Summer Tunes

I can't speak for the whole continent, but I'm feeling a lot of good energy from the folkier side of the music spectrum. Music by Horse Feathers, Emily Jane White, Tallest Man on Earth, and just about anything you`d see on LA BLOGOTHEQUE has been really keeping me smiling, my head tapping, and my heart rolling.

But I'm not being too picky either. Music by Mux Mool and Black Moth Super Rainbow have also been on all of my playlists. I'd suggest songs but I don't even know the names of them. The whole albums are easy to listen to from start to end.

Here's a few examples of what`s keeping me interested:

April/May Music Wrap-Up

The Music Wrap-Up is a monthly summary of my favorite and other notable new releases. The songs are for sampling purposes only. Artists or labels notify me with any complaints and I will remove the song as soon as possible. Please support these musicians as that's the reason I'm featuring them in the first place.

Yeah, I know, I'm a month late on April's Wrap-Up, but there weren't a ton of albums I wanted to spotlight. If I waited until May, though, the mother load hit. May 4th alone had four releases I was interested in. It certainly was a good month for music of all varieties.

We've got the gypsy punk of Gogol Bordello, the smooth blues of The Black Keys, the electronic pop of Minus the Bear, and the dance grooves of LCD Soundsystem, among plenty of others. I didn't even mention the two "super-groups" that put out new albums.

So go ahead and hit that jump for a playlist of all the great releases from both April and May, as well as write-ups of each band, just because I love you.

Insufficient Funds: The Mega Man Movie

Insufficient Funds is a regular post in which we feature a free, or very close to it, piece of media that you can enjoy without overdrafting your bank account. So if you're low on funds, stay tuned to Cerebral Pop every Friday morning.

Every single time Hollywood adapts a popular franchise -- whether it be from video games, comics, or books -- fans of the series find faults. Sure, there have been many movies that were met with mostly favorable reviews, but in general it seems that the common belief is that a fan would have done it better justice. Well, we might finally have our evidence.

A 90 minute, fan-made Mega Man film is out. Here's the thing, I think it kind of proves that the common belief I referenced before is actually wrong. I watched the whole movie, and it was enjoyable enough, but it had a lot of Hollywood clichés that we fans would have raged over if they were in a big budget adaptation made by some Michael Bay-esque director.

Still, I respect the drive that it took to make this movie, and it was certainly good enough to kill a Saturday afternoon of mine. I just kind of wish that I'd have at least had some big budget robot masters to oggle with my eyes while I was ignoring the groan-worthy clichés. Oh, and if you needed another reason besides "to kill time", Wily is amaaaaazing. Perfect casting for him.

Go and watch the whole thing right here, for free. Hit the jump for the trailer.

Connecting with Games: The Simpsons Arcade Trip

Video games get a lot of flack sometimes. They're thought to create anti-social, overweight, nerds who never leave their parent's basements. But I've had countless positive, game-related experiences, so I thought I'd start sharing them -- starting with the long prophesied conquering of The Simpsons Arcade, the bane of a friend and I's childhood.

The Simpsons was one of more than a handful of licenses that Konami slapped into their beat-'em-up formula back in 90s. The thing is, most of these games were released in arcades in the beginning of the decade. By the time my friend and I -- both born in 1985 -- were old enough to care about The Simpsons and video games, there weren't many places for us to play it... except the masochistic PC port.

Konami clearly didn't give a flying hoot about the PC port of the game and just slapped it together. How do you handle a game that is made to keep you continuously feeding quarters when it is now on a quarter-less computer? Eh, slap three lives on there and call it good. Two innocent little kids, in a world without the Internet to provide them with cheat codes, doomed to endlessly play the first level of a game over and over.

The Video Game Battlefield Webcomic

In middle school a friend and I would spend entire days doodling these elaborate stick figure wars on pieces of lined paper. I'm not exactly an artist, but even I could handle a stick figure, and we would make each other laugh by thinking of new ways that they were killing each other violently.

Well, I was bored, so I made a webcomic using the same formula. What's the best possible setup for a gigantic stick figure war? The video game console war, of course. Click on through to see the most epic stick figure war between Sony and Microsoft that you could ever imagine. But wait, what about Nintendo? Oh, don't worry about them. They've got a secret weapon.

How To Survive Now That Lost Is Over

[Warning: this post is absolutely chock-full of show spoilers. Please, please, please do not read this if you have not watched and ever plan to watch the series, especially the finale.]

