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xork

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»Because one has only learned to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it..«



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(This journal brought to you in part by The Committee for Testing Journal CSS Editor, and by Thebes.)


Been watching a lot of films lately (not the most summery activity, but we've had a lot of rain), so I thought I'd do a quick round-up.Here we go:






Schlock! The Secret History of American Movies (Ray Greene, 2001). An enjoyable and informative documentary about one of the key eras of exploitation film — 50s/60s American exploitation. I wish it had been an hour longer so it could've covered the 70s and 80s, but you can't get everything. Good documentary, highly recommended.





La morte vivante (Jean Rollin, 1982). From US exploitation to French ditto. In this Rollin classic, Catherine (Françoise Blanchard) is raised from the dead by a toxic spill, and she returns to her old home, where, protected by her childhood "blood sister", Hélène (Marina Pierro), she goes on a killing spree. This could have been Rollin's masterpiece, his Vampyros Lesbos, if he'd only dropped the silly gore, lost most of the dialogue, and focused solely on the tragic and eerily beautiful relationship between Catherine and Hélène. As it is, I still very much liked the film, but I wouldn't recommend it unless you're an exploitation fan and thus used to overlooking the schlocky parts and focusing on the interesting ones.






Barbed Wire Dolls (Jess Franco, 1975). Good God, Franco's made a lot of crap. This one stars his muse, Lina Romay, as Maria, who is falsely imprisoned for murdering her father, after which the standard Franco women-in-prison stuff ensues — lots of nudity, torture, and piss poor dialogue. No recommendation, except for the Franco completists.



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That is all. Be seeing you. And remember: Despite their rat-like appearance, carnies are kings among men.

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For some reason my new 360 won't play video or load DLC unless I'm connected to Xbox Live. Weird. And Mirror's Edge wouldn't let me create an EA account (a concept which, by itself, is fucking annoying; I pay for an Xbox Live account — let me use that, please) because I'm "too young". What the hell? Burnout Paradise gave me no such problems. Though defaulting to 48 minute days is an — interesting choice.


I haven't seen Watchmen, yet, but great maker the game is boring. I liked it better when it was called Double Dragon.


Mirror's Edge was not at all what I thought it would be. Talk about your good-concept-poor-execution. It's like they took a perfectly good first-person parkour game and decided, no, that's not nearly annoying enough; let's make it linear and fill it with people trying to shoot you. Because god knows wall-running and jumping off fucking roofs isn't exciting enough. Well, at least it's visually interesting.


I've finally finished the Mass Effect DLC, "Bring Down the Sky" (my old 360 died around the time it came out): that was sure a waste of 800 MS points. The big problem with ME (in my view) was that the side-quests were all pretty much the same: land on some planet, ride around in the MACO shooting stuff, enter a building, shoot people. So, naturally, I thought BioWare would realise that and make up for it with their first DLC. How wrong I was. Up until the last part, it's pretty much exactly the same as all the other side-quests. Here's a tip, BioWare: the best part of Mass Effect was the story (which in itself is an interesting topic), so why not expand on that in your episodic content?


On an slightly related note: what the hell is it with BioWare games and the Tower of Hanoi? Actually, what is it with computers/power systems/&c in video games in general? Who the hell designs a power-system where you have to solve a math puzzle to transfer systems to the secondary power supply? See also: www.penny-arcade.com/comic/200….



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xork recommends: Penny Arcade TV (follow Mr. Krahulik's twitter to get notified when he's broadcasting).



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That is all. Be seeing you. And remember: Despite their rat-like appearance, carnies are kings among men.

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(This journal brought to you in part by The Committee for Testing Journal CSS Editor.)




Once again, the year in review:





Films:



  • The Dark Knight.
  • Hamlet 2.
  • Hellboy II: The Golden Army.
  • WALL·E.
  • The Wrestler.
  • Films I've yet to see but which I have high hopes for: Gran Torino; Frost/Nixon; Synecdoche, New York; Changeling.


DVDs (ones I've bought this year, not necessarily ones released this year):


  • Christopher Guest Collection (Best in Show, A Mighty Wind, Waiting for Guffman); Dark City; Cube; INLAND EMPIRE; May; Stargate: The Ark of Truth; Stargate: Continuum; Tegan & Sara: It's Not Fun, Don't Do It.


Music:



  • The Breeders – Mountain Battles.
  • Duffy – Rockferry.
  • Kaki King – Dreaming of Revenge.
  • Ladytron – Velocifero.
  • She & Him – Volume One.
  • Tegan and Sara – I'll Take the Blame (EP).


Books (as usual, not necessarily released this year, just books I've liked this year):



  • Aase Berg – Hos rådjur, Mörk materia.
  • James Tiptree, Jr (Alice Sheldon) – Her Smoke Rose Up Forever.


* * *


That is all. Be seeing you. And remember: Despite their rat-like appearance, carnies are kings among men.

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(This journal brought to you in part by The Committee for Testing Journal CSS Editor.)



Journal CSS Editor update: as you may, or may not, have noticed, dA's introduced customisable user-pages (called, I believe, "Gruze", because that's the class-name added to the body of customisableised user pages). This has also brought some changes to how Journal CSS is displayed: most noticeably, dA generates different HTML depending on whether you use pre-gruze journal class-names (.journalbox, .journaltext, &c; replaced in gruze by .box, .text, &c) or not. (Oddly enough, pre-gruze CSS journals still get the new li class="f a" background colour on gruze user pages.) There are now three distinct types of Journal CSS:  sleek, sleek-on-a-gruze-user-page, and gruze.


So, to make a long story short: I've updated JCE, so it'll match deviantART's behaviour. It probably doesn't behave 100% like deviantART, but it's close enough. It will automagically detect what type of CSS a journal uses when you fetch it, and you can also turn gruze-support on/off with a new checkbox (but please note: even if you have the "Gruze" checkbox checked, JCE will generate sleek-on-a-gruze-user-page HTML if you use sleek classnames; this is a feature).


As usual, report any bugs you encounter; either by note to me, or to cssedit@fivebyfive.be.


Now, back to our regular scheduled programming:



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Some more quick notices:


  • Been playing around with Erratic 2, a randomising drum sample player. Pretty cool.
  • Also been playing around with Vocaloid. The results of my experiment: Inconclusive.
  • I've got this VST synth that emulates a C64. I should never be allowed to use it.
  • This user page customising thing is pretty nifty. Though I had to turn off beta-testing to delete a journal, because there are no more delete/edit links on the journal-editing page.
  • Automatic for the People is a great album. I already knew this, but apparently needed to be reminded.
  • I thought I had something more to say here, but apparently, I don't.


* * *


That is all. Be seeing you. And remember: Despite their rat-like appearance, carnies are kings among men.

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