Happy Thanksgiving
Thank You! Thank You! Thank You!
holidays
The 99 Most Essential Christmas Songs (Cheap)
The 99 Most Essential Christmas Masterpieces for only a $1.99 (that’s less than $0.02 a song). Just in time for Christmas dinner.
The Ill-Fated Gävlebocken (Gävle Goat)
Here are the heavily edited highlights from the timeline section of the Gävle Goat article on Wikipedia:
1966 The goat stood until midnight of New Year’s Eve, when it went up in flames.
1968 …it is said that one night a couple made love inside the goat.
1969 The goat was burnt down on New Year’s Eve.
1970 The goat burnt down only six hours after it was assembled.
1972 The goat collapsed because of sabotage.
1974 Burnt.
1976 Ran over by a car.
1978 Again, the goat was kicked to pieces.
1979 The goat was burnt even before it was erected.
1980 Burnt down on Christmas Eve.
1982 Burnt down on Lucia (December 13).
1983 The legs were destroyed.
1984 Burnt down on December 12, the night before Lucia.
1985 Even though the goat was enclosed by a 2 metres (6.6 ft) high metal fence, guarded by Securitas and even soldiers from the Gävle I 14 Infantry Regiment, it was burnt down in January.
1986 The big goat burnt down the night before Christmas Eve.[1]
1987 A heavily fireproofed goat was built. It got burnt down a week before Christmas.[17]
1989 Again, the goat burnt down before it was assembled.
1991 On the morning of Christmas Eve the goat was burnt down.
1992 The goat was burnt down eight days after it was built.
1995 Burnt down on the morning of Christmas Day.
1997 Damaged by fireworks.
1998 Burnt down on 11 December, even though there was a major blizzard.
1999 Burnt down only a couple of hours after it was erected.
2000 Burnt down a couple of days before New Year’s Eve.
2001 Goat set on fire on 23 December by Lawrence Jones, a 51-year-old visitor from Cleveland, Ohio, who spent 18 days in jail and was subsequently convicted and ordered to pay 100,000 Swedish kronor in damages.
2002 The goat received only minor damage.
2003 Burnt down on 12 December.
2004 Burnt on December 21.
2005 Burnt by unknown vandals reportedly dressed as Santa and a gingerbread man by shooting a flaming arrow at the goat at 21:00 on 3 December.
2008 The goat finally succumbed to the flames ignited by an unknown assailant.
2009 An unsuccessful attempt was made to throw the goat into the river the weekend of December 11. On the night of December 23 before 04:00 the goat was set on fire and was burned to the frame, even though it had a thick layer of snow on its back.The goat had two online webcams which were put out of service by a DoS attack, instigated by computer hackers just before the attack.
2010 Both goats survived this year and were dismantled and returned to storage.
2011 Fire-fighters sprayed the goat with water to create a coating of ice in hopes of protecting it from arson. The goat burned down in the early morning of 2 December.
There is once again a webcam for this year’s goat, if you would like to help keep an eye on it. What does the ill-fated goat’s future hold for 2010?
One Novel, One Day (Novels In Which The Action Takes Place Within 24 Hours)
While in drama the Classical Unity of Time prescribes that the action of a play is to take place during a single day, the novel more-often-than-not covers a much longer period of time. There are, however, some notable examples where the time narrated is only one day. The most prominent example is James Joyce’s Ulysses, a novel which in one way or another has influenced the genesis of other novels whose action takes place within 24 hours. Seeing as this is Bloomsday, I thought it was the perfect time to celebrate by publishing this list:
A special category can be established for novels told in retrospect (Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Graves’s Claudius novels, for instance), though such an exercise eventually comes to include so many first-person novels as to become too cumbersome to be of much use.
