December 2006 Archives
Karen has been out of town for a while so I've had some time to myself to think and reimagine my life and closely examine who I am and what I want to be. So I made up some New Years' Resolutions for myself. I have two.
1. Spend two hours EVERY SINGLE DAY working on my own stuff. No blogs, no internet, no games, no telephone. I'll be shutting off my telephone during these work times. The simple fact is that I need to spend time and energy doing things that matter to me. I'm constantly distracted and diverted by blogs, video games, my telephone, my personal life, etc. etc. I have to buckle down, show some discipline, and actually do some work. On many days, this will consist of walking around my apartment screaming and tearing my hair out. That's okay. The point is that my schedule is very tight and I will only have time for my work if I make it. This time can occur at any point, but must occur between 12:01am and 11:59pm. I encourage others with similar creative output in the last year (ie next to nothing) to do the same.
2. Upbraid myself and call myself a talentless, worthless hack during rewrites. REWRITES AND REVISIONS. I just found an old notebook and decent sections of writing are interrupted or entirely stopped by brief paragraphs about how worthless I am and how I will never be able to write no matter how hard I try. I need to save those feelings for when I'm doing revisions and rewrites, when those emotions are useful and helpful. If my magnum opus is abridged for six pages of "I AM SO FUCKING AWWWWWWWFUUUUULLLLLLLLLLLLL," then my work suffers.
What are your New Years' Resoltions?
After my almost embarrassingly lazy Christmas break in Maine, I came home to something truly magical. The first game for PS2 that's been able to hold my attention since God of War. I had never heard of Gitaroo Man, but Liam, after looking up something about Elite Beat Agents, found a refernece to this cult classic, and found himself a semi-rare American version on eBay, and it was waiting for my perusal when I got home. And peruse I did. I really can't seem to stop perusing.
It's kind of like Parappa the Rappa (for Playstation, and then I think some updated version for PS2), but it looks more like a seizure, it's a lot more enjoyable to listen to, and the gameplay is a lot more interesting (and challenging). You're still doing pretty much impossible button combinations, but you're also "playing guitar", meaning follwing a line with your joystick which ebbs and flows as the melody does. It probably sounds kind of easy, but it's really not.
Karen and I have been unable to locate a Wii, The Only Thing I Want For Christmas This Year, so instead Karen got me a subscription to Make magazine and put together this to-scale papercraft Wiimote. It's the next-best thing to dropping $400 on a Wii, an extra controller and nunchuck, and the new Zelda.
Is it just me or did everyone else's thatsplenty comment spam stop for the day of Christmas?
Somewhere, in the north pole Santa and his elves are finally sitting down to some hot chocolate and a well deserved rest after delivering a few billion presents. However not far from them a different kind of ELF is going strong. The HAARP or High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program is only a couple hundred (220 from North Pole, Alaska "Where the Spirit of Christmas Lives Year Round") in Gakona, Alaska. Part of this program is heating the ionosphere, and studying the effects, and researching ELF or extremely low frequency for long distance communication (specifically with submarines).
LONG LIVE JAMES BROWN!
Santa never really held much sway over me. Sure, he knows if I have been good or bad, and he checks his list twice (although in this day and age I suspect Santa uses Excel or some database program, it's just so much easier.) However, in the end, what was going to happen? Worst case scenario, if I have been bad, I get a lump of coal in my stocking. Ohhhh, not coal. It just seemed like Santa couldn't back up his threats.
hmm This could be cool...
Fucking Michael Bay. Crickets.
Strokes shirt steals the show
Sam - Tell me about some music track, or swear at pitchfuck.
Dylan - Something about a scientist or a compress scheme.
Michelle - What has offended thy eye as of late?
Stephen - Angry recount of dealing with a public service or semi fictional account that is an actual apology/restatement of love for Wifey. Not the Judy Bloom book.
Eric - Why didn't you convince me to download Y the last man earlier? I've been having dreams about it.
Sena - Wow, that's how you spell your name? Huh.
Karen - Tell me something you like'd about LA.
What the fuck is this
still, there is misogyny
it's that justin guy!
"Detroit Tigers starting pitcher Joel Zumaya missed three games of the American League Championship Series thanks inflammation of the forearm and right wrist, something everyone assumed was brought on by his pitches.
But it turns out that like yours truly, Zumaya is a Guitar Hero addict and the prolonged gaming was what actually brought on the injury..." kotaku
In what was the smelliest and best-attended Williamsburg nerd-down in recent memory, the Funde Razor 2006 rocked the shit out of Barcade Wednesday night. They raised $2350 to help little kids in hospitals all over the world play video games.
We showed up at about 7:45, with the event scheduled to start at 8, and the place was already packed like it was 11pm on a Saturday. By 8:30, the entire bar smelled like some unwashed nerd's couch cushion after a 36-hour gaming marathon.
The local fire department has a sign posted that it is unlawful and dangerous for the bar to contain more than 75 drunk nerds at a time, but according to the Funde Razor blog, representatives from the bar estimated between 250-300 of the roly-poly rockers.
With all the bodies and no discernible line for players to wait in, people rudely grabbed guitars at the end of songs or didn't get to play. Except for those with special equipment. My wife Karen totally 'girled' her way in for a round and played Search and Destroy with Legendary Guardian Auron, who made a surprise visit to Earth. And a greedy rocker he was, too. In a bar so packed with GH enthusiasts that it took twenty minutes just to get a goddamn beer, Auron played at least twice.
For shame, Auron.
I never got my hands on one but didn't mind. By the time I was close enough to grab the neck of a guitar, they were so warm and wet from palm sweat they made the subway pole on rush hour look sanitary.
I bought a bunch of raffle tickets at last night's Funde Razor to benefit little kids in hospitals who want video games. I ended up winning twice and received several strange items. The first 8 people who e-mail me their snail mail addresses @ sbruckert@gmail.com will receive something stupid that I won at a raffle.
Who said the Christmas spirit was dead?
Barcade tomorrow at 8. I'm totally going. Flyer after the jump.
Joshua over at Roadside Picnic has a bunch of great podcasts up right now. Aside from the regular radio show/podcast he's got an awesome field recording section up with submissions by members of Sun O))), Mountains, Diskona, and Hazard. Go check it out
Instructions for use:
1. Sip milk, hold milk in mouth
2. Press play
3. Write in comments section the time at which milk was projected from nostrils
(via Kotaku)
I've been looking for this for awhile. It's a pin screen animation from the 30s and possible one of the best music videos I've ever seen. More info on pinscreen animation and this peice here.
