Meester Charp is one of them, obviously.
Check this out: the Ultimate Ultimate Fatality Guide for Mortal Kombat Armageddon. Now, I like the MK game franchise, but not to Al’s extreme level of dedication. Detailed instructions and a whole stack of videos to demonstrate. He hasn’t done all the videos yet but is working through them.
Of course, what I think is cool is the rollover effect used for the menu. Check that out while you’re at it 🙂
Just when you thought lego couldn’t get any cooler, a stop motion video clip to Dream Evil’s hilariously cool Book of Heavy Metal:
[YouTube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=B1HlbOZBE7Y]
YouTube – in the book of heavy metal
Found via MTV’s Headbangers’ Blog. Thing is, over there they don’t hold Dream Evil in quite the same reverence that we do over here. In fact, they bandy around the words “ridiculous” and “absurd”, describing “shrieking vocals, riffs stolen straight from Judas Priest, hysterical demon voices and a wondrously fist-in-the-sky chorus“. And they say it like it’s a bad thing.
Maybe they’re not as hardcore as they think they are.
This is kick-arse:
[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEc8v1OWeE4]
YouTube – Lego Millenium Falcon Stop Motion
Dave has that model… as well as about 40 litres of other Star Wars lego. Since we moved into our house, three and a half years ago, it has stayed, disassembled, in the crate.
Might be time to get it out again soon!
Gary has tagged me with the eight random things meme. I wasn’t going to bother participating but what better way to get back into a posting routine on this blog than with something completely random? The answer is, of course, eight things that are completely random. So here we go.
Ben let on that he eats Coco Pops for breakfast. I didn’t think that anyone over the age of six did that. I am of the opinion that the only thing Coco Pops are good for is making chocolate crackles.
Of course, after I convinced Dave to buy a packet in order to revisit the childhood delight that is chocolate crackles, we realised that they are in fact made with Rice Bubbles and cocoa. Not to be dissuaded, Dave made some anyway, with our coco pops and dark chocolate. They were delicious. Next time I will make them with liqueur as well: alcoholic chocolate crackles for grownups. Mmmmm.
About two weeks after getting mobile broadband enabled on my phone, a cute little Nokia 6800, I got sick of trying to reply to emails with a numeric keypad and started investigating geekier phones. A lot of people seem to be lusting after the Nokia N95 but I really, really wanted a QWERTY keyboard, which at the moment (on the 3 network) limits me to the Dopod838Pro or the Palm Treo, both Windows Mobile phones.
After playing with the keyboards, I decided I didn’t think much of the Palm, leaving me with the Dopod838Pro. I was a bit hesitant to get a Windows Mobile device – not because I don’t like Windows Mobile, but because I really like using Google Maps, GMail and Twitteresce on my mobile, all J2ME applications, and I didn’t think they would run on Windows Mobile. As it turns out they do, although not perfectly – Windows Mobile 6 which will be released soon apparently has a better J2ME midlet manager.
So anyway I now have the geekiest phone in the universe. And I’m loving it.
I’ve been lucky enough to see a lot of live shows this year. In fact, the list is quite ridiculously long, and there’s more to come. I have a ton of photos and videos that I haven’t uploaded yet, and I haven’t blogged about most of them, but there’s a heap of my reviews on Metal Underground and FasterLouder:
Bands I’ve also seen but haven’t actually reviewed include Guns n Roses and Lamb of God. I missed Stone Sour because we were in Sydney for Nine Inch Nails, which has been postponed until September. And coming up I have Alice Cooper, Dinosaur Jr, Heaven and Hell (Black Sabbath with Ronnie James Dio) with Down, The Cure, Bob Dylan, Napalm Death, Marilyn Manson, and the Black Crusade (Machine Head, Arch Enemy and Trivium). Hot tour rumors are Velvet Revolver, possibly with Alice in Chains.
Whew! and it’s only July. Compare this to last year, when there were maybe 5 international metal shows for the entire year.
As you’ve no doubt heard, the movie that Dave had been excited about ever since it was announced four years ago finally came out. Scott Barnes saw it while he was in Perth for Barcamp and said it was a religious experience. I don’t know if I would go that far but it was definitely very, very cool. Dave has quite a few new Transformer toys now, including the Optimus Prime voice changing helmet. Boys will be boys.
Speaking of Barcamp Perth, it went really, really well. Myles did an awesome job of organising and big thanks are due to all the sponsors as well. My presentation was on Geek Ergonomics and some kind soul kept excellent notes on the official wiki. There was a video but hopefully it will never see the light of day 🙂
They’re on again for 2007. This is the third year AWIA have run the WA Web Awards and this time, we are really, really ramping things up – the committee has dropped down to three committed (or is that “should be committed”) people who can make decisions quickly and the awesome talents of Rebecca and Jan from Red Horizon, our event managers. There are more sponsors, more entries, a bigger awards presentation night at the Duxton Hotel and essentially, everything about it is going to be HUGE.
We still don’t have one. However, my friend Coral is helping us to plan and organise the ultimate low-maintenance native water-conserving garden, and it will be awesome.
