Meiguoren

I was going to say something about butt pee, but I guess that ship has sailed.

I never actually had butt pee. Sure, the stool was rarely solid, but I never used a squattie and I never ran on home. Fucked me up, though. I've been back a year and I still can't have a complete bowel movement. Probably never will. Totally worth it.

Holy shit, I can't believe I read this whole damn thing. Also, she's not my wife yet.

Say thankee. Also, thank you for respecting my opinion, pixietricks. Now then. Moving along.

I'm halfway through my third listen thus far, and it's just not doing it. Not even for nostalgia's sake, as there are better mixes already up on the site. Anyway, I'm impressed with the scope, guys, it just appears as though I'm the one guy who didn't enjoy it. That'll be all out of me. Thanks for listening to my contrarian perspective.

I've always loved you.

I realize precisely what these are. This has been a site that fosters that kind of creativity for eight years (if memory serves). I have been an active listener for six of those eight. And I thought I was pretty clear in my post that what I wanted wasn't a direct copy of the song, but some heart and soul, which was lacking. The simple instrumentals did end up pleasing me, and the last three tracks were quite good (Jovette's being the most audacious and amazing track of the entire thing), but it all just wasn't needed. Poke around in the archives and you'll find more original, better constructed versions of almost every theme of the FFVII OST. That was my point.

Well, I'm about halfway through Disc 3 and I have to say... I'm just not feeling it. The scope of this project is incredible and the sheer amount of contributors is a wonder. The names involved are so full of talent and originality, and many of them have been favorites of mine since before I arrived on the boards. That said, I don't know why this project just feels so lackluster, so soulless. It's big, it covers a lot of ground, but it's just not incredible. That's not to say that it's all been bad, however. Thus far the standouts (both positively and negatively) have been: BGC's first track on Disc 1 was unique and wonderful. After the lackluster feel of the opening track (which had great production and incredible singing but felt like a by the numbers exercise) this one made me sit up in my chair. The rest all seemed to melt together until Liontamer's vocoder work, which was totally unnecessary. That track was going very well until the jarring narration. The rest of the first disc was a mess of sounds, with every track sounding the same. Frequently I couldn't tell when one ended and the next began. The second disc, thankfully, had more variety. Robson's track sounded great (I've been a fan of his since long before he was on this site) but it lacked transitions and cohesion. Dshu's piece was a wonderful solo piano, which flowed very, very well, and Mustin's piece was well done, but couldn't wipe away the feeling that CotMM's six or seven year old two minute piece continues to elicit. And perhaps that's my problem. I feel that there have already been so many great mixes of these tracks on the site that these new ones are just... underwhelming. This collection just feels unnecessary, like an exercise in making music instead of creating something wonderful that you love. I'm just not feeling that love. That's not to say that this is bad, because it's not. Not by any means. It's just not what it should have been. Or, perhaps more accurately, it's not the collection that is already in the archives of this very website. There are better versions of many of these same tracks right here. And I think the thing that's hitting me the hardest is just not being impressed by a batch of my favorite musicians. I got really excited about seeing their names on the list, especially Jovette, as I frequently wonder what he's up to these days (and, to be fair, I haven't made it to his track yet). I do appreciate and admire the concept of the collection, drawing inspiration from the new additions to the FFVII lore, but most of these tracks were just taken from redos of the original OST. If anything this has inspired me to pull out all those old mixes, to revisit some classics and old favorites.

I didn't mean to let this fall back so far... 7.1 earthquake in Taiwan messed up our internet. I see there's some interest. Thank you for the responses so far. I would love to see something come of this.

