Random Encounter

Pre-Prologue - "Well" <E>

Seeing as how I can't send out emial.. I'll post here.
In another 3 hours, I will be forced to wake up, after waking up I will to go Denny's wherein I will meet Robin, QORG, Lurch, Rook, Violence, and two people I've never seen before. 

Right now I am at Tyrones, Hannibal Lekter (Tim, the Enchanting One) is here as well, but they are sleeping, or watching Get A Life, which I find annoying.. What will unfold iduring the coarse of this day? I hope it will beat out my Karnivore experience, in sound, sight, and of course.. mind altering 
drugs.. I just hope I live through it all! (kinda have to, I've driving and all) Well, to all those who aren't partaking on the trip to MorphoFest, I say hahahhaa. To those who are, I'll see you in the mosh pits (Yes, Psycho. I am going in.. <E>) Peace all. As rof htsee ismngsu, and het acrhaerct I ma mkanig of mesylf herein, I siad hatt I ryt to eb hsciogkn and oboxousni oyldieicarpl ot csrea awya comrmecila einerttss dna mnsaitraem epsrs ovcegare so I acn ermani mosewoh in the iadlesiitc grrddenunou. Shit dind't wokr fro Rutk Bcoian, treu, utb eht hince wlord of the ewb si a infdeftre sort fo pclae adn I'm not a heroin-abunisg etmooinal ewcrk. Ti cruocrde to me htat eth etbs ywa ot esu my wrntigi sa smoe tros of esfl-psuoptirng cmenhmias twihout mnrocogpiims my usevbrsiev iatttdue oulwd eb to eruesm aipnntgi and sidrcetley mrkaet nwe iaptinnsg htrhoug eerh. I dha a satet of the spseiblsitioi ni areyl Prali nda I tkhin htta's teh omst iavble (dan tulaimtley saisytfing) use fo ym aprtirlacu ets of ateltsn. Htsi aapgarprh sounsd trelrbiy aarrgotn, I nkow, ubt ti is aesbd on arleity. Dna hte tuhrt si ttha I racev ttiaennot, dna ma speecilaly lpasdee whne I get ti edpitse who "aidor-funrnileyd" I mkae ym "EZRALIEN."

People / R Plus Seven REVIEW

Q. WHEN WE ASK HOW TO BE LESS MECHANICAL, we are told to be more awake. When we ask how to wake up, the answer is not to identify, and when we ask how not to identify, the answer is to self-remember. This seems to be a circle, each method being counterparts of the other. Can we get any further help to attempt any or all of these?

A. It is not exactly right, because each of these attempts has its own peculiar feature and taste. They are all different. It is necessary to try from all possible sides in order to break the wall. It is a very high and very hard wall that we have to break. But we do not begin with that—we begin with our plurality. When I first spoke of the many 'I's in us, I said that new 'I's jump up every moment, control things for a brief time and disappear, and many of them never meet. When you realize that you are not one, that you are many, that you may know something for certain in the morning and know nothing about it in the afternoon, then this realization is the beginning. I do not mean that if we realize this plurality we can change it and become different; but this realization is the first step.

R PLUS SEVEN

Warp Records 2013

***1/2

Oneohtrix Point Never is a progressive noise band from, where else, Winthrop. R Plus Seven follows where Replica left off and does a pretty damn good job of it. They are prog but also have a few electronic noise tendencies. The synths are often more plastic as they would be in noise and the vocals sit somewhere between choral bliss and screams. There is lots of atmosphere too. Maybe like six parts atmosphere and one part prog.

The album begins with arpeggios which is very cool. This is a very cool beginning. It’s got that nostalgiac feel but with decent production. Ironically, with Replica and Returnal where the production is generally bad, the songs are pretty good. Here it is the opposite. The songs are just a little too artsy and it takes away from the power. Fortunately, the confusing vibe is very cool and comes through very well. There are many breaks in the middle of things with nice riffs and surprising sounds. The trouble is, there is too a big difference between the most aggressive parts of the album (Still Life) and the rest of the album which are kind of just paintings. I really like dramatic dynamics though, I don't know if it will or won’t bother most people. Boring Angel and Americans flow together very well. Sometimes there is no pause and so the onslaught continues. There are places where I really like the lack of dynamic change. There are some nice chord progressions here that I really like.

Still Life begins with no hesitance. It explodes in with some nice riffing. Chrome Country is a great song. It is a beautiful change from the formula of the first four tracks and the next three. There is a cool bass part that opens the song and is very audible throughout the entire song. It has that feel that I associate with most ballads. The vocals on this track are great. There is a little bit of delay and distortion on them and that makes them even better that they already are. The drums sound good too because its just an 808 kick. There are also some synth voices in the background. The worst part of the song is that there is a fade-out. Oh well.

Inside World is lame. It has a sample of a knife cutting something. There are people in the background making food, maybe in the jungle. That ruins the excellent mellowed section. This song is actually really good musically but it is just so lame. It ends with a question mark; that is not lame. 

The first half of the album was mediocre. The second half, is awesome. Did I mention this album has strings? The weird sounds really stand out. There are key changes too. There is a halftime section (Problem Areas). There is also strange sections when all the music fades out but the vocals keep their volume and you can really hear the delay. It sounds really cool. There's a lot of silence, and strange pulsing sounds that remindsme of early Kaoss Edge, or something medieval. 

This album is very split. It is pretty much the same weird stuff for the first half and it’s fine, but not great. The second half is really awesome.


