Kindle Fire brings out the geek-out.

The other day, the wife told me she thought the Kindle she got me last year for Christmas must be the best gift she had ever gotten me.  That is to say, I use it constantly.  It made me understand why tablets are important even though its functionality is rather limited for a tablet.
The real genius of the second generation Kindle was that it only did one thing, but it did it extremely well.  If this whole Fire and Silk project goes well for Amazon, I hope it will do the same for everything else I consume from the web.
I'm trying very hard not to drink the koolaid and I'm never an early adopter so, I'll maybe wait until Christmas 2012 to bring this up with my better half, but if the Fire can provide me with google Reader, gmail and youtube as well as the Kindle does books, I'll be sold on it eventually.

The Best Ten Albums of 2009 (yup there's only nine)

Apparently I just don't listen to as much new music as I used to. Chalk that up to growing up and selling out: homeownership and newly-parenting. But I suppose there is a resolution for me.

Dragonslayer- Sunset Rubdown

It's singer's (perhaps) third most famous band after Wolf Parade and Swan Lake, Sunset Rubdown has satisfied the earnest-invocation-of-guitar-and-mythology itch in me like no other these past months. There is something about the inaccessibility of this album that keeps me coming back for more, like the songcraft is a puzzle I need to unlock. Each song enjoys changing tempo and/or key at least once giving a sort of breadth and grandeur to an otherwise succint album. I've heard this album compared to The Funeral, not a comparison I immediately agreed with. But it has similarly long legs, repeating on my MP3 player several times a day, as I slowly break down the artifice behind its hooks. Give this at least three good listens before you disagree with me that it is the best album of the year.

Merriweather Post Pavillion- Animal Collective

Remember January? Geez that was a while ago, but that's when I was introduced to Animal Collective for the first time. And little to my surprise, I didn't really like it. Not a big "ambiance" fan, me. But apparently all of the friggin hippies I work with conspired to change my mind, playing it every couple of days with a passion I must admit I assumed was drug-induced. But, what it lacks in charm, MPP makes up for with stunning over-production and, more importantly, constant noise. There is something to be said about the ceaseless engagement that they maintain admirably until the only pop-sensible song on the album, "Summertime Clothes," which sparkles with uptempo melody just long enough before the remainder of the album again drenches (and drowns, even) in the synthesized "space" and gurgly waterpipe sounds with which it began. (And if you think THAT was a run-on sentence, check out the lyric sheet for Summertime Clothes) Additionally, my one-month old daughter stops crying when I play this album.

Bitte Orca- The Dirty Projectors

Whatever the previous bands lack in initial charm, Bitte Orca shovels out like some rhythmcore chain-gang. Where are these people from? I refuse to look up their wikipedia page for fear that they aren't in fact from some made-up, poorly-named planet like "Pandora" or "Scandinavia" as I suspect. Although it sounds nothing like it, this album reminds me a little of Deerhoof's Friend Opportunity for it's complete devotion to catchy hooks and little else. Though I will say the Projectors find the time to back up their creepy looping vocals and guitar-work with some very pretty orchestral stuff. I find it strange, however, that they decided to remake Nico's "The Fairest of the Season" with different (nonsensical) lyrics; that was kind of odd.

Hospice- The Antlers

I rarely enjoy concept albums with any relish (I prefer mustard). And this one just seeps with self-pity and depression. But damn if it doesn't make you feel it. This album, like a lot of recent "indie" albums feels basically like a post-rock album with words, lots of extra-drawn-out crescendos and intra-album minor themes. Past the manicured drone-scapes, however, are paper-thin, heart-rending vocals that sound hollow with (presumably) the singer's heart in his throat the whole time. The lyrics often imperfect to accommodate the meter, the effect is that of hastily scribbled lines on a cafeteria napkin: I'm pretty sure one line of the last album is just humming with the tune to complete the verse. All of this combined feels bare and austere like a Godspeed album, but with specificity of mourning for a loved one.

Album- Girls

A bit more upbeat, at least literally, Girls takes sappy love-lorn emo themes and marries them with fun lite-popcorn surfpunk to charming affect. Some of the songs are repetitive (Hellhole Retrace) but when it's on (Laura), it takes me right back to that sunny California high school I never attended.

It's Blitz- Yeah Yeah Yeahs

When I was in college I went to see a Rainer Maria Show in Philly somewhere with some friends. They were co-headlining with the Pharmacists, another band I had not yet become obsessed with. There were three opening bands, so this was an epic show, but the third opener stole it from everyone, even though no one saw it coming. The drummer and rail-skinny guitarist set up alone reminding me of many a basement performance, and when they kicked in the base drum and that ridiculously throaty guitar of "Rockers to Swallow," I was already impressed, but when tiny little Karen O emerged from the back of the crowd with enormous sunglasses and punctuating "Hey"s I had my first "Wow, I'm witnessing something" moment. And sure enough, that shit got pretty huge. Of course, now the Yeah Yeah Yeahs sound quite a bit more polished. They mostly abandoned that throbbing hard-chick rock that roused my dander so. It makes a notable appearance on this album in the song "Dull Life." But largely, this is a much softer album, complete with very eighties keyboards and new-agey dance grooves (Heads will Roll). But what's pretty consistent with the earlier Yeah Yeah Yeahs is the translation of a genuine rock-star of a performer into a recorded offering.

