A little over a year after I last actually opened FL Studio (oops) and, looking back at my last post, what a difference a year makes. While career advancement is still ever-so-slow due to typical bureaucracy nonsense and I'm still nowhere near any sort of travel abroad, we still got ourselves a nice little list of great new things since then. New place that's closer to work and in a (somewhat) better neighborhood? Check. Something with 4WD so I don't see the eyes of God every time I drive in the snow? Check. To cap it off though, we got ourselves a bonus objective: new girl in my life. Damn if she ain't something else to boot...

Now, none of these aren't any real justifications for my laziness when it comes to my creative endeavors, but y'know, it's kinda hard to make some music about how nihilistic and generally dogshit you feel when...well, you don't feel that way. Doesn't mean I can't take some inspiration from other feelings I may have, though...

Well. There's promise again on the horizon. Talks of promotions and job security. Moving up the career ladder. Should be happening about the same time I move into much better digs than where I'm at now and have a friend or two visit from out of state. Should also be about the time they're expecting vaccines to roll out to the general public, by which point I might've gotten mine early. Gonna be a lot easier once this promotion's in effect to save tons more money, perhaps work toward getting myself something that isn't useless in the snow. Maybe stockpile away cash to do in '22 what I wanted to do last year and travel abroad.

Maybe. It's all a ways a way. For now, everything's the same. For now, I'm just fine again.

Man.

I'm sure you've all been stood up before, in some way or another. Happens a lot, for good reason or not. But it takes a lot of buildup for a case of no reason to create for such a spectacular emotional landslide on the receiving end. That's what I've had to deal with in recent days.

Match with a girl outta nowhere not too long after I swear off the agents of misery known as dating apps for a while. Hit her up because I've got nothing to lose, and suddenly before I know it, we're hitting it off on a miraculous level. Helps too that not only is she cute, but she's not mincing words on just how attractive she finds me. Plans are set in motion for meeting up over a drink. Talking nonstop, with expectations for what's in store escalating. This is it. Catharsis. Perhaps this is the woman I've been looking for along this winding, ever-shifting trail of shit, emotional manipulation and pain that I've found myself on for years now. I'm excited the morning of our date.

But it all comes crashing down. Go to say good morning, find myself blocked. Panicked, I go to try and quickly make another Snapchat account and explain the situation, but I get nothing back in reply. I even go as far as to find her Instagram and try to reach her there. Blocked. No signs of anything wrong. Both expressing great excitement for the next day before I went to bed. She's just...up and gone like that.

Hadn't yet met a girl who'd go so far as to send Snapchats of her tits in the shower, then sever all contact within 24 hours, but I guess it's keeping the heartache fresh and interesting. Just another in the chain.

Anyhow, despair inspires my work, so here's a new track. Gonna take a little while to get over the magnitude of this one...

Alright, it's been a month, pretty sure I filled out everything proper the way I oughta when I first finished working on this track. Got it all re-submitted and shit to the audio portal, so go ahead and give it a listen.

Idea was originally to have more than just one new track by the time this sorta 'strike' was up, but lo and behold, I've been a lazy POS about it again. Not like life lately hasn't served much inspiration; typically it's when I really feel like shit that I fire up FL Studio and get work on transcribing the feels to an audible plane. And I've certainly had no shortage of those lately. World's a goddamn mess outside of my self-contained, boring as fuck life. Been on those doomer nightwalks. There's plenty more inspiration, I just need to get back on being creative about it for an outlet.

Anyhow, I hope y'all enjoy. Gonna make certain it's not another 3 months or more before I've got something new again.

Alright, so here I am, making good (finally) on not being a lazy POS and putting all this newly-found free time we've all been granted to uphold my promise to, y'know, not be a lazy POS when it comes to making music this year. Crank something out last night, get it uploaded as per usual on SoundCloud, and then it's a hop, skip and a jump on over to good 'ol Newgrounds. I upload the new track, fill out all the formality yadda yadda, and there we go, right? Wrong.

So like 20 minutes later, it's gone. In fact, it's not just gone, but suddenly I'm the recipient of an automated and condescending message saying I've been banned from making audio submissions for the next month. Why? Copyright bullshit, my favorite thing on the internet to deal with for the past 13 years. Don't get what the fucking problem was, filled out all the normal shit the way I did for my other tracks. Nothing I sampled with this or my previous tracks had any sorta particular license on it - all free usage.

So fuckin'...whatever. I'll just reupload it and whatever else I make before then in like a month. And I'll give the "proper" information on licensing. Suck a dick. Whatever. In the meantime, however, my latest track can be heard on my SoundCloud, as per usual.

https://soundcloud.com/user-557311288/self-contained-solitude

After about a decade or so away, I've made my way on back to one of the many proving grounds that shaped some of my youth: the ever-lovely Newgrounds. I must say, things are lookin' good 'round here; cleaner, a bit more modernized, yet it's still easily identifiable as one of the handful of sites I'd often try and wait until my parents went to bed to explore.

Here's the gist of things: I'm here to do three things, those things being:

A. Use Newgrounds as a secondary platform for my music/related projects as they evolve. Soundcloud's nice and all, but I can't spread things too thin if I wanna have a bigger audience, right?

B. Throw some support behind some artists I like that've flocked to Newgrounds in the wake on ban-happy sweeps on Tumblr and Twitter. I will be horny on main occasionally, sorry.

C. Re-live some of the golden days by finding some older shit. Honestly you'll probably only see me collecting medals and whatever for ancient things that amused me/made me laugh as a young lad.

I'm still far from any sort of expert on music, but shit, I can't get better if I don't keep throwing things at the wall, right? Here's to the best of what's new and old.