VOX

I suppose it might sound a little weird to be plugging an alternate blogging service on a blog, but VOX actually seems pretty neat for, well, what it is. And, well, what it's treated as. Basically, I just got one, and I'm using it as an MP3 Blog.

So far, the weird thing with it seems to be that it's only streaming mp3s, rather than downloadable ones. I've been trying to figure out how to actually get them _downloadable_, since that kinda seems the whole Point of an mp3 blog. So far, I _have_ discovered that if I put a VOX blog in Safari's RSS reader, at the bottom of each post, it provides a download link. I tried this is Livejournal's RSS Feeder Thingy (for Mine), and it just provides the content, but no download link. So, hm.

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It's one of those things where I would be totally in love with it (after all, it's an mp3 blog where they not only provide hosting for said mp3s, but it appears to be unlimited) if it weren't for that one tweak. (Well, that's not true -- I don't like that VOX's compose bit doesn't seem to like HTML and just spits out the raw code, and that VOX doesn't seem to be remotely as customizable as Blogger, or, hell, even LJ is (though it is a step above MySpace, which basically seems to let you put the sidebar on the right side or the left side, and you get your choice of goddawful, unreadable backgrounds and hideous music videos and mp3s that auto-play).) But it is kinda neat, and it's great as a media-blog. Particularly if there's a work-around/tic-mark/SOMETHING to get it to let folks download the damn mp3s.

(If any of you find out how, let me know.)

Also, right now it's in one of those happy-snappy Invite Stages, and as such, I've got some invites (prolly five, I dunno), so if you wanna do your own Mp3 Blog (or whatever), let me know and I'll hook you up. (Though if you do an mp3 blog like mine, it'd be really wicked nice if you mirrored your notes at Your Subculture Soundtrack like I do.)

I just like the whole Free Space Mp3 Blog With Notes Kinda Thing that they seem to be encouraging (or at least amenable to).

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Life imitates The Onion, yet again

Actually, this is more like something from a Todd Solondz movie

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Welcome to the ``Flat Daddy" and ``Flat Mommy" phenomenon, in which life-size cutouts of deployed service members are given by the Maine National Guard to spouses, children, and relatives back home.

The Flat Daddies ride in cars, sit at the dinner table, visit the dentist, and even are brought to confession, according to their significant others on the home front.

It's like the human equivalent of baby birds being fed by a puppet that looks like the mama bird. Only much, much more pathetic.

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Misprinted Type (.com)

Misprinted Type is a site that has a lot of GREAT grungy fonts for download, most of them free. He has both handwritten and machine-style fonts represented... great stuff.

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Cardiacs - Tarred and Feathered

via WFMU's Blog -- I checked it on a whim and OH MY GOD this is SO WICKED AWESOME. Such a great song. I really dig this. They claim it's "Drums & Wires era XTC with more synths on Acid", but it strikes me as a bit more like Madness jammed through Renaldo & The Loaf. Either way, it's wicked good.

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The world's rarest PEZ dispenser

(maybe)


But would you pay $100,000 for a PEZ dispenser?

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Awesome contrails

Tenn Sky Streaks_8
Originally uploaded by cyclewidowpatti.

I'll never understand why some people are so freaked out by them.

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Jefferson "Hal" Harold.

So, on Saturday, I adopted a puppy! He's a rat terrier, and his name is Hal. We got him after neutering and all that fun stuff yesterday afternoon, and today's the first full day he's been with us. He's definitely in the Exploring Everything stage, which is pretty rad, though kinda tiring, since he likes to run. He still needs a bit of help with minding, but, well, he's not quite a year old and we've only had him for a day. Though, oddly enough, he knows to obey my mom but good. Me, so far, not quite so much. But he sure does miss me when I have to go to work.

Here are some pictures, taken by my SO of J. Harold.

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McMini Mansions

They're modern and chic, but... tiny!

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Georgia Aquarium pics

Manta Rays
Originally uploaded by matildaben.

My friend Kathleen was visiting from Seattle over the weekend, and we went to the new Georgia Aquarium together... wow, what an AMAZING place! Check out her photoset on Flickr. Wow.

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We Have A Technical.... Difficulty

Uh, looks like the Yahoo-Group-Forwardy-Thing isn't working right now. I'm trying to figure it out as to how to make it go, but, um, yeah, if you're wondering why comments on the posts have been relatively quiet, they're not necessarily, it's just not comin' through. Getting strange messages about bouncing messages, which is odd since the forwarder account isn't set up to receive email....

