Hey Man, well this is Babylon

I’ve found lately that I have been listening to two specific albums more than anything else while working on my design projects. They are:

1. Forbidden Forest: Impressions of George Winston by Taliesin Orchestra. There’s something about this album which deeply inspires me in the way no other music does. I’ve listened to all the original piano pieces upon which these tracks are based, but the originals just don’t compare to the orchestrated renditions. Starting with the very first track on the album, “Tamarack Pines,” I am swept away into a different realm of my creativity. Thanks immensely, Chris, for introducing me to this one.
2. Silent Hill Shattered Memories – original soundtrack by Akira Yamaoka. This is so far my favorite of the consistently amazing Silent Hill soundtracks, narrowly edging above the previous favorite, Silent Hill 4: The Room. Mary Elizabeth McGlynn’s vocal performances are stellar, as always, and in my opinion this album showcases the best work she’s done so far on the series. Something about the haunting ethereal underscores mixed with stellar (and sometimes totally rocking) vocal tracks keeps this one consistently repeating in the background while I work. I actually attempted to make a mix of nothing but McGlynn’s vocal tracks, but the project was only partially successful: the playlist was pretty damn awesome, but I found I couldn’t stop rocking along with the music long enough to get any actual work done.

There are a few others in rotation, including Danse Macabre by The Faint, Vegas by The Crystal Method, Nothing Lasts… But Nothing Is Lost by Shpongle, and the musical score to the movie Master and Commander. These play pretty frequently on my background mixes, but it is the two albums detailed above which always start it off, and which I always kick back into play when I hit a lull in the process.

What are yours?

A pal of mine requested that I transform the song “Hey Ya” by Outkast into an epic love ballad.

Here’s the result.

I have a feeling that only one person other than myself will find this amusing.

This morning, I resisted the powerful seduction of bacon. It was difficult, as my willpower is weakest in the groggy hours, but in the end I prevailed. I was heavily tempted and conflicted, but managed to set my resolve and not eat it. I love me some bacon, that’s the godsbedamned truth. But two things I adore far more than bacon are the exercise and strengthening of my personal willpower, and the dedication to a long-term goal of the bettering of my body.

So, game-wise, I’m torn. On the one hand, the idea of the characters being both watchmen and criminals in Five Fingers really appeals to me, because the notion of a game set up like The Wire is really damn cool. On the other hand, the idea of them being members of the FF chapterhouse of the Strangelight Workshop (aka, the Ghostbusters) is awesome, if only because I really like the word “Strangelight” and can see it being made into one wicked-sweet logo for the campaign’s logsite.

Lately, my dreams have been incredibly realistic. So realistic and subtle that at points during the day I muse whether or not certain things I remember recently were not actually just dreams. I’m talking about really vivid dreams, but none so crazy that they are obviously hallucinations or dreams.

A post on my friends list by tcpip has led me to look up the Fatal Frame series of video games again. I played #2 for a bit, but it was just too damn scary and the mechanics too damn slow and clunky for my tastes. So, instead, I settled for watching Lisa play it, and at that moment, my lust for watching others play involving video games was born. Anyway, I decided to look up the plot and stories of the three games from the series, resorting to Wikipedia for my information. Warning: Fatal Frame Video Game Spoilers Behind the Link! Jesus Harold Christ, the Japanese really are insane.

Behind the Snip is my new favorite song of the week. Read more