Artoyz originals recently released their ELEMENTS Alpha Series and my wallet is definitely itching. (I haven’t bought any vinyl toys for a few months, and I imagine my move to Chicago will result in a lot of new rotocast crack in my collection.) I love the four sculpts, and with art by some toy greats like Jon Burgerman and Nathan Jurevicius, I’ve gotta catch ‘em all! (At $9.95 per blind box.) Pictured above are my faves, but there really isn’t a dud in the set, which is rare for blind boxes, IMO.
I was recently asked by Tender Loving Empire to participate in a show consisting completely of art on 40 ounce bottles. Unfortunately, in my rush to ship my pieces in time, I failed to remember to take photographs of the labels on the bottles. Hopefully the TLE folks might have some decent photos that I can swipe.
Here are my two entries:
“Drunktown, USA”
I felt like this group of creatures embodied just about every state of being drunk. Characters from left to right: Amelia, Barney, Todd, Jerry, Orwell, James, Tad and Iggle.
“Bottom of This Bottle”
Albert here has been searching for true love for far too long, and has decided to begin looking elsewhere…
The guys in Slow Runner have described their music as, “interesting, lyrical pop music shot out into space, bouncing around the satellites and getting mixed in with all their beeping and blipping. Like if r2-d2 had an aching heart and a love for the noisiest beatles songs. Ideally, if you took out the depressing lyrics and substituted in educational stuff about sharing with others and the states and capitals, you could sit down at a piano and have a classroom of kids singing along within minutes. That’s the idea anyway. Weird sounds get added later. And then we get to play live and see if we can make every heart in the room burst with pent-up feelings.”
Luckily, I heard a few songs from Quebec Antique on thesixtyone before I saw the abysmal album artwork. If I would have seen this cover in a record store, I would have immediately skipped over it. I honestly can’t find one redeemable quality about it. Blarg. Ugh. That’s not the purpose of this post, though.
Quebec Antique is a duo that play an indie/electronic/pop mashup, ala The Postal Service, Imogen Heap, Boards of Canada, etc. It’s catchy, mellow, inventive, and in addition to your standard programming, you’ll hear bits of guitar, piano, accordion, and glockenspiel. At times they venture into an almost too-similar-to-Postal Service area, but hey, those guys are unlikely to ever release another album, so oh well. Give them a listen.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is set to release June 15th (two days earlier than its original release date), and I am officially geeking out. Getting past the initial shame I should feel for being a 26-year-old male Harry Potter fan (I feel absolutely no shame), I realize my excitement is probably a tad misplaced. The HP movies have been progressively more disappointing since Prisoner of Azkaban (the most well-made, in my opinion), and the step back to a PG rating while the tone of the storyline should be transitioning into darker territory seems like an odd move.
Despite these initial reservations, when I watch the following trailer, I get as excited as, well, a 12-year-old female Harry Potter fan:
A few observations (annotated by seconds for the no-one following along):
0:22 – The underground lake looks incredible.
0:50 – The Dark Mark is badass.
1:01 – The Dark Mark with Death Eaters flying out of it is badass-er.
1:31 – The shot of Katie Bell suspended in the air after putting on the cursed necklace is pretty intense.
1:43 – The Inferi look a lot like Golem.
1:57 – The casting of Helena Bonham Carter as Bellatrix Lestrange continues to be awesome.
2:01 – Is this werewolf-ish guy Fenrir Greyback? He’s looking pretty Ron-Perlman-Hellboy in this short clip.
2:09 – Harry fighting Snape in the trailer? SPOILER ALERT?
Overall, the special effects look incredible as always.
As with every Harry Potter movie, I am sure as soon as the opening music starts and we fly through the giant HP logo, I will be transfixed and instantly engrossed in geek-ity. And given that the majority of the young actors are now of legal age, if my nerd-boner happens to transition into a boner-boner, no one can complain. Except maybe the parents of all the children in the theater. But really, what are those kids doing looking at my erection anyway? Don’t they realize Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is on the screen? What is wrong with these kids?
I swear, if I were a wealthy man, a large portion of my income would be wasted spent on Kid Robot blind box toys. Another large portion would be spent on a unnecessary number of shelves and cases on which said toys would collect dust be on display.
Kid Acne’s “Rollin’ Stock” series comes out May 7th. I want every single piece in the teaser image. Blarg. Look at those guys, they are so damn happy to be on that damn train!
Then they go and decide to release another Dunny series, “Dunny Endangered!” on May 21st. They’re calling this a super-rare “hyper series,” which means I’ve got to buy as many as possible before they sell out, right?
Why does this all remind me of Pokemon? Because they are as awesome as Pokemon, that’s why. (If you don’t think Pokemon are awesome, consider that they are super-cute animals that you apparently never have to feed, can keep in a softball-sized container when you don’t want them around, and can kill people dead.)
I recently discovered thesixtyone.com through a couple of friends, and I’m semi-hooked. Like The Hype Machine, you “heart” songs you like, and the songs with the most hearts get featured on the main page. Unlike other music sites, thesixtyone encourages you to discover new music by adding elements like reputation, levels and achievements.
If you heart a song, then other users heart it after you, you gain reputation. The more music you listen to, the more achievements you unlock. The more involved you are, the more you level up, and gain rewards like more hearts per day and unlocking new features and abilities on the website. You are only given a certain amount of hearts per day, but this (supposedly) gives you the motivation to level up and gain more.
Clearly, this appeals to the RPG nerd AND the music nerd in me. It’s kindof like leveling up your Half-orc Barbarian and gaining the Great Cleave Feat (or some other reference that the average “normal” person would understand).
Since the music is artist-uploaded, and the site is relatively new, you may not be able to find some of your favorite groups, but this does in a way add to the music-discovery aspect of the site. It’s chock-full of great artists I’ve never heard of, but also has its share of “artists” I’d prefer to stay that way. If the sixtyone team added an anti-heart option, where you could zap a song you absolutely hate I would love it even more. Sorry, one-man-basement-metal-bands, I more than dislike you, I want to stomp you.
Overall, the concept of thesixtyone is a unique and the interface is incredibly easy. Thesixtyone even allows you to link your profile to last.fm and scrobble the tracks you are listening to, if you are the type of person who is obsessed with recording your listening habits online (and I am).
Go sign up and tell ‘em I sent you (did I mention I gain reputation for referring you). My username is (duh) ad7m.
Well, I am officially abandoning my Blogger blog for WordPress.
Suck it, blogspot!
My intentions are to blog more and clutter the internet with more unnecessary opinions, rants, and words. Also, I’ll try to post new artwork, etc. Also, I plan on making this thing look much prettier.
![Robot Model No. [7]](http://ad7m.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/robot_model_no_72.jpg?w=450&h=405 "Robot Model No. [7]")
