my.bicycle

From the Waxy.org: Daily Log: The Eminem Rag: Marshall’s Been Snookered . This works on many levels, particularly the ironic .

Boing Boing is covering an “ Incredible Beatles mashup (that) mixes 40 different tracks .” Vader sez, “Impressive.” (via del.icio.us’ mashup tag )

This MeFi post is itself less about the “ Best Mashups ,” and more about the recommended sites in the followup comments. Thanks, The Other Michæl !

First screenshots of Katamari Damacy 2 , for those who’re interested. (via waxy )

singing angels we have heard on high code pack 8 music videos gratis internet tv tome raider of the lost arc fire download music downloads games online virus scan airlines in india larry hagman deformity google poetry (not spoetry) from bradsucks of Outside the Inbox (via waxy ) Posting has been light -- sorry. I'm assuming you're all managing to keep yourselves entertained with a mild debauch (left coast) or shoveling snow (right coast, and up). Meanwhile, you could check out my del.icio.us area if you are truly bored.

For anyone interested in the plasticization of cadavers (a la the previous big ass plastic squid entry), Justin has some images up on his flickr .

A video game store shopper apparently didn't have enough Christmas spirit and ended up in jail after a road rage incident. The man, charged with aggravated menacing, is accused of waiting along Ohio 32 for a shopper coming from Eastgate Mall and trying to run her SUV off the road, the Ohio Highway Patrol said. The Cincinnati Post

If you really need to get your repurposed-nostalgia-geek on , Nullsleep ’s Depeche Mode GameBoy Megamix is without flaw.

Well, the likelihood of me ever participating in a MMORPG just dropped down to the baseline zer0 again: GURPS Online has been canceled . So much for a MUD like world with collaborative storytelling in the GURPS Transhuman Space setting.

What is it about the Japanese penchant for artifice in creating synthetic comfort items? First there was the ude-makura (boyfriend’s arm pillow), only to be followed by the hiza-makura (girlfriend’s lap pillow) (via tokyopia ) . It’s even sitting in seiza position. The smart money would go toward putting this form-factor in a casemod , and maybe figuring out how to include the boob-mousepad in there. It's hard to believe, but at least these seem innocently less creepy than some of the alternatives .

In the interest of increasing western baffled-ness over Japanese marketing and advertising, Geek on Stun offers these Japanese women in go-go boots and alligator masks , ostensibly promoting the eating of snakes . (via kotaku )

Gabe and Tycho get a write up in The New York Times: A Comic Strip Takes Video Games Seriously (Almost) ; which may explain why their site is sloggingly slow today. It is largely favorable, though in the category of “community building” the piece mentions their self-promotional PAX , but fails to mention their continuing Child’s Play Charity drive which provides toys to children’s hospitals across the USA.

It looks like Project: Snowblind is now slated to arrive February 23, 2005 . I've got a mess of friends working on this game, and wish them the best of luck in this final run-up to completion! Go, guys!

Weird. Froogle hasn’t even been on my radar, but now Blogger users can stick their Wish Lists in their Profile. Well, here’s mine , in case anyone wants to buy me a new iBook. (via shellen dot com )

Featuring the hottest ambiguous imagery to grace a Namco ad in years, I give you the homepage for Katamari Damacy 2 .

Look carefully at this category: Amazon.com: Computer & Video Games / Systems / PlayStation2 / Action / Horror Heh. (thanks, JP!)

This Something Awful theme was “ photoshop life ”

Joystiq shows screenshots of DOOM 3 running on a Voodoo 2 card. It looks a bit like the original Quake, and you can actually see what the hell you're shooting at.

How to apologize thoroughly in Japanese ( .wmv ) (via tokyopia )

Boingboing is covering Retro game store(s) in Osaka . Chuji has visited these with me, and can attest to their wallet-hostile glory.

The Gigantor movie offers up a new trailer . It is going to be cheese, but nostalgic cheese; like Velveeta™. (via anime tribe )

I’m hoping against hope that Batman Begins will be the first non-f’d up bats movie since 1992’s Batman Returns . There is a new trailer online ( various formats ) as well as the posters for the US and international releases. Bat-fingers are crossed.

Christian Right Lobbies To Overturn Second Law Of Thermodynamics TOPEKA, KS--The second law of thermodynamics, a fundamental scientific principle stating that entropy increases over time as organized forms decay into greater states of randomness, has come under fire from conservative Christian groups, who are demanding that the law be repealed. A somewhat related article , and further comments by Dr. Joshua Ellis (yeah, the same guy whose mp3ria songs I like so much). (via jwz )

Von Hagens invented plastination while at the University of Heidelberg in the 1970s . The process involves replacing water and fat in the corpse with a polymer, and it has allowed him to exhibit dissected human bodies in life-like poses. But a giant squid, with its lack of a rigid internal skeleton for support, and relatively poorly understood circulatory system, poses some novel challenges. To research the project, von Hagens visited O’Shea in October to study some much smaller species such as arrow squid. “We dissected a number of ‘sacrificial’ squid,” says O’Shea. This week, O’Shea sent a mature female giant squid, measuring about 10 metres including tentacles, and a mature male, just under 7 metres, to Heidelberg . (via boingboing )

