I just gotta say that I finished Fury and the bonus version of Together, Alone. Two songs left; Enchantress and Disdain. Disdain is done save for the vocals because I have to write lyrics for it. Enchantress could be done right now if I really felt like cranking it out... Maybe. We'll see. Honestly I'm kind of tired.

Lataz.

First part of Sam's story arc is up. Probably gonna have it just run like for three installments. Sam is back to having no nose. I think he's happier this way.

I've got all the audio recorded for the songs Fury and Disdain except for the vocals for each. My next goal is to get the audio (minus vocals) for Enchantress and the bonus version of Together, Alone finished. Then I just gotta do the vocals and I'll be done. Gonna try to do the Ench. and TA's audio before I go to sleep if I can manage to do so without killing myself. That's it for now.

Lataz.

New drawing is up. It created the chance for me to do a short story arc with Sam. I think after today though I'm gonna stop drawing him with a nose. It just doesn't look right.

As far as my 31 in 31 thing goes with the music, I've decided that the next four days I am going to work on four songs simultaneously. When they are done, I'll be able to upload +255. Sort of a last stretch to the finish I guess you could say. But I'm still on track so don't worry about me droppin' the ball or nothing. That's about it for now. Site modifications and new sections still coming soon.

Lataz.

15 days in. 15 album tracks done. 15 drawings up. I'm rocking your stuffs. Two new stories on the writings page too. Couldn't do three this time... Sorry ya'll.

Lataz.

Didn't really do new songs today, but I did do three tracks for +255 which I'm counting as three songs because it required time and effort. Minimal time and effort... Yeah.

Got the drawing up too. It's cute.

In other news I think we've got band practice today and are planning to interview a drummer. I'll have to double check that but it's looking promising. That's all for now.

Lataz.

A Somber Dance has been renamed 'Somber' in the honor of it not being an official waltz. Even though it was supposed to be. I'll try that whole waltz thing again later.

So, I finished Somber. It came out nicely. I also got the new drawing up. Probably gonna have to work on the design for the comics page to save myself some trouble later... Probably... Yeah. Shouldn't be too hard though. I'm still designing the Vinosec and Projects pages at the moment, but as soon as I get them finished they will be up. I promise. Still trying to come up with an idea for the Archives page. So far I got nothin'. I'll get around to it though. Last note on the site is that when the new month starts I'm going to install a counter at the very bottom of this page to try and get a more accurate number of how many people visit this site per month. I'll take it down when January rolls around.

I'm still debating on whether or not I wanna do another song tonight or just say I did 31 songs in 31 days with a day-long break in there somewhere and finish on the 13th. We'll see when the time comes. Still doing maintenance and modifications to the site, so please keep not noticing.

Lataz.

Busy busy. Got the new drawing up. Unfortunately I don't think I'm gonna be able to get a song out today. In response I will try to get two out tomorrow, even if one of them is really simple and just another random thing for Embracing Fate II. Gotta stay on track!

The good news is that I did manage to get the drums for today's song done. So that all I gotta do tomorrow is record it. I'm not sure what the second song will be, but it'll probably be some type of orchestrated sort of thing or another. Maybe a new song for The Championship Battles, who knows? I'll find out tomorrow I guess.

Going to be working on the site for awhile after I log this post so don't mind all the weird stuff goin' on.

Lataz.

Done with the modifications to the site for right now at least. I still need to put together the pages for the Vinosec section and the Projects section, so don't bother going to either of those just yet.

I know you're all curious as to whether or not I had time to do my song and drawing along with all the site work. Well, I did. I finished Betrayal's third tier and got the drawing up. Though there is no drawing section anymore. It is now the comics section. On that note, let's talk about the site changes.

All the images are higher quality now, whether they've been converted to .bmp, .gif, or just better .jpg files they no longer have weird fuzzy distortions on them. Save for the comics that came before this update. All the new ones will be clearer though. Promise.

The writings section has a new look.

The music section is just fantastic. You guys gotta check it out. An mp3 player designated for each album so you can preview the album before you download it. Also I'm now hosting two different versions of each album. One version with the extras included and another version without them for smaller file sizes. Eventually I may have to break that page up into separate pages if I get too many albums just to keep the load times down. Crazy!

