Back Pain & Verification

 

As a kid I remember my father always having back pain and a "slipped disc". I have suffered from this for decades myself, but found a very long time ago that walking 30 minutes a day kept that, and my cholesterol all under control and me pain free.

But the last 2 summers here in Kyoto have meant it isn't possible to go for a walk, even early in the morning for some 8 months of the year without the risk of heart stroke.  The humidity is the killer. My back started "that feels like a slipped disc coming on" during August and I started visiting the local air-conditioned Mall a few times a week to walk there, but it was too late.

Had back pain making sleeping difficult in the last weeks, "just like in the old days" 😒 A pity I know how to not get that to happen, but can do nothing but "move carefully" till it fixes itself. 

Verification

The Global Banking System is now requiring "ordinary customers" to prove who you are because of "money laundering".  I think the biggest crooks responsible for all the "money laundering" are the corporations and financial institution executives themselves, and this is all just a smoke screen of security theater.  Will do nothing to stop the crooks, who are rich enough to get threw the loop holes they paid politicians to put in the laws anyway.  

Having thousands of companies with a registered head office in the same small building in the Cayman Islands, and all those associated with them is THE REAL PROBLEM! 

Having to comply with those regulations, for a bank account have had for 30  years in Sydney is a pain too, requiring getting a document notified and signed by Consulate staff we have to make an appoint for.  

Freak Kitchen Umeda 

Looking forward to Mattias and the gangs concert. It is 22 years since they last performed here apparently, but I didn't discover them till their COOKING WITH PAGANs album.  In the last 5 years their music had such an impact on me. The inspiration to write and sing songs of my own, that actually mean something worth saying, and do more with alternate guitar tunings which made such a difference too.

This morning I brought this 2021 "Oh What A Waste" project to my new Win PC H: drive ReaperProjects Directory. I change sounds around every so often, and so had to replace some PlugIns I don't use any more in the project with with the current ones, and IR cabinet files as well.  

I am also still in the fairly recent "Simmons SDS5 drums" thing and made them electronic instead of DRUM KIT FROM HELL too.  Replaced what was the center guitar track, with a new one through the POD EXPRESS BLACK I recorded this morning.  Track was originally done with my Ibanez RG350 in Drop Dflat and that is what I am still using. My best "guitar", but it is only 6 string.  

The animation project was updated to a MUSIC+COMIC with the background being the original Garbage Dump animation. Our cat joins in too, briefly.

Last week I did a COVER-NOT-COVER of Feak Kitchen's NO BODIES LAUGHING, and the chorus riff here is very similar.  

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Adding a 4TB HDD To The GTUNE Win11 MOUSE PC

Used the Windows11 Gamer PC for 4 weeks to see there were no failures before putting in the big secondary disk I had bought.

The manual they give you shows where the main connectors are, and a blog post I found showed the process of installing a HDD into a Desktop MOUSE PC.

MOUSE PC don't recommend adding anything to the PC yourself and understand why now. Removing both side covers doesn't give you the access you need, and the liquid cooled CPU cooler plumbing is in the way.

The way the 2 big cooling black tubes come over the edge of the graphic card from the CPU cooler to the front fan unit means you cannot remove the graphics card that is covering access to the SATA data connections. Thought moving those fluid filled tubes at all was out of the question.

My initial thoughts were it wasn't possible to get to the SATA data connector on the motherboard once the Graphics card and CPU cooler had been installed in this GTUNE Small desktop model case!  Looking closer showed it could, but without completely removing the Graphics Card as you normally would.

The following needs VERY VERY GENTLY added before everything being moved, plugged in or unplugged.

What I had to do was, unscrew the graphics card back panel retaining screws and bracket, unplug the 2 power cables for the graphics card, then very carefully get the graphics card out of its motherboard edge connector noting there is a clip on the right most edge that needs to be unlocked, then point that edge connector and board toward the bottom of the case enough, hold it there, then with the other hand plug in the SATA data cable to the top now just accessible SATA connector. Didn't have enough hands free to take any photos.

Not for the inexperienced at all. 

Putting the HDD in the pull out holder and plugging in the SATA data connection was not hard. I didn't have a right angle SATA data connector though, so the side panel makes the cable curve going down to the motherboard tighter than I would have liked. The SATA power connector cables were all cable tied together, so that tie needed cutting and getting one suitable connector in the right place to plug into the HDD, then cable tying the rest back together, but not as tightly. A tight cable tie can eventually cut the cables it is holding. 

It all went together, I assigned H: to the drive, did a quick format, and it was all working.

It would be much easier for anyone else to just buy the options for their MOUSE PC with the secondary HDD or whatever done at the factory. But for the same price I would have then had a 2TB HDD factory installed, rather than 4TB.

Back to work...

This new Win11 machine boots and is ready to work in seconds. My old Win10 machine, which has pretty much the same CPU with loads of memory, but a HDD C drive, takes way longer to boot, then you generally have to leave it 20minutes for updates and Defender to run before you can start work.  End of normal support for it is under 4 weeks away now, but surely Microsoft isn't trying to make the Win10 experience worse by slowing it all down, is it?

