What are you up to these days?

[Geoffrey Taucer]

I just obtained a fretless gourd banjo.

Holy shit. Music just pours out of this thing. There is now a remix of Goron City in progress, which I will ostensibly claim credit for, but make no mistake: I did not write this arrangement, the banjo wrote it for me.

[Evagation]

Just lying in the bed all day since we really cant go out that much because of the lockdown.

Edited June 19, 2020 by Evagation

[BloomingLate]

On 6/19/2020 at 4:14 PM, Evagation said:

Just lying in the bed all day since we really cant go out that much because of the lockdown.

My country's government is allowing a little more activity outdoors, but there's still a lot of restrictions (some of which seem absolutely ridiculous!) Where are you at? Can you at least take walks around the block where you live?

I want to encourage you to resist temptations to stay in bed all day. Doing that will likely lead to messing up your biological clock and/or depression. Try to get whatever excercise you can and find things to do to keep you motivated. Maybe start learning something new? I don't know your situation, but I hope there is more to do for you than just staying in bed.

Hang in there! :D

PS: I won't be able to reply until next week.

[atmuh]

worked from home for a while now im back in my office, i dont really wanna be there though, florida is doing real bad now

[TSori]

Since my fiance had to go back to her home country,  I've been getting some serious cabin fever.

 

Thankfully, though, the airport has finally opened back up again so I've been able to resume what is one of my favorite solitary activities.  Got a nice pic today, so I thought I'd share.

 

 

 

Edited June 27, 2020 by TSori

[The Damned]

... OK, that's pretty much the most bad-ass hobby I have heard of on here to date.

So unless someone else has, like... I dunno, lion wrangling or something, I don't think anything going to top that.

[TSori]

3 hours ago, The Damned said:

... OK, that's pretty much the most bad-ass hobby I have heard of on here to date.

So unless someone else has, like... I dunno, lion wrangling or something, I don't think anything going to top that.

 Thanks! though i didn't mean to one up anybody. lol.   Its a lot of fun, and in my case actually somewhat work related (aeronautical engineer).  If anyone is ever in Northern California and wants a ride, hit me up!

I dunno know though. I'm always amazed by the talents and interests that show up in this community....it's incredible.  And hey, we actually DO have someone called Liontamer....just saying....

 

Anyone else find an unusual way to occupy their time lately?

Edited June 29, 2020 by TSori

[Loyale 2.7 Turbo]

I've successfully teached my Daughter to play Piano & Keyboards...  ...and somehow she is way better than I.

She plays complicated songs from Zelda, Final Fantasy and others alike.

She is a young kid, so I am pretty astonished, and Glad.

Besides that, we all are locked at home in my Li'l country, except people who needs to work in the allowed areas, to bring food home.

Here, people are only allowed to work in Pharmacies, Clinics, Super Markets, Gas Stations and Hardware Stores; no more.

Everything else is Closed since march 15, 2020.

Cities are Locked, so if you need to leave and go to another city, you need to obtain a safe conduct permit (safe pass), signed by the mayor and the police.

In order to avoid having too much people at the same time on the streets, people are allowed to go out once per week, by using the last number on your I.D. card, so:

- zero and one can go out Mondays, 
- two and three on tuesdays, 
- four and five on Wednesdays, 
- six and seven on Thursdays, 
- eight and nine can go out only on fridays; 

Saturdays and Sundays are completely closed days, by Curfew; also everyday from five O'clock pm to eight O'clock am is curfew time; so, if you go out without having the proper final number on your I.D. card, Police will lock you on jail all day long, then next day will bring you back home; next time there is a fine along that; third time there will be more days and increased fine... 

Also, supermarkets, Hardware Stores, Pharmacies and Gas Stations, makes all the Costumers to form a Line, with two meters of distance between each person; and they'll check your I.D. prior to let you in; in order to check if you went on the proper day assigned; if you go in the wrong day, they simply won't let you in; if you make any disturb regarding that, police will hapily accompain you to the nearest police station's jail...  ...Very Strict protocol but seems to Work.

Now, the small mountany town where I live, looks like a Phantom city after five o'clock; and the Lock Down due to this coronavirus, seems to be continued for more time to go... 

Meanwhile, my daughter receives school classes via "Zoom" and does exams via "Google Classroom" which keeps her busy on weekdays.

I have to go to work on weekdays, but every person wears safe N95 masks around... and the ambience feels pretty tense.

Using alcohol in gel for the hands after attending every costumer, is tiring and hands ends up pretty greasy with a soapy feeling by the end of the day... but we're OK so far, thanks to God.

