The game may or may not be iPhone-able as the platform isn’t proving as easy to program for at this point. BUT I am going to point you in the direction of Mojiferous’ most recent accomplishment, Atomic Combat, which will be available soon!

Anyway, the whole point of this post is to let you all know that The Republic of Thoronia Band will be undertaking a new project over the winter. We’ll be recording a new soundtrack to the excellent Fallout 3. Why? Because frankly, the music in the game is background, and we think it provides an excellent platform to really expand on a lot of fun and interesting sci-fi musical nonsense. The soundtrack will follow the main quest, with a bonus EP of a select few side-quests. Look for it towards the end of January, and, as all things Thoronia, will be free.

So, we had some problems here in Thoronia. We posted an opinion on Deerhunter (an opinion, not a review) and it was linked to from a Deerhunter forum. This caused a lot of stress on the site, effectively taking it down. Why did this happen? Well, Deerhunter fans wanted to defend their honor, which is admirable, and we here in Thoronia think it’s great that they thought our sphere of influence was enough for it to matter. Of course, the bigger picture here is that we don’t have that much influence, the post in question was an opinion piece, not a review, and Deerhunter fans are idiots. We don’t like Deerhunter. Deal with it. It’s an opinion, when you resolve to overwhelm our site, which is TINY, it doesn’t accomplish anything except make us sad. Do you want to make Thoronia sad? Why would you want to do that? Lots of punches were thrown, including attacking the music of the Republic of Thoronia band. You can attack the music of the RoTB, that’s okay, but please do it on your own site in the form of a review or an opinion piece, don’t sit around and call us “cunts” and “idiots” or critique the album in the form of a comment. It’s stupid, doesn’t accomplish anything and… again, brings the site down. We live and work in the world and if you don’t like our opinions that’s quite alright, feel free to voice that in the comments, through email, or on your own blog, but when you link to us, give us a warning, give us a trackback and at the very least, withhold from making yourself look like an idiot. Case in point, we had to remove the offending post in order to move on. Sorry, but here is a quick summation: “I don’t like Deerhunter.”

On that note, here’s a song to make us all happy again:

Subject: Show this Friday, November 7th

Hello people. We have announcement making potential. This time, four or five six months ago, the Republic of Thoronia Band played a show. Now we make it again. November 7 at the hi-dive. Opening for Sunburned Hand of Man, Franklin’s Mint and Outer Neon. Funny thing is, show start at 9 o’clock. Not a joke. For real. Be there at 9 or miss the RoTB. Thanks.

Sincerely,

Good King Thor

So, after doing the new blog design I realized how painfully out of date and context the main page was… oh, and kind of ugly too. So, well, instead of doing a whole slew of things I should have been/needed to do today, I redesigned the website. Take a peek, and as always, forward all problems on to me, I haven’t had a chance to see how it looks in IE6, and am guessing there is probably going to be some font issues. I’d prefer not to have to turn everything into an image for obvious reasons, but if I have to I will. Thanks.

Anyway, comments are appreciated, let us know what you think of this new, simple design that (*hopefully*) works in IE6.

It’s now available on MP3.com by following this link. Be sure to rate the album while you’re at it.

As well as muxtape by following this link.

If you want to go all covert about it, you can search your favorite newsgroup client at alt.binaries.indie for “Republic of Thoronia.”

Anyone know of any other places to throw this shit? I want it on every free download service possible.

• If you’ve ever cheated on you husband or wife, ran over you child’s turtle, or accidently murdered you best friend’s parents, you might still be holding in your little secret, waiting for the perfect time to reveal the truth. Well, I have a proposition for you, tell them your secret right after they sneeze. People are so conditioned to hearing “bless you” or “gesssssooooooonnnnheit” after a sneeze they won’t even notice that you said, “I’msorryIsleptwithyoursister.” They’ll just reply, “thank you.”
• People build robot’s for a variety of reasons. I’m not sure why you’d build one to take all the fun out of air hockey though.
• I love it when companies try to copy Apple. It makes them look so stupid and pathetic — and ends up showcasing that the reason Mac’s are great is because of the extra amount of time they spend to ensure that their UI’s aren’t gaudy. Shit looks more comfortable in Minority Report than it does on a computer. Not that Microsoft has a track record for great UI’s.
• Seeing Wall-E was a great treat, and marks the first theatrical attendence since we were robbed while watching Sunshine. The movie was phenomenal, mostly due to the fact that Disney just didn’t seem to get it. But we did, the audience, oh yeah, we were in on the irony. The facade. The great visuals, endearing story, and simplistic, yet substantial argument against waste and laziness. Yeah, I got it. I’m as smart as a little kid. Oh, and the fact that there was hardly any dialougue for the first hour or so was pretty cool.
• Which reminds me of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris. My favorite movie. You should see it. Stat.
• We’re only eight days from the release of the new iPhone/firmware. I’m not entirely sure why people care more aout the hardware than the software — because it’s the software that has me excited. Don’t forget — the Repulic of Thoronia game is still in development. We are getting closer everyday and we’ll have concept shots up within the week — and hopefully screenshots within a month. Celebrate!
• If you haven’t heard of Wikileaks, or haven’t checked out the site, you really ought to. If nothing else it’s an interesting concept.

