© 2010 Adrien G.

Remember how last time I promised you all some actually interesting blog posts? Well, here they be!

Rusted Hero, my band of gentleman musicians, was essentially born two weekends ago. First we tripped up to Albany to record our 7-song demo album and then Tuesday the 17th we had our very first live performance at Otto’s Shrunken Head. It was an intense, exhausting and ultimately fulfilling couple of days but it took me a week away from it all to finally process everything.

Now that all of that nonsense is done, however, I’m going to shit it all out for you in a couple of awesome* posts (* validity of this adjective to-be-determined). We live-Tweeted the whole weekend so I’ll throw those in to sort of drive this narrative, but I’ll make sure to populate all of this with my legendary witty commentary. Ahem. Let’s begin!

Thursday, August 12

We had our regularly-scheduled practice this night, running through the set a couple of times and working on some last minute preparations. Afterward, we loaded up Adrien’s car with John’s drumkit and John’s truck with our guitars and other equipment. Adrien and Matt took off in Adrien’s car to reach Albany early Friday morning. They would meet up with Amber, our saintly shelter provider for the weekend (saintly because she offered her 2 bedroom apartment to us just days before our arrival when our original plan fell through).

Unfortunately, Adrien and Matt got in so late that Amber was passed out. And she was in such a deep sleep she never heard her phone so the two Heroes had to pony up cash for a romantic hotel room! It was an auspicious beginning (for them!) to the weekend but more (or less) interesting things were to come!

Current Mood: Rested

© 2010 Andrew R.

I’m forcing this one out. Beware.

I’ve been so busy that I have been physically unable to work on any new posts for some time now. I hate having to admit that almost as much as I dislike living it, but that’s the truth. I’ve got some really exciting band news to blab about so, unfortunately, I’m going to have to condense the last whirlwind of a month into an underwhelming blog-list. Here we go!

• Jungle Juicerz Atlantic City Bachelor Party
  Pictured above! For the weekend of July 9-11, I was in the beautiful twin cities of New Jersey: Pleasant Point Beach and Atlantic City. The reason was simple: celebrate Jeff’s final days as a single, gay man. Ok, so there were still 8 weeks left before his wedding. And, ok, so he’s not really gay. But we did have to celebrate! 7 other of Jeff’s closest friends all showed up and we had a blast drinking, dancing, playing football, hot tubbing, and drinking a little bit more. We ripped up the kiddie pool at our White Sands Oceanfront Resort & Spa hotel, drove in style via limo, ate at the fancy Buddakan restaurant in Atlantic City, and crashed the MIXX club in the Borgata. And, even though I left with way more scars (both physical and emotional) than I had going in, I had a great time.

• Staycation
  I hadn’t taken any vacation up through June so I decided to take a week off in the middle of July and do … absolutely nothing! I just slept in, played video games, worked on a whole bunch of projects, and played music all day for a week. This was right around the time I made my last real post on this site. No coincidence that this was right around the time my life went into hyperdrive.

• Upper East Side Bed n’ Breakfast
  In the month of July we actually had 3 guests stay at our place! First, Janelle came up while I was in Atlantic City. This was probably for the best for all involved as it sounds like it was a very girly weekend. Then Jeff and Megan crashed here to attend a JMU Alumni booze cruise. That was a lot of fun (open bar!) and we also did a few typical touristy things that were actually enjoyable. Then we did the whole thing again the next week when Cassie’s parents and sister, Tori, crammed into our small place. Needless to say, Tito (not the friendliest cat to guests) was a hit (literally) with all of our visitors.

• Celebrating One Year of Terror
  And speaking of that bean, happy 1st birthday to Gatito (Jun 17)!

• Hot New Sound
  Based on talks with the Tone Jedi I met a while back and some research I bought a tube amp head – a Marsh 25/50. Unfortunately, even though I’ve had the amp for a month I have yet to actually play the damn thing!

• Pap
  I lost another family member a couple of weeks ago. My grandfather on my mom’s side passed away rather suddenly and, although it came as a bit of a shock when it happened, it unfortunately wasn’t altogether too big of a surprise. It was an emotional and hectic two days as I was on the road for 14 hours just to get to Harrisonburg, VA and back but I was glad to participate. It was my first time being a pallbearer and, to be honest, it actually was a bit therapeutic as it satisfied my natural thoughts of “wanting to do something.” Steve wrote an excellent write up of the event on his site, and I’m afraid I probably won’t be able to get to doing one here. We’ll see, though for now, I’ll move on.

