Archive for May, 2012

I’m Not Dead

Wednesday, May 30th, 2012

But between eyelid surgery on both eyes, and the Texas state primary on May 29 (and hence a lot of political blogging on my other blog) I haven’t been doing much here. Hopefully I can change that in a day or so. Keep watching this space…

Shoegazer Sunday: Sway’s “Opentillate”

Sunday, May 27th, 2012

I thought that “Fall” from a few weeks ago worked well enough that we should follow it up with “Opentillate,” another song available on iTunes.

Shoegazer Sunday: I Break Horses’ “Winter Beats”

Sunday, May 20th, 2012

I was able to catch most of the M83 show here in Austin. While good, I was equally impressed with Swedish opening act I Break Horses (not to be confused with the Seattle band of the same name, or the Portland band Sparkle Pony), which played a very tight set.

Their online music is good, but they’re much better live, and I’d recommend catching the M83/I Break Horses tour if they come around your neck of the woods.

Nothing Says “Punk” Quite Like Huey Lewis

Friday, May 18th, 2012

I know that when I think “punk,” Huey Lewis and Toni Basil are the first names that come to mind:

I can hardly wait for their forthcoming Heavy Metal collection with Simon & Garfunkel and The Bee Gees.

(To be fair, Devo were considered punk very early in their career, and Billy Idol at least dressed the part and came out of the same scene as The Sex Pistols. There’s a very amusing bit in Glen Matlock’s I was a teenage Sex Pistol in which a suddenly chastised Idol grows apprehensive over having wrecked his father’s car…)

(Hat tip: Iowahawk’s Twitter feed. )

Library Additions: The Folio Edition of Neil Gaiman’s The Rhyme Maidens Broadsheet

Wednesday, May 16th, 2012

I recently got in the Folio edition of Neil Gaiman’s Rhyme Maidens broadsheet just published by Biting Dog Press. It’s unbelievably huge; in fact, it’s slightly taller than the Centipede Press A Lovecraft Retrospective: Artists Inspired by H. P. L. book. There were only fifty of them made. This is about the point where it stops being a book and starts being a fetish object.

Here’s a shot of the folio slipcase sitting next to the Subterranean Press edition of M is for Magic (which I still have copies of available for sale) for the sake of size comparison.

And here it is spread open:

It looks slightly blurry because it was shipped with tissue paper across both panels to protect it. It’s the same poem, in different colors and with a different illustration, on each page.

This edition sold out from the publisher.

I’m going to have one copy of Folio edition for my next Lame Excuse Books catalog, along with one copy of the regular broadsheet.

Best. Fark. Profile. Image. EVER.

Sunday, May 13th, 2012

Today I was at Dwight’s graduation party, and thanks to Dwight’s sister’s son’s wood-working project, and Andrew’s camera, I now have The Most Awesome Fark Profile Image Ever:

That’s Mr TrollFace to you, pinko.

Shoegazer Sunday: Sleep Dealer’s “The Tenth Planet”

Sunday, May 13th, 2012

We’ve had Shoegazer bands from the UK, the USA, Japan, and France, so why not one from Russia? Named after a Mexican SF movie I really need to track down, here’s Sleep Dealer with “The Tenth Planet”:

Random Thoughts on Dark Shadows

Saturday, May 12th, 2012

I almost missed the news that Jonathan Frid, who starred as vampire Baranabas Collins in the original Dark Shadows, died April 13 (Friday the 13th). It’s tempting to say that he died after seeing the trailer for the Tim Burton version.

I have extremely vague memories of watching the original when I was very young (including one scene where characters were trapped in a web and menaced by a giant spider that, even to my 5-year old self, looked incredibly fake), but I was never a devoted fan of the original series. Even so, it was obviously a very interesting pop culture artifact, a failing soap opera that desperately threw in a stage actor playing a vampire that turned it into a sudden cult hit.

Even so, I have to wonder why Tim Burton decided to camp it up like the movie version of The Brady Bunch. They few elements it shares with the original are so attenuated that he could have made the same “18th century vampire out of water” movie and changed a few names without calling it Dark Shadows, and since it stars the always-watchable Depp it would still have made money.

I can only imagine how real fans of the series must feel.

It’s sort of ironic that in the late 1960s, Batman was camp and Dark Shadows was melodrama, and now in 2012, Dark Shadows is camp, and The Dark Knight Rises is drama. And we all get ready for the next turn of the wheel…

Ogre KickStarter Update

Friday, May 11th, 2012

The funding period ending for the designer edition of Ogre I previously mentioned.

The total amount raised:

I would imagine that Steve is a very happy camper right now, especially considering that the original goal was $20,000…

Attack of the Zune Spam Zombies

Monday, May 7th, 2012

Microsoft discontinued the Zune (i.e., their unpopular iPod clone that, despite coming in brown and being able to “squirt” songs at other people) back in October of 2001. So why am I still getting the same braindead Zune-related comments spam I’ve gotten for the past two years?

“This is getting a bit more subjective, but I much prefer the Zune Marketplace.”

“The new Zune browser is surprisingly good, but not as good as the iPod’s.”

“Hands down, Apple’s app store wins by a mile. It’s a huge selection of all sorts of apps vs a rather sad selection of a handful for Zune.”

My theory is that someone out there sells a ScriptKiddie Comment Spamming Kit that includes pre-loaded Zune comments as the example payload text, and most spammers never bother to switch them out.

Now if I could just figure out why I keep getting comment spam promoting a washed-up rapper…