I saw Yes Men last Saturday with Violet and it was awesome. Funny, and interesting. One of the directors, Sarah Price, talked aftwerwards about this film, the Yes Men, and some of her past films.

I learned quite a few interesting things. In the game Sim Coptor there would be times when scantilay clad muscle men would run around on the ground and hug and kiss each other, or as close to hugging and kissing as such poor graphics could mimic. I remember it myself, and thought it was funny, but I wasn't aware it was in fact an act of cultural terrorism. A maxis employee had been paid by an organization called RTMark to put this into the game as a way to mock and criticize restrictive social norms and gain media attention doing so.

"My job was to make the little people with a body and animation editor," says Servin. "The artist who used my editor to make the bodies ... was aggressively heterosexual, and made several 'bimbos,' which was my boss's term," recalls Servin, who is gay. "At a certain point I wondered, 'Bimbos - why not studs?'"

I have since become curious about RTMark, an anti-corporate group that finances the Yes Men, as well as many other projects. So I started browsing the RTMark site trying to find out exactly what they were and what they did. Apparently, what RTMark is is a corporation that takes money from "investors" who invest in general areas of interest so you are not necessarily aware of what is done with the money when RTMark redistributes it to activists working in that area. It leaves the investor liability free and the activists are unaware of who is funding their projects. They provide a sort of legal protection. Reading through their suggested projects was interesting, some are fairly simple things I could probably accomplish with enough man power. Others are high risk/high cost projects. These risks and costs are supported by donations from investors, and directed via RTMark. So higher risk jobs get higher money benefits. Some of these ideas are really cool. They range widely, from public protests, to cyber crime, to ad campaigns, to education projects. Very neat ideas. What is really cool is that RTMark as an organization is protected by the same corporate protection laws they are fighting against.

-Brandon

Magical Adventures... IN SPACE

Well, Jeff Rowland has begun his new comic, Magical Adventures in Space. I'm actually a little bit dissapointed. After he finished Wigu he began a new strip that was basically a television program with a new show each week. I though this was a pretty awesome idea. It gave him the ability to experiment and if he wanted, he would always return to a past story he enjoyed. Magical Adventures in Space was a bizzaare children's television show in the WIGU universe. So it was kind of expected that this would appear as a show within his television strip, but it appears that the television idea was merely a diversion until he got the regular MAIS strip ready. I'm sure it will be great, I have complete faith in Rowland's ability to amuse me, I already enjoy the first strip. I just though the other idea was really neat, and I'm a little disappointed to learn it wasn't permanent.

Ah well, MAIS and Overcompensating will keep me amused.

-Brandon

I found this message on soulseek.


(18:33) [COPPERHEAD] BANNED, fucker, john irving is a terrible writer
(18:33) [COPPERHEAD] and garp is his worst
(18:33) [COPPERHEAD] god damn you

That's all there was.

He had an album that I can't find to buy anywhere locally and so far, not to download either. Some people don't understand that in order for a p2p community to work, someone has to share.

I like the claim that I deserve to be banned because of my TSGarp callsign. Pity I wasn't here to recieve the message. Not that I could have gotten any sense out of him.

In totally unrelated news, I smell like cigerrettes. A sideffect of hanging out with smokers.

-Brandon

Um...

http://www.nmr.nl/deins815.htm

This is a picture of the first recorded case of a gay necrophiliac duck. Wow...

And on a lighter duck related note, check out this bitchin' flash. Vocals are supposedly done by a 1980's Alan Moore of Watchmen fame.

-Brandon

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.

-Brandon

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.

-Brandon

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.

-Brandon

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.

-Brandon

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.

-Brandon

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/

-Brandon