state of the simon address.

So it's time to talk about what I've actually been up to recently. I can announce that I've been hired by Slashdot as an editor, mainly to focus on their new Slashdot Games site, which launched this morning. [I'm posting as 'Simoniker' there (the word 'moniker' plus the first half of 'Simon' in front of it), since we decided h0l or h0l211 was a bit too l33t-speak, so excuse the double pseudonym issues from now on, heh.]

Anyhow, this is a great opportunity to build on an already popular site, so I'm going to try to update often and well with the latest PC/console/retro submissions and news, yay. I'm working remotely, so I'll still be hanging round the Bay Area as before.

I'm also doing work, via the Internet Archive, for the International Children's Digital Library, helping them out with scanning and batchfiling of some beautiful children's books for their NSF-funded project - a very worthy project to help expand universal knowledge online.

There are various other projects I'm working on (an archaic software preservation webpage, a real-life label based on Monotonik, a possible masters in archiving), but I'll no doubt update those on-blog as they happen, and the Slashdot/ICDL work is my main priority right now. Full-time games work was trying to tempt me back (thanks to those who cared), but this is my preferred choice, and I'm _really_ happy about it. In the meantime, I'll try to update reasonably often - and go read Slashdot Games now :P

gba bonanza from ebay.

Having sold a number of random old DVDs on EBay, though I'd use the money to snap up some more obscure GBA games, and managed to find 'Muppet Pinball Mayhem', 'Game And Watch Gallery 4', and 'Lilo and Stitch', all from the same vendor, in cart-only form, for cheap. Mini tiny reviews - I love The Muppets, but 'Muppet Pinball Mayhem' is decent in its own right, with great graphics and fun gameplay, though the pintables lack a bit of 'flow' compared to the Bally and Williams greats. 'Game And Watch Gallery 4' is nirvana for someone like me who loves those classic Game And Watch handhelds, and the addition of a whole bunch of unlockable games and original/enhanced versions of each mini-game means I'll be playing for weeks, doubtless. Finally, 'Lilo And Stitch', like 'Muppets Pinball Mayhem', is another sneakily good 'family game' title from developers Digital Eclipse, and the first level is so 'Metal Slug' it hurts, in the best way possible - gotta love SNK-ripping for a Disney license.

on a ragga tip, indeed.

Thanks to the wonders of the Internet, was burning custom karaoke CDs at a friend's birthday party last night. Not only did it permit us to find classic karaoke numbers like 'When Doves Cry', I was able to do my typical karaoke trick of finding a song nobody else in the Bay Area knows and destroying it with tragically bad vocals. In this case, pretty much unbelievably, it was SL2's classic early '90s hardcore/rave track 'On A Ragga Tip'. Who knew there was a karaoke version of that? Altogether now.. 'a daaay, a daaay, a wattla dai dayyy... gwan!'

spam up the wazoo - for Del!

Spam email is never enjoyable, but.. if you happen to sign up for services using stupid names, you get goodness like the following:

Dear mista dobolina :

On behalf of the WHO’S WHO Historical Society, I am pleased to inform you that you have been selected as a potential candidate. We congratulate you. Nomination to WHO’S WHO is an honor in itself. The Society was founded in 1928 and has over 20,000 members in 154 countries. It is the most elite professional network in the world.

But Mista Dobolina, I thought you were a 'fraudulent foe'? Talking of which, when is Del Tha Funkee Homosapien gonna come out with a new album? His stuff with Gorillaz just plain rocked, with one of his 'Rock The House' lyrics about the 'treasure and the booty' recalling his P-Funk packed 1991 debut 'I Wish My Brother George Was Here', which entranced me when it came out. Though I missed Gorillaz live this time round (work crunch, ack!), I managed to catch the amazing and short-lived Deltron 3030 (Del, Dan The Automator, Kid Koala) when they played out in SF a year or two back, and I covet all related Gorillaz/Deltron/Del/Automator material like the fanboy I am. Anyhow, Del rocks - it's the internal rhyming, imagination and swiftness of lyrics which really make him stand out as a Bay Area treasure. Loving rant.. over.

