Deviant Synapse

Boo Palin BOO

noreply@blogger.com (ESP) — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 23:33:00 +0000

I didn't really care for Sarah Palin before I read her speech, but now I really don't like her. Not long ago I read and enjoyed greatly a piece by Obama about the need for community organizing. I have a lot of respect for his work with the Developing Communities Project on Chicago's South Side. (There are many different ways to serve one's country, after all.)

So I was incensed and outraged when I read her speech, where she said:

I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a "community organizer," except that you have actual responsibilities.

and

This world of threats and dangers is not just a community, and it doesn't just need an organizer.

I don't care about her being second place in the Miss Alaska contest. I don't care about her child with down syndrome. I don't care about her pregnant teenage daughter. She needs to show some respect for people working to organize the most devastated communities in our nation.

n1n9teen

noreply@blogger.com (ESP) — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 18:05:00 +0000

I did a mashup of the song "Nineteen" by Tegan and Sara with "19" by Paul Hardcastle. The following isn't a proper music video, but I did photoshop the funky image of the three of them hanging out. Enjoy!

Dig My Stencil-Fu

noreply@blogger.com (ESP) — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 23:13:00 +0000

Aw, you judgin' me, dog?
Please! You shop at the mall
Me? I shop at boutiques
Limited quantity sneaks
Where do these quantities be?
Maybe they all on my feet

The Cool Kids
"A Little Bit Cooler"

I had the most productive day ever today. I did a million errands, finished editing the Lia Foun newsletter (it'll be online soon enough), folded 'em up, printed out the mailing labels, folded the 'letters for mailing, applied labels, and wrote thank you notes. Then I relaxed by designing and printing and cutting and painting this fresh design for my Chucks. What!

Time for some video games.

TimeWaster™

Here's a 1-minute YouTube about watching videos on the iPhone while driving. We really are Amusing Ourselves to Death. (via boing)

Today I'm listening to: Tegan and Sara!

Why COD4 and BF2 Are the Best Online Shooters Ever (And Why Bad Company Doesn't Cut It)

noreply@blogger.com (ESP) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 16:20:00 +0000

There are many, many games you can play online – some would say too many. However, most of them fall far short of their true potential. Two First-Person Shooter (FPS) games stand out for the sheer enjoyability of online play: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Battlefield 2: Modern Combat. (Sadly, no one really plays BF2 online anymore, so I mostly speak about it in the past tense.) While other FPSes have done a fine job of keeping the player entertained (Star Wars: Battlefront, SOCOM, Rainbow Six: Vegas, etc), none of them match COD4 and BF2 in nearly-unadulterated fun.

Here's why:

Precision and fairness. I get frustrated when I play these games, sure – but I generally feel that the game deals fairly with the mechanics of the players. When I get killed, it's because I'm being careless or I miss. I can feel myself get stronger with time, and it's a pretty speedy learning process. (Other games like Halo 3, for example, are mostly a matter of finding the right weapon; in BF2 and COD4, you can fight with a style that suits you.) I joke about the game "cheating", but it's usually tongue-in-cheek.
Flexibility. Most FPSes allow you to choose the "class" you'd like to use (sniper, machine-gunner, shotgunner, etc), but it's a special game that balances these out. In some games, the sniper will dominate the field in certain maps. In others, the shotgunner simply can't be beaten. In COD4 and BF2, however, they're pretty evenly matched – which makes it all into a matter of skill (and some luck). I've even found myself sliding a bit away from my usual machine gun favorite (since I don't have time to aim carefully) and use more stealthy techniques in COD4.
Quality game modes. COD4 is really only useful to me for Team Deathmatch (12 players are split into two teams, who try to eliminate each other). But there are many other modes for people who prefer Attack & Defend or .. I don't even know what the others are, heh. COD4 even tries out some unusual modes like Hardcore and OldSchool, with various tweaks to the way the game is played. Maybe these are great, maybe they suck – it doesn't even matter. Simply including them means that players who prefer those can play them, and the rest of us can stick to Team Deathmatch. BF2 also had two really good modes: Conquest and Capture the Flag. In conquest, two teams try to capture and hold five positions – indicated with flags – around the map while also shooting each other. It was the style that defined the Battlefield series until they screwed it all up (more in a minute). I didn't play much CTF, but it was nice to have it available.

Battlefield 2: Modern Combat – Strategy Matters

In addition to the above, there are some specific things that make each of these games so dear to my heart. In the case of BF2:

