nocturne

August 12, 2005

Blademaster L

As of yesterday, according to the New Zealand Amateur Fencing Association website, my stepdaughter Leah Hamilton is ranked number 1 in the country for foil in the 17 & under age bracket, and 12th overall.

She has worked very hard over the last few years on her fencing, and is certainly deserving. Well done Leah!

Posted to Misc at 04:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (10)

August 10, 2005

Taste Otago: Dunedin Wine & Food Expo

My mother and I recently attended the Taste Otago Wine & Food Expo hosted in the Edgar Centre on Sunday, July 31st. The following is the organisers' description of the event:

Taste Otago will comprise of an integrated mix of the best taste sensations that the industry has to offer. The sky’s the limit and there are no restrictions as to what stallholders choose to offer. The event aims to be fresh, fun and vibrant and focuses on all things related to the wine and food industry.

People who love eating, drinking, cooking and entertaining should attend the event, as well as other businesses and individuals from the wine and food industry.

Sounds great no?

No. What a dreadful disappointment. We paid 30$ to enter the expo, and discovered that the fee essentially entitled us to nothing. You are expected to pay the entrance fee, and then must additionally pay for every taste of wine and nibble of cheese. I would have expected that the fee would have covered a meagre sip or two of wine.

Considering this was a food and wine expo, there was a distinct lack of food on offer. Little India, which I find somewhat overrated, provided the only dedicated food stall. The exhibitors there were in no way representative of the food industry in Otago. In fact, were I not aware of all the excellent restaurants in Dunedin, my impression would have been that Otago hasn't a food industry of any sort.

I certainly won't waste my money on this event in the future. I should have used the money to take my mother to Plato or Bell Pepper Blues for lunch.

Posted to Dunedin at 06:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (12)

July 15, 2005

Minna Daisuki Katamari Damashii Released!

Minna Daisuki Katamari Damashii, or We Love Katamari as it will be called once it hits the western world, has been released in Japan!

Japanese cover art for KD2

Both IGN and Gamespot have previewed the game, and it certainly sounds promising. The biggest changes appear to be that the camera, which had a tendency to embed itself in geometry in the original, has been improved, and the addition of a new co-operative play mode.

Having had a look around the official japanese site for the game, I found some new wallpaper, and strangely, some sort of origami giraffe which supposedly should be used with a keyring. In terms of what is actually going on in these images, well, your guess is as good as mine. I've stopped trying to understand the Japanese.

Namco have a suitably confounding gameplay video that's well worthy watching on their site. The soundtrack for the game has been release as well, and can be purchased online.

My fingers, and toes, remain crossed for a PAL release - don't let us down Namco!

Posted to Games at 11:58 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (10)

July 14, 2005

V for Vendetta

The V for Vendetta film site has been updated with quite a few interesting tidbits - video footage from a press conference, a handful of photos from a shoot, and bios of the people involved. I'd provide direct links to each section, but unfortunately the site, most obnoxiously, is all flash.

Despite Alan Moore publicly condemning this film, and completely disassociating himself from it, I'm still looking forward to seeing it. I sincerely doubt however, given the current political climate and recent events in London, that V will be portrayed correctly as the amoral anarchist that he is. Rich Johnston, having read the script, confirms this in his column unfortunately.

V for Vendetta is particularly relevant today as the western world slowly watches the erosion of its civil liberties in response to the war on terror. Sadly, I suspect everything that makes V for Vendetta a great graphic novel will be diluted by the Hollywood machine. Recalling that fox chief Bill Mechanic lost his job over Fight Club, it's hard to imagine Hollywood backing anything too challenging.

Posted to Misc at 12:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (10)

May 30, 2005

Album Review: Shpongle - Nothing Lasts ... But Nothing Is Lost

Nothing Lasts... But Nothing Is Lost is the third, and sadly, final Shpongle album from English producer Simon Posford and collaborator Raja Ram.

Electronic music, particularly trance, often suffers from being too genre bound. Shpongle however, since their 1998 debut Are You Shpongled?, have consistently challenged musical convention, schizophrenically blending elements of dub, breaks, psytrance, jazz, and world music to excellent effect. Nothing is Lost is no exception, and marks the full maturation of this fusion sound.

The album is one flowing piece which the producers say should be considered a sort of aural dream sequence. There's a lot more consistency between tracks on Nothing than earlier efforts, and themes from earlier tracks drift in and out giving you some reference points in the otherwise bewildering soupy soundscape.

Once again, Posford has chosen to introduce a number of vocal elements. While these occasionally grated on Tales of the Inexpressible, they work marvellously here. The Dead Can Dance like, Invocation, provides a nice contrast to the following techno oriented Molecular Superstructure, and the sung dialogue at the end of Periscopes of Consciousness between man and what is presumably a hyperdimensional creature is gorgeous.

Posford's composition is wonderfully baroque, building layer upon layer of chaotic blips, pads, samples, gulps, and arpeggios. The tracks have an astounding density, and it is a testament to his production skill that the music still remains punchy and clean. The instrumentation is varied, and the juxtaposition of the vocals and acoustics with the crunchier electronic elements gives the album an organic quality that most electronic music never approaches.

Nothing Lasts is available from Twisted Records. Friends of self dribbling bejeweled machine elves, and really anyone that loves electronic music should not be without it.

As they say, put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Posted to Music at 12:53 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (31)

May 17, 2005

I'll take the red pill...

I just stumbled across this item, that claims Sony have filed a patent for a non invasive brain stimulation technology, akin to the technology in The Matrix.

While we aren't likely to be jacking in any time soon, I'll keep my Fuchi corporation CDT-1000 cyberdeck on standby.

Playstation 4? :)

Posted to Misc at 03:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (11)

May 12, 2005

Happy 25th Pacman!

Pacman was released to the world 25 years ago to this day, and marked a significant milestone in the development of video games.

Despite having some flaws, which would later be addressed in the sequel Ms. Pacman, Pacman was a large evolutionary leap from its predecessors Space Invaders and Pong.

From a CNN article covering the anniversary:

"Pac Man changed the psychological profile of the average person," explains Twin Galaxies' Walter Day.

"Suddenly old and young, male and female, doctors, dentists, lawyers and housewives found it acceptable to be playing a video game. And Pac Man opened that door for them. Despite the fact that it was technologically advanced, it was as simple as playing a card game for them."

Here are a few things to check out:

An agricultural tribute to the gluttonous yellow ball.
An amusing, if extremely geeky t-shirt,
and the game ported to Microsoft Excel (doesn't appear to work in Open Office, sorry).

and of course the obligatory quote:

"Computer games don't affect kids, I mean if Pac Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive music."
-- Marcus Brigstocke

Posted to Games at 03:45 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (20)

May 11, 2005

Cascading Onload Image Fades Without Flash

Richard Rutter provides an excellent script for achieving Onload image fades without Flash, which is plain marvellous. The more Flash I can do away with, the happier I'll be. Flash is great for applets, games, and toons, but is pretty nasty for navigation and general page UI.

I've extended Richard's script to support a cascading load of multiple images, which suited my purposes better. Hopefully someone out there finds this useful. Thanks for the help with this Ryan! You can also replace the window.setTimeout with window.setInterval for a somewhat interesting/amusing/useless stuttery effect.

Update: Nick provided a nice update to the code which removed the necessity to specify the number of images in the array. Thanks!

Posted to Web at 01:42 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack (19)