American Gothic

How appropriate that in midst of “Shocktober” a show like this premieres on television? The latest from Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk the creators of Nip/Tuck and ugh Glee have returned to FX with their latest off the wall series American Horror Story. Did I say off the wall? What I meant to say is that when it comes to shows like this there are no walls. I have mixed feelings about this A.D.D Amityville Horror-like series but if there’s one thing I know for sure I’ve never seen a show like this.

The premise is your average haunted house scenario; a family already with some tension brewing under the surface looking for a fresh start blah blah, haunted house. Connie Brtton of Friday Night Lights fame stars as Vivien Harmon a former concert cellist still trying to get over a tragic miscarriage and her husband’s unfaithfulness. AS Vivien’s cheating husband Ben you have The Practice’s Dylan McDermott, a psychiatrist who also sleepwalks. Along with their daughter Violet (Taissa Farmiga) the three purchase a moody house in Los Angeles with a dark past. By dark past I mean murder, murder, and some more murder which they are all told about by a series of unusual locals, the most notable being Jessica Lange as Constance an intrusive and almost sinister-like neighbor of the family.

What follows is typical fright fest fare with mysterious sounds, sights, and hallucinations but there’s nothing typical about the way this show is presented. AHS for one has some of the most erratic quick paced editing I’ve ever seen. I assume the effect here is to give the viewer a an unnerving and disjointed experience, a gimmick I like and don’t like it. Frenetic editing in scenes that are intended to be all out crazy are a thrill. You’ll most likely just be sitting there scratching your head and asking yourself “What the hell did I just see?” That’s fun, but in moderation in normal conversation scenes it’s just simply annoying. In a way you could say this show is trying too hard not just visually but also with pacing. I get the feeling that they don’t want anyone to ever be bored so they keep loading us up with crazy images and crazy sounds. What the crew behind AHS don’t seem to realize is that sometimes viewers need more of the slower moments to create a balance, that way it will strengthen the intensity of the more intense moments.

Story wise everything is simple enough though I can definitely see this as a show that has the potential to get needlessly complicated. The fact that Dylan McDermott sleepwalks and sees things could get a little out of hand but for now it’s fine. For the most part I enjoyed the story and the characters who are all ably performed by a talented cast. Connie Britton is perhaps the standout but one can’t deny that Jessica Lange is successful when it comes to dealing out the heebie jeebies. I liked the large assortment of oddballs and nutjobs that the family encountered and look forward to what other weirdos will show up.

If the folks behind AHS really want ensure the success of this show I’d recommend they slow things down a little, though I doubt that will happen. It’s hard to see how a haunted house show will continually stay fresh or plausible. Already I’m wondering “Why don’t they just live somewhere else this place is insane!” But if they keep things under control it could work. I don’t know how much longer I’ll keep with this show considering how annoyed I am by the overuse of flashy visuals, that’s either one of those I’m going to get used to or not get used to. American Horror Story is a somewhat fun addition to FX’ already diverse lineup and though I didn’t love it I liked that it was different and I’ll probably check it out at least a few more times.

R.I.P. Steve Jobs

Every single day, everyone at Mildly Pleased uses an Apple product. Personally, I spend most of my day with Apple products, between all the work I do on my iMac and all the procrastinating I do with my iPhone. Steve Jobs has been the face of Apple for so long it’s easy to think of him as the man responsible for all that they’ve accomplished. That would be forgetting all the hard work that plenty of others put into each product they’ve launched, but it shows how prolific an individual he was.

I first took notice of Apple when Mac OS X came out. Before that, they were just the weird alternative computers that I saw in schools and the occasional household. But Mac OS X struck me for its UI. After years of looking at bland, grey desktops, Apple Aqua theme was amazing. It was so colorful and clean. That was enough to get me interested in Macs, and I started altering my Windows machine to emulate the Macintosh interface. Windows XP was a big step forward for Microsoft and a revolutionary OS in its own right, but we’ve had two versions of Windows since then. Apple is still iterating on OS X.