Multiple intelligences. (This is actually an education buzzphrase, but it sorta fits here.) In Team Deathmatches, one skill is required: Kill the enemy. That's it. In BF2 conquest, however, I could prove myself useful by capturing flags, which was especially nice if I could do it without having to fight anyone (especially since this wasn't always my strong suit). Even if I was having a crappy game in terms of shooting the enemy, I could make up for it by snatching some flags.
Strategic machinations. The flags your team controlled in BF2 conquest mattered. Your enemy could only spawn at the flags they held. If you got them all except one, they were all coming from the same spot. (This meant that sometimes one team would get all of them except one, and it would become a hideous massacre – fun if you're on the dominating team but not so much fun for the dominated.) It wasn't enough to just run around willy-nilly and shoot everything that moves. A team that communicated could really be more effective.
The Airstrike. A typical BF2 conquest game lasted 20 minutes or so. Every five minutes, a special air strike opportunity made itself available at a certain spot on the map; the first person to get to it could drop a huge load of bombs on the enemy. It was great to have that sort of community free-for-all spot which suddenly became important, and completely irrelevant just as suddenly. Some people sat around at the spot waiting for it to go online, but that was usually too boring for words, so instead you saw people engaged in firefights, then suddenly all scrambling to reach the airstrike first (sort of like how we ran for the ice cream truck when we were kids, but with more gunfire). If you reached the airstrike first, you had to pick a good spot with lots of enemies on which to drop it – but you couldn't spend too much time figuring it out, since there might be someone with a shotgun behind you about to take aim, and you'd have no idea s/he was there.
Take that, chopper-man! In many FPSes with vehicles (like SOCOM for example), a single fighter is useless against, say, a tank or a helicopter. But in BF2 I could – and often did, with great joy – use my machine gun to take down a whirlybird. It took a while, and often I'd get bombed to crud in the attempt (or an enemy foot soldier would take me out as I fired wildly into the sky). But it was so incredibly satisfying. (The only thing better was if you fired a Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG) and managed to hit the freakin' thing.) COD4 has choppers, but they're drones and you don't get any points for taking them down (except for the first time you do it; it's a "challenge", which we'll explain soon). The points I got in BF2 for taking down a chopper were actually less satisfying than seeing actual virtual people get blown up when their chopper exploded. (Sometimes three or four people would pile in and you could destroy them all.)
The Parachute. This one really needs to show up in another game, soon. In BF2, when in mid-air, you could activate a parachute which would allow you to glide slowly to the ground. This meant you could, for example, jump out of the helicopter. Or go to the top of a building and get down with great ease. It allowed for a versatility that really mixed things up.

Call of Duty 4: Finally, It's Not WWII!

Most (all?) of the other Call of Duty games have been – and apparently #5 will be, too – set in World War II. Well, call me prejudiced, but I just can't stand using muskets and cannons. (I know they didn't actually use muskets and cannons in WWII, but that's how it feels in the game.) I need my red dots and RPGs. Fortunately, COD4 is Modern Warfare, and it comes with some pretty cool features of its own:

The Killcam: Wha' happened!? When you're killed in COD4, you have the option of watching a three-second clip of what your enemy saw as they killed you. It was weird at first, but now when I play another FPS, I keep expecting to see what my enemy did, where they were, etc. Sometimes the footage is really nifty – following a random grenade over two buildings to land at your feet is often fun enough to cure my anger at being killed by a random grenade. The Killcam can also help you figure out where the perpetrator is going next (which helps with revenge plans).
Challenges. COD4 features a wide variety of different challenges, such as: "Kill two enemies with one grenade" and "Destroy five cars". Some people actually try to achieve these, but there is enough variety – and they reward things that I usually do anyway – that I prefer to just play and let them happen. They're nice little perks along the way; as mentioned, the Take down the Chopper challenge is the only reward I ever get for destroying helicopters (which I continue to do, just because I'm good at it and it means less deaths for my team).

Although they're not technically challenges, you can also get little bonuses for killing multiple opponents without dying: Three down and you can all in the UAV (I have no idea what it stands for, and can't find it online), which shows the enemy as red dots on the map. Kill five enemies without dying, and you get to activate an airstrike (sort of like the one in BF2, but anyone can use it after five kills, and it's much less powerful). Put seven enemies down and you get to call in the aforementioned helicopter. (Often you can kill the last two enemies with your airstrike, so when launching the airstrike, players often pray loudly for those last two kills.) If you die before the seventh kill, obviously, it's goodbye chopper – thus the frequent shouts of agony when a player is defeated after the sixth kill.
Ranking, especially Prestige Mode. There are 55 ranks in COD4, and you move through them by acquiring points – which you get mostly by killing enemies, but also for calling in a UAV, completing challenges, etc. You can move through the early ranks quickly, which is great – new players feel like they're accomplishing something even though they're only learning the ropes (and dying a lot, which happens whenever anyone starts playing any new game online – regardless of the untrue bragging you'll hear from "gamerz" about how they start "pwning n00bz" as soon as they start a new FPS). The BF2 ranking system was one of that game's serious flaws – you had to achieve special challenges to rank up at all, but they weren't varied, simple, or fun like the COD4 challenges; they were really tough. Eventually I just got sick of it and resigned myself to always being a private in BF2.

