Fin.
I have moved on.

This is it. The last post I'm going to be making on this here website. I must say, it's been a good run. Passed on some neat sites, managed to vent a little. I just might even miss it just a little bit.

I suppose that if I were a writer, I might go on and on in retrospective about the blog and what it meant to me. I'm not. I like blogging and all, but I don't share any special affinity for the creation of the printed word--I don't like writing, and it just winds up being a means to the end of sharing something with the internet. It also isn't like I really have an audience; not to knock whoever winds up reading this, but it's mainly just friends and the occasional passer-by or person checking their trackback links that visits here. I'm hoping that I'll wind up enjoying my next project more, so there might be more touchy-feely-weepy business when it comes time to close up shop there. Not here.

Pop Culture Victim, being this site here, probably won't be going anywhere. I've checked, and there are Blogger blogs still kicking around since 2003, so I'm pretty sure that this site will remain more than long enough to satisfy anyone's possible urge to sift through the archives. I can't really imagine anyone wanting to, but it's more effort to dismantle than to just walk away, and so walk away I shall.

My blogging shall continue, and I shall be venturing forth into the semi-charted territory of podcasting, should anyone care to follow me over to Geeklectic.com. Hope to see everyone there, whoever you are.

It's been fun. Ciao.  ¶ 9:17 p.m. 0 comments

  The clock is ticking
Things, they are going to be changing.  ¶ 10:24 p.m. 0 comments

  Reality-tunnels
In reading a bit of Robert Anton Wilson, I've been turned on to the concept of "reality tunnels." The idea is that as you grow and you experience things, you get imprinted and conditioned and learned, and you develop a certain way of looking at things. Your brain receives thousands and thousands of signals constantly, and the result of active processing and dismissal of some or all of these signals results in your reality tunnel. I don't think anyone can deny that an Aryan German in 1939 would see the world the same way as an Southern Baptist in 1975 or a San Fransiscan Linux guru in 2005 would.

I'm butchering the concept. There isn't really any way to condense the topic into a paragraph. Still, an exercise Wilson recommends is to try and adopt someone else's reality tunnel. If you're a Liberal, subscribe to Conservative magazines and become a Republican for a while. If you're an atheist, try being Catholic for a while. (He suggests doing this the same way method actors do: pretend and pretend until it becomes belief.)

I have tried doing some of these, and ultimately I have yet to develop the attention span to see it through. The problem as I see it, is that there are some people that have reality tunnels so foreign that it's like an alien mind. Take Jack "People Who Play Videogames Are Incapable Of Forming Rational Ideas" Thompson. Or take this dude.

John Rogers put a pretty good spin on it: "The incredible mix of personal hubris and societal intolerance here is ... it is fucking MAGNIFICENT. I could not imagine talking with someone like this -- even polite elevator conversation -- for more than three seconds before the crazy physically forced me back, like an overpressure blast. Seriously. Wow." His ongoing motto also rings ridiculously true: "Everyone who wants to live in the 21st century, in this line. Everyone who wishes it was the 1800s again, over there. Good. Thanks. Good luck with that."

All I can say is, every morning read one of these quotes and be glad and happy that you don't have the same retarded beliefs.

"What college student has foremost in his (or her) mind that he is preparing to be a family leader, a godly spouse, a parent to children, and that from this base will spring his greatest effectiveness in every other area of life? None that I know."

"The very act of sending a daughter away on a mission trip for a couple weeks or on an apprenticeship for several months teaches her to have a spirit of independence that will not suit her for her calling as a helper to her husband."

"One statement caught the attention of my oldest daughter (who does a lot of home-centered work and has never been to Russia). The girl wrote: When I left Russia, I left part of my heart there. What struck both my daughter and me was this: Why is this young lady being put in a position where she is developing affections for a work that is neither her father's nor her husband's? How is she being trained for the life that God is actually calling her to as a woman?"

"Psalm 112: 1,2 says, Blessed is the man who fears the LORD, Who delights greatly in His commandments. His descendents will be mighty on earth…. How many men can say that his descendants are mighty in the earth? Perhaps part of the reason is that his descendants are scattered over the earth with no sense of connection or obligation to the rest of their extended family."

"I have six children (20, 18, 16, 14, 12, 6). All have been homeschooled from the beginning. We consider it sin to send children to public school, and we don't find most Christian schools much better."

