Edshugeo The GodMoor

I'm kinda exited that albums and tracks from Sony's back catalog will soon be available on eMusic. The news that a price hike was accompanying the new partnership was not so great, but I'm not as incensed as I was when I first read it, as the music will still be significantly cheaper coming from eMusic than from iTunes or Amazon (except for many of Amazon's daily mp3 deals).

Labels: downloads, good deal, music, online retailers

I've had a PSP since about the end of 2005. The multimedia device has been an indispensable companion on my lunch breaks, long walks, commutes, and various situations involving waiting. Music, Wu-xia TV episodes, eBooks, Youtube videos (to show to unconnected friends/associates), music-making, and of course games. Some of these activities required hacking the thing. Other than that, I've had not too much to complain about.
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I was never a huge fan of the UMD format. Back when even 1 GB memory sticks were expensive, the disc format made some sense as there were games that came close to or exceeded the 1 GB mark. Dual layer discs could hold 1.8 GBs. So, it was fine for a while, for games. I never bought movies in the format. As I've stated a number of times, watching a feature film on a handheld just isn't my preference for a variety of reasons. UMD movies were never gonna happen for me. That they started out priced like DVDs ensured they never happened for a lot of people.

There were some rumours that Sony is about ready to unveil the PSP 2. Perhaps, the PSP Go! Aside from the slim models that followed the original and were only slight modifications, this one may offer a reason to upgrade. That it may ditch the UMD drive completely, is something that excites me as well as the notion that the media for it will be completely downloadable, and that it'll have a bit more internal memory (8-16 GB flash). The PSP-1000 (phat) constantly ran out of memory when web browsing.

Game downloads could cut down on piracy as I think (and I could be wrong) that downloadable games from the Playstation Store are more secure than UMD versions. For example, when I saw copies of Echochrome online (a while back), they were all European versions which I think were released on UMD instead of the PSN download that got released in the U.S.
Though not opposed to piracy, entirely, I bought the game, having enjoyed the demo immensely. Also, the ten dollar price was just right.

Playing games on the memory stick saves some battery life as well as physical space. Multiple games can be stored on the card rather than having to carry multiple discs. I mostly use an 8 GB.

The long desired 2nd analog stick will not be part of the upgrade. Too bad.

Some are worried about the lack of backwards compatibility that'll come with a UMD-less PSP. I'm not sure I care that much.

If a new PSP is to debut this year, then it'll probably be announced at next month's gaming event, E3. Looking forward to what other features may be included, and what will eventually be left to hackers and such. Also, whether or not Microsoft announces their entry into the gaming/multimedia portable market.* More competition is good.
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Or maybe I should just get this.



Nah.
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I came close to replacing my PSP at the end of last year, when the audio output jack got all statiky and eventually failed altogether. I opted to get it fixed at TechRestore instead of getting a new one. It cost about 70 or 80 bucks, but they did a great job and sent it back pretty quickly.
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Like many, I had some trouble playing games purchased through the Playstation store/network, which was related to the custom firmware I'm using (5.00 M33-6, currently). Though it took me a while to get around to it, a fix was found easily enough;

"You have to disable the GAME plugins In the recovery menu go to Advanced - Advanced configuration, and Game plugins and disable it. Simple" - oxxMUDxxo

That done, I was able to get the Echochrome expansion and Everyday Shooter, which I play way more of on my PSP than on the PS3 (hardly ever). I have Everyday shooter on both.
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* The Zune-X? I doubt it, but we'll see.

Labels: Anticipay-yay-shun..., downloads, moments of incoherency, possibilities for creative expression, PSP, video games, youtube and other video

The Chinese Drama Series Of The Month over at D-Addicts.com.

The series is based on a novel hundreds of years old, also called Outlaws Of The Marsh and All Men Are Brothers. I'm aware of two Shaw Bros. films made; The first called Water Margin (released in the U.S. in the early seventies as 7 Blows Of The Dragon), and the sequel, All Men Are Brothers.
Another martial arts film came in the 90s, All Men Are Brothers: Blood Of The Leopard.

It's been adapted for television many times (in Japan as well). I haven't linked to a Youtube vid cuz I don't know if any of them are from this particular production. The creator of Gigantor, Mitsuteru Yokoyama, also created a famous comicbook version. Thus a few characters who appear in Giant Robo originate in Water Margin (as well as his other works).

I haven't read the novel, though it has existed in English translations for a long while. I even spotted a battered copy titled All Men Are Brothers at my local library many moons ago (I doubt it's still there), but never checked it out. Amazon has it under the name Outlaws Of The Marsh.

Series info
Torrent here.

Labels: bittorrent, dorama, downloads, kung fu

I'm not familiar with Mr. Coleman's music, though I think I bought an LP back in the early nineties - also for about a buck or so. The comments suggest some controversy, but the samples sound decent, and at ninety-nine cents (today), I can't go wrong.

Labels: downloads, good deal, music, online retailers, The Sell Out?

Ubuntu Studio 9.04 is out.

Haven't tried it, yet.

Later.

Labels: bittorrent, computers, downloads, good deal, Linux, music making, possibilities for creative expression

Available as D-Addicts Chinese Drama Series Of The Month (torrent) and also through Netflix (DVDs, not streaming).

I rented it through Netflix and found the forty episode series to be among the best in it's genre, so far. Based on Louis Cha's novel, also called Smiling Proud Wanderer and a few other things, it's way more faithful than the movie versions from the nineties ( Sworsdman, Swordsman 2 (U.S. title - Legend Of The Swordsman), and sequel/spin-off, The East Is Red. I base this only on a few chapters of an online (uncompleted) translation. The book, like most of Cha's (AKA Jing Yong) work, is unavailable to the English speaking world save for TV series, and movies like these.

The story's mostly about the hypocrisy of those who would proclaim themselves righteous, and also that friendship (like righteousness) transcends partisanship. It's interesting that the word party is used in the subtitles (on the DVD), where sect, or clan would traditionally be used for groups like Shaolin, Wudang, Hua Mountain, and others portrayed in this series. Gives it what I would imagine to be an unintended relevance to modern political situations, considering this show was produced on the Chinese mainland.

Labels: Awesome, downloads, DVD, kung fu, tv, wu-xia, youtube and other video

One reasonable theory making the rounds is that bandwidth itself is a red herring, and the real concern is cannibalization. As more broadband customers shift video viewing to the web, cable companies fear a steep drop in TV revenues. Bandwidth caps may not make sense as a cost-saving move for Roadrunner, but they might look tempting to cable executives hoping to save cable TV.

"The conspiracy theorists are saying its because they want to keep their customers captive to their video services," says Vince Vittore, a principal analyst at The Yankee Group. "I tend to fall towards the side that they are trying to keep people captive."

From Wired.

Labels: C O N Spiracy, downloads, ripoffs, technology, Truth, tv, youtube and other video

Today's Amazon MP3 Deal, and not an April Fool's Joke.

Labels: Awesome, Capt Kirk was a bad MuthaFucka, covers, downloads, funny-ass shit, good deal, music, odd, The Sell Out?, tv

Lotusflow3r.com officially launched last night. $77 membership fee for those who could solve the fill in the blank riddle at the start (1986 and Los Angeles - Thanks, Prince.org). Some would be members faced other riddles as well; browser incompatibility, username issues and credit card nonsense.

My experience wasn't soo bad.
Had to go to prince.org to figure out the ticket riddle mentioned above. The cryptic shit has to go. I know it's Prince, but if he's charging people 77 bucks to access a website, then some courtesy should be a given. Of course, I say this having paid the damn fee anyway. I'll have to keep relying on prince.org as a supplement to the official site, just so I know what's going on and what's been made available (I guess Housequake's not coming back?).

I signed in okay within an hour of the site's opening. During that process I saw a link to system requirements. Clicking on it brought me to an error page. Once on the site, I found a preview video which was slow and choppy as hell. I figured that was because the servers were being taxed by the high demand being the first night and everything, but I find that the videos are still slow and choppy.

The three albums are available to download in both mp3 and wav formats. I had trouble downloading the zipped wav files (first an error page, then incomplete downloads), but the mp3s were not a problem. I don't remember if I downloaded the mp3s before taking a break or if I took an hour away from the computer, and came back. I managed to download two albums in wav. Still having a problem with MPLSound.

Edit: An apology from the web designers to Prince.org:

We understand that several people have had issues with the site, and we're working diligently to address them all as quickly as possible. With the great amount of traffic that we've received there have been some issues getting the large amount of content in the site out to everyone simultaneously. We're currently doubling the size of our server farm in order to make sure that fans can get all of the albums and videos they desire. To accommodate our friends overseas we've relaxed some of the normal security checks put in place by American banks. Since the vault has 3D and video, which is pushing the boundary of the web and current technology, only newer machines can adequately handle it. If fans are experiencing choppy videos in the vault, they should click the fullscreen button on the video and it should improve their experience. Thanks to everyone for their patience while we scale up LotusFlow3r.com to accommodate the great response from Prince fans all over the world.

Thanks so much,
Scott

3/26/09 UPDATE: the MPSoUND zip was fixed last night, and they're working on optimizing video playback...

The fullscreen option does improve video playback considerably. Not great, yet, but watchable.

Haven't spent much time with the music, yet, but my first impression is that MPLSound is crap. Except for Dance 4 Me. And maybe No More Candy 4 U, which is... interesting.

Lotus Flow3r sounds pretty damn decent. Will require more investigation.

Elixer also sounds good, which I didn't expect.

I dunno if I should'a spent the 77 bucks though. I avoided one of his previous ventures, NPG Music Club when it was 100 bucks and was wise to do so. The three albums will be available in a single package at Target this Sunday for only twelve bucks.

Oh, yeah. Prince is on Jay Leno tonight, tomorrow and Friday. That should be pretty cool...

March 25th performance (Hulu.com)
March 26th performance
March 27th performance

Mo' edit (March 27th): efforts to improve the site continue. I was actually able to enter the site and view the Crimson and Clover video via the PS3's browser. The video played fine in fullscreen. The rest of the site was pretty slow, though, and eventually the browser ran out of memory (!!!??). That might be a PS3 issue, though. The PSP's browser does the same thing. Then again, the PS3 hasn't had that issue with Hulu. Not in my experience, anyway.

If Lotusflow3r is aspires to include more longform video (Sacrifice Of Victor is currently up), I would prefer to watch on my TV rather than PC. I have Yellow Dog Linux installed on the PS3 as well. I'll have to see how well the site works on that combination...
It dosen't. I haven't installed Flash on Firefox, yet.

Labels: bullshit, downloads, music, online retailers, Prince, youtube and other video

Today's MP3 Deal @ Amazon.

Labels: downloads, music, online retailers, The Sell Out?, youtube and other video

Some interesting tracks releases for the 360 version of Rock Band, the video game where you bang away on a fake drum set and push buttons on a fake guitar. I have the fake drum set myself. New songs are made available on a weekly basis for purchase at about two bucks a pop. I don't complain about the price in this case because a) I don't play all that much, so I haven't even gone through all the songs that came with the game, and b) song purchases were gonna be rare, anyway, because of a), and because I'm not interested in most of the music offered. So far I've only been moved to purchase 2 Lenny Kravitz songs.

I may now get the new Get The Funk Out Pack 01, which is 3 songs (also available separately):

Pick Up The Pieces - by The Average White Band
Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine pt. 1 - by James Brown and
Shining Star - by Earth Wind and Fire

These songs will probably be available on the PS3 later this week.

A major change of pace from what's normally offered. I suppose jazz is next? Not sure I could handle it. I can barely play the game as it is.

Obviously I'd like to see some P-Funk, Prince and Hendrix on Rock Band, but I don't expect any of those anytime soon. But hey, I guess that's money that gets to stay in my pocket, so it's all good.

Labels: downloads, music, video games, XBox 360

Song I've worked on and off (mostly off) since May 2008, using the program Energy XT2 in Windows XP. It's probably about done, though I will likely tweak it just a li'l bit, before I'm satisfied.

Plug-ins used; GTG DPC 3 (drums), SoHaSonata (synth), Classic compressor, Classic phaser, Classic EQ, classic flanger, Bionic Delay, as well as the program's own Synthesizer and FX DelayReverb.

A Demo was made back in 2006:



Lyrics:

I don't think you realize
just how proud I am
Just how impressed I've been
You've got the drive within
you're so long overdue
and you've long paid your dues
no one here gets an apology

sorry won't cut it
It's not in the budget
they want regrets
but they can forget it
you're doin' it your way
your way is the highway
blazin' on down the only road that gets you home

and that's why
I continue
to believe in you

and
you
should
too

takin' it underground
like you're fighting Manchus
showin' off your skills
as though you're good at kung-fu
The Five Deadly Venoms
couldn't get through your defences
forget the seven sins
your top priority is

You but not for you alone
for your strength will set the tone
and lift the hearts
of all of those around you
even those who put you down
and would see your failure crown
the doubts they've always bowed down to

and that's why
I continue
to believe in you

and
you
should
too

you rock well
and nobody does it better

(c) 2006-2009 George Isaacs


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

Labels: downloads, lyrics, music, music making, my music, possibilities for creative expression, PsychoVoyager

Another must have!

Tried to post it (and another) this morning, but it didn't take. Wonder what's up?

Labels: downloads, good deal, music, The Sell Out?

I didn't have this one. I do now.

Labels: downloads, good deal, music, The Sell Out?

Two dollars today. Tomorrow?....
Good deal if you like classic 1950s Rock and Roll. Some of this would qualify as rockabilly, I guess. Yes, it does.

Labels: downloads, good deal, music, online retailers, The Sell Out?

Dunno how long this deal is for, but it's a good one.
The Falco song is not part of this set, of course.
And my Amadeus Blu-Ray (which comes with a CD) should arrive at any time now.

Labels: downloads, good deal, music, music video, The Sell Out?, youtube and other video

I still suck at this game, but that doesn't stop Rock Band from being fun, though I really haven't played much of it. I've not been inclined to purchase extra tracks till now, being that I hadn't got past the warm-up songs, yet. Grabbing Are You Gonna Go My Way and Freedom Train, were no-brainers for me. The other two songs, Let Love Rule and Mr. Cab Driver, don't excite me so much.

Labels: downloads, fun, music, PS3, video games, XBox 360

Today only (I think), then it goes up to whatever 99 MP3s might normally (?) cost in a single deal.

