Do It Yourself!

Something More Than Ink

I am...

I'm a pretty hardcore guy, I enjoy doing fun stuff and I listen to basically any type of music that's not Brokencyde or Insane Clown Posse. I really want to be a professional musician, a drummer to be specific. At this point my life revolves around the arts. My main musical palette consists of a steady diet of hardcore/pop punk as well as as dnb and dubstep. Oh and Blind Melon. Did I mention that cats are the greatest creatures on earth?

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Self Assessment: The State of the Jelly Donut

Well. It's been pretty interesting, to say the least. Blogging has been fun (when I get the motivation to do it) and I don't think I'd mind continuing to do so. I've talked about subjects ranging from cats to pirating music. But honestly, there's been times where I could just bang out 500 words in half an hour with no problem and other times where I just can't find anything interesting to write about without sounding whiny (see: me not posting for more than a month prior to this...) Other than the aforementioned hiatus, I'd like to say that I've been pretty decent with getting things done on time.

It's only been since the middle of the second quarter that other people really started to view Ich bin ein Berliner more often. Part of this was due to my higher rate of posting, yes, but I also finally realized that I could add tags to my posts to help them show up on search engines. Valuable lesson for me indeed... Viewership peaked from the end of December to the middle of February, at which time I decided to disappear for a lack of interesting and poignant things to say. At that point, there was a precipitous decline in views and I've had (embarassingly) only 20 views this month. Clearly I need to start up again! So basically, post and get views. Don't post and I won't get views. Seems simple enough to me.

The cats post and the music piracy post got the most views out of everything I've written. The former was basically me scrambling to get something out and I just ran with it; the latter was me thinking about something and (attempting) presenting an interesting moral issue to the viewers. I honestly enjoy writing about issues more because of the discussions they can evoke. Everyone has opinions and it's interesting to hear what people have to say about certain things that are really big in society today. Post-wise, all the posts on the blog come from the people in my English class (love you all, seriously.) So, quite obviously, all the posts and most of the views came from the good old US of A. But what about the views? Here's where it got interesting for me. I've had 7 views from the UK, 4 from Slovakia (where???), 2 from Sweden and 1 from Australia. It's pretty interesting to see how people around the world can find my little corner of the internet. Basically all the views came from Google or these linking websites that don't really lead to anywhere. But it's all good. The more views, the better! And for the grade... To be frank, I don't believe in the grading system. But if I were to give myself a grade for the blogging, I think I should get a C. I did what I was supposed to (well, mostly) but I could have done far more. It's a lack of effort on my part that will not consciously allow me to ask for anything more than a C.

Here's to hoping the rest of the year goes smoothly. It's my last semester, after all!




Pageviews by Countries
 
United States
 256
United Kingdom
 7
Slovakia
 4 (where?)
Sweden
 2
Australia 1
 Oh, and I know exactly where Slovakia is. No worries!

Sunday, February 13, 2011

From Napster to Piratebay

Ever since the 90s when Metallica (yuck) raised hell about people downloading their music, pirating has been an extremely controversial topic within the music industry. On one hand, pirating is an obvious route for people stealing music with no intentions of ever buying the actual recordings or even buying merch or going to shows to support bands whatsoever. On the other, it's a matter of convenience for those passionate about music. Why go to the store 30 minutes away and waste gas and $15 bucks to pick up a new release when you can simply go on a torrent site and have it in 2 minutes and for free? Plus, you could always just go to the store later when you're passing by and pick it up then. There's only one small problem: in most cases, downloading music for free is illegal. Of course, illegal never really stopped anyone. Have I ever downloaded music? I really can't say, but a music junkie's gotta do what a music junkie's gotta do...

Honestly, I think pirating is a non-issue as long as people find some way to support the artists whose music they are downloading. The music industry likes to make a big fuss about how all the indie and obscure bands that suffer because of pirating. Contrarily, many bands today, because of the inability to circulate records in Best Buy or Walmart, don't even rely much on record sales for support. These bands just rely on word-of-mouth and people coming to see shows and buying merch. All bands have to start small and work their way up. Once they break into the mainstream, their records actually start popping up in mainstream outlets and people will (hopefully) buy them. Throughout this process, bands hardly ever enter a stage where the members can be called "starving artists." Hell, the reason for why bands, and I use that term loosely here, like Insane Clown Posse and Brokencyde have success escapes me. It's simply inconceivable, unfathomable in my mind.