When you ascend all 55 ranks in COD4, however, you have the option of moving on to Prestige Mode, which basically sends you back to the lowest rank (all of the specialized weapons and perks you've earned are taken away) – but you have a special icon indicating it's your second time around (or third, or – in my case at the moment, fifth). The "no lifers" have the gold cross indicating their tenth Prestige cycle. I expect to have one before the end of 2008. This system is nice because it gives the player something to work toward, rather than just killing enemies on the same maps over and over.
Perks. COD4 also features a variety of perks, like Martyrdom (you drop a grenade when you die, which might kill the person who killed you) and UAV Jammer (you don't show up as a red dot when the enemy calls in a UAV). You get to choose one in each of three categories. Most people choose some of the same perks (Deep Impact makes it easier to kill the enemy, so 80% of people use it), while others will make you the object of ridicule among other players. (This is so common that I'm not even going to say which perk I'm referring to – those who play already know what I'm talking about, and everyone else will just have to aks somebody.) The perks allow the player to tweak the experience to his/her particular style. You can even set up multiple "loadouts" with different perks, so that you can pick a different style of play in the middle of a game. (For example, I have a "silent martyr" loadout with UAV Jammer and a silenced weapon, which I can use to sneak around and steathily kill the bad guys. When this isn't working, I'll whip out the "machinist" and lay waste to everything in sight with my machine gun.)

Bad Company: Good, but Not Good Enough

This year, the people who made BF2 released its long-awaited sequel, Battlefield: Bad Company. As a fanatical devotee of BF2, I was very excited. (It's one of the only games I've bought new for the XBox360.) Although the singleplayer campaign was lots of fun, the online mode really falls short of its potential, and here's why:

Squint city. This game is clearly designed for people with enormous high-definition TVs. I, however, have not bought into the Hype Definition bandwagon, and continue to play games on my normal human-sized television. Thus, I'm at a tremendous disadvantage here. COD4 did the right thing by making the type big and the enemies a recognizable size on any screen. (I actually think, as video game populations get older, producers will have to include Large Print options, but that's a story for another post.) Bad Company requires too much squinting, and it's pretty danged hard to tell whether the thing way in the distance is an enemy or a shrub. (I complained about this sort of thing when I started with BF2 also, but it's worse in BC.)
Lag! Every online FPS is bound to have a little bit of lag – that slight delay between when you shot an enemy and s/he drops. Not everyone has the same speed of internet connection, and with all the different things happening on the screen, it's bound to show up once in a while. But in Bad Company it's just ridiculous. Players often complain – loudly, through the headset – that they put an entire clip into an enemy but still didn't get the kill. (This happens too often in Halo3, too, but in that case it's a matter of using a gun that's too weak, which is a stupid thing in an FPS.) What happens in BC is that the effect of one's bullets take a half- or full second to register on the server. It's disorienting and – although it seems like not much of a big deal – makes the game much less fun.
No more 'chutes. They took out the parachute. No more jumping out of the chopper; you're in it 'til you die or the pilot lands. Grr!
You must do the cool new thing! Bad Company has destructible environments – which means you can blast away part of a house, as seen in the screenshot above. This is pretty dang nifty (although Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction was really where I got my first taste), but what's not nifty (and in fact sucks quite a bit) is that the game's designers have filled each map with loads of buildings which must be destroyed or else slithered through. You can't open doors, and the windows are too small – you have to blast your way in or out. While this makes for funny jokes, it gets old after five games. Give us options, people! Moving around in BF2 was fluid and smooth; I was able to develop a definite rhythm while playing. BC movement is jerky and constantly interrupted by the need to switch to a grenade, or figuring out how to get where I want to go.
Our new mode is so fabulous that we're not giving you the thing you figured you'd always get since it's the thing that made us famous! Bad Company initially suffered from New Coke syndrome: Conquest mode was great and everyone loved it, so it wasn't included. Instead, the only game mode available at first was "Gold Rush", which was a standard (boring and annoying) Attack & Defend mode, whereby one team tried to destroy some gold crates, and the other team defended them. Some people probably love this and – although conquest is now available – continue to play Gold Rush. Those people are idiots. I hate A&D, so although I got BC the day it was released, I barely played it for over a month. Although there are problems with conquest, chances are I'd have sold Bad Company if it weren't available. Give us options, people!

Afterthoughts

Okay, I know probably no one is going to read this whole thing. But it's been in my brain for a while, and it feels good to get it down on virtual paper. The last thing I want to do with my blog is advertise for corporate America, but I do want to indicate to anyone who'll listen (both of you) about what really works in FPSes. I don't have any illusions that my feedback will be heard by the designers of future games, but the intense popularity of COD4, I hope, will have an impact of its own – and I believe it's largely due to the features I've described here.

Dangit, I was supposed to work on Wikipedia today. Now I'm all video-gamed-up. Maybe I can force myself to do some work before putting in some time on my fifth Prestige.

TimeWaster™

Here's the trailer for Battlefield 2: Modern Combat. Seeing all these scenes from that great game makes me woefully nostalgic. How sad that they missed the mark so wildly with Bad Company. (I can recognize each shot – which map it's on, where it is, what I usually did in that situation – how sad is that?)

Today I'm listening to: The Cool Kids!

The Roadtrip Documentary Film is Live!

noreply@blogger.com (ESP) — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 18:31:00 +0000

Clocking in at 288 MB and 28:50 in length, the completed documentary about our epic road trip is now online. Set your phasers to fun and check out the road trip page:

http://fbesp.org/roadtrip.html

You can download the whole thing (recommended for best quality and uninterrupted viewing experience) or check out three 10-minute YouTube chunks.

Enjoy!

