Pop Culture Victim

Fin.

2005-08-23T21:17:00.000-06:00

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.

The clock is ticking

2005-08-22T22:24:00.000-06:00

Things, they are going to be changing.

Reality-tunnels

2005-08-19T12:45:00.000-06:00

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."

Limited time only

2005-08-18T21:48:00.000-06:00

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.

This ain't right.

2005-08-18T18:37:00.000-06:00

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)

Like the dulcet tones of a screaming cat.

2005-08-13T10:52:00.000-06:00

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.

Is Jack Thompson crazy?

2005-08-12T20:19:00.000-06:00

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?

Are you a unicorn?

2005-08-08T19:29:00.000-06:00

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.)

Where's a video camera when you need one? (again)

2005-08-08T19:20:00.000-06:00

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.

Poignant

2005-08-06T11:25:00.000-06:00

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

Links!

2005-08-04T23:00:00.000-06:00

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.

Saw this little gem on BoingBoing today

2005-08-04T22:49:00.000-06:00

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 ~~benefactors~~beneficiaries will outnumber them to the order of tens (if not hundreds) of millions to one.

Now this kid is awesome

2005-08-04T18:28:00.000-06:00

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.

So how about that Super Mario Land?

2005-08-04T18:23:00.000-06:00

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.

Top 100

2005-08-04T18:20:00.000-06:00

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.

Ok, now this? This is cool.

2005-08-02T20:33:00.000-06:00

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.

Are you a gamer?

2005-08-02T20:07:00.000-06:00

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?

On a far lighter note,

2005-07-31T22:55:00.000-06:00

This made me laugh.

"At my lemonade stand I used to give the first glass away free and charge five dollars for the second glass. The refill contained the antidote."
--Emo Phillips

Dear The United States,

2005-07-31T22:42:00.000-06:00

Please keep your irrational, hateful and stupid war on some, but not all, drugs OUT OF MY COUNTRY.

Hugs and kisses,
crowe

(Argh, this pisses me off. I suppose I'm not entirely surprised, but it's still dumb. Not only is it bad enough that the DEA is opposed to the citizens of its own country, but now it has decided to start enforcing their laws everywhere else, too. Now they've managed to get Canadian police to hand over a Canadian citizen to face far more draconian and intolerant laws down south.

What pisses me off the most is that most people will turn a blind eye to this on account of it's that gosh-darned pot again. Nobody's willing to say "wait a second, why are we letting other countries abduct our citizens?" Instead, it'll be "tsk, tsk, that's what that man gets for getting involved with drugs."

What happens if the States pass a law prohibiting homosexuality and start abducting Canadian gays for conspiracy to promote homosexuality or something equally asinine? What happens when Canada starts developing her own, unique identity that may not agree with what America believes?

Or are we just supposed to become the good little 51st state and roll over on command?

RAGH. I'm stopping now. Too angry.)

Oh my.

2005-07-31T22:34:00.000-06:00

Again.

The last time I used this subject title was for the Flybar, a pogo stick of epic proportions that I claimed would be a test of will for me not to purchase, and then promptly forgot about within two days.

This latest usage is probably similar, being something immensely cool that I will dismiss within a short time. Ladies and gentlemen, I present KegBot.

It's a ROBOT that serves BEER. As long as it doesn't go crazy and kill all hu-mons or EX-TERMI-NATE!!! all shall be well.

I want one.

Ooooh! TOYS!

2005-07-29T19:08:00.000-06:00

I saw a number of cool things today, most of which I would own had I the disposable funds. Being lazy, I will offer only the briefest descriptions and a link.

Wall-mounted fish bowl.

Titanium wallet!

The twisted love child of a Disc*Gear and a Furby.

That is all. Resume your lives.

Well crap

2005-07-28T18:32:00.000-06:00

This puts a real dent in my track record of bashing the N-Gage.

"Stop talking to your calculator!"

"Get some real games!"

"Don't change the game--you might lose your battery!"

They have Settlers of Catan. Like, WTF. How dare they go aquire the rights for one of the best games EVER and put it on such a crappy system!

PSP coders out there, you have a new mission. BRING ME SETTLERS!

You can't see me

2005-07-27T22:07:00.000-06:00

But I have my arms raised in victory, dancing in mad joy for several reasons. First, is that Becca, my PSP, has just learned some new tricks and I am very proud of her for this.

Trick 1: E-Lit. While I would love to own a full set of the Invisibles trades in print, to read again and again, and to gentle stroke with my eyes closed imagining that it is Grant Morrison's smooth scalp, I don't. I do, however, have a set of rips that I found on BitTorrent a few years back and flipped through over the same amount of time. I have now taught Becca the magic of being able to use her photo-viewing ability in tandem with some software called PaperlessPrinter that can print files to jpegs. Now I can read anything that can be printed as an e-book, and that includes the Invisibles. Issues 1 through 4 begin tomorrow on my way to the job where I shall earn the money to legitimately buy this magnificent series.

Trick 2: Emulation. Becca now has multiple personality disorder as a lifestyle choice. She is a Gameboy as well as a PSP now, capable of delivering maximum Final Fantasy Adventure joy to me, as well as some Metroid 2, a little Bionic Commando and perhaps some Legend of Zelda on the side. She will eventually adopt a Super Nintendo personality once it becomes less retardulously sluggish. None of these games are legal, but in my defence, Nintendo would not be seeing a cent even if I did manage to purchase the game since they are all out of production to my knowledge.

So that's the two big ones. E-books and emulators. The other fancy one is that I am signed up with RUSC.com and am now enjoying Abbott and Costello, The Shadow, X-1, Lux Radio Theatre and The Green Hornet as mp3s. Like Eric Burns said, it's SO worth the price of admission. Also, I have this strange urge to heat my home with anthrocite and to smoke Camels...

Ahem. Hurray for trickses!

(Also, I am aware that I have not done anything with my podcast site in a long time. I have intentions to remedy this, but nothing definite yet. At any rate, it will be different. Watch this space. Or that one. Whatever.)

HAGAALAHAGAHGLAGHAGHAGHAG

2005-07-26T18:31:00.000-06:00

It's like the Time Cube, but... stranger! I am at a loss.

My mind is blown, yet again

2005-07-20T19:56:00.000-06:00

Scott McCloud, deity of comicry, mentions that he goes to Comic-Con and has lunch with a bunch of other prominent webcomic folks, his family, and oh, Will Wright. There are some other Comic-Con pics in there, but it's that last bit, tossed in like one would toss some croutons on a salad on a whim that gets me.

Will Wright, people. Just, y'know, cuz.

This is why I could never handle celebrity status. I'm too much of a psycho-fan and would fall to pieces upon meeting anyone who's anyone.

Yet more PSP love

2005-07-18T18:43:00.000-06:00

Finally! Some decent games coming to my handheld! (Well, one at least.)

Worms!

THQ and European development studio Team 17 have revealed that the two companies are working together to produce versions of Worms for the Nintendo DS and PlayStation Portable.

The announcement made today remained extremely vague on details, only offering the revelation that the PSP and Nintendo DS games were in development. When the games will be released, which versions of Worms the two systems will get, were not revealed.

(via Evil Avatar)

Fortunately, the screenshots shown are for one of the 2D versions of the games, and not the suck-ass-tastic 3D one. Worms Armageddon was the best of the series, so let's hope it's that one.

Diablo 2?!

Blizzard ask readers if they would buy a PSP or DS version of Diablo II if a wireless enabled multiplayer mode was included.

Rumours that a handheld port of Blizzard's Diablo II is in the works have emerged after Blizzard sent out a newsletter asking readers if they would consider buying a Sony PSP or Nintendo DS version of if Diablo II featuring wireless multiplayer. In the same news letter Blizzard asked readers if they would buy a DS version of the classic RTS game Starcraft.

(also via Evil Avatar)

Man, that last one made me break out in shivers when I read it. Portable, internet-enabled, Diablo-rific gaming heroin. I would pick that up again in a heartbeat.

Quote of the day

2005-07-18T18:41:00.000-06:00

There’s nothing so smug-making as being an bemused observer at someone else’s marketing frenzy. It provides a good and nearly harmless wallow in your sense of detached superiority. --Robin D Laws

Don't get me wrong

2005-07-15T18:27:00.000-06:00

I love Alien Loves Predator. It's an awesome comic about a couple of dudes in New York that just happen to be portrayed as the totally awesome pair from the Paul Anderson masterpiece.

I also think the Fantastic Four are pretty awesome. While I haven't really followed the comic, nor seen the recent film, I dig the concept of a family of public superheroes, always saving the world. They have a very classic Marvel feel to them, and are pretty darn original to boot. Plus, the animated series from the mid-90s was awesome.

However, I find this recent Alien Loves Predator strip to be the most off-colour Fantastic Four joke I have ever read. I have not quite considered the power of interior decorating terms to be applied thusly, and think it's intensely funny. So much so that I will probably end up using it at some point. You are all forewarned.

Intended for D&D

2005-07-14T21:22:00.000-06:00

However, this handy chart can easily be applied to other games, or even real life. Made me snort milk out my nose, only without the milk because I wasn't drinking any.

Rick Mercer is awesome.

2005-07-14T19:22:00.000-06:00

That is all. (more here and here.)

(blink blink)

2005-07-14T19:18:00.000-06:00

I have never stated that I am adept in social graces. I babble, make far too many jokes, say stupid things, and when I'm not doing any of that, I'm reticent to a fault. However, I do have some skills at relating to other people, which is clearly far, far, far more than this woman has.

Jean's husband went blind from an illness. She was wonderful in the situation. She always wore perfume since he couldn't see her. Arranged the house for his convenience. She read the paper to him every day and they did the puzzle together.

When he died, I knew she would be perfect for a male friend of mine who is also blind. She overreacted and said she would never go through that again. She had let her appearance go since he couldn't see her, and she liked to read the paper to herself.

But taking care of her husband brought out the best in her, and that is when people are really happy. So I invited my blind friend over to try Jean's home cooking. She is really a spectacular cook. I brought all the ingredients and then invited Jean over. When she arrived and found Zachary here, she said, "Oh, no" and walked out.

Check the link. It gets worse. Seriously, I don't know of anybody anywhere that has bungled a situation this badly.