Recommended Tracks:

Still Life

Americans

Boring Angel

Chrome Country

Problem Areas

Pets

MY DOG VOID DIED! ITS OKAY I'LL BRING HIM BACK FROM THA DEAD

CERBERUS, n.  The watch-dog of Hades, whose duty it was to guard the 
entrance -- against whom or what does not clearly appear; everybody, 
sooner or later, had to go there, and nobody wanted to carry off the 
entrance.  Cerberus is known to have had three heads, and some of the 
poets have credited him with as many as a hundred. 

Void has started over from level 1 104 times now. Each time he looks gnarlier and gnarlier! As for me, I'm definitely "STUCK." And no amount of wizardry is going to help. On this planet whatever the mechanism, the only way to contain your leak, apparently, is to make a copy of the slime file before you go sliming. That way you can restore it if things go dry. Back home that would be cheating, though, and cheating is against my rules.

"This doesn't look like the respawn solution I was looking for."

• Void attacks monsters. I trained him to "do all sorts of things," but I have no idea how. I've noticed that he has a habit of wandering off and "fetching" items from other rooms.

• When Void dies, he leaves bodies, which you can pick up and carry around. At first, I couldn't figure out why you'd want to do that, but I soon realized it was possible to eat them. I also noted that if I don't pick up a body, Void generally eats it.

Another dog named Chet.

In swift order, Chet killed a gnome and a jackal with a combination of his club and arrows, and he managed to hoist the jackal's body over his shoulders before his mangy mutt could get to it. He found a fountain and drank from it, but to uncertain effect.

Chet disappeared for a while and came back with a scroll labeled LEP GEX VEN ZEA, which Chet--being somewhat dumb--couldn't stop himself from reading. An acid blob came along and corroded his club. He killed a rat. Things seemed to be going well for Chet, but the fates played a cruel joke and he died a death of ignominy.

Guitars

You'd think it would be hard to learn all the kord changes on Bioconfused out of order but if they all occurred in the same year, you wouldn't notice difficulty level was high. "WARLORDZ" is a bit different than what I was used to from instructional videos but it's achieveable. All these demovids mysteriously are in English, and there's no back story to the music itself (living in a dungeon must suck). 

Not That Bad.

Finding a sword was the top priority. One nearby, but behind a wall, is no help. I can shred faster than the monsters, but they can shred diagonally and you can't (at least, not at the beginning). They can also gang up on you and trap you. Overall, guitar is horribly, frustratingly difficult in the beginning stages. Most of my hellscapes were forgotten before they ever even got scary. I seem to designed music with an arcade dynamic in mind -- kill the idea as quickly as possible and insert more coin. 

Enabling MIDI randomly redistributes things, things you might not get back. Once you have a good riff, like a Metheny style riff, you can deal normal damage, but this system horribly unbalances the music. Playing Counterparts was lame too. Sounds better mediated. The middle sections of each song R extremely boring. I found it unchallenging, and the biggest difficulty was opening all of Geddy's files and dragging all the MIDI back to the garage, one by one. 

Oh and thinking of getting a new CD Player. Here's the complete tracklist:

disembodied feet

disembodied heads wearing sunglasses

penguins

aliens

floppy disks

deer

reapers

vampires

For now, let's get back to the basement and see if we can finish ARYA.

Fight or Leave

Welcome to the Child Avatarus. First give me all your money, than I will raise your band from the dead!

At the end of Fight or Die, I questioned whether or not I was actually still a fan of hypergrunge. The coolest thing about the record was the metallic sliding panel that opened to reveal a mysterious pouch with a vile of Vivenne Slime in it. 

Me and Trebor joke a lot about people are always alluding to the difference between order and chaos. Get a Grip!!! I feel like if K.E. DOES release a record in '98 they are going to need to step it up and think of music dungeon master status and treat every creature as an individual that wants to kill you, and every song as a random encounter, and every melody as always chaotic evil.

Food

HOMEWORK (PUKE)

I HATE SKOOOOOOOOOL!!!!!! I LOVE JENI !!!!!! I thought of a kool new JENI game today in gym. The concept is, a malevolent computer mainframe has taken over an office building, corrupting employees and causing all kinds of havoc. Pamala Anderson must ascend up to 30 floors of the office building (i.e., dungeon levels) to find 
the software and return with knowledge of its location to the lobby. On the way, you must deal with hostile employees (monsters), keep up a supply of junk food, increase your levels and statistics, find office supplies (weapons), learn different strategies for dealing with different employees, and collect chips and bytes (gold). Death is permanent and your save game is deleted when you die. Bye for now, I need to go pretend I can digest food. I figure my options are:

1. Don't eat for weeks and see if anyone notices
2. Blog what I'm doing, no matter how repetitive or boring
3. Come up with a lot of special topics
4. Play Rifts with Jeni
5. Feed Void

Since I still have KARNIVORE on the burner anyway, I think I'll try #4 and see how it goes.

Hurtful

Minor, but amusing, typo: "CLOAD cassette magazine, May 1990, for JOKER" should say "... for JO-K8R". But TSR (Tactical Studies Rules) was the original publisher of Roidz.

CURSOR Magazine published some very good programs on cassette for the Karma. Two that come to mind were RATRUN, a 3D "rat maze" in which you had to find the cheese, and Indian Poker. In the latter, you could see your opponent's cards, but not your own, and had to try to win bets. What made it special was that each opponent had a unique "personality". You could sometimes tell from their expression whether they were trying to bluff you. I found it amazing that anyone could squeeze such impressive games into 8KB of memory. Try to find anything that will run in 8MB today. :-)

I fried my brother's by inserting a cartridge while the machine was powered on. I think I had to pay $75 to replace the CPU (and maybe the entire motherboard). Afterwards I looked at the schematics and found out why I fried it - The cartridge was unbuffered. If you put it in even slightly skewed, it would short out several lines in the computer.