The Update of Various Unimportant Things

[oneirophrenia]

I switched from Norton Antivirus/Firewall to McAfee today on a sort-of whim (I say "sort of" because I've been checking out McAfee's products for a while now) and, I must say, I'm pretty satisfied so far. My GODS do the Norton products eat up a lot of system resources--McAfee barely even touches system resources, though, and does just about everything Norton does. Yeah, they're nowhere near as configurable--with Norton, you can really get under the hood and set access permissions at the freakin' protocol level, if you want--but they work and they don't suck up memory like the Dead Sea sucks up salt. I'm willing to trade off configurability for ease of use and less processor time....

I've recently installed a shitload of new music software on my desktop, including all manner of new softsynths--Arturia's Minimoog and CSV-80 emulators, Absynth 2, Reaktor 4.0, a Novation Bass Station emulator, and stuff like that. I've also been teaching myself how to use Cubase and record MIDI input in Acid, as well...so team all that new freshness up with Renoise 1.5 and holy SHITE do I have a bumpin' setup at HPL Labs now. Expect a whole new range of sound from The Crawling Chaos and my innumerable other sideprojects.

Speaking of Nyarlathotep...I've been thinking of organizing a Nyarlathotep show at the Eye sometime in October. Anyone have any thoughts on that? Basically, it would be a 45 minute jam session involving all manner of effects, noise, clanking things, tentacles, buckets of hog blood and intestines, escaped mental patients and mentally-deficient streetpeople tied to sharp rusted metal armatures, rabid guinea pigs let loose in the audience, interdimensional portals to Abbith and the Heart of Azathoth...stuff like that.

I've now gotten my classes for the Fall semester about 60% organized--the remaining 40% will be dealt with in the next few days, as I finalize some new plans for using my laptop as a teaching aid (in other words, I'm making up some Powerpoint presentations to display through the University's in-house projectors). I've also found a number of essays from that ExampleEssays.conm website to use as real-life examples of how to do things. I figure by using some example from that site, I will at one time show my students how to do certain things as well as show them that I'm well aware of sites like that, and that I will twist their heads off if they dare to hand one of those pre-made scribbles as their own work. Oh, I sincerely hope someone does. I'm champing at the bit for a little ultraviolence (in the educational sense, that is).

I now have every single The Killers have ever put out--including the British singles for "Mr. Brightside" that feature the cool remixes and the unreleased tracks, as well. When they play in DC sometime in October, I am So There(tm).

And finally...

My cat proved today that she has an out-of-control crack habit. Honest to the Other Gods, Kristi spent twenty minutes growling at a spot of sunlight on the carpet. I have NO idea why: there weren't any dustmotes or weird clumps of fur or anything at all lying on the rug--it was just a bare spot of carpet. Now I just need to find where the cat hides her pipe and stash, and I can begin weaning her off the stuff. She better not be busting into my stash, I'll tell you that....

Comments

[jdecay.livejournal.com]

Cats are devilish creatures. It probably thought your soul had fallen out and was getting ready to eat it.

I say you definitely should work on getting a show together for October. It's been quite a while since your last gig; what, over a year?