My pipe-dream blog service is whithering on the vine. New blogs this week:

Wes "Caddyshack" Connley:

Hello. Meet our gang, The Four Horsemen of Clamidia.

And via Wes's blogroll, a taste of the more literati Jeremy "Slarz" Slusarz:

Though the signs may have been there for some time (and, admittedly, they were) this weekend the evidence is simply incotrovertible, and I have had to well up the courage to admit to a serious problem. My building has a hippie.

The problem, I now believe, centers around the apartment directly under mine. A little while ago the quiet, keep-to-herself law student vacated one of the bedrooms (in hindsight, a regrettable loss, though I hardly knew her from Eve). Ever since, little shreds of evidence have been materializing and, in my horror, I think I may have slipped into a state of denial not unlike those that often accompany genocide. ("What? No. I not see. What? Paramilitaries? Groups of Serb soldiers wearing Adidas track pants shoot farmhouses weeth assault rifles? Me? No, I not see. You see, I just seemple farmer.") Denial, however, is no longer an option.

This past week has seen the appearance, in the bedroom window directly beneath mine, of a series of colorful, psychedelic, colorform-like decals, all depicting dancing bears, smiling skulls, psilocybic mushrooms, and the like; the type of nonsense that an 18 year old college freshman from Ohio might festoon the windows of her room in "the Towers" with in order to lend the place a more personalized air for her first year at "State." Later in the year she'll lie back, and, as some Abercrombie-ed human meatball with lingering acne and Natural Light breath paws her with all the grace and sensual dexterity of a sandhog, she'll gaze up at those stickers on the windowpane and think to herself, "My, what a long strange trip it's been..." Ugh.

While I'm excited to continue reading and enjoying both these fantastic efforts, I can't help but feel the same way about all my talented friends starting blogs as I do about any of the half-baked ideas I've spitballed which someone else has turned into a sizable chunk of Venture Captial. I'm simultaniously excited to see the ideas come to life, and yet I feel the need to boastfully claim some non-ownership ownership. I was there when...

But yeah, I bought Jeremy slarz.com back in 2002 as a christmas or birthday present. He'll be a fantastic blogger. My only question is, why you gotta bag on the sandhogs?

In lieu of anything else, I stayed up a bit to late watching DVDs and reading books last night. 2046 was the lightlight, The Machinist.

I've never seen a tragic romance done with a male protagonist before, but that's what 2046 is, a story of a writer in Hong Kong in the 60s who's unlucky in love, partly by choice. It was really quite good, maybe especially to me, but the viewer brings their own set of experiences to any cultural product and that's part of the deal. Anyway, if you can dig subtitles, I strongly suggest it.

The Machinist features an Auchwitz-skinny Christian Bale (I realize that's probably offensive, but it's the only thing I could think of whenever I saw his body... I hope he had some doctors with him on that project) in a smart and creepy sort of visual riddle. It was good opaque enough to keep me guessing until the end, which is always nice.

Finally, literature-wise, I finished The Normals, which has a strong middle, but is sort of mushy on either end. Not a good combination for any work of art, but still enjoyable in places. It must be hard to write novels these days, what with all the layers of self-awareness that one has to deal with. It's a problem facing anyone creative. I prefer to go at it stright up, either just make stuff that's unabashedly about me (and hopefully still interesting), or reach out for something that's almost spectacularly fictional. But I can see how other people get caught up in the necessity of addressing the post-post-modernity of the moment. Frankly, in my opinion, the less said about it the better.

Via the bliss of Bittorrent, I watched Hustle and Flow last night. It's good! MTV films is a hit-or-miss operation, but this is a real winner. I've been meaning to see it since I met (rather was picked up by) the assistant location manager in Memphis on the road this summer and los Vagabenderosos spent a day with her parents (her mom was the Memphis location hefe), but never got around to it.

The movie essentially rests on the shoulders of Terrance Howard, and he carries it with style and grace. He really makes you believe that a Pimp can be a good man, and really makes you want to pronounce "man" like he does, kinda like, "main." The rest of the cast is quite good as well, even the token nerdy white kid producer. It's a bit of a cinderella story, and the Moral Majority would see it as bedrock proof that hip-hop, MTV and "those people" are out to ruin the US of A, but it's thoroughly enjoyable and even a little bit moving.

It's also really nice to see a little bit of the Dirty up on the big screen. I think the rising cultural gravity of the South is a good thing overall, CMT included. Regionalism helps drive innovation, quality, etc, and frankly I think the old-line cultural centers (NYC, Hollywood) need competition. They're getting fat and lax. I also appreciate the re-appropriation of the verb "to hustle" and the noun "hustler," which I think have a lot of potential in postmodern America.

Hustle and Flow, people; thoroughly worth your netflix/rental dollar.