I dunno much about classical music, but Beethoven is some good shit, so I'm on it like flies.

Would be cool to have a similar set (with a similar price) for Mozart, to tide us over til Amadeus comes out on Blu-Ray in February.

Labels: Awesome, downloads, DVD, good deal, music, online retailers, That's what I'm talkin' about, The Sell Out?

Also called Huan Ying Shen Zhen and God of Illusionary Needle. Looks interesting. It was tough to find a video that had fighting in it, though. Wonder if I should worry about that?






At D-Addicts.


Currently, I'm watching Young Zhang San Feng AKA Taiji Prodigy. Starring the always enjoyable but unfortunately named Dickie Cheung as the founder of Wu-Dong (Wu-Tang) temple and Tai Chi martial arts (I think).

Labels: downloads, kung fu, tv, wu-xia, youtube and other video

Was I wrong about NerdCore Hip-Hop? The whole thing just seemed jokey and disrespectful when I first heard about it. When Maja popped up, I figured him for an exception.

This dude's name MC Frontalot just seems to play to that supposition. But listening to the previews (cuz the MP3 album download is cheap, today), I find I like what I hear. So far, anyway. I bought it.

Labels: downloads, good deal, music, online retailers

Electric Ladyland for a dollar ninety-nine, only for about a day or so. Naturally, I have this already, cuz it's Jimi. Anybody who don't, should.




And of course Amazon has their Friday 5 up, which includes, Bloc Party's Intimacy, which I did not have, but now I do, for five bucks.

Labels: downloads, good deal, music, online retailers, The Sell Out?

Madonna's first (?) album, Madonna is today's Daily MP3 deal at Amazon. It features my favorite Madonna song of all time, Burning Up. Also containing Lucky Star, Holiday, Borderline and Everybody, it's practically a greatest hits record. Considering how much I like all of those songs, it's weird that I didn't expect any longevity out of her career at the time (1980s).

This deal ($1.99) is usually only good for a day or so, after that, it's back to eight bucks.



Amazon has their Five For Friday (now called Friday Five) deals up, too. Five MP3 albums for Five dollars each. Out of this weekend's bunch, the They Might Be Giants children's album, Here Come The 123's sounds intriguing. The Rocky Horror Picture Show movie soundtrack is on eMusic as well, and I've already downloaded the only track I'm interested in from there; Timewarp.



Friday Five is usually good till about Monday

Labels: downloads, good deal, music, online retailers, The Sell Out?

50 Albums - $5.00 each for a very limited time

I bought two of those; Q-Tip - The Renaissance, and Portishead - Third, without so much as a preview listen. I'd previously scanned positive reviews for both albums and I'm already a fan of both. I happen to think $5.00 is the sweet spot for mp3 album pricing, and would like to see this catch on. Amazon has been doing Five for Friday for a while now, and I think I spotted some Five dollar deals on iTunes last week. Including my continuing subscription to eMusic, I've bought (with money) more music this year than in a long while.

Ten dollars is a good CD price, though I hardly buy any of those anymore. I recently ordered and got Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon on SACD to enjoy in surround sound (on my PS3) but found that I can't. My audio receiver doesn't have HDMI, and the optical digital audio cables don't have the bandwith to carry it. I think a compromise of sorts was available on an earlier firmware, but not since the last couple of updates. I think I'll also get Seal's new album, Soul on CD. I'm a fan of his, but I didn't know he had a record out last year, System. I'll have to look out for that too, though I don't like the prices I'm seeing for it. I might have to "find" it.

By the time the weekend's over, I may buy one or two more albums in this deal (traditional 5 for Friday's tend to end on Monday - I don't know if that's the case here); TV On The Radio's Dear Science is pretty decent and kinda funky in their own way. Much, much better than Return To Cookie Mountain. I know this having "found" it a few weeks ago. I think it's worth paying for.

Other recently purchased MP3 albums from Amazon (not from the above sale, but over the last couple of weeks or so); The Killers - Day & Age, The Carpenters - Singles 1969-1981, Meiko - Meiko, Mos Def - Black On Both Sides, Credence Clearwater Revival - Willy And The Poor Boys, Talking Heads - Remain In Light, Louis Armstrong - New Orleans Nights
Some of those were way less than five bucks.

Labels: downloads, good deal, music, online retailers, The Sell Out?

Today only, I think. The whole album. I'm jumpin' on it as I've not heard of it aside from "If You Really Love Me".

Labels: downloads, good deal, music, online retailers, The Sell Out?

Today only. Not just one song. The whole album.





As seen on Lightning Deals (check it daily).

Labels: downloads, good deal, music, online retailers, The Sell Out?

I just pre-ordered this muh-fug this morning. Now it's being recalled worldwide because some of the music contains readings from Islam's holy text. I think I'm gonna cancel my order.* I'll get the game eventually, perhaps when it's down to thirty or forty bucks. My purchase this morning was kinda an impulse, nudged slightly by Amazon's offer of a ten dollar gift certificate with the pre-order. Since I order from them all the time, why not? Now with the extra time it'll take to get the game, I think I'll just pass for now.

Sony needs to get it's act together. Right now the PS3 is getting its ass kicked here in the U.S. as well as on it's "home turf", Japan. Is it even fair to still call Sony a Japanese company? I wonder.

Little Big Planet does look like fun, though.

Anyhow, I still enjoy the machine as a Blu-Ray player and continue to order movies for it. I have Metal Gear Solid IV and Rainbow Six Vegas 2 as well as a few downloadable games for the PS3; Loco Roco: Cocoreccho, Pain, and Piyotama. I've haven't touched MGS 4 or Rainbow 6 and barely played the others, so it's not like I have to have a new game right now. Plus there are a few unfinised games for the Xbox 360 as well.


* October 20th, 2008 - I did cancel, but I changed my mind and I'm a gonna order it again (or buy it at or near the time it comes out).

Labels: bullshit, downloads, Islam, japanese, online retailers, PS3, video games

For years, even.

Well, he's had enough ass for several lifetimes (or so I've heard). Prince deserves a vacation. I doubt it'll last long.

There's a book/CD package coming out next week, 21 Nights. List price is fifty bucks, though as of this writing, Amazon has it for 31.50. The CD contains bits of live music from last year's run in London. It's just one CD, and I'm not interested in the photo book, so this price is too high. It looks like the CD isn't being sold separately, so I'll just have to "find" the music.

USA Today's article

I read it at Housequake.

Labels: downloads, feats of strength, Heroes, music, Prince

I don't have an iPhone, yet (ever?), but this new initiative from iVerse sounds interesting;

“We have developed an extremely simple iPhone Application that allows us to display comics that have been specifically formatted for the iPhone/iPod Touch.” said iVerse Media owner Michael Murphey. “What we’re doing is creating new comics, and adapting existing comics into a format that makes reading comic books an enjoyable and easy experience on these devices. There’s no “zooming” or “pinching” required. All you have to do is flick your finger.” Comics adapted using the iVerse Media software will be available in the iTunes App Store for as little as $.99. Some titles will be released free of charge. “Creators and Studios will be able to set the final prices on their titles, but we’re expecting most standard length titles to be around $.99, and we’re encouraging creators to give away the first issues of their titles to allow new readers who may not be familiar with comics, but are iPhone/iPod Touch owners, to give comics on the devices a try.” “With Digital Comics on the iPhone/iPod Touch we have access to a world wide audience, no printing costs or print run minimums, and it doesn’t take 3 months to get the title from in the catalog to on sale in a store. Each title will be featured as its own application in the App Store, and will be backed up onto the readers desktop or notebook computer each time they sync their device.”

99 cents for a normal length comicbook doesn't sound like a bad deal. Of course I wouldn't mind even lower prices. I guess we'll see how well the majors take to this idea, or if some talented indies take advantage of this opportunity.

iVerse Media is currently discussing comic adaptions and new creations from a variety of industry professionals and studios, and as of today (Aug. 25th 2008), is accepting submissions from new creators. Details on submission requirements can be found at: http://www.iversecomics.com/submissions/ Established creators and Studios wishing to contact iVerse about adapting existing comics, or creating new titles can do so at: http://www.iversecomics.com/contact-us/

Labels: comics, downloads, good deal, possibilities for creative expression

Motion Comics are probably trademarked by Warners/DC, but I could see this being a generic term for the style of animation which uses comic book panels as their basis.

The Marvel cartoons of the sixties is a famous example of this;



Last week or so, I mentioned The Watchmen free video which was offered (for a limited time) as a free download. I like the idea of using this style of animation as a web and portable friendly way to present comic book stories. Since then I've also read about and watched something called Invincible,

, shockwave-flash@http://www.comicbookresources.com/VIEW/FlowPlayerLight.swf?config=%7Bembedded%3Atrue%2CbaseURL%3A%27http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ecomicbookresources%2Ecom%2FVIEW%27%2CwatermarkLinkUrl%3A%27http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ecomicbookresources%2Ecom%2Fvideo%27%2CshowWatermark%3A%27always%27%2CwatermarkUrl%3A%27%2Fassets%2Fimages%2Fcbr%5Fwatermark%2Epng%27%2CcontrolsAreaBorderColor%3A%270xEFEFEF%27%2CprogressBarBorderColor2%3A%270xFFFFFF%27%2CprogressBarBorderColor1%3A%270xFFFFFF%27%2CprogressBarColor2%3A%270x960315%27%2CprogressBarColor1%3A%270x960315%27%2CbufferBarColor2%3A%270xEF9616%27%2CbufferBarColor1%3A%270xFFD489%27%2CcontrolBarBackgroundColor%3A%270x01018c%27%2CcontrolBarGloss%3A%27high%27%2CuseNativeFullScreen%3Atrue%2CinitialScale%3A%27orig%27%2CuseHwScaling%3Atrue%2CautoBuffering%3Afalse%2CplayList%3A%5B%7Boverlay%3A%27%2Fassets%2Fimages%2Fplay%5Fbutton%2Epng%27%2Ctype%3A%27jpg%27%2Curl%3A%27http%3A%2F%2Fserve%2Ecastfire%2Ecom%2Fvideo%2F17266%2Ftrailers%2Dws%5F2008%2D07%2D18%2D004708%2Ejpg%27%7D%2C%7Burl%3A%27http%3A%2F%2Fserve%2Ecastfire%2Ecom%2Fvideo%2F17266%2Ftrailers%2Dws%5F2008%2D07%2D18%2D004708%2Eflv%27%7D%5D%7D" href="http://www.comicbookresources.com/VIEW/FlowPlayerLight.swf?config=%7Bembedded%3Atrue%2CbaseURL%3A%27http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ecomicbookresources%2Ecom%2FVIEW%27%2CwatermarkLinkUrl%3A%27http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ecomicbookresources%2Ecom%2Fvideo%27%2CshowWatermark%3A%27always%27%2CwatermarkUrl%3A%27%2Fassets%2Fimages%2Fcbr%5Fwatermark%2Epng%27%2CcontrolsAreaBorderColor%3A%270xEFEFEF%27%2CprogressBarBorderColor2%3A%270xFFFFFF%27%2CprogressBarBorderColor1%3A%270xFFFFFF%27%2CprogressBarColor2%3A%270x960315%27%2CprogressBarColor1%3A%270x960315%27%2CbufferBarColor2%3A%270xEF9616%27%2CbufferBarColor1%3A%270xFFD489%27%2CcontrolBarBackgroundColor%3A%270x01018c%27%2CcontrolBarGloss%3A%27high%27%2CuseNativeFullScreen%3Atrue%2CinitialScale%3A%27orig%27%2CuseHwScaling%3Atrue%2CautoBuffering%3Afalse%2CplayList%3A%5B%7Boverlay%3A%27%2Fassets%2Fimages%2Fplay%5Fbutton%2Epng%27%2Ctype%3A%27jpg%27%2Curl%3A%27http%3A%2F%2Fserve%2Ecastfire%2Ecom%2Fvideo%2F17266%2Ftrailers%2Dws%5F2008%2D07%2D18%2D004708%2Ejpg%27%7D%2C%7Burl%3A%27http%3A%2F%2Fserve%2Ecastfire%2Ecom%2Fvideo%2F17266%2Ftrailers%2Dws%5F2008%2D07%2D18%2D004708%2Eflv%27%7D%5D%7D" id="">

also animated from the original comic book, and seen trailers/previews for The Black Panther, which will be airing on BET

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and Batman: Mad Love which is available on XBox Live.

My main issue remains price. Seven 2 to 4 minute episodes of Mad Love on XBox live for over a dollar each makes the iTunes price of 2 bucks per 24/45 minute episode (of regular TV content) seem almost reasonable. But if they can be successful at those prices, more power to 'em. Not with my money, though.

Black Panther will air on a cable channel, the much hated (by black folk) BET. I don't think I want to see too much of this stuff on TV. If successful enough, it could hurt whatever's left of real animation that isn't imported from Japan.

That this stuff can be done cheaply is appealing, and perhaps we'll see more independent cartoonists animating their work in this way (good animation is hard, Flash - not so much), getting somebody they know with a decent speaking voice to narrate, generate a following on YouTube and then offering downloads where-ever at a sane price.

Pie in the sky, but the potential is there.

Labels: comics, downloads, possibilities for creative expression, XBox 360, youtube and other video

Amazon.com has a weekly Friday 5 feature (only good during the weekend); 5 album downloads (selected by Amazon) by different artists for $5.00 each. Last weekend, Eric Clapton: Unplugged was one of the selections. I was gonna buy it, but I was on my way out, and didn't remember until Monday or Tuesday-ish when the sale was over.

This weekend the albums are;
Kanye West: Graduation *
Nirvana: Nevermind
Dane Cook: Harmful If Swallowed
Art Blakey And The Jazz Messengers: Moanin' (The Rudy Van Gelder Edition) and
Sufjan Stephens: Illinoise

Five dollars for an MP3 album approaches eMusic pricing, but for albums not usually found on eMusic (in this case except for Sufjan Stephens). For me, this kind of pricing inspires more impulse buying. I could've easily searched for Nirvana and Kanye albums and found them for free (once it occured to me I wanted them), with hardly any effort. In fact, I may still do that. They've got other records...

I bought the Nirvana and Kanye West selections, two artists not represented in my collection.
I always thought Nirvana was very good, but managed not to ever buy a CD of theirs. Also was turned off by the post Cobain adoration that came after his death (that sort of thing is happening with Heath Ledger now, but won't put me off The Dark Knight).

