I did it!

an excerpt from America by Jean Baudrillard 

with completely unrelated linkz

"The slogan of a new form of advertising activity... a pure and empty form , a challenge to ones own self that has replaced the Promethean ecstasy of competition, effort, and success. 

The New York marathon has become a sort of international symbol of such fetishistic performance, of the mania for an empty victory , the joy engendered by a feat that is of no consequence.

I ran the New York marathon: "I did it!"

I conquered Annapurna: "I did it!"

I finally got a Twitter account: "I did it!"

The moon landing is the same kind of thing: "We did it!" The event was ultimately not really so surprising; it was an event pre-programmed into the course of science and progress. We did it. But it has not revived the millenarian dream of conquering space. In a sense, it has exhausted it. 

Carrying out any kind of programme produces the same sense of futility that comes from doing anything merely to prove to yourself that you can do it: having a child, climbing a mountain, making some sexual conquest, committing suicide. 

The marathon is a form of demonstrative suicide, suicide as advertising: it is running to show you are capable of getting every last drop of energy out of yourself, to prove it... to prove what? That you are capable of finishing.  Graffiti carry the same message. They simply say: I'm so-and-so and I exist! They are free publicity for existence.

Do we continually have to prove to ourselves that we exist? A strange sign of weakness, harbinger of a new fanaticism for a faceless performance, endlessly self evident."

Nothing like a good ol' postmodern critique of society to start off your day. 

In other news:

Kanye West gets free fishsticks! @Kanye'sblog

Tricky (of Massive Attack) shares his musical wisdom. @Wired.com

Trippy music video. That is all. 

Daedelus LA Nocturn by Eli Stonberg from Alfred Darlington on Vimeo.

wut up FOOLZ

Fun fact: I was never a big fan of April Fool's as a kid. I wasn't creative enough to think up pranks or prepared enough to carry them out. Usually I'd just end up lying to people- but this isn't as fun or easy as it sounds. It has to be timed perfectly if you want to yell APRILFOOLZ before they burst into tears or punch you in the face, so honestly, it's not even worth the trouble. Thankfully for people like me, when real-life is fail, there's always somewhere to turn. The Internet. Where 4pr1L f00Ls is fucking AWESOME.
So, for anyone who missed the foolery, here's a nice little compilation:


Gmail
Gmail turned 5 years old today, hooray! To celebrate, they released Autopilot an automatic message-answering service powered by their artificial intelligence bot, CADIE (Cognitive Autoheuristic Distributed-Intelligence Entity). Apparently, CADIE even has its own blog, so you can feel safe that it sufficiently comprehends human emotions and insight.
edit: damnit, the link is broken now, I'm out looking for a screenshot. WANT PANDAS BACK.
edit2: CADIE HAS A YOUTUBE CHANNEL!!

Google Mobil
Has created Brainsearch, which is basically a way to ctrl+f your brain, you know for when you just can't think of the right ... er... damn I lost it.

Gizmodo:
In honor of the Conficker worm, Gizmodo was taken over virus. Each post was flooded with spam-tastic images and nonsense numbers that perfectly capture the eloquence and artistic expression of typical junk mail. They continued this for the whole day and even sent out an apology message for readers that were annoyed by teh ne3w layoutz.

Lifehacker:
Since we all know how much Microsoft loves Google, Lifehacker posted a code that allows them to unite! Better Windows Live is a Greasemonkey script that reinterprets any Windows Live webpages as the Google counterpart. (Absolutely genius! Too bad I already use Google for everything...)

Team Fortress 2
The Sniper introduced a new weapon- JARATE! First seen in Sniper promo, these jars of pee (karate in a jar!) "wreak havoc on your opponent's mental state, psychological well-being and trust in the inherent goodness of his fellow man." Sweeeeet.

Xbox
Xbox is coming out with a new interactive music game Alpine Legend. One player yodels, the other plays an alphorn. WANT.

FilmDrunk
So apparently, George Clooney and your mom made a porno. Yeah, YOUR mom. (via Variety)


Youtube
To enhance the viewing experience, Youtube flipped its videos. Now people from Australia can finally understand what's going on! Surprisingly, Chemical Brothers videos still hurt your head.

The Guardian
Staying ahead in media distribution, the Guardian will stop printing newspapers and instead publish every story on it's twitter page. After all, "experts say any story can be told in 140 characters." Soon the entire archive will be translated, says journalist/tweeter Rio Palof.

Others I don't feel like writing about:
Wii fit is cute, Google Chrome in 3D, Picasa adds red eye, BMW's Magnetic Tow Technology, Macetech's Stealth CapsLocker...

