sunday eve/monday am, sitting at my PC. i spent the night eating fondue, drinking newcastle, watching the boob tube. i downloaded a stupid man's film to my xbox, but it seems to have expired since i'd downloaded it (they give you a two-week time limit, i guess it's on east coast time.. or i added a day to my memory). Instead I watched a documentary on nanotechnology, and then a 1986 interview with Dr. Oliver Sacks. Same difference, wouldn't you say?
The nanotechnology doc was an interesting one - something which I may've written of before, in here. For the uninformed, basically it's the theory that machines can be built to build tinier machines, to the point where they operate on a subatomic scale, essentially - instead of using raw materials as we know them, the materials involved would be molecular or atomic, supposedly the building blocks of our material universe (as we know) - opening up the door for creation of anything, anytime, under any circumstances, essentially. A machine which can make anything else, including another machine which can make anything else. It sounds like science fiction but for anyone who has taken any kind of general chemistry (and biology) class, then it might begin to make some sense. We are still a ways off from having such a degree of perfect manipulation, by any stretch, but it sounds like it is coming sooner than one would think.. within two decades, perhaps? One needs only to look at the climate around us to get a clue - everything is pretty miniaturized these days, even moreso than it all was 10-15 years ago. Everything is significantly smaller, yet more powerful and noticeably cheaper than you'd have thought it would be. It sounds interesting in a trivial manner, to most folks, but to a certain group of people I think this would register as not only noteworthy, but also somewhat frightening. Change is good, but too much+too soon = out of control. Things are already out of control, and though the media loves to constantly remind us how much we are pushing the boundaries in all things, this new leap forward will literally demolish boundaries or everything. There are extreme sociopolitical and economical factors at stake here. If there's machines that can make everything, for everyone, all the time - money, time, and resource not being limiting factors - then suddenly worth and value come into question. Money becomes useless. Work becomes redundant. Never mind shipping routes or oil shortages. Yeah, the problems of food shortages will be a thing of the past - and the health industry/medicine in general will undergo quite a transformation - but will this herald the onset of a golden age, or the unraveling of society as we know it?
I suppose I am speaking in somewhat grandiose terms here "the end of the world is nigh!" but there is some truth in this madness. The rapid advancement of technology is a very real thing, something which we've only glimpsed at in relatively Junior status (at best!) so far. How quickly we forget that the modern age we've been enjoying, this atomic age, is still so new, barely two generations old (even that?) Once Pandora's Box has been opened, the mind races to consider the ramifications in even the broader strokes, witness what the World Wide Web has done done to society and business globally, in it's relatively short existence (it's not 20 years old yet?) Mankind struggles to catch up, in our folly we purport to still be "in control of all of this" when in fact we are at it's random mercy.
So.. is this bad? In keeping with the rhythm, "is it our fault?" Could we have avoided this path, and whatever good (and "bad") it trumpets? It's just nature, I would argue - it's part of the program, just the next step in evolution. We are the ultimate creature born of this world, all things considered - and now it's time for our ultimate creature to follow in our wake. This always happens, or at least it's the precedent that has always been followed, so why should it be any different? The most interesting part of it to me, is that though we have got quite a fear of it (look to popular fiction, for starters), we'll never be able to break free of our programming and properly steer free of this destination, I'd say it's impossible (barring any unforseen cataclysmic forces - like a superflu or an asteroid). If anything, things such as war are the only natural global impediments to progress (it divides humanity, sets back everything progressive) yet ironically war will doubly drive business and technology, to the degree where it doesn't merely even out the race, it actually accelerates things.
I suppose arguments could be made for all I say (such is the way things go), but generally one needs only to look at history too see where we've been and what we're capable of. Not only human history, but more importantly biological history. Now is truly a special time in that there's never been such a large stake (and such a perfectly-faceted system on such a relatively large scale, within our perception), and already we have been able to witness sweeping changes in such short amounts of time.
I am not sad, or happy about any of this - it's been my lifetime, and my parents' and grandparents' lifetimes, that this has slowly been building up a good head of steam, to the point where it's been an ever-present consideration for everything that shapes all the ways we think about "the not-so-distant future." Consider people who grew up in medieval times, they would look to their elders and figure that "yeah, I will pretty much be in that guys shoes someday" - some things might be different, but overall you were looking at the model of your future life right before your very eyes. To look at old people now, we get a sense of "well, that's at least what I will LOOK LIKE.. sort of.. when I am old..", but we aren't quite sure of what shape society and business and how it will all be tied together. Depending on your age, it's easier to tell, I suppose.. lifestyle, geographical background, education, all of that - and sure, all of those things have always played some significant part in the process to varying degrees, though never to the degree of importance that they hold now.
So, to all of that, I repeat - it's the world. It's not gonna stop. It's not just people, it's just nature really. We'll keep adapting and changing, societally, philosophically, fundamentally. Whatever changes are brought about, this is all from within us, it's really inevitable and part of our spirit, whatever happens to accelerate or decelerate the process. It's not to be neither happy nor sad, it is just what it is. Frightening in some ways, optimistic in other ways, overall just very interesting. From my vantage point, I can say I am not oblivious to the fact that I was born during a particularly interesting time in human history, with a really good view of things.
I try to shake this knowledge/consideration all up in my blender of a mind, with all the other aspects of my personality - trying to keep a somewhat liquid, adaptable philosophy, as best as one can. I am not a stone, but I do need my stability, my reassurance. I think we're never really taught, generally, to completely expect the unexpected, but rather to lean on our traditions and our culture. What, then, if our culture is about constant recycling and reiteration - ad planned obsolescence?
I guess another driving force that makes me type this, is that I watched another documentary last night about affluence, that is, the material over-dependence of our society - what humble origins it has grown out of, into the top-heavy behemoth it now resembles. I am no stranger to such things, but when I hear about this stuff it makes my blood boil a little. The oil crisis, et cetera - these campaigns all champion a "change-the-world" crusade, proclaming "we are going down the wrong path, we can make changes today to save the world of tomorrow!" Yeah, sure we CAN, but will we? Counter that further with my arguments above, we honestly do not know what the next world is gonna look like, beyond a few sketches here and there. Even if we did have a solid outline, how would we conceivably reroute all the generations-old systems that have been built up, in hopes of fixing things for a brighter future? Our society is not one that rewards reservation, rather it rewards aggression, brutality (to put it simply, bluntly). Genius brutality, anyway. Our country exists as an economic superpower, all of the main powerful businesses of the world trace their lifeblood through it's arteries - without that continues progressive rhythm, things would start to crash into one another, pile up, disjoint. Yes - there would be reconstruction, there always is - but reconstruction only comes after breakdown, not avoidance. Reconstruction is the only way to truly rebuild a system which is flawed, and a system of any depth can only be halted by suspension of it's operations - and then it's subordinate operations and subsystems - to the point where "all the screws are stripped," rendering it inoperable until replacement by a similar or superior system.
These are harsh facts - again, most optimists would argue with me, I would not blame them - but I'll always point to history, to nature as my star witnesses. ADAPT OR DIE! Okay, I need to bring in my laundry while dodging the rain.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Thursday, January 24, 2008
tentativeness..
what's up community, long long time. As usual, much business has kept me from appearing in here. As I build some lights, I'll take a couple moments to contribute, then.
Very busy for me lately, work-wise. As usual I can't get into the specifics in this rather public area, but a lot of ups and downs for me professionally, lately. Things are pretty quiet with our studio publicly, but I'll say this much - we're very busy on all fronts. I checked out the "other game" (Aliens) a little -- well, from a distance -- and it's still got my eye.. very interesting.
SO, what's up in gaming for me... well, I guess I have a lot to say. I will write on it later, but here's a quick rundown - I got my hands on Mario Galaxy, which everyone lOOooOOooOOoves, I admit it's fun (though I get tired of that stuff!). I downloaded Sega/Bizarre's demo for "The Club" shooter the other night, anxious to go home and give it a spin. Also I hear the demo for Devil May Cry 4 is supposed to be out as well. Last night the office picked up a copy of No More Heroes, a title I have been looking very forward to.. I might pick it up! As expected, it's got some nice style. There's some things I would love to change about it - I hope it does well, they need to make more games in that vein. Give me more Godhand!
Mostly I have been playing an abundance of Pacman:Championship Edition on Xbox Live. This game is completely addicting! I was a Pacman freak when I was a little kid, but that was ohh.. so many years ago (like, more than twenty!) I enjoyed a resurgence with a serious Ms. Pacman kick shortly after moving to Los Angeles, my girlfriend at the time and I would often go to the local watering hole and sit down in front of the cocktail machine and just live in front of it for a couple of hours. So when I heard of this new version I was quite skeptical, as many were. Even playing the demo, I didn't really get "the point." For whatever reason, I took the plunge and dropped my ten bucks for the full version, and yeah, NOW I see the point! It's so amazing to me how they could take such a tired, old theme and completely reinvigorate it like this, the same old game feels so fresh and new. I would love to see more old titles mined in such a way for fresh gameplay. It kind of supports my general gaming philosophy, which I have trumpted for awhile - there's lots of wonderful gameplay conventions, already established, which have been sitting around completely ignored for too long - while the general gaming scene continues to get further cluttered with countless me-too rehashes with upgraded graphics. B A H ! ! !
Anyway, yah. The game is fun. I keep looking on Live to see what else will come down the pipe in my new favorite delivery method for burst gaming - so far, too much of it seems littered with blatant Geometry Wars ripoffs (yeah the game is good but come on, do we really need eight thousand of them?) I am hoping to see more 2D-style shooters. Omega Five was an interesting Forgotten Worlds style title (though it did not feel too fun, still I appreciate the principle). Rez HD, of course, is being prepped for release (though I doubt I need it, as I have the quite-capable DC version already - and no HD system to need to punch it through). Interested in Capcom's upcoming Commando 3, and of course Bionic Commando (we'll talk on that one later!)
Very busy for me lately, work-wise. As usual I can't get into the specifics in this rather public area, but a lot of ups and downs for me professionally, lately. Things are pretty quiet with our studio publicly, but I'll say this much - we're very busy on all fronts. I checked out the "other game" (Aliens) a little -- well, from a distance -- and it's still got my eye.. very interesting.
SO, what's up in gaming for me... well, I guess I have a lot to say. I will write on it later, but here's a quick rundown - I got my hands on Mario Galaxy, which everyone lOOooOOooOOoves, I admit it's fun (though I get tired of that stuff!). I downloaded Sega/Bizarre's demo for "The Club" shooter the other night, anxious to go home and give it a spin. Also I hear the demo for Devil May Cry 4 is supposed to be out as well. Last night the office picked up a copy of No More Heroes, a title I have been looking very forward to.. I might pick it up! As expected, it's got some nice style. There's some things I would love to change about it - I hope it does well, they need to make more games in that vein. Give me more Godhand!
Mostly I have been playing an abundance of Pacman:Championship Edition on Xbox Live. This game is completely addicting! I was a Pacman freak when I was a little kid, but that was ohh.. so many years ago (like, more than twenty!) I enjoyed a resurgence with a serious Ms. Pacman kick shortly after moving to Los Angeles, my girlfriend at the time and I would often go to the local watering hole and sit down in front of the cocktail machine and just live in front of it for a couple of hours. So when I heard of this new version I was quite skeptical, as many were. Even playing the demo, I didn't really get "the point." For whatever reason, I took the plunge and dropped my ten bucks for the full version, and yeah, NOW I see the point! It's so amazing to me how they could take such a tired, old theme and completely reinvigorate it like this, the same old game feels so fresh and new. I would love to see more old titles mined in such a way for fresh gameplay. It kind of supports my general gaming philosophy, which I have trumpted for awhile - there's lots of wonderful gameplay conventions, already established, which have been sitting around completely ignored for too long - while the general gaming scene continues to get further cluttered with countless me-too rehashes with upgraded graphics. B A H ! ! !
Anyway, yah. The game is fun. I keep looking on Live to see what else will come down the pipe in my new favorite delivery method for burst gaming - so far, too much of it seems littered with blatant Geometry Wars ripoffs (yeah the game is good but come on, do we really need eight thousand of them?) I am hoping to see more 2D-style shooters. Omega Five was an interesting Forgotten Worlds style title (though it did not feel too fun, still I appreciate the principle). Rez HD, of course, is being prepped for release (though I doubt I need it, as I have the quite-capable DC version already - and no HD system to need to punch it through). Interested in Capcom's upcoming Commando 3, and of course Bionic Commando (we'll talk on that one later!)
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
late
another night staring at the build status bar. hopefully to wrap soon and get out and go home. i gotta swing by my friend's place to drop off some $$$ and then head to the homestead.. my place is kind of a mess, it needs to be picked up/vacuumed/laundered/dishwashed/etc. i try, i try. i open up my living room closet and i am greeted with a tower of CLUTTER. I want it all to just go away! when i see that stuff, it makes me feel like my life is all out of sorts, everything is disorganized, i don't know where anything is - out of control. Of course things aren't that bad for real, but that's the feeling i get when i look in there.
my bedroom upstairs, by comparison - it's EMPTY. there's a bed, and some clothes. of course it's starting to get a little overflow. Since i was a little kid, i've had issues with being able to feel comfortable enough to fall asleep for the night in a completely trashy room. this is probably a good thing right? Well anyway I am surely not OCD (not nearly) about this stuff. i do wanna have a clean home base though, where all my stuff is in order - sensible, unimposing. I guess I should get my car cleaned up for that matter..
Tuesday night, the Hollywood scene beckons me. Partying is beyond old, I mean like beyond beyond old, but it still feels very tempting to just let myself go and forget my troubles and turn my brain off for a night, kind of like getting lost in a stampede. The more time I spend here, the more homey it feels to me, with all it's warts. I am not too flush with cash right now, so I am gonna give my urge the benefit of the doubt that it won't *MAKE* me go out (that's right). Wish me luck. For now, I gotta hop in the car and hit the road.. tomorrow is another day.
my bedroom upstairs, by comparison - it's EMPTY. there's a bed, and some clothes. of course it's starting to get a little overflow. Since i was a little kid, i've had issues with being able to feel comfortable enough to fall asleep for the night in a completely trashy room. this is probably a good thing right? Well anyway I am surely not OCD (not nearly) about this stuff. i do wanna have a clean home base though, where all my stuff is in order - sensible, unimposing. I guess I should get my car cleaned up for that matter..
Tuesday night, the Hollywood scene beckons me. Partying is beyond old, I mean like beyond beyond old, but it still feels very tempting to just let myself go and forget my troubles and turn my brain off for a night, kind of like getting lost in a stampede. The more time I spend here, the more homey it feels to me, with all it's warts. I am not too flush with cash right now, so I am gonna give my urge the benefit of the doubt that it won't *MAKE* me go out (that's right). Wish me luck. For now, I gotta hop in the car and hit the road.. tomorrow is another day.
Monday, January 14, 2008
nooo-NO!!!
ohh boy! coming into another phase of blog neglect, i suppose. that's fine. keeping an online journal is a pretty dumb thing to do anyway, if you think about it.
um, so life is very busy lately. yeah it always is, so no news there. some stuff i can't talk about in here is fiercely occupying me (well, i guess i'll say it's job-related and leave it at that). Otherwise things are pretty much going along as they normally do. My girlfriend started back at school last week, so i took my cue and went out on the town for a couple of nights (hey, it had been awhile!) I was quite wound up and raised some hell for a couple of nights, thankfully i kept the madness to a minimum. Going out = always fun, and though the novelty is long since worn off, it was good to go out and feel like it was still out there waiting for me. classic times, certainly. though on wednesday, i made it out to boardner's just a liiittle too late - it's the wednesday night spot, and i didn't show up till past midnight as i was at a karaoke bar up the street (no singing for me though). So i got stuck in line with the locals, waited about 20 min or so before giving up and heading elsewhere. Which is fine - i had my crazy night the previous evening.
But waiting in line still took it's toll. it made me feel OLD. I may not look like an old gy, but i certainly start to feel the part at times. listening to the kids in line ranting about waiting tables and stuff, and realizing that they're all... sigh.. i don't wanna think about how many years my junior they were. Mind you I am not old YET, but it's definitely past my mid-twenties by a longshot, brother...! To cheer myself up I hit a couple other little local places - they were dead, but they were friendly, and it was late, and I didn't feel like heading home JUST yet as my engine'd got all revved up at the karaoke place. You know what - seeing myself type this, right now, as it is it fills me with drive and vigor. It's only Monday but i could go for another week of the same. I WON'T (there's actually responsible things I must take care of!) but i do feel the desire to let Hollywood have it's way with me, some more.
Well, I guess I will be in vegas in a few days and I will be able to exhaust my stupid demons at that point. (Exhaust, not exorcise...)
Not much [artying for me these days anyway. Gotta save up money, and I am gonna be sinking in to much heavier work schedule as well. I need to unwind here and there to balance it (if i become one hundred percent work-machine-maniac, with no release, then I just become steeped in pointless-feeling misery). We have our animal sides, and they have to come out - I get tired of denying that, though as I get older, I do feel like it gets denied more and more. That pisses me off!
My health is mostly fine, though I can feel myself getting a little funky. My body has changed a bit the past 5 years, it's not "old!" but it's feeling worn from my lifestyle and mental state, and i can see how it's reflecting that. I have always been kind of lean, not necessarily "in shape" but never a fat ass, and i feel like i am encroaching on fat ass territory more and more. my diet and lack of exercise are doing little to resist that. My attitude is "there's just not enough hours in the day!" and i get more and more careless as time wears on. It's difficult - I have a lot of pressure and that kind of maintainence is just one more log to throw on the fire. I need to yank myself back into that direction, as it really IS one of the most important aspects of anyone's life - rather than continue to take it for granted, as I do. I don't know what to do -- well, i DO know, i just don't know how to find the drive in myself again. It's got to start somewhere, is all I know. I like to think I have not begun to approach the point of no return.
My girlfriend and I are arguing lately, and I am not sure why. It's not bad, but considering we have not argued at ALL the past year and a half (or so), it's been a little more frequent I guess. I am not sure what it means - I think we are hitting a phase where we've been together for a certain amount of time, and though we definitely enjoy our quality time together (more so, I would say!), I feel like we're sort of pushing on one another's boundaries a bit more to see what will happen. It's not really as.. playful or insignificant as I make it sound, but I have to say it feels like a natural thing in some ways. Not growing apart or something like that, just getting to another level as time passes and trying to deal with one another in.. a more closer way, if that makes sense. I won't lie - being in a relationship, anyone would have to agree, it is NOT the easiest thing in the world.. unless you are both completely stupid and simple people. Anyone who is involved with any other person over a prolonged period of time, of course they are going to have periods where they push each other's buttons for whatever reasons.
