NewSc2

Yes, yes you do. I’ve pretty much taken most of my journal entries private, so I wouldn’t have to worry about being too explicit or revealing about my life on here. Of course, even my private journal entries are still mostly filled with boring stuff like:

“What I Learned Today, 7/6:
- Finished the Electro Tutorial:
- even 3-4dB in volume automation shifts makes a big deal
- solid, big bass/lead patches have a good blend of 3-4 oscillators
- set up delays and reverbs on sends, 2 each should be good enough
- a little “bleep” or tonal sound effect at the end of an 8 bar can be paired with a dropped kick and bass very effectively”

and

“Analyzed Danny Tenaglia - Bottom Heavy 2008 (Phunk Investigation Dark Mix)
- very progressive song
- very basic song — synth parts only play 3 notes, most play 1
- 5 drum tracks (kick, snare/clap, snare/tom, off-beat CH, distant stuttering sample, 16/16 CH pattern - only plays in main after break)
- 1 bass track (2 parts, 1 Eb vamp, 1 Eb vamp + slide at the end)
- 5 synth tracks (main melody, higher bell-like duplicate melody, delayed Eb line, delayed arpeggio Bb-Eb)
- 2 vocal tracks (vocal “oom” and spoken word)
- 3 effects tracks (1 or 2 reverse swooshes, cymbal, and a sharp woman’s vocal to finish the breakdown)
- something happens in every 4-8 bars, without fail
- because of the sparse elements, it’s usually a reverse swoosh into a melody coming in or out, or a drum sound dropping in or out.
- breakdowns are done very effectively
- maybe it’s because of the good call and response with the “buum” sound effect and the sparse melody?”

and

“Did two chicks at the same time. Threesomes are awesome!” … just kidding…  …   =(

As you can tell, not much is going on in my life. Well, okay, I have actually been going out quite a bit over the past couple weeks, but it’s winding down.

Burgers, meat, and beer = few pounds gained, no matter how tough my workouts have been. In fact, I think the tough workouts + high-calorie food spazzed my body into a bulk cycle. I deadlifted 295 the other day, my max in a very long time, and clean & jerked 130 lbs. (new max), with relative ease.

Growing strength means growing muscles, which also means bloated muscles, which — isn’t a good thing during beach season. My weight’s back up to around 172 lbs. — hasn’t been that high for a year — and I have to flex to see good ab definition =(. I was holding steady at 167 lbs. for a while, with my low around 163-164. On the flip side… my upper back and shoulders have never been stronger~

Work hasn’t been doing so hot lately, and on top of that there isn’t much to do at work itself. I’ve been feeling really Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde with work transitioning between a 3-4 hour, internet-browsing lull to a 3-4 hour “omg-must-finish-report/must-figure-out-new-ideas/must-outwork-this-slow-spell.”

I wasn’t perfectly sure of it till today, but it looks like I’m going to take a week off. Went in to talk with my mom, and decided an unpaid leave would probably be the best for TACCIA and me.

I was getting frustrated with my music studies, pulling my hair out for days on things like how the i-IV chord progression could sound so good and natural — those chords aren’t in the same key — (try i-VII-VI-IV — a descending C min, Bb maj, Ab maj, F maj).

Downtime at work would see me on the internet, researching topics like “diatonic chord progressions” and “modal interchange”, without a piano in front to play with. And then I’d have to take care of a bunch of stuff from Taiwan, whose workday starts at 6pm PST. I wouldn’t leave the office till around 9pm, and that pushed studies back till 11pm-3am.

Anyway, I’m gonna dedicate myself to a good 8-10 hours of studying per day this week (which happened today… 1pm-6pm, and 9pm-1am). It’s a little frustrating because every concept I learn usually opens up 4-5 new questions, but there aren’t many ways around this.

I need to start cutting through the crap and just delving in. I already upgraded from reading forums to watching videos, and now I start needing to conceptualize stuff on my own, and not having somebody hold my hand. Produced a track today, figured out why it sucked, and then analyzed tracks like it to figure out why my track sucked so much. And I learned a couple things. Which I’ll try out tomorrow, on a new track.

