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Just a reminder, our very first Weekly Geek community meetup is happening tonight at 6PM. It will be at the fabulous Uwajamaya food court (map), where you can sate your food-lust with all manner of Eastern cuisine. The whole crew will be there so be sure to stop by and say hello!
After I procrastinated with my registration last year, I made it to PAX 2008. It was both eventful and stuffed to the gills. Unlike all the gaming bloggers tapping away in the lines with their laptops, you aren't gonna get any news from me first. But hopefully, if you weren't able to make it, you'll be able to live it vicariously through my delayed, analog-transferred coverage.
9:52 - Is it bad that the first thing I notice about PAX is how the line smells like a used baby wipe?
10:28 - From everything I can tell, Rock Band 2 looks smoother and more polished. Almost like Rock Band was rushed to the market and that this is the game we were meant to get originally.
10:32 - Tales of Vesperia is every bit as gorgeous as Eternal Sonata. Let's just hope they made the battle system less repetitive.
10:46 - Gears of War 2 looks amazingly clean. Didn't think the graphics could improve that much. I was wrong.
10:52 - If Mirror's Edge wasn't visually stunning, I'd say it's just another FPS. I'm seeing really clunky shooting mechanics and glitches all over the place. Let's hope those are demo jitters.
11:02 - From appearances, Fable 2 has gone a decidedly Diablo-esque direction, facade-wise.
11:14 - Little Big Planet and Blu-Ray continue to be the only selling points on the PS3, for me at least.
11:25 - Fallout 3 officially wins best booth design at PAX. Happy family scene on one side, post-apocalyptic nightmare on the other. Well done, Bethesda!
2:27 - Monster Lab actually appears to be a well done mini-game collection quest extravaganza for the Wii.
3:42 - Love living downtown; taking a break from PAX to walk my dog.
5:07 - It's proving nearly impossible to get in panels without camping for an hour. Could PAX have outgrown this place too?
Stay tuned for more PAX coverage from the The Weekly Geek! At some point, I'll distill my thoughts on one of the most interesting panels Saturday, where several gaming minds broke down the "Casual vs. Hardcore" argument.
(Thanks to Lilly for the pictures.)
This episode of The Mind Boggleth isn't devoted to a central theme, as it's been a fairly busy week here at Seckscab Inc. I was recently "released" from my job as a picture framer, only to find another identical job at a different outfit, so I have a few weeks unpaid vacation between jobs. This is the advantage of having a skilled trade, I imagine. Somebody, somewhere, is going to need my services at any given time. Picture framing is hardly strenuous work, it's fairly tedious and requires a lot of fine motor skills and attention to detail, so not many people stick with it long enough to learn the details of the job. Add into it the reality that there aren't any colleges who teach picture framing as a major (I had a few seminars in college about general gallery prep, but nothing really specific to how to put the frames together) and I suddenly realize, at the age of 28, that I finally have something to trade goods and services for monetarily.
It's a good feeling, and I suggest to anybody, like me, who hates desk jobs and hates labor work to find a niche service and learn it by rote. Your brain becomes detached from the job and you're free to have remarkable flights of fancy in your head while slaving away, and you develop a sincere case of bipolar syndrome. Not only am I the president of Insane Niche Trade Destined To Drive You To Drink Club For Men, I'm also a member!
While I'm enjoying these few weeks off, I settled in to play the newest installment in the Final Fantasy Ivalice Alliance series, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2. When we last left Ivalice Alliance, Vaan and Penelo were in an annoying Warcraft real time combat environment that involved summoning everything under the sun to kill bosses that are infinitely more powerful than your characters will ever be. If you kill them, it's generally through a combination of luck combined with sheer balls-out lack of strategy.
I was surprised, quite surprisingly, too, in the depth of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2, especially since the first FFTA annoyed the ever loving shit stones out of me. FFTA2 is still annoying at times, but it seems to be of superior mettle. The main plot is far too child-friendly for most adults to get enthralled with (something about an evil clan that wants to rule Ivalice by use of some crazy dimensional rift thing... I dunno, you tell me). What really seals the deal is not the main plot but the various subplots that weave back and forth over 300 quests to build an incredibly funny, character rich, almost Cervantes-esque series of episodes.
One plot arc, possibly my favorite plot arc in anything ever, involves bringing various potions and thingums to a zombie who is trying to commit suicide. If you know the Final Fantasy universe at least in a rudimentary way, the undead are harmed by "White Magic", which is anything that heals HP or MP to living creatures. The plot brings back the suicidal zombie several times, and you get to learn her little story and eventually find a way to bring her back to life, at which point you win a new super-character with lots of love in it. Another plot arc, involving a rival clan from another country who doesn't understand the rules of Ivalice's judge system, moves into your turf and tries to take it over, mafia style.
All in all, if you are a gamer that likes a good laugh and building your characters with the care and attention of a Pokemon Trainer, FFTA2 is your best bet. If you're one of those burly manly-men over at the Xbox playtesting who demand bigger guns, it's maybe not for you. I dunno, I like my games cute and without much depth that I can come back to again and again and check in to see how my d00ds are. FFTA2 fits that bill. I've still got 150 quests to go, even after beating the main plot. I can't wait to unlock them all.
On a complete different note, somebody sent me a link to the Vatican Gift Shop, which offers a peculiar service. Anything can be blessed by the Pope himself for no extra charge, as long as you bought it from them. The gift shop sells enough religious shlock to raise Martin Luther from the dead in rage, but the kicker is that you can have a mousepad bearing adorable Botticelli cherubs BLESSED BY THE POPE. Imagine taking that one to the office on a Monday. And then imagine me as both of your snarky coworkers.
