Dear Future Parents

June 6th, 2010

I know I’m not a parent and therefore have no experience with the difficulties of raising children. But please don’t disregard my counsel because of this. The advice offered here doesn’t require me to be a parent, much like I don’t have to own a dog to know that they should be trained not to poop wherever.

Like most of the entries in this category, this one is inspired by a bad experience. And even though it may seem like I’m just venting my frustration about something that’s really not a big deal, I thought it was worth writing about especially considering a lot of people I know are getting married these days and might be having children in the near future.

Recently, my mom had company over at our house. One of the guests brought along three children, (all under the age of ten, as far as I know. I don’t know how to guess age anymore). I was planning on staying for supper and then going for a leisurely bike ride to escape the madness. Alas, the madness founded itself much earlier than I had expected. Within ten minutes of their arrival, the young ones had spilt Oreo crumbs all over the floor, eaten my trail mix, put their mouths on my recorder, helped themselves to my organ, commandeered my computer to play music from Mario, taken hold of an expensive microphone and tried on my headphones, all without permission. I promise that my attitude at the beginning of this was a patient one, but my tolerance inevitable ran dry. After cleaning up their mess, I diverted them with Lego and quickly fled my house without hesitation, without dinner. Camera in hand, I found peace in nature and some fresh air. My brother, the genius that he is, had been a step ahead of me and was already at the church, away from harm.

Have you ever been walking in a park or on a trail, enjoying the scenery and the smell of the outdoors, when all the sudden, you find yourself having to dodge a big dog dung, or worse, wiping one off your shoe? You probably thought to yourself, “Someone did not do their duty as a dog owner.” How true. Chances are, you weren’t thinking, “I hate dogs. I hate that they poop. Stop pooping, dogs.” Of course dogs are going to poop, but most of the time, it’s not a problem since pet owners who are responsible will clean up after them, supervise them, and discipline them in the ways of pooping.

Now let’s attach the analogy: I don’t blame these kids (much). They’re very young and probably haven’t mastered the art of behaving as a guest. Things like taking without asking, using without asking, eating without asking, and invasion of personal space are things that will take time for them to learn not to do, providing they have someone teaching them.

Enter beef. My beef. With the parents. Returning to the analogy: when I went to the park with my friend to walk her dog, we didn’t arrive at the park, let the dog off the leash and go do our own thing, allowing said dog to annoy other dogs and their owners with his hugeness and playfulness. We had the dog on a leash, and when we let him off the leash, we kept our eyes on him and called him over when he got carried away. Good for us! We rock!

When these guests and their children arrived, the parents sat down in the living room and disregarded their children, ignored their behavior and virtually pretended they didn’t exist. They didn’t know what was going on in the rest of the house: the unknocked doors being opened, the ungranted foods being eaten, the expensive equipment being hijacked, the privacy bubbles being popped. I don’t know if they overestimated their children’s manners or if they assumed that when they are guests, their kids become our kids. They don’t. Transferring custody of children takes a lot of paperwork that no one would want to deal with just for an evening visit, which I’m assuming isn’t the only reason we don’t do that.

This is a lot of words for a small point: when you, as a parent, are a guest at someone’s house, you still need to supervise your children. The host has likely provided dinner, dessert, and cleaned the whole house in order to please you. Don’t punish them by unleashing your kids all over their home. It’s rude.

Sincerely,

David

Posted in Letters | 1 Comment »

Dear Movie Stores

May 21st, 2010

(Excerpt from “Dark Knight”)

ANGRY CROWD MEMBER: Things are worse than ever!

DENT: Yes, they are. But the night is darkest just before the dawn. And I promise you…the dawn is coming. One day, the Batman will have to answer for the laws he’s broken. But to us…

…not to this madman.

POLICE OFFICER: No more dead cops!

(Appreciative noise)

He should turn himself in!

MAN 2: Give us the Batman! Come on!

MAN 3: Where is he?

(People take up the chant. Dent has lost them. He knows it.)

—UNABLE TO READ DISC—

This is one of the most annoying things in life, and there are tons of ways it could be prevented. It doesn’t matter whose fault it is, but I’ll tell you whose fault it is anyway. It’s my fault, your fault, and it’s the movie store’s fault.

I don’t know what the heck  you guys do with your rented DVDs when you get them home. Perhaps you open them up, throw them against the wall, take a needle to them, cut your bagels on them, mistake them for vinyls, whatever. I wish you would stop doing these things.

Correct procedure for DVD use:

1. Remove DVD from case

2. Place unscathed disc in DVD Player

3. Watch and enjoy

4. Remove unscathed disc from DVD Player

5. Place DVD back in case

6. Return to movie store

It seems like something happens between steps one and two, or between four and five, that brings many of us a great deal of sorrow. Because it seems like half the films I rent from the movie store skip at at least one point in the movie, but never at the beginning of the movie. That would allow for a quick trip back to the store to replace it with another disc, likely still damaged. But no, the disc will skip only a good hour and a half into the movie, usually right over a climactic point in the film and after closing hours. So I beg you: treat rented DVDs with respect.

Another reason it’s our fault is because we don’t bother to tell the stores when the DVDs are damaged. We curse at the screen as it happens, we complain, get angry, and then we take the DVD back to the store and drop it in the return box without saying a word so some innocent family can rent it out, hoping for a good family movie, completely unsuspecting of the frustration they’re going to endure when Golem bites off Frodo’s finger and suddenly all the hobbits are tackling him in his bed. But we do blog about it.

Put a note on it. ‘Scratched.’ Easy as π. Then maybe the store will do something about it. Probably not, but maybe. Or if you really want to go all out, crack the DVD in half, put it back in the case, and attach a note saying that it’s ‘Scratched in half.’ They likely won’t ignore such a drastic scratch.

