Bits For Rent

Today marks the beginning of a weekly project. With this entry, I begin a week-by-week catalog of my listening habits. As part of my class on Rock & Roll and American Society, I have been asked to submit at least 15 of these entries, taking me through a semester of rock’s great legacy as well as my own meandering interesting in the many niches and off-shoots of the genre. It’s a lot to ask of someone like me, who, rather infamously among my friends and family, cannot keep to a consistent schedule to save my life, despite being a rather organized person. Nevertheless, let’s get this thing started.

Since returning to school, I’ve been sifting through a torrent of new music that people recommended over the summer but only recently gave to me. Of the few bands I’ve been able to give a decent listen to, three in particular have caught my attention, and one is just a deliriously narcotic aural delight. In order from least to most played, they are as follows:

The Rumble Strips – I’m still not exactly sure where this recommendation came from — I think that I saw them on Rolling Stone’s Bands to Watch list — but the Strips are certainly a fair shake away from my normal listening preferences. If I had to classify their sound, I’d say it was somewhere along the lines of British Punk Ska, with a dash of emo. The songs are an irreverent catalog of little things in life that annoy and charm us all, but the up-beat tempo and soulful vocals somehow make a song about waking up early feel almost… anthemic. “No Clocks” is probably the best of the bunch, but I’ve been able to listen to the CD all the way through so far with only a few urges to skip to the next track. If Reel Big Fish are a bit too sarcastic and eye-winking, elbow-nudging “Aren’t we clever?” for your tastes, this might be a band to look into. And as a group that is only just now getting a small sliver of attention, I’ll definitely be interested in where they go from here.

The Hold Steady – Somehow I’ve missed out on what some call the greatest “true” rock band in the country (a statement that must derive from the straight-laced, effects-free guys-guitars-and-a-keyboard sound), but there’s definitely something about the Hold Steady that makes me want to wish I could completely and wholeheartedly endorse them in such a way. The lyrics seem to be from the same mold as classic Springsteen and Bon Jovi songs, full of soul and defiance and that rebellious spirit that transforms bands like the aforementioned two such colossal cultural figures. The only difference is that this group sounds like it’s doing it part time, like a weekend gig to beat the stress of a nine to five job. But somehow it works, and you’re sitting there an hour later still listening and thinking to yourself, “Hey, this stuff is actually pretty good.” It’s nice to know that, despite how progressive music tries to be these days, sometimes ordinary can work too.

The National – Even though this isn’t what I’ve been listening to the most, the National have become the group that I’ve been talking about the most. Having listened to their two most recent records, Alligator and Boxer, and watched a live stream of a recent concert they did, it’s easy to see why the indie music scene is obsessing over them. The mechanics at work — keyboard, violin, guitar, bass, and drums — have the potential to churn out some incredible songs, and the singer’s subdued, flat tone only helps to let what truly matters, the way the instruments layer over each other so effectively, stand out even more. Granted, the monotone lyricism means that what’s being said could be cut-and-pasted into another song and sound fine there, but that criticism could be leveled at bands like Interpol too. The fact is that it works, and it works damn well. There’s a chemistry to it all that makes me believe wherever these guys go next, the music industry is going to stand up and take notice. Perhaps it’s time you do too.

Fleet Foxes – Oh, where to begin? I tried listening to Fleet Foxes’ Sun Giant EP after Pitchfork called it one of the most impressive debuts in years, but found it to be so far from my current taste in music that it was almost repulsive. Five guys doing harmonies and acoustic sets while singing about folk mysticism and fabled tragedies and other bizarre Americana subjects? I’ll stick with the Decemberists for my story-telling, thanks. But then I kept hearing about them, and none of it was bad. I mean, absolutely none of it. So I got a recording of a live set they did, and sat down, determined to hear them out and hoping that I would prove myself right once and for all. But that didn’t happen. Somehow, I must have finally become “ready” for Fleet Foxes, because after listening to them a second time I have not gone a day with playing “Mykonos” or “He Doesn’t Know Why.” The harmonies are captivating, the drumming is enchanting, and the solo acoustic songs are flat-out stunners. And these guys are just a bunch of bearded hillbillies… from Seattle? It still doesn’t make sense, but then again, considering how Rock & Roll got its start from Ragtime, R&B, and country, is there any reason it needs to?

