Jinx Protocol

This Web Site is On the Move!

2011-01-02T20:23:00.002-05:00

Something strange has happened to this URL, so I have decided to move the Jinxprotocol operation to another site. I hate to, after nearly 1250 posts, but sometimes these things happen.

So, don't be sad. You can get all of the Jinxprotocol you need over at http://jinxprotocol.tumblr.com/!!!

Now, go bookmark the site! I'm waiting. Hurry. Please. I don't want to beg. Are you seriously still here? Come on. Go to http://jinxprotocol.tumblr.com/ already!

Listening to: Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros

2010-12-19T20:39:00.002-05:00

I have been absolutely obsessed with this song lately: "Home," by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros.

The Walking Dead: Episode 6

2010-12-05T22:00:00.019-05:00

So my overall impression of the first season is this: I liked the show; I did not love it. I felt that it could have done a better job of building toward some kind of crescendo, so that the very real moment at the end would have been more, I don't know, meaningful.

Don't get me wrong, I think the show did some great things over the course of the last six episodes, but the whole of the CDC sequence seemed tacked-on or unsatisfying in some way. I was actually even excited about them leaving camp and heading out, but I'm not sure this was the best way to handle it.

Maybe next season will be (A) longer and (B) more even. Last week's episode felt more like a season-ender than this one, honestly. I'm going to give it some time, and I hope that the staff find their legs, because the material for a knockout show is there. A six episode arc without the arc barely even scratches the surface of what a long-term zombie project could turn out to be.

10:57 - Hmmm.

10:50 - So far, this has been an anticlimactic episode, and I'm not hoping for too much in the next, oh, nine minutes. Personally, I don't really care about them getting out of the CDC. It's only been a thing for the last few minutes anyway, and it only seems to falsely add tension to what seems to be a middling episode of the show.

If Rick Grimes is Jack Shepard, then Dale is John Locke.

Well, we are getting a separation here. Andrea's threatening to stay behind, and I guess Dale is trying to talk some sense into her.

10:46 - Um, okay, so maybe the writers aren't so very concerned with depicting Shane as a conflicted dude. All he's done this episode is sulk, fight, scream, and shoot things. He's basically a screaming, yelling plot device, an enraged means to an end.

10:44 - The Quizno's 543 commercials are just as creepy as anything else on television.

10:39 - "What happens in 28 minutes?" The doc makes a good point about not wanting to let dangerous viruses, etc. out. I mean, who would want people getting sick? That would be a catastrophe. Imagine the millions upon millions of people...who'd...erm...die. We'll, not air-tight logic, I suppose. But he's a scientist, and, like Patton Oswalt says, "Science is all about coulda, not about shoulda."

10:36 - I don't know how I feel about any of what's going on right now.

10:34 - Lori seems to be lying to Carl, though the reason isn't clear. I wonder just how long keeping up pretense would actually last in a similar situation.

10:33 - I'm loving the fact that one of the local commercials is for an Army supply store. How utterly fitting.

10:29 - I don't want to draw too many similarities to L O S T, but the clock countdown and the grizzled insider character and the potential for a split in the factions, all of these things point to a L O S T influence.

Of course they existed superficially in the comic books, but the way the show has branched off from the comics points to an influence from something else entirely. It could just be Darabont's hand guiding the series, which is likely, given the fact that AMC shows are largely unaffected by the need to perform on the level of mainstream network shows.

10:28 - I'm digging the "science" here. It's gibberish, but at least they're creating an internal logic. If this show is going to have legs, they're going to have time to flesh out this kind of stuff (no pun intended).

10:23 - for some reason, they just let the thing about Shane's neck go. Certainly any person in their collective situation would be a bit more skeptical about flesh wounds. Right?

I'm already anticipating what sort of ending they're going for tonight, given the fact that they've shifted the entire operation to the CDC. There's no way all the loose ends can get tied up in a significant way tonight, not even one that will set up the next season.

On a similar note, Frank Darabont recently fired TWD's entire writing staff.

10:16 - the show's writers are going a long way in order to vindicate Shane, but they're making Lori react in a such a way as to make him unsympathetic. It's odd. I guess they're driving at the guilt and personal torment she feels over it. She obviously wants to believe Shane but can't let herself.

10:12 - What usually happens in situations like the present one is that the characters explore the new environment, waiting for the shit to hit the fan. They (and we) are lulled into a false sense of comfort (not hope), and it will all amount to naught in a matter of time. It's something (surprise, surprise) Stephen King does very well. The Stand jumps to mind.

10:09 - We're getting an explanation of what went down early on in the zombpocalypse, but can it be trusted?

10:08 - I've got some shenanigans going on with my computer, but I'll try to do my best with the liveblog.

10:08 - False hope and alcohol: never a good combination.

10:01 - Looks like we're starting with a flashback, way back in the onset of the zombie apocalypse. Obviously that's what's going on, because Rick is in a coma...

Episode 6: TS-19

L4D2: US / Australian Comparison

2010-11-28T23:10:00.001-05:00

There is a huge disparity in the amount of blood in these two games.

LiveBlogging: The Walking Dead: Episode 5

2010-11-28T21:42:00.030-05:00

Tonight's episode is probably my favorite. I liked the first episode, but this one surpasses it. It's finally getting to be the show that I thought it could be. It was evenly paced all the way through. The tone was perfect. There were bits of action, and it all seemed to meld together very well. I'm impressed. I want the series to keep going, and I'm worried they won't be able to tie up the next episode in a way that makes sense, but they could give us one hell of a cliffhanger.

10:57 - Oh, man, this is an intense ending. Rick is losing it, walkers are everywhere, and, suddenly, the door to the CDC opens. I am utterly intrigued by this direction.

10:54 - The CDC is screwed. The close-up of the face is disgusting. In fact, just about everything they're showing right now is utterly disgusting. Dead bodies everywhere. A near-maddening sound of flies buzzing.

Speaking of, do you think they had to experiment with fly sounds to get the right one? Hmmm.

10:53 - "I think tomorrow I'm going to blow my brains out."
"Tonight, I'm gonna get drunk."

Wonderfully delivered lines.

10:52 - Dumb-ass. This definitely has a King "Stand" / Matheson "I Am Legend" vibe (both the movie and the novel).

10:50 - We're getting some insight on the infection. This is a surprising shift for the show.

Also, the brains / flesh...disgusting(ly awesome).

10:41 - The numbers are dwindling quickly. Jim (That guy) is about to get it. They've got him resting against a tree, and it looks as though they're going to leave him there.

This situation speaks to the very tension that perpetually exists in post-apocalyptic literature / media. Does a single person's right to do what he wants override the necessity to keep the group together?

Of course they couldn't take Jim with them, but to what extent is each individual able to act selfishly / individually? It seems like the group would have to adopt an ostensibly socialist philosophy to survive. Every person would have to work to benefit the group. I know the free market folks would disagree, but the philosophy of "means" is worthless when the "end" (existence) is at stake.

10:38 - The caravan is heading out. I love the shot composition and the music here. It's a little over the top, but it may be my favorite musical moment of the whole show. It manages to be transcendent and ominous at the same time.

I also like the shared movement of the whole group...and a little comic touch there. Wonderful. Of course one of the vehicles would break down almost immediately.

10:36 - Wonderful-looking shot to bring us back from commercial. I love just how green it is. I also like that we're opening the second half of the show the same as we did the first. It's interesting.

10:35 - Synergy. They're really piling on the zombie stuff for this show. Either it's a brilliant move, or a brilliantly stupid move.

10:31 - Shane isn't totally despicable, and yet they kind of make him one-note. I want to like the guy. He's got mixed motivations, sure, but the way that he's coming undone is genuine. They just need to give him a balance of screen time so that he's not just portrayed as being the guy to disagree with Rick on everything. He's not just the counterpoint.

10:30 - Okay, it's back. I kind of dig the first person POV shot they just put on display. Very comic book-y.

10:28 - I actually do kind of like Shane. He's been kind of the one-note villain...wait, my screen just went black! Anybody else?

10:27 - There's something vaguely metaphorical about Rick and (that guy) having a conversation about right to die and euthanasia while framed directly in front of an American flag.

Speaking of, what I do like is that they're not going overboard with the social satire stuff, which plagues a lot of shallow zombie flicks.

10:25 - Maybe I'm just way off in not seeing the connection between Rick and Lori. It's not like they don't have chemistry, but they only seem to come together to have a moment of "I love you blah blah blah" before going off to do other stuff. They haven't really come together in a meaningful way...or maybe I don't know what in the hell I'm talking about.

10:21 - And we're back. I kind of like the flashes of zombie premonition that (forgot his name) is experiencing. Nice little touch.

The field where the bodies are being buries is awesome, as well. It's giant and lush and green and works as a nice counterpoint to the disgusting nature of the work.

Also, the characters are starting to get a look I can only deem as "post-apocalyptic grime." Or, "Post-apocalyptic Grimes." Am I right?

10:15 - The death of Amy is sudden and tender without being melodramatic. Of course the speech Andrea gives borders on the melodramatic, but it manages to mostly avoid going too far. It's a nice touch.

What I like about this episode so far is the fact that the characters are interacting with each other and the environment well. It's an evenly-paced work, and the camp isn't divided between the people who are staying behind and those who have rushed off for some Macguffin or another.

Dealing with the crisis is what intrigues me about the show. I actually like watching the characters be conflicted about their situations and digging graves for other characters and things like that. Unfortunately, I think it might kill the momentum to only have a six episode run. They'll have to build the momentum back up after an extreme break.

10:12 - The gore is extreme, but it lies on the outskirts of the very human story taking place at its center, between Andrea and her sister.

We're getting the first stirrings of the zombiefied (or walkified) version of Amy. There's only one option here, unfortunately.

10:09 - Jeffrey DeMunn (Dale) is comforting Andrea by telling the story about his wife's losing battle with cancer. Very human. DeMunn is probably my favorite actor on the show, and I like seeing him get a moment to show off his ability to empathize.

This discussion is very King-ian in nature, and it, too, works very well. Dale and Andrea steal the scenes in which they are featured, most times.

10:07 - The characters are all discussing the possibility of offing one of their own, who was bitten in the attack from the previous night. The characters' personalities are coming out well in the dialogue.

10:06 - The show seems to be settling into the tragedy of the zombpocalypse very well. Up until now, there has been a lot of running around and going back into the city and so forth. Now the terror and shock and paranoia have all begun to sink in. I love it.

10:04 - Is it bad that I am much more a fan of Andrea (Laurie Holden) than Lori Grimes? I remember being specifically drawn to Lori in the comics. In the series, not so much. I mean, I like her, but just not in the same way. It's not her fault, though.

10:02 - Whoa! Pickaxe to the head. Way to balance the emotion related to death with the reality that they would come back to "life." Only two minutes in, and this is already my favorite episode.

10:01 - This episode opens with Rick Grimes talking (not) frantically into a walkie-talkie. Great cold opening. Perfectly silent, save for Grimes himself. Wonderful beginning. This is the sort of thing I've wanted to see all along.

Episode 5: Wildfire

First Thoughts On: Wii Punch Out

2010-11-26T20:29:00.003-05:00

So I didn't do much Black Friday shopping, but I did manage to pick up Wii Punch Out for the Wii (of course) for half-price on a clearance shelf at Target. How I managed to pull this off, I don't know, but I did. I went, expecting to buy nothing but I ended up getting a Nintendo game for a discount, which almost never happens. Nintendo games manage to hold value better than Apple products, and that's saying something. Now, to the actual experience of playing the game.

Some of my fondest memories from childhood come from the Punch Out series, and for good reason. Mike Tyson's Punch Out (for the NES) and Super Punch Out (for the SNES) gave me literally hundreds of hours of enjoyment.

When I say enjoyment, though, I have to undercut that statement by saying that I used to be a complete and total gaming douche bag. I'm not a violent person, but I gave my NES games hell way back when. I remember getting so pissed during a game of Tecmo Bowl that I threw the game against my bedroom door.

I'd done it at least a dozen times, but this time there was something wholly different about the experience. The way the game sounded bouncing off the doorknob made me cringe. I thought I saw a quarter-sized piece of plastic go flying into the living room, but I hoped and prayed that wasn't the case.

It was. I'd ostensibly broken the cartridge for my absolute favorite game (right behind Mike Tyson's Punch Out, of course). I picked it up and started repeated no, no, no, no, no. I didn't know what it was like to be an abusive husband/boyfriend (and still don't), but this was as close to it as I could imagine. I had reacted violently to something I couldn't really control (Punch Out could be totally cheap) and felt immediate and overwhelming remorse for it.

Luckily, I put the cartridge into my NES and the damned thing worked (for a few months). It lasted me long enough for me to get tired of it. I think that the second Zelda game completely replaced it in my imagination. Sorry, Tecmo. You will be missed.

ANYWAY, back to Punch Out. I like it. I've always liked it.

The truth is that I don't even really care for fighting or boxing games all that much. Punch Out provides the necessary nostalgia to keep me busy for a time, but it's also a pretty great game, as well.

I'm pretty good at this series, which is to say that I'm less worse at it that I am other Nintendo franchises. I somehow managed to master the game's basic mechanics in the late 80s, and, since the game hasn't changed very much, I've remained pretty good at it since then.

In fact, when Super Punch Out was released for the SNES in the mid 90s - 95, I believe - I went through a strangely obsessive period, wherein I fought the same boxers hundreds upon hundreds - and perhaps thousands upon thousands - of times. I'm not normally a numbers guy, but because I had a subscription to Nintendo Power, I became obsessed with the times people posted for defeating various fighters.

This was well before I had the internet, so the sense of competition I felt was palpable. I'm sure, internet notwithstanding, I'd feel the same sort of competition today over Rock Band or Guitar Hero. I was always better than my friends at the games that truly captured my imagination, and back then that was all that mattered.

These days, all you have to do is go to YouTube and find video of somebody beating "Dyer's Eve" (Metallica) on Expert without missing a note. It's heartbreaking for those people who fantasize about being good at anything. Go ahead. If you want to kill a dream of yours, just type it into YouTube. You will lose your motivation by the end of the hour.

That's why I was lucky to have Super Punch Out during the period of time that I did. I was good at Mike Tyson's Punch Out, but I couldn't, for the life of me, beat Mike Tyson. I could get to him, and I could hit him once or twice, but he normally beat me senseless in a matter of seconds. I won't hold that against myself, given the fact that nobody else I knew could beat him either (this is also a situation in which the internet would be a ego deflater).

Moving on...

Wii Punch Out (or Punch Out Wii) continues the tradition of excellence that started well before Mike Tyson's legal troubles. The characters are fun, the tone is just right, and the gameplay works very well, so it's more or less a success. I'll have to adjust to the timing - I hated that I lost to Great Tiger the first time I fought him, but I'll get it down pat - but otherwise, Wii Punch Out is a fine game. The whole game just seems to have an attractive atmosphere, because I, for example, played for well over half an hour longer than I had first intended when putting the disc in the drive.

One thing I like is seeing the parade of returning characters. I know that it's a bit lazy on Nintendo's part to release YET ANOTHER GAME full of characters we've seen on multiple occasions - Glass Joe was in both the NES and SNES versions of Punch Out - but it works here. I would like to have seen more new characters early on, but the experience of working with these old characters in a new way was enough to pique my interest.

Additionally, the learning curve isn't all that high. I played using the Wii-mote like an old NES controller, so it was like going back to my childhood. The main difference is that I was drinking beer instead of Mountain Dew.

That's part of what makes Nintendo games so successful. Yes, they go to the well way, way, way too often, but they also make fun, nostalgic games for Reagan babies, so it's entirely forgivable. The games, if a bit derivative, make for an interesting experience. New isn't always best. Games can be derived from the same pool of characters, plots, and story devices and still be original and fun (think Super Mario Galaxy. Well, not the sequel).

Wii Punch Out is the same way. I liked stepping into the ring against the horrible stereotypes which have been a staple of the series for over twenty years.

I have always been somewhat unsettled by the stereotypes on parade here, but how are they different from any other video game (or professional wrestling, for that matter)? The fact that the series wasn't developed by Americans doesn't shield it whatsoever from the criticism that it's just plain racist as hell, yo.

Glass Joe (a Frenchman) is literally surrounded by baguettes if you knock him out. Von Kaiser is stereotypically German. Don Flamenco fights bulls (I thought he was Italian in the original. I'm also an idiot). Bear Hugger (a Canadian) chugs syrup and fights bears. He even calls you a hoser during the fight.

Now, the way that the game is set up can lead you to believe that the characters are mere cultural touchstones rather than blatant stereotypes, but in my leftist cultural guilt, I refuse to jump onboard completely and say, "Yeah! There's nothing wrong with having an Asian character named Piston Honda!"

