Archive for August, 2006
From The Austin Chronicle:
Idiocracy opens in limited — and very quiet, judging by the lack of a trailer and short notice — release on Sept. 1 in Austin, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Chicago, and Toronto, a spokesperson for 20th Century Fox said. Whether the long-delayed, Austin-shot film will expand to other markets is uncertain.
Jesus, Fox. Grow some balls already. Fucking assholes.
Man, the Minneapolis airport was about 20 times nicer than SFO. In fact, I think it is right up there with Vancouver in terms of top airports that I have ever visited. What’s the common thread, you may ask… that airports must aspire to, in order to gain my favor? Well, I think the main thing is, both MSP and YVR are not constantly “under construction” for as far back as I can remember (I’m looking at you OAK, MDW, SFO) and the variety of food on offer goes beyond “TGI Friday’s XPress” and “Gold Coast Dogs.” Also, it’s all well and good to have a big, cavernous concourse area in the center of your terminal, but the 30 foot ceilings really don’t need to extend *all* the way down to the gate. All the better to amplify the screaming kids with, you know? My only slight annoyance at MSP (well, more of an amusement, actually) was that they have a newstand that is “FOX News Channel” branded. It had 3 overhead TVs playing FNC and the magazine with the most prominent display was “People.” If only it wasn’t past the security checkpoint, it would be a great place to stage some kind of anti-war protest! =)
Got to the airport a bit early tonight and so I decided to splurge and buy the $9.99 WiFi. Fired up the web browser to find out where might be a good place to sit down and wouldn’t you know it, apparently if I would have just sat at Peet’s in the first place, I could have got me some *free* wireless! Of course, I *can’t* sit at Peet’s, because even though it’s in the same terminal, it’s in a different “wing” which uses an entirely different security checkpoint (one, I might add, that was staffed with at least 3 working lanes, as opposed to the 1 working lane in my wing). Anyway, I got through there and got to my gate, where I am now and I thought I’d try putting the network to a little test. The speed is perfectly fine, but I was unable to test out the FTP connection to my server at home because I closed that port on my router before I left. Probably a good idea, but I would have liked to have tried it out. Oh… Also, I had to *drive* to the airport, because the parking lot at my BART station is closed for remodeling, so instead of paying $1 for parking, I’m probably going to end up paying like $30 or $40! OK, so I am downloading a BitTorrent of last night’s Daily Show, since I figured that’s something a chintzy WiFi connection like T-Mobile’s would throttle down. I am getting a pretty respectable 45 k/s as of right now, so that’s nice. I’m sure it would be a bit faster if I could open up the outbound ports. Ah, here’s a nice surprise. Opened up last.fm and it started playing a version of “Me and Jesus Don’t Talk Anymore” by Beulah that I have never heard before. Damn, how many versions of Yoko are out there?
Based on a preliminary look at issue No. 2 of Man Why You Even Got To Do A Thing and an excerpt from the memoirs of Osama bin Laden’s ex-mistress I would put forth the proposition that Mr. B-L might want to submit some prose to Beef’s journal. I would very much enjoy reading columns titled, “What need do you have for a womb?” or “Dance like a Caucasoid girl!” Furthermore, I’d add that the infamous cave-dweller might want to fly E-40 or Sir Mix-a-Lot over to work on putting some beats to his rhymes, such as, “Your ass is too big, show me the front!” or “Hey, black girl!”
You can tell how extreme they are by the camera angle
Published August 23rd, 2006 in Uncategorized. ClosedIt’s a good thing MTV didn’t invite any female and/or Scottish game designers to be a part of their panel at E3 or this shot might have been downright scandalous!
From a recent Reuters article:
Turner Broadcasting is scouring more than 1,500 classic Hanna-Barbera cartoons, including old favorites “Tom and Jerry,” “The Flinstones” and “Scooby-Doo,” to edit out scenes that glamorize smoking.
[…]
Akindele said cartoons would only be modified “where smoking could be deemed to be cool or glamorized,” and that scenes where a villain was featured with a cigarette or cigar would not necessarily be cut.
Okay, first of all that’s blasphemous and whoever is responsible for this bullshit should have an oversized anvil dropped on their head. But for a moment, let’s pretend that the actions of cartoon cats and mice actually *did* have some kind of repercussions in the real world then wouldn’t the absolute god-damn *first* thing that you’d want to do would be to cut out the scenes where the “villain” is smoking? Jeesus, read up on some fucking developmental psychology, y’know?
I came across this great band called The Innocence Mission this week, via last.fm and I have really been enjoying their album, Befriended, for the last few days. It’s one of those albums like Out of Season by Portishead’s Beth Gibbons that is so quiet and minimal that it kind of makes you wonder whether you’re awake or asleep when you listen to it. It also reminded me of a similarly titled album by Bedhead that sort of fits into that category as well. That one is called Beheaded and while the arrangements are a little heavier here, the overall feeling is still pretty dreamy. Finally, I couldn’t very well post all this without mentioning what I consider the all-time classic of this micro-genre, the appropriately titled Chill Out by The KLF. Well, now that I’ve put you to sleep, I will add one more track to slowly wake you back up before eventually shooting you full of crank. It’s Dirge from The Contino Sessions by Death in Vegas, and you might recoginze it from the TV ads for The Black Dahlia.
Beth Gibbons - Mysteries
The Innocence Mission - Tomorrow On The Runway
Bedhead - Losing Memories
The KLF - Madrugada Eterna
Death in Vegas - Dirge
Ripping off other people’s shit is nothing new, but I have found several new-ish links on the subject lately. Here’s one about Bacardi borrowing a clever performance art piece to help make their image a bit more rebellious (though not as much so as that devil-may-care iconoclast, Captain Morgan, it would seem!) And here is an ongoing blog that documents Urban Outfitters’ (among a few others) attempts to get some design work done without having to deal with all those damn, dirty designers! Way to go guys… Keep pumping out the hits, and they’ll keep re-pumping them!
Reading this excerpt from Robert Hughes’s memoir, Things I Didn’t Know, reminded me of a line from Michel Houellebecq’s The Possibility of an Island that I had also come across recently:
If the fluidification of forms of behavior required by a developed economy was incompatible with a normative catalog of restrained conduct, it was, however, perfectly suited to a perpetual celebration of the will and the ego.
And while on one level it’s like, “Well… Duh!” I guess the word I’m curious about in there is “required.” I mean… Is it?
