Bits For Rent

It’s hard to believe it has been over 11 months since I last sat down and gave myself the time to place my thoughts into sentences. In fact, it is almost a year to the day since my second-to-last entry here. What fascinates me about this is that I cannot even count the number of times each week I will think of a subject and say to myself, “Hmm, this would be a great blog post.” Suffice it to say that it would be quite high. And yet, after 11 months, I have naught to show for it but these few short sentences expressing my regret at all the things I lacked the time to do.

Time is a fascinating thing. And thinking about it has caused me to want to make some pretty spectacular sweeping generalizations about people. The rest of this post will be rife with those, so literalists and fact-checkers may want to take their ball and go home before I start causing smoke to come out of your ears. Everyone else, enjoy the ride.

The Illusion of Control

As humans, it is in our very nature to attempt to control as many of the variables in the world as possible. For those that we cannot control, we build up such great amounts of data that we are able to predict, within one or two standard deviations, what the likely occurrence will be. In the world of technology, Moore’s Law tells us that the number of transistors that we can place in a computer chip will double every two years. This statement has held true for over 40 years. With weather, we lose accuracy the further out we predict, but 24 and 48 hour forecasts hold an incredibly high level of accuracy. (Thanks to the spread of 3G networks and WiFi, we are able to keep up with adjustments to a forecast on the fly, thereby lessening the likelihood of incorrect forecasts from negatively impacting our personal plans.)

My favorite example is the odds-makers in Vegas, though. The amount of times I have heard, or even said myself, how incredibly accurate the line is… well, let’s just say the amount of nickels could afford someone a free lunch, and possibly dinner. The beauty of Vegas’s system is similar to that of the New York Stock Exchange– the actual measure of the point spread (or stock value) is directly correlated with our own assumptions as a whole. There’s a fascinating book about this by James Suroweicki called The Wisdom of Crowds which I won’t go into at length, but the crux of the book is this: people, so long as they have some knowledge about the subject, will as a group deliver an estimate of that subject’s worth, outcome — whatever it is that is being measured — with almost startling accuracy.  When pressed into guesswork or speculation, be it for Fantasy Football or the outcome of an election, we do a damn good job of predicting the future.

Yet despite all of our cunning and data analysis, cross-referencing and fact-checking, gut feelings and soothsayings, we make for especially rotten self-analysts. We routinely stack our plates with more than we can handle, build up incredible backlogs of things that we “must” get done but that are not of a high enough priority to actually get done, and never fail to lament our perpetual lack of time (case in point: this post). A lot of things can be blamed for this, such as becoming bogged down in minutiae, spending too much time on things that are of no practical benefit, sleeping too much, or sacrificing personal time for the sake of socializing with others. None of which is really important, though. It’s nice to be able to assign the blame elsewhere and list reasons X,Y, and Z as to why we never finished that book or made it to the gym yesterday, but again that’s really just us being human and needing to categorize, number, and file away all of life’s particulars.  The point I suppose I set out to make is that we actually have very little control of our own lives, despite our firm belief otherwise. Holding your breath will not slow down time any more than a Shake Weight will get you into shape. Which is, I believe, largely why we do our best to ignore it.

To be more clear, what I think we ignore is more the long-term span of time, not the immediate and ongoing elements of time. Think about it like this: when people reach certain milestones in their life, such as a birthday or anniversary, we typically celebrate those moments retrospectively. New Year’s Day is probably the biggest exception, due to resolutions and the optimism and hope that a new year brings, but even birthdays tend to be focuses around what has been, not what will be. We do not care for analyzing our personal future because we are hardwired to not think about it, just as we are hardwired to not think about our own inevitable deaths. The reason for this is the same reason we have weather forecasts and Vegas over/under lines: we hate uncertainty. With a passion.

Two examples to help me illustrate this point:

Imagine if you were to knock down every wall in an IKEA and take away all of the signs that indicated what section you were in and where you could find certain items. It would take what is already, in my humble opinion, an excruciating experience and turn it into torture. Nothing would make sense without the guide lines there to show us the way, and no doubt the store would have a very difficult time attracting customers. (In fairness, there are people that enjoy sifting through clutter to find hidden gems, much like a child will rifle through a bag of LEGOs in order to find the one block he needs to build something. In these cases the end goal is always clear beforehand, though. I will concede I’m generalizing a bit here.)

My second example is a bit more partial to my job, but think about MySpace versus Facebook. Even without the exclusivity of “college students only” that propelled the latter site to such heights, Facebook was always better positioned to succeed. And the reason for that really comes down to two factors: uniformity and user authenticity. By only allowing users to modify the content they shared, and not the design of the site, Facebook maintains a consistent appearance and style throughout all of its pages. Likewise, the insistence on users listing their real names and using photos of themselves as their profile picture encourages a sense of legitimacy and authenticity to the experience… which, on the Internet, is quite honestly a fucking miracle. The internet is the world of Anonymous, and yet Facebook has over 500 million people (mostly) representing themselves authentically. People are drawn to it because it can be trusted to deliver on these two points.

With time, though, we can’t trust anything that has not already happened. “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” That may be the single most accurate statement ever written, other than perhaps, “The French are rude.” But I digress. The point I suppose I’m driving at is that we live in a society where we are constantly aware of what is immediately in front of or behind us, but we too often fail to see the forest for the trees. Americans, in particular, are guilty of a life where everything must be full-throttle, on the quick, and we’ll sleep when we’re dead. Even I am guilty of this, and I love sleeping in. The unfortunate thing is that this is ultimately a part of our human nature, or so I would posit. You can crush an ant hill and sit and watch as the colony frantically rebuilds its home and laugh at how pointless it seems, but then you’ll go on Facebook and see one of your friends post something like, “Lost phone, need #s.” The catalog of the past matters more than the future, because it is the record of our lives and all that we will leave behind when we’re gone. It’s why photos are the first thing people rush to save in a fire. “Don’t worry,” you can console someone, “all that stuff can be replaced.” But he or she will still feel miserable, because our accumulation of “stuff” — experiences, clothes, phone numbers, friends, CDs — is what defines us. In the end, afterlife or no afterlife, or record of existing on this planet comes from those people, places, and things we touched. On a base level, we realize that; but in the here and now, it’s often too easy to get lost in the hustle and bustle without considering what each action will mean in a day, a week, a year, or even a decade. (Obviously some choices matter less than others so we don’t need to be microscopically analyzing every choice, but bear with me — I already warned you I’d be generalizing.)

