Slow day on the blogmass?
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(2)
05:24:08 PM,
Monday 6 August 2007
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Oh, boo. An encyclopedia of Harry Potter characters. Really? That's the best she can do?
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(6)
09:39:41 AM,
Friday 27 July 2007
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Truly astonishing concert video of Talking Heads from 1980. The younger, punkier brother of the austere-in-comparison Heads from Stop Making Sense.
* Psycho Killer
* Stay Hungry
* Cities
* I Zimbra
* Drugs
* Take Me to the River
* Crosseyed and Painless
* Life During Wartime
* Houses in Motion
* Born under Punches
* The Great Curve
[via boing boing]
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11:09:45 PM,
Monday 23 July 2007
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This is for Nick Faber, who is getting back into comics.
I often find that reading reviews is helpful in deciding how to spend my comics dollar. The best reviewer out there, for my money, is Greg McElhatton, but unfortunately his new site, Read About Comics, is maddeningly inconsistent in its updates.
Before I discovered McElhatton, Randy Lander was my favorite comic reviewer. He's part of a collective called Comic Pants, which does reviews in several styles. I find their set-up incomprehensible. Their tastes are close to the superhero mainstream (with some outliers), and not bad.
There aren't tons of reviews reviews, but Comics Should Be Good is a free-wheeling, super-fannish look at (almost exclusively) superhero comics. They do a monthly collection of all the covers of Marvel, DC, and Image/Indy books, and some of their commentaries are good. A nice place to figure out where to start reading, if you're curious.
I'm really excited about this new collective, The Savage Critics. It's brand new, but seems to have brought together some wonderfully opinionated people with a broad love for comics, lead by retailer-supreme, Brian Hibbs. Still finding its legs, but it should be something special, with good pointers for people looking for 'the good stuff' on comic racks.
Some people swear by Tom Spurgeon's The Comics Reporter, and I do skim it, but I find it intimidating. Spurgeon covers All Things Comics, with huge round-ups of links, superhero news, and celebrations of obscure newspaper strips all butting up against each other. Spurgeon does some reviews, but I find that my tastes and his don't match up very well. We're just looking for different things out of our comics.
Anyway, that's what I read semi-regularly to try to figure out what's up in comics. I also read The Beat, but I'm starting to question why.
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(6)
04:38:52 PM,
Tuesday 17 July 2007
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Cryptic: I don't know if I can be that guy.
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02:28:09 PM,
Tuesday 17 July 2007
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If you love the English language, never, ever read the Variety web page.
Love,
Remi
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02:28:36 PM,
Monday 9 July 2007
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So DSI (the theater I'm a member of) has a show called Mr. Diplomat. Every week Diplomat has a different special guest. This guest tells stories, which are the fuel for a 22 minute set of improv.
Mr. Diplomat had Epic Games lead designer CliffyB in to do a show, and videotaped it. That video is now on the internet and getting mocked by 14-year-olds everywhere. However, it's a really fun show, so I thought I'd link y'all to it.
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(3)
10:44:27 AM,
Friday 6 July 2007
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Animator Michael Gagne talks about animating the 'taste visualization' segment in Ratatouille. This was, perhaps, my favorite scene in the movie. A perfect blend of the senses of film abstracting to the sense of taste and smell.
While I enjoyed Ratatouille, it felt a little light, with Remy, the main character, never having to make any truly difficult decisions. It felt like whenever the movie sagged, there would be a chase sequence, which became frustrating. However, overall, Ratatouille is well-paced, gorgeously animated, and worth seeing. Perhaps I was expecting too much.
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01:55:06 AM,
Thursday 5 July 2007
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Anybody want a Pownce invite?
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(7)
01:09:45 PM,
Tuesday 3 July 2007
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I've started to recognize incidental music in movies. I recognized that the soundtrack of Stranger Than Fiction was all de-voxed Spoon songs. When I was watching Surf's Up, I could've sworn they played a Forro in the Dark song, so I waited until the end and, sure enough, it was the excellent track Forrowest. Then I'm watching SiCKO and I recognize several tunes from Thomas Newman's soundtrack to A Series of Unfortunate Events.
