Golly Jeepers...

Where'd you get those peepers?

Peepshow, freakshow, where'd you get those eyes?

Peekaboo cover by Bertie Blackman

Originally by Siouxsie & the Banshees

Give me a minute to brush the dust off.

Hello!

I've come back from the dead (I got better), and while school seems to be taking over every spare moment of my life at the moment, hopefully in the foreseeable future I'll be able to spend more time on here, and less time writing essays (and playing Red Dead Redemption...). If I'm lucky I might even have the time during the September holidays to redo the blogger template and start showing off some of the stuff I've been doing while I've been gone (mostly essays. But interesting stuff as well).

So I'll see you again once I have my life back. For now, I give you this:

Oh Halloween!

the blood you drew

you carved a space to climb into
and like a lantern, like a pyre,
I burn, I burn with holy fire.

Check out Washington's 'How To Tame Lions' while you're at it.

My Tiny Chicken Army

I can't be the only one who finds these things creepy, surely.
Look at them. With their EYES!

Ricky Swallow

Tusk

 I know that I, personally, would like to have skeletal arms on my wall. However I'd probably end up using them as coat racks, which I don't think the artist, Ricky Swallow, had in mind.

Everything is Nothing

Venn Diagram of the Dead

Had this saved on my hard drive for awhile now.

If you know who it belongs to give me a heads up.

Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na, BATRING!

I was going to write something really intelligent for this post but then I found these and they're much more interesting than anything I have to say. Also prettier.

Stainless Steel Bat Design Ring : Dark Knight Puzzle Ring

Putting The Fun In

Took this on the weekend. Also got some nice shots of the funeral parlour, hopefully I'll get to upload them sometime this week.

Putting The Fun In

Explosive

Looking for some nice x-rays of horrific injuries? Check out radiologist Surfactant's flickr stream, which includes gunshot wounds, things where they really don't belong (shotglass, anyone?), and my personal favourite, Hand Trauma, which you see above, where a homemade explosive exploded before it was thrown.

There's also some neat pictures of shells and other objects that are worth checking out.

Via wasteofbaco.

Meet Google

From Wednesday night's episode of Hungry Beast.

Australian people with TVs (and who also watch ABC) might have seen the show before.

It's a bit of a news/current affairs show, with a few comedy sketches thrown in for good measure.

My favourite part has to be the Beast Files, which you can watch above, where they make pretty pictures out of occasionally scary facts.

Ten points if you can guess the shape they're making before they've zoomed out.

Gustav Doré

An illustrator from the 1800's, Gustav Doré used painting, engraving and drawing to illustrate a myriad of works, with the prettiest (in my opinion) being those from The Raven (above), Paradise Lost (bottom right) and The Divine Comedy (bottom left).

These are really worth viewing larger, the detail is amazing.

View a gallery of his art here.

Logic by Operator Please

Australians will know of Operator Please, even if just for their irritating single 'Just A Song About Ping Pong', and England/Europe might know them for the infinitely better 'Get What You Want', but I think most of you will have no idea who they are.

The band members are only a few years older than I am, which always tends to make you wonder why you haven't played Leeds and Reading Festival yet, if they have.

Anyway, this is the first single from their second album, and pretty awesome. The projection effects look like something that'd be interesting to try out as well. 

Hurt by Johnny Cash

Okay, so I'm two days late for the anniversary of his birthday, but that's not important.

I was not aware they'd made a video for his cover of NIN's 'Hurt' until this morning, when they played it on a countdown of the 500 best music videos. It placed around 54ish, which is pretty impressive considering that it was on Channel [V], which is watched predominantly by 13-28 year olds.

Ron Mueck & Puppetses

 

 I was informed today that they're having an exhibition of Ron Mueck's giant half-naked people at the NGV in Melbourne. I'm told the only real way to experience his artwork is to see it in person but unfortunately it looks as though I won't get the chance, as the exhibition closes Sunday.

However, while I'm using Ron Mueck as a reference in my art folio (school again. I'll be interesting soon, I promise), it's not his giant naked people that interest me the most, but his other work. Once upon a time Mueck was a prop-maker and puppeteer, and he worked on the Jim Henson's Labyrinth, not only making a certain puppet, but doing the voice.

Now if they had his Ludo puppet in the exhibition I'd be there for sure.

For those who are interested, there's a video of Mueck making one of his giant people here.

Paper Street Soap Co.

