I think that “I Can’t Get Next To You” by The Temptations is probably my favourite Motown song:
Here are some choice lyrics from the song:
I can build a castle from a single grain of sand.
I can make a ship sail on dry land.
It’s lyrical magic at funk factor five, and plays perfectly to the strengths of a musical group with five male singers (although I find it fun to sing alone, fumbling through Eddie Kendrick‘s crazy high notes).
Jack and Simon‘s top 10 songs posts have inspired me to post 10 songs that I like. Since I’m embedding videos, I’ll spread them out over a few posts.
I usually ignore lists like “the hottest 100 songs of all time” because:
As a result, I get the feeling that such lists often end up being a reflection of what respondents feel that they should like. I find it incredibly odd how much self-identity people derive from what music they like, and how much people judge others based on such subjective preferences.
So why would I post about songs that I like? Well, I’ve only come to learn about some of favourite musicians through other people and I appreciate people sharing things that they love (even if I don’t get into them).
And now onto the first song… “Electrified” by Dressy Bessy:
I first found out about Dressy Bessy via The Powerpuff Girls Soundtrack. It’s a great CD with music also contributed by Shonen Knife, Apples in Stereo, and Cornelius.
I love the stop-start pace of this song, the purposeful break to chorus, and the deliberate casual singing of Tammy Ealom. It feels like a lot of thought has been put into the juxtaposition of structured minimalism and hang-loose fun.
Hmmm… that’s enough for now. I’ll post more songs later. 😉
This post is a little reminder regarding team composition for next Tuesday’s videogame trivia night. Just like any other trivia night, it’s better to have a bigger and more varied team. You never know who is going to have the answer!
I obviously can’t reveal any questions (or answers), but I can reveal the four categories. Here they are:
Questions focus predominantly on games, but also include references to related popular culture, companies, and personalities. We’ve worked to balance questions between platforms (PC, consoles, etc.) and difficulty levels. So there really should be something for everyone!
Pre-purchase tickets are available at GameTraders (Carillon City and Carousel) for $10. Any tickets sold at the door will be $15.
Yahoo Japan are running a photo contest for cats that sit like humans.
I like this one (currently #8) even though its ears look weird:
Japan Probe has more information on the “suko-zuwari” pose including an informative video.
I heard from Tim and Jason that my RSS feed was full of spam. I couldn’t find any trace of it until I checked via Google Reader. Then I found some PHP injection code (in some database entries) that only added spam when accessed by Googlebot.
I took the site offline, deleted all suspect database entries and files that I could find, changed all passwords, and added some additional security measures… I hope it all worked. Webpages and feeds (RSS and atom) look fine when I use curl to masquerade as Googlebot.
Unfortunately, the Google cache for this site now contains many pages of spam. Hopefully it gets updated soon and the new cached pages are clean. Since this is the first post after the cleanup, I imagine that it may trigger whatever hacks added spam if the first place (if they are still around). Fingers crossed that it’s all good.
Sigh.
Update: Seems alright (Google Reader users may have to click “refresh” though – I think it caches feed info). Oh and new theme: surprise!
This post is just a reminder for any Perth readers that the Let’s Make Games Videogame Trivia night is coming up soon (Tuesday week, June 30).
Be sure to get your tickets soon as we sold out last time! We do have more tickets available this time, but don’t get complacent! It’s late night shopping tonight and the city is open all weekend, so these are perfect times to buy. 😉
It’ll be a fun night for anyone interested in games. There will be a wide range of questions (so don’t worry if you’re concerned that you won’t know any answers) and a whole bunch of trivia night staples (door prizes, challenges, etc.) for everyone to enjoy.
Here’s a (new) flyer that really wants to be posted to blogs/forums, or maybe printed out and placed at your workplace, community centre, or local coffee shop (click image for .pdf file):
Finally, this is a non-profit event and all funds raised go straight back into the Let’s Make Games initiative to support the local game development community.
Another invite yesterday was the tipping point for me to create a profile on LinkedIn. Sorry for all the “let’s connect” spam people may be getting.
It feels a little weird putting together a profile when I’m not looking to work with people or at a company. Then again, it’s a lot more organised than the notes I keep on my work history and my contacts list.
Update: Ellen wrote me a nice recommendation. Thanks!
This looks really munted when thumbnailed, but the full-size one looks alright.
Around 4 minutes in Inkscape. Trying not to think too much or overwork these drawings. I’ll just criticize them later…
I google image searched “jump” and quickly drew something from the first page of results.
I quite enjoy using grayscale. It all started as a limitation as the OneTwenty and Let’s Make Games events posters need to be photocopy nicely, but I appreciate the simplicity of it at the moment.
Maybe after I get my linework and shading down I’ll explore colour again (hopefully with a new appreciation for it!).
