UPDATE (FEB 20): It looks like my I/O interface, an Omega Lexicon Pro has officially bit the dust, making recording live an impossibility. Before anyone tells me to record track by track, be forewarned, I don’t roll like that. Live or not at all. This doesn’t mean Space Pilgrim isn’t going to be recorded soon, it most certainly will be, as I’m really happy with the songs and the words and story are totally stupid and absurd. I’ll make it happen eventually, but not by February 28. Insert obligatory sad-face.

On top of that I’m also kicking jams and ideas out for Mojiferous’ “Increase Speed, Drop Down, Reverse Direction,” (video below).

2010 is going to be an awesome, productive year for the Republic. Keep your eyes on the prize.

Dear King Thor,

I’ve been reading your blog for several yrs. Like, how much effort would it take to update more often?

Waitin’ Wally

Dear Waitin’ Wally,

It is not within the realm of the Good King’s Knowledge to answer this question, which appears to be a rude comment, which is not okay and not worthy of being commented upon for the sake of the talk of the one and True and Good King. For now then we wait.

Always Yours,

King Thor

Dear Thorin,

Hey man, what’s up? I’ve been listening to Episode 1 and I’m a bit curious of something. In “Here is Where We Are” you say that the King is “Watching over you” but on page 13 of the Second Book of Thoronia, you say “The King neither sees nor cares what happens in your world.” So, which is it?

Utterly Confused

Dear Utterly Confused,

I can see your confusion. However, I think that you’re forgetting about the Adventures of the Good King: the graphic novel. On page 56, when speaking to Athanasius Kircher and William Tell, the Good King mentions that although he watches the people that he has created, he doesn’t really pay attention to what they are doing.

Dear King Thor,

Why don’t you include instrument lists, or band members or anything with your albums?

WTF

Dear WTF,

In Thoronia, we prefer to remain anonymous. But, I suppose that since you asked, we can share a few things. Here are the band members that were involved with the recording of Simoebic Dysentery:   ______________   – Roland SH-201. On Episode 1, the instruments included: Accordion, Keyboard, Drums, vocals, spoons, whistling and a computer. Thanks for asking!

King Thor

Dear Thorin,

Why won’t you sing in your real voice? You some kind of pussy?

Sincerely,

Pussy Puncher

What makes you think that I don’t sing in my own voice? For all you know I don’t even exist, and this whole thing is just a complex algorithm that was recorded hundreds of years ago and is playing out on this blog and webpage. The voice is not the voice of a human, or a god, but of a computer. This all exists purely so that you, Pussy Puncher, would have an excuse to live, and now that this wall has been broken, the wizard exposed, you no longer have a purpose.

“The machine was open. No kidding, just sitting there, wide open on a Sunday, a hundred quarters just sitting there.” My pulse was beating hard when I spoke these words to my friend Andy over the phone, “And I got a free issue of the Sunday Rocky Mountain News.”

“Enough of the Rocky,” he said to me, “how much did you get?”

It was a wide-open change box of the Rocky Mountain News newspaper box that enabled me to purchase my first Sonic Youth album, 1995’s Washing Machine. Living in a small town the box probably wasn’t cleaned out too often; in fact, it seems like we only received the Sunday edition of the Rocky, they never bothered bringing us the news during the week. In this open box was 140 quarters, probably all from that day alone.  So there I was, $35 right in front me, faced with a decision that, I’ll be honest, wasn’t too difficult to make. I packed the quarters into my backpack and biked home. My parents were gone for the day, so I dumped the money out all over the bed and began to count. That’s when I called my friend Andy. He’d just picked up Washing Machine and was listening to it while I talked to him.

“What is that?” I asked.

“It’s Sonic Youth. It’s amazing,” he said.

I was hearing, I found out later, the last track “Diamond Sea,” a 19-minute freakout that would later blow my mind with face-melting noise riffs that I can honestly say I never thought I’d hear in my life.

So I went out with my quarters and bought the album. The clerk, a face that I’d learn to know over the next few years, congratulated me on purchase, but looked at me with a distinct air of annoyance as I plopped down the $15 worth of quarters.

