30-Day Song Challenge: Day 3 – A Song That Reminds You of Summertime

Posted on March 22, 2024 by Gibbs Dela Cruz

This might be the perfect song for this forked up Vancouver “it’s always cloudy in Vancouver” weather. 😤

The 30-Day Song Challenge. I’ve been seeing it on a lot of my friends’ Instagram Stories, and at first I just ignored it because everyone was doing it and I got spammed with people’s stories left and right about it, but now since most people already finished this, I won’t be as influenced of my choices when I see their answers. So last time it was Day 2.

Time for Day 3.

Day 3 is pick a song that reminds you of summertime, and what song to remind myself of a summertime feel is Expert In A Dying Field by The Beths. I mean you could extend it to their entire discography. If not that, the album where this song is. Which is also named Expert In A Dying Field.

I discovered The Beths around a year ago when one of my bassist friends played a cover of The Beths’ latest single, Watching The Credits. Once I heard the song, I felt like those movies where grayscaled sad characters get rid of that grayscale and brightens up with colors and be happy again. So I decided to jump into the discography hard.

I recommend listening to that too if you have time. Even the album, I mean go ham on The Beths. It’s a worthwhile ride.

Of course each song I would go to Youtube and see what people think about Expert In A Dying Field (the song), and the best comment (as it should be) was: “It’s a rare moment in life when you hear a piece of music and instantly realize you have a new favorite song. It’s the feeling of seeing a comet – and knowing that you may never experience it again, which causes you to savor it all the more.”

For me, I feel the same but for most if not all the songs in The Beths discography. This band is just pure sunshine. I mean I love this band so much that I even wrote an article about it a while ago.

According to Spectrum Culture, “Expert in a Dying Field” is a clever metaphor for the way it feels after you’ve split with someone, but are still maintaining all that (now-useless) information about your relationship in your head. The song is inescapably catchy but also filled with creative turns of phrase like “I can close the door on us/ But the room still exists” and wisdom like “You can’t stop/ Can’t rewind/ Love is learned over time/ ‘Til you’re an expert in a dying field.”

30-Day Song Challenge: Day 2 – A Song You Like With A Number In The Title

Posted on March 21, 2024 by Gibbs Dela Cruz

This has got to be one of the smartest big brain topic ideas I have. Making an article for each day of this challenge. EZ content lmao 😎

Time for Day 2.

Day 2 is pick a song you like with a number in the title. Off my head I chose Jimmy Eat World – 23. I think it’s only been a few years since I heard about this song, although this song is already 20 years old (Yes, this is part of Jimmy Eat World’s 2004 album Futures) of which I haven’t even listened to.

Back when I was streaming bass guitar playthroughs on Twitch, my cousin requested this song and while playing it, I immediately knew that this song is beautiful and sad. It’s one of those songs where I can do some bass riffs and stuff because of its long instrumentals. That’s all good and dandy but..

There’s something about this song that gets to me, so I decided to do some googling about the meaning of this song and why the band wrote it in the first place.

Of course, no better way to Google than typing what you want to know then add the word “reddit” to the end lmao.

So I was looking through other people’s interpretation of the song and one redditor struck with me: “Very, very much coloured by where I’ve been emotionally for some time – for me I interpret it as talking to your anxious/sad self about how you’re beginning to heal and move on. So for me it’s about how you are still in a stage of fear and confusion as you go through this process – you’re unsure about exactly where you are heading, you’re mourning the opportunities missed already, or regretting/feeling guilty about decisions made and facing that fear/sadness you feel, but also you are coming to realize recognising there’s a life ahead and anticipating it with a little excitement and growing strength.”

No wonder it struck me. As someone who’s far from 23 now, this hits on a level that is only comprehensible as someone who’s far from 23, or living a life of fear and confusion no matter how old you are, but still going through it because that’s life.

It is what it is.

30-Day Song Challenge: Day 1 – A Song You Like With A Color In The Title

Posted on March 20, 2024 by Gibbs Dela Cruz

Time to write something about social media challenges I’ve been seeing lately.

And Day 1 I started.

