When they read this...

Do you think they regret sounding like the way they do? Or do they not even notice?

I like pools, though I would expect them to make it a bit smaller.

I own too many books, y'know?

I missed a chance to post not-filler. Alas.

Also, now that I recognize scenery music so often used on This American Life as being from Philip Glass's score for Mishima--a fact both obvious and unexpected--I can't hear it without picturing someone committing seppuku.



And because I want it on dvd and when I think of Glass I think of Nyman and I was on youtube, Prospero's Books:

Yowch.

A month and a half. This is insulting casual disregard for even the low bar of mediocrity is appalling...

On a sidenote, I think the New Yorker cartoonists' blog proves that they are funny, but normally not allowed to be.

King City Vol. 2 is being posted...due to the well documented woes of Tokyopop.

And I hear that in the next Harvest Moon you can ride an ostrich (which you presumably raise for eggs). Japan, you know my every weakness.

Onwards!

When I Grow Up...

A lot of changes happening for me this coming summer. I'm quiting my job in a month's time. I'm moving to New York City right after that. I'm starting a Ph.D. program in the fall. And just before that, I'm going to propose to GF.

So, I'd love to get some input on what I should do for the summer. Duvall has suggested something fun like volunteering at a museum. GF has suggested that I do something that will advance my academic network (volunteer research). A coworker has suggested that I:

1. Write short articles everyday or week and try to get them published. Also, start a blog to house them all.
2. Tutor kids.
3. Help old ladies cross the street (or just something related to old people).
4. Work with illegal immigrants using language skills.
5. Assist a presidential campaign.

She came up with all this in the span of about five minutes. Needless to say, she didn't want to do her work.

So, what do you all think? My fallback is temping, which I'm perfectly happy with. I do want to stay in NYC and hold to a 9-5 or so schedule as much as possible, as this is GF and my chance to finally live together. And we're getting a Wii for some quality time together.

Old Friends

Turns out, being checked out at work has its advantages. Otherwise, I would never have been bored enough to discover that Fafblog has returned.

Fafblog - The best source anywhere for snarky politics and pie.

On this, the 101st post...

I bring you what I bring you best.

I want one of these.

These are neat. I linked to the source, but this is where I got it, and the banner ads at hobby blog embarrass me.

A bit older, but Jim Steranko's hair in this romance comic is fabulous. I keep staring at it.

And an oldie but a one-I-just-read-so-it-interests me. Namely in the comments.

Still filler...

So obviously, I continue to lie about my involvement with this blog. But work feels like work even when I'm not working. Yes this is a link blog item, but let me say I never expected to read something like this on a major gaming gossip site--a smart article about sexuality and juvenile sexuality in video games that doesn't spend all its time mired in preemptively defending itself from charges that it wants to take everyone's cheesecake frosting or equating boobs with adult material. It's one of the smartest thing ever on one of these sites really ever. Possibly the only flaw being that as the writer's expertise/interest seems to be Chinese cinema, all the examples come from there. Already one or two of the thicker set in the comments section think it's a comment on just one national culture, and not gaming culture generally.

Without delving into what the approach to narratives should be in video games, the sooner characterization in games matures past sexuality = thongs--though, first things first, we need to go by adult = sex--the sooner we can all collectively sneer off the folks who try to rationalize porn trading cards in Witcher as being character building.

It's interesting, I think, how the fact that this sort of discussion is so rare shows how much the study of video games is. It's still mostly concerned with defining what a "video game" is and the admittedly big task of figuring out the mix interactivity, game, and narrative . . . in essentially expanding the vocabulary of how you talk about games. It's so much in its infancy it hasn't even come up with pretentious term for itself yet, like "interactive novel" or vide0 games* or something.

More or less, there are a lot of John Woos, a few John Fords** out there in gaming, maybe even a Spielberg, but no Hitchcock. Which is me trying to say, conventions in games aren't common enough (mostly a strength of gaming actually, that they can be so varied) that the master manipulators work in genres of games instead of narrative genres) that we have designers playing with audience expectations just yet.*** That self-aware design cycle might've begun in adventure gaming (if adventure gaming was even half as healthy now as when Sierra was churning out franchises it might've even gone past jokes) but mostly, not enough examples of manipulating audience expectation. I don't actually like audience manipulation, it turns into cheap shocks usually, but when you're meta enough to start designing that way, that's when gaming will have really matured.

Chengora, I invite you to finish Bioshock and tell me if I'm wrong.


* You have to see the zero, and know that Art Spiegelman wants adult comics to be called comix, by the way, or it's not funny.
** Sid Meier/Miyamoto in Zelda mode
*** Penn and Teller don't count.