The archives section is different for the moment. I'm still thinking up ideas for how to make it more unique. But I'll get there.

Going back to the music for a second, all the downloads and MP3s have been modified. The MP3s are now 192kbps instead of the former 128. They also all have their Id3v2 tags filled out proper and are all 100% mono. This ended up resulting in a significant quality boost to the songs. It's taking some time, but before the new year get's here I'm going to make sure that when all five full-length albums get posted they will have this quality boost set so I won't have to deal with those songs anymore and I'll be able to focus on the future. Wish me luck on that...

That's about it for now. More to come!

Lataz.

Doing some severe maintenance to the site today. Please don't bother with the new links and things up at the top. I'm still working it all out. Come back tomorrow or something.

Lataz.

Got the drawing for today up. Finished the song too. It's called Failed. More on that as soon as I hear from the person that is associated with it. Whenever I know something concrete I'll let you guys in on what's up.

In other news, Shaun Landers said it was cool to put the old demos of Personage and Baise D'Esprit up. He sang in 'em of course. I'll have those up tomorrow or something probably in the player.

Also in other news, the ideas I've got for the site are coming along very nicely. I've been putting a lot of them into effect all day long and the site should be pretty freakin' nice by the time the new year rolls around.

I've got to say that even though it's kind of hard sometimes, there has been nothing in my life more rewarding than the creative stuff I've been doing the past two weeks. Seriously, working on this website and keeping it up to date, doing all of these songs and getting them finished, writing all the stories, doing the drawings... I've never felt better about being myself in my entire life. Just thought I would share that.

Lataz.

Today is my mom's birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!

I'm sure she doesn't read this, but I figured I would say it anyway just in case.

In other news, I got Last Dream done today and I got Oddz 008 finished. The modifications for the site I've been thinking about are starting to become clearer as to what needs to be done. I imagine they will all be implemented before the end of the year. Just a matter of finding the time to go through and make it all happen. Either way I'm holding off on major changes to the site until I get the next three albums done.

Not that anyone else will understand this, but just incase Mary reads this; it's not your fault and no body blames you hun. These things happen and no one can be blamed or take the blame for them okay?

That's all I got.

Lataz.

Contrast is finished. Yay! It was hellacious to mix down though. I'm considering doing something different with this album. Originally it was going to have a short storyline and be pretty much just a bunch of random songs strewn together (sort of like the EmFate albums). Watching the songs develop however has made me consider an alternative.

Some of the songs sound really bright, some sound a lot darker. I'm thinking about splitting the songs up and making two sets of songs on one album. Kind of like an A and B side, but it'd be like a completely different album once you went from one set of songs to the other. I dunno yet though. Only time will tell!

Also if anyone knows where I can find a free flash editor I'd love to talk to you.

Lataz.

Got the three stories for this week uploaded. We worked out a new system for doing these things as well. Here's how it goes.

We have a rotation of one person who's job is to roll three, five-sided dice (online via a webpage). That person also picks a group topic (online via a webpage that generates random topics). This is all done on Saturday. They also pick a topic for themselves. Then they send an email to the other participants containing the dice roll, the group topic, and their personal topic.

Then everyone else competing gets a random topic from the same webpage for their own personal topic story. The idea is that you can use the topic as is, or break it up and just include the elements of the topic in your story. Once you have your topic, you email it to everyone so they know what you're doing.

The dice roll correlates to the stories you've got to write. We write three stories. We roll three dice. The first dice corresponds to a story without boundaries. The first die gives you a page number and you write about whatever you want as long as you fulfill your minimum page requirements. The second die relates to your personal topic story. You take your topic and you write at least that many pages as the die said as long as you incoporate your topic. The third die goes with the group topic. Which means everyone writes at least that many pages and can use that topic (or each singular element from that topic) to compose a story with the die determining the minimum number of pages.

For instance: Our roll this week was 2, 4, 3. So everyone's open story had to be at least two pages (we use 1.5 line spacing and 10pt. Times New Roman font). Everyone's personal topic had to be at least four pages, and everyone's group topic had to be three pages.

After all this is done on Saturday, you start writing anytime after midnight. So the second it becomes Sunday you can write to your heart's content until it becomes midnight again. After that, pencils... Er. Keyboards down.