Still, so far Wii Punch Out has exceeded every one of my expectations, and I cannot wait to play it in the coming days.

By the way: I hope Georgia destroys Georgia Tech tomorrow. Go Dawgs!

Mortal Kombat: Defenders of Stupidity

2010-11-22T21:27:00.001-05:00

I needed this today.

LiveBlogging: The Walking Dead: Episode 4

2010-11-21T21:55:00.027-05:00

10:58 - What an awesome ending. Even when the show lags in the middle, the endings always seem to pull through.

What is strange is that the scenes with zombies are oddly the most humanizing, not the conversations about fishing and whatever. There is no pretense in them.

10:56 - With the way that the opening scene played out, I should have know this was going to happen. At this point, I cannot even remember what happened in the comic books. I can't tell what is faithful and what is not. I find that to be a good thing.

10:55 - This is the sort of thing to which I wish there had been some kind of build-up. But I suppose that it mirrors the way that things inexplicably happen in the comic book.

10:54 - Zombies are spectacularly adept at finding the jugular vein.

10:52 - Don't you hate it when people stumble into your camp site, ruin a perfectly serene night?

10:50 - I wonder what is so compelling to Frank Darabont about inaction. About stasis? Think about it. Shawshank. The Green Mile. The Mist. The Walking Dead. They all deal with the banality of inaction. Characters sort of sitting around and biding their time. It's interesting that all of those things have something fairly obvious in common.

10:48 - Those bruises are hyper-realistic.

10:48 - I'm not complaining about the mood or the tone (or really even the pacing of the show). Is there such a thing as balance of pace?

10:44 - The filmmakers do not effectively balance the zombie tension with the human tension. That's really my most damning criticism. Every scene is a talkie scene or a zombie scene, and the range in between is fairly shallow.

In a comic book, this idea is profound. On television, not so much. It makes the work seem unbalanced and leaden.

10:37 - Whoo-whee, it's about to go DOWN! Just kidding.

10:34 - (I apologize in advance for the obvious question) Are there no abandoned gun shops in Atlanta?

10:33 - Laurie Holden, it seems, has all but disappeared from this episode. Also, I still don't really care about Lori Grimes. Just throwing that out there. I want to care for her, but I just don't. I just don't.

10:31 - The zombie element is being minimized in order to maximize the human drama, and I can't decide if they are doing it because they think it improves the story, or if they are intentionally making it seem high-brow.

10:28 - I like young, Hispanic Denzel Washington.

10:24 - What's so terrifying about 'TWD' is that it holds very closely to the zombie trope of uncertainty. Just about any character (who is not a lead) can die at any point in a zombie story. The tension we feel for Rick Grimes is real, because his story could end any moment. The fact that it doesn't is almost irrelevant.

10:23 - Tying someone to a tree in a zombie story is the one way to ensure that person's situation ends tragically.

10:18 - I wonder which is a more terrifying proposition: fighting off the zombie hordes in TWD or facing down a screaming crowd of Beatles fans, circa 1966.

10:17 - I haven't seen the shaved head / bangs look since 2006!

10:13 - This is the first scene we get of real, honest zombie cabin fever. Jim's losing his mind. Jim hasn't really been featured in the show, which should give us a slight hint of what's going to happen to Jim.

10:10 - It takes some major cojones to cauterize a wound with a flat iron. Woof.

10:04 - I don't know why the Boondock Saint is so pissed. The severed hand indicates the guy - The Rook! - left with a fighting chance.

That hand is awfully sick (and real) looking.

10:02 - I get so caught up in trying to dig metaphors out of the characters' conversations that I sometimes lose track of what they're actually talking about. Like fishing.

10:00 - Episode 4 - "Vatos"

My First Thoughts on: Alan Wake

2010-11-21T20:29:00.004-05:00

Alan Wake is basically just one hellish nature walk, which would be awesome, if not for the combat and the controls.

In fact, I would probably like the game a whole lot more if there were no combat and I was just allowed to walk through the woods and collect manuscript pages and coffee.

I'm only a few hours into A. Wake - get it? - and I find myself much more interested in the scenery than the story. The background is lush and detailed and indicative of the Northwest (I think), and it makes me want to visit the west coast.

The story is sort of overwrought, which wouldn't be such a bad thing if the controls were much, much, much tighter. Combat kind of sucks, and I dread fighting off the shadowy hordes, and not because they're scary or anything like that. They're kind of lame and one-note and the shittiest thing about fighting them is that there is absolutely no way to avoid them.

AWake would be a much better game if avoiding combat were possible. The few times I've tried to run away, I've been tracked down and axed to death almost instantly. The bad guys gang up on you and kill you in a matter of seconds. It's kind of boring and tedious.

Which sucks. I really wanted to enjoy this game, and I also wanted to overlook its most obvious flaws. The story isn't that bad for a video game - writer gets trapped in his story-slash-subconscious, basically - and all of the visual touches are pretty great. There are no zombies (yet), and, unless a dramatic shift occurs, I won't be transported to the beaches of Normandy to ward off unnamed scores of Nazis.

But the sluggish combat is irreconcilable. If the fights were more sporadic or could be avoided, the game would be much, much, much better. The developers seemed to think I would be more interested in shooting things than I would exploring an interesting and original world (and maybe I am not your typical gamer), and they got that wrong.

I would be much more pleased to experience a game where not as much "happens" except for when stuff happens. Does that make sense? The story is engaging, and hoofing it around the woods of the Northwest, turning on televisions and radios and finding seemingly randomly placed coffee containers and manuscript pages (for the worst novel ever written) was fun enough for me.

I'm not saying I would have preferred to do this for twelve hours, but I would much rather stalk around the woods, pretending to be the Green River Killer or Dora the Explorer than fighting off half-assed enemies.

The Walking Dead: Episode 3

2010-11-14T22:00:00.026-05:00

My overall impression - tonight's episode started off slow but ended up being somewhat strong. The human drama is picking up as we learn more about the characters. As the characters become more real, the more interesting the show will become.

Also, Next week's episode looks quite awesome.

10:57 - The Rook saved himself by re-enacting the first Saw movie.

10:56 - Since when did "cooze" become cable-friendly?

Also, Shane is taking his frustrations out on wife-beater Ed. Again, Southern masculinity (and masculinity in general) is being placed on the stand.

Traditional gender roles are being set up. The men are going in for a rescue mission, and the women are washing clothes.

10:55 - The "arrow being pulled from the skull" sound effect is perfectly disgusting.

10:54 - What we don't get from Shane is a sense that he wanted Rick's wife from the beginning, so we're clueless as to what his motivations might have been.

10:53 - Southern masculinity is being put on trial here.

10:50 - I now see a connection between people and frogs. Startle animals, and they scatter. If they scatter, then they're easier to catch. Like people. Intentional? Not intentional?

10:48 - Seeing commercials for Lipitor and Grady Medical Center puts everything in perspective. I can't entirely empathize with absolutely fictitious threats like zombies if I'm seeing statistics about actual problems popping up on screen.

10:44 - That tent is huge. I'm so jealous.

10:41 - Not to nitpick, but doesn't it seem odd that Rick would go back for a bag-o-guns? I live near enough Atlanta to know that guns are plentiful.

10:37 - Over the break, I read an interesting article about TWD at The New York Times. The ratings have been great for the show, and a second season has already been ordered.

10:32 - Long talky scene with Rook's brother. They've decided to go back to Atlanta to save Rook. Tonight's episode is supposed to be more emotionally than viscerally resonant, but for some reason I'm not really feeling it.

10:27 - The make-up is wonderfully disgusting. I'm a fan.

10:25 - Back from commercial break. There is already a pervading sense of detachment from the zombie threat. Almost has (forgive me) a LOST sort of vibe to it.

Oh, wait. Here we go.

10:20 - More than a literal storm is brewing at the camp. Sorry. Couldn't help myself.

10:19 - Nearly twenty minutes without a commercial break.

10:12 - One thing I have noticed is that none of the characters really stand out all that much. They're all pretty stock. The thing about AMC shows is that they feature peculiarly strong protagonists (Don Draper & Walter White), but no character from TWD really stands out as different.

It's not necessarily a fault that will hurt the show if the chemistry of the whole cast works together fairly well.

Perhaps it is why horror shows don't have the same punch as other kinds of shows. In horror shows (or movies), regular people are placed in extraordinary situations, which is sort of the opposite of the norm (L O S T being the obvious exception).

That may be a reason (excuse) why the characters don't stand out. They're the straight men in this otherworldly setting. They need to be normal and regular to make this work. If they were not grounded to reality, then the show might lose all sense of credibility.

10:10 - The family is reunited (ten minutes into the third episode). Not bad. I thought it would take a little longer, so perhaps my ideas about it being paced too slowly are way off. Good.

10:07 - What symbolic significance does the frog legs conversation really have? It's odd, given the circumstances. I'll have to ponder that.

Frogs are subject to the story about slowly boiling water. Slowly boil water and a frog will not jump out of the pot...that sort of thing. Any connection? No?

Frog legs. It's odd.

10:05 - Even though the fan credit sequence someone posted online is better, I still like the regular ones. The music is awesome.

10:04 - Either I don't remember the comics all that well or this sequence didn't really happen. Either way, a tension has crept into the show that I hadn't felt until tonight. I like that.

10:02 - The threat of zombie violence hasn't been quite as overt in the previous weeks as it is right now.

10:01 - Immediately, we see Rooker going crazy on a rooftop. Beautiful. It took him this long to realize just how fucked he really is.

"Tell it to the Frogs."

Suspense in Video Games: Alan Wake

2010-11-11T22:15:00.002-05:00

What makes suspense difficult to create in video games is the necessity for player and character, player and controller, and player and game to interact. All of these elements combined make for an experience that takes the audience member - the player, ostensibly - out of the game itself.

Take Alan Wake, for example. It opens with suspense, but that doesn't matter, because it's nevertheless a tutorial level, which destroys any sense of built (and I hate to say it) immersion. Even if you were immediately pulled into the game, the fact that you are told how to run and dodge attacks minimizes the actual story and brings the game's mechanics to the forefront.

Of course, this is unavoidable in a game, but I don't remember (and forgive me for destroying Alan Wake in favor of nostalgia) Silent Hill doing anything like this, and I hold Silent Hill 2 to a gold standard of suspense (much more than Resident Evil).

But these are just my initial impressions of the game. I am more critical of the things I love, like works of horror. I wonder why that is.

Conan: Do You Agree?

2010-11-10T18:45:00.002-05:00

Here's a snippet of a conversation about Conan's show. Obviously, these hosts come off as a triplet of jagoffs, but they weren't really wrong. Apparently, Conan's ratings dropped by a third last night,, but at 2.8 million viewers, it's still holding strong.

It didn't quite beat Leno and Letterman, and, though it's doing respectable business, you know Conan wanted to keep the trend going. He came back with a vengeance, and he spent a lot of his time dogging NBC (which a lot of people seemed to reject). I didn't mind it so much because it's the big elephant in the room. I don't know how I would have reacted had not not talked about being canned by NBC. That would have been out of the ordinary.

I like Conan. I like the new show. I'm not a talk show kind of guy, but I like his sense of humor. Part of me is supporting him because he's popular right now. I'd be lying if I didn't admit that. But I'm also on his side because I genuinely like the guy. Even though he's doing nothing really super outside the box, his persona isn't couched as much in the "talk show guy" gimmick. I don't buy Leno. He seems smarmy and host-y. I like Letterman, but I still know he's a host. Conan seems quite a bit different to me, and I like that (even though I can admit to watching about ten percent of his stint on NBC).

Still, I hope the show does well, and I know he's looking for my blessing to keep going, so...here's to Conan's return.

LiveBlogging: The Walking Dead: Episode 2

2010-11-07T21:31:00.032-05:00

10:57 - sort of an unexpectedly blunt end to the show this week.

10:54 - The key thing is the most comic book-y moment thus far. And who wouldn't leave that guy behind? We have all been trained to be compassionate, even if it goes against our basest instincts, which is what makes zombie fiction so interesting. It's about the constant struggle between altruism and selfishness and where to draw the line, which is one of the most interesting aspects of 'TWD' so far.

10:52 - If I were in one of those giant moving trucks, I'd be tempted to just turn on the crowd and put the gas pedal to the floorboard, just to see what would happen.

10:48 - Is walking on one's ankles a skill that can be taught? Or do you have to be a natural at it?

10:41 - Does the end of the world change how people experience jealousy? If I were to die in some horrible shenanigans like the Zombpocalypse (and I had a son), I would want someone to take care of my family. But still. The filmmakers are setting up the situation perfectly, but it makes me wonder how I would react. Not favorably, I would guess. But I'm no Rick Grimes.

10:39 - Favorite line so far: "Give me the axe. We need more guts."

10:37 - So I guess eviscerating a dead person is not subject to the kinds of FCC regulations that everything else is.

10:36 - Brutal.

10:31 - Even though 'TWD' is somewhat somewhat slowly paced, I think it's going to benefit the show overall. Zombie stories are epic in nature, and cramming the end of the world into a ninety minute work (a film) is pretty difficult, so perhaps a good zombie show is what the genre needs in order for zombie filmmakers to really get the pacing down. Maybe the genre needs something that can really stretch its legs out.

10:28 - Why did it take so long for the zombies to learn to use the rock on the plate glass window? Stupid question, I know...

10:25 - This whole thing has a very Kingian quality to it. This whole store scene is reminiscent of the part of The Stand where whats-his-name meets the dumb assistant from 'Coach.' Remember? Tom Cullen?

10:24 - Is the blonde the same one from 'The Mist?' Looks like her, and since Darabont did both 'The Mist' and the pilot for 'TWD', seems pretty likely that it is her. She's awesome.

10:22 - There's nothing too meta about this show (or about the comics, either, I suppose). It's really straightforward, very earnest, not necessarily a critique of zombies or an ironic take on the zombpocalypse or anything. I wonder if it's 'hip' enough for the audience that comes to AMC.

Also, and this is a major concern, is the show a bit too deliberately paced?

10:21 - Sugartits! I don't remember that from the comics. Maybe Rooker's channeling Mel Gibson.

10:20 - I love the R. Lee Ermey Geico commercial.

10:16 - I know there's quite a bit of talking in 'TWD', but what's strange is that nothing's really that memorable. I cannot recall a single thing anybody's said over the last two weeks.

10:15 - Not to cross the streams of too much zombie lore, but Rooker totally looks like Francis from Left 4 Dead. Or, and this is possible, Francis may be based on the Rooker character from the comic books.

10:11 - Is that MICHAEL ROOKER? Awesome. I had no idea the ROOK was in this show. It just went up an entire letter grade for me. Whoa, and the Rook's a bit racist in this show, as well. Hmmm.

10:09 - So far the show's followed the comic pretty closely.

10:07 - The make-up for the show is excellent. Tom Savini would be proud.

10:05 - Crane-in shot over Rick's tank. Looks like something out of the 'Resident Evil' movies. Odd how silent it is inside that tank, given what's going on just outside.

10:04 - What's odd about 'TWD' is that it doesn't really step outside of the cliches of zombie fiction or play with them too...oh, wow, that sex scene is overt!

10:02 - The main female protagonist looks like a cross between Angelina Jolie and Katie Holmes, at times. Weird.

-oh. Rustling sounds in the woods. Of course, it's just the weirdly possessive-ish boyfriend character.

10:01 - Opening on a track shot of a woman's ass in white jeans. Much different than the last episode. But not bad.

Episode 2: Guts.

A Brief Note on 80s Metal

2010-11-07T14:31:00.003-05:00

There are few things in this world more universally ridiculed (or ironically lionized) than 80s metal, most notably what we deem today as "hair metal."

I don't exactly know why that is for everyone, but I do know why it happens to be so for me. I'm currently reading Chuck Klosterman's wonderful Fargo Rock City, and while I agree with him on almost every one of his points, there is one thing he neglects to mention that can help to explain some of the disdain people had for 80s metal (it now seems as though 80s metal has been forgiven and let back into the house of commercial music).

Klosterman points to the idea that labels more or less ruined the legacy of 80s metal. He writes at one point, "Part of the reason '80s hard rock will never get respect - even kitschy respect - is because so many of the major players have retroactively tried to disassociate themselves from all of their peers. Disco didn't wrestle with this kind of shame" (29).

Now, on its face, the statement seems true enough. Hard rock bands have always been obsessed with their own images. Even Metallica, in not wearing make-up and teasing their hair out, was trying to mold the public's perception of what their music, and, as an extension, what they were all about.

Metal is kind of like a giant religion in that all of the competing subgenres are actively trying to excommunicate one another. There are moderate metalheads and moderate metal bands, but they are always under attack from more militant factions under the metal tent.