If you are a fan ABC's Lost, you are probably happy, sad, elated, frustrated, satisfied, unsatisfied, certain, and confused about the series finale, "The End," that aired last night, and about the series as a whole.

If you are not a fan of the show, you're probably just plain happy that it's over with. If only: the show's legacy, I believe, will last a long time. It's short-term tail will definitely keep fans talking (and therefore haters hating) due to the countless unanswered questions, old and new, left open as the curtain closed on the series. Being a fan of Lost, it's only right that I share my thoughts with Cerebral Pop and its readers.

Feelings: What I Want from Games

I was mostly drawn to MadWorld because it was a Platinum Games' game, and I was hoping that some of the guys that had worked on Okami were on the team -- given that Platinum was formed from the gutted and closed Clover Studios, which made Okami -- and could translate some of that game's charm.

I was lost in the world of Okami. I fell in love with the characters, style, storyline, music, etc., etc., etc. In one of the final scenes of the game, my eyes even welled up a little from the events unraveling in the cutscene before me. So, I was really crossing my fingers that enough of the crew that made me feel that way had landed on the team behind MadWorld, given that it also had a unique visual style.

I don't think I ever expected anything that Okami gave me out of MadWorld. I mean, the hyper-violence was obviously a dramatic step away from the pastel world of Amaterasu and crew. Still, I wanted to feel something. I didn't care what, as long as it was an emotion invoked from something in the game -- be it the story, world, style, or gameplay.

Video Round-Up: Intergalactic Dream Edition

Video Round-Up is a weekly post collecting an assortment of videos from around the web. Whether they be music videos, creative viral marketing, just plain cool, or just plain ridiculous, they will all be found on Video Round-Up.

This week Cerebral Pop brings you WoW nerds, Soul Train mashups, crazy paintings, birthday surprises, and the coolest shit we have ever seen from Eastern Europe since Count Chocula.



We'll start with a warm-up. This 80s-era clip of Soul Train is both better and worse than the 70s and 90s versions of the dance show. Special appearances by Carl Winslow, Cumberbund-clad Ralph Macchio, and several lunatics.

From Far to Near

I dream of far off places. I mean far off. Not like India or Siberia far, I mean light years upon light years far.

I thank the lords at NASA for building such an incredible machine; Hubble. The images they are now picking up are turning fantasy into a daily sight. Now there is a "Google Night Sky" in which you can view most of the known universe from your computer for free.

To me this sounds like some Star Wars shit. Pretty soon our Iphones will be projecting 3D holographic images of the Moon and Mars. Little icons will show up for Wikipedia. 'Want to learn about a rock a billion miles away? Now you can in 3D from the palm of your hand.'

Video Round-Up: On the Tele Edition

Video Round-Up is a weekly post collecting an assortment of videos from around the web. Whether they be music videos, creative viral marketing, just plain cool, or just plain ridiculous, they will all be found on Video Round-Up.

This week there is a clear break between the entertainment and the information. Pay attention to both, but focus more on the latter. It'll help.



The editing is cheesy, but this video speaks directly to me. I've always championed infomercial acting; and by "championed" I mean "relentlessly insulted." Mash tens of these clips together, and their fictitious and purposeful being-bad-at-things-ness is more apparent. And still hilarious.

A Lesson in Dimensions

The cultivation of three-dimensional technology has been going on since the 19^th century and certainly seems like it has no intention of halting.

With the advent of 3D televisions, movies, and Nintendo's upcoming 3DS, it would probably be a good time to learn about what has already begun overtaking your movie theatres and will soon invade your homes.

The Beginning – Stereoscopic Images:

All technology has a starting point, and Charles Wheatstone first described 3D images as a re-creatable possibility as early as 1838. Stereopsis (from “stereo” meaning solid and “opsis” meaning sight) was described by the English inventor as “the mind’s perception of a three-dimensional object by means of two dissimilar pictures projected onto two retinæ”.



Essentially, it’s the illusion used to give two-dimensional pictures depth and disparity by tricking your eyes. A stereoscope – a unique type of spectacle – is required to actually view the trick correctly. The images used in order to induce stereopsis are typically called a “Stereo Pair”.

In the Victorian era, after David Brewster invented the prism stereoscope (the first consumer-grade stereoscopic spectacles) and photography became a popular hobby, viewing stereo pairs became a regular pastime and thousands of “Stereo Cards” (cards with Stereo Pairs on them) were created.