July 2009
37 posts
4 tags
Jul 30th
Seattle hits 103 -- Welcome to the hottest day... →
Awwww yeah. Not incidentally, I have discovered the best cold food ever: semi-frozen green seedless grapes. Seriously, buy a bag, throw it in the freezer for three hours, then pop them in your mouth like frozen fruity bon bons. Amazingly scrumptious.
Jul 30th
2 tags
Cushionator 5000
Small Beer Press is on an unstoppable roll. This independent publishing company, founded by writers Kelly Link and Gavin J Grant, endeavors to find writers who are on the margins of fiction, fantasy, sci-fi and the unclassifiable. They succeed admirably, and the end result is a constant flow of unique, marvellous books from their stable. Take the 2008 debut novel by Portland, OR author, Benjamin...
Jul 29th
1 tag
“Tuesday, July 28, Sunny, 93° Wednesday, July 29, Sunny, 93° Thursday, July 30,...”
– Seattle, http://www.weather.com
Jul 28th
4 tags
WatchWatch
Conan should voice all of Ghost in the Shell. Because, quite honestly, this is amazing.
Jul 27th
2 tags
Alien music in the clouds!
While I had only just heard of it recently, SoundCloud is a neat new online service where you can host your original music online and it is extremely easy to share. The whole thing is linked up social network-style, so people can keep up to date with what people they’re following are releasing. The best thing about it to me is that it shows the exact wave-form in the player, making it very...
Jul 26th
3 tags
“…if I can get on my soapbox a little bit, game scores I think have gotten...”
– Bear McCreary in an interview with OSV
Jul 25th
3 tags
Palin's Resignation: The Edited Version |... →
Vanity Fair’s editors take a red (and green and blue) pen to Sarah Palin’s resignation speech, trying—in vain—to make it comprehensible.
Jul 25th
1 tag
"Today I Die" - A Game by Daniel Benmergui →
A short, simple game about turning death into life, or rather, changing things a little bit at a time. See if you can figure it out.
Jul 24th
2 tags
An Embarrassment of Riches - Dear Seattle: Please... →
Remember a little while ago when I wrote about the ice cream wars in Seattle? And how there were, uh, quite a lot of choices for dessert in this city? The Stranger’s food critic begs entrepreneurs to quit it with the gelaterias, cupcakeries, bakeries, ice creameries and candyopoli.
Jul 23rd
2 tags
More Craigslist befuddlement →
Dog Swim Coach/Enthusiast I really didn’t think that the headline could possibly mean what I thought it meant. But, it does. “We will train you on how to teach dogs to safely enter and exit the pool, how to swim (if needed) motivate and support those who might be reluctant…” Qualifications for this job include having “the strength to work with large dogs in a very...
Jul 20th
1 note
2 tags
Plays piano/speaks Chinese/clerical
This could be an ongoing series on befuddling craigslist job openings. Like, can you tell what kind of job this is for? “Plays piano/speaks Chinese/clerical                                                           Must play piano at a medium to high level. Must be fluent in Chinese and English. You will need to work weekends. Saturday and Sunday. This is a full time position for at...
Jul 20th
1 note
3 tags
WatchWatch
Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet Trailer It’s hard to believe this is a game, and not just incredible 2d animation.  Soundtrack by Dimmu Borgir?  Hell yes, this is going to be epic!
Jul 19th
1 tag
Jul 18th
5 tags
Original 'Futurama' Voices to be Recast? →
What? No! What? No!! WHAT?! NO!!!!
Jul 17th
1 tag
Jul 15th
4 tags
Jul 15th
4 tags
Jul 14th
2 tags
Bollypunk and Badmashes
I ran through the 599 pages of Ian McDonald’s River of Gods as if the entire Hindu pantheon were hot on my heels. Compulsively readable, bursting with literary acrobatics, McDonald’s hefty hardcover plunges the reader into the meticulously crafted world of India, year 2047. India, however, doesn’t exist anymore. Imagined as a fractured patchwork of nation-states, the state of...
