In the land of the Ads, the man who can ignore anything is king.
Or something like that. There's an article up over at Wired on how the 18-34 male demographic is changing the face of advertising. Nothing new, but there's some quotes from Marketing Guys who obviously consider people such as myself as being a totally foreign beast that are somewhat entertaining:

"This younger generation has a filter mechanism," observes Jim Lentz, group VP of marketing at Toyota Motor Sales USA. Lentz has his own focus group at home: two sons, ages 17 and 21. "They can be doing their homework, listening to music, watching TV, on the PC, and on the phone, all at the same time. It drives my wife crazy. You assume they're just screwing around - but they're not." This ability to focus is governed by a complex neural network called the reticular activating system, which filters sensory input to keep the brain from being overwhelmed. When you grow up in an always-on world this system may adjust to cope. "They have a total ability to block out anything they don't want to get through," Lentz marvels. "From an advertising standpoint, that's what makes this animal so scary."

Mua ha ha ha.
  ¶ 7:39 a.m. 0 comments

  The Me Show.
Since I haven't bothered to post so far this week, other than a few tidbits, I figger I'll toss up a notice telling y'all how I'm doing.

Lessee here...

There's work. Lots of that so far. Nice and busy.

There's my work term report. Not so much of that, but I'll start soon. Really, I will. It's only due in a day or two. No biggie. My Procrasti-senses will figure all that out.

The Busker Festival is starting today! Basically the street performer festival that goes on here in Ottawa, and since I happen to really really dig street performers, I'm so there. I've even got an itinerary mapped out so as to catch all the acts I want to see! I think next to Internet Personality, Street Performer would rank up there as one of my dream jobs. Not so much for being a performer, but for just being able to do the tricks and such that they do. The acrobatics, the juggling, the charisma... all valuable life skills, and sure to make you popular at parties - I mean, everyone's your friend when you start doing backflips while juggling Chef's knives! That are on FIRE! (Squee!!)

Otherwise, all is still well-ish in the camp of Andrew. I am patiently awaiting a package in the mail, which I will perhaps elaborate more on when it arrives, which should be any day now, as soon as Canada Post gets up and delivers it to me, not that I'm looking forward to it every day now. Grr. At least this time I'm reasonably assured of getting it, as I received my City of Heroes comic and my credit card bill yesterday, so my mail isn't casually circumventing my mailbox anymore. Yeay!

Also, if you're interested in Halo 2 and ARGs, go check out ILoveBees. Another one of those Internet puzzle/marketing schemes that's bound to have people buzzing and talking. Looks like whatever's going down will do so on August 24th, so pay attention then. Should be neat.
  ¶ 11:50 a.m. 0 comments

  Rage inducement.

Alan and Andy Berry, owners of Berry's Music stores, saw their nine-month legal nightmare end June 22 in a plea bargain. What was initially 13 felony counts of copyright infringement, leveled by the Recording Industry Association of America, was finally reduced to a single misdemeanor (and a hefty fine). But the real punishment was meted out months ago: Alan Berry lost his livelihood, lost the business he loved and nurtured for 13 years, may yet lose his house. And the crime for which he's paid this price? Selling DJ mix-CDs.

(via the EFF)
  ¶ 9:31 a.m. 0 comments

 

I swing by GameFAQs, and this is what I see. Anti-downloading propaganda. This makes me angry. Perhaps if some intelligent ads were made that actually showed the whole picture to downloading, we might get somewhere. Fearmongering accomplishes nothing.   ¶ 7:31 p.m. 0 comments

  So I checked out Apple Trailers after a brief hiatus.
And boy are my arms tired.

Actually, never mind. It was a lame joke. I have, however, decided that there are certain movies coming out that deserve my attention. Eventually, I'm sure they'll get it. The short list looks something like this:

Mach. It's that Thai movie I just posted a link to. The thing about Warren Ellis that I didn't quite explain. Scroll down a bit, I'm sure you'll see it.

Napoleon Dynamite. A movie about a young man who is quite possibly the biggest loser ever. Talking past the level of Freaks and Geeks here, straight on to, well, he gets his own category. Looks to be quite amusing though.

Exorcist: The Beginning. Yeah, it's the prequel to the Exorcist. Thing is though, that it could be quite effective. (Could also be the most horrible movie of the summer, but I'll take that chance.) It could work simply because there haven't been too many straight-up Devil movies lately. Lots of stuff about "evil", and "not niceness" in general, but nothing where it is explicity about Satan/Lucifer/what have you. That, and it looks to be continuing a lot of the imagery that made the Exorcist work. Best of luck to it.

Sky Captain. If you need to ask, you probably haven't seen the trailer. If you've seen the trailer and still need to ask, you won't like it anyways.

Alexander. It can't be worse than Troy, right? It's Oliver Stone!

Anyways, they're all there over at Apple, so go watch.  ¶ 8:49 p.m. 0 comments

  I trusted Warren Ellis.
So should you.  ¶ 8:10 p.m. 1 comments

  What starts with Air Guitar.

01 - Jimi Hendrix - Voodoo Child.mp3
02 - The Who - My Generation.mp3
03 - T-Rex - 20th Century Boy.mp3
04 - Paul McCartney - All Shook Up.mp3
05 - Chuck Berry - Johnny B. Goode.mp3
06 - Weezer - Hash Pipe.mp3
07 - The Shadows - Apache.mp3
08 - Motorhead - Ace Of Spades.mp3
09 - Eddie Cochran - Summertime Blues.mp3
10 - Free - All Right Now.mp3
11 - Robbie Williams - Let Me Entertain You.mp3
12 - Fleetwood Mac - Oh Well.mp3
13 - Metallica - For Whom The Bell Tolls.mp3
14 - ZZ Top - Gimme All Your Lovin'.mp3
15 - Boston - More Than A Feeling.mp3
16 - Cream - Crossroads.mp3
17 - Status Quo - Down Down.mp3
18 - Bad Company - Can't Get Enough.mp3
19 - Whitesnake - Here I Go Again ('87 Remix).mp3
20 - Wheatus - Teenage Dirtbag.mp3
21 - Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody.mp3

What you see there is the tracklist for the World's Greatest Air Guitar Album... Ever! Disc 2. The whole album is a conundrum, and I shall use the second disc to explain why I think so.