But why then do we always wish we could have done more? Why do we work so hard and make so many sacrifices only to look back at the end of each day and reflect on all the things we did not have time to get done? Maybe it’s because, deep down, we hear the seconds ticking away and know that there can only be so many more to come. Maybe it’s because we want to hold ourselves to a higher standard, and our shortcomings are indicative of how we could improve. Maybe it’s both of those, and more. But control is an illusion. Time is the scarcest resource known to man, and we will always feel as if we are at a lack for it because it is the one thing we can never get back (well, that and your taxes). So we make our decisions deliberately, prioritizing what to get done and what to shelve every minute of every day, knowing full well that every cause will have an effect and that each task completed leaves behind two that we’ll never get to. It’s like a never ending case of buyer’s remorse, us wishing we had been able to have done the other thing or possibly done them all. Perhaps that’s part of human nature, too. For all of our efforts to reduce uncertainty and live life in control of the information available to us, we’ll always feel the need to make that information more complete. Each opportunity that passes us by grates on us because it’s one more data point that must be left blank, like those MP3 files you have without the album art.

“Great,” you may be thinking, “so what was the point of this post again?” Good question. To me, it I appears I wrote over 1700 words of meandering, navel-gazing prose that leaps from point to point without drawing any definitive conclusions, other than life is rather short on definitives but most certainly has a conclusion. Time marches on, with or without us, and it can often feel like a race we’re struggling to stay in. All I know is that in the time it took me to write this, I could have done a load of laundry, taken out the trash, dusted my apartment, and probably read a few news clips to catch up on current events.

But, hey, that’s what tomorrow’s for, right?

I just went and zipped through the archives whilst deleting hordes of pharmacy drug spam and noticed that a lot of older entries are plagued with horrible code errors that cause odd symbols and strange letters to appear in almost every sentence, directly after punctuation. I just wanted to apologize for these things, and hope that you all still read some of my older stuff regardless. As my posts tend to be very long, it would take me more time to edit the hundred-odd old entries than it would for me to probably write three or four new ones. Considering how lazy I already am when it comes to blogging, I’m clearly going for option B. So with that having been said, I’ll have a new, and very long, post up soon, and hopefully maintain a steady stream of them throughout the summer.

Thanks for reading, as always.

This is technically the 100th post on my blog, even though it is only the 97th to remain published. So, to honor this milestone, I’ve gone ahead and compiled a list of 50 things that I like and 50 things that I dislike, in no particular order. I’ve included some explanation for some of the subjects that might not make much sense to the casual reader, but keep in mind this list is more for fun than anything (none of the entries are “jokes,” however). So, then. Let’s begin.

