This is easily one of the best covers of the Judy Garland classic - good orchestration, classic rendition. Modern singers rarely do this song well ...
My favorites of Kylie
Friday, April 18, 2008
Friday, March 21, 2008
Women
author Michael Swanwick has said: "Gene Wolfe is the greatest writer in the English language alive today. Let me repeat that: Gene Wolfe is the greatest writer in the English language alive today! I mean it. Shakespeare was a better stylist, Melville was more important to American letters, and Charles Dickens had a defter hand at creating characters. But among living writers, there is nobody who can even approach Gene Wolfe for brilliance of prose, clarity of thought, and depth in meaning."
From, The Fifth Head of Cerberus by Gene Wolfe, (p. 233, Ace pb)
++++++++++++++
But the dream of women -- actually, of a woman, a girl -- has set my mind again upon a theory I formulated when I was living in the mountains. It is so simple a theory, so obviously true, so self-evident that it seemed to me at that time that everyone must have thought of it; but I mentioned it several times to various people at the university at Roncevaux, and most of them looked at me as if I were mad. It is simply this: that all the things we consider beautiful in a woman are merely criteria for her own survival and thus the survival of the children we shall father in her. In the main (ah, Darwin!) those who followed these criteria in their ambushes of the female (for we do not really pursue them, do we? We are not swift enough. We leap upon them from cover, having lulled their suspicions) populated the worlds -- we are their descendants; while those who flouted them saw, in the long prehistory of man, their children torn by bears and wolves.
And so we seek long-legged girls, because a long-legged girl is swift to fly danger; and for the same reason a girl who is tall, but not too tall -- a girl will be swiftest at a height of about a hundred and eighty centimeters, or a little more. Thus, men will crowd around a girl as tall as an ordinary tall man (and her shorter sisters will lengthen the heels of their shoes and thicken the soles to seem like her). But a girl too tall will run clumsily, and one of, say two hundred and twenty centimeters will almost never find a husband.
In the same way the female pelvis must be wide enough to pass living infants (but not too wide or, again, she will be slow) and every man gauges the width of those bones when the girl has passed. Breasts there must be or our children will starve as babes -- so our instincts tell us still, and though a thin girl can run well, one too thin will have no milk when there is no food.
And the face. It has troubled artists ever since the fading of superstition allowed human portraiture -- they decide what shall be beautiful, then marry a woman with crooked teeth in a wide mouth. When we look at their pictures of the great beauties of history, the idols of the populace, the mistresses of kings, the great courtesans, what do we see? That one has mismatched eyes and another a large nose. The truth is that men care for nothing for any of these things, and want vivacity and a smile. (Will she see danger, will she kill the sons of my loins in her rage?).
The girl in my dream, you ask, what of her? Shadowy, but as I have described. Naked. No woman arouses me who wears even a wisp of clothing; and once at Roncevaux when I tried to slake my passion with a girl who did not divest herself of a sort of halter, I was a sad failure.
-- John V. Marsh, "V.R.T.", The Fifth Head of Cerberus by Gene Wolfe, (p. 233, Ace pb)
From, The Fifth Head of Cerberus by Gene Wolfe, (p. 233, Ace pb)
++++++++++++++
But the dream of women -- actually, of a woman, a girl -- has set my mind again upon a theory I formulated when I was living in the mountains. It is so simple a theory, so obviously true, so self-evident that it seemed to me at that time that everyone must have thought of it; but I mentioned it several times to various people at the university at Roncevaux, and most of them looked at me as if I were mad. It is simply this: that all the things we consider beautiful in a woman are merely criteria for her own survival and thus the survival of the children we shall father in her. In the main (ah, Darwin!) those who followed these criteria in their ambushes of the female (for we do not really pursue them, do we? We are not swift enough. We leap upon them from cover, having lulled their suspicions) populated the worlds -- we are their descendants; while those who flouted them saw, in the long prehistory of man, their children torn by bears and wolves.
And so we seek long-legged girls, because a long-legged girl is swift to fly danger; and for the same reason a girl who is tall, but not too tall -- a girl will be swiftest at a height of about a hundred and eighty centimeters, or a little more. Thus, men will crowd around a girl as tall as an ordinary tall man (and her shorter sisters will lengthen the heels of their shoes and thicken the soles to seem like her). But a girl too tall will run clumsily, and one of, say two hundred and twenty centimeters will almost never find a husband.
In the same way the female pelvis must be wide enough to pass living infants (but not too wide or, again, she will be slow) and every man gauges the width of those bones when the girl has passed. Breasts there must be or our children will starve as babes -- so our instincts tell us still, and though a thin girl can run well, one too thin will have no milk when there is no food.
And the face. It has troubled artists ever since the fading of superstition allowed human portraiture -- they decide what shall be beautiful, then marry a woman with crooked teeth in a wide mouth. When we look at their pictures of the great beauties of history, the idols of the populace, the mistresses of kings, the great courtesans, what do we see? That one has mismatched eyes and another a large nose. The truth is that men care for nothing for any of these things, and want vivacity and a smile. (Will she see danger, will she kill the sons of my loins in her rage?).
The girl in my dream, you ask, what of her? Shadowy, but as I have described. Naked. No woman arouses me who wears even a wisp of clothing; and once at Roncevaux when I tried to slake my passion with a girl who did not divest herself of a sort of halter, I was a sad failure.