I am totally obsessed with pirates, and not just because Johnny Depp is cute. Also because Verbal Deception are awesome. Pirate metal, yarrr. Check it out.
Seriously, my new computer’s name is Jollyroger.
Sometimes you have to give respect where respect is due. Obituary have been around for a hell of a long time, and as far as death metal goes, they’re the first band that you can really take seriously (I mean, Venom? Really, hello!).
Frontman John Tardy has a distinctive vocal technique – I was calling it a “whine” until I saw their myspace page, where it was described as a “gargle” which is actually pretty accurate and doesn’t sound so derogatory. Either way you know it when you hear it. John Tardy also has the most amazingly beautiful hair you’ll ever see. I’m sure that chicks must stop him in the street to ask what products he uses. It’s awesome – check out the video:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3WimfontCM]
The sound is pretty bad, sorry about that – but it was pretty bad at the show as well, all bass buzz in your ribcage which was quite uncomfortable. Check out the stage divers in this one – the first guy looks kinda surprised to find himself back on stage:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noEmpVrEaP0]
My review of the show is up on FasterLouder so have a read and let me know what you think.
Seeing as my “spider in the mailbox” was such a hit with readers of this blog, here’s another Madeley arachnid – I found this one in the laundry.
Dave took him over the road to the bush. Hopefully he a) won’t come back and b) doesn’t have any relatives in our house!
I don’t know if these are poisonous – from what I’ve read, most scorpions aren’t, particularly those in the southern parts of Australia.
Click the photo to go through to Flickr – the large version is much scarier! Dave took this one.
And not so anonymous, it would seem. Web “Perthonality” Miles Burke has a site – WrongWrite – showcasing snapshots of bad spelling, grammar and incorrect punctuation on signs. I submitted a picture of a display stand that had been bugging me in the local video library for a long time – check it out, it’s hard to believe that a) someone employed to design a sign like that would think an apostrophe should actually go there; b) that it managed to get all the way to the printers without anyone saying “ummm… about that apostrophe…”; and c) no one works at the store who cares enough to colour in, cover up or otherwise disguise the offending puntuative imprint (yes, I’m making words up).
I HAVE MY GUNS N’ ROSES TICKETS.
Well… it’s not really Guns n’ Roses. It’s kind of “Crazy Axl and his faithful troupe of session musicians”. But regardless, I will get to see them and I’m pretty happy about it. Even got my mum a ticket too, for mother’s day. Considering I remember her cracking the shits at me for playing “I Used To Love Her”, that’s quite funny. But she has very diverse tastes in music (and she’s probably reading – hi Mum!).
Speaking of other old bogans, last week I scored some free tickets to see Paul Stanley (the lead singer of Kiss for any n00bs) at the Burswood Theatre. I wasn’t expecting much, but OMG it was really, really good. He was cool, funny, really quick (joking back and forth with people in the crowd) and don’t tell anyone I said this, but he has a cute arse. He played material from his two solo albums (one recent, one from 26 years ago) and some Kiss classics – mostly songs that don’t get played live all that often. Amongst the big hits were Lick It Up, Strutter, Detroit Rock City, Love Gun, and I Was Made For Lovin’ You.
I bought a Paul Stanley bandanna to commemorate the evening – I decided to pass up the underpants with “I spent the night with Paul Stanley” on them. Mistake? Perhaps.
Click on either article to go through to a larger, more readable version…
You’re sick of hearing about it already, right? Well, voting closes this Friday (you HAVE already voted, HAVEN’T YOU) so soon I’ll have no choice but to shut up about the Perth Festival web site and our Webby Award nomination. ahem.
Anyway, we made it into the newspapers… a small piece in the Arts section of Wednesday’s West (thanks to Ben for spotting it, and Al for rescuing a copy from the cat’s litter tray for me), and the a mini “feature” in the Perth Voice, complete with picture. I had to hunt to track down a copy of the Perth Voice – finally found one in a newsagent in Leederville. I joked that the paper was so obscure that no one would even see it, but then later that night we saw Paul, and he announced that he’s seen me in his local paper.
So there you go!
Remember… voting closes this Friday. We’re in Websites > Living > Events. Sign up here!
Heh, kinda. the Perth International Arts Festival web site – aka, my pet project – has been nominated in the events category of the 11th Annual Webby Awards (the “Oscars of the Internet”, dontcha know).
It’s pretty exciting stuff. Everyone involved is stoked to be nominated – that includes Isabel at Block Branding who did the gorgeous design, and Georgia, formerly of the Festival, now at PICA, who managed (babysat) the site and obsessed over it day in day out for months. The actual winners are announced at the beginning of May. While the official winners are up to the judges and completely out of our hands – I wouldn’t even know who to try to bribe, heh – there’s also a People’s Voice Award for each category. So, faithful readers, you could help to make a local site achieve international fame and glory. Sign up now and vote – it’s pretty easy. The site is under “Websites” (duh), then “Living”, then “Events”. Go, go and do it now. I’ll wait.
Back already? Told you it was easy – thanks a lot for your help. Now tell everyone you know to do the same. We can make the difference!
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