Here is a rather terrifying vision of the detonation of a hydrogen bomb over a city. Aired on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1956; posted to io9.com this morning. Reposted here because for some strange reason some of you don't read io9.com. Why don't you read io9.com? You'll make the baby Raptor Jesus cry!
I saw this link on Twitter today. Alas, it is not real, but a shoop. Still, it generated a chat most amusing with a friend - a chat I wish to share with you!
me: dude, check out the link that @choochoobear just tweeted.
11:28 AMMysterious Friend: How to fold a flag?
me: no, after that
11:29 AMMysterious Friend: W! T! F?!?
11:30 AMme: yeah, pretty much my reaction
11:33 AMMysterious Friend: What's the purpose of that hideous fellatio hole in his face?
11:35 AM me: My bet is that a sex toy factory had an overrun on the Hungerin' Hank sex doll, and someone had the bright idea of dressing it up like Superman and selling it to the kiddies
11:39 AMMysterious Friend: Makes more sense that i want it to. I bet Lex Luthor has like 12.
11:41 AMme: the Vidal Sassoon model Superman from the mid-90's when he "died" is his favorite.
He loves to just cuddle close and stroke its hair.
11:46 AMMysterious Friend: Part of me shuddered when I read that...the other part imagined him doing it wear a Lois Lane outfit. I am a conflicted man.
11:47 AM me: The confliction is funny, though.
11:48 AMMysterious Friend: Ultimately that is all that is really important.
me: indeed
11:49 AMMysterious Friend: If we lived closer I would attempt to coerce you into starring as Lex in a short film based on this.
11:50 AMYou'd make a good Lex Luthor.
11:51 AM me: Thanks, but there is no way I am dressing up as Lois Lane. Bitch has Barbie proportions, and my waist is waaaaay to big!
11:52 AMMysterious Friend: We wouldn't focus on that.
11:53 AMReally the focus would be on the red dress and putting on the make up.
11:56 AMme: This is the song that Lex will sing as he gets dressed:
11:57 AMit's even funnier if you know that Maia Sharp is a lesbian.
12:03 PMMysterious Friend: That is perfect.
12:04 PMme: Lex ends the song sobbing the last refrain quietly while using the hem of his dress to smear-wipe the tears that are ruining his mascara.
12:05 PMMysterious Friend: You are a true genius.
I don't know how I missed this but I wish it had come out on the Wii.
12:06 PMme: what, the Superman Sex doll? Now, that would be an awkward accessory
Mysterious Friend: Seems like more of a Kinect accessory.
12:09 PMme: oh man, wouldn't that just make it awesome? "Mount Superman from behind, and thrust wildly to simulate sex - the screen will vibrate erratically when climax is near - when vibrations are at their peak, donkey punch Superman to ensure ensure highest score!
12:11 PMMysterious Friend: That would make an awesome mini game. Would it come with little purple trunks that have a pocket in the crotch for the nun chuck?
12:11 PMme: Nah, you just stick in your pants
12:14 PMMysterious Friend: I already do when ever I play baseball on Wii Sports.
12:16 PMme: Really? I do it for Tennis and Bowling. I like to imagine that my testicles are detachable, and that they are the size of cannonballs.
I'm going to see Bill Callahan play tonight a The State Room as a birthday present to myself. Yes, this is addition to the two games I bought myself yesterday. Shut up, I'm worth it!
Anyway, as I am going to a bar to celebrate a friend's birthday (and to catch some of the CONCACAF Gold Cup games) before the show, I don't have the time to spend contemplatively ignoring what time it is before panicking about what to post. Thus I am writing this the night before it will actually go up, but you don't know that! In fact, I can schedule it for whenever in the future I want, giving it some random time marker like 5:13 pm to make it look like I had just dashed it off before running out the door, and you will never know the difference!
What's that? You think I've just given away the game with that last sentence? Ha, no way! See, the post will go live, and seeing the link on Twitter or Facebook, you'll click it thinking that I had just finished slaving away over a hot keyboard (fo' realz, my laptop is burning my thighs), but you won't know the sordid truth until after you've started to read! Ha! Hahahaha! Mu-ahahahahahahahahahaha!
So, here is Bill Callahan's Tiny Desk Concert for NPR.
Yesterday I talked a bit about how I want to play Team Fortress 2, yet lack the necessary hardware to do that. Well, today I shall talk about three games that I can play!
The first up is a game that's been on my radar since last year when it was released; and now, thanks to the wonders of birthday money, I can play it! Generally speaking, open world sandbox games are not my cuppa, but Just Cause 2 gets a pass. Why? Well, it isn't for it's trite and lame story. Or for its massive 400 sq. mile virtual island playing field. No, I want to play Just Cause 2 because the physics engine is wonky, and you have a grapple. Don't follow me? Then watch this:
That, my friends, looks like sweet, sweet fun!
The next game is also the second half of my birthday present to myself, Dungeon Siege III. Years ago I played a demo for the first Dungeon Siege on PC, and I always regretted not buying the full game. The third game in the series has been released, and it sees the long-awaited debut of Dungeon Siege on console platforms.
Not ground-breaking by any means, but I enjoyed the demo, and dungeon crawlers have always been a favorite of mine.
Finally, I come to game three and coincidentally (or is it?! (it totally is)) it is also the third game in its series - Saints Row the Third. The Saints Row games are open world sandboxes as well, but unlike the GTA franchise (which Saints Row aped poorly in the first game), the gameplay here is all about sticking to the rules, and playing as honest and fairly as possible.
Nah, just kidding. It's all about nut shots!
I had an absolute blast with Saints Row II, and it remains one of my favorite PS3 games of all time. So, you might be able to imagine my giddy glee when I saw the E3 trailer for the new game.
Videogame geek favorite Valve made two big announcements today; 1) was the release of the long awaited "Meet the Medic" video, and the other was that Team Fortress 2 is now Free to Play. Forever.
This would break my Awesometer (a delicate instrument that measures how Awesome a thing is) if it weren't for one teeny-tiny wee little bit of a problem...my computer chugs running Minecraft, nevermind something fast-paced and graphically intensive like TF2. So, while I lust after the specs on a 15" Macbook Pro, enjoy this playlist of all the "Meet the..." skits Valve has released for the TF2 characters.
"Oh, they're gonna have tae glue you back together...IN HELL!"
I want to got to Iceland. And Norway. Actually, there are a whole host of countries I would give my left- I would pay dearly to be able to visit for an extended period of time. However, for the purposes of this post I am keeping the list short at just those two. My reasons are sepcific; those two are the subject of streaming webcams that I have been watching recently.
The Inspired by Iceland website started a year or two ago as Iceland was trying to rebound from a catastrophic financial collapse. One of the things they tried to jumpstart their economy was to increase tourism, and that is where the streaming webcams came in. Running twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, visitors could click on any of the active webcams and get a live feed. At its peak there about seven different cams from all over the country. Alas, now there are only two; one in the thermal spa of Blaá Lónid (lit. Blue Lagoon), and one overlooking the small lake of Tjörnin in the capital of Reykjavík.
The other streaming webcam that has captured my interest is the Hirtigruten stream from Norway. It might be best if I just quote from the webpage:
People have travelled along the Norwegian coastline with “Hurtigruten” since 1893. The journey is known as “The World’s Most Beautiful Sea Voyage”. Now everybody can travel along in the world’s longest TV program! Spectacular fjords, midnight sun and genuine Norwegian scenery make the setting for a trip from Bergen to Kirkenes. We broadcast the whole trip live minute by minute for 134 hours!