YOU: "Hey guys, my mousepad has been blessed by the Pope. I have signed certificate that says so!"
COWORKER #1: That must be a clerical error!
COWORKER #2: What a nun sequiter!
COWORKER #1: A goddamn cloisterfuck, that's what it is.
COWORKER #2: What'd he do? Wimple out?
COWORKER #1: You're not making this a habit, are you?
COWORKER #2: Quit this bull and take some collars! We can't be Latin starting this Mass of work we've got!
YOU: That last one didn't quite work out.
COWORKER #2: Cardinal since when do I care?
And, lastly, from blessings to blasphemies, we here at the Weekly Geek get a lot of emails begging us to plug shlock. Sometimes it's useful, like when Chris got free beanbag chairs and then forgot to write an article about them, or when Qais got an "intimate massager" and the only thing we heard about it later was a slight buzzing sound as he walked by, here at the palatial Weekly Geek Plaza. That said, probably the worst, least informed attempt at a Plugola/Payola was this week, as a porn site offered us free admittance if we linked them.
Chris runs a tight ship, as well as tight pants, and he tries to keep things as PG-13 as possible. Why he lets me, with a terminal case of Tourette's FUCK ASS COCK, write is beyond me. Still, I'll be damned if he lets me review a porn site on the Weekly Geek.
Trust me, I asked if I could. I explained that it is engaging, well designed and has some of the hottest barely legal vaginas in hardcore scenes with big black studs that will BLOW YOUR MIND, but he would have none of it. He was simply adamant, like the members of the biggest stars the porn industry could summon on the very self-same site, but there was nothing doing. And doing is what they specialize! Lots of doing! Doing it in every position, variation and costume you sick little perverts could possibly get off on!
I just hope they use a condomine patrias et sancte filias.
At 15 I took a summer job in an office. Duties revolved around the preparation and scanning of leasing contracts, hulking file cabinets reduced daily to reflective laser disks. It was easily half as glamorous as it sounds, a monotonous paper-strewn hell.
Years later I was part of a team that implemented a proprietary audio handling system, digitizing a dozen analog voice networks and filtering them through heaving servers and slick fiber optics only to spit them back over their originating hardware. One operator could monitor every radio net via touch screen laptop, simultaneously hearing independent voice in each ear while incoming transmissions were held in queue. It was the future.
And just recently I made the transition from Moleskin to Smartphone, tactile scribbling now synchronized at each of my workstations with information back-lit by brilliant pixels where ink-soaked paper once sufficed.
As a long time IT goon I can personally vouch for many of the advantages Digital claims over Analog ("analog" a colloquialism here, math/music geeks). Information saturation can become manageable if sorting by meta data while a stack from the local bookstore can be made to fit in the palm of your hand. My RSS reader can and will beat the ever-living crap out of your newspaper subscription any time any place without smudging your hands or cutting down a tree.
But even binary has 10 two sides.
I will never forget the cheap thrill of sliding a comic from its plastic sheath, the first smell of an old book, or the indescribable satisfaction of a well-organized bookshelf. These experiences assault the senses in ways that even the warmest monitor glow never could.
Even with that in mind I, in preparation for yet another move, hastily decided to ditch all my media packaging. Huge piles of DVD cases and album art growing as I marveled at my cleverness and considerable reduction in volume. I briefly considered saving a few choice articles but where to put them? A scrapbook? A cardboard box, one of dozens existing only to be lugged up and down flights of stairs and likely never opened?
At this very moment I have 16 banker's boxes in storage full of books that have moved across this country more times than I care to count. With them travel the assortment of figures, framed prints, wall sconces, and various bric-a-brac of sentiment. I am but one man and something had to be done given my damn near Bedouin lifestyle. So into the trash went the jewel cases, glossy game boxes, and what now strikes as quite the biographical time line.
Retrospect has bred regret.
I flew too close to the digital sun and fell, screaming for my trifold cd cases. My shiny box art. My mint condition Doom 2 manual!
What's done is done and I depart from this reflection wiser. I'll revert to my hybrid stylings, twittering and snapping digital photos while enjoying the sensory overloading delights of wood-pulped media old and new. My mouth still waters at the site of a fresh National Geographic and words won't do justice to how much I enjoyed the first issue recently published by the Coilhouse crew.
At the same time Steam and iTunes are are both reliable forms of media distribution, to say nothing of Hulu or the growing habit of television networks to make recently aired shows available on their website. Print is far from dead and the "paperless office" remains science fiction. Folly only greets those that charge headlong down a solitary path, ignoring the countless forks as our options grow daily.
Now I'm curious how other geeks handle their media.
Do you still clack through alphabetized jewel cases at Best Buy? Store your game packaging neatly or simply exchange to reduce the cost of new purchases? Do your old vinyl and CD cases form vast horizontal monoliths at which you worship?
If there's a mix what determines an exalted place in meatspace versus the wonderland of your hard drive?
Please welcome the newest addition to the Weekly Geek family, Laurel Fuller. Laurel will be writing The Ravenous Bibliophage - a feature not afraid to tell you what books are crap and why. Enjoy! --Chris
We've all seem them in the window as we walk past Borders or Barnes and Noble. The flat black covers with the striking red-and-white imagery, wrapped around a set of (now) four novels as thick as the later Harry Potters. They are the Twilight series, Stephenie Meyer's wildly successful vampire romance aimed at teenagers and whoever else gets the urge to read Young Adult books every now and then. I started reading them because A) I like vampires, and B) I want to write fantasy-horror for a Young Adult audience one day, and I felt like sizing up the competition. The good news is the series is finally, finally over; the bad news is I vaporized a solid two months reading every word.
continue reading "The Ravenous Bibliophage: Stephenie Meyer - Breaking Dawn"
Anybody who knows me can verify my unswerving dedication to a Chicago band accused most recently (on Sky Blue Sky) of making dad rock. I was a tad critical of that record last year, a release that has since grown on me quite a bit. Here's why: Wilco has always made dad rock - and they're damn good at it.
