New Taste.

Amendment.

2009-12-24T05:59:00.000-08:00

Thief: The Dark Project is the best game ever.
Team Fortress 2 is the best game of the last 10 years. I got a bit carried away handing out lifetime awards with such reckless abandon.

Take your Final Fantasy VII and shove it.

Sorry for any confusion inadvertently caused.

**

2009-11-27T00:32:00.000-08:00

Dead Man's Bones are a band that defines the recipe for a disaster. Actor hunk from The Notebook, Ryan Gosling, forms an indie band with friend Zach Shields with lyrics that revolve exclusively around classic horror archetypes and vocal duties being shared with the local arty school's children's choir.

And yet, it works. Unlike most celebrity-fronted bands where the vocals and production are so polished and over-worked that they barely even resemble work done by humans, the self-titled album sounds (and was) a home-made project. It has loose tracking, sometimes iffy production and rough vocals but it all adds up to a piece of work with so much charm and weirdness that by the time you hit the point where a gang of 20 kids are screaming, 'My body's a zombie for you!' the moral questions regarding that situation become inconsequential.

Additionally, before you listen to the album, imagine how Ryan Gosling's singing voice sounds. Got an idea? You are wrong.

After the incredible first season, Dexter began to lost steam with it's second and third season. This was largely due to a few crucial missteps along the way (Lila, the death of Doakes and the she-witch Laguerta), but the fourth season seems to have brought the show right back to glory. John Lithgow as Dexter's new nemesis, Trinity, was a stroke of genius.

One gripe that always grates me though is the fact that it seems like each episode only has around a half hour of real content and then has to be fattened-up with sheer twaddle to reach the full hour. The Angel / Laguerta affair is pure tedium and if they both don't end up slaughtered in the worst fashion possible I may have to spend the next season skipping any and every scene that doesn't directly involve our murderous hero.

Team Fortress 2 is the greatest game ever made. Of this there is no doubt. However, lately I've been enjoying the increasing lore and madness that comes with each of the class updates as much as the actual game. The comic for the game's shirt -allergic weapon supplier, Australian Saxton Sale, is comic gold Jerry.

As are the fake comic book covers by his company, Mann Co. Slogan: We make comics and get in fights.

**

2009-09-08T09:28:00.000-07:00

Over the past few months I've gradually been honing my music library to the point where I now almost exclusively listen to Bruce Springsteen. His music holds an overwhelming sense of nostalgia and I often find myself longing to be cruising along Route 66 in Jersey with my old girlfriend back in '77.

This is weird for many reasons since I never grew up listening to The Boss (my parents were firmly planted in the Bryan Adams camp), I've never been on Route 66 or in New Jersey and, most importantly, I wasn't alive in 1977. Nevertheless, this doesn't stop me from hollerin' along to The River like a 19-year old blue-collared construction worker and really, really meaning it.

One of my favourite illustrators, Lois van Baarle, just finished her final animation project and here is the result. Genius.

**

Heck yes.

Commence.

2009-09-06T13:26:00.000-07:00

Hey friends!

In this blog I'm generally just going to post stuff (and things) that I find interesting, beautiful or rad at the time. Pictures, music, movies etc. Hope you enjoy.

Lately I've been really enjoying the new side-project of Bon Iver's Justin Vernon where he teams up with the instrumental band Collection of Colonies of Bees. The music is ridiculously atmospheric and the first time I listened to the album I just lay on the floor of my bedroom spacing out for the full 35.2 minutes.

The new trailer for Halo 3 ODST is of a level unparalleled in advertising history.

I know I'm late in the game here but I started watching AMC's Mad Men a few weeks ago. The quality of the show is astonishing with the 60's vibe bleeding out of the television. I've only been in the real advertising world for nearly 2 years but this harkens back to a golden age where advertising ruled the world as the new artform. Now we have to resort to cunning and trickery or just plain begging.

Additionally, never before has smoking and daytime drinking looked so appealing.

And the images of the day.