 

Writing a desgin brief is a pain. Writing a design brief from the point of view of a fictional company from a movie you really like is much more interesting. But still a pain.

As well as studying Art this year, I'm also undertaking Visual Communication & Design, and part of your 'do this to pass' is that you've got to pretend that a company has approached you to do something for them.

Anyone who's seen (or read) Fight Club will know Paper Street Soap Company.

For those who don't, Tyler Durden makes soap from the fat that's dumped from liposuction clinics and sells it to rich people. I believe the remark about it is something along the lines of:

"We're selling rich ladies their own fat asses back to them."

 I'm pretending Paper Street is a proper company that just make fancy soaps, and thus far my teacher seems to not have picked up on it. Shame.

Anyways, in searching for a witty name for their latest collection of soaps, I found the Paper Street Soap Company website, which is full of wonderful in-jokes (hover over those little circles for links). And then I remembered that Last Exit To Nowhere, maker of wonderful movie-nerd shirts, has a PSSC t-shirt.

Available here, which I've been wanting for awhile.

Of Questions On Clays

I appeal to those of you with experience makin' stuffs. I know you're out there.

This year for art I'm required to make at least two artworks for my final folio presentation, and I'm planning on doing some anatomy/human body type sculptures.

I'd like to make one slightly bigger than A4 sized, length and width wise, and the other I'd hope to make about the size of an actual torso. I've used basic terracotta clays before in class, and the results were pretty good, but I've no longer got access to a kiln, wherein my problem lies.

I'm looking for a relatively cheap clay (or clay-like substance) that doesn't require kiln firing, and can be painted and perhaps varnished, something to that effect. Air dry would be a bonus, as well as light-weight, but I'm willing to pass those up for a better alternative.

Your help is much appreciated and willing particpants won't have their brains stolen in the night.

Unless you're into that kind of thing.

Not-A-Sci-Fi Sunday: The Wolfman

'Kay, so... The Wolfman is not a sci-fi movie but for once I actually saw a film within a short time of it coming out and I feel the need to share. Also my DVD player is possessed, but more on that at a later date.

The movie begins with a man walking through a dark fog-laden forest, freaking out at every noise, gun in hand. Something is after him and DUN DUN DUN he gets ripped apart by a big bad monster. It's probably the most tension you'll feel throughout the movie, with some nice pacing and good music cues. Expectations are raised. You think, hey, maybe this'll be pretty good after all. Depending on how high your expectations are, you might be right. But probably not.

We discover that the walking in the fog man was Ben Talbot, and his widow Gwen (Emily Blunt) writes a letter to his estranged brother/Shakespearean actor Lawrence Talbot (Benicio del Toro) beginning him to come back and help them find him, because at this stage he's merely missing to the good people of Small English Town. 

When Lawrence arrives, he's greeted by the corpse of his dead brother, as well as some small-town politics ("It's the gypsies!"). Lawrence decides to go investigate and visits the gypsy camp just as the angry townspeople arrive to chase the gypsies out of town, bringing with them a nice big full moon. Cue wolfie.

Big beasty circles the camp, taking out villagers one by one before just going nuts, and ripping everything/everyone to shreds. The best moment occurs when after hearing noises coming from a gypsy van, one of the men goes over, all casual-like, to have two wolf claws shoved into the underside of his jaw, with the fingers/claws coming out through his mouth, before he's pulled into the van and cut into tiny pieces. It ellicted an 'ooh' response just for the imaginative use of claws alone.

Lawrence gets chased by wolfie who then bites him but is scared off by Men With Guns. He's taken to the gypsy healer who sews him back up (in real nice detail), while the gypsies argue that she should just let him die. She doesn't, obviously.

This is around about the point where my attention started to wander. The slaughtering scenes are quite entertaining to watch but all the storyline in between is just a bit hollow. There's some great villiany from Talbot Snr (Hannibal Lector Anthony Hopkins), and the awesome Inspector Aberline (Agent Smith Hugo Weaving), who was the highlight, for me, although my mind kept making Matrix references where del Toro was Neo and that was quite distracting. You never really care about the characters' plights though, because well, you just don't. You've got some excellent actors and great scenery, sets and costumes but there's no real emersion in the movie at all. And so when the big dramatic climax arrives, you find yourself wishing they create as much carnage as possible so you can see some more disembowlings.

