Cough Coughing - Menomena Music Video

Part Santa, part recycled plastic. All good Music video for the band Menoma. Good stuff.
Cough Coughing - Menomena Music Video

Audition (1999)

"Mesmerizing? You bet. Thought-provoking? Certainly. Comforting? Sure. Like a swan dive into a pool of spikes and razor wire."
-- Glenn Lovell, SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS
"Miike, the Tasmanian Devil of modern filmmakers, throws our assumptions back at us like a thousand poison darts. Great film."
-- Dan Jardine, APOLLO GUIDE

I have to agree, this movie jumps right up into my top five freakiest, make-you-uncomfortable-as-hell movies. My nerves are so deadened that I rarely ever jump at a movie. This one didn't make me jump, it made me curl up into a little ball on my couch. I sweat Miike makes his evil women characters after my ex-girlfriends.
Ôdishon (Audition) (1999)

el baile de yoda -

Can he kick it? Yes he can. Old School.
el baile de yoda

Alexander Sterzel - Gallery 1- Installed Truths

Here's a little something special for Halloween. Enjoy!
Alexander Sterzel - Gallery 1- Installed Truths

Shingo - Masterful Parody in Spandex

Watch and learn, boys and girls. This is the real deal.. the Cinemathiqe Verite, Non?
Shingo - Google Video

The New Hip: Pants Splitting

This fetish is new to me. but I love it! Ever wonder what to do with all those $80 pairs of jeans and pants you just bought? Split 'em in da butt and put your picture on the internet, of course! Duh! I'm so ahead of my time. I was doing this in elementary school all the time and getting sent home full of safety pins and paperclips.
Split Pants Gallery

Wired News: The End of the Affair - Video Game Addictions

This is a really good article on the pitfalls of a good game title. What addiction does to us, and where it leaves us when it's done ruining our lives. Clive Thompson writes:
"My addictions always run the same course.

One day a few weeks ago, I picked up Burnout: Revenge -- the superb new car-racing and -smashing game -- and within an hour I was hooked. I abandoned all work, blew my writing deadlines and ignored my wife. The few moments when I could pry myself from the console, I'd fantasize about when I could return. It seemed like I'd never be able to stop, and indeed, like any addict, I didn't want to. Until suddenly, after two weeks of monomaniacal play, everything ended. I finished a three-hour binge of racing, clicked off my Playstation 2, and ... it was over. Read the full article
Note: I have posted a comment on the article's page that delves further into my own personal experience with this phenomenon. Look for the post by me (EtherFreak) if you're interested.

Forbidden Zone (1980)

A mysterious door in the basement of the Hercules house leads to the Sixth Dimension by way of a gigantic set of intestine. When Frenchy slips through the door, King Fausto falls in love with her. The jealous Queen Doris takes Frenchy prisoner, and it is up to the Hercules family and friend Squeezit Henderson to rescue her. Haven't heard of this one? not surprised. Totally obscure, but equally loveable. The soundtrack is addictive. 8.5 out of 10!
Forbidden Zone (1980)

Crash (2004)

Tagline: You think you know who you are. You have no idea. A provocative, unflinching look at the complexities of racial conflict in America, CRASH is that rare cinematic event - a film that challenges audiences to question their own prejudices. Diving headlong into the diverse melting pot of post-9/11 Los Angeles, this compelling urban drama tracks the volatile intersections of a multi-ethnic cast, examining fear and bigotry from multiple perspectives as characters careen in and out of one another’s lives. No one is safe in the battle zones of racial strife. And no one is immune to the simmering rage that sparks violence - and changes lives...
This was a really tough movie to watch. It really peels back the pretty and makes sure we all see something of ourselves in the process. Highly recommended viewing. 8 out of 10 from me.
Crash (2004)

Hamster MIDI music!

Levy Lorenzo, you make the world of science fun. Thank you for your wonderful contribution to the world. Now hamsters can begin to move away from the tragedy of Milli Vanilli proportions, Hamsterdance.
Check out the fresh new beats by our furry little friends after the jump.
MEng project: lil2

Nazi Twins!

"We're proud of being white, we want to keep being white," said Lynx. "We want our people to stay white … we don't want to just be, you know, a big muddle. We just want to preserve our race."

Lynx and Lamb have been nurtured on racist beliefs since birth by their mother April. "They need to have the background to understand why certain things are happening," said April, a stay-at-home mom who no longer lives with the twins' father. "I'm going to give them, give them my opinion just like any, any parent would."