There Is No War in Iraq

noreply@blogger.com (ESP) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 11:40:00 +0000

John McCain said yesterday that "we are winning the war". This is not true. It is in fact impossible, because there is no war in Iraq. A war – to quote the Right Honorable William Hicks – is when two armies are fighting. He was speaking humorously of the ease with which the US military defeated the Iraqi military in 1991, but it applies to the current situation as well.

In 2008 there is no war in Iraq. There is an occupation, an insurgency, and a counter-insurgency. The distinction is crucial: There are laws of occupation which differ from the laws of war. The difference is also important to our society (as well as Iraqi society); people feel differently about occupations than they do about wars.

This is not my usual brand of English-teacher diction pedantry – in this case, it is a word specificity with real consequences beyond the academic Saussurian deliberation. Everyone, please stop calling this a war. Thank you.

The image – of dead civilians near a burning US Bradley fighting vehicle – is one of the less hideous images in this Salon gallery. You've been warned.

TimeWaster™

Guy lets the city of San Francisco cut his hair. Via BoingBoing.

Today I'm listening to: The Cool Kids!

I Still Haven't Found...

noreply@blogger.com (ESP) — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 11:04:00 +0000

Do other people suffer from this problem? I read a headline like the one in today's New York Times: Comment Stings Maliki as Obama Arrives in Baghdad. I begin reading the article, intrigued to learn what the "comment" in question is. I keep reading. I get frustrated when, five paragraphs in, I've found only discussion about responses to criticism of the comment. Finally, in the sixteenth paragraph, I find the comment itself.

If the comment is mentioned in the headline, why not give it to us in the first couple of paragraphs? I usually assume that the writers and editors assume that everyone is familiar with the comment itself, and therefore needs no repetition in the article's lead. (I mean, al-Maliki made his comment on Saturday – surely you're enough of a news junkie to know what he said, right?) Maybe I'm just not plugged in enough to the news scene.

Am I the only one who gets frustrated by this? Sometimes I find myself scanning the entire article for quote marks, just to discover the quote itself. Sometimes – and this is much, much more aggravating – the article won't even give me the actual quote, substituting instead a paraphrase or summary. I thought I was supposed to decide, dagnabit! Just give me the source and let me compile it. (Ya like that geeky allusion there, computer dorks?)

TimeWaster™

Check out "Better Already" from my latest musical obsession, Northern State. (I haven't been this excited about a hip-hop act since Babbletron.) This song isn't nearly the best one on their new album Can I Keep This Pen?,* but it's decent – and the video is lots of fun.

Today I'm listening to: Northern State!

* That particular honor goes to track #3, "Oooh Girl".

Everybody Do The Bender

noreply@blogger.com (ESP) — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 13:23:00 +0000

We're back from our trip – yay! I'm working to compile all the vids and pics we took into a funky film. Without wishing to brag, I think some folks are really going to enjoy the opening titles, at least. (I recently got FCE, so I've got some remarkable new cans of digital whoop-arse to open.)

Meantime, here's a cool video I found on BoingBoingTV called "Sexy Robot". I tried to find a video of Bender dancing too, but the only stuff on YouTube is crappy homemade rendered junk. Thanks a lot, Viacom! I could have done some free advertising for you, but NOOOOO. (Futurama STINKS!)

Today I'm listening to: Rick Astley!

Stop Buying Video Games, Lady

noreply@blogger.com (ESP) — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 11:50:00 +0000

You all may remember four years ago when I had some serious internal struggle about whether or not to buy Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. You may also have heard about the "Hot Coffee mod" in that game, which allows hackers to unlock explicit sexual content (which the game does not otherwise feature). Perhaps you know about the class-action lawsuit which has been filed against Rockstar Games – for allegedly defrauding the public by not making the existence of hackable content known.

In a New York Times article about the lawsuit (and why it's not attracted more outraged plaintiffs), one mother explained how she and her innocent child had been hideously deceived by Rockstar:

While adults who bought the game for children said they were upset over the sex scenes that they did not know about (and had not seen), interviews conducted by lawyers showed the adults also did not know basic characteristics of the game.

For example, Brenda Stanhouse, who bought the game for her son, 15 years old at the time, said in a deposition that she did not know that a player in the game could "stomp to death innocent pedestrians."

She also did not know that the game included prostitutes, that players could kill policemen or that "a player in the game can kill innocent pedestrians and steal money from them."

"I'm aware that there is killing in the game," Ms. Stanhouse said in the deposition. "I wasn't aware of the stealing."

Ms. Stanhouse was asked whether she would knowingly buy for her son a game that allowed him to kill police officers.

“Well, I think he does have games with violence,” Ms. Stanhouse said, adding that she would “possibly” buy such a game — though not one that contained sex scenes like those in San Andreas.

"Timmy, what is this disgusting sex doing in your policeman-murdering video game? I never would have suspected such a thing from a game with such a wholesome-looking cover! You're not stealing in that game, are you?" "No, mom, just killing people." "Whew!"

"Orcs Gone Wild" comes from The Tech Guide's article about this affair, which is pretty good reading.