After that I had my wild two weeks at work where I sunk in 65+ hours one and 50 the other. It wasn’t cool. Luckily, things started to take an upswing as Rusted Hero (my band!) ran into the recording studio over the weekend and will be playing our first gig tonight! But those will have to wait for other blogs (that I promise to get to)!

Current Mood: Accomplished

© 2010 Stan Syckes

Wow, I’ve been away for a while now, haven’t I? Unlike hiatuses in the past, this one hasn’t been the result of apathy, writer’s block or boredom. Instead, I’ve been jonesing to do some work on this site and NBA Sim (!!!) but have succumbed to terrible timing! Pretty much every area of my life has increased in intensity … all at the same time!

I’ll spare you the boring details (for this post, anyway), but here’s the quick lineup: working in Brooklyn, putting in around 60 hours a week at work, funeral in Virginia, 5 guests staying in my apartment, and band ramping up practices getting ready for recording/gig. Something’s gotta give and I’m afraid it’s my hobbies (though I did manage to squeeze in an hour on Ninja Gaiden Sigma last Sunday).

I’m pretty exhausted and will finally have a couple days to myself this weekend. I hope to use some of that time to get all of my batshit projects (like [stanus.butt]) back up to snuff. So, look for the triumphant return of all this nonsense by Monday! Either way, you know I’ll keep all you bored people posted here!

Current Mood: Bleary Eyed

Have I mentioned that I’m in a band?

Well I am … and I have more news regarding said organization! We’ve officially secured a weekend at Max Trax Studios in Albany, NY to record our demo. HOTNESS!

We’re heading up the weekend of August 13-15th (you know just days before our first gig). Adrien (bass) and Matt (singer) have that Friday off so they will drive up together in Adrien’s Bronxmobile with all of our equipment and set up for a couple of hours before working stiffs John (drums) and I (NBA Sim) follow by train/bus. The plan is to stay with Adrien’s brother who lives up there and record for a total of 16 hours over the next two days. I’m hoping to bring up a camera to capture some impromptu, romantic moments whilst recording and hanging out to share with everyone while you patiently wait for the music, itself.

Three nights recording, one day off and then our first gig … damn, this should be cool! I’m really excited to get the band up and running – ready or not, in those five days come mid-August, Rusted Hero will be born.

Current Mood: Primed!

Alright, so you’ve listened to the practice recordings over at RustedHero.com, become a friend of the Rusted Hero Facebook and MySpace pages, and are an avid follower of the Rusted Hero Twitter account. But what about seeing these guys live?

Well, your wish (and ours) has come true!

Our first gig has officially been confirmed. We will be playing Tuesday, August 17th at Otto’s Shrunken Head on E 14th St and Ave B at 11pm! HOTNESS! I originally heard of the place when my New Jersey roommates’ metal band played there a couple years ago (I showed up just in time to not see them, though) and my coworker’s jazz band performed there as well. I’ve also just hung out in the place a couple of times on my own – it’s a wacky, weird bar with a great vibe. Hell, they played “Temporary Secretary” the last time I was in there – that’s gotta count for something!

Anyway, everyone, there’s no cover so I’m sure that’ll offset the fact that it’s a little late on a weekday. Who the hell cares, though, with a chance to be a part of history!

Current Mood: Excited

This past 4th of July festivities brought the much anticipated (and much needed) 3-day weekend. It almost made watching the boring fireworks spectacle bearable. Ok, I’m kidding. I only had to watch 5 minutes of it on my roof and then moseyed back down to my apartment. Definitely the way to go.

Anyway, I was really looking forward to the three day weekend because I had a shit of work to do. You know, video games, NBA Sim, music, Netflix: important stuff. Unfortunately, I had a mini scare! I had just settled down Saturday afternoon to put in a little time with my new copy of Ninja Gaiden Sigma (infamous for being one of the hardest games programmed in the past decade) when my PS3 just shut off! Instead of watching my ninja character stealthily decapitate foes, I was suddenly staring at a “cable disconnected” error on my tv.

