Taylor Swift

The iconic San Francisco building the once industry-leading company inhabits has risen dramatically in value since Zynga took up residence, and now it's on the block. ...

Support this site's full-text RSS feed by buying The Enthusiast

Are you reading this RSS feed and still haven't bought Josh's novel? Time to correct that right away! It's called The Enthusiast and it's about trains, comics, stealth marketing, capitalism, and joy. You can buy in hardcover or paperback form from TopatoCo, in all e-book formats from Gumroad, as a paperback from Amazon, or from the Kindle store

(What's the deal with these links? Click here for info.)

***

Momma, 2/23/16

Say what you will about the art in Momma, but I actually appreciate the subtle shift in Francis’s facial expression between panels today. In the first, he seems genuinely excited about his new employment — sure, he hasn’t struck it rich, but it’s a job, and as perks go, free food is nothing to complain about. Everyone needs food! In the second panel, though, you can see he’s just absorbed his mother’s snarky comment, and his face is frozen in mid-smile. He’s disappointed her again. Oh, serving hamburgers isn’t good enough for Momma, huh? It’d be better if he were selling these … flat … things … seriously, what is that pile on the table? Pancakes? Has Francis rolled up a steaming hot pancake to eat with his hands? If so, I take everything I wrote above back, he deserves all the ridicule we can throw at him.

Heathcliff, 2/23/16

If there’s one character that epitomizes Heathcliff’s shift into increasingly aggressive whimsy, it’s the Garbage Ape. He started as a riff on one of the core assumptions of the Heathcliff universe — that real cats will eat things out of the trash sometimes, so it’d be funny if the cats of Heathcliff were really obsessed with garbage and city sanitation infrastructure, and even funnier if there were some kind of benevolent trash-related magical beast — a garbage ape, say, who delivered garbage, for whatever reason. This was … fine, not particularly funny per se, but not terrible either, but then the Garbage Ape started metastasizing, dressing up like a pilgrim, and now … this, transformed into a menacing mechanical walker, simultaneously terrifying and a violation of the intellectual property rights of Lucasfilm Ltd. LLC (a subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios). Why? Why did it have to be this way? How did it get to this point, where someone might think this is an image that might legitimately tickle readers’ funny bone, rather than confusing and alarming them?

This post, "That food-pile is sweating, I don’t even know, man", originally appeared on The Comics Curmudgeon, which is the best blog on the Internet.

Ads by Project Wonderful! Your ad could be here, right now.

Meet Crimson Skeleton, a guy with bleached hair and sunglasses we sometimes see around the streets of Harajuku.

He is wearing a patent biker jacket in black and white, by Japanese designer Junya Watanabe, with skinny pants from Helmut Lang and a tank top from Neil Barrett. His bag is Celine, his boots are Gerard Sene, and his accessories are Jean Paul Gaultier. 

You can find him on Twitter and Instagram for more information and pics.

Click on any photo to enlarge it.

"One of the most interesting roguelikes to come around lately, a game that is obviously close to the lineage and yet brings new clever and amazing ideas to the table is a little thing called HyperRogue." ...

Rikarin is a 19-year-old student who we often see around the streets of Harajuku. She also posts weekly My Harajuku Life videos on YouTube.

In addition to Rikarin’s pink-purple bob hairstyle, she’s wearing an Adidas jacket (purchased at the popular resale shop Kinji Harajuku) over a Mickey Mouse t-shirt, an H&M skirt, 6%DOKIDOKI graphic tights, and Jeffrey Campbell graphic wooden platform shoes (worn with tube socks). Accessories include round sunglasses, colorful 6%DOKIDOKI necklaces and rings, and a resale denim bag.

Rikarin’s favorite fashion brand is 6%DOKIDOKI and she likes the music of Dempagumi.inc. Find her on Instagram, Twitter, or Tumblr for more pictures and updates!

Click on any photo to enlarge it.

Two shorts from Nick’s excellent book Snackies:

———–

After cutting ties with longtime employer Konami last year and going independent, veteran game developer Hideo Kojima has launched his own YouTube channel. ...

It's hard out on those streets. Capcom's new start for Street Fighter is plagued by network issues.

