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Archive for the ‘Robots’ Category

McSweeney’s #12 [Unpublished, Unknown &\Or Unbelievable] (2003)

Posted in Aimee Bender, Aleksandar Hemon, Alicia Erian, All Songs Considered, Andrea Deszo, Andy Lamey, Ann Cummins, Ashley Warlick, Ben Ehrenreich, Boredom, Chad Simpson, Darin Strauss, David Ebershoff, Dean Wareham, Death, Douglas Coupland, Drinking, Drugs, Emma Forrest, Essays, Excerpt, Frank Ocean, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Gabe Hudson, Glen David Gold, Henry Bean, History, J. Malcolm Garcia, J. Robert Lennon, James Boice, Jennifer Egan, Jess Walter, Jessica Francis Kane, Jill Bialosky, John Henry Fleming, Jonathan Lethem, Judy Budnitz, Julie Orringer, Katie Roiphe, Laird Hunt, Letters, Marc Nesbitt, Marriage Trouble, McSweeney's, Memoirs, Myla Goldberg, Native Americans, Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All, Peter Orner, Prince, Rachel Sherman, Racism, Rene Nuijens, Rhett Miller, Rick Moody, Robots, Roddy Doyle, Ryan Boudinot, Salvador Plascencia, Sarah Raymont, Set at School, Sex, Shann Ray, Short Story, Sibylla Brodzinsky, Stacey Richter, Steve Almond, Steve Stiefel, Steven Millhauser, Tara June Winch, Travel, Valerie Sutton, Violence, Virginity (Loss of), War, Wythe Marschall on December 31, 2012| Leave a Comment »

12SOUNDTRACK: FRANK OCEAN-“Bad Religion” (2012).

frankoI didn’t know anything about Frank Ocean until I started looking at all of the  Best Albums of 2012 lists.  He was on everyone’s list and was pretty near the top of all of them.  So it was time to check him out.

It  turns out that he’s affiliated with the Odd Future collective, whom I’ve talked about in the past.  But he’s also been on a lot of big name records.  Channel Orange is his debut album (that’s not a mixtape) and the big surprise seems to be that this song (which he sang live on Jimmy Fallon) is about a male lover.  And I guess that’s progress.

So Ocean sings a slow R&B style, and I have to say his voice reminds me of Prince a lot.  Which is a good thing.  I really like this song.    It has gospelly keyboards (but in that Purple Rain kinda way).  And a really aching vocal line.  It’s really effective and it’s really simple.  And I think that’s what I liked best about this song and others that I’ve heard–he’s really understated.  Crazy, I know.

Now I do not like R&B, it’s one of the few genres that I just don;t get.  And yet there’s something about this album (the tracks I’ve listened to) that is really compelling.  It’s not awash in over the top R&B trappings, and it doesn’t try too hard.  It’s just Frank  (not his real name) and his voice over some simple beats.  A friend of mine recently said that all of a sudden she “got” this album, and  I think I may have to get it as well.

[READ: December 30, 2012] McSweeney’s #12

At the beginning of 2012, I said I’d read all of my old McSweeney’s issues this year.  I didn’t.  Indeed, I put it off for quite a while for no especial reason.  Now as the year draws to an end, I’m annoyed that I didn’t read them all, but it’s not like I read nothing.  Nevertheless, I managed to read a few in the last month and am delighted that I finished this one just under the wire.  For those keeping track, the only issues left are 13, 14, 15, 16, 20, 10, 38, (which I misplaced but have found again) and 42, which just arrived today.  My new plan in to have those first four read by Easter.  We’ll see.

So Issue #12 returns to a number of different fun ideas.  The cover:  It’s a paperback, but you can manipulate the front and back covers to make a very cool 3-D effect (by looking through two eyeholes) with a hippo.  The colophon/editor’s note is also back.  Someone had complained that he missed the small print ramble in the beginning of the book and so it is back, with the writer (Eggers? Horowitz?) sitting in Wales, in a B&B, and hating it.  It’s very funny and a welcome return.

As the title suggests, all of the stories here are from unpublished authors.  They debate about what exactly unpublished means, and come down on the side of not well known.  And so that’s what we have here, first time (for the mos part) stories.  And Roddy Doyle.

