I know a kid who thinks he's hip hop cause he buys it
I know a kid who thinks he's hip hop cause he never buys shit
Underground or mainstream
Some are bound to change schemes.

     -- Sage Francis, Underground For Dummies

So I'm listening to Sub.FM a lot lately -- I first saw it mentioned on Warren Ellis' twitter -- seeing as dubstep and its related spinoffs seem to be the in thing of late, and for once I actually like the genre. (There's also the more obviously-titled Dubstep.FM, but I'm not so keen on that one; DubTerrain is pretty neat though.) The quality of the stream's not brilliant, but in a conversation elsewhere there was some talk of audio enhancers. Normally I'm skeptical of these, but mikosquirrel pointed me in the direction of the DFX Audio Enhancer, which (on certain types of music at least) works really well; with dubstep, you can crank the bass to obscene, bone-shuddering levels, as it should be.

( In which I ramble a bit about music and other cultural stuff. )

Finally a couple of arty type things that I rather like: Multicolr Search Lab lets you pick up to 10 colours and use them to navigate a selection from "10 million of the most 'interesting' Creative Commons images on Flickr". It's a nice idea. Also, New Math is all kinds of awesome; reminds me a bit of one of my favourite artists, Jenny Holzer.

So, I've been following up with some of the tech things I've mentioned in past entries.

( Yes, this is a little geeky. )

Thanks to salith, I should be getting a pretty decently-specced PC custom-built and ready within the next two or three weeks; we decided on the parts a few days ago, and I gave him a cheque yesterday. It cost substantially less than I was expecting it to, having looked at prebuilt machines of comparable specification, and it should be pretty expandable as time goes on. The only thing we were unable to find on the site used was the live bay thing for the Audigy, but I could feasibly take it out of this machine. I'm planning to keep this one around as a spare, as it still works OK and everything; it's just not very powerful. Alternatively, I may get a KVM switch so I can run both machines as necessary, but I'll work this all out when I actually have the new PC.

Talking of PC stuff, I found a couple of useful sites for desktop backgrounds/wallpapers. I've had the most use from DesktopNexus, though 4scrape has some pretty neat stuff too.

As there's been some malware going around on Twitter lately, LongURL Mobile Expander is a pretty handy add-on that lets you see the full address for shortened URLs, in case of any doubt. I recall reading somewhere that people are substantially more likely to click links in a Twitter feed than in an email, despite such things not necessarily being any safer.

[continued from here]

The second theme of my time away (as well as the creativity mentioned in my last post) was the media I acquired while I was there. I explored two main interests of mine, which carried throughout the different things.

( Two main themes )

Finally, but by no means least, I managed to pick up Fallout 3 at a very reasonable price while I was away, and I've been playing it a fair bit. "Oblivion with guns" has been a comparison that's been made, as it's by the same developer and shares some superficial similarities, but if anything it's "Morrowind with guns" -- those who have played both extensively will know the difference.

In fairness, both comparisons do a disservice to a game that stands up to its heritage but also has its own identity and style. It's a lot more of an intense experience than many other role-playing games, and I've not been able to play it for very long in one sitting because of that. And, with the 50's-meets-scifi stylings, it knocks BioShock into a cocked hat, which I thought was overhyped and overrated in the first place.

I've pretty much got everything sorted now as far as courses are concerned.

( This is a little bit long. )

On a more positive note, kittiah recommended JapanesePod101 to me, which has a large number of free lessons available, though a number of the site's more interesting features require a fairly pricy subscription. I know that huskion at least knows Japanese well, so maybe he could help me out if I try and learn.

I've also just got a phone call from an occupational therapist who will be visiting me next Wednesday at 1pm to talk about how she can help me. I did wonder if I was ever going to hear anything back after the psychiatrist visited about a month ago.

Time's getting on, so I should head out; I wanted to post about educational stuff first though, while it's fresh in my mind and before doing stuff in town occupies my thoughts. It looks like things should turn out well, though, and I'm looking forward to studying again -- and, with the way things have turned out, I've got another month before that starts, so I have a little more freedom than I thought.

I have more to write about soon, but I figured it'd be a good idea to put everything on this subject in one place.

This is, after over four weeks, my last day staying with my folks; nearly everything is packed ready for me to head home tomorrow afternoon. I've almost entirely enjoyed my time here, and although I didn't get to see everyone I wanted to -- though I'm very happily back in touch with massivesustain -- or do quite as much as I would have liked, it's been a good trip. I'm ready to go back, though.

