2024.11.02
4 star:
* Weird Friends (We Don't Even Live Here) (P.O.S)
* Little Lion Man (Mumford & Sons)
3 star:
* I Go To Work (Re-Recorded / Remastered) (Kool Moe Dee)
* Intro (The xx)
* The Power of the One (feat. George Benson & Williams Singers) (Bootsy Collins)
* Right Key, Wrong Keyhole (Doctor Stovepipe)
* Battle (Gang Starr)
* Minnie the Moocher (Dance Version) (Cab Calloway)
* They Won't Go When I Go (Stevie Wonder)
* More Than This (Roxy Music)
* Grand Theft Auto (Da Shootaz)
AHAHA somehow I convinced myself that the time change had happened, like as I slept?
I was pretty convinced of it too. But the even dumber thing was, I must have been thinking it was an hour jump forward. (8:30AM? Heck, it must have been replacing the old 7:30AM)
I was going to say, I was surprised this ceiling-projector clock I got automatically adjusted itself. (I think the one it replaced would, but it was a fiddly gadget overall.) Had an extremely bad idea for a scifi story where sinister forces mess with the main character by fiddling the time for automatically adjusting clock.
Now I have nothing to blame for my bad time management this morning!
Michael Davis smuggling on the 80s version of the Smothers Brothers:
2023.11.02
I made an interactive Halloween costume this year - The Magic 8-Ball!
I asked a friend (Paul Gregory) who makes drummer and equipment gear to construct a wearable iPad harness, and then using P5.js I wrote a fullscreen webpage to pick one of the classic 20 answers and display it in the classic triangle: toys.alienbill.com/8ball
Open Photo Gallery
1. I didn't really want to "shake for new answer", so I did a simple tap that made the new answer fade in and rotate into place. I then added some logic to have the cursor or finger shove the blanked + dimmed triangle around until released (just for a little showmanship as the person was thinking of their question)
2. I made variants to rotate everything 90 degrees so by locking the screen rotation, the straps could obscure the status bar.
3. At the party, I thought of one great feature: a cheat mode. Now, tapping inside the circle gives you a fair answer, but if you click outside the circle, the top half of the screen gives you one of the 10 positive answers, and the lower half gives you one of the 5 negative responses. So based on the question someone asks, you can covertly trigger a yes or no answer based on whatever is funniest.
So, classic example of the importance of testing and iterating!
(I am still on a jobhunt, so if your team might use a UI Engineer who can do the bread and butter React/Node/Typescript as well as throw in a Canvas curveball like this, hit me up!)
kind of an anemic month for new music tbh...
4 star:
Chocolate Drop (Howlin' Wolf)
Finally persuaded Melissa to watch Backbeat, the semi-documentary about the early Beatles in Hamburg... Stu Sutcliffe is painting to this song
Use Me (Bill Withers)
Melissa sent me an instagram post about the James Gadson drumming in this...
Opening Theme (From "Aqua Teen Forever: Plantasm") (Run The Jewels & Aqua Teen Hunger Force)
I never got deeply into the cartoon, but Run the Jewels is always a good sound
3 star:
The Preacher and the Slave ("Pie In the Sky") (Joe Glazer)
Perfect Timing (This Morning) (Orba Squara)
Pop Goes the Weasel (3rd Bass)
Corazon de Tango (Doctor Deseo)
Barbie Girl (Aqua)
Hits 2000' (feat. Trinix) [Mashup] (Trinix Remix)
Desperado (The Langley Schools Music Project)
2022.11.02
But it's weird not having had like a cold for so long either...
2021.11.02
Was thinking about Mickey's hard pivot to "definitely Caucasian" - like I guess he was in some color flicks before they honed in on that, while defining his eye whites as a distinct area.
I guess he was a little minstrel-y anyway, with the gloves and all.
Weird. Wouldn't have picked Disney to become such the dominant force. I guess it's the ability to make Disneyland/World into like a quasi-mythical place. I certainly was sold on it even as a teen.
