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All the 8s...
thanks to the Prawn for pointing out the sheer auspiciousness of this year's Olympics - it's all kicking off at 08:08:08pm on 08/08/08 which is pretty much the luckiest date ever in Chinese culture
29th Jul 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet
How Much For Your Internet?
Probably not the $1131.20 pcm you'd be paying for a basic connection out of the Beijing Olympic Village Media Centre. Yowzers.
28th Jul 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet
The Cream Of Tank Girl
Jamie "Gorilaz/Monkey" Hewlett's other creation Tank Girl is getting a 20th anniversary best-of - The Cream Of Tank Girl, out in October
28th Jul 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet
W
There's plenty of Bush online, if you know where to look. Sorry.
28th Jul 2008 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
Madder Men
"Best TV Drama" Golden Globe winner Mad Men kicked off season two last night in the US. Not quite sure where they're going to take it after the last season, but looking forward to more from the understated show.
Returning for its second season, the Golden Globe®-winning series for Best TV drama and actor will continue to blur the lines between truth and lies, perception and reality. The world of Mad Men is moving in a new direction -- can Sterling Cooper keep up? Meanwhile the private life of Don Draper becomes complicated in a new way. What is the cost of his secret identity?
Makes Don Draper sound like an advertising Super Hero.
28th Jul 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet
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Get Your War Back On
Get Your War On has been running for about the same length of time as Chimpomatic itself, kicking off as a backlash to the fast evolving War On Terror. To keep the strip alive, it's now been commissioned as a weekly animated skit on 23 / 6, which should starting soon.
25th Jul 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet
Let The Dogs Out
The UK seems to be mooting the ridiculous idea of a 'tax' for downloaders, to cover the rampant piracy that is apparently killing the music (when they aren't using it to their advantage that is) and movie (record opening day anyone?) industries.
Sounds like another mis-step from the dinosaurs that misses the point yet again. Why not just train more anti-piracy hounds?
25th Jul 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet
Song Of The Day: Volume V
We're all over Port O'Brien at Chimp HQ today. Their debut album All We Could Do Was Sing is finally getting a UK release on August 4th, and our review is up on Monday.
Close The Lid is the killer track.
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25th Jul 2008 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
Don't Eat The Yellowcake
The WMDs might have never turned up, but the US has just completed a mission to ship 550 tonnes of Yellowcake concentrated Uranium out of Iraq for re-processing in Canada. The Canadians will be reprocessing it into nuclear fuel, but the possibility was always there for the material to head in a more sinister direction. The Tuwaitha facility where it was shipped from was one of the hubs of the old regime's nuclear ambition, resulting in an Israeli bombing raid in 1981.
Shipping the Yellowcake out by sea was looking risky - either trekking it through the less stable south, or risking an excursion out through the Hormuz Strait and risking a run-in with the Iranians - so it was eventually shipped out in a monster airlift to Diego Garcia.
24th Jul 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet
Schneider vs Gibson
We're more than a little late on this one (try 2 years), but I just ran across this old chestnut from drunken-tirade-era Mel Gibson. Touche.
24th Jul 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet
More Monkey Olympics
video up for the BBC's Jamie Hewlett/Damon Albarn video for the Olympics
24th Jul 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet
More from the truth out there somewhere files
Apollo vet Edgar Mitchell spills the UFO beans
24th Jul 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet
Still Journeying To The West
The Journey To The West marathon continues..... now there's an album coming out.
Created by the team behind Gorillaz (Jamie Hewlett and Damon Albarn), Journey to the West is performed by both European and Chinese musicians and singers and produced by Damon Albarn.
www.monkeyjourneytothewest.com
23rd Jul 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet
TV Back On The Radio
Chimp favourites TV On The Radio are back in action, with new album "Dear Science," out Sept 22nd on 4AD.
23rd Jul 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet
Devendra Bollywood
Carmenicita video - apparently he's hooked up w Natalie Portman
23rd Jul 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet
Ad Nauseum: Cactus Kid
Not quite sure what untouchable, reclusive director Terrence Malick would make of the current 'homage' to his film Badlands - which is designed to make Coca-Cola-owned juice brand Oasis 'famous'. By 'irreverent' humour, I assume the article means the current glut of off-hand, sarcastic, post Vic-and-Bob stupidity that seems to grace T4 on a weekly basis. Grrr.
