my mother, susan lynn sypult, passed away unexpectedly on friday, august 24th 2007. she was 49 years old.
the following is a summary of the events which lead to her passing (as i understand).
susan was diagnosed with cancer of unknown origin on valentines day, february 14th 2007. she began aggressive radiation and chemotherapy treatments for a few months with the hopes of being in remission by summer. disappointed to find that the cancer had grown and spread by summer she decided to seek a second opinion by cancer specialists at md anderson in houston, tx. after further extensive scans and tests md anderson ultimately traced her condition to lung cancer. with a life expectancy of 3-5 years by treating her symptoms my mother returned home to aransas pass, tx. upon returning home she caught a cold which ultimately developed in to pneumonia. after fighting with the assistance of life support services in an intensive care unit for about a week she passed.
- Susan Lynn Sypult Memorial
- Susan Lynn Sypult Obituarty
- Susan Lynn Sypult Visitation Photographs
20070828
20070409
music and me: as a child
Dustin said...
Dumb question: if I wanted to learn more about music from a total newbie's perspective, where should I start? Thanks!
first understand that everyone learns differently. i'll explain how i think i learned.
i learn best by deconstruction and/or trial-and-error. it requires i have access to the original application(s) and/or asset(s) used to create the given media.
i don't remember my age, but when i was fairly young our family got a cheap off-the-shelf consumer synthesizer. i think it may have been for Christmas. because it was FM-based it was much smaller and simpler than the kinds you'll see today at your typical electronics stores like best buy or circuit city. this was my first exposure to pushing keys to generate sound. i never took it seriously since it was more of a "toy" as a child.
the later "toy" keyboard i had access to was the Casio SK-1. it had multiple consumer-level sounds to choose from (far from realistic), but it's strength was it's ability to record around one second of live audio via a built-in microphone. that recorded sound was played back on middle-C of the keyboard. it sped up or slowed down the pitch of the sample accordingly to the notes of the piano keys. the nifty 'demo' key proved that you could turn a belch into silly music. i still possess this very keyboard to this day.
i vaguely recall having access to a simple step sequencer on our Atari XEGS computer. it graphically displayed a piano on the screen that highlighted pushed keys via the QWERTY keyboard. it allowed you to record your key sequences in to the computer to play back in sequence. i remember trying to sequence a song completely by ear via trial and error, which I think was Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven".
at another point i realized that it could be possible for one person to play all the instruments in a band individually. shortly after i realized this, as test i obtained a couple of blank cassette tapes and got a couple of our portable boom boxes together in the basement. i got a couple of old empty ice-cream one-gallon buckets we had lying around and used some tent rods as "drumsticks". i hit record on one boom box and recorded some horrid plastic banging for a minute. i then stopped recording, rewound the tape, turned up the volume and hit play on that boom box. i then hit record on the second boom box and recorded myself rapping to the beat of my plastic bucket about how dumb our neighbors were (besides their own troubles with domestic abuse and law enforcement, i too caused them a lot of trouble and grief as a child). without any exposure or understanding of professional music production i was able to devise a poor-child's method of multi-track recording.
fast forward to my 7th grade year, shortly after our family got our first 386 DOS-based computer. this is when things took another turning point in regards to music. i think it was a Night Owl shareware CD-ROM that i became exposed to a program called MODEdit for DOS - along with several bundled MOD files on the disc. coupled with our modem and local BBS' i then had an abundant source of strange, free music. eventually i realized that the program was more than just a funky music player (it contained the word "edit". i'm slow like that). it took some time to learn how the program worked since i had no concept of documentation and README files. i would watch simpler MOD files play back - paying attention to how the screen scrolled by vertically, watching which of the four channels were triggering what notes and what samples they referenced. little by little i found a key that did something new. eventually i was able to enter the "pattern" editor and started experimenting with changing existing patterns.