Kanye West is a guy who's mostly impressed me with live performances like the Grammy performance a few years ago of "Jesus Walks" with the Five Blind Boys Of Alabama



and of course his George Bush doesn't care about black people moment with Michael (I don't know this guy) Myers. One the greatest moments in TV history, even if I think he was being a little silly.

There's also a Paul Westerberg album, 49:00 made up of a single track that's 44 minutes long for 49 cents. Bought that too.

*There was a error on Graduation, where the Amazon downloader won't download the thirteenth track, Big Brother (says "track no longer available. Please contact Customer service."). Just noticed that, and emailed customer service. Let's see what happens...

2:17 PM - problem solved.

Labels: downloads, good deal, music, online retailers, youtube and other video

Kinda, sorta animated.

iTunes is offering free downloads (for a limited time, I think) of Watchmen #1, the original story and artwork animated from the panels (like those sixties Marvel cartoons, but better) with music and a voiceover guy. I only watched a few minutes of it, but I thought it was well done and a great way to present comics on the web. I'd like to see more.
I had no problem with a single narrator rather than having every character voiced individually. I think it works artistically, and makes sense economically.
Unfortunately, like all iTunes videos (that I'm aware of), this only plays on iPods and computers. Not PSPs.
Though once these "motion comics" become available for sale, we go back to the problem of portable TV and video episodes being priced at $1.99 a piece. I still refuse to accept that, even as Playstation.com is starting to make content available for the PSP and PS3.
Buuuuuuut, maybe this is different. It's not like The Daily Show which one can watch practically for free on cable, or serialized shows which are cheaper as DVD sets (and are converted to MP4s easily enough). I might be tempted to try some exclusive content, but not for an extended run. I also won't be paying for more episodes of The Watchmen as I've read the series already and know how it ends (aside from being too expensive). I do look forward to the Movie, which looks great so far (trailer and website link below...)

Plus:
Alan Moore loves The Wire, not so crazy about 300.
Watchmen movie website
and the trailer:

Labels: Anticipay-yay-shun..., comics, downloads, movies, possibilities for creative expression, youtube and other video

Yong Chun (I watched it in Mandarin w/subs) is now my least favorite Chinese drama series edging out the dumb Zorro-ish comedy Hero In Black, which was at least very short, and still mostly entertaining.

That the drama to kung fu ratio favored drama sooooo overwhelmingly is an obvious issue for a series named after a martial art*. It's just that the drama was just so fucking bad, I almost couldn't take it. When I got to the second half of the series I found myself fast forwarding through that shit. Sure, some of this stuff comes with the territory; A loves B, but B loves C, while D, and E are secretly in love with A etc., etc. Fine! I can take a little of that, but it's so badly done and then layered with so many other bullshit subplots; Liang Chan's a widower whose sister in law has the hots for him, and somehow he's a dick for acting like there's something wrong with her. Meanwhile Gordon Liu only appears in one episode! What?



I'd seen articles where this series was touted as a sequel to the film Prodigal Son, but I see little connection aside from Yuen Biao reprising his role as Leung Jan (spelling varies) which he had also done recently in the much better series Real Kung Fu (though it was kinda silly). Sammo Hung also appears, and while we get a bit more of him than we do of Gordon Liu, it's not nearly enough. It's great to see him do his thing on the Wing Chun dummy, though. The series is worth watching for scenes like this:



Worth a purchase? No.


*The martial art is named after a person and had the series been about her, that would have been different. More drama, less kung fu might've been okay. However, the people who wrote this series would not be capable of writing drama worthy of Wing Chun herself. Didn't care much for the movie with Michelle Yeoh, either, which deviated very far from the legend (as I understood it, anyway).

Labels: China, dorama, downloads, kung fu, Liu Chia Hui, tv, youtube and other video

A bit faster than I expected. My UPS guy says he's delivered like 200 repaired XBoxes (360s), with his route representing 1/5th of Hempstead, LI. Not encouraging numbers. Here's hoping I don't have to repeat this experience.

First thing I did was download a few demos:
Bourne Conspiracy, and Penny Arcade, neither of which I liked, and DragonBall Z: Burst Limit, which I kinda did like, but may or may not get. Certainly not right away. An eventual price drop along the way will make this a more attractive choice. Also, I don't really need a new game right now. I might pick up Beautiful Katamari. I think I saw it for 20 bucks somewhere, new, not used. Sounds like a deal even though the demo and reviews revealed it to be less than brilliant. At sixty bucks a pop, developers need to step their shit up a notch.

Next up was finishing Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, which I did. The story, anyway. The game is still only 56 or 66% complete, but that's fine (I cheated on one or two missions). I'll occasionally come back to it, but now it's GTA IV time.

Labels: downloads, video games, XBox 360

Yeah. There's a pun that won't be used a billion times today.

Anyway, new NIN album, The Slip, being given away as mp3s, lossless and even high def wav files at 24/96 (larger files via Bittorrent).

EW quotes that
Reznor has been in a ''prolific phase and we didn't want 'business' to get in the way of getting the art in the hands of the fans.''

NIN says;
as a thank you to our fans for your continued support, we are giving away the new nine inch nails album one hundred percent free, exclusively via nin.com.

the music is available in a variety of formats including high-quality MP3, FLAC or M4A lossless at CD quality and even higher-than-CD quality 24/96 WAVE. your link will include all options - all free. all downloads include a PDF with artwork and credits.

for those of you interested in physical products, fear not. we plan to make a version of this release available on CD and vinyl in july. details coming soon.

Go get it, if you haven't already...

It's also licensed under Creative Commons

Labels: Awesome, bittorrent, downloads, good deal, music, youtube and other video

Last week I finished watching Real Kung Fu, a 20 episode TV drama series starring Yuen Biao, Gordon Liu, Leung Kar Yan, Lo Mang, Yuen Wah and Lee Hoi Seng.

The story seemed to revolve around an unambitious middle age man (Yuen Biao, who I assume is playing his age) who gets caught up in a murder mystery. When Leung Kar Yan (who used to be nicknamed "Beardy") appears as an effeminate ex-opera performer (and kung fu expert) with asthma, I figure it's just a nod to a character played by Lam Ching Ying in Prodigal Son. Even knowing that Yuen played the lead in Prodigal Son, I thought nothing more of it, since the lead character here seemed completely different.

It wasn't until an article on Kung Fu Cinema about a newer series called Wing Chun, did I start to make a connection. I was still in the middle of Real Kung Fu (from 2005), when I read that Wing Chun (2007) was a direct sequel to Prodigal Son that re-united Sammo Hung, the film's director with Yuen Biao who played Leung Jan.

Soon I'd figure out that Leung Tsan from the series I was watching was the same, though the story was different.

Leung Chan (spelling varies) was a Wing Chun expert from the 1800's/1900's. He taught the man (Chan Wah-Shun) who taught Yip Man who was Bruce Lee's teacher in Wing Chun, which I guess makes him Lee's Grand teacher. Had I not been a kung fu school drop out, I would have known this and not had to find this out on Wikipedia, but there it is.

Here's the trailer for Prodigal Son:



The opening theme for Real Kung Fu:



and a scene from Wing Chun:



The article says that Wing Chun (a 40 episode series) will be released on DVD in May by Tai Seng for a suggested retail price of sixty bucks, but it's available now from YesAsia for about forty eight bucks. Of course, it can also be found online, *ahem*. I look forward to watching it.

Labels: Awesome, downloads, DVD, kung fu, Liu Chia Hui, movies, tv, youtube and other video

From ars technica:

Sony BMG is no stranger to piracy. As one of the most vocal supporters of the RIAA and IFPI antipiracy efforts, the company has some experience hunting down and punishing consumers who don't pay for its products. The company is getting some experience on the other side of the table, however, now that it's being sued for software piracy.

PointDev, a French software company that makes Windows administration tools, received a call from a Sony BMG IT employee for support. After Sony BMG supplied a pirated license code for Ideal Migration, one of PointDev's products, the software maker was able to mandate a seizure of Sony BMG's assets. The subsequent raid revealed that software was illegally installed on four of Sony BMG's servers. The Business Software Alliance, however, believes that up to 47 percent of the software installed on Sony BMG's computers could be pirated.

These are some pretty serious—not to mention ironic—allegations against a company that's gone so far as to install malware on consumers' computers in the name of preventing piracy.

Read the rest of it.

Labels: downloads, funny-ass shit, hypocrisy, technology

I was rooting for those guys back when there was a format war, but now it's a little bit late for them. They're sounding somewhat optimistic. Perhaps they've simply come too far to turn back. I dunno. I don't care.

I'm waiting for either the price of full profile (2.0) Blu-Ray players to come down significantly, or a compelling reason to buy a PS3 (I already have an XBox 360).

In the meantime, I get my HD fix from the occasionally pixelated fare on Cablevision's Voom HD network, and also from downloading WMVHD encodes of Blu-Ray and HD-DVD releases. These look fantastic, and I've noticed no pixelation at all, watching Mr. And Mrs. Smith and almost no artifacts during Appleseed Ex-Machina. This quells my fear that the pixelation which occurred during fast motion scenes on the HD cable channels were due to a limitation of my moderately priced 37" screen. I now know that isn't the case, based on those downloads and from renting Ratatouille on XBox Live marketplace.

The WMVHD downloads are obtained from usenet (alt.binaries.movies.wmv, alt.binaries.HDTV), saved on a USB hard-drive formatted as HFS+ using Macdrive 7 (I'm not a Mac user), 'cause the 360 doesn't recognize NTFS despite it coming from the same company (Microsoft), and FAT 32 has a 4GB file size limitation (most of what I've downloaded is 8+GBs). The 360 is compatible with HFS+ which is an Apple file system. Hmm.

The only problem I'm having so far, is I can't copy files of folders to this drive if they have Chinese characters in the names, which is the case for some in my music collection.
03/16/08 - easily rectified by right clicking on the drive, selecting "Mac File Names" and "International".

Labels: Anime, downloads, HDTV, movies, music video, PS3, tv, XBox 360

D-Addicts Chinese Series Of The Month for March is the excellent 2006 version of Louis Cha's (Jin Yong) Return Of The Condor Heroes. It's available on DVD in the U.S. as Condor Hero.

I eagerly await the long delayed update of Legend Of The Condor Heroes, which may show up this year.



The Unofficial Wuxia Series Of March are two shows: Young Zhang San Feng and Young Warriors Of The Yang Clan.

Young Zhang San Feng is also known as Taiji Prodigy. This looks promising. Plus, it's Dicky Cheung.




I may skip Young Yang Warriors. I just finished Warriors Of The Yang Clan, and while I thought there was a good story or two there, I was generally annoyed by how badly those stories were told. It was still enjoyable enough to watch and the cast, led by Ti Lung as General Yang Ye were pretty good, as were most of the fight scenes.



The movie Eight Diagram Pole Fighter (starring Gordon Liu and Alexander Fu Sheng) is based on the same legendary family, but was centered around a different son, than that series.





Nah. Actually, I'm gonna check out Young Warriors, too.

Labels: bittorrent, dorama, downloads, kung fu, Liu Chia Hui, movies, Shaw Bros., tv, youtube and other video

Ghosts I-IV at NIN.com

Haven't heard it yet. Just downloaded the FLAC version. I initially opted for the CD priced at ten bucks, but the deal killer was the seven dollar shipping and handling fee. I went for the five dollar download instead (which include DRM free mp3s as an option).

Labels: downloads, good deal, music, online retailers

Happy Year Of The Rat. D-Addicts has another series up for torrent download. Genius Physician Ti Ying AKA Miracle Healers.



This in addition to the usual Chinese Drama Series Of The Month. Three Musketeers with Shu Qi (torrent link). As far as I can tell, it isn't based on Alexander Dumas' novel, though that wouldn't be a bad idea.

Labels: bittorrent, downloads, kung fu, tv, wu-xia, youtube

And I almost forgot to check D-Addicts for the Chinese Series Of The Month.
This month, it's Tian Long Ba Bu (Eight Steps Of The Heavenly Dragon), also known as Demi Gods And Semi Devils and also State Of Divinity.

I recently watched an 80's HK version of the Louis Cha novel starring Lueng Kar Yan, Felix Wong, and Shek Kin (Mr. Han from Enter The Dragon). I liked parts of it but disliked others, mostly the first third of the series before Lueng Kar Yan shows up and starts throwin' around beatdowns. This one is a newer production. Looks to be from within the last couple of years. Guess I'll add this to my download list.

Labels: bittorrent, dorama, downloads, kung fu, tv, wu-xia, youtube

For a limited time, like now-ish till Sunday. This is meant as a compensation for problems with XBox Live during the December holidays. Though only those with gold (paid) subscriptions suffered, this free game is being made available to all members whose machines are connected. And only for these few days. Tough, as there are quite a few players likely waiting for their machines to be repaired and sent back (those who suffered the Red Rings O' Death). For those who already purchased this game (800 points or about 10 bucks), a call to customer service should yield some other solution.

I downloaded the demo a while back, and it was okay. I'll unlock the full game just to have and to give it another go.

Labels: downloads, good deal, video games, XBox 360

Cool! I was gonna buy it even at 30-ish. Since Loco Roco (which was brilliant) didn't do all that great (sales-wise), they're being more reasonable on the price, which is good. More kudos for Sony. Aside from GTA IV, Patapon is the only new game I'm looking forward to in '08 so far. I'm sure they'll be others, but right now, those are the two that stick out.



I'm still playing Orange Box on the 360, now on Half Life 2, Episode 2.
Team Fortress will have to wait 'til I finally upgrade my XBox Live membership as it can only be played as multiplayer.

Next purchase will probably be Blazing Angels 2. Tried the demos of 1&2 the other day as well as Ace Combat 6 and enjoyed BA2 the most out of the bunch. AC6 is cool too, but I'll wait for the price to come down a bit.



The XBox Live Demos are preferable to me to downloading whole games for sampling the worthiness of a potential purchase. I'm assuming the 360 is hackable to that purpose due to the presence of those games on newsgroups, but I've found no reason to do that since the machine does everything I need it to do. Except connect to my PC, but I'm still working on that.