I saw The Wolfman with two friends - all of us female, between the ages of 17 and 23 - and I'm not sure what it is other than the possibility that we're a bit sick, but... we didn't find it scary, just kinda funny.

And we might have just maybe laughed through a lot of the not-at-all funny moments, such as the attack on the gypsy camp, the human to wolf transformations, the Wolfman vs Wolfman end battle which looks a bit more like wookie vs wookie and that weird wolfboy who looked a hell of a lot like Gollum.

There are a few jump scares that caught out a couple of audience members, but a lot of them are so predictable you can spot them from a mile away. And when the evil doctor-man says that Lawrence turning into a werewolf is as likely as him sprouting wings and flying out the window, you better believe he gets thrown out the window once Lawrence turns.

And then impaled on a fence!

All that said and done, I really enjoyed The Wolfman - just for all the wrong reasons. It was entertaining and funny and the music was pretty good, but the best part about it had to be the sets, scenery and costumes. There's so many great foggy woodland areas and the dilapidated mansion and mausoleum are so well done, that's it's almost worth watching the movie to see those things alone.

A classic, this movie is not, but it's worth renting the DVD or going to the movies if you've got some time to kill to see it, and confirm if my friends and I should go see a therapist or something.

Temple Run

I thought I'd share with you one of the more successful runs from Legends of the Hidden Temple.

Rarely did teams make it out of the temple after completing the Shrine of the Silver Monkey, either running out of time or getting caught by the Temple Guards.

Ideally your team would have both Pendants of Life (won from previous games), so that when captured by a guard, you'd be able to trade it in order to keep going. With three guards hiding throughout the temple, a team with both pendants would be able to survive the guards, who could only attack once (first player exchanges a token for life, but gets caught by the second, then second player exchanges a token for a life with the third), and it would only be a matter of running out of time. 

I probably spent a lot of a time as a kid checking hallways for hidden doors so that I'd be prepared in case of attack by Temple Guard. Which probably explains a lot.

Nickelodeon Vs The Winter Olympics

By Madatoms. Via mypopculturebrain 

I say bring back Legends of the Hidden Temple.

The final temple maze level always had me in awe as a kid - unfortunately I was too young to watch LOTHT during it's original run (1993-95), seeing as I was born in '92, but I was lucky enough to catch the end of the golden age of Nickelodeon, not to mention plenty of repeats.

Miami Metro & A Cocktail Party

You would think that from all the shirts I've posted and talked about in the past, that I would always be seen in them, but in fact the opposite is true. Rarely am I seen out in the wild wearing a tshirt. Or pants.

Because I'm a more fancy shirts, skirts and dresses type of person lately, rather than a nudist.

However, if I were to wear tshirts, these are the ones I'd be wearing:

From ThinkGeek and Split Reason, respectively, these two shirts both highlight two of my favourite things:

Showtime's Dexter -the serial killer with a conscience- and Valve's Left 4 Dead.

But not L4D2. Because I still don't own it, and most likely won't own it until I can get my hands on a non-censored version. What's the point if you can't dismember zombies, build giant piles of their bodies and set them on fire?

Anyway. Go buy shirts. Better yet, go buy me shirts.

Happy "I didn't get a Valentine" Day

Now, before we start, it'd be supercool if everyone actually watched the video I linked to in the For Future Reference post, but if you haven't, then this will (most likely) make no sense to you at all. 

If you can't be bothered watching the whole thing but still want to know what's going on, then this is the link again, and watch from around the 4 minute 20 mark.

 

 Valentine's Day is a holiday I appreciate more in theory than I do in practise. If you're in a couple, there's too much pressure to choose the right gift and to make everything perfect. If you're single it can be incredibly depressing to be surrounded by other people's flowers, chocolates and happiness.

A quick chat to my friends revealed that even those in a relationship were hating on the holiday - something which, despite my distaste for it, I found rather disheartening. 

So, drawing on a shared love for a certain crazy drunken Irish man who owns a bookstore (Bernard Black), I decided I'd make an Black Books referencing anti-Valentine card.

Also I really wanted a use for the accordion sketches I've been doing lately.

 

 The front of the cards read (in case you can't read my awful handwriting):

I've come to serenade you.

I can't play guitar.

I can't play this either, 

but I thought it would be less obvious.

