| Eww |
[Jul. 14th, 2009|02:19 pm] |
I just opened the curtains on my office at work for the first time in about a week, and there appears to be bird remains smeared across the outside. It's a splattered streak of white goo, about 3 feet long and 4 inches wide, with feathers stuck in it. There's no bird carcass apparent anywhere outside (I went and looked).
No, I'm not going to post a picture. |
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| Like your cars a little on the trashy side? |
[Jul. 7th, 2009|09:34 pm] |
So, I just discovered today that the local 24 Hours of Lemons event is happening this weekend in Stafford Springs, CT.
Briefly, 24 Hours of Lemons is loosely (very, very, very loosely) based on the prestigious 24 Hours of Le Mans, but with a much lower caliber of car. The rules state that every car should arguably have a value of no more than $500. Judges may refuse to let you enter if they think you're bullshitting them. If you're still an ass about it, there's a rules clause that the organizers can buy your car for $500 at their discretion.
That's not to say people don't cheat, they just prefer that people cheat entertainingly. In fact, one of the judges even wrote an article on how they prefer people to cheat.
For more info, check out the rules. They're a pretty hilarious read.
In any case, it looks more than likely that ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) quish and I will be there on Sunday. Our plans are a little unstable at the moment, and we might be heading down the night before to visit other CT people and just stay down there, I really don't know yet. So, if you really want to go, don't depend on us, but if you want to be kept in the loop on what we're doing, let me know.
Info and schedule of this weekend's event is here. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 26th, 2009|12:01 am] |
For those of you on my friends list who read Boardwatch in the early 90's as intently as I did (which I suspect is none of you), here's Jack Rickard's current blog. |
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| What's that blue thing doing here? |
[Jun. 25th, 2009|05:56 pm] |
This post inspired by the unfamiliar thing I see when I look up outside right now.
I should get out there and enjoy it before it goes away again. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 22nd, 2009|03:13 pm] |
My last.fm account just suggested an upcoming show to me.... In Lunenburg...
Seriously.
I was trying to decide if it had suggested it simply since it was literally a half mile from my house, but last.fm still thinks i live in Worcester. It actually suggested it since it thought I might like Math the Band.
It might be right. I just looked them up, and Math the Band is pretty strongly in the Atom and His Package or Dan Deacon wacky/synthy territory, with a big chunk of Andrew WK's ridiculous over-exuberance thrown in.
Heck, for a $7 show at the community center a half mile from home, sure!
The bigger question is.... Lunenburg? WTF?!
A bit of searching found this description attached to the a MySpace page for the location:
Andrew Hall is a space owned by the United Parish of Lunenburg and all shows are booked, promoted, and run by Mass Recovery Promotions, which is, in essence, a fancy umbrella name for me, Shawn Massak. Over the past 5 years, Andrew Hall has hosted a myriad of local bands as well as touring bands from all around the US, Canada, and Germany. Bands and artists of all styles (folk to hardcore) and all skill levels (garage bands still in high school to prolific touring artists) have had some part in building a music community out of a place that normally holds craft fairs, boy scout meetings, and church events.
Neat. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 11th, 2009|02:39 pm] |
Today's stupid play list:
Vengaboys - Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom
System of a Down - Boom!
The Hives - Tick Tick Boom
P.O.D. - Boom
The Outhere Brothers - Boom Boom Boom
John Lee Hooker - Boom Boom
Infectious Grooves - Boom Boom Boom
Black Eyed Peas - Boom Boom Pow
Freezepop actually did a "Seven Boom Medley" from the Vengaboys and Outhere Brothers songs, but I think there should be more mashups. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 11th, 2009|12:07 pm] |
I don't think any of you care excessively, but enough of you probably half-care to make this worth posting. The Duke is leaving Freezepop. Basically, he's now a project manager at Harmonix, and his job is taking up more and more of his time, and he had to give up something.
They're all still on good terms, so he might do guest bits at shows or remixes for them, and could maybe someday join back in full time, but he's definitively quitting for now.
His last two shows with the band will be a local Boston one on July 25th, and then a final show at PAX after that. |
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| C'mon Clan Smurf! Please green! |
[Jun. 7th, 2009|08:55 pm] |
Subspace is still plodding along 12 years later on fan-run servers and the Continuum client.
I bet it's a pretty stable community by now. All the griefers have better MMOs to go troll.
The world could use a few more minimalist but fun MMOs. |
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| We look for things. Things that make us go. |
[Jun. 2nd, 2009|04:34 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | cars | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | thecurrent.org | ] |
Just skimmed past a Saab parts website to see how much some brake items would cost me, and I noticed a link in their banner to this place:
http://www.rescue-saab.com
A lot of their blog is in German, but I find it comforting (if otherwise pointless) to know that there is a support community trying to save the company.
I am personally convinced that the Saab brand will survive this GM implosion/rebirth better than most of the American brands. Saab may be in the Swedish equivalent of bankruptcy protection right now, but when GM put Saab up for sale at the beginning of this year they actually got about 2 dozen serious offers. The courts just gave them a bankruptcy extension to finish the sale, which has apparently been whittled down to the 3 best offers.
