-Brandon
Friday, February 04, 2005
Well fuck...
Want to hear some terrible news? There is a Family Guy video game in the works. I hate merchandising. I suppose it was inevitable, with FG's recent post-mortem rise in popularity. That is why they are bringing it back as well. Unfortunatly, along with the new series will be shitloads of merchandise thought up by suits who have never seen the show. Look at this list of planned merchandise, it's fucking disgusting. Candy? Plushies?! INFLATABLE FURNITURE?! and a god damned video game. How do you make a family guy video game? It's fucking rediculous.
Wednesday, February 02, 2005
I came across an interesting article today online, once again thanks to Mr. Shepherd. I already showed this to Violet, and she being half of the people who actually read this, this is probably pretty silly to post, but I will anyway.
Anything look strange? Look at the picture of the "soldier" in question. Look anything like this? I'm honestly surprised this thing hasn't been pulled down yet. It's amazing how stupid these "journalists" can be.
Anything look strange? Look at the picture of the "soldier" in question. Look anything like this? I'm honestly surprised this thing hasn't been pulled down yet. It's amazing how stupid these "journalists" can be.
-Brandon
Monday, January 31, 2005
Obsessed!
Matthew Shephard (a differen't non-dead and very less famous one) made me incredibly curious about Raymond Scott, a brilliant, and somewhat bizzaare jazz (or maybe pseudo-jazz, there seems to be some debate) composer. Most people who have watched classic Bugs Bunny episodes will recognize pieces from his song "Powerhouse." Apperantly his music has been used in Animaniacs, Ren and Stimpy, and other animated cartoons. What I found really cool though was when I began reading about his invention, the electronium. It's a music generator of sorts. The way I understand it, it generates random sounds in different "instrument" categories and a composer listens to the sounds and decides whether they are appropriate for the current song he is creating. The noises are all electronically generated, it is essentially a primitive midi machine. But the sound clips I have heard of it are awesome. Apperantly this creation got him a job with MoTown as head of music research and development. This guy is incredibly awesome.
I disagree with his theory that musical art should be incredibly structured and that improvization is not a good thing. This is why people argue that he is in fact anti-jazz despite his jazzy sound. And I would tend to agree that it defies general jazz theory, but his music is wonderful none the less, and obviously follows jazz structures, so I would venture to say he is a jazz composer with his own unique musical theory.
What I think is so cool is how this guy saw that music would come to embrace technology in ways that many now still reject and despise. I want to know how much this guy has influenced modern jazz, hip-hop, electronica, and mixtures of the above, with his innovation. Or did he merely predict the future and not necessarily shape it.
EDIT in addition, if you want to see something interesting take a look at who is on the Raymond Scott preservation board. These are some pretty big names.
Another EDIT I would also just like to add that Raymond Scott has the coolest titles to his songs: "Dinner Music for a Pack of Hungry Cannibals," "Square Dance for Eight Egyptian Mummies," and "Dedicatory Piece to the Crew and Passengers of the First Experimental Rocket to the Moon" are some of my favorites.
I disagree with his theory that musical art should be incredibly structured and that improvization is not a good thing. This is why people argue that he is in fact anti-jazz despite his jazzy sound. And I would tend to agree that it defies general jazz theory, but his music is wonderful none the less, and obviously follows jazz structures, so I would venture to say he is a jazz composer with his own unique musical theory.
What I think is so cool is how this guy saw that music would come to embrace technology in ways that many now still reject and despise. I want to know how much this guy has influenced modern jazz, hip-hop, electronica, and mixtures of the above, with his innovation. Or did he merely predict the future and not necessarily shape it.
EDIT in addition, if you want to see something interesting take a look at who is on the Raymond Scott preservation board. These are some pretty big names.
Another EDIT I would also just like to add that Raymond Scott has the coolest titles to his songs: "Dinner Music for a Pack of Hungry Cannibals," "Square Dance for Eight Egyptian Mummies," and "Dedicatory Piece to the Crew and Passengers of the First Experimental Rocket to the Moon" are some of my favorites.
-Brandon
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
I hate politicians
Republican's are supposed to be the responsible money handlers of the nation. Why is it then that the most respected Republican administrations all have a history of overspending and severe defecits? Well, the reason is fairly obvious, and rediculous anti-tax stance combined with a pro-military-funding stance makes for heavy losses. Fortunatly for them they have the social security fund to take cash out of so they can fund their oil wars. That couldn't possible lead to problems in the future, it's not like there are record numbers of people approaching retirement who are going to be taking that money.
