Unabridged: The Album

Okay, so I kinda had to do this in some complex, convoluted way, because that's how things always tend to work out for me. But the important thing is, it's finally here. Unabridged, the album, in its entirety. In six separate parts, because I'm using Google Sites to host my files, which is probably a stupid idea considering how limited it is. But that's not the point. The point is, I finally have the files hosted somewhere and you can finally download the entire album. That's the important thing.

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six


Enjoy the album, and let me know what you think! Sorry for the inconvenience of having to download it in six separate parts...

-LordFrakula

An Update

I think I'm going to get more involved in writing poetry.

There's no reason I should have stopped writing. Except perhaps due to the lack of inspiration and motivation.

There have been rough parts of my life. I've been asking myself what success really means.

Behind all those questions of my place in the world, I've figured at least one basic thing. I love to write poetry, and people seemed to have enjoyed some of my poetry.

I don't want to express inflammatory political and religious opinions. I don't want to say what makes thing X better than thing Y. I just want to write poetry.

There is one important rule I have about my poetry, and even my music and anything else I've done. It isn't about what you want yo experience. It's about what I want to express.

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Open Letter to Bethesda Softworks

I recall playing through Fallout 3, and how engaging the story was, how fun the gameplay was, and just awed at the vast, open world I was able and encouraged by NPCs to explore. Collecting all the unique weapons was fun, and running around searching for all sorts of bobbleheads and other collectibles made the game last a lot longer.

I figured this would translate well into the next Fallout game. While New Vegas is a satisfying game, with a storyline more focused toward factional allegiance and making friends, I find the game has one unavoidable flaw that simply makes the game unplayable, frustrating, and a waste of my time and money.

I find that many things cause the game coming to a screeching halt. If I walk through a door. BAM my game is frozen. Try to barter with the gun runners BAM frozen game. Enter VATS to kill a gecko and BAM I'm stuck in VATS and the game might as well be frozen. I'm just walking down the road and BAM frozen.

But wait- there's more. It was during my third play-through. I had beaten the Mr. House and Wild Card stories, and was planning on using this third character- her name was Tracy Black. I carefully placed all her skill points, developed her to be very agile, and spent many hours on quests and exploring random places.

I got to the part where Col. Moore asks you to deal with the Khans. So I tried to complete the Khan quest so I could get them to join the NCR. I go back to talk to Col. Moore, but when I go to interact with her, it zooms in on her like she's going to talk, but then it zooms out. And then I'm stuck in first person view, my gun disappears when I aim, and I'm floating all over the world. And that is very annoying, knowing you spent all this time, and you paid money, to get to this point where the game basically says, "Screw you, start over!"

The patch you sent out did not achieve its goal. Yes, I appreciate the changes you made to some of the weapons, how some of the weapons work. I like the changes to shotgun ammo- now I have a reason to use different types of ammunition, I have to plan for how I'm going to attack an enemy differently depending on what ammo I have. The hunting shotgun (specifically, Dinner Bell) is my default weapon in close-quarters.

The main focus of the patch, and what I really cared about, however, was the promise that it would stabilize the game. It would cut down on all the glitches, and lower the odds that at any given moment, my beloved game would not freeze.

That was the hope. That was the promise I had heard. That was the sound of an angel trumpet to me. I would finally be able to peacefully enjoy Fallout without worrying about it freezing every minute.

What I got in reality was something that made guns way more awesome. And something that, for a while, did seem to stabilize the game better. However, it didn't last long. It seems that, about the time I SPENT MY HARD-EARNED MONEY on Honest Hearts, the game started freezing again. It's about that time the game told me to screw myself and start a new file to beat the NCR ending.

The game is CONSTANTLY freezing. It is constantly a problem, and because of that, my appetite for Fallout is gone. I have no desire anymore to play Fallout: New Vegas, and I have no reason to want to play it anymore, because I already know I'm going to play for two minutes before it freezes.

I was excited about Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. But I can already say, I am not going to be a launch-day customer, given your history of launching incomplete games that simply don't work. It looks like an awesome game, but either due to either the laziness of your quality-control team, or simply ignoring the obvious issues out there, it will probably be another waste of money.

