Just Another Winter Day…Videos – Music – WoW – and more – www.chris.moesarts.com

Here’s a video I found over at http://mimikri.net/ which is a Czech artist sight. I found it while exploring and wanted to share it. I don’t imagine many people would have stumbled across it and I’m not even sure how I ended up there. It was under the PUK-PUK section and to be honest I don’t know what that even means. Either way it’s an interesting use of stop animation and it made me happy. So check it out, won’t ya

Flower’s affairs from Puk-Puk on Vimeo.

A very interesting video on training your ears with white noise. In the example, he is using a synth in Logic, you could apply the same principle with other synthesizer. If you do any audio mixing or sound design, you should see this.

Ear Training With White Noise from Graham English on Vimeo.

There’s a room in the back of the house which has been through I couple of changes. At first I had my computer in there and it was setup for recording. Back then my computer was a PIII 600 running Windows 98 and then Windows ME. My recording interface was a SeaSound Soloist.

Seasound Soloist

The recording software I used at first was Acid by Sony, although it was by Sonic Foundry back then. My wife and I painted the room purple and the sealing silver. I hung up a few neon lights, a black light and set up a couple of lava lamps. It was my night club looking home studio.

When I loaded Windows XP on my computer I couldn’t use my SeaSound Soloist anymore because the company went out of business and didn’t release XP drivers for it. Because of that and because I was doing computer work on my own, I rearranged it again and added a long work bench, a network hub, and some more power strips. It was now my computer repair room.

Then I started working at the radio and TV station. I pretty much quit doing computer work on the side and the room started to acquire all kinds of old computer parts and boxes. I took out my main computer but set up a server in there. Before I knew it, the room was full of stuff. So full that I only had a path to the chair at my computer desk. At this point it became my club looking storage room. And it remained this way for a couple years.
Last weekend I decided I wanted to a place to make and record my music in again. So I actually got the room cleaned up. Then I set it up so I could record at anytime I wanted to. The idea was to make it so I would have to do as little setup as possible before I could record. So I setup my stereo amp and speakers and wired it up to my laptop. On the top shelf of my computer desk, I hooked up an old 17″ Sony Trinitron monitor so I could use it and the latop’s screen at the same time. It’s nice to have at least 2 monitors when you’re working with recording software. After that I hooked up my Line 6 UX2 Toneport,which is what I use for an audio interface these days. Plugged in my guitar cord and ran the other end to my main guitar, an Ibanez RS 470 and set it on the guitar stand. Next, I got out my keyboard stand and placed one of my Roland MIDI keyboard controllers on it, and wired it up.

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Now it’s starting to look like a home studio. With the speakers, amp, computer, Line 6 UX 2, and monitors on the desk at the center against the wall, my MIDI keyboard on a stand to the left and my guitar on its stand on the right, I was just about ready to record. But I still had one piece of essential hardware to hookup. My control surface. Working with a mouse and computer keyboard isn’t the easiest or most efficient way to operate audio recording software. So my wife got me a PreSonus Faderport which is a motorized fader, that moves with track automation, and all the buttons you need for recording like play, fast fwd, rewind, record, stop, solo, mute, etc. After that I setup a boom stand and run an XLR cable to one of my microphones on said boom stand and I’m almost there.

Finally I launch Reaper and play around with screen arrangements and I decide to use the external Trinitron monitor for Pod Farm so I can adjust and change my guitar amp sounds without leaving my main Reaper screen. I create a new track and hit the record button on my Faderport and to my pleasant surprise, the button lights up and the track in Reaper has the arm/record button turn on. I slide back in my chair with just the Faderport in my hand. I press the write automation button and it turns red, then I move my fader up and down, press the stop button, press the read automation button and then play. The fader slides up and down by itself  mimicking the movements I made just a moment ago when I had it in write mode. The Faderport works perfect without any configuration at all. I just plugged it in to the USB port and that’s it. Gotta love it when I don’t have to hunt it down in the preferences at all and everything  just works!