Just watched that Runaway Brain short from 1995 and am now pondering the semiotics of Minnie Mouse purchasing a two-piece swimsuit
2020.11.02
| Ultra Black (feat. Hit-Boy) Nas |
Great steady Black pride hiphop. Random youtube recommendation. |
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| Play That Country Tuba, Cowboy The Vandals |
Cornball novelty. Who knows. |
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| ★ ★ ★ ★ | Grace Kelly MIKA |
Strong Freddy Mercury energy. (Called out in the song, actually.) Some random tumblr post "do kids these days know about grace kelly by mika" |
| The Suburbs Arcade Fire |
The (Spike Jonze) video is kind of haunting juxtaposition with a middle class American suburb turning into a war zone. The reprise of this REALLY hit me one morning on the Jersey Shore. |
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| On the Dummy Line Wayne Erbsen |
Old-time novelty song. Almost as good as my family's version! |
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| Blue Song Mint Royale |
Rocking club-y song with a inspiring video. (A Cracked article mentioned this video was kind of a test run for the famous opening scene from "Baby Driver") |
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| Funny Song Bensound |
Playful Royal Free backing track music... like the nice beat and array of instruments - from banjo to kid's chimes. Background to a video ad. |
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| ★ ★ ★ ★ | Highway 61 Revisited Bob Dylan |
Rollicking Bob Dylan. Ken Jennings' book on humor pointed to this as a rare example of humor in non-novelty music. |
| ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ | What Makes A Good Man? (Radio Edit) The Heavy |
First 5 star for me in a bit. Just has the percussion on soul choir effect and general great feel. At work we put together a joint Spotify "music to put on to get heads down at work" playlist. |
| Can't Put It In The Hands Of Fate (feat. Rapsody, Cordae, Chika & Busta Rhymes) Stevie Wonder |
Protest song w/ great hiphop guests in on it. I think the beat is DC-area Go Go? Some news article mentioned Stevie Wonder was coming out of retirement, this was one of the 2 songs he was releasing. |
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| ★ ★ ★ ★ | Intergalactic But It's Ghostbusters Beastie Boys / Ray Parker Jr. / William Maranci |
Brilliant mashup of two great songs! At around 3:15 it shifts gears tho, REALLY focusing on the one time the Beastie Boys make a pun on "Uranus"- I tell iTunes to cut it off at that point... Posted to the School of Honk group ("Ghostbusters" is one of SoH's staples.) |
| Can't Get You off My Mind Sister Sparrow |
Soul/R+B feel. From the shared work spotify playlist. |
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| ★ ★ ★ ★ | Hello Hello Hello Remi Wolf |
Nice Tik-Tok era melange. Soundtrack to some snapchat post or ad Melissa was looking at. |
| Hello Good Morning (Remix) [feat. Nicki Minaj & Rick Ross] Diddy - Dirty Money |
I really do like Nicki Minaj's flow - other rappers on it are good too. Found while trying to find "Hello Hello Hello" on iTunes music. |
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| ★ ★ ★ ★ | Moliendo Café Fanfare Ciocărlia |
Added this at the end of the month, so the 4 star is a little conditional... still catchy as hell Balkan brass music. This group saw a lot of play in the Borat films, and I hear about them in HONK adjacent stuff. |
| ★ ★ ★ ★ | Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now) LITTLE BIG |
euro club cover of the 1991 hit... Ending credits to the new Borat movie. |
Oh good. Just like every month that starts on a Sunday we get a nice Friday the 13th this month.
I like what some folks added to my more or less vanilla Chameleon bassline:
(I just wish people would tell me when my bell cover is crooked)
2019.11.02
| Coming Home Baby Skeewiff |
Cool remix of a classic swinging song. We play a simpler version of this in JP Honk, Matt sent around this link. |
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| Holiday Green Day |
Protest-y 90s alt-rock. Aleksandra arranged a version of this for the Second Line Brass Band and tried to explain the bass line to me to play at a BABAM thing. |
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| Lady of Spain Eddie Fisher |
Old school. My dad was fond of the naughty version of this (Lady of Spain / I Adore You / Pull Down Your Pants / I'll Explore You...) |
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| 93 'Til Infinity Souls of Mischief |
90s hiphop, nice slow groove. Played in the Netflix movie "Always Be My Maybe" |
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| Threw It On the Ground The Lonely Island |
I love the sound of this hiphop, even though the song is a bit inane. Still, "I THREW IT ON THE *GROUND*" is catchy. Random youtube recommendation from doing last month's music wrap-up, specifically "aceyletone" |