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Ghosts [Yurei]: A Urasawa Naoki Song In English

 

So just 60 seconds of URASAWA NAOKI's "Yurei" from yesterdays HOT🥵 Kyoto afternoon, but in English with Synths and METAL GUITAR🤘 A very literal translation and with more thought could probably make it a bit more catchy or something, but did the music and animation in just a couple of hours, so didn't put a lot thought into it. 

He actually sings "no one else can see us", which may make sense in Japan, but in English, to be more a love song, the couple should only see each other. "Only having eyes for each other" being an Idiom in English for a couple in love.

I thought I would just sing his Japanese at first, but Urasawa already did that, so I don't need to.

The word GHOSTS has terrible sibilance I haven't cleared up enough, so it is what it is 🫠.   It does however have this interesting Shhhh sweep across the stereo field though, so maybe it should be a feature! 😀 

If you are into making "studio" music, like I am, your constantly getting YouTube recommended videos  about mixing, mastering and gear. But in reality for me, making my mix or my master "better" doesn't impact how many see these Music+Comics.  A very niche thing, only a few bother to check out.

Urasawa san's Osaka Music+Drawing gig is September 23, and I have a VIP seat.  Hope to not get sick and not be able to go!

Urasawa san is first and foremost a successful comic creator. This music stuff and his CD releases are a very serious hobby and may be his Sunday radio show and MANBEN Neo NHK TV series is too. You would think he is trying to do fun things other spend all his time chained to a manga drawing board, wouldn't you?

This picture was posted to his X account 2025/8/30 (I assume he doesn't do any interaction with his own X account and an assistant handles it), saying they had finished rehearsals for the first show in Tokyo 2025/8/31.  The left hand up and finger is from his 20th Century Boys manga, the symbol from the friends cult.

And the turn out for that Drawing-Music gig. All making the "Friend" hand sign.

Been thinking I haven't even tried to play any of Mattias's FREAK KITCHEN music. Same way no one does covers of Jeff Beck's music, as his guitar had notes on it the rest of us don't have. Just a riff or 2 here and there. What he does is mostly really hard, but I can do his Drop Guitar Tuned power chords... 

Looking forward to seeing them at Club Quattro UMEDA in 2 weeks time. The following week is the Urasawa gig.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

So Why Make Any Thing When Nobody Cares?

 

A rather long winded video by Venus Theory on something I thing every creator/maker thinks about. YouTube counts those minutes, so videos need to be far longer than necessary. 

I have thought a lot about "why?", and write about it every so often on this BLOG.

He does say "we do these things because we have to, and that makes us happy.." or some words to that effect. 

I have said more than once "I make things because I have to, to remain a Happy Camper", as I get down if I don't, and feel I am wasting my time/life if I aren't making something regularly.  I have felt this way since I was a little kid, and is probably the way I found to self medicate my condition. 

Before I retired, I had to make things in my working life and that meant my own projects were not always something I needed to work on every week. The need to make something is like being hungry, where the hunger goes away after you make something, and the day job could satisfy that to an extent. But the hunger comes back, and how often depends on what is being made. 

After retiring, and only doing random freelance illustration gigs every so often, means I spend much more of my time making my own things in my studio. For Venus Theory that is all about Making Music and Making Videos about Making Music.  For me, that is drawing, illustrations, painting, sculpting, model making, making comics, making music and in the last few years, making short MUSIC + COMICS. Like this on a recent RICK BEATO rant on obvious fair use and record labels.

Or this on the DEVO documentary recently saw on Netflix after watching THE DIRT and STRAIGHT OUT OF COMPTON:

Me being retired means financializing what I make isn't a concern any more, but that is a significant factor for Venus Theory.

So the answer to the question in the title for myself is: 

"I need to, to keep being a Happy Camper". 

It would be nice if more saw or listen to what I release, but I do stuff that interests ME, and I have always found very few shared my interests.  

You are not going to get any validation from the Nethereals that surround you. I learnt that in High School. Attending the 30th High School reunion reinforced that no end.  

YouTube showed me a video about Music Promotion related to Streaming Services a couple of days ago. Basically talking about Bandcamp, compared to Spotify, and one of the guys there had done a few types of promotions, such as promoted (with paid advertisements on Facebook) that anyone could download his bands album for free on Bandcamp, and had found no one would bother to go to Bandcamp and do that. 

His finding was downloading and owning music isn't something that the vast majority (so probably 99.99%) of listeners care about any more. They stream Spotify, and that is all. The way people in the 60s & 70s that had an AM Radio on a POP channel and never changed it.  Downloading or collecting music files is of zero interest now.  

On the Creator side, the majority of independent artists on Spotify get about 10 plays of their tracks they upload. This majority will never get any kind of payout either. 

As someone who only puts his music on Bandcamp (as hate the Spotify exploitation business model, as I don't see what I do as worth paying $20+ a year to just have it on Spotify via Spotify owned DistroKid), all download "pay what ever you want and $0 is fine too",  I found that all interesting.   

My own plays on Bandcamp are abysmal. But the point is, I don't do it for the plays by others.

But have had far more on Soundcloud (that I don't bother to use any more, and think most plays are bogus there anyway), and on YouTube with old car illustrations music slide shows and shorts.