eventually my previous exposure to simple synthesizers and sampling finally clicked together. with MOD files that constructed cheesy and simple dance, pop/rock music i was able to mentally deconstruct the different layers and instruments. i could turn off individual channels and focus on one channel at a time. thanks to some of the sample filenames being retained i learned the different components of the underlying songs. i learned about drums: the kick, snare, toms, hihat and other cymbals. there were crazy bass synths, horrible guitar samples, cheesy strings, brass, horns and other sampled synthesizers. i payed attention to how songs were constructed visually in MODEdit and would find correlations to those songs in real, traditional music which i was exposed to. once i was able to create my own new MOD files and import samples from the huge library of MOD files i had collected i started to emulate pieces and parts of music i knew. i would try to reconstruct the drum parts from a metallica song, with the fills from the different tom sounds and such.
as computers got better so did tracker programs and formats. MOD files were limited to 4 channels - and originated on the Commodore Amiga. Composer669 came out whose files had 8 channels. after i got a SoundBlaster Pro those 8 channels were split in to 4 channels per left+right channels. i eventually started experimenting with recording and editing my own samples with an old DOS sample editor called DigiPlayer v2.5 by Sami Tammilehto (psi of Future Crew). since the sample results were not so great for the music i turned to using the sample editor for simple mixing and sound design. in time ScreamTracker3 came out that had 16 channels. it was around this time that i was able to stop relying entirely on preexisting MOD/669/S3M samples and started to sample small snippets from my personal music library, either via cassette recording or ripping short samples from Red-Book audio via CD-ROM.
that pretty much details my childhood experience with music up until my sophomore year high school.
in regards to today...
i would highly recommend looking at Apple's Garageband application. it has the software instruments, live recording and effects processing side of things elegantly integrated into one simple to use application that anyone should be able to figure out with some time on their hands. i prefer to use it amongst most other things because i find its limitations to be a good limiting factor in exploring creative music.
in regards to music in today's age...
since anyone can make music on their home computer we're barraged by a lot of songs which lack creativity, originality or depth.
it's easy to get bogged down with the technicalities of hardware, software and recording - consuming you to a point where you're almost expecting the tool to magically write good music for you.
the reason you don't find a lot of original material by yours truly is because i'm still fighting with both of the issues detailed above. i don't feel a special need to share mindless creations with the world at large. i also occasionally lack the discipline to focus on writing truly creative music.
maybe one of these days things will change...
Dumb question: if I wanted to learn more about music from a total newbie's perspective, where should I start? Thanks!
first understand that everyone learns differently. i'll explain how i think i learned.
i learn best by deconstruction and/or trial-and-error. it requires i have access to the original application(s) and/or asset(s) used to create the given media.
i don't remember my age, but when i was fairly young our family got a cheap off-the-shelf consumer synthesizer. i think it may have been for Christmas. because it was FM-based it was much smaller and simpler than the kinds you'll see today at your typical electronics stores like best buy or circuit city. this was my first exposure to pushing keys to generate sound. i never took it seriously since it was more of a "toy" as a child.
the later "toy" keyboard i had access to was the Casio SK-1. it had multiple consumer-level sounds to choose from (far from realistic), but it's strength was it's ability to record around one second of live audio via a built-in microphone. that recorded sound was played back on middle-C of the keyboard. it sped up or slowed down the pitch of the sample accordingly to the notes of the piano keys. the nifty 'demo' key proved that you could turn a belch into silly music. i still possess this very keyboard to this day.
i vaguely recall having access to a simple step sequencer on our Atari XEGS computer. it graphically displayed a piano on the screen that highlighted pushed keys via the QWERTY keyboard. it allowed you to record your key sequences in to the computer to play back in sequence. i remember trying to sequence a song completely by ear via trial and error, which I think was Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven".
at another point i realized that it could be possible for one person to play all the instruments in a band individually. shortly after i realized this, as test i obtained a couple of blank cassette tapes and got a couple of our portable boom boxes together in the basement. i got a couple of old empty ice-cream one-gallon buckets we had lying around and used some tent rods as "drumsticks". i hit record on one boom box and recorded some horrid plastic banging for a minute. i then stopped recording, rewound the tape, turned up the volume and hit play on that boom box. i then hit record on the second boom box and recorded myself rapping to the beat of my plastic bucket about how dumb our neighbors were (besides their own troubles with domestic abuse and law enforcement, i too caused them a lot of trouble and grief as a child). without any exposure or understanding of professional music production i was able to devise a poor-child's method of multi-track recording.
