by Matt | May 30, 2006 | Personal
A quick little update on my two current projects.
First, the computer case mod has been progressing nicely. Several layers/rounds of primer and sanding are leaving a nice surface to work on. I’ve received my case window order from FrozenCPU.com and plan on cutting the hole this week. I can’t start the actual color paint until after I cut the window, wouldn’t want to messed up a nice paint job with chips and scratches from the Drummel.
Second, I’ve been slowly rendering out game footage for my TCC BF2 movie to be presented at our annual LAN next month. I was saving them out as 1024×768 avi files, but after talking to Jason and getting some professional video advice, I’ve switched to 640×480 and I’m converting them to MPEG4 before I edit them. Basically, that takes a 250mb file and makes a 4mb of equal quality, which in return is much easier to edit with.
Speaking of which, I’ve started to get clips into the editor. They’re in sequence, but untrimmed. I’m planning on editing them to music and have yet to find the perfect tunes. Its gonna be a long video, so I’m probably going to need a few. I’m looking for something up-tempo, a little hard, like it belongs in a videogame. There’s a track or two I’m going to use that were used on the Burnout 3 soundtrack, but I need some more. Any suggestions?
by Matt | May 27, 2006 | Culture
Caught the new X-Men movie last night. Enjoyed it, even if it isn’t even vaguely close the the “comic timeline” as far as the events are concerned. Then again, with upwards of 500 issues of Uncanny X-men and god knows how many regular X-men (considering how many times they started over with the numbering), it’s really no surprise that they’ve assembled a jumbled timeline. Leaving my geek membership card at the door, I really liked the film. I thought it had some slow parts in the middle, but otherwise is a good continuance of the francise (movie wise) they’ve set up. I did have a few complaints, most of them involving spoilers. You can click “read more” for those.
I also realized that MY X-Men are long gone. I checked out Marvel.com this afternoon, and I can’t find any trace of the “classic” X-Men team in the comics. I was this close to picking up a few issues and checking out whats going on with my favorite muntant team of my childhood…. but I couldn’t find them. There’s Wolverine in his own book, New X-Men (which has a whole new team of new kids) and Uncanny X-Men that has a few old characters but is so out in leftfield I have no clue what they’re up to. Where the fuck is Cyclops, Jean-Gray, Wolverine, Gambit, Rogue, etc? Anyone? What the hell is going on? I stopped collecting comics a while a go, and now I’m all sorts of confused. Anyone (Nagle) recommend a good online comic store and maybe a few issues worth reading to catch back up???
Remember to click “more” and check out my issues with the movie. Contains spoilers.
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by Matt | May 25, 2006 | Music
It takes a whole lot of well crafted web magic to impress me these days. There’s AJAX this, Ruby that, Flash apps, all sorts of crap. Most of it is kinda interesting but not entirely useful on the whole. Today, I found something that I really think is pretty slick.
Pandora by the Music Genome Project
From their site:
“Ever since we started the Music Genome Project, our friends would ask: Can you help me discover more music that I’ll like? Those questions often evolved into great conversations. Each friend told us their favorite artists and songs, explored the music we suggested, gave us feedback, and we in turn made new suggestions. Everybody started joking that we were now their personal DJs. We created Pandora so that we can have that same kind of conversation with you. ”
At the most basic level it’s like all those “find similar band sites” like last.fm and nova-something (which I can’t remember), only taken to an entire other level. You put in a band you like and create a “radio station” based on that. I chose Less Than Jake for my first test. I put in the band name and it creates a station based on not only LTJ but music thats similar, impired by, has similar characterists of and/or sounds like them. I started with Liquior Store, a song it chose randomly from the LTJ catelog. Then, it filled the “radio station” with songs and artists that it thought I might like. I can adjust the tastes and blend of songs based on yes/no votes. It’s live, streaming, and always on for me to listen to. It’s full songs, good quality, in a great mix, streamed directly from the browser. No media player involved.
In the past few hours I’ve listened to: Gogol Bordello, Flogging Molly, Voodoo Glow Skulls, Swingin’ Utters, Mustard Plug, The Pogues, The Mountain Firework Company, Spitvalves, Lawrence Arms, Streetlight Manifesto, Fall Out Boy, Operation Ivy, Pink Spiders, Kid Dynamite, and the Street Dogs. That’s a great mix. Nothing has repeated. They never picked any cheesy over played tunes. I’m really liking it.
Definatly a website to check out, especially if you want to hear some new tunes.
http://www.pandora.com
by Matt | May 17, 2006 | Music
Completely and totally random thought of the day…
Mxpx – The Darkest Places
Arctic Monkeys – From The Ritz To The Rubble
LCD Soundsystem – Daft Punk Is Playing At My House
1208 – Fall Apart
Autopilot Off – Make A Sound
Reggie & The Full Effect – Congratulations Smack And Katy
The Rolling Stones – Street Fighting Man
Streetlight Manifesto – 9mm and a Three-Piece Suit
Mxpx – Late Again
Bloc Party – Helicopter
Bowling For Soup – Captain Hook
Sahara Hotnights – Push On Some More
by Matt | May 16, 2006 | Culture
I had recorded a 45 minute podcast using Odeo’s online recorder and the damn thing isn’t there. What the hell. Now I’ve got to rant and rave all over again. That’s BS. Don’t advertise an “online recorder” that doesn’t save shit. Arrrrgg.
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