I just wanted to comment on how satisfied I am with Rock Band adding the song “Charlene (I’m Right Behind You)” by Stephen and the Colberts as a free download last Thursday. That’s got to be just about the strangest choice for a download yet, it seems like the guitar part is mostly synth and it’s not even two minutes long. I’m all about when they add joke songs, especially ones that are free, who know what we could get someday… Something by Adam Sandler? Internet tune “Schfifty Five”? Which of course would never work, but you never know. Anyways it was just something I had on my mind, here’s a video.
September 2008
Bloated Genius
Apple unleashed a lot of new stuff on Tuesday, if you haven’t heard. A new iPod Nano, a new iPod Touch and a new version of iTunes, 8.0. The new Nano is pretty neat, the Touch isn’t that impressive, but what we need to talk about is iTunes.
iTunes has been my default media player for years, and suffered from the same issues pretty much that whole time. Namely, it takes up a lot of system resources to run it. Sadly, Apple doesn’t seem concerned with making they’re biggest program run any better. But I love the way it organizes music, plus I’m an iPod user, so I won’t be changing any time soon.
iTunes 8 continues the trend of adding new features without increasing perfromance, but at least this time around the new features are pretty cool. What you’ll notice first is the new grid view, which applies itself to ever playlist, from music to movies to podcasts. Items are grouped by criteria you choose (genre, artist, etc.) into icons. You choose the icon and it gives you a list of the content inside that criterion. So it’s fundamentally pretty similar to browsing folders on your hard drive. This new view is neat looking, sure, but I wouldn’t say it makes browsing music any faster. But neither does Coverflow and everyone loves that.
The other, more interesting, new feature is the music genius. Basically, iTunes scans everyone song in your library for… something. When it’s done, you can choose any song and iTunes will create a playlist of songs it thinks go well with that song. Of course, you can turn on a sidebar that recomends more songs for you to buy, but that’s lame. The playlists I’ve gotten so far have been pretty good, but that could be inherent in that I’m listening to my own music already.
There’s a new visualizer included too, and it’s pretty neat. But, uh, does any use visualizers any more?
The only other iTunes 8 change I noticed is that they made it so you can’t turn off those little arrows that point you the store. You know what I’m talking about? The little grey arrows next to a song’s title, artist, album, genre, everything. I don’t know why Apple chose to make this feature mandatory; how many people really need a quick way to go buy the song they are already listening to anyway?
None, that’s how many.
At least, I hope it’s none.
Skip It
So I was browsing the web when I stumbled upon some early reception of the new “At the Movies” program that debuted last week. Now featuring Ben Mankiewicz and Ben Lyons I was quite surprised to see that the show had already been fully retooled. My early opinion has been somewhat lukewarm and if you couldn’t of already guessed most critics have as well given a mild to negative reaction to the new show with it’s less than stellar duo.
It’s not that the two Bens are bad critics or anything, whatever that means, but they’re really not that interesting. Where Richard Roeper and his frequent guest host for most of last year, Michael Phillips could be pretty funny with their cynical comments, these two personalities just don’t click and sometimes make me feel like I’m watching Entertainment Tonight. This isn’t that surprising as co-host/pretty boy Ben Lyons is originally from the Entertainment Channel therefore I wasn’t feeling that his analysis’ were really that insightfull. I’d say the same goes for Mankiewicz as well, I don’t feel like they had anything that compelling to tell us, not to mention the lack of contrast between the two. They basically would agree on every movie, with the exception of Traitor where they still didn’t even argue much, that’s not how I like my At the Movies.
In all of this I wouldn’t solely place the blame on the two hosts, more so I think Disney-ABC Domestic Television are to blame for such a dramatic retooling. By giving the show a flashier and brighter look I think it actually comes off as kinda ugly and annoying, I mean it really does look like some stupid Hollywood gossip show. Where the original show was kept simplistic for basically it’s whole duration this is now just tacky and distracting. Another new feature is the “Critics Roundup” where Lyons and Mankiewicz are joined by three additional critics via satellite. Now I don’t see any point in this, it really doesn’t add anything and just makes the show feel more cluttered and gimmicky. Also the selection of films seemed way more mainstream, where the original program reviewed tons of indie films, I didn’t see much of that aside from Hamlet 2.
I think in time these guys could maybe devlop some chemstry and loosen up a little, but for now I’m not reall that interested. Personally I’ll keep an eye out for Richard Roeper’s new show whenever that may come out, Otteni out.
Here’s a link to the new site, which strangely seems kind of sluggish now.
At the Movies
You Know What’s Bullshit?
What’s that up there? That’s Rock Band 2, which doesn’t come out until Sunday. But some lucky mofos already got their grubby hands on it, thanks to fools in retail. They’re doing the right thing and uploading videos of the songs on YouTube, so we can at least see what they’re enjoying.
A lot of the songs they are uploading are the really hard ones, and they look hard. Like, I probably won’t be able to beat this game for a long time. But I’m OK with that. What’s the fun if you can get through all the songs in one try? Plus, several songs we’ve all been looking forward to look great.