ANY game can be modded. Think about this. Would the ESRB change the rating of a pokemon battle game if there were a nude patch/mod for the pokemasters? Assume you see a view of the pokemon battling with the pokemasters in the background just outside the ring. A parent seeing a nude lady instructing her man-bear-pig to tackle the pikashlong is sure to freak out and complain - but this is in no way different from the child downloading pornography. It would require the player to download and install the patch, changing the game.

I think that post deserves some kind of award for coinage of the term "pikashlong".

TimeWaster™

And now for something completely different – a cat playing the piano. (You don't wanna know the YouTube videos I considered posting. Just be thankful that good taste won out in the end.)

Today I'm listening to: Braintax!

My Confusing Afternoon

noreply@blogger.com (ESP) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 21:28:00 +0000

Or, How I Sold a Hard Drive to a Mysterious Person Who May Not Exist at a Secret Government Black-Ops Organization

Several years ago I purchased a MicroNet 80GB external hard drive. It worked fine, with only one crash many years in the past. Recently, I purchased a snazzy new – and much larger – SimpleTech external hard drive. Since I no longer needed the MicroNet drive, I contacted my friend Craig and asked if I could place a classified ad on his list.

Yesterday I got an email from a fellow named Frank* who expressed interest in purchasing the drive. I had suggested we meet at the lovely Hawthorne Library near my house, but he was unfamiliar with that location. He asked if he could pick it up during his lunch hour instead. We traded some emails, and this morning I told him I could drive the drive out to him. (Get it? Drive the drive?) He said sure, and gave me his address: 1600 Wayout Road. I punched it into GoogleMaps, jotted down the directions, and took off.

When I reached Wayout Road, I realized that I had made a supremely boneheaded mistake – I had written down the suite number, but not the street number! (Needless to say, I couldn't remember the number on my own.) I tried to look around for a building which seemed right, but after three attempts to wander into the right place, I realized I had no choice but to return home and get the four magic numbers. What a moron I can be!

But wait – there's more.

Once I returned home, I realized that 1600 Wayout Road is not listed on GoogleMaps. The last address indicated on GM is 1500! I emailed Frank (he hadn't given me his number yet) to ask about this oddity – he replied by describing how I could get to the building, and indicated that he would give me several extra dollars for my trouble. Convinced that GoogleMaps was – and is – infallible, I assumed he was confused and meant to write "1500 Wayout Road" in each of the previous three emails. Nevertheless, I gave it one more shot.

Lo and behold, when I returned to Wayout Road, I located a building at 1600 Wayout Road. I parked in the small lot and went inside, clutching the hard drive and associated cables. I was expecting to meet Frank, but I don't think I did – when I entered the small and clean office, I was met by the most unstereotypical secretary ever: He looked like Larry the Unfunny Cable Guy. He was in his early 20s, wore a baseball cap under his headset, and a sleevless t-shirt.

"Hi," I said. "I'm looking for Frank Smitherson."

Without expression, the secretary asked: "Are you Eric?"

"Yeah," I said, placing the drive and cables on the desk. Without speaking, Larry handed me some bills folded into a Post-It note and bound with a paper clip. He took the drive down from the higher desk and placed it on his workspace.

"It's so odd that this building didn't show up on GoogleMaps," I said. "Is it a new building?"

He blinked. "Couple of years."

I nodded. "Huh," I said. Then, unsure of what else to do, I left. I never met Frank in person.

As I drove away, it occurred to me that perhaps their company demanded that GoogleMaps remove any mention of their building? Didn't Dick Cheney once make such a demand? Or perhaps Frank and Larry work at a super-secret US government black ops organization. Maybe they'll use my hard drive to torture taxi drivers in Bagram. I sure hope not!

It was a most confusing afternoon.

* Names and other identifying information has been changed to protect the identity of innocent people who may not exist.

TimeWaster™

Pippi is fun for a few seconds.

Today I'm listening to: Seefeel!

Support the Virtual Troops: The Video

noreply@blogger.com (ESP) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 12:18:00 +0000

The first-ever Devil in Black video is now online! Watch MC Ep spit mad lyrics over first-person-shooter noise and funky electronic breakbeats. Note the dual references to Shakespeare – always a hit with the kids.

RIP George Carlin

noreply@blogger.com (ESP) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 11:03:00 +0000

George Carlin has died. He was getting crusty and bitter and extraordinarily grumpy toward the end of his life – and blogged tributes are likely one of the last things he ever would have wanted – and I daresay he would see this event and say "Good! [bad word] him!" Still, I'm sad.

My parents turned me onto George Carlin. (As I write his name, I'm reminded of the joke he made about it: "It's a pain in the ass name, because it's never finished. G-E-O-R.. G-E.. O-R.. G-E.. O-R.. It's also way down on the list of getting laid based on the sound of your name. 'Who's out there?' 'Tito, Chico, and George.' 'Tell George to wait.'") I remember listening to Class Clown and A Place for My Stuff on my battered audiocassette boom box during middle school.