I never liked portable CD players. I tended to buy ones with skipping problems, or maybe I was just an irresponsible portable CD player owner. By junior high, most of the music I was listening to was on my computer, thanks to the magic of ripping CDs and the brief revolution of Napster. I was too lazy to burn CDs most of the time, so music was not that big a part of my life. Worse, I was stuck using the clunky Windows Media Player or the so-flexible-it-was-intimidating WinAmp for my musical needs. Then, and I clearly remember this day in 2003, Apple finally released iTunes for Windows. Obviously this was the logical, money-making move, but I thought it an extraordinary gift. What benevolence from them, to give me access to this amazing musical store and resource-hogging application! iTunes has been my only media player since. I bought my first song, “I Believe in a Thing Called Love” in March of 2004 using a Pepsi bottle cap. I haven’t bought a CD, aside from a souvenir in Japan, since. I got an iPod, a used third generation model, for Christmas. At the time, it was the coolest thing I owned, even though people were walking around with the cool color-screened fourth generation ones already. That iPod I have replaced three times, but it is still used by the family.

It was my birthday and a schoolday when my family gifted me my first Mac. A PowerBook G4, a real beauty. They gave it to me in the morning and I barely got to use it before I had to leave to go miss the bus. I waited all day for the chance to go home and play with my laptop again. At the time, I already had my own computer, a PC my dad had helped me build that was superior to my PowerBook in every way, from a technical standpoint. But instantly my Mac became my default machine. I used it every day up until my birthday in 2008, when I got my second Mac, the iMac I am writing this post on. That PowerBook has been used well beyond reason, but I can’t let it go. If it were a PC, I’m sure I’d have disposed of it long ago.

My first iPhone, now Nancy’s phone, was the most amazing thing. Imagine, a device that could deliver to me all the world’s information. That could connect me with anyone I was looking for. “There’s an app for that” might sound a little contrived to us now, but if you think of it, it’s pretty extraordinary. I walk around with technology today that would have seemed outlandish by science fiction standards just a few years ago. Time and time again, Apple has amazed me with the products they put out. I balked at the iPad, but like it or not, it’s changing the face of computers. I wouldn’t have predicted that, but Steve Jobs did.

That’s the insight and leadership the world will be missing today. Because you simply cannot deny his track record. After starting Pixar and returning to Apple, Steve Jobs led the company to Mac OS X, the iPod, iTunes, iPhone and the iPad. He turned dreams into reality. He was one of the most involved and beloved CEOs of all time. And he’ll be missed.

Behind the Music: Bond Edition

This post doesn’t really have anything to do with anything relevant, I’ve just always wanted to share this. Not that this blog needs anymore Alice Cooper related posts (I still got one later for Shocktober, sorry) but I thought it would be just as good as time as any to talk about something that I discovered while watching Bond films last summer.

So last summer I was reading about all the Bond themes when I discovered that who else but the Alice Cooper Band recorded their own Bond song once. The year was 1973 and knowing that Man with the Golden Gun would be the next Bond film Cooper and his boys recorded a song called “Man with the Golden Gun” with the hope that they could get the attention of Bond producers. However the song never really took off as a single and the Bond producers instead opted a song written by Bond composer John Barry and sung by Scottish singer Lulu. So for fun I thought I’d compare both versions in videos I found that have each song set to the opening credits.

First I present the song by Lulu that the producers went with.

And now the version by the Alice Cooper Band.

Going with Lulu was probably the safe decision (whatever safe is supposed to mean) but I like Cooper’s version. Though seeing as I am a Cooper fan I suppose I’m somewhat biased. What do you think?

Webcomics!

Good news everyone, I’ve finally got the webcomics aspect of the site mostly working! This took a while, since I basically had to learn PHP and all sorts of fun backend stuff that most real websites just hire out to professionals. If you didn’t already know, the main reason we moved from Da Morgue Dot Org to here is because John and I wanted to get started on this webcomic. And now we have. Now I just have to keep inking and coloring these babies. For the rest of my life…

As a bonus, the image you see here is one of two deleted scenes from our inaugural strip. What do you think? Pretty cool, eh? We made that. Now you could make that, I don’t know, your iPhone wallpaper.

Zeptember: John’s Top Ten

I love to let the led out and I had a blast revisiting one of my favorite artists to make this list, so I hope you have your share of good times (hopefully not bad times) reading this post. Let’s get those hedgerow’s bustlin’!

