Yes indeed, it’s been almost a year with that same drab black layout. About time for something different, eh? Well, we’ll see how long this lasts. I’ve heard that although in this case it seems to work, it may be a bit too pink for some tastes. heh

Yes things are a bit messy. Nothing is gone, but things will be getting rearranged, retooled, and retuned, regardless of whether they need it or not. [Ed. note—It’ll sound better if you don’t try to roll the R’s too much. I know how you love rolling your R’s.]

Stay tuned.

Opera Users: Repeat after me: “There is no spoon. There is no spoon.” Now substitute navigation for spoon, rinse and repeat. I’m not really laughing at you, but with you. It’s a silly Web we live in isn’t it? Not to worry. I will be fixing that for you. Eventually.

I finally saw Spider-Man over the weekend with a friend. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

It’s not a “Rush out and see it!”, kind of thing, but if you’re unsure whether to see it or not, I say see it. It didn’t let me down unlike another recent movie which I waited patiently to see.

My only nitpick [ed.—We’ve always got at least one] is some of the computer graphics. CG animators have a tendency to use this fake illumination lighting. There’s a certain CG glow that they can’t seem to shake. The characters always seem to be out of contrast with their surroundings. Shadows are never dark enough. It’s as if they’re afraid to let details be hidden.

The overall web-swinging scenes were pretty cool, but you got to see all those in the trailers. Not much new in the movie, but it’s all much better on the big screen.

I did come out of the theater feeling like a 12-year old wishing I was Spider-Man again, so just for that reason it was well worth it.

I’ve been extremely impressed with the recent output by HBO Films. Films and stories that would never have made it to the big screen but should have. These are well-made and sometimes courageously undertaken films both by the film-makers and the actors themselves.

Conspiracy is a chilling dramatization of events during WWII outlining Germany’s final solution. The casualness of this summit meeting is in sharp contrast to the weight of the subject matter. The cast, led by Kenneth Branagh and Stanley Tucci is phenomenal. I highly recommend it.

Wit is Emma Thompson shedding every pretense and baring the soul of a woman whose life is fast reaching it’s end. If you can take the weighty subject matter, I highly recommend this one too. It’s a fantastic piece of work.

Gathering Storm is a look at Winston Churchill’s life as Britain faces the possibility of War with Germany. Brilliantly acted by Albert Finney and Vanessa Redgrave.

Path To War is a wonderful look behind the scenes of 1960’s politics during the Johnson years. LBJ is portrayed as a fiesty southern gentleman out to do good, but haunted by the shadow of the Kennedys and his own decisions regarding Vietnam. I heard the director talk about LBJ’s great works and how he might have been one of our most beloved presidents if only we could take the Vietnam war out of the equation. Shame we can’t do that, huh? Excellent cast and fine acting all around by Michael Gambon, Alec Baldwin, Donald Sutherland et al.

Inspired by a comment of a dear friend I thought I would present you with some links regarding music theory and expanded music theory. Dealing with temperament, tonality and micro-tonality. Some of you may find it interesting, others may be bored out of their minds.

A couple of the links come from Terry Blackburn’s WebSpace, so that’s a good place to start.

Next is a History of Tuning and Temperament. It explains the relationships and formulas of tonality and why things are the way they are.

Alternate Temperaments: Theory and Philosophy is Terry’s study of alternate tonal relationships, or alternate temperaments. Really interesting stuff if you’re into music theory.

Expanding this beyond theory to instruments is a study in 19 tone equal tempered guitar chords.

Temperaments and 41-Tone Music for your computer.

To really tie it all to guitars [ed.—The instrument of champions!] in the physical realm, I give you Microtonal Guitars and the Microtonal Guitar Gallery. People do actually play those instruments.

For an overview of microtonal instruments there’s this page listing some.

A question of atonal and microtonal music at the Pat Metheny Group Listener Network. The albums mentioned in the forum are Pat Metheny’s I Can See Your House from Here, which I haven’t heard, and zero tolerance for silence, which I own, but as one commentor put it, is difficult to listen too. In fact I can’t listen to it. If anyone wants to hear some samples from that one, just email me and I’ll be happy to share the experience.

I hope this little journey has been fun and informative. Now forget it all, and go make some music.

kartoo is a new meta search engine that builds a virtual flowchart/map of sites relating to your search topic. Very cool. You can set options such as which search engines it utilizes and such, but the initial look of it makes you think it hasn’t finished loading when it has. Slight usability glitch there, but other than that, it’s pretty cool. [via MeFi]

Now-I-Decided-To-Speak-With-The-Silence… is a beautiful flash piece. [via allen]

Heads up for KaZaA users:

Sleeping software awakens

Benjamin worm targets Kazaa

You silly KaZaA users be careful.

There are times when the little programming light goes on in the back of my head, and I go, “Ah! Brilliant!”. That lasts about a nanosecond.

Then there are those times when I’m trying to work something out and wind up looking like Bill Murray in Caddyshack. That can go on for weeks.

I know you may not care, but I want to know when guitar tablature became so popular on the web that they figured it was time to start emulating porn sites? Not that I would know anything about porn sites.

WARNING: will open pop up windows.

I’ve been neglectful, and I do apologize. I’ve been busy trying to straighten a few things out. At the very least, things are in a temporarily relaxed state. Or maybe that’s me that’s in the relaxed state. Nah, I’m still a bit jumpy.

I haven’t really been gone. I’ve been shooting my mouth off all over the place lately, but not here where I should be. I promise to stay in and blog more.

In the meantime, I bring presents. All courtesy of MeFi.

Dr. Funkenstein -

for the funkateer in you. Because I know there is one. And if there isn’t, there should be. It’s amazing how the funk can change your mood to something so upbeat. It gets you out of a funk, it doesn’t stick you in one.

the5k.org -

it’s begun.

The Art of Pen Spinning -

I expect results. You will be tested.

Lumasol -

because grafitti is so much fun, and so much more fun using light on a stage.

$20 Bill Commemoration of 9/11 -

funny money.

Land O Lakes Hooter Fest! -

because butter is just funny. C’mon, say it with me. “Butter!”