While the inside reads:

Happy "I didn't get a Valentine" Day

More Brian Ewing

 

Hi-res here and here

Hanging on my wall I have the 'red girl' poster. I've had it for awhile now, and only yesterday did I notice the brianewing.com in the bottom right hand corner. If you recall, I talked about the Brian Ewing/Crankbunny card two days ago, but I didn't actually take the time to search through his entire gallery.

In fact, I didn't even wait for the page to load fully, you'll notice there's another version of the umbrella girl on the bottom half of the page. 

Anyway, I've just discovered that you actually get the posters in a pair. 'Red girl' was given to me by a friend, and as far as I'm aware, they don't have the 'blue girl' twin, so... what happened to the other umbrella girl?

And more importantly, why don't I have it?

The Rib Cage Card

If you've been playing along, you'll remember this picture of a valentines day card I posted.
When you open it up, you get this:

 

These cards were the result of a collaboration between awesome artist Brian Ewing and pretty paper thing makers Crankbunny.

The red foil heart has to be scratched away to reveal the message beneath, and while this message may be a bit too soppy for most of you, then you'll be happy to know that there's a choice of one of five pre-made phrases, or you can write your own in 25 characters or less.

Despite their limited editioness, they appear to still be in stock from the Crankbunny website.

For Future Reference

Quick everyone, go watch this video so that later on I can make a reference to it and you'll all find it witty rather than just really weird because you've never seen a single episode of Black Books.

Of course, if you've never seen an episode of Black Books, you should go educate yourself immediately anyways.

So either way you're doing yourself a favour here. 

No, really. Don't look at me like that.

If you truly would like to educate yourself in the ways of Black Books, I suggest you start at the beginning, and then when you get to the end, stop.

Now, to stop you from never visiting the blog again, look, pretty thing!

Which I'll tell you more about next post.

Letters to Dead People

 

Some are funny, while other are lovely and nerdy, and sometimes they're a bit sad.

Letters to Dead People writes open letters to, you guessed it, dead people.

  You can send in a suggestion (of a dead person to write to), or you can write your own and hope you're lucky enough to get yours made into a 'Dead Letter'.

P.S. How childish is it's been two, three days since I saw it but I'm still laughing at the Freud one?

Black and WTF

I've talked before about how old black and white photos are awesome.

I'm saying it again because 1: I've got an incredibly limited vocabulary, so I just repeat the same phrases ad nauseam, sometimes word for word.

and 2: it's true.

Black and WTF collects people's weird old black and white photos, from freaky long haired horses to freaky long haired men, and many other pictures sans freaky looking long haired stuff.

And you thought your old family photos were bad.

Horror Science

From a series of ads for Science World.

As part of the 'fight or flight' response, pupils dilate (amongst a myriad of other reactions) to allow you better sight.

Because science is awesome.

Via Superpunch. 

More about the Fight or Flight response at Wikipedia.

Month of Music: The End is the Beginning is the End by the Smashing Pumpkins

For my last song collection, I bring you on of the few reasons to watch Batman & Robin.
...Set to footage from Batman Begins.
Because, well... I think you can make your own nipple-suit jokes by now.

And with that, the Month of Music draws to a close.

Was it good for you?

Month of Music: Science Fiction/Double Feature

I don't think anyone needs this explained to them, other than it's awesome.
But then again, you should already know that.

Summer television is still being awful so I'm still watching movies instead.

Month of Music: Marche Funèbre by Chopin

While my favourite piece of classical music will probably always be Grieg's 'Hall of the Mountain King', anything Chopin wrote comes in a close second.
This piece is his 'Funeral March' played by Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli.

Month of Music: Bela Lugosi's Dead Cover

Another cover!

This is by a band called Nouvelle Vague, who do wonderfully French covers of songs.

Their covers get used a ridiculously large amount of times, so chances are, if you've ever heard a lounge or bossa-nova style cover of an 80's song, it's one of theirs.

Month of Music: Little Lion Man by Mumford & Sons

Before we start: Bad word warning.


It's nice to see someone rocking the banjo.
Also, check out the multitasking by the vocalist/guitarist, who's also playing kick drum and tambourine at the same time.

Month of Music: Triple J's Hottest 100

I posted Triple J's Hottest 100 list this day last year, but I must say, this year's list is far better than the last.

I was especially happy with number one, which I had actually chosen for tomorrow's music month post.