50 Things I Like

1. Honesty
2. Great storytellers
3. Spontaneity
4. Dogs, preferably big dogs.
5. Fast food when I’m drunk
6. Florida beaches
7. Kayaking
8. Being able to tell when the seasons are changing. Sup, South Florida?
9. Movies
10. Eating popcorn at the movies that isn’t infested with kernels or that hasn’t sat out under a heating lamp for two hours.
11. A good book
12. The new age of TV dramas. Dexter, Breaking Bad, The Wire, Deadwood, Lost, Chuck, Firefly, Battlestar Galactica, 24 most of the time, The Office, House, and Rome. We are drowning in great shows and great writing, and most of them are on basic cable.
13. Music that has something to say or that makes you feel there’s more to it than just noise and words. Go away American Idol, Millennial-era MTV and Disney channel teeny-bop sponges. I’m sure your news feed has a new post from your obnoxious Miley Cyrus or Zac Efron fan club for you to go read. Do I sound like an ass about this? If so, it’s because I care that your rotting your brain, and it saddens me when you do. Get on Pandora and expand your palette already.
14. Indie Rock like The National, The Decemberists, The Black Keys, anything that Danger Mouse touches, and indie rappers like MF Doom.
15. Classic rock from the ’60s and ’70s: the Beatles, Zeppelin, Dylan, Sabbath… too much to begin to name.
16. Video games. They are the future of entertainment and the only interactive medium that anyone in the world can take part in. Unlike books and film, they can drop you into an experience as it was originally envisioned. I hope to one day help make them and design worlds in which people enjoy having new experiences, much like a musician might hope to have people listen to his work and enjoy the emotions and sensations it brings them.
17. The Internet. It brings me never ending shocks, horrors, and joys. It is both the pinnacle and nadir of human accomplishments. May it never change.
18. College football
19. Comic books. Not the cliched superhero serials but actual original works. The duality of the medium is under-appreciated and unfairly persecuted by ignorant persons. If you haven’t read an actual, non-superhero comic before, maybe you ought to.
20. Photography
21. Special features for movies. So that’s how they did it!
22. Christian Bale. Crazy or not, he is one of the best actors working right now. As a bonus, he’s also the Goddamn Batman.
23. The Goddamn Batman.
24. Atlas Shrugged. A monumental book in both size and philosophy, it will change the way you think about your life or reinforce the views you already had but never knew how to express. It’s also incredibly long and is full of windbags/characters that give 20-40-60 page speeches. Life is a trade-off.
25. Plasma TVs. Because they don’t have that awful jagginess that LCDs have, especially when playing non-HD content.
26. Flawed characters. No one likes Superman because he’s practically perfect, and he’s an alien to boot. Damaged heroes or bust.
27. Cartoons. Looney Tunes, Simpsons, Family Gun, Batman, Transformers, Turtles, or even Anime. Doesn’t make a difference to me where it’s from or what it’s about. It’s like a good TV show: as long as the plot or characters are worth following (or if it was something I watched as a kid, good or bad), count me in.
28. Griefing/Trolling. Some times it’s just fun to fuck with people. If I’m having a shitty day I can always boot up Call of Duty 4 and blow up my own team or go online and rickroll someone. This is another reason why games are great: they keep the dangerous fantasies in the fantasy world, and not in the real one. We all need a release every now and then (that’s what she said), it shouldn’t matter how it’s accomplished.
29. Suits. There is no easier way to pretend to be important or successful than putting on a nice suit. Thank you, cultural conditioning.
30. Jack Bauer. He has saved the world seven times over 17 years, has been tortured in a Chinese prison, has been infected with a neurotoxin and survived, has died and come back to life, and will defend his country by becoming a drug addict or by committing treason at the drop of a hat. America loves you, Mr. Bauer.
31. Hip-hop. It can say so much and because of the nature of the music it can constantly reinvent itself or be converted to a new use. The only genre that could, in a probability, never die.
32. Golf. Is there any other sport in which your successes and failures during the game matter so much?
33. Technology. It’s fun having an iPod, an iPhone, a PSP, and a digital camera in my pockets all at once. Well, actually it’s kind of uncomfortable, but it’s important to be prepared.
34. The number 34. Not really, but then again it does look kinda hot in Arial Bold.
35. Doing favors. My plan is to stock up enough goodwill and IOUs that by 50 I will never have to do anything for myself ever again, should I choose not to. So far, so good.
36. Star Fox 64. Most quotable game of all time.
37. Ghostbusters I & II, and Caddyshack. Three of the most quotable films of all time. “Vy and I dripping vit goo?” “Yes it’s true, this man has no dick.” “You’ll get nothing and like it” “Don’t sell yourself short judge, you’re an incredible slouch.”
38. Justin Timberlake. Not to sound gay or anything, but he’s really talented*
39. Having as few things in my pockets as possible. My wallet, keys, and phone are heavy enough and big enough to merit a manpurse… wait, nothing on the planet is cumbersome enough to merit a manpurse. Scratch that.
40. Dreams. Some people don’t dream when they sleep, or they dream and don’t really remember it. I’ve had thousands of crazy ass dreams but only remember a handful perfectly clearly. But if you’ve never had a dream where you could fly, I feel sorry for you.
41. Top ten lists. They require a lot less effort than Top 50 or Top 100 lists.
42. My family. Sappy, I know, but true. They are the most awesome bunch of misfits, wild men, straight arrows, doctors, lawyers, photographers, entrepreneurs, and PEOPLE that you could ever want to know. I am blessed to have such a large family, and for the time they were able to spend with me before they passed.
43. Friends. Other than family, there is nothing better that a great friend. I do not count my best friends by handful, but rather on both hands. If you are one of the people I consider a true friend, you know that if you tell me to jump I won’t even ask how high. You are good people, and I am grateful to have been able to know you so well.
44. Youtube/Hulu. Millions of entertaining videos at the click of a button. If the quality on most of the YouTube videos wasn’t total ass, I would have very few uses for my TV.
45. Sarcasm. It’s almost impossible to decipher through text, and some people have a really hard time understanding it when they hear it. This is why sarcasm is one of the most fun ways of being a smart ass. Hence, our next point.
46. Being a smart ass. Hey, it’s easy and simple to be polite and courteous to everyone. But don’t you want to just say “Fuck the pretentious bullshit” every now and again? Don’t you want to express some cynicism? Ease the tension in a bad situation? Catch someone when they choose the wrong words? If it weren’t for the smart-asses, the world would be nothing but a bunch of verbal reach-arounds. Get that image out of your head now.
47. Am I done yet?
48. Yep, almost done
49. Writing. It’s therapeutic and relaxing and completely changes how your mind works. People don’t talk in the same way and with the same words as they do when they right. Would someone ever say to you, “Brian and I were just finishing our homework, a fair modicum of algebra and advanced physics, when Jeffrey waltzed into the domicile with a fresh French loaf and some fine Burgundy. We chortled to each other over the hors d’oeurves about how Samantha was being positively ghastly during the morning seminar, and after a quick prance about the flat we returned to our studies.” No, absolutely not. But do you know how retardedly fun that was to write? Writing is great.
50. Finishing things. There’s something about scratching an item off your to-do list, hitting print on an essay, or closing the cover on a book that just sends a wave of satisfaction over you. “It’s over,” you think to yourself. You’ll never have to do that thing again, should you choose not to, yet at the same time, you can now say that you have done that very thing. It’s an escape and a triumph, rolled into one. And so I embrace that sensation now as I end my list of 50 things that I like.