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| Where Is My Mind? Pixies |
Dreamy. Or nightmarish. Weirdly I didn't know about this recording until I was googling a link to last month's piano cover of it - and I realized it was just a cover. |
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| ★ ★ ★ ★ | Blood of the Fang clipping. |
Hiphop - similar vibe as Childish Gambino "This is America" Found in a tumblr entry. |
| ★ ★ ★ ★ | I Get No Joy Jade Bird |
Look out for this artist, she's going to be huge. Arun mentioned her cover of "Walk Like an Egyptian" and speaks glowingly of her in general. |
| ★ ★ ★ ★ | Harder Than You Think Public Enemy |
The sample (Shirley Bassey's 'Jezahel') makes this my favorite song this month. Some show had this on. |
| Jackson Johnny Cash with June Carter Cash |
I like how every once in a while I run into a new to me Johnny Cash song. Referenced in the novel Tell The Wolves I'm Home (set in the 80s) - the main characters were singing along to it. |
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| Waltzing Matilda Slim Dusty |
Traditional Australian song (though of course now I always think of Tom Waits' Tom Traubert's Blues...) Referenced in the novel Tell The Wolves I'm Home - question in a Trivial Pursuit. |
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| Go Cut Creator Go LL Cool J |
80s hiphop leaning pretty heavily on that Johnny B Good clip, but I love how it modulates that one guitar chord... Referenced in the novel Tell The Wolves I'm Home (set in the 80s) - it mentioned an SNL episode with LL Cool J. |
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| Monster Mash The Misfits (feat. John Cafiero) |
Higher-energy cover of the old halloween classic. Heard at the Gallery X Halloween Fundraise in New Bedford. |
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| ★ ★ ★ ★ | Baby's on Fire Die Antwoord |
Hard not to be fascinated by Die Antwoord and Zef in general... love the big acoustics of this one. On a Spotify List at Miller's Jack-O-Lantern Carving. |
| ★ ★ ★ ★ | Sofisticated Stereo MC's |
Could do without the "I patted your behind / And ya givin' me aggro" but overall this song has a great sound. Not sure where but I think it's been on a Best of Booty compilation. |
2018.11.02
- Love You So (Bleu) Honestly I think I heard this in like an E-bay commercial, but I love it, from its sound to its lyrics: like some smart woman once said, "Relationship = hamster. If you dissect it to see if there are any anomalies... you'll know for sure, but you won't have a hamster anymore."
- Afterglow (Wilkinson) Really really charming relationship video...
- The Purge (Hopsin) Love this hiphop flow - and a haunting video...
- Long Way to Texas (Mountain Soul) Song from a local group I sat in with "It's a long way to Texas, a long long way to Texas - but I'm hea-a-a-a-a-d-ing - I'm heading to Vermont!"
- So What (Studio Sequence 1) (Miles Davis) I've been really into the philosophy of So What lately, but wasn't sure I wanted the whole long jazz track on my playlist - this studio sequence is interesting, you hear a lot of audio engineer Fred Plaut, one of those side characters who are also an artist in their own right.
- Piece of My Heart (Erma Franklin) The original was cleaner and more motown than Joplins, by Aretha's older sister.
- Bad Luck (Neko Case) Melissa and I are going to see her soon, don't know much about her stuff, but this song was made after her house burned down....
- Where You Are (Cali Swag District) Found this on a Youtube playlist of Lyric Videos, a genre I find interesting. Nice Jackson-5 vibe.
- Something Different (Katastrophe) Song by a transman, seen on "The L Word"
- You're standing on my neck (Splendora) Hey remember Daria?
- I've Got Money (James Brown & The Famous Flames) Questlove mentions Clayton Fillyau's drumming on this James Brown B-side...
- R.E.D. (feat. Yasiin Bey, Narcy & Black Bear) (A Tribe Called Red) I always love this group's use of traditional indigenous people sounds, kind of meh about the rappers in this one.
- I'd Rather Go Blind (Single Version) (Etta James) Soulful
- Monster Mash (Bobby "Boris" Pickett & The Crypt-Kickers) JP Honk plays this every halloween...
- Cocaine (J.J. Cale) Old groove, I remember being scandalized by this song in the 80s.
- You Don't Know My Heart (Janis Ian) Early gentle LGTBQ song, mentioned in a Spider Robinson short story.
- Splish Splash (Bobby Darin) More retro fun.
- Cissy Strut (The Meters) Another song that keeps popping up in bands I'm in
- Backtail Was Heavy (Lone) Drum and Bass or some such
- Chica Chica Boom Chic (Carmen Miranda) This song hows up in "Shape of Water"
- John Henry (Woody Guthrie) Americana
ZeFrank's Guide to post-Halloween Candy Trading:
I'd like to see an Epic Rap Battle of Brownie the Elf (short-lived mascot of the Cleveland Browns) and the Celtics' Lucky the Leprechaun but it seems kind of unfair from the outset.
