November 2002 – Angry Robot

flattery?

This just in: the Onion copies skitfaced. Of course, most will assume the other way around…

Rap-Rap-Rappin Snack Hat with Gore-Tex and Bacon Flava

In this article, we learn that Rapsnacks plans to release a line of clothing. Then, I imagine, a film franchise based on the clothes which are based on the snacks which are based on popular music entertainers: “Jay-Z Vs. The Mummy’s Delicious Rapping Pullover.” The next logical step down the spiralling staircase to hell that is cross-promotion might very well be:

vomits tearfully

You tell me.

Tropisms, Domi

Tropisms is another videoblog, for the time being centered around travel, which seems like a good use for visuals. Oh, and here’s Leaf enforcer Tie Domi’s website, via hockey pundits.

8 Mile, Eminem & Elvis

I agree with ÿ‘s excellent write-up. A great film, and hey, this new “Hip-Hop” thing is sweeping the nation! I found it curious that the film manages to address the accusations leveled at Eminem (mysogyny, homophobia, intolerance of the mentally ill) as parts of the plot. Also, he’s called “Elvis” repeatedly in the film, as a putdown of course – but nonetheless this plays into my not-so-rare pet theory that Eminem is the new, self-aware Elvis. For more reading on this subject: here, here, and, from Chuck D: here.
Other good Eminem articles: by Al Giordano and Mim Udovitch; one from salon.

Pants Are For Sitting

Third-tier TV celebrity speaks out against pants-shitting.

sick JFK

JFK had colitis and severe osteoporosis, amongst other things, and ingested a complex coctail of antibiotics, painkillers and steroids just to function day-to-day.

It could well have turned out that if the public knew about how ill he was, he never would have been elected. This is what the Kennedys themselves feared, so they made a systematic effort to hide the fact that he had so many illnesses. It was a kind of cover up.

From a great Atlantic article that they have not made available online. However, there’s an interview with the author, Robert Dallek, which gives one the gist of it. (thanks to K for finding this)

Tech-Chi

God is the computer: from Wired, a take on the universe as computer, of universal computation, and perfect simulation.

It would be a unified explanation of physics (digital physics), relativity (digital relativity), evolution (digital evolution and life), quantum mechanics, and computation itself, and at the bottom of it all would be squirming piles of the universal elements: loops of yes/no bits.

Taoists, it’s nothin’ you ain’t yin-yanged yet.

Plato, software

Interesting that as I was temporarily Howard Hughesified by a seasonal virus, laid up in my command centre, a.k.a. bed, a.k.a. Plato’s cave of twinkling electronic entertainment phenomena, locked in Platonic embrace with my shiny metal bitch goddess, I should come to the same conclusion about the same piece of software as a notable compatriot, at roughly the same time. In short: launchbar kicks ass. I had recently purchased Key Xing, which I still think is pretty sweet, if only as a QuicKeys substitute, but LaunchBar seems to get you to anywhere in three keystrokes. Intelligent and intuitive, like all good (people and) software. Also of note: iPulse from the Iconfactory, a modern-art vision of what your computer was doing half a second ago, and for those with iPods, PodNews, which puts news, weather, and anything with an RSS feed on your li’l music box.

Woodward Investigatin'

Bob Woodward writes about Powell as he tries to tone down the administration’s war cries.

Boombox Museum

It is both funky and dope. (via adampsyche)

hot & bright photography

Bitchin’ photos of the sun. Sunspots especially. (via leuschke.org)

GTA: Vice City

I don’t even want to write this. All I want to do is drive, ride, rob, shoot and steal. I’d agree with matteo that the game is funnier than the last. It’s similar in gameplay, of course, but with additions: new vehicles, more indoor space, and some sort of property-buyin’ and improvin’ Monopoly stuff that I have yet to explore. I’ve much to do, both ingame and out, and once again find myself tugged at from both real and virtual directions. You know where I’d rather be.

Leafs blog

Blogging the Leafs – “ A blog about one man’s long standing, and long suffering, relationship with the Toronto Maple Leafs.” I hear ya, buddy.

It's called a Rod

Rods: weird, long, light, rotating, barely visible lifeforms that seem to be everywhere. Or are they just bugs?

That'll do 'er, then, I guess

The bulk of this weblog’s redesign is complete. Here’s what’s new.

As an excuse to toy around with my unordered list style:

search feature, using the new built-in MT search

menus for archive selection

fun stuff with the ‘recent comments’ list: mouse over the number to see the author of the last comment; click there to jump right to that comment

more navigation choices on individual entry pages

now using XHTML strict

RSS feed now available – well, it always was, but I never linked to it

mozilla users will see a usable ‘site navigation bar’

most of the little messy bits should be cleaned up now – I think there still are problems with IE 5.5, but IE 6/Win looks good.

I’ve been trying to make the site more accessible – this will be a gradual thing but I’m getting there.

So there ya go, fair reader. Next on the agenda:

make a print stylesheet, just in case some maniac ever wants to print off a page from this site… boy what a make-work project!

use Regex to sub in some pithy name (“anonymous shitbag”?) when people forget to enter a name with their comment

‘D’ brand mayonnaise, ‘D’ brand legwarmers and headbands

Enough of that. You get the idea.

Moving Pictures Exhibit, Guggenheim, NYC

Last weekend, team KYD went to the Guggenheim to see the Moving Pictures exhibit. It was a blast, and fortunately for me they have some pictures online. Sam Taylor Wood’s science was pretty tight, as was Pierre Huyghe’s Third Memory bank robbin’ narrative. Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle’s Climate was the video-installation version of The Parallax View, all boom mics and video surveillance and clinical murderousness. The culmination of it all was Bill Viola’s Going Forth By Day, a powerful five-part projection within a single room. Turns out we did the whole thing backwards, which meant we waltzed into this room without having read the (crappily written) explanatory bumpf, and had to piece together meanings in our own way. Amazing, that: the sense of mystery that surrounds great art, and the urge to solve it; so similar, one imagines, to the discovery of a corpse, and the urge to find its author.

Reading the Papers

on sunday morning: product placement creep calls My Big Fat Greek Wedding “a 108-minute commercial for our client” (Windex); taking the Atlantis myth literally;
stress-proofing the Special Forces’ “managers of violence”.

shaved snits

are quickly becoming the norm. Take a look at a 70s Penthouse, or just take my word for it: pubic hair deflation is running rampant, for men and women alike. In ten years, all of our bodies will be completely hairless, and baldness in men will be seen as a virtue. In fact, there’s something in this that parallels Kurzweil’s vision of the exponential growth of technology – a few million years from bushy cavemen to the Cro-magnon boxes of the 70s, and now 30 years later it’s sphinxes and Brazilians all the way.

Angry Robot