Johann Sebastian Bach once said, “The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul.” If that’s true, then I’m sorry God. Give me the knowledge so our ears won’t be in such pain for much longer. =)

Obligatory Monthly Picture (me, Will, Andre — Hi Will!)

I know what you’re thinking. That Cinco de Mayo picture looks like Will failed. (We caught him mid-blink). Unfortunately, well… all 3 of us failed. Miserably. I barely remember taking this picture. It was like, Drink #11. And it wasn’t our last. Easily the worst hangover I’ve had in over a year.

Hm, what else. Surprisingly, I don’t have a lot to say. NewSc2.com is one of my bookmark tabs. I got sick of clicking on it to see a 3-week old blog update, so here I am.

Might as well use this space to list out all the good things I’ve stuck to in 2009 (the shitty things go into my private Gmail diary }=)> )

Reading/Communication:
I’ve been keeping up with a reading schedule, and I’m pretty happy with my finishing rate. There’s maybe a dozen books that I haven’t gotten to yet, and about a dozen more that I started but put aside, but I’ve finished about a dozen in 2009 so far:

- Blink, Malcolm Gladwell
- The Art of Seduction, Robert Greene
- IV, Chuck Klosterman
- Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, Chuck Klosterman
- Neatest Little Guide to Personal Finance, Jason Kelly
- Neatest Little Guide to Stock Market Investing, Jason Kelly (re-read)
- On Writing Well, William Zinsser (re-read)

Okay, so maybe that isn’t a dozen, but it’s over a book a month. I have several more that I’ve half-finished, and will get around to (Now I Can Die In Peace, Bill Simmons and The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell, among others).

I’d highly recommend the Personal Finance book (out of print, but it’s about $2 used on Amazon.com + $4 shipping) and The Art of Seduction (torrent it). Surprisingly good. Blink, well, isn’t that good. You can read the Wiki.

On top of all the reading, I’ve been listening to a lot of Adam Carolla and Bill Simmons podcasts.

Reading a lot of well-written non-fiction and listening to social/sports commentary has given me a lot more confidence to speak my mind. It’s sort of like writing papers back in the day. In high school, I stuck to a format. In college, I started to branch out and explore my voice. Somewhere in that transition, and to this day, I started to realize that top-notch writing wasn’t some magical, fantasy skill. All the articles I read for fun (ESPN, New Yorker, Slate, Economist, gaming mags) were examples of the written word from top professionals. As long as I wrote in the same voice and style as the stuff I’d been reading, I could come close to good communication.

Same with my voice. If I just fleshed out some of my thoughts and philosophies, put in some interesting anecdotes, and honed succinct storytelling skills, I could probably be an effective verbal communicator. I feel like I’ve matured a little bit in that respect in 2009.

Personal Finance:
Say, @ age 25, you save $13k per year in a 10% account. By 30, you’ll have about $100k. Save $10k every year, and continue to put it into this account. By 40, you’ll have about $400k. By 50, $1.2mil.

By 60 (retirement age), $3.2mil. And that’s all off $365k total saved. The magic of compounding interest.

The DJIA, up until 2006, grew at an average rate of 10.5% over the previous 75 years. Yes, I know there was a crash. I haven’t re-calculated the returns up to 2009, but a 75-year period is a long time, and shouldn’t affect the overall return rate by too much.

Music:
Currently going through a Trance course. I’ve gotta say, my productions have gotten somewhat better over the past several months. I was probably around a 2.5 (out of 10) in 2008, but now I’d put my music production skill/knowledge at about a 3.5. My songs aren’t that much better, but I have more arrangement knowledge. My songs aren’t coming together due to luck and random button pressing — I actually have some experience on how to approach a track.

I need to hammer out a few kinks and tricks over the next couple months, but there isn’t much preventing me from getting that 3.5 to a 5.

