www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfx4UH659kQ

This poppy, energetic, tightly executed ditty grabbed me in the first few seconds the way few songs have in a while (since the Fleet Foxes’ White Winter Hymnal, I reckon).

It’s a super catchy balance of techno precision and warm pop sensibilities, wrapped up into three minutes fifty-odd seconds of awesome. The vocals have the adorable lilt that makes people fall in love with artists like Feist, and the kind of simple but well crafted lyrics that make an absolute classic song. I detect little airs of Fleetwood Mac, or maybe Heart or Pat Benetar. There’s a throwback aspect here that I haven’t quite pinned down, but I’ll be happy to listen to again and again to discover. Little disco notes bubble up here and there, adding that particular flavor of jubilant funk to this heady brew.

If you bounced along with Freezepop’s addition to Guitar Hero (or just listened to their albums!) you’ll probably really enjoy this tune’s grin-inducing hoppy beats. It’s not all techno though, throughout you can hear the slide of fingers on guitar strings, providing little organic clues to the musicianship at work.

I’m excited to check out the rest of this album and highly recommend you press play above!

Also, nerd bonus I just noticed: Ender’s Game reference at about 0:45! :D

P.S. Their five song EP, The Robots in Love is only 5$ on Amazon MP3.

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Well, perhaps not yet “born” yet, per se, but it’s definitely somewhere in its second trimester and we have gotten quite a clear ultrasound at this point of NETdevil’s high concept sci-fi space shooter MMOG, Jumpgate: Evolution. While the game is currently in a solid alpha-build stage, what we’ve been allowed to see thus far has been impressive and looks to be a innovative and creative addition to a pair of suffering genres, namely the Space-Simulation and MMORPG genres, to be precise. With the last great space sims being as far back as 2005’s X3: Reunion or 2007’s Spaceforce: Rogue Universe (although nothing has been able to quite top Microsoft’s 2001 opus Freelancer in this gamer’s opinion in terms of sheer playability or longevity -- Freelancer has been kept very much alive to this day by an active modding community and several privately run multiplayer servers) and space-based MMO’s being rather nonexistent with the exception of CCP’s EVE Online and the general MMO market at large being dominated by Blizzard’s powerhouse World of Warcraft, both species of games seem to need a little something to come along and breathe some new life in.

There’s no way to accurately discuss Jumpgate: Evolution (or JG:E if you don’t like typing out entire words) without mentioning it’s 2001 predecessor Jumpgate: The Reconstruction Initiative (or JG:C for Jumpgate Classic), a PC MMOG that first brought the infinite vastness of space to the massively multiplayer genre. JG:C featured several unique ideas that helped it find it’s niche upon release, the most notable being the “Newtonian” space flight physics, essentially meaning that piloting your spacecraft was alot like, as one JG:E wiki editor put it, driving on ice, accurately simulating what it might be like to steer a ship in a vacuum with no gravity. It’s a bit tough to explain, but basically don’t expect to make any 90 degree turns at high speed and it can take up to two full kilometers to go from full throttle to a complete stop. Unfortunately, JG:C was plagued by a steep difficulty curve and sub-par graphics (even for it’s 2001 release), however it’s creative approach to space flight have given it an active user base to this day despite an overall lack of traffic that led to the merging of what started as several servers into one “global” server. Now, enough about the past. I’d first heard of JG:E through a few web forums while looking for something prettier to replace Freelancer as my main “blow shit up” space sim, and upon viewing their official website at www.jumpgateevolution.com, I was forced to run to my kitchen to grab a hand towel to stop the constant flow of drool.

It’s clear that JG:E won’t suffer from it’s predecessor’s fugly graphics. Also, it’s graphically scaleable to run on systems as small as 800MHz processor and 32MB of video memory - without pixel shaders.