Amanda at Pandagon writes well about changing norms, and how they may the the genesis for a lot of the current culture war hullabaloo:

It occured to me while we discussed this that this sort of thing probably goes a long way to explain why right wing blather about "traditional" families has really gained such a toehold in the public arena lately. For all the attention pain to the Baby Boomers who were into the counter-culture and whatnot, the vast majority of them really did make an effort to create the sort of family life they were raised to believe was standard--young marriage to a high school sweetheart, children, working hard, saving, enjoying some retirement time with the grandchildren. The dream didn't work out for a lot of people as planned, as the high divorce rate is evidence for, but they at least tried. But then they look at their kids who are really becoming full adults and a whole bunch of us clearly don't even care to try to achieve the dream.

For my part, I didn't grow up in any sort of traditional household, but I find the theory interesting. Worth reading and thinking about at any rate.

What I wonder about is this: it's not as though norms are simply disappearing. They may be factionalizing, national consensus on the wane, but the whole area of Family is too socially important for communities to not exert a norming influence. What's the new model, or what are the new values?

A while back I did a blog post about my experience playing The Warriors. The blogsphere being what it is, someone working for a viral marketing firm saw it and wanted to know if I'd review another game if she sent it to me. "Sure," I said, and why not? Seems like the thing to do. A few weeks and emails later I got a copy of Spartan: Total Warrior from Sega. Here are my impressions.

Overall Rating: The Gentleman's B

In Brief

In a nutshell, Spartan: Total Warrior has a very playable combat system, decent graphics and sound, and some interesting effects, but suffers badly from a lack of depth. It's good, clean hack'n'slash fun, and the levels which contain more complex objectives -- lending an element of puzzle-solving or battle management to things -- are especially engaging, but as the game rolls on it wears a little thin. The story doesn't provide much juice, and the only novel developments in gameplay come from unlocking new weapons, which are few and far between. In the end, it starts to feel like work to battle your way through.

The Good:

The battle system is the game's heart and soul, and it's a good one. You have standard attacks, blocking and ranged (arrow) attacks. There are individual and sweeping/group variations for all these, which provides a good foundation for combat. Additionally, you can build up bloodlust to execute special melee attacks, and collect the souls of those you've slain to execute various magic effects. The magic attack is determined by your choice of weapon, and also has both individual and group/area varieties.

All this adds up to a pretty complex control system, but it's one which mostly works. There's a strong rhythmic component to the action; it's all about getting on a good roll. When you succeed in getting a good run, you can launch regular bloodlust attacks, and making lots of kill means collecting lots of souls which lets you unleash your magic as well. Aries God of War will give you some verbal encouragement if you give him enough carnage, which is a nice touch.

There are also a decent variety of opponents. Though they seem to come in a standard series of classes, there's enough variety to make you learn to use your shield, with the additional feature that you can use it both offensively as well as defensively. Sophisticated opponents will use their own shields, so especially in later levels it becomes necessary to shield-bump defensive enemies to open them up for your attacks.

There are some points where the maps feel a little bit blocky -- "shouldn't I be able to jump over that?" -- and the camera can occasionally get locked in a position that makes combat tough, but overall it's a good engine with great potential for gameplay.

The Bad:

Which it's unfortunate that the game doesn't go much beyond the core combat engine. There are no other significant elements. All that the game's "secrets" unlock are concept art (concept art?) and additional elements for the arena mini-game, which doesn't offer anything over the regular game experience. The "ability system" is so simple it's practically pointless. There is no two-player mode or ability to call tactics for your in-game allies. There isn't even an item system.

It seems like the folks who designed this game have missed out on most of the innovations of the past few years. It's almost anachronistic. The story isn't interwoven into the mission structure very deeply. There is no skill tree to ascend, no strategic element at all. While new enemies and weapons are added with each act, they can't alone provide enough to make the game a real winner down the stretch.

In Conclusion

When you look at leading titles in the genre, they're all bringing something extra to the table. The Warriors has all the action, but it's also built around a strong narrative story and a cast of characters that keep things interesting and moving forward. X-Men Legends has a similar hack'n'slash style, but has such depth in terms of character development to qualify as a genre-crosser in the RPG category. The Dynasty Warriors franchise, which helped break open this kind of gameplay in the first place, is built around a strategic simulation/management game.

In spite of it's top-tier combat engine, Spartan Total Warrior lacks any of these additional facets, which is why it gets only the gentleman's B.

Now, I don't know if this means I'll get any other games to review, and I don't know if anyone will buy this game as a result of this blog, but it's an interesting experiment in marketing. In aggregate, it's definitely better for the health of the industry to diversify the sources of opinion on what's playable and what's not. I'm happy to contribute to that in my own small way.

Been watching the TV show Lost off Bittorrent. It's really something of a step up for the network television apparatus, must cost a fortune to make. I believe it's quite successful though, so that's good. That means more people will try to do things that are of the same level of quality. Perhaps an upmarket analogue for a lot of the same trends that are driving reality tv? Well, at the very least a evolutionary step in terms of format (rigidly serial), production values (the lush settings and intelligent plot), and business plan (the decision to release DVDs immediately).

One thing I think that will come out soon will be TV shows of this nature ceeding the rights to syndication in favor of releasing DVDs right away, perhaps even breaking down the traditional year-long "season" into smaller "chapters". For instance I got Lost Episodes 1 - 7 in one torrent, a summary of sorts, and if it had stopped at #5, which had a cliff-hanger ending, it would have made a great end-point for a DVD collection. If one of those came out every other month it could serve both to sustain interest, but grow popularity by allowing people to more easily join the show in-progress.

