| The 2008 List (from E) |
[Dec. 24th, 2008|12:21 am] |
1. What did you do in 2008 that you'd never done before?
Played in a band with two drummers.
2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don't really do resolutions...but...um...I'd like to be putting more money into a savings account.
3. How will you be spending New Year's Eve?
In Indiana.
4. Did anyone close to you die?
Yes.
5. What countries did you visit?
Cecil County, MD.
6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?
Time to play music.
7. What date from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
I would say election night, but that was pretty much a foregone conclusion. But..never mind. Election night! Because I got nothing better.
8. What was your biggest achievement(s) of the year?
Becoming pretty good at my job.
9. What was your biggest failure?
Lack of communication.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I did my share of puking. Also for a while there in August I was missing nearly a 40 square inches of skin on left shin. Yay skateboarding in shorts.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
1979 Peavey T-60.
12. Where did most of your money go?
Rent and bills and food.
13. What song will always remind you of 2008?
"Prayer to God" - Shellac
14. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Sleeping.
15. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Being tired and worrying about money.
16. What was your favourite TV program?
Anthony Bourdain!
17. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Nah.
18. What was the best book you read?
"The Road" by Cormac McCarthy. Damn. Right.
19. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Man Man.
20. What was your favourite film of this year?
The Dark Knight.
21. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
Stuff. 26.
22. What kept you sane?
Music and H'izzle.
23. Who did you miss?
E, Barog, Dizzastawich, etc.
24. Who was the best new person you met?
JK
25. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008:
Nobody is ever on the same page until you check.
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| My thought for the day... |
[Oct. 3rd, 2008|01:11 am] |
Americans are easily persuaded to act on solutions presented to them for problems they didn't know they had.
....Although, maybe it's just human nature. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 26th, 2008|12:06 am] |
Blood Car. Best no-budget horror-satire-parody I've seen all year. We own it, so anyone who wants to borrow it...hit us up.
In the mean time, imagine it's The Future, gas is $34/gallon, so no one drives. Then, a vegan kindergarten teacher, while trying to build an engine that runs on wheat-grass juice, accidentally discovers that his contraption runs on blood! Perfect! Now, all he needs is a great big meat blender in the trunk of his little Honda, so he can liquefy any squirrel, puppy, cat, or person he manages to coax in, and use the crimson goodies to fuel his engine and ego in equal proportions. Soon, he begins a water-sporty affair with a hot road-side meat vendor, and starts burning through people just to fill his tank and take his meat princess out on the town. All the while, the government is trying to get its slimy little mitts on his not-so-vegan invention, and he still finds time to help his kiddies become happy little Leftists. What? Yes.
This thing is immensely quotable, and like nothing you've ever seen. The non-existent budget only ruins the fun on rare-occasions, and on the whole the acting is actually pretty good. Definitely a B+. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 1st, 2008|11:48 pm] |
| [ | Soup du Jour: |
| |  Sad and a bit angry | ] |
Shannon
You stand
in taut ribbons.
And in a water lily spiral
your small pale hands
trace the inside
of Aphrodite,
and you watch the storm clouds
rising in our chests.
We are a glistening
Pompeii gladius ready to cleave
any breast or arm or clenched fist
assailing you and heave our
bodies blithely at the walls together
like thunderclaps
in crushing rain
and aeolian hail.
With firebrand boulders flinging
obsidian into the pink nearness of
our skin
our skin,
O god
the way you look at us.
So beautiful.
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| Life Interlude |
[Mar. 24th, 2008|08:46 pm] |
From XKCD:
Who has made this mistake? What's the funniest/most inappropriate music you've ever heard during sex? |
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| Poem edit inspired by my last post. |
[Mar. 3rd, 2008|07:52 pm] |
| Playing a Tele
Simple. Ugly. Like plucking
a block of wood
ringing heavy.
Can you hear
the hot snap of lightning
split the grain
splinter the rings of the Alder tree? The tree
that became the hollow hard body
you cradle in your lap like a large dog. It sings square.
The knot-holes flute out. Shine.
Simple.
Ugly.
Shimmer.
Thwack.
Like a towering smolder
of airy thick-haired Americana
drenched in windcut rocks.
