bandshell

Grand High Witch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus_wrestling

O'Rourke was becoming perhaps the world's greatest authority on the thought processes and the personality of the octopus. He knew how to outmaneuver them, to outflank them, and to outthink them. He knew full well, many years ago, what today's octopus wrestlers are just beginning to learn—that it is impossible for a man with two arms to apply a full nelson on an octopus; he knew full well the futility of trying for a crotch hold on an opponent with eight crotches.
 

Sectionfive

bandwagon house
Over on another forum. After 6 years and 1141 pages the old school thread had to be locked and a new one started.
The inevitable calls of the new thread never being as good as the old one have already started....
 

Leo

Well-known member
http://www.quora.com/Why-is-U2-so-popular

Question: Why is U2 So Popular?

Daniel Rosenthal, Concerts Attended: Wembley '97, Oakla...

Answer summary:
- Big market
- Product market fit
- Usability

Big Market
Imagine you’re a middle-aged, upper-middle-class male. You live in a large metropolitan area. You have a good job. Your wife does Pilates. Your oldest just started kindergarten. Yes, you’re an adult, but you’re still cool! Your jeans cost $125. Sometimes you wear sneakers with a blazer!

You like the idea of being a guy who’s into live music, but the last few concerts you’ve been to were (a) too loud, (b) too crowded, (c) too foreign (you were lucky if you recognized one song). You’ll snap a few photos with your smartphone and tell your bros about it to get some street cred, but let’s face it: you didn’t enjoy yourself. There are millions of you. And you’re willing to drop cash to have a concert make you feel cool again.

Product Market Fit
Then you learn that U2 is coming to town—U2! Earnest, melodic, Oprah-endorsed U2! $200 a ticket? No problem. You get a sitter. Your wife is excited—this is going to be great! You invite some friends from college to join you.
On the way, you listen to the “early stuff.” The Joshua Tree pumps through the speakers of your Lexus SUV (no judgment—you have two kids!). The harmonies soothe. The lyrics are straightforward. You recall a simpler time before car seats and prostate exams. The nostalgia is so thick you have to wipe it from your face. You haven’t looked at your phone in nearly 11 minutes.

You arrive at the show and see yourself everywhere. Tasteful North Face and Patagonia jackets abound. The stands are awash in earth tones. No one is shoving. No one has a nose ring. These are your people.

Usability
The band begins with A SONG YOU RECOGNIZE! You’re on your feet. You’re drinking “craft” beer. Everyone is singing terribly.

And the best part—YOU CAN DANCE HERE! 80,000 people surround you and there’s not a coordinated movement in sight. Even the band sets a low bar. Bono doesn’t so much dance as lunge and bounce. The other guys seem content to nod and rock. All around you, middle-aged people are rocking and lunging and bouncing and singing badly. Is that guy wearing Tod’s loafers and a Barbour jacket? Yes, he is. And he’s in the zone.

The set is basically a greatest hits playlist. The band graciously performs two new songs that no one recognizes to give you a few minutes to use the john and grab another IPA. They might as well flash an intermission sign.

Even the political statements go down smooth: “Democracy!” “Fight AIDS!” How could you possibly disagree? You’re not only dancing and reminiscing—you’re spreading freedom and reasonably-priced medicines to distant lands!

And the kicker: not one, but TWO encores, the ones you know best—the ones you first heard that summer you painted houses or kissed Katie at the beach party. You’re closing your eyes now. This is sad and sweet. You put your arm around your wife. You’re wondering if Katie ever got married. A third of the crowd departs after the first encore. It’s no big deal; some of us have work in the morning! Anyway, the traffic will be better if everyone doesn't leave at once.
 

you

Well-known member
Wow. I hope to god I never bump into this binarybrainedfucktart:

Stephen Venuto, Silicon Valley startup attorney, food...
I'd simplify this a bit --

U2 is very, very talented (good).
U2 has been very, very good for decades.
U2 has a passion for being popular (the band has worked at it, hard, over many decades).
The type of music U2 plays is intellectually, emotionally and politically engaging.
U2 has surrounded itself with very high quality support personnel (e.g. Paul McGuiness).

That's it. (Not quite that complicated, just very unusual.)


Positive?
At least he's not pushing up the market price of out of print Mille Plateaux and Southern Lord.....

Im trying....(enter pun)
 

Sectionfive

bandwagon house
Phil Jupitus gig review -

I saw him in Town Hall Theatre a few years back. He was pretty peeved that there were lots of empty seats. When he walked on stage, he looked at the paltry crowd and said "Christ. I have slept with more people then this ". That was the funniest moment of the night.
 

bandshell

Grand High Witch
http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/levels-in-call-of-duty-postmodern-warfare

Levels in
Call of Duty:
Postmodern Warfare.

Second Level

You are dropped into a war zone. Bombs falls everywhere and bullets whizz past you. Your comrades scream at you to start shooting, but there is nobody to shoot. They scream and push you into battle and then they hold up an A4 picture of the enemy: It’s you. The level finishes when you shoot yourself in the head.

Level Four

In the next level you are a newborn baby watching videos of babies being born. Your mother (whose likeness is skinned into the game using new Friend-Shot Skinning Technology) bursts in and accuses you of being trapped in the Oedipal complex. She starts taking her clothes off. Then the level ends.

Level Five

You play through the life of 16th-century Venetian cobbler. Events unfold in real time and take 97 years to complete. The level explores the themes of love, abandonment of dreams, and how much the Black Plague sucked.

Training level

After you played through it and completed it, you now have the mental resolve and required skills to begin the training level.
 

slowtrain

Well-known member
To actually make the game itself would be much cooler.

Man, there is so much potential with computer but most of them are written by fanfic losers, someone should get Bolano (from the dead) or Pynchon to make a computer game.

I would make a game myself, but my talents are much below average in regards to computers.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I was thinking of Pynchon as I read the descrption of those missions...is he like the high priest of po-mo literature, or something? Or maybe co-ruler with DFW? (got a mate's copy of IJ I ought to read soon, everything I've heard about him makes me bracket him with Pynchon though)
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Kinda - it was so battered by the time I'd finished reading it I said I'd buy him a new one so when I do I guess it will be mine.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Kinda - it was so battered by the time I'd finished reading it...

...and you'd absorbed so many book-particles and the book had absorbed so many Rich-particles that it's no longer strictly correct to speak of you and the book as two well-defined individual entities?
 
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Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
The job I'm doing now is at a place that manufactures very big, expensive machines. While each machine is being built and tested, the work is overseen by an employee known as "Machine Father". It's like being in a Gibson novel...
 
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