test a download to see what kind of speed I was getting... And the result was about 300 kb/s, which to me was amazing as it's double what I had before. But the tech guy immediately says, "Oh, that's not good".

So... He proceeds to check our account again, as we are supposed to be getting a much much faster connection. Turns out... the last 4 years, our account information was corrupted. Giving us a very gimped connection. So the tech guy hangs up telling me he'll call back when it's fixed.

About 20 minutes later, he calls back and asks me to test it again. 800 kb/s a second... WHAT WHAT?! At this point I'm about in tears in joy. But again, the tech guy says, "Getting there, but you are still supposed to have faster". At this point I'm like, "I really don't care, 800 is heaven to me, but have at 'er".

So for the next our, he is messing around on my computer (Premium support guys can access your PC directly) as I'm running around the house, moving and crawling over and under furniture to check the connections of the phones, fax machine and computers. Not being able to find the problem, he again tells me he'll call back after he has a chat with the network support team.

10 minutes later, my phone rings and he breaks the news that my current router is not capable of the speed we are supposed to be getting, so he's sending us a new one for free. I'm like... Cool. Gives me the IP name and password, gives me control of my PC back, and wishes me a good day.

About 5 minutes later, I get a package at the door... And what do you know... it's a high speed router from telus (And no, I am not exaggerating). Although it's highly unlikely this is the one he was sending me, as we signed up for higher speed internet about a week back (Which is likely where this one came from). I thought it was pretty hilarious given the timing.

So through all that, not only was that the most helpful tech support guy I have EVER spoken to, my internet speed was increased almost 10 fold, and I'm getting a new router out of it.

And to top it all of, while he was in control of my PC, he noticed FL Studio among a few of my other DAWs, and let me know, while I was trying to move the fridge to get at a phone jack, that he too used FL Studio to make music, and has been making music for about 12 years.
And we talked about music, VSTs, and the different genres we create for a good half hour while I was running around the house.

I tell you what... it was the most pleasant and productive tech call I have ever made.

So, once again I am having PC troubles... it happens at least once a year, this time with a PC that was built barely a year ago. I take VERY good care of my PC, clean it out, defrag it, run regular virus scans, don't download anything unless I'm sure it's trustworthy... I pretty much treat my PC like a spoiled little brat.
And how does it repay me? I put it into sleep mode earlier today, try to turn it back on, and to my surprise, doesn't turn on... So I go through the paces of figuring out what's wrong, unplug everything, plug it back in, restart it, and nothing.

My guess is it's my hard drive as it's the only thing I didn't upgrade when I did my last PC build. And if that's the case, there goes all my music, all my programs, VSTs... well.. everything.

Technology can go to hell.

That is, from the people that seem to be posting my music up on youtube. Although I would also appreciate it if you told me you were doing it. I really don't have a problem with it as long as I'm credited, I just like knowing where my stuff is.

That said, I'm flattered some people have been finding my music worthy enough of their videos on youtube.

Now I'm just concerned about people using it without crediting me, as I'm sure there's a couple out there that I haven't found yet.

So, I cease to amaze myself with my psychological exploration of this little planet that is ours. Earlier today, I read an article on IGN.com about a drug dealer that was caught by police through the game World of Warcraft. It's pretty entertaining, but you can go read it for yourself if you care to.

Fugitive Tracked Down Through World of Warcraft

What I'm talking about now, is my response to the argument that ensued in the comments of said article. People were arguing about how bad and evil weed, booze, and/or alcohol are, along with assorted other drugs, illegal or non. And being the weird guy that I am, I have a very different view on this kind of stuff than most people. I'm very open minded, and many, many, MANY people disagree with me, but hey, we have freedom of speech for a reason.

Anyways, should be an entertaining read for those who often ponder about this kind of stuff:

"I'm gonna throw my 2 cents in on this argument, but first, I'm going to make it clear that I am completely straight edge, no booze, no smoking, no drugs. Hell, I don't even take pain killers when I get a massive headache.

Anyways... Believe it or not, between cigarettes, alcohol and weed... Weed is the least harmful. Which boggles me as to why things that can, and do, kill are legal where as a drug (Weed) actually has medical purpose for some people.

That's right, I'm straight edge, and I don't condone doing drugs of any kind... but I'm saying weed should be legal before cigarettes and alcohol. You can't overdose on weed like you can alcohol, and it doesn't tar up your lungs (And I'd say give you cancer, but seriously... everything gives you cancer) like cigarettes.

The part I find most odd about all of this, is that if weed were legal... There would likely be a lot less crime in many areas, as weed is generally the most common illegal substance in the world... Take away the black market appeal, and less people would do it, and less people would be killed over it. And yes, I know that is all speculation, but it is likely true.

Same thing with prostitution, it's legal in certain areas in europe, and because of this, brothels are gov't funded and have their "hookers" regularly checked out for any kind of STD... As opposed to here, you get a hooker, and chances are you suddenly have an STD.

My point?
A lot of things in life would be more simple, and less dangerous if they were legal, instead of giving them a "forbidden fruit" kind of appeal.

Weed is used for medical purposes, and sex is completely natural, we are just animals after all, our whole purpose in life is to screw, pop out offspring, then die, and the world keeps on turning. Why not actually make these things safer? As long as they are illegal, all it causes is crime.

I know what you're thinking... "He says he's straight edge then says weed and prostitution should be legal".
Don't get me wrong, I don't condone either, but seriously, think about how much less crime we would have if these things weren't illegal, and were run as legit businesses instead of underground evil."

So, I've decided to take another shot at releasing a CD on my own, and this song is one of the few I have planned to release on said CD which will be released on iTunes at some point in the (Hopefully near) future.

Expect a fair amount of Celldweller/Sybreed influence.

http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen /276417

So I just got home from seeing Dream Theater in concert. Absolutely amazing show, I didn't manage to catch any of Petrucci's picks after their encore like I was hoping I would, but seeing my idol, Petrucci, in person was good enough for me.

They headlined a show with 3 other bands, all of which were previously unknown to me. Show kicked off with a band called "Scale the Summit", instrumental band, reminded me a bit of Between the Buried and Me, but without vocals. Second band up was "Big Elf", which was fronted by the Mad Hatter who would play an organ and a synth while singing, all at the same time... They were pretty trippy, nothing special though. After them was "Zappa Plays Zappa", everyone has heard of Frank Zappa, I'm sure, but these guys were crazy... That's all I have to say about them.

And of course Dream Theater, which was purely epic. Nothing more need be said.