The stream is actually done for now, and I don't know if they are going to do another broadcast as the ship makes the return leg. However, that is unimportant as you can watch all 134 hours of the original trip on the website. I'm not suggestiont that you actually watch ed all one and thirty four hours, but you can certainly skip around in the recording to get a good idea of the spectacular beauty on display. I think I originally dropped in around the seventeen hour mark, and just stared, enraptured by the gorgeous fjords.
Bloody hell, I want to take that cruise! And yes, I'm re-watching it as I type this.
That's it for tonight. Seven more days of this and I can...well, what will I do? If I stop doing daily updates then this whole exercise has been a waste of time. Dammit.
I have spent much too much time reading Failbook, and not enough time thinking about blogging, and ... stuff. However, all I was (and am) going to do is post La Planete Sauvage for you all to watch. It is on Youtube in seven parts, and utterly brilliant in the way that only French science fiction can be.
Or, if you are feeling particularly masochostic, you can try and sit through the Bakshi/Franzetta turd from ten years later, Fire and Ice. I made it through Part 2 before deciding that staring at a wall would be a better use of my time. Embedding is not allowed on it, and that is just as well. Nobody should actually watch it. It is shite.
Now, if that isn't your bag, and it shouldn't be, then give Starchaser: The Legend of Orin a try. I saw this with friends on VHS back in '89 or '90, and liked it then. I haven't watched it since, but I recall it being a dumbed-down Star Wars: A New Hope in animated form. You can do worse. So, so very much worse.
The Space Shuttle Endeavor is being decommissioned, and prepared for her final resting place at the California Space Center. Here she is docked at the International Space Station on May 28th, 2011, during her final mission. For extra poignancy, listen to The Last Watch by Stan Rogers while viewing this picture full-sized, or reading about Endeavor's 19 years of service.
Not going to lie, I have no use for Father's Day. However, my feelings about my father are no where near as bitter as the first two songs in this playlist.
Glasvegas - Daddy's Gone Everclear - Father of Mine Sting - Why Should I Cry For You Peter Gabriel - Come Talk To Me
I've spent the last hour reading Cracked.com, and I am nothing if not entertained. However, that has not helped me write anything. That's okay though, as I have a plan.
Not a cunning one. Or a clever one. It's possibly a stupid one, but...
So, here's my plan; I transcribe a recipe a friend sent me. It's actually from The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion, but I wouldn't have known about it with out my friend. So, he gets the credit.
Granola S'Mores Bars
2 1/4 Cup Rolled Oats 1/2 Cup All-Purpose Flour 1/2 Teaspoon Salt 1 Cup Graham Cracker Crumbs
6 Tbspns Unsalted Butter/Shortening 6 Tbspns Golden, Maple, or Dark Corn Syrup 1/4 Cup firmly packed Light Brown Sugar
1 Cup Semi-sweet Chocolate Chips 1 1/4 Cups Mini Marshmellows
Pre-heat oven to 350 Lightly Grease 9x9 (or similar size) baking dish
In medium bowl, mix together Oats, Flour, Graham Crackers Crumbs, and Salt - set aside
In Medium sauce pan, melt butter and then stir in Syrup and Brown Sugar over Medium Heat. Once sugar is dissolved, add Oats mixture, stirring until all is a gooey, delicious mess
Press about half of mixture into baking dish - start with a large pile in middle of dish, and use fingers to press outwards to edges. Sprinkle Chocolate Chips evenly over top, followed by Marshmellows. Top with remaining gooey crust mixture, place in oven; Bake for 15 to 20 minutes.
Allow to cool for 20 minutes, then cut into squares.
Now, while I may have taken some small liberites with the language, that is the recipe as it was given to me. My version is much the same, though differs on a few key points.
1) I double the recipe. These things are delicious, and won't last a minute around hungry friends. That's great if you are a selfless and giving paragon of altruism, but if you harbor even the tiniest bit of selfishness in your black heart the way I do, then you are going to want to make sure you get yours!
2) I use a 9x12 baking dish. This is because I doubled the recipe.
3) I use dark maple syrup. It is delicious.
4) I use Salted butter, and only half the salt.
5) I don't "sprinkle evenly", I bloody well layer the damned chips on!
If you end up making these, please let me know how you liked them. Personally, I'd keep a batch handy all the time if I wasn't so lazy.
So, let us assume for a moment that the Singularity is going to happen. We are all going to get eyes that can see UV, near-infrared, have infinite zoom, and biomechanical chips in our head will allow us to record and upload anything we see to a matrix that will make the Internet look like the telegraph. Synthetic myomers and carbon fiber nanotubes will allow us to become faster, stronger, and have greater endurance than the heroes of myth. Sort of like the Borg, but with better fashion sense.
And our caloric intake is absolutely going to go through the damned roof! Really, short of implanting nuclear batteries, or converting our spleens into fuel cells, we are going to need some way of providing energy for all these wonderful new toys. So, what about solar power?
Last night I was reading yet another article on sunscreen, and Point 4 combined with Comment #7 and Comment #12 deep in my sub-conscious, and then burst forth right as I turned out my light and my head hit the pillow. What if, instead of simply absorbing UV radiation and releasing it as stray electrons, sunscreen was made up of nanomaterials that could absorb the radiation and instead of releasing it, concentrated the electrons and stored them, or channeled them into whatever bionic doodad needed it?
These solar collectors could be part of the standard nanotech package that every transhuman child receives, and would act foremost as protection against the malignant rays cast upon our planet by the Evil Daystar!
These nanomachines would pull double duty as solar cells, channeling energy into devices that needed it, but their efficacy would be limited by their relatively scarcity in the body. However, if a person finds that they have a huge demand of power, or their fuel-cell spleen is in need of a recharge and no cheap whiskey is available, the nanomachine sunscreen could be directly applied to the skin providing a significant boost of power. Cheap brands would lose efficiency and be flushed from the body after a period of 6-8 hours, but more expensive sunscreen would actually permanently boost a person's power generation capabilities and resistance to UVA and UVB radiation.
Now, I just hope the Singularity gets here before I die of old age.
I have spent the last two days working outside in the sun, and I am baked. Fried. Toasted. But not actually sunburned. Banana Boat sunscreen may not be the best, but it sure beats getting a visit from the Melanoma Fairy. Here is a really good article on how UVA/UVB radiation causes skin cancer, and why you shouldn't waste money on anything over SPF30. Go read it.
I don't have much tonight. As I intimated in the first paragraph, being in the sun for two days straight has left me drained of energy and bereft of imagination. However, in addition to the Youtube video of how to build a joule thief I was (and still am) going to close the post with, I just got an email from Google saying that I have been invited to Google Music Beta. No big deal.
No, really, it isn't a big deal. Anyone could sign up for the beta, I just don't think many people wanted to. Or, they've opened it up to the second (third? Maybe fourth?) round of suckers volunteers. And from what I've gleaned from a quick Google (ha!) search, it could take awhile for me to get all four thousand, six hundred and sixty-one songs to upload. Stupid throttled upload speeds. That's what the "A" in ADSL stands for, you know, "Asymetrical". Almost all DSL lines (and cable too) have vastly lower upload speeds than download. There are reasons for that.
So, what is a joule thief? It is simple circuit that allows you to run a 3v LED off of a 1.5v AA battery. Why is this cool? Because you can take your "dead" batteries and power your nifty little wine bottle LED lamp -the one you made yourself using a few off-the-shelf parts, and that you point to as justification for your 1-bottle-a-day habit- with them. Hmm...maybe that should be my next project?
