THE MANITOU'S DIARY ARCHIVE

All the previous entries in my diary of happenings related to The Manitou's Lair go here. Now I wonder if anyone will read it?

The Manitou's Diary

June 25, 2004 Latest song download: "Robotnot" The Manitou @ electromancer.com. Another month has passed, and some interesting developments have occurred. I'm heavily back into writing fiction, so I've got a new story for you in the Silly Shorts archive, titled: Deepest Impressions. On the music front, I've written a new song, "Lost In The Stars," which I feel is the perfect melding of my different styles. I now have to make room for it in the Circuit Zero tracklist, so one or two more tracks may be dropped. It's incredible how much this album is evolving. I've also been away on a trip to stay with some friends and take in a music fest. Saw some bands local to southern B.C., all of whom were good. Been catching up on things since I got back - lots to do. -TM.

The Manitou's Diary

May 24, 2004 Latest song download: "Robotnot" The Manitou @ electromancer.com. Here I was updating my website, when I looked at the date to find... yes, it's the 24th. That number just won't go away. Based on feedback from the Robot Music e.p., I've put together a track-listing for the Circuit Zero album and am in the process of remixing a few tracks for the forthcoming "The Clockwork Man" single and video. Updated details on Circuit Zero can be found in the Music section. -TM.

The Manitou's Diary

May 13, 2004 Thursday The 13th... doesn't have quite the same ring to it, does it? ;) It's been a few months now since I completed my Robot Music e.p., and the song that's proved most popular is "Robotnot." I've made it available as a free download at: The Manitou @ electromancer.com. I recently picked up a Texas Instruments Speak & Math from the local "re-use centre," otherwise known as the Dump Shop. I plugged it into my soundcard to record some sounds from it, and all I got initially were some glitchy bleeps and static. I isolated the more interesting sounds and saved them as individual wav files, constructing a "rhythm kit" for use with a drum sequencer. I programmed a quick loop to see how it'd sound, and it sounded great in a quirky, lo-fi sort-of way :) I've now built a song around it, and think it's one of my best instrumentals yet, with some very powerful retro synth-sounds. I've called it "Traveller In Time And Space" because of some similarities to the Doctor Who Theme, and will make it available on Electromancer as soon as I'm happy with the final mix. -TM.

The Manitou's Diary

April 23, 2004 Sometimes things don't go quite as you plan them, and that's the case with my latest story: "Mr. Sockforahead Doesn't Live Here Anymore." It should have been completed weeks ago, but more and more I'm finding that things will work out when the time is right, rather than when you want them to. It's now online in the Fiction section under Silly Shorts - hope it's been worth the wait :) A handful of new Weirdshots are online in the Weird Stuff section. My friend Cici has come up trumps again with three fantastic photos taken on a recent trip to Vancouver Island. They can be found under Submitted Weirdshots. Since completing "Everyday I Die" last month, I did some work on some old demos of mine, some of which are showing promise. Then I had a listen to an old "mod" I made and became obsessed with turning it into a Manitou-style dance track. So over the course of a few days I did that up and it was quite refreshing to work on some dance music again after months of nothing but electro-pop and moody stuff. I've also fleshed out another dance track, but at the moment I'm taking a bit of a break to work on draft 4 of my novel: Time, Space, And Teacakes. I will see about creating pages in the fiction section for details on both that and my now 17 story strong Argil series. -TM.

The Manitou's Diary

March 5th, 2004 Hey hey! Well I'm a bit late with the new story, but I'm on the verge of finishing it and may even have it online later today. For now though, there's a batch of new Weirdshots to keep you amused :) My most recent musical project has been a retro-style cover of Gary Numan's "Everyday I Die." You can download the full mp3 on the Numan Covers page in the Music section. Enjoy! Now, I'm not really one for guestbooks, but a friend requested that I get one for the Lair, so... if ya scroll on down to "Contact" you'll find the link :) Sorry about the pop-ups and crazy advertisements :| -TM.