Bush's most criticized action is obviously the war in Iraq. This war is causing some large financial problems in the administration. It's part of the reason that Bush has created the highest defecit in national history. The conservatives would have you believe it was the whole reason, as they feel justified spending that much cash on a "war for freedom." Everything I've read says that there would still be a defecit (much smaller, but there none the less) even without the war, which is pretty amazing considering the fact the a year before Mr. Bush entered office the US had the largest surplus in its history.
This financial situation has brought up some interesting new problems. First of all it appears that the White House has refused to fund a final (and already planned trip) to service the Hubble Space Telescope one more time. This seems to me to contradict Bush's earlier pro-space exploration stance. I thought, how dare he actually fall back on one of the few things I actually agreed with him on. Then I remembered the financial situation. In fact, I was reminded of it by another BBC article. Bush's largely unsuccesful war on terror has backed him into a position where he can no longer stay consistant on his earlier political stances. So he is forced into continuing a war that he is now stuck in. He, nor his administration can admit they've done wrong without hurting the entire far right and the military can't back out because they would leave Iraq in worse condition then when they came. So he is isntead forced to abandon the scientific innovation he publically supported earlier.
Bush's most criticized action is obviously the war in Iraq. This war is causing some large financial problems in the administration. It's part of the reason that Bush has created the highest defecit in national history. The conservatives would have you believe it was the whole reason, as they feel justified spending that much cash on a "war for freedom." Everything I've read says that there would still be a defecit (much smaller, but there none the less) even without the war, which is pretty amazing considering the fact the a year before Mr. Bush entered office the US had the largest surplus in its history.
This financial situation has brought up some interesting new problems. First of all it appears that the White House has refused to fund a final (and already planned trip) to service the Hubble Space Telescope one more time. This seems to me to contradict Bush's earlier pro-space exploration stance. I thought, how dare he actually fall back on one of the few things I actually agreed with him on. Then I remembered the financial situation. In fact, I was reminded of it by another BBC article. Bush's largely unsuccesful war on terror has backed him into a position where he can no longer stay consistant on his earlier political stances. So he is forced into continuing a war that he is now stuck in. He, nor his administration can admit they've done wrong without hurting the entire far right and the military can't back out because they would leave Iraq in worse condition then when they came. So he is isntead forced to abandon the scientific innovation he publically supported earlier.
-Brandon
Monday, January 24, 2005
BLAT!
http://www.simonhoegsberg.com/
Stole this link from Fazed. It's an interesting idea, and there is something really cool about reading what these people are thinking. It's not any sort of obviously fabricated pseudo intellectual crap, these thoughts seem much more believable then any internal monologue you would hear in a movie or read in a book. I just thought it was kinda neat to browse through.
I watched Scratch with Steven yesterday. I'd seen it before but I hadn't known as many of the artists featured the first time I saw it. At the end of the film Cut Chemist and someone else (can't remember who) were doing a live performance using "In the Hall of the Mountain King." It sounded awesome and I have been looking for an mp3 of it, but apparently so are a lot of other people. It's a pity. I'd really like to hear the whole thing.
Stole this link from Fazed. It's an interesting idea, and there is something really cool about reading what these people are thinking. It's not any sort of obviously fabricated pseudo intellectual crap, these thoughts seem much more believable then any internal monologue you would hear in a movie or read in a book. I just thought it was kinda neat to browse through.
I watched Scratch with Steven yesterday. I'd seen it before but I hadn't known as many of the artists featured the first time I saw it. At the end of the film Cut Chemist and someone else (can't remember who) were doing a live performance using "In the Hall of the Mountain King." It sounded awesome and I have been looking for an mp3 of it, but apparently so are a lot of other people. It's a pity. I'd really like to hear the whole thing.
-Brandon
Friday, January 21, 2005
They're coming out of the goddamn walls!
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2005/01/20/1106110881621.html?oneclick=true
Apparently Sponge Bob Square Pants is "pro-homosexual" according to a member of some family "values" group.
The best part is that the guy criticizing it actually has none of his facts straight beyond the existence of the show. I love America.
Apparently pants are also tools of Satan.