But the ones I feel are the most responsible are the movie stores. You know how when you go to a grocery store, you often don’t see a rotting fruit in the produce section, or expired milk in the fridge, or leaking yogurt containers? That’s because it’s the store’s job to observe these things and then deal with them. I’ll admit it’s probably harder to detect a scratched disc than a rotting strawberry, but the principle is the same: it’s the store’s responsibility to make sure the things they’re selling aren’t broken. Here’s an ingenious idea: a switch on the DVD case.

A) Damaged >= [

B) Good ^_^

Go ahead and steal that. I won’t even patent it! Go for it. I’m not stopping you.

It’s terribly ironic that when you rent or buy a DVD, there’s always some advertisement telling you not to pirate. Nothing like a good guilt trip before you watch a movie you just payed for. Friggin’ hipsters. Not to mention a lot of DVDs don’t even let you skip past the ads to get to the actual film. How about you lay off since I’m obviously watching a movie I payed for, even though it’s going to be scratched and annoying. Do you think that when people upload movies onto Pirate Bay, that they’re going to upload it with the advertisements telling you not to pirate? No, because that’s one of the beauties of piracy. So if you want people to come to the movie store and support the art of film making, I suggest you demonstrate an act of kindness for the world and monitor your freaking DVDs so people won’t be so tempted to break the law. Thanks.

Sincerely,

David

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Letters | 1 Comment »

Sepia Tutorial

May 15th, 2010

Personally, I’ve never been a huge fan black and white. I like color, and taking all the color out of a photo is just depressing to me. Sometimes though, contrasting the heck out of a picture and boosting all the color isn’t appropriate either. Dilemma… Is there a happy medium? Yes. It’s called sepia, and it’s cooler than black and white in my opinion.

Sepia is super easy to achieve. All you need is a photo to edit and a means to edit it. I’m poor, so I use The GIMP because it’s free and it has virtually all the capability of Photoshop in terms of photo retouch. Maybe some Photoshop gurus would challenge me on that, but whateva’. Don’t taze me bro’.

Alright, so open your photo in the program. This is the one I’m going to use:

It's my sister! ^_^

It's my sister! ^_^

P.S. The photo I’m using is already edited. I retouched it previously and I recommend that you do the same before you get going on the sepia. But for the sake of brevity, I’m going to stick to the sepia aspect. If you need retouching tips, you might find this Curves Tutorial helpful.

In your color menu, bring up ‘Colorize.’ In Photoshop, you have to open up “Hue/Saturation” and make sure the box that says ‘Colorize’ is checked. This is likely all you’ll need. It includes Hue, Saturation and Lightness perimeters. Once you open ‘Colorize’ and all the meters are at equilibrium, two things will happen: a) it will change to a blueish color that looks terrible and b) a lot of saturation will be added. Drag the Hue to the far left until you reach the reddish colors. I had mine set at 18 and here’s what it looks like so far:

huepicture-1

Next, adjust the lightness. If you set it too high, everything will look really washed out and way too bright. You’ll be able to see that if you have eyes. A low setting might be appropriate if you’re editing a picture of someone about to commit suicide or something equally depressing. I had mine at 27, but Photoshop and GIMP meter their Lightness and Saturation perimeters completely differently, so if you’re using Photoshop, then it won’t look the same as on GIMP:

LightnessColorize

Finally, modify the Saturation. This is where it’s really up to your artistic eye to decide how saturated you want it. Some pictures will look better with very little color left in them, and some will look better with more. That’s why this tutorial is so easy. There’s no right or wrong really. I’m just showing you what settings you need to mess around with to get the effect. So here’s the final result:

Saturationpicture-3

Sheesh, I wish my curves tutorial was that easy. Now go forth and make your profile pictures sepia. Then join my Sepia Club.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Tutorials | No Comments »

Dear Guys

May 2nd, 2010

Please shower and wear deodorant. It’s really the least you can do. Last I checked, most guys don’t have to wear make-up, do their hair really fancy, wear earrings, perfume, curl their eyelashes, ect… Those are all things that girls do. Not all the time of course, and I don’t mean to say that if a girl doesn’t do these things, that she’s any less of a lady. But I can’t remember the last time I was a meter away from a female and felt like buying a mini bottle of Fabreeze for the next time someone was radiating an equally bothersome stench. It’s not hard either. Showers feel good.

Don’t see it as something that should be a convenience for yourself either. Self-contentment comes after selflessness. First, you must understand that good hygiene is more than a sanitary benefit, a social bonus or an asset to your comfort. It’s common courtesy; good manners. Ever wonder why we have etiquette? It’s because there are certain annoyances that are virtually universal. Examples of these are chewing loudly with your mouth open, interrupting people, or detonating your biological dynamite in someone else’s bathroom without cleaning it up. The vast majority of people in the vast majority of cultures don’t appreciate these things and it’s the same with people who don’t properly maintain themselves physically.

So how do you know if you’re one of these people? If it was as simple as smelling yourself, then this wouldn’t be such a big problem. Here’s a list of possible descriptions of an unknowing hygienic criminal (for males only):

1. You do a lot of physical activity and don’t shower every day.

2. You do a moderate amount of physical activity and don’t shower every day.

3. You don’t do much physical activity and don’t shower every day.

4. You do absolutely no physical activity at all and don’t shower every day.

5. You don’t shower every day.

Unlike most laws, there are no exceptions to this one (unless you have no sweat glands, in which case you probably are dead). If you’re a member of the male population and you don’t shower every day, you are a hygienic menace to society. Social consequences of this are:

1. People avoid physical contact with you.

2. People who don’t know your name resort to refering to you as, “That guy who smells bad.”

3. People devote an entire hour of their day to write a blog post about you in the hopes that you’ll read it and change your grody ways.

It’s not a complicated system: if you’re planning on leaving your house, shower. If there’s any possibility that you’ll be doing physical activity, wear deodorant.

I recently read in someone else’s blog that the world would be a better place if everyone hugged tighter and longer. Though I agree with that statement in most cases, it’s certainly not true at all if the person you’re hugging tighter and longer is countering your natural instinct to breathe. Please head this advice. Thanks.

