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