30May2007 1825: Munchkin

The homies and I have been hitting the Munchkin pretty hard, to the point where if you wanted to play Munchkin in Fargo you can't. We took it all. The game store has possibly restocked by now... good luck. I may already be succumbing to Munchkin Fatigue, a malady not of wishing I didn't play the game, but of playing the game until 5AM and being physically fatigued.

Internets alert! A movie has been released which shows the input of one controller being used to beat FOUR Mega Man games simultaneously! This movie is so ridiculously awesome that lesser computers may struggle to even play it.

The free music this week is woefully unprepared to follow last week's bumper crop of nicheness. [Eduardo Cruz - Ni Tu Ni Yo] demonstrates that overwrought pop ballads know no language barriers. I personally don't need to keep it around as I already have [Rich Voisine - Helene], with all the force of high school nostalgia behind it. [The Kooks - Ooh La] is mild rock somethings that will play well in just about any situation but is not a force unto itself. I am inspired to create a playlist of songs with "la" in the title, however. Their grand legacy!

26May2007 0330: 18

In keeping with the promise I made to myself long ago, I am now informing you all that (NSFW) issue 18 of Platinum Grit has appeared and continues to rock hard. It's actually been out a while, but I just found out. NSFW is intarweb slang for Not Some Fucking Weaksauce.

25May2007 1820: And the Momes Rath Outgrabe

Cheshire Crossing has updated with issue 3 and continues the spectacular fanfic wankery it excels at. I didn't think it could top the magical battle of the Wicked Witch of the West and Mary Poppins, but it has come close and promises to do so with regularity! Representative line: "These borogroves feel mimsy. We're on the right track".

23May2007 1856: Vindication

That sound you hear is not the mighty thunderstorms rolling across Fargo; nay, it is the resounding rumble of awesome coming from somewhere in the latter half of the year. Seriously. Shit. Wow. Sabotage, Paint It Black, School's Out, Barracuda. And above them all -- heralded by myself on September 10th -- is the mighty Knights of Cydonia. Long have I desired to caress the Orange Button in time to its odd rhythms and powerful chords. When Guitar Hero III is released I will merge with the Knights and they with me, and we shall rock as one.

I have been waiting to play that song in Guitar Hero since the first time I heard it.

In other music news, we have a rather eclectic bunch of free iTunes track this week. [Great Northern - Home] sounds like most other soft-rocking indie radio ballads, with a female front and a bunch of guys singing harmony on the title repeated over and over. Pleasant but not groundbreaking, I expect it will stay in the middle of my collection.

[Bonde do Role - Solta o Frango] is what one gets after running Hollaback Girl through a NES sound chip and a Spanish interpreter. Which basically results in distilled "woohoo" for a weirdo like me, but gods help you if it gets on the radio. I'm definitely keeping this one, it's the perfect single to surprise your friends during a Music Shuffle marathon.

[Eric Church - Lightning] is the most comprehensive country and western parody since [Steve Goodman - You Never Even Called Me by My Name]. I can only assume it's a parody. It's parody. Right? Sweet Cthulhu, let it be parody.

17May2007 1954: 80s in the 60s

The graduation ceremony was not the apex/closure I had quite hoped for. The thesis defense was definitely the obstacle that needed conquering, and once that was over it's practically nothing to sit in a folding chair for three hours. Thesis revisions need doing, but the list is short and mostly about me putting things I talked about on the spot into the paper.

Aside from that, my parents gave me a bike that had been gathering dust in their garage for 10 years. I have been out 80% of the days since then, beating my physique into submission. I've always had trouble going out without a destination in mind; initial fears that biking around would lead to the destination of Dairy Queen have proved false. It's enough that I'm working towards the goal of biking to work. So far, I can make it most of the way within half an hour, and with eight/nine hours of relaxation in between trips I don't think it would kill me.

The front brake cable, that will kill me. I hosed that up pretty good.

Also: grilling for brekkist tomorrow.