Air guitar, at least to me, is all about two things: rocking and guitar work. It's about rocking irrespective of whether or not you have the means to do so. It's about wanting to reproduce some of the greatest guitarwork ever conceived, even if it's just in your head. It means that you do not have a band, you might not be able to play a note, but somewhere deep inside, you feel the need to put on a show. You feel the need to rock. You feel the need to make the strings of the guitar simply wail with musical glory. You let it out in a ludicrous pantomime of the real thing, but with every ounce of the heart and soul of ROCK. It's all effort, no substance. Therefore, in order to be an air guitar album of the highest order, as this claims to be, it must rock.

The trick is, that in order to rock, you need rock,* and this album, well, some of it kinda rocks. On the other hand, some of it can only be expressed by an acronym,** and some of it is just dreck. I mean, Hendrix, Motorhead, Metallica, ZZ Top, Queen, Cream - all are excellent choices for air guitar. They have the solos, they have the energy and they have some pretty good guitar. But then you have stuff like Hash Pipe by Weezer and More Than A Feeling by Boston. They're not horrible songs, but they are hardly candidates for air guitar. There's music, yes, but there isn't anything worthy of being cranked up to eleven either. It's like the plain oatmeal of rock. Lastly, we have the stuff like Paul McCartney doing a cover of All Shook Up. We have Wheatus doing Teenage Dirtbag. We have Eddie Cochran's Summertime Blues. We have T-Rex. There are two problems here: one, they are not so much rock, but more like rock chosen by someone who has no idea what rock is, and two, they suck. Wheatus? Yeah, it's the best song out of this category, and it's censored***. This is like what the marketing guys threw in to the tracklist and because they were the ones doing the selling and providing cash, what they said stayed. I have no idea how one could consider Johnny B. Goode by Chuck Berry to be rock. Rock and Roll, yes, but that isn't the same thing. All is not lost though, since I did hear a gem that I would not have otherwise heard, that being Let Me Entertain You by Robbie Williams. I was mighty impressed by that track, such that I will be seeking his albums in the future. Still, if anyone thinks that this album really is the World's Greatest Air Guitar Album... Ever! then they are sorely mistaken.

* It's like filters. Filters filter; rock rocks.

** F, W and T, not necessarily in that order.

*** Don't even get me started on censored rock and punk. Rock and punk are about freedom - to stand up for what you believe in, to play what you want and sing what you like. To censor it is to suck away the essence of the music, leaving only a foul smell where there should have been music.

Run for the hills! Canada is being verbally attacked by the Drug Czar! Apparantly our marijuana is a greater danger to the States than heroin or meth. Maybe all the pot smokers down there should start shooting up smack, since it's that much safer than weed, right?

Looks like the big J is making the rounds again. I remember the appearance he made on the wall of the Tim Horton's out east. Funny what people will see after their 17th coffee...

Wait, downloading music isn't the whole story behind record sales? You don't say.*

* I hope the totally sincere lack of surprise is conveyed in that statement. I would hate to leave the wrong impression...

Ok, the INDUCE Act? Stupid. Trying to overturn the Betamax decision and make VCRs illegal? Just plain retarded. How do these people get in power? How do they stay in power? It's a mystery.

So you might have heard about the Liberal government's decision to decriminalize pot here in Canuckleland. I for one think it's a great idea, and the little mini-tirade I had in an email yesterday:

[I]t's about bloody time. I mean, you can buy the stuff over the internet here! I think it will be interesting how the US will react though. Either they follow our lead, which is really freaking improbable (as in the odds are better that I get hit by a meteor) or they will crack down even more. It would be hard, (I mean, they're already doing no-knock raids, handing out 20 years to life for possession of a few grams, racial profiling, arresting little old ladies who smoke pot for cancer treatment, etc) but they could. Personally, I think the ticketing thing will wind up creating more enforcement, as cops only need to whip up a ticket and move on (rather than apprehend you, take you into the station, do paper work all night, etc) which means they'll be more inclined to stop and bust you. I would also much rather see them decriminalize the laws on growing for personal use, since I'm pretty sure seeds are legal, even though plants aren't. Plus, anyone who grows their own circumvents all the drug dealers, which in turn circumvents all the spinoff crime like gangs and such. But it's a good start.

My opinion still stands. The only addendum I have to add is the fact that the "spinoff crimes" are a direct result of prohibition. How many gangs do you see around nowadays bootlegging alcohol?

Anyways, it is almost quitting time, and I don't think I can think of more to talk about right now. Well, I probably could, but it would be something silly like Attack of the Killer Cheerios or the Further Adventures of Meat Paste or something. So I'll go enjoy my weekend, thankyewverymuch.
  ¶ 2:45 p.m. 0 comments

  Sandy Collora is a golden god.
From the guy who made Batman: Dead End.

Sweet jeebus. Batman and Superman together. I MUST SEE IT!  ¶ 9:06 p.m. 0 comments

  Awesome rant.
If you like PC games, read this.

All about game piracy, publishers and how one guy decided to just say no to all of it.  ¶ 8:49 p.m. 0 comments

  Not much stuff, but a few links.

Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories.
--Arthur C. Clarke

Damn skippy. I got the quote from Seed Magazine.

You should make these. Why? Because you can. I can't, despite my really wanting to, as I haven't any disposable headphones and have no intention of scrapping some good ones to make some probably low quality, if tchotchke-cool speakers. So you do it. Thpp.

Nothing much new on my front. Knee's healing just fine, and I had some fish for supper tonight. I have also noticed a predisposition to lots of oil in Greek food. The salads are all oil dressing based, and olives... don't get me started on olives. I love the things far too much to be normal, but when you can barely get a handle on one due to it's slickyness... ick. Well, ick, but oh so tasty.

