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prowlinglunatic
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Name: I'm the fucking Mujah.
Country: United States
State: California
Metro: San Jose
Birthday: 7/30/1987
Gender: Male
Interests: Film, music, video games, select anime, select books, the intarweb and all of its frighteningly bizarre little abnormalities, things that shock me (it's harder than you'd think), sick and depraved humor/entertainment, intelligent people, intelligent people with different opinions, furries (yeah, fuck you), Apple products (not fanatically, but seriously, GarageBand and Final Cut Pro fucking rock), sex, bondage, and, uh... delicious eats.
Everyone loves delicious eats. Though they may not use a term as dumb as "eats" to refer to them by.
Expertise: I'm a fucking good therapist. As long as you're willing to actually listen to some suggestions, I can usually at least help sort a few things out in your head. If you are an idiot, though, and catch me in a bad mood, brace for said advice to be blunt, merciless, and possibly brutal.
I'm so good at getting ahold of how people work that an ex-CIA agent once said I'd make an excellent interrogator.
I make music in GarageBand and Soundtrack. So far I've completed three full albums and am working on a fourth.
I've called someone after talking to them on the internet and they came from me saying, "Hi." I've given someone an asthma attack from too many orgasms. I've made girls so horny that they literally tackled me onto the floor. Basically, I know my shit, and I'm not afraid to share stories.
On the other hand, I HAVE had my penis vomited on. I'm not afraid to share those stories, either.
I'm a master of finding loopholes and roundabout ways of doing things.
Occupation: Student, Game Tester
Industry: Entertainment, Psychology, Law
Message: message meEmail: email me
Website: visit my website
AIM:  prowlinglunatic
MSN: prowlinglunatic
Yahoo:  fucking guess, you twat
Member Since:
2/10/2003
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| A brand new, very pretty, non-techno song.This completely surprised me out of the blue today. I didn't sit down at the computer expecting a song to come out, much less something completely different from anything I've done before. I'm not even talking about the difference between anything on Synaptic and the things I made in Reason (Angels, Dirty Drums, Sampler Platter).
What I ended up making was a simple, beautiful piano-oriented song. It adds textures and layers as it goes, but the track was created at 85 BPM and remains soothing. I'm calling it "Serenity" for now, but I'm pondering changing the name to "Adrift" to match the feeling it gives me when I listen to it.
Please let me know what you think. I recommend putting aside a little time to just close your eyes and drift away with a good pair of headphones.
Mujah | | |
| Oh my.I seem to have met a Xanga legend, known around these parts as Drakonskyr. Known him on here for a couple of years now, so it was strange seeing someone you're used to seeing as an internet entity/character in the flesh. Still, not disappointed. He wore his suit, which was pretty much all I was genuinely hoping for. He was slightly less Jewish than I expected, so I didn't get to see him telepathically steal money by beaming it out of people's pockets and into that Swiss bank account where they store all that Nazi gold they recovered, but we had a generally enjoyable day, ending with some vodka that cost eight dollars for a 3/4 liter bottle. It tasted like hairspray that someone had added varnish to, helped greatly by the orange juice that ran out way too soon.
Overall, I think we got along far better than we had any right to, so this definitely won't be the last visit.
Mujah | | |
| CHARLTON HESTON IS DEAD!!!FUCKIN' YEAH AWESOME!!!!
Fuck grammar, fucking Charlton Heston is fucking finally motherfucking DEAD! I felt like a mildly bad person for being this happy over someone's death, but then I remembered, "Shit, it's fucking Charlton motherfucking Heston!"
YEAH!
Ahem...
In other news (and in keeping up with the mildly non-committal monthly post promise), work and school are the same old, same old. However, I don't believe I've updated all y'all on the status of my mustache.
A couple of weeks back, I decided to be bold and began to style my facial hair as follows:
I also made it a point to start punctuating my comments on Facebook with "Nyah!"
It's been entertaining and enjoyable. It's also strangely confidence boosting.
Although it is an attention grabber (I do get more looks and smiles in the mall), at no point do I make the mistake of thinking it's attractive. Yeah, a lot of pretty girls look at me directly and smile back when I smile at them, but there's no way it's from the thought of "Ooh, that mustache is making me feel... mmm..." It's silly, it's funny, and it's ridiculous in a fashion, but it's also pretty awesome. I feel it very much reflects my personality.
