Hellboy II: The Golden Army

so stoked.

PictoBrowser

I was just reading this blog that had an interesting post about disposable cameras given to farmers in Lesotho to document there daily lives as part of Menu For Hope. All the pictures were shown on the blog using PictoBrowser, which easily lets you create a slide show from a flickr set and plug it into any web page. I've created one below from a set of my Hassleblad photos.

read more about Menu For Hope here
Check out pictobrowser here

Burn To Shine (seattle)

Burn To Shine is a video project I've wrote about previously on here. It involves one city, one curator, several bands from the one city, and one house set to be destroyed. Each band plays one song, after all the songs are done the house is demolished, or lit on fire, or whatever. The latest news with the series, with three releases out, is that Seattle and Lousiville are both in post-production. Both city's feature some great bands and performers.

Get more info here.
previous post on Burn To Shine here.

Pleo

Cnet has a slideshow tour into the home and the process of making Pleo. A little animatronic dinosaur that responds to touch and voice and soon will be able to be programmed with new animations from your home.

Get to know him/her better here.

Snack Mansion

Just in case you don't bother to look to the right and visit all the links I have listed i wanted to point out that the short film "Snack Mansion" by Snack Mountain has finally arrived and is ready for viewing. The chilling tale of exploration, debauchery, and zombies. Get over to Snack Mountain now and check it out.

Visit Snack Mountain here.

hey, i don't wanna go to work today...

For great video game news and reviews i've been watching The 1up Show, which is a podcast for 1up.com. Generally clocking in at around 30 min an episode and updated weekly. Compared to other video game and tech podcasts i've seen, which i usually find obnoxious and irritating, this is a great time and i'm always looking forward to the next episode. perhaps the greatest thing about it is that there's plenty of use of strong language, but even without that they do great reviews. Most commonly the reviews are 2 or 3 people discussing what the like or didn't like, switching between clips of them talking and the game itself. You really get to know the people reviewing games and they're personalities after a few episodes. There is no in your face host, just layed back gamers dropping f-bombs. and the theme song is always stuck in my head.

watch the one up show here.
listen to the theme song on repeat forever here.
see they're myspace here.

late night wallflower

Some of my pictures from the show at Lost and Found Wednesday night got used HERE. It's also a great site so look around. I may be doing more pictures for them in the future as well, stay tuned.

indie

I was just reading Fucked Up's Blog (one of the best bands around in my opinion)and saw their latest post. which is a letter to Rolling Stone magazine from Kill Rock Stars, Touch and Go and a bunch of other labels.

"An Open Letter to Rolling Stone"

We, the undersigned independent record labels, wish to share our indignation regarding Rolling Stone's November 15th pull out editorial, which featured the names of our artists in conjunction with an ad for Camel cigarettes. This editorial cartoon gives every impression of being part and parcel of the advertisement wrapped around it.

The use of an artist's name to promote a brand or product should be done only with the artist's explicit consent, something that was neither solicited nor obtained from the labels or bands.

When questioned, Rolling Stone has referred to the "Indie Rock Universe" pull out section as an "editorial", but it hardly seems accidental that this editorial content is wrapped in a giant ad from R.J. Reynolds announcing their support for independent artists and labels. The idea that this was a coincidence in any way seems dubious at best. There are two other pull out sections in this same issue of Rolling Stone. Both are wrapped in advertising, but neither of these ads could be construed as part of the editorial content within.

Many of the bands named, and the labels that represent them, are very unhappy with the implication that they have any involvement with R.J. Reynolds and Camel cigarettes. We ask that Rolling Stone apologize for blurring the line between editorial and advertisement, and in doing so, implying that the bands named support the product being advertised.

Sincerely,

Kill Rock Stars, Touch and Go, Skin Graft, Lovepump United, Lucky Madison, 5RC, Audio Dregs, and Fryk Beat.

I just quickly ran through the Rolling stones "Indie Rock Universe" pullout and it was pretty lame. Whether it's wrapped in a cigarette add or not, or whether you like the bands in it or not (which i do), it's seems like a retarded joke.

Check out Pitchfork here, for more info on the situation.
and learn more about Fucked Up here and see them in action here.

