Remi's Bloglet - Wednesday 30 June 2004

Uhhh, anyone want a gmail account? E-mail me, or just comment. _
respond? (10)
03:21:31 PM, Wednesday 30 June 2004

Good grief there's a lot of Bowie on that list. Bowie never really touched me right in that part of the brain that says, "This is good." Dunno why. _
respond? (1)
11:16:34 PM, Friday 25 June 2004

This Reimagining of Spider-man for Southeast Asia is an interesting culture mash. The sarong-like getup with the standard-Spidey upper torso just strikes me as strange-looking, though. Why only go halfway? _
respond? (6)
07:16:58 PM, Sunday 20 June 2004

I've got a gmail account now. it's my last name at gmail dott com. Wheeee! Send me e-mail! _
respond? (6)
11:04:49 PM, Friday 18 June 2004

Oh, and if you missed it, the Pixies have released a new song (as in a recently recorded new song) through iTunes. It's a Kim Deal Pixies song! It's a really good, strange Kim Deal Pixies song. Go. Now. _
respond? (4)
07:41:33 AM, Wednesday 16 June 2004

Okay, Jim Davis is evil. _
respond? (14)
07:26:27 AM, Wednesday 16 June 2004

I got bored, so I'm swapping a custom-designed t-shirt for a gmail address. _
respond?
05:50:23 PM, Sunday 13 June 2004

I just finished playing through, Quest for the Rest, a game/ad for the Polyphonic Spree's new album. I enjoyed it so much I played Amanita's first game Samarost, which was so familiar I must have played through bits of it before. Both games are short and enjoyably beautiful throwbacks to old-school point-and-click adventure games, and I can't recommend enough spending an hour or so with them (start on Quest, it's easier and provides a good introduction to the gameplay style).

[via mefi] _
respond? (1)
04:39:17 PM, Sunday 13 June 2004

Hey all you folks in and around Annapolis, Travis Morrison (formerly of Dismemberment Plan) is playing at ACME on July 12th, ACME. Go support his fledgling solo career at one of the crappiest bars in Annapolis. _
respond?
09:07:58 PM, Thursday 10 June 2004

Randy Millholland, creator of the Something Positive webcomic, got fed up with the constant complaints of spelling and grammar errors in his comic. (paraphrase)"Look," he said, "I work full-time, and spend another 40 hours a week on the comic as it is, the comic is rushed, and mistakes happen. If you really want to see the mistakes disappear, and the schedule of the comic to become more consistent, send me enough money to quit my job, and I'll spend a year doing nothing but Something Positive." (end paraphrase) Sometimes there are happy endings. _
respond?
05:55:53 PM, Thursday 10 June 2004

To steal the perfect quote from mathowiez, 'The long national nightmare is finally over.' _
respond? (1)
01:51:57 AM, Sunday 6 June 2004

Prisoner of Azkaban
So, yeah, wow. I mean, a fantasy movie that actually invokes sighs of seeing the truly fantastic take flight on screen, a fantasy film where the mundane is the world we live in and the fantasy is what we get when we look around the wrong corner. Fantasy that understands being a constant whirl of motion and gadgetry is a great way to destroy awe. A movie adaptation that adds nuance to a character in complete harmony with that character's original conception. A movie adaptation that becomes great not because of its slavish devotion to plot points, but to the source's heart. An almost perfect movie marred only by one overlong, tacked-on action sequence too reminiscent of the earlier HP/Chris Columbus glosses. _
respond? (10)
11:08:05 PM, Friday 4 June 2004

I . . . I rather enjoyed Travis Morrison's cover of Ludacris's "What's Your Fantasy?" He doesn't even change the 'Ludacris' references in the song! It's utterly stupid and disposable, a perfect download, and I can imagine what it would be like to see him play it live. It would be hilarious and insane. Loads of fun, the way throwaways should be. I believe my membership in Pitchfork's kool kids klub is officially revoked now. _
respond?
05:56:32 PM, Friday 4 June 2004

Seaguy is one of the funniest, most bizarre things I've read in a long, long time. Go pick it up. No, I'm not going to say more about it, it would ruin the fun. _
respond? (2)
10:09:35 PM, Thursday 27 May 2004

Liz's mom has come down for Liz's thesis defense tomorrow, and brought the digital camera, so we finally got some good pictures of our cat, Tuxedo. This one is my favorite. _
respond? (1)
12:26:03 AM, Monday 17 May 2004

Hmmm, apparently the new Nine Inch Nails record is going to be "monophonic". A quote from head Nail Trent, ""One of the rules of this record has been to orchestrate using monophonic voices. No chords. Anywhere." The fuck? Is it going to be like Gregorian chant with more expletives but just as many reference to God? _
respond? (1)
12:23:38 PM, Tuesday 11 May 2004

So I bought an iPod. It is named Levendis, after the time-travelling, genre-bending almost-hero of Harlan Ellison's short story 'The Man Who Rowed Christopher Columbus Ashore'. So yeah, I got my HD of goodness now. _
respond? (5)
09:29:44 PM, Thursday 6 May 2004