I've been through it before, of course, but each time (with each person) the dynamic is different. I guess that's part of me, also - when I am involved with someone, especially after "the honeymoon period" is wrapped up, I tend to get hazy on some big aspects of the previous relationships. Like, a lot of the stuff "how to deal with significant others from the past" gets blurred and feels irrelevant. I don't know quite how to explain it, and i guess the upside of that is that there's more novelty each time (says Ron the otherwise completely jaded person).
It's a little strange to write about relationship stuff in a public place like this, not that many people will ever view it (though some relevant people certainly will) - and I have been in hot water for such things before - but it is important to me, and what's up with my head right now, and I believe that so long as things are handled properly and (well.. without getting into particular details) than anything is fair game, eh? Believe me, there's a part of me that just wants to spit every detail of everything that goes through my head and my heart into this blog, but of course you can't really do that - but I'll take what I can get.
almost 8pm, I intended to get further with my work today (it was productive, anyway) however it is late and I need to meet my friend in Santa Monica. So, I'm off.
um, so life is very busy lately. yeah it always is, so no news there. some stuff i can't talk about in here is fiercely occupying me (well, i guess i'll say it's job-related and leave it at that). Otherwise things are pretty much going along as they normally do. My girlfriend started back at school last week, so i took my cue and went out on the town for a couple of nights (hey, it had been awhile!) I was quite wound up and raised some hell for a couple of nights, thankfully i kept the madness to a minimum. Going out = always fun, and though the novelty is long since worn off, it was good to go out and feel like it was still out there waiting for me. classic times, certainly. though on wednesday, i made it out to boardner's just a liiittle too late - it's the wednesday night spot, and i didn't show up till past midnight as i was at a karaoke bar up the street (no singing for me though). So i got stuck in line with the locals, waited about 20 min or so before giving up and heading elsewhere. Which is fine - i had my crazy night the previous evening.
But waiting in line still took it's toll. it made me feel OLD. I may not look like an old gy, but i certainly start to feel the part at times. listening to the kids in line ranting about waiting tables and stuff, and realizing that they're all... sigh.. i don't wanna think about how many years my junior they were. Mind you I am not old YET, but it's definitely past my mid-twenties by a longshot, brother...! To cheer myself up I hit a couple other little local places - they were dead, but they were friendly, and it was late, and I didn't feel like heading home JUST yet as my engine'd got all revved up at the karaoke place. You know what - seeing myself type this, right now, as it is it fills me with drive and vigor. It's only Monday but i could go for another week of the same. I WON'T (there's actually responsible things I must take care of!) but i do feel the desire to let Hollywood have it's way with me, some more.
Well, I guess I will be in vegas in a few days and I will be able to exhaust my stupid demons at that point. (Exhaust, not exorcise...)
Not much [artying for me these days anyway. Gotta save up money, and I am gonna be sinking in to much heavier work schedule as well. I need to unwind here and there to balance it (if i become one hundred percent work-machine-maniac, with no release, then I just become steeped in pointless-feeling misery). We have our animal sides, and they have to come out - I get tired of denying that, though as I get older, I do feel like it gets denied more and more. That pisses me off!
My health is mostly fine, though I can feel myself getting a little funky. My body has changed a bit the past 5 years, it's not "old!" but it's feeling worn from my lifestyle and mental state, and i can see how it's reflecting that. I have always been kind of lean, not necessarily "in shape" but never a fat ass, and i feel like i am encroaching on fat ass territory more and more. my diet and lack of exercise are doing little to resist that. My attitude is "there's just not enough hours in the day!" and i get more and more careless as time wears on. It's difficult - I have a lot of pressure and that kind of maintainence is just one more log to throw on the fire. I need to yank myself back into that direction, as it really IS one of the most important aspects of anyone's life - rather than continue to take it for granted, as I do. I don't know what to do -- well, i DO know, i just don't know how to find the drive in myself again. It's got to start somewhere, is all I know. I like to think I have not begun to approach the point of no return.
My girlfriend and I are arguing lately, and I am not sure why. It's not bad, but considering we have not argued at ALL the past year and a half (or so), it's been a little more frequent I guess. I am not sure what it means - I think we are hitting a phase where we've been together for a certain amount of time, and though we definitely enjoy our quality time together (more so, I would say!), I feel like we're sort of pushing on one another's boundaries a bit more to see what will happen. It's not really as.. playful or insignificant as I make it sound, but I have to say it feels like a natural thing in some ways. Not growing apart or something like that, just getting to another level as time passes and trying to deal with one another in.. a more closer way, if that makes sense. I won't lie - being in a relationship, anyone would have to agree, it is NOT the easiest thing in the world.. unless you are both completely stupid and simple people. Anyone who is involved with any other person over a prolonged period of time, of course they are going to have periods where they push each other's buttons for whatever reasons.
I've been through it before, of course, but each time (with each person) the dynamic is different. I guess that's part of me, also - when I am involved with someone, especially after "the honeymoon period" is wrapped up, I tend to get hazy on some big aspects of the previous relationships. Like, a lot of the stuff "how to deal with significant others from the past" gets blurred and feels irrelevant. I don't know quite how to explain it, and i guess the upside of that is that there's more novelty each time (says Ron the otherwise completely jaded person).
It's a little strange to write about relationship stuff in a public place like this, not that many people will ever view it (though some relevant people certainly will) - and I have been in hot water for such things before - but it is important to me, and what's up with my head right now, and I believe that so long as things are handled properly and (well.. without getting into particular details) than anything is fair game, eh? Believe me, there's a part of me that just wants to spit every detail of everything that goes through my head and my heart into this blog, but of course you can't really do that - but I'll take what I can get.
almost 8pm, I intended to get further with my work today (it was productive, anyway) however it is late and I need to meet my friend in Santa Monica. So, I'm off.
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
Thursday, January 03, 2008
so that’s what makes it so
damn, january. enero. time to start all over again, again.
i am tired of new year's'es. they just keep coming and feeling less and less new each time. it's a tired old routine. i am a whiny old curmudgeon. Bah! screw you all for being alive! I hate puppies, kittens, and balloons!
just kidding. i am feeling gassy and sleepy. i am lighting things all day long and it's making me a little antsy. i have about another hour's worth to go and then i need to haul home and play bioshock all night (don't ask). I have been back two days and already feels like i never left town... it's nice to be back home of course, to deal with the ever-present business.. but still.. doesn't take away my need to actually have some kind of a relaxing vacation. that longed-for "getaway to escape it all." Damn it is thursday night (already), that means it's the first Beauty Bar of the 2008 right? No, it's been a little bit of a while, already... but I will hold off for a little while still, i guess.
the holidays are behind me and that's a good thing. holidays are alright but they are really all about running around and stressing over buying presents and wrapping presents and delivering presents and not messing up presents and being able to afford presents and avoiding crappy crowded shopping malls and insane santa clauses and really hungry and sad-looking homeless people with just one arm, half-passed-out by the freeway exit who it's increasingly hard to ignore these days. Yes, it puts things in perspective (the city is cold and hateful at times). We haven't many unsightly homeless folks in OC anyway (i guess they round them up and deposit them Downtown in the alleys). Anyway holidays = DONE and that's all good with me. I can sit back and let my coffers try to refill ever-so-slightly. Oh OKAY V-day is approaching but otherwise it's all quiet. Chill out Ron. Just chill out. My own personal holiday is fast approaching (g-r-o-a-n) but soon that will be past as well and then I can put that sadness out of my mind. I am tired of birthdays, tired I say! I think this is my last one where I can still feel even relatively CLOSE to (legally) feeling like a kid. Somewhat.
There's a lot of things bouncing around in my brain as usual. We got back back from Boston, the trip went alright and my folks and girlfriend all met for the first time, I am sure there'll be a little fallout from that but overall things went over as well as could be expected. Both camps seem to have been fairly respectable enough of one another with a minimum of faux paus being commited, so I can relax a bit (well, such as it is). I came into my office yesterday AM and there were no pink slips waiting for me on my desk so again, a further sigh of relief (sigh, sigh). No ticket on my car 'cause of streetcleaning. No blood in my stool. My throat is a little sore (and coughing up the occasional green goblin, but nothing too terrible) and I haven't yet weighed myself.. AND my apartment's not yet burned down. All is well with the world.
The weekend looms already and I can't believe it - tomorrow is really already Friday? My plans for the weekend are Nil, though I have plenty to occupy me work-wise, across the board. I bound back into the mode and there's heaps of thought and planning and much decision making to do, and already elbow-grease required of me. The weekend coming will not be any more relaxing, but that's fine as I am itching to find something new and worthwhile to wrap my workaholic/creative urges around.
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Lots of interesting thoughts pass through my head lately, and lamentably I haven't committed many of them to paper (err, to .doc form). Or perhaps, better for that. Anyway, I was thinking a few weeks ago, it might be kind of fun to be chased by a big truck. WHAT you ask, WHY WOULD ANYONE WANT THAT? Well just listen. I was making a round of the office park during a break at work, just as a big truck came through the drive, and sort of crept alongside me. It was slowly traversing the narrow thru-way, and I watched my step but also noted how constricted the powerful beast was. Yes, if it wanted to truly crush me, it could certainly have a difficult time. Being a small single pedestrain, I can easily outmaneuver such a vehicle - while it has me beat in speed and mass, I can quickly and easily change direction, and I am more adept at dealing with uneven terrain. So then - YES I think it would be sort of fun to be chased by a truck. It would be fun on a bike or maybe a skateboard as well, but for pure thrill I think on-foot would be ideal. There's always going to be that ever-present danger that you could blow it and get completely throttled by the thing, but if you are even the tiniest bit wily (and, environment is not too difficult to navigate) then it shouldn't bee too hard.
Now let's examine a little further for a moment, and then I will get off of this. A big open field - you win. This is the easiest situation. The truck can work up speed and charge you, but if you start darting out of the way even as he closes in, then he's screwed since he'll need to wide-turn to nail you. Doing so would compromise the truck-driver's control, and if he did pull such a move then he might flip his rig (mind you, all this time I have been talking about a HEAVY TRUCK, like tractor-trailer combo - of course smaller trucks could easily kill you). Anyway, a steep incline is also (usually) in the pedestrian's favor. But now if you have a closed-off environment, with gates and walls and fences and stuff? Now things get interesting. The ped could get cornered and flattened up against the wall. I am not even considering the fact that the truck WOULD NOT have to remain completely intact while killing the ped. Even so it would not be too difficult. Depending upon the abilities of the ped, they could possibly take advantage of the obstacles and trick their pursuer into trapping itself - but if the person was of average athletic ability, then the odds are not in their favor.
Anyway, so there's my Truck-Chasing Fantasy. Could make for an interesting videogame, I suppose, but really the true thrill would come from real life. Oh well, I'LL never try it..
This brings up another thought, Lion Chasing Exercises. I mean, exercising is boring, though one can get into the rhythm I suppose - but other than the motivation to increase one's fitness, what's the point? Now. if a LION was chasing after you, that would cause you to run, for REAL! I mean, if you chill out, you're just gonna get mauled (at best!) or eaten. Unlike the truck, the lion doesn't have to worry about carefully navigating the terrain, it can just run around and pounce on you, so long as it can catch up to you. You'll be so busy running and trying not to be caught, that you wouldn't have TIME to be bored - no one is bored when they are in danger of having their flesh ripped off and eaten! This is complicated, though - the lion is most likely faster and more agile than most people it could chase, I'd assume (tigers, more so). I don't know, you'd probably need a slower lion. How fast do bears run? Are there slow ones? Not lumbering bears, but like.. jogging bears? Those things are mean and will eat you, I suppose, but you don't really picture bears vaulting across the serengeti like you would a lion or some other big cat. Anyway, a really good way to get in shape, but only for short bursts, because sooner or later you would probably end up getting caught and eaten, so I think I will pass on this as well.
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Well, I should end this by relating my very disturbing dream from last night. Honestly I don't really like to bring it up since it was pretty unsettling, but it's interesting to go back and read this stuff down the road as I tend to forget some of my weirder dreams. If you are squeamish and don't like to read upsetting things, you might wanna skip the rest of the blog entry -- Anyway I had this long and involved dream last night, I forgot about 95 percent of what went on, but I seem to recall a lot of running around and drama and all of that. Not very happy, just busy and trying to take care of all of my business, that sort of thing. In so doing, I got really neglectful of my house (in my dream, I owned a house with a pool). For the most part, things looked fine (and I made sure, usually, to keep it that way) but there were some things that were a little much for me to keep tabs on.. specifically, the pool. I didn't really WANT this pool, but they sold it to me and it had this whole weird Food Generation System which really creeped be out (it would use algae that grew in the pool and convert it into an edible food source somehow). I didn't really want to deal with all the maintainence involved as getting my food that way just seemed kind of gross, so I sort of ignored it and let the automatic pool maintainence device process and clean (and supposedly eliminate) all that stuff. Also it functioned as a Pet Care system, you'd put your pet into a small long tube that connected to the Food Cleaning/Distribution system and it would relieve you of the duties of caring for the thing. Not that I would ever do this in real life, of course, for anything above say.. a fish or reptile, but in my dream it was designed for dogs and cats and things. I examined the tube, not remembering if I even HAD a pet (or knowing what it even was!) and wondering how it was doing being sustained in there. I pulled back the sealed-off portion to view down the tube, which still would maintain a barrier between outside and inside, and looked to see what was down there. Something small and furry scurried down to my end, as the pool deposited the "food" there and it must have been feeding time - to my horror, I realized this was some kind of rodent. Not quite the cat, dog or hamster I was expecting, but some "unclean creature" which had thrived inside the pool system. It devoured the food as I watched it's short pointy tail spiking up and down - and I realized that this was not just a rodent but some bizarre unnatural nutated creature, at that. It looked very much like a rat, but it had extra sets of eyes on it's head - normal rat eyes, two big saucer-looking eyes on top of those, and weird Giger-esque squinty alien eyes alongside it's head - and no pupils (of course!) Disgusted, and horrified, I tried to close the viewing chamber (we were still separated by a plastic barrier, but it was not sealed to the air) and I wondered if this thing had actually EATEN whatever pet I tried to house in that horrible tube. As I tried to close the barrier, the rat effortlessly detoryed the plastic partition and freed itself from the tube, then fell to the floor and scampered into the backdoor of my house.. followed by several of it's bretheren. Anyway, I was about to start panicking when my eyes shot open and I woke suddenly from the nightmare, kind of sickened but happy it was not reality. Snapped out of it and got ready for work. So yeah, good day!
i am tired of new year's'es. they just keep coming and feeling less and less new each time. it's a tired old routine. i am a whiny old curmudgeon. Bah! screw you all for being alive! I hate puppies, kittens, and balloons!
just kidding. i am feeling gassy and sleepy. i am lighting things all day long and it's making me a little antsy. i have about another hour's worth to go and then i need to haul home and play bioshock all night (don't ask). I have been back two days and already feels like i never left town... it's nice to be back home of course, to deal with the ever-present business.. but still.. doesn't take away my need to actually have some kind of a relaxing vacation. that longed-for "getaway to escape it all." Damn it is thursday night (already), that means it's the first Beauty Bar of the 2008 right? No, it's been a little bit of a while, already... but I will hold off for a little while still, i guess.
the holidays are behind me and that's a good thing. holidays are alright but they are really all about running around and stressing over buying presents and wrapping presents and delivering presents and not messing up presents and being able to afford presents and avoiding crappy crowded shopping malls and insane santa clauses and really hungry and sad-looking homeless people with just one arm, half-passed-out by the freeway exit who it's increasingly hard to ignore these days. Yes, it puts things in perspective (the city is cold and hateful at times). We haven't many unsightly homeless folks in OC anyway (i guess they round them up and deposit them Downtown in the alleys). Anyway holidays = DONE and that's all good with me. I can sit back and let my coffers try to refill ever-so-slightly. Oh OKAY V-day is approaching but otherwise it's all quiet. Chill out Ron. Just chill out. My own personal holiday is fast approaching (g-r-o-a-n) but soon that will be past as well and then I can put that sadness out of my mind. I am tired of birthdays, tired I say! I think this is my last one where I can still feel even relatively CLOSE to (legally) feeling like a kid. Somewhat.
There's a lot of things bouncing around in my brain as usual. We got back back from Boston, the trip went alright and my folks and girlfriend all met for the first time, I am sure there'll be a little fallout from that but overall things went over as well as could be expected. Both camps seem to have been fairly respectable enough of one another with a minimum of faux paus being commited, so I can relax a bit (well, such as it is). I came into my office yesterday AM and there were no pink slips waiting for me on my desk so again, a further sigh of relief (sigh, sigh). No ticket on my car 'cause of streetcleaning. No blood in my stool. My throat is a little sore (and coughing up the occasional green goblin, but nothing too terrible) and I haven't yet weighed myself.. AND my apartment's not yet burned down. All is well with the world.
The weekend looms already and I can't believe it - tomorrow is really already Friday? My plans for the weekend are Nil, though I have plenty to occupy me work-wise, across the board. I bound back into the mode and there's heaps of thought and planning and much decision making to do, and already elbow-grease required of me. The weekend coming will not be any more relaxing, but that's fine as I am itching to find something new and worthwhile to wrap my workaholic/creative urges around.
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Lots of interesting thoughts pass through my head lately, and lamentably I haven't committed many of them to paper (err, to .doc form). Or perhaps, better for that. Anyway, I was thinking a few weeks ago, it might be kind of fun to be chased by a big truck. WHAT you ask, WHY WOULD ANYONE WANT THAT? Well just listen. I was making a round of the office park during a break at work, just as a big truck came through the drive, and sort of crept alongside me. It was slowly traversing the narrow thru-way, and I watched my step but also noted how constricted the powerful beast was. Yes, if it wanted to truly crush me, it could certainly have a difficult time. Being a small single pedestrain, I can easily outmaneuver such a vehicle - while it has me beat in speed and mass, I can quickly and easily change direction, and I am more adept at dealing with uneven terrain. So then - YES I think it would be sort of fun to be chased by a truck. It would be fun on a bike or maybe a skateboard as well, but for pure thrill I think on-foot would be ideal. There's always going to be that ever-present danger that you could blow it and get completely throttled by the thing, but if you are even the tiniest bit wily (and, environment is not too difficult to navigate) then it shouldn't bee too hard.