JG:E’s lead creative director Hermann Peterscheck has been quoted as denouncing the design decisions of games like EVE Online in which space is dark and empty (and, in EVE’s case, repetitious and actually quite boring) by saying that “space should be beautiful”, and by God, is it ever. JG:E’s high-contrast and colorful vision of space makes for intense eye-candy and serves as quite an immersive backdrop for the games action-based play system… and by action-based I mean that JG:E provides innovation by throwing away the character classes and pen-and-paper style dice rolls for hit chance and damage persistent though every successful MMO to date in favor of a “twitch based” live combat…so basically this MMO will be based more on player skill rather than how much time you have to repeatedly farm Karazhan for the leetest gear for your class. That’s right, no action bars, no skill trees, no lengthy cool downs, just frantic reticule-based shooting and real-time dogfights. Player skill is even required for tasks such as docking your vessel at a station, a procedure during which player ships must approach at the correct angle and velocity to physically pilot their ship into a station’s docking bay.

I’ll be sitting, parked and giggling as I watch newbie pilots crash into stations like these while learning to properly dock.

The flight model found in JG:E will be a reworked version of the JG:C physics described above, allowing for full vessel control including pitch, roll and yaw, with thruster control allowing for the obvious forward thrusters and afterburners as well as strafing thrust for left, right, up and down. JG:C’s Newtonian flight physics are in full effect, allowing players to slide around targets and even fly backwards, however this time there is a switchable “inertial dampener” system in place that give things a more “arcade-like” or “stickier” feel for novice pilots or pretty much anyone that needs to do some tight maneuvering, and given JG:E’s wide array of diverse locales containing hazards such as dense asteroid belts or disused ship foundries (rife with broken-down husks of massive capitol vessels), it’s this gamer’s opinion that you’ll find yourself switching them on and off pretty regularly depending on the current terrain you need to navigate. Another solid win in the control department is JG:E’s full support of analog joysticks and HOTAS (hands-on-throttle-and-stick) flight control setups, allowing for an incredibly genuine and totally immersive experience.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4AjNRdmMJ0

While the details of the character creation system are still firmly placed under wraps by the developer, it is known that players will be divided into three separate factions: the industrious yet corrupt Solarian Commonwealth, the firmly religious Quantar Paths and the militaristic Octavian Empire, with several NPC-only factions like the secretive Hyperial Protectorate, the technologically advanced Anamath (believed to be extinct), the overtly hostile Conflux and a pirate faction known only as The Infernals. Each faction hails from a separate section of space and feature, yep, you guessed it, even more eye-candy in the form of highly varied star system design and vastly different tech. These three playable races set the stage for some interesting PvP and RvR action in the form of open-world Player vs. Player skirmishes as well as instanced battles based on flag capturing games and, my personal favorite, a squad based “destroy the other team’s battleship” game who’s name implies that it’ll be simply…intense. As for RvR (or Realm-vs.-Realm, a concept known well to Dark Age of Camaelot and Warhammer Online players), players will be able to seize control of sector control bases in contested systems, claiming that system for their faction and gaining themselves and their compatriots certain bonuses while in the sector until the base is either destroyed or assaulted and reclaimed by an opposing army. Another original gameplay mechanic devised for JG:E is called “soft grouping” where multiple players engaging the same hostile target will gain experience and loot regardless of whether the participating players are “partied”. This simple idea shines in the fact that it subliminally encourages comradery between players through rewards…I can’t even count the times that I’ve had to watch my character in WoW get crushed by an NPC monster as members of my own faction simply run past without so much as a second glance or even an offer for assistance, or alternatively having quest-related creatures “ninja-ed” from my party by members of my own force.

Large-scale fleet engagements await you in the universe of JG:E.