Sincerely,

David

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Letters | 3 Comments »

How to Create an Imitation Record Scratch Sound

April 21st, 2010

I have a lot of money in my bank account. Unfortunately this money is for school, not for buying two six-hundred dollar turntables and a mixer. Chances are, even if you like country music, you probably think those sweet ‘scratcha scratcha‘ (not to be confused with ‘wiki wiki‘ (not to be confused with Wikipedia)) sounds you hear in hip hop music are pretty cool. It’s because they are. It’s your natural, instinctive, good music taste trying to break through; trying to tell you to stop listening to country. Anyway…

For most people, even serious musicians, an expensive DJ hardware shopping spree is not in their budget, especially if it’s just for the sake of making cool noises. The purpose of this tutorial is to offer a solution (or at least an alternative) to an otherwise expensive way of achieving that unmatched percussive effect that most people have only ever mimed.

The reason I hesitate to call it a solution is because the final result of this tutorial is much less than a replica of what an actual turntable would produce. And in case you didn’t catch my drift in the first paragraph, we’ll be reproducing a scratching sound, not a ‘wiki wiki’ sound. I’ll be using Reason’s Thor Polysonic Synthesizer, the Scream 4 Distortion unit, and an ECF-42 Controlled Filter, but any synth with the same perimeters should be able to do the same thing, and likely any distortion or filter unit can too. I’ll also add that this is not a lesson on synthesis or effects units. If you don’t know anything about sound design, then this won’t help you learn, since I won’t be going into any detail about the steps I’m asking you to take.

Just a little bit of attack. Just a little.

So get Thor out and initialize the patch. You’re going to want to change OSC1 (oscillator #1) to ‘Noise’ because that’s just what scratching sounds like. It will sound really weak at first because the Filter Envelope and the Amp Envelope are automatically really lame. Turn the Sustain of the Amp Env. all the way up so the sound won’t quiet down; give it a really fast attack and release speed too, so the sound will stop when you take your hand off the keys. You won’t need any decay either. This is what my Amp Env. looks like (left).

Filter Envelope

For Filter Env., you’ll want Sustain all the way down and relatively quick Decay so that we can have some oomph at the beginning of the scratch. No Attack or Release are necessary. Like so!

Filter

You’ll probably notice it sounds nothing like a scratch still. We have to play around with the filter a bit. We only need one, and I usually use the ‘State Variable’ Filter on a Bandpass setting. Bring up the Filter Frequency until it sounds a little harsher and a little scratchier (left).

OSCAn important part in achieving an accurate scratch sound has to do with mixing different noise settings. You have three different oscillators to fill with different kinds of noise. I find it’s good to have a ‘Static’ noise oscillator because it’s really crackly and gives it a really good sound. Other than that, fiddle around with the other noise settings until you have a combination of noises that sound kind of like the record scratch you’re going for and change the levels for them if certain oscillators are too loud. On the right is what I ended up with.

Up to now, no matter what note on the keyboard you press, you get about the same sound. How annoying, and completely unlike a scratching turntable. We have to track the keyboard so the lower you play on the keyboard, the lower the pitch of the scratch will be. For this, we’ll route the Full Range of the keyboard to the Filter Frequency. If you hold down a key and turn the Frequency knob up and down, you’ll notice that it changes the pitch. So, under ‘Source,’ pick ‘Note (Full Range)’ in the ‘Voice Key’ section. Under ‘Dest (destination),’ pick ‘Frequency’ in the ‘Filter 1′ section. Also, turn the Amount up to 100. Now when you play two different keys, you’ll notice that the lower ones are more muffled sounding, and the higher ones are louder, higher and more intense. But it’s not really enough. For it to be convenient to play, we want the full range of sounds to be in the space of about an octave, so we’re not jumping up and down the whole keyboard when we’re scratching. So do the same thing in the spaces left, until the least intense note is about the width of your outstretched hand away from the most intense note. I ended up doing it five times.

keynote

So now we have a more diverse sound bank, but it still sounds nothing like what we want. I hope you’re not getting frustrated with that, hah. What’s going to make this white noise sound cool is them being joined together. Like when the DJ accelerates the speed of the record and it’s like, “CRRRRESSHHHST!” Two things that need to be done first are a) turn Portamento on and b) change the Polyphony of the patch to 1. The type of Polyphony we want is ‘Mono Legato.’ That will make it so you can leave your finger on one note, add a second note which it will change to, and then when you take your finger back off it, it will return to the note your finger is resting on. You probably got nothing out of that. So as an experiment, keep your finger on your lowest tone and tap a higher tone repeatedly. Every time you release the higher tone, it returns to the lower tone. That only works with ‘Mono Legato.’ Your Portamento speed should be relatively quick. Use your judgement. Or… just copy me.

Modes

Right now you have virtually no control over the sound, besides the frequency. We’re going to add some Velocity so that your touch on the keys actually makes a difference. With a free space you have left in that green part, change the source to ‘Velocity’ in the ‘Voice Key’ section. Route it to ‘Res (Resonance)’ in the ‘Filter 1′ section. Increase the amount and test the keys out. Hit them hard and then soft. You don’t want the sound to be totally distorted or resonant when you hit them, which will happen if you go too high. I have mine at 72. We’re also going to route the Pitch wheel to Frequency so you can control a note while you hold it instead of relying completely on the keys. Under source, choose ‘Pitch Bend’ in the ‘Performance’ section and route it to ‘Frequency’ like we did before. The amount can be at 100 so you have total control over the sound. Test it out by holding a note and bending your pitch wheel. Hopefully you have one. This is what my green section looks like now.

Green Zone!