This in contrast to the PSP, a different animal, sure. It had to be hacked to do some of the things I wanted. And yes, I "demo" games on it (like the Japanese version of Patapon), though not always from Sony who are only now beginning to make proper use of their online presence for downloadable content. Whether or not they'll host as many demos as Microsoft does right now remains to be seen.



Beats is a game available from The Playstation Store for five bucks. So far, I'm not that impressed, but for $5, I don't feel ripped off. It works with M33 custom firmware, though for version 3.80 you need one of the later revisions (it's up to M33-5 as of this writing).

Labels: downloads, good deal, online retailers, PSP, video games, XBox 360, youtube

Okay, it's not terrorism, continuing assaults on our freedoms, or way out of control illegal immigration, but still.

Time Warner said on Wednesday that it was going to start testing a new rate plan in Beaumont that would limit the amount of bandwidth each customer can use each month before additional fees kick in. Alexander Dudley, a Time Warner spokesman, said that the exact terms had not been set, but that packages would probably offer between 5 gigabytes and 40 gigabytes a month. The top plan would cost roughly the same as the company’s highest-speed service, which typically runs between $50 and $60 a month.

read more....

Labels: bittorrent, bullshit, computers, downloads, media, technology

Credit where credit is due. Sony-BMG will make their music catalog available at Amazon, DRM-free. Good news. Price is still a bit of an issue for me, though I did buy that NIN album, Still, on Amazon the other day. Future purchases are probable as I like Amazon better than iTunes, generally.

Labels: downloads, music business

Two TV series up at D-Addicts this month (among others) are Drunken Kung Fu, the Chinese Series Of The Month and Fox Volant Of Snowy Mountain.

At the moment, I know nothing of Drunken Kung Fu, but I'll be downloading it for sure.



Fox Volant is a 2007 series based on a Louis Cha novel. This novel is available in English, but has been criticised for a bad translation. Perhaps it will be re-done by Oxford University Press at some point. I hope they're still translating his works. I'm almost finished reading The Book And The Sword, which is absolutely wonderful so far.

Labels: bittorrent, dorama, downloads, kung fu, tv, wu-xia

The Inevitable Rise and Libeteration Of Niggy Tardust! is the latest album from the usually excellent Saul Williams, produced by Trent Reznor. One can download it for free or pay five bucks and get a higher quality mp3s or FLAC files.

I bought it, and I like it, though not as much as Amethyst Rockstar (which I need another copy of) or even Saul Williams (the 2nd album).

I got this email the other day:

The multitrack files of the songs Break and Banged and Blown Through from
The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust! are now available in .wav format that allow you to create your own remixes and mashups in any multitrack audio editing program (like GarageBand, Live, Acid, CoolEdit, etc).

Here are the links:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/xo6ru8
http://www.sendspace.com/file/lmfe5v

Be sure to post links to your version on the
SaulWilliams.com message board!

…and if u haven’t already
Download The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust!
at SaulWilliams.com NOW!!!

Cool stuff.

Trent Reznor has made NIN tracks available for remix for a while now, though I've yet to try 'em out. Now he's released Y34RZ3R0R3MIX3D a remix companion CD to Year Zero. It's in the tradition of his previous remix cds; Fixed for Broken, Further Down The Spiral for Downward, and Things Falling Apart for The Fragile. Was there one for With Teeth? Dentures? Braces?

Big difference here is this disc is better than the one it's based on, in my opinion. I wasn't feelin' Year Zero and quickly forgot it as fast as I did With Teeth which had it's moments but, bleh.

Another big difference; the combo comes with a DVD rom which includes all the tracks from Year Zero in formats that can be imported to audio editors for remixing. Awesomeness! I'll have to get that. I only have downloads right now.

I've only tried my hand at remixing with Beck's Mixed Bizness which had some Acid tracks released about 6 or 7 years ago, and more recently Prince had a handful of samples from the then not yet heard Musicology, that he invited members of his website to mess with. I'll have to look for that Musicology mix, but I do have the Beck track which I've posted at Vox and titled Heather With Leather.

Labels: downloads, good deal, music, music making, remix

Prince responds in song (recorded last night) to the shitstorm he started. And what a funky ass song it is. It seems he's still being an ass in the lyrics (or so it's been interpreted), but who cares? Listen.

Labels: bullshit, civil rights, downloads, music, Prince

Got this email, today. Tried to include the graphics, but it wasn't happening.

This morning I woke up invigorated and charged with the sort of energy that
might only come to someone waking up in a city surrounded by fire. I felt
alive and every instrument ever whistled by the wind surged symphonically
through me. I knew that today, whether by nature or by will, I would be
forced to reckon with what water could not quench. The fire that burns in
me is labeled poetry and music. Men in uniform have tried to put it out.
But every now and then, I blaze through hearts at nature's whim...

how clouds of ash
so easily shade
gray clouds of doubt

I've decided to put my record out.

In hopes of quenching fires:


THE INEVITABLE RISE AND LIBERATION OF NIGGYTARDUST!

http://www.niggytardust.com

Written and Performed by Saul Williams
Produced by Trent Reznor
Mixed by Alan Moulder

Exciting stuff!

Not because it's another "donationware" release on the heals of Radiohead's In
Rainbows, but because it's a new album by Saul Williams! Produced by Trent Reznor! Available not only as MP3s, but also in FLAC!

FLAC and higher encoded MP3s are for paying customers ($5.00 - perfect price for an album download), lower encoded MP3s for those who want the album for free.

I paid the five bucks. Getting the FLAC files. Supposed to be available on November 1st.

I wasn't crazy about the title before I realized it was Saul Williams, and probably
about hip hop and culture. Can't wait for this. Go sign up for it...

Labels: downloads, good deal, music, music business, online retailers

I say about 5 bucks, roughly. I didn't know there was a new Radiohead album coming out, but it'll be released on the net in a few days. The band is offering it to fans and other interested parties. You name the price. From free to whatever.

I already know I like them (though, I'm not a huge fan), and that the record will most likely be decent. I always felt that for mp3s, ninety-nine cents was too expensive, and that CDs were too expensive at fifteen bucks (and up). Thanks to Amazon and some big box stores, most CDs can be had for just about ten bucks, which is perfect. And on eMusic, songs are about 25-30 cents-ish, depending on your plan. Not everything is available on eMusic, but I buy waaaay more music from them than any other way. Everything else are CD purchases from Amazon or in one recent case, the artist themselves.

I like Radiohead's plan. Their fans will pay for the downloads, if they aren't going for the CD/Vinyl package (which includes the downloads). As for those of us with casual interest? I dunno, but I already placed my order at 3.60 euro pounds, which is about $5.10 (or not), U.S. There was a small credit/debit charge of .45 euro pounds added. I was tempted to adust my price, but didn't.

edit: I should have adjusted the price, or double checked the conversion rates with a site other than the one linked to, as the total came up as $8.26 on my card. A bit more than I intended to spend.
MoEdit (Oct. 10 2007): I can't tell a euro from a British pound. There's my price confusion. Album's good so far, but I was reading back issues of Blood Sword on the bus while listening.

Don't expect Prince to go this route.

Thanks to The OdinsBlog.

Labels: downloads, good deal, Heroes, music business, online retailers, oops

Watch the trailer here (thanks Hud) or download it here and convert it to your favorite device.

I'm sooo on that, by the way. I'm even gonna buy the action figures (assuming they don't suck. They can't, right? Right?)

Labels: downloads, movies

NBC has ended their deal with Apple, no longer allowing downloads of their programs from iTunes.
Apparently NBC wants the service to charge $4.99 an episode rather than $1.99.
Also, they seem to think that the DRM on iTunes downloads aren't strong enough.

"Among its aims are to stop pirated material from being uploaded to iPods."

Now, the only NBC programs on iPods will be pirated ones. Idiots!
I still think $1.99 is too much, but it doesn't matter. I don't have an iPod, nor do I plan on getting one. The DRM crap won't work on my PSP, and that's fine by me.

The program I use to convert downloaded (not from iTunes) and dvds for viewing on my PSP also converts them to the iPod, XviD4PSP. And it's a free program. So if you want to take the latest episode of Heroes to work with you, it'll show up on usenet (look it up if you don't know) and the other usual places about a day later. When the accountants explain to the knuckleheads the damage being done, you'll soon be able to go back to your overpriced iTunes downloads... if you still want to.

Update: You might not want to. I haven't tried this yet, but it's supposedly easy, using RSS and torrents. I think there are risks using torrents that aren't there with usenet, but usenet is complicated to explain (TimDoc can help) and finding exactly what you want there, isn't always easy. Read - TV Torrents: When 'piracy' is easier than legal purchase.
Thanks James Hudnall.

Labels: bittorrent, bullshit, downloads, funny-ass shit, online retailers, ripoffs, solutions?

I vaguely recall this being the title of a barely watchable movie from, maybe, the 1990s, but I won't let any such preconceived notions get in the way of checking out a new Wu-xia TV series.

I don't know what it's about except that it's based on a Louis Cha (Jing Yong) novel from the mid 1950s. What's likely are kung fu mayhem, defiance of gravity, romantic complications, and perhaps yet another attempt by some evil bastard to infiltrate the Beggar Clan. Well maybe not the last bit, though it's been attempted in three series I've seen already, Demi-Gods and Semi Devils (1982), Legend Of The Condor Heroes (1983?), and Return Of The Condor Heroes (2006), all based on Cha's works.

The thirty episode series (fansubbed) can be sampled over at D-Addicts via a torrent. The download includes the soundtrack. It's a bit hefty at 16 GBs.

I actually have 2 more eps to go on Return Of The Condor Heroes.
I should be done tomorrow, at which point I continue watching the Anime, Jubei-Chan 2: Counterattack of Siberian Yagyu, before moving on to Heavenly Sword, Dragon Sabre (2003-ish), the third and final (?) part of the Condor Heroes trilogy.

Labels: Anime, bittorrent, dorama, downloads, kung fu, tv, wu-xia, youtube

"Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left. This is how I roll with control - NES."

Hip Hop centered around Anime and video games? Why not, I guess. An article on Garage Spin pointed me to this cat named Maja (pronounced may-juh) who spins rhymes about that stuff. I've avoided listening to so-called "nerd-core" hip hop. Something about that whole scene rubs me the wrong way, and I'm not sure why, but I figured I'd check out his Transformer video on YouTube.

Hmm. Nicely done. Next was a performance of ANIME (アニメ見る時) in English and Japanese. Holy shit! Listen to this guy...



Next up, I listened to one or two tracks on his New School Hip Hop MySpace page and I was sold. First I checked to see if he was on eMusic. He wasn't, so I went ahead and ordered the CD. That was Thursday night, probably after 12. I got it on Saturday after paying for the cheapest shipping available. It was a shock to get it that quick, but then I realized it shipped from Brooklyn. Cool. The shipping, the NY sales tax and $3.00 handling fee brought the disc up to about $15.00, a little more than I would normally pay for a CD, on the rare occasion I buy them.

I've listened to it a coupl'a times now and I'm mightily impressed. Not that I listen to that much hip hop anymore, but it's nice to see somebody do something fresh with the genre every now and then.

I'll be absorbing this record for a little while. So far my favorite is UUDDLRL, though I'm much less a gaming fiend than I am an Anime one (and not as much as I used to be).

Maja's MySpace has 4 songs not on New School Hip Hop.

The Transformer Bundle is a free download including the complete version of Transformer (the track on the CD is acappella) and Here I come, which is different from the outro remix.

More Maja videos can be found here.

Labels: Anime, downloads, good deal, japanese, music, music video, video games, youtube

Playstation.com are giving away UMD discs that demo a new game for the PSP; Jeanne D'Arc.
Only while supplies last. I signed up for mine. You get yours...

Thanks pspupdates.qj.net

For downloadable demos for a bunch of other PSP titles (some are Japanese), click here.

Labels: downloads, good deal, PSP

Archive.org makes a number of public domain titles available for viewing and download, as well as other media with various copyrights and whatnot. I'm not sure this movie belongs here, but a number of films like this tend to show up on supermarket and discount shelves from multiple dvd labels, so the copyright on the English version is probably not being enforced at the moment.

I haven't seen this one, yet, but it looks entertaining by the looks of the first few minutes.

You can stream it here, or download the mp4 which may or may not work in your portable media player. I haven't tried it in my PSP, yet.

Enjoy...

Labels: downloads, good deal, kung fu, movies

Yikes! Got a heads up from the Undercover Black Man that the recording in question is Albert Brooks, not Nick Nolte, and as a result not quite as funny. A link to an interview with Mr. Brooks is posted in the comments section. Cue my own Krusty groan. My apologies to all, especially to Mr. Nolte and his family.

Back in the early nineties, James Brooks shot a musical called I'll Do Anything. The cast, which included Nick Nolte and Tracey Ullman sang and danced to songs mostly written by Prince. Test audiences weren't crazy about the result, and the movie was re-edited into a dramedy. I saw it on cable years ago and didn't think it was that bad of a movie, but I always wanted to see the original version out of curiosity. As a Prince fan, I'd be compelled to purchase a special edition DVD with the musical on it, if it were ever made available.

A non-Prince tune stayed in the film and the lyrics to Don't Talk To Strangers was used as dialog (or was it the other way around?).
A number of the songs appeared on the bootleg Platinum, and then (3 songs) on The Vault: Old Friends For Sale (officially released and excellent). Don't Talk to Strangers was covered by Chaka Khan on Come To My House. The Prince version of that song and I'll Do Anything hasn't been released officially, I think.

Recently, 30 Years Of Unreleased Funk Vol. 3 appeared on usenet. I haven't listened to the whole thing yet (and may be missing a track or two), but I jumped right to the I'll Do Anything tracks, particularly the one's with Nick Nolte. Man, it would be tough to try and sell this soundtrack. He even does a Krusty The Clown like groan somewhere in there. Using the mug shot pic above will probably seem like a cheap shot till you hear this tune... (took that down out of fairness)

I'll Do Anything - Nick Nolte Albert Brooks

I'll Do Anything - Prince Demo

I'll Do Anything - Prince from Platinum

The above are megaupload links. I don't know how long they'll last...

Labels: downloads, funny-ass shit, movies, music, oops, Prince

Recently, some rare-ish (never before released on CD) 80's b-sides and extended versions from Prince were made available from 7digital (and iTunes?) in Europe*. Fans are expressing some disappointment that these tracks are badly encoded vinyl rips complete with audible scratches, pops and surface noise. Read here to see what one fan had to go through to get some of his money back.

