For My 5th Year Bloggiversary

Dead Robot November 10, 2009 General

I want you to vote for me over on the 2009 Weblog Awards. I’ve placed my own nomination (all perfectly legal, on the web) in this post. Scroll down and hit the little “+” icon. I’ve never been one for self promotion of this blog but I’m looking at Raymi the Minx and thinking… I can do that.

Actually, thinking about it, one year I did make 1000 stickers with the URL on it, hoping to blanket Toronto like some Banksy on acid. That was back when this blog wasn’t a blog, and was more web comic.

Actually – thinking about it, I’m past 6 years now, since April, if you count that comic.

Regardless. I want an award. I command you readers to go and vote. I will give you a sticker.

Interview With a Zombie

Dead Robot November 10, 2009 Celebs and Media

Via @barkoh via Twitter. Audio is full of F-bombs but it’s not what you expect. It’s like Christian Bale after a major burn.

Mad Men Season Finale Gut Punch

Dead Robot November 10, 2009 Celebs and Media

The Drapers sit their kids, Robert and Sally, down for a talk. I’m paraphrasing here.

Robert: What did we do wrong?

Betty: Nothing. We need to talk.

Sally: Buy why are we in the living room?!?

The show’s writer and director had to have had a time machine to see back into my living room, back when I was 16 when my Mom and Dad sat us down to tell us the news of their separation. It was note for note perfect. Not to give away the episode, if you haven’t seen it yet (we all knew this was coming since season one) but the scene was complete with finger pointing blame, the “it’s not your fault” cliche and eventually someone storming out of the room.

Bravo Mad Men. Please return to the airwaves sooner.

Dead Computer

Dead Robot November 7, 2009 Distractions, Personal Bits, Tech

See what I did there with the title? Title of blog, title of post? Yeah, I’m all bacony wrapped enigmas.

The last few weeks my poor Pentium 4, 2.3Mhz computer started to act funny. Drivers suddenly didn’t drive things plugged into the USB ports. Things started to fail and somehow my monitor went a pale blue.

And suddenly without notice, my CD burner just refused to be a team player. I can read from a CD but the burning software (hopelessly outdated) will not respond, even after re-installing. It’s a great cup holder, though.

This week, if my computer sleeps or iTunes opens (with every recharging of my iPhone) then my mouse needs to be unpluged and replugged in with not one, but two activate/deactivate sounds.

On Tuesday, I clicked on a YouTube link and suddenly got an alert window (not a browser pop up) letting me know that “they” were sad that I was leaving their page and I should visit more often. Thing is, YouTube doesn’t allow scripts like that within their pages. A chill wend down my spine.

I instantly ran some virus software. Nothing more than usual adware malware came up. Then while the computer was suppose to be idle, I noticed that there was a “hidden window” that couldn’t be closed when I “Alt+Tab” and huge packets of information were being shot off into cyberspace.

I disconnected my RJ-45 instantly. Yikes.

So I’m hopping along on SharkBoy’s iMac in my own recently created profile and I’m lustfully looking at iMacs for myself.

Anyone wanting to donate money to my sorry cause can do so via PayPal or just send bacon.

Miranda Sings!

Dead Robot November 6, 2009 Celebs and Media

Artist jamming on YouTube culture to utter brilliance? Real shut in who gets her mom to edit the videos? You decide.

Update: Another Gem:

And finally, yes, she’s actually quite good:

Currents

Dead Robot November 5, 2009 Distractions

Current Likes:

You all know I’m grooving on Uncharted 2 – Among Thieves and next up in my PS3 will be Ratchet and Clank – A Crack In Time. The demo looked promising if not a tad bit confusing with the duplicity tachyon thingamajigger, but the franchise hasn’t disappointed so far with all it’s gadgets and doo dahs.

Glee – Yes I’m part of the Glee club. I enjoy how every character is so very flawed. It reminds me of when I was in high school and I was deep in the theatre club yet hung around a Jock from the football club. I bet he got a lot of ridicule about that but he never showed it. Or I’m creating a drama in my head with fragments of memories.

On my iPhone, The NFB app operates like YouTube but you have access to thousands of Canadian film. You can watch streaming or download for a 24 hour period. Go watch all of Cordell Barker’s cartoons. “Stop shaking your eyes!! Why don’t you join some… shake rock n roll band?!”

For free, The Disney.com app has a few time wasting gems within it but it’s a bit heavy on the boy bands, but meh, it’s free.

For drawing, I’ve downloaded PS Mobile (the free Photoshop App) and SketchBook Mobile Express. Both offer fun little doodly kind of image manipulations. I like how the Sketchbook mimics “pen pressure” and creates faux thick lines (dependent on finger speed?).

Music-wise, I’ve rediscovered Massive Attack. For all the times I heard it in the bar when Blair was bartending, I think I blanked it out. But it’s back in my iPhone. Still liking Holy Fuck too.

