Numbers for Letters

Super Bowl 47 Fun

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 17:49:00 +0000

I am not a huge sports fan but I like hanging out with friends and honestly I'll take any excuse to eat hot wings. So when our friends and neighbors decided to host a small Super Bowl gathering it was a pretty easy sell.

In order to make things a bit more interesting I put together a small Super Bowl prop bet list. Prop (short for proposition) bets are based on certain events occurring or not occurring during the event. I thought they'd be fun because they're a lot easier for non-sport fans to figure out. So here's the list I printed out for everyone. In case you are wondering I got the questions from a few searches online - so I can't take credit for all of them.

1.       Who will win the Game? (Ravens/49ers)
2.       How long will It take Alicia Keys to sing the National Anthem? (Over 2:15/Under 2:15)
3.       Will the coin toss be heads or tails? (H/T)
4.       Which team will win the coin toss? (Ravens/49ers)
5.       Will Beyonce Be Joined By Jay Z on Stage During Superbowl Halftime Show? (Y/N)
6.       Beyonce's Hair Will Be… (Straight/Curly or Crimped)
7.       What color will the sport drink dumped on the winning team's coach be? (Orange/Green/Other)
8.       Total Field Goals (Over 3/Under 3)
9.       Will there be more than 3 total sacks in the game? (Y/N)
10.   What will The First Score of Super Bowl be? (Touchdown/Field Goal or Safety)
11.   First Baltimore Ravens Touchdown Will Be… (Pass/Run)
12.   First San Francisco 49ers Touchdown Will Be… (Pass/Run)
13.   Which player will Score the First Touchdown? (See player list)
14.   Total Number of lost fumbles in Super Bowl?
15.   Team To Reach 14 Points or More First in the Super Bowl? (Ravens/49ers)
16.   Team To Commit First Turnover of Super Bowl? (Ravens/49ers)
17.   Will Either Team Score Two Unanswered Times in Super Bowl 47? (Y/N)
18.   Will There Be a Second Half Lead Change in Super Bowl 47? (Y/N)
19.   Will There Be a Missed Extra Point in the Game? (Y/N)
20.   Will There Be a Score in the First 0:29 of Super Bowl 47? (Y/N)
21.   Will There Be a Score after the two-minute warning in the fourth quarter? (Y/N)
22.   Will the game's MVP be a quarterback (Y/N)
23.   Will Super Bowl go into double overtime? (Y/N)
24.   Your guess for total points scored by both teams:
(In case you were wondering the totals from the last three years were 38, 56, and 48)

I need to go back and write-in all the answers. I can tell you that I personally didn't do very well.

New bowtie.

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 23:13:00 +0000

New bowtie.
Originally uploaded by shiitake

Also new jean jacket. So far it's been a good winter.

5 Music Things I Like from 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 17:04:00 +0000

Artist - Chairlift
Album - Something
Song - Amanaemonesia http://youtu.be/98XRKr19jIE
Fun fact - It was great seeing them live in Dallas and watching her do the dance from the video. They also threatened to stop playing until the bartender turned off the Dallas Mavs game that was playing over the bar. Classic.

Artist - Santigold
Album - Master of My Make-Believe
Song - Disparate Youth http://youtu.be/mIMMZQJ1H6E

Artist - Big Boi
Album - Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors
Song - Mama Told Me http://youtu.be/CRUVMg6yvCs

Artist - The Mountain Goats
Album - Transcendental Youth
Song - Cry For Judas http://youtu.be/grT3CXRd5-Q
Lame Fact - I had tickets to see their show two weeks ago but was really sick and couldn't make it out.

Artist - Jens Lekman
Album - I Know What Love Isn't
Song - I Know What Love Isn't http://youtu.be/jQErekXV9Qc
Fun fact - He put on a great show in Dallas and my wife and I even got to meet him. He really liked my wife's cowboy boots and asked for a picture of their feet together. Check it out.

Honorable mentions:
Alt J - Obviously these guys have blown up this year. I heard them in a record store while fighting jet lag in downtown Dublin. Not only is that a very cool story but it was also one of those situations where you hear part of a song in the store and you immediately want to know who it is so you can buy it. Also this was May and the album hadn't been released in the states yet. Talk about triple coolness.

Biggest disappointments of the year:

No new music from Faith No More
Das Racist announcing their breakup.

How to Stop Making Bad Art

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 23:37:00 +0000

Several months ago I had a discussion with several friends about modern art. It all started because of two articles in vice.com,

The articles have several photos from recent exhibits showing ridiculous examples of what is being called art. For example: a neon sign that reads "My Cunt Is Wet With Fear", wooden shelves of porcelon dogs and cats, a photograph of the artist rubbing money against her vagina.

I understand what the author is trying to say but contemporary modern art is kind of an easy target. The guy should challenge himself: write a story mocking juggalos, or arguing that corgis are cute.