#1 Little Lion Man - Mumford & Sons
#2 Parlez Vous Francais? - Art vs. Science
#3 Chase That Feeling - Hilltop Hoods
#4 Lisztomania - Phoenix
#5 Broken Leg - Bluejuice
#6 Bulletproof - La Roux
#7 Coin Laundry - Lisa Mitchell
#8 Not Fair - Lily Allen
#9 Uprising - Muse
#10 Dog Days Are Over - Florence and the Machine
#11 Heads Will Roll - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
#12 Bonkers - Dizzee Rascal and Armand van Helden
#13 1901 - Phoenix
#14 Sticks 'n' Stones - Jamie T
#15 Home - Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros
#16 Heavy Cross - Gossip
#17 Fire - Kasabian
#18 Shooting Stars - Bag Raiders
#19 Undisclosed Desires - Muse
#20 Sleepyhead - Passion Pit
#21 Fader - The Temper Trap
#22 Cousins - Vampire Weekend
#23 Warp 1.9 - The Bloody Beetroots (ft. Steve Aoki)
#24 Carol Brown - Flight Of The Conchords
#25 Zero - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
#26 Help I'm Alive - Metric
#27 In for the Kill - La Roux
#28 We Won't Run - Sarah Blasko
#29 All I Want - Sarah Blasko
#30 Hurt Feelings - Flight Of The Conchords
#31 The Waitress Song - Seth Sentry
#32 Ramona Was A Waitress - Paul Dempsey
#33 Pursuit of Happiness - Kid Cudi (ft. MGMT & Ratatat)
#34 Brother - Little Birdy
#35 Resistance - Muse
#36 (If You're Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To - Weezer
#37 Still Standing - Hilltop Hoods
#38 Little Secrets - Passion Pit
#39 One Way Road - The John Butler Trio
#40 And the Boys - Angus & Julia Stone
#41 Audacity of Huge - Simian Mobile Disco (ft. Chris Keating)
#42 Vanilla - British India
#43 Awesome - The Bloody Beetroots (ft. The Cool Kids)
#44 Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up) - Florence and the Machine
#45 Drumming Song - Florence and the Machine
#46 Blood Bank - Bon Iver
#47 Set Fire to the Hive - Karnivool
#48 Science of Fear - The Temper Trap
#49 All of the Dreamers - Powderfinger
#50 Buttons (CSS Remix) - Sia
#51 Where Did All The Love Go? - Kasabian
#52 Horchata - Vampire Weekend
#53 Animal - Mike Snow
#54 Crying Lightning - Arctic Monkeys
#55 No You Girls - Franz Ferdinand
#56 Islands - The xx
#57 The Good News - Philadelphia Grand Jury
#58 Love Lost - The Temper Trap
#59 I'm Not Alone - Calvin Harris
#60 22 - Lily Allen
#61 Two Weeks - Grizzly Bear
#62 One More Chance - Bloc Party
#63 All I Know - Karnivool
#64 Blood - The Middle East
#65 Foreign Land - Eskimo Joe
#66 Pictures - Illy
#67 Cement - Washington
#68 Omen - The Prodigy
#69 Meet Me on the Equinox - Death Cab for Cutie
#70 My Girls - Animal Collective
#71 Byrds of Prey - Bertie Blackman
#72 You've Changed - Sia
#73 Heartbreaker - MSTRKRFT (ft. John Legend)
#74 Friend In The Field - Art vs. Science
#75 New Moon Rising - Wolfmother
#76 11th Dimension - Julian Casablancas 

#77 She's a Genius - Jet
#78 Remember Me - Tame Impala
#79 Getting Wise - Yves Klein Blue
#80 Holiday - Dizzee Rascal
#81 The Cave - Mumford & Sons
#82 Sometimes - Miami Horror
#83 Raindrops - Basement Jaxx
#84 United States of Eurasia - Muse
#85 Underdog - Kasabian
#86 Too Many Dicks (On The Dance Floor) - Flight Of The Conchords
#87 The Darkest Side - The Middle East
#88 Creeping Out Sara - NOFX
#89 D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune) - Jay-Z
#90 Kiss With A Fist - Florence and the Machine
#91 I've Got Friends - Manchester Orchestra
#92 Skeleton Boy - Friendly Fires
#93 Thump - Bertie Blackman
#94 Blue Lips - Regina Spektor
#95 Panic Switch - Silversun Pickups
#96 Ghosts N Stuff - Deadmau5
#97 Laughing With - Regina Spektor
#98 New Fang - Them Crooked Vultures
#99 Hell - Tegan and Sara
#100 Wheels - Foo Fighters

(Where the song and artist are highlighted, it leads back to a past post containing a video of that song. If it's just the artist then it's a video of a different song by the artist.)