The plain and simple truth is, these guys knocked me out of my socks with a sound I never expected to hear from people born after 1975, and I couldn’t be happier to have been wrong about them the first time. Last time that happened, it was the Decemberists, and considering my previous comment it’s easy to see how that turned out. That’s the thing about music. It doesn’t always hit you right the first time, but let it sink its claws in a little and soon you can’t believe what you were missing.

We’ll see if that holds true for next week.

I guess I only have myself to blame for this one: after promising, or really just implying, that I would be writing a review of each of the press conferences individually, and then finding myself utterly sucked into the void of the Electronic Entertainment Expo for what must now be the sixth year running, I can offer no defense as to why I have taken nearly two weeks to compose a new entry to this blog. No defense, save for Jeff Bell.

I find that whole story, as a member of GAF, to be a sad summation of the video game industry. If we’re at a point where the bitching and moaning of the internet masses can cause a public official to stoop so low as to create a forum account to get his shits and giggles from, then I really don’t think we’ve come very far from the video games industry that your parents and their parents always said was a waste of time, childish, and rotting our brains. Yes, the internet rots our brains, but isn’t that supposed to be one of the reasons we love it? It worked for TV.

Anyway, I’m not really sure where I was going with that thought. I have a lot on my mind in terms of E3 and the week that has occurred since, but I don’t know if I’ll be sufficiently capable of discussing that all tonight, when I have just finished Harry Potter’s seventh retelling, and am both emotionally and mentally flabbergasted by what I should say. I guess I’ll just get to putting it all into words. Words that may spoil.

I think that, right now, given all the changes in my life this summer, particularly in terms of losing things I hold dear, that something in me has been forever lost with this final chronicle of the teenage wizard. Since seventh grade, I have been reading these novels–essentially growing up with the character, though Mrs. Rowling’s prolonged drought between novels 5, 6, and 7 has stretched that on a bit more than expected– and it is with both joy and sorrow that I set about pillaging my way through the new book. To start, I wasn’t exactly ready to be back with Harry just yet. I saw Order of the Phoenix on Friday (definitely not the spectacle I wanted it to be, but enjoyable all the same) to get myself primed for the heavy injection of Potter I would be receiving the coming morning–midnight launches just aren’t my scene–but part of the trouble may have arisen from my hurried finished of the admittedly stellar Suite Francaisse. (Short side note: the second half of the book, Dolce, was an incredibly stirring 130-odd pages of prose. It was like reading a short and to-the-point version of a Jane Austin novel, without the old English pomp and circumstance and with a bit of the WWII mystique. Definitely worth reading for fans of rich writing, strong characters, and compelling fiction.) Having set this down, I gathered my wits and dove headlong into the 758 pages of Hallows, expecting nothing and everything at the same time.

I suppose that the first few chapters offered that quick reward the two years (it was two years, right?) wait had us fans yearning for, with a quick reveal of the Dark Lord’s plans and return to Harry at the Dursleys (sic), for one last time, as he is approaching 17 and the end of his time under the magical protection bestowed upon all underage wizards. We then get a brilliant “Flight of the Phoenix” chapter –yes, a terrible pun, but so, so fitting– in which we lose possibly the strongest of the Order and a glimpse of how ghastly Rowling is willing to go in her detailing of the wizarding violence. Then there’s a prolonged reprieve, in which we are at the Burrow, planning the Horcrux quest, getting ready for the wedding, and generally sitting around waiting for the next big thing. the new Minister of Magic drops in to give some bizarre remnants of Dumbledore’s will to the kids, and then we get to the first of the books several nadirs: the Bill and Fleur wedding.

Now, I have nothing against Bill and Fleur. They’re fine secondary characters. But I honestly thought I read an entire chapter to find out two things they could have stuck in anywhere: Luna’s father has a weird symbol on his necklace and Voldemort has taken over the Ministry. Yeah there was some dirt thrown up about Dumbledore in that chapter too, but it could have honestly been from anyone anywhere in the novel, even if it was Hermione reciting a newpaper clipping (a semi-cheap way of plot development employed throughout the novel with letters, fairy tales, and Daily Prophet excepts), but aside from the chase chapter nothing had yet gotten my fingers clenching the book close, my eyes skimming words as quickly as possible to find out where the events would lead. I think the lack of any sort of Quidditch match may be largely responsible for these initially greivances as well. I mean, what is Harry without his broom?