I know very little about how art criticism works in any academic sense. I spent most of my time in art class during college flirting with a very cute (and talented) red-head named Lara. But I have also spent the past 15 years creating music in the hopes of getting noticed. So my thoughts aren't completely uninformed but I'm still shooting from the hip.

Let's pretend there are 3 criteria that we use when looking at any given art piece.

is it interesting?
is it well-crafted?
is it challenging?

All of those are subjective but seem to sum up the initial interaction between the art and the viewer. So perhaps the quality of the art depends on how those criteria interact. And artists who want to be noticed can manipulate their art to accentuate one criteria at the expense of another. For example if your art is interesting and challenging then perhaps it can be less well crafted. Is your art difficult enough to be challenging but not too difficult?

I would further assert that all of these criteria rely on different skills. By the time you get to undergrad art most professors may assume that you've at least started working on the craft component. One difficulty with modern art is that it's difficult to judge the quality of the craft - "are those really well crafted neon signs?"

I think a lot of times younger artists want to put the interesting/challenging criteria ahead of the craft criteria. At eighteen it's easy think you are so interesting and challenging that you don't have to deal with the boring mechanical parts of learning how to paint/draw/sculpt. And of course there are always the outliers who are interesting and challenging enough to do this.

There is also a 4th criteria that I like to call Magic. It's difficult to explain; maybe it's two-parts "right place at right time" and one-part "you know a guy". I've seen it before with local bands who unexplicably blow up. They're not awful but they're not amazing so it's got to be something else. I also kind of equate it with the LUCK skill you find in certain video games. We don't really know how it works but its still seems to have an impact.

There are no hard and fast rules for being successful. But it's safe to say most of the art from those articles doesn't meet any of the criteria above. Sometimes the art doesn't meet any of the criteria and still sells for millions - MAGIC! Sometimes the art meets all of them fairly well and still goes unnoticed - MAGIC!

FTC to Confirm Video Games are Art!

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 12:17:00 +0000

Still haven't played Mass Effect 3 but sadly can't ignore the ridiculousness. Spoiler alert: gamer makes threat on internet forum

Somebody help me come up with an analog for this with any other media that calls itself art. Did folks contact the FTC about the second and third Matrix films? Or Metallica's 'Saint Anger'? Or "The Tree of Life".

And speaking of topic necromancy - Ebert doesn't like The "Raid" because it's like a "video game that spares the audience the inconvenience of playing it."

New Album - God be with you, Heaven Knows the Devil Is

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:28:00 +0000

God be with you-1.5 Inverted
Originally uploaded by shiitake

Farstar just digitally released our record last week. The album is called 'God Be With You, Heaven Knows the Devil Is' and you can all 9 songs at bandcamp for $5 - http://farstar.bandcamp.com This was mixed by the amazing Rip Rowan and Salim Nourallah at Pleasantry Lane. It was masterd by Nolan Bret at Crystal Clear Sound. That is to say - these guys do great work.

I have tons of mixed feelings about this record. I'm proud of it because I've been working on it for so long. I started writing what would become track 7 back in 2002 while finishing our last record. My idea at the time was to write a concept record; I thought there would be a quick turnaround but I was wrong. I probably didn't finish writing track 1 until 2008. And then it took this long to finish the recording, mixing and mastering. In the meantime band members came and went. We also put out a few 5 song EPs. But this was kind of the goal.

So it's nice to finally complete it.

My Shed and the Ugly Side of DIY

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 23:15:00 +0000

My Shed, The Ugly Side of DIY
Originally uploaded by shiitake

You'll notice that at some point someone realized that the roof was rotting and instead of repairing it they built a new roof ON TOP of the old one.

And they also used the wrong kind of shingles.

I like fixing stuff myself if I can, but there is no excuse for this. You have to know your limits.

I'm currently working with several local contractors to get my house in better condition. Thankfully, they all have good sense of humors.

Beard, week 2

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 14:48:00 +0000

I've been bearding all week; it kind of sucks.

Some men stop shaving and the beard comes in fairly even - neck to nose. And if they have darker hair the 5 o'clock shadow helps even out the coloring.

My hair is light colored and straight so I never actually get that 5 o'clock shadow. This is nice because it means I can go a few days without shaving.

However, if I actually want a beard I must pass through several beard phases specific to men with lighter colored hair:

freshly shaved
~~5 oclock shadow~~
stubble
homeless or hipster?
amish
?????

Without the darker mustache it's almost impossible to pass through the amish phase into whatever beard glories lie beyond.

Osama bin Laden is Dead and I Don't Feel So Good Myself

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Mon, 02 May 2011 16:23:00 +0000

There can be relief found in the knowledge that Osama bin Laden will no longer be able to lead al Qaeda in attacks on America. And it is comforting to know the time, energy and lives spent searching for the past 10 years was not a waste.

Bin Laden's death serves the vague ideas we have about justice and provides a narrative bookend to 9/11 that is satisfying. Many Americans have been afforded no other way of understanding what we have been doing "over there".

