Geeky double-posting goodness
Sunday, December 16 2007

It sure has been a while since I did any serious writing. Actually, I suppose that hasn't changed, since there's nothing about The Dark Truth of UN Squadron that could be considered serious to begin with. But what's exciting is that it's been published (online) as a part of Gamespite's Issue Three! It is a compendium of nerdy goodness with many other articles about old videogames for your perusal, so please do drop on by.

In other news, I made something silly as a Christmas Festivus gift for someone I've never met. Since I like how it turned out, I'm posting it here: my baby steps into the world of chiptunes. Please enjoy!

I'm making a note here: Huge Success
Sunday, December 2 2007

It is with great sadness that I announce my recent and very tragic death. Due to fortunate circumstances last night, I am now writing to you from beyond the grave. Obviously I can't expect you to accept such a claim without some sort of evidence to back it up, so allow me to present you with this terrifying photo:

Yes, somehow, La Part du Quêteux managed to win the award for Best Album - Traditional 2007 at the CFMA. As promised, my mind is completely blown and I am mostly at a loss for words. The few words that I have managed to find since then have been collected here for your information and amusement, so that's nice. Anyway, it is an hono(u)r and a life-ending privelidge to have been recognized for the work we did on Paye la traite, which I believe to be my best work to date. And, as all future work will be posthumous, it's nice to know I went out with a bang. I suppose now I have to add some audio samples to the music page for this CD. (Edit: They're up!)

...From beyond the gra - OK, I think that joke is played out now.

I actually don't have much to add to that, except that I guess we can also use this as scientific proof of the hypothesis I put forward on Friday last:

QED, yo.

Unseasonable weather brings possibilities of flurries and Canadian Folk Music Awards
Friday, November 30 2007

Did you know that La Part du Quêteux has been nominated for a Canadian Folk Music Award in the category of Best Album - Traditional for 2007? It's true! This frankly staggering turn of events is cause enough for celebration in its own right, but we can't allow ourselves to miss the big picture. Can you imagine, if you harness the entire power of your imagination cortex, that distant possibility that we might actually win it? I don't know about you, but my mind would be blown! Completely gone! Hopefully yours would be too, if only out of solidarity.

So, despite potential hazards to my health, I'll be heading down to Ottawa for the awards gala tomorrow night to see if we really pulled it off. If I don't report back, it's possible that I have simply become a victim of our dazzling success. It is also possible that I just won't feel like reporting on the ceremony if we don't win, which is certainly possible given the competition we are up against. Either way, I have a convenient excuse if I'm late with the next update.

Also, and this has very little bearing on any possible awards that I may or may not win in the next 24 hours, also we bought a toaster. When I say we, I'm not referring to La Part du Quêteux at all, actually, but rather to myself and the ladyfriend. We bought a toaster, which somehow wound up costing 75 freaking dollars! This is, to my mind, three toasters' worth of toaster! I hope you Germans have designed this thing down to the micron to maximize my toast enjoyment, because anything less than that will be cause for severe disappointment.

Our new darling is quite a beast, though. Lookie lookie!

Isn't she a beaut?

I've been through the desert
Tuesday, November 13 2007

Ah, sunny Arizona! Happy was I to return to the American Southwest after a good 5 year absence, even if it only was for 4 days. For those who aren't in the know, I was off playing for Dance in the Desert with the good folks of Airdance. And it went pretty well! I got to see lots of cacti, as evidenced by this handsome fellow on the right, as well as quail, javelinas and a roadrunner. There were, however, no wily coyotes in evidence. Anyway, I got to meet lots of swell folks and play tons and tons of music, so overall I'd say the weekend was a success. Nothing like playing a round of beach volleyball in November to pick up your spirits as Fall sets in. Most of the resultant photos from my trip are pretty uninteresting, but I did concoct a somewhat interesting panorama, which I will display below because I'm so nice. Click it to get a much, much larger version. If you want, I mean.

I've also got a big announcement to make...but for now I'll just be a tease about it. Ha ha! Don't worry, I'll post about it before the end of them month. Can't keep both of my regular readers in the dark, can I?

You down with NRC?
Friday, October 5 2007

Just got in from a week of learning the finer points of Monte Carlo simulations and BEAM. The workshop was held at the National Research Council in Ottawa, which is really quite a sight to see. The place is a sprawling campus with about 60 different buildings, but the feeling is more military than academic, since it was all constructed for the army about 50 years ago. In retrospect, I should really have taken some pictures of the place, but it seems that I can never remember to dig out my camera when there's something worth shooting at.

On the bright side, the workshop was full of great folks and if I'm lucky I'll be able to post a shot or two taken by some of the other physicists while we were driving through the Gatineau. Not that they would give you some idea of what the NRC looks like, but they should be nice, since they were taken at a scenic viewpoint overlooking Pink Lake (which is green, by the by). Judging by the fact that people came from as far away as Australia and Japan, I'm guessing this BEAM stuff is far more widely used than I originally suspected...

Here's a little something I would like to relate
Sunday, August 26 2007

Oof. After many months (years?) of deliberating, I've finally undertaken something that I've wanted to do for quite some time: The Big Ride. Today I will tell you of this epic journey.

I quite enjoy biking, and as someone who needs all the exercise that he can get, I try to give myself reason to do so as often as possible. Usually I just do so to get from point A to point B in Montreal, possibly saving bus fare in the process, but rarely do I get out just for the sake of exercise or to enjoy the scenery. Today, though, things were different!

I've been wanting to do a longer ride for some time, since I usually never go for more than an hour, which probably equates to about 15 km. To this end, I managed to convince Vio that we had to make it to the end of the Lachine canal. I knew that this was a bit much to ask, but since the bike trail has a very definitive ending, it seemed like the kind of goal that would motivate us to continue past what was...shall we say, strictly necessary. Or wise. Here's the path that we followed, roughly, courtesy of Google Maps:

Technically speaking, it's only the path that we took going there, since on the way back we wended our way through downtown to avoid some of the nastier hills. This seemed like a good idea, as two and a half hours of biking had reduced our legs to quivering piles of jelly. All told, the trip was just short of 50 kilometers, which easily doubles my record for longest bike ride ever. I'm totally beat, but man, was it ever worth it.

Of course, there's no point in doing something like this if you can't brag about, so I've posted it here for all the world to see! Hopefully this is just the first of many longer voyages to come, and you can be sure that I'll tell you all about those as well.

PS - Bruce Molsky, I'm on to you.

Complete!
Thursday, July 26 2007

I've pounded a lot of nails into a lot of coffins in the last few weeks, finishing off a plethora of games, books and TV series. Among my more recent completions are:

Slaughterhouse Five

I wasn't expecting Vonnegut's classic WWII tale to be as... silly as it occasionally was. In hindsight, I realize that that was perhaps foolish of me, considering that I've read several other books by the same author and should have known what I was in for. Overall quite good, and despite the sometimes light tone it still managed to successfully convey the horrors of war, although there were a few moments when I would have preferred a more somber interpretation. But it did remind me of why I love Kurt Vonnegut, whose quirky sense of humor never fails to please.

Aqua Teen Hunger Force Season One

The first few episodes had me concerned that I wasn't really the target audience for this series, but I grew quite attached to some of the characters by the time the season wrapped up. While the gross-out humor isn't always my cup of tea, there are some pretty inventive moments and the occasional hilarious one-liner. And the magical wish-granting Foreigner belt? Pure genius. I might check out the second season once I've exhausted my backlog of shows to watch. Right: "But it's exactly the same, isn't it, Steve?"

Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow

Having started with the much stronger Dawn of Sorrow, dusting off my GBA and going back to the original was somewhat difficult. Still a fun game, but missing the awesome soul forging mechanic of the second. Also, being able to switch weapon/soul sets on the fly in Dawn really ruined me for this game. I guess Aria is obsolete now?

Harvey Birdman Season One

Another series from the Cartoon Network, this one hooked me immediately with the brilliant first few episodes. There's a pretty pronounced drop in quality in the middle of the season (the two parter where Azul Falcon is introduced), but after that it gradually returns to form. Certainly, it makes good fodder for the exercise bike! I'm hopeful that the writing will stay strong for season two, but it's hard to know what to expect after the inconsistencies in season one.