It's kooky, but when you get used to it, it's just another facet of me that makes people smile. At work, people had great reactions, everywhere from "Dude, that's AWESOME!" coupled with a high five to "Dude, that's fucking creepy. You look like Sir Rapes-a-Lot." Granted, that latter reaction was to the above picture and not to seeing it in person, but regardless. Now, it's just another everyday thing.
It has also given me full right to acknowledge awesome facial hair and be acknowledged in return. I made one awesome-looking grandpa's day when I simply got his attention for a moment and told him he had a great mustache (it was styled like mine, only bigger and more awesome). He grinned, thanked me, and returned my compliment. Then we went our separate ways.
I'm not aiming for Wilford Brimley status (You know, the "Diabeetus!" guy. He was also in John Carpenter's "The Thing" apparently.)
This is a new picture, taken right now to show the mustache coupled with my dandy new hat:
There will be another hat later on (a proper top hat), but this is basically what I look like when I go to work. The pointiness of the mustache varies, depending on whether or not I've decided to wax it that day.
And that's pretty much it for now.
Nyah!
Mujah
PS One last thing, for the gamers: If you loved Ninja Gaiden for the Xbox back in the day in any of its various incarnations and no longer have access to it, I highly recommend downloading it to your Xbox 360 from the Marketplace for only fifteen bucks. I had COMPLETELY forgotten exactly how fucking PERFECT the gameplay was. It's still the best action game I've ever played (I feel almost inclined to say "Fuck God of War."), and the gameplay is still way sharper and more polished than anything else out there.
And for those complaining it's too hard, shut your fucking traps. You're LITERALLY complaining about not being good enough to enjoy something amazing, and if you only put the time and effort into actually improving at the game, you'd get better. The beauty of Ninja Gaiden is that every time you die, every bit of damage you take, you know you could have avoided if you'd only been a tiny bit faster, or if you hadn't taken that stupid risk and left yourself open when you saw that other guy coming at you.
NGB is worth it for the Lunar weapon alone. Smacking an enemy with a giant stick with metal wrapped around the ends until its head comes off is still gleefully gratifying. | | |
| Why I Love My Sociology TeacherOn Mondays and Wednesdays, my school day begins with Sociology 002: Social Problems. It is taught by Mr. Murphy.
One of the first things that Mr. Murphy clarified was that this was not a class for someone to attend if they were easily offended. He'd be making fun of everybody equally, but there would be some touchy subjects addressed.
The man is brilliant.
The moment I realized this was when he elaborated on how nobody is born with inherent racism. In his words: "It's not like immediately after you pop out you sit up and say, 'Hi, my name's David and I hate Jews.'"
And all I could think was, "I'm so glad I chose this class over Anthropology."
One of my other favorites, though, came when he decided to relate why he's not invited to staff preparedness meetings anymore. I'm paraphrasing as well as I can.
Every now and then a motivational speaker kind of person would come to the school and inform the staff of the school of certain things they would need to know. He hated those meetings and found them to be an irritating waste of time. That last time he went, the speaker had just given the standard, "What would you do if an earthquake hit... right... now?" speech. Then she began the next exercise, explaining that she'd go around the room and ask everyone what they'd keep in their trunk in case a disaster hit.
The replies are understandably predictable. First person: "Water." Second person: "Flashlight." Third person: "Emergency blanket."
Mr. Murphy is not happy. Mr. Murphy does not want to participate, but he knows she's going to eventually get to him.
And she does.
"And you, sir, what would you put in your trunk?"
"I think they've got it covered, actually."
"Everyone needs to think of something. Come on, what would you keep in your trunk?"
"Honestly, I... I can't think of anything. They've said everything I would say."
"Sir, just think of something, there's always something else. What would you keep with you?"
She doesn't let this go. After a couple of more back-and-forth volleys like this, he sits up and says, "You know what? I'd keep a gun in my trunk."
"A... a gun? Why a gun?"
Smiling, he points at another faculty member. "So I can take everything in his trunk."
They haven't forced him to attend any more of those meetings since.
I'm so glad I chose that class over Anthropology. | | |
| Back in school, and my oh my how interesting that gets...The new semester of school started a couple of weeks ago, and I have to say, it's rough getting back into the school mentality. Things of note:
- Three music classes. Along with continuing the studio production and multi-track recording classes from last semester, I'm taking History of Rock 'n Roll, which is an awesome class that's a lot of fun. In this class, I've met a few people whom I click pretty well with, along with re-meeting an old friend that I last saw about a year and a half ago.
