Lockstep Tango

noreply@blogger.com (Mobius Soul) — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 15:17:00 +0000

I have on my computer a file called "failure.mp3." It's a homemade recording of someone playing a rather sad piano piece; it's titled "failure," as far as I can tell, because something about the recording setup gave it a nasty buzzing overtone whenever the pianist plays a certain note, unfortunately the tonic of the key the song is in. Then again, maybe that's just the name of the song.

The file's been sitting on my hard drive for years. I have no idea who made it or where it came from, and I'm pretty sure I never did--it just showed up one day. It kept turning up whenever I'd scan my music folders for new media players, and I always didn't delete it because even as sloppy as it was, it was an okay piece. Still, it was a close thing.

And just now, when I went looking for a soundtrack for my short film for school (coming soon to a youtub near you, based on this) I thought of it instantly. And when I played it over the edited footage, it synced up perfectly. Ridiculously well. It goes loud when I'm silent, quieter when I'm talking, changes key at just the right time. It's beautiful, and uncanny.

noreply@blogger.com (Mobius Soul) — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 01:33:00 +0000

The X Days a Sauerkraut series of object puzzle games are just as good and atmospheric as everyone says they are. Tough but rewarding and really scary. I recommend them to anyone. The only problem is an excess of "guide dang it" moments. You need to open the door, so obviously you should go into a hotel room, light a match, set off the fire alarms, go down the fire escape, steal a crowbar, shift realities to a realm of fear and destruction, go through the door, and drug yourself into such a stupor you fall back into the real world. Nothing could be simpler!

noreply@blogger.com (Mobius Soul) — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 04:53:00 +0000

I just saw my old classmate's A Capella group perform--they're pretty damn good. As soon as they show up on Youtube or something I'll link them. In the meantime, the cover they did of Guster's Careful made me realize how much the verse of that song sounds like BNL's I'll Be That Girl. Just sayin'. Both great songs though.

noreply@blogger.com (Mobius Soul) — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 22:41:00 +0000

A few times for the past couple months I've had an idea for a post, but then gone "bah, it's been dead so long, nobody's reading it, I won't bother," which clearly self-fulfills, so I better start with something.

I just got myself a Facebook. I'd rejected all forms of social networking websites for years on the grounds that I'd seen a few of my middle school sister's friends' Myspaces and I wanted to put myself as far away from that as possible. But Facebook is basically Myspace for people who've figured out how much Linkin Park sucks, and I had to get one for a school student group, so there you go. It's not so bad.

School thing in question: an A Cappella group. We're arranging this and you have no idea how happy that makes me.

noreply@blogger.com (Mobius Soul) — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 03:59:00 +0000

How come nobody told me RPGWorld had started updating again? I'd given up hope years ago. Hell, maybe this means we might get Starsomething back. Though I haven't checked, so for all I know we have. The new content starts here, if you wanna see it. (You might have seen the first few pages of that short re: Reka and the robot, but anything but the first few pages was only available in print until recently.)

look at the graceful way she dances, one foot speaks the other answers

noreply@blogger.com (Mobius Soul) — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 23:16:00 +0000

I just auditioned for the school play with this, turned into a monologue. I was quite proud of it myself. I just want to say something to Capcom here:

You've made a great game in Resident Evil 4, really. But letting a player unlock new cool weapons by beating the game...and giving him a new game plus to play with those weapons in...and also giving him a harder difficulty mode...but not letting him use his new game plus equipment in the harder mode, in fact not even letting him buy the new weapons at all in the harder mode, without beating the game on the harder mode without them, is just stupid. The main purpose of a New Game + (which, for the uneducated, is when you start the game over with all the powerful equipment you ended it with the first time through) is so that you can play the game on the harder mode, now that you're better and stronger, and have goodies you can only get by beating the game. Now I'm left with two options: play the game in Normal with the new stuff, which will make the normal difficulty--already easy for me, since I've beaten it--laughably simplistic, or else play it on Hard, which will be exactly the same experience I just went through except I'll die more. Neither of these options are fun. What I want is to use the new, powerful tools on new, powerful enemies, or at the very least on old, newly powerful enemies, who will present a challenge even when I use the new, powerful tools. Why would you ruin your own replay value like that?...