22nd Jul 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet
Mercury Prize 2008
Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid; Radiohead - In Rainbows; British Sea Power - Do You Like Rock Music?; Robert Plant & Alison Krauss - Raising Sand; Burial - Untrue; Estelle - Shine; Adele - 19; Laura Marling - Alas, I Cannot Swim ; Rachel Unthank and the Winterset - The Bairns; Neon Neon - Stainless Style; Portico Quartet - Knee-deep in the North Sea; The Last Shadow Puppets -The Age of the Understatement
22nd Jul 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet
Harsh Kids
Bitchfork have dished out the harshest review since their legendary Jet review for the new Black Kids album - 0/0; strange that they gave the EP a much healthier 8.4 (and those 4 songs are all on the album, and they've "hidden" the earlier review...) hmm, maybe we need to toughen up our **** system
22nd Jul 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet
How To Lose Friends And Alienate Viewers
Trailer up for Curb/Marx Bros supremo Robert B. Weide's upcoming comedy How To Lose Friends And Alienate People, with Simon Pegg. Trailer makes it look like a guy version of The Devil Wears Prada. Let's hope there's more to it than a guys' version of The Devil Wears Prada.
22nd Jul 2008 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
Top Gun: Part Deux?
File under WTF. Hardly coming from the most reliable of sources, but there are reports that Top Gun 2 is ready to fly and the producers are just waiting for Tom Cruise to climb on board.
21st Jul 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet
Comic Book Overload? Pow!
In case you haven't had enough of Iron Man, The Hulk or Batman - check out this round up of forthcoming comic-book movie projects. Antman anyone?
21st Jul 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet
Wire 1-4 in 4 minutes
get ready for FX's UK debut of season five tonight with this handy recap: the wire in 4 minutes (or four paragraphs here)
21st Jul 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet
Reverse Flash-Forward
Having trouble keeping up with Lost? I'm not surprised. Luckily some intrepid fan has edited his own easy to watch version, putting all those funky flash-forwards into the right order. NYMAG has the scoop, but you can watch below. Maybe Jack's beard was real after all?
18th Jul 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet
Monkey Olympics
Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett are doing the BBC's Olympics idents this year, in the style of their Journey To The West opera
18th Jul 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet
Watch The Watchmen
Empire are posting the Watchmen trailer Fri 18 July, 5am UK time
UPDATE: it's in HD over at Apple and the official site's been updated too. Only 230 days to go...
17th Jul 2008 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
Kings Of O2
the Leon boys are getting the O2 upgrade - playing Dec 11; tickets on sale Fri 18 July at 9am
17th Jul 2008 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
David Simon on the Culture Show
The Wire's head-honcho David Simon gives Lauren Laverne the inside scoop on season five's re-ups on tonight's Culture Show - with some bonus beats here.
season five's out on DVD in the UK 22 sept. Meanwhile, over in the parallel world of the Emmys, the Wire gets a meagre one nomination this year: Writing For A Drama Series. that's its first nomination FYI. unbelievable
17th Jul 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet
Terminator: Salvation
Teaser trailer for Terminator: Salvation online over at Yahoo movies. Man-of-the-moment Christian Bale stars as the future John Connor, with Judgement Day now in the past and Skynet kicking ass like AOL in the 90's. No word on a possible role for the Governator as yet.
17th Jul 2008 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
Concrete and Glass
With the festival calender close to morbid obesity this year, Concrete and Glass looks to be providing a slightly more slimline tonic. Based in and around Shoreditch ("within 9 minutes of Brick Lane"). Mixing music and art, the exhibition end of things has been organised by Flora Fairbairn and Paul Hitchman and includes the likes of Gavin Turk and Gerry Fox.
Tapping into the unique infrastructure of spaces in the east end, the art strand will feature over 30 projects in disused warehouses, outdoor spaces and empty shops in collaboration with curators, artists and galleries. Heart of Glass, a show of new, site-specific work by 25 artists in Shoreditch Town Hall’s basement, is the hub of the arts projects.