The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana

While I consider myself an Eco fan, I can't say that I love all of his work unconditionally - at least not since the pointless mess that was The Island of the Day Before. Here, though, we find Eco at his most accessible: writing a captivating story that's largely free of the ego-stroking literary wanking that plagues many of his other books. Most of the book revolves around a retelling of one character's childhood in fascist Italy during the second world war (another WWII book...huh), which I really appreciated since I've heard so little about that particular point of view. If it wasn't for the ending (aaargh!), I would be able to recommend it whole heartedly. Other than that, I haven't enjoyed one of Eco's books this much since Foucault's Pendulum, which I rank as my favorite book of all time. So to conclude... it's very good, you should read it.

Futurama Season Two

I know it was never as funny as The Simpsons was (back in the day, I mean), but Futurama has a charm of its own that I've always been fond of. While the humor ranges from hilarious to dull, the Planet Express crew has more depth than Homer and co. and you can actually see a bit of honest-to-god character development over the years. While I'm not a rabid fan, I generally just find it pleasant to watch at worst and highly entertaining at best.

Two Laps of The Hole

A few blocks north and east of my apartment there is a place where is seems that several thousand tons of earth have been removed from the island of Montreal. I don't really know what it's supposed to be (dump? environmental testing ground?), but it's big and there is a lengthy bike trail that goes around it. Or, around and around, to take my last ride as an example. It's not exactly beautiful, although parts of it are pleasant enough, but it's mostly just a nice long bike trail with no stop signs or lights to break up the rhythm. Maybe I'll try for three laps next time.

This Post

Phew, I obviously must have a bit more free time now that my classes are done. Coming soon: Timequake and Odin Sphere!

Good news will come to you by mail...some more
Saturday, July 21 2007

It would seem that the stars have aligned, because my curse (well, more of an embargo) Re: reviews seems to finally have worn off. First there was the wonderful Sing Out! review of Over the Bridge last month; now the new issue of Penguin Eggs apparently sports an extremely favorable review of La Part du Quêteux's Paye la Traite. If you want to know why I'm smiling, check out these two excerpts: "Easily a contender for Canadian folk record of the year" "Few do this music better" It's nice to see some positive feedback after putting so much work into these discs - thanks to the folks who take the time to review them!

South of 60
Sunday, July 1 2007

We're back from our great adventure in Iqaluit, which was totally rad and I'm not even kidding. Here are a few shots, which can be savoured in greater detail by clicking them (or visiting the photo page).

Take off!
Thursday, June 21 2007

(To the Great White North)

Goin' here for this. See you in a week!

Late to the party: Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
Saturday, June 16 2007

Even though I'm a pretty big fan of videogames, I'm generally pretty far behind the times. The reasons for this are twofold: first, I don't have $600 to drop on a fancy new-fangled console (and I couldn't find a Wii if I sold my mother for one). Second, there are so many great games that come out that I can't really keep up with them all, even though I don't own any current game systems other than my DS. The bright side of this is that I generally get my fix on the cheap; since I've already got a backlog, I don't need to buy new games right away and can usually wait to pick them up until they drop to $30 or less.

Nintendo, however, are a little bit difficult with the price cuts, especially when it comes to their top tier first-party games. Mario Kart Double Dash is still an absurd $45 years after its release, same thing for Super Smash Brothers Melee, and Wind Waker took its sweet time coming down as well. Another unfortunate tendency that they have is to completely disappear, which is what happened to the excellent Eternal Darkness (which I had to buy used) and the original Pikmin, which I'd still like to try some day.

Blinded by the light

Happily, though, I was able to get a copy of Metroid Prime 2: Echoes around Christmas time last year on the cheap, so I jumped at the opportunity. It finally made its way up the queue (held back for quite some time by the immenseness of Final Fantasy XII), and I've finally polished it off today. I have to admit that it was a bit of a rush job on my part, since my copy of Odin Sphere just arrived this afternoon and I don't want to let one of the few recently-released games that I buy get old before I play it!