Anyway, that all leads to another getaway bit, only Harry, Ron, and Hermione are now on their own, and will be for sometime. In fact, the next quarter of the novel is mostly descriptions of the three scratching their head over Horcrux locations while some minor plot development occurs and Harry begins acting like his angsty 15-year-old self did in Order. I did enjoy the Ministry bit immensely, but that also seemed to continue a strange trend for the novel: We have periods of Harry, Ron, and Hermione sitting around discussing what to do and getting angry/upset/bored/etc. followed by a scene where they all use Polyjuice Potion to change their appearance and/or hide under the cloak to get into some dangerous place, get a horcrux or at least try to, and get out. And I kid you not, that happens literally every time they plan a capture. I think I saw a movie similar to this, where the same con was used over and over until it went horribly wrong, but I can’t think of the name.

Anyway, Ron leaves for a while, predictably, and at this point the book was becoming a little too grim and unfriendly, even for a tale that’s taking place during a war/occupation/whathaveyou. So it was great to have a chapter like Bathilda’s Secet come along and make you say Holy Fucking Shit that was not PG. I mean, that and the preceding chapter, Godric’s Hollow, are complete Tim Burton mindfuck material: disguised as old people, looking around in the thick snowdrifts of the cemetary, then going into a creepy, blind old woman’s home that smells like death and getting attacked like that? Pure awesome. Until we get broken-wand Harry-emo going again. Sigh.

But really, I’m not that down on it all. I’m being a little dismissive of the important plot development bits that get sandwiched in between all that angry, stubborn Harry stuff. That’s probably a result of me having tried to will the character into a more likeable, more awesome wizard for so long. Honestly, if he would have just sat there and read some spell books, trained himself in attacks and counters, and maybe brushed up on some wizarding history after the six years of shit he went through, you think we could avoid some of the pitfalls he has in book 7. But… it’s not like I could actually write a better book, I just nag.

And with that, I’m going to leave this summary unfinished and pick up tomorrow with the return of Ron and Dobby. Hopefully getting a bit of this off the old chest will do me some good. We’ll see!

I’m going to be a little pissy in today’s post. I’m not sure if it’s the shooting at Virginia Tech that have incited this bitching, spewing attitude I feel rising within me, but it no doubt has made a considerable impact on my psyche. In some perverse way, it seems that violence is fueling my anger and apathy towards video games. Jack Thompson would be giddy.

The subject I wish to address today is the nature of innovation in the video games industry, or lack thereof. You see, it seems that Nintendo and the gaming media have found a newly polished soft-white trumpet to toot as they march along to the slow funeral drums of the Sony Empire wake. According to these so-called analysts and industry bigwigs, the Wii is the end-all and be-all of the next generation of interactive entertainment, and the 360 and PS3 are simply hardware improvements of old technology, the next iPods falling into the shadow of an iPhone. Some even say that the only true next-gen experience is the Wii, and that the high-definition era is simply a technological circle-jerk being forced down consumers throats when all we really crave is some new foreign grab-ass from those guys that decided touch screens on a handheld were actually a pretty nifty idea. To all of these people, and to anyone else who may feel similarly, I ask you honestly: who the fuck are you kidding?

Let’s be entirely serious here. The Wii is nothing more than Nintendo’s latest variant in a long-running trend of favoring gimmicks–I’m sorry, innovation–over actual computational horsepower to render games that people honestly DO want to be playing (12 million 360s and 3 million PS3s don’t lie). Let’s look back at the company’s history: We have the Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Advance SP, and Game Boy Micro. All the same system, all introduced at prices above $80, and each containing several obnoxious requirements for proper usage (lack of backlights, lack of headphone port, lack of a reason to exist, respectively). That’s one hardware generation, in terms of the portable market, and the reason for such obvious milking of a loyal/idiotic fanbase is that the entire time Nintendo was uncontested. Surely some of the readers here can recall E3 2005, when Nintendo failed to reveal the Revolution/Wii in the face of the 360 and PS3, but instead showed an awful DS prototype (which got sexed up considerably when it became the DS Phat, and even moreso with the Apple-like Lite) and the GBA Micro. For those having trouble remembering, this was the same year that Nintendo’s Reggie Fils-Aime went on stage and promised to kick ass and maintain the DS as a “third pillar” alongside the Game Boy brand. Yeah, whatever buddy.