Cracking

So on my recent trip to Taiwan and Indonesia, I picked up various kinds of electronic equipment for friends and for myself: a microSD card, a reader for said card, a portable hard drive. This being Asia, invariably there were stands nearby selling all kinds of pirated DVDs, music, and video games. (On one of the occasions, I was wearing a suit, so it was a little weird walking through.)

I'm not going to talk about the benefits and evils of pirating. I'll make one quick comment and one long observation. First, quickly, Taiwan has really cleaned up its piracy issues. I remember several years ago walking along the night market outside my grandma's house as seeing DVDs everywhere. Nothing now.

Second, and longer, the experience in Indonesia especially got me thinking about some recent developments in video games. It's very difficult to copy-protect DVDs - sooner or later someone cracks it. But I wonder whether the recent trends of online play, constant updates and upgrades, and occasionally half-finished game releases aren't in some way tied to anti-pirating efforts. On several of the games, I saw disclaimers (in English, surprisingly) that you could not use the DVDs to play online. In addition, the ones where that was possible (I haven't obviously tested whether this is true) appeared to be older games that came out a minimum of 1-2 years ago.

And the reason online play is blocked is because the game developers can constantly check up on the legality of your copy. Most cracks to play games illegally require invasive changes to the executable file or core game files. That kind of thing is pretty easy to suss out. Similarly, constant file updates also make it very easy to catch crackers and force them to reinstall. Cripple your initial release just enough, string out your updates long enough, and you'll likely get all the people who were going to purchase the game to do so legally.

So, how plausible is this? I'm sure it's not the only reason behind buggy releases and constant updates with limited tweaks. But it could very well be a contributing factor to why certain types of games - especially single-player, offline ones - are increasingly being packaged with specific online features.

A word from our sponsor*

Well, I haven't really gotten to what I wanted to get to lately...if it means anything to you three, I've finished the freelance assignment, so we're back in intermittent business here as well. To trumpet and herald the possible return of posts, I bring you something that's here because, to the best of my knowledge, it has never been remotely covered here despite inspiring the blog's name.

Announced at the best reason to go to Minnesota, GenCon: AD&D 4th Edition. It's got rules changes!

But much more importantly, it is Wizards of the Coast incorporating online play, which is ample reason for me to point out the real highlight of the article. Ladies and gentlemen, if it's not online, we're in meatspace. Couldn't have dreamed of a better term myself.

*Edited to make more sense. The whole post that is. I maintain that within 24 hours, wholesale changes may happen without notice to fix things. After that, they aren't mistakes. They are stylistic twitches that make things more better.

stupid nerds.

I like to avoid link blogging and said like filler, but I also like to waste time today, so...Dirk Deppey at the Journalista blog had an entry today (under comics culture) that referred back to a New York Times article that is the very definition of filler for the paper which discusses nerdiness as an expression of hyperwhiteness and nerds as specifically "refusing to exercise the racial privilege upon which white youth cultures are founded." Some of the weaknesses in that vein of argument are in called out in Deppey's piece. I'm personally trying to figure out if I've misread my childhood and becoming a nerd was some sort of active rebellion as opposed to a defensive posture. And while joining any group while young is partly a defensive move, I don't recall "I want to be a nerd" being a rallying cry the way even preppies might have had it. Of course, that means that every exclusively white youth culture is either an absorption of African-American culture or a rebellion from absorbing it.

I'm especially thrilled that this racial reading of subculture (not inherently a bad mode to be) involves deracinating Asians as a group (oops). Possibly, our nerdlike cultural typing has either having been absorbed as whiteness or is not counted outright. I know our nation discusses race in black/white primarily...but you spring up from California with this stuff then you got to cast a wider net. I'm sure I'm leaving folks out too, but then, I haven't written a book yet. So, filler, and embarssing academia. Awesome.

EDIT: Someone other then me's actually coherent response to the article.

An Old New Yorker Comic

I find myself thinking about this one New Yorker comic a lot recently. Two people are walking down the street, with one of them shivering and saying "I feel like I've just been Googled." Well, in the interests of narcissism, I tried Googling us.

Obviously, there's us. Then there's Warren. Then there's a Chinese girl called Marylu whose page is down, but you can find it cached. Her cached page is apparently the closest description of our site from the search results. "Three collaborators blogging about love, democracy, and Chinese labor." (By the way, Marylu, if you're around, it should be four collaborators - and thanks for your interest in the blog).

Edit: re: Duvall's comment, I will modify my meaning on this last line:

In general, it was a little weird googling the blog itself. I mean, I've certainly googled my own name, but there was something surreal about seeing our names in the virtual lights. Or really, not seeing it up there.