Now let's examine a little further for a moment, and then I will get off of this. A big open field - you win. This is the easiest situation. The truck can work up speed and charge you, but if you start darting out of the way even as he closes in, then he's screwed since he'll need to wide-turn to nail you. Doing so would compromise the truck-driver's control, and if he did pull such a move then he might flip his rig (mind you, all this time I have been talking about a HEAVY TRUCK, like tractor-trailer combo - of course smaller trucks could easily kill you). Anyway, a steep incline is also (usually) in the pedestrian's favor. But now if you have a closed-off environment, with gates and walls and fences and stuff? Now things get interesting. The ped could get cornered and flattened up against the wall. I am not even considering the fact that the truck WOULD NOT have to remain completely intact while killing the ped. Even so it would not be too difficult. Depending upon the abilities of the ped, they could possibly take advantage of the obstacles and trick their pursuer into trapping itself - but if the person was of average athletic ability, then the odds are not in their favor.
Anyway, so there's my Truck-Chasing Fantasy. Could make for an interesting videogame, I suppose, but really the true thrill would come from real life. Oh well, I'LL never try it..
This brings up another thought, Lion Chasing Exercises. I mean, exercising is boring, though one can get into the rhythm I suppose - but other than the motivation to increase one's fitness, what's the point? Now. if a LION was chasing after you, that would cause you to run, for REAL! I mean, if you chill out, you're just gonna get mauled (at best!) or eaten. Unlike the truck, the lion doesn't have to worry about carefully navigating the terrain, it can just run around and pounce on you, so long as it can catch up to you. You'll be so busy running and trying not to be caught, that you wouldn't have TIME to be bored - no one is bored when they are in danger of having their flesh ripped off and eaten! This is complicated, though - the lion is most likely faster and more agile than most people it could chase, I'd assume (tigers, more so). I don't know, you'd probably need a slower lion. How fast do bears run? Are there slow ones? Not lumbering bears, but like.. jogging bears? Those things are mean and will eat you, I suppose, but you don't really picture bears vaulting across the serengeti like you would a lion or some other big cat. Anyway, a really good way to get in shape, but only for short bursts, because sooner or later you would probably end up getting caught and eaten, so I think I will pass on this as well.
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Well, I should end this by relating my very disturbing dream from last night. Honestly I don't really like to bring it up since it was pretty unsettling, but it's interesting to go back and read this stuff down the road as I tend to forget some of my weirder dreams. If you are squeamish and don't like to read upsetting things, you might wanna skip the rest of the blog entry -- Anyway I had this long and involved dream last night, I forgot about 95 percent of what went on, but I seem to recall a lot of running around and drama and all of that. Not very happy, just busy and trying to take care of all of my business, that sort of thing. In so doing, I got really neglectful of my house (in my dream, I owned a house with a pool). For the most part, things looked fine (and I made sure, usually, to keep it that way) but there were some things that were a little much for me to keep tabs on.. specifically, the pool. I didn't really WANT this pool, but they sold it to me and it had this whole weird Food Generation System which really creeped be out (it would use algae that grew in the pool and convert it into an edible food source somehow). I didn't really want to deal with all the maintainence involved as getting my food that way just seemed kind of gross, so I sort of ignored it and let the automatic pool maintainence device process and clean (and supposedly eliminate) all that stuff. Also it functioned as a Pet Care system, you'd put your pet into a small long tube that connected to the Food Cleaning/Distribution system and it would relieve you of the duties of caring for the thing. Not that I would ever do this in real life, of course, for anything above say.. a fish or reptile, but in my dream it was designed for dogs and cats and things. I examined the tube, not remembering if I even HAD a pet (or knowing what it even was!) and wondering how it was doing being sustained in there. I pulled back the sealed-off portion to view down the tube, which still would maintain a barrier between outside and inside, and looked to see what was down there. Something small and furry scurried down to my end, as the pool deposited the "food" there and it must have been feeding time - to my horror, I realized this was some kind of rodent. Not quite the cat, dog or hamster I was expecting, but some "unclean creature" which had thrived inside the pool system. It devoured the food as I watched it's short pointy tail spiking up and down - and I realized that this was not just a rodent but some bizarre unnatural nutated creature, at that. It looked very much like a rat, but it had extra sets of eyes on it's head - normal rat eyes, two big saucer-looking eyes on top of those, and weird Giger-esque squinty alien eyes alongside it's head - and no pupils (of course!) Disgusted, and horrified, I tried to close the viewing chamber (we were still separated by a plastic barrier, but it was not sealed to the air) and I wondered if this thing had actually EATEN whatever pet I tried to house in that horrible tube. As I tried to close the barrier, the rat effortlessly detoryed the plastic partition and freed itself from the tube, then fell to the floor and scampered into the backdoor of my house.. followed by several of it's bretheren. Anyway, I was about to start panicking when my eyes shot open and I woke suddenly from the nightmare, kind of sickened but happy it was not reality. Snapped out of it and got ready for work. So yeah, good day!
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
cut scene
3::49am, just arrived back at my parent's house in the 'ham. Not a terribly cold new year's (as some have been in the past), and certainly quite a mellow one (well... for the most part - but definitely compared to some wild ones in the past, as far as puking out of speeding cars and kissing random drunken chicks in the streets and all of that goes). Ah, youth.
We went to Jon n Adam's place, Adam and his girlfriend were way too kind to us and cooked up a helluva meal. Some of the tastiest food I have had in awhile (yeah, my Mom cooked us quite a nice dinner the other night as well). It was a small get together, but good to see some faces whom I have not been in contact with in quite a long time. Of course before long we pulled out Rock Band (yeah I know it is getting cliche) and belted out for awhile, whew I get a sore throat after some sessions of that. It's all good fun though.
And now we're home, and it's shortly past midnight back in LA. I am sure all my friends back there are livin' it up wild-style, though we were rather sober this particular New Year's. (yeah, me, the partier, staying dry on one of the biggest get-tanked nights of the whole year... hahaha). That's fine.. when I am home with my old gang, I'd prefer to keep it from getting nuts so i can actually remember these good times, rather than know it happened but lose all the details - as so often happens when I cut loose...
Flying back to Los Angeles tomorrow evening, and I suppose back to work on the next day. Sigh. I am not ready to go back! I need another week to unwind - kick up my feet and take it easy and relax and be left the heck back! It feels weird to think of that though. it feels weird to think of what is up next - even if it is normal. This past year has flown by too quickly, it feels too strange to believe it is 2008, that 2007 has whizzed by just like that. It was a bizarre year in my life, just like most of them have been, a lot of memorable moments - some exciting ones, some quite stressful ones. Just a year I kind of wanted to put behind me in some ways, though it wasn't necessarily "a bad year." I don't know what to expect of the coming one - I try not to have hopes, or outlandish desires and dreams of what will come. I yearn for more stability, but still crave the excitement, the novelty, something to jar me. Sigh - we will see.
We went to Jon n Adam's place, Adam and his girlfriend were way too kind to us and cooked up a helluva meal. Some of the tastiest food I have had in awhile (yeah, my Mom cooked us quite a nice dinner the other night as well). It was a small get together, but good to see some faces whom I have not been in contact with in quite a long time. Of course before long we pulled out Rock Band (yeah I know it is getting cliche) and belted out for awhile, whew I get a sore throat after some sessions of that. It's all good fun though.
And now we're home, and it's shortly past midnight back in LA. I am sure all my friends back there are livin' it up wild-style, though we were rather sober this particular New Year's. (yeah, me, the partier, staying dry on one of the biggest get-tanked nights of the whole year... hahaha). That's fine.. when I am home with my old gang, I'd prefer to keep it from getting nuts so i can actually remember these good times, rather than know it happened but lose all the details - as so often happens when I cut loose...
Flying back to Los Angeles tomorrow evening, and I suppose back to work on the next day. Sigh. I am not ready to go back! I need another week to unwind - kick up my feet and take it easy and relax and be left the heck back! It feels weird to think of that though. it feels weird to think of what is up next - even if it is normal. This past year has flown by too quickly, it feels too strange to believe it is 2008, that 2007 has whizzed by just like that. It was a bizarre year in my life, just like most of them have been, a lot of memorable moments - some exciting ones, some quite stressful ones. Just a year I kind of wanted to put behind me in some ways, though it wasn't necessarily "a bad year." I don't know what to expect of the coming one - I try not to have hopes, or outlandish desires and dreams of what will come. I yearn for more stability, but still crave the excitement, the novelty, something to jar me. Sigh - we will see.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
train kept a-rollion'
whew, a couple minutes of free time in between the gallavantin', might as well check in with Ye Olde Internete.
Things are alright, the last few days have been sorta hectic I suppose. Friday I guess we sorta hung out (Brother drove in from Boston so we could get some hotdogs, we drove back to Cambridge to pick up his girlfriend and then back here to Framingham to have dinner with the folks, plus my Uncle. my Low-Carb Uncle). Saturday my mother brought May and I to meet her manicurist in Natick (yes, that is how you know it must be serious!) and then I graced my belly with a Number Nine from D'Angelo's. We caught a ride back to the city with my brother once again, stopped to visit friends Dante and Mary in Brighton before catching a taxi to Central Square in Cambridge. Earlier in the day (err the day prior, I think) my buddy Joe informed me that the Mighty Mighty Bosstones were doing their traditional year-end string of shows in a little local club, The Hometown Throwdown at The Middle East - though the band haven't performed together publicly in about 5 years or so (likewise they've not recorded anything since). I was always a fan of those guys, though I've only seen them barely a handful of times - but I'd never been to one of the Throwdown shows, so it was sort of the case where "it's a bitch to set it up now when I'd really rather be picking up with my buddies, but I KNOW I will regret skipping the show!" My buddy found an extra ticket for me (the show was sold out) and I managed to get another one (for my girl) from a scalper out in front just before the opening act started up.
The show was fun! I have only been to the landmark Middle East a couple of times, likewise, but each time was extremely memorable (God Lives Underwater, Hum, Rocket from the Crypt) - and now the Bosstones. So yeah some of my all time favorites, certainly. I yakked with my friends and put down a few vodka drinks while we waited for the main act to take the stage (fittingly, they did so when I was squattin' over the pot). I rushed out and into the mosh pit with my mates. Now - I have been to a few shows in my day, and certainly to my fair share of dance nights since I've relocated out west. I am usually the long gangly idiot out there in the middle of the dance floor tearing it up like a caveman, my giant hair thrashing about and my legs and arms kickinng and bashing all over the place like an out-of-control retarded babboon or something. Usually it's not taken to, too well (I got kicked out of a vegas club for dancin' like that) and folks will generally shy away from me when I behave thusly in Los Angeles (well.. sort of). Mind you I am not generally trying to piss anyone off, it's just where I have come from, I am a product of the punk rock and the grunge band style of dancing, if you could call it that.. but yeah! In the nineties, that was how we danced, all crazy and violent and thrashy. And it was accepted, generally, and you sort of had a connection with one-another in the middle of it, you'd smash into one another but you'd also protect each other from falling on, or getting squished or run-down. It was interesting, I suppose. Anyway that's all gone the way of the Dodo, so to speak, but it was pretty much the scene at the concert last night, a return to (caveman!) times passed. The setlist they played was alright, a mix of decent and "eh" songs (hard to be picky I guess, but you will always complain if you're me) Still we all knew the words to all the tunes, and screamed them out, exasperated, as we belted one another every which way. It was fun, though, a nice release! Real Boston crowd too (appropriately). lots of dudes dressed like House of Pain not 'cause they were trying to rip that style, but because it is their local style (which I guess got defined by bands like that .. so yeah.. I guess they WERE ripping that style) but whatever. Lots of Irish and Jewish looking faces in that crowd. I was just psyched the drinks didn't cost an arm and a leg. I pretty much tore off my Tshirt about halfway through the set, since it was completely sopping wet with booze and sweat as if I'd just come in out of a rainstorm. The sole of my trusty boot got ripped (finally!) and I got a nice little gash on my finger, but all in all I would say it was a great time = no regrets. Thanks for the hookups, Joe and Terry!
Today I have been hanging out locally in the neighborhood, I gave my girl the driving tour of the area where I grew up (the houses we lived at, the schools I went to, the house where my neighbor went crazy and eviscerated his poor wife and stuck her organs on sticks all over the yard, that sort of thing). We will head into the city soon, once again, to meet some friends for dinner. I feel bad for the poor kid "now here's some MORE people to meet, and here's some MORE and etc etc"
Right now I should go give some attention to the poor dog they got, which is really young (less than a year) and exploding with energy and no outlet for it. So he just cries and bites stuff all day long.
Things are alright, the last few days have been sorta hectic I suppose. Friday I guess we sorta hung out (Brother drove in from Boston so we could get some hotdogs, we drove back to Cambridge to pick up his girlfriend and then back here to Framingham to have dinner with the folks, plus my Uncle. my Low-Carb Uncle). Saturday my mother brought May and I to meet her manicurist in Natick (yes, that is how you know it must be serious!) and then I graced my belly with a Number Nine from D'Angelo's. We caught a ride back to the city with my brother once again, stopped to visit friends Dante and Mary in Brighton before catching a taxi to Central Square in Cambridge. Earlier in the day (err the day prior, I think) my buddy Joe informed me that the Mighty Mighty Bosstones were doing their traditional year-end string of shows in a little local club, The Hometown Throwdown at The Middle East - though the band haven't performed together publicly in about 5 years or so (likewise they've not recorded anything since). I was always a fan of those guys, though I've only seen them barely a handful of times - but I'd never been to one of the Throwdown shows, so it was sort of the case where "it's a bitch to set it up now when I'd really rather be picking up with my buddies, but I KNOW I will regret skipping the show!" My buddy found an extra ticket for me (the show was sold out) and I managed to get another one (for my girl) from a scalper out in front just before the opening act started up.
The show was fun! I have only been to the landmark Middle East a couple of times, likewise, but each time was extremely memorable (God Lives Underwater, Hum, Rocket from the Crypt) - and now the Bosstones. So yeah some of my all time favorites, certainly. I yakked with my friends and put down a few vodka drinks while we waited for the main act to take the stage (fittingly, they did so when I was squattin' over the pot). I rushed out and into the mosh pit with my mates. Now - I have been to a few shows in my day, and certainly to my fair share of dance nights since I've relocated out west. I am usually the long gangly idiot out there in the middle of the dance floor tearing it up like a caveman, my giant hair thrashing about and my legs and arms kickinng and bashing all over the place like an out-of-control retarded babboon or something. Usually it's not taken to, too well (I got kicked out of a vegas club for dancin' like that) and folks will generally shy away from me when I behave thusly in Los Angeles (well.. sort of). Mind you I am not generally trying to piss anyone off, it's just where I have come from, I am a product of the punk rock and the grunge band style of dancing, if you could call it that.. but yeah! In the nineties, that was how we danced, all crazy and violent and thrashy. And it was accepted, generally, and you sort of had a connection with one-another in the middle of it, you'd smash into one another but you'd also protect each other from falling on, or getting squished or run-down. It was interesting, I suppose. Anyway that's all gone the way of the Dodo, so to speak, but it was pretty much the scene at the concert last night, a return to (caveman!) times passed. The setlist they played was alright, a mix of decent and "eh" songs (hard to be picky I guess, but you will always complain if you're me) Still we all knew the words to all the tunes, and screamed them out, exasperated, as we belted one another every which way. It was fun, though, a nice release! Real Boston crowd too (appropriately). lots of dudes dressed like House of Pain not 'cause they were trying to rip that style, but because it is their local style (which I guess got defined by bands like that .. so yeah.. I guess they WERE ripping that style) but whatever. Lots of Irish and Jewish looking faces in that crowd. I was just psyched the drinks didn't cost an arm and a leg. I pretty much tore off my Tshirt about halfway through the set, since it was completely sopping wet with booze and sweat as if I'd just come in out of a rainstorm. The sole of my trusty boot got ripped (finally!) and I got a nice little gash on my finger, but all in all I would say it was a great time = no regrets. Thanks for the hookups, Joe and Terry!
Today I have been hanging out locally in the neighborhood, I gave my girl the driving tour of the area where I grew up (the houses we lived at, the schools I went to, the house where my neighbor went crazy and eviscerated his poor wife and stuck her organs on sticks all over the yard, that sort of thing). We will head into the city soon, once again, to meet some friends for dinner. I feel bad for the poor kid "now here's some MORE people to meet, and here's some MORE and etc etc"
Right now I should go give some attention to the poor dog they got, which is really young (less than a year) and exploding with energy and no outlet for it. So he just cries and bites stuff all day long.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
year 2007 almost all done!
so of course.. what did 2007 bring, to the world of videogames? Certainly.. wayyy too much for a gent like me to recall. So here, then, is a smattering of what comes readily to mind. Then, as now..
-This marks the First year I've heavily become a NeoGAF-Addict. So help me. I guess I started last year, but the past 12 are where the addiction really took hold. Mind you.. I registered this past April, STILL waiting to get Jr Member status ('til then. I still can not even make a single reply, let alone a post!)
-I interviewed for a few jobs (Technicolor, Kaos, Obsidian) - also completed a 2nd round of an Art Test for Naughty Dog (Uncharted) - which obviously didn't get me in over there, but I still think it came off rather well.
-Started working for Obsidian this past March, "Project Georgia" --> 'nuff said. Still employed there as of this writing.
-Console Acquisitions - I got a Wii (for my girlfriend - another for my parents, as well!). Personally I acquired a 360 Refurbished, and got into Xbox Live of course. I am a week into ownership of a PS3.. also recently acquired an aged Turbografx-16, and I am still hunting down a CD-Rom that WORKS! Also I finally landed a Test PS2 (plays burns, JPN titles)
-Games - picked up a lot of games this year. What was the most memorable? Uhm.. geez.. A lot of good ones came out, but nothing that really blew me away personally (sigh, I probably had the most fun with "new games" that were in Wii Sports... well that and I guess Rock Band, but does that technically count? I just sing Karaoke on it..) Memorable moments were Hulk 2, Skate, Flipnic Ultimate Pinball, Psychonauts.. umm. I will add to the list when I get home and look at the actual shelf, haha.
-Games I actually enjoyed (oldies as usual) - SMS Choplifter, PCE Columns (oh God it was bad for awhile. I mean GOOD bad). Those were emulated on GBA of course.
-Haha, I picked up the Tabletop Coleco Games from Ebay - Pacman, Galaxian, Frogger. Zaxxon also but rerturned it (the guy sold me a busted one!)