50 Things I Dislike, Hate, or Find Annoying

1. Pretense — drop it, all ready
2. Poor losers
3. Most shows on CBS. Enough with the procedural crime dramas already! They have Without a Trace, Criminal Minds, CSI, CSI:NY, CSI:Miami, The Mentalist, 48 Hours Mystery, Cold Case, NCIS, and Numb3rs. What the hell!
4. Renee Zellweger. She’s not adorable and her movies usually suck. You know I’m right.
5. Canker Sores
6. Hang nails
7. Pussyfooting and dilly-dallying. JUST DO IT ALREADY!
8. Angry drunks
9. Feeling helpless, whether because you are or because you’re just too narrow-minded to find the solution
10. Excuses
11. Bear attacks
12. Price tags, particularly when they are given to you or asked for. “I just got this new $1000 TV” or “How much did that cost?” are questions in terribly poor taste. Unless it was a deal, I don’t want to know what it cost; it sounds like boasting. Unless I’m telling you what it costs, don’t ask me. This is how the world should work.
13. MTV. It was once the voice of a generation. Now it just shills crappy psuedo-reality TV shows and hypes up F-list celebs from over a decade ago. The corruption has even destroyed VH1, which used to be the only bastion left for real Music Television.
14. Having to watch TV in standard definition. I am spoiled as hell, dammit, and I deserve better than to watch TV using an image quality standard established over 55 years ago. Rule of thumb: if most of the TVs available on the market are designed for high definition, your station should probably be broadcasting in it.
15. Mislabeled or incomplete MP3 tags. You’re a pain in the ass to fix and you make my iTunes look weird.
16. People who always feel they are right or innocent or are “the victim”
17. Dusting. Most of it is skin of some kind. Why the hell should I want to clean that up?
18. Movies that aren’t nearly as good as their trailers.
19. Sophmore/Junior slumps. Cold War Kids, Fratellis, and The Killers, I’m looking at you.
20. The Disney Company’s culture brainwashing machine. Maybe it’s just me, but watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles made my life more awesome when I was a kid. Watching The Suite Life or High School Musical does not seem like it has this effect. I liked it better when Kids’ shows were only trying to sell toys, not people.
21. People who make fun of something when they have absolutely no idea what they are making fun of. Unless of course it’s something Drew mentioned, at which point it’s fair game to be as obnoxious as possible.
22. People starting AIM conversations with “yo” or “hey.” If you’re going to be brief, “Hi” works just fine. Also, DON’T START A CONVERSATION AND THEN FORGET ABOUT THE WINDOW AFTER 2 MINUTES. I just gave you the courtesy of a response. You could at least say “brb” or “one sec” if you’re watching RedTube in the other window and can’t multitask.
23. Being griefed/trolled. It’s not as much fun when you’re on the receiving end (that’s what she said), and there’s not much we can do to change that. Two sides to every coin, after all.
24. Japanese RPGs that take over 70 hours to beat. Nothing in your game is probably worth me wasting that much time. You could cut out 20 hours of forcing me through random encounters, keep the story as-is, and the entire world would be made better for it. I know some people worry about the Time Value of Money, but if I can pay the same money for a book, a movie, a CD, and Bejeweled and have just as much fun over just as many hours, the point is moot. Get with the program, Nippon.
25. Nails on a chalkboard. AAAAAAAAAAAGH!
26. The sound of nails being filed. Double AAAAAAAAAAGH!
27. Rap. It’s fucking derogatory, misogynistic, crude, and commercial. It requires almost no talent and has become so bloated that rappers can only talk about how great they are, how much money they are making, or how fine their bitches are. It’s sole purpose is to employ producers and club owners–the former to make ass-shaking beats and the latter to offer a place for the ass-shaking to take place. It’s utterly brilliant and I hate it because I didn’t think of it first.
28. Boxing. Where did all the great fighters go? Oh that’s right, to UFC.
29. Teachers that assign assloads of homework but don’t check it. Why are you trying to get me to waste my time? If it was useful practice, make it mandatory. If not, don’t make me buy the damn book!
30. Those Ten Things About Me lists. If you want to tell me about yourself, do you really think 10 bullet points is a practical method of doing so? I think it’s more like 10 things you are self-conscious about or think people should be interested in. Narcissist.
31. People who take me seriously all the time. Here’s a hint: DON’T!
32. The fact that Slater is going to read some of my Likes and giggle about them to me at some point in the near future is stalking me
33. The fact that once this is published I have almost zero control over who reads it.
34. Microsoft products. When you update your OS and your software, I should have to relearn all the menus. In the words of a great character, “I mean, c-c-come on.”
35. George W Bush. He broke the world and stole an election. ‘Nuff said.
36. The people that voted for Bush in 2004. Read 35.
37. Hangovers. I should not be punished for having so much fun getting drunk. Can’t we miracle pill this one all ready?
38. Crazy ass religious people. They hold big signs and shout about the rapture and our fall from grace in Turlington plaza. They think they have the answer to every question, mostly because they can hold a big sign with their belts and gave the Bible a once-over.
39. The people that sit and argue with the crazy ass religious people. You’re only encouraging them! That’s how Hitler got elected, you know. Well, that and he didn’t get in to art school.
40. Finding 50 things to gripe about. You’d think that as an American this would come naturally to us, right?
41. White people dropping n-bombs. If you’re not quoting a song or being very, very intentionally facetious with your use of it, you are an offensive fuckhead. It’s been almost 150 years since the Civil War. Your kind should be breeding anymore at this point.
42. Unhealthy foods. Why do you have to taste so good?
43. Country music singers. You sing in an accent about women troubles, horses, and beer. You are a walking, talking stereotype and you make millions of dollars. You don’t even really need to be good at playing an instrument. Please, teach me your ways.
44. Jack and Kate. You guys had your flashbacks and now mope around wishing that you either were still banging each other or that you were still banging someone else. The island needs to judge your asses and wallop you Mr. Ecko-style. Why did you have to go back, really? Some one get Desmond back in the story all ready.
45. Heroes. Your first season ranks as one of the best in TV history. Then you became a joke. What the hell.
46. Entourage. Vinny needs a movie. Vinny can’t act. Vinny can act but he can’t stop being an egoist. Vinny’s friends have his back. Deus Ex Machina and suddenly Martin Scorcese wants Vinny in a movie. Ari shouts homophobic and misogynistic things and makes fun of himself for being Jewish… Please go back to being lighthearted and fun.
47. Whenever Facebook updates itself. You keep taking away the things that made your website well-structured and organized. You are not Twitter. Please stop trying to make me care about what every person in the world is doing.
48. Mouthbreathers. You know who you are. You sound like those killers in the movies that call the protagonist and just breathe deeply into the phone, only you’re sitting right next to me. I hear Nasonex works wonders.
49. Kiefer Sutherland and Joaquin Phoenix. I actually don’t hate them, but they are only capable of three modes of speech: yelling, normal voice, and a forced, rather loud whisper. It makes them entertaining as hell to watch and makes me wonder how they made it so far as actors. Also what’s up with Joaquin’s lip?
50. This list. It was a pain in the ass to finish. I will never do this again.

