Tales from the Box - Gearheads Unite!

Kevin and I spent the better part of last night, between our usually productive comic creation process, testing a few delicious samples from the box that is the, uh, Xbox.

Dead Rising

The first game we tried was Dead Rising, which in concept sounds like a lot of fun – basically, you are trapped in a mall with hundreds and hundreds of zombies and you have three days to survive. You can basically use anything you can pick up as a weapon. With a mall full of stores and time on your hands, the idea of being creative with fighting off zombies got us pretty excited.

In execution though, the game’s only so-so. Sure, it was fun watching our character peel through fifty zombies with a shopping cart, as well as, throw cans of pop from a box, but it did get a little tiresome pretty quickly. While we didn’t exactly dive into the story whole-heartedly, it seemed as though it would be enough to hold interest for a few hours and nothing more.

The final verdict was Dead Rising is fun, but fun in the “rental” sort of way. Once you’ve played it, the freshness fades faster than a budget can of feminine hygiene product at an all girl rugby tournament.

Gears or War

The proclamations are largely true. Our jaws collectively dropped upon popping this into the Xbox 360. I’m not a “shooter” guy and even less so a “tactical shooter” guy, but this game had me at “finish him.”

Gears or War is graphically the best game I’ve seen on a console; from the minute our character went running into a firefight in some bombed out hotel with couches flying apart, pictures falling off walls and wood splinters kicking up with bullet ricochets, Kevin and I knew this deep within our very souls.

The gameplay supports graphical muscle in a way few games with nice graphics do. My first thought upon seeing the game was, man this blows me away like “Resident Evil 4.” The way characters roll, hide against cover and scan for enemies is top notch. The movements are smooth and surprisingly fast, plus there seems to be levels of complexity getting to know the intuitive controls. When we played, we were handed our rear-ends more often than I’d care to mention; this isn’t your grandma’s run-and-gun game like Doom. You need to know your environment or your likely going to be on the wrong end of a chainsaw gun; yeah, it’s as pretty as it sounds.

The final verdict; this game looks and plays great. And, I hear there is a feature where you and your friends and can together over live on a solo campaign (but sadly not multiplayer) which sounds like good chainsawing fun.

Call of Duty 3

Like the familiar hobo you threw epithets to every morning at the train station, Call of Duty comes around, whether you want it or not. This was the last game we tried and it was basically my idea to rent it because I heard the multiplayer could support some unheard number of people on one map (24, 24?)

The presentation is standard, the gameplay is exactly the same as it’s always been. Basically, it’s the game you know and love less and less each time.

One important “however” however. Call of Duty 3 lets you and your friends play together on one console while playing multiplayer. This in of itself is mind-blowingly fun. Kevin and I took to a map like cat people attacking one-dimensional Stephen King characters in a bad horror movie. There is something to be said about playing multiplayer with a friend where you can coordinate attacks, laugh at your foibles and basically have fun with your friend, instead of forcing them to watch.

The final verdict – the solo missions probably compete with “paint drying” in terms of entertainment, but Call of Duty 3 is built for the multiplayer and built on rock-and-roll, especially with friends over.

Hello Mr. Fantasy 8-9-10ish

Fantasy football seasons age in the same way that dogs do – for every one of our weeks, it’s like seven hard weeks on a fantasy football team. While some teams looked great out the gates, the same teams might be looking a little feeble or a touch senile lately - and in some worst-case scenarios – some teams that look poised to take a shot at the crown are now lost, wandering the aisles of Safeway softly urinating in their pants and mumbling about “the man who took their rutabagas.”

Paul’s Team

My fists are beginning to hurt from the amount of beatings I’ve laid to the dead horse known as Paul’s team – but, hey let’s go over it again – as long as Paul’s team keeps Johnson and Tomlinson, the rest of the team only needs to keep a level of productivity somewhere on par with an overweight Polish factory worker.

Lindsay’s Team

I haven’t seen this many rollercoaster rides since Magic Mountain in 2003. Last week, I was ready to anoint you as surefire number two with the revamped Ravens offense. This week, I’m ready to drop you like you were hotter than a Justin Timberlake single. Your team performs, albeit inconsistently like a Jim Playfair hockey team. If this keeps up, Larry just might overtake you.

Larry’s Team

Well let’s get it out of the way: your team has metaphorically fallen backwards out of the sidelines and torn its ACL in the fantasy football race. Your top scorer, and pretty much the league’s top scorer, is out for the season leaving you with Marc Bulger. That’s an ugly prom date and you gotta dance with him, alone.

With McNabb done, I can’t say I hold out a lot of hope. Ian’s not exactly lighting the world on fire, but he doesn’t have to – he has two quarterbacks to produce points every week, and that sadly, is enough.

Ian’s Team

The older brother’s veteran savvy takes over and Ian shoots past Brian on the standings. For a while there, I was going to leave you for dead. It was looking like your team would end up in the scrapheap of history somewhere between a BETA player and episodes of Little Wonder (it’s the one with the girl, who’s a robot and does robot-y things to a canned laugh track…wait…I’ve already said too much…).

Still, with Portis out I’m not loving your chances to go higher – you might hang on to your current spot but I’m doubtful you’ll be in the money by year’s end.

Brian’s Team

With each passing week, Brian’s face is getting longer than the line up for PS3’s. I don’t blame him. Brian’s team is beset by the inequities and tyrannies of evil men; that and depending on Reggie Bush or Carnell Williams to put up consistent numbers, which just isn’t happening enough. To be frank, Bush is looking more like a wide-receiver than a running-back with every game. When you can’t keep Deuce McCallister on the bench, you know something just doesn’t smell right.

Derek’s Team

Picking up Ladell Betts in any capacity is a bad move – it’s doubly bad when Ladell watches T.J Duckett do all the work while Mike Bell tallies in a couple of scores and 90 yards.