-Sony's PS3 suffered. BADLY. No release yet for Home.. no LittleBigPlanet.. No MGS.. No exclusive for GTA VI, lost it for Devil May Cry 4. It's coming along, but it's limping. Ummm.. Kutaragi gets kicked to the curb (he essentially INVENTED Playstation, PS2, PSP also I guess, and yes the PS3 was his freakiest Frankenstein yet) but I guess someone had to "get to retire" for this Top-Heavy Tragedy.
-Sony did get a release for Ratchet and Clank, likewise Uncharted. Also squeezed out Unreal Tournament 3, or so they say (I've yet to see it). I heard the 1st two didn't sell wonderfully though.. dunno about UT3. The games were cool but not system-buy-worthy (like, say.. Mario Galaxy).
-Sony got a little hurt with Heavenly Sword (not bad), bludgeoned with Lair (what.. what happened?), surprised with a good show for Warhawk (whew!) On that note..
-Warhawk becomes 1st Playstation network full-downloadable game (as opposed to a "Jr level game"). Which it still sort-of is, but it sounds like it's pretty much there. Releases in-store as well with a headset. Gets the Walmart's of the world a little pissed off - sign of things to come, for sure. Um.. watch this space! (Shudder)
-God of War II release party, with dead animals. The press goes mad. Wow.
-Sellouts galore! I mean -- Sony buys Evolution (Motorstorm). Activision Buys Bizarre Creations (Project Gotham Racing). EA buys Bioware and Pandemic (for nearly a BILLION $$$). Activision and Vivendi combine to form Devastator. Meanwhile Halo dev bungie slinks away from Microsoft, strangely (but honorably) - immediately after releasing their latest system-seller.
-E3 comes back as a boring Marketing and Business-event only that no one attends. As gaming gets more and more exciting, buzz falls flat into the middle of the netherword. Thousands mourn. E for All rises to take the place of E3 as a "spiritual successor," but of course no one cares as it's not quite-so-special anymore. Besides, you have to pay. Whatever.
-Neversoft inherits Guitar Hero from previous dev Harmonix and churn out installation number Three. Harmonix powers up with EA and spits out the logical evolution, Rock Band. Both are great, all things considered - I will just say I think Rock Band changed the world a little more and Guitar Hero better pull something fancy out of it's next iteration to continue to be relevant. Or at least, do something dirty and downright mean. Sigh - Clash of the Titans, at this point.
-Madden released again. But it sold poorly, considering that this is one of the most profitable institutions in the history of anything, ever..
-Generally, EA is cleaning up it's rep as a horrible place with horrible games, in it's post EA_Spouse model, by being slightly less horrible to work at with decent (I mean, actually GOOD) games releasing. The Simpsons Game, while not wonderful, is good for what it is (all things considered). I was a naysayer of skate and now I complain it absolutely worthy of purchase, talk about loving your game. MySims, or whatever they call it, for Wii - not for most, but for who it is for, they know what they are doing (if you can make heads or tails of that sentance, I commend you!) I still don't like the Evil Empire, but EA is making some overall elegant moves as the business industry fluctuates drastically around them. At least they look a little less sloppy than Activision. In some ways, sigh, it's all so blurry and pointless now isn't it.
-Jeff Gertsmann (name probably misspelled, my apologies) fired from gamespot after like 11 years 'cause of Kane and Lynch. Yeah, maybe the nail in the coffin, but still that was weird and ugly. Yeah stuff goes on behind the scenes that none of us know about. Hopefully, if the guy isn't a huge jerk or something, this is actually a huge boost in his career in the end. I know so little about this stuff (other than what everyone else can also see) so I will refrain from hypothosizing - all I know is that sometimes, life is not fair and good people get robbed. Here is hoping that the wide audience of this story is useful more than useless - though it can always go either way, I suppose.
-360's red ringing (that is, fatal error) all across Mother Nature. Come ON. I am tired of putting up with horroriffic technology that people tolerate to such a degree. It's only the beginning (but man, this stuff is EXPENSIVE.)
-the Wii. 2 gamecubes duct-taped together, to be sure. With a waggle-wand to boot. And yet - SO HARD TO ACTUALLY BUY, even one year hence. Nintendo, my friends, you have changed the world so many times I have lost count. Who knows what weirdness you will cook up next. So long as it keeps being weird in a cool way, then I say, have at you.
-delays: Spore (um.. it looks gross now? Well, it's been a few years, but it's Will Wright, so who knows) MGS 4 (that panther has a Hot Ass. Oh my!) Devil May Cry 4 (not really exclusive anymore I guess - PS3 coughs a little). GTA IV gets setback (at least) a season. Also M$ pays megabucks for exclusive GTA IV DLC. Does this matter? Sure, in some ways.. I guess. Too Human also fails to appear, with a bit of weird rambling by Silicon Knights (the game's dev) president Denis Dyack popping around here and there to spout off of love of the game and hate of the games press.. or love of the press but hate of the way the press works.. or.. something. oh it was confusing, but at least it was interesting to follow. Anyway the guy has heart, which is encouraging. Oh yeah, don't forget the delay for Wii Smash Bros Brawl!
-Also Dyack started a big crazy lawsuit against Unreal Editor (this gen's industry-wise answer to Renderware - that is, the Next Gen Engine of Choice by most folks, as it made history with Gears of War last year!) developer Epic MegaGames, who have their hands full with tons of craziness all across the world all the time anyway, for reasons you can expect (mostly). Anyway suits and countersuits followed, some people whined, now it's sitting in a big legal mess somewhere up on a big mountain of money and no one really wants to pay attention to it at the moment. Don't worry, it will come back.
-A Shadowrun update came out, I think it was by FASA (who shortly closed thereafter). Shadowrun - big cyberpunky-sorta PG back in 16bit days, though it was sorta low-profile. Anyway some people loved it, some hated it. I couldn't tell ya.
-Oblivion mega-dev's say that they're making the next Fallout. Some people are pissed, but most folks seem to think it's in good hands. Meanwhile Interplay exists somewhere in between this existence and the next, SOMEHOW, and say that there's a Fallout MMO.. or something.. in development. But not really. But they are employing people, technically. Sort of. It's sketchy, right?
-Meanwhile, WOW continues to own people's souls. Yes - their SOULS, man. I mean, Blizzard finally moves into a new campus and hires more crazy people and announces more craziness (a new Starcraft 2 game, shows it off- apparently, very similar to the already-works formula but in THREE DEE). also another non-WOW MMO is coming (Diablo?) Starcraft Ghost still seems dead, but there's another WOW expansion coming (Lich King I think). But whatever. WOW is amazing for what they've done (it's bigger than ANYTHING - and besides, it owns all those souls!) And I still don't care personally, but hey. You've got to recognize.
-Assassin's Creed. Another victim of good pedigree and hot producer, failing to live up to the hype. is this really anyone's fault? It looked good enough to me, but seemed to be the victim of "too little too late." Gorgeous game and interesting ideas, might've stayed in the oven another 6 months. Maybe the sequel will do better.
-Transformers Movie Game. yeah, who cares, but with one of the best possible licenses around, it could have been sooo good. I know, history proves time and again there'll never actually be a REALLY COOL Transformers game, but man.. what a waste. Damn, let ME make the game. I promise it will be fun.
-Rockstar makes headlines with controversy. What a surprise! How unusual, right? Biggest shocker was the Manhunt 2 debacle "tooo violent, we want to label it adults only!" Bah... they crank it down and some kids crack the code for the PSP version anyway, but it's too muddled to deserve any actual Hot Coffee-style lawsuits/hurtful media at that point. Further salt is poured on the wounds when original dev Rockstar Vienna receives NO CREDIT for their work on the game, though the studio's been closed for some time (supposedly it's "an embarrasment") and Rockstar Toronto (I guess) gets all the credit. Though still kinda who cares/whatever, as the game rates miserably. Just another day in the life, I guess. Um.. geez, these guys are attention whores. At least they still manage to get industry-changing games out in spite of this weird confused drivel.
-Huge historic releases across the board, all things considered. Current-gen consoles begin swinging with their first-wave of post-launch titles, in the case of Wii and PS3. Xbox 360 gets it's second-wave of releases (it's got a year on the other two systems). Wii counts sort of half-way between the two, as it is honestly older-hardware coupled with newer design philosophy (motion control, accessibility to nongamers). Generalizing, we have;
Wii: Super Mario Galaxy - huge setup for what many expected to possibly fall flat (following the not-stellar Super Mario Sunshine of Gamecube). Apparently the most-loved-game by everyone in recent memory. Though I have not played it, everywhere it's name is spoken you hear LOVE, LOVE, LOVE. For some reasons, this MIGHT be GOTY, all across the board. Like in a Scorcese kind of way.
Metroid 3 - Motion controlled, I hear lots good about it, expect it to fade with the rest but sounds like "if you liked before, you will still like now" - they keep their franchises well-stocked, what can I say.
Wii Play - I think that released 2007. Not sure! A huge seller, since it packs in a 2nd Wiimote (no nunchuk though). By itself kinda meh, but definitely worth it for obvious reasons and still stupid-fun enough to warrant being mentioned here. I mean, anyway, EVERYONE owns it at this point..
Mario Party 8 - why do I mention this here? Actually it's probably BS, but something about a game with the moniker "Mario Party" showing up within the fist year of the Wii's existence just seems telling. I haven't touched it yet, but I am glad it's there (and what I have seen of it, looked noteworthy). Probably useless if you played the other, um SEVEN MP's, but if you're a Wii newcomer (as many are) this is probably deserving of a spot on your shelf.
Super Mario RPG - I mean.. Super Paper Mario - Uh, hell this game looked cool, and it had a good gimmick, and everyone was clamoring for it. So why did it fall apart? The shots and lead-in still look right-on. Too bad they blew it. Worth a mention as a disappointment, in a big way. Maybe not a bad game, but certainly a waste of a golden opportunity from a place you might not expect. Then again..
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XBox 360: Halo - release of the year, whether or not you care (I don't). Years in the making, and it sounds like they fulfilled expectations. Built to last for fun, though I am sure at this point "the party is over."
Bioshock - Destined to become Sleeper of the year, it surprised everyone by being a good time with a cool aesthetic, rating REALLY well, and selling wonderfully to boot. Possibly a bit overrated (I think it won't last, for some reasons) but it did a great job of making a standout name for itself during a ridiculously crowded year, sounds like it was substantial enough to boot. Though, ultimately forgettable, alongside everything else - what can be considered classic, these days? Time (and use/abuse of a franchise) will tell.
Crackdown - low expectations, seemed like a cheesy cop-out "buy this to get Halo 3 beta!"and it actually had some staying power as a fun game, to boot! I expect more good things from these devs. Of course, by the end of the year, it is pretty forgotten as well.
The Darkness - Starbreeze made a huge splash last gen with Xbox Riddick - apparently they suffered the usual sophomore syndrome with this title, then. Not bad, but again, so what? We can't help but expect games like these at this stage, good-but-ultimately-filler.. it's hard to say they are BAD, per se, since they are not, but in the company of the other releases of the days (and with such a powerful pedigree) one would hope for something stronger. We'll see what follows, eh.
Orange Box - yeah, the name, the name. Who cares, sometimes weird stuff works, so dig it! Anyway, no matter how you look at it, if you are a gamer this is the deal of the year for several reasons! Just another excuse to cement valve as one of the most important devs of the day, and with expectations through the roof for their future. Well.. probably. Meanwhile, I am anxious to play Portal at some point.
Mass Effect - Oh. you know. Bioware. Go, Doctors!
Pac-Man Championship Edition: The joke release that had the last laugh on everyone, in reverse (meaning.. it was actually really a good game!) Downloadable of the year, I'd say so.
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PS3: Lair - Should have been good. What a mess. The game reviewers guide. julian Egglebrecht, or whatever his name is, with horrible damage control. What should have been at least competent ended up being "a big waste of everyone's time." I haven't played it, strangely I am tempted to rent it - except I know I'd regret it in like 15 seconds after booting. How do people let those things happen in this day and age of multi-million dollar game project investments?
Uncharted and Ratchet and Clank - mentioned above by loved veteran Sony dev's, "it's up to them to save the day!" Well, consider this your next iteration. But so what - it's just another brick in the wall. These games are good, but are they really half a bill good, even together? I won't knock them 'cause they are capable, reviewed well, and people say they are fun and good-looking. But still game like UR MR GAY (super mario galaxy) and UR MR GAY HALO will sweep them, at the end of the day. I am being unfairly harsh, but come on, it's Playstation THREE, it's the Second Coming of the Second Coming. If anything, they can be considered good harbingers of what is to come, but a solid note that things must be stepped up. We will see in 08 if there's the needed follow-up, eh?
God of War II - another amazing game into this kinda late-debuting franchise, but wait - this is a PS2 title, wrong list huh? Okay, well, it's forgotten this late in the year, and bitched about by some, but the fact stands that Sony can blast an unforgettable and powerful franchise out of literally nowhere, just by blasting enough time/money/capable manpower when it wants to. If this released on PS3 this Xmas, with appropriate visuals, no doubt it would have swept Game of the Year for the system and got a lot more resoect for all parties considering. Instead it makes Sony look kind of headstrong and stubborn, while sort of noble in trying to support their gazillion install base. But - blah to nobility, at least this way. We want our next gen sequel - it will come, and it will come properly!
Warhawk - mentioned earlier, for obvious reasons.
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Nintendo DS: Okay, it's not Next-gen per se, but it's next-gen handheld (close enough) and honestly the best system if you're a gamer these days so definitely belongs here with it's bretheren. What have we got for the old boy?
Pokemon DS - a summer 2007 release, already completely forgotten by EVERYONE. But it came out at a time when there was nothing to play anywhere, and it was a freakin' Pokemon Baby-game, and all the RPGheads who gave it the time of day made much love to it. And apparently it deserved it. Nintendo could poop these out with relative frequency at this point, and in some ways it does - but they do it in a way that's to their credit, and they make incredible money off it respectfully. Pokemon = not for me, but could have been beyond-shriveled up by now, it's served it's purpose - and still they build it with quality.
Puzzle Quest - I think it started on DS. this particular craze. I am all good for promoting decent Puzzle games in this day and age, it may well be my favorite genre. This sounds like a strange mix of ideas, but kudos for being relevant. Maybe a little sloppy, but all things considered, it's heartening to hear things like this.
Drawn to Life - another "weird" game, definitely a "baby game," like they say, but still honest and interesting in concept. As long as they keep making weird-idea DS games coming that aren't just shoveled out completely, it retains it's pertinence - make the games really good with follow-through, and then it becomes valuable. This might lack in that department, but for noob studios to do stuff like this, they get credit these days, from me.
Contra 4 - Okay, Ping Pals made this. It's CONTRA. Too many frames of animation for me, but this was made by contra lovers FOR contra lovers (esp. after too many years of franchise defecation). Cheers to see that they still have people who care enough to do the RIGHT thing. If it was more eight-bitty then I might go out and actually buy a DS for this, as it is I still kinda should.
Planet Puzzle League - which I think is the name - Tetris Attack remains one of the best, BEST BEST BEST, most-fun games I have ever played in all my years of living, and sad to see I discovered it way too much later than the rest of the world. that they can get a game like this out makes me retardedly happy, even if I am still playing the fossilized version. Hell I logged in too many hours of the B/W Gameboy version recently. This game deserves acclaim - DO it.
Zelda:Phantom Hourglass - they did not need to release another quality Zelda title this year, and time will likely not be too kind to it, (or.. will it?) But that's fine, because no matter what - if you like good games, then it is at your service.
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PSP - might as well, right?
Crush - The coolest game no one played. It's a lot of people's fault, and it's a shame.
Ultimate Ghosts and Goblins - not sure but I think was actually a 2006 release. Still I will throw it in 'cause The franchise needs some notice, it used to be alongside Mario for crying out loud. I don't think I heard this game was even too great, but still I want it to be remembered. But man.. fix the name!
Dracula X: Rondo of Blood.. err. Chronicles.. um. I don't know the official name of this game, and I don't care I guess. I would have picked it up had I owned a PSP. I still don't own (or want) a PSP for a variety of reasons. This game is very noteworthy as it's an (admittedly ugly) remake of one of the hardest-to-locate games in the history of popular franchises, somewhere up there with the JPN Super Mario 2 (though in a completely different way). This game gets bonus points for value, with a (gross-looking) 3D remake of the original game, plus the original 2D version in there with the first Metroidvania thrown in for good measure. You can't argue with that logic.
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that's my list for now (of noteworthy titles of 2007). Likely to add to it in the future. Anyway I think I have typed enough for one session, pardon the notable absences..
-This marks the First year I've heavily become a NeoGAF-Addict. So help me. I guess I started last year, but the past 12 are where the addiction really took hold. Mind you.. I registered this past April, STILL waiting to get Jr Member status ('til then. I still can not even make a single reply, let alone a post!)
-I interviewed for a few jobs (Technicolor, Kaos, Obsidian) - also completed a 2nd round of an Art Test for Naughty Dog (Uncharted) - which obviously didn't get me in over there, but I still think it came off rather well.
-Started working for Obsidian this past March, "Project Georgia" --> 'nuff said. Still employed there as of this writing.
-Console Acquisitions - I got a Wii (for my girlfriend - another for my parents, as well!). Personally I acquired a 360 Refurbished, and got into Xbox Live of course. I am a week into ownership of a PS3.. also recently acquired an aged Turbografx-16, and I am still hunting down a CD-Rom that WORKS! Also I finally landed a Test PS2 (plays burns, JPN titles)
-Games - picked up a lot of games this year. What was the most memorable? Uhm.. geez.. A lot of good ones came out, but nothing that really blew me away personally (sigh, I probably had the most fun with "new games" that were in Wii Sports... well that and I guess Rock Band, but does that technically count? I just sing Karaoke on it..) Memorable moments were Hulk 2, Skate, Flipnic Ultimate Pinball, Psychonauts.. umm. I will add to the list when I get home and look at the actual shelf, haha.
-Games I actually enjoyed (oldies as usual) - SMS Choplifter, PCE Columns (oh God it was bad for awhile. I mean GOOD bad). Those were emulated on GBA of course.
-Haha, I picked up the Tabletop Coleco Games from Ebay - Pacman, Galaxian, Frogger. Zaxxon also but rerturned it (the guy sold me a busted one!)
