After hearing feedback that people liked the lyrics to my songs, I decided to update the music page with lyrics. You can now view all of the lyrics for my songs. I also have the infrastructure in place now so that it will be extremely easy for me to add the lyrics to all of the other songs in the future. For reference, I currently have lyrics to 18 completed songs that I plan on recording and posting on my site. When I say these songs are completed, I mean that I have a melody figured out, and either guitar or piano to go along with it. In terms of putting together a full arrangement, that is nowhere close to done

In the next few days, I hope to flesh out the rest of the music page with information, pictures, and links. Here's hoping I can get it done! This weekend, I will be dedicating a lot of time to music (if things go as I plan, which they rarely do), so hopefully I can put out a few more demo acoustic tracks, fix some of my existing tracks, and maybe release 1 fully arranged song. I can dream! Wish me luck!

Well, I've finally put new music up. I made a decision the other night that I think it's best for me to put up acoustic versions of all my songs first, and then put up the fully arranged versions. So I've put up a couple of demo tracks( somewhat rough, and not really finished ). In fact, the version of "Can't Be Wrong" that I've uploaded I only recorded to see how it would sound, and also to prevent myself from forgetting it. It came out good enough though that I think people might enjoy it. "Plans For Two" is a song that I originally wanted to sing with my sister, but this version will have to do for now. It's nowhere close to being done( the version I generated seems to be clipping, ugh), but at least people can get an idea of what the song will be like. "We Can Make It" is pretty much in it's final state. I have a ton of songs to record acoustic versions of, so I'm hoping to bust a couple more out this weekend. Now to get 4 and half hours of sleep before my volleyball tournament. Bah, who needs sleep

I've noticed that my mp3 player is having a problem with lining all of the song names and durations up properly( if the song names are too long), so I will have to fix it. It also doesn't change the highlight when songs change. Too much fun...

After listening back to the song I put up, I definitely think it was too early to put it up. A case of the "Oh, this seems good enough" which easily happens after a long session. Some of the best mixers say they will only work 3 hours on a single song before switching, because it messes up your perspective. Perhaps I should learn from that... Song needs a lot of work, and I completely forgot to pan the instruments (rookie mistake). I think I might change up some of the instruments and I'm definitely going to add some more. The chorus needs a little more build up and something to fill it out more. In addition, I think the whole song could use some percussion with a beat (I'm not going for full drums though). Needless to say, if people like it at all now, hopefully it will be way better with the next iteration.

Now, it's time for some moovays.

Ahh, another fun weekend. On Saturday, I had a couple of friends over and we had a House marathon (it's a really entertaining show), and a few episodes of another show called Soul Eater. We also lifted weights and ordered pizza - the perfect combo of healthy exercise and artery clogging goodness. Sunday was a much busier day. I spent the day patching a hole in the wall behind my TV, and finishing the recording/arranging of a song I started months ago. Now you might be thinking, a hole in the wall behind his TV? What in the world happened there? Let me tell you...

So when my parents came out the 2nd time to help me finish getting my house ready, my dad noticed that my entertainment center was a little off. My entertainment is made up of about 5 pieces - there are the two sides, the base for the tv, the top piece that rests on the two sides over the tv, and a little shelf you can put above the tv to hold either decorations or a speaker (as is the case with me). He was having trouble repositioning it, so I went in to help. Now, that shelf I mentioned above is designed to widen so that you can move the sides of the entertainment center out to incorporate a larger tv than the default. Unfortunately, the shelf is only resting on a couple of little gold inserts that are only about 2 inches long. I really don't think they intended for people to put anything heavy on the shelf, but me being the enthusiast I am, I put a huge, heavy center speaker on it (it makes it bow under the weight). As I tried to move the right piece of the entertainment center, I pulled it about an inch too far, and the whole shelf fell, including the speaker, crashing into my TV and the wall. At this point, I was freaking out. It was a very bad situation - we had no way to easily get behind the TV to lift the speaker, and if we moved the TV out of the way, the speaker would have fallen farther and done more damage. Well my parents stopped me from being stupid in my freaked out state, and we managed to lift the speaker using a ladder, my dads monkey-like arms, and me squeezing behind the center. Amazingly, the speaker had fallen on the power cord of the TV and didn't damage the TV(I hope). It did put a nice hole in my freshly painted wall though...