The ocean was here once.
A million years ago.
The amps are screaming level, smooth.
Rumble. A string is bent in half and
whips back
on fire. |  |
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| Half these entries are about music. This one is too. |
[Feb. 28th, 2008|09:59 pm] |
Earth - "The Bees Made Honey In the Lion's Skull"
Like a towering smolder of airy, thick-haired Americana drenched in wind cut rocks. The ocean was here once. A million years ago.
Earth on this album:
Dylan Carlson - Guitar
Bill Frisell - Guitar (Yes, THE Bill Frisell, the jazz guitarist)
Steve Moore - Organ
Don McGreevy - Bass
Adrienne Davies - Drums |
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| Escape Party Friday |
[Feb. 11th, 2008|07:11 pm] |
Yo people. Slam poet, Mr. Rich Boucher (founder of the old-skool Tuesday NIght Open Mic And Slam in Newark, DE), is running away to New Mexico. Come see him off at our spot up in PA. You'll want to, bad.
PLS message back if you want details/directions. Or email me at kleptocracy-at-gmail-dot-com
Invite your friends, bring drinks/munchies to share if you can, but we'll be somewhat prepared.
much love,
poets and palindromes,
-Nigel/Matt/Hannah Baum-McDizzy
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| another itunes meme |
[Feb. 10th, 2008|10:58 pm] |
How many songs total: 5490
How many hours or days of music: 13.8 days
Most recently played: Elliott - Dionysus Burning
Most played: Kling Klang - Heavydale
Most recently added: The soundtrack from the Sega Genesis game "Subterrania"
Sort by song title:
First Song: "A-OK" by Motion City Sountrack
Last Song: "$$$$" by Desaparecidos
Sort by time:
Shortest Song: Bucket Full of Teeth - "Piss in the IV" (5 seconds)
Longest Song: Godspeed You! Black Emperor - "Providence" (29:02)
Sort by album:
First album: Ace of Spade - Motorhead
Last album: 40oz to Freedom - Sublime
First song that comes up on Shuffle: Sonic Youth - "Satan is Boring"
Search the following and state how many songs come up:
Death - 64
Life - 88
Love - 118
Hate - 42
You - 503
Sex - 28 |
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| (no subject) |
[Feb. 10th, 2008|12:36 am] |
DAVID SANDSTRÖM OVERDRIVE
has a new album coming out. David is the ex-drummer for Refused, the brain behind TEXT, and guitarist, songwriter, and singer of amazing (and relatively radio friendly as well as totally not radio friendly) tunes. Here's a video for a song from the new album:
Being a weird Swedish recluse/socialist/anarchist...he doesn't make a lot of videos. I don't think he's been in the states since with Refused in the 90s. And I can't remember the last time I was this excited for an unreleased album. DSÖ! DSÖ! DSÖ! DSÖ! |
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 12th, 2008|12:32 pm] |
Put your iTunes on shuffle for this:
1..IF SOMEONE SAYS "IS THIS OKAY" YOU SAY?
"Bat Chain Puller" - Cap'n Beefheart
2..HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF?
"Structo <Mr. Microphone Mixup>" - Man or Astro-Man?
3. WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
"7 Words" - Deftones
4. HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?
"Continent" - Kind of Like Spitting
5. WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE?
"Staring at the Sun" - TV On the Radio
6..WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
"Ears Ring" - Rainer Maria
7. WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
"I Want To Be the Boy" - White Stripes
8. WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
"Apology" - The Posies (OUCH!)
9. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
"Sweet Dreams" - Marilyn Manson (HAHAHAHA)
10. WHAT IS 2 + 2?
"Losing My Religion" - REM
11. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR EX?
"A New Sedative" - Nine
12. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
"Psychosis" - Bucket Full of Teeth
13..WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
"Welcome to the Machine" - Pink Floyd (Well ain't that the fuckin' truth...)