The Boba Fett music video is far too catchy for its own good. The others are great, but they don't top Dance, Voldo, Dance!

You might have wondered why I will post things on stuff and then proceed to link to another page about what it is that I'm linking to. I decided that mentioning where I got my links from was too much of a bother, so now I just link straightaway to the place I first see the link. More elegant, that way, I think, plus it pimps out the sites I visit more, and if more people surf the way I do, the world will be a better place. Or something. There'd be more funny stuff at least.

Why Ahh-nold is an awesome Governator. He says stuff that is both in character, complete nonsense and totally over the heads of his fellow politicians. Just wait to see what he's like as a President...

FEAR IT! It is a hyote, apparantly. No, I don't know either.

Jack Kirby is a Golden God, and sometimes I wonder about Nigerians. First the scams, now it's like the Ring come to real life or something...

My school, the University of Alberta, blessed it be, sucks. It don't give me FREE iPODS. And until it does, it will remain lame. So says I.
  ¶ 5:37 p.m. 0 comments

  Still not dead.
Furthermore, during this time of not-dying-but-also-not-posting, I have learned a few things. Say what you will about old dogs, new tricks, how neither applies to me, etc., but I am going to relate this newfound wisdom on to you anyhow.

First up is that asphalt hurts. You would think this would be obvious, but I can almost guarantee you that you've forgotten just how much it can hurt. This understanding can be renewed, however, at the simple price of a select square inches of skin from a few key points on your body - knees, elbow, maybe your palms. Nothing major. In fact, there can even be a time of fun prior to this payment - a kind of sweetened deal sort of thing - which may or may not involve frisbee football. Indeed, I'll even toss in the added bonus of telling you that the prospective QB who says she "can't aim and would be horrible" probably isn't, and will be integral in throwing the pass that will cause you to reach just that extra inch to make the catch. Of course, that little reach will also upset the happy zen your center of gravity holds and result in your handing over your precious skin to the road gods, but you'll be glad to re-learn what asphalt really feels like afterwards*. In hindsight, you'll probably think afterwards that grass would be better, but Frisbee Football is still a fun game and shouldn't be stopped on your account. The day after you might even bring the subject up after rollerblading up to a group of friends and the subsequent misunderstanding could shine the light of possibility on the prospect of the brand new, yet to be tested sport of In-line Frisbee Football**.

* Stinging burning, mainly, but with a mellow hint of belt sander.

** Would that not rule? Combine the best elements of Ultimate Frisbee and Rollerball! Er, without the whole death and sharp pointy death bits though.

Do you want to see the Stepford Wives? You know, that movie about the robot women that gives away pretty much the whole plot in the trailer? I didn't, but I kind of do now that I've read this article here. (brought to you via Tagline) Aside from the rather doozy spoiler near the end (read: DOOZY) it's a decent look at the way that feminism and women's lib has changed in the past 30 years.

Neato link to a page about granular explosions. Seems that sand can behave a lot like water when it comes to dropping things into it. The slow-motion movie is cool to watch.

I also have some new music to spout off on, starting with the Heavy Metal Tribute to Abba. Yeah that's right: Dancing Queen, S.O.S., Take A Chance On Me, bad band, worse songs, just won't freaking die, Abba. The album, with the exception of a few tracks, is utter dreck, but I keep listening to it, kind of like one picks at a scab or keeps trying to walk on a sprained ankle. Maybe this is a result of negative feedback: your body is saying "Yeah, it HURTS! I'm going to keep reminding you of it until you agree never to do it again. It's for your own good." Either way, the standout track is Summer Night City by Therion, and since one can get this track on the copy of Secret of the Runes that comes with bonus tracks, it's not worth the pain of metal Abba.

Next up is Moon Safari, by Air. If you've heard Air, you already know what to expect - very mellow, almost chillout music, and very synth. Very listenable though, and it has a very calming, soothing effect. A much better album, on the whole, than the last Air album I got, but since that was Everybody Hertz, a remix album, I am thoroughly unsurprised. I would say Moon Safari is as good as Talkie Walkie*. That leaves only one more formal album for me to seek out from this group, but since it's apparantly not that great, I'm not in any rush.

* Or rather, since Moon Safari was first, that Talkie Walkie is as good as Moon Safari.

Twas once a funny little post on Not My Desk about crazy people. As a fellow public transit frequenter who passes many crazy people in a day, I understand. I would probably have the same reaction too.

I want this oven. Maybe not in racing green, but at the very least in black.

Speaking of not that great, I went to see I, Robot yesterday, and it's not all that bad. Not Oscar material or anything, but hey - it's a Will Smith movie. I would say that it's his best work since Men in Black, but since the only movie he's made since MIB was MIB2, it's not much of a stretch. I, Robot is also better than Independence Day, but again, that's not really an accomplishment. For a summer blockbuster replete with the requisite explosions, stunts, action, one liners and Will Smith-ness that the term "Will Smith Summer Blockbuster" entails, however, it doesn't entirely stomp out the Asimov ideas that the film was "suggested by".* They manage to include some elements from some of the later books in the Robot series and they keep the answer to the whole "how can a robot kill someone" question somewhat true to source. The movie is worth seeing in theaters with friends though, since the effect would be lost on the small screen, but you do need someone to make snide comments to during the in-between-explosions bits.

* I'm not kidding, this was what it said in the credits. I, Robot the movie wasn't true enough to be based on or inspired by, so suggested by is as good as you get.

Alton Brown, the best TV cook evar in my opinion, has posted his thoughts on Supersize Me. I love 'em!

We are fat and sick and dying because we have handed a basic, fundamental and intimate function of life over to corporations. We choose to value our nourishment so little that we entrust it to strangers. We hand our lives over to big companies and then drag them to court when the deal goes bad. This is insanity.

Link found via Dork Tower LJ

Dance, Voldo, dance!

