welcome to donkey kong country

i've been abusing my SNES emulator for the last few days during grading breaks (well, when i'm not abusing my blog, obviously), and i started out by playing through the first SNES donkey kong country.

bad idea.

i still remembered most of the secret levels, bonus barrels, etc. from playing the game as a kid, and thus it sucked up a significant portion of last week's when-i-should-have-been-working time. despite having somewhat of a different look (the game and its sequels carry the mid-90s Rare graphics made distinctive by the original DKC and Killer Instinct), and lacking mario, i daresay these games, at times, out-platform the mario series. add to that the fact that for people who are compulsive about discovering game secrets (me), the first game is filled with them and the second and third games are so full of extra shit that going back and finding all of it will definitely take longer than playing through the game straight the first time.

at it's heart, each game features two characters, one of which you control and the other, who follows you. each character has their own distinct advantages and disadvantages, and you can switch at any time between the two. conveniently, if you're hit by an enemy, you just lose one of the two, so having both of your characters in the game gives you a little security to guard against slip-ups.



these games are really great in a lot of ways, but they are wonderful at pacing in a way that, once again, even mario games generally don't pull off as well. there are lots of ways to get around and ways to interact with the environment. rather than just running and jumping and stomping, each character has their own set of moves and attacks, and then the characters can combine to perform their own sort of combination moves. almost any move in the game can either be used for attack (but only on certain enemies; other attacks are necessary against other enemies) or also for reaching a ledge, hitting a lever, finding a bonus coin, etc., and to finish the game, you have to learn to use just about every move for just about every possible contingency.



and that's what's great about it, and what makes the platforming so interesting, and still not stale after three games' worth. it's always built, in just about every level on some kind of gimmick. jumping mine cars, clearing fences for rollercoaster cars, jumping pits using vertical-scrolling barrels, jumping pits using horizontal-scrolling barrels, jumping pits using 18 different kinds of barrels while a giant crocodile chases you, forcing you to navigate said barrels at lightspeed...



but the game always starts simple. it says: hey, you can jump, and you can roll. now you have to jump and roll. it says: hey, you can jump from barrel to barrel. now you can jump from barrel to barrel while dodging stationary enemies. now you can jump from barrel to moving barrel while dodging moving enemies. and so and so forth until you end a level doing something you literally had no idea was possible in the game (or by using your fingers) five minutes before. but it's all introduced and paced in such a way that there's never a point where suddenly you think to yourself "my god, what am i supposed to do? i'm not ready for this", while at the same time never becoming a game of "do this 100 times to win", which happens a lot in platforming games. even better, while you've achieved a pretty decent level of doing-crazy-monkey-shit by the time you've finished the game(s), you have to reach a whole new level of experimentation and permutations on the skills you already have if you want to actually reach all the bonus levels and find the bonus coins, etc. it kicks a lot of ass. which is why i'm writing about it. i'm looking at finishing DKC 3 tonight, if i ever finish grading.

yeah, i should probably get on that.

torrent spy

so i now have constantly-seeded torrents (at least as constant as my ISP will let me be) of all three of my actually semi-decent recordings posted on the internet: "Not California", the demo disc "Back To Ohio", and the live recording of the Susan's Christmas show. i freaking love torrents and i'm really glad i've finally found a good way to get music out there without having to have gigs of webspace (recordings in FLAC take up a lot of space). i'm also glad that at least a few people have been actually downloading them lately.

however, it's also sort of weird. versus actually physically giving someone a disc, it's sort of bizarre to just see your share ratio going up and think "well, someone out in the universe just downloaded my CD". odds are, it's somebody i know pretty well, but still. it's also sort of renewed my tendency to dwell on buts. that's not as dirty as it sounds.

what i mean is, whereas i'm pretty comfortable and happy with 90 percent of the songs i've written and not immediately trashed, i'm never necessarily very comfortable with the recordings of those songs. i'm never comfortable with the idea of saying "i spent a year writing and recording these 13 songs, and these versions of those songs are the ones you need to hear to communicate the essence of that work". that's essentially what you're saying with an album, but it's also ridiculous to say that. i know for a fact that at least 10 versions of each of the songs on "Not California" have happened in the last two years that are far, far better than the ones on that disc. they've just mostly happened in someone's basement in the middle of the night, or with some friend of mine and a busted piano or something. and no mics.

my frustration is partially because of my shoddy audio setup and the fact that the 1000 dollars or so i've put into music in the last 2 years has pretty much bankrupted me (so there's not a lot i can do about this beyond eventually save up more money), and partially just because i'm a perfectionist. i have a feeling that even if i paid out 100 bucks an hour with a band to play in a real studio that i'd want to redo all the tracks again. that's just the way i am.

anyway, the point i was getting at is that it's hard to watch faceless internet denizens download your CDs and not want to be able to tell them "that's not the best thing i've ever done!" ahead of time. i recorded "Not California" when i knew pretty much nothing (except how to play chords) about guitar, nothing about singing, and nothing about recording. i knew a little bit more when i/we recorded "Back To Ohio" but that disc is mostly just ideas, except for the tracks where i'm actually playing with others, it's mostly just sonic brainstorming. the Susan's show was a great show (aside from a few hiccups), but the recording lacks a lot of evidence of how good the percussion is, the electric guitars are hopelessly quiet in the mix (which they absolutely were NOT at the show) and my voice is really scratchy partly because of lack of practice and partly because of a cold and seven gallons of snot in my throat. that's what i want to say. but i suppose what i should want to say is "here's my stuff. it's not perfect, but i'm getting better, or at least different. i hope you like it." it's just hard to think someone would listen to something i spent a lot of time on and say "pfft. that's [insert negative comment]", but that's the way it is. i guess now that i know that the music is getting around to people i know that don't feel obligated to be encouraging in the face of evidence to the contrary, i'm having to deal with the idea directly that people might just get through the first song and want the hard drive space back. and i suppose that's all good. i mean, of course it is. damn, this is difficult :)

i went back and listened to some of the early takes the for the new ricochet record last night, while insomnia was kicking my ass. when i did those takes, i was so pumped about my new amp, and was so pumped about feedback and reverb after experiencing back-to-back nights of 16-minute "easy plateau"s in salem and seattle, that i ripped through a lot of the spacey, jammy stuff thinking "oh yes, this is obviously the best thing to do ever!" and now listening to it again...it's weird. the tones on the second guitar, especially on the first track (now called "Crazy Stairs") are almost metal. like 80s hair-band metal. it's fucking insane and weird.

i like it, but i seriously wonder if i can go back and touch on that dynamic again to complete the rest of the record, or if it's just going to sound like the first part was composed in a "Ride The Lightning" meets "Daydream Nation" coma and the the second part was composed in my normal whirly-twirly slidy-solo-scales and cheery treble mode. i guess we'll find out later this week.

the new crack

jalapeno cheddar pretzels are the new crack.

i'm eating one right now and it's actually very hard to tear myself away from eating it to type this. i've been eating the same thing so frequently for lunch at work for the last few years (shitty pizza when i was a grad student, then breadsticks, and more and more lately just a bag of 50 cent chips as i get poorer), that the idea of mixing things up is so exciting and makes me feel so much better as a person that i've been fronting 2 bucks when available to get a jalapeno cheddar pretzel.

so it's a gigantic pretzel covered in melted cheese and jalapeno slices. so that's awesome, right? well it is until you bite into it and realize the entire thing is filled with some crazy mexican pepper cheese that's melted into the inside of the pretzel itself. then your brain pretty much explodes and you turn into a bunny that giggles. these things are so good that when i walk over to get lunch (some days they have them and some days not) i get that feeling you get when you're going to class and you're wondering if you're going to see that girl you really, really like today or not. they're that good. god.

i've also started replacing diet coke with squirt. mostly because i realize that drinking a lot of caffeine for lunch (or before 2pm or so at all) makes me really, really bad at teaching my last class. it seems unfair to the students to show up with half a functioning brain, so i've pushed by my using time to after the end of said class. sort of like not going to the bar before 7. or 6.

i have to go finish this pretzel now.

mel (kristen schaal) saves the day (night) again, part quatre (four)

too bad mel doesn't play bass. i guess jemaine wouldn't have anything to do then.

#4:


#5:


#6:

female characters wielding bass guitar +1 receive +5 to hotness

that's just the way it is. and i thought i would share this with you while i was waiting for the new mixtape to upload. there's something cool in general about girls who are musicians (this apparently applies to guys who aren't insane and homeless looking and play an instrument, i've heard), but there's something specifically attractifying about the bass guitar. piano and electric guitar and harp are close runners-up, but bass guitar is the clear leader. i'm not really sure why this is. it just is.

actually, i'm pretty sure mr. freud would have something to say on this matter, but i don't really want to get into his likely interpretation.

i should mention also that while it's nice if the girl is good at the bass, she can usually just stand there and hold it and wear slightly guy-y clothes and achieve largely the same effect. having said that, if there's a girl out there right now who can play the bass part to Rod Stewart's "Young Turks", i will make you dinner and buy you a puppy.

(semi) random picture of female bassist for evidence!