They've taken the bands our fathers grew up on and fulfilled their promise to a new and more demanding generation with the help of some technology, and just some sheer grit. I've had their earlier albums Being There and Summerteeth on a loop this past week and I just found out why. Wilco is everything I wish the Rolling Stones would've become. Crunchy guitars, swagger, and some crazy keyboard work to glue it all together.
We're back this week, with Chris, Jinny and Qais. Relaxed, refreshed and instilled with the potential energy surrounding PAX these geeks are here to talk about the upcoming convention, as well as select items from this week's news, and your letters read on air. We discuss what games we think deserve the Mega Man 9 treatment, and Qais rants about politics a bit. But only for a bit! And then Chris rants about a comic book. But only for a bit! These things happen. Please enjoy.
Every once in a while, we'll actually publish some game news. After reading that GC 2008 in Leipzig, Germany had 203,000 attendees this year, I thought this should be one of those times.
*sniff* Those lucky bastards got to play with the little zerglings...I hope I hope I hope that I can do the same at PAX.
Over the weekend I caught highlights from the Olympic marathon. Conditions were less than ideal, the world record holder even declining to compete due to the damage the metropolis of Beijing might wreak on his asthmatic lungs. At just over the two-hour mark I couldn't help but think back to the event's origins, that tale of a lone Greek running the distance from Marathon to Athens to tell of the victory (We have won!) over the Persians.
Aside from the fact that the guy allegedly dropped dead following this exclamation there's an additional detail that lends bearing to the differences of our modern times.
The dude was probably naked.
He would have cast off his armor and clothing for speed, the advantages of which are logical. In fact, the first Olympians competed au naturale, the only addition being a slop of oil for the wrestlers to uh, enhance the experience.
For better or worse times have changed. Not only are our countries' most talented clothed, in some events more than others, their attire is now the product of engineers and scientists as much as fashion designers. While a beach volleyball bikini may not ever see the inside of a wind tunnel (a shame, really) you can bet that Michael Phelps' new Speedo did.
I am all for maximizing the entirety of one's self for increased performance. Were I a swimmer in high school I'd have joined the press of sleek, hairless bodies with the rest of the swim team. I would gladly have gone with short shorts for cross-country, or squeezed in to a mystifyingly masculine singlet as a wrestler. But even the priciest piece of spandex off the rack couldn't compare to the intensive research and development that go in to girding the taut loins of our Olympians.
As toolmakers we human folk are constantly reinventing, those Converse All-Stars might have done the job for the guys in the 70s but modern competitions demand more. Natural talent and training are not the only building blocks for success and those with the resources turn to science for an edge.
So where do we draw the line? While chemical injections immediately raise red flags, altitude training and slick engineering remain the norm. Several extreme runners (these folks laugh at your petty marathons) regularly file their toenails down or have them removed to increase performance so what's to keep them from having their appendix out to reduce their weight? Or something else?
The topic of this article comes from a recent Nike sponsored TV spot for the Olympics, embedded below. Hi-res is here.
The ending image is of course runner Oscar Pistorius, of whom I am a huge fan. Every time I see him in action I can't help but stare in wonder, goose bumps forming as he transcends all existing definitions of the word "athlete." A man without legs churning up the race track fueled by sheer power of will and the marvels of modern science, an inspiration to any person facing physical limitations of their own. However, he is clearly using something that is not "already inside."
I won't delve in to the controversy of his intended competition in the summer games (which was granted but he failed to qualify for, you can read about it here) but he certainly calls in to question existing definitions of who is eligible to compete. Would the verdict have been the same if the body modification was intentional?
2008 marked the high point of the graph in engineered attire and that curve is going nowhere but up. Competitive parameters will get stricter, boundaries more encompassing, and each and every breakthrough will have to be met and evaluated in order to determine fairness. The idea of body modifications obtainable by means other than training may not be too far off. The winter games might unveil some new tech that enhances performance and calls in to question the limits of what is allowed in competition.
Technology continuously redefines and restructures even the basest of human activity, its advancement equally pushing and pulling the standards by which we work, play, and compete. Perhaps its continued implementation will reach a ceiling that purists will refuse to break, a point at which the effects of research and development supersede talent and training.
At that point it will be what's on the inside that counts. And we can expect, dare I say anticipate, a whole lot of naked.
We'll be heading to PAX this weekend, along with the rest of the Geeks of the world, and on Sunday August 31st at 6PM we're holding our very first Weekly Geek community meetup. It will be at the fabulous Uwajamaya food court (map), where you can sate your food-lust with all manner of Eastern cuisine. The whole crew will be there so be sure to stop by and say hello!
1986.
Things were a lot simpler 22 years ago, weren't they?
1986.
Saturday Morning Cartoons were still on until noon, there was no Disney Afternoon yet and pop can openings were pretty small and not yet to their "X-Treem" levels of wideness introduced in the winter of 1999 to address the reality that we, the consumers, simply weren't doing the Dew hard enough. Yes, these were the days of hardcore pay-per-view Shelley Duvall action, the heady months of April O'Neil showing us the first popping cleavage on afternoon television, and the lagging, long-toothed seasons of A.L.F.
1986.
Of course, Lucasarts had had a hard year. Howard the Duck had ebbed and waned and waned again, and it looked like Willow was a million years away. Hell, even Maniac Mansion was a year off. So, after laying the not very metaphorical egg that was Howard the Duck, Lucas hired a team, including future-gaming guru Ron Gilbert, to create the first MMORPG, Habitat.