If you can think of any that I’m missing please let me know in the comments and I’ll be sure they get added
The Act of Roger Murgatroyd, Gilbert Adair
The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years, Chinghiz Aitmatov
Un dÃa en la vida, Manlio Argueta
The Mezzanine, Nicholson Baker
Vox, Nicholson Baker
Windows on the World, Frédéric Beigbeder
Seize the Day, Saul Bellow
One Night @ the Call Centre, Chetan Bhagat
Children of the Day, Sandra Birdsell
Billiards at Half-Past Nine, Heinrich Böll
Twenty-four Hours, Louis Bromfield
The Da Vinci Code (excluding the epilogue), Dan Brown
Angels and Demons (excluding the epilogue), Dan Brown
Deception Point, Dan Brown
Digital Fortress, Dan Brown
The Art of the Engine Driver,Steven Carroll
Wise Children (excluding the narrator’s memories), Angela Carter
The Hours (three plots each taking one day), Michael Cunningham
Arlington Park, Rachel Cusk
Cosmopolis, Don DeLillo
Cold Dog Soup, Stephen Dobyns
Grado. Süße Nacht, Gustav Ernst
Death of a River Guide, Richard Flanagan
Party Going, Henry Green
Concluding, Henry Green
The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Mohsin Hamid
No Directions, James Hanley
That He’d Remember the Same, Elina Hirvonen
A Single Man, Christopher Isherwood:
Ulysses, James Joyce
The Colorado Kid, Stephen King
Odd Thomas, Dean Koontz
Intimacy, Hanif Kureishi
Mr. Phillips, John Lanchester
Eleven, David Llewellyn
The British Museum Is Falling Down, David Lodge
Days, James Lovegrove
Under the Volcano, Malcolm Lowry
Saturday, Ian McEwan
This Town Will Never Let Us Go, Lawrence Miles
Bunny Lake Is Missing, Merriam Modell (writing as Evelyn Piper)
I Am Mary Dunne, Brian Moore
After Dark, Haruki Murakami
Several books in The Keys to the Kingdom series, Garth Nix
The Farmers Hotel, John O’Hara
From Nine to Nine, Leo Perutz
Hogfather, Terry Pratchett
Scarecrow (excluding the prologue and the epilogue), Matthew Reilly
Eleven Hours, Paullina Simons
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
The Light of Day, Graham Swift
Loaded, Christos Tsiolkas
Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
Between the Acts, Virginia Woolf
The Almost Moon, Alice Sebold
Breathing Lessons, Anne Taylor
If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, Jon McGregor
Injury Time, Catherine Aird
The Pigeon, Wendell M. Levi
The Poorhouse Fair, John Updike
Popcorn, Ben Elton
A Single Man, Christopher Isherwood
Snuff, Chuck Palahniuk
Tomorrow, Graham Swift
Travels in the Scriptorium, Paul Auster
Man in the Dark, Paul Auster
On Chesil Beach, Ian McEwan
Run, Ann Patchett
Dear American Airlines, Jonathan Miles
The Floating Opera, John Barth
Room Temperature, Nicholson Baker
Embers, Sandor Marai
Restlessness, Aritha Van Herk
253, Geoff Ryman
The Rider, Tim Krabbe
The Following Story, Cees Nooteboom
Rapture, Susan Minot
Vertical Run, Joseph Garber
William S Burroughs’ “Junky’s Christmas”
The Junky’s Christmas is a 1993 short claymation film directed by Nick Donkin and Melodie McDaniel. William S. Burroughs wrote the story and narrates the film; he also appears in live-action footage at the beginning and end of the film. The film was produced by Francis Ford Coppola. The music is by the Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy (Michael Franti & Rono Tse).
I’m Dreaming Of A Chiptune Christmas
If you are anything like me (which you aren’t), you easily tire of the same old department store Christmas music. To kick myself out of a Nat King Cole induced coma I decided to put together the most complete collection of all 8-bit Christmas music the internets has to offer. This one goes out to you gamers, nostalgia lovers, gimmick freaks, and good old-fashioned Nat King Cole haters.
8-Bit Christmas – $3 at Bandcamp
The 8 Bits Of Christmas – Free (download)
Holy 8bit Night – 2,000 Yen on Japanese Amazon
8-Bit Jesus – Can be purchased for $9.99 on itunes
8 Bit Collective Advent Calendar 2008 – Free, at the 8bit collective
8 Bit Collective Advent Calendar 2009 – Free, at the 8bit collective.
Merry Pixmas – Free (download)
Kasio Kristmas – $8.99 from Amazon
A C64 Christmas – Free (download)
A Very 8-Bit Christmas – Free (download)
Another Very 8-Bit Christmas – Free (download)
A Very 8-Bit Christmas 3 – Free (download)
A Very 8-Bit Christmas 4 – Free (download)
The 8 Bit Christmas Album – Free (Download)
These may not be a strictly “8-bit” albums but they have enough chiptune on them I thought they were close enough to include:
Christmasasaurus Vol 1 – Free (download)
Christmasasaurus Vol 2 – Free (download)
Christmasasaurus Vol 3 – Free (download)
Christmasasaurus Vol 4 – Free (download).
Christmasasaurus Vol 5 – Free (download)
12/16/09 UPDATE: Her are a few new other compilations I’ve found since originally publishing:
It’s A Chiptune Holiday – $8.99 from 8 Bit Weapon
Happy Holidays from Foundation 9 – Not sure how to get a hold of this one yet.
Holiday EP – By Animal Style, I’m not sure where to find this one either.
12/1/11 UPDATE:More 8bit Xmas tune have been found
XMAS Compilation 2010 – Free (download)
Hard Turron: Xmas 2006 Chiptune Collection – Free (download)
A Very Chiptune Christmas – Available for download on Amazon
N4V1D4D 2010 – Free (download)
Happy Rosh Hashanah
Today is the Jewish New Year. To celebrate I give you this kickass classic called “Halevai” by Moishe Oysher and the Barry Sisters
Halevai – Moishe Oysher and The Barry Sisters
L’shanah Tovah!
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