- logging coolness from 127.0.0.1, daily.
Some interesting things are going on on the net.music.label front, of which i'm one of the balding grandaddies with Monotonik. A bunch of the net.labels, including us, are getting together to help promote downloadable, free music as a whole, so hopefully we'll see that soon. And the Mono site needs a redesign _BADLY_ now, we're going to get to it pretty darn soon. Oh, and check out the new Transient EP and accompanying video promo, the latest Monotonik releases, if you haven't, they're yum. Oh, and finally, the wonderful Grandma/Khonnor/whatever he's called nowadays has had an album confirmed on Xela's forthcoming Type Records, which is great news, and has just put another EP out on brand new net.label Please Do Something. All this free music stuff is, like, neato.
So there's a new version of the International Children's Digital Library website up - this is the NSF-funded project I've been helping out at up at the Internet Archive. I've been doing some scanning and batchfiling on a bunch of the featured books, and in the future i'm going to be evaluating new+quicker ways of scanning books, plus keeping all the tech end under control, in terms of providing book scans from all over the world to Maryland University, who are doing the interface design. Interesting? Well, even if it isn't, you're hearing about it anyhow. :)
So, from yesterday's paper copy of the (excellent) San Jose Mercury News:
Most-downloaded cellphone ringtones
1. "Ignition," R.Kelly
[...]
8. "Hard," Dr. Evil & Mini Me (Austin Powers)
9. "Life," Knock
[...]
This genius misprint (where can I get "Life" by Knock? oh, hang on..) is further made amusing by the fact that it's a ringtone, dammit, how can you tell it's the Dr.Evil version of 'Hard Knock Life' and not, say, the Jay-Z original? I guess it could be one of those fancy sampled multi-tonal things, but even so.. yay!
One update, two random discontinuity-styled things to mention.
Firstly, my part-time employer, the Internet Archive, have added about 500 movies from the ever-amazing Prelinger Archive of ephemeral films, and this time some of the stuff added includes slightly risky 50s burlesque, though it's actually adorably tame compared to even Jerry Springer nowadays. Great stuff.
Secondly, probably the first big scoop for our Slashdot Games site today - well, the first one I've been absolutely gleeful about, since thanks to a tipster, we got the scoop on the biggest massively multiplayer hack since someone killed Lord British - this time, it was Shadowbane being hacked to bits. In fact, to quote a messageboard denizen, the hackers were - "..teleporting people all over the world, teleporting hostile guards into the safe-holds, bringing in hordes of special event monsters, and teleporting everyone to a city at the bottom of the sea." - yay for God Mode, huh?
While wandering round Target yesterday, found they had the new Gamecube demo disc on sale. Apparently, some stores won't sell it now, cos it's meant to come with a Gamecube system? Anyhow, Target had it, and it's great - here's a random review from XGR.com which talks about all the playable titles. Soul Calibur II is an exquisite fighting game, Billy Hatcher may be the best 3D game Sonic Team have ever done, Splinter Cell is efficiently converted, and Viewtiful Joe is some kind of crazed Japanese liquid crack conglomeration of a '2D gameplay with 3D graphics' cel-shaded platformer. Nice stuff. [Oh, and on a completely unrelated note, the new Pete Yorn album is delicious in a wonderfully traditional manner, much love for being an efficient rock taste arbiter, Holly.]
Almost 6 months after starting up ffwd, I finally got to integrating my digital camera pictures into the site. I also added a bunch of new pictures from this year, including some from E3 (yay for massive plush Harvest Moon cows!), and some other randomness from the Golden Gate Bridge when my family came to visit, odd graffiti from the Mission District, the Robert Rich ambient gig at the Morrison Planetarium, the Internet Archive's (old?) co-location center, and so on. So, that'd be the digicam page, got it? Excellent. Plug is now over.
Being a very big fan of William Gibson, and even owning the proto-Matrix, Keanu-starring, but pretty tragic Johnny Mnemonic on DVD, was very interested to see this blog entry from Gibson talking about what JM could have been if Sony hadn't hacked it around so much in post-production. Grr.. most interestingly, though, it mentions a Japanese cut of the movie that's different to the Western one. Apparently, it's 15 minutes longer than the US release. Would be amazing if I could get hold of it somehow, to analyse the differences and add it to my random Gibson collection that includes the Johnny Mnemonic PC CD-ROM (it's a FMV adventure, with a completely different cast including Isaac Hayes and Julie Strain!)
