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”:
Shoegazer Sunday: Sleep Dealer’s “The Tenth Planet”
May 13th, 2012Random Thoughts on Dark Shadows
May 12th, 2012I 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
May 11th, 2012The funding period ending for the designer edition of Ogre I previously mentioned.
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
May 7th, 2012Microsoft 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…
Howard Waldrop and I Review The Avengers
May 6th, 2012In a new land speed record, Mark Kelly had our review up at Locus Online about thirty minutes after I mailed it to him.
And anything that pushes The Hasslehoff Recursion further down the page is a blessing for the sanity of others…
David Hasselhoff IS Nick Fury
May 6th, 2012Oh. My. God.
I’m finishing Howard and I’s review of The Avengers, and I stumbled across this: a TV movie starring The Hoff as Nick Fury.
How bad is? IMDB gives it a 3.5. And the footage looks even worse:
How bad is it? Hasslehoff may be the least sucky part of the film.
Yeah. That bad.
And speaking of things involving Hasslehoff that are painful to view—
No! You wouldn’t!
Yes. I would.
Shoegazer Sunday: Sway’s “Fall”
May 6th, 2012Here’s the California Shoegazer band Sway with “Fall” (which is available on iTunes):
Not only are there six bands named Sway, there’s another Shoegazer band named Sway out of New South Wales, Australia!
Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys RIP (Plus Robot Hell)
May 4th, 2012Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys has died of cancer at the deeply untimely age of 47. Dwight pretty much expressed my thoughts, except I didn’t care for “Rock Hard” either. But I did love “Sabotage,” as well as one other song where the Beasties make a guest appearance:
That’s One Hell of a Kick
May 2nd, 2012Back when I moved into my house in 2004, Steve Jackson was one of the people helping tote those hundreds of boxes of books. I used to contribute pieces to The Space Gamer, and helped playtest Shockwave, and we bumped into each other at various SF events around Austin. He also generously agreed to proof read Nova Express back when it was a going concern, and did an excellent job.
Steve decided to go the Kickstarter route to fund the “Designer Edition” of Ogre. His initial funding goal was $20,000. Actual amount pulled in? As of this writing, $422,719 (and no doubt it will have gone up by the time you click that link).
Congrats Steve!
