I put off reading this for so long, I’d forgotten why I never read it. It certainly came recommended from many sources.

A great, sprawling book like the city fixture for which it’s named, Perdido Street Station is a modern fantasy with hints of steam punk. Set in a city not unlike a Victorian-industrial London, it answers the question of what the world might be like if magic were just another form of science. In the city of New Crobuzon, humans co-exist awkwardly with Xenians (weird human-animal hybrids) and Remade humans forged from metal machines and other creatures. As readers, we’re given glimpses of still stranger beings that exist in and around the city.

China Mieville is a wonderful world-builder. His books breathe with convincing setting and life. The city itself a character in his book (not unlike The City and The City which also offers a setting as a main feature) is teeming with activity and color. It exudes a convincing reality that is equal parts lively and filthy. The dream-like quality of the world hints at nightmarish potential early on before delving headlong into it.

With all of this it would be easy to forget to write a story about characters the reader might actually empathize with, and yet even some of the most alien come to life and pull you into their story. At its core, it’s an adventure story about a group of characters facing impossible obstacles, and it’s a real credit to Mieville’s writing that he manages to imbue these characters with real heart and feelings.

A great read. I will add mine to the list of many sources of recommendations.

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Gripping.

A burnt-out cop settles down in a small California town to deal with the aftermath of a hostage negotiation gone wrong. Separated from his family, and unable to communicate about his traumatic experiences, he withdraws into himself.

Then a bungled robbery turns into a hostage situation and he’s in charge.

Your typical thriller. The intensity keeps getting dialed up as more intrigue and plot-twists are piled on. A good summer read.

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Only 8 seasons to go…

Tilt to Live

Prod mentioned this to me this week on IM. A single line message that read “tilt to live”. I was all, “wtf is that? What are you talking about?” I believe he replied tersely, “iPod”. So I did the search, found the game, saw that it was on-sale and said, “why not?”.

And I’m super-glad that I did. This has become my latest “I’ve got 5 minutes to burn” game on my iPhone. After starting, the pace gradually picks up until you’re tilting for your life (as the title suggests), your little arrow-ship being pursued by an ever growing and evolving field of red dots. Gameplay is basic. You have a number of floating power-ups to help you defend yourself against the red swarm. Music is a jazzy little number reminiscent of a Ren & Stimpy cartoon that is pretty amusing, though if you’re like me, you’ll eventually just turn it off or listen to your own tunes. The motion sensing is excellent and fluid.

What really makes this game stand out is some of the online features from AGONline(?). Built-in awards and social networking features keep things interesting. The awards themselves are pretty funny.

highly recommended.

Orbital

My previous “5-minute” game is the surprisingly strategic Orbital. I learned of this game when I saw tech journalist Andy Ihnatko mention it in one of his iPad reviews. I looked it up and thought it seemed interesting.

And it is! Gameplay is simple, you fire a projectile that bounces around the field until it slows to a stop at which point, it balloons into a disc that expands until it touches a wall or another disc. Said discs need to be struck 3 times by your projectiles to be removed from the board and giving you a point. If your projectile comes back to a “death line” and touches it, you die and it’s game over.

There are three different game-types, but you’ll really only want to play Gravity mode where the discs cause your projectile to curve around them as if affected by a gravitational field. The grid background warps in a pleasing way to indicate where the gravitational pull becomes strongest.

It sounds simple, but there’s a real art to surviving for any length of time. As in all good games, it’s quick to learn but takes awhile to master. It’s challenging enough that you can keep going back and enjoying subsequent games.

Doodle Jump

The game that keeps on giving. You really gotta hand it to the developers of Doodle Jump: They keep adding value to this awesome accelerometer powered platformer. It’s incredibly simple. Your doodle-dude jumps on platforms. You tilt to move side-to-size to position him over the next platform. You try to get as high as you can. Various power ups like jetpacks, propeller beanies, springs and trampolines help propel you to new heights. There are monsters that you can shoot with your doodler’s nose.

It’s 99¢ and if you don’t have it, just go get it. Come back when you’ve made it past 30k points and we’ll talk.

Uniwar

This is another new title (to me) that may have been around for awhile. I’m a sucker for turn-based strategy games and this is basically a straight copy of the online game WeeWars. I never really got into WeeWars not knowing anybody else who was playing it for very long, so kind of forgot about it. There’s something to be said for having a game like this on a portable device as you can play it anywhere.

It comes with a stand-alone campaign and an online component. The kicker here is that they’ve done a great job of implementing both push and email notifications so iPod users can still get notified when it’s their turn.

