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2005 Updates
December 28, 2005
And there ya go. Well, the
message board works again. I was having problems replying to a message but
it turns out it was just my firewall. Good ole firewall - he's my buddy. He
was just trying to protect me.
Anyways the board is up. But a
song is not. That's how it goes isn't it? You're on your way somewhere and
something steps in and causes problems. I don't necessarily see this as a
bad thing. I mean the message board messed up but now I think it looks a
little better after re-designing it anyway.
There are a several really neat
songs in the works. The Christmas song for this year is not up because of
blah blah blah, who cares. The point is it's on its way. I'm kind of
depressed about it because it starts in the same key and very similar if not
the same notes as Greenday's "Wake Me Up When September Ends". So now when I
hear it start out, it reminds me of Greenday. So the farther away from
Greenday's release I get, the better. See? The delays were NOT such a bad
thing after all. Not that anyone would mistake us for Greenday, ell oh ell.
(LOL).
Another good thing is the
passing of our old drum set, may it rest in peace. This however is resulting
in the relatively, sort of, near future purchase of an electronic set which
should give us much better quality. The acoustic drums have always been a
rather weak point in our songs anyway. So see? Progress can be painful but I
like it. The worst part is the amount of time it takes up. Let's just get
there for crying out loud! Or is the trip half the fun?
Hope everyone had a good
Christmas. I spent mine with family and lots of wrapping paper which I
rolled in with my nieces and nephews. I like using them as an excuse to play
and act juvenile in general. 2005 is on its way out. Hope your New Years is
great. It's supposedly a second longer this year as scientists adjust the
official time of our clocks. Hooray! (We have a scientist scheduled to come
in at 2:00 today to adjust ours. Or is it 2:01?) I do look forward to the
days getting longer as Spring approaches. But I don't want to wish my life
away. Enjoy the moment! Enjoy now! The past will always seem sweeter and the
future will always seems worse than the past. In the end, all we can control
is now. And now.......I have to get back to my day job. *sigh* Reality
- is.
HAPPY NEW YEARS!
~WornOutShoes
November 10, 2005
For those message board freaks -
just so ya know, we are aware of some problems with the message board. Our
web presence provider switched servers recently and we've had problems since
then. It will be back soon so hang in there.
In the computer world, upgrades
often mean "we have something new and untested that will be awesome!!!". And
that usually means headaches. Most times, things work themselves out and
this will too, mainly because I'm working on it. I called about the issue and for
some reason, they want me to contact support through email which is
extremely slow and irritating compared to talking over the phone to answer
short, quick questions. Grrr.
I'm convinced there is no good
tech support left in the world. I was informed of a possible solution to
which they told me I should back up my site before they try it. I have a
back up but why in sam hell can't THEY back it and freaking try it!?? If it
doesn't work, THEY can put it back after all THEY caused this issue.
Grrrrrrrr. Come on whiny ass girly men. Grow some balls and take some
action. I'm YOUR customer.
The best support technician I ever had the pleasure of being in contact
with, was a former marine and worked as a water filtration technician. I was
his assistant. We would go to people's houses who needed support on their
water softeners. We would be there as long as it took. He even helped a guy
who was having trouble with the ice machine in his refrigerator. And he
would give anyone an explanation of how the things worked if they wanted to
stand there and listen. We wouldn't leave until the customer was happy. We
received lots of compliments before we left.
I'm on the phone with tech support with my web presence provider and they
want me to communicate via email. Way to tackle the situation guys.
Congratulations. You suck just as much as I've come to expect from the rest
of the people in this world that we buy products or services from who are
more than happy to sell it to you. But good luck if you have problems.
The flip side is that many
companies are trying to downsize so they don't have to pay so many employees
to be there. Tech support is generally underpaid and unappreciated. It's
kind of seen like "well if we HAVE to have somebody in tech support, just
get anybody and pay the one who sounds like he knows what he's talking about
and will work for the least." What's the saying - you get what you pay for?
