Shamus, over at Twenty Sided put up a post about Bioshock last week.* Watching the trailer for the game, and reading the conversation taking place was interesting to me. Some of you may not be aware, but one of my major fields of study in college was moral theory, and I’ve been playing video games since the 2600 days. What this means, as I was telling someone last night, is that I sometimes find myself torn when I’m playing a game.

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I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned this before, but I love steampunk.

As far as sci-fi stylings go, steampunk might very well be my favorite.

I know that you’d think I would probably be a bigger fan of, say, cyberpunk. Let’s face it, I love video games and computers and robots and the internet, most of which seem to have strong ties to cyberpunk or be important aspects to a lot of cyberpunk.

I know this.

And I do like a lot of cyberpunk. There’s some great stuff, there. Lain? Awesome. Neuromancer? Great book. Ghost in the Shell, Blade Runner, Robocop, etc, etc. Those are great.

So, it’s not that I dislike cyberpunk, it’s just that I don’t like it as much as steampunk. All the flashing neon lights and burned out buildings and guys with guns. Eh. Maybe it’s because, short of flying cars and cyborgs, you’d be hard pressed to tell the difference between your average cyberpunk world and the standard depiction of Tokyo as presented by Western media, but the visual stylings of cyberpunk just aren’t that impressive. Of course, maybe they really do have flying cars in Tokyo, and I just haven’t heard about it yet?

But steampunk? Oh yeah. Now you’re talking. I mean, all that beautiful Victorian design asthetic combined with intricate gears and cogs and pistons on technology that’s distinctly modern… that’s interesting stuff.

Steampunk is really fascinating to me. All that brass and clockwork is really beautiful. I really, really like the look of steampunk technology. Massive airships and clunky looking robots made of copper and powered by coal… elegant clothes, the strange antiques, the intricate heavy, strange designs, the gorgeous architecture… the imagry is pretty cool, if you ask me. The fusion victorian life and modern/future technology is really interesting, if you ask me.  Yeah, all that wrought iron, brass, clockwork, and steam… I love it.

All of which is a long-winded way of saying: Someone make me one of these.

Seriously, how cool is that?

Pretty please?

I saw Pan’s Labyrinth last night with Mr. Brent.

Before I get into the meat here, let me get the surface stuff out of the way. I liked it quite a bit. I highly recommend it, with a small caveat. It’s got some scenes of serious brutality, and I know that some people may find that problematic. The violence is there, but I don’t think it’s necessarily gratuitous or out of place, but there are definitely people who can’t deal with violent movies. That’s okay- if you’re one of those people, I’d probably say you should avoid this one. (more…)

**The Friday-cuz-I’ve-Been-Swamped Edition**

Apparently, February is a slow month for the mainstream music industry. Which is a shame. I know, I know, everyone wants a spring release, or a summer release, or a Christmas release. But holy crap, what I wouldn’t give for a great new album right now to liven up the snowy, cold, gray drudgery that is the misbegotten month of February. Its a slow month for film releases too. The only thing that isn’t lacking in luster this February seems to be television: we’ve gotten Lost back, and with quite the bang; Heroes is running strong; Thursdays on NBC couldn’t be better with Earl, the Office, and 30 Rock; and King of the Hill has finally returned to Sunday nights on Fox, creating the two hour animation block we’ve all been yearning for (thank God they finally moved “The War at Home”).

In spite of the lack of stellar releases, I’m going to do my best to give a quick review / roundup of the few notable albums that have been released this past Tuesday.

Here goes nothing.

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Random Ten

1. Alice in Chains - “Heaven Beside You”
2. Death in Vegas - “Hands Around My Throat”
3. Dexy’s Midnight Runners - “Come on Eileen”
4. Ben Kweller - “In Other Words”
5. Kid Koala - “Mean Machine”
6. Rilo Kiley - “After Hours”
7. Antique Cafe - “Amedama Rock”
8. Johnny Cash - “Cry, Cry, Cry”
9. Marlyn Manson - “Down in the Park”
10. Quasi - “I Give Up”

Six Things on My Desk That Have Nothing To Do With Work

1. Several Stakfas soldiers (currently hanging out under my monitors)
2. An empty Insurance One coffee mug.
3. Crest “Glide” dental floss.
4. A robot themed pencil sharpener.
5. An empty soda bottle.
6. A bag of popcorn.

Ten Favorite Comedies (right now)

I’ve openly admitted that I’m really picky about comedies. So much so, in fact, that I think I give off the impression of not enjoying funny movies. This is not the case. I just don’t happen to find movies like “Something About Mary” all that funny. So, here are ten movies that I think are pretty funny.

