Well, this has been a slow week. The dog days are well on their way, and everyone is getting all languid.
The Celebrate Brooklyn film series is tonight, and I believe it is Pere Ubu perfoming to X, the man with X ray Eyes. I will try and go check that out, I think.
Also the Scotsman has a nice bit on Howard Dean, (Who will in fact be speaking at the convention on Tuesday night.)
resurrected from the bargain bin
Well, Ken Mondschein has written up a hilarious review of Holy Blood, Holy Grail (although he is really using it as a chance to knock The Da Vinci Code down a peg, for being a chocolate covered retelling of the same conspiracy theory.) It pretty much sums up everything I have to say on the subject. It is annoying that he did it better then I would have had I bothered to, but on the other hand it saves me the time.
asking the wrong questions
Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft all have their separate attitudes on online game play. Frankly I don't think anyone has really nailed it yet, but that is not a big problem. That is like arguing how the ARPANET/internet should be used in 1974. I really like Nintendo, but this argument seems really short sighted.
Nintendo is devoted to the single player/group offline play model. I do think that way is the best way to play games- and has always been.
Microsoft is taking what the PC game players have been doing for years, and crafting a version that works on the console. It is a lot of fun, but I can't say I am sold on the idea of sitting at home alone, and playing against some strangers. I really only use it to play with people I know, and I think that is the norm. But this is the direct and literal form of online play, in that you are playing co-op or head to head over the net.
Sony seems to be taking a wait and see approach, which as market leader is their luxury. Since Japanese players are not so much into the Half-Life type of online play, I can understand why Sony is rather lukewarm on the whole idea.
But in the end, the online component of consoles is going to be a lot broader and more subtle then what we have seen so far. You could have living games that continue all the time, and are accessible from your PC, cellphone, or even GameboyDS during the day- It would still be a single player experience, but online would allow a variety of 'controllers' to dip into the game during the day. Bungie has been hinting that Halo2 will have more meta-online interactivity- I will be curious to see what they have in store.
Or, just the notion of downloadable content should be thought through deeper. Now it just means new vehicles and maps, but the developer stops doing that once they can safely consider enough 'extra value' delivered. But what about episodic games? A game that offers a story that continues over a 'season' with weekly or month updates? Or just even smaller more discreet data, like a version of Animal Crossing where the weather for each day is pulled from actual realtime weather sites? Or a GTA game where actual news or CNN screen shots appear on TVs in the game? I don't know if that makes for a better game, but it is an interesting way of using the technology.
One of my favorite gamin experiences was Morrowind, which was a massive single player RPG. The designers felt that while the game was similar in many ways to online rpgs like Dark Age of Camelot, having other real players running around with names like "Sir Loin of Beef" would push the player out of the world. They are right, that most people online are Jerks, but Morrowind can be a lonely experience. I wished at the time that there was a limited sort of online play, so that I could interact with a few of my friends. So maybe the answer would be a mini-mmorpg where a small group of people could share a fully realized online world like Morrowind.
I hope Nintendo eventually gets the idea that online can mean as much or as little as a designer wants, and gives game developers the tools to experiment. There are too many developers farming the same patch of online turf.
fire island
slow day at the mill
Not a lot to do on the Friday before the holiday weekend. Most of the clients/designers have cut out early for the weekend. So if you are sharp eyed you might notice the new moblog link over there on the left. I have found flickr.com to be very cool site with a nice humor. So now I am going to start posting pictures there from my shiny new toy. (see below for more on that)
Also Danny now has an Xbox. (Yay, now we just need to get Ian with the program.) I know this because Danny keeps a highly detailed and entertaining blog on 3D animation and general danniness.