Day 1 – A Song You Like With A Color In The Title. The Rolling Stones – She’s A Rainbow

I chose this because this is a recency bias pick and I usually just go with the song that first popped in my mind. When I said recency bias because I just finished Ted Lasso the series on AppleTV (which I got a free trial for 3 months and I binged it).

To be honest, while I am writing this article, I am playing the song in the background, and it’s the first time I’ve listened to the full song because I assume that the one shown in that episode of Ted Lasso, it was a shortened version to fit the scenes and narrative, and that’s fine. No problem with that. Another thing too is that I don’t really know many Rolling Stones songs. Heck, I haven’t even listened to an album from them so is this the time for me to listen to the album of the song I choose for the day. I think that’s a great idea.

Here we go with me and my goldfish brain lol.

Looking at the Youtube comments for this song, some struck me. The top comment was “Never will forget, driving in my 67 firebird with my mother. This song came on the radio and my mother said “why can’t your Rolling Stones sing something beautiful like this”. I replied ” mother, this is the Rolling Stones”.” – Wow. Well I agree with the commenter’s mom: This is a beautiful song.

Another one is “This is a very Beatle song from the Rolling Stones.” – after reading that I assumed that The Rolling Stones don’t really have these kinds of songs? I wonder why they wrote this song? Let’s see.

According to an article from American Songwriter, “Mick Jagger and Keith Richards created a straight-up love song with “She’s a Rainbow,” one of the few in the band’s history. But there’s an element to it where you can’t really be sure if the object of the narrator’s affection is even real. Or if she is real, there may be supernatural elements she possesses, what with her beauty’s ability to alter the very nature of light itself: She shoots colours all around / Like a sunset going down.”

These Two AI Editing Tools For The Financially-Impaired

Posted on March 19, 2024 by Gibbs Dela Cruz

AI is slowly rising and adapting to human tasks, but as humans we gotta stay ahead especially when it comes to editing, there’s so much tools that I know on the onset that it’s getting creepy because how good they’re getting but we should also take advantage of it as they’re making our work a bit easier but not to the point of autonomous, and we all know those quality ones need money but these two ones are by far bang for your no buck.

CapCut is a free, all-in-one video creation and editing app with everything you need to create stunning, high-quality videos. Beginners can get started with CapCut in seconds, while advanced users can enjoy all the features they need for video editing. Express your personality with exclusive video creation and editing features. Once your video is created, you can share it on social networks with just one click, attracting likes, comments, and people’s attention.

CapCut gives easy-to-use video modifying functions, unfastened in-APP fonts and effects, unfastened superior capabilities which includes keyframe animation, clean slow-movement, chroma key, and stabilization, that will help you seize and snip moments.

Create fancy films with different particular capabilities: vehicle mobile captions, text-to-speech, movement tracking, and heritage removal. Show your character and move viral on various social media like TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook.

Capcut is THE best free AI editing tool around with so many things you can do in making content. It’s perfect for those who don’t have much cash to spend on Adobe Premiere Pro or Filmora.

Enhance Speech uses machine learning to clean up your recording and make your audio sound like it was recorded in a professional studio. Enhance Speech isn’t generative AI and isn’t synthesizing new audio.

Audio recorded with low-quality microphones (phones, online meetings, in-camera microphones) tends to be improved with Voice Enhancement. This doesn’t always work well with: Very poor quality audio (e.g. recordings from old VHS tapes have lots of artifacts), multiple speakers overlapping, and whispering Background music strong Singing.

For anyone looking to tell their stories and sound good doing it. This is one of the best speech enhancement tools out there. I can’t believe that Adobe is willing to give away this tech for free. I hope that it stays that way and it won’t be locked away on a paywall because it’s a really great tool for those who can’t really edit or mix audio very well, and this is a one-click solution.

This Band Brought The Early 2000’s Rock BACK!

Posted on March 9, 2024 by Gibbs Dela Cruz

Do you remember how it felt each time you looked at me, the way you hated what you see?

One day, I wasn’t being productive at all, scrolling through Instagram Reels and stumbled on this band. At first I thought, “Why did Sleep Token sound different?” but then I looked again and the band is called Sleep Theory, and right after I saw that, the chorus of “Fallout” hit. And boy, it hit freaking hard.