2017.11.02
One of the most bittersweet feelings has to be when you realise how much you're going to miss a moment, while you're still living it.
On FB my friend Josh wrote "I brought in a big bag of assorted minis to work last week. This remainder says something..."
My response was "I can't believe they got rid of the other 2 flavors but kept the name. THIS IS MORE LIKE ONE MUSKETEER PEOPLE".
His friend Frederick wrote "'Flavors'?!? 3 Musketeers? Talk sense, man!"
My response was this Wikipedia citation and "READ IT AND WEEP - YES WEEP FOR YOUR LOST HISTORY, THAT ONE TIME DREAM OF NEAPOLITAN ICE CREAM IN DELICIOUS CANDY BAR FORM, ANOTHER CASUALTY OF THAT BRUTAL HELL-GOD "WAR", DESPAIR AND PONDER ON THOSE SADDEST OF WORDS 'WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN'..."
Originally, it had three pieces in one package, flavored chocolate, strawberry and vanilla;[1] hence the name, which was derived from the novel The Three Musketeers. Rising costs and wartime restrictions on sugar saw the phasing out of the vanilla and strawberry pieces to leave only the more popular chocolate.[2]
2016.11.02
- Talk To Me (Run The Jewels) Man are the guys intense. Impressed how Adult Swim is releasing this stuff.
- Ha Ha Ha Ha (Yeah) (White Denim) Nice R+B tip.
- Puma (Andrew Bird). This was on Public Radio; light pop feel to a serious subject, when you have to be isolated because of thyroid surgery stuff...
- GRAB'm by the PU$$Y (will.i.am ft Apl.de.ap and Liane V) Best election season song. So funny when they break the structure of the song to have Black Trump talks over his opponent.
- A Cimma (La Fanfare Invisible) I made my own mp3 from this video, of this band from Paris I marched with HONK! weekend - a few days earlier at a joint parade we stopped at a funeral, and they played this song. It has such big emotion for me, the seen of the new widow dancing with a relative on their porch... this song complements it perfectly.
- Waiting for My Real Life to Begin (Colin Hay) Another deep song, from "Scrubs"
- Whirled Beat (WashingMachineDrummerKid) Another mp3 I made - kids got rhythm! I just love the sound of it.
- Right On (feat. Ms. Charm Taylor) (Galactic) More great funk.
- One Step Beyond (Madness) Someone propose JP Honk cover this. Took me a while to reassure myself the it's "The Nutsiest Sound Around" and not the "Nazi-est"
- Raw (San Holo) Also had to look lyrics up, I guess it's "We Can Feel Us". Not sure if it's meant to sound like "We Can Feel Loss" as well.
- Todo Mi Vida (Pueblo Cafe) More latino hiphop from the end of "Silicon Valley". With tuba!
- Wolverine: Adamantium Rage Boss 2 Tri-Fusion A friend said this predates a certain musical genre. The version I ripped from youtube much better than the "8 bit arcade" version I paid for.
- A cimma (Fabrizio De Andrè) The original of that song I mentioned above. This page translates and explains it.
- Prince Ali (Nick Santa Maria and The Ensemble of Aladdin). Realized I wanted this song, it's fun to sing. Bummed this version says it "swords" and not "swo-ords"
- Carioca (Jonathan & Darlene Edwards) A kind of parody song used for the credits for "Kentucky Fried Movie". Love the "It has a met-- it has a meter that is tricky"
- Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho (Mahalia Jackson) Thinking about suggesting this for my honk band.
- Hallelujah (John Cale) Got this version from scrubs but I guess some people know it from Shrek.
- They'll Know We Are Christians (Star Lake Music Camp) I had this version on a tape, from Salvation Army's Star Lake Music Camp 1991 - I lost the tape but my friend Eric Dinah had a copy he ripped for me. The minimalist beat and piano has always stuck with me, and I think it's an excellent aspiration for Christians.
2015.11.02
Subtlety is overrated. But it's easy to mix up with detail, which I dig.
I will vote for whatever brave democrat ends the terrible scourge of 'The Best of Car Talk.'
2014.11.02
ONE two three four...OK, on to the list, in super-rough descending order of awesomeness.
and you hit on the one ya know? ONE -- -- -- ONE.
And then you would try to fit your different notes, what you felt, in between that-- And that's the funk.
And you can change that! It's however you feel, but you just have to fit it between that little space that you got, which is ONE, two three four -- ONE two three four... ONE, two three four. And then you go back to your funk!