Of course, the mother of all distribution methods is on-demand, which is essentially the corporate version of what I do right now. It looks like the cable giants are going to have the early market locked up, and they're going to keep charging way too much money to actually compete with their main markets. On the other hand, it's going to be increasingly feasible for independent or maverick producers to control how their content is released, which should eventually put on pressure to lower prices, or even create "premium television" subscriptions. The really interesting questions is what advertisers do?

Oh, and I think the budding love-quadrangle between the Doctor and the cop and the criminal and the con-man is pretty exciting.

You may have heard of this but I thought it was very well done: The Chronic of Narnia Rap.

I heard something about this before, about one of these guys getting started posting comedy on the internet. Anyway, it's hillarious.

You may have heard of this but I thought it was very well done: The Chronic of Narnia Rap.

I heard something about this before, about one of these guys getting started posting comedy on the internet. Anyway, it's hillarious.

Via old compadre Rick Klau's Blog, a story about some San Francisco Police officers in trouble over a joke video that's gotten out. Essentially some SFPD folks decided to do a home-video version of Reno 911, and now everyone's pissed.

Rick seems to think the officers in question should have known better, but I disagree. Look: people have every right to satarize their work life, even in an offensive fashion, even if they're police officers. That goes doubly if the satire is essentially a private communication (the video was indended to be used at a holiday party roast). I think it's absolutely ridiculous that we have such an immature and conflicted society that we can't handle these things.

I also think its ridiculous that the newsmedia felt it was legitimate to publish the video in the first place. It's not like anything illegal happened, and it's not like the video (at least what they show) is horrid or tasteless or overly hateful. It's amateur comedy. So what's the rationale for what seems to be a substantial violation of a community's internal/private workings? My guess is ratings, but we can't really admit that, so the official answer is outrage.

This phony sense of "outrage", the soberly-asked question "why in the world would you make such a video?", the mayor calling this a "wake up call," it's all highly irritating. Grow the fuck up, America.

Frankly, I'm skeptical that anyone is actually aggreved by this, and deeply dissapointed that their supposed offendedness is being taken seriously, even used to score political points. This is the sort of brain-dead/corporate political correctness that gives important values like diversity and tolerance a bad name. By responding critically, progressives (like Mayor Newsom) are only serving to provide cannon fodder to right-wing pundits and undermine what's left of America's liberal consensus.

Watch the video. I agree with the guy who made it completely. It's infantile to try to pretend that this is worth getting worked up about.

UPDATE: God fucking dammit! I shouldn't torture myself like this, but I decided to check the other link from Rick's site about a 49ers media-training tape that the SF Chron decided to publish. This apparently cost a lot of people their jobs, which is an injustice as far as I'm concerned. With the exception of brief nudity and a couple of f-bombs, this is nothing you would't see on SNL. Football players are grown-ups. Odds are they've seen boobies and heard the word "fuck" before. People should not loose their jobs for this.

Via old compadre Rick Klau's Blog, a story about some San Francisco Police officers in trouble over a joke video that's gotten out. Essentially some SFPD folks decided to do a home-video version of Reno 911, and now everyone's pissed.

Rick seems to think the officers in question should have known better, but I disagree. Look: people have every right to satarize their work life, even in an offensive fashion, even if they're police officers. That goes doubly if the satire is essentially a private communication (the video was indended to be used at a holiday party roast). I think it's absolutely ridiculous that we have such an immature and conflicted society that we can't handle these things.

I also think its ridiculous that the newsmedia felt it was legitimate to publish the video in the first place. It's not like anything illegal happened, and it's not like the video (at least what they show) is horrid or tasteless or overly hateful. It's amateur comedy. So what's the rationale for what seems to be a substantial violation of a community's internal/private workings? My guess is ratings, but we can't really admit that, so the official answer is outrage.

This phony sense of "outrage", the soberly-asked question "why in the world would you make such a video?", the mayor calling this a "wake up call," it's all highly irritating. Grow the fuck up, America.

Frankly, I'm skeptical that anyone is actually aggreved by this, and deeply dissapointed that their supposed offendedness is being taken seriously, even used to score political points. This is the sort of brain-dead/corporate political correctness that gives important values like diversity and tolerance a bad name. By responding critically, progressives (like Mayor Newsom) are only serving to provide cannon fodder to right-wing pundits and undermine what's left of America's liberal consensus.

Watch the video. I agree with the guy who made it completely. It's infantile to try to pretend that this is worth getting worked up about.

UPDATE: God fucking dammit! I shouldn't torture myself like this, but I decided to check the other link from Rick's site about a 49ers media-training tape that the SF Chron decided to publish. This apparently cost a lot of people their jobs, which is an injustice as far as I'm concerned. With the exception of brief nudity and a couple of f-bombs, this is nothing you would't see on SNL. Football players are grown-ups. Odds are they've seen boobies and heard the word "fuck" before. People should not loose their jobs for this.