Rain

I have suffered from insomnia pretty much for my entire adult life. I'd rarely sleep more than 3 or 4 hours a night. 5 or 6 when I managed to sleep in - usually because I was hungover. One thing I already knew was that in order to be able to even get those 3 or 4 hours, I needed to go to bed at the same time every night. And also that if I slipped off for even just a day or two, my internal clock would be out of wack. It could take me days, sometimes a full week to get back on track. 2 years ago I started a new job, working 7pm to 4 am. At first I attempted to live a normal "human" life. I'd go to bed shortly after my shift, at around 5, hoping to sleep until 10 or 11 if I was lucky. But I kept waking up after an hour or two and then crashing in the afternoon. So I was tired all the time. Story of my adult life. But only a few weeks into the new gig, my wife and I broke up, and I realized I had no reason to be up and about during daytime, so I embraced my "vampire" schedule - I started staying up til 10 in the morning and realized that I had no problem sleeping till 6 pm. And for the first time in my adult life, I've been sleeping 7 and 8 hours every night ever since. I had started taking melatonin as a helper at first, because sleeping during the day can be tricky - for one thing it's usually noisier. Leaf blowers typically start to go off in the neighborhood when I start getting ready for bed. I am not sure it makes any diference but I keep taking it, as part of my morning ritual. I suspect that keeping that same ritual every morning has helped me train my brain, so who cares if the melatonin is placebo? So typically, once I am done with my chores and language lessons, I take a quick shower, poor myself a big mug of milk, retire to my bedroom, sit in bed with a guitar, and watch some Japanese anime or one or two periods of a hockey game, then I am off to sleep. And I rarely have any problem falling asleep. I've also blocked out every bit of daylight - the blinds weren't doing a good enough job, so I nailed a tick curtain over them AND installed black out curtains on top. I also place a towel at the bottom of the door because some daylight was creeping in from there. And I installed an amp and speakers with a bluetooth receiver to stream white noise (actually brown noise) from an app on my phone. That set up works marvels at cancelling the outside world noises, even when the neighbors are re-roofing their house, like this week. When I look back at all those years behind, it strikes me how many of the errors and poor calls I have made in my life were the direct result of sleep deprivation. I was in that fog almost constantly. Sometimes, people who stop drinking (even people who only drink on weekends) will tell you how much clearer their thoughts are after a few months. Me I never noticed much difference when I cut off alcohol. But I feel the same about sleep. How much clearer are my thoughts since I started getting enough sleep. And it's so great to be able to go through an entire shift without feeling like you're about to collapse, shivering and hurting all over. EDIT - Oh, yeah. My bladder will typically wake me up after a couple of hours (from that huge mug of milk) and sometimes again at around 4. I just turned 50 so full nights without bathroom breaks will only get even more rare. But I have no problem going back to sleep - and that is a HUGE difference from before. I would have typically been unable to fall asleep again before an hour or three of tossing and turning around in bed.

The Blue Ridge Rangers - Heart of Stone (first song I remember listening to in my life. Drove me crazy).

You mean it's just me - I am being discriminated against? Wait until social media hears about this! Social Justice Warriors Unite! Form of... KAREN.

Censor that word all you want, forum software - it's right there in glorious bright yellow on bright pink in the video preview. The 53X Pistols win. Nevermind the bollocks.

The ***** Pistols - Bodies

That's a lot of changes to your diet - which is not easy. With my French (French Canadian) background, cheese and cured meats were an important (and favorite) part of my diet. Eventually, I realized that my body was working really hard to process that type of food, so I had to eliminate them from my menu almost entirely. Now the only cheese I eat is cottage for breakfast. Or whatever's on the occasional pizza during the weekend. But the consequences for me weren't half as bad as what you go through. Japanese cuisine, man... A few months of dating a Japanese girl and I was hooked. Whatever night she brings leftovers from her grandma is the best night of the week. These two got me re-aquainted with sodium, although that's the exception, not the norm. But yeah, MSG... I get that. Inability to focus was the number one symptom for me every time I quit smoking (I eventually quit for good in 2013). I guess it makes sense since nicotine is a stimulant too. The good news is that, obviuously, this eventually subsides. So hang in there!

Oops - nevermind.

Danzig - Cantspeak

Front Line Assembly - Force Fed

Triumph - Allied Forces

You mean like completely quitting? No alternative? I used to drink a few pots of coffee every day and lots of cola. I swicthed from coffee to tea years ago (I still drink cola) and my energy levels are much more even. I don't crash like I used to. 4 mugs a day when I work. Sometimes one mug during the weekend - which tells me that I am not as addicted to tea as I was to coffee, which was a 7 days a week affair. I can't imagine life without any caffeine, though.

I really had my hopes up when they were planning on rolling out a wrapped version that would have worked on Mac. Even though I can't see myself moving back from Logic, I have a long history with Cakewalk - it would have been nice to run it as an alternative, for older projects or to spark creativity without having to bring a PC into the equation. Unfortunately, that free/beta version that they released just before the end of Cakewalk didn't work too well. Incidentally, I still have an old Alienware laptop that a friend gave me running XP and Sonar 8.5 in storage in the studio closet. This is a picture from when I finally sat down to export old projects a few years ago (2016 I think). I should get it out and boot it sometime, just for old times sake...

Wow! Congratulations!!!

Look at me - it's like I am trying to Cornell the market on Jesus songs...

Temple of the Dog - Wooden Jesus

Soundgarden - Jesus Christ Pose

Everything below the base of my skull hurts just seeing this.

King Kobra - Shake Up (Perfect song for an 80's training montage)

AC/DC - Shake a Leg

Yeah, my newfeed was littered with posts about it as well.

Motorhead - Eat the Rich

Those 3 albums, man...

Hellraiser cosplayer got a little carried away...

They were playing here last weekend - on my night off (this never happens) but I still managed to miss them. Accept would have been the very first show I would have attended when I discovered metal back in the days, but my parents wouldn't allow me. Although my mother did give me money for a t-shirt that a friend then bought for me at the concert. The Metal Heart tour - and I was crazy about that record.

Accept - Restless and Wild