-Sony's PS3 suffered. BADLY. No release yet for Home.. no LittleBigPlanet.. No MGS.. No exclusive for GTA VI, lost it for Devil May Cry 4. It's coming along, but it's limping. Ummm.. Kutaragi gets kicked to the curb (he essentially INVENTED Playstation, PS2, PSP also I guess, and yes the PS3 was his freakiest Frankenstein yet) but I guess someone had to "get to retire" for this Top-Heavy Tragedy.
-Sony did get a release for Ratchet and Clank, likewise Uncharted. Also squeezed out Unreal Tournament 3, or so they say (I've yet to see it). I heard the 1st two didn't sell wonderfully though.. dunno about UT3. The games were cool but not system-buy-worthy (like, say.. Mario Galaxy).
-Sony got a little hurt with Heavenly Sword (not bad), bludgeoned with Lair (what.. what happened?), surprised with a good show for Warhawk (whew!) On that note..
-Warhawk becomes 1st Playstation network full-downloadable game (as opposed to a "Jr level game"). Which it still sort-of is, but it sounds like it's pretty much there. Releases in-store as well with a headset. Gets the Walmart's of the world a little pissed off - sign of things to come, for sure. Um.. watch this space! (Shudder)
-God of War II release party, with dead animals. The press goes mad. Wow.
-Sellouts galore! I mean -- Sony buys Evolution (Motorstorm). Activision Buys Bizarre Creations (Project Gotham Racing). EA buys Bioware and Pandemic (for nearly a BILLION $$$). Activision and Vivendi combine to form Devastator. Meanwhile Halo dev bungie slinks away from Microsoft, strangely (but honorably) - immediately after releasing their latest system-seller.
-E3 comes back as a boring Marketing and Business-event only that no one attends. As gaming gets more and more exciting, buzz falls flat into the middle of the netherword. Thousands mourn. E for All rises to take the place of E3 as a "spiritual successor," but of course no one cares as it's not quite-so-special anymore. Besides, you have to pay. Whatever.
-Neversoft inherits Guitar Hero from previous dev Harmonix and churn out installation number Three. Harmonix powers up with EA and spits out the logical evolution, Rock Band. Both are great, all things considered - I will just say I think Rock Band changed the world a little more and Guitar Hero better pull something fancy out of it's next iteration to continue to be relevant. Or at least, do something dirty and downright mean. Sigh - Clash of the Titans, at this point.
-Madden released again. But it sold poorly, considering that this is one of the most profitable institutions in the history of anything, ever..
-Generally, EA is cleaning up it's rep as a horrible place with horrible games, in it's post EA_Spouse model, by being slightly less horrible to work at with decent (I mean, actually GOOD) games releasing. The Simpsons Game, while not wonderful, is good for what it is (all things considered). I was a naysayer of skate and now I complain it absolutely worthy of purchase, talk about loving your game. MySims, or whatever they call it, for Wii - not for most, but for who it is for, they know what they are doing (if you can make heads or tails of that sentance, I commend you!) I still don't like the Evil Empire, but EA is making some overall elegant moves as the business industry fluctuates drastically around them. At least they look a little less sloppy than Activision. In some ways, sigh, it's all so blurry and pointless now isn't it.
-Jeff Gertsmann (name probably misspelled, my apologies) fired from gamespot after like 11 years 'cause of Kane and Lynch. Yeah, maybe the nail in the coffin, but still that was weird and ugly. Yeah stuff goes on behind the scenes that none of us know about. Hopefully, if the guy isn't a huge jerk or something, this is actually a huge boost in his career in the end. I know so little about this stuff (other than what everyone else can also see) so I will refrain from hypothosizing - all I know is that sometimes, life is not fair and good people get robbed. Here is hoping that the wide audience of this story is useful more than useless - though it can always go either way, I suppose.
-360's red ringing (that is, fatal error) all across Mother Nature. Come ON. I am tired of putting up with horroriffic technology that people tolerate to such a degree. It's only the beginning (but man, this stuff is EXPENSIVE.)
-the Wii. 2 gamecubes duct-taped together, to be sure. With a waggle-wand to boot. And yet - SO HARD TO ACTUALLY BUY, even one year hence. Nintendo, my friends, you have changed the world so many times I have lost count. Who knows what weirdness you will cook up next. So long as it keeps being weird in a cool way, then I say, have at you.
-delays: Spore (um.. it looks gross now? Well, it's been a few years, but it's Will Wright, so who knows) MGS 4 (that panther has a Hot Ass. Oh my!) Devil May Cry 4 (not really exclusive anymore I guess - PS3 coughs a little). GTA IV gets setback (at least) a season. Also M$ pays megabucks for exclusive GTA IV DLC. Does this matter? Sure, in some ways.. I guess. Too Human also fails to appear, with a bit of weird rambling by Silicon Knights (the game's dev) president Denis Dyack popping around here and there to spout off of love of the game and hate of the games press.. or love of the press but hate of the way the press works.. or.. something. oh it was confusing, but at least it was interesting to follow. Anyway the guy has heart, which is encouraging. Oh yeah, don't forget the delay for Wii Smash Bros Brawl!
-Also Dyack started a big crazy lawsuit against Unreal Editor (this gen's industry-wise answer to Renderware - that is, the Next Gen Engine of Choice by most folks, as it made history with Gears of War last year!) developer Epic MegaGames, who have their hands full with tons of craziness all across the world all the time anyway, for reasons you can expect (mostly). Anyway suits and countersuits followed, some people whined, now it's sitting in a big legal mess somewhere up on a big mountain of money and no one really wants to pay attention to it at the moment. Don't worry, it will come back.
-A Shadowrun update came out, I think it was by FASA (who shortly closed thereafter). Shadowrun - big cyberpunky-sorta PG back in 16bit days, though it was sorta low-profile. Anyway some people loved it, some hated it. I couldn't tell ya.
-Oblivion mega-dev's say that they're making the next Fallout. Some people are pissed, but most folks seem to think it's in good hands. Meanwhile Interplay exists somewhere in between this existence and the next, SOMEHOW, and say that there's a Fallout MMO.. or something.. in development. But not really. But they are employing people, technically. Sort of. It's sketchy, right?
-Meanwhile, WOW continues to own people's souls. Yes - their SOULS, man. I mean, Blizzard finally moves into a new campus and hires more crazy people and announces more craziness (a new Starcraft 2 game, shows it off- apparently, very similar to the already-works formula but in THREE DEE). also another non-WOW MMO is coming (Diablo?) Starcraft Ghost still seems dead, but there's another WOW expansion coming (Lich King I think). But whatever. WOW is amazing for what they've done (it's bigger than ANYTHING - and besides, it owns all those souls!) And I still don't care personally, but hey. You've got to recognize.
-Assassin's Creed. Another victim of good pedigree and hot producer, failing to live up to the hype. is this really anyone's fault? It looked good enough to me, but seemed to be the victim of "too little too late." Gorgeous game and interesting ideas, might've stayed in the oven another 6 months. Maybe the sequel will do better.
-Transformers Movie Game. yeah, who cares, but with one of the best possible licenses around, it could have been sooo good. I know, history proves time and again there'll never actually be a REALLY COOL Transformers game, but man.. what a waste. Damn, let ME make the game. I promise it will be fun.
-Rockstar makes headlines with controversy. What a surprise! How unusual, right? Biggest shocker was the Manhunt 2 debacle "tooo violent, we want to label it adults only!" Bah... they crank it down and some kids crack the code for the PSP version anyway, but it's too muddled to deserve any actual Hot Coffee-style lawsuits/hurtful media at that point. Further salt is poured on the wounds when original dev Rockstar Vienna receives NO CREDIT for their work on the game, though the studio's been closed for some time (supposedly it's "an embarrasment") and Rockstar Toronto (I guess) gets all the credit. Though still kinda who cares/whatever, as the game rates miserably. Just another day in the life, I guess. Um.. geez, these guys are attention whores. At least they still manage to get industry-changing games out in spite of this weird confused drivel.
-Huge historic releases across the board, all things considered. Current-gen consoles begin swinging with their first-wave of post-launch titles, in the case of Wii and PS3. Xbox 360 gets it's second-wave of releases (it's got a year on the other two systems). Wii counts sort of half-way between the two, as it is honestly older-hardware coupled with newer design philosophy (motion control, accessibility to nongamers). Generalizing, we have;
Wii: Super Mario Galaxy - huge setup for what many expected to possibly fall flat (following the not-stellar Super Mario Sunshine of Gamecube). Apparently the most-loved-game by everyone in recent memory. Though I have not played it, everywhere it's name is spoken you hear LOVE, LOVE, LOVE. For some reasons, this MIGHT be GOTY, all across the board. Like in a Scorcese kind of way.
Metroid 3 - Motion controlled, I hear lots good about it, expect it to fade with the rest but sounds like "if you liked before, you will still like now" - they keep their franchises well-stocked, what can I say.
Wii Play - I think that released 2007. Not sure! A huge seller, since it packs in a 2nd Wiimote (no nunchuk though). By itself kinda meh, but definitely worth it for obvious reasons and still stupid-fun enough to warrant being mentioned here. I mean, anyway, EVERYONE owns it at this point..
Mario Party 8 - why do I mention this here? Actually it's probably BS, but something about a game with the moniker "Mario Party" showing up within the fist year of the Wii's existence just seems telling. I haven't touched it yet, but I am glad it's there (and what I have seen of it, looked noteworthy). Probably useless if you played the other, um SEVEN MP's, but if you're a Wii newcomer (as many are) this is probably deserving of a spot on your shelf.
Super Mario RPG - I mean.. Super Paper Mario - Uh, hell this game looked cool, and it had a good gimmick, and everyone was clamoring for it. So why did it fall apart? The shots and lead-in still look right-on. Too bad they blew it. Worth a mention as a disappointment, in a big way. Maybe not a bad game, but certainly a waste of a golden opportunity from a place you might not expect. Then again..
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XBox 360: Halo - release of the year, whether or not you care (I don't). Years in the making, and it sounds like they fulfilled expectations. Built to last for fun, though I am sure at this point "the party is over."
Bioshock - Destined to become Sleeper of the year, it surprised everyone by being a good time with a cool aesthetic, rating REALLY well, and selling wonderfully to boot. Possibly a bit overrated (I think it won't last, for some reasons) but it did a great job of making a standout name for itself during a ridiculously crowded year, sounds like it was substantial enough to boot. Though, ultimately forgettable, alongside everything else - what can be considered classic, these days? Time (and use/abuse of a franchise) will tell.
Crackdown - low expectations, seemed like a cheesy cop-out "buy this to get Halo 3 beta!"and it actually had some staying power as a fun game, to boot! I expect more good things from these devs. Of course, by the end of the year, it is pretty forgotten as well.
The Darkness - Starbreeze made a huge splash last gen with Xbox Riddick - apparently they suffered the usual sophomore syndrome with this title, then. Not bad, but again, so what? We can't help but expect games like these at this stage, good-but-ultimately-filler.. it's hard to say they are BAD, per se, since they are not, but in the company of the other releases of the days (and with such a powerful pedigree) one would hope for something stronger. We'll see what follows, eh.
Orange Box - yeah, the name, the name. Who cares, sometimes weird stuff works, so dig it! Anyway, no matter how you look at it, if you are a gamer this is the deal of the year for several reasons! Just another excuse to cement valve as one of the most important devs of the day, and with expectations through the roof for their future. Well.. probably. Meanwhile, I am anxious to play Portal at some point.
Mass Effect - Oh. you know. Bioware. Go, Doctors!
Pac-Man Championship Edition: The joke release that had the last laugh on everyone, in reverse (meaning.. it was actually really a good game!) Downloadable of the year, I'd say so.
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PS3: Lair - Should have been good. What a mess. The game reviewers guide. julian Egglebrecht, or whatever his name is, with horrible damage control. What should have been at least competent ended up being "a big waste of everyone's time." I haven't played it, strangely I am tempted to rent it - except I know I'd regret it in like 15 seconds after booting. How do people let those things happen in this day and age of multi-million dollar game project investments?
Uncharted and Ratchet and Clank - mentioned above by loved veteran Sony dev's, "it's up to them to save the day!" Well, consider this your next iteration. But so what - it's just another brick in the wall. These games are good, but are they really half a bill good, even together? I won't knock them 'cause they are capable, reviewed well, and people say they are fun and good-looking. But still game like UR MR GAY (super mario galaxy) and UR MR GAY HALO will sweep them, at the end of the day. I am being unfairly harsh, but come on, it's Playstation THREE, it's the Second Coming of the Second Coming. If anything, they can be considered good harbingers of what is to come, but a solid note that things must be stepped up. We will see in 08 if there's the needed follow-up, eh?
God of War II - another amazing game into this kinda late-debuting franchise, but wait - this is a PS2 title, wrong list huh? Okay, well, it's forgotten this late in the year, and bitched about by some, but the fact stands that Sony can blast an unforgettable and powerful franchise out of literally nowhere, just by blasting enough time/money/capable manpower when it wants to. If this released on PS3 this Xmas, with appropriate visuals, no doubt it would have swept Game of the Year for the system and got a lot more resoect for all parties considering. Instead it makes Sony look kind of headstrong and stubborn, while sort of noble in trying to support their gazillion install base. But - blah to nobility, at least this way. We want our next gen sequel - it will come, and it will come properly!
Warhawk - mentioned earlier, for obvious reasons.
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Nintendo DS: Okay, it's not Next-gen per se, but it's next-gen handheld (close enough) and honestly the best system if you're a gamer these days so definitely belongs here with it's bretheren. What have we got for the old boy?
Pokemon DS - a summer 2007 release, already completely forgotten by EVERYONE. But it came out at a time when there was nothing to play anywhere, and it was a freakin' Pokemon Baby-game, and all the RPGheads who gave it the time of day made much love to it. And apparently it deserved it. Nintendo could poop these out with relative frequency at this point, and in some ways it does - but they do it in a way that's to their credit, and they make incredible money off it respectfully. Pokemon = not for me, but could have been beyond-shriveled up by now, it's served it's purpose - and still they build it with quality.
Puzzle Quest - I think it started on DS. this particular craze. I am all good for promoting decent Puzzle games in this day and age, it may well be my favorite genre. This sounds like a strange mix of ideas, but kudos for being relevant. Maybe a little sloppy, but all things considered, it's heartening to hear things like this.
Drawn to Life - another "weird" game, definitely a "baby game," like they say, but still honest and interesting in concept. As long as they keep making weird-idea DS games coming that aren't just shoveled out completely, it retains it's pertinence - make the games really good with follow-through, and then it becomes valuable. This might lack in that department, but for noob studios to do stuff like this, they get credit these days, from me.
Contra 4 - Okay, Ping Pals made this. It's CONTRA. Too many frames of animation for me, but this was made by contra lovers FOR contra lovers (esp. after too many years of franchise defecation). Cheers to see that they still have people who care enough to do the RIGHT thing. If it was more eight-bitty then I might go out and actually buy a DS for this, as it is I still kinda should.
Planet Puzzle League - which I think is the name - Tetris Attack remains one of the best, BEST BEST BEST, most-fun games I have ever played in all my years of living, and sad to see I discovered it way too much later than the rest of the world. that they can get a game like this out makes me retardedly happy, even if I am still playing the fossilized version. Hell I logged in too many hours of the B/W Gameboy version recently. This game deserves acclaim - DO it.
Zelda:Phantom Hourglass - they did not need to release another quality Zelda title this year, and time will likely not be too kind to it, (or.. will it?) But that's fine, because no matter what - if you like good games, then it is at your service.
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PSP - might as well, right?
Crush - The coolest game no one played. It's a lot of people's fault, and it's a shame.
Ultimate Ghosts and Goblins - not sure but I think was actually a 2006 release. Still I will throw it in 'cause The franchise needs some notice, it used to be alongside Mario for crying out loud. I don't think I heard this game was even too great, but still I want it to be remembered. But man.. fix the name!
Dracula X: Rondo of Blood.. err. Chronicles.. um. I don't know the official name of this game, and I don't care I guess. I would have picked it up had I owned a PSP. I still don't own (or want) a PSP for a variety of reasons. This game is very noteworthy as it's an (admittedly ugly) remake of one of the hardest-to-locate games in the history of popular franchises, somewhere up there with the JPN Super Mario 2 (though in a completely different way). This game gets bonus points for value, with a (gross-looking) 3D remake of the original game, plus the original 2D version in there with the first Metroidvania thrown in for good measure. You can't argue with that logic.
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that's my list for now (of noteworthy titles of 2007). Likely to add to it in the future. Anyway I think I have typed enough for one session, pardon the notable absences..
these blogs were made for walkin', and that's just what they'll do..
..one of these days, these blogs are going to walk all over youR FACE AND KILL YOU AND MAKE YOU BLIND AND SPIT AND PISS AND CURSE AND SO MUCH DYING WILL HAPPEN AND OH YEAH BOY YOU'LL BE SORRY AND VERY VERY DEAD, whew, oh so I am glad that I was able to get all of that out of my system. I need a glass of Guiness.
It's another day in my life, of the end of another year, and just the same, then. I am writing this from the somewhat able keyboard that is 3,000 miles from my usual point of information dispatch, as I am visiting my parents and some friends back in the ever-lovin' eazt coazt. Yep, it being the holidays, and me having a pair of free tickets, I thought I'd use them to fly back to snowy rainy Boston, AGAIN, rather than having some wild clandestine sexual rendezvous, or two, with some herpes-ridden young hussy in say.. Flagstaff or North Dakota. Oh, take your pick. Nah, I am not that kind of guy, I would rather hook up with a trashed young lady in Memphis or Albuqurque. Oh, who am I kidding (I mean, I know I spelled that city incorrectly). it's a good thing my ma doesn't read this. Or my girlfriend (choke).
That being the case, i took my girlfriend of nearly 3 years back east to meet the family (yeah, my myspace profile still proclaims my status as "single," that was her idea alright?!) One full day in, I'd say it went fairly well so far. The next couple of days we'll schlep around the estate and hook up with some of the other regulars, but I suppose the hardest part is over. Or at least the most anxiety-inducing. Haha. Anyway, we got my folks a Wii videogame for the holidays (usually I am pretty 100% selfish and don't give them anything. Ever. For any occasion) Not because I am not thoughtful, or not 'cause I can't afford it, but just mostly because I am a lazy self-centered narcissistic egomaniac who can only think about one thing (buying shit for me and myself ONLY) absolutely all the time. Maybe i paint a pretty terrible picture, but come on, you are all just as terrible as me, you know? Honestly, I think it has more to do with the fact that I just dislike buying things in general, for me or other people. Not that I don't think they are worth it, more like I feel that friendship, and time are the only things of real honest value. Oh, hogwash who am I kidding! Truthfully, I do think that way, and I don't care if no one never doesn't by nuthin' for me (that sentance, it is rife with double-negatives.. some triple's as well.. but you got the point).