Missouri Prisons Pull Violent Video Games Missouri's most violent criminals will no longer be permitted to play violent video games that simulate the kind of offenses that resulted in their incarceration in the first place. Prison officials pulled the games, which included such killfests as Hitman: Contracts, once they were informed of their violent content. Science fiction and sports games were not pulled as part of the sweep, so more nerdy prisoners will not be affected by the changes. WTF? Prisoners get to play videogames? Prison is probably not a fun place to be, but what the hell is it that they get to play videogames? Additionally, how can anyone have thought crime-based games can be a good idea to give to someone who has already shown a proclivity for them? I think the real question is why they had them in the first place? Yes, I understand the argument that it's easier to keep them in line if they're docile, but c'mon... I can't tell you how many times I...

Following up on my earlier post about taking the recent FPS games head-to-head, here is a guy who has really taken the task to heart in this review: Doom 3 vs. FarCry vs. Half-Life 2 vs. Halo 2 .

Watching the trailer for House of Flying Daggers has made various bits of me stand on end. Good grief, I hope it's half as good as the preview, which would make it leave it at a modest “amazing.” The Japanese release, titled Lovers -- in English -- for some reason, of the movie was a few months back, and the DVD is now available. So -- if there's any English in it, I'll pick it up; I'm still not at the point where reading kanji subtitles is a feasible way to enjoy a movie. Darkness looks legitimately scary, but then, 13 Ghosts looked pretty interesting from the trailer alone.

Based on these killer pics , I have determined that I must see GWAR before shuffling off this mortal coil. Speaking of giant penises, here's how you do it properly: photos of last night's GWAR show are up now. Those guys are just so totally awesome. It's like they get up on stage and hose you down with awesomeness. An arterial flow of sticky red awesomeness. -- DNA Sequencing

David Byrne’s blog reads like the voiceover from True Stories: November 28 The Military Industrial Complex Lockheed is the nation's largest military contractor. Lockheed writes more code than Microsoft. Their CEO says they stand ‘at the intersection of policy and technology.’ To others that means you can't tell where the government ends and Lockheed starts. One watchdog says about government checks and balances on big contractors ‘The fox isn't guarding the henhouse, he lives there.’ If Wal Mart were a nation it would be ranked 19 th biggest economically. It is the biggest company in the United States.

GameSpot is covering the release of Half-Life 2: Deathmatch via Valve’s Steam service. Many people were a bit disappointed that HL2 released with only CounterStrike: Source as a multiplayer component, complaining that they really want to use the gravity gun in a multiplayer game. Well, now they can, and it apparently allows players to throw everything, including the kitchen sink, at their opponents. Oh, I guess it's just a toilet . [Can anyone who's played the game confirm that that's an undoctored screenshot? The bounce-light halo around the leftmost character, as well as the antialiasing (which could just be re-size manipulation of the shot) make me thing this is a press-release dealy.]

It’s not entirely clear what Creative Labs was thinking when they commissioned this piece, but “This is rock ‘n’ roll!” ( .wmv ) manages to be both stupid and endearing at once. (via jwz - November 29th, 2004 )

Shockwave Neko games (for Rachel). (via del.icio.us )

Photo ID needed to rent/buy violent video games: Ontario, along with Manitoba and Nova Scotia, have taken steps to making sure that people under 18 can’t rent or purchase violent games. Ontario even went so far recently as to slap the Rockstar game “Manhunt” with an “R” rating. A rating previously reserved exclusively for movies. This entry prompted more commentary than usual. in particular the following user comment was of interest: If you are going to say GTA:SA is bad, you have to include Halo 2, Half-Life 2, and even Doom 3 with it. In the multiplayer modes you are killing humans. It may be killing humans in a futuristic setting with futuristic weapons, but it is killing humans nonetheless. I know in America, we have a real problem with the whole age of responsibility question. We have 14 year-olds being tried as adults for crimes, 16 year-olds who hold jobs and pay taxes, 18 year-olds who can be drafted, and none of them have all of their rights. I perso...

Rumble Roses reveals its hand, and that, really, there's only one involved : Q: So, let’s get straight to the point. When a gamer buys Rumble Roses, how do you perceive the split of his time will be spent between playing the game and enjoying it, in the ‘gentleman’s way’? A: Ha ha ha. I think about 20 percent gameplay and 80 percent masturbating. Hah ha ha! (via kotaku )

First there was rocket jumping , then came Warthog Jumping . (Or is it Puma? ) Lleyad brings us tank jumping . (via slashdot games ) Yes, this means the site has already been slashdotted, so here is a bittorrent for you.

My friend Tim visits Osaka The thought of travelling in Japan was quite daunting for me. Most of the places I’d travelled to before were either like Mexico, which takes its American tourist dollars very seriously and is thus set up for gringos, or like Europe, which is so aggressively multi-lingual that you have to search long and hard to find a restaurant that doesn't have it’s menu in four languages. Not so in Japan. It is a wealthy island nation, and has a reputation for merely tolerating, not catering to its foreign visitors. As it turns out this is mostly bunk.