I’ve only played a couple of games so far, and would like to see a couple of new armies added to flesh things out a bit. And maybe a map editor so you can roll your own games. Still, the implementation is so well done that these are minor quibbles.

Sword & Poker

This is a weird one. I logged quite a few hours playing this through to level 28 or so. The premise is pretty simple. You have a 5×5 grid with the inner 3×3 populated with playing cards. You have a set of 4 cards with which to make a hand of 5 in any of the rows, colums or two diagonals. These poker hands do “damage” to your opponent who you’re fighting in a kind of pokemon-esque battle to the finish. You have shield and a weapon which determines how much damage your hands do. And there’s magic. And you’re in a dungeon fighting monsters.

If it sounds weird, that’s because it is. But it’s surprisingly fun and really well put together. Very addictive and the various weapons and shields you can buy keep you progressing against the steadily tougher enemies you meet in the later levels.

I’ve got a bunch more games installed, including some of the biggies by NGMoco and others. But these are the games that I keep coming back to and playing. What are your favorites?

So, here we have it:

• Atlas Sound, Logos
• Bat for Lashes, Two Suns
• Crocodiles, Summer of Hate
• Fever Ray
• Grizzly Bear, Veckatimist
• Handsome Furs, Face Control
• Metric, Fantasies
• The Raveonettes, In and Out of Control
• Silversun Pickups, Swoon
• Yeah Yeah Yeahs, It’s Blitz!

I actually had a hard time coming up with 10. If I were being honest, I’d probably drop Metric and Silversun Pickups out of this list. “Fantasies” didn’t have any stand-out killer tracks on it, though it was probably a more consistent album than any of their previous ones. “Swoon” was similar, lacking anything truly earth-shattering, though “The Royal We” and “Panic Switch” are solid tracks.

Notable albums that didn’t make the cut: The xx, xx. That album was pretty over-hyped and gets tired fast. Tegan & Sara’s “Sainthood” (despite a couple of excellent tracks), and the already boring Phoenix’ “Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix”. If you’re gonna sell your songs to car manufacturers, at least wait a few months for me to get tired of your music first. Still catchy though.

It occurs to me that I’m spending more time talking about the music I liked less than the albums I listed above. If I had to buy just three of them, I’d probably pick Atlas Sound, Bat for Lashes and Grizzly Bear. But I couldn’t buy just three because then I wouldn’t have Handsome Furs’ excellent minimal electro-rocker “Face Control”. And Fever Ray is truly strange and excellent.

Did I miss any? Leave me a note if you think I’m missing out on anything 2009 had to offer. Happy listening.

Currently listening to All We Want, Baby, Is Everything by Handsome Furs from the album Face Control

In an attempt to further understand the writing phenomenon of Joss Whedon, I have decided to attempt to watch the entire run of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Yes, dear reader, I am serious. So far, I’ve made it one whole episode and was so overcome with feeling, that I had to write about the experience.

Y’see, Whedon has a strong following. This is unusual for a writer of television. He is in elite company with the likes of J.J. Abrams and… the writer of that show… about the… stuff.

Anyway, I’ve reviewed a Joss Whedon thing before and it wasn’t pretty. Since then I’ve gained a new respect for him because of Firefly and Serenity. They’re good pulpy sci-fi, but not exactly high art or strong science. His newest venture Dollhouse is teetering precariously on the verge of cancellation and each new episode makes me wonder if it wouldn’t be for the best. Sure, it achieved some semblance of decency in the first season, but there was enough bad stuff in there that execu-producer + series star Eliza Dushku had to plead with people to keep going past episode 6 because “that’s when it starts to get good”.

So it is with a healthy heaping of dubiousness that I approach the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series. I was one of the few people who liked (and remembers) the original throw-away movie. What I did not know was that Whedon wrote that original template for the show. With a great cast, I always felt it was an under-appreciated bit of comedy. Even better, it didn’t take itself too seriously, but managed to create tension and a bit of horror.

Sarah Michelle Gellar is no Kristy Swanson. She presents a pretty faithful depiction of 1990s 2000s California without going overboard on valley-girl-isms. There are glimpses of dialogue and I know enough about some of the characters to know that they get to enjoy some serious development over the length of the show. So I’m going to be a little forgiving of the weak action sequences. Maybe they’ll get better!

I think I’ll watch another.

I’ve mentioned my enthusiasm for Last.fm recently. It’s an interesting service whose value isn’t immediately obvious when you first look at it. It plays music? You think. Why would I want to tell them what I’m listening to? You ask. Aren’t I just giving them information for nothing? You wonder.