A meme, from a random sample of my playlist guess the songs. I need to get more music, way too much overlap, had to skip down through track 56 to not repeat an artist (which would have been unacceptable):
~~1. I'm nowhere near where I thought I'd be. I can't believe what life's done to me.~~ (Wrens, House that Guilt Build) gotten by anne
~~2. And as the spotlight fades away, and you're escorted through the foyer.~~ (Decemberists, I Was Meant For the Stage)gotten by anne
~~3. Try this trick and spin it, yeah.~~ (Pixies, Where is My Mind?)gotten by anne
4. Wishing you could sit there for a million years. You can't sit there that long.
5. I've seen your face before, running around in social circles
~~6. We're drinking drinking drinking drinking coca coca cola.~~ (Modest Mouse, Tiny Cities Made of Ashes)gotten by anne
7. Where it always feels like twilight. and the branches all hang low.
8. I want to hurt you (but you can't because I'm already dead)
9. You were gone, but I was home, calling around, but nothing was found.
10. Still I often think of going back to the farms to the farms golden arms golden arms.
11. So I fed him poisoned grapes, he spit the seeds into my face. He escaped.
12. Get off the pot man, shake and bake, taste the waste, taste the waste.
13. Anything, Anything, Anything, Anything, Anything, Anything, Anything, Anything, Anything, Anything, Anything, Anything, Anything, Anything, Anything.
14. Everybody's got a special kind of story. Everybody finds a way to shine.
15. black hearted ruler? I only knew...that loving moment I had with you
16. Heart is dim now
17. Let him go. walk out the door. and come to me.
18. The best I ever did with my love. Said your name on the microphone. You heard it at the restaurant. Cashed out and brought your tips on home.
19. She's so far away. She makes my head spin around.
20. It is just a house, not a home. And my head is fifty feet high. _
respond? (21)
07:37:02 PM, Monday 3 May 2004

Warren Ellis will be making his first American convention appearance since 1997 at DragonCon, in Atlanta! This has made my day. I seriously doubt that he will be as happy to see me as I to see him. _
respond? (6)
12:35:19 PM, Wednesday 28 April 2004

I finally got around to reading Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, which I had downloaded for free more than a year ago, and really, really enjoyed it. The idea of a reputation economy that doesn't turn into a giant schoolyard jungle seems a little farfetched, but Cory Doctorow manages to make Whuffie just one in a series of insane ideas that mix together around a story that's engaging. I'm going to pick up the hard copy version and, probably, his second book, Eastern Standard Tribe, because it's been so long that I've read something that's not by Warren Ellis that's so vibrantly awash in new and crazy ideas. Yeah, the characters may occasionally be a little thin, and he may repeat the tenets of his new civilation (the Bitchun Society) a little too often, but the whole thing touches my brain in all the right places. D&O brings back the feelings I used to get when I read SF, not because it's slavishly attached to past forms, but because it is bravely and exuberantly examining the future, consequences be damned. _
respond?
09:52:28 PM, Friday 23 April 2004

So, Kill Bill vol. 2. The first one was an excercise in excessive violence and stylish storytelling. The second one forgoes the constant adrenaline-rush combat and instead inserts offbeat characters, bizarre situations, and sudden, short bursts of violence. The exploration of different styles of action film making (from '70's style Kung Fu on through spaghetti westerns and beyond) is engaging and gives the film many different textures that never get in the way of the overall mood. The result this has is that the movie shifts so often, while remaining so solid, that it seems shorter than the two and a half hours it runs (from my perspective, at least). Overall, Kill Bill volume 2 is a far more satisfying moviegoing experience than the first installment. Entertaining, thought provoking, and with some honestly scary moments.

However, there was a preview for 'I, Robot', the Will Smith vehicle that 'adapts' Isaac Asimov's famous short stories. Except they seem to have dropped Asimov's humane, cerebral, and generally pro-technology stories in favor of the same ultraviolent, change fearing, idiotic special effects driven 'thrill rides' that have been pumped out in the wake of the Matrix. Seeing what I can only assume is the Susan Calvin-analog in the movie hefting a GIANT GUN while a pack of marauding robots tears apart an office building struck me as shitting on the work the movie is purpotedly based on. There must be a way to adapt Asimov's admittedly sometimes-sterile ideas into an engaging and interesting film without just pureeing it into another paranoid hunk of meaningless idiocy.