The Daily Show kicks ass. For one, they have the turtle chart. Also, commentary on the possible election cancellation in the States.
  ¶ 12:35 p.m. 0 comments

  No time to post in depth
... but I thought this was just the coolest: plankton can control the weather. Duuuuude.
  ¶ 10:36 a.m. 0 comments

  I so didn't think of that!
Scott Kurtz over at PVP posted his review of Spider-man 2, and totally dropped the H-bomb on Mary-Jane casting:

Laura Prepon would have been PERFECT for Mary Jane. You know her as Donna on "That 70's show." Elisha Cuthbert would have been a good second choice.

I agree. Why didn't anyone else think of that BEFORE the second movie has been released?

  ¶ 4:52 p.m. 0 comments

  BLAST!
Yesterday was a dark day in the battle for Linux. I got home, ready to do some tinkering before I headed out for some Soul Calibur (which I will get to momentarily), and in my zeal, I got overconfident. I decided to attempt a concurrent installation of Knoppix Linux, since it has really excellent hardware recognition. So I set up a partition for it, made the file system and went about it. No sooner than I was half-way through the installation script when I felt the need to check on my Gentoo install. And there, sitting there empty and forlorn was the partition, totally devoid of any Gentoo. Bah. Seems I managed to erase the bugger by overwriting the filesystem. Bah again. I was initally all pissed off, but was informed later on that being Debian, Knoppix has a program called apt-get. Apt-get works very much like portage in that it is a centrally run software management and installation system, but it uses packages instead of compiling from source (well, usually - it can also do the source thing) and that saves a fair bit of time.

So it is over. I now have a smooth-running copy of Linux alongside my Windows OS, and will be getting City of Heroes going as soon as humanly possible. And that, friends will be the moment of truth, whether all this excitement I've had over the past week will be worth it. Could be that it runs like crap and I'll have to wait for an update, or it might run like the Devil's pancakes and I'll never go back to Microsoft for a long while. We shall see.

Do you read Penny Arcade? Do you follow gaming news? Do you care? A yes to the third could mean a yes to the second, but it should mean a yes to the first. And a yes to the first means that you know about the whole Bethseda Softworks and Fallout thing. Now in order to comprehend this, you need to realize that while not the best RPG series out there, Morrowind, if nothing else, was mammoth. Hang on, that doesn't convey it right. MAMMOTH. Yes. That big. In Daggerfall and Morrowind, you basically have free reign of a continent, and you can just wander around and do what you please, in a very open-ended sort of
way. Combine that with some nice prettiness and some post-apocalyptic sardonic humour, and we have something that could be mighty tasty indeed. I look forward to any developments...

Defective Yeti is another blog that is a decent read most of the time, but has its odd great post. This is one of those posts. From the same site, but from an unrelated post, is this fancy thing that is just so cool I could hit it with a spoon. (No, that isn't supposed to be logical.)

From the wonderful In4mador! comes the Evil People Machine. If you start watching, it gets really hard to stop.

Now we zip over to Tagline, where I see a post by Stephen about Spider-man 2. Basically he just reviews Spider-man 2, which because I'm sure you are a rational, sane person, you have already seen and loved. The important bit here is a chord that I happen to agree very much with, and that is:

Yeah, it all comes back to Raimi. Ultimately I enjoyed Spider-Man 2 so thoroughly because I was in the hands of a filmmaker who loves his subject, who's completely committed to it, and who wanted to make a movie - well, just for me. He wanted to make a great Spider-Man movie for me and for people like me, for those of us who love the character, and who want to see his adventures on screen for a long time to come.

Damn skippy. There are certain filmmakers that I just can't get enough of, and Sam Raimi is one of them* for that very reason. I can't wait for Spider-man 3.

* The others include Kevin Smith, Guillermo del Toro, Quentin Tarantino. They all have that zeal for the kind of film they do that just makes it awesome.

Oh good lord. It's come to this. Why won't the apocalypse just come in peace and stop tormenting us like this?

Awesome!!! It's the Hulk's blog! (via Boing Boing)

Kewl. The Creative Commons license is at the very least an interesting addition to the possibilities for managing creation, and at best a promise of the future of copyright. Bringing it to Canada can't be a bad thing.

And that seems to conclude any interesting links for today. So I'll leave you with the following: thembleton halliburtwell snark. That is all.

  ¶ 8:47 p.m. 0 comments

  We live in the world of the future!!
Well, technically I suppose we live in the world of the present, but that just doesn't have the same ring to it... Still, we have zap rays that turn off cars, light bulbs that clean your air, and artificial jellyfish made from skin. (Artificial people skin, but skin nonetheless. (all courtesy Neil Gaiman's blog)

If those aren't cool, I don't know what is.

I don't know how many of you have seen Purple Rain, the movie that Prince was in. I know I haven't. However, if you are a Prince fan and love to sing along to the movie, this might interest you. Movieoke. Just toss it on the pile with Rocky Horror and Chicago, I suppose...

Wanna hear the sound of a paradigm shifting without a clutch? Check this out: Asia Carrera's casemod. Yeah, the (ex) porn star. Also a mom-to-be and a geek, apparantly. Now that's a fair number of cliques that might clash just a li'l wee bit.

I think I have a problem: I just can't get enough of Therion's Lemuria/Sirius B album. I don't know what it is, but the Wagnerian vocals combined with the happy thrum of blindingly fast percussion and thrash metal guitars just hits a happy nerve in my ears, in particular, the track Voyage of Gurdjieff (The Fourth Way). One thing that has me slightly bewildered is just what language the album is in, since it's clearly not English. They are a Swedish band (at least, I think they are Swedes - Scandinavian at any rate) so Swedish is good bet, but every little while they drop some lyrics that sound suspiciously like English, just to throw you off. I've mentioned this disc before, I'm sure, but it has just been such dang awesome-sounding lately.

Braille T-shirts: the anti-groper. I have reservations as to whether they would work, but at worst, they are really cool and bound to attract attention.