Hold on to those bootlegs. They won't be obsolete for a long while.

*these may not be available in the U.S.

7 Digital sells DRM'd wma files, by the way.

Labels: bullshit, downloads, music business, Prince, ripoffs

For the most part, I still listen to albums (set compilations of music sequenced by the artist, traditionally sold on a vinyl or plastic disc), when listening to music on my PSP. Often times, say when doing my food shopping, laundry, or just when I feel like it, I prefer not to make any set choices and listen to random songs from my music collection.

Unlike the higher end iPods, which have hard drives as large as 30-60 Gigs (more?), PSPs are limited to external memory via Memory Stick Duos. I think the largest capacity released thus far is the 8 gig. I have a 1 GB, 2 GB, and a 4. This limits what I can keep on my PSP at any given moment. This is especially true since other data is stored on the memory stick. Game saves, game demos, ISOs (games), emulators & ROMs, photos and of course videos (usually two or more 45 minute Wu-Xia TV episodes*).
I normally have space left over for anywhere between 2-6 albums worth of music.

The PSP has a shuffle feature that randomizes whats on the mem stick, but only within each folder (each folder normally representing an album or otherwise group of songs). That's pretty useless. In other words, the PSP will shuffle tracks from Cntrl-Alt-Delete-U (The Paper Chase), move on to EP C (Battles) to do the same, and then Planet Earth (Prince). When not listening to albums as originally sequenced (or newly sequenced by myself or others), I'd prefer to shuffle tracks from all folders on my player.

When PSP Shuffle came around (or when I finally found out about it), it was great. It scanned all the music on my PC, and whenever I wanted to fill up my memory stick with random music, it did it's thing, and I was good to go. I disabled the photo and video feature. Throwing random photos from my PC onto the PSP wasn't a good idea (for a couple of reasons). The only video that can play on the portable is video specifically encoded for use on it or similar devices. Still, I mostly watch serialized material, that works best in chronological order. Sometimes I encode YouTube videos to show friends at work, and those are chosen specifically.

PSP Shuffle cleared out the contents of the mem stick before filling it with music. Even though I set it to only import music, it would erase all videos and photos as well as music (after giving a warning). This wasn't a big deal to me. I would use a mem stick that didn't have any current videos on it and game data was untouched.

At some point (I don't recall when), PSP Shuffle stopped working. I attributed it to a problem with my PC. Something I installed or un-installed. Who knows? The program acted like it was working, only much faster than usual. It would erase the mem stick, but not fill it with music. I tried uninstalling and re-installing, adjusting what little settings there were and then just gave up on it. I figured that maybe a firmware update might've had something to do with it.

When hooked up via USB, it used to be that music was found in "drive letter"/PSP/MUSIC, but fairly recently (don't remember when) the music folder was placed on the root of the PSP (as was VIDEO), so it would be found on "drive letter"/MUSIC. The old music folder is still there and still works (still needed for 48 Hour Pong), so I don't know if one thing has anything to do with the other.

A few attempts were made using Google to solve this problem with no success until a couple of days ago when I came across a guide to using a program called Media Monkey with the PSP. Media Monkey is primarily a music organizing tool that looks like it's inspired by iTunes. I've used iTunes to convert CDs to MP3s and M4As, but not much else, since I don't have an iPod. The free version of Media Monkey does everything I need it for, but I'm tempted to pay for a license, because it's so good at it. For one thing, it's not as CPU hungry as PSP Shuffle was. For another, it doesn't automatically erase the memory stick, of other music, video, etc. All the other stuff it may or may not do (I'll find out later) is gravy.

On the guide, where it addresses synchronization options, Kingbee116 suggests synchronizing tracks to \PSP\MUSIC\"artist"\"title".mp3. He correctly points out that once in MUSIC, you can only go one folder deep. I would normally put the music in \MUSIC\"album"\"title".mp3, preferring to name the folder after the album title rather than artist name, which can usually be seen on screen. Also using the root MUSIC folder as allowed by recent firmwares (official and custom).

Since the main purpose of this program (for me) is to randomize tracks, I avoid sub-folders altogether. I set it to \MUSIC\"title".mp3 so that the MUSIC folder is not filled with other folders with music in them, but with tracks from all over my computer. And rather than play these tracks in alphabetical and numerical order, I then use the PSP's shuffle feature, and everything is as it should be.

I still have to edit my music library inside of Media Monkey, as I have samples, program sounds, podcasts, DAW tracks, unrecognized (on the PSP) formats and other audio I consider undesirable for this particular task.

*At the moment, I'm watching Jubei-Chan, soon to be followed by Jubei-Chan 2. These are Anime, not Wu-Xia. Soon as I'm done with those, I'll finish watching Return Of The Condor Heroes (2006), which is Wu-Xia.

Labels: downloads, good deal, music, PSP, solutions?

Kudos to Team M33 for picking up the torch from retired coder Dark Alex. Updated custom firmwares allow PSP users to both purchase contemporary commercial games and use their favorite homebrew programs. When faced with a choice between the two matters, I choose to keep homebrew, and not buy new games. Custom firmwares also allow piracy, which is a legit concern for Sony, but one I doubt they'll ever combat successfully.

If there were some way for Sony to allow homebrew (non-commercial programs created by enthusiasts) on official firmwares, it might, reduce piracy of current PSP software. However, some of the most popular homebrew are emulators of older systems. I don't know whether or not they constitute some form of piracy.

Anyhow, the battle rages on and users are winning.

Labels: civil rights, downloads, Heroes, PSP, video games

Great amateur short Kung Fu film. No martial arts experience between the lot of them. I'm impressed as a muh-fug.

Found via The Martial World.

Labels: downloads, funny-ass shit, independent film-making, kung fu, youtube

As reported on Kung Fu Cinema;

Online digital download site Jaman.com is currently offering up to three free downloadable rentals on select Shaw Brothers classics such as TWIN BLADES OF DOOM and THE 14 AMAZONS when you create an account.

All you need to do to take advantage of this feature is have a broadband connection, visit Jaman.com, register for free, download the Jaman player, and start downloading up to three digital titles specially-marked “Free Rental” from among 50 Shaw Brothers classics in Jaman’s online library.

Once you’ve finished watching your free rentals, you can continue to rent movies for $1.99 or purchase them for $4.99.

I'm not a fan of watching movies on my computer, but I'm gonna have to try this.

Out in video stores this week are the first of the Dragon Dynasty releases of the Shaw Bros. line; 36th Chamber Of Shaolin (Master Killer), My Young Auntie, King Boxer (5 Fingers Of Death), and The One Armed Swordsman. If these movies contain the original English dub tracks (where applicable), then the time has come to throw away my old supermarket bought bootlegs.

Labels: downloads, good deal, kung fu, Liu Chia Hui, movies, nostalgia, Shaw Bros., wu-xia

Some projectionist submitted a negative review of "Rise Of The Silver Surfer" and got canned after the studio (Fox) threatened the theatre chain. Most agree that if a confidentiality agreement had been signed (or otherwise consented), then fine. However that isn't apparent at this time (he denies it), and Fox's bullying tactics might not be the type of publicity they want right now.
I was already leaning towards not seeing this film until it was available in some digital manner. I disliked (didn't hate it) the first one, and didn't see how the same crew could do any better this time. So, the controversy, if it has any legs, is mostly a non-issue for me. I am interested to see what it leads to, if anything.

Speaking of movies, I attempted to see Knocked Up over the weekend with a friend, and found the screening sold out. If theatre attendance is really declining the way it's been described, then this sort of thing shouldn't be happening anymore, should it? Or is Hollywood only worried about their shitty movies?

Labels: bullshit, comics, downloads, movies

On TV

Craig Ferguson
is what David Letterman was like, about twenty years ago and Conan O'Brien was less than ten years ago (before Andy Richter left). Funny. A guy trying to make the best of what the network will spring for.
Apparently, multiple shows are recorded on the same day (which ruins the topicality of some shows). Also it's not shown in HD, which might be a good thing as Hi-Def has made Conan harder to look at (Dude looks ghastly).

No complaints about Jay Leno's show which is a solid, entertaining late night show in the tradition of Johnny Carson, whom he replaced. I have way more respect for the guy now than I did when he first took over The Tonight Show. I don't really make it a point to watch the show, though. If I think I can stay up, it passes the time till CF comes on.

The Showbiz Show With David Spade
here's where showbiz news belongs, aside from Entertainment Tonight, which isn't quite as funny. He should be on five nights a week.

The Sopranos
Do I keep HBO now that it's done? Hmmm. Maybe, if not, I'll need another HD movie channel. I thought it was a great ending. It won't please everybody, though.

The Daily Show and sometimes The Colbert Report.

House M.D.
I normally come in during the last ten - fifteen minutes. There's no way I'm gonna guess what's wrong with the patient anyway.

On PSP

Return Of The Condor Heroes (2006)
The box set in U.S. stores is simply called Condor Heroes, but it's based on the sequel to Legend Of The Condor Heroes, a serialized novel by Louis Cha. The anime, which is titled Legend Of... pulls the same trick, though in that case it isn't only the U.S. version, but the Japanese version as well that's mis-titled.

Anyway, it may not be completely necessary to see the prequel to enjoy this, but if you don't, you might get the impression that West Venom, Ouyang Feng is simply a crazy, funny old guy as I did when I first encountered the character in The Legendary Couple (only read the first four volumes), a comicbook adaptation of Return from a few years back (It only lasted 8 volumes in the U.S.). It remains to be seen (by me) whether his true colors re-emerge.

Prior to this, I watched the fifteen disc (59 episode) 1983 version of Legend, and decided to follow with the 2006 version of Return, instead of the eighties version with Andy Lau (which I don't have, anyway). I was gonna wait for the 2007 version of Legend, but said eff it, and bought the DVD set of the 80s version instead. Great series, but it didn't need 59 episodes to tell that story.

I downloaded the 2006 Return of... from usenet, and the 2004(?) version of the third part of this story, Heaven Sword, Dragon Sabre, from D-Addicts, which I'll watch next. I also have a 1986 version of HSDS starring Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, but I'll save that for another time.

I'm up to episode eight (of forty-one). I stopped for a bit, and re-read the first four volumes of the comicbook, 'cuz I remembered some other stuff happening near the begining that didn't seem to be covered here, particularly, Yang Guo's relationship to Guo Jing's and Huang Rong's daughter, the Wu brothers, and his first meeting with Ouyang Feng. I'm seeing some of that stuff pop up in dialog and flashbacks now. Also, I found watching Yang Guo (Yang Gor) as a young boy annoying with all the crying and what not. I thought we'd be past that when he grew up (end of ep 3), but at this point he's still wandering around yelling for his Gu-gu. Otherwise, it's starting to get pretty good, though confusing with all the characters popping up outta nowhere.

I'm concerned about what's gonna happen when he finds out who killed his father, the douche-bag, Yang (Wayan) Kang. Also, that thing that happens to Gu-gu/Mistress Dragon is pretty disturbing both here (ep 6?) and at the end of vol. 4 of the comic.

The effects are very well done, but the action is a bit floaty.

Demi-Gods & Semi-Devils (1982)
TV series also based on a serialized novel by Louis Cha. A few of the episodes I had of Return Of The Condor Heroes were found to be corrupted (particularly the subtitles), so while I searched for replacements and re-read The Legendary Couple (the four volumes I had), and started this series. I now alternate between this and Return.
I'm not sure if this is supposed to be a prequel the Condor Heroes trilogy, but the Beggar Clan figures prominently as well as their two well known techniques, The Dog Beating Stick and The Eighteen Dragon Repelling Palms (passed on to Huang Rong and Guo Jing in Legend Of). It clearly takes place during the Song Dynasty, where Condor is close to the end.
Wikipedia places Demi-Gods at the 11th Century, Legend at the 12th, Return at the 13th, and Heavenly Sword at the 14th.

Initially, I wasn't sure if this show would hold my interest, but now that Leung Kar Yan has shown up (as Beggar chief Master Kiu), things have gotten much more interesting. Especially the fighting.

Tuen Yue who was the focus, up until recently (I'm somewhere around ep 18), is a bit annoying to me. He does have a fascinating dilemma, though; His father was such a player, any girl Yue meets is potentially his half sister. This has only ruined one relationship, so far, but I doubt it'll be the last...

edit: I should mention that the above shows aren't available for the PSP (that I know of). They had to be converted from the DVDs to MP4s using XviD4PSP by Winnydows. There are other tools out there. This is the one I use.

Labels: comics, dorama, downloads, DVD, kung fu, PSP, tv, wu-xia, youtube

From Hometracked.com;

"Linkin Park’s singles often inspire the question “haven’t they already written this song?” An mp3 that does the rounds from time to time mixes Numb (on the left) and Pushing Me Away (on the right) to illustrate this with almost comical effect: All Linken Park Songs Sound Exactly The Same."

Read the rest over there...

While I understand that clichés are to be avoided, I can't help but wanna try one out when I come across something (I think) I haven't tried before. Call it a songwriting experiment. My next song will probably be one o' these soft-LOUD-soft-LOUD things.

I wonder if there are similarities in my own music that I'm not aware of? There probably isn't much of a (or any) variety in my song structures (verse, chorus, etc.), but still... I think the recordings are fairly different from each other.

I hope...

Labels: downloads, funny-ass shit, music, music making

Now this is much more like it. Guitar is the first single from Prince's new album Planet Earth, coming out in about a month or so. This song was first released a little while ago on Prince's website, 3121.com for 2 bucks. This tune, available through Verizon if you have one of their phones, is a different, much better, much live-r version. The video above ain't too bad either.

I'm getting my hopes up that Planet Earth won't be the disappointment that 3121 was.

I don't have a Verizon phone, so I found the song through "alternative" means.

Labels: downloads, music, music video, Prince, youtube

I stopped checking for it a few days ago, but lo and behold; Ubuntu Studio has arrived. I haven't downloaded it yet, but I will soon. I need to save my data from my Agnula partition first.


Edit - figured I'd add the release notes...

Ubuntu Studio is a multimedia editing/creation flavour of Ubuntu. It's built for the GNU/Linux audio, video, and graphic enthusiast or professional.

