6/21/2025 - New Art, Music, Other Shit

My first blog update in over a year here. Life has been busy as of late. New job meant new responsibilities, and new responsibilities meant a new form of laziness for me. I did spend some time the past month or two redesigning the look of the site, going for a Neubrutalism style that looks (to me) more retro and similar to webpages of old. I also changed up the color scheme because too much black & red on it made it look like you were browing the site through a Virtual Boy. You'll also notice that I have a new logo for Clotshot, done by the talented Fani Sejati on Fiverr. I coulda just used AI to make the logo (always fun kicking that hornet's nest) but I kid you not I was too lazy to fuck with the prompts and all that. So for now AI image generators will remain a novelty for me. Something to get amused by for maybe 15 minutes or so out of my day. I also don't care about your opinions on AI images. This is my site. Go bitch about it on yours. I simply mentioned it because it seems that's requirement when any image is uploaded onto the internet these days. Otherwise it's the Salem Witch Trials all over again and you end up having your house firebombed, or so I've heard.

Speaking of firebombs, I've changed up the pages on the site to include an ART page. This is where I'll occassionally upload my digital art, which is nothing more than already existing images that I've cut up, added tons of effects to, and stiched together in Photoshop. They're crude, cliché, and more akin to something you see at your local DIY performance, but it allows me to express myself outside of music and just writing things out. I've written enough strongly worded emails to my elected officials that I've landed myself on their blocklist so this is my next best option. Turns out these "adults of higher distinction" don't take kindly to being insulted and called out on their bullshit. In that case politicians and influencers are not so different: act high and mighty but insult them and you have startled the witch

I've also updated the Music page to include the first EP, titled "Anhedonian Embrace". "Anhedonia" is the inability to experience pleasure from activities that are typically enjoyable, and "Embrace" is to, well, embrace it. I currently have four tracks set for the EP: HYT, Manifold, Reclaimance, and Ennuisweet. The theme of this EP is to describe adolescent loneliness and trauma that grows in young adulthood and boils over before you turn 30. Each song is more of a commentary on my own life experiences, with "HYT" being the initials for the town I grew up in that acts as the metaphorical "center" of it all. "Manifold" targets the culture of influencers and the chronically online, more specifically the hypocrisy of it all. I could do an entire post about it, so we'll leave a further explanation for another time.

"Reclaimance" is about my generation's ("Zillennials"/older Gen Z) tendency to be "slacktivists", such as those that put "#FREEPALESTINE 🇵🇸" in their Twitter bio and call it a life; or those 14 year old white girls in 2020 who were putting "BLM✊🏿" in their Instagram bios for maybe two weeks. It's another thing I could do a whole post on, so we'll leave that for another time as well. "Ennuisweet" is still in the works, but my idea is for it to center around a growing lack of stimulation in life despite living in a time where entertainment is available at the click of a button. All these songs are still in the writing stage. Just gotta get the music and the lyrics to flow together without it sounding like a jumbled mess, or maybe that's what this type of music deserves to be.

Outside of Clotshot, I finally took my lifelong dream trip to Japan back in May. It was my first time traveling anywhere solo and the first time I had been outside my home state for any significant period of time. Despite that, I had an amazing time. I spent more time in Akihabara than anywhere else, but who can blame me? I did take some time to visit Shinjuku, Shibuya, and the Tokyo National Museum. I was only going for 2 weeks, so I had limited time to see things. I then spent so time in Kyoto visiting the several shrines and temples there, along with traveling down to Nara and Osaka. I had plans to visit Hiroshima and the Peace Park there, but time didn't allow for it. But I had an amazing time shopping, sightseeing, and definitely the eating. I already want to go back, so maybe I will within the next 6-12 months. The cost wasn't bad either, with the majority being the round-trip airfare. It was a 14 hour flight there but a 12 hour flight back. That doesn't make any sense to me.

No Song of the Day, but I will leave you with this George Carlin bit in light of current world events...

George Carlin - Persian Gulf War

6/2/2024 - My Own Social Media (Shove It)

I apologize for the lack of updates recently. A lot of things have been going on in life. For starters, I had an uncle who passed away back in late April and have been dealing with some family drama as a result (not my immediate family, but a few of my disfunctional cousins and uncles). Family deaths don't seem to impact me that much since I never really was close to most of my relatives, but I imagine that will change when my parents inevitably pass away (which I hope isn't for another 20+ years). It may be because we knew he was going to pass away several months before he did, so that likely made it easier for everyone, including me, to take. But I took the liberty of organizing a family tree and history earlier this year so future generations in the family won't forget him.

Second, I recently got a new job in my field of expertise (IT). I don't actually start the job until later this month, but I'm glad to have finally landed a job after almost6 months of applying to literally every IT job out there. Oddly enough, this was the only job that offered me an interview. It's also located at the local university so I feel it will be a little less stressful of an environment as my previous IT position was (Fuck you generic insurance company and your shit bureaucracy). The pay is also better which means more money to spend on better gear for the Clotshot project!