14..WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
"Pink Rose" - Glassjaw
15. WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
"Miss Take" - Horrorpops
16. WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
"A Deconstructionist Approach to Popular Culture" - Sadaharu
17. WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
"Phase 3: Agni Detonating Over the Thar Desert" - Earth
18. WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST FEAR?
"Kill Your Boyfriend" - David Sandstrom (LOL)
19. WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
"The Boxer" - Me First and the Gimme Gimmies
20..WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
"Thank Me with Your Hands (Remix by MSTRKRFT)" - Panthers |
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| Podslam |
[Jan. 12th, 2008|11:56 am] |
So, not only is my performance of my poem "German is the Language of Love!" up on www.podslam.org, but I'm currently winning!
Everyone go watch and vote for your favorite poem (even if it ain't mine). |
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| New Poem |
[Dec. 5th, 2007|01:08 am] |
American
My hands raise
against the light of the moon
and are cut.
I do not admit
to walking in the post dusk,
even though
a full day's work means home is darkened
before I step through the threshold.
My front door has two locks.
The top lock, the deadbolt,
swings to a different key
than the other.
I know my shoulder can shred the jam,
if the bottom lock clicks closed accidentally.
I have no key
to that lock
on my front door.
I am very American, today. Dawn.
Work.
Dusk.
Moonlight
is a dangerous place for real Americans with useless locks.
And I am ever
barely home.
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 31st, 2007|06:52 am] |
Everyone anywhere near DE should come out to DelaWhere? tonight for the Halloween prop and costume SLAM!
Oh, and I'll have a real update later! |
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| We got it! |
[Oct. 2nd, 2007|01:49 pm] |
As of this Saturday, October 6th, 1907 Whitpain Hills, Blue Bell PA, 19422, will be ours.
We got final confirmation today. YAY!
3 bedrooms, 2.5 Bathrooms, 1800 sq.ft. The party will occur soon! |
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| Dream.... |
[Oct. 2nd, 2007|01:05 am] |
I dreamed I was at NPS (but the hotel was more like the hotel from Terry Gilliam's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas--Great start, huh?), and as I'm walking down the main, overly-ornate steps in the hotel, Tod Caviness (AKA, ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) valis429) runs up to me. As we exchange pleasantries, two things become apparent. Firstly, on this occasion the role of Tod is being played by Dan Schultz (AKA, abgitatz). So, my brain swapped one skinny, pasty, poetic bald dude for another, and, mind you, these two have no idea the other exists in real life, so it's a little odd being aware of this in-dream. Secondly, Tod is now convinced that he is William Shatner, and has forsaken poetry (aside from attending national events as a spectator, obviously) for the wonderful world of low-rent laser light shows, low-rent because Tod has only two hand-held laser-pointers, which he waves about furiously in a dark room. Imagine this folks, if you can, the image of Tod as Dan as The Shat doing a cracked out laser spaz-fest in a large, mostly empty dark ballroom, more-or-less timed to Black Sabbath's War Pigs. Yep. I dreamed that shit.
I think maybe it was the Scotch.... |
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| Since the Weekly World News is gone... |
[Sep. 24th, 2007|11:16 am] |
From the Associated Press even...
In Cuero, Texas, a woman by the name of Phylis Canion believes she has found the head of a chupacabra (Mythical Mexican goatsucker). "She suspects, as have many rural denizens over the years, that a chupacabra may have killed as many as 26 of her chickens in the past couple of years. What tipped Canion to the possibility that this was no ugly coyote, but perhaps the vampire-like beast, is that the chickens weren't eaten or carried off – all the blood was drained from them, she said."
DNA tests are still in the works, but veterinarian Travis Schaar of the Main Street Animal Hospital in nearby Victoria, thinks this head may merely belong to a "mutated litter of dogs," with a, "preference for blood."
Holy crap. |
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| More news from the Lab of Death |
[Sep. 20th, 2007|10:55 am] |
Remember the other day I was bitching about the problems I was having with Simulink. Turns out the real problem was that the motor encoder was cutting out above a shaft velocity of 2.7rad/s. Huh? Apparently (Thank you, Mike) the 5V logic of the encoder was effed up, and above a certain speed the high signal was never making it passed 2V. A couple of 10K pull-up resistors later and bam, everything works great.
I can't exactly relax now, but I'm no longer having a heart attack either. Yay.