On the flip, flip side, I've
never let that stop me from doing my best just for the personal benefit I
get from it. That's something I will take with me wherever I go. That marine
set a great example for me, too. If a job is worth my time at all, then it's
worth doing well. If I'm not paid well for it, it's not the fault of those
who depend on me for my services.
Today is day three since I've
contacted tech support and the message board hasn't worked since sometime
before that. I anticipate another hollow answer from tech support and no
real solution. Is is working yet, guys?! Didn't think so. You messed it up,
you fix it. Grrr....I'll probably have to fix this myself by just
re-recreating the whole thing. For now, guess I'll go play my guitar.
Ironic, isn't it?
When life hands you potatoes, make potatoaid,
~WornOutShoes
November 1, 2005
Greeting from Jasonland,
netlings! (Yes I just called you "netlings" - that would be people on the
internet.) So yeah no recorded songs to speak of. I am writing at least and
have a couple completed and working on more.
Halloween was fun. I found myself in the back of a car with a bush blond wig
on and shaking my head or pretending to be dead. Went to a haunted house and
a corn maze. Interesting. Hope your Halloween was fun as well.
Oh yeah - Hog Wild. It was fun the first time. Went back again and it wasn't
as fun for some reason. They actually played rock, rap, pop music. And yes
they did play country also. It wasn't as bad as I thought. Clubs wouldn't be
so bad if there wasn't the cigarette smoke, loud music, alcohol and
people.......oh yeah. I guess that's the point. But I've got to be in the
mood to go clubbing. I would rather party at someone's house than out in a
club I guess.
So anyway, life's still a mess for the moment. But when it does get back on
track, I think I will be better off. And there'll be a heap of songs to
record. I don't like winter unless it snows. Otherwise it's cold, often wet,
and it just seems to always be dark. Maybe I just need someone to cuddle
with. Oh yeah. I have my Yamaha.
Zoom zoom zoom,
~WornOutShoes
September 14, 2005
Hello again from the
WornOutShoes corner of Heaven! Just a quick update to let ya know - there
are no updates. Mom's Basement Studios is in shambles and we can't get in
there to record. We are however, working on another location.
We took down
the link to WRZK. They USED to play new music. Now it's "rock without
rules". Wow. Nice guys. Now you can hear old, shitty music in addition to
new rock. They aired our songs a couple of times. But it's not like they
could actually provide a link to our site from theirs. They have links
to other local bands' sites. But not ours. Thanks for nothing guys. So in
light of their super-suckiness nowadays, their link is gone.
Ben's sister
Jenni will be leaving for Alaska next week. So we've been invited to a
celebration at....*ahem* "Hog Wild Saloon" (Heaven help me). I've never had
the, um, privilege of being in the place. Of course I'll try to fit in by
wearing overalls.
Enjoy your
polyurethane,
~WornOutshoes
August 12,
2005
Hello you wild, rad WOS music
addicts! Updates are happening everywhere. Something new on the homepage you
see? (Upper left corner of homepage.) That's right! WornOutShoes is now
officially podcasting. Podcasting? What, you don't know what that is? Well
here's a crash course:
A Podcast is just an audio file
that is syndicated via an RSS feed, that you download and listen to with
your computer or a portable device such as an iPod. Haha.
Sound like Greek? Ok lemme back up. An RSS feed is a way of saying to the
online world, "Hey there's news here!" You download a "feed reader" that
keeps you up to date on whatever "news feeds" you choose. A Podcast is the
same thing. Only different. :P
A Podcast
transmits audio updates instead of just news. Check this out:
http://podcastingnews.com/articles/Getting_Started_With_Podc.html - You
can download iPodder for free. One you install it, you have to tell it to
add a feed. To add our feed, copy the url from the location bar when you
click the "Podcast" button on our page, and paste it into the screen that
pops up when you selected "add feed". (It's under Tools/Add Feed in iPodder.
There may be easier ways to add a feed but this is what I've always done.)
That's it!