It’s these kinds of gambles that sink fantasy teams faster than electronic battleship. Your luck playing the fantasy football field is about as good as Ryan playing the field, period (ouch, sorry Ryan). As Homer once said, “the lesson here son, is never try.”

Dean’s Team

There’s this song by a post-hardcore band named The Fiction called “Kevin Jones.” I’m not sure if it’s about my Kevin Jones but it’s an okay song, and well, Kevin Jones is an okay running back; that is, when his foot isn’t falling off.

Speaking of falling off, all my momentum is dissipating faster than Jon Kitna can throw interceptions. Suddenly, the Lions look like the Lions again which can only mean one thing: Matt Millen’s loss is my loss. I hear rumours Martz might go to Arizona if Denny Green becomes homeless. If that happens, you can bet I’ll be jettisoning Jones and Kitna into space faster than Sigourney Weaver can say “Aliens.”

Ryan’s Team

If I was Doctor Phil, this would be around the time I would be sitting you down and asking “what’s up with you son?” Not like I really need to dig for an answer – Charlie Frye is your most potent quarterback, which is kind of like saying the Kevin Federline is a potent force in today’s culture.

Come to think of it, your team is kind of like Kevin Federline – not very talented, a little unkept, but has a faint glimmer of promise – if by promise you mean a long career of daytime talk show cameos and being featured in a Trivial Pursuit pop-culture question five years from now – yeah, your team has that kind of promise.

Dennis’ Team

If only Edgerrin could play the Lions every week. If only Tatum Bell could play at all. If only Hines Ward and Heath Miller were catching footballs instead of chasing defenders who intercept them. There’s a lot of “if’s” with this team and that really only leads to only thing: the fantasy football dungeon.

Wayne’s Team

There are only so many years one can blame a system on a coaching system or talent level. A perfect example would be the Houston Texans. They’ve had more than a few chances to prove worth and despite player and coaching changes they continue to tank. I’m not sure what stars are aligned to cause this curse to them, but it seems to be the same curse unfairly wreathed on Mr. Garberg.

Regardless of potential, here you are swimming at the bottom of the ranks yet again. Whatever deity you are currently paying homage toward, I’d recommend a change; perhaps Vishnu or Buddha will bring better luck. At worst, you could go Catholic since you’re already paying penance with your team.

Letters from Neo-Tokyo

Letters from Neo-Tokyo (thoughts on various sub-culture subjects such as gaming, anime, movies, and generally nerdy things I like).

I recently came across a couple of articles that really struck me on this topic and I thought I would share what I think…

Addiction: a strong emotional or psychological dependence on a substance such as “…”

Normally this sentence would end with “a drug” or “alcohol” or “gambling” but in recent years a number of therapists and psychiatrists have begun adding “video games” to the list. Sure, video games get the shaft for a number of things, no different than other forms of media that are usually part of some kind of sub-culture, the most prevalent probably being the holy trinity of comics, movies and music.

The most damning articles you’ll see in print are usually about the violent content included in videogames, not so much for the possibility that games may also (inadvertently or arguably for some games directly) prove to have addictive qualities. From what I can tell, this trend was minimal in the days of yore when games were essentially linear: you plugged it in, you played it, you beat it, you stopped playing it. Not altogether different from books or movies, games were an entertainment device aimed of creating a particular experience until the gamer beat the game.

Not so, today. One could make an argument that the prevalence of addiction and video games has come with the birth of MMORPG’s or other online-functional games. What’s the difference? These games are essentially unbeatable, especially today. In the beginning, the lack of sophistication in these games meant that players could in relativist terms beat a game by leveling up to a point where the usefulness of playing was rendered null. With new iterations of MMORPG’s such as World of Warcraft (WOW), this isn’t the case as often. I’ll give respect to Blizzard for one thing and it’s that they know how to make a quality product – and with that – they have learned how to refine continual content and story upgrades to keep gamers playing. From a business perspective it makes sense. The company retrieves subscriptions fees from its players. The company’s best interest is to deliver a constantly dynamic experience so that players continue playing the game.

The problem is, there may be adverse effects from creating such a seamless online world, especially in regard to a tendency for some players to become psychologically dependent on playing. Further, some researchers are starting to point out that the playing of the games may also inadvertently be creating physical changes in the human body that enhance the addictive behaviour.

The psychological findings are pretty straight-forward for anyone who plays any kind of role playing game – it’s called sunk-cost fallacy. When a person commits so much time toward something (as you would need to do in any role-playing game), it’s hard to stop a certain behaviour because so much time has already been committed.

The other psychological motivations behind gaming are kind of obvious as well; games are an escape. The problem is, with increased sophistication the games become a better, more fulfilled escape. One research paper I came across noted that like any behaviour that is rewarded, there is an initial rush. After time, a person will continue sinking time to reach a “higher” high. Of course the other issue that comes out of providing players with an escape, an other world is that there is a tendency for some to choose that virtual world, over the needs of the present one. In the same said research paper, a clinical psychologist noted it as the “Peter Pan” complex. Some gamers become addicted to these games because they feel a strong emotional link between themselves and the characters they spend so much time developing.

What compounds this issue is that although many MMORPG’s create an online community for social interaction; they also bridge a stronger need for some gamers to stay in them, continuing to work for better levels and rewards as a way of proving worth to others. The psychologist noted that this issue was especially prevalent in people with prior issues with social interaction, depression or just plain boredom. A player can possibility become addicted because the world they inhabit online allows them to work hard and see success; unfortunately, real life doesn’t always work that way.

So, what’s the impact?

There’s a wealth of “gaming widow” sites and although it sounds sort of far-fetched and plenty or jokes are made between gamers, one look at site like this one (http://www.gamerwidow.com/) and you come to understand the very real impacts that an online world can have. In all honesty, after reading a few testimonies from gaming widows, I begun to wonder whether the addiction was truly the “exception” and not the “rule.”