Ummm what? I'm so happy that things like this are happening in the world. No really. Really I am. I mean, what would the beautiful U S of A really be without a couple cute little Hitler loving, Holocaust denying, Olsen twins lookalikes. Yeesh! just when you thought things were slowing down! And it just keeps getting better! The dynamic duo, "Prussian Blue" IS A BAND! They have an album and their own Blogspot, replete with really entertaining comments on posts. If there was ever any question as to their talent, go ahead and listen for yourself. Downright horrid. Get on down and check it out! YEEEHAW!
ABC News: Young Singers Spread Racist Hate
Prussian Blue at Blogspot

frog Design Mind - Gizmodo

This is a really great article called One Possible End of the End User. The article explores the directions and possible futures of the digital age. It's not very long, but is a tasty snack for the mind. Written by Clay Wiedemann
frog Design Mind - Gizmodo

Thumbsucker (2005)

It’s not easy growing up, no matter what age you are...Justin Cobb (LOU PUCCI) still sucks his thumb at 17. He wants to stop and knows that his thumbsucking is disrupting his family, his love life and his identity. The only thing that changes his behavior is hypnosis therapy administered by his “guru” orthodontist. The main body of the film explores the substitutes that Justin uses to replace his habit. This movie goes deeper than many Hollywood films would care to go in the subjects of family dynamics, definitions of success and failure, and self awareness. 7 out of 10 in my book. Too bad there was very little publicity on this one.
Thumbsucker (2005)

Metroid Prime - Behind the Visor

This is a wonderful analysis of Metroid Prime's story, gameplay, and structure by Amanda Phillips. It looks to be a 300 level English course in electronic literature assignment. The Material that Amanda Phillips presents is extensive and insightful. Not much formal analysis exists about video games, and Metroid in particular has always been quite shrouded until very recent years.
Behind the Visor

Boards of Canada

Boards of Canada has a new album out, the campfire headphase available now. Please feel free to run to the nearest compact disc vendor and consume!

UPDATE: Just finished listening to the album all the way through for the third time. Here's what I think. Headphase has more organic sounds than previous releases, namely the guitar as a focus instrument. Some tracks seem like almost-remixes of songs on Twoism. Very good overall. Not my favorite, although please don't let that sound like it's not a great album. Boards of Canada kick the pants off most of the shitty electro that is all too abundant these days.
boards of canada
Boards Of Canada Discography

2005 Machinima Film Festival

On Saturday, November 12, 2005, the Academy of Machinima Arts and Sciences will present the 2005 Machinima Film Festival - a full-day of Machinima (animated filmmaking using 3D video game technologies), taking place at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens (NY). The one-day event will include screenings of Machinima films, special presentations, talks with award-winning independent filmmakers and seminars about Machinima production techniques.
2005 Machinima Film Festival

Range Murata : Robot vol. 1

There are few in the world of anime enthusiasts that haven't heard of Range Murata. Genius designer of art and fashion, his work is a staple of the industry and his innovations have helped shape the design world today. His portfolio spans media, from anime character design and art books to fashion and industrial design.

Now, Murata has set his sights on a new industry: the world of manga. With his latest project, Robot, Murata has called upon some of the hottest artists in Japan to create a compilation of works the likes of which have not been seen in either the U.S. or Japan for many years, if at all.
Akadot - Range Murata talks about the release of Robot vol. 1 in the US

The Institute For Figuring // Online Exhibit: Hyperbolic Space

Dr. Daina Taimina, a Cornell University mathematician, creates intricate crochet pieces in order to better illustrate the physical model of hyperbolic space. "The beauty of Taimina's method is that many of the intrinsic properties of hyperbolic space now become visible to the eye and can be directly experienced by playing with the models." Dr. Taimina's crochet models are on display at the Smithsonian's collection of American Mathematical Models. The Institute for Figuring has collected a great deal of information about her work in online and real-world exhibitions.
The Institute For Figuring // Online Exhibit: Hyperbolic Space

Birth (2004)

A woman (Nicole Kidman) becomes convinced that a ten year old boy is the reincarnation of her dead husband. You can imagine the anatomical conundrum that ensues. The kid (Cameron Bright) has this really pained, serious face on the whole time, very Sixth Sense rip-off. The whole thing was quite awkward. If someone was going to do a film with this idea, they really should have run all the way with it and not turned it into another Hollywood luke-warm romance psychodrama. I give it 4 out of 10. Totally anti-climactic.
Birth (2004)

Tomie: Replay

OK so in this second installment of the Japanese horror franchise--based on the popular manga by Junji Ito--a young girl is hospitalized to find that something is moving in her stomach. It's discovered to be the disembodied head of dead high school student Tomie, who is regenerating herself in order to return to Earth and kill again. So tedious. So slow. I respect the funky soundtrack, but I would really rather hurt myself than watch Tomie: Replay again. 3 out of 10. Read as: Total suck. One saving grace: hot hot Japanese bad girl walking around mostly naked.
Tomie: Replay