20 years preceding World of Warcraft, Habitat seems a little silly today. The video walkthrough seems laughable (the idea that players would say grammatically correct things like "IT'S A GOOD DAY FOR A TREASURE HUNT!" is particularly quaint). Back when Commodore 64 ruled the world, though, it was amazingly forward thinking and, as revealed in the fascinating article, Lessons of Lucasfilm's Habitat, many of the common difficulties MMORPG developers face were already in play way back when.
The crux of this rant, however, is about Griefers, both in MMORPGs and in odder places, such as LARPs. I make no secret about the fact that I am a member of The Camarilla, the fan club for White Wolf's Vampire: The Requiem, and in the interest of journalistic/rant-tastic integrity, I must state that I've earned a few paychecks by doing freelance work for them. The Camarilla attempts to do in real life interaction what Habitat attempted to do way back when: build a coherent world of thousands of players who try ("try") to stay in-character and remain friendly out of character with each other. It's a fascinating study in human relationships and cultural dynamics... and... sadly... Griefers.
A Griefer is defined as a person in a gaming environment who actively enjoys attempting to break the system, ruin the enjoyment of others, and basically bully everybody and everything in their way. Habitat's small player base and intimate control mechanisms allowed in-character corrections to be made around these people. For instance, when a Griefer succeeded in killing an "unkillable" Boss, and making away with their super-powered boss weapon, the Habitat staff made an event out of it and had the Boss's gang trap the Griefer's character in the city, where violence couldn't occur. Then, in an amazing pre-Something Awful show of player bravado and developer sensibility, the Boss demanded the super-weapon back, exchanging the super-weapon for several thousand virtual dollars.
In LARP, of course, the consequences are a little deeper. You have to stare at the person trying to fuck you over, and attempt to not rip their lungs out and stuff them up their enormously obese, smelly ass. Some LARP Griefers, just like some online Griefers, actively enjoy seeing other people pissed off at them.
Now, I'm not against a good sense of humor, and I'm all for pranks, mischief and working the mechanics of a game to your benefit. Habitat, and The Camarilla, can teach game developers several things:
- Players need spaces where they can interact with each other without violence. Some players aren't there to level up endlessly or grind through an army of zombies... some players, myself including, prefer to just run around aimlessly and meet new people. A space without risk is necessary for this to occur. Habitat invented the "no violence in town" rule, but it should be expanded to "No violence until I turn off this button which I can't turn back on again".
- Griefers should not be rewarded, nor hindered. Just let them be and eventually they'll piss so many people off that nobody will give them the time of day anymore. Then they'll move on to annoying the Scientologists.
- Always accompany your video game with a video narrated by Sir Ian Holm.
This week the good doctor shows us the most efficient way to teach US Geography: vicious sadism!
Please join me in welcoming another new addition to the Weekly Geek writing staff, Ryan G. Biv. Ryan blogs from his ice fortress deep under the Siberian permafrost, gibbering unintelligibly at an indentured translator who relays the information best he can. Enjoy! --Chris
Promotional media is fleeting. Compacted revenue streamlined to fill the seats or your grubby little hand with the latest and greatest. Posters spring up like mushrooms after a rain for upcoming films and are left to rot, sure to be covered over as compost for the next flick that blows in to town. Run times dictate, release dates loom, and you better bold-face that font if you want your gig filled to capacity.
Enter viral marketing, the self replicating strain of publicity that I'm certain gets marketing execs all hot and bothered. They have to place but a drop in the pool and the very nature of their target audience whisks it away in a mad fit of dispersion. It's market specific, geek-friendly, and like any other advertisement can go incredibly right or terribly wrong.
But what if there is a more sprawling narrative? What if a parallel story is related to the product but can exist on its own? What if I can participate in the delayed unveiling through a series of either web based or cleverly placed real-world clues? Now we are in the territory of Alternate Reality Gaming (ARG) and they've been around for years, causing a stir and getting targeted audiences talking about the process, not just the product.
There's bacon salt, bacon chocolate, bacon band-aids, bacon wallets and bacon suits. Bacon has become a timeless internet meme, allowing nerds everywhere to embrace and celebrate the crispy, porky goodness. I'm a fan of putting bacon on just about everything (bacon-rapped hot dogs being a staple in my home), but what is the best way to cook it? Frying in a skillet will cover your stove (and yourself) in oil splatters and shrinks the strips to little unmanageable curled messes, and those clever microwave solutions turn out to be not-so-clever in practice. Enter the Alton Brown method, as outlined here on Eating, Etc. I've been cooking bacon in the oven for years for a few reasons: it's convenient and it produces a consistent shape. Perfect for stacking your BLTs, flat bacon is the way to go.
My method differs slightly from the article I am linking to, but the gist is the same.
1. Place a wire cooling rack on a cookie sheet (foil lining isn't necessary, though it does help with cleanup)
2. Place a few strips of bacon on said wire rack. Use as many as you would eat. Do not eat it yet, though.
3. Place the sheet into a cold, non-pre-heated oven and amp up the temp to 400 degrees. Go sit down. Do something else for a while.
4. Once the oven is preheated, check every 5 minutes or so until it reaches the consistency you'd like.
5. Now it is okay to eat the bacon.
Seriously, every time I cook bacon like this for people they are impressed. It is so easy.
[link via Eating, Etc. | Tastespotting]
Since I got my iPod Touch, I've been obsessively looking for ways to utilize the small bits of WiFi bandwidth I'm able to siphon away from the great city of Seattle.