Which leads me back to today. It was my first time patching a big hole like that, and I don't think I did a tremendous job, but it will pass. I think it's the same for everyone though: as soon as you get your first house, you suddenly have to figure out how to fix all these things you never worried about before. You know it's bad when you start to recognize all the people who work at Home Depot and Lowes .

As for the music that I recorded, it's a song called Trials that I randomly wrote a couple of months ago. I just decided one day, I want to write a song, and I kind of put it all together. Check out the initial version on the music page. Most of the song was recorded in my apartment, so I don't have a song yet that I've done from scratch in my new studio. I'm looking forward to that though. Having said that, I got to use a lot of fun new toys like my wireless controller that lets me undo mistakes and record from anywhere in the room. It lets me redo takes without having to go over to the computer which is the best thing EVER. As for the song, it was fun to make, but I'm not sure it's one of my better ones. It does have my first recorded piano solo though, so that is something at least I still need to iron out some problems with the EQ and such, and probably the levels a little, but overall, the song is mixed ok. I really need to record my best songs though, so I think I will tackle those next.

If you are bored and listen to the song (or any of the songs for that matter), let me know what you think.

Ahh, another 3 day weekend. Plenty of time to "waste" just relaxing and having fun. Let's cover what's gone on so far:

Friday:

- Saw Wall-E. Freaking loved it. Such an awesome movie - I will definitely buy it on Blu-ray. Pixar movies are always great though.
- Played Team Fortress 2. I'm really loving this game again. I need to find someone else who wants to play too.
- Watched The Other Boleyn Girl. It was okay... nothing special. I was somewhat bored by it all, but I especially hate that time period where the church and monarchy had way too much power. They abused it and normal people suffered so much. Give people power and they become corrupted...
- Watched tons of anime. Really good stuff. I will try to complete a list of all the stuff I have watched, so check the movie database if you are curious( more on that later ).
- Wrote some cool piano. I even have a melody sort of worked out. Too bad I have nothing that I really feel like writing about at the moment. Guess I will have to wait until inspiration hits me... I've also decided that I'm gonna try to write an instrumental album, because it's a completely different approach to music, and I'd love to have some of my own stuff on hand.
- Tried in vain to lay down some drums for Maybe. I hope Todd can hook me up soon... Once I adjust some settings, I think I will do the drumming on my keyboard through the drum sample on the computer...

Saturday:

- Slept in for 8.5 hours. Felt amazing. I wish I could do this every day.
- Worked on my movie database for about 6 hours straight, and finally finished it. Go to the movie page to check it out. I've only put up 6 movies for now, but I will be adding them very quickly. I have over 100 movies to catalog I believe, and a lot of ripped anime, so I will do my best to chip away at the mountain of media. I really like the movie database though, and it was a great introduction to working with databases. My next project will be insane, and I'm kind of overwhelmed with everything I want to do with it. It will be a tracker database that lets you enter all sorts of foods you eat, and it will track not only your caloric intake, but vitamins, protein, carbs, etc. Basically everything that's on the label. I want to see how I'm really doing when I break it all down. As part of this, it will also have an exercise tracker so I can see how much I'm burning, and also monitor my progress with lifting weights. I'm also considering being able to share results with others. Lots of stuff to plan out.
- Went to visit the house. They've finished the sheet rock walls, and started the dry walling. There was even a guy working today. You can find all the pictures here:

House Pictures

I probably won't go back for a week and a half because of Anime Expo, so I imagine quite a lot will change by then.

- Played games and watched anime. Sooo nice to do this. Also maxed out on pushups as I work towards 100 in one set. Hundredpushups.com for the win. Tried to not be lazy, and burned about a hundred calories on the treadmill. My ankle still hurts though, so I'm taking it somewhat easy.

As I mentioned before, I'm going to Anime Expo this week, so I won't update until after that. I should have all sorts of fun pictures and videos, so check back. I hope everyone has an awesome 4th of July!