You can get a general sense of this idea by listening to Pantera's 1996 album, The Great Southern Trendkill. Philip Anselmo railed against "the trend" incessantly for the whole of that album (check out the opening track and "Sandblasted Skin, Pt. 1) without really quantifying what "the trend" was. One can assume that, given the climate of the music scene of the time, that it was grunge music (even though Kurt Cobain had died two years before and the grunge scene had more or less petered out), but no one can be for sure.

But I don't think that it's the constant self-labeling that corrupted the integrity of the 80s rock movement. I think the answer lies in the time period itself.

My first (and most damning) piece of evidence: Monster Ballads.

Now, I will reconcile my point with one of Klosterman's strongest. The culture of the 1980s had an indescribable impact on the way that metal bands sculpted their images. They were materialistic and opportunistic and plenty of those bands made gobs of money.

If you listen to Monster Ballads (or take even a cursory glance at the song list), you will notice that a great number of bands that do not generally fit together have tracks on that album, from The Scorpions to Damn Yankees.

Yet, given the fact that (most of) these groups released the bulk of their material in the 1980s is the key point here. It reflects the dominant philosophical ethos of the decade: that of greed.

I'm not necessarily saying that metal bands from the 80s are or were greedy, but I am saying that the problem wasn't that they were hesitant to label one another. It's the fact that they chose to cash in on the female demo swarming to rock music during the 80s, which isn't an out-and-out sexist comment, by releasing such overtly sensitive music. I refuse to accuse them of selling out (though this is probably a moot point), but the commercialization of rock music in the Reagan Era plays into the criticism.

Combine that with the fact that albums like Monster Ballads exist, and you have at least a partial answer to why these bands have a problem gaining any sort of respect, even the kind of ironic respect Klosterman mentions above.

Dozens of bands tried to emulate Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath during the 70s, but what we often forget is that most of those bands have completely disappeared into obscurity. Led Zep and Sabbath persist for a reason, and the other bands gave up on their dreams and went to work at normal jobs because the viability of their music had all but dried up.

Bands like Poison and Ratt and Quiet Riot benefited from and were cursed by the music milk machine of the 1980s and 1990s, which sold immediate nostalgia to the masses without any sense of shame. The bands, critics, and the fans got caught up in a nostalgia loop from which they could not immediately recover.

Normally, there is a cool-down period between the death of a certain genre of music and the nostalgia that helps us forgive or endorse it. The bloated 70s rock of the aforementioned Zeppelin and Sabbath had a cooling off period, wherein people weren't necessarily spiteful of its existence but didn't necessarily care for it either, but the rock of the 1980s did not, and the bands suffered. Poison went directly from the bargain bin at Wal-Mart to the nostalgia circuit without much of a gap between the two periods.

All in all, Klosterman is dead-on, however, and I'm not entirely sure that the points I've made contradict his own, but I couldn't help myself. All right. Now I'm going to listen to a little-known ballad from Sabbath's fourth album.

Can Science Shape Human Values? (NPR)

2010-11-07T13:21:00.000-05:00

Super There Will Be Blood

2010-11-07T07:16:00.001-05:00

Super There Will Be Blood from Tomfoolery Pictures on Vimeo.

LiveBlogging: The Walking Dead

2010-10-31T21:58:00.025-04:00

I don't know what kind of mass appeal the show is going to have, but I sincerely liked the first episode. I wasn't blown away, but that can be attributed to the fact that I have read the comic books. I want to see a horror show actually succeed, and, of all the ones I've seen, The Walking Dead definitely has the best chance.

11:22 - The lingering temptation to commit suicide is something I imagined would be present, but it's not something I really, honestly thought about until now. If I were trapped in a tank with a "dead" zombie, there's no telling what I would be thinking about.

The scene involving the horse feast is a definite nod to George A. Romero.

11:20 - Yep. Hiding under a tank feels as sufficiently claustrophobic as I would have thought it to be.

11:12 - I'm ready to see images of a zombie-ravaged Atlanta, but, aw damn, another commercial break is interrupting it.

11:11 - Seeing him wrangle the horse brings to mind images of old cowboy movies.

11:04 - Headin' down I-85 toward Atlanta.

They just showed new characters. Oh, man, Jeffrey DeMunn is awesome. He has the coolest voice in all of filmdom, in my opinion. I've been a fan of his since I listened to the audiobook version of Dreamcatcher. He's the scraggly, white-haired guy in the fishing cap.

10:59 - One of the underlying ideas about zombie lore is that it gives regular people the right to kill indiscriminately. In fact, you are supposed to kill the undead. It is encouraged for the sheer fact that to not do it is to risk all of human civilization.

What The Walking Dead does is confront that notion with a simple conundrum: what if one of the people you are supposed to kill is your wife? Even though it's not her her you're shooting, it's still kind of her, and even though it's the smart thing to do, it's not the easiest. You say now you'd do it, but would you be able to?

10:57 - It's odd hearing ethereal music behind the sight of a zombie dragging itself (herself) across a grass lot.

10:45 - Second commercial break.

10:43 - What's great about the Rick / Morgan dynamic is that Rick's experience with Morgan is the exact opposite of his own, which will (ultimately) cause him to head toward Atlanta. Unlike Morgan, who knows that his wife is (un)dead, Rick does not, and it will become a motivation for him to move forward, to find out, even if finding out is as terrible for him as it was for Morgan.

10:39 - In seeing Morgan's wife, I have the hope that this show will be much more about the psychology of being involved in an intense, life-altering situation such as this one, rather than about the zombies. It seems counterintuitive, but it's what sets The Walking Dead comic apart from other pieces of undead lore. The characters are so well-drawn (forgive the expression) that you end up actually rooting for them, which is rare in the horror world.

10:35 - Morgan and Rick are discussing the Zombie Apocalypse (ZA) right now. I'm so jaded by zombie mythology that I have trouble sitting through the explanations of "what's happening." I almost find it tedious that every piece of zombie fiction feels the need to make this explanation.

Almost.

What makes me happy is that, somewhere out there, there are people experiencing zombies for the first time, or at least experiencing them seriously for the first time. Zombies are so pervasive now that it's hard to have a defining experience, but I'm sure it's happening for some people. And I love that.

10:29 - First commercial break.

Overall, I like the show. Since I read the first several issues of the comic years before, I both have a vague sense of remembering what has happened without knowing the details. It's as though I'm experiencing dull deja vu.

I'm interested in getting beyond the stuff that I've read. I can't speculate or anticipate very much. It seems as though they're sticking to the source material with some fidelity.

10:25 - The show is very deliberately paced.

Lennie James (Morgan) is a bad-ass. That headshot was excellent, even despite the level of CG involved. In the last few months, he's played a pimp (Hung) and a zombie apocalypse survivor. Lucky guy.

10:21 - Characters in post-apocalyptic movies tend to walk in disbelief through the remnants of the final moments of humanity, among dead bodies and ruined structures, mostly to show the viewer the horrors which have taken place. I don't know. I've never been overly impressed with that method of storytelling. I understand why it's there, but it's so far removed from what 99% of the population would do (which is perhaps why 99% of the population is dead at this point) that it strains the suspension of disbelief.

Also, the Return of the Living Dead-esque lady in the grass - gross.

10:15 - I've suppressed just how similar to 28 Days Later this opening hospital sequence is. We have been told why he wakes up in the (non-functioning) hospital. Did we ever get that in 28 Days Later? Not sure. Having visions of Left 4 Dead and The Stand, also. Are there only a few horror archetypes that can exist in an epic (post) apocalyptic work? Is that the connection, or am I unnecessarily drawing on similar apocalyptic worlds?

Also, the chick in the hallway - gross.

10:13 - They're not shying away from the blood. Great.

10:09 - I like the way Darabont is shooting the show so far (though I'd be lying if I
said I knew if it had any distinct Darabontness to it. I don't know what Darabontness would entail.) They don't seem to have gone out of their way to make the show seem absolute in the awareness that it was a comic book in a previous life.

10:06 - The Southern accents aren't too terribly distracting, which is nice. I know, as a southerner, I shouldn't ever be personally offended by much, but southern accents are usually egregious enough to be prosecutable. All right, the dialogue sequence is over. Here goes...

10:03 - I still think Timothy Olyphant would be a great Rick Grimes, but I can see that Andrew Lincoln fits the bill as well. Also, the burgers in the post-title sequence look delicious.

10:00 - The show has just started. What I'm afraid I'm going to do - especially early on - is try to pick out the places where the show was filmed. This is sad for two major reasons, the major one being that I don't really know Atlanta well enough to be able to do that, so I'd be lying half the time if I did pretend to know.

Happy Halloween!

The Quality of Zombie Death

2010-10-19T14:44:00.009-04:00

I've been thinking a lot about Left 4 Dead lately, and, for the most part, it's because I cannot seem to get it out of the tray of my 360 (sorry, Mass Effect).

I mean, I really love that game. The shooting is terrifically precise, individual missions are tense and dynamic, the music gives a sense of dread that I wish more horror movies would adopt, and, of course, because it is perfectly all right to be a fan of games that Valve makes.

There is no question that Valve is a great software developer. Left 4 Dead, while only one of about a million zombie games to come out in the last five years, manages to stay within the mold cast for it and yet be better than ninety-nine percent of games within the mold, like making a fine wine in a prison toilet.

Much of Left 4 Dead's success has to do with actual quality of the game, a point I find so mundane I should scarcely mention it. Its metacritic score is 89 at present moment (for the XBox 360), as is the sequel's, curiously. So, not a great game, according to the critics, but not a repeat of E.T. or Superman 64 by any stretch of the imagination. Just a good, solid game.

But a game, like any form of media, does not exist in a vacuum. Some of the praise heaped upon the game, though, is due to perceived quality. Left 4 Dead is perceived as a quality game in part due to the studio delivering it. Were it Activision or EA putting out L4D, then the reception might have been somewhat more plagued by criticism.

That point, though, is also teeth-grindingly specious. If EA, Activision, or Capcom, even, had released the game, it would have been completely different altogether (and probably much, much worse). I will concede that the argument doesn't hold up to close scrutiny, but I can't help but to argue with myself when I feel like I'm making obvious points.

Video games are different than other forms of media in that quality becomes evident over time. Games are easily digested, and even some of the better games released each week die after a couple weeks of intense play. To get a better sense of a game's quality, look down the road a few years. Servers all over the internet are fill with hordes of gamers still hooked on Quake or Doom II. Plenty of people play shitty games for a time, but no one really plays shitty games over a long period of time, unless the purpose of playing that game (or series of games) is done for some ironic purpose. I can remember friends of mine and I engaged in hours-long

People still play Left 4 Dead because it is a terrific game. It gets a bit samey in parts, but that is a flaw of the game's construct. To give gamers a variety of experience in each campaign, different types of terrain must be inserted. I'm speaking specifically of bloody (or dingy or rotten) corridors here. There are certain points during each campaign where I forget which level I'm playing, usually during the places - and each campaign has one - where you and the other three survivors are forced to walk into a building, walk up stairs, walk down a corridor, clear out rooms, walk up more stairs, walk down a corridor, and so forth.

It doesn't make the game bad, and, besides, this post isn't about how good or bad Left 4 Dead is or is not. It is about how perception influences the relative quality of a product.

Tell me if this has ever happened to you: you see a preview for a movie and, seeing nothing that interests you, independently decide that the movie is going to be shit. This may be during the preview for a movie you actually want to see - Inception or something - and you even think during the movie, "God, I can't wait to tell everyone how terrible this movie is going to be." You are giddy because you feel as though your friends will agree.

However, when you disparage the movie to your like-minded cohorts, you find that the movie was directed by this guy or produced by this other dude...and suddenly your perception changes altogether. You may not be entirely on-board, but you are more on-board than before. Slowly but surely, you come to find yourself liking the movie, or at least liking the idea of the movie, because of the potential. It usually relates to the "prism" (and I hate using that term)through which said director will view the movie he/she is making.

This is profoundly fascinating. I have found myself literally changing my mind over the course of a two-minute discussion in reference to a movie I thought I'd despise just because of some arcane detail I didn't know before the beginning of the conversation ("Oh, that movie was produced by Quentin Tarantino? Hmmm. Maybe I'll check it out.").

I didn't have that reaction to Left 4 Dead for two reasons: (1) I became aware that Valve was making Left 4 Dead at the same time I found out that Left 4 Dead was going to exist, and (2) I am a sucker for zombies. The fact that Valve was involved had almost literally no effect on me, other than that first thought, which was, "I bet that'll be interesting." Interesting is by no means the best endorsement I could give of a product, but it's by no means the worst. I'd almost something be interesting rather than good. In the world of democratized media, plenty of "good" things exist - just check Reddit on a daily basis - but few genuinely interesting things pop up.

To put it another way, think of how many mediocre or declining bands release albums that, if released by other artists, would be considered excellent. If Christina Aguilera had put out "Fame Monster" and Lady Gaga had dropped (whatever her album was called), then people would still probably care more about Lady Gaga than Christina Aguilera and "Fame Monster" would, thus, die on the vine.

This has nothing to do with the relative quality of either person or either album (though I think that Lady Gaga's is somewhat listenable), but it speaks to the force behind the product (and let's face it: these are all products, first and foremost). Nothing is without context, but that's obvious to anyone who has taken an intro history course.

I would like to parse this difference, though (at a later date). People don't play Left 4 Dead because it's a Valve title. That would be a silly and transparently false argument to make. People don't crowd servers because the studio producing the game generally makes solid titles.

They play it because it is (mostly) a good game, and I suppose that is what trumps all. I have no real response to that argument, and until I do, I'll have to leave it alone. Nothing is without context, but, then again, very few people really care about context. Users on Steam (Valve's gaming response to iTunes) don't care whose name is on the menu screen. They just want a clear angle for a headshot.

Bill Murray in full Ghostbusters Gear

2010-10-17T10:01:00.001-04:00

I don't need anything else to make me happy today.

Zakk Wylde and Slash Playing Jimi Hendrix

2010-10-11T20:36:00.000-04:00

Because it's badass.

Joel McHale at the Cobb Energy Center

2010-10-11T19:52:00.002-04:00

Being funny is something that just about anybody who works hard enough can accomplish. Think about it. If you are my age or around it, then Pauly Shore has made you laugh at one point or another. If you spend enough time honing a comedic persona, sooner or later you will become somewhat talented at the craft of telling jokes.

Joel McHale is a hardworking guy, no doubt. But he has something that a lot people much funnier than he is do not have: likeability. He's the friend who, in high school, could call the prom queen a disgusting mongoloid and end up going home with her at the end of the night...and get tired of her.

McHale is frustratingly adept at being a likeable jerk, and the longer that he's in the spotlight, the farther he tries to rib the audience and then subsequently pull them back in. However, it's not like he's a comic who tries to push the envelope - much of the time his comedy is little more than PG-13.

It's that he's caught in a space where he has to try really hard to put people off. He's a good-looking dude, but that's not really a hindrance or a source of contention for anyone looking to criticize him, because he doesn't even address his own good looks, even ironically. It's something that really attractive female comedians do, more often than not, because they seem to feel a need - understandably - to address their looks so they can get on to the funny stuff.

Joel McHale is able to glide along on his personality, and I mean that in the best possible way. He has perfected the ability to say absolutely heinous shit to celebrities' faces and have them love him for it.

It's not like they have a choice. Joel McHale is the Jon Stewart of the celebrity world, a merry prankster who, on the surface, seems to denounce and deride his own existence but in reality takes the necessity of the public's need for something like The Soup very seriously. Anyone who lashes out at him or The Soup looks deservedly stupid and callous, despite the fact that what Joel McHale says on a weekly basis would drive seventy-five percent of the television-watching public to wracking sobs, if not in front of friends, at least in the privacy of their homes (while probably watching The Soup.

In seeing him live, it's obvious that he's somewhat new to the stand-up game, but that doesn't matter. Watching him perform is like watching a really excited friend hold the room at a party in the palm of his hand for an hour-and-a-half. His live persona is very similar to the one we see on The Soup, but somehow he's able to string together a collection of high energy jokes into a solid night's worth of entertainment.

And the thing is, it's mostly him. It's not really the writing, and that may sound kind of mean, but it's really not. McHale, like I alluded to above, is able to carry a room on his charm and wit, which is not something I could imagine most comedians could do on any given night, especially early on in their careers. He's able to pull it off as though he's barely trying, even though we all know he's one of the hardest-working entertainers around. Standing up in front of people and making them care, making them want you to like them, rather than the other way around, is nigh impossible. And Joel McHale makes his audiences feel like the prom queen who can't believe she's about to go home with the class clown. It's almost like John Hughes was right all along.

