Fake Skins in 2020

I bought an electronic drum kit earlier. Should get here in a few days. I’ve wanted one for a year or so. I asked a friend who is a drummer in a metal band for advice, but he hasn’t used one before. I also asked another friend who doesn’t have one but makes beats, he gave some general advice but nothing specific. I just ended up going with what several sites suggested as a good beginner set that you could record with. I’ve never tried drumming, but it seems like it would be fun. Maybe I’d be more into that than playing bass. I did start getting back into it lately, but I’ve got to wait until whatever is wrong with my back is better. I tried playing a couple days ago and even just the weight of the guitar when I had the shoulder strap equipped was hurting.

So this is kind of a typical work day for me. I’m home on break right now, it was a later break today. We work a compressed schedule of 12 hour days, either three or four days a week and then that many days off afterward. We get a couple breaks that are usually around two hours each, and I don’t live too far away, so I always come home on break. Usually the rest of the house is sleeping when I get back for second break, so it’s kind of boring. Lately I’ve been putting music on my iPod on break, since I’m usually listening to it at work. It does make it easier to keep up on this site I suppose, having a regular chunk of time free where I can’t get too committed to any particular distraction. Who the hell even uses an iPod anymore? For just a thing that plays music though, it’s perfect, the battery lasts for days. I used to hate on Airpods, since they look kind of ridiculous and are insanely expensive. I bought an imitation pair off of Amazon a few months ago for 25 bucks, and they also look ridiculous, but man are they convenient. I don’t know if I could go back to using earbuds with wires at this point. That’s my combo to keep my sanity at work, which is pretty boring otherwise. I feel like almost anything is at least somewhat bearable if you have good music to accompany it.

There’s always downtime here and there at work, and I’m usually listening to music in one ear unless someone is talking to me, so I’ve been writing lots of lyrics. Some scraps, some full songs. A lot more than in a long time. Maybe I’ll post some sometime like I used to. The goal, as it usually is, is to at least get one song done by the end of the year. If I can get drums down, though, and I get a bit better at bass, it should be possible. One of the roomies can handle the guitar part, all that’s left would be some synth background stuff. I have the song pretty much laid out in my brain, I have for years, it’s just making that happen in reality. Of course, if I actually start making songs, I’ll get better with time, but it would also be good to know somewhat off the bat if I suck or not at it. I’ve been writing lyrics for 18 years. My early stuff is, well, cringeworthy for sure, but I think I’ve gotten a lot better. That’s a long time to have a possible delusion of it being worth anything more than an emotional outlet, but who knows. Lots of people are out of touch with reality in various ways.

I finally got around to getting my Open Diary restored. I doubt I’ll even use it, but there it is. I swore I had it backed up, then realized at some point years ago I didn’t, and was bummed that part of the past was gone. Here it is, able to be accessed, and it’s just like, well, cool, whatever, man. It doesn’t have everything, I think I started it late 2001 or 2002 and at some point it got wiped or the site had problems or something, so it only goes back to 2004, but that’s still, well, far too long heh. Maybe I’ll use it, probably not, but there it is.

Well, it’s time to head back to work for…an hour and a half before the shift is over. What a weird schedule.