Category Archives: Entertainment
The Blogroll Chu-Chu-Chu-Chu-Chu-Changes
See how I did that? A little nod to David Bowie there.
Who’s David Bowie? … … … Okay, you, get out of here, Now. Go. Leave. Kids these days!
Alrighty then. I spent an entire morning cleaning up, organizing, adding, deleting, stuff to the side bar over there >>>
I mentioned in a blog post a bit ago the focus around here was going to be more on writing than on gaming and such moving forward…
“Hey DUMBASS!” you say with self-righteous smite, “Seven out of ten of your recent posts have been about gaming!“
To which I can only respond with a simple, byte me.
Hockey is not a game. Hockey is a state of being. A zen. That being said, in my defense, I’ve been playing Borderlands 2 and I haven’t been writing about it even though I really, really wanted to. So there, neener-neener and all that good stuff.
Back to the issue at hand.
The decision to focus more on writing forced me clean up the sidebar (that one, over there >>> we’ve gone over this already, geesh). I removed the RSS feeds from Major Nelson (f–k him, like he needs me advertising for him) and PreGameLobby where my XBOX Live gamer pals hang out. I’m not very active in the PGL community at present, nothing to do with them, I’ve become a little more introverted since Gina’s passing and writing is higher on my agenda than socializing right now. I still think of them all and will join in games when I see them playing the same. They are not entirely gone from the sidebar, but have been resigned to a meager link under the Gaming section of my Blogroll (over there >>> how many times do I have to tell you this?)
As always, if adult gamers out there are looking for fellow adult gamers to game with, PreGameLobby is the place to go. And for those of you in Europe, I hear tell Dads of Gaming is a pretty cool place to meet adult gamers too. For gaming, not XBOX Live sex or anything like that. Don’t try that. I tried it once. Didn’t go over too well. People just don’t have the appreciation for llamas, little-people and the strategic use of whipped cream that I do. Their loss.
This introverted phase I’m going through has also kept me from posting much on my favorite blogs out there. Rest assured I’m still following and reading you all, I’ve even reserved a day out of the month when I do nothing but catch up on my favorite blogs. It’s just one day though, the rest of my time is for writing. Selfish? Maybe. Deal with it.
As far as the Blogroll goes, if your blog has disappeared you’ve been deleted. I’ve also added a couple more to the list and will probably add a few more in the coming months. It’s how I show appreciation for those folk who, for some strange reason, keep coming back here.
I’ve noticed some frequent visits by some very talented and published/working writers lately, and while I question their tastes, the fact that they keep coming back here tickles me pink to no end–more so than llamas, little-people and the strategic use of whipped cream.
Nothing is more encouraging to a writer than another writer’s endorsement, especially when that endorsement is from people far more talented.
Thank you all for visiting.
A review of Apocalypse Rising
A short novel by Eric Swett.
I have to be honest, I find reading hard these days. For someone who wants to be a writer I really do not read as much as I probably should. I’ve even started to turn on captions in the games I play in a pathetic attempt to try and compensate for this monumental shortcoming on my part.
I used to be able to let the stories pull me deep within their world, living and breathing the tales so they would spur my own imagination onward long after the final word was read. These days I read everything with writer’s eyes. Scrutinizing every word, sentence, paragraph and plot structure to the point of tedium. Why did the author do that? Oh! That’s good. Oh, I wouldn’t have done that. This makes more sense written this way… If I see genius I rush to scribble the sentence or passage in my notebook. Eric Swett has a few entries in that notebook.
“He is dressed like a member of the S.W.A.T. team who had a Hot Topic throw up on him.”
To some, this sentence may not seem like much. But taken in context and placed just at the right moment it becomes art in motion. Beautiful in its simplicity. Wonderful in the way it puts a smile on your face. This is not a shining example of Eric’s talent, just a snippet of his charm that calls out to me as I peck away at this review.
There is this switching of perspective that Eric tries that is rather distracting at first and because of this it took me a little bit longer to settle into the novel. Chapters involving the main character are in first-person narrative while the rest are omniscient. It’s much more jolting to read in novel form than it was when Eric ran the story as a serial on his blog. The effect wore away after about 60 pages and the characters and plot began to take hold, you don’t notice it much after that and the pieces all start to blend as parts of the narrative whole.
It’s a short novel that’s well worth a read. I want to say more about it but fear any lengthy analysis may throw out spoilers that will ruin it for you. I’ll save the analysis for my notebook and close by telling you if you liked The Prophecy movies and read the likes of Terry Brooks then there is no doubt in my mind you will enjoy this story by my blogging buddy and up-and-coming author, Eric Swett.
J. Quick reminds me why I’ve started to despise MPFPS games…
The Los Angeles Kings struggled and stumbled into the Stanley Cup playoffs with a regular season record of 40 wins and 42 losses (including 15 overtime losses.) The Kings entered the playoffs as last seed and had to face the Vancouver Canucks in the first round of the playoffs. The Canucks had the best overall record of the entire league in the regular season with 51 wins and 31 losses (including 9 overtime losses.)