¡Detrás de ti, imbécil!

noreply@blogger.com (Mobius Soul) — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 02:10:00 +0000

Just picked up a new comic--the excellent The Far Reaches. This could be a much-needed replacement for A Miracle of Science; the art and story both have a similar feel, but this is less hard sci-fi. It's basically a Jeeves in Space thing. Jokes are funny, though the author breaks the fourth wall a bit too much--a very common problem in webcomics, but not normally in ones this well-drawn and -written. Check it out, it's good.

even I, pantaloon gallant, I cannot

noreply@blogger.com (Mobius Soul) — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 16:13:00 +0000

I was remembering a scene from a book today and trying to remember which book it came from; a bit of quick Googling revealed it to be from Cryptonomicon, by one of my favorite authors, Neal Stephenson. The scene was immensely memorable to me because it essentially consists of a man eating one bowl of Cap'n Crunch for six pages. Rereading it here, I have decided that my goal as a writer will be to be able to duplicate the feat of being able to write about a completely dumb event for six pages or more and make it engaging, interesting and funny.

you can catch up with yourself if you run

No, Maude, COLORS

noreply@blogger.com (Mobius Soul) — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 15:58:00 +0000

The following is verbatim, as closely as I can remember an hour or two later, from what I overheard while applying for my learner's permit at the local RMV. (I passed, since you ask.) Names have been changed to protect the guilty. I swear nothing else has been added, changed or exaggerated. Sometimes, apparently, stereotypes are true. Note that at least two people were talking at pretty much any point, and both women involved had Bawstun accents.

"Alright, ma'am, please put your eyes on the testing device. "

"A, C, K, L, F, no E, G, O, sorry..."

"Wait a minute, ma'am."

"...P, F, no, R, F..."

"He said stop, Maude!"

"I heard him!"

"Please read the first line, ma'am."

"A, K, F."

"...The whole first line, please, from left to right."

"A. K. M. F. No, E. P. L."

"No, the first line, please."

"A. K. M--"

"No, Maude, he said the first line--"

"L. Q. P. C, M. No, O, M. U. K. L. S."

"Alright. Please list the colors, from top to bottom."

"L. Q. P--"

"The colors, please, ma'am."

"Oh. A, K, M--"

"No, Maude, cullahs, he said cullahs--"

"Oh. Red, yellow, blue, yellow."

"Could you try that again, ma'am?"

"Red, yellow, blue--"

"There's no blue in a traffic light, ma'am."

"--yellow, blue, red--"

"Ma'am, none of the colors are blue."

"What?"

"He said there's no blue, Maude."

"Red, yellow, blue--green--red."

"Alright...Can you see flashing?"

"Well, not right now."

Twenty seconds pass.

"Do you see flashing, ma'am?"

"I don't see anything!"

"Put your hands on the machine, ma'am."

She puts her hands on the base of the machine."

"I don't see anything."

"Up by your face, please." She does so. "Do you see anything flashing."

"I don't see anything!"

At this point I had to leave to take the small test, and was therefore sadly unable to see what happened and whether Maude got her license or not. I can only hope not.

barbaric barbaric barbaric

noreply@blogger.com (Mobius Soul) — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 09:10:00 +0000

Quick quiz: how many of these quotes can you remember the originals of before resorting to Wikiquote? I myself scored three out of eight, though I could vaguely remember the fourth, just couldn't recall what "wet t-shirt" replaced. What's much sadder than that is that I didn't actually know the guy was a playwright until I noticed that all of the quote sources on that page were marked Act Something. I had had a vague idea that he was a poet but mostly I thought he was just a high society guy who spent his time sitting around at parties being witty at people. Surely the plays must have been good, how come I've never heard of any of them? Maybe they were satire, that clearly wouldn't age well. I'll have to go look them up.

noreply@blogger.com (Mobius Soul) — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 10:10:00 +0000

It's interesting that the one creative outlet I seem to be able to keep putting effort into, and that I still haven't gotten bored with after any length of time, is dungeonmastering. Even though four people are are actually counting on me to write it on time and have it be useful, there's somehow less pressure than if I just sit down to try to write something. I know they're going to have fun fighting the monsters even if the story bringing the PCs to them is flimsy, which lets me have them do whatever I can think of, which somehow ends up being much less flimsy than the stories I try to write for their own sake. Nobody else is expecting to see those, whether they're any good or not; really, I should just be writing torrents of utter crap. That's what you're supposed to do, reliable sources have informed me. But I'm too proud to write something that I really think is bad...except, somehow, in DnD, where it seems like it ought to be kind of B-grade anyway, and it ends up just being fun. I'm setting up a nice haunted mansion next, and actually looking forward to spending an hour in MS Paint drawing the maps. Weird.