The poem has come together, but its flow is fitful at best. Thus, I am going to post the parts and pieces of it and other poems, and have you, the reader, tell me which one to focus on. Yeah, I'm making you guys do some work for a change. C'mon, there are five of you - seven at the most! - that read this, and I need all the feedback I can get. Now, onto the poetry.
Unnamed Pet Poem
To say goodbye to a friend Whose life you held within your hands To hear their voice only in your memory And know their touch no more Letting go is the hardest thing For you feel your need is greater Than their need to be free from pain
Unnamed Country Song
I try to say "I love you" I try to say "I care" But all you hear me saying is "Our love is going nowhere"
I've tried to say "Believe me" And I've tried to say "Hold on" But all that I've been saying is I can't wait until you're gone!
You said that you believed me You said you love me, too But your heart's been broken so long And now you're only saying we're done and through
I used to say "I love you" And I used to say "I'm yours" But ten years on there's nothing Except the closing of the door
Earthlight
The Earthlightstreaming through the dome Lit our table with saffire, emerald, and the purest pearl we'd ever known
We stood as one And moved to the edge Of the resturant's veranda To stand with the other patrons
With my arm around your waist I felt your shudder as the Horror of the Night The World Nearly Died Welled up in your memory
Then someone said "Say Cheese!" And your doubt and pain Fled from you face Your shoulders relaxed And you smiled For the first time since The sky rained lavender fire
Broken Poetry
Broken stanzas on page upon page Shatters and shards left undone Echoes of Heartaches and Happiness Odes and Eddas Just begun Singing words on parchment wings Huddle forgotten in a spiral-bound cage
The scratching of a pen Past midnight come the words brought forth in a rush By a dancing Muse on laughing feet Drawn forth by the early morning hush
Years fly past and nothing's said Of words written in that book Forgotten now And never read Worlds that never were And lives unlived The Muse's boon forsook
let this not be your Life Work's Fate Let passion overbound Whether story, craft, poem, or paint Allow those dreams be found Spill them forth For all to see
The new Duke Nukem game has finally been released, and early reviews are that it is poison. Destructoid, the only gaming blog I read anymore, gave it a 2/10. That's...that makes me sad. I have such fond memories of playing the original Duke Nukem 3D, with it's ribald humor, and run-and-gun mentality. I knew Duke Nukem Forever wouldn't live up to the hype - how could it? The hype was over ten years in the building - but I was really hoping for something more than what seems to have been released.
I've talked about this before, but that is always the case with nostalgia. We always want the things that were special in our memories to be just as special today. They aren't, and they never will be. That is why it doesn't matter to me that this new Duke Nukem game sucks. It doesn't take away from my memories of the first game, and no amount of backlash against Gearbox will make me think less of them for trying, and failing, to polish the DNF turd.
I don't really have anything else to talk about tonight. I've got one poem I've been working on whose quality wavers from "Brilliant!" to "Ugh, really?" depending on what day I read it. However, I'm giving it just one more day to simmer before I post it. In the meantime have a cute puppy video, and stupid tee shirt.
Reading some of my older posts, and laughing at my wittiness...ah, good times! Speaking of wit, or lack there of, Nothingman posted a comment on yesterday's article:
You told me nothing in this post. Maybe you should stop relying on the Youtube and start posting from the heart, not from your "I think I'm witty" brain.
Yea and verily, he has a point. Of the eleven post I've made so far, I would say only two of them were actually interesting. However, I take exception to the idea that some of them were not from my heart - all my post are from the heart, though some (most...almost all?) do come from a rather shallow part of it.
Now, as some of you are no doubt aware, I enjoy playing the occasional video game. However, even with my copious free time uncluttered by such mundanities such are the lot of mere mortals, I find it difficult to squeeze in enough time to play the games I own, and thus so very many digital stories fall by the wayside.
A sub-forum all their own on Something Awful, Let's Plays are threads wherein dedicated crazy people play games that the rest either can't, or do not want, to play. These LP's are presented either as screen shots with commentary, or videos with commentary, and are quite often funny, interesting, and very engaging.
For instance, as I mentioned the other day, I recently finished reading through the LP of Final Fantasy IX. I had played the game years ago when it was first released on the PSX, but I never finished it, and watching the ending on Youtube just isn't the same without context.
And reading The White Dragon's LP provides more than context! He also provides interesting insights to the development and translation of the game, along with showcasing the shear amount of detail that went into even the smallest sections of the game. Character animations that were only used once! Text written on items that were too small for the PSX to render properly! Legitimate cinematic techniques used in a pre-render cgi cut scene!
Then there is the social commentary about Hawaii that The White Dragon, as a native Hawaiian, provides. His insight into the gradual erosion of his linguistic heritage; how the native Hawaiian community views homosexuals; and what a pain in the ass tourists are, make the thread worth reading even if you don't give two figs about Final Fantasy IX.
A nice little graph showing page views for my blog always pops up as soon as I open the dashboard. It's a nice bit of ego-boosting, or would be if I ever got more that barely-double digit pageviews in a day. I bring it up because the graph of the past week of traffic nicely mirrors my own feelings about this 30 Day Challenge; nothing on the first day, followed by a slow rise over the next two days, which leads into a sharp climb for two days. And then comes the inevitable crash when readers/I realize there isn't anything of interest going on. Then there is a small bounce over the last two days indicating a low-level interest still burning in a few die-hards.
Masochists, the lot of us.
Now, once more I was going to try and write a poetry-centric post, using some of the many fragments of poems I have written over the past months, but rather than finish the one I had been working on at work, or transcribing the rest, I allowed myself to get distracted by a post over on io9.com about an abandoned Russian airfield.
This led to an ADHD-fueled tour of Wikipedia starting with the Tu-22 bomber, and ending with the KS-1 Komet. Stops along the way also included the entries for the bouncing bomb; the definition of a "fleet in being"; and the Tallboy, a precursor to today's bunker buster bombs.
The pictures of the Russian airfield, and pictures from the West Coast mothball fleet, also put me in mind of just how optimistic so many apocalyptic stories are when it comes to technology. Nearly all of them have the plucky survivors of whatever flavor armageddon is popular at the time finding and salvaging weapons and technology from hidden bunkers that have survived the ravages of time. The most egregious example of which is the the Fallout series of games.
Seriously, take a close look at the decrepit hulks of those ships, and the empty shells of those Russian aircraft, and tell me with a straight face that anything made in the last fifty years would last twenty years unattended, nevermind one hundred and fifty!
Also, enjoy this Tiny Desk Concert by the Kopecky Family Band.
My laptop just glitched the eff out. Made like it was rebooting without me doing anything but using the touchpad. This coupled with it's new-found ability to overheat the wireless card and shut it down makes me think it might be time to invest in a new machine.
Looks like I picked a bad month to stop rolling drunks for spare change.
Now, the original meat of tonight's post was going to be some poetry that I have been working on for the last few months. I was going to use some of the downtime while at work to complete and edit some of them, but alas, it was not to be.
Not for lack of time, but rather for lack of effort I mean, yes, of course it was due to a lack of time! Haha! Really, I mean what else could it be? You see, the problem with polishing something to make it spiffy and neat is that sometimes a turd is a turd. These silk purses will not be turned into sow's ears anytime soon.
However, I do have something poetry-related to bring to the table tonight! Some months ago I posted a poem called Lavender Flames at Twilight. It was based on a dream I had (one of the few I managed to write down before it fled), and the image of the rockets lifting into the sky stayed with me for weeks afterwards.