10. Boogie with Stu
Leave it to Led Zeppelin to take a typical blues progression and make it their own. John Bonham’s drums are machine-like yet infectious with that big echoey sound he was so well known for and Stone’s pianist Ian Stewart aka “Stu” sure honks that tonk. I also find it interesting it’s one of the few recordings to feature Robert Plant on acoustic guitar while Jimmy plucks away on a mandolin. ‘Tis a recipe for boogiein’!

9. Misty Mountain Hop
I think you’ll find more than a few of my picks contain Bonham’s biggest beats and this is no exception. Carried by a chunky rhythm and John Paul Jones’ effortlessly cool electric piano it moves along with so much funk. Plant impresses with his soaring shrieks and Lord of the Rings lyrics and Page… Well Page is Page. Book closed.

8. The Song Remains the Same
Somehow the first Zeppelin CD I owned was The Best of Zeppelin: Latter Days Vol. 2 and seeing that this marks the opening of that compilation it has a special place down in here (points to chest.) It was songs like this where I couldn’t even begin to wrap my mind around all the different ideas that must’ve been floating around in Page’s head. Here we have a song constantly changing tempo, different parts and instrumental breaks and propelled by an army of guitars all doing something unique and compelling. The band couldn’t be any tighter on a song that would be too complex for any non-prog rock band of the time, it’s really something.

7. Since I’ve Been Loving You
One of the most powerful blues recordings I can think of. All four members bring so much technical skill to the song but even more passion. Page delivers in my opinion one of his all-time best performances as he more or less solos through the whole seven minutes. Of course, Plant delivers another one of his iconic, possibly improvised vocal performances. I’m (Since I’ve Been) Lovin’ it!

6. Bron-Y-Aur Stomp
Sometimes it’s the simple things in life that you cherish the most, at least that’s how I feel about Bonham’s bass drum. One of Bonham’s most basic percussion parts makes this song a real toe-tapper. On the other side of the spectrum, you have Page playing an intricate acoustic guitar in who knows what tuning and Plant delivering a sneaky melody. I just want to sing with them!

5. Trampled Under Foot
I remember when that horrible Finger Eleven song “Paralyzer” came out and I said “It’s just a ripoff of Take Me Out by Franz Ferdinand.” Then I remember being reminded of Take Me Out’s similarity to Trampled Under Foot and then reading that Trampled Under Foot was inspired by a Robert Johnson song. All that aside I like to think it was the Zeppelin rendition that so firmly buried itself in the minds of others who just couldn’t help but rip it off. You can thank John Paul Jones for providing the funk with a clavinet performance that could make Stevie Wonder see again and the rest is pure Zeppelin. Finger Eleven sucks.

4. Immigrant Song
If the Norse gods ever come down from Valhalla to rocketh our world this will be their theme. With Plant’s howls and epic lyrics about Vikings this is an iconic Zeppelin tune built around one of their best riffs. It’s a song that marches along at a perfect rock pace and one of the songs that would best define the sheer power of the hammer of the gods.

3, Houses of the Holy
Maybe it says something about one’s affection for a song when they can say they’re hooked in the first three seconds. At least that’s how I’ve always felt about the riff that dominates the song “Houses of the Holy.” It’s so simple and yet so Zeppelin with the distinct sound of the guitar, bass, drums, and vocals. There’s not much to say, because I’m running out of ideas of what to write about.

2. When the Levee Breaks
I think it’s obvious at this point a great Bonham beat will always hook me. In the way of “Bonham beats” this has to be the best. Definitely the biggest sounding. IIt’s Bonham’s strive for simple, raw power over complexity that has made him my favorite rock and roll drummer and this is one of my favorite Zeppelin tracks. In addition to this, “When the Levee Breaks” contains one of the most badass harmonica sounds that’s ever been captured. It sounds like a god damn freight train! Page and Jones drone on with a western style guitar and bass and Plant brings the swagger, an excellent finale to arguably Zeppelin’s best album.