So now you can hopefully see where this is going if you play around with the sounds a bit. Still a little rough though. It’s missing something… DISTORTION! Drag the Scream 4 Distortion unit under Thor. It has a butt load of different kinds of distortion, most of which will sound fine. Don’t use ‘Digital’ though. It… just won’t work at all. I used ‘Tube.’ The two knobs at the bottom correspond to the second and third column. Just play around until you find a sound you like. I’m doing it right now and I decided that ‘Distortion’ sounds awesome. So I’m going to change mine to that, hah. This distortion unit also has an equalizer, which is good. You won’t want a lot of bass in a scratch sound, so turn the low frequencies down a bit and boost the high to get a more screechy scratch. If you whisper the words ’screechy scratch’ rhythmically, it’s kind of like beat boxing. Anyway, ‘Damage Control’ just kind of controls the harshness of the sound. You won’t want it ridiculously harsh.

Distortion

We’re really getting there. I hope you can feel it. I can feel it. It’s great. We’re going to add a filter now. Because the sound is amazing, but too powerful. We want to cut out a lot of the low frequencies that you wouldn’t normally hear in a record scratch. Drag the ECF-42 Controlled Filter under the distortion unit and change it to a Bypass setting. Then bring up the frequency until it doesn’t sound muffled at all. You’ll be able to tell when you go too high because it’ll sound like crap. Then add a touch of Resonance to help out those high Frequencies. Not too much or you’ll get a ring, which is bad news bears. Those are the only perimeters you’ll need to edit though.

Controlled Filter

Alright. We’re done. If you did everything right then you should have something along the lines of this. And here’s a short example of our new screechy scratch patch in action. Also, if you recorded yourself saying ‘Screechy scratch patch in action,’ it would be a really outlandish sample for an electro house or drum and bass song. Highly recommended.

I hope this tutorial has helped you, or taught you, or enlightened you, or entertained you in some way. Again, I acknowledge that the final result isn’t a complete copy of a real scratch sound, but neither is any other synth sound anyone has ever come up with. Considering that the whole point of scratching is to just make a bunch of rhythmic noise, I’d say it doesn’t much matter anyway. Enjoy your discount DJ doodling!

Leave comments if you liked it, or if you had trouble with it, or if you have any questions or anything.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Tutorials | 1 Comment »

Analysis of Lyrical Techniques

April 10th, 2010

What a boring sounding title…

As many of you probably know, since I complain about it so much, I suck at writing lyrics. It’s really frustrating because I want to be a musician. And even though I love instrumentals, according to my friends, people prefer music with lyrics. My guess is that they like having something to sing along to. To be honest, I highly doubt it has much to do with the message. If that were true, people wouldn’t listen to artists who shamelessly project immoral images of women, artists whose lyrics are so abstract that you can only pretend you have the slightest idea of what they mean, or artists who just relentlessly remind you that “tonight’s gonna be a good night,” and tell you to “get retarded.” Still, if I’m going to write lyrics, I want them to be good so the people with taste won’t make fun of me.

I should make it clear ahead of time that this post is written from an observatory point of view. I’m only going to point out what I see other artists doing. I won’t be giving any advice, since I’m the last person to take advice from on the topic. I thought it might be interesting though, and it may be helpful to others who are interested in lyric writing.

I find that when I sit down and attempt to write some words, I get nowhere because I have no starting point; no idea whatsoever where to even begin. Whereas, when I write music, I start with either a melody or a chord progression, a key, a time signature, and usually a general feel for what the song’s going to sound like. I feel like it might help me to have a similar starting point when I write lyrics. The aspects of poetry though, are completely different than the aspects of music. Instead, you have things like a subject, a form, a rhyme scheme maybe, ect… but there’s my problem: I don’t know as much about poetry as I do about music. So that’s why I decided to separate different types of lyrical techniques into groups. Then when I want to write, I can pick a technique that would work with the point I want to get across and stick to its characteristics, instead of just winging it. So here are my six groups:

Subject Analysis:

Basically, the authors of these types of songs a) pick a subject and b) describe it. That’s it. But obviously, the deeper they go and the more literary tricks they fit in, the more interesting it will be. For instance, if our subject was something totally simple, like a chair, you’d have to go above and beyond just describing it physically. What do you use it for, what’s its origin, what are the good and bad things about it, if it could speak, what would it say, if it could move, what would it do, and what is it a metaphor for? Four.

So here’s what I have for a chair: It’s a slave, it’s for sitting on, it’s probably inspired by someone’s lap, it’s reliable, looks like a person trapped in a sitting position forever, and it would probably want to get up and sit on you if it could. So…

———

Isn’t fair to be a chair

Rolling chair goes anywhere

Ne’er shall dare to sit on you

Chair shall bare the weight of two

———

Maybe you think that’s a stupid example. You’re probably right. But here’s a song that demonstrates this type of lyrical technique perfectly: Words by The Real Group.

Abstract:

This one doesn’t require a whole lot of explanation, much like an abstract art teacher probably doesn’t have to explain to a student how to properly splatter paint all over a canvas. Basically the instructions are (in my opinion) a) start somewhere, b) go anywhere, and c) finish somehow. Whether or not you have a message in it is up to you, since no one will be able to tell the difference anyway. Here’s mine:

———

Battlefish, guard your lair

You are sacred starfish slayer

With a chain of food you fight

Strangling foes all through the night

———

Why not? Who’s going to tell you your abstract lyrics are bad? No one, because they just don’t understand the depth of your wisdom. Here’s an example: Blink by Infected Mushroom.

Narrative:

This one is cool in my opinion, and of all the songs I’ve written with lyrics (two), it’s worked out the best. It’s really versatile because you don’t have to ever write the story yourself. Lyricists will write about stories that already exist all the time. It can be any story that inspires you. Of course, if you want to write a story in lyrical form, that’s awesome as well. Just do what stories do, but in poetry form: develop characters, follow a plot, use butt loads of literary techniques.

———

Once upon a time there lived a little lazy leopard

If sleeping was a sport, he would set a new record

One night he heard a howl on a hill up high

It was his friend, wolf, singing sadly at the sky

ect…

———

I wish there was somewhere that would tell me how many songs have been written about Romeo and Juliet. And if there was, it would also tell me how many of them mention the fact that they both commit suicide at the end. Taylor Swift sure doesn’t. Here’s a story one: Duct Tape My Heart by Freezepop!