So why am I skeptical of the whole thing?

I've been thinking about it all morning. Am I a cynic or a liberal who doesn't understand the sacrifices of others? I certain don't think of myself as that. Maybe I have issues with the collective confidence everyone seems to be feeling.

Undoubtedly Bin Laden was a murderer; however; when Bush declared the attacks on September 11th an act of war Bin Laden became a warrior. This was exactly what his organization wanted. They were no longer political criminals; they were elevated to religious warriors.

This is perfectly exemplified by the way US Armed Forces took the body after he was killed in order to prevent a memorial or shrine. Our hope now will be that he does not become a martyr. Or since his body is missing maybe there will be talk of his second coming - Americans are not the only ones with narratives.

As for al Qaeda, there is most likely another figurehead plotting in the wings, certainly there are other radical Muslims who do not fear death.

But perhaps this fear is America's largest asset. After all, it is what drives us to pour money into the defense and intelligence industries. Personally I pray for diplomacy but count on the military industrial complex. I'm not proud of this as it is of course a symbol of my lack of faith.

Returning to the nation's collective sigh, I personally have not felt these emotions but it's hard to deny the outpouring in the US today. Especially as seen on Facebook and Twitter. Sadly the response is not all that different than last week when that one guy got kicked off of American Idol; tomorrow is a new day and there will be new FB statuses. We can only hope they're not 10 years in the making.

I have to conclude with an apology to the late Lewis Grizzard. My father was a fan so his cleverly titled books were scattered around the house while I was growing up.

Don't Delete Your Facebook Account

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 14:00:00 +0000

If we're honest we all know that Facebook can be a real drag. Privacy concerns. Farmville updates. Phishing scams. Inappropriately mushy PDA. Theses days people will send a Facebook message to you instead of an email! It's enough to make you want to pull the plug.

If you do you're making a huge mistake.

I am not a Facebook super fan. I annoy and am annoyed by just as much of the stuff I listed above. But it does not change the reality that Facebook is currently the largest networking site on the planet. For better and for worse it has become the hub around which most people congregate.

Can you afford to be absent? For some people with infinite resources and no need for networking I could understand. But are you one of those folks? I honestly cannot think of a single person who fits into either of those catagories.

There are no infinite resources. And most of us are just a few pay checks away from needing some sort of networking (social or otherwise). The obvious exception is old people who live their lives outside of modern technology.

Your great grandparents might do this. That sounds kind of rude but I can see how a retiree who is set in their ways might want to avoid Facebook. They probably won't be looking for a job any time soon. Then again, both of my parents love being able to show off photos of their grandkids on Facebook.

Oldboy, finally a great comic book adaptation?

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 16:19:00 +0000

I love everything about movies except taking time to watch them. I know this is problematic as movies reflect our culture. I'm interested in cultural conversations so I'm trying to address this problem.

I am working a new shift at work that leaved me with two days at home during the week. I've decided that I am going to try to watch a new movie every weeek. I have a lot of them on my Netflix instant queue so even if I don't feel like watching one it can be on in the background while I'm playing Maple Story.

Seven Samurai is on Hulu Plus but I didn't want to bring the PS3 into the living room and the subtitles make it difficult to focus on something else while watching it. I decided to go ahead and finally watch Oldboy. I'd heard great reviews of Oldboy when it was released in the states around 2003/2004. And the reviews are right; the movie is really well done.

For those of you haven't seen it Oldboy tells the story of Oh Dae-Su, a man held captive in a room for 15 years for reasons he does not know. He wakes up one morning free and spends the remainder of the movie trying to find out who did this to him and why. My friend Nathan described it as the best revenge movie ever. I would have to agree; there's nothing quite like it.

My favorite scenes (in brief with spoilers)

The fight Oh Dae-Su has in the hotel hallway after torturing his warden: this isn't a slick martial arts treatment, it is a desperate man with a hammer fighting his way through a hallway of thugs.

There is a flashback scene where Oh Dae-Su remembers meeting the young girl, Soo-ah, and witnessing her sexual relationship with a young man he would only much later learn was her brother. The cuts between past and present were incredibly effective.

The final confrontation between Oh Dae-Su and his captor. There is some fighting but it is secondary to the conversation where we actually learn why Oh Dae-Su was held captive for 15 years. Why is that length of time significant?

There are several gotchas in this movie but the biggest one came when I learned that Oldboy was based on a comic book. Like most movie gotchas if you pay special attention throughout the movie it becomes obvious:

The incest plot

The extreme amount of physical abuse an average person can survive

Oh Dae-Su is told if he doesn't figure it out why he was inprisoned they will kill him in 5 days.

If Oh Dae-Su does figure out why he was imprisoned his captor will kill himself,

His captor has a killswitch in his pacemaker that his doctor added at his request.

This sort of ridiculousness is pretty common in manga and would normally jump out at me. It is a testament of great filmmaking that I didn't notice them sooner.

Worse Than Death

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 23:04:00 +0000

I'm pretty sure I am not afraid of death;
no more than anyone else I have met.

I am afraid my new dog won't like me;
and I'm scared my wife will grow to dispise me;

Any children I might have will not trust
in the God of Isaiah and Jacob

I will be alone, with just you Lord,
ready to face death, but bored.

Video Games and Aesthetics(A response to Magical Wasteland)

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 00:05:00 +0000

I would like games to be seen as art if someone can clearly place them within an understood artistic tradition. It hasn't really happened yet.

Video games are a young medium and if the community wants to push to re-define art as it is currently understood they need to have clear understanding of art as it is currently understood.

Wikipedia isn't a lot of help here in finding the two-sentence blurb on art definition. To be sure, there is plenty of subjectivity to be found when discussing art but there is also much to draw upon in terms of artistic tradition and history.

The recent N+1 article Cave Painting was an attempt to discuss that context. It touched on general aesthetic understandings as articulated by Kant and refuted by Nietzsche. Its conclusion in brief was that to the extent that they are both currently understood, games are not art.

Author and journalist, Tom Bissell submitted a thoughtful reply which disagreed with the article and suggested comparing game interactivity to theater.

Matthew S. Burns from Magical Wasteland also replied on his website and questioned N+1's understanding of gaming, art and aesthetics.

I am not a game designer or student of Kant; however; I feel that many of N+1's points were misunderstood.

Much of Kant's discussion of beauty centers on the context within which it is found. Therefore the suggestion of beauty qua beauty is problematic because its meaning is not objective. This is what N+1 means when they say "Art-beauty is not the same as being good-looking, or else Bond movies might be the most beautiful films ever made." Context is paramount or meaning is lost.

And while we're fairly certain Kant never thought about video games this does not mean his concepts are invalid. As you'll note from the link below Kant spoke generally enough to remain relevant.

All that said, any headway in this discussion will be helped by writers and thinkers who are able to have meaningful discussions in both art and gaming contexts (even if the intent is to re-imagine that context). Nietzsche understood Kant's arguments clearly so he could adequately refute them.

Unfortunately discussions on games as art rarely touch on any sort of nuanced understanding of artistic tradition or criticism. Most immediately understand art's problematic subjectivity to mean that nothing has (or can) be said on the matter, thus games must be art. N+1 acknowledges this when it asks "If video games have turned out to be art, then what has art turned out to be?"

At least with Tom Bissell there's the idea (the hope?) that his training as a journalist has conditioned him to try to see all sides of the argument as he frames the narrative.

Here's a great primer on Kant's ideas of beauty. http://www.iep.utm.edu/kantaest/#SH2a

SSX: Deadly Descents Has To Be A Joke, Right?

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 20:46:00 +0000

I am a huge fan of the SSX snowboarding franchise. SSX 3 was on my top 10 list of everything for the 2000s and will probably be in the top half of my top 10 favorite video games list. When I finally get around to making it.

SSX 3 created a great snowboarding experience that focused on a mountain with three individual peaks. It had a free riding format on the mountain and as your character improved their skills and won events it would unlock new areas on different peaks. And of course there were also crazy costumes and music to unlock.

The game felt like the developers fine tuned everything fun about snowboarding that didn't require you to leave your couch. It was not a simulation game insisting you translate real-life balance and coordination into arcane thumb movements. This was purely an arcade afair - point yourself downhill and hold on!

Instead of unweildy menus for navigation the game encouraged you to ride freely, maybe looking for collectables or maybe just enjoying the scenery and music.

There is a reason I've not mentioned the events or races. Sure they were huge, and a lot of fun but honestly, they weren't the main reason I played SSX 3. It was all about the mountain.

When SSX On Tour and SSX Blur were released they were nice. On Tour let you actually ski, which was kind of neat. Blur used the Wii controls which was interesting (and difficult). But where was my mountain?

Maybe someone found it?

Helocopters? Parachutes? Walkie-talkies?

How about an AK-47? I mean, snowboaring is an eXtreme sport. What's more eXtreme than shooting someone riding next to you?

Don't get me wrong, I am excited SSX is joining the current generation. And yes that did look like a mountain. But why do I have a feeling the current developers might not know where SSX found it's magic?

First Impressions of DC Universe Online

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 17:36:00 +0000

tl:dr alright game, lots of customization aside from how you look. They stole a lot of ideas but incorporated it differently. Story does not live up to the preview for the game.

The Steam installation bug was corrected. I have not really run into any other bugs, aside from the chat system sucking and I am currently downloading an 11 gig patch. I hope they are patching chat.

The game:

I am still at the beginning. It is hard to get a good idea of MMOs before you figure out how the game works. I have only done a few quests, so my opinion of it is going to be limited to the character creation and what I have encountered in my small amount of play time.

