Saturday Night in Tartarus.

You know when you're hungry but can't be bothered to eat, so you just let yourself get sick? That's how I feel right now.

I haven't been this deep in the pit in a while; hell, I don't think that I've been in this part of the pit, ever. It's a very barren place, and I'm all alone in it. I'm alone in everyday situations, because I feel alienated from everyday people, which is fine and all, but there comes a point when you alienate yourself from your friends, and that's when things get pretty grungy.

At best, I am useful to others. I go to work, I fulfill customer's needs, I don't dick around, I don't get any comebacks that I screw up... but I don't get any comebacks that I do well either. I strive to express myself, providing a fairly well thought-out podcast every week, for which I strive to be creative and pull some interesting sounds and color... for which I get no comebacks. No feed-backs as to how good or bad, or just okay, nothing. Just fucking nothing.

I have struggled to write, I have struggled to make myself write for months, years, but I keep getting smothered by the voice that says "why bother?" After all, why should anybody give a damn... I try to be a caring man, providing to the needs of my loved ones, but I don't seem to provide what is wanted.

I feel a poison coursing through my veins, one that could be easy to look for a physical cause, maybe some sort of viral illness, but one that I know is more a poison of the spirit. I have kept that poison in check for a long time, first with laughter, then with anger, but anger doesn't suffice anymore. the poison now feeds on the anger, and all I feel is tired, so fucking tired.

I feel like I should reach out to friends, but I feel like I'd impose on them, who have their own problems, and after all, shouldn't I be able to deal with this myself? I have taken the poison pill of prideful self-sufficiency to it's logical conclusion. I should be angry at myself for this sort of foolishness, but I've become too tired, too apathetic, too hungry to be bothered anymore.

What now? I ask this question, spoken into the void and the darkness. I do not really expect an answer.

The rule of thirds

I've been a pretty lazy bastard. All winter, hell, much longer than that, I've been feeding myself, living in comfort with next to zero exercise. I can always find convenient excuses to not change a damn thin too: no money, no time, other things to do. But really, I spend quite a bit of time just looking for things to occupy the shriveled nut that serves as my brain.

Computer games for instance. I have about ten st up right now, most of which go unplayed, simply because I always get taken in by the latest one. I gotta say, Funcom's The Secret World is pretty damn addictive. It really packs a lot of meat for little junkies like me.

But I have to take a break from that. I need to get my ass in gear. Get going.

It took some time and doing, but I'm finally getting to join a class. I have an escrima school just by the metro, so I have little excuses not to join, especially since that my biggest impediment debts, has been addressed. Sure, the schedule is not the best (call centers do that) but the teacher is accommodating. So I'll be signing up this week, and I'll have to get myself into shape ASAP if I don't want to get my ass kicked. So the bike is getting tuned up and set up so that I have even less excuses.

So that's two thirds: working out and escrima. I also want to get back to learning languages, one way or another. I have something of a knack for it, so I should stop wasting time and do it.

The three goals fr the coming year:

1- Proficiency in escrima
2- Getting in good enough shape that I can reasonably attend martial arts seminars with no shame (and lose a few belt knotches in the bargain)
3- Proficiency in one new language.

It's doable, heck, even modest a far as expectations.

And to get my ass in gear, a first challenge: no alcohol for six weeks. I want to see what impact it'll have on my health. I'll take it from there.

Here's a video of what escrima entails:

Sorta like renfair...

So last Monday I decided to play along the medieval/folk sound, because I haven't touched it much and I used to be big into that. This is what got played.

this mortal coil - song to the siren
coco rosie - gallows
corvus corax - ballade de mercy
faun - andro
anastasia - na rekah vavilonskih
rome - der wolfsmantel
derniere volonte - la joie devant la mort
unwoman - written in red
voltaire - ex-lover's lover
swans - love will save you
nick cave and the bad seeds - henry lee
andromeda complex - la chevelure
sol invictus - the killing tide
mick harvey - demon alcohol
michael gira - michael's white hands
johnny cash - personal jesus
the tiger lillies - beat me
bauhaus - hope

Yeah, it was a thing.

Everybody's got a plan

I have been having technological issues for a few months now. As a matter of fact, this has been going on since I upgraded to the desktop from the lap top, specifically for hardware and graphic performance. With all the bells and whistles, one thing that computer makers have been conveniently ignoring is sound over graphics.

It makes sense, when you get right down to it; after all, once that you've got 3D Surround, that shit is covered, right? Time to make the picture pop out! Fine if you play games (which I do,) but a bit of a hassle if you also play with sounds (which I also do.) There are features beyond "I can hear the world around me" that can be pretty important.

Like being able to record sounds that your computer generate without resorting to external cables.

I found that tech forums are useless on the subject, since that it does't feature into their numbers and performance fetish. I had to go to the source, that is, sound card makers to get the answer I needed. See, its a weird thing, but the on-board sound card on the laptop is capable of pulling that little trick off, but my performance-superior desktop isn't.

