arcade games, sound quiz

Arcade Sound Quiz (Awww Cute)

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I have always been amazed at the unique sounds and catchy music that designers and engineers in the early videogame industry were able to put in that first generation of quarter-eaters.

So, here’s the first in a small series of videogame sound effect quizzes where you too can marvel at their genius.

A clue for this quiz — all of these games share a common theme.

They all have protagonists that are so cute your mom would pinch your cheeks if she saw you playing them.

Click on the “Awww Cute” links to hear the sweet, sweet sounds.

Awww Cute 1
Awww Cute 2
Awww Cute 3
Awww Cute 4
Awww Cute 5

Just post yer answers in the Comments section. If anyone gets stumped, I’ll grudgingly give out some clues.

The first person who gets all the answers right wins a SPACESHIP TRIP TO THE MOON!

Assuming nobody gets hurt here, the next quiz will focus on driving games.

UPDATE: Answers to this quiz have been posted here

experimental film, movies

Whither Experimental Film?

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I graduated with a Film Production/Studies degree from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale.

The film program was not so much geared towards learning the trade of a classical Hollywood kinda production, but more about making films that you would find personally interesting (and not necessarily commercially viable). Documentaries and experimental films were big at SIUC.

In this program I was able to see a lot of experimental films — from the early days of Man Ray and Salvador Dali to more contemporary fare like Michael Snow, Stan Brakhage and Standish Lawder.

It was always interesting when I would walk into an experimental film class – what was going to happen? We could be discussing the filmmaker prior to seeing some of his or her films, but I really had no expectations — it was exciting.

Years later, there is this huge history, this huge body of work out there, created by people funding their own expensive projects (film ain’t cheap) that reflect their own personal vision. And where are they now? How can one see these films?

I looked for Real Italian Pizza, a film by David Rimmer that completely bowled me over when I first saw it. I found it at Moving Images, available only in 16mm.

I searched for some Standish Lawder films, a filmmaker who also I liked a great deal, and found his stuff available at Canyon Cinema, also available only in 16mm.

I searched for another film, Serene Velocity by Ernie Gehr (apparently an inspiration for the title of a recent Stereolab compilation), and couldn’t find any way of seeing or acquiring it.

Are these films going to survive? Are these films going to be seen?

With the explosion of personal filmmaking on YouTube, it seems like it is a ripe time for people everywhere to see this whole world that for the most part has only been seen by film school students.

Is YouTube the answer for these experimental films? Often the quality of YouTube video is pretty substandard, due to the needs of keeping filesizes reasonably small. But if not that, what? Something has to be done.

From time to time, I’ll try and post links to experimental stuff I find.

Here’s Standish Lawder’s probably most widely-seen film — Necrology.

swearing, weirder than Harrison Ford

The Closest I Get To A Buddhist Chant

3 Comments

I’m not super-weird.

But I’m weird, relative to Harrison Ford at least, who, let’s face it folks, is not very weird at all.

There are occasions, usually when I’m doing some utterly mindless task, or maybe riding my bike and enjoying the day, where I will lapse into repetitively muttering (or sometimes loudly belting out, even) this “chant” I made up to myself.

Click to hear -> Hey You Motherf*ckers
Just to warn you, there is profanity in them thar wav file!

Here’s the words, if you want a lyric sheet to read from.

Hey you motherf*ckers
Hey you motherf*ckers
Hey you motherf*cking motherf*cking motherf*cking motherf*ckers

You may find chanting this therapeutic, and it’s a helluva lot easier to say than Nam Myōhō Renge Kyō.

blogging about blogging, goddammit

Image Hosting Woes

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Yesterday, I noticed that some of the pics I uploaded to Image Shack were not rendering. I have occasionally used Image Shack in the past to host pictures for use with eBay, etc..

I realize now that having Image Shack as an image provider for my blog might not be a good idea. I guess having the word ‘Shack’ in their company name should have been a red flag to me.

So, last night I went through all the pictures in my posts and moved them to my website, which, as of today, seems to be under a Denial of Service (DoS) attack. So, now all my images are failing to render.

Would someone please work the kinks out of this piece-of-crap Internet for me?

Thanks.

movies

Notes On A Scandal

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I recently read a post by Dale about Notes On A Scandal, which pushed me to finally get off my couch and then sit back down to watch it.

It was pretty good, but I had a couple thoughts during my viewing.

1. If you’re going to have a suspenseful film featuring two strong female leads with a lesbian component underlying their relationship, one of them at some point *has* to kill a guy by hitting him in the eye with a stiletto heel.

2. I don’t see how any self-respecting fan of Strangers With Candy can avoid wondering how this story would play with Amy Sedaris as Jerri Blank taking the Judi Dench role.