Proj the repository

For some reason I’ve been feeling the urge to bust out my Canon SLR lately. Not the digital kind, but the “old school” kind that you have to put actual film in and then take it out to be developed if you don’t have a dark room in your basement—I have a creepy/musty room, but that’s hardly the same. Since I have yet to dig my camera out of my closet I have been sating my lust for pretty pictures on the net.

These first two are sort of related thematically, and are at least to me a little quirky with a touch of everyday sadness.

Dulce Pinzón’s series Superheroes depicts Mexican immagrants of NYC performing their heroically menial work dressed up as superheroes.

The Mexican immigrant worker in New York is a perfect example of the hero who has gone unnoticed. It is common for a Mexican worker in New York to work extraordinary hours in extreme conditions for very low wages which are saved at great cost and sacrifice and sent to families and communities in Mexico who rely on them to survive.

Just a couple of quick bits.

• Alice Cooper and Noel Fielding of The Mighty Boosh may be teaming up to write an “acid rock gothic musical.” This sounds like a winner to me.VIA NME
• Stereogum has an early review of Beck’s new album, Modern Guilt, and the verdict is pretty good. According to the review—and my own experience—the album is less funky fresh and a little more mournful than some casual fans would expect from Beck. Variety is the spice of life, and Modern Guilt is definitely worth a listen.

Dark Horse Comics has a short comic on their Dark Horse Presents myspace page that introduces us to Captain Hammer, Dr. Horrible’s arch nemesis. This is all a tie in to the new Joss Whedon web series Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog starring Neil Patrick Harris as Dr. Horrible and Nathan Fillion as Captain Hammer.

They released a little teaser too (via):

Teaser from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog on Vimeo.

The Shilo gang has brought it again with their latest dj mix, Shil Presents: We Make It Good, Volume 3. This volume features the artful spinning of London’s Graeme Sinden. I’m listening to it as I type, and it’s a nice upbeat mix so far. Good for beating back the hump day hum-drums.

Download the Mix

Wow, I just watched the video for Aphex Twin’s Come to Daddy. This is also the first time I heard the original version of the song. I heard the cover that Mike Patton and Dillinger Escape plan did a while back, but never seemed to get around to hearing the original until now. As sacrilegious as this sound, it’s a bit of a toss up as to which one I like better. I think I’m just at a time and a place in my life that I’ve heard some pretty exotic music and now that I’m finally getting around to listening to more Aphex Twin it just doesn’t have the same effect on me as it would had I heard it 5-10 years ago. Don’t get me wrong, I can appreciate that it is phenomenal music, especially given the scene in which it was originally released. Sometimes certain music will just flick a switch in your head and shift your perspective a little to the left, I’ve had that happen many of times myself, and I can see how this would’ve done the same to other people. I just didn’t see the fireworks or anything like that. I know, I suck.

So, I downloaded and played the demo for Ninja Gaiden 2 the other night, and—big surprise—it was awesome. You get a couple of weapons to start off with that are pretty fun to mess around with, my favorite of those would be the Eclipse Scythe, it’s giant and does plenty of damage. About half-way through the demo you get the Lunar Staff and that kicks plenty of ass too. It’s a little lighter on the damage, but it has a fast attack speed and if you get a moment before a fight you can power it up for a super-attack. With auto health regeneration I didn’t have to use any of the little power ups that you pick up along the way either. The pacing was pretty good in this regard, fight-regenerate-fight-regenerate and so on. I think the only thing that bugged me about the demo was that the camera seemed a little wonky. I just don’t think to tap the button that auto centers the camera angle in the middle of a fight, so there were a couple of times that I couldn’t see anything in front of me. Luckily, blindly hitting the attack button while readjusting the camera seemed to minimize the damage. All in all the demo was worth the DL, and will eventually lead to a trip to my local GameStop to pick up a copy for myself, just as soon as I finish up TimeShift, Mass Effect, Doom 3, and Call of Cthulhu.

If you haven’t heard by now Netflix is pulling the plug on one of it’s most popular features, Profiles. I for one am a little disgruntled about this. For starters I spent an entire Saturday afternoon separating my sci-fi, action, and anime titles from our main list. Now I will have to do this all over again to get them back in the mix. The whole reason I made a separate profile is so I could get a chance to watch those movies, and Ivy could add whatever romantic movies she wanted without having any disagreements about what movie we’re getting. Since setting up my own profile, I’ve been able to spend less time managing my list too, about 0–5 minutes a week compared to at least 30 minutes a week. Ivy especially appreciates not having to sort through all the “weird crap” that I like to watch just to get the latest season of Nip/Tuck to the top of the list.

When I got the infamous red email yesterday, and Ivy and I read it over. The first thing out of Ivy’s mouth was “Great, now all of your movies will be mixed in with mine again.” and was shortly followed by “Does Blockbuster let you set up separate lists?”

If you didn’t already know, June 20th is Take Your Dog to Work day, and for the occasion the official website of the day is having a contest in their Professional Pooch Gallery. Since we are total dorks for our dog, Ivy and I decided to submit a shot of PT for kicks. After a week they finally have his pic posted.

Now PT needs your votes. We all know he’s the cutest little bugger in the land, so let’s make it official. Follow the link to find Mr. PT with all of the other Shih Tzu’s… CLICK

Paws up, tails down.