My mechanic in his favourite entertainment

climbing towards Navalmoral with his custom car (includes a GSX-R
con su coche construido por él mismo (incluye el motor de una GSX-R 1000). Sobran las palabras...

Composition studies

As some of you know, I'm knee deep in trying to do something with my music. For this, I've been equiping myself with several bits and pieces, a new guitar, a mic with its amp, a thousand cables and some very important software pieces such as Cubase and several VST instruments.

But all that is of little use if you don't dedicate the time (of which I have precious little) and effort.

Logically, it is also useful to lean on those who know this stuff, to see how they do it and see what you can learn. Naturally, one amongst those masters (although he uses other tools) is Master Vai. Here are some things I found in youtube about how he works:

New music control

Thanks to my good pal [El Prenda] I have a new player for my music so I don't actually depend on any external site.

So, without further ado, if you look on the top of the right hand sidebar you will find a player. Just click the drop-down list, select a track and as soon as it is halfway loaded, it will start playing for you. No new necessary software needed (provided you have the flash player, of course!).

Enjoy!

The future, a little closer

Much has been spoken about environmentally friendly engines and there is meant to be much investigation, though some rumours suggest that projects of the kind have died in their labs, murdered by petrol multinational corporations.

Even so, BMW lets us peak at a hopeful near future in the subject of environmental contamination, to which we all add with our dependence on cars.

I give you the BMW Hydrogen 7, a prototype which mixes two technologies, the "traditional" gasoline and the innovative hydrogen engine. Despite its multiple problems such as storage capacity, hydrogen distribution, efficiency, power, etc. and, foremost, of course, the cost! it is a promissing advance which may mean that, in the near future, we may be able to acquire vehicles comparable to our cars with the same contamination level as a pan of boiling water.

... this, obviously, poses the question... What effect do 30 million pans of boiling water have on the atmosphere?... Anyone care to guess?

Thanks to [JVADER] for the heads up!

And in the same line, take a look at [Negroogle]

The theater of dreams

Last saturday, Madrid had the honour of featuring the spectacular concert of one of todays best progresive rock bands: Dream Theater.

Although the music style is not a commercial one, a load of people gathered in the Palacio de los deportes, where the seats were all full and the majority of the breathing space of the pit section (where I was you couldn't put your ellbows out withouth pushing someone, let alone swing a cat...).

Sons of varied influences, some of which are bands they have covered, such as Metalica, Iron Maiden, Pink Floyd, Marillion, Yes, Deep purple and a very long etcetera, their virtuous music is characterized by long instrumental sections where each member rises as one of the best with their "weapons". One must, however, note specially on Mike Portnoy's excellent stage skills. As the band's drummer, he has one of the biggest broadest sets I've ever seen which includes a gong (sadly he didn't touch it on the concert) and punching ball - which he, of course, plays in rythm though it makes no sound - and of course, some headslapping for the audience's entertainment (I hope). I wonder how many drumsticks landed on distracted heads...

Despite the sadly inapropriate sound setting on the hall (more than inapropriate depending on where you were standing/sitting....) the concert was spectacular and recommendable to music lovers of all kinds and styles for an appropriate mind opening.

I recomend a visit to their [OFFICIAL WEB SITE]and vewing of the youtube videos they've hanged (on their own page).

Here's a little snippet:

Photo by Ternasco:

Stage 6 videos:

Kitties seek home

A couple of days ago a friend of mine, knowing I have cats, asked me where he could get an orange tabby. I immediately called my girl's dad, a vet, to ask him. But it was my girl who came up with the solution.

There is an assotiation, right here in Madrid, dedicated to try tom improve cat's lives in the city. They have a web with a section (two actually, since they separate males from females) for cat adoption.

All cats are given out in adoption for free, vaccinated, de-wormed and, if they are a certain age, nutered. There are small kittens, adult rescued kitties and basically revived kitties.

Are you seeking a kittie? If you want one but cannor decide, take a look at [THEIR SITE] and tell me those pics don't inspire any feelings. And if you think nothing can move you, take a lookd at their Angels section...

I'll let you know how my pal gets on with his kitty as soon as he has it.

New engineering feat

As you all know, I have an acuarium (see the link on the right-hand menu). What you don't all know is that it had bee mistreated... I mean, used as a terrarium. It doesn't sound too bad, but ut implies the lid had been cut, ripped, the fluo tube supports eliminated, broken, etc.

It generally means I had to do fixes to be able to use it. Also, the lid only allowed me access to the front part of the acuarium, which meant I couldn't clean the back, etc.

