Forgot to mention this a few days ago, but episode 018 of the Magic of Eyri Podcast is now online.

Listen-o-Tron! :: Downloaderize!

Mirrored from Daniel J. Hogan. If something doesn't look right or show up, view the original blog post. Feel free to comment here or on the original post

I sitting around Friday night, trying to learning Bowie’s Moonage Daydream on guitar (or something at least resembling it), when I had an idea:  what would happen if I ran my Nintendo DSi through a couple guitar effect pedals and then into my portable Marshall amp?

I had the portable amp out because I plan on dressing up as a Spider from Mars for an “intergalactic” birthday party (which is why I was learning Moonage Daydream).

This idea came to me when I was curious if I could run my iPod Shuffle or DSi through the amp in case I didn’t want to try and play the song.

I decided against the Shuffle quickly because it has “issues.” It is doing this thing where one of the sound channels keeps cutting in and out and it is very sensitive to any cord movement–it pauses right away if the sound cord giggles too much.

So I went with the DSi.

I ran it through my distortion pedal and then my chorus pedal and messed with the tone and distortion on the amp itself.  It made for an interesting sound.

You can tweak the pitch and speed of the songs via the DSi, which I of course did. Listening to Rush’s Working Man sped up, distorted and in a chorus was  something out of this world.

I liked being able to tweak the output of the song live via the pedals and the DSi interface.

Does this have any sort of practical application? I doubt it, but it was fun.

The little Marshall, with its built in belt clip, makes for a great portable speaker if I need sound for a costume however.

I am going to have the guitar and amp with me for my costume and I am toying with attaching one of the pedals (maybe the distortion) somewhere on my costume, as the OD (overdrive) on the little amp leaves a lot to be desired.

Mirrored from Daniel J. Hogan. If something doesn't look right or show up, view the original blog post. Feel free to comment here or on the original post

Back on January 20th (was it that long ago? Wow) I had a feature article run over at Lansing Capital Gains about being single in Lansing (Single in the City).

The funny thing here is that when I turned the story in, perhaps early Fall, I was single–but, by the time it ran, I had a new girlfriend. I kind of had a gut feeling that would happen, which was why I agreed to write the story (and make fun of myself quite a bit).

I enjoyed writing this story a lot because I was allowed to go first person and showcase some of my humor a bit more–although my editor did cut my favorite joke, which was about me wearing my Chewie Is My Co-Pilot t-shirt while trying to pick up geeky girls.

Or something.

The shirt was designed by R Stevens, creator of one of my favorite webcomics, Diesel Sweeties.

I did manage to wear my Threadless, A Simple Plan shirt for the photo shoot however.

I kind of regret not wearing my Chewie shirt, but since the photos were being taken at Pinball Pete’s Arcade in East Lansing, the Space Invader referencing shirt won out (another option I considered was my Yooper Steez shirt, designed by all-around-awesome Lansing dude, Justin “Bugsy” Sailor).

I caught some (friendly) flack from those who knew I had a new girlfriend, yet was writing about being single.  The girlfriend in question was fine with it, as I told her about the story way before it ran.

But the story isn’t so much about my being single, but more how I went about meeting people, expanding my circle of friends and places to go on dates around Lansing.

#

Speaking of Lansing Capital Gains, I was brought on to be a weekly contributor recently.  Starting on February 17th, I’ll be writing four development stories a week.  These are very, very short–only 200 words at the most–so it equals out to less than a feature article (1,000 words) a week.

There will be a bit of a learning curve for me, as I have to find leads and such, but I’m getting a lot of help from my editor and fellow contributors.

I consider myself the furthest thing from a journalist, but I am very happy to have this opportunity to see if I can handle the rigors of a regular writing gig. So far, so good.

And if you live in Lansing and have any leads for me, drop me a line.

Mirrored from Daniel J. Hogan. If something doesn't look right or show up, view the original blog post. Feel free to comment here or on the original post