•••

•••

Platform: Javascript — Remember wildly addictive incremental idle game Cookie Clicker? Version 2.0 has just hit, bringing with it new buildings, a retooled ascension tree, special features, and much, much more. Get baking, but don't make the grannies angry... Tagged as: achievements, browser, free, game, idle, incremental, javascript, orteil, rating-y, simpleidea, simulation, upgrades, webtoy

for Backblaze users, it's the folder containing backup drive metadata  

start with the Windows Showcase before deep-diving the rest  

the debut episode is a barnburner  

"give him a brick and watch him go." - Author's description

Play / download on itch.io (Browser, Windows, Mac, Linux)

[Via @fancydrak]

---

surprisingly informative, while also making me feel like I'm a warm corpse  

Reo is around the streets of Harajuku often as she is a monster at the Kawaii Monster Cafe. Her pink-purple double buns hairstyle and cute fashion easily caught our eye!

Reo is wearing a resale oversized Winnie The Pooh bomber jacket over a hoodie, a Honey Cinammon top, a resale skirt, and cute WC platform shoes with loose socks. Accessories include a Yokai Watch pouch, Dragon Quest plush slime, and a Duffy bear backpack from Tokyo Disney Sea.

Reo is active on both Instagram and Twitter if you’d like to know more about her.

Click on any photo to enlarge it.

part of the Stupid Shit No One Needs & Terrible Ideas Hackathon  

We’ve rain into Minori once again in Harajuku. She is a famous Japanese shironuri artist who we made a short documentary about a few years ago. You can also visit her official website for more information.

This time, Minori is wearing a black bob hairstyle and an outfit in dark colors. Her entire look consists of handmade, remake and vintage pieces. As usual, Minori is wearing her signature shironuri makeup.

Follow Minori on Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook.

Click on any photo to enlarge it.

safely run vintage DOS viruses in your browser  

At GDC 2013 Pinball Construction Set creator Bill Budge lays out the blueprints for how he came to construct a game that has (directly or indirectly) influenced generations of game developers. ...

Not too long ago I was asking a friend, is the 1998 Earth, Wind & Fire compilation among the greatest albums? Up there with In a Silent Way, OK Computer, or whatever else is in your canon? I meant them as statements, of course, and, yes, greatest hits are albums. From the early seventies to 1987 polymath Maurice White and his combo recorded some of the most buoyant tracks in music history. Play “That’s the Way of the World,” “September,” “Sing a Song,” “Serpentine Fire,” “Let’s Groove,” and my beloved “Fantasy” in a continuous sequence — all masterpieces of vocal arranging (notably whenever Philip Bailey’s falsetto shook the rafters), horn charts, and syncopation. George Clinton grumbled (“Earth, Hot Air & No Fire”!), and I understand, especially after “Can’t Hide Love” rips Clinton’s mannerisms from “I Bet You” and quotes him shamelessly. EW&F sold an astonishing number of albums and singles by taking funk to the pop mainstream. But where Clinton gummed up the works with a range of showboating guitarists and poop jokes, nobody in EW&F with the possible exception of Bailey stood out: an ensemble performing as a formidable whole. Even drummer White blurred into the ensemble, although he and bassist Verdine White forged the kind of rhythm section concentrating so hard on being tight that they didn’t mind being invisible.

Finally, aside from the flawless compilations EW&F recorded a few excellent albums. I recommend 1977’s All ‘N All for the presence of “Fantasy” and a couple of sweet Brazilian experiments and 1981’s post-disco Raise!, home of “Let’s Groove” but also “Lady Sun” and a rubberband-elastic funker called “The Changing Times.” White produced and helped write the airiest of dance music, often boasting the airheadest of lyrics. Call EW&F the best band the sixties happened to. When “Let’s Groove” and “September” play, peace and love as concepts — as aphrodisiacs — make sense.