Nintendo Customer Service Training Video (1991)

2010-10-10T21:19:00.002-04:00

Down - Stone the Crow

2010-10-07T21:46:00.001-04:00

Just a song from the 90s that I happen to enjoy.

A simple quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson

2010-10-06T20:45:00.002-04:00

“When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.”
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

I have lately become quite fond of the Transcendentalists, chief among them being Ralph Waldo Emerson. This has not always been the case - my distaste for their idealism remained trenchant throughout my teens and early twenties - but a question that keeps recurring to me seems to have softened my view of them: Do people change, or does the world change them? It's a trite expression, of course, but I am solipsistic enough to ignore its application elsewhere, and it is a damned intriguing question.

As I get older, and I am still relatively young, my yearning to search out Truth has taken me, well, very few places physically, but emotionally, mentally, and spiritually (even in my atheism, I can think of no better existential metaphor), I feel I have traveled to a variety of different places. I am all the richer for the search.

I can say, somewhat, that it is my perception which has changed. I used to believe myself running from something, but I think the camera itself had been positioned in the wrong place all the time, because the wide open space before me has never seemed more intriguing and enigmatic.

While I cannot relish in lingering silence even still today, my need to be immersed in the noise of life has subsided somewhat. I have begun the necessary steps to transcend my more prohibitive notions about existence. I am going to die. Someday. I will grow old. Someday. My life is but a tiny wrinkle surrounding an aged eye. A blind eye, though one which is as intriguing a spectacle as any out there.

This is me at my most vague, my most oblique. It is freeing to know these things, or, rather, to be able to try them out. I am not one of those people who can know about death or age, but only one who can have intense moments of knowing, like someone who has been pulled to the surface of some raging ocean for a desperate moment every now and then. Either way, you drown, but the drowning isn't so bad as long as you're not contemplating it. It's when you flail your arms, see the way your fingers have pruned, that you realize how dire the situation really is.

It is difficult to be free enough to see the water for what it is. But I am trying.

My First Thoughts On: Dead Rising

2010-10-03T21:37:00.003-04:00

Yeah, that's not a typo. I didn't somehow miss the 2 in there somewhere. I am really playing the first Dead Rising game, the one that is about to become seriously unnecessary by way of its sequel.

Still, there's someone out there in the Eastern Bloc or Haiti who hasn't played this clunky gem of game, which is the thing I love most about the internet - people are always finding new and interesting ways to amuse themselves - so I feel entirely validated in talking about it. Whoever reads this review may become me a month from now.

However, the need to pick up the first installment may be diminishing, considering that (a) the sequel is out and (b) the original seems to be getting pulled from the shelves in order to make room for the sequel. I'm a compulsive gamer - I'm a compulsive everything - so I spent the better part of an afternoon searching the shops, malls, and cavernous used game stores for a copy of Dead Rising, and, it being my luck and all, only managed to find a battered version at my local used dealer.

The original copy I got was overpriced and seemed to be suffering from third degree burns inflicted by the previous owner's 360's laser, so I had to return it and get a fresh(er) copy, which worked fine, though once I got it home and slid in the disc tray and went through all of the installation mumbo-jumbo, I realized, well, Dead Rising isn't really that fun.

It's sort of like Grand Theft Auto with zombies, which sounds on its face like a magnificent time, but there's some aspect of fun that seems to be lost in the follow-through. I'm no expert, but I expected more than just the melee combat from a Rock Star game to be present in Dead Rising.

You may disagree, and, yes, there are some aspects to it that aren't jaw-droppingly inane, but Frank West moves too slowly and clunkily, the controls are somewhat awkward, and the constant need to check one's watch detracts from the emergent, open-worldedness of the whole experience, which, in my gaming OCD state, I found irritating.

I sincerely want to like Dead Rising, and I do, to a certain extent. I think I should have played it several years ago, before games of a higher caliber had been released. It is a dated, flawed experience, but one that I will give more of a chance in the coming weeks.

To be able to enjoy Dead Rising, you almost have to give into its Dead-Rising-ness and enjoy it for what it is, which is what I intend on doing until I feel I've gotten my money's worth. Since I managed to snag it for 15 bucks, ostensibly the cost of a pretty good XBLA title, it shouldn't take long for me to be able to squeeze worth out of the experience. If nothing else, I should be able to run around and mow down zombies (literally!) to my heart's content.

Red Dead Redemption Time Lapse

2010-09-27T21:54:00.002-04:00

It's unironically beautiful in a strange way, and I never thought I'd say that about a RockStar game.

Nathan Fillion is the Wrong Ryan

2010-09-26T22:57:00.001-04:00

Revisionist LOTR

2010-09-26T00:26:00.000-04:00

Revisionist Pulp Fiction

2010-09-26T00:24:00.003-04:00

If 'Zombie Apocalypse' Were Accurate...

2010-09-22T21:38:00.003-04:00

...Armageddon would be mind-bendingly tedious.

I don't normally buy games from the Playstation Network, but I am eerily susceptible to media about zombies. Movies, comics, books, games, ringtones (I wanted a Left 4 Dead 'Witch' ringtone for a time). That's why I initially picked up Zombie Apocalypse for 10 bucks on PSN.

It is a standard two stick shooter that has a few similarities with Valve's Left 4 Dead franchise. You can play as one of four characters (just like in L4D). One of them is a grizzled old white guy. Another is a hipsterish African-American. One is a hipsterish ginger...and the woman.

Well, I guess that's really just the most blatant example of lifting from L4D but even that isn't totally egregious and obvious - and not necessarily true - so I'll move on. I mean, I could fill an entire post with the coincidences between the two games (They both have shotguns! They both require you to kill an inordinate number of similar-looking people! They both mostly take place at night! Holy Jeez!)...but I won't.

Suffice it to say that ZA is fun for short stretches, but it's a same-y sort of game, so don't expect much in the way of varied gameplay. You shoot zombies. And more zombies. And even more zombies. Blood literally covers whole stretches of the screen at certain points, and yeah, that's fun, but honestly it gets old.

And this is me saying it! I absolutely love zombies, couldn't get enough of them. That is, until this game.

The problems arose when I decided to try for all of the trophies. There is one little sucker called "Hotter Than Hell," which prompts you to finish a game mode called "7 Days of Hell."

Now, granted, I should not complain that a game mode called "7 Days of Hell" is frustrating. It's like ordering snake whiskey in Thailand and complaining that you got a rattler stuck in your throat.

But it is really frustrating! And really tedious! The game has no sense of pace, even a rudimentary one. It sounds ridiculous that I should point pacing out, because Zombie Apocalypse is not a story-driven game. It's a challenge, much like old NES titles, but there should at least be a suitable crescendo of zombie violence in the final portion of each stage.

Especially the seventh and final one.

Instead, what I got was a mass of zombies midway through the final level and then a gradual tapering off in the numbers, until the very end, where I was forced to snipe the occasional zombie until the DAY 7 SURVIVED accomplishment popped up. Unacceptable. There should have been a frantic battle at the end, or the level itself should have been shorter and more difficult. Overall, I killed about four thousand zombies in that final level, and it took an astonishing forty-five minutes to beat it.

The regular game mode isn't that horrific, but it does get quite repetitive, because there are only a few levels, a few guns, and a few zombie types.

Zombies have been cool long enough for me to get a substantial fix on the undead, but

My First Thoughts On: Mass Effect

2010-09-19T09:06:00.004-04:00

This is going to be a tough one for me. 'Mass Effect' is the first BioWare game I've ever played, and it's so different from most everything I have ever encountered, I have little to compare it to. I never got into 'Knights of the Old Republic' back on the original XBox (save the hissing and spitting until I finish this post). Ditto for the Baldur's Gate series. I'm simply lacking a formal vocabulary that I can use to discuss it.

Like with most of my gaming discussions, I guess you'll have to suffer through another post of me talking about how fun [insert game] is.

So far, and I've only put three or four hours into it, 'Mass Effect' is...fun? I think? I'm definitely enjoying it, even though I've killed fewer than fifty people so far (and what video game is any good that isn't a complete and utter massacre), and the last few hours have consisted of running around a building and talking to random people. I assume that's going to take up a great chunk of the game, which is actually fine by me.

At one point, an assassin tried to take me out in a hallway leading to the station's closest approximation of a strip club, and I felt that the combat in that particular instance was getting in the way of my aimless conversations with aliens. It took me entirely too long to kill my assailant, and I am a casual gamer, but had I known my destination, I would have fought much harder for the cause. The fact that I was somewhat disappointed in the club itself does not mitigate my point.

Being a sci-fi noob, I am still unsure of the plot, but it seems as though a Predator has turned on the Empire and is causing a human army to go all Starship Troopers on a few of the surrounding planets. That is the reality I've created, so I'll let it stand at that. I spend most of my time thinking about what choices I'm going to make in the dialogue trees, but I am reticent to take any longer than normal in my actual decision-making. I'm playing Shepard as a centrist, a cypher, in all of these proceedings, and I think I'm doing a fairly good job of it, as well.

Commence your hissing and spitting now.

R.E.M / Stevie Wonder MashUp

2010-09-19T09:02:00.003-04:00

Even though I know the trend is waning, this is a particularly great mash-up. Not only am I impressed with the way both songs come together, the isolation of Wonder's voice makes me think about the vocal melody in an altogether different way. Me gusta.

L4D Comic

2010-09-14T22:51:00.000-04:00

Jumping into L4D doesn't seem quite so untimely now...since the Left 4 Dead comic is officially out! P.S. Click on the link and you can read it online for free.

First Impressions: Left 4 Dead

2010-09-12T20:35:00.003-04:00

I am continuing my quest to catch up on all of the interesting games of the last few years that I've missed, and that quest includes - DEFINITELY includes - Left 4 Dead. No, not the sequel (I haven't gotten that far yet), but the original, a horrifying, frantic, nerve-wracking, panic attack-inducing game. It is the most claustrophobic experience I have ever had watching something play out on television (except, perhaps, for the Texas Funeral scene in Kill Bill, Vol. 2), and I have loved just about every minute of it.

Except for every minute of it. True, the game is fun, as much as any game that is as hard as Left 4 Dead can be fun, but the real challenge lies not in the game itself but in the engine that runs the whole experience. The AI Director (who I always imagine to look like Dr. Claw from Inspector Gadget) simply chooses the most inopportune time to send hordes of the undead pouring through doors or down open hallways like cockroaches out of a cadaver that's just been prodded.

It is insanity. I am not one to respond to video games, one way or another, but when my health is depleted, I cannot help but beg the forces inside the XBox to please, please, PLEASE not place a witch in this spot on the map or place a Boomer behind that door.

Forgive the particulars of the language. In Left 4 Dead, you play as one of four survivors during the zombie apocalypse - hence the name - and, in addition to the numerous "normal" zombies in the game, there are special versions of them as well, infinitely more deadly and pants-wetting-scary in nature than their humdrum counterparts. Hunters are stealthy, powerful z-words that can pin you on the ground and rip chunks out of you until a team member saves you. Smokers have long tongues and will drag you long distances...until a team member saves you. Tanks are giant bruisers that require the entire team to kill. Boomers are fatties that vomit zombie juice all over you and attract a horde. And witches, well, witches are weepy little vixens that, if disturbed, will lay a hurtin' on you that will make you flinch every time you hear them in the distance.

All of which hints at the brilliance of Left 4 Dead. The co-op actually works, as opposed to most games, in which the sidekick is most notable for going out of its way to get in yours, or for taking all of your supplies while you singlehandedly take down the enemies (you know, the things your buddy's supposed to be helping you out with).

I've beaten the four major campaigns but haven't played the online co-op yet (alas, I just bought the XBox and must wait for another pay period in which to purchase a year subscription to XBLive). Overall, the game is extremely enjoyable, if frustrating. I do like that, though each campaign has the same basic structure, the number of zombies changes each time. Without that adapting AI, L4D would only be worth a play-through or two.

Oh, and my favorite campaign (and by far one of the best climaxes of any piece of zombie-related media) has to be NO Mercy, where you and your three compadres search for a local hospital and have an epic shootout on the roof while waiting for a chopper. Excellent. Can't wait to play it with actual people.

Full Review: Borderlands (PS3)

2010-08-29T22:51:00.004-04:00

My posts have been few and far between for the last month or so, and it has more than a little to do with my recent career change. However, some of my absence from the internet has to do with a near-obsession I've had with the RPG-FPS Borderlands (read my "First Impressions of Borderlands").

Needless to say, I jumped completely on-board with this strange, cell-shaded, Beyond the Thunderdome-ish romp of an action RPG, and I've only this past weekend stopped logging hours in it. I beat the game, hit level forty, and decided there was little else I wanted to accomplish.

I'm still not a fan of the online co-op (even though that's the way everyone says I should play it) and parts of the game toward the end get unbelievably tedious, but overall, it's pretty solid. My friends have been calling it "Cartoon Fallout," and I suppose that's a fair description of it.

But DAMN is that game fun! Beyond the endless trekking across sort of repetitive, desolate landscapes in the last quarter of the game, seeing a dude's head explode through the scope of a sniper rifle never quite gets old. I ended up overleveling for much of the game - once I realized that being underleveled would be a nightmare - and dominated entire sections of the game, blowing through missions and racking up HP, money, and guns like nobody's business.

I have to admit, I grew to enjoy maintaining my inventory like I would a garden, selling guns when all my slots were full, buying new and improved corrosive or shock rifles, watching my pockets grow fat and then using that money to purchase new guns, mods, or upgrades. It went well beyond playing a game. I'm sort of a clutter nut, so I hated keeping unnecessary guns. Even though I played the game using the Solder class, I became attached to the sniper rifles and abandoned or ignored pistols, shotguns, and SMGs altogether after a time. I didn't even really ever upgrade my grenades, because the sniper rifles I found came to be so overpowering.

The literally thousands of guns in the game kept the interest level high. Borderlands might have peaked for me had I been stuck with the same few weapons. And here's where I have to say that it's pretty dishonest to claim that there are thousands of guns in the game, since many of them are merely differently-named, differently-colored, or differently-statted (yep, I made it up) guns, but the constant upgrades gave me a strange sense of accomplishment. Like with my distaste for clutter, I found comparing the stats of guns and making a snap judgment to sell one in favor of another made me feel unnecessarily like a leader or a rogue or something.

Each enemy, like the player, has a level attached to him/it, so you instantly know what you're going up against. I was always keenly aware of when I had stepped into an area I wasn't ready conquer (due to the markedly higher number above the forehead of my enemy) and would thus haul ass out of there until I'd reached a higher level. Even though I hated the grinding, once I reached about level 25, the difficulty curve of the game leveled out, and I was able to move with some confidence throughout the rest of the game.

I couldn't tell you what the story was about (mostly because I played while listening to my iPod), but that doesn't matter. I've heard that the plot for Borderlands is kind of watery anyway, so that never got in the way of the game for me, either way. I was able to tune out much of the plot garbage in favor of killing things and upgrading my character. That's really the big draw of Borderlands in the first place. It's a bloody, goofy, fun game, devoid of any unnecessary self-seriousness, and I highly recommend it, if you can be patient enough to reach level 10.

Guns N Roses - "Dead Flowers"

2010-08-25T20:38:00.002-04:00

I'm feeling a bit nostalgic today. Here is a super rare video of Guns n Roses covering the Stones' "Dead Flowers" (From Sticky Fingers). Enjoy.

BioShock: Infinite Plot (Conspiracy) Theory

2010-08-22T11:21:00.003-04:00

One of the most interesting theories I've heard bandied about the internet about the coming BioShock: Infinite game revolves around one of a few circumstances: either (a) you are a character who becomes "disillusioned by the city's [Columbia's] jingoism and decide to deflate the city's balloons" to sink the city to the bottom of the sea (this according to G4) or that (b) you become influenced by a young man disenchanted with Columbia and help him destroy it (this man would be Andrew Ryan, of course) or that (c) you are or rename yourself as Andrew Ryan (this theory is all over the internet). It's all tinfoil hat stuff at this point, but if this game is to be anything but a non-sequitur in the series it must revolve somewhat around the original storyline.

Source: http://g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/706872/BioShock-Infinite-Trailer-Pretentious-Analysis-Time.html

BioShock: Infinite Trailer

2010-08-14T14:42:00.001-04:00

Viral Levi's Ad

2010-07-25T08:47:00.000-04:00

Kinda makes me want a time-lapse camera.

Ron Livingston's Cosplay Cat

2010-07-25T08:38:00.001-04:00

Mental Health Break - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

2010-07-25T08:27:00.001-04:00

Mental Health Break - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

L I M B O

2010-07-25T07:44:00.002-04:00

I never played 'Braid' last year, but that said, I came across what is being touted as "this year's 'Braid'" and, alas, I want to play it. The fact that I can't because I own a stupid PS3 and not an XBox won't stop me from giving the game some free press. It's got a great art style, it's creepy-looking, and it has a giant spider.

