The people at waxy.org have completed an exhaustive list of every musical sample in all the tracks from The Kleptones new album A Night at the Hip Hopera. It doesn't look like they went so far as to document all of the movie and television samples. That would have taken forever. Also it looks like waxy has linked all the tracks from that page as well, if anyone still needs to grab them.

check it out. (via boingboing)

Also here is an interesting interview with Eric Kleptone.

Sorry for the lack of posts, I've been busy on a secret project. I'll tell you guys about it in early October!

According to Amazon.com Sept. 28th is the release date of Brian Wilson's heartfelt mental and career breaking album SMILE.

The history of this sought after Beach Boy's album is the stuff of legends. In the summer of 1966, Brian and his visionary partner, Smile lyricist Van Dyke Parks, first began working together on an album that would be their answer to the political, and social climate of that time. A time rife with things to be opinionated about, a time like now.

The album was never finished. The recordings that had been done up to that point were either shelved or repurposed into another Beach Boys album called Smiley Smile, an album not at all like the one it's name was stolen from. Wilson vowed never to touch those recordings, as far as he was concerned Smile was dead.

Until now. You can listen to the whole album for free, the way it was meant to be heard. And soon, you can own it.

The BBC has taken the old text-based Hitchhiker's Guide game you used to play in the library at school, and jazzed it up with a bulky interface and lumpy graphics.

I made it 19 moves before I was crushed by my collapsing house.

maybe you'll do better. (via boingboing)

"You ever hear of the Seattle Seven? That was me. And, um, six other guys."

from The Kleptones to a Lebowski quote generator in 2 moves.

Also, Lebowskifest. We are for sure going next year (it's in Louisville, KY for god's sake), so mark your calendars and rent a van, meet me at my house.

A couple friends of mine have started a drawing club. Meaning that sometimes it takes a little outside motivation to get yourself drawing, because it's easy to get bogged down with work, especially when your work is drawing. So, every so often we get an "assignment." This time the assignment was...

Breakfast.

We had to draw anything that came to our minds when we thought of "breakfast." I thought of breakfast aboard the space station.

breakfast is served:

LARGE:
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"Truly those ghosts belong in the hood. They belong there. Like you ain't never gonna find a geist in the bathroom of a Wal-mart because there's nothing there, that's not a history."
- Mr. Fangs

For years we have been trying to figure out the why and the who. Dr. Blade knows. And he tells us all about it, or as much about it as we need to know. And that's fine with me. Although I'd love to get a pair of those sneakers, even though I'd never have the guts to wear them in public. (thanks to: mack)

This is an idea so great and simple, you'll wish you had the chance to think of it.
Here's a simple and funny description of what this project is, from the website itself:

You are unknown to me.
Your camera's memory card was in a taxi; I have it now.
I am going to post one of your pictures each day.
I will also narrate as if I were you.
Maybe you will come here and reclaim this piece of your life.

I found some of your life. (via metafiler)

I just got the ok from Eric K, who was kind enough to speak with me via electronic ones and zeros:

I invite you to be invited by The Kleptones who invite you to...
A Night at the Hip Hopera
support those who push a medium, and in doing so you'll help to push both the medium and yourself.

A few short months ago a group of british DJ's calling themselves The Kleptones released a mash-up album called Yoshimi Battles the Hip Hop Robots. If you don't know what a mash-up album is, it's when someone takes 2 completely unrelated albums and mixes them together. Made dizzyingly famous by DJ Danger Mouse when he combined Jay-Z's Black Album with the Beatles White Album to create the seminal Grey Album. It blew up, not just because it sounded good, but because it worked on so many different levels, both illegal and not.

Well... As good as that album was, The Kleptone's version of Yoshimi was way better. It combined the insta-classic Flaming Lips Yoshimi with various old school and contemporary hip-hop songs. Including 50 cent rapping over spaced out Flaming Lips guitar rock. It's mind-blowing, and again, completely illegal.

The Kleptones are at it again, this morning I got an email from them with a new album called...

A Night at the Hip-Hopera.

That's right... This time they've taken on Queen. The amount of mixing and sampling is mind-boggling.

Now I would link directly to the download page for this album, but by request from the Kleptones I won't. They're as afraid of the huge corporate legal machine as anybody. But I will link to their main website, and if you are so inclined, maybe you can search out the album, or let me know and I can help you find it. It's worth it. The Kleptones are my new heros.

**update**
as it turns out, The Kleptones are fearless in the face of Corporate Legality:
" Oh and by the way, we're not afraid of the corporate machine, we're just afraid of our bandwidth bills..."

