March 30, 2006
YouTube: Depeche Mode's 'Suffer Well' video (The non-Sims one, directed by Anton Corbijn, yay. Quirky.)
Gamasutra: 'Spore: Pre-Production Through Prototyping' (Some great lessons from a much-awaited game.)
GameSetWatch: 'Alt.Publishers - Here, There, And Everywhere' (I like the game market's niches.)
March 29, 2006
Netlabel-board.org - new messageboard for netlabels. (Good to see more community forming.)
Biffovision - Paul 'Mr. Biffo' Rose's weblog (He's the one-time Digitiser columnist, writes for Edge, does Brit sitcoms, and is rather funny. So there.)
Hirameki blog on 'How Not to Climb Mt. Fuji' (Neat, hypothermia!)
CNN: Why are their video link headlines getting so Onion-esque? (Currently on front page: 'Blind man pulls woman, kittens from house fire', and 'Exorcist, demon face-off in hotel room'.)
YouTube: The KLF's 'The White Room' insanely rare 45-minute movie (An IMDB comment explains this the best - perhaps the best thing ever to appear on YouTube, if you're a fan?)
March 28, 2006
Luxo: Cars toys round-up (There's also early movie impressions over at Jim Hill Media, huzzah.)
Pancake Meow - miniature dessert jewelry (I think Holly may get the pancake necklace - via Jinjur.)
Sarah Dyer points out Evan Dorkin's 'Eltingville Club' pilot on YouTube ('Warning absolutely no cuteness ahead.')
Improbable Research: 'Monkey see, monkey see' ('“Executive” Monkeys Influenced by Other Executives, Not Subordinates')
Comics Reporters' Top 50 Comics of 2005 (Unmissable ranking of the best drawn stories.)
March 27, 2006
GameDev covers the IGF/indie game roundtable I MC-ed at GDC (And also does a nice, positive take on the Choice Awards, though I'm miscaptioned as Della Rocca, uhoh!)
Twitch has a literate rave for 'The Smell Of Reeves And Mortimer' (I agree - my favorite British comedy of all time, I've ordered the UK DVD.)
CBS doing 'Creature Comforts' series for U.S. (Old, missed this, Claymation on primetime, neat.)
Hurty Elbow: 'Before they were Lost' (The airplanewrecked cast, pre-crash - via PopWatch.)
Cartoon Brew points out IFC will be running Kurosawa's Samurai 7 anime (Sooo muuuch animeee....)
Working Title: Production starts on Hot Fuzz, from Shaun Of The Dead folks (And there's a videoblog, with Simon Pegg wearing a 'Norf London' shirt.)
Mojave Airport Weblog has more great pics of X-37 tests (Mojave must be the most interesting airport on the world.)
March 26, 2006
Gamasutra: GDC 2006 coverage now largely done (Actually, there will probably be more write-ups next week, but there's plenty to keep you going.)
Wired: new Will Wright-curated issue features writing by me (...on 'interstitial' games that are super-swift to play, in his curated guest section.)
GameSetWatch: 'Bastards of 32-Bit' - Pokémon Snap (More fun columnage at GSW from Sardius.)
March 25, 2006
Gamasutra: 'Darwinia Takes Top Prize At 2006 IGF' (Didn't blog this earlier in the week, but the IGF & IGF Awards went _great_.)
GameSpot's pic of the 'activist' outside yesterday's Nintendo GDC keynote (He didn't quite explode the Megaton, but it was a heck of a lot of fun anyhow.)
March 24, 2006
Gamasutra: GDC 2006 coverage (Why I'm not around this week - also cos of IGF - also see GameSetWatch tidbits. BUSY.)
March 20, 2006
Updates slow this week - 2006 Game Developers Conference starts Monday (Lots of journalistic/organizing work to be done.)
Monotonik: Planet Boelex - 'Misplaced EP' [mtk163] (Latest on my net.label - Finnish idm.ambience, yum.)