 

I ended up missing out on listening to the full countdown when my radio broke, only ended up catching the first ten or so. I did, however, realise a few things:

1: I don't listen to the radio enough. If not for the fact my CD player also has a radio function I wouldn't at all.

2: I need to buy more CDs. Well, technically speaking, I don't need more, and I've got no room to put more, but the last time I bought an album was in September.

3: I really don't like Kasabian, no matter how much I try.

Month of Music: Heartbreak Scorsese by Snob Scrilla

From the album 'Day One'

Month of Music: Little Drop of Poison by Tom Waits

The last song from my unintentional Tom Waits movie soundtrack songs triple bill.



This time from Shrek 2.

Month of Music: Underground by Tom Waits

Another Tom Waits song on a movie soundtrack.
However, while yesterday's song choice was from the R-rated Fight Club, today's song is from something a little bit more PG-rated...
Robots.

Month of Music: Goin' Out West by Tom Waits

Summer TV drives me to watch DVDs more than normal.
Summer heat makes me too lazy to get up and search through various rooms of the house to find something new to watch.
So I keep watching the same movie, over and over.
Fight Club is thankfully worth watching and rewatching.
This track, while not as often remembered as The Pixies' 'Where Is My Mind?' during the end of the film, is equally as cool, and played during the first official Fight Club scene in Lou's Tavern.

Month of Music: Help I'm Alive by Metric

Very cool little video.
My only problem with it is that this song is my alarm tone and every time I hear it I feel I should be doing something.

Via Street Anatomy.

Month of Music: A Tribute To Train Wrecks

Now, before you watch this video, you have to bear a few things in mind:



First off the bat, it was two years ago that my brother and I did this. Since then things have changed.
My brother is much much better at playing guitar now. I, on the other hand, got much much worse.
Second, if my memory serves me right, it was recorded on a digital camera. They're not known for their great sound quality.
And third, I'm only posting this because I vaguely mentioned I would in the first post I made and someone had to go and hold me to my word.

Also this goes for about a minute twenty four seconds too long, despite it suddenly cutting out at the end. Feel free to click out or mute the sound at any time.

Month of Music: Access the Animus by Jesper Kyd

While Assassin's Creed II was a far superior game to the first, the soundtrack to the original Assassin's Creed is definitely my favourite. This track is the chase music taken from the track 'Access the Animus', and is my favourite of all the music in the AC world. In game, I take to annoying guards and having them chase me down the street on purpose so that I can listen to the music more often.

Also of note: Ubisoft (makers of AC) have announced they're going to be making an online multiplayer AC game. Thoughts?

Month of Music: Paint It Black Cover

This cover is by the London Symphony Orchestra.



It's fairly epic.

Sci-Fi Sunday: The Thing (1982)

Is that a man in there, or something else?

I think I liked it.

I'm not sure though. The premise was good, and the sociological aspects of it were great, but it was... a bit slow. At times the slow pacing added to the suspense, making you wonder just how long was left, other times it just felt like they'd run out of script and you wondered how long before you left.

Originally, I'd wanted to do a double-feature comparing this to 'The Thing From Another World', but apparently none of the local video stores have even heard of it. This one I already owned, but never watched. I decided I probably should seeing as there is talk of a prequel being filmed this year.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. The special effects, while not brilliant in the world of today, with Avatar's giant blue people, I imagine would be quite impressive in the early eighties, and provided a few "Ew" moments, particularly during the dog explosion, which is more than I can say of a lot of the movies I've watched recently.

Once upon a time, this was a husky.

The film follows the basic plot of 'something strange is found, it turns out to be evil, and it tries to kill everyone' which is a storyline we should all be familiar with by now. As the 'thing' takes the form of whatever it kills, there's no way for anyone to know who's the bad guy, and so the crew of the remote arctic outpost turns on each other in an attempt to stay alive, and to prevent it from reaching the rest of humanity.

Luckily the crew know the basic rule of the unknown evil: Kill it with fire.

Flambé anyone?

Also, I've been resisting the urge to make this joke all day;

"Look deep into the parka"

Month of Music: iBand

The only thing the DS is good for other than the Professor Layton games.

Month of Music: Duel of Fates Remix

While the Imperial March may be the classic piece of music from the franchise, I consider Duel of Fates to be the best. I've said it before, and I'm sticking to my guns blasters on this one.
And so I give you this video, with a remixed Duel of Fates. Enjoy.
Enjoy or I force choke you to death.

Month of Music: Arctic Monkeys - At The Apollo

As I type this, it's about twenty minutes past midnight, making me twenty minutes late (twenty one) for a music post every day. Which makes me sad. Well, not really.
But the reason that I'm late with this post is that SBS is showing the At the Apollo special in full and I got distracted.

This is one of my favourite tracks by the AM, 'Do Me A Favour', and it's equally as great live as it is on the CD, as you can see above.
At The Apollo won an award for best music DVD in 2009, and in another tie-in to a past post, it was directed by Richard Ayoade, who directed the video for 'Heads Will Roll'.

Month of Music: Percussion Gun by White Rabbits

Just listen.

And watch. 'Cause the video's pretty cool too.

Month of Music: Lotion by the Greenskeepers

I love a good pop-culture reference.




The entirety of this song is an allusion to The Silence of the Lamb's Buffalo Bill, for those unaware.
And you know how I love my fictional serial killer pop-culture references.

Month of Music: Clash of the Titans Trailer

The highlight of the half hour of advertisements before Sherlock Holmes was the trailer for Clash of the Titans.
Don't get me wrong - I don't really want to see the movie itself, but this trailer? I could watch it all day.



The editing of the video to the audio is brilliant. The audio in question is a remixed/edited version of 'The Bird and The Worm' by The Used.



It's not my favourite song of theirs, I'm more of the opinion that their first albums were their best, and that this song, being on album #3, wasn't the best they could do.
But in the Clash of the Titans trailer, it was epic.

Month of Music: Sherlock Holmes Soundtrack

Those following my meaningless blathering on twitter would know I saw Sherlock Holmes two days ago.

I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I also thoroughly enjoyed the soundtrack.

 

 I enjoy listening to movie soundtracks while making things, or writing things, or just doing things.

Zimmer is a favourite of mine. His score for The Dark Knight was my super-special favourite, and so it makes me happy to know that according to my intensive research (wikipedia) that Ritchie used it during editing. The actual soundtrack includes the use of banjo, violin, broken piano and this thing. 

You can listen to samples from the album on Amazon, or you can buy it for download there for less than $8.

I, however, am going to hunt down a physical copy of it. Because I like wasting time and money and also because my internet speed is really really slow.

Month of Music: Heads Will Roll by Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Yesterday it was streamers, today glitter and confetti.
Maybe my favourite music video of the last year, it was directed by Richard Ayoade of The IT Crowd and Garth Marenghi's Darkplace. He also plays one of my favourite characters in The Mighty Boosh.

The song itself sounds best as loud as it can go. Trust me.

Month of Music: See You When You Get Here by Lisa Mitchell

A lovely creepy little video.
I really enjoy seeing how music video directors are using different objects to symbolise blood, in this case the streamers, something I've wanted to try and recreate since seeing the video.

More fake blood in tomorrow's music video.

Month of Music: You Give Love A Bad Name Cover

Yep, another cover of an 80's song.
This time around it's Bon Jovi's 'You Give Love A Bad Name', covered by hardcore band Atreyu.

You might want to wait till you're not in the office, around small children or the elderly to listen to this one though. Or grab some headphones. Those listed generally don't enjoy profanity.
But I do because I'm immature. Don't worry though, it's only the intro you need to avoid.

Month of Music: Love Is A Battlefield Cover

I promised you covers of 80's songs, and I wasn't lying.

This cover of Pat Benatar's 80's hit is by Australian band Amity Affliction.

Ignore the awful video, just listen to the audio.

And before you say anything, no, I was not alive when the original was first released.
And yes, I do kind of hate the original. This cover has a wonderful level of tacky, but somehow is still great, perhaps because of it.

Month of Music: The Top 25 Songs of 2009

According to Billboard.