Here you go! And then you want to break it down. You got your basic funk formula there. You can do anything you want to do with it! Ya know?
- Bang Bang (Jessie J, Ariana Grande & Nicki Minaj) This month's singular 4-star. Has a great sound (and no shortage of bigness on the ONE)
- Scoreboard (Apollos Hester) I love how the Songifiers remixed and plumped the message. It's seriously uplifting.
- Safe and Sound (Capital Cities) This one took a while to grow on me, but as JP Honk played it with the kids from the Conservatory Lab School (getting ready for the Honk parade) I realized it's terrific.
- FUNKNROLL (Prince) It doesn't have a proper video, but that still of Prince with custom sunglasses that also shield his third eye captivates me.
- Lemme Freak (Lil Dicky) Kind of raunchy, and goofy. I adore how he puts super-realistic dialog into hiphop form. Also the little Mario turtle kick SFX.
- 99 Problems (Hugo) It's interesting that he only steals the chorus, but puts his own verses in.
- Cellophane (Sara Jackson-Holman) Sweet little song I heard on "Orange is the New Black".
- Push It (Rude Mechanical Orchestra) Just a great honk-style cover. I wish JP Honk had as much brass and big percussion. (Original MP3 here)
- Thriller (2003 Edit) (Michael Jackson) I think I underestimate Michael Jackson, because he was so popular when I was a kid. JP Honk does a fun cover of this one every hear for Dunster Rd Halloween.
- Creep (Diego Luna & Gustavo Santaolalla) Nice mini-cover from Dia los Muertes-themed "Book of Life"
- Rattlin' Bones (Preservation Hall Jazz Band) A candidate that didn't make it into our Halloween playlist... hope it gets in next year.
- Watermelon Man (Jon Hendricks) A listener said that JP Honk's version of "Watermelon Man" was the first one she liked... and many don't interest me that much, but this one with lyrics caught my fancy. Wish I knew why "Save the rind for cucumbers" got such a chuckle from the audience.
- Pencil Neck Geek (Freddie Blassie) A Dr. Demento staple from my childhood. This particular video adds in some weird, framebreaking playacting at the end where Blassie realizes the engineer is also a Pencil Neck Geek. Violence ensues!
- Game of Thrones Theme - WesteOrn Cover (Bendan) It makes good cowboy music.
- Look-Ka Py Py (The Meters) My lack of excitement about these guys (even more so on their Cissy Strut) is what got me thinking about how important the downbeat is for me digging any particular song... these guys are funky, but they ain't rooted on the One.
- Hola (Snow tha Product) Dumb-ish hiphop, but fun. (On the playlist this one trainer who runs a weekly exercise class at my work uses)
- I Don't Give a Fuck (Boss) "Orange is the New Black" uses this to punctuate spurned "Crazy Eyes" peeing on the main character's cell floor.
- Funny Walk in Old Fashion - Mori no Blend Mix (Fuzita Blender ) Odd song I got from tumblr or twitter or something. EB says it causes him physical pain.
Jeez, was wondering why I am up at six. Having devices that are better at remembering the time change than I am is weird. Wish we had daylight savings all year long- Boston is too easterly to have Standard Time make sense.
100 Pumpkins vs a Snowblower At first I thought this was, like, a horror film for pumpkins. But then I remembered what macabre things are done to them, by individuals but on a semi-industrial scale, to make Jack-O-Lanterns-- every fall is a horror movie for them!
If the election goes as badly for the democrats as some fear, I'm kind of hoping to draw a metaphor with climate change; this winter's gonna suck, but that doesn't mean the climate isn't getting warmer. (I realize I just compared the democrats to global warming, but I mean in a good way)
2013.11.02
- Time Just Gets Away From Us (feat. Rachel K Collier) (Lung) Nice bit of softer electronica.
- Rill Rill (Sleigh Bells) Always dig their use of female vocals and big sounding percussion.
- California (Mazzy Star) Mazzy Star's return, hardly a thing has changed but it's dark and lovely.
- Young and Beautiful (Lana Del Rey) Guess this is 4 "female vocal centric tracks" in a row.
- Bassheads (Gangrene) A little bummed that I didn't find more new good stuff on the GTA 5 soundtrack, but this bit of hiphop is fun.
- The Agency Heist (GTA5 Soundtrack) On the other hand, this original, 70s-tinged hiest music, with its giant hornfall, was great.