Thus far, NETdevil has been allowing information regarding this unique title to trickle from their offices at a painfully slow rate, with even the release date slated to an ambiguous “Q1 2009” with a closed beta launching “sometime soon” (The beta can be applied for on their official site -- although with keys being doled out in clusters of 1000 and nearly 150,000 applications as of mid-November the chances of getting into the closed beta are slim at best). From what we’ve seen so far, JG:E is shaping up to be possibly the best new MMO released in some time. Combining furious action with RPG style progression and some impressively realistic space flight, Jumpgate: Evolution gets my vote as THE title to watch for in the coming months. Look for my forthcoming full review either a few weeks after the game launches, or earlier if I can finagle my way into the beta. For more information, visit their official site at www.jumpgateevolution.com or their meticulously updated wiki at www.jumpgateevo.wikia.com.

I’ll leave you with an in-game footage reel to wet your space battle appetite. Enjoy.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cX491A9aLk

Note: Thanks to IGN.com for hosting a whole ton of images with handy-dandy embedding HTML.

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Good evening, it’s your friendly neighborhood cyst Sketch here bringing you an article for your Internet Arts & Leisure feed. Today we bring you a review on “Sex In The City: The Movie”… sorry, wrong drugs. Now that we’ve changed substances a proper review is in order. Last night the one man band Trent Reznor stopped into Manchester, NH with co-conspirators Robin Finck, Alessandro Cortini, Josh Freese and Justin Meldal-Johnsen to assemble the band Nine Inch Nails. They stopped in Manch-vegas as part of the second leg of their Lights In The Sky Tour Over North America. I arrived at 6PM, half an hour before they opened the doors. In that time I got moist from the weather, exchanged words with some of the other patrons and watched planes fly over closer than they should’ve. About five minutes prior to them opening the doors one of the security guards got everyone’s attention to inform us of some of the rules — no smoking, no food or drink from outside, no knives, no chains etc. When he mentioned the knives and chains I was looking around for the people with chains seeing who was gonna get screwed for entry. Behind me was a guy wearing Tripp NYC pants which had a chain on them, which couldn’t be removed. To which he ironically responded by saying, “I would get it off but I left my knife at home.” So I got in, bought a shirt for $35 because I’m daffy and wanted some schwag. Now before I get to reviewing Nine Inch Nails’ performance I must mention the opening act.

As it can be shown from my previous entry reviewing the Rock & Shock Festival with Mushroomhead and Gwar, I have a predisposition for disliking opening acts. I believe that many of them are hired deliberately because they suck and make the headliners infinitely greater. This opener was no different. The band was called Health and came out of Los Angeles. I felt their name was ironic since after their set was over I WANTED TO KILL MYSELF! To save you the trouble I’ll let you know what you’re in store for with this group. Imagine three skinny Hot Topic Emo kids screeching on Fender guitars and stomping on distortion pedals while singing like a seven-year old girl in one microphone and screaming into another microphone; while the drummer, who looks like Chino Moreno of Deftones (IMAGE) if he was built like a brick shit-house and had a pony tail, actually plays his instrument. To say that I wanted to slit my wrists after hearing their “music” would be both an offense to my wrists and the blade I would’ve used. They were nothing more than a garage band that was trying to rip off Nine Inch Nails and Muse and any other industrial band you can think. Now I’ve never been to a Nine Inch Nails show before but from my understanding the opening acts are mostly noise bands, that’s all they were minus the band part. Trent Reznor should get his $20 back. But one thing I noticed is that the “singer” had two microphones – one mounted on a mic stand where he let us hear his girly voice and a pink microphone from the ’50s which he screamed into. And it occurred to me that one of the microphones was auto-tuned, either to make him sound very girly or like he has testosterone in his system. I’m thinking the first one since at one point toward the end of their “set” the “bassist”/(long haired douche who pounded a drum stick on a single electronic drum pad that was never heard through the speakers and danced around on stage like a ballerina) went up to the mic stand and screamed like a little girl. Now me being a somewhat rational man at this point hysterically laughed like the dozen others around me. During the encore Trent said to the crowd, “Buy their album, take mine for free.”