My point here is, essentially, that Nintendo follows profits, and only profits. Even when it looks like it’s doing something oh-so-clever or unique, a la the Virtual Boy, there a dozen Game Boy variants and peripherals to look back on and make one say “is this really the same Nintendo?” I’m talking e-readers, link cables, power gloves, lack of DVD playback in the Wii, GameCube disc format, the N64 memory pak/rumble pak/expansion paks/disk drives, the half-assed implementation of online support for the Cube… the list is staggeringly long. And it only further reaffirms that, while Nintendo is perfectly happy to parade around its newborn baby like America’s favorite console maker, they’re still a conservative company looking to ‘poon the consumer at every opportunity.

“But that’s not fair!” you cry out at me in a furry of message board posts and bull-like snorts of rage. “Nintendo is giving us Virtual Console games and the DS and it’s outselling everything!” True, true. I’m not going to say that Nintendo does nothing good and that we should dislike them; I’ve bought a few overpriced VC titles myself and even choked down the outrageous costs of extra controllers, nunchucks and “Classic” controllers for that sake of “next-gen.” And I don’t have too many regrets about them. But to say that the company at its roots is innovating the gaming business is flat-out preposterous. The Wii is an underpowered system delivering the same gameplay experiences that have been possible for over 5 years on the PS2, Xbox, GameCube, and even the PSP. The only thing that breaks with tradition is the actual controller, which I applaud the company for sticking with even in the face of so much early skepticism. In fact, that’s fundamentally all Nintendo is doing: in both the Wii and the DS, the company has taken underpowered or less-costly measures of production (not putting two ARM9 chips in the DS to allow for dual-screen 3D is a joke) and combined them with brilliant new forms of control to create industry blockbusters. But I don’t call that innovation, I call that damn good forward thinking.

Let’s jump off that topic before I conclude with some comments about the business end of Nintendo. I want to clarify that by singling out Nintendo as a failure to innovate the industry I am not simultaneously heralding Sony or Microsoft as properly bringing us to the forefront of digital evolution. Not even for a second. Sony and Microsoft are guilty of something else entirely: stagnation. Since the days of Master Systems and Nintendo Entertainment Systems the industry of video games has been pushed forward by a constant arms race among at least two major contenders for space in peoples’ living rooms. Time and again we have seen 4-6 year cycles of hardware evolutions, often even shorter in the case of the stupendously failing Sega systems, but have we ever once seen a truly unique variant on the forms of material being presented? SNES and PlayStation gave us 3D life and began the turn towards 32- and 64-bit graphics later to be built upon by the N64, but when was that transition from beautiful hand-rendered sprites to clunky polygons ever considered anything more than the necessity of change? The facts still remain the same today: games are placed into a console, the console is turned on before or after this process, the game loads, and we use a tethered or now untethered device to manipulate objects that appear presented on a screen in front of us for prolonged periods of time. The only changes to this are the ability to play games with a multitude of others, with or without vocal interaction, and the addition of a few more buttons or methods of managing on-screen duties (read: motion control, vibration, in-controller speakers).

All in all, the world of gaming is very much unchanged from its origins. With new chips and more RAM we’ve been able to complicate the once rudimentary principles that all games are based upon, but we haven’t necessarily reinvented them. It just so happens that now if I want to hit a tennis ball I may not have to press a button but instead flick my wrist to accomplish the task. Is that such a bad thing to be saying? That’s not for me to say. My only purpose in writing this blog post is to drive home the fact that a video game is and always has been comprised of several fundamental parts. Adding or removing to those basics, or just allowing for those basics to be done in fancier, better looking ways, does not constitute an innovation.

So where does this leave Nintendo? After all, I did say that the controller was rather clever and that the machine it reports to was rather not. To answer this, I must lay bare my feelings on the company itself. To me, Nintendo is a perennial power that has long rested on the laurels of its handheld market stronghold to keep itself comfortably in the black. Even with the failure of the GameCube, a clusterfuck of childish design decisions and corporate double-fisting, there was the GBA to look upon with adoring eyes; possibly even the occasional game for the ‘cube to lift your hopes, too.

But when word came of the PSP and the early consensus that Sony would effectively strip Nintendo of its last remaining foothold, its security blanket, the company had to face facts. It was time to innovate or die. But I don’t mean the innovation of a “Revolution,” I mean the innovation of taking the house that Mario built and turning it upside down. They start hyping up their next system as the Revolution, they get some guy to say the words “kicking ass” on stage, they take a risk with the multitude of complex buttons and screens and microphones and WiFi of the DS and go head to head with the sexy, widescreen, traditional handheld PSP.