For the past twenty years, Carlin's comedy has been a comforting mainstay in my life. I didn't always agree with him (his anti-voting ethos was depressing), but I often found myself laughing in spite of myself, and he often had some profound things to say. ("We think in language, so the quality of our thoughts and ideas can only be as good as the quality of our language.") He's one of the reasons I became an English teacher – his infectious love for wordplay and examining language has influenced me from writing to pedagogy. ("Guacamole – sounds like something you yell when you're on fire. GUACAMOLE!")

Now let's see if his family honors his explicitly stated wish for the postmortem procedure: "I don't want to be buried or cremated – I wanna be blown up." RIP, George. Thanks for all the laughs.

TimeWaster™

A lot of the Carlin YouTube have embedding disabled for some reason. Here's a clip about flamethrowers I've always liked. There's a bad word in it, so be careful.

Today I'm listening to: What Am I Doing in New Jersey? This clip contains bad words, as well as one of my favorite Carlin bits of all time (mostly because of the noise he makes at the end of it). The joke starts around 9:37.

Backyard Remix

noreply@blogger.com (ESP) — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 11:20:00 +0000

We got a digital camcorder yesterday. Although transferring video to my Mac is a bit of a pain, I'm very happy with it. Here, then, is the first project. Music by Famfeud.

Next up: A devil in black video. Uh oh..

Braintax for My Taxed Brain

noreply@blogger.com (ESP) — Fri, 30 May 2008 21:59:00 +0000

My new favorite hip-hopper is Braintax. Apparently he just retired, which sucks because he's got some really well-sculpted lyrics. Here he is with someone named Dubble Edge:

I wish he made a video for Retail or The Beast Is Us. Listen at Amazon.

TimeWaster™

Dirty Diggers are also good.

Today I'm listening to: Braintax!

Utah Phillips 1935-2008

noreply@blogger.com (ESP) — Wed, 28 May 2008 00:05:00 +0000

I just found out Utah Phillips died. This makes me sad, as he was a tremendous radical American activist, storyteller, and cultural treasure. He was the lovechild of Mark Twain and Emma Goldman.

If you don't know who he is, please read the Wikipedia article there and watch the video below.

I maintain that the first album Ani Difranco did with his work is the best thing she's ever done.

Today I'm listening to: Utah Phillips!

A Fantastic Story

noreply@blogger.com (ESP) — Fri, 23 May 2008 21:39:00 +0000

The pterodactyl gestured with its head. It wanted me to climb on its back. "I cannot believe this!" I cried. It gestured again, as if to nod. It almost seemed to be smiling. Where had it come from? Why had it chosen me? I didn't know – all I knew was that this would be the most fantastic experience of my life.

As I sat across its wings, it soared into the air. The ground fell away and I held on with a giddy rush as euphoria swept through me. Then – even more amazing – the giant lizard bird spoke.

"So," it said in a raspy voice, "where shall we go?"

Stunned, thrilled, and breathless, I said: "I don't know. This is all so tremendous!"

"There's a performance of Bizet this afternoon," it said. "We could go see that."

"Uh," I said.

"Or we could go down to the library and see what new books they've gotten in recently."

"That's really dumb," i said. "Why don't we go fight some other dinosaurs?"

"What other dinosaurs?"

"I don't know. Aren't there some other dinosaurs somewhere?"

"Just my mom."

"Well, let's go fight—"

"We are not going to fight my mother!"

"How about the Blue Angels?" I said. "They're performing today over the state capital. I bet you could take down two or three of them."

It twisted its head to shoot me a confused, angry glare. "You want me to attack a steel jet plane?"

I threw up my hands and nearly fell off. "Well I don't know! Let's do something fun!"

One hour later, we were parked in the uncomfortable wooden chairs of a lecture hall, listening to a 90-year-old bald guy talk about the textiles of Ancient Mesopotamia.

"This sucks," I said.

"Shhh!" the pterodactyl hissed. "I'm trying to hear this."

It was the most boring day of my life.

TimeWaster™

Apparently a pterodactyl has been spotted in Texas:

Today I'm listening to: The Burnside Project! This video – for a nice song of theirs – is like watching people suck face in front of Koyannisqaatsi.

Two Things

noreply@blogger.com (ESP) — Sat, 10 May 2008 17:19:00 +0000

I know I linked to her from the Tumblr site back when, but I feel the need to remind people that Kate Beaton is a fantastic comics artist. Think US/European history mixed with Snake 'n' Bacon. (TPCQ: "Sssss." "I'm real bacon.") Click on the image here to the right to see the full-size version. (Warning: It has bad words.)

I'm also reading The Nightly News, a graphic novel about a cult which attacks reporters. I bought it because I was flipping through it and found this exchange on page two:

"The mass media serve as a system for communicating messages and symbols to the general populace. It is their function to amuse, entertain, and inform, and to inculcate individuals with the values, beliefs, and codes of behavior that will integrate them into the institutional structures of the larger society. In a world of concentrated wealth and major conflicts of class interest, to fulfill this role requires systematic propaganda." – Noam Chomsky & Edward S. Herman, Manufacturing Consent

"...Chomsky's a [bad word] retard." – Senator M. Jay Rector, D-GA

I have mixed feelings about the book so far (which hopefully I'll share when I'm done – oh boy, hang on!), but I thought this was an interesting exchange, on p. .. well, it appears there are no page numbers. This is maybe 1/3 through the book:

Government Agent: "remember... 'Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.'"

