The long, bionic arm of Robots Fighting Magazine.
I haven't done this in a while, because honestly... there hasn't been anything interesting. But here's some search strings that lead to Robots Fighting or The Machine's Still On.
-Slipknot Orange Jumpsuit
-Pictures of People Physically Fighting Each Other
-The Erotic Accordion
-60 Dollars Robot
We are your source for all of these things and more.
I am finding myself believing very strongly in this idea, that any government that commits genocide should be deemed by the international community as commiting an act of war against global society.
Eventually, if the world can hang onto its gonads, the fuckers will learn that they're not going to get anywhere by slaughtering our fellow citizens.
That we sit around feigning blindness to mass killings is abhorrent. It should be a given that any leader who abuses his power will be taken from it by the entire civilized world. And it should be made explicit what is going on, to leave no question to the people of any region that those in power over them (elected or by force) have committed the single act that the world will not stand by to. Say it like that; let there be no argument.
The second part of this is that the UN should have a substantial branch devoted to nation-building whether post-war or no-war. Specialists should be brought into (or called upon by) wavering nations to assist in the planning and establishment of a solid economy and government. If a military attack is the House of Representatives, with the biggest guns bringing their biggest guns, nation-building should be the Senate, with equal participation by all members. This is the most crucial step to cutting off oppressive regimes: eliminating the desperation that allows for them.
Iraq is important to this in its effect. If the war and nation-building is successful, we bring strength to a global battle for human rights. It is a strength that could effectively stop the need for an attack; we are already seeing this in our dealings with certain nations, we will see it more if we can complete our goals.
(Honestly, if John Kerry is going to be the one to best finish that effort, give him the presidency. But, I want to know that he's going to be able to overcome Bush's shortcomings. Open the can or keep it on the shelf, John Kerry.)
The most important thing in this type of policy, though, is universal support for it. Can you get that? I dunno. How many countries celebrate Memorial Day?
(links from Instapundit)
Sorry about the lack of posts this week; I've been spending some good time with friends and haven't had the oppurtunity to sit and type up everything I've been wanting to fill this space with.
Also, tremendous apologies to Chicago Blogs individuals. Again, I haven't had time to figure out how to get a links section working in this site's new layout template.
I'm finishing up the first season of American Ninja Underground and will post the entire final Act in about a week. I like what ANU has become, but it's very different from the direction I had originally envisioned it going. Really, it's become an action version of my short-lived newspaper strip "In Pictorium", the problem being that my long-term interest in the ANU world was dependent on the human story I wanted to tell - not something IP was built to do. As I've said before, I have a plan to drastically change the presentation of the comic and I feel it will create a better environment for the type of thing I want ANU to be as it matures.
Before that, I'll be playing with a series tentatively called Alternate Realities, which will be a sort of freak show of classic superheroes living very different lives. Homeless Wolverine will be a regular.
Also news to everyone except myself... Realtime Record Reviews will be launching by the end of June. This'll be one of those side-projects I promised back at the point that I brokedown the old RF structure.
I'm anticipating an expansive update of Dogmi as well.
And "Tom Waits Sings the Hits"... ...you'll just have to wait to hear about that, though.
Yes, it will hopefully all come together soon.
Bad news for Cubs fans.
Kerry Wood will have a bone scan performed today after shutting down a throwing session yesterday after eight pitches.
This after he shut down a throwing session last week after nine pitches.
The bad news (or worse news) is this will not be a short-term thing. Going by what I have observed with this injury and other like it, Wood may be done for the season. At the very least, I would expect him to be out for two months or so. With the way the Cubs have tried to cover up their players' injuries this year, the news shouldn't come as much of a surprise. Wood's injury will be a long-term thing. Mark my words.
Without Wood, the Cubs are still dangerous. When Mark Prior returns, a top end of the rotation of Prior/Clement/Zambrano is still one most teams would love to have. Maddux as a #4 isn't the worst thing in the world either. But judging by the way Prior and Wood have succumbed to injuries this year after being abused like a rented mule last year by Dusty Baker, it wouldn't surprise me to see Zambrano miss some time this year as well.
Are Cubs fans happy Baker left Wood in for 131 pitches the second week of the season to try to get him a complete game victory? That's the game Wood was ejected from for arguing balls and strike in the ninth. While that alone may not have caused an injury, it's still a great example of how Baker treats his pitchers.