So that's how it works. We haven't figured out how to determine winners or anything yet but it is a lot of fun and the writing is great practice. My stories are up on the 'Writings' page under "The Random Trilogy I". Have a read. They're fun!

Our group topic this week was made up by Count Chocula because he couldn't get to a computer or something. I dunno. It sucked anyway. It was "WWI plane crashes behind enemy lines. Only one survivor. There's a storm on it's way." My story "The Battle Of Small's Hill Retirement Home" covers the group topic.

My personal topic was way more entertaining. "A customised vampire comes to an agreement with a unwanted son as performance art." That story is "The Day The Sun Fell Down". Interestingly enough it is not about a vampire.

I uploaded the drawing yesterday that was supposed to be for today so I don't have to do a drawing right now. I've got a song to work on that is way easier than Personage was (which is still in the player for those that want a listen). I think I'm gonna tackle Contrast (an instrumental that Miles did drums for. Yay Miles!). That's about it for now ladies and gents.

Lataz.

Just uploaded tomorrow's drawing. Yayz.

Lataz.

Today was a day of minor accomplishments.

Firstly I got the drawing for today done. Yay! I also got the drawing for tomorrow done. Yay!

Secondly, I finally finished that massive song Personage Of A Paradigm. Go me! Let's talk about it for a second shall we?

This is the first song I ever wrote. I wrote the first version in 2003.

This is the longest song I have finished so far. It stops around 7 minutes, 27 seconds.

This song had the most tracks I've ever had to put into a song. Total end count? 14 seperate tracks.

It took me exactly 225 different presses of the 'record' button (not counting the sequencing of the drums) to finish this song.

Don't believe me? Click here. Notice the white rectangle around the lower right corner? That '225' is the number of recorded files in the session thus far. If I had been an ass, I would've tried for 255. Hah!

I know I said I wasn't going to let anyone hear the songs until the album was finished, but this one deserves it. It's in the player. Listen and enjoy thoroughly.

I'm SO looking forward to doing an easier song tomorrow. Also, it's Sunday so I got the story writing thing going with Sid and Count Chocula. Chocula's bein' a wimp and only doing one though. Boo!

Lataz.

Got the new drawing up. I think this trade-off violence is going to be somewhat recurring for Oddz for awhile seeing as how I just don't know what else to draw. Came out decent but I REALLY need to get a font for the text in the comics designed. I'll make it a point to do that sometime next week.

Lataz.

I just really don't have a lot to say at the moment besides that I am tired. I'm also having to use my other free day because Personage is just such a huge undertaking. I didn't really think it would take this long but I will definitely have it done tomorrow. I've already got the rhythm guitars and bass recorded. Sounds great so far. Just gotta get the keyboard enhancements and the solos put in and it'll be good.

I am just about to do my drawing. I've been busy redesigning an aspect of the site or two. Let's take a look at the work I did.

First: The links at the top of every page are now a frame so that I can add new sections to the site a little easier and make various changes and such without having to change every page.

Second: The Drawings page has a new, less thumbnailed layout. Not sure if this is gonna keep for very long but it definitely works better than the thumbnail look did.

Third: There is a link to E-mail me on this page now. Its my name over on the left above the picture of me. The picture is also a link to E-mail me. And from now on my avatar on my news posts will be a link to E-mail me as well. So E-mail me already... I'm just kidding. I don't want to talk to you anyway.

That's pretty much it for now. I'll get the drawing up in a bit. Looking forward to band practice today too. We're supposed to be meeting a new drummer and I'm gonna get to actually play guitar for a bit. Yay!

Lataz.

Update: Holy freakin' crap Personage Of A Paradigm (POAP or Personage from now on) is gonna be huge. The drum track came in at 7 minutes and 23 seconds. Minus my 8 count intro and add a decent sized fadeout and it evens out somewhere around there... I think this is the longest song I've ever written. And it was my first! Made some minor changes to it from back in the day. Nothing anyone is going to care about. Gotta say the drums came together nicely and I can't wait to hear the finished version.

Lataz.

Lost sight of my creative visions for a bit. But all is well and good once again.