The short version of events is to say that the fighting between my mum and stepdad has stopped entirely and been resolved, with quite a bit of help from me, and so I can leave without too much worry in my heart. On the other hand, I've confirmed that the microphone on my mobile is broken, so I can't talk on it and will need a new one soon. Still, I have Skype, so voicechat is still possible (when I'm online, at least) in the interim.

( The longer version... )

There's not much else to tell, really. I'm still waiting to hear back about the Introduction to Computer Music Production course I want to do, and I have a few prospectuses to look through back home (as well as other stuff, like DS games and hopefully no bills). With luck, I'll soon be back in education and in the rest of the time I can engage in the hobbies that interest me, and hopefully get back into the habit of regular Buddhist practice and meditation again.

It's looking like my stay with my mum and stepdad is finally drawing to a close, and at present, I'm planning to go home on Tuesday. Unfortunately, they're fighting at the moment (I won't go into details, but it's really Not Good) and so I've been hiding in my room pretty much all weekend. With luck, though, things will have got better before I leave for home.

That being said, I had a good time with my stepdad ( last Tuesday. )

There's a couple more things to add. Games-wise, and especially with the DS, I often play things for just a little while before deciding I want to keep or get rid of them, and with a lot of titles, especially RPG's, you can't make a judgement quickly. To this end, I've spent the last couple of days playing all the DS games I have here, and I'm pleased to find I've chosen well.

Next, although I've talked about books already, there's a couple more to mention. I decided to further my interest in wolves by getting a further two novels: Wolf Brother by Michelle Paver, the first in the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series, and Promise of the Wolves by Dorothy Hearst, first of the Wolf Chronicles trilogy. I can't find any info about her or the book on Wikipedia, so I'm guessing it's a first novel -- it did, however, lead me to find rather interesting articles -- I suspect footpad may well want to check them out -- about wolves in fiction and werewolf fiction.

Finally there are two technical issues. First, it seems that my phone is damaged or something, as in a few calls I've been unable to be heard. I haven't tested this extensively but it seems like I need a new one. Secondly, I see no point in renewing the domain name for my old site loopback:reconnect, having done nothing with it in about four years, so some really old links and images may be broken.

In a way, I'm looking forward to going back home. I want to escape the bad stuff that's happening right now -- though maybe that'll be gone tomorrow -- but I also have things waiting for me, and I can hopefully sort out something positive for my future.

Image by skyseeker

Schrödinger's Dog - Sakura [Trip-Hop / 70bpm / 4:42 / 7.3mb] Another piece that I'd been working on and forgotten about, this is supremely chilled trip-hop. I've decided to dedicate this track to the awesome folks at HardDrive.FM. To paraphrase H2G2, it's so laid back it's practically horizontal, so chilled you could keep a side of meat in it for a month. The title has a lot of meanings; as an article I found points out, Sakura holds of lot of significance for the Japanese...

I'd use one of my own photographs to go with this, but I didn't have anything suitable; that's the beauty of Creative Commons, I guess. I'm planning to take more pictures soon, though, and I have a couple of links to post on the subject. First of all, someone from b3ta has a pretty useful Beginner’s Guide to HDR, and El Reg has an article about police action against photographers, which is pretty worrying stuff.

To sneak in a couple of more light-hearted links, these t-shirts are all kinds of awesome, and this is possibly the best edit of a webcomic that I've ever seen.

Hope folks like the music...

Yesterday was another good day, albeit long.

( I was out of the house for about 10 hours. )

I went to bed almost straight away after getting home, and slept quite well. Today I've just been taking it easy, really; having a quiet time after two busy days. Right now I'm having a really relaxing evening; talking with friends, having a few beers, and listening to Hard Drive, a radio show (with podcast archive) presented by the ever-talented kittiah and miyabisan (who I just re-added to my flist - hi, folks). They've also got a Last.fm account so you can see the phat beats they be droppin', or something like that.

First of all, most folks are probably aware of it already, but there was an earthquake at 1am Wednesday morning. It was disconcerting and weird, but we're all okay; I'm not sure if everything will be alright back home -- some things were in rather precarious positions -- but hopefully there should be no major damage, if any at all.

