Beyond Two

Until KLYAM is ready....

My political ramblings will go on beyondtwo.blogspot.com

My music stuff will go on soundcentral.wordpress.com

Thanks.

I Graduated From The WE

I graduated from high school last Saturday. I graduated from this site as well. It's a sad departure, but I feel that after many months of random posting, it's in my best interest to stop this great gig as an Etudiant. Though I've personally churned out many respectable pieces this past school year, I feel like my best work is still ahead. But it needs to be organized. At this moment, there is another project in the working. It's not done yet. A really unfinished product will come very soon. My colleagues and I will post under a new label. This website isn't going anywhere, don't worry. I'm opening it up to the other students whose names are displayed on the right side of this page. Some of these students may well be involved in the new project...I don't know for sure. If you've arrived here from some past entry...great! It will always be in the archive. If you like what you see, don't worry...the best is yet to come. That's what I hope anyway. For now, I no longer consider myself an administrator. I'll still post about the new project so that I don't lose any of you readers. Stay tuned...

Explaining My CD Review Grades

Introduction

My CD Reviews, if you are familiar with them, typically aren't that structured. I usually assign random grades (from 0.0 to 10.0) to every song, add all the numbers up, and divide by the total number of songs to get a grade, which I round to the tenths place. But how do I come up with my grades? Why are some songs 7.7 and others 8.2? The difference between an 8.3 and a 8.4?

Basis and Weight

1. Rhythm - 20% - How's the beat? Do tempo and speed changes affect the song for better or for worse?
2. Instrumentation - 25 % - Are the guitar solos amazing? Percussion fine? Bass line all right? Etc.
3. Vocals - 20% - If the vocals are annoying, the grade will be significantly lowered.
4. Awesomeness - 35% - Looking at the song holistically...how does it rank? It might have some poor qualities, but overall is it good?
5. Comparison to rest of album - Weight varies - This is a criterion that I try not to weigh too heavily. Usually this decides whether a song is a 9.4 or a 9.5. Does this song have any qualities that make itself stand out more than the 9.4 track?

9.7 to 10.0 - Rarely given out; a truly special track
9.0 to 9.6 - High quality, all aspects
8.0 to 8.9 - Weak in only a couple of aspects maximum
7.0 to 7.9 - Average in practically all aspects
6.0 to 6.9 - Below average quality, most aspects
5.0 to 5.9 - Awful, most aspects
0.1 to 4.9 - Very awful
0.0 - Void of sound

* Important Note (Grading): I do most of the calculations in my head to come up with a final grade for a particular song. In certain cases, ones where I find that an album can be exemplified holistically by a certain grade, I will not publish individual song grades. A perfect example is 2009's Merriweather Post Pavillion. While not every song is a 10.0 (if I published grades), an album of this magnitude as a whole represents almost a change in the way a certain of type of music is looked at.

* Important Note (Bias): I have a penchant for lo-fi, noisy rock.

A New Look Again

I think this one is pretty cool. Probably not permanent. Hope you like it.

- Étudiant

Jokes Over!

On April 1, 2008, the Étudiant was transformed into a celebrity news blog. This year, the Étudiant featured an "I Love Obama" banner and news snippets, which showed the blogger's admiration for the President. If by any chance you didn't come on here yesterday, the great website April Fools Day on the Web logged a snapshot of the site.

You'll notice that the Étudiant will be rocking a spring green theme for the month of April. Hopefully, you'll like that.

Switching to Yahoo! Media Player

YouTube videos are fun, but I will be switching to the Yahoo! Media Player format very soon for songs of the day and other audio postings. A lot of music blogs are using this new format and it seems to be working quite well for them. Look for this in the near future!

Just A Little Question

Does anyone go on É2.0 anymore? Or is wakefieldnews.blogspot.com your thang? Let me know, if you don't mind. Thanks.

New Winter Look

What do you guys think?

Write For The Étudiant

Do you read my pro-life, anti-gay marriage, anti-drug war, Libertarian opinions and think to yourself, "This guy's an idiot!"? Do you watch all the videos and think the same? If so, you should consider writing for the idiot's site. Let your voice be heard.

Comment or talk to me for details on signing up.

Did I Really Just Post About Egg Nog?

Yes, yes I did. You see, the fun thing about having a blog (with no real focus) is that I am in no way limited to posting about certain things. I can (and will) endeavor to post about random things such as Egg Nog. That's kind of what we do here at the Étudiant.

Apologies For Our Look

The site will probably go back to normal in a day or two. I'm trying out something for the future...let's put it that way.