Reading an interesting bastard pop article at WorldChanging , I found the Shrub covering Imagine in Imagine This ( .mp3 ). Combined with my previous find of him covering Sunday, Bloody Sunday , it seems like he really gets his bootleg on. From the same article, LenLowLand Music offers some interesting Bastard Pop ditties. Enlow’s blog says he'll be at Bootie in San Francisco! Favorite tangential find from trawling the links: Miss Frenchie’s Funky Cold Milkshake .

SciFi.com is offering Chi-Chian , an episodic Flash webtoon. Its style is undeniably cool; check the trailer at least.

Doom 3 compared and contrasted with Half-life 2 Although I haven’t completed either, I’ve spent enough time in each (I think) to develop a feel for what the later sections of each game will be like. Given that each has been fairly consistent thus far, it’d take a major shift for my opinion of either to change significantly. Doom 3 HL2 style Basically I wanted to see what HL2 type maps might look in Doom 3. I only got the textures from HL2 and I haven't spent THAT much time on the map (only a few rooms) because it'd be a waste of time doing a whole map that you won't release. Adrenaline Vault’s Bob Mandel wonders if the push for realistic graphics has obscured gameplay . D’ya think? Hmm?

Various funny photos and comics .

Living in Japan means I have to get my Saturday Night Live fix in bits-and-pieces on the web through illicit sources. Finding things like The Barry Gibb Talk Show ( .wmv ) means I share them with you. (via cowbell tribe )

Check out this kigurumi -heavy video from DJ Format . No fanservice, but man, that bear has got some moves. I wish I could have been a passer-by when they were shooting this.

It is unclear what benefit Panasonic is gaining from the Olympic Games in Action short film, Mariko Takahashi’s FITNESS VIDEO for being appraised as an “EX-FAT GIRL” might be, but it is... um... really weird. I had to temporarily stop viewing it once the poodles started working out, because I was afraid of losing my mind. (via mefi ) Speaking of popping eyes, and Popeye, here is a slightly less weird but hellaciously funny Popeye-meets-anime bit. (thanks, The Other Michael )

JU$T ANOTHER RICH KID, offers Traci Takes Tokyo , a hipster-meets-ghettofabulous, limited edition T-shirt. For US$60 you too can have a shirt that you can't wear to work. (via coolhunting )

Very cool, ironic and accurate disclaimer stickers for science textbooks .

This recording made in NYC features our pals Dan ‘Johnny’ Levine on the trombone and Mark ‘Loveman’ Pender on trumpet. The volcanic rendition of The Famous Polka includes solos from the Legendary Line Up-Dan, Danny and Marty. They Might Be Giants’ Free Tunes Page | user= tmbg | pword= thespinesurfs | Sign up for the email newsletter to get new, free TMBG songs with surprising regularity.

Have a look at the fan-created Grand Theft Auto: Lego City (.mov) before the Rampage-resistant, brick-based lawyers have it yanked. (thanks, The Other Michael )

G-Cans project brings us extraordinary photos of massive, hidden Japanese urban landscapes . (via urban decay )

Scorpion Toddlerpede by Johnny beinArt Toddlerpede collection . (via jwz )

Music: Snoop Dogg and Britney Spears collaborate in her latest video . Luckily I live in Japan, where this kind of thing can only reach me in little blurb banners from Hotmail , instead of being inundated by it at every newsstand. Movies: Mrs. Doubtfire, a movie that should be praised for not backpedalling on the issue of divorce as a solution to dysfunctional marriages, but spurned for it’s portayal of parental stalking as healthy, is getting a sequel . Television: Mixing trends for remakes with the wave of reality TV, The Real Gilligan's Island aims to take the old series and lowbrid it with Survivor. Games: A Scottish company is creating a US$9.95 game in which players strive to accurately re-create the JFK assassination by playing as Lee Harvey Oswald . Cheap publicity stunt, or way cheap publicity stunt? You make the call. “We believe that the only thing we're exploiting is new technology,” said Ewing, a former documentary filmmaker and senior executi...

Outside the Inbox , a collection of “songs inspired by and titled after the subject lines of mass-email (spam),” is cool in both concept and execution, but Brad Sucks’ other music is also very ear-friendly . I suspect his claim to being a “one man band with no fans” is unfounded.

Students who thought of Superman volunteered much less of their time than those who thought about other superheroes. Furthermore, Superman-primed subjects were significantly less likely to show up at a meeting for volunteers held three months after they were initially asked to participate. The reason, believes Nelson, is that asking people to compare themselves to an exceptional individual makes them realise their shortcomings. Whereas thinking about a general category encourages people to identify the strengths they have in common. -- New Scientist: Superman too super a role model�

Penny Arcade’s list of Halo 2 archetypes may be sporting one pop reference too many, but it’s the first one that made me laugh in months.

Downhill Battle's blog torrent proposal ; before the “pro-piracy” mudslinging starts, ponder the shared-file purchase report . It would be nice if the copyright syndicate recognized this for the opportunity it is. There have been entire media markets created through non-sanctioned distribution; complete and utter control is not only unnecessary, it's harmful.