My character moves around a bit like Spiderman, only with no webs, and has ice powers. He hits people with a big ass hammer, and he has glass looking skin. I chose glass skin because you do not have many options when it comes how your characters look. You basically get to pick sex, hair, skin, color and size.

There are pretty sweet power builds in my opinion; you can do a lot of different things with it. You get a powers rotation going with six available power related abilities, the rest have to be shelved for later... (An idea stolen from Guild Wars, but I think think the idea of actually having to roll out of something, instead of having a percentage of hits on you blocked makes the game more actiony). You have thousands of options for ability combinations depending on what you specialize in, and you also have a physical damage rotation which is done with combos on the mouse.

The story is a bit weak so far. After seeing the trailer they created for it, I was assuming it would have been a bit better thought out. But yeah... come to think of it, you cant really make 1 million super heroes at once and have an origin that makes sense. I think they could have improved the game if you could have had some input on your origin. Basically powers of several different heroes and villains were stolen and dispersed, you created a character and that was your origin. You were a normal guy, and you got one of these things that give you abilities.

So far I have only played on hero side. I have made one with a personality like Batman and one like Superman. There are 10 or more abilities (I do not remember them all, and I have not tried many of them), and you can combine those with 10 or more fighting styles. Then you choose your method of transportation. There is flying, acrobatics (like Spiderman) and super-speed. I think my next one will be a super-speed, mind powers, daggers assassin, with the personality of Batman.

You can create an endless number of possibilities; I think this is the game's strongest point.

They stole this concept from City of Heroes; I can't really fault them for that. I think it would be really hard to come out with a completely new MMO, but I definitely consider this one revolutionary, albeit, a bit cartoony.

I am pretty sure it is the first MMO action game. Not an RPG in the traditional sense. It plays like an action game. It feels more real time, and less like you are standing there exchanging hits. Though, there is a bit of that. They do not have a tank and a healer and some guys damaging. Since there is raiding done by large groups they still have to have roles though. However, there is no person just sitting back healing, staring at health bars. If a player has a super power that can allow the healing of other players, in order to have enough energy for their powers, they have to be kicking ass. Every role does damage.

Aion and Warhammer touched on that a bit, but their game play was carbon copied from World of Warcraft and EverQuest. It is time for something new, give me a few days and I will tell you if this game is it.

(This is a guest blog by my friend and writer, Shain Kirby. You can follow him on twitter @shainkirby )

Farstar on stage

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 15:51:00 +0000

Farstar on stage
Originally uploaded by shiitake

I have no idea why half the band is on one side of the stage but I like how this shows all of the stuff that is usually going on when we play.

Creating a Video Game on a whiteboard

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 22:38:00 +0000

Game Prototype
Originally uploaded by shiitake

Every year or so my friend Jon and I talk about making a video game. We decided to actually take some action starting this month. I think we're probably going to use something ridiculously simple to make the game. And I think our friend Todd might help also.

I firmly believe it could be very easy for us to get caught up in the technical aspects and completely miss the game aspects.

This happens with musicians I know all the time. You can get caught up in buying new guitar gear and trying to get a certain tone or delay. But of course the song is pretty horrible so nobody wants to hear your perfect tone on your awesome gear.

Our game might be something like Trine (PC) vs Adventures of Lolo (NES); several characters with unique abilities have to work together to solve puzzles.

Here's a map I drew in my cubicle of how the game could work.

Each stage represents a different character with a unique power/skill and each lettered box (A-C) represents a room containing a puzzle they have to solve to move into the next room. This helps the player understand that character's power. The square in the middle represents the three characters finally teaming up to tackle bosses.

It's just an idea.
Nothing revolutionary or unique about it.
But it's one step closer to actually making something.

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, a Winner.

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 01:09:00 +0000

I love movies but have a hard time actually watching them. It's mainly an issue of time I think. Nevertheless, we finally sat down and watched Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World last week.

I must be in the target demographic because I pretty much tracked with the movie note-for-note: video games, comic books, band angst (!), being a crappy boyfriend even though you want to be a nice guy (!!), gin & tonics. I was so-so on Michael Cera and not at all sold on Mary Elizabeth Winstead's character (f'ed up hair and skin weirded me out). But 30 minutes into the movie I was convinced and I ended up really enjoying how the writer and director handled their relationship. The fight scenes were also great.

When the movie came out several reviews focused on how the characters weren't likable but in rom-coms most of that stuff scales, right? The tension in most Rom-Coms comes from a misunderstanding that could be resolved with one or both of the characters being honest or serious character flaws stunting the relationship. There is obviously overlap: my character flaw is my inability to be honest.

Perhaps the characters were hard for someone over 40 to "get" but I don't see how they're any more unlikable than a couple in and other rom-com. Pretty early on they were having meaningful conversations about the relationship. I liked the bedroom seen after Romona says they won't have sex and Scott basically replies, "This is nice... I think this is something I needed." The catoonish fight scenes seem just as plausible as the romantic hurdles in Bridget Jones's Diary, Pretty Woman or Sex and the City.

