Friday night:


Saturday afternoon:


Saturday night:


Sunday:


Jetsons:

In line with my current mini obsession of the moment... apparently a company other than Sierra (no affiliation with Roberta Williams either) began creating a game called King's Quest 9. Vivendi eventually asked them to stop, but they were allowed to continue making the game as long as they changed the name. I haven't downloaded the demo.. and the screenshots look a lot less inspiring than the Al Emmo shots do, but this is probably worth checking out: The Silver Lining.

Screenshot:


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3:58pm update: Apparently there is a Space Quest 7 fan game being created, as well as a new Quest for Glory game in the wotks, too! Holy shit!

I didn't get a chance to play Al Emmo last night, but I did pick up the King's Quest collection after searching four stores for it. The place I eventually bought it didn't even have it out on the shelf.. it was in the back room. Sad. Those games are too good to be left in the stock room!

I installed and messed around with a few of 'em and was instantly taken back to being 12 years old. Amazing. **

Hot Cops are paying at the Loop Lounge with Birsting and Arcade Academy this Friday night. I haven't been this excited for a show in awhile. Should be a good one. **

With a 16.5 point spread this week I'm taking the 49ers over the Bears. Also, Denver beats the Colts straight up, and with the 2.5 point spread. --

I first read about Al Emmo and The Lost Dutchman's Mine over three years ago. I'd stumbled upon a website for a "company" called Tierra Games (now called AGD Interactive) that had faithfully recreated the old Sierra Adventure games King's Quest 1 and 2 to work with Windows XP and released 'em for free. I grew up on all of those old Sierra games, and immediately downloaded both of them. I plowed through the first one with Marissa in two days and got most of the way through the second one shortly thereafter. For whatever reason, those few days are some of the most memorable of my senior year in college. Upon reading more about the people that developed the remakes, I found out that they had started a commercial software company called Himalaya Studios that would be making original games in the all but dead and gone point-and-click adventure game genre. I kept up with the development of Al Emmo for a bit, but eventually forgot about it as development dragged on and on and on. A recent message board thread, however, sparked my interest in the game once again... and I was happy to find out that it's finally out! I downloaded the demo before bed last night and am pretty excited to get started on it. I've got an extremely busy schedule for the next few days, but I'm hoping to get through it at some point soon. As always, I'll be sure to blab about it here.

If adventure games were ever your thing.. or if you think that they sound cool, here are a few other links that might get you excited:

* Adventure Game Studios - Homepage for the AGS development program, which allows you to make your own adventure games. There are some homemade downloadable games on the site, too... which I'm psyched to try out. I hear Ben Jordan: Paranormal Investigator is pretty great.

* Space Quest Compilation - Looks like Sierra finally decided to re-release these games with Windows XP compatability! Woo hoo!

* King's Quest compilation - In my opinion, the best of all the "Quest" games. Also compatible with Windows XP for the first time.

Just looking at screenshots like this from KQ gives me goosebumps and reminds me of how much I enjoyed sitting in front of my computer alone or with friends trying to plug through these games:



I'm definitely picking up the King's Quest collection today! ---

As promised, here's my 90s emo You Send It Mix:

01 - The Jazz June - Day 7
02 - The Appleseed Cast - Fishing In The Sky
03 - The Promise Ring - E. Texas Ave.
04 - Lync - Cue Cards
05 - Knapsack - Simple Favor
06 - Empire State Games - Falling Forward
07 - Braid - Never Will Come For Us
08 - Cap 'N Jazz - In The Clear
09 - The Get Up Kids - Off The Wagon
10 - Cursive - When Summer's Over Will We Dream of Spring
11 - Mineral - Forlvadell
12 - Texas Is The Reason - Back And To The Left
13 - Sunday's Best - When is Pearl Harbor Day
14 - Starmarket - Fool
15 - Christie Front Drive - Seven Day Candle
16 - Piebald - One Hundred Percent Good
17 - God's Reflex - That They Should Never Weep

The link is here:
http://download.yousendit.com/5F0624F00F9FC10F

You have to sign up for Yousendit to download it.. but it only takes a few seconds and is definitely worth it to have yousendit access. Love that site.

