Another enjoyable read from Red Eye host Greg Gutfeld. The thesis as I see it is that liberals own the definition of cool, but the real cool people are those who go against liberal orthodoxy. I get his point but it felt a bit like whining over libertarians and conservatives not being the center of attention. Let’s face it, conservatism is dorky, boring and will never have that the more universal cool factor that liberalism has. But really, so what?
I understand that this game was originally a Nintendo 3DS launch title. So, by the standards of portable gaming, this is not a bad game at all. However, here on the PC it seems a little behind the times and blah. This criticism is mostly about cosmetics. Unlike the bright and diverse levels of Resident Evils 4 & 5 the game seems really limited to the samey-looking hallways of a dingy cruise ship’s interior. While you would think that they could use this environment for all its worth by, say, including the listing of the ship, bursting portholes, and other aquatic mayhem. Instead it’s your standard FPS hallway levels with a little swimming here and there.
Not to say that the game isn’t fun. Although they have toned down the gore quite a bit since RE4, the tried and true over-the-shoulder shooting mechanics, wacky plots and dialogue, and weird and horrific monsters are all still there. Also, they have thankfully gotten rid of quick-time events and tetris-style inventory management. As an aside, a genetic mutation that makes your heart protrude outside of your chest does not seem very evolutionarily viable?
Nobody needs to own more than one They Might Be Giants album. While I enjoy the “hits” on this record, for the most part it bores me. This is the duo starting to become a band at the expense of the wonderful quirkiness of their first effort. Ah, the joys of combining your record collection with your wife’s.
A dated and preachy science fiction story from the seventies about the last forest of earth being preserved in space ships. There are some neat robot costumes. But, overall, this was a boring slog with some horrible music choices.
Yeah, I get it. You went to art school you clever bastards. Fun, smart pop songs, it’s no surprise they have become children’s music superstars as of late. I prefer the homemade quality of this first record over later efforts and there’s only so much of this band that I can take. One record is enough.
Teengenerate are what I would describe as a Ramones-y punk band. They are much faster and certainly less tuneful than the Ramones, but they share the same affinity towards loudness and basic song structures. Oh, and their records also happen to sound like a trebly mess. The thing is, I saw them live thinking that I would finally hear the band as they should be heard, but it turns out that the records are a pretty accurate facsimile of their live sound.
I have read quite a few books that give an account of what it is like to live under the control of a totalitarian regime, from 1984 to Pictures of the Socialistic Future. Dear Reader is the first I have read that is told from the perspective of the tyrant, in this case North Korea’s Kim Jong Il. The events portrayed were written based on actual North Korean propaganda literature. Diving into this book, I assumed it would be a comedic romp from one crazy adventure to the next, and, while there is still a bit of that, it really is more of a rare glimpse into the story of Kim Jong Il as the North Koreans know it. The propaganda injects The Dear Leader into every event within North Korea’s history and sets him and his father up as untouchable god figures. It’s both funny and depressing. At times I felt that this is how people who aren’t sympathetic to Ayn Rand’s views must feel when they read Atlas Shrugged—with its tales of super-human achievement and hero worship. While the book keeps its darkly comic tone throughout most of its 400 pages, the last passages are a gut-punch reminding us, the dear readers, just how serious and awful the situation in North Korea is.
I thought that Techno-Animal, being the electronic side project of the guitarist from Godflesh, would sound more like the industrial dance-floor tracks from Slavestate. Instead Ghosts is mostly ambient soundscapes with bursts of grating noise and pounding drum patterns. I guess you would call this experimental, but I dislike that term when applied to music (and art). An experiment implies that you are testing something to prove or disprove a hypothesis. It doesn’t mean you are just making non-musical, unstructured sounds and calling them songs. Anyway, the end result (I guess since this is an “experiment” you would call that the conclusion) varies. On the tracks where there is some rhythmic backing it approaches the sound of early Cabaret Voltaire. But unlike Techno-Animal, Cabaret Voltaire always felt more like improvisational music with uncommon instruments rather than the pure noise and dissidence that this band aspires to create. If you are having a party, this is definitely room clearing music.
This a nice little documentary produced and directed by Penn & Teller, respectively. This is a documentary for people interested in the intersection of art and technology. It starts out feeling like one of the duo’s Showtime episodes where they would debunk ideas—in this case, did Vermeer use some sort of trick or tool to make his paintings—but eventually turns into a story about Tim and the process of making art. I was able to lure my daughter into seeing the film by telling her that it was probably loaded with bad words, hence the PG-13 rating. Instead there are literally about 3-5 bleepable moments. I tweeted Penn & Teller and got this response:
More Tar being Tar. This one has crystal clear production and, wouldn’t you know it, a little bit of variety in the song writing. I think they recorded this record knowing they were about to call it a day as a band. Well, at least they went out on a high note. More bands need to realize it’s time to move on (Jesus Lizard.. ahem). But wait, they returned some 15 years later and “opened” for my band, Nonagon, at the summer PRFBBQ! The circle is complete.