fast forward to my 7th grade year, shortly after our family got our first 386 DOS-based computer. this is when things took another turning point in regards to music. i think it was a Night Owl shareware CD-ROM that i became exposed to a program called MODEdit for DOS - along with several bundled MOD files on the disc. coupled with our modem and local BBS' i then had an abundant source of strange, free music. eventually i realized that the program was more than just a funky music player (it contained the word "edit". i'm slow like that). it took some time to learn how the program worked since i had no concept of documentation and README files. i would watch simpler MOD files play back - paying attention to how the screen scrolled by vertically, watching which of the four channels were triggering what notes and what samples they referenced. little by little i found a key that did something new. eventually i was able to enter the "pattern" editor and started experimenting with changing existing patterns.
eventually my previous exposure to simple synthesizers and sampling finally clicked together. with MOD files that constructed cheesy and simple dance, pop/rock music i was able to mentally deconstruct the different layers and instruments. i could turn off individual channels and focus on one channel at a time. thanks to some of the sample filenames being retained i learned the different components of the underlying songs. i learned about drums: the kick, snare, toms, hihat and other cymbals. there were crazy bass synths, horrible guitar samples, cheesy strings, brass, horns and other sampled synthesizers. i payed attention to how songs were constructed visually in MODEdit and would find correlations to those songs in real, traditional music which i was exposed to. once i was able to create my own new MOD files and import samples from the huge library of MOD files i had collected i started to emulate pieces and parts of music i knew. i would try to reconstruct the drum parts from a metallica song, with the fills from the different tom sounds and such.
as computers got better so did tracker programs and formats. MOD files were limited to 4 channels - and originated on the Commodore Amiga. Composer669 came out whose files had 8 channels. after i got a SoundBlaster Pro those 8 channels were split in to 4 channels per left+right channels. i eventually started experimenting with recording and editing my own samples with an old DOS sample editor called DigiPlayer v2.5 by Sami Tammilehto (psi of Future Crew). since the sample results were not so great for the music i turned to using the sample editor for simple mixing and sound design. in time ScreamTracker3 came out that had 16 channels. it was around this time that i was able to stop relying entirely on preexisting MOD/669/S3M samples and started to sample small snippets from my personal music library, either via cassette recording or ripping short samples from Red-Book audio via CD-ROM.
that pretty much details my childhood experience with music up until my sophomore year high school.
in regards to today...
i would highly recommend looking at Apple's Garageband application. it has the software instruments, live recording and effects processing side of things elegantly integrated into one simple to use application that anyone should be able to figure out with some time on their hands. i prefer to use it amongst most other things because i find its limitations to be a good limiting factor in exploring creative music.
in regards to music in today's age...
since anyone can make music on their home computer we're barraged by a lot of songs which lack creativity, originality or depth.
it's easy to get bogged down with the technicalities of hardware, software and recording - consuming you to a point where you're almost expecting the tool to magically write good music for you.
the reason you don't find a lot of original material by yours truly is because i'm still fighting with both of the issues detailed above. i don't feel a special need to share mindless creations with the world at large. i also occasionally lack the discipline to focus on writing truly creative music.
maybe one of these days things will change...
20070404
year zero
you should listen to a few mp3's:
- opalo.mp3
- ballgameOver.mp3
- nohurry.mp3
you should dial a few (united states) phone numbers:
- 1-310-295-1040
- 1-216-333-1810
- 1-866-445-6580
you should visit a few websites:
- http://iamtryingtobelieve.com/
- http://anotherversionofthetruth.com/
- http://bethehammer.net/
- http://105thairbornecrusaders.com/
- http://churchofplano.com/
- http://www.consolidatedmailsystems.com/nooneimportant/
- http://www.uswiretap.com/71839J/
- http://www.artisresistance.com/
- http://www.hollywoodinmemoriam.org/
- http://www.securebroadcastinformatics.com/
- http://www.thewaterturnedtoblood.net/
- http://www.judsonogram.net/
- http://www.cedocore.com/
- http://www.operationswamp0000.net/
- http://www.operationchipsweep.net/
- http://www.themailstrom.com/
- http://www.thepriceoftreason.net/
- http://www.opensourceresistance.net/
you should listen to year zero.
you should purchase on april 17th.
wednesday. another humpy day.
