RouseWorld | Main -- February 2007 Archives

Back to work!

I know -- promises, promises -- but I'm trying to be better this year.

There are a few things I have planned, like talk about my little M-Audio audio interface and my new Fender Jaguar and maybe even post some ring-tone length tracks of me trying to play guitar.

I've also added a little sticky to the right of the front page, so you can get to the other websites in the RouseWorld family (OMG MySpace!).

So bear with me, but I really do plan on updating this thing in 2007.

The Tree of Liberty

I'm sure you've all heard the Thomas Jefferson quote, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots." The quote, a fragment from a letter Jefferson wrote to New York senator William S. Smith, seems to speak directly to the sacrifices of American military men and women during World War II.

But, of course, Jefferson wasn't around for World War II. So what was Jefferson writing about? The Revolutionary War, perhaps, with Valley Forge and George Washington?

I'm not a musician, I'm a Ring Tone guy

I'm not totally happy with it, but check the Art Gallery for yet another guitar-centric ring tone. The riff is, I think, something I've come up with all by myself — but I'm sure I've unintentionally stolen it from somewhere.

I may never become a musician, but I have to recommend messing around with an instrument and/or music software. At the very least it will give you some idea of how difficult it must be to get a good song recorded, even for lo-fi and punk bands. There are a lot of variables to control or play with and you could spend the rest of forever trying to get something "just right."

As for me, well I'll just bang out 14 seconds worth a half-dozen times, pick the best take, call it a ring tone and post it. :-)

Dear diary...

I sometimes wonder if there are consequences to creating fictional characters. Do realms of thought intrude into the physical world, creating mirage-like entities that we can interact with? If belief and other expressions of the mind are creative acts, then what does the mind create and where does it create it?

And if the observer creates, and if nothing is new under the sun, who or what are we all plagiarizing?

Perhaps the laws of physics, as they actually exist and beyond what we can comprehend, are really just some gross hack — lashed together for a rigged demo — that we are stuck with now, just like we are stuck with SMTP.

That is a lot to think about, but we should remember:

He is Babycakes

We are Babycakes

He is the World