Media Magnate: "Who's that? Chomsky?"

Government Agent: "Goebbels. Goodbye."

Okay, back to COD4.

No more TimeWasters&trade today. Go read Beaton's comics.

Today I'm listening to: See the post from earlier today. I'm still listening to that.

My Astronaut Friend

noreply@blogger.com (ESP) — Sat, 10 May 2008 12:43:00 +0000

I had lunch with NASA astronaut Sunita Williams recently. She came to the school where I teach in order to inspire the kids to explore space and fight the bugs who attacked Buenos Aires. (Wait, I think that part is from Starship Troopers. We never tried pulling out of the insects' territory, Garrett.)

The school had an essay competition to allow students to eat lunch with her, and I was the first person to turn one in. (Even though I'm not technically a student.) I read up on her life and some of the wacky experiences she's had, including squirting wasabi paste all over the International Space Station. My essay was called 3.. 2.. 1.. Lunch: Why I Should Be Invited to Have Lunch with Sunita Williams. To my joy, it was selected as one of the very best, and I was invited to join the special event.

So when the Big Day came, I brought a tube of wasabi paste to replace the one she lost in space. It was a lovely lunch (even though I was seated at the kids' tables, away from the central table where she ate with all the grownups like the mayor and superintendent). (TPCQ: "Hi, Principal Skinner. Hi, Supernintendo Chalmers!")

I tried to get the Colbert SEG down, but I wasn't able to really get the grin or the lean right. Still, it's a cool picture, even if the camera does add thirty pounds. Oh, wait. That's my constant inhalation of snack cakes and Taco Bell. Whatever; I'm not going into space. And she said my tie was cool.

TimeWaster™

Here's a video of Suni speaking to Earth from space and giving a tour of the space station. I wasn't able to see the wasabi floating around, but you can see India from space.

Today I'm listening to:

Monkey Shines

noreply@blogger.com (ESP) — Thu, 08 May 2008 23:08:00 +0000

If you saw the movie For Your Consideration, you may remember the weather lady and her ventriloquist monkey. Her name is Nina Conti, and the monkey is named Monk. The extra scenes they do on the DVD are excellent (see YouTube link below), mostly because Monk is totally deadpan, and they're one more example of why in general comedians from the UK (Ricky Gervais, Eddie Izzard) are kicking the arses of US comedians (Dane Cook, Carlos Mencia) all over the place.

Maybe we could have a moment of peace for Bill Hicks and Mitch Hedberg. Oh, Dmitri Martin's good, and so's Eugene Mirman, who has a creepy singing child on his website. And Maria Bamford.

Silly goose!

Enjoy the clips of Nina and Monk below. YouTube has other clips of them performing in clubs and stuff.

TimeWaster™

Today I'm listening to: Alec Empire!

Death, where is thy sting?

noreply@blogger.com (ESP) — Wed, 07 May 2008 03:58:00 +0000

The Microsoft zombie priests have completed the penultimate blessed ritual of post-mortem revivification. The corpse I sent to them has been cleansed of its wandering spirits, and is moving – like a creeping mist, edging through the paroxysm of dawn – to my home at this very moment. Soon my precious will be alive once more. I have named it Emily, and I have picked a rose for it.

On Tuesday I enjoyed the outdoors by riding my bicycle to complete a series of mundane errands. Upon returning in the evening, an automated message from the undertaking/overtaking service was on my messaging device. The robot told me that the resurrected body would complete the final steps in its long journey come Wednesday. It further explained that a preliminary delivery attempt was required, after which time differing arrangements could be investigated. Whereas I shall be in the classroom at such a time (and therefore unable to provide the necessary signature), these conditions were clearly – woefully – unacceptable.

I called the overtakers at UPS and demanded to know, specifically, where the body was at that moment. I spoke to a woman named Lenore. This I took to be a bad omen. Though a delightful woman, I worried that she was a herald of Mr. Poe's dreaded phrase. Might I see my beloved Emily.. nevermore?

Lenore confirmed the robot's missive. Chagrined, I inquired as to the possibility of some unadvertised option which is not offered to all UPS customers, whereby I might meet someone at a back door, receive my package, and slip someone an envelope containing many unmarked bills. Amused, she regretfully declined my offer, so I tried a different approach: I asked if she played video games. "Sometimes" was the reply.

"So perhaps you'll understand," I said. "The package you currently possess is my XBox360, which has been rescued from the River Styx by powerful voodoo priests working for the Microsoft corporation. I have been waiting for this package for many weeks. Imagine if a heroin addict were expecting a delivery from a good friend of his; would you expect him to say: 'It's okay. I can wait until tomorrow afternoon.'?"

She laughed, and mentioned that her own three children are similarly ... shall we say, devoted? to their pixellated entertainments. Then she reiterated that no prior-seizure options were available to me. Waiting was the only opportunity. She suggested I check the UPS website from school, to see if the delivery attempt had been made. (When it has, I can arrange for a pickup.) I noted that perhaps our school's sophisticated censors would prohibit such an activity, and she reminded me that I could call from a standard touch-tone telephone. I thanked her for this reminder and assured that I would request her by name. I shall bring the number of tracking to school, to have it ready when I call.

