Monday, November 29, 2004

Circuit Bending

I recently found a site devoted to Circuit Bending. This is the process of taking low-end electronic musical instruments and altering them to create new, odd-sounding devices.

Speak 'N' Spells are prime candidates for this process, but are hard to find.

You will probably not end up with Uilleann Pipes, but it may save thousands of Casios from ending up in landfills!

There is beauty in decay.

Saturday, November 27, 2004

Atari=Temple Of Doom

I visited a local thrift shop recently, and found a box containing an Atari 2600 (VCS if you like)for $10.00! Also included were: 15 cartridges, 4 joysticks, 2 paddles, power adapter and TV switch. I plugged it in at home, and it works!

Using an Indiana Jones system, the Atari 2600 is a "Temple Of Doom" level find for me. A "Lost Ark"-type treasure would be a working Dragon's Lair arcade game. A "Last Crusade" caliber discovery would be a working Vectrex system. This is related to my rankings of the Indiana Jones movies, so your "Lost Ark" might be different than mine.

Many of the Atari games involve "shooting" or have war themes (Combat). Q-Bert uses such foul language, and Frogger is a very bad role-model for children. It's hard to think of future videogames becoming any more violent or explicit than these.

Friday, November 19, 2004

Binary Books

Check out Project Gutenberg's version of "The Warlord Of Mars". They are making available books, such as Edgar Rice Burrough's Barsoom series, that were incendiary devices for my youthful imagination.

Also available are "A Princess of Mars", "The Gods of Mars", and "Thuvia, Maid of Mars" --
others will be formatted and made available as (and if) they are released.

Don't read my Blog, read a book!

Monday, November 15, 2004

The Moons Of Mars

I've started working on tracks for my third album--"The Moons Of Mars"

If anyone would like to contribute a sample, riff, sound effect, sound byte, utterance, quote or such, please send to: warlordofmarz@gmail.com.

You will appear in the liner note credits! (and share in the profits?)

Diversity

I've been scouting around to different Blogs, checking out what others have displayed.

  • Some Blogs seem to have been overrun by an Ad Bot--nothing but links to a "theme"
  • Many are written by people living in Malaysia, The Philippine Islands, Australia and Canada. I've only just started randomly visiting sites, so this is just an initial observance.
  • A lot of the Blogs are complex--tons of doo-dads and whatsits all spinning/flashing and there is background music--cool! Blog envy...

If someone comes across my page randomly, leave a comment! I admit I haven't done much of that yet, but it would be nice to know if I've had visitors.


Friday, November 12, 2004

Netiquette/Heretic

I was using the button in the upper-right hand corner of Blogger to
check out other Blogs (NEXT BLOG>>). I was curious about other
people's takes on a Web Log.
  • Is proper grammar essential? Are we being graded?
  • Do people maintain a "phantom" Blog that reveals their truer feelings, knowing that friends and family may be reading their "nice" one?
  • Does anyone like seeing the links? Is it better to link a word? It looks nicer, I guess.
  • I see a lot of "zero comments"--is this typical?
  • Do people suppose others will pay for the book form of a Blog when there has been free access up to that point?
  • Do Blogs satisfy some voyeuristic need in humans?

I came across several Blogs in foreign languages, which was cool. It would be great to have a Blog translator someday, so all pages could be read by everyone.


Digital Doppelganger

A fun game I like to play is finding alternate "Kevin Bloms"
on the Internet--"Digital Doppelganger".
How many people can I find with the same nomen as mine?

I usually accomplish this with Google, but you can choose your own adventure.

Recent results:
http://www.fhp.state.fl.us/PhotoGallery/PG101804.htm
Regards go out to Sergeant Kevin Blom in Florida


http://www.jimwhitney.com/cgi-bin/calendar.cgi?view=Month&calendar=music&year=2004&view=Event&event_id=4594
I can play the fiddle? Cool.

I wish I could concoct some Bloggian essay on how
interesting and revealing this process is, for future
publication in my book version of this page (The Martian
Rock Collection?) but I'm tired.

Revenue From Addiction

This link--
leads to a Grand Rapids Press article about a local person
who is playing video games professionally--well, just one in particular.

I remember the first death of video games, and their subsequent rebirth.
It is nice to know that their future is a bit brighter than it was in
the mid-1980's.

Now if I could just play "House Of The Dead 2" for $22K a year...

Thursday, November 11, 2004

My Wife's Birthday

November 11--Happy Birthday to my wife!