It's OK though. The White Sox are in first place and are playing tomorrow night at home. Half-price night. Just take the red line in the opposite direction. You can't miss it.
O Wait. It is.
Edited by underground comic lord Chris Ware, McSweeney's 13 promises a treasure trove of other alternative artistry from all the majors, Daniel Clowes, Joe Sacco, Richard Sala, Charles Burns, Adrian Tomine, Joe Matt, Art Spiegelman, Crumb, Seth, Kaz... with late sketches from Charles Schulz and George Herriman. The list is a remarkable roster of heavy-hitting Raw alums and a nice cross section of talent across the alternative comics realm.
The volume is exquisite, and there's really few other words to describe it. It's got all the quirky attention to detail that people love in both Chris Ware and McSweeney's. The hardcover volume, reminiscent of the Acme Novelty Datebook, is wrapped in a funny-pages-of-yore mock-up of Chris Ware "round guy" comics (its reverse side is the contributor list). Hidden within the folds of the paper are a pair of mini-comics, rounding out a full representation of underground comics formats.
So, that's why I was ecstatic as I left Chicago Comics with the heavy volume at my side. And maybe I had gotten my hopes up, I'll give you that but...
Blegh.
The volume is certainly nice, and anyone who doesn't frequent the work of the artists I've listed above will probably find it rewarding. It's also a great collector's piece... your grandkids (or grandkids' grandkids for those not in my personal demographic) will look at it and yearn for the days when art was on paper.
The most upsetting thing is that the volume is for the most part, excerpts from recent longer works. Sacco's piece is from his tremendous The Fixer released last fall, Tomine brings his latest Optic Nerve to the table, Art Spiegelman reiterates the mess that is "In the Shadow of No Towers", Ware's work will be no stranger to those who read the regular Acme Novelty series in alt-weeklies, and it continues to the point that you're startled when you see somethign without the words "excerpt from" in front of it. Bless Jeffrey Brown for his unpublished pile of sketchbooks that are always releasing fresh pieces. If this wasn't comics... if this was, for instance, an anthology of "short stories", this thing would be torn apart for what it's trying to present itself as. There is little new here for those that would be most interested in it. I'd think McSweeney's would have the clout to get some original or rare work from this line-up. I'd be wrong.
After a liberal selection of occupational possibilities ranging from "Writing and Editing" to "Women's Studies", non-profit-centric Idealist.org had the following exciting news to tell me:
My Chipotle is back to normal. Pax Romaine!
Brood X, the largest army of Cicadas, is on its way up. Stupid, stupid bugs. The East is already dealing with swarms of the idiot insects, and David Letterman points out that Brood X has only shown their beady, red eyes when Republicans have been President.
Book criticism at The Atlantic is awesome; more an article in response than a traditional review. Kristi(n) sends me this piece on Andrew Horton's Screenwriting for a Global Market. Good stuff.
Blog archives are functional again. Thank you for your patience.
An interesting piece from Reason Online that tries to decipher the point where hairs are split when comparing our preemptive entry into Kosovo and the same into Iraq.
Thanks to InstaPundit for the link.
Remember the golden days of puzzle games? Nintendo threw every mixture of colored blocks they could at us and we let it all build up until we got the really long straight piece and then... everything disappeared. I mean, there was a point when the characters from Street Fighter had their own puzzle game, when you'd have a couple editions of Bust-A-Move a year (there have been at least 26 iterations since the game debuted in 1993), when people shared their Tetris high scores over a bottle of wine...
Tetris is still a friggin great game, and I still haven't gotten the space shuttle to launch in the regular mode...
Snood - which you might consider a Bust-A-Move clone - hit the nation's universities for a while, and ultimately turned from shareware into a full console release... But it was ugly as sin.
What would happen if someone made a simple, interesting, new puzzle game that utilized the 3d processing of even base-level PCs - or at least took some advantage of the tremendous color depth of contemporary displays?
Probably, the gorgeous Zuma. The rule set is basic, the construction is elegant, and the result is a game that demands creativity and coordination. Colored balls slowly roll down a winding track towards a consuming hole. Your goal is to stop them, often by stringing palindrome combos so stunning that they temporarily reverse gravity's downward pull.
It's not going to be a phenom (not because of any fault of the game), but if your heart is ever warmed thinking about the proper techniques for placing a z-block or the time you thread the needle to topple three-quarters of a Snood board... Reawaken that slumbering puzzle gamer and try out Zuma.