In keeping up with my recent hobby of documenting bands that I see with shaky video, I give you the following video of Maritime from the Mercury Lounge last Saturday night. The song is Tearing Up The Oxygen, from We, The Vehicles which as of right now is my record numero uno for the good year 2006:




The show was pretty great. The band looked thrilled to be playing, they played only three songs from the slow and sorta boring first record, and the new songs they played were phenomenal. Davey stumbled upon something great with We, The Vehicles and I'm pretty sure that the third record is going to fucking slay, too. I can't wait. Marissa enjoyed it, too.. although we both felt that the crowd was a bit too much of the jaded-everything-bores-me-except-for-bands-that-suck-but-sorta-sound-like-Arcade-Fire assortment. None of that mattered once the tunes started, though. Good times. ***

It's only Tuesday but it feels like I've already gone through five full work days. The boredom that I experience here at work lately is redefining the term. My job was never too tough, but after doing it for two years I can practically do it with my eyes closed, in 45 minutes. The rest of my 9 hours or so are spent here trying to ignore the idiotic conversation bouncing back and forth amongst the drones and trying to find cool websites that aren't blocked by my IT Department. It's not a very satisfying way to spend my days / the majority of what is my non-sleeping life. I'm hoping for a lil' good news that would change all of this in the next day or so. Don't wanna jinx it or talk to much about it, though. More later in the week. ***

I totally fucking dig the fall. Tonight I'm going to put together a 90s emo yousendit MP3 mix for all of you to use as the soundtrack for your leaf piling, scarf wearing days ahead. I'll post the link and tracklist when it's done. --

well well well, how we do.

another glorious week. cant you just feel it in the air.

ive had this concept of an "assertive hand", something i wanted to elaborate on. ah, in reference to my experience of things. for example, if i were to go see a movie or something and talk about it, id want to avoid direct statements. ie, the movie is bad. it would be more of, in my opinion, the movie is bad. or, fall is the time of year when everything is crisp and people are more manageable with the smell of agoro-death in the air. it should be prefaced with, in my experience, as to avoid someone thinking im taking an assertive hand in describing the environment. as if i am an authority.

today on howard stern elegant elliot had a meltdown. it was fucking unbelievable. he claims he is suing. claims he is entitled to a commercial before he makes his football pick. howard is claiming that his commercials go on way too long, people are bored of it, and they must be shortened. no agreement was reached as of yet.

i saw the movie perfect stranger last nite, halle berry, bruce willis. it was a pre screening as the movie is not done. work in progress. i drank some booze, ate some nubbins, saw george's (clothed) unit, colored with crayons, made outlandish remarks, stared at some girl courtney's ass and gave my opinion on the movie. i think it is pretty good. one of the murder weapons in the movie is belladonna, which i have a happy relationship with. thanks to krista for bringing that experience to my door. the last time i was at a screening was with that movie mars or something. last time i was at the movies? couldnt tell ya.

no appetite this morning. buttered roll kinda day. goin to see the devils tonite. they play nashville who beat the rangers last nite. nashville. ha. my fantasy team is kicking ass. martin havlat is leading the league in chicago. hes unstoppable, a fucking monster. the next player doing as good is shanahan on the rangers. tender of the year? vokoun? manny? manny is 6-0 folks. if you ask me, picking him up was just as good as grabbing havlat.

if you have spare time, and youre halfway into hockey, you should click these links.

Been a little too busy to blog. While typing that out I thought "Been a little too bloggy to biz." This makes no sense, clearly, but I kinda like it better.

I don't even remember where I left off, so I'll just start with recent goings on. Last Fri./Sat Jimmy and I (99% Jimmy) recorded some songs with Grath Steinway and Mike Erg. By "recorded" I mean drank about 30 beers, ate some junk food, and went record shopping, of course. The recordings are for the Hot Cops/Steinways/Tattle Tales/Mike Erg four band 7" that upon formulating 5 months ago figured would've been almost out by now... However, as it currently stands only one band has a finished batch of recordings, one band hasn't even begun recording, and the two others are sort in between. If I had to give an estimated release date I'd guess about Feb. or March of 2007 right now. Kinda depressing, but I'm still hopeful that it'll be as great as it seems like it could be.

Sunday Marissa, Kelly Lynn, and I drove down to Edison, NJ to join a bunch of pop punk kiddos to see Mazeffect, The O>Matics (who Riss and I missed on our lunch run), The Groucho Marxists, For Science, The Steinways, The Ergs, and one other band whose name I can't remember at the Edison, NJ Skatefest. It was a great fall-chilly day to spend outside bopping around to some tunes. Marxists were loud, For Science was drunk and broke shit, The Steinways were hilarious, and The Ergs were The Ergs, only The Ergs playing mostly songs from the new record, which I was psyched to hear. My ears were still ringing last night when I hopped into bed, which is a pretty good indication of the show's rockingness.

