I'm all moved in here at college. The boxes have been unpacked, the knick knacks are arranged, and far too many extension cords and power strips have been plugged in.
I feel a bit like an impostor here. Like it's my assignment as an alien from outer space to assume the role of a College Student. I find myself checking in the mirror, "Do I look like a College Student?What about my Books? How exactly should I carry them? Are my Backpack Straps adjusted properly for optimum College?"
Passes students in the hall. Nods politely. "Hello, Fellow Human College Students!"
Anyway...
Information Overload
That's another thing going through my head at the moment. I'm running all over the place to meetings and orientations and presentations where the goal is to gain an understanding of College Life and What to Expect. There's a lot to process all at once, but I'm sifting through it, filing away papers as best I can and making lots of notes and lists.
Culture Shock
Things you're not told at college:
When to wake up
Whether to shower in the morning or evening (though showering at some point is required)
How long to spend brushing your teeth
How long to spend studying your homework
This is new for me... I mean, I'm an Adult. Which means I'm responsible for those decisions. When I'm not at College I live at home with my parents, because I'm poor. So there's some immediate accountability there. But here at College, it's a little bit different kind of responsibility. I'm adjusting to that slowly.
The School Part of Things
That's what honestly scares me a bit. I haven't been in study mode for at least a year and a half. But on Monday I'm jumping right into College Level Academics. It'll be the hardest I've ever worked in my life, mentally at least. So we'll have to see how that goes. If it goes well, I'll be posting here once in a while to update the world on What I'm Up To. If it does not go well, I'll probably just go silent here for a while.
I'm excited and nervous and hopeful and apprehensive. We'll see.
I've got amazing friends. The kind that would throw me an unforgettable surprise going away party on my last weekend before I leave for college.
I finished up my last day at my factory job on Friday morning. I knew I was going to go spend some time with six of my friends. The plan was to go hang out at one house, then caravan to another, spend the night, and do some geocaching on Saturday. We did that, but what I didn't know is that they had all been planning for about a month to surprise me. So when we got back early Saturday afternoon, I thought things were winding down and I was going to head home soon. But the party was just getting started. I went to the basement and suddenly people were jumping out of closets and rooms, yelling "SURPRISE!"
As it turns out, they'd been orchestrating the whole weekend so that I wouldn'd have any idea what was going on. So I was completely surprised when the party doubled in size. That afternoon and night we did some ATV'ing on the trails in the woods. Which bring me to the next part of this story...
About two hours later I was lost in the middle of nowhere, next to a cornfield, sitting in my car with my friend.
"Just turn here," he said. "This will get us back on the gravel road," he said. "We're not gonna get lost."
Well, we did get lost. And the only way out was to drive through weeds and grass that were tall enough to completely hide my car. We were hitting terrain that the poor thing was never designed for. Eventually we made our way out, but it was intense. The car was a little dirty but fine overall. I should write to Honda and let them knnow their '98 Civic is actually a pretty decent offroad vehicle. The six inch ground clearance and street tires just add to the experience.
It was so great spending time with all of these guys, I hadn't been able to do much over the summer because of my intense work schedule. This week is very hectic for me, I'm leaving my home and moving to college for the first time. I'm saying goodbye to a lot of people I really care about and will miss. I'm starting out on the biggest undertaking of My Life So Far, and it's scary. But this weekend I was reminded how lucky and thankful I am to have great friends. That's one thing I never want to lose.
So much has happened since I last posted about my job. I delayed this post for so long because, well, there wasn't anything interesting to write about. This will be the last post in the Fast Food Saga *wipes away tear* because I would rather do a few mildly interesting posts than a lot of completely boring ones.
The Mascot
I guess my managers were pleased with my performance as an ice cream cone, because they have scheduled me to be The Mascot about twice a week. It's still lots of fun, though the suit seems to get a bit heavier every time.
Kids like the Mascot. But kids are also evil, so some of them like to attack me. One night it got particularly crazy. The little ankle-biters delightful young guests were pounding on my suit's giant ice cream head, swarming around my legs, and stepping on my feet. It wasn't until one kid suggested loudly that they "Tip him over and see if he can stand up again!" that my manager escorted me into the back room and told the kids, "He's not coming back until you start acting nice."
I cowered in the back room, waiting for the horde to disperse. Eventually the kids left, but the whole experience left me a bit shaken.
The Kitchen
I'm still working in the kitchen a few times a week, making fried food for the masses. I'm still locked in mortal combat with the salt shaker, Lucifer. I told myself I wouldn't be bothered by his absurdly high temperature anymore. Mind over matter. Lucifer didn't like that, so he retaliated by letting his lid fall off over an entire batch of fries, burying them in a mountain of salt. I tried to explain to my manager that it wasn't my fault, but he wasn't convinced.
This salt shaker needs to be destroyed.
The End
That's all I've got to say, really. It's been fun posting about work, and I hope you guys have enjoyed The Fast Food Saga.