The Ubuntu Studio team is proud to announce its first release: 7.04 for Intel i386-compatible processors. With this release, which you can download for DVD in little over 860 MiB, we offer a feature that is somewhat reminiscent of Ubuntu Server: on installation, you can choose between the Audio, Graphics or Video tasks; and choose also to install a number of plugins, which for this release is mainly aimed at audio production.

We have endeavoured to keep as many of our packages in the standard Ubuntu repositories as possible. Certain packages, such as wired and our art packages, are kept in an external repository and fully up to Ubuntu packaging standards. Be aware however, that this is only a temporary solution and we will be pushing all our packages into Ubuntu for the next release.

The Audio task also provides a different kernel to the Video and Graphics tasks, which has low latency to enable easy JACK work, and for Gutsy we will be providing a fully realtime enabled setup. We have built upon the usability and support of Ubuntu as a foundation, and are certain that this was a wise choice, for we have access to a wide range of packages in the repository, and a stable base system.

For the video task, we have chosen the GStreamer-based PiTiVi as our central NLE. PiTiVi is written in Ubuntu's favourite scripting language, Python, and the GStreamer back-end enables it to use all the GStreamer-compatible codecs that are installed, and thus taking advantage of Feisty's Easy Codec Installation. It also uses our favourite widget set, GTK+, and thus keeps with the theme and flow of the Ubuntu Studio desktop, and tries also to stay usable in any environment, in keeping with Ubuntu Studio's aim that media production should be simple and accessible.

We have also packaged Ardour 2, which will debut on our disc. Our theme is heavily based around the dark style of Ardour and many other audio applications, and we are trying to have a release that is as integrated as possible with all of our applications and tasks.

Finally, the Graphics task deserves some attention. We have included a very wide range of very high quality applications that are also very well known. What we have done is added to this selection (with Enblend, for example), and brought them all together into a coherent set. Some main packages to note are the GIMP, Inkscape, Blender, Hugin and Scribus, which are all provided with a default install of the Ubuntu Studio Graphics task.

As our wiki page at [WWW] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuStudio states: "Our aim is to make it more accessible for new users to get into the tools that GNU/Linux has to offer for multimedia creation/production. We also want to spotlight what's out there. Show users tools they might not have know existed." We have certainly fulfilled that aim with our first release with 7.04, and can only continue to improve.

Thanks to all who helped in Ubuntu Studios creation! Bring on the show!

Labels: downloads, Linux, music making

Good news for sure. DRM is a major hurdle preventing me from buying music downloads from anywhere but eMusic (there are other DRM free sites I've yet to look into). The other is price. There seems to be no announcement on price yet, but I suspect they'll continue the 99 cent standard set by iTunes. Especially since the low price of eMusic downloads (approx. 30 cents a song as of this writing) seems to be chasing some record labels away. If Amazon were to bring the price down to about 50-75 cents a track, I'd be willing to buy some tracks from them and still stay with eMusic. I don't see this as likely right now.

Labels: downloads, music, music business, online retailers

Did a couple of new things to it, primarily the replacement of the lead vocal. It can be bought at the PsychoVoyager store on top of this page, and/or listened to in its entirety on MySpace (as of this writing) and the Podcast Music Network. The Podcast version is slow due to a weird Flash glitch.

Based on the original, The World They Loved To Hate, performed by Cry For Life, written by Crystal Walters.

My old mix remains free, as well as the instrument tracks, which can be imported into most audio editors/workstations etc.

Labels: covers, Crystal Walters, downloads, my music, PsychoVoyager

My 2001 LP, Just For Me is now available at Napster and Rhapsody, if you happen to use those services.

These in addition to being found on eMusic, and the Snocap Psychovoyager store on top of this page. Also there's Lulu.com where the album can be purchased as a collection of lossless flac files, or bought individually as mp3s (almost forgot - lower bitrate mp3s can be downloaded there for free). I'll make an announcement here when it appears on iTunes (which could take a little while).

Aside from Snocap and Lulu, my music appears at the above retailers through Tunecore.com.

On some stores, all of the songs on the album are labeled explicit for lyrical content, though only one song, Let You Down, contains any profanity (a single use of the term fuckin' as an adjective). It's Tunecore's rule, so I abided by it.

More music to come as I polish up songs from the last couple of years and maybe even write and produce new ones. April Fool's Day, found above on the Psychovoyager music store, is kinda seasonal and was completed only recently, so it hasn't been submitted at this point. I would prefer to submit compilations (albums) rather than singles at this time as it seems more cost effective. Therefore new completed songs will debut on my MySpace page and the PsychoVoyager music store embedded on it as well as here and on my PsychoVoyager.com blog (the home page is in need of maintenance).

Labels: downloads, music, music business, my music, online retailers, PsychoVoyager

I signed up with Tunecore.com the other day as a way of getting my music onto the major online retailers like iTunes and eMusic. I hadn't heard of 'em until seeing an ad in the latest sales brochure from Guitar Center. I knew there were other "backdoors" into the above mentioned music sites, but they seemed slightly more complicated, so I held off for a li'l bit.

There are fees involved (of course), but they're reasonable, I think. I put up my 2001 LP, Just For Me (also available on top of this page) up after converting the CD to lossless AAC files using the iTunes program.

I selected every eStore available through this service to distribute my music (including different iTunes regions), despite the fact I only shop at eMusic, myself. Shouldn't hurt to be where the music fans are.

They say to give 6-8 weeks to see your tracks up, but I happened to look in on eMusic today and found my album was already available. iTunes will no doubt take more time. I haven't checked Sony Connect, Rhapsody or the others, yet.

I plan on putting new music up gradually as I complete new songs.

Now, if only I can get folks to buy the record...

Just For Me at eMusic.

Labels: downloads, music business, my music, online retailers, PsychoVoyager, solutions?

Create beats and songs while on the bus or on the toilet.

I've actually been playing games on my PSP, lately (Burnout Legends and Every Extend Extra), so it's been a while since I've started a new song on it. It's a great program, though. If you have a PSP and it's homebrew capable, get PSP Rhythm, here...

Labels: downloads, good deal, music making, PSP, PSP Rhythm, video games

So, EMI will be the first label able to release music on iTunes without DRM ankle bracelets. This unlocks the ability to play songs on portable music players that aren't iPods and possibly generate more revenue for both the iTunes store and for EMI (and, hopefully, it's artists). Steve Jobs himself endorsed the idea a little while back, but it was EMI who apparently posed the scenario to Apple to begin with (not counting the music fans, of course).

I think it's a very good first step. Now the only reason for me not to buy songs on iTunes is the price. Ninety-nine cents is still too much for an MP3 (MP4 in this case), a buck-twenty-nine, way too much (even at higher bitrates), and ten bucks (9.99) for an album's worth of compressed music (same for AACs with or without ankle bracelets) can be okay to bad depending on quantity and length (and quality, too). I'm not sure all albums are $9.99. Took a quick glance, before writing this.

Me, I'd like to see more major labels on eMusic. But, hey. You can't have everything. Actually, you can, and DRM hasn't stopped that, has it?

Labels: downloads, music business, online retailers, ripoffs, solutions?

April Fool's Day, a re-recorded and much improved version of this demo (click on the ogg link at the bottom - the stand alone player does some weird chipmunk thing to the song). The new version was recorded with PSP Rhythm, Sonar and Audacity. While it can be found and heard in it's entirety on my Myspace page, a higher bitrate version can be heard on my Podsafe page.
So go and listen, and if you feel like it, buy it.

I blogged a bit about the recording process, here...

Labels: downloads, my music, online retailers, PSP Rhythm, PsychoVoyager

Alt.binaries.multimedia.chinese has a trio of English subtitled TV series being uploaded. All encoded for the iPod, but should be playable, as is, on the PSP. Official firmware 2.8 and up, or custom firmware 3.02* and up is required. The mp4 file, which doesn't have to be renamed, would be placed in the /VIDEO folder (in the root directory of your memory stick), instead of one of the various folders found in MP_ROOT. I haven't watched these series yet, but a previously uploaded shows that was iPod encoded, Face To Fate, played with no problem, other than three or four episodes (out of thirty) didn't have English subs.

Okay, so what I see being uploaded at the moment are:

The Brink Of Law - Looks like some sort of legal/cop drama. No kung fu, but some action is involved. Here's a YouTube clip.

The Heavenly In-Laws - Weird (to me) supernatural comedy. Yuen Wah's in it (I think that's him), so maybe there's some kung fu. A YouTube clip.

The Devil's Disciples - Here we go! Now, this is more like it. Looks like Eddy Ko as the bad guy. Flying swordsmen and CGI. Hope it's actually good. Preview below:



How does one download the great stuff to be found on alt.binaries.multimedia.chinese and the thousands of other groups on usenet? I'm never good at explaining how it works, so I'll just point towards TimDoc's page, and let him explain it (his downloading guide has been a great help to me over the years). There are other guides on the net as well. You can use a premium server like EasyNews, but your ISP may provide access to usenet at no extra cost, so find out how this whole thing works before paying extra.


*I can't remember if there was a custom firmware between 2.71 and 3.02, but any PSP firmware (official or custom) 2.80 and over would enable the /VIDEO and /MUSIC folders (in the root directory of the memory stick). Not all MP4s work in that video folder however.

Labels: dorama, downloads, kung fu, PSP, tv, wu-xia, youtube

I don't think there's any kung fu in this one, so I'll pass.
If I do download it, I won't watch it in public (PSP).

Info here.
Torrents here (first 10 episodes, with the last 5 coming soon, I think).
YouTube preview below (as of this writing)...

Labels: bittorrent, dorama, downloads, tv, youtube

This series is shorter at ten episodes than most of this genre (Wu-Xia), which tend to go on for about 30-50 eps. Don't know anything about this one (cast, story, etc.) except that it's widescreen, which will look good on my PSP. I also notice it's available (with English subtitles) at quite a few online retailers, at around twenty bucks, which isn't bad.

Speaking of interesting online deals, I noticed a price difference for the 1983 series, Legend Of The Condor Heroes at the global and U.S. site for YesAsia. The global.YesAsia site, which in this case mentions "United States - English" at the top of the page, lists the series at $162.50 for the fifteen disc uncut set. (I get to this site through a link at Kung Fu Cult Cinema).
The US.YesAsia.com site lists the English subtitled set (also as "uncut" and fifteen discs) at $73.50. I normally wouldn't spend $75.00 in one shot on a single DVD series, but this is sounding like a good deal to me. I may have to pick this up...

02/17/07 - ordered it a few days ago. The prices on the global.yesasia.com site adjusts once you setup your location.

Labels: bittorrent, dorama, downloads, DVD, good deal, kung fu, online retailers, tv, wu-xia

Prince's new song is up at 3121.com. It's called Guitar and it's a buck ninety-nine for a tune slightly over three minutes. I've made it clear that iTunes is too expensive at ninety-nine cents (cant use iTunes songs on my PSP anyway). There's no fuckin' way I'm payin' two dollars on an mp3, not even one by Prince. So I'll have to wait 'till I can "find" it. If it's on a new CD, I'll end up buying it, anyway. Sometimes, that man is not very bright.


Feb 4th, 2007 - Having heard the song a few times now, I rather like it. It's not great, but even if it was, I wouldn't pay two bucks for it. Looking forward to this evening's halftime show.

Labels: bullshit, downloads, music, online retailers, Prince, ripoffs

Guitar is the name, and it'll be downloadable at 3121.com (his website) sometime on Friday. The NFL Network is supposed to air a press conference held by Prince on Thursday afternoon, at which, he is gonna perform some music, but answer no questions. This will be followed up by his Superbowl Halftime show, which will likely be a hits set with some new music thrown in for good measure and hopefully the release of a new album or something.

via: Housequake.com
The best source for Prince news

Labels: downloads, music, Prince

"Then again, there's always the possibility that the movie was bedeviled by a cliche rise-and-fall story, hopelessly generic pop tunes that sound nothing like Motown, and a thick lacquer of sheer Liberace-sings-R-&-B camp."

From a sidebar in today's New York Post (I think), trying to figure out why it wasn't nominated for a best picture Oscar.

I watched a screener* yesterday, and while it wasn't a horrible movie, the quote above sums up my feelings almost exactly.

*Screeners are copies of movies either on DVD or VHS that are sent to academy voters to get them to consider their films come Oscar/Golden Globe time. Apparently even movie folks don't like going to the movies that much anymore. These screeners inevitably end up on the internets.

Labels: downloads, DVD, movies

is a mash-up that mixes Outkast's Bombs Over Baghdad (B.O.B.) with Bloc Party's Banquet. The combined piece is not as good as either of the originals. Then again, with exceptions, I'm not a huge fan of mash-ups, anyway. It is listenable, and I can't help but love the title.

I couldn't find the track anywhere on the web to link to, but if you know how to access usenet, you can get it from one of the groups there (as of this writing).

The new Bloc Party album is out there, though maybe not in stores yet. I dunno.
On first listen it's a bit mellower than I would like and nothing has stuck, yet. I'll give it another try though. A Weekend In The City, it's called.

Labels: downloads, music

Swiped from the BBC...

About 200 pornographic films are shot in the US every week

Thirty thousand people have gathered in the US city of Las Vegas for the annual convention of the pornography industry.

The scale of the Adult Entertainment Expo reflects the huge growth in a business which is said to be bigger than Hollywood and worth $57bn (£29bn).

Estimates of its annual contribution to the US economy range from $12bn-$20bn.

One of the reasons for its recent success is the pioneering use of new technology - video on the internet and use of moving images on mobile phones.

The BBC's Guto Harri in Las Vegas says it is easy to be embarrassed at such a show, with explicit films, intimidating toys and hundreds of half-naked actors on display.

The adult industry is bigger than every professional sports combined - it's part of life, it's mainstream now Adult entertainment model Jasmine Mai

But the scale and seriousness of the convention is not that different to a more mainstream gathering because pornography is big business, our correspondent says.

Adult entertainment model Jasmine Mai told the BBC: "The adult industry is bigger than every professional sports combined. It's part of life - it's mainstream now."

'Innovations'

Embracing new technology has been critical to the industry's development, and has allowed people to access it more easily and more discreetly, bringing in new customers.

Adult entertainment helped determine the dominance of VHS over Beta, it was crucial in the development of video on the web, and is now pioneering moving images on mobile phones.

There are an estimated 200 pornographic films shot in the United States every week. Improving production and distribution methods has helped to cut costs.