It must be said that I was a huge fan of the original Prime. It was the reason that I bought a Gamecube in the first place, and one of the few things I could cling to when later attempting to justify buying that instead of an XBox. (As a side note, ever since playing the superb Paper Mario 1000 Year Door, I no longer feel the need to justify the purchase) Anyway, as a rabid enthusiast of the first game in the series, I went into the second with a mix of hope and apprehension. The reports were conflicting:

"9.1 out of 10!" said Gamespot.

"Don't play it!" said Justin, citing the limited ammo for the beam weapons.

"..." said everyone else, the lack of discussion about the game not really reassuring me either.

Now that I've reached the end, I think I can firmly state that this is an excellent, though flawed, game. Unfortunately, the various flaws came together in such a way that I didn't really find myself enjoying the first half of the game very much, even though I could see that it was a quality piece of work. As far as I can tell, there are two culprits:

The Story
Look, Metroid games are not supposed to be story driven. My favorite Metroid games, other than Prime, are Super Metroid and Zero Mission, two games whose stories could be distilled to "metroids are bad, explore some caves". Fine, there was the sad bit in Super Metroid where your little baby metroid sacrificed itself to save you from Mother Brain, but that one tear-jerking moment aside, plot was pretty much a non-issue.

Metroid games like Prime 2 and Fusion, where there are actual characters communicating with you, push you away from the true beauty of the series: exploration and discovery. Much like the (modern) Prince of Persia series, the real fun is to find your way through the intricate environments, exploring nooks and crannies that at first seem totally inaccessible. Prime 2, with its "3 temples, 3 keys each, rinse and repeat" style is simply too structured and predictable to give you that sense of wonder and discovery that the series is known for.

Just shut up about your "planetary energy" already. Freaking hippie.

The Atmosphere
This point is maybe just a bit of personal griping. What bothers me about this game is that there's just too much darn atmosphere. Considering how hard this is to come by in most games, you'd think I'd be happy, but no. I find the whole thing just a touch too oppressive. The Dark Aether world is a simply brilliant piece of claustrophobic work, where the very atmosphere is caustic and you fight creatures made of shadow from the safe zones created by light beacons. But as far as I'm concerned, it's just too stressful for a Metroid game, where you generally can move at your own pace and most of the monsters aren't too much of a problem.

Speaking of which, the regular enemies in this game are way too tough. A super missile should be more than enough to polish off your average baddie, but instead you often find yourself in protracted fights against super-resilient space pirates and robots. Overall, the combat seems to bog down the gameplay and keep you from moving around the world of Aether, which, as previously mentioned, is the whole point of the exercise. (Again, this is exactly the same problem that the Prince of Persia games have in spades) And as a side note, can someone explain to me why the hardest boss in the game is at the 5-hour mark? Boost Guardian, I freaking hate you.

Redemption
But despite all my griping, there are some truly great moments in this game, and there are enough of them that I came away from the experience feeling vaguely positive about it all. As soon as you get the spider ball, the designers start throwing wonderful, brain-bending magnetic rail puzzles at you. These virtual playground sessions really liven up the second half of the game, as does your ability to move more freely once you obtain the amazingly pimp "light suit", pictured above.

Samus, that's no way for a lady to dress.

It's hard to know why a game doesn't grab you, especially one of the quality of Echoes. If the first half of the game was more like the second, with its freer flow and playful feel, I could recommend it whole-heartedly. As it is, you've got to wade through 9 or 10 hours of drudgery before you get to the payoff, and that's a lot to invest for most people. I'm glad that I stuck it through, though, if only to see the awesome Andy Warhol-inspired Samus art in the bonus galleries at the end.

Playing these games, it's obvious that the folks at Retro Studios love Metroid, and I'm hopeful that with Corruption they will hold on to the best aspects of Prime and Echoes without simply rehashing those games. Of course, if it's as good as the first Prime was, I'm going to have to find some way of securing a Wii to play it. And I was getting so attached to my kidneys...

The worst song ever
Tuesday, June 12 2007

One melodic line, over and over and over and over again. If you were hoping for a chorus, you're out of luck - there isn't even a structure to the goddamn verse! Just that same 3 second melody looped endlessly over a bad house backing track featuring a 4-chord arpeggio that never ends... until it modulates up a tone. And half of the words are "la".