Dialogue:

Have you ever been a girl? If so, have you ever had some awkward guy write you an awkward song and insist on singing it awkwardly in front of you? I hope not, but unfortunately, it happens. This is that kind of song, and unfortunately they’re usually lame like that. But not always. Basically you just pick a subject/conflict and talk to that person about it in poetry form. Ask questions, criticize, compliment, make statements and make demands. You can even make it a conversation where both sides speak. It’s also good if you come to some sort of conclusion at the end, just to put our minds at ease.

———

You and me should hang out more

I know we should, let’s talk some more

I like your hair, I like your face

I think it’s cool you own a mace

etc…

———

So far all mine have been in AABB form… that’s how original I am! Here’s a song like this we all know and love: I Believe in a Thing Called Love by The Darkness.

Praise or Knock:

Authors of these songs pick something they love/hate and talk about how great/terrible it is. If you want a highly concentrated dose of this style of lyric writing, listen to worship music. It’s probably the best example. This one’s actually similar to subject analysis, but you concentrate on the pros or cons, not both. What would life be like without it, what would life be like with more of it, who can we thank for it, and what grand things does it do?

———

Topping conversation with a warm cordiality

A promisesland containing milk and honey

Its absence defines an arctic reality

With it, China makes some money

———

It’s about tea. It’s up to you whether or not you want to make that clear in the lyrics, or let people figure it out. Also I totally went ABAB there. Leave me a high five in the comment section. By the way, I almost made a seventh category, but I decided it fits in this one. It’s those songs where people fantasize about things they don’t have. If I Had a Million Dollars by the Barenaked Ladies is one that comes to mind. But really it’s just praise, but for something you don’t have. I’m too much of a positive person to be able to think of any knocks off the top of my head… but here’s a good praise one: California Girls by The Beach Boys!

Interrogation:

In these songs, there’s usually some sort of mystery that the writer can’t resolve. So they admit their confusion and ask tons of questions about it. Or sometimes they know the answer, but they still ask questions to make the listener figure it out for themselves. You’ve got your whens, whys, wheres, whos, whats and hows. Also, will it, must it, has it, was it and did it? Go ahead and hypothesize a bit, just to give us a break from all the questions.

———

What would a coin say could it speak?

Would it boast of its travels week by week?

Complain about being placed face down?

Or being dropped on the ground and  chased around?

———

I actually really like this method because it forces the listener to think more. At least, I tend to think more upon being asked than being told. Anyway, here: What if His People Prayed by Casting Crowns.

So that’s it. Hopefully this view on lyric writing will make me suck less at it. If not, it’s just kind of an interesting way to look at the way people write songs. There are probably more categories that I missed, but I think the majority can be placed into these ones. And hopefully you’ll think about this every time you hear a song ever.

P.S. If you’re a lyricist or a poet, feel free to leave me some tips.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Music | 3 Comments »

Getting Ready for Work

December 18th, 2009

This post is directed at anyone who has to get up early.

I work part time at a coffee shop and I’m usually booked for morning shifts. If you asked me about my sleeping habits, I would tell you that I hate sleep and that I try to sleep as little as possible, or as little as my body will allow me without making myself sick. But the fact that I think sleep is a total waste of time does not in any way mean that I’m good at getting up in the morning. I don’t know if you’ll be able to empathize with me in this situation or not, but I’ve had days where I wake up in such a bad mood that I ponder the meaninglessness of my own existence, thinking, “Life sucks. What’s the point in even trying to make it through this day?” Yeah, pretty depressing. That’s before the pills though. Just kidding. I’m not on any pills.

My morning routine (up until recently) consisted of me getting up early enough to shower, eat, make a lunch and sit in the warmest room in my house to mentally prepare myself for work and/or sleep for fifteen minutes before I had to leave for work.

It worked decently. It was better than being really rushed and having no time to relax before I went, but I was still always half asleep on the way there; upon arrival, I’d always be quite tired and not exactly fit to deal with customers for at least an hour into my shift; I would be cold, spending every moment of free time I got “cleaning” the bagel toaster. It’s pretty clean. All this would be even worse if I didn’t have such amazing coworkers. They’re the source of almost all my optimism at work and just seeing them will actually boost my morale.

But lately I’ve been changing my routine and I’ve improved my strategy. Instead of sitting in a dark room for a while before I have to leave for work and doing nothing, I tried forcing myself not to be tired. I did it by plugging my iPod into a stereo, playing really upbeat Electronica, and dancing around like a tool bag. I practiced some Tecktonik moves, too, all with my winter coat on, which warmed me up post haste. I did this for the same amount of time as I would otherwise have just sat or napped. It was very, very effective. On the way to work, when I would normally mumble half-word answers, I found myself using entire sentences and even sparking conversation with my dad all by myself. It was astounding. When I got to work, I was in a good mood and I was awake. Then when I saw Julie and Deidra, my manager and coworker. I was in an even better mood. Simply amazing. I also noticed that I wasn’t cold, due to the fact that I was dancing in a huge parka a few minutes before.

You may be tempted to ask, “David, you work in a coffee shop. Why don’t you stop complicating things and just drink some coffee?” Well, coffee sucks. It’s like a lot of drugs in that it causes big highs that are followed by big lows. Just take a look at the graph! Graphs never lie.

This is what caffeine does to you over time.

This is what caffeine does to you over time.

So it’s really not an effective method of maintaining high energy levels. The fight against fatigue, I’ve found, is more about stimulating the mind by natural means, whose effects won’t reverse themselves in a short amount of time. That’s great news ’cause there are so many different ways of doing it. Like I said already, for me it’s music. That’s because I’m passionate about music. It excites me and puts me in a good mood. Other things I’ve found delay tiredness are laughter, interesting discussions, and sometimes meditation (when I say ‘meditation,’ what I mean is being deep in thought about something I feel strongly about). I’m sure most of you have had problems sleeping due to a problem in your life you can’t stop thinking about, or even blessings in your life you can’t stop thinking of. Anything that you have trouble getting off your mind is something that’s likely to keep you awake.

