The fact of the matter is a great life event has occurred—This past May my wife and I had a beautiful baby daughter. Her name is “Layan”, which means gentleness or softness. She’s 4 months already, laughing, exploring and growing her own personality. The delay in this mini announcement kind of explains the distraction part…

Everything from the pregnancy to the birth has been indescribable. From the movements and hiccups to the smiles and coos.

• Honey, can you believe this thing was in you?
• Yes… I was there, remember?!!
• Oh, yeah…
  

Whatever people tell you about having babies and preparedness is bullshit. You can never be fully prepared for this. I mean yes, you will purchase the formula, diapers, clothes, toys, etc. But there is going to be a lot of “Holy shit, what is this on her face?”, “Holy shit, what’s this smell coming out of her?”, “Holy shit, why won’t she sleep?!”, etc.

The good news is with great patience every obstacle comes with a nice little feeling of accomplishment… with the occasional surprises.

The bad news is you will never sleep the same way again, that is if you get any sleep at all. Some people will disagree saying things will get back to normal in a couple of years. I have a feeling that what happens is parents adapt and meet this lifestyle change midway. I expect that throughout the years the sleep interruptions will keep manifesting themselves in physical form (e.g. “Oh, my God. Why won’t she stop crying?!”) and then slowly morph into the more psychological  form (e.g. “Oh, my God. Why hasn’t she called yet?!”).

In the end, the important thing is it’s… all… worth… it.

Anyway, back in May I added the following tracks but I didn’t get a chance to announce it because of the aforementioned life-altering event. They were:

• “The Immigrant Song” from Soundtrack for America (Joey Curtin & Marc Cooper)
• “The Sacrifice” from Mars Needs Moms (Jown Powell)
• “Gribble’s Loss” from Mars Needs Moms (Jown Powell)
• “Belmont’s Theme” from Castlevania: Lords of Shadow (Oscar Araujo)
• “Final Confrontation” from Castlevania: Lords of Shadow (Oscar Araujo)
• “Waterfalls of Agharta” from Castlevania: Lords of Shadow (Oscar Araujo)
• “Dearly Beloved” from Kingdom Hearts II (Yoko Shimomura)
• “Passion” from Kingdom Hearts II (Yoko Shimomura)

Today, I added these tracks:

• “Eclipsed Heart” from Priest (Christopher Young)
• The Stampede & I’m Coming Home from Water For Elephants (James Newton Howard)
• “Eli’s Theme” from Let The Right One In (Johan Söderqvist)
• “The Father” from Let The Right One In (Johan Söderqvist)
• “Dark Day” from Soul Surfer (Marco Beltrami)
• The Shattering from World Of Warcraft: Cataclysm (Russell Brower)

Hope you like them!

Now, looking at the newly added tracks you might think I have a hint of a trekkie in me or something, but I don’t. Not that there is anything wrong with it!

Here are the tracks…

• “Alice Returns” from Alice In Wonderland (Danny Elfman)
• “Clear All Moorings” from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (Cliff Eidelman)
• “Ilia’s Theme” from Star Trek: The Motion Picture (Jerry Goldsmith)
• “One Day” from Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (Hans Zimmer)
• “Sign Off” from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (Cliff Eidelman)
• “The King’s Speech” from The King’s Speech (Alexander Desplat)
• “The Rehearsal” from The King’s Speech (Alexander Desplat)

So I was recently browsing a couple of web sites for soundtrack rankings, and I stumbled upon Les Misérables. Some of you might be shocked to hear that I have never seen the movie nor heard the soundtrack. Yep, busted. Anyway, I gave it a listen and it is one of the most beautiful creations by Basil Poledouris. The only tiny complaint, and I think some would agree, is the amalgamation of all the tracks into 4 long suites.

However, the same web site mentioned the existence of a “bootleg”, which I automatically tracked down and listened to. I was so impressed with the bootleg’s 11-minute Suite that I decided to play it on the station. I just thought it captured a lot of the highlights of the soundtrack.

All I needed was a spark and in the process 4 new tracks got added to the play list:

• “Les Miserables (Suite)” from Les Misérables (Basil Poledouris)
• “Flight From Home (The Guardian Theme)” from Legend Of The Guardians: The Owls Of Ga’Hoole (David Hirschfelder)
• “Bon Voyage” from The Russia House (Jerry Goldsmith)
• “Theme From Only You” from Only You (Rachel Portman)

Then came 1993 when with this strange new hardware addition to the console was release. Games on compact discs? OK. People somewhere must have been smoking something potent. But more importantly, video game soundtracks went from a polyphonic mess (not always!) to a whole new level. Ecco The Dolphin was one of the first titles that made the video gaming experience hypnotically movie-like. Even though its music may be categorized as New Age, it still fits.

Then came 2010 when I wasted 5 minutes of my life reminiscing about the past.

But before I go, 5 new tracks join the Permanent Waves play list:

• “Dream Within A Dream” from Inception (Hans Zimmer)
• “Time” from Inception (Hans Zimmer)
• “Flow Like Water” from The Last Airbender (James Newton Howard)
• “The Machine” from Ecco The Dolphin (Spencer Nilsen)
• “End Title” from Little Children (Thomas Newman)

Enjoy!

I checked the station and noticed 15-20 listeners enjoying the stream. I broadcast a couple of text messages to warn them, but I wasn’t sure whether they saw it or not. So to begin with, my apologies to the listeners who got interrupted late Saturday night, especially the ones on the west coast whose local times I completely forgot about. Sorry!

