Saturday, December 28, 2019

Reflections on the 2010s Pt.1



Here I am, still posting to Classical Gas Emissions, watching yet another decade come to a close. The fact that this blog is going to be spanning three decades is pretty amazing considering that I post so much terrible stuff. You guys seem to love it more than I do.

Last time I closed out a decade, this blog was still in it's infancy as I had only been doing it for two years at that time. Back then, it was more of an outlet for me (and to some degree it still is), but I posted a larger variety of things. When I closed out the 2000s, I actually made a post about the best mainstream albums that had came out during that decade. I was considering doing the same for this year, but I eventually decided against it. Instead, I decided to just do a decade in review, both sharing my thoughts about the last 10 years and sharing my favourite posts, choosing one for each year with the exception of 2019. But because I yap too much when I type, I had to split this entry into two parts.

So here's some of my explanations and thoughts on the past 10 years...


Videos




I've tried repeatedly to cover videos over the last 10 years which have led to many removals from youtube themselves. With the exception of anything that wouldn't be considered even close to being a commercial release, I've almost completely given up on the idea. However, it seems that (at least) Google Chrome will play MP4 videos that I have on my webspace, so there's still a bit of hope. Youtube can't remove things that aren't hosted on their servers. However, I'm amassed a huge collection of videos that I've wanted to cover, and they're all sitting in limbo in a couple of rubbermaid bins. I'm hoping that at least some of these may make their way to Oddity Archive. Speaking of which...


Oddity Archive




Occasionally, I'll do a bit of a collab with Ben from Oddity Archive, and I've found it to be really enjoyable. I can't remember when I stumbled onto Ben's channel, but it was early in his youtube career. Ben has a great format for covering old videos, and I'd rather leave the reigns to him for covering such things.

Oddity Archive is the only other internet guy I've done collabs with. My biggest problem with some of the others who have contacted me have been their desire to profit from my stuff without giving at least a mention of who provided the content. I have no problem letting people use the stuff I put up as long as they mention that they got it from Classical Gas Emissions. One of my "rules" for this blog is to have it (mainly) consist of things I find out in the wild and bring it to the internet. I'd rather be a source of material instead of simply re-posting it.

I'm certainly open to doing collabs with other people, so we shall see what the future brings.


Amateur Hour




Doing radio shows with Kent Davies is another collab that I've enjoyed. I haven't done one with him in a while mainly due to my move, but we have plans in the works for another one in the spring. I'm hoping that I can make an appearance on his show at least once per year.


Youtube Channels




I've been wanting to separate my techie stuff from the blog stuff for a while, and I decided that I'd like to move it to my Youtube channel in the shape of original content. However, as many Youtubers find out, the feedback they receive from their earlier years will dictate the direction they go. I originally wanted to just film my repairs and such, but I've realized a couple of things about doing that. First of all, I'm not as candid and amusing when I'm repairing things as I am when dealing with the dullness of day to day life. A lot of people tell me that I'm fucking hilarious at the best of times, but for the most part I'm not that entertaining when I'm focusing on something I'm putting significant effort into repairing.

Second, people started messaging me on how to fix things. For years, I've been trying to distance myself from being "that guy who can fix everything" because it comes with expectations of doing things for free and eating up time I could be spend on better things (like this blog). I have a lot of things filmed and I think I may have accidentally lost some of the footage through computer and drive swapping when my daily driver croaked. I plan on eventually completing the stuff I've shot on camera, but I'm most likely going to cease doing lengthy repair videos and instead just make a shorter video that features the item I'm working on with a few repair shots here and there. However, I keep getting asked to do more mystery Commodore 64 disks, so I'm going to get back to doing that (and I also have some mystery Commodore Vic-20 tapes too!)

Third, I don't really like video editing. It's lengthy and boring. I've done a bit of work to streamline the process which has helped, but I still don't find it to be much fun. I also need a more powerful laptop so I can do it when I'm away from my cluttered desk.


Personal Life




Ugh... My personal life has had some great highs but yet many lows over the last decade. If you've been reading for a long time, you've no doubt seen some of it make a brief appearance. I went through a divorce in the earlier part of the decade which affected the content both in content quality and the frequency of my posting. I also moved in 2017 causing a lot of my stuff (and I do mean a LOT) to be shuffled around which may explain why you haven't seen certain types of posts in a while. Remember when I used to analyze hard drives on computers I've found? I still want to do that stuff. I have a giant stack of computers in the garage that I've scrounged up. Taking the time to go through the hard drives is a bit time-consuming, but I still want to do it. It's great fun and hopefully I'll get to do some of it in 2020 because I need the space in my garage.

There's probably some other things that people miss that I haven't been doing, and it's likely that I'll be getting around to it again. So just be patient, and I'm sure I'll cover it.

