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End of Class

2011-04-08T19:44:00.005-04:00

My program rapped up our course-work this week with a five and a half hour marathon of essay workshopping. Knowing the limits of our attention and being profoundly immature, some of us had a cocktail hour before,(discreetly) during and after class. It turned out to be one of the Bluth's better parties.

New York

2011-03-08T20:22:00.005-05:00

I have some time today because my Prof. is accepting an award for her book. Advantage: lazyness. Here are what few pics I took from our trip to the windy apple. Pictured: A cat that lives in a bar; an au bon pain which was the only way to get inside the Seagram Building; 5 Points street art space; Brooklyn Flea Market in an old bank; the apartment we stayed in. Not pictured: wandering into the Marcy Projects (wasn't bad at all, right next to the Satmar Hasidic Jewish neighborhood); S'Mac, the mac & cheese pop-up restaurant; this girl I bought a blanket from; many bars; and so forth.

Here's a link if the flash thing is broke.

Mashed Potato Mashers

2011-02-17T20:47:00.002-05:00

(caution video is a little loud) I was at a great little basement bar called the Manx when this dude walked in with a tuba. We all wondered what was going on. Turns out he was a member of a local band called the Mashed Potato Mashers. They are made up of a dude on snare and various perc, a dude on base drum, and a bunch of horns. Every member can get up and walk with their instruments, and at one point they paraded around the bar. I would describe them as dixieland jazz marching band, but I have no idea what I'm talking about. They are super-energetic and a ton of fun. I think it might be the perfect drinking music.

Seeds

2011-02-13T22:13:00.003-05:00

As I was bragging to Sockboy earlier, the local record dude sold me a copy of the new Hey Rosetta album today, even though it apparently isn't supposed to come out until Tuesday. I got turned on to the band when we went to see them in Burlington last summer. It poured rain and we had to put our smartphones in a shoe. It was a great day. Normally I would buy off itunes, but I'm glad I didn't this time, cuz look! The album comes with a homemade square of paper impregnated with seeds. An enclosed piece of paper says they are carrots, nasturtium and rapeseeds (!). It also says I should plant them, "outdoors in late spring, on a warm, windless day." But, I've got a south facing window and I'm going to try to grow them indoors. The only trick will be finding soil. It's all froze here.

Dan Savage

2011-02-05T10:49:00.002-05:00

Sex columnist and inventor of the t-shirt, Dav Savage came to Carleton this week. He wasn't on a tour or anything, our LGBTQ (don't ask me why they have the Q) association asked him out and he said yes! He did a talk on the It Gets Better campaign, which is a place where adults from the LGBT community can post open messages to kids who are suffering bullying and discrimination at school and at home. I think he said the channel on Youtube has received 40million watches so far. His talk had some pretty sad content, but he kept the mood light. One good point he brought up was the insanity of Ontario's public funding for religious school; this was brought on by this story about how the Halton school board banned Gay-Straight alliance clubs. He also answered questions, and we had two pretty awesome ones, which I will not repeat here.

Skating to School

2011-01-29T00:23:00.003-05:00

I've been wanting to skate to school so I can brag to people about it. As it turns out the only reasonable route I could take involves me crossing the 50ft width of the canal on my skates. So one morning this week I decided to skate to get coffee and then skate to school. Looking at a map, the circuity of my route was pretty absurd.

Skate City

2011-01-13T22:08:00.004-05:00

Skating is everywhere in this city! Every community center and school sets up their own outdoor rinks with boards, and the canal is almost open end to end. You'd think a town that loves skating so much would have a better hockey team. Night skating on the canal is a riot. I got me some cheap-o used skates and I've already been out twice. Also, there is a Beavertail wagon on the ice, about five minutes from my house.

Poutinzza!

2010-12-09T21:18:00.006-05:00

I had heard from a friend about a mythical food native to Ottawa called Poutinzza. Details were fuzzy, but I imaged it was some sort of fries-gravy-cheese on a crust arrangement. Sadly, it turns out that there is no such thing. The rumours are based on a menu item at a pizza place called Sorrento's, where you can get gravy on top of a normal slice of Pizza. The Poutinzza still sounded like a good idea to me, so I set out to make it myself. For a crust I made a simple Latke by frying grated potatoes with a little flour and egg. I refrigerated the Latke then brought it to a potluck, where I added some cheese and threw it in the oven. At the same time I heated up the gravy. I poured the gravy over top of the cheese right before serving. An all-drunk jury found the results to be fucking awesome, however I will need to feed it to someone sober some day to be sure.

Pumpkin Day

2010-11-09T00:01:00.009-05:00

Apparently they don't celebrate Halloween in Ottawa, only Pumpkin day. In observance of the holiday, we carved pumpkins. I started with a picture of Tom Sellek with his hair shopped so it was on his chin. I made it all contrasty, printed it, taped it to the pumpkin and started making orientation marks... then I started drinking. As you can seen, my pumpkin was shamed by it's contemporaries. The one good thing to come of my design was a pumpkin mustache, which sits in my fridge to this day.

Already?

2010-10-31T10:13:00.003-04:00

It was pretty last night, but it's all slushy and miserable today.

Pics of My Place

2010-10-23T19:16:00.003-04:00

Here are some pictures I took back when it was warm. It snowed for a minute last night.

Angery Frankaphony

2010-01-25T19:54:00.003-05:00

I was browsing street view and came across this little gem in Montreal on a road that had construction. I've shaken my fist in the car before, but I've never leaned out the window like that. Classic.

New Kitteh

2009-12-20T12:27:00.004-05:00

This is .Com. She came from a farm; she's like, six or eight weeks old. She never stops playing and she is a very studious poop-coverer, sometimes taking five whole minutes to bury it. Today she crawled onto my bed and she still had litter between her toes. I was angry.

I GOT BLISTERS ON MY FINGERS

2009-09-14T22:11:00.001-04:00

Latenight CBC Watching

2009-07-12T16:44:00.003-04:00

In an act of desperation I watched a bit of National Lampoon's American Vacation last night on CBC. If your not familiar with the movie, it is part of a series starring Chevy Chase and Beverly Diangelo. Each time the family goes on some sort of ill-conceived vacation and everything goes wrong, except in Christmas Vacation where they stay home, if you've seen one that'd probably the one you've seen. The parents are always played by the same actors, but the kids have to change because they get old. Case in point: the above picture. Who's that? That's right! It's Jenna from 30 Rock. She looks exactly the same. If anything her goofy creepiness in 30 rock was a more latent, and thus compounded, creepiness in her teenage years.

Grosssssss

2009-05-19T15:44:00.004-04:00

We were talking about beards last week and it occurred to me that I never posted the pic of my face I took after two weeks sans-razor. Well here it is... in all its nauseating detail. I am not beard material.