Frequent readers of this blog will recall our previous reporting that trendy burrito-for-white-people place Chipotle changed their salsas for "more freshness". I've been shocked the past few days to discover that Romaine lettuce may be going the way of Ye Ole Green Chili Salsa.
Lettuce has always been a tangential ingredient at Chipotle; at both the stores I frequent, you will be asked if you want every ingredient short of the lettuce. I'll admit I don't get asked about the guacamole all that often, but it's a lot more often than lettuce. So, it comes as no surprise that Romaine takes the hit, but I'm in mourning nevertheless.
The last tin in the line at my current Chipotle is now filled with Iceberg, so-called and so-identified due to its pale color. Apparently, I will use more nutrients eating Iceberg than I will gain from it. And I am currently paying almost a dollar more for a Chipotle burrito now than when they came with Romain lettuce and Green Greatest-Salsa-of-All-Time Chili Salsa.
*sigh
Edit: Must have been an emergency thing. We're back to Romaine. Woot.
In order to provide a more efficient blog that will take advantage of a number of the new components of Blogger, TMSO will be going through a design change. This may effect some things negatively in the short term, but over time these issues will be resolved and you should find the new setup to be much friendlier in your (and our) usage of the blog.
The basic setup will probably remain the same from the time I post this, but you will see some drastic changes in the visual appearance of the blog as I modify the template in the next few days.
Here is your update list:
-Permalinks : You can now link specific posts to send to friends via e-mail or posting on your own blog / website.
-Monthly Archives : As a result of permalinks, I've decided to archive monthly instead of weekly; this will allow the archives to be integrated into the blog's main page.
-Integrated Comments : Comments are no longer a plug-in, which means comments will be stored in the archives and should be easier to use.
-Photos!!! : Thanks to the new design, you'll be seeing photos and artwork posted in the blog regularly.
-Better XML Support : We are settling what is essentially a stylesheet for posts so that those using news feeder programs will see a cleaner presentation of posts.
NO MO MILES
I first heard about the overestimated efficiency of hybrid cars from Kristi after she attended a lecture on "green" products at the Field Museum. Apparently, the cars use a similar amount of fuel as regular cars across for the first few miles of driving.
But, Wired reports that even the long trip fuel efficiency is bogus. Consumers have found the cars, which were reported to get nearly 50 miles per gallon, seldom top 30 miles per gallon.
30!!!
The Toyota Prius is on the high end at a still disappointing 35, while the Honda Civic Hybrid gets only 26!
For comparison purposes, the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) for passenger cars is 27.5 mpg; it is 20.7 mpg for light trucks (SUVs, etc).
The problem - and you can read about this in the Wired article - is that the EPA standards measure waste substances from fuel consumption not the actual use of fuel. I'm no physicist nor automotive expert, so I can't tell you why that throws off the tests for hybrids... but needless to say, it apparently does.
Saw Okkervil River (aka Coner Oberst With a Soul) at Schuba's on Saturday night. I can't say enough about this band, but that's not going to keep me from trying.
Seeing a band that's emotionally involved in their music at a live show after months of their being on the road is exhilirating, and that's what the Okkervils provided to an - to be polite - eclectic post-midnight crowd. As tired as the image of a rocker breaking crap on stage is, you can't deny that you love seeing it, especially when there's some honesty to it.
The amazing thing about the outbursts of raw musical emotion for the Okkervils is that their music is heady and introspective. The centerpiece of the new album is a song about empathizing with war criminals for instance. Yet there we were, rocking - by the true sense of the word - to the lyric "While you gasp at my bloody crimes, / please take the time / to make your heart my own." And we could feel it; there was nothing ironic about the moment.
This is a band that in another life would be overly pretentious crap; indeed, opener and spin-off project Shearwater pretty much is. But somehow, it works right through a balance of tranquil calms and torrid rapids.
Neal Pollack has got the "rough copy" of Michael Moore's lastest message to his adoring fans.
For those not ambitious enough to click that final link, moveon.org is calling for people to call their local Disney Store to voice their concern.
iTool
iAlso realiZe the iPuns are tiRed
It seems obvious that the major record labels are playing iTunes, and not in the good way. Apple's music service has agreed to hike its prices by 26 cents per song and in many cases seven dollars per album.
The move seems intent to chase iTunes users (i.e. legitimate music downloaders) back into record stores.
In other words, don't believe all the hype; we're far from any kind of distribution revolution.