So, everyone should go check out Tanya's pics from the show last Thursday! Sample:
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| It's midnight. Do you know where your grad students are? |
[Sep. 18th, 2007|12:14 am] |
Well, I'm in the lab. Yes, the lab. Midnight. On a Monday.
Why?
Because shit is pissing me off. I love MathWorks and MatLab and Simulink. But when you're trying to run some hardware-in-the-loop controllers via Simulink, and you need to do some shit that would be easy if Simulink were actually a continuous modeler like it pretends to be (like requiring the dataflow to go upstream instantaneously)...stuff stops making sense. For-loop-like behavior pops up out of thin air. Infinite loops were expected if I screwed up. But for-loops? What the fuck!
For all of you who thought that was gibberish, I'm sorry.
So anyway, with some human trials occurring on the active gait rehab device for stroke patients in the mornings, unless I come in to the lab at odd hours I only get half a day to work on the comp I have to work on b/c it's the only one with all the proper funky hardware connectivity. So here I am.
All those who wished me a Happy B-Day last week, THANKS! Sorry I didn't reply in the timely fashion. I've but super-crazy busy, as most of you know. |
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| What's up with this? |
[Aug. 27th, 2007|08:48 am] |
From CNN:
"There are American officials who consider Iraq as if it were one of their villages, for example Hillary Clinton and Carl Levin," al-Maliki told reporters in Baghdad. "This is severe interference in our domestic affairs."
"Carl Levin and Hillary Clinton are from the Democratic Party and they must demonstrate democracy," al-Maliki said. "I ask them to come to their senses and to talk in a respectful way about Iraq."
Wow...I've gotta say, it feels like someone put him up to that, fingerpointing at the Dem pres frontrunner and the party as a whole. Yikes. |
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| Come rock the fuck out with us... |
[Aug. 24th, 2007|05:52 pm] |
Check it out... the entire ensemble of i, fanblades is now planning a studio-only improv side-project lovingly named John the Bastard. frankly, what we're looking for is anyone who is interested in coming to hang out at our new place (sometime after when we get said new place in about a month) for about a day or two and just jam hard and heavy while it gets recorded.
We're looking to just grab any and all musicians we know who would be willing to come and set up a bunch of equipment... drums, bass, guitars, whatever... and make nothin' but ruckus for a couple of days. we want it to be a big, droney, hard-hitting drum circle from hell. No real planning, no rehearsals, no pre-writing of any sort! Just come and rock out with us. We'll make it a party. Hell, we'll make it a sleep-over if you want to. we don't care. just come trash the world of music with us.
After a couple of days of recording is complete, we'll take it, mix it all down, master it, and make an album or two out of it, and we'll put it all up on iTunes for the world to consume. Everyone will get credit, and we'll even make up a website for it.
This is gunna be the shit. If you're interested, write us with your contact info, you'll be added to a database... and once we have a time blocked out for it, you'll be contacted.
Much Love and Black Jazz to you all,
Matt & i, fanblades
P.S. - This will be taking place in PA, somewhere.. roughly North Philly area... Maybe near Plymouth Meeting or some such place. It depends on where we move in the next month. |
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| I <3 Store Brand Cereal |
[Aug. 24th, 2007|09:35 am] |
I'm currently eating "Honey Crunchin' Oats with Honey."
It's so redundant I feel like I'm eating it twice. |
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| And now for something completely offensive... |
[Aug. 23rd, 2007|02:33 pm] |
Creative cussing! Everybody share your favorites!
Exclamations:
Pancreas-licker! (Nigel's fave for a time)
Fuckabees! (Nigel's new fave, I think)
Nargy-poop! (That's a hard G, if you were curious.)
Oh Holy God! (Not real creative, but I've been saying it a lot lately)
Jesus tits!
Holy fuckin' Jesus bloody god hell!
Bleeding shit! ('cause that makes sense, right?)
You've gotta be fist-fucking me!
Namecalling:
Giant douche-monster
Stretchy dickhole
Bleeding cock (or cockhole)
Anorexic fuckstick (from Roberta)
Liver-funker.
Something that tastes bad:
Wombat piss (my dad's)
Fuzzy goat ass (mine)
Threats/Nasty Wishes:
I hope the fleas of a thousand deserts infest your asshole.