(Some of these songs look especially fast because they have the hyperspeed cheat turned on)
So nothing so far is bullshit. Unless you watched that embedded YouTube video above. Then you know exactly what’s bullshit. They skipped the acoustic intro to “American Woman!” What the heck? I am upset.
Anyway, it didn’t look like anyone else was going to post today, so at least you got something, even if it is just another product of my obsession with everything Rock Band.
The Sunny Side of Brian Wilson
Brian Wilson – That Lucky Old Sun
With 2004’s Smile, Brian Wilson finally released rock’s most famous “lost album” to much acclaim. Also, after years of battling a number of mental illnesses for years, it saw Wilson displaying a newfound confidence not seen since his days with The Beach Boys. With That Lucky Old Sun, an album based around Wilson’s love for the sights and sounds of Southern California, Wilson creates another late career triumph.
The album starts with the title track, a cover of the old standard “That Lucky Old Sun”, and the album is filled with different variations of the song throughout the album. The songs are also linked together with passages of poetry spoken by Brian Wilson, and although they certainly add some resonant imagery to the whole “Southern California” feel of the album, in the end they seem a little unnecessary. That Lucky Old Sun also features basically what was the same group of musicians that recorded Smile, and their complex vocal harmonies and instrumental arrangements once again complement Wilson’s soaring melodies quite nicely.
Most of the songs like “Good Kind of Love” and “Forever She’ll Be My Surfer Girl”, a supposed sequel to the 1963 Beach Boys hit “Surfer Girl”, have a sound that recalls the best of Wilson’s mid-sixties output with The Beach Boys. And then there are also songs like “Oxygen to the Brain” and “Going Home” in which Brian Wilson confronts some of the less glamorous parts of his life. But above all, the songs (whose lyrics were co-written by Smile collaborator Van Dyke Parks) are brimming with the kind of sunny optimism that we’ve come to expect from Brian Wilson over the years.
Considering I didn’t even know Brian Wilson had a new album coming out until about two weeks before it came out, this has been a very pleasant surprise. It’s definitely nice to see one of rock’s greatest songwriters finally writing and recording great music once again after so many years of personal problems left him unable to reach his full potential as an artist.
Favorite Tracks: “Good Kind of Love”, “Forever She’ll Be My Surfer Girl”, “Southern California”
Sim Everything
Spore
Sim creator, Will Wright, one of the most influential people in gaming history brings his most ambitious project to the masses with Spore. This title allows players to experience life from single-cell organism to intergallactic superpower. And its pretty fun.
Spore is at its best when you are creating. Which is good, because you spend a lot of time developing. You start out developing your cell, then you give it legs as it hits the land and you keep going. Eventually you’re designing the look of buildings and vehicles in your cities while writing your national anthem. All the creators are very intuitive and powerful. You can go make a creature that looks good or just go for the appendages that net you the best stats. But you probably want to focus on looks for Sporepedia.
Sporepedia is this revolutionary service that is integral to the Spore experience. Every single creature, building, and vehicle you see in this game was made by someone else in-game. Whenever you design something, it is uploaded to Sporepedia, a searchable database of all user generated content. Already there’s tons of stuff on there that looks really good, and its great to know that it could show up anywhere in my game.
That’s my creation at the start of the post. He’s called Ugh, because he looks so stupid. But he’s got great stats.
As you intelligently design your creature, the gameplay evolves too. At the cell stage, you just swim around and eat, it’s all done with the mouse. Then you move to the land stage, where you run around in a third person view and can manage both social and violent interactions with other creatures. After that comes the tribal stage, which is like a strategy game, with the player sending his troops to attack other tribes. Then there’s the civilization stage, which plays like an RTS. At the end of that, you’ve taken over your planet and head off into space. In space you can colonize or destroy planets, go to war with other worlds, do business, stuff like that.
I thoroughly enjoyed each stage while I was going through it, and am sure I’ll get many more hours out of the space stage, which I don’t think has an end. A lot of people are complaining that the gameplay isn’t deep enough, but I think it’s engaging while being easy enough to welcome less experienced gamers.
Overall Spore is a lot of fun. The creature creator alone is a blast, and seeing your creature flourish is a real pleasure. This is a one-of-a-kind game, and if your PC can handle it, this is a must-buy.
Bicentennial Men
Happy 200th post everyone! It hasn’t been easy but the Cat Fancy crew has with this post broken the 200 mark for posts and I’m sure glad that we’ve kept with it… Aside from the time I quit and the recent decision to take a break from “Classic Album Tuesdays” and “Top Ten Thursdays”, which I assure will make a return in the following months. Being that all I have to report today is small pop culture tidbits, I thought it might be keen to compare events (mostly pop culture stuff) at the time of the blog’s establishment and what’s been cooking these days, what a strange world it’s become..
In the News: Politics
Then
: John Edwards had recently withdrew from his candidacy leaving what become a long battle between Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton. On the Republican side Rudy Giuliani had recently withdrew along with notable crazy person Mitt Romney.