Simon Waldman on Google News (Absolutely vital point here: 'the more important Google News becomes, the more you have to throw yourself into the commodity market, because that’s all it reflects, and therefore rewards.' But you can do extra differentiating material too.)
Twitchfilm spots a small sequence from Michel Gondry's 'The Science Of Sleep' (Frickin' mindblowing.)
March 19, 2006
AICN: Awesome ensemble poster for Pixar's Cars (V. much looking forward to this.)
Kaiju Shakedown on Branson, Missouri's Shoji Tabuchi ('The average age of the Branson audience means that many of them may have fought in World War II, and that leads us to the uplifting part of this post: entertainment has no borders.' Disquieting.)
Gelf: The TriForce guys talk about the return of 'Toothing' (Discusses "people trying to build second-wave hoaxes, aftershocks of ours but with financially motivated purpose". Interesting.)
Consumerist: 'Nike Air Jordans as Fabric Sculptures by Brian Jungen' (Oddly nightmarish.)
Mojave Airport Weblog: NASA's X-37 spaceplan grounded again (But the mission decals on the X-37 are totally adorable!)
March 18, 2006
Life With Alacrity: 'On Being an Angel' (Longtime entrepreneur and Skotos co-founder Christopher Allen on being an angel investor - v. interesting.)
Earth Capsule - ' the largest, most unique time-capsule preservation project ever designed.' (The number of locations are pretty, uhm, ambitious!)
Rocklist.net - pretty amazing 'list of lists' music site (Includes a great list of 'The Records That John Peel Loved The Most!')
March 17, 2006
Yahoo! Music Engine playlist: 'Unto The Rave Eternal' (My first public YME playlist - click to stream if you subscribe - early '90s UK rave-influenced bliss - artists include The KLF, 808 State, The Orb, Primal Scream, The Prodigy, The Beloved, Orbital, The Shamen, Saint Etienne.)
GameSetWatch: 'Game Ads A-Go-Go: Strange and Devious Peripherals' (Yay for Barcode Battler. And, uhh, 'Handy Gear', with splooge on it.)
Chowhound: New Japanese supermarket opening in San Jose's Japantown (Cool, it was sad that Dobashi Market closed. Yes, this is rather localized news. :P)
Pleix-directed musical video for Vitalic's 'Birds' (Dogs are cute! Pleix is cool - they used Monotonik artist Bliss for a previous vid.)
March 16, 2006
Igloo Magazine reviews Wavespan's Monotonik album ('Orb-like ambience, undulating dub echoes, silky analog melodies as spun off the FAX label.' Agreed!)
GameSpy's 2006 Independent Games Festival coverage (Hey, 11 pages of really well-researched, enthusiastic stuff - thanks, guys!)
AOL In2TV: Free streamable on demand Babylon 5 episodes (Wonder what JMS thinks of that.)
March 15, 2006
GameSetWatch: 'Back To Reality, Via The MMO?' (In which I get to randomly rave about Red Dwarf, yay.)
YouTube: Gorillaz On MTV Cribs (Extremely good - involving ranting, pissing Murdoc.)
Gamasutra: 'A Tight Squeeze: The Making Of Accordion Hero' (I cannot count the ways I love the Schadenfreude guys - the prototype controller is muy hilarious.)
March 14, 2006
GSW: 'EDITORIAL: Blogging Down The House - Who's Zooming Who?' (I get a little irate at the latest 'crucify game journalists' campaign.)
Thuglife: Don Rapello's latest ASCII collection - 'Textmode Mindf*ck' (Via Thuglife - I forgot there were still ASCII collections being released in 2006 - yay.)
G4 now showing weirdass UK TV 'game' show Banzai (There was some controversy after it showed on Fox, here's more good Wikipedia info - it's worth checking, if only to goggle.)
Last.fm: Monotonik's label page (Have been uploading a lot of our catalog for free streaming - we also have a group page, go check it.)