Now on to the main event. House lights get killed and the ambient “999,999″ gets cued up which leads into them playing “1,000,000″ off their new album “The Slip” (which can be officially downloaded for free and purchased here.) They then proceeded to do two more songs off the new album, “Letting You” and the single “Discipline”, both which were a powerhouse on the audience. One thing I learned about the show is that it is oddly one of the more tamer shows I’ve been to, though the concerts I’ve been to have been straight-up metal bands and have a very aggressive tone to them. With NIИ it carries many tones to it, start off aggressive then become very serene and then back to aggressive. Also Trent doesn’t really interact with the audience like many front men do. Then again I’m sure that’d just be one more thing in the arsenal he’d have to deal with due to the intricacy of the show. But as much as it lacked in band/crowd interaction the theatricality of the show is definitely worth seeing even if you don’t know of Nine Inch Nails or their music or even if you don’t like it, the visuals are amazing.

First of all, in order to truly take in the visuals you are best to be toward the back of the crowd, maybe even sit in the bleachers (as much of a cop out as it is.) I neglected to remember this so my dosage was a bit low. The highlight of their visuals is three large LED mesh curtains (one at the rear, one in the middle and one in the front of the stage) that go up and down for each song to accentuate it. For instance their song “Vessel” (a song with almost no practical instruments involved except guitar), the five men stand in front of the forward curtain which flashes distortions of red to the beat of the song (EXAMPLE, best viewed in high quality.) When they did instrumental tracks off “Ghosts” they stood in front of the middle screen which was dropped and contained a desert, while the front screen was elevated so to show the grey clouds sifting through black above the amber dunes. (“Word?” Word.) The sight of it was truly beautiful, but would’ve been better if people hadn’t have used this time to talk among themselves since there were no lyrics being sung. To those who attended and did the aforementioned crime, fuck you. (5 GHOSTS I) And the screens don’t just serve as pre-rendered images to highlight the narrative of the songs since they are fully interactive. The stage has sensors strategically placed so at any time Trent can manipulate the screen. For instance during “Only” the front curtain is dropped and projects TV noise and when he passes the sensor he can open up a hole in the static (YIKES.) Truely gorgeous use of technology. During their performance of “The Greater Good” off “Year Zero” they projected on the front curtain what looked like a blue microscopic organism reacting to the music. However it got really amped up when an embossed blown up version of Trent singing was pulled up. As I said, it was an interactive show which used sensors and other pieces of technology to make it what it is. When it made that turn I froze in awe. (To freeze in awe at your computer, LOOK HERE.)

“Survivalism” was probably one of their more pulsating songs due to it being a rather ferocious track. And the screen in the back projected rather comical images. For those who have never seen the video, it is a constant camera motion going to various security feeds watching the band perform and an apartment building with the tenants either being submissive to the totalitarian government or committing crimes against it (homosexuality, graffiti, and other things against the good Christian country that it is in this alternative reality.) One monitor housed the Bureau of Morality censoring something, one of a camera on Trent, two of a camera on the audience, and three others with prerecorded footage (most likely) featuring a couple having sex in the bathroom, a man walking down a stairwell and I believe the inside of a bathroom stall. Never a dull moment in the three hours that Nine Inch Nails was on stage. From “1,000,000″ to “In This Twilight” it was a proverbial narcotic the whole place was taking in. They closed their set with their classic single “Head Like A Hole” then dropped the front curtain which held the NIИ logo for a good minute or two with droning ambiance over the PA. I knew the show wasn’t over but the suspense for the encore was grinding over me and the rest of the patrons. After a while they raise the screen and kill the picture. On the middle screen was three rows of white boxes. The drummer, Josh Freese, came out from behind the curtain and interacted with it by turning some of the squares all red to start up “Echoplex”. They went on to do “God Given”, “Hurt” of course was a must, and finally closing with “In This Twilight” which was truly beautiful. For those unacquainted with the song it has a heavy tone to it but Trent melodically singing it making it rather eerie and surreal. On the back screen they projected a metropolis with a large factory in the background emitting smoke from two giant stacks. Across the city bombs were going off showing an attack from either terrorists or members of the resistance, couldn’t be known. At the end of the song a white hot flash of light came from the factory and panned up until “the sky is filled with light.” My first show with Nine Inch Nails and hopefully not my last. That’s all I got for this round. See you on the other side, folks.