I recently had a little of a philosophical shift, however, and decided it was perhaps better to fall in line with the rest of the overly consumerist society and succumb like everyone else, at least because in the short term EVERYONE else in the world seems to become more pleased by the material gains. i mean.. I like stuff, too. Maybe not the newest fanciest gadgets all the time (I like weird eccentric doodads) but as people, it's part of our nature to devour external physical stimuli. I have gone on (at length) defending this argument in the past, specifically within this journal, so I will leave it at that for now, other than to say buying things for people, while keeping it modest, is not necessarily the worst gesture one make. I stand by the conviction that I am pretty satisfied not to receive reciprocation (i have enough clutter!), at least in the vein of "it's a holiday. I should buy Ron something" though I definitely don't mind if someone is out in the wild and sees something really bizarre and unique to my tastes that would suit me. but that's cool if they just send me a picture of it, just the same (i have too much clutter.. I have too much clutter.. I have too much clutter). On a last note, I will never turn down a free drink/lunch. Food and booze = NOT clutter! Hey. Sex is DEFINITELY not clutter. Well, maybe it is traumatic at times, I will give you that (and food is clutter of the belly.. and arteries). Okay, enough.
So so, end of 2007. It feels weird to say 2007 is OVER when 2006 still seems like a date which is far away in the FUTURE. 2008 is just another number, but we are ekeing closer to 2010 - definitely. I am ratcheting closer to my mid-thirties, as well - and getting harder and harder to make excuses for "why have I still not accomplished X, Y and Z with my life..." I don't really hold myself to task so much for that stuff these days, as it's usually just "keep out of trouble and everything is fine," with a bit of "keep your job. Just keep your goddamned INCOME for a change" as the runner-up. It seems like such things should be no-brainer, and I am such a mellow guy in many ways, but I have that stupid deep-down thing that urges for the drama, the shake-up. Well, the variety. I have thrown that part of me more than enough bones after all these years, and pushed it fairly thin by being who I am and living where I do, having this kind of a lifestyle (some would consider it elegant, yet imbecilic) that I guess it all balances out quite nicely as those things do. And still, it's enough to piss me off that I've only reached a certain plateau, the highs and lows I could yet possibly attain are forever dangled just in front of my face (man, you know, i would make such a wonderful career gambler!) I look at old(er) people, more and more often - see the signs that someday I will be among them, and realize that with each tick of the clock, I only have so much time to wring life out of this moldy stinky towel before I start using up resources that are impossible to replenish. Yes.. it's GOOD to have that pressure (without which there'd be no motivation to do ANYTHING, really!) but the two minds that make me up can only hand the baton back-and-forth so many times before one of them gets finally tired of that whole back-and-forth. (Oh man, do ALL languages have to be so metaphor-driven as mine, or am I just falling back on ways to take up space?)
Self-important drama aside, each year at this time I will always evaluate the recent past and the possible future and weight the two, what could be, what should be, what will be. Devil Ron wants this, Angel Ron wants that, and Actual Ron just wants to lie back on the couch while the two warring factions tantalize each other and get it over with so I can get something delicious to eat and get on with my day. That sounds cute or silly, but it's becoming easier to identify with. I am in my mid-thirties, like I said - as I get older, the possibility of becoming any kind of world-traveler (and documentarian, in whichever fashion) are slipping further and further away. Yes, with age comes money and wisdom (well.. one would hope). But with youth one has vigor, and necessary naivete and innocence. "Old enough to know better" indeed. Thirties is truly the sweet spot, the last vestige, the end of my youth and innocence, and the last chance i have to be either an outrageous who-cares partier or set the course for being a cleaned-up productive member of some cog working in the great powerful society of the early 21st century. So why is my hair long and gangly still, I wonder.
A year ago I was faced with similar questions, and different circumstances - now so many things are different, but as usual the stakes are a little higher, there is more to lose. I would love to throw my hands up in the air and leave it to the decision of Fate, but we all know that is Random Chaos bullshit (well, that is what I will adhere to) and no one can accept any responsibility for any of it beyond my own programming. My own god-damned programming...
It's another day in my life, of the end of another year, and just the same, then. I am writing this from the somewhat able keyboard that is 3,000 miles from my usual point of information dispatch, as I am visiting my parents and some friends back in the ever-lovin' eazt coazt. Yep, it being the holidays, and me having a pair of free tickets, I thought I'd use them to fly back to snowy rainy Boston, AGAIN, rather than having some wild clandestine sexual rendezvous, or two, with some herpes-ridden young hussy in say.. Flagstaff or North Dakota. Oh, take your pick. Nah, I am not that kind of guy, I would rather hook up with a trashed young lady in Memphis or Albuqurque. Oh, who am I kidding (I mean, I know I spelled that city incorrectly). it's a good thing my ma doesn't read this. Or my girlfriend (choke).
That being the case, i took my girlfriend of nearly 3 years back east to meet the family (yeah, my myspace profile still proclaims my status as "single," that was her idea alright?!) One full day in, I'd say it went fairly well so far. The next couple of days we'll schlep around the estate and hook up with some of the other regulars, but I suppose the hardest part is over. Or at least the most anxiety-inducing. Haha. Anyway, we got my folks a Wii videogame for the holidays (usually I am pretty 100% selfish and don't give them anything. Ever. For any occasion) Not because I am not thoughtful, or not 'cause I can't afford it, but just mostly because I am a lazy self-centered narcissistic egomaniac who can only think about one thing (buying shit for me and myself ONLY) absolutely all the time. Maybe i paint a pretty terrible picture, but come on, you are all just as terrible as me, you know? Honestly, I think it has more to do with the fact that I just dislike buying things in general, for me or other people. Not that I don't think they are worth it, more like I feel that friendship, and time are the only things of real honest value. Oh, hogwash who am I kidding! Truthfully, I do think that way, and I don't care if no one never doesn't by nuthin' for me (that sentance, it is rife with double-negatives.. some triple's as well.. but you got the point).
I recently had a little of a philosophical shift, however, and decided it was perhaps better to fall in line with the rest of the overly consumerist society and succumb like everyone else, at least because in the short term EVERYONE else in the world seems to become more pleased by the material gains. i mean.. I like stuff, too. Maybe not the newest fanciest gadgets all the time (I like weird eccentric doodads) but as people, it's part of our nature to devour external physical stimuli. I have gone on (at length) defending this argument in the past, specifically within this journal, so I will leave it at that for now, other than to say buying things for people, while keeping it modest, is not necessarily the worst gesture one make. I stand by the conviction that I am pretty satisfied not to receive reciprocation (i have enough clutter!), at least in the vein of "it's a holiday. I should buy Ron something" though I definitely don't mind if someone is out in the wild and sees something really bizarre and unique to my tastes that would suit me. but that's cool if they just send me a picture of it, just the same (i have too much clutter.. I have too much clutter.. I have too much clutter). On a last note, I will never turn down a free drink/lunch. Food and booze = NOT clutter! Hey. Sex is DEFINITELY not clutter. Well, maybe it is traumatic at times, I will give you that (and food is clutter of the belly.. and arteries). Okay, enough.
So so, end of 2007. It feels weird to say 2007 is OVER when 2006 still seems like a date which is far away in the FUTURE. 2008 is just another number, but we are ekeing closer to 2010 - definitely. I am ratcheting closer to my mid-thirties, as well - and getting harder and harder to make excuses for "why have I still not accomplished X, Y and Z with my life..." I don't really hold myself to task so much for that stuff these days, as it's usually just "keep out of trouble and everything is fine," with a bit of "keep your job. Just keep your goddamned INCOME for a change" as the runner-up. It seems like such things should be no-brainer, and I am such a mellow guy in many ways, but I have that stupid deep-down thing that urges for the drama, the shake-up. Well, the variety. I have thrown that part of me more than enough bones after all these years, and pushed it fairly thin by being who I am and living where I do, having this kind of a lifestyle (some would consider it elegant, yet imbecilic) that I guess it all balances out quite nicely as those things do. And still, it's enough to piss me off that I've only reached a certain plateau, the highs and lows I could yet possibly attain are forever dangled just in front of my face (man, you know, i would make such a wonderful career gambler!) I look at old(er) people, more and more often - see the signs that someday I will be among them, and realize that with each tick of the clock, I only have so much time to wring life out of this moldy stinky towel before I start using up resources that are impossible to replenish. Yes.. it's GOOD to have that pressure (without which there'd be no motivation to do ANYTHING, really!) but the two minds that make me up can only hand the baton back-and-forth so many times before one of them gets finally tired of that whole back-and-forth. (Oh man, do ALL languages have to be so metaphor-driven as mine, or am I just falling back on ways to take up space?)
Self-important drama aside, each year at this time I will always evaluate the recent past and the possible future and weight the two, what could be, what should be, what will be. Devil Ron wants this, Angel Ron wants that, and Actual Ron just wants to lie back on the couch while the two warring factions tantalize each other and get it over with so I can get something delicious to eat and get on with my day. That sounds cute or silly, but it's becoming easier to identify with. I am in my mid-thirties, like I said - as I get older, the possibility of becoming any kind of world-traveler (and documentarian, in whichever fashion) are slipping further and further away. Yes, with age comes money and wisdom (well.. one would hope). But with youth one has vigor, and necessary naivete and innocence. "Old enough to know better" indeed. Thirties is truly the sweet spot, the last vestige, the end of my youth and innocence, and the last chance i have to be either an outrageous who-cares partier or set the course for being a cleaned-up productive member of some cog working in the great powerful society of the early 21st century. So why is my hair long and gangly still, I wonder.
A year ago I was faced with similar questions, and different circumstances - now so many things are different, but as usual the stakes are a little higher, there is more to lose. I would love to throw my hands up in the air and leave it to the decision of Fate, but we all know that is Random Chaos bullshit (well, that is what I will adhere to) and no one can accept any responsibility for any of it beyond my own programming. My own god-damned programming...
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
PS3 GET
Whoa, whoa. So much info to dump, so little time. The truth is, between work and life, I have not found time to blog much - and so again we have an apologetically-beginning blog. Such is life, friends. Anyway, there's much to say, and I don't want to spend to much time beating around the bush, so I will try to be clear and concise when possible. Here goes!
Things are alright at work - it's wound pretty far down, as one would imagine, given the time of year. I have been out since last Thursday night (it's Tuesday now) and another week to go until I return, I suppose... Anyway, things over there are moving along at an appreciable pace. It will be interesting to see what is the lay of the land once we get back to business as usual - but in the meantime, it's nice to be out of that element for a breather.
So the fine bosses over at the Big O hooked us up with our choice on next-gen (new-gen? current gen.. um.. y'know) at work for the holiday. Um.. excluding El Senor Wii for obvious reasons. Anyway as I've recently acquired a 360 by my own hand, I signed on for a PS3 - it arrived last Thursday. I got the 80GB system, extra controller (no rumble yet), and a Media Remote - um - whatever you wanna call it. It also comes with Motorstorm (motocross racing game) and of course the free online service. I brought the sucker home and squeezed it into my Uber-Massively Overbloated Media Congolomeration Entertainment Extravaganza Super-Deluxx Especiale System Grapevine Cheeseburger with Extra Cheese and Pickles. For those curious, here's how my home theater debacle looks at the moment (with Pickles):
PS2
Test PS2 (plays Japan/Burned games)
Sega Dreamcast
Sega Saturn
Modded Xbox (mame)
Xbox 360
PS3
SNES
Turbografx-16 (with busted CD-Rom - cards work though)
and my girlfriend's Wii is hooked up there as well. "What no NES?" I am pretty satisfied how the DC handles NES actually. Also I have a Sega Genesis boxed up in the closet as well, I suppose it will come out at some point. Not that there's really any room left for it.. So, yeah, it's a pretty crowded, potential firehazard I have set up there. What else is new.
Anyway, back to PS3. Since I am a relative n00b to the whole online console experience, and having recently got my feet wet with Xbox Live, it's very interesting to see what they've cooked up over at the PS3 camp - and granted it's a year in for them as well, so I know it must be hugely improved over the likely-lacking experience that must have previously been the case. Anyway, all tings considered, Playstation Network looks and runs fairly well. It's going for a more straightforward, adult look (that is, neutral colors, less "friendly") than Live. Also a litle less "user friendly," as Live will always prompt you to "go there" when you need to go to a different area to install something, run a completed download, perform a test, etc. It's a little niggling, but certainly things like that are the grease that makes the whole thing less of a pain to navigate. You can hop online fairly easily, and though it's a little clunky (for a moment), the browser-on-TV actually does work fairly well. I am sure you can plug a standard issue keyboard/mouse into the USB ports of the system and go right to town with it - I don't think I will get much use of it in the long run (why would I, when a PC is right beside it?) but it's nice to have.. also if you are gonna watch something on Youtube or whatever, I suppose.
As for online content, it looks fairly similar to how Live is setup, what with the demos and downloadable games and all of that. Live still kills it all over the place in this regard, between how it's setup, navigability, and just overall legibility.. but it's usable, and it is getting there. Just very sloppy still. You can tell they want to ripoff Live without being terribly direct about it, anyway. It's nice to think that they have downloadable PS1 titles on there (not that I have yet perused, really) and it's worth mentioning that I have not seen any "movie download service" akin to Live's, yet. Whichever of the two consoles figures that out, for REAL, will be a big contender for me. Also worth mentioning, is the Playstation "Wallet" system - you link up your credit card, etc. to deal with downloading non-demo titles at the store. I like this over anyting else (N or M$) in that instead of the Points BS, you're dealing with everything as actual for-real US Dollars, up front. No confusion or "perceived value.." that certainly endears me to them quite a bit. For whatever that is worth.
What have I downloaded? As usual, I try to load up my HD with demos of anything remotely interesting. DLing on my DSL account is slow as hell (???) but I set it up to go all night, then head out for the evening, so no matter (hey I have got other stuff to do, alright!) Here's a quick rundown, just to cover the bases:
<
Uncharted:Drake's Fortune (demo) - big xmas Naughty Dog exclusive for the system, and one of the most anticipated. I was trying to get a position working on this, actually - Anyway, we got the disc in at the office a few weeks ago, watching them play the early parts left me kind of uninterested. Regardless I DL'd the demo (I knew it was showing off a different section of the game) and liked it much, much better (to the point where I'd like to bring it home and give it a few spins). Very lush, very gorgeous - fun to tool around with, and the shooting action (for what it is worth) was enjoyable enough. Raised my interest quite a bit. Beautiful graphics - shows of PS3's power!
Insomniac's Ratchet and Clank Future : Tools of Destruction (demo). I've never been an RC player (I do have the 1st one, of which I have played maybe 10 minutes' worth) but I can appreciate what they have done with this title. It's looking GOOOOood. They are really pushing some geo and textures here, and it all flows smoothly, perfectly - it's not quite a real "living city" for real quite yet, but you get the feeling that there's always a lot of hectic excitement going on all over the place - it feels pretty intense. Play-wise, this thing is stuck in the dark ages, though. I don't need to jump and hack pointlessly anymore. Platformers can be fun, but this play style does not suit me, it feels so tired and done-over-and-over that I don't care HOW good it looks, it I doesn't inspire me to invest time or money. But I know this is a very successful franchise, it would be sort of risky to change all of that just for my sake. Well, maybe I will take home the office copy if I get bored.
Heavenly Sword (demo) - another anticipated title, I am not too terribly sure how well it was received - lukewarm perhaps, certainly not bad. I was expecting God of War smoothness, not that I am too adept with that game, this one just felt a little clunkier. It gave you some very satisfying action-killing-closeups, maybe if there was a little less constant-bombardment from the same enemies coming from everywhere to vary things up a bit, it would be more enticing. Just a demo of course - as usual, lush/perfect graphics, though a little chuttery on the framerate (and a little of the nonsense Quicktime events which I strongly detest). This game looks nice, the hero and action "feel right," and I am inclined to investigate more - could be some satisfying hack-n-slash. Nothing I would investigate if there was more on the shelf though.
Everyday Shooter - the first thing I loaded up on my PS3, before ANYTHING else (including the pack-in). I have been rather interested in this title, after hearing a bit about it's genesis. Yeah, a stylish (in a way) one-man-show, and for all intents and purposes it's just a freakin' Flash game, but it is fun and I like that they are promoting stuff like this. This is where gaming needs to go, in my opinion. I love REZ, and I want to see more like-minded stuff (ripoffs not so much, but inspired-by is certainly the way to go). For crying out loud, tis makes me want to buy Fantavision, there I said it...! Anyway I had to straight-up buy this thing right away.
Ridge Racer (yawn!), Formula One something-or-other (yuck.. yuck!), a couple of other games that I don't recall. I haven't played them all yet. The Rub-a-Dub game (Flicky crossed with controller gimmick) felt thin at first but has grown on me, I might throw 10 bones at it. Toy Home is a Toy-Story feeling racer, it's got motion-controlled steering. VERY Japanese-kiddy, my girlfriend likes it so we scooped it up. I was unhappy to learn that there's not a straight "race battle" mode in there, but for what it is, it's not bad for $10. Pixeljunk racers sounded cool, but felt uckkk awful (this is a game.. really?)
Otherwise, I played with Motorstorm a little bit. After working on a similar-styled game some years back, I can appreciate the fun in such a game. It's not drawing me back too terribly, but as it's the only on-disc PS3 title I have got currently, I want to spend a few minutes with it. It DOES LOOK nice, I will say, and the prospect of eventually running a big rig through the bud sounds fun. I was a fan of the early ATV PS2 games back in the day (long on looks, but they sufficed - and the handling was so perfectly satisfying!) Honestly if they made a proper, arcadey-follow up to those games, I'd sign right up. I investigated MTX vs ATV on 360 (recent demo) and though it had some relation (also, it looked pretty nice), that spot-on feeling was just ripped away. You've lost that lovin' feelin'.