Quote of the Day:
"RAAAAWWR! I'm eating your cousin!" -Spoken by a four year old kid who was standing in front of The Mascot eating an ice cream cone. disclaimer
Yes, you read the title correctly. My life's goal has been completed. I am the mascot at The Franchise.
On Being the Mascot
It's just as much fun as I thought it would be. The suit is about seven feet tall, and the only visibility is through the giant, creepily smiling mouth and the giant, never-blinking eyes. Seriously. This thing's creepy.
The limited visibility in the suit makes things such as walking a lot more interesting. The operator of the suit has to constantly bob his head around and crane his neck to get any kind of idea of what's going on around him. When the operator takes the suit off and attempts to walk, he must remember to cease bobbing his head, as he is now a normal person, and people who walk like seagulls are generally known as idiots. I may or may not have learned this the hard way.
Once I have the suit on, I become another person entirely. I hand a lot of balloons to little kids, give a lot of high fives, and engage in an inordinate amount of dancing. This is another thing I have to adjust to when I take off the suit. You see, when there's a seven foot tall ice cream cone doing the Macarena in front of a group of kids, they squeal and giggle, and the parents find it amusing.
When it's a seventeen year old kid with glasses enthusiastically doing the Macarena for the kiddies... Not so much.
I had to consciously restrain myself from dancing in front of several children after I clocked out tonight.
My co-workers warned me that it wasn't always fun. They were right, to some extent. It gets very hot in the suit. The air you're breathing is the same air you've been breathing for the past two hours, mixed with sweat and the smell of fast food. Not extremely pleasant.
Also, the suit is pretty heavy, so your shoulders get tired quickly. And the arm holes are out the front of the suit, rather than the side, so you have to walk around kinda like a zombie. A zombie seagull.
(As I composed this post, I thought I'd check and see if there are any image results for "zombie seagull" from the Googles. There are.)
This was the closest thing I could find. It's a zombie-skeleton-surfing-bird... thing. You're welcome.
Overall, though, it's a fun job. The hordes of kids swarming around you provide something of an ego-booster, albeit a strange one.
See you guys next time.
Quote of the Day:
"Mommy, I don't wanna hug the giant ice cream cone!"
Last week was a bad week at work. I wasn't doing well for a number of reasons, and then a guy got fired. With this in mind, I didn't feel like posting last week, because there was nothing funny or entertaining to say.
This week has been much, much better.
My boss was much happier today, which made work much easier. Somehow I also had much more energy to power through the day, so that was nice.
The Mascot
The fast food restaurant where I work has a mascot. This mascot roams around the dining room on select days, entertaining the kids. If I told you exactly what kind of mascot it was, I'd pretty much divulge what company I work for, which is something I can't do. Suffice to say that the mascot is a giant walking food item. I'll leave the rest to your imagination.
I want to be the lucky guy in the suit. I love working with kids, and being the mascot looks like a lot of fun. So I've set that as my goal. My life ambition right now is to get inside that suit and walk around the dining room scaring entertaining kids.
Other co-workers who have done it before tell me that it isn't fun. "It's really hot in there," they say. "You'll start hating it after a while," they tell me.
Perhaps, deep inside, they've lost their childlike spirit, growing cynical and jaded as time robs them of life's simple pleasures.
Or maybe they're right and it is no fun.
Either way, I'm not going to let them crush my dreams. I will be the mascot one day. Just you wait...
Cooked Hand
My hand was cooked today. I was reaching into a fryer and grabbing some onion rings and a glob of oil splashed onto the inside of my hand. Ouch.
I probably shouldn't tell you what deep fried hand smells like.
I'm telling you anyway.
It smells like chicken. Fried chicken.
The only thing missing was batter and a bit of salt and pepper. It would have been enough to make any common cannibal's mouth water as they fondly remembered cannibal picnics on warm summer evenings with their cannibal friends, sitting on cannibal blankets and feasting on chocolate covered aunts, while the cannibal children laugh and frolic on the playground in their game of swallow the leader...
Wow. That got a bit out of hand.
Anyway.
Quote of the Day:
"Seth, you're getting pretty good at fryers. I guess that makes you Lord of the Fries."
-Person for whom I am too lazy to think of a fake name disclaimer
I just finished another shift at The Franchise. It's the second one since my last post, and I apologize for not getting a post up after that shift. But between school (gotta graduate somehow, right?) and work and school and more school.... OK, actually I don't apologize because I had a perfectly reasonable excuse for not posting. So there.
Best Pep Talk EVER
I arrived, clocked in, washed up, donned my fashionable kitchen attire, and walked into the kitchen ready to rock and roll. My manager (it was Marvin this time) said, "OK, so today, we're gonna have you doing fryers by yourself. That means you'll be responsible for all of the fryers and this guy over here is going to help you only when you're falling way behind."
Fantastic.
It was a Thursday night and Thursdays are usually pretty slow. This was not a slow Thursday. This was a mind-blisteringly busy Thursday. I guess everyone in town decided they needed food that had been immersed in oil. Immediately.
I launched into the endless stream of orders and was making food when Marvin said, "Listen up!"