Speaking of Clotshot, I've been working a lot on the first EP. I've already decided it'll be self-titled and will consist of about 4 or 5 songs. There won't be a central theme for the EP, but rather a collection of songs influenced by different styles of nu metal (one song with Korn influence, one with Deftones, etc). Structuring the EP this way will let me experiment with different sounds and reinforce all the music theory I've been learning; but it will also allow me to gauge listeners' interest in which sound is the best and what tone I might use going forward. I do want to stress that this is solely a hobby/passion project. I have no dreams or ambitions of becoming a famous musician, although I wouldn't be opposed to it. I've already decided on chord progressions for a few of the songs. Now all I need to do is structure it all together and make it sound good (or as good as a debut EP can sound).

Another thing of note is that I've decided to cut back on using social medias. I'm not as addicted to them as a lot of people are these days. I have various reasons, but the main one is to get away from the constant discourse that goes on in them. You can't open Twitter or Instagram these days without being bombarded by horribly misinformed liberals or batshit insane conservatives at nearly every turn. I'm not against politics or political discussion, but I do have something against bullshit. So for that sake, I've now decided that this site is my own social media. I grew up during the late MySpace/early Facebook era of social media when it was seen more as a fun timekiller (to teens) than anything else. And that's sorta how I see this site. "Fuck you" to mainstream social media.

SONG OF THE DAY

Korn - Coming Undone

This is one of my favorite Korn songs, even though it's one of their most popular and arguably one of their more disliked.

5/19/2024

I finally finished the About page (after 3 hours of trial-and-error CSS coding). Despite the simple design I think it turned out nice. I'll probably spruce it up some here and there to make it pop out a bit more, but otherwise it's finished. I'm not the best at describing myself but I did the best I could. I'm a rather boring person when it gets right down to it. But I prefer my life to be the same and simple each day rather than living chaotically.

I also updated the home page here with some new buttons and a few CSS tweaks. I finally got all my margin correct so now each "container" line up with one another. I also made the sidebar stuff slightly larger. I'm most likely going to replace the header image, but I don't know with what yet. I'm also thinking of adding more personal pages to the site, such as pages for my favorite music and bands and the like. I already mention them on the About page, but these would be a bit more in-depth. Between the Clotshot project, this site, and regular old life, my priorities are all over the place. But I want to update this site once a week at the least. I typically visit Neocities every day to find new sites to browse. But usually I'm too lazy to actually edit this site.

SONG OF THE DAY

Limp Bizkit - Hot Dog

5/11/2024

Here is the riff track that I've been working on for the project. I want to stress that this is NOT in any way good or even decent guitar playing or mixing. I made it simply to teach myself about music production and guitar playing. I don't think it's that bad, but I want to warn people before they actually listen to it. The riffs themselves aren't in any particular style, they're just what came to my mind while I was recording. They're actually very reptitive and simplistic, but I think that's the best approach right now. The last thing I want is for my music to be too complicated and feel more like a chore to me than a hobby

I used Ableton Live 11 as my DAW, AmpliTube 5 for amp and cabinet simulation, and stock plugins that Ableton provides for mixing. I used BandLab's Mastering tool to master the track and make it sound a little better (the raw file sounded flat). The guitar I play is a Jackson Dinky JS11, a $200 guitar I got from Guitar Center that's probably meant more for practicing and jam sessions rather than recording. But it works fine for what I'm doing, especially after changing out the stock strings for ones that are thicker and more sturdy. Fun fact: I actually only have 5 strings on the guitar. The high E string (1st string) broke while I was restringing the guitar, and since I don't plan to really use the high E much in this project, I've just left it off.

I've also added a Cbox to the site so visitors can leave messages about the site or anything else. Back in my day (mid 00s) we would embed a Xat chat into our sites. Xat was actually a really good site back in the day. Now I think it's full of spammers and various other internet miscreants.

SONG OF THE DAY

Obscurest Vinyl - I Glued My Balls To My Butthole Again

5/10/2024

I think I've finally finished with the overall look and feel of the site. I may make a few minor cosmetic changes but overall, I like the theme I've designed. I wanted it to look reminiscent to an old “barebones” website from the late 90s and early 00s, but still make use of modern and more advanced CSS.

My next task is filling out all the other pages on the site. Since they all share the same design, it shouldn’t be too daunting of a task, it just depends on if I actually feel like doing that much work right now (I have a desire to get things done but also a desire to be lazy). Worst case scenario I update the home page only.

I’m also working on putting together a few “demo” tracks to showcase what Clotshot is all about. They aren’t working songs or anything, but rather a collection of different riffs and chord progressions to try and get a feel for how I want the project to sound. Once I get them put together how I want I’ll post them here for everyone to listen to and give feedback on. The project is still in its infancy so many details are still to be ironed out.

SONG OF THE DAY

Obscurest Vinyl - It's Time To Take a Shit on the Company’s Dime