I have also spoken about cameraphones before, and my opinion has been up to now that they are stupid. I mean, you can either get a good phone and a good camera, or something that does both really crappily. My opinion might just have changed. That camera, being 3MP is probably as good as the one I have now, and it's also a phone to boot. Like the Gizmodo guy says though, too bad the future is in Korea and not right here.

Very astute posting from Techdirt. This is the kind of thinking that we should be encouraging. Using a mobile phone for social apps; what a novel concept.

Now I'm confused (and apparantly not the only one). Talk about an obtuse quote... From the same site, there's also a longer post regarding the upcoming book The New Prohibition, and it has some good quotes and rebuttals in it.

My keyboard has decided to go on strike now. The keys are gradually rallying to the support of the Not Working cause, so I will have to sign off for now and see about getting a new keyboard. Myup.



  ¶ 3:01 p.m. 0 comments

  We live in the world of the future!!
Well, technically I suppose we live in the world of the present, but that just doesn't have the same ring to it... Still, we have zap rays that turn off cars, light bulbs that clean your air, and artificial jellyfish made from skin. (Artificial people skin, but skin nonetheless. (all courtesy Neil Gaiman's blog)

If those aren't cool, I don't know what is.

I don't know how many of you have seen Purple Rain, the movie that Prince was in. I know I haven't. However, if you are a Prince fan and love to sing along to the movie, this might interest you. Movieoke. Just toss it on the pile with Rocky Horror and Chicago, I suppose...

Wanna hear the sound of a paradigm shifting without a clutch? Check this out: Asia Carrera's casemod. Yeah, the (ex) porn star. Also a mom-to-be and a geek, apparantly. Now that's a fair number of cliques that might clash just a li'l wee bit.

I think I have a problem: I just can't get enough of Therion's Lemuria/Sirius B album. I don't know what it is, but the Wagnerian vocals combined with the happy thrum of blindingly fast percussion and thrash metal guitars just hits a happy nerve in my ears, in particular, the track Voyage of Gurdjieff (The Fourth Way). One thing that has me slightly bewildered is just what language the album is in, since it's clearly not English. They are a Swedish band (at least, I think they are Swedes - Scandinavian at any rate) so Swedish is good bet, but every little while they drop some lyrics that sound suspiciously like English, just to throw you off. I've mentioned this disc before, I'm sure, but it has just been such dang awesome-sounding lately.

Braille T-shirts: the anti-groper. I have reservations as to whether they would work, but at worst, they are really cool and bound to attract attention.

I have also spoken about cameraphones before, and my opinion has been up to now that they are stupid. I mean, you can either get a good phone and a good camera, or something that does both really crappily. My opinion might just have changed. That camera, being 3MP is probably as good as the one I have now, and it's also a phone to boot. Like the Gizmodo guy says though, too bad the future is in Korea and not right here.

Very astute posting from Techdirt. This is the kind of thinking that we should be encouraging. Using a mobile phone for social apps; what a novel concept.

Now I'm confused (and apparantly not the only one). Talk about an obtuse quote... From the same site, there's also a longer post regarding the upcoming book The New Prohibition, and it has some good quotes and rebuttals in it.

My keyboard has decided to go on strike now. The keys are gradually rallying to the support of the Not Working cause, so I will have to sign off for now and see about getting a new keyboard. Myup.



  ¶ 3:00 p.m. 0 comments

  Attack of the board games!
Good ol' Apple bashing. It's not that I don't like Apple or Macs, but I find that the company is portrayed far too often as being this wonderful, happy, can-do-no-wrong paragon of computing virtue. It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling to hear that they screw up just like everyone else.

It is over. While I have not gotten to the position of crushing the innate spitefulness of Linux, I am definitely winning quite strongly. Think of it like Risk, where I am red and it is black, and you look at the board and see nothing but red, except for Madagascar, which has one solitary army on it and is only hanging on through rolling lucky sixes. My system is running Gentoo happily*, with my programs being emerged quite nicely and more and more of the hardware bending to my will. CD burner isn't going yet, neither is sound, and I haven't checked the 3D capabilities of my card yet, but it's only a matter of time. Could this still all be for naught? Entirely possible. City of Heroes being silky smooth and sublime to play is a large criteria for me keeping this setup, and I haven't gotten that going yet.

* Sure, 'happy' probably isn't the best word, since it's a kind of forced happiness - the kind brought about by sticking a gun to someone's head and ordering them to enjoy themselves - but that counts, right?

Any DJs in the house? Loop some Castlevania into your next mix.

Funfurde is quickly becoming one of my favorite blogs. Today they had the Word Clock. The clock literally says "It's about twelve" or it's "half-past 6". How freaking cool is that?!?

There was much game playing this weekend too, with a double header of Diplomacy and Settlers of Catan. I have decided that Diplomacy is one of the most elegant strategy games out there, lacking most of the typical parts that other games of its ilk have. Dice, for one, and copious rules for another. It also lends itself very easily to different maps, which makes for some interesting games - the game on Saturday, for example, was on 3 mirrored Scandinavias (6 in total) arranged in a circle.* The orders system is both simple and complex, allowing for some pretty cool game tricks. Basically you have two bits to each turn, where you first plan and plot and wheedle the politics of the game, and then everyone writes down what their units will be doing for the turn, and said orders are executed. Most of the rest of the game just governs building of units and resolving of orders. Pretty easy to pick up, but the dynamics are quite deep, and that's almost always good for gaming.

* Other combinations that are decent, I hear, are 5 Italies (is that how you spell the plural of Italy?) and 5 Middle Easts (yet again showing that people love symmetry). The version that uses a map of the entire world is apparantly pretty insane.

This is just plain bizarre. Politically aligned ketchup. Really.

