New Tattoo?

What to get? I've got a spiral high on my left arm. I'd like something that goes down a little further, either under my current arm tattoo or over on my right bicep.

Maybe something like this, but designed by AO.



















I also like this.

Trapped in an Elevator

Haunting CCTV video of 41 hours in an elevator. The video accompanies a recent piece in the New Yorker.

The Pretty Things

The Pretty Things were an English R & B band whose founding member once played with the Rolling Stones. In the late sixties The Pretty Things embraced psychedelia, coming out of the same scene as Atomic Rooster, which I posted Saturday. This is a small section from their rock opera "S. F. Sorrow." The album shared Pink Floyd's producer during the same era.

Foul-Mouthed Robot

I'm trying to create a video track for a song from Indian Jewelry, a distortion psych band I recently discovered. In the meantime, here's a foul-mouthed robot -- "Listen here, you motherfuckers" -- promoting their recent album, Free Gold. (The image is just something stupid I pulled off Google.)

Róisín Murphy

"The Truth." This is the song Róisín contributed to Handsome Boy Modeling School's 1999 album "So . . . How's Your Girl." The song also features J-Live.

The real power of robots

In the sci fi movie Minority Report, bug-like robots swarm into buildings to find a fugitive. This sequence may have anticipated a real nightmare. Monstrous robots and machines of the future may be more visually dramatic, but if you think about it they do not even come close to the dystopia of the swarm.

"BAE Systems will lead a team of scientists that will develop miniature robots to improve military situational awareness. The company signed a $38 million agreement with the U.S. Army Research Laboratory to lead an alliance of researchers and scientists from the Army, academia and industry."

"'The idea is that a variety of crawling or flying mini-droids will be produced, able to go into situations where human troops might fear to tread - caves, bunkers, mountains, hostile urban areas etc. The robo-bug army would then spy out targets and intel for human commanders to act upon.'"

Link

Atomic Rooster - 1971

The golden age of the big hair band.

DIY

I don't read many personal blogs, but one that I do read usually documents ongoing DIY projects, ranging from passive solar heat to database coding. The writer is a bit of a technological savant, but pretty down to earth. He works barefoot, for example, but at the same time he's listening to his own illegal, low-power FM station. One of his cars got totalled during a snowfall, and he's been scrapping it himself, saving items he might use in the future and recycling the rest. Here it is in its present condition. I would LOVE to have one of these out front.

Hectic

There is so much to juggle around the house right now that I keep forgetting what I'm doing, creating even more chaos as I run to and fro. The problem is illustrated by Little Boy's activity this morning, as we scurried to get BB out to the bus on time. There we are, trying to get dressed and teeth brushed, and LB is taking ALL of his clothes out of his drawers, scattering them around his room. The dog was also getting into the act, picking through the clothes with tongue and teeth. Another mess to clean up. It would be different if I were in an office at work. There no one, presumably, would be coming in every night to trash the place.

We had a storm come through last night. The thunder was so intense that the house shook at one point, mimicking our recent earthquake. At one point I heard BB yelling out. I went to his room, where he was shivering in fear. He needed to go to the bathroom and wanted someone to help him "feel brave." It was a precious moment.

This morning, just as BB got on the bus, the heavens broke with a downpour. We weren't prepared so LB and I were soaked to our skin, making my morning even more hectic. We stripped down and dried off in the garage, then got dressed again. Another reminder that shit will happen.

Friday robot blogging

From an illustration for a paper on the Artificial Emotional Creature Project.