- opalo.mp3
- ballgameOver.mp3
- nohurry.mp3
you should dial a few (united states) phone numbers:
- 1-310-295-1040
- 1-216-333-1810
- 1-866-445-6580
you should visit a few websites:
- http://iamtryingtobelieve.com/
- http://anotherversionofthetruth.com/
- http://bethehammer.net/
- http://105thairbornecrusaders.com/
- http://churchofplano.com/
- http://www.consolidatedmailsystems.com/nooneimportant/
- http://www.uswiretap.com/71839J/
- http://www.artisresistance.com/
- http://www.hollywoodinmemoriam.org/
- http://www.securebroadcastinformatics.com/
- http://www.thewaterturnedtoblood.net/
- http://www.judsonogram.net/
- http://www.cedocore.com/
- http://www.operationswamp0000.net/
- http://www.operationchipsweep.net/
- http://www.themailstrom.com/
- http://www.thepriceoftreason.net/
- http://www.opensourceresistance.net/
you should listen to year zero.
you should purchase on april 17th.
wednesday. another humpy day.
20070323
music and me
i came across an email at work that asked people who play music to introduce themselves. i figured a lengthly summary would make a good blog post.
i got started with music as a kid mashing various Casio keyboards - especially the SK-1 sampling keyboard. belching into that thing and hitting the DEMO key could never be better music to a child. prank calling people was fun too - screaming or belching into the keyboard beforehand, followed up by mashing the keys when someone answered. there was also this one time i brought my trusty SK-1 to junior high and recorded myself saying "let me out!". i taped the middle-c key down and stuck it in my locker and went to class, leaving it to repeat playback. it was strange explaining everything to both the principal and the teacher who found it...
from there i really got into using our new family 386 computer when i was ~12 years old. i was really into playing and editing both Wolf 3D, DOOM - tinkering with map, sprite, sound and music editing. at that same time i was also experimenting with the original amiga MOD-style "tracker" music. making sample-based music in MS-DOS was pretty whacky in comparison to more recent years. in terms of formats i had went from MOD's to Composer669 to ScreamTracker3 to ImpulseTracker. i got hold of all my samples from too much time spent on local BBS', downloading other songs, as well as sampling my music collection and VHS movies. i was the ultimate nerd in regards music. i stopped listening to Metallica and started listening to crazy computer music. tracker music wans't anything like the popular Adlib/SoundBlaster FM / General-MIDI music at the time. i had a chance to toy around with Cakewalk on Windows 3.1 for DOOM music editing and was left wanting to use tracker music for my modifications instead.
i was eventually exposed to rock instruments in high school. i obtained a kick and tom drum, borrowed a snare drum and started playing 3-piece drums (without any cymbals) with a school friend named Doug Balmes. it was pretty hard to call the two of us an actual band. we managed to get skipped at our high school "battle of the band" rehearsals because dougs brother was dating the girl who managed it. if we had actually rehearsed i can guarantee we would have never been allowed to play in front of people. we picked up a backup singer (dougs girlfriend at the time) and bass player for the special night (who was lucky enough to hide behind an alien mask). the bass player never heard nor played a single note for any of our original material before it was time to go on in front of the packed echoey gymnasium crowd. it's a little hard to remember because my memory is still clouded with the intense amount of embarrassment from that night, but i think we were the only band who didn't get a single clap of applause. the only thing that happened was some girl yelled "you suck" in between songs in our set. needless to say, that night saw the end of "The Virtues of Milk". at some point hanging around with other high school musical acquaintances and friends i learned the mighty power of the bar chord on guitar. i started borrowing a friends guitar and Digitech RP10 to plug in to my SoundBlaster's line-in so i could play guitar along with whatever tracker music i had made.
at some point in high school i was turned on to an album called "The Downward Spiral" from Nine Inch Nails. it was the first "real music" i started to listen to again since ditching heavy metal for tracker music a few years prior. i had connected with it because it was the first album i had heard that actually used electronics and samples that sounded very cool and had meaning. Trent Reznor is still my biggest influences today in regards to anything related to sound and music.
then came the internet and QUAKE.
