At first, it’s like, you’re about to launch in the space shuttle. There’s a countdown, and it’s like ’5…4…3…2…and we have lift off!’ *FWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH!*, it’s all dramatic and intense and shit, and you’re caught up in the ‘HOLY SHIT I’M IN A SPACE SHUTTLE’ vibe, and there’s news cameras there going ‘HOLY SHIT THEY’RE GOING TO THE MOON!’ and you orbit the Earth two thousand times at eighty billion kilometers an hour before you slingshot yourself to the moon, and you’re like ‘WE’RE GOING TO THE MOON!’, and shit is fucking awesome, and you’re like ‘HOLY SHIT CAN THINGS GET MORE AWESOME?!’, and you think they can.

After a while, it’s like a commercial jet. Your first ride on a commercial airliner is like ‘Oh neat I’m flying LOOK OUT THE WINDOW WE’RE SO HIGH UP!’, then you realize ‘Oh wait, it’s just a bus with wings’, and it loses it’s allure.

Then it’s like a cheap as dirt flight on a microjet from the seventies with eight other people and seats from a bus. The pilot comes on over the PA, but he doesn’t need to on account of the fact that he’s so close you can clearly hear him without the need of a PA. And he’s like ‘Uhhhhhhhhhh….we’ll be uhhhhhhh….going on a uhhhhhhhh flight’, he sighs, and carries on, ‘it should take uhhhhhhhhhhhhh about uhhhhhhhh three hours, enjoy your flight’. And you’re like ‘God damn it, three hours of this shit! Sigh’, then you start thinking about what you’d rather be doing with that three hours, and end up playing your DS, or if you don’t have a DS, some games on your phone. But if you’re like me, you don’t have a DS, and your phone sucks shit, so you open your phones stopwatch, and try to stop it as close to the exact second as you can. You get pretty good at it. And all this time, you’re like ‘God damn it, I’ve been to the moon, when did it come down to playing stopwatch on a microjet from Columbus to Lansing? Fuck my life’.

I also read Open, Andre Agassi’s autobiography a couple months ago. I have a very small interest in tennis, I don’t get it, but I appreciate it. I’m aware that it’s an intense sport, the athletes put a lot into their game and their bodies, and I understand the draw, but I don’t get it. I like Virtua Tennis, but it’s not something I’d watch. Play, maybe, but watch, no thanks. I became aware of his autobiography when I was directed to an article about it. The first line mentioned that Andre Agassi hated tennis. Upon reading that, I thought ‘Shit, this guy has a story to tell’, so I gave it a read. Prior to that, if you had handed me this book and told me to read it, I probably would have handed it right back. I read it in three sittings, which is saying something, because school keeps me really frakking busy. It turned out the guy did indeed have a story to tell.

So if you want something to watch, check out True Blood. If you want something to read, check out Open, by Andre Agassi. If you want something to listen to, well, Sahara Hotnights is pretty awesome?

Anyway! Mr. Zachary Quarles, recently made a tweet about how silly his pre-slates sound. Which inspired me to make a blag!

So, since I gave you a run down on what a pre and post-slate is, I present you with what is EASILY, the best pre-slate I’ve ever recorded, have a listen!

Corn.

Or, a lack thereof. You see, about forty years ago, America decided food needed to be cheaper, and more plentiful, so what they did was industrialize and subsidize corn. Why? Because you can put corn in anything, and they put it in everything. Americans are made of corn, because corn is in everything. Everything contains corn. Beef, poultry and pork contain corn, because those animals were raised on corn. Every soft drink is loaded with high fructose corn syrup, things are fried in oil that contains corn. It’s everywhere, and there’s lot of it to go around, so there’s lots of food to go around, and people are consuming all of it.

So, I think a less homogenized diet is why Canadian women are so beautiful. They get what they need in their diet, I’m sure America’s corn lust has trickled up into Canada, but there’s no way it’s as bad as it is in America. And there’s really nothing Americans can do about it. Wages suck in America, and if you want to eat, you have to buy what’s cheap, and if you’re buying what’s cheap, you’re going to be eating a lot of corn products and byproducts, and you’re not going to be getting all the proteins you need, you’re not going to be getting the vitamin A, or the iron you need. It sucks, America frakked up big time when they decided to industrialize and subsidize corn. I don’t think they understood what was happening when they did, and I think it’s too late to undo it. The only thing that can change this is the people. The people of America need to say ‘Fuck you and your shitty foods, I’m going to stop buying this processed shit, and start eating things that haven’t been processed to hell and back’, but I don’t think that’s ever going to happen. A lot of people need to eat, and they can only afford to eat what, well, what they can afford, and a lot of what a lot of people can afford is shit that’s been processed to hell and back, so it’s reciprocal, and I don’t think there’s any chance for change in sight, and the other people aren’t informed, and no one’s going to inform the. The government is going to tell them they’re eating poorly, they’re the ones who industrialized corn, they don’t want people to stop eating it. Their friends aren’t going to tell them, either, because no one’s telling them. It’s a reciprocal problem that not enough people are trying to fix.

Basically, America’s screwed. The nations health is a problem, and people either can’t do, or aren’t doing anything about it.

I have no idea where this tangent came from, and I don’t know where the hyperbole starts or ends, but there it is.

My first thought when I heard it was ‘Holy shit, I need to record this at the highest sample rate possible, then slow it down for use in sound design’. The audio in the video was recorded with a Zoom H2 that was placed inside the instrument itself. After I got the video of him playing, I got some recordings of him just playing each string unfretted, I haven’t played with those yet, but they sound so awesome, I’m sure I’ll find some use for them.

Anyway, on my way to school, I walk past this factory that has a ventilation fan that sounds particularly mean, and dirty. I got a recording of it, and I’m totally going to process it to use as my mean sounding prop, here’s the recording;

I know there’s some squeaking and hammering in the background, but I think that works in its favour. The squeaking makes it sound like something is about to break, and hammering makes it sound like something has already broken, they’re trying to fix it mid-flight, and they’re doing a half assed job of it by using a hammer.

The point of all this was to get some recordings so I could make some sounds for Zinger!, the wonderfully whimsical putt-putt game I’m working on with Brandon, Chad, and a few other people. The finished product came out something like this.