There are some other interesting things in this issue.  The pages come in four colors–each for a different section.  The Letters/Intro page [white], the main stories [pink], the Roddy Doyle piece (he’s not unpublished after all so he gets his own section) [gray] and the twenty minute stories [yellow].  There’s also photographs (with captions) of Yuri Gagarin.  And a series of drawing that introduce each story called “Dancewriting”–a stick figure on a five-lined staff.  They’re interesting but hard to fathom fully.

LETTERS (more…)

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McSweeney’s #41 (2012)

Posted in Aimee Bender, All Songs Considered, Boredom, Cassandra C. Jones, Chris Flynn, Death, Deb Olin Unferth, Drinking, Drugs, Eileen Van Neerven-Currie, Essays, Excerpt, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Gracia Lam, Henry Bean, History, J. Malcolm Garcia, Jess Walter, Jesus Christ Superstar, John Brandon, Jowhor Ile, Kelsey Dake, Letters, Marriage Trouble, Matt Rota, Max Shoening, McSweeney's, Memoirs, Native Americans, Racism, Robots, Ryan Boudinot, Sex, Short Story, Sibylla Brodzinsky, Steven Millhauser, Swans, Tara June Winch, Thomas McGuane, Tony Birch, Track, Violence, Viveca Mellegard, War on December 14, 2012| Leave a Comment »

41

SOUNDTRACK: SWANS-Live at All Tomorrow’s Parties, October 2, 2011 (2011).

swansatpBefore Swans released this year’s amazing The Seer, they toured supporting their previous album (with a number of songs from The Seer included). This set has two songs from The Seer, “The Apostate” and “The Seer, Pt 1” together they comprise 50 minutes of the nearly two hour show.  The set also includes “No Words No Thoughts” (24 minutes) and “Jim” (a teeny 6 minutes) from 2010’s My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky.  The final track is an eleven minute version of “I Crawled” which goes all the way back to 1984’s Young God EP.

I would never have thought of Swans as a jam band, and yet here they are, with 5 songs in 2 hours.  Although unlike jam bands, they aren’t showing off their musical chops or noodling solos, they are created expressive and moody soundscapes–not as scary as in days of old, but very intense nonetheless.

The set sounds great, although I imagine this would be more enjoyable to watch than to listen to (there a great swaths of music where there’ s not a lot happening).  I wonder what Gira is doing during these stretches.  My friend Phil (or Phillipe Puleo as Gira calls him here) plays drums on the album and on this tour, and I have to say he must be exhausted–man he hits the drums hard.

I listened to this show before I heard The Seer, but it didn’t prepare me for what the album would contain.  Now having heard that album, I appreciate this live show even more–they really master these long songs.  I am going to have to try to see them the next time they swing by.  I admit I used to be afraid at the thought of seeing them because their early music was so intense, but this seems to be a different Swans now, one that an old man like myself could even handle.

The set is no longer available on NPR.

[READ: December 10, 2012] McSweeney’s #41

The cover of this issue has a series of overlapping photographs of lightning.  I didn’t really look at it that closely at first and thought it was an interesting collage.  Indeed, Sarah said it looked like a science textbook of some kind.  But when I read the colophon, I learned that Cassandra C. Jones finds photographs of lightning and (without manipulating them digitally) places them together so that the lightning bolts create shapes.  And indeed, that is what is going on.  And it’s amazing!

The cover’s pictures create a greyhound running (front and back covers show different stages of the run).  There’s also circles and a rabbit running.  It’s incredibly creative and very cool.  You can see some of her work at her site.

The feature of this issue is that there are four stories from Australian Aboriginal Writers, a group that I can honestly say I have never read anything from before.  There’s also beautiful art work accompanying most of the longer stories, three gritty non-fiction pieces and some letters, most of which aren’t very silly at all.

LETTERS (more…)

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Max Barry–Machine Man (2011)

Posted in Belle and Sebastian, Better Off Ted, Corporate skewering, Death, Fears, Foo Fighters, Mad Scientists, Max Barry, Military, Norah Jones, OutKast, Robots, Supernatural, Technology, The Beautiful South, The Who, Threats, Violence on January 10, 2012| 4 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: BELLE & SEBASTIAN-Write About Love (2010).

I’ve enjoyed Belle and Sebastian’s music since their debut album all those years ago.  For some reason I didn’t get into this album as much as previous releases.  In part it’s because the band has morphed quite a lot from what they used to do.  It’s true that I have really enjoyed their more rocking songs on their more recent albums, and this one is full of them.  It’s also true that a band needs to evolve, but somehow this album just never really gripped me.  I think it’s because the album takes so long to start.  The fade in is like 20 seconds!  But I’ve listened again with renewed interest recently and I’m changing my mind a bit about it.  There are plenty of great songs on this disc. 