( More on the last few days, with (largely unrelated) video and pictures. )

All in all, things have been going pretty well, though the time's passed quickly. I was originally thinking to go back home on Monday, but it's looking like I may stay longer; still, unless I end up staying something like another 2 or 3 weeks, not all of the books I ordered will arrive before I go back home. I'll just get my folks to forward them to me; it wasn't until I arranged to get them sent here that I realised one of them wouldn't be available for 10-12 days.

We're considering going to see a film -- either Be Kind Rewind or possibly Cloverfield -- in the next couple of days, though as Neil's not very well, I don't know if that'll happen or not. Likewise I don't know if I'll be seeing any of the friends that live locally, though there will be more opportunity if I stay longer, of course. I'm in no rush to go back, as I'm having an enjoyable break, but I need to go home sooner or later; I miss it already, a little.

( The last two days have gone pretty well. )

Yesterday, a large part of the time was spent doing things on the computer; I'd wanted to go visit kyu_diary, but by the time I got things finished, it was too late. I went out to meet kitsunefury, and we got some food before heading to the first night of the introductory course at the Buddhist centre; it runs for six weeks, with a further six week follow-on after that. I was pleased to see that such a large number of people had come to the course; there must have been fifty or sixty in total. It was all very well organized, though despite bringing a camera, I didn't manage to take any pictures. The centre's really beautiful, so I'll try and take some next time.

Rusty certainly enjoyed being there, and for me, meditating for the first time in a while was beneficial; though, and I'm not trying to sound superior or anything, but I've really moved way beyond the basics. I talked to one of the teachers there about an experience I often have in meditation, and it seems likely that I may have developed a degree of samadhi or even reached one of the jhanas, which to me is self-evident proof that Buddhism is right for me and definitely works. It's worth mentioning also that the excellent Aro community has a very interesting (if concise) page about "Being gay, practicing Tantra"; well worth a read, as is much of the rest of the site.

Once the class was finished, we browsed the bookshop. There weren't any books that I wanted for once, and Rusty couldn't afford one, so we left fairly quickly, and caught a bus back into town that was running either a little late or very early. I didn't want to go straight home, so we went for a drink at the virtually-deserted Casbah before parting ways.

I've no real plans for the rest of the week, as I don't have a lot of money left, though I've got plenty to do at home. On Monday I'm seeing the doctor again, primarily to get more meds, but there's a couple of other things I need to bring up like how I've not been sleeping so well.

Although I tend to write about health issues (such as physiotherapy) elsewhere, I thought it was worth mentioning that I visited a Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioner yesterday. I've written it up more fully here, but I thought that someone on my flist -- perhaps jolantru -- might have heard of the herbal medicines I was given, namely Zhi Bai Di Huang Wan, and Shen Qi Da Bu Wan. I linked to some info in the Blogger post, but it seems English-language documentation on TCM isn't the easiest thing to find. Seems to be effective so far, at least, though I don't think I can really judge until I've been taking the preparations for a while longer.

( moar, plus video embed [SFW] )

Finally, although I wasn't able to get to the Buddhist centre on Tuesday evening -- I was tired from town and sore from the physio -- there's a little bit of news. Apparently they started a new series of talks this week, which will continue for some time; there's also going to be a puja on the 2nd of October, so I'm going to try and make sure I get to that -- it's my favourite type of event to attend. At some point, I may be going with kitsunefury to one of the introductory courses, making it the third time; the first was with steel_phoenix, then later with kyu_diary. Not sure if anyone else local might be interested too; I'll have to ask around a bit.

I've been having a pretty good time in the nearly-a-week I've been here at my mum's, and I'm not returning until Wednesday of next week. The journey down was easy, though we stopped in town for something to eat and get some things my dad wanted -- and he also bought me a set of metal files that'll be useful for working with models -- before we left; remarkably, for the first time I can remember, he didn't have a go at another driver even once in the entire journey, let alone his usual near-constant tirade against other road users.

Anyway, though we've not done a huge amount, a few things we'd ordered arrived in the post; the .hack//Legend of the Twilight manga (in 3 volumes; the anime adaption should be waiting for me when I return home, as will .hack//Sign and some soundtrack CD's), along with both AI Buster books, the complete .hack//Another Birth series (four novels), and the guides for parts 2 and 3 of the game series (the one for part 4 is being shipped from the US which will take some time, and the guide to the first hasn't arrived yet -- though as I finished that game already, this isn't a big deal).