The Library of Congress is developing a former Cold War bunker (for currency with which to jumpstart the US economy in case of nuclear attack) into a protective storehouse for arts artifacts.
I don't know what use it is, but I like the fact that the LoC is preserving both the spirit (through digital means) and the flesh (the physical recordings) of our cultural heritage.
Someday, Endzone Markers Will Be Mickey Mouse Figurines
But for right now, the bases and pitching mound in all Major League Baseball games will be printed with spider webs to help promote Spiderman 2.
...and there is a resounding "Ugh" from left field.
Overrated
There's a new issue of Chunklet on the prowl. It's the punk rock magazine that hates your favorite band.
In the language of Chappelle's Show (you all speak), it's Keepin' It Real Gone Right.
Your Life Is About To Be Torn Asunder
And it will never be the same.
Right Now
The ACLU is blowing all your money by placing full-page ads in high volume magazines in order to convince more people to send them money to spend on advertising.
The road may never get anywhere, but at least it's paved with gold.
Weekly Challenge : Past Masters and the First Third
The Musical Chairs challenge is still open although it will be closed by the next time I have a day off of work (just two more out of the nine I've had to work left to go).
But here is your new challenge; something much easier and also music related. Everyone can participate with little craft-work, so everyone is encouraged to. The new challenge is called "Past Masters and the First Third."
Part One
Every year we do this thing called the Lost Sock Collections which is an exchanging of mix-cd's featuring each participant's top ten albums of the year. What I find is that a few months later, due in part to the LSC and in part to ambling through record stores, my list would have looked quite different. However, the calendar-year-centered environment we create with "Top Ten of **" lists prevents late-comers from being garnished with attention. The artists still make money off old albums, and the listeners can still enjoy the albums though, so maybe we should give a little more praise to what we missed.
Thus, the first part of this challenge is to name a double-plus good 2003 album(s) that you first heard in 2004.
Part Two
Albums from the early months of any calendar year generally lose ground in annual top-lists due to the added competition, the freshness of that competition and the flaws of human memory. Arguably, a truly great album should be remembered over the course of a year, but is it fair that late-comers don't have to stand up to the same test?
In order to give the underdogs their own place, TMSO issues this simple challenge. Name your favorite 2004 release(s) thus far.
Fulfill your challenge as a comment below or as a separate e-mail and all entries will be put together for a future post.
Wired Notes
Came across a few great quotes from the May issue of Wired.
Cult Life for the Atari 2600 (page 74)
Homestar Runner is getting console game treatment with an RPG-style game for the barbaric Atari 2600. Do you remember when we banged rocks together in order to make Pitfall Harry leap upon crocodile heads? Other people do, and Atari gaming has been making a kitschy comeback because of it. You can purchase joysticks whose bases are bundled with a small museum of these ancestral video games. There is also a blossoming homebrew scene using actual cartridges. And now this. A "commercial" release. Great quote from the Wired write-up on cameos by classic Atari characters, "If it's 8 pixels wide and a single color, it'll be in there."
Fear and Loathing of Information (page 193)
John Poindexter is what Wired refers to as "the Pentagon's Big Brother in chief", a guy trying to organize intelligence so that it can be better used to capture would-be-terrorists. In Wired's interview, Poindexter talks theory about what he is trying to do in broadening intelligence powers. To the statement "Your critics never relented on privacy questions," Poindexter responds...
"Advocacy groups want to stay in business, so it's in their interest to paint a dire picture."
A point I've been becoming increasingly aware of recently... If the problems are solved, the solvers are out of a job. I'll probably post a lot more on this in coming days/months.
The Facts Get Clearer the Further We Get From Them (page 135)
In an article on the MPAA's in-school anti-piracy lesson capsules, the reporter says, "The real point, of course, is to protect Hollywood from the fate of the record industry." What's telling about the quote is how the RIAA's claim (that MP3 swapping has devoured their business) has become a given, despite no clear evidence of its truth (just because the animal has four legs doesn't mean that it's had its business destroyed by peer-to-peer). Is piracy a problem? Sure. Is piracy crippling the RIAA? No. An idiotic business model is. The MPAA continues to strengthen itself despite a dramatic increase in movie piracy as faster connections and more efficient file-sharing progs are released... "Hollywood has seen revenue rise 27 percent in the same four-year period that the recording industry went into free fall." Look at what Hollywood has been offering customers... big, fat collector's editions of even the worst movies on high quality discs. They're reaping what they sow.