SizzlingKeys for Apple iTunes in Mac OS X. (via timmeh )

Wiggety-wack electronica: Hey, Kid, Nice Robot (will launch new window, because it rudely resizes the browser) (via timmeh )

It's hard now to remember what that was like. Try. Remember what it was like to walk down your street during summer vacation and see a flag outside someone's window? It always gave me a warm feeling, hard to describe, but a sense that me and the person behind that door had something in common. If you'd asked us if we were patriots, we would have been confused by the question. Of course we were. Who wasn't? We had a deep, abiding love for our country that was simple, non-nationalistic, the same way reasonable people feel about their baseball team. Yours is good, maybe, but ours is better. No insult, just confidence. Of course things are different now. The flag and its colors have been stolen by people whose goal is not inclusion but exclusion. Now, instead of settling our differences, we hold grudges against each other, question whether people who disagree with us are aiding the Official Enemy of the Hour, and define our America as the kind of walled-in neighborhood w...

Dukes of Hazzard Starts Principal Photography Warner Bros. Pictures' action-comedy The Dukes of Hazzard, starring Johnny Knoxville, Seann William Scott and Jessica Simpson, commenced principal photography on location in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on November 15th, it was announced today by Jeff Robinov, President of Production, Warner Bros. Pictures. The film also stars Burt Reynolds, with Lynda Carter and Willie Nelson.

Microsoft’s Halo 2 viral marketing campaign, ilovebees.com (see my Futurismic post for details), has finally revealed its hand . It turns out that Sean Stewart , one of the least appreciated speculative fiction authors alive today, was the Lead Author on this, just as he was for The Beast , a similar campaign developed to promote Steven Spielberg’s A.I. If you're interested in Sean’s work, there are excerpts on his site . I recently read the three chapters from the chilling A Perfect Circle on Salon , and am now anxious to read the entire work.

Public Enemy's music was affected [by copyright lawsuits] more than anybody's because we were taking thousands of sounds. If you separated the sounds, they wouldn't have been anything -- they were unrecognizable. The sounds were all collaged together to make a sonic wall. Public Enemy was affected because it is too expensive to defend against a claim. So we had to change our whole style, the style of It Takes a Nation and Fear of a Black Planet , by 1991. From the DNA Lounge: DNA Sequencing

In Warren Ellis’ Mister Sleepless livejournal , he has given a link to the torrent file for the Justice League Unlimited episode that he wrote. It features the best Batman deadpan I’ve seen to date, and proof that Atom is a very lucky superhero.

If you need even more bastardpoppybits, check DJ Riko’s offerings . Riko gets a bit more oldschool than most mixes; right now I'm enjoying bits of Leave It mixed with heavy scratching. ( .mp3 ) (via waxy )

1968 The Beatles release "The White Album" 2003 Jay Z records "The Black Album" 2004 DJ Danger Mouse mixes both "The Grey Album" Witness The Grey Video , all in good fun and wonderfully executed. (via davextreme )

RoboDump is a robot. Sort of. And it poops. Sort of. Forever. A horrible, never-ending bowel movement complete with straining grunts, horrific gas, splashes, and pee sounds. RoboDump 1.0 (via jwz )

In case you are desperate for some kitsch in your kitchen, here are ceramic versions of those little cups for take-out coffee .

There are some who would say that I sound bitter, that now is the time for healing, to bring the nation together. Let me tell you a little story. Last night, I watched the returns come in with some friends here in Los Angeles. As the night progressed, people began to talk half-seriously about secession, a red state / blue state split. The reasoning was this: We in blue states produce the vast majority of the wealth in this country and pay the most taxes, and you in the red states receive the majority of the money from those taxes while complaining about 'em. We in the blue states are the only ones who've been attacked by foreign terrorists, yet you in the red states are gung ho to fight a war in our name. We in the blue states produce the entertainment that you consume so greedily each day, while you in the red states show open disdain for us and our values. Blue state civilians are the actual victims and targets of the war on terror, while red state civilians are the ones stan...

Mozilla Update :: Extensions - List - Blogging - Page 1 : "BlogThis 0.2.1 By Phil Ringnalda Adds right-click access to Blogger's BlogThis popup."

City of Heroes is either very addictive or very repetitive, depending on who you ask. To an impressive number of players, it is also an excuse to bust out with a costume and parade about as their virtual, heroic selves . (via screenhead )

Real Otaku Heroes ’ tribute to the thankfully rare male-playing-female cosplayer breed. ( .mp3 )

An excellent, thoughtful Op/Ed piece by Krugman at the NYT on what this election meant to the democrats and moderates, and why we cannot give up. This election did not prove the Republicans unbeatable. Mr. Bush did not win in a landslide. Without the fading but still potent aura of 9/11, when the nation was ready to rally around any leader, he wouldn't have won at all. And future events will almost surely offer opportunities for a Democratic comeback. I don't hope for more and worse scandals and failures during Mr. Bush's second term, but I do expect them. The resurgence of Al Qaeda, the debacle in Iraq, the explosion of the budget deficit and the failure to create jobs weren't things that just happened to occur on Mr. Bush's watch. They were the consequences of bad policies made by people who let ideology trump reality.

After all the political posts in which I indulged in the past couple of months, it is probably a mystery why I’ve not yet posted anything on it. The answer is twofold: (1) I’m still thinking through my reaction, and (2) I’m still in shock. The UK’s Daily Mirror ’s title How Can 59,054,087 People Be So Dumb? is a bit unfair. I think it’s necessary to realize that this election was nearly entirely about fear . Well, fear and “moral issues,” another troubling phrase that I'd like to see stay the hell out of my American government. The fear is easy to understand: we are in a war, and it is particularly difficult to unseat a sitting president while at war. This is apparently true even when the war in which we are engaged is over false pretenses, has switched from a pre-emptive strike to combat Weapons of Mass Destruction to a focus on liberating the Iraqi people and newly invented ties between Hussein and Al Qaeda. The election’s ...

Full update on Vegas et al after I recover from this creeping crud of a cold that I had during the entire trip, but meanwhile enjoy these Sleeping sarariman (salarymen) photos , once again by MasaManiA. (via boingboing )

Blizzard’s World of Warcraft will be in stores shortly. If cleaving orcs in twain with a rune-ensorceled blade is a bit too outré for you, you may look forward to Hello Kitty Online World .

Last minute thing: excellent Berkeley store Comic Relief are getting evicted from their premises. I’ll be signing there Thursday, 5-7pm, to say goodbye to the current location and to support the moving process. Come by and buy a comic. More details on DPH, comicrelief.net. SPREAD THE WORD. (via warren ellis’ BAD SIGNAL mailing list ) Rats. Comic Relief is a great store, which I have visited many, many times. Most likely it will become a Starbucks or something equally ubiquitous and redundant. Crap, crap, crap. Biggest selection of trade paperbacks I’ve ever seen.

Dremel is unknowingly hosting a pumpkin image of pure grotesquery. (via waxy )

This cautionary tale of a GTA:San Andreas pre-order gone sadly awry shows that all GTA players are not violent headcases, and that Best Buy may not be the best place to shop, unless you like being treated suspiciously, and paying extra for games that you had on reserve. (via joystiq )

Black and white photography - likely photoshoppery, but I've not read up on his details, but the work is eerie, dark, and ingriguing: Joel-Peter Witkin Love & Redemption

Next week will find me in Las Vegas, Nevada for the SEMA car show. It looks like weather will be cold . I’ve been to Vegas a few times, but I don’t gamble, so it’s no great shakes for me. My days are going to be completely packed, but I think my nights are somewhat open; I might attend an Elvis impersanator or just catch up on theatrically released movies. Any suggestions?

Foxylicious : integrate your del.icio.us bookmarks with your Firefox bookmarks. (via waxylicious ) While I’m on about Firefox, I've been enjoying the Noia 2.0 theme, which makes my browser look very Mac OS X like. When I use it at work, I sometimes forget I'm on a Windows machine.

...with stuff that’s at least funny. sacbee.com Molly Ivins: My hope for Election Day : Meanwhile, many evangelical Christians are convinced gay marriage is upon us and will be the end of civilization. How they convinced themselves George W. Bush is the Lord's anointed is beyond me. I've known him since high school and watched him closely as a public official for 10 years, and I have yet to see the first sign of it. Including this last, critical bit of information: “ I am hopeful. If you have trouble on Election Day, call (866) OUR-VOTE, set up by the Election Protection Coalition.”

Rogue taxidermy : “The artists herein are not wasteful, and nearly every piece of the animal is used toward some artistic goal.” (via starchy )

The entire Portland region of Liberty City from Grand Theft Auto 3 has been recreated in 2D goodness for NES emulation Brian Provinciano's Grand Thef tendo . The author states that this is a private project, which will be available as a free download as a tribute to Rockstar’s game. I suspect that a litigous wall of ninja lawyers will likely prevent this intriguing and well-intentioned (if naïvely initiated) project from being released to the public. (via kotaku )

I've not yet seen House of 1000 Corpses , but Rob Zombie is making a sequel, The Devil’s Rejects , that carries on in the ’70’s shockfest (opened) vein. (via comingsoon ; check here for the teaser trailer!)

Imomus again provides food for thought with his write up of Eminem's anti-Bush "Mosh" ( real media file ). The visuals in the piece are very compelling, and it is a blast to see exactly what the Forces of Authority are trying to prevent the masses from doing at the end of the video. If you (like me) are a Real.com hater, check out Real Alternative for hassle-free playback of this particular codec. (via Imomus’ Click Opera )

John Peel has died; this news is all over the intarweb. Having only initially heard of him a couple months ago, I'm not feeling particularly affected by this certainly sad news, but here are legally offered MP3s of some of the music he introduced to the world. (via luscious boingboing ) Wired magazine is releasing a phycical CD under a Creative Commons license in their upcoming dead-tree issue: These musicians are saying that true creativity needs to be open, fluid, and alive. When it comes to copyright, they are pro-choice. Here are 16 songs that encourage people to play with their tunes, not just play them. These tracks may also be obtained through a legal torrent offered through, oddly enough, Legal Torrents .

Bush Relatives for Kerry : "Bush Relatives for Kerry" grew out of a series of conversations that took place between a group of people that have two things in common: they are all related to George Walker Bush, and they are all voting for John Kerry. As the election approaches, we feel it is our responsibility to speak out about why we are voting for John Kerry, and to do our small part to help America heal from the sickness it has suffered since George Bush was appointed President in 2000. We invite you to read our stories, and please, don't vote for our cousin! (via Danger Army )

USA Today : A different October surprise - Pick your issue. From abortion rights to racial preferences to religious freedom, every voter's life could be touched by the next president's appointments to the sharply divided court. Though the candidates have been vague about the kind of justices they would pick, a reasonable bet is that Bush would expand the conservative bloc, and Kerry, the liberal faction. That's what social activists on both sides of the ideological spectrum expect. (...) Consider some of the 5-4 decisions in recent years that could be reversed by a change of just one justice. The court upheld taxpayer-funded vouchers for children to attend religious schools. It knocked down a law banning late-term abortions. It upheld affirmative action in college admissions. And it ended the Florida recount of 2000 that allowed Bush to become president.

“Dedicated to the misuse of Chinese characters (Hanzi or Kanji) in Western culture” - Hanzi Smatter

Bringing the deader-than-dead "Am I Hot or Not" meme to gamers, unasked, Sexiest Gamer gives you the chance to swoon or shudder over the visages of many lads and lasses that you may have faced online.

Dr. Joshua Ellis weighs in on the voter registration obscenity in Nevada : I thought the name sounded a little too patriotic,” Justin told me last week over the phone from a gig in the Caribbean. “But I thought, y’know, it’s the DMV, so it can’t be bullshit. When I was signing up, I almost -- almost -- didn’t put down ‘Democrat’ as my party affiliation. But I did it anyway.” When [local Vegas CBS affiliate] KLAS broke a story featuring claims by former Voter Outreach of America employees that the company was illegally destroying voter registration forms from Democratic voters, Justin called the local registrar – and discovered that, in fact, he was not registered to vote. (...) The fact that Sproul continues to register (some) votes suggests that the RNC either doesn’t know or doesn’t care about these allegations. They’re certainly not making much of a big deal about it, or conducting any sort of big internal investigation. In fact, according to the Center for Responsive Politics ...

I know a stunningly talented game artist named Hyung Kim, but I’d not known of Hyung-Tae Kim , who appears to be a stunningly talented and accomplished concept artist for games. Here are some large images for a Capcom calendar . (listed as a prime inspiration for the somewhat NSFW The Dr. Pepper Show )

Gigantor, or Tetsujin #28 , for your previewing pleasure.

For game-group-blogging-goodness, I’ve been enjoying Joystiq , but Gawker media’s Kotaku has a wider range of topics, links to less things that I’d have read anyway, and suffers from fewer grammar and spelling errors. Which is important for type-A virgos.

NEWPORT BEACH, CA (October 22, 2004) - Interactive entertainment developer and publisher inXile entertainment today announced that it is considering some form of leak of The Bard's Tale , its eagerly anticipated action-role playing game (RPG), as a strategic plan to follow a growing trend among Triple A games. (thanks, JP )

Barney may be more historically accurate than we thought . And he knew how to get down (warning: sound, language)

I’ve deleted my Friendster profile (actually a couple months ago), and have replaced it with a link to my del.icio.us bookmark directory. It has its own RSS feed, and is generally a dump for research, along with other notes. If anyone else who reads this blog has a del.icio.us account, please leave a Comment.

Dr. Hunter S. Thompson covers the current election in Rolling Stone Fear and Loathing, Campaign 2004 . (via boingboing ) Things haven't changed all that much where George W. Bush comes from. Houston is a cruel and crazy town on a filthy river in East Texas with no zoning laws and a culture of sex, money and violence. It's a shabby sprawling metropolis ruled by brazen women, crooked cops and super-rich pansexual cowboys who live by the code of the West -- which can mean just about anything you need it to mean, in a pinch.

H.P. Lovecraft-styled adjectival phrase generator . (via cthuligans tribe ) THAT ADHESIVE, EFFUSIVE, LEPROUS CHAOS... THAT OVAL, ENORMOUS INFECTION... A TURBULENT, FECUND, CONGEALED, AWFUL INFECTION... Stylistically related to this, see this bewitching political piece at Making Light .

Lost has been picked up for a full season . I really enjoyed the three episodes I saw while in the USA, and am happy that the show will have a fair shake at continuing.

In case anyone's wondering, the big, nasty typhoon that has killed at least 48 people blew through here yesterday. We were sent home from work during the storm, but prior to the trains shutting down service. I arrived at home while the eye was near Osaka, so there was nearly no wind or rain for my walk home. This quickly changed after arriving at home, when the wind kicked up, the rain and lightining started, and the sky quickly darkened to black, an hour and a half before sunset. This has been a horrid year for typhoons hitting Japan, but at least I'm not on Shikoku or Kyushu...

How many Bush administration officials does it take to change a light bulb? None. There’s nothing wrong with that light bulb. There is no need to change anything. We made the right decision and nothing has happened to change our minds. People who criticize this light bulb now, just because it doesn’t work anymore, supported us when we first screwed it in, and when these flip-floppers insist on saying that it is burned out, they are merely giving aid and encouragement to the Forces of Darkness. -- John Cleese (via William Gibson's blog )

This will be the next anime I rent. Mark my words, Mindgame is to anime as espresso is to coffee.

This year’s Bay Area event has come and gone, but anyone who is interested in saké should think about attending Joy of Sake . At US$65, it seems like a great chance to familiarize one’s self with a variety of splendid nihonshuu .

Shell Snow Man from Fessura . (via SensoryImpact )

Mobster Integrates seamlessly with iTunes to provide suggestions for the currently playing artist. Easily create playlists in your library from your recommendations. Browse your music easier with one click artist playing. Find new music in the iTunes Music Store based on your personalized recommendations. Filter your recommendations by popularity. Use Musicmobs to track what you listen to and share your listening habits with your friends.

Eros ex mathematica -- pervy algorhithmic display.

Rachel Smythe’s The Doctor Pepper Show mixes manga, gothic lolita-ism, and medical fetishes. (via Red Cross LJ community )

Dungeons and Dragons celebrated it’s 30th anniversary. From this MSNBC article : The game peaked in the 1980s, but there are plenty of fans left. Some 4 million people play D&D regularly. Many of them laugh at a common suggestion that fantasy gamers are geeks: Of course they are, they say. “I think a lot of people who get drawn to this game are loners, but here’s a real opportunity to come out of that shell and feel safe about it,” said fan Mitch Hamburger, 32. It’s splitting hairs, but I'd say that D&D hasn’t yet peaked. Then again, I'm counting people who are playing D&D licensed games, especially Neverwinter Nights, which has a rich set of design tools built into it, and allows geographyically-separated groups to play through dungeon modules (official or user-designed) over the intarweb . I’m expecting that there will eventually be games that allow the tabletop style interaction over broadband, though this will more likely be a teleconfere...

My bro-in-law took me to Hot Topic to see all the game shirts they have for sale. While impressive, I still want to support small, quality efforts like GameSkins more than I want to encourage mall-zombieness. Besides, I think I like the gaming vibe nerdcore , without the hipster chic, pseudo-goff, or brown-is-the-new-black color scheme. That said, I regret not picking up the Mario shirt , and if they’d had a Mr. Sparkle shirt in stock, I’d have bought it. If you still have the originals, why buy all the little remake/re-issue cartridges to play nostalgic NES ( Famicom ) games? Intead you could use AdoFami (short for Advance Famicom ) to play your original cartridges and on your GameBoy Advance.

RollingStone.com: News - The Killers - Wal-Mart Wants $10 CDs Wal-mart wants every CD you buy to cost less than ten bucks. And the nation's largest retailer -- which moved a quarter of a trillion dollars' worth of goods last year -- usually gets its way. Suppliers who don't accede to Wal-Mart's 'everyday low price' mantra often find their products bounced from the chain's stores, excluded from being sold to the 138 million people who shop at a Wal-Mart store every week.

Instiki , a multiplatform, malleable wiki-like application that runs on Ruby (Mac OS X flavor has Ruby built-into the .app).

Alien Loves Predator : Webcomic along the stylistic lines of Twisted ToyFare Theater (updated link, with samples) (née Twisted Mego Theater ). If the movie taken this route, it would have gone gangbusters. (thanks, El Otro Miguel )

STOP ALIEN ABDUCTIONS (via gominosensei ) Throughout the history of the human race, wars were fought with bigger and better weapons. Muskets replaced bows and arrows, automatic rifles replaced single action ones, rockets replaced cannons, aircraft carriers replaced battleships, ballistic missiles replaced bombers, jet interceptors replaced propeller driven fighters. Weapons got more accurate, faster, with greater ranges of action and greater explosive power. In all of the wars until now, technology and numerical superiority determined victory. Superior technology, tactics and numerical strength were the key elements in warfare. All wars fought until now were "technology wars." Wars w(h)ere technological superiority were decisive. Since we are being invaded by an alien force from another world, we have a different kind of war. Our war with these beings is one of mind control, mind scan, and telepathic control, as reported by Budd Hopkins, David Jacobs and Raymond Fowler....

If you're up for another beta item, Google Desktop (wait for it...) BETA is now being offered for MS Windows, with a lot less fanfare and hoopla than I’d expect for such a crazy-big-event. O’Reilly has an overview on it, which anyone should read prior to installing (e.g. it apparently takes a 1/2 gig of HDD space), and PC World has already pointed out a big security issue . (via Waxy )

Leave it to Bush , with Gary Busey. *jedi-hand-wave (thanks, kristen )

BBC NEWS | Health | Arty cosmetic surgery alternative Mr Hartley explained: 'I wanted to make a series of garments in response to facial ideals of today. 'I was interesting in how the soft tissues of the face can be manipulated, moved around and changed. 'It's the same way that body corsets were used to change the figure.'