The testimonies are real examples of people and how their behaviour changed due to excessive gaming; plenty of the descriptions are symptomatic of addiction such as withdrawal from society, lying to family/friends, changing life patterns such as missing classes/work etc., apathy, depression and hygiene issues. I always think of these as the extremes, but when reading people’s comments, is happens more than I’d like to think.

I found other articles in the press from ex-addicts (particularly Everquest) such as: http://news.com.com/2100-1040-881673.html. Similar to the widow’s descriptions, gamers themselves describe the issues that arose when gaming took over.

Arguably, the true science is still out there – one clinical test noted that excessive dopamine is produced when gaming – still, the real effects of this test and its validation have not been done.

Like doing anything too much, games can be bad. As someone who likes videogames, I do think there are a number of positives and that they are a legitimate entertainment vehicle.

That said, I think that as a society we haven’t fully gauged the impact that videogames will have – particularly so – with the new rise in online gaming and continuous gaming. As the Internet before transformed nearly everything about daily life, I don’t doubt that we haven’t fully understood how online gaming will impact how we are entertained and what that truly means to psychologically and socially.

Upsell

privilege a kind of sieve,

gaps or sieges

score, in the exegesis

it excises it,

daylight.

Hyundai, Fuck Yeah!

What's this? Random sketches from work. I'm moving desks and discovered some of the stuff I've done while supposedly being productive over the last couple of years.

Random Sketches

I'm probably the least productive artist you'll ever meet. When I could be drawing and creating finely tuned art, I find I'm overtaken by procrastination or the need to do other things.

When I shouldn't be drawing (meetings, at my desk waiting for something to upload on our Intranet), that's when I grab a pen/pencil/watercolours and bristol board.

This has been a persuasive affliction from pretty much day one. If not for a constant need to draw things, I might have done better in all levels of my education. Not that I did badly, but I could have been a little more focused. The problem is, when I get bored, my mind wanders and my hand does all the thinking.

Anyway, here's something randomly sketched while waiting for a meeting to start; I have tons of things like this - I'll post more as I recover them from the paper on my desk.

Hello Mr. Fantasy Week Six/Seven

Yeah, so no update last week. My boss flew in from Toronto, which resulted in meetings for two straight days. Lucky for me, I got all my extra work done at home during the evening, when I could be doing something productive like writing these rankings, clipping my toenails or cursing myself for leveling up too much in Final Fantasy 8 (damn those summonses!)

So here’s a snapshot of Week Six/Seven:

Paul’s Team

Still one point out of first place, and as Ryan’s insightful little site shows, your wide receivers aren’t tops in the game - doesn’t matter much you’re your running backs are putting away four scores on a lazy day. As long as Tomlinson and Johnson are running, this team is going to be hard to top.

80’s Music Your Team Most Resembles:

Like Michael Jackson, your team is non-stop hits. And like Michael, everybody loves you and your ambiguous creepiness – although I wish you’d stop calling my house and asking me to come over to your basement to see “bubbles.” I’m not falling for that Paul, again.

Lindsay’s Team

Here’s a movie Linsday should watch: The Deer Hunter. It has Christopher Walken as a Vietnam era soldier who gets addicted to playing Russian roulette. On a completely unrelated note, Lindsay keeps picking Baltimore quarterbacks with the thought that the Ravens can play offense. Lindsay, watch the movie – what do you think happens to Walken?

80’s Music Your Team Most Resembles:

Def Leppard. You also have hits, but your team is crippled by the one-armed drummer that is McNair.

Larry’s Team

I was getting so used to see you and Brian together on the standings, it was like some kind of marriage. A ugly marriage, but, still. I guess Brian didn’t met your emotional needs because you’ve pulled away from him in the past couple weeks. Still, Paul and Lindsay are only spots in the distance.

80’s Music Your Team Most Resembles:

Your team is like Journey. You are kind of rocking it, but then again, uh, you’re Journey!

Brian’s Team

Matt Leinart isn’t so hot these days. He’s throwing it to the other team’s players like they were a women’s volleyball team. Now that Chris Simms was put out of his misery, you have to rely on Chad Pennington to get you through. Um, good luck! I can’t wait to see the highlight where Lavernous Coles is running and he catches something from Chad. Wait, that’s not the ball? It’s Chad’s arm!

80’s Music Your Team Most Resembles:

Toto. They had one good song, Africa. Then, they disappeared. Forever. You’ve had a few good weeks, and now poof!

Ryan’s Team

We’re heading toward the middle of the season and there are probably five teams all floating in the ether of mediocrity. At some point, somebody’s gonna have to rise to take third spot. Ryan, is it you? Is it in you? Or a better question, why is it in you?

80’s Music Your Team Most Resembles:

Much like a famous Foreigner song, “you have stars in your eyes,” but alas, your team is only a Juke Box Hero – there’s no real stardom in the cards.

Ian’s Team

A better week. You should call up Alge Crumpler personally to thank him. You’d think after touchdown number two, the Steelers might try to cover the only guy catching passes. Then again, maybe not.

80’s Music Your Team Most Resembles:

Billy Ocean. Because Ian, you should get out of my dreams, and into my car.

Derek’s Team

With Matt Hassleback out, I think you’ll probably get passed by Ryan soon. Plus, Leon Washington is not enough at running back. Speaking of running backs, Droughns isn’t just abusing his wife lately; he’s beating the crap out of your team this year. Ouch!

80’s Music Your Team Most Resembles:

Captain and Tennille – “Do That To Me One More Time” should be Droughn’s soundtrack; and, because both this band and your team are an abomination.

Dean’s Team

Um, WTF??? Was there kind of solar eclipse I missed last week – somehow my team is coming together nicely. Even I have to admit, I have some hope for next year. Even, Kevin Jones is in the top ten. The gods are treating me like that nerdy kid that gets voted prom king, you know, just for a laugh. No doubt I’m back to earth next week.

80’s Music Your Team Most Resembles:

Aha! My team is a monster this week so c’mon and ‘Take on Me.”