Title meet score…

[Video][Website]
[8.45]

Thomas Inskeep: KING make cool, distinctive R&B with a Sade edge, whose influences span decades. They look like an updated version of SWV, around-the-way girls who knows what’s up, but their sound has more in common with ’80s Brit-cool soul like Loose Ends. “The Greatest” celebrates Muhammad Ali, and its accompanying video celebrates (with cheeky, clever Atari-esque graphics) black athletes of all stripes: if this feels like the most chilled-out anthem of empowerment you’ve ever heard, it’s probably because it is. The first great single of 2016.
[9]

Alfred Soto: A shimmering hologram, “The Greatest” has the beauty of a Swain-Jolley production: think Imagination or early Bananarama. The women don’t press further than they need; lines “Riddle and rhyme/the bravest thing is living in my prime” get no more emphasis than “I’m taking home the gold.” It’s unusual for a vocal group to take its cues from the synths and sequencers.
[8]

Cassy Gress: There are so many little crackly bits and sparkles and clicks and echoes and aural flutters in both channels of this song that it’s sort of messing with my head. The toms have a great reverb and bassiness to them, I’m always tickled to hear chords unexpectedly resolving into the major key, and this gets a great groove going. My only real quibble is that “who wants a run with the number one?” seems to be lifted out of a different song, one that doesn’t sound like a Lisa Frank sunset. I was disappointed when I realized the song was fading out.
[9]

Iain Mew: Afloat on the serene cloud of harmonies, I barely noticed that they were singing “flashing faster than the speed of light”, but the synth line somehow conveys the action without disrupting the reverie. “The Greatest” is like the winning moment taking part in something competitive when the world seems to slow down as everything goes exactly right. Except that never lasts long enough to give three minutes of blissful certainty.
[9]

Leonel Manzanares: I love it when a track is in the right spot between laid-back and busy. The Nintendo sounds and the aquatic synths recall this brilliant wave of Soundcloud producers creating the next musical revolution from their bedrooms, but unlike most of those digital native kids, their sonic punches aim for pop timelessness, and they manage to connect that hook. Quite appropriate for an Ali tribute.  
[8]

Maxwell Cavaseno: If you wanted to know what MKS was supposed to sound like had they not been buried by the ineptitude of Dev Hynes and perhaps with some of the smirking wisdom of Kid Creole, well look no further.
[7]

Will Adams: “Who wants a run with the number one?” goes the hook, flipping the song into competitive mode. It gives edge to the ultra-smooth production, which is so sumptuous on its own that it would’ve earned my high score.
[8]

Jonathan Bogart: The lyrical conceit of romantic sex as athletic competition is not generally one taken up by women (and you’d have to delete “romantic” to get more than trace amounts from men). But by injecting just the right amount of humor in both delivery and production, muffling and processing their voices until it sounds like they’re gasping for air without breaking a sweat, KING makes “The Greatest” sound not ruthless but cooperative, in the sweetest two-become-one sense possible.
[9]

Brad Shoup: If Green Gartside had been into boxing and humidity, this’d be your result.
[8]

Megan Harrington: Pleading ignorance of boxing in its entirety, when I listen to “The Greatest,” I hear Los Angeles. Today’s cinematic depictions of the city are so lush and commanding that they might be what 80s dreamers thought Mars would look like this decade. KING are traveling backwards, coating their work with a sticky layer of hairspray and packing it into a silver cruiser. “The Greatest” radiates an arid heat that only existed at the dawn of smog and in this murky past it almost boogies. 
[8]

David Sheffieck: Like sliding into a hot tub after a long day, champagne glass in hand, and feeling the tension and stress drift up from your toes, through your back and shoulders, until it floats away on the nearest breeze.
[10]

Flying Saucer Attack vinyl reissue campaign kicks off with Distance, Further and Chorus

The Domino label is set to reissue three Flying Saucer Attack albums this March. The announcement follows on from last year’s Instrumentals 2015,which marked the return of founding guitarist Dave Pearce after a 15-year hiatus. The three LPs to be repressed are Distance (1994), Further (1994) and Chorus (1995).

In his extensive feature on the West Country scene which produced Flying Saucer Attack (and associated bands such as Movietone, Third Eye Foundation and Crescent) in The Wire 378, Joseph Stannard describes Further in particular as the moment where Pearce "came into his own as songwriter and sonic architect. Opening with the extraordinary "Rainstorm Blues" and proceeding through an impeccably sequenced set of windswept reveries, in which excoriating noise and delicate melody combine in elemental union, Further is one of the most startling guitar records of the 1990s."

Distance, Further and Chorus are released by Domino on 18 March.

Nintendo's first smartphone app, Miitomo, will launch in the UK and the U.S. in March this year. ...

"Tencent's mini-console, Ministation, was available for sale in China on Dec 23, 2015. The console is presented by the Chinese mobile giant Tencent, not by some startup or Kickstarter." ...