Tuesday, November 09, 2004

A Moment Of Shill

I was looking over some upcoming items on Amazon.com and noticed two interesting releases:

The Lord Of The Rings-- The Motion Picture Trilogy
(Special Extended DVD Edition)
$77.98/12 discs/total time of the actual movies: 682 minutes/
street date 12-14-04

The Ultimate Matrix Collection Limited Edition Collector's Set
The Matrix/Reloaded/Revolutions/Revisited/The Animatrix
$90.04/10 discs/street date 12-7-04

If I didn't already own the SEEs of The Fellowship Of The Ring
and The Two Towers, I would be tempted by The Lord Of The Rings set.
No strand of Aragorn's wig or Gollum's loincloth replica included?
Perhaps it is for the best. This is clearly the superior collection.

The Matrix movies started so well, and then seemed to muddle in the middle. Perhaps if The Wachowski Brothers had written books first, and then had movies made from those, fans could have said, "The films were vastly inferior." Then extra footage would be added on DVD to make up for the deficiency.

Hopefully no one mistakes books for movies, and movies for books in the future...



Song Fight!

Song Fight! (http://www.songfight.org) is a great site to spend some time in and around.

Some of my favorite artists:

TV's Kyle (http://www.songfight.org/artistpage.php?key=tvs_kyle)
Hentai Kitty Death (http://www.songfight.org/artistpage.php?key=hentai_kitty_death)
MC Hawking (http://www.songfight.org/artistpage.php?key=mc_hawking)
Josh Woodward (http://www.songfight.org/artistpage.php?key=josh_woodward or
http://www.joshwoodward.com)

There are so many other cool artists to choose from--have a listen sometime.

I have submitted one song so far (http://www.songfight.org/artistpage.php?key=warlord_of_mars), and hope to send in more soon. So if you feel I'm worthy,
send a vote my way in the future!

Chainsaw
They come day and night, and want you alone.
They don't use a door or window, they use a phone.
It sounds like a story from the Twilight Zone--
But they come day and night, and want you alone.
-
Spinning their webs like spiders, hoping to catch
Someone to talk to, maybe their perfect match.
Laying their eggs inside you, hoping they'll soon hatch.
They come day and night, and want you alone.
-
Gabbing, groping, gasping, gaping, mouth open wide.
Try to run away but you are trapped here inside.
A twisted game of seeking and there's no place to hide.
They come day and night, and want you alone.
-
Always making you an offer, ID says "UNKNOWN"
"Free vacations!"..."Change to us!"--big bargains are thrown
At the unsuspecting person answering the phone.
Telemarketers, like chainsaws, shredding your home.
-
They come day and night, and want you alone.
They don't use a door or window, they use a phone.
It sounds like a story from the Twilight Zone--
But they come day and night, and want you alone.

Monday, November 08, 2004

Na So Al Mo

Once again Ed clued me in on a great idea (the first was Song Fight at http://www.songfight.org)

This time it is National Solo Album Month--an idea with its roots somewhere around here: http://www.lacunae.com

The challenge is to write a whole album during November 2004. Why? The reasons may become evident after completion, mostly just to say you did it.

Perhaps Barbatos would be interested in reviving the group Far Fetched for just such an occasion?


Friday, November 05, 2004

Eric's Birthday

Friday November 5th is my brother's birthday.
Happy Birthday, Eric!

A Pack Rat's Paradise

It's nice that web real estate is cheaper than it once was. For example, Hotmail expanded my Inbox limit to 250MB, and the attachment limit to 10MB. In days gone by, I would get all sorts of wicked backlash when approaching the alotted space for each.

My friend Ed helped me acquire a Gmail account, which is like a basement or polebarn for a pack rat like myself. Thanks Ed!

I am guilty of many e-vironmental sins, such as littering the Information Superhighway with old e-mail accounts, ICQ/Yahoo!/AIM identities, and misdirected e-letters. As penance, I picture myself in a fluorescent orange vest with a magnet on a stick, poking at all my rubbish. The smell of spig roadkill fills the air (where does spam come from? Spigs!) and I return to my tricycle (dial-up connection) to pedal to the nearest exit.


Thursday, November 04, 2004

Please Be Good

Today my wife taped the Star Wars Episode III teaser trailer, from an Access Hollywood broadcast. I watched it, and decided to find a downloadable version. Here is a link I found: http://digitalentropy.net/Internapse/Index.html

I just keep repeating to myself, "Episode III, please be good. Episode III, please be good..."