1. Clue: The Movie
2. Saved
3. Shaolin Soccer
4. Ghostbusters
5. Blues Brothers
6. Cannibal: The Musical
7. Monty Python and the Holy Grail
8. Office Space
9. Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
10. The Princess Bride

And One Thing That is Annoying Me Right Now

1. WordPress not including line-breaks, even when I hard-code them in my post, and then making weird formatting changes (like bolding random sections).
Thanks, WordPress.
Thanks a bunch.

What is the deal with microwave burritos?

Now, I recognize that we’re not talking about great food here, but I don’t understand. Why is it that every single microwave burrito seems to suffer from the exact same problem?

You take the burrito out of the wrapper and set it on a plate. You put it in the microwave, hit 2 minutes, and wait. You open the microwave door, and you find that the burrito has split open along the seam where the burrito wrap is closed. Why is that? When I make my own burritos, they don’t split open like this. Here’s the other thing I noticed: microwave burritos are almost always uneven when it comes to tortilla thickness. That is, one side of the burrito will be only 2 or so layers of tortilla thick, but the other side will be 5 or 6 layers thick. I don’t get it. How hard is it to wrap it evenly?

Instead, you get this uneven mess, and all the filling oozes out, and it’s just gross.

And while I’m on it… what’s the difference between a burrito and a soft taco? I mean, I’ve seen soft tacos with refried beans, and burritos without beans, so I know that isn’t it. Is it just the way they’re folded up?

Okay, okay. I really will post more on IP soon. I’ve just been a bit distracted, and then I made lunch, and it melted all over the stupid plate.

Hello. You don’t know me, and it’s probably for the better. This way, you can be sure I am completely unbiased in what I am about to say.

There is an epidemic among local bands – an epidemic that must be stopped before it kills us all. This epidemic’s name is “craptacular Web marketing.” I am standing here before you to discuss this epidemic, and the symptoms that comprise it.

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The Random Ten:

1. Shonen Knife - “Cookie Day”
2. Decemberists - “Apology Song”
3. Alice in Chains - “Down in a Hole”
4. Surf Coasters - “Rampage”
5. Interpol - “Narc”
6. The Used - “The Taste of Ink” (Ugh… why is this in my playlist?)
7. New Order - “True Faith”
8. Walkmen - “Little House of Savages”
9. Rasputina - “Call Me Alice”
10. KMFDM - “Juke Joint Jezebel”

B-List Toys I Went Ape-Shit For in the ’80s.

1. Metlar from the Inhumanoids line. He became Skeletor’s secret weapon against He-Man and the Ninja Turtles in the bizarro world of action-figuredom that was my childhood. It helped that he was big as hell, and had hands the perfect size and shape to hold a He-Man figure and smash them into the ground.
2. Saw Boss Part of the Wheeled Warriors line, you could pull all the various weapons off and rearrange them, and each one came with multiple sets of wheels and lasers so you could keep rebuilding them. Pretty awesome, at the time. He kinda looks like ass now, though, doesn’t he?
3. Mega Force. What wasn’t to love about a line of small metal military vehicles that also included increasingly large and ridiculous military vehicles? You’d get a package of them, and it included two basic and one leader vehicle- like, two tanks, and a leader tank that would have, say, two cannons. Awesome.
4. Any of the (roughly) 3-inch scale toys- M*A*S*K, Dino-Riders, Sky Commandos, StarCom, etc. These were my favorites back then- they were small enough that they came with awesome vehicles like jets and tanks and helicopters and stuff (and were still relatively affordable, compared to the larger scale G.I. Joe stuff), but were big enough to have figures that were somewhat articulated. Plus, most of them had action features that didn’t get in the way of the actual figure- magnetic vehicles or transformations or other cool things like that. Awesome.

Sometimes you have one of those days where all you can do is load up some Abba’s Greatest Hits and hit play.

So, that’s what I’m doing.

Harumpphhh.

Several times in the last week or so, I’ve found myself either talking about, or listening to someone talk about intellectual property. Then it came up twice in discussions about Web 2.0 via Mark over at Kaedrin and V. IP law is pretty complicated, and I’ve found that people have a pretty wide range of thoughts on the subject. Never one to shy away from a potentially intense discussion (and, in fact, more likely to shove my nose right in), I figured I may as well start a ball rolling.

IP is a big topic, so- like most of my posts- this will probably meander a bit. Today I’m going to discuss IP as it relates to downloading music. I have a few other issues about IP I want to talk about, too, but it’s all too big for one entry. I’ll be talking about IP ownership, next, though. Exciting, yeah?

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