I'm using up one of my extra days today that I got from Betrayal II and Itinerary. I'm working on a song very few of you have heard (if any of you for that matter). Its old school. Literally it is the very first song I ever wrote (in full). And I'm recording it the way I wrote it back then. It's a pretty long song and it's pretty freakin' nice so I'm going to turn it into +255's epic piece (semi epic really... Its not Duos Nex nice anyway). I'll have the drums finished before I go to sleep and I'll record the whole blasted thing tomorrow. Let me just say that it is definitely time to get this song out of the way. Interesting note is that its been through a ton of versions for shortening and stylistic changes, and the final version I'm working on sort of goes back through all of that and it grabs the original version's feeling. I've got an OLD recording of the original version (and the original version of what Baise D'Esprit was supposed to sound like) that I want to upload if the singer I had at those times will ever get back to me. Shaun? Helllooooo?

New drawing today. Barely. I almost didn't wanna do it because I have a really hard time coming up with artistic ideas that I can actually draw. Seeing art in my head just isn't as easy as hearing it apparently. Turned out okay though. That's all for me.

Lataz.

Well I redid Baise D'Esprit a bit. The rest of this album is going to turn out to be a very bright kind of album so I'm trying to make sure all the songs end up sounding equally bright which means finding a new way to mix my drums. Its going okay so far. I gotta say Miles' drums on the tracks I've done so far are absolutely brilliant. Trying to get the midi stuff to stack up but they just can't hang. Miles is just too awesome.

Aside from remixing Baise, I also finished up Fire Burns. So that was the new one for today. Took awhile and it really hurt my hands to play it. The stretching is just insane. I can't believe I wrote that back in the day.

Got the new drawing up too. This one was inspired by Vinnie Scullo. So, yay for that. I chopped off Jake's hair with the Oddz border. I think I'm gonna have to make that thing smaller or something. I'll get this isht figured out sooner or later.

Also, not really anything to mention but I've been trying my ass off to get the lead guitar for the third tier of Betrayal down. I can't play it anymore. Too fast and the alternate picking is a bitch. I can't believe I'm having trouble with something I used to be able to play no problem. I suppose them's the breaks though. That's kind of why I want to get this album over with. My style has changed and its time for me to wrap up the loose ends and move on. And I'm doing so pretty efficiently thus far. Let's hope I can keep it up.

Best news of the day? I might get to make some music for a video game that an old friend from YouTube has made. It's called Mouse Avoider and frankly it rocks. Fun as all get out and wicked cool. The neatest thing is that it was made in Power Point. So if you have PP then its a small download and then you're playing it. You can also download a PP Viewer to play it as well (which is what I did). Really good times though. I'm looking forward to the chance to work on it.

Lataz.

I haven't even been to sleep yet and I finished another song. This one was Itinerary. I think this was like one of the first few songs I ever put up on EmbracingFate.com. It hasn't changed at all though. Just got a bit of a facelift.

Because it is technically the next day and I have done like three since I woke up earlier, this could count towards the next couple of days. Which means if I get lazy then I'll be safe. Now I just need another drawing to cover my ass...

Lataz.

I went ahead and did Betrayal's second tier today too. I was bored. Yay...

Lataz.

The song for today was Betrayal - Tier I. Got it finished and sounding bright and pretty. I rather enjoy it. I'll be doing Tier II either later tonight or tomorrow.

Got the next Oddz drawing up. As I say in the caption, I gotta find a better way to do the text for these things. I'll be working on that sometime in the very near future. That is all for now.

Lataz.

I decided that I'm gonna try to do a new drawing along with each of my new songs. I've been working on a new character design that is so easy to draw that even I can make it look decent. And you can see its debut in the drawings section (the first drawing). Welcome to the first installment of a new (unregularly updated) webcomic: Oddz. Slowly these comics will begin to overtake the old drawings until they are completely gone and at some point I'm going to have to re-do the design of that page for something more like a list set-up to keep from having a ton of thumbnail images on there. But for now this works.

The idea of the comics is to be one panel, easy to draw, not even necessarily funny. Just cute little drawings that I can do in my spare time without worrying about artistic style and proper proportions (not to mention regular updates). Plus, it's fun having a reason to draw the SmileyZ characters again as they go along perfectly with the new cucumber-esque design I've got going.

