Kicks Condor

#monsters

I use three main tags on this blog:

  • hypertext: linking, the Web, the future of it all.

  • garage: art and creation, tinkering, zines and books, kind of a junk drawer - sorry!

  • elementary: schooling for young kids.

30 Mar 2020

Mackerelmedia Fish

Experience the adrenaline rush of downloading and installing it as many times as you like!

Holy hell - Nathalie Lawhead is at it again. Expanding her ‘Mackerelmedia’ joke from Electric Zine Maker into its own thing. Gotta say - it’s crazy the mileage this one gets out of potatoes and fish.

I’m simply obligated to link this - because it glimmers with the true affection and pity that any reader of this blog must have for the Whirled Whipped Web.

YOU TRAVEL DEEPER INTO THE DARKER PART OF THE FEED. AS YOU REACH FOR A PIECE OF INFORMATION THAT SEEMS TO LOOK PROMISING PART OF THE FEED THAT YOU ARE STANDING ON GIVES OUT.

YOU FALL FAR, PAST WHAT SEEMS TO BE DOZENS OF RSS ENTRIES DESCRIBING HOW FISH WENT MISSING. PORTIONS OF COMMUNITY COMMENTS BEMOANING THE SUDDEN DISAPPEARANCE OF FISH, AND SOME SPECULATION AS TO WHERE THE FISH WENT…ALL ZOOM BY. YOU FINALLY HIT THE GROUND. THE FLOOR IS STABLE HERE, UNFORTUNATELY IT’S JUST AS DARK. YOU CAN BARELY SEE ANYTHING.

YOU DID LEARN A LOT FROM THE FALL: FISH WAS ONCE LOVED. ONE DAY FISH DISAPPEARED AND NOBODY KNOWS WHERE IT WENT. THERE ARE SPECULATIONS THAT YOU MIGHT BE ABLE TO FIND FISH IF YOU LOOK IN THE RIGHT PLACES…TRACES OF WHERE FISH MAY HAVE GONE HOVER AHEAD, IN THE DARKEST PART OF THE FEED. IT’S FEARFULLY DARK THERE. IT SEEMS VERY UNSAFE.

There are also dozens of strange Apache error pages and HTML fake outs. I couldn’t help but feel that browsers have crippled Nathalie tho - what if she had the full palette of crazy popup windows and window resizing tricks of the past??

THE ‘GO BACK…’ LINK FALLS TO THE FLOOR. IT WILL SERVE AS A FINE MORSEL FOR THE VIRTUAL VERMIN. SUCH IS THE BITTER SWEET LIFECYCLE OF A WEBSITE.

Related: an actual Mackerel Media Digital Marketing. 🤣

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24 Dec 2019

Y. Kiri Yu 余依笛

A blog can be both lovely carcass art and marker reviews.

Blogs are piling up everywhere. I need to do another HrefHunt. (If you have a blog, let me link to you.) In the meantime, I don’t want to sit on this one. A Wordpress blog that is very clean and colorful.

While much of it is art (and art supplies), there are also some good essays about blogging, such as “The Only Way to Beat Algorithms is to Retrain Your Audience”. I appreciate articles like this because it has become very common to litter criticism everywhere without any concept of a way forward. I really don’t think an RSS resurgence is going to happen with the mainstream - but it could continue to happen down here in the wilds - and we can definitely benefit from the mindset of bringing your node on the network back under your control.

Anyway, I think Wordpress is still an excellent way to participate. So it’s good to see blogs that use it well.

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14 May 2019

Nathalie Lawhead’s Electric Zine Maker Beta (With Goldfishies)

At the crossroads between dank and useful.

This is sick—Nathalie Lawhead (who I’ve covered as Tetrageddon before) has made this paper zine maker that recalls Paint Shop Pro, Kid Pix and Kai’s Power Goo. Design the pages and it’ll put the fold lines in. Love the pattern tool.

I’m pronto all over this in my school clubs—but here’s her announcement:

@alienmelon:
It’s out!
The Electric Zine Maker (public beta)
⚡ Easily create, draw, write, and print zines!
📝 Folding instructions included!!
✂ You can save them, and re-import them.
☺ Made with collaboration in mind.
✨ Try it! It’s free!! ✨
(rt’s appreciated 💕)
pic.twitter.com/0DgiC24XaN

Additionally, have to cite this feature she dropped a mention for:

@alienmelon:

…the other one is an “authenticity filter” that will put an authenticify shader over the zine to make it look like it was photocopies and printed a million times (kind of halftones + thresholding). so you can easily & quickly have an authentic looking zine.