i still used DOS tracker programs (Impulse Tracker) up until i emailed American McGee and sent in a music demo to id Software in 1997. over the course of a few months i kept in contact with American to eventually get a song of mine published as part of the QUAKE2 soundtrack. as a teenager it felt pretty cool to be credited under Rob Zombie in a computer game. i was only 18 and had just graduated high school that year - so listening back you can imagine why i cringe at what the "public at large" has heard from me.
it was after i heard the QUAKE2 track in a friends car that i started to grasp there was more to sequencing music on a computer with a home stereo system. i realized in horror that "Climb" sounded really crappy and muddy outside of my basement bedroom. it was at that point that i started to get interested in the "engineering" aspect of sound and music - learning how fundamental sound and mixing works, as well as exposing myself to the associated tools that accompany the process.
thanks to the internet i've spent the past 10 years learning and practicing multitrack recording and mixing in my spare time. throughout that time i also started applying what i've learned to sound design.
in that time i've acquainted myself with playing and recording drums, guitar, bass and keys. i try to avoid vocals since i don't care for my singing voice. like most nerds i don't have anything interesting worth singing about.
these days i still noodle around with music at home and work as a sound designer in the gaming industry. more recently i am jamming on drums with a few people from work doing some cover tunes.
time for lunch.
i got started with music as a kid mashing various Casio keyboards - especially the SK-1 sampling keyboard. belching into that thing and hitting the DEMO key could never be better music to a child. prank calling people was fun too - screaming or belching into the keyboard beforehand, followed up by mashing the keys when someone answered. there was also this one time i brought my trusty SK-1 to junior high and recorded myself saying "let me out!". i taped the middle-c key down and stuck it in my locker and went to class, leaving it to repeat playback. it was strange explaining everything to both the principal and the teacher who found it...
from there i really got into using our new family 386 computer when i was ~12 years old. i was really into playing and editing both Wolf 3D, DOOM - tinkering with map, sprite, sound and music editing. at that same time i was also experimenting with the original amiga MOD-style "tracker" music. making sample-based music in MS-DOS was pretty whacky in comparison to more recent years. in terms of formats i had went from MOD's to Composer669 to ScreamTracker3 to ImpulseTracker. i got hold of all my samples from too much time spent on local BBS', downloading other songs, as well as sampling my music collection and VHS movies. i was the ultimate nerd in regards music. i stopped listening to Metallica and started listening to crazy computer music. tracker music wans't anything like the popular Adlib/SoundBlaster FM / General-MIDI music at the time. i had a chance to toy around with Cakewalk on Windows 3.1 for DOOM music editing and was left wanting to use tracker music for my modifications instead.
i was eventually exposed to rock instruments in high school. i obtained a kick and tom drum, borrowed a snare drum and started playing 3-piece drums (without any cymbals) with a school friend named Doug Balmes. it was pretty hard to call the two of us an actual band. we managed to get skipped at our high school "battle of the band" rehearsals because dougs brother was dating the girl who managed it. if we had actually rehearsed i can guarantee we would have never been allowed to play in front of people. we picked up a backup singer (dougs girlfriend at the time) and bass player for the special night (who was lucky enough to hide behind an alien mask). the bass player never heard nor played a single note for any of our original material before it was time to go on in front of the packed echoey gymnasium crowd. it's a little hard to remember because my memory is still clouded with the intense amount of embarrassment from that night, but i think we were the only band who didn't get a single clap of applause. the only thing that happened was some girl yelled "you suck" in between songs in our set. needless to say, that night saw the end of "The Virtues of Milk". at some point hanging around with other high school musical acquaintances and friends i learned the mighty power of the bar chord on guitar. i started borrowing a friends guitar and Digitech RP10 to plug in to my SoundBlaster's line-in so i could play guitar along with whatever tracker music i had made.
at some point in high school i was turned on to an album called "The Downward Spiral" from Nine Inch Nails. it was the first "real music" i started to listen to again since ditching heavy metal for tracker music a few years prior. i had connected with it because it was the first album i had heard that actually used electronics and samples that sounded very cool and had meaning. Trent Reznor is still my biggest influences today in regards to anything related to sound and music.
then came the internet and QUAKE.
i still used DOS tracker programs (Impulse Tracker) up until i emailed American McGee and sent in a music demo to id Software in 1997. over the course of a few months i kept in contact with American to eventually get a song of mine published as part of the QUAKE2 soundtrack. as a teenager it felt pretty cool to be credited under Rob Zombie in a computer game. i was only 18 and had just graduated high school that year - so listening back you can imagine why i cringe at what the "public at large" has heard from me.