“I Didn’t See It Coming” is a classic B&S song (after that awful delay).  It’s a wonderful duet with Sarah Martin (this is how to do a duet, guys–the ending is fantastic!).  “Come on Sister” is one of the great faster B&S songs.  The “gotta have a little FAITH” line is great and then the unexpected shift into the third part of the sing is just stunning.  I also love “Calculating Bimbo” first because who would every have thought there’d be a song with that title but also because Murdoch sings it so wonderfully.  I generally don’t like slow music, but there’s something about slow B&S song that I find myself leaning in instead of tuning out.

“I Want the World to Stop” is another wonderful “rocker.”  It’s a fast paced little ditty with great backing vocals (and it always makes me go “two, three, four” before the chorus kicks in–always the sign of a great song).

“Little Lou, Ugly Jack, Prophet John” slows things down really far.  Possibly too far for me. It’s a duet and it reminds me just a little too much of a Beautiful South duet (not a particular song, just their style).  And I have to say that The Beautiful South would have done it better.  After looking at the liner notes I realized that Norah Jones is the duettist here.  I like that Jones has been providing her services across a wide spectrum of music (Foo Fighters, OutKast etc) but I really just don’t have anything good to say about her.  The melody is nice though.  I also didn’t realize that the sing came out on Norah’s disc before the B&S disc.

The album quickly redeems itself with “Write About Love,” a great keyboard fueled rocker (with backing vocals from Carey Mulligan who I don’t know, but who nails the song “I haaate my job”).  “I’m Not Living in the Real World” has lots more keyboards and oooh vocals (it reminds me of a Who songs from Sell Out) and it’s sung by Stevie. 

From the there, the disc kind of slows down.  “The Ghost of Rockschool” is the least memorable song on the disc for me (although the horn section is nice).  “Read the Blessed Pages” is so quiet (even for B&S) that it kind of gets lost on the disc.  (The instrumental break is pretty though).  “I Can See Your Future” opens with a catchy horn blast that kind of wakes you from the slumber of the previous song.  “Sunday’s Pretty Icons” opens with a cool guitar riff, but it’s not all that memorable either.   While these last few songs are fine, they’re not as strong as the beginning of the album.  They kind of meld together. 

So I guess what I’m saying is that the first half of the disc is great and the second half is okay.  The  good songs are worth it though.  I’ll stop being so hard on the disc.

[READ: January 5, 2012] Machine Man

Don’t worry if you’re suffering from Barry blog overload, this post is about Barry’s new novel, which I just finished.

I have enjoyed Barry’s previous novels quite a lot.  They typically deal with corporate skewering and this book is no exception.  Except that the corporate skewering takes a back seat to the major sci-fi elements of the story.  Before I mention the story itself, I wanted to mention the origin of the story.  In the Acknowledgements at the end of the book, Barry explains that his fans had been nudging him to write something.  And while he had been doing projects, he hadn’t written a book in a while.  So he decided to write the book online.  He wrote a few hundred words a day and posted them online.  And then he sat back and waited for the comments to come in.

He talks about how he’s basically showing everyone his rough draft of a story and letting people tear it apart.  But he found that his fans were supportive and even offered ideas (which he then callously stole, muhahaha).  And so the story online is actually rather different from what appeared as the final draft.  (No, I’m not going to read the online version, but you can.  It’s available here).

Anyhow, as the story opens, Dr Charlie Neumann (I just got the bad pun of that name, shame on him and shame on me for not seeing it sooner) loses his phone.  He feels totally cut off without his phone.  The scene seems a little over the top (he checks his car while wearing only a towel) but it shows how technologically dependent he (and we) feel most of the time.  This kind of mild slapstick scene resolves itself in a shockingly brutal way.  When Dr Neumann gets to his office (he’s an engineer at Better Future) he finally sees where he left his phone.  Unfortunately, he has already started an industrial vice and he’s distracted by his phone long enough to have his leg crushed by said vice.

When he wakes up in the hospital, he is surrounded by people trying to help him–nurses, doctors, therapists, but he’s really just distraught about the loss of his leg.  And then he sees Lola Banks, who is bringing him a pile of artificial legs.  Lola is quite possibly the first woman who Charlie has ever spoken to who seems in any way empathetic to him (Charlie is, admittedly a pretty cold and cerebral individual). She shows him some prosthetics which he’s not too thrilled by.  But when Lola reveals that Better Future is paying for top of the line stuff for him, she shows him the highest end of the high end legs.  And Charlie falls in love (with Lola and the legs). 