They aren't officially saying whom the 3 offers are from, but strong rumors say that one of them, the only one from a Swedish company, is Koenigsegg.
All I have to say to that is "Yes, please." A local, independent, free-thinking, Swedish car firm taking over Saab? Awesome. Having my 900 being under the same company tree as a CCX? Totally icing on the cake.
(ETA: Put in a nicer link to the CCX...) |
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| This year's list of storm names... |
[Jun. 1st, 2009|01:10 pm] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | thecurrent.org | ] |
Ana, Bill, Claudette, Danny, Erika, Fred, Grace, Henri, Ida, Joaquin, Kate, Larry, Mindy, Nicholas, Odette, Peter, Rose, Sam, Teresa, Victor, Wanda
Do you think they all pick on each other and call each other names out on the tropical storm playground?
"Un-windy Mindy couldn't blow over a paper bag!" |
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| Bizarro band name, with even weirder description of the group |
[May. 26th, 2009|05:18 pm] |
Master Musicians of Bukkake
"avant-garde/worldbeat collective ... blend of Far East instrumentation, fuzzed-out psychedelia, and irreverent and occasionally wicked humor ... penchant for ritualistic free improvisation ... gamelan, percussion, and electric guitar-infused ceremonial mayhem"
(descriptive quotes from allmusic.com)
I take the existence of this band as proof that there's a lot of people in the world.
All I'm saying is, as you put more monkeys in front of the typewriters, you have to wait less time until Hamlet is produced, but you also increase your chances of getting oddities like this. |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 20th, 2009|07:58 pm] |
I was on the dance floor,
And the DJ dropped my 45.
I was so hype that I dropped my 45,
And everybody just ran. |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 18th, 2009|05:33 pm] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Crazy - Willie Nelson (thecurrent.org) | ] |
The guy who came up with Friday's NYT crossword is named Xan Vongsathorn.
Seriously.
That is an awesome name. |
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| Brandon Sanderson |
[May. 14th, 2009|10:59 pm] |
I've been reading his Mistborn trilogy to get a feel for his writing since I found he was tapped to finish Wheel of Time.
As I was going through the first book, I kind of got the impression that his writing was well above average, but not amazing. His characters were much more believable and empathic than Jordan's, and his plot was well paced and coherent but mostly formulaic and predictable. I figured if he wrote consistently like that, the Wheel of Time books might turn out quite good since it would be Jordan's plot with Sanderson's ability to express believable characters.
Then I got to the last third of the book and, well... The book totally takes off and kicks the ass of almost everything I've read in the past few years. I can't really explain without ruining the fun of reading it for others. So, go read it.
I'm now about a quarter of the way into the second book and I suspect it's going to be just as good. He's slowed down the pacing a little bit, but is definitely setting up some "Big Shit" to go down later in the book.
And remember, telekinesis that has to respect momentum and balanced forces may sound less useful than just being able to move anything you want without care, but it has other (cooler) uses that the traditional telekinesis can't touch. :) |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 5th, 2009|01:51 pm] |
There seems to be a lot of movies-turned-musical recently.
And a few of those have even gone movie-turned-musical-turned-movie.
I just realized Toxic Avenger has made the first leap and gone to musical.
I really hope it makes the hop back and joins the likes of Hairspray and Producers. |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 1st, 2009|11:42 am] |
As an odd silver lining to people staying home right now, apparently the smog in Mexico City is better than it's been in a very long time.
Could it possibly turn out that there is something unique about the Mexico City smog that is attributing to their high death rate compared to everyone else? |
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| Best. Game. Mechanic. Ever |
[Apr. 29th, 2009|08:52 pm] |
I've always enjoyed games that have some novel mechanic that make them stand out from the crowd. Things like Portal's portals, Ikaruga's black/white invulnerability, or even Metalstorm's gravity flip.
Well, I think the upcoming game Achron may have the most epic mechanic ever: time travel.
They've managed to make a time-traveling real-time strategy game feasible. And I'm not talking rinky-dink time travel like Chronotrigger; I'm talking full blown grandfather-paradox-having, Terminator-contradicting time travel. On the fly. For all players at once.
Win a battle but had too many losses? Go back in time and give your troops different orders.
Still not good enough? Send the survivors back in time to fight alongside themselves and help tip the scales in your favor.
Realize that it would have been better if his troops never existed in the first place? Go further back and destroy the barracks that produced his troops before the battle ever started and suddenly his troops won't be there to fight.
We're talking some serious head-explody here.
The main mechanism that makes this all possible is that they only propagate historical changes forward in discrete waves and not continuously. It's probably easier to get the idea if you just watch some of their demo videos:
Basic Demo
Grandfather Paradoxes
Their basic concept could be applied to other styles of games besides RTS as well.
I'm not a fan of RTS games but I kinda want to try this game when it comes out (more than a year away).
(h/t to stillking for mentioning this game existed) |
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