*THIS IS A JOKE, PEOPLE.

The music of the 1970s consists of a collection of some of the most diverse and challenging rock and roll music recorded in perhaps all of the genre’s history. Whereas the ‘60s were a decade when rock first found a mainstream audience, the ‘70s were a time when rock began to stretch out and find new forms of expression— encompassing both classical styles as well as the latest in recording technology, such as synthesizers and electronic instruments. Whether it was the birth of heavy metal, the growth of the art/progressive rock movement, or the success of an idea as crazy as a rock opera, the ‘70s didn’t just open the door for new opportunities in rock and roll, it blew the whole wall down.
Granted, most of this progression began in the late ‘60s, with artists such as the Beatles and the Beach Boys creating dynamic and incredibly complex studio efforts in albums like Pet Sounds and Sgt. Pepper. This movement, which began with the artists themselves, sought to make the most out of what an album could be. By capitalizing on the freedom of the studio space and the ability to layer so many textures of sound over the traditional arrangement of vocals and instruments, rock music began to travel down several exciting new paths.
The first of those was almost a return to rock and roll’s roots – only much, much louder. You could say that it began in the 1960s with the Yardbirds, which included many of the ‘70s most prominent heavy rock group. But Led Zeppelin wasn’t merely carrying on the legacy of its past success; its tremendous success is evidence enough that this was not the case. Rather, Zeppelin took blues music and made it rock music. Much like how Elvis Presley could take a country song and make it R&B, Zeppelin could take a classic blues song and turn it into “When the Levee Breaks.”
Likewise, the Eagles did much of the same with their own enormously successful sound. Their early works, in particular the Desperado album, showed not only that could country music be harnessed to create massive pop classics, but also that there was a whole world of Americana and Western-tinged storytelling to be explored through the channels of music. These two bands, each self-contained, no-frills acts, represent the heart and height of rock music in the early-to-mid ‘70s. They relied on only the merit of their artists talents and inspirations, and carried the traditional “rock band” from its heyday in the ‘60s to, well, we’ll talk about the ‘80s another time. Either way, the ‘70s were more than just guitar, drums, and bass. There were breakthroughs to be made.
Onward and upward. By definition, these are the things we would associate with progress. In the 1970s, however, the term began to take on its own meaning. Progressive rock was a movement by the artists to bring more to rock and roll music – more sounds, more diversity, new subject matter, more exploration of the new technology. Like most of this decade’s musical styles, progressive/art rock began in the 1960s with the psychedelic movement. Relying on heavy guitar distortion and abstract lyricism, this style of music saw great success in the hands of groups such as Cream, Jefferson Airplane, and several other San Francisco acts. However, something special happened in the 1970s. Music was no longer about how to best express yourself to the listener in the form of a vinyl disc; it was about actually performing that music to the listener. And to accomplish that, the live show became an extraordinary affair.
Forgive the digression, but this is something that I feel has been mostly overlooked by this class, or at least never directly discussed. The artists of the ‘70s put on absolutely astounding shows. The technical level of production required for the light shows and synchronized fireworks displays alone are mind boggling. Heck, Pink Floyd could only do so many shows for its The Wall tour because the set cost too much! But it wasn’t just the progressive artists, such as Pink Floyd, Yes, and Genesis. Soul and funk music, largely African-American genres, had artists such as KC & the Sunshine Band and Earth, Wind, and Fire putting on just as extravagant, if not even more outrageous, performances. And then of course there is the world of heavy metal. If the antics of Ozzy Osbourne and Alice Cooper weren’t enough to get you fired up then, you must not have really been alive. Simply put, there was no better time to see a band live, particularly because there were so many great bands performing, than in the 1970s. Again, we’ll talk about the ‘80s another time.
Speaking of heavy metal, though, we find still more evidence to prove that the 1970s were some of the best years for rock and roll. Not since the ‘50s had the world seen the birth of a new major musical genre (doo-wop, soul, and psychedelic were all still heavily reliant on their forebears). Somehow, though, I don’t think that anyone had expected the next child to be Heavy Metal. Here we have a genre heavily influenced by the baroque and classical musical styles, often draped in layers of the demonic and morose, that just happens to conveniently be loud as all get-out. Perhaps not quite The Who loud, but, well, Rodney James Dio and Ozzy would probably care to argue about that. Even Led Zeppelin is often slotted into this category, though given their lyricism and musical inspirations, I would wager this is largely due to a combination of “Stairway to Heaven” and people being jealous of how awesome Jimmy Page is. Anyway, metal is a truly brilliant, beautiful thing to behold, even if you despise what it sounds like or what you may think the songs may or may not be about. In its infancy, Black Sabbath wasn’t much different from a group such as Fleetwood Mac. While the latter group chose to address its internal strife through its records, Sabbath chose to address the world’s strife through its songs. The result was an initial release of several great records, namely 1971’s Paranoid. Though the band was still “limited” (as some might argue) by Ozzy’s vocal abilities, the lyrics were dark, direct, and on-point. War-commentary (“War Pigs”) melted into social anxiety (“Paranoid”), and it became very clear very quickly that Heavy Metal was here to stay. As for the other acts we studied, such as Deep Purple, Thin Lizzy, and Judas Priest, all are equally commendable for exploring the genre and releasing some tremendous bodies of work, but Metal for the most part belonged to Sabbath in the ‘70s. The next decade may or may not be another story, however.
There was a whole lot more music in the ‘70s than what I was able to jot down in just a few pages—I almost feel remiss for not touching on Steely Dan and Billy Joel – but that just proves how explosive the decade was in terms of musical output. Forget what you thought of the ‘60s, that was all just Beach Boys, Beatles, and Motown by comparison. As America entered the decade of its 200th anniversary, the fountains of creativity both here and across the pond were overflowing with hit after hit after unbelievable hit. There was no “Dark Side” of the ‘70s, just Dark Side of the Moon, Hotel California, Paranoid, Tommy, The Stranger, Physical Graffitti, and so, so many other great LPs. On the other hand, I guess I may have forgotten about disco.