Playing Diplomacy makes me recall Risk 2. It was a PC port of Risk, but it had a very interesting adaptation that combined elements of Diplomacy and classic Risk. Like Diplomacy, players do the plan, then order thing, but like Risk (and quite unlike Diplomacy), you roll everything out. On a computer, this is all simple, since the PC can sort everything out for you and you simply sit back and watch things unfold. I have thought about trying this on a board, but it would definitely not be for the faint of heart. To make matters worse, in Diplomacy, if two armies attack a territory separately, they just cancel each other out. Ditto for neighbouring armies attaching each other's territory. In Same-time Risk (as I like to call it), you roll it out, but with varying degrees of priority. So it looks fun, but quite complicated. It could even be necessary to have one non-partisan player server as umpire, organizing and sorting out all the orders.

Speaking of all these board games almost makes me want to run out to the nearest store and pick up all the games that I really like, but haven't played recently. Carcassonne, Cosmic Encounter, Risk 2025 (with MOON BASE ACTION!)... especially Cosmic Encounter - I really liked that game. Basically it was a "settle your neighbourly disputes with nuclear weapons" type of game, except that each player is given a way to break the core rules somehow. For example, normally you would play an attack card, add the card number and your forces and compare to your opposition, but if you happen to be a Virus alien, you can replace the word "add" with "multiply". Or simply state that one of your units is worth four of anyone else's. The game was originally made in the 80s, and had a few expansions out before Avalon Hill bought the rights and made their own version. I am thinking that a visit to eBay might be in order...

I must read this book. It has everything: cunning perspective, mystery, song references! My wishlist grows longer...

Man raised by chickens. It's as strange as it sounds, folks.


  ¶ 2:45 p.m. 0 comments

  Thundercats, HO!
To make up for the less links, more rambling stuff I've been putting up, here's some links.

We know what monkeys think... and it scares us.

A City of Heroes photoblog. It follows the life of Dark Neutron, a radioactive superhero in Paragon City. I thought it was hilarious, but that's just me.

Cutting commentary on the latest MPAA stats. Just goes to show how worthless studies can be, since the numbers can basically show whatever you want them to show.

Another insight from the Tagliners, this time about Keira Knightley.

NASA has me officially impressed.

THEY MUST BE MINE!

They... er, might be mine.

It could be mine. I normally detest sitting on the floor, much preferring chairs, but this could be comfortable, since there's a hump! Can't find it on the maker's site to get a price though...

Gleh. Today was going pretty good at work, and then afternoon meeting and it comes crashing down. Oh well, weekend's here. Hurrah!!!


  ¶ 1:48 p.m. 0 comments

  Misplaced busses and other anecdotes
On my way to work this morning, the bus I take almost went missing. I say 'almost', but it didn't really go missing, but was simply quite late, and that took all the fun speculation out of my commute. It would have been much more interesting if the bus had simply not been there. Where would it have gone? I would hardly think that OC Transpo would simply radio over to the driver of the 179 and say, "Hey, you've worked hard the past few weeks, don't bother driving this morning. Go get a coffee and sit this one out." On the other hand, if the bus did go spontaneously missing, how would that affect the other routes? Would they simply run as usual and pretend that everything was fine, except for the missing bus, driver and some passengers? The papers would love to get the story about how a transportation agency managed to lose a bus and some people, as though they just vanished. It almost sounds like it could make for a novel or something - the ramifications and consequences of a missing bus. Media blackouts, conspiracies, global panic, that kind of thing. I think it would be interesting.

Speaking of interesting, the latest on the casting of the Fantastic Four movie.

Spider-man can do whatever a spider can. Can spiders do musicals?

This is just plain bizarre. Seriously... Internet-wired tombstones? What kind of people are we becoming?

I am listening to a Me First and the Gimme Gimmes album at work, yes yes I know it's punk covers from a not-quite-joke band don't throw any rocks please! Ahem. It occurred to me that aside from a couple of bands, the standard complement for rock bands nowadays are guitars, bass and drums. Sometimes there's a keyboard. I think this is just plain stagnant and should be changed. To that end, I propose that a rock band be formed with a completely unorthodox instrument complement. Instead of a lead guitar, someone should build an electric fiddle. Yes, you read that right - a solid-body fiddle with pickups that can have distortions and filters and foot pedals and all that snazzitude. I don't know if it's been tried, but I've gone through the permutations in my head and there's no way that it wouldn't rawk. Providing the beats, we would have drums, but they would be bongo drums - no drumsticks. Since the 'pooka-pooka-pooka' of the bongo doesn't quite have the same ROCK that the snare drum has, we would need a set of about four bongos, with at least one of them having metal widgets attached to the underside of the membrane to make that snare sound. Another would need to be fairly squat and bassy to provide the necessary punch the bass drum provides. The cowbell would have to be rigged with a foot pedal, since we definitely need more cowbell. Keyboards, although much more mainstream, would be necessary to get the organ solos going, so I will allow them in, but to provide contrast, we will add a harmonica* to complement the lead vocals. So we gots electric fiddle, keyboards, harmonica and bongo drums (and cowbell). This is just a starting lineup, though, so if you want to be like a certain metal band and add a few guitars, some bass and like nine percussionists, go right ahead. Still, I think a band comprised of the above instruments would be able to make some very interesting music indeed. It all depends on the musicians that helm them.

* Open challenge to the Internet: play Thunderstruck by AC/DC on a harmonica. Tongue the intro. I dare you.


  ¶ 1:56 p.m. 0 comments

  Tales from a war-torn hard drive
Last night marked the first skirmish in my war against Linux: the battle against Mandrake. It was basically a spur-of-the-moment thing spawned by getting a huge lag spike in City of Heroes. Since I know my computer is capable of running the game, but Windows frequently informs me that it has virtual memory issues while running City, I am thinking my lousy performance is the result of either Windows or my net connection. I have DSL through Bell/Sympatico, so I should be ok on that front, which re-enforces Windows as the culprit, or at the very least points to Windows inflating what might be an otherwise minor problem.

