MMORPG - 2 L8 4 LUV

Welcome the second installment of MMORPG to the stage! Joel's fall mix cd hit our mailboxes a few weeks ago, and we're finally reviewing it. It's another episode pushing an hour and a half. Don't be surprised if you hear us talk about idols and chick songs, as well as some our collective favorites. Find out what Pierce will keep this mix for, the dumb things Reid did when he had a  girlfriend, and Neal elaborates on his passion for Radiohead.

Just in case we didn't mention the titles of all the tracks we reviewed, here they are:

1. Cyborgs vs. Robots - Ludo

2. Sorrow - Bad Religion

3. Stockholm Syndrome - Muse

4. I Will Wait - Mumford & Sons

5. Monster - Paramore

6. Forbidden Nector - Jack Black

7. The Believers - How To Destroy Angels

8. Home - Phillip Phillips

9. True Affection - The Blow

10. Atoms For Peace - Thom york

11. Stewball - Peter, Paul & Mary

12. Dog Days Are Over - Florence + The Machine

13. State Of The Art - Gotye

14. Sunset In July - 311

15. Settle Down - Kimbra

16. Rusty Cage - Johnny Cash

17. Someone Like You - Adele

Fall Mix CD 2012

So I was really going to sit down and burn the CDs on Saturday, but then my computer crashed. So I am going to try and back up all the info that I can before I reinstall the OS this weekend. I just need to appropriate an external hard drive... If all goes well, I should have the CD's in the mail at the beginning of next week.

Halloween Memories

So before I took the kids out trickor treating in our neighborhood (which was lame, I mean only 1 out of every 7 houses was dishing out the goods) i had them watch this video. I think that I was the only one laughing. Enjoy reliving our childhood.

MMORPG Episode 001 - Birth of Another Show About Music

The first official episode of our new podcast is up! MMORPG stands for May Music Online Review Podcast Gibs. We are communicating across the U.S. using Google's Hangouts On Air. In this episode we discuss our reasons for starting this show, as well as reviewing Pierce's summer mix CD. Thankfully, we endured the A.V. and bandwidth technical difficulties we were expecting to have.
LISTEN HERE, or watch the show below.

MMORPG - Pilot Episode

This is the pilot episode for our new show, MMORPG (May Music Online Review Podcast Gibs). We are four brothers, sharing the last name May, who participate in a quarterly mix CD exchange and review, and a blog. We trash talk and laugh a lot. In this episode, we discuss how to go about making the show, coming up with a title, deal with technology, and show off Lego structures. We are trying out Google Hangouts to produce the video.

Ludicrous Gibs!

What's going on, brothas?? Haven't reported in a while, but in anticipation for my mix CD you all will be getting in the mail in the next couple days or so, I figured I'd take us all on a quick stroll down Memory Lane. Do you guys remember that game "Rise Of The Triad"? I remember it being one of the first games we had when we first got the PC back in '96, was it? Talk about a blast from the past! Anyways, I played it a while back on an online DOS emulator or something of the sort, and I must admit it was quite fun. So hopefully you guys will get as much a kick out of this as I did playing it for the first time in 16 years. Enjoy!

Girl With The Immigrant Song Butcher

I've been listening to the Trent Reznor/Atticus Ross soundtrack for the American Girl With The Dragon Tattoo movie.  I like it, except for track one, Immigrant Song, featuring Karen O.

I was excited about the idea, mainly because it is a killer song, Reznor is the king, and I enjoy some of Karen O's work with the Yeah Yeah Yeah's.  Somehow, they managed to make it very boring and generic-pop-electro.  I guess this track was intended for the big ending credit roll, and maybe as a single to sell to the kids.  Luckily the rest of the soundtrack has all the great stuff you could expect from the mature Reznor, like synthesized drones and echoes with pretty and simple piano melodies, all with the classic underlying tension and creepiness.

As long as the good outweighs the bad, I'm happy.

Check this out!  A full album 8-bit music conversion of Kid A.

Can download tracks from here.

The Legend of Zelda

Ok, I am 30 years old and getting closer to 31 every day, but I just beat the latest Legend of Zelda game on the Wii, The Skyward Sword. I think I like it even better than The Orcarina of Time on the 64. One thing about it is that you don't even get a glips of Gannon until the last battle of the game. I almost thought I had it in the bag without facing him. My kids even like it. When I get home from work they say, "Hi daddy! do you want to play Legend of Zelda?" Then I look at Sam and see if I will get a beating for accomodating my children. I do get flak for getting them addicted to video games and I always come back with the old "look at my impecable hand-eye coordination and astonishing problem solving and finding skills."

In The Beginning... There Was Def Leppard!

Neal, for your birthday, I'd like to suggest we all take a moment to reflect upon one of the songs that resides in the foundation of all of our rock and roll music explorations.  This video is almost as awesome as the song.

Brian Posehn, Although Not That Famous, Is Funny

You guys made me post this.
(May not be suitable in workplace environments, or with small children around.  Large children, however, will be fine.)

May Brothers Mix CD #2 - From the Middle of Everywhere

The highly anticipated second mix CD has been distributed to the brothers May, and is now ready for judging and trashing, or praising, if you wish.  I've decided to make Neal's dream of a blog post for every song a reality, except I will just have a separate comments started within this posting that will contain the track title and Neal's comments, and we can sub-post on each comment.  I'm hoping this procedure will keep it less cluttery.

I'm basing my initial comments on the first impression of each song and Neal's comments about it.

Robo Rock

Neal, you have to get your robots working and start a band.

8 Already!

Reid,
My how you have grown! We are all so proud of you. You are such a big boy now. Happy Birthday!
Love,
Your Older Brothers

What's Going On?

