July 2009

Groucho And Me

Submitted by Robert Gomez on Tue, 2009-07-28 12:58     Posted in My Reading Log
Author: 
Groucho Marx
Rating: 
5/10

This autobiography was pretty uninformative. Reads more like a compilation of unrelated essays about with a little bit of anecdotal commentary added to personalize it. Not awful, but would have been better as an audio book read by Groucho himself.

Liar

Submitted by Robert Gomez on Wed, 2009-07-22 21:17
Artist: 
Jesus Lizard, The
Format: 
CD
Rating: 
9/10

Goat laid the ground rules for the Jesus Lizard's sound and Liar solidified it into a formula. It's a swell formula indeed, but after Liar, the JLs records start to blend into one and other. This is still a great CD.

Posted in Record Reviews

Goat

Submitted by Robert Gomez on Wed, 2009-07-22 12:28
Artist: 
Jesus Lizard, The
Format: 
CD
Rating: 
10/10

Jesus Lizard's finest record. Crazy bluesy licks on top of a pounding rhythm section and off-the-wall vocals. This could possibly be the best record of the 90s. Seriously.

Posted in Record Reviews

Head/Pure

Submitted by Robert Gomez on Wed, 2009-07-22 12:27
Artist: 
Jesus Lizard, The
Format: 
CD
Rating: 
10/10

I'd have to say it's a toss up between Goat and Head as my favorite Jesus Lizard album. Pure/Head show a lot more variety than the later records which is both good and bad. It's good because the songs are never boring, bad because the experimentation doesn't always work (Happy Bunny Goes Fluff Fluff Along). Because of the drum machine and distorted vocals, this early JL is much more industrial sounding than later efforts too, which I sorta like.

Posted in Record Reviews

For Your Own Special Sweetheart

Submitted by Robert Gomez on Wed, 2009-07-22 12:26
Artist: 
Jawbox
Format: 
CD
Rating: 
8/10

More of Jawbox being Jawbox. The only thing that signing to a major may have changed about the band is that this CD seems to have been mastered louder than previous releases.

Posted in Record Reviews

T.S.B. (Tom's Strip and Bowl)

Submitted by Robert Gomez on Tue, 2009-07-21 15:27
Artist: 
Mono Men
Format: 
CD
Rating: 
4/10

As much as I appreciate Dave Crider and his label Estrus Records, I could never get in to his band, Mono Men. They always seemed like the most generic of the already generic garage rock genre. Anyhow, this is a live recording of a show in Bloomington, Illinois. I guess you had to be there to "get" this.

Posted in Record Reviews

Novelty

Submitted by Robert Gomez on Tue, 2009-07-21 14:23
Artist: 
Jawbox
Format: 
CD
Rating: 
8/10

Good 90s post punk music. Much more rockin' than say, Fugazi, but the songs are not as memorable.

Posted in Record Reviews

The Happy Return (aka Beat to Quarters)

Submitted by Robert Gomez on Mon, 2009-07-20 14:19     Posted in My Reading Log
Author: 
C. F. Forester
Rating: 
8/10

Thought I'd give this series a try after finishing the Aubry/Maturn series. Hornblower is definately a simpler read, and it's almost as good O'Brian. The characters were not as vivid as O'Brian's.

"Dippy Golf" - Another Apple ][ Game I Wrote as a Kid

Submitted by Robert Gomez on Fri, 2009-07-17 22:25

After posting Malfunction, my text adventure game for the Apple ][, I have been spending a whole bunch of time tinkering with my old Apple ][ software creations. Another one of my better creations was a golf game that I titled, Dippy Golf. This game featured nine holes which were loaded in from external graphics files and, even more impressive, was the use of audio samples of my voice! The game worked but still felt somewhat unfinished, so I decided to complete the game and post it here on the Pages of Fun!

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My Apple ][ Masterpiece, "Malfunction"

Submitted by Robert Gomez on Tue, 2009-07-14 21:45

(Okay, Masterpiece should probably be in quotes too!) I have been on a bit of a retro computing kick this evening. I have been playing around with AppleWin, which is the best Apple ][ emulator for Windows that I know of. I played a little bit of the original Castle Wolfenstein and then decided to fire up my trusty Apple ][gs and port some of my old Applesoft programs to PC.

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