Oh, and to close out this piece I’ve enclosed another video. This didn’t happen at the show I was at but I figured it’d be interesting to see regardless. Enjoy.

=Sketch/Ed

“Something’s Gonna Get Broken”

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This is a quick entry with short descriptions of two podcasts I love, adore and recommend to most people. Mostly because I’ve cut down my listening to podcasts since I finished my work placement a year ago. But these are two of about 15 that survived the cut.

Science is the most important thing in our modern world. Who can deny this? I am using a computer to write this, and, you are using a computer to read this. A product of science/technology. Truly if science is a key component of our lives then it is the duty of every sane and intelligent person to attempt to keep up to date with the latest developments.

That is very hard. It is almost a full time job. Reading aggregated news sites such as Slashdot and skimming “New Scientist” once a week can only really help so much. Reading the science section of your daily newspaper can also help. But one of the best resources I have found is a podcast produced by my newspaper – The Manchester Guardian. It is normally about half an hour long; although the podcast I’ve just started listening to is 40 minutes long. It’s got an interview with Marcus du Sautoy who is a professor of mathematics from Oxford University, and the presenter of “The Story of Maths”. Which currently showing on BBC4 and is the most fascinating documentary on UK TV at the moment.

The podcast has covered everything from Bad Science, climate change, quantum physics, the “Large Hadron Collider”; in short everything that is happening in science today.

I’m a fanatic roleplaying gamer. A total and unashamed geek when it comes to rolling the dice and crawling the dungeons. One of the podcasts I listen to about tabletop gaming is 2d6 Feet in a Random Direction. I started to listen to this in August 2006 and have been listening to each and every podcast produced. It has quite likely pushed me into buying quite a few books (most of which I can’t afford) and the advice presented in several of the podcasts have improved my gaming. Probably this podcast (along with another Sons of Kryos) contributed significantly to my awesome experience at the 2008 Student Nationals; where I played the best 9 hours of table-top gaming of my life.

It’s a podcast that highlights new things. I love new things. It’s a good podcast.

—

Go listen to the first one podcast even if you don’t like science, you’ll be surprised how accessible science can be. If you used to play Dungeons and Dragons, and then stopped, take a listen to “2d6 Feet”, you might find something to drag you back into playing games.

Peace and love bombs,

Will.

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My awesome Lorem Ipsum shirt provided by TeeFury, makers of fine, rare designer tshirts.

First off, it was great to see everybody again! I had missed the last two Media Makers events and kicked myself pretty hard both times. Thanks to my cat and the fact that I have a memory like a (rusted) steel trap, I was able to make it out to Newmarket in time to schmooze a little before everything got started.

Everybody is really busy! I took some general notes on each person and everybody had something fun or interesting to share.

UnclePhilms –

• Talked about film projects he’s working on, stuff in conjunction with NewtonStudios.com and BostonFilms.com (bostonfilms.com links to a weird page about internet connection sharing??) – Zerk.tv
• Mentioned that he is scoring a film (horror film I think it was).

Bryan White of Cinema Suicide -

• Launched Soundtrack Apocalisse, featuring soundtrack reviews. Apocalisse is Italian for apocalypse! Neat!
• He’s got tshirts for Cinema Suicide now! They’re really cool looking, done in fake movie poster style, with Cinema Suicide’s URL on them. Go get one now so you can say you were in at the ground floor.
• Quoted by Ghost Adventures, who will soon be putting out a DVD (which may or may not contain some of those CS group quotes). (Correct me if I’m citing the wrong Ghost Adventures group.)
• He mentioned gearing up to do a documentary about the less-than-savory history of Portsmouth, NH and doing some paranormal investigation to coincide with the area. Talked about a lot of really interesting history surrounding Portsmouth. Things I’d never heard before like all the old aqueduct work that has survived, and the old tunnels under the city surviving from old military installations. It sounds like there are a lot of really fascinating subjects he could cover in a Portsmouth documentary and I look forward to hearing way more about it.
• Cinema Suicide got covered by local entertainment paper: The Wire. The story is mentioned on the front page, so if you see a copy, go grab it!

Newcomers! Rob Jaques and Shawn Lampron.

• Rob is a writer, a musician and photographer. He’s got a pretty awesome flickr profile at santaplausible (which is a name I just absolutely love, by the way). He’s looking to collaborate and learn more about cool stuff to do on the internet.
• Shawn is a writer and I believe he said he’s also done some teaching. He’s interested in getting involved in more media and web-based projects.

Chris Clark of GeekForceFive –

• He’s got a book out! Congratulations! It’s called Those Little Bastards and it is available for sale through echristopherclark.com.
• Over at GeekForceFive, he experimented with adding a Question of the Day to a video post he did regarding his recent NIN concert experience. This got some of the best feedback he’s seen yet, and he is considering making Question of the Day a regular feature on GFF. Sounds like a terrific idea and I hope he keeps us posted!
• He’s also forging a community area for GFF at geekforcefive.ning.com – ning.com being a resource for people who want to take a sort of plug-and-play approach to social networking/community sites.

Leslie Poston -

• She’s doing some authoring over at TechnoSailor.com, a tech, business, and new media site.
• Got BIG plans for the upcoming SXSW, trying to get a panel together on “Can social media save the world?” and is looking for support to get this exciting concept off the launchpad and into the conference. The idea behind this panel was inspired by her recent experiences at PodCamp Boston.
• Got a site going called UptownUncorked.com, which has a neat wine glass shape going on with the first U that I think is really neat and would totally like to see develop more as a concept.
• Recently attended a Mashable event in Boston. Also mentioned that she’s a frequent attendee of Boston. Any Media Maker folks who are interested in Boston events should probably contact her for info on carpooling and so forth.
• She’s working with a site called Blorge.com who is also doing some hiring right now.

Deb Mcnally –

• I finally got to meet @debdebtig! I’ve been following her for a while on Twitter because she’s a locally active person. It’s nice to be able to put a face to a name like that.
• Deb is a tech communicator (all types of media, not just writing), as well as a local farmer!
• She’s got nheggs.blogspot.com and will be branching that out to include an official site (NHeggs.com) as well as adding some web service profiles for her chickens, giving people a day-in-the-life look into what it’s like to be a hen on the farm.
• Anecdotally – Back-in-the-day, her husband ran the largest BBS in southern New Hampshire! How cool is that? I myself didn’t spend much time on the internet during the BBS days, I spent more time trying to stay up late playing Shining Force on the Sega channel without getting caught. :3

Nick Plante aka ZapNap –

• He’s also written a book! It’s called Practical Rails Plugins and it’s currently available for pre-order on Amazon. It’s pretty exciting to have published authors in our midst.
• For anyone who doesn’t know, Nick is a freelance developer, working primarily with Ruby on Rails, but is awesome enough to provide services above and beyond that as duty calls.
• He’s also been involved with a zine called ink19, which as I understand it started life as a paper zine and has since evolved some digital tentacles to better propel itself through the cultural miasma that is the internet. The primary focus of ink19 is music, but they cover other fun stuff like movies, television and various other exciting whatnots.
• Nick has a dream! A dream in which it is much easier for people to read and distribute webcomics. That’s a really awesome dream. One which we can probably all get behind.
• Sub-question: Should we do a group event to brainstorm all the possible features and needs of a webcomic reader/distro system? Could be a really entertaining and worthwhile project, and could ultimately unseat things like WordPress when it comes to web comic creation and distribution! (and how boss monster would that be? pfft. very.)

