Monday, January 23, 2006

el motherbox esta muy explosivo!

Forever People #6, July, 1988

Saturday, January 21, 2006

salvation ala mode with a cup of tea

Ok ok not that Aqualung...apparently this guy, a British guy, real name apparently Matt Hales, records under the name Aqualung, apparently not minding any connotations to the old Jethro Tull song of the same name containing lines like "Sitting on a park bench / eyeing little girls with bad intent" and "snot running down his nose / greasy fingers smearing shabby clothes", etc. I've heard him on xpn with no real impression made here in the Mohelmot caves (see links to xpn and ralph records, left, er I mean, your right, my left).

Anyway, recently picked up a free CD sampler of three songs Aqualung left off his latest CD, Strange and Beautiful, one of which is a rather fun live version of Queen's "Somebody to Love" with the San Fran audience singing back up on the conclusion. It might be available at Itunes or some such so you may wish to check it out. Or ask your local purveyor of stacks of wax to seek this little 3-song gem out for you in their giveaway bin. You'll be glad you did.

Thursday, January 05, 2006

Sex Crime (Orwell Would Be Proud)

Now that I've got your attention...

I watched a great little sorta-scifi movie tonight called Code 46 -- sort of the first love story of the information security/patriot act/genetic engineering/bigbrother age. Tim Robbins, great as always, plays an investigator who is called in when the electronic visas people need to be, well, anywhere in the world are being forged. He manages to fall in love with the girl who is making the phonies, and in a hyper-secure world where everything everybody does is monitored (and interestingly, for the most part, nobody seems to mind) this causes some problems.

The title, for example, refers to a law that says that if you conceive a child with someone with whom you share anywhere between 25-100% of the same genetic material with, the child has to be terminated and you will not be allowed to marry. You may lose your access to the interior of the cities and be cast out into the lawless areas outside the cities. This ends up factoring into the love story in a way that is too complicated to explain here and would ruin a major plot point anyway.

One of the most interesting aspects of the film is that the future is largely "suggested" -- the movie was creatively filmed in existing locations that look like the beginnings of the future in Blade Runner before it begins to, as Warren Zevon once sang, "run straight down." The move happens largely in Shanghai, and it looks like it was filmed in all the coolest parts of some major Asian city. What few special effects are here are subtle, and the overall effect is of a world just a few decades removed from our own -- kind of like Spielberg's Minority Report, only less obvious.

A well-made, thought-provoking, quiet love story. The Mole hath seen it, you should to. Nite nite.

Monkey to Man















People say we monkey around.
Doing Mickey's Monkey, children.
I wish the ape a lot of success.
I was a monkey, stealing honey from a swarm of bees.
Ever since the nightly news show that the monkey man was on.
Watch the monkey get hurt.
There was a woman in the jungle and a monkey on a tree.
Haven't you always wanted a monkey?
I aint no monkey but I know what I like.

A friend gave me this picture. This is a Japanese Macaque. When I come back, I will come back if at all possible as one of these guys, who spend a great deal of the winter lounging about in natural hot springs to stay warm, as our little buddy above is doing. Plus, I get to be a monkey! Double plus, I'll be better looking! What a deal. (Thanks, Friend!)

Monday, January 02, 2006

I can't feel my thumb!!!!

Out of sheer laziness, the Mole today acquired a universal remote for his TV (despite the fact of only having 15 channels, but thats another story) and there are three(3) seperate sets of instructions as to how to get your TV to recog your remote. Among the directions for getting the thing to work when your TV obstinately refuses to recog your remote is this (my emphasis):

4. Press the ON-OFF button repeatedly (up to 300 times) until the device to be controlled turns off. The red indicator blinks off with each button press.

The Mole is proud to inform loyal readers that it only took him 47 presses of the ON-OFF button to achieve remoteness. Lesser beings might well have had press the requisite additional 253. I wonder what would happen if some hapless fool pressed 301? Who was the researcher who arrived at 300? Very suspicious.

No applause, as we used to say in the third grade, just throw money.