Hello fellow humans!
My mother mentioned that she noticed I hadn't updated my website in a long while, to which I thought hey cool at least my mom still reads it but the tl;dr version is I hate winter and am currently moping my way through another one. Not that I should complain since Seattle has received exactly 2" of short-lived snow this entire season while the rest of the country looks like Hoth Ice Planet, but still.
A status update for those interested:
Explone: writing and recording a new album. Pat's been on a hot streak with songs lately. Hopefully we'll release a few singles this year.
Kirby Krackle: still at it, gearing up for Kracklefest 4 at ECCC this year. We released a live EP of last year's show with Weird Al and there's some new stuff in the works. Kyle seems determined to step up our musical output this year and trying new things. Just this week we recorded a cover of a tune you're probably going to be just sick of in a few weeks. I'm in!
I've talked before about both bands wanting to commit to releasing more tracks instead of albums (and without the expected 2-year gap between albums) but until now we haven't really doubled down on this. It's not for nothing: both groups have high standards, and we're not just gonna knock something out in Garageband over a weekend just to get a track out the door.
Kin to Stars: on ice for now. After our Folklife show last year we took the summer off, which became the rest of year off as Jerin had an autumn wedding to plan (sorry fellas! She met an awesome guy who likes basketball, Iron Maiden AND web service architecture) and I headed off for a month of left-hand-side driving in the UK and Ireland. Not really big deal as we both have enough going on in our respective lives. However: we have these songs, see, and I'd like to get them recorded at some point. I may have to force the issue by booking some studio time.
Me:
Learning me some iOS app programming. Look for something to be released in the next few months.
Avoiding Facebook. It's utterly depressing and I dread even looking there. Waiting for FB to follow MySpace into the abyss.
Mixing and remixing songs I might release someday, maybe. I had an awesome plan to hide each song download behind an interactive puzzle on a special website. I was super-excited about this until about a week ago when I realized I'd wasn't because I'd forgotten all about it.
Reading sci-fi. David Marusek (future world of surveillance), Paolo Bacigalupi (future world of poverty), Ben H. Winters (no future: world about to explode). Not as depressing as they sound, trust me!
And comics. Yeah yeah we all read Saga but have you read Prophet?
Playing games. I gobbled up Year Walk and Device 6 and can't wait for more Myst-like stuff like that. Not really excited for anything console-based, though. I'm basically tapping my foot impatiently waiting for the last Borderlands 2 DLC.
Looking at a big backlog of unpublished blog posts that I ocassionally re-read (and even rewrite a bit) before closing the browser.
Winter sucks! How are you coping?