Oh brother.

Ananova reports: Franz Ferdinand say the band's second album will have the same title and cover as their first.

And all future albums by the band will have the same name - Franz Ferdinand.

The band told the NME the albums would be distinguishable only by their colour schemes.

Taken from Antimusic.com.

$4.29 or "How I spent 36 minutes of making lattes on a skin pic."

I tried not buying it. Well, I kind of tried.

Ok, fine! I didn't really try, but I gave it some thought.

What can I say?

I'm addressing guilty pleasures and I decided this flaxen haired patriot is one of them.

Besides, now I can LOOK SHARP // LIVE SMART.



ah...screw you.

Gripping drama.

It's true, I have a knack for making comebacks in FPS deathmatches. I think it just comes down to getting my footing on a map or figuring which weapon works for me.

My favorite has to be a 15 kill comeback to tie Grant in Halo 2 at 22 or 23 kills and then fighting out those last two kills. I'm not sure who won that match, but it sure was a blast. There've been many games where I filled that gap and then lost but it sure is fun.

I'm back from Spokane. This will continue my month+ of either visiting or having visitors. Next weekend, more people come into town.

Watching my niece was rewarding and strangely tiring. I have a greater understanding of single parenthood now, and I tip my cap, once again, to you. It's fucking hard.

The server at work was down most of the morning, so nothing got done. I can't check my email right now, b/c it's down for maintence. I love email. I miss it when it's gone.

My beer has started brewing. This is good.

Currently listening to Head Automatica, which is good stuff. Feels like a dance album made by people who love it, but don't make dance music. Time to attempt to work. Or something.

Timesplitters is mucho fun. I don't suck at FPS where I'm on semi-equal footing. Or maybe it's the chimps. (Chimpicide! is my new favorite exclaimation) You try hating a game where you can play a ninja chimp. You can't, can you? (I still suck at the FPS, though. AHo made a 9 kill comeback in one game where I only had 1 kill to go to win. This is the extent of my suck)
http://www.eagames.com/redesign/games/ps2/timesplitters/home.jsp

I guess that's the news that's fit to print.

It's Hot. And I'm Hot. Or Not.

I'm moving shit around. My computer happens to sit in the hottest part of my house. It is going elsewhere - the coolest room in the house. Which happens to be my bedroom. Which happens to be where I don't sleep. It has become more of a storage area. Now it is becoming The Den.

Got whistled at today. Hmm.

Beer. oh yeah. My new rule/flowchart -

Q=Am I at the store?
if A=Yes then buy beer.
if A= No then goto Q.

you get the idea.

reprinted w/o Dan's permission -- Rants soulanger, fucked stuff

This is beautiful.

6/17
Hey fuckers. Quit making out on the bus.
You sound like frogs being hurled at a windshield.
In a just world, I'd be able to thwock the both of you with my William Gibson book, and you'd have to just look shamefaced at your idiocy. Instead, I have to put up with your grotesque, old-people fucking type noises as you attempt to slurp up a relationship in public that has no fucking chance.
Quit it.

I like chocolate.

So, driving home from Grant & Kristol's wedding on Sunday w/ Nathan, he says to me, "I just saved a lot of money on my car insurance, by switching away from Geico." That boy funny.

Also, I have a guilty pleasure to confess too. I don't go out of my way to watch it but I do enjoy watching Judge Judy. Helps me feel much better about myself and my life. And there's nothing wrong with that. I wonder if there are DVDs?


A!

Validation!

"In Sealed, you do about ten times as much work in the deckbuilding step. Besides needing to know how to build for a Sealed environment (in which certain cards can be wildly more - or less - valuable than they are in Draft), you also need to be able to compare power levels of different builds across entire different color combinations. After you've decided on your colors, your archetype, and most of your build, then you start to narrow down your last few debatable slots."- Richard Feldman @ Starcitygames

This-this is why it's such a big deal that one Brandon R Keaton screwed me over at the last Geek Riot. We were playing sealed-and his little trick hosed me, and now I can point, exactly, to why. Actually, I feel better in a way; I really hold a lot less blame for my performance that day.

Off to make comments!

I am too sexy, too damn sexy.

So. I've been listening to Stars ~Set Yourself on Fire. Repeatedly. For days. The first couple of times I liked it just fine. But then I'd play it again, and once more, you know, for good measure. Now it seems it's always on. Hooked the lady of the lake up w/ a couple of songs and she digs it as well. She's going on a trip. I really, really hope she has a really, really good time. She's good peeps.

Haven't done much on here lately, haven't been reading my normal blogs much either, I wonder what Kris and Peelio are up to. Been busy on the eBay, and sleeping.

Recent realization: Starving for affection. Had a couple of blue days over that. I'm over it. But still hungry.