Somehow, myself and some of Holly's relatives decided to walk Bay To Breakers, the 7 mile jaunt from one side of San Francisco (down by the Bay Bridge) to the other side (over where the Pacific Ocean starts at Ocean Beach.) Tens of thousands of other people, many in fancy dress or costumes, make the trip too, so it was pretty good fun, except for the hills :P Some of the best costumes included a group of people who went as the US Government's Iraqi deck of cards (one of them was Dr.Germ, yay!), and, of course, the folk in salmon costumes who run Breakers To Bay every year (going upstream, get it?)
But smartest of all were a large group sporting Frank Chu-inspired signs. For those of you who don't know who he is, he's a San Francisco legend who spends 8 hours a day, 52 weeks a year parading round the center of SF holding a sign saying (and there are many variants) - 'Impeach Clinton - 12 Galaxies Guiltied to A Altratronic Rocket Society'. Info and pics of him are here and here. Even better, I spotted an historic meeting, when the actual Frank Chu (who was walking too) ran into his fans, and I managed to get a snapshot with my watch camera of them hanging out together (you get a random extra pic of the race too :P):
Finally made it back from LA, more on that soon, but while I was there, Brewster Kahle of the Internet Archive made his presentation to the Copyright Office's anticircumvention rulemaking hearings regarding the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act). Unfortunately, I couldn't make it to the hearing itself, but I'm particularly passionate about saving archaic consumer software from the '70s and '80s before the floppies become unreadable, and helped with the presentation, so was delighted to hear it went well.
Archiving means being able to have a large physical collection of old software, plus actual backed-up data, with all the technology needed to transfer those old formats correctly to modern media (I know we have warez-ed ROMs of a bunch of the material floating around, but it's neither legal nor historically complete!) So I've become the de facto 'point man' for software archiving at the Internet Archive. I helped with some of the technical details and software props for this, experimenting with the Catweasel MK3 for archival tests, sourcing old software for the Archive's collection, and even borrowing some amazing software materials from the wonderful Special Collections at Stanford University (thanks, Henry Lowood!)
We want to make sure we're allowed under law to do this archiving correctly, so thanks again to Brewster, Marian and Alex (the latter two being very tame, lovely, and helpful lawyers!) for crunching to present a great presentation on behalf of the Archive and all of us. Here's an outline of the presentation and a Powerpoint document hosted at the Archive, and here's a third-party account of the hearings, which seemed to go as well as can be expected. Yay - fingers crossed.
So I was all ready, and quite happy, to cover the E3 Electronics Entertainment Expo from up in San Jose for Slashdot Games, but at the last minute, it was decided I should come down to LA to check it out in person. Hence a mad scramble to find a laptop, flights, hotel, and all that good stuff. So I'm down in Los Angeles 'til Friday, and should be doing hands-on reports with all the interesting (and uninteresting) new games. It'll also be interesting to see what random celebrities are at the show. More soon..
So, one of the people that I respect in the gaming industry a _lot_, largely for his loopy artwork and great sense of humor which comes through in his super-quirky, character-filled games is Doug TenNapel. He originally designed Earthworm Jim, and then went on to form The Neverhood, who produced crazy, unconventional, weirdly great titles like The Neverhood, Skullmonkeys, and Boombots. I laugh _so_ hard every time I hear 'Eeevil Engiine Number Niiiine' (from the Claymation intro to Skullmonkeys.) And I actually did an interview with Doug for Gamasutra back in 1999 (evil free registration may be required, sorry.) Anyhow, I knew that The Neverhood's games were very popular in Japan, and in particular that The Neverhood (the game!) was released for the Playstation only in Japan. But I very randomly came across a reference to Klaymen: Gun Hockey, apparently some kind of Neverhood character-licensed.. air hockey game, again only released in Japan? Very, very bizarre. Here's links to the front cover and back cover. Does anyone have any more info, or even a copy of the game? Even if not.. you learned something new, right? :P
I guess I belong to a certain clique (the game geek) who, for some reason, considers themselves better than other cliques (the sci-fi geek). Lore Sjoberg's geek hierarchy says otherwise, but I'm not listening to him. However, I've started using Netflix to check out the first season DVDs of Babylon 5, and I'm well and truly hooked. I've never seriously watched tonnes of Star Trek, but have seen enough episodes to know they're decent and watchable, but not amazing. But turns out Babylon 5 _is_ phenomenal, with the first season box set offering a complex plot that plays out over many episodes (and even seasons), but with individual episodes that work great on their own in detailing the complex political machinations of alien races mashed together in a giant space station. It works. And to think I used to poke fun at a co-worker for liking the show - sorry, Dave (mind you, he did wear waistcoasts, and once claimed that cloaks were 'in fashion' :P)
Since I was wandering around in the Quarter To Three forums when someone asked a question about horse racing computer games (!), I was sufficiently sad to craft the following reply, which I pass on here:
[The sim-like arcade game that someone else mentioned is] ...Sega's "Derby Owner's Club", and they actually had one (complete with massive screen and 8 sit-down terminals) last time I went to Dave and Buster's in the Great Mall, Milpitas, CA (Silicon Valley-ish).