What can I say? I love everything about this. This will go in href.cool, too easy.

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09 Feb 2019

Reply: Godzilla

Eli Mellen

I’ve got a quick confession: I love Godzilla. This post encompasses all the things I like about Godzilla. You’ve got some cultural production stuff, you’ve got climate and ecology stuff, with a smattering of socio-political stuff all wrapped up in a rubber dino-monster suit. What isn’t to like!?

I am lockstep with you, man. I love Godzilla—love the sound the thing makes. The closer it gets to the wail of tearing metal the better. Love the waggly-eyed floppy version that waddles through the harbor in Shin Godzilla. Love the rigid linear path of the original. Love the lasers out of the back and such.

It gets a little like Power Rangers with the King Ghidorah stuff—which is amazing!! But I prefer even stuff like the U.S. version where the camera can’t seem to get the whole thing on tape and there’s just these shadows stalking through the mist.

I don’t know if the article is suggesting this, but I don’t think Godzilla has become unmoored from its origins. I love it because of its history—and most fans I meet know the history. I didn’t experience the bombing, but it’s horrific to me. (I have witnessed a horrific accident that was like an atomic bomb to me. And I think even one who experiences horror can’t completely internalize it—the whole scene is still left to the imagination and to the psyche—the moment is a flash.)

Great article—this might land in href.cool. If so, I’ll leave a ‘via’ for you.

Really appreciate these thorough linklogs. I’m way into these. Love Robbe-Grillet, too. Djinn was a favorite. Not recommending it to anyone, though.

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14 Jan 2019

‘Everyone knows that dragons don’t exist. But while this simplistic formulation may satisfy the layman, it does not suffice for the scientific mind. The School of Higher Neantical Nillity is in fact wholly unconcerned with what does exist. Indeed, the banality of existence has been so amply demonstrated, there is no need for us to discuss it any further here. The brilliant Cerebron, attacking the problem analytically, discovered three distinct kinds of dragon: the mythical, the chimerical, and the purely hypothetical. They were all, one might say, nonexistent, but each nonexisted in an entirely different way.’

— p. 85, The Cyberiad by Stanislaw Lem

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02 Nov 2018

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17 Aug 2018

Turn of the Century Photograph of Charlie McAlister

“He never knew he was sick. And he died in the arms of a gal!”

It really sucks that Charlie McAlister died last year. I had really hoped to write to him more and maybe talk to him one day! Back in 1998, I found this cassette of his and it’s still out there! But you won’t find lyrics and tabs out there—he was truly underground. (There is a section of my upcoming link directory devoted to the muckpile of this rambling maniac.) In the meantime, please enjoy these wonderful lyrics to the second song.

Bog Man
He never knew he was sick
And he died in the arms of a gal!
Who threw his body into the bog
Next to the rice canal.
Next to the rice canal.
And ten-thousand years later they found
His body buried in the moss--
And his skin and eyes had turned to leather
And his bones had turned to rock.
His bones had turned to rock.
So then they took him to a museum
And put his body in a case.
And people came from miles around
To see the bog man's face.
To see the bog man's face.
But late one night after the museum had closed,
The bog man came back to life--
And he went out into the streets in a rage
And strangled the mayor's wife.
And strangled the mayor's wife.
So the next villager to die only had one leg
And couldn't run to escape.
And the bog man hit him with a cinder block
And a pointed rake.
And a pointed rake.
So the next villager to die was blind in one eye
And didn't see it coming.
And the bog man hit him with the pointed rake
Till the blood started flowing.
Bog man, bog man, you are an evil man.
Bog man, bog man, you are an evil man.
Bog man, bog man, you are an evil man.

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09 Mar 2018

Fables of Tables #1

Rising Sun: The Shame and Sorrows of Godzilla

In my first game of Rising Sun, a Kaiju came in from the sea—and what happened next brought a profound mix of delight and sadness.

This is the first in my Fables of Tables series. It’s a type of review series. But instead of dryly reviewing the game’s mechanics and stamping some harsh grade on its face, I’m just going to tell a story.

Today’s game is Rising Sun. This is a miniatures game—full of plastic monsters. I don’t really play miniatures games, but a friend had a copy so it just happened. And, what the blazes? A miniatures game in pastels?

Midway through the game, I noticed that you could buy a giant Godzilla-like monster to have in your crew.

Daikaiju, so not exactly Godzilla, but hey.

“What’s the Godzilla do?” I asked.

And the friend who owns the game—I’ll call him Hustle—says, “Oh, he has five force.” So he’s huge—his power is equal to five whole army guys.