Good Bye Lenin! (2003)

East Germany, the year 1989: A young man protests against the regime. His mother watches the police arresting him and suffers a heart attack and falls into a coma. Some months later, the GDR does not exist anymore and the mother awakes. Since she has to avoid every excitement, the son tries to set up the GDR again for her in their flat. But the world has changed a lot, and the son does his best to keep his socialist mom in the dark. Directed by Wolfgang Becker.
Good stuff. Sometimes funny, often poignant. Chulpan Khamatova as Lara is quite the babe too. 8 out of 10 in my book.

Tomie (1999)

Following some trauma in her past that has since been repressed, a young woman is trying to recover her memories with the help of a psychiatrist. During her hypnosis sessions, she repeats the name "Tomie" but is unable to recall where she knows it from. Meanwhile, a police detective is investigating a string of brutal murders, where he also runs across the name "Tomie." How are two connected?
Classic Japanese horror flick. Directed by Ataru Oikawa. Three or four sequels. I'm giving this a 7.5 out of 10. A little generous maybe, but it's the O.G. so it gets a little extra love.
Tomie (1999)

From Kotaku - Blizzard is Big Brother

Kotaku published another great story about the evils of WarCrack, this time in the privacy related field. Let's take this as an important reminder to not be too quick to view our game corporations as benevolent gods.

"World of Warcraft players, beware. Yer credit card numbers and personal conversations can be tracked and recorded by Blizzard in-house spyware. Known as “warden client,” the program runs every 15 seconds. The warden can read the window text in the title bar of every window. However, these ain’t windows related to WoW, but any ol’ program running on your computer.

This isn’t the first time the company’s been caught snooping. A few years back, it was taken to court for using StarCraft to look through player’s hard drives and emails. Blizzard is violating privacy right and left here."
Kotaku - WoW
[Rootkit]
[Attrition]
Thanks Kotaku! (And Martyn)

Upcoming PC Games-Quake 4

Get your trigger finger back in shape. Pull the extra 24 pack or mountain dew out of the basement and dust it off, 'cause your gonna need it soon. id Software is releasing Quake 4 on Tuesday the 18'th. Be sure to make space on your hard drive, update your video card drivers, install the newest Directx, optimize your system, and then cry for a while when you realise that it will never, ever be enough to keep up with this year's "next-gen" games. Let us not forget as well that you'll be blowing at least fifty bucks to pick up any game worth playing.
Quake 4

Record of Lodoss War

I just finished watching all thirteen episodes (2dvd) of this great classic anime. Very well focused on the old Dungeons & Dragons themes, Dragons, magic, elves, etc.
Lodoss, the accursed island. Born in battle and baptized in fire, it has seen wars ravage its kingdoms for thousands of years. Now, an evil beyond any it has ever faced before is awakening, and a party of six are drawn together to battle for the future of everything dear to them. Among them: Parn, a young fighter who lacks experience and is driven by his desire to redeem his father's tarnished name; Deedlit, a young and haughty elf who is both attracted to the young fighter and infuriated by his lack of interest; Ghim, a grizzled dwarf warrior haunted by a personal failure; Etoh, a young priest; Slayn, a skilled magic user; and Woodchuck, a cynical but good-natured thief.

Six who barely know each other. Six who must learn to act with a single purpose. Six hwo are destined to become heroes as they encounter enemies and allies beyond thier wildest imaginations. Join the quest - the war for the future of Lodoss had begun!

Nintendo Micro - Sick little commercial

If you like your gadgets small and hip, you'll be a perfect target for the GameBoy micro. This little bugger is coming out the gate strong. Nintendo wants to warn us though. Be aware that the GameBoy micro can lead to serious chafing.
Funny Commercial

Chuck Palahniuk - Choke

"A dark comedy about sexual addiction, chocolate pudding, religious relics and the Heimlich Maneuver." - Chuck's Editor

Victor Mancini, a medical-school dropout, is an antihero for our deranged times. Needing to pay elder care for his mother, Victor has devised an ingenious scam: he pretends to choke on pieces of food while dining in upscale restaurants. He then allows himself to be "saved" by fellow patrons who, feeling responsible for Victor's life, go on to send checks to support him. When he's not pulling this stunt, Victor cruises sexual addiction recovery workshops for action, visits his addled mom, and spends his days working at a colonial theme park. His creator, Chuck Palahniuk, is the visionary we need and the satirist we deserve.
-Courtesy of ChuckPalahniuk.net
I loved this book. Chuck's writing is fast, filthy, and feels like a guilty pleasure when you're done. I wish more books could leave me feeling so satisfied.