I have similarly found I don't care for the popular activities where ever I have been. In Japan here, where more than a few Americans seem to want to share all the trivia in their daily lives by live streaming themselves constantly, and even get more likes for doing it in a Kimono or something, is something I have no interest in. That is just really weird to me. Many call themselves Creators but I reserve that word for something else... for those like Venus Theory.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

The BOTS are Listening

 

Recent Rick Beato video on his constant battle with Record Labels and their claims over music clips on his channel. He now employs a lawyer to handle these. 

But how come YouTube isn't listening and doing something about constant, invalid claims, from the same companies? No 90day, or permanent bans for proven trouble makers, like they do to content creators themselves?

The comments that came back to this question was YouTube is better off with the way it is now and couldn't care less about any trouble Rick Beato is being caused.

Anyway, always loved Pseudo Echo, even when their Brit Style Synth Pop with matching hair was completely out of style from Oz Pub Rock of the time.... 😀. A previous music comic I did was on this tribalism.

And this is a cover-not-a-cover type thing. I listen to the original track and do something like a bad copy of it in under 60 seconds, at a tempo I prefer. This a little slower than the original  But with my current sounds and approach, like the 8th note bass sequence which is the foundation of this.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Win11 2025/8/12 Update Trashing your SSD

 

Have only had my Win11 up and running for almost 3 weeks now and it is very disappointing to see Update KB5063878 causing this chaos.

It appears to occur with long sustained, high data rate disc writes. User case being downloading and installing STEAM games on a Gamers PC, or copying your huge video library to an SSD drive.

It installed on my system 2025/8/13, and I get an error trying to uninstall it. So I guess I wait for the fix, which still hasn't appeared a week later.  Assume part of the reason for this original problem, and the slow fix is Microsoft having sacked developers and replaced them with crap AI.

Now, I don't think anything I do in general use of my PC at the moment, recording midi and 2 guitar parts, some digital painting and scanning pencil sketches actually would cause the bug to occur. Rendering 56 second animations and Reaper Mixes is very CPU bound, but does not generating long high speed disc writes.  I used my PC normally for a week after the bug was installed and I only found out about it from the above video yesterday.  

Lots on Reddit about it now. Affected SSD controllers are Phison, InnoGrit, Maxio (Sandisk, Corsair, Kioxia). Writing 50GB at full speed to an SSD can cause it to be unrecoverably corrupted. 

I installed CrystalDiscInfo as recommended, one of those "adverts everywhere disaster" download sites, and my system has a KINGSTON unit:

But there is no indication that this drive would not be affected by the bug. It is an industry wide issue.

I made a boot DVD and took a full backup to a portable HDD 2025/8/9, before the update, just after I had installed just about all my tools and data from my previous system, so I expect I can recover if something was to happen.

One of the things in this KB5063878 update is changing the certificates expiry for safeboot from 2026. So that means the requirement to get Win11 in the first place means MS can now stop a PC from booting at some date in the future, set by Microsoft.  Don't like what that allows.  

And the news Intel isn't in great financial shape, after years of CEOs from the finance world focusing on stock buy backs instead of using less money on keeping up in semiconductor technology  comes as no shock.  Assume this whole forced "security cpu feature" required in Windows 11 was Intel inspired too. 😡

Enshittification continues... 😒

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Not Everything Needs to Be A Masterpiece

Have read that more than a few times lately. Probably a few time just on Bluesky.  

But is it being said as world weary advice or an attempt to be a "thought Leader"? So much of the later on social media, followed by subscribe to my Medium/ Substack/ Patreon/ buy my book. 

Gets tiring. Not that it isn't bad advice though. As a creator, you need to make stuff, but the drive to perfection on everything is detrimental. Luckily I lost that a long time ago. 😌 My career in engineering was always deliver as good as can be done in the allotted time. Usually as fast as possible. Having a family also meant "my time" was always limited.

I think finishing something is far more important, than trying to perfect it. 

The Music + Comic itself isn't a Masterpiece either.  A music track far too like what I have done before and features a Lemans Hypercar comic I have yet to find the approach to make it funny or interesting. Still a work in progress.  

Feel I should come up with something more engaging and interesting in my comics and music + comics, but doing that is hard. Haven't found what yet. Also, getting older makes you far less relevant to the popular status quo. Young people don't care what old people have to say about anything anyway, which is what most of these have been like.  

Our cat, sleeping in the chair next to me as I type this, is 9 years old today. He has been a constant companion the last 4 or so years. Spending most of each day in my studio with me.

I am very happy he does. 

Update:2025/8/23 A week since kids and grandson went back to Tokyo, and we didn't get sick! Grandson came down with a fever yesterday, but that is probably from the daycare he attends. Poor guy.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

O'Bon Holidays Come To A Close

 

Our kids and grandson visited for 6 days, and they went home yesterday. So nice when they visit. So good when we get our house back to ourselves again. Grandson is in "the terrible 2s", and is talking which is wonderful, but can have a tantrum if you say "no".

Photos, in our family, were taken rarely, so I don't have a picture of me sitting on the knee of either of my grandfathers, and may have never done that.   

Been so hot though so getting out and about is particularly tiring for everyone. 