He goes on to explain that when you buy the Kaiju, you put him out in the sea—the whole board is a rough map of Japan and there is water surrounding the islands—so you put the monster out there, and then during battle you can spring him on to any of the game’s provinces and he’ll destroy all the buildings there. (The buildings are these strongholds where your units can appear.)

“Oh man!” I’m thinking. “Just like Godzilla! I love it! I gotta have it!”

I just really enjoy monster movies—particularly Shin Godzilla—that wail that sounds like metal sheets tearing and that slow, sinuous tail as he moves methodically through the cityscape. I get that he’s historically out of place in this game, but I don’t care! He is the force of the Earth fighting back against civilization—what if he could have done this in some bygone age?

The guy playing purple (don’t recall his name) buys the Kaiju before I can. This player is already in the lead and now has Godzilla, placing him in the sea. It is as if two titans of this world have allied and we are waiting for our defeat.

I look on wistfully at this being. Five force! I am in awe and I sit in anticipation of what the lurking god will do when war begins.


War arrives and the fellow playing purple brings Godzilla on to land in the northern province of Hokkaido. The Kaiju storms into the scene and—well, there are no buildings there—he has no effect. But still—this is an island teaming with monsters and warriors and look how Godzilla towers above them!!

Hustle reaches across the giant board and points. “Ok, so, you see, I have the Earth Dragon here.”

Hot snakes, I had forgotten about the Earth Dragon! So the Earth Dragon does not have the force that Godzilla has. However, the Earth Dragon is able to push away one unit from each opponent in the battle. It is as if the Earth Dragon takes a big breath and then >SNUFF< a bunch of guys fly off to other parts of the island.

Of course, he chooses to snuff off Godzilla. The Earth Dragon takes a big breath and a myriad of warriors and creatures scatter across the map. Godzilla is propelled all the way across the board—using a marked sea lane, I should add, since the winds of the dragons respect these rules as well—and he lands in Kyushu, destroying a few buildings when he lands.

War rages on and, before long, the spotlight shines on Kyushu. Godzilla has picked up the pieces and, with some tarnished pride, admirably overshadows the vast assembly of demons and gods there.

“Hang on,” says the player to my right, “my Fire Dragon goes first.”

Holy cats! Right! The Fire Dragon! This twisty, devious dragon coughs his terrible fireballs just as the battle forms—incinerating one unit for each opponent present in the conflict. Warriors and barbaric creatures fall away in the fire—and Godzilla himself, no, it can’t be! Can it??

Gods, it is true! The vast unshakable behemoth is now wildly dashing from the island in a pyre of his own burning scales. He tumbles down the beach, a maniacally flailing lizard, a lizard of flame and agony, howling his metal-rending chord.

The great Kaiju sinks back into the ocean—in shame and sorrow—having made no effect on the actual game at all. Like we never did any math with Godzilla involved. Literally no effect.


I sat there for some time after the game had concluded. Stunned and humbled. I contemplated the fate of Godzilla. Perhaps even the great gods get tossed and squashed and embarassed on a bad day.

Perhaps when I die, my Guardian—or my Saint or Kami—will approach me to greet me into a new kingdom. And she, too, may trip and fall into fire, to be engulfed and never seen again. These things happen. I realize that now.

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PLUNDER THE ARCHIVES

This page is also at kickssy42x7...onion and on hyper:// and ipns://.

MOVING ALONG LET'S SEE MY FAVORITE PLACES I NO LONGER LINK TO ANYTHING THATS VERY FAMOUS

glitchyowl, the future of 'people'.

jack & tals, hipster bait oracles.

maya.land, MAYA DOT LAND.

hypertext 2020 pals: h0p3 level 99 madman + ᛝ ᛝ ᛝ — lucid highly classified scribbles + consummate waifuist chameleon.

yesterweblings: sadness, snufkin, sprite, tonicfunk, siiiimon, shiloh.

surfpals: dang, robin sloan, marijn, nadia eghbal, elliott dot computer, laurel schwulst, subpixel.space (toby), things by j, gyford, also joe jenett (of linkport), brad enslen (of indieseek).

fond friends: jacky.wtf, fogknife, eli, tiv.today, j.greg, box vox, whimsy.space, caesar naples.

constantly: nathalie lawhead, 'web curios' AND waxy

indieweb: .xyz, c.rwr, boffosocko.

nostalgia: geocities.institute, bad cmd, ~jonbell.

true hackers: ccc.de, fffff.at, voja antonić, cnlohr, esoteric.codes.

chips: zeptobars, scargill, 41j.

neil c. "some..."

the world or cate le bon you pick.

all my other links are now at href.cool.