I've got a fair share of photos from the weekend on my flickr account as well as a bunch of movies that I'm going to upload to Youtube once they approve my "Director" account. I kinda fudged the truth as to why I deserve such an account, but I'm hoping that they don't notice. **

I've been reading this for the last few days and am enjoying it quite a bit. Enough so that I can envision a long period of me reading a slew of Dick and Pynchon-like books for the next few months. Combine that reading material with a little bit of Final Fantasy 12 and Final Fantasy 3 dropping soon and it looks like I'm ready to revert back into my 18 year old self. I suppose that would be swell, as long as I don't start listening to Radiohead again. That would be most unfortunate. --

Best one yet.

Don't Be Evil. I'm not a Gates hating Microsoft loather, but I very much support that link and things like it. --

Pyongyang is probably the greatest city name of all time. It's with great pleasure that I hear it on the news as often as I do these days. **

Last weekend was pretty much exactly as expected. Lots of indoor/outdoor relaxation up at Marissa's folks' house. Watched some pathetic baseball and some ok football on the TV. Watched her sister rip up the field hockey, umm, field on two occasions. Good times had for sure. Everytime I go up there I'm still struck with the "whoa, your girlfriend grew up on a farm" realization. And it's never not cool. **

Today is Final Fantasy XII Day in Times Square. I walked by this morning and they were handing out posters and stuff, but I was sorta late for work and wasn't able to check it out. Around 11 I had a few spare minutes so I high-tailed it down there. All of the posters were gone but there was no shortage of silly people dressed up as FF characters. I'm glad I went down, but it wasn't half as exciting as I'd hoped it would be. I am, however, very excited about the game. I paid an extra $10 to get the special edition and am damn sure that I'll be more excited about its release on 10/31 than I am about costumes or candy. --

mornin everybody.

north korea?

mas

two pages of great pics...

found on the streets of israel

colts giving ten?

Keeping up with the recent trend of letting other people blog about things I should be blogging about, I give you this, at which I was in attendance. I agree with Jim, it was 100% excellent. The last week has been an excellent one for rock-n-roll... and well, just fun in general, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't exhausted. Have a lazy New England long weekend ahead of me to celebrate Marissa's birthday / Columbus Day and I'm pretty excited about it. Playoff baseball, Sunday football, orange leaves, and DVD boxsets. Can't think of much else that I'd rather have as tools for relaxation. **

I'm not going to make football picks this week because no one seems into it. So let the record show that I am the winner of in.circles football pick 'em 2k6. Word. --

...sadly, I've never seen or even heard of this movie. What a fucking gem this must be. God.


M. Ward was on The Late Show with not Craig Kilborn. Cool song, even though I never have the desire to listen to this guy, he's pretty good. Stumbled upon the Merge Records blog. Not a huge fan of all their bands, but I imagine if I was, I'd be cool to check out on a regular basis. Also found The Clientèle blog.

I know he was ruthless and egotistical when he had his wits about him, but can we please cut cut this shit out already? He's senile, barely knows what he's talking about, and cruising him after games for quotes is terrible. Stop pls/thx. --

did i post this already?

Here's the Lemonheads review I wrote for Jersey Beat:

THE LEMONHEADS – The Lemonheads (www.vagrant.com)

If 2003's Baby I'm Bored was Evan Dando lazily waking up after a decade of drug induced sleep, The Lemonheads (s/t) is his first bright idea of the day, fueled by the buzz of his morning's first cup of coffee. Nearly ten years after the last time The Lemonheads name was slapped on a full length album, Dando has brought along punk rock veterans Bill Stephenson and Stephen Egerton (Descendents, All) for a 30 minute trip through a faster and glossier version of the types of songs that The Lemonheads have been known for since 1992's classic It's A Shame About Ray. While no single track on The Lemonheads measures up to even the weakest tracks on Ray, a few come close and are a welcome breath of fresh air alongside the pretentious rock environment of the mid-00s. Choice tracks "No Backbone" (featuring J Mascis' guitar noodling), "Let's Just Laugh", "Pittsburgh", and the Stephenson penned "Become The Enemy" are some of the most solid Lemonheads songs since Ray, showcasing Dando's signature vocal delivery (which remains 100% intact, I'm happy to report) and catchy folk chording with just enough fuzz to make it rock. While I don't think The Lemonheads packs enough punch to intrigue the legions of fellow Vagrant Records' bands' fans, it certainly presents a reignited Evan Dando, who seems as happy as ever to be alive and rocking - and I think those who still care enough to remember his name should be just as happy to have him back. **