William Gibson has re-initiated his blog . Boo ya. (via boingboing ) : Why? Because the United States currently has, as Jack Womack so succintly puts it, a president who makes Richard Nixon look like Abraham Lincoln. And because, as the Spanish philospher Unamuno said, "At times, to be silent is to lie."

William Shatner has an album out, HasBeen ( iTMS ) with Ben Folds and a mess of other talented artists. I could have sworn I linked to the single Common People ( iTMS ) (with Joe Jackson) when it came out, but apparently that was in the Dark Universe, where I don’t have a silly beard and violent tendencies. (via Chuji )

10. 'Look how far I can roll this barrel with my bullets!' 9. 'Ohhh...light motes.' 8. 'The new Office map is better looking than my real office.' 7. 'The hostages still looked spaced out.' 6. 'At least when I die I look cool doing it.' 5. 'I just like flying around the levels in spectator mode.' 4. 'The textures look just as crisp as my Special K.' 3. 'Wow..the weapon models are so good I'm scared I'm using a real gun.' 2. 'The wait for Half-Life 2 just got harder and easier depending on your point of view.' And the number one thing said while playing Counter-Strike: Source: 1. 'Five years of playing CS and I still am always the first one on my team shot dead..darn it.' -- HomeLAN Fed

Check out the teaser trailer for The Ring Two ; the site appears to be hammered right now -- at least the trailer is loading for crap. I saw Ringu prolly four years ago, and The Ring ( US remake ) during my recent trip to the USA; it was a lot better than expected, but quite different than the Japanese original in many ways. A five paragraph essay, comparing and contrasting the two, is in the works. Hey, we have to use that damned skill somewhere , right?

Normally I sit an make faces at the monitor whenever I hear there's a remake movie based on a 70’s or 80’ TV show. So even though the Miami Vice movie will have Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx as Crockett and Tubbs, I was pulling faces until I noted that Michael Mann is slotted to write, direct, and produce the movie. Now I'm just all-excited. Miami Vice brought movie-level budgets to TV -- what kind of budget will the movie version have? A space-program budget?

SHAKESKIN : This is the Shakeskin gallery. We want you to contribute! It's easy: all you need is a camera and some loose skin .

A bit of the USA PATRIOT Act chipped away as gag orders are confirmed as being unconstitutional. (via thousand faced moon ) "After laboring under a gag provision for months, it is an enormous relief to be able to tell the world just how dangerous and extreme this Patriot Act power is," said ACLU Associate Legal Director Ann Beeson. "As the judge recognized, the Patriot Act imposed a ‘categorical, perpetual and automatic’ gag on every person who received a National Security Letter, as well as their lawyers." Between this, and secret laws that require secret briefs to address them, it is difficult to recognize the free speech nature of the democratic US these days; we don't even get to hear about the stuff we should be fighting .

Transformers: A History : Too much love, too late applied, and on an Angelfire site at that (IE users, this prolly means pop-ups for you). Still, a fascinating read for those who miss Optimus Prime.

Just bookmarking, so that in the future I can be graduate from sans-clue about wireless networking stuff: Know Your Wireless (via boingboing.net )

King Conan: Crown of Iron is in the works , to be directed by John Milius, the same director who brought us all the original . Boo ya.

I am SO jetlagged, a good five days or so out from my return to Japan. Usually it's so much more simple coming to Japan than going to America. The trips to the US usually find me up late into the night and trying to fall asleep. In my fervor to avoid jetlag, I stayed up late almost every night in the USA, and got up early; it didn't provide a lot of rest. Now it appears to have backfired, since my early evenings have felt like the last half-turn of a wind-up toy’s key, and have found me ready to sleep by 20:00. It would be funny if it weren't somewhere between an affliction and fatigue. It is improving, since tonight it's 18:12 (boom-boom-BOOM) and I'm still relatively lucid.

“ Japanese girls, bitch-slapping each other .” (via kristen )

Another US trip, another round of movies caught in that strange limbo between their US DVD release and their Japanese theatrical release (or sans-theater, direct-to-video release in some cases). Though the return flight was the longest through which I’ve ever suffered (11.5 hours, avoiding three typhoon and fighting a 175 kph headwind), I didn't watch any on the way out so I don”t have nearly as many as last time . Here were this round’s players: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: A lot of people seem really down on Jim Carrey -- I’m not sure why, because he continues to impress me. Even in The Majestic, a tear-jerker rife with sentimental low-blows and an odd form of exposition from start-to-finish, Carrey seemed to handle his acting chores with a minimum of low bathos. In Eternal Sunshine he was blessed by an intelligent and unpredictable script by Charlie Kaufman and intriguing pacing and visuals by Michel Gondry. There were no simple answers in this...

“How do you run a convention on a record of failure?” - ( .mov )

Attention Chuji: We have determined what your next US$700 game peripheral should be.