'Limbo' was made by a Danish studio called PlayDead, and for some reason it makes me think of 'Let the Right One In.' It's not about vampires at all - at all - but I can't help but think of them similarly, for some reason. I guess it's because of the parallel of children in danger.

Either way, check it out on XBLA ($15) and tell me how good it is.

The 27 Club: Almost Out!

2010-07-22T23:03:00.003-04:00

Lately I have been on a tear of writing about sensitive and/or depressing topics, so, here, on the eve of my birthday, as it winds down, I'm going to talk about something a little different: DEATH.

Yep, but not just any kind of death. I'll be talking about "The 27 Club." No, it's not the crappy religious program on the lower channels (that's the 700 Club, although it is fixated on death of all kinds, mostly of old people).

The 27 Club - or Club 2-7, as it'll be known, henceforth - is a collection of musicians who died at the age of (you guessed it) 27.

I'll be 28 in less than an hour and will have eclipsed Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain, and Jim Morrison in years. Now, it has nothing to do with talent (or curses), and if it does, I'm in the clear. Put my BEST writings up against Jimi Hendrix's worst songs - "Dolly Dagger" comes to mind, sorry - and you still have a mind-boggling difference in talent. Ditto with the other folks on the list.

Here are some other members of Club 2-7: Brian Jones (of The Rolling Stones); Robert Johnson (yes, THAT blues guy); and, well, quite a few musicians I've never heard of, including the sound manipulator for The Mars Volta and the leader of Badfinger.

I'm not a superstitious person, and I don't believe in any nonsense about curses, but remember the fact that Club 2-7 is in the pop culture consciousness gave me reason to pause and reflect on life. I'm a lucky man, even if I'm not famous. I've got a lot to be thankful for, and I'd rather spend my birthday being grateful about my life than thinking about death (in all its forms). I hope I don't become obsessed about the future, death, and general loss of youth, but you never know.

So, in closing, here are a few things that keep me going. Feel free to post yours in the comments section (and forgive me this once for this):
* My wife, LP, who helps me keep life in perspective, enjoy good days, not take too much stock of the bad days, and with whom I hope to see everything worth seeing in this life. I love you.
* A big...family, with whom I don't always agree but love nonetheless. You keep things interesting. Love you all.
* Friends that, on the spectrum, feel a whole lot more like family than anything else. Who else but bros can ice bros?
* The deer and the stinky one.
* Long books, short movies, hot wings, cold beer...you get the idea.
* Video games and a giant slushy on Friday afternoons.
* Training for a marathon I may or may not ever participate in.
* College Football season. A good-to-fairly-good Falcons squad. MLB Playoffs.
* Europe
* et cetera, et cetera, et cetera...

The Primaries in Georgia

2010-07-20T13:16:00.004-04:00

I'm from Georgia, so I'm mildly interested in the gubernatorial primaries going on today. Everyone's focused on Roy Barnes, the guv who was ousted in 2002 because he went out of his way to be shitty to the people who voted him in.

But I'm not overly concerned with Barnes at the moment, because all of the vitriol is on the side of the Republicans, and elections are always more interesting when they're like reality TV. Right now, the Repubs are engaged in a battle to see who can reach the bottom of the ideological cesspool most quickly.

And yet, it's still all of the same old, tired, right-wing douchebaggery. Abortion rights, immigration, and taxes. That's it, folks. If you want to see anything of any real importance to the country at large, look elsewhere, because in the heat of election season, anything but real issues will be discussed.

However, what is impressive is the level to which the Republican candidates are flinging acid at these hot-button causes. It's like they're involved in a rap battle with pro-choice and pro-immigration people, even though Dems in the state are fairly conservative themselves on these issues. It's an interesting form of pseudo-conservative cannibalism going on at the highest level of Georgia's government.

The other night at the gubernatorial debates, the Rs all fought for who could win the right to be called the most xenophobic candidate in the country. John Oxendine said he'd sue the federal government about illegal blah blah blah. Ray McBerry proposed that local sheriffs should round up illegals and bus them to the steps of the White House. What this has to do with solving the problem, I don't know, but it seems like an awfully expensive process for a bunch who value monetary restraint. Of course that's a pot-shot, though. The Republican party hasn't cared about conservatism, really, in decades.

The night's winner, hands-down, is Eric Johnson. He said (no shit), "If we have to set up a Guantanamo Bay of Georgia, I would do it." Wow. I'm not surprised in the least bit, but you've got to admit that threatening to hold illegal immigrants without trying or deporting them is some pretty harsh rhetoric. What's surprising is that he's only running at a measly third in the most recent polls.

Wait, hold on. Maybe I'm way off on this, because didn't Roy Barnes - a Democrat - recently say he would support an Arizona-type immigration law for Georgia? Not only would he try to pass a law like that, but he says he doesn't believe it's a state issue, so he'd expect the federal government to pay for it! It'll be interesting just to what level the immigration debate will stoop if these two assclowns get the nomination (which won't happen, because Eric Johnson doesn't have a chance in Hell). Oh, do I pick the extreme right-wing idiot, or the Republican? I don't know.

This is obviously simple campaign rhetoric at its worst, but you cannot tell me there's a shred of difference between Roy Barnes and his right-wing counterparts (except for his shameless teacher-courting offensive, of course). And, despite the fact that there are more Democratic candidates - I will not dare call them left-leaning - it all seems like an inevitability that Barnes will secure the Democratic nomination. He's so far ahead in the polls that I was hoping the people opposing him might slip up and say something left-of-center, for once. Shame on me for my naivete.

It should be noted that Karen Handel has been softly endorsed by Sarah Palin, so naturally she has vaulted ahead of former leader John Oxendine. More on her later.

Advice from a Cartoon Princess

2010-07-19T13:01:00.001-04:00

I found this enlightening PSA over at Boing Boing.

Meta-Criticisms of Barack Obama

2010-07-16T15:41:00.002-04:00

The mainstream message (from the Right) about those on the Left who are dissatisfied with the presidency of Barack Obama is that they bought into - to quote Sarah Palin - "the hopey-changey" stuff too wholeheartedly, that they are mere idealists who did not see this communist/fascist/socialist/atheist/muslim era coming and have been blindsided. It's obviously a simple way of sniping at the Left, and it is effective. It makes them seem childish and unversed in actual political issues, which I haven't found to be the case with many critics of Obama.

The dissatisfaction has been with the President's policies, for the most part. The Ann Coulters and Sean Hannitys of the world convey the message as if Democrats din't understand what a Barack Obama presidency would entail, that the full knowledge of a "liberal" presidency might have scared them in the first place.

This is where the message has been thoroughly distorted. The problem that surfaces has to do with unfulfilled promises and ineffectual leadership, as Digby best articulates in an article released today:

Therefore, his [Obama's] political advisers should know that when the country is still reeling from unemployment and foreclosures after nearly two years, the passage of an inadequate stimulus bill, which unrealistic benchmarks and a giddy victory party ensured would be the only chance they got, the only people who will consider that a "success" would be beltway insiders. They should have realized that a health care bill that nobody in their right minds would have designed from scratch, the worst aspects of which liberals will be asked to defend for years to come, would be met with dampened enthusiasm by those who watched the process devolve from a sense of progressive purpose to an exhausting farce. They are expected to be able to predict that financial reform without accountability for what's gone before, combined with the administration's unwillingness to confront the civil liberties abuse of the last administration -- indeed expanding on them in some cases -- would show a lack of fundamental concern for justice among those who care about such things.

An extensive quote - sorry - but one necessary to articulate the fundamental flaw in how the country has been run for the last year-and-a-half. Obama has ostensibly carried on many of the policies of his predecessor and has been at least as secretive about, well, everything, so that some backlash should be expected. What the President (and many of his advisors) do not seem to grasp is that the same rules of governance do not apply. Plenty of people argue that George W. Bush enacted several dozen anti-conservative policies while occupying the White House, but he encountered very little resistance from those on his side, because the Right tends to contain cheerleaders and people concerned with a unified vision. Even if he didn't really follow Reagan's modern conservatism, he still had an (R) next to his name, so that was enough.

The same sort of people do not occupy the Democratic Party, and that is perhaps where Obama's most embarrassing shortcoming lies. He expected the entirety of the Obama-voting-populace to support the presidency no matter what. In a country as divided as ours, he expected some measure of loyalty, despite some potentially disappointing decisions. Let me take this opportunity to state that John McCain would have been no better. At this point, he's just a pair of fucking political clown shoes, but I digress. But this is not a time for blind faith in the government. Barack Obama is not a mirror image of President Bush, and maybe that's why he's having so many problems. What the Right refuses to accept and the Left refuses to forgive is that Barack Obama is not a liberal version of Ronald Reagan. He may be viewed as such in twenty or thirty years, but he has given the public no credible evidence that he has transformed politics in any measurable way.

Killing Mockingbirds: Harper Lee's Vision, 50 Yrs. Later

2010-07-11T23:00:00.002-04:00

It has been over a decade since I myself read To Kill a Mockingbird. My thoughts at the time were like those of many uninspired high school students who read it for some Lit class or another. I was inspired, emotionally affected, and pleased to see Southern racism skewed (I grew up in a town that was probably not unlike Maycomb).

I cannot honestly say that I would read it in the same way now. Atticus Finch (portrayed by Gregory Peck in the movie) is ostensibly the white savior character in the novel, and he seems to go to great lengths to defend the homicidal racist whites in the town. Honestly, it's a novel that doesn't stand up as well as a novel promoting racial equality as it did fifty years ago.

That being said, I don't know that all the criticism is deserved. What can be said of many "message" works like Mockingbird are guilty of turning the subject - in this case, African-Americans - into topics rather than flesh-and-blood characters. The book has a purpose, a political undertone, and in that respect the book may be considered bad...but not necessarily racist.

The unintended consequence of trying to "do" something about racism is that it suffers from not being quite as progressive as it could have been. I won't fall into the pit of saying that we shouldn't judge older works by today's morality (because the book certainly could have gone farther in making its case but didn't), but I will defend To Kill a Mockingbird strictly through its own merits.

Books, like people, can achieve great things without being great moral arbiters themselves. In my experience, Harper Lee's novel has inspired hundreds, maybe thousands, of young people to pursue careers in law, specifically civil rights law. That's great (depending on how you feel about lawyers).

Furthermore, the book chronicles how even the most progressive small-town Southern people felt about racism in the south at the time. I'm fully aware of the fact that Atticus Finch was, by no means, the most progressive embodiment of racial equality, but he was also probably a fair representation of how people similar to Atticus Finch actually thought. The problem that many critics have with Atticus Finch as a character is not that he defends racists - he does - but that his idealism had some unintended consequences. He spends much of his time humanizing white people but very little doing the same thing for blacks of the era.

This is problematic. Certainly I will not come out and say that Mr. Cunningham is a good man, but perhaps what Lee was doing in writing the book was mollifying the white establishment while still trying to push the "progressive buttons" in the Civil Rights Movement. It's what causes Atticus to seem too in-the-middle for a modern audience. He would simultaneously defend Cunningham and protect Tom Robinson from being lynched, and in that he goes way overboard in making the whites out to be misunderstood. They really weren't; they were racists. Plain and simple.

It's a difficult issue to tackle, definitely. I would like to say that the book shouldn't be judged simply by the political message (or lack thereof) contained within, but the problem is that the political message is central to the story. It becomes difficult to buy into the novel if you revile Atticus Finch as a character. If his plight is too much, too overbearing, too loyal to the White South, then you probably won't enjoy the book. However, I also don't think we should paint To Kill A Mockingbird with the same brush as, say, The Jazz Singer, because the novel only fails in unintentionally producing a distracting message, rather than genuinely exploiting African-Americans for the benefit of white people. It is probably the reason why "message" books rarely work in the long run.

My First Thoughts on: Borderlands

2010-07-09T16:43:00.002-04:00

I'm a postapocalyptic sort of guy, though not necessarily the kind who enjoys Mad Max-style cinema/books/games. However, I was intrigued by BorderLands. It's a sort of RPG/FPS hybrid, sporting literally hundreds of guns and requiring players to level up along the way. I must mention I'm not an RPG guy either, so this game caught me doubly off-guard.

I've only put about four hours into the game, so I'm not that far along, but...it's growing on me. I didn't really like it at first. There are things in the game called Skags (which look like Zuul and Vinz from 'Ghostbusters') that I don't particularly care for, mostly because you have to kill about a thousand of them between the beginning of the game and getting to Level 10. I like to shoot people, man!

Once I got to about level 7 or 8, though, the game began to pick up steam for me. I enjoy the environment now, and the cell-shaded visual style is quite appealing. Parts of the desert are beautifully disgusting (if that makes any sense) and I find myself just sort of wandering around and shooting skags for no particular reason (thank you, sniper rifle[s]). I've got to say that, though I'm not a fan of these sorts of situations normally, Borderlands has got me a little bit hooked. It's a nice change after the environment in Infamous. Rather than urban decay, though, I get desert decay. I'm not a fan of the map or the compass system that guides you around. It's inexact and can get you damn lost if you're not careful.

Though I probably won't end up playing the gall all the way through, I'm looking forward to getting farther into it. What are your thoughts on the game? Anything I need to be aware of?

The [Original] Predator Told as a Rap

2010-07-08T09:43:00.002-04:00

EMBED-PREDATOR -DJ MaYhem & Mouthmaster Murf - Watch more free videos

The SCREAM 4 Footage...

2010-07-08T09:38:00.003-04:00

...in which nothing happens. Still, we now know Scream 4 is actually being shot, and depending on how you feel about it, you will either be elated or repulsed (or somewhere in between, like me). Be forewarned: nothing happens in the thirty-second clip, save for some meandering around this small town.

MouseTrap Never Works (OK Go Parody)

2010-07-06T20:06:00.001-04:00

What Will Be Our Generation's Gay Marriage?

2010-07-05T22:06:00.002-04:00

I know the topic title is a bit awkwardly phrased, but my hope is that it's a forgivable offense. I've been thinking about the passage of time and its consequences a lot lately. Marriage has done that for me (I'm sure I'm in the minority here, but that's all right, I suppose).

In contemplating the future, eternity, and everything else, I began to wonder about the great generational fights of the past. Worker rights, womens' rights, the Civil Rights Movement, gay marriage...and then I stopped. Logically, where do we go from here? What is going to be the great battle of my adulthood?

Part of the problem is that I wonder if there is going to be some agenda that I will oppose as vehemently as some oppose gay marriage. I can't think of anything that will cause me to ratchet up my defenses and get out sheets of posterboard and Sharpie markers.

But I also think that's the point. It will be a topic I didn't see coming. I bet the millions who are so against the concept of the freedom to marry any adult one chooses did not see this coming. Not thirty years ago. Not twenty years ago. Not ten years ago. They went about their business with the knowledge that, given everything else, at least God's prohibition against homosexuality would be endorsed by the government.

What we're seeing is a battle for the idea of inalienable human rights. I have not seen any real convincing arguments against gay marriage. Ninety-nine out of a hundred are based, obviously or obliquely, on religious doctrine alone. Droves have been convinced from the guy in the pulpit - very rarely is it a woman - to go out and vote down any bill endorsing even the remotest rights for gay marriage. Many of these people, ironically enough, detest the government taking a stance in any aspect of a person's life, and yet when it comes to the legal (or spiritual or sexual) bond between two adults, they could not be more persuaded by the concept of governmental authority in the matter.

I can see this situation very clearly, and I am thoroughly in favor of giving gays any marital rights straight people have. Furthermore, I don't know how any person opposed to the measure can be blind to its inevitability. Someday - and it may not be in the near future, but it will someday come to pass - this fight will be considered a hideous mark on the face of individual liberty in America, just as it now seems ludicrous that there was even a fight over the movements mentioned at the outset of this post. They now seem indicative of American experience as a whole, and many of us - I refuse to say all - could not imagine it any other way.

But that brings me to the logical question of: what next? Polygamy? Maybe, though I'm not opposed to polygamy, on social, religious, or personal grounds. That's another post entirely, but suffice it to say that it troubles me not one bit whether a man (or woman) marries one woman or ten and makes it legal. Plus, I don't believe the fight will be as scornfully fought as the ones which have preceded it.

What may occur is an embittered struggle over representation in government. This, of course, is nowhere near as important as the right to be recognized as a first-class citizen, but it can't be very far off. Atheists, gays, women, and minorities are woefully underrepresented - discouraged, even - from holding office and being able to be open about religious or sexual orientation. Perhaps that can change.

