gooseyard's recent activity
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Comment on What game are you terrible at? in ~games
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Comment on What lesser-known sci-fi reads do you recommend? in ~books
gooseyard Linka random title i really enjoyed but never see recommended or highly reviewed was "Encounter With Tiber", which Buzz Aldrin wrote with John Barnes. it's an indirect first contact story, nicely...a random title i really enjoyed but never see recommended or highly reviewed was "Encounter With Tiber", which Buzz Aldrin wrote with John Barnes. it's an indirect first contact story, nicely detailed and thought provoking, not a masterpiece but enjoyable
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Comment on What music have you been playing recently? in ~music
gooseyard Link ParentI think the fact that I don't sing in any of these groups is probably the big difference. If I have the changes and the form in my head I can play the whole tune on bass, although when I'm...I think the fact that I don't sing in any of these groups is probably the big difference. If I have the changes and the form in my head I can play the whole tune on bass, although when I'm learning somebody's book as in this current situation, its often difficult to remember the titles of the tunes, or how they start. Almost every time I do this there will be a few tunes I'm worried about and I'll think about maybe writing out the notation as a reminder, but if I'm not using charts on every tune they can be a nuisance since it might take me a while to remember which tunes I need the chart for, where it is in the book etc. So I default to no book and spending time memorizing the form when I practice.
That being said though, I struggle to even talk and play at the same time, much less to sing, so I think all of my memorization method would go out the window if I were trying to manage both. I guess one thing I am kind of religious about now as a consequence of embarrassing screwups on gigs, is to pencil in my first bass note on set lists for tunes where everybody comes in together immediately or the song starts with some kind of bass figure. Few things in my life have been more mortifying than playing a couple bars of some bass intro only to discover when the rest of the band comes in that I was in the wrong key the whole time. So whatever it takes is my theory :)
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Comment on What music have you been playing recently? in ~music
gooseyard Linki recently replaced another bassist in an established band, so have been working my way through four albums' worth of material. I do a lot of subbing in other bands, so the problem of having to...i recently replaced another bassist in an established band, so have been working my way through four albums' worth of material. I do a lot of subbing in other bands, so the problem of having to learn a lot of material in a short amount of time is not a new one. However in this case the previous player's style was a great deal different than mine, which requires spending some time figuring out how to replace some parts with stuff that I'm comfortable playing but which works for the songs and the current lineup of the band (which has also changed a lot since the albums were recorded). It's a bit of a balancing act since as a new member I think its important to respect the work that was done before I arrived, but not being too timid about experimenting with changes if I think I can make the band sound better live. And of course meanwhile not forgetting the existing arrangements and trying to bring some new tunes in as well.
I had gotten somewhat burned out on playing live this year and had taken a bit of a hiatus, so it has been nice getting my chops back together. However you never know whether situations like these are going to work out well or not in the beginning; I've had plenty of bad ones so I'm always nervous, but usually after maybe four or five rehearsals you start to get a sense of whether its going to be fun or not. So far, so good with this one.
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Comment on What are your thoughts on audiobooks? in ~books
gooseyard LinkI'm a life long compulsive paper-book reader. I got an audible subscription several years ago when a job I had required that I occasionally do a 1-2 hour drive to another office. Since then I've...I'm a life long compulsive paper-book reader. I got an audible subscription several years ago when a job I had required that I occasionally do a 1-2 hour drive to another office. Since then I've listened to probably 12-15 or so per year.
I love them in situations where I'm not distracted by anything else, long boring drives, flights, etc. I also walk a lot and now I can't stand it if I don't have a book or podcast to listen to. When I feel my attention start to get drawn away from the recording, for example if I get into really frantic traffic when driving, or if a walk takes me into an area where there's a lot of noise, I just pause the book rather than trying to concentrate on it.
I like audiobooks for non-fiction in particular, since I have a habit of wandering off mentally if I'm reading some long history title with dry sections. With the audio versions, the act of focusing on listening seems to reduce the wandering-off stuff, although it does still occasionally happen and I'll have to rewind a little.
A friend has an audiobookshelf server that I use occasionally. I have had a lot of trouble with the app losing my place between sessions, or accidentally bumping the tiny controls causing me to skip ahead to some chapter and it can be difficult to figure out where I really left off. I'm not going to look such a gift horse in the mouth if you catch my drift, but mention it since its about the only irritation I can think of with the open source self hosted stuff.
Over the years I've run into some titles where I felt like the audio version of a novel brought something extra that made the experience better than print; I somehow wound up listening to the entire Dungeon Crawler Carl series recently and the voice acting in those books is remarkable enough that I recommend them over the print versions.
I still read about as many print books as I ever did, although I find the audiobooks allow me to enjoy time that would be otherwise be wasted. I probably wouldn't do it were it not for the subscription services since I'm not likely to spend 30-40$ for a title and was too lazy to set up the self hosted stuff. I think the main thing is figuring out which scenarios they work well for you and whether you have enough of that kind of time for it to make sense to set everything up.
I absolutely loathed stealth games or sequences as I play video games to be distracted and amused, not to be challenged. Then a random Steam Sale kind of changed the game part of my life when a game called "Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun" was up for like 5 bucks. It got great reviews so I bought it.
I found it to be enjoyable and relatively easy, then I noticed in the achievements thingy at the end of the levels would mention something like "never alerted any enemies", and I thought how in the hell would you do that? Or more importantly why would I even care?
I finished the game but the idea that there might be another way to play it annoyed me, so I started over from scratch. I hadn't realized that I had learned a great deal during the first run. The behavior of the enemies is really simple, way less complicated than Hitman for example. As it turns out, there were all kinds of subtle level design decisions that weren't at all obvious the first play through, and because I wasn't struggling to manage the controls and stuff the second time through, it was actually enjoyable for the first time in my life to try to remain undetected instead of laying waste to everything.
I've now played through the games from that studio (sadly now defunct) probably a half-dozen times which is really rare for me, and I found that I can finally enjoy stealth games, provided the save/restore commands are really fast as they are an integral part of playing the game and it would be instantly tedious if restoring took more than a couple of seconds.
anyway if you're like me and struggled to understand how people could actually enjoy playing a stealth game, I couldn't see it until Shadow Tactics, and while I don't find games like Hitman quite as enjoyable, Shadow Tactics and the other Mimimi games did finally get me into the mindset that is required to enjoy them with almost zero frustration. And they're cheap as hell.