But that last one wasn’t going so well, and the stock numbers weren’t in the right place to try their hand at another costly, graphics-heavy system, especially with HD being touted by the competition as the killer new standard. So they put their heads together and said, “wait a minute, what do we do best?” The answer, as you know, is easy: Re-hash. We get the low-power Wii with a console variant of the DS controls (you can’t make a TV a touch screen, so make it a point-to-touch screen), and a hot new DS right in the vein of the SP and Micro redesign. At the same time, you have 360 failing in Japan and Sony trying to shove a foot down its throat while sticking two thumbs up its ass. That, my horoscope would say, is how the stars aligned and Nintendo got the full head of steam it has to day, powering back from the brink of pulling a Sega to leading the industry in market share and market growth. The cultural icon-like status of the DS Lite doesn’t hurt, either, but for the most part the Wii is just a culmination of fortunate events and careful planning. Fortunately for us, it’s not too bad having to play some great GameCube games on it, people seem to get a genuine kick out of swinging their arms around like trained apes. Shit, why didn’t anyone think of it sooner?

I will be the very first to admit it: I am a supporter of the PlayStation brand. I grew up with Nintendo consoles, and still love them dearly to this day, but when it comes to gaming I know that the large stock of my great game experiences will invariably fall on a Sony system.

I actually remember buying my first PlayStation. It was not long after the price dropped to $99, and it was at a Target near my home. My friend had bought one a few months earlier and picked up with it a few choice games, most noticeable among them being Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rage. This was my first Insomniac game, and from the moment I first controlled that floaty, purple dragon and started my quest to collect as many orbs as possible, I knew I was hooked. I even remember my first thoughts on the DualShock: it was uncomfortable, totally not ergonomic, and a complete pile of crap next to my beloved N64 pad. But there was something about the games that made me spring for the system, and it’s been the same story ever since: PlayStation is where the awesome is at.

Actually, on a slightly embarrassing note, I wasn’t even a hardcore gamer back then. I picked up an N64 title every two months depending on the reviews in Nintendo Power, but when it came down to genres and control schemes and music and the basic geek praise for Sakaguchi, Miyamoto, Naga, and the rest of the gaming gods at that time, I was utterly oblivious. I knew what a good game was, but I was just playing for the sake of the experience. There was no attachment or investment in the Spyro or Mario series, I just thought they were of a kind of quality other games lacked.

And so that brings me to the point of today’s post. In an interview with 1UP’s Luke Smith, Phil Harrison has done the odd thing for a Sony representative and spoken in terms that do not come across as arrogant nonsense. You can see for yourself, if you’d like. But it’s not really what he said that has driven me to sit down and type (I’ll blame that on a desire to not watch Econ lectures), it’s the message itself. Read closely those few responses he gives. This is a man that knows how to bait the reader and interviewer with hints of future greatness. He exudes a sort of placidity that shows immense control of will, as if he himself were able to change the face of Sony with a simple rubber duck. I say these things not to suggest that Mr. Harrison has some sort of supernatural ability to reconstruct the image of a caring, down-to-earth Sony — I personally doubt that such a thing ever existed — rather I emphasize this discussion because this is what needs to be done.

Sony has, for nearly a year, been caught in a downward spiral. They were late and bloated in their E3 press conference. They lost rumble in their controllers and “ripped-off” Nintendo with the tilt sensors. They sold two SKUs of a product when they criticized Microsoft for doing the same. They lost the GTA series as an exclusive. They undershipped a product that is over-priced. They had issues with scaling, backwards compatibility, Blu-ray diodes, online titles, and much, much more. In short, they practical drove their momentum into the ground, and only on rare occassions did they ever show signs that something about this behavior was wrong.

But here we are, a week from the release of Virtua Fighter 5. Tomorrow Full Auto 2 becomes the first third-party demo to hit the PlayStation Network. The thesis project flOw is right around the corner. In March, we get an online version of Motorstorm and Europe sees what might be the best launch line-up for a system in the history of videogames. And there’s GDC on March 7th, bringing us back once again to the man this post is all about, Phil Harrison.