Also arrived were hardback versions of Tad Williams' Shadowmarch and Shadowplay, the first two volumes in a trilogy; I gave my paperback of the first one to my stepdad, along with some other small items I'd got for my folks.

*

( From Neuromancer to eXistenZ to Serial Experiments Lain... )

*

As pleasant as it is staying here -- and we have vague plans for the weekend, as my stepdad Neil isn't at work on Monday or Tuesday -- I won't mind going back home, either, as there should be a fair bit of stuff waiting for me there. I'm also planning on getting back into some machinima and possibly artwork when I'm back, as well as posting some music I've been working on. I got hold of some more dance/trance/whatever CD's the other day where the tracks aren't mixed together, so I'm hoping to try recording another DJ set too.

I've been back home since yesterday afternoon; I didn't get all that much done, but my mood was mostly good. I installed (reinstalled in some cases) the Infinity Engine games, and spent quite some time modding and fine-tuning them to my liking. I always thought they were good, but these modifications and additions have made some significant fixes and improvements. Unfortunately my mood became quite low when I wanted to go to bed, and I didn't sleep very well.

( Today was pretty good though, if hectic. )

With all the shops done, we decided it was time for a drink or three. The first place we went to was the Lion's Lair, but they had no beer on tap, so we only had one round in there before moving onto the Devonshire Cat and its wonderous beer menu. We tried a couple each, and at Kyu's half-joking suggestion I asked if they had a copy of the menu I could take home -- we've now the idea of ticking off the ones we've tried (there must be at least 100) and giving them a star rating out of five.

Back at my place, we were both pretty tired, so Kyu played some Live Arcade games on the 360 while I unpacked everything from the order -- yay for sales. Most of what I got was Eastern in origin; some more Naruto -- dresen recommends NarutoFan for episodes of this and other anime series -- the Azumi movies; Versus (all Japanese); The Host; the two other parts of the Vengeance trilogy (Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy [which I already had], and Lady Vengance), all Korean; along with a couple of t-shirts and a book.

The prize piece, though, of all I ordered has to be a Tai Chi instructional DVD box set; this has five discs covering various aspects of Hun Yuan Tai Chi, Qi Gong, and Fa Soong Gong -- though I'm not at all familiar with these particular styles, for good or ill.

It's my last day here with m'folks, and this morning I was up early enough to see my grandparents when they visited. It had been quite a while since I'd seen them, and it was nice to spend some time together. As well as a few other things that had been in the family for a while (most of which went to my mum and her brother), I was given my late Uncle Ron's wristwatch, which will be nice to remember him by.

While I've been here, I've worked on my appearance a little bit. I finally got around to re-dying my hair (with the assistance of my mother) which looks a lot better now, and I also had a couple of inches trimmed off it, leaving it at about shoulder length. Earlier today, I headed to the local shop and got a few bits and pieces (including some really nice wine for us to share), one of which was a magazine about Japanese ideograms and their meanings, for the purpose of tattoo ideas; perhaps a little cliché, but useful since the demise several years ago of the Kanji Tattoos website.

( The weekend was pretty neat too. )

Once we were done at the shops, we went to the cinema to see Die Hard 4.0 (aka Live Free or Die Hard), which we all enjoyed a lot, despite the lightweight and fairly implausible plot. The most impressive thing about it, and worth seeing for this reason alone, was the quality of the stunts, special effects and pyrotechnics; without exaggeration, I think they were the best I'd ever seen -- and I watch a lot of movies. Plus, Bruce Willis is a great action lead, and Kevin Smith also has a role. Definitely worth seeing, regardless. After that, we went out for a truly excellent Indian meal -- although I managed to knock a glass of wine over by accident -- and headed home, feeling pretty good.

Other than the aforementioned, I've not done a whole hell of a lot, but I'm glad I came. I'd originally planned to go home on Monday, but I'm going back tomorrow instead. It's been a good break; I managed to write a new piece of music, which I'll upload when I'm home, and I've finished The Dying Earth, the first of Jack Vance's four-book masterpiece saga, a great formative influence on AD&D and others.

With the exception of Tuesday, particularly the Padmasambhava puja I wrote about last time, this week has been mediocre at best and highly depressing at worst. However, last night took a turn for the better.

I was originally considering upgrading my livejournal account to permanent status, as I'd had a bit of a windfall, but after some thought I changed my mind. Instead, I decided to browse what was available from HolisticShop; I get email updates from them regularly, but it'd been quite some time since I'd gone directly to the site for more than a couple of minutes.