Took a bit of digging, and Sleep Theory is a new up and coming band from Memphis, TN with influences in rock, metal, r&b, and pop. From what I can hear, most of the rock sounds like a lot of early 2000’s rock like Linkin Park, and Evanescence, and the metal has some inspirations from Avenged Sevenfold and loving this mix. Superb!

The band comprises vocalist Cullen Moore, guitarist Landen Terry, bassist Paolo Vergara, and drummer Ben Pruitt. “Another Way,” the band’s debut single, has amassed over 1.5 million streams across all platforms and is as promising of a start as a young band could ask for. While we all patiently wait for the release of their debut album, now is a great chance to see an up-and-coming band at the beginning of their ascent.

This band’s been amazing. I am currently listening to their discography and all their songs are hard-hitting, jaw-dropping hits. Their music videos took me into an early 2000’s rock vibe with demolishing buildings, band being inside of those buildings and with heavy guitars and heavy tones in the back, especially with their Fallout music video, I thought it was In The End by Linkin Park, and even I am expecting one of their songs to match this other song.

And let’s talk about their live sets. Their live sets are amazing. I love how Cullen, Landen, and Paolo have their own vocal signature that is unique to their songs, not just backup vocals but 3 different main vocalists that have their own parts to the song, that without it, it sounds lacking. They made a great job on that and I am looking forward to new material. In this particular live set, I was bawling when they played a cover of Bye Bye Bye by NSYNC – a heavier version that is on par with those already existing but not bad. Respect.

These songs are now 20 YEARS OLD!

Posted on March 7, 2024 by Gibbs Dela Cruz

These songs, and more are now just as old as someone who can legally drink in most places. (Unliked the US because I don’t know why specifically 21)

Snoop Dogg – Drop It Like It’s Hot

I know this is not your first encounter with the D-O-Double-G but this was mine. My first exposure to him, Pharell, and even crip walking. As a kid in highschool, crip walking was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen and I tried to practice day and night to do it. I mean I can do it decently now, but not as good as back then lol. This was the first time I saw some questionable pixelated parts like Pharell’s shoes, though I really didn’t know why those were pixelated – no wait, I just googled, and found out just now that the shoes were Reebok’s Ice Cream shoes and they were blurred out because the Viacom-owned BET obscured the shoe because of a policy covering all prominently branded products in visuals, but it worked for Pharell’s favor given that people got curious and checked out the shoe. Winner winner chicken dinner for the 4 beats before the start of every-song Producer. Wait, what do you mean by 4 beats? I mean you know when you know.

JoJo – Leave (Get Out)

You had a crush on this girl. I did. I know you did. Everyone did. This girl was just jaw-dropping gorgeous! When this came out, I believe she was just 13 years old and normally when teens become pop artists they would sing songs relative to what’s happening around them, but normally happy-cutesy stuff, but not JoJo. This song was a breakup song that was performed with a lot of soul to it. A lot more soul than people expected and at your local high-schools during this time, it became a break-up moving-on song that you use as a backdrop when you post on your MySpace profiles how this person cheated on you and they were “..just a waste of time.” (Insert nails emoji). Man she disappeared after a long while, but I have to know why and where she is now. Not that I’m stalkerish or anything like that. I’m just curious how an artist like her just poofed out of the limelight. People need to put some respect on JoJo name.

Ciara – Goodies

You know this song. You heard this song in every pub, every bar, every club, and every party, every wedding reception, and in every single night out, you know and danced to this song. I’m just gonna keep it short and sweet. This song became the longest running number one debut single by a female artist since 1977! And 20 years on, this song is still as relevant as it was back then. At the time, this was one of the female-empowerment songs teens use at the prom and any house party I’ve been to. Ciara just living the good life now with then Future and now Russell Wilson.

What Happens When Someone Stupid Doubles Down

Posted on March 5, 2024 by Gibbs Dela Cruz

The things you do in the name of clout.

That’s what happened during this past month in the little-big corner in video game content creators on the internet.

