Back in March, we posted a review about the Spike Jonze-created short film, “I’m Here“.  The project, which is provided for free of charge on it’s own specially designed website, focuses on the love connection between a pair of robots, inhabiting some alternate version of Los Angeles.  Of course, there are underlying elements in the film which are much deeper than that.  The complexities of love, self-worth, social hierarchies, risk, trust, and even life itself are all explored throughout its half hour running time.

After reviewing the film we got a few comments, all relating to the soundtrack which accompanied the piece.  For those who haven’t read that last article about the project, the following excerpt should bring you a little more up to speed on the subject. (more…)

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About 4 years ago, I spent a lot of time on Threadless.com.  In fact, one of the only reasons that I visit the site so rarely, at this point, is because I’m always so busy with this one.  I had been working the graveyard shift as a night auditor at a shit-hole of a hotel across the street from a public park full of crackheads and the one thing that I had to occupy myself during the long nights was a computer screen and the internet.  A lot has changed, both with my life and with Threadless, but every once in a while, they produce something so crazy and awesome that I remember what drew me to them in the first place. (more…)

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Chatroulette.com is one of the latest in an endless series of internet phenomena that seemingly come from no where and blow up overnight, like a seagull with Alka-seltzer.  A 17 yr old, high-school kid from Moscow named, Andrey Ternovskiy only created the site in November and it’s already HUUUGE!  It was at least a couple of months ago when I first heard about the website, but have still never actually used it.  My immediate understanding was that it was a live chat site with video that randomly generates connections to strangers of which to communicate.  That is basically correct… basically.  The concept behind the site never compelled me to use that service and so I never have.  Since my first knowledge of Chatroulette, I gradually became aware of 2 things relating to the site.  The first was that is was more than a little start-up concept, it was already a household name.  More and more, I noticed that everybody I knew had heard of and/or used it.  Through the many comments from those of them who had tried the service, I discovered my second piece truth of the burgeoning movement: a large percentage of the patronage is made up of men cold-stroking their shafts on web cam.  A recent episode of South Park reinforced all of these ideas behind Chatroulette: it’s become a huge worldwide trend, it’s full of grimy-as fools jacking off on display and, consequently, I still have no real desire to use their “service”.  I only recently got my first glimpse of what really goes down on the site in a non-animated format, when the Portland, Oregon-based band, NURSES decided to broadcast a live performance over on the site via webcam.  Unfortunately or otherwise, their footage does nothing to suppress the idea that’s it’s a forum for public masturbation. (more…)

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I first saw Brett Domino in a video with his Brett Domino Trio about a year ago.  They were doing a Michael Jackson cover.  I can’t remember which song, but I’m pretty sure that MJ was still with us at the time.  Maybe it was “Beat It“.  Hmmm….  Fuck it, it doesn’t matter anyway.  The point is that Domino had a dead pan face and was rocking a stylophone in the video to no end (imagine ripping the rubber keys off of one of those palm sized toy-electric-pianos and playing the exposed circuit board with a plastic Nintendo DS stylus).  I watched a few more videos of Domino and his crew, including an incredibly successful and entertaining appearance on Britain’s Got Talent, which left Simon Cowell completely baffled.

Brett is a 27 year old man from Leeds, UK.  His stylophone-centric videos took off on Youtube and originally brought him some attention around 2008.  This new rise in recognition helped in prompting London-based gadget website, Firebox.com to ask Domino to perform as the entertainment for their house-parties, something he had never done before.  To support him as a live act, the keytar/stylophone enthusiast recruited his friends Mitch Hutchinson and Steven Peavis to round out his trio.  Later came the Britains Got Talent appearance and various other shit, but that is the basic background info on this character and enough of an introduction to allow me to move forward.

It’s true that I enjoyed the original videos, but I hadn’t really thought much about them or their creator since.  A few days ago, Brett Domino posted a brand new video.  That same day I received an email with it in my gmail in-box and it’s pretty amazing.  The footage features a duo of Domino and Peavis mixing various video and audio tracks to create a medley of Justin Timerlake tracks and it keeps getting better and better until the end.  The editing and production are particularly impressive and the instruments used to create this internet masterpiece include everything from a theremin and kazoos to an iphone and a keytar. (more…)

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Alright you nerdy bastards, we’re giving away some more free shit and this time it’s targeted just for you computer users and Star Wars fans  (So… basically, almost everybody everybody these days).  Just by the image above, you may have already assumed that the giveaway involves designer USB flash drives… and you’d be right.  We are picking 2 separate winners to receive a 2 gig model of the Star Wars series 5 Mimobots, but there are few more slight details to it.

Here, watch this video and then read on to find out more about the products and how to win one for yourself.

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Shit! Christ! This is the problem with using the internet when you have so much to get done.  This is can be an even bigger issue when you need to use the internet to finish what you needed to get done.  SXSW is coming.  Sasquatch! is coming.  I have a record review piling up on my plate.  I have 2 more show reviews… some networking….I need to edit another article… I need to do a lot of shit.  Fuck, I need to get a real job!  Then I come across something else and it catches my attention.  Maybe it’s some  crazy story about a 7 yr old that steals the family car.  Maybe it’s some ridiculous right wing propaganda, insisting that a imprisoned sea mammal get stoned to death (like it says to do in the bible).  Maybe it’s a trailer about a futuristic martial artist/lady of the night/cyborg.  Whatever it is, it threatens to stall me out every time.  “Post this now!  Fuck what you’re doing.“  These things scream at me, but I can usually blow them off.  “This is and/or will be posted to death anyway.“  I tell myself.  Or, perhaps, I just throw it on the “I’ll get to that later” pile.  Sometimes it doesn’t matter.  Sometimes, I have to stop what I’m doing immediately and enjoy something with the rest of the world.  “Then sometimes, just sometimes, the Crow can bring the soul back and put the wrong things right “- [I couldn't help myself].  Sometimes, it’s just a music video. (more…)

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