no sleep till brooklyn
This week, I had a nice surprise, with discovering that an old friend from Eugene is visiting NYC. Sarah came to town to look at grad schools for next year, and generally get a feel for the lay of the land. I think I did a good job of selling her on why Brooklyn is the best of the 5 boroughs. ;)
Last night we all, (Sarah, Marion and John) went out for German food at a place called the Heighleberg up on 86th street, and then caught Spiderman 2. Having never read the spiderman comics, the films are odd for me. Everyone assumes I know more then I do, and I can kind of watch the geekdom from the outside, and see it all how a non geek must. (I never got into comics as a kid, only discovering them in college, during the time of the independents in the mid 90s. So superhero comics have always been a gap on my geek resume.) Anyway, the film is fun, and fills all the requirements of a good summer F/X extravaganza. Sam Raime put his mark on the film, making for some very cool and quirky tangents in the film. The best part of the movie was the variety of glaring gaps of logic in the plot. This is a necessity in this sort of film, so you have something to analyze and ridicule with your friends over pie and coffee afterwards. (or in our case last night Cheesecake and coffee at Mike's Coffeeshop) Good times.
Getting back from the upper East side at 1 am on a Thursday night was definitely not good times however. The MTA is notable and laudable for being a 24 hour transit system- something unheard of in most cities. But as a result, after midnight, especially on week nights it becomes a mirror world version, where none of the trains go where they are supposed to do, and workers are performing strange tasks in the dead of the night. Mysterious Subway trains run the lines, that are designed for unknown purposes. And if one was not hot sticky, and extremely tired this chaos would be fascinating. Instead you plot on from transfer to transfer, waiting for the infrequent trains, hoping you eventually get home before dawn.
shiny new toy
Yesterday I switched over to Cingular for my cellphone service. I was with AT&T for several years now. AT&T was a decent carrier I suppose- I had heard people complain about it, but I think I have low expectations for cellphone reception and service, so there was really no problem. My contract had expired, and I had a phone I liked a lot, a t68i, so it was not something I lost sleep over.
The a couple of months ago, I get this new phone in the mail. I of course call up AT&T customer service to see whats what, and get some subcontracted call center where they read from scripts. The new phone was a replacement for my little t68i, as AT&T was abandoning the old GSM spectrum they were using, and so were giving replacement phones to the customers who were using the old spectrum. (The t68 series was not designed for the new spectrum, despite being trimode phones.) This is all well, fine and good, but the phone they sent was a big step down from my old one, and the woman on the phone was powerless to do anything except read her script. The equivalent phone at the time was the t610, which I read AT&T was getting rid of anyway, so I am not sure why they were not willing to make the substitution. Anyway, I need my Bluetooth like a drunk needs gin, and the phone they sent had none.
So to make what I am sure is a dull story a bit shorter, I tossed the new phone in the closet, and continued to use the old phone. Over the last 2 months, my reception has been getting worse and worse, as the cell towers in Manhattan were being retrofitted for the new spectrum. My office had always been in a dead spot for service anyway, which was inconvenient but not a huge deal. (stepping out to use the cell was always a nice break.)
Finally the other day I read that Cingular had the t637, a sexy new phone, so I decided it was time. I figured that by switching now I would get the new customer incentives, since Cingular is in the process of buying AT&T, so I would be on Cingular by the end of the year no matter what. If I had waited for the transition to happen, they would have just sent me another crappy phone, I am sure.
So far I am quite happy with the new phone, although these new polyphonic rings take some getting used to. (There is always that period with a new phone where you don't recognize your own ring yet, and have people pointing out to you that its your phone that is going off.) I'll try and post more pictures to my much neglected photomoblog.
woo hoo
So last night I went with my roommate down to the local venue and saw The 5,6,7,8s play, with Sato & Johnny, and Sit and Spin opening. It was a fun old time rockabilly evening. Some may remember The 5,6,7,8s from Kill Bill Vol 1, but they have been around forever, and packed the house. It was an odd mixed crowd, with the pre-KB hipsters looking askance at all the johnny-come-latelys.
Otherwise I have been entertaining dear old mom during her recent visit to the city. Ate out at fancy restaurants, and did a couple of Broadway shows, and saw some museums that have been on my list since I moved here. Good mom time stuff.
Not much else is going on- summer is here, and things are getting lazy. Probably need to do something about that...
a word to the wise
Unknown to many, but there is a ongoing tiff between the Carolyns and Carolines of the world. They have some sort of global secret war going on, probably dating back centuries. I have no idea what it is about, or what each faction stands for, or even who is winning. All I know is that make sure when addressing them you don't make the mistake of failing to emphasize the last syllable properly on their name. They go all Kill Bill on your butt, let me tell you.
