25Apr2012 1820: Foaming Mouth Guy

18Apr2012 0945: New Dogs, Old Tricks

Huh, this program has been trying to load for about twenty minutes now. Might as well knock this post out while I'm waiting.

Today on Monty's Behind the Curve: hey, do any of you guys remember Secret of Monkey Island? Then drop everything and buy Jolly Rover. I've been burning through all sorts of point-and-click adventures lately, including the excellent Blackwell series, but Jolly Rover is simply the best-written adventure I've played in...geez, years? It is funny, it is smart, and once you tell the annoying hint parrot to SHUT UP ALREADY you can bask in the glow of one of the brightest stars I've ever seen in this genre.

I warned you, but did you heed? Long have I awaited this day, and lo it has arrived! Computerized ghosts of the past are the future.

[Grimes - Genesis] spends its first minute in an ethereal build-up phase, a low-key floating synth that you might have found in a wacky 80s comedy about a ghost lady who haunts her yuppie ex. Then the drum machine kicks in and grounds it...just a little.

Oh great, a radio rock song that is literally and explicitly aimed at teenagers. [Mona - Teenager] exhorts teens to not give up and find love and yadda yadda. I will now delete this tripe.

[Early Winters - Spanish Burn] is...okay. It's very mild indie folk/pop, and maybe we should give up and just call the genre "twee". This song's not as good as a Camera Obscura, but still okay on a rainy day.

12Apr2012 1800: Games Above and Below

Guild Wars 2 is available for pre-purchase gogogo!

As if that didn't spend enough of my money, now Wil Wheaton has a new show about board games. Small World looked like a blast...what little of it we saw.

[Theesatisfaction - Queens] is an annoying song that resembles nothing so much as an alarm clock. The incessant chirping is like auditory spikes being shoved under your fingernails.

[Miniature Tigers - Sex on the Regular] is a slickly produced shiny pop song starring a dude with an incredible falsetto, right up there with Mika or Of Montreal. So while I'm going to delete this, I understand there may be a market for it. And I'll have trouble getting it out of my head regardless.

Hey, is this Neko Case's new rock project? [The Jezabels - Endless Summer] -- despite the aggravating misspelling in their name -- win this week by being some unexceptional rock. It won't set the world aflame but it is the only song this week that doesn't feel like assault.

04Apr2012 1800: Glasses

'Tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door; but 'tis enough, 'twill serve. It's long past time for a company to risk millions on a HUD; the fancy hipster slims on display don't excite me, but when I see the prototypes that fit over existing glasses I'll probably start drooling. I like big lens and I cannot lie.

Now: cyber-eyes. Get on that.

[Races - Big Broom] is a big, broad synthpop song, like the best slow dancing to come out of the 80s. It's quite marvelous, but not exactly a sunny summer lounging tune. I wouldn't ask that bands time their releases to the current season in North America, but I have to dock this a point for not accompanying my grilling as well as, say, Sublime.

[Lindsay Fuller - Everything I Ever Had] is even slower, a plodding folk love song with just the right amount of bombast. When buskers on the corner meet that sweet little girl with the skinny jeans, this is what their heart sings.

[La Sera - Please Be My Third Eye] injects some much-needed adrenaline into the offerings, exploding in girl-punk from the word go. Some soft synths come in after the first verse and do their best to bury the good parts of the song, but La Sera had the good sense to turn them off while the singer's singing. Overall they're trying really really hard to capture the sound of Blondie's height, and getting about 80% of the way there.