Only catch is, the music has yet to be announced - but Eat Your Own Your Own Ears are in charge, who have recently been responsible for the Field Day festival, as well as the recent Summer Sessions, which included the Justice show. Hosts for the music events include Rough Trade East, Young Turks, Drowned In Sound, Fence Collective and Wichita Records amongst others.
17th Jul 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet
Atomic Birthday
It's the birthday of the atomic bomb today - as the first test was carried on on June 16th 1945 at Los Alamos, New Mexico. Check our the gallery at Wired for more info.
While the Raymond Briggs-style threat of nuclear war seems to have subsided for now, the threat of a nuclear explosion seems more real than ever.
16th Jul 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet
tape it
after seeing some cassette necklaces in brighton recently, here's a video full of tapes - more pop than we usually go for on chimpomatic, but it's getting through just so we can look at some C90s for a bit
16th Jul 2008 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
Don't Try This At Home
Levi's has snuck a couple of virals out recently, as part of their tireless quest to remain current. It's working, where can I get some?
16th Jul 2008 - 2 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
House of Cards
Radiohead's much vaunted camera-free video for House of Cards is finally online - hosted by Google with a whole bunch of extra data.
It's pretty spooky, spectacular and adventurous - but what did you expect? Check it out below, or head over to the Google page for a making-of, some explanation of the process and a great demo - as well as the opportunity to download the data files used in the promo and create your own video version.
15th Jul 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet
Lunar Round-up
Tons of cool Space News for you today. While trawling an old "stuff to put on Chimpomatic folder" I just came across this WIRED story about broadcasting video back from the moon, as well as links to the mentioned panoramic photos, which are stunning. They are hosted by the excellent Panoramas.dk, which we have previously reported on.
On top of that, The Big Picture have run a feature on Moon photography, pulling together a set of nice big images, many of which featured in Michael Light's excellent excellent Full Moon exhibition.
14th Jul 2008 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
American Beer Gets A Bit Stronger
Urban legends of gnat's piss strength American beer might be on the way out, as Stella Artois owner InBev has taken over Budweiser owner Anheuser-Busch at $70 a share - totaling a whopping $52 Billion.
14th Jul 2008 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
Will It Blend 3G
One explanation has appeared for the worldwide shortage of iPhones:
14th Jul 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet
Justice Live at Somerset House, 11 July 2008
put your phones/umbrellas in the air
12th Jul 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet
Promo Promo: Fleet Foxes - Winter Hymnal
There's a nice old-school stop-frame video up for Fleet Foxes excellent Winter Hymnal.
11th Jul 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet
Back From The Dead
Gotta love this list of 15 Things Wired Pronounced Dead Prematurely, airing as part of their 15th anniversary. Web Browsers? They might be de rigeur in 1997, but we'll be all about Push Media in no time.
11th Jul 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet
Gawker Stalker
Spotted anyone famous today? Send the details over to Gawker and they'll map it onto their stalker map ....although I know marmot wouldn't be impressed by a sighting of Trey Anastasio.
11th Jul 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet
Watch Gold Alibi
following on from their rebranding of UKTV G2 as Dave, UKTV's shuffling the deck again: welcome the new dawn of TV where channels are called things like Watch (previously UKTV Gold +1), GOLD (go on laugh daily) and Alibi (previously UKTV Drama).
10th Jul 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet
Creepier and creepier
If Prince's recent attempt to cover Radiohead's long-shunned classic Creep didn't do it for you, try this harmonious effort from Weezer and a room full of trainees. Prince has had his effort removed from YouTube (to Thom's disdain), but you can still check it below.
10th Jul 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet
App(le) Store
iTunes has been updated with the App Store, ready for tomorrow's iPhone 2.0 launch. Plenty of interesting looking bits and pieces on there, such as an Apple remote for controlling music around the house, Twitter clients, Facebook, Flickr uploaders, language translators, games etc. Plenty of them are free too - which should boost the popularity of both the iPhone and iPod Touch.
My old phone contract just expired, so I'm officially on the market.
10th Jul 2008 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
Sonic Boom!
NASA has unveiled their new Blackswift jet (or HTV-3X if you want the official name) - a Pulse Detonation Engine powered jet that will be able to rocket to six times the speed of sound. It's built mainly at the covert and awesomely named Skunk Works, run by of Lockheed Martin.
Simulation video here. Data here.
10th Jul 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet
