Harmonix unveils Rock Band Network, which allows just about artist to submit their songs as Rock Band playable tracks.  The plan itself is just genius, in my opinion:

Rather than deal with Harmonix directly, artists and labels will submit songs to a community of Harmonix-trained freelance game developers who will prepare the tracks for “Rock Band.” Additionally, labels can either hire trained developers or school their existing employees to do the work in-house.

Songs submitted through this process must then be reviewed by other developers to check for playability, inappropriate lyrics, copyright infringement and so on. Harmonix will post approved tracks to an in-game download store separate from its existing “Rock Band” store where creators can set their own price (50 cents to $3 per song) and receive 30% of any resulting sales. Gamers will also be able to demo 30-second samples of each track.

Although originally designed to give indie and unsigned artists a way to sell music through the game, MTV quickly realized the Rock Band Network could be used to clear the bottleneck for major-label content as well. While the Harmonix team has grown from fewer than 10 programmers to a few dozen since MTV acquired the videogame developer in 2006, the company can only add about 10 new songs per week to sell through the “Rock Band” store. The same team has also been handling the development work for the upcoming “The Beatles: Rock Band,” due in September.

(more…)

So Jackie took me along with her to see Wicked this week at ASU’s Gammage Theater, and I’ll confess that I kind of liked it.

One criticism I do have of it is that it seemed to have a much better Act I than Act II, which can be somewhat problematic for expectations.  I ended up leaving the show a little disappointed.

Having said that, the Glinda (or Galinda) character is really funny, and the show ends up being an interesting play on perspective.

Lastly, no, I’m not gay.  Yes, I’m still marrying a woman.

Carry on.

Something that immediately became clear to me after traveling to the East Coast for college was the marginalization of the margarita.  The margarita, in its pure form, is very much a man’s drink.  It’s basically a cup of tequila with some lime and a little orange liqueur.  But the anglicized version is a sweet, blended, frozen mess of tequila-based tomfoolery.  This needs to change.

An even worse fate has settled on the poor daiquiri.  This was a drink that was supposedly created by mining engineers that has now degenerated into the epitome of the wussified cocktail.  A strawberry smoothie with a little rum in it.  This is not a daiquiri. A daiquiri is a cold cup of rum with lime and simple syrup.

So, in light of these unfortunate events, I’m calling for a national renewal project for these poor, distorted cocktails, because, in their real form, these drinks are good.  Really good.  And it’s a downright shame what has become of them.

I encourage all Juicers out there to evangelize the message of these latin cocktails’ true roots, and hopefully, one person at a time, we can save these drinks from their commercial destruction.

Context

Here is the Glenn Beck “Get Off My Phone!” MP3 and ringtone, edited from the original clip linked to above. I am using it now for certain people on my contact list. It’s pretty hilarious.

Enjoy:

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[MP3] Get Off My Phone
[M4R] Get Off My Phone (For iPhone)

Every day in the office

Originally from Chronillogical.com

A buddy of mine’s project is getting some attention:

A small town state legislative race? What better fodder for a television show. We give you “The Campaign” by Daniel Poliner, who among other things to his credit is a) a big fan of the Fix and b) from Connecticut. The trailer for the show, which stars Debra Jo Rupp — Kitty from “That 70s Show” — is here. Check it out. Spread the word.

[via Washington Post]

Send it around!

A testament to how busy I’ve been lately, I just now installed the 3.0 software update on my iPhone, and I must say I’m impressed so far with the copy/paste. It seems very full-featured and useful.

Needless to say this opens up huge new possibilities for better iPhone blogging, so I’m definitely looking forward to that. Here’s some pasteage:

Beloved Anthony Bourdain show No Reservations hops back on the tube tonight, with a season premiere that looks pretty darn delicious — and fattening — if this preview video is to be believed.

In it, Tony tucks into a 12-inch long Chilean hot dog covered with sauerkraut, guacamole and an avert-thine-eyes-health-care-professionals incredible slop of mayo. His thoughts? “I don’t know whether to eat this thing or conceal it in a brown paper bag.”

Now if I can only get WordPress to let me add links and blockquotes in their iPhone app…

By the way, I just watched Bourdain eat that hot dog and it was fairly ridiculous.

So this is quite possibly the ultimate duo when it comes to blues guitar. Albert King started playing “Soul Blues”, which is the slow, Louisiana-born, mainly acoustic style. Stevie was known for his rough and fast playing, and became the most well-respected “Texas Blues” player. If you listen to the first song, it’s real easy to tell who is playing when. Albert King played with his guitar way out of tune on purpose, giving him a unique sound when he would bend the strings back in tune while he played.

The first song is one of Albert’s called “Overall Junction”. The second is one of Stevie’s which everyone knows, “Stormy Monday”, but sung by Albert King. This entire album is mind blowing. Hope you guys enjoy it.

Albert King and Stevie Ray Vaughan – Overall Junction

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Albert King and Stevie Ray Vaughn – Stormy Monday

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This game looks exquisite. I may actually have to purchase this on Steam soon. They have single player and co-op modes. Pretty badass, and with a $30 price tag it’s pretty tempting.

Here’s some single player action:

Here’s some co-op action:

Really, she has.

Yeah, it’s Eric from Tim and Eric directing, but don’t act like you didn’t figure that out yourself.

UPDATE — I don’t know why those videos aren’t playing, but you can watch them here 

I’m not sure how many of your are Phoenix fans, but I just came across these videos of them playing live. They are amazing.

via Pitchfork.

This is a really cool video of someone playing around with dynamic furs and a simple walking animation. I can’t wait until this is able to be rendered in real time. For now though, we have a nice video to enjoy. Thanks to Chris Cascioli for showing me this.

Most of you might be aware that I haven’t been posting as much as usual. This is mostly because I have spent a lot of time posting on Holyloly™ during the day at work.

Check it out (and probably not at work)

holyloly.blogspot.com

This is not to say that I have been compromised, merely enjoying the entertainment of a different part of the internet. Enjoy all and let me know what you think.