aaroncynic's blog

ZiNE's are better than Zines!

aaroncynic — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 00:31:40 -0500

From: http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/cellphones/moto-zine-the-official-name-for-up...

Moto ZiNE the Official Name For Upcoming Multimedia Phones?

Gizmos.es has a hot tip on the name for Motorola's upcoming multimedia phones: the Moto ZiNE. They've confirmed two Motorola ZiNE phones for 2008, one of which is an upgrade of the Motorola Z10 with touchscreen, keyboard, Wi-Fi and GPS. The other phone will have an 8-megapixel camera and optical zoom, and will be a slider and have something to do with a Moto/Kodak integration deal. It would be easy to make fun of them for yet another lame four-letter name, but we'll let their 21% to 13% drop in marketshare do our job for us.

Summer Vacations Are Fun, But Now It's Back To Work!

aaroncynic — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 11:10:46 -0400

Fall of Autumn September Newsletter It's been awhile since you've heard from us! We here at FoA hope you've all been well and apologize for the recent lack in communication. Summer got the best of us, as we hope it did for you. Alan, Kate, and Aaron were pretty busy over the past few months with their own personal projects like youtube videos, moving, traveling, and the general frolicking that happens when it gets warm outside. We're back to business though and have a lot to talk about so we hope you'll bear with us as this newsletter will be a little longer than usual.

From The Desk of The Great Developer

aaroncynic — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 14:15:42 -0400

Anyone interested in drilling to the center of the Earth with me? Let the Russians and Canadians fight over the North Pole. I'm sure Santa and his army of tiny toy making elves can put up a fight long enough to give the Canucks and the Russkies a serious run for their money.

While their busy with that, I recommend we drill down down down, as deep as we can go. There's probably millions of barrels of oil and other sweet nutrients down there being guarded by a handful of mole people. As mole people hate the sun, we just have to make sure the hole we drill is big enough to let some UV rays in. Give 'em a tan until they're willing to give us their oil, then maybe we'll let them keep a piece of their underground layer. We've had our trial run with the "native Americans" and got alot of sweet casinos out of it. Can you imagine what blackjack at thousands of feet below sea level is like?

A Public Service Announcement

aaroncynic — Sat, 26 May 2007 15:09:26 -0400

No Shirt, No Mosh.

Baby steps to a better world my friends. The next time you're at an awesome show, tap that shirtless piece of man meat on the shoulder and inform him that everyone is already sweaty enough, and there's no need to spread more sweat and ringworm around. Whether muscular, skinny, fat, or average - we'd all get along better if walking by you or getting squashed next to you didn't seem like spending a day at the zoo arm and flipper with a seal.

Now you know, and knowing is half the battle.

Walt Smiles From His Cyrogenic Freeze

aaroncynic — Tue, 08 May 2007 22:13:55 -0400

Will Walt come to the rescue? Apparently, a very familiar looking mouse called Farfur has a problem with Israel, America, and Jews. Fox News (along with plenty of other reporters) asks if Mickey would ever do such a thing. A few other reports made a point to say that the all powerful Disney Corporation has yet to comment. Not surprising they're holding they're tongue. After all, Walt and Farfur have plenty to discuss... I know Walt and Leni Riefenstahl used to get along swimmingly. Perhaps DisneyCo is just waiting to thaw the man out.

Reliable Sources Are Just As Suspect

aaroncynic — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 16:30:49 -0400

There's a debate flowing back and forth over at Wikipedia, about the validity of Zinewiki (the Wiki site dedicated to zines) having its own Wikipedia entry. This doesn't mean that Zinewiki the site will be deleted, just that the Wikipedia entry *about* Zinewiki is targeted for deletion. While that may seem kind of redundant from an outside perspective (it's also an argument that I'll leave to folks more experienced with Wikipedia), an interesting side debate is developing in the discussion.

You can read into the details, rules, and regulations about Wikipedia's policies regarding the validity of threads on your own time - I'll do my best to sum it up here. Basically, an article can be nominated for deletion by any admin if it is perceived that the article violates any number of policies. The Zinewiki entry, specifically, is nominated for deletion (for the second time after consensus on its status was not able to be reached during the first deletion nomination) because it is either "not-notable" or does not come from a "reliable source."

Literati Narcissista

aaroncynic — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 17:14:52 -0500

I’ve spent a good portion of my day reading the New York Times, McSweeny’s, Salon, and my usual brain brunch of stuff on disinfo.com. While typing a reply to an e-mail about some of my favorite non-fiction books, I stumbled on this little gem from amazon.com and was intrigued. After browsing and clicking around a bit, I ended up kind of accidentally starting one of those wish lists.

Yeah I know, I’m feeling as ill about it as you are. The idea of anyone knowing my account name and whatever being able to take a gander at the types of books I like is unsettling big brother type stuff to me. But after “vanity googling” and thinking long and hard about what my library card shows about my reading habits (not to mention my borrowing and debt collecting habits) – I’ll share my literary appetites with the rest of the cyberworld as well. Hey, if agent Smith (I think that’s the guy that’s assigned to me for the moment – agent Waxler is on vacation from what I hear) is doing his job correctly, he already knows that I’m radiating excitement regarding the upcoming release of Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows and I’ve still got that Hunter S. Thompson book on my shelf. If he’s really keen maybe he’ll realize that the only reason why I’m going to end up rereading Cosmic Trigger right now is because I lost my copy of the Schrodinger’s Cat Trilogy and can’t afford to purchase E-mail to the Universe.

Around The Coyote

aaroncynic — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 00:05:24 -0500

Fall of Autumn will be hosting zine readings and a merch table at the AROUND THE COYOTE 2007 Winter Arts Festival on February 9th at Dulcenea (1431 N. Milwaukee) starting at 7pm sharp. (Readers are performing from 7 to 7:30 and again from 9:30 to 10:00)

A Visual and Performing Arts Day pass will set you back $10, but you not only get a zine reading out of it, but there's more performances, DJ's, films, and more. Plus, you'll get into all the other fantastic events that are happening as part of the festival in Wicker Park that night.