So that’s my advice. It’s based on experience and some graphs, which is more than most people will give you. Ideas that have come to mind for me are Forum discussions, trolling, blogging, upbeat music, singing, dancing, comedy, thinking about an upcoming and exciting event, or beat box battles.

Things I don’t recommend include watching movies, reading books and praying*.

To close, I thought I’d throw in a little bit of information about sleep patterns. If you read any of my entries on polyphasic sleep, you might already know a thing or two about what I’m about to tell you. There are different stages of sleep you enter during the night. Basically, the only differences between them are brain wavelengths, except what we call REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. It’s in this stage where almost all of your dreams occur, and it’s also your lightest form of slumber. If you manage to get eight hours of sleep every night, you’re probably a minority who’s generally very well rested. Most of us don’t manage this, whether it’s because of business or plain irresponsibility. In any case, it’s during your REM stage that you want to wake up. If you’re awoken during this stage, you’ll be way less groggy because you were hardly asleep anyway. On the other hand, if you wake up during the deepest part of your sleep, you’re likely to friggin’ hate life when you wake up. Here’s a graph of the average sleep pattern during an eight hour period. Feel free to cross-reference this with other graphs you may be able to find. That way you can get the best estimate on which parts of your sleep are better to wake up during.

As you can see (according to this graph), the REM stages occur approximately from 2-2.5 hours, 3.75-4.25 hours, 5-5.5 hours and 6-6.5 hours. A practical use for this knowledge would be in a case where you know you won’t be able to get a full eight hours of sleep. I’ll use you crazy busy college students as an example.

Imagine you’re up until four o’clock doing your homework. Finally you’re done, but all this intellectual exercise has chased away your fatigue, and even though you don’t feel tired, you also know you should probably get as much sleep as you can until seven o’clock, which is when you have to get up to get ready for your first class. Four o’clock to seven o’clock is three hours, and if you look at the graph, the third hour is when you’re in your deepest sleep. If you set your alarm for seven, you’re likely going to have a really hard time getting out of bed. If you were to wait about an hour (until five o’clock) before you went to bed, you would wake up during your REM cycle, and despite the fact that you’ve only gotten two hours of sleep, you’ll wake up easily and feel better than you would have with three hours of sleepy time. Likely, because of your lack of sleep, you’ll feel tired later in the day in both scenarios anyway. Now, say you finish your homework and you’re feeling extremely tired. Instead of forcing yourself to stay awake so you can wake up at seven in your REM cycle, you can always go to bed right away and get up an hour earlier instead.

This pattern for the stages of sleep is the same for just about anyone, although the exact times in which the stages begin or end may vary. It might require some experimentation so you can figure out how your personal sleep schedule works.

So, with the combined knowledge of sleep stages and methods of countering fatigue, I hope this helps some of you have an easier time waking up and feeling good during the day. It’s helped me quite a bit. Let me know what you think!

*I always encourage praying, hah. The kind of prayer I’m referring to is the eyes closed, kneeling down (or even worse, laying down) style, since it’s especially easy to fall asleep while doing that.

Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Comments »

Why Christians Are Annoying

November 7th, 2009

Christians

The short answer to this is that we stand out on the street with huge blow horns and pamphlets and tell you you’re going to Hell.

That’s pretty annoying, I’d agree. And in my opinion, it’s not exactly the most effective way to get through to people. But that’s besides the point. Why are they doing this? Why does my Christian friend want to talk to me about Jesus randomly? It’s super annoying. There are two reasons. One is the right reason, and one is the wrong reason. Here’s the wrong reason they do it:

Bragging rights

You don’t have to be a Christian to be able to imagine that we feel pretty good about ourselves when we convert someone. It’s like Legolas and Gimli in that scene in Lord of the Rings where they’re competing against each other for who can kill more enemies. It’s all about the pride. And pride, according to Christian teachers, is the worst sin of them all. You may think that doesn’t make sense, which is understandable since there’s also murder, rape and terrible sins like that. But when you consider that pride was the reason for the fall of Satan, and consequently, the fall of man, it becomes more of a big deal. Pride is actually the root of all evil. Again, that’s besides the point. As a general rule of thumb, when you see a Christian doing or saying something that you know would contradict the Bible (sometimes it’s more obvious, and sometimes not), you can immediately stop taking them seriously, and regard them as a bad Christian example. That’s not to say that you should believe that Christianity itself is corrupt. If a coach was to teach a child the proper way to shoot a basketball, and that child continued to use improper technique when practicing, you wouldn’t think the coach’s a bad teacher. You would say that the child’s a bad student.

Here’s the right reason:

Compassion

It’s hard to make sense of that. If I was the one walking down the street and someone was yelling in my ear that I was going to Hell, compassion would not be the first motive that I would attribute them with. But let’s pretend that is their reason. Imagine they’re doing this because they have compassion, even if they are going about it the wrong way. If they have compassion, they’re doing this because they really care about you, and what’s going to happen to you when you die. Try to understand that Christians believe in Heaven and Hell like we believe that 1+1=2. And we know that both places last for eternity. Think about eternity for a bit. It lasts absolutely forever. Not a lifetime, or a thousand years. They really are forever. And speaking from experience, one of the things that causes a Christian the most grief, is the fear that some of our favorite people in the world will go to Hell. Now, this subject is really unpopular and generally just makes people angry, but I’m just trying to help you grasp the way a Christian thinks. If a Christian has good motives, the reason he/she is trying to convert you could very well be because the thought of you going to Hell makes them lose sleep. Here’s an illustration of it that I remember hearing. Imagine you’re driving in a blizzard and you can hardly see anything. All of the sudden, you see a huge car pile-up in the middle of the road and you barely stop in time. So you pull over and right when you’re about to call for help, another car comes crashing into it right before your eyes. You realize you have to try to warn people so you go up the road a bit and start waving madly to get people to stop. Of course, all they do is give you a weird look, or the finger, and keep driving. You can hear car after car hitting the wreck and there’s nothing you can do about it because no one’s stopping. Dang…

So hopefully that gives you an idea of the reasons some Christians insist on irritating everyone with their bad evangelism methods. But, it should also increase your patience with these situations. If you have a Christian friend who ever tries to talk to you about what they believe, please don’t assume they’re doing it for credit. Chances are that if they’re trying tell you about God or Jesus, that you’re one of their favorite people in the world. If you’re not interested in hearing what they have to say, try to break it to them tactfully and tell them you’re not interested. But don’t get super annoyed and blow them off because it probably took a ton of courage to even attempt talking to you about it.

