The Blog of Xangis

I’ve just released a new Mini-LP called “Positronic Empire“. It’s a collection of 8 experimental electronic instrumentals inspired by Asimov’s Robots/Empire/Foundation series.

Today I posted the 150th work of fiction on fictionclassics.com. I haven’t been spending much time on the site, but over the past few months I’ve been gradually/occasionally posting material.

So up until today I had a Washington Mutual credit card. I’ve had it since around
2000, when it was issued by Providian to an irresponsible kid with well below
average credit. Well, this kid behaved and maintained good standing on his $500
credit card well enough that 8 years later it was a $10,500 credit card. Even so,
the interest rate was crappy and it had an annual fee.

Since then I’ve managed to improve my credit enough that my main cards are all at
fixed rates under 10%. So, what would I need a 17% card for? Well, nothing.
So when the annual fee renewal came around this year, I called WaMu to request that
it be removed because I’d just cancel the card otherwise. Their representative
tells me that they can’t remove it since it’s ‘part of the terms of the card’. I
was thinking, “Well buddy, it looks like we need to renegotiate the terms.” Instead
they offered me a few percent lower rate, which was still half a percent higher than
my worst card. Instead of convincing them to cancel the fee I had them cancel the card, which
forced them to cancel the fee.

What would you rather have? Zero dollars and a customer you can generate income
from, or zero dollars and one less customer?

Obviously it makes sense to cut as many customers loose as possible, even though you
could keep those customers and earn a nice profit by readjusting the terms on which
you deal with those customers.

Some business just can’t compete, I guess.

Stock symbol: WM
Commonsense action: Strong sell.

So I play Dark Age of Camelot once in a while (usually two months out of each year since 2005).

One of my characters just achieved extreme champion level status:

In addition to my last few synthesizer acquisitions I’ve picked up a Roland U-220 with two expansion cards and a Kawai K1m. I can’t take more than a few steps without tripping over a keyboard.

I’ve just broken the 100-work mark on Fictionclassics.com. The site’s been up for 67 weeks, so I’ve average 1.5 works per week.

The site doesn’t get much traffic, but it is fun to work on now and then.

I just picked up two more synths — an Ensoniq ESQ-1 and an Ensoniq SQ-2. And I’ve been drooling over the MR-76, ZR-76, TS-10, and TS-12 by Ensoniq. They made some mighty fine gear. It’s a shame they were bought by idiots (CREAF.PK) and subsequently run into the ground.

Most sci-fi shows fail to make it past the fourth season. I’m convinced it’s because there’s a limited number of plots that can be done on a spaceship, at least by below-average writers (as in, writers who aren’t good enough to write for Stargate SG-1.)

There’s a certain point, usually in the fourth season, that the female characters start showing up with a little less clothing than they did in the third season. It’s a last-ditch attempt to get ratings by showing some “titten und arsch,” but science fiction audiences usually aren’t retarded enough to fall for it (see Enterprise as a perfect example of this).

This is often preceded by the “Ill-Conceived third season romance” where the show will have two characters who don’t even belong in the same room hook up in some sort of steamy, tumultuous relationship reminiscent of one of many long-running daytime soap operas. This typically has absolutely nothing to do with the overall plot of the show and is more of a “Hollywood vomit” where the clichés of the industry prevail over the style of the genre. Third-season Battlestar Galactica is a good example.

I don’t see this as going away anytime soon. Writing to the lowest common denominator has taken over and we’re stuck with the crap the lazy, uncreative writers want to feed us. Nevermind that there’s nigh on 100 years of excellent fiction to draw from, we *LOVE* to see the same old crap regurgitated over and over.

I’ve recently acquired:

Roland D-20
Yamaha CS2x
Yamaha RX15 Drum Machine

The drum machine is pretty manky and unlikely to survive the “play around and see if I like it” period, but the D-20 and CS2x are pretty awesome.

There’s a new compilation in the works by C’Tan Worldkiller of Darksonus. You can read more here:

http://www.darksonus.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1964

Something tells me the 2008 material I’m working on would fit perfectly.

Since spring’s happening and I’m once again motivated, I’ve started acquiring synthesizers again. In the past few weeks, the collection has acquired the following doohickeys:

Roland JV-880
Roland GM-70 Guitar Synthesizer
Roland MT-32
E-Mu Proteus/2
Korg DS-8
Yamaha EX7
Yamaha TX81Z
Ensoniq VFX

Part of it is that I want to make noises again. Part of it is that I want more material to post on Freewavesamples.com. Part of it is that I want to write a good synthesizer editing/patch management application for Vista. So, yeah, I’m acquiring gear. Look for a new Bloodless Mushroom CD later in 2008.