This is a relatively new experience for me.
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(6)
10:36:45 AM,
Tuesday 3 July 2007
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Happy birthday Jason Morningstar and Moss!
Jason: It has been wonderful getting to know you over the last year and a half. It is a privilege to be your friend.
Moss: I'm really hoping to see you before your next birthday, as you are now no longer a continent away, just a coast.
May both of you have wonderful birthdays full of joy and celebration.
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(2)
09:26:45 AM,
Tuesday 3 July 2007
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I also really liked today's Penny Arcade. Read all the text. It doesn't work if you don't
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(7)
11:29:57 PM,
Monday 25 June 2007
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So I've been having this problem on my home computer where most of my rap songs had weirdly buried vocals through the external speakers. Turns out it was the 'Sound Enhancer' in iTunes. Huh.
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(3)
11:15:29 PM,
Monday 25 June 2007
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I hung out with my friend Joe Stanton tonight. He's a good egg, an excellent conversationalist (although I was ultra-babbly tonight) and we have eerily similar interests. I took him to Locopop for the first time, and he had Tamarind, a flavor I cannot abide, but he seemed happy about it. Another convert to the Locopop tastiness!
Not much to say beyond that. New friends are good.
Man, I need to update my sidebar with all the new people in my life.
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(3)
10:24:32 PM,
Monday 25 June 2007
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So Liz got me a really wonderful gift, a copy of Dance Dance Revolution Extreme 2 and a Red Octane dance pad. The nice thing about this dance pad is that it's, well, padded. My knees are kind of weak, so having the extra padding really helps with keeping the impact low and me being able to walk around without much pain.
Plus it's really fun. I hope my skill at reading those funny arrows keeps up with my ability to make myself completely out of breath in half an hour.
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(2)
12:07:34 AM,
Monday 25 June 2007
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Oh man. Christopher Eccleston AND George Takei in a single episode? Heroes goes to the sci-fi tv mines and comes back with GOLD.
(EDIT: I realize I'm literally months behind on this, but it's geeking me out)
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11:19:23 PM,
Sunday 24 June 2007
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Amazing cover of Gnarls Barkley's 'Crazy', with a theremin doing the vocal line. I'm especially impressed that the musician managed to nail both Cee-Lo's phrasing, and that the theremin was clearly being processed to mimic his vocal tone, as well. Like I said, amazing.
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(2)
08:37:32 PM,
Saturday 23 June 2007
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I am looking for summery, energetic pop. Any suggestions?
(note: Pop simply means pop music, not necessarily guitar-driven rock)
(note the second: please don't recommend Of Montreal)
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(17)
06:17:24 PM,
Tuesday 19 June 2007
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So on the recommendation of Jim de Rogatis on Sound Opinions, I . . . um . . . sought out some old Feelies albums (they're out of print, so I don't feel so bad. I'd buy Crazy Rhythms in a heartbeat.), and found out they're really good! Sort of Talking Heads if Lou Reed were the frontman, and if the Heads hadn't gotten obsessed with Afro-carribean music. Anyway, if you're looking for a new-old band, The Feelies might be it.
(EDIT: Why do things like this even go out of 'print' with digital technology available? I mean, I'm not going to pay some collector 50 bucks for this, but I'd be happy to buy legitimately at $10. Throw it up on iTunes or eMusic or something, for God's sake!)
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06:03:04 PM,
Tuesday 19 June 2007
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Don't think Liz noticed, but I actually teared up a little at the end of 'Stranger Than Fiction'.
Shut up.
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(12)
01:56:14 PM,
Tuesday 19 June 2007
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I'm uninsured. I have been for several years, and I now have the means to pay for my own insurance.
