February 2010

Ads on Facebook are a strange breed, but this one takes the cake: yfrog.com/2eni0xp

One of many reasons gentlemen prefer chess: No luck to hope for. No odds to calculate. Just 100% transparency and accountability.

Well, shit. V.V. Brown's debut finally became available in the States a few weeks ago, and somehow it snuck past me. And now it is mine.

Practicing guitar in the dark has proven my muscle memory to be better than I thought it was.

Without candles, the fun quotient of this power failure is zero.

Today we thank the cosmos for @adactio, @essl, and @iamrumz.

Woke up with "Bonzo Goes to Bitburg" stuck in my head. Hopefully that good start can overcome the gray outside.

"If From contains 'facebook' and Subject contains 'suggested', move message to Trash."

Q: Does the fact that it is an AIGA "event" make a film screening worth $20? A: No.

I knew something wasn't quite right about the last iteration, and it had to do with the wingy things on the sides, which felt oddly arbitrary. When I showed it to my partner in crime, she said, "Where's the hammer?" Boom.

How good do you really expect Mr. Tambourine Man's song to be?

It has probably been too long since you took in a good Kids in the Hall monologue. Here you go: youtube.com/watch?v=RZzzKDytK…

A person's F-word diction usually tells me everything I need to know about them.

Thanks again to everyone for all the great feedback. After many iterations, this might be the one. I'm gonna see how it sits for a few days. Continued feedback is welcome in the meantime.

These are variations on a logo for my famed air guitar persona. I think it's close, but not quite there. I've spent a lot of time fussing with the stroke modulation to strike the right tone and balance, and it's time to step back and get some more eyes on it.

What I'm going for:

1. Menacing
2. Heavy metal and D&D (somewhere between vaguely and overtly)

Likes:

1. Good interplay of positive and negative space.
2. Doesn't immediately… See more →

New divine mystery: @beep has never seen the "Homie the Clown" episode of The Simpsons. Don't worry, I'm on it.

Random, previously untouched vinyl acquisitions from the mid-90s are revealing obscure worshippers of Pixies and Tortoise.

Steve Winwood B-side was the low point of the night. A-side not much better. Men Without Hats is now delivering us from evil.

What? Erasure synth banjo solo? Yes.

Cranking Def Leppard's "Ring of Fire" ("Pour Some Sugar on Me" B-side) for the first time in 20 years. It is fucking awesome.

Oh, hello, Friday night. Pleased to meet you. yfrog.com/auj2etj

A vote for Windhammer is a vote for freedom: ok.cogaoke.com/contestant/windham…

If it takes a Wednesday night metal show with five bands on the bill to prove I’m not really a grownup, so be it.

If I were witness to my upstairs neighbors' murders a la Rear Window, solving the mystery would be looking a gift horse in the mouth.

The 1% of the time foolish optimism pays off is worth suffering the other 99% when it doesn't. yfrog.com/4i5akhj

Just regaled @ChamberMonster with tales from my musical past while digging through a box of 300+ of my old cassettes. You're jealous.

What's the most barftastic moment of the new "We Are the World"? And is it a bigger train wreck than the original? Tough choices.

Why won't @Adobe let customers create their own CS bundles? I want 6 apps. No bundle has them all; each bundle has at least 3 I don't want.

Being privy to information of interest to the public opens one's eyes to the difference between bloggers and journalists.

Knowing how something will work under ideal circumstances is useless.

This is beyond just incompetent design; considering the context, I call it malicious. And it's a de facto standard. yfrog.com/3g4wqdj

Too bad the type on the bottom is an afterthought, but otherwise, I quite like this.

Damn, Mogwai's "Christmas Steps" gives me the chills every time. Such a masterful build.

Maybe it's only because I have my own, but I feel no compulsion to touch other people's beards.

That's a penny you owe him.

Working. Building. Never stopping, never sleeping. Working. Making. Some for selling, some for keeping.

Has it really been twenty years already?

I still have that 90-minute cassette whose A-side contained my first copy of Megadeth’s Rust In Peace. Though I had already cut my teeth on other metal bands, I was wary of Megadeth at first. Their name alone seemed to embody everything that was supposed to be frightening and dangerous about heavy metal, and this particular 14-year-old Catholic boy was slightly less interested in rebellion than he was… See more →

Windhammer likes Megadeth.

Next week, Megadeth's classic Rust in Peace comes to Rock Band. Here's what I have to say about it: rockband.com/zine/rust-in-peace

In the immortal words of Cedric Daniels, “This... is BULL SHIT!”

There is little doubt that different people are blessed with different amounts of cognitive gifts such as long-term memory and the visuospatial skills chess players are said to employ. One of the reasons chess is an "unparalleled laboratory" and a "unique nexus" is that it demands high performance from so many of the brain’s functions. Where so many of these investigations fail on a practical level is by not recognizing the importance of the process… See more →

Why are My Bloody Valentine records normalized so low? Loveless should be one of the loudest things I own, but I always have to turn it up.

I hope this isn’t true. :(

Inspiration, I love ya and all, but we really need to work on your timing.