Music time! Nothing leaps out at me this week, not like the Katie Walsh from last week. [Notch - Guaya Guaya] is yet another reggae song that is probably awesome. I am simply too white. Like, listening to this song is scaring away what little tan I've gathered while biking. [Magic Sam - Back Door Friend] is an older blues song about how most women have a "back door friend", and the musicianship isn't really hahahahahahahAHAHAHAHAHAHA oh man I almost made it through the review. Honestly. Back door friend. That's way more awesome than the song actually is.

This week does have one borderline keeper. [Chrisette Michele - Your Joy] is a very very slow acoustic tune that is dripping with sugar and sunbeams. I like her voice but the song seems like it's building to some epic power chord rockathon that never comes. It's overlong at 4:15, but if it was the first movement in a Guns and Roses ballad that goes on for 15 minutes plus/minus guitar solo, it'd be playing on all the 80s rock stations now and forever.

I have some scifi gold to spring on SciFri tomorrow. Don't want to spoil it, but I will say that it comes sister-approved and is the origin of one of the seminal bands of the 80s. This will prove interesting.

09May2007 1921: Pomp and Circumstance

...is a much better song when you're not on the playing end of it. A sedate piece with a tepid bassline, designed to be played indefinitely? No thank you. But I am attending commencement for my MSCS on Friday, formally celebrating the end of twenty straight years of schooling.

My weekend would have gone a lot better if Spider-Man 3 hadn't been such a huge disappointment. This is not some nerd rage at what they've done to characters or costumes or whatnot; this is disatisfaction with the elements that pertain to movies. The script was bad. Not only did they in cram in literally too many villains for the screen to hold, but the human element that carried the first two movies was simply bad here. Coherency was at an all-time low as villains were forgotten for large stretches of time, or simply turned off like a switch and shunted aside. Scene transitions were jarring at points, especially in the rushed last half hour. And please, you took the time to cast an entire human actor to play one of the most famous Spider-Man villains and he only gets one fight scene? That is when civilians can see your budget straining to keep up with ambition.

You may see some Intertube Anger over the middle of the film, the Emo Parker segment. While it was ridiculously emo-hair time -- and I hope this fashion looks as ludicrous in ten years as 80s hair bands do now -- I don't really hate that portion. It was just Raimi doing his best to make me uncomfortable, a contest of wills to see how cheesy he could make things before people up and left. Nobody left.

This does not preclude a good Spider-Man 3 from being released on DVD, it will simply require all of the interstitial material I imagine mounded on the editor's floor.

Pretty good week for music, though. [Kate Walsh - Tonight] sounds an awful lot like Lisa Loeb, except I don't remember Lisa Loeb repeating the title over and over during a breakdown. I'll have to listen through Firecracker again. [Kevin Michael - We All Want the Same Thing] is okay as a low-key pop song; I can't see this getting airplay without more bass and some shitty vocoding. It actually sounds suspiciously like this guy was on American Idol and got voted off early. Can anyone confirm? The Internet says no. Deleting this guy right now just for that hideous non-scrolling background.

02May2007 1847: Rosetta Rock

The thesis defense was successful, as you may have surmised by my animated pelvic thrusts. Thrusts which abruptly ceased around 1230 Saturday morning, replaced by incessant gin spinning. Lying down does not make gin spins stop, it merely makes them happen sideways. And then I woke up and there were lemon jelly beans everywhere and that may sound like a dream but it was not.

Finally! An iTunes song I can unequivocally recommend. [Chicago Symphony Orchestra - Symphony No. 3: V. Lustig Im Tempo Und Keck Im Ausdruck] is NOT that song, even if I was absolutely certain the title was not insulting my maternal ancestry. [Raymond Castellon - Tu No Me Quieres Na] is closer to palatable but is still not quite good. With my limited knowledge of Spainese I believe it is something about not liking Taco Bell. Haha, I make bad jokes about languages I don't understand!

No, the big winner this week is [Noisettes - Sister Rosetta (Capture the Spirit)], which I urge you all to go download this very minute. I can picture myself playing this song over and over in Guitar Hero, and then putting it on loop while writing blog posts. Like right now. It's a bouncy rock tune in the verses and then lets loose with a faster tempo during the refrain. I also dig her voice.