Our correspondent says many people regard pornography with disgust, but mainstream entertainment has and will continue to benefit from the technical innovations of the shameless people who are in Nevada this weekend.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I should probably research this, but I've never heard the Porn industry complain about "illegal downloading". There's certainly no shortage of free porn on the internet, yet these folks don't seem at all hurt by it. Other parts of the entertainment industry could probably learn a thing or two about the way porn has embraced new tech.

Labels: downloads, independent film-making, movies, porn

Don't know much about this series, except it has Raymond Lam from Twin Of Brothers, which I liked as well as that guy from John Woo's Heroes Shed No Tears. Eddy Ko (Thanks imdb).

Torrent download and info at D-Addicts. Opening theme below via YouTube.




I've probably got enough of these Wu-Xia series that I could watch an episode a day (on my PSP, of course) and still not be finished in a year. Currently I'm watching Hero In Black AKA Wo Lai Ye (Here I Come), a Zorro like comedy that features Cheng Pei Pei (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Come Drink With Me) as an overbearing mother. I've recently downloaded 35 episodes of a Monkey King series that has Sam Lee in it.

This isn't all I watch. Before starting Hero In Black, I watched the first season of The Wire (My brother hooked me up with the first two) and I'll probably check out the second season next. Also recently bought the final season of Angel, and season one of Smallville, so I'll be looking at those eventually as well.

Update 01/24/07: I finished Wo Lai Ye last week. While not completely bad, it's the worst of these dramas I've seen, yet. I just didn't like the characters or their relationships to each other. Especially Song Dou's affection for the owner of the Top Chef restaurant. It contradicts his hatred for the greed of corrupt officials and the wealthy who live at the expense of the poor in his town.
She appears to share this sentiment, yet also shares the characteristics of Wo Lai Ye's sworn enemies. I found the ending unsatisfying as well.

Labels: bittorrent, dorama, downloads, kung fu, PSP, tv, wu-xia, youtube

A coupl'a these predate 2006 by a few years or more, but that's not important.

Fishscale by Ghostface Killah - Everything I hate about contemporary hip-hop is on here. Skits, bagloads of the N word, guest rappers, multiple producers, gangsta-ism, etc., but there's no reason why, when done right, you can't make a great album with those elements. And this is the best album I've heard all year. I even went and bought the CD from Amazon after "finding" it online.

Now You Are One Of Us by The Paper Chase - By a very close margin, the second best album of 2006. For a while, I wasn't sure which I enjoyed more. I dunno anything about these folks. The record is sorta a zombie movie (another genre I do not care for) put to music. Sounds to me like the songs were written and recorded on untuned instruments half the time, which is another way of saying I love the way this album sounds and I wish I was in this band, almost.

Others, in no particular order:

Brightblack Morning Light by Brightblack Morning Light - Creedence Clearwater meets Pink Floyd and... Portishead? No, not quite. Very nice and airy. Laid back without being sleepy. I thought it was cool.

Death By Sexy by Eagles Of death Metal - I wish I was in this band, sorta. Is the lead singer really from the Village People? Zombie epics notwithstanding, The Eagles Of death Metal may be the best rock band since Guns And Roses. The real Guns And Roses, not the bunch of guys paid by Axel Rose to propagate his farce upon an unsuspecting world. The songs are great, yet come off as completely effortless. It doesn't sound like they tried to make a fun record, they just went and did it.

Metropolin by Metropolin - Cool electronic R&B and Rock from Israel. Mostly in Hebrew, with some spoken word interludes in English about traveling in Israel by various means. Like much of the music on this list, I downloaded it from eMusic, so I don't know what these folks look like, but if that's them speaking on those interludes, they sound kinda Black to me. For some reason, I find that amusing.

Ray Sings, Basie Swings by Ray Charles & The Count Basie Orchestra - I thought the story behind this was interesting. I also happen to like both Basie and Ray Charles, though both are under-represented in my CD collection. Used to have tapes of Ray's hits, and one of my all time favorite albums is It Might As Well Be Swing, by Sinatra and Basie (with arrangements by Quincy Jones), so I snapped this up (also at eMusic). Good stuff.

CRU by Seu Jorge - Brazilian dude on guitar and vocals. The guitar playing is funkier than one might expect from this sort of thing.

Blackholes & Revelations by Muse - Kinda 80s without being too 80s, if that makes any sense. The vocalist sounds a little like Bono from U2 to me.

The Good Times by Afroman - Doomed to be a one-hit wonder. I picked up this album, which contained the song Because I Was High, from the dollar bin in some used record store, the same year it came out (2001?), but never listened to it till recently when I began transfering all of my CDs to MP3s. I've decided that The Good Times is an underated funk classic that approaches Prince's Dirty Mind, in it's simplistic, lo-tech brilliance. Afroman still makes music, I think. I've not yet been brave enough to sample his new stuff.

Toxicity and Hypnotize by System Of A Down - Bought Toxicity back in 2001 or 2002 and hated it. Just hated it. I don't know what changed, but I put it on my PSP recently (after converting it to mp3s) for something different and was fairly blown away. Soon I got Hypnotize (somebody he'p me!) and dug that too. Bought Mesmerize recently, but haven't listened to it much.

Honorable mentions:

Congotronics 2 by Various Artists - Crazy electronic Afro-Music.

Shinola Vol. 1 by Ween - A collection of out-takes or something.

Medicine Cabinet by Angelo Moore or Dr. Madvibe - Not Fishbone, but the closest thing in a long long time. And that's good enough for me. For now.

Cool songs not on the above albums:

I'm In The Mood, Red Top, and Jumpin' With Symphony Sid by King Pleasure. In The Mood (or Moody's Mood) is not the version I used to hear on Frankie Crocker, but that's okay. "With Frankie Crocker in the house, he can have three pieces."

Catch My Disease by Ben Lee - Makes my brain ooze some feel good juice. Love that feeling.

The Power Is On by The Go! Team - Brilliant and horrible at the same time. Awesome.

1000BPM, Think I'm In Love, and Cellphone's Dead by Beck - Who annoys the hell out of me for some reason. I think it's the hipster attitude. Still, he manages to put out some decent shit.

Song Of The Heart (from the movie Happy Feet), Lolita, Get On The Boat, and The Word by Prince - 3121, the album didn't do it for me, but there were a few shining moments, as mentioned above.

My Way by Robin Williams - Song Of The Heart got a Grammy nomination, but the best song on the Happy Feet soundtrack was this latin-ized cover/parody by Williams. More brain oozing feel goodness.

Le Disko by Shiny Toy Guns - Saw these folks on a late night show performing this song and was blown away. Days later I was in a Best Buy picking up the whole album.

Disappointments:

Return To Cookie Mountain by TV On The Radio - hurts.

More Fish by Ghostface Killah - Apparently having a critically acclaimed album is bad for the street cred, so he rushed out this piece of shit. Shame, Shame, Shame.

We Are Pilots by Shiny Toy Guns - Inspired by a late night TV performance, I bought this shitty 80s retro crap. 80s while being too 80s, if that makes any sense. Le Disko still kicks, however.

3121 by Prince - Not awful, but still. It was 2001 the last time he put out a great record (The Rainbow Children) and the last very good album was The Chocolate Invasion from a couple a years ago (internet only, made up of slightly older tracks). He's way overdue for a great record.
This one's less than okay, okay?
He's got another due in about a month or so, just after his Superbowl performance.

Labels: downloads, music

Another way for me to sell (or not) my music. Snocap has a new partnership with MySpace, which is how I came across it. I signed up. I have the Snocap store inbedded atop this page and The PsychoVoyager Journal, as well as on my MySpace page. There's a thirty dollar annual fee that's waived on the first year. By next December, I'll know if it's worth it for me.

In the meantime, I should go about creating some new music, no?

Labels: downloads, music, music business, online retailers

Available over at D-Addicts.com. A great, great series, though I've not read the Jin Yong novel (aslo called the Deer And The Cauldron), nor seen previous versions like the series starring Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, and Andy Lau. I did see Royal Tramp 1 & 2 starring Stephen Chow, but that was a long time ago.

Here's a synopsis from wiki.d-addicts.com/;
This production is a more recent, and somewhat more loose adapation of Jin Yong's last and most unique Wuxia novel "The Deer and the Cauldron". The story is centred around an uneducated street urchin Wei Xiao Bao, who was born and raised in a brothel by his mother. Through a series of misdaventures, he managed to make his way from the southern playground of Yangzhou to Beijing, the seat of Manchurian imperial power, and bumbling accidently into a fateful encounter with young Emperor Kang Xi. By hook or by crook, but also through a genuine concern and fierce loyalty towards his "mate" the Emperor, Xiao Bao found himself in the greatest of confidences and a complicated friendship of one of the most eminent monarchs of Chinese history. -- more can be found at Spcnet.tv

The complication comes primarily through his association with the anti-Manchu insurgent group, The Heaven And Earth Society. Wei Xiao Bao must weigh political (ethnic?) ideology and one set of friends against another as well as consider what's in the best interests of the country. Also, he'd like to accumulate seven wives. Hilarity and Kung Fu abounds. And there's also Chen Kwan Tai in a villian role...
Hi. I'm Chen Kwan Tai. You may know me from such films as Executioners Of Shaolin, Heroes Two and Iron Monkey (not the one with Donnie Yen).

Labels: bittorrent, dorama, downloads, kung fu, tv, wu-xia

D-Addicts is a torrent site devoted to drama series from parts of Asia (Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the People's Republic Of China).

I go there mostly for the period kung fu/wu-xia series like The Duke Of Mount Deer (2000), Chinese Paladin, Heavenly Sword, Dragon Sabre, and more, but the site mostly hosts modern day romantic fare.


I recently finished watching Twin Of Brothers, which is the usual mix of flying kung fu (mostly arms flaying wildly and quick edits), special effects, romantic triangles, rectangles and what have you, and just a touch of tragedy. Highlights included Waise Lee (Bullet In The Head) as one of the villians, and a one episode appearance by Gordon Liu (Master Killer/36th Chamber Of Shaolin) AKA Liu Chia-Hui.

Romance Of The Three Kingdoms is not Wu-Xia, but is a historical drama based on an old novel. I would recommend it as a great story, but also as something that is often referenced even in fantasy based stories (including most of the ones mentioned above).

All this is to mention that this month's Chinese Series Of The Month over there is The Proud Twins. Don't know anything about it as I haven't watched it, yet. You could read this and that
for more info and then go here to download it (scroll way down).

Labels: bittorrent, dorama, downloads, kung fu, tv, wu-xia

Great new homebrew game for the PSP. An update to the classic, Pong, in 3D, which also plays your music (randomly) off your memory stick as background. I know it's just Pong, but it's great.

Get it at DCEmu.co.uk
Works on firmwares 1.0, 1.5, and Dark Alex's 2.71 SE

Labels: Awesome, downloads, fun, good deal, PSP, video games

Yes, it is...

Sony Issue Cease and Desist Order For Devhook

---

The Japanese Site which hosts the Devhook application have been slapped with a Cease and Desist Order over the Devhook app which lets users use different firmware on their PSP.

From dcemu.co.uk

Labels: bullshit, downloads, PSP, video games

Swiped from the home page:

PSP Rhythm 6.0 is Released!
PSP Rhythm is the homebrew drum machine for the Sony Playstation Portable.
Inspired by classic drum machines such as the Linndrum and Roland TR-series, PSP Rhythm has been created to use a similar simple, yet effective sequencer.

PSP Rhythm uses a parameter feature that enable you to change the pitch, volume, balance, start, end times, cutoff and resonance per step to create moving, changing melodies and effects. This control over your sounds will give you much more creative freedom.

The on board Bass Line synthesizer in PSP Rhythm is similar to the classic Roland TB-303. TB-303 style features such as Accent and Slide are available. The real time control of the Cutoff and Resonance give you that authentic "Acid" sound that made the TB-303 Bass Line Synthesizer so famous.

Included effects are: Distortion, Slicer, Delay, Time Stretch, High/Low Pass Filter and Monophonic Sample Mode.

But wait! There's more;
PSP Rhythm 6.0 Song Contest!!!

The top 3 song entries will win a 1gb SanDisk Pro Duo memory stick.

Contest Rules:

1. Your song must be created with PSP Rhythm 6.0.
2. You can submit as many songs as you like but can only win one prize.
3. You must include your samples and bank file.

Bonus Points:

1. Using Effects
2. Using the Bass Line Synthesizer
3. Using Extended Mode

Submit your song to rconlives@yahoo.com before August 31st.

In our effort to give back to the PSP homebrew community we are using all the donations received for our project to sponsor this contest.

Good Luck!!!


I should also mention that it's free, though donations are accepted. I gave a li'l bit. It's a great program that makes the PSP that much more worthwhile to own. Too bad Sony has to be a dick on the issue of homebrew.

More details, downloads, and lessons here.

Labels: Awesome, downloads, fun, good deal, music making, possibilities for creative expression, PSP, PSP Rhythm

Powers and Kabuki will be reprinted online, a page a day at Newsarama.com. I've heard of both series, but never read them. Guess I'll check them out, now. Powers started today, and will be archived. Kabuki will start in the coming weeks.

October 11, 2008 - More

Labels: comics, downloads, good deal

230 years and going strong. The oldest continuous democracy on the planet.
Okay, I swiped that directly from James Hudnall. But it's true.

As much as I love the USA, I'm actually here today to reflect on another kind of independence. It's a bit trivial, yes, but as it happened to coincide with this particular weekend, this kind of discussion was unavoidable.

When I first bought my PSP back in the end of December with X-Mas money, all I wanted was a portable video/mp3 player that also played Grand Theft Auto. In my research, I may have read a little about homebrew (independent video game apps, etc.) and ISO piracy, but I wasn't really interested in all that.

I don't remember what firmware the machine was on when I bought it, but I think I recall using the 2.00 update that came with GTA. It wasn't too long afterward that I happily upgraded to 2.6, which added things like a web browser. I didn't live near a wi-fi spot, and I still don't have such a thing installed on my computer, so the browser thing was just pretty to look at for a minute. 2.6 also locked out homebrew, but I didn't care. I wasn't using any of them at the time.

I'd been watching a couple of PSP sites, or perhaps none with any regularity, I don't remember. At some point there was news of an eLoader for GTA that allowed homebrew to be played on 2.6 PSPs. Curious, I gave it a shot. I soon found myself visiting PSP-Hacks on a regular basis and found myself addicted to a few homebrew apps which I played alternately to GTA.