If the Canucks had been the elitist Battlefield or Call of Duty crowd of puerile, overly competitive, ass-wipe, braggart, Bitch Ass Gamers, they would have told the Kings to stop playing hockey and making the game easy for them.
The Los Angeles Kings (8th seed) beat the living tar out of the Canucks (1st seed,) 4 games to 1. They then proceeded to beat the living daylights out of the St. Louis Blues (2nd seed,) 4 games to 1. Not finished with kicking ass, the Kings moved on to utterly demolish the Phoenix Coyotes (3rd seed,) 4 to mother f—ing 1, and take their rightful place in the final battle for Lord Stanley’s Cup–the oldest and most prestigious trophy in sports today. The last seed LA Kings finished their playoff run with a record of 16 wins and 4 losses. Only the 2nd team in NHL history to beat the top 3 conference seeds in the playoffs.
To place this into a gaming perspective… It’s like the person with a win/loss ratio of .096 and a kill/death ratio of .67 suddenly coming in first on the leader-boards in every single game, 16 games in a row and placing second for 4 games.
The LA Kings went on to beat the New Jersey Devils and the best goalie of all time, Martin Brodeur, and win the Stanley Cup 4 games to 2.
And at the end of it all, as the players congratulated each other on a series well played, the two goalies approached, embraced and exchanged words of encouragement, support and mutual respect for what seemed like an eternity. And as they separated, the reporter’s microphone picked up a glimpse of Jonathan Quick‘s parting words to Martin Brodeur…
Don’t retire, you’re still the best goalie ever. (paraphrasing)
A tear fell from the corner of my eye when I heard that. I wasn’t rooting for the LA Kings. I’m a huge Brodeur fan. I wanted to see him get a fourth cup to crown his esteemed career with. It was at that moment I realized Conn Smythe Trophy winner Jonathan Quick and his last seed team of regular season mediocrity had earned and deserved Lord Stanley’s prize in more ways than one.
I soon shed another tear for the FPS gaming community when I realized that no mater what happens in life, most of them will never be man enough to be as good as the LA Kings, the NJ Devils or any real athlete, no matter what their stats imply.
Apocalypse Rising by Eric Swett
Long ago, an Angel surrendered his memories and his power when he left Heaven behind, so that he could make a difference in the real world. A couple thousand years walking amongst the teaming masses of humanity has left him disillusioned, but he refuses to give up. He spends his time with the forgotten souls of an urban slum, making a difference wherever he can.
When Justin witnesses the brutal murder of a woman at the hands of a ruthless business tycoon, he must run before his eternal life is cut short. Justin must swallow his pride in order to save himself, and the one friend he has left. The journey back to the fold is filled with danger and discovery as he finds himself n a race towards the end of the world.
I wish my friend the best of luck with his book. Congratulations Eric.
Read Eric Swett’s Apocalypse Rising…
Before he publishes…
Eric Swett’s Apocalypse Rising.
No, I’m not implying you should read it before you have to pay for it. I want you all to buy his e-book when it becomes available. The version available on line is being heavily edited by our ever so diligent Mr. Swett.
I want you all to read it because it’s a perfect opportunity for aspiring writers to see how a piece of fiction goes through the draft process and to final print. Of course, in order to get the full effect of the experience you will have to purchase the novel come June.
The slippery slope of digital distribution.
It appears that Square Enix is charging people for the ending to the new Final Fantasy. This guy is really pissed about it. I’m not too pleased either, well… to be honest, I couldn’t give a rats arse about FF13. I’m not all that into it.
Herein lies the problems of digital distribution not just in gaming but across various mediums. Today they charge you for the ending of a game, tomorrow they’ll be charging you for the bullets in Modern Warfare 3.
People RAVE about the convenience of Netflix and swear this is the future of movies. These people are idiots. Don’t get me wrong, Netflix is good for what it is. But if you’ve invested any amount of money into a home entertainment system Netflix is not delivering you the High-Definition goods.
And NO, Netflix will not be able to deliver you true High-Def content in the near future either. That would take a complete overhaul of the internet backbone in this country and corporations are far too preoccupied with giving CEOs exuberant salaries and paying out to the ‘most valued’ stockholders to actually re-invest any decent amount of money into the infrastructure. Normally the government would do it and corporations would profit from it but because we’ve already spent lots of tax money propping up these corporate titans our government is flat broke (while corporations are stinking rich, funny how that works.)
Ridley Scott was trying to explain this simple premise on Huffington Post. Scott was saying if you really want to see a film the way a filmmaker intended then the theater should be your first choice, but if you can’t get to the theater then Blu-ray is the way to go because;
It allows us to present in a person’s living room films in their original form with proper colors, aspect ratio, sound quality, and, perhaps most importantly, startling clarity.