“You give up collecting them or something?” the clerk said to me.

Startled at someone questioning the origin of the quarters, I muttered something about a crazy aunt or uncle and ran out of the store.

I popped it in my Aiwa CD player when I got home. “Becuz” kicked in and my brain felt like it was about to hemorrhage. “What is this?” I thought to myself. “This can’t be music, this is, this is something else all together.”

Then the nine-minute title track hit me in the face. My eyes opened wide, the feeling of panic hit me, and for whatever reason, I began to feel guilty about my recent treasure hunt. Thurston Moore seemed to be yelling at me, Kim Gordon slapped me in the face, Gordon sang, “it’s a woman’s face/ and she threw a quarter down at me and she said / ‘honey, here’s a quarter go put it in the washing machine.’” The rock continued to pummel me in the face, and the words echoed over and over in my head, “here’s a quarter.” They knew. I don’t know how, but Sonic Youth knew I bought their album with quarters that weren’t rightfully mine.

I took the CD off, sat down on my bed and stared at the backpack filled with quarters. I never mentioned it again, I never bought anything larger than a soda or some candy with Blackbeard’s stolen change. I even bought a few copies of the Rocky each week to pay them back. As far as I was concerned, I owed them the $35 that I stole. I think I still owe them about $25, but after they went out of business I realized it probably doesn’t matter much anymore.

Steve Gaynor, in his blog Fullbright, applies some of Roland Barthes’ (read the essay I’m thinking of here) idea’s to video games in his essay “Being There”. Oddly, he doesn’t actually mention Barthes, but it does bring some interesting arguments about authorship to the table. Worth reading if you want to picture new world with new video game design. It also brings up an interesting point in reference to Barthes’ idea’s, namely that his thoughts can be applied to any medium. I’ve heard of Barthes being taught in design classes, English, math, philosophy, history and so forth. “The Death of The Author” is one of the most applicable and easy to manipulate pieces of modern criticism, and Gaynor proves it (even if he doesn’t know it).

While we’re on the topic of video games, Brainy Gamer takes on immersion in regards to Fallout 3. He talks about this a few times in several other parts of his blog, all of them worth reading. I’m still waiting for more about his students’ take on Fallout 3 though, as I’m really curious as to how they’ll take it after playing through 1 and 2 His students played through FO 1 and 2, and their reactions to 3 can be found here (and yeah, you read that all right, as far as I can tell he teaches a Game class at a college level, but I’m still not too sure of the title of the course… either way, awesome, and something that I look forward to doing myself someday).

Oh screw it, here’s another video game story from the Escapist. Les Chappell’s article, “The Vintage Game Preservation Society” talks a bit about abandonware and copyright issues. But, more importantly has links to website’s that show how to get Syndicate and System Shock 2 running on OSX (or Windows XP for that matter).

Miles of tunnels beneath London are currently for sale. In what sounds like the beginning of a James Bond movie, London has set the price for its historic tunnels at $7.4 billion. Now, I realize that whoever purchases this will probably use it for good, what with its historical importance and all, but at the same time can’t help but wondering what type of evil, world-taking over plan might be able to be hatched from these tunnels. That being said, the Republic of Thoronia is currently in negotiations to take hold of the tunnels. If all goes well we will be moving in on the 1st of January.

Wall-E was released this last week on DVD, ha-za!

Black Friday has come and gone with “only” a trampling and a shooting. Pundits are pointing to the economy for blame on this, saying that this might not have ever happened if we weren’t in such rough economic times. I would argue that this might not have ever happened if we weren’t so driven by money, consumerism and “deals.” It doesn’t matter that we have no money, it matters that this thing I’ve never heard of until just now is HALF OFF (MSRP that is, it’s actually only $15 cheaper than the normal Wal-Mart Price, just FYI). The worst part is that many of these “deals” that happened on Black Friday were available on the internet, and many of them weren’t actually deals at all. Truth be told, American’s really want to risk their lives and karmic well-being in order to fight over Xbox’s and HDTV’s, which is amazingly sad. It’s always a bit disheartening this time of year when you get to actually see what drives people. I realize it’s the same old thing, the same thing said a million times before, and the same thing I’ll say next year… but every year I’m just blown away by how ludicrous our holiday ideal’s have become. Besides, everyone knows the best HDTV deals come after Christmas and before the Super Bowl. Duh.