I listened up, but I was not prepared for what he was about to do. He was about to deliver the greatest pep talk in the history of them all. Here it is:
"OK, so, uhhh... Drive thru orders were a little slow, so... speed those up a little. And... we need to, umm... make some good quality food. Tonight. So... let's do that now."
Dead silence filled the room and drowned out the chaotic din of the fryers, the grill, the vents, and everything else.
Somewhere, in the distance, I could hear a fly walking up the wall. It stopped and rubbed its hands together in that fly-esque way.
Outside, an errant tumbleweed drifted and rolled across the parking lot.
Then, one person clapped. Very slowly, we all joined in. It was exactly like this video:
And then we continued our work, comforted by the knowledge that we had such a fearless and inspiring leader to guide us through the narrow paths and hazards of the fast food industry.
Fun Facts:
Onion rings are absurdly difficult to put into bags. They are shaped weirdly and they are unreasonably hot, so the process of putting a serving of onion rings into a bag is not an entertaining one, to say the least.
Seriously guys, stop ordering onion rings. Or I'll make you come back here and bag them yourself.
I'm not quite ready for the big leagues when it comes to running fryers. We've got five of them, and the multitasking required for the job is intense.
Note to self: Play more Cake Mania before next shift.
Lucifer is still as lucifer-y as ever. I had to refill him. This involves holding him, tight, pulling his lid off, and pouring in new salt. This causes fourth-degree tissue burns at minimum.
Tonight my manager told me we'd focus more on Time of Service (The Franchise's code for "Your job is not hard enough, let's make you work FASTER!!")
I did not do well in this area tonight. I guess the added pressure made me nervous enough to mess up more. So my night was filled with fry fumbling, cheese curd craziness, chicken tender turmoil, and onion ring... Something. I've lost interest in the alliteration now, you can figure something out for yourself.
Nicest Guy in the Fast Food Industry
The aforementioned individual is not me. I'm a pretty nice guy at work, but there is one whom I have met, who outshines the nicest of the nice. It's almost scary.
Aaron (I'm going to call him Aaron) was assigned to train me tonight, and he was really good at it. He even made the really scary task of cleaning the fryers seem like a barefoot midnight stroll through a mossy woodland trail. Yep. That's totally what it felt like.
This guy deserves a raise.
Fryers Actually Work by Magic
I asked "Caleb", another of my co-workers, exactly how the fry oil filter system worked. He started to go into a long, technical explanation, but then stopped himself and told me it's essentially magic. He doesn't know how it really works. Our managers don't know how it really works. No one knows how it works.
Hence, it's clearly magical.
That's all for now. See you next week, and remember, anyone who says "nothing is impossible" has obviously never tried to staple jello to a tree. I'm not sure what bearing this fact has on this blog post, but there you go. It's true.
Quote of the Day:
"There's just a bunch of wizards in there, contemplating magical algorithms and stuff. That's how it works." -Caleb disclaimer
Today I worked another shift at The Franchise. It was a good one, as it was a pretty slow day. The weather was pretty snowy and it's New Year's Eve, so I guess a lot of people decided not to eat out tonight.
I did get my new pants. Hooray. Now I can work in at 28 inch waist without constantly reaching down to adjust my rapidly slipping uniform pants.
I did actually learn a few things again:
Cleaning the fryers is terrifying.
In order to clean our five fabulous food fryers, one must don a heat glove, turn the fryer off, remove the grate from the bottom of the unreasonably hot oil, send it back to be washed, remove the backplate, send that back to be washed, pull a valve to empty the fryer, and scrub the walls of the fryer out with a piece of steel wool. This is pretty simple as long as you avoid getting small patches of your skin cooked by the oil. Then comes the terrifying part: You've got to connect a hose to the pipes under the fryer, run it up to the fryer you're cleaning, and pull a valve to spray ridiculously hot oil all over the inner walls of the fryer. This isn't like a normal hose. This is like a high pressure fire hose spewing out fiery hot doom all over the place. I'm told this makes the fryer clean somehow. One wrong move, though, and you'll spray searing hot oil all over the kitchen and your three fellow kitchen workers. Easy right? Yep. Piece of cake.
People need to stop ordering onion rings.
I can bag fries now. It's pretty easy to me since I've learned the touch of the fry bagging masters, and I long ago abandoned all the pain sensing nerves in the ends of my fingers. But onion rings are a different matter altogether. With fries, they usually sit for a few seconds before being bagged. But onion rings have to go straight from the fryer to the bag, with no time to cool off. Also, they are bigger than fries and harder to insert into the bags. These factors combine to make it really hard to bag onion rings. I guess I'll get better with practice, but for now I still fumble around awkwardly every time. So do me a favor and don't order any onion rings while I'm working. Ok? Thanks.
Well, that's what I've got for now. If you were expecting a profound thoughtful New Years message in the post, you're not going to get it here. Click this link for the 2012 post, and replace stuff with things pertinent to 2013. I'm lazy.
