EGG-SPRESS YOURSELF: Lady Gaga’s Alien Mother Revealed!

Kind of obvious that Lady Gaga is sort of becoming the Madonna of the current century. Hey, nothing wrong with that – the kids today should have their own eccentric, wild pop star icons. I appreciate her creativity, though just not into her music. I guess that “Paparazzi” song was pretty catchy, but I think I preferred Greyson Chance’s talent show version of it on youtube. So what if her new “Born This Way” song is basically a modern version of Madonna’s “Express Yourself”. Maybe it’s a conscious homage to a song that inspired Gaga. Or maybe it’s a calculated copy by her corporate record executive handlers. Or both. Hey, that Lady Antebellum song is “Eye in the Sky” by Alan Parsons Project, intentional or not. Music is a lot like DNA… it mutates over time, incorporating various styles and influences in its evolution. It can’t be helped, it’s the nature of it. I mean, even our National Anthem’s melody is, ironically, an old British drinking song (maybe that explains why Christina sung it like a drunken sailor at the Superbowl).

This all doesn’t mean that something new and original can’t emerge from homages to our influences or cutting and pasting old styles over a new beat (which is probably an old beat sped up and looped). And it surely doesn’t mean that new artists should stop trying new things even though “back in my day, music was good and you could understand it, not like the junk these kids listen to today…grumble, grumble… HEY – GET OFF MY LAWN!!!” Face it, we’re getting old (referring to people in my age group, mid 30’s to mid 40’s, who seem to have mostly frozen their music tastes during the 80’s or early 90’s). We’re turning into our parents, who most likely couldn’t get into “our music”. The brain gets tired of creating new synaptic connections at some point, plus the perspective of someone born into a world without dual cassette boomboxes and with guitars that are usually plugged into a videogame will naturally be different. It’s okay, that’s the way it works, the whole nostalgia thing. Somehow, I don’t even remember being as fond of Journey or Duran Duran back in the day, as I am now. I was trying to tell my Dad about an episode of VH-1 Classic Albums on Duran Duran’s “Rio”, and he couldn’t get past the idea of it being a “classic album”… well, okay, maybe he’s right but you know what I’m sayin’. What really scares me is the music soundtrack in stores, like my local QuickChek, seem to be set to the 80’s now – even obscure New Wave stuff I’ve never heard. I’ve somehow become the target demographic for convenience stores. That can’t be good.

If you keep an open mind, though, you’ll find there’s plenty great music being produced, by new artists and older artists you may have liked in their “prime”. Some artists actually get better with time, and just because they are older and out of the spotlight, doesn’t negate their achievements or make them less listenable. The music store is pretty much INFINITE at this point (as long as iTunes can plug in another server, oh, every couple seconds I guess), so no reason to fear that the Bieber is somehow taking up precious shelf space at the record store instead of your favorite artist. This is “zero sum” thinking (no, that’s not the latest NIN album): because someone wins, someone else must lose. Let the teen girls have their Bieber, it’s really going to be okay. It’s actually always been this way. Hey, I didn’t even watch the Grammys this year, and haven’t for the past couple years. Glad Arcade Fire won – seems like a band that I’d be into, but for some reason they don’t excite me. No big deal, their fans should be proud of them. For me, it’s just not a competition. It’s music. Find something that you like, and enjoy it. On a purely business level, yeah, the music industry can be intensely competitive in many aspects. But I’m talking more about the cultural level, the listener-side experience. All of these awards and focusing on commercial success can lead us away from the true spirit of music, of bringing people together to share an emotion, or celebrate a moment in time, or experience something intensely personal. Or just rock out and party. Or mellow out and relax. Or get yo’ funk on. Or…uh… whatever country fans do? Whether you’re into music that’s just feel-good pointless pop or something extremely challenging and boundary-pushing – it’s alright. There’s room in the Universe for it all.

– Nigel Matrix

An Earth Day Message from Zeus

Sorry this is a bit late, Earth Day having been celebrated on April 22nd. Though I think the environment is still largely on our minds with this terrible oil rig disaster in the Gulf. I hope they are able to contain and clean up the spill quickly and can limit the impact on the wildlife, beaches and wetlands, though last I read it may take up to three months to dig a relief well to stop the oil from flowing (at 5000 barrels, or 200,000 gallons, a day). We definitely need these oil companies to follow strict safety and environmental regulations if they are going to operate in sensitive offshore areas. I was just reading that most of the regulations are “voluntary”. Hmmm… yeah, that makes sense. Install expensive, time-consuming safety devices, or make more profits? Let’s just leave that up to the companies to decide, alright. Offshore rigs in countries like Norway must have a special remote valve seal that can be shut to prevent such a major disaster. But I guess if we try to slap more government regulations on these companies, everyone will cry “socialism”. Hopefully we will make the switch to more clean energy solutions and break our oil habit soon. I believe, ultimately, we need to seek energy solutions in space, like orbiting solar arrays that beam energy back to Earth, or mining asteroids. There is no easy way to solve these problems, since much of the infrastructure needed for clean solutions would still require oil to manufacture.

On a side note, you may also want to google “Release the Kraken” – Liam Neeson’s portrayal of Zeus powerfully giving that command, in the recent movie remake of the 80’s Clash of the Titans, seems to have spawned a new internet meme.

– Nigel Matrix

Bye-Bye Books

April 3, 2010, will long be remembered as the day the book died. Okay, so maybe I’m exaggerating, just the tiniest bit… (and, I realize that only a total Apple fanboy like myself would assume that a couple generations in the future we’d still be referring to such tablet computers as the iPad, in general, as “iPads” – though I guess that’s what Star Trek predicted with its PADDs – and, hey, how come Trek didn’t get any flak on the feminine hygiene front, huh?). But, I’ve seen and touched the iPad for myself now, after fighting off some vicious crowds at the Freehold Mall Apple Store this past Saturday, and I have to say I was instantly lusting this device. It’s exactly the perfect size – makes the iPhone and iPod Touch seem very small and awkward to use once you’ve held the iPad, but it’s not so big that it just looks like you chopped a notebook computer in half, like some earlier attempts at tablet PCs did. The iBooks feature is just what I’ve been waiting for. I know, there’s the old Kindle with it’s e-ink screen that’s supposed to be better on the eyes. But the iPad is color, and has so much other functionality with web, movies, photos, music, games, etc. Plus, I’d rather have something backlit that I can read upside-down lying on the couch or in bed, than the Kindle which requires an outside light source. I know, backlight is bad for your eyes… we’ll, I already spend most of my day in front of a computer screen, so I don’t think it will make much difference at this point. Whatever the case, the iPad rocks, you’ve just got to check it out, whether you are PC or Mac or Droid or whatever… it’s just about the coolest gadget I’ve ever seen. I think it will really speed up the shift to digital books that Kindle and other e-readers started, just like the iPod mainstreamed digital music, even though mp3 players had been around for a while before it.

So, stash away any current books you have in a safe place – maybe they will be worth something someday as relics of a simpler age…

– Nigel Matrix

Amazing Apps and Accessories for the New Apple Tablet

Capillary dilation or the so-called blush response… fluctuation of the pupil, involuntary dilation of the iris…. Um… Do you like our owl? Sorry, somehow all of the anticipation for the new Apple Tablet (or iPad, or iSlate, or Canvas, or Electronic Messiah) has put me in a Blade Runner mood. Just thought it would be cool if the new tablet has a Voight-Kampff app so you could detect Replicants on-the-go. You’d still need the retro bellows as an accessory (think it has something to do with detecting pheromones of an emotional response), but it’s a lot more portable than that CRT monitor setup Deckard has to usually lug around. Oh, wait… Replicants haven’t been invented yet, right.

Still, the tablet is gonna rock… whatever it does. I mean, I’m a big-time Apple fanboy, but even I’ve been worn out from all the hype and speculation about this thing. Please, Steve, let it go… release it to us… we are ready to finally have this futuristic sci-fi device that we always see in every sci-fi movie ever made. I know, there are other tablet computers announced by other companies, and the Kindle is a specialized book-reading tablet, but Mr. Jobs always seems to have an eye for details other designers miss, just a knack for innovation that takes things to the next level. Yeah, I know, I’m a hopeless Apple fanboy…

– Nigel Matrix

Some things just never end, Buck. (Be-de-be-de.)

Welcome to the jungle, Buck. They’ve been talking recently about making a grittier remake of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, but, I don’t know, I’m getting tired of these gritty, dark remakes. I miss the cheesy, futuristic fun of the early 80’s Buck. (And I really miss the perfect bad girl/good girl tag team of Princess Ardala and Col. Deering…). I’ve got the entire series on DVD and occasionally need to relive my wasted youth watching the same Draconian fighter explode in episode after episode, or the same Stargate activate or, hey – didn’t I see that starship on an episode of Battlestar Galactica once? Oh, well – yeah, they did recycle some of the special effects, but it was all in the name of campy sci-fi goodness.

Oh, and sorry to poke fun at Axl Rose – I did actually quite like his Chinese Democracy album, once it was finally released after 15 or so years. Though, I think by that point he should have just called it an Axl Rose solo album, not a Guns’n’Roses one.

If Axl does make it to the 25th Century, maybe he can use that band Andromeda on his Chinese Democracy sequel.

What caused the apocalypse in “The Road”

A Nanobot “grey goo” attack? No… Nuclear war? No… Ecological disaster? No… It was the dreaded Zhu Zhu Pets. Once they were shown how to drive cars, these small robotic creatures managed to escape their human masters and wage a destructive path across the world. Only Viggo and his son survived, and they spend most of The Road trying to scavenge up the various plastic Zhu Zhu ramps and playsets in an attempt to end the Zhu Zhu rampage. Well, at least that’s what I think it’s probably about…

These Zhu Zhu Pets look pretty lame. Seems like robot toy tech is actually devolving from the days of Elmo, Aibo, and Pleo. Or I guess ten dollar robot hamsters are all we can afford now.

What really happened at Roswell.

Okay, I know their fifteen minutes is about up, but I had to comment on the whole balloon boy incident. Yes, I was one amongst the media-saturated masses who was totally sucked into this story. I think the really marvelous Pixar movie Up primed us all for a boy-in-a-balloon story (maybe even gave Mr. Heene fuel for his evil scheme). Glad that the boy was alright (not that he was in any real danger, it being a hoax after all). I do have to say that I am quite disturbed by all media outlets, both right, left, and in-between (well, is there really any news nowadays that isn’t slanted either right or left?) for their incessant replaying of poor Falcon getting sick during two of the interviews. I mean, he’s just a six-year-old. Don’t you think it will be kinda traumatic, or at least annoying, for the kid to grow up being “known” for this? It’s bad enough he will be the “balloon boy”, can’t you cut him some slack? And, hey, I was trying to eat my dinner when you played that clip, too… yechh.

BTW, who the hell is Wolf?

– Nigel Matrix

Yo, Greedo, I’mma let you finish…

I’m sooooooo sorry to Greedo and his fans and Jabba……………….. I spoke to Jabba right after and he said the same thing my mother would’ve said. Greedo is very talented! I like when he speaks with all those subtitles, it’s like some cool foreign movie! I’m in the wrong for going to the Cantina and taking away from his moment – though he would’ve missed anyway! Boooyaaawwww!!!! The Star Wars where Han shoots first is the best version of Star Wars in the past three decades!!!! That’s what it is!!!!!! I’m not crazy y’all, the Force is strong with me and i’m just real. Sorry for that!!!! – Kanye