The Black Eyed Peas - Boom Boom Pow
Lady Gaga - Poker Face
Lady Gaga Featuring Colby O'Donis - Just Dance
The Black Eyed Peas - I Gotta Feeling
Taylor Swift - Love Story
Flo Rida - Rright Round
Jason Mraz - I'm Yours
Beyonce - Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)
Kanye West - Heartless
The All-American Rejects - Gives You Hell
Taylor Swift - You Belong With Me
T.I. Featuring Justin Timberlake - Dead And Gone
The Fray - You Found Me
Kings Of Leon - Use Somebody
Keri Hilson Featuring Kanye West & Ne-Yo - Knock You Down
Jamie Foxx Featuring T-Pain - Blame It
Pitbull - I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho)
T.I. Featuring Rihanna - Live Your Life
Soulja Boy Tell 'em Featuring Sammie - Kiss Me Thru The Phone
Jay Sean Featuring Lil Wayne - Down
Miley Cyrus - The Climb
Drake - Best I Ever Had
Kelly Clarkson - My Life Would Suck Without You
Beyonce - Halo
Katy Perry - Hot N Cold

Yeah... what a year for overproduced, autotuned tracks.
Now what if I was to say somebody took all of these, and made them into one song?
And that it was surprisingly good?







DJ Earworm manages to create a great track from 25 of my most hated songs for the year gone by.

Also, was there a popular song last year that didn't feature the word 'down'?

2008's is worth checking out as well.

Month of Music: Papercut Skin by The Matches

I'm going to preface this by saying that I think that The Matches were one of the most underrated bands on the planet.


'Were' being the important word in that sentence. 'Were', because as of July last year, the band announced that they would be going on hiatus. Indefinitely.
They were going to be doing one last set of shows and releasing a rarities CD and then, who knows?
It was after hearing that they were doing their last shows in California that I particularly felt like stabbing myself. You see, a few months prior, they had toured in Australia. And I passed up the show because it was in the middle of a bunch of important tests and I thought that they would be getting rather big soon and would probably come back the next year.
It's funny in that way that slipping and falling really hard is funny.
(you know, in that it's not)


Anyway, great song, great band, great album. The Matches have a habit of taking a song in a completely different direction than you thought, and it's always brilliant. With most bands, there's always those one or two songs that you're not so fond of. Doesn't happen here. Every song is amazing. I wanted to recommend one or two for you guys to look up, but I can't choose.

Go buy all their albums. All of you. Maybe then they'll come back from their hiatus.

Now For Something Completely Different

from PostRejects.

Like the vast majority of people on the internet, I quite enjoy Mr Python and that grand old "Flying Circus" of his. However I have found that this is a fairly uncommon trait of people my age. They do exist, but most have only seen The Holy Grail, and I find that to be a bit sad.

A year or two ago, I went to a party dressed as Cardinal Ximénez (the one with the hat). It was a costume party, obviously, which made it a bit less odd. However, while I thought the costume witty and entertaining, nobody else did.

 Nobody expected it. But nobody understood it either.

So if I were to make a post secret about The Spanish Inquisition, it would look more like this:

Because sometimes having cool parents who let you watch Flying Circus videos at age 5 really sucks.

Also I hate that yellow mouse.

Month of Music: Put the Blame on Mame by Anita Kert Ellis

From the 1946 film, Gilda.

While the woman you see singing and playing the guitar here is Rita Hayworth, her singing voice belongs to Anita Kert Ellis.

And yes, I watch black & white films from the 40's. Quite a bit more often than I'd like to admit to, actually.

Month of Music: Parlez-Vous Francais by Art Vs. Science

This music video has two main attractions:
1. The song is insanely catchy.
2. Mimes try to kill each other, and it's awesome.

After a few plays you'll find yourself singing along, even to the French sections of the lyrics.

Just a heads up, they're not exactly profound declarations.

Nothing too dirty but not something you'd say around your mother.

How cool are those mimes though? The sword fight and final gun battle are my favourite.

Month of Music: WTF by OK Go

Most of you will know OK Go from their music video for 'Here It Goes Again'.

No? Not ringing any bells?

Remember that film clip with the men dancing on treadmills? That was OK Go.

The band continue their tradition of strange music videos with the aptly titled 'WTF'.

This trippy video is directed by Tim Nackashi, and like a lot of their videos, was filmed in one continuous take.
'WTF' is the first single off their new album 'Of The Blue Colour Of The Sky', due for release this month (the 12th, to be exact), making it almost five years since their last studio album, and four years since the release of 'Here It Goes Again'.

Month of Music: The Bucket, originally by Kings of Leon

The Bucket - Originally by Kings of Leon, covered by The Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra

The perfect 'morning after' music. Happy New Year.