So what, then, is the point of this lengthy and expansive post of mine? Timing. In my honest and — I hope — mostly unbiased opinion, this is the time when Sony needs to get out of the gutter, wipe the blood from its nose and stand firm in the face of the opposition. George Orwell is famous for writing a story in which a man changes history to coincide with the actions of his government, his actions unnoticed by the public at large. That story is far from a work of fiction, its message still rings true nearly sixty years after it was first put to paper. People are willing to ignore, forget, perhaps even believe anything that may or may not have happened in the past so long as you provide for them a present and future in line with their desires. We can forgive you, Sony. All you have to do is start talking. Show us a near-final build of Heavenly Sword. Show us a glimpse of Killzone 2. Show us a demo of Metal Gear Solid 4.

The public is waiting, and when the spotlight falls on Phil Harrison once more, three weeks from today, let us finally hear why it is that PlayStation systems have a 10 year lifespan. Tell us why we should play beyond instead of jump in. Tell us why the large hard disks, HDMI, and free online service are critical tools. Tell us something to make us think back fondly to our times playing Spyro, or unboxing that launch day PS2. The ball is in your court, all you need to do is swing.

I feel obliged to blog today, although why and about what have yet to reveal themselves to me. I suppose that for the time being I shall, as the saying goes, “run with it.”

There is a rumor going around that movies are getting too long and overblown on fat budgets that make even Rueben Studdard look like Nicole Richie. (Where the hell is that guy, anyway? Hanging out with Justin?) I, for one, disagree wholeheartedly with this notion. Sure, you may have to take a piss break or two more than you’re accustomed to — those of you with poor bladders, that is — but the fact of the matter is that you can’t rush art. Do people feel ill of Square-Enix when they announce that Final Fantasy MX is going to be over 60 hours long? Hell no. Do people get mad at Stephen King for writing 800-page novels? Well, maybe for the novel part, but not the length. And so why should we take offense when a director decides he wants to leave less than 70% of his movie on the cutting room floor?

The fact of the matter is this: most great movies are over two hours long. A lot of really good ones are nearly 120 minutes. Goodfellas, The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, The Lord of the Rings, The Empire Strikes Back, Dances With Wolves, Taxi Driver… I’m trying to be random and make a point at the same time, but I assume you catch my drift.

The point is, going to the movies is not supposed to be a throwaway experience. Movie sales have declined over the past decade because we’ve become a culture of instant satisfaction and unabashed gratuity. YouTube, Google, iTunes, portable music, video, and TV players. MP3 Cell phones. The world is running on a caffeine cocktail stuck straight into its brain. If we can’t get somewhere within 10 minutes it’s a long trip. If we aren’t watching something with half-second clips every few minutes its boring and unwatchable. Take a look at music videos over on MTV… I mean VH1… I mean Fuse… Or perhaps you should just pull out your video iPod. LOOK AT THAT SHIT BEING SHOVED THROUGH YOUR OPTIC NERVE. It’s like a bad acid trip that you are being forced to look at for 3:30 minutes. If you get upset that a director with actual talent is making movies too long, you ought to lynch the hacks that sync video to your “pop” music for six figures a pop. But it’s all hugs and kisses and forgiveness, because they did bring the sexy back.

The hive mind mentality of pop culture needs to get its ass kicked for being so hypocritical (yeah, that’s the weirdest personification ever, sue me). But I’ll be damned if studios edit the next Ridley Scott film because people’s ritalin wears off before the film ends.

…

you can look a hurricane right in the eye

Ugh.  Sometimes you take a look around and wonder where the fuck you are, even though you’re sober and, technically, conscious.  Today was one of those days, and naturally the vessel of this revelation was… wait for it… the Internet!

For reasons I no longer understand, Google News is my homepage.  This means that not only can I enter search strings as soon as I load Firefox, I can also read the daily headlines without turning on the TV or reading a newspaper.  A benefit, surely?  I’m beginning to think otherwise.

Y’see, I started today with a bit of a ponderance: Am I really preparing myself for a lifetime of work in the right field? (For the uninitiated & casual observer, I’m a marketing major hoping to get into the tech and/or games industry)   This lack of assurance was then compounded by that wonderful news.google.com frontpage, which reminded me that hurricanes were decimating Mexico, Iran is flipping the bird to the world, and some poor girl that died 10 years ago may or may not finally be getting justice.