Queen Pwnzalot – a once then small video game creator who streams majority Monster Hunter: World on Twitch, known for her killing this particularly difficult monster named Alatreon for over 4,000 times! That’s a big feat not gonna lie. But in this age, you need to do something crazy to garner attention from the internet, and oh boy she.. yikes. I can’t even begin to describe this I’m about to tell you.

So, she decided to kill Alatreon.. in a blindfolded speedrun.

Woah sounds impossible right? Why yes it is, and yet Queen Pwnzalot did it!! Amazing right!??

.. and this is just the beginning.

The video game speedrunning community is one of the most informative, competitive parts of playing video games that is anchored on integrity, dedication, and mutual respect for their fellow speedrunner. So when Queen Pwnzalot posted her blindfolded speedrun on official speedrunning rankings, people took a look into it to see if it legit.

Turns out, like most if not all f-boys, there are GLARING RED FLAGS!

The proof was on a balance of probabilities, not beyond a reasonable doubt because that’s for criminal cases – Now you know. ;)), so instead of the usual actions of a half-baked “apology” and just lie low for the meantime or even just say that she did it out of satire.. this woman, this creator decided to..

Double down (unalive on that hill, girl!)

She decided to do it again, but this time addressing the concerns of the community while doing things above what is expected, and yet… SHE STILL CHEATED!

And what I love about this proof of cheat video is that one of Queen Pwnzalot’s community moderators (more like simp really) went to Asmongold, one of the most popular streamers on the planet, to defend Pwnzalot in a way both funny and sad.

In the aftermath of the proof that is beyond a reasonable doubt (still not a criminal case but Pwnzalot doubled down and she still cheated), her X is down, her Twitch streams become subscriber-only streams and just blacked out of any other social medias trying to hide and let the backlash die down, but at this point, everyone is calling for her head.

Queen Pwnzalot is a Capcom Creator, meaning she was selected to represent Capcom like a brand ambassador and due to the backlash, everyone is requesting Capcom to remove her from this group because it will tarnish the already just recovering reputation of the long-existing company. The reputation for Capcom is a story for another day.

If only on the second time she cheated, she just said she did it out of satire, everyone wouldn’t have cared this much and moved on, but noooo~~

Dasurv in all the best and worst ways.

Nintendo being a menace! (again)

Posted on March 4, 2024 by Gibbs Dela Cruz

Nintendo doing Nintendo things. Again.

Nintendo is one of the oldest gaming companies in existence, and because it’s homebase is in Japan, Japanese gaming companies in general have the tendency to be very greedy, and just downright old-fashioned where no one else but Nintendo can do anything with their games and that’s their right. That’s their prerogative. They can do that whenever they want, but it’s not making it easier for them to connect to their community, and community creations are at the heart of why games last for as long as they do.

This time, it’s all about Yuzu.. Yuzu is an experimental open-source emulator for the Nintendo Switch that was released in 2018. This company also created Citra, an emulator for the Nintendo 3DS. All is well in the world right? Everyone has access to Nintendo games but here comes the long arm of the Nintendo law. Unfortunately.

So just over a week ago, Nintendo sued the developers of course for quote-unquote, “facilitating piracy at a colossal scale.” Yuzu doesn’t offer pirated or leaked games itself, but Nintendo targeted the company because the emulator is one of the few ways to play those games. Now, Yuzu owes Nintendo after reaching a $2.4 million settlement along with one of the harshest terms of the settlement that Tropic Haze will have to stop operations on Yuzu entirely — it can’t distribute it in any way, nor can it market it on its website or social media. Yuzu will also have to give up its domain name.

Yuzu sent out a statement published on their Discord, and their social media:

“.. Piracy was never our intention, and we believe that piracy of video games and on video game consoles should end. Effective today, we will be pulling our code repositories offline, discontinuing our Patreon accounts and Discord servers, and, soon, shutting down our websites. We hope our actions will be a small step toward ending piracy of all creators’ works.”

This lawsuit has spurred up again the age-old debate on emulation — whether the act is illegal. It’s a very gray area of course, I think of this as game preservation, preserving that games that don’t exist now in any store can still be played.

So all in all this is just a problem of service. I always say this to my friends: Piracy is a service problem.