Via [Kotaku, Wired, Gizmodo, RoT, Consumerist]

Things to fix:

• Block quotes and lists being in Times.
• Weird rounded corners thing at the top of the screen.
• Only one post showing, I want more!
• Switch all/most things italicized to bold.
• Fix see through factor of the bottom navigation bar.
• Fix Upcoming Shows’ font color.

Do you spot something else? Can you even see anything in Internet Explorer? Hmmm…..!!!!!!!! Let me know anything else I’m missing, especially on PC’s!

King Thor and his internet connection have been arguing lately. It is believed that this is due to the FBI’s wiretapping the line after the release of the first book. Please stand by with us through these technical difficulties, if necessary, King Thor has aligned himself with several militants and prophets that will continue the stories and teachings of the Republic of Thoronia. Plans and situations have been set forth to ensure that the Republic of Thoronia — no matter what happens to King Thor, will never die.

I’ve heard from one person who was having problems with the .zip of the full album, so I’ve uploaded a .rar as well. Get it here.

We weren’t able to actually distiguish why he was running into problems. Which is why I’m just addressing it by uploading another format. The .zip worked fine for me, as well as for others, so who knows really?

Let me know if you’re having any other types of problems or weirdness on the downloads… other than them being slow — I don’t want to about hear that.

The .zip file has just reached the 50 downloaded mark. That doesn’t really sound like much, but it’s certainly more copies of the album in more people’s hands then ANYTHING My Calculus ever put out (I still have 200 records in my closet… anyone want one? Four? Ten?). Be sure to tell your friends, associates, anyone who you think might be interested in what the RoT has to offer. I mean, it’s free. How can you go wrong? ALSO! At the next RoT show, hard copies of the album will be available for free. Yes, free. They will be packaged in limited edition felt covers. When is the next show? I dunno. We may have t-shirts available for free as well. But the t-shirts aren’t anything too special, I mean you can make one yourself, just get a paint roller, some t-shirt silk screen ink, an old t-shirt and download this file. Print/copy it on a piece of mylar. Cut out the stencil, roll out the paint, stick your shirt in the oven for a minute and you’ll be good to go.

For all of you who love to remix (maybe what, one, two people?) the Republic of Thoronia  Episode 1 album is now ready to be remixed and chopped and screwed and etcetera by all of you. You know its kind of like what that one band did… what were they called? Dismemberment Plan. What were you thinking? Radiohead? No they ripped it off from DP. Anyway, only four tracks available now. If you want more, let me know. They are being uploaded at this moment, so if you try to download them this instant (09:45 AM MTN) then you’ll just get an error. Enough babble…

• “Here is Where We Are” (Remix Tracks 124MB)
• “March of the Tote” (Remix Tracks 126 MB)
• “When the King Comes Home” (Remix Tracks 60 MB)
• “For Him We Move” (Remix Tracks 91 MB)

That’s right folks, the first Republic of Thoronia full-length album, Episode 1, is now available! Now, there are several ways for you to go about getting said album:

Download .zip

Download Mp3’s individually

Download individual tracks for remix (set your face to “stun” for the file size, 1.1 GB… youch!)

UPDATE: REMIX TRACKS WILL BE UP TOMORROW/WEDNESDAY – My server doesn’t want a 1.1 GB file resting inside it’s laurels, so I’m going to cut up and divide three of the tracks into three seperate downloads. For now, just enjoy the album, you can do your fiddling with it later.

That’s it!

The MP3’s are all 192kps, high quality. Enjoy.

TRACK LISTING

01 — Introduction to Thoronia (narration)

02 — Here is Where We Are

03 — What the Good King Must Say (Narration)

05 — Interlude

06 — When the King Comes Home

07 — The Unicorn Man (Narration)

08– For Him We Move

Seems simple enough, no? Anyway, so there you have it. People have been repeatedly asking me questions about the sound, “What’s it gonna sound like?” “What kind of music is it?” “Is it going to be noisy?” I usually reply that the album should be up and finished very very soon, but people want more. They want it referenced, like a fucking Encyclopedia. So, fine, here: 

That’s all for now, I have work to do!

The purpose of this is create a more community based experience on the user end. The people of the Republic of Thoronia must unite, because having several bloggers blog together is much stronger than keeping us all seperate and apart.

So if you’ve ever found yourself amused by my bemusings, or strangling the mouse to my antics, please, apply. Together we can make the Republic strong. Together we can fight the power. Together we can shed light on a world filled the darkness of a King that has, for the now, gone missing.

UPDATE: The server errors seem to have stopped after I talked to my provider. So, no need to worry about that… for now. For those that care/in the know, it appears that my database server was different then my web server, and that was a shared server — other people were overloading it and causing my PHP to get pissed about it. So, either they fixed it, or when I changed the PHP to a longer timeout range it fixed it. Yep, interesting stuff there.

I’ve been screaming “fuck” all day so you don’t have to. Sorry kids, even King’s fuck it all up sometimes.

