taking fire

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After nearly eight years of blogging there are inevitably a few gems buried in the archives of taking fire. In an effort to revisit past glories I’ve added voting buttons to each entry.

If a new post tickles you, or particularly if you find something old that deserves more attention, hit the Vote button to bump up the magic number.

Over time I’ll add better ways to get at the top voted entries – for now there’s a rough list on the sidebar. Happy voting.

UPDATE: I ended up blowing this away after the sidebar was taking ages to load – terrible bit of SQL. Happy googling!

Last Friday it was a lovely day, so I took the vanguard for a ride up through Times Square and beyond. I stopped at the ruby ‘bleachers’ to test out this fancy panorama app for the iPhone.

Pull on your Java pants, take a sip of coffee and hit the ‘read more’ link to see what Times Square looked like last weekend, standing proudly atop the crimson stair. It should scroll lefty/right and a wee bit up/down too.
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Exactly three years ago I woke up at Caitlin’s place in Bushwick – it was the would I like to live in New York? trip – and scribbled down an idea. I finally finished it up now. That is a pretty shocking work rate.

It’s on the joy of damage and it’s called dear sis. On Firefox it’s pretty clear what to do; with IE (ugh) or Safari or Chrome you have to be more curious.

I do think there’s a metric ton you can do with words on screen that’s impossible on paper. For the most part it’s unexploited.

Rejoice! The NY Asian Film Festival comes around again. A quick history so far:

• 2006 (while visiting Caitlin) had the life-changing Funky Forest, the solid Linda! x 3 and the supremely-titled Oh! My Zombie Mermaid.
• 2007 I was in London, so getting to the venues was problematic.
• 2008 was memorable for the devastating sweetness of the Tokyo… films (where I won the signed poster), and Tarantino mucking about in Sukiyaki Western Django (where I won the water pistol, later to be fuelled with bourbon).

After hacking through the schedule superlatives I’ve booked tickets for these shows, so feel free to ping me if you’d like to come along:

• 20th Century Boys (part 1 on June 21, part 2 on July 4)
• The Warlords (23rd)
• Yoroi: Samurai Zombie (26th)
• Five Deadly Venoms (28th)
• Hard Revenge Milly (30th)
• The Magic Hour (July 1st)
• Love Exposure (3rd)

Phew. Then after that it’s the Revisiting Tarkosvky series at the Lincoln Center. A good time for cinema.

Who’s been to Japan? Recommend me some unmissable things to do or places to go. I’m going there tomorrow for 2 weeks, will be going to all the big cities.

Controversially I didn’t reflexively log into LotRO this morning and instead did something vaguely creative. Over on the joy of damage I posted an actual short story that I done wrote. One caveat: I put it together it a long time ago*. I won’t say too much other than that – I think (hope) it’s still pretty readable.

Notice it’s a couple of thousand words so I’d get a cup of tea first. It’s called The Doll’s House.

* like, in the 90s. I know!

A few weeks ago it was actually sunny for the first time in months, if still a bit crispy and cold. With glee I took the board out and recorded myself failing for educational purposes. It turned out to be an interesting wee clip so I youtubed it for your amusement.

I won’t embed it here, it’s better to go and watch it in proper HD glory, ideally in full screen.

I can now say with some enthusiasm that video editing is bananas fun. Making subtitles is a total pain in the arse, however.

Enjoy!

It’s early Autumn, and still warm as the evening begins to draw over. You’re walking home from work, treading the last familiar steps westward on 22nd Street. Thinking about reaching for your keys, there in the bag slung over your shoulder.

Up ahead, a group of four men are approaching. Tanned white skin, neat haircuts, casual smiles, styled clothes, maybe in their forties. You guess they’ve been out somewhere.

As you clock this, from across the road a slim black guy steps into your view, also heading west, walking on intercept. Unseasonably heavy jacket, red baseball cap, a bulky backpack. Reaching the pavement ahead of you, he steps into the personal space of the group. He’s brandishing a spray of money; from their faces, he’s saying something. The group reflexes, convulsing away from him without eye contact, continues without slowing down. As they reach you they politely make a space and are gone to either side.

The lone guy has stopped, turned to watch; it’s only a few seconds before you are upon him. He looks you up and down and addresses you immediately, with evident frustration.

“These foreigners, they don’t even speak English. They think I’m gonna rob them, even though I got my own money,” he insists, conspicuously holding out the same bundle of notes. Folded length-ways; fifteen dollars, maybe.

“Where they from?” you ask, because you were curious yourself. You’re half-slowing, and listening to the neutral sound of the words coming out of your mouth.

“See I know you’re a New Yorker, cos you’re cool,” he asserts. He’s making a fairly safe bet: you’re looking preppy, smart shirt, white vest underneath, shoulder bag, walking confidently.

“Good night,” he offers as you pass.

“Cheers”, you conclude, demonstrating in one word how wrong he is.

Good news for gaming geeks everywhere – Spelunky is not unbeatable. Today I finished this lovable bastard of a game after many hours of swearing and outright fun.

It’s an Indiana Jones-inspired platformer. It’s difficult and unforgiving, but fair. It’s cute and well-animated. Like its predecessor Nethack, the content is randomly generated and throws up constant surprises.

If you’re feeling anarchic you get to rob shopkeepers, who in this game have completely evil AI and will chase you down with terrifying efficiency.

It has a whole bunch of Secret Stuff which you find out in pleasant moments of ‘oh, I see’ and by checking out the buzz on the official message board.

It will make gamers respect you and give you fingers of whisper-nimble adamantium.

It’s completely free and will run on old PCs. As you can see from my stats (which I assure you are pretty good), don’t expect too many wins per play…