I might even look to buy this movie when it comes out.

Hydrophobia and Last Generation games.

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 03:54:00 +0000

After a long week of work and band planning I finally found a bit of time to play Hydrophobia.

So far it seems like a cool action game. Sort of a mix of Beyond Good & Evil and Dreamfall. Obviously having a smart, female protagonist minus the fan-service is a big part of that but it also looks pretty last-generation in terms of graphics.

I had a lot of fun with the last-generation of games so I don't mind. Hydrophobia looks like it would have been a decent xbox original game 5 years ago. The game is supposed to be cutting edge because of all of it's water physics. So far that has primarily been running down halls that are flooding while water appears to be dripping down the screen. That part is just OK. The sci-fi setting and characters are what I really like. Also there are not a ton of XBLA games that are doing the 3rd person action complete with a decent story. So water physics notwithstanding the game is actually doing something pretty unique!

Every week it seems I hear about another last generation game that is being updated for the current consoles. It used to be that we'd just see a sequel to a game - but the proliferation of HD has really just given developers a fairly easy way to extend the life of a game that is several years old. Instead of spending millions of dollars on developing a new game you can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars updating all of the game textures to HD. I don't imagine it is an easy task but it must be easier that having to start from scratch. If/when 3D takes off I doubt it will be that easy!

There are so many games for the last generation that I never got to play that I'm actually really excited to be able to pick them up again. This makes more sense considering that both Microsoft and Sony are attempting to extend the lives of their consoles for at least 2-3 years. If last generation games are updated and bundled with their sequels or (better yet!) available simply for download through Xbox live/PSN - I will meet them with my wallet!

Here are a few games I know are being re-release and a few I HOPE will be re-released.

Beyond Good & Evil (confirmed for XBLA)
Ico/Shadow of the Colossus (confirmed for PS3)
Sly Cooper (confirmed for PS3)
God of War (released a while back on PS3)
Halo 1 & 2 (Wishlist) - Microsoft would be mental not to bundle and release these
SSX (Wishlist) - XBLA has no sport titles do they?

Blog Posts about Blog Posts are Boring; Lists are Not

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 20:56:00 +0000

It's so much easier to just make a list of things I've found interesting at my new job.

There is no training. I met my recruiter on day one and she directed me in getting my temporary badge and escorted me to the department. I got to choose my cubicle and was escorted to the storage closet to find a computer. I put it together, installed the new OS, figured out what my login was, and got it on the domain. Two recently new hires gave me hints. It was like being inside a PC adventure game where you are stuck in a room and have to figure out what to do by randomly clicking on things, picking stuff up and giving it to strangers.
This is not Microserfs. It's my favorite book and a large part of it takes place at Microsoft (circa 1993/4). I don't have my own office and I'm not coding full time so that's different. Don't let my first point fool you - EVERYONE HERE IS INCREDIBLY NICE. Literally 15 people have stopped by my desk to introduce themselves and offer their knowledge.
Maybe this Microserfs. Everyone is so kind to me that I can't help but have that nice warm feelings for them. It's like reading the book (except I don't cry at the end - maybe at the end of my 12 month contract that will change. That could be awkward).
Other similarities. Everyone is super into our technology. The campus has free coffee and drinks. There is a library in the other building where you can check out books for study and every time I walk over there I imagine that Bill Gates might be looking out of one of the windows judging any shortcut I might take (this will only make sense if you've read the book)
Geek stuff. I fill out a quick web form and 10 minutes later someone has built a virtual machine for me. To my exact specifications. This won't make sense to everyone but most computer users know that just installing an operating system like windows XP takes an hour. So getting something like this in ten minutes is pretty impressive.

I'll probably think of some more stuff later.

So What Have You Been Doing?

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 16:16:00 +0000

It has been a very hectic couple of weeks. So I'm a bit behind on a few posts I've been working on.

Here's what has happened since my last update:

EP "Mulligan" by Ronnie Fauss was released. - I recorded and produced the record out of my home studio. This was released on FTG records.
EP "Gauzes for Before" by H...N was released. - tracked and mixed at my home studio. Released on cassette (and download) by Free Loving Anarachists.
I started mixing the Farstar record. This was imported from another studio and the tracks are well recorded but confusing. I'm spending a lot of time getting everything organized in a way that is workable. I've got about 1/3 of it roughly mixed.
I got a new job. I'll be doing SQL server support for Microsoft. I had to do plenty of studying to land this position and there is more learning to come! I start Monday.

I should hopefully have some time soon to update you on video games, music and other interesting things.

Anyone interested in a new project?

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 18:38:00 +0000

The Problem

Do you remember only having just enough spending money to purchase video games after Christmas or Birthdays. I use to only get 3 or 4 games a year. So I would play the heck out of them until I beat them or got burned out trying.

Of course now the challenge isn't actually purchasing the game. Now it's actually finishing with you start.

