assorted stuff

• Since this year's Easter drawing sucked (because I was in a very bad mood that weekend) and since I haven't gotten around to uploading it yet anyway, Happy Belated Easter.


• Don't forget Earth Hour today. Google.ca scared me late last night, I thought my computer had screwed up.


• Chord Geometries software for visualizing chord changes. Check out their three demonstration videos of a Chopin piece.


• American Psycho: Business Card Scene. I finally came across this (through PMOG, as it happens) but I heard about this particular scene back in a grad class last semester. One of the students was passing around handouts for his presentation and everyone was feeling up the paper (which he described as the "lingerie of the stationery store"), when the professor remarked on the similarity to this scene in American Psycho.


• Freerice.com: donate rice while testing/expanding your vocabulary.


• Spamusement: cartoons inspired by actual spam subject lines. Some of my favourites: Your Dog Will Love It! | HELLO ME NOT DEAD | Guess Who Is Coming To Town | can't beat this...ox | Bad Bunny. Bad, Bad, Bad Bunny | Just 15 minutes and it will be hard as ROCK! | Don't Miss Neil Diamond | I have to get this off my chest before I explode | Better late than never


• pmog pmog pmog ask me for an invitation!


• Trent Reznor recently wrote something approximately like "Thanks for the great response to Ghosts. Let's all go for a coffee. My treat!" on nin.com. Thanks to the Hotline's Meathead, we can all experience virtual coffee with TR. You can say anything you want by typing in the blue text field, and TR will respond in the way he sees fit. You have as much time as it takes him to finish his coffee (number of sips left is shown).

Heading South

My conference proposal has been accepted, so I will be speaking at the UCLA Southland Graduate Students Conference in May. I've never been to the U.S. before. Nothing sets a plan in stone like booking flights. This is truly exciting, because it is a giant step in the direction I had been hesitantly hoping for a while back.

[I just spent a little over an hour reading my entire blog since last February, searching for a post I could have sworn I'd written so that I could link to it in reference... Did I not write, at one point, about how I hoped to introduce cyberculture studies into my MA program somehow because I wanted to focus my MA essay on it? I distinctly recall writing it, at any rate, whether or not I posted it. As a sidenote, my blog used to be a lot more interesting than it is now.]

Anyway, take my word for it that it's exciting times, indeed. As fate would have it, I'll be in Los Angeles talking about "Unlocking Year Zero: Temporal Dynamics in a New Type of Immersive Text" on the day before Trent Reznor's birthday.

Please don't boycott us - we'll give you an ARG

Jane McGonigal (key game designer in I Love Bees) officially announced her newest ARG, The Lost Ring, in a recent blog post on her Avant Games website. I hadn't really paid attention to The Lost Ring before now, but I find a lot of things curious about that post, and about this ARG in general.

First of all, I find an official announcement of an ARG pretty surprising. Granted, the ARG wasn't revealed in this way; it was revealed in the usual ARG-type manner via "strange packages" that were delivered to various people around the world (mainly USA, from what I gather). But in the past, puppetmasters have taken a silent, no-comment approach instead of an in-your-face "here are the steps I recommend you take if you want to get involved." Seriously, she actually gives you steps. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

What's really so odd about this ARG is that it was co-sponsored by the International Olympic Committee. The first sentence in McGonigal's blog post states that the ARG was created for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Well, pretty cool break for Avant Games, to be honest. As McGonigal says, the Olympics brings the world together through sports, and this is a chance for her to make a truly global ARG—this one spans five continents, and all ARG content is going to be translated into eight different languages. That's huger than anything to date. So, as far as ARGs go, this is spectacular. But the fact that the IOC and McDonalds and an interactive marketing company called AKQA are among the big co-sponsors makes this ARG look like a "Come to Beijing! Don't boycott us!" gimmick. Even moreso when we look a little futher...

Those "strange packages" obviously weren't enough. McGonigal said that they soon had 1,000 players, but that they wanted millions. ("They"?) I suppose this is why the puppetmasters spoke out, flashing the big "ARG ALERT" sign. I've seen ads for The Lost Ring on various social networking sites now. Step 1, as it happens, is to watch the ARG's trailer, which is truly cinematic. There is something wrong with the phrase "ARG's trailer." You can't even look at The Lost Ring's website (where a lot of ARG content is located) without first either watching or bypassing the trailer. Watch that trailer, and then compare it to the Year Zero trailer, which was more game content than anything else.

Having said all that, I think all the advertising is just a way to make people aware of the game and bring people to the main site where they can learn more. I've got no head for collective discovery, myself, and there is truly a lot to the game. Trailers and ads aren't part of the game, they're just gimmicks to bring you to the game. And, what do you know, maybe this game is a gimmick to bring you to the Olympics. Funny old world.

