stian.freeshell.org

Big Lebowski - The F*cking Short Version

One of the best movies ever cut down to 2 minutes 14 secs of everyone's favourite word - The Big Lebowski - The F*ucking Short version - this must be one of the funniest clips I've seen in a long time...

Also: Lebowski the Remix.

Another World

If you, like I did, grew up playing video games on the Amiga back in the early 90s, you probably came across Another World, a classic game with what at the time was revolutionary character animation and an original story that drew you in from the beginning. It is also one of the most frustrating games I have ever played, with parts so insanely difficult to complete they leave you swearing over the keyboard after failing for what feels like hundred times. But that only makes the feeling when you finally complete a part even better.

Recently the game has been released in an updated version for playing without needing an emulator, with high-resolution graphics and improved sound for those of us wanting to (re)experience one of the best video games ever. You can download the short demo at the Official Site, and the registration fee for the full game is only seven Euros - really cheap for this much retro-gaming enjoyment!

Also, don't miss the excellent writeup at Binary Bonsai entitled How I learned everything I need to know about games from Another World.

Hello Saferide

I went with my friends Tor and Marianne to see Hello Saferide play live at Skuret last night, with support by Maia Hirasawa. It was a fantastic concert and we had a wonderful time. Since Skuret is such a small place, it was quite intimate and cozy... I hope to see both Maia and Annika again in Oslo soon! Be sure to check out some of their music below.

• Hello Saferide - Valentines's Day
• Hello Saferide - Highschool Stalker
• Maia Hirasawa - My New Friend
• Maia Hirasawa - Star Again

Nerd Humour

From the NetBSD chmod man page:

BUGS
There's no perm option for the naughty bits.

Yes I know, I really should get a life :)

Top 50 Vids

The music weblog Do Copenhagen has a list of the Top 50 Music Videos of 2005 - plenty of beautiful, creative (and sometimes just weird) video-art there. There's downloads for every one of them, so this is sure to keep me busy for a long time this evening. It's good to see a couple of norwegian artists on the list as well - Röyksopp's 'What Else Is There' is definitely one of my favourite tracks of the year.

Aphex's 'Rubber Johnny' has to be one of the most disturbing music vids I've ever seen, but not exactly unexpected fare from him - watch it with the lights off (if you dare)... Also check out no.23 'M83 - Don't Save Us From the Flames'; very poetic and moving.

Finally - an update!

There's not been much happening on this site the last months - this is mainly because I've (finally!) managed to get a fulltime IT-job, so there's been a lot of other things on my mind. Hopefully I'll manage to update more often as I get more settled in the routine and get used to working full days, getting up early every morning and going to bed much too early from what I'm used to :)

Anyhow, for those interested, my new place of employment is a large administrative state office, working as a system administrator for the IBM WebSphere series of application servers. The servers run on a lot of different hardware - there's UNIX, Linux, Windows and also there's the Mainframe system, so there's always tons of new things to learn every day and also there's lots of different projects going on, being tested or going into production.

So for those who have been wondering what I've been up to lately - at least now you know... and hopefully I'll be able to update this little weblog of mine on a more regular schedule as well...

Flying Mobulas

The Flying Mobulas of the Sea of Cortez - amazing photos of mobula 'devil'-rays leaping out of the water and a very good article by photographer Michael Albert.

Opera goes Free

Opera Software today released version 8.5 of their great browser, and with this relase they've the removed ad-banners and licensing fee, effectively making Opera a free browser! That's free as in free beer, not as in free speech by the way... Still, for those who have wanted to use Opera full time but have been put off by the ads there's now no excuse! Go ahead and download it!

Apparently they are doing this to increase their user base over time, and while they will lose quite a bit of revenue from doing this, they hope to gain it back in the long run from increased use and building of their brand. I'm not too sure how clever this is economically though, since my opinion is that that Opera will remain a browser for the more technically adept, while casual computer users are often put off just by the sheer amount of options and the small number of complex sites who don't work. But - I'm keeping my fingers crossed for Opera in the future and that the number of people using opera will grow with this bold move.

Jokke Tribute

Joachim Nielsen 1964-2000

Last thursday late Norwegian rock legend Joachim Nielsen aka Jokke would have celebrated his 41st birthday. His death in 2000 was a big loss for the norwegian rock-community - he was a great song-writer, and one of the few artists who have managed to write good norwegian lyrics that everyone can relate to. During the years from 1986 to 1999 he released a line of classic rock albums with the bands Valentinerne and later the Tourettes.

His birthday was celebrated with a big tribute concert at Rockefeller and the release of the double-CD tribute 'Det beste til meg og mine venner - en hyllest til Joachim Nielsen', with 50 (!) bands covering his songs. Of course, with that many bands the result is bound to be varied, and not everything has turned out well, a big disappointment is Turbonegro's unimaginative version of 'Her Kommer Vinteren', but all in all it's well worth the money. Also, the profits of the release goes to benefit the Rainforest Fund, as wished by Jokke's family, so you are really supporting a very good cause by buying this CD!

Below are three of the more outstanding tracks on the tribute, and there are plenty more like this!

• Søvnløse Netter - This is one of my favourite Jokke tracks, and a great cover by Rock Metal Soliders, bass-heavy and groovy Metal!
• Alt Kan Repeteres - Rappers Tungtvann with their take on the song, very fresh and original!
• Et Godt Parti - The Launderettes does a classy garage-rock cover of this song.

When The Levee Breaks

When reading about the very tragic consequences of hurricane Katrina in the US and looking at pictures of flooded streets and houses I couldn't help but thinking about the lyrics to Led Zeppelin's 'When The Levee Breaks':

If it keeps on rainin', levee's goin' to break
If it keeps on rainin', levee's goin' to break
When The Levee Breaks I'll have no place to stay.

• Led Zeppelin - When The Levee Breaks
• The Tragically Hip - New Orleans Is Sinking, which also seems sadly relevant these days.

Also, on a related note: Why is it that 'black' people loot while 'white' people just find food?