A girl I worked with over the summer told me that I have an old soul. I understood what she meant by it at the time, but there are times when I wonder whether or not I can agree with her declaration as I did that day. There’s something in me that clings to childish naivety and impish joys despite the clocks, calendars, and planet all spinning against my will. I have come, in recent years, to relish the sappy, life-loving nature of animated films–the real ones, not the Saturday morning sugar rushes–and several in particular have brought me to experiences that I couldn’t replicate in any live action film or stage play. A book, perhaps, but only because words can reach limits of the imagination no physical media could ever possibly grasp.

I speak of movies like Pixar’s Ratatoille and Wall-e. Two beautiful films about love–a passion for food in the former; a love at first sight in the latter–that massage the heart strings like the experienced, familiar hands of a concert violinist. It’s not just that they achieve so much emotion in their characters, rats and machines, but rather it’s the pure, simple, and honest feeling behind every action and moment that makes them so powerful. When that rat sits on the edge of a pot of soup and makes it into his own creation, he is a place worlds away… there’s nothing that could replace that sensation. Likewise, when Eve tries to repair Wall-e at the end of the movie and you think he’s lost his memory, your can almost feel your own heart breaking with hers. And she’s just a white, egg-shaped robot!

But it’s because they aren’t people playing roles, it’s because they’re characters completely and totally developed and enveloped in their own worlds, that we feel this way. If Daniel Craig was staring into Angelina Jolie’s eyes and couldn’t remember who she was, only that he was a garbage man, would we feel like crying then? Perhaps. But we’d know that it’s just Daniel Craig acting. With animation, that animal, object, or even person transcends its cels or pixels and makes its existence a reality. For 90 minutes, we can live in a world where rats love cooking or robots can feel emotion. When we’re in that dark theater, or even lying in bed watching TV, animation invites us along for the ride. It’s bright, colorful, and full of whimsy–or even, in films like Spirited Away, foreign and frightening–altogether a place NOT possible in reality… but wouldn’t it be nice to visit for a while, just to see what life could be like?

Tonight, I watched another film that took me into its world and warmed my soul. Unlike Pixar’s films, this one was set a little closer to our own reality, but with its own special twists. At first, I wanted to leave, to come back to my own world and stay there. But after a while I started to care about what was happening here. I started paying attention to the heroine’s plight. I wanted her to be Eve, and get her Wall-e back. And when the end finally came, I was, like one of the characters in the film, sad to be returning home… yet grateful for ever having had the experience at all.

The movie is called The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, and I recommend it to anyone who, like me, doesn’t mind letting their heart take you to new places every now and then. It’s a Japanese anime that has received high amounts of praise since its release in 2006, and I think that, like Spirited Away, it is proof that even in the world of CGI and Pixar, cel-drawn art still has that magical quality.

I haven’t posted in ages, I know, and there’s so much to discuss–the list grows longer by the day–but forgive for not writing a real blog entry for just a while longer. In exchange, you can read my titillating comments on why Sonic is a terrible series in 3D. Joy!