Lola Banks proves to be an interesting person.  Not ony does she not recoil from Charlie and his handicap (it is her job), but she seems to almost admire Charlie for seeing the beauty in the prostheses.  Lola proves to be the kind of woman who falls for certain kinds of men, but with Charlie it’s different.  Really, it is.  Shut up, it is.

Although Charlie does see the beauty in the prostheses, he can’t help but see how they can be improved (he is an engineer after all).  And so, he sets out to make the artificial legs not just replacements but better than their human counterpart.  Better Future is on board with helping Charlie recover (which is quite nice, and somewhat unexpected coming from corporation hater Barry), but we see that Better Future knows what it has with Charlie–a single-minded, focused engineer. A man who only wants things to be more efficient.  So when Charlie starts outfitting the prosthetics with motors (and considers putting in wifi) the company is kind of impressed.  And so is Charlie.  The leg is heavy and a little unwieldy, and it’s not very pretty (it has hooves), but it sure works. 

The problem, as Charlie sees it, is that his intact leg is holding back his new invention.  How can he fully test the artificial legs if his human leg is less than the prosthetic? (more…)

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I’m Here (2010)

Posted in Aska Matsumiya, Girls, I'm Here, Of Montreal, Robots, Romance, Short Films, Sleigh Bells, Spike Jonze on September 12, 2010| Leave a Comment »

[WATCHED: September 5, 2010] I’m Here

I’m Here is the new short film that Spike Jonze directed.  (You can read more about the story behind the film at my post about the accompanying book There Are Many Of Us.) And you can see the whole film and much more at the official site.

The film is 30 minutes long and it is surprisingly touching.  Surprisingly especially because the main characters are robots.  The robots are wonderfully designed (they’re not animated, they are people with plastic coverings and fantastic heads–the main male robot’s head is made from an old Macintosh computer).  I assume there is CGI for the mouths (they look too fluid to be anything else), but the rest of the movie is very old school.

As the film opens, we see Sheldon, who works in a library (as a shelver) who seems content and who seems to be making the best of things.  The other robots that we see live in what seems like a kind of narcotic state (plugging themselves in to recharge at night).  One morning, while he’s waiting for the bus (because robots can’t drive), he sees a robot driving a car.  She is a beautiful robot, and we see them share a moment across the busy street.  And since this is short film, you know they are destined to be together.

The robots share tender moments (their substitute for kissing is very sweet) as well as rocking moments (they go to a Lost Trees concert together).  We get to see a bit of their inner lives as well.  And the two form an intense bond.   (more…)

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Periodical: Technology Review

Posted in Funky Web Sites, History, Military, Research, Robots, Smarty Pants, Technology, Technology Review, The Future, Universities, War on November 17, 2009| Leave a Comment »

tr3A patron asked for Technology Review to be added to our collection.  When he said it was a technology magazine published by M.I.T. I thought it was going to be way too academic for our patrons.  But when I read the sample issue, I was really delighted with it.  So much so that I ordered a subscription for myself (the library has yet to decide).

The technology that the magazine covers is actually tech that is accessible to everyone: alternative fuels, cheap laptops, even technology in medicine (and how it will impact us as patients).  But there’s also some super high tech stuff: robotic arms, nuclear power, genetic engineering.

It opens with an Editor’s Letter followed by Reader’s Letters.  Next comes the Notebooks section.  This features several very short pieces about different ideas: green energy, memory boosting drugs. (It also has oddly computer generated drawings of the writers). (more…)

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David Foster Wallace–short uncollected pieces (with titles): “Other Math” (1987); “The Empty Plenum: David Markson’s ‘Wittgenstein’s Mistress'” (1990); “Rabbit Resurrected” (1992); “The Nature of the Fun” (1998); “F/X Porn” (1998); “Peoria (4)” (2002); “Peoria (9) ‘Whispering Pines'” (2002); “Deciderization 2007” (2007)

Posted in Aliens, Book Reviews, Canadian Music, Concept Albums, Constellation Records, Corporate skewering, David Foster Wallace, David Markson, Essays, Harper's, Infinite Summer, James Cameron, Land of Kush, Robots, Sci-fi, Shalibi Effect, Short Story, Smarty Pants, Terminator, Terminator 2, Thomas Pynchon on September 26, 2009| 2 Comments »

dfwshelfSOUNDTRACK: LAND OF KUSH-Against the Day [CST058] (2008).

kushLand of Kush is a huge orchestra created by Sam Shalibi.  Shalibi is a maniac of independent releases, creating everything from orchestral pieces to solo records all with his unique blend of middle eastern tinged music (featuring his oud playing).

