Oh my god, it is full of stars…

I got my first computer pretty much 20 years ago. I’ve been a gamer and I’ve followed the cool stuff the demo scene put out. I thought I was a hardened user, one which simply doesn’t get “wow’ed” anymore.

Enter Apple and iTunes to prove me wrong.

Their new visualizer is simply stunning. Words would be wasted, take a look:

Needless to say… I am currently going through my classical music collection. The Blue Danube is playing as I write this, and it is stunning.

Saw the CD Cover Game on Pedro’s blog. I thought it was a good idea for some quick fun, but it turns out I had to modify the rules: Most of the images Flickr returned were “All rights reserved” or “No derivative works”. So I simply took the first image that I was allowed to use:

The photo is by Calliyan.

I checked my Music collection for all the Halloween-related music I could find. Here’s the result:

• “The Mummy”, Bob McFaddin
• “Monster Mash”, Dr. Demento
• “Werewolves of London”, Warren Zevon
• “Monster”, The Automatics
• “Witchy Woman”, Eagles
• “Halloween (Live at Luther College)”, Dave Matthews Band
• “Haunted”, Type O Negative
• “Season of the Witch”, Blues Brothers
• “The Witch”, The Rattles
• “Queen of Witches”, Kano
• “The Witch Queen of New Orleans”, Leon Redbone
• “Thriller”, Michael Jackson
• “The Tell-tale Heart”, Alan Parsons Project
• “The Raven”, Alan Parsons Project
• “A Dream Within A Dream (Instrumental)”, Alan Parsons Project
• “The Cask of Amontillado”, Alan Parsons Project
• “Halloween (Live)”, Dave Matthews Band
• “The Ghost Song”, White Ghost Shivers
• “Sympathy for the Devil”, The Rolling Stones
• “Ghostriders in the Sky”, The Blues Brothers
• “Ghostbusters”, Ray Parker Jr.
• “Theme to Ghostbusters 2″, Run DMC

That’s all I have, and I don’t really have any additional ideas. Do you know any other music appropriate for Halloween? Please post in a comment.

Heh. That pac-man outline of candles alone is just genius. And MC Escher? Best Weird Al song in a long, long time.

Well, there’s a first for everything, and today I’ll recommend two music CD’s I actually like. I got them from Corey and Joel when I was in Detroit, who in turn got them from their sponsor Chicken Ranch Records. Chicken Ranch Records seems to be an Indie label from Austin, Texas. Unfortunately, their website sucks – it’s basically a frontend for MySpace (guys, please build a real website).

Anyway, back to the music. The two albums in question are:

• T&C by The Clutters. I am not good at classifying music, but this one’s pretty much straight forward rock. It goes down easy and makes for great background music.
• Live on the Radio by White Ghost Shivers. I would be interested to know how someone with a clue would classify this band. It’s basically a mix of jazz and western (Track 2, “Tell It To me”). The whole thing evokes an eerie 1920s feel. As the name implies, several of their songs are “spooky” or about ghosts. No, I haven’t analyzed the lyrics yet and I ain’t gonna. It’s fun music. I could also imagine this stuff as the soundtrack for a movie or an RPG campaign.

Thanks again to the guys for the big stack of CD’s you gave me. I haven’t listened to all yet but I’m gonna.