The Manitou's Diary

January 5th, 2004 Yet more occurrences of the number 24: the most obvious being the year "2004." On the news a couple days ago it was mentioned that the number of automotive fatalities in the Okanagan area of B.C. totalled 24 last year. Hmm. Well, I didn't get the Lair updated before Xmas like I'd hoped. That was mostly due to working on the Robot Music CD. I was working on "Robotnot" up until the 24th, and did the final mix of all 8 tracks on that day also. Work was completed about 12:30 am :) There's a page in the music section with details and clips from the CD. I've removed "Human Factor" for now until its future is more tangible. I've made a new(ish) song "Disappear" available on electromancer.com, as well as the new mix of "Freaked Out Kitty" (I fixed some loud bits). I'm no longer on mp3.com - they've deleted all their accounts, and I didn't really care for their service so I won't be signing up again. Electromancer is much better suited to my style of music. A full page of new Weirdshots are online in the Weird Stuff section, and there are some new visitor submitted pictures. The amount of weird stuff I see is mind-boggling. Got a few projects to get on with now that Xmas is over; should have that story I promised before the month is out. Happy new year all :) -TM.

The Manitou's Diary

November 23rd, 2003 Hmm... it's only 1 hour away from the 24th of November, interesting that I should choose this moment to update my site. If you read my last entry you'll be privy to the bizarre connection my subconscious mind has with that number. I've decided to abandon the "What's New" part of the main page and just tell ya what's new in here instead. The old updates have been dutifully archived and can still be accessed via the "Ye Olde Update Archive" link below this funky purple box. A new song: "Freaked Out Kitty" is available for download on The Manitou @ electromancer.com. It's a taster of the kind of music I'm creating for the Circuit Zero album. This, and at least five more songs (more if I can help it), will be available January on a limited edition e.p. called "Robot Music." Artwork for the CD is underway and I have two other songs complete except for vocals, one requiring some re-recording (most of it was recorded through a high-latency external sound card -- don't ever buy a Sound Blaster Extigy if you plan on using it for MIDI!), and some other instrumentals that need finishing off. I also dusted off a song called "Robotnot" which was intended for the Human Factor album, but wasn't working as a dance song. I scrapped 90% of it, keeping the melody but changing the bassline, drums, and a lot of the patches, and turned it into a retro-electronic song to fit the style of Circuit Zero. I'm very pleased with the results and glad that this song, the earliest ever written for Human Factor, is finally going to see the light of day :) Its companion piece, the title track from Human Factor, shares the same melody and was never a dance song anyway so I'll be looking at revamping that too. My problem at the moment is I have so many songs that I want to finish at once that none of them are getting finished! Coming next update (hopefully before Xmas), I have more Weirdshots both taken by myself and my #1 contributor Cici, as well as some updates for the music section. Possibly a story as well - I have the rough draft of "The Revenge of Mr. Sockforahead" written :) -TM.

The Manitou's Diary

September 24, 2003 Well, Crazy Guy's got one, so why not me? ;) The number 24 has had some significance of late, hence my writing this on the 24th. First I turned 24. That was 20 days ago, on the 4th: 20 + 4 = 24. Then about a week ago, I began wondering whether I should turn Crazy Guy's diary into a spiffo website independent of the Lair. I settled on just giving it more of a presence here, and wrote the first new entry in... ages. And what number is it? Yep, 24. After a couple days working on the update, I revamped the Silly Shorts page and numbered the stories. Well damn if there aren't exactly 24 of them... I learned a little while ago from a Wiccan friend of mine that my "magic number" is 12, which of course is half of 24. 24 backwards is 42, which is "the meaning of life," according to my favourite author Douglas Adams. My favourite number is 25... maybe I should change it? Maybe I should also buy 24 lotto tickets ;) Heck knows what's going on in my subconscious. All I know is my subconscious has been very helpful, working on things that my conscious mind has put on hold (such as plot elements, lyrics to songs, etc...) then spitting out golden ideas when I least expect it. It also thinks it's a comedian, as I discovered while reading through some of my old Silly Shorts. In the "Fart Auction" story, there's the line: "These aren't just any old farts, y'know." I'm sure the pairing of "old" and "farts" was not a conscious decision at the time. :/ I'm making some headway on one of my medieval/fantasy songs for Circuit Zero, titled: Enchantment (or possibly Enchantress, I haven't decided yet). What began as a rather cheesy poem, and equally cheesy piano tune, is being redone with some more atmospheric synth sounds. Any attempt to work on the Human Factor material lately has gone nowhere, so I'm not going to push it. I'm putting it down to my subconscious again. It must know what it's doing... At least, I hope it does. Maybe it's telling me I should get a move on and have Circuit Zero finished by Christmas Eve (the 24th!!!), just like Darkdance was. -TM.