Hello, is anyone out there?

I'm sure there must be, but it seems as if we are talking to the wind. Perhaps this blog is broken?

Either way we will probably keep ranting, just the same. ;)

Auto-Tune

Okay, so now just about any singer, or want-to-be, can now sing whatever way they have always wanted, without the nagging worry of being off key or out of pitch, and at "perfect" intonation. Correcting the pitch, perhaps at the small cost of sounding similar to everyone else?

Yeah, I know the company claims it doesn't change the voice. Sure, whatever. I am not an expert, so I will not argue the point.

Here is another thought, *and a great test for it to show off just how wonderful it is at correcting a singers pitch*. Use it on a George Jones song... I assume it would work, but...

In all fairness electric guitars are often ran through numerous "magic" boxes, so if another box can improve a less than "perfect" voice of a less than talented singer, then I suppose it's all good.

I just think it's annoying then for "everyone" to kiss that singer's a** about how dang good they can sing. Especially when they are supposedly getting paid millions of dollars (which I don't believe, but that's yet another opinion).

Just a final point, I often like the "less than perfect" voices of some singers.

The Pretty Reckless...

What we have heard of their music sounds pretty good. Taylor Momsen has an interestingly refreshing voice, which is well suited for the genre she has picked to sing and has chosen some apparently capable musicians to back her up.

Here is a young woman who decided not to play the bubblegum Pop game, and appears to be churning out some honest to goodness, kick ass rock music. So, why does so many of the web authors/gossip columnist, or what ever they call themselves these days, seem so fixated on the way she dresses? Have they never seen legs or breast before?

Check out the videos on their official web site at: The Pretty Reckless

[ Not to sound too overly biased, We should point out, We think there are many excellent bands and singers that are often times taken for granted, or noticed for reasons other than their musical abilities. ]

Kay E-100 electric guitar, "humbucker" conversion

Converted our old Kay E-100 electric guitar from the original single-coil pickup to a new "humbucker". Visit our web site for more pictures and project details.

"I Am Omega"

We got this movie on a DVD with two other movies (cough, cough): “Monster” and “AVH Alien vs. Hunter”. Well I actually wouldn’t even call the other two, movies. IAO could have been a decent movie with a plot change. Or any number of plot changes…

Of course, if you haven’t seen the movie "I Am Omega", which I really can’t recommend, you won’t understand my alternate plot.

The movie was okay up to the point when Renchard answered the incoming video message, the second time. And the entire story line of Vincent and Mike was, in my opinion, just wrong. The actors weren’t bad; it’s unfortunate that the movie wasn’t better, as The Asylum might have achieved a slightly more legitimate reputation.

Anyway, here goes my basic idea of one possible alternate version.
==
Renchard would have set out to rescue Brianna, after answering her second video message.

Along the way Renchard would have came across Vincent and Mike engaged in a heated battle with zombies. Where Renchard would have saved Vincent from certain death, by killing an attacking zombie.

Mike gets killed in a subsequent zombie battle. Then later Vincent gets killed heroically during the battle in the parking deck scene.

Then the movie would have ended the same as it did, with the trick ending (which didn’t hurt at all).
==

And a final criticism; they shouldn’t have shaken the camera during some of the zombie scenes. That would have only been necessary to hide some deficiency in the makeup, which didn’t seem to be the case. In fact, for a low budget movie, the zombie’s makeup looked fine.


Note to the folks at The Asylum: put a bit more effort in your movies and you might get taken seriously, at least perhaps by those of us who enjoy fairly decent “B” movies. And Please Don’t ever make another movie like “Monster”. You hired two reasonably attractive actresses, and then really blew it. (IMHO)


(I wish I had the resources to make a movie, but alas that’s not the way the world goes round.)

"Corpse Bride"

Earlier this morning I watched (for the first time) the 2005 Tim Burton movie "Corpse Bride" on DVD.

As much as I enjoyed the movie I must say I was absolutely amazed watching the special features portion to see what wonderful mechanical marvels the puppets, especially for the main characters, actually were.

Watching the movie I would have never guessed such workmanship went into the creations, but after seeing how it did I can see how they managed to pull off such a feat, all while using the oft considered obsolete form of stop-motion animation.

This movie could certainly have been produced (a whole lot easier and cheaper) using CGI, but I'm certainly glad they didn't. My hats off to Mr. Burton and the entire crew who made such a masterpiece come to life.

As an afterthought; I'm guessing the puppets used in the movie would bring a small fortune on e-bay.

Gothic dreadlocks

Goth women and their fashion sense have fascinated me for several years. Lately I’ve been looking at pictures of the 'dreadlocks' worn by some Goth women, which if I understand correctly are often made of standard knitting yarn or similar fibers. Personally I think this looks rather cool, albeit a bit strange, in a uniquely different way.

Now at the risk of sounding like a smart ass, which I’m really not trying to be (at least not this time), I’ll just throw this out. Probably others have already expanded on the basic design, but my thought is why stop with yarn. Why not add some other things into the braids such as beads, wire, feathers, bells, charms, etc.

I'm also a bit curious as to the correlation of this styles direction and the development of headdresses in various earlier tribal cultures. If you have any ideas or observations feel free to post your viewpoint.