Lataz.

I know I haven't updated in a full like, ten days. Sorry.

So, what has been going on with me? Well, not a lot really. As of yesterday (the 12th to be completely precise) I started a trial project I am calling "31 songs in 31 days". Its not specifically timed or anything. But basically as long as I get 31 songs done before, on, or just around the 12th of December then I'll have succeeded. I did my first one today, and it was a song for +255 called Baise D'Esprit. I've done several versions of this in the past and I'm hoping today's will be the final version. I'm tired of doing the +255 songs and I'm more than ready to move on to something else. So my personal goal is that by December 12th I will be finished with +255. By the end of the year I'd like to be finished with The Championship Battles and Embracing Fate II.

Next year I have a huge plan that may be going into affect. It'll essentially be a huge gimmick of sorts to get more people to come to the site and check out the music but I'm hoping it leads to new projects and other things as well. More on that whenever I decide if its possible or not.

I am also incredibly anxious to start giving guitar lessons for money. I don't have a job anymore, so its time to do something and seeing as how attending school is out for next semester I am desperate to do something musical to earn a living.

Also, Sid and I have been coming up with some interesting ideas. One of them has already been put into effect. Every Sunday we are going to do some short stories in our own personal kind of writing contest. We gave it a good run this past Sunday and I ended up with three new short stories. Just for fun's sake, I'm not going to edit them or rewrite them because the idea was a time trial to see how much we could write in 24 hours. The only limitations were that each story had to crossover in some way and that they be at least five pages in length. Mine will be in the Writings section. If you guys want I could post Sid's as well. Let me know via the forums or Email.

I'm not gonna post the songs up yet that I'm doing because I want to wait until the seperate albums are all finished before I start posting. I've got some nice ideas for the site I'd like to get implemented before next year starts up so hopefully you'll start seeing some nice new changes.

Mike D. and I have been working on getting some samples up of his singing. I don't think what we have is quite ready yet but once we have something I'll make sure to post some links so you can all hear what our band might sound like whenever we get to start playing live.

I think that's about it for now.

Lataz.

Aite. Let's recap.

I was entered into two contests. One is a songwriting contest out of Wichita, KS (results pending Nov. 16th). The other was for RPGamer. I don't think I've got much of a shot at the RPGamer one anymore because I came in second in Round 4 and in order to have a realistic shot I would've had to've come in first. I think one of the judges hated me. But its cool. I'm stronger for it I guess. Maybe...

Also I'm still working on The Championship Battles. I just finished the first epic song (its got three and one hybrid epic/rock). For the definition of what I mean by 'epic' you could have a listen to songs such as Duos Nex from my own 'The Nightmare Battles', or One Winged Angel from Final Fantasy VII, Liberi Fatali from Final Fantasy VIII, the list goes on. Basically any song that is just impossibly dramatic and powerful would be called 'epic' by me. So, one down, several left to go. Woot.

Just to recap, I almost got a chance to compose for a student movie but they went with the Director Of Photography's sister instead. I have a job that I hate cleaning an office building at night. (A new development) I wanted to go back to H.I.N.U. next semester to take some more music classes but due to a raise in fees and tuition I can't afford it anymore. The band I'm in is essentially just Mike D. and myself now and the drummer I thought was so awesome isn't going to work out due to... Um. Personal complications. And for Halloween I stayed home and worked on the epic that took me like three full days of working on to finish. Holy crap. I suck.

On the brighter side of my news comes the fact that Vinnie Scullo (acquaintance sort of but mostly just a hero of mine) is going to rap over a beat that I made for him on his next album (the beat is still in the player for those who want to listen, as are the contest entries). That's about it for the brighter side.

Now onto random crap... Um. Site updates! A friend of mine said she'd take some pictures for me. So hopefully I'll get some new pics for the gallery. Forums are still empty you bastards POST SOMETHING! I'm also planning some things that won't go into effect until after I finish The Championship Battles. Which should be pretty freakin' soon. I don't have a lot of time as a friend of mine and I are working on a time limit for ourselves. Dec. 12 sucka! That is when it all falls down. And my most immediate life goal is to start giving enough guitar lessons so that I can quit my job. Yay! That's about it for now. More as it develops.

Lataz.