I performed the update. It was a downtime of about 30-45 minutes with very minor issues.  So… I ask… Did you feel it?

A few tracks sound different just because they are actually different mixes/remakes that I chose. For the rest, I tried hard to make sure the volume levels are consistent from track to track. I also tried to ensure zero crackles or pops or anything like that in the audio. So if you happen to encounter issues with one or more tracks, please let me know. I will check it locally and do my best to update the track in question.

Along with the update, I threw in the following tracks which I hope you like:

• This Is Berk (How To Train Your Dragon)
• Forbidden Friendship (How To Train Your Dragon)
• Coming Back Around (How To Train Your Dragon)
• War (Avatar)
• Humility And Love (Creation)
• What Happened? (Brothers)

Finally, my gigantic mini-project is over.

It’s been almost two years since I announced that I would probably maybe perhaps rip the station’s tracks from their highest quality sources and switch to using mp3PRO 96 Kbps. Actually, there was the Great Debate (again with the  self-absorption) and I was convinced by a lone (actually, the only) commenter to stick with the more balanced and space-saving 96 Kbps even if it caused people somewhere to DIE.

Well, I’m here to announce that I’m ready for the update, which will also include exciting new tracks from Avatar, How To Train Your Dragon and other films, so here’s a somewhat useless FAQ:

On which day are you going to do the update?

Since I’m a busy guy and can’t estimate time or deadlines for crap I think I’d like to go with the more conservative answer of: I have no idea.

Are you going to provide some sort of notice before performing the update?

I probably will, but it will be such a short notice that you will want to kill yourself… after you kill me.

What time of day are you planning on doing the update?

It will be late in the night—around midnight, with a giant cup of tea and some Porcupine Tree in the background. So sorry in advance for interrupting the nocturnal types.

Is it really going to be a Big Bang?

No. It’s going to be an incremental update. The station will definitely be stopped for several hours. I will upload ~50 tracks and then start it up again. I will continue uploading by increments of ~50 tracks, update and restart the play-list, and repeat.

• Nate’s Theme 2.0
• Cornered

Drooling and staring into nothing are the most fitting reactions to the sweeping orchestra in “Nate’s Theme 2.0″ and the James Bond-esque “Cornered”, which starts slow but eventually presents a magnificant feeling of agitation and intensity. It is no surprise that this soundtrack was nominated for the 2009 Best Game Soundtrack award by none other than G4TV… one of the worst TV channels in this part of our galaxy.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Lawrence Buontempo for the Live365 gift card. Lawrence, your generous gift went towards the funding of Permanent Waves. Thanks a lot! For other listeners, this is a hint that you should reconsider what you do with your life savings and kids’ college funds.

My wife and I recently finished watching the entire series of Battlestar Galactica. While I’m not an avid television fan (there is just no time with 24-hour days), this series is one of the best I have ever seen on TV. It is a reimagining of the 1978 science fiction series splashed with elements of romance, betrayal, and some of the other stuff which makes it girl-friendly. This doesn’t mean that your watching it will make you look cool in front of the ladies. It means there will be fewer of the female species around, greatly reducing your chances of establishing even a thread of a connection with the other sex. To summarize, you might as well kill yourself right now.

But before you do that, let me say that composer Bear McCreary left his mark with the score, making several tracks in season 2 stand out catching my and other people’s attention. I thought I would share this:

• Colonial Anthem (Theme from Battlestar Galactica)
• Prelude to War
• Roslin and Adama
• One Year Later

I have recently had the pleasure of meeting and chatting with British composer Andrew Pearce on Facebook. He stumbled upon Permanent Waves and made me realize it was missing some of his great compositions.

His latest work, Cinema Symphony, contains beautifully powerful and powerfully beautiful pieces. Conducted by José Serebrier, I was greatly pleased with what I heard—so much that I included the following tracks into the Permanent Waves stream:

• Elegy for Violin and Orchestra
• Celtic Warrior: Prelude for Orchestra

Thank you, Andrew, for your great work and talent.

If you’re on Facebook, then you have the opportunity to join the newly-created Permanent Waves group, based on non other than the Live365 Internet Radio station.

I remember Facebook when it was in its infancy. It was a cool and quiet place. Everything was free there. There were no crowds. People met other people from times of old, talked a little, or caught up on things. Now, Facebook is a 24-hour 7-days-a-week rave party. There is so much crap in it that people lost sight of what’s important. Dude, I want to see whatever my whoever from wherever is up to whenever. I don’t want to take a quiz on how old my brain is! Unfortunately, I got caught up in that whole chaos for a while until several months ago when I uninstalled all the non-standard applications and restricted my usage to several hou… err, minutes a day. It’s once again nice to see an opinionated video here or a friend’s baby picture there.

I thought it would be nice to put some faces on those Permanent Waves listeners and fans, so feel free to join and share your thoughts about the latest soundtracks, what’s playing on Permanent Waves or even request something! And if you’re one of those anti-social networking types, then it’s okay too. I can feel the pain of the sometimes-overwhelming Internet social life sometimes.

By the way, I added two more tracks:

• Hanging from “Plunkett & Macleane” by Craig Armstrong.
• The main theme from “Practical Magic” by Alan Silvestri.

Hope you like them!