Thankfully, the folks over at Creative Labs quickly came to my assistance, not only telling me the name of that feature (What U Hear) on their tech software, but the list of products that carried that feature. A quick trip to Tiger Direct, and by the end of the week (UPS willing) I'll have that little snag fixed.

It sounds like a small thing; after all, I do own several computers, and I could well have the wires set up to do this. But it's wasteful, a pain in the ass, and is not only impeding my podcasting, it's preventing me from doing music. It's something of a pain if both your recording prog, sequence, synth and guitar amp are the same machine, but can't share the same card to blend it all together.

Yeah, yeah, I know, it's a lame excuse to justify not doing something, but hey, one less excuse, is a win... right?

Is it spring yet?

Alright, so the Ides of March are trying to squeeze the last bit of annoyance out of it's lemons into my eyes, but with some perseverance, I'm pushing through. There's probably a lesson there.

Guru Dan Inosanto is visiting for a seminar in a few weeks, but I'll have to skip, simply because I am way out of shape and would rather not embarrass myself when I will attend his teachings. I also want to be able to comfortably afford it, so it'll have to be for next time, after I shed some lazy padding and attend classes regularly. Soon!

This week's show wasn't too depressing, but I'm definitely on a rock bend. Then again, when the tunes are good, go with what stirs the blood, eh?


BAUHAUS - DARK ENTRIES
AUSGANG - CRAWLING THE WALLS
EVERY NEW DEAD GHOST - SHE'S WALKING
SWANS - CELEBRITY LIFESTYLE
ANIMAL BODIES - HEAVY HANDS
BATBONER - DTHRCK
EAT YOUR MAKE-UP - VEGAN HYENA
PINK TURNS BLUE - WALKING ON BOTH SIDES
BATS IN THE BELFRY - DIE AUS DEM SCHATTEN SPRINGEN
DYSTOPIAN SOCIETY - THE CITY WITH NO NAME
DREADFUL SHADOWS - NEW DAY
RE LORRY YELLOW LORRY - MONKEY'S ON JUICE
ANGELS OF LIBERTY - DEAD TORMENTED
ANKST - RISE
HORROR VACUI - I LIKE IT WHEN A SOLDIER DIES
EUROSHIMA - SONRISA FABRICADAS
ALIEN SEX FIEND - EAT! EAT! EAT! (AN EYE FOR AN EYE)
BURNING IMAGE - THE SACRED SOULS
NOVOCAINE MAUSOLEUM - NIGHT
CHANTS OF MALDOROR - CRUEL, WITH US
LADY BESERY'S GARDEN - ANDY WARHOL
BLACK TAPE FOR A BLUE GIRL - THE PLEASURE IN THE PAIN
TONES ON TAIL - PERFORMANCE

Back from the deep and into the fire

So after last week's bit of depression and so forth, I decided that this week, I'd shake some of those March winter blues and get stomping. This week's set is pretty heavy on the drums and bass, without any drum-and-bass.

the chameleons uk - dont fall
dead skeletons - yama
inkubus sukkubus - heartbeat of the earth
rosenkopf - troth
angels of liberty - girl under the water
soror dolorosa - 43'
13th chime - cursed
every new dead ghost - hunters
miguel and the living dead - batcave
deadchovsky - alcool
hysteria - love thine enemy
fangs on fur - blood on the sand
skeletal family - lies
sex gang children - sebastiane
christ vs warhol - the end is nigh
dekoder - sanity
alaric - tribute
dystopian society - dystopian society
mizar - vo mojot son
derniere volonte - toujours
chelsea wolfe - advice and vices

Ides of March

March is a bad time for me, go figure. Might be that cabin fever is setting in bad, might be that I'm long overdue for a proper vacation, sometime out of my skin and mind.

That being said, this last couple of weeks have been putting me in a bad space and I decided to exorcise some of the poison out with last Monday's playlist.

To get in the right mood, get some bad lighting, remember some of your screw-ups and other failures, drink some vodka and have a one-man mosh pit in your basement. Yeah, it's one of those:


kraftwerk - metropolis
fad gadget - insecticide
black marble - msq no-extra
esplendor geometrico - unidas de control
dive - final report
dark day - no, nothing, never
suicide - ghost rider
the kvb - 8 hours
no more - suicide commando
tommi stumpff - helden sterben
haus arafna - heart beats blood flows
blitzkrieg baby - your happy place
makina girgir - alpha
in trance 95 - shapes in a new geometry
nine circles - twilight stars
depeche mode - the things you said
coil - tainted love

Low-key, minimal electronics, with a last minute addition of Suicide, because you're not in a dark mood if you're not craving some Suicide, and some closure by Coil. Hey, we all get those days. Maybe the weekend will bring some more positive tidings and I'll post a more joyful set on next Monday, but don't hold your breath.