Anything worth watching on Netflix I probably own. The quality of the picture streamed by Netflix is pathetic compared to even my oldest DVD titles. Netflix’s streamed Uncle Buck has nothing on my 1998 DVD release of Uncle Buck, a DVD that was released well before they started to digitally clean the movies up. And Blu-ray blows Netflix out of the stratosphere. This was all Ridley Scott was succinctly saying. And the following is what he was met with in the comments;
Once again an artist that defend an old media and a stupid system just because he is in the hands of bussinesmen that is so afraid loosing money that they actually fox it all up and loosing even more… They should try learn the same hard lesson that the music industry…
Blu-ray is old media? This guy obviously does not understand technology (especially the lossy MPEG format) but worse, he completely fails to acknowledge the fact that the music industry now forces him to pay for a song each and every time he wants to transfer it to a new device. I have Dark Side of the Moon on my computer, my laptop and my iPod and I only paid $11 for the CD. How much would it cost to do that through iTunes? Yeah pal, not only did the music industry learn that ‘hard’ lesson, they turned around and shafted you with it.
My old 1980′s TV got a pretty good picture and sound, and my old VHS-Movies still got good quality, sometimes i feel that my VHS can give me a better filmexperience than a DVD. Movie Magic doesn’t need the latest technology, it need love
How much you want to bet the clock on this guy’s VCR is still blinking?
Sorry, old man, disks (including BluRay) are dead. ISPs need to improve bandwidth quickly so high quality streaming alternatives can maintain a high-quality viewing experience.
Really dude? ‘ISPs need to improve bandwidth quickly?‘ I’m sure the executives will get right on that after reading your asinine post. And it’s f—ing idiot fan boys like this moron that really piss me off. I remember the 90′s, when fast internet connections started to proliferate. ISPs clung to their bandwidth like conservatives cling to Fox talking points. When it looked like the gaming revolution would eat up a lot of their precious bandwidth they discussed ways to block games from accessing their networks. They still cling to their bandwidth like Donald Trump’s balding, empty head does to his toupee; for dear life. A single Hi-Def movie is roughly 3.5 GB in data. Multiply that by Netflix’s customer base and that’s roughly 84,000,000 GB of data. Your ISP currently freaks out when you use more than 2 GB of data. You do the math.
Right now you pay Netflix a flat monthly fee. Eventually, when you have no other alternative, you’ll be paying Netflix each and every time you want to watch a movie. I can’t imagine them charging every time I wanted to watch Blade Runner… Let’s say they charge $1.99 a pop I would owe them well over $500.
Recently one of my favorite gaming commentators, TWTHEREDDRAGON, annoyed me with his review of Alan Wake American Nightmare. He talks about digital distribution and how a company no longer has to hire people to make the disk ‘and so they are going to eliminate a lot of jobs and save the a lot of money.’ He says this nonchalant.
Let me explain a trickle around effect that conservatives are either mind-numbingly blind to or just blissfully ignorant of. If people no work, they no make money. If people no make money, they no can spend money. Do I really need to explain to you what drives the “free” market? Sure, get rid of that guy making your disks. Now Mr. and Mrs. Corner Store where that guy lives are making less money and consequently little Johnny Corner Store, along with little Freddy Diskmaker, have less money to spend on their favorite hobby, gaming. I won’t even go into how much more expensive a hard drive for a gaming console is over one for a computer. And when these companies save themselves money in this way do they pass those savings on to you? Do they go and spend money at the corner store? F– no. They give themselves exuberant raises and buy a Lamborghini.
Back in the glory days of Sega Genesis and NES, console games had to be released in working condition. Then they connected the consoles to the internet and now people are paying $60 for unfinished and in some cases completely broken games. It took them over a year to release a patch for New Vegas, and they only did that because they wanted to sell the new DLC.
So, in light of Square Enix’s recent decision to charge people for the ending to their game, is it so hard to believe that future iterations of Call of Duty and Battlefield will start charging you for virtual bullets? Or that Netflix plans to one day charge you each and every time you watch your favorite movie? Right now, Steam’s pricing is far more reasonable than a brick-n-mortar store. Do you honestly expect it to remain reasonable when you have no other choice but to buy your games from them?
Yeah, you digital distribution fan boys can keep praising this so called ‘future of entertainment,’ while your Gods laugh all the way to the bank with your retirement money. Putting all your eggs in the digital distribution basket is foolish, and you know what they say about a fool and his money.
And, for the sake of clarity, I’m okay with digital distribution as a medium. What I’m not okay with is digital distribution as THE ONLY medium. When the consumer is presented with fewer choices, the consumer inevitably loses.
Yes, I have felt like this many times…
Especially after watching the Republican debates…
Written & Directed by BOBCAT GOLDTHWAIT.
Yes, that notorious TAB drinker from Police Academy.
Unfortunately, Momma taught me that two wrongs don’t make a right. So kids, don’t try this at home, mmmmkay?
In Loving Memory of Jeff Conaway, One of the Greatest Comedy Scenes Ever…
We miss you Jeff. Love always. Your fans.