My Thoughts on Plants Vs. Zombies

2010-06-29T23:47:00.004-04:00

Zombies have not yet reached their full saturation point for me. My obsession with the undead has been all-consuming since I was a little kid. I watched the movies (Dawn of the Dead, Return of the Dead, Evil Dead), played the video games (Zombies Ate My Neighbors - What Up!), collected comic books, and began, at some point to write short stories about them. I can't to this day describe exactly what it is about the walking dead that intrigues me, but something keeps bringing me back.

Plants vs. Zombies, a tower defense game developed by PopCap, takes my fondness to a whole new level. Who knew rotting corpses could be so adorable?

I resisted PopCap games for the longest time, Bejeweled being the first and most prominent example. Everyone who has ever had a cell phone has had a trial version of the Tetris-like puzzle game (though not really) on it. Bejeweled didn't impress me. I didn't find it addictive. I didn't find it entertaining. I found it tedious and cheap, but I may have wrongfully overlooked it.

Then came Peggle. Though I initially didn't make the connection between Bejeweled and Peggle, I ignored it nonetheless. Both ostensibly possessed the same "casual game" label, and I was much too busy head-shotting aliens and (of course) zombies to be concerened with shooting a ball into a screenful of blue and orange dots.

But I played it, and, like usual, found out how idiotic I had been. Not only is Peggle fun, it's seriously addictive, and not just in a "casual", this-is-easy-to-pick-up-and-play sort of way. The developers at PopCap Games have found a magical formula for both grade of difficulty and transition between levels to keep the player glued to the screen for hours. A whole week went by where I don't think I watched an hour's worth of television due to this beast. It consumed my life, and I almost felt guilty after the obsession had passed. Almost.

Having been baptized into the revealed religion of PopCap, I recently dove headlong into Plants vs. Zombies, even though I had no idea what in the hell a tower defense game is. Ostensibly, what the player does is set up obstacles for an attacking army (zombies, in this case). If the zombies make it all the way across the screen and into your house, you lose. In PVZ, the obstacles take the form of plants. As the zombies track across the screen, the plants attack them. Planting sunflowers, for example, yields bits of sunlight - 25 pts a pop - which can be used to purchase other plants, like Jalapenos, which explode and kill an entire row of zombies, or pea shooters, which fire repeatedly at advancing enemies, until their heads fall off and they fall double-lifeless to the ground.

It sounds strange, and yet it works. The key to PopCap games is that they definitely do not take themselves too seriously. And yet, the developers seem to take them very seriously. The games themselves are very well put-together, and the player gets way more than the purchase price out of them, which many triple-A titles can't even boast. I paid ten bucks for PVZ, and I've put well over thirty hours into it. I'm starting a second go-round, using the different plants I accumulated over the course of the game, and so far I don't see myself slowing down whatsoever.

The Game Developer's Approach to Editing a Novel

2010-06-28T00:25:00.003-04:00

In between bouts of compulsively checking Reddit and trying to get the achievements in Plants Vs. Zombies, I have been editing my most recent novel, Boogie House. The writing and editing of the book has been a long process - I started the first draft in January of 2009 - and I am finally, Finally, FINALLY, coming to the end of working on it. I had several compositional setbacks - like grad school and planning a wedding - which made the last year and a half go by with some quickness, so I hope all the time spent on this beast has been worth it.

I like the book, but then again, I wrote it. I should like it. Whether or not it is any "good" (in any sense of the word), I have no idea, but it will be done in the next few weeks, and I can start sending queries to publishers and agents.

Writing a novel is quite easy. Don't let anyone tell you that it's very hard. Putting down 90,000 words is only a matter of consistency of purpose. Editing, polishing, deleting, revamping, over-thinking, comparing to other better works, making the ending a fitting one, changing characters to make them more lifelike, refraining from plotting and allowing the character to make their own decisions, these are all very, very difficult, and I have suffered from every one of them in the last eighteen months (jeez, I had no idea it had been that long).

Right now, the action is ramping up for the final confrontation, and my only hope is that the ending fits with the general arc of the story. I've already re-edited the novel twice, so any changes made after this point will consist of little tweaks and fixes. The first edit consisted of changing major plot elements, cutting down long scenes, taking out corny bits of narration or dialogue (of which there was plenty), and just generally trying to get a feel for how the novel flowed. I got bogged down three quarters of the way through and didn't really "read" the novel so much as re-write it.

I tried again a second time, going almost instantly into the editing process. I found the novel to be much better this time, and yet I saw so many plot holes that I instantly went about stitching the edges together to make everything more clear and believable. This second edit hasn't been quite as difficult as the first one, but it's still been a slog of sorts. I'm almost done, and I can't wait to be rid of this novel for a stretch.

What I can say is that I've almost taken a game developer's approach to editing Boogie House. Game developers spend a great deal of time working on their games, polishing the graphics and gameplay until everything is as immersive as possible. I have spent time fleshing out characters and injecting backstory and trying to set the novel apart from all of the hard(ish)boiled detective novels out there. As much as I despise editing, this last go-round has taught me that the editing process is where the book simultaneously takes on a life of its own and becomes "my book." I look forward to finding this newest draft utterly readable. Fingers crossed.

Hey, I'm Back - A Honeymoon Blog

2010-06-24T13:31:00.002-04:00

So, yeah, I got married without telling the internet. My bad. Anyway, I'm back from the honeymoon and ready to take up blogging again. I can't say that sitting here is more exciting than skimming around Europe with my new wife, but getting back to business is really worth being back in America.

Let me take a moment to get all mushy on you. I have a renewed sense of life, and my approach to living will change, hopefully. Even though I'd been with my wife - even now it hasn't sunk in - for almost six years before we were married, there is something distinctly different about it.

From now on, it won't just be "me," and that has changed the way I view the world. I've got to be honest about that. Even while engaged, the shared experience of life isn't quite the same. I feel like I've joined an exclusive club - albeit one for which extrication from its bounds can be achieved for five hundred bucks, if the billboards along I-20 are correct - and I actually look forward to the nuances of married life. My wife is the best person I know, and we survived traveling together in Spain and France for a week and a half without threatening annulment, so I guess it's so far so good.

Now, on to Europe, figuratively speaking.

I took somewhat extensive notes throughout the honeymoon, scribbling on a little leather-bound notebook in diners, cafes, and bars along the way. I tried to account for each day, though the wealth of experience cannot be simply put into words. And yet, I'll try my best.

I'll do a few posts on the blog about the trip, but I'm thinking of writing a (short) account of the honeymoon as a single slim volume to be downloaded online. It will include our adventures on the honeymoon, thoughts on life and writing, and a little background about the places we visited. Look for that in the near future, both on the blog and in print form.

Glad to be back.

Watson Is Creepy: Game Demo

2010-06-07T15:36:00.001-04:00

Thoughts On: Infamous (PS3)

2010-06-06T22:06:00.003-04:00

I know I'm late to this show, but getting back into video games has been a recent mission of mine, so forgive me for discussing out of date titles like Infamous. Overall, I'd say it's a flawed but *fun* game, if you're into superhero sandbox situations. The climbing, jumping, sliding, and shooting mechanics are all easy to master and satisfying to perform. Nothing beats being able to climb a stories-tall building, only to jump off and then slam into the concrete like a character straight out of Marvel. Even though the three islands are a bit samey in their visual styles, when compared to the tedium of stealing a car in GTA, being able to jump from building to building and slide on rails in Infamous is a dream. There are very few restrictions on what can be grappled, so the environment feels truly free and open for the player. I've wasted hours in the city under the auspices of looking for hidden items, and it's an honestly satisfying experience. The game designers placed needed emphasis on making the dynamic of climbing quite enthralling, and it pays off.

What's not very enjoyable are the side missions. Once you've played through the ones on the first island, there's little reason to continue the practice on islands two and three. They're the same exact missions but with different henchmen as the targets. Needless to say, the game becomes quite repetitive, unless you play straight through the story missions. I would imagine those remain more fresh if not hampered by the repetition of certain small goals.

In addition, some of the tasks are inane or quite frustrating (a few of the "satellite uplink" missions almost drove me to replace the game in the sleeve and send it back immediately, lest I break the disc into a million pieces and set those pieces on fire). In retrospect, the game isn't that hard, but some of the missions seemed absolutely ridiculous. Despite being invulnerable to bullets to a certain extent, your character is somewhat easily killed in specific situations, especially missions involving large numbers of enemies, who become deadly accurate when in large groups, for some reason.

I did like the game enough to play all the way through to the end (as a good guy. I am incapable of being evil in any video game, for some reason). My fiancee (countdown: six days) can attest to the fact, though, that from two-thirds of the way through the game on, I threatened to pack it up and move on no less than a dozen times, which is astounding, given how patient I can be with even the most frustrating gaming experiences.

Overall, though, Infamous is worth a rental, at the very least. Don't think it's going to throw anything extremely new at you after about five hours, though, and you'll probably be satisfied.

Super Mario Galaxy 2 Gameplay

2010-05-19T19:44:00.003-04:00

What I've Been Listening to - Brad Sucks

2010-05-17T23:34:00.001-04:00

Free music for professional licensing

O, I Think I Smell a Rat

2010-05-17T23:06:00.001-04:00

O, I Think I Smell a Rat

Posted using ShareThis

I Am Skeptical of S.E. Cupp

2010-05-17T21:36:00.003-04:00

I had never heard of S.E. Cupp until this past Friday, when she appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher. Cupp - who looks like Sophia Bush with an Ivy League education - has written a book entitled Losing Our Religion: How Blah Blah Blah Liberal Media Blah Blah. She is ostensibly a FOX News hack, but here's the thing: She's an avowed atheist.

There's a part of me that wants to cheer. Even though she is a conservative, she has all the characteristics of the kind of conservative I kind of dig. Cupp is smart, witty, and an extremely talented writer. She has a Republican Diablo Cody sort of style, and that is not to demean her. Her prose is entirely readable, especially if you don't pay attention to what she's actually saying.

Something doesn't seem quite right, though. I'm about to criticize her for how she talks about religion, not because I disagree with what she's saying - I certainly do - but because she seems to be disingenuous about her convictions. Let me be clear, however: my position isn't that S.E. Cupp isn't an atheist. I am not doubting her atheism, on the whole. My interests don't lie in defining atheism, since it is a mere rejection of religiosity. There is no dogma surrounding it, and I don't find any sort of real brotherhood (or sisterhood) in those who are like-minded. Cupp is free and welcome to defend religion with every waking breath.

That being said, how she represents herself, and, similarly, how she is perhaps being used by the "FOX Right" is of vital interest to me, because I see something at work here, and I want to point it out as quickly and as succinctly as I can.

While someone like Ann Coulter wields her conservatism right out front (and I am not the first person to compare her to Coulter, and I need not go into her antics), Cupp seems to be a straw man atheist. It's not that she defends the religious. That is admirable, in a way. Not every atheist needs to fit the same mold; that's the role of the religious (hoo-wah!).

No, it's the extent to which she defends the religious that seems to elicit a quizzical brow-raising. The way that she grimaces every time she utters the words "militant atheist" conveys a disgust that is palatable to the larger conservative / Christian worldview (up to and including those who watch FOX News), and I have to say that this is what arouses my skepticism. While Cupp herself may be sincere about her distaste for the way that atheists behave as a whole, what she has created in the realm of FOX News is an archetype that can be used by the right in order to discredit atheism itself.

For example, Cupp's views on the evolution/creationism debate border on being apologist. An article published in The Washington Post takes Cupp to task for blurring the lines in the argument.

S.E. Cupp's handling of science and religion misrepresents the nature of evolution, obscures the science of biology and dismisses the deeply held religious views of most Christians outside of the fundamentalist subculture.

Cupp presents creationism as "a counterargument" to evolution, yet never provides a clear account of what evolution is or what she thinks creationism means.
~Joshua Rosenau, public information project director at the National Center for Science Education

This is a curious position for an atheist to hold, but that is not what is important. What is important is that this position panders to the very people who already think lowly of atheists in general. Many critics have called her the "atheist Alan Colmes," which I personally think is unfair and, more importantly, untrue. She will not be a whipping post for the network. I recently (a few minutes ago) watched an interview she had with Mike Huckabee and some other FOX News contributor, and the three of them agreed on all the same points about what the media is doing to the country by attacking Christianity (which is, of course, the only religion in the U.S.).

And yet, the seed of a great idea lies in all of this. For far too long, people have been ranting about how no one in this country gets along anymore. FOX News, above all, has been guilty of creating a schism between people of the left and right by vilifying them openly on the air, so perhaps we can look at this through rose colored glasses. Maybe we should say that it's not such a bad thing that (a) FOX News has an atheist who is a regular contributor and (b) that an atheist is treated well on FOX. I personally don't buy it, but, then again, Christopher Hitchens has been on Bill O'Reilly's and Sean Hannity's programs...to be reviled. We shall see if this experiment works, but I have my doubts that S.E. Cupp is going anywhere in the near future.

What's Wrong with Network Science Fiction

2010-05-05T08:35:00.003-04:00

Entertainment Weekly posted an article about the dip in ratings for shows like 'V', 'FlashForward', and 'Lost', which are all ostensibly science fiction shows. Why are these shows struggling? Here are some possibilities:

1) The shows kind of suck: What happens too often is that the whole of a genre is judged based on a few examples. The failure of Harper's Island more or less killed the horror tv subgenre for major networks. It says nothing about horror shows in general, just Harper's Island. TV Execs are reticent to flood the market with a single type of show if the flagship show doesn't work.

However, maybe it should be acknowledged that Lost isn't at the top of its game right now and V and FlashForward weren't really that good to begin with. It doesn't say that people don't like science fiction; it just says that maybe people don't like these science fictions shows. The ratings for both V and FlashForward plummeted after the first episodes, so maybe it's just not their bowl of grits. I personally like both shows (somewhat), but I can see why the general public may not be interested in them.

2) They don't account for the average tv watcher: This point has the potential of condescending to 'the masses', but the shows are kind of complicated and geeky in their lore. Lost may have alienated casual fans because of how different and complicated it is from the first season. They tune in and go, "What the hell's happening?" and then turn it on. It's not a show you can pick up in the sixth season, and, perhaps, it's not a show that people can keep up with after a hiatus. It's challenging to remember all of the details of the show, so I'm sure plenty of people have turned it off.

Additionally, and this may be a subset of 2), there are a lot of characters. It's difficult to pick up on shows that have so many different mutual story lines and situations.

3) The scheduling is messed up: After watching four episodes of the new shows, I wanted more! Four test shows with a hiatus wasn't enough to keep me interested, and now I'm feeling sluggish about getting back into them. That's probably my single biggest complaint. Had they produced more episodes and played them in a row, I would have felt more satisfied. But because they snapped the shows off - at critical moments, no less - people more or less lost interest.

4) Too much separates the shows: This may be a vastly idiosyncratic point, but I'm gonna make it anyway. V and Lost are completely, utterly different shows, and to lump them together is a mistake. Plenty of people who watch Lost are just fans of Lost, not science fiction as a whole. Assuming that viewers will carry over from one show to the other is problematic, to say the least. TV viewers are accustomed to (and sometimes request) samey shows, like all of the cop and crime dramas that permeate all networks at the moment. There are much smaller gaps between them than Lost, V, FlashForward, and Fringe. The spectrum of science fiction falls under a wide umbrella, so there will be disparities in the shows.

5) Maybe Lost was a fluke: Or, maybe Lost is the token science fiction show. Perhaps people can stomach one or two really popular science fiction shows at a time. The X-Files were really popular a decade ago, but (a) the show was really very good and (b) it was one of the only popular science fiction shows of the time period. It's only a hypothesis, but it can't be that far off the mark. And, the longer the show runs, the more Lost has upped the ante on the suspension of disbelief. The first season had a few mysterious things, but it was more character- than plot-driven. For the past two seasons, the show has been barreling along at such a pace as to undermine the personal element somewhat. So maybe people are less interested in the story of the survivors of Oceanic 815 than the people.

First Thoughts on 'Heavy Rain' - No Spoilers

2010-05-02T13:42:00.006-04:00

I liked it. I'll have more to say in a mini-podcast about the game, but overall I thought it was an engaging experience. It's less of a game, in my opinion, than an interactive movie - a grown up choose-your-own-adventure - but I still thoroughly enjoyed it. Here are some first thoughts.

What is good:
* The story - I won't go into the particulars of the story here (wait for the spoilers section of the podcast), but there are several plot threads that keep the game fresh throughout. The game starts off slow, but once the story gets rolling along, it's hard to put the controller down.
* Multiple endings - there are well over twenty epilogues for the game, though I believe the basic story itself stays the same. This gives the game definite replay value. I'm probably going to buy the game so I can play through the game a few more times.
* The characters - The great thing about 'Heavy Rain' is that you can control the actions of the characters and mold the game to your personality, or you can make each character as aloof or downright evil as you like. Based on how you react to certain situations, the story changes along the way. It's really intriguing.