So I resized my partitions and installed Mandrake all right, but a bunch of my hardware decided to show that it set up fine during install but not work when the system was running. Things like my CD drives, which irked me, as they are somewhat important. Also, despite putting its best foot forward, KDE is still the devil. See, it's all because it tries to be a happy, all-encompassing desktop environment, just like Windows. Since it emulates Windows in a lot of things, I tend to expect it to work like that for everything, and when it doesn't and I have to struggle to fix things, I don't like it. If, however, I use something like fluxbox where the majority of interaction with the system is though terminal windows, I know I am on Linux and I know more of what to expect. I think this is all a result of being firmly entrenched in the Microsoft camp for so long, and while it annoys me, I am somewhat resigned to it. Therefore, having been forced to retreat from using Mandrake*, I will reattempt to install Gentoo, this time armed with documentation and a previous attempt to install it! I will be victorious, now if only out of spite. I am still leery of some of the more in-depth configuration options though, but I'll tackle those as I get to them.

* I find it ironic that it is Mandrake's attempt at newbie- and user-friendliness that is causing me to not use it. That, and the fact that it didn't work flawlessly from the get-go and I was not willing to wrestle with it. It is even more ironic since I will likely have to do even more wrestling with Gentoo than with Mandrake.

Nothing has jumped out at me from the Internet to share, so I am wanting in the links category. I might have some later though, as I haven't gone through my Bloglines clippings in a while. I tend to save some of the more media-intensive ones like movies and Flash apps for viewing at home (can't look like I'm slacking too much at work...).

Otherwise, this day is being interminable, and I should go back to being tortured by it.


  ¶ 2:26 p.m. 0 comments

  Best. Poster. Evar.
Click on Launch, under #2 (via Scott McCloud's site)

  ¶ 4:35 p.m. 0 comments

  Meaty O's - Now with Sheep Paste!
(Baaaaaa.)

And with this post, this blog shall change titles and be henceforth known as Pop Culture Victim. Reasons for changing? Well, for one, it's a better title and definitely more blog-like IMHO. For another, it was bestowed on me a few times in the past couple of months, and I think it fits me rather well. (And I never could decide on how to pronounce "vagus".) I shall still use cornixvagus as a handle, so that title shall not be forgotten. Also, I am using popculturevictim as my handle for Yahoo Messenger, so one can now bother me via that avenue as well. All that aside, business continues as usual.

From Neil Gaiman's blog, regarding his next book, Anansi Boys:

The weirdest thing about the book is that it begins as a comedy, then slowly shades into something a bit like horror, and I realised a couple of days ago that the rules of fiction mean you have to tread slightly warily as you go, if you're going to do something like this. In a comedy, part of the underlying agreement is that good people and bad people will get what they deserve, and that happy endings will be earned, and the universe rewards nice people and sensible ones. In horror the underlying agreement is that there is no justice and that good people may be fed to the lions at authorial whim. Which realisation induced a moment or two of panic, and then I shrugged and figured it would all come out in the wash.

I cannot wait for this book to come out. It just sounds more and more interesting the more I hear about it. Funny thing is, I haven't the faintest clue what it's about. I'm also really stoked about Dave McKean's upcoming film, MirrorMask, which was written by Gaiman.

If you build it, they will come. (I suppose "knit" is more appropriate than "build", but I couldn't resist. I don't put smileys in my postings, but if I did, I would put one here. Probably a mischevious one.)

If I had a HIND, I would paint it up like this too.

So what did y'all do on the weekend? I went rafting with my family! It wasn't my first time rafting in general, and it was not even my first time on the Ottawa River with Owl Rafting, but it was nonetheless quite awesome. The weather couldn't have been beaten with a large pointy stick, and the water level was high enough for some pretty great rapids. In particular, the doozie called Coliseum (replete with a wave called Big Kahuna) was pretty huge, resulting in the near-flipping of our raft. We were heading into the hole, and our guide gave the Hold On command, so everyone grabbed the raft, except that it seems that I was able to grab it better than the rest, since everyone on my side with the exception of myself (the one that was highest in tipping) got tossed to the middle of the raft. Three of the rafters on the low side got tossed, two of which being my cousins. I was rather surprised that the raft tipped, but I suppose I shouldn't have been, since the Ottawa River's holes and waves are really quite large, much more so than those in the rivers of the Rockies. The downside, however, is that being a larger, broader, older river, the Ottawa has much longer flat parts that need to be traversed in between the moments of excitement. In contrast, mountain rivers are much colder, but also much more snakey and turbulent, being younger and going downhill almost constantly. I think that in terms of rafting, I prefer the mountain rivers, being more exciting, but in terms of comfort, the Ottawa has the Rockies beat like Ivan vs. Apollo in Rocky IV.

If I am allowed to indulge a bit and spout off on gaming stuff, I have been re-hooked on City of Heroes. I have created a new character though, since my last one just wasn't working out. The new concept I came up with is that... well, I have no concept. Rather, my inspiration for Eclectica, was that she is the result of mashing several concepts I had come up with yesterday together in one big, eclectic (hence her name) heap. From one idea, I had the robot Generitron, who was essentially a droid in a generic superhero outfit (primary colors, chest emblems, tights, etc) with generic superhero powers (flight, beats up criminals, laser-beam eyes, etc) and generic superhero catchphrases (For Justice!). Essentially the bland vanilla of heroes. In another camp, I had Boost Man, who was a hyperactive, sugarcharged speedster whose battle cry was "Charge with glucose!!!", as lifted straight from the Boost Bars they sell at Sugar Mountain. What I ended up with was a technology origin* urban Valkyrie that has power blasts and electro-punches. My back story is along the lines of "Back story? We don't need no stinkin' backstory!"

* Don't ask me how the tech origin fits into the concept. If anything, it was an indulgence in min-maxing, since there are relatively few tech origin heroes out there, which means more origin-specific enhancements for me.