This album is inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s Against the Day, a book I have not read.  As such, I can’t say if the music works with the book, or indeed if the songs with lyrics have anything to do with the book at all.  The liner notes essay that Shalibi wrote reveal his deep appreciation for the book and how it made him hear this music.  Pretty neat.  Against the Day the book is over 1,000 pages, so I won’t be getting to it anytime soon.

The CD has 5 tracks: three of them about 8 minutes, one at 14 minutes and the centerpiece comes in at 21 minutes.  To read more than I’m going to say about this band and the album, check out the Constellation Records page.

In general, I find Shalibi’s music to be fascinating, but sometimes a bit much.  He is not afraid to pull out all the stops.  And I think that’s to his credit.  He does free jazz, psychedelic and middle eastern phrasing, often within one song.  And while it’s often very enjoyable, it can also be exhausting.

And that is the case with this disc. The 21 minute “Bilocations” is such a brilliant piece of music.  The main musical line is just fantastic: middle eastern instruments playing a sort of James Bond type suspense theme.  And the vocals are simply amazing.  The singer (and I regret to say I’m not sure which one she is) is snarling and sexy and brings the whole piece to life.  I’ve never heard anyone say “economics” with such emotion before.  And I enjoy probably the first 15 or 16 minutes of it.  The last five drifts into a sort of solo for voice which gets a bit tiresome, actually, especially after the intensity of the first part.

And yet it is then followed up by the last two songs, each about 8 minutes long, again with fantastic motifs that propel these weird and wild pieces beyond the middle eastern psychedelic soundscapes into actual songs.

Despite my amorphous criticisms (I think that the disc is just too long to appreciate in one sitting (and I find middle eastern music is hard for me to digest in more than small doses)) this is my favorite of Shalibi’s releases.  And some day I hope to read the book, too.

[READ: September 19th ish 2009] short uncollected pieces

This is my second (and final, I think) review of multiple DFW uncollected pieces.  There are a few uncollected pieces left that I’m going to read, but they’re all longer and will likely deserve their own post.  Most of these pieces are very short, and I don’t have all that much to say about them.  But, heck, I’m a pseudo-complestist, so I want to have them all here.

All the text in bold, including the links comes from (where else?) The Howling Fantods.  Thanks! (more…)

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Periodical: The Week

Posted in Airlines, Art, Authors, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Books about music, Books about writers, Boredom, Canadian Content, Children's Books, Comedians, Comic Strips, Consumerism, Contests, Death, Esquire, Essays, Film & TV, Free Speech, History, LGBTQ, Marriage (Happy), Marriage Trouble, Military, Morality, Music, Natural Disasters, Neurotics, New Yorker, Oddities, Outer Space, Political Humor, Prison, Racism, Radar, Religion, Research, Robots, Russia, Salon.com, Sex, Sports Illustrated, Suicide, Technology, The Week, Violence, Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me, War, WMDs on September 14, 2009| Leave a Comment »

weekI’m not sure how I first learned about The Week. I think I received a trial issue in the mail. But after just one or two issues we were hooked.  The Week is a comprehensive newsweekly, although it offers virtually no original reporting.  It collates news stories and offers opinions from a variety of sources: newspapers, online magazines, political journals etc. And it provides opinions from across the political spectrum.

Each issue has the same set up (although they recently had an image makeover: a new cover design and some unexpected font changes in a few sections, which I suppose does lend to an easier read).

