mp3dj in air columbia shock?

Apparently, I still exist. That's lucky, isn't it? There was a fairly large winter storm wandering through Northern California which threatened to sweep me away, as did multiple deadlines and the fact I'd forgotten to get my hair cut, but I'm now shorn, dry, and completed, although not necessarily in that order.

There was a smallish party (30-40 people) last Friday to christen the Internet Archive's new data center (lots of computers, lots of air conditioning), and I turned up with my iBook, an external USB audio device (thanks to Gee Dee!), and some MP3 DJ software, connected it to some speakers, and played _only_ music that can be downloaded from the Archive for free. A range of material from the netlabels collection was played out, and everyone seemed to enjoy it, despite my complete lack of beatmatching, so.. neat.

Oh, and talking of MP3s and DJ-ing, check out Sam 'Subi' Brown's MR1200 Windows MP3 Player for DJs, as hosted by us here on this domain, since we've known Sam forever and a day ('Lamer Exterminator' T-shirts, indeed!) - it's got some neat effects, especially fake record grooves to work out where the high-volume bits of sounds are, and it's lots of fun to play with.

Otherwise, I've been listening to some music (especially Air's 'Talkie Walkie', which is odd and beguiling all at the same time, and, on the commute to and from San Francisco, grabbing random bits of Holly's CD collection and liking Morrissey's 'Vauxhall And I' all over again for the first time.) And I've been watching some TiVo (again, the Sundance Channel has some wonderful documentaries I had no idea about, especially 'The Target Shoots First', a look inside mail-order music kings Columbia House during, of all things, the grunge revolution.) And I've been bearing more grudges than lonely high court judges. That bit's always fun.

bling theater world milestones..

Darn, it's been a little while. Had to cut down a little on my Slashdot Games posting schedule, switching from doing about 20 hours a week more than I should to maybe 10 hours a week more, heh, since I'm working on the book and a bunch of other projects. But still hitting about 40 posts a week, albeit with lots more help with submitters, and just got to 2000 overall Slashdot posts on the 'fabled' Slashdot Hall Of Fame - but the high score will never be mine, hah. Oh, and a follow-up from last time - my Gamasutra 'Lost In Translation' article is now required reading at Stanford's History Of Computer Game Design class. Yoiks, shraggy.

Some good music wandering around today, too. Over at the Archive's netlabels section, the new Bubzigohn album on SoulSeek Records is pretty much astounding, imho, especially for being free to download - I referenced The Goats' 'Tricks Of The Shade' album in describing it, another concept album with spoken-word aspects that really _works_. Oh, and if you dig Illegal Art, then try downloading Danger Mouse's 'The Grey Album' - the Beatles and Jay-Z never got on so well.

Otherwise, just about had time to sneak some movie watching in... via TiVo, there was Master Of The World, with Vincent Price as mad Jules Verne-created airship captain Robur - not bad, although Charles Bronson should have plunged to his doom to save us from underacting. Also, via Netflix, Spellbound is every bit as good a documentary as the hype has indicated - darn, spelling bees are the next celebrity poker tournaments, right?

contracted windojined shawn marked the jones shooter?

Didn't think things could get more hectic, but they did. But I'm hanging in there, and actually clearing some room on my schedule, since I just (after a few months of pre-production) signed my first book deal, yay. The book is non-fiction, unannounced and early in construction, so expect to see more info about it towards the summer months, but if you see where I've been given a weblog, it may give you a hint as to who I'm working with. I'm absolutely delighted.

Otherwise, Slashdot/Slashdot Games be going well, work at the Internet Archive be going well, and.. hey, is it time to talk about inconsequential stuff yet? I reckon so.

So firstly, go check out the trailer for Shaun Of The Dead (SWF format, doh!), the new comedy zombie movie from Simon Pegg and friends of UK TV show Spaced fame. Spaced showed for all of 3 seconds on US TV (Bravo showed it once in 2002!), but as any English readers know, it's rather on the genius side, and the movie is looking similarly pukka.

Oh, and I hadn't heard of Windojin before until finding these examples - nothing actually rude linked, but the author explains: 'In Japan there’s this growing movement of Microsoft dojin heroines. Almost all of it is hentai though: things like Windows XP going down on Windows Professional until she crashes from virtual memory loss.' My memory is getting corrupted just thinking about it.

Finally, silly downloadable Windows game du jour would be shmup avoidfest Crazygame.exe - beat 18.2 seconds and you'll be.. well, not very skilled, but more skilled than me. Welcome resurrection du jour would be the Mark VII hiphop-C64 EP, originally released on Monotonik's evil cousin sublabel No'Mo', but removed altogether when it was feared Chris Huelsbeck would call the feds on us - this thread references the specific mashups. And TV show du jour is Terry Jones' Medieval Lives, a BBC production showing on The History Channel in the US, and making me reminisce about why I actually did a history degree in the first place - so ex-Pythons could teach me more than I ever learnt as an undergraduate, and with more crossdressing?