Suck a fuck! (from Donnie Darko)
Suck a bag o' dicks.
Share!
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| Why not? |
[Aug. 23rd, 2007|09:33 am] |
Your Score: Vampira! Our test has determined that you possess
36% Hellbentness, 50% Sanguinity, and 57% Creeps!
Well done!
Beautiful, creepy, and bloodthirsty, your Proto-Goth Icon is Vampira, the world's first TV horror host! Vampira was played by Maila Nurmi, the Finnish performer beneath the famous black wig and nails. Her iconic gothic style, sardonic wit and eye-popping hourglass figure made her the macabre fantasy of guys and ghouls across the globe, despite appearing on a show that was only broadcast in the Los Angeles area. Every week the voluptuous vamp would emerge from dry-ice studio fog to the sound of creepy organ music. She would unleash a bloodcurdling scream and utter puns in an exotic, sexual, Marlene Dietrich-like drawl - "I am... Vampira! I hope you all had the good fortune to have had a terrible week!"
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| New poem. |
[Aug. 23rd, 2007|09:13 am] |
Playing a Tele
Simple. Ugly. Like plucking
a block of wood.
In that note
ringing heavy
can you hear
the hot snap of lightning
split the grain
splinter the rings of the Alder tree? The tree
that became the hollow hard body
you cradle in your lap like a large dog--
it sings square. The knot-holes flute out. Shine.
Simple.
Ugly.
Shimmer.
Thwack.
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| New Gogol Bordello |
[Aug. 16th, 2007|12:24 pm] |
After hearing Eugene Hutz on NPR yesterday, and realizing the new Gogol album was already out...I went and bought it. Just finished the first listen. It's great. No Albini this time, but still great.
Sample lyrics:
"But unfortunately there'll be no judgement day.
It would be kind of fun to see
what they would have to say
when the god they preached
would actually be there
and all who didn't like The Stooges
would go to fucking hell!!!!"
"With a crave for panacea
World is crawlin' on all fours
In search of a new prayer.
Gods are throwin' thunderbolts."
"From the maelstrom of the knowledge
into labyrinth of doubt
Frozed [sic] underground ocean melting
nuking on my mind" |
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| New Poem |
[Aug. 13th, 2007|11:23 pm] |
Wildflowers
Mom,
Love can trickle quietly, brush your cheek,
a warm wind sipping your scent from a cotton dress.
Indiana squash. Deliberately reddened tomatoes.
Cornstalks proud and straight.
This is your love. Garden love.
Sweet, pretty, careful, fenced in.
You kneel in the soil and smile at the sun
weaving pumpkin vines to your fingers.
But I love like wildflowers,
gorgeous and ungainly,
awkward, spicy,
haphazard,
flitting beautiful in the gusts of any wind
playing a colorful song. These are
flowers, Yellow like
electric honey, bit-lip
blood red, the blues
of moonlight, pink and orange
and purple…
Yes, I too have a garden.
A garden bursting with a thousand Hannah sunflowers.
But I have no fences,
and so these myriad petals are free to float on
after any gentle word, kindness, deed.
Everyone has a dandelion in their palm,
ripened to a ball of seeds,
and you have always made fists.
So pop my chest open like a milkweed pod,
put your lips to my back, and I’ll smile
when the these seeds whisk away
on the warmth of your
breath, soar in the sun
like stars and land in praise
of rich soil, growing strong
and stunning.
Mom,
My friends deserve something
for being beautiful to me,
and all I have are wildflowers. |
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| Earth Show |
[Jul. 27th, 2007|09:41 am] |
Went to the Preistbird/Earth/Pelican show in Philly last night. Damn it was great.
Priestbird are some kind of Led Zeppelin-y hard rock psychedelia with cello. Very musical, they're obviously perfectionists. Great set, too. They really won that crowd over. The crowd either came to see Earth or Pelican (In most cases not both), but Priest left with more fans than they came with.
Now for Earth. Oh. My. God. So awesome. Every wonder what it feels like to be eaten away by desert wind like so much sandstone? Ever wonder what immense desolation sounds like? The answer is...Earth.