worldlink tv, via internet archive

Showing that I'm not _completely_ submerged in ephemera, here's a new, serious project that I think has been soundly overlooked. It's courtesy of San Francisco-based Worldlink TV and the place I sometimes volunteer/help at, the Internet Archive. [I have nothing to do with this particular effort, though, just dig it.] Basically, the two parties are teaming up to offer streaming daily news sourced from the TV stations of the Middle East. The show is called 'Mosaic', and it takes footage from national broadcasters in Jordan, Lebanon, Iran, Yemen, Syria, and more, creating a fascinating compilation of news as it's reported in those countries. With the 24-hour blipvert-styled coverage often perpetrated by the US networks, it's nice to see things from a different perspective - and please note, I'm not especially political or opinionated on matters like this, just interested to see how different cultures deal with what's going on in the world right now. Nuff said.

firebird from the ashes.

On another jaunt around the web, ran into the rather good Bird Sanctuary site, dedicated not to actual eagles and sparrows, but to the excellent '80s UK videogame labels Firebird and Rainbird. Firebird was the label which published great games like the non-BBC versions of 'Elite', the classic 'Druid II', and Geoff Crammond's genius 'Sentinel' (oh, and check out this amazing 'Sentinel' chess set.) Rainbird, the sister label, had similarly breakthrough stuff, especially on 16-bit platforms, such as the amazing (and somewhat 'Battle Engine Aquila'-inspiring) 'Carrier Command', golden-era text adventure genius with Magnetic Scrolls' 'The Pawn', and the classic proto-3D wireframe 'Starglider' (by Jez San of Argonaut fame.) Both labels were, bizarrely, owned by British Telecom, the UK's main phone company, until they were sold to Microprose and closed down in 1989-1990.

life? damn you, life. but heart you, dvds.

So people keep giving me life-changing decisions. It's sweet of them, but it makes my head hurt. I think I'm sticking with the one I already made, as opposed to making a second. But we'll see. And yes, I can be more cryptic, but that would make your head hurt too - all should be revealed next week. In the meantime, I've been coveting my 'Futurama: Season One' DVD (10 Sin 20 Goto Hell), and remembering to wander to my favorite DVD spots online (woohoo, it's the _informational_ part of the post!), such as the wonderfully literate DVD Journal for reviews, DVD Savant for quirky/cult/classic reviews and features, DVD Talk forums for random timely bargains, and Deep Discount DVD for all-the-time bargains from my recommended online store. Yay.

all vegas-ed out.

Well, we didn't party _that_ crazy, but fun was had by all, and we returned from Sin City on the red-eye, first thing Monday morning, yuck. Highlights - gambling on Sic Bo, an Asian dice-based table game, at the Bellagio - it plays a lot like roulette, but it's more fun to be playing alongside chain-smoking Asian guys than rich Midwesterners, and I actually won. Also checked out Sega's 'Soul Surfer' arcade machine in the Gameworks arcade on the strip - it's pretty good fun, the pivot+turn+stamp mechanics are just about identical to the very fun 'Top Skater', but somehow feel more sensible and immersive when applied to surfing, except for a weird 'start trick at bottom of wave' mechanic. All in all, plenty of fun - now time for a busy couple of weeks - more on that soon.

off for the weekend..

Possibly because we're hosted on mono211.com, which has 'good Google karma', most of the site hits recently seem to have been coming from people Googling for Scooter mp3s or the previously-mentioned cthulhu porn. Still, at least they're turning up for the party, even though they've forgotten their relevancy pants. Anyhow, we're off to Las Vegas for the weekend, to hang with some of my wife's relatives and poke at the slot machines until money comes out and we're escorted away by security. Hence, no updates 'til Monday. But look, miscellany - Matrimelee video footage (it's the new Neo Geo 2D fighter, a 'Power Instinct' pseudo-sequel), 'Office Workers Give Away Passwords For A Cheap Pen' (courtesy The Register, more evidence that social engineering is king), and Walter Potter's case of curiosities - oh, those crazy Victorians and their taxidermy fun! :P

console backup tech history.