Please, Bethesda. Give me a reason to want to play your game. I was so excited about New Vegas, and I was looking forward to Skyrim. Please give me a reason to believe in your company, to stay a fan of your Fallout game and purchase the additional DLC waiting to be released.

I just want to play the game that you released. I want to enjoy it. Help me enjoy it. I loved the Capitol Wasteland, I love roaming the Mojave with my trusty canine companion and a witty Mexican ghoul. Please release another patch, to further address stability issues, and make Fallout a game worth playing, and make Bethesda a company worth trusting with my money.

Pipe Organ?

Essentially, when most people talk about synthesizers, they'll see a keyboard hooked up to a computer. They'll hear strange electronic noises, vocoders, laser lights; basically, the synthesizer has become essential to the party scene, and with it comes dancing and thumping bass.

However, what really is a synthesizer? Is it an instrument that relies on circuitry, rather than acoustics, to achieve tone? Or is it an instrument that is mechanical in nature, relying on multiple functions and mechanisms to achieve tone? Or is it any instrument that lacks a true organic tone, and can also recreate tones of other instruments as well?

The pipe organ. The original synthesizer? No pun intended, but the pipe organ is the least organic of the classical instruments. What sound does an organ make? It depends. An organ doesn't just sound like an organ- the tones are based off the tones of other instruments, much like a lot of modern synthesizers are. The organ can be used to create the soft tone of a flute, the harmony of a string orchestra, the bravado of a trumpet, and even the sweet ring of chimes and bells.

Another beautiful feature of the pipe organ- and another case for classifying it as a synthesizer- is its ability to layer tones. There really are no organic instruments that can layer differing tones. With a trumpet, or any other wind instrument, you're only ever going to get one single tone at any one time. A piano only makes one tone at a time. The pipe organ creates an amazing tone by blending different tones together to create a completely new tone. A popular technique in electronic music and among users of synthesizers is, of course, the ability to blend two tones together to create a unique sound.

Not only does the pipe organ differ from other instruments in the sounds and tones they are capable of, but also in execution. The pipe organ is the most complex classical instrument, using a series of stoppers, pipes, and bellows to keep the air flowing. There is no instrument as large as the organ, either. The pipe organ is not only a musical instrument, but also a work of art in itself, a piece of architecture as important to a cathedral as aeything else. No other instrument can achieve such the grand scale, not only in the tones it creates, the range of notes it can play, and beauty of the instrument as itself.

I believe the pipe organ is the most beautiful and inspiring instrument for these reasons. I've been obsessed with the sound of the organ, and have listened to JS Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor many times in the past several days. If you love music at all, you should definitely listen to some organ music. Really, it isn't all a bunch of boring churchy chorales. Just give one listen, and you'll understand...

Blah

I've recently made an acquisition of an Archos netbook. It isn't the most impressive piece of hardware available, but it certainly is much more reliable than my Blackberry, and more portable than my desktop computer (which also has a broken space bar on the computer and messed up color). That means several things, one of which is the fact that I can update this shiznit more often. So, I hope to not disappoint, and perhaps post about random crap at least once a week.

I still haven't quite familiarized myself with this keyboard- I've never been very good at typing on a laptop. I'm often missing keys, but it's a learning curve. It's perfect for what I really need. Just something that can access the internet, and run some rather basic programs to help me learn songs on my guitar. It also gives me a place to hold all  my Dungeons and Dragons content.

I guess that's all I want to talk about for now. Maybe in the next few days I'll talk about Dungeons and Dragons. Love that game, it's a very good social gathering, and it challenges your critical thinking ability, and places a big emphasis on mental math.

Busy, Lazy, Whatever

I'm either too busy, lazy, or forgetful to upload new music onto this website, onto YouTube, onto other website. I plan on uploading my guitar music eventually, but I don't feel like messing around with HTML scripts and whatnot to bother upload more music. I'll eventually get around to it. But, not now.

Just got a job, and that's gonna be taking up a lot of my time, considering it will require me to go out of town every week, for a few days at a time. It's good money and I really really need it so I can get to college and enhance the quality of my music to a professional level.