Wow.

I thought we got over this kind of crap a decade ago, people. In the early 90s, you could be forgiven for listening to junk like this because it was still cutting edge. Now that awful, factory-produced techno is 15 years old, you'd think we might know better. Obviously someone at Mix 96 is attempting to relive the awkward high-school dances of 1994, because I don't think they tend to play music on the radio by accident. Still, I don't listen to this station very often (although, as I mentioned previously, I did listen to its prior incarnation a lot as a teenager), so it's possible that the DJs routinely fire up the archival playlists by mistake.

Anyway, I don't know which artist is responsible for this abomination, but I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and say that they recorded this song in the name of science, to determine the lowest commercial radio will stoop in its never ending quest for mediocrity. In which case, nice work! You've lowered the quality of radio programming to a point heretofore undreamt of. We are all wiser for your ceaseless efforts.

Good news will come to you by mail
Saturday, June 9 2007

Happiness reigns supreme! Over the Bridge has, a scant year after publication, received a lovely review by the folkies at Sing Out! magazine.They had some pretty nice things to say about it, too, some of which can be discerned on the right by the keen-eyed. Modesty prevents me from elaborating further (at least, on this page), but I've added a few quotes to the music page to spice things up a bit. As if today wasn't good enough already, I also got a nice surprise at the SAQ today - Fuller's London Pride and ESB. Normally I'd have to trek all the way out to Ontario if I wanted to get some of the Extra Special, but today I just stumbled into what might be the only store in Quebec to carry the stuff. Now if we could just get Strongbow or Bulmer's/Magner's in this province, we could maybe even consider ourselves civilized. Oh, and in other news, I hate Linux. Linux is designed to make the Baby Jesus cry. Nice work, Torvalds, I think they named a swamp after you in Metroid Prime: Echoes. (Maybe I'll write something about Metroid soon, too.)

Decemberists, I'm Yours
Monday, May 21 2007

One of the realities of being back in school is that I no longer find myself drowning in free time like I was when I was a full-time musician. This means that I have to make good use of what time I have by entertaining myself with ruthless efficiency, be it through music, movies, books or videogames. Of course, any one of these disciplines cranks out enough new content every year that it could theoretically monopolize my life, so I have to be somewhat choosy about which discs I actually listen to and so forth. My general rule before trying something completely new, then, is to wait until I get some positive word-of-mouth on it, so as to avoid wasting my time on diversions of lesser quality. I know, how adventurous.

Anyway, one group that finally built up enough good PR for me to give them a listen is The Decemberists. Actually, to be completely fair, I'm kind of turning my attention to modern indie rock as a whole, and Modest Mouse and The Decemberists are the first two bands that I've investigated. And while the jury's still out on MM, I'm starting to think that Meloy and company may have a new admirer on their hands.

At this point, most of my listening has been relegated to the album Her Majesty The Decemberists. In particular, the track that first got my attention was The Bachelor and the Bride, with its combination of lush, enveloping guitars, dark lyrics and catchy chorus. The song combines pop music sensibilities with honest-to-god intelligent lyrics, and sonically reminded me of Pavement in some way (although my theory is that all indie rock bands must have listened to a lot of Pavement at some point in their lives).

My next discovery came as I was buying toothpaste at the drugstore, when I first started to catch the lyrics to Los Angeles, I'm Yours while listening to it with headphones. I like the snarky satire and social commentary found in many of the songs on this album, characteristics that I now realize the band shares with Cake, another of my long-time favorites. Admittedly, I often find myself being reminded of other groups when I listen to The Decemberists, but I wouldn't go so far as to call them derivative. It might be a better analogy to say that they have been distilled from the pool of good/popular bands from the last 20 years.

I will admit that there are moments which I am a bit less fond of. I'm not really sold on some of the folksier tracks, probably just because I know the reference material too well. Shanty for the Arethusa just comes off sounding like a mediocre Pogues cover to me and The Chimbley Sweep, while amazingly related to a song sung by Les Chauffeurs à Pieds, features a really awful moment of boy/girl singing (a phenomenon that I dislike so much that it probably deserves its own write-up at some point). Still, these moments are in the minority and I can happily say that I really enjoy almost every other song on the album, which is no mean feat.