This console backup device website has a great selection of photos and info on the very illicit game cartridge copying devices of the early '90s and beyond. The most famous ones, like the Super Wild Card DX for the SNES, were legendary in their time, and allowed you to back up games to floppy disc, or even download games from BBSes onto your PC, and then run them on your actual console. It's fascinating, but very morally+legally suspect piracy-wise, which is why copiers were never that widely available in the West. The site does have some genuine rarities featured, though, like the fabled Super Magic Griffin backup device for the PC Engine/Turbographx, or even the Yoko Game Duplicator for the Atari 2600 - pretty wacky stuff.

shantae gba? virt music maybe? woot.

So I didn't even know that there was a sequel coming out, but it appears there's going to be a Gameboy Advance version of the genius Gameboy Color oldschool-styled platformer 'Shantae', which had music by my friend Jake 'Virt' Kaufman. And there's even a rumor Jake may be pencilled in to do music for 'Shantae Advance' too. Hope so, he's entirely too talented at the chipbeep stuff, as evidenced by his two releases at Monotonik and a whole string of GB/GBA game credits. Go Risky Boots!

atari 2600 sticky joy.

I'm aware that I'm about 6 months behind 'the zeitgeist' on this one, but whilst wandering around Target in San Jose, cursing wildly that all the widescreen DVDs of 'Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets' had been snapped up, happened to find the Atari 10-in-1 TV Game for 20 bucks in the toy section. Even though I didn't have an Atari 2600 of my own, I obviously love the classic Atari-developed releases for it, and having 'Gravitar', 'Circus Atari', or even 'Adventure' playable on an authentic Atari joystick, just by putting some batteries into it and plugging it into your TV - why, that rocks. It's legal emulation, innit? For the record, the other, more well-known games on there are 'Missile Command', 'Breakout', 'Pong', 'Centipede', 'Asteroids', 'Yar's Revenge', and (this one more obscurer!) 'Real Sports Volleyball'. Remember that stuff like 'Asteroids' is the blocky, but still cool Atari 2600 version - ie, no vector graphics here. :P There's also an Activision TV Game, also starring Atari 2600 games, and done by the same developers (Jakks/DC Studios), but the controller is kinda generic and 3rd-party plastic-looking, and the games, except 'Pitfall' and 'River Raid', seem a bit less interesting to me.

wha? chris huelsbeck? scooter?

So, I was hanging around on IRC talking about the previous KLF vs. Scooter entry, and listening to that new Scooter 'The Stadium Techno Experience' album, when I came across a song on it called 'Level 1' (there's clips on this page). I was convinced I'd heard it somewhere before, maybe in games? Wasn't it a Chris Huelsbeck song? So I did a Google seach, and hey presto, on Chris Huelsbeck's official page, an announcement that Scooter have indeed covered one of Huelsbeck's 'Turrican' tunes for that album. That's just.. bizarre. The album is probably going to sell hundreds and thousands, if not millions, so that should make Chris a tidy sum off songwriting royalties, no? In other news.. lots more KLF ripoff material in the new Scooter album, I really need to make a webpage about it.

scooter vs. the klf

One of the best pop/techno concept bands ever, and one I can rant happily about for hours, are The KLF. They deliberately retired at the height of their fame, they burnt a million pounds, they had Tammy Wynette singing about ice-cream vans and being both justified and ancient, they wrote The Manual about 'how to have a Number One.. the easy way', just after doing that in the UK as The Timelords in an unholy Gary Glitter/Dr.Who splice - here's a good summary.

However, one of the biggest, cheese-tastic trance/techno bands in Europe right now are Scooter, famous for sampling Supertramp (!) for 'The Logical Song', amongst a bevy of massive hits. And they _so_ rip off the KLF, partly in homage, but almost more than that. Here's a great list of similarities, courtesy of the KLF mailing-list as of Summer 2002. For example, Scooter's 'The Logical Song' includes 'The K, the L, the F and the ology' as lyrics - ok, maybe just a tribute. Scooter even named a song 'Fuck The Millenium', just as the KLF did as 2K, and an album 'Back To The Heavyweight Jam', another KLF phrase.

Sure, Scooter's sound is clearly descended from the proto-techno of the KLF, crowd noise and all, but.. Scooter's new album is called 'The Stadium Techno Experience', a phrase incredibly close to the KLF's own 'Stadium House Trilogy', and the album cover compared to the KLF's classic 'White Room' - uhm, rip-off, meet the original. Bizarre.

Oh, and one more thing - if you like Scooter, then you'll love.. the Scooter cover band, Moped, whose amazing mangling of Coldplay's 'Clocks' is currently downloadable for your delectation and mine. Love it.

toasty frogs.

Time for a little appreciation of a games site I keep forgetting to check, but grin happily when I do. That would be toastyfrog.com, courtesy Jeremy 'Toastyfrog' Parrish, and, basically, it's v.good. Not only is there the ongoing '20 Most Embarassing Game Companies', but also the infamous thumbnail theaters (games or movies distilled down to a sarcastic minimum, try out 'Star Wars:Episode 1' for size.) The site's been around long enough that there's other neat articles dotted all over the archives - a random example would be 'The History Of Western Religion In Japanese Games', and it's updated just about daily, so there's a ton of new info always going up, and much comment discussion. Yay, and much kudos to the heated amphibian.

you know you've been online too long..

..when random IRC quotes from people you don't even know make you laugh, lots. Of course, they're asinine, immature, and stupid, but tragically, that appears to be what I find funny. There's also a top 50, which are pretty much guaranteed to be funnier. Another amusing thing is the rather nicely designed-with-ASCII who hooked up with who on IRC chart. Just in case you're a Net stud who needs to check up on that hot nickname you've been talking to?

sky is falling.

Any readers or friends who hang out in the Bay Area, be aware of a rather awesome upcoming musical event - 'Sky Is Falling', a live ambient show, headlined by Robert Rich, which will be the last _ever_ concert at the current Morrison Planetarium in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. So it'll be lying down looking at the make-believe stars whilst listening to lovelygorgeousambience, yay. Support act is the also-excellent Bay Area native, JHNO, who does work for Cycling74 of MAX/MSP fame. It's on May 4th, and you can get tickets from SF-based ambient webstore Ambient Airlines. See you there? :)

vibert-licious.

Thanks to Vae and Esa/Lackluster for pointing me to this excellent interview with Luke Vibert, one of my favorite musicians in all of the world. It even includes audio clips of his unreleased collaborations with Richard 'Aphex Twin' James (here), and Tom 'Squarepusher' Jenkinson (here). The interview also has a bunch more audio clips for Luke's upcoming material for Rephlex, Warp, Ninja Tune, and more.. boy, he's busy. Ever since I got into his early Wagon Christ material, I've dug Vibert possibly more than any of the other Warp/Rephlex artists, just 'cos of his wonderfully innate eclecticism and catchiness. Oh, and the video for 'Lovely', which comes complete with shopping cart-racing supermarket grannies. A particular highlight for people wanting to get into him may be the Luke Vibert/BJ Cole 'Stop The Panic' album, recorded with the famous steel guitar player, and which busts out levitating Hawaiian catchy electronics. You can get it as part of your free trial from emusic.com, even if you don't sign up forever, I think. :) When I saw the venerable Mouse On Mars play out in Santa Cruz a couple of years back, they put 'Stop The Panic' on both BEFORE and AFTER they played - and it was yum both times, both as warm-up and warm-down. Yup, Vibert is well worth vibing out.

games, games, games.

Although their website is a bit patchy, I'm still enjoying the game rental service Govojo. It's a big bonus for postal-speed reasons that they're also in the Bay Area, and they seem to be decent about sending out new games promptly. It's a good chance to catch up on titles I'd never otherwise buy (like 'King Of Route 66' for PS2, which was like 'Crazy Taxi' but with no turning circle, doh, and 'Cubivore' for Gamecube, which was very, very insane and quite linear, but actually pretty fun all the same.) Oh, and the recently-bought 'Amplitude' is proving to be a lot of fun and a not-inconsequential time-sink for both me and the wife, since we can alternate turns, there's high-scores to be played for at any difficulty level (damn those hidden 4-bar scores!), and the music is plenty fun. Yes, even Slipknot. Sorta :P

heatbeat in a heartbeat

Wow. Just spent a largish chunk of the day setting up a new entry on my .mod soul brother website (all about classic .MOD music files) devoted to Aleksi 'Heatbeat' Eeben. When I was hanging around in the Amiga demo/hacker-scene like a reprobate in the early '90s, his music was always astounding for just 4 channels and only a few real-time effects. So it was worth the effort to get all of his music together in one place, especially since it's all freely and legally redistributable. Also included his more recent stuff, which has included coding music 'tracker' programs for the Vic20, Commodore 64, and even the Gameboy, and then making great, crazed music using them - see his website for more info. Last I heard he had started working for Nokia in his native Finland, probably to kick some bleep-based audio ass for them.

hurrah for blatant miscellany.

It's Friday, so it must be time for.. a hodge-podge of unrelated links that are amusing or interesting in some way. We start with, and don't look at me all funny, Cthulhu Porn - the 'Re-Animator' poster is a particularly nice touch. And continuing with the Wooster Collective, which is a particularly good 'street art' weblog, dealing with the cool and not _too_ Nathan Barley-esque stencils, stickers, and modifications people make in urban jungles all round the world. Finally, Godawful Fan Fiction really does have.. godawful fan fiction. Ohboy, and I mean tragically bad. Maybe I'll try to make Fridays the regular random link round-up from now on.

the eternal masquerade.

Intricate puzzles that I haven't the slightest hope of solving fascinate me. And apparently this is also the case for Dan 'Bunny-Ears' Amrich, a journalist who works for Gamepro, and whose grinning visage, complete with those bunny ears, actually appears in the 'NBA Hangtime' arcade board I own. He has a fascinating site dedicated to Kit Williams and 'Masquerade', the beautifully illustrated book Kit wrote+drew in the early '80s which started the 'treasure hunt book' genre. There was an amazing hand-made jewel to be unearthed if you could follow the clues, and I distinctly remember the commotion about the book at the time, even though I was only 6 or 7 - I think my parents had a copy? As Dan's excellent FAQ mentions, the eventual winner was discovered, years later, to most probably have cheated, but there were two other close runners-up who _had_ deciphered the super-complex solution correctly. If you like the idea of this type of thing, the Armchair Treasurehunt Club has a list of some other treasurehunt prize books currently available - one of the most interesting is the magician David Blaine's 'Mysterious Stranger', with truly fiendish puzzle design courtesy of Cliff 'Fool's Errand Johnson.

snackspot.. may contain nuts.

Hurrah for snack food! Following on from the regular 'what crazy candy/snacks have come out recently?' thread in UK-based cult-ass newsletter NTK, there's now a full website been set up devoted to snack-age - snackspot.org. Highlights include UK sightings of Liquorice Skittles, some delicious Comic Relief-themed baked-bean flavor crisps, plus someone spotted in London with the mythical Mecca Cola- mm, anti-American sugar-based goodness.