maxed out again #

I guess this is becoming a trend I should look into. Maxed out again over lunch, logged out, messed with some music.

found this gem #

I accidentally ran into this while slicing out clips from a different tape to run through the processing chain.

Not sure who it’s by; it’s an unlabeled tape I’ve been randomly recording over. This happened to be after the section I recorded, but kept extracting from the tape onto my laptop. Normally I just delete this kind of thing but it grabbed me something specific today.

just needed a few minutes to coast #

Last week I was feeling super fucking maxed out. Work has been tiring on a number of fronts. Then working on the house in the evenings compounded it.

So I logged out for lunch, put my phone on silent, and made some music.

This was recorded over a single take in 30ish minutes. I recorded some mini synth sounds onto a tape loop, then my guitar onto another tape loop, then fed those each into a channel on my mixer. Then guitar through some pedals and into another channel. Then some random creek sounds from the BBC sound archive.

everything ends #

coming to the end.
it ended well.
though it's not what I wanted.

though | dark ambient drone | tapeloop

We’re all much better now that it’s over.

Enjoy.

compelled to continue #

After the 2025 in review post, I kept thinking about all of the great media and books I consumed in 2025 and wanted to post some of my favorites.

Without much introduction…

favorite books (in no particular order) #

Everything is Tuberculosis, by John Green

Touching, informative, educational. Sad that something so easily solvable, which doesn’t exist in wealthy countries, can be such a dramatic, unrepentant asshole in others.

first post of 2026, weeeeeeee #

After reading my view of the worst Star War, Mark had some follow up that I thought was worth its own post.

Enjoy.

Mark

You only had about fifteen minutes to the end of the movie

Blaine

I couldn’t do it

Mark

You would’ve popped a vessel in your eye

Blaine

hahahaha

Mark

It’s just so bad

Blaine

seriously, that film is worse than anything Lucas ever did

...

2025, a year in review #

It’s the last day of 2025 so I thought it important to think about and share some of the highlights this year. It’s been a great year despite all of the bullshit happening with the current administration.

Let’s get started. Rewind back to the start of the year. I promise to be gentle.

I don’t remember it being this bad #

The last few nights I’ve been working through fan edits of the sequel Star Wars movies. The first one, The Force Awakens (Restructured), was good. The fan edit made is better. The second one, The Last Jedi (Legendary), was okay, the fan edit didn’t make it much better. The third one, The Rise of Skywalker (Ascendant), was really bad. I dare say the worst of all of the Stars War. The fan edit did nothing at all to make it better. It’s really just that bad.

here we go again #

I bought an Epiphone LP Jr. earlier this year from my favorite guitar shop. It needed a little work so I got a great deal on it. I removed everything, started to strip the nitro, but parked it to work on my Fender Strat build. I started working on it again this weekend and I’m stupid excited about it.

what to do and where to go #

There wasn’t a lot asthetically I wanted to change with the Fender, but this guitar was different. I didn’t want an all black guitar and didn’t want a relic’d black guitar either.

installing the electronics #

After putting down the shielding the next step was routing the grounding wires. I installed the wiring, soldered the ground to the tremelo and jack pin. Everything tested correctly with the multimeter.

Next the pickups. I went with a set of hand wound, aged, Alnico 5/2, with flat poles. According to the description, the combination of Alnico 5 rods for the low strings, and Alnico 2 rods for the high strings, “creates a smooth, well balanced output… punchy attack with well defined bass response on the lower register and warm swelling vintage tones on the upper register.”

eternity is scary #

I remember sitting in church as a little boy, maybe 6 years old. Without fail, nearly every sermon would end with a mention of eternity, the threat of hell, and the call to spend it in heaven with God [1]. And without fail I would feel dread building up to the end, hoping he wouldn’t talk about eternity again.

we aren’t compatible with eternity #

I remember being very afraid of the idea of eternity. Everything in life has a beginning and an end. You push the power button on the Nintendo, the game starts. You push the power button again, it stops. The idea of something going on forever and ever is unnatural and unfounded in reality. It profoundly scared me.