Did you know that many of the Thoronian’s are based in Denver, Colorado? It’s true, and many of us are combining our forces to bring you comprehensive coverage of the Democratic National Convention.. from the outside of them. You see, we’re not politicians, Democrats, or, for that matter, important or passionate enough to get into the convention, so for us, well, we get to deal with the silliness that happens outside. Our poor little Denver, uprooted and moved to a National stage, while the rest of us are just trying to do our damn jobs. We’ve already gotten in contact with the folks over at Cycle Jerks, whom will be providing us with a few live tweets and photos (as well as other Bicycle Messengers who get to deal with the blunt sword of the police as well as “new” laws, rules and bike lanes), a Copy Center Manager (who travels to work via bicycle via the Cherry Creek path, i.e. right in the midst of where EVERYONE who gets their free bike for week will be), retail workers (OMG did Barrack Obama send someone to buy the new Coldplay for him! WTFDHDTNROTBA (Why the fuck didn’t he just download the new Republic of Thoronia Band album?), machinery delivery personel, and myself, a mild mannered Medical Records Clerk looking for lunch.

Running up to the events (August 25th-28th), we’ll cover some of the ways Denver has miraculously changed (new bike lanes appearing where car lanes used to be/still are, city streets being cleaned… for a massive amount of people to dirty again, new laws being enforced, security checkpoints, inside the Pepsi Center Parking lot and more).

Anyone else that works downtown or close to it should get in touch with me if you’re interested in eavesdropping on blogger’s Macbook’s, hotel conversations or sexy John Edwards extramarital meetings (Celebrity spotters need too!).

THE REPUBLIC OF THORONIA BAND.

Please update your iDevices to reflect this change. We’ve also added several new members to the musical project, including: Vlon (the magical drum playing Dragon), Chaestitty (the angel of harmonics) and Steel (the wicked guitar solo creating dwarf).

Thanks.

• 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]

He is sitting in the waiting room of Dr. Cynthia Mason’s plastic surgery clinic in Denver, Colorado, tapping his foot in eager anticipation. Clad in a tight cowboy shirt and even tighter jeans, 25 year-old Steven Muldue doesn’t appear to be the type of person that you’d likely expect to see in a plastic surgeons waiting room. With a sleek and slightly mussed haircut and an air of vintage vogue, Steven may be a better fit at a high fashion photo shoot or dingy nightclub – his anticipatory foot tapping seems to be to the tune of a straight 4/4 riff, his eyes glossed with a gleam of waiting for a day he thought would never come.

That’s because most thought it never would.

The waiting room has been filling with types like Muldue for the past six months, after a recent surgery by Dr. Mason gave local Radiohead enthusiast Michael Garafalo a treatment that made him look more like Radiohead lead singer Thom Yorke. The treatment, which Dr. Mason perfected by slicing a small section of the eyelid, has been dubbed by local fanatics as the Yorke-cut. In the simplest terms, the $600 surgery gives fans a chance to recreate on their own person the trademark Thom Yorke Amblyopiatic left eye.

more…

via [Westword]

Super Ants Attack Houston — Yep, super ants. They use their dead to build bridges over pesticide, have multiple queens and are destroying electronics. Take that Sylvester Stallone!

Chinese realize censorship is bad, or at least that they can’t control it… — The recent earthquake in Central China has given us some terrifying images. Suprisingly, the Chinese government hasn’t tried to hold back a nation that boasts being the leader in owners of cell phones, digital cameras and other gadgetlike do-hickeys.

Toyota tries to show Honda’s Asimo whose boss – Fails, because nothing is cooler than Asimo.