Every and each day, in the moment where I get the car in the garage after job, I remove my shoes and all my clothes except underwear and immediately I go to take a warm shower with lots of soap; meanwhile my Wife sprays disinfectant on all the wheels and door handles... well, she clorates my Subaru "BumbleBeast" (the car on my avatar) and I believe that the paint could get damaged on the long run, but it doesn't matter, as I can repaint it, after this quarentine times gets over...

I hope every member from OCRemix, and every person in the world to be safe and OK during this horrid pandemic situation, also I hope that this thing will fade away as fast as it came, before this year of the twin twenties, ends.

Greetings from the Caribbean. 

Kind Regards.

Edited July 8, 2020 by Loyale 2.7 Turbo
misspelled word

[Master Mi]

Just had to smile some time ago, when some members of the public broadcasting section in my country were making a pretty nice cover of the Big Blue theme from F-Zero.
 

Never knew those guys could be such dedicated nerds grown up with decent SNES stuff.
I guess videogames and videogame soundtracks have become really popular throughout larger parts of the society.

[The Damned]

Back to work. The site is taking steps to reduce possible contamination, but it's still a concern.

Luckily, this part of Canada has been pretty good with social distancing and masks, so we don't have lots of cases and haven't had a death in probably over a month, of not longer.

But the chance is still there. So the client is providing more space for everyone to use for the lunchroom and we have a separate trailer for ourselves to help minimize interaction, and masks will be used regardless. We got a box of 1000 N95 masks and we're expecting it to last for at least two weeks.

Fun times. Fun times.

[Argle]

I'm near Chicago.  Working from home, will be working from home for the foreseeable future, and as far as hobbies goes I've gotten into woodworking the last year so that's what occupies most of my time.  Sadly at the expense of music which I truly would like to make but I'm just obsessed with making projects in the shop.  Being an introvert & also married + cat owner I have plenty of interaction in my normal day so I haven't gotten very stir crazy at all.  I see my board gaming friends on occasion and play online games with some of them periodically.

 

All in all I wish Covid wasn't a thing or the US handling of it so utterly shit but I'm making the best of it.

[Geoffrey Taucer]

So it loos like 15 years after graduating high school I'm finally about to go to college.

*shrug* we'll see how it goes

[Jamphibious]

Hope all here have been well.  Things have been okay where I live (I think we've only hard around 100 confirmed cases in my health district in Northern Ontario), but the information / emotional overload of this year has certainly wore on me from time to time.

Despite holing up inside and working from home, I've been trying to connect / reconnect with cool people, musicians, and communities online.

I came out of the woodwork a bit more these past few months in terms of producing / releasing music again, which has been a positive.  I found in the past I'd often force myself into creative slumps, purely due to my own anxieties.  And I'll admit that earlier in the year I was having some rough times in terms of my personal mental health.  But I thought that really committing more to my music and just generally putting my time towards sometime I'm passionate about would help me out.  I think it has so far, hoping to keep up this momentum and really grow as a composer.

Edited August 19, 2020 by Jamphibious

[BloomingLate]

On 8/19/2020 at 11:23 PM, Jamphibious said:

Hope all here have been well.  Things have been okay where I live (I think we've only hard around 100 confirmed cases in my health district in Northern Ontario), but the information / emotional overload of this year has certainly wore on me from time to time.

Despite holing up inside and working from home, I've been trying to connect / reconnect with cool people, musicians, and communities online.

I came out of the woodwork a bit more these past few months in terms of producing / releasing music again, which has been a positive.  I found in the past I'd often force myself into creative slumps, purely due to my own anxieties.  And I'll admit that earlier in the year I was having some rough times in terms of my personal mental health.  But I thought that really committing more to my music and just generally putting my time towards sometime I'm passionate about would help me out.  I think it has so far, hoping to keep up this momentum and really grow as a composer.

Sorry to hear you've been having some rough times. It certainly has been a crazy year that we're all likely going to remember for the rest of our lives.
I hope you'll be able to keep it up with working on your music. Having something of a goal and a distraction at this point sounds helpful :)

Things are still very quiet in my area in terms of Corona. So much so that I almost completely forget about it. I hardly pay attention to it anymore, though I can't escape it when I have to get on the bus or go to the grocery store. My sister on the other hand is having serious anxieties over the virus!

On 7/6/2020 at 9:35 AM, Loyale 2.7 Turbo said:

I've successfully teached my Daughter to play Piano & Keyboards...  ...and somehow she is way better than I.