Jul 14th
4 tags
Jul 12th
Jul 12th
2 tags
ListenCavernous ©2009 Leif Chappelle This week has...
Jul 12th
4 tags
To Another World and Back
It’s halfway through 2009, and I think by now it is a given that the gaming community as a whole has a soft spot for Nobuo Uematsu and his 22 years of notable compositions. Ever since 1989’s Symphonic Suite in fact, there have been concerts held of his music. Children in Japan’s elementary schools learn Theme of Love from Final Fantasy IV as part of their standard repertoire....
Jul 11th
2 tags
Jul 11th
4 tags
Jul 11th
Unscientific America and those awful atheists :... →
Excellent article reaffirming the place of science in our world. In order to be what it is, though, science must live. It’s a process carried out by human beings, and it can’t be gagged and enslaved and shackled to a narrow goal, one that doesn’t rock the boat. Imagine they’d written a book that tried to tell artists that they shouldn’t challenge the culture;...
Jul 11th
3 tags
Tracing Roots Fostered by War, Severed by Shame --... →
“The so-called enfants de Boches — roughly, children of the Huns — born during the war to French women and German soldiers, are seeking to fill a hole in their lives, hunting for long-lost German fathers they never knew and speaking openly of the maltreatment they suffered from their French neighbors. It is estimated that 200,000 children were born of these wartime love affairs. Photos of...
Jul 10th
3 tags
Jul 8th
1 note
1 tag
Listen“The Bleeding Heart Show” by The...
Jul 8th
2 tags
Jul 7th
4 notes
3 tags
Little Robot in the Big City
Adventure games were once a staple of the PC gaming scene. For me, actually, it was the solid basis of all things PC game. Whether it was getting absolutely boggled by the puzzles in Myst, or getting freaked out by the ambiance in 7th Guest or The 11th Hour, or laughing my ass off to the Secret of Monkey Island, or being blown away by what simple imagery and brilliant storytelling could do with...
Jul 5th
4 tags
A Tale of Caves and Mimigas
About four and a half years ago, one guy (Daisuke Amaya) nicknamed Pixel put together an entirely self-made retro action-adventure game called Cave Story. Through the great efforts at Aeon Genesis, an English translation patch was made with the blessings of its original creator. About a month ago, I finally realized its existence. Get the game + patch at Aeon Genesis One thing particularly...
Jul 4th
2 tags
Jul 4th
2 tags
“The idea that ‘The going got tough so I decided to quit’ is inexcusable. That is...”
– Alaskan state Senator Hollis S. French on soon-to-be-ex-Governor-Palin’s ignoble and sudden abdication. I love these “Alaskan” metaphors that have popped up since she became a known persona. They are so unselfconsciously weird.
Jul 4th
Stephen Hawking: "Humans Have Entered a New Stage... →
Not necessarily original, but a good article about the future of the human race.
Jul 4th
Art Review - 'The Generational - Younger Than... →
“Two other performances are continuing and almost invisible. The Chinese artist Chu Yun has hired women to sleep, one at a time and with the aid of medication, on a bed in the center of a gallery for the run of the show. The British conceptualist Ryan Gander has asked that whatever museum guard is on duty in the museum’s fourth-floor gallery wear a white Adidas track suit marked with...
Jul 4th
2 tags
The time to buy a Wii is...
NOW! Yes indeed, the Nintendo Wii Summer Fun Bundles are upon us!!! CHOOSE YOUR POISON! Will it be the fun-in-the-tub RUBBER DUCKY WITH SCARF bundle? The NEON GREEN BARTELL DRUGS WATER PISTOL bundle!? Orrr… THE SUPREME PIRATE OVERLORD TATTOO SLEEVE bundle!!!!!!? Choose wisely. On another note… seriously, GameStop? Seriously?
Jul 3rd