it was after i heard the QUAKE2 track in a friends car that i started to grasp there was more to sequencing music on a computer with a home stereo system. i realized in horror that "Climb" sounded really crappy and muddy outside of my basement bedroom. it was at that point that i started to get interested in the "engineering" aspect of sound and music - learning how fundamental sound and mixing works, as well as exposing myself to the associated tools that accompany the process.
thanks to the internet i've spent the past 10 years learning and practicing multitrack recording and mixing in my spare time. throughout that time i also started applying what i've learned to sound design.
in that time i've acquainted myself with playing and recording drums, guitar, bass and keys. i try to avoid vocals since i don't care for my singing voice. like most nerds i don't have anything interesting worth singing about.
these days i still noodle around with music at home and work as a sound designer in the gaming industry. more recently i am jamming on drums with a few people from work doing some cover tunes.
time for lunch.
20070307
hump
i feel that wednesdays are my whack days. it drags on and i don't feel very productive. another thing is that michelle (girlfriend going on 12 years) leaves wednesdays for the remainder of the week and part of the weekend for school and part-time work out of town.
one highlight for today was catching a glimpse of an upcoming game called LittleBigPlanet. a second highlight was obtaining a copy of the flash drive contents found tonight at nine inch nails' show in london. instead of being another song from the upcoming album year zero it was the video for the single survivalism (which - in summary - contained the band, boobies, buttsex and counter-strike). spoiler: counter-terrorists win.
between all of that and the things i do at work (which i'm probably not at liberty to discuss) that doesn't leave me with much to say.
historically i have avoided personal writing - maintaining journals and such. i've always considered it a waste of time since important things will be remembered. writing it down for nobody to read would just slow or stop me from doing other things i enjoy. the plusses never outweighed the minuses.
leave it to the internet to give me reason to do something i typically hate doing.
with those thoughts aside i suppose i'll share some of my daily sources of information. consider it an extension of my introduction from my last post.
i have a special interest in apple's technology and their platforms. i don't consider myself a die-hard apple user since i continue to use other platforms on a regular basis depending on which platform is more productive for the type of task i need to complete. i believe that apple does a tremendous job with their internet, media and creative applications.
- AppleInsider
- InsanelyMac
- MacRumors
- The Unofficial Apple Weblog
- Think Secret
my interest in gaming has continued to bring me to the following sites over the years.
- Blue's News
- ShackNews
one thing i omitted in my last post was my growing interest in the paranormal. an overall broad topic, and one which i've maintained interest throughout my life. only recently have i begun keeping tabs on various topics through sources i've either come across or have been recommended. it helps to be both skeptical yet open minded since topics can range from comical to creepy.
- Alien Video
- Daily Grail
- Fortean Times
- Further: Strange Attractor & Beyond
- Unexplained Mysteries
- World ITC
here are some personal pages - people who may be friends, acquaintences or internet randomites whom i've never exchanged words with...
- Adnan
- Crusader - a damn-fool idealist
- David - topology super hero
- demonbaby
- fhtr - designs and drawings, code and computer graphics
- hrgl - now made with 100% real bread!
- kwwrr (fantastic animation, art and music)
- paramnesic
- semthex
- turnstiled
synthesizers got me seriously interested in sound and music at a young age. my early attempts at music making on a DOS-based computer with "tracker" applications eventually allowed me to land a song on the Quake II soundtrack in 1997 at the age of 18 (thanks id software!). it wasn't until i first heard nine inch nails' "the downward spiral" album in 1994 that i connected traditional rock music to synthesized computer-made music - similar in part to the "tracker" music i was fond of. since that time i feel that trent reznor continues to break new ground with every nine inch nails release. as for myself, eventually i began to explore the engineering aspect of sound and music creation which has led me to sound design in more recent years.
- KVR Audio
- nine inch nails
- the spiral
general technology news keeps me up-to-date on the latest hardware and software.