Now I just walk in, create a track in Reaper and hit the record button and play my guitar, or my keyboard, or sing and I’m recording. No more time or inspiration or just forgetting what I was hearing in my head, while I set everything up. I’ve already got 2 new songs going. One is a pretty spacey track with quite a few keyboard parts and near done. I’ve recorded all the instruments and made a nice drum track. and I’m editing it now. Then I will finish mixing it. The other song I started today while I was in there just jamming. Like usual I had an idea for a song. This time I was able to get that idea recorded because I was all setup to record. It’s a hard rocking tune that I have laid down 4 or 5 guitar tracks for and a basic drum track.

Feels good to be making music again. I apologize to my World of Warcraft guild for not being on at all this past week, but when the muse visits, I gotta do what I gotta do.

It all started out innocent enough. It’s brewfest time in Azeroth (World of Warcraft) and I wanted to run the daily which involves the slaying of an elite boss. I ran it once earlier in the week so I knew it was going to take a party of level 80s. Maybe some other members of the guild I’m in would would like to do it too. Before I knew it I was asking in guild chat if anyone else wanted to do the brewfest daily. Instantly I got my first victim and he asked to be invited. Then it hit me, I’ve never been the leader of a party before, I’ve always accepted invites. I hadn’t intend on starting a party. Too late, I just invited him. But I’m not too sure about being the leader. No problem, I’ll just pass the party leader, and all responsibility, to the invitee. But he declines. So I just invited everyone who said ok. It didn’t take long to fill the party. Even our guild leader joined. For a short time I was proud of the party I had assembled. With all good players, this should be a piece of Dalarian cake.

As we are getting ready to go, one of the members mentioned he had a transport and we decided to all meet in the Dalaran bank, which we did. Then the transport comes drilling up through the ground and we all get in. Next thing I know I’m in what appears to be a pub, with people drinking and having a good time. In the next room there’s a quest, which I grab without bothering to read, a big mistake as you will soon see and it wasn’t my first. Across the way, I notice one of them golden question marks. Normally, clicking on that golden question marked character, and then clicking on complete quest, is a good thing which leads to the receiving of gold and other loot. However, you should read what quest you’ve completed and what your reward is, which of course I didn’t. Next thing I know I’m getting attacked…and so is my party, who are caught totally off guard. Not long after there’s a pile of crumpled bodies where my party once stood. We got beat like an adopted red headed child. Words of dismay and confusion filled the chat. What just happened? My brain recoiled at the realization of what I just did. The word FAIL!!! in bold, green, text glowed across my frontal lobe. Apparently that transport that we all used had taken us directly to the quest/fight. When I had done it the other day, we entered the dungeon and made our way through it until we finally reached our destination, and we passed lots of mobs along the way. This time the transport took us directly to the quest/boss location, and that threw me. I thought we still had a ways to go before we reached the boss fight but the transport had dropped us off right on the spot. We were already at it and I had just pulled the trigger and watched us all get cut down. And this wasn’t just some random PUG, it was all my guild mates and zee captain.

Although I didn’t seriously consider it, the thought did cross my mind that I could just pretend to be just as confused as the rest of my poor, dead, guildies. Yeah WTF just happened?!?! Why did we get attacked? But I knew damn well what just happened. After I did my best to try and explain, and that’s not easy to do with a chat system that’s shorter than twitter, another one of my oversights came to light. I had just invited the first four people who had responded to my call to join me in my party of doom. Never once did I even check to see if I had a balanced party. If I had all the proper ingredients for this cooked goose. One of the corpses spoke up, “We don’t have any healers LOL”

Even though I’m a new Level 80, I’ve already run a lot of the heroic mode dungeons. Here’s some pics from them. And I’ve included a little remix to enhance your audio / visual experience

