Andy, ONEsite's creative director and resident rock star, wrote me saying early reports put Radiohead's new album downloads at 1.2million.  That's 1.2 million downloads in the first week of its release.  This is the album which is shaking up the music industry not for its contents, but for its distribution mechanisms and controversial pricing.

I paid £5.00 for my copy of In Rainbows.  So does that mean Radiohead has made £60m pounds off of its downloads thus far since they are cutting out the middle man?  It's doubtful.  Only they know the real numbers because each fan could choose to pay anywhere from £0.00 to £∞.

So if I could have gotten the album for free, why did I choose to pay for it?  It's not that I'm morally opposed to being a free loader.  Indeed, I admit that I have pirated a song or two in my lifetime (perhaps a few albums as well).  I vividly remember the days when it was quicker to download a song off of Napster than it was to find it on my hard drive.

I definitely didn't pay for the album because I thought Thom Yorke needed a few extra quid to pay for his Starbucks.  However, I may have paid for it because I felt that Radiohead deserves to be paid for producing such excellent music.  Or hell, maybe I paid for the album so it will mean more to me and not be another forgotten series of 1s and 0s gaining cobwebs in the magnetic graveyard of my mp3 collection.

So is In Rainbows worth the money?  Definitely.  Radiohead has been one of my favorite bands since I bought a copy of Pablo Honey in 1993.  I admit that I've somewhat tired of their progressive electronica version of alt-rock.  However, this is only because I miss the clean compelling refrain of the grungier Creep.  I respect that they've been continually reinventing or augmenting their style with every elbum...  and every album has been damn good.  In Rainbows may not be as classic as OK Computer, but it is overall quite good and definitely worth whatever you choose to pay for it.

Last week I had the chance to try something I've never eaten before...  Ethiopian food.  Normally I'm all for ethnic food and willing to try just about anything, but this was a night to remember.  My brother was in town and he has been wanting to try eating at Oklahoma City's Queen of Sheba restaurant.  He heard about the restaurant from a bulletin from a Flaming Lips bandmember.

Over the past week I had the pleasure of enjoying two different forms of Neil Gaiman's Stardust story. Although I have read and thoroughly enjoyed several Gaiman works, I am hardly a rabid fan, and had not yet read Stardust.

I saw the Stardust movie trailer several months ago and realized I needed to read the book before seeing the movie. However, the book languished in my Amazon shopping cart until my sister informed me that she wanted to see the movie. I informed her that it was based on a book and we hatched a plan for her to buy the book from B&N, share it with me the following Monday, and then I would read it and we would see the movie together.

 

 

(Un)fortunately, the book is a terrific bedtime fairy tale and it took me several nights to read the whole thing--this was no fault of the books, because it really is quite an enthralling tale, but primarily because I would begin it quite late each night. I have never been able to postpone the Sandman (ha...) and delay sleep--perhaps its my addiction to caffeine which makes it an impossibility.

Anyway, the book is phenomenal. It is very much an adult fairy tale and Gaiman is an excellent story teller. All the standard fantastical fare is present in the novel; however, Gaiman combines it in such a way that none of it is contrived fantasy. The world is not unique, but is enchanting nonetheless. The characters memorable even if they are archetypal. I am glad I borrowed my sister's copy because now I am considering buying the illustrated edition or the edition in comic form.

Now for the movie...

Although I quite enjoyed the movie, I do not believe it destined to be a classic fantasy film--neither by measure of box office receipts nor fantasy-lover fanaticism. Claire Danes put in a terrific performance, and overall the screenplay captured the heart of the novel, even while taking quite a few liberties. The movie could have used some more narration... to both bring out more of the Gaiman storytelling and to lighten up a few of the deader scenes in the first half of the film.

I felt Michelle Pfeiffer's acting in the movie was a bit leaden. This was in stark contrast to Robert Deniro's popping pirate persona which evoked Pirates of Penzance. Danes, however, was the star of the movie and it showed. She has been one of my favorite actresses since My So Called Life and Romeo + Juliet.

Altogether, in terms of fantasy movies, Stardust was more Labyrinth for me than A Princess Bride. Meaning while I might be equally predisposed to watching either movie on cable, David Bowie and Jennifer Connelly, even in unforgettable performances, can't hold a candle to the fantastical love story which is A Princess Bride.

A month or so ago I had some friends over at my house to play the Wii.  I had just picked up the Wii from Thad and unfortunately had forgotten to grab the sensor bar.  In case you're not hip to the WiiWorld, the sensor bar is used by the Wiimotes to help with triangulation and pointing and all that jazz.  So since we had no sensor bar were wii going to give up?  Hell no, we decided to play by candlelight instead!



The sensor bar actually works by sending out 5 dots of infrared light.  The Wiimotes use these points to determine where the user is in relation to the television and where the Wiimote is pointing.  The Wiimote has an accelerometer internally which is used to detect motion and acceleration in the physical dimensions.  What this means is that you can still play a lot of Wii games without even using the sensor bar.

So do the candles replace the sensor bar entirely?  Ummmm, not quite.  We of course had to turn the lights all the way off, and even then the Wiimote had some issues.  It worked pretty well for navigating the Wii menus and getting into the games and performing initial game setup.  However, I imagine it would not work well for a game which actually depends on a significant amount of "pointing."  Fortunately we only played Wii Sports and all the sports games seem to only require the accelerometer.

All in all it was a blast to play by candlelight.  However, it's a bit dangerous as you can imagine.  Especially when you're drinking white russians at the same time...

Last week I had the pleasure of taking a sort of miniature vacation.  I wish my schedule had been a little less hectic this summer so I could have gone with my brother to the UK and continental Europe; however, instead I could only spare a few days and chose to spend them doing what I rarely ever anymore--play computer games.

A number of my crew from ONEsite headed down to Dallas to attend the annual QuakeCon computer gaming convention.  Some of our group have been attending for years and year, but this was my first year.  It's been quite some time since I've been a hardcore gamer.  I played an awful lot of games in high school, but even though my free time ramped up considerably in college I found myself playing less and less.  Furthermore, I had developed a gaming website and slaving away on it took away a lot of the enjoyment I had for playing games.

Anyway, QuakeCon was a terrific experience.  I would definitely go back--especially once Starcraft is released.  We found ourselves playing a lot of the old Starcraft.  We arrived Wednesday night and stayed through Sunday.  I took my Macbook and it performed exceptionally well.  Windows runs incredibly fast on it when using BootCamp.  We primarily played games which were 5 to 10 years old.  They just don't make them like they used to!

Here's a shot of the Bring Your Own Computer room.  You can't see our group in this shot, but Thad's blog has a photo where you can see my back and Josh's forehead.  The room is much more impressive with the lights off.