Music

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While I guess I’ve always had a soft spot for cheesy songs, I’m totally blaming Guardians of the Galaxy that I found myself singing along to this one while waiting on a cup of coffee.

Ooga-chaka ooga-ooga

Ooga-chaka ooga-ooga

Ooga-chaka ooga-ooga

Ooga-chaka ooga-ooga

I can’t stop this feeling

Deep inside of me

Girl, you just don’t realize

What you do to me

When you hold me

In your arms so tight

You let me know

Everything’s all right

I’m hooked on a feeling

I’m high on believing

That you’re in love with me

Lips as sweet as candy

Its taste is on my mind

Girl, you got me thirsty

For another cup of wine

Got a bug from you, girl

But I don’t need no cure

I just stay a victim

If I can for sure

All the good love when we’re all alone

Keep it up girl

Yeah, you turn me on

I’m hooked on a feeling

I’m high on believing

That you’re in love with me

All the good love

When we’re all alone

Keep it up girl

Yeah, you turn me on

I’m hooked on a feeling

I’m high on believing

That you’re in love with me

I’m hooked on a feeling

And I’m high on believing

That you’re in love with me

I said I’m hooked on a feeling

And I’m high on believing

That you’re in love with me

Hooked on a feeling

— Hooked on a Feeling 

Rock & Roll Founders

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Whole lotta’ good music here, but I have to admit when you open with Bill Haley & The Comets singing (We’re Gonna) Rock Around the Clock Tonight: it’s impossible for my mind not to flash back to Happy Days!
For better or worse growing up as a couch potato has led me to associate certain audios and visuals together. Given the next tune on the playlist is Chuck Berry poppin’ Johnny B. Good, you can guess where my mind flashes to next….

Sand in My Boots, Morgan Wallen

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 She asked me where I was from

I said “Somewhere you never been to”

Little town outside of Knoxville

Hidden by some dogwood trees

She tried talkin’ with my accent

We held hands and waded into

That blue water

She left her flip-flops by my Red Wings on the beach

Yeah, but now I’m dodging potholes in my sunburnt Silverado

Like a heart-broke Desperado, headed right back to my roots

Somethin’ bout the way she kissed me tells me she’d love Eastern Tennessee

Yeah, but all I brought back with me was some sand in my boots

I said “Let’s go shoot tequila”

So we walked back to that beach bar

She said “Don’t cowboy’s drink whiskey?” huh

So we drank bottom shelf

She said “Damn, that sky looks perfect”

I said, “Girl you’ve never seen stars like the ones back home”

And she said “Maybe I should see them for myself”

Yeah but, now I’m dodging potholes in my sunburnt Silverado

Like a heart-broke Desperado, headed right back to my roots

Somethin’ bout the way she kissed me tells me she’d love Eastern Tennessee

Yeah, but all I brought back with me was some sand in my boots

I said “Meet me in the mornin'”

And she told me I was crazy

Yeah, but I still thought that maybe she’d show up

Ah, but now I’m dodging potholes in my sunburnt Silverado

Like a heart-broke Desperado, headed right back to my roots

Somethin’ bout the way she kissed me tells me she’d love Eastern Tennessee

Yeah, but all I brought back with me was some sand in my boots

Yeah, but all I brought back with me was some sand in my boots

— Sand in My Boots, Morgan Wallen

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The problem with songs stuck in your head is they can be rather loud, but if you’re lucky they’re also good songs.

Another head hangs lowly

Child is slowly taken

And the violence, caused such silence

Who are we mistaken?

But you see, it’s not me

It’s not my family

In your head, in your head, they are fighting

With their tanks, and their bombs

And their bombs, and their guns

In your head, in your head they are crying

In your head, in your head

Zombie, zombie, zombie-ie-ie

What’s in your head, in your head

Zombie, zombie, zombie-ie-ie, oh

Do, do, do, do

Do, do, do, do

Do, do, do, do

Do, do, do, do

Another mother’s breaking

Heart is taking over

When the violence causes silence

We must be mistaken

It’s the same old theme

Since nineteen-sixteen

In your head, in your head, they’re still fighting

With their tanks, and their bombs

And their bombs, and their guns

In your head, in your head, they are dying

In your head, in your head

Zombie, zombie, zombie-ie-ie

What’s in your head, in your head

Zombie, zombie, zombie-ie-ie

Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh, ay, oh, ya ya

Zombie-ie-ie….oh

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There as a thing my mother used to mention every now and then, I loosely remember it as 

They’re coming to take me away,
Haha, they’re coming to take me away,
Ho ho, hee hee, ha ha,
To the Happy Home with Trees and Flowers
And Chirping Birds, …

I always figured this was a poem or a limerick from her youth. Except I could swear there was a mention of cows and chickens somewhere. In looking it up, I’m just going to guess she had a LP of Napoleon XIV somewhere.

Actually, that would make some sense if its circa ’66. Perhaps in more ways than one.

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Whether I spend it on gaming, or programming, or anything else. I find it’s a fairly narrow window betweent hat point where the dogs start deciding it’s time for bed, and they decide me getting on the computer before bed isn’t a valid excuse for it being too early for bed.

Shortly after Misty’s nightly meds the dogs usually want to get ready for bed. When they decide if I’m not in bed yet there’s going to be treats to pay is rarely long after :/.

Actually Willow always kind of wants treats but she knows after bed her odds of success go waaay down.

On the flip side in that narrow window for getting things done, I’ve got speakers and some nice music on the Country Jukebox. But of course it’s long past the point of going to bed before the dogs get anymore antsy, lol.

Alligators and ear worms

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Thanks to my choice in feeds, and Google’s sans of seeding radio, I’ve had this song stuck in my head.