Now
: The Democratic and Republican National Conventions recently passed. I hear the RNC had higher ratings, especially when Sarah Palin spoke, though I’m not sure why. Seemed to me to be mostly a lot of bad jokes and attacks on Obama, not saying that the DNC doesn’t have similar moments, but it certainly wasn’t anything spectacular.
I guess people really seem to relish the fact that she participates in everyday activities, just like the rest of us, and as some folks said on the Daily Show “If she could be vice president, than anyone could.” Well that’s great, I mean who cares about qualifications when you hunt and fish? It’s not like she’s the only person in this political race with hobbies and a life outside of politics. People seem to think Obama was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and is just some kind of upscale celebrity, but he basically worked his way to his success like any other hard working person. I mean if anything John McCain’s “Mr. Moneybags”. He’s the one who dumped his first wife to marry the younger Cindy Lou Hensely, chairman to the Anheuser-Busch company, and we’ve all heard the “He doesn’t know how many house he owns” jokes… I could really talk about this stuff all day, so I’ll just move on for now.
Movies
Then:
Audiences were being treated to such cinematic masterpieces as Bad Boys 2 star Martin Lawrence’s Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins, the limited released The Hottie and the Nottie and yet another film featuring 90 minutes or so of Matthew McConaughey with his shirt off probably known to most as Fool’s Good. It was certainly a hard time for movie goers unless you were the type that kept an eye on the indie circuit, In Bruges was the film to see in that case, but February 08, especially the week of the 13th was hard for all of us.
Now:
Early September often appears to be a dumping ground for a lot of flicks that couldn’t cut the summer market, that’s not always the case, but nothing to thrilling has been released yet. This weekend saw the release of Bangkok Dangerous starring Nicolas Cage as an assassin I guess, but an interesting thing to note is that after this weekend, this film is the biggest box office flop in five years. Yep that’s right, not since 2003’s Dickie Roberts Former Child Star has a film opened at the top of the box office with such a low gross. Hopefully the box office will pick up with the new Coen brothers flick next week or De Niro and Pacino’s upcoming collaboration. October and November look pretty good so far as well for movie releases.
Television
Then:
The Writer’s Strike had finally come to an end and America would once again get to enjoy such fine quality programming as Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Survivor: Micronesia.
Now:
The Fall season is just around the corner, which is always a nice treat after the dried up summer season. As of right now I’m not sure whether they’ll be anything new worth watching, not even “Fringe” whatever that’s supposed to be. I’m pretty critical of new shows, so maybe something will surprise me.
Music
Then:
Nothing notable in February, I probably would of still been grooving off of Vampire Weekend’s debut album, which still continues to grow on me. I’m not sure if I like it more than My Morning Jacket’s Evil Urges, on the subject of music in 2008, but I just might.
Now:
After a relatively hot summer with releases from bands like Coldplay, My Morning Jacket, Beck and other stuff like that. This early September has cooled down a little bit, at least for my musical tastes. I eagerly look forward to Kings of Leon’s new album Only By the Night to be released September 23 here in the U.S. Swedish trio Peter, Bjorn and John will as well be releasing their new album “Seaside Rock” on September 23. I haven’t heard any cuts yet but I very much enjoyed their last album, so that’ll be swell. My favorite foreign language band Dungen will be releasing their fifth album on September 29 titled “4” for some reason. I don’t know anyone else who really knows them, but if you like psychedelic stuff it’s worth a peak. October, at least for me, will be pretty great with new albums from Oasis, Kaiser Chiefs and Keane, this will be a pretty rockin’ fall season.
Video Games:
Then
:I can’t much vouch for what had come out then, plus us Cat Fancy guys you know we got classes and stuff at colleges and what not, every time we had the chance we were probably playing Rock band.
Now
: I can’t say too much for games as of this moment, but I’m certainly eager to play the upcoming Rock Band 2. I don’t play to many other games these days, but I actually think Will Wright’s latest venture Spore looks neat. I hear there’s supposedly a lot of good games coming out this fall/winter but I’m honestly too lazy to check that out. Perhaps Sean can fill in the readers about that sometime.
Sports:
Then
Eh We were all just chilling, getting ready for Valentines Day. I really can’t think of anything sports related to discuss for February. I guess the Giants had beat Goody two-shoes Tom Brady and his precious Pats earlier that month, good for them.
Now
: Aside from some recent highlights such as, Adrian Beltre hitting for the cycle, and the dawn of Brandon Morrow, the Mariners ran out steam long ago and are now just trying to take it one day at a time.
In the world of football, the Seahawks blew their opening game against the Buffalo Bills, who finished 7-9 last year, but with Running Backs Deion Branch and Bobby Engram out it didn’t look good going in. To worsen the situation Nate Burleson was as well injured in the crushing 34-10 Seahawks loss. I really hope this isn’t a sign of a bad season, we’ll just have to wait and see.
That’s about as much as I’ll go into for now, nothing here too exciting, I just wanted our 200th post to mean something, something important, Otteni out.