Then about a month ago I ran across this link to the English Russia blog, and marveled at how the pictures of the Soyuz rocket launch matched so closely to my dream. A few of the pictures are included below, but I strongly recommend you go to the site to see all of them. They are breath-takingly beautiful, and awe-inspiring.
That right there? That is a 34 ton javelin giving the finger to Earth's gravity as it hauls it's precious human cargo (and lots of supplies) to the International Space Station. And that. Is. Awseome.
Oh look, I'm stalling. On any given night I will reach a point in my internet-trawling where I will have already caught up on the going-ons of my usual haunts, but I keep looping back through them hoping something will have changed. This point generally occurs around eleven pm when I should be going to bed, but I have also known it to happen whenever I am faced with a task that I don't (for no good reason) wish to complete.
Such as putting together a non-crappy post during a 30 Day Challenge.
Now, I actually had a couple ideas for posts as I was driving to dinner tonight, but once I got home there proved to be a few intractable problems. For the first idea I needed a clean recording of Leona Naess' "I Tried to Rock You", but my goto place, Youtube, had no video I wanted to use.
For the second idea I needed at least three more hours than I had available at the start of this post. As it is, after talking to my new roommate about local hiking trails, REI locations, and the local flora and fauna, I now have 29 minutes 'til post time, and not a damned thig to show for it.
So, [NARF!] What do are we going to do this time, Ego?
The same thing we do every time, Id...MAKE S*** UP!
Have you seen this video? It's of a solar prominence that on June 7th burst forth from the Sun like an inflamed appendix a over-ripe pimple on a teenager's face Meatloaf on his motorcycle on the cover of that one album with that one famous song, c'mon, you know the one - yeah, THAT one!
Anyway, the video is of the eruption from a couple different NASA satallites, and it's pretty cool. If, you know, you're into that sort of thing.
What? No! I'm not judging you for liking that video. I mean, why would I post something if I didn't like it? Oh, right...because I wanted to torture you.
That's not going to happen tonight unless...you hate X-Men, and think parody versions of Lady Gaga songs are gauché. And if that is the case, then I know exactly what I am going to get you for your birthday - an entire album sung by this guy!
Admit it, you chuckled when he made the mic move at the end of the video.
But lest you think me a terrible, terrible person (which I am, but I don't want you thinking that), I will leave you tonight with a song by my New Favorite Thing, Sarah Jaffe! Here she is singing "Even Born Again" live at a show in her hometown of Denton, TX.
'night, bitches! See you tomorrow when I will (possibly) regale you with tales of derring-do, and relate scenes from my (probably not) epic mountain bike ride! Or maybe it will just be more Youtube videos. You never know.
Alright yes, I have been phoning it in (once in a literal sense) the last few days. And tonight isn't going to be any different. I finally finished reading the FFIX Let's Play that I started nearly a week ago, and it was simply much more interesting than trying to dredge up something from the depths of the Internet. Don't worry, the FFIX LP is going to be one of the samples in my Let's Play post (COMING...at some point, maybe), and you can read it then.
You know, what the hell - I have twelve minutes until this needs to go live, so why not talk a bit about Final Fantasy IX? It was the last jrpg that Squaresoft made and released before they were bought out by Enix, and as far as I am concerned, the last good Final Fantasy game they made. From FFX on, the stories focused more on melodrama and emo whining than character development world-building.
FFIX, however, was filled with unique and interesting characters that lived in a fully realized world. Even the NPC's that you would only see once had little phrases and unique sprites that said more about them and their backstories than any main character from Final Fantasy 12.
Sadly, Squaresoft bet far too heavily on the uncanny valley, and when their cgi magnum opus tanked they became a prime target for a buy-out. It is everyone's loss that Enix did the buying.
Hey look, a cute picture of a cat! Yeah, I got nothing else, but in my defense my new roommate moved in tonight, and we're out at a bar celebrating. Yes,I did nothing but read Let's Plays, but that is completely beside the point! Plus, this is my first attempt to post from my phone.
Oh Internets, you know me so well! It's Day Four of this thing, and I still haven't figured out how to plan ahead and get a topic lined up for the day's post. Not that this is an unusual behaviour for me; homework assignements, projects, and papers were always being saved put off until the last minute. It's not so much that I crave the thrill and excitement of shaving it down to the wire, oh no! It's just that nothing focuses the mind quite so wonderfully as imminent death.
A friend of mine told me that if I fail this 30 Day Challenge, I have to film myself watching 2 Girls 1 Cup. And that. Ain't. Happening.
Death of Decency and Good Taste is Death all the same, so it was with a little bit of elation that I ran across something that caused ideas to gel, and my Muse to visit me from whatever part of my mind she usually resides.
Oddly enough, it was a comic about a writer's muse, from the excellent (and strongly NSFW) webcomic Oglaf. Seriously, DO NOT click any of these links if vaginas, naked breasts, or Ents with very literal morning wood offend you (or would get you fired).
Truly, anyone who with a creative bent knows how horribly demanding a muse can be. (Un)Fortunately mine's ADD is just as strong as my own, so she gets bored quickly and leaves. Which is only one-third of the excuse for the brevity of this post. The other two-thirds are that it is bloody difficult to type one-handed with an 18 lb. cat purring on your chest, and the fact that I really didn't put much more thought into this at all.
Have you heard the one about the narcissistic scientist who was in love with his own clone? At karaoke he'd sing "When I Think About Me, I F*** Myself".
What?
I'm just trying to set things up so that you understand why I find this video about a Mega Man 2 ROM Hack so damned funny...
Okay, well that would've been what I was going to post if I hadn't flaked out and forgotten which video it was that I wanted to talk about it. But trust me, it was funny!
Actually, it is just as well that I can't find that video as it would fit in better with a discussion of Let's Plays that I had an idea for earlier today. We won't be talking about that, either, because I decided to read another LP rather than gather material for a post.
Fret not however, as I have a plan! Or at least, filler. I give you an epic My Little Pony AMV!
Yes. My Little Pony.
What? Did I stutter?
My.
Little.
Pony.
Because Friendship IS Magic, bitches.
Honestly, if after watching it you don't find that video even a little bit awesome, then you and I can't be friends.
I love Minecraft. It's like having an entire world made out of Lego blocks, and the only limitations are your imagination, and the paltry twenty-four hours in a day. Alas, my ardent love of this blocky sandbox doesn't actually translate into any sort of talent for actually designing and/or building anything. Sure, I've got a 64x64x3 dirt platform upon which I will build full size model of the Lighthouse of Alexandria, but I'm kind of stuck on the part where I need to center the building on platform, but I don't have any graph paper large enough to plan it out and...
Look, music videos about Minecraft! Now, I don't pretend that the music in these videos is any good, or that vocals aren't amatuerish at best. No, I just thought they were funny, and showed off some of the incredible things people have built in the game.
And hey, who doesn't love an "Eye of the Tiger" parody?
I started this post the other morning after getting only 3 1/2 hours sleep, and then abandoned it when it became obvious that I had all the mental capacity of a senile mouse. However, the urge to blog stayed with me, so I left all associated tabs open. And glad I did, because I ran across something else online that I wanted to add to the post. Also, because I currently have the attention-span of a hummingbird's heart beat.
But I will get to that new addition at a later point. For now, here is the gist of the post; space, as my college friend Isaac was wont to say, is big. Now, Isaac was actually referring to mere intra-system distances (specifically cislunar with regard to the L-1 and L-2 Lagrange points, and the scale of your average O'Neill Cylinder), but the sentiment becomes even greater the farther one travels from Earth.
