Spotify:

YouTube Music:

https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mHcHs3fpKrK-_nqQMHRP9PW1sPdkq2lFg

Bandcamp:

This album took me a little more than a year to put together. When I first started this back in January 2018 I had no idea what I was doing. I’ve never recorded, mixed, or arranged entire songs by myself. I did have a lot of guitar riffs and chord progressions built up in my mind from the past decade or two.

Anyways, this is still a very much amateur album with lots of room for improvement. This is especially true with vocals (performance-wise and mixing-wise). I am not a singer, and have really no experience singing prior to this album. I plan on continuing to practice and will hopefully get better.

This is just the beginning and not the end.

Punk rock is my favorite genre to listen and play to. Right now the songs are just instrumental with no vocals. I played and recorded the guitars. The drums are MIDI drums that I programmed. I plan to write a longer post talking about the details of everything. Anyways let me know what you think.

New 2016 Honda Civic Touring Edition

After eight long years I finally traded in our older 2008 Civic for a new 2016 Civic. The 2008 model was great and served me well, but it had over 135,000 miles on it and was starting to nickel and dime me here and there. So we upgraded by trading in our 2008 EX model for a brand new 2016 Civic Touring Edition.

I decided to stick with Honda and a Civic in particular because the car still hits all my requirements. It’s well made, great looking, feature packed, and affordable. Originally, I wanted to get the EX-L which is the higher end model of the Civic with leather interior. Unfortunately, it was impossible to find this model with the exterior and interior colors that I wanted (white outside, beige inside). The next model up (Touring Edition) was available in the colors I wanted and came with many additional features with a manageable price increase.

I’ve had the car for a day now and love it. No regrets. Let’s hope I get another great eight years from this car as well.

Updated Home Office

For a long while now I have been wanting to redesign my home office. My wife and I moved into a new house about a few years ago and while a majority of the house was nicely decorated, the office wasn’t. My office contained one simple rectangle desk, a small printer stand with drawers, some CD/DVD racks, and finally a tall bookshelf.

The main problem with this setup was the desk. I currently have two gaming PCs, three monitors, a personal laptop, a work laptop, and a tablet. And let’s not forget all the peripherals, including keyboards, mice, speakers, headphones, etc. Trying to fit all this onto a single desk was difficult. It also made cable management behind the desk damn near impossible.

I figured the first thing I needed to do was get a new desk. I decided to go with the Galant desk series from Ikea. It’s fairly cheap yet sturdy and also modular, allowing me to pick and choose which pieces I wanted. I went with a corner desk with a long side table. In the corner is my main gaming PC and monitors. On the long desk attached to the side would contain my alternate gaming PC, monitor, and laptops.

This setup would give me much more room to work and play.

It has finally arrived. Last month on March 24, the legendary punk band Strung Out released their latest album titled Transmission.Alpha.Delta. This album has been many years in the making and along with a few delays, has had many fans eagerly awaiting its official release.

Prior to the full release, Strung Out published a few teaser songs and snippets to help hype the upcoming album. And hype it did. Fans worldwide, including myself, were brimming with excitement. These teaser songs were fantastic and had many people hopeful that the album would be better than Strung Out’s last couple albums (which frankly sucked).

Transmission.Alpha.Delta is worth the hype and more. Within the first few weeks of release the album reached #2 on the Billboard Hard Rock charts. This album is much better than the previous couple albums released by the band (including Agents of the Underground and Blackhawks Over Los Angeles).

The Strung Out that most people know and love is back in this album. From the first song on the album, Rats in the Walls, through other songs Tesla and Magnolia, expect to hear what Strung Out does best. Needless to say, this is quickly becoming one of my favorite Strung Out albums. If you’re a fan then please check it out (you can listen below) and let me know what you think.

Enter Die Knowing. Some major changes occurred with the band between then an now. Members of the band have been added and removed, including a new singer (granted a lot of this happened a while ago, but I’m just learning about it now). Also, the band has become more hardcore, which is usually good in my book.

Unfortunately, Die Knowing suffers from the same issues that I found with Comeback Kid’s previous albums; the album contains a few good songs, but overall the album is just so-so. This is mainly just personal preference as music is obviously highly subjective.

Check out their latest music video below and let me know what you think. This song (Should Know Better) is definitely my favorite on the album.

I finally got around to watching the anime Attack on Titan this past week. I’ve always heard good things about this anime but never really had time to sit down and marathon it. So last week I came across it on Netflix and decided to check it out. The anime was released about a year ago and right now only contains one season with 25 episodes (subtitles only).

Attack on Titan is a good anime. The story is fairly interesting. The characters are believable and can be related to. The visuals, including the animations, artistic style, and action sequences are all fantastic. Unfortunately though, the series at times felt slow and uninteresting. While most episodes were great, there were a few that were just… boring. But don’t let that turn you off from watching the anime. In the end Attack on Titan is a good anime, and one that you’ll be glad you watched.

The story and universe this anime takes place in is fairly interesting. Without really explaining any history the story throws you right into the present. People are living in large cities that are surrounded and protected by very large and tall walls. Outside these walled cities exist these creatures simply called Titans.

Titans look like giant naked humans. They don’t talk and they don’t appear to have any emotions or intelligent thoughts. The only thing they do is wander around and eat people. No one knows where they came from or why they do nothing except eat people. The Titans are exceptionally creepy, with giant mouths and teeth that are usually showing, waiting for their next meal.

The anime is slightly disturbing (in a good way) as you watch these humans try and combat these Titans which usually ends in failure. Watching people getting caught by the Titans and then eaten is a little unnerving. To fight these Titans, humans have developed these personal grappling hook machines that they use to move and swing around a Titan. This element makes for some really cool and exciting action scenes.

If you have a chance I would recommend watching Attack on Titan. Most people who watch it seem to enjoy it. There’s lots of good action, a decent story, and likable characters. Don’t forget though that this anime (like most anime) can be slow and long at times. Plus it leaves a lot of questions unanswered. Check it out and let me know what you think. Intro below:

No Trigger is a hardcore punk rock band from Massachusetts. They have a great sound that’s very similar to other bands like Strike Anywhere and A Wilhelm Scream. They have been around since the early 2000’s and have released two full-length studio albums. Unfortunately, I have only heard about this band last year. I say unfortunately because this band is fantastic and I wish I knew about them sooner.

No Trigger released their first studio album in 2005 called Canyoneer. The band self-released a few other demos and albums before hand. For the first part of the band’s life they were unsigned. This may be why many people, including myself, never heard of them. Needless to say, their demos were impressive and soon they signed to Nitro Records to record and release Canyoneer.

Several years and a few different band members later No Trigger released their next studio album titled Tycoon. Both albums are fantastic in my opinion. I do enjoy Canyoneer the best as I feel it contains a slightly harder and faster sound. Either way, this band does a great job mixing hard core punk music with melodic choruses and backup vocals. A third of the songs are fast, another third slower, and the final third a nice mix of fast and slow tempos.

If you’re into punk bands like A Wilhelm Scream, Strike Anywhere, or Stretch Arm Strong then definitely give No Trigger a listen. You can listen to one of their songs below. As always let me know what you think in the comments below.