For those worried about zombie related injuries – Wired has a wiki-how to for you. Go! Get out! Hurry!

Neil Young gets a spider named after him — A biologist at East Carolina University has named a trapdoor spider Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi. I’ve always thought Neil Young’s strange hair was a little spider like.

Myspace wins Spam lawsuit — I’m sure that we’ll all get a piece of that financial pie. No?

Cyclists take to freeway — Proof that cyclists can have hard heads some times. But, you know, proves that gridlocked traffic sucks too.

Decemberists prove they’re smart by opening up for… Obama? – Yep, now even indie bands have a say. Didn’t the Canadian act Arcade Fire do the same thing? Well, at least the Decemberists can vote in America. Of course, they don’t help Obama’s struggle with the working class, being the slightly pretentious college educated folk that they are. But they do up the adorability factor of Obama’s campaign.

Don’t worry, the Scarlett Johanson album is terrible – I mean really really really really really really really really really really really bad. Even if you don’t like Tom Waits you’ll be offended. It’s even produced by one fo the guys from TV on the Radio, has some famous people like some guy named Nik Zinner and some flamboyant guy named David Bowie doing stuff — but guess what? You can’t stop a piece of shit from stinking by adding more crap to it!

King Thor was going to start recording on Sunday — And realized that he was missing a power chord. Boo-urns. Don’t fret though! The recording starts today. Geffen Records here I come!

Dolphin gets prothetic tail. “Is this a fucking joke?” you might ask. No, no joke. 

Scarlett Johansson set to release tribute album to Tom Waits. Um, yeah I don’t get it either. I never really understood tribute albums in general, but especially tribute albums to people whom are still alive. Oh, and by an actress nonetheless, an actress with a big lip and sexy last name.

Russia on its way back to the top. ”Awwwwww…… shitttttttttt!” Says Obama, “Fuck!” shouts McCain. They both drop out and King Thor is elected. He then goes to Russia and ice skates with Putin, talks about the upcoming and amazing looking, Stalin vs. Martians. Then we eat ice cream and high five while listening to Bruce Springsteen.

Gore Verbinski (you know, the director who did the craptastical trilogy Pirates of the Caribbean) will be directing the new Bioshock movie. Bioshock was hailed by many as being a narrative masterpiece (Essentially being: a man is in a plane wreck, finds underwater dystopia, fights his way out, innovative, I know… becuase it’s underwater) and to be honest, I only partially agree. I mean the game is alright. It’s nothing mind-blowing. I mean, simply because the writers create and Ayn Rand inspired underwater fright show doesn’t mean the game has a great narrative. It certainly asks question, gives answers and sometimes makes the gamer make a choice — or at least gives the gamer the illusion of choice. If Bioshock gave us nothing else, it gives us a game that seems to recognize that it’s a game, and then subsequently sets out to screw with the player.

Now Microsoft wants to buy Facebook. I’m growing a little tired of Microsoft’s ambition’s to simply purchase everything. Or, more accurately, I’m growing a little weary that Microsoft hasn’t tried to purchase The Republic of Thoronia. 

Torrentspy gets a $111 million copyright lawsuit. I still can’t believe that nobody is getting the hint that people don’t want to pay for their crappy music tastes. Maybe the music and video industries should consider just DROPPING the prices. Price drops=more sales. Why the hell does nobody ever talk to me about these things?

College’s are becoming less selective. High prices and dropouts are causing college’s to dig deeper into their wait lists. President Bush comments, “See, I told you that my education plan had a point.” Could this possible be related to the ever increasing cost of going to college that was spiked by Bush’s cut of education funding to pay for the war? Hmm, no, I’m sure this was his plan all along, no?

Nintendo’s WiiWare launched. Fanboys get stoked. XBOX and PS3 owners are confused, since they’ve had indie-centric titles since their upstarts. Whatever, I’m going to go download Defend Your Castle and think about how awesome the Republic of Thoronia game is going to be on a Wii.

Obama wins Guam by seven votes. Seven, that’s is seven Guamanese… Guamos, Guamatanomos… people from Guam that made a difference, even though they can’t vote in November!