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Religion | 2 Comments »

Intro to Posts Concerning Religion

November 7th, 2009

I’m a little nervous starting this category because I’m worried it might upset people. Not necessarily just non-religious people, but also religious people since I tend to criticize the way some Christians, including myself, practice. That’s why I plan to link every following post back to this one. Because here is where I’ll explain the main purpose of this genre of posts to avoid at least a bit of controversy later.

My goal here is to help anyone who isn’t a Christian to understand what Christianity is *really* about. Don’t misunderstand me though: I won’t be preaching to you or demeaning atheists. Even if you don’t agree with what I believe, I respect people who have chosen a belief for good reasons, more than people who just float through life and avoid the subject. But I find there are a lot of built-in stereotypes about Christians that make us look really bad because we screw up so much. The reason there are so many bad perspectives on Christianity is because we’re hypocrites (at least, a lot of the time). How can we not be when we’re telling other people to do things (or not do things) that we ourselves do (or don’t do) all the time? So these stereotypes, unfortunately, are completely accurate in some cases. Others are only true for the people, and not the belief. What I mean by that is some common Christian behaviors aren’t biblical and therefore cannot be associated with our belief, only with a large amount of  people that claim to belong to it. In other words, Christians can be super lame and stupid, but Christianity itself remains pretty awesome. In any case, if you don’t believe, you can take comfort that in most of these posts, I’ll pretty much just be making fun of myself, or unnamed/imaginary people while clarifying some common issues that come up really often.

Note: Please don’t get angry with me if I stray off this original idea a little bit… When talking about a certain area concerning religion, it’s pretty much impossible not to touch other areas at the same time.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Religion | No Comments »

Curves

November 4th, 2009

So, you just graduated from high school and in your media class, you didn’t even touch curves in photoshop. Your teacher was always saying, “Levels!” Levels are pretty cool. But it’s time to do up your loins and hit the puberty of photo-enhancement. Here, I will do my best to increase your understanding of the ‘Curves’ option in your editing program and hopefully it won’t bore you to death. I’ll be using The GIMP, but it really doesn’t matter what program you use as long as you can find your color options. Also, I’m aware of the number of tutorials there are for curves already. They all suck. This one’s going to be the best one on the entire internet, so don’t waste your time elsewhere.

Note: I will not be covering the red, green, blue or alpha channels.

I do warn you that you may become extremely annoyed with the amount of times I will ask you questions, considering you can’t actually answer me. You will get more out of this if you pretend I’m not going to just answer myself immediately after (which I will). So try to think as you go through this, otherwise you won’t remember anything you learned after a while. For those of you who are too lazy to actually learn what curves is about, just set your graph to this and your picture will usually look better:

Here's a standard curves graph to use to make your picture look better.

Here's a standard curves graph to use to make your picture look better.

Yeah, go do that for every single photo you take. Have fun not knowing what the trash you’re doing! You goober. The rest of us are going to have an educational experience and walk away content in our wisdom. Okay.

Bring out any picture you want to make look better. Portraits, and generally any picture with a wide range of bright and dark colors, will work well for learning how to use curves. Here’s my sample image (for those of you who want to use the exact same one, click here):

This is the original, unedited together with its curves graph

This is the original, unedited picture together with its curves graph

Alright, so this is the original picture of my friend and I and to the right is the curves graph. See that mountainous range of grey? That’s called a histogram. But don’t remember that, because it doesn’t matter at all and it’s cooler if you call it the mountainous range of grey. This graph just represents the colors in the image. From left to right is dark to bright (all the way to the left would be the blacks and all the way to the right would be the whites). See how the mountainous range is taller near the left? That means that there’s more dark in this picture. See? Just look at the picture: my dark green sweater, dark green trees behind me, Jason’s black sweater. It’s pretty dark. There’s some light stuff too, like our ‘I-sit-in-my-basement-all-day-and-make-photoshop-tutorials’ light faces and our blond hair. But most of it is dark, hence the shape of the mountainous range. So hopefully that gives you an idea of how the graph is layed out.

So I haven’t talked yet about that big diagonal line. That’s how you’re going to control the colors in your picture. Here are a few examples that will show you what it does.

This is what the image will look like if you compress the dark colors.

This is what the image will look like if you compress the dark colors.

See the diagonal line now? It’s been dragged to the right. You can now imagine that the graph actually starts right above where that point has been dragged. That means that the colors to the left of that point have all turned black. That’s because, if we see the the very bottom of the slope as being the far left of the graph, then all the colors lined up with that point would be at the far left, which we know is black. Now you might understand why the image is so dark when we adjust it in that way. All the colors that might have just been dark, are now black. Look at my sweater! It’s black! It’s not even green anymore. That’s because the dark green that it was, was to the left of the point. So that’s how it’s been compressed. All those colors included in the part of the mountainous range that’s to the left of the new point are black now. They used to be dark, but now they’re black. Lame… Don’t do that to your pictures.

Here’s another example:

This is what the image will look like when the brights are compressed.

This is what the image will look like when the brights are compressed.