Blink: Is it a bad thing that I’m suddenly highly interested in the StH franchise?
StealthFox: lmao
StealthFox: maybe if you’re doing a historically report
StealthFox: -ly
Blink: ehh
Blink: It’s about the 2d to 3d transition
Blink: I’m wondering why it failed
StealthFox: haven’t we talked about this?
Blink: And I know the basics, camera and controls
Blink: Have we? I don’t know. Maybe
Blink: I’ve touched on it in the past.
Blink: Now though, I’m seriously into it
StealthFox: first of all, sonic team cannot do 3d. they just cannot execute a game properly in a 3d environment
Blink: I don’t mean Sonic team. Screw them, they suck
StealthFox: second, sonic need only run in one direction to do what he does. 3d involves near infinite directional capabilities. failure imminent.
Blink: Aha, see, this is where one needs a brain. (which Sonic Team lacks)
Blink: Sonic needs to run in one direction…
Blink: How can you control that?
Blink: a compass
Blink: Give Sonic a direction to run in, eg, North
Blink: The entire game, Sonic runs North, in general
Blink: Who cares how you get there, just go North
Blink: It follows the same principles of an old 2d Sonic game, run right
StealthFox: are you advocating the existence of an on-rails sonic?
Blink: Nay
Blink: Free roaming
StealthFox: uh…
Blink: But you know you need to run North
Blink: Just like you knew you needed to go Right
StealthFox: sounds like burnout paradise or crackdown or any other sandbox game
Blink: Free roaming, but the goal is always at the northmost point on the map
Blink: Well, the levels wouldn’t be totally open
Blink: Imagine a bridge
Blink: You know you need to get from where you get on to where you get off
Blink: But as Sonic, you can climb all over it, run in different lanes, etc.
Blink: It has a general direction, and natural barriers, but you’ve still generally gotta go in the same direction
Blink: *still got a lot of freedom
Blink: *distracted atm(
StealthFox: so, basically, a race track
Blink: Well what do you expect of Sonic? xD
Blink: But no, not really.
StealthFox: i don’t see any reason why this should exist
Blink: More like a Monster Rally race course
Blink: In fact, I bet a Sonic game in a monster rally course would sell and play better than any other 3d Sonic game
StealthFox: what is the key to success in completing a 2d sonic course, aside from running right?
Blink: Timing jumps?
StealthFox: level memorization, essentially
Blink: A little, yes
Blink: That or insane reflexes
StealthFox: sonic is an arcade game, not a platformer, wouldn’t you say? the puzzles are not challenging your ability to time different types of jumps and traverse the environment. the game just loads you to the gills with rings and sends you flying towards a boss encounter, with spike traps and jumps and loops along the way
Blink: Arcade game, yes. But I disagree about the puzzles, Sonic 3 is good proof of needing to have either A) fast reflexes or B) level memorization
Blink: Then again, Sonic 3 was more adventure like. It had saveslots
StealthFox: i’m trying to fight my bias here, but level memorization is essentially the same thing that all arcade games require: ikaruga to contra and so on
StealthFox: so, my point really is that in turning to a 3d environment, what was fun in 2d became rather ordinary and boring in 3d
Blink: What, the arcade aspects?
StealthFox: castlevania had the same thing happen: it thrived to much off of the super metroid exploration system in 2d that when they attempted to do that in 3d they forgot that it actually sucks–something that metroid prime carefully avoided
StealthFox: yes, the arcade aspects
Blink: wait, they forgot that what “actually sucks”, the exploration system?
StealthFox: runing and timing jumps and the twitch reflexes so inherent to sonic had already been done superbly in 3d before sonic ever got there
StealthFox: the wandering around listlessly and platforming through repetitive environments ad nauseum
StealthFox: castlevania platforming is incredibly vertical
Blink: So what made it entertaining in the first place then?
StealthFox: in metroid prime, it’s all very horizontal
Blink: Ahhh, I see
Blink: So keeping it 2d, but making the game 3d
StealthFox: the fact that it was 2d allows for verticality and different types of progression
StealthFox: plus, 3d has one huge problem: camera views
Blink: Essentially, MP kept a 2d map and Castlevania tried to make a 3d one?
StealthFox: castlevania tried to literally recreate itself in 3d, warts and all. the hub system was a failure, the combat was mundane, and the environments were stagnant.
StealthFox: MP solved the problem by creating a sense of consistency, as if you were exploring this enormous and varied planet’s surface for the first time
StealthFox: it had variety, it was very horizontal, and it still delivered the hardcore backtracking and item collecting without making it overwhelming to the average player
StealthFox: only mario galaxy has so far been able to truly manipulate highly vertical environments this generation, and that’s because of the nature of its level design. no other series has the flexibility to pull it off…. except ratchet and clank, which did it to a smaller extent on PS2
Blink: So you actually meant that the 3d transitions should be true sequels that aim to keep the core gameplay rather than 3d versions of the 2d games
StealthFox: i think that there are things that a 3D sonic can keep from the 2D games and things that it should do differently. So far, no game has really gotten that right.
Blink: Yep. That sounds about right
Blink: Lacking in just about any detail at all, but for what it is, spot on
StealthFox: you look at screens and videos for the games as they come out and think “boy, how could this not be great?” and then play it and say “oh.”
StealthFox: You play Galaxy yet?
Blink: I get it tomorrow. Maybe tonight, if I pick my “one gift” correctly
StealthFox: Ok. Well when you play it, you will understand what I am about to say
Blink: I asked for exactly two things this year: Galaxy and a chair, so I know I’ll get it. :P
Blink: Shoot
StealthFox: The whimsy and style and imagination that is apparent in every star challenge, ever level design, and every stretch of bricks, blocks, and planetoids in that game is exactly what the Sonic games have lacked. They are soulless and shallow in comparison not only to Mario, but to their former and even DS iterations.
StealthFox: The “pop” and creative spark twinkle brightly at times, but then get snuffed out in a matter of moments
Blink: Any examples?
StealthFox: sonic and the secret rings: a few great moments of frenetic, intense dodging and running ruined by crappy music, punishing difficulty and a surprisingly tiring setting.
StealthFox: It was so close to being a worthy sonic game, but time and budget constraints, or maybe just a complete lack of creative energy sank it like a bag of bricks
Blink: ouch
Blink: Yeah, development time is another big issue
Blink: One new Sonic game every 12 months = fail
Blink: Just, like, inherently
Blink: It’s not possible to make quality games that fast, and it shows
StealthFox: as an aside, i totally think they should have called Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 Rainbow Six: Vegas: Cashing In

And there you have it folks. Any comments on this one are fully appreciated. I really do love dissecting a game and honoring/trashing it as need be. Join in, won’t you?

Gah, I went and got all busy again and haven’t posted crap in nearly two weeks. I don’t have the time for anything extensive right now, but here’s a few key points I’ll try to expand on for the next post, assuming I can get one in after my onslaught of Exams (and Super Mario Galaxy!!) early in the week:

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune Demo
Ratchet and Clank Future
Zack and Wiki
American Gangster
Phantom Hourglass
Tomb Raider: Anniversary
Musings on Bioshock and Atlas Shrugged
Gears of War: one year later

And many more mysterious and unrelated topics. Can you handle the suspense? I bet so.

To be perfectly frank, I have no idea what exactly the title for this post means. I needed to put something in the box, and some letters flew from my fingers. The rest, as they say, is history.

I’ve been feeling a bit distant from gaming lately. I still keep up with the news regularly — and my engagement in gaming-related discussions and the like have not waned in any discernible way — but something about the actuality of playing something has become something almost revolting. I still clock in a few hours on LOTRO nightly, trying my damnedest to get a steed and hit level 50 to hand with all the other big boys, but turning on my PS3 or Wii for something other than watching a movie or downloading games — yeah, I’m buying stuff and not playing it… how sick is that? — is simply no longer occuring. I think the problem lies somewhere with my decision to plow through FFXII this summer, before moving on to another game, as I still have ten or twelve hours to clock in there that I am wondering if I even have in me. But, damnit, sooner or later the pile of shame will crush me and I’ll have to play something to live with myself. I just hope writing about it will work as some sort of… catalyst for my gaming soul to get its ass in gear. That, and the trip I’m taking to New York should allow for great DS moments.