Now, this comic reminded me that astronomers had recently completed the largest 3D model of the Universe from data collected during the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III. In boring old 2D, that model looks like this picture:
Neat to look at, but it doesn't really give a body a sense of scale, does it? For that, we need to go with something like this image:
Centered on the Virgo Supercluster (wherein our very own Milky Way resides), with a scale of about 1cm = 1 Billion lightyears, this picture uses information from earlier SDSS's to map out our Universe. But even this picture fails to give our brains a proper grasp of the immensity of Everything. Fortunately, it is from atlasoftheuniverse.com where one can "zoom out" from 12.5 lys from the Sun all the way up to 14 Billion lys from the Sun, allowing one to adjust their sense of scale. Go ahead and click through. I'll wait.
Back? Good. Impressive isn't it. How the individual stars cluster and clump into groups, which then form galaxies, that then themselves become parts of clusters and super clusters. Still, if that didn't break your mind and make you feel utterly insignificant, yet vibrantly alive, then I have one more thing to show you.
This is the Millenium Run/Simulation, done by the Virgo Consortium. First run in 2005, it attempts to simulate the birth and growth of our Universe from the Big Bang to the Present Day. As you watch, keep in mind that the filaments and points of light are not mere stars and nebula, but strands and globular clusters of galaxies. Billions and billions of galaxies.
I can watch that video over and over and over again, and my sense of awe and wonder grow every time.
The last thing I want to add (and the thing that I mentioned back in the first paragraph) brings the scale back down to the merely Human. It is a gorgeous time-lapsed video of the Very Large Telescope in northern Chile.
I've asked it before, and I'll ask it again; what have we lost as a civilization that we can no longer see the starry sky? Where has our wonder gone?
Nothing like waiting until the 11th hour to start a project. Check the time stamp - that's literal in this case!
So yes, I am issuing myself another 30 Day Challenge to blog everyday for a month. I did this back in December of... uh, 2008, maybe? I'm not going to bother to check; it would just depress me. The point of that challenge (completed, btw) was to try and get me into the habit of writing and posting something regularly, if not actually daily. However, much like my 30 Days of Skiing this past winter, I ended up burned out and bored by the end, and my blog, like my skis, went unused for months after.
Yeah, I'm not holding much in the way of faith in a productive July for this little piece of the WWW.
But that isn't all I wanted to talk about this evening. Oh no, not at all! I also wanted to introduce my latest musical crush, Sarah Jaffe. She opened for the Old 97's on May 27th, here in Salt Lake, and after only two songs she had completely captured the crowd. While none of the videos on Youtube really manage to capture the raw power of her voice, they do showcase her clever song writing. Below is one of the songs she played that night, "Clementine". It has been on heavy rotation on my laptop since the show (I've listened to it three times while writing this post), and I hear it in my head when I am at work. Enjoy!
This is a loose translation of a dream I had a couple weeks ago. I meant to put it up sooner, but I've had a hard time coming up with a title. If you can think of one, let me know.
Standing on the back step overlooking the bay You pointed out the rockets launching into the twilight sky As we watched I saw two, then three, then four more Burning for space
Caught in the majesty of the moment, the night's wine still on our lips Your hand sought mine and we wondered at the spectacle When simultaneously our eyes caught grey scale motion Being chased by a pale flickering lavender flame
Muddle thoughts soaked in the night's activities struggled in my head And as your grip tightened in mine we saw the missile split And the warheads that had been cradled in its bosom leap for their freedom Behind it, you mutely pointed, were three more And yet still we watched, rooted in terrible wonder as death traced arcs against the ink of night
Icy dread presaged the realization that two of death's heads were heading our way And with a terrible slowness I spun and pulled you for the door As we felt the staccato pop of the bombs dispensing their payloads My shirt, the one you had brought back from Mexico Caught on the door frame, and time slowed further until it stopped
Then started again with the thundering roar of my heartbeat And the ripping of the sleeve as it separated from the shoulder You gasped at the blood that trickled from my arm, but I didn't care I was panicked Not at the thought that we wouldn't make it to cover But because I thought my clumsiness might keep you from safety
Now past the damnable jamb that had stood vicious sentry against our entry I whipped-cracked you past me and toward the door to the garage shelter Using my mass to impart to you the precious momentum Needed to carry you over salvation's threshold
Your scream of my name pierced me As I threw myself under our kitchen table The old oak had seen my grandmother's birth My father's death Our wedding feast And now I hoped against hope That its stout frame would withstand a little more
The genesis for this came one night after I watched the first two videos back-to-back. The third flowed naturally into it, and then I forgot about it for several months. As I am wont to do.
When I came back to it, I went searching for other sad songs that involved trains and was chagrined to discover that there were, if not "happy" train songs, at least those that strive for more than melancholy and woe. Boxcar Willie's Wabash Cannonball for one; and Arlo Guthrie's City of New Orleans for another. It also occurred to me that I should end the set with a song by the band Train because, ha-ha, Train is teh suxx0rs!, and how can you be happy listening to that tripe?
But that would just be petty and mean, and I am only one of those two.
Justin Townes Earle - The Ghost of Virginia James McMurtry - Rachel's Song Vienna Teng - Blue Caravan Boxcar Willie - The Wreck of Old 97 Johnny Cash - Folsom Prison Blues
I don't actually have a title for this one yet, so I'm going with 'Lullaby' for now.
When the story's over, the lights dimmed low And the fire banked to sleep When the pale white mare rides the sky Through constellations' velvet keep When Dreamtime's wonder is at the cusp And morrow's problems penned When your eyelids flutter and breathing slows When another day is end
It is then, my dear, at Oblivion's line That I'll lean in close to whisper true The best three words I'll ever say
"I love you."
That represents one hour's worth of writing and editing, and I think is shows in that last stanza. I'm going to need to work on that.
There was a time when I did more than just played video games - I used to play at reviewing them, too. This will be one of those rare times. Front Mission Evolved is SquareEnix's latest entry into one of their lesser known franchises, and it answers the question that never needed asking: How do you make big stompy robots boring?
For those that don't know, the Front Mission games have always been about commanding and customizing giant robots called wanzers. For the most part, this was done as a tactical RPG that allowed players to choose weapon load-outs, battle skills, body parts, and colors for their mechs. While FM:E retains the customization aspects of the those games, it ditches the tactical aspect and became a 3rd person shooter. This is not an improvement.
Gone is the need to strategically place units on the map; match strengths to weaknesses; juggle weapon load-outs; or even the need to give thought to the next move. Instead, all the player has to do is buy the strongest frame, load up the biggest gun of choice, and go shoot shit. No strategy. No tactics. Just dodge-shoot-dodge-shoot. And unlike other, better, 3rd person shooters, there isn't even a cover mechanic. Except when there is one.
As if understanding that they were sucking all the fun out the franchise, the programmers added in sections where the player has to get out of their big stompy robot, and run around on foot fighting other puny little humans, as a way of breaking up the monotny. This mode features a cover mechanic, but makes up for that with really crappy aiming and crappier weapons. I had to turn down the aiming sensitivity just to avoid shooting everywhere but the place I was trying to aim.
To add further insult to the clunky game play injury, each level has a number of semi-hidden items to be found. However, finding them serves little purpose other than as a weak attempt to pad the game. Sensors can be destroyed for money, and emblems can be found to unlock more decals for the player's wanzer. Yip. Ee. Let me tell you, nothing grabs my interest like combing every nook and cranny of a level to find 20 of something, for no other reward than a few measly dollars. Hold me down, imma gonna explode from the fun.