1. Over the Hills and Far Away
What can I say? It holds such a dear place in my heart after playing and recording it in The Defenestrators. It has that whimsical acoustic first half that launches into a rockin’ riff. I heard John Paul Jones interviewed on the radio once where he stated that this was his favorite Zeppelin song to play live and I completely understand. It’s a great example of the group’s ability to play off of each other.

It’s tough to dissect one of your favorite bands but I’m satisfied with my choices. The only song I felt bad about cutting is “Friends” one of my favorite examples of “Experimental Zeppelin”. If I had to name my favorite Zeppelin album I’d probably go for the surprising yet honest choice of Led Zeppelin III. It was the first Zeppelin CD I bought after their greatest hits and shows so many sides to the band. It has their acoustic side, their bluesy side, their rock side and everything in between, that’s the way I like my music.

See ya next time, over the hills and hopefully far away.

Welcome To Zeptember

With summer finally behind us, it’s about time we actually start posting on a semi-regular basis, and what better way to lead us into that than a theme week followed by the post orgy that is Shocktober. This year our theme of choice is that of the mighty Led Zeppelin, a band that we all hold pretty near and dear to our hearts. Unlike Beatles week we don’t really have something as awesome as Beatles Rock Band to do it on honor of (though we can keep hoping for Zeppelin Rock Band). But hey, Zeptember’s a pretty cool name, even if it’s not completely original, and I can’t wait to see what everybody’s favorite Zeppelin songs are.

So this is how I think this whole thing should work out:

Tuesday: John’s Top Ten Led Zeppelin Songs
Wednesday: Sean’s Top Ten
Thursday: Mine
Friday: Nancy’s
Saturday: Who Knows!

Maybe Kevin can figure out something to do, though I’m not sure Kevin knows what a Led Zeppelin is.

I wish I could think of a Led Zeppelin pun to end this on, but not that many of their lyrics are very memorable. So, uh, let’s hope our songs don’t remain the same.

It’s a Good Time to be Pissed at Nintendo

This monstrosity is the Nintendo 3DS Slide Pad add-on. It’s probably the biggest news out of TGS, even though Nintendo announced it before the event and pictures were leaked out before that. If you’ve never seen a 3DS before and you’re wondering why it looks so bulky and lopsided, let me tell you what’s new. The Slide Pad add-on grips onto your 3DS, surrounding your previously sleek system’s lower half, adding new shoulder buttons and, notably, a second circle pad. Never mind that it laughs at symmetry and aesthetics, new buttons!

When I first saw this thing, I was flustered, but I took solace in knowing that its announcement was in conjunction with the new, 3DS-exclusive Monster Hunter game. That franchise is massive in Japan, it turned the PSP into a success over there. So I could understand Nintendo bending over backwards to secure what could become its new console’s biggest hit. But, when Nintendo showed the Slide Pad off at its pre-TGS show, it confirmed that the add-on will be used by multiple upcoming games. And the news just got worse from there.

Probably the most remarkably terrible thing about the Slide Pad is that it takes a battery. You’d think with something stupid like this, they could at least build additional battery power into the device, helping to overcome the 3DS’ most obvious flaw. But no, Nintendo expects me to find a freakin’ AAA battery for it. And I can’t use my sweet 3DS dock with this monstrosity either. Boo!

More importantly, the Slide Pad goes against the concept of the 3DS. It doesn’t need a second analogue stick because it has the touch screen. Every single DS game compensated for that, and that limitation made DS games unique and popular. With a second analogue stick, developers don’t necessarily need to use touch anymore. What does that leave us with? A less powerful PlayStation Vita with headache power.

But as someone who bought the 3DS after Nintendo dropped its price, I feel betrayed. When I bought the system, I knew battery power was an issue and I knew a new iteration of the system was inevitable. I accepted that. Now my handheld has to either become an abomination or incompatible with the future of its software lineup. Now when they come out with a new 3DS revision, which they haven’t announced but you know is coming, it will essentially be a relaunch of the system. As a consumer, I have never felt so completely fucked over by a company that I previously trusted. I can think of no other peripheral in gaming history that is as damning as the 3DS Slide Pad. So I’m pretty pissed. Nintendo’s going to have to come up with something pretty extraordinary to make this 3DS Ambassador come back home.