So I saw this a few days ago on slashdot (and later on BoingBoing): The RPM Challenge

Summarized: Write and record a complete album (10 songs or 35 minutes) during the month of February just because you can.

But really, you should go read it.

The ideas behind this exercise in artistic creativity greatly intrigue me. I've long been the sort who most often pursued his creative interests only when it struck his fancy. This challenge asserts that a more disciplined, "whether you feel like it or not" approach can be very rewarding - and as it points out, you can't put that much effort into something and *not* get better.

I also appreciate the project's emphasis on encouraging people (anyone and everyone) to make music for the sake of making music. This strikes a chord (forgive the unintentional pun there) that resonates profoundly in a time when the recording industry and its money-making concerns are in the forefront of the music scene.

So yeah, I'm going to try this. Should be interesting. I've done their little sign-up thing, I've posted it for you all on my blog, I've made a commitment. Lets see what I can make happen. It's going to take some organization, some discipline and a lot of work. It doesn't have to be great (something i'm reminding myself), it just has to be the best i can do in a month.


Worst case, I've made an effort, have at least *something* to show for it, and almost certainly improved as a musician, songwriter and recording tech. Best case, I have a lot of fun and I come up with some truly interesting new material. Either way, I win.

~PS

Yesterday, we held our annual Llamabration - that is, our birthday party for our resident llama. Great fun was had by all who attended this monumentous occasion.

Basically, we hung out at Mike & Steph's, ate Lasagna-not-lasagna made by our EP as well as many other tasty goodies, played much Wii and gave our quadruped many interesting gifts. I took a bunch of pictures which are now posted in the gallery here.

Happy Birthday, Llama!

~PS

Some of us were talking the other day, and we decided we don't get out enough.

I probably don't mean that the way it sounds though. It's not as though we're hiding under rocks, but we all just kinda do the same things all the time. That is to say, we hang out and play games - board, video and roleplaying. We occasionally do other stuff, but probably not often enough. We could also stand to get outdoors a bit more often. Don't get me wrong, I very much like just hanging out, playing games and doing nothing in particular, but it would be fun to do something different for a change. Here are some things we've decided we should try to do - maybe sometime this year (preferably once it gets a little warmer).

- We should do quite a bit of hiking. And not just at Sycamore Shoals (which is nice enough), but at least a couple trips up to Round Bald, Lorell Falls and other places. I mean, we're in the mountains just miles from the AT. There are *lots* of good sites around here.

- We should go to a zoo and/or aquarium. Sheri's been saying this for a few years. There's a zoo in Knoxville and a zoo and aquarium in Chattanooga.

- We should go over to Bay's Mountain to see the wolves. They have a sort of preserve/habitat for them up there.

- We should look around for some interesting museums. I know there's a big one in Knoxville and i'm sure there are quite a few others within a reasonable distance. Nashville (5 hours away - far, but not ridiculously so) has quite a few including The TN State Museum (which is *huge*) along with the only full-size replica of the Athens' Parthenon (Not as cool as going to Greece, but some of us aren't that lucky), a Botanical Garden / Museum of Art and the Cumberland Science Museum/Planetarium.

- We should go to some state parks and/or similar areas. Maybe do some camp-outs, the aforementioned hiking and other stuff. There are quite a few of them within a couple hours of here.

- We should bike the Virginia Creeper Trail. This would be great fun. I'm told they'll rent you bikes and there are several different segments of the 35-mile trail you can take (you know, in case you're not used to going *quite* that far).

- We should go up to IN to go skiing/tubing/etc with my parents on their boat. I've been saying this for a few years, but we haven't gotten around to it yet.

I'm sure there are some more good ideas as well. You all can put some in the comments if you want. We'll probably be asking around for who might like to join us in our grand adventures too.


Of course, one of the best things for most of these (at least for me) is the opportunity to take some great pictures at a lot of these places. I'm really looking forward to that. :)


~PS

I thought $$60,000,000,000 was a bit of an overstatement in my case - even if you have been bugging me for pictures of this.

Here's what happens when you have friends like mine. They buy you awesome costumes, and then they want you to wear them and take pictures of it.

Apparently one of my friends found this replica of Vash the Stampede's coat on ebay, decided it must be mine, and gave it to me for christmas. It is pretty awesome. Whoever made it did a great job. It's pretty darn accurate from what I can tell too. I don't have the actual glasses, so I had to improvise for the photo (it didn't look right with no glasses). Still, looks pretty good.

I guess with costumes this cool, I feel it's about the least I can do to oblige their demands of photos. Plus, it's another excuse to play with my camera. I think took about 8 pictures. I thought this was the best one.