"All [my] girls have hope chests (whether or not it is a chest) in which they are setting aside things they can use when they are married and have a family. This is a constant focus for them all, even now for six-year-old Alice. It is a form of dowry that I can offer a prospective husband along with my daughter. And it will be substantial. When we moved last December Sarah alone had nearly 60 boxes of her own things that we had to move, most of it hope chest things! It has grown since, and she has virtually everything she would need to set up house, from dishes and kitchenware, to linens, to home decorations. (I don't know what people could give as wedding gifts.)"

"[We] reject the notion that it is normal to send children away just at the time that they are ready to make the most important decisions in life. We believe it is a lie that they need distance from their parents or the training of some distant experts to be adequately prepared for life. Their best training is in the context of the home, church, and community. This is real life."

  ¶ 12:45 p.m. 0 comments

  Limited time only
The Libsyn account is over. The site will be up until the end of the month, so if you absolutely need one of those songs that I posted mashed in with other songs, go grab it while you can!

As far as podcasting goes, I have not thrown my hand in, and have something in the works as I type. Stay tuned.  ¶ 9:48 p.m. 0 comments

  This ain't right.
You hear the one about the priest and the altar boy? What about the one about the Pope and the diplomatic immunity?

Pope Benedict the 16th is in his native Germany for the biggest worldwide gathering of Catholics since the funeral of his predecessor Pope John Paul II. More than 400,000 young Catholics from nearly 200 countries welcomed the new pope to the Catholic stronghold of Cologne for World Youth Day.

But as he receives a warm welcome there, he faces serious charges in the United States. Lawyers for the Pope have asked President Bush to declare the pontiff immune from liability in a lawsuit that accuses him of conspiring to cover up the molestation of three boys by a seminarian in Texas.

According to The Chicago Sun Times, the Vatican's embassy in Washington sent a diplomatic memo to the State Department on May 20 requesting the U.S. government grant the pope immunity because he is a head of state.

A State Department spokesperson said this week that the pope is considered a head of state and automatically has diplomatic immunity.

This is not right. I've spent the last ten minutes trying to convey my anger and digust at this, and I just can't put it into words. I just hope that this gets a hell of a lot more coverage than just a couple of blog postings on the internet. I don't care in the slightest if you're the head of the biggest, oldest religion in the world--you can't just sweep shit like this under the rug and pretend it didn't happen. (via Sivacracy)  ¶ 6:37 p.m. 3 comments

  Like the dulcet tones of a screaming cat.
This morning, I got to wake up to bagpipes. Then I went back to sleep.

I woke up again an hour later to bagpipes and sirens. They harmonized.  ¶ 10:52 a.m. 2 comments

  Is Jack Thompson crazy?
For those of you that don't know, Jack Thompson is a lawyer. He represents people who try to sue the makers of video games. (Read: Rockstar Games)

Scott Ramsoomair is a webcomic maker. He writes comics, usually about video games, which are always very silly. Recently, he wrote a comic about that Rockstar sex scene kerfuffle. In it, he makes fun of Mr. Thompson, claiming that Thompson stands to gain from said kerfuffle--a claim that sounds pretty reasonable to me, since he's presumably going to get paid by these families that hire him.

Now about a week ago, Ramsoomair received an email from Thompson. The chronicles of it, and the replies can be found here. As Matt from Mac Hall, every journalist in America should read this page. I ask you, dear reader, to go check it out and decide for yourself: is this man crazy?  ¶ 8:19 p.m. 0 comments

  Are you a unicorn?
Latigo Flint can identify unicorns. His post on the matter made me snort apple juice at work.

"Hello." I said. She continued to sway with the music.

"I don't think you're a unicorn."

(That certainly got her attention.)

"Excuse me, what did you say?!"

I nodded my affirmation. "You know, a unicorn..." I stopped nodding and started shaking my head. "I don't think you are one."

You'll have to "cliquez ze linque" to see the punchline. It's quite the step up from Mr. Flint's usual macking on the Starbucks girl, getting assaulted by her boyfriend and waking up in an alley smelling of blooded buckskins. (I don't know if it tops Kid Relish's "titanium pimpstick" though.)  ¶ 7:29 p.m. 0 comments

  Where's a video camera when you need one? (again)
Last time, I had a picture of a dude on rollerblades being pushed by a 150cc motor. This time, I have only a written account. Those of you who read the venerable and wise Penny Arcade probably already know what this is about.