Earth these days is not like the Earth of old. The Earth of old was an overdriven distorted leviathan ready to very slowly devour you...Drone yes, but derived from heavy psych and metal. The new Earth is has a different palette. They've grabbed sounds from more traditional American music, country & western, blues, bluegrass...the sounds and feeling of the American Southwest...but they have twisted it around like only Earth can.
Imagine a 10 minute song with one riff...one riff that takes 90 seconds to get through...partly because the riff is so long, and partly because they're playing 40 beats per minute. Now imagine that riff is played on the most gorgeous Tele you've ever seen or heard (and I'm not usually a Tele fan), a little amped up for intensity but not distortion with absolutely godlike sustain. Pair that with a drummer who can actually play a rambling but precise beat at 40bpm, and a bassist who's sole purpose is a menacing harmonic rumble with that same otherworldly sustain. Now imagine the man playing the Tele INVENTED modern drone music, and BOUGHT THE SHOTGUN for Kurt Cobain that he later ate. That's Earth. Fuckin' A.
Pelican bore me. Of all the heavy post-rock-type-bands....they're the least interesting to me. Oh well. Earth and Priestbird were way worth it by themselves. |
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| Hey... |
[Jul. 24th, 2007|12:05 am] |
Don't ask me where I'm taking my desk chair.
8^) |
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| NPS 2007 - DelaWhere?'s Bout Draw |
[Jul. 22nd, 2007|12:20 pm] |
Wednesday, 7pm - Ruta Maya
Oakland
Amarillo
Wimington
White Planes
Charlotte - Respect the Mic
Thursday, 9pm - Antone's
Decatur
Springfield
Atlanta
Houston
Wilmington |
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| Cryptic Pizza |
[Jul. 16th, 2007|10:36 am] |
| [ | Soup du Jour: |
| |  Cryptic | ] |
Some people don't get how to get stuff. They flail about like little puppies in a burning building trying to blow out a candle, or they try to buzz out some honey before they ever see a flower.
If you tell someone to herbify, and they spice it up instead, you can't help but want to have a calm, heart-to-heart kickball game with their face. |
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| I just want to point out to all of you... |
[Jul. 5th, 2007|09:02 am] |
| [ | Soup du Jour: |
| |  Mmmm...coffee | ] |
that my new icon makes me giggle. It uses two of my favorite words!
UPDATE: I got some feedback that the icon moves a bit to fast. It has been slowed down a bit. if it's still too swift lemme know. 8^D |
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| Brussels Sprouts |
[Jul. 4th, 2007|12:29 pm] |
http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/Movies/07/04/eu.film.reut/index.html
Just found the above article on CNN. I'm amused that they seem to be more concerned with whether the pun in the title of the clips translates appropriately than whether or not it's too risque.
Also, there's the INCREDIBLY REFRESHING quote from the European Commission spokesman Martin Selmayr:
"Let us for once also have a good sense of humor and let us not start the old wars of the fifties about what is sex, what is pornography, and what is simply normal to watch on television."
If only I would hear, oh I don't know, the FCC say that.
Have a happy 4th everybody in the US. |
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| The head spins.... |
[Jun. 22nd, 2007|02:05 pm] |
| [ | Soup du Jour: |
| |  amazed | ] |
Check out this article from CNN.com a few days ago.
A bomb was placed on a commuter bus in the Philippines by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front-- that's right, the MILF. And who is heading the investigation? Why, MAJOR RANDY CABANGBANG of course. Major Randy Cabangbang really wants the MILF.
Are you shitting me, CNN? I think you're shitting me. |
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| Mr. Brooks |
[Jun. 20th, 2007|11:31 am] |
| [ | Soup du Jour: |
| | amused | ] |
I saw Mr. Brooks last night, the new Kevin Costner flick. Gotta say, I loved it. It was quirky, intricate, well-paced, hilarious, AND relatively fucked up. I loved lots of the writing, lots of the acting, and didn't despise Demi Moore for existing. Also, Dane Cook is great as the over-eager protoge (who by the way is a mechanical engineer in the film...figures).
I know Mr. Dances-With-Wolves gets a lot of shit for being a mediocre actor, and sometimes he is, but I thought he did a great job here. But, really though, I think the award should go to William Hurt. Seriously. Some of the best acting I've seen since I watched Daniel Day Lewis in Gangs of NY the other day.