Wayne’s Team

Having Andrew Walter on your team is the kind of rough concession that admits how bad your team is performing. Trust me, having any Raider is something to be ashamed of, like Sloth from the Goonies, keep them locked up. Also, Kevan Barlow further cements his place as “free-agent” for next year and Troy Palomanu’s afro must be getting in the way – it would explain why he can’t stop a tight end from scoring three times on him.

80’s Music Your Team Most Resembles:

You are like WHAM; well actually, your team is like Andrew Ridgeley from WHAM. Both are desperately doling out handjobs for sandwichs. Only your sandwichs are filled with mayonnaise. Mayonnaise and bad fantasy football players.

Dennis’ Team

How do you spell hopeless? Here’s how: D-E-N-N-I-S-‘-S T-E-A-M.

80’s Music Your Team Most Resembles:

You team is like Ronnie James Dio fronting Whitesnake with RATT providing backing vocals. It has become so awful it’s like self-parody. Just talking about your team or thinking about those bands makes me long for a tetanus shot – in the neck.

Tales from the Box...

As mid-November approaches, one can feel the propulsive rumbling of new systems as though they were a stampede of terrified bison ready to buffalo-jump onto unsuspecting consumer's heads. The date's not here yet, but it isn't hard to play armchair quarterback at this point.

Let's get one thing straight; the strategies of the next two systems are inherently as different as the corporate cultures the two organizations represent. Nintendo, for all its lack of technological mucle, understands gaming culture (which isn't hard when you're in the business as long as they are) and better yet, understands non-gaming culture.

Sony, who's background is made on solid products with high quality standards understands how to make hardware that sounds a new boundary in capabilities and consumer expectations.

Both companies have strengths and weaknesses; however, I feel Nintendo's in a better position to be successful in the next round of gaming hardware.

Why? It would seem obvious that the strongest system should win out the day, but I think the next generation of systems are coming into a different culture than their forebearers. The market is no longer in "growth" mode. Video games are now a major market, surpassing that of movies - more importantly, the gaming market is entering the "mature" stage. Nintendo understands this, Sony does not.

Nintendo, in the last few years especially, has understood that market share is not the final determinant in profitability. Rather, Nintendo has agressively filled a niche of innovation, with games that are inexpensive to produce, but sell exponentially due to the inherent "newness" to the gaming. The first experiment, the much-maligned-by-me-and-then-completely-retracted, Nintendo DS proved that a system did not have to be a juggernaut to gain wide appeal. The DS games pale in comparison to the PSP, but the gaming offered by the DS far surpasses what the PSP is capable, regardless of the amount of money and firepower Sony through into its little system. The stats are the stone cold truth; the DS has outsold the PSP considerably and there is a lesson shining like a bright beacon to both companies.

The DS showed Nintendo that the key to the mature gaming market is not making bigger, more expensive systems and games. Instead, the key is finding new gamers - essentially appealing to the wider audience of people who don't play games.

Looking at Nintendo's recent Wii promotions, the company is only going further down the path it set with the DS. The promotional videos Nintendo has recently released show regular people playing the Wii. The concept is genius. There's nothing that makes me more excited to play a system than watching a regular person have a riot playing it; I'm sure this applies moreso to regular people who watch the videos. Further, the system and game design itself is basically targeted to people who don't like the complexity of current games. There's little adaptation to the Wii, like the DS, it's relatively a pick-up-and-play kind of system.

Sony on the other hand, hasn't learned its PSP lesson and it about to try the same trick with the PS3. The company assumes that the market can be wowed with powerful hardware; as I've argued in the past, they're going to be wrong, again.

The problem with Sony's approach is that they are trying to appeal to existing gamers, an already if not diminishing market. This market segment is probably the most difficult to get full engagement and the most costly since they already are the target of most competitor's advertising and marketing. True gamers are not necessarily brand-loyal, rather they are game loyal. The demographics show that most people who align themselves as gamers, play games on a number of systems - it's the games that they are loyal toward.

The PSP, while awesome in capability, is failing because the games can't cut it; additionally, price played a major role in gamer turn-off for the system. It only gets worse with the PS3. Quite a few gamers were "stung" with the PSP and will be more skeptical of Sony's next offering. It certaintly doesn't help that Sony doesn't seem to have an over-arching strategy to its next system; it's not innovative like Nintendo and it's not properly online like Microsoft. As I've said before, in a mature market, simply having good hardware, isn't going to be enough.

Add to the fact that Sony's online capability seems to switch everyday and it doesn't exactly elicit consumer confidence; what little communication from the company has been contradictory. As a communications person, I am amazed at the amount of dis-coordination from Sony's North-American marketing group.

Ironically, the best communications about the PS3 have come from Sony Europe, who's campaigns have been in full effect for some time; in fact, most news about the PS3 has been coming from the European division. That's especially funny since Sony just annouced that Europe won't even be on the list for when the first systems ship. So the gamers with the most knowledge of the system will have to wait until March, while the gamers who have no idea what the system can do will get it November. Good strategy.

The marketing campaigns, and I guess the systems they advertise, are emblematic of the position of the two companies. Nintendo understands the competitiveness of the market and need to grow it to be successful. Sony, on the other hand, assumes the old strategy; that firepower will win just like it did with PS2. While ultimately, I think Sony will do well (it has too much financial backing not to), I think the company is in for a rude awakening come November. As for Nintendo, congratulations on running a good marketing campaign that reflects your product's vision. As a consumer, I get it, and I want to get it.

Yellow Swans - "True Union"

I'm finally getting around to listening to "Psychic Sessions" by the Yellow Swans. I've only listened to the first track, "True Union," and I have to say that it is pure noise-joy.

The song fits somewhere between drone-black metal-Merzbow-industrial-and of all things, pop. The song is so ahead of itself, it's like some kind of giant anachronism. It's alien in its forward-thinkingness - if someone from the future were to send a beacon to us in the present, it might sound like "True Union."