When [police officers] arrived at [McClain's] crib, McClain allegedly tried to strike a cop with a four-foot sword. After missing, McClain retreated to his basement, where he donned a chainmail armored vest and leather gauntlets to protect his arms. He also added a giant wooden mallet to his arsenal and beckoned officers to come downstairs and get him. "I'm gonna crush your fucking skulls," McClain warned. Then, in a nice rhetorical flourish (for a lunatic, at least), he added, "I have a thousand years of power." That omnipotence, however, was no match for a police Taser, which felled McClain. (emphasis added)

Rodney King was a very important case, but my humor gland would have been far better satiated had that camera been on hand to witness a crazy-eyed greasy dude in chainmail getting electrocuted.  ¶ 7:20 p.m. 0 comments

  Poignant
I was listening to Mitch All Together again, and I can't believe that I didn't notice this one the first twelve times I listened to that album!

"I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask where they're going, and hook up with them later." --Mitch Hedberg

  ¶ 11:25 a.m. 0 comments

  Links!
I have updated the sidebar! Hurrah! Hurray! Kalloo! Kallay! It is a frabjous day indeed. I heartily endorse all of these destinations for your reading/listening pleasure, and urge you to drop what you are doing and go check them out.  ¶ 11:00 p.m. 0 comments

  Saw this little gem on BoingBoing today
After Wikipedia, free, collaborative, open kindergarten-uni textbooks:

The second thing that will be free is a complete curriculum (in all languages) from Kindergarten through the University level. There are several projects underway to make this a reality, including our own Wikibooks project, but of course this is a much bigger job than the encyclopedia, and it will take much longer.

All I can say is Bravo, Sir. A goal that will take years and years, but one that is truly noble.

The inertia on a project like that is going to be immense. Dude's going to get flack from everyone, be they teachers (who wants to teach unproven material?), publishers (for obvious reasons), parents (who would want their kid to learn solely from the internet?) and politicians (the children of tomorrow's society will need a better education than some stuff thrown together by anyone at all). All the same complaints Wikipedia currently gets will resurface, as well as some new ones.

However, as the ball gets rolling, (and it will, make no mistake) it's going to get harder and harder and harder to stop. As Wales says, "In the long run, it will be very difficult for proprietary textbook publishers to compete with freely licensed alternatives. An open project with dozens of professors adapting and refining a textbook on a particular subject will be a very difficult thing for a proprietary publisher to compete with."

Information wants to be free, in as much as information can "want" anything. Let it. The only victims will be the business models of incumbent companies, (and I'm sure I've made it clear here that I have little sympathy for those that refuse to change with the times) and the benefactorsbeneficiaries will outnumber them to the order of tens (if not hundreds) of millions to one.  ¶ 10:49 p.m. 0 comments

  Now this kid is awesome
What did you do where you were six? I have vivid recollections of Calvin and Hobbes, drawing and running around a lot. I'm sure a number of others my age have similar memories. Thomas is six, albeit right now and not in 1989. He is also officially a bigger internet celebrity than I, since he's been BoingBoing'd, and I have not.

The Adventures of Art Lad is his site, managed by his dad. His posts center around his artwork.

I start the first grade soon! I really liked my teacher last time because she did art class and always put my pictures up on her desk. My favorite part was when we did squirt painting. You had stencils and you could squirt different colors on them. Guess what happens when you pull the stencil off? You get a picture!

But the stencils were all flowers and puppies.

NO DINOSAURS!

"Where are the dinosaur stencils?" I asked Mrs. Dodd. "They don't make them," she said.

So I made one.

I think this kid is both tremendously cool, and totally avant-gards. The youth of tomorrow, they'll be better connected by the time they finish elementary than we'll ever be today.  ¶ 6:28 p.m. 0 comments

  So how about that Super Mario Land?
A lot of the gaming nostalgia evoked by that Best Games Evar post is centered around the Game Boy. While I probably didn't appreciate it at the time, my Game Boy was probably one of the finest platforms I've ever owned. Between the Tetris and Mario addiction (more on Super Mario Land in a bit), cementing my love/hate relationship with Japanese-style console RPGs (curse you Final Fantasy Legend for being so hard!) and feeding my interest in portable gaming (I've had more portable game systems than I have all others put together), that grey box probably holds more than its fair share of fond memories. It's no surprise that the first emulator I got going on my PSP was the RIN GB/GBC program, fascimilizing (it's a word now) both the greyscale and glorious colour versions of Nintendo's classic handheld. Super Mario Land was the second game I got for my Game Boy (the first being Tetris, coming in the box and all), and I gave it another go around on the weekend.