I had a mildly "slipped disc" for about the last 2 weeks, that went worse 4 days ago, but completely fine today. This indicates a lack of exercise and muscle tone, from not walking enough. How I keep this at bay over the decades, so will be heading to the airconditioned mall when it opens to get in my walking there, again. Need to do that more regularly as walking around locally is just dangerous in this heat and humidity in recent years.

Synth & Guitars

Made the attached YouTube short over the last couple of days though on the new Win11 machine.  The video actually shows what is making each part as it comes in. 2 guitar parts, both on the Ibanez 7 string thru a line6 POD EXPRESS BLACK. Using the ANVIL amp. ZebraHZ on 2 parts, etc 

People are so tribal. 

When Eddy Van Halen played JUMP on synth to the band, I remember a story about them discussing they can't do that keyboard thing in a guitar band. British '80s synth pop was very anti guitar. Even Viking Guitar God, Mattias IA Eklundh, who did a synth album just a couple of years ago, INTERGALACTIC SONGS OF LOVE AND REFLECTION, found out no one wants to hear such a thing from a guitar player. 

Well, except me maybe. I even bought it.   

So Synths & Heavy Guitars together goes against music tribe conventions, even if that is what DURAN DURAN mostly did.  I like both together too, so am not going to get listeners from any tribe. 😃  

So my new Win11 machine is completely usable now, until I go to do something I only do sometimes and find I need to sign into some account or install something.

Or Win11 decides "whatever" is not allowed to run any more! I haven't found anything "better" in Win11, just a pile of "they made it worse".  All the advertisements on the Log In Screen are so crass. 

So I bought Zebra: Legacy and that is awesome. Just using the 400 presets will keep me inspired for some time to come. That is the only reason to get it to me. Same reason I visit art exhibitions. I didn't actually need another synthesizer, but can always be inspired.

Have put a longer version on our Bandcamp:

That is the 36th "bit of music" I put in that album this year. And that isn't all I have done. Mostly for MUISC+COMICS. It is a case of "make the music you want to hear", but it is also like eating, and something I have to do every few days to stay " a Happy Camper". Sequenced synths and heavy guitar riffs for the most part this year. I play the tracks, or a DJ-MIX of them a lot when out, sitting in a cafe, riding the train or walking around. I am entertained making them, and listening to them. 

My own music is not the only thing I play though, and have also been alternating between that and playing Urasawa Naoki's LOVE SONGS, a Rikugo playlist and Freak Kitchen.  Now just 4 weeks to attending their concerts in Osaka.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Playing Music On Your Phone Speaker

 

Audio Nerd-ing Out. 

So made an EQ matching my phones sound on music. Allows to me to check my mixes in the DAW and change it to suit, if I could be bothered😄.  But the reality is, if you are listening on a Phone Speaker, you don't care about quality.  

But checking the mix on really low end speakers is still actually very important.  

The Sound File of Brown Noise was generated in Audacity, then played in a loop on the phone using Pulsar Music Player.

I used to use REW and my calibrated measuring microphone a fair bit in different projects in decades past, and so had appropriate gear at hand to measure the sound coming from the phone, even though high accuracy isn't needed here. 

The rest was just all done in my REAPER DAW.

The JBL FLIP series of Bluetooth speakers is or was a popular speaker, so we measures that was well.

The FLIP has a 100Hz boost, but has a reasonable downward slope to 15K, with a dip at 2Khz for  a "ALWAYS LOUDNESS ON"  type sound.   Would expect most home entertainment/ soundbar/ music players have a response like that. BOSE systems were always something like that (and NEVER "Hi-Fi")...

Here comparing the myphone to my Flip5:

And I made an EQ to approximate the FLIP5 as well, and put NORMAL, FLIP5 & PHONE processed sections on the music track in this:

Just an approximation, but could help in MIX decisions. 

Listening to music from your phone on headphones or earbuds isn't a low end experience at all though. The quality is better than what we had from standard record players back in the 1970s.

Phone Speakers are probably about the worst case though.  Even super thin panel TVs with really inadequate speakers sound better. Something like the old Auratones is still a good reference. 

The music in this short is the first time I have used Zebra Legacy, the Hans Zimmer version and that really is incredible.  Just so much inspiring stuff.

The reason players buy new stuff is to get inspired. We also tend to collect stuff, even if they are just small things, more than we really need too.  But artists do that with art supplies too.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Starting The Move To Windows11 & Pain.

 

After putting off researching building/ buying/ rebuilding my studio computer for much of the last year, I finally decided that getting one of the locally assembled brands was the most straight forward.  Unlike Sydney, there aren't build PC stores run by Chinese guys with all the parts you might need, local. 

There are stores that build customizable desktop PCs, like APPLIED and DOSPARA, but they aren't at my local MALL, and from my visit to downtown Kyoto DOSPARA, it isn't like they carry all the Gigabyte and other such motherboard brands.   

Most in Japan just use a Smart Phone or a small laptop. 

So I customized a MOUSE PC GAMER PC option. I have bought just an i7, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD, DVD R/W and fancy graphics card in a box. Lots of DisplayPorts and an HDMI.   No Display, keyboard, mouse or HDDs, as I have these in my existing system.