Now, whenever we add a new song to the list, iPodder will update you
instantly (almost) instead of you coming here to discover it. Shweet! And
of course, if you have an iPod, you can take WornOutShoes with you wherever
you go. And who wouldn't WOS music on demand?
Well that's
about it for today kids. It's Friday and I'm hoping for a great weekend.
Hope yours is awesome as well. Welcome back, Logan.
I bet the
neighbors' just lovin' this,
-WornOutShoes
July 28, 2005
What's that? What is that on the
home page? A what? Button? A new button?! A NEW BUTTON!! Woot. Introducing
The WornOutShoes Store! YES! Finally! Now you too can own one of the many
items we.....um, well ok you can get any color of the one......ok well you
can buy a gray t-shirt. LOL.
Just one
nifty item right now. But more to come. Oh the cd? Yeah. You'll be able to
more easily buy those soon too. I'll keep working on it and soon our store
will look as good as our great big hero
Schizophrenic Jon's store. :)
And music. Oh
yeah. Music. Hey, we're homing in on a cool one. The hardest rocking
WornOutShoes song yet. It's coming. Just need to get ye ole lazy butt into
the studio.
Don't ever
let life pass you by,
-WornOutShoes
July 21, 2005
Changed the site a little.
Hooray! We got new cute little globes for buttons and a happy robot guy on
the home page. That's just something I made in photochop. Thought I'd slap
it on here for a little change of pace.
The buttons
are a little closer together so I got room for another one if I make a new
page in the future. Yay. Anyway, that's it for now.
If you eat
your broccoli, I won't spank you,
-WornOutShoes
July 15, 2005
The new marshmallow song is "finished"? Maybe? Well anyway check out The
Marshmallow 2005. You can actually hear drums this time.
Until now, I've converted my masters to mp3's at 128 kps (kilobytes per
second). Recently I signed up with Taxi.com and then Broadjam.com - so I can
submit songs to Taxi online. But broadjam wants 192 kps which results in a
larger file size. Hah. Little do they know, my songs suck no matter the
recorded quality!! Muahaha...um yeah. The version you'll
be hearing is 128 since a larger file size results in me going over my limit
on space for my site. :)
It's been a weird week. I'm tired of life sucking so I've been doing things
to make is suck less. The taxi thing was one of them. There's also been lots
of thunderstorms, which I love, but it's never ending. This evening it was
pretty clear so I took the opportunity to cruise near the Fun Fest Parade on
my crotch rocket. I never cease to get looks with the mohawk on my helmet.
You heard right. A mohawk. (Read below.) I get a lot of people motioning for
me to pop a wheelie. I'm embarrassed to say, I haven't learned to do it yet!
Oh well. One day.
It's still great fun. People ask me if I have a girlfriend. I tell them her
name is Yamaha. :) I have a couple of other girlfriends named Ibanez and
Harmony. (Both are guitars - acoustic and electric.)
Well I guess that's it for now.
Stay in milk. Don't do school. Drink your drugs,
-WornOutShoes
June 19, 2005
Happy Fathers Day, Dad.
-WornOutShoes
June 14, 2005
I would apologize for the lack
of updates but if I did that, that's probably all I would ever get done. I
have been working on modifying my motorcycle which has taken quite a bit of
time. Which brings us to the point - NEW SONG! Hooray!!
Check out
Let's Do It Again.
Lyrics are here. There are some
places in the song where I'm not happy with the quality of various things.
(One part in the lead sounded slightly out of tune.) I was trying to get
this done before attending The Rally at Deals Gap. That's a gathering in
Fontana, North Carolina of a bunch of people from the FZ1 Owner's
Association.
Ben was the
only one who went with me - the rest of you are just a bunch of l-o-s-e-r-s!
We had fun riding the Tail of The Dragon - a stretch of curvy road on
highway 129 which has become popular among motorcycling enthusiasts. I
didn't finish the song before going so I finally did it today. I've listened
to the thing so many times changing various settings on the recorder. Now
I'm just sick of it. I guess that's why I didn't take more time and smooth
out the rough spots.