So when I can manage to pry myself away from Social Networking and Gaming, I turn to my first love: Music. There are several iPhone and iPod options available to supplement the meager music collection you are limited to hold with an 8gb to 32gb device.
The two obvious choices are Pandora and Last.fm, and both are great in their own ways.
Sure, we've all thought about it. We've all been staring at ourselves in the mirror during the morning shave (or in Chris' circumstance, Simonization), and thought "Just this once, maybe I'll do it." Staring deep into the mirror, shaving foam still on our cheeks, we say "Bloody Mary".
Of course, we all know that it's never the first try that summons forth the demonic daughter of Henry VIII forth from her prison in the mirror. So, perhaps after finishing the shave, maybe after getting out of the shower, toweling ourselves off, we laughingly, jokingly, say "Bloody Mary" a second time.
Then everything freezes. The room goes deathly still. Somewhere in the distance, dogs start howling the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. It's the third one that gets you. You just don't have the guts to do it. Believe me, I've attempted this dozens of times. The third one always gives me pause.
Now, for the sake of science, I venture forth into the bathroom, yet again, and say "Bloody Mary" three times. Here goes. Feel free to look away from the site for a few moments, as this may get gory.
"Bloody Mary."
"Bloody Mary."
"Bloody Mary."
Ah, there we are. Nothing happened at all. Science prevails! Hooray!
Oh, upon further investigation of the myth, I'm supposed to say it 13 times, or in the dark, or nude, while drinking a glass of cat blood, standing on leg or any number of other reasons why my first attempt failed.
I think I did what I needed to do. No Bloody Mary. However, if you'll excuse me, I have some celery and some tomato in the fridge and the liquor store just opened up.
Last week, Colette and I stormed GayGamer castle and joined Flynn DeMarco (you know. Fruit Brute.) for GayGamer Podcast #30. We talked about Braid, Soul Calibur IV and many other relevant things! And some not-so relevant things. And you can hear a cat meowing. It was fun. Go download it!
[link via GayGamer]
"The book was better."
A phrase you hear uttered by at least one voice in the crowd whenever a movie is adapted from a beloved work of fiction. Novels, comic books, video games, no matter what the source material there's always dissent. The long-time fans come out of the woodwork to frantically stake their claim as the Originals. The Ones Who Knew About It First. There's a bit of selfishness there, almost a protectiveness being displayed. Books and video games are much more of an engrossing, personal experience than film and the depiction of narrative that plays out in your head is as intimate as one can get. When a big-name director and hotshot actors get attached to the movie adaptation of a favorite, it can be jarring. Fear of mangling the source material. Fear of not giving the material the respect it deserves. And maybe a little bit of fear that the movie version will be entirely different than the version you saw in your head. That disconnect is so loathsome to fans they'd do anything to stop it. And by "anything" I mean angrily posting on message boards. And by "stop it" I mean annoy the shit out of people.
There's nothing wrong with enjoying a movie adaptation. There, I said it. Breathe a sigh of relief, fellow nerds! You don't have to act elitist in the face of mainstream movie-goers anymore!
Take Watchmen as an example. This twenty-some-odd year old story has been read and re-read and obsessed over by fans. It's on the Time Magazine Top 100 Novels of all time list, which tells you something. Not "graphic novels", mind you. Novels. It's good. Really good. Incredible, in fact. I just picked up the trade paperback version and read it for the first time this week and it's already one of my absolute favorites, no hyperbole. I am intensely excited for the movie adaptation, which is being shot by the director of 300 in a similar frame-by-frame comic to film approach. Mixed feelings pervade the internets about this adaptation. Some fear it's going to be just another summer blockbuster action movie, failing to display the true gamut of emotions, the sheer gravitas of a world filled with flawed superheroes with everyday problems. Making a Watchmen movie is like, well, making a Lord of The Rings movie. There's so much that would be lost in translation. Watchmen relies heavily on its literary style, on you as the reader becoming engrossed in the words and intimately relating to the characters one by one, chapter after chapter. Even writer Alan Moore has stated he wants nothing to do with the movie, nor does he plan on watching it. What an asshole.
"Nothing is any good if other people like it." It's an indie rock and nerd mantra that I admit I often live by. But movie adaptations of excellent works are inevitable. Why not embrace that fact and treat these films as companion pieces to the greater work? Why not get upset when action figures are created or t-shirts made? Why not take it as a whole and use it to personally enrich your experience and understanding?
One of the things I love to do is to pick apart a story and relentlessly analyze tidbits of mythos. To piece together the puzzle of characters and plot and, ultimately, pick out the differences between book and film. The best fiction is able to engage everyone depending on how much you want to engage with it. From Lost to Shakespeare there's a perfect balance of highbrow and lowbrow content. You can enjoy the weirdness of the island and chat about how Kate and Sawyer are toooooootally made for each other - or you can decipher intricate codes and maps to delve deeper into the mysteries they've laid out for you. Or you can just marvel at how dreamy Sawyer is. How dreamy? SO dreamy.
Shakespeare liked to write fart jokes and add gore to fill the front rows of the Globe with commoners. The cheap seats. In the back were the intelligentsia, silently appreciating the literary tapestry unfolding between bloody sword fights and bawdy displays of machismo and lust. It's classic. It works and it is fantastic.
The fact of the matter is that as fans we want to evangelize what we believe to be truly good while still maintaining the integrity of the product. It's contradictory in a way: we want to keep these things as our own yet we still want to share our enthusiasm with the rest of the world. When it comes down to it we're all just insecure. Who cares if the whole world knows and loves a mainstream version of Middle-Earth, or a watered-down Watchmen? No matter how exposed our favorite works get, it doesn't change how we feel about them. We should learn to appreciate the fact that more people are being exposed to great works of fiction every day.