Slumming in Shanghai

I never truly grasped how much puff there is in newspapers until I started reading them regularly. If mistake reading a trend piece looking for news, I mostly shrug, with the occasional shake of the head at a particularly poorly constructed segue. Now it’s evident that the advent of blogging that diarylike pieces has provided a new arena for fluff to appear. The New York Times is running some sort of series about people making homes in foreign countries, a interesting enough start point.

Not so much for the commentary about China or Shanghai, (despite the red state label)—though the broker stuff is kinda interesting to me—I was struck by this piece. Well, by about a page of this piece, before I got bored and skimmed the rest. I’m struck by the weird blinders on the writer, the lack of self-awareness combined with the sense that the writer is thoughtful. And don’t mean her interaction with China, and I actually don’t want to discuss China in this post, but the strange dissonance in the article.

She’s moving out of New York, tired of boutique shops on Bleecker and the $20 hamburgers.* The fear of terrorism is certainly real, but a good of her motivation to move seems to be related to escaping being surrounded by conspicuous consumption, even while marveling at the ease for finding a 2k sq. foot space plus for 1,500 a month (a couple hundred less than per capita in China). The experience of finding her newly renovated rented family house in old middle class neighborhood (the sort getting plumbing while developers force out tenants) with an oven, ac and heater is likened to finding a $150 a month apartment in New York back in the day. I tell you I can find an apartment in Shanghai right now for $150. It might come with a bucket.

So she’s leaving New York to Shanghai to escape conspicuous consumption, and I wouldn’t begrudge that, and I know this Home and Garden**, but what the hell? The theme in the piece that keeps coming is the energy in the new gold rush Shanghai is like living in early 70s New York. Target audience or not, what kind of dissonance is required to decide that's a good notion? Now, I didn’t live in New York in the seventies, but presumably she’s excited for the economy to bottom out and all the attendant crises. Much to look forward to. But her neighbors are thrifty and not wasteful. And the middle class and poor, they live near by. And I guess living next door to that might assuage whatever ill-defined (not even necessarily necessary) guilt she might feel.

Anyway, good luck to Shanghai, hopefully not actually beginning to feel the greatness of New York in the seventies, or it has an absolute shit decade to come.

* There is that foi gras burger though that’s bound to be more than twenty, but I still don’t know where to get a $20 burger other than in hotels.
** There’s always the occasional article about young people happy to be independent in soho and with the parents paying for freshdirect.

Last one from me today

After a long drought, it appears that I can't stop posting. So, last one from me. A great article in the NYTimes about new products designed to improve earning capability and basic tasks in developing countries:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/29/science/29cheap.html

See the actual exhibit here:

http://www.peoplesdesignaward.org/design_for_the_other_90/

filler

I picked up Nova #2 today, because I felt consumery and I wanted to read something where post-Civil War Iron Man, oh how far you've fallen, and another character didn't talk like doofs. Other than Speedball looking like Spawn...when did Venom get eyeballs?

bloglines + Heroes + filler

For those three of you who may read this,* may I direct you to several of esteemed content providers on the right? I should've when I added them, but am a fool.

Geoff Klock analyses comics and pop culture with intellectual rigor and discipline. I can only do that for things I don't. Recommendations are much cooler than snubs. Therefore Geoff Klock is much cooler than me, despite the villainous moniker.

Warren Peace reviews lots of promising comics. If they're good he'll tell you. And if they're not he'll tell you also. And he uses a scanner. So he blogs text and pictures practically everyday, which leads me to suspect he's a supernatural creature of some sort, or at least has one in his service.

Clean Plate Club catalogs places with good food in New York City. That probably makes it the most useful of the lot. And it's witty too.

Memes provides Hobs the space for Hobs to pontificate without my rude interruption. Actually thats not true, but it'd doubtless be a good thing if it were true.

And I don't think this merits its own post, so here it is, stuck to the bottom of the shoe: I saw part of Heroes last night, and I must say, I didn't realize that a full third of the people seem to have emo haircuts. And then I watched Volver and processed four thoughts: Penelope Cruz is really pretty. Pedro Almodolvar is really good. His sense of proportion regarding the beauty of pure emotions and personal responsibility (emotional concessions to social mores) seems off. (see also: Talk to Her) I would kill for wallpaper like the patterns that appeared during the credits.**

***

* Ahh, I'm behind on my reading list posts, huh? Naruto and Mushishi: not done. Bleach: coming up. I wonder how often I can change the template in a simulation of progress--or use these filler posts in a simulation of content production.
** Not a human being. Probably, just any animal you don't automatically anthropomorpize. I might maim though; I liked the patterns that much.

***EDITED TO ADD SAID CREDITS FROM THE INTERNET'S NO.1 SOURCE OF COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL