Stringjam

Country music radio has always been pop. I think some folks need to pull off those rose-colored glasses and remember all of that big string-arranged orchestral lounge music that country radio played so much of during the 50's through the 70's (remember countrypolitan?) Even up into the 80's you had guys like Kenny Rogers, George Jones, Ronnie Milsap, and Glenn Campbell writing hits that were almost straight-up pop tunes. There's good music being made now just like there was back then, only now you don't have to limit yourself to the radio to find it. As far as Taylor Swift, I'm not really a fan. I'm not really the audience she's writing for, though....but I just don't really hear much in her vocals to interest me. My favorite female country singer is Hayley Williams......the only problem is she doesn't sing country (except for this one Loretta cover). There's such a difference between vocals like this and somebody like Taylor Swift. Killer, unique vibrato and some real character and feeling behind the vocals.

It sounds like I was going through something very similar......and yes, in the beginning it was almost terrifying, especially when you reach the point of paralysis and you actually can't snap out of it. Being physically aware of the rapid-eye-movement is a very strange experience. I noticed a few strange things in my lucid dreams. Anytime I would look at words (whether signs, or written pages), look away, and then look back......the words would ALWAYS be different. I could always blow out glass windows by, for lack of a better term, using the "force" against them. A few times they wouldn't actually blow out, but would ripple like a wave. Anytime I could find a guitar, I could play ANYTHING I could imagine on it. This was awesome!! Some dreams would be more real than others......some were incredibly real, with almost absolute clarity and realization of my surroundings. I really had to focus on being positive in these dreams, because being the star in your mind's own little horror movie can truly be a disturbing experience.

I used to have them a lot when I was a little younger. I would actually feel myself physically going into REM sleep - - and it was somewhat painful and scary at first. It would feel like my eyes were sucking back into my skull and I could feel them start to move around. This would be followed by a realization that I was paralyzed, and a very loud whooooooooooshing sound, and then the dream would begin. I could never control the actual content of the dream, but I found that if I starting worrying about something scary happening, the dream would always take a turn for the worse.......a bit like your fears manifesting. The problem is, the more this happens, the more you kind of expect it to happen, so the lucid dreaming ended up being something I really didn't look forward to. Too much disturbing imagery.

Relatively new CryEngine3 tech demo. I've always been impressed with CryEngine.....from the looks of this video it seems they're still pushing forward. This looks mostly in-game. Most impressive recent demo I think I've seen is from Square Enix.......this is real-time and running on a single high-end GPU (certainly not in-game, though......but the fact that this is still real-time on a single GPU is almost amazing). I was floored after watching this. The hair rendering (although not very realistic) is astoundingly good. For some reason I couldn't get the HD link to embed......these shouldn't be watched at anything less than 720.

Squarepusher for when I need a "Nintendo with ADHD" fix. ....and since we're posting metal videos, too: The fine djentlemen of Periphery: http://youtu.be/8gy25McxkEI

Starkey is good for chill

I love all kinds of music......electronic music is no exception. A little sampling of some songs I dig: Just when you think this song can't get any filthier, it does (@ 2:00 it drops into the psychopsylic sludge.) Love it.

The only thing I don't like about it is the paddle shifters.....and no standard manual transmission available. I know the paddles are quicker....but really, if I'm going to buy a sports car it's going to be for one thing -- because it's FUN TO DRIVE, and grabbing gears is part of the fun! I'm not interested in knocking 1/4 sec. off my times at Nurburgring. Unfortunately it seems to be the trend among all the European makers....paddles or nothing.

I've been with Sprint for a couple of years and I've been very happy with them. The online plan management and bill pay is actually understandable and easy (as opposed to when I was a Verizon customer). My $70 plan gives unlimited data. I always have coverage. Sprint roams on Verizon's network so between those two I've always had a signal. T-Mobile appears to have a cheaper plan....I may look into it at some point if I decide to switch carriers.

Yes - I go by Stringjam7. As much as I enjoy it, I hardly have a minute for it anymore.......unfortunately. Hopefully I'll have more time this summer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFjX4MDDhI0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWDGQr_SnLs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrz_lC10P6A

Random smattering of some music I enjoy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRsIas3RgtM&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0ZRvxDrOxo

The internet...of course. If it weren't for the 'net, I wouldn't be able to enjoy things like this: Or learn about Japanese culture...

That's awesome, Nate! I'd love to see the finished building. It sucks not having time to do what you really enjoy.

I thought MW3 was just a $60 map pack for MW2? (sorry....I couldn't resist.... )

That is some killer stuff, Nate! I wish I had modeling skills....I've always wanted to get into 3DS Max but I know it's very deep and would require more time than I have. Thankfully the guys over at CryDev are very generous with assets (not to mention that CryTek includes all of their assets / textures/ materials in the SDK), so it's easy to put together something very nice with "community" stuff.

I spend more time playing around with the CryEngine2 SDK than I actually do playing games, anymore. I completely lose track of time when I'm in there....I was off yesterday and I spent all day just messing around with terrain textures and lighting variables! If I ever actually get into modeling and asset creation I will have to quit my job and hide in a basement for a few years. I've been working on a map for awhile that resembles something closer to home (Missouri) as far as landscape / vegetation. My goal was to make it a free-roam single player level within 3 years....but that's never going to happen, I just made it too enormous to begin with. A few pics from the editor:

Nice work, Marty...good job on the faded dolphin (one of my fav colors)

For some reason this story, and the fact that it took place in a McDonald's parking lot, doesn't surprise me at all.

Great looking work, Marty - and I love that color on the end. Kind of looks like a darker variation of the old "Mellow Yellow" scheme. I agree with both you and BobP about paint design. Simple just works.

That looks awesome, Cliff!

Yes....NVidia has nothing comparably priced to an unlocked ATI 6950 2Gig that offers the same level of performance. I'm pretty sure a single 570 would run this game at max everything without much of a problem. That card can pull almost 50 FPS out of Crysis Warhead at 1920x1080.

Very cool, Ben. I like the deep diver.

Been checking out the latest vids for Battlefield 3. As much as I don't really care for military squad-based FPS for single-player - I may have to pick this up just for the multi-player. I'm kind of stoked as I understand that DICE's development emphasis was for high-end PC, being released in full DX11 with high-res textures and all, not in DX9 for consoles and then later patched with a high-res texture pack (ahem... Crysis 2). My ATI 5850 is starting to show a little age though....this may be just the excuse I need to pick up a 6970. The in-game animation and character modelling look pretty fantastic.