Dark was the Night

2009-05-06T13:51:00.002-04:00

I've been an enthusiastic Radio 3 podcast listener for a while but I've been listening to a lot of their live stream lately. Last week I heard, among others, a new Arcade Fire and a new New Pornographers song. I was reasonably sure neither of these bands had new albums as such things are usually accompanied by a bit of fan fair. It turns out that these new songs were from a benefit compilation called Dark was the Night. The album benefits AIDS, or more likely, benefits the fight against AIDS, or something... but really, who cares. The album has quite a spectacular lineup of original works from a staggering catalog of artists. This Sufjan Steven's song really stuck out, it's a cover of his lable mate Castanets, it is unlike anything he's done before. If his future albums sound like this I will be quite enthused. And although I am loath to publicly proffess my love for Arcade Fire, thier perviously unrealesed Lenin is as good as thier best album work in my opinion.

The 31 track album is 12 bucks on itunes. Go get it.

Demigod

2009-04-27T22:38:00.006-04:00

I was doing some spring cleaning today and I came across my wired hub. "We haven't Lan'd in like forever," I said to myself. Then I thought about Demigod and how perfect it would be for a Lan. It has no DRM so it Lan's like a champ and it's super fun! I've never been a big RPG fan but the arena style and RTS elements make it entertaining, and the models and effects are super detailed so there's lots of visual reward. It may seem like the visuals are a little derivative, but I like it because it takes stuff from so many arbitrary genres. The base unit is a minotaur with a hammer and it only gets crazier from there. Whereas an RTS would try (and fail) to engross you in some grandiose narrative, this game throws tons of random shit into an area and says "there, now go at it." If you are thinking this sounds like that LOTR game (can't be bothered to look up its name), its not. It's more like Diablo meet Battlefield.

One word of caution: if you try to play this game, give it a few plays before you pass judgment. There's no tutorial and if your like me you won't know the standard RPG way of doing things, but like an RTS, half the fun is learning how things work and coming up with little tricks to tip the scales.

So.... Lan?

Jon Stewart Knows His Stuff

2009-04-22T20:47:00.005-04:00

When I saw this I thought Stewart was using the term incorrectly, "I'm not sure the Jolly Green giant's got the balls to teabag the Whitehouse." The way he describes it, it sounds to me like the Jolly Green giant is the Teabagee, not the Teabagger. But it turns out he knew what he was talking about, Dan Savage clarified things in this week's advice column:

I thought I knew what teabagging meant: to dip a man's testicles in and out of your mouth. But during a recent conversation about the Republican teabagging craze, my boyfriend told me that teabagging meant to put your balls into someone else's mouth. A person without balls, he insists, can't do the teabagging. But many women I know think they are the teabagger and their partner is the one being teabagged. So, Dan, I'm asking you—as an expert on all things political and sexual—do hetero females have a chance of teabagging President Obama? Don't get me wrong: I want to teabag the president for all the right reasons. I'm a supporter. I just want in on any activity that involves Obama's balls in my mouth.

The Earnest Aspirant

Let's say you were in the West Wing with Barack Obama's sack resting comfortably in your mouth. Perhaps you had done something meritorious—defeated the Somalian pirates, sworn in Senator Al Franken—and you were being awarded the Presidential Wattle of Freedom. The New York Times might report, "The president of the United States and a Savage Love reader were spotted 'teabagging' in the Oval Office today."

But while you can teabag with the president, TEA, you don't have what it takes to administer a teabagging to the president. A teabagger dips sack; a teabaggee receives dipped sack. It's a little confusing, I realize, in that it's the opposite of a blowjob: The person with a dick in his or her mouth is giving the blowjob; the person being sucked is receiving the blowjob. But language is funny that way.

There's Two New Ones!

2009-04-11T13:18:00.001-04:00

People do this?

2009-04-08T15:51:00.004-04:00

So I'm taking a pee the other day...
As I'm standing at the urinal this guy walks into a stall, audibly unzips and sits down, then proceeds to call someone on his cell phone. I couldn't help but stand and eavesdrop in utter disbelief. His first words were "hey, what are doing?" His conversation wasn't "can you come get me, I'm stuck to the seat," or, "I've shat myself, bring me a new pair of trousers," he was just calling to talk!

I though this was blog-worthy.

30 Rock

2009-03-13T21:42:00.003-04:00

Of Course!

2009-03-02T22:34:00.004-05:00

When I brought my Xbox Hardrive over to the Sock's house we tried to do a surrogate update to the new dashboard. It did not pan out. Today I found out that that update also included the addition of 1680x1050 resolution (my 22inch's native res) for people with VGA adapters. I said to myself: I must have this update. And guess what! Xbox.com serves up the update for downloading and burning here! Yet again, all the ban has succeeded in doing is preventing me from spending money on DLC. Check out my avatar; he has gloves cuz he likes to drive, and a mustache because he's a gentleman.

Beatrice!

2009-02-25T12:48:00.002-05:00

I Know I'm not alone in this opinion, but I would like to join my voice to the chorus: this is the stupidest thing ever.

Can someone tell me how to do this?

2009-02-23T21:51:00.003-05:00

Down, Away-Down, Away + Kick in midair

Doesn't sound that hard does it? Why the hell can't I do it? And how do you do two consecutive quarter circles for your ultra move? They should have a bloody tutorial. Why does everyone love this game so much? It's bloody impossible.

Wankers!

2009-02-03T12:59:00.001-05:00

Holiday Break Video

2009-01-09T22:54:00.004-05:00

Last year the biggest holiday surprise and the best holiday time-waster were one in the same: RockBand. We loved it so much we made a video about it. This year the biggest surprise was my Mom buying my Nephew a Nerf Vulcan. If your not familiar with the toy, it's the Nerf approximation of a heavy machine gun that runs on six D-cell batteries. The biggest time-waster was not the gun this year but Fallout 3, so we decided to fuse the two together and make another video with what was left of our free time. You might not get the Fallout V.A.T.S.
reference but seeing my sister get hit in the face is a joke that needs no explanation.

Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin'?

2008-12-26T18:24:00.003-05:00

I just discovered these guys and I think they are fantastic. They are a brother and sister team who make bloggy web 2.0 videos in their house. I realize I'm probably the last person to find out about them because they are hilarious and funny tends to spread quickly on the internets, but if you haven't seen them you need to watch this video, then go here and watch all the other ones. No offense to my own family, but I want to go live with these people.

Balloon Trip

2008-12-07T01:51:00.004-05:00

I thought this was pretty great. The rhythm is excellent. I love the way the horizontal motion of Balloon Fight propels things. I think this guy's view has more to do with the experience of late capitalism (small wonder the 8bit game is such a discreet commodity) than existentialism though. You'd think he's fighting in the French resistance the way he talks.