Brian Turnbull -

• Another newcomer, and recent transplant from Chi-town (Chicago). He’s a professional photographer and has recently collaborated with ZapNap.
• Brian and Nick worked with a client to very recently launch Razume.com, a site in which people can have their resumes reviewed by their peers (and probably also by hiring professionals!).
• He took photos of this month’s NHMM which are already up. Why do I always get caught making the most awkward faces?!
• He’s done some photography work for various big band jazz groups, including album art for the Stone/Bratt Big Band.

John Herman -

• Gravityland season two is in the works! More people are getting interested in the project, so the second season could get really intense.
• He’s also working away on a pilot for an HD webisodic show called Thomas in Wonkyland. The premise came about at an improv event a while back, and some of those same players are coming back to work on this concept. It sounds absolutely hilarious and I can’t wait to see it!
• John recently helped his wife make a 1 minute movie for a film festival called le 60, a bunch of 1 minute movies to be shown in Boston in mid-September. He shared with us a really inspiring story about how he contacted a musician in Germany that he really admired, and was able to get some unique music for the project from that communication. Very cool. Incidentally: le 60 is accepting submissions through August 15th, so there is still time to participate in this project/contest.

Jill Silos -

• Jill is an author and cultural historian who works with grad students at UNH, as well as other local college-level students in the area.
• She is working on a book called Everybody Get Together: The Politics of the Counterculture. The book in project form won an award back in 2005, and I think it’s safe to say everyone in the group was very interested in the finished product when it’s ready for release.
• She’s learning to play guitar and apparently does a pretty mean D minor, but is still looking for tips on how to transition between chords.

As for myself, I talked a little bit about exciting new developments at work, and a few of my ideas for RKNet.

• RKNet will be featuring content from paid bloggers. I am still taking inquiries about this, although I have had several interested parties contact me already. Email giania [at] gmail.com if you wish to get more info about the program.
• The purpose of the paid blogging program is to free me up to do the following: redo the RKNet template, develop really cool merch ideas, strengthen affiliate relations. Eventually I want RKNet to be something like boingboing without the awkward lesbian “unpublishing” drama. Baby steps.
• Chris had a really terrific merchandise idea for RKNet, develop “random kitty” plush toys, literal random kitties, probably small batch or one-off items to keep things interesting, and cement their status as collectors items.
• I talked briefly about an idea I had to create a site to specialize in supporting local farmers and local farmers’ markets by providing a centralized site catering to their needs. Deb let me know that in her experience it’s actually pretty difficult to keep up with the normal demand, much less deal with greater exposure. I’d love to work with some people on this concept, to come up with a variety of ideas on how a site like this could help the most people, and maybe make some money.
• Some things I neglected to mention:
• I’ve got a soup! giania.soup.io it’s a kind of micro-blogging, tumblr sort of service. It’s lots of fun and allows for quick sharing of some of your favorite (or least favorite) items on the internet.
• I attended the Boston-based An Event Apart conference. I have transcribed some of my notes, but there’s still a lot left to put up. Stay tuned.
• I mentioned a friend’s ninja doll project but forgot the URL ( ninja-dolls.com DUH), also posted the URL in the comments at the NH Media Makers blog.
• As mentioned gingerly so as not to offend the nice people at Crackskulls, I am a HUGE fan of Dover’s newest coffee shop, Adelle’s. As we get more people at NH MM, we may run out of room at Crackskulls. I spoke briefly with one of the people who works at Adelle’s and it sounds like they might be interested in hosting an event like ours. I believe they have wifi there, and I’m working on getting them their own website so news/events can be posted there also. I’m really dying to try one of their bacon cheddar scones.

Don’t forget to visit the official NH Media Makers blog and check out all the notes John put up, as well as all the comments and follwups from the attendees!

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I think I’ve been listening to too much Röyksopp lately. For context, I’ve found myself highly enamored of a certain track off their album The Understanding called “What Else Is There?“. It features vocals provided by Karin Dreijer Andersson from an electronica duo called The Knife (whose album Silent Shout has also been on repeat a lot for me) and I have fallen in love with her unique and expressive voice.