What's the matter? Low marker intake?

• Two new transcriptions: The Fragile (Bridge School version) and 12 Ghosts II. The latter would be best if I waited for the multitracks, but (uncharacteristically) I actually got a request for it. So, the best I can do is post it with a caveat.


• Low marker intake? The picture (without my added words, that is) makes me laugh every time. I'm tittering right now, just thinking about it.


• In other NIN news, Trent Reznor recently announced the Ghosts Film Festival. Never lacking in innovation, that one. Incidentally, Radiohead announced a similar deal soon afterward, except theirs is quite clearly a competition with a big prize. It's not that I find it amusing, how the striking similarities in the way NIN and Radiohead are going about things lately highlight their striking differences in values (Radiohead seems to be going to great lengths to maintain their dependence on the "old" model while NIN is very outspoken against that model). I just don't know a better word for it than "amusing."


• NIN is also playing at the Pemberton Festival this summer. So far it's their only 2008 show listed on nin.com. And it's in Pemberton. How random is that? You can bet I'm going.


• The Passively Multiplayer Online Game. Not really fun, or game-y. But it's fascinating that once you download the plugin this previously invisible world is revealed, and it's everywhere on the entire web. You find things—crates that other players have stashed, portals to other websites, "lightposts" that other players have put up from which you can take dumb "missions" that are rarely interesting—on many webpages you normally visit. (p.s. if you're interested, drop me a comment and I'll drop you an invitation. You don't need one to join, but this way I can earn a badge... or even three badges, if I invite enough people. And after all, it is a game, and I've got to keep one step ahead of *certain* opponents.)
  


• What a crappy week.

ScribeFarm's 3rd Contest... and GO!

Fun Fact: ScribeFarm's 3rd contest is running as of today, and it's highly fast-paced. The deadline: this Monday! No prompt this time, and hardly any limitations. Take a chance, have some fun. Here are the rules:

1) Work must be original; no scouring the net for something someone else wrote!

2) If you submit a piece of poetry, try to keep it fewer than 1.2 million words. We don’t mind reading what ‘cha got, especially if it’ll win. But try to limit yourself to the length of 3 encyclopedias.

3) If you’re writing prose, well… the same thing applies. Don’t kill the mods!

4) We’re not going to officially state that humor pieces will do better, but the mods tossed around the idea of making this a contest of humor. So…yeah…nudge nudge…

5) The deadline, folks, is THIS MONDAY, the 10th of March, 2008.

6) You can submit up to 3 pieces, and must be sent to scribefarm@gmail.com

7) Lastly, and SRSLY, don’t forget this…you must have your Scribefarm/Fictionpost username at the top of your entry / email / whatever. YOU MUST HAVE IT THERE, and MUST BE A MEMBER OF ONE OF THESE TWO SITES.

1 Ghosts I 7 hours 10 attempts 0 downloads = mobius album

Well, it only took an hour and a half for the Ghosts order page to load, and it's been five hours since then, during which time I've tried to download the album roughly 10 times using the download link I received (which was a "one-time-only" link, and which maxed out once during that time, but the NIN camp had to reactivate everybody's links so that everybody will be able to get the music once the site is stabilized after the addition of more servers). But who's counting, really? I'm sure it will all work out "soon."

In the meantime, I've transcribed 1 Ghosts I. (Ghosts tracks don't actually have names, they're just called "5 Ghosts I" or "15 Ghosts II" or "36 Ghosts IV." It really helps you remember all the songs, I suppose. I wouldn't know. I can't hear them, can I?)

Edit: there's now a 9 Ghosts I transcription up as well.

Edit #2: How I imagine it's going, about now

Ghosts I-IV

Nine Inch Nails self-released a new album today, Ghosts I-IV. 36 instrumental tracks, obtainable in a variety of ways. The site seems to be tragically overworked, and I've been unable to get a download yet.

leap year festivities

Merry Femandnesday! I hope everyone has celebrated appropriately.

In other news, I need to invest in a scanner. It took me all day to get a workable image of that drawing.

Swiss Rendezvous

I've just returned from spending a spectacular week in Switzerland, visiting Ryan.




I got to stay in the beautiful Swiss countryside, explore Geneva, wander around Meyrin. I got to tour ATLAS (and eat rabbits at CERN). We went to the Roman capital of Helvetica (now Nyon). We went to Montreux, and then up into the mountains. And we ate all sorts of tasty things. I had run-ins with the bus police ("The Swiss Bus Police: Never Around When There's a Riot, But Always There to Give You a Fine ☺"), and with customs. It was one of those surreal experiences in which I saw the world happening and myself happening in it, living in it. My god, it was a fantastic trip. Some of my pictures are on Facebook.