And hey, if they like the movie maybe they'll read the book.
Ask Dr. Helmig is the brainchild of one John Forster, AKA Sitnalta, a long-time member of the Weekly Geek community and our most recent addition to the site. Dr. Helmig is fueled by your questions and will run every Thursday. Let's all give a hearty welcome to a brand-new Weekly Geek Original comic series!
The Doctor is in, after the jump.
I sometimes marvel at the strange path that new music discovery takes me on. I was listening to a new episode of the podcast All Songs Considered this morning when they played a track by Petra Haden and Miss Murgatroid. Petra Haden is most likely best known for once being the violin player for The Decemberists, and is apparently quite prolific on her own. In addition to solo projects she also records with her family; Petra is actually one of three incredibly talented triplets. There wasn't much that was entertaining on YouTube with Petra and Miss Murgatroid and their Rasputina-esque collage of violin and accordion - but I stumbled upon this gem from the Guilt By Association album project from 2007. The compilation featured a group of artists doing their own versions of guilty pleasure pop hits, and this version of Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" by miss Haden was accompanied by this awesome video, submitted for a contest. Enjoy.
Jesus McGreesus. With what is quite possibly the most retarded news item of the last decade, ABC News officially declares itself to be the enemy of sanity. That's right, parents. Your kids might be listening to MP3s right now, MP3s that support the drug trade that supports terrorism!! That's right! BINAURALS!!!!1
"Or, go to YouTube. You'll see videos of teens experimenting with digital drugs. You can decide for yourself if binaural beats induce drug-like effects."
That's right, parents. Press your legislators to outlaw something that YOU CAN DECIDE FOR YOURSELF IF IT ACTUALLY WORKS. While you're at it, let's get placebos outlawed, since sugar pills are made out of sugar and might actually give you cavities.
Seriously, ABC News has really reached the bottom of the barrel with this one. Not only do Binaurals not work, but they're not even an illegal commodity. I suspect this might be an RIAA-plant article, since they haven't had a good "Illegal downloading supports Al-Quaeda" article in some time.
Seriously, d00ds. Try harder or we'll slip some Heroin Binaurals into the overhead music they play at K-Mart, just to see what happens. We can do that, you know. We are Anonymous.
In order to concentrate our energies on the impending PAX-splosion, we've decided to take a few weeks off from the podcast. The podcast will return with brand new episodes Monday the 25th of August in the year 2008. The blog will continue, but if you still crave The Weekly Geek like you crave water, if you are thirsty for content you can...
We'll be back in two weeks!
I am just mad about The Real Tuesday Weld. The brainchild of a Brit named Stephen Coates, aka "The Clerkenwell Kid", and the sound is a cross between The Propellerheads style of beat-booty mixing and the retro-futuristic-noir style of bands like The Decemberists, The Tiger-Lillies, Marc Almond in his campiest mood, and, yes, my hero, Vic Mizzy. In fact, they start out their album Les Aperitifs et les Digestifs with a jazzy, 1920s speakeasy version of the Addams Family theme, which segues into a melancholy torch song about a wasted life in the fast lane.
Martin Jacques, the operatic falsetto of The Tiger-Lillies, makes a guest appearance on "Someday", and it's really lovely to hear him outside of his evil clown/Edward Gorey persona.
Anyway, if you're looking for the musical equivalent of Lovecraftian steampunk, you could do worse than The Real Tuesday Weld.
This past weekend, Jinny and I fulfilled our collective destiny to be the last two people in Seattle to see The Dark Knight. A few factors contributed to our lateness in maintaining geek status quo by absorbing media as fast as the companies can sling it at us: we wanted to see it at IMAX and the IMAX showings at Pacific Science Center have been sold out for most of August, and we both greatly despise the current state of the theater experience. A venue has to offer us something unique to drag us away from our fancy HDTV and 5.1 surround setup at home. Where we can pause the action to go to the bathroom or get a drink. Where we can watch the movie with subtitles so we never miss a line of dialog. Where we don't have to worry about people around us talking or incessantly chewing popcorn. Ever chewing. Ever munching.
The Dark Knight? Amazing. You already knew that. Heath Ledger was incredible as the force of nature that is the Joker, Aaron Eckhart was compelling and sympathetic as Harvey Dent and Christian Bale's Bat-Lisp annoyed the crap out of me. The IMAX scenes were well-worth it: high-altitude shots of Hong Kong and Gotham, breathtaking and enormous in scope. Stadium seating and a 6 story screen meant even the most comically tall hat couldn't impede our sight. Snacks were overpriced as always but in my opinion you just can't watch a movie in the theater without Sour Patch Kids. It just doesn't happen.
This experience was special not only because of the film format or the venue, but because it was the first movie we'd seen in the theater for about half a year. The Pacific Science Center's IMAX Theater showed me that going to the movies doesn't have to be a painful experience, but there can always be improvements. This made me think: what would my ideal movie theater experience be like? I know there are some venues around that offer this stuff, but I think that the big theaters would do well to adapt some of these ideas to boost sales and not have to keep increasing ticket prices. At the very least it would bring me back on a regular basis.
Assigned seats would be nice. Being able to nab 6 seats in a row for you and your friends would save the frustration of walking into a darkened theater and trying to find a spot that would accommodate your group. Even with just two people this would be a great benefit.
A personal listening device would be neat. Being able to focus on the movie when there's people around you making random noises would be awesome. Imagine if you could have a little headphone jack in the arm rest of your seat (like in an airplane) that you could use in addition to the main sound system. You'd still get the booming bass and surround sound, just with the added benefit of being able to ignore the giant blob man next to you who is enjoying his popcorn a little too much.