Crazy woman that is inconsiderate of others' feelings and that does not think through situations fully, you just won yourself a medal.

Whoa.

2005-07-14T19:09:00.000-06:00

Nature's being far too cool again.

Dag nabbit!

2005-07-14T19:08:00.000-06:00

Young whippersnappers with their crazy toys. Back in my day, alls we had was a piece of felt! We'd put it on our heads and pretend it was something other than a piece of felt! AND WE LIKED IT!

(For additional comedy, feel to add comments about living in a van down by the river here.)

Trent Reznor + David Fincher = Asskicking

2005-07-13T19:47:00.000-06:00

Only is one of the best music videos ever. Seriously, drop what you're doing and go watch it. Don't matter if you're a NIN fan, or a Fincher fan, this short filmamajiggy is seriously boss. As in, were it a person, you would go to it every week and ask for money, just because it's so cool.

Ok, so there's some hyperbole. My point still stands. Check it.

C'mon! Bananas can be funny too.

2005-07-13T19:21:00.000-06:00

"Healthily good!" Ha HA! There is so much that is hilarious about this pic, I don't know where to begin. (Although, it was certainly not me that said that I do not like it.) (via Sivacracy)

In the case of People v. The Laws of Physics

2005-07-12T19:17:00.000-06:00

The court finds the defendant innocent of all charges. It's not gravity's fault if it makes you hurt. (via BoingBoing)

Fire make it good

2005-07-12T19:08:00.000-06:00

Once again, nature is pretty darn cool.

Sure, I could make a meal on 39 cents...

2005-07-11T20:18:00.000-06:00

Louis, on the other hand, already has.

Starvin’ With Louis is the show that focuses on easy to cook recipes, money saving tips, and ways to live “on the cheap”. It is specifically designed for those college kids, filmmakers, web designers, band members and welfare recipients with absolutely no money.

Ramen + hot dog = hobo lo mein! Also, chocolate-covered ramen. Not even I am this creative with my food.

Seriously, for a DIY cooking show about how to make meals for spare change, it's pretty darn good. Worth a watch, if I do say so myself. (And I do.)

Run, you cows, RUN!

2005-07-09T17:28:00.000-06:00

Yeah, you're reading that right. It's a comic entitled "Cow Puncher". Those poor cows...

Also present in the collection are Gangsters & Gun Molls comics, Fight Comics (go on, guess the genre!), Popular Teen-Agers Secrets Of Love (I think the secret is the hyphen) and Crime SuspenStories. No, I don't know what a Suspen is, or why they left out the space. The comics from the 1950s were weird.

Holy bajeebus!

2005-07-09T11:19:00.000-06:00

Anne Maloney has uncovered the worst opening for a literary work. It shows up in a Robin Hood book, but would be equally unsuitable for anything, anywhere, ever.

Hagar told me once that when a man dies his whole life passes before him in a series of colored pictures. I wondered then how she knew, being herself not yet dead.

"We who bear the mark know many things, my youngling," she smiled.

I remember her face as she said that, and the sweet milky scent of her breast as she guided the nipple towards my mouth. So I could not have been more than two or three years old at the time, as children are usually weaned around that age in our part of the world.

I think my father must have come in then, for she shook her hair modestly over her shoulder and began to croon gently as if she had noticed nothing; but her eyes slanted toward the doorway and the nipple in my mouth grew hard.

Can you imagine opening a book and being greeted with that? Worse, can you imagine picking up an innocuous Robin Hood book to get the li'l tyke to get to sleep and blindly reading that abomination of the English language aloud? Holy bajeebus indeed!

Mitch Hedberg

2005-07-07T18:12:00.000-06:00

I listened to Mitch Hedberg for the first time on the bus to work today. This leads me to think of many worse ways to get to work, because that guy is funny.

"I saw this wino the other day, and he was eating grapes. I said 'Dude, you have to wait!'"

His humor reminds me a lot of Seinfeld; it relies primarily on stating the obvious. Things like why ant farms don't farm things, that X is a seldom-used letter, and why you never have two easy payments of $19.95 with one complicated payment of $19.95. But while Seinfeld is all "Didja ever notice this? Didja ever notice that? What's the deal with stuff?", Mitch Hedberg just outs and says it. All his jokes are straight to the point and the longest ones are only ever 4-5 lines long, which makes for a very modular stand-up routine. The CD is just as funny played straight through as it is on shuffle, and if you didn't know otherwise, you probably wouldn't even tell the difference.

"I like to drink red wine. This girl asked me once if red wine gave me a headache. I said, 'Sure, eventually, but the first and middle parts are amazing!' I'm not going to give up on something because of what it does eventually. It's like getting an apple and going 'Whoa, stop! That's going to be a core eventually!'"

It's really too bad that Mitch died earlier this year. Like Bill Hicks, this guy was far too funny to go so early. I kind of feel bad that I'm only hearing about him now, when there's no new material to look forward to, but what he did give us is comedy gold, and I'm glad for it. Highly recommended.

Still more PSP cheesery

2005-07-06T19:45:00.001-06:00

If you, like I, bought a PSP back in March, you might be disappointed by the lack of games for it. I still only have the two that I got at launch, with exactly one more game that I want to play available (Metal Gear Ac!d, which I am saving for fall term at school--gotta stay awake in lectures somehow!). Of those two games, I have really played neither with any depth for the past two to three months or so.

Fortunately, this is not to say that my PSP has not seen regular play. Thanks to it, I have watched many an hour of serial drama on my way to work. In short, I do not in any way feel that I have not gotten my money's worth out of my new console. While I do feel kind of lacking that I don't have a DS and can't partake in some of the games over there, it's the same kind of lack that I feel at not having any other console. Or a Porsche. (Speaking of those, there must have been some kind of convention when we were at Lake Louise last weekend--like 30 of those babies of all models and colors in the parking lot and me without my Slim Jim. Le sigh.)

However, as Tycho mentioned in a recent Penny Arcade, the PSP has a far brighter future ahead of it in the form of homebrew. It combines the best elements of a sparse PC, media player and console, and is capable of far more all put together. Just this morning I saw links to a drum machine program and a VNC client that are being developed for Sony's little wonder. It gives me shivers to think of what we might have in a few years.

(The good kind of shivers, by the way.) (Also, both links via MakeBlog)

Ok, so this is great

2005-07-06T19:45:00.000-06:00

Item 1: The LARPers. Nerds dressing up in pseudo-medieval schwag, replete with iron-covered-with-foam swords and garbage-can-lid shields. They do this for hours at a time every Sunday in Mt. Royal Park, Montreal.

Item 2: The Zombies. Hipsters dressing up in rags and blood, replete with shuffling steps and moaning for braaaaaaaiiiiins. They did this once, mostly to make fun of the nerds in armor.

Hijinks ensue, with photographical proofs. From what I gather, the zombies won hands down (the nerds were clearly unprepared--caught off-guard and forgetful as to the location of their shotguns) and proceeded to celebrate their victory at a nearby McDonald's. Would have loved to have been there.

So this weekend was awesome

2005-07-05T19:09:00.000-06:00

It's basically the North American All-Star Long Weekend of the Summer. Fourth of July, Canada Day, it's all good. I spent mine camping, the highlights of which I am sworn to secrecy to divulge. I can, however, allude to them in a series of clever titles, most of which will only have significance for those that were there...

A Treatise On Humor At Six AM: How A Heavy Night Of Drinking Can Lead To A Comical Sprint Come Sun-Up
The Ecology Of The Pile Of Shit That Sucks*
Firelight + Eyebrows = DEVIL
Kiefer Sutherland 101: Do The Perfect Jack Bauer
Clever Tricks To Abuse Your Friends: How The Timing Of The End Of A Sociables Game Can Coincide With The Desperate Plea For A Bathroom Card To Much Delight (And Lapdances)
Truth: Why Too Much Can Be A Bad Thing
A Discussion Of The Caress: More Than A Touch, Less Than A Grope
"Almost A Shitload", "She Knows Eeeeeeeverybody", And Other Fine Quotes
A Study Of Gondolas And Agoraphobes
In Which Ting Made Rules--Many, Many, MANY Rules
Ink Pots: Not Ink, Barely Pots
The Mighty Blue Box: The Shocking Story Of The Young Woman Who Packed EVERYTHING
How To Fake Police Chatter On A CB Radio: 12 Tips To Sound Convincing!
The Stunning Story Of Peter's Drive-In: Just How Many Fries Belong In A "Large"?
The Axe Is A Truly Difficult Device To Master
The Authoritative How-To On Being A Tall, Skinny, Fire-Obsessed, Axe-Wielding Lunatic
The Patented RKB Method Of Neck-Stepping
E-Coli For All: The Fool-Proof Method Of Not Dying To Burgers And Macaroni
85% Dead, And Other Tales Of Drunkenness
Proof Of ESP: The Story Of The Green Bikini

And that was the weekend, in a nutshell. Obtuse? Of course--if I told you the whole story I would probably be hunted down and shot. Either way, the net result was Awesome.
-----------
* So named because it consisted entirely of shitty things. Things that suck.**

** Examples include: the pavilion that broke during setup; the chair whose frame snapped; the stool that collapsed; the not-fun-at-all geography quiZ cards; the Safeway that was too hot (metaphorical resident of the pile only); our neighbours that blasted out Guns 'N Roses and AC/DC all evening (also metaphorical residents); the too-muddy shower stall. It goes on.

Narbonic

2005-07-05T19:08:00.000-06:00

I have many different favorite comics, for various different reasons. I like the tangy cynicism from Penny Arcade, with it's dash of non-sequitur for flavour. I like the colourful lunacy of Wigu and Overcompensating. I like the quirky hipster vibes of Questionable Content. I like the inky blackness of Something Positive's sense of humor. Until now, Sluggy has filled the void when it comes to good old fashioned story, but lately it's been in a bit of a slump. I fear not, however, for I have found another.

The strip is about a mad scientist, Helen B. Narbon, her evil intern, Mell, and her henchman, Dave. It involves gerbils, death rays, moon bases, mad science conventions, intrigue and romance. The plot twists and turns, leaving tantalizing loose ends scattered about that eventually get resolved. The strips have innumerable references to sci-fi and comicry from all over the past century or two (yeah, that's a lot!). Narbonic has immaculate pacing, on the level of each strip, at the level of the current story arc, and as a multi-year saga. The characters are unique, expressive and distinctive, and above all, the whole kitten-caboodle remains constantly funny, touching and sympathetic. I'm addicted hook, line and sinker.