I recommend that everyone able to go to the English Idol at U of R definitely check it out (Thursday, Feb. 28). I went in 2006, and gushed about it as soon as I got home.

I'll tell you what's truly fascinating. The dimensions of our modern page were finalized in the 12th century. Before that, it was a gradual shift from the square pages of the scroll to the familiar rectangular ones we have in our books now. In a sense, then, the page as we know it has been around since the 12th century, and it hasn't changed significantly since then.

Now the fascinating part. Fibonacci lived from the late 12th to early 13th centuries. He, and other Medieval mathematicians and architects and scribes, had a rekindled interest in Classical Greek geometry, such as the Golden Section. The ratio of the page that was born in the 12th century is about 0.7:1, which is almost the perfect rectangle produced by the Golden Section. The shape of our paper is governed by ancient geometry. The spiral really is everywhere.

(P.S. I might be speculating a little.)

The "Interactive Fiction" of Year Zero

Edit: I have edited this post, because apparently I jump to conclusions too quickly. It's all good, we're still in business.

New Beginnings

Talked to a prof today about new research directions.

Exciting times, indeed.

Edit: I forgot to mention. Grain Magazine 35.2 "Look Around! / Short Grain" Oh hell yes.

My Fabulous Past

So it had been a long day of researching—abnormally long, because I had been procrastinating on starting these two big projects, which I have a feeling might be momentous in my academic career if I can get them off the ground. And I came across a link to a website that had gone offline years ago, but the link still worked. The miracle of The Internet Archives. And, being the narcissist that I am, I delved into the snapshots of my own website's history, if available. Turns out the only two archives they made were of a css stylesheet and the day my drawings page got hacked. There's a lot to be said for quality hosting.

(Even if I did scuttle my own website recently.)

(Several times.)

I'm back into classes. Spending these days rapidly coughing out my lungs, for which I've been prescribed narcotics to counter the effect. It's not helping.

Ryan's gone again for four months.

The Non-Bleak Midwinter

Kiwi, via Kevin. This chokes me up more and more every time I watch it. I think I can relate.

The other day I finally made it to Butchart Gardens, though I didn't actually see any foliage. We went at night for the staff family Christmas evening, and saw all the lights which had finally been juuust about perfected for the opening of the Christmas lights show. It was pretty darn impressive. I liked the Three French Hens--they were chickens, eating a meal of chicken, with the Eiffel Tower in the background. The Eleven Pipers Piping kind of creeped me out... nearly full-sized puppets with those glassy taxidermy eyes, dancing on strings according to some mechanization, while eerie flute music piped through the colonnade. Some of their fingers moved. Very impressive, though. The best part about it being staff night (aside from the fact that no tourists were allowed) was that people were fiddling with things here and there, hopping over fences (to fix a taxidermy eye that was awry, for example). Not me, mind you. Just staff. Very blurry pictures on Facebook.

I finally found out the order of my music exams. Orchestration will be out of the way first, fortunately, so that I can go to Winter Harp and hear some music performed by a range of harps, modern instruments, and obsolete instruments including "the ethereal-sounding bass psaltery (the only one like it in the world), the 12th century organistrum (the other one like it in Canada is in the Museum of Man in Ottawa) and the nyckelharpa." It will take up the evening in between exams... so I have to just trust to fate for Baroque, I guess.

The end is in sight. I just have to finish my extra Codicology paper (which, much to my well-hidden dismay, was upgraded from 7-9 pages to 15 pages on Friday... just 4 days before its deadline). Then the music exams, then the hefty final English paper.

Ryan comes back from CERN today! Yay!

snip snip

My composition teacher employs a teaching method that I can only describe as "snipping." Like this. It amuses me to no end.

I've only just discovered that I didn't know what C-Score meant. And that I can't reliably transpose transposing instruments from written to sounding and vice versa; the problem is that I hadn't really been exposed to orchestral—or even band—instruments until I started this Orchestration class in September. Not having had any sort of music program whatsoever in all my years of schooling is coming back to haunt me. Unfortunately, I have less than three weeks to sort this and other problems out.

I'm not, by any stretch of the imagination, a sports fan. In fact, every time I walk home and the Basement Dweller happens to be in his suite, I have to stifle a wave of rage at his blaring TV which always has some sort of sports game playing. But, I'm happy (and proud) the Roughriders won the Grey Cup today. I even secretly checked the status of the game online (and by "secretly," I of course mean that I'm blogging about it for the world to know). There's a vast chasm between wanting to know how the score ends up, and being willing to watch a game, though.

