ffwd: Linklog

Monotonik: Troupe - 'It's Really Pretty Simple After All' [mtk179] ('A long, long time in the making, U.S. artist Troupe presents his first EP for Monotonik, 'It's Really Simple After All', a plain spectacular mix of demo-scene inspired electronica, soaring melodies, and beautiful vocals.' THAT good.)

Music Thing: 'UK Beatbox champ Beardy Man rocking the kitchen' (Great comment: ' I'm not eating anything that comes from that kitchen, there'll be spittle over everything.')

Sugar Bush Squirrel - 'The Superstar Squirrel' (Oh my god creepy Saddam execution diorama alert. Via Holly!)

YouTube: Adam Buxton's 'You Say We Pay' pastiche (Nicely done - basically, all his videos are on the money - via B3ta.)

Eyemelt: Slave Labor's new digital comic site (Comics as cheap as 69c in CBZ/PDF - neat! Dorkin points this out.)

Reality Blurred: 'Reality TV shows spent 8,397 days filming in L.A., 40 percent of all TV production' (Reality TV is the new reality.)

The Bumper B3ta Book Of Sick Jokes (Now with a free PDF download of the full book, to encourage ze buying.)

Yahoo!/AP: 'SpongeBob goes trendy to win Japan fans' (I love it that Moomins are big in Japan, too.)

ASCII: Jason Scott talks about U.S. demo-scene gathering Blockparty (Yay, the gathering is keeping the scene v.vaguely alive.)

TV In Japan: 'Teriyaki Boyz Video Parodies YouTube' (Oo, I like Teriyaki Boyz! I've noticed that Japanese groups don't like spreading their full videos, tho. Via Waxy.)

Gamasutra: 'Statistics for Game Designers' (Very readable, I thought.)

GSW: 'King Of Kong' Doc Gets Distro, Remake Pickup (Two interesting video game docs at Slamdance/Sundance!)

Comic recommendation: Batton Lash's 'Wolff & Byrd, Counselors of the Macabre' (Nowadays called 'Supernatural Law', it's real legal drama with added vampires, werewolves, Swamp Things, etc - awesome.)

Flickr: 'Pinnacles National Monument, CA, Jan. 2007' (It's about 90 minutes south of San Jose, and the 'Moses Spring–Rim Trail Loop' is not THAT strenuous but lots of fun - bring a flashlight for the (optional!) cave.)

Quick Stop interviews The Office's Stephen Merchant (And also Ricky Gervais, of course - both excellent interviews.)

GSW: ''Game Mag Weaseling': The Bluffer's Guide to Famitsu' (First ever issue? You're a marvel, Gifford.)

ASCII: 'Five Better Heroes' (Jason Scott picks some good people to admire.)

BeaucoupKevin.com: 'The Gospel Blimp' Christian comic (Blimey. Via Journalista.)

Shots Ring Out: 'The Beatles - “Within You, Without You/Tomorrow Never Knows' (I somewhat want to see The Beatles' Love in Las Vegas, even though I hate Cirque Du Soleil.)

Music Thing points out a Badloader synthpop/codpiece gig (Wow, that's wonderfully terrible.)

DVD Savant reviews Criterion's Monsters and Madmen ('The titles have since been percolating at Criterion, awaiting the launch of a secondary cult/genre DVD label that never came about' - interesting, start it up, Criterion!)

Markpasc: 'KRON newsflash: "it's hella cold out here, dude"' (This is at San Jose Diridon station, where I start my commute, heh - I wondered why TV was there. Oo, ice!)

What I See attended the Kircher Society first-ever meeting (And darn, that stuff is cool - looks like the Kircher Society mastermind is revealed, too, which I didn't know.)

Archive.org: Ras Amerlock - 'Farther East' (From awesome bleep-dub label Jahtari, who found the funkiest record cover ever, too.)

JMSNews: Straczynski on finishing shooting on Babylon 5 prequel (Here's lots more info, these are direct-to-DVD, bring 'em on!)

Luxo: 'First Image of Wall•E Revealed' (Next-but-one Pixar movie! Finally got round to seeing Cars - v.good.)

Gamasutra: 'Rethinking Carrots: A New Method For Measuring What Players Find Most Rewarding and Motivating About Your Game' (See title!)

Game Career Guide: 'Microsoft's XNA: A Primer' (Pretty nice overview of Microsoft's homebrew/indie game tool from Alistair.)

GSW: 'Arcade Obscurities' - Namco's Tenkomori Shooting (One of my favorites from this week's GSW posts, just cos of specificity.)

Monotonik: Ollie Cram - 'Rai-Ken' [mtk178] (New on my CC-licensed netlabel, Bristol, UK live-played chillout, yum.)

GSW: 'Wazap, New Video Game Search Engine? Hang On!' (In which I get grumpy at Web 2.0 VC dumbness, hurrah!)

YouTube: 'Producer Timbaland steals song from finnish musician' (This is not cool.)

Emusic.com: My profile with listed downloads (If you're an Emusic fan (or otherwise!), you can check out what I've been grabbing.)

GameSetWatch: 'Game Developer Jan. Issue For Free Digital Viewing!' (In case you want to see the paper-mag that I edit.)

Gamasutra: 'Call Of Duty: Finest Hour - The Contract' (First time a major game dev contract has ever been printed in public - I'm proud of this one.)

Yank Blog points to Weird Al's 'I'll Sue Ya' video (The animation is a little bleh, but the song majestic, of course.)

Walker Art Center: 'The Walker’s Ten Top Tens' (Some fun, erudite charts, again via TYITI.)

'Body Magic' music video (Thanks, Barbie Dance Club! Via TYITI also.)

Barneystephens.com: 'Busy Signal - Get Right On It' (Via TYITI - omg, the 'Benny Hill Rhythm' hits ragga!)

Burn Copy: 'The Year In The Internet, 2006' (Compilers Michael Bell-Smith & Cory Arcangel kindly asked me to compile a favorite link for each month for this.)

Petemusik - some neat CC-licensed netlabel mixes. (Including lots of Monotonik, Kikapu, Exegene, Thinner, etc - my kinda thing.)

GSW: 'Keyboard Power, Bizarre Oldskool Adventure Novels?' (Niche markets make for interesting semi-fictional game novels.)

Game Career Guide: 'On Game Design: A History of Video Games' (A good overview of the entire... business!)

Gamasutra: 'Playing Catch Up: Zombies Ate My Neighbors' Mike Ebert' (Totally great game, neat creator history.)

GSW: 'Vince Twelve Gives Us The Ol' Adventure Game Dazzle' (Some really interesting freeware adventure games here.)

Reuters: '"Miserable" Morrissey may cheer up Eurovision' (The more you ignore me...?)

NCSX: 'Clifford Dog Clothing' ('We're not sure what Sega intended with the Clifford Clothing but it looks suspect.')

UK DVD recommendation: 'Dinnerladies' (Surprising how heartfelt and smart Victoria Wood's canteen comedy is. Not cool, but delighful.)

Music Thing: 'Whitney Houston's old music gear up for sale' (And a bunch of other old rubbish. Excellent.)

GSW: 'Feature: TNT Amusements' Arcade Infomercial Madness!' (The art of the infomercial will never die.)

Archive.org: Netlabels all-collection RSS now working (Lots of good free music, multiple uploads daily, many CC-licensed - score.)

The Beat: Read Image Comics first issues for free (Includes #1 of the newest Death Jr. series.)

Blogspotting: 'Joel Stein: Climbing off the Clue Train' (I agree with the ever-whimsical Stein - no obligation to remove hands from ears!)

GameSetWatch: 'Ziff Davis Game Division, Up For Sale' (I'm wondering what will happen to all the old hobbyist Ziff properties.)

Twitch: Edgar 'Spaced/Sean Of The Dead' Wright to do fake trailer in Grindhouse (...which is Tarantino/Rodriguez's crazed double bill, of course. Neeet.)

Regret The Error: 'The Stranger admits its errors, and a whole lot more' (Lazyweb request - can someone do an alt.weekly best-of weblog? I'll help!)

Textfiles: Jason Scott goes to a maid cafe in Toronto (Oh boy, globalization, look at you!)

Antville: 'Robert Henke - Layer 001 - Directed by Lars Nagler' (The Monolake creator and a weirdly eerie algorithmic video.)

Rocky Mountain News: 'Slamdance unplugs Columbine video game' (I don't know that the game is a remotely good talking point for social gaming or games with meaning, but hey, it's out there.)

Kircher Society: 'Jim Bumgardner’s Time Graphs' (There's beauty in aggregation.)

Chicago Sun-Times: 'Woman hospitalized after Trivial Pursuit game' ('Cooper, 21, who was the yellow piece, continually provided wrong answers, resulting in over intoxication.' Via LoonyBoi.)

Idiot Toys: 'David's nice Christmas batteries' (Many bonus points for the cake crumb finger-pointing.)

GSW: 'Cinema Pixeldiso' – Gamers ('At its best, Gamers feels like an old National Lampoon flick from the 80s. But at its worst, it feels like a National Lampoon film from the past couple of years.')

Gamasutra: 'Games and Addiction: Are We There Yet?' (Good round-up of the state of research into game addiction.)

GSW: '2007 IGF Student Showcase Winners Announced' (Some really neat indie student games in here.)

GSW: 'Games For Windows - Free Subscription Offer!' (Hey, free magazines ain't bad.)

Gamasutra: 'Why Bother With Episodic Games?' (V. interesting editorial from GameTap's Rick Sanchez.)

Game Career Guide: 'This Semester in Game Academia' (A useful guide from a Gama subsite!)

NFG Games: 'Sonic: A Sprite History' (Aw, look how he's grown!)

Gamasutra: 'Postmortem: Blue Fang's Zoo Tycoon 2: Marine Mania' (Interesting and fairly honest postmortem of a stealth hit franchise.)

GameSetWatch: 'Feature: The Gospel According To Matthew Smith' (A long essay by me from the sadly cancelled Gillen/Rossignol book on games writing - all about bizarre Manic Miner game modding.)

GSW: 'Zizzle's Pirates Pinball Gets New Year Reduction' (Semi-serious pinball machines for $200? Not bad.)

YouTube: Solid Gold Chartbusters - 'I Wanna 1-2-1 With You' (Completely forgot about this awesome Jimmy Cauty (ex-KLF) co-authored novelty tune from 2000 - Cauty is now getting very popular for his modern art in the CNPD fake postal service series. Awesome.)

GSW: 'Beyond Tetris' - Deadly Rooms of Death (Great column on a gem of a dungeon puzzle game.)

DVD recommendation: 'Doctor Who, Season 2' (Just finished watching my UK copy (it's also recently showed on Sci-Fi) - absolutely awesome, esp. for a Brit, and more than a genre trawl, has real emotion.)

GSW: 'Game Mag Weaseling: Mag Roundup 12/30/06' ('[Tips &Tricks] is worth noting this month 'cos it's got a new editor-in-chief -- none other than Bill Kunkel'.)

TV Recommendation: 'Ninja Warrior' on G4 (Dubbed version of the Japanese Sasuke obstacle sports show - lots of fun, done faithfully, rather than MXC's ridiculous dubbing.)