The Cure

Mixtape Mondays: Te Amo Amor

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Good Morning, Folks! Happy First of June. This is a big month for me because it contains both my birthday and the birthday of my mom. We were a family of Geminis. This morning, I have another mixtape ready to go, and for those who are not already engaged in this practice… I love making mixtapes. They were a big part of my childhood since I had a dual tape deck stereo and made them for my friends, and occasionally for those I was attempting to flirt with. There is a science to the placement of songs, and my goal is to make it so that the entre composure flows from one song to another without having any abrupt shifts. Most of the time, I accomplish this and then post the result for my readers to listen to. At this point, I have thirty-one mixes, and my extra challenge is that I cannot use the exact same version of a song on more than one mixtape.

31 – Te Amo Amor

My girlfriend loves to sing Karaoke, and low-key specializes in singing love songs. I’ve got a few videos of her singing various things, and I think she is pretty damned good at it. So the other day, she was asking me what some of my favorite love songs were. Being the wannabe edgelord that I am, I cannot, of course, choose the standard fare. So this morning, you have a mix of the songs that mean the most to me that exist within the love song category. I am cheating by throwing in the Nada Surf cover of If You Leave, because I have already used that song in my love letter to 80s soundtracks called Tape Deck Held Aloft. The only truly standard love song is Brian Adams banger from Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, and it was included because it represents the song that I had my first slow dance to. I think the entire thing listens extremely well for being crafted out of such contorted objectives. The two most important for me are Lovesong by The Cure and Because the Night covered by 10,000 Maniacs.

Track List

  • 01 – If You Leave – Nada Surf
  • 02 – Always – Erasure
  • 03 – Lovesong – The Cure
  • 04 – Come Undone – Duran Duran
  • 05 – Still Into You – Paramore
  • 06 – I Miss You – Blink 182
  • 07 – Just Like Heaven – Dinosaur Jr.
  • 08 – Life Eternal – Ghost
  • 09 – Eternal Flame – The Bangles
  • 10 – Brick – Ben Folds Five
  • 11 – Sexual Healing – Soul Asylum
  • 12 – Because the Night – 10,000 Maniacs
  • 13 – Let’s Stay Together – Seal
  • 14 – Nothing Compares 2 U – Chris Cornell
  • 15 – Everything I Do I Do It For You – Bryan Adams

Listen to it yourself

Another mixtape added to the archives. For those not in the know, a lot of times I will add the mixtape to the archives ahead of actually making the blog post. I have various beta testers who give things a listen through to let me know if I am crazy or not. I think this one is pretty good, but I am not one to really dwell upon the love song as a genre. What are some of your favorite love songs? What do you think would have fit well with this mix? Drop me a line below.

The post Mixtape Mondays: Te Amo Amor appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.

Mixtape Mondays: Erasure Shaped Box

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Good Morning Folks! Long time readers of my blog might remember a reoccurring feature called Mixtape Mondays, and in theory I am hoping to bring it back. Essentially growing up the creation of Mixtapes was very important to me. I would painstakingly spend hours going over specific tracks and dubbing them onto a cassette with my stereo until I had crafted the perfect flow of songs that followed a sequence and more or less fit a theme. I would give them to friends… and attempt to bestow them upon lovers, who so rarely appreciated them. However that was not the important part. The important part was crafting what I felt was the perfect sequence of songs that fit into the album format, and more importantly than anything… looped in a way that made sense to be able to listen to it over and over. Over the course of April 19th, 2021 through May 9th, 2022 I released twenty three of these mixtapes, and you can see the entire archive over on the dedicated page. These all sort of represent a piece of my soul, and if you ever want to know anything about me as a person… they are written clearly in these assemblages.

Erasure Shaped Box

I’ve talked a bit about my romantic interest on this blog a few times with the code word of “Erasure”, this is in large part because she really likes that band. I gave her some hopeless homework some time ago, where I asked her to listen through my mixtapes as a way of understanding me a bit better. Unfortunately she is not the sort of person who really listens to disparate assemblages of music, but instead prefers to listen to the same song over and over until it is worn out… before moving on to the next song. So I set out with a rather hopeless mission, of trying to craft a mixtape that I thought she might like. Turns out she did enjoy it mostly, or at least enjoys some of the songs on it. However it was more thought experiment than anything else. Could I craft a mixtape that I also enjoyed centered around a song from Erasure the band, not the person… and make something I would enjoy listening to. I think at least in the later mission I succeeded because I have been listening to this one quite a bit lately. The catalyst was Chains of Love, and then I worked forward and backwards from that song trying to assemble a sequence that makes sense.