I saw "Primer" last night at the Bijou Theatre. That movie is a total mind fuck. I need to see it again as I'm still a little confused. There was one line I didn't really catch in the film that I think turned out to be vital, so I was a little confused when it became important again. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0390384/
Apparently Sponge Bob Square Pants is "pro-homosexual" according to a member of some family "values" group.
The best part is that the guy criticizing it actually has none of his facts straight beyond the existence of the show. I love America.
Apparently pants are also tools of Satan.
I saw "Primer" last night at the Bijou Theatre. That movie is a total mind fuck. I need to see it again as I'm still a little confused. There was one line I didn't really catch in the film that I think turned out to be vital, so I was a little confused when it became important again. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0390384/
-Brandon
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
Happy Agnostica!
http://www.agnostica.com/
"Agnostica is the only truely secular winter celebration. It is a celebration for the scientist in all of us, celebrating not some contrived story written thousands of years ago and translated seventeen times over until the Hebrew word for "rope" gets turned into "camel," and then inexplicably the whole deal is replaced by consumer-frenzy dictated to us by a fat child-labor mogul in a fur-lined red suit, but rather of ourselves, the perfect self-defining nature of the universe, and of being proud of the human intellect."
"DECEMBER 14 IS QM DAY!
This site, Agnostica.com, was launched on December 14, 2000, the 100th anniversary of Quantum Physics. On December 14, 1900, Max Planck presented experimental results in front of the German Physical Society and announced that they could best be explained if energy exists in discrete packets, which he called "quanta."
Thus, the field of Quantum Physics was born. December 14 is the start of the Agnostica Holiday."
Well I'm still celebrating the commercialized christmas with my family but it's a fun idea anyway. Actually, I'm not sure that I should call what I celebrate with my family "Christmas." I think my dad is the only person who claims to believe anything about Christianity, and even he agrees that it doesn't really matter if others believe it.
Our Christmas is not about some skinny jewish rebel who got nailed to a stick of wood. It's about spending time together. The commercial aspect of gift giving has become a part of that, and I'm okay with it, I enjoy it (except for the whole figuring out how to afford gifts thing).
"Agnostica is the only truely secular winter celebration. It is a celebration for the scientist in all of us, celebrating not some contrived story written thousands of years ago and translated seventeen times over until the Hebrew word for "rope" gets turned into "camel," and then inexplicably the whole deal is replaced by consumer-frenzy dictated to us by a fat child-labor mogul in a fur-lined red suit, but rather of ourselves, the perfect self-defining nature of the universe, and of being proud of the human intellect."
"DECEMBER 14 IS QM DAY!
This site, Agnostica.com, was launched on December 14, 2000, the 100th anniversary of Quantum Physics. On December 14, 1900, Max Planck presented experimental results in front of the German Physical Society and announced that they could best be explained if energy exists in discrete packets, which he called "quanta."
Thus, the field of Quantum Physics was born. December 14 is the start of the Agnostica Holiday."
Well I'm still celebrating the commercialized christmas with my family but it's a fun idea anyway. Actually, I'm not sure that I should call what I celebrate with my family "Christmas." I think my dad is the only person who claims to believe anything about Christianity, and even he agrees that it doesn't really matter if others believe it.
Our Christmas is not about some skinny jewish rebel who got nailed to a stick of wood. It's about spending time together. The commercial aspect of gift giving has become a part of that, and I'm okay with it, I enjoy it (except for the whole figuring out how to afford gifts thing).
-Brandon
Sunday, December 12, 2004
I just came across this and thought it was interesting. It's a 1950's newspaper comic about the motivation of fear that still make a lot of sense today. I just liked that it still made prefect sense.
http://www.pogopossum.com/december.htm
http://www.pogopossum.com/december.htm
-Brandon
Thursday, December 09, 2004
Websnark is great
There is an awesome new article that brings up some really valid points over at websnark.
http://www.websnark.com/archives/2004/12/sacred_hamburge.html
I still think that the comic syndicates are bad, as they favor business over art. I think that there lies the root of the problem, and not that Breathed and Watterson proved to be less profitable then brainless Garfield strips. However it does provide insight into why the syndicates are so hesitant to pick intelligent comics.
I also am a little confused with his love for "For Better or Worse," but that is just personal opinion and does nothing to damage the article.
___
This is apparantly a little dated but I thought it was cool. Amon Tobin is composing the entire soundtrack for the next Splinter Cell game. This seems incredibly appropriate because his music is generally very intense. I can definatly see him scoring a spy movie, or in this case a game.