And all this is really a pity because the story is actually semi-decent. Dylan McSlackjaw is testing a new wanzer when NYC comes under attack by unknown forces. Trying to save his father, he dives into the fray willy-nilly, and becomes embroiled in an insidious plot to destroy the nations of the world.
Okay, so when I put it that way, the story is barely tolerable, too. However, the characters are rather enjoyable, and very nearly believable in their motivations and development. For instance: Dylan, when confronted by Adela over his use of the game's macguffin, doesn't whine about how she's being stupid, or try to force an explanation out of her. Instead he simply agrees to not use it until she is willing to explain why she's against it, and so her trust in him grows. Further, Dylan's decision not to kill a character later in the game stems from something that Adela says to him earlier on. The point isn't belabored, but his reasons are clear.
Alas, FM:E's characters are the paltry drops of Valentina hot sauce on the Taco Bell taco of Disappointment that is Front Mission Evolved. Their savory spice just isn't enough to balance out the bland drudgery that is the rest of the game.
Inspiration comes from strange places, or at least, a strange place. Last night I dreamt that the dachshunds we had when I was a boy were alive again, and they were so excited to see me that they wouldn't stop licking my face. It was very bittersweet because I immediately knew that it had to be a dream, but I didn't care because they were there, and I was so happy to see them. This evening I was thinking about that dream, and in a sudden burst of inspiration I changed it from my dogs to a non-existent wife. The poem sort of wrote itself from there.
I dreamt of my wife last night Which is weird Because I don’t have one.
I’ve had girlfriends and Lovers And women who were friends But she was not any of them And that is how I knew She Was my wife
She smiled at me And said “I love you” and I woke myself Crying Because it was only a dream
Hey, remember when I used to post stuff regularly? Me neither. However, as I have once again resurrected my computer from death, I figured I would try bring other things back to life. Like my blog; and my enthusiasm for things not video game related; and ... other stuff. Sadly, it seems that I've always lacked Ambition, and there is no way to bring back what was never there.
So instead, I will fill the empty hole where my joie de virve should be with insidious time wasters such as Songfacts.com. Did you ever wonder what the story was behind Survivor's seminal work-out anthem Eye of the Tiger being chosen for Rocky III? Or were curious as to how New Order came up with that awesome rhythm section for Blue Monday? Well, it's all there on Songfacts! Granted, much of it is clueless people saying that songs are about heroin addiction with absolutely nothing to back up that claim, but there is still much wheat amongst all the chaff. Below are seven songs that I chose not only because their Songfacts entries are interesting, but because I really like those songs and I had forgotten about many of them before finding them on Songfacts.
This is my running commentary of my first time playing a Call of Duty game. Specifically, CoD: Black Ops. If you don't want to read it, I'll summarize: I suck, and die a whole lot. 37 times in a three and a half hour period. That makes it about 1 Death every 5.5 minutes.
11:58 am: Black Ops loaded and waiting for me to 'Press START button'. First, more fruit smoothie.
12:01 pm: Options set, time for the Campaign!
12:04 pm: So, they are going with the whole torture/flashback set up as a narrative device, huh? Okay.
12:06 pm: Aaaand... I'm dead! I forget that the CoD games pride themselves on realism, and that for accuracy you have to aim down the sights. Borderlands this ain't.
12:09 pm: Dead again, and right as I reached the objective. Also, why is R1 for shooting, and R2 for Grenades? Hm, okay, Default ALT changes that around.
12:12 pm: Oh, and the character models? Creepy mannequin motion.
12:18 pm: I think I see the appeal of the CoD games, but I'm not sure I'm going to enjoy it in the long run. There's more of an emphasis on stealth, accuracy, and picking the right moment. I'm more of a run 'n' gun kinda guy. Well, maybe more gun and less run. But hey, I get to not-kill Castro in this historically accurate simulation!
12:24 pm: Play interrupted for emergency kitty lap session. Also, the incredible accuracy demonstrated by my AI squadmates in the tutorial mission? Gone. Apparently we haven't been able to kill Castro yet because nobody can shoot straight.
12:27 pm: Dead again. I'm also the only one that knows how to use grenades. When I remember I have them.
12:29 pm: I'm sorry, what? Check my weapon? You're the braindead dipshit that walked into my line of fire!
12:30 pm: Oh, gawdsdammit! I can't actually L1 target that dipshit! I can only "accidentally" shoot him.
12:31 pm: Oh wait, I can! I just have to let him get far enough ahead of me.
12:33 pm: That's three more deaths as I try and remember what button 'Crouch' is, and how to melee.
12:36 pm: Huh, so I'm supposed to pop a cap in Castro from across the room as he's hiding behind a hostage, with only an iron-sighted .45. Oh, and that makes eight deaths. Maybe ten. I lost track in the tutorial.
Yeah, one post after complaining about how YiEMB is getting too focused on music, and I am right back there with another all-music extravaganza! That's okay though, nobody reads this blog anyway, and I have the stats to prove it!
The blog Ectoplasmosis! used to be a daily read for me, back when founders Brownlee and Gauger were posting new stuff all the time. These days, despite having copious co-editors and hired drooglings to do the dirty work, updates have become somewhat erratic. That is okay though, because one Ectomo feature has stayed consistently good, and that is the Noise du Jour. Sometimes awesome. Sometimes awful. But always music I would never have heard on my own. Like the subject of today's YiEMB, for instance.
Caro Emerald is a Dutch jazz singer and that is all I know about her despite my proclivity for slinking over to Wikipedia every time I run across something I don't know. This time, I just can't be arsed to look her up. Probably because I'm too busy hitting "replay" on her Youtube videos.
Now, most of friends would be had pressed to say whether or not I like jazz, and the truth is that I don't much care for it. But then, I've pigeon-holed jazz to all sound like that the smooth shite that Kenny G has been unloading like aural cleveland steamers for the last twenty years. Caro Emerald reminds me that this is really not true. Fun, upbeat, and with a toe-tapping swing sound, her songs make me want to get up and dance.
The first three songs in the playlist are the official videos for Caro Emerald's songs, and the final three are of her live in a radio station studio, with two of those songs being covers. I won't say what songs she covers, but trust me when I say that you will not likely want to listen to the originals again!
To say that the Jetto J43SP-C (Space Plane-Cargo) was atmospheric-capable would be to stretch the definition of "capable" to uncomfortable dimensions. Sure, it had forward canards to balance the the tail-heavy ship's tendency to "sit up" on final approach, and many papers could be (and have been) written on the brilliance of the stacked rear wing design, and how robust and rugged it was. The same could also be said for the OMS systems which were close cousins of those on the original Space Shuttle. Simple and efficient, they made the J43SP-C pirouette like a dancer, but only in micro-gravity
Then there were the engines. When Jetto was designing the the J43SP-C, they went in for simplicity and reliability over flash and glitz, hence their use of anonther Space Shuttle technology, an upgraded SSME, as the primary propulsion unit, with two JATO engines providing addition mission-specific thrust. The genius behind those was that an expended unit could be jettisoned after lift-off (much like the Shuttle's SRB's), and new ones slid in and locked into place. Of course, since most companies only ever used the J43SP-C in microgravity environments, the JATO's were mostly considered to be dead weight and never installed.
So why was this light cargo workhorse mostly confined to LEO-to-GEO flights, or packet runs to the Lagranges? Because this was all too often the end result of a J43SP-C entering into any atmosphere denser than that of Mars.
All art by Dimitri Popov. Go here for his spectacular portfolio. These designs were for a FPS, Exodus From the Earth, that was released in 2008, and then promptly vanished from gaming consciousness.