Not that I have anything against over-the-top violence. I enjoyed the hell out of both Kill Bills, but that's because the core of Kill Bill is, well, killing. It's right there in the title. The issue to me is this: Why adapt something if, beyond just doing a bad job, your adaption does violence to the very concepts the work you're adapting is based on? _
respond? (12)
10:17:43 PM, Friday 16 April 2004

I haven't been standing completely still. I've been working on a couple things. A t-shirt design for local band Boulevard (iterations 1, 2, and 3), and a poster for the Stand-Ins. Just stretching my muscles a bit. Hopefully it will lead to more projects in the future from various sources. I'm still in 'doing it for free' mode, so if you have any t-shirt or poster or whatever designs, I'm actively looking for projects. More stuff as it comes, including a small something for a blogmass member (I haven't forgotten!). _
respond? (14)
10:22:11 PM, Thursday 15 April 2004

The marching band version of Radiohead's Paranoid Android, performed by the UMASS Front Percussion Ensemble, is really beautiful and startlingly good. Like Beatallica, which I linked earlier, it's a goof, but it's a really, really well done goof. _
respond?
09:43:45 AM, Tuesday 13 April 2004

There's an edgy new Frontalot track out there for all you people who like that sort of thing. _
respond?
10:01:39 AM, Sunday 11 April 2004

Because I am clever, I have tickets to the Pixies. Because I have Charlie Brown luck, I accidentally bought them at the back of a fairly large theater. _
respond?
10:18:41 AM, Friday 9 April 2004

Beatallica! _
respond?
06:40:06 AM, Friday 9 April 2004

Contrary to statements made earlier in the week, I will not be attending Croquet this year. Maybe next year. _
respond? (11)
11:47:59 AM, Thursday 8 April 2004

I'm still looking for more players for Rockistan. The way I phrased it earlier, read now, is a bit off-putting, and for that, all I can say is this: All are welcome. I've really tried to make the game fairly simple, and playable in very little time (although for bonuses you spend more time doing stuf in-game), and I'd like there to be a couple more folks I know well yet never see to balance out the folks I interact with everyday. _
respond? (10)
11:52:53 AM, Tuesday 6 April 2004

Rockistan is a small Southeast Asian country near Kazakhstan. Until recently, Rockistan had been ruled by a Theocratic Totalitarian Fascist regime, but a great revolution has brought Western Democracy to the formerly oppressed masses. You play the first bands to emerge from the long silence of Rockistan�s recent past. You must teach a country how to rock once again.

Rockistan is my new gaming project. It's turn-based (like Islands, but simpler), and, unlike most of my other projects, I've done a fair amount of work on it before I announce it. I developed it to play with my coworkers at the printing shop, but I'd like there to be a few more than five bands in the game. If you're interested, you can download the rules here, and send me an e-mail saying you want to play. I can't accomodate more than four or five more players, so if you're interested, act fast. Don't worry if I run out of space for folks, though, I anticipate more player slots will be available as we go. _
respond? (8)
09:42:18 PM, Sunday 4 April 2004

I am still alive. Just so you know. _
respond? (5)
12:40:38 PM, Thursday 1 April 2004

The reason I haven't been on AIM recently is that iChat is brokedy (after an ill-conceived attempt to install far too many fonts that crashed the thing real, real hard). Does anyone know how to reinstall iChat without reintalling all of System X? I can't seem to find the install package for it on the OS X 10.3 discs. I have upgraded to the latest version, it still doesn't work. _
respond? (3)
07:43:29 AM, Thursday 25 March 2004

There's a new Dr. Who in town, and apparently he's edgy. _
respond? (11)
11:01:45 PM, Friday 19 March 2004

Tycho of Penny Arcade, and his highly amusing experiences with the robotic menace known as Littermaid Plus. _
respond? (2)
08:00:49 AM, Friday 19 March 2004

I don't know if you've seen the exceedingly strange trailer for Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, but if you have broadband, you should. The movie popped out of the fevered imagination of shut-in Kerry Conran, and the tale of its production (with Conran maintaining complete creative control) is truly incredible. Except for the people, and some props, the entire movie is computer generated. The lighting, the backgrounds, everything. I have no idea if it's going to be any good, but it seems to be a pure vision injected directly onto the screen, which is a rare thing in any movie. _
respond? (1)
06:42:23 PM, Thursday 18 March 2004

The cat jumped onto my keyboard. He couldn't do that yesterday. _
respond? (2)
01:29:18 AM, Wednesday 17 March 2004

Mike Doughty rules. Just got back from his solo show at Tasty World. Met some cool people just hanging out beforehand, and the show itself was great. A good breadth of his solo stuff (including 'Madeleine & Nine' and 'Bottom of a Well', two of my favorites), a smattering of Soul Coughing songs ('Circles', 'True Dreams of Wichita'), a wonderful cover of Magnetic Field's 'Book of Love', and a truly great ending rendition of 'Janine', in which he unveiled his 'revolutionary new technique' of asking the audience to sing like 'big, drunken jerks'. A moment of near-transcendental bliss. I urge you to go check him out if he's coming through your town. Or if you live in New York, he plays there all the time. Good clean fun, and he even yells at loud talky people ("Hey! I happen to know there are many other bars in Athens where you don't have to pay ten dollars to sit an bullshit with your friends, so shut up!"). Even if he is using an electric now (an electric that sounds very much like an acoustic, strangely). _
respond? (1)
01:22:49 AM, Wednesday 17 March 2004

older entries