Check out more of this meme here: http://kanyegate.tumblr.com/

-Nigel Matrix

LOLAliens

Xenomorph Parasite's Whimsical Diction Becomes Internet Phenomenon

It’s a crab, it’s a hand, it’s a crab-hand-tail face sucky thing.   From the twisted minds of H.R. Giger and Ridley Scott, let’s present the oddest of odd life-cycles: that of the Alien species from movie of the same name.  Okay, first there’s an egg.   So far, so good.  Then the crab-hand face sucky things come out.  Okay, creepy, disturbing, awful…but not outside the realm of possibility.  But wait, the face-sucky hand-crab long-tail thing (FSHCLT) then attaches to a victim and then somehow seeds the victim with a different kind of egg…and then the adult stage grows inside the victim until it bursts out.   I don’t think they actually talk much about it, but some form of egg or zygote is definitely implanted in the victim by the FSHCLT which then dies.  Let’s imagine that it’s an egg, for argument’s sake.

So let’s get this straight: there’s an egg, a larva, and the larva dies and lays smaller eggs which produce adult young.  Any species you know that makes two different kinds of eggs, and alternates generations between physiology and types of eggs?  Kinda makes you wonder what a Xenomorph omlet would taste like.  With all that slime they always show, maybe it tastes like a cheeseburger.  But I bet the FSHCLT itself would taste more like Shrimp Cocktail.  Mmmm…bugs from the sea, bugs from the sea….

Mr.T vs. Captain Apollo

Colonial Warriors Fail to Recognize Similar Fashion Excesses

It’s got to be nepotism, really.  How else could Captain Apollo have gotten promoted?  Sure, he was a faithful “company man” and always ready to follow dog-food slinging Ben Cartwright’s orders.  But honestly, his character was written as a bit slow on the uptake.  A good man, certainly, but not the brightest cog in the mighty Battlestar machine.  Starbuck, his good pal of questionable morals, not only was a better card player, but also seemed quicker on the draw and a lot more skilled in tactics and flying a Viper.  So did Boomer.  So did Sheba.  Heck, so did Jolly…and he couldn’t even make Lieutenant (err, there might have been a weight requirement).  For all his extra salary and responsibility under Daddy Adama, Apollo never lost that “gee whiz” attitude toward life.

Mr. T, on the other hand, never seemed to have a “gee whiz” vibe at all.  He rarely smiled, and his public persona in the media was largely all action and anger.  So much so that he became an Internet legend, and the “Mr. T vs.” online phenomena was born.  Long before LOLcats, Photoshop was weakening Western Culture by allowing the creation of online comics showing Mr. T fighting everybody.  They’re all the same, of course.  Mr. T drives the van, beats up bad guys, and saves the Youth Center.  He proclaims that either he, or his van is “Hella Tough”.   Barney, Pokemon, Space Ghost…pretty much anybody you can think of.    It’s kind of mind numbing and hypnotic, and once you open one, it’s hard to quit.  But think about it, if you had to pick someone to whoop everyone in the universe, who better?

Mr. T, of course, initially garnered much of his fame from The A-Team, playing opposite Dirk Benedict, fresh from his halcyon (Ha! Cylon?) Galactica days.  He wore a lot–and I mean, a lot–of gold chains, the weight of which would crush a lesser man.  But, if you think about it, the Colonial Warriors were pretty blinged-out, too; losta clasps, pins, patches, gold trim, capes…so who are they to judge?  Granted, Apollo wore his feathers as emblems sewn into his shirt instead of dangling from an earring loop, but if I had to put my money on one of them, I’d say it was Mr. T who probably figured out the right way to accessorize.  Oh, yeah, and “TR3”, on Mr. T’s belt buckle is the name of some kinda car wash or polish he was hawking back in the 80s.  The TV commercial is findable online, and T says of the product in question: “Goes on easy, stays on hard.  Makes your car beautiful, like me.”