Things I’m not grooving on:

When marketing departments throw the word “imagine…” at you, usually in threes, and actually think you’re going to stop what you’re doing and “imagine” their promises coming true. “Imagine a world where…” Or “Imagine knowing when…” That kind of crap. Stop making me imagine stuff I don’t even want to imagine. Oh and bonus hate points for the announcer saying “EEmagine” not “I-magine”. It’s like an ignoramus saying “Eye-talian” but in reverse.

Using “Re-boot” to mean “re-making”. Battlestar got away with it and now everyone is using “re-boot” as an excuse for “We can’t think of anything new or clever.” Latest culprit: The rebooting of “V”. Utter crap rip off of Battlestar (hot chick villain, sex reversal in the main characters, resistance/religious themes) . It wasn’t even a good series back in the 80s so why try? As soon as they dropped the Nazi symbolism and we found out about the lizards the show was dull. Which was about 3 shows in.

Still hating TV stations and Cable companies twisting facts and words to make us believe there’s an injustice going on within Big Media. I’ll tell you the injustice: having to sit through shitty CTV commercials while I’m watching Survivor on CBS. Fuck off Canadian Content!

Why I Like Russel, From Survivor

Dead Robot November 2, 2009 Celebs and Media

Torontoist columnist Christopher Bird put it so eloquently when he wrote this morning:

Russell, … is actually the guy that Survivor fans are all now rooting for because A) he is actually pretty clever and B) he backs up his lip with good challenge performance, gameplay, and work ethic. See, this is what CBS doesn’t get: Survivor villains aren’t guys like Russell. They’re guys like Coach from last season, who was the most useless bag of flesh ever invented and who never, ever shut up about how awesome he was.

In fact, I don’t think he’s been that “villainous” at all. Sure he talks smack and spouts out shockingly great soundbites for Global to text splash across their bumpers, but really, he’s done nothing except try to align with everyone who crosses his path. Of course he then goes in front of the camera and badmouths his alliances so in that regard, he’s a bastard. I guess in the first couple of weeks this is a good strategy but can bite you in the ass if said same people talk to each other. Luckily for him, the rest of the Survivors are just preening idiots and don’t know enough to talk to each other.

I don’t profess to being a Survivor professional. I couldn’t tell you all the paces they’ve held this show, or what season we’re in, or who ate what bug in some desperate attempt for ~~ratings~~ protein – I just like the social strategy of the whole thing. And Russel is playing the game well.

Plus he’s a stocky, arrogant, hairy fucker that I’d shag in a second.

Nice Pork Pie Hat, dude.

Uncharted 2 – See This Is How You Make a Game

Dead Robot November 1, 2009 Gaming

Blood… blood? A lot of blood. A lot of my blood!

-Nathan Drake. First lines of Uncharted 2 – Among Theives

I’m 20 minutes into Uncharted 2 – Amongst Theives and I’m thinking of sending the jerks over at Krome, makers of the insipid Clone Wars – Heroes of the Republic a copy so that they can learn how to actually write/design/develop a game.

The first ten minutes is the best tutorial run through I have ever experienced in a game. As you play along, fans of Uncharted (one) note that nothing has changed in the game play as flashbacks scenes as to how Drake winds up in his latest adventure are juxtaposed over the action. Brilliance!

There’s a commercial for U2-AT that suggests the game is very much like a movie. I say “Hells yes!”

I just wanted to stop for a moment and write this. You need to stop reading this and go get this game, PS3-ers!

Halloween Fruition

Dead Robot November 1, 2009 Distractions, Hobbies, Personal Bits, Toronto

Raaar!

After all the work I put into that costume I have to say last night was worth the effort. I was mauled for pictures and had a great time posing with all the Japanese tourists (I’m generalizing – there were some Eastern Europeans too) . Well, except for the one drunk guy who grabbed my snout and hauled my face down. Thank god for SharkBoy who stopped me from ripping his head off. Let’s just say he’s going to be spitting fake fur out of his mouth and eyes for a few days. Other than that, the night was fun. The stilts held up and worked like a dream, except I should have rested more often. 3 hours seems to be the max and I was on them for just over 4. Yeah … blisters and aches this morning.

I’m really glad to see that costuming on Church Street is becoming more “serious” and thoughtful, like the Queen and the Palace Guard (with England’s national anthem coming out of his big furry hat), or the giant H1N1 virus, or the Chandelier Guy. I’m almost thinking I want to take next year off to just take pictures…

Heh… mmmmaybe not. The attention was addictive.

Here’s where I point out that SharkBoy’s costume was simplistic perfection: he got a lot of recognition but not as much photography mauling as I did. I think he did a fantastic job on his Where the Wild Things Are kid, Max. Here is is full picture set, but I’ve copied some for my blog below (clicko to embiggo). Enjoy!