One of my favorite game genres is the JRPG. The art and story are usually pretty great (if often ridiculous) and I love the exploring aspects of their gameplay. But of course they're incredibly long. Most require at least 30 hours to finish.

I usually start a game I'm interested in, get a few hours in and have to do something else. By the time I get back to playing it might be days, weeks or months later. I've forgotten where I was and what I was doing. Was I still on one of the introductory fetch quests? Had I unlocked the full fighting system or was I still in a tutorial section?

FinishYourGame.com
Finishyourgame.com is a website that celebrates actually getting to the end of games. This can be the final cutscene and credits or unlocking every single achievement and trophy. You spent your money for the game and you want to finish it! FinishYourGame.com can help you do that.

Website features:

Users create a profile which allows them to catalog games they are currently playing. Several game websites already let users do this what FYG does is encourage users to create "game bookmarks" which will provide a brief recap so they can easily get back to enjoying the game. It can also include what they were doing, reference strategy guide page numbers, mission objectives, and a reason for why they stopped.

Users can maintain a list of games they have actually finished! Afterall - that is the point, right? They can also publish this info as a status update to Facebook if they are interested in that: "Lara just beat the final boss on Persona 4. Again."

Original content: regular video and/or audio podcasts highlighting recently released games and how potentially finishable they are. (Lot of reviews discuss game length and replay value - I'd like to add 'finishability' as a standard i.e. can an working adult realistically complete this game?)

Other content: Games Unfinishable - a spotlight of game that you won't finish because they are too long, too hard, too much of a grind. Old school arcade games like International Karate (photo above) are notorious for being difficult. But how about classics like Kid Icarus or Ninja Gaiden?

Potential features for the future:

email/sms reminders for themselves about where they were. Eventually these reminders could also include links to gamefaqs or strategy guides.
users might also choose to make this info public on the site allowing others to comment or offer play tips.

I'm looking for fellow gamers who would be interested in:

assisting with development (I'm currently looking at several Open Source Social Media platforms for the site but would need someone with graphic design experience)

writing and/or being on video discussing video games and related topics.

If you're interested feel free to email me - shannon [at] finishyourgames.com

Final Fantasy Can Save Your Marriage!

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 15:25:00 +0000

I've come to realize over the past three or four years that I don't travel all that well. Or as Lara tells it - I get grumpy.

My mother actually owned a travel agency so my family used to fly several times a year. As a result I was pretty good at it. I could easily navigate whatever airport I was in - I knew what to wear and say. If I wore a suit and flashed a travel agency business card at the gate I could sometimes get a free upgrade. They still card you in first class but you still feel like ninja sipping orange juice instead of a screwdriver.

It was harder with the entire family. My parents, brother and I didn't really get on that well but the territory was familiar. We all knew where to go and what to do.

And when you're sixteen what problem cannot be solved by headphones and Led Zeppelin?

In recent memory, marriage has presented the biggest complication. And sadly Zeppelin doesn't help.

The problem is Lara travels different than me: she navigates the airports in her rhythm, she cares where I park, she wants to eat when I want to go to the gate, her bladder is out of sync with mine. It's a nightmare; the person I married is a completely different entity from me!

And if that wasn't enough of a problem. I'm no longer a free agent. I can't just zone out with some Zep because I actually care. I find myself worrying about her. Is Lara comfortable? Does she need anything? If the floor of the airplane falls out mid flight will I be able to reach over to rescue her in time to save her from death? (For the last question I have a system worked out so the answer is "most likely".)

Nevertheless it stresses me out and I become a grump. We joke about it because I am okay with owning my grumpiness and she's okay with not being offended. But Lara loves to travel and I love to not be grumpy.

Our solution has two parts - the first is simple: we book seats on different rows. It sounds weird but it makes sense. Lara gets airsick which means she is most comfortable with a window. This generally leaves me grumpy in the middle seat. So we don't sit by each other. It's not very romantic and might prevent my rescuing her if the floor falls out, but we agree being grumpy is more unromantic and Lara can rescue herself.

Even when we sat by each other we did our own thing. And if we had children this would probably be happening already so it works. I must admit I stole the idea from my friend Laura who figured it out early on with her husband.

I did not steal the second part of our solution. In fact it is throwback to Zeppelin on my Sony Walkman. Except now it's Final Fantasy VII and VII on my Sony Playstation Portable. I had a PSP back in 2004 and was so bored with the games I sold it. When I heard that Sony was releasing the Final Fantasy games on their Playstation network I got back in the game.

I craiglisted a used game system and downloaded Cloud and Squall immediately! It's not perfect but it is wonderful. The games are thirteen years old and have aged like you might imagine but work well enough for a three hour flight.

I cancel out the noise with my headphones and get sucked into the grinding sublimity that is the heart of Final Fantasy.

I get off the plane in a great mood. Having my own seat and going back in time with Final Fantasy makes me more interested in the real life adventure Lara and I are beginning or ending.

And let's say, American Airlines has a database glitch and are unable to print your boarding pass. They don't let you on the plane, they close the doors in your face, they are extremely rude to you. And it's the day after Christmas!

When this happens Final Fantasy VIII, with its well document flaws, can be a lighthouse. It can keep you from becoming that seething ball of profanities bent on scarring children still recovering from pre-Christmas sleep deprivation and post-Christmas euphoria.

In its way, the game reminds you databases fail, middle managers are impotent and we panic when plans change but a comfortable chair and a few random battles can save the day.

Video Games: Art as More than Artifacts

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 21:48:00 +0000

It's great to see someone discussing the art of games without pointing to the artifacts themselves.

"And so our studio was born as an artistic laboratory. We decided to set a few experiments — test some ideas, confirm some assumptions and find the artistic tools, unique for the computer game form. Not ones borrowed from the filmmaking industry, painting or literature — but ones based on the uniqueness of playing a game, specific to the form from the very beginning. Ones based on the player’s freedom of choice, irreversibility, non-linearity and pseudo non-linearity of the process in real time… "

This is Ice-Pick Lodge's CEO Nikolay Dybowskiy interviewed over a year ago for Rock Paper Shotgun. He was discussing his studio's games Pathologic and The Void.*

This is the nuance that is missed when you try the brute-force argument that 100 graphic artists working on your game means it must be art.

*You can pick up The Void for $5 on steam. Do it now.

Video Games are Too Expensive to Be Art

noreply@blogger.com (Shannon) — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 19:45:00 +0000

I've got a few more articles I'd like to write on the subject of video games and art so I'm treating this one as an intro of sorts. I'm also expecting that I'll edit this for clarity and mistakes as I read/re-read it.

At the risk of exposing to the world just how geeky I am, I try to keep most of my video game chit chat to generalities. That means that my musician, mommy-blogger and otherwise professional blog friends can avoid zoning out while I discuss the finer points of my latest game obsession.

A while back Roger Ebert got a lot of video gamers upset when he asserted that video games weren't art. He quickly clarified that they couldn't be high art as he understood it; comparing them instead to sports. I really like video games but have to admit he makes a pretty compelling argument:Art seeks to lead you to an inevitable conclusion, not a smorgasbord of choices.

I cannot agree with Ebert that there is no potential for games to be art. But most video gamers don't really have a stake in what is or is not art; they're looking for some sort of justification for their chosen leisure activity.

Gamers who are angry with Roger Ebert don't care about art - they just want their wives/girlfriends off their case for being up till 2AM playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

Of course, if you're an artists of some sort and you're doing that I'd love to hear you prove me wrong, but other than that - no sympathy!

I believe that games could be art but most lack the sort of intentionality that shapes most art. Art may be able to exist without intentionality but it requires an artist of some sort to shape it that intentionality. So by this definition, the assets in found art may have existed prior to the artist but it is not until they are declared art that they become art.

I started thinking about all of this a while ago when Jon Clark posted the following thoughts about his recent staycation:

So I was able to make about 3 months worth of headway into these games in 5 days. If (big if) I got halfway through all 6, that means that I need to be playing only these games over the next 3 months to 'finish' them. Thats pretty staggering in my opinion. I mean how is a person with a job expected to get through these games? The games industry acts like we need to be playing a new release every 2 weeks, I mean how do people do it? Even if I had no job, It would still take tons of time to keep pace with the exhausting release schedule of only the games I actually want to play..

The game industry is not intentionally making art. When they have to sell a million units they can't afford to be art. They are making the best game they can hoping to sell to as many 12-34 year old males as possible, as often as possible.

Studios force directors to edit their movies to make them shorter. Pop radio will only play songs that are less than 4 minutes long. Game companies add value by making their games longer. All of these decisions are more or less based on what the companies know people want. If you read just a handful of video game reviews you will find complaints if there is less than 10 hours of game to play.

This sounds unreasonable to folks who don't play video games but it makes sense. A new video game made by major publisher for mainstream consoles cost $40-$60; no matter how artistic it is gamers want a decent return on their investment. Which is a strong indicator that most gamers aren't interested in their game being art.

The price-point for experiencing art has to be less than $15. There are clear exceptions to this but if experiencing your art costs any more than this then you are probably not making art, you are running a business. Sure, artists have to make a living but I thought that was where the starving part of being an artists comes into play.

That said, art house theaters and galleries rarely charge more than that for tickets. Rock bands like Pearl Jam and Fugazi have worked for years to provide low-cost ways for people to see their performances.

Forget big budgets and trying to find the next Citizen Kane. We need to be on the lookout for the small studios and DIY ethics.

There might be a way games could be art but like any medium the easiest way to do this is move out of the mainstream and into the fringes.

Starting points?
Jay Pavlina - the creator of Super Mario Crossover
Jason Rohrer - the creator of Passage