- John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt (Wee Sing) Had an urge to have this old childhood classic. Umm, the version I settled on has a better bassline than this one.
- Wonderlust King (Gogol Bordello) Shout-y folk.
- Kashmir (Bond) For some reason Led Zep's Kashmir kept coming up this month. I like this string over of it, in part because it's shorter than the original.
- I'll Be Mellow When I'm Dead ("Weird Al" Yankovic) I ended up periodically grabbing songs from the first album I bought on my own, Weird Al's first release. I always like the existential stance of this one.
- Gone (Featuring Consequence & Cam'ron) (Kanye West) This "I Quit" video was making the rounds, and brought an 8 year old song back to the charts. I could watch her dance for hours. Also, I like the note of sadness in the original song.
- Nosey Joe (The Brian Setzer Orchestra) Heard this before the HONK! Parade. Like a lot of that 90s swing revival stuff, it's catchy but maybe a little too "clean".
- Rhubarb and Custard (Taxman Remix) (Zen) Rhubarb and Custard is a flavor combo for candy in the UK. Researching it I found out about this raver favorite.
- Wicked Games (feat. Anna Naklab) [Radio Edit] (Parra for Cuva) Lovely, haunting cover. Odd little high pitched noise they use; surprised it's not more annoying.
- ZOMOFG The REAL Harlem Shake Remix (ZOMOFG) The Problematics Of The Fake Harlem Shake introduced me to this video showing the real deal. That said, I still kind of like the surreal co-opting version.
- Hurt (Johnny Cash) On the flight back from the UK, I had the misfortune of watching "The Hangover 3" and it reminded me of this cover, from just before I started getting MP3s of songs I liked.
- Mr. Brightside (The Killers) This clip from "The Call Centre" had an oddball pushy boss make his new recruits karaoke to this (because "Happy People Sell, Miserable Bastards Don't")
- Crazy In Love (The Puppini Sisters) A friends dance class video introduced me to this cover, I like it better than the one in "The Great Gatsby"
2012.11.02
Ancestor worship must be an appealing idea to those who are about to become ancestors.
first doodle on my mini ipad
2011.11.02
I think it's a good idea, but it is possible to get too wrapped up in a doodle that you lose focus on the other stuff.
In the FWIW, videogames division, Zaxxon's Motherbase 2000 looks a lot worse than, you know, Zaxxon.
Trying Gmail's new look- looks like something I'd come up with, not nec. in a good way. Also, way too much padding if window is wide (>1024px)
Good Guy Lucifer, a little Sympathy for the Devil... (a riff on Good Guy Greg)
So is it wannabe designer blasphemy to thing that while choice of font matters, arial vs helvetica just doesn't?
Gmail redesign shows G. is in microsoft's "authentically digital" world. Apple's skeuomorphic overload might be Jobs' need for "more texture" - maybe I see where Apple is coming from-- Gmail is kinda cold. Those leathery textures might be humanish "hook".
2010.11.02
Congratulations to the Giants on their World Series win, especially coming not too many years after their Super Bowl triumph.
And now the saddest moment of Halloween: blowing out the pumpkin candles, and admitting defeat. November wins. As ever
And I finally gave up the sandals. Sigh. Just too cold on the toes on the bike in the morning.
Voting is so weird. Your individual action is needed but it only matters in aggregate.
http://whatthefuckhasobamadonesofar.com/ -- it's a good reminder vs the "Obama's done nothing" drumbeat, if you try to ignore politics...
2009.11.02
--from a page of stereoviews of old Japan - interesting, by the time I saw it I don't think it had those tropical-looking trees. (The other photos on the stereoview page are probably a bit more interesting though.)
I posted a site using that "wigglegram trick" before, it's a nice way to suggest the old viewmaster style 3Dness.
Speaking of that kind of thing, Crayola has an interesting gimmick I saw when I was looking to buy sidewalk chalk for my "Feynamn Diagram" costume -- at first I thought the gimmick was that the glasses had divergent angles, making everything a bit "wall-eyed" and thus providing a different view of everything, but judging by that page, it must be some prismatic effect that bends certain colors more than others.
http://www.cracked.com/photoshop_3_the-40-most-inappropriate-childrens-book-covers_p40 - a bit risque in parts but made me giggle.
some 'wreckers put my jack-o-lantern wreck to good use.
Habit converts luxurious enjoyments into dull and daily necessities.