This one’s like the last one except opposite. We compressed the brights instead of the darks. So again, imagine the graph ends where the slope peaks. All those colors to the right of that peak may have been visible colors before. But now, since they’re all the way to the right of the graph, they have to be white. Take a look at our faces. You can still identify that they’re not completely white, but some parts of them are. Jason has red cheeks. And you can still see that here. That’s because the shade of red on his cheeks was dark enough to fall probably near the middle of that graph. And if it’s found within that general area on the graph, then it would escape the wrath of the point we dragged to the left and retain its color instead of turning white. My face however, is pretty white to begin with. You can see a lot of skin color, but also a lot of white on my face. That means that some of the beige was light enough to fall farther to the right of the graph. So when we drag the point over to the left, it is engulfed! You get it?

Here’s yet another!

This is the picture when we brighten the darks

This is the picture when we brighten the darks

Ew. Look how misty and faded that looks. Now look at the graph. We now dragged that bottom point up instead of to the right. The vertical aspect of this graph is represented by that bar just to the left of the graph: the one that’s black on the bottom and white on the top. So what we’ve done to this picture is made the blacks more of a grey. Notice also that you cannot modify a point without modifying things around it. As we drag the blacks up, many darks and a few lights will come with it. Anyway, go ahead and keep dragging that point all the way up gradually. When you get to the top, it will be completely white. That’s because you’ve taken all the the colors in the entire image and brought them up to white. Okay put it back.

Last example before we start getting practical:

This is what the picture looks like if we darken the brighter colors.

This is what the picture looks like if we darken the brighter colors.

This is also an ugly picture. On the graph, we’ve taken the lighter colors in the picture and dragged them down, which makes them darker. So what used to be white is now more of a light grey. If you were to keep dragging that point all the way down (DO IT!), everything would be black at the end. Again, instead of making all the colors white, you’re making them black. Hardly practical!

Woah, sorry about all that. But hopefully you’re glad you know what you’re doing now. Okay, now let me tell you what contrast is, just in case you don’t know. First off, contrast is good. Pictures with more contrast are more appealing than pictures with less. Anyway, contrast is the difference in tones in your picture. More contrast will make dark tones even darker, and bright tones even brighter. Less contrast will make bright things darker and dark things brighter. Whip out the good old ‘Brightness and Contrast’ box for a second. Looky here:

This is the picture with a high contrast setting.

This is the picture with a high contrast setting.

That’s high contrast. Look at my sweater again. It’s a pretty sweet sweater. But it’s supposed to be green! What the heck? It’s black now because it was a dark color. And when you boost contrast, dark tones become darker. So my dark green sweater has turned black because of too much contrast. Now look at my face. It’s so bright. Again, when you boost contrast, it makes light things even lighter. Like my face that has never seen the sun.

This is the picture with a low contrast setting.

This is the picture with a low contrast setting.

Now this is the picture with low contrast. Pretty sick. Jason’s sweater, which used to be black, is now dark grey. Decreasing contrast makes dark things lighter. Now look again at our faces. Instead of really light, almost white faces, we have faded, greyish faces. This is what decreased contrast is like. It sucks. No one really uses it. If someone can show me a picture where an obvious amount of decreased contrast is used artistically, I will be impressed.

Now, what curves does is just lets you adjust brightness and contrast, but more specifically. Instead of brightening the whole image, you can brighten just a certain range of tones. Or instead of of adding contrast to the whole thing, you can add contrast to a certain range! Woot, let’s go! = D

This is a logical graphs curve to use and what it does to the image.

This is a logical curves graph to use and what it does to the image.

Yay! This is an appropriate curves graph to use for a picture like this. Let me explain to you what I did. First, look at the second point from the left. Since it’s so close to the left, that means it’s mostly affecting the darker tones. I say ‘mostly’ because, since this is a a curve graph, any time you create a point and change it’s location, it’s going to be attached to tones around it. The ones closest to it will be effected the most and the ones farthest from it, less. It works this way because if you had to adjust every single tone separately, you would have endless work to do.

So, I dragged the point down as you can see. What did that do? You should be able to tell me ’cause I told you before. But you won’t so I’ll let you think about it for a bit. {{THI-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-INK!}} So what happened before when we dragged points up and down? When you drag them up, the tones get brighter, and when you drag them down, they get… DARKER! So, the point that I adjusted was near the left of the graph, which means it would affect darker tones. Yay. And I dragged it down, which means that I made those darker tones… DARKER! Why would I do that? Remember what I said about contrast? I said that when contrast is boosted, darker tones get even darker and lighter tones get even lighter. So what I just did was make darker tones darker. Like I said before, the difference between what I’m doing here and what I did with the ‘Brightness and Contrast’ is that I get to pick which tones I’m affecting instead of letting The GIMP decide. Friggin’ GIMP.

Alright, now look at the third point from the left. Do you see how it’s causing the curve to… curve? Again, when you affect a certain point on the graph, you have no choice but to affect areas around it. If you were to place a point anywhere on that part of the curve, the point would be above where it was when it was just a diagonal line. So, look where the point is. It’s closer to the right, which means we’re adjusting lighter tones this time. And where did I drag it? Up. What happens when we drag things up? The selected tones will become brighter. So, with those two extra points placed on the graph, I’ve made darks darker and brights brighter. What’s that called? Contrast. Yeah baby. We just created contrast. Not just any contrast, but ’specified’ contrast. {{High Five}} Uncheck preview. Yuck. Turn preview back on and marvel at the improvement. Off. On. Off. On. So good. It’s hard to see unless you’re looking at the full resolution picture, but though the darker colors have been made darker, my sweater has retained its green. And though the lighter colors have been made even lighter, my face doesn’t look over-exposed. But hey, if you disagree, great! Now do something about it. If you think my sweater’s too black, then drag that second point up a bit more. And if you think my face is too white, then drag the third point down a little more. Or if you think that the tones that need brightening are just the really light ones, then bring the third point even more to the right so you’ll be affecting lighter tones. Look how much control you have! Insane.

I really hope this helped. I didn’t realize until I started working on this tutorial how impossible it is to explain Curves briefly. But if you have any questions, email me and I’ll try to help you out more. That pretty much covers it though… Thanks for reading.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Tutorials | 2 Comments »

« Older Entries