The Ecstatic- Mos Def

I'm not just putting this on here to diversify my otherwise hipster-ass music list. If I wanted to to do that: come on, I'd go with Raekwon. But the kind of hip-hop I get down with is a little less aggressive, a little older and more considered. I like me a Wy-clef, a Black Thought, a Mos Def (and I really like that Willy Smith, he raps happy!). And this is the best Mos Def album in some time, though he does fall into the trap of self-hype a bit much. Dude, I know you're awesome, that's why I sat through ALL of Be Kind Rewind. But seriously, you put Slick Rick in your album in 2009 and you had me at "hello," you sonofabitch!

The Mountain- Heartless Bastards

An entire Album of the Heartless Bastards, like with so many hard rockin throwback bands, gets a little repetitive. But these guys are so good at evoking a past I wasn't alive for and it doesn't let up. Also, I feel bad for not noticing their earlier album Stairs and Elevators when it was fresh out the womb, and the song on The Mountain that improves upon that aesthetic (Out at Sea) is so perfectly tight that it leads me to hope that the Heartless Bastards will find a slightly more unique approach to song-writing for their next album.

Hombre Lobo-eels

EELS has been around FOREVER. The lesser step-brother of Beck, it often seems, but he hit a new note with this album that I really enjoy. Once again, a bit repetitive, and a bit sad-sack. But the single, "Fresh Blood," easily wins best hook of the year and then scores extra points for not invoking it too frequently. Ah-WOOOO!

rrod

Sonic by Bio-wha?

Um...?

DS News! Dragon Quest IX is Official, Phantom Hourglass Delayed

Kotaku is reporting that Dragon Quest IX, the latest installment in one of the most popular RPG franchises of all time (though only in Japan for some reason), has been announced as a Nintendo DS title, and no words have been said about its here-to-for presumed releases on the PS3 or 360.
Whether this announcement merely foreshadows another crappy handheld port corresponding to a major cross-console release, or if developer Square-Enix is actually trying to create a unique game for Japan's booming DS-ownership, time will tell. One thing is clear, with this and the delayed (again) release of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, 2007's fourth quarter is looking awfully promising for those few of us over here in the States with enough foresight (ahem) to have purchased a DS.

Original Article:
http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/square+enix/dragon-quest-ix-coming-to-nintendo-ds-221070.php

Baby Steps (Okami for PS2)

As half the gaming world holds its breath waiting for the next wave of big-ticket consoles, the other (poor) half, not surprisingly, bides its time enjoying the spoils of an entire semi-decade of delayed games, over-endorsed and over-funded attempts, and the occasional genuine swansong of a poor, near-dismantled studio.
Okami, the penultimate product of newly-defunct Clover Studio (those Viewtifully genius Joneses), is exactly the sort of we've-waited-so-long-for-the-next-Zelda, aww-fuck-it-let's-just-make-our-own-game one would expect from the small artsy division of third-party giant, Capcom. It never quite merits the pre-release awards it garnered over the past year and a half, but it manages to cut all the right corners (there are no voice actors, for instance, just jumbled voice-like sounds over text), is beautifully "illustrated" in eccentrically calligraphic cel-shading, and only really seems to fall short of its hype where the chains of the PS2 fetter it.
The game is, despite the obvious limitations of its antiquated console, gorgeous, providing rather literal fodder for the whole game-as-art debate. I (as well as most, I imagine) have come to expect a more comic-book style from the cel-shading technique (Viewtiful Joe, right) as well as more juvenile gameplay, I suspect. As the technique moves from infancy to adolescence, however, Clover at least seems to have figured out one way to incorporate a whole new aesthetic to go along with a rather different type of game.
Okami, set in ancient Japan and rather saturated with actual Shinto myth and Nippon folktale, turns out to be perfectly animated as a sort of living calligraphed scroll, the harsh lines and limits of cel-shaded objects are given often arbitrary thickness to suggest the varied weight of a brush. The result is a very surreal landscape--peopled with intensely exaggerated individuals whose characters and disposition can be surmised without the aid of voice-over. The ever-present, paper-like textured relief of the background adds a pleasant distraction from the grainy output of the PS2's graphics engine, as well.


As if the theme was not apparent enough in the presentation, the gameplay attempts to incorporate calligraphy as a main component. The story of Okami involves Shinto goddess, Amaterasu, newly awakened to a dead and colorless world. Her duty upon awakening in the form of a she-wolf is to bring life back to the world with her "celestial brush," a pause-action feature that--with some practice--can bring a dead tree back to life as easily as cut an enemy in half. This is probably the most ambitious aspect of the game and, not surprisingly, the most curiously ineffective. Coupled with a rather standard "wandering hero" (it never really feels like you're really a wolf, much to my dismay) main component to the gameplay that is damn near as old as videogaming itself and hasn't seen much but embellishment since the eye-opening experience of Hyrule field, the combat/nature interaction, though well-conceived, seems (I guess) under-realized and poorly-tuned on the PS2.
One wonders what Okami or a (never gonna happen) sequel would feel like with the highly-anticipated Wii-mote (right) or even how a spin-off would deal with the DS' stylus. Unfortunately Capcom is a very large company with many more profitable divisions than Clover. After all, a game that boasts a highly tuned Calligraphy Simulator might not fare so strongly as, say, Resident Evil 4, what with its zombies and machine guns; unfortunate that I will likely remember this game for decades as a gem in a dying console and probably won't see anything remotely like it for equally as long.
At any rate, Okami merits an entry into my Interesting Failures category rather than Terminal Illness. Not unlike John Nash, what bouts of schizophrenia don't kill you only make you... a critical darling.
Or something like that.

My name is Kevin. More on that later.