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Two things, one brief, one less so.

The brief one -- from this article, a complete "I'm not a cattle rustler, and besides, you got lousy cows" moment:

She said Hausner never hit her, but constantly belittled her. "I was really miserable," she said. "He'd tell me, 'You can't cook, you can't clean. You're ugly. No one wants you.'"

In a jailhouse news conference Monday, Dale Hausner challenged Karen Hausner's claims.

"That's just ex-wife stuff," he said. "That's just character assassination. She is just looking to get her ugly face in the paper."

The Less So: So, anyway, this weekend I finally got to see Mr. Freedom, William Klein's French-Though-Made-In-English over the top satire of Ueber-Patroitism and Jingoism. GREAT visual design in this film, which I suppose you'd expect from a photographer and all, and really amusing, absurd lines ("You want one piano? You got it. You want two pianos?"), though it IS a bit muddled (though things kinda-sorta fall into place as you go forward). The film's a superhero parody starring Mr. Freedom, a football-uniformed, well, cretin, trying to save France from Communism and Anti-Freedom Forces. There's a few other Superheroes, for example, Super French Man, a balloon caricature of a "Hohn hohn hohn" type Frenchman -- er, literally a balloon, Moujik Man, the representation of the USSR, and Red China Man, an inflatable dragon.

It's intended to be a parody of the United States' role in Vietnam (and works pretty clearly as that), though it, sadly, hasn't exactly become terribly outdated in its message. It's still surprisingly current, though in ways you probably wish it weren't, if you catch my meaning, seeing as, well, the US-Stand-In is a cartoonish bully who tries to do the right thing without any regard for consequences, methods, or whether or not it's actually, well, right.

The film was lost for a long time, and according to the DVD (available in France only, sadly, on Arte Video), they had to do a full-on restoration job, and even then, some of the reels were STILL kinda scratchy and faded, and the soundtrack muffled (it doesn't help that a lot of the actors are French speaking in English, so you've got an added level of difficulty to understand with the accents and all -- if you know French, it might help to turn on the French subtitles -- I don't though, so...). Sadly, no bonus material on the disc either -- it'd be great to learn more about this film (especially since I've heard that the producer cut it without Klein's knowledge (which might explain some of the muddledness), and that it was banned in France for a while) -- seems that there's a lot of story there that'd be ripe for a documentary.

Other highlights -- the Mr. Freedom theme song, the closing credit painting (!) and the fact that Serge Gainsbourg's in it! (For REALS. He also does the music.)

Apparently, it's pretty easy to find bootleg-wise, too. I'm not necessarily sure if it's worth buying sight-unseen (it's the only Klein film I've seen, but from reading other reviews, it seems that "Pretty cool, but kinda muddled and flawed" is his leitmotif), though the more I think about this movie, the more I think it actually IS worth picking up. Maybe I should.

F-R-Double-E-D, D-O-M spells BOOM BOOM!

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giant farming machine

Giant Machine
Originally uploaded by caffeineguy.

Holy crap- seeing this thing in real life would freak me right out. Apparently it's in Russia somewhere.

Rev. Me, since you're getting into Coil lately, you KNOW what this made me think of: Horse Rotorvator

"On the Eve of the Apocalypse - (the air choked with horsehair) - the Four Horsemen betray their steeds - slitting open the animal throats - and in doing so release the Second Great Deluge - Horsegore - Infinite Divisibles Split - an infinity of open sewers - the Four then fashion an immense earthmoving device from the collective jawbones - The Horse Rotorvator - with which to plough up the waiting world - (ROTA turns through 180° to TARO) - wheels replace horses - Dark Horses Run - Dark Horses Run Deep - and Hell is paved with horseflesh... (we plough the fields and scatter Our Dead Steeds on the land)".

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Awake

My roomate and one of my favourite couch occupants just sent me the "latest" cut of their "trailer" to their movie. It'll be on MovieCentral, TNN, and Showtime by the end of the year. I've sent something around about it before, possibly, but I figured, if you like watching things evolve and don't mind seeing something before it gets "finished" (or watered down, in a lot of cases) you might enjoy this.

The movie is called "Awake" and has an interesting premise. Starving writer stumbles upon another starving writer's suicide. He becomes curious about what people would say at the writer's wake, wondering what people would say about his own life. The film follows his journey of self-discovery as he attends many more wakes...

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