I guess that nearly wraps up my original PS3 impressions. The interface is not too bad, just keep ripping off Live and it'll be better I say. The system runs relatively quiet as HELL, which I love. I have yet to investigate Blu-ray (don't really care, and as I have a CRT, does it matter so much?) Someday perhaps I will upgrade to HDTV but that's a ways off, and not something that's a priority for me. I have yet to try the backwards compatibility, but I would happily remove my PS2 from my game shelf in order to clear up some clutter/danger. I will check that out later (in my mind I will still say PS2 is the most comprehensive system to beat, out there.. for the time being). So in essence - PS3 - nice to have, future games will be interesting, glad I got it as a gift. Would not buy, for now or for a lonnng time.
Over in Other-video-game-system land, I have been neglecting my recently-re-acquired 360 what with the new gadgets to play with. I intend to get through Bioshock however, and I would like to pick up Orange Box (I wanna play Portal). And just generally mess around with demos as I see fit. As for games I would actually buy, skate seems fun (I will wait till it goes down in price!) and maybe Amped 3 if I can find it cheap. As mentioned earlier, I DL'd the Frontlines demo (THQ/Kaos) and did manage to play through it. It is getting some scratchy reception on the message boards, I must say it's a nice experience though. Looks and plays well - I hope it does well for them! I can see why people complain, they want it to be exactly like the other games they love - which it isn't. There's a lot of love in there, I hope they fleshed it out properly. We'll see soon enough. Otherwise, Rock Band dominates - still! You can't touch this game, man. I know it sounds cheesy and cliche, but these guys really rule the world. It's the perfect mesh of man, music, and game, party game at that. I hope to see them take it further and make it more fun - hell! I wanna play this game at bars with strangers, I know it would just be a blast! Even my non-gamer girlfriend is getting into it. Who would have thunk - someone out there can make games with the priority of just causing people to feel good, and have a good time. I have half a mind to pick it up myself, but geez - I think I have spent enough $$$ this season.
In Wii-ville, it's business as usual. Pretty much all that gets played around here is Wii Play and Wii Sports - and they are still fun! We've had it set up nearly a month, mind you - and not all the game hold up - but tennis, bowling -- great for unwinding. I got into boxing as well. It's just fun with a bunch of people, again "great for nongamers" of course. The ultimate test will be in a couple of days, to see if my parents can actually get into it (I got them one for the holidays, I may have mentioned it in here - they haven't played any games since, oh, pacman and centipede...haha). I got some games for my girlfriend for the holidays as well, Wario Ware Smooth Moves and Cooking Mama Cookoff (you would not believe how difficult it was to find a game called Cooking Mama!) We only checked out the former so far, but I must say it's done as well as I could have hoped - those guys are nuts! Intelligent Systems has to be one of the better devs out there, for real - I love wacky, weird, abstract stuff that makes you scratch your head and say "wha?" If the game doesn't fall short then I will say it's worth the money. Check back with that in a few days - anyway it's nice to see someone take the Wiimote at face value and make stupid simple little minigames out of it. I hope the multiplayer translates properly, it could be another rocking party game.
Whew! So there's what has got to be one of my longer entries, in a while - I had a lot of lost time to make up for, so slobby pseudo-journalism is what will result. I haven't really even touched on politics this time, or end-of-year wrap-up stuff.. maybe later.
Things are alright at work - it's wound pretty far down, as one would imagine, given the time of year. I have been out since last Thursday night (it's Tuesday now) and another week to go until I return, I suppose... Anyway, things over there are moving along at an appreciable pace. It will be interesting to see what is the lay of the land once we get back to business as usual - but in the meantime, it's nice to be out of that element for a breather.
So the fine bosses over at the Big O hooked us up with our choice on next-gen (new-gen? current gen.. um.. y'know) at work for the holiday. Um.. excluding El Senor Wii for obvious reasons. Anyway as I've recently acquired a 360 by my own hand, I signed on for a PS3 - it arrived last Thursday. I got the 80GB system, extra controller (no rumble yet), and a Media Remote - um - whatever you wanna call it. It also comes with Motorstorm (motocross racing game) and of course the free online service. I brought the sucker home and squeezed it into my Uber-Massively Overbloated Media Congolomeration Entertainment Extravaganza Super-Deluxx Especiale System Grapevine Cheeseburger with Extra Cheese and Pickles. For those curious, here's how my home theater debacle looks at the moment (with Pickles):
PS2
Test PS2 (plays Japan/Burned games)
Sega Dreamcast
Sega Saturn
Modded Xbox (mame)
Xbox 360
PS3
SNES
Turbografx-16 (with busted CD-Rom - cards work though)
and my girlfriend's Wii is hooked up there as well. "What no NES?" I am pretty satisfied how the DC handles NES actually. Also I have a Sega Genesis boxed up in the closet as well, I suppose it will come out at some point. Not that there's really any room left for it.. So, yeah, it's a pretty crowded, potential firehazard I have set up there. What else is new.
Anyway, back to PS3. Since I am a relative n00b to the whole online console experience, and having recently got my feet wet with Xbox Live, it's very interesting to see what they've cooked up over at the PS3 camp - and granted it's a year in for them as well, so I know it must be hugely improved over the likely-lacking experience that must have previously been the case. Anyway, all tings considered, Playstation Network looks and runs fairly well. It's going for a more straightforward, adult look (that is, neutral colors, less "friendly") than Live. Also a litle less "user friendly," as Live will always prompt you to "go there" when you need to go to a different area to install something, run a completed download, perform a test, etc. It's a little niggling, but certainly things like that are the grease that makes the whole thing less of a pain to navigate. You can hop online fairly easily, and though it's a little clunky (for a moment), the browser-on-TV actually does work fairly well. I am sure you can plug a standard issue keyboard/mouse into the USB ports of the system and go right to town with it - I don't think I will get much use of it in the long run (why would I, when a PC is right beside it?) but it's nice to have.. also if you are gonna watch something on Youtube or whatever, I suppose.
As for online content, it looks fairly similar to how Live is setup, what with the demos and downloadable games and all of that. Live still kills it all over the place in this regard, between how it's setup, navigability, and just overall legibility.. but it's usable, and it is getting there. Just very sloppy still. You can tell they want to ripoff Live without being terribly direct about it, anyway. It's nice to think that they have downloadable PS1 titles on there (not that I have yet perused, really) and it's worth mentioning that I have not seen any "movie download service" akin to Live's, yet. Whichever of the two consoles figures that out, for REAL, will be a big contender for me. Also worth mentioning, is the Playstation "Wallet" system - you link up your credit card, etc. to deal with downloading non-demo titles at the store. I like this over anyting else (N or M$) in that instead of the Points BS, you're dealing with everything as actual for-real US Dollars, up front. No confusion or "perceived value.." that certainly endears me to them quite a bit. For whatever that is worth.
What have I downloaded? As usual, I try to load up my HD with demos of anything remotely interesting. DLing on my DSL account is slow as hell (???) but I set it up to go all night, then head out for the evening, so no matter (hey I have got other stuff to do, alright!) Here's a quick rundown, just to cover the bases:
<
Uncharted:Drake's Fortune (demo) - big xmas Naughty Dog exclusive for the system, and one of the most anticipated. I was trying to get a position working on this, actually - Anyway, we got the disc in at the office a few weeks ago, watching them play the early parts left me kind of uninterested. Regardless I DL'd the demo (I knew it was showing off a different section of the game) and liked it much, much better (to the point where I'd like to bring it home and give it a few spins). Very lush, very gorgeous - fun to tool around with, and the shooting action (for what it is worth) was enjoyable enough. Raised my interest quite a bit. Beautiful graphics - shows of PS3's power!
Insomniac's Ratchet and Clank Future : Tools of Destruction (demo). I've never been an RC player (I do have the 1st one, of which I have played maybe 10 minutes' worth) but I can appreciate what they have done with this title. It's looking GOOOOood. They are really pushing some geo and textures here, and it all flows smoothly, perfectly - it's not quite a real "living city" for real quite yet, but you get the feeling that there's always a lot of hectic excitement going on all over the place - it feels pretty intense. Play-wise, this thing is stuck in the dark ages, though. I don't need to jump and hack pointlessly anymore. Platformers can be fun, but this play style does not suit me, it feels so tired and done-over-and-over that I don't care HOW good it looks, it I doesn't inspire me to invest time or money. But I know this is a very successful franchise, it would be sort of risky to change all of that just for my sake. Well, maybe I will take home the office copy if I get bored.
Heavenly Sword (demo) - another anticipated title, I am not too terribly sure how well it was received - lukewarm perhaps, certainly not bad. I was expecting God of War smoothness, not that I am too adept with that game, this one just felt a little clunkier. It gave you some very satisfying action-killing-closeups, maybe if there was a little less constant-bombardment from the same enemies coming from everywhere to vary things up a bit, it would be more enticing. Just a demo of course - as usual, lush/perfect graphics, though a little chuttery on the framerate (and a little of the nonsense Quicktime events which I strongly detest). This game looks nice, the hero and action "feel right," and I am inclined to investigate more - could be some satisfying hack-n-slash. Nothing I would investigate if there was more on the shelf though.
Everyday Shooter - the first thing I loaded up on my PS3, before ANYTHING else (including the pack-in). I have been rather interested in this title, after hearing a bit about it's genesis. Yeah, a stylish (in a way) one-man-show, and for all intents and purposes it's just a freakin' Flash game, but it is fun and I like that they are promoting stuff like this. This is where gaming needs to go, in my opinion. I love REZ, and I want to see more like-minded stuff (ripoffs not so much, but inspired-by is certainly the way to go). For crying out loud, tis makes me want to buy Fantavision, there I said it...! Anyway I had to straight-up buy this thing right away.
Ridge Racer (yawn!), Formula One something-or-other (yuck.. yuck!), a couple of other games that I don't recall. I haven't played them all yet. The Rub-a-Dub game (Flicky crossed with controller gimmick) felt thin at first but has grown on me, I might throw 10 bones at it. Toy Home is a Toy-Story feeling racer, it's got motion-controlled steering. VERY Japanese-kiddy, my girlfriend likes it so we scooped it up. I was unhappy to learn that there's not a straight "race battle" mode in there, but for what it is, it's not bad for $10. Pixeljunk racers sounded cool, but felt uckkk awful (this is a game.. really?)
Otherwise, I played with Motorstorm a little bit. After working on a similar-styled game some years back, I can appreciate the fun in such a game. It's not drawing me back too terribly, but as it's the only on-disc PS3 title I have got currently, I want to spend a few minutes with it. It DOES LOOK nice, I will say, and the prospect of eventually running a big rig through the bud sounds fun. I was a fan of the early ATV PS2 games back in the day (long on looks, but they sufficed - and the handling was so perfectly satisfying!) Honestly if they made a proper, arcadey-follow up to those games, I'd sign right up. I investigated MTX vs ATV on 360 (recent demo) and though it had some relation (also, it looked pretty nice), that spot-on feeling was just ripped away. You've lost that lovin' feelin'.
I guess that nearly wraps up my original PS3 impressions. The interface is not too bad, just keep ripping off Live and it'll be better I say. The system runs relatively quiet as HELL, which I love. I have yet to investigate Blu-ray (don't really care, and as I have a CRT, does it matter so much?) Someday perhaps I will upgrade to HDTV but that's a ways off, and not something that's a priority for me. I have yet to try the backwards compatibility, but I would happily remove my PS2 from my game shelf in order to clear up some clutter/danger. I will check that out later (in my mind I will still say PS2 is the most comprehensive system to beat, out there.. for the time being). So in essence - PS3 - nice to have, future games will be interesting, glad I got it as a gift. Would not buy, for now or for a lonnng time.
Over in Other-video-game-system land, I have been neglecting my recently-re-acquired 360 what with the new gadgets to play with. I intend to get through Bioshock however, and I would like to pick up Orange Box (I wanna play Portal). And just generally mess around with demos as I see fit. As for games I would actually buy, skate seems fun (I will wait till it goes down in price!) and maybe Amped 3 if I can find it cheap. As mentioned earlier, I DL'd the Frontlines demo (THQ/Kaos) and did manage to play through it. It is getting some scratchy reception on the message boards, I must say it's a nice experience though. Looks and plays well - I hope it does well for them! I can see why people complain, they want it to be exactly like the other games they love - which it isn't. There's a lot of love in there, I hope they fleshed it out properly. We'll see soon enough. Otherwise, Rock Band dominates - still! You can't touch this game, man. I know it sounds cheesy and cliche, but these guys really rule the world. It's the perfect mesh of man, music, and game, party game at that. I hope to see them take it further and make it more fun - hell! I wanna play this game at bars with strangers, I know it would just be a blast! Even my non-gamer girlfriend is getting into it. Who would have thunk - someone out there can make games with the priority of just causing people to feel good, and have a good time. I have half a mind to pick it up myself, but geez - I think I have spent enough $$$ this season.
In Wii-ville, it's business as usual. Pretty much all that gets played around here is Wii Play and Wii Sports - and they are still fun! We've had it set up nearly a month, mind you - and not all the game hold up - but tennis, bowling -- great for unwinding. I got into boxing as well. It's just fun with a bunch of people, again "great for nongamers" of course. The ultimate test will be in a couple of days, to see if my parents can actually get into it (I got them one for the holidays, I may have mentioned it in here - they haven't played any games since, oh, pacman and centipede...haha). I got some games for my girlfriend for the holidays as well, Wario Ware Smooth Moves and Cooking Mama Cookoff (you would not believe how difficult it was to find a game called Cooking Mama!) We only checked out the former so far, but I must say it's done as well as I could have hoped - those guys are nuts! Intelligent Systems has to be one of the better devs out there, for real - I love wacky, weird, abstract stuff that makes you scratch your head and say "wha?" If the game doesn't fall short then I will say it's worth the money. Check back with that in a few days - anyway it's nice to see someone take the Wiimote at face value and make stupid simple little minigames out of it. I hope the multiplayer translates properly, it could be another rocking party game.
Whew! So there's what has got to be one of my longer entries, in a while - I had a lot of lost time to make up for, so slobby pseudo-journalism is what will result. I haven't really even touched on politics this time, or end-of-year wrap-up stuff.. maybe later.
Sunday, December 23, 2007
all is new that is old again also
and so we come to that time of the year when time becomes meaningless and te days melt together in cold confusion. back is forward, up is down, booze is guzzled, and money is wasted. Go! Go forward proud consumers! Waste your weight in gains, waste it on tinsel, waste it on horrible fat cartoon santa with no mouth giftwrapping, soend it on car bars, spend it on leather cell phone pouches while old forgotten war widows die in the streets.
McDonald's gift cards always sounded like the worst present anyone could give anyone else, EVER, but they sound strangely tempting now. Big Macs till you die, then (and they will see to it that you will). All is forgiven, right?
Monday, December 17, 2007
party on, wayne!
So, last Thursday evening was the Pandemic Holiday party at the Natural History Museum in LA. Like so many other hangers-on in the gaming industry, I crashed it once again (actually I legitamitely got my name on the guest list this time, which was not too hard to do as they'd opened the party up to the industry at large.. to a point, anyway). Exhausted from an already wild night the preceding Tuesday, I wentured out into the chill of the evening and dragged myself out to enjoy some free drinks and catch up with my ol' pals. I have to say, the night started off kind of rough but a few drinks in (and a few hours to dilute the crowd, some) and my mood lightened considerably - it was a fun time! Not quite the "blast" their last party (that I'd attended anyway, in 2005) was - still it was very satisfying and I was sad it wrapped up so quickly. Here's some random bald guy dancing while I am merrily stomping away in the background:
(too bad I didn't get more appropriate pictures - what'd'ya want)
Our own Xmas party looms this Wednesday night, I suspect it will not be quite so ridiculous.. but that's fine (I have partied a bit lately, I can take a breather).
This brings me to today's topic, camraderie in the games industry. I suspect I have written about it before here, if not certainly elsewhere - yes, though there is (of course) much competition between companies in the game industry, and I guess between job applicants, it's generally a very friendly place. Especially on my end (artists and designers), we typically seem to get along quite well with one another, and respect one another's positions. Sure, there's times when you might wanna wring a particular co-worker's neck (we're only human, right?) but generally I get the sense that in many studios there's a strong notion of team and togetherness, overall - we are working together on this production, and the majority of us strive to put our best efforts (and sometimes, our latest nights) to task in order to make one another proud - to keep up our ends and match the work of those toiling alongside us.
Likewise, when we pick up a competing studio's game, we look at it as something deserving of respect (when that is the case) - as opposed to just "we must crush them, all comers, for all that they are worth.. we will hear the lamentations of their women," and so forth. Generally, game developers are honestly the biggest game-fan geeks you're likely to meet, I would say. And I would say this is the case even in the situation of a competing title in the same genre, usually. The bosses may not be so likely to second that, but as far as we grunts go --grunt--. At any rate we can pick up a title and appreciate it from a particular point of view, as far as what kind of work has gone into it, the little bells and whistles, etc.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Frontlines Demo is out
So yesterday Frontlines (demo) was released on Xbox live. Eager to see this as I nearly took a job working for these guys, last March (decided to stay in LA instead). It' s been downloading all evening to my machine (yup, I got my Xbox replaced - FINALLY!) but I guess I'll have to wait until tomorow to finally check it out, it's going s-l-o-w. Also in the queue is Burnout Paradise, which will be interesting to see..
Tonight will be the Pandemic company Xmas party in Los Angeles, this should be a night of madness to be (somewhat) remembered. I went two years ago to their house of blues party, which was rather crazy - this one should top it, easily! The Crystal Method will be performing, and I suspect the booze will be free once again - Supposedly they are anticipating over 2000 guests - I have an RSVP, but geez...
I received Donkey Kong:Jungle Beat in the mail the other day, cool game! This is the one you operate with bongos - man, my hands HURT after playing that thing! Cool idea though! I need ot get a memory card, and then I will play thru it some more. Wario Ware twisted also arrived, I put it in for a moment - weird as ever, but that's good. Also, I am sad, the TurboGrafx CD Player I bought seems irrepairably busted - what a waste! Time to scour eBay some more, then (probably better to wait after Xmas, though). I plugged the unit into my TV and at least got the HuCards to run, it looked GOOD to see that running on the big screen once again - properly - after all these years!
Monday, December 10, 2007
shudder horse fern fear
GGRR.. Angry. I just typed a decent sized entry (not THAT big) into the myspace blog. Suddenly it decided to refresh and wipe out all I wrote. bah. i hate my life. I was extolling the virtues of myspace in that it isn't as clunky to enter text like in this blogger setup, but then it goes and wipes out on me.. bah, bah, bah... (hmm, i sound like a sheep). So then, where was I ...
things are alright. Another weekend has lazily drifted by.. not much to report I guess. Worked super-late Friday night, which resulted in much of Saturday getting wiped out by catch-up sleeping (and much of today, sunday, as well..) Last night we went over to Skillz' for a little get together, catching up with some buddies and some old co-workers whom I have not seen in awhile.. which is always a good thing of course. We played some Rock band (oh, my poor throat!) and even got May to pick up the bass guitar for a couple of songs - amazing, eh?
