I'd have to sit down and think about that, but Bender is fucking awesome. He's no Robot Devil or anything, but...

Yeah mahn. The extra position is the pickups in series. It's fatter and louder but has the same quack as the stock both pickups in parallel. And hum cancelling because the pickups are wound in opposite directions. I will gusta.

Ah I forgot about Robot Devil. That would actually be easier to make as well since I dunno how to go about doing Benders rounded head

There's another fancy dress in Feb with video games as the theme, I dunno whether to just cop out and get a Pikachu adult baby-grow or something better. Fancy dress is awesome.

Transferring over some old .RPP files from my family computer to my personal lappie so I can get around to finally finishing some things that have been waiting for bass/vox/whathaveyou. Whilst rooting around for files I found this gem:



The whole Heck family this Christmas for your viewing enjoyment. I am pretty sure it is the only existing picture of all of us together from the past 10 years.

Chillz dog bro. What's his name?

Can't even remember, that's my aunt's dog. My dog is like, waaaaay more siqqnasty than this dog. Whether you want proof or not, you're getting it.

There's us last night, yours truly battering them skinz...

That picture upon further review truly makes me look truly hobbity in scale, making Cam sized a very ironic phrase. I am actually much taller than my mother. Sculiosis+retardedlylongtorso though, man. King of Slouching.

But here's Jimi:



He's a little fucker on the real. That is how he begs for food. I have a bunch of nicknames for him: Frogdog, Jimmy D, Poop, etc. A neurotic little character he is. Also important to note if we are talking pets, I have an incredibly dope cat who's name is Little Boots. I call him Lil B all the time. I imagine some of you may get the reference, he was Little Boots long before that jerginov started making money and "fucking all the bitches".

Awes that dog is adorable... Ours is a cutie too but she is mighty old.

I get the awesome historical reference. Also @ "jerginov"- I like "jagunov" myself if we are to make that into a Russian word. Yuri Mikhailevich Jagunov sounds fine and respectable, nyet?

He is, unsurprisingly, a stubborn little fuckhead.

I feel like the Russian people throughout history as a whole, though never notably large exporters of the stuff in musical form, are/have been metal as fuck on levels exceeding those of other peoples.

I have a thing for Russian classical composers. They tend toward very, very dark. (Ever hear Tchaikovsky outside of The Nutcracker or the 1812 Overture? Jebus, what a miserable bastard. The rest are no different.) No one ever mentions how perky and lighthearted Russian literature is, either. Also, they have a fantastic history of oppressive government (they had serfs up until what, the 1840s?), the place is legendary for its awful climate, and they have the highest consumption of alcohol in the world pretty much by a lot.

Of course, the highest recorded blood alcohol percentage ever was a Russian man who drove his car into a tree. (He may have even survived, too, which is fucked up considering the dude actually managed to score at least a full percent blood alcohol. I have no idea how that's even possible. I and some of my friends can consume enough to put a normal person in the hospital if not the morgue*, and that is still baffling. Though we wouldn't get in the damn car.)

*- Credit where it's due to Sean Connery in The Untouchables for the paraphrase.

I actually like the drums there for being a modern buffed-up metaldrumthing. The cymbals don't sound like a wash of top end bullshit. Actually a lot of room on those drums it sounds like; whatever the close kick/snare/toms are and how much those have been added to after the fact, there is a drummer in a room there. I love hearing some actual midrange/low end detail, real detail, on the brass here.

The pinch harmonics when the heavy guitars kick in are cool too. As is the bass tone. Even with shitty Youtube compression the whole thing sounds very well produced.

Currently getting my brain/senses raped by the differences between my perception of vocals in cans versus in practically mono on shitty laptop action. Vocals that sound characterfully out in cans sound like out of tune shit outside of cans. WHATTHEFUCK, MAN.

Back in America. Feels good.

I really miss having maids though.

The human head is a resonatey and untrustable block of trouble, IME. For recording especially, i never use more than one headphone, leaving the other off so i can know what sort of sound is really being made. But also when listening back, especially after recording otherstuff at highish volume, you will tend to be listening pretty loud, and it is very easy to get a false idea of whether a thing is in key or nawt. Your ears compress and your skull actually resonates. Then your brain fills in the gaps in perception with what it wants or expects to hear, and it signifies to you that it is hearing in-tune vocals. Incorrectly so.

I think having maids would wig me out. I don't like people doing shit for me.

Like, i don't like it, in a crazy way.

I almost always do the one headphone on/one off thing for vocals. You have to, really. For some stuff where I'm singing into effects- very quiet into mondo compression, or screaming into distortion, I'll leave both on. But yeah, they fucker with you. Occasionally I make the mistake of trying to track with both of them, and that is why there is not currently a vocal version of Extinguisher despite the screamy verses. You know that vocal layering thing I do sometimes, and I admit I like to smoke too many cigs and drink too much whiskey before tracking vocals, because it roughs up my voice. So add that into the mix... You don't want to hear that when it's off, I'll put it that way, because that is a lot of tracks of bullshit.

I am with Chris on the not wanting people to do things for you thing. It bothers me for some reason.

Also, I have a job interview tomorrow. Printing company; they seemed impressed and intrigued by my resume and qualifications given the nature of the work they do. And I interview well.