What sucks:
* The controls - Learning the control mechanics is quite frustrating early on, and there are points in the game when you will spin around and pivot several times before getting to where you're going. The system is not intuitive whatsoever, and it can be irritating. You use R2 to walk and the left analog stick to change direction. When you enter a room, the control shifts, and you might turn around and back out of a room before gathering your bearings.
* The voice acting - It becomes obvious very on that the developers are European. You'll catch an accent here or there that is out of place, and sometimes the voice acting distracts from the story itself. That being said, the writing is actually pretty good, so it's a shame that the voice acting is so bad.
* The first act - you have to persist through brushing your teeth, taking a shower, playing with the kids, all before getting to the meat of the story. Seriously, the game did not need such an extensive tutorial. It's quite boring until about half an hour to forty-five minutes into the game. However, the prologue sets up the story very well.

Overall, I think the game is at least worth a rental and is perhaps worth buying (I'm definitely going to buy it). And, now that I've decided to buy it, I saw over at Amazon that the game is on sale for $46.99 WITH A $10 off coupon for the next video game purchase. If you're craving a game with a very different, almost revolutionary user interface, then 'Heavy Rain' is a no-brainer.

Check out the podcast later for more in-depth discussion about the game.

Here is a non-spoiler-ific review of 'Heavy Rain'.

Bioshock Evolve T Shirt from Zazzle.com

2010-04-28T23:05:00.001-04:00

Bioshock Evolve T Shirt from Zazzle.com

I'm a t-shirt guy. I just love them, and not just regular white Hanes tees. I like the weird ones, ones that you have to get off the internet, from sites that would make the store owner from Gremlins cringe. They must have a slogan or picture for me to be happy. It doesn't have to be particularly well thought-out, but it should be present nonetheless. The irony of my outlook on life is that I despise people who cover their bumpers with slogans and other nonsense, and yet I'll be the first person to throw on a 'Day of the Dead' tee or (if I go all out and purchase this shirt) something to do with BioShock. Thing about life is, you can't be entirely free of contradictions. Contradictions are what make full, round, wonderful characters, and very few people in this world have such airtight logic, so I'm not that worried.

What Ralph Nader May Teach Us About Ron Paul

2010-04-27T12:22:00.002-04:00

I'm not going into any specifics here, because the canyon between Paul and Nader couldn't be wider. However, what I want to caution you people out there against is judging the man too closely by his followers. I don't want to start a ruckus with Libertarians, but some of them are quite devoted to Paul. I have allowed the irony of their position - How can you follow Obama so blindly! Ron Paul's always right! - to keep me from thinking more deeply about whether or not his positions really, truly, honestly deserve the headspace I've been unwilling to give them.

How this relates to Ralph Nader is in the near-religious fervor with which both men's followers regard them. We live in an age of the cult of personality, and both me are subject to it, even in their respective lack of personality. What happened ten years ago is that the majority of Americans eschewed the message of Ralph Nader because his denizens were a bit wacky, and he was a turd in the punch bowl, but the anti-corporatism message he espoused is becoming eerily prescient in these financially bankrupt days of our republic.

Similarly, Paul's supporters are so fervent that they tend to turn the average person off, myself included, because you can kind of see that David Koresh look in their eyes when they talk about RP. That should not detract, however, from what the man is trying to say. We should keep the man separate from the message, indeed, as far as the supporters go. When I posed a question on the internet recently, asking Libertarians what their biggest grief with the man was, the most compelling answer I received was, "I wish he were twenty or thirty years younger. Oh, and he could be more forceful in his message." Honestly.

No doubt, Ron Paul has a track record to back up what he's saying, but that's not really the argument being made here. I demur from going into any real discussion of his positions - that is a post for another time - but the crux of this argument (and I hope RP fans can see through the veiled criticism to what is ostensibly a compliment) is that Ron Paul shouldn't be discounted simply because he's willing to throw a wrench in the modern political machine. I'll leave you with a quote from Ralph Nader in order to drive this point home: “When people say, ‘Why’d you do this in 2000?’ and so on,” Nader explains in AN UNREASONABLE MAN, “I’d say, ‘I’m a 20-year veteran of pursuing the folly of the least worst between the two parties.’ Because when you do that, you end up allowing them to both get worse every four years.”

Source: PBS.Org

Orangutans That Love DIY

2010-04-24T08:21:00.002-04:00

This BBC video features orangutans that paddle along in boats, wash clothes, and make things, not because they were trained to do so, but because they watched others doing it and worked out how to do it for themselves. In other words, these are not parlor tricks, but real evidence of the cognitive ability of orangutans.

The Ooks of Hazzard - 'Kids' (MGMT Cover)

2010-04-21T22:37:00.002-04:00

I believe it should be pronounced like Dukes without the D, but otherwise there's nothing confusing about this inspired cover of MGMT's 'Kids'. It's a straightforward, resonant track, and I hope to see more from this Americana group in the future. Enjoy.

A Jihad on South Park

2010-04-19T22:06:00.002-04:00

For those of you who thought last week's episode of South Park was tame, think again. The fact that South Park even chose not to show Mohammed has sparked a controversy within radical Islamic sects. The web site Revolutionmuslim.com, which has been under investigation before for supporting violence (according to CNN), posted warnings about potential violence against creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone for even threatening to show the prophet Mohammed in the 200th episode.

As is quoted on the site (through CNN):

We have to warn Matt and Trey that what they are doing is stupid and they will probably wind up like Theo Van Gogh for airing this show. This is not a threat, but a warning of the reality of what will likely happen to them.

The awful irony of arguing over whether or not Mohammed should be shown in an episode of South Park is that it has already happened. If you take a look at season five of the series, you will see an episode called 'Super Best Friends', which features Buddha, Krishna, and Mohammed as well. Fully visible. No Censorship bar. Nothing. In fact, if one were so inclined, he or she could got to the South Park web site and watch the entire episode right now (here is the page). In essence, this is already a moot point, but the humorless extremists on Revolutionmuslim are not very attuned to humor and irony, as it should be blatantly obvious.

Everyone is waiting for mainstream Muslims to condemn the actions taken against Theo Van Goh, who was murdered for a critical film regarding abuses suffered by Muslim women, and for this most recent threat of violence against Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Parker and Stone themselves are largely unafraid of repercussions, if their interview with BoingBoingVideo is any indication:

(Trey Parker) It would be so hypocritical against our own thoughts if we say, "Okay, well let's not make fun of them because they may hurt us...That's messed up to have that kind of thought process. Okay, well, we'll rip on the Catholics because they won't hurt us, but we won't rip on them because they might hurt us. That is not the way it works. (from from YouTube)

To be upset and appalled by the way your religion is portrayed on South Park is acceptable. That is one of the beautiful aspects of American culture, to realize that someone out there disagrees and has the right to disagree. The rights of free speech do not protect one's feelings, however. You may be astounded at the audacity of an artist willing to show Mohammed's face, but faith does not create an asylum for violence. To advocate violence for a satirical cartoon show - for any show, for that matter - only works to stretch the limitations of what is to be considered one freely practicing one's faith.

BoingBoing Interview w/ Trey Parker and Matt Stone
CNN - Radical Islam Web Site Takes on 'South Park'

Who Leads The (R)?

2010-04-14T23:22:00.003-04:00

Even though I'm not a Republican, I am thoroughly interested in train wrecks, so naturally I would be interested in the elephantine party of 2010. Today's article of note comes from David Brooks of the New York Times, who takes a few moments to answer questions about the crumbling Republican Party in a brief opinion piece.

One of the more illuminating portions of the interview was when Brooks said the following:

First, let’s all stop paying attention to Sarah Palin for a little while. I understand why liberals want to talk about her. She allows them to feel intellectually superior to their opponents. And members of the conservative counterculture want to talk about her simply because she drives liberals insane. But she is a half-term former governor with a TV show. She is not going to be the leader of any party and doesn’t seem to be inclined in that direction.

The Sarah Palin phenomenon is a media psychodrama and nothing more. It gives people on each side an excuse to vent about personality traits they despise, but it has nothing to do with government.

About Net Neutrality

2010-04-12T17:21:00.002-04:00

Net Neutrality is the idea that the internet should not be controlled by corporate interests. Basically, what cable and internet providers would like to do is become ostensible gatekeepers of the internet, creating a "fast lane" for web sites and search engines that pay them for a certain brand of preferred status, leaving those web sites too small or poor to stay in the "slow lane" of the internet. It would create a tiered system on the internet, favoring those with the most money and depriving the internet itself of a sort of free market, as it were. The above video explains it in much better detail and with more clarity, so watch it and become involved. On the FreePress site, you can sign a petition to keep the internet the way it is and send an e-mail to your congressperson.

8-bit Dr. Horrible Sing Along Game

2010-04-06T18:12:00.003-04:00

I think the blog title is pretty self-explanatory, but for those who may be confused, Youtuber DoctorOctoroc has recreated Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog in an NES, 8-bit, old school Nintendo format. Curiously, the video does really seem to highlight both the movie itself and what an NES version of the movie might have done. Except, it probably would be much crappier and have nothing to do with the movie itself. Rather, you would probably be required to jump on bats or snakes and collect musical notes in order to advance to the next level.

Going Postal - Trailer

2010-04-05T20:15:00.001-04:00

What's weird is, I recently read 'Going Postal' and thought, there's no way this will ever be made into a movie. I should say the same thing about all the books I want to see made into movies.

Hiroshima 'This is Your Life'

2010-04-04T09:16:00.002-04:00

The documentary 'White Lights/Black Rain' details the destruction of Nagasaki and Hiroshima when US forces dropped The Bomb on them. In this excerpt, one of the survivors, Kiyoshi Tanimoto, is brought on the show 'This is Your Life' and forced to meet the man, Captain Robert A. Lewis, who co-piloted The Enola Gay on that singularly destructive day. Tanimoto, it should be noted, is famous for his work with the Hiroshima Maidens, the group of twenty-five seriously disfigured women who also survived the attack on Hiroshima in 1945.

Sexy ABCs and 123s

2010-04-04T08:26:00.002-04:00

This video challenge has Youtuber DeStorm singing a love song using only letters, numbers, and symbols on the keyboard. I really didn't think I was going to like it when I first watched, but I had to go back and watch it a second time just to be able to take it all in.

Tool - 'Lateralus' on the Koto

2010-04-01T20:53:00.004-04:00

Here is a cover of Tool's 'Lateralus' on a Japanese instrument called the Koto. According to Wikipedia, the Koto is "a traditional Japanese stringed musical instrument derived from the Chinese guzheng. The koto is the national instrument of Japan.[1] Koto are about 180 centimetres (71 in) width, and made from kiri wood (Paulownia tomentosa). They have 13 strings that are strung over 13 movable bridges along the width of the instrument. Players can adjust the string pitches by moving these bridges before playing, and use three finger picks (on thumb, index finger, and middle finger) to pluck the strings." It isn't that odd that Tool's music is so easily orchestrated in such a manner, but it's always refreshing to see a different take on popular music like this. It's not just novel but inventive as well, and I could see this tune being included in a score for a movie of some kind.

Here is a photo of a Koto.

Source: Koto

The 'Lost' Intro Done 'Buffy'-Style

2010-03-29T21:36:00.000-04:00

I didn't watch 'Buffy the Vampire' - shame on me - but I do watch 'Lost', so I thought this was pretty funny.

The Yes Men Fix the World - Trailer

2010-03-28T20:32:00.002-04:00

'The Yes Men Fix the World' is a documentary about one of the biggest hoaxes perpetrated in the country, all done in the name of fighting the PR battle against giant corporations from the inside...sort of. The two men - Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno - pose as ostensible PR execs from "evil" corporations like Exxon Mobil and Dow Chemical and go on television to expose the companies' shady business practices.

You can read more about the story by going to the movie's web site.

The Pixies - Where is My Mind? Piano Cover

2010-03-27T12:20:00.000-04:00

YouTuber Maxene Cyrin takes pseudo-pop songs and then covers them on the piano, with often hauntingly beautiful results. Here, the pianist covers The Pixies' 'Where is My Mind?' (which, as well all know, closes out 'Fight Club') with scenes from the 1928 Greta Garbo flick, 'The Mysterious Lady'.

Dr. Dre vs. Class Act - Nothin' but a Journal Thang

2010-03-20T10:25:00.002-04:00

Anyone who reads the blog knows I'm a fan of mash-ups, and this is a top-notch one, though I'm not sure what the song underlying 'Nothing But a G Thang' is. 'The Class Act Actress' implies that its from the Kid N Play movie from 1993. Still, it's worth a listen.

Christopher Hitchens Interview

2010-03-15T22:22:00.001-04:00

Christopher Hitchens Interview from Anonymous on Vimeo.

Preaching Hate in Uganda

2010-03-15T20:24:00.003-04:00

Within the next century, when historians are able to accurately (or at least with some amount of objectivity) label these decades, they may be able to deem them "The Second Dark Ages", or, more ironically, the "Evangelical Enlightenment". There exists today such a religious fervor in fiery American evangelicals that they cannot help but spread the love. They have learned, perhaps, that a direct brand of Old Testament intolerance may not work in America, so they have taken it elsewhere to places like Uganda, where vitriol against homosexuals can be openly, freely, and violently expressed. "The gay movement is an evil institution. The goal of the gay movement is to defeat the marriage-based society," says Scott Lively, an American evangelical working to stir up anti-gay sentiment in the country. As the video suggests, outright homophobia is at an all-time high in Uganda (and, I imagine, other places in the world where there is a strong evangelical presence). A recently introduced Anti-Homosexuality Bill would require "some" homosexuals to be put to death - how they will be able to decide who will be executed, we may never know - and the bill is supported by American and Ugandan evangelicals alike. Take, for example, Ugandan minister Martin Ssempa, who is the local figurehead for this seemingly grassroots movement to rid the country of "sodomy". The video pretty much speaks for itself, but let's hope that the rhetoric that demagogues like Ssempa spews does not stir up the kind of biblical wrath in Uganda over homosexuality that, well, the Bible advocates.

Now, for those who think this borders on being ludicrous, it does, especially if one considers that, not only does Martin Ssempa accuse gays of gaining sexual gratification from eating feces, but also that Mr. Lively readily equates homosexuality with Nazism (His book is entitled The Pink Swastika. I do not believe I have to create a straw man here. What lengths would I have to go to in order to mischaracterize their argument? How much more depraved an accusation would I have to make in order to top coprophagia and Nazism? I can't argue in any fashion that any of this is mainstream Christianity, for it is not, but we are also not discussing the American political stage either, where statements are often simultaneously grandiose and tame at the same time. The greatest difference is in the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, which outright proposes the execution of a person for confessing an alternative sexual preference to their own, based entirely on the writings of men - certainly men - who believed that spitting on a wound may cure it. Thankfully, there has been a great outcry from mainstream Christian leaders, such as Ugandan Anglican minister Canon Gideon Byamugisha, who says that passing the bill would amount to "state legislated genocide".

The denouncement of the bill is heartening. However, what should be focused on in this matter is not that some have taken a stance against the bill but that a stance need be taken at all, or that the bill even exists. How much longer can such ignorance be disseminated to the people for petty religious gain? The ostensible purpose of the sentiment in Uganda is not to rid the world of homosexuality but to manipulate people into confessing the Christian faith based on simple knee-jerk reactionism. Thankfully, the bill has been revised to omit the death penalty for homosexuals, and yet the bill itself still remains. This is a depressing and altogether horrifying development in two thousand and ten, and I sincerely hope the bill gets shut down altogether.

Source: Ugandan church leader brands anti-gay bill 'genocide'

The Evolution of the Eye

2010-03-14T21:00:00.002-04:00

The eye is a controversial organ, indeed. It is one of the main body parts creationists point to when espousing the "evidence of a designer," and the argument over its development has persisted for nearly two centuries. Creationists propose that the eye could not evolve in a vacuum, that no discernible transitional phase has ever been observed, and that its complexity is irreducible (meaning ostensibly that, due to its complexity, the eye could not have evolved whatsoever). To make a simpler analogy, which "scientist" Michael Behe uses in his book, Darwin's Black Box, how could a mouse trap evolve independent of creation? You can find numerous supposed refutations of evolution in man-made examples. Has a house ever been constructed which has not been designed by man? Could a jumbo jet be made from a whirlwind sweeping through a junkyard? And so on.

The affirmation of the eye's evolution is rather simpler to explain than I would have thought, actually. It need not even get too bogged down in scientific jargon in order to be convincing. The above video shows in detail how the eye developed into what it is today and also how different creatures bear differing evidence of eye development. It is basically a process of gradual development, with light-sensitive cells turning into a minor recess in what will become an ocular cavity, after which the gathering of cells become the eye itself, able to manipulate light into the objects we perceive.

