"First Heat"

Bryan Larsen has crafted yet another beautiful painting, the original of which I can't possible afford: "First Heat".

Quote: "Free Will"

"You can choose from phantom fears, And kindness that can kill"
"I will choose a path that’s clear, I will choose free will"
-- Rush, "Free Will", Permanent Waves

Meanwhile, in France

The teeming masses rise up to vehemently proclaim "Let us eat cake!"

Radio Ga Ga

The raw audio for the first edition of Nuketown Radio Active is done. I recorded it in Garageband, which worked fine except for crapping out when it hit the 30 minute mark (a drawback I only remembered after I'd crashed into it. I lost a portion of the last segment, which had talked about the impending release of The Incredibles on DVD. I think I'm going to cut that entire segment, record another, briefer end segment, and then post that puppy to Nuketown so I can get the RSS 2.0 feed up and running.

With this one done, I'm starting to think more about what the format of the show should be. I'm leaning towards a brief 5-minute introduction, followed by a short 10-minute or so round-up of scifi/tech news. That'll be followed by two or three genre-related reviews.

The Dictionary of the Matrix

My review of The Dictionary of the Matrix, a wiki that attempts to define all the major characters, places, equipment and plots in The Matrix movies is online at Science Fiction Weekly.

Hell Froze Over

Or at least the parts that touched New Jersey did. A fast-moving front arrived in the Garden State earlier than anyone had predicted, causing temperatures to plummet from the 40s into the teens. Starting around 11 a.m., the front's lead edge was producing a fine coating of rain, which promtly froze as temperatures fell. The rain turned to a powdery but intense snow that--when combined with wind--played havoc with visibility.

The end result? So many accidents that the radio stations gave up naming them, and simply wrote off entire highways as a frozen morasses that no one was getting out of. My day job let me out at 2:30, but by that point things were helplessly fubar'd. It took me just over four hours to get home, which is slightly less than my longest commute ever (4.5 hours on Halloween a few years ago).

Of course, all that I wasted was time, and when you look at the big picture--which included so many accidents that there weren't enough state troopers avialable to respond to all of them--that's not a big deal.

Radio Active Update

My digital audio experiments continue. Over the weekend I picked up a new microphone, the Logitech Stereo USB Headset 200, and after an initial tests, it looks like this was exactly what I wanted.

Sound levels of a file recorded to my iBook using the new headset and Audicity were loud, clear and devoid of any of the annoying background sounds (like the computer fan) that ruined last week's attempts. The only caveat I can offer about purchasing this headset is that it's difficult to find--many places are out of stock (including Amazon) and that makes me think that Logitech is getting ready to rev the line. Fortunately, I was able to pick one up at Staples.

My next quest, once I get this mic thing figured out, is to determine the best way of mixing in audio clips. Based on my research, it looks like Rogue Amoeba's Audio Hijack Pro is the way to go.

Getting Paranoid

I'm planning on making Mongoose Publishing's new Paranoia XP game the focus of an upcoming "Summon WebScryer" column in Knights of the Dinner Table.

I've got a few good sites lined up--including the Paranoia XP Blog, Paranoia Live, The Toothpaste Disaster and the Mission Blender--but I need more. If anyone has any suggestions, please leave a comment.

Cold Steel Pain

I finally got around to paging through Dungeon #121 today, and came across and for an interesting-sounding game: Cold Steel Reign by Mad Hermit Games. In it, a comet strikes the Earth around the time of the American War, plunging the world into a chaos that it takes 200 years to emerge from.

Sounds cool eh? So I decided to look it up on the Web and surprisingly, Mad Hermit Games doesn't have a site, not for the company, not for the game. This mystifies me -- what sort of company, in today's world, would have a product release without having a web site to support it? Heck, even a free blog on Blogger would be better than nothing, which is what they appear to have.

If anyone's heard of the game, or knows of a Web site for it or the company, please let me know.

Two Art Shows in Easton

The Elucidator is a free arts and lifestyle magazine published quarterly in Easton, Pa. Actually, "arts and lifestyle" is far too generic a term for this 'zine, which has a wonderfully eccentric, slightly liberal sensibility that mixes articles on the best (and worst) places to drink with features on bellydancing and bow hunting. That's right ... bow hunting.

It's usually crammed with ads as well, and two that caught my eye this month were for art exhibits in Easton. The first is "Night Shift: Elucidator Photographers Stay Up Late" at Project Blue at 134 N. Second Street, Easton, PA. It features classy, thoughtful black & white photos taken by The Ecludiator's photo staff. The show opens March 18 and runs through April 24; hours are 4-7 p.m., Saturdays 12-4 p.m., and First Sunday 12-5 p.m. (first Sunday being a monthly event in Easton in which many businesses in Easton open their doors for special events). You can contact the gallery at project.blue@verizon.net (unfortunately, they don't have a web site).

The other show that caught my eye was "Poetry in Motion" by Charles Klabunde, which is being held at "The Gallery and Studio of Charles Klabunde". His fine figure drawings, rendered in pencil, remind me of some of the work I've seen on Quent Cordiar's web site, and I'm always a sucker for well-drawn, Romantically-realistic portraits.

The gallery is located at 73 N. 2nd Street and the show runs April 30 through June 30. For more information, check out it's web site at www.klabundeartist.com.

Upgrades

I've done a little pre-spring cleaning around The Atomic Age. I've added in a bunch of blogroll/web links (which you can check out in the right hand column), Google Ads (which I also added to Nuketown), and a few graphic links to sites I spend a lot of time at.

Enjoy!

Quote: "Fear is the Mindkiller"

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear... And when it is gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear is gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain." -- The Bene Gesserit Littainy against Fear, Dune

Nuketown Radio Active

My call for possible names for a Nuketown podcast yielded one very excellent result from Nathan Lilly, my cohort at GreenTentacles.com and a long-time friend from college. In hindsight, it's a blatantly obvious one: Nuketown Radio Active.

I like it because it plays on Nuketown's thermonuclear name (thus keeping up the tradition of this The Atomic Age blog and the burg's long-running Radiations newsletter, while at the same time incorporating the word "radio" into it.

As for the potential podcast itself ... I'm working on it. The generic line-in microphone I got from Radio Shack didn't work well; the audio levels were terribly low, even after I mucked around with the recording volume. Borrowing a page from Comicology.net, I'm looking at trying to record something with my iBook next.

The Temple of Elemental Art

Last night was one of those nights where I have so many dreams that it feels like I didn't sleep at all. All of the dreams were connected in some bizarre way, and -- as is the nature of dreams -- those connections are already fading. One part of the dream that stands out is going on a dungeoncrawl with my friends to slay the ancient evil of the Temple of Elemental Evil, a notorious dungeon in the World of Greyhawk setting.

Despite playing Dungeons & Dragons regularly, I don't actually dream about it very often, and even this wasn't straight D&D -- it had more of a The Mummy feel to it as my friends and I fought various horrors in the depths of the temple, finally vanquishing its lead demon, and then returning to the surface.

What was weird wasn't the temple, but rather, the fact that it was in the basement of the Arts Center at the university where I work. Indeed, the first sublevel was populated by prison cells, monster lairs, and offices for the music and art faculty.

Yep, definitely gotta stop drinking milk before I got to bed.

The Incredibles Arrive March 15

The Ides of March brings Pixar's The Incredibles to DVD, and I can't wait. The film worked on many different levels: as a superhero action flick, as a family comedy, and even as a philosophical tract on why the exceptional -- and not the mediocre -- should be our society's ideal.