Great news: I recently (and by recently I mean yesterday) got a job at a fast food restaurant. I've needed a job for a very long time, so having one unexpectedly is a huge thrill. You'll notice by now that I haven't mentioned the name of the restaurant, and I just want to get a few things related to that out of the way before I start:
I'm not going to mention the name of this restaurant. Ever. Those of you who know me in real life will probably know which one it is, but I will not be using the name of the restaurant online, since the company frowns upon that sort of thing. I will refer to it as The Franchise.
The views, opinions, and narratives I'm expressing in my posts do not reflect those of the company for which I work (which will of course remain nameless.)
Any comments mentioning the name of the company for which I work will be deleted immediately.
All names of coworkers and guests have been changed for reasons which should be obvious to you by now.
With that over with, let's begin the Fast Food Saga.
Day One:
I showed up for my first shift dressed in uniform pants several sizes too big for me. To put my dilemma in perspective, I'm a very tall, skinny guy who usually wears a 29 inch waist with a 34 or higher inseam. These were way bigger than that. But this was the smallest they had, so it would have to do.
After a brief tour of the place, I was plunged into my first task: Making fries. It's a simple job in theory. There are several fryers, and frozen potato sticks are poured into baskets which are then plunged into the extremely hot oil. And when I say extremely hot, I'm talking heat levels that make me seriously confused as to why the oil isn't actually on fire.
When working fries, you must stand in front of these fryers, put batches of frozen potato sticks into the baskets, drop the baskets in the oil, set the timer, and wait for them to cook. After the timers go off, you pull out the baskets, shake them, and dump the fries onto the fry table. Once there's a pile of fries, they are salted and scooped into bags, then placed on the chutes for distribution into guest's orders.
Like I said, a simple job.
But, this being my first shift, it was not simple. I learned one thing very quickly:
Everything is hot.
The kitchen is hot to begin with, considering most of the real estate is taken up by a giant, extremely hot grill and giant, extremely hot fryers. Most of the things in the kitchen are made of metal. And that metal gets very hot.
There's a scoop used to insert the fries into the bags. That scoop is hot.
There are metal baskets used to submerge various foods into the absurdly hot oil. Those baskets are hot.
There are fries coming out of the absurdly hot oil. Those fries are hot.
There's also a saltshaker. A big, metal, demonic saltshaker sent from one of the outer circles of Hell, specifically designed to blister, burn, sear, and otherwise cook your fingers every time you touch it.
I do not like this saltshaker.
Another thing I learned:
Scooping fries takes more skill than is initially expected.
All I have to do is take things and put them in bags. How in the world can that be difficult? I've put lots of things in lots of bags before, but somehow, bagging fries is different. There's a certain touch you have to develop to join the ranks of the expert fry baggers. I do not have this touch.
Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the only thing shielding my delicate Caucasian basement-dweller hands from a raging inferno of deep-fried death is a thin paper bag. Once I hold a medium bag of french fries for about three seconds, the scalding begins.
In addition, after every batch of fries is dumped onto the table, one must engage in the delightful activity of grabbing Lucifer (that's the saltshaker, I've named it Lucifer) and shaking it upside down to dispense salt on the pile of fries. This involves grasping Lucifer for more than about thirteen milliseconds, at which point one's fingers start to cook.
All these factors combine into a nice little medley of circumstance that makes it very difficult to accurately ensure that the correct number of fries, or any at all for that matter, end up in the bags.
The moral to this whole thing, if there really can be a moral, is that you should think of the guys in the back next time you order your burger and fries. It's more work than you might think, and I've found that out on my first day.
That's all for now, folks. Be sure to tune in next time for more tales of the fast food kitchen.
Quote of the Day:
"We'll put you on fries to start out with. That's the easiest job."
Well, I knew about ice cream before. I just found these little pints of ice cream at Pick 'n Save that are really cheap. So...
I bought some.
It started with four pints. I brought them home and put them in the freezer. My thought was, "I'm going to eat these really slowly and make them last two weeks." Later that day I pulled one out of the freezer. Ten minutes later, I'd eaten the whole pint. I justified it as a fluke and something that would never happen again.
Two days later, there was no more ice cream. None. Why? I'd eaten it all. One thought began to completely consume my consciousness: GET MORE ICE CREAM.
So I did. I went to Pick 'n Save and bought four more pints. Just as I was pulling out of the parking lot, I realized that four was not enough. I pulled a quick U-turn (my apologies to the Prius that was in the oncoming lane) and raced back to the store. I ran to the frozen aisle and swept ten or twelve more pints off of the shelf. With a crazed gleam in my eye, I pushed my cart to the checkout aisle, swiped my debit card, and left, finally satisfied. But not for long.
48 hours later, I was back for more. I ran to the aisle. Grabbed the ice cream. Swiped my card. Went home. Ate the ice cream.
Within a week, it seemed normal. I'd wake up, drive to the store, grab the ice cream, swipe the card, drive home, eat. This was my routine. My life.
Until that fateful Thursday when the credit card machine beeped at me. I was swiping my card and it beeped at me. 'INSUFFICIENT FUNDS', it said. I panicked.