Eric Burns drank the Kool-Aid way before I have, and has talked about Narbonic much more. I've never read anything but glowing praise for the strip, and he's basically right about it all the time. Shaenon Garrity is producing one of the finest runs of serial fiction I have ever read, and ranks right up with the best of the medium. I whole-heartedly recommend it to anyone who likes awesome things.

I suppose it's purely fitting that I haven't bothered to mention this until Modern Tales' free access to the archives has run out, and I spent all of Sunday afternoon desperately cramming this strip down, racing to get caught up. (See, the strip of the day is free, but the archives need an MT subscription. I suspect I will get one the first time I miss a strip.) The only negative I have about Narbonic is that I wasn't reading it daily from the beginning, and all the impact of the strip's pivotal moments were lessened by my breakneck reading. I hope it continues for a long time to come, because I will be there, every day.

Narbonic: An example of creating brand new stratospheres of awesomeness.

I already needed this game

2005-06-28T18:38:00.000-06:00

Now, thanks to the trailer it is simply pounded further into the stone tablet that is the List of Games I MUST Have. I think it was pounded so hard the tablet cracked. Go watch, you will see.

Please let there be only two shoes.

2005-06-27T18:35:00.000-06:00

I don't know if I could handle a third one. Warren Ellis never fails to freak me out, and today's a double play.

Boy has fetus removed from gut.
“After the operation we found a dead foetus weighing two kilograms (4.5lbs) in his abdomen,” Doctor MA Mazid said, the AFP news agency reports. “Apart from the head, all other limbs of the baby were developed.”
Zombie dogs.
US scientists have succeeded in reviving the dogs after three hours of clinical death, paving the way for trials on humans within years.

I figure there'll be one more today that tops both of these. This is why I won't check again until tomorrow.

Well if that ain't gosh-derned spiffy

2005-06-27T18:34:00.001-06:00

I've always felt that Douglas Adams laid out the best solution to the cause-and-effect messyness of time travel. He put forth that history can't be changed; everything fits together like a jigsaw puzzle and it's all taken into account. The only trouble left is figuring out the grammer to describe it all.

He might not be that wrong. Seems that quantum mechanics may rule out the "Grandfather paradox" all by itself, since quantum particles can behave both like particles and like waves.

Quantum theory allows time travel because nothing prevents the waves from going back in time. When [physicists Daniel] Greenberger and [Karl] Svozil analysed what happens when these component waves flow into the past, they found that the paradoxes implied by Einstein's equations never arise. Waves that travel back in time interfere destructively, thus preventing anything from happening differently from that which has already taken place (link). "If you travel into the past quantum mechanically, you would only see those alternatives consistent with the world you left behind you," says Greenberger.

It's totally bizarre, but then again most of quantum mechanics is. Of course, now there's no reason to be surprised if Scott Bakula shows up out of the blue in a dress and helps you out.

Well if that ain't gosh-derned spiffy

2005-06-27T18:34:00.000-06:00

Quantum theory allows time travel because nothing prevents the waves from going back in time. When [physicists Daniel] Greenberger and [Karl] Svozil analysed what happens when these component waves flow into the past, they found that the paradoxes implied by Einstein's equations never arise. Waves that travel back in time interfere destructively, thus preventing anything from happening differently from that which has already taken place (link). "If you travel into the past quantum mechanically, you would only see those alternatives consistent with the world you left behind you," says Greenberger.

It's totally bizarre, but then again most of quantum mechanics is. Of course, now there's no reason to be surprised if Scott Bakula shows up out of the blue in a dress and helps you out.

The Grokster Decision

2005-06-27T18:33:00.000-06:00

So a bunch of folks around the inter-nets have been talking about this Grokster Decision that the Supreme Court of the States has come up with. Most news sites will boil it down to "Hollywood wins, File-sharers can be sued", or "Entertainment industry prevails against P2P" or something like that. It will be framed as total victory for Hollywood, and although the decision was unanimous, it isn't quite that bad.

The way I understand it, what the mighty SCOTUS declared was that it is indeed illegal to promote a device/technology/thingy with the purposes of copyright infringement. From Ars Technica:

Held: One who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, going beyond mere distribution with knowledge of third-party action, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties using the device, regardless of the device's lawful uses.

Basically, instead of a question of copyright, the questions are shifting to intent. Are you, as an inventor of something that can copy something into something else, intending for this invention to be used to infringe copyright? Have you missed a spot in ensuring that your device can never be turned to evil? If you can't convince everyone that the answer is no to both questions, you could be sunk like battleship. Cory Doctorow gets it pretty good in his editorial at Popular Science:

But what today’s decision will kill is American innovation. Chinese and European firms can get funding and ship products based on plans that aren’t fully thoughtcrime-compliant, while their American counterparts will need to convince everyone from their bankers to the courts that they’ve taken all imaginable measures to avoid inducing infringement. This is good news if you’re an American corporate attorney worried about job security, but not if you’re about to invent a new way to enjoy content. Both sides went to the court hoping for clarity on what is and isn’t legal in P2P, and instead, the Court tipped a fresh load of claymores into the decade’s most perilous legal minefield.

I like the use of the word thoughtcrime, myself.

Anyway, the whole shebang is going back to court (again) with this bit clarified so that it can be decided if Grokster was indeed intended for illegal distribution of files. So again, not good, but not cause for panic in the streets or anything. Even Hilary Rosen chimed in, saying that her former co-workers shouldn't get all uppity now that they've "won"--just look at what happened following the Napster decision. Legal victory does not instantly win back fans and customers. (In fact, if you read the post, it's almost has though Ms. Rosen has finally figured this whole thing out. Too bad she's not in power anymore.)

I am of the opinion that all this will change very little. It will not kill P2P, that cat's out of the bag (and if you've ever tried to bag a cat, you will know that the reverse is nigh-impossible). It will not kill piracy (same argument, only this cat was never in a bag to begin with). If I had to spell out the future of file-sharing and copyright, I think a few things could happen:

the industry will gradually realize it was wrong and start getting out of the persecution business and back into making and promoting music, movies and the like, OR
they will continue to try and exercise draconian control over everything they make, driving more customers away and demanding more legal crutches from the government until the industry collapses Great Depression-style, OR
same as above, only the government wises up and takes the crutches away, easing the industry on to a stretcher and into the morgue.

One way or another, we (the free, slightly-loopy copyright reform folks) will win, of that I am certain. What is left to decide is how long this victory will take to arrive, and what the casualties will be. Things could still get pretty nasty before they get better.

Why must it be mine?

2005-06-24T17:45:00.000-06:00

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings...
If I had this trophy, I think maybe one person aside from me would ever get the joke. Maybe that's why I need to own one.

I so very much want to enter.

2005-06-23T19:00:00.000-06:00

The Chap Olympics:

What, dear friends, has become of our culture? Was not this once a country where jazz beatniks rubbed shoulders with aged philosophers in smoky cafeterias? Did not dapper men in horn-rimmed spectacles once explain the mysteries of the world to us via our crackling wireless sets? Were not public libraries the places where all human knowledge was to be found, at the fingertips of avuncular librarians swaddled in tweed? Where has all this gone?
[...]
But fear not, dear hearts, for there is something in the air… Can you smell it? It is a blend of bergamot, old leather and Cavendish tobacco, and it smells of Revolution. The Tweed Revolution. The web site you are about to enter contains words and images that may induce excessive languidity and an increase in levels of panache, leading to an overall rise in self-esteem. So sink into your deepest armchair, pour yourself a gin and tonic, light a cigarillo, and prepare to join the sophisticated world of The Chap

Seriously, how can you not want to get involved? They have events such as Vulgarity Hurdles and Ruffian Vaulting!

Now where's my tweed?

FUCK YOU WINAMP

2005-06-22T19:29:00.001-06:00

Ok Winamp. We settle this here. I love your ability to play music. I like the smart views and the jump to feature and the media library. You are a nice, lightweight program that for the most part kicks ass.

HOWEVER.

You pester me for weeks about having to upgrade. I finally take the bait like a chump, lured by the promises of over 15,000 (!!!) fixed bugs and all that bullshit, and I uninstall the last version so as not to overwrite my install with multiple versions. This is not an uncommon practice, and yet on uninstall, you do some curious things. You leave your fucking skins and your plugins on my hard drive for future installs (the plugins I mind less, because they are useful; the skins are a waste of electromagnetism) and yet you blindly abolish all trace of my playlists, my settings and my song ratings. SONG RATINGS WINAMP, I HAD A LOT OF THESE.

In fact, I had a good chunk of my SXSW collection sorted according to suck/good, and now it's gone. I also had a nice list of good singles that made for brainless music, now gone too. The loss of my playlists, mostly my podcasts, is slightly less painful (except for my PERFECT playlist of Monster Magnet; seriously, this was the best Monster Magnet CD EVER) but it still hurts. Lastly, all my preferences are gone, so I need to rebind all my global hotkeys.

I HATE YOU SO HARD RIGHT NOW WINAMP. And no, you can't go and blame this one on me for having an elaborate setup. Mine is rather modest compared to some of your power users, and all this could be preventable with one of TWO simple things.

You WARN ME that I will lose my playlists. My ratings. My preferences. (But not my fucking skins, of which I have exactly one: the one you come with. ARGH!) On uninstall. Instead, you just say that Winamp will be removed. GEE THANKS.
You keep those things around. You keep the plugins and the skins, I know you can do it. You're a big girl now.

It will take so much more than flowers and chocolates to patch this up, and if I weren't lazy, your ass would be on the pavement outside as soon as I found a suitable replacement. Fortunately for you, XMMS is the only one I know of that does what you do, and it's not for Windows. So I am stuck with you. You can stay, but don't think for a second we are back together.

All hail the spaghetti monster!

