gocco experiments I got a print gocco at the start of fall and it laid dormant until a couple nights ago. Will have to report on experiments soon, but for now I will say it's extremely fun yet I feel guilty about the waste you generate as you use it. I am making new years postcards -- co-authors please email me your addresses.

welcome to episode #2 of fred's adventures in 8-bit gaming. gradius is a classic. it's a side-scroller, and you're a ship that as you go along gets more and more decked out with extra speed, shields, missiles, and lasers. you have to shoot various mechanical-looking enemies and dodge their variously-shaped projectiles to, i suppose, save the world. the game gets pretty tough, but one of the best features is an upgrade, similar to in galaga, where you get an enhancement that acts like an additional ship and doubles your firepower. in gradius you can get up to two of these at one time which is totally the high point of the game, although apparently in the arcade version you can get even more. yet another NES game that's gotten me completely hooked and has me looking forward to the sequels.

etsy Have you ever been to etsy.com?? This site is amazing. It's basically a "open your own online store" site, but for crafters. This is fascinating for two reasons. One, back when I was doing lots of jewelry a few years ago, I wanted to sell my stuff online but there wasn't a cost efficient way to do so if you were looking at low volume sales. You either had a crappy storefront (ebay stores, your own store with a paypal shopping cart) or you paid a hefty monthly fee at Yahoo stores. Etsy is ebay costs but with a real storefront. The second is that it seems like the guys who invented this are really using this as a platform to show off the searching and tagging things that the stores are based around. There are all these crazy media-labbish interfaces where you can browse through the stores by color or most recently sold. Also, this site is only a few months old. I think this is brilliant. Also, this is getting me infected with a serious crafting bug. I can tell this will be bad news for my productivity..

I can't stop watching this Sony shot a commercial in San Francisco on my cousin's street. They sent 250,000 superballs down the hill and filmed it. The extended version of the ad in high-res is worth it, it just takes forever to load. It's absolutely stunning. There's also a 7 minute long "making of" movie which is cool if you ignore the talky parts. Sony BRAVIA - The Advert Extended hi-res commercial Behind the scenes movies

A narrow escape It appears that after two years of politically-induced stupor, Californians have finally snapped out of it. SFgate.com | THE SPECIAL ELECTION : CALIFORNIANS SAY NO TO SCHWARZENEGGER STATE MEASURES My favorite article from yesterday has to be the one about San Francisco voters grumbling as they go to the polls. The initiatives were somewhat close in the state overall, but went down in flames here. SFgate.com | SF voters show up, but they aren't smiling.

i've recently started a monthly mixtape/CD group modelled after the international mixtape project at this BBC subsite i've been into lately (interested, winnie?). for my first mix i wanted to take advantage of the slightly longer time on a cassette (and also to use up at least one of the many cassettes i still have lying around), and so i threw together an ABC mix. this is another one of those mostly hodge-podgy mixes of one-off tracks that i like reasonably well but haven't yet used, and i generally leant towards being semi-indie and generally upbeat. i tried not to worry too much about trying to fix the tracks that stick out too much (e.g. the jimmy eat world), and since 26 tracks didn't fit, rather than beat myself up trying to find shorter tracks i just deleted my least favorite. if you were wondering, they were: bis . sci-fi superstar ladybug transistor . wooden bars neutral milk hotel . holland, 1945. not much more to say, other than to give a quick mention to gifrants, a haitian busker (solo acoustic guitar and voice) in boston who i liked enough to buy his CD. i'm saving my favorite track of his for another mix, but this track's pretty good too. --- we do the dance up on the plains collective mix #1: abc mix side a 1 animal collective . feels . grass 2 cibo matto . viva! la woman . know your chicken 3 death cab for cutie . plans . marching bands of manhattan 4 brian eno . another day on earth . this 5 flake music . when you land here, it's time to return . the shins 6 gifrants . vwa e gita volim i . zanmourèt 7 the hang ups . second story . the queen 8 insides . sweet tip . all life long 9 jimmy eat world . self-titled . bleed american 10 stephen kellogg . lucky eleven . as good as it's been 11 modest mouse . the moon & antarctica . 3rd planet 12 of montreal . the sunlandic twins . so begins our alabee side b 13 the polyphonic spree . together we're heavy . section 12 (hold me now) 14 q-burns abstract message . invisible airline . this time 15 josh rouse . nashville . winter in the hamptons 16 764-hero . weekends of sound . terrified of flight 17 tahiti 80 . wallpaper for the soul . get yourself together 18 underworld . a hundred days off . twist 19 versus . two cents plus tax . underground 20 ween . chocolate & cheese . voodoo lady 21 xiu xiu . fabulous muscles . i love the valley OH! 22 young people . epitonic.com . el paso 23 thalia zedek . matador at fifteen (comp) . 1926

tidbits of food and games Yesterday I had my cousins over for a Chinese comfort-food brunch. Foodwise it was exceedingly easy to throw together, since almost everything came out of a jar or just needed reheating. Apartment-wise we spent a whole day trying to clean up. On the menu: Rice porridge with various toppings -- pickled cucumbers, pork sung, some sort of tinned fish, pickled mustard greens, wheat gluten, something labelled "8 varieties spicy sauce" Homemade soymilk, with the machine I haven't used in over 2 years Steamed pork and plain buns Scallion pancakes Turnip cakes I'll be doing this again, maybe as soon as next weekend! Now onto the game -- I bought a couple board games at a funny thrift store this summer, and we finally opened one last night -- SOLARQUEST. I'd never heard of it, but M. said she used to play it as a kid. It's basically monopoly except in outer space, and that causes it to have all sorts of complications such as keeping track of how much fuel you have left in your tank. It was rather difficult to figure out, but now that I have 60% of the rules down, I want to play it again! The outside of the box is tattered but everything inside is pristine -- not a single crinkled bill or deed. I guess the kids that got this couldn't figure out the instructions either.. The other game I got is "13 Dead End Drive" which has yet to be opened. Oh, the other cool thing about this thrift store was that they noted on the outside of the box whether the games were complete, or if they were missing any pieces!

welcome to the first installment of fred's adventures in 8-bit gaming. i've been discovering (and in some cases re-discovering) some really fantastic NES games (and emulators greatly aid in my obsessiveness by letting me come back to the middle of a game that otherwise wouldn't have any save state). 8-bit games are so classic b/c w/ the limited platform video game creators were forced to rely on their creativity to keep the game interesting. the result? games that on the surface are simplistic in terms of graphics and options but are incredibly addictive and oftentimes incredibly hard. adventures of lolo is a puzzle game that in many ways reminds me of MIT's teaching philosophy. in each room there are only a very tiny number of options: blocks can be pushed but not pulled, and some enemies can be stunned and then pushed and used as rafts or to block other enemies. however, the game stays entertaining throughout its many levels b/c each puzzle requires you to move just beyond your knowledge of what you've seen and done before, and to re-evaluate your assumptions to think a bit outside of your comfort zone and figure out how to accomplish the new goal. highly recommended. it'll be interesting to see how the sequels are.