I feel that YIEMB has become too focused on music, so I am bringing it back around to its roots with this, a compilation of ski videos. I present them with no commentary as I feel it would only distract from the beauty and splendor that is the graceful sport of skiing!
On a personal note, my eyes got misty seeing Mayor Bill Levitt in that last video. He was an amazing man, and Alta will miss him.
RIchard Thompson is not just one of the premier guitarists alive today, but he is also a poet and songwriter the likes of which the world rarely sees. And I got to see him play a 2 1/2 show tonight that was sublime in it's brillance, and electric in its energy. For those of you who do not know who he is (and shame on you! go here), I have provided a five eight-song play list, in mostly chronological order, to get you acquainted with his music. However, since his career covers four decades and thirty-four albums, please understand that this is hardly representative of the sheer breadth of his work.
The first song is from the first band that RT was in, Fairport Convention was the jumpstart that the British folk-rock movement was looking for, and it was powered in part by Thompson's guitar, and his songwriting, as witnessed in "Meet on the Ledge".
Second up, "Tear-stained Letter", is one RT played at tonight's show, complete with audience sign-a-long in the middle. Perhaps you've heard this song before, but did not know who it by. Well, now you do.
Then we have one of my all-time favorite songs, "Keep Your Distance". There is that one person whose very presence calls to you from across the room. Someone for whom the torch still burns, but whom you cannot be with no matter how much you may want it.
The fourth song, "Beeswing", tells the haunting story of a woman too delicate to hold. Supposedly Thompson was inspired to write the song based off of English folk singer Anne Briggs, though to my knowledge she never had a heroin habit.
"Cooksferry Queen" is an ode to powerful men brought round by a healthy dose of LSD. At least, that's my take-away from the song. How else are you supposed to interpret, "She gave me pill to get bigger/She gave me one pill to get small"?
SOng six is a rarity int hat it is most definitely NOT a Richard Thompson song. However, witness as he takes the poster child of insipid pop songs, "Oops, I Did It Again", and transforms it into a profound statement on the shallowness of young love.
The seventh song, "Dad's Gonna Kill Me", is an anti-war song, plain and simple, but an anti-war song as only Richard Thompson can sing it.
Finally, there is the only anomaly in my chronological list, "1952 Vincent Black Lightning". This song is the quintessential Richard Thompson ballad of love, death, and society. Seeing this song played live was like looking into the face of eternity for me. Yes, I cried. You would too.
A while back a friend of mine asked me to do an infrequent blog post about some of the webcomics I read; giving a little bit of what I liked/disliked about them; what drew them to me in the first place; and why I keep reading them. I said, "Sure, no problem!" and then promptly forgot about it. Well, while reading through my webcomics last night some thing caught my attention, as some things are wont to do, and it reminded me of my promise to my friend. So, here goes.
Of the thirty-one webcomics I regularly read, Supermassive Black Hole A* has possibly the most unique art style and layout of any of them.
Using only black, white, and every shade of grey in between, artist Ben Chambers has created a noir-esque space opera that, while still managing to hit several scifi tropes, avoids the cliches that cripples so many others. And he does so with a single-panel format. Granted, they are very large panels, but he gets away with it by updating multiple pages at once. More importantly, he has a firm grasp of "show, don't tell", and lets the action tell his story for him. In fact, he has another comic done in the same art style, The Princess and the Giant, that is completely dialog-free. I haven't really gotten into that one yet, but the narrative does not suffer from it's lack of words.
So, what was it about SMBHA* that reminded me that I had a promise to fulfill? It was a news post titled Phil Foglio AAAAAAAAAAAAAA (or words to that effect - I think I'm missing some A's), wherein Mr. Chambers waxes ecstatic about meeting Phil Foglio at a comic convention, and then completely (and justifiably) loses his shite when he learns that the esteemed Mr. Foglio reads SMBH.
Why is that a big deal? For those who don't know, Phil Foglio is a four time Hugo Award winning-author/artist of many, many things comic/scifi/fantasy-related. Girl Genius, for example (for which he and his wife have won two of those Hugos). Dude's big news. And he reads SMBH.
So, when I saw that news item I realized that SMBH was the first comic I needed to write about (and given my track record, it might be the last), as knowing that Phil Foglio also read the comic cemented SMBH in my mind as being a tier one webcomic. Maybe it doesn't have the following of Something*Positive or Questionable Content, but dammit, it should!
I just learned that I have a fracture in the lateral malleolus of my ankle, which bums me out because it means that I have to go full crutch for at least a week. It also means several friends and family members have spontaneously offered any assistance they can, which is nice. That outpouring put me in mind of a song that came on my iPod as I was driving home from getting the x-ray, called "trouble Over Me" by Tift Merritt.
For those that don't know, which, given Ms. Merritt's lack of mainstream success, is most of you, Tift Merritt is a North Carolina native that writes and performs lovely little folk songs with a country twang. I have been a fan of her's ever since hearing this song on 99X's Organic X program in Atlanta in 2002. Since then, She has released three more albums, the most recent of which, See You on the Moon, was released this past June.
So, why do I love this song? Well, apart from Tift's beautiful vocals, and the poetry of the lyrics, there is a sentiment of reluctant romantic wistfulness that makes me smile. The naivete of the singer regarding her crush on someone tickles that part of my heart that isn't a hard, blackened lump of iron ore.
The lyrics are a kind of subversion of the typical love song as the singer notes that she a) doesn't want a boyfriend with all the drama and circumstance that one comes with, and b) she doesn't want love. All she wants is someone who will be there for her is small ways, and with whom she can flirt. Yet, at the same time she yearns for an affirmation of the deeper connection that she and her crush share.
And today the song takes on added significance for me as it encapsulates how I feel about my fractured ankle. I do not wish to rely on my friends, but I do want to know that they are will to go through a little trouble over me.
Video bonus!!! Tift has another great song that fits my situation today: "Broken"!
Well, if ever there was a reason to start blogging (again), bitching about one's life is at least a time-honored excuse in the blogosphere.
The word "blogosphere" is a known word to the Typepad word editor. That's vaguely unsettling.
Where to begin in the laundry list of first-world problems that I have? Where else? Money. It can't buy happiness, but having liquidity certains aides in the achievement of a happy life. And I have near-zero liquidity at the moment.
The cause of this - well, the root cause - is certainly my lifestyle. Ski bums earn jack-all for pay, but up until now that hasn't really been an issue. In the past I have been able to pay rent and buy food, and have enough left over for an occasional new video game. This year, however, I find myself having (modest, very modest) medical bills in addition to the other fixed expenses I have to worry about. And that feeling of worry is compounded by an ankle injury that still hurts a week on. While it is a dull, low-level ache, the need to wear a walkboot compounds my frustration to the point where I. MUST. BLOOOOOOOOG!
But you know what really ticks me off? The thing that really yanks my chain? Chaps my hide? Chaffs my taint? Pisses in my milk? Teabags my ... something? Uh, right...well, it's the fact that because of all this I won't get this game when it comes out on October 5th.
I really want that game. Not only is it beautifully polished (I played the demo), but the protagonists for once don't make me want to slam my head into a wall until I am dumb enough to put up with their inept characterizations.
Even better? Enslaved is (very) loosely based on one of the few great Chinese novels that are recognized in the West; Journey to the West! That's right, we're gettin' all multi-culturated up in this biatch! Go on! Get down with your bad selves! Uh!
I'm a slaaaaaaaaave to beat! I'm A slaaaaaaaave to the music! I'm a slaaaaaaaave 4 u- wait, no I'm not. I'm just a Slave 2 Tha' Music!