Track List

  • 01 – Lips Like Sugar – Echo and the Bunnymen
  • 02 – Space Age Love Song – A Flock of Seagulls
  • 03 – Why Can’t I Be You? – The Cure
  • 04 – World In My Eyes – Depeche Mode
  • 05 – International Bright Young Thing – Jesus Jones
  • 06 – Chains of Love – Erasure
  • 07 – It’s A Sin – Pet Shop Boys
  • 08 – Bizarre Love Triangle – New Order
  • 09 – What’s On Your Mind – Information Society
  • 10 – What is Love? – Howard Jones
  • 11 – Roam – The B-52s
  • 12 – Head Over Heels – The Go-Go’s
  • 13 – Cruel Summer – Bananarama
  • 14 – Here Comes the Rain Again – Eurythmics
  • 15 – Beautiful Girl – INXS

Listen to it Yourself

That brings to a close the first of this new batch of Mixtapes. I have no clue how long I will keep this run going, because I have a ton of things going on in my life right now. However there is something about crafting a Mixtape that I find deeply satisfying. I usually start with 30-40 songs and then whittle it down to just the right blend of 13-15 while trying to perfect a sequence in which they flow together nicely. I was driving home yesterday from a trip to Harbor Freight and heard a song on the radio that I have not heard in years, and I think that is probably going to serve as the nugget for the next mix. I would love for this to regularly return to my blog, but I am never certain how much inspiration I will be able to keep going. As always however you can see the entire sequence of all of my mixtapes over on the archive. The post Mixtape Mondays: Erasure Shaped Box appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.

Weekend Recap with Frogs

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Good Morning Folks! It is another Monday and here comes another one of my semi-regular weekend recap posts. I am still in a really odd place gaming wise where I am not necessarily hardcore motivated by anything. I thought I might dive into Space Marine 2 or Final Fantasy XVI this weekend… but neither happened because I just did not feel like playing anything that “heavy”. I’m not sure how to explain it, but there are times when I don’t want to play anything that I cannot easily dip out of at a moment’s notice as my mood changes. As a result I am still playing quite a bit of Minecraft because it is easy to pop out of and return to, and one of the major things that I did is create a bunch of dog houses for all of my wolves that I have had hanging out in my base for ages. Of note… that is NOT lava in the back of their cage but instead, a shroom light to keep them warm and safe from baddies.
It has been ages since I made one of my dumb videos, and this weekend I decided to record a bit of a base tour in Minecraft. The Path of Exile league was fun, but didn’t necessarily inspire me to create any videos, similarly, Last Epoch has been more of the same but if I can ever get my build dialed in I might record one of it. This recent foray into Minecraft started by watching this video about a 14-year-old Minecraft mystery while convalescing from Covid. This then made me remember that I have videos from my very first Minecraft world over on another channel, which made me nostalgic for the game and the way in which I used to play it. It has been a lot of fun and while I have entered the “machine building” phase of the game, I am still enjoying myself because it does not ask a lot of me to play it.
Over in Last Epoch, my build is starting to come together and I have picked up a handful of really decent Legendary items. We are in a really weird state of the endgame meta for the game where you either want an item to drop with 2 or more Legendary Potential, or you want an item to drop with NO Legendary Potential so you can feed it to a Nemesis Egg and either get a Legendary or an item with hopefully 2 or more LP on it. Circle of Fortune however makes it so that most Uniques drop with at least 1LP… meaning that 99.9% of what drops for you is useless. What I find myself doing is picking up weapons off the ground and then rolling the dice with a Rune of Ascendance because it does not seem to take into account the Circle of Fortune bonuses and is way more likely to give me a raw zero LP version of the item if I luck my way into it.
There are also some weird growing pains around being in the endgame and crafting items. Last Epoch should be praised for how approachable crafting items is and how easy it is to make decent enough gear while running through the campaign. However, when you hit the endgame… it sort of stops being useful. Glyph of Envy is this really cool item that was recently introduced that lets you take a single good stat and then reroll everything else. I could see this actually being really useful for those items that have a Tier 7 roll of that one stat you care the most about. However, it does not work in this situation because you cannot use this unless an Affix can be upgraded, meaning that you cannot use this on T5, T6, or T7 items. I’ve tried this a few times and when you end up getting as a result is an item that would probably be hidden by your loot filter. There really is no way to craft perfect items in Last Epoch, meaning that after a point you just stop engaging with that system other than randomly trying to reroll a single stat on an item.
Friday while I was off my friend Ace gifted me a copy of Pesticide Not Required and I’ve had a blast playing some of it. Essentially this is a game in the same style as Vampire Survivors but instead you play a cute frog that has inherited a farm Stardew Valley style. You roam around doing chores, planting crops, watering them, and eventually growing new weapons… to help you clear out the bugs that are trying to attack you faster… so you can grow more crops and get more weapons. It has a really fun main gameplay loop and you get to throw a bunch of fun things as weapons like randomly sending lawnmowers off in various directions. Over time you get the ability to buy pets that take care of some of the tasks for you like an Elephant that waters your plants, or a Dog that retrieves loot for you. If you liked Vampire Survivors give it a go, because it is kind of stupidly fun. I do suggest you play it with a controller because originally I tried Keyboard and Mouse and completely missed that you could direct your attacks until I played with dual sticks.
Lastly, The Cure released a new single and it is brilliant. It is hard to explain how much this band means to me, and listening to this was like a visit from an old friend. Fair warning though it is 3 minutes or so into the song before the lyrics start because The Cure has reached a point where they just do not have to give a fuck about pop sensibilities. What is staggering about this track is how much like classical young Robert Smith this sounds like. Whatever he is doing to take care of his voice… it is phenomenal. If you also love The Cure and were not aware of this collaboration with Chvrches from a few years ago, I highly suggest you give it a listen as well. Anyways! I hope you all have a most wonderful week. Mine is probably going to be busy, but I am had a great weekend. The post Weekend Recap with Frogs appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.