Time, and listening to their other albums, will tell if this is just a passing fad for me or if this group will go on to become one of my favorites. In the meantime, anyone who's even slower on the uptake than myself can learn some more about them at their beautiful home page, or go check them out on the dreaded MySpace. Actually, I could probably also write an entire article about how much I hate MySpace. Happily, they don't even seem to reference their MySpace site from the main website.

And for that, Decemberists, I'm upgrading you from A to A+.

My creation lives!
Friday, May 11 2007

Clawing its way out of the darkest abyss, it's the new fully functional Timike 2.1! Now completely compatible with Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera AND Safari! If you have troubles with the site now, I am officially not taking responsibility for them. These hands are clean, man. In other news... uh, there is no other news. Well, soon I should have a sweet laptop, which I guess is newsworthy to me. And I added a few promo photos to the site, which might be of interest to you if your short-term plans include paying me money for doing something. Oh, and my Super Dual Box Pro finally arrived after, like, 2 months of waiting. Thankfully, it performs suprisingly well and is making my latest playthrough of Cave Story even more delightful. Conclusion: highly recommended, but try to find one in a store in Chinatown, rather than actually ordering it from China (as I did).

Semester completed - That's strong!
Sunday, April 29 2007

The good in everyone
Monday, April 23 2007

I've spent a lot of time studying lately and, as a result, a lot of time listening to music as well. Having listened to most of my good albums over the last few weeks, I occasionally dip into the bad stuff, by which I mean albums from the early 90's that I bought when I was a teenager (that aren't by Rush). Not only is it a refreshing change of pace, getting away from all that quality, but sometimes the badness is mitigated by that most powerful of forces:

Only one of these forces can adequately explain how I manage to enjoy myself listening to ...But You Can Call Me Larry, by the artist formerly known as Gowan (right). In my defense, I was a young, impressionable teenager who had just discovered commercial radio and they were playing this particular disc 24/7 on CJFM, the station that would later go on to become Mix 96. Surprisingly, when I go back and listen to stuff like this I occasionally find that it's a bit deeper than I would have suspected. A lot of the songs on this disc have forms that break out of the basic verse/chorus/bridge that is pop music - not that that makes it really good music. I can also appreciate it from a production standpoint, now that I have a bit of experience in the studio myself.

The wailing-rocker-turned-AM -softy with the heart of gold.

Still, I'm not crazy enough to try to sell people on the greatness of this album. If you weren't there (and, let's not forget, young and stupid), you probably won't get it. Which is completely fine. But me and Larry will be rocking out to our power acoustic ballads while you go off and listen to something... uh, good... instead.

On a side note, I think I have now verified that this site looks pretty messed up in any browser that isn't Firefox. I could take the open-source high road and claim that that's the way things should be, but mostly I just don't have a clue how to fix it, nor the time to experiment. I'll look into it in the next few weeks, once these exams are all over.

Closer
Thursday, April 19 2007

We're getting there, sitewise. Previous warnings about glitchy graphics are still in effect, however. Allow me to change the subject and announce...

La Part du Quêteux launch Paye la traite!

It pleases us greatly to announce that La Part du Quêteux will be launching our second CD, Paye la traite, on Wednesday, May 2 at the Cabaret du Roi. We're also pretty stoked that the new CD is on the Roues et Archets label, home to some of the best traditional music to come from the province of Quebec. Please come on down and join us for the festivities starting at 5 PM - it's free! Details for the launch are (or soon will be) availabe at www.queteux.com.

Kerchunk.
Tuesday, April 17 2007

Welcome, all, to the second incarnation of Timike.com. I've still got a lot of tweaking to do, and I won't be able to get really obsessive about making this site work properly until at least early May. In the meantime, please tolerate the occasional graphical glitch - it's taking a lot of fiddling to get the style sheets to behave like I want them to.

Except in IE, where everything is shot to hell. But people should know better than to use Internet Explorer by now, right? I mean, when there are other browsers out there that can actually properly implement CSS, right? Am I talking to myself, here?