The HUNGER

Last night I finally watched The Hunger starring Cathrine Deneuve, Susan Sarandon and David Bowie. From Wikipedia:

"The Hunger was not particularly well received on its release, and was attacked by many critics for being heavy on atmosphere and visuals but slow on pace and plot. Roger Ebert, for example described it as "an agonizingly bad vampire movie".^[1] However, the film soon found a cult following that responded to its dark, glamorous atmosphere. The long Bauhaus song Bela Lugosi's Dead plays over the introductory credits and beginning."

I loved it. On a side note it was directed by Tony Scott, brother or Ridley Scott, who directed one of my favorite movies, Alien.

watch the first six minutes here.
read more about the film here.

ACTION PATROL

So i stopped paying attention for one second and missed the Action Patrol reunion shows. What the fuck. Granted they were in Richmond, Virginia but it would have been worth the trip, i'm sure. if you don't know Action Patrol get hip to the fuckin' groove...

check out they're myspace page here.
and download all there songs for free here!!!

Lost and Found 12/12/07

I went to a show last night at Lost and Found in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. I was supposed to start at 8, but we didn't get there until about 9:30 which worked out becuase the show didn't really start until around 10ish. The lineup was The Sidekicks, Dirty Money, O' Pioneers, LeGrecia and Bridge and Tunnel. All bands where great. I had seen O' Pioneers and Bridge and Tunnel in Oct at The Fest in FL. But was pleasantly surprised with the other bands who i had not heard yet. Check out all the bands myspace pages to here the excellence.

Mutants

One step closer to dreams coming true...

"In the past 5,000 years, genetic change has occurred at a rate roughly 100 times higher than any other period, say scientists in the US.

This is in contrast with the widely-held belief that recent human evolution has halted.

"there are a lot more people - the more people you have the more opportunities there are for an advantageous mutation to show up," said Professor Harpending."

Yessssss! I call Gambit's mutant ability.

Full story here.

more sweet costumes here.

learn more about "Evolution" here.

Lennon

John Lennon died 27 years ago today.
Yoko-ono posted a letter to John today, here.
























hi-res version of the above here.

Verna

In middle school I read a short story that I loved in my english class. I forgot the name of the story and for years tried to find it again. I remembered it was about a lonely man visiting a mysterious travel agency and looking for a place to escape to. The travel agency had a secret location but only few were chosen to be shown. He's told about a beautiful place thats the way life should be. But to get there is not that easy and he only has one chance. I was reminded of the story when watching Lost. It has some of the same mysterious qualities and I wouldn't be suprised if it was a bit of an insperation to the creators. Well I recently discovered the story again on the internet. It's called "Of Missings Persons" by Jack Finney (who also wrote The Body Snatchers). You can read the whole thing or download the pdf here. Please read, I swear it's awesome.

Spaced

Before Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz Simon Pegg did a show called Spaced on Channel 4. It aired between '99 and '01. It's the story of two people posing as a couple to get an apartment. it's really uniquely done and there's alot of sci-fi and horror overtones and jokes. Check out the first episode below.

read more about spaced here.

Casket

I recently came across an old seven inch design i did for a band, Casket, before they broke up. It was never made becuase of the break up. But I enjoyed it. This was actually the second version of it. The first was a very elaborate fold out coffin embossed and screened with gold ink and inside was a die-cut skeleton. I still hope to use that design for someone someday.











-see larger versions and the inside here, or click on the image above.
-prototype webpage that was never fully realized, here.

Science

I was just on the Xbox 360 website and came across this interesting promo video. I feel like it's biting the BBC show Look Around You (sadly canceled after just two short seasons), but it's still a fun video.

-Xbox Product Video
-Look Around You

Sing Me To Sleep

The Gaurdian today has posted this Sleeping & Dreaming slide show. Some cool and interesting stuff and rad pictures to boot. check it here.

100

IGN has just finished their Top 100 Games of All Time list. I was happy to see my personal favorites included in the list. Things like Resident Evil 4, Half-Life 2 and Mario 64. Obviously the Top 100 and especially the top 10 is a very personal thing to any gamer, but i think they did a great job. I had very few problems with the list. check it out HERE!