noreply@blogger.com (Mobius Soul) — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 01:03:00 +0000

It's weird how being an absolute jerk on the internet is so attractive to people. They don't actually mean anything by it, they don't really hate the people they're insulting horribly, and if you don't take them seriously while they haze you then once they get to know you they'll be just as likely to be nice as they are to be nasty. But when they're nasty they're awful. It's sometimes almost impossible to tell whether somebody is insulting you because they actually dislike you or just for fun, banter they expect you to respond to in kind. Casual racism and sexism and horrible concepts tossed around for laughs, even if the people are truly deeply against those things. I'm sure there's all sorts of deep psychological truths at work about the freedom of anonymity and so on, but it's still strange to see it in action.

noreply@blogger.com (Mobius Soul) — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 17:30:00 +0000

Y'know what would be interesting, what would happen if the Discworld came into contact with a miniature black hole? There's short stories about the same thing happening to Mars or Earth, but it gets whole new implications with the Disc. The pinhole left by a mini black hole would be smaller in relation to A'Tuin than something half a molecule wide would be to a normal turtle; would he even notice? Long term, it would orbit the Disc's center of gravity and gradually suck up all the matter over millennia. Where is the disc's center of gravity anyway? Surely A'Tuin is more massive than the Disc itself, and who knows the exact volume and density of the elephants...perhaps it would just end up orbiting in space between the elephants and do nothing at all. If something ended up punching a hole through the Disc somewhere in the middle, would all the air fall out? What if Cori Celesti was an inverted massive impact crater like that mountain in Ringworld? There's all sorts of interesting possibilities here...

noreply@blogger.com (Mobius Soul) — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 17:55:00 +0000

This blog is coming back to life this summer. I swear it. Hundred words a day minimum. No, a hundred and one, as a nod to anacrusis. This may sometimes mean they won't be very interesting, but i'd rather post random snippets every day than say "I'll post when I have something good to post" and then never do it. Today's link: a Jonathan Coulton song I already loved, made into an anime music video with a series perfectly suited to it. Anyone who reads this blog has a fair chance of reading Joey DeVilla's excellent blog, The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century, and will thus already have seen this, since that's where I got it, but eh. See you tomorrow.

code monkey like you

noreply@blogger.com (Mobius Soul) — Sun, 06 May 2007 13:24:00 +0000

Blogging from New York, whoo! Or actually, from a hotel lobby in Jersey, but close enough. Band trip to the apple, saw Chicago, going to see Spamalot today. It's all good. Also bought a second Guitar Hero controller and did some reasonably competent DDR, both at the enormous Toys 'R' Us, and then played GH2 with like ten different people back at the hotel. the billboards are, as promised by assorted movies and so on, enormous and ubiquitous. It's pretty cool all in all. Forgot the camera so no pics, i'm afraid, but eh.

'cuz everyone's your friend in new york city

noreply@blogger.com (Mobius Soul) — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 20:36:00 +0000

THE ALGORITHM CONSTANTLY FINDS JESUS
THE ALGORITHM KILLED JEEVES
THE ALGORITHM IS BANNED IN CHINA
THE ALGORITHM IS FROM JERSEY

Don't ask. All shall become clear.

’cuz the stars are only painted on the ceiling of oz

Codex Alera

noreply@blogger.com (Mobius Soul) — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 18:04:00 +0000

As I've said before I'm a big fan of Jim Butcher's Dresden Files books, so I recently got around to reading the first book in a fantasy trilogy he did, the Codex Alera. The book's called Calderon's Fury and it's very good; not high fantasy exactly, no elves or dragons or so on, but a similar kind of thing, and set in a magic-ified version of something half Roman and half Germanic tribes, which is refreshingly different from the standard. The magic system is nice and original too. It reminded me a bit of A Game of Thrones--the only George RR Martin I ever read, since I frankly didn't like it, but this has some of the same feel while being much less full of itself and annoying. The only problem I had with the book was that the big twist Jim obviously plans to unveil in the last book is hugely obvious. I really hope Butcher is trying to fake the reader out, because otherwise it's just way too easy.

It’s my business to know what is and what’s not

noreply@blogger.com (Mobius Soul) — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 00:06:00 +0000

If it is at all possible for you to avoid having to read and summarize the entirety of Les Miserables in three days, I heartily suggest doing so. It's not fun. The book is quite good but that doesn't really help.

she said that she was hungry and that i was brilliant

noreply@blogger.com (Mobius Soul) — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 00:59:00 +0000

Josie and the Pussycats was such a goddamn good movie. It's ridiculous. And the soundtrack is pure gold. Check out this clip of the climax--the good punky bit starts a little ways in, give it thirty-four seconds.

and when you're gone it's like i'm goin' blind

WikiBible

noreply@blogger.com (Mobius Soul) — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 23:42:00 +0000

I have no idea if the actual content is any good but it's the best idea ever. The actual name of the project is WikiWrit.

give us our daily bread in individual slices

noreply@blogger.com (Mobius Soul) — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 21:18:00 +0000

Oh my God, it all makes sense. An entirely new way to look at Star Wars ep4 in the light of the first three that's really a whole lot more interesting than the first three.

i got hypochondria, i think my beats is sick

Anacrusis again

noreply@blogger.com (Mobius Soul) — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 20:26:00 +0000

Have I mentioned lately just how awesome Anacrusis is? Blink fiction is apparently the term, if you're willing to be that pretentious--101 words a day, self-contained and whole, some funny, some sad, some adventurous. They aren't truly stories, there's no beginning or end--they sound kind of like excerpts from novels. They all work as their own thing, and most of them are unconnected to each other, but one appears every once in a while with recurring characters that occasionally overlap--taken together, one character's thread, doesn't quite tell a whole coherent story, but the characterization is phenomenal and what you do get about their stories is really interesting. I suggest reading Chicago (intense, dramatic) or The Chosen Ones (actiony, funny) first. Start at the bottom and work up.

nerves our nerves to seize the burning stars

noreply@blogger.com (Mobius Soul) — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 03:48:00 +0000

Something Awful is still awesome.

Leeloo Dallas in:
MULTIPASS

words like conviction can turn into a sentence

Top 100 songs

noreply@blogger.com (Mobius Soul) — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 04:40:00 +0000

I got bored with my mammoth playlist of everything that isn't crap in my mp3 collection, so I distilled it into a greatest-hits-type thing. Probably it's not my actual 100 favorites, some things should be switched in or out, but I would get up, dance, and sing along to anything on it. (Well, except for the orchestral stuff.) Read or ignore at your pleasure; they're shuffled, so in no particular order, and the concentration of Elvis Costello is mostly because there's more of him in my collection than anyone else, since my dad owns nearly every CD he ever released. I could make most of them mp3 links but for my mother the sysadmin probably throwing a fit if I did--wherever there is a link, that means there's a legal mp3 available there.

Clint Eastwood - Gorillaz
Get Over You - The Undertones
I've Got Some Falling to Do - Lemon Demon (a great web-based musician)
High Fidelity - Elvis Costello and the Attractions
TKO (Boxing Day) - Elvis Costello and the Attractions
Let Them All Talk - Elvis Costello and the Attractions (computers suck at random numbers)
Peace and Love - Fountains of Wayne (one-hit wonder for God knows what reason; one of my favorites albums ever)
Final Fantasy I-III - Nobuo Uematsu
Train in Vain - The Clash
I Feel Fantastic - Jonathan Coulton (an incredible web-based musician)
Bones - The Killers
Tempted - Squeeze
Punk Rock Girl - The Dead Milkmen
She Turns Me On - Smashmouth
Heart - Rockpile
Blues Drive Monster - The Pillows
Come On Eileen - Save Ferris (great song, even greater cover)
God's Comic - Elvis Costello again
What You Live By - Harvey Danger (who are actually giving away the album online, which is utterly fawesome)
When I was 19 - Songs to Wear Pants To
Radio, Radio - Elvis Costello
Ride on Shooting Star - The Pillows
Tenderness - General Public
The In Set - Smashmouth
When You Were Young - The Killers
Everything is Alright - Motion City Soundtrack
Take Me Away - Joe Jackson (with one of the greatest bassists ever, Graham Maby)
Wine, Women and Song - Harvey Danger (again, giving away.)
Deep Dark Truthful Mirror - Elvis Costello
Mexican Wine - Fountains of Wayne
Adagio for Strings (Agnus Dei) - Samuel Barber (better known as the song from the first level of the computer game Homeworld)
Wonderboy - Tenacious D
Penny Arcade Theme - MC Frontalot
Gary Gilmore's Eyes - The Adverts
Logos Naki World (The World Without Logos) - Yasushi Ishii (theme to the Hellsing TV show)
Bought for a Song - Fountains of Wayne
Strength - The Alarm
CARNIVAL - The Pillows
Love Plus One - Haircut 100
...Not Forever - Tsunami Bomb
Sleep (Finger's [sic] Lullaby) - Boomtown Rats
Tramp the Dirt Down - Elvis Costello
Mandelbrot Set - Jonathan Coulton (best song ever about a mathematical concept)
Fett's Vette - MC Chris
Goody Two Shoes - Adam Ant
Flagpole Sitta - Harvey Danger (this one isn't on that particular album)
Weapon of Choice - Fatboy Slim
The Jeep Song - Dresden Dolls
Here It Goes Again - OK Go
The Sound of the Suburbs - The Members
Creep - Radiohead
Possesion - Elvis Costello and the Attractions
Fresh Dog - MC Frontalot
In Between Days - The Cure
Sing Along Forever - Bouncing Souls
Little Busters - The Pillows (I get a little teary-eyed whenever I hear this song, no lie. That's how much FLCL affected me.)
Little Red Light - Fountains of Wayne
Veronica - Elvis Costello
Valley Winter Song - Fountains of Wayne
Please Do Not Go - Violent Femmes
Half Jack - Dresden Dolls
Hackensack - Fountains of Wayne
Bonzo Goes to Bitburg - The Ramones
Little Round Mirrors - Harvey Danger
Rolling Thunder - Gray Code (they're Danish, I think, though they sing in English. My friend Rutger of irc.sorcery.net/#avengia linked me to them.)
Sunday Papers - Joe Jackson
Duvet - Boa (theme song to Serial Experiments Lain)
Tank! - Yoko Kanno (theme song to Cowboy Bebop. Why are anime themes so often awesome?)
Ana Ng - They Might be Giants
Skullcrusher Mountain - Jonathan Coulton (a touching tale of a mad scientist and the woman he loves)
20 Tons of TNT - Flanders and Swann
We Like the Moon - Joel Veitch (remember those Quiznos commercials, with the mutated hamster things? This was the original.)
Just What I Needed - The New Cars
No One's Looking - Tsunami Bomb
Pinch Me - Barenaked Ladies
Rudie Can't Fail - The Clash
Grits Ain't Groceries - Andrew Strong/The Commitments
Dr. Who on Holiday - Dean Gray (made off with the mp3 before the site got shut down. RIP, American Edit.)
Uh-Oh, Love Comes to Town - Talking Heads
Fools In Love - Joe Jackson
Are You Gonna Be My Girl - Jet
We Want the Airwaves - The Ramones
Bright Future in Sales - Fountains of Wayne
The Invasion from Within - Tsunami Bomb
Tribute - Tenacious D
Alternative Ulster - Stiff Little Fingers
Psycho Killer - Talking Heads
Blister in the Sun - Violent Femmes
Needles & Pins - The Ramones
The Fields of Athenry - Dropkick Murphys
All Of This - Shaimus (from Guitar Hero)
I Should Be Allowed to Think - They Might Be Giants
Hey Julie - Fountains of Wayne
Mr. Brightside - The Killers
Kiss Off - Violent Femmes
Bangs - They Might Be Giants
One Step Beyond - Madness
Blank Generation - Richard Hell and the Voidoids
Bad Habit - Dresden Dolls

noreply@blogger.com (Mobius Soul) — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 23:41:00 +0000

The Dresden Files books are awesome, but the TV show was laaaaaame. I'll still watch the next few episodes, just in case, but...laaaaaame.

(also the line about loving something so much i'm almost insane, in that recent post, that was a song lyric and not part of the post. just fyi.)

And while it’s killing you dead it will mess with your head/And it’s the light in the dark that will guide you