Today was a lazy, lazy day - lay in bed, watched half of the Matrix on TV for the umpteenth time, the end of Predator (man, i miss Arnold action movies) - fell asleep for much of the night. I wrote a long email to a friend of mine back east about "how to get a job in the game industry," those always turn into long drawn-out affairs.
My mood is alright - kind of feeling ho-hum lately. It is just an in-between period in
my life, I guess.. not bad since i am still working, so I guess I can not really complain. I feel like I need to find something to motivate me and get some locomotion in a lot of ways though. It's harder as you just melt into your routine, get older. I guess it is probably that way for most people, you sort of get into your rut. I have written this same blog entry so many freakin' times that it's beyond ludicrous. As we get closer to the end of the year, I feel older (as usual)
and redundant, "been here.. done that." I look up and down the boulevards ad muse about my crazy experiences of the past.. the good times, the traumatic ones. It feels so far away now, so.. dead since it's been fresh, new, invigorating. I still love it here, but the dark/wretchedness of Hollywood still stares at you from every crevice, it reminds me of those crazy feelings I used to have, when my world was going up and down at the same time. It's got me tired of it! I love it but, same as I have said for awhile.. it makes me want to be somewhere else. maybe just be someone else. I wish I could flip a switch in the back of my head, and forget a bunch of the things that have made me, me. "never have any regrets" I have always said, and I stand by it. I don't regret any of it. I am proud, I look forward to getting further. I just wish something didn't feel weird and misplaced in that way, that it always does.. If it was suddenly gone, I would be more mistrustful of it's absence, I guess.
Well.. seeing my friends this weekend was good. i can never seem to get enough of that, i guess it is the warmest thing in my life, and I never know how to properly express it. I feel kind of cheesy writing in this blog at times "oh blah blah here's how i feel" but honestly, when I am not just going nuts in my own head, I do think about how cool the people I have crossed paths with are, how special they are to me. Same with my family of course, and obviously my relationship. That last one is a touchy subject in particular (how can i pour my feelings out in a stupid blog about such things, when not only can everyone in the world read it - which is irrelevant - but that person in question?) I have got in trouble for such things before, so I try to keep that stuff close to my chest of course. All I will say is that reading this I probably sound like kind of a whiny guy in general - but I do appreciate what I have. After all that has passed, as I get older I actually find it harder to be in a relationship in some ways than it had ever been before, in some ways that maybe I cannot quite put my finger on. My head is a weird place for that stuff
- I think there's a big part of my personality that is always gonna be a loner, now and forever..
Strange, it has been a year now since the conclusion of my cross-country trip..
things are alright. Another weekend has lazily drifted by.. not much to report I guess. Worked super-late Friday night, which resulted in much of Saturday getting wiped out by catch-up sleeping (and much of today, sunday, as well..) Last night we went over to Skillz' for a little get together, catching up with some buddies and some old co-workers whom I have not seen in awhile.. which is always a good thing of course. We played some Rock band (oh, my poor throat!) and even got May to pick up the bass guitar for a couple of songs - amazing, eh?
Today was a lazy, lazy day - lay in bed, watched half of the Matrix on TV for the umpteenth time, the end of Predator (man, i miss Arnold action movies) - fell asleep for much of the night. I wrote a long email to a friend of mine back east about "how to get a job in the game industry," those always turn into long drawn-out affairs.
My mood is alright - kind of feeling ho-hum lately. It is just an in-between period in
my life, I guess.. not bad since i am still working, so I guess I can not really complain. I feel like I need to find something to motivate me and get some locomotion in a lot of ways though. It's harder as you just melt into your routine, get older. I guess it is probably that way for most people, you sort of get into your rut. I have written this same blog entry so many freakin' times that it's beyond ludicrous. As we get closer to the end of the year, I feel older (as usual)
and redundant, "been here.. done that." I look up and down the boulevards ad muse about my crazy experiences of the past.. the good times, the traumatic ones. It feels so far away now, so.. dead since it's been fresh, new, invigorating. I still love it here, but the dark/wretchedness of Hollywood still stares at you from every crevice, it reminds me of those crazy feelings I used to have, when my world was going up and down at the same time. It's got me tired of it! I love it but, same as I have said for awhile.. it makes me want to be somewhere else. maybe just be someone else. I wish I could flip a switch in the back of my head, and forget a bunch of the things that have made me, me. "never have any regrets" I have always said, and I stand by it. I don't regret any of it. I am proud, I look forward to getting further. I just wish something didn't feel weird and misplaced in that way, that it always does.. If it was suddenly gone, I would be more mistrustful of it's absence, I guess.
Well.. seeing my friends this weekend was good. i can never seem to get enough of that, i guess it is the warmest thing in my life, and I never know how to properly express it. I feel kind of cheesy writing in this blog at times "oh blah blah here's how i feel" but honestly, when I am not just going nuts in my own head, I do think about how cool the people I have crossed paths with are, how special they are to me. Same with my family of course, and obviously my relationship. That last one is a touchy subject in particular (how can i pour my feelings out in a stupid blog about such things, when not only can everyone in the world read it - which is irrelevant - but that person in question?) I have got in trouble for such things before, so I try to keep that stuff close to my chest of course. All I will say is that reading this I probably sound like kind of a whiny guy in general - but I do appreciate what I have. After all that has passed, as I get older I actually find it harder to be in a relationship in some ways than it had ever been before, in some ways that maybe I cannot quite put my finger on. My head is a weird place for that stuff
- I think there's a big part of my personality that is always gonna be a loner, now and forever..
Strange, it has been a year now since the conclusion of my cross-country trip..
wii did it
Yup, so last weekend was my girlfriend's birthday, she was asking me endlessly for Wii "I want wii, i want wii!!" -- of course, I broke down and succumbed, sigh. I got her the system with an extra controller (with wii play) and the extra nunchuk controller as well (as most know, it comes with a single remote and nunchuk - but this system is designed to be enjoyed by two, at least). I must admit i have not previously played wii at all, except for perhaps an evening about year ago at a friend's place. Not too terribly impressed with it at the time, but i could appreciate what it was good for either way. Anyway, we opened it up last night and played thru the two game collections - I have to say, it is definitely impressive! Long on looks, but satisfying enough for what they are trying to do, this is definitely a system that is friendly to non-gamers. My girlfriend has little to no interest in games, but she definitely has been getting addicted to the wii ones. She begrudgingly picked up golf and couldn't put it down, for a couple of hours! She and her friends were yelling and screaming as they were competing with one another - I guess it was a good idea, eh? I guess i will pick up a party game like Mario Party or Smooth Moves or something for her, next..
Weirder, I bought the same setup for my PARENTS for te holiday. My parents who've not played any kind of video games since the early 80s, they would play pac-man and centipede with me when I was a little kid. They have NO interest in videogames, whatsoever (well, my dad will try to pick up Pac-man now and again, my mother bought him a little TV Plug-in unit a year ago). So this will be the ultimate test to see if all the wii marketing is for real! Actually, I wouldn't have laid out the money if i thought it would be a waste of time, i do think they'd get a kick out of it (at least the bowling and stuff like that). I'll have to twist their arms to get started with it - we'll see how it goes.
Not much game news on my end, I guess. Another week of working hard, and waiting for my 360 to get replaced. The store I bought it from has a replacement policy, but at this rate I should probably send it to M$ and deal with them. Sigh.. pain in the ass!! At the end of the week, I may be the owner of a PS3, if not the week afterwards.. Otherwise, not playing much - just Gameboy B/W version of Tetris Attack, the puzzle mode. Thinking man's game.. "clear the level in 2 or 3 moves," sounds boring but it's well-put together and endlessly captivating. I have stared at it for a long time.. it makes me feel really stupid though. If I don't get on too late with writing this blog, I will likely refresh my Micro with some new games (at last!) It's been like 2 years since I have done that, and I still don't "need" to.. I stand by what I have said before, if all my other systems had to go, so long as I could hold onto my Micro then it would not be awful (I will be sad the day the special battery dies, though!!!)
Ebay-wise, I ordered Donkey Kong:Jungle beat for Gamecube (play it on the wii), it is a platformer that you control with bongos (!). I guess it was made by the same team that made Super Mario Galaxy (though, a couple of years earlier). It's got a lot of praise, and with the bongos it was pretty cheap - I look forward to firing up this particularly weird sounding game! I also ordered a copy of Wario Ware twsited for GBA (the one you have to twist the GBA around with - obviously). I enjoyed the very first Wario Ware GBA game, and this one is supposed to be the "best" one. Note that I borrowed the same from a friend, about a year ago - I had it for maybe six months, never even touched it even one time! But hey. I love weird, off-the-path games like that, and I was able to find it for about 10 bones.. why not.
I have Space Raiders and Mega Man:Network Transmission sitting in my cabinet, I was hoping to finally get some mileage out of them on the wii - no such luck, i need a non-wii-remote to play them apparently! I will have to dig one up, somewhere.. No hurry.
Recently I mentioned that I have acquired a TG-16, I brought it home but as it's lacking a proper controller, it sits waitin in abox. I found a direct-sales company that will let some new controllers go relatively cheap (cheaper than used versions on ebay!) so i will get one shortly. I have a CD unit with it as well, which I still have to check to see if it works !! I have been leeching old PCE ISOs off the net in anticipation, and found a guy who is selling a system upgrade card (to play Dracula X). Yeah, so nerdy, but it's cool - I always wanted one of these! I will be sort of surprised if it all loads, of course.
Work-wise, not much I can say (as usual). Lots of interesting times going on over at Obsidian, our Xmas party is a week away. Late this week will be the Pandemic party, which I'll likely show up at (along with abut a trillion other drunken marauding folks). Yeah, good to schmooze, esp. since no E3 this year, boo! I went to a Pandemic party 2 years ago, it was a wild mess - I expect this one will be along those lines, we will see. A bunch of late nights behind me from last week, hopefully the load will be a little easier in this coming one. Technical times too, might I add.
Alright! It is late. i wanna mess with GBA before passing out. Until next time..
Friday, December 07, 2007
shell out!!
another laaaaate night. when i should be sleepin'. but instead, i sit here.. wasting the night away, wasting my life away...
things are alright - i had a mellow-ish week at work, i mean it was one of those weeks that literally whipped by like a whirlwind.. no bother. it's a little unsettling, anticlimactic even. i feel like there's some weird pressure going on that i am either ignoring (yay! denial!) or manufacturing in my head - yeah, i do that. I will settle at saying "it is a little bit of both." Anyway i guess it's good that things feel kind of mellow lately, even though there's something off about it. in spite of my urges, i hope it kind of stays mellow for an extended period. i need to have some flat-land in my life for awhile.
last weekend was may's birthday, a bunch of folks were kind enough to come over after work on friday night and celebrate it with her. we had a bunch of food (her cousin brought a ton of shabu shabu, some other friends brought plenty of other stuff, and i fortified the icebox as well). it was nice, and we had fun! I got her a wii for her birthday - se had been incessantly nagging me for it "i want a wiiwiiwiiwiiwii!" ENOUGH ALREADY!! Bahhhwah. But she seems to dig it, she and her friends had a blast with it the following night. That's cool! I think they were onto something when they put that thing together, honestly...
I guess the rest of the weekend melted away. Sunday I worked - no partying this week, though i did catch a comedy show last night down near the west side. I used to be a regular for that stuff, it was weird to be back (but it was cool). I think the best part of the night, for me, was just hanging out in a different part of TOWN. I am spoiled, but i get so sick of being in the same place all the time - I find myself feeling tired/bored of where i live since i just haunt the nearby areas, if i am not at work. so it was nice to stroll into a random bar down that way, after the show last night - get a jolt that there's a whole city built up all around me and just past my boundaries..
I relaxed at home tonight, alone - i feel like i don't do that much anymore (in like.. years). It's either hanging out with my girlfriend, or partying - all the time (and I odn't exactly party very much anymore). I guess all the time i spend by myself is driving to work, taking a shower, or sittin' on the toilet. Sometimes it's nice to just chill out and turn your brain off (awake version) is all i am sayin'.
I have a lot to say, a lot on my mind - but i lose the words for it more and more, lately. i don't know how to describe it, and that frustrates me. i will chaulk that up as an internal problem! mostly it feels kind of useless to satisfy that urge to even "go off" anyway, and to be honest writing in a blog doesn't do much to alleviate things. Not that I want to abandon this, but I feel like I need a different outlet than the ones I have been pursuing. I always have more and more interest in the world around me, but it seems as time passes that there's less time/energy/motivation to investigate that which is not an arm's length away.
By jove - am I becoming boring?
things are alright - i had a mellow-ish week at work, i mean it was one of those weeks that literally whipped by like a whirlwind.. no bother. it's a little unsettling, anticlimactic even. i feel like there's some weird pressure going on that i am either ignoring (yay! denial!) or manufacturing in my head - yeah, i do that. I will settle at saying "it is a little bit of both." Anyway i guess it's good that things feel kind of mellow lately, even though there's something off about it. in spite of my urges, i hope it kind of stays mellow for an extended period. i need to have some flat-land in my life for awhile.
last weekend was may's birthday, a bunch of folks were kind enough to come over after work on friday night and celebrate it with her. we had a bunch of food (her cousin brought a ton of shabu shabu, some other friends brought plenty of other stuff, and i fortified the icebox as well). it was nice, and we had fun! I got her a wii for her birthday - se had been incessantly nagging me for it "i want a wiiwiiwiiwiiwii!" ENOUGH ALREADY!! Bahhhwah. But she seems to dig it, she and her friends had a blast with it the following night. That's cool! I think they were onto something when they put that thing together, honestly...
I guess the rest of the weekend melted away. Sunday I worked - no partying this week, though i did catch a comedy show last night down near the west side. I used to be a regular for that stuff, it was weird to be back (but it was cool). I think the best part of the night, for me, was just hanging out in a different part of TOWN. I am spoiled, but i get so sick of being in the same place all the time - I find myself feeling tired/bored of where i live since i just haunt the nearby areas, if i am not at work. so it was nice to stroll into a random bar down that way, after the show last night - get a jolt that there's a whole city built up all around me and just past my boundaries..
I relaxed at home tonight, alone - i feel like i don't do that much anymore (in like.. years). It's either hanging out with my girlfriend, or partying - all the time (and I odn't exactly party very much anymore). I guess all the time i spend by myself is driving to work, taking a shower, or sittin' on the toilet. Sometimes it's nice to just chill out and turn your brain off (awake version) is all i am sayin'.
I have a lot to say, a lot on my mind - but i lose the words for it more and more, lately. i don't know how to describe it, and that frustrates me. i will chaulk that up as an internal problem! mostly it feels kind of useless to satisfy that urge to even "go off" anyway, and to be honest writing in a blog doesn't do much to alleviate things. Not that I want to abandon this, but I feel like I need a different outlet than the ones I have been pursuing. I always have more and more interest in the world around me, but it seems as time passes that there's less time/energy/motivation to investigate that which is not an arm's length away.
By jove - am I becoming boring?
Sunday, December 02, 2007
for crying out loud
yeah, well, isn't htis technically one of the Four Signs of the Apocalypse? Wait, I forgot.. the world actually ended sometime in the mid-eighties. I think when Knight Rider got signed for a fourth season or something. Most would say it was the seventies, but in all honesty I do believe it coasting on fumes for a good several years. Good for them!
No, but really, this is madness. Well, not really. This is just.. self-fulfillment of prophecies, really. The entire industry is slowly turning into a High School Statistics class equation, from here on out. Put all the big (and mid-) leaguers into an array and squish them through the sausage machine. If P then Q, if not P then not Q. If A and B buy C then D will merge with E while F gets extremely white-trash rich. And that, my friends, is why I work in the videogame industry, as well. Usually when I wanna write a reactionary post to something as bamboozling as this, I get all rambly and postulate-y. But at this point I am getting tired, as the fantastic becomes normal - I will wait and read about it on the forums along with everybody else.
Though I must admit, it does hit rather close to home in some ways. Consider this - I used to work at Swingin' Ape, when it was a tiny dev (@15 people?) which was down-the-road acquired by Blizzard and turned into Blizzard Console (Starcraft Ghost, version 2.0.. roughly). After my departure from SA (a brief tenure, mind-you) I got an art test from Tha Blizz while WOW was in production - they sent me a Tree to make ("oh whee, here's a tree"). I had just departed from OC, having sworn never to set foot on it's wretched soil again, and as I'd just settled on trying for work with either Treyarch or Left Field, the Blizzard tree was left out.. in the cold (you see what I did there?) A couple years down the road, I had left Left (working for Activision, Actually) and another year later I was makin' skatey games at Neversoft. Gun was wrapping up, and Tony Hawk 7 was in full swing - Neversoft's glory days as "Activision's Golden Dev" were pretty done, but they were still pretty popular as those things go. A couple of years at NS and then outta there too, and six months hence - guess what? I am working at Obsidian in OC, just a couple miles up the street from Nobody Beats the Blizz (clearly.) In fact my girlfriend, last year, lived on the same camps in which they were stationed (I heard they just moved this weekend). Point being, I work in OC, which is videogame-wise steeped in Blizzard's shadow. Everybody here plays that game. Dudes here have worked there, some have left this place for that one. Why haven't I tried to get back there? Oh. I have my reasons. More than ever, I resist the great conglomeration, but I know that my days, too, are numbered, the way things are going. Not necessarily working at the newly-crowned AB, but at some place which'll get snapped up again by some big-ass megacorporation. Anyway, best not to think about how much money my alternate-universe doppelganger is belly-flopping into, because it's no all about the money anyway (though stability and respect, those are other issues altogether). I guess many people are excited about these things, well.. so many are nervous and anxious about what it all means. Me, I get a chilly feeling "it is all too soon, it goes too fast.." I try to keep tabs on as much as I can, in my tiny speck-like state in this all - as ever, I wonder where I will end up and if when the time comes (if I've not fallen overboard) whether I will be happy or unhappy to get sucked up by whatever overbloated monolith. Yeah don't forget, I have had checks signed by Activision before. Hell even Vivendi, a couple of times.. right now, technically, it's Sega.. but it's always a different degree, what is all means.
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