Boy is it weird.

Ok, sure. Mario is pretty darn weird already. Imagine telling an ignorant friend about italian plumbers running through colourful worlds populated by walking cacti, winged turtles and malevolent mushroom people. Try describing jumping on or over all these things while headbutting floating boxes that dispense mushrooms to make you "bigger", flowers that let you throw fire, and leaves that dress you up as a raccoon. (Yes, I am aware that there is a reason for this and that the strangeness is rooted in the Japanese/English culture gap. It's still bizarre.) Your friend would think your coffee had been spiked with mescaline. Mario is already pretty psychedelic, no question about that. What makes Super Mario Land strange is that it is totally unconventional when compared to Mario's other games.

First, the setting is different. Gone are the familiar rounded-rectangles and gently sloping green fields. Instead, a vaguely Egyptian motif dominates the first world (I don't know how they fit worlds inside a single land, but they do), with pyramids and sand dunes in the background. Rather than your standard black and grey castle, the boss level takes place in the inside of some Pharoah-esque tomb, complete with hieroglyphics. Moving on to the next world, Mario starts the level next to the UFO I assume he came out of (classic '50s compact flying saucer, kind of like the new VW Beetle). The world itself has a marine look about it, while the second boss level (ie. World 2-3) simply changes genres altogether. Apparantly Mario has a submarine, and zooming along underwater, he fires torpedoes at enemies and dodges incoming fire from octopi. I don't know of any other Mario game with a shooting element like this, but there you go. Finally, we have the third world, which marks the end of my knowledge of the game. (I got way farther, back when I was eight, but haven't done so much now.) This zone is an Easter Island theme, complete with the stone heads and a jungle cave for a boss level. Toto, we're not in the Mushroom Kingdom anymore.

The enemies are different as well. Mario fights Goombas and Koopas and Thwomps and Shy Guys and Bob-ombs and Boos and Piranha Plants. (I don't know who was smoking what when these names were coined, but that's beside the point.) The Goombas (the little mushroom dudes) are still present. So are the Koopas (the turtle guys), but when you jump on them they leave not shells to kick, but bombs that explode on you if you stick around too long. The rest of the bestiary is brand new. There are dragonfly-type bugs that throw spears at you. There are sphinxes that breathe fire. The man-eating plants that live in the pipes are still there, but they have a more angular appearance, unlike the rounded, lipped things from other titles. In the second world, the dead fish, fire-breathing seahorse and robot demographics are all well-accounted for. That's right, in Mario Land, you vanquish squat robots whose heads detach and fly at you. Meanwhile in World Three, we have stone tikis with wings, jogging boulders with flailing arms and spiders. Are there spiders in the other Marios? In short, these are not the same Mario baddies that you once knew.

Next, turn the sound up. Sound familiar? Thought not. Nowhere do you hear the familiar refrain of the Mario theme (you know, doop doop doop doo-doo-doo-doop doo do do doop do doop doo do do doo!). Instead, the strains of something very similar float to your ears, which easily recall the style and rhythms of the Mario theme, but totally do their own thing. The dungeon theme is nowhere to be found. And the Star theme? (That's the high-energy "invincible" music.) It's also gone, replaced with... wait for it: the Can-Can. Yes, Mario becomes totally unstoppable, and then flaunts this new power to the same music that Vaudeville showgirls high-kicked to.

Lastly, the powerups are different. As in the first Mario title, there are only three. There's the mushroom that enlarges, only it looks smaller, non-spotted and basically unlike the mushrooms you expect. The 1-up is no longer a mushroom, but a heart, although I conjecture that this is because a green mushroom and a red mushroom look the same on a black and white screen. Finally, there's the flower that lets you shoot fire, only in this game fire means bowling balls. Yeah, you become not Fire Flower Mario, but Superball Mario, throwing ball bearings that bounce and that can grab coins for you. Let that silly fire flower top that! The bouncing is important because the game only lets you have one shot on screen at a time. This is probably a technical limitation, but because of the bouncing, it can mean you wait for a little while before reloading. Matters of life and death, people!

