This past holiday Monday I attended an event many may be familiar with, while some may have only heard about. That event is called Video Games Live, and it’s pretty well the most fun any gamer could have at the symphony. Yes…the symphony. Video Games Live tours the world, and uses local orchestras and choirs to perform music from some of the greatest video game titles both past and present. In my case it was the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, and the performance was held at the Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium.

Now when I describe this concept to those who are unfamiliar with the event and don’t bother to read the internet (pssst…they have a web site. I linked to it above), the usual tropes for going out to the symphony come up. Things like "Oh well I don’t have anything nice to wear," and "It’ll be boring having to be so quiet when the music from <insert awesome game here> is playing," are often uttered as talking points. You can dress up in your Sunday best if you want to. It’s a free country after all. But you don’t have to. You can come dressed in your day to day wear, or even come as a video game character. As for being quiet, I doubt the orchestras who perform at these events will ever receive more boisterous praise from a crowd then what they receive here. The picture above pretty much says it all. The team of Jack Wall, as conductor, and Tommy Tallarico, as MC and host, work hard to encourage the crowd to express their gratitude through the age old method of yelling and cheering as loud as possible. As the pictures and videos after the jump will show, they don’t have to work hard. In Edmonton the audience comes prepared. This city is the home of BioWare after all, as well as Fragapalooza. We have a very decent gaming culture around here.

Even in an area with a tight gaming culture, it’s not just the crowds that set  VGL apart from your average night at the symphony. There’s a few events surrounding the concert that make it more of an event. In the case of the Edmonton show, Future Shop held a couple giveaways, and the folks behind VGL also had a costume contest and some other fun contests. The costume contest had an assortment of gaming characters, as well as some pop culture icons. There were a couple Team Fortress 2 characters, but unfortunately in this contest Engineer wasn’t credit to team.

There are still many other audience participation events and contests, including the one pictured above. I think I’ll let the VGL Wikipedia Article describe exactly was is going on here for me.

Space Invaders: A random person is picked out of the audience to come up on stage to become the video game. The person is tracked on stage and moves left and right to control the spaceship from the game. They are given a button to fire with. The orchestra, once again, improvises the game music in real-time with the competitor’s actions. The player has 2 minutes to finish the first level of the game. As an added challenge, each time a bonus ship comes across the top of the screen, the player earns their score amount in cash. However, the player can only win this money if they complete the level within two minutes.

Unfortunately the guy who was called upon for this contest didn’t manage to complete the level. He didn’t win the grand prize but he did receive a couple consolation prizes. This package included a home version of Space Invaders so, in Tommy Tallarico’s words, "he can practice."

Inbetween each of these events, we were treated to pieces from titles like Mass Effect, Chrono Cross and Chrono Trigger, Beyond Good & Evil, Halo, The Legend of Zelda, and a full rendition of One Winged Angel from Final Fantasy VII which included a full choir. I’ve managed to get some videos below.

Videos

Now if you’re asking why I didn’t take any videos of the popular pieces, like Mario or Zelda, I have one answer for you. You’ll have to go to the show yourself to experience those. Video Games Live is indeed an experience, and it’s one that should be had by any and all who would call themselves a gamer. It’s a community event that brings together local gamers, local musicians, and local singers. It places eveyone on equal footing, and gives the world of game music the credit it deserves. Check out my gallery below for the few photographs I did manage to take. I hope to see you next year.

Gallery

The Edmonton Oilers have seen many stars pass through their ranks. Sometimes they’ve passed a little too quickly through, moving onto to other teams without making much of an impact on the blue and copper. Still there is one roster of guys that captured the hearts and minds of Edmontonians, and have gone down in the annals of hockey history as one of the best squads to ever play the game. They managed to re-write the rules of NHL hockey on many fronts, and formed a dynasty that is recognized throughout the league. I’m talking about the team composed of Wayne Gretzky, Jari Kurri, Grant Fuhr, Paul Coffey, Mark Messier, and many others. They were the Oilers dynasty team, and on 18 Jan 2009 about 16,000 fans descended on Rexall Place to honour yet another great from that era.

