One of my favorite geeky non-TV (new media? Podcast? Internet show? Netcast? Bah…what is the term?) shows is The Guild masterminded by Felicia Day.
Well, The Guild team has created a music video. Hilarious, geeky, sexy fun.
I’m fascinated by neuroscience, by how the software that is our brain really works. I’m also fascinated by music, and how it can show how the brain works in a common way across cultures. Here’s a great example of that. Bobby McFerrin at the 2009 World Science Festival showing how a pentatonic scale is something kind of hard-wired into people. (I’m not quite sure how true the term “hard-wired” is, since different cultures have different musical scales — I’d be interested to see how this experiment worked in Japan, frinstance.)
World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale from World Science Festival on Vimeo.
Comic-Con coverage of the “LOST” panel starts tomorrow, but in advance, they’ve released some rich and juicy web site goodness in support of the Season 5 BluRay / DVD release. Earn a degree in the themes and mysteries of the show from Lost University. Or watch the classic ABC TV show, Mysteries of the Universe and learn about the hidden agenda behind the Dharma Initiative.
Just watch out for polar bears and black smoke…
Got the movie Pi: Faith in Chaos from Netflix over the weekend, because once in a while I like to watch a movie that stretches my brain beyond the three dimensions it usually thinks in. It’s by acclaimed director Darren Aronofsky, whose The Fountain I also checked out just recently. The movies are not for the cinematically timid. They’re meant to blow your mind and make you think. Mostly, Pi made me think, “Wow, the guys who make LOST sure lifted a lot of stuff from this Aronofsky guy…” Pi’s got nosebleeds after flashy trips and significantly powerful numbers that are meant to save humanity. I kept waiting for Hurley to walk into the movie and say, “Dude, nice haircut. What are you doing with that drill?”
Ultimately, I think I’m tired of these deep, meaningful films. I like to have my mind stretched, which is why I read stuff like the books of Michio Kaku about string theory and quantum physics. But I think in my fiction I prefer to have something with a little more chocolate cream or baked apples, dude!
I swear, I used to have a blog around here somewhere. Probably lost under all this Facebook, Twitter, and various other social media stuff. I actually meant to update it recently, being as it was my birthday, and I was on vacation, and I had some really deep insights into the meaning of life and stuff, but then something shiny kind of zipped by and all of a sudden I had a new car (Honda Fit) and I was back at work trying to figure out where all my free time was.
Yes, you did hear right…new car. I really loved my 2003 Honda Civic Hybrid. It felt so green, despite the fact that it was blue. But it developed an ABS chip problem that was draining the battery. And when I looked back through my phonebook sized stack of warranty work (including replacing the hybrid battery pack), I realized that the same ABS chip problem precipitated months of regular trips to the dealership. Even my wife, as she shuffled through the pages in the stack sorting them, finally said, “Um, do you REALLY want to fix this clunker on your own dime?”
So we spent a few days of our vacation on car stuff. What Natasha calls my “most expensive birthday present ever.” But, in looking at the maintenance schedule for the Fit, it’s going to be a LOT cheaper to maintain than the hybrid. And it doesn’t have that gremlin guy from the Bugs Bunny cartoon under the hood with his little hammer.
Now that I’ve actually found this blog again, I think I might try to upgrade the look some. I’ve been meaning to finally get around to posting some more bad poetry and stuff. Hmmm…you might want to consider deleting your bookmarks…
This World of Warcraft Mountain Dew Game Fuel add features my wife. She’s the druid, by the way.
This is a favorite — The DM of the Rings web comic, which tells the epic tale of Lord of the Rings reimagined as a game of Dungeons and Dragons. I laughed very had all the way through it. It’s got elements of the Knights of the Dinner Table strips, which are some of my favorites, and it also reminds me of all the mistakes I have made running role-playing game campaigns over the years. Helms-off to the creator as every strip was a hilarious read.
Pics from the final weekend of Star Wars Weekends 2009.
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| Star Wars Weekends 4 |
Posting pics from Star Wars Weekends 2 & 3! Enjoy!
Week 2:
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| From Star Wars Weekend #2 2009 |
Week 3:
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| From Star Wars Weekends 3 2009 |