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[mulbruk]

In honour of his passing, posting Steve Albini's legendary polemic against the music industry.

Whenever I talk to a band who are about to sign with a major label, I always end up thinking of them in a particular context. I imagine a trench, about four feet wide and five feet deep, maybe sixty yards long, filled with runny, decaying shit. I imagine these people, some of them good friends, some of them barely acquaintances, at one end of this trench. I also imagine a faceless industry lackey at the other end, holding a fountain pen and a contract waiting to be signed. Nobody can see what’s printed on the contract. It’s too far away, and besides, the shit stench is making everybody’s eyes water. The lackey shouts to everybody that the first one to swim the trench gets to sign the contract. Everybody dives in the trench and they struggle furiously to get to the other end. Two people arrive simultaneously and begin wrestling furiously, clawing each other and dunking each other under the shit. Eventually, one of them capitulates, and there’s only one contestant left. He reaches for the pen, but the Lackey says, “Actually, I think you need a little more development. Swim it again, please. Backstroke.” And he does, of course.

[...]

THE BALANCE SHEET This is how much each player got paid at the end of the game. Record company: $710,000 Producer: $90,000 Manager: $51,000 Studio: $52,500 Previous label: $50,000 Agent: $7,500 Lawyer: $12,000 Band member net income each: $4,031.25 The band is now 1/4 of the way through its contract, has made the music industry more than 3 million dollars richer, but is in the hole $14,000 on royalties. The band members have each earned about 1/3 as much as they would working at a 7-11, but they got to ride in a tour bus for a month. The next album will be about the same, except that the record company will insist they spend more time and money on it. Since the previous one never “recouped,” the band will have no leverage, and will oblige. The next tour will be about the same, except the merchandising advance will have already been paid, and the band, strangely enough, won’t have earned any royalties from their t-shirts yet. Maybe the t-shirt guys have figured out how to count money like record company guys. Some of your friends are probably already this fucked.

The worst thing is, as bad as it was back in 1993, it's a thousand times worse for musicians in 2024. 1993 was before "Pay-to-Play" venues were as ubiquitous, and before some venues started taking a cut of the merchandise sales. 1993 was before CD sales collapsed, before file sharing, before Spotify ruined things further with its dismal royalty payments, its algorithmically driven discovery mechanism which is biased against the experimental, the daring, and the difficult (and women for that matter), and its proliferation of fake artists. It is not a good time to be a musician.

[mulbruk]

[mulbruk]

Top: extremely early world map screen found within a recently surfaced prototype version of Hotel Mario. Note that the map shows eight Koopa hotels, not seven as famously stated in Bowser's letter in the finished game.

Bottom: this plays into the "Iggy's Cheese Hotel Theory" I have previously presented on the Supper Mario Broth twitter.com account, where various factors all seem to point towards an eighth deleted hotel, likely belonging to Iggy Koopa and possibly cheese-themed.

Main Blog | Twitter | Patreon | Small Findings | Source

[mulbruk]

[mulbruk]

[mulbruk]

she’s gonna fucking kill him!!!!

[mulbruk]

for the rest of my life i dont ever wanna hear someone say they dont like rap bc of some dumbfuck assumption theyre making about an entire genre if you tell me youre a metal fan and you dont like rap because 'its too violent' im gonna swing until i hit you in the head. what the hell are you talking ABOUT

[mulbruk]

Abigail, my favorite girl ever 🤠

[mulbruk]

Princess & the Pawn (Full Comic) An ActiRanger Adventure!

(Bonus page and additional info after the jump)

More info about the ActiRangers/Gambit Gang here and here. Be aware that most of my Actiranger stuff is Adult themed and NSFW!

[mulbruk]

Did you know there's bunnies out there?

Oh fuck yeah dude

[mulbruk]

SUDOWOODO + EXEGGUTOR

ROCK/PSYCHIC

It pretends to be a tree. However, local wildlife has gotten wise to its tricks, so as an additional precaution it distracts foes with the fake heads on each of its arms, using illusion magic to make them appear as formidable foes.

[mulbruk]

Self promo for my newest card game, Jewel Thief; but you can play it for free! First, though, let's cover the basics...

"What is Jewel Thief?"

It's a card matching game with a villain; one player tries to match jewels in a 36 card grid while their opponent, the titular Jewel Thief, periodically steals cards from the board. You can check out its page on The Game Crafter for more information, but it'll spoil the rest of this post

"What makes it special?"

The game's turn structure would theorettically allow you, perhaps via some kind of infinite cloning machine, to play a round of Jewel Thief til the heat death of the universe. While I wouldnt recommend that, its lack of a player cap (and ease of set-up; seriously, all you do is put cards on a table) makes it a good party game choice.

But that's not all!

There are three extra rule variants that drastically alter the gameplay while keeping card matching and stealing as main mechanics. I believe the cards are versatile enough to allow for many custom games, too

"Okay, but why should I buy a silly game from some bug nerd?"

First off, ouch. Second off, that's the best part; you dont have to buy it to play it! Jewel Thief can be played with a standard 52 card deck. Here's how:

Step 1. Remove the 10s, Jacks, Queens, Kings and Jokers

Step 2. Download the free rules from the shop page

Step 3. Play the game, matching cards based on their values. You'll need to designate a value as the Diamond jewel for game 4

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That's it for my little self-promo. If you dont buy the game, I hope you'll at least give it a try and consider supporting my future projects.

I also post art and photography, which you can find under the bugbeast art and bugbeast photos tags. I hope you check them out

Thank you for your time <3

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Edit (Mar. 25, 2024) : Thank you to everyone who liked and reblogged this; if you play the game I encourage you to share your thoughts in the comments and/or reblogs (even if you hated it). Feel free to share any custom games or house rules you come up with, too. I'd love to try them!

[mulbruk]

[mulbruk]

what a normal-looking guy i bet he has a really normal family and successful academic career

[mulbruk]

activity recommendation turning the stove up really high and then walking away