Race You There

2010-03-13T10:05:00.003-05:00

Here is an interesting video, and it may or may not look familiar. That's because the video consists entirely of images taken from Google Streetview. It's sort-of stopmotion, sort-of not stopmotion, but either way it looks nice, and it really fits in with the song, which is pretty good in and of itself.

If you're interested in how the video was made, the band has posted a full explanation on Facebook.

Leapin' Lizards!

2010-03-12T21:31:00.002-05:00

This is an older video from the internets, but it's a great one. JOAJ reminded me of it, and I couldn't help but watch it five or so times in a row. It's that funny. This is what can potentially happen on live television when a dude brings snakes on the show.

Worlds of Hurt: Expert

2010-03-12T14:35:00.002-05:00

I know that talking about the original BioShock is "so two years ago", but screw it, I'm still hooked on it. The last trophies are up in the air for me, and all I have to do now is beat this hellacious level in under 15:00, which nigh impossible. That is my goal for the weekend, since the weather is precluding any fun activities.

BTW: Today I beat the game on Survivor Difficulty w/o using Vita-Chambers. If you've never played BioShock before, this will all seem so confusing as to render it basically foreign. For that, I apologize...

Chewbacca Cabinet

2010-03-11T20:26:00.000-05:00

I know and realize that my posts have been few, far between, and entirely random, so thank you for sticking with me until I'm in the mood to get my blog back on...

Alan Moore on Audiences

2010-03-08T09:54:00.002-05:00

It is not up to the artist to give the audience what they want. If the audience knew what they needed, they wouldn't be the audience; they would, in essence, be the artist. It is up to the artist to give the audience what they need.

~Alan Moore
(From The Mindscape of Alan Moore)

Ultra Running

2010-02-23T21:42:00.002-05:00

UltraRunning from Matt Hart on Vimeo.

I think that I portray myself more as an athlete than actually being one. Sure I run consistently - normally every day - but being from BFGA (I won't tell you if you can't figure it out), I have a suspicious view toward runners - and any "nontraditional" athlete (soccer players, bwahahaha) - as athletes. Plus, running isn't so much a spectator sport, so I could completely lie about it and expect people to believe me. Lying about being a runner would be the easiest scam ever, if you were so desperate. So perhaps that's why I don't really consider myself a "runner", per se.

That being said, the people in this video make me soooo envious. Damn them and their ability to prove just how rugged they are (even if they do wear spandex unis). Now I have to go out and buy a camera in order to keep up. I am a hobbyist runner, a hack, the pretender, but I am very competitive, so when I see these Ultra Runners - people who run any distance longer than the traditional regulation marathon of 26.1 miles - it makes me want to don the Asics, powder up, and hit the road.

The Two Gentlemen of Lebowski

2010-02-23T20:42:00.002-05:00

'The Two Gentlemen of Lebowski' shows us what it might have looked like had Shakespeare written 'The Big Lebowski'. The Shakespeare Tavern - or The NEW Shakespeare Tavern, as they prefer to call it (I swear, you and 97.1 The River need to cut it out) - are producing an interpretation of the Adam Bertocci-penned mash-up of Shakespearean proportions. The video above is just a snippet, a tidbit, of what might be expected. Looks to be fun. I think the fi-awn-say and I just might have to make a pilgrimage to the big, scary city to see it.

A Movie About a Racist Dog - Yes, Indeed

2010-02-22T21:01:00.003-05:00

This is a trailer Paramount shelved in 1981 for a movie about a racist dog called, yep, 'White Dog'. No subtext here. It seems to be a strange amalgamation of 'Cujo' and 'To Kill a Mockingbird'.

It doesn't look very good (or unintentionally funny), but I posted it because the dog in the movie is a white German Shepherd and I, too, have a white German Shepherd. Luckily, my dog grew up a liberal dog in a liberal town. If she had grown up in the deep South, it might have been a different story.

Here's my Ona:

The Zombie Dream (Killing) Team

2010-02-22T20:53:00.002-05:00

This is certainly a post I wish I had written. It's a dead-on list for who would be good to have by your side in lieu of the zombie apocalypse, including Peter from 'Dawn of the Dead' and Rick Grimes from 'The Walking Dead'. I can't help but think of what a joy it would be for me to be playing L4D2 with these men and women scrambling around with me, trying not to die.

The Making of 'Coraline'

2010-02-20T16:14:00.000-05:00

Westboro Baptist Church Out-Protested! Awesome!

2010-02-20T15:26:00.003-05:00

It shouldn't take very much support from people in order to "out-protest" the members of the hateful Westboro Baptist Church - whose members show up at soldiers' funerals with signs reading "Thank God for Dead Soldiers" - because the outfit is so small, but is refreshing to see someone finally confronting their appalling speech. In the YouTube clip, an entire high school showed up to counter-protest the Westboro protests.

This represents an interesting situation. 99.999% of people are absolutely mortified by the way that these people choose to exercise free speech, but they often roll their eyes and do nothing else, which has allowed the niche of hatemongers to fester and feed in their own little nook. Those who disagree with the signs and the antics ignore them - because they are mature adults - or decry what they do as illegal hate speech and call for it to be banned.

Personally, I find it difficult to define any speech as illegal. Even as much as I despise what these knuckle-draggers are doing (which I hope would offend them as being conspicuously non-creationist, but I digress), I am convinced that the marketplace of ideas would drown out what they are doing. That's the whole idea behind the marketplace: to let those awful ideas be presented but be discouraged and kept at the fringes of society. Because, really, it being offensive doesn't really matter. As long as it doesn't become the mainstream view, we should not be worried at its presence. In other words, to continue the marketplace analogy, it doesn't matter what they're selling, as long as people aren't buying.

However, what has happened with places like WBC is that their speech is ignored - like I said above - and is allowed to persist unchallenged, which is not ideal, I don't think. Sure, people aren't buying, still, but it's encouraging to see an overwhelming view counter the fringe stuff we see with the WBC. Rock on, Wilson High School kids.

Shakespeare and Co. Bookstore - Paris, France

2010-02-14T22:30:00.003-05:00

I have not spent an absurd amount of time looking into the details of mine and LP's honeymoon's plans, but the bug is starting to hit me. I've already posted one link to a location in Spain that the two of us would like to visit, and here is another place that I plan on hitting up while in Paris. With the quality of the photos on Google Maps, it almost makes it seem like a moot point to visit Europe (JK).

The Shakespeare and Company Bookstore, according to Bill Bryson, is "a wonderfully gloomy English-language bookstore full of cobwebs and musty smells and old forgotten novels by writers like Warwick Deeping" (43). I cannot find a better description of a bookstore than this. I am looking extremely forward to the chance to spend time in a musty old bookstore in Europe.

It does seem odd to be visiting a French bookstore using the name Shakespeare, however, but I'll let that slide, given one word in the description of the place: English. Unlike Mr. Bryson, who seemed to revert to a childlike sense of wonder about the prospect of being incapable of understanding a single word of the natives of whatever country he was visiting, I am absolutely terrified at this idea.

That's why the Shakespeare and Co. Bookstore seems to be right up my alley. I can't wait to visit it. Look for more postings like this one in the future.

Source: Google Maps

'The Office' - 10 Best Pranks on Dwight

2010-02-14T20:47:00.001-05:00

The Inception of 'Kingdom of the Crystal Skull'

2010-02-14T08:44:00.002-05:00

Here is a short documentary - probably stolen from the DVD - about the inception of 'Indy 4'. Now, this movie receives a lot more ire from the viewing public than it probably deserves...but I still kind of like it. Parts of it - ahem, the vine scene - are ridiculous, but for the most part the movie holds up as an 'Indiana Jones' flick for me.

Sure, if Michael Corleone had hopped into a lead-lined fridge and been catapulted into the desert by an H-Bomb, then yeah perhaps that would have been too much, or if Jake Gittes had discovered it was aliens behind the problems in 'Chinatown', that would have ruined the movie. But I submit to you: this is the franchise that has contained (1) the Ark of the Covenant melting people's faces off; (2) a dark priest ripping the still-beating heart of a grown man out with his bare hands (3) people falling out of an aircraft on an inflatable raft and surviving (4) the actual fountain of youth and an eight hundred year old knight (5) "voodoo" dolls, with which people can be controlled (6) many, many more improbable events.

The fact that there are aliens (or interdimensional beings) shouldn't detract from the movie. Mutt Williams, maybe, but not the aliens. Of all the complaints that I've heard, that's perhaps the most steadfast one. "Aliens! Come on, aliens!" Aliens do not ruin the integrity of the franchise. It was a silly, campy homage to the movies of the 30s, 40s, and 50s in the first place, so using aliens is not that far off the mark. I'm not making the argument that nothing is off the table for the franchise; far from it. I'm just saying that the level of ridiculousness in the fourth movie is relative to the sources of its inception. I will accept the argument against aliens if you say that the movie just wasn't good enough to support that Mcguffin; I can see that, possibly. Personally, though, I think that the vast majority of people don't like their genres to be mixed, so they thought that making 'Indy 4' "sci-fi" (it totally isn't) was a travesty. "How dare they do this to my childhood!" some might say. And they are wrong.

BioShock 2: First Impressions

2010-02-10T21:37:00.002-05:00

Anyone who's spoken to me in the last, say, four months knows how off my rocker I went for BioShock. The newest installment came out yesterday, and I wanted to get my first thoughts down on the mic, so here it is.

If you can't listen, here's the gist: I think it's good. I'm not entirely blown away by it so far, but like my engine in the mornings, I have to warm up to video games before I fall completely in love with them. I'm like a coy mistress in that regard - first time I've ever used the phrase to describe myself - but I'm glad, because I may not date a lot but I'm loyal, so there.

QT on a Possible Kill Bill, Vol. 3?

2010-02-08T21:27:00.001-05:00

Why The Super Bowl Halftime Show Makes Me Sad

2010-02-07T20:11:00.005-05:00

Is there anything safer then the Super Bowl Halftime show now? Thought I thought the Janet Jackson / Justin Timberlake thing was childish and petulant, I am sort of disconcerted at seeing legend after legend take the stage at the Super Bowl each year and produce some toothless version of their live show, proving once again just how irrelevant and sadly ironic they have become. It's like watching an elderly tiger gum on an already-dead piece of store-bought steak.

I'm not saying I want Roger Daltry to get his rocks off on the stage, but it wouldn't hurt to see them do something totally bizarre and off-putting, maybe to cause the organizers of the Super Bowl (and the FCC) to sweat a little bit. Rock and Roll used to entail that some form of rebellion was going to take place. You always had to cheer with one fist and prepare to cover your eyes with the other, in case something totally profane happened. It was just dangerous enough to make people uncomfortable, and I was just elated about that. When Krist Novoselic tossed his bass up in the air during a performance on the MTV Awards and it smashed him right in the face, I lost my mind.

I'm reaching a point in my life where doing something stupid onstage seems overtly childish and self-involved, but sometimes I yearn for it, especially during an event as corporate as the Super Bowl. I'm not looking for something extreme, just...unexpected. Nothing about The Who or Bruce Springsteen (except for perhaps his nut-slide right into the camera, and I love The Boss) is remotely exciting. It's just basically a petting zoo at the retirement home of Rock and Roll. But hey, at least it's not Aerosmith and Britney Spears.

Self-Publishing Drafts Can Help Editing Process

2010-02-07T10:13:00.003-05:00

The editing / revision process is one of the most difficult in the process of writing. Any author who has the willpower to edit as he / she goes is a much stronger beast than I am. I've read somewhere that Lee Child - author of the wonderful Jack Reacher series - will edit what he has written the day before. He has a very distinct vision of where he wants the novel to go, so he's able to make incremental changes in the novel without compromising his vision of the entire book. More power to him.

Personally, I hate editing. I'm so scatter-brained, I like to write. I love getting things down on paper (computer screen), watching them pile up so I can lean back when I'm done and say, "Look at what I accomplished today. When each novel is over, I go through a small depression, because a) I'm no longer in the world I've created and b) I know that the hard part lies ahead of me.

I have tried several methods of editing, and none of them seem to work. I am a tinkerer, never happy with my work, so I'm constantly revising. I'm like George Lucas without the beard. I'm always thinking of ways to "improve" my novels - and hey, I can do that; none of them have been published - but I have trouble getting through a whole book in using that process. I always end up going back to the same parts and re-editing them.

No more. When I finished the first draft of my newest crime novel, Boogie House, I decided to try something different, and it's already paying dividends. I decided to self-publish the first draft and send myself a copy, so that, rather than trying to edit on the computer screen or on a gigantic printout, I can edit on a copy of the book itself. It's actually pretty nifty (and it gives your ego a boost when it arrives in the mail).

At first it feels kind of strange to be writing in a book like that, but you get used to it. Sort of reminds me of college. And another thing: it's a lovely, alien feeling to read your words in a published version and really get into reading it. I think one of the problems I had in the past of revising my novels was that I never got into them. There was always a mental block, because somehow I knew that I was just reading my words on a sheaf of printer.

With the self-published hardcover version - I went all-out - that mental connection has been restored. I actually feel like I'm reading a book when I sit down to edit, and it's a wonderful feeling. So, overall, maybe the idea of self-publishing doesn't make me a better editor, but it gives me the mental boost to actually be able to sit down and do it.

Jinx Protocol

This Web Site is On the Move!

Listening to: Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros

The Walking Dead: Episode 6

L4D2: US / Australian Comparison

LiveBlogging: The Walking Dead: Episode 5

First Thoughts On: Wii Punch Out

Mortal Kombat: Defenders of Stupidity

LiveBlogging: The Walking Dead: Episode 4

My First Thoughts on: Alan Wake

The Walking Dead: Episode 3

Suspense in Video Games: Alan Wake

Conan: Do You Agree?

LiveBlogging: The Walking Dead: Episode 2

A Brief Note on 80s Metal

Can Science Shape Human Values? (NPR)

Super There Will Be Blood

LiveBlogging: The Walking Dead

The Quality of Zombie Death

Bill Murray in full Ghostbusters Gear

Zakk Wylde and Slash Playing Jimi Hendrix

Joel McHale at the Cobb Energy Center

Nintendo Customer Service Training Video (1991)

Down - Stone the Crow

A simple quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson

My First Thoughts On: Dead Rising

Red Dead Redemption Time Lapse

Nathan Fillion is the Wrong Ryan

Revisionist LOTR

Revisionist Pulp Fiction

If 'Zombie Apocalypse' Were Accurate...

My First Thoughts On: Mass Effect

R.E.M / Stevie Wonder MashUp

L4D Comic

First Impressions: Left 4 Dead

Full Review: Borderlands (PS3)

Guns N Roses - "Dead Flowers"

BioShock: Infinite Plot (Conspiracy) Theory

BioShock: Infinite Trailer

Viral Levi's Ad

Ron Livingston's Cosplay Cat

Mental Health Break - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

L I M B O

The 27 Club: Almost Out!

The Primaries in Georgia

Advice from a Cartoon Princess

Meta-Criticisms of Barack Obama

Killing Mockingbirds: Harper Lee's Vision, 50 Yrs. Later

My First Thoughts on: Borderlands

The [Original] Predator Told as a Rap

The SCREAM 4 Footage...

MouseTrap Never Works (OK Go Parody)

What Will Be Our Generation's Gay Marriage?

My Thoughts on Plants Vs. Zombies

The Game Developer's Approach to Editing a Novel

Hey, I'm Back - A Honeymoon Blog

Watson Is Creepy: Game Demo

Thoughts On: Infamous (PS3)

Super Mario Galaxy 2 Gameplay

What I've Been Listening to - Brad Sucks

O, I Think I Smell a Rat

I Am Skeptical of S.E. Cupp

What's Wrong with Network Science Fiction

First Thoughts on 'Heavy Rain' - No Spoilers

Bioshock Evolve T Shirt from Zazzle.com

What Ralph Nader *May* Teach Us About Ron Paul

Orangutans That Love DIY

The Ooks of Hazzard - 'Kids' (MGMT Cover)

A Jihad on South Park

Who Leads The (R)?

About Net Neutrality

8-bit Dr. Horrible Sing Along Game

Going Postal - Trailer

Hiroshima 'This is Your Life'

Sexy ABCs and 123s

Tool - 'Lateralus' on the Koto

The 'Lost' Intro Done 'Buffy'-Style

The Yes Men Fix the World - Trailer

The Pixies - Where is My Mind? Piano Cover

Dr. Dre vs. Class Act - Nothin' but a Journal Thang

What Ralph Nader May Teach Us About Ron Paul