As the video said, Glenn Anderson was known for driving to the net to score goals and setup plays. He was the one of the de facto power forwards of the 1980s, scoring 498 goals and 601 assists in 1129 regular season games. He was known for being there when his teammates needed him, even scoring 17 playoff game wining goals in his career, the 5th most in the NHL. Off the ice he was just as much of a thoughtful guy, dedicating a great deal of his time to the Cross Cancer Institute, both in donations and surprise visits. There even one story where he visited a 4 year old girl by the name of Alicia Maryniuk, who was battling leukemia. He didn’t make one stop though, he followed up with her as he did with all the people he visited. She managed to beat cancer, and 23 years later has a family of her own. She and Glenn were reunited for tonight’s ceremonies. They even posed next to a picture of her at 4, propped up in the Stanley Cup, next to the moustached Anderson.

After the video rolled, #9 emerged to greet the crowd. However he didn’t come out onto the makeshift stage like the guests and presenters. No no, he skated off the bench and around the ice like any other player. I’m sure it was quite a trip for him to be back in that historic blue and orange. After a good skate around, the other players who had their jerseys retired were introduced, as were many other former top Oilers, Glenn’s family, and a host of other presenters. Speeches were made, and we were even treated to a good ol’ Glenn Anderson style end-to-end goal. Glenn Anderson’s #9 was raised to the rafters, and then it was game time.

The game that followed versus the Phoenix Coyotes was a treat. The Oilers played fairly well in both the 1st and 3rd periods, and Ethan Moreau even managed to net his first hat-trick of the season. The final has 6 – 3 in favour of the Oilers. If you want to check out a bunch of photos I took at the game, check out my Flickr Photostream. If you have no idea about half of what I’m talking about when it comes to hockey and the terminology around it, check out the Wikipedia article.

I recently had a few things to take care of in the Vancouver area, and had a credit with my favourite airline Westjet that needed to be used. So hi ho, hi ho, it was off to the wet coast (or left coast, depending on how you look at it) I went on Saturday. But I couldn’t make a stop in the GVRD without meeting up with everyone for Dot Com Pho.

Using the power of Twitter, we set up a meet-up at Pho Lan in Richmond. The crew included Stephen Fung, Ed Lau, John Chow, his wife Sarah, his daughter Sally, and Jennifer Unruh from Citrus Pie. We then proceeded to poke fun at Vancouver-based hippie feel good conference Northern Voice, discuss Twitter as the newer better IM system, and point out the foibles of doing business in Richmond. Oh and the Pho was pretty good too. Check out the video below.

The cruiser was facing west bound at the time. During this I was on the highway heading north towards downtown, so all I saw was a white flash like from a lightning zap. From my understanding, NAVCAN is still unsure of where the meteor landed, or if it landed.

Well it’s been a month since I last posted anything. Did anyone one of the five people who read this blog miss me? Well the wait may be well worth it, if just for this one post. I just received what is one of the more hotly anticipated cases to come out in a while. Futurelooks.com originally previewed this case this past summer at Computex 2008, and now it’s finally made it into our hands. That’s right, I have in my possession an Antec Skeleton, and I’m going to show you the unboxing right here.

I literally just received the case today, so I haven’t had a chance to set it up where I normally take my review photos. That means that for now everything is going to be spread out on my living floor, and some pictures will use the flash. Anyhow, due to the shape of the Antec Skeleton, the box is much more cubic then the average computer case box. It’s also fairly boring to look at, compared to what is inside.

Upon opening the box, I got my first look at the 250mm fan that adorns the top of the Antec Skeleton above the motherboard area. Now I’ve seen some big fans in my day. I have a couple of pictures in my archive of John Chow holding up a 170mm case fan, with that evil glint in his eye. But that is nothing compared to the size of this fan. Hopefully it should do what I would expect such a fan to do, and that is remain quiet while moving a great deal of air.

And here it is, the Antec Skelton, finally and completely freed from it’s packaging. Some have expressed certain concerns over the construction of this case, and rightly so. Many of the "open air" cases I’ve seen have been made mostly of plastic, and as a result may not be able to stand up to the punishment such a case would take. The Antec Skeleton, on the other hand, is mostly steel. It’s really easy to see what parts are made of what material. The black components pictured here are steel, and the gunmetal grey parts are plastic. Overall, this looks to be a very sturdy case that will feature prominently on many a hardware monkey’s bench.

There’s one more concern that people have expressed in the Futurelooks Forums about the Antec Skeleton, and that’s if it’ll accommodate a large CPU heatsink. There’s a gallery of pictures below, with a few more close-ups of the area in question. I have my doubts as to whether a cooler like the Cooler Master Hyper 212 will fit under the little lip around the fan. Unfortunately we’ll have to wait until next week, when the full review is posted, to see what kind of heatsink you’ll need to use with this case. Until then, enjoy the pictures below.