My good friend Grant just got married. It was by far the most meaningful wedding I have ever been to. It's nice to know that these two people are going to make it and that there going to do it well, and with style. Word & applause.

Riddick. Hard. Zelda -The Wind Waker. Don't care, selling it. KotOR. Haven't touched it. Halo 2? I'm only better than Dan. Vince smoked my ass the other day and today I'm going to Nato's for dinner, and I imagine we will play Halo 2. He will destroy me. Maybe we'll play LIVE w/ his 13 year-old nephew. From what I understand he will detroy us. Hitman 3. Bought it sometime ago. Have played all of 10 minutes. Will play it someday. Conker Reloaded is coming out soon. It will be cheap and used someday. Oddworld: Strangers Wrath. Deserves my attention. Resident Evil 4. Need to finish. It is AmaZing. With a capital Z.

Beck's is on sale into July. I will drink my share. The sun is shining. The cat is sleeping, somewhere. I need to pee. And that's my queue. Later.

A!

busy, busy busy

There is a great deal to do today. All of it involves me getting the hell out of work and going home. Work is less relevant to my universe than home shit is. Maybe I really do need a new job.

Been listening to music. Bloc Party: way awesome. Sleater Kinney; undecided. Some good moments, but the 'greatness' of The Woods has not demonstrated itself yet. It doesn't suck, but it doesn't leave an impression on me either.

I need to update my regular site some, but I've just been too busy at home to do it.

Hey; what are some good fighing games for the Xbox? Ended up playing Fight Club and goddamn my thumbs hurt. It was not a fun game. I need to suggest better ones.

Starting up "Sly Cooper 2". The Boo recommends it. And next week, Psychonauts comes out for the PS2. Good times.

Beer.

1970's Metal Pepsi Challenge pin

oooohhhhhh ahhhhhhhhh.

there is no substitute.

Perhaps you were born in the late-late 70's or early 80's, or later. You may not remember how big a deal the Pepsi Challenge was. It was everywhere, threatening to dethrone, what I consider, the King of Cola. I think nearly everyone picked Pepsi over Coke in that little contest, I sure did. Maybe we were psychologically conditioned to after all the hype. Maybe they just told you that you picked Pepsi regardless of the actual result. New Coke sucked and I provide these links as a reminder or history lesson. It is not important, just nostalgic.

p.s. I even like Pepsi, to a degree, but it just isn't Coca~Cola.

be jealous

for tonight I watch Red Dawn.

This camel is thirsty.

I want a taco.

Giveth and taketh

Well. The new feature Pitchfork has on music in videogames is pretty neat. It's well written, and gave me a chunk to think upon.

For example: my experience in Metal Gear Solid 2 was pretty much hampered by the shitty, shitty Hans Zimmer score. God that music was boring. I don't blame Zimmer so much-he was apparently sent emails that said "Give us something heroic!" or "Write tension" but he didn't know what the hell he was working on. So of course, when I play the game, and the music seems to drag me down, who's surprised by that?

[aside There's note of Psychonauts in the Pitchfork feature, and I want to play that game very, very badly. It's not out for the PS2 yet, so I wait. AHo, I've heard nothing but good things about this one, so if you find it used...]

One of the keys in that article, for me, is how the person orchestrating the music and sound has to be involved in the game, top to bottom. This is, I think, one of the things that makes games so interesting-and expensive. I mean; once Star Wars is finished, John Williams can watch it, take his pre-scored notes (by now, scoring Star Wars has got to be like shooting the dead), and head to the studio to work on recordings. Now, I realize it's not that simple-but since movies aren't as interactive, and they tend to be finished piecemeal, work can be done like this.

The sound in a game has to be continually worked on, since, from what I've learned about game development, the things are almost always works in progress. Sound has to be part of the progamming put into the game-if for no other reason (I'm guessing) than to make sure the soundfiles don't fuck up the the gameplay. It would really suck to discover that when Kratos does his triple spin move and hits a stone column, the resulting 'chunk' noise causes the game to wig out and you have to start over.

What's weird is; we notice these things, even when we don't. It took me 2 weeks after finishing MGS2 before I realized how dull the music was-and how that mattered. And we'll accept such strange sounds; I know that chests don't open with that 'crenk' noise that they make in Final Fantasy games, but hey; that's the sound they make. When they make a different sound-that's usually when I worry.

I don't exactly know where I'm going with this, at this point, so I guess it's a good time to stop.

Ugh

Pitchfork: you suck.

If I wanted a treatise on how inane rock lyrics can be, I wouldn't click on a link for an Audioslave record review. What was done wasn't clever, entertaining, or even a reasonable mockery of Audioslave or rock.

Stop being dicks and actually review the fucking records. If you can't do that, then at least warn me that I won't get what I want when I click the link.

Christ. Like clicking the 'Hot cheerleaders in action!' button and getting bear porn. Irritating and revolting.