In 1814 we took a little trip
Along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississip
We took a little bacon and we took a little beans
And we caught the bloody British in a town in New Orleans
We fired our guns and the British kep a-comin’
There wasn’t nigh as many as there was a while ago
We fired once more and they begin to runnin’
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico
We looked down a river
And we see’d the British come
And there must have been a hundred of’em
Beatin’ on the drums
They stepped so high
And they made their bugles ring
We stood by our cotton bales
And didn’t say a thing
We fired our guns and the British kep a-comin’
There wasn’t nigh as many as there was a while ago
We fired once more and they begin to runnin’
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico
Old Hickory said we could take ’em by surprise
If we didn’t fire our muskets
‘Till we looked ’em in the eyes
We held our fire
‘Till we see’d their faces well
Then we opened up our squirrel guns
And really gave ’em – well we
Fired our guns and the British kep a-comin’
There wasn’t nigh as many as there was a while ago
We fired once more and they begin to runnin’
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico
Yeah, they ran through the briars
And they ran through the brambles
And they ran through the bushes
Where the rabbit couldn’t go
They ran so fast
That the hounds couldn’t catch ’em
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico
We fired our cannon ’til the barrel melted down
So we grabbed an alligator and we fought another round
We filled his head with cannon balls, and powdered his behind
And when we touched the powder off the gator lost his mind
We fired our guns and the British kep a-comin’
There wasn’t nigh as many as there was a while ago
We fired once more and they begin to runnin’
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico
Yeah, they ran through the briars
And they ran through the brambles
And they ran through the bushes
Where the rabbit couldn’t go
They ran so fast
That the hounds couldn’t catch ’em
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico
Hut-two-three-four
Sound off, three-four
Hut-two-three-four
Sound off, three-four
Hut-two-three-four
Hut-two-three-four.
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Johnny Horton
Battle of New Orleans lyrics © Emi Catalog Partnership

And some random chuckles involving alligators and cannon balls….

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Before heading to visit friends over the weekend, I opted to plan ahead and download a few choice albums. So I could set my phone to playing Google Play Music in downloaded only mode without worrying.

Seems like a lot of the music from my Hackmode 2017-01 playlist ended up there, as well as various cached music. I had created that playlist as I was going into crunch, that became a 15-day straight bombing run. Filled with music for the various emotions that go with working much overtime and the need for deep focusing.

Combined with the various files, Play Music opted to make a surprising mixture. On one hand, music like Alan Jackson and Ritchie Valens on one side, P!nk and Queen on the other, bracketing sound track made for The Hero of Fereldan descending into the hell to fight the Darkspawn and Faith doing the whole parkour across totalitarian future metropolis thing.

This kinda worked out better than expected, so I saved the queue as a Playlist: Roadtrip 2019-10.

In retrospect, I have to admit that the sound track from Dragon Age: Origins works for driving, as well as a fantasy RPG and focusing. Like, we don’t have John Williams and this isn’t Star Wars, but it better be damned awesome was probably their yard stick for composing the game’s score.

Hmmmm

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About a year ago, I came across an interesting hybrid game called Omni Link; combining space combat, exploration, and far more importantly a good story. Much to my surprise it also had a couple of great songs to go with the journey across space.

My review on Steam was quite positive:

At first I thought, “Huh, this feels just like asteroids!” when I got to the helm. But it’s so much more than that.

Omni Link is more of an RPG / VN hybrid with action in a vein similar to Asteroids for the space combat. You can explore and travel the star systems, but interactions are mostly combative or story driven. It’s fun but the story is where it is really at.

I greatly enjoyed the story. Good times between Keb, Arcadia, and Dawn. Malthus livens things up quite a bit. Suzumi’s rescue was especially good for the soul. All in all, I probably enjoyed the story more than I would have going to see a movie for the same price tag.

Music is freaking great. Honestly my favourite part is the sound track–I wish there was an add-on with the vocal tracks and some concept art.

Art is very well done. I love the intermixing of comicbook/manga style panels here and there, and the CGs that are scattered across the game are wonderful. Some of the moments are especially great such as the hug and the cowlick scene.

Action as previously said reminds me of Asteroids. Augmenting that however is your fleet. As you pilot the main ship, Dawn takes care of your support ships and they are quite effective. Meanwhile you can morph into whichever one you like for direct control agains the enemy: allowing you to be the quick scout, the gunboat, etc and delegate the other roles to the A.I. backing you up.

Towards the more typical VN parts things are a bit more sparse. Saving only can happen outside of the VN portions. No gallary, screenshots don’t seem to work, etc. But it gets the job done. More focused on the space combat parts of the UI than providing an interface like renpy. No real complaints because the story is excellent.

/* Also Steam client needs to add a spell checker :'( */

I use vndb to track and remember the visual novels that I play, and there are not very many that I rate towards the top of the voting scale—Omni Link is one of the few I voted 9/10. Which pretty much means great victory on the story front.

One of the perks of using Steam is the ability to follow a game, and hope that someday a news post is made if updates or new projects occur. When I heard the developer was working on a new project called Crypterion: it didn’t take long to add it to my wishlist.

Later on, when the Kickstarter project was announced, I was very tempted. Never been a fan of backing crowd funded projects, but given how much I enjoyed Omni Link: the odds are in my favour that fun shall be had. Hearing that there were still some CDs in existence from Omni Link’s own crowdfunding, I rather went from “Remember to do that” to “Where’s the sign up button”, lol.

Suffice it to say, I really enjoyed the game’s main themes, particularly the song “Love is Pretend”. Pretty sure that a transcription of the lyrics is going to end up in one of my notebooks somewhere.

Today, happily this arrived in the post box:

This CD shall be going in a nice safe space :).

Actually, this kinda makes me glad that I still have plenty of hardware that can play CDs, and don’t have to power on an old PlayStation, lol.