GameSetWatch: 'COLUMN: 'The Gaijin Restoration' - Notam of Wind' (More GSW column geekery, a hot air balloon title (!) shown off by new columnist and Cinematech producer Ryan Stevens.)
March 13, 2006
eBay: Xbox 360 faceplate that was part of Gorillaz designers' art collage (Here's a little info on the Zombie Flesh Eaters-designed piece. Also see great ZFE-designed backpack.)
NYT: 'Internet TV Aims at Niche Audiences' (Great for understanding the promise, and why almost nobody is profitable yet.)
Gamasutra: 'Customer Support Confidential' (Some anonymous, totally genius game customer support emails: "Please give us our game back our I will start drinking again.or I kill myself.")
Archive.org: UCSF Tobacco Control Archive videos (Wow, lots of great insidious tobacco-related vids.)
Kircher Society on Princeton's collection of death masks (Leo Tolstoy has a kickass beard.)
March 12, 2006
Kevin Kelly on Digg-style 'consensus web filters' (Only issue I have with them is when they feature news that is cool but old/wrong - via John Battelle.)
Dogsbarkingincars.com (The Internet comes through again - via FoTW.)
Consumerist on the _big_ U.S. debit card fraud (Looks like OfficeMax got hacked bigtime, possibly others.)
Clive Thompson on 'Attack of the giant 7-foot Humboldt Squid' (Turning humans into sushi.)
Mediatinker designs a plush furry lobster (...to match the real-life one just discovered - I want one! Via Antipixel.)
March 11, 2006
Movie recommendation du jour: Sundance Channel - 'The Gong Show Movie' ('Too hot for TV' out-takes and a bizarre plot that has Chuck Barris trying to quit the show - too odd to miss.)
GameSetWatch: ''Bastards of 32-Bit' - No One Can Stop Mr. Domino' (Still column-ing it up on GSW, Sardius' 32-bit crapshoot is already one of my faves.)
Draco's net.label-related interview with Troupe (His EP on Backtrack was spectacular, he's working on something for Monotonik with gf Melissa Welch, can't wait.)
March 10, 2006
Twitch points out 'Worlds Biggest Rabbit' in some kind of odd Wallace & Gromit reference (I have a plush wererabbit sitting next to the computer right now. Scary stuff.)
Reality Blurred: Of American Idol entrants who didn't make the top 2... (...William Hung has the third-best selling album. Uh. Wow.)
GameSetWatch: 'Game Ads A-Go-Go: Dumb Ads of the '90s' (The latest new GSW column, scanning in classic game magazine ads.)
Netaudio'06: London Netlabel Festival (Darn, a netlabel festival? Totally cool.)
YouTube: Imogen Heap's video for 'Hide & Seek' (One of the only a-cappella singles I can recall - the album is gorgeous, too.)
March 09, 2006
GameSetWatch: 'Cherish The Chips: Nintendo A Go Go' (Nullsleep's chiptune column for GSW. More column madness tomorrow!)
Official site for Kieron 'NGJ? Where?' Gillen's new Image comic Phonogram (Warren Ellis likes it, but what does he know?)
Mojave Airport RSS feed got fixed - subscribe now! (Thanks to Carlo @ Bootleg RSS Feedpalooza for the quick fix.)
Milieu reviews Wavespan's recent Monotonik album ('Quite simply one of the best ambient releases on any netlabel to date.' Yay.)
Computer History Museum's log of donated software (Pretty earlier, but mm, Illiac stuff - will be updated often by Dag Spicer.)
March 08, 2006
Alan's Mojave Airport weblog (Just a reminder to read this excellent blog - I just found out the 'bootleg RSS feed' I paid to get set up broke, so I'm hoping it'll be fixed soon.)
GameSetWatch: 'The Further Adventures of Tron Guy' (Here's the original Slashdot post that started the cult, more or less.)
Satori: Domefest at the Chabot (Sony's Mark DeLoura goes to a happy, projected place.)
March 07, 2006
NCSX: Evangelion Matryoshka [Asuka Set] (The seminal anime gets some Russian-style nesting dolls.)
Dallas Morning News: 'For sale: Dallas tree with Virgin Mary image' (Maybe GoldenPalace.com will pick it up? Via FT.)
Monotonik: Sabi - Unsui EP [mtk162] (Latest on my CC-licensed netlabel, subtle Japanese ambience.)
March 06, 2006
GameSetWatch: 'Interview: 'Handre', Game Box Art Parody Insaneguy' (Beautifully disturbing, still.)
Twitch on a U.S. release for a '70s live-action Lupin the Third movie (There's a TOTALLY GREAT trailer on Discotek's site - plus coming soon... 'Sexy Soccer'?)
Jason Scott uploads his History of Hacker Conferences speech (Some uni give this guy a professorship, already.)
GameSetWatch: 'N-Gage, N-Gage, Rah Rah Rah?' (A second glance at Nokia's much-maligned handheld.)
March 05, 2006
Fans.Gorillaz.com: New UK live DVD and live dates in New York next month (I'm in NY that week, may try to get tickets.)
Twitch: 'Peter Serafinowicz Goofs On The Oscars' (Extremely fun UK Oscar spoof, for Oscar weekend.)
Philip Sherburne on his liner notes for the Senor Coconut mix album (Seeing Senor Coconut live in a pyramid at Ars Electronica 2001 was one of my top 5 favorite concerts of all time - his Kraftwerk covers album (YME link) is still divine.)
Kircher Society on 'House Trucks' (But do they have WiFi?)
March 04, 2006
Improbable Research: 'Art of intoxication' ('This is what happens when you hold an event at a museum and charge $30 for an unlimited number of martinis.')
Yahoo! interviews Disney's Bob Iger ('If anything, we're going to have the Pixar culture influence the Disney Animation culture.' Via CartoonBrew.)
GameSetWatch: 'Accordion Hero To Hit Stores This April' (Dude, it's totally got 'Rock You Like A Hurricane' on it.)
Jossip: 'Clay Aiken caught in a gay web of scandal' (OH GOD MY EYES.)
Book recommendation: 'Gil's All Fright Diner' by A. Lee Martinez (Here's a review, here's the author's MySpace - a totally enjoyable weirdass occult redneck romp.)
March 03, 2006
EFanzines.com - SF fanzines in PDF form (Some weird stuff here - apparently video game mag pioneer Arnie Katz does a weekly Las Vegas SF fanzine nowadays?)
Twitch: Cast announcement for 'Hot Fuzz' movie (Wow, Timothy Dalton, Steve Coogan, Edward Woodward? Doubly sold.)
EABlogs: Video ad for turntables [.MOV] (Car scratching alert! Via giantsister.)
Gamasutra: 'Game Developer March Issue Shoots Gun, Previews GDC' (Here's the cover the Neversoft guys did us - v.cool.)
GameTrailers: New-ish trailer for Capcom's 'Dead Rising' for Xbox 360 (Zombies, malls, and infinite amounts of ways to chop them up. Our frothing demand...)
March 02, 2006
Channel 4's website for Richard Dawkins' 'Root Of All Evil?' doc (Try to grab this doc on religion vs. science from somewhere - unmissable.)
Nullsleep, Bitshifter planning world tour in May/June (London, New York, Tokyo, wacky - Null is also doing a new shooter column and chiptune column for GameSetWatch.)
Bizjournals: Wild Brain buys stake in Kidrobot (Interesting animation company/boutique toy firm crossover, here.)
March 01, 2006
PC: 'Networks Grapple With YouTube; CBS's Turn' ('We're not anti-YouTube. We are anti-taking video w/out our permission.' Exactly. )
Prelinger Library Blog @ Blogspot (Cool, a blog for the totally cool SF private ephemeral library.)
Gamasutra: 'Are Games Addictive? The State of the Science' (An interesting discussion of what 'addictive' is, and how games fulfil that, or not.)