Maybe I'm missing out on the social aspect of going to see a movie. Perhaps the big draw is being around other humans and sharing the experience with a large group of random strangers. I just don't see the appeal when it comes to the large-chain movie theaters. I'd much rather wait until the movie is out on DVD, where I can pop open a beer, eat dinner and be terrified of the Joker all from the comfort of my own couch.
What would you suggest to help improve the movie going experience?
If you're reading this on Friday, August 8, 2008, then you will be happy to know that you are not dead due to a man-made black hole sucking you, and the rest of the solar system and surrounding environs, into oblivion. Yesterday, or tomorrow, as I'm writing this, the CERN Large Hadron Particle Collider was turned on for the first time.
First off, this thing is ENORMOUS. It's a 17 mile tube, with the price tag of 6.4 BILLION EUROS. Since Euros are super expensive incomprehensible moon moneys, that's like a billion trillion zillion dollars. Hadron collider? More like HARD-ON collider.
Of course, the likelihood of a black hole forming is extraordinarily remote. Vegas chances are that we'll survive and nothing will have happened. Worst case scenario, Switzerland is evaporated. But will we miss Switzerland?
Let us explore this idea a little further.
- I have never met anyone from Switzerland, or anyone who has personally encountered anybody from Switzerland. I have met somebody who has met Rick Steves, who has been to Switzerland, but Rick Steves is a ginger with eyes that are a bit too close together. I think he's one of the Lizard People, or possibly a Weasley. Maybe both.
- History books are full of countries that do shit. France had Napoleon, Italy had Mussolini, heck, even Belgium has Tintin and Belgium is a completely arbitrary made up nation that exists solely out of certain treaties that were signed after a "war" consisting of twenty people armed with pointy sticks. The fact is that war makes history, not particle colliders, nor, for that matter, the Calvinists. The only thing Switzerland has ever contributed to mankind was Calvinism, and we can all see how that turned out.
- When was the last time you said to your loved one, "Loved one, let's order out for Swiss?" Exactly.
QUOD ERAT DEMONSTRANDUM: Switzerland does not exist, except on the Platonic conceptual level, in the same way that love and justice and freedom and George Lucas exist, i.e. they are simply words we made up to describe things that are ephemeral at best, laughably void from our lives at worst.
If you're reading this, and if we survive our impending doom, then Switzerland suddenly has something that proves it exists after all. This is a harrowing thought. What other things may exist that we never had proof of before?
I have considered this possibility, and it occurs to me that the last horizon is not space travel, nanotechnology or particle physics. The last horizon is the Christian Science Reading Room, four words that do not, in any way, describe what is inside those innocuous doors. There is no Christianity, no Science, little to read and more than one room. Furthermore, nobody ever goes in, nobody ever comes out. It's the religious equivalent of Willy Wonka's chocolate factory.
There could literally be anything behind those doors. ANYTHING.
There could be a Victorian style opium den of vice in there. There could be a child porn ring that puts Jeffrey Jones' basement to shame. There could be Jimmy Hoffa, Amelia Earheart, Resurrection Mary and Don Knotts back there.
We just don't know.
So, if you're reading this, congratulations on not being vaporized. There's an end to a Lifetime Exclusive Movie of the Week for you.
If you haven't checked out the brilliant new XBLA platform puzzler Braid, go do so. I'll wait. No, don't worry. It's completely worth the 1200 points.
Back? Good. There's a super interesting article up at Gamasutra discussing the art direction in Braid, from the first initial developer baby steps to the final working product.
When I sent these to Jonathan, he jumped on the rectangular "cut out" on the bottom of the center platform. It was a conspicuous geometric variation in a puzzle game where the player will assume everything has been placed for a reason.It would be bad for the player to get stuck trying to figure out the puzzle-solving purpose of something with purely aesthetic value. As we went along, I got more disciplined about eliminating stuff that might distract or confuse the player.
Really fascinating read for anyone remotely interested in delving into the creative process.
[link via Gamasutra]
image: Braid concept art courtesy Gamasutra
We're back this week, with Jinny, Chris, Ross and Qais as your esteemed hosts. This week's episode is as random as any, with subjects such as how awesome Soul Calibur IV is, how 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon can be validated by Science, how to create a stream of pure awesomeness from your PC to your Xbox 360, and some real life supervillains. It's the summer doldrums, but The Weekly Geek is here to rescue you from your boredom! Download this episode and rejoice!
photo credit: Chris Rahn, LA Weekly
72.22
continue reading "Podcast for 08.04.08 | Real Life Supervillains"
Back in the saddle again. A slew of summer downloadable titles have caught my attention, and the consoles have been switched back on in favor of...
Geometry Wars 2: The original Geometry Wars was one of the most compelling reasons to buy an Xbox 360, and the sequel (just unleashed upon the world this week) has proven itself somehow MORE ADDICTIVE than the first. I'm getting flashbacks of my obsession with the first game, there's something about Geometry Wars that perfectly realizes what makes games great. First off, it mimics arcade games to a tee. When was the last time that a high score was relevant in a game to you? With GW2 it raises the bar by focusing heavily on the leaderboards. Just like walking into your favorite arcade and seeing that someone named "KKK" or "ASS" beat your top score on the Ms. Pac Man cabinet, GW2 keeps that frothing style of competition flowing. The high score of the person on your friends list immediately above you will always be displayed in the top right corner like a carrot on a stick, giving you immediate goals to strive for. You can even see the top leaderboards at a glance while you are selecting what mode you'd like to play. I will defeat you, Nick Chester. Yes, one day you will fall from your ivory tower and I will claim the top spot on my friends leaderboards!
My only criticism happens to be a major one. While the updated graphics look incredible, they somehow managed to load MORE particle effects onto the screen, making it even more impossible to tell what the hell is going on. On top of that, Bizarre Creations decided to add a ridiculous amount of bloom, so I am obsessively trying to clean my glasses while I am in the middle of a match. Literally, it was so blurry it was giving me a headache. Can I please have a way to turn off that shitty bloom? Please? I want to play your game but it makes me physically ill! This has not happened before! Argh!
PixelJunk: Monsters and Eden. It makes sense to me that Q Games (not to be confused with the equally great Q Entertainment or the marginally okay Q Fulton) is comprised of people from the SNES era, President Dylan Cuthbert was responsible for most of the original Star Fox's look and feel. The PixelJunk series feels like if people were still developing for the SNES, this is what they would come up with. The same style and atmosphere, only with updated HD graphics. I am perpetually perplexed as to why we moved into this shitty polygonal confusing headspace with gaming and didn't follow the path of beautifully drawn 2D graphics. PixelJunk delivers with easy to pick up, hard to master game play and that warm fuzzy feeling that the SNES gave so long ago. Looking forward to more time with these nuggets of joy.
I'm also considering picking up Soul Calibur IV for the weekend. Anything new on your plate?
Welcome to the return of The Mind Boggleth! Every Friday you will be treated to rants, screeds and tirades against society courtesy of the mad mind that is Max Brooks. No, not THAT Max Brooks. Enjoy. --Chris
I recently renewed my membership at Hollywood Video, because I just like the visceral experience of going somewhere, something I rarely do these days, what with Netflix, Youtube and the liquefied food hose I just had installed (they just pump it straight from KFC to my arterial veins, it's pretty sweet; only $60 a month for continual life support, and no need to brush my teeth anymore!). I decided that I actually prefer a video store. Hollywood Video is pretty good at getting rarer DVDs these days, and have recently installed a new "Arthouse Basement" section that amuses me to no end because I can think of exactly two things wrong with that title, but it's a gimmick that works.
They've separated "Arthouse Basement" in very small genres, such as "Foreign - European", "Foreign - Asian", "Gay and Lesbian Friendly" (also known as "Foreign - Australia"), "Animation" (changed from "cartoons" after the Otaku apparently threw a hissy fit, throwing John Kricfalusi from the top of a cathedral in the process) and "Cult Classics", which was always in Hollywood Video in the first place, just over next to "Special Interest", which is where they put the concert DVDs. All this subdivision of genre got me thinking about other, smaller, yet equally important genres that perhaps need their own space on the shelf.
CAR MOVIES: These are generally not Dramas or Comedies, they've been filed under "Action/Adventure" for decades, but I think the Car Movie is it's own genre, and the qualifier is pretty simple. If a movie's content is 75% car chases, people talking about cars, or cars killing people, it goes in "Car Movies". Naturally, this includes 90% of Steve McQueen and James Garner's repertoire, everything involving Jason Statham, and "Christine". Also, did you know that 1/10th of all Pixar movies are about cars? It's true. That's a commanding percentage.
PEOPLE IN SPACE MOVIES: I've always been torn about Sci-Fi. On the one hand, you have some really deep, philosophical, introspective movies that challenge conventional thinking ("2001: A Space Odyssey", "Logan's Run", "Gattaca", etc.), while the rest of Sci-Fi is just Star Wars inspired dreck that tries to sell you on Joseph Campbell somehow being more than a racist nerd who really liked Dairy Queen porn. "Universal Hero" my ass, Campbell. It's lazy writing and even lazier film making. Still, I think that if we remove all the "People in Space" movies from the Sci-Fi section, you maybe could separate the wheat from the chaff, theoretically. Also, while we're at it, let's move the Fantasy section further away from the Sci-Fi section, maybe across the street and into the Android's Dungeon. "Lord of the Rings" is great and all, but Fantasy is a realm reserved for genuine freaks.
On a side rant, I've given up tabletop gaming and anything fantasy related. In a world where John McCain is theLEAST DYSFUNCTIONAL AND INSANE Republican candidate possible, the need for fantasy in my life has diminished. We're living the dream, folks. This is it. Sauron has turned his eye toward the Shire, and us hobbits are about to get steamrolled.
Dueling MAGICIANS: A newcomer to the "Smaller Genre" world, the Dueling Magician movie may perhaps go down as the defining genre of the 2000s, in the same way that Blaxploitation only happened in the 70s and "Starring Seth Green" only happened in the 90s. Films such as "The Prestige", "The Illusionist", Mitchell and Webb's "Magicians" and the latest Quentin Tarantino masterpiece: "Bonzo the Clown vs. The Amazing Anzelini On The Moon". These films have built an exciting world of magic, intrigue and Doug Henning into a new standard. Scientists estimate that by 2009, nearly 30% of all films shot in Hollywood will be about dueling magicians. The other 70% will be sequels to superhero films.
VINCENT PRICE STARING OBSESSIVELY AT A PORTRAIT OF HIS DEAD WIFE: I know, it sounds like a crazily obscure genre, this genre fills up exactly 100% of Vincent Price's career. Films like "The Abominable Dr. Phibes", "Tomb of Ligeia", "The Fall of the House of Usher", "House on Haunted Hill" and "Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle" have brought us exactly what we, as an audience, demand: nothing but Vincent Price staring obsessively at a portrait of his dead wife. If a formula isn't broken, don't fix it. Keep hacking at it, until it is sublime perfection.
NAZI MOVIES: With all the movies about the Holocaust, it's sort of silly that a few people still believe it never happened. There has been so damn many movies about the Nazis and the Holocaust that it's become a cottage industry, or as the Germans call it, cottagenbrickdermakenzegeschelleshaft.
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