Tobin's original score will be heard throughout Tom Clancy's Splinter CellR Chaos TheoryT; he and label Ninja Tune will also be releasing a companion soundtrack CD featuring extended and re-mastered versions of the themes from the game to coincide with the release of the game this year, with a limited collectors edition mixed in 5.1 surround sound planned for release in spring 2005.
I can't wait. At least for the music. Probably won't ever play the game...
____
A few webcomics I've discovered lately that I enjoy...
http://www.samandfuzzy.com/
This is the comic I discovered the bottom few through. It's a not very original idea that is done very successfully. The adventures of a naive innocent and his best friend, a psychopathic bear/creature/thing. I like the artwork in this one a lot. The black and white works really well and I can't imagine the charecters in any other way. Fuzzy sort of reminds me of "Max" from Sam and Max.
http://www.iccomics.com/
This is a comic created by an obvious movie fan. The references they make aren't over my head, But they are still amusing and inteligent. The artwork is simplistic but I like it. There are quite a few laugh out loud moments.
http://www.alessonislearned.com/
This comic is both incredibly surreal and incredibly beautiful. I'm not sure if I would like it as much if it wasn't for the awesome art, but as it is, I adore this comic.
http://www.websnark.com/archives/2004/12/sacred_hamburge.html
I still think that the comic syndicates are bad, as they favor business over art. I think that there lies the root of the problem, and not that Breathed and Watterson proved to be less profitable then brainless Garfield strips. However it does provide insight into why the syndicates are so hesitant to pick intelligent comics.
I also am a little confused with his love for "For Better or Worse," but that is just personal opinion and does nothing to damage the article.
___
This is apparantly a little dated but I thought it was cool. Amon Tobin is composing the entire soundtrack for the next Splinter Cell game. This seems incredibly appropriate because his music is generally very intense. I can definatly see him scoring a spy movie, or in this case a game.
Tobin's original score will be heard throughout Tom Clancy's Splinter CellR Chaos TheoryT; he and label Ninja Tune will also be releasing a companion soundtrack CD featuring extended and re-mastered versions of the themes from the game to coincide with the release of the game this year, with a limited collectors edition mixed in 5.1 surround sound planned for release in spring 2005.
I can't wait. At least for the music. Probably won't ever play the game...
____
A few webcomics I've discovered lately that I enjoy...
http://www.samandfuzzy.com/
This is the comic I discovered the bottom few through. It's a not very original idea that is done very successfully. The adventures of a naive innocent and his best friend, a psychopathic bear/creature/thing. I like the artwork in this one a lot. The black and white works really well and I can't imagine the charecters in any other way. Fuzzy sort of reminds me of "Max" from Sam and Max.
http://www.iccomics.com/
This is a comic created by an obvious movie fan. The references they make aren't over my head, But they are still amusing and inteligent. The artwork is simplistic but I like it. There are quite a few laugh out loud moments.
http://www.alessonislearned.com/
This comic is both incredibly surreal and incredibly beautiful. I'm not sure if I would like it as much if it wasn't for the awesome art, but as it is, I adore this comic.
-Brandon
Tuesday, December 07, 2004
Pointless post number... *counts posts*
I have a habit of placing images that make me chuckle on my desktop. They generally tend to stay up only a day or so before it disappears. I had a strip from Wigu on it but today I found a replacement. I hadn't read Mac Hall in a while, and was browsing the archives. This charecter idea is absolutely brilliant.
I know people say it a lot, but I really like the visual style of mac hall. Although I wish he would lay off the anime and furry drawings when he's posting a filler image.
I would also like to add that "A samurai's strength comes from within... dick!"
Jeffrey Rowland's overcompensating is one of the best (and likely least accurate) journal comics in existence. Actually it's not the best, but it's definatly up there. I've heard Kochalka's "American Elf" is great, but I don't want to get a subscription to view the archives. I'll have to pick up the new collection next time I get the chance.
-Brandon
I know people say it a lot, but I really like the visual style of mac hall. Although I wish he would lay off the anime and furry drawings when he's posting a filler image.
I would also like to add that "A samurai's strength comes from within... dick!"
Jeffrey Rowland's overcompensating is one of the best (and likely least accurate) journal comics in existence. Actually it's not the best, but it's definatly up there. I've heard Kochalka's "American Elf" is great, but I don't want to get a subscription to view the archives. I'll have to pick up the new collection next time I get the chance.
-Brandon
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