Instead of video games, I’ve been occupying a lot of time with chores, work, golf, movies, and books. one-upping the nation’s brightest minds. At its heart, Bourne is simply trying to get to the next place in one piece, to find out why he is a killing machine and who turned him in to one. He is intense, driven, and simultaneously selfless, risking life and limb for old friends and complete strangers that may be able to provide him with a clue as to where to go next. Its stunts are wild but never extraordinary. Its violence is brutal but controlled. Its a movie that is practically engineered to have plaudits whooping and pundits quitely nodded with grudging approval. In short, a hard film to hate that — even if it was less entertaining than the spectacle of Die Hard 4 — is solidly built and well-directed by the seemingly unstoppable Paul Greengrass. I urge you all to see this movie.

Ahh… so where does that leave me? I think I was going to write something about how Nintendo has been completely ignoring its major titles coming out this year, or something truly compelling about how the Wii is essentially what the GameCube could have been, given a few changes in the industry. I could have also written about some of those bloody books I’ve been reading (short story: Suite was good, Cussler’s Black Wind is feeling a bit stale so far, and Harry Potter you’ve heard enough about). But I think that having finally written something after a two week absence is good enough for me, and I’ll leave things here. There’s a horse that needs buying.

—————-
Now playing: Interpol – Pace Is the Trick
via FoxyTunes

Today was a great day for video games. Not only did I trade in the fantastically underwhelming Final Fantasy III — good fucking riddance, I say to thee — but I let Hotel Dusk go as well. The irony there is that I got $24 for FFIII, and only $18 for Hotel Dusk, which is a far superior product. Speaking of which, did I ever manage to write anything about that game? Nothing comes to mind, so allow me to splooge all over my own blog for a moment.

Hotel Dusk is a fantastic literary experience wrapped in the retro, black and white coating of a 1970s noir and shoved into the small confines of a DS cartridge. It is not a very good game — the actual puzzles and environment interactions range from mind-numbingly dull to fist-in-the-wall hard — but I don’t think it ever tries to establish itself as one. Instead, it opts to provide the player with a fascinating yarn about a cop on the hunt for his long lost partner and the people that may or may not be able to help track him down. It’s not the most well told story, either, though its dialog is something truly joyful to read. I honestly wish there was a way for me to fit “Shut your head, Louie” into my daily vocabulary, but alas at the times we live in. OK… I’m being rather coy here, so let’s just come out with it: as a fan of good fiction, I had a really great time with the story and characters of Hotel Dusk, and I hope that you may one day get the chance to enjoy them as well. There, now let’s get back to the loot.

In exchange for Dusk and FFIII, I picked up quite a horde: Viewtiful Joe 2 (the last good one), Resident Evil Remake (it looks so pretty, but it plays so awful!), Dark Cloud 2 (haven’t played it yet, but apparently it’s the Second Coming), and last and certainly least… Devil May Cry 2. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking, but it was that or Killer 7 and when I asked the GameStop guy what to get, he just kind of sighed and said “Devil May Cry 2.” I think that’s rather telling of how much suck is possible in a game… without that game being Sonic the Hedgehog for 360/PS3.

So I haven’t yet sat down to really try any of these out, since I have a monster of an exam on Friday that may very well crush me if I’m not careful, but rest assured this weekend will be an unholy orgy of digital interaction. Me, my Wii, a TV, and maybe the PS3. Actually, definitely the PS3. Virtua Fighter 5 was in my goodie bag as well.

Having not played a VF before 4, I never really got into the series. In fact, I can hardly consider myself a fighting game fan, as pretty much every brawler other than VF4 and Super Smash Bros. has made the sad trip back into the store to be traded in. But with VF5, I think there’s hope. Even without the “sticks” — religious relics that no true fighting fan can play let alone breathe without — me and my roommate have had an absolute blast going back and forth beating the utter crap out of one another. It’s part of the reason for this entry’s title: there ain’t no blood in this series. There are, however, God-like uppercuts and spine-cracking pile drivers. And for the first time since, well, Soul Calibur 2 I suppose, I’m actually looking forward to my next time playing the game. Take that, Mortal Kombat, Guilty Gear (yeah, a little too WTF for me), and Tekken. I’m playing with the big boys now. Literally. As a Lei-Fei and Pai/Vanessa player, I’m stacked against my roommate’s Jeffry, Wolf, and Brad nearly every match. But those slow fuckers don’t stand a chance! It’s actually at the point now where I’m using “skill” to beat him, and giving him opportunities to win just to keep him less frustrated. How modest of me, no?

Well… this was a rather disjointed entry, but my brain’s cooked for tonight. I’ll be back again soon with more VF5, maybe some flOw (!!), and of course the retro round-up.

Addendum: I totally forgot. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Tournament Fighter was the only fighting game I can safely say I have “played the shit out of.” God that was an awesome time. Fuckin’ robot guy was cheap as fuck, though.

I have had a fucking impossible time finding myself a copy of The Departed for Blu-Ray to test out on my PS3 (in 1080i, sadly… Wallets are only so fat at 19). So I bit the bullet and bought the special edition metal-cased Best Buy copy today instead. I am only writing about it to say that 1. this movie will kick you in the balls and make you weep with pleasure instead of pain and 2. this is potentially a very good sign for Blu-ray movies. When I went to BB yesterday, they had less than 5 regular edition DVDs in stock. Today, the cardboard shelves they constructed to hold the overnight surge in supply they must’ve gotten looked like it had been shaken down like Nick Nolte in an AA meeting. The movie is that fucking awesome.

“I can get the rat.”

BUY IT.