Here's a lil' snapshot of the records I've picked up in the last week:



I like new music in the fall. **

And here's an insane video of a way fucked up Evan Dando answering fan mail and babbling about all kinds of weird shit on European television:



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read these:

one

two

hey.

light the candle at both ends, am i right?

i am pretty upset that i have not seen hot cops. i think i have seen them, just not as much as i would like to. i dont even have the record, nor the cd, nor any songs in mp3 format. one part of that statement is a lie.

i am upset though. i really appreciate creative effort and when i cant manifest that appreciation as a form of support to the ones creating, it brings me down. not to mention that the two other people who grease the cogs of this lumbering jabberwocky are people i rarely see anymore. i tend to think im not making the effort. things can happen.

its just a mood. but i would not want to be in a situation saying, "i should have..." or, "if i only..." because that right there is regret.

the touchpad on my laptop decided to stop working. this ever happen to anyone? why do you judge me? human, flesh and blood. cast the first stone. casting call. wearing a cast. cast the line into the lake. upper caste? one tends to think, given circumstances. carries out ideas and scenarios. what ifs... get the hell outta dodge.

i had a dream the other nite that i was being chased by black bears. i woke up and noticed i left scissors on the couch. my mom taught me never to do that. you can run with scissors (i dont think anyone can sustain an injury there) just dont leave em open on the couch or bed. it wasnt scissors. it was the knife part of a corkscrew. nearly forgot.

there is a place that makes thai food, river kwai, right here in wayne. they have good food and great desserts. i had the fried bananas and vanilla ice cream, stupendous. ive also had their fresh mango and sticky rice. food.

well my candle burns like shit. in the instructions it says not to blow it out because it will effect the burning. well its not burning very straight and i havent been blowing it out. im left with a beeswax glob and a shitty half wick. im just really fucking bitter right now.

Football results, week 4: Christoper 1 point. Nobody else, 0 points. Go me! --

Jim Testa wrote a great wrap-up of Saturday's Carlapalooza festival. All told, the event was a huge, huge success and I haven't talked to a single person that had a bad time yet.

Since the event was at my grandfather's legion hall and I had done some of the work for setting it up, I started off the day in worried mode. The wonderful Chadd Derkins had put a lot of time and heart into putting the show together, and I didn't want anything related to the hall messing up his plans. The following events didn't do much for setting what I thought could end up being a horrible precedent: Jimmy and I stayed up passed 4am on Friday night with Dead Mechanical drinking Bud and Whiskey and playing ping-pong, Street Fighter II, and Virtua Tennis. I woke up far too late and took a really long time getting out of the house. I was supposed to pick up Marissa before-hand, but was running so late that I had to head to the hall first to make sure that Chadd and Chris Pearce were able to get in to start setting up. When I got to the hall, the guy that was supposed to prep the hall for us had gone missing and there was still gym class/dance equipment all over the room. After quickly disassembling that crap and throwing it in a closet I headed back into the car to finally get Marissa, and got stuck in Route 1 and 9 traffic due to a car that had decided to drive itself into a wall. On the way back into Secaucus from Jersey City, a whiskey hangover induced coughing fit almost caused me to lose my breakfast while sitting in even more Route 1 and 9 traffic going the other way. When we finally got to the hall proper and saw people trickling in I began calming down, although by the time Hot Cops played my head and stomach were still stuck on spin cycle. Jeff and Jimmy were flawless, but I messed up a few parts and forgot a few words that the night before at practice I'd nailed perfectly. I think I did a better job at covering up than usual, though, and everyone was complimentary of the set. Testa's link above pretty much tells the rest of the story, so I'll stop here. But I will say that I am very happy to have been a part of the day and feel sorry for anyone that wasn't able to be there. Great bands, great people, a great cause (they raised over $1300!), cheap beer, and just a whole, whole lot of fun. Smiles all around. --