People pirate games because there’s no service that has them. If Nintendo properly ported all their old games to newer systems after each console release, I know it takes a lot of effort and time to do so, it will pay off massively because people are willing to pay for it. Nothing beats nostalgia and nothing beats retaining your existing customers.

Binging Ted Lasso Was A Bad Idea

Posted on March 1, 2024 by Gibbs Dela Cruz

Binging any series is nice because you get to finish a series, but at the same time, it’s not fun taking time to enjoy the series.

I, for one, enjoyed the Ted Lasso series as a whole. This series is a slow burner, and I love my slow burners. Because slow burner series spend time developing the setting, the characters slowly see signs that there’s actually something wrong with them before the inevitable breakdown that will happen.

Okay, not every character had a development and not everyone had the happy ending they deserve based on storytelling techniques from the past or any gender-norms but that’s okay. That’s how life works. Not everyone you know, you will know how their story went and that’s okay. That’s life. Fair enough.

Binging a really great series like Ted Lasso was such an emotional roller-coaster ride that took me to emotions that I hardly visit because how busy I am with school, but I am glad I get to process some of those emotions, and it also gave a really good view on how people in the sports world try to deal with their problems, and Ted Lasso series is a great reminder that it’s okay to ask for professional help. No matter who you are and what your status is in life. We all need help.

One of the things I like about the series is that the women of the series stand up on their own and not just become an accessory for the men as a relationship. I liked how they became the strong, independent women that they always strive to be ever since Season 1, and I believe that’s a healthy and respectful way to portray them like this.

This show’s premise and content from the first season varies so much in understanding and yet it delivered something that incredible, and kudos to the writers and the case that made this possible.

if you really want to enjoy the series, please don’t binge watch this as it’s like a child eating everything and not having great things later but I know that’s super easy to do since given that there were only 30 min per episode but those 30 minutes have better content and development that most series of this genre.

Heed my writing. If you want to binge this series, that’s okay. There’s more than one way to watch any series. Just don’t spoil anyone.

I Binged Ted Lasso Season 3 So That I Can Tell You This

Posted on February 29, 2024 by Gibbs Dela Cruz

That Ted Lasso Season 3 is a great season, a great way to end the series, and this should be a great reason for you to start watching this, too. (In case you still haven’t watched and yet you’re reading this article)

I just finished watching the last 2 episodes of Season 3 earlier today, and my first and last impression of the season and the series as a whole is..

Sometimes, you can’t get what you want, and that is what life is.

I loved that the season kept it very real and I’m going to be real with you. Don’t look into reviews on Ted Lasso because this series isn’t something you can easily put on a 5 or even 10 star ranking scale. They should put some respect on Ted Lasso name.

I think everyone is used to having a fleshed-out ending in every series they watch that’s about to end. That’s not how life works. Remember a long time friend that you’ve talked to a lot in the past, but because of life, you guys just start drifting apart. It was no one’s fault, it was just how it went, es lo que es for the Spanish readers in the chat lol.

But anyways, for those kinds of situations and more, having a fleshed out ending for everyone is just not realistic. I remember my gaming buddies that I bonded so much over the Pandemic, and now with life back to normal, slowly but surely everyone went back to touching grass, going out, socializing that way that we gradually had less game nights and now it’s been a year since the last game night with the boys. It’s sad I know but that’s how life works, and that’s what makes Season 3 albeit the entire series a great look at life. I think some people are just uncomfortable in watching something that really resembles IRL, you know what I mean?

But nonetheless, I know you’re reading this and maybe you’re still not sure to start this series or not, but if you love a really great story, would you like to know the ending right away or let it surprise you like great stories does?

I know it. You know it. Everybody knows it. This award-winning series, yes I guess if you want accolades to be a factor in your decision, is a great outlook on life. Of course not all situations in our lives relate to what’s happening in the series, but like this quote from a reaction video I saw about the EDM of the 2010’s..

”When it hits, it hits.” – and this should hit you right in the noggin’ to FINALLY convince you that there’s a lot to unpack in Ted Lasso and going through with it is the best thing you can do, maybe this weekend?

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