Well, thanks to my pal El Prenda we designed a lid that would permit total access to the acuarium, that maintained the tubes in the propper position, etc etc.

So here's the result. A solid lid made from microfiber wood, aluminum adhesive tape, aluminum profiles, ... and a fair amount of time!

Soundbites

Every now and then, like me, you need, for your compositions, to add some sounds of things (soundpainting). And let's face it. It's not always easy to put everything up to record the ticking sound of a clock or the birdsong of a limping red african pelican. In these cases, some source where to get this things from can be really useful.

This morning, though inadvertedly, a friend of mine, Jvader has brought light to a little problem I had with a particular piece. He showed me a website specialised in just that: soundbites. The best part is that it's FREE (no registry necessary, either!!).

Up 'till now, I'd been using another one that, although also free, demands you register in order to download the soundbites. Here are both:

(reg required)

Hope

Saturday, whilst visiting a friend, I suggested we go out for a stroll and do some window shopping on a nearby CashConverters. As usual, as soon as I got in I headed for the musical instruments section. Almost immediately I saw a guitar with a distinctive shape (I already knew well) and, imagining it would be ridiculously expensive, I picked it up. The price, more than reasonable for this guitar, just 299€, was justified by a crack near the base, although after inspecting it, I saw it had been fixed. I decided to try it out to see if the sound was affected and (plugged or unplugged) it was unaffected.
It was covered with girlie sparkling stars and hearts stickers and there was a magazine cutout of some flowers showing through the center hole.

Even though, deciding it was a good investment (I always wanted one), I bought it. My friend, C, quite apropriately named her "Hope". Apropriately because, besides her own reasons, I was hoping it really was as OK as I saw it.

Took it home, re-strung it, corrected the neck truss rod,removed all the tacky stickers, cleaned it and dicovered that under the flower paper cutting was another cutting of a girl in B/W. Both cuttings were stuck with isolating tape. Worst of all, under them, the previous owner, in a supreme expression of stupidity and inneptitude, had ripped the original maker's sticker.

I am still to confirm it, but I think it's this one [LINK].

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Hope:

The quote of the week, month,...

I am a fan of the show Medium. I was watching the episode "Joe day afternoon", episode 17 of the third season. It was a good episode, but what really got at me was the following quote, right at the end:

"Hope, like dread, it often comes unannounced and then thankfully intoxicates us and inoculates our feelings with an irrational sense of joy and optimism. Hope is the high. Dread is the low. I guess life is the stuff in-between."

For some reason, it struck a resonant chord inside of me. I will not spoil it by using it in a signature or anything like it, but it deffinitely deserves an entry.

... adendum requested by the audicence... From yesterday's IT crowd:

"Well, put some mustard on those words because you will have to eat them along with this piece of humble pie I have just taken out of the oven set on egg on your face" (Moss)

The power of Google

Some days ago I was remembering, not for the first time, some friends I had a long time ago. Friends that, for reasons that don't belong here, I lost. And I thought to myself "Let's see what Google can find of them" and googled their names. It is amazing the results I got back. Even data that should be protected!

Sometimes the "power" of Google frightens me. At least my intentions were honourable.

Long story short. I found a piece of text I believe my friend wrote. I read it and was struck by it's profoundness and by how close it struck, from afar. It is lost in the immensity of the cyberspace and, in all honesty, it does it no justice.

So, even if not many people read this personal blog, I will reproduce it for its own merits which are not mine and I'll honour this discovery to it's own author (Translation mistakes are my own. It's originally written in Spanish):

Discovery

Discoveries are born on the threshold of exhaustion, on the most depressing tiredness, lies and a flavour of vinegar. We discover this new element and we quickly tell everyone, proud and blessed by the mysterious saint of happiness. We bore all known and unknown with the details of our fortuitous encounter with truth, we smile proudly at our own sapiency and, why not, our luck. And we flirt with the beauty of the eternal. Then comes the phase where we investigate this discovery, we understand its inner workings and discover all its mechanisms and nooks and crannies. We analyze, experiment, evaluate, compare and, in a word, we submit it to a cruel and desperate measure in our effort to prove we are the unique, inimitable and perfect discoverers. We lose track of time and space. We don't eat nor sleep and if we sleep, we do it keeping an eye open and our brain overchurning ideas and concepts related to our undefined marvel, both complex and irrational. We dream of our discovery and intimately tie ourselves to it. We are obsessed by it. Until one day, without warning, our discovery is stolen. Someone better, more intelligent, powerful. Someone who has something we don't have even though we may not admit it. So we fight to preserve our patent. Just to keep enjoying the pure and simple investigation, to stay in science's insanity. We fail. And our heart seeks another discovery. One for a lifetime, if possible.

