Bassnectar vs. Pixies

There's a lot of godawful dubstep (I'm looking at you and your Grammys, Skrillex). Hex nailed it: the guy's songwriting sucks. Some dubstep works in parts and then turns super-irritating (go to 1:28) at the drops.

Here's a piece I think works on all fronts. I'm seeing Bassnectar in a week and look forward to being the oldest person in the crowd.

Bassnectar - Where Is My Mind Remix by gypsysphere

Management Tips From A Master

Tina Fey on staying skinny during her Saturday Night Live years:

"I regularly ate health food cookies so disgusting that when I enthusiastically gave one to Rachel Dratch she drew a picture of a rabbit and broke the cookie into a trail of tiny pieces coming out of the rabbit's butt."

More in Bossypants.

Expanding Your Horizons

Koji Yamamura. New to me. Old to anyone who's been paying attention. This is some of his latest stuff, but dig in and watch a few of his earlier shorts, too. He's made decades' worth of fantastic, charming, thought-provoking animation.

Something for Everybody

Despite being a rabid Devo fan, I only recently got their new release Something for Everybody--their first in 20 years. The band continues to kill. See them live if you can. Meanwhile, check out Human Rocket.

Whimpering, not banging.

#8 (sort of) of 8.

Summer Hitz 20XX is also not available online. As a poor substitute, here's the trailer for the festival at which all these short films were presented.

Then God is Seven

#7 of 8, Stargate SG-47719, is not available online. Here's some other weirdness by the artist instead.

Who Wants Six?

#6 of 8: The Unclothed Man in the 35th Century

A friend called Five

#5 of 8: Whose Toes

http://www.animateprojects.org/films/by_date/2010/whose

Festing

#4 of 8

Definite Trip Material

This is probably seizure-inducing, so consider yourself warned. #3 of 8 from the Floating World Comics Animation Festival in Portland OR.

Jacob Ciocci "The Peace Tape" from Audio Dregs Recordings on Vimeo.

Continuing the Trip

Here's the second of eight cartoons played at the Floating World Comics Animation Festival in Portland, OR on 10/13/2010.

Apeiron, by Eurico Coelho (1998) from dieubussy (Eastern Mind) on Vimeo.

Taking a Trip

Although I had a ticket, I didn't get to go to the Floating World Comics Animation Festival here in Portland on 10/13/2010. Like many things on which I've had to take a pass (like regular posting to this blog), other priorities interfered.

Still, I managed to sneak a list of the films they played. Here's the first.

Stealing Material

Another Highly Recommended Thing of Several Moments Ago:

MC Chris:

Thanks to Hex for turning me onto this.

Oh, and because people are stupid on the Internet, I'm not suggesting MC Chris stole anything. I'm stealing material from Hex's blog (MC Chris) for this post. Now you know.

Pitch-Perfection

Tapping right into the impotent rage-driven psyche of every 8th grader ever, Josh Lieb's I Am A Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want To Be Your Class President serves up 300 brisk pages of hilarious middle school politicking. Oliver Watson Junior suffers a daily 400 blows, all while plotting his grand design.

I guess this could be considered a children's book, but it's way funnier (and less immediately familiar and painful) if you're an adult. Click through for a description, but basically Lieb had me at the title.

Five Secs

You will spend more than five seconds at Five Second Projects.

Being Thankful

(if the picture doesn't load, refresh the page)

Trailer Park Boys is a Canadian TV show that's now in its seventh season. As such, it's a highly recommended thing of several moments ago. But since I'm a dumb American and just found out aboot it, it's new to me.

The characters are all residents of the same trailer park, and the show centers on their petty crimes, get-rich-quick schemes, and power struggles. Be thankful you don't live in a trailer park.The show can be a bit hit-and-miss, but the magic is in the details: lead character Ricky lives out of a car and stirs his Kool-Aid with a plastic shoehorn. His partner in crime *always* has a mixed drink in his hand, and they're constantly harassed by a disgraced cop/trailer park supervisor with delusions of grandeur.

What's really great about the show is that it's not just a snobby put-down of trailer trash. The characters have a can-do ethic, and survival skills that work for them within the park, even if they don't completely understand how the world outside works.

Those Darn Czechs

Having finished the excellent Machinarium, I went looking for other excellentness from independent Czechoslovakian studio Amanita Design, the game's maker. Everything they've done is great. Here, give this one a try. S'free, clever, odd, and aesthetically original.

Thomas Jefferson's Buttock Boils

Did you know John Adams occasionally purged after eating? Or that James Garfield needed rectal feeding? S'true. If you can get past the ca.1998 design on this page (or appreciate the hand-drawn icons for their charm), you can get the health dope on your favorite president.

Statistically speaking, that's Obama, who's 6'2" and 165. Or, after he quits smoking, 265...

Down the Nostalgia Rabbit Hole

Abandonia is a clearinghouse for abandonware: software which is no longer sold or supported. These are typically games made for systems which are no longer on the market. But thanks to emulators, they're still playable.

The site is Mecca for old-school computer gamers. All the Infocom games are here for free, for instance.

I'm still looking for a playable copy of Atari's BallBlazer. Lemme know if you find one.

Wishing there were more like this.

The more I watch this show, the more I'm impressed. If you like James Bond movies, and you haven't seen the original I Spy television show from the '60s, you should. Robert Culp and Bill Cosby (in the first lead role for a black man in a prime-time TV series) are super-suave, capable secret agents. The show was shot overseas in exotic locales, has a hip score by Earle Hagen, and throws some worthwhile thinking into Cold War spy biz plots.

The first two seasons are now up on Hulu, so you can blaze through the whole set.

If you watch on DVD, you'll also get commentary from Robert Culp, who had an impressive TV writing career (working for Sam Peckinpah, among others) before the show, and wrote eight episodes for the first season. Listening to his story is inspiring for writers of all stripes, and especially for those working on scripts.