Lastly, some music stuff: First is a new album, this time from Therion. If you've heard Secret of the Runes, then you already have a small idea of what their new double album, Lemuria / Sirius B is like, which is to say not easily described. Very grandiose, with lots of chanting-type vocals and some orchestral accompanyment, but not having lost touch with their death metal roots. Therion does, however, get kudos for making a positively HAPPY death metal song. I mean, you hear it, and it has this incredibly upbeat, jovial, "prancing along through the forest on a grand march" sort of feel to it, and yet in the background you can still hear these harsh guitar riffs that, on their own, would no doubt be quite oppressive. I suppose the orchestra really tips the balance in favor of the "JOY" team. The second bit of music-related stuff I have to share is that I now have a keyboard. Belonged to my grandfather, and since my parents were visiting Toronto last week, they were helping my grandmother throw out stuff (and she has a lot of STUFF to throw out). As a result, I ended up with possession of a Casio keyboard. It has about 36-40 keys, which isn't bad, and it has a decent number of features. You never know, I might just bust out a groove or something and make some music. Don't hold me to that though.


  ¶ 11:02 a.m. 0 comments

  Now with comments!
Happy (Belated) Canada Day everyone! Hooray for patriotism!

Canada Day in Ottawa is quite a... thing. I have heard stories, and to be sure, if you're going to celebrate the national holiday, the capital of the country is certainly the place to do it. However, I must say that the stories didn't quite live up to my expectations. Downtown did become one giant party, however for the most part the "party" largely consisted of one solid mass of people, and sometimes one part of the mass would go "WOOOOOO!!!" and get a response of "WOOOOOOO!!!" from another part. The Market area was a bit better, as there were street vendors and some performers and such. The fireworks from Parliament Hill, on the other hand, are definitely worth seeing. Coming from a city where it doesn't get dark in the summer until 11:30, having proper fireworks made my day. Usually, the city of Edmonton will wait until about 11:00ish, as that's still pretty freaking late for most people, and by that time we usually have something resembling dusk and the explosions can be seen. Here, it's right dark by 9pm, resulting in a rather insane crowd, as previously mentioned, and the bigger crowd means bigger, better fireworks. The only real downside to the day was that I had no beer, and because the liquor stores in Ontario are government run and have no need to make money, being publicly funded and all, THEY ARE CLOSED ON THE HOLIDAYS. That really pissed me off, as I had no beer and it never even occurred to me that the Beer Store would be closed on one of the top 5 biggest drinking days in Canada. Give me Alberta's privatized boozeries any day of the week.

"I think it would be fun to be a waiter because whenever you gave a customer his food you could poke him in the chest with your finger and shout "You got served!" That joke would never get old."
--Defective Yeti

So yes, I have relented and added comments to this here blog. I don't know why, since I still think they're silly and unnecessary, but one of the benefits to having Blogger host your site is that space isn't an issue. They're also relatively unobtrusive and truth be told, I wouldn't mind hearing what some of you have to say about me.

So the Almighty Jobs has spoken, and the future is the Search. Sounds mighty fine to me, except for one little thing. While it does not matter to the computer where the files are, it matters to me personally. Call me compulsive, but I get some satisfaction in knowing that my computer is as neat, tidy and organized as an army barracks. Plus, I like being able to open my files from applications other than a search program, and being able to find things by virtue of organization alone is nice. I might be an ass for thinking so, but Spotlight really sounds like another program catering to people who can't keep their computer in shape on their own*. That said, Tiger does sound like a cool OS, and in conjunction with the really nifty laptops Apple makes, provides a rather stout argument for switching. The rebuttal, however, comes from my wallet and is much louder and insistent.

* This is also probably an extension of my computer snobbery. Am I really alone in thinking that there should be a basic level of knowledge needed for operating a computer? We require people to have licenses to drive a car, but any idjit can go buy an iMac and go surf "teh interweb", handing out his email address to anyone who asks and then complain about the amount of spam they get, not to mention the whole virus thing. Unfortunately, part of the problem is apathy caused by ignorance - the user doesn't know, and therefore doesn't care, and because they don't care, they refuse to learn.

Fahrenheit 9/11 not being played at a theatre near you? Go read it instead. Sweet zombie Jeebus on a stick, I want to see this movie.

I haven't gone and checked out this next link, since it is probably not safe for work at all, but it's one of those links you can't not share. Patents for the adult industry. I've seen those "things that have been patented but never made" specials, and the imagination reels when I think of that applied to the same sector that brought us the Swedish-made Penis Enlarger.

Very interesting article about teens and their place in society.

I, Robot is coming to theatres, and I don't know how to feel about it anymore. At first, I figured "Bad Boys 3: Bad Robots" or something, but I read this bit over on Tagline that almost makes me reconsider. I did not know that Alex Proyas was directing it, and he just happens to be a favoured movie guy in my book. He did The Crow*, which is one of the best comic movies ever (the first one, not the crap sequels), and Dark City, which is just plain awesome (if you haven't seen it, skip the prelude narration at the beginning - it gives too much away). For that reason, he might not screw up I, Robot as much as I think. Yes, it's Fox and Will Smith, so it's going to be a lot of explosions and car chases and one liners, but I'm not entirely convinced that the essence of the novel will be entirely lost. Now I just have to go see the movie and find out.

* Having a last name like Crowe causes problems for me when I type the word crow - I am ALWAYS trying to tack the 'e' on the end. Always.

Insert freaky time-warp. I have had this entry open for most of the day now, and haven't added anything since before lunch. I am going to take this as a sign that I just don't have anything to say right now and sign out. Ciao.

  ¶ 12:59 p.m. 0 comments

  I had these lying around and figured I'd share.
The Mega Man movie. (via Safety Monkey)

Windows Sounds Techno. (via Harrm)

More iTunes + stereo goodness. (via Gizmodo)

The Esc seat. Tell your computer to piss off with an ass-slam. (via BoingBoing)

Bloop... or Cthulhu? (via Something Positive)

I will make the first person to send me one of these my new best friend for life. (via Gizmodo)

So... so.. wrong. Just wrong. (via Dave Barry's Blog)

I want one. R2D2 + Beer fridge. (via Dave Barry's Blog)  ¶ 10:06 a.m. 0 comments