Dan Dickinson: The Primary Vivid Weblog

Today was a special occasion; for the first time, I legally installed an Apple OS beta. Today was also a hellish occasion, as the install went fine until it came time to reboot. At this point my machine would either not finish the boot sequence or kernel panic seven seconds after I hit the power button. Installing Panther a second time, however, seems to have fixed this. While I won’t go all nitty-gritty (haven’t played with it enough, no desire to sound like a shilling whore, NDA), I will say that Expose is extremely swank.

Rands in Repose: N.A.D.D. Desktop Winner While I didn’t win the top prize, I did manage to make Honorable Mention #3. WHOOO.

I am, in case you haven’t noticed, overzealous about a little game called Beatmania IIDX. One reason I could be considered overzealous is because I have two home controllers, rather than one like most people. This, in and of itself, isn’t too much of a red flag, but: Yesterday, I noticed an imbalance in my controllers. The older controller – 18 months old – has a fantastically loose turntable, which is great for scratching, but the keys are prone to sticking easily and requires cleaning after a few weeks of play. The newer controller – about 3 months old – has a largely undamaged key set, but a really stiff turntable that inevitably makes me miss a note or two. Since the key portions are easily detached, I swapped them, and had one uber controller, and one controller I’d rather not touch. Seemingly the end of the story, were I a reasonable person. But somehow, I have ended up with the turntable portion of the newer controller in my lap as I sit at the computer, and I’m absent-mindedly spinning the disc (hur hur) back and forth in an attempt to loosen it up. I think I just broke the red zone of ridiculousness.

Metallica’s righteous ‘Anger’ tops crumbling Bizkit There’s nothing that makes my day more than hearing about people pissing off the worst band in recent memory.

Peter warned me this morning that the Friday Five is hitting a rough patch, as he skipped last week and this week. While I agree last week was ridiculous (When was the last time you cheated/lied/stole? This is a blog, not a confessional), this week I can work with. I think. FIVE HO! 1. If your life were a movie, what would the title be? Ripping off an Asletics song title – The Sweetest Savage. Has a nice ring to it, I think. 2. What songs would be on the soundtrack? Nothing that currently exists. See, in my infinite nerdism, I would want to do it ala the Spawn soundtrack. While that particular soundtrack was largely crap, it was the “pair up two artists” thing that intrigued me. So I would want to pair up artists that I listen to a lot and see what comes out. Tiger Yamato and Trent Reznor. DJ Shadow and dj TAKA. TaQ and Guster. DJ Krush and Aphex Twin. good-cool and Gorillaz. Asletics and Coldplay. The Streets and Akira Yamaoka. And so on – hey, I’m dreaming here. 3. Would it be a live-action film or animated? Why? Animated. More explicitly, animated by Steve Tze. Come on – why do you think the only picture of myself I have readily available is the one that Steve drew me? He is my god. 4. Casting: who would play you, members of your family, friends, etc? Well, if it was animated, we could all voice ourselves, I guess. 5. Describe the movie preview/trailer. I think it’d be appropriate to just pipe all my ethernet traffic into a window, and run it Matrix-style. Splice that in with “action shots”, and run R5 in the background, and you’re set.

I’m quite happy to report that Mike Jasper’s ConstantCommentary has returned after a far-too-long absence. If you’ve never heard me wax poetic about Mike before, he is one of the funniest and most under-appreciated writers/comedians/songwriters I’ve ever had the chance to appreciate. Do yourself a favor – dig around the archives. Alternately, be lazy and just read the top picks. Alternately, just be REALLY lazy and just read some excerpts. Good to have you back, Mike.

I review Dancemania EX 3. Hilarity ensues.

I just finished captioning the crap out of everything, so check out the pictures from the trip. Yes, I know most of the captions aren’t in slide show mode. I had to do it by hand because iPhoto has ridiculous text limits.

We’ve made it back to Ithaca. More details to follow. For now, read the thrilling Wired article about Freeverse!

Yes, we are in fact still alive. My internet access has been limited as there’s no Airport at MWNY, and I am yet again posting entries to my blog from 42nd St., across the way from Broadway City. Some notes: -Dylan’s Candy Shop still rules. -Chinatown still smells like crap, and still has no good places to buy import games. -On second thought, there’s NOWHERE in town that’s good to buy ANY games. This is ridiculous. -Business at the booth is good. In fact, I’d say it’s very good. -We’ve finally gotten over the whole cab thing and we’re almost exclusively using the subway. It’s always a fun experience, like today, when a bum was on my car, singing Lean On Me as loud as he possibly could! Aces! -Katie’s mom was in town today, and we had a nice time, although I was at the show a fair amount and thus not with Katie & her mom. -I ran into Brendan Becker, programmer of PyDDR (now PyDance) at our booth, randomly. It was odd, to put it mildly. -I’ve picked up three CDs while we’ve been here, all at the Virgin Megastore on Times Square. I’ve picked up Brainfreeze Official Soundtrack, which is just madness with DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist; Take A Break by Me First And The Gimme Gimmes, which has more fun punk covers (like their other albums), and The White Room / Justified & Ancient by The KLF, thus probably completing my KLF collection to the best it’s going to get without me actually trying. -I still haven’t made it to the Pokemon Center. Maybe tomorrow. -There’s a Michelle Branch concert tomorrow morning on Good Morning America that we were going to try and make it to, but Katie has an early interview and it’s just not possible now. We’re back home on Saturday with fun stories for all!