my.bicycle

While it lasts at YouTube, Adult Swim’s new Korgoth of Barbaria: a loving send-up of Conan, Thundarr, and Heavy Metal. (thanks, weezie)

Labels: video

Well, the circle of the LA containment area extends up into Orange County, thereby enveloping Fullerton in the space that LA’s old spooks re allowed to move in. Jones doesn’t live there: he lives in the Chemosphere, up in the Hollywood hills (in real life, of course, the publisher Benedikt Taschen lives in the Chemosphere). I’ve been deliberately vague in the book about where the Chemosphere is, just as I've been deliberately vague about other locations -- which has gotten me weird hate mail from a writer at CBR. The introduction of the notion of supermodernism in #1 says it all—I don’t think of LA as an honest geographical space, a place where people stay, a place where traditional cities happen. As a native said to me on the first day I ever spent there, LA isn’t a city—it’s a handful of towns strung together by a thousand miles of freeway. The biggest constructions in the area are not designed to be lived in, but to be traversed. It’s a place that became designed for machines, not humans, at some point.
—Warren Ellis on Desolation Jones

《SOFTHARD ALLIANCE》v.s.《weapons of mass creation two》v.s.《Arctic Rangers》 - 香港好相似設計_WE ARE FROM HONG KONG, WE LOVE COPY: I don’t know what it is, but that Tamiya plastic models tribute picture is way rad.

BradSucks is offering his new album I Don’t Know What I’m Doing for free download—or for-pay, if you want the dead tree whatever-is-killed-to-make-CDs version. As usual, his claims seem unfounded; the album is a winner.

(blame timmeh)

People who follow the excellent cover song blog, copy, right, are already familiar with Sawa Kobayashi’s jazzy rendition of Guns and Roses’ Patience. Now you can see a video for it, as Scott Bateman has animated it as part of his project: Bateman365 An animated film a day for a year! (thanks, amy!)

Google has released a new Browser Sync tool for Mozilla Firefox. If you run multiple instances of Firefox across home and work machines, this extension will keep your bookmarks, passwords, cookies, and browser history synchronized. Some customization is available. Extension synchronization is not yet supported, but this is otherwise a godsend. (ars technica)

Downtown, my favorite comedian team takes part in a contest in which they try not to laugh at Jimmy Onishi’s horrible English. YouTube link (thanks, timk)

Labels: video

Japanese TV personalities really have it bad when they stay over in hotels. The staff are apparently all-too-willing to hand over a guest’s room keys in the name of entertainment. This results in early morning wake-up calls featuring mafia tommy-gun attacks, bazookas, and other really unpleasant ways to wake up.

Actually, if you want to see the TV programming I regularly contend with, you should keep up with TV in Japan, a blog devoted to such sanity-damaging broadcasts.

Got an itch to draw, or write saucy limericks on the wall? Try it out instead on this cool sketchpad that supports multiple users simultaneously.

YouTube - C4 ice skate (thanks, monty)

Labels: video

Gamasutra: Where do you feel the fans factor into the decision-making process of a game based off a comic or other intellectual property? Do you think a more independent comic would have a better chance of making good game, since they don’t have this large and potentially rabid fan base?

Doug Tennapel: No, because…I’m going to piss some people off here, but I don’t care what the fans think. I love my fans, but never ever design a game for your fans. When you originally made the thing, the thing that all the fans liked, you made it because it was good, and they came to you, because of what you did. Your instincts lead you correctly in that instance. So to suddenly change that formula, and follow what fans want and redesign something in the image that you think, second-guessing, that they will like, would create a different thing, that isn’t you and probably isn’t good. And you will always lose fans by doing that.
—Digging For Worms: Why Doug Tennapel Doesn’t Care What His Fans Think

Labels: comic, games

If you’re yearning for a thrilling return to the adventurous days of yesteryear, a fan group has created a nostalgic throwback adventure in Indiana Jones and the Fountain of Youth.

Check out the tame pictures Kotaku offers of these hyperfeminine King of Fighters gachapon figurines, versus the domestic Japanese coverage at MoeYo (probably NFSW, even though it’s plastic).

The kinetic, robotic sculptures of California artist Nemo Gould:
N E M O M A T I C

“Dave performing Jump with a southern flair on Jay Leno. Promoting the new Strummin’ With The Devil Van Halen tribute CD.”
YouTube - David Lee Roth on Jay Leno (thanks, lee)

Labels: video

Gamasutra Yuke’s Opens North American Publishing Office:
Osaka Japan-based game development company Yuke’s Company, Ltd. has announced that it has opened its first office in North America, Yuke’s Company of America.

Labels: games

DEAR GREEGOR COSTUKUN:

I am Raptar Leansiku of the Leng Plateau National Bank, and and am acting in this matter for Narlit Drovasi, the widow of Khorim Drovasi, whom you may know as the deceased leader of the Leng Initiates Cult, assassinated by the previous regime prior to the Puce Revolution. Ms. Drovasi informs me that as treasurer of the United States chapter of the Sons of Nyarlathotep (Reformed), you are a trustworthy person.

I trust your discretion in this matter. The Rev. Drovasi left an estate valued at more than 37 million lekhmas ($8.6 million USD), along with a series of artifacts that cannnot adequately be valued, including a folio of the original edition of a work known as the Necronomicon, as well as what I am assured is an original member detached from the body of Nyarlathotep, the Goat of Million Years. For reasons I do not care to discuss at present but an happy to address on further correspondence, Ms. Drovasi wishes to move these asset from the Republic of Leng to the United Sates, and we would like to enlist you as our US representative in this matter.

If you are willing to act in this capacity--and I am authorized to ensure that you are well compensated for your efforts--please reply post haste.

Rl’yeh ftagn Nyarlathotep,

Raptar Leansiku, Esq.
(junk mail Greg Costikyan would like to receive)

My Old Kentucky Blog: Love Will Tear Us Apart (the other michæl)
WFMU’s Beware of the Blog: Stairways to Heaven, Stairways to Hell

Labels: music

ScansDaily: The secret origin of The Captain from Nextwave.

Labels: comic

I am enjoying playful sex, and so should you. Well, Asobi Seksu, at least. Mystery and Misery’s review of their new album, has some downloadable tracks, Citrus and a few more songs here and at False 45th.

Update: As Chris points out in Comments, the band is also available through the US iTunes Music Store (iTMS).

Our favorite SF le parkourriffic movie Banlieue 13 will see an English language release soon as District B13 (thanks, weezie and timk)

Plasmic Bricks: Insanely ornate sculptures crafted from Lego bricks. (laughing squid)

Lego Star Wars minifigs have “loudhailers” (bullhorns) instead of proper weapons. Sure, those quasi-guns can be more easily adapted to any other purpose than a gun would, but Lego has plenty of other single-purpose pieces in their offerings. Lego has long tried to avoid making toys that are tightly focused on fighting and warfare, including vehicles and weaponry.

So it only makes sense that there is a cottage industry that has sprung up around filling this need. BrickArms.com produces modern weaponry, in case you want to run Counterstrike style battles with your minifigs. Little Armory does medieval weapons as well as nicely accurate replicas of popular science fiction weapons; but unfortunately appear to be sold out of... every little thing.

Which is a shame, really; wouldn’t it be nice to have your minifigs properly kitted out when you re-enact the Donnie and Marie Osmond Star Wars Musical?

William Shatner sings to George Lucas.

Labels: video

My company’s first North American game is in the final production phase; every day the whole world feels like it’s moving a million miles an hour. Regular posts to resume shortly (I hope).

Labels: games