Published February 25th, 2005
in Uncategorized.
Why are animators so bitter and/or crotchety? (Yes, I know this is a broad and wildly unfounded generalization, but bear with me…) Is it because they’ve been Rejected so many times? Or maybe it’s just because bitterness and rejection are amusing topics. I mean, is it all just false advertising or do they really think that it’s some kind of contest? You’d think that things would get a bit sunnier as these guys get older, but no! Anyway, it seems like as long as there are new ways to offend animators, there will be plenty of animators to be offended.
In preparation for “The Oscars,” the National Film Boards of Canada, have made the film Ryan [ High-res | Low-res ] available on the internet, for your viewing pleasure. Ryan is up for the Best Animated Short this year, and it’s the autobiographical story of a troubled animator who tracks down and interviews his hero, Ryan Larkin, a troubled animator who was nominated for an Oscar in 1968 for his short, Walking. Since his nomination and subsequent, brief fame, Larkin has been plagued by depression and drug addiction, and ended up panhandling on the streets of Montreal. Surprisingly enough, he comes off as kind of bitter in the film.
Published February 24th, 2005
in Uncategorized.
I read a glowing review of the new album by Patrick Wolf today on NME.COM and I was pleased to find that they had made a preview of the entire album available in RealAudio format. After a bit of dicking aroung with my browser to make their embedded audio player work properly, I started listening to the album and I’ve got to say, it’s damn stunning! Wolf was trained as a violinist, and his work with that instrument is all over the album. (He’s also a fan of the ukelele and theremin). Written in a seaside shack in Cornwall the entire album is beautifully arranged, recalling the best moments of The Arcade Fire’s debut, as well as his Tomlab label-mates, The Books. At any rate, I’ve said enough about this. You really need to hear it for yourself. And in order to make that as easy as possible, I’ve improved upon the original NME.COM presentation of the RealAudio tracks by creating this SMIL presentation (which should work on any computer with a recent version of Real Player installed). I was inspired to create this by a note on Patrick’s site wherein he complains that MP3 downloading (in addition to impacting sales) often leads listeners to experience an album incompltely or out of order. Well, so do poorly embedded RealAudio players that require listeners to click “Next” at the end of each track and won’t allow simple controls like “Pause” or “Volume,” but I digress. And anyway, you won’t have to deal with any of that BS with my SMIL link to the album. Do think about picking up a copy if you enjoy it though; I’m sure the RealAudio source files won’t be posted up forever!
(Oh, and if you’ll permit me one more digression, it’s this: Did you know that if you download RealPlayer from bbc.co.uk it comes without all the annoying “ad-ware” and related crap that usually gets bundled with it?)
Published February 22nd, 2005
in Uncategorized.
Eels are coming back this spring with a new, 33-track double album. If this news doesn’t brighten the corners of your February morning then Mister, you just haven’t listened to enough Eels! If that’s the case, then you can begin to remedy that problem by previewing a few tracks from the forthcoming Blinking Lights and Other Revelations. Alternately, you can go to the opposite extreme and listen to a song from one of Mr. E’s very first albums about a lonely, old river that’s probably a bit deeper these days than it should be. Or just read about E’s dog, it’s totally up to you.
Published February 17th, 2005
in Uncategorized.
Attention parents: Microsoft would like to share a few words with you about the odd combinations of letters, numbers and punctuation marks that you may encounter when reading your children’s email and IM logs. It would seem that there is this thing called “the leet-speak” (don’t worry if that term makes no sense, it’s all explained in the article!!) that allows kids to carry on entire conversations about sex, drugs and software piracy right underneath your virtual nose. This phenomenon has been evolving (or, was created by God, if you prefer) for some time now and has shown no signs of retreat. MSNBC correspondant Bob Sullivan (or g0@t33s3cx33, as he is known online) cites the following statistic in a recent report:
While 61 percent of parents said they issued rules about Net use, only 37 percent of teen-agers said they were subjected to Net time restrictions.
Are you as not shocked as I am?! Well luckily there’s something that can be done about it. Parents who wish to continue focusing on the symptoms of the problem, instead of the root cause, are advised to commit this list of acronyms to memory and to avoid direct discussion of the following topics: Sex, Drugs, and Software Piracy. When reached for comment on the issue, the Digital Security industry urged parents to continue the use of easily defeated monitoring and content-filtering programs, so as to encourage a “healthy disrespect” for such technologies in teens and young adults.
Published February 15th, 2005
in Uncategorized.
You can read as little or as much of this as you want, but let me just warn you that it’s pretty darn compelling.