Taking all of this in at once caused me to wonder, and I mean Thinking Man-style wonder, what good, if any, I’d be doing the world with my life.  Are we supposed to make a contribution to the planet with our actions.  As Batman Begins tells us, “it’s not who you are underneath, it’s what you do that defines you.”  Mmm, that’s a delicious nugget of self-importance right there, innit?  But, really, is it not a valid point?  Do we really spend  18 years in school–more for professional schools–just to pull enough money to live comfortably and raise a successor?

Looking back at my post on the Watchmen, I’m reminded of The Comedian.  He wasn’t a funny superhero, he was a G.I. Joe soldier of a man that quipped sardonically about the trivialities of life.  Life, to him, was the greatest comedy ever written.  To consider it as anything else would be foolish.

And so we have two sides of the same coin, with myself standing precipitiously atop the ridged edge, unsure where to place my weight so that one side may fall facing upward, victorious.  I have a feeling that I am unlikely to move from this pinnacle for some time.  I expect that, as the seconds turn to minutes turn to days and years, the world will continue spiraling along its course, heeding not my immobility, and the answer I seek will, like a Cheshire Cat, remain hidden still.

I think there is a reason that people often overlook the Big Picture.  If one were to suddenly stop and truly consider his or her position as a member of the human race, what answer could suffice to make them return to moving forward? I will attempt to answer this myself when I see fit to return.

I seem to be about 20 years behind the times, but I had the opportunity to veg out last week prior to returning to school and I took that time as a chance to sit down and curl up with a good, pulpy yarn.  After all, Watchmen is supposed to be the graphic novel that changed all of comic books, “forcing” them to mature, as it were.  Was the claim true, or would I end up debunking it?  The truth lies somewhere in between.

For starters, Watchmen, which I will no longer italicize out of laziness, is a book that bristles with small, furry fibers of originality.  In an alternate world of the mid-eighties, superheroes were at one time real, and even became a danger to the world.  Nixon didn’t get caught at Watergate, Kennedy still died, cars are electric, and blimps are more commonplace.  In essense, it’s just similar enough to make it feel like home.

Much the same can be said for the plot of the story, which hit me as relatively predictable while ultimately feeling “classic,” not dissimilar from the way Casablanca may be called classic.  Truth is, I saw the end coming, for all intents and purposes, from the start of Book One.  Maybe it’s because I’ve read enough and seen enough film and television to be familiar with the good guy-goes-bad-since-there-are-no-bad-guys part of the story, or maybe Alan Moore isn’t the wunderchild that everyone makes him out to be (between this novel and The Killing Joke, I’m beginning to lean towards the latter; V for Vendetta will settle the matter).  Either way, there’s really no need to get wrapped up in the central plot, because it merely exists to deliver the moral punchline of the final book.

In essense, Watchmen boils down to a thought-provoking if not tired debate of “What price are you willing to pay for world peace?”  If your answer was around a couple million lives, you’re doing pretty good.  If not, well, you’re like me.  And Rorschach.

Ah, Rorschach… The character that single-handedly made Watchmen worth my time and money.  Everyone’s seen a hard-ass noir detective before, but those detectives aren’t fit to walk down the same street as Rorschach.  If there ever is a film derived from this story, you can expect him to be the heart of it.  No other character delivered as much pathos through such limited, choppy dialog in Moore’s book than Rorschach, who at all times seems to be an expression of the reader’s own thoughts and actions as each page is turned.  I could read three more books on him alone.

Ah, but let me keep my favoritism to myself now.  There is still one other aspect of the Watchmen that needs to be addressed: Pirates.  Yes, Pirates.  I don’t know what herb of choice Alan Moore was on, but I’ve never felt such smugness come off the page and force its way into my head as when he begins his alternating panels of pirate adventure and newspaper salesman.  Yes, Alan, we “get” it.  The story is supposed to cleverly resemble the actual goings-on of the world in your story.  It also let’s you have your characters speak in their wonderful and uniquely choppy dialogue whilst commenting on politics, war, and whatever else you feel is pertinent.  But let’s face it: The pirate storyline feels like you’re showboating a high-concept form of story-telling, and this reader wasn’t biting.  I actually wanted to start skimming over these pages, just because it was glaringly obvious that A) the comic character was going to make a mistake, and B) that this was just a vehicle for making abstract comments on society.  You’re better than that, Mr. Moore.