Now maybe I'm being too harsh. This was, after all, 1989, well before Mario had settled into his now-sacred mythos. He was barely even a franchise! And despite all these differences, the game is still Mario: you run and jump through a series of worlds in your efforts to save the princess. Jumping on the heads of most enemies will either vanquish them or damage them. Some pipes can be entered to reveal hidden areas. At the end of each level is a chance to win bonus lives and extra points. The main character is a fat man in overalls who doubles in size upon eating mushrooms. He may be globetrotting somewhat, but this is still Mario. Sort of.

The fact remains that nearly everything about the game, above and beyond core game elements, is different. It is so prevalent, in fact, that if I didn't see the Nintendo on the title screen, I would think that it came from a bootleg videogame joint, an imitation Mario posing as the geniune article. In all likelyhood however, I think the reason that it seems this way is because the Game Boy had no colour. The reason you can tell what level you're on in Super Mario Bros. was largely due to the colour scheme. When translated to the monochrome, this had to be fixed, and so the substitute was to change form instead. Hence, we have all the different themes and sprites.

Don't let me end on the note that this isn't a good game. For Mario's handheld debut (at least in the form we know him best--DK Game & Watch doesn't count), Super Mario Land is a pretty decent showing, and behind all the wonkiness it hits all the nails that made the first Super Mario Bros. so much fun. If you have a PSP, I highly encourage getting this one going.  ¶ 6:23 p.m. 0 comments

  Top 100
IGN has declared their Top 100 Games of All Time, and any who consider themselves a gamer would do to check it out. Sure, you'll disagree with a number of the rankings--I think Metal Gear Solid should be much farther down the list and Deus Ex was NOT better than Half-Life, among other re-orderings--but you can't contest that IGN has picked 100 VERY strong titles there. Nearly every game on that list either unleashed something totally new onto the gaming scene of its day, (Half-Life took immersion to a level previously unimagined) or refined existing game elements to perfection (Starcraft claims the RTS crown to this day). More than that, every one of them is engaging, fun, memorable and above all, GOOD. If you wanted to get someone to appreciate gaming, you would do far worse than to start them playing some of these games.

Unfortunately, I noticed one glaring omission. There's no Massive games! I realize that the MMOG genre isn't for everyone, but you just can't have a Top Games Ever list without at least one of them. Choose Ultima Online for kickstarting the thing to begin with (yes, I know MUDs and Meridian 59 came first, but honestly people, it was UO that got the ball rolling), Everquest for making it popular and hopelessly addicting many, or World of Warcraft for refining and polishing it into the pure gaming heroin millions enjoy today. But seriously, pick ONE of them.

There are also a number of titles that I think should be on the list, but aren't. Where's Space Invaders, a game so popular that arcade cabinets were jammed so full of quarters that they literally broke down? Where's Pong, the first video game ever? Tie Fighter and Wing Commander 2 are excellent representatives of the space-sim genre, but I think Freespace 2 encapsulated space combat just as well as both, but with an added superb sense of scale. Also in space, but not the same genre, what about Elite or Privateer, in which you were set loose upon the galaxy, free to earn your way as you saw fit? And I didn't see a single flight simulator on the list, even though for a number of years they represented one of the gaming styles that PCs did best.

Or take the issue of sequels. Do Super Mario Bros., Super Mario 3, Super Mario World and Yoshi's Island ALL need to be in the Top 100? Sure Mario was influential, but all of those are essentially the same game at various points in history. The basic mechanics of jumping on mushrooms and turtles hasn't really changed much in 20 years, folks. Or Final Fantasy 4, 6, 7 AND 10? While 4 might have implemented a number of the conventions still used today, and 6 may be a tight little package of gameplay and story, could we not just pick one? Are FF7 and 10 at all different from their predecessors aside from graphics? And while both titles are amazing, A Link To The Past and Ocarina Of Time are remarkably similar, both in style and game structure.