-- John V. Marsh, "V.R.T.", The Fifth Head of Cerberus by Gene Wolfe, (p. 233, Ace pb)
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Insane Zombie Posse !!!!
If you've ever had the creeping desire to be in one of those zombie movies, your chance is coming into your home via the computer game, Left 4 Dead.
2 teams of 4 human players, each, in multiplayer mayhem ...
The 4 "survivors" must battle their way to a safety exit to win, plowing through hordes of AI zombies.
The multiplayer twist is that 4 zombie bosses, controlled by 4 other human players, have unique powers to defeat the "survivors".
The online play looks to be insanely frantic. Take a look at this fist full of video previews.
Try not to drool on your keyboard.
I'll be playing as zombie - who doesn't want to use the special vomit attack?
2 teams of 4 human players, each, in multiplayer mayhem ...
The 4 "survivors" must battle their way to a safety exit to win, plowing through hordes of AI zombies.
The multiplayer twist is that 4 zombie bosses, controlled by 4 other human players, have unique powers to defeat the "survivors".
The online play looks to be insanely frantic. Take a look at this fist full of video previews.
Try not to drool on your keyboard.
I'll be playing as zombie - who doesn't want to use the special vomit attack?
Saturday, July 21, 2007
My IMDB votes
You can now track my movie vote ratings on IMDB.
You may need to create a free user account on IMDB to view the votes.
You may need to create a free user account on IMDB to view the votes.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Screen toggle for Dawn of War game series
The following is code to allow the player to toggle the screen controls off and on to get a nice clear screenshot without the game user interface. In this case press "Control z" to toggle the controls off and on.
** These instructions are for the DoW games not installed from the STEAM service. STEAM uses a different file and folder structure than the DoW games you install from boxed retail. Post a query on the STEAM user forums about where to put autoexec.lua for any DoW game from STEAM. Also, see this screen toggle code on the STEAM forum. **
For boxed retail versions of DoW games ...
Place the text code in a file autoexec.lua in the Dawn of War program folder (or in Dark Cursade program folder). Each time you run the game the autoexec.lua file will be read.
Use a game startup icon without -dev command line option.
The screen toggle will only work when you are playing on a map (or a replay of a map). It does not work at any main menu screen.
(BELOW - click image for full size) Here is the location of autoexec.lua (Dark Crusade); put in same folder with game .exe for DoW 1 or DoW-Winter Assault ...
(BELOW - click image for full size) Here is the notepad image of the text contents for autoexec.lua ...
** These instructions are for the DoW games not installed from the STEAM service. STEAM uses a different file and folder structure than the DoW games you install from boxed retail. Post a query on the STEAM user forums about where to put autoexec.lua for any DoW game from STEAM. Also, see this screen toggle code on the STEAM forum. **
For boxed retail versions of DoW games ...
Place the text code in a file autoexec.lua in the Dawn of War program folder (or in Dark Cursade program folder). Each time you run the game the autoexec.lua file will be read.
Dawn of War screentoggle; file name and location -
E:\Program Files\THQ\Dawn of War\autoexec.lua
screenmode = 0
function toggle_screenmode()
if screenmode == 0 then
taskbar_hide()
message_hide()
screenmode = 1
else
taskbar_show()
message_show()
screenmode = 0
end
end
bind("Control+z", "toggle_screenmode()")
Use a game startup icon without -dev command line option.
The screen toggle will only work when you are playing on a map (or a replay of a map). It does not work at any main menu screen.
(BELOW - click image for full size) Here is the location of autoexec.lua (Dark Crusade); put in same folder with game .exe for DoW 1 or DoW-Winter Assault ...
(BELOW - click image for full size) Here is the notepad image of the text contents for autoexec.lua ...
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
Awesome game music
This will be a post I update occasionally.
Memorable music scores are most often associated with films. More and more computer game developers are hiring sophisticated composers to write for their games.
Here are a few off the top of my head which have superb music scores to rival the best film scores ...
[July 3, 2007]
Prey - visually awesome game that plays Escher type tricks with gravity. Great music score. A couple tracks as page background. Visit "Media" page, click "Creative Labs Demo" under Music. Find numerous samples of the composer's game music at his web site - Wikipedia article, visit "External Links"
Dawn of War - one music track as page background playback. Each faction gets it's own signature score as well as context sensitive music tracks during a game.
Saga - just ran across this, when the game is not yet released. Click the My Nation menu link to load the Flash to hear several music tracks. Really outstanding score.
Memorable music scores are most often associated with films. More and more computer game developers are hiring sophisticated composers to write for their games.
Here are a few off the top of my head which have superb music scores to rival the best film scores ...
[July 3, 2007]
Prey - visually awesome game that plays Escher type tricks with gravity. Great music score. A couple tracks as page background. Visit "Media" page, click "Creative Labs Demo" under Music. Find numerous samples of the composer's game music at his web site - Wikipedia article, visit "External Links"
Dawn of War - one music track as page background playback. Each faction gets it's own signature score as well as context sensitive music tracks during a game.
Saga - just ran across this, when the game is not yet released. Click the My Nation menu link to load the Flash to hear several music tracks. Really outstanding score.
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