Game face

2008-11-22T16:34:00.004-05:00

Here is a link to an NYtimes video made by a fellow named Robbie Cooper who recorded kid's faces wile playing games. They played games like GTA 4, Hulk, COD 4 (you can hear it), Star Wars Battlefront, Tekken: Dark Resurrection... seems like a rather arbitrary list. The project stinks of the superficial reactionary tone that we've all grown so tired of, but some of the images are really hypnotic. But, why was that boy crying wile playing Hulk? Is he sad because he can't afford a next-gen console?

Thwomp and Shyguy

2008-11-14T23:17:00.004-05:00

In an effort to generate ever-so-slightly less waste I bought a travel mug for my Starbucks. This particual mug lets you put your own images in behind a layer of clear plastic. I think they figure you will put pictures of your kids and not copyrighted images. Ha! I used my newly rediscovered Wacom tablet to draw a picture of a Thwomp and a Shyguy having coffee to put in my new mug. I want to give them dialog captions but I can't think of anything. I am asking my numerous blog patrons to come up with something funny.

The Dears are dears.

2008-11-12T16:23:00.005-05:00

'Member when record companies and retail stores developed the genius tactic of guilting people into buying stuff instead of downloading? It always seemed mean spirited and a bit disingenuous coming from cooperations that would set their employees on fire if it would expand their profit margin (I don't see how it would, but marketing was crazy back then). Well here's something I like better. The Dears' mail robot sent me this letter today

Dear Jordan,

We appreciate your patronage to the art that we are trying to deliver to you. Without you, there is hardly a "The Dears." Your support goes into the making of more art and helps us to focus on only that. It is a wonderful life that you give us and we work hard to return it to you. We will never stop. The music is still coming in and we will continue to deliver it to you until the end of time.

Yours Forever,
The Dears

How fantastic and hilarious is that? If all bands were like this I would buy a lot more albums... I probably should regardless.

Wacom Tablet

2008-11-10T22:42:00.004-05:00

Years ago when I had more free time than brains I purchased a Wacom tablet. Oh it is a neat toy and all but it doesn't exactly have daily applications. It has been sitting in my closet for quite some time. Cole needed some help with a project and I saw an opportunity to bring it out of retirement. I was surprised to find that Wacom had developed fancy new software for its Vista drivers. They have a writing recognition app that waits in the wings and can be called upon to fill any text field. It's cool that they update their old gear's software, but this app quickly drove me off the deep end. As I tried to write a simple "K" it registered the following things in succession: E, T, B, *, B, (the British Pound symbol), T, T and T. After a lot of trial and error I found that it only recognizes cursive script. Soon after I realised that I don't remember how to write in cursive script. Is that not the stupidest most archaic way of communicating? Look at the "Z" what the hell is that? And why would I want to write something using the tablet when I have a perfectly good keyboard? Was this designed for people that couldn't afford a keyboard after they bought their tablet, then went into BIOS to disable the keyboard boot check? Maybe if you bought fewer stupid toys you could have afforded a keyboard you silly twit. I had originally planned to write this post with the tablet but gave up, so instead I will only write the last sentence: My Wacom Tablet is going back in the closet. (the one time I want it to fail and it works perfectly, seriously)

Relegation Shmelegation

2008-11-02T11:40:00.002-05:00

You may have noticed I haven't talked about English footie much this year. Well that's because my team had not won a single game. A team that was top-four and full of good players a few years ago had descended to the very bottom of the table this year. Today they played the very top (and undefeated) team Liverpool. One would think the outcome to be pretty predictable, but no! but no! Tottenham won 2-1! That one win catapulted them to 3rd last and knocked the reds out of the top spot. Wile we may not Berbatov, Kean or Dafoe anymore, at least we appear to have a half-decent coach.

Election Fever!

2008-10-27T23:42:00.004-04:00

Here's an article on why Al Qaeda want's McCain to win next Tuesday. Sounds a bit over-partisan at first (well lets face it, it is partisan) but Kristof has good sources. The weak point is the "password protected Islamist web site." That could mean just about anything.
What his White House sources say about possible election-related attacks leading up to the elections lends credence to the theory that the Al Qaeda broadcast before the last election was carfully timed for Bush to get the Al Qaeda bump.

Op-Ed Columnist

The Endorsement From Hell

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Published: October 26, 2008

World of Goo

2008-10-20T20:38:00.002-04:00

World of Goo Gameplay Trailer
Uploaded by 2dboy

Have you been looking forward to World of Goo on Virtual Console? Me too! So imagine my surprise when I found out there is a PC Demo available. Go and get it right now! Don't even bother to keep reading. This game is a holy marriage of two of my favorite classic games: Lemmings and Pontifex. Off-beat cartoon humor meets bridge building; what could go wrong? If you haven't played Pontifex don't try to go to their developer's website because their server no longer seems to exist (I only tried once so maybe it's down today, but more likely everyone has already forgotten about Pontifex). Here is a link to a demo download if you want to see what the fuss is about.

Seriously?

2008-10-18T21:53:00.006-04:00

The reason I like Mercenaries 2:
This game is supposed to be political... well OK, if not political than at least topical. It's just like COD4 and Army of 2. But in those games you do what you are told and kill people and work for the bad guys. In Mercs 2 you work for yourself, no one tells you what to do. Even better the game is unpolished and terrible to play. But that's bad right? Making the right thumb both aim and accelerate; giving you super-health in exploding cars; constant clipping errors and stupid AI ruining your missions; your dude yelling "aaaaa I need a parachute" when exiting a landed helicopter, that stuff is bad right? This stuff happens because you are in a space where stupid shit happens, it's random and frustrating, but so is the world it claims to portray. In this game you kill people, but you have critical distance. You see the structure and you see its absurdity. There is no narration like in the other games, and even better, there is a logic that is obtuse and ridiculous.

COD4: Defend the house. Get the rocket launcher. Shoot the tank. Move to next objective. Why? Because that is what you do.

Mercs 2: Pick a task to earn money. Smash your jeep into a tank and wait for it to explode. Fly through the air in perfect health. Stand beside your target, choose artillery strike, drop smoke, run away, all while getting shot like crazy.

In Mercs you see the structure that is dictating your actions, and your actions are based on the arbitrary rules of the game. The game is just as incompressible as the politics it portrays. You understand the people and the rules as complete abstractions. There are Jamaican pirates in Venezuela for crying out loud! I plowed straight through a slum in an tank for christsake! I think this game articulates the American individual's relationship to world politics perfectly.

Snorg Tees

2008-10-09T23:15:00.002-04:00

Is anyone fucking buying these things? Seriously.

Posting

2008-10-09T23:13:00.000-04:00

I was heartened by the fact that some of you have kept me on your rss readers. I will try to post occasionally from now on.

Neko wa doko desu ka?

2008-10-08T13:17:00.002-04:00

"What? a new post? I thought you stopped doing that." Guess what, I'm writing essays and I need to procrastinate.

I discovered today a remarkable thing. I thought my good friends The Sockboys were the only people in the world to name their cat "Neko" (Japanese for Cat) and then refered to their cat as Neeko (Japanese for cats I hate). Turns out there is at least one more person in the world who does this. I found this person on a blog called Men and Cats (seriously). It seems a writer for the NYTimes based an entire article on Hetero men who have cats around this half-assed Wordpress fiasco and a writer for Slate magazine called them out on it. I know this particular person calls thier cat named Neko "Neeko" because he named it after Neko Case, who, as I have pointed out before, is the only person in the world who pronounces it "Neeko" and is also in the New pornographers and therefore is awesome.

L.A.S.E.R

2008-08-27T19:39:00.002-04:00

I was reading on Instrucatbles that the inventor of the Throwie, Jame Powderly, was detained in Beijing for planning a Laser based protest. This led me to peruse his affiliated website, the Graffiti Research Lab. the GRL has been working on a project that lets you virtually paint on the side of a building by using a camera to track the path of a laser and then projecting a calibrated image using a 5000 lumin data projector. Here's a video of the system, sorry I couldn't embed it, but these guys hosted it themselves; apparently these guys are so hard core then even host their photos at a place called fuckflickr (Who hates flickr?). I think it's a neat little invention but it seems needlessly complicated. I understand that there is a certain novelty to interacting with the wall, but why can't they just project pre-recorded images of writing? Or why not just use a Wacom tablet and look at where you are drawing in real life? Hey! I've got at Wacom tablet and a 6000 lumin Data Projector. If only I had something worth writing...

Blast Works

2008-07-26T13:51:00.003-04:00

Here is a video of a custom plane I made it Blast Works. If you aren't familiar with the game, it is a classic side scrolling shooter where users can make their own levels, weapons and planes and share them online. As you can see here, I have made a kitty that flies backwards and shoots clouds out of it's bum. I am finding I enjoy making things for the game much more than I enjoy actually playing the game. The two experiences are discreet because, unlike track building in TM Nations, the customization does not always directly effect gameplay. Also the core gameplay is pretty limited in my opinion.

Sorry for the crummy video. I need to get a capture card.

Left 4 Dead

2008-07-17T17:04:00.003-04:00

I've been perusing the E3 news a bit and I think this game holds a lot of promise for the future of Lanning. I like how the enemies are randomly spawned making Co-Op replay-able. It's like Swat 4, except you can finish a level and still have fun. Like Swat 4 + Serious Sam + Zombies. Not exactly groundbreaking, but I bet it will be fun.

SEGA: iPhone is as powerful as the Dreamcast.

2008-07-16T19:24:00.003-04:00

I don't know why but the title of this Kotaku article literally made me laugh out loud. I LLOLed.

They asked the guy from SEGA if they were working on any ports. He responded "what you mean instead of working on the Dreamcast 2?"
Would Chu-Chu Rocket for the iPhone not be fantastic?

New Xbox Avitars

2008-07-15T00:25:00.004-04:00

Does originality matter in the business world?
I think it does when it's absence is this blatant and pathetic.

Whiskey Bar

2008-07-14T14:38:00.005-04:00

I was sitting in Dave's garage/beer-baron-headquarters with a very inebriated Dave and Aaron (and a relatively sober Marcus) when the Doors song Whiskey Bar came up on Winamp (why Dave still uses Winamp is beyond me). Aaron took time between throwing handfuls of chips at people to inquire "what the hell" it was. I recognized that it was the Doors, but didn't know much beyond that. As strange coincidence would have it, I came across the song again today as I was at PBS's website. It was in a clip of an LA Opera performance of Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. It turns out the song is not a traditional drinking song, nor is it an original work of the Doors, it is instead the collaborative product of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill. If you thought the Doors version was weird, this Youtube clip of the aforementioned performance will seem quite bizarre and hilarious out of it's Modernist-Distanciation context.

Toy Store! Toy Store!

2008-07-11T16:55:00.000-04:00

Wile all you suckers line up and argue with dim-witted Rogers reps to get your G3's, I am already enjoying the iphone's new App Store. Frankly, it is a mixed bag. I've been pretty excited about this since we heard about a public SDK. I was assuming that the apps coming form Apple would be a lot better than the ones I was getting from homebrewers. Turns out their pretty much the same level of quality as homebrew, or at least the free ones are. Check out these three must-have titles: the first one is called iPint and it simulates beer drinking using the accelerometers, the second one is called Alarm and comes with no instructions or description, just this scary picture, the third is a light and that is seriously the screenshot on App Store. On the other hand the store has a Bomberman game for 8 bucks and their is a streaming radio tuner (something I've always wanted) for 5 bucks. So maybe there is an up-side to this new App Store. I am curious to see if there is going to be solid development that really justifies the existence of this new market or if this is just a case of Apple cashing in on content that really should be free. At the very least it seems the convenience of a Carling trumps the authenticity of Homebrew.

Success!

2008-07-03T20:49:00.002-04:00

Well it took a lot less time than I actually figured, but I have officially gotten every GamerPoint for Viva Pinata. I have also gotten every Pinata, which surprisingly is not a gamerPoint unlock. Click on my GamerTag on the right to see the proof.

New Kitty

2008-07-01T19:49:00.003-04:00

My Nephew got a cat yesterday. Here is a little video of her. It is not as destructive as it appears in the video, in fact it's quite well behaved. The kitten's name is Persey, named mostly for Robin van Persie. I'm spelling it 'Persey' because as someone told me, Persey is a girls name, as in short for Persephone.

2008-06-21T17:23:00.001-04:00

Dutch side from 2 years ago, what are you doing here?
Sent from my iPod

Spore'n it Up

2008-06-16T12:16:00.003-04:00

Like this guy, I have been playing around with creature creator a bit. It's a good demo because it shows the potential of the game wile not suffering from early buggieness. In fact the first thing I noticed was how polished and smooth everything was. It was a relief to see that I could play at native res with everything turned up. This is a big step for Maxis compared to the gawd-awful optimization of the Sims 2's shopping malls. Clearly the final game will be a slick user-friendly experience , but it should be considering how long it's been in development and that we still have to wait three month for the final product. You get the impression that we could have the game now if it weren't for the fact that then all the anxious fans wouldn't shell out an extra ten bucks for a a limited crumb of gameplay to tide them over. I suppose this is a case of the developer cashing-in on the capital created by taking the time to make something truly detailed and creative, and I suppose that is good becuase it means it's still profitable to make good games. But I just can't shake the feeling that all the people who buy Creature Creator are getting hustled, just a little bit.

Hup

2008-06-16T00:02:00.002-04:00

Stupid Sportsnet

2008-06-10T09:31:00.002-04:00

Wile I've never been a big fan of the sports blogging, I cannot bite my tongue. In commenting on the first goal by Van Nistelrooy in the game against Italy, the panel of experts on Sportsnet were unanimous in the opinion that it was clearly off-side. Boy having all these experts on staff sure brings the coverage up to the next level. Except for, they were unanimously wrong. As explained by a Canadian official who wrote into the show via Email, and explained here by UEFA itself, the Italian defender who was behind the goal line was still in-play becuase he wandered out of his own accord (actually his was helped by Buffon) he was not injured and he was still involved with the play. Fortunately my anger at our crummy Canadian coverage was more than extinguished by our trouncing of the "World Champs." And by Kuyt sticking it to Materazzi ol'school. Life is sweet.

Internet Homeless

2008-06-04T11:53:00.006-04:00

I'm back from sunny-town USA where it was around 30 C all week. I suffered from a lack of Internets wile I was gone and was forced to wander the streets with my ipod in a desperate search for unprotected wifi. I'm glad to have unlimited access again, but I miss being sweaty all the time.

The Mods Continue

2008-05-22T11:04:00.005-04:00

I had recently tried using the sock method on my drums and found it to be a little too half-assed. Unfortunately the favoured alternative fix for the red drum is far to invasive for my liking. Hence I have been forced to come up with a compromise. I cut my sock into a square and sewed two rubber bands into either side of the sock. I like this better because, like the kick, it still looks homebrewey but it also looks like I put in a bit of effort.

I Agree

2008-05-16T20:08:00.005-04:00

My opinion of Yatzee followed an arc of pure love descending into annoyance and the beginnings of loathing. Imagine my surprise then when I completely agreed with his review of GTA IV and he even echoed several things I have said out loud about the game. Good stuff that.
P.S. Prediction: tomorrow's lan is going to be AWWesome, awesome like blowjobs.

Why did Dave every stop saying that?

Wait a minute!

2008-05-04T15:24:00.004-04:00

Today was a landmark day in my GTA life. Not because I've started getting in work in Manhattan (or whatever they call the central island) but because I made a huge discovery about the origins of Niko and his cousin. It seems to me there was another couple of cousins who were trying to make it big in the city, one the local goof with a gambling problem, the other a recent immigrant from Europe. Is it possible GTA IV is just a disguise for Perfect Strangers: The Game? I thought of making a humorous over-dubbed clip, but then got lazy. Watch this clip instead.

Watch it there Joystiq

2008-05-04T01:32:00.002-04:00

I came across this Joystiq article today and I was appalled. Are they making fun of Viva Pinata? Are they suggesting in any way that GTA is more worthy of discussion than Viva Pinata? I spit on them! However this does remind me of a summer-vacation resolution I made and I would like to formally announce here and now: Following the example of Sockboy and his obsession with The Bigs, I am going to get 1000 gamer points for Viva Pinata. It's the summer of George!

More Thoughts on GTA

2008-04-30T01:27:00.003-04:00

Oh good! They managed to work a motorcycle chase into this one! 10/10 everybody, 10/10.

...and why is he wearing a helmet? Wouldn't want to get hurt!

Spoiler Alert

2008-04-26T23:53:00.003-04:00

Here’s a story about a friend of mine. He didn’t get much sleep today because he was at a birthday party and then he had to wake up for work at 3:15. Perhaps his judgment was clouded, but he decided he couldn’t wait to play GTA. So he took off his hard drive in hopes that no game information could be saved because he heard a rumour that a ban-hammering was on the horizon. He played from 6pm till about 9:40pm old-school style with no saves. What did HE think about the new GTA?

Well, it’s more of the same. Is it very detailed? Yes. Does it look really cool? Yes, but the rampant AA, bloom and HDR lighting make you feel slightly more removed from the close-up detail of the game. Are there still tones of glitches that break the illusion? Oh my yes, as you will see if you watch the video, and what’s more you have camera control but it also moves automatically when you move, so you are constantly battling the camera which makes for a very clunky aesthetic.

The game is however at its best when you see all the little details: when you hear the raindrops of the roof on your car; when the ambient lighting is just-so in the early morning; When your drunk; when the controller shakes when the stripper gets close to you during a private dance; when you are listening to the radio and a text message comes in on your phone and you hear the interference on the radio. The little bits should add up to a cohesive, immersive world, but contrary to most I tend to dwell on the little nitpicky things that will never be perfect.

The folks over at IGN seem pretty enthused, they even gave it a perfect 10 saying, “GTA IV gives us characters and a world with a level of depth previously unseen in gaming and elevates its story from a mere shoot-em-up to an Oscar-caliber drama.” Well I may be all by myself here but who the hell thinks video games should resemble ‘Oscar-caliber dramas’? Is this what we need? I think we already have enough huge-budget Hollywood productions in the “cinema of quality” that didactically moralize with their consummately intelligible normative narratives.

Contrast this game with the GTA-genre game Crackdown. In that game the city was crazy and cartoonish and no attempt was made at a real-world logic. It worked because you didn’t expect every scene to feel perfect, the crazy shit was half the fun. GTA IV goes in the complete opposite direction by creating a more constrictive and realistic world. As much as this game builds a good narrative around the subaltern, organized crime and capitalism, this is practically a convention of American gangster genre and I don’t feel like any new ground is being broken with this. It’s just borrowing on credibility. GTA’s strength has and always will be its carnivalesque humour and this edition is a serious step in the wrong direction. Still fun though.

Wanderlust

2008-04-01T00:37:00.004-04:00

Look at me, being all topical. A new video of Bjork's song Wanderlust premiered on Yahoo today (err, yesterday.) It was made for 3D but the 2D version is pretty nuts too. It's makers site the use of mushrooms as their main inspiration. But in the giant animals, tentacle-like strands and Bjork's hat I see a lot of Princess Mononoke.

It's hard to overstate my satisfaction.

2008-04-01T00:19:00.003-04:00

Well I was wrong. In fact the content was already up there at 11:50pm (was I a day behind the curve?) Either way, if you have Rock Band, go out and get that song wile it's still free. Drummers will appreciate doing double kicks in a safe and slow environment on expert. I also bought the Serj Tankian song wile I was there. I like it. Hopefully those types of purchases will prove this loss-leader concept works to the folks at EA so they keep giving away free stuff.

That was a joke. HaHa. Fat Chance.

2008-03-31T23:14:00.003-04:00

I remember seeing Still Alive on a leaked list of future Rock Band DLC. But just the same, I want to go on record at 11:17pm as saying that this article, claiming that it will be available on April 1st FOR FREE, must be 100% a joke. It's so obvious, jeez! Having said that, I will be checking just after midnight, and tomorrow morning, just to be sure.

Don't Panic

2008-03-29T11:26:00.004-04:00

I was just reading a funny article about the possibility of the end of the world. It seems a few scientists are concerned that a new supercollider could create a black hole when it is operated and they are seeking legal action to prevent it's use. I really like the way people use phrases like "probably won't" or "unlikely". It raises the question of risk vs. gain; how unlikely does the end of the world have to be before it's worth risking it to do some scientific research? How much do we have to gain from this research? The results of the research probably won't change our lives right away, but certainly we must keep trying to learn about the universe we live in. The 8 billion dollars already spent on the collider probably factors into some people's motivations. If someone created something that would likely destroy the world, but spent 8 billion dollars to build it already, could they keep themselves from using it? How strong is the need to get your money's worth? How much money needs to be invested before you can't help but use it?

Being Thrifty

2008-03-22T12:23:00.004-04:00

I remember when I decided I wanted a laptop. "I don't need to get an IBM", I thought to myself, "Acers are much cheaper". Of course this choice came to bite me in the ass as now the case it cracking and the whole thing threatens to just fall apart in my hands. I've decided to do a little DIY and reinforce the whole thing. So the first step was to fill in the gapping cracks with resin. Then to let it dry. Next I bought a fake carbon fiber vinyl sticker, which i guess you are supposed to put on side mirros of your civic, and adhered it to the back of my screen using a heat gun. The result is a stronger laptop that looks slightly silly and smells like a nail salon.

Rancho Relaxo

2008-03-21T23:31:00.003-04:00

So I received an order from Monoprice today. Everything worked fine. Best seven bucks I ever spent. I noticed that the return address on the envelope was from Rancho Cucamonga. This sounded to me like the most fake place ever. But it turns out it's not! Rancho Cucamonga is a community of 147,000 nesetled between San Bernardion and Los Angeles. It has a mall and two 'freeway' exits. According to the chamber of commerce, "Visiting for business, pleasure, or just passing through, there's something for every visitor." Also, if you will refer to the satellite image, 'Rancho C' is home to the most well planned suburb to ever look like balls. Although that growth around Heritage Circle Park looks like it could be trouble. I find google maps satellite images hypnotic, don't you?

Google

2008-03-12T16:39:00.003-04:00

Do you realize that Gmail is reading your emails so that it can show ads that compliment the content? Either that or my last five page views have been huge coincidences. Google, why are you reading all my mail?

Everything's Coming Up Bourgeoisie Millhouse

2008-03-06T21:56:00.005-05:00

Today I was sitting in my local starbucks waiting for a response to an email I had sent to my Dad's blackberry: "Do you want something from *bucks?" (ironically the leet spelling takes as many keystrokes as the proper spelling). As I read the Nytimes I started thinking, "Boy, I must be some kind of upper-middle class dick." These kind of thoughts have been haunting me ever since I bought my ipod. I've been outspoken in my opposition to the ipod and it's pop-culture dominance in the past, but it's so damn shiny; it tears me apart. Two things have encouraged me in my purchase though. The first one came in the form of a price drop the week after I bought it, so I was able to collect my price guarantee spoils from futureshop (a good futureshop experience for once.) The second came via Kotaku wile I was waiting for my email reply. It seems Apple gave a presentation on their SDK today, and the news is good. Firstly it is going to be open sourced, allowing small time developers to sell their goods a la XBLA. Second came the news that Spore and Super Monkey Ball games are coming out for the ipod touch. This is a nice legitimate compliment to the jailbreak games already out-there like Tap-Tap Revolution. In conclusion, I am over the self-loathing and I could care less what all the haters say.

iBand

2008-03-01T14:16:00.001-05:00

I want to do this! Is it time to Jailbreak already? Maybe...

BF Heros and Too Many Videos

2008-03-01T10:46:00.005-05:00

I like this preview for a couple reasons. Firstly I think the schizophrenic approach to history is something in all games and I'm glad to see it come-bye honestly. Next, I like that you can sit on the wing of a plane and shoot people, it's so stupid it's great. Also, obviously, I am excited about a free multilayer game. Finally, I think this video has a picnicface intertext in the way it punctuates narration with words.

Have you noticed how weird Picniface has gotten? They went from this:

Which was pretty classic. Then they went to, "I'll sue the paint off your overalls Murphy Brown's in-house lover." After which they went to this:

Recognize that song? No, it's not Joel Plasket as the title might indicate. Your right! Its Tunak Tunak Tun by Daler Mehndi! Here's the original music video for that song, which might-as-well be a picnicface video.

2008-02-26T12:24:00.004-05:00

Sometimes a comment is so good it deserves it's own post.
Sockboy on a February 19th post:

It sounds like it could be the name of a puzzle in Professor Layton.
Puzzle 87
'Two Girls, One Cup'.
Two girls were sitting at a table, sharing a cup of orange juice. "If I took two years from my age and gave them to you, you would be double my age!" girl A said to girl B.
"Well, why don't you give me one more year, and then I'll be triple your age!" girl B replied.
If you assume both girls are actually lying and that they're both actually 42 years old, how much time would it take for them to fill a cup with their feces and consume it?

Aaaaaaaaand GO!

The Who

2008-02-26T12:17:00.002-05:00

Cole and I made this video a while ago. Then I got lazy and couldn't get a codec to work in Premiere. I finally decided to encode a big dv version using a 3rd party program, and now it belongs to the world. Who says I don't get anything done during reading week?

Two Girls, One Cup Fever: Catch it!

2008-02-19T22:32:00.002-05:00

This is a CBC R3 podcast, the intro's pretty funny and the I think the video is quite clever too. How did the dirtiest thing ever gain access to main stream culture? Seriously.

May Harm My Computer!

2008-02-14T22:36:00.002-05:00

I know Sockboy gets around, but I had no idea visiting him constituted a health risk. That site's got to get on some antibiotics.

I leave the interpretation to you.

2008-02-08T23:47:00.000-05:00

Rapid DIY

2008-02-06T23:31:00.000-05:00

Some of you might have notices my MSN name and inferred that the inevitable has happened and my Rock Band kick pedal broken. What some of you might know is that if I go more than a day without Rock Band I turn into a pile of dust. Here is my harrowing story:
I noticed the pedal felt soft wile I was jammin' with Cole, it broke off half way through a song (we managed to finish without the pedal but just barely.) It Broke at the base which made repair difficult. I had heard that modding in a real pedal gaves better quick response, but was I ready to spend a hundred bucks on a pedal I would immediately mess with? Enter a guy named Larry. He had two pedals up for sale of Kijiji, posted the day before my pedal broke, I got one from him for twenty bucks. I had to drive out to his place after class, during the freezing rain. He lived on Dundas east so on the way I picked up two Rare Earth 3/8" magnets from Lee Valley Tools (more on those later.) Larry lived in a garage. He was quite a nice chap, he seemed to be a rocker of the real variety. His cat looked tougher than my cat. Anyway, all evening I have been perfecting my pedal. The switch on the kick pedal base detects a magnetic field and the magnet is in the foot portion. Basically to mod in a real pedal you put the magnet in the hammer and set it to hit the base/ sensor portion of the Rock Band kick drum. Whereas most people dig out the magnet from the plastic, I bought a new magnet for 60 cents. I also broke with conventionality in mounting my base/ receiver portion upright like a real base drum. It looks a bit sketch (notice the monster guitar fur on the mallet) but I'm at the point now where I can 5 star Enter Sandman and Train Kept a Rollin' (about where I was at before.) Crisis: averted, but not without difficulty.

Mr. 4000!

2008-01-30T23:18:00.000-05:00

I'd like to thank Viva Pinata, Crackdown, PGR 4, Bioshock, Rock Band and most of all Assassin's Creed which put me over the top. This is for all you people out there with lives, who dream of this sort of achievement but can't spare the time. I do this for you, not for me.

Battlefield Heros

2008-01-21T11:46:00.001-05:00

This will likely be the only time I hear gaming news for the first time from Nytimes.com, but an article published there today talked about Battlefield Heroes, a new title due to come out this summer. Not to be confused with Battlefield Bad Company, this will be a PC title that is distributed for free! EA hopes the game will generate more revenue through ads and selling upgrades. The idea is that profit margins are higher when you don't have to worry about distribution, and I dare say they can afford a slim advertising budget when the product is free. In fact they seem to already be cashing in on this free advertising, evidenced in the fact that the New York Times scooped it right at the outset. One thing that confuses me is that they referred to previous Battlefield installments as difficult and inaccessible to casual gamers. What could be more simple than Battlefield 1942? That game was modeled around simplicity of control, and I can't imagine how a multiplayer game's difficulty can be curved, aside from making different servers for different skill levels. Either way, I like free games and it should be a good lanner.

Thanks EA!

2008-01-12T10:36:00.000-05:00

After all the delays, the short first shipment, the broken strummer and finally the replacement that took two weeks longer than it should have, EA has finally made good on all the Rockband frustration.

In appreciation of the patience of our Canadian customers who placed an RMA prior to January 9th, we are not requiring customers receiving this set of RMAs to return your faulty peripheral to us and we will also be removing your credit card hold within the next few days.

This, combined with the fact that the game is really quite awesome, puts the whole experience at a plus with me.

Free Stuff?

2008-01-10T17:02:00.001-05:00

Some of you might have heard that Steam is giving away stuff to people who have Nvidia chipsets. I heard about it too and so for no other reason than to play Portals on a different platform, I installed Steam and got the free stuff. Or at least all the free stuff that wasn't on too-busy servers. Let me break down the content for you. Portals, The first slice is not the full game but a 'special version' that stops before you get the orange enabled portal gun (where I come from we call that a demo). Halflife Deathmatch, is an admirably free mulitplayer game, albeit a five year old one. Finally there is Peggle Extreme, a game made by Popcap that takes all the fun of pachinko and adds all the skill of deciding where to drop the ball. This version is extreme because the background pictures are of Valve characters. The original version can be had for free from Popcap. Much as this game is completely devoid of skill input, Popcap seems to have captured the addictive nature of pachinko; I played this game more than the others combined (about ten minutes). Thanks Valve! For making me install Steam so I could get crap that was free anyway.

Free Time

2008-01-01T22:10:00.000-05:00

My new hobby? Collecting all the album art software can't find. I can't wait until the stork brings my Grey-market Zune. It's fun seeing all the different album covers, fun and boring.

Rocking for Reals

2007-12-30T23:10:00.000-05:00

At our late-night rock binge the other night, Wes suggested I hook the the Rock Band drums up to my PC. I figured it was too early for someone to have created drivers for them. Just for funzies today I plugged the usb Drum Kit into my compy. To my surprise windows hardware wizard identified a "Harmonix Xbox Drum Controller." Where the hell did it get those drivers? Following the advice of a shoddy youtube video, I then installed Joy2Key to program the drum pads to keystrokes, then I installed the latest Fruity Loops (or FL Studio as it is now more reputably called). Surprisingly, it was just that easy. Unsurprisingly, I can't play the drums and cool though the setup is, I can't make it sound good. In related new, She Likes Cloth unlocked Won't Get Fooled Again today and the drumming is insane.

Finally !

2007-12-24T16:53:00.000-05:00

Eb got 6 Rock Bands on Saturday and an extra 2 today. I was pre-order #8. This game is exactly as fun as I imagined. We've been playing all afternoon, and we will continue to play right up until Santa comes down the chimney with a Guitar Hero guitar wearing ZZ Top glasses and starts playing the bass.

* The up-strum on the guitar is predictably broken. When you open the box there is a 8.5x11 piece of neon pink paper with a clip-art stop sign telling the buyer to contact Ea if there are any problems. I think this problem is epidemic and I would wager it is the cause of all the delays and fuzzy dates. Fortunately the return process seems pretty good and I should have a new one (hopefully) before New Years.

How I spend my time waiting for Rock Band.

2007-12-18T10:53:00.000-05:00

This morning as soon as I woke up I rolled over, picked up my Xbox controller and played Call of Duty 4 until I beat it. I didn't even have to get out of bed. But as I brushed my teeth I got to thinking. I remember the first level of the game, on the boat, where your teammate guns down three guys in their sleep. At the time I thought, "could this be a different Call of Duty, one that problematises killing hundreds of people without asking questions?" It turns out, after playing the whole thing, that it does not. It gives the same white-wash treatment to "contemporary" issues that it did to WWII. I was a bit disappointed, but now I have hopes for an unlikely title. Some of you might have heard that Army of Two was pushed back after Xbox World magazine said nasty things about it. This game, to me, seems to be taking a very critical approach to war. Look at the blood splatters, look at the soldier's scary masks. The first trailer for this game started with a recording of Eisenhower's Military Industrial Complex speech, which I thought was interesting. The video I've posted here is interesting too, I like how it parodies the romantic cliches of war movies. The guys at Xbox World magazine said the "story (was) apparently penned by a seven year old who hates them ay-rabs" and that it features "the two least likable characters in gaming history." I say: better they engage issues as apposed to taking the uncontroversial road of killing communists like COD4. I think Army of Two shows some potential. Is it possible that Xbox World magazine, deep thinker though I'm sure they are, just doesn't recognize the aesopian language? Might Americans reject the game because it is critical? I guess we will see if it ever comes out.

