Archive for July, 2007
I can’t feel my nose
Damn but it’s cold here in Cape Town today. There are chunks of ice falling out of the sky, and I am wayyyyy pleased I don’t have to go out there for any reason.
It’s been both gratifying and humbling to see how many of you have downloaded the Intrepid OST - thank you very much. It turns out I made a screwup in the mp3 pack, Track 17 was wrong. This has now been fixed, but if you’d like just the correct track without having to download the whole thing again, you can grab it here.
Now then. Karl and I had a great doef-doef session today where we dusted off something we began ages ago. It’s coming along really well, getting a good solid feel in this track. Bonus points if you can identify the source of the brass samples in use, though I can’t imagine anyone but a member of my family guessing this.
If you’re a female vocalist and you can do house and kwaito vox, please get in touch.
Annnnnnnd as it’s Friday:
Weird Scifi Sewers
This is a gallery of pictures of the Japanese sewer system. It is mind bogglingly cool - the structures down there are massive, and remind me a lot of elements from HR Giger and Bladerunner and The Lord of the Rings … check it out, it’s extremely cool.
Unfortunate product placement
I have a love-hate relationship with advertising. On the one hand, I really think that a lot of it is art. Or can be. But I also hate how it’s everywhere. This page has a lovely list of instances where the message of the ad got a little warped by it’s placement. With picturey goodness.
Tiny little PC
Okay, you have to be a bit geeky to appreciate this, but I think it’s genius. A PC the size of a paperback novel - and cheap! It won’t run the latest games, but that’s not what it’s for. 12 out of 10 for form factor. I want one. Heck, I want two!
Wizards that could kick Harry Potter’s ass
It’s technically redundant, because we all know that without his wand, any one of us could kick Harry’s ass. Were I in Fight Club, I would fight Harry Potter.
Ahhhhhh cute!
It’s a doggy this week. I don’t normally do doggies, but this is gorgeous.
Intrepid OST released
At last! after many cups of tea and much mucking about, the Intrepid OST album is available for download. I want to thank Jeff Hayes for designing such sumptuous cover art - you’ll find his inserts and CD labels inside the archive.
Also big thanks to Dylan Feeney for writing the original and beautiful Intrepid theme, and for giving me permission to include it on this disc.
And lastly a very big thanks to the crew of the USS Intrepid for inviting me aboard - it’s been a crazy ride and I look forward to many more adventures.
Now then. The album is available in 2 versions. First, as a CD image - you should grab this one if you intend to burn it because all the tracks have been mastered and aligned with clever dramatic index points and CD-Text and all those bobs and whistles. Although rar’ed, it’s a chunky download weighing in at around 180mb.
http://rapidshare.com/files
http://rapidshare.com/files
If you plan to play it back on your iPod or similar portable device, it’s also available in mp3 format. Where possible, I used 320kVBR, but even so this pack weighs in at a far more svelte 48mb.
http://rapidshare.com/files/45302561/HLtC_OST_mp3.zip
Finally, if you’d just like to check out particular tracks, the entire album is available via streaming MP3 from this website, right here.
One last thing. Some of you have expressed interest in offering money for this album. I am extremely flattered that you would do so, but here’s the thing: in my opinion, artists don’t make money through the sale of albums (well, most of us don’t).
However, we do earn money via paid commissions that arise from the distribution of our albums. Therefore, if you want to support me and Dylan, then burn a copy of the CD, print a cover for it, and give it away to someone. We’d really appreciate it.
NOTE on using Rapidshare: you’ll want to scroll down the page the links above take you to, and click the button labelled Free. This takes you through to the actual download page where you have to enter some Capcha text to prove you’re not a robot, and your download will commence.
Intrepid - scene 22: Battlestations
So, we’re still on track to release the OST next week, which I’m looking forward to as a personal milestone. I’ve spent so much time working on other people’s projects; it’s really exciting to be releasing something of my own for a change.
Until the official release, here’s another clip. This is scene 22, the second appearance of the mysterious nemesis, and the crew of the Intrepid go to Red Alert.
Annnnnnnnnnnnd then, because it’s Friday …
Eat Liver
These guys collect the latest stoopid pictures doing the rounds on a semi-daily basis. Good for a chuckle, but also a bit random, by which I mean that although most of the pictures are amusing, some may scar your brain. You have been warned.
Best Old Games
If you’re around my age, you know that although today’s games are better to look at, they aren’t necessarily better to play. You also remember a time when 640k was a huuuuuuuuuuge amount of memory. Gaze in wonder, then, at this mighty repository of Abandonware. It’s all entirely legal to download, too. Eeeeee, they don’t make ‘em like that anymore, do they Dorris? No. No they don’t.
Optical Illusions
Mangle your brain with this fine collection of optical illusions. My favourite is the colour perception one - the shadow on the chessboard. My head will not accept that the two squares are the same colour, even though I’ve gone and proved it to myself with Potatoshop’s eyedropper tool. Mental.
