the indie rock curbstomp!

follow-through.

@12/18/2008 11:46:00 AM
in news [edit]

due to the fact that i really like sleeping while i'm over here, you can catch up on all the crazy things i do at http://ds616.soup.io.

we'll resume our irregularly scheduled mind-vomit sometime in june of next year.

thoughts from the field.

@10/25/2008 10:39:00 PM
in introspective,travel [edit]

i'm highly considering shutting down this site, or at least keeping it frozen while i'm gone. i'm starting to favor the soup/tumblr idea more and more, and i may modify my existing soup site to allow quick posting of various media in a single location. it seems quicker and easier to manage, and i don't think i'll have the time to write long, drawn out stuff like this for awhile.

while away at training, i wrote the following (edited as needed):

the dry texas air kicks around chalky, silver dust clouds. millions of gravel rocks pounded by thousands of boots that have come before mine. it's not a hard wind - it lifts up the camo netting over the mess area one small section at a time. the end result is a hunter green and tree bark brown mesh wave. some of us have already seen this setting, and others still will return under different circumstances to face a new set of challenges. for now, i sleep because i can get away with doing so. twelve hours until the next round and i have one earpiece in, reading news and catching up friends and family from the comfort of a sleeping bag on a cot.

there's a movie being shown in the classroom; a game of spades two tents down; a collective m-16 cleaning on the pt field. so much activity going on, and i can't understand the why. when i return, i will have two weeks left. i need all the sleep i can steal away. i wonder about everyone. i wonder about the guy sleeping in the cot across from me. about my mom. about the office. about who's been through this before. about her.

the dodge neon in the parking lot and the myspace profiles loaded on the morale computers' screens remind us we're not so disconnected from the world. and every once in awhile, on a point-to-point navigation exercise, a commercial jet will tear across the sky, possibly on the same flight path that will take a few of us home. and much like dissipating contrails left by the engines, home won't be home for much longer.

we'll danger cross and rally as necessary, consuming what we have available to us. taking precautions, and always ready to rely on others. they tell us we need to mentally prepare for the worst, but this all seems so unreal at times. until it's time to take off the gear, at least. the bruises will remind us of all the maneuvers we learned, and the cuts and scrapes will be tended to in better conditions over further stories. for now, we'll cover them up. not forgetting, just delaying until a time when we can fully comprehend what's been bestowed upon us.

many things feel rushed, but then again, one doesn't mind being hurried along if it means we can unload this equipment - half the cause for our aches. so we count the number of nights slept under schizophrenic air conditioning units, the number of vacuum packed meals left to eat, the number of football games we didn't get to watch, and the number of beers we'll drink when we get back. pace counting. picking up stones or twigs or motrins, just to keep track. it's hard enough to keep track of everyone's configurations. compass pouch on flak jacket, camelbak tube looped through a hook. everything seems like a good idea, so we'll pick and choose what feels better or lighter or smarter in the end. not like it particularly helps, but it's certainly an available option - something just different enough to break the monotony.

i'm afraid the fields are on fire every time we walk through them - this brush cracks with astonishing ease and crumbles with each team member's passing.

hopefully, my worries will crumble just the same.

the broadcast, part 2.

@10/15/2008 11:25:00 PM
in travel [edit]

i've been in a whirlwind since my last post. big surprise, right?

too much stuff to convey, so i'm probably going to bottle it all up until i can get some real downtime.

speaking of which, consider me 100% unavailable for the next ten days or so - i have combat arms training coming up and i'm going to spend this weekend with the folks, since i honestly don't know if i'll even be able to take any kind of leave before i split.

someone mentioned to me that i'll be able to take my cell phone with me to this training next week, but i won't be taking calls - only making them if i can. provided there is at least one ac outlet, i'll try to keep it charged. if i get a data signal out there, i might be able to check e-mail, but i'm not counting on it.

so here we go. it's really, actually happening.

shit.

the broadcast i didn't want to make.

@10/01/2008 08:23:00 PM
in murder,work [edit]

i'm not entirely sure how many people actually come here. i don't have any kind of analytics service or anything going on, so most of you are already probably well aware, but...

i will be deploying in mid-november. it's a six-month deployment. ask me where, if you're curious.

there are a thousand things going through my head, many of them being logistics and how i'm going to get everything taken care of in less than 45 days.

i got tagged as a second alternate. somehow, two other people managed to get out of doing this. i'd like to know the details and the why, but all my avenues have been exhausted. it's obviously not my place to know.

thousands of people in my career field suck. hard. at life. and yet, i continue to be the one that gets hit with the major, life-altering shit that never seems to coincide with how i roll.

and for some reason, it always happens this time of year.

i obviously haven't proven myself enough.

so to those who agree with that prior statement, well, fuck the lot of you.

uh, wha, wha, wha?

@9/28/2008 02:31:00 PM
in linkdump,murder,music [edit]

i've been cleaning up the music library a little more, particularly swapping out songs i bought from the itunes music store with non-drm'ed ones. i've tried cracking fairplay, but it doesn't really help much - i get aac files that actually crash my goddamn blackberry. and i'm sure as hell not about to transcode and take a hit on quality, especially when the original tracks are already encoded at a paltry 128kbps. on the legal side, itunes has got this really nice feature that allows you to pay about 30 cents to "upgrade" tracks in your library to the itunes plus format (256kbps aac). problem is, only a fraction of the tracks i've purchased actually have itunes plus counterparts, so i click the "upgrade" button about once a month, just to see if there's anything out there. it's getting a little tedious waiting for everyone to do this.

oh, wait, that's right...amazon's mp3 store has somewhere in the range of six million drm-free, 256kbps mp3s for purchase. so it's not like the major (and indie) labels haven't already taken care of this. note to amazon: somehow, you got pretty much everyone to give you drm-free tracks immediately. you want to get your name out there even more? offer an itunes trade-up. don't care how you go about the process, but figure it out. you'll get a bunch of money from me. the number of drm-based stores that have folded in the last year just goes to show that digital rights management is the stupidest fucking technological roadblock to have ever been conceived. it's a money pit, it hurts consumers, and it hurts the reputation of an organization that, while funded by the very record labels they try to protect, just decides to do whatever the fuck they want to do (witness muxtape).

i take a break from realizing how truly fruitless my quest is and pop open a slick itunes plugin called iconcertcal. the plugin crawls through your library and lets you know when upcoming album releases and shows are happening, based on only the artists in your library. i had to bail on the children of bodom/black dahila murder/between the buried and me show due to lack of funds, so i'm trying to see what else is out there after payday. unearth is gonna be in town soon, and i'm really stoked about local h opening for electric six later this month. but it's not until i get into november that my eyes come close to falling out of my head.

mudvayne headlining with support from 10 years and...snot? what-the-eff? (if you're not what-the-effing, catch up here)

research turned up this article from roadrunner records' blabbermouth e-rag stating that the surviving members of snot plus the estranged ex-vocalist from dino cazares's divine heresy project. based on the mtv article, the guy sounds like kind of a selfish cunt, so i hope the rest of the guys know what they're doing. it'd be a shame to lay to rest a decade of mourning the loss of your best friend, only to decide to let a rat bastard take his place on the stage. still, it'd be nice to see what they can do.