Jealousy is a disease, love is a healthy condition. The immature mind often mistakes one for the other, or assumes that the greater the love, the greater the jealousy -- in fact, they're almost incompatible; one emotion hardly leaves room for the other. Both at once can produce unbearable turmoil...Not sure if I buy it or not but it has a nice ring to it.
I'm not sure what the staff just sang at Chili's but I think it might've been "happy happy birthday / you know we're all excited / we'd like to sing the real song / but it might be copyrighted"
2008.11.02
Movie Dialog of the Moment
"You know that point in your life when you realize that the house that you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? All of the sudden even though you have some place where you can put your stuff that idea of home is gone."A bit emo, but a well-stated thought. Via this New Yorker piece on CliffyB, designer of the Gears of War series of videogames (the one that had all the commercial w/ all the running and shooting but with the emo "Mad World" cover
"I still feel at home in my house."
"You'll see when you move out it just sort of happens one day one day and it's just gone. And you can never get it back. It's like you get homesick for a place that doesn't exist. I mean it's like this rite of passage, you know. You won't have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for your kids, for the family you start, it's like a cycle or something. I miss the idea of it. Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people who miss the same imaginary place."
Pointless Video of the Moment
--I just noticed that Youtube exists, which it didn't when I made this "art" piece six and a half(!!!) years ago. I took a video with my camera then, which I can post now.
For another, utterly different video, funny but about as obscene as you can get without showing naughty bits (though I think it is from a TV-14 rated program) click here.
Boston Globe Parade magazine's feature contrasting McCain vs Obama's positions point by point reads a bit like Goofus vs Gallant.
must find... superhuman resolve... make apartment presentable... resist urge to watch football and youtube videos and nap... all afternoon-
2007.11.02
Happy Day of the Dead!
Take the time to engage a bit with your dearly departed.
They live on in this world through you,
so live it up a bit on their behalf!
2006.11.02
think what I need is two closets. One for "just washed" and other for "wearagainable".
While I'm at it, a pair of robot arms that did nothing but accept shirts handed to it, hanging them neatly up in the closet, would be one of the niftier uses of robot technology I can think of. Worlds more useful than those stupid "can bring you a soda, if someone on the kitchen puts one on its little tray" robots that so captivated me in the 80s.
"Erotica" of the Moment
She romped on top of Simolzak's huge frame, straddling him with her hands on his chest, her back arched and her breasts flailing wildly in the air. Her back was to him and her long hair swung from side to side as if accentuating the abandonment of her screams.Do you UNDERSTAND how much momentum you need to have breasts flailing wildly in the air? Man, that's EXUBERANCE!
Politics of the Moment
Republicans are absolutely raising the bar in being lying scumsucking pandering mudslinging misleading asshats this political advertising season.
2005.11.02
I don't know. I can't answer that yet. I'm too busy. I'll have to talk to you later.James Glieck mentioned his phone response to a newspaper editor who tried calling him where he was holed up...Glieck was pointing out how the phone just demands attention, even when we're engaged in a standoff with guns and teargas, though after reading that description of Unruh, I don't think he's representative. (He's also still alive and in an institution...he's one of the first really known cases of post-traumatic stress disorder.)
Doodle of the Moment
 | --Venus Flytrap. I've been playing around with a new cartoon digital art technique, drawing the outline with a thick brush and then using the same tool to "paint" in the color manually. (I made up the "style" while using this Palm Pilot app that didn't have "fill".) I keep thinking I should go back to early kisrael's use of random cartoons...I guess I kind of stopped when I started putting up those dumb t-shirt pix. |
Observation of the Moment
Looking at today's retrospect...man, one year ago today was the presidential election. Seems like longer than that somehow.
S'funny that only now are a lot of people waking up to how bad so much of our national policy has been for the last 5 years. Who knows, maybe if Kerry hadn't been such a limp dishrag.
Essay of the Moment
Slashdot linked to a Slate essay on Star Wars as Postmodern, self-referential art. The central idea is that the Force is a stand-in for the artistic drive; the light side is the more free, muse-driven style, the dark side is the more cold and calculating approach. Interesting idea. (Hmm, though someone on the slashdot discussion points out the argument is severely weakended by how the Jedis are always instructing each other to control their emotions, and the Sith are all about tearing up the place with anger.)
2004.11.02
I'll spare you the "so get out there and vote people!" rhetoric. Hell, barring surprise upsets, I think everyone not in a swing state is half-disenfranchised anyway thanks to the Electoral College. The main reason for a Kerry backer to vote in Massachusetts is so the Republicans don't pull any fast ones, and also so that the overall popular vote gets tabulated, not that it matters.