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Looks like it’s time for another blog title change. And with that there is going to be another change. A change of topics is in order here. My computer help blog has really taken off. I’m getting a several thousand page views a month now over there these days. While here I haven’t even had 2 thousand ever. And that doesn’t surprise me. There are a lot more people interested in how to remove spyware and making the most of their internet experience than people who want to see videos I’ve made or listen to music I’ve made. And that’s ok. To be honest I never expected either of them to take off. The only reason PC Cybertek dot com took of like it did was because I figured out how to remove something called fast browser search. Apparently it has affected thousands of people and I’m one of the few people who has figured out how to get rid of it. That post started a huge influx of visits to PC Cybertek.

So this is my blog for the other things in my life, besides computers. And right now, most of my non work time has been taken playing World of Warcraft. And if it wasn’t bad enough before……

So I finally hit level 80 a bit over a week ago. It took almost a year to the day to reach level 80. And now that I’m level 80 I’ve been really putting in lots more World of Warcraft time. So I’m gonna be posting mainly about WoW for a while since it has consumed a lot of my time.

Last week I started running a lot of dungeons with pick up groups (PUGs). Until now. I have pretty well steered clear of PUGs. You hear a lot of horror stories about PUGs. The guild I joined, Burning of the Crusade, was mainly a social guild. Then one day I logged on and it had turned into a raiding guild. This means the guild is for people who have reached level 80 and run all the end game content like raids. When we were a social guild, I ran a couple of dungeons with people from our guild. When it turned into a raiding guild, I had a long way to go before I hit level 80. However, I was allowed to stay in the guild because I was in it before it changed.  Unfortunately, that put an end to running dungeons with fellow guild members. So I spent months running quests and it’s been slow going. About a week ago, I decided to use the Looking For Group (LFG) feature. I added myself as someone looking to fill the damage roll in the dungeons of Northrend.  About a 1/2 hour later I got invited to join a group and run a dungeon with them. I did pretty good for someone who hadn’t even entered a dungeon in months and even then, only a couple of times. We had such a good time, we ended up running several that night and I got 3 achievements for clearing the bosses in 3 different dungeons.. Since I had such good luck, I decided to try it again the next day. I got another invite and we cleared a couple more. The next day, I got invites from people in the previous PUGs. We had  more successful runs and I got several boss drops that I could use. I gained either 3 or 4 levels last week and I hit 77 and was able to get my cold weather flying skill. So with the exception of a PUG I ran with last yesterday, me experience with PUGs has been a positive one. I won’t go into what happened yesterday, but basically 2 of the 5 people in the group were idiots  and the tank was one of the 2. The cool thing is, I now have several friends from these PUGs that invite me when ever they run a dungeon/instance.  Even after the poor run we had yesterday, I was able to hit level 78 before I went to bed.

Anyway, the reason this is called No More World of Warcraft Excuses is because of an e-mail that the write of  Warcraft Hunters Union received. You should check that blog out if you’re a Hunter, but in case you’re not, I’m going to quote it here.

Hi Frost,

Love your blog and help hints. They’ve turned me into one of the best hunters on the server I occupy and have gotten me into one of the best raiding guilds on the server, as a core hunter now too!

Why am I so happy about the help your blog has given me? Well, I’m a Quadraplegic. The advice I’ve gotten here has made my role as a hunter so much easier and I’ve been spreading the word about your site.

Here’s my site explaining how I do things. Feel free to pass it around to help others with a similar problem. Its a work in progress and I hope to have video soon, but for now it’ll do.

http://quadilious.webs.com/

This was such a great message, I had to pass it on. We hear enough negative stories about idiots who lose their job, wife, house and even life from playing too much WoW. Here’s proof that it can also be a positive force.

-Nuff said

This isn’t one of my videos, but it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything so I’d like to share this with you.

Hoodoo Teleshopping – The Deadmurloc(tm) from Kilh Machinima on Vimeo.