I dunno.
Maybe the entire song is one big rough spot. I wrote most of it last year
and finished it this year having been inspired by the rally. It rained so
fricken much, grrrrr. But it was still fun. We got some video which I'm
going to send to a guy who's making a Deal's Gap Rally Video for the FZ1
owners - or anyone I guess. Maybe he'll use some of what we got, sans my and
Ben's goofy antics. Heck, maybe he'll want to use pieces and parts of the
song for background music. If any of that happens, I'll post a link to where
you can get the video.
Oh yeah, I
got a black mohawk that sticks to my helmet. You should see the looks I get
back home. One guy in a truck waved me to stop so he could take my picture
with his cell phone. The mohawks were so common at the rally. I come back
home with the rally still in my brain and kinda forget how uncommon they are
'round yhere. Obviously I have no peaceful rides in my future unless I
remove the mohawk. And it's difficult and painful every time I remove the
lag bolts that anchor it to my skull.
Anyway, hope
you enjoy Let's Do It Again. I'm off to decide what song will get recorded
next. Take care all.
Let's do it
again,
-WornOutShoes
April 1, 2005
Hey there friend. Just sitting here on Friday night listening to some
old songs. Thank you for listening to my crap. I cannot possibly
display my thanks for your friendship. But I suppose friendships come
and go. Who the hell cares. I'm sorry. That was mean.
But I'm here. And things I wish could be, are there. Oh well. There's
two seconds til midnight and I'm gunna make the most of it. I'm gonna listen
to some more songs and dream of being a musician. Not a bad gig if you
can get it...night all.
-Ah
this sucks, maybe the post below makes more sense...
March 30, 2005
Heeey. Well ok then - time for another update right?
I guess I should say something even when there's no music to post.
People call these things "blogs". Now, everything you type these days
is a "blog". This is basically short for 'web log'. I personally feel cheap
posting a "blog" without something substantial like a new song to post or
something. Basically, if you have a freakin brain and the ability to
operate a computer, you too can have a "blog".
Anyways -
there's several songs to report at the moment yet none recorded. Why? Well
for now, we want to send the first official WOS cd to the copyright office.
Especially since at the moment we have gone over our website capacity in
megabytes, apparently. My credit card statement basically says we are
using too much space. I still say web space is cheap these days so our
web presence provider is just being a wuss. But oh well - we need to
copyright that cd anyway. Until now, the website has been our
copyright, proving when we uploaded a song, blah blah blah.
Still yet,
I'm gunna make things better, I swear.
Well maybe
it's time to move forward - or think about it. As for me, my day job
is at Sunco. So
it's hard to sit in front of a computer all day, then come home and sit in
front of one some more. I will do better. Just give me time.
If nothing else, I can update this so -called "blog" and keep the updates,
well, up to date.
My opinion
for now is, Terri Shiavo should be kept alive or put to death but not
starved. The Indian kid was showing obvious signs of neglect and
therefore should have been helped or defaulted to the exact course of action
he took (a result of dumb ass grown-up, mature human beings who can't see
past their eyelids). And yes that deserved more attention than one of
many many people who are in the same situation as Terri Shiavo.
Tsunamis
still suck. Friends, though once a week, are great. Life is
short and long at the same time. Yes, there is microscopic life on Mars
(surprise?). Extra terrestrial life probably does exist, though it
shouldn't be a religion. Korea needs to back off the nuclear thing.
We probably already have Osama but need an excuse to keep looking because
terrorists suck more than tsunamis. I am underpaid. Blah blah
blah to all the other obvious situations in the world at the moment.
And food is good (especially to those who really need it) - as expressed
long ago by a friend of mine.
Ah well, the
long and short of it is, hang in there - I guess. Something will
happen.
Life is the
game eternal people play,
-WornOutshoes
February 4, 2005
- (Tsunamis suck)
Oh hey.