UPDATE: For those keeping track, that means that over 100 posts have been lost, tons of style functions are gone, plugins, musings, drafts, photos… everything. Gone, because I’m an idiot.

I came across this incredibly well though out conversation on a very popular forum. Here are some highlights from “I’m playing a hipster fag artsy house show tonight:”

(In reference to name introduction)

[Chakra] “a guy named “thorin” though, so ya, i earned some hipster points tonight…”

(in reference to music)

[Adrenochrome] “Hey fyi I think the MP3 files are broken all I hear is static and it’s unbearable.”

(In reference to the first book).

[Antinomy] – “there might be jokes in that somewhere but the tone is horrible.” 

[Chakra] – “see, that p. mu ch sums up hipsters to me” (still in reference to the first book)

[Antimony] – “i looked over it a little and i guess its supposed to be like a discordian text or something but the prose is self-concious rather than detached which is strange if he has a zest writing. oh i get what you mean but i guess it just comes off a little juvenile for that to work, Imo.”

[Chakra] – “true.”

Alright, so let’s go ahead and assess and clear up. First and foremost, my name is Thorin — it’s my birthname, no quotation marks. Although my powers are unlimited, I do not, repeat do not designate “hipster points” whatever they may be. Perhaps you should have read Hipstermon. Second, static is beautiful – it is the sound of the ocean. Third, how the first book of Thoronia relates to hipsters is completely and totally beyond me. I believe you to be a fucking tool of whatever world you live in and perhaps if you’d stop reading Spin or hanging out with people that talk about New York all the time and go out to shows and actually meet “hipsters” you’d quickly realize that:

• A) Not all people that play music and have friends are “hipsters” 
• B) Being a “hipster” is not necessarily a bad thing, by certain definition it just means you are well known in a music or other scene and people actually like you. 
• C) The people that likely classify themselves as “hipsters” are more like you than like me, and less “cool” than you’d think. 
• D) If this was indeed a “hipster” party I imagine that more than 8 people would have been there.
• E) If “hipster” is to “cool” what 4 is to 4 than I am 10. 

So if you’re going to call the The First Book a hipster text have some fucking sense — call it shit, call it stupid, call it gay, or fag, or whatever else but don’t use it as an example of why I’m a “hipster.”

Perhaps you’re reading into this as a “discordian text?” Nope. Wrong. I do not think that chaos is good and I AM OBVIOUSLY IN FAVOR OF ORGANIZED RELIGION. Organized around me, thanks. I have a zest for writing, that’s true, I like it and I’m not sure why that has anything to do with it being self-referential — in fact if you wanted it to be “detached” that sounds more un-zestfull. I use Zest in the morning… no wait, that’s Irish Spring. Nevermind. 

All the other stuff is useless critique. But I am curious as to why one would agree to play at a function that they obviously have set themself up to not enjoy…

I hope that clears a few things up. I do not mind being judged and torn apart — that will continue on into my elder years. I will take advice and critique. You can talk about it, hate on it, rag on it, love it, kiss it, and T27 it. But don’t relate the Republic of Thoronia to “hipster” in any way shape or form. 

Unnecessary quantity of gold and silver must, in Thoronia, be exercised only. Which can given King the command of more labour, and of a greater quantity of the merchant of whom he purchases goods, and thereby enables him to continue his countries and the value of those metals, their proportion to all these things, and consider what a variety of labour is employed about and silver which we can afford to purchase or to employ, either which sells for half an ounce of silver at Canton, may there be really tillage, than any other law in the statute book. It is from this turned away from guarding against the exportation of gold and corn is likely to be forestalled, that is, bought up in order to generally be willing to do so, and even for a good deal less to others who often live in a very distant part of the country. How much in his neighbourhood? But neither the bounty, it is evident, nor of that amount. In this state of things, and during the continuance of any would soon return again, of its own accord. Abroad, it could sell only for its weight in bullion.

H. Klinton vs. Obama. How you consider, who will win elections in Unated States of America?

As the car starts the girl appears at the door of Jerusalem’s. The backlighting makes her look like a bit of an angel, but I’m sure that neon could make a bridge-troll look like Dolly Parton at the right angle. 

 Other details that are being released are as follows: GUI is based on construction paper cutouts and felt. Game slated for initial release to iPhone/iPod Touch, with ports to PC and Mac later in the year. The two companies think it would work swell on the Wii, if anyone has any information for developing on that. The cost likely will be free, but may be upwards of $5 if the duo gets greedy.   If anyone has suggestion for puzzles, conundrums or trivials or wants to help, assist, lend in anyway, we would be much appreciative. After we get the text mapped out and the locations solidified there is going to be a lot of cutting and pasting and cutting of construction paper and felt, and oh heavens, the music, yes there will be music… hell, maybe we’ll get Matthew Mcconaughey to do some voice acting, I don’t think he’s doing anything worthwhile with his life right now.  We will also need beta testers on all platforms (so if anyone has a jailbroken iPhone/iPod Touch and wants to win the heart of a God, get in touch).