has been able to fulfill a dream. Thanks to hard work, understanding parents, a patient girlfriend and some wheeling and dealing, he will be spending the next couple of months working as an intern at Magnum Photos in New York City.
Not content to simply hang out and get coffee for some great photographic talents, he will also be developing his own portfolio while exploring the streets of NYC. And blogging about it.
Photoblogging. Surprise, surprise.
He already has some photos and stories up, so get thee to his site to see what the center of the universe looks like through the eyes of an alien. A legal alien in New York.
and such have usually been great fans of music. Musicians haven't always been such great fans of nerds. Some styles lend themselves readily to the nerd lifestyle, while others remain rather hostile.
Punk worked well. Think Devo. Or the Adolescents.
But Hip Hop?
Yes indeed. Thanks to MC Frontalot.
Frontalot's got it. Whatever it may be. He is probably the only person on the planet rapping about Nigerian E-Mail scams, Little Red Riding Hood and FTP servers. I think that just about says it all.
Of course, some of you may be able to appreciate that he uses the Knoppix start sequence as a sample. You know that's a first.
Go listen, and if you can't decide which track to check, I would suggest Nerdcore Hip Hop, Indier Than Thou, Crime Spree or Braggadocio as some potential starting points. I just downed them all. It was easier.
I still have difficulty of both a physical an emotional sort when it comes to the consumption of dead critters. As a matter of fact, I still feel guilty about that burger I had last night. It's too late for me to save the bovines in my past, but I might be able to help one unfortunate in the present.
The kommando freiheit45 has taken the cow of state hostage and is making a bunch of demands on the government. If the demands aren't met by the 15th of this month, something bad might happen to the cow.
As a foreigner, I realize it's beyond my position to harbor political opinions. And that is why YOU should go, see what they have to say, why they are saying it, and form your own opinions, but please, whatever you do...
Gimme a car game and I'm a happy camper. It's actually the only game genre I have continually played on every system I have ever owned.
Of course, I like cars. Real Cars. Toy Cars. Junk Cars. Working Cars. Dead Cars ...
Trouble is, I can't afford them. Well, other than those little metal ones, but my son nicks all of 'em for his own collection, so they don't count.
I can afford racing games though. Almost. If I didn't keep breaking the steering wheels. After destroying my last force feedback model a couple of weeks ago, I have been losing sleep thinking about modding my old car that was dying into the ultimate game controller. Trouble is, I am mechanically incompetent. Which is why today's webtip hurts so much.
A couple of guys with a dead Renault and the right know-how have been making just such a toy. The steering wheel works, the gauges are hooked up and a projector in the back seat gives you the view the way it should be. Big.
I want this soooo bad. Anyone want to help me mod my Prelude?
is a funny thing. Since most people watch TV to escape the reality of their lives, you would think they wouldn't really be interested in watching other peoples reality. Right?
And it can't be that they are watching it in anticipation of the unexpected discovery of some unbelievable talent. A diamond in the rough waiting to be cut, so to speak. That's just too much pain for such a small pay off.
So I will assume that the rest of the planet watches reality TV for the same reason I do. To laugh at the unbridled stupidity of the rest of humanity and to feed an already obese sense of self worth.
In other words, to laugh at the poor fools on the screen.
BSTV has realized the truth, and created a series of programs based on the essence of any reality show.
The casting.
Right now you can check out the castings for a wide selection of mind numbingly stupid reality shows. See the participants squeal with sycophantic glee at the prospect of destroying what little dignity they may still possess.
It's fun. It's hilarious. It's a sad commentary on the state of humanity.
The problem is, I don't know who is more sick. The people prostrating themselves before the media mammon, the producers who gleefully abuse desperate peoples desire for stardom, or me, for finding the whole thing so amusing.
Now if only someone would make something like this with famous people as the targets, all would truly be well...
movies were made with real bits of metal and plastic. Monsters were guys in rubber suits an spaceships were wonky looking things hung from strings.
And then came Star Wars.
The special effects and spaceships were still made from real bits, but they were done so well that everyone couldn't do anything BUT suspend their disbelief. It was awe inspiring.
My friends and I used to try desperately to recreate some of that modeling magic in our basements. This was before you could just pop down to the local hobbyshop and buy a kit for a 3 foot Star Destroyer. As a matter of act, it was before you could really buy any of the movie models. So we bought the books about the special effects crew, ravaged our collection of half completed milllitary models, and tried to do it the way Lucas would do it.
It was a modeling mash-up.
And that's what it usually looked like too. I don't think I ever managed to make s many horrid mounds of melted plastic as I did between '77 and '80. Actually I know I didn't because I eventually realized I lacked essential skills need for such projects. Of course a complete lack of patience and fine motor coordination didn't help either. So I ended up with a lot of models of severely damaged space vehicles.
There are some people out there who can still do it old school. Wether it's an electronically enhanced Millennium Falcon or a half finished 6 foot Star Destroyer, these people will at least try to make a movie ready replica of the original model.
As you would expect this same group of individuals can actually assemble model kits as well, usually resulting in museum quality miniatures that make my futile attempts look like, well, futile attempts.
Marty McFly's NIKE shoes from "Back to the Future 2
The people at Starship modeler have even decided to try to share their incites on the modeling process and have mounds of tutorials to try to help clueless klutzes like myself. I think I will still just stick to looking at the galleries though. It's less demanding...
Wien | 14.5.2005 | 11:18 
