Dispatches from the Commission

He was so unsure, the prince. The worries tugged at his hands, and drew lines on his face. Perhaps he didn’t have reason to worry, perhaps he did; he could never tell one way or the other.

It had been so long, he had given up trying to tell.

One night (or was it every night?), he was denied sleep. How could he, facing all the worry, all the doubts nagging away in the back of his head? Lying awake, the prince could only let the sounds grip him, remind him of times he had never lived, places he had never been. Memories, all of them, borrowed or stolen, or perhaps imagined — being so unsure, he could not tell which.

The only certain thing was that, be they his or someone else’s, these feelings denied him rest.

Hours pass. It is almost time. A man emerges, and stares.

“What?”

Whoops, deleted all my comments. Ah well.

Music post forthcoming — expect two albums.

Crashing Castles, and all that lot.

Last night I downloaded the demo of Castle Crashers for the Xbox 360. Not too long after that, I unlocked it. Castle Crashers is, at first glance, a delightful, four-player romp harkening to the Sunset Riders, X-Men and TMNT: Turtles in Time arcade games — simple, fun brawling games et al. Never without a sense of humor, games of this genre were (and remain) among my favorites to play in arcades, especially with friends.

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The trip home was excellent. If you missed my visit, then you are a chump, and should visit Seattle to make it up.

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For those who don’t own an Xbox 360, there’s some wonderful news for you: Braid is going to be released on PC sometime this year. For the uninitiated, Braid is a puzzle-platformer, a beautiful soundtrack, a brilliant story, a lovely painting, an allegory, a pack of emotions, and the jewel that proves, beyond any reasonable doubt, that games are art.

The other reason I mention Braid (other than the fact that you should be playing it right now, yes you) is that the site which contains all the game’s music, Magnatune, offers free streaming. Now, to my initial instinct, this was an invitation to open up the streaming flash player’s XML playlist of each album, download all the contained 128-bit mp3s manually, and lop off the “this track is from Magnatune” message at the end of each file. And then I wondered — why? As a result, I bought each album listed in the linked post ($5 each, the site lets you choose an amount for the purchase), in high-quality VBR mp3s. There was a a time where I might have taken the less expensive, more time-consuming route; I guess that time is over.

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There’s a new music post on the way, for those who enjoy not filling their iPods with the non-tunes produced by my non-band.

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It used to be said, when the topic of the lower 48 came up in conversation, that Seattle is just like Anchorage, but larger. Thanks to the forced layover in the latter which Twink and I were forced to endure (upon which I will elaborate later), I can safely say that this comparison is (and I don’t mean to overstate the case or anything), the stupidest thing anyone has ever said in the history of mankind.

piracy is rampant at LANs here. The difference is that of hardware — people have generally better machines, and so, newer games are pirated.

More as I discover it.

Hot off the heels of their previous quintuple-platinum release, The Kneeless Budongus is ready to melt your face clean off with their latest, “The Extra Hour of Sleep is Killing Me.” In their brilliant new album, the self-styled kings of experimental post-skapunkafunkatronica weave ever-the-more mind-blowing musical endeavors, maintaining their hard-edged instrumentals and occasional verbose lyrical wordplay.

The Stranger calls “The Extra Hour of Sleep is Killing Me” a “musical tour-de-force. I laughed, I gasped, I puked my guts out after having a long cry on the shoulder of a man I barely knew.” The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner says “my mind was dissolved into a number of tiny, fragmented pieces, laden with gamma-chronaton radiation. I ate them, despite the risk of cancer.” The Northstar Weekly asks “does anyone even read this publication?” and the Seattle Weekly responds “I know, right?”

Of particular note in the band’s latest are songs from the “We Still Don’t Have A Name For This Place” (or, simply “anftp”) arc. These tracks were produced and performed in collaboration with the recently-reformed band that literally put experimental neo-progressive psychedelic rock on the map; Pogo Ninja. Interspersed throughout the album, the arc serves the dual purpose of both providing a stable platform upon which the other songs rest, and blowing the listener’s very mind.

“The Extra Hour of Sleep is Killing Me” is currently available exclusively in .mp3, .ogg, .flac, .alac, greater-than-CD-quality .wav, multi-track audio, and .odf formats, all for free, via the band’s website. Those rooted in the physical, fear not, a CD / vinyl release will be out later this summer.

1. anftp I: Man Up, Call for the Pizza Yourself
2. You’re Too Slooooow!
3. Good Job, Peeg (feat. MC Farrar)
4. anftp II: I Basically Put All the Money You Give Me in a Big Pile
5. The Prince of Frost And The Cherry Blossom Emperor
6. Steam-Powered Pneumatic Penis (feat. S. Spwn)
7. They Must Not Have Heard Me Say “I’ll Take It.”
8. anftp III: Joke Subtitling Services
9. ELEVEN O’CLOCK!! KRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYL!!! (feat. DJ Wendel in the mix)
10. Edward James Olmos Takes A Handful of Grainy Earth, Holds It To A Geiger Counter, And Stares Dejectedly At The Camera (I Feel So Empty) (feat. Gregor Q.)
11. anftp IV: Highway Star (cover)
12. The Extra Hour of Sleep is Killing Me
13. When In Doubt, Eat (feat. DJ Useli)
14. anftp V: We’re Out of Food Again, Aren’t We, You Damn Robot?
15. anftp final: Shit, Somone Knocked Gold Off Their Mongoose and Now They Are Coming For Us