She plays complicated songs from Zelda, Final Fantasy and others alike.

She is a young kid, so I am pretty astonished, and Glad.

That's so cool! A proud parent moment, I can imagine! I'm happy for you that you can share this with your daughter. A future contributor to OCR maybe? :D

[Meteo Xavier]

This trainwreck, Jojo's-Bizarre-Adventure-meets-a-Cannibal-Corpse-album-cover-pandemic-existence I'm in has not slowed down even a little bit. It's been a new, high level gut punch every day. 

Highlights from the last five weeks include:

* I discovered my best friend of 18 years, and one of the very few I have left at all, as well as someone who got me into Ocremix to start with, had waged a full-scale smear campaign against me to my ex-wife behind my back while he knew we had plans to get remarried. He sold me out as someone who's on the verge of going on a shooting rampage, telling straight up lies, misconstruing things I told him in confidence that he used as ammo against me. And for what? Just so he could exchange lewd videos with her.

I can't even compare the sheer scale of that betrayal to anything. I'm just as jaw-on-the-floor shocked now as when I discovered it 5 weeks ago. It's explicit. I have screencaps of it. There is no ambiguity whatsoever. And he still had the gall to talk to me as always with his other face like he was justified for it. When I confronted him, he wasn't even sorry. "Why would I defend you?" he said. I called him a hedonist at one point, he took that title in cheerfully.

It's the kind of thing that you go pay a local voodoo witch to curse so there is some kind of cosmic karmic reprisal, but there's no point, whatever karmic reprisal would be in store for him has already been going on his entire life. There's nothing to take back as punishment. It's the most senseless thing I've ever seen with my own eyes, and I've seen actual paranormal shit.

* Oh yeah, and his efforts to derail my remarriage were pretty ***damn successful. My progress there went so far back that my depression relapsed into overdrive and I had panic attacks every night for two weeks.

* My dad's cancer recovery has not been working out. He still can't talk and is eating out of a ***damn medical bag.

* Two weeks ago, my dad also announced he was getting divorced from his wife who is not my mom. This is while he can't talk and can't eat anything. He lives 2,000 miles from me and I can't get to him to help him directly.

* One week ago, I learned my dad's wife did NOTHING to help him during his cancer recovery. That's 8 months of leaving him to fend for himself. Also, he's the one that had to move out. My brothers just hauled off and drove across the country to help him out (though no one told me about it until they were already out of the state).

* Got sick one day, non-COVID related, took a nap for a brief bit, woke up and somehow one of my cats got out again. Waited for him to come back for 6 hours, then spent 9:00PM to 7:30AM chasing him all around the mountainous woods trying to get his ass back inside because he refused to come back in on his own for some reason. You ever hike a mountain? Not just the trails, but all the ledges you're walking by that slope obtusely and are covered with bushes and trees? Yeah, do that chasing a fucking cat for 10 hours in the dark until the sun comes up. Literally walking through bushes. I got him back in but my body was cut the fuck up.

* And my worst fear came to life - the cat contracted fleas with him. I lose even less time in the day keeping things COVID kosher and now fighting flea infestation (although I've almost won it).

* Last week I woke up to several responses on Facebook and a few privates messages from a Trump supporter who was threatening serious, call-the-police violent interaction on me for a meme I posted in response to someone's pro-Trump bullshit. This wasn't the typical Trump-thumper chest-thumping, this dude was claiming to me privately he knew where I lived, making a countdown to when he was going to show up, and that he was going to murder me and my cats.

So what did I do? I just responded by posting to him in PM the same meme that set him off to begin with.

Dude blocked me on Facebook from there. Ironically, I'm pretty sure he really was Trump-thumping chest-thumping after all, he just wanted to go a few steps further than most. I've had dozens of folks tell me they're going to find me and fuck me up and not a single one has shown up yet.

* Then came a gut-punch I really was worried about - I got a letter from the IRS saying I still owed them several thousand dollars even though I know I'm paid up for the year. A long and frustrating accounting journey to get into my IRS account while my tax guy is out of the state for several weeks and while the IRS hotline has "extremely limited capacity" to serve me showed that they received my money and still said I owed them that amount. They put my payment in the wrong fucking year. Eventually I got it straightened out, but after all the rest of the shit going on, something like that coming in just feels predictable and typical, right?

* Currently operating at 15% reserves, functioning and power from already challenging atmosphere with depression and depression-medication complications and additional lifestyle complications from COVID-19 while living entropy continues to overclock at 178%.

