For those of you that haven't realized by now, this site has moved to:

http://www.540mbps.com/

Yay - my own domain!

Um, -they're- visiting my blog???

I was viewing my stats page today and noticed a rather disturbing little fact. 57% of my page hits come from Apples. More than half of my users have macs!!! What the crap? Mac users represent only 6% of the computing community (Macworld) - it's thus quite an anomaly that I'm getting 10 times my share of them. I find this particularly odd considering my many posts bashing Apple (damn you iTMS...). For the last time: Apples are no longer any better at media editing than PCs. It's a myth. *sigh*

In other news, T-Tones and Sirens concert is on Sunday at 7PM in the CHS Black Box. Come on by! I think it's some sort of benefit for Women's History Month... don't really know, to be perfectly honest. I'm just a singer, after all. And speaking of singing, I'm gonna be the music director for this years' Dessert Theatre at CHS. Times are a changin', so I'm not sure exactly how much authority I'm gonna have with that title, but regardless, you should all come out and audition.

When: Wednesday, after school
Where: CHS Black Box
Sign-up for audition slots begins Monday
Bring a prepared song to sing a cappella or with accompaniment
(bring your own CD or pianist)
Have fun!
(I got in last year singing a song from
the Pokemon Movie soundtrack - be creative!)

Foolish wooden structures

So I get to school today, and I find that we have wonderful new picnic tables in the courtyards where we eat lunch. Technically, we already have tables (gray plastic ones), but more seating is always welcome. But there are some distinct problems with having wooden lunch tables at a school with students who are... shall we say, less than angelic.

Problem 1: Vandalism. Wooden tables are just calling out to be written on, unlike plastic ones where most writing implements won't stick. Sure enough, I relay this observation to my friends when I first see the tables, and a few of them begin to write "Yo momma" and "Hello!" on the table.

Problem 2: Food. Ketchup spills on plastic tables are bad enough, but at least the rain washes it away in a week or two. With wooden tables, the ketchup soaks in, staining the wood and making you never want to touch it again.

Problem 3: Screws. They're everywhere on those tables! It'll be fairly easy to hurt yourself on them, let alone the splinters they'll cause.

Problem 4, and this is the big one: Fire. Let's be honest here - half the student population carry lighters to school for one reason or another. I've seen the melted sections of our current plastic tables. Now combine that with parched wood on a dry June day? This cannot turn out well...

Martian Chronicles is killing me. But I'm loving it nonetheless.

My school is ridiculous. If you're late to class, the teachers are supposed to lock their doors and send you to the cafeteria, where you will disciplined [and likely not go back to your class that day]. First of all, is this really an appropriate punishment for being late to a class (for which there are many legitimate causes/excuses for)? Also, should that punishment be for the kid to miss the entire class of which they were trying to get out of? Smart. I didn't get to school until 5th period one day (my parents knew why I missed my first two classes - they were okay with it), and I tried to get into the building. Every single door, except for those at the main office, was locked. So, carrying three sets of clothing for my costume, boots, a full backpack and a case with a laptop and full voice recording equipment, I had to walk to the complete other side of the school to get in, then back across to where I was originally trying to get in to drop my things off. I'm sorry, but locking kids out of school just seems like a horribly stupid idea.

The Martian Chronicles is only four days away now, but I think we'll be ready in time. The sound design is more or less done - I just have to create the audio intro that will be played as people sit down in the audience. But I've got say - the cast is really pissing me off. Most of them are fine, but there are a lot of freshmen in it this year... Ordinarily, I'm the first one to jump to the freshmen's defense when people are bashing them, but with this particular group - man, they suck. I hate to sound like a stereotypical stuck-up theatre kid, but they have no sense of seniority. This is the first play they've been in, and some of them are trying to tell Juniors and Seniors how to say their lines.

Whew, it's only March and I'm already obsessing over my schedule for next year. I've been trying to get an internship at NBC29 for when I'm a Senior, but the internship-contact at CHS is harder to get in contact with than an administration member: she's never in her office, you can't make an appointment with her... I just have to keep dropping by randomly, hoping that she'll be there one day. Besides NBC29, I'd love to do an internship at the Music Resource Center for audio engineering. It'd be a great opportunity to get some experience producing music (on that note, Jay's been talking about doing some sort of internship for the Performing Arts Center next year, which would also be ridiculously awesome).

The dork in me resurfaced yesterday, as I found the old Pokemon forum I used to frequent back in the day. Ah, Pokemon Elite 2000... Thinking about the good old days of the turn of the millennium makes me miss Banjo-Fella's Breegull Aviary (a Banjo-Kazooie fan site) - they had a forum too, for which I eventually made moderator. Ten-year-old deleting posts by 17-year-old, telling them they're being immature... those were definitely the days.

Weekend of Audio

So, I just had my first paying gig last night. I ran audio for the Bhangra Competition at the Charlottesville Performing Arts Center (it's a type of traditional Indian group dancing - pretty neat, actually), and I must say I didn't do a bad job. Heh, it ran about two hours longer than it was supposed to, but it was fun (and plus I get paid). Wearing a headset and counting down, "And, prepare lights for fade in 10 seconds. Lights in 3-2-1, aaaand fade out" - pretty much the coolest experience I've had in months. Maybe I can do it again sometime! Jay was actually talking about doing some sort of internship thing in the PAC next year... definitely would be interested.

Speaking of audio, I'm cranking down on the sound design for The Martian Chronicles tonight. I've picked up my mom's old laptop and I'll be installing Adobe Audition on it later today, and I'm about to go get some cables for the catwalk mixer. I was going to do this all last night, but how could I say no to my first paying engineering job?

I'm worried about WNRN. Ever since the Corner opened up, I've heard less and less people talking about it, and now there are all sorts of personnel problems at 91.9... The Spring Funddrive is soon - I guess we'll see what damage we've taken then....