The Last Candle

But I step outdoors, and the natural chorus sings “Spring!” <p/> This weather makes me grumpy. We’ve got four weeks until Christmas, people. And yet, where is the snow? Where is the snow? <p/> No, I’m not going to rent An Inconvenient Truth. Shut up.

Commerce: <p/> At roughly midnight last evening, I decided it was high time and nigh time to pickup some new Christmas music. I’m not big on the season, honestly — although the cookies are delicious! — but there’s no other time of the year where music is meshed into the season so snugly. (What’s second place for snuggliest music season? Fourth of July, with it’s Sousa brass and all-American melodies? Maybe. Just maybe.) <p/> So, Christmas music. Everyone has their favorite album to associate with the holidays: Christmas Day in the Morning is my perennial favorite. But after years of Christmas Day in the Morning, I’m looking for a few new jingles. <p/> Jingle bell rock, maybe. <p/> Like the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. <p/> Well, that’s a easy pick, and with Amazon selling the last two discs in TSO’s Christmas concept trilogy, The Lost Christmas Eve and Christmas Eve and Other Stories — the next concept by these guys will be called The Christmas Eve That Rocked, I bet — for eight bucks apiece made the choice even easier. Sold. Went to bed. <p/> And this morning, around the crack o’ 7:30 AM, I received an e-mail notice that the CDs had shipped. The UPS tracking number a few hours later supported Amazon’s brazen claim. <p/> Now that’s service. <p/> In the heat of the TSO potential, however, I had forgotten that Sufjan Stevens’ new Christmas compilation was already en route. Songs for Christmas arrived today, and I’ve been listenin’ through the five twenty-minute EPs for the last couple hours. The season has never had so much banjo! <p/> Cinema: <p/> Alright, I wasn’t going to advertise my personal YouTube channel until I put, y’know, something interesting up there. Mentos and pepsi and atomic bombs, that sort of thing. <p/> But seeing as how the teaser-trailer for Bedlam in Battery Park is such a hit, with a single five-star rating and almost fifty views, I might as well pop the sparkling champagne bottle open now. Huzzah! <p/> The next video, a little clip that melds a crazed Japanese music video with some zero-budget costuming and stage presence that I blended up during the college years, should be uploaded soon, after I fix all the video brightness problems from the original captures. And then:another sure hit!

Earlier this evening I booted up the great Deus Ex to grab a couple screenshots for a project. <p/> Clicking through the options — even if I just plan on spending a few minutes in the game, settings must be set properly! The color scheme must be techy neon green, the bits per pixel must be 32, etc. — I made a surprising discovery. <p/> Widescreen resolution support.

Deus Ex, having been released back in 2000, when high-resolutions and widescreen gaming was a blip on a radar in a covert underwater laboratory somewhere within the Pacific Ocean, and back when I was still playing Team Fortress Classic in “nostalgia mode” (i.e., 320×240 at 16bpp), supports 1680×1050. That is phenomenal. <p/> And at the same time, Deus Ex support in 2000 for widescreen makes Battlefield 2’s complete lack of said support in the blooming high-def year of 2005 a bit more disappointing. But that’s still more of a testimony about how great Deus Ex is.

Who is this woman?

Terrific art: Rich and washed-out at once. Comely qualities, but far from attractive. Simple and evocative. And through all that, it still manages to creep me out. <p/> But as for who the woman is, nobody knows! Well, a couple people do, probably: namely, Steven Wilson and Mike Bennion, the composer and director behind the movie, Deadwing, the work which the art represents. <p/> “The movie,” you might ask? Go ahead, ask. Because I know you’re wondering why I said “movie” when the album, beautifully adorned with that exact artwork above, has been out for more than a year, and yet the movie has little more than 15 pages of script, a theme, and a trailer on MySpace. <p/> Because the album was based on the script, see? The script has evidently been kicked around between Wilson and Bennion for years, and Wilson, tired of waiting for the money train to roll around, cut an album based on the concept. (This was back in early ‘05. And Deadwing — the album — is a great, great piece of art too, especially in DTS 5.1.) <p/> Alright, so I didn’t know this whole movie-first, album-second business myself until recently, so I’ll cut the act. Nonetheless, if Steven Wilson is as good in the film music business as he is in the prog-rock-ambient business, and if this Bennion fellow can direct a plot out of the bizarre mess that is the official teaser-trailer, Deadwing: The Movie might turn out to be a pretty good show. If it ever comes out, that is. If. <p/> As for who the woman is, I guess we’ll have to wait for the film. I’ve always wondered what she looked like outside of her sillhouette shroud, and the wonders of MySpace comes to my distant rescue with this slightly more satisfying visage. I guess that’ll have to do for now. Maybe the first part of the script offers more particulars.

A couple days after the election, the Democratic reaction in the blogosphere appears to be: <p/> YEAAAAHHH! IN! YOUR! FACE! SUCKERS! Woo! <p/> But add a carpet f-bombing and more deragatory and vile language. You get the idea. (Or if you don’t, I wouldn’t advise looking for the evidence — it’s not a pretty sight.) <p/> I mean, yeesh. I wasn’t paying attention to politics last time the Republicans won some amount of power — 12 years ago? Earlier than that? — but I sure as heck hope we Republicans didn’t act the way the left-leaners are now. <p/> You’d think the ones now on top would be happy and all, maybe, y’know, “Good game, good game, guys. But it’s our turn now.” And Republicans would concede graciously, as they already have been doing: no lawyer-releasing en masse, no viscous blubbering or grievous lamentations, no death threats or curses to the sky or proclamations about how the transfer to Canadian citzenry has already begun the early stages. <p/> For whatever reason, the Right has stayed fairly calm — one of the blogs I’ve passed through during the last couple days called the reaction “relief.” While I don’t quite agree with that, the aftermath has been on the whole gracious and contemplative. <p/> But the Left keeps on shrieking for some bizarre, inexplicable reason. Maybe the theory that the Left has been consumed by its own hate holds some water after all. Boiling water, at that.