Game'n

2007-12-17T15:21:00.000-05:00

I promised to write a post about how I heroically destroyed Chris and Dave at The Bigs, but somehow my competitive spirit has waned. I don't feel like pointing out how incredibly crappy they are at The Bigs anymore, or how awesome I am. Instead I want to talk about how I found my Mexican AI soul mate in PGR4. His Name is Juan Gomez. I passed him in the standings just today.

La Moustache

2007-12-06T19:37:00.000-05:00

I'm quite certain it's not a comedy, but how could the trailer for a movie called 'La Mustache' be anything but funny.

Update what?

2007-12-06T19:16:00.000-05:00

According to the buzz, the Dec 4th 360 Dashboard update included support for Divx and Xvid. Could it be? I think I might have to brave my Ban-Hammer paranoia and find out.

ハレ晴レユカイ!!!!

2007-12-04T20:31:00.000-05:00

CBC radio 3 Top 30 is going to have a live podcast from AnimeCon in Toronto this Sunday. According to Pedro Mendez "Craig and I are going to work on our Haruhi Suzumiya dance"

Office Party

2007-12-03T11:04:00.000-05:00

Fredcom's office party was last week. Our workforce tends to be polarized by age for whatever reason, so sometimes a division forms at the office parties. However this year we had a unifying factor: Guitar Hero throwdown. Monster guitar was in his glory.

Tea Lights

2007-11-24T19:01:00.000-05:00

Today my Dad was lighting candles (no idea why) and he lit some of those fake battery powered LED ones on fire. No one even noticed until my Mom cam in. They burned remarkably well.

"No Guarantees"

2007-11-22T16:47:00.000-05:00

I popped into my local EB today to see when Rock Band would be in. For those who haven't talked to me this week, all I can think about is Rock Band. I have written three essay on Rock Band this week (I'm pretty good at fudging a thesis but at least two of them were a stretch). Anyway, the helpful fellow at EB told me that they had no idea how many copies they were getting. "What is the point of a pre-order then?" I asked. "We will get as many as we can and the pre-orderers will have first dibs," he said. I am seriously tempted to just line-up at Best Buy Wii-style.

A Review Is In!

2007-11-18T22:41:00.000-05:00

Finally someone other than xbox official magazine has a review of RockBand. IGN was smart to split up the instruments to different reviewers. We are going to have to get Scott's guitar in the mix to play the bass, also we are also going to need someone untalented to play it. December is soooo far awayyyyyy.

Now What?

2007-11-08T18:24:00.000-05:00

Dear Microsoft: I hate you and your blinking lights.

Rock Band

2007-11-05T23:41:00.000-05:00

At first I was highly skeptical, but as Nov 20th draws near I have caught Rock Band fever. What are you going to do Jordie? pre-order? No! Instead I will spend my time looking for a milk crate. Why you ask? Will the drum kit come with a stool? No. Will anyone want to buy a stool? No. Hence I predict milk crates will be a more scarce commodity than the actual game pack. But I will also pre-order just in case. Even though I hate EB's guts. I hate everybody's guts. Join my virtual geek band or I will hate your guts.

Crysis

2007-10-30T23:45:00.000-04:00

I've been waiting for this game for a long time. I was a big fan of Far Cry and all of the trailers for Crysis are pretty darn fancy. Now that I have played the demo, I think this is shaping up to be one of the biggest disappointments of the gaming year. Now I understand that my computer lacks the thinking aluminum required to run this game at top spec. And I complain about optimization so much it is starting to sound like my computer simply sucks, and wile there is a bit of truth to that I would like to point out that the COD 4 demo looked great and ran like stink on my rig. But Crysis looked like Cryass. The optimized visuals were sub sub par and the game still hiccuped with what I think was ram run-out. Believe it or not this is not my biggest complaint since I'm sure this game looks great of fancy comps. My big complaint, as with the COD 4 demo, is that FPSs are boring and neither franchise, despite all the effort and money put behind the games, has innovated on gameplay. Oooo I can upgrade my body suit to run fast; Oooo I can jump high; Oooo I can turn upgrades to my gun on in real time... Half these gameplay features were in the godawful late FarCry games, they weren't fun then and they aren't fun now, and either way, you are still running through the jungle shooting guys. Oh but the guys are smarter now; who gives a crap? I'm going back to playing Viva Pinata.

Oink Noooooooo!

2007-10-23T12:23:00.000-04:00

"This extremely lucrative and creative scheme consisted of a private file-sharing website being set up. Membership was by invitation only."

Go Dell!

2007-10-20T18:05:00.000-04:00

My super 22' Dell LCD replacement showed up the other day. I thought the colour looked a little different so I decided to compare the old one with the new one. Also I'm a geek and thought it would be cool to have two side by side, if only for a fleeting day. Turns out the contrast is even better with the new one (later model?). After setting up an extended desktop and multiplying 1680 by 2, I set the new resolution parameters for BF2. It's pretty sweet in super wide screen, but the reticle sits right in the middle so it's not all that practical.

Very Odd

2007-10-20T11:42:00.000-04:00

We've all heard the old cliche "That Japanese are Crazy". In recent years people have come to condemn such simple thinking. But here is concrete evidence to support the former theory. There is no way around it, they're just crazy. I like to think their lives are richer for it.

Cats of War

2007-10-14T11:11:00.001-04:00

Here is an interesting article from a nytimes correspondent in Iraq. I find it interesting because it gives a description of what life is like in the nytimes compound in Baghdad. I usually imagine journalists living in hotels or something but in this case it sounds more like a castle. The article is about the cat population in the compound (note one of the cats in named "Stryker": London Ontario's contribution to everyone's favorite war). It sets out as a sort of fluffy personal narrative but it ends up raising very difficult questions about the nature of suffering and existence. I find the author very egocentric, but I think that is indicative of the distance a journalist feels they must keep from their subject. But why are they distanced? How have they earned their right to live and be safe? It is quite troubling and the author has just as few answers as anyone.

Dear Bungie

2007-10-05T16:09:00.000-04:00

How can so many people die in such a short span of narrative time? Spend all your time making a fancy model and then made the game on a Friday? I thought so.

©