Iron Man the Movie comes out. Fanboys think it’s the “best comic book movie ever,” sorta-fanboys say, “It was pretty alright, better than Spiderman 3,” non-fanboys say, ‘Why did they base a movie off a Black Sabbath Song? Bah bah bah bah bah, bona bona bona bona bona DUN DUN DUN!”

Let’s Yoga is released for Nintendo DS. Girlfriends everywhere hijack DS for a week, give up, tell their boyfriends they should start doing Yoga. “It’s only eight minutes a day, what the hell else do you do?” They say… “We do important things,” we say, “Like write about the news.”

Some website launches, wants to pay its writers peanuts. Sometimes people ask me questions about how much I get paid. I usually tell them. In this particular case, this website wants to pay its writer the equivilent of .012 cents per word. That’s about six dollars for a 500 word article. Let’s put it this way, even the Onion pays .10 cents a word.

Microsoft finally backs off the Yahoo bid.  Yahoo is like, sha’ like we’re totally worth more than that. OMG. We have the gayest, stupidest logo using the most god awful fucking font ever. Buy us at $37 a share!

Since Microsoft gives up, some type of merger has to happen, DT, known to Americans as T-Mobile is considering puting in a bid for Sprint/Nextel. That means it would be at least three companies rolled up into one. Firefighters wonder if they’ll still get a chance to balance the budget.

GKT levels up to 55 in COD4. Unemployment has allowed him to get pretty dang good.

Genetics found to be the cause of most problems. Now its oseoporosis and other bone fractures. Creationists and religious zealots insist, “It’s God’s fault your fucked up, not your parents.” 

Tecmo Bowl is announced for the Nintendo DS. GKT get’s super stoked.

NIN hops on the free train. Apperently Trent Reznor’s head isn’t as much like a hole as we’d all thought. Perhaps this is because of Radiohead’s success, perhaps it’s because NIN is indeed a progressive band. As long as there is a song with a vocoder and a theremin I’ll be happy.

• Wesley Snipes get’s tax-sniped — For “forgetting about taxes.” Yeah, I know that your were busy thinking about how awesome your character in Blade is, but even half-vampires have to pay taxes. Have fun thinking about Blade 4-8 while you hang out in prison for THREE YEARS. Ha!
• Grand Theft Auto IV is released – Millions upon millions of fanboys surround local Gamestop’s and Target’s to pick up the most overrated, stupidly conceived, boring game of the last decade to make trillions of dollars. Critics around the world gloat of it being the greatest thing since Jesus, mother’s of children who want the game smack them and buy Mario Kart instead. King Thor rates GTAIV 1/5 crowns, gets internet punched by Kotaku.
• King Thor decides that the new Nick Cave album, Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! is the hottest shit to hit his “decks” in months. Suddenly, KT is surrounded with joy and excitement as he realizes that not all new music is filled with critic-friendly words like, “orchestrated,” “baroque,” or “massive.” He listens to it everyday, along with Bruce Springsteen Nebraska and Marty Robbins Gunfighter Ballads.
• Fanboys and gadget dorks worldwide continue to speculate on the new iPhone. Highlights include: 3G support, penis tickler, 5 megapixel camera and the ability to sort laundry. Mac fans cream themselves and buy new iMac’s, drive Volvo’s into the sunset while listening to U2 and thinking about their graphic design job.
• Clinton and Obama continue on — You know how during the Super Bowl it was really great watching the Giants come from behind to beat the favorited Patriots? Well, that was a fun, edge of the seat defeat that proved that Super Bowl’s could still be interesting. The democratic nomitation is going the same way, with Obama coming out of nowhere to defeat the Patriots. Er, Clinton. The only problem is that it’s like a 10 PM starting Stanley Cub Playoff game that is in the 5th overtime. We all just want to go to bed, but we still need to know who wins.
• Peta Announces Fake Chicken Challenge — Chickens around the world bawk at the stupidity of it all.
• RoT Website FUCKS UP. Loses half this post. GKT too lazy to retype it all…