I was buying fish in the store yesterday when a thought occurred to me. Being a self-proclaimed "idea man"1 thoughts are always occurring to me, but this was a rare occasion when it became lodged in my general awareness like those pebbles on today's hike that lodged right under the ball of my left foot. There it has remained a full twenty-four hours until I finally got around to writing about it (unlike the pebbles that were immediately removed, because I'll be damned if I'm going to hike two miles down a mountain with something that looks like a grain of sand, but feels like a damned boulder, digging into my foot!).
Train of thought...train of thought...what was I talking about before I interrupted myself? Oh right, post-apocalyptic scenarios and spoiled food! But I hadn't actually mentioned that yet as I was too busy trying to be clever. Right, so the thought I had while purchasing some delicious tilapia2 from the local grocery store was about how none of the post-apocalyptic stories seem to deal with the over-powering stench and related health hazard that would arise from grocery stores once the power is turned off. Not only would the frozen food displays all melt and rot, but the dairy, fresh fruit and vegetables, and beer would all start to turn within a day.
Okay, you might not be able to tell with the mainstream American lagers, but the microbrews would suffer pretty quickly. However, I don't bring this up as a joke, but because I think it is a legitimate point that should be addressed in post-apocalyptic fiction. This mass spoilage would be a serious concern for any would-be zombie survivors, resistance fighters, or people too selfish to just up and die once the eldritch horrors of old finally rouse from their slumber. Given that grocery stores today all rely on massive HVAC systems for ventilation, going into one a week, a month, or even a year, after everything goes kablooey would result in you quickly being overcome by a foul redolence the likes of which would make the dread Cthulhu's eyes water. And it would probably kill you.
So, whether you are planning on writing a short story about the pleasures of public sex after the Bomb, or a massive tome that seeks to completely redefine the symbolic paradigms inherent in the imagery of aliens harvesting the toe nails of humans, please remember to have you intrepid band of survivors/resistance fighter/post-atomic nudists wear gas-masks when foraging for canned goods in the echoing vastness of America's now-decimated grocery chains.
Thank you, and good night! Or morning. Which ever it is where you are. Possibly even afternoon, I suppose.
1It's just what I call myself to make me feel better about having zero follow-through.
2Forget tuna, tilapia is the chicken of the sea: it has almost no taste of it's own, and is delicious with nearly everything.
Some songs you just can't get behind, even if you like everything by that band. Temper Trap's Soldier On is one such song for me.
But that isn't why I asked you here today. No, what I wish to discuss is of a much more somber import, and one that may well cause you future discomfort should you choose to re-watch this Pixar classic. Now that I have cautioned you, let me get straight to the point; the elephant in the room in WALL-E is simply this, what happened to all the other humans?
Supposedly the Axiom was only one of over 300,000 star liners that Buy n Large launched to carry Humanity to the stars while the Earth was cleaned up. Never mind that it currently takes a dedicated shipyard two years to build an Oasis-class cruise ship, and that such a ship can only accomodate 6000 passengers. We'll just take it on faith that Buy n Large has the wherewithal to build a massive fleet of ships that have over 100x the capacity of today's largest cruise ships, and that it can do it while still producing enough consumer goods to satisfy a population of 200 billion.
Yes, billion. With a "B". That's over 28x the current population of the Earth. And somehow they all get loaded onto star liners and sent into the outer reaches of the Solar System with a minimum of trouble. That would at least explain why the streets of the megalopolis that WALL-E is cleaning aren't clogged with skeletons. Though, how cool would it have been to see that overhead shot WALL-E trucking down the road kicking up the trail of dust, but as the camera zooms in we see the dust is from the billions of bones that his treads have pulverized over the last 700 years? Yeah, not kid friendly, but neither is the fact that of the 200 billion population that left Earth, only 600,000 made it back!
Why? When the Axiom, the flagship of the fleet, returned to Earth to re-colonize, shouldn't it have notified the other 299,999+ ships that the home world was once more suitable for human life? Where there should have been a mad rush of mega-ships trying to land in the handful of operational cradles, there is instead only the Axiom that makes it home. This means that nine hundred ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-seven out of every one million (999,997 out of 1,000,000) humans failed to return home. Some of the ships probably suffered catastrophic mechanical failures, either due to failing maintenance or from micro-meteor impacts that shredded them like so much paper-mache. Or, the populations of the ships could have gone psychotic from being cooped up for too long in a cramped space, and they went all Event Horizon on each other. Most likely though is that the ships wore out little by little, and each generation of passengers was born with fewer and fewer people, until at last the star liners were nothing but desolate hulks, drifting endlessly through space, the mummified remains of their passengers randomly bumping around in the micro-gravity of their mass grave.
And it is a good thing, too! The reason they all left was because the Earth couldn't support them anymore, so imagine how bad it would have been for 200 billion people to return to a planet that no longer had the infrastructure needed to support them? No working factories. No farms. No habitable buildings. Nothing but obese people dying in the streets like pods of whales beached on the tepid shores of Arizona*.
So that's the elephant in the room for WALL-E - the massive die-off of Humanity after their gluttony and sloth got the better of them. And since Pixar's movies always bear the weight of subtle (and not-so-subtle) criticism of current affairs, the take-away message is that there are too many humans alive right now, and our consumer-driven culture is going to lead us to our own doom.
But don't worry, the cute robots will save us. Well, some of us. Only the fat ones, really.
*yes, I know there are no oceans near Arizona...yet.
Let's Play - For Geeks that Want to Know if The Princess Really is in Another Castle, but are Too Lazy to Play Themselves
Reading some of my older posts, and laughing at my wittiness...ah, good times! Speaking of wit, or lack there of, Nothingman posted a comment on yesterday's article:
Yea and verily, he has a point. Of the eleven post I've made so far, I would say only two of them were actually interesting. However, I take exception to the idea that some of them were not from my heart - all my post are from the heart, though some (most...almost all?) do come from a rather shallow part of it.
Now, as some of you are no doubt aware, I enjoy playing the occasional video game. However, even with my copious free time uncluttered by such mundanities such are the lot of mere mortals, I find it difficult to squeeze in enough time to play the games I own, and thus so very many digital stories fall by the wayside.
That's where the Let's Play Archives come in.
A sub-forum all their own on Something Awful, Let's Plays are threads wherein dedicated crazy people play games that the rest either can't, or do not want, to play. These LP's are presented either as screen shots with commentary, or videos with commentary, and are quite often funny, interesting, and very engaging.
For instance, as I mentioned the other day, I recently finished reading through the LP of Final Fantasy IX. I had played the game years ago when it was first released on the PSX, but I never finished it, and watching the ending on Youtube just isn't the same without context.
And reading The White Dragon's LP provides more than context! He also provides interesting insights to the development and translation of the game, along with showcasing the shear amount of detail that went into even the smallest sections of the game. Character animations that were only used once! Text written on items that were too small for the PSX to render properly! Legitimate cinematic techniques used in a pre-render cgi cut scene!
Then there is the social commentary about Hawaii that The White Dragon, as a native Hawaiian, provides. His insight into the gradual erosion of his linguistic heritage; how the native Hawaiian community views homosexuals; and what a pain in the ass tourists are, make the thread worth reading even if you don't give two figs about Final Fantasy IX.
Continue reading "Let's Play - For Geeks that Want to Know if The Princess Really is in Another Castle, but are Too Lazy to Play Themselves" »
Posted at 09:27 PM in Video Game Commentary, Videogames | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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