Our commitment to quality service
So I am of course a frequent reader of blogs, (who isn't these days?) and I have gone ahead and made a bookmarkable page with my 10 or so must reads. OK, this does sound like the dreaded 'Links page' of yore. (yore?) But I aim to keep it to about the same number of links, and swap stuff out as new cool things come to my attention. Again, this is nothing too obscure so don't be shocked of the majority of these are already in your favorites bar. This is more intended as a place to check back and see what I am reading, if that is the kind of information that fascinated you. So feel free to check it out often.
The Daily Reads
Embarrassing but true
While in Seattle I hit the MS company story store for my own little geek Christmas. Since there were not really any new Xbox games, and my PC is not able to run any game made after 1999, I kind of randomly grabbed Links 2004. I would never have thought this possible, but I have since become kind of, you know, addicted to golf on the Xbox. It is actually quite fun.
In my thesis class last year, my friend Pedro did his project on golf, being as he is an avid golfer. (it also let him justify traveling to 3 or 4 golf courses as 'research') his focus was on golf course design, and the visual representation of the golf course in maps and video games. Those discussions were what got me interesting in it enough to give it a try.
One interesting revelation was that there are 3 types of golf courses: Classic, Penal, and Heroic. Knowing who designed a course and what type they created apparently makes a big difference to how you can expect to play. Classic is the oldest, and probably the most fun for the casual player. Penal was popular for the early part of the century, and is designed to be really tricky- they are the ones with lots of trees, and sand trap bunkers, to crank up the risk associated with making a mistake. Finally from WWII on, the Heroic style has been dominant. These are courses designed for the Tiger Woods of the world, and are built extra long. That way they can attract the top players to the course, and are able to host top tournaments. The down side is that for the casual player, it is not as much fun, because you are going to feel like you suck more then you really do.
Another notable thing is that Golf is really expensive, not because it has high operating costs. Instead the whole game is based on the idea of an individual alone in this big park space playing the game. When a course has too many players, that becomes impossible and the game becomes less fun, and less true to the ideal. So golf courses have to keep membership down, which the only way to do so without running the risk of being accused of being discriminatory, is to raise membership fees until demand for memberships drops down to an acceptable level. (note: this came from Ted, who is a card carrying Marxist.)
The big thing though was the group realizing that while most sports are player against player, (soccer, baseball, etc) or player against the clock, (most individual/non-team sports) Golf was fairly unique, in that you were not competing directly against other players or the clock. Instead you are competing against the Golf Course designer, to see if you can beat the Par. This is significant, in that the only other analogous sport is video games. It is man against the environment, where the environment is artificially created to oppose the player.
But that is not why I am hooked on Links. I think the problem with golf is the same as with online video games. Most people who play are jerks. The games are cool, but the awfulness of dealing with these people sucks any fun out of the activity. So playing on the Xbox with its great graphics allows one to play the game as it is intended, which is actually pretty fun. But I guess if I want the authentic golf experience, I can take it online, and play against some jerk. But if I am going to do that, I will probably switch to some game that lets me shoot him with a shotgun.
No news is good news, right?
Well I have been pretty slack about posting lately, but there has not been much going on. I might have to start making up stories to fill this page, if this continues. My roommates parents were here from Bangkok for almost 2 weeks, which was an interesting cultural experience. Nagging is the true international language.
Last weekend I took a quick trip to Seattle to recharge my geek batteries. Got to play Halo on the Microsoft campus, and get a cool tour of Amazon, as well as go to the top of the Space Needle. :D Mostly though I just hung out, saw friends and got reacquainted with real beer. At some point I will have pictures to post. (People keep giving me crap for using a film camera. When did that become oddball?)
Air America
Starting today it is on the air, and streaming over the inernet, (or on AM 1190 in NYC) you can listen to it using the Real Media Player.