But I'm splitting hairs here. Of the 100 games chosen, a substantial portion of them have fallen into my life in some form or another. (I've played no less than 73 of the 100, and completed or nearly completed 25, not counting "never ending" games like Counter-Strike or Ms. Pac-Man.) Some of those entries recalled a lot of fond memories. There were the times I sat frozen to my chair playing System Shock 2 or X-Com. (Those games were FRIGHTENING!) I remember conquering the galaxy in Master Of Orion, wanting to smash my Game Gear to bits in frustration at Sonic the Hedgehog, painstaking maintaining my notebook of Bionic Commando passwords and laughing my guts out the first time I saw the Day of the Tentacle intro. There were many a weekend spent playing Goldeneye for hours and hours on end, and just as many playing Warcraft 2 over the modem. (Another game missing from the list, despite its clear superiority to the Command & Conquers, although the inclusion of Starcraft relieves this somewhat.)

In conclusion, games are awesome. IGN has picked some of the best.  ¶ 6:20 p.m. 0 comments

  Ok, now this? This is cool.
I'm from Edmonton, and back there, the comics stores are in decent supply. You have basically have the choice of:

Comic King, in The Mall. Arguably the best of the bunch, with the best selection, prices, etc.

Whyte Knights on Whyte Ave. These guys are really more of a second-hand stuff store, dealing in everything from local alt-comix to swords and chain mail, to toys and collectibles, to just about anything used and geek. They do have some comics though.

Saturn Comics on... somewhere. Don't know too much about these folks because their in a part of the city I don't usually visit (and therefore have forgotten the location). The few times I've been there seemed ok though.

Wizard's Comics in Mill Woods. Again, I tend not to head out there, but the couple of times I've been, the guy running the store was nice and approachable, and they carried a nice selection of varied comics and games.

Finally, we have Warp One. Arguably the biggest and longest running comics and geek store in the city, they've had their location just off Whyte (not far from Whyte Knights, incidentally) almost forever. They were literally the place for comics and games and collectibles for some time for me. I used to save up my money for months just to go on a shopping spree there. These trips were epic journeys, requiring the navigation of the tortuous Sherwood Park/Edmonton bus system, and possibly a transfer delay of 45 MINUTES!!! It was enough that one friend of mine simply stopped going with me simply on account of he hated that bus transfer so much.

As I grew older, however, I gradually started to see the real Warp. Yes, they carried everything, but it started to lose its shine. As I slowly learned the value of what I was purchasing, it dawned on me that I might not be getting the best value. Literally everything was marked up, and while I would accept this now provided I got a corresponding amount of convenience and service with it, I did not. I tend to shun the staff at these stores, preferring to browse myself. I occasionally picked up the odd comic there, but aside from those brief indulgences, I have for the most part have stayed away for six or seven years running. A few aquaintances of mine, fully immersed in the collectible culture even started to frequent there for the sole purpose of taking advantage of their warped (I couldn't help it!) pricing, hawking their goods for far more than they were worth.

So, given all this backstory and history with the store, you can imagine my mirth seeing Warren Ellis's link-passing of an account of a certain... incident there:

Malcolm Reynolds (okay, Nathan Fillion) is boycotting the comic book shop of my youth, and calling for all Firefly fans to do the same.

I just went to a comic store to purchase the Serenity comic for my mom. The sweetheart that she is, gave her issues (with her favorite character on the front) to relatives who were having trouble tracking one down. Please bear in mind that Canada is a wonderous place where the service industry is polite and helpful, and that this experience is not the norm. The store I chose, which shall remain nameless (Warp 1 Comics), at an undisclosed location (just off Whyte Ave), has the singlemost sanctimonious, condescending, dishonest a$$hole I've had the misfortune of meeting. My brother and I called ahead to find out they had one issue left, but upon arriving, found out they are gouging people $20 bucks for the damned thing!

My favorite bit is Fillion calling the owner of the store a "one-eyed crap-catcher". (The bit where Fillion's brother holds up the comic and asks if the guy on the front looks familiar is good too.)

This is gold, folks. Gold.  ¶ 8:33 p.m. 0 comments

  Are you a gamer?
Do you read The Escapist? Because you should. It's excellent stuff--a magazine for gamers that covers not games, but gamer culture. Me, and possibly us, in a word (okay, two words.)

It's free, it's smart and it's good. Why aren't you reading yet?  ¶ 8:07 p.m. 0 comments