Does anybody know what happened to my survey results post? There is some ghost in the machine thing going on here. I have made posts before that show up, but later, disappear.

3D Sound from Princeton

I went to a fancy lecture last night by this guy, Edgar Choueiri, who is working on a 3d audio technology he called BACCH, which is essentially a filter with some crazy math applied to stereo recordings that is supposed to give the listener a realistic experience.  I'm not quite sold on it.  I only heard it used with weird sound effects, like flies buzzing around the head.  I'd like to try it on recordings with sounds I am familiar with, like music.

Here's a video that explains it, and has a few examples that are designed to employ your laptop speakers to experience the effect.


Here is what Princeton says about it, from http://www.princeton.edu/engineering/video/player/?id=3990:

Edgar Choueiri, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, has developed a way to play true three-dimensional sound recordings over regular loudspeakers, such as those found in televisions and computer laptops.

The technique may one day be used to allow 3D televisions to produce lifelike sound and to help people with certain types of hearing impairments locate noises. Segments of the video above incorporate Choueri's 3D filter to demonstrate the phenomenon.

The filter is designed to work with loudspeakers - not headphones - and can be experienced through standard computer speakers. (Make sure the right and left speakers are on the correct sides.)

Note: If you are using a recent Apple MacBook to view this video you may not be able to hear the demos in 3D due to a known problem in the MacBook design, related to the location of the internal "subwoofer," which creates a strong left-right imbalance in the audio. This could not be compensated for while creating the 3D audio for this video.

Video by Michael E. Wood

Statistics of Opinion-MBM#1 Survey Results

With all respondents to the survey checked in I thought I would share the stats. I hope you weren't expecting anonymity...using my heightened sense of deduction I figured out who voted for what and matched these masked thugs, exposing them to the justice entitled them.

1. Rate the songs
I'll list the top three and bottom three. Of course, these were all over the map but thanks to the survey tools it gives them a numerical point ranking.

Highest Rating
1. Book T: Exodus by the Secret Chiefs 3 - 4.25 stars
2. Raccoon Eyes by Priestess - 3.75 stars
3. Back In Judy's Jungle by Brian Eno - 3.75 stars

Lowest Rating
20. Mysterium by Liturgy - 1.75 stars
19. Grohnal Pod Edin Dub by Svarrogh - 2 stars
18. Gelly Roll Gum Drop by Sic Alps - 2 stars

3&4. Favorite and Most Disliked
I'll just put each person's pick and their explanation.
Favorite
Neal - Vintage Clothes by Paul McCartney

Just can't stop singing it in my head. Good, catchy lyrics. Cool guitar tricks.

Reid - In Service of Time by Abysmal Dawn

Lyrics about the unstoppable power of time are epic. Musically tight, heavy, and over-all, COLOSSAL!

Joel - Book T: Exodus by Secret Chiefs 3

It was weird, but it didn't sound like it crawled out of a hole. Good thinking music.

Pierce - Agony Of The Damned by Toxic Holocaust

Because it's awesome!

Most Disliked
Neal - Mysterium by Liturgy

It went from the build up start to the end that never finished. There is no middle. Is the growling lyrics?

Reid - Winter Winds by Amber Asylum

Of course, I like all the songs I chose for this mix, it's just this one is my least favorite. I threw it in there mainly for something different.

Joel - Grohnal Pod Edin Dub by Svarrogh

It sounds like goblin rock. Seriously, if Lord of the Rings had a rock soundtrack, this would be when the goblins attack in Moria. Only slightly more annoying than Coltrane's elevator music. Gun in mouth!

Pierce - Mysterium by Liturgy

C'mon, you call that music?!?

5. Race
Only one white person, the rest like walkabouts.

6. Age
Pretty sure everybody got that right.

7. Future Git'n
Three people were going to get new jeans and a drink of water soon.
Two were going to get a haircut and get the new Mars Volta CD
Only one person was going to get an old beat-up car, a life, and/or arrested.

8. Thanked?
Only one person didn't feel thanked. Ungrateful bastard! After all I went through to make this a pleasurable experience and this all I get in return! Here is a suggestion that I hear a lot nowadays...GO DIE IN A FIRE!!!

Let's get our survey on!

So I made a survey for Reid's Winter disc aka "The Beginning." So lets tell him how crappy (bruhm...bruhm) I mean good the music he likes is.
Click or poke hard here to take survey

For nostalgia's sake

So here's that Java Flash NES website that's been providing me with an extra form of entertainment outside of music and movies... So many memories, especially Tecmo Super Bowl! I also forgot how awesome and challenging Zelda 2 was. Anyways, enough of my two cents; find a classic game, and have fun!

http://www.nintendo8.com/

Hope You Don't Need to Wiki Tomorrow

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/English_Wikipedia_anti-SOPA_blackout

Wikipedia is going to "black out the English-language Wikipedia for 24 hours, worldwide, beginning at 05:00 UTC on Wednesday, January 18 (you can read the statement from the Wikimedia Foundation here). The blackout is a protest against proposed legislation in the United States – the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the U.S. House of Representatives, and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) in the U.S. Senate – that, if passed, would seriously damage the free and open Internet, including Wikipedia."

I guess I wont be looking up random facts about random things that randomly interest me for small amounts of time.  Such as: what is the Wikimedia Foundation?  And, where, geographically, does the UTC time zone represent?

I'll just have to wait until the day after tomorrow.

Except I might not care by then.

Arthur: Quest for Excalibur

So I don't know if you guys recall that game we played at Erin's in Palo Alto, but I found it a few weeks ago and played it. Pretty cheesy but challenging.

Trent Reznor NPR Interview

NIN and Trent Reznor, I'm sure, has had an influence on all of us in some way.  Here is an interview he did recently that I enjoyed hearing.