Because I spent $1700 total on my production laptop with accessories and warranties, and used my Best Buy Rewards card in the process, I raked up a lot of points, and they sent me a $30 gift certificate that I used today.

I wandered around the store for about a half hour wondering what I should either get or discount $30 for, and then I found this: A Samson C01U USB Studio Condenser microphone for $89 (after discount, $59), so I picked it up and tested it out, and it delivers phenominal sound. It feels quite good now to be able to record studio-quality vocals, even BEFORE I do the vox EQs. This is great, not only for my rock songs, but also for when I record the voice acting for "Children of the Sky" (my animated film project 84-pages into its writing stage).

So, I kinda feel a bit excited.

You will find my ska cover of the Angry Video Game Nerd's (AVGN) theme song.

Proper credit goes to KyleJustinMusic.com for the original music and lyrics.

Many people have done their own versions of this theme song, and maybe I've missed it, but I have yet to hear a ska version, which is why I opted to do it in that style.

WARNING: The original lyrics are explicit, and as such, you will hear some of them in my cover.

I've been nagged more times than I know to join Xbox LIVE, so now I've done it!

Anyone who wants to add me, my gamertag is: Aldenorai

It's named after my Blood Elf Priest main on WoW, and for some reason, it wouldn't allow me to use "Setu Firestorm" because I already assigned that nickname to my Zunetag. Whatever. =p

Awwwww yeah. Just picked it up from UPS.

Version 4 of Steinberg's Nuendo. Not only will I have more feature and resources on my side, but I can stop using the hand-me-down version 2 I got from the studio guy 5 years ago. I bought the Academic version (which was $899 as opposed to the full-retail version at $1899 - ironically, the Academic version IS the full version, just at half price for students).

So I'm pretty excited to fire this up and see what she can do.

On a side note, I've also recently bought Anime Studio Pro and Sony Vegas Platinum, so I'm pretty set to get the ball rolling on my animated film project (which I'm still writing the screenplay to (on page 62 currently)).

Well, Joel Musch (director/producer of "The Hero of Time") has now uploaded their new promotional video that I was asked to make the song to. The song and video are spoofing an old Japanese LoZ commercial, and I was asked to remake the song beefing it up, add in a "guilty pleasure" breakdown amidst the cheesiness, and come up with the most Vanilla Ice lyrics I possible could.

The end result:

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Movie Website: The Hero of Time website
Digg it! http://digg.com/nintendo/Hero_of_Time_
Music_Video_by_BMB_Finishes
Dance Party song on my Myspace profile: http://www.myspace.com/georgerpowell

Yeah, I've been wanting to do another cover of the most unlikely geek song to be covered, so it's available, now with a "Making of" video just to answer the most consistent question I get in e-mails which is: "How do you make your music?"

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I've decided to go with a digital distribution service called "CD Baby" (website), an online distributor that distributes independent music to iTunes, Rhapsody, Napster, Amazon MP3, and much more.

So I have a new rock album in the works, and here's where I'm going to let you guys chime in with your requests:

I plan on doing new songs but doing 2 or 3 covers of some of my older pieces, and I want you guys to "Comment" here with your requests and I'll pick from your demands.

Please don't leave comments like "UR GAY, FAGGOT!" or things like that because you're not telling me anything I don't already know. =p

It'll be some time (due to college) before I finish this album, but I'll keep you guys posted. However, THIS IS AN ANNOUNCEMENT that all my work from here forth (except fun little songs I do just for kicks) will be commercial and will not be available for free download here (you'll have to Limewire them for free like you do with everyone else's music =p).

On the Hero of Time note, I have made a video where I've answered questions that some of you may have left on The Hero of Time's movie website concerning the music score. I would've done this earlier if I'd known that those questions were there.

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I thought of a future dilemma that I knew I'd ultimately face at this rate. I am 9 classes away from having an AA Degree in Business Administration. My plan was to get through a Bachelors Degree in Business Administration and using my business education to start a production company. Knowing that I wouldn't be fully funded right away, I thought I would aim to shoot for grants.

But another problem arose: 6 months after graduation, I would be expected to make monthly payments toward my student loans, which are fairly outrageous at the moment, let alone after the next two years when I finish a 4-year degree at USF. This would mean I'd need to come into money pretty darn quick.

So I thought of an idea that will help shoulder some of the weight so as to not bog me down financially: I should just go commercial and market my music instead of continuing to do it all for free. It's not that I enjoy charging people for my work, and it's not like I don't make music for the love of doing it. At some point, I will need to have taken it upon myself to start working toward a living at production (music and eventually film; and while I'm not a film student, I have done some time working in stage productions and a couple film productions, so I do have experience and have learned quite a bit not only from that experience, but also from spending the past 8-10 years analyzing how movies are made).

I found a website called TuneCore that provides independent music composers/artists with tools (at a price, but a price that's worth investing my leftover loan funds and income tax into) to market their music digitally. Having those tools handy made me think that I'd be a fool to not try to make some money off of what I'm best at.

Recently (as in the past few days), I've been picked up for another short film commission, of which I am not charging the filmmaker (because he is not doing this film commercially, or I would), but I WILL be using this opportunity to present my first marketed soundtrack, and after this, my music will very likely go commercial.

Just giving you guys a heads up. I'll probably still make some music specifically for posting here, but at much less volume given the circumstances.

So I had this strange idea....

....other people are uploading my songs on YouTube (which I'm grateful for, guys)...why shouldn't I?

So what I'll probably do is, as I make new songs, I'll upload them onto my YouTube along with the album art associated with it, as well as lyrics and the download link (which'll link to the song here) because quite frankly YouTube butchers audio quality.

For those of you who don't know, my YouTube username is "RealmEntertainment".

With that said, here is the YouTubbed "With Open Eyes":

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Hopefully the third time's a charm.

I finally leveled them out better. Hopefully these levels are satisfactory.

Sorry to all of you who downloaded the crapped versions.

EDIT: I have finally secured permission from the artist to use their image for this cover image. Artwork by Elmohead of DeviantArt