I listen to a lot of music while i work. Most of the CDs that I listen to regularly are stacked in messy heaps at the office where I root thru them mercilessly looking for the CD I really feel like listening to at that moment. Years ago, i remember discussing the purchase of my first CD player with a friend. I was eyeing a 5 disk CD changer at the time, but my friend shook his head at me and told me that i change what I listen to far too often to be comfortable with a 5 disk changer. In the end, i have to admit that he was right. The door on the Pioneer CD player that I eventually purchased finally broke and refused to open after 2 years of heavy use.

I'm a big fan of listening to Shoutcast stations. Typically, i will tune into either Groove Salad or Drone Zone over at SomaFM if I am in the mood to chill, and recently i've been listening a lot to Angeldustrial - i've been on an Industrial kick lately. A few months ago I was in a GOA/Trance/House kick, and it was Tag's Trance Trip that I locked into.

During the day i avoid streaming music at the office because i don't want to tie up what little bandwidth our office has (it's a little tight for an office our size, so i try to be good). CDs also allow me to zero in on exactly what i want to listen to. When i do this, i often switch back and forth between some pretty major extremes in music. I sometimes wonder if this bouncing back and forth between things is a sign of mental instability, but I am assured that there is plenty of evidence proving this is a fact regardless of my listening habits.

One group that I have been listening to a lot recently is VNV Nation - their 'Empires' disk blew me away and it was in the heaviest rotation while i was working on The Project from Hell (tm) last month. I think 'dark angel' is my fave track ("I'm in this mood, because of scorn, i'm in a mood for total war..." yes, i was singing this out loud at 2 in the morning in the office). Other CDs that were in heavy rotation on my poor abused little Sony Diskman were :Wumpscut: 'Bludkind', Front Line Assembly's 'Implode', Stabbing Westward's 'Darkest Days, Moby's 'Play'... the list could go on - but this is just one side of the musical story.

I like tracks that have a certain amount of intensity and depth to them. Music is funny - what i listen to tends to follow whatever emotive track my brain is going thru while I'm working. I have a tendency to wander between musical styles - and i make pretty big leaps. It's not unusual for me to go right from :wumpscut: to the Laputa soundtrack. Some of the japanese disks that I've been listening to a lot lately include the Kanon and Air game disks (i swear the games spend more time in my CD player than in the CDrom drive), the Kita E 'white illumination' disk, 'gals compilation' and 'regret' by I've, Shin Kyuuketsuki Miyu drama disk 1 (great stuff) and this neat disk called 'Lets Install' by Device High.

Device High is actually a group of musicians who produce, record and release doujinshi music CDs (fan works) as well as occasionally preform live. Hikoshi Hashimoto, the producer, does music for games professionally, but Device High is his hobby. To me, it is amazing to look at this CD and realize that it's really a self published work. REM-san has a wonderful voice, and the disk is full of very listenable tracks.

Tsubasa said to me a few months ago that it would be great if a group like Device High would be willing to do some music tracks for Megatokyo. We figured that there really was little chance of it - Device High actually has quite a following, and tsubasa was lucky enough to actually see them preform in concert... so imagine my surprise when Tsubasa informed me that he has communicated with Hashimoto-san and that he was very interested in doing some tracks for Megatokyo! I'm amazed and humbled by the fact that this group of accomplished and talented musicians are actually interested in doing work for our sad little project. I've enjoyed the 'Lets Install' cd for almost a year now. I am very excited to hear what comes out of this. i'll keep you posted.

This, of course, is not the only bit of Megatokyo musical goodness that there is. In fact, Kim Justice, who has been doing MT tracks without any prompting from us just keeps adding tracks to his MP3.com website. Kim's a professional musician who has really put together some nice tracks inspired by Megatokyo. I think that 'Erika's Lazy Afternoon' and 'Feel the Evil' are my faves so far. I feel honored that your music is inspired by us.

In other news, if i get another request for an I.A.C. (i am cute) shirt i think i will scream. ^_^;;; OK! I CAN TAKE A HINT! (mouu...) I'll see what i can do to make some IAC shirts available this weekend. Oh, and Cafepress has informed me that we can start selling baseball caps - so i'll look into getting some caps together to make available in the store.

Speaking of shirts... Greg Dean over at Real Life Comics put up some really swank new shirt designs. you gotta chuckle at this guy's sense of humor. ^_^

Last weekend was Seraphim's birthday, and I endeavored to do two things - I tried to make waffles for breakfast saturday morning (oh, THAT was a disaster) and then I tried to make a chocolate cake (lets not talk about it). I am very lucky that she appreciates the fact that I TRY... ^^;;

Right now i am chilling to track 5 - Summer on the 2nd disk of Moby's 'Play'. The man is the master. I bow to his emotive musical skillz. And i wonder where this track will carry me next...