That being said, on the with the description. I was in this housing area, all cheap houses, run down and small. Looking on from a short distance, I saw a huge explosion rip through 3 or 4 of the buildings, seemingly at random. I looked to my companions (who defy description right now, just some people, I can’t remember) and ran towards the damage. I’ve dreamt almost this same thing before, I know it. Sudden fire in run down houses, or an explosion followed by fire. It was chewing up the old, dry buildings.

Then it all reset. Same place, no explosion, none of that. I rode in the mind of someone sneaking through these projects, tiptoeing by back doors and noticing as they all swung open by themselves. Screen doors, all, and cats of different kinds peering out from kitchens or living rooms. Sometimes there were people within, all walking away, not noticing that the door was open. The creeping person was a thief and although no entry was made into any of these houses, the big black bag s/he carried filled up. A small rip showed a blue and white striped piece of terry cloth sticking out. Perhaps the dishes wrapped in the towel to prevent noise? Who knows?

Finally coming to an unremarkable house near the end of the rows, the thief enters and discovers an old man and a fluffy white cat. There’s a moment of mutual surprise, then the cat makes a mad dash for the open door, and the thief follows, trying to track it down through these houses while still remaining silent and unseen, still carrying the full bag. The cat dashes under buildings built off the ground, and finally the thief is able to cut it off at an awkward turn near a wall and snatches the beast up, dragging it back to its master.

There’s a short conversation after that, and the old man says he’s not going to rat out the thief. The thief cautions that there may be some dangerous activity.

Cut to a group of about five or six people. Storm clouds are high, thready, and getting darker, turning the sky to a psilocybin vision of broadly patterned marble. The people are holding onto what appears to be the female end of extention cords, which are all tangled together and tied to a central location, looking to be pipes coming out of one of the houses. They stretch the cords into the road, fanning out in an uneven manner over about a 180° area. A stroke of lightning comes down slowly, almost like a weighted streamer: straight down, but wavering in the air. It is viewed from the eyes of one of the group before it hits them. The power goes through the cords and infuses the others. One by one they begin shouting, calling down the lightning on themselves, despite the presence of others on the scene insisting they stop (but too afraid to act).

There was only one left, hesitant, stupid, afraid of the lightning. The others had disappeared, disintegrated or wandered off or something. The one left walked away. It may have come back to the explosion at that point but I don’t recall.

Other points which are unclear to me now:

• Pulling a large revolver on someone who wanted to come into a house where I lived. It was large and dull and akward.
• Yelling and throwing things at a group of young, grinning hooligans who heaped things in the middle of the yard and doused it in gasoline, intending to set fire to the whole property
• Counciling a very angry young man, sharing tales with him. We were both in Civil War era dress. I slowly went from persuading him to stay, to comforting, to seducing. Anything to distract him from this blind fury.
• A master/husband type figure appearing during the “seduction” phase, unperturbed by the scenario.

Also, for your convenience here are the lyrics to “What Else Is There?”

It was me on that road
But you couldn’t see me
Too many lights out, but nowhere near here

It was me on that road
Still you couldn’t see me
And then flashlights and explosions

Roads end getting nearer
We cover distance but not together

I am the storm I an the wonder
And the flashlights nightmares
And sudden explosions

I don’t know what more to ask for
I was given just one wish

It’s about you and the sun
A morning run
The story of my maker
What I have and what I ache for

I’ve got a golden ear
I cut and I spear
And what else is there

Roads and getting nearer
We cover distance still not together

If I am the storm if I am the wonder
Will I have a flashlights nightmares
And sudden explosions

There’s no room where I can go and
You?ve got secrets too

I don’t know what more to ask for
I was given just one wish

Note: These are just what I found online, I know there is a verse or two missing and maybe a few lines wrong. Care to help me flesh that out?

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