Anarctica Takes It! - The Penguin League - 2006

“I’m not a lover, I’m a fighter – and I will burn your house down.”

And so begins The Penguin League, the first album from Anarctica Takes It! a precocious lot of indie-poppers from Santa Cruz, California. The Penguin League is unapologetically messy, lo-fi and certainly uneven; but, it’s also gloriously energetic and disarmingly honest. Boy-girl harmonies bounce over folksy instrumentation which occasionally, almost recklessly, throws in violins, glockenspiels, hand-claps and a hearty brass section.

When it works, it works to perfection; songs such as “Circuits” or “Antarctica” are pure slices of pop abandon. When it doesn’t, it’s still at least three rungs above better-known acts such as Badly Drawn Boy or The Tyde. Antarctica Takes It! are carelessly heartfelt which is refreshing in its lack of self-consciousness. Through either beauty or blemishes, The Penguin League is a promising debut.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, does it recoup for a writer’s laziness?

This week, your power rankings come in handy visual formats!

Paul’s Team

Paul takes #1 this week. I foresee him overtaking Lindsay soon.

Lindsay’s Team

Lindsay had a bit of a down week (although he bettered most of the league). Paul is creeping up on you.

Brian

Brian’s team is strong, but there’s still something not quite “right.” Even the horse knows that he doesn’t have enough to take top spot.

Larry

Your team is efficient and performs well. Somehow you’re getting it done, but still, like this car, nobody really has to take you seriously yet.

Ryan’s Team

Remember Sully when I told you last week that I would put you in last for your smart-assness? I liiiiieeeeed. Ryan stays were he is because he can’t better Larry, but Wayne isn’t exactly catching up either.

Wayne’s Team

Dude, where’s your team? Like the movie above, Wayne’s team is barely passing as entertainment these days. Wayne, your team is officially the Ashton Kutcher of fantasy football and last week was your team’s ‘The Guardian.”

Ian


This is all I need to say about Ian’s team.

Derek’s Team

It’s almost to this point with only a few points above me. Another poor showing and I’ll be moving up a spot – not by talent but by brutal default.

Dean’s Team

Yeah, that’s my head. Subzero represents my fantasy football team’s performance so far.

Dennis’ Team
Yeah, this team is that ugly.

Bardo Pond - Ticket Crystals - 2006

Philadelphia’s Bardo Pond is the little engine that could, going 15 years strong with its drone-heavy monolith rock. The band is about as consistent as they come, not only releasing records with metronome-like precision nearly every two years, but also changing its sound so little since the first record, Bufo Alvaris Amen, 29:15.

Ticket Cystals marks the band’s fifth full-length release, and they make new with the same distinctively brooding psych-riffs. If anything, it’s clear by now that Bardo Pond aren’t interested in shifting trends or the desire to grow their sound. Rather, they dive deeper into the pool, finding the smallest wrinkles along the cliffside of their towering guitars.

With this release, the most noticeable increment is Isobel Sollenberger’s heighten presence in the din that is “Lost Word” and “Destroying Angel” In past releases, both her voice and flute were texture to Michael and John Gibbon’s electric adventures. On Ticket Crystals, Sollenberger is high in the mix, her voice and flute casting a somnambulant net over the rolling leviathan.

The most striking track on the record is a cover of “Cry Baby Cry” where the band plays it safe for the first three minutes, only to unrepentantly drop a mountain of guitars on the unsuspecting Beatles. This sonic atom-bomb is an idol killer by the sheer weight of its reverence for the source material.

With such determined reliability, one has to wonder wow long can Bardo Pond keep treading the same ground without thinning the grass? If Ticket Crystals is any indication, the band still has plenty of path to wonder.

Theeeeeey'rrrrrrrrrrreeee Great!

Here is a comic! At least this isn't as suggestive as the last post...

Best of the Wurst

Sorry for no updates. I have a comic ready, but I left it at home.

So, instead, you get this:

I've been tasked with creating an Octoberfest Poster for work where such german delicacies as bratwurst and sauerkraut will be served. Exciting stuff indeed (like your job is any better - don't judge me!)

I thought about using this picture in the poster, but there's something just uncomfortably implicit about the image.

Same goes for this picture:













Frankly, I'm alarmed at how subversive german food is in appearance. No matter how I try and make this poster, I feel, well, kind of dirty. For shame, Germany, for shame.

Hello Mr. Fantasy Week Four

Lindsay’s Team – 1

Let’s get something straight. Michael Vick is a poor quarterback. In fact, he’s barely adequate to be considered anything remotely close to a QB. But, he’s a great running back who occasionally throws the football. Basically, he’s the ultimate option play. So, um, yeah – with that said, Lindsay takes first with Ron Mexico and his merry crew of McNair, Foster, Harrison and Moss. Like a good case of venereal disease (of which Ron might know a thing or two) – Lindsay has hung around long enough to become a significant problem for our former first, Paul.

Paul’s Team - 2

King Chile and his crew took it to the 49’ers like a backroom prostitute dosed out on meth. Pleasant metaphors aside, LJ gets on the board for the first time this year and then adds another one for good measure. Peyton Manning continues to put up deity-like numbers while the rest of the crew, especially Maroney and Kennison come out of the fantasy cave (or did they simply see a reflection on the cave wall and they are still in the cave?) That’s right my friends, this review included both prostitutes and references to Plato – I have a talent. Oh yeah, Paul slips to second for now, but Lindsay needs to look out his side mirrors because Paul is closer than he appears.

Brian’s Team – 3

Matt Leinert makes his inauspicious fantasy football debut with negative five points – welcome to playing for the Cardinals. When analysts said this team was on the rise, perhaps they forgot that this team has a bloody cardinal on the side of their helmets. That’s right, a harmless songbird really intimidates beefy football players like no other; thus, this team stays in purgatory, or worse, Arizona. Otherwise, Brian’s beating the rest of the league like its Mike Love’s musical ability. Yeah, that’s a bad Beach Boys reference. Brian moves to numba three!

Ryan’s Team – 4

Ryan rhymes with Brian so he has to follow. That’s all I have.

Ian’s Team – 5

At this point, Dante couldn’t comeback from a playground taunt let alone a serious knee injury. Hey Nick Saban, say hello to unemployment! That Dolphins/Texans game was so bad I was surprised it wasn’t on a Monday night, with Madden occasionally rolling out of donut unconsciousness to lay another unnecessary brown nugget of wisdom upon a tortured populace. A good defensive effort saved this team from another drop in the rankings.

Larry’s Team - 6

Larry has the equivalent of the Olson twins with both running backs for Dallas – neither’s very pretty, but somehow they succeed. This team has a ton of potential and just needs a couple players to have monster games and it will be going up. On the same hand, watch out about the running backs – Taylor and Parker are smallish backs who seem to be hitting a wall as the season goes – this team’s one the fence and we’ll see how it goes.

Wayne’s Team - 7

Look who’s in the same position as last week! Rex Grossman continues to prove doubters, including me, quite wrong. In fact, Wayne’s team is like some kind of bad acid trip where Grossman and Brunell continue to scorch the fantasy world while the giant purple chicken hides my socks. One question though? Where are the wide-outs on this team? Wayne, are they with my socks?

Derek’s Team – 8

Here’s the good: Macques Colston might be the best seventh-round pick I’ve seen in some time. Here’s the bad: Matt Hassleback is giving it up faster than Paris Hilton on a bad punk drummer. Here’s the ugly: despite some good individual performances, this team is perilously close to falling behind my team, the penultimate ugly step-sister. I’m not sure what’s not working here, but it’s enough to be concerned at this point in the season.

Dean’s Team - 9

Like a playful eunuch, my team delights without ever having the chance of making anything fruitful. It’s a good thing Detroit’s offense has come alive like some kind of halfway cadaver while the defense is a giant turnstile – it means a lot of fantasy points to buoy me just enough not to get the first pick. My team’s so bad, it’s not even good enough to be bad enough for the first round pick.

Dennis’ Team – 10

When did this team step on the proverbial stingray (and officially, I am going to hell). It’s not easy to get negative four points, but Alex Smith did it. That takes talent. I didn’t see the game, so I can only guess he was rushed and threw the ball backyards forty yards and someone, somehow caught it and took a knee; that’s about the only plausible explanation I’m willing to accept in my narrow scope of logic. Also, Ron Dayne makes a fantasy appearance like the ghost of Christmas crap. You know it’s going to be a rough year when…

Silent Garfield

Recontextualizing is hardly a new concept. In poetic circles it’s common enough practice now that it elicits yawns probably as much as it does genuine surprise (or course, taking a handful of salt with this assertion since I’d categorize myself as someone more interested in working with my own ideas/language than reconstituting someone else’s).

Still, the point is that it’s not genre-defying any longer and has entrenched itself as one of the many methods that poetry can bridge the insubstantial of thoughts/emotions with the tactile such as someone else’s work, a newspaper, even an old poster or piece of trash can be infused with message or newfound symbolism.

Pop culture is an obvious target for recontextualization because it’s so rife with imagery, so in love with its own paradoxically meaningless necessity. It provides so many tropes that bring forth shared meanings that it’s just begging for someone to turn it on its head. One area though that seems to be untouched by the busy hands of the recontextualizer (now there’s a noun), is comics. Why not before? Perhaps the simplicity or implied shallowness of the funnies isn’t a worthwhile target. Or perhaps, new technologies (cough, cough, photoshop) are only now available to the average user to play around with graphic files.

Whatever the reason, comics are certainly now coming under the microscope in a big way. There are numerous webpages popping up with users delighting in the reconstruction/deconstruction of their favourite comics.

For example:

The comic recontextualizer

Truth and Beauty Bombs

Two of the most popular targets are Bill Keane’s Family Circus and Jim Davis’s Garfield, two comics emblematic of the old guard, ala Snoopy or Dagwood. Doubly funny is the fact that what probably makes these comics such a target isn’t just the core content, but the willingness of the creators to battle with the recontextualizers.

For example, take a look at this: Bill Keane speaking to recontextualizer

Because Family Circus’ ideological footing is so firmly set in one place, it’s an easy push-over. The obviousness of Bill Keane’s rightist missives make it a pendulous soapbox in the swirling winds of popular culture.

Garfield, on the other hand, absolves itself of any opinion for the sake of commercial universality. By Jim Davis’ own admission, Garfield’s vision statement is summed up with the zeroing mantra of “no comment.” Like any great politician, Jim Davis says a lot without actually saying anything.

Asides from artistic considerations, Garfield is basically the same as it’s always been, and some would say, including myself, that its tired conceits grew out their welcome at least a decade ago. The shark was jumped; the shark was passed; the shark is a mere speck on the horizon.

Recontextualizing has an odd effect on Garfield that’s difficult to duplicate with other comics. Garfield relies on the tenuous reality that Jon, a lonely bachelor, can interact with his witty cat. Garfield is the straight man to Jon’s anxieties; the super-ego to Jon’s frantic id. When Garfield’s commentary is removed, a disturbing reality sets in; Jon in all his neuroses is talking to a cat, is rationalizing to a cat, is pleading the meaning of his existence to a cat.

The effect is both hilarious as below:























Or, sadly profound like such:





























Where recontextualizing Family Circus is a rote exercise in inverting Keane’s wishes for a bygone time (that never really existed), Garfield takes a new freshness, a displaced meaning where Jon’s anxieties are magnified by the lack of another speaker. Where changing Keane’s work is basically like making fun of a grandfather and his wishes for the “good old days,” changing Davis’ work adds real pathos and absurdity that actually exists in life.

By making Garfield “a cat” the comic takes on a new existential tone full of the ambiguities and disheartening reality of loneliness. It’s strangely funning, sometimes making a new joke altogether, or other times cutting out the extraneous dialogue to deliver the joke in its purest form. It’s strangely funny because it’s kind of real, while still being delivered in the “un-real” artifice that is comics.

Who knew that comics were hardly a laughing manner?

Tales from the Box...

Recently, I’ve come into possession of an Xbox 360 via a very generous girlfriend on our third anniversary. Needless to say, I’ve spent some quality time with the system lately and have come away with the following impressions.

But, first, the caveat:

I’m not a gamer in the traditional sense of the word; at least not in the sense that I can consistently commit time to games so that they can be finished in a reasonable time. Like books, I own far too many games that I’m not likely to finish within my lifetime. The problem is, I probably derive half my thrill in buying games from the actual act of buying. There’s something about finding a game for a really good price and then getting it – basically, I live for the deal.

So even with this need for buying games, I’m really only finishing maybe one to five titles per year; five being a really good year, perhaps like this past year where I finally knocked off Growlanser, Shadow of the Colossus, Shadow Hearts and Katamari Darmacy (keep in mind I’ve started and have not finished the following games: Final Fantasy 8, X-Men Rise of the Sentinels, Kingdom Hearts, Ring of Red and Dark Cloud).

The other thing of course, is that I’ve primarily been loyal to Sony and its various itineration of the PlayStation (with a little Nintendo handheld gaming on the side). With Sony, I’ve been adherent to mostly rpg-fare with the prerequisite large but clichéd story, the necessary continuous leveling up and the less-than-necessary but still included, long-ass cut scenes straight out of a bargain bin anime.

With Sony, we’re making some obvious assumptions – one of the most important being that I have little-to-no online gaming-experience. The Sony console and online gaming are essentially mutually exclusive terms. And while both are fantastic for what they are, they are two things that do not coexist in my gaming vernacular.

So the Xbox 360:

If there’s one thing Microsoft excels at in gaming, it’s the online play. While not nearly as robust as say, computer gaming, the Xbox 360 does offer a relatively cheap way to connect to other gamers through a simple user-interface. So, there’s some depth lost in favour of usability; but really, for someone with my level of background, it’s a valuable trade-off.

Plug in that Ethernet cable and give it a go; it’s almost that simple. While I’ve only really hit two or three games, I have to say that online play raises the console value. Instead of simply playing it out against the computer with its rote exercises, playing Madden becomes unpredictable. The computer won’t go for it on fourth and twenty. A player will. That fear of the unknown heightens the drama of gaming and makes each experience fresh.

Plus, the ability to speak to the other player adds an element that is frustrating, amusing and enriching all at the same time. It’s one thing to trash-talk a friend as you play them; it’s another thing to trash-talk some stranger from across the country, or world. On its own ironic level, the clash of cultures and the resulting absurdities of gaming against totally different subsets of people is worth the price of the Xbox alone.

As for the Games, I’ve played:

Madden 2007

Visually, it bests the other console releases. Unlike last year’s edition, there was enough time to improve the visual aspects of the game. From the player animations to the between snap close-ups of tense, sweating players, EA outdid itself with 2007.

Particularly, the physics model seems improved from previous releases. When players gain momentum, it translates in the tackles – players moving quickly are harder to tackle or take longer to fall down, while players who get stuck in the backfield can get blown up from incoming defenders. The other bonus is that the character models are finally big enough that players aren’t lost when the offensive and defensive line collide. In previous Maddens, the running back would occasionally pop out of a throng of players to break a long run; it’s much less likely now as the running back can be clearly seen when they run through a hole.

In terms of options, the standards are locked in place: franchise and superstar are entrenched as the new focus of play. Other modes, found in the other console systems are surprisingly missing, which leads one to suspect that the graphical powerhouse comes delivered instead of some of these extraneous game play modes.

One area that’s unfortunately suspect is the individual alignments for offense, and more glaringly, defense. While offense offers hot-routes and audibles, blocking assignments can’t be changed, leaving offenses vulnerable when a defenses change coverage to blitz on the fly. Most frustrating of all is that individual defensive players’ audibles are nowhere to be seen.

While overall coverage (line, linebacker and secondary) can be called; an individual player cannot be selected for a particular defensive assignment. It might seem like a minor point, until playing someone else who knows his or her way around a quarterback such as McNabb or Michael Vick. With the ability to run, it becomes increasing frustrating that all linebackers must either be set to run-support or coverage; so, a running quarterback can either throw over the rushing linebackers or run for extra yards when defenses moves back into coverage.

Add to this volatile mix that occasionally the defenses can be slow to react to a play, and it makes it disheartening to play others who simply use this exploit over and over (I kid you not, one opponent I played ran only two plays the whole game – both exploited this coverage problem).

Madden 2007 is the pretty girlfriend you’ll want all your friends to see, even if she might not have a whole lot to say. The online play adds a ton of replay-ability despite a few missteps. It’s a great looking game that runs decently; as with any console launch game, as the development catches the technology, no doubt the game will escape its current paint-by-numbers structure.

Far Cry Instincts: Evolution

Here’s a game that already exists in limitless iterations, yet UbiSoft, in all its wisdom, decided to re-re-re-release it to the Xbox 360 with additional solo missions and a ton of multiplayer levels. Man, it really sucks when a company makes improves a game and steers it towards its strengths, which is offering endless ways to play online.

To be honest, the solo missions are plainer than an Amish dance recital and about as fun as having to build a barn for unkle Ezikiel to sleep in with his mules. The real cream of Far Cry is multiplayer with its all out chaos mode or team-based modes such as steal the sample and team chaos. The one element that differentiates Far Cry from a host of other angry-looking man-on-the-cover titles lining the wills of EB is the Predator element.

Basically, Predator gives the player superhuman powers for a limited time. It’s not a genre-defying exercise in any way, shape or form, but it’s fun to be able to jump twenty stories or punch another player like a mile into the air.

The other component that adds to freshness factor is the robust map-editor built into the game. Unlike many other titles, Far Cry’s editor does not take a doctorate to figure out. And, the resulting map that players can make run the gamut from intensely tight battlegrounds to giant fortresses with huge towers well over fifty stories high.

Multiplayer battles can host 16 players, although the trade-off between lots of action and huge lags is a big one. It also depends on the time of day; the busier the networks, the harder it is to accurately aim at other players as their character models skip around the screen like sugar-addled school kids.

Still, the maps are designed for maximum flexibility in play styles and they are gorgeous – particularly the water display – which is the most accurate I’ve seen in a game.

Far Cry as a game is average at best; Far Cry as an online experience is highly rewarding and something not to be missed: one of the first games to really bring out the best components of the Xbox 360 and Xbox live.

Delicious Parables

Poor Popeye - his spinach has fallen on rough times. I only care because I enjoy a heart bowl of the leafy greens myself - although the prospect of getting e.coli somewhat diminishes my desire to eat the stuff.

An Act of True Evil

Bloodhag - Hell Bent for Letters - 2006

For every tried and true musical taxonomy, someone out there is burning to bust out the next mind-bogglingly trope to define “their” music. These new sub-genres are about as welcome as a jobless houseguest and both usually stick around long enough to go from mildly amusing to aggravating. That said here’s Bloodhag’s second release “Hell Bent for Letters” with the prerequisite “edu-core” tag firmly attached.

“Hell Bent For Letters” isn’t an epistolary affair; rather, it’s about a band getting more juiced up about the alphabet than Big Bird at the end of Sesame Street. This Seattle four-some is made up of aspiring science fiction writers whose motto is “the faster you go deaf, the more time you have to read.” It sounds like a laugh, but the band plays it serious, whether it’s throwing books at the audience at live shows, naming all of their songs after science fiction writers or including an exhaustive lyrics sheet with equally exhaustively researched lyrics.

Nerd fantasy this is. And, musically it’s serviceable too. Over buzzing guitars and attention deficit percussion, singer J.B Stratton growls about his favourite writers and their books. The guttural howls are nearly incomprehensible, which makes the lyrics sheet all that more necessary and the lyrics surprisingly sturdy. On Arthur C. Clarke, Stratton chants “because of this monolithic obelisk genesis, rewrite the ironic bit. His literary gift's eclipsed, by Kubrick and a script, but undiminished by it!”

Is it a gimmick? Sure, but one that’s easy enough to buy into. Replace Bill Kurtis with Tom Araya on Biography and what comes out is something like “Hell Bent for Letters” – a tight ball of education and entertainment coming to a library near you.

Jacob Kirkegaard - Four Rooms - 2006

High-concept albums usually focus on the novelty of the inputs, while the resulting music takes a back seat. This unsatisfying paradigm means that the critical aspect of the listening experience, the music, is often unrewarding regardless of what went into making it. Rarely does an album manage to cross the high-wire act of its own pretensions to exercise the necessary academic and emotional muscles.

Jacob Kirkegaard’s fifth album, Four Rooms, balances on this pin head, producing a resonantly haunting meditation on the silence of dislocation. Twenty years after the Chernobyl accident, Kirkegaard set out to record the sound of silence in four abandoned rooms; he deliberately picked rooms which used to be active meeting places: a church, an auditorium, a gymnasium and a swimming pool.

While the recordings have a definitive scientific bent, as Kirkegaard specifically searches for the sound of radioactive pollution, the music is also stained by the ghostly presence of what was, and is no longer there. Each room was recorded for ten minutes and then the recordings were played back into the room, while being recorded again.

The result is four distinct drone pieces, full of surprisingly different tonal structures, which reflect the forgotten spirit of these once-living spaces. Where ‘Church’ is filled with a menacingly thick hum that gets heavier as the recording progresses, “Swimming Pool” bubbles innocuously and “Gymnasium” works sinuous wavelengths that shimmer like new stainless steel.

With or without back-story, Four Rooms, brims with stark resilient beauty. The breadth of Kirkegaard’s recordings stands tall on their own, but is endlessly enriched by its harrowing inspiration.

Dress Code

rise

these reins,

former self

succinct in the turn.

resin

from redeemed

rattles disperse

this, whichever blood fogs.

Consolation Prize

a want

bettered.

wishes into objects,

frost lifts

rivulets bodied

bearing marks,

blood needs

yearn into earning.

these maws,

red open

full-throated

impalpable buys

stiffen.

DJ Shadow - The Outsider - 2006

Woe is the artist whose defining pinnacle is their first album, especially one of the caliber of Endtroducing. Since its release, it seems DJ Shadow has been trying to escape from the shadow of his own success. His follow-up, the criminally underappreciated Private Press, was a strong effort but failed to live up to the narrow-minded expectations for another dose of mind-altering beats and samples.

Now more than a decade later, Shadow makes another stab at outgrowing his persona. Credit the guy for his ambition, just don’t credit him for the music. Shadow’s The Outsider can’t feel like anything but a reaction to Endtroducing’s legacy. Whether it’s the introduction of rapping or the grime-hybrid sound of Bay Area “hyphy” hip-hop, this album clearly sits on the opposite spectrum of Shadow’s previous work.

Too bad it’s so mediocre. On “3 Freaks” Shadow lays down a poisonous synth line while Keak Da Sneak and Turf Talk expound on the virtues of money, clubs and women. It sounds like nothing Shadow has ever done, but it also sounds like every other dime-a-dozen hip-hop track. Things go from bad to parody with “Keep Em Close” and its lame-o siren and gunshot sound effects.
By the time the totally inexplicable and clichéd voice-over of “You Made It” or the Coldplay-lite of “This Time” passes by, The Outsider is already a lost cause. It’s a shame to pigeonhole Shadow to one sound. But it’s equally dishonest to give kudos for trying to be different, when that different is a disaster. Like the last twenty minutes of the “Wicker Man” file The Outsider under ‘what were they thinking?’

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