To quote some critics,
"There are flashes of near-greatness here, and the moments of dramatic power and aura of moral ambiguity set it apart from just about every other movie out there this season."
"It's a tasty stew for anyone with a macabre stomach lining. It's sense of humor is dependent on your ability to connect with your inner psychopath and root for the bad guy."
"Costner’s best performance ever! An intelligent, terrific thriller with twists and kinky characters. Costner and Hurt are a sensational team."
A third of the critics talk like this, another third hated for all the reasons the first third liked it, and the last third just didn't really know what they had in front of them.
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| Image Macros |
[Jun. 11th, 2007|05:25 pm] |
Cat Macros are hilarious, sure. We all know that. But did you know that it goes faaar beyond cats?
For example:
LOLBOTS
LOLGAYS
LOLJESUS
Yes that's right. LOL JESUS. See?
OR
Also, I'm amused by the fact that the Jesus in the first image looks a bit like Chris August, and the Jesus in the second image looks a bit like Chris Wilson. Amazing. |
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| Meme-iness |
[Jun. 7th, 2007|03:56 pm] |
So, Quixote82, your LiveJournal reveals...
You are... 10% unique (blame, for example, your interest in worm-wolves) and 5% herdlike (partly because you, like everyone else, enjoy snow). When it comes to friends you are popular. In terms of the way you relate to people, you are keen to please. Your writing style (based on a recent public entry) is intellectual.
Your overall weirdness is: 41(The average level of weirdness is: 27.
You are weirder than 83% of other LJers.)
Find out what your weirdness level is!
Also, courtesy of www.lolbots.com -
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| MatLab Programming Contest |
[May. 25th, 2007|12:58 pm] |
My friend Darren and I have started an online MatLab programming contest. You can check it out here: http://darren.sksi.net/.
CHALLENGE
Imagine ants in a sandbox. Ants collect sugar cubes and brings them back to the home anthill, while avoiding an ant-killing fungus called Cordyceps. The challenge is to write the controller program carried by each individual ant. The difficulty comes from the fact that ants can only see their local vicinity, cannot communicate to each other directly, and have no memory from one time-step to the next. The only form of communication available is a trail of chemical scent that the ants can leave behind, either as a warning to avoid an area or a road-sign directing other ants to food or back home. The program is scored based on how well the ants do in moving food toward the anthill in a certain amount of time.
CONTEST
Everything you need to get started developing your entries is on the website, including an example testsuite and code, so you can test your ant control routines on your own computer. When you want to submit an entry, upload the m-file to that webpage, and it will get automatically run and scored, and the scores posted. You can submit as many entries as you like. Winners will receive small science-and-engineering-related prizes. The contest is also open to ANYONE, so tell all your friends! The contest is currently going, and will run until the middle of June.
COLLABORATION
In the interests of fostering open-sourcey programming communities, after the first week of the competition, all submitted entries will be avalailable for viewing. Those codes can be modified, improved, tweaked and resubmitted by anyone for a new score. This is a really fun way to run a contest, and the winning programs are always better than they would be without such collaboration.
A full set of rules can be found on the website, and are linked here. So check it out! See you in the contest queue!
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| A picture that's worth a thousand words.... |
[Apr. 27th, 2007|10:42 am] |
| [ | Soup du Jour: |
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Data from "Patterns of Global Terrorism," report from the US State Department, and the National Counterterrorism Center's "Chronology of Terror Events," report. |
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| Loudness is good for you. |
[Apr. 19th, 2007|11:35 pm] |
For those of you who don't know The Collingwood, they're what happens when Godspeed You! Black Emperor covers The Cure. And we sound like...um...a collaboration between Earth and Sonic Youth...
Hope to see you there! |
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| LA vs. New Delhi |
[Apr. 16th, 2007|03:45 pm] |
The above picture is crowded suburbs/innards of LA. The one below it is a similar location relative to center city in New Delhi, India, or as I like to call it, LA in 100 years. These pictures are at the same scale. People who call LA crowded now don't know what crowded is.
LA:
New Delhi:
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complacent