New Year's Even in Hong Kong was ridiculous. People have been trampled to death in the past so they regulate it as extremely as possible. In order to get on the bar street you have to wait in a miles long line, packed full of people. An estimated 400,000 turned out into the streets, and at least 20,000 were packed into these four square blocks. We almost didn't make it and I got a little upset. Last year I missed it because my roomate broke his ankle, so we spent it low key in the ex-pat neighborhood. So I was more than ready for the chaos. And it was chaotic. We finally made the bar street at 12:15 and proceeded to sit there and drink for the next four hours. Bars began dropping cover fees so I could go in and get good beer without paying the hundred and fifty dollars for the hand stamp. So I did. Five hours passed, walking around this street. We saw pukers, met people from around the world and generally had a blast. We caught the bus back across the border at 5:30 and I fell into bed at 7:30. I don't think I can do that again, but man was it awesome once. If you're ever in the neighborhood on December 31st you owe it to yourself to attend.

About this time last year I found myself in China listening to Shael Riley's Toybox. Nights would frequently find me on my balcony, glass of whiskey in hand, listening to the final song on the album, Snow, Love and Sludge. The song itself is wonderful, a very simple piece of music played over simple narration about a period of life and the meaning of that existance. It's a slow, subtle, beautiful piece, and it's one that got me thinking. It's been five years since I first discovered this website, and through the connections I've made here I've discovered so many talented musicians and the concept of utilizing the internet to produce and distribute independant pieces of work, remixes and covers, but more importantly self composed, original pieces. Mr. Riley's piece got me to thinking. He's not the first to mix the written form with the aural and he certainly wouldn't be the last, but that doesn't mean that his work isn't wonderful. Around that time I started writing again. I don't do it very frequently and I'm really not very good, but every once in awhile I come up with a piece that I'm proud of, one that captures everything that I wanted to say quite well. And I know I'm not alone in that. There are plenty of writers here, good ones, who love sharing their work. Last year I thought about getting writers and musicians together through this website (and various others) in the hopes of constructing something unique, something special, something that we could look back on and say "Yeah. We did that together". I pitched the idea to Mythril Nazgul who took it in turn to a few other people as well. There was a very limited level of interest, as there was a very limited number of people that we conversed with. I proceeded to not do anything with it and he proceeded to fall off the face of the earth and a year passed. But I started thinking about it again and I figured I'd put it out here. So here we go. Writers submit a reading of something that they've written, something they're proud of. If the author doesn't like the sound of his or her voice he can get assitance. Musicians listen to the pieces and choose one to write music to. I think it would be perfect if the author doesn't reveal his or her intenions in writing the piece. I would rather hear how other individuals interpret the writing through their own music. Ideally the finished product would be a combination of two minds in one piece. The writer's words and the musician's music, with no communication in between. I also realize that, for some people, that might not sound appropriate or even like something they'd like to do, so I'm open to other thoughts as well. If more collaboration is wanted then certainly the writer and the musician could do so. But I always come back to conversations I have with friends about the books we've read and I always learn something new from their perspectives, and it's always more if I don't know anything about the history of the work, who the author is or what time he was writing the work. It would be like that, but using notes instead of words. So there you have it. Is there any interest? Do you all think this would be something you'd like to participate in? I think it would be an incredible project and, in the end, a way for two different types of artists to work together on something. Bascially I want to see if we can make something together.