2005-06-22T19:29:00.000-06:00

Open letter to the Kansas School Board: Flying Spaghetti Monster should be taught alongside evolution and Intelligent Design

It is for this reason that I’m writing you today, to formally request that this alternative theory be taught in your schools, along with the other two theories. In fact, I will go so far as to say, if you do not agree to do this, we will be forced to proceed with legal action. I’m sure you see where we are coming from. If the Intelligent Design theory is not based on faith, but instead another scientific theory, as is claimed, then you must also allow our theory to be taught, as it is also based on science, not on faith.

Some find that hard to believe, so it may be helpful to tell you a little more about our beliefs. We have evidence that a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe. None of us, of course, were around to see it, but we have written accounts of it.

We loves it. Needless to say, I expect the joke to be totally lost on those who need to understand the most.

It's fun to use learning for evil!

2005-06-22T19:28:00.002-06:00

Ah, the words of R. Stevens have not been more appropriate. Rick Mercer is up to mischief. Seems that there was a bit of a debacle in Parliament recently in which MP Don Boudria complained that www.donboudria.ca had been registered and subverted. He was immediately admonished by Conservative MP Jason Kenney for being ignorant. This rubbed the Speaker the wrong way, so Kenney then clarified this, meaning ignorant of the Internet. This was further clarified again to mean unaware of the process of registering a domain name. Phew.

So, the short story:

Rick Mercer has a blog.
He also owns www.jasonkenney.org, purchased within moments of this whole exchange happening on CPAC.
All of this is really funny to me and had me laughing evilly to myself at work.

Movie industry, or theater industry?

2005-06-22T19:28:00.001-06:00

So it seems that despite hits like Batman and Star Wars, movie industry is still in a slump.

Compared with last year, box-office receipts have been down every weekend since late February; the last time comparable business was off for such a long span was in 1985.

This summer's movie season has been especially brutal. North American theater attendance from early May to June 19 was off nearly 11% from a year ago, tracking firm Exhibitor Relations Co. estimated Monday. If the year's overall weak admission trend holds, it will mark the lowest number of moviegoers since 1996 and the third consecutive year of decline, a skid that hasn't been seen since 1962.

My question is, which industry is really in the slump here? Are DVD sales slumping as well, or is it just box-office returns? Maybe if the industry were willing to analyze their business practises and try to make going to the theater more enticing, they might be able to recover. (Rather than the current goal of getting the government to prop them up with bad law.) The Chinese theater industry has already started doing this, what will it take for Americans to do the same?

My sentiments exactly.

2005-06-22T19:28:00.000-06:00

Neglected Child Dies While Parents Played World of Warcraft.

The crime isn't sensational, it's the addition of the video game that makes people react. Now everyone who has preconceived notions about video games get to cluck their tongues and realize they were right all along, games are addicting and terrible and cause nothing but pain and misery. In truth, this isn't gaming news. It's the story of bad parents. It's not a cautionary tale, neglect happens daily across the world for an infinite amount of reasons. It's sad that the story is getting pumped up and reported simply because the couple played a game while they were out, and it's even sadder that it's being reported as gaming news just for the shock value.

I motion we start doing this to everything. Kid has accident while you were talking on a cell phone? Cell phones are evil and addictive. Car crashes while you had the radio on? That damned devil-music again.

Great story to start a Wednesday with, ain't it?

Update: Good grief. Not five minutes after seeing that last story, I get hit with this one.
Russian Schoolboy Dies After 12 Hours of Computer Gaming

A 12-year-old schoolboy from Russia's Urals city of Yekaterinburg has died of playing computer games. After spending 12 hours at a local computer club, the boy fainted and was taken to hospital, where he died of stroke eight days later, the Novye Izvestia daily reported on Tuesday.

So not only are you going to murder your children from playing games, you'll have a stroke too. BAH.

Oooh shiny!

2005-06-22T19:27:00.000-06:00

I like new things. New games, new toys, new stuff. This is new:

In Uncle Roy All Around You, a player has just one hour to find the Uncle Roy of the game's title using clues or instructions fed via text messaging. But with every move tracked via a GPS locator in his cell phone, other players in the game have the ability to track and hunt him down. Meanwhile, a group of performance artists shadow the player in an attempt to interact and manipulate the quest. Sounds interesting, right?

Well, ok. I concede it's only slightly new. I have seen accounts of things like this before, (in Sweden I believe) but they're not one of those things you get going every day. I guess the whole thing does have some problems, like finding people to play, or unforeseen logistics issues, but I'd love to play in a game like this if one comes to town.

Hey, I have a podcast!

2005-06-21T19:53:00.000-06:00

It's even updated again! Hooray?

I seem to have forgotten

2005-06-21T19:16:00.000-06:00

What year is it? I have been operating under the assumption that it is the year 2005, well into the 21st century. We are not supposed to have governments of free nations quashing information that disagrees with them, because that is the sort of thing one expects from an inquisition, right? We don't have those anymore, right?

Sigh. This is not the first time I've heard about the current U.S. Administration mucking about in science, and I suspect it won't be the last.

Abortion: “The removal from a National Cancer Institute website of a scientific analysis concluding that abortions do not increase a woman’s risk of breast cancer. That move, in November 2002, contradicted the broad medical consensus, and members of Congress protested the change. In response, the NCI updated its website to include the conclusion of a panel of experts that induced abortion is not associated with an increase in breast cancer risk.”

The unofficial slogan of John Rogers comes to mind: "Everyone who wants to live in the 21st century, over here. Everyone who misses the 1800s, over there. Good luck with that." (via Sivacracy)

Go see Batman Begins.

2005-06-20T18:54:00.000-06:00

Seriously, that's basically what any review should say: go see the movie. It's not perfect--there are a number of things that could have been done better and a few plot holes, (Scott Kurtz brings a number of these to light, and he more or less nails them all) but Begins is still the best Batman movie made to date. It draws on the same source material that Burton did for his first Bat-flick, (ie. Frank Millar) but it does so in a more believable way.

I think everything boils down to Christian Bale and how he manages to perform all the aspects of Batman and Bruce Wayne. The other Batmans, they did this not so good. Keaton got the brooding Wayne and the Batman bits not too badly, but fumbled the rest of the Wayne persona. Kilmer got the playboy bits of the Wayne persona down, but muffed the rest. Klooney, well, the less said about that disaster of a film the better.

Having the right Batman is good, but it wouldn't really mean much if the rest of the flick fumbled the ball. Fortunately, the supporting cast was picked perfectly, and they can all act, something that does not go unnoticed. (Ok, ok, we'll make an exception for Katie Holmes.) Gotham was also portrayed nicely, mixing both the grungey grime that it requires for the Batman bits with the elegant grandeur that it requires for the Wayne bits.

Finally, the action bits were done exceptionally well, with but one exception. The idea of Batman fighting from the shadows like a ninja is drawn wonderfully from the comics and makes a lot more sense than the obviously staged fights from prior films. The above-mentioned exception is that the camera is crammed up against the action like a dog's nose is to a stranger's crotch. Mr. Nolan? For your next action bits, just take ten steps back and go from there. Your audience will thank you for letting them see the action and not get motion sickness. Other than that, it's all gold.

If you skipped all that stuff above just to get to the bottom line, this is it: Nolan pulled it off and delivered a film that belongs on the same shelf as Superman, X-Men and Spider-Man 2. Go see it.

I think this speaks for itself.

2005-06-19T19:56:00.000-06:00

We are clearly doomed. (from... uh, this site)

On drawing

2005-06-17T17:58:00.001-06:00

Penny Arcade today is quite funny and entertaining, as usual. Scroll down on the front page, however, and you see the following as written by Gabe:

Growing up I used to watch Commander Mark on PBS. He had a show called the Imagination Station that was on right when I'd get home from school. He used to show kids how to draw things in 3D and I'd sit there in front of the TV with my sketchpad just eating it up. I was even a proud member of his Draw Squad.

I read this and immediately when all "OMG! Commander Mark! Imagination Station!" because I totally dug that series too. He had it all: a mustache, suspenders, a list of Renaissance words (they were very complicated, like PERSPECTIVE), the strange habit of getting enthusiastic about something by dragging a thumbs-up across the screen and going "yeeeeeeeeeeeah!" and of course, the drawing. The show was on at something like noon, a time that simultaneously restricted my viewing to the summer, as well as get me hooked on The Price Is Right.

Anyways, the following paragraph made me crack up today:

Years later when I was just starting High School Mark did an assembly at the elementary school my mom worked at. I took my sad little portfolio over and after the assembly I stopped him and asked him to look at it. He told me I was doing really good work and he ended up asking if he could buy us dinner that night. We talked for a couple hours about how I had watched his show since I was little and how some day I wanted to be a comic book artist. then I sat there and watched the man I'd grown up idolizing chain smoke cigarettes and stuff himself with pie. It was like seeing Mr. Rogers doing lines in some filthy bathroom.

It's hard trying not to laugh at work, because it's pretty obvious that you're not doing work. System diagrams and operational processes are only so humorous, and it's not the kind of humor that makes beverages vent out your nose.

To all you haxx0rz out there

2005-06-17T17:58:00.000-06:00

Nifty little book on Reverse Engineering for anyone out there who happens to like that sort of thing. I think it's a shame that discussion of specific reversed engineering attempts is often illegal. (via Make)

Unreal...

2005-06-16T22:23:00.000-06:00

So hypnosis is pretty neat. You get to have people acting like fools on stage and then not remember it, kind of like a twisted parlor trick. However, it looks like hypnosis has been taking up a notch, so to speak.

Guy hypnotized and dropped into real-life zombie shooter. Seriously.

Hypnotist makes game. Guy plays game, shooting zombies, having some fun. Game sends guy into trance with flashes of light. Hypnotist moves in, picks Guy up, and puts him down into a set built exactly like the one in the game. Guy is given gun, and wakes up with nobody around. Actors playing zombies start attacking.

Guy freaks the fuck out. If this is fake, it's quite well done. First he tries to run, then he starts threatening the zombies (to no reaction; they're zombies!), then he starts shooting. Now Guy had friends with him that just dumbly play along with the whole thing. They were probably having a similar reaction to mine: this stuff does not happen. This is just too bizarre.

Yet, it does, assuming the video's real, and it's just nuts. I highly recommend watching it--throws the whole concept of the way games are played and why right on its ear.

That's the stuff

2005-06-16T14:35:00.000-06:00

I have just made and drank one of the best cups of tea I have ever had. If Earl Grey tasted any better, it would be made illegal.

I am so not in the mood to work now...

(Update: I did it again. Partly because I needed to know if I could, partly because that last cup broke my brain it was so amazing. I must say, it's cups of tea like this that only reinforce my beliefs that once you start making good coffee or tea, you just can't go back to that Tim Horton's swill. Being an elitist beverage snob rocks.)

Agape

2005-06-15T19:13:00.000-06:00

This just in from the WTF? department: EA shutting down BF2 servers.

Today EA has confirmed that servers have been removed from the BF2 server list, because changing the time limit and unlocking weapons is against the EULA that server operations have to accept upon installing the software.

So let me try and understand: you have a game coming out, and presumably you want people to buy it, so naturally you are inclined to shut down servers? You want to stop people from playing the demo, making it less likely that they will go get the full game, and you're doing this because they aren't playing the demo "properly"?
Um, what?

Get your global freak on

2005-06-15T19:12:00.001-06:00

I watched the leaked pilot to Global Frequency this morning, as referred by the almighty KFM. I must admit, it's pretty spiffy.

The concept is that you have the bad-ass Miranda Zero, who knows a bunch of dirty secrets about stuff, and she's created this guerilla network of super-spies to beat off the unpleasant stuff that nobody knows about (the pilot involved an ex-CCCP psychic bomb). The trick is that these super-spies that she's recruited are really ordinary people, scattered all over the world, communicating through cell phones. Kind of a 5-minutes into the future sci-fi meets Mission Impossible meets The X-Files sort of thing.

Either way, I thought the pilot was quite excellent, and I highly encourage you downloading and watching it. As far as I can tell, there's probably going to be a Save GF movement showing up at some point, probably with internet petitions, all trying to get this show on the air. It'll be difficult--this isn't Firefly or Family Guy, which had the backing of either media darlings or DVD sales to keep them going--but if Warner Bros. has some sense, and if the movement is big and vocal enough, it just could work. I really hope it does.

A most humourous coincidence

2005-06-15T19:12:00.000-06:00

OMG UML. LOL. WTF?

Wow, that's funny

2005-06-15T19:06:00.000-06:00

I've often claimed that World of Warcraft is just one giant in-joke with a fun game attached. Alice has noticed that there's more down the rabbit hole:

I toldja!

2005-06-15T19:03:00.000-06:00

Homebrew PSP on firmware 1.50 No longer is it just the Japanese early-adopters who can run "hello world!" on their Sony handhelds. Now the whole world with un-updated PSPs (the 1.51 and 1.52 firmwares are still to-be-broken) can enjoy Doom, e-books and emulation.

Unfortunately, the solution arrived at here isn't exactly elegant. It's a complicated setup involving external applications and TWO memory cards. Yeah, the trick to the whole thing is to pull the ol' switcheroo on your PSP. Verrrrry sneaky! (Thanks, but I'll wait until this sort of stuff can be embedded in the apps.)

Of course, none of this is kosher according to Sony. Indeed, to bust open your PSP to unlock its potential is akin to terrorism, and is most emphatically frowned upon. You don't want to be a "terrorist" do you?

Now with aggravation!

2005-06-14T19:03:00.001-06:00

I was reading the ever-uber Overcompensating! this morning and followed Mr. Rowland down the rabbit hole to the Superior Court of California, County of Sacramento Penal Code Presumptive Bail listings. Here, I find many things, such as the fact that if you throw a rock at a bus window and konk someone on the noggin, you need to pay fifty grand to get out of jail.

I am confused, however, as to what aggravation means in a legal sense. For example, the crime of "mayhem", whatever that is, has bail at $30,000. If the mayhem is done whilst aggravated, however, (or perhaps with aggravation) the bail shoots up an order of magnitude to ONE MILLION DOLLARS! (MUAHAHAHA!) The same thing applies to arson: regular arson is between 10 and 30 grand, depending on what you burn, but just add aggravation, and again, ONE MILLION DOLLARS!

Those seem to be the only instances of doing anything aggravated though, so my conjecture kind of grinds to a halt there. According to Google, "aggravated = made more severe or intense". Does that just mean that if you do something with aggravation, you're just trying really, really hard? Or is it more like doing the same thing, but worse? In that case, I can't really understand why there would be a jump of $70,000 in bail monies. (Or am I under-estimating things? Maybe there should be three or four reallys before the hard?)

(Updated! OC is asking the same sort of questions!)

Lessig explains all

2005-06-14T19:03:00.000-06:00

Over at Technology Review, there's a superb essay by Lawrence Lessig about the free culture movement. If you've ever heard me rant on about copyright or free software and just didn't get what I'm on about, Mr. Lessig can explain things far better than I can.

A theory

2005-06-13T19:45:00.001-06:00

There are a number of ways of referring to a schedule. Some people avoid the word altogether and go with "agenda", "itinerary" or "timetable". Others go with the method of tracking and refer to "calendar" or "daytimer". As for the original flavor itself, there are two camps:

Sked-jewel vs. Shed-jool.

What I would like to know is the personality types behind these pronunciations. I know of but a couple of folks who say "shed-jool", and both of them are the types to remain rigourously on task. They make their plans, stick to them, and by golly if they aren't going to get done before they said they would. Furthermore, they need to know everyone else's "shed-jool" to be sure to account for them in their own. After all, one simply cannot plan to head out to the hardware store to get some lumber if the car is in use by the spouse, right?

As for me, I fall into the second camp, pronouncing it "sked-jewel", and I don't really give a rat's ass. Neither do other people I know who refer to "sked-jewels", which is what brought about this line of thought to begin with.

Alas, my sample size is retardulously small. A study just isn't a study without the teeming masses participating, you know. And so with that, I ask: is there a connection? Do you, or anyone you know, say "sked-jewel" yet meticulously plan around it, or do you say "shed-jool" and then toss it out the window at the first opportunity?

Say what?

2005-06-13T19:45:00.000-06:00

For the longest time, I've had mixed feelings about Batman Begins. It seems like for everything that looks good about it, like the Scarecrow, Ra's Al Ghul or the new Batmobile, there's something to turn me off, like the fire-breathing horse or the rubber suit. I have been predicting thus far that while it will not be a turd like certain other (coughLeague!cough) comic book (coughExtraordinary!cough) movies that have sucked total ass (coughGentlemen!cough), it probably won't live up to the Batman legend, or raise the bar for movie in any significant ways.

Now, the reviews are coming out, and it's looking more and more like I've erred, and that this will indeed be a flick worth watching.

Let's just hope that the tie-in videogame still sucks, or my understanding of the universe might be irrevocably shattered!

Whine!

2005-06-13T19:43:00.000-06:00

Current gadget-lust of the moment: the DS. Yeah, that silly new Nintendo touchy-console-thingy. This, after getting a PSP not three months ago. Don't get me wrong, I really like my PSP. My time with Lumines was almost worth the price of admission alone, and watching Trailer Park Boys and Doctor Who on the bus is gravy--hot, thick, meaty gravy, possibly with a potato. I am sure that in the long run, I made the right choice. Over the life of the console, I think that there will be innumerable great games for it, and I refuse to believe that Sony won't change their tune on the firmware thing. Within a year or so the PSP will become not only a decent little game console, but an emulator and media player extraordinaire. Heck, even if Sony doesn't do a thing, the same thing will happen, but it'll be lightly more skullduggerous.

None of this, however, changes the fact that I want to draw rainbows for a little marshmallow-puffball thingy. Combine that with some Castlevania, some Advance Wars... maybe even rub in the fact that the DS had some games at E3, whereas the PSP didn't quite get that far. Nintendo might be down, but they're not out entirely. While I predict that they will remain in last place for some time, it will still take a fair number of blows to get them to drop out of the race altogether. They can still make a good game or two, and their consoles, despite being weak and under-supported, are still troopers in their own right.

My feet are twin loci of ache

2005-06-13T19:41:00.000-06:00

I would say pain, but I'm not in that bad of a state. Climbing a dang mountain is tricksy, but not suicidal. I don't entirely subscribe to the theory that the view and the ability to truthfully say that you have completely the task validate the effort expended in the act, but given the choice between sitting at the campsite on my own doing nothing and being extremely bored, versus sucking it up and stomping up the trail anyways, I side with the doing something.

As one might have surmised, I was camping this weekend, and on the whole it was grand. The weather played along, aside from a few short bouts of moistness, and the locale was certainly acceptable. Highlights of the weekend included the majesty of a retardulously huge tent, the stringing up of some impressive tarp architecture, and the destruction and resurrection of several fires. Also, the thundering reverb of laughter at those running around drunk in their underpants, shacked at the ankles by pants.

The sole low of the weekend incidentally had nothing to do with the camping whatsoever, and more to do with the fact that the shower was out of commission for a couple of hours when I got home, and I had to wait. Oh noes (!!!1!) indeed.

(Wait, let me rephrase. The sole low of the weekend was having a flamethrower next to my head. That's fucking terrifying.)

On names

2005-06-08T18:56:00.000-06:00

I personally think that December would be a pretty cool given name. It would need a reciprocally cool last name to make the whole think work, but right there you have a pretty good start. In a weirder-than-usual-especially-for-me discussion at lunch today, it came to my attention that an associate of mine wants to name his kids Chaos (or maybe it's Kaos) and Havoc. The third member of our discourse proposed the name Asskhole, a name to be pronounced with a silent K, and which was bizarre enough to make us laugh nearly to the point of tears.

(Really, that name needs to be followed up with the first day of school, the teacher reading attendance, getting the name wrong, and the child putting up their hand and saying "It's s'posed to be pronounced "asshole"!)

Still, truth is stranger than fiction, and while December, Kaos, Havoc and Asskhole probably won't see the light of day on real people, Moxie CrimeFighter Jillette is real, and the daughter of the larger half of Penn and Teller. That kid's on the road to superheroing right from the get-go. I almost envy her.

Shocked and appalled

2005-06-08T18:55:00.001-06:00

Every now and again on the internet, you come across something that defies categorization. Whether it's a guy nearly pulling himself inside out, or just an ordinary news story, every so often you come across something that evokes nearly every emotion.

Reading the Kung Fu Monkey today, I came across something like that. In the words of Rogers, "this story is so weird, so sad, so broken, so goddam terrifying that it's happening in this country in the 21st Century." And he's right.

Here is is. In a word, horrible. The bit that disappoints me most is that I'm reasonably sure that this is not the first news story I've seen about the Texan Abortion Catch-22.

Oh my.

2005-06-08T18:55:00.000-06:00

Some people talk about tests of will, of faith. The idea that God is simply seeing whether or not you are strong enough... for whatever, I suppose. Personally, I think it's really quite silly. What could an omniscient being possibly get out of "testing" us?

Still, it's worth considering when I see things like the Flybar.

When the guy at the bike store first told us about the Flybar, he said "Man, that thing bounces twenty feet!" It doesn't, but I understand why he exaggerated. The Flybar has an amazing Boing Factor. Instead of a standard spring, it uses rubber-like bands which make the bounce feel more like a trampoline and can give you a real workout. It's bulky, but sturdy. You can adjust to handle adult or kid weight. My 13-year-old son saved up for months to buy one and he's never been sorry, because when he takes it to the local park, the little kids stare at him open-mouthed and the big kids try to keep their mouths closed and hide the fact they're staring.

It's taking a lot of willpower to not buy this thing immediately. Just the concept of a pogo-stick that can give a big person such as myself SIX FEET of lift... let's just say that if I were a gal, there would be references to moistened underwear. The sheer potential for the Flybar in terms of fun and mayhem are staggering. I mean, it would be like having a trampoline just about anywhere. The Flybar is all but screaming in my ear, "BUY ME! BUY ME NOW! YOU ARE NOTHING WITHOUT ME!"

Let's be realistic though. Would I really use this thing, or would it be fun for a day or so and then just sit in a closet? Honestly, I don't know. I guess it would depend on whether or not the Flybar is a viable form of transportation or not. If I could really pogo to school, I'd be there faster than you can say "fractured ulna". Even the opportunity to bust it out at parties might make it worth it. And it's not like I haven't spent 300 dollars on sillier things...

If I decide that I should not buy one, my only hope is that my short attention span forgets about the idea, just like I forgot about the kangaroo-boots. Otherwise, the only thing holding me back is having to explain such a purchase to my parents, and that roadblock is only a few months away from evaporating itself. Oh, the tension!

On Trailers

2005-06-07T20:45:00.000-06:00

Happy Endings: I have a hard time figuring out what this one's about, but it doesn't look too bad. Kind of a love rhombus (like a love triangle, but more complicated) involving Maggie Ghyg... Gyggh... Gyll-oh you know who I mean.

Murderball: Documentary about wheelchair rugby, which was not quite what I expected from the title.

The Island: Because if they called it Logan's Run, it would be obvious that they've made an identical movie. Doesn't look that bad though...

Chronicles of Narnia: It's like they took all their visual cues from Jackson's Lord of the Rings, only applied to C.S. Lewis. Provided I can suspend all my fond memories of the BBC series from when I was a kid, and not associate Aslan with Jesus all the time, I should be able to quite enjoy this one. (Unless, of course, it's total modern Disney Suck...)

The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl in 3D: Sometimes I wonder if Robert Rodriguez honestly doesn't know why Hollywood has trouble taking him seriously. For every Sin City or Desperado, there's a Spy Kids or, well, this. However, if there was a summer movie purely designed to be seen while under the influence of psychotropes, this is probably it. Where else will you find a movie where 90% of the "action" is CGI props rushing at your face?

Herbie: Fully Loaded: Reasons to see? Lindsay Lohan and a VW bug that can beat up Matt Dillon. Reasons not to? Probably everything else.

Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit: If you need a reason to see this movie other than just because it's Wallace and Gromit, I'm going to guess that you probably won't think it's all that awesome. For the rest of us who just want to see a penguin with a glove on his head walk around in mechanical trousers, I'll see you at the theater.

The Greatest Game Ever Played: I have no interest in this movie. It's the same as every other bloody sports movie, only with golf this time. I only mention it because it has as much CGI in the trailer as that Shark Boy flick three links back, and I find that to be just plain sad.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith: Angelina Jolie. Lots of guns. I think I've presented all the justification I need to see this one.

Blizzard is a doodyhead.

2005-06-07T19:53:00.000-06:00

Well, not really, but them not being able to keep their BitTorrent tracker server up whilst I attempt to download their mandatory patch for their addictive-like-crack game is starting to rankle me.

The Willowz

2005-06-07T18:56:00.000-06:00

One of the inter-nets radio shows (colloquially known as "podcasts") that I like to listen to on the bus is the Daily Sonic. Every show they do a sort of spotlight on some band that you have most likely (99% chance) never heard of. Crazy bands like the Clogs, or Low, or (aww, you guessed!) the Willowz.

The Willowz are a garage-punk band out of Anaheim that have been around for a few years now and have a couple of albums out there, and I can't recommend their self-titled debut enough. On the 'Sonic, Aaron claimed to not be able to listen to the Willowz while at a computer. Their music has so much energy that it just makes you want to go out and do stuff, he said, and for the most part, he's right. The album is only about 20 minutes long, but it feels more like 5. This isn't such a bad thing, though, because I always find myself listening to it several times in a sitting.

Aaron also said that the Willowz's (how do you pluralize things that end in 'z'?) music was for those that don't care. For those who just let life take them whereever they end up; for those whose idea of a fun time would be getting a mohawk, smoking 10 cigarettes at once while surfing the Big Kahuna with a monkey on a leash and singing at the top of their lungs. The word I would use would be aloof; it's not quite happy, nor is it particularly rebellious, but it has a feeling like the band is just there to have fun and play music, and if shit happens, it happens.

The album is like a little placebo of fun. Each track gets slammed into your ears, rapid-fire shotgun style, from the opening chatter of "Meet Your Demise" and through the boppy "Get Down". While things slow down a little bit halfway through with "I Wonder", the music gradually gets right back up to the speed it started at by the end of the disc, leaving you ready for another go around, like a good rollercoaster.

I picked up this one over at eMusic.com, but I hear tell it's available in dinosaur media as well.

Once upon a time

2005-06-07T18:55:00.000-06:00

...there was a guy. His name was Bruce, and he knew a thing or three about security. One of the things he said was that just because something was secret, doesn't mean it's secure, and just because something's secure doesn't mean it has to be kept under layer after layer of secrecy. In fact, he said that better than I can.

Last time I checked, Mr. Schneier was in no danger of being seriously listened to by The Man. All the things that really need to be kept safe, like voting trails or social security information, are still kept under big, heavy wraps by the guv'mint and there is remarkably little chance of you legally finding out how they're stored or encrypted or anything like that.

In Florida, however, it's starting to be shown that this sort of attitude may not be a good thing. Here's how it is: Bob may have gone drinking, then Bob goes driving, then Bob gets busted. Whether he was in fact drinking, and whether he was rightfully busted is irrelevant. Bob shows up in court, and being the informed citizen he is, gets the idea that maybe if he knew how the breathalyzer that busted him worked, he could defend himself better. The company that makes the breathalyzers, however, doesn't think this is so good. They consider the way that the programs that run their breath machines to be a trade secret, and don't want other folk to know about it. The State of Florida, unable to deliver this key bit of information at the request of the defendant, then dismisses the case.

So here's the question to be asked: is it better to let some companies try to make money off of the stupid and irresponsible actions of others, or should we try to make a more transparent judicial system that allows people to find out just how they got caught? A detective needs to state his or her case about how the clues point to the suspect, and as far as I see it, a breathalyzer is just a computerised detective. Friends of mine have vented to me about those commercials you hear on the radio for legal defense against DUI charges and how much it pisses them off that these no-good scumbag lawyers are putting alcoholics behind the wheel, and to an extent I agree. Drunk driving is not good. I don't care if you down a few at the pub and then go crash into a tree and die--you deserved it--but odds are you're more likely to crash into another car than into a tree, and that puts other, less dumb folk in danger. However, those no-good lawyers have a point: a breathalyzer can be wrong, and the only way to make them better is to be able to take a look at them and see how they work.

I wonder who will be the first anti-DUI group to point at these contractors and say "Your trade secrets cost lives."

Reflections on the moving picture box

2005-06-06T19:11:00.000-06:00

I've been watching a fair bit of television lately, far more than I usually do. Of course, when I say TV, I really mean the programs that air on TV that I either purchase in bulk installments via DVD, or the individual episodes that I download. My tolerance for the broadcast mentality of TV as most people know it is far too low for me to consider waiting for a given time to enjoy a show, especially if it has the added value of sponsored stops in the show every 12 minutes or so.

Firefly is my currently favored fix. It seems that nearly everyone who watches this sucker ends up indoctrinated into the Cult of Whedon, espousing the virtues of crew of Serenity at every chance they get, and I believe I am no exception. It's seriously great stuff, even when measured against "real" television, something that is markedly different from the "it's good for sci-fi" label that usually gets chosen. I would wonder why it got cancelled originally, but then I remember that it was on Fox, a network that seems to alternately cultivate and dismiss quality work, neither for any particular reason. I also recall that the "space cowboy" genre, which seems in my mind totally logical, could also be considered too niche to be forcibly pumped full of money and dragged out onto the airwaves in the same manner that other television programs get produced.

Another gem in my new-found oeuvre is Samurai Jack season two. It's more or less a continuation of all the awesomeness of the first season, and I am greatly enjoying it just like I did that first one. The fact that Mr. Tartakovski has managed to combine the best elements of nearly every niche film genre, in a package that is both suitable for all audiences and immensely stylish, nearly blows my mind. That he can get away with episodes in which the dialogue can be summed up in three or four lines, just takes my blown mind and scatters the pieces even further to the winds, leaving me transfixed in front of the screen. Heartily recommended.

The Office is yet another programme that is sure to keep me captivated. It's labelled as a comedy, and I've heard that there are those who think it's funny, and yet when I watched the pilot, I just sat in a state of total shock and perplexion. It is like one's private window into a lesser circle of Hell. The one they reserve for people who really do live like this. The boss character is such an ass, and the rest of the cast are so neurotic, that I probably would find it quite funny if I weren't so afraid. I suppose this is largely due to the fact that I would literally hang myself by my tie if I were forced to seek employment in such an environment. I am hoping that things get better and that I won't have to worry about shitting myself in terror when I get to later episodes, but I hear that the boss just gets worse and worse. My gut is telling me that this show will be like a scab that bears constant picking to the point of painful insanity, but it is my fingers that do the scratching, and they also control the remote.