Bit of geeky nostalgia
Way back in the day, there was a short story that ran in the D&D magazine Dragon. I remebered it distinctly, as it painted fantastic image of a world where people played computer games in an online persistent world. At the time I had never heard of a MUD, (this was back in 1985) so the story blew my computer ignorant mind about what a game was, and what networks could do. Plus it is a pretty darn good story that still holds up and did a pretty good job of predicting the world 20 years off. (although apparently we should still be using command prompts for everything still...)
Anyway, with some downtime at work, and a little digging, I found that the author Henry Melton has posted the story online, so if you are interested reading this little bit of retro geek fiction, check out Catacomb.
Spring seems to be springing forth
I saw Fog of War the other night, and I have to day that it was pretty engrossing. It is certainly one of those films that make you feel smarter when you walk out, (unlike say, Shallow Hal)
Otherwise I have been busy getting settled in the new apartment, which is looking fantastic.
More soon...
Seeing my shadow
Well the holidays are over, and the new apartment is moved into, so I am on the verge of getting back into this whole having a life thing again. (once I am unpacked- so perhaps late spring...?) The new pad is not physically far from the old brownstone, but is a century forward in creature comforts. (such as a dishwasher) And probably a sure sign of getting old is the fact that the biggest thrill of the new kitchen is having sufficient cabinet space. (my sister gleefully pointed out the numerous similarities between my new apartment and the one in "Barefoot in the Park", but at least there is no holes in the skylight. :)
And to add the true stamp of geek to the new place, between my roomate and I, we have 4 differnt game consoles, and 7 computers. Wirelessly networked, natch.
Kind of bummed about how the Democratic primaries are playing out. I guess this is a rebuilding year.
As much as I dig Peter Jackson (finally) getting an Oscar, I kind of want it to go to Sophia Coppola for Lost in Translation. Jackson made New Line like a billion dollars, which in Hollywood is worth a truckload of statues. Sophia could sure use the Legitimacy. (also appearently no American woman has won Best Director before.)
The mean centerfold by decade
This is both cool and worksafe:
Every Playboy Centerfold averaged into one image, (well, one per decade)
gimmie gimmie
Slow day at work today, so I productively used some that time to update my Amazon Wishlist. Assuming anyone wants to get me somethingÂ… ^^
I am super excited about the fact that there are 3 Corto Maltese animations available, (if only in France.) Finally a real reason to get a region code free DVD player. Here is a 5 meg clip from Corto Maltese, la cour secrète des Arcanes... Also avalible are La ballade de la mer salée and Sous le signe du capricorne And while they are PAL & Region Code 2, they do offer english subtitles. That is more then I would hope from the French, considering recent events.
the Dems
One of my big interests these days is watching the evolving field of democrats fighting for the chance to try and take down Bush. Here is a good update on how things stand as of this week.
Fall has… fallen
Well my new job has been keeping me busy, so I still have not written much. I was hired on as an associate producer at R/GA which has been a hoot so far. I have not been getting out to do stuff very much. I went to the DUMBO art festival this weekend, and aside from being rather cold, it was very cool. Plus I saw they opened a Bubby's in Brooklyn, which is good news. Mark Lin had his video installation up in a parking garage at the festival, which was pretty groovy. It acts sort of like a scanner, it that it gradually scans a space infront of the screen with a video camera. It got people out and jumping around, which was always fun to see.
I also saw the new Cohen Bros. film, which had a plot that kind of fizzled after act 2, but was very light and very funny at times, so am not too disappointed. At it I saw the trailer for the Tom Cruise historical epic, The Last Samurai, or as I like to call it, "Dances with Samurai"- you will see why. This week I am hopping on the bandwagon and going to see Kill Bill, which from the previews seems to have the same plot as Tekken. i.e. character kills a succession of heavies until she takes on the 'level boss' Bill. But I still have faith in QT's ability to turn genre conventions on it ear, so I will probably like it, despite Thurman + Liu.
But Beyond this season's geek smorgesbourg of film, I am pretty excited about Master & Commander, since I am a big fan of the Patrick O'Brian books. But then today I saw that in december A&E is coming out with more in the Hornblower miniseries. very exciting.