Overall, I’d give Watchmen a solid B for some very memorable characters (Comedian, Rorschach, and Dr. Manhattan), clever dialogue and fantastic premises.  The metaphysical bits were a bit out of place overall, but if you’ve ever thought about picking up a book with more than just words in it, Watchmen ain’t such a bad start.  But if you’re looking for a really definitely 80′s comic about the world’s end and superheroes in their twilight years, The Dark Knight Returns is still king of the hill.

Forgive the lack of creativity above.  I was too preoccupied fighting off my temptation for a Duff that I forgot to present you all with my requisite snark and wit.  But seriously, look at that can.  How can you deny the urge–carnal or otherwise–it presents you with?  I believe you will arrive at the same conclusion I have, dear reader: ’tis impossible.

Moving onward, I am pleased to bring to fruition yet another succulent morsel of blog for you to chew on.  Indeed, I would go so far as to proclaim that even the graceful and majestic Cow would spit out its cud and take up roost outside Stealth Farm, so great is the flavor of my word.  But do I merely pad my own ego, or is there a point to this delirious post?

The truth is, I am returning in a mere four days to my position as Student once again.  Taking up this mantle, I shall fight for knowledge, beer, and extra credit in a world where misinformation bests information, and even the most taboo of cultural phenomena are headline material.  I speak of course of the Bennifers, TomKats, anorexic teeny pop stars, and Branjelinas that we are forced to believe require more of our attention than a goddamn war taking place in what I can only assume is the largest congregation of conservative male virgins the world has ever known… wikipedia says it’s the “Middle-East.”

But seriously, are we so out of touch with our lives and the affairs of the rest of the planet that we need to busy ourselves with photo spreads of some unmarried couple’s little girl?  Is America really flying up its own ass, or do I just not “get” how things really work?  I expect that, in the minutes after this post goes live, a G-Man will knock at my door and explain to me in some manner that “As long as people are concerned about the lives of celebrities, we’re not required to actually do anything.”  I would then be tossed in the paddy wagon and taken to some undisclosed location called Mensa, where I would then be instructed to think for the rest of my life on a government grant, but absolutely never be allowed to do anything other than walk around in a smoking jacket saying “Indeed” or play chess.

Ok, that last part was a bit much, but those Mensa guys had it coming.  Last time I checked, you got your ass kicked for being a nerd.  But now if your over twenty and still too dumb to not act smart, you get to be a Certified Nerd?  Hmm, that Shiloh sure is adorable…

Where oh where do I begin today’s entry?  War in Lebanon?  Haven’t followed it closely enough.  Grandia III?  The combat system has become much easier to manipulate, and I’m rolling through the story right now, but that’s not interesting enough to blog about yet.  Oh, I know, let’s talk about this video game sin tax.

A nasty rumor is spreading its way around the internet this week.  It cites Hilary “Fuck the ESRB” Clinton as supporting the possible proposal of a new tax on the purchase of video games.  In essense, this tax would work like the “sin” tax on cigarettes does, with gamers having to shell out more of their hard- (or hardly) earned cash  to buy the things they like. Such a tax would not only hamper the wallets of the hardcore gamer who purchases new titles on a almost weekly basis, it would also draw incredible ire from the parents that, each and every holiday season, line up at their local game store to buy the newest movie or cartoon-based game for five-year-old Bobby and Jenny.  Nor would it please the annual purchasers of Madden or NCAA Football, EA’s biggest and most lucrative franchises.  Why spend that $50-60 on a game that’s only slightly different than last years?

Wait, I retract that statement.  The football nuts are going to buy the game regardless of tax.  Hell, maybe we should tax Madden.  Or tax EA for making such a mediocre football game.  I’m down for either one.
All joking aside, there are clearly multiple reasons as to why games should not be given any sort of “sin” tax.  True, gaming has grown more and more mainstream with each passing year, but it’s also far less of an addiction or sinful habit than Congress perceives it to be.  There are certainly some culprits–Warcrack and the MMOs, really–but the fact of the matter is that video games are at this point no better or worse for you than CDs, movies, or books.  And you’re just as likely to find a homicidal lunatic playing a game and then killing people as you are to find one pick up the Anarchist’s Handbook (or whatever it’s called) and build a pipe bomb.

Mentally disturbed people are everywhere.  We gamers can’t help if a few of them like to play GTA.  So why punish the innocent to get at the guilty?