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You are here: Kaedrin > Weblog |
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| The Royal Kingdom of Tallmania | |||
| Monday, September 10, 2001 |
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Wasting Time I Play Too Much Solitaire, and it's Putting Me in a Time Warp by Douglas Coupland : Why do I choose to waste time playing solitaire? And why will I, in all likelihood, cheerfully continue to waste thousands more hours playing solitaire? These are questions Coupland, and no doubt, millions of others, have pondered. Interestingly enough, I find that this spills over into much more than solitaire. What of my thousands of NHL 98 or Unreal Tournament games? Or the countless hours spent trolling the net? Time wasted? Perhaps. Will I continue to waste it? Undoubtedly. Why? I have no idea. Coupland's father used to play solitaire all the time, and now, thanks to a computer, he still plays almost every day. When asked why, he replies: "That's easy. Every time I press the key and it deals me a new round, I get this immense burst of satisfaction knowing that I didn't have to shuffle the cards and deal them myself. Its payback time for all the hours I ever wasted in my life shuffling and dealing cards."Which brings me to the thought that maybe we aren't really wasting time at all. Maybe we just need to realize that the past is gone, whether we like it or not. By the way, I found Coupland's site insightful and fun, though I'm a bit annoyed at the use of Flash (is it really necessary to put a full text article into flash? It sure as hell makes it difficult to pull quotes!) posted by tallman 11:15:05 AM .: link |
| Sunday, September 09, 2001 |
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Ambitious Fanfic? 35 years ago yesterday, the first episode of Star Trek debuted on NBC...and here we are three-and-a-half decades later with nine movies, five hundred odd hours of TV episodes and another new movie and TV series forthcoming. Enter Star Trek: Renaissance, the first virtual Star Trek series. The creators of Renaissance intend to produce professionally formatted and written teleplays for a Star Trek "virtual" TV series, complete with new characters and a new Enterprise set 25 years after the adventures of Captain Picard. And, incredibly, they want to produce a full season worth of episodes. They plan to "air" a new episode each week, not counting "re-run" weeks when they're on hiatus. And they want it to kick ass. But is all that time and effort invested into creating Renaissance worth it? To be perfectly honest, I'm not so sure. I've only really liked the "Next Generation" and maybe some of the movies, but after taking a look at the first "episode" of Renaissance, I think it could be interesting... [via coming attractions] posted by tallman 11:29:23 AM .: link |
| Thursday, September 06, 2001 |
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Third Eye Open There has been a press release regarding a string quartet tribute to Tool which sounds rather interesting. "This concept, inspired by the complex compositions and unique sound of Tool, delivers dramatic interpretations of the best of the band. This album takes the band's rhythmic guitars, assault-rifle drums, wide-ranging, multiple-octave vocals and turns them into aggressive string playing, deep and percussive cello, and vigorous yet delicate vocalizations on violin." I have long been a fan of the Finnish Apocalyptica, who played some of Metallica's greatest hits with their cellos (then later went on to arrange their own cello-driven heavy metal with their latest album, Cult), so I'm sure I'll enjoy this tribute to Tool... posted by tallman 1:01:03 PM .: link |
| Friday, August 31, 2001 |
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Someone is a werewolf. Someone ... in this very room. Werewolf is a simple game for a large group of people (seven or more.) Two of the players are secretly werewolves. They are trying to slaughter everyone in the village. Everyone else is an innocent human villager, but one of the villagers is a seer (can detect lycanthropy). Some people call it a party game, but it's a game of accusations, lying, bluffing, second-guessing, assassination, and mob hysteria. Sounds like a blast to me. [via metafilter] I recently participated in a similar game called "The Mole" in which there are two teams which are trying to complete certain tasks, except that there's a sabateur (a "mole") on each team. Of course, my team emerged victorious, thanks mostly to a brilliant strategy in the opening round, resulting in a commanding lead for my team. The other team became a little bitter about that, as evidenced by this highly biased, but also hilarious mock review of the event (I am the one referred to as "Mark" in said review). posted by tallman 2:37:27 PM .: link |
| Monday, August 27, 2001 |