It will arrive next week, giving me 2 months to install, move things to it and be able to switch over before the October Windows 10 end of support.  Moving stuff over, installing, registering, deregistering the old machine, etc, etc takes many weeks. Mostly just waiting for things to copy and install.

My existing machine has 16GB ram and the new will have 32GB, but that is about the only real difference.  My existing machine is completely fine, as it was running XP, before I move it to Win10.

The only thing I have that pushed the memory of my existing system  is the GRITONE DRUM vst, and don't use that very often.  

Everything I have read just shows Windows 11 to be a step backwards, allowing advertising in the system widgets.  The requirement that Windows11 needs TMP2.0 is just an excuse for an Intel cash grab.  I was at a LAB in the 1990s when Intel released some special version of the 386 and then they came looking for any software that "required those new features".  

Same old strategy.

And keeping with this blogs theme of  PAIN, today is the 10th anniversary of my kidney stone trip to the ER. 

Kidney Stones hurt like hell, but with drugs for the pain and flushing out the trouble makers, that will be all fine again in a few hours. 

What is REALLY painful is an extensive hemorrhoidectomy that means you have the same or worse pain for 8 hours after pooping each day for 2 to 4 weeks, and no painkillers available to you help at all.  Recovering from that took me over 12 months.  For most of the last 10 months of that time, I wasn't in pain, but the intense extended pain seems to have caused a "depression". I wasn't sad or have the blues,  but everything that I had done for fun, wasn't interesting to me at all for 10 months.  Was like being a different person.    

But I was looking at interesting 1967 manga speech balloons this morning...

And today 2025/8/8 we are up and running on the New Win11 Machine.  Found a few things not installable, but have work arounds: 

It has a SSD drive so it boots fast, but other than that, is the same speed as my win10 i7 PC for rendering Reaper audio projects or MOHO animations.  Of course there were faster CPU options, like i9 and upward, but they add significantly to the price.  It has cost ~￥270,000.  It is a very nicely built machine though, and dead quiet the way I use it most of the time. That is a lot to be in pretty much the same place I was before getting it, but that is current American Capitalism for you.   

So Win11 doesn't support my old audio interface so going back to ASIO4ALL and the motherboard audio. That is what I did for years when I first started using Reaper. I had a MIC100 preamp plugged straight into the motherboard line in for guitar, bass and microphone. The noise performance of the motherboard was better than the preamp. I also only record one instrument at a time, so things like crosstalk between channels is not relevant. I have used a Mackie 4 channel mixer for the last 5 years doing the same. The knobs and multi segment VU meter is way better than a single clip led on most audio interfaces.

Motherboard line out now goes to an Audio Technica Headphone Amplifier, then to my JBL-104 monitors. I mostly use headphones, and don't like just plugging them into to the JBLs when needed. I keep everything plugged in as needed, and turn on the headphone amp or speakers at the power point as needed.  Hardly a Pro Studio monitoring environment, but the room is too small and I use a slow spectrum analyzer in mixing as much as anything else. The quality of my mixing and mastering isn't why no one listens to my music. 

Not sure what to do with the old Win10 16GB machine. I originally bought it in February 2016 as a Win7 machine in a Corsair Case/PSU, with 1TB HDD, 8GB, DVD R/W and a GeForce graphics card for $1,489.58.   9 years is a good run for a PC!   

At the moment it is the /Netflix/Prime/mediaPlayer connected via HDMI to a small 24" TV I have in the studio. Has Kodi on it.  

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Reading Out Loud In English Class...

 

Tomorrows midday NHK BS101 movie is THE BRIDGE OVER THE RIVER KWAI.  And that prompted me to remember that is one of the books we did in English class in High School.

I went to St.Ives High School in Sydney Australia 1971 till 1976, a free public government school, and not the expensive private schools most kids in that area went to. The books were loaned free to us for the year, but for what ever reason, there where not enough THE BRIDGE OVER THE RIVER KWAI to go around to all kids in our year and I had to buy my own paperback copy at a local bookstore. Don't remember that being any big deal though.

During some lessons, kids were randomly selected to read to the class from the assigned book.  And one day I was asked to read the next page or so.   I did, didn't get any reaction from the teacher or anyone else, so all good I thought.

But during packing our bags at the end of class, a big Greek guy, Paul Demoes, comes up to me and asks to see my book.  He wasn't a friend, but knew him. He looked at the book and was stunned to see it wasn't like the school issued book.  I had read a section that was full of FAHK, and hadn't realized I had been saying FUCK, and I had said that out loud in class, more than a few times. I was so innocent, I hadn't realized the characters had been swearing like that.

The teacher hadn't let on, and ignored it. 

I expect I wasn't the only one that had to buy their own normal copy of the book, but no one else ever mentioned it. Many, probably, were not listening to what anyone read. A few didn't need to listen to anything in classes, their future was secure and didn't need an education, more about that in a moment.

The only class I ever enjoyed was ART. Best, coolest, teachers too. 

During my 6 years in High School there were people I thought of as friends, that just disappeared. Go on an end of term vacation, and they didn't come back. I must not have been "enough" of a friend for them to tell me they were leaving the school.  Most that disappeared was because their parents sent them to a private school to "meet the right people".  Never about "a better education".  