So, once again, this is to apologize to whomever may be waiting for the next exciting update on my blog. If you wanna really hear my thoughts or whatever, follow LordFrakula on Twitter (I haven't been keeping up with that much recently, though). Send me a Tweet telling me what you like most about my music, and I will probably follow back!

Official Internet Language; An Essay

Whenever you're on Twitter (by the way, if you're on the Twitter, look up @LordFrakula. That's me, and I say cool stuff), do you ever click on the trending topics? Just to see what people around the world are Tweeting about, or perhaps you're just curious why a certain topic is trending and what exactly it means? And I'm sure that you've seen several trending topics from foreign languages, or perhaps clicked on a trending topic of your native/preferred language and came across a bunch of Tweets in other languages come up.

To be honest, I find it kind of annoying. Now, I have absolutely no problems with a guy next to me speaking Italian, or the lady who Tweets about the New York Yankees in Spanish. I have no problems with any of the other languages. I respect other language and encourage people to learn new languages. It opens a variety of doors, and even affects how they communicate in their native language. It affects how they learn and think, trust me it's a good thing.

However, with the internet, it isn't always so good. As global as the internet is, it's always easier for the average user if it's a little more... local, more personal. Such as Google, a perfect example. I was doing a search on John Clay, the running back for the Wisconsin Badgers. Without even completing my search entry, Google suggested that I was looking for John Clay before I could finish typing. Google also understood that I had several other search entries such as "Wisconsin Badgers Football Schedule"; "Wisconsin Badgers Football Roster"; and the names of several athletes on the team. Google knew I was a fan of the Wisconsin Badgers, and made a safe assumption that, perhaps I was looking for information on John Clay. Well, yes, Google, I was.

I can type in the name of a business, and Google will give me first the local results, and then the national results, and perhaps if at all the international results. I can type in "Record Store" and instantly- a map of record stores in my town and nearby. Google knows. Google is smart. I commend Google for making local, and personalized results a priority.

Now, back to Twitter. Twitter is rather imprecise. I do believe that Google does have language filters- you can choose to find your results in anything from Spanish to Arabic and I think Google may even translate the pages for you, but I'm not entirely sure about that. Twitter, as far as I know, has no language filters. If I click on trending topic "Prius Goes Plural" for example, I will see a bunch of spam Tweets, a bunch of Tweets in my preferred language on the topic, and a bunch of other random Tweets in other languages that I don't really care for.

With Twitter, would it really be too much to include some sort of filters? My suggestion? When signing up for Twitter, perhaps they could ask you to choose a preferred language, in which you will be Tweeting. Let's say, maybe I live in the United States, but it's easier for me to type in Spanish. Let's say I'm more proficient with Spanish, and a majority of my Tweets are going to be in Spanish. Well, when I search for Tweets, I will only see results that are in Spanish, and likewise, when other people are looking for other users with similar interests, they will see my Spanish Tweets. It will waste time spent looking for Spanish Tweets through all the Chinese/English/French/Italian whatever language Tweets.

Perhaps that's too much to ask- or maybe it's just more complex than need be. What if there was some sort of program (which I'm very certain there is) that can identify your preferred language based upon your Tweets? What if there was some sort of program that could filter out all those Tweets that are outside your preferred language? Is that not possible? Because to be honest, if I type Tom Cruise, I don't wanna read Spanish. I don't understand Spanish.

Again, I emphasize that I'm all for a multi-cultured society. In real life, it works great. It works great to have multiple languages because, generally speaking, you're not going to encounter many languages you're not familiar with if you stay in a familiar place with familiar people. However, the internet doesn't have borders, boundaries or anything of the sort. There really are no communities, there's no exclusivity and distance is meaningless. But perhaps the internet, and perhaps Twitter, should be built a little more personally. Perhaps Twitter should give me results in a language I prefer, be it Russian or Chinese or Swahili or English or whatever.

I don't know... Just a suggestion, thought I'd throw it out there to whoever is willing to catch it. If I had it my way, the Official Internet Language would be whatever you choose, and whatever makes accessing the information you need the easiest for each user.