* Newest gut punch? Another of the last few actual friends I had suddenly died. Suddenly to me, at least, it turns out they'd actually been in a medically induced coma for 25 days. They relapsed into drugs and this batch was cut was something unknown, so it went straight to their brain and began literally eroding it. Then one by one all the organs shut down. Even if they had survived the MI coma, they'd just be a living corpse. So essentially they'd been murdered (and now the third of my classmates that has been murdered out of like 8 at most that had died), they leave behind an 11-year-old child, and what's left of the family does not have the $10,000 it takes to cremate them.

I think I've reached the point where I can call this some "Marquis De Sade shit" without it being exaggerated melodrama.

I darkly wonder how much more of this awaits before I have my heart attack or stroke or both.

Edited August 27, 2020 by Meteo Xavier

[TSori]

Geez, Meteo.  Not even sure what to say to that.  Awful doesn't begin describe it.  Hoping things start looking up for you soon.  Hang in there.  

[Patrick Burns]

On 8/27/2020 at 12:59 AM, Meteo Xavier said:

This trainwreck, Jojo's-Bizarre-Adventure-meets-a-Cannibal-Corpse-album-cover-pandemic-existence I'm in has not slowed down even a little bit. It's been a new, high level gut punch every day. 

Highlights from the last five weeks include:

...

Jesus. I don't know you personally but obviously I've seen your name around for maybe 15 years now. (And have one of your songs in my library, which my sister and I bonded over in the car one day.)

Obviously, I hope you can turn things around. But with all the shit you're describing, that's a pretty shallow suggestion. It's sorta like telling people that they should learn to sing. It's good advice, but it might take 10 years. But still, I hope you can turn things around.

I just finished dental school, and the patient-base is very interesting. It's a cheap place to get dental care, and we tend to seek out people with a lot of problems that need fixing. So a very common kind of patient you encounter is someone who has been through some shit in their life, and is now trying to turn things around and pull shit together. They've divorced someone, they've gotten off drugs, they're recovering from some major disease... and now they're trying to work on their health, lose weight, get a new job, and get on a good streak (and getting some teeth pulled and some cavities fixed is on their checklist).

I'm not much of a humanitarian, but it feels good to get to know those people. It's usually a pretty bumpy road they're on, with lots of regression. And for everyone one of them you meet, there's probably 2 other people moving in the opposite direction in life. But still... it's nice to see those people.

Hope you can level things off, and regain some altitude some day. (Might take 10 years, but... you know.)

[Souperion]

On 8/26/2020 at 10:59 PM, Meteo Xavier said:

This trainwreck, Jojo's-Bizarre-Adventure-meets-a-Cannibal-Corpse-album-cover-pandemic-existence I'm in has not slowed down even a little bit. It's been a new, high level gut punch every day. 

Highlights from the last five weeks include:

 

On 8/29/2020 at 5:21 PM, Patrick Burns said:

Hope you can level things off, and regain some altitude some day. (Might take 10 years, but... you know.)

I'm with Patrick. Mere words can't do much for a man going through what you are, Meteo Xavier, but for what's it worth from a complete stranger: I hope things turn for the better. And for what it's worth, I appreciate what you did to help make Songs of Light and Darkness happen. "Let Eternity Take Over" is one of my favorites on the album.

[Necrotic]

I think I originally started hanging out on OCR forums in 2005 when I was around 15 years old. I decided to come back and lurk the forums/Discord more recently and this is my first post in many many years.

I went back to school in 2019 at the age of 29 to begin a bachelor's in Computer Science/Mathematics so just been working at that. I took a summer class during the intercession period between the main semesters in the Fall/Winter and now I just started my second year  I also got a job with the university radio doing a bunch of programming/server stuff. Despite the pandemic, things are going okay. Life is good. :] And I'm glad to be living in Canada where most of our governments at the federal and provincial level seem to be handling it well

Edited September 24, 2020 by Necrotic

[JohnStacy]

In late June I was in a car wreck. At 60mph I slammed into the flat side of a trailer front on. I'm alright, as is my wife, but I'm starting to wonder if I'm having PTSD from that. We were driving down to sign the paperwork for a house, which we then bought. We moved down on the first of July. 