Cultural Insensitivity of the Moment
At the risk of sounding antisemitic and generally insensitive to the religous beliefs of other cultures, I still want to say that Sabbath mode on fridges and stoves for Orthodox Jews still strike me as a rather worldview.
Alarming Story of the Moment
A boingboingn story on a Santa Clara voting machine saying
Awesome. Faulty technology is screwing with our democracy. Not as badly as the whole electoral college crap, but still. BoingBoing has another story on how hard it is to do a paper ballot there.Vote Save Error #9
Use The Backup Voting Procedure
Quote of the Moment
I don't think Osama bin Laden sent those planes to attack us because he hated our freedom. I think he did it because of our support for Israel, our ties with the Saudi family and our military bases in Saudi Arabia.I gotta say, that "hates freedom" line was always the lamest kind of thinking. Jihadists might resent our social freedoms, but then again our own religious fundies aren't crazy about them anyway.
You know why I think that? Because that's what he fucking said!
Are we a nation of 6-year-olds?
Article of the Moment
Too late to make a difference in the electin, the Nation presents 100 Facts and 1 Opinion about the Bush administration.
2003.11.02
i eat my peas with honeyI was bugging some of my AIM buddies with this. Few of them thought my twist of an old rhyme was as amusing as I apparently did.
i've done it all my life
it makes the peas taste funny
but...uh...well...
I have this kind of fetish thing about legumes dipped in sticky substances
Images of the Moment
Blurred up enough to not be very stimulating, some guy put all the playboy centerfolds together into 4 lumpy images, each image is the "mean average" of all the centerfolds from that decade. Worth the 5 seconds or so it takes to get the idea and move on, that's all.
Joke of the Moment
Q: How many people belonging to a certain ethnic group does it take to perform a particular menial activity?
A: A finite positive integer. One to perform the activity, and the rest to behave in a manner stereotypical of their ethnic group!
Shirts of the Moment
I just made a new Blender Digest...and I'm plugging some shirts I'm going to have made. I'm not sure which design we're going to go with yet, but hop on over and let me know if you're interested in getting one of these fine piece of apparel.
2002.11.02
ranjit: i wonder if pong could be made into a real game? using ' - and , for ball, or something, P b and þ for paddles...
kirk: what the hell is that last letter?
ranjit: Icelandic lowercase thorn.
kirk: sounds like the name of an art band
ranjit: heh heh
Link and Ramble of the Moment
Geeks and the Online Aliases they choose. If you're in a hurry, just check out mrcurtain's story or the story of the Dans from crisper's tale.
I've never been big into choosing evocative aliases. Most often I stick with my unix username "kisrael"...for example, this site.
On AIM I use "kirkjerk" (a name that I started using in 1997 on a great online car-race-with-guns Death Rally...it fit the style of that game as well as its 8-character limit.) though I've also used "kirkamundo" and "thegreatkirkini". In videogames now I'll use "kirkles" if there's enough room, or "KRK" if it's just initials(I used to always sign games "Z", which now strikes me as pretentious)..."Kirkles" has a history of its own, in high school, friends would tease me and my then girlfriend Lynn by imagining us murmuring "Oh Lynnie-Poo" "Oh Kirkles". (I was always bummed that that friend Mike "Woodchuck" Witczak ended up with the more pedestrian nickname "Mookie" when he went to college.)
There are many interesting names used on the loveblender, though there I'm just "Kirk, Blender-Keeper". I have to admit I remember people who post good stuff and have an interesting alias more than people who just post good stuff.
2001.11.02
In other news, albeit lame news, I've decided to start working on my backlog of links and quotes, in chronological order rather than the last in, first out method I usually use.
Video of the Moment
Golden Shower Productions (with the domain goldenshower.gs,
never seen a .gs domain before) made a terrific Atari themed music video. So
many cultural references, from the main character's fro to the Matrix (of course) to a plethora of old Atari 2600 games. Plus a nice little techno
tune...check it out.
Mixed Metaphor of the Moment
(although I like to think of it as just Granny letting a couple pompous idiots talk themselves into a hole before she pulls it out from under them)
I'm feeling very distracted today and I'm not quite sure why. It's tough to get much of anything done.
98-11-2
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If penises could walk and talk, the circumcised penis would be a suit and tie, a clean shave and a shoulder-high salute. The intact penis would be a rumpled shirt, a five o'clock shadow and a finger flipping you the bird.
--Debra S. Ollivier
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