Seriously?

Now, I’m all for Mazda. I mean, come on, the company that created the RX-7 and the Miata deserves some fucking props. But the Mazda MP3? Seriously? Named after a digital music compression technique? Maybe it’s just a coincidence….

Reducks

How did it go about that Apocalypse Now is being re-released this summer without me knowing? A new version, including ‘a wealth of new footage.’ Does ‘new footage’ mean longer that the original? I guess I still will have to go see it.

Pixar gets new (old) building

There’s an article in the NYTimes today about Pixar’s new building, which they had built to resemble an old one. Something interesting:


To understand how far Pixar has come since its founding 14 years ago, it would be helpful to have seen the company’s previous creative campus – a cluster of somewhat rundown buildings in an anonymous office park near a Point Richmond freeway, about 10 miles to the north. Some of the buildings were separated by a busy road, forcing workers to scurry like squirrels to avoid the fast-moving traffic.

Hmmm… Sounds familiar, like Steve Jobs’ other company. 🙂

Buy me this

I know I’m stepping on a few toes here, but I’m really getting sick of people posting links to their Amazon wishlists. It’s kind of like “Hey, you read my site, so you must like me. If you liked me, you’d buy me things. But not just anything, something off of this specific list, from this specific site.” That’s BS. Is it just a different way for people to get paid? It just seems under-handed and sketchy to me. “Like my site? Wish you could pay for it? I wish I could get paid for it… So buy me things.” Just really annoying.

Days were golden…

Sunny Day Real Estate broke up. Again. For those of you unaware of one of the better bands of the 90s, here’s a quick history:

In 1994 (the year of good music), Sunny Day’s Diary was released. A landmark album by all accounts, it helped kickstart the somewhat current emo movement. Unfortunately, it also set the stage for a staple behaviour of emo bands: breaking up as soon as success hits. As the followup to Diary was being recorded, the band broke up because, well…the lead singer turned Christian.

How embarassing.

The posthumous release, known as LP2, or the Pink album, continued Sunny Day’s goodness. The lead singer put out a suprisingly un-Christian solo record, and the bass player and insanely good drummer joined the fledgling Foo Fighters. Against all odds, the band started to gravitate back towards one another. The bass player remained in Dave Grohl’s successful outfit, while the other members put out the most impressive rock record since Radiohead’s OK Computer. The album, How it Feels to be Something On, disappointed many of their earlier fans with its strong Beatles feel, yet it was hailed by critics. A live record followed, and now 2000’s The Rising Tide will apparently be the last Sunny Day Real Estate record.

Another one of my favorites, No Knife, is reportedly on the verge of breakup as well. This is all very, very disappointing to me.

Mission Accomplished

Yay! Avs! #1! And Ray Bourque finally got to touch the cup after 22 years in the NHL. And people rioted in downtown Denver. Not unlike our few Super Bowl wins. Wonderful.

A kitty in a tree. Yup. Genius.

So Kottke thinks that Noah Grey (developer of GreyMatter, the CGI-based blog-system) is a genius because (among other things) of these pictures. Now, I’m not putting GreyMatter down, and I’m sure he’s a great programmer, but pictures of kitties in trees? Something a little short of genius, in my book. Sounds like pretention, to me.