Takashi Miike's Black Society Trilogy - Ley Lines

In his final part of the 'Black Society' trilogy Takashi Miike takes his usual left-field approach in exploring the darkest side of human nature. All of the films have featured characters isolated, not only from mainstream society, but also from the underworld with which they feel most closely related. In the same way, 'Leylines' protagonists are drop outs who feel alienated from Japanese society because of their mixed race (half Chinese) roots. Equally however they barely exist on the fringes of the criminal underground and are caught somewhere in the middle.

After falling foul of the law a few times three young delinquents leave their hometown to try and make money in the big city. The mean streets of Tokyo are rather unforgiving however and they soon find themselves penniless and peddling chemical drugs for a small-time dealer. After befriending a Chinese prostitute, they hit upon a plan to steal money from her pimp and escape to Brazil. However things don't work out as planned and lead to tragic consequences.

Although Takashi Miike's films are always stylishly made and feature explosive action, its always the creation of the characters that I find most fascinating. Even some of the smaller bit parts feel like they have a history. The villains are also particularly well drawn and here is no exception; the ganglord that becomes the trio's nemesis is given a particularly menacing quirk that points to demons in his past.
LEY LINES DVD - TAKASHI MIIKE'S BLACK SOCIETY TRILOGY

Takashi Miike's Black Society Trilogy - Rainy Dog

While Shinjuku told of the marginal place ethnic Taiwanese hold in Japanese society at large, using the society of the Yakuza as a microcosm, Rainy Dog reverses this theme. Yuuji (Sho Aikawa) is a down-on-his-luck Yakuza in Taiwan, picking up assassination jobs from one of the local triad bosses. There is another loser Yakuza in Taipei who may or may not hold a contract on Yuuji, but plays cat-and-mouse with him throughout the film. Yuuji's life is further complicated by the sudden appearance of a ten year old boy, whose mother claims is Yuuji's son; she's fed up with looking after the boy, and abandons him with his father. The central plot revolves around one particular hit, which sparks off a gangland war, with Yuuji, his son and a prostitute caught in the middle, while they search for a quiet place where the rain occasionally stops.

While still a violent gangster film, Rainy Dog avoids much of the spectacular action and graphic, bone crunching splatter most of us associate with Miike's films. Instead, although firmly situated within the Yakuza genre, Rainy Dog is more like a Japanese film noir, where characterization and mood overshadow action.
RAINY DOG DVD - TAKASHI MIIKE'S BLACK SOCIETY TRILOGY

Takashi Miike's Black Society Trilogy - Shinjuku Triad Society

Part One, Shinjuku Triad Society-
Considering the strange and disturbing areas that Takashi Miike has explored over the last few years, the plot basics of the director’s first feature film-proper (after various made-for-video projects) seem almost ordinary by comparison. It’s very much an updating of Kinji Fukasaku’s brand of 70s Yakuza thriller, but if the story and characters are nothing we haven’t seen before, then the gripping pacing and intense violence make it a vivid experience.

Like John Woo’s A Better Tomorrow, Shinjuku Triad Society concerns two brothers on either side of the law. Kiriya is a Chinese-born cop on the mean streets of Tokyo’s Shinjuku district who thinks nothing of breaking a chair over a female suspect’s face to extract a confession, but is also a loving son to his elderly parents who have found it difficult fitting into Japanese society. Kiriya’s younger brother Yoshihito is a lawyer, but he’s chosen to represent psychotic gangster Wang, who runs Shinjuku’s most feared Chinese Triad gang and profits from an organ trafficking operation run from a hospital in Taiwan.
SHINJUKU TRIAD SOCIETY DVD - TAKASHI MIIKE'S BLACK SOCIETY TRILOGY

Broken Flowers (2005)

Jarmusch is always good for telling a captivating story and leaving out the typically American/Hollywood over-explained ending. This statement holds quite true with Broken Flowers. Starring Bill Murray, Jeffrey Wright, Sharon Stone, Frances Conroy, Jessica Lange, Tilda Swinton, and Julie Delpy. Resolutely single Don (Murray) has just been dumped by his latest lover (Delphy). Don yet again resigns himself to being alone and left to his own devices. Instead, he is compelled to reflect on his past when he receives by mail a mysterious pink letter. It is from an anonymous former lover and informs him that he has a 19-year-old son who may now be looking for his father. Well worth the theatre ticket price.