I've also had two surgeries and had to deal with a few worker's comp claims which is a side-effect of having a normal day job. I'm certain it will eventually kill me. I hope the people who attend my funeral grab some of the great quotes I've left on this blog to honour my memory (or taint it).


Album Release




I released a music album in 2014! I've wanted to release an album since I was a kid, and even though I've been in bands in my earlier adult years, I never managed to find a group of guys who were willing to work well as a group. If you want something done, you have to do it yourself, and with exception of a couple of guest appearances, I did all the work on this album. Lord knows I have enough examples of how NOT to make an album.

Also, I have a second one about 1/3 done, but the move kinda messed up the momentum of getting work done on it. I keep meaning to get back to it, and I know I eventually will.


Resurrection of Flaming Telepaths BBS




This has been on my bucket list since I was forced to take the BBS down in 2001 due to my personal life fucking things up again. I don't get a lot of people logging in because the BBS scene of today is mainly made up of other Sysops who prefer to tweak their BBS instead of visiting others. Some Sysops put money into having their BBSes up and running. Mine costs absolutely nothing, so I have no problem just letting it sit there in case someone wants to log in. I check on it occasionally, so if something needs attention, just leave me a message on there. There's some things I still want to tweak on it, and I will when I get the urge (which always inevitably comes).


The Junq Tour




I'm quite surprised at how well received this segment has become in the last few years. I'm guessing it has to do with how I've been handling it.

The Junq Tour was originally about thrifting across Manitoba when I was sent out of town for work. My workplace has more or less ceased this practice and I really missed cruising thrift stores that I normally don't get to visit. In 2017, I made it my goal to start doing it again and making videos of the whole experience. These are the only videos I really enjoy editing, and I plan to keep it going until my personal life decides to fuck me in the ass again (which I hope it doesn't, but I won't hold my breath.)


Webspace


(yes, I own this thing)

One of the best things I've done for this blog was buying webspace. I was able to get it at a very good price, and the cost has barely changed over the last 10 years. Before I had webspace, I had to rely on other services for hosting my stuff. If you look at my old posts, you'll see dead links to Photobucket which I keep meaning to repair. I ultimately decided to look into webspace when Houndbite went tits up. I moved all of my audio to my webspace, fixed the links, and I have never looked back.


What's coming in 2020...



I have a couple of ideas for the next little while...


Record Store Tour

I want to do a tour of the record stores in Winnipeg and give a review of them. There's some great places to buy records, CDs and tapes, but there's some really fucking atrocious places that should be avoided. I want to dedicate some time to highlight these in 2020.


Canned Peaches Discography

"Canned Peaches" is the name I gave to a music project I slaved over while I was a teenager which was an escape from how bad life was fucking me back then. It mainly consists of mashups, medleys, and other kinds of "audio art". From 1992 through 1997, I made all kinds of weird shit using mainstream songs, movie clips, and analog equipment. The fact that I never once used a computer making this stuff would blow people's minds. I used to share the "music" I made by giving away mix tapes in high school. I'm currently in the process of remastering my entire discography (which is taking longer than I expected), but I'm hoping to have it up sometime in 2020.


Peter Hnatiuk Discography

This has been in the works for a while. Peter has some of the greatest album covers I've ever seen, and some pretty damn funny songs. I've touched on his stuff slightly in the past, and I want to get this one done.


Requests for Digitizing and Uploads

Over the last 10 years as I've gain more readers, I've been receiving more and more requests for uploading specific songs and entire albums that I've posted about. I didn't mind doing it when the requests were infrequent, but over the past couple of years it's become a bit overwhelming. Digitizing albums (and doing the blog entries in general) is extremely time-consuming when you consider that (with the exception of CDs) I have to digitize the albums in real time, do repairs to specific formats (8-tracks and sometimes cassettes), photograph/scan the artwork, edit the artwork, split and edit wave files, convert files into MP3s, fill in the MP3 tags, upload all the content, and finally format all the blog entries.

Given that uploading specific requests takes more time out of my life, I've decided that I need to request that you make a contribution either through Paypal or Patreon if you would like me to upload something specific. Failing that, you can offer to purchase the item I've posted which I will digitize before sending it to you. I more or less keep everything I post, and as I continue to post more content, it becomes more time-consuming to dig through the bins of previously posted crap. The people who currently make regular contributions to the blog are free to ask for specific items. Also, your donation will result in your requests being put up on the blog for others to enjoy (or hate). In other words, you will be helping make Classical Gas Emissions a better place to find the worst shit you've ever heard on the internet.

Speaking of the worst shit you've ever heard, stay tuned for part 2...

1 comment:

Fluteboy said...

It was Ben's Oddity Archive that first pointed me in your direction. Hungry for soundalikes, I was not disappointed!