David

Work is not life... right?

I have a good steady cushy job, mainly. It pays well and it's not hard.

Having said that, that also means it's often uninteresting.

The workload has the habit of going from 0 to 100 and then back to 0 on minutes. The best attitude, I've learned, is not to care too much about any particular project. If it comes out, it comes out. If it don't, it don't. Sometimes I forget that and get terribly frustrated and angry at the red tape.

And sometimes the 0 is around a little too long. I try to fill the gaps with things I like to do. I've long lost the appetite to learn new programming languages, new algorythms, new applications,...

I have some benefits, too. Which is a deffinite bonus. Benefits I wouldn't have in a different job, and would deffinitely affect my life if I was to switch jobs.

In any case, jobs are meant to be a means to an end, right?

Well... Yes... and no.

We spend 8 hours a day at our worklaces (ok, some more, some less, details...). In short, 1/3 of 5 days a week. A large lump of our lives.

So, every so often I stop and these thoughts spring up onto me, make me question many things. And it's obviously frustrating.

But eventually, that goes away. I have a good job that pays well, it allows me to do things I like to do, it's not too demanding most of the time. I am very lucky in so many ways.

... but sometimes... just sometimes...

Misused word

Here's a word I had completely wrong in my mind...

...and something that struck near home...

Procrastination

... we live and learn...

The Cube

I imagine you all know the movie "The Cube", a 1997 film in which a man wakes up trapped in a cubic room. The story is all about his attempt at exiting the cube.

Original as the movie and the argument are, I found out yesterday it was not that original. The original version, also called "the cube" is a 1969 TV play written by Jim Henson (the creator of the Muppets) and Jerry Juhl. This play carries all the undertones of the great sci-fi classics such as the Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury or Larry Niven's Ringworld.

Having seen both versions and differences notwithstanding, I consider this black and white verion the better (and the most disturbing) one of the two.

Thanks to the technological magic of Stage6, you can now enjoy this play (which would otherwise be impossible to get) whenever you want.

HERE IS THE LINK to watch the movie. Enjoy!

New Deviance

The other day, at home, we looked out the window and there was the best full moon I've seen in ages (which actually explained my mood, too...). We rapidly took out our camera and took a series of pictures of it.

I've hung one of them as a deviance, this one

But there were more. I couldn't actually decide which one I liked best, so I chose just the one for DeviantArt and here are the rest:

Eragon Skywalker

SPOILER ALERT:

If you intend to read Eragon, don't read any further. Main sections of the books are spoiled by what follows.

No, I've made no mistake with the title. Eragon, although well written and pretty good in itself, would be a lot better if it was original. The problem is that it follows the very same storyline as the original Star Wars trilogy. Allow me to elaborate:

Eragon (Luke Skywalker) lives in a farm with his uncle Garrow (Owen Lars), untill he discovers an artifact, a blue dragon egg (a blue and white robot with a rounded head). The story then carries him to an old town's sage, Brom (Obi-Wan Kenobi) who will initiate him in the ways of Magic (the Force) whilst they leave town in a hurry because the Empire (the Empire) is after them. In this attack by the Empire, uncle Garrow (uncle Owen) ends up dead by the Ra'zac (storm troopers). Thus, Eragon(Luke)'s mission is one of vengeance for the death of his uncle.

He escapes with his dragon, Saphira (who acts as Han Solo with the voice of experience - a role shareseia sometimes for the love they share).

Of course, on the way, Brom (bi-Wan) ends up dead by the Empire's hands, although not by Darth Vader himself but the Ra'zac, up till then, the most fearsome enemies, save Durza and Galbatorix (the Emperor).

It's not all the same, of course, since in this case the Empire is who attacks the Varden (rebel) base and noth the other way around. The Varden take Eragon as the New Hope. And even though the Death Star is represented by Durza, the first book ends with his death (the Death Star's destruction), which is a big victory for the rebels. Although you can clearly see it is not the end of the road for Luke... I mean Eragon.

In the second book, Eldest, we are presented with an Eragon that discovers he is not the only Jedi, sorry, Rider left alive. There is another. An old knight, a Master in Magic, Oromis (Yoda) who will first teach him to have the patience to perceive all the force, I mean Magic, around him, in all things alive, and to channel it. But careflully, since abusing Magic is bad (it may take you to the dark side...), as you can kill by draininig life around you.

