Month: August 2004

I’ve been hearing this vocalist a lot on ambient tracks played on college stations and streaming internet radio… she has a lot of Tuvan throat singing in her pieces. It’s an interesting sound.
Web link of note: Sainkho Namtchylak
(At http://www.sainkho.com/)

Flakes. “Glowing” fabric… What a waste…
Web link of note: Luminex
(At http://www.luminex.it/)

Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door.

Or, more properly,

If a man … make a better mousetrap… the world will make a beaten path to his door

The gallery of the captured mice is pretty damn cute. These are definitely well-fed mice- the mice I’ve seen in apartment pantries were nowhere near this clean.
Web link of note: Steve Smith’s Humane Mousetrap
(At http://www.smithsax.btinternet.co.uk/)

This is the internet kiosk being hawked by Adam West. What a cheeseball.

For an internet-based business selling internet access hardware, they sure have a ghetto web site!

How hard would it be to make one of these? Not hard I bet.
Web link of note: EZ Link
(At http://www.pantheonholdings.com/)

I bought a copy of The Guerilla Film Makers Movie Blueprint and aI really like it. These are the guys who wrote it, and produced the movie “Urban Ghost Story.”

For some reason it’s both www.movietools.com and www.livingspirit.com!
Web link of note: Living Spirit Pictures
(At http://www.livingspirit.com)

DVD ripping software for the macintosh.
Web link of note: MacTheRipper
(At http://www.wormintheapple.gr/macdvd/mtr.html)

Photo-Form LLC is a unique tile studio which provides designers the ability to create bas-relief tiles from photographs. Utilizing our patent pending process called Photo-Cast â„¢, we can create bas-relief tiles from any type of two dimensional image.

Web link of note: Photo-Form Tiles
(At http://photo-form.com/)

AARON: when will zombies rule the earth?
CHIA: didn’t paul ask that last night?
AARON: yes
AUBIE: I guess there’s a lot of pent-up demand for zombie rule then.
CHIA: i, for one, welcome our new zombie overlords…

A history of hardtack, with recipes!
Web link of note: Hardtack
(At http://www.kenanderson.net/hardtack/)

I was hearing recently about LARP – Live Action Role Playing.

This is when you and your gamer friends decide that you need to take your dorkiness to a new level and prance around in the great outdoors acting out your role playing games.

I had first heard about this in the late 1990s, when LARP was just a bunch of teenagers wearing black in the park, pretending to be vampires. It was sort of supremely lame, because… well, what’s the point of a vampire game where everyone is a vampire? It’s basically a cocktail party with a bunch of catty nerds. And no martinis.

Two things fascinate me about the current, more developed state of LARP:

1. The foam weapons. LARP traditionally simulates battles vs monsters and other characters with foam weapons. So an entire cottage industry has grown around this, entire companies devoted to making quality foam weapons.
2. The “crew”. Just like a film production, a LARP game needs people behind the scenes to plan everything, and make and run the “monsters.” Some of the crew ends up playing the monsters in crazy armor.

I was thinking another niche industry could be a monster service- a service that makes monster costumes and provides an operator to act in a given game for a fee.

• For the old-school DIY LARP weapon out of PVC pipe and foam, check out How to Make a Basic LARP Weapon


• Knighthawk Armory makes LARP weapons – my favorite is their vampire stakes
• Medieval Collectibles – A more mainstream weapons replica foundry that also makes LARP weapons.
• Tyger Knight Smithy, another creator of “boffer” weapons. He apparently carves them by hand.
• A big directory site, LARP.com
• Another LARP directory is at Shade’s LARP List
• MORDAVIA is a New Zealand LARP. The coolest thing about this is their monsters- check out the rock monster! Presumably this is a person in a suit.