- Engadget
- Hard|OCP
- Kotaku
- Slashdot
so there you have it. hopefully i've listed enough things to draw your attention away from here while i ponder what on earth i'll attempt to write for tomorrow.
one highlight for today was catching a glimpse of an upcoming game called LittleBigPlanet. a second highlight was obtaining a copy of the flash drive contents found tonight at nine inch nails' show in london. instead of being another song from the upcoming album year zero it was the video for the single survivalism (which - in summary - contained the band, boobies, buttsex and counter-strike). spoiler: counter-terrorists win.
between all of that and the things i do at work (which i'm probably not at liberty to discuss) that doesn't leave me with much to say.
historically i have avoided personal writing - maintaining journals and such. i've always considered it a waste of time since important things will be remembered. writing it down for nobody to read would just slow or stop me from doing other things i enjoy. the plusses never outweighed the minuses.
leave it to the internet to give me reason to do something i typically hate doing.
with those thoughts aside i suppose i'll share some of my daily sources of information. consider it an extension of my introduction from my last post.
i have a special interest in apple's technology and their platforms. i don't consider myself a die-hard apple user since i continue to use other platforms on a regular basis depending on which platform is more productive for the type of task i need to complete. i believe that apple does a tremendous job with their internet, media and creative applications.
- AppleInsider
- InsanelyMac
- MacRumors
- The Unofficial Apple Weblog
- Think Secret
my interest in gaming has continued to bring me to the following sites over the years.
- Blue's News
- ShackNews
one thing i omitted in my last post was my growing interest in the paranormal. an overall broad topic, and one which i've maintained interest throughout my life. only recently have i begun keeping tabs on various topics through sources i've either come across or have been recommended. it helps to be both skeptical yet open minded since topics can range from comical to creepy.
- Alien Video
- Daily Grail
- Fortean Times
- Further: Strange Attractor & Beyond
- Unexplained Mysteries
- World ITC
here are some personal pages - people who may be friends, acquaintences or internet randomites whom i've never exchanged words with...
- Adnan
- Crusader - a damn-fool idealist
- David - topology super hero
- demonbaby
- fhtr - designs and drawings, code and computer graphics
- hrgl - now made with 100% real bread!
- kwwrr (fantastic animation, art and music)
- paramnesic
- semthex
- turnstiled
synthesizers got me seriously interested in sound and music at a young age. my early attempts at music making on a DOS-based computer with "tracker" applications eventually allowed me to land a song on the Quake II soundtrack in 1997 at the age of 18 (thanks id software!). it wasn't until i first heard nine inch nails' "the downward spiral" album in 1994 that i connected traditional rock music to synthesized computer-made music - similar in part to the "tracker" music i was fond of. since that time i feel that trent reznor continues to break new ground with every nine inch nails release. as for myself, eventually i began to explore the engineering aspect of sound and music creation which has led me to sound design in more recent years.
- KVR Audio
- nine inch nails
- the spiral
general technology news keeps me up-to-date on the latest hardware and software.
- Engadget
- Hard|OCP
- Kotaku
- Slashdot
so there you have it. hopefully i've listed enough things to draw your attention away from here while i ponder what on earth i'll attempt to write for tomorrow.
20070306
sup, blog?
i'll be honest in that i'm not too keen on this whole blog thing...
but what the hell, right? thanks to google it's free.
so...
my name is jeremiah sypult.
i am presently employed as a sound designer. my previous employment consisted of systems administration, web developer, isp webmaster + technical support and candyman.
various things i enjoy: michelle, sound, drums, guitar, piano, synthesizers, various music, various games, various technology, hefeweizen and dunkelweizen.
sometimes i enjoy learning.
i have no idea what i intend to write here, nor do i have any idea how frequent i will write.
having sat here for a few minutes staring, well... i suppose that there is nothing else to write.
i guess i'll stop writing now.
but what the hell, right? thanks to google it's free.
so...
my name is jeremiah sypult.
i am presently employed as a sound designer. my previous employment consisted of systems administration, web developer, isp webmaster + technical support and candyman.
various things i enjoy: michelle, sound, drums, guitar, piano, synthesizers, various music, various games, various technology, hefeweizen and dunkelweizen.
sometimes i enjoy learning.
i have no idea what i intend to write here, nor do i have any idea how frequent i will write.
having sat here for a few minutes staring, well... i suppose that there is nothing else to write.
i guess i'll stop writing now.
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