The value becomes apparent when Last.fm begins to get to know you. I woke up Thursday morning with 4900 plays on my profile, all from iTunes or my iPod. I figured this was going to be the day I cracked 5000 so, to make it interesting, I connected to the Recommended station through the desktop software and started listening. There were a few skipped tracks in there, but amazingly, I came away with 89 tracks that I did not hate. That is a pretty impressive hit rate. You can see the playlist of recommendations but may need to be a subscriber to view the contents, which kind of sucks, but I guess there are limits to how much sharing you can get away with for free. In any case, here are a few of my favorites:

Fluke: A trio of electronic musicians from the 80s, their career spans over 20 years. Similar to The Crystal Method, Junkie XL or Underworld, the tracks I heard were interesting and had some depth to them.

Calla: an experimental, post-rock band with elements of (or inspiration for) I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness, Arab Strap or Blonde Redhead, they struck me as dark, noisy and worth digging deeper into.

stellastarr*: an American indie band based out of New York City. Comparisons to Interpol, The Stills and the Dears abound.

Elefant: A relatively new band in the vein of Interpol and stellastarr*. I liked what I heard.

It’s hard enough to find new bands without trusted recommendations. Having a system that can recommend music you’ll like with a fair degree of success is definitely cool.

Here’s the playlist:
1. The Walkabouts – Devil in the Details 4:25
2. Fluke – Bermuda 7:55
3. Swervedriver – Sci-Flyer 5:13
4. Elefant – Love 4:01
5. The Constantines – Million Star Hotel 4:41
6. Galaxie 500 – Blue Thunder 3:49
7. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – Spread Your Love 3:44
8. Jason Collett – These Are the Days 3:00
9. Shriekback – Lined Up 4:05
10. stellastarr* – Somewhere Across Forever 3:40
11. A Place to Bury Strangers – To Fix The Gash In Your Head 3:48
12. Swervedriver – Duel 6:20
13. XTC – Making Plans for Nigel 4:14
14. Fluke – Snapshot 4:08
15. Adorable – Still Life 2:38
16. The Constantines – Time Can Be Overcome 5:43
17. The Watchmen – Any Day Now 4:39
18. The Psychedelic Furs – Pretty in Pink 3:56
19. Cuff the Duke – Take My Money And Run 2:54
20. Gang of Four – Glass 2:28
21. Memphis – Into The Wild 3:27
22. Pavement – Baptist Blacktick 2:02
23. The Diableros – Olympic Island 4:07
24. stellastarr* – In the Walls 3:48
25. Amy Millan – Come Home Loaded Roadie 3:57
26. Moist – I’m Going To Judo Chop Your Boyfriend 6:12
27. Belly – Pressure 4:35
28. The Wrens – Nightswimming full track 4:30
29. IMA Robot – Disconnect 3:30
30. The Unicorns – The Unicorns: 2014 (demo version) 3:35
31. Delays – We Together Make A City (Love Made Visible) (Torchteam Remix) 5:01
32. The Stranglers – Golden Brown 3:25
33. Nada Surf – Concrete Bed 2:23
34. Big Audio Dynamite – Rush 4:15
35. Calla – Mayzelle 3:13
36. Swervedriver – Rave Down 5:06
37. Pavement – Shoot the Singer 3:15
38. Swirlies – Pancake 3:14
39. The Telescopes – You Set My Soul 4:00
40. Airiel – Stratosphere 5:51
41. Enon – In This City 4:00
42. Modwheelmood – MHz 4:42
43. Sufjan Stevens – Ring Them Bells 6:20
44. BT – The Internal Locus 10:25
45. Ochre – Oneirist full track 2:08
46. Ochre – Sosacharo 6:39
47. The Cinematics – A Strange Education 5:24
48. Lilys – Day Of The Monkey 3:48
49. Architecture in Helsinki – Do the Whirlwind 4:38
50. M. Ward – O Lazy Days full track 3:19
51. Calla – Love Of Ivah 5:15
52. Jesus Jones – International Bright Young Thing 3:11
53. Les Savy Fav – The Year Before The Year 2000 4:10
54. Wisp – 1stop 2:05
55. Simple Minds – Don’t You (Forget About Me) 4:19
56. Plaid – Light Rain 3:49
57. Nada Surf – See These Bones 5:10
58. Abfahrt Hinwil – Tech7 3:56
59. Bedhead – Beheaded full track 4:43
60. Secede – Born in a Tropical Swamp 9:26
61. The Flashbulb – Lawn Wake IX 2:35
62. The Wrens – Destruction/Drawn 1:29
63. Guided by Voices – Hold on Hope 3:33
64. Wisp – Congratulations 4:15
65. Starflyer 59 – Underneath 4:35
66. The Telescopes – Flying 2:53
67. Simple Minds – Alive and Kicking 5:26
68. Superchunk – Pink Clouds 3:23
69. Julian Cope – Sunspots 5:15
70. Working For A Nuclear Free City – Troubled Son 2:44
71. The Divine Comedy – Diva Lady 4:16
72. Plaid – Squance 5:00
73. Ester Drang – Proustian Moments full track 4:05
74. Nada Surf – Blankest Year 2:12
75. Lloyd Cole and the Commotions – Rattlesnakes 3:26
76. Chris Clark – Bricks 2:40
77. Dinosaur Jr. – Freak Scene 3:36
78. Bola – Versivo 7:51
79. The Dismemberment Plan – A Life of Possibilities 4:33
80. Loop – Spinning 6:29
81. Lloyd Cole – Woman In A Bar 3:36
82. Proem – Invisible for All 3:51
83. Pretty Girls Make Graves – Bring It on Golden Pond 2:57
84. Jega – Phlax 3:51
85. Venetian Snares – Hajnal 7:44
86. The Music – Welcome to the North 5:09
87. Rogue Wave – Lake Michigan 3:48
88. Clark – Dew on the Mouth 1:05
89. Pop Will Eat Itself – Ich Bin Ein Auslander (Loved track) 4:00

PS, not a single member of Coldplay was harmed in the writing of this blog post.

I will post john’s comment here, in it’s entirety, unadulterated:

too may people are ruining the music and film industry due to the lack of respect for artists’ work. Their penny pinching. Being able to pick up a CD every once in a while to support your favorite artists would not have such an impact on your wallets and if you can’t afford to buy then you shouldn’t be burning period because if your able to burn music so easily on a nice shiny computer, you certainly had the money for that computer now, didn’t you? Taking music online from burn sites ruins everyone from artists to companies to vendors who sell the products, think twice before being so cheap and wondering if you should pick up a disc or two. God forbid you buy a CD or DVD because you question yourself, “hmm i can burn this online”. Is it really worth the time and patience as well as the crap quality you get off these burn sites? If you knew anything about quality and sound, 98% of these burn sites quality is for crap and even sounds worst when you play it on a quality sound system.

For some reason, I feel this post is deserving of a direct reply. Lifted up into 2008 in a front-page blog article. My reply:

Fair-enough, John. I do buy music. Probably more than your average internet user because I like to support the artists and encourage good music. It’s the Right Thing To Do.

But I also download music, and I believe it is our right to do so in the same way that I can make a copy of a disc that I bought to share with a friend. Or to combine songs into a “mixed tape” to make a compilation and juxtapose different pieces in new contexts. I will defend my right to do so as long as I am able.

I think copyright reforms like Bill C-61 in Canada are evil and are caving in to largely American-owned music and movie industry pressures by a conservative government. These measures don’t protect the artists, they attempt to protect the flailing businesses who are too slow or ignorant to adapt to the changing world they are now in. They are removing the rights of citizens in favor of appeasing a small group of businesses with a lot of money. They also turn the very people who should be their best customers into criminals, rather than trying to find a way to turn downloading into a profitable new form of business. I think Apple has proven that people will pay for downloads if they’re convenient enough. Amazon, Rhapsody and others have followed-suit.

Many sites that offer content for download offer it at comparative
or better quality than commercial online retailers. Many offer FLAC
encodings which are bit-perfect copies of CDs with no loss of quality.
Many of the people who download these types of encodings probably know
more about sound quality than you do.

The internet could be (and probably is) the music and movie industries’ greatest source of marketing, whether they’re willing to realize and admit it or not. I would also encourage you and others to make use of services like Pandora and Last.FM. Legitimate, industry-driven operations providing excellent content online free of charge. To say that people are ruining these businesses by illegally downloading content is placing the blame on people rather than questioning whether or not the music and movie industries themselves are responsible for their own hardships.

Have you never downloaded anything, John? Would you like for your DVD-R/W drive to continue to function as a device you control, rather than something that is locked down with hardware restrictions preventing you from writing the bits you have chosen to write on it? Do you care that the speakers you use now should continue to be able to play back the music you “own” or have in your possession? Would you feel it was alright if suddenly all of the audio equipment in your residence refused to play content that didn’t carry a special key saying it was legal and safe? Would you mind if the government and businesses kept a log of everything you played back on those systems to make sure you weren’t committing a crime?

Download responsibly. If you like something you find, go out and buy it. Better yet, write about it online and encourage others to discover it for themselves. Be a good citizen. Support local music. Stand up for your rights.