It's unlikely that copyright laws are going to change drastically any time soon, but you all can probably discern my opinion of the issue. But what do you all think of the issue?

Happy Valentine's Day <3

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Friday, January 28, 2011

Internet Radio

http://www.wvau.org/

ToZ's Edge Radio - Runs from 10-12 every Friday night

To be honest, I never have much to say when I write these things. But yeah. I absolutely love internet radio because you can hear what you like that isn't played on mainstream radio. The first time I listened, I was introduced to a bunch of different bands I had never even heard of. Pop punk's basically dead in the eyes of the music industry, and it warms my little heart to hear those sick grooves. But I'll just leave it at that, no use trying to stretch this out and wasting words, y'know.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Kitty

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkxH5Ge1mbY

The thing sounds it's firing a laser or something when it meows.

Honestly, I think cats are the greatest animal to grace this green earth. They're extremely intelligent, affectionate yet not overbearing, and they're really in tune with your emotions. Hell, my Siamese cat is curled up into a ball sleeping next to me while I'm typing up this post. He's pretty awesome. He's turning 11 in March so he's getting up there in years, and it kinda shows. He's gradually becoming more and more demented, sadly. We'll need to take him to the vet soon.

I honestly don't know what to do once he's gone. I have another cat, but he's really aloof. All he does is eat and sleep all day. Last time I weighed him, about a month ago, he was 28 pounds. That's really heavy for a tabby. Doesn't help that I have allergies and all those 28 pounds of cat shed heavily and I basically die after I pet him or stay anywhere remotely near him. Still, I can't get rid of him because that would be inhumane. He's been with us 4 years now. Til death do us part, right?

I think I'll eventually want to own an exotic breed. Not a lion or tiger, mind you. Those could probably accidentally kill you while they play with you. Still, that's all speculative and way down the line from now; after college/grad school due to costs of buying tons of raw meat and licensings and permits. I'm extremely happy with what I've got now. Servals and lynxes can wait.

Monday, November 29, 2010

North Korea

Can someone please tell me what these people are smoking? What on Earth could they possibly gain from breaking the armistice and attacking South Korea? We all know that as soon as China stops sending them food and lets other nations retaliate they're screwed. And I'm willing to bet China's about had it with them too, communism or not. Furthermore, the news media just makes the whole situation seem absurd. From all the articles you read you really get the impression that North and South Korea are like two kids that have been caught in a fight, and the US and China are their embarrassed yet protective parents.

"Again? Seriously, kids, stop showing off. That's straight to bed without dinner for the both of you!"

It's not like anyone can do anything about it though. North Korea's just wacko and will strike out on its own with or without China's tacit support (hopefully destroying themselves in the process.) It's going to be fun with this country having the crazy leader's crazy son leading them for the next 40 or 50 years. Oh well, I can just wish for the classic '80s US government intervention stuff and just eliminating Iran and North Korea off the face of the planet. But my dreams are always the pipe kind, and pipe dreams never come true.

Monday, November 15, 2010

Parents

We all love them (and hate them at times.) But how is it that they put up with us through thick and thin and never stop supporting us? I know that  am not the perfect child, in fact I drive my mom half mad every day with my sass and backtalk. Just yesterday I made her so mad that she wouldn't talk to me for the rest of the day; she just locked herself up in her room. I think she said something about me not trying hard enough in school, which I calmly brushed off and ignored, and then she just got pissed. Kinda depressing that she takes everything about my life so seriously, but that's mothers for ya...

My dad's just obsessed with looking at my grades for some reason. At this point I'm just sick of talking about grades and I just want to chill, but my dad thinks it's necessary to be on PowerSchool every 5 minutes and notifying me of every little change. Quite frankly, I just don't care anymore and employers are not going to care that you got a 76 on a German quiz in high school. He's trying to make me care about my grades, but I don't see how a little number is going to affect anything. At all.

Whatever, maybe I'll find it in me to care later. Emo rant over.