Just A Note

Clicking on the advertisement at the very bottom of this page brings in revenue for the Etudiant. All revenue (not just the proceeds considering we don't pay our writers) will go towards paying for renovation/expansion. In my opinion, putting the advertisement at the top of the page is annoying amongst other things. If you are in a nice mood, click down there a few times each day to support our cause. We will eventually reward you -- the readers -- with prizes and goodies. Now, I'm not exactly certain how that will work, but if we have cash left over we mind as well give it away, right?

Thanks a lot for your largesse!

Big Plans for the Étudiant

There really hasn't been many a drastic change to this site since its early beginning in April 2006. Our recent mission has been two-fold:

1. Promotion - We've always had a steady amount of returning visitors (10-20 each day), but we could be doing much better in that category. Having "regulars" view our articles and comment on them is really our only measure of success. As I know from past experience, writing for a non-existent audience is wasteful. We also are distributing our articles to random news websites via ping.

2. Revamp - We've toyed around with changing the look of the site and those attempts failed as we are stuck now with what we started with. That said, the presentation of our content has undergone improvement: articles are easier to locate and the site is navigable. Another fun fact about me is that I'm never completely content. I always seem to have a desire to expand and to make things better. Call it the business side of me if you'd like. I haven't really talked it over with Ben, but basically the Étudiant will become a mega site filled with news, politics, music, sports, and more fun treats.

FAQ: Are we going to drop "Wakefield" from Wakefield Étudiant?
Most likely. Our content has diversified tremendously and I think it is only in our best interest to reach out to as many audiences as possible.

FAQ: Will you keep the blog format?
- Most likely not. Our most likely transition is into a website that has some blog functionality. One thing that is for certain -- the site will not be run on blogger.

FAQ: Is there a high probability that this might not turn out as you would like it to?
- Yes, there is a rather high chance that the new site could fail, but I would say there is an even greater chance that it won't. There is only so much we can do on an all-encompassing "Independent Journal" type of website.

FAQ: When will the new site be set for launch?
- We aren't really sure. It could take anywhere between a few weeks and a few months.

FAQ: What's it going to look like?!
- You are in luck as I have a sketch of what it could look like (with a few variations) below.

Our Forum Gets A New Look

Quite an upgrade in my opinion:

http://whsforum.own0.com/wakefield-etudiant-f25/

Check it out and make sure you hit up the Étudiant sub-forum.

Hurry Up, The Poll Is Closing Soon!

The obnoxiously obscene poll of the week is closing in less than 24 hours; this is just a friendly reminder for all you guys (and girls) you haven't voted yet to do so. The poll was designed (albeit randomly) for mainly males to answer, but female readers...you can vote as well. To say the least, I am surprised at the results so far.

Attention "j"

Attention, Dickwad. The author of all the posts you are commenting on is Ben, not David. Get it right and stop spamming.

Keep It Up, Readers

Page loads (in bold) don't really matter. For all we know, Ben might be responsible for 1/3 of those. You can probably count me for another 1/3 and Chris for 1/5. The real category we care about is returning visitors. That is the category that is bold and italicized below. 21 people on Tuesday decided that they would check back in for the second time, the third time, or, if you are Ben, the nine hundredth time. A note to all readers: come back. We try to cover what is important but with so much stuff happening in the world, it is incredibly hard to do so. If you have any article ideas or even submissions, don't be afraid to e-mail Ben or myself. I don't think we've ever received an e-mail regarding the WÉ...so you can be the first! Check out the stats below if you are curious.

Thursday	15th May 2008	344	203	190	13
Wednesday	14th May 2008	391	258	248	10
Tuesday	13th May 2008	294	179	158	21
Monday	12th May 2008	379	241	225	16
Sunday	11th May 2008	267	178	169	9

Once In A Blue Moon

The Étudiant is going blue for once in a blue moon. In 2008, the Blue Moon started on May 5 and will continue through June 2. Our design has been changed to reflect this. Hope you like it!

Étudiant Celebrates 2 Year Anniversary

The actual 2 year anniversary was on April 22nd, but what is four days late? Again, props goes out to current administrator Ben Tan and defunct admin Chris Morrill for creating the site. Kudos to anyone who has contributed since the blog's creation. Hopefully, the site will be as active as it is right now when we celebrate the 3 Year Anniversary.

Just A Reminder

Today, the Étudiant has definitely seen the most content posted in a single day. Of course this is slightly ironic considering the weather. Anyway, we want to remind our readers to utilize the "Older posts" feature seen at the way bottom of the homepage as well as the different posting categories which are visible on the right hand navigational bar.

As of 6:11:00 PM, the number of posts for 4/23 is up to 15.