Have you heard of a theremin? No? Not surprising. Have you heard a theremin in action? Probably. Anytime you’ve listened to the theme of a Sci-Fi movie or TV series, you’ve probably heard a theremin. Watched Midsomer Murders before? The opening theme was done with theremin.
What is a theremin? It is a musical instrument. One that does not need to be touched to be played. Sounds like magic, huh. Well it’s pure science, through the manipulation of radio waves emitted by the instrument, pitch and volume are controlled, resulting in an unlimited range of tones and sub-tones. A Russian named Leon Theremin invented it in 1919, and the rest is history, to reuse a cliche.
Now some samples of theremin music:
Amazing stuff, this one, along with some basic principles of operation.
A very well done Daft Punk cover, complete with helmet.
Some time ago, I watched Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning. Ostensibly a Star Trek parody, it contained a lot of things that lots of people would not find funny. But I did. And it was made by Finns. So, yes I watched it with subtitles. Basically what happens is that the Star Trek people find a maggot-hole and go through it and enter the Babylon 5 universe and duke it out with awesome digital special effects and such and practically everyone dies in the end.
Now, the creators of this parody are making a new movie, one not derivative of others’ work. It is called Iron Sky and it looks good.
Here’s the official teaser:
A summary:
Near the end of WW2, the Nazis invented anti-gravity. Knowing they would lose, they left the Earth and established a base on the dark side of the moon (YES WEIYAN). Now it is 2018. They’re baa-ack.
Of course you can’t expect a movie with such an absurd premise to be entirely serious, but from the trailer I really want to watch this. Also the music was specially made for this production and I like that too. So hurrah for independent productions and ridiculous plots.
As some people may have noticed, I have been watching Youtube. Not, of course, in excess.
While on this subject, I found a song on Youtube that really brought back memories of… something. Perhaps it was the delirium brought on by the excruciating pain of having a kidney stone followed by… say, a shot of morphine; or maybe it was one of those dreams that happens before dawn and then the light comes in and wakes you up and you forget it; it could even have been caused by over-watching Disney Channel until one of their commercials gets stuck in your head. Ah, yes… that was it.
Hence, Cartoon Heroes by Aqua. Probably one of the most infuriating and wonderful songs I’ve had the pleasure of ripping my ears off after listening to. Does that make sense? No? The grammar is bad? Oh well. I just listened to Cartoon Heroes. Try it.
Then I go look up Aqua on Wikipedia, wondering, as some might, where the heck have these people gone… In fact, they broke up after their second album was released (the one with Cartoon Heroes on it). Aww…
Another fact about Aqua, after the release of ‘Barbie Girl’, (which was their first single and shot them (as in, out of a giant cannon) into international fame and/or revulsion for such a shameless, innuendo laden piece of bubblegum dance music) Mattel, who produce Barbies, as well as Hot Wheels cars (YES YOU BOYS! BARBIES DRIVE HOT WHEELS!) and other die cast model type things, sued them. This was, of course, because the group had used the Barbie name without asking (Bad Aqua, bad!) and not, of course, because little girls everywhere had suddenly got the idea of putting Barbie and Ken in a wholesome family relationship and ‘having kids’ or pulling off Barbie’s arms.
The little girls had been doing that anyway.
In 2002, the case was thrown out of court. Yay for Aqua! The judge ruled: ‘The parties are advised… to chill.’ [My triple dot and italics.]
I like this man.
To wind up:
Aqua does Pirates of the Carribean before Pirates of the Carribean, while exposing the joys of sado-masochism and also showing us that piracy (in general) is good:
And this is one of those times. Metallica came out with their latest album on Sep 15th. It was called Death Magnetic. I listened to some of it on Youtube. It’s good, but Metallica, unfortunately is not always at the top of my playlist.
Now. One month later. (Okay a little over a month.) I just happen to be looking around Wikipedia. And I’m looking at AC/DC. And I find out that their album comes out… TOMORROW. It is called Black Ice. I’ve also listened to it on Youtube, even though Sony BMG is already trying to have the songs taken off. IT IS AWESOME. I WILL SQUEE.
Damn. All the tickets for European venues in their tour are already sold out. Apparently within minutes. Well, at least I won’t be jumping up and down with a bunch of 50-year-olds. I’ll just do it in my room. When I get it. =.=
Yes, someone has made a computer that can fit in my arm. It runs on blood. Which is not, of course to say that it’s some kind of vampiric computer that might conceivably drain your life force to keep itself going.
[For those who haven't watched this yet: Invisible Girl.]
On Saturday, I bought a 2l bottle of Sainsbury’s Cream Soda. Sorry, make that Sainsbury’s Diet Cream Soda. If this is the diet, I NEVER want to taste the original flavour. Because that would make my brain run out my nose.
If you take one can of spray whipped cream, spray it into pure carbonic acid, then filter out the whips and the cream, then you get Sainsbury’s Diet Cream Soda. If you then drink the resulting mixture, you get high. And I was listening to the Beatles at the time. Woah. Talk about trippy. I don’t remember much, but there you go. Damn people running around in the hallways at 2 in the morning and making me wake up and drink biochemical weapons…
On a sidenote, that’s really not on another side of anything but rather on a completely different thing altogether, I recently discovered that my sense of hearing shuts off when I am eating cereal. I have a bowl of Frosties. As usual, I am listening to the conversation of whoever happens to be beside me when I sit down. They’re talking about sisters or something.
I start eating the cornflakes. The next few minutes are a blank in the ear department. Then when I’m done, suddenly, ‘-eah I’ve been on rollercoasters before.’
I must perform further experiments to confirm this phenomenon. I will control the type of cereal, speed of eating, thoughts that happen to ramble through my mind and any other factors that I may come up with.
This message was brought to you by Sainsbury’s Diet Cream Soda and Kellog’s Frosties.
Using the force generated by perpendicular electrical and magnetic fields, a metal projectile is hurled at really high velocities at a target. This is rather cool.
That guy with glasses has hairy arms. He pushes a metal slug into a small hole, then clumsily hoists a mechanism to push the slug farther into the hole. Somehow, this doesn’t strike me as being the most sturdy thing to kill people with.
While surfing my one of my favourite webcomics, Gunnerkrigg Court (available in the links), I Wiki-ed it and found that apparently Neil Gaiman reads it. I am pleased about this. Following a link to Gaiman’s blog, I found something rather interesting.
Those with weak stomachs should not look. Or even if you like rabbits. There is no blood involved, however.