In order to get on the insurance train, though, I have to, essentially, buy insurance and then not go to the doctor for a year. If I get diagnosed with something within that year, it will be considered a prior condition and I will not be covered.
So I'd be paying for a service that, if I had to use it, would be useless.
Explain to me how this system is not fucking broken. That it's better than any of the systems in place, around the world, where you have a minimum level of care, guaranteed, no matter what. (I'm not talking about going to the fucking emergency room and paying later)
People in Nicaragua can walk into a hospital and pay a nominal fee (around fifty cents) to see a doctor. Their standard of care is much lower, but their system, overstressed as it is, is set up to allow people to see doctors without being bounced to the curb.
This isn't a theoretical debate about the wonders of market forces and its place in the health sector, this is my life.
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(16)
01:15:09 PM,
Monday 18 June 2007
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I love Pixar, but the little robot saying its name at the end of the Wall•E preview is the single most disturbing thing I've heard all week.
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(1)
08:06:56 AM,
Saturday 16 June 2007
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I'm the new co-host of CageMatch, the 'comedy competition' at DSI. I'm playing the mysterious billionaire, Troy Sterling. You can see the teaser here. The intro video here. And my first live entrance here (entrance starts around 1:30).
I'd like to thank Ted Hobgood for being a fucking machine of awesome (even if I don't love that ABBA song so much) that completely killed himself to not only put the costume together (look at that belt buckle!), but also create custom 'troybucks' that I can throw around during my entrance. I'd also like to thank Scott Jennings (as Biff Hobgood) for showing me how much fun it could be to play to your worst character.
Ted does a much more detailed description of the events leading up to the show on his blog.
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(2)
10:12:18 PM,
Friday 15 June 2007
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I made a game whose rules, in their entirety, fit on both sides of a business card. Fleece: It's about Prophets, Mad Gods, Sheep . . . and their Shepherds. A story-game for 5-10 people standing in a circle.
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(10)
09:07:40 AM,
Thursday 14 June 2007
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My pal, Nick Faber, is a budding YouTube auteur. His new piece Strapped for Murder is the debut short for his Feverdream.tv project, and it's damn good stuff. I'm really looking forward to how this project develops.
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04:44:59 PM,
Wednesday 13 June 2007
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Okay, Heroes has won me over.
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(6)
11:09:54 PM,
Tuesday 5 June 2007
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My game, Young Adult RPG, was the second place finisher in this year's Game Chef competition.
Okay, I actually tied for first, but lost the die roll to determine the winner.
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(11)
09:42:35 AM,
Monday 4 June 2007
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A very funny interview with some of the cast of Oceans 13.
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(2)
09:29:46 AM,
Saturday 2 June 2007
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A two-word mantra, Be Aggressive
(by the guy who did that 'George Washington' thing)
(Warning: Advertisement wait)
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01:19:28 PM,
Friday 1 June 2007
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I think Tim Fite may be my hero today.
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(3)
06:02:47 PM,
Wednesday 30 May 2007
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The Arcade Fire cover 'Distortions' by Clinic. Probably only interesting to me and Moss.
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(9)
11:22:14 AM,
Wednesday 30 May 2007
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This is my outboard brain. Reinking Thor.
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11:14:34 AM,
Wednesday 30 May 2007
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There's a longish interview with me, where I talk about the Durham 3 podcast, gaming, Game Chef, and (mostly) improv, up over on Canon Puncture. I think it's pretty interesting. It starts about 21 minutes into the show.
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05:42:17 PM,
Tuesday 29 May 2007
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If I got a teensy bit better at combining photographs in photoshop, I could probably have a shot at never running out of RPG-related work. This depresses me quite a lot.
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(2)
04:26:06 PM,
Tuesday 29 May 2007
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Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Bufallo Bufallo.
It's new to me.
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(10)
12:46:40 AM,
Friday 25 May 2007
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This is a cool picture of Al Gore. Three 30" screens filled with information and a messy desk. Awesome!
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(6)
02:39:29 PM,
Tuesday 22 May 2007
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