After some research online I discovered it was, indeed, the dreaded YLoD (yellow light of death) ! I’m guessing that it was an overheating problem as the last couple months the machine was running really loudly … good thing I didn’t think to do anything about that! Plus, it was on the ground and Tito’s fur was probably clogging up vents. I was beside myself – what would I now do with multiple days free and no video games to play?!

My options seemed terrible. Basically, I would have to pay $150 if I was going to attempt to get my broken console fixed by Sony and it would take about a month to get it back. There was no way I was going to wait that long! I could try getting it fixed at a third party location, but that would require a ton of research plus a wait and cost that were comparable to getting it fixed by Sony. Then, I figured, if I could find an awesome deal on a new PS3 … one at a hair more money than the $150 fix fee, than it seemed like a good buy.

So I started scrambling. Within hours of the dead machine I had e-commerce sites up, eBay and Amazon a-runnin’, and began to scour craigslist for a replacement. An hour later I had my man: a guy right on the Upper East Side was selling off his brand new PS3 and 2 games (Resident Evil 5 and Army of Two) for $300. I told him I’d pay for the PS3 but wasn’t interested the game and offered $275 to take everything off his hands. The fool fell for it!

We made the exchange at a Starbucks in-between us and now I’m the proud papa of a spankin’ new PS3 120GB slim! This baby runs cooler, is smaller in size and larger in capacity than my old beast. Plus, I’m going to sell one of the games that I have no intention of playing for 100% pure profit! And the other game, which is on my vast list of games to play, I essentially bought for $12.50! The guy obviously didn’t care about his PS3 as he left all the online games, music, and movies that he purchased with his online account still on the machine so I am also the proud owner of a lot of bad rap and action movies!

Huzzah!

Current Mood: Awesome

I was the first of my programmer group to receive a new laptop. These new computers will be replacing the laptops we all were given in 2007 as they’re beginning to break down. Hell, I needed to have an external fan on mine 24-7 so it wouldn’t shut off! As welcome as this replacement is, I was a little nervous going in as … the new laptop is a MacBook Pro. Oh, and I haven’t used an Apple machine since 1999!

Anyway, it’s been almost 2 weeks with the laptop and I’m pretty much used to it. Although I do have a virtual machine running Windows XP on the laptop, I mostly use mac software. However, to tell you the truth, even though this machine is super nice, fast, pretty, and displays gorgeous visuals … I still wish I had a PC! Sorry, Apple, even after giving you the ol’ college try I’m still a PC guy.

That said, I am a little excited about a few new Apple products in my future (and present)! First off, I upgraded my iPhanus to the new OS 4 and … ’tis hot! The big hype is all about multitasking but so far I’ve been digging the app folder and wallpaper functionality the most.

Finally, as a combination of the new laptop and iPhone, I’m starting to get psyched about dipping my toe into the app building pool. I have dreams of one day creating the ultimate iPhone necessity – the NBA-Sim app! If I make any progress in this field I’ll let you all know.

Ok, actually that wasn’t really “finally” as I’d like to mention: wow, what a fucking game! Go USA! I suddenly care about a game where people used to kick decapitated heads around!

Current Mood: Patriotic

© 2010 Adrien Goulet

What a difference a day can make … 7:30am Monday morning I was asleep with no band name and wondering if we would ever come to a consensus on one after our voting debacle from last week. By 7:30am Tuesday we had a name, a website, a Facebook page, a Twitter account, and a MySpace page. By this morning we now have 3 songs up recorded from Monday’s rehearsal.

Hot!

I’m a bit of a foot-dragger and perfectionist when it comes to music – I admit this – so I’m still coming to grips with all of this web presence and available music even though we only have 4 practices as a four piece (and that’s including the bassist’s audition and catching him up on all the songs). Still, I’m super stoked and equally happy to have a progressive presence in the band, now. I get the distinct impression my social media activity, and just web activity in general, is going to skyrocket exponentially pretty soon as a result of all this musicness.

Get ready …

Current Mood: Rocking Out

© 2010 Stan Syckes

Another season of Zog basketball has come and gone so I thought I’d update everyone on my progress. You know, because this subject interests everyone.

I’m going to set this post up exactly like the one I made about my previous season, so first up is a quick rundown of the players:

• Rory – With the absence of CJ, the MVP of last year’s team, there was going to be a huge scoring hole. Luckily, Rory filled that gap. He had played basketball in high school and brought a super-hustle style mixed with great outside shooting. He was unquestionably the best player we had on the team and totally saved us in a couple of games. A really nice, funny, down-to-earth guy as well.
• Kathy – Kathy returned from her stint as our closer last season. Her shot wasn’t as dead on this season and she seemed to have lost a step but she toughed out every game and sopped up the most minutes out of all of us. Luckily, in our last games she showed a level of athleticism I never saw in her before – grabbing several big rebounds and blocking out tougher, male opponents. Hopefully an excellent sign if she decides to return.
• Jonathan – Once again the heart of the team, Jonathan seemed to take a step back and be more of a vocal presence this season. He still had a tenacious attitude on defense, more than making up for what he lacked in athleticism and speed. And no matter what he said to the contrary he also brought a decent shot.
• Dominique – I thought we would need another woman on our team to give Kathy a rest every now and then so I asked Zog to give us someone from the waiting list. We got Dominique who was a tall, tough girl who had great inside moves and was a hell of a rebounder. She only showed up to about half the games due to work scheduling, but when she showed up we always won.
• Me – I actually took a step forward this season. I was disciplined on defense as usual, but I focused more on driving over shooting. Sure, more than half of my drives usually ended up with me being stopped by a defender, but it opened up my teammates and made our offense a little less predictable. I’m really looking forward to working on that part of my game in the future.
• Alyson – A super basketball player although she was the smallest on the team, Alyson spread herself a little too thin. Besides our games, she was also in two other basketball leagues and ended up hurting her foot, ending her season after just 1 game with us. It was a little depressing as I thought we would have done a lot better with her on the court with us.

In typical Zog fashion it was a quick turnaround for the playoffs. Our first round matchup was against the 4th seed, Half-Dozen Donuts, who we had just finished playing against 2 DAYS BEFORE! I felt pretty comfortable coming back into the squad from my week off and playing against a team we had gone 1-1 against, but we got our asses handed to us. We all played well, though it was just Rory, Kathy, Jonathan and I (the usual suspects). Ah well. This season was less of a headache than last with no CJ, and each game felt more “ours” as we had to earn everything instead of sitting around watching him make a play. It was a lot of fun (as Zog ball always is), but I decided to take the summer season off and dedicate that time to getting back into better shape and focusing on music.

But come fall, NBA will be back on and the basketball bug will be biting. Watch out!

Current Mood: Accomplished

A bunch of interesting events have been happening in my life recently (and by interesting I mean painfully dull), so I’m going to try to do a series of quick, small blogs to catch everyone up to date on everything.

First off – a band cliffhanger!

We tried upping our band rehearsals to twice a week but it was starting to prove kind of difficult for whatever reason. So, to counter our natural laziness, we’ve upped the length of each rehearsal. Monday we met for our first 3-hour long practice. It was awesome because the pace was leisurely enough so we didn’t feel rushed and it also gave us enough time to hit up our secondary goal for the night: naming the band!

We really have been going for too long without a name – it’s usually the first thing people ask you when you’re in a band – and it might even be holding us back, even if just from a psychological standpoint. Adrien, our new bassist, came up with the following naming process:

1. Each member would come up with 3 band names for a total of 12
2. Each member would have an instant veto, bringing the total down to 8
3. Each member could vote on as many names from these 8 as he wanted
4. If there was a consensus winner it would become the name
5. Otherwise we would take the top two and do a head to head vote off

We all showed up to practice with our 3 names and began the crazy, Survivor-type method. But, to make things more interesting, we’d do just one step in the process, play a song, do another step, play another song, etc. At the end, there was one name with 3 votes and 3 other names with 2 votes so we moved all 4 onto another round. We were only allowed 1 vote each and whittled down this to 2 names – however the band was split! Two of us liked one name, the other two liked the other. So the final round we decided to have a debate-off with each person getting 5 minutes to say why they thought the name was better.

Even though I’ve always kinda wanted the other guys to come up with a name for the band, the ones I suggested did pretty well for the night with two of my three reaching the final four, and one of mine being the ultimate winner. We selected “Wasted Days” and all loved it. We played out through our set and went home for the night, satisfied that a huge obstacle had finally been conquered in a team effort.

… That is until we woke up the next morning and hated “Wasted Days.” Oh, well, I was foolish to think it would be this easy. When we finally do come up with a name I’ll let you all know here first.

Current Mood: Wowed Eh