- A sociology class, "Social Problems." The teacher is amazing; not only is he not afraid to tackle any non-PC topic (which is entirely necessary for this class), he also has a great sense of humor about it. He's one of those people you can tell has his head on straight from the moment you meet him. Shouldn't be too rough of a class.
- Weight lifting! Yeah, I'm back in the gym. It's... weird. My legs are still pretty strong, but not nearly what they were last time I was in a gym for a serious workout (six years ago! O_O). Hopefully, this class will help keep me healthier as the semester goes on. Yesterday I was on the treadmill for a full hour, ending the run at 4.32 miles. Ugh.
- As of now three of my four kooky ex-girlfriends are attending the same school as I am. I somehow manage to run into all of them at some point or another throughout the weeks, so take that as you will.
- I've been appointed Sound Director on a film project that one of my coworkers is putting together. The team will not only have a couple more of my coworkers on it, but also include a former coworker from back when I worked at Gamestop in 2005! Funny how things work out.
- After hearing a couple of my tracks, four more people at school have enthusiastically requested copies of Synaptic. This album has definitely risen to "pride and joy" status in my mind. From the time and effort I poured into it initially to the number of people who really, really like it, there have been plenty of elements that have made me very happy with it. There are once again talks of possibly getting a real DJ to play my songs in some small venues, and even a possibility of it being reviewed in the school paper.
- On that note, it's been quite a while since I've actually created something that wasn't experimentation. "Angels" was as close as I got with Reason, but even that felt like more of a B-side to me than anything else; neat and definitely not bad, but not quite the direction I felt I was heading. However, I've started to get a handle on Logic 8, at least to the point where I'm able to execute all of the things I could in Garageband. The program is packed with tiny changes and additions that make me very excited, the foremost of which (at the moment) is the upgraded Ultrabeat drum sequencer. It's enabled me to put together and tweak drum patterns in a far more robust and complex manner. Because of this, I've actually put together three new songs entirely from scratch in the past week. This is a pretty big thing for me; not only does it usually take longer to put together tracks, but it's usually with help from some kind of loop, whether as inspiration for my own ideas or as a base to tear apart and rebuild. At least two of these tracks will be on the next album, which I've decided will be called "Peregrination." The new tracks:
"Groovymess" is mainly drum sequencing with some weird effects put over it at points. It was originally intended as another stab at making a background rhythm for someone to rap over (a completely different kind of song structure that I'm still trying to pin down), but with enough variation to be listened to on its own.
"Run" is a first for me. A first of what, I'm not sure, but it's different from other things I've made before. Maybe it's the fact that it's a pretty intense track that I put together from scratch. Maybe it's the feeling of putting together good 32-step drum beats. I don't know. Whatever it is, it's good, it's new, it's intense, it's danceable and fun, and it makes me very excited about where this album is heading.
"Peregrination" is the title track, and something I put together just yesterday at school. I had plenty of fun with new techniques I have available to me now for creating more ambience and textures in the background. It reminds me of certain tracks off of my first three albums and a few off of the second half of my fourth album, and definitely feels like what that style was meant to grow into. Unfortunately, the transcoding that Xanga's audio codec does seems to have created a few weird sound artifacts, so I recommend that you download this one if you want to give it a listen.
Something about Synaptic that I have to mention is the fact that it was a fun project, but by the end, it became a little forced. I hit that point halfway through the song "Follower", when I was trying to figure out how to continue the track in a way to that could flow into the next song. Ultimately, this turned what's one of the albums strongest assets into what made it stumble a bit: by insisting on one continuous mix from start to finish, I basically ended up backing myself into a corner at points, giving me a set starting point for my next track at times when I felt like heading in a different direction. While it made for a more immersive experience in the end product, I can't deny that I'm only proud of half of the last seven tracks on the album. The other ones feel too forced.
"Peregrination" looks to allow me to expand in completely new ways, creating stand-alone tracks that go wherever they feel like going. This is going to be fun, and it feels good to be back in this state after eight months of feeling like I was stagnating.
The sound quality of the tracks does suffer a little because Xanga re-encodes everything at a lower bitrate for streaming purposes. I do recommend downloading the full MP3s to listen to if you'd care to. They can be found here.
Please give them a listen and let me know what you think! Let me know what you liked about it, and if you didn't, give me a little constructive criticism so I can get an idea of what didn't work.
Mujah | | |
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