Congealed blood is not something I can get behind. I had it hot pot sometime last year and... eww. I'll try anything, but that was one thing that I will never consume again. It's gelatinous yet... somehow sturdy? And then you put it in the soup and it maintains its texture but it gets hot and... It's gross. Intestine has the worst texture and you know exactly what it is while you're eating it. It doesn't taste bad, in fact it's quite good. But you have to deal with the fact that poo went through there. It's tough and rubbery and not appitizing at all. Lung is pretty terrible as well. It's tough and rubbery and has a godawful dirty rubber flavor to it. We found a great dish out here that was delicious, except for the lung. I just couldn't get past that. It's a flavor that stays in your mouth for ages. It's like it's coated in a fine layer of dust and nothing you do can get that flavor out. Nothing. Dog is... well, it's dog. If you don't like dogs then it's amazing. Soft, tender meat, oddly enough. A lot like mutton yet nothing like it. It's a delicacy and for good reason. I will say, however, that hot pot is one of the most amazing things in the world and I highly reccomend it, although I've never seen it in America. In fact, I don't know if it would even fly in America due to all the health restrictions (which would prevent all of the finest cooking styles and foods from entering the nation). When its cold you get all of your friends and family seated around a huge table. The table has a massive hole in it so a propane tank can heat a massive pot of soup. Then you order all of the raw meats and vegetables you can handle and dump them in the water as you see fit. Essentially you get your broth and you, as a team, make the soup as you see fit. It's also really fun to take a raw piece of mutton or beef and hold it underwater for ten seconds. You get to watch the thing cook before you pull it out, blow on it and eat it. It's wonderful. Plus it's you and all of your friends seated around an enormous bowl of steaming soup while it's cold outside. It's a great, emotionally warming experience. You're lucky to be where you are, Evilhead. I've noticed that Chinese food is more about the flavors you can add to dishes than the meats themselves, while Japanese food is more about the flavors of the actual objects. I've thought about that and it does make sense. Take China, a nation of many, many, many people and a history of dirty water supplies and poverty and the flavors serve to cover the state of the meat itself. There's a lot of preserved stuff out here, which makes perfect sense when you only get a set amount of food to last x amount of days. Meat spoils quickly, so you preserve it or chill it to make it last as long as possible. So the super intense spices or the wonderfully varied flavors serve to cover up the flavor of old meats. One of my favorite dishes is a smoked bacon and pig's fat, which is served up numerous ways. But raw fish? Hell, raw anything? There's no way in hell I'd eat anything like that out here. Flash fry it or boil it and I won't get the butt pee. But. Back on track. Oreos and Easy Cheeze is my special snack. We made a kid eat it way back in the Boy Scouts and he convinced us all to do the same. It's a taste sensation. Also try black licorice and Nutella. It's wonderous.

Your run is innapropriate. That is the best word for it. Hours of my life dedicated to that game and all I managed to find was seventy some percent. Secret rooms under spikes? Insane-O leaps and credit collections? No death? FIFTEEN MINUTES? Very nice, sir. I have finally seen every room in the game.

This is exactly why I love Shnabalabulanabana's work. It's always amazing and always, in the words of burn out dirty hippies, "out there". Shnabubula always manages to take interesting pieces and then translate then into something that I am never quite ready to listen to but am always ready to have. I must admit that I rarely string up all of his mixes and let them run. In fact I rarely ever pull just one of them up. But, like the copy of Incubus (starring William Shatner and filmed entirely in Esperanto) on my DVD shelf, I am always glad that I COULD listen to it. With this piece in particular Shna manages to take an unwilling piece from my childhood and blow it up and turn it inside out. Solstice ate my head when I was a child. It wasn't until Nintendo Power published the code for many, many little purple hats (back when the Classified Information section still looked like a manilla envelope (not to be confused with Manila, the city in the Phillipines)) that I was able to conquer the game. You want to know how anyone can beat the game in under seven minutes? I want to know how to get more than seventy seven percent of the map. Find me a video of THAT and I WILL birth your children (even though China is keeping me from even birthing a healthy stool). Bottom Line: I Heart This Mix. The theme returns to me from across the void of time and bites me in the ass. Reminding me both of my failure to conquer this game and of the dissonance that Shnabubula makes me adore to my core. I'm a poet and I know it, my feet show it and they're Longfellows. Nice work, as usual.

I've been a fan of Jeremy Robson for years now and have yet to be disappointed by his work. While this piece is more whimsical and perhaps more disjointed than his previous pieces, the individual sections work so very well that the slight flaws are easily overlooked. Robson is a master arranger and composer, and this latest work hopefully will provide a little insight to the work of this man. I urge you all to check out his other pieces, as they all manage to maintain complex and emotional orchestral pieces. Nice work, Jeremy. Keep on keeping on.