Now this is kind of interesting

2005-06-02T19:46:00.000-06:00

I never realized it before, but the original Playstation controller owes a lot to the design of the SNES controller. Likewise, the Xbox is modelled more on the Dreamcast than anything else. I found all this out from the console controller family tree.

If anything else, it's interesting just from a video game history point of view, and it's neat to see how some controllers were clearly inspired from others, and the various dynasties of controller design (Nintendo, Sega, Sony...).

Hammer of God

2005-06-01T20:06:00.000-06:00

The Hammer of God is a novel by Arthur C. Clarke. It's about a giant asteroid that is hurtling towards the Earth, threatening to destroy all. If you took this novel, moved it from the future to the present, added some stars and syringed out any last drop of intelligence, you would have Armageddon.

Do yourself a favor and read Hammer of God instead. It's a million times better and a fairly light read, with at least half of the novel more about conjectures about the future than the plot with the asteroid. Also, Michael Bay is not involved in any sense, and that's ALWAYS a good thing.

Have I plugged the Crimson?

2005-06-01T19:28:00.001-06:00

(Ok, that sounds far dirtier than it probably should.)

The Crimson Editor is one of the software programs I've found via Clean Software. It's a directory chock full of programs for your computer that contain no malware (ie. spyware, adware, all the nasty stuff that sometimes tags along with downloaded software) and they're all free. A number of the items on the site are open-source, but probably just as many are just plain old freeware or shareware.

One such gem is the Crimson Editor, and it's possibly the best text-or-equivalent editor that I've used, with the sole exception of good ol' vim. Since I use a Windows box more than I use Linux though, Crimson makes for a very acceptable substitute to the arcane complexity of Visual Editor Improved.

As far as features go, Crim covers all the bases:

tabbed windows for multple documents,
window splitting,
built-in directory and project browser,
syntax highlighting,
macros.

All the body needs to be able to edit text, code or the like. It even has a few nifty skills that set it apart from the crowd like

FTP functionality,
column marking,
column/"square" highlighting,
and tabs/spaces translation

The editor I would most likely compare it to is UltraEdit-32, which is a bit of a hit with some friends of mine, and the only thing I think that Ultra can do that Crim can't might be SSH, but I'm not even too sure about that one. Still, UE32 requires either monies or skullduggerous cracks or keys to use willy-nilly, whereas Crimson only comes in free flavour.

I've essentially abandoned the use of Office for my personal use, using mainly plaintext* for anything that I need to take down. On Linux, this means the use of vi since I'm a masochist that way, but for Windows, give me Crimson Editor or give me... well, death is kind of harsh. Notepad, I suppose. Ick.

-------------------------------
* There isn't really any such thing as plain text on a computer. One way or another it needs to be encoded, and while ASCII is sometimes the result, it's not always. Just because it looks like unformatted letters doesn't mean it isn't marked up in cryptic Unicode or something. But this is really just a formality--I don't know how to use Asian characters or the Cyrillic alphabet, so ASCII is more than enough for a whitey like me.

So Star Wars has been and gone

2005-05-31T19:30:00.000-06:00

Whatever it was, and whatever it might still be, one can argue that Star Wars is finished now, for all intents and purposes. If you haven't seen Episode III by now, you are likely not a fan of Star Wars, and if you do go see it, it will likely because it's the least sucky film playing at the moment, or because you just feel like you should yet don't really care either way.

Now that we have finished the 30-year journey across probably 11 hours of cinema, we can look back and reflect on Star Wars as a whole. (Expanded Universe notwithstanding--you know, all the books and stuff that got extruded out of the Lucas Machine ever since 1977? Yeah, there are people who take it all seriously and it's been evolved into this massive, uber-continuity where lonely nerds go to great lengths to make sure all the causality is reinforced and that you don't wind up with things like Luke's uncle and aunt not recognizing R2 and C3P0 in New Hope when they clearly knew about them in Clones. Wait a second... For more about continuity, go HERE!)

But I both digress and perpetuate negative stereotypes at the same time. With all the hubbub about the "new" trilogy being complete, I thought it would be neat to go back and see the "original" trilogy and see if it really was all that. I haven't seen them in many years, after all.

Then I realized I had other things to do. Like make my way through Firefly and Samurai Jack Season 2, both of which kick your ass. Still the idea has merit, and after reading the review of Sith from the guy who made Parking Lot, I just might go ahead. Through that, I found the 50 Reasons Why Return Of The Jedi Sucks.

Go read it. I dare you. ESPECIALLY if you think that RotJ wasn't that bad, because those 50 reasons are all valid, although only for the original versions. Give the guy a break, he wrote it five years ago.

16. Unforgivable Dialogue
Threepio approaching Jabba's palace: "I have a bad feeling about this."

Han Solo, when confronted by Ewoks: "I have a bad feeling about this."

Leia, after releasing Solo from carbon freeze: "I gotta get you outta here."

Leia, after being freed from Jabba's chains: "We gotta get outta here."

Leia, after she and an Ewok are ambushed on Endor: "Let's get outta here."

With dialogue like this, it seems Lucas finally put that "million monkeys at a million typewriters" theory to the test.

Or,

5. Painful Lack of Innovation
When it comes to scavenging, Lucas could teach even the Jawas a thing or two. Jedi borrows from Wars on levels ranging from conceptual to minute. There's another opening scene with a Star Destroyer (though this time it isn't even permitted to finish its awesome crawl across the top of the screen). There's another Imperial stronghold to infiltrate, and another energy beam to turn off. And of course, there's another Death Star to blow up for the film's climax (though at least the Emperor had enough brains to plug up that pesky exhaust port).

Most of the creatures and droids seen on Tatooine in Wars make background appearances in Jabba's court-even Greedo's alive and well! (Okay, maybe it's a different Rodian. They all look the same to us.) Finally, little thought seems to have been given to developing or maturing any of the main characters in a realistic manner. Han and Threepio suffer most, coming across as catchphrase-spouting caricatures of their previous selves.

One can make the same lack of innovation comment about the sets and locations, as is mentioned in reason #8. In short, he's right.

Granted, some of these were fixed with the Special Editions, such as the Rancor fuzz, but the Special Edition/Original Edition debate is just a whole other ball of wax.

With all this in mind, I think this weekend might be a nice time to go back and watch A New Hope and Empire. I may just skip Jedi though...

Oh, and what did I think of Episode III? Basically the same thing most people think: as a Star Wars movie, it wasn't bad and certainly tops the first two. As cinema in general however, I only offer this as an answer.

Anger rising

2005-05-27T20:39:00.000-06:00

This pisses me the fuck off. From an open letter to the almighty POTUS regarding the United States' actions in Columbia to stop the cocaine trade:

I work for a French NGO , "Tchendukua" whose goal is to recuperate land for the Kogi Indians living in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in Colombia.

In 2000 we bought, La Luna, a land, with access to the sea, It was the first time since the Spanish invasion, the Kogis had a low land. They where so happy, full of hope.

At the end of June 2004, La Luna became an " Indigenous Reserve" , a protected area...

The Sierra is also one of the UNESCO's "Biosphere Reserves". Fifteen days later, on July 17th, a plane from Dyncorp passed only once to fumigate La Luna. That was enough to provoke a complete disaster. Some days ago, I saw the rushes of a second movie we have made on the Kogis. Now, La Luna is like some places in Asia after the tsunami... I could not believe it.

I'm all for taking down coke cartels. They are like despots, only can't be bothered to draw official country borders. This does not excuse the wanton destruction of land that is both protected and known to not have any drugs in it. The Dutch paid to have La Luna cleared of coca by hand. Forgive me for thinking that a search done by hand and with people might be more reliable than a blanket passover with noxious chemicals.

Condolezza Rice wants Colombia to change its laws and spray in National Parks such as La Macarena, El Catatumbo, La Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, etc... To achieve that dirty job, a new aerial base for fumigation planes will be build, $125 million.

The fumigation of La Luna on July 17th 2004 was completely illegal.

In the Sierra, Kogis, Arsarios-Wiwas, Kankuamos and Arhuacos are starting to have health problems , especially children (see notes-page 14).

In Vietnam, after 45 years, Agent Orange is still active. The new poison cocktail is called Agent Green. If you take the ingredients one by one, it doesn't seem so dangerous. If you mix them, highly concentrated, it is a terrible weapon. The mixture is made with Monsanto Round Up Ultra, Cosmoflux 411F (illegal in the US), POEA and fusarium oxysporum EN-4.

And of course, we all know how awesome-tacular Agent Orange was. Hooray for chemically induced illness.

I just hope that it doesn't take the death of a culture to send a message and I sincerely hope that if that message gets sent, it doesn't fall onto deaf ears.

BLING.

2005-05-27T19:08:00.000-06:00

I thought the blingy-est thing I have ever seen was possibly the PimpSP. Alas, I should have never thought the internet wouldn't outdo itself.

Because, y'know, nothing spells L-O-V-E like a titanium, jewel-encrusted dildo.

The Yeti and I agree

2005-05-26T18:56:00.000-06:00

Or at least, I agree with him, since the total sum of any relationship between myself and Matt Baldwin is limited to my reading his website. This doesn't quite make me a "special fan" or anything like that. Still, I found myself nodding during his review of Hitchhiker's Guide. Nodding... a little TOO MUCH! Basically, I got a similar impression: yes, they left a lot out of or changed stuff from the books, but it just wouldn't work if they did a literal translation.

I remembered reading [the book] when the line "I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them" cropped up in the film. But instead of thinking "They've ruined a classic!' I found myself musing, "well, yeah -- the other way probably would have been too long." Blasphemy I know.

Which isn't to say that Hitchhiker's trademark silliness is completely missing -- it's there, but watered down and spread out. The movie intersperses bits from the book -- scenes lifted directly from the pages, guide entries, etc. -- with traditional motion picture fare, like action sequences and muted bits of exposition. It's as if they decided to just split the difference between Hitchhiker's outlandishness and Hollywood's reluctance to think outside the proverbial box. Granted, Hollywood gets the upper hand by the end, but up until then it works pretty well.

