I took this on a short film called 'The Peculiar Blues of Melody Peach'
Gosh, has it really been a week and I’ve not posted anything? Well, I’m working on a review of You Need A Budget so maybe I’ll get that up soon.
In the meantime, I’m proud to say I got another Noteworthy over at PhotoFriday, which is very flattering! Thanks to everyone who voted! The subject was ‘End Of Summer’ and I submitted what is probably my favourite photo I ever took, of all time, ever. Yep, I really like it! You can check it out below, or over on my photoblog, my glass eye • pictures.
I took this on a short film called ‘The Peculiar Blues of Melody Peach’
It doesn’t really have a name but for my photoblog I called it ‘Hold On To Your Hat’. I took it on a short film called The Peculiar Blues Of Melody Peach, about a girl who hates summer and longs for the dark days of autumn and winter, so it seemed apt for the Photofriday entry.
The next competition is called ‘Spacious’ so I’m off to pick out a photo to enter. Wish me luck!
Yellow, Red and White - won a Noteworthy on Photofriday for 'Frozen'
Since I finally got my photoblog back on its feet a few weeks ago and started posting to it regularly again, I’ve been going back to some of the old photoblogging community haunts to see if it’s all still going.
Yellow, Red and White – won a Noteworthy on Photofriday for ‘Frozen’
So that’s my trumpet successfully self-blown there, lovely stuff! Click the image to visit it on my photoblog where there’s a bit more detail about how I made it.
Controversy over how streaming service royalties are divvied up aside, I really enjoy our Rdio subscription. I listen to a lot more music, try a lot of things and find new stuff I really love in a way I wouldn’t have otherwise. Rdio are much more album-oriented than Spotify which I prefer too.
Just got an email from them promoting their exclusive access to the new MGMT album, along with a pretty trippy video experience that ties in with the music, called the OPTIMISER.
The triply crab-head humanoid thingy wants you to dance
Got to say, I’m new to MGMT but I seem to remember someone telling me about them before so I’m giving it a go and so far it seems like a sort of hippy funky electro psychedelic opera kinda vibe. I’m liking it, but I think a lot of that has to do with the dancing crab-head humanoid drawing me through a weird 1990s-era computerised vortex video effects. It’s not subtle, but it’s pretty fun! As you get drawn into the visuals, glance down to see the avatars of other Rdio users float along the timeline as they watch too. Which is nice.
Sign into Rdio now and check it out just for the weirdness. But you know – in a good way.
Pay over the average and get the Louis CK and Patrice O'Neal shows too
The Humble Bundle is a great site where a bunch of people with something to sell, usually indie games developers, get together and sell all those things in one bundle, splitting the takings between themselves, charity and the Humble Bundle guys. The twist is – you get to pick the price you pay, and how it gets split. I’ve bought a lo-o-ot of awesome games through the Humble Bundle.
These days they don’t just do game bundles. Recently there’s been documentaries, ebooks, and now they’ve added stand-up comedy to their slate with the Humble Comedy Bundle, including:
Maria Bamford – The Special Special Special
Tig Notaro – Live
Hannibal Buress – My Name Is Hannibal
Jim Norton – Please Be Offended
Pay over the average and get the Louis CK and Patrice O’Neal shows too
For the next two weeks you get all those for whatever price you like. You could, if you were a bit of dick, get them for one single cent total. Don’t be a dick. To sweeten the deal if you pay more than the current average price being paid (right now that’s about $9) then you get three extra shows:
Louis C.K. – Live at the Beacon Theatre
Patrice O’Neal – Unreleased
Patrice O’Neal – Mr P
I only really know Louis C.K. out of all of them, and he’s absolutely fantastic, I highly recommend you check out any of his shows or his sitcom Louis, but the Beacon Theatre gig is fantastic and well worth $10 even though he sells it for $5 on his own site (because he’s awesome like that).
I’ve heard of Tig Notaro through an email sent out by Louis actually. I haven’t seen any of her stuff yet but as soon as I’ve got this post up I’m going to be grabbing my own copy of the bundle and checking her show out first. Also, anyone who calls their stand-up gig ‘Please Be Offended’ has definitely got my attention, Jim Norton.
The numbers
The first question I asked myself back when Humble Bundle started was “How does anyone make any money out of this?” but it doesn’t seem to be putting off the big names, and the little names probably get a lot of attention they might not have otherwise, so I guess it’s working out for them. This bundle has been on for less than a day and according to their homepage stats so far it’s made $51,000 – though how that’s being split by customers is kept a secret of course.
What with the charity element, it’s not unusual to see people who can afford it paying a lot more for the bundles than the street value, with current top contributors to the comedy bundle paying around $100 by choice, and when there’s anything game-related in the bundle you’ll often see the likes of Notch putting thousands of dollars in the pot, but of course only he knows how he split it.
I’m heading over to pick up my bundle, I highly recommend you check it out yourself and at the very least give Louis C.K. a try if you haven’t already.
NPR’s brilliant resource for Arrested Development fans – Previously, On Arrested Development – has been updated (probably ages ago but I only just realised) with all the gags from Season 4.
If you haven’t already heard about this, it’s a cool cross-referenced online ‘encyclopaedia’ of the vast range of running jokes on the once-cancelled-now-resurrected comedy show, Arrested Development. Even the name of the site is an in-joke – there was never a ‘Previously…’ lead-in on the show but at the end of each episode they always do a ‘Next time on Arrested Development’ bit that’s never actually in the next episode, but stuffs in a few more gags from the one you just watched.
I loved the first three seasons, when I finally got round to watching them. And then I rewatched them again and again, and was very excited when Netflix announced they were making a fourth season. Sadly that fourth season wasn’t as satisfying as I’d hoped. I enjoyed it for the most part and there were some truly brilliant moments – I particularly loved Michael and George Michael’s exchange of lies over the phone – but Portia De Rossi’s bizarre new face and the forced focus on one character per episode conspired to regularly jolt me out of the moment. Maybe I just need to watch it again sometime but I’m not really in any rush, which is quite telling…
