Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Multiple front action

As you may have noticed, I have officialized the turning of the final page in my EVE book with a slight blog redesign. With a speaker cover background and now Terry Bozzio's awesome monster kit, I think it's fair to say that my blog is taking a musical turn. I may still touch on EVE subjects once in a blue moon but it will be strictly with an outsider's point of view; just like one of my friends, I prefer hearing and talking about EVE than actually playing it. I've already been posting music videos every week for the past 2 years so this will go on, but here and there I may throw in some additional performances, and as before I'll concentrate on live music, unless it's a really well made video or the tune has a special significance.

I may be gone from EVE and may also be very busy with drumline immersion, but in no way does that stop me from being the same gamer nerd I always was. I've taken a short break from the fantasy world of Skyrim to take a stroll in the post-apocalyptic world of Fallout 3. It's not that I got tired of Skyrim, but Fallout is just as good (I call it Skyrim's older brother) and being a 4-year old game it plays a lot better on my 4-year old machine! My progress in-game has slowed down since the drumline thing started but it's great to have games I can jump in and out of. My boys have also strongly re-ignited my taste for Quake Live, especially that now I can act as a coach. The day the boys each have a machine to play on will be interesting to say the least! And in the light of the up-coming Mechwarrior Online me and a bunch of Virtual World veterans are planning some mech action in Mech4Mercs. This should also be interesting!

So how goes the drumline stuff? So far I've received the sheet music for the three tunes from last year's set, "Dark Chest of Wonders" being the first tune we will tackle at the first drumline rehearsal. The cymbal part is fairly simple but as I don't know Nightwish music that well (it's alright but I'm not the biggest fan) I have my work cut out for me. And from one look at the snare part, my director was right: I'm not quite ready for this even if it's relatively simpler than normal snare parts. I'm not backing down from the challenge though, but because I want to concentrate on my cymbal part I'm mostly working on the 40 regular rudiments. To help me "get" the drum corps snare parts better I also acquired something called "128 Hybrid Rudiments"; this is the stuff that DCI gods like Jeff Queen, Corey Brohard and Dr John Wooton come up with. Yeah, each and every one is challenging, and each and every one has a funky name like "Shirley Murphy", "cheese paradiddle" and "diddle-egg-five". Yeah, fun! If you want to know what I'm talking about you can find the pdf document here.

And the closing subject, mountain bikes! Spring has decided to arrive a few days early in Montreal so there's a good chance that I'll pump up my tires tonight and go for my first ride in 2012. Oh it won't be anywhere far yet. I also need to take my bike to the bike shop have it tuned up from A to Z; there's a lot that I could do myself but a bike shop has tools I don't have, room to work on the bike, and technical experience. The shop near my place is used to dealing with 10k+$ race demons so I know my bike will be well taken care of. Of course my big travel plans may be shifted a bit because they may conflict with the drumline's crunch time, but I still intend to go. We'll see if there are modifications to make to my itinerary, but who knows, if the drumline practice goes well during the summer I don't see a problem of me skipping a weekend and coming back after the huge ride. I intended on bringing a pair of drum sticks anyway :)

So there you go. So long EVE and hello Real Life !!!

o7

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