Purpose of blog: Discovery and embracing of virgins.
Wednesday the Thirteenth of January, Twenty Ten
"Come on, let me see your semicolon smile."
Have I mentioned before how much I like Dale Chase's work? You may have seen "Coder Girl", which was sort of a breakout hit amongst a very, very, very small subset of the world's population. He took a ridiculously infectious little loop, cut it up, and decided to put incredibly geeky lyrics about computer programming over it. None of which is new, obviously; nerdcore hip hop is a decade old this year, and Kool Keithet al were laying the groundwork years before that. But "Coder Girl" is just so dang good that it deserves special mention. It's sweet and charming without being cloying, it avoids both self-deprecation and braggadocio, and above all, it's a song about how awesome creative and intelligent women are. Awesome.
Given that his other songs include lines like "blow it out your ocarina, Ganon / Hyrule's spoils to the last one standin'", "so now I'll switch my styles up like CSS", and "while you're laid out there on the mat / I'm a play you off like that Keyboard Cat", I think it's pretty clear that Chase's geekiness is by no means limited to "Coder Girl". I'm not sure if Chase considers himself nerdcore—it's essentially an opt-in genre—but I kind of hope he does, if for no other reason than it's kind of embarassing that it's probably the only American hip hop genre where basically all the prominent members are Caucasians (one of whom is actually named YTCracker). (There are, of course, plenty of persons of color making nerdy hip hop—Dr. Octagon is a person of several colors—and I stand by my claim that hip hop is by both its nature and its culture the second most nerd-oriented musical genre after filk.) I think Mr Chase has the talent to bring a new sound to nerdcore, which in my experience tends to get stale every few years unless Frontalot gets some press or a really brilliant voice comes out. Dale Chase could be such a voice. I thought Nursehella could have been too, but then she didn't really follow up on her debut track, "Nursehellamentary". Chase's whole EP is solid, though "Coder Girl" is clearly the standout.
Q: How do you measure out a given volume of a liquid of unknown density to a reasonable level of accuracy, without any kind of graduated cylinder or other volume measuring tool? A: Take an empty, unlabeled cup and tare a gram scale to that weight. Fill the cup with water until the weight in grams equals the volume in milliliters that you're trying to achieve. Mark the level of the water and dump the water out, then fill the cup up to that mark with the liquid.
I'm happy to hear other suggestions, but this one seemed pretty clever at the time.
I did that thing I do when I'm stupid today: I took a "brief nap" at 6 PM, then woke up at 9. Now there's no sleep until Brooklyn o'clock at the earliest.
But seriously, what should I have done? I mean, I was falling asleep watching Eddie Izzard, which I had previously assumed to be impossible. If I can't stay conscious through Eddie Izzard, what can I possibly do? Jog in place in the middle of the living room for four hours until I can finally justify going to bed?
The real problem here is that 11 days of blissful indolence (aided by an annoying head cold for the past six days) have completely destroyed my sleep patterns. Last night I went to bed at midnight and was thoroughly awake until well past two. Tonight, it's 2:20 and I'm not even close. A three hour nap and four hours in bed do not add up to one real night's sleep. So tomorrow I'm probably going to do the exact same thing but with Dress to Kill instead of Definite Article. Unless I watch Eddie Izzard while jogging in place in the middle of the living room...
Some people sneeze on a sunny day. We all have our meteorological quirks.
It is cold beyond my Involuntary Bollocks Threshold. That is the point at which it is so bollocksing cold that every time I walk outside, I automatically say "bollocks!"
Wednesday the Twenty-Third of December, Two Thousand and Nine
"...and it's hotter than reality by far."
So, Avatar. Jesus, Avatar. Part of it was the 3D, but let me tell you: I do not remember the last time I was so deeply immersed in a film. I was shaking for a good hour afterwards. The real world didn't look real enough after that movie. It was only the second CGI-heavy movie I have seen where the effects were truly unobtrusive—and the first came out six months ago. The story itself was clichéd and laden with unfortunate implications, as a thousand bloggers have already pointed out. You know what other story was clichéd and laden with unfortunate implications? Yeah, I went there: I think Avatar could be the 21st century's Star Wars.
And the thing is, I'm not really making a value judgement here. I'm honestly not sure how good a film it was. (Not sure how good Star Wars was either, for that matter.) But it was an immensely powerful film, more viscerally and immediately powerful than any other piece of fiction in any other medium I can think of off the top of my head. And I think it will be recognized in hindsight as a very, very important film.
In a couple months, when everyone who wants to see it has seen it (and when I have seen it again), I'd be interested in discussing it in more depth on the blog, including the obvious Avatar vs District 9 debate. Before then, if you're curious, hit me up on IM or something.