Naturally, Master Oromis (Yoda) cannot help Eragon on his crusade, since he is really old and suffers his age. During his training in Ellesmera (Pagodah), a place where plant life is clearly important, Eragons is transformed into a real (jedi) warrior. Naturally, he has to leave Ellesmera before finishing his training since he senses his friends are in danger because the Empire is moving towards their hiding place.

During a bloody battle in Endor, Eragon fights another Rider, which we later discover is Murtagh, son of Morzan, one of the baddie Riders taken to the dark side by the Emperor. So, any ol' Darth Vader... and... are you ready?? The misterious Rider is discovered as Eragon's brother!!

... Clearly, all big epic stories have to stay in the family...

Of course, the battle is nearly lost, until, in the last minute, they are saved by the Ewoks... sorry, the dwarves. We are also saddened when the king of the Ewoks... dwarves!! is killed...

The re-write of this storyline is actually, as I say, pretty good. The book is entertaining (except for some of the passages where the long treks remind you of Frodo's trips through the plains...) and the endings are both pretty engaging... if it weren't for the fact I've seen Star Wars so many times I could actually re-write the script from scratch...

Also, one has to take into account that the author, Christopher Paolini, was 19 years old when he finished writting Eragon and, truth be said, after reading George Lucas' original books, Eragon is written much much better than the SW books. Although, Lucas' films are much better than Eragon, in my opinion.

New deviances

I haven't had much time to think up a new entry, but since I published some more pictures at DeviantArt. Here they are:

New piece

Yes... I've added a new piece. It's the first of two instrumental parts "inspired" on Mike Oldfield works, though with varied influences. It's called Spirals for the fact that the track goes in cicles. It tries to represent the passage of a day and the emotion one goes through.

It is available in the music section on your right.

I am also hoping to add some of my older pieces, with lower quality and all that but, hey, it's just a laugh... I may re-do some od them.

New Music section

As many of you know, besides an IT techie, in my soul, I'm a musician.

I have at las dared to open a new section dedicated to my music. It's on the right-side menu. There isn't much to show you. I have opened a new account in BroadJam where you can listen to the tracks directly by streaming and even buy them. Also, as soon as I can, I will make them available from my ISP's web space in MP3 (for free). Alas, I don't intend to earn money with my music but rather, make something someone might like. And express myself.

Naturally, I welcome critique, suggestions, opinions and ideas so long as they are constructive.

For the moment, my file in [BroadJam], where the first track, Washed Over, is already available.

Steve Vai is God!

Last wednesday the 11th my pals Yorch, Juanito and I went to an exceptional concert: Steve Vai's Sound theories tour '07.



(I apologize for the pic's quality but I only had my Qtek with me... Besides, there are official pics about. See the links)

You guys know I've been a Steve Vai fan since his Passion and Warfare, the record that made him "famous" (in the world of rock and virtuous guitars) and, whenever I can and I know about it, I go to his concerts, and those of his teacher: Joe Satriani. Many would argue but I consider them to be the apex of electric guitar playing .

Steve Siro Vai, american of italian ascent, was born on June 6th, 1960 (11 days and 13 years before I was) in Carle Place, New York and, as the legend goes, in 1978 he turned up at his fiend and teacher-to-be home with a new electric guitar and a set of strings and showing them he said "please teach me to play the guitar". Today, I think it's safe to say the pupil has outdone his teacher.

After studying at Berkley and working in multiple projects and bands, amongst which was his famous joining with Frank Zappa (nice story there, since he started working for him transcribing his impossible compositions... not an easy task...), lately he's more dedicated to composing. I say lately, since he seems to be seriously exploiting that facet, with an orchestra and everything. According to his own words, he feels more of a composer than a guitarist.

I, personally, "met" him through TV, at the famous Sevilla guitar concert of '92 where, during 4 (or 5) days, there were guitar concerts, divided in styles: classical, flamenco, jazz, rock... It was in this last one, the "night of the crazy guitars" as named by the celebrity presenter/collaborator, Brian May. He started off with "liberty", followed by "the audience is listening" but the arrow struck with "For the love of God", a piece I've spent years analyzing, studying and trying to emulate (failing miserably, of course...). With him I've learned about tapping, false harmonics, fast picking and of course, feedbacks and duets. With him I understood what a floating tremolo (or Flkoyd Rose) was, a concept that has taken me to choose my new guitar... but that is for a different blog entry. Lets go back to the other day's concert.

the concert was one of the best I've ever been to. It was almost three hours though he didn't play alone. As a starter, a boy came out, which I'm sure is one of Vai's apprentices. The audience didn't know what to make of his extravaganza of this apprentice namedZack Wiesinger. His eclectic style, however, is loaded with technique, good rythm sense and lots of talent. We'll have to keep track of him.

Of course, Vais's entrance was, to say the least, spectacular. The whole place dissapeared under a cloud of smoke and we saw a green glow appear, which later we discovered is his new guitar, with a translucent tinted body with LEDs on the inside, blazing chords of The Animal. Shortly after, he took out the Mojo (almost this one), with blue leds instead of fretboard dots... to poor Yorch's dismay who had to look away because he got dizzy ;-)

The star of the night, however, was his famed modified JEM7VWH modificada similar to this one. The "original" is sold for a mere 2500 euros, but his guitar has a few improvements which he showed on the hing, together with his usual showmanship, blowing onto the strings to create a feedback during a solo (effect which I spoiled for poor Yorch by telling him he was doing it "artificially" by pressing on a button near the bridge. The button enables a component called the Fernandes Sustainer).

The staging was simple but effective and pleasing. However, (please excuse the pun) the proberbial cherry on the cake was the new violinist (of classical training) Ann Marie Calhounque, which, as Vai put it "Hey! I know how to pick'em" (please look up). The girl, though clearly shy, really gives a new flavour to Vai's sound (though I think Alex dePue was who the one recorded in the album).

The climax of the evening was during the performance of "Whispering a prayer", during a pause in the track in which the audience gave him a over-4-minutes stand-up ovation (I kid you not) during which Mr. Vai's face was a poem. It was only a show of what he makes us feel though his music.

The concert's full kit was:

Jeremy Colson: drum kit and all sorts of things that you hit. (not so new member either)
Dave Weiner: Rhythm guitar, sitar, acoustic guitar and smile. (The longest member besides Steve)
Bryan Beller: Bass and impossible ears.
Alex DePue: Electric and acoustic violin, keyboards, the new fast fingers.
Ann Marie Calhoun: Electric and acoustic violin, Viola, Banjo and keyboards, confidence personified.
Zack Wiesinger: Solo opening act guitar extravaganza and perhaps a few saxophone honks here and there with the band.

The comments on the official site

Addendum that struck very near home: We saw a little green thing next to the neck pickup which we though was a pick store, but lo and behold, it's a piece of tape that is there to prevent the string from getting stuck when he plays it as it apparently did frequently. This can be seen here. The VERY SAME THING happens to me with my Ibanez guitar. I HAVE SOMETHING IN COMMON WITH STEVE VAI!! (needless to say, I will place a bit of tape on my guitar. Great idea, Steve!)

Videos videos videos

These videos are a little out of this blog's league, but, honestly, they are worth it.

This one, specially, is priceless:


A classic returns. The quality is a little crap, but yes, Rambo returns, with more blood than ever, more explosions, more gore, and more gut... and age, and grey hairs end... Look, look:


Shrek3 seems set to dissapoint a little, but I'm still intent on seing it:

Learning to fly

Yesterday, Stephen Hawking flew in 0-gravity.

This "ordinary" feat for anybody is an even bigger feat for Mr. Hawking who, since the early age of 21 started developing Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (colloquially known as Lou Gehrig's disease), a degenerative disease that would slowly and painfully cripple him. Join the back of your hands (more like the exterior part of your wrists) and keep them joined for 15 minutes and imagine that same pain all over your body all the time.

We have all seen him in his well know wheel-chair (actually, he's had several, designed by himself) and a little apparatus similar to a computer mouse with which he was able to form sentences to talk with the help of his speech. When I saw the news today, that device had dissapeared and he was left with a device attached to his face, to capture facial movements in order to implement all those functions.

But when he was released into 0-gravity his smile covered most of his face. His twisted body floated gracefully in mid-air and you could easily see this moment was going to be one of the high-points of his life.

He is planning a low-orbit space-trip for next year. Keep it up, Steve!

A little inspiration

Steve Jobs. Almost no-one will recognize this name. However, we all will recognize the Macintosh corporation name, creators of the very first computer with a graphical interface operating system: the Mac. Also, we all know the name Pixar, creators of films such asToy Story, Monsters Inc., Cars, etc.

So who is behind these feats? An inspiration. Take a while, connect your earphones and listen:

Steve Job's welcome speech to Stanford University students

THE works

If I wait till I get the time to actually write down the whole process, I'll never publish this... so here it is. Any questions, just ask!