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Dark Tower V Prologue: Calla Bryn Sturgis by Stephen King : A preview of the highly anticipated forthcoming volume of King's Dark Tower series. An interesting entry; its plot is higly reminiscent of Kurosawa's classic film, Seven Samurai, though I've yet to figure out if that's a good thing. In his words, King is "hoping to press on to the very end and publish the remaining volumes all at the same time. That probably means three books, one of them fairly short and one of the other two quite long." This strikes me as joyous news, but I can't help feeling apprehension - for I've never known King to end his stories all that well (just look at the ending to The Waste Lands). However, if the new novels continue the successive exponential increase in quality and intelligence that the first four have established (especially in the last volume, Wizard and Glass), we'll certainly be in for a treat. Only time and Ka will tell. Ka like a wind... posted by tallman 11:09:53 AM .: link |
| Friday, August 17, 2001 |
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Gone Fishin I won't be around much for the next week or so, for I have courageously volunteered to brave tropical storms, typhoid, cholera, dengie fever, tsetse fly disease, and those worms that drill into your leg and grow to a length of nine feet in order to investigate the mysteries of the Bermuda Triangle (aka, the Devil's Triangle). There are lots of theories on the mysterious phenomenon, but I intend to find out what really goes on there (my favourite theory: Cthulhu "lies not dead, but dreaming in the under water city of of R'lye" which is probably somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle). Anyway, while I'm gone, you can entertain yourselves by conversing with the "friendly" folk of the Kaedrin Forum, or even by contributing to one of the four ongoing Tandem Stories (a form of interactive storytelling in which each successive paragraph is written by a different author). If you like those stories, try this Choose Your Own Adventure story, which is also quite fun. posted by tallman 8:46:39 AM .: link |
| Wednesday, August 15, 2001 |
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Greatest Hits The Mob is an American business institution. Killing people is just part of the business, but it's a very costly part. Cops look the other way for burglary or hijacking, but not for murder. The press and the public don't generally tolerate this sort of thing, and yet, those very murders that bring the most powerful wrath of law enforcement and public scrutiny down on the Mob are responsible for their greatest cultural legacy. [Warning: graphic images ahead - proceed at your own risk] Who can forget the picture of Carmine Gallante sprawled on a restaurant floor, cigar in his mouth? Or the bloody picture of Ben "Bugsy" Siegal, his face pretty much blown off? These infamous Mafia hits stick in our consciousness longer than any degree of bootlegging or hijacking ever could posted by tallman 9:25:31 AM .: link |
| Tuesday, August 14, 2001 |
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NIN Naming Conventions While rifling through one of my old backup cds, I found the following image which describes the rather humorous way in which Trent Reznor (of Nine Inch Nails fame) names his numerous hard drives, filenames, and programs: 
posted by tallman 11:56:58 PM .: link |
| Monday, August 13, 2001 |
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American Writing Today A Diagnosis of the Disease by William T. Vollmann : An interesting article about the woes of humanity, and how best to set things right (through art). A bit remeniscent of Orwell's Politics and the English Language, Vollman puts forth some good rules on how to write with a sense of purpose. He also touches on people's tendency to treat the symptoms instead of the actual causes. As a country we have become reactionary to specific events, but not wide trends, blaming miniscule influences for major catastrophies. Does anyone really think something like Columbine happens solely because of the music two kids listened to? Its something I've been noticing a lot lately, and it really suprises me how pervasive the idea is. Anyway, I've been meaning to pick up one of Vollman's books, but its pretty low down in the book queue and my spare time is dwindling, so it probably won't happen anytime soon. I hear he's a... strange... fellow. posted by tallman 12:50:11 PM .: link |
| Thursday, August 09, 2001 |
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If U.S. education was a horse, it would be taken out back and shot A total recall on schools by Arianna Huffington : "If it were a product, it would have been recalled. If it were a politician, it would have been impeached. If it were a horse, it would have been taken behind the barn and shot." She cites a few examples, including the story of Nancy Goldberg and Curt Mortenson, who are being punished for making their high school's AP English program too successful. This isn't very comforting, though I don't think the majority of schools are in trouble. It comes down to the poor, inner-city schools that are really in trouble. Some reform is definitely needed, but perhaps a recall is a bit harsh... [via wood s lot] posted by tallman 11:59:51 AM .: link |
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Copyright ? 1999 - 2001 by Mark Ciocco. No part of this page may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission. |