Sweet Life

For some reason, everything always comes back to Starbucks. Or caramel frappucinos, if you want to get really fundamental. Sitting in Starbucks, morosely sipping a caramel frappucino and seeing that Hiring Baristas, February 13 sign across the street. Incorrectly answering "I'm partial to frappucinos" when asked what my favourite coffee shop drink was during my interview (frappucino is a failproof identifier of a Starbucks customer). Ducking into Starbucks on lunchbreak, feeling mortified when the head barista there outright asked me where I worked and triumphantly cried "I knew it!!" upon my answer. The coffee shop has been in my mind a lot lately. Perhaps because I pass by there once in a while these days, and try to peer inside from the opposite side of the street without having them see me. Mostly, I see the owner grinding espresso beans, making the shot, steaming the milk, pouring the drink, grinding espresso beans, making the shot, doing the milk, pouring the drink... and I think how awful it must be to do that job for the rest of your life. All he's really doing is taking pride in making the most beautiful drink in the world so that some Joe Cool can take one glance at it before gulping it down. Over and over and over every day. Sometimes I catch a glimpse of sweet Mrs. K and wonder how she's doing, and if she'll ever retire. Lots of times I wonder where my coffee-brother coworker went; I'd like to see him again. It was good times, even if the rest of it wasn't. I stopped going to that Starbucks after I quit at the coffee shop, and I haven't really gone back there until today. But today I did go back there, and even though it was freezing outside I ordered my usual caramel frappucino and muffin. And the same old barista was there. I tried to remember his name while I stood in line, but since it had been 6 months since I'd been there, and I wasn't wearing my old uniform, I didn't expect him to recognize me anyway. So I sat at my little round table, eating my muffin and sipping morosely at my caramel frappucino, wondering where all the time goes. Where all the people go, who slip in and out of your life. If they remember you, like you remember them. "Hey, do you work over at Dolce?"

All About Exams

I've been on Reading Break for the past three days, which has been hypothetically excellent. I didn't really think about school, except for today when I had to meet with a professor. I've been trying to learn as much Orchestration as I can, in preparation for the exams in December, which, as it turns out, I seem to maybe be registered for.

In the first place, I couldn't register for the exams online, which really confused me. They had all sorts of exams listed that you could register for, but not the ones I wanted. So I had to phone them up in Toronto and actually ask them how to register. Turns out you have to do it on paper for those ones. At my last lesson, my teacher explained that this is because these exams are so uncommon that I'll probably be the only person in the country taking them this year. RCM will probably have to make the exams just for me. For some reason, that doesn't comfort me.

So today I checked online to see if my old-fashioned paper application went through all right by fax, and that I was registered. Apparently, I am registered to write one exam in Subject description not found on December 7, and another exam in Subject description not found on December 8. I hope a) they know what they're doing and send out the right exams; b) they let me know which exam I'm writing on which day ahead of time; and c) I don't find out at the last minute that one of those Subject descriptions involves something alarming like history or something.

The guy who owns my aquarium told me they're relaxing and cut down on stress. This one does nothing but give me grief. I usually feel like hurling my laptop at it.

I'm pretty much overwhelmed with school. There was a hysterically complicated personal-governmental situation that came up just in time to ruin Thanksgiving weekend and the ensuing days. Between that and a week of being sick, not much progress has been made of late. I'm starting to wonder if it's physically possible to finish everything in time. I can't understand how two grad classes can be so much more work than five undergrad classes. Music class is as awesome as ever; the homework I have been neglecting. Class is great because we'll be looking at my works next week; we looked at two of them briefly a few weeks ago, and after listening to my choral piece he gave me Arvo Pärt's Berliner Messe to mull over. Now I'm to write a Kyrie, but all I can think about is Pärt's Kyrie (which is devastatingly beautiful). I could do without all of this at the moment, though; with two music exams coming up in December there is by far enough to concentrate on with just Orchestration and Baroque. I need to go write 4 papers and prepare a presentation by November 5 now. And start writing a Mass.

Nutella Dreams

Last night I dreamed I met TR. He had this weird East German accent and I asked him about two songs in my iTunes library that I don't know the names of, and he suggested that we watch Live Earth. So then we all watched a music video of Sarah Jessica Parker lip synching some jazz song about her love for a transvestite named "Bingo" (because at that point a few more people appeared and we were sitting on a grassy slope, looking at a giant TV that was standing in the middle of nowhere).

The best part was when he accidentally touched my face. When he was handing something to me... handing it to my face... sure, I'll just grasp that sheaf of papers with my face, Trent.

It's all very... enigmatic. I don't usually dream.