The "not what you know, but who you know", that means so many in positions of power don't know anything and are actually unqualified for their position.  

"17 per cent of NSW Supreme Court judges went to one exclusive Sydney private school. A SBS TV Feed analysis revealed over 60 per cent of judges went to Sydney University and 15 per cent of male judges to one exclusive high school."  

Saw from my 20th High School Reunion Book that a few that never seemed to work at all in school, and didn't leave to a private school, just went on to inherit the big family business. So different from my own experience.

The kids in Private Schools didn't really associate with those that didn't.  Except my best friend, had left to a private school, and I remained friends with him, and met a few other Private School kids through him, or friends of his.  I remember visiting a Private School kids house a couple of times that was the grandson of the mega rich founder of one of the cheap Supermarket chains.  The guy next door was in my class at school, a family of mega rich coffee merchants, and saw me there once and asked "How do you know him?!".   They didn't mix, and I didn't become friends with either of them...

Took me many many years before I actually saw ( even though I had always been told) and REALLY realized that nepotism was so significant in Australia. Having the "right school or church" association counted for so much. 

I used to car pool going to university in the final year or so with 2 other guys. One I went to the same High School with, the other had gone to a Private School, and talked a lot about how much better that class of people were😒. 

At the end of University, the first job I was offered was in Industrial Control. I had been the most experienced practical guy doing electronics and firmware they had interviewed, and couldn't wait for me to start. The Private School guy I car pooled with told me "that was supposed to be his job, his brother-in-law worked there", even though he had never had electronics as a hobby and passion like I had. University certainly didn't teach anything practical in the field. I learnt that all in my own spare time from Electronics Australia, ETI, Elector and BYTE magazines and building and programming my own things since about Year 4 of High School. 

The day before I was to start at the Industrial Control company, I received a TELEGRAM saying the job was no longer available.  Did the bother-in-law get it back and give to his relative? I don't know, and I never met that Private School guy after University finished. 

It came as a real shock, but I soon got a better offer at Fairlight Instruments Pty Ltd.  A good start to my career.

I think now, in 2025, that a significant reason why it took 14 years to build the Sydney Opera House, was Australia has never had "the best people" for leaders.  Jobs for friends and relatives is the way it usually goes.  But having said that, have read the same thing happens in Japan here and the UK.

20 years before I retired, I saw appropriate tech positions I applied for, and was never ever called in for even an interview, go to members of THE HILL SONG CHURCH, at both ResMed and Cochlear.  I knew people at both places. I can't say that was the only reason, but it seems to have been a significant factor in the time from when I went back to Australia in 2001.   

Had felt during my time in Australia that this was all so wrong, and this in 2019, though it didn't make me feel better, made me feel I had been right. The place had gone backwards..

 

I was so innocent. That isn't what I put in my comic though.  😀

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Heads It Is... Caricatures and Music

Was playing around with the VITAL vst presets and found the main sound that starts this. Really liked it and inspired to make the rest of it.

The extended version on Bandcamp:

Happy and Bouncing along. Get tired of the dystopia and negative. 

I do caricatures every so often, sometimes often.  But there is this thing where if I don't get the likeness right in the first quick rough sketch, it can take ages fussing with it. Love the getting it right first go, and hate fussing with one.

This is just a few put into the 57sec version of music. Was very quick to do.

The music was pretty much first takes, but pretty much is just a variation on the same song done dozens of times previously.  A bit like going to an Artist Exhibition and seeing 20 paintings or prints that are very similar like Yayoi Kusama Iconic Polka Dot & Pumpkin Posters. Artists do that.

I just make stuff and throw it on the internet, to be seen between 0 and 200+ if I make an under 60 second short of it. I don't have an officially registered music publishing business or any of that, as the costs to me don't make sense to do that. I don't have a Patreon or $5 albums on Bandcamp either having experimented with a Kindle book and other things since 2001 and seeing the ROI I got.

Just a hobby. I could be spending my time sculpting or making model cars, which I do sometimes, which are the types of things that aren't "a side hustle". Think very few make any real money with music these days, unless of course you are Distrokid, Spotify or Bancamp. They sell the dream.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Ozzy Passes 2025/07/23

 

News this morning is Ozzy Osborne passes away at 76. I had been expecting this news sometime, even if 76 is really young now. We share the same birthday, with Ozzy being exactly 10 years older. 

Expect Ozzies drug abuse expedited his end. The candle burning twice as bright lasts half as long, or some human equivalent. In recent years he had back surgeries that went terribly wrong, so hasn't been a happy camper. May have wanted to get away from the pain.

Having the same birthday and being a founder of Heavy Metal made him an ongoing part of my world. 

Very sorry to see him go.  

Think the first Sabbath album bought was the 1973 Sabbath Bloody Sabbath.  We didn't have a record player before then. My parents had no interest in music. 

I was born the same year as Gary Numan, Thomas Dolby, Neil Finn, Michael Jackson, David Sylvian, Kate Bush, Prince, Madonna, Bruce Dickinson, Joan Jett, Gary Oldman, Alex Baldwin, Kevin Bacon, Tim Burton, Jamie Lee Curtis and Karen Stone. 

Another's passing makes me think...  