So now I must wait. The agony of my dream deferred is no mere withering grape under pleasant sunlight; my suffering is compounded mightily by the knowledge that my beloved Emily is somewhere close to me – and yet I may not hold it. The worlds we have come to know together remain locked to me. My blue-tiger AK47 with the ACOG scope and marytrdom grenades sit useless on the floor of my barracks. (There are many blue-tiger AK47 rifles with ACOG scopes in the Call of Duty 4 universe, but that one is mine. Without me, it is nothing.)

But soon the moment of destiny shall arrive. My beloved shall breathe here, with me, once more. I can move its elderly father aside and make room once more to situate the sensual lines of its console. My headset will become a part of me once again, and I shall be able to listen to DMX while shooting virtual terrorists (or SAS troops, as the situation may require).

But even more importantly, my wife Diane is coming home tomorrow, too. Yay!

The image above is La Résurrection de Lazare (d’après Rembrandt) by Vincent Van Gogh.

Walnuts!

noreply@blogger.com (ESP) — Tue, 06 May 2008 01:06:00 +0000

I was worried that OnionTV would just be re-hashing stuff from the newspaper.* But gems like this make me pee myself. WARNING: Some bad words toward the end.

McCain Declines Secret Service, Dares Assassins To Try Something

*Which is what they appear to be doing – with enticing results – in the forthcoming Onion Movie. Check out the trailer! WARNING: Some bad words – and Steven Seagall (yes, it's really him) toward the end.

Today I'm listening to: Jedi Mind Tricks!

Oof – too much YouTube. Oh yeah, the title is from this:

No It Hasn't

noreply@blogger.com (ESP) — Sun, 04 May 2008 15:27:00 +0000

Psyche! Tumblr's lack of comments and weird archiving system have proven to be insurmountable obstacles. I like being able to browse easily and have comments for each post and .. you know what? I don't need to justify myself to you! And I want to be able to put YouTube videos right in my posts. And also: Shut up. So we're back here, baby. I figured out how to fix my monthly archives, so I'm back on Blogger. Eat it, Tumblr! You suck! (Actually, no you don't. You're good for many things. But I need my HaloScan comments, yo.)

So yeah. Hopefully I'll get to the three remaining teacher movie posts soon. Right now I got me some papers to grade.

TimeWaster™

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is a mentally unstable person.

Today I'm listening to: DI Breaks!

New Home for this Blog

noreply@blogger.com (ESP) — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 01:16:00 +0000

The 'Napse has moved over to Tumblr. Please update your links!

http://skath.tumblr.com/

The new RSS feed is http://skath.tumblr.com/rss.

On the Mark

noreply@blogger.com (ESP) — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 23:44:00 +0000

Today is the anniversary of the birth of my esteemed brother, Mark (at right). As I said last year, we've gone from sibling-rivalry squabbles to comrades in the global struggle against injustice.

Every time I see a movie or show about family (American History X, Gosford Park, The Simpsons where Bart and Lisa are on opposing hockey teams), I remember how lucky I've been to have such a great guy so close to me. Like I tell my students every semester, I love him like a brother.

Happy birthday, bro. Next time I'm in Florida I'll get you a Publix sheet cake.

TimeWaster™

This week's Strong Bad Email is something to relish. Foot.

Today I'm listening to: Melle Mel!

Elements

noreply@blogger.com (ESP) — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 16:11:00 +0000

I've come up with an idea for a kickarse new turn-based strategy game (like Civilization, right; it could also be real-time, but I think turn-based games need a comeback). It's called Elements. Here's how it will work:

The player is in charge of a group of 100 intergalactic settlers who have landed on a new planet. The makeup of the group is randomly generated from a large list of possible types of people: scientists, builders, warriors, etc. (certain minimums can be used, or the player can specify a general makeup preference). These settlers must then confront and adapt to the world, whose elements (hence the name – clever?) are likewise randomly generated: Number and type of predators; available natural resources; weather conditions; etc.

Assuming, for example, that five types of predators were used in each game from a list of 200 – each with varying qualities like speed, threat level, reproduction speed, etc – this would make the replay value of the game incredible. There really would be no two games that were alike (at least it would take a very long time for the pattern to repeat)!

I wish I had a team of programmers and game designers to whom I could assign this task. For now, let me just say: When the next big strategy game hits the shelves, you can be sure it will be a ripoff of my idea (just like the West Virginia Department of Tourism stole my idea about negative advertising! I'm officially copyrighting the idea, so you're all officially witnesses to the thievery of Microsoft (or whoever steals my idea), and I will issue you a subpoena for the intellectual-property trial. Hands off, game designers! (Unless you're willing to pay me 90% of the profits.)

TimeWaster™

LasagnaCat is a most unusual site. Humans act out Garfield strips. Then the strip is displayed. Then a music video remixes the dramatization. My favorite is Head Like a Hole. (QuickTime) Cat brush! Make sure you also check out the Fatal Farm TV themes.

Today I'm listening to: B12!