It really is a nice coat. I've thought about modding it slightly (by maybe adding a few details and/or maybe a partial lining) and actually wearing it places - but then i remember i generally don't like people staring at me. Plus, they'd probably think my strangeness + bulky coat makes me a terrorist or something. Then they'd Google me and find out i'm wanted for sixty billion (double) dollars. It's just all down hill from there...


Some of you may remember the penguin costume. That one I actually wore to a costume party. There's some pictures of that floating around somewhere. It was pretty spectacular too. I had thought about dressing the penguin up as something (that'd be two costumes at once!), but I think Vash the StamPenguin is too surreal even for me...


Anyway, thanks guys. :)


~PS

Welcome to version 7!

I think the version 6 made it almost a year. Pretty good. Of course, change was inevitable.

Quite a bit different with this one - my focus shifted a bit since the last build. Among other things, this layout was designed with a lot more concern placed on appearance. I'm sure you can tell, as it's easily the slickest Penguinsushi.com so far.

Probably the most obvious thing is the absence of the forums. I basically decided they weren't used enough to rebuild or port for this version of the site. Most of the people I built it for in the first place have their own blogs, etc by this point. About the only thing I used the forums for was planning gaming sessions. I liked the centralized nature of them for planning, but I generally ended up emailing people anyway - so, going back to email as the primary method isn't going to be much of a change.

The new Gaming page will keep track of the games I'm running in terms of posting the session times as they are planned and keeping track of character xp, etc. I'm going to take a break from typing out synopsis' of the sessions. It's just too much work in addition to planning. If I were only running one game, it'd be different, but...

I also took out the quotes page. It didn't get much traffic. The *list*, however, still exists and you can still add to it. It's just that now the only public display is the 'random quotes' box.

One of the biggest reasons for the rebuild was the Gallery - having a 10mp camera isn't very satisfying if you're only posting 400px images on your site. I'm still not *posting* 10mp images (that's crazy talk), but I've doubled the size of the pictures displayed and I think it adds a lot.

I also added a Music page to post some of the stuff I've recorded over the last couple of years for anyone who's interested.

Basically, the site is now built around my 4 biggest pastimes - web development, gaming, taking pictures, and writing songs.

For any of you using rss to read my site, note that the feed has changed. It's still in the same place and all, and probably won't have much effect - but it's possible some of the links in your older articles will be broken. Sorry.

Anyway, hope you all like the new site. I do. :)

~PS

So I'm currently sitting in our company office in downtown Lebanon, OH. It's kinda cool, actually. On the second floor; has a nice set of windows overlooking the old downtown area. I like the buildings around here - they've got character.

Matt, Barb, Addie and I have been having a good time (Kedrick/Warren has mostly been gone or on the phone in the other room). Lots of random, funny, sometimes work-related conversations. It's been fun to be all in the same room and I've enjoyed getting to know them in person. It actually reminds me a lot of hanging out with my friends much more than being in an "office". Still, we've managed to accomplish quite a bit, I think. I got to go over my system with them (which was the point of this journey) and they understood it all pretty well. They'd been doing a good job already though. I think we make a pretty great group of coworkers.

I'll admit working from home is a little lonely sometimes... ...though I enjoy having Ally around. And I miss working from my Mac. I should also point out that the office here is in dire need of some audio enhancement - preferably in the form of some nice speakers and good coding music. True it might make phone calls a little more difficult, but still, there's two rooms. Work it out.

The plane ride up here was... ...alright. A little nerve-wracking. I don't care much for flying. I'd been on planes twice before - all with groups of familiar people in large planes in and out of major airports about 10 years ago. Much. Different. I'm figuring Tri-Cities doesn't see too many 727's and the plane I rode out on was actually a prop aircraft. Yeah, *lots* of vibration on those things. Kinda freaky. The jet i took from Charlotte the rest of the way was much smoother and more like i remembered (though still small) - that is, after it got off the ground. It was delayed for about 1.5 hours. I say the flight was smooth - yes. The descent into Dayton, however was quite rough as there was some incoming nasty weather. Also kind of freaky. I'm at least a little familiar with flying now though - and that's nice. I didn't want to bring my camera on the trip because i didn't know what to expect in terms of the flying arrangements. I'm still thinking leaving it was for the best, though i'm sure it would have been ok and I do wish I had it.

On the way to Kedrick & Addie's house (where i've been staying), we drove through a bit of a monsoon. It was crazy. Oh sure, it rains like that in TN too. About twice year. For 15 seconds. Total.

Kedrick & Addie's house is pretty cool. I've even had my own room and bathroom for this trip. They have two dogs - a huge golden retriever (and i mean huge. Like, "i've-never-seen-a-golden-retriever-this-big" huge...) who *loves* me (mostly because they love everyone), and a tiny little terrier-like dog who i've yet to get to come anywhere near me.

It has been weird being away from home by myself. I miss Sheri and Ally. Still, it's been a pretty good trip so far.

~PS