It wasn't too long until I found that waiting for GTA to load before I could use PSP Rhythm, play K.E.T.M., or read a PDF with BookR was getting tiresome. In addition to that, the necessity of using GTA meant that having any other UMD in my PSP would render my favorite homebrew apps useless, without switching back. That's an added hassle and it put me off buying more UMDs, which is where Sony is supposed to make their investment back (Video game hardware are traditionally money losers).

I'd regretted being on 2.6, when I could've been on 2.00 which would've, via a different GTA exploit allowed me to access my homebrew apps at will. That would still limit my UMD purchases, but that would be a small price to pay. Actually that would be no price to pay, because Sony is asking my money to stay in my wallet with higher firmware required games.

Over the last few weeks, there was news that newer versions of GTA:LCS had come out with the exploit patched. This, quite a bit after firmware upgrades 2.70 and 2.71 (which I didn't fall for) were released, mostly to achieve the same purpose. I think the latter also allowed users to download game demos, of which I believe there is only one (the excellent Loco Roco - more on this later).

Some time last week there was more news (at some point, I don't remember when, I started getting most of my PSP news and homebrew downloads from DCEmu.co.uk). A new GTA exploit (not on the new GTA discs, though) had been found that utilized kernel access. Nothing had been done with it yet, but the PSP online community was on fire! Kernel access!! This is great!!! Except I had no idea what that meant. Apparently, some of the homebrew apps that worked on 1.5 PSPs, but not 2.xx, used kernel access. Also a way had been found to speed up a SNES emulator using kernel access. This was fine and dandy, but would I still need to load GTA for my homebrew to work? The general consensus was yes. I would.
Crap.

Some factions started rambling about ISO loaders and other stuff. I didn't pay any attention to it, and site adminstrators did their best to shush them down, as they didn't want their sites to be seen as encouraging piracy.

So, I'd been watching DCEmu and a couple of others over the last week, visiting these sites several times a day. Sometimes several times an hour as activity was huge. There was some expectation that Fanjita, the god who, with Ditlew, conceived the GTA eLoader would unleash something on the world soon, but as the end of the week approached, it seemed unlikely. I believed the holiday weekend would bring a slowdown to everything.

On Thursday, there was talk of an experimental firmware downgrader that was "bricking" (permamently disabling) the PSPs of those brave enough to try it. This was interesting, but I didn't think it significant, as fake downgraders had been around before.

One day later, this article was posted, which shed some light on the controversy. Some details raised an eyebrow or two, but I was tired after a long-ish day at work and went to sleep early. Of course, I wouldn't see the big news till morning.

The downgrader that would allow 2.5 and 2.6 PSPs to "downgrade" to a 1.5 had become a reality. Better yet, it had been tried by many with an overwhelming success rate, with about three known instances of bricking. Not sure how I felt, I did a bit of reading up on the experiences of those who tried it, and resolved to wait until I got home from work, that night to do it, if at all. Wasn't too long until I changed my mind and took the plunge, though. Actually, it took long enough that I was almost late for work. Not just with the downgrading, but installing DevHook and experimenting with stuff.

Oddly enough, the first thing I did afterwards, was download and tryout some pirated ISOs, which was not my main inspiration in all this, but there you have it. Sony likely understands, that as long as any homebrew (unsigned code) is possible, so is piracy. Their concern is understandable, but I think their efforts haven't really helped them much. With DevHook I can now load UMDs with firmwares up to 2.5, and higher firmwares are likely around the corner. I am now more likely to buy more games than I was at 2.6.

All of my favorite homebrews work like a charm, with no waiting and I can go from watching Duke Of Mount Deer 2000, to playing Rise Of The Triads with no inconvenience.

I'm not sure what my first PSP game purchase in half a year will be. Me and My Katamari is a possibility. Of the games that I've "tried", I'm really looking forward to Loco Roco. Already released in Europe, it's not due out here until September 5th, which is insane. I plan on buying it whether or not the UMD itself can play in my PSP. I can access and play the game now, and it's the most fun and brilliant game since Jumping Flash! on the PS1, from years ago. This is the type of thing Sony should be doing more often. Fun, experimental and colorful. I like violence and lawlessness as much as the next guy, but I also like a little variety. Shoot 'em ups can get boring.

By the way, Loco Roco is not racist! If they change the fucker before it comes here, I'll be pissed.

Labels: Awesome, downloads, PSP, video games

Here's a bit of news I missed when it was, uh, news; Warners will begin distributing content on Bittorrent sometime this summer. Could be interesting, but I understand these files can only be played on one's computer, and not backed up to be played on a standard dvd player. Pricing seems to be an unknown at this point as well. Warners states it would like to convert file sharers, but by making pay-for files less convenient than free files, they'll be fighting a losing battle.

Right now I use Bittorrent almost exclusively for Chinese dramas. Movies, I can get on usenet, as well as mp3s not available on eMusic or Prince's website. I still buy CDs and DVDs, of course.
Prince's music is sold as DRM encrypted Windows Media Audio, but at least they can be burned to (standard) cd and then dealt with as I see fit. Still not an ideal situation, but he gets away with it cuz he's Prince. The same can't be said of videos sold on his site (playable on PC only), so I just don't buy them.

I've critisized iTunes once before for their pricing of videos, but I'm seeing some interesting stuff, lately, like the first season of Clone Wars for $10.99 and 16 episodes of The Daily Show for ten bucks. I really, really miss The Daily Show. I haven't bought any of these yet, but I might.

edit (August 28, 2006) - I still haven't checked these out. I understand that iTunes videos are DRMed, like their music, so there's no compatibility with the PSP. So, for me iTunes is only good for ripping CDs and downloading podcasts. The Prince website mentioned above is currently out of service for the time being.

Clone Wars, which I've never seen, sounds like good material for my PSP to watch in between episodes of Romance Of The Three Kingdoms.

Labels: bittorrent, downloads, online retailers, Prince

The Jo Ann and Stacy Show has played some of Don't Leave Me Hangin' for the second time. This time as the outro music, instead of intro. Mentioned before, their show follows and comments on the TV show, Survivor. I've never seen Survivor.

Read more about the podcast here and/or download it here.

Enjoy.

Labels: downloads, music, my music, podcasts, tv

Started out with a rhythm inspired by Keyop's voice from Battle of The Planets, one of three English versions of Kagaku Ninja Tai Gatchaman. It was said by someone (I forget who) that Keyop spoke gibberish because in the Japanese original, he (Jinpei) was a foul mouthed little bastard. I speak very, very, very little Japanese, but I'm not sure there are proper curse words in Japanese. Also, I've later learned that the English versions of this show paid absolutely no attention to the original scripts, choosing instead to create whole new stories based on the visuals.

None of the above have anything to do with the song, however, and my rhythm is probably as much Ricochet Rabbit as it is Keyop.

The song was inspired by the weird feelings I had prior to a recent nightmare and also the creepiness I felt as I was emailing a friend about it, though I'd remembered almost nothing of it.

I looped some of the basic parts of the rhythm, but recorded through others. The chorus lyrics were recorded during the second chorus, then copied and pasted to the first and the last, even before I'd finished writing the second verse. I was afraid of forgetting the melody. I realize that's a bad sign, but whatever.

The song,
the words:

enveloped in light
as though I were
aflame

fiery cherubim
banished in all but name

terrible violence
and evil with
no shame

a prisoner
inside my mind
a pawn in
this game

when i come back
to what is real
can i be sure
when nightmare ends
and day begins
have i closed the door

uncertainty consumes me
and sprinkles me
with fear

an eye kept on shadow
a weapon ever near

my sanity in question
though voices
i don't hear

what is true
and what is false
do i even
care

when i come back
to what is real
can i be sure
when nightmare ends
and day begins
have i closed the door

Creative Commons license: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike

Labels: Anime, downloads, lyrics, my music, PsychoVoyager, song of the week

About an hour ago I didn't have a song, aside from the beats and background stuff I recorded this morning. I'm still not sure I have one, but whatever it is, I think I can work with it.

For now, it is what it is.

I see what you see
I hear what you hear

I don't know
what you know

I touch as you touch
I feel as you feel

but I don't know
what you know

Creative Commons license: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike

Labels: downloads, lyrics, my music, PsychoVoyager, song of the week

Disney has announced that they will make some of their ABC programming available online for free, with embedded advertising being the catch. I'm fine with this. I'm certainly not paying two bucks for the iTunes downloads. The whole season of Alias (which I've missed so far) as well as current episodes of Lost (never seen), Desperate Housewives (never seen) and Commander In Chief (never seen). The two month experiment starts in May, I understand.

This site says streaming video, which I'm not interested in, cuz I can't get those on my PSP. The ABC site says downloads, but isn't giving much more in the way of details. If I can put these on my PSP, I'm there, ads and all. Of course I can, anyway. I'm just not currently interested in hunting down these shows, from my usual sources (usenet, etc.)

Labels: advertising, downloads, tv

This is a bit late, but here 'tis. A remake of a great Chuck D song I found on a Wired Magazine CD back in November 2004.

I go into the process a little bit here.

And posted the song on the Internet Archive. I tried FLAC, but the Creative Commons tool chokes on large files (I still have a mess from January to clean up), so Ogg Vorbis will have to do.

The original's by The Fine Arts Militia (Featuring Chuck D). Get the original and some of the samples here.

My version's here (or click on the title).

The words:

And it goes a little something like this (hit it);

no comeback stories
no corny choruses
no former glories*
no hallehluahs
landcruisers
no drug users
no grins
no trends
no phony ass friends
who begin with ends
and end with no ends
and no estrogen

no gas ups
no soups
no les coups*
no crackers
no backers
no niggers for no blackers
no trips to New Orleans*
no mainstream dreams
no stress beams
no accusations,
cop cases, court cases

no rape charges,
sarges,
no DeBarges
no lightweight
bounce up in the air
shoot-outs and no sellouts
no negroes with egos
no more shows
calling women bitches and hoes
no thoughtless flows
no woes

no singing voices
no Rolls Royces
no wack choices
no volunteers
getting peers or career years
no solutions
no problems
no more final revolving (?)
no happy campers
no offence
no funk samples


the easiest and the hardest word to say is no
only got two letters, (only) takes a second to say it
no meaning no
no conscience, no stress
no second guess
no bodyguards
no questions
(repeat)


no succotash
no girl I gotta cash rap
no sex traps
no Rolexes
no unprotected sex
no false hopes
no hang rope folks
no car notes
no killers
no vanillas
no Big Willies in the wilderness*

no jail time
no fucking little kid rhymes
no studio terrorists
no mirrors
look mom, no spelling errors
no absinthe pop (?)
no sweatshops
no porkchops
no justice, no peace
no Please Please Please

instrumental

no legal freestyles
no comicbook movies**
no Groovy Ghoulies**
no industry rapes
no capes
no suits and no ties
no stars
no overpaid A&Rs
no American Idols**
no gold teeth
no mad cow beef**

no dumb looks
no onesided hooks
no hero crooks*
no finesse
no mess
no struggle, no progress
no hidden fees*
no HIV
no hi-def TVs*
no contacts*
no speeches for no academies


the easiest and the hardest word to say is no
only got two letters, only takes a second to say it
no meaning no
no conscience, no stress
no second guess
no bodyguards
no questions

(repeat)

Creative Commons license: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike

Labels: covers, downloads, music, my music, PsychoVoyager, remix

Started the lyrics to this one some weeks ago and abandoned it. Took it back up, because I got to yesterday and still had no idea what this week's song would be. Inspired by Dokaka (doin' it all a Cappella), I worked on the backing tracks in Ardour. As time was short tonight, I finished the words and recorded the lead vocal in Audacity. This vocal will likely be re-recorded at some point, unless I decide by then that I hate this song, which is a possibility. It is a bit heavy handed.

Here it go.

And the words;

There are compromises
I can never accept
even though you say
they're good for me

There are boundaries
you must always respect
otherwise
I'm not free

you keep asking for concessions
you ask for more than I can give
I've got my most valued possession
the freedom for which I live

What kind of man
would I be
if I gave you
What belonged to me
what kind of man
would I be
trading freedom
for security


There are those ideas
I must always reject
limits on the way
we live

And also those ideals
we must always protect
ever on the
defensive

you use fear as a weapon
to wear down a resistant will
of a people who are stubborn
a determination you cannot kill


What kind of man
would I be
if I gave you
What belonged to me
what kind of man
would I be
trading freedom
for security

Labels: downloads, lyrics, my music, PsychoVoyager, song of the week

I got a Christmas song and a Valentine's Day song, but there are quite a few other holidays I have yet to touch on. April Fool's Day is one of my favorites. Oddly enough, it never occurred to me to write a song about it, so here goes.

It's the 13th song of the week and the 4th written on the PSP with the PSPRhythm homebrew program. I exported the wav from the PSP to the computer, opened it with Audacity, recorded the vocals and added some effects, like pitch change, reverb and delay.

Here is the song.
Here are the words;

hahahah
I gotcha
I gotcha good

there was no doubt
I could pull
the wool over your eyes
I knew
I knew I would

don't be too upset
it's all in good fun
I meant no harm
no harm at all

you know I can't help it
it's just the way I am

You will be my victim
on April Fool's Day
and you will be my mark
on April Fool's Day


It takes a lot to plot
an elaborate sceme
to dream of snaring you
you know it's true

won't be satisfied
till I see that look
in your eye
of confusion
you bought my lie

I won't rest untill
the world is infected
with my temporary chaos
my inner madness

you know I can't help it
it's just the way I am

You will be my victim
on April Fool's Day
and you will be my mark
on April Fool's Day


Eshu is a trickster
Anansie is a trickster god
Pan is a trickster
Bacchus is a trickster god
Loki is a trickster
Sun Wu-Kong is a trickster god
The Coyote is a trickster
The serpent is a trickster god
The Satan is a trickster
Brer Rabbit is a trickster god
Benny Hill is a trickster
Bugs Bunny is a trickster god
Spiderman is a trickster
Donald Rumsfeld is a trickster god
Allan Funt is a trickster
Edshugeo is a trickster too


Creative Commons license: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike

Labels: downloads, lyrics, my music, PSP Rhythm, PsychoVoyager, song of the week