Studio Nibble Weblog Archive

Weblog Archive - January/February 2000

2000/02/22
22:20 Kids With Rifles II: I just noticed that someone has the full text of Do you know what I'm going to do Next Saturday? (see yesterday's entry) up on their site. Strictly speaking it's not a Dr. Seuss book, but it does have that great helter-skelter (uhhhh) type treatment on the cover. Scientific research proves that kids are down with the goofy-foot type treatment thing.
Cynthia Connolly's Ice Machine photos are really nifty but look better in print than they do online so pick up Emigre 53 if you get a chance (it would have been free if you had only subscribed, you poor fool).
(I just noticed how much I love to use parentheses. I'll work on that after I shake the goddamned emdash monkey.)

2000/02/21
20:50 American Juvenile Literature, Pre-Columbianne: Ever have one of those days?
Babar should have given this kid a call. He'd have been happy to help.
(Babar image from -DeeT's 70s Page: Disturbing Children's Books. The adventures of our young Lee Harvey Oswald wannabe are documented further on his very own desktoppers page.)

2000/02/20
23:50 Trevor Horn...Through the Lens Copyrant: Sorry, no links here, just me bitching. I've been downloading music videos tonight, bunches of early '80s stuff put up on a free webspace host by a guy on one of the mailing lists I run. About halfway through the stack it occurred to me that some record company lawyer would be really pissed off if he knew was I was up to, because it's as copyright-violational as all hell to be doing this. But it pissed me off to realize that, because there is absolutely no way on god's green earth that anyone is going to be sticking "I Am A Camera" by the Buggles or "I Like" by Men Without Hats on any legitimate video that I could go to the store and buy, unless maybe they could slap a bunch of trivia pops all over it. Even if it became easy and secure to sell music vids one-off over the net, they'd never get around to these because they'd be too damn busy mastering everything Madonna's ever shaken her heinie near.
More and more, copyright law is being used by big media conglomerates to hoard information rather than by creative types to protect themselves from being ripped off, and it stinks. I'm starting to think that copyrights should be more like trademarks: use 'em or lose 'em. If you don't make at least an honest attempt to exploit your copyrights in the marketplace, you shouldn't be allowed to prevent people from making their own copies for noncommercial purposes.
It strikes me as completely insane that big business can take stuff like this, lock it in a vault and throw the key into the garbage can. I understand the reasons for the law but the result is still just nuts.

2000/02/19
11:20 Wazzaaaaap?: Here I thought Pacific Bell were all staid and stodgy but no! They're hip, happening, and down with the youth of today! This is not your father's PCS wireless phone...baby! Yeah! Let's all Get Techno with Pacific Bell!

2000/02/16
22:40 Greetings, Citizen: Sometimes I think there's more going on here than just a goofy tv show.

2000/02/14
14:30 Hometown Pride: The Cops TV show's site seems to be in flake-o-vision mode at the moment, precluding a meaningful link to tie in with the recent eps shot in Albuquerque (where I grew up). Nothing quite matches the thrill of recognizing that Route 66 back-alley where the bike patrol is busting a skanky hooker-slash-junkie. Feel it every Saturday night on Fox.
If you prefer your New Mexicans with shirts, check out these QuickTime VR 360° snapshots of various New Mexico locations from the Albuquerque Journal web site.

2000/02/13
13:00 Christ, first the Japanese and now the Swiss. Tip-o-the-hat to vanishingson for the link.

2000/02/12
18:30 Japanese TV Fun Damn, the Japanese are weird.
Now imagine experiencing this in the same context as that of its target audience: as part of a streaming barrage of similarly short and frantic fifteen-second CMs, interrupted only by interjections of programming featuring auteur Beat Takeshi with a stylized rubber octopus on his head.

2000/02/09
22:15 Tonight is product placement night!
First off, thanks to the miracle of evil MP3 trading I've been listening to random Boards of Canada tracks tonight. This is great stuff, moody and atmospheric and rough around the edges, very Bastard Sons of Eno and no fear of beats or hooks. People who like these guys would probably dig Air and vice versa.
the little man in my head who tells me how to feel Next up, from the humorous retro department so shamefully abandoned by the Ben Is Dead crew, we have Ken Smith's Mental Hygiene: Classroom Films 1945-1970. Ken is a charter member of the Roadside America posse, having worked on the original first edition of the eponymous book (which is much better than the second edition by the way). Ken cut loose in the legendary Prelinger Archives, watched a whole assload of old 16mm ed-sploitation films and wrote this book about what he found. He shares some historical perspective but let's be honest, the real meat is in the endless summaries of all these screwed-up little short films. MSTies: yes, Mr. B Natural makes an appearance. ("Mooommm...")
another day hyping lame portalware to vc-burdened teenagers In a similar vein, allow me to recommend "that" Diane Keaton's Mr. Salesman. Any student of the mid-century grey-flannel mindset desparately needs this collection of impeccably-reproduced photographs culled from sales-training filmstrips produced by the Jam Handy organization. Time has given these silent images a new context and the foundation of pathos they're built upon is now unavoidably clear...and vaguely entertaining. Of course, fifty years from now web development is going to look at least as lame...