Hopefully, the end of the year will see me at 6 (i.e., “that song is actually kinda decent~”). Dunno how I’d get to be a 7 (”hey that’s actually pretty good!”), or 8 (”wow… I might put this on my iPod”). But I’m not thinking that far ahead. (Don’t bother asking where I come up with these subjective grades.)

Fitness:
Still continuing my weekly/twice weekly 4-mile runs, and 3-4 trips to the gym. My fastest 4-mile trail run came in at 32 minutes back in March, but I put in a 33 minute run last week.

I think I’ve been doing crunches wrong for the past 4 years. I guess I was leading in with my head and neck, and a couple people at the gym commented that I was arching my back. So I adjusted my balance to lead in with my chest, and keep my back straighter, and I was sore for like, 4 days.

Weight’s stayed pretty steady at 166 lbs.

Anything Else?
I need a haircut. Photography is coming along pretty well. Thinking about buying a second flash, or at least an off-shoe flash cord.

Oh, and I guess I did have a lot to say.

Where do I go after drinking quite possibly the best beer ever created (Pliny the Younger, #2 in the world) and the most expensive liquor I’ve ever had? (Pierre Ferrand Cognac, Distilled in 1914)

That’s right, nowhere.

I’ve discovered a few things in the past several weeks of debauchery: 1) Alcohol can cause you to say dumb things (it can also make you feel happy sometimes). 2) Your liver is on the right side of your body (which doesn’t explain the aches I get on the left side of my abdomen). 3) I don’t think I’m a huge fan of cognacs.

Russian River’s Pliny the Younger triple IPA and Consecration sour ale were released a couple weeks ago, and have been hitting some of the local beer bars recently. I prepared myself for the ride, but I’d already been semi-binge drinking over the past several weeks anyway.

Both beers were ridiculously delicious, and totally worth the $9-13/pint I paid for the dozen or so pints I had.

Hi-Time Wine Cellar held a cognac tasting yesterday in Irvine. The h’ors d’evours (I hope I spelled that right) were actually very good. Frequent trips to the lunch table, a couple feet from our table, kept things in check.

Thirteen cognacs were served, ranging from around $100 to “$1500″ for a cognac distilled by French women in 1914 while their husbands were fighting the war. I say “$1500″ because the Pierre Ferrand rep wasn’t exactly sure how much they were going for (”$1000 or $1500″), and Hi-Time had one bottle left for $600. Anyway, it was extremely good, but the two snobs gentlemen across from us were obviously enjoying it more than I was. They ended up buying the bottle.

Fortunately, I’ve only put on one or two extra pounds over the past couple months, so my body’s at least kept it together. I can’t say I’ve been extremely productive, though, so I’m taking a break off the C2H5OH for a couple weeks to let things settle down.

Nothing much else to update in the life of Tony — the past several days have been lazy and enjoyable. I turned on my drum machines a couple days ago and went through some patterns I saved over Christmas. I haven’t felt like DJing lately, but I’m still listening to huge amounts of new music (at least a few hundred tracks and 5-6 hours of sets) each week. Maybe turning the knobs and pushing the buttons will keep me going.

Ugh… why didn’t I think of that last night?

My weight’s been hovering around 164 (give or take 1-2 pounds) for the past couple months, but with all the Christmas drinking and eating, it’d slowly been inching up over the past week. I think I started off the week at 165, which went up to 166 after Angie’s party, and 167 after Christmas Even dinner, and last night I had some lamb with my mom and drank half a bottle of wine.

When I woke up today, I weighed in at 170.5 lbs. =X

So I figured I would eat well and step up my workouts over the course of the weekend to undo the damage, and refrain from alcohol or bad food. Ate a tuna salad for lunch, had some salmon and stir fried vegetables as a snack, went to the gym and did a round of squats and ran for about 10 minutes.

Came home, had a protein shake, and decided to weigh myself for shits n giggles. I’m 165 again. I swear I look exactly the same, but in the past 8 hours I’ve eaten 2 meals and lost 5 pounds?

*shrug*