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Planning Ahead, Live Concerts Ahead

 

Have two concerts in September lined up. Technical Metal Freak Kitchen and a week later Urasawa Naoki's Folk Rock Music & Drawing.

The Urasawa Naoki gig will be particularly cool as my wife bought me a VIP front row ticket as a 40th Anniversary gift for the Osaka event. I do have Urasawa's I LOVE YOU and MANNON CDs. The track I like best though is the Manben Ballad that is the ending theme of his wonderful Manben Neo Manga Study TV series.

I have met and talked a little with Mattias Eklundh a few times in the last 2 years, attended his Osaka Guitar Camp, and seen him perform a few tracks, but this will be the first time to see him and his band live on stage.

The above MUSIC+COMIC was a quick off the cuff thing did yesterday afternoon. The music was one take each for each played part. Drums, ambient pedal tone synth, rhythm and lead guitars. Maybe that instrument arrangement is one of my things? For things like this I just don't care to put bass in them. Just seems kind of happy to me, and I was when I did it. I put a version on Bandcamp , Music And Drawing.here.

I worry about booking things like these concerts so far ahead in recent years, as I don't know if I will be able to attend. Had to book and pay the Freak Kitchen concert 5 months in advance, and a Hotel room as well.

It was 10 years ago I first collapsed and was rushed off to Emergency in an Ambulance. That time it was just Kidney Stones, and I have changed lifestyle since then, cut out some foods, and drink a liter of water a day.

Wasn't the only time though, and something could happen again. Nothing anyone can do about things like that though.

But going to these concerts, the first in maybe 30 years, is because it will probably just get too difficult in the years ahead. I also love these bands and events and they are a rare opportunity. The kind of thing that most likely wouldn't happen in Australia.

Social Media seems to have gotten even worse, where these blog posts now get more views than anything I post on Bluesky, X or Facebook. Stopped posting to Mastodon completely, and now rarely check there. Have Instagram, but rarely post there, but see what our kids post. It seems so bizarre to me that so many Brits and Mericans treat Bluesky as the way to fight fascism in their own countries, but the majorities in both places voted for that! They must think a 💓 actually has any worth 😱! 95% of what other people post is of no interest to me...

Started Star Trek Enterprise on Netflix. Watched some of this in 2001 or so when we went back to Australia. Remember almost nothing of it other than the main characters. I see many thought the opening theme song was cheesy, but I think it is wonderfully hopeful. So different from todays Fascist USA where they are closing down preventable disease control and NASA to give tax breaks to the billionaires. I dislike intensely all the dystopian and desperately depressing (like BLACK MIRROR, the BATTLESTAR GALLACTICA remake) TV stuff around too. Star Trek Enterprise is wonderful for being hopeful.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

A Bit Of This, A Bit Of That

Who Doesn't Like a Musical Robot? 

Upgraded my ancient MOHO pro12.2 to the not as ancient final 2013 MOHO pro12.5 with the $25 Humble Bundle offer around at the moment and it came with a few extra content packs of brushes and characters including this great Robot and rig.  The robot animation here is just the sample it comes with. 

I wanted to use it in a YouTube short, as that is the only thing that anyone looks at or listens too, so looked thru the last 40 pieces of music I made in the last 6 months and just grabbed one at 120BPM I didn't remember playing recently.   That animation music was edited in Audacity to a 50 second clip taken from Bflat-Dorian-120BPM-Stop-The-Cough with 8 string guitar synths from this track: 

https://megacurve.bandcamp.com/track/bflat-dorian-120bpm-stop-the-cough

It is just luck that the robot foot steps match perfectly to the kick drum.  It just worked. Added the tracks moving waveform as the background in the second version, and had the robot walk off screen as it fades.

I think I have made a ton of music tracks, that I may have used in a music+comic that no one sees and then just upload it to a Bandcamp album where they get forgotten, even by myself.  

This short gives part of this track another go at being heard. I should probably do that more, but I am currently driven to make new music while I can.  I expect Arthritis or such will make that difficult in the coming years.  

This version of MOHO, like my CorelDraw V12 and Illustrator CS3 are old versions, but they still have way more features than I ever use. 

Recent Movies & Documentaries

I record many of the movies broadcast on TV here, and look at those on PRIME and NETFILX. I never watch a movie in one sitting. Usually over 2 nights in the time before I go to bed at night. So many I have started to watch, then couldn't be bothered finishing.  Like the latest Beetlejuice Movie. I did see PATTON to the end, but boy that was a slog. Ad ASTRA was better, and it wasn't as bad as most of the reviews made it out to be. Quit on a Clint Eastwood directed and starred in Theif thing, and quit  IT'S COMPLICATED (supposed to be a comedy) about halfway.

Recent movies I watched and actually enjoyed were LILO & STITCH, METAL LORDS (even though the first 1/3 until he can play the drums is slow, it really picks up) and KPOP DEMON SLAYERS ( the characters and music are great).

 

The LEMANS 24H is something I have followed since being a kid and seeing how amazing the PORSCHE 917s were, and PRIME has a multi part documentary on the LEMANS 2015 race. Most of that is really good. 2015 Mark Webber and the Porsche 919 HYBRID in the LMP1 class.