2000/02/01
23:00 Excellent Seven Questions with Mike Cash, an American who drives trucks in Japan. 7Q is riding up in the daily rotation.

2000/02/02
22:30 A Linux-based color PDA could convince me to jump the Palm fence. Having "Electro-Mechanics" in the company name gives many happy bonus points, but you should really go the whole way and make your logo a gear with a lightning bolt through it.
Nice of them to give ESC its own button too. PDAemacs, bwa-haa! "ESC-right-tap-yank-to-register-b...".

2000/02/01
21:00 Wow, complete hardcore Mad Max-fetishist action! Loads of desktop-worthy shots of the cars, painful behind-the-stunts info and the usual more. Found this while looking for info about the new original-dialogue/Dolby Stereo print of Mad Max that was screening in the Bay Area a few weeks back.

2000/01/30
22:30 I wouldn't vote for (US Presidential candidate) Steve Forbes even if he threatened to chase me around the yard with a lawnmower. But I noticed something about his campaign logo on CNN tonight that inspires me, as an Orb fan, to pick up a few of his bumper stickers.
(Bumper stickers are only any fun after you've worked 'em over with an X-acto knife anyway.)

2000/01/30
19:30 It's Super Bowl Sunday so of course I'm "taping the game so I can watch the commercials later." If past experience is any indication I'll give the tape back to Amy in a couple of weeks, completely unwatched, so she can fill it with JAG and Sentinel reruns. All for the best, I think, given that the words "dot com" are starting to give me a histamine reaction...
What's new. Umm, dumped the old front page to the site, obviously. I ran out of room to add new links so I saw it as a great opportunity to craft another swipe of a classic Reid Miles Blue Note record sleeve...while simultaneously doubling the required download time. This is the stuff I do in order to put off updating discographies, people, so take careful note.
This is the paragraph of massive props. Shouts out to Cardhouse, James Lileks and vanishingson for staying high in my recreational web-surfing rotation.
Now, let's watch and see if I ever come back to update this thing.

Return to Current Weblog Page

Weblog Archive - January/February 2000

2000/02/22 22:20	Kids With Rifles II: I just noticed that someone has the full text of Do you know what I'm going to do Next Saturday? (see yesterday's entry) up on their site. Strictly speaking it's not a Dr. Seuss book, but it does have that great helter-skelter (uhhhh) type treatment on the cover. Scientific research proves that kids are down with the goofy-foot type treatment thing. Cynthia Connolly's Ice Machine photos are really nifty but look better in print than they do online so pick up Emigre 53 if you get a chance (it would have been free if you had only subscribed, you poor fool). (I just noticed how much I love to use parentheses. I'll work on that after I shake the goddamned emdash monkey.)

2000/02/21 20:50	American Juvenile Literature, Pre-Columbianne: Ever have one of those days? Babar should have given this kid a call. He'd have been happy to help. (Babar image from -DeeT's 70s Page: Disturbing Children's Books. The adventures of our young Lee Harvey Oswald wannabe are documented further on his very own desktoppers page.)

2000/02/20 23:50	Copyrant: Sorry, no links here, just me bitching. I've been downloading music videos tonight, bunches of early '80s stuff put up on a free webspace host by a guy on one of the mailing lists I run. About halfway through the stack it occurred to me that some record company lawyer would be really pissed off if he knew was I was up to, because it's as copyright-violational as all hell to be doing this. But it pissed me off to realize that, because there is absolutely no way on god's green earth that anyone is going to be sticking "I Am A Camera" by the Buggles or "I Like" by Men Without Hats on any legitimate video that I could go to the store and buy, unless maybe they could slap a bunch of trivia pops all over it. Even if it became easy and secure to sell music vids one-off over the net, they'd never get around to these because they'd be too damn busy mastering everything Madonna's ever shaken her heinie near. More and more, copyright law is being used by big media conglomerates to hoard information rather than by creative types to protect themselves from being ripped off, and it stinks. I'm starting to think that copyrights should be more like trademarks: use 'em or lose 'em. If you don't make at least an honest attempt to exploit your copyrights in the marketplace, you shouldn't be allowed to prevent people from making their own copies for noncommercial purposes. It strikes me as completely insane that big business can take stuff like this, lock it in a vault and throw the key into the garbage can. I understand the reasons for the law but the result is still just nuts.