"I'll be right back, Rita", I told the cashier (we were on a first name basis by now). I walked back to my van. I took a sharpie and some cardboard and made a sign that said "THINGS FOR SALE." I then began selling everything in my possession. I sold my phone. And my driver's license. I sold the seats from the back of my van. I sold my clothes to a consignment shop. I even managed to convince a lady named Cindy that an empty Pepsi bottle I found in the back of my van was full of air from the royal wedding. Made $15 off of that.
Finally, dressed in an old garbage bag I found wrapped around a stop sign, I returned triumphantly to Pick 'n Save with $329.87 in small bills and change. I purchased all of the ice cream. ALL of the ice cream.
Fast forward to now. I've finally been released from the hospital. I have a session with a therapist scheduled for every Monday and Thursday in the next three months. Ice cream has stopped consuming my life. I'm finally free.
Please note that the above story is completely false. None of this really happened, with the exception of the fact that I did indeed purchase some ice cream a while ago. But it makes a much better excuse for why I haven't posted in such a long time than "I'm too lazy".
For several years, I've used the most popular Google Chrome extension ever, AdBlock. It does just what it says: blocks the ads you see in webpages and youtube videos. I've cruised along in ad-free comfort for nearly four years now. I no longer have to tolerate the obnoxious floating ads all over some websites. I'm no longer distracted by banners proclaiming "Wisconsin Mom Has the Disgusting Secret to Whiter Teeth!" or "21 and Single? Click here to chat now!" or "This One Energy Trick Will Save You Hundreds!"
I also have been free from the ads most people sit through before youtube videos. When I'm watching a quick 30 second tutorial on how to use toggle bolts in a plaster wall, I don't want to be forced to watch an irrelevant advertisement that lasts longer than the tutorial itself.
But the other day I realised something. And it has a lot to do with one of the most ever-present companies in our daily lives.
Google seems like a giant Santa Claus. I mean, they offer me 15 gigabytes of FREE web storage, for me to store whatever I want for as long as I want. They've given me Youtube. They've made this blog possible. They provide a suite of web-based tools I constantly use, like Google Docs, Slides, and Calendar. When I want to drive to a place I'm not familiar with, I do it with directions from Google Maps. When I look at ANY WEBPAGE, it's in Chrome, Google's browser. And did I mention that they run the most popular and useful web search engine on the face of the Earth? No? Well they do.
All of these things are free. Or at least, they appear to be.
But the truth is, Google is not a maps company. They're not a search company. They're not a storage company, or a calendar company, or a video sharing company. They are an advertisement company. The vast majority of their massive income is from advertisements. They offer us free things like Maps, Youtube, Docs, Drive, Calendar, the Android OS, etc, all in return for our clicking on their ads.
I was thinking about this the other day. The ads aren't really that terrible on lots of websites. I'm getting the benefit of the internet for free, shouldn't I be giving something back to the websites I like? AdBlock gives us a choice of what websites we want to support. That's why I've started disabling AdBlock on a number of individual websites I visit regularly. These websites have to pay the bills somehow, that's why they have ads up in the first place. However, the websites that support ads that annoy or offend me get the AdBlock treatment.
I haven't disabled it altogether, though. For instance, I still have it enabled for Youtube. Sorry, Youtube Content Creators, but as much as I love the idea of you guys getting a paycheck when I watch your videos, the ads that roll in front of Youtube videos are just too obnoxious. I don't mind the banner ads at the bottom of the video, or the ones that appear next to the video. But the commercials that interrupt the beginning of the video I'm watching have to stay gone.
That's why I love using AdBlock. Not to completely cripple the Internet as we know it by blocking every ad we see, but to give me the choice of which websites I actually want to support.
For some reason, I get into this debate quite often on the infamous Youtube Comments Section. It seems lots of people don't believe that a genre of music I enjoy immensely, EDM, is true artistry (i.e. not "real" music.) I disagree. Here's why.
People make a lot of statements and generalizations about Electronic Dance Music. One of the biggest ones:
'It's not "real" music because it all sounds the same.'
EDM (Electronic Dance Music) covers a huge range of genres, including Ambient, Ambient dub
,Ambient industrial, Ambient house, Dark ambient, Drone music,
Illbient, Isolationism, Breakbeat, Acid breaks, Baltimore Club, Big
beat, Broken beat, Nu skool breaks, Florida breaks, Nu-funk, Miami
bass, Chiptune/Video game music, Bitpop, Bleep techno, Game Boy
music, Nintendocore, Skweee, Disco, Cosmic disco, Disco polo, Euro
disco, Italo disco, Nu-disco, Space disco, Spacesynth, Downtempo,
Acid jazz, Chill out, Ethnic electronica, New age music, Nu jazz,
Trip hop, Drum and bass, Darkstep, Drumfunk,
Drumstep, Hardstep, Jump-Up, Jazzstep, Liquid funk, Neurofunk,
Sambass, Techstep, Dub fusion genres, Afro-dub, Dubstep, Brostep,
Post-dubstep, Trap, Wonky, Dubtronica, Electro music, Freestyle
music, Electroacoustic music, Acousmatic music, Electroacoustic
improvisation, Musique concrète, Electronica, Berlin school,
Chillwave, Folktronica, Funktronica, Laptronica, Livetronica,
Electronic rock, Alternative dance, Coldwave, Dance-punk, Dark Wave,
Electronicore, Ethereal Wave, Indietronica, Krautrock, New rave,
Nu-gaze, Space rock, Synthpop, Synthpunk, Hardcore, 4-beat, Breakbeat
hardcore, Bouncy techno, Breakcore, Digital hardcore, Darkcore,
Freeform hardcore, Gabber, Happy hardcore, Hardcore breaks, Makina,
Rave, Speedcore, Trancecore, UK hardcore, Hard dance, Hard house, Hardstyle, Dubstyle, Jumpstyle, Lento violento, Eurobeat, Eurodance, Italo dance, House
music, Acid house, Balearic beat, Chicago house, Deep house, Detroit
house, Disco house, Diva house/Handbag house, Hardbag, Electroclash,
Electro house, Complextro, Dutch house, Fidget house, Moombahton,
Moombahcore, Euro house, Freestyle house, French house, Funky house,
Garage house, Ghetto house, Hip house, Italo house, Kwaito, Latin
house, Microhouse/Minimal house, New beat, Progressive house, Swing
house, Electro swing, Tech house, Tribal house, Vocal house,
Industrial music, Aggrotech, Cybergrind, Electro-industrial, Dark
electro, Electronic body music, Futurepop, Industrial metal,
Industrial rock, Neue Deutsche Härte, Japanoise, Power electronics,
Death industrial, Power noise, IDM, Glitch, Jungle, Darkcore jungle,
Hardcore jungle, Raggacore, Ragga-jungle, Post-disco, Boogie,
Dance-pop, Dance-rock, Techno, Acid techno, Detroit techno, Free
tekno, Ghettotech, Hardtechno, Minimal techno, Nortec, Rotterdam
techno, Schranz, Symphonic techno, Tecno brega, Trance music, Acid
trance, Dark trance, Dream trance, Electrance, Euro trance, Goa
trance, Hard trance, Ibiza Trance, Full
on, Progressive psytrance, Psybreaks, Suomisaundi, Progressive
trance, Tech trance, Uplifting trance, Vocal trance, UK garage,
2-step garage, Breakstep, Future garage, Grime, Grindie, Speed
garage, Bassline/4x4 garage, UK funky, and I've only stopped listing them because I think you get the point.
I can assure you that while some of these styles may sound similar to each other, each is different, with its own set of characteristics. Once you listen to a lot of EDM, you start to realize the vast range of sounds that are out there.
Another argument I hear quite often:
'EDM takes no talent or skill to produce. It's just a bunch of noises made with computers.'
That's a tougher one to address, if only because I don't even know where to begin. As someone who's dabbled in EDM production, even though I have only scratched the surface of the skills and practice necessary to create a compelling track, I can say with confidence that it's extremely difficult to just sit down at a computer with FL Studio or Ableton Live and churn out a track without at least some idea of what you're doing.
Take a look at this:
That's a view of FL Studio. This image doesn't even show most of the hundreds, if not thousands of parameters that must be adjusted and tweaked to create a unique sound. Many critics of EDM that I've encountered have never even used software like this, and if I were to plunk them down in front of it and tell them to create a track, they'd probably end up with something like this:
I doubt that's going to be topping any charts any time soon. I whipped it together in about 90 seconds.
Creating a great track can take months. Each synth must be fine tuned to give the exact sound you're aiming for. Every effect must be programed. And I haven't even gotten to the complex art of mastering, the process of preparing and transferring recorded audio from a source containing the final mix to an exported track.
I'm not claiming to be great at all of these things, in fact I only know the basics when it comes to FL Studio.
One of my favorite genres is Electro House music (or Progressive House), one of the characteristics of which is a steady, four-to-the-floor beat, usually at 125-130 BPM. Take a listen to this track by one of my favorite producers, Deadmau5 (pronounced Deadmouse.)
At the surface, it may not seem all that creative to some, because of the repetitive structure within the main hook of the song. But there is so much variation and complex structure within that pattern. It's a really tough thing to get right, but Deadmau5 seems to have nailed it to some extent, considering the track's massive popularity on the charts.
Here's another example. I produced the track below, called "There." It took somewhere around two months from start to finish. It's a reasonably decent track (in my opinion at least), and I'm pretty proud of it. However, if you hand me a guitar, and tell me to create a really driving riff for a rock song, followed by a screaming solo, I'm not going to be able to make much of anything. Is it easier to use software to create music? Not exactly. That's just what I'm better at. For a guitar player, it's easier for them to create great music with a guitar than it is for them to use FL Studio.
So shut up and enjoy the music.
UPDATE: Here's a great video of a guy performing EDM live. Yes, it requires skill.
The other day, the headphones I'd bought last fall finally died. I guess that's what happens when you purchase the cheapest headphones on Newegg.
It wasn't too surprising.
So I pulled up B&H photo/video and checked to see if they had a certain set from JVC that I was really interested in. Ten minutes later, I'd clicked "order", and six days later, they arrived at my doorstep. Isn't the internet wonderful?
According to most of the reviews I've seen of the HARX700's, they're the best quality headphone on the market for their price bracket. And I'd have to agree on that one.
First impressions:
The build quality on these seems very solid at this point. There are no creaky or loose parts. Everything fits together well, and the headphones have some heft to them. They're not heavy by any means, but definitely not feather-light either. The non-removeable cable is ten feet long. TEN FEET! That's pretty long. It's also decently thick and should withstand everyday use with no problems. The connector is a standard 3.5mm plug, with an included 1/4 inch gold plated adapter for use with mixers, etc.
The sound at first was very harsh. The bass was there, but it was overshadowed by the extravagant highs and mids. The highs were way too shimmering and really made it painful to listen to at high volume levels.
After a 15 hour burn-in:
Wow! What a world of difference. To burn them in, I just queued up the band Red's entire collection and put it on a loop at just above a comfortable volume level. I let this play for 15 hours, and afterwards they were like a whole new pair of headphones. The highs have receded to comfortable, crisp levels, and the mids are much more refined and accurate. The bass is tight and responsive, but it could be more prevalent. They are rated for 8hz to 25khz, which expands well beyond the normal range of human hearing. This makes for a great experience watching movie trailers; you'll really feel the thunder and explosions.
Songs:
These sound great with a variety of music. Rock is explosive yet balanced, EDM such as Deadmau5 has plenty of punch in the kicks and a lot of definition in the synth lines. Daft Punk's track "Contact" is spectacular on the HARX700's.
Overall:
Honestly, I tried to think of more negative points, but I can't. These are a really solid pair of headphones that deliver great sound for a reasonable price.
JVC HARX700 Headphones, available at Newegg, Amazon, and B&H. $35.99-$55.99
I'm going back to work at camp. It's going to be a blast, and a whole lot of work. Here's a countdown until I get back on August 15th:
I'll try to put up mini-posts on my days off. Also, check my twitter stream on this page.
*Update*
I'd love it if my readers could do what they did last year. Use the comments section as a Twitter feed every day. Let me know what you ate for breakfast. Or anything. It'll be a lot of fun to read them when I get back!
There are a lot of great movies out there. Some of them are quite credible, realistic, and engaging. I enjoy them immensely. But one thing bugs me: Hollywood producers don't seem to know anything about anything electronic.
In most modern-set movies, there will be a scene with a computer. And that computer is making idiotic bleeping noises every time someone presses a button! For me, it destroys the entire realism and believability of the scene when someone's reading a text message on their iPhone and all of a sudden an electronic din fills the room just because they're typing a reply. Directors and screenwriters know that the real world doesn't work that way. But they continue to insist on utterly wrecking the credibility of a potentially awesome scene by inserting corny, tinny beeping sounds into every single computer scene! Why can't movie computers be like real life computers? A pleasant "blinng" here and there when you get a notification is fine. But a constant racket is just obnoxious. Can you imagine if everyones electronics did that? Offices full of computers would be a nightmare.
One thing I've also noticed is that movie characters seem physically unable to operate a computer with a mouse. Seriously. Everything is apparently controlled by typing, just like in 1985 when all you had was a command line!
(Good guy 1: "Oh, no! Looks like the bad guys are trying to access the main gate! Quick, use the computer system to lock it!"
Good guy 2: "Right away sir! Let me try to navigate through this supposedly modern operating system only by quickly hitting random characters on a keyboard! OK, got it!"
Bad guys: "Rats! Foiled again. It's locked!")
Speaking of bad guys, the go-to strategy for pretty much everything seems to be "hacking". Apparently. anything and everything electronic can be "hacked into". It's the same plot-hole filling spackle used in Star Trek (future technology), and Harry Potter (magic). If you're a good writer, you don't have to rely on stupid crutches like that.
(Movie Writer Bill: "Hey Frank! I think I've written myself into a corner! How am I supposed to get our main characters out of the bad guys lair?"
Movie Writer Frank: "I dunno. Have them hack into the light switches with their phones and sneak past the bad guys. Problem solved."
Bill: "Hmm. Seems legit! Okay!"
Frank: "Fine. Pass me another beer, will ya?")
Another observation is that a computer's interface is almost never true-to-life unless the company is paying for product placement. If anyone else has seen the movie "Independence Day" (if not then look it up on Netflix because it's great), you'll notice that at the end, the entire alien scourge is defeated with an Apple Powerbook 5300! Random coincidence? No. Apple paid for the product placement so that the entire culmination of the film is nothing but a cheap advertisement for a laptop.
So consider this an open letter to every movie director, producer, and screenwriter ever:
STOP IT! Just stop! Get back to reality! It's time to salvage any hope of releasing credible movies! Stop with the beeping. Stop with the keyboard commands. And the product placement. And please, please, please, STOP with the hacking.
The air conditioning in this vehicle kicked the bucket long ago, so I prefer to drive with all of the windows down rather than sit inside roasting in the sunlight. I was driving along, listening to music, and really enjoying the beautiful, sunny day.
Suddenly I saw two large "SPLAT" marks appear on the windshield. As I sat and contemplated the fact that I had just killed my first animals with a vehicle, one of the (as I later found out) wasps that had escaped their untimely demise managed to fly into my open window and up my sleeve, coming to rest on an unsuspecting patch of my back. The wasp, I suppose, paused a minute to savor the feeling of avenging his recently splattered siblings, and then with little ceremony, plunged his stinger into my body. I yelped. Loudly.
I've been stung by wasps before. Mostly while I was on staff at Camp Indian Trails last year. But somehow the sting of a wasp avenging the senseless murder of his fellow wasps tends to hurt a lot more than a normal sting. It felt like a red hot needle of justice being inserted into my skin, and pumping in something like battery acid.
Anyway, after yelping, I could still feel the apparently satisfied wasp buzzing and squirming around gleefully in my shirt. This is not a pleasant sensation to experience while motoring along at fifty miles per hour. After narrowly avoiding the oncoming traffic, I managed to pull onto a nearby curb, leap from my vehicle, and frantically remove my shirt, shaking it at arms length to try to liberate the insect within. Some poor suburbanite was watering plants in his front yard across the street. He calmly watched this happen, hose in hand, causing major flooding to his tulips.
I finally got the offending bug out of my clothing, and tried to maintain at least a slight air of dignity as I donned my shirt. Despite my efforts to not look ridiculous, the man continued staring at me. I nodded solemnly and uttered a few words about stinging insects and windows. He nodded nervously and backed away as I got back into the car and resumed driving. I still wonder what he thought was going on. All the way to the library I jumped and gasped at slightest sensation of anything touching my body, fearing that more wasps were hiding in the car.
I eventually got to the library, which brings me to the main point of this post. It's weird finally having a drivers license. Being able to go pretty much anywhere alone is a surprisingly scary feeling. The first time I drove alone I couldn't shake the feeling that I'd stolen the car and was going to be pulled over and arrested at any moment.
That being said, it's really nice to have that bit of independance. Since I have yet to crash, I'm allowed to use the van. It gets about fourteen miles per gallon in the city so I'm glad I'm not paying for the gas (yet.)
After the wasp incident I had a relaxing afternoon basking in a sunny window in the library, reading the latest issue of Wired magazine.
Needless to say I drove home with the windows firmly closed.
It's a great post. Read it in its entirety. It explains exactly why the Mac OS is not a productive OS. It's basically identical to what I've been meaning to write, but written much better than the draft I put together. He claims that both platforms are equal, but I would disagree with that claim. I think this article shows a lot of reasons why not to go with a mac. Here we go:
The only reason the myth of Macs (yes, it’s a myth) being better at “design things” exists is because as we all know, the Apple corporation was the first to make real headway in the personal computing market. They were the first to introduce a GUI that anyone recognized (though technically the Xerox Alto was the first to have a GUI, but the “Macintosh” introduced in 1984 was the first real commercial success), and programs/software that actually looked somewhat nice. That is to say, it was not monochromatic green text on a black screen. Back then (we’re talking like circa the early 80’s), if you wanted to compute and make things, you pretty much had basic drawing applications, and lame attempts at “desktop publishing” on Apple computers (see also: MacPaint), and essentially number computing and mathematical calculating on PC’s.
Though to be truthful “PC” means personal computer, so technically pretty much any computer you can buy (IBM PC or Mac) is a PC. But whatever, I’ll just call the one Mac and the other PC to avoid confusion.
Anyway, due to this initial distinction between PC’s as data-number-financial-etc machines, and Mac’s as pretty-functional-fun-designerly-etc machines, it was assumed that Mac’s were for fun, creative people making pretty things like design and art, and PC’s were for stodgy accountants that needed to compile sales figures. It is that distinction, made in the 1980’s mind you, that makes up essentially the entire basis of the “Macs are better at design than PCs” argument that we hear so often today. Just look at the recent Mac ads: Cool young guy who says “Dude” a lot represents Mac, old accountant-looking guy with nasal voice represents an PC. Wow, brilliant marketing. In actuality, it doesn’t really matter what you use to design, since it’s the designer that makes the design, not the computer. All you really need to do is pick whichever you work on best, and most efficiently.
But beyond that, let me go on as to just why it’s such an inaccurate statement. With the introduction of Windows in 1985, the Macintosh was no longer the only “pretty” looking computer. Naturally more software cropped up, and both machines had the capabilities to do the same things; and so the race to dominate the market began. Ultimately Microsoft and Windows won out, as is known by their much larger market share both then and now, but let’s get to how this affects design.
If you're reading this, you've probably noticed that my blog has a new look. I think the whole sliding-transparent-content-area-over-a-picture-of-wood-planks thing was getting a little old. Let me know what you think about it in the comments!