If you saw some good ones I don't have: leave a comment with the link, your name, bank account number, and mother's maiden name so I can add them to the post!

nom nom electronica

Nothing much new this week.
Insert generic complaints about school, overall tiredness, strange weather etc. Every day brings a new excuse to skip classes, go to bed (or similar iterations: skip classes, catch up on work and skip classes, play outside) Something about Spring semester in general just pisses me off for no good reason. Probably the cumulative lack of sleep and proximity to summer.

But anyway, KNOW WHAT MAKES EVERYTHING ALL BETTER?
NEW MUSIC!
(and NEW MUSIC VIDEOS!)

Slagsmålsklubben
Cute swedish electro-pop group. Their sound is definitely reminiscent of old-school video/computer game music, and listening to it almost makes you feel 8-bit. Almost. Fun fact: Slagsmålsklubben means "fight club" in Swedish. Here's a cute techie interpretation of "Little Red Riding Hood" using their song "Sponsored by Destiny":

Slagsmålsklubben - Sponsored by destiny from Tomas Nilsson on Vimeo.

Röyksopp
Not a exactly a new band, but a new album! Hooray!
Junior was released online March 23, and Senior (a "more mature and introspective album") will be coming out some time later 2009. So be on the look-out! Till then, we can just replay the video for "Happy Up Here" over and over because Space Invaders rock.

Happy Up Here from Röyksopp on Vimeo.

Lemon Jelly
Sounds delicious, yea? WELL IT IS. And it's also super chill "trip-hop." Songs @ seeqpod. But since EVERYOTHERBAND I posted got a vimeo embed, I figure it's only fair to include one here: okay, so you know how people with too much time and Christmas spirit wire up their house's lights to flicker synchronized to the tune of a Trans Siberian Orchestra song? Well someone chose to use Lemon Jelly's "Space Walk" instead! Whatta trendsetter.

HD Version - Space Walk - Christmas Display from Richard Holdman on Vimeo.

N.A.S.A.
I hadn't heard of this group till they came out with a video for the song "Gifted" (which features Kanye West, Santogold, and Lykke Li). But a little last.fm background check proves them to be as fucking awesome as the vid implies. Basically, N.A.S.A. is the musical production two DJ's and their "international collective of musicians." Which translates to 'catchy melodies that transcend genre'. Nice.

N.A.S.A. - "Gifted" video from Anti Records on Vimeo.

MOAR @ myspace.

And a little musical sidenote from the ole' orifice:
If you're into the whole female-vocalist-acoustic-guitar thing, check out Jasmine Commerce. She's a coworker's friend from college, which is pretty cute and worth a mention. In other news, my boss's high school friends also started a band, and they're more my style. You might have heard of them....

Oh Rice Baseball, how I missed you.

Rice vs. University of Texas

Some thoughts:

• First off, WE WON. Ha. Suck it, Longhorns.
  
• But winning isn't everything- I'd like to congratulate us on a surprisingly underwhelming number of errors. Huzzah.
  
• Hey, remember the idea that "OUR ENERGY WILL PREVAIL"? Yup, definitely still there. Something about being there in Reckling with a crowd full of screaming fans inspires inextinguishable confidence in all things right and good. Namely, Rice.
  
• Rick Hague's home run scored him four ass-slaps (count it!) Keep up the good work boys and remember, the more inappropriate the physical contact the better it is for crowd team spirit!
  
• So many new players! This is the first game I was able to schedule my disgusting amounts of homework around, so I want to issue an informal welcome out to Steven Sultzbaugh, Jeremy Rathjen, Brock Holt and all the other dudes I have yet to stalk on the Athletics website. (though Brock Holt gets an extra special welcome for picking the "Requiem for a Dream" theme song as his intro.)
  
• Notable fan ritual: While obviously, nothing will ever top the Beanie-Owl-voodoo I witnessed at Regionals, a lady in the front row held up a Go, Diego, Go doll that blew bubbles every time Diego went up to bat. Why hadn't I THOUGHT OF THAT?! Well, actually, even though me and Seastrunk are basicallybestfriends (read, he was in my O-week group) , it's probably best I keep my Diego obsession's separate. One is for baseball. The other is for sheets.
  

real sports news @
game tracker @

Note: So maybe a good chunk of this was really just self-promotional links back to my previous baseball posts, but I promise as the season continues I'll be able to generate more creative thoughts. That and I'm in the middle of writing 3 midterm essays due Thursday. That's where I'll be spilling all my brain juices for now, thank you very much.