The acronym OMFG just isn't enough

2005-05-25T23:02:00.000-06:00

I think I've mentioned Spore, the new game Will Wright is making. In a word, it's SimEverything, and I want it so very, very badly. I did not know, however, just how badly this want is, until I saw the video of the demo.

Yes, registration is required, but trust me when I say that words are not enough to describe this game. You must see it to believe. Go now, and bow prostrate before the temple of Wright and his unholy game-making skills. Let this video be a warning for the pwning that this game will deliver unto you.

Remember the Citroen?

2005-05-25T18:59:00.000-06:00

Step 1: Remember how cool Transformers are.

Step 2: If having not done so already, check out the Transformer Citroen.

Step 3: Tear eyes away from awesomely fantastic dancing car.

Step 4: Check out cool parody/tribute/homage using a junker Citroen.

GRRRRRRGLGLRLGRRRLGLLLGGLRRRR!

2005-05-25T18:51:00.000-06:00

If I were a murloc, I would probably say that to you as a greeting. Of course, if I were a murloc, I would also be one of the most annoying monsters in a videogame ever. Ever. I cannot stress enough how much anger those bloody fishmen have caused me. Yeargh.

Still, the reason for this post is that there is not one, but DEUCE new podcasts for some listening enjoyment. I had originally planned for these puppies to be in time for Star Wars, on account of the Light/Dark sides of the Force and stuff. That idea rather fizzled, and I lay most of the blame on myself for deciding that the fun-but-still-a-little-tedious podcasting thing would be pre-empted in lieu of the always-amazing-all-the-time World of Warcraft. I seriously have no idea how some people can put that game on their computers at work and still do things that are for the company and not for their character. If I had WoW at work, I would be fired for not doing my job so many times over, my head would be spinning in true Blairsian motion. That is a term I just made up.

So yes: MUSIQUE!

Now this is a commercial

2005-05-25T18:46:00.000-06:00

Advertisers tend to perpetuate the trend that they are lacking in Clue. The news I follow is constantly full to the brim about ad agencies that just don't understand that we are not captive audiences anymore, and that they will need to do something spectacular to get us to watch commercials. Anyone with a TiVo or VCR will fast-forward without any hesitation whatsoever, but will gladly pay to go see the Cannes Best Of Commercials show in the theater. The reason for this is that the Cannes ones are GOOD.

One of the commercials that hit big in the Cannes feature was the series for the Orange phone thing. I don't quite get what the product is, but I'm reasonably sure it's either a mobile phone or a cell carrier. Still, they were pretty good, with Spike Jonze, Carrie Fisher and Ron Schneider making appearances.

This one is Darth Vader, and man oh man is it great. I watched it twice in a row.

On Expositions Entertaining and Electronic.

2005-05-25T18:09:00.000-06:00

E3 has been and gone for another year. As far as they go, this one was high on speculation and hype, and a little less on substance worthy of satiating one's gaming appetite. As far as gaming goes, there are a few gems that I'm looking forward to, notably Shadow of the Colossus, Spore and Prince of Persia 3, among others. Hopefully at least a few of these will be good, and we'll have yet another holiday game release frenzy that is totally awesome, yet mind-boggling in its enormity.

Still, all the focus for this E3 was on the new consoles. Microsoft has clearly decided to grab the bull by both the horns AND the balls, whole-handedly, with an iron gauntlet. They were the only ones with a console worth showing, and with software representative of what this new console will be doing. Sony managed to try and get some hype going with their picture of what the new PlayStation will look like, and that whole Killzone 2 attempt was nice, but totally lame once it got out that the video was pre-rendered. Nintendo managed to mumble something about revolutions and old games off to themselves in the corner, but nobody much took anything they did that didn't start with a Z- and end with -elda too seriously. (Oh, there was something about Nintendogs, but... no. Just no.)

It might sound like I'm firmly in the Microsoft camp when it comes to the new generation of games, and that probably sounds about right. They will be the first out the gate, and they have the best offering to date. Essentially, the ludicrously-named Xbox 360 will be a bizarre media PC/console hybrid, like the strange lovechild results of tech-geek slashfic. I mean, wireless internet, movies, music (with a nice light synthesizer) AND both new and backwards-compatible games? You sir, have something worthy of praise.

Sony's trumpeting about their teraflops is a concept too nebulous for me to grasp, not knowing quite what a single flop is, let alone a trillion of them. They're just now saying that they too will be a media center like the Xbox, but I see this as a last-ditch effort to scream out "Hey don't forget me! I made gaming cool back in the day!"

Nintendo is essentially not even an option for me. Yes, their backcatalogue of games for download sounds good, but I barely have time for the new games, let alone the ones from the days of yore that were either not good enough to catch my attention the first time, or that I have already played. That bit about the revolutionary open development thing, equally conductive to big developers or indies with only a big idea? That hope has been dashed on the rocks, thanks to a re-assessment of the vibe at the press conference, as well as a sober look at the N's past history with 3rd party developers.

So. Until something new comes out to blast Bill's box from the sky, Red Baron-style, I am firmly a Microserf when it comes to the next-generation games. Yes, I am most definitely perpetuating the downward, stagnating spiral that is threatening to choke the life out of the gaming industry, but I don't much care. If a revolution happens to videogames, it will come on the PC, riding like Gandalf at the end of the Two Towers, iridescent light shimmering from the horizon, but that's most definitely a wholely different rant.

Nintendo Revolutiona-wha?

2005-05-18T18:36:00.000-06:00

So the Big N has dropped their bomb as to what is going to make their new system "revolutionary". First of all, this is what it looks like:

Basically, it's a tiny box. I like this, since it's unobtrusive, and the smaller the form factor, the more interesting places you can put it. Just look at what happened to the Mac Mini.

The revolution, however, is apparantly in the ability to play old games.

Eschewing the company's previous business ideas, the Revolution will be online-friendly and will support a broadband gaming service similar to that of Microsoft's Xbox Live. Its most significant contribution to online gaming will be the ability to download Nintendo's entire catalog of NES, SNES, and Nintendo 64 console games. As for GameCube titles, they have the potential to be downloadable, though it's not clear whether the games will be saved to storage devices or memory cards.

Based on the reaction I've seen, a lot of people are going to be stoked about this, and I don't know why. This is not anything new--I was able to play SNES games on my Dreamcast for chrissake! While I think that Nintendo is definitely doing something great with this, I would hardly call the ability to play 20-year-old games "revolutionary", and I sincerely hope Nintendo has more up their sleeve, or they're going to be dead in the water when the next round of consoles and games show up.

So to recap, the Nintendo Revolution has:

20 years worth of games
a nice, small package
wireless controllers
broadband support

It does not have:

anything to make it more desirable than the competition, other than games you've already played

Once again, Nintendo is falling back on the "Hey! We're Nintendo! Anything we make is super-awesome!" platform, which is only delaying the inevitable. Yes, they have history, and yes, they do make a good game every year or so. I have nothing against Nintendo that way, but unless they can come up with something truly revolutionary, I suspect they'll be walking the same path Sega walked before long.

Don't Panic!

2005-05-18T18:33:00.000-06:00

(I was planning on posting this on the 16th, but I didn't. So here it is now.)

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a movie that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike the material upon which it is based. This is not a bad thing for two reasons. First, a literal translation of the novels or radio series to film would simply not work. Both sources are too tangential, a tad aimless, and undeniably British, and these are qualities that work counter to the format of North American cinema. Second, every fan of the Hitchhiker's Guide already has a version of the film in their heads, and trying to outdo that version would simply fail--this is true of any adaptation anywhere.

With that in mind, (ie. knowing that what you will see in the theaters will not be expected) you would do well to go see the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy right quick, since it happens to be a very good movie. It both contains all the essential bits of the story for those that haven't any prior knowledge about it, but at the same time, contains all kinds of little in-jokes and references to the books, mini-series and radio series which I just dig so much. For example, the music played during the very first Guide scene is the theme from the radio series. Whenever Ford swears in the film, he utters the word "Belgium". Zaphod's psychologist showing up on a background display with his line, "Zaphod's just zis guy, you know?" The mention of the Restaurant at the End of the Universe.

Sure, they changed a bunch of things for the film. Some of the changes are good. I found Sam Rockwell's "lunatic cowboy" portrayal of Zaphod to be a nice change from the "self-absorbed beatnik" that always shows up in British dramatizations. The Arthur/Trillian plot was played up, but not enough to detract from the film, and the Vogons got more screen time, since it's a movie--you need a villain. (Same reason why Saruman got a bigger part of the Lord of the Rings films.) At the same time, some changes I thought were a little half-baked. While I think it was a nice addition to the story, allowing the core plot of the first book to fill the movie, the whole John Malkovich/Zaphod's head thing didn't really go anywhere. Also, while the Vogons are interesting, they aren't quite enough to be the main villain--I think the Krikkits would have been much better, but they also require far more setup to make threatening, which would have further detracted from the plot.

All things considered, as an adaptation of a series with a fanbase bordering on Sci-Fi Fanatics, the film of the Hitchhiker's Guide is very well done. It doesn't cover everything in the Guide, but it covers enough and it does so well.

I saw this a while ago, but didn't blog it.

2005-05-17T22:35:00.000-06:00

I don't know why, because this is SO COOL. The Khronos Projector is basically a way of manipulating video in the 4th dimension.

The Khronos Projector is an interactive-art installation allowing people to explore pre-recorded movie content in an entirely new way. A classic video-tape allows a simple control of the reproducing process (stop, backward, forward, and elementary control on the reproduction speed). Modern digital players add little more than the possibility to perform random temporal jumps between image frames. The goal of the Khronos Projector is to go beyond these forms of exclusive temporal control, by giving the user an entirely new dimension to play with: by touching the projection screen, the user is able to send parts of the image forward or backwards in time.

Simply put, you fast forward or rewind different parts of the video in different places, allowing one corner to be at the end of the clip, while the rest is still showing the first frame. There's some stuff about a time cube as well, but it's not what you think. Watch the video--it explains all.