2000/02/19 11:20	Wazzaaaaap?: Here I thought Pacific Bell were all staid and stodgy but no! They're hip, happening, and down with the youth of today! This is not your father's PCS wireless phone...baby! Yeah! Let's all Get Techno with Pacific Bell!

2000/02/16 22:40	Greetings, Citizen: Sometimes I think there's more going on here than just a goofy tv show.

2000/02/14 14:30	Hometown Pride: The Cops TV show's site seems to be in flake-o-vision mode at the moment, precluding a meaningful link to tie in with the recent eps shot in Albuquerque (where I grew up). Nothing quite matches the thrill of recognizing that Route 66 back-alley where the bike patrol is busting a skanky hooker-slash-junkie. Feel it every Saturday night on Fox. If you prefer your New Mexicans with shirts, check out these QuickTime VR 360° snapshots of various New Mexico locations from the Albuquerque Journal web site.

2000/02/13 13:00	Christ, first the Japanese and now the Swiss. Tip-o-the-hat to vanishingson for the link.

2000/02/12 18:30	Damn, the Japanese are weird. Now imagine experiencing this in the same context as that of its target audience: as part of a streaming barrage of similarly short and frantic fifteen-second CMs, interrupted only by interjections of programming featuring auteur Beat Takeshi with a stylized rubber octopus on his head.

2000/02/09 22:15	Tonight is product placement night! First off, thanks to the miracle of evil MP3 trading I've been listening to random Boards of Canada tracks tonight. This is great stuff, moody and atmospheric and rough around the edges, very Bastard Sons of Eno and no fear of beats or hooks. People who like these guys would probably dig Air and vice versa. Next up, from the humorous retro department so shamefully abandoned by the Ben Is Dead crew, we have Ken Smith's Mental Hygiene: Classroom Films 1945-1970. Ken is a charter member of the Roadside America posse, having worked on the original first edition of the eponymous book (which is much better than the second edition by the way). Ken cut loose in the legendary Prelinger Archives, watched a whole assload of old 16mm ed-sploitation films and wrote this book about what he found. He shares some historical perspective but let's be honest, the real meat is in the endless summaries of all these screwed-up little short films. MSTies: yes, Mr. B Natural makes an appearance. ("Mooommm...") In a similar vein, allow me to recommend "that" Diane Keaton's Mr. Salesman. Any student of the mid-century grey-flannel mindset desparately needs this collection of impeccably-reproduced photographs culled from sales-training filmstrips produced by the Jam Handy organization. Time has given these silent images a new context and the foundation of pathos they're built upon is now unavoidably clear...and vaguely entertaining. Of course, fifty years from now web development is going to look at least as lame...

2000/02/01 23:00	Excellent Seven Questions with Mike Cash, an American who drives trucks in Japan. 7Q is riding up in the daily rotation.

2000/02/02 22:30	A Linux-based color PDA could convince me to jump the Palm fence. Having "Electro-Mechanics" in the company name gives many happy bonus points, but you should really go the whole way and make your logo a gear with a lightning bolt through it. Nice of them to give ESC its own button too. PDAemacs, bwa-haa! "ESC-right-tap-yank-to-register-b...".

2000/02/01 21:00	Wow, complete hardcore Mad Max-fetishist action! Loads of desktop-worthy shots of the cars, painful behind-the-stunts info and the usual more. Found this while looking for info about the new original-dialogue/Dolby Stereo print of Mad Max that was screening in the Bay Area a few weeks back.

2000/01/30 22:30	I wouldn't vote for (US Presidential candidate) Steve Forbes even if he threatened to chase me around the yard with a lawnmower. But I noticed something about his campaign logo on CNN tonight that inspires me, as an Orb fan, to pick up a few of his bumper stickers. (Bumper stickers are only any fun after you've worked 'em over with an X-acto knife anyway.)

2000/01/30 19:30	It's Super Bowl Sunday so of course I'm "taping the game so I can watch the commercials later." If past experience is any indication I'll give the tape back to Amy in a couple of weeks, completely unwatched, so she can fill it with JAG and Sentinel reruns. All for the best, I think, given that the words "dot com" are starting to give me a histamine reaction... What's new. Umm, dumped the old front page to the site, obviously. I ran out of room to add new links so I saw it as a great opportunity to craft another swipe of a classic Reid Miles Blue Note record sleeve...while simultaneously doubling the required download time. This is the stuff I do in order to put off updating discographies, people, so take careful note. This is the paragraph of massive props. Shouts out to Cardhouse, James Lileks and vanishingson for staying high in my recreational web-surfing rotation. Now, let's watch and see if I ever come back to update this thing.

Return to Current Weblog Page