I
finished the new cds for those who first requested them. They are numbered
and I keep track of which ones I sent to whom. I included The Waterfall as
track "1A" on the new ones so folks could enjoy it on the new cd. Heh. It's
funny how I think I have a lot to say then I get here and...*poof*.
Well, who is extraordinary anyway? Everyone wants to have an impact.
(ok after thinking about it, now I have a bunch of crap to puke out to ya).....To
show they have reason for being thought of as 'great'.
I always
wanted to be "great'.....to be a super hero or pilot some extremely awesome
spaceship. But as life goes on, I realize how...'human'..."yuck"...I am.
As many things as I can do, I still cannot levitate off the ground, cannot
control objects with my mind, cannot travel in time, cannot fly, cannot
cruise around in my own spaceship, and I cannot, for the life of me,
convince anyone that all of these things and more happen all the time in
life. I can barely be a semi-ok musician and still earn a living among this
human race.
I feel I am
just an observer here, capable of nothing more than any other human can do,
and if I try to convince anyone, I'm just an ass, a pompous ass who thinks
more of himself than he should.
Well. Who
cares. We all have those same thoughts. We all are more than people see or
judge us to be. I guess the only thing that could make any of us greater, is
the fact that some of us see these things in others and have great respect
for all humans we come in contact with, knowing - we all matter so much more
than we know....I hope. And even if we don't, please take care. Please value
you. I don't know what else to say.
Music in
progress,
-WornOutShoes
January 28. 2005
Greetings all. Two updates in a month! And on
a Friday night, no less! No song yet. Just a lot of things going on
and getting in the way. I have made significant progress in other areas
though. I made up some more cd's for folks who've been expecting them for
awhile, and one for the copyright office. They're each handmade and numbered
and I keep track of which one I gave who. I am working on a few
different songs. Trying to juggle the production of them all.
One I've started with my nephew, Mark and already sounds sweet.
Oh did I
mention pictures? That's right! Everyone likes looking at pictures, I
don't care who ya are. Well we got some new ones. We were just
goofing off but it's the first of the year so there ya go. Oh the link
- CLICK HERE. Some of these are
pretty funny and make me glad I was the one with the camera.
I would type
some more at you, but there are so many things I've got to do in my life
which has suddenly become curiously busy. I guess there gets to be so
many things I am unsatisfied with and I want to change them all but I'm not
sure where to begin and sometimes I just wanna do what I wanna do and tell
everything and everyone to go away!!!
Oh well.
I'll go cool off in the basement and maybe I'll work on a song. I'd
like to work on our 'Waterfall' video but there is just too much to do.
I like Lapdog's "I Fall Apart" video, not to mention the song. I only
wish I could make such a cool video. As I watch it, I realize Todd
Nichols is very much human like us all. If you'll notice, he dreams of
finding success, a companion, a life with a picket fence as most do, I
assume But what do we have to fall upon? I guess we have music.
What else is there? What the hell will we matter anyway if the one's
we value most think nothing of our existence anyway? I dunno.
Just go. Less is more.
Take it easy,
-WornOutShoes
January 14. 2005
Well today's my
birthday. I like to tell people I am 16 days younger than
Glen Phillips. I am 34.
I thought I would long since be a rich man by now. I thought life
would be so good by now. It seemed so far away. My 30's years.
I thought I would be carefree. I thought I wouldn't have to answer to
anyone. I thought I would have a spaceship and wouldn't need to be
concerned with this world's worries. I thought everything would surely
be perfect by then. Well you get the idea.
Things are obviously not perfect. I don't have the perfect body.
I don't even own my own house. I don't have even close to the amount
of money I thought I would surely have by then. I don't want to be a
robot. I don't want to be a worker ant. But here I sit. As
human and poor as ever. I am just as much a part of this world as anyone
ever was. And I suppose I'll die the same as anyone has died.
Or maybe, just maybe, I'll fly away and not die. Maybe things will be
different. Maybe life will finally be perfect. And everyone will
wonder where I went. And I'll be ok forever. Heh. Maybe.
Well maybe I'll just have one more beer.
Take two,
-WornOutShoes
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