In moving down, we were hoping to seek opportunities that hadn't previously existed to us - wife is a real estate appraiser and Midland, Tx has a shortage of those. That's also where I grew up, so moving home seemed like a good idea. There is also a shortage of private lesson teachers in many musical areas - I was told that my areas of expertise (French horn and music theory) would be in high demand. However, moving down here ran us into more issues than solutions. That is to say both my wife and I have experienced extensive radio silence from many parties. The banks and agencies that seemed so excited for her to move here have been slow to respond since moving here, if they respond at all. Similarly, although the band directors I have communicated with have all been very helpful, the administration that I have to report to to approve me to teach in the district is not responding at all. I have sent numerous emails, phone calls, and even went up to the administration building just to be met with confusion or not met at all.

We aren't in trouble yet. We had an okay savings set aside, but that will run out if we can't get more work soon. We are both feeling very defeated at the whole situation. Because of the pandemic, I'm understanding if responses are slow. However, I'm not understanding radio silence that lasts for several months. I understand if there are plenty of fires to put out and some emails slipping through the cracks, but I'm not understanding every email and phone call for 3 months slipping through the cracks.

I was trying to produce more music, but burnout killed that.

[djpretzel]

@JohnStacyMan that sucks; regarding radio silence, I've been seeing/hearing a lot of that, directly & secondhand. I think it's mostly people being at their limits - emotionally, physically, spiritually, politically, you name it. Probably guilty of it myself, gonna try to do better. I wish I had some ideas/suggestions; sounds like even institutions are eroding, based on lack of response...

[Broadcast Bowsette]

Playing too many games. Was into insurance for a good while, but it was 3rd party and the stress of working for a questionable company was murdering my health, so I had to bounce out. Nowadays I'm trying to get a youtube/twitch 'career' going along the vtuber route and see if I can't make some people laugh and smile during what has otherwise been a devastatingly garbage year.

[Daylectorbr]

Watching Netflix, Anime's, playing FFXIV... Oh and yeah, I still have work, so I can only do those I've mentioned during free time or weekends hehe

[BloomingLate]

I have a few positive updates to share. Since I made this thread, I might as well share them here.

1. My wife and I have been married for 9 years this week! Not quite a milestone yet, but still worthy enough to eat cake...
2. After my last visit to a doctor/specialist I was told that there wasn't anything left for them to do in terms of trying to find a physical cause for my chronic fatigue. I came prepared with a bunch of information on how to test for and help with ME/CVS, but the specialist shot down my whole approach to my problem and told me he didn't have time to read all that. I felt terribly misunderstood and the guy was pretty blunt about it, but the positive thing that came out of it was the feeling that I could finally let go of the search. I guess you might say I have finally come to accept my disabilities. This in itself has brought a great deal of peace.
3. While the above was going on, I was reading a great book that deals with the topic of trusting God in the midst of suffering. That book has helped me immensely by reminding me of Gods sovereignty over all things (including suffering), His love and His wisdom. I've grown in trust in Him and I'm accepting the fact that my suffering has a place in His plan. I've come to rely more on God for strength and wisdom while living with daily pain and fatigue.
4. When I went to prayer hour at church last Wednesday, I looked at the prayer wall (where people put their prayers on cards) and found one that had my name on it. It turned out to be an old prayer from my wife for me. In it she asked for God to either heal me, or help me to deal and live with my condition and to trust Him more. At that moment I realized God had done the latter. So thank God for that! (The reality is more awesome and significant than these simple words express!)

All in all, and despite the craziness that is going on around us, I can honestly say that I am happy (as in "Blessed are the...") I haven't felt like that in ages. I'm more at peace, continually aware of Gods presence and just thrilled about the little things, like when I got to see a Common Kingfisher (a bird that is not quite so common where I live) or when I got to take pictures of my favorite butterflies And all of that, right around the building where I live. So, many things to be thankful for!

EDIT: pictures!

The latter two are actually exotic butterflies, not from my neighborhood. I took those at some special butterfly place, elsewhere in my province. The third one is actually really huge in reality!

Edited October 30, 2020 by BloomingLate
Added pretty pictures :D

[Grey Ninja]

Not trying to start any drama.  But I'm reminiscing about the old days when I used to frequent this place.  The site used to look like this:

https://web.archive.org/web/20050309050153/http://www.ocremix.org/

When the redesign went live, I upset the pretzel by posting a greasemonkey script to make it look a little more like that.  He deleted my entire post history and banned me.  I was unbanned shortly after, but I decided to leave anyway.  From all the unfamiliar usernames, it looks like almost everyone I knew has gone (Hello liontamer and darkesword though!).  This was the last forum that I frequented.  I miss the old internet before these stupid upvotes and downvotes, and you could just have a conversation.

I love you all for keeping it alive.