Yes, Virginia, you can get a degree in electronic music.

I'm currently working on a CD for release shortly. This disc is to be titled "War Machine" It is a compilation of the "experimental" or "avant-garde" music I did while I was in school at the University of Tennessee. Yes, Virginia, you can get a degree in electronic music. Well, it's actually a degree in instrumental composition with an emphasis in electronic media. You can hear the title track (plus see a video) and one other called "Electric Dream" at my artist web site (idtheory.com). I'll warn you ahead of time... It is very experimental. The best category to put it in would be Ambient.

The point of the degree was to design one's own sounds then sequence them together for the final work. Fortunately I got into this just as software sequencing was beginning to come of age and direct to disc recording was in its infancy. Had I started a few semesters earlier, I would have spent hours and hours sequencing the "old school" way by splicing tape. I'm glad I avoided that arrow. It was hard enough working digitally.

I'm getting back into music in a big way now. I hope to be doing it full time. I will say that I'm not quitting my day job just yet.

Calculating Combat or Something Like That

I’ve decided I’m getting into the game software biz. Well, not really a “biz” per se, but more along the lines of gaming aids. I’m mainly doing it as an exercise in programming. Professionally I work as a Flash Programmer and I’m learning C# as well. I’m thinking up these little gaming aids that I can use while playing some of my war games. I believe that once I get them written in C# or ActionScript, it shouldn’t be too hard to port to other languages as well. I see people using laptops with gaming aids on them but I’ve never really seen anybody using a Palm device. Ultimately, I’d like to have a collection of “combat calculators” or “range finders” for various games I own. It will be a nice way to keep my programming chops up. I'll be sure to post anything useful here.

When Good Game Stores Go Good

I don't know what it is, but part of the appeal of going into a game store is going somewhere that's kind of a not a bad place to be but not a real nice one either.

My local game store (I say local when it was a good 40 minute drive with no traffic) moved from the location where I first discovered it. It used to be in this run down strip mall next to a Piggly Wiggly or Save Rite or some other kind of discount grocery store. It actually didn’t look like the safest place to be after dark either. You would walk in and it was kind of dingy. The carpet was dirty. The walls still had tape on them where various posters and announcements had previously occupied space. You could hear the cacophony of various games going on in the gaming area. A Magic game here, Role Playing there and always some kind of Warhammer something or other going on. Basically it was a place where a good deal many people would not feel that comfortable unless you were "in the know" or part of the culture.

Almost as Satisfying as a Smite Button

Well, I think I’ve figured out how to lessen traffic during the morning or evening commute.

I live in the metro Atlanta area. As many of you may know, traffic here is probably 3^rd or 4^th worst in the nation. A good many of the problems are at the fault of various things being spilt, dropped, sprayed, leaked, oozed or otherwise strewn about the interstate system.

The Winter Games Are Over. Did You Notice?

Well, I, for one, thought the Olympic coverage was abysmal. Proof positive that the inmates are running the asylum over at NBC. It’s like they said, "Let’s show the US runs/jumps/races and then the people who actually won. I mean the Luge finals were boiled down to 10 minutes. 10 minutes! Only so we could get back to Michelle Kwan falling on her behind or some special interest story about some figure skater’s cousin who competed in a neighborhood match that took place next to an Olympic venue. Sheesh.

Well, I’m here…

Greetings and salutations! I know what you are thinking... "Crikey! Another babbling blogger. Just what the internet needs." Well, tough, I say. I've been wanting to do this for awhile so now it is getting done and that's that. Hopefully people will find some mildly entertaining thoughts here. If not, there's always dilbertbog.typepad.com!

Archived Studio Notes vol. 4

Soon I will have my first release ready to go. I already have a few tracks ready for mastering. I'm currently finishing up a brand spanking new track called "Deep Thought I". The CD will be mostly ambient and experimental and will consist of tracks I did while I was in college. I'm pretty excited about this. I plan on making it available through the web site here as well as on CD Baby and anybody else I can strike some deals with. I'm going to look into Ambient.us and other online download only sites as well. A friend of mine is currently working on the artwork for the cover. Normally I would do that myself but he's a pro and I wanted this to look great.
Stay tuned...