LMP1's last year was 2017, and the Porsche 919 above won that with the same team that won the 2015 race. Amazing technology, but that is all for some other of my comics.

The above Porsche 919 Hybrid is a wonderful second hand 1:43 scale diecast model from Mercari.  Decades ago I would have bought a fantastic and expensive resin/white metal kit of a car I wanted, and spend 3 months making it.  Like I did for this resin Provence Moulage 1:43 scale PORSCHE 917LH.

The diecast isn't quite as detailed as the resin kit, but my eyes, the floaters and age, means I have to look really closely to see the difference, and I just don't see well enough any more to build and do a 1:43 scale kit justice. I just can't see the small parts well enough, even with a magnifying head band.

I started watching a few other Movies and Animated things, some 4 or 5 I couldn't be bothered looking up the names of, and just haven't been in the mood for what they offered.  

Then last night tried Netflix's Leviathan.  This grabbed my interest, and I watched the first 3 episodes in one evening. An alternate steam punk history of the events causing World War I.  One character has a wonderful Scottish accent that I could listen to all night.

Based on a popular book trilogy I had never heard of, then fascinated to read that it is an illustrated young adult book series.

The end credits have watercolor illustrations of scenes that occurred in that episode, but they aren't the black and white illustrations in the book.

Manga Catchup

I had been looking for Masamune Shirow's old DOMINION TANK POLICE, a work from before he made it big with APPLE SEED and GHOST IN THE SHELL for some time and finally found a reasonable copy. This is comedy action, and has furigana to make it easier for me. Always good. 

Otomo Katsuhiro is one of the founders of modern Japanese Manga, after  the Tezuka and Mizuki era and his work is something I should have a copy of and so have gotten APPLESAUCE and FIREBALL from the Complete Works Reprint series.  The detail in the illustrations is superhuman. I ask myself though, do I want to do that? My answer is no.

I have also finally found a reasonable second hand set of his AKIRA manga in English, his 1000 page masterpiece.  Should be interesting, and more than the Anime is.

And I continue to do random comics on random thoughts 😁

Or

As my own Creativity control is like the robot in this comic. Working hard to keep where I want it to be: 

It isn't something you really control. Ideas come from somewhere but it isn't controlled, and most just keep doing "the work"... 

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Who Are You? What Do You Want?

I think these are questions with different answers at different times in your life.  Who I am now, and what I want in my late 60s is the same, and not, as it was in my 20s, even if I am the same 24 year old inside.

I was always drawing and making things as a kid, and won a prize in an art competition.  Now in retirement I draw and make art again.   

But for my working life I set out on a technical career as I "needed to make a living".  I see on Social Media many that did not have that kind of focus at all. They didn't know what they wanted to do, so joined the Army, or went to be an English teacher in Japan, or some such thing, before finding a direction years later. I guess what they were told growing up was very different from myself.

There is this graph of happiness with age:

I am now up at the level of being the most happy and content I have ever been, living in Kyoto Japan and retired. I now make my art and music, go to exhibitions, cafes and concerts, as I please. Working away at home in my studio is what I want to do most of the time.

During most of my life, much the working part, I had to put off what I wanted to do, as I had to study for exams, or spend much of the weekend at soccer, or write a report, or keep up to date technically, or I didn't have any money for materials, or finish some project for a deadline, or had family things to do, or I wasn't sure of the future so I couldn't spend any money on that "at the moment".  For my working life in Japan, I had money, but no time to use it, and for much of my working life in Australia, I had time but no "spare" money. We came to live a very frugal life style before retiring and moving back to Japan, which ended up being pretty good for us. Even if I hadn't had a holiday in 18 years while back in Australia. 

I got back into recording music around 2006 when the Reaper DAW came out. And after ignoring my Squire guitar for a decade+, took up playing it again.  All the music gear I ever bought was from a little of the money I made from my freelance illustration gig. A MIC100 preamp, Squire Bass and Line6 Uber Metal Pedal being about it at the time.  It just seemed right to spend art money on art to me. As a musician, I am not a bad cartoonist. My drawing ability is far more than my musical ability, being a guy he loves power chords and just plays scales over them, but my music gives me as much satisfaction. You don't have to be really good at something to get joy from it. 

Most of those earnings went into our family account too though, but that was all good. 

Was just saying to my wife this morning, just not having to get to the office for the job anymore is such a relief. The travel, traffic, crowds and people.  

Of course, people not like me (me being on the introvert side), those more extraverted, really miss not having people around them and need that to energize them.  At a similar age they have to go out and join clubs or some such, and had a tough time during covid lockdowns from 2020.

Remaining healthy (the right weight, eating right, exercising enough) and active is so important now. Use it or loose it is true, as far as remaining mobile is concerned.

And some memories:  THIS IS WHERE THE SMOKE COMES OUT

By the way, that is NOT an Autobiography at all.  It has almost no personnel/ family stuff in it. But a collection of memories on what I was doing and thinking and the world events happening then too. 

Todays answers to the posed questions, that I could answer differently tomorrow.

Who Are You? An Australian now living in Japan that was always an artist, but went after a technical career to make a living.

What Do You Want? To make stuff in my studio, and have a happy healthy family life as a grandfather. 

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology