Tabber

Okay, so, I've had this idea for a long time and never really put full effort into it. But now that I'm in a class re-learning Java, I feel like I might be able to tackle it. The idea is to create a program that can download guitar tabs off the internet, from sites like ultimate-guitar, and store them in an easy to read format on your computer. The inspiration came origanlly from wanting a crapton of tabs on a flash drive so you can always have songs if you forget chords or words. More inspiration came from wanting a way to display tabs on my iPod using the notes function. The recent inspiration has been the lack of internet at my house. So, that's the basic idea. I started planning the project, but I kind of just wanted to get programming, so I figured I would write this and get some ideas down.

I want to get a way to get tabs downloaded off the internet, which come as htm files, to a plain text file with just the tabs. I've looked at this before and have found that there are lines of html code that indicate the beginning and end of the author's text. Basically run the method with the .htm file's name and it outputs a .txt of just the tab.
I was trying to figure out ultimate-guitar's method for saving tabs and found that their basically like this: http://...guitar.com/tabs/f/fugazi/blueprint_tab.htm. In theory, I could download all of Fugazi's tabs in one go if I could read the tab names from the tabs/fugazi_tabs.htm file. But this lead me to thinking that I might be able to create a search method for finding tabs through the program and not manually copying web addresses.

More on this later. I want to write some code.

I lost my calc sylabus and I already bought the coffee here

I am a primary source of my own life, right? We were talking about blogs in my seminar class today and we covered if blogs are usually secondary sources or what. If it's a true log of your life, then yes, it is a primary source. It has it's limits because there is usually bias in everyone's view of their own life. I want things to go one way so my opinion on the matter is going to favor that.
For me, I feel detached enough from everything that sometimes I feel like I am dreaming and don't believe what's happening or has happened. Good times can seem too good to be true and so I have to remind myself that they actually happened. I also have a hard time remembering things. It's like there is a limit on my memory and it is keeping me from achiveing something. It is like my own personal barrier from being better or smarter. I find it doesn't bother me as long as I don't spend too much time on the subject. I wish I had a better memory, but I don't and that's that. I can't tell if I'm ignorant or just actually proud of accepting myself for who I am. What's the difference. It can be easy to see your own limits and hard to have the strength to expand them and make yourself better. I find that it might take too much time and dedication. My Dad is a huge fan of neuro linguistic programming, or NLP. Tony Robbins is a guy who took NLP to a mass market to help people and make some money. I don't doubt that he can help people with their goals and motivations and behavioral changes, but I don't think that sitting in a room listening to him talk is what will do it. My Dad has helped me see just how much power the mind has over the body, but it takes patience, dedication, and faith. I don't think at this point in my life I could change anything too much. And what would I change. In role playing games I have a hard time choosing what skills to level up in. It's like I'm choosing my future and if I mess up, I'm screwed.
If someone gave you the chance to level up one "skill", what would you choose. You could devote it to your memory, your pain tolerance, your focusing skills, your speed, your knowledge of one area, or even how you present yourself. That is no easy choice, and I don't think I've found my largest weakness yet. I know I have weaknesses, at least I think I know what some of them are. I feel detached from things, I have a poor memory, I don't know exactly what I want to do with my life, and I am almost too content. What bothers me most? I dunno. They all have downsides, but none are too bad in my opinion.

Alls I knows is that I'm happy. I am really happy right now. And that's what matters for me. : )

Electronics projects

So I might start a different blog for my projects, but I needed to get a list down somewhere, so:
Bike with battery, LED lights, odometer, and speedometer.
Shower radio with MP3 player in it that is waterproofed
Cd changer stereo with LED deisplay to show artist, album name and track name and other info
Wireless speakers for my room.

edit:
killswitch in c-dubs axe

To the one guy that reads this blog

So, what do I do as a Music Director? My main job is to choose the music that goes into the studio for DJs to play. This is in 3 stages. The first is getting the music, which I get lots of regularly in the mail from distributors. I can also request music from bands or labels if there is belief that it would do well on KUMM and would get airtime. The second step is reviewing the music. This is the most tedious task, I listen to 'almost' every CD that I get. I try out different parts of songs and sample most songs to get a feel of what style/genre the band is and if it is any good. If it's no good, then it goes into a bin that we sell for like a quarter a CD. If I like the sound and think it will do well, I listen to each track and write down recommended tracks, what songs have swear words in them, and what some similar bands are. Then the final step is it going into the studio with the other CD's from that week. Usually it's about 10-15 new CDs a week.
Another main responsibility of mine is to track the plays of the Cd's, I do this by having each track played recorded in a excel spreadsheet, each show has it's own spreadsheet. i combine all these files and then sort and count how many plays each Cd gets. I then sort by number of plays and report the weeks activity on the College Music Journal, CMJ. These charts show distributors what kind of music we play and so they can judge what music to send us in the future.
All in all, it is a sweet job. I get to hear a lot of music, some of which is really good.

Radio scoundrel

So I was driving with my brother-in-law and he has a sattelite radio that he listens to when he drives around. It is pretty sweet to use, it gets a bunch of stations that are all genre specific: punk, rock, rap, and even trance. You caan also save songs and programs to the device to have them on demand. The problem is, I don't listen to the radio. I have an iPod. Blamo i can use it for most everything, in the car, on a walk, in my room. It has all my music and I update it even month or so. But it limits me from having the newest music avaliable to me whereever. I work for a radio station, but I don't even listen to it, it's something I need to change this year.

Style

How does one achive stlye? How is something stylish? What is stylish? I think about these questions frequently. I love how people look and act, but hate it too because it gets me thinking. But luckily I don't stop thinking. Today I was at the Navy Exchange here in Norfolk, VA and there was a sunglass store and since I need and have needed sunglasses for a long time, I started browsing. This happens when I pass one of these stores or booths and never ends well. It usually involves me looking and my Mom suggesting what I think are ugly pairs. So I'll end up grabbing a 5.99 pair and hoping I like them later. Never happens. They are always cheap cheap material so they scratch and break real easy. Today, I spent about 20 minutes at this place, at first with just my Mom, then with my sister and her husband, then my brother jumped in. I like aviators, I'm not going to lie, they look cool on 'most' people. But I don't want to look like most people. I want to look like Martin, cool Martin. Yeah yeah yeah I sound like an idiot saying it like that, but it's the truth. Aviators have a feel, and I know the feel was about 4 years or more ago with Johnny Knoxville and Ashton Kutchler, but so what. Whats the next style? There were a boat load of shades that looked like the DBag driving down the freeway would wear and I definatley don't want those kind. So I found a pair that were sudo aviators and was about to get them and my mom goes, do you need these? I got close to a nervous breakdown and just had to get out of there, so I kind of bolted for the exit and was very stressed out after wasting 20 minutes and getting nothing.

After that extravaganza, we drove to virginia beach, think laguna beach but replace 75% of the people with ugly tourists. While driving and walking around I scoped out people's shades and styles. I had a thought that it would be interesting to go live in some stylish place like this one on the beach and just find the style. I think if you put yourself to it, you could write up a summary of most place's style. You would have to take in consideration what is unique and what is copied from other styles. It'd be a big task, but doable.

What I have learned from simple observation is that I don't have the right hair color for they 'style' I want. I would need brown hair. But I don't have brown hair. Hhmm, what a predicament. After thinking about all this nonsense, I usually just give up and accept me for what I am, and then realize that I'm smarter than most of the 'stylish' people. I hope I am at least.
yeah, I have some self image issues. But not really. It's hard to explain something you don't understand. I just work, and I know that so it gets me by.

Music awesomenessity

So today I officially start my KUMM Music Director position. The end of last year, although I was in full control, was just a kind of training thing to get ready for the real deal. But I get to start collecting mail and reviewing CDs tomorrow. Hopefully this is a good year for music. I organized my room to have some space for my listening setup. In my mind it will be a 5-CD changer hooked up to some sort of speaker system all around my room, but we'll see how that goes. I was thinking about getting wireless speakers over my bed/couch because wiring is an issue with that area. But wireless would be sweet. I have a 5 cd changer at my house form years ago when they were still used more, but I might see if I can get one with an LP player as well. combo's are always space saving, but not always the greatest quality. Jack of all trades, master of none. But yeah, an ultimate setup would be wiring a display to have on the wall that I could see from around the room. Then an amazing sound system. but thats a fantasy, or is it?