Category Archives: site stuff

site stuff

A hopeful outlook for gamine lovers?

Carnival of Beauty, aka Harem of Gamines, has not been updated since December of last year, mostly in protest of tumblr’s puritanical banning of “NSFW” content. And because said ban scared away most of the blogs I was following.

But news stories today suggest that Porn Hub might buy the foundering web site and restore it to its former glory. Here’s hoping! And maybe the people who were scared away by the ban (like myself) will return and everything will be beautiful and sexy again.

NGL, I’m not a huge fan of hardcore porn. But so as long as I don’t have to put up with hardcore porn adverts in my face 24/7, this is a very positive development. Bring back the beauty and nudity!

site stuff

Computer update

I’ve made a decision on what to do. I ordered a new 2 TB hard drive and it should be here by Monday. It’s going to be a bit of a pain to install, but I’ve done it before and I can do it again. Given my current financial situation I cannot afford to buy a brand new iMac. So spending about $75 on a hard drive and doing the work myself was the most economical and sensible solution.

I hate to admit it, but I almost thought of building my own PC.  I was kind of envious of the “battle station” threads I see on /g/ and used some of their sources like Logical Increments, but the machine I had picked out was just as expensive as an iMac. And I quickly realized that I didn’t want to run Windows for a DAW, and neither Windows nor Xubuntu is any kind of substitute for OS X.

I’m still muddling around on my iMac, but I can’t do any lasting work on it. I do not trust the dying hard drive, so I still can’t make any music. Also, this iMac is pretty old (over 7 years) and El Capitan will be the last OS I can run. But I am on Mavericks right now, so I’ll take the time to download and install EC on the new drive later.

So, this isn’t the end of Ratan X. Just a new(isn) beginning.  When I installed a new drive back in Dec 2013, I told people I’d be happy if I got another year out of my drive. And I ended up getting nearly 3. Again, I’ll be happy if I get a year out of this new drive (and for nothing else to fail). Hopefully by then I’ll be on better financial footing and be able to get a totally new machine. Whether that is an iMac or not is anybody’s guess. Depends how I like El Capitan and the reviews Sierra (and beyond) get.

music, site stuff

And then I hit a wall.

OK guys, bad news. My computer is on its last leg. For the longest time it was humming along just fine, but in the past few days it’s gotten pretty bad. I’m having hard drive problem (bad sectors).

The good news is I was able to make a good backup of everything. The bad news is that I’m not really sure if I want to replace the drive in my 7 year old iMac or buy new. I’ve been amazed that my  machine has lated this long so far. But the downside of that is I might spend money on something futile. My computer could develop another problem and go kaput after I spent all the work on replacing the drive. It’s a real pain in the ass to replace a hard drive in an iMac. Or any Apple product. This is the one downside to owning an Apple product.

Buying a brand new computer isn’t really an option. I’m not that rich and while spending $2000 on a computer in 2009 was a bit of a gamble, it’s an even bigger gamble today than it was then, financially speaking. Also, the new iMacs are literally impossible to upgrade or replace hardware in. I had a hard drive crash back in November of 2013 and was able to put in a new drive and hum along for nearly 3 more years. But I’m not sure that would happen again. And I don’t want to spend nearly $2000 on a machine that might die after 3 years.

Thinking of an iPad, since it has Garage Band on it. But I think it would be a pain to use compared to a desktop. I want an iPad anyway.

While I far prefer OS X to anything else out there, the only thing that is really tying me to a Mac is GarageBand. And I’m almost thinking of ditching it for something new because it’s made me lazy. But there aren’t any good DAWs for Linux that I’m aware of. And switching to Linux full time isn’t really something I can seriously consider. Despite the fact that i mostly use my computer for music creation and watching anime (and browsing 4chana and 8chan).

All of this means that I have back ups of my sites and GarageBand files (and the exported .aiff files from those projects) both in the cloud and on a local hard drive. But how long it takes me to release them is anybody’s guess. Depends on what I decide to do with my computer.

New releases by Sarkeesian, Abandoned Shorelines and XR1300 when? Was supposed to be October 13th 2016. But now, not so sure.

inspiration, music, site stuff

Getting back in the swing of things

It’s been too long since I posted something. Though I have released a new album and have another one on the way.

I’m still planning on doing a guitar ambient project soon. Something totally separate from Rural Citizens Band. This video I found tonight has kind of reignited the desire to do something like that:

I’m really impressed with that Jazzmaster copy. I’ve wanted a Jazzmaster since the early 90s when I noticed the guys in Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, Curve, Dinosaur Jr, Television, Placebo and Swervedriver used them. I’m not usually one to buy a guitar because Gitah Player X used them. And in some ways I avoided using one because they’re so ubiquitous in the indie rock scene (especially among the louder bands), but damn it, I really want one. And those copies can be had for around $250 (whereas a Mexican JM will run you about $800). I just wish that company also made Jaguar (in both single coil and HH configs) because I could buy all 3 for less than the cost of one Fender Mexican JM.

Anyway, I plan on blogging more here. I can’t excuse my laziness. Not that anybody is reading this anyway.

site stuff

A new blog, fresh and exciting

It’s been nearly two years since I updated the Lazarus blog. This is what I’m putting in its stead.

I’ll still keep up the Harem of Gamines tumblr, but I enjoy having a blog that isn’t dependent on another service. And tumblr is pretty bad at the moment. I don’t really like an associating them too closely. There are many lovely people there, but the fascistic groupthink is really scary.

This blog will focus a lot on music, the creation of music, images (scenic, beauty, musical, whatever) and anything that pops into my mind. Perhaps it will be updated often, but given my history of such things, I doubt it.

Welcome aboard. I hope you can enjoy.

Also, the title of this blog is taken from an ambient/post-rock blog I followed circa 2009. It’s tacky to steal a title wholesale, but the blog was deleted for numerous DMCA violations about five years ago. Sad to say it’s not coming back, no matter how much I wish it would. Five years is an eternity in internet time, so I’m using it now.