I came across this and really liked it so I just thought I’d paste it here.

Each of you has a priceless
Jewel in your own body.
It radiates light through your eyes,
Shining through the
Mountains, river, and earth.
It radiates light through your ears,
Taking in all sounds, good and bad.
It radiates light through
Your six senses day and night.
This is also called absorption in light.
You yourself do not recognize it,
But is it in your physical body,
Supporting it inside and out,
Not letting it tip over.
Even if you are carrying
A double load of rocks
Over a single-log bridge,
It still doesn’t let you fall over.
What is it?
If you seek in the slightest,
It cannot be seen.

- Ta-an (d.883)

Los Angeles Lakers

It’s feels like it’s been a long playoff series. Even though they didn’t go 7 games, after some of their losses, I’m sure I wasn’t the only Lakers fan to wonder if they were goin to make it.  After their last loss, I was thinking there was a pretty good chance there was going to be a game 7 in LA. But last night, the Lakers looked good. They reminded me of the team we have seen this season. Durring the playoffs, we only saw a glimpse of what the Lakers are capable of. Everyone seemed to have bad nights and struggle with bad shots and free throws. The only question was who or how many of them were going to have a bad night. But last night, we saw what the Lakers can do, when they are all playing, like we know they can. I was particularly happy to see D. Fish nail his shots. It’s been a while since he has had a good night and if you’ve followed the Lakers over the years, you know what Fisher is capable of. It wasn’t so long ago that he hit the clutch shots, at the end, that won it for them. And Lamar Odoom was looking good as he brought it to the hole and was even smiling. Lamar anf Pau both scored 20 points. Even Luke Walton was hitting his shots, including a long  jumper in the forth, that I thought was a 3 pointer, but turned out to be a 2. And Shannon Brown should be given a lot of credit. The Lakers had a comfortable lead most of the game. However, towards the end of the 3rd, it looked like the momentum had shifted and Denver was making quite a run and catching up fast. Then Phil sent in Shannon Brown, and he scored and it was as if the Lakers were re-energized and put the Nuggets run to an end. And what can you say about Kobe. If it wasn’t for him, the Lakers wouldn’t even smell victory this late in the season. Kobe showed why he should have been the MVP this year. He was constantly talking to his teammates like he was their coach, offering up advice when ever needed. At one point, Pau was on the ground after he took a hard foul. Kobe leaned over to Pau who was still on the ground, one could only guess what he was saying but it was probably related to not getting mad, but getting even and hit his next 2 free throws.

After the game, the Nuggets coach, George Karl, was quoting as saying “I think Jesus would have had a hard time guarding Kobe.” While on the subject of George Karl, I might feel some pity for Denver, if it wasn’t for some of Karl’s remarks. Most notably, when he was complaining about the calls the refs were making, or not making. Blaming the loss on the ref’s is pretty lame and it sends your team the wrong message. If you want to win, figure out what your team can improve upon and don’t waste time complaining about “bad” or “non” calls. There was plenty of times Denver wasn’t called for fouls too. I saw Kobe get fouled plenty of  times and the whistle never sounded. The Lakers won this last game because they out played the Nuggets, plain and simple. Maybe Karl should look at the score again, 92-119. They didn’t just lose, they got beat bad. How many bad calls do you need to get beat like that?

This was a win the whole team can be proud of. Everyone contributed and when they do, it leads to victory. And victory was on Pau Gasol’s mind.

Lakers

10 Photos

 

This is the Laker team that can win the championship. This is the team I’ve been waiting to see, the team we’ve all needed. A team, worthy of being called The World Champions. When Kobe can count on the rest of the team, and they are knocking them down, the Lakers are unstopable. Let’s hope this is the Laker team that shows up Thursday and for the rest of the games, and their bi-polarism was cured. What would be more fitting for them to win another championship on this, their 30th trip to the finals. Phil can finaly have a ring for all of his digits and become the coach with the most championships, ever.