Here's a fan-site for Derby Owner's Club(!) For what it's worth, I watched it for a while, and it seemed rather cool - you buy an (actual physical) smartcard for each horse, which gets saved out with details of how well it's doing, and the gameplay is in deciding how/when to train and feed the horses, deciding default types (late finisher vs. steady runner), and deciding when to whip the horse on during the race. Some of the hardcore players at the Great Mall had card books full of their, uhh, stable. But yes, scary too.
Ohmy, and I just noticed that that fanpage is talking about selling the cards on Ebay. As far as other horse racing games, there's "Stakes Winner" and its sequel on the Neo Geo, though they're kinda basic - the MVS cart goes super-cheap too. "Gallop Racer" for PS2 seems to get decent reviews, in general.
Um, stop looking at me in that weird way, OK? I evidently retain this information for a reason, I just need to work out what that reason is :)
Hunting around discount warehouse Costco at the weekend, found the Playstation game "Power Shovel" for the princely sum of $8.99, so picked it up. And it's actually a lot of fun. Originally published in Japan by Taito, and picked up for US release by Acclaim, of all people, you get to, well, let me let the All Game Guide explain:
Power Shovel puts players behind the controls of three earthmovers in a variety of construction-oriented events. Three modes of gameplay are available: Arcade King, License Mode and Level Editor. Arcade King includes missions from the coin-op, such as demolishing a car, knocking over houses, and pouring large amounts of curry sauce over rice. License Mode provides a series of timed tests (like knocking over poles, parking and digging sand) that must be completed in order to gain your operator's license. The Level Editor lets players design their own courses on a 6 x 6 grid, with obstacles such as holes, electric fences, cones and sheds.
So, while it's absolutely NOT a game for kids, since the controls are sim-like and fairly complex (you can rotate the bucket, the hinges on the arm, and the mover all separately), it's one of those quirky Japanese titles which sneaked across to the US and is worth picking up cheap if you can find it. Haven't got too far yet, but curry sauce onto rice? That's my kinda earthmoving game.
It is slightly embarrassing, f'sure, that we got married (albeit quite unexpectedly) in November, it's May, and we still don't have actual wedding rings. My only excuse is that it's been an abnormally busy time, and the only stockists we could find for the rings we love, Xen, were down in Los Angeles, a trip that kept getting put off. Fortunately, as you can see by the link, the German jewelry firm Xen now have a website, including some new his and hers rings that look lovely. Holly's engagement ring is a Xen, and the thick stainless steel bands that characterise Xen are really stylish. And the new Xen site lists more than one possible Bay Area stockist we didn't know about, so we may finally get those proper ring-type things through, yay.
Probably can't update here as often, seeing as I'm pseudo-blogging a _lot_ on Slashdot now, but will try to make it back here for random stuff as often as I can. Random stuff such as the majestic mockumentary 'A Mighty Wind', which we saw earlier this week. Actually, it's been pointed out that Christopher Guest and his co-stars don't really like the phrase 'mockumentary', since it implies they're being cruel and mocking about the subject matter, when it's really a fond lambasting to a particular genre. In this case, it's folk music, and it's done wonderfully. As always, Fred Willard tries to steal the show with a turn as a sleazy ex-comedian manager, and.. well, pretty much succeeds, as he did in 'Best In Show'. Cheeky so-and-so. But really, what the movie has is beautiful and beautifully funny songs, a delightfully bizarre performance by Eugene Levy, impeccable ensemble improvisation, and, most of all, a heart - it cares about the people and the things it pokes fun at.