The All Singing All Dancing Hardgeus
The personal homepage of a geek I find inspiring - not only for his geekiness, but for his formidable weightloss. This link will take you through to the weightloss portion of his site, which is an amusing read in and of itself. The true gold is on the third page in, however, where there is a time lapse animation of the weight coming off. Oddly hypnotic. Also scary when it loops and he transforms from hot to gross again.
Fluffeh time
Obligatory kittens. Ahhhhhh.
We’re back!
Karl and I have been on a sort of enforced hiatus due to our mutual work pressures, but today we managed to get together and make some of the banging thumping noises we so enjoy. Below is a clip from our current remix work.
Bonus points if you can identify the original track (thus giving away your age). And yes, we are looking to collaborate with singers, so if you’re in the Cape Town area and can belt out a decent House vocal, please drop me a line.
In other news, the permissions issue around the Intrepid soundtrack has been resolved, so expect the entire OST album to be available for download some time next week - I’m just waiting on cover art at this point. The cover is being designed by the multi-talented Jeff Hayes, which I’m feeling very smug about.
Intrepid - scene 9
This is a clip from the back end of Scene 9 where Navar is trying to discourage the crew from investigating the new alien species too closely. I had originally intended this to be Navar’s theme of duplicity, but it just didn’t pan out that way.
In the end, it just didn’t fit where I intended it later, so scene 9 is its lone appearance.
And now, as it’s a Friday, and on the off-chance you are reading this from your desk when you are supposed to be working, here are some amusements:
XKCD
Brilliant and highly geeky webcomic about life, love, and all things intarwebz. Often sharply insightful. You don’t have to be a nerd to read it, but it helps.
Monkey Fluids
Amusing site where a chap called Josh scans pictures out of old Boys Own-type books and re-captions them. Wrong, wrong, wrong. And funny.
Chris has annoyed me for the last time
I was mucking about with After Effects, this is the gory result. Probably NSFW for graphic, if ridiculous, violence.
Purple and Brown
What is this? What is this? I don’t know, but I can’t stop watching. It tickles me in that strange mystical place that makes everything funny to a 2 year old.
I can has cheezburger?
You may. No list of amusements is complete without some fluff. Hooray for kitties!
Spirit of Africa
So, as one of my friends has been nagging me for updates on this project (yes YOU Vorgan), I can tell you that Spirit of Africa is now complete. We wrapped production about a week ago. Even though my involvement was fairly limited - I came in on the back end - it was pretty challenging, as Lynn’s arrangements tend to be epic in scope.
This is probably one of her most involved and daring productions to date, and features a host of guest performances by some really top players, including Pops Mohamed, Dizu Plaaitjies and some wonderful vox samples performed by Nobuhle Ketelo. She’s one to watch, her voice is fantastic - very rich and soulful.
My involvement was basically some percussion programming (make drums biggerer) and some input on the mixes. Work on Sands of Time II should begin within the next few weeks.
Lynn has kindly given permission for me to post a clip from the album here; you can listen to more at her website: Desert Rose Music.
Intrepid - scene 3
As you might be aware, our first episode of Intrepid was released last month. It’s pretty cathartic to have it out after all this time.
I intend to release an OST album in the fullness of time, and will do so once certain issues with permissions have been resolved. In the meantime, I’ll be posting individual scenes from the film here.
In this scene, the Captain’s shuttle malfunctions on its way down to the planet. On its current trajectory it will crash into the colony, killing hundreds. After a frantic effort to save it, the crew of the Intrepid have no choice but to shoot the shuttle down.
Epic Failure
Let me preface this by saying that the events of the last few days in the UK horrifies me. I happened to be working in England the last time someone successfully detonated a bomb in London, and it wasn’t particularly amusing. In fact, I find myself rather relieved that I am viewing this sequence of events from the other hemisphere of the planet.
A few years ago, I was a member of a now defunct mailing list called Survivor Wit. It was for survivors of childhood sexual abuse, and its purpose was to take the piss out of the experience as a combined coping strategy and method of healing.
I mention this so that you take the following idea from whence it comes.
Does it strike anyone else but me that the terrorists in the UK are a bit rubbish? Okay, July the 7th was horrible beyond imagining, but could also be chalked up to beginners luck. Since then, every single attempt has resulted in epic failure, and only once through direct police intervention (the airplane/liquid thing). Two weeks after July 7, a bunch of chaps spectacularly failed to blow themselves up.
Now you’ve got giant carbombs that fail to detonate, and to cap it all, two blokes drive a flaming Cherokee of Death into an airport unassociated with anything, completely fail to explode and instead receive a thorough booting from a gang of justifiably pissed off Glaswegian cabbies.
You’ve got to laugh. They’re crap.
So, my idea is this. How about a series - webcomic / audiosode / fanfilm - about a bunch of British terrorists trying to blow stuff up. Their motivation is entirely more mundane than the government thinks it is, and changes from week to week, always ending in abject failure, with the survivors reconvening to plan the next attack. Sort of like a militant Pinky and the Brain, but with beards. Anyone want to produce this? Feel free to nick the idea.
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