Each issue starts with The main stories… …and how they were covered. The first article is a look at whatever major story captivated the editorials that week.  (The growing gloom in Afghanistan).  And in a general sense of what you get for long articles (the long articles are about 3/4 of a page) You get WHAT HAPPENED, WHAT THE EDITORIALS SAID, and WHAT THE COLUMNISTS SAID.  The What Happened section is a paragraph or two summary of the story.  The editorials offer a one or two sentence summary from sources like USA Today, L.A. Times and The Financial Times, while The Columnists are from The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and Time.com, for example. (more…)

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Periodical: Mental Floss

Posted in A.J. Jacobs, Art, Bible, Big Books, Contests, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Esquire, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), History, Ken Jennings, Louis Armstrong, MacGyver, Mental Floss, Michelangelo Merisi (or Amerighi) da Caravaggio, Natural Disasters, Oddities, Outer Space, Political Humor, Religion, Research, Robots, Salvador Dali, Smarty Pants, Supernatural, Technology, The Future on September 2, 2009| Leave a Comment »

worstMental Floss has been one of my favorite magazines for about four years now.  It only comes out every two months, but it is just chock full of all kinds of weird information.  Sarah and I fight over who will read it first.   And then later we say, Oh, I read somewhere about X, and the other will say, yes, I saw it in Mental Floss too.

A bunch of friends and I used to do the Mental Floss Quiz of the Day which is good random trivia fun.  And I think that’s how I learned about the magazine.

So the magazine is designed to be read in easily digestible nuggets.  None of the articles are overlong.  Even the cover article, which tends to run for several pages, is broken down into bite-sized sections.  And each and every article makes you go, Huh or WOW.

The magazine even starts out great.  On their copyright page they list their errata which they call Mental Flaws.  And their corrections are just as funny as the rest of the magazine.  I think they had one issue with no Flaws and they were very excited about it.

mistakesNext comes the ubiquitous letters.  This also contains the occasional feature of Readers and Their Famous Friends, which shows pictures of readers celebrities (pretty much the only celebrities they ever talk about).  This is followed by the letter from the editor.  Neely Harris (I have yet to determine if Neely is a boy or a girl and I’m not going to look it up either, somehow it’s more fun trying to imagine) is very funny and always sets a good tone for the magazine. (more…)

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Bryan Lee O’Malley–Scott Pilgrim vs The Universe (vol. 5)

Posted in Adventure, Books about music, Bryan Lee O'Malley, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Cibo Matto, Contests, Death, Drinking, Fantasy, Free Kitten, Funky Web Sites, Funny (strange), Graphic Novel, Ikue Mori, LGBTQ, Magic, Oni Press, Robots, Romance, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Sex, Sex Bob-omb, Short Books, Sonic Youth, Supernatural, Threats, Video Games, Violence, YA Books on August 28, 2009| Leave a Comment »

sp5SOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-SYR 5: Sonic Youth Featuring Kim Gordon/DJ Olive/Ikue Mori (2000).

syr5The fifth SYR disc is rather different from the others in that the only SY member is Kim.  This is a sort of side project for Kim, Ikue Mori and DJ Olive. They’ve played shows together as well.

This disc is also different because it features a number of short songs rather than a couple of long ones.  It also features a lot of different instrumentation: turntables, keyboards, that sort of thing.  Most of the tracks are instrumental (more or less) although a few have Kim’s vocals on it.  And Yuka Honda from Cibo Matto does vocals on one track.

Kim’s side projects (like Free Kitten) are usually pretty abrasive. She lets her freak flag fly with her vocals.  And that in a nutshell will determine whether you like this or not.  Kim is playing mostly guitar, so the other instruments tend to take over a bit.

It’s always interesting when SY mixes it up with another band or solo artist.  But it doesn’t really make it a SY record, proper.

Oh, and all of the writing on the disc is in Japanese.

[READ: August 25, 2009] Scott Pilgrim vs the Universe

There’s a new Scott Pilgrim website which lets us know that Volume 6 will be out in 2010.  I can’t wait that long!

This 5th volume seemed a bit different from the other four.  The lines were crisper, it seemed like Ramona looked a little bit different (her eyes were bigger or something) and overall, the volume was a lot darker (in tone).

Today is Scott’s 24th birthday (he’s now the same age as Ramona, yup he finally asked her).

But at a party Steven Stills tells Knives that Scott had cheated on Knives with Ramona and on Ramona with Knives (which wasn’t true exactly), which sets Knives off again.  She violently confronts Ramona and when she says why, Ramona gets pissed too.

At this same party, Ramona’s evil ex-boyfriends (the twins Kyle and Ken Katayanagi) show up.  Scott prepares to fight them, but they send their robot after him instead.  The fight continues downstairs while everyone pretty much goes to other rooms, kind of bored with the whole escapade.

We also see a bit of Ramona and Scott’s domestic life (Ramona runs errands all day and Scott does, well, nothing). (more…)

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