Recently, through meditation, I've found a good way to pick things out (though I've only applied this to what Buddhist [or other spiritual] books to get or read, and the stuff I chose from HolisticShop, at least so far) is to just look at things gradually, without being fixated in interest, just resting the attention lightly on what's there, and allowing the mind to think things over without strong concentration.

( This applied to the books I got at the Buddhist centre on Tuesday, too. )

I wanted to read some Buddhist books before I went to sleep last night, and so I used the same method that I described above. I picked out a selection of scriptures (compiled by Donald S. Lopez), which was the only one I began reading. I did also get out a three-volume compendium of texts on Dzogchen, and going by the contents, these seem appropriate for me to study at this time. Finally, I selected The World of Tibetan Buddhism by HH the Dalai Lama, the first book on Buddhism that I ever read -- one that I bought on my first (or second, I forget) trip to Amsterdam. (I subsequently discovered there's an FWBO centre there too, so I may try and attend if we go again next year.) I think it'll be interesting to re-read it in light of what I've learned in the intervening years.

When I went to sleep, I must have only rested for about six hours -- a short time for me, at least -- and woke around 9am. I haven't felt tired all day, though; in fact, I've been able to get a fair bit done, and haven't stopped for a nap or anything during the day (but I think I'll welcome a longer rest tonight). For the majority of the time, I've felt in a good, light mood, and I'm inclined to believe that this is linked to my reading scriptures and getting hold of some items related to spirituality last night, however logical or illogical that might sound.

The last few days have been fairly good. On Saturday, I think I spent more time on the computer (in one sitting, at least) than I have in a long time. I had a lot to do, though; primarily catching up with a backlog of email, but I also did some slight redesign work on my journal and such, and assimilated a whole lot of new information about the PBeM game I play, which has enabled me to be much more effective -- having access to Ed's map (he's the group leader for the alliance I'm in) has worked wonders -- and thus I'm enjoying it a whole lot more.

( Good things happened elsewhere as well. )

Today has been quieter. I worked a little more on PBeM stuffs, but became tired rather quickly; I went to take a nap, but overslept and missed a doctor's appointment, which I'll have to reschedule for Wednesday. I had a few things in the post, the only one of any interest being a letter and card from my grandparents for Easter, with a small amount of money enclosed; hopefully they'll have got the card I sent them too. (I used the money to get some nice takeout for dinner.) I also did some painting, and I tried to get in touch with my social worker about an appointment at the day centre in two weeks, but couldn't reach him.

It's looking like the coming week may be quite busy, socially at least. As well as going out tomorrow (as usual), there's a chance to see lsfiox (who I'd be meeting for the first time) and meraesha during the week, and hopefully I'll see dresen at the weekend.

I found a few interesting things online. First up, if I could actually play guitar worth a damn, I'd want an iAXE. In the meantime, though, I could turn my pee blue, if I had nothing better to do and access to interesting chemicals.

On a more serious note, following the murder of Lindsay Hawker (which I'd admittedly not heard about), the Telegraph has an interesting article about Japanese culture, entitled "Lost in translation".

That's about all I have for now.

In every issue of EDGE, they have an online game of the month; not in the sense of MMO's, but of games that are available online, almost always free, and usually pretty damn good.

Now, thanks to several links being passed around by assorted folks, I'm doing something in the same spirit; Hikoza'n-CHI X makes some great 2D shooters, the most recent being RAY-HOUND -- pointed out by mikosquirrel, as I recall -- but Warning Forever is well worth checking out too.

The other game I want to mention is MoNSTER Online, pointed out by ruadh, a 2D fighter that's reminiscent of both King of Fighters and DarkStalkers, though as there's no English documentation, playing is a matter of trial and error. To download it, at present you need the file from the first link button on that page (install_monster_online_188.exe), then mouseover the others until you find the patch (update_monster_ot199_ot188.exe).

Finally, if that isn't enough -- and it's nowhere like recent, and certainly not Japanese -- there's the IDM/ambient abstract music shooter Transcend, which I still play from time to time.

Besides that, I'm still hooked on Enchanted Arms -- I was up late last night playing it with the aid of worcana, and profiting from a rather easy (if time-consuming) exploit, and I think I'll go back to it again soon, despite the fact that there's still quite a lot of other things I've been meaning to do online.