I saw them at Dragon*Con. All white and gleaming, every now and then you would see one with their helmet off, sweating the sweat of a dedicated soldier. or the sweat of a dedicated nerd pretending to be a soldier in the pretend Army of a pretend Empire. Now they have a documentary coming out made by them, about them.

Heart of an Empire: The Life and Times of the Fighting 501st.

here's a trailer. (via linkfilter)

Here's a little desktop for your consideration. From our trip to Amicalola Falls State Park, may it impart unto you the same tranquil feeling of peace it gave to us.

make me big:
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I was sent a semi-anonynous email with a hilarious photoshop remix of that cobra picture.
check it out:

if you did this and want credit, let me know.

Dragon*Con roundup.
It was a big weekend with much to report.

It is important to note that I wouldn't have been able to go to this Dragon*Con panel if it were not for my bosses. I owe them a big thank you.

For those of you who don't know, Dragon*Con is a huge weekend long convention here in Atlanta that specializes in Science Fiction and Fantasy. This means you will get a cross section of geekdom unlike any other similar convention. This is a place where the outcast become the most popular. Where the only person who will feel out of place is he who hasn't spent 40 hours on a costume. That's right, one of the biggest attractions of Dragon*Con is that people spend crazy amounts of time and money on their costumes, which range from disturbing to weirdly sexual to down right scary.

Our Sat. began with the annual Dragon*Con parade.
see artful images below for confirmation (click for bigger):

Next came the Adult Swim panel, on which I was lucky enough to sit. I was afforded the chance to speak a few times, very nice. The crowd was more than accommodating. They were so enthusiastic, it was eye opening. I was under the assumption that everyone hated Sealab, but the rousing thunder of applause the show received was more than convincing. The guys dressed as Sealab characters were especially great to see. I sat next to the incomparable Billy West, who would fall into character voices at the drop of nothing. I grew up listening to Billy West do his Larry Fine impression on The Howard Stern Show. You may also know him as the voice of Ren and Stimpy, as well as Fry and Zoidberg from Futurama. Did I mention that I sat next to him? I finally got to meet The Little Toy Robot and Lady Crumpet. Whose weblogs I read on a daily basis. (see side bar)

In addition, I met three very friendly (a little too friendly) members of The Cult of Scott Bakula. They gave me a CD which housed in a digital format their scripture. The Divine Prophecy of the Cult of Scott Bakula. The nearest I can tell, they are completely serious.

According to their doctrine:
"Cult of Scott Bakula, Because his career died for your sins."
you can join them, if you like.

I hope you guys had a happy and sunny Labor Day. Our home offices in Decatur Georgia however, took a bit of a pounding last night. Traffic lights all over our fair city gave up their electronic lives in sacrifice to the storm. A storm which apparently is scheduled to get worse tonight. Which is nothing compared to the continual hurricane bombardment Florida is taking.

For our Labor Day, Clunkygirl and I went to the beautiful Amicalola Falls State Park north of Atlanta. I like to consider myself a citybot, so it takes more than a little convincing to get me up and amongst the trees.

It was worth it. Due to the overcast weather, the crowds were at a minimum, but that didn't stop the water from falling.
See for yourself:

Also, I was on the Dragon*Con panel for Adult Swim on sat. It was huge fun, I have plenty of photographs including but not limited to photos of Billy West and costumed Sealab 2021 fans. Those photos and stories, however, are for tomorrow.

From Shydancer, This is awesome. They look so cute together.

The clunkyrobot is Earth-bound

On sat. at 11:30am somewhere at Dragon*Con there will be an Adult Swim discussion panel. For reasons heretofore unknown to the clunkyrobot, his bosses have permited him to sit on the previously mentioned panel. I will be representing Sealab 2021, in all it's glory.

I'm not sure who else is going to be on the panel, or what the hell I'm going to talk about. I think I'll pretend that I'm not a nerd, even though I am, except that I'm not.

If you are going to be at Dragon*Con, come by and say hello. I'll have clunkyrobot.com stickers, to be stuck. Also, I'm not unconvinced that this is a huge prank my bosses are pulling on me, like when I get to the hall for the panel it'll be a Klingon language discussion/debate and "GhIqtal" match.

The third season of The Wire begins Sept. 19th on HBO.

Check it.

Sorry for the no-posts.

The Sealab offices moved yesterday.

We are now located in the Williams Street Studio offices of Cartoon Network. If you don't know about Williams Street, it's where a couple other Adult Swim shows are made. It's pretty rad, as they say. I like to call it "The Land of Light and Color."