Categories
Critters

Desperate horsewives

It's Hannah!I got to go feed horses this morning, something I haven’t had to do on a weekday for over a month. I actually found it quite relaxing as opposed to being at work at mid-day – and everyone just seemed so lovable, so that makes it even better. (Everyone meaning horses, not the people at work.)
Hannah (seen here; not a recent photo) is very pregnant. Very very pregnant. As in huge. As in “that’s no foal, that’s a space station!” And she’s not the only one – there are, I believe, six or seven pregnant mares on the farm right now, and all of them are healthy. In the springtime, we’re going to be positively hip-deep in klutzy, lovable, inquisitive, belt-loop-biting baby horses.
If you pray, pray for a bunch of silly fillies. Those, in theory, we can sell. If we don’t fall in love with ’em first (which is admittedly easy to do with the little ones). The only mare that my wife and I bred this year is Hannah, so Waddling Hannah is a good thing.… Read more

Categories
Serious Stuff

Go for throttle up?

So, I’m back to working my normal hours at the station now that our new Creative Services Director has arrived, and somehow it’s like I’m coming down from an adrenaline high. I suppose that might be apt after having to fight my way through November sweeps for myself, trying to keep everyone happy and get everything out the door early enough for things like cable and radio advertising for the station’s big stories this month. But somehow, I’m feeling a little…restless. I have two opportunities sitting in front of me right now, and neither one is necessarily something I need to do instead of the other, and it seems like both of these things are pointing the way forward. (And of course, neither one is firmed up enough that I can say anything about them.)
I think the time has come to achieve escape velocity and break out of the broadcast blues. I may very well still wind up doing the odd combination of A/V and internet work that I do now…but not for a news operation, not for a TV station at all, not in a situation where the axe could fall with the next round of ratings (though I’ll be very interested to see this November’s book), and without having to move to an overbloated population center to do it. I’ve been doing variations on the same thing now for close to 17 years, half my life, and while there would be something of “more of the same” in the path I’m strongly considering, I’m getting a little bit too old to pull 18 hour shifts anymore. I had that energy when I was 25 and had something to prove. I’m not denying that I still have something to prove, but I don’t think I should have to lose sleep to prove it anymore.
Parents cannot play this game unless accompanied by a child under the age of 17.On to other news: the video game industry is on track to getting a newer and quite probably stricter ratings system. Not like this is a surprise – I think we’ve seen this coming since…well…since the original ESRB ratings first appeared. I’m not saying every game company in the world has been laughing off the ratings from the word “go,” but there are some companies that have taken advantage of the self-rating system, inevitably leading to the feeling in certain governmental bodies that the fox has been guarding the henhouse all along. Stunts like the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas “Hot Coffee” unlockable have not helped.
There’s room for adult games. There’s room for ultraviolent games. But the willingness on the part of some inside the industry to treat the ratings as a joke, and on the part of many retailers to do the same and consistently ignore the ratings and sell inappropriately “mature” games to younger gamers, have just made it that much harder for game companies to consider stepping outside the lines. (That said, there are just as many parents who have sidestepped the ratings and age limits on behalf of their own kids.)
We’re already facing a drought of innovation – it seems like a majority of what’s on the market has become a sequel to a sequel to a sequel to something that started off in the SNES or N64 days (or, if not a sequel, a knockoff), and those rare, precious gems that we get when someone tries to break the mold have little chance of cutting through the clutter or even finding distribution. (I’m still completely stunned, not to mention heartened and encouraged, that Katamari Damacy made it reasonably big.) Now we’re going to be stifled not only on the innovation front, but on the content front.
Make no mistake, video games are not a mature industry. Not yet. Perhaps the gaming industry should look to the example of the comics industry, which survived the Comics Code Authority and found that it could diversify well beyond toothless tales of superhero exploits and still find mass appeal. It just takes a little bit of responsibility – from those making the games, from those marketing them, and from those buying them.
But for now, because too many of those people didn’t exhibit that responsibility…we’re going to have to deal with a whole separate raft of people who have nothing to do with innovation or entertainment: those governing and rating them.… Read more

Categories
Gaming

Because seeing is believing.

Last night was interesting – a straight-line gust front slammed into the house around 10:30pm or so, and literally lifted stuff off the back deck and the side deck and deposited it across the street from our front yard, in the ditch or halfway up the mountain. Yeesh. The scary thing is, the wind really hasn’t let up – so the house phone is out of commission for the time being, and cable and power have been…well…intermittent. Sort of like the Land Shark version of a small hurricane.
Red eyes?  Dry eyes!  Clear eyes!  DEATH EYES!I’ve been getting a lot of gaming time in lately, because I’m working on an epic project that you may or may not have noticed. Using as little emulation and as much real original gaming hardware as possible, I’m working on adding actual video of various classic video games in action to Phosphor Dot Fossils. Why do this? Well, because I’m applying my own criticisms to myself. For years, I’ve admired such books as Supercade, Joystick Nation, Arcade Fever and so on for their depth of information and insight, and yet I’ve always felt that books are often inadequate to the task of really getting into the mindset of players of classic arcade or home video games. So much about video gaming is a visceral experience, sight and sound and instinct and reaction, peppered with little moments of fear, rage and victory, words on a page just don’t seem to cut it at times. So what if you could combine those sights and sounds and close-call thrills with the written word, not just with static snapshots but with video of the game being played? That’s the idea here. To keep the file sizes down, I try to keep things under 3 minutes of video, so the Flash movies end up clocking in somewhere around 3-6 megabytes…still a drop in the bucket compared to some Flash-heavy, bandwidth-eating monsters that lurk out there on the internet. And because I don’t think anyone should have to install, or wait for, anything they don’t want to, these pages are still merely an option – look for the Eye symbol next to the name of a game, and click on that instead of the name link. (For whatever it’s worth, the Eye comes from I, Robot, seen above.) Considering that there are at least a few hundred reviews in the Phosphor Dot Fossils archive, the time to completion of this video project is approximately 24 years (just kidding). It’ll take a little bit of time to be sure; I’m trying to make sure that almost all new game reviews have video so I don’t have to go back and add it later. Anyway, let me know how you like it or if you have any issues with the Flash videos. I think they’re rather entertaining myself.
Today, I played some G games for the video project – Galaxian, Galaga, Gaplus, Gyruss and Guzzler. If I remember correctly, I also played King & Balloon, Hangly Man and MagMax for the video recorder. As usual, I positivley suck at Galaxian, and didn’t fare too well with Gyruss or King & Balloon either. But I may have wound up with my best-ever game of Guzzler on digital videotape for posterity. (Why that Tehkan game was left off of Tecmo Classic Arcade, I have no idea – it’s an incredibly fun game and would’ve helped that release out a lot.) Oh, and speaking of good games recorded for the future, check out the video of me playing Swimmer this week – talk about pulling it out of the bag at the last possible moment…
Keep an eye out for the Eye! I C URead more

Categories
Gaming

And now for a word

I’m running so far behind on a bunch of stuff I was planning on doing this weekend, and all because my wife insisted that I open one of my Christmas gifts early.
ScrabbleBut I’m glad she did. The present in question was the “game folio” edition of Scrabble, a game I haven’t played since…well, the last time I played it, I played it with my mother, if that gives you any indication. I used to love Scrabble. Basically, what this edition does is that it packs the entire miniaturized game board into a little unzippable folder thingie, like a notebook case. There’s a hinge in the middle of the game board (but it can be “locked open” so it’s not constantly trying to close on you in mid-game), and the letters even lock into the board snugly, so in theory, you could close the whole thing in mid-game and pick up later where you left off. The four letter racks included also close up with the same thing in mind – you can store them full of your last “hand” of letters. It’s a really, really cool little concept.
I think we played for something like three hours straight and laughed our asses off for the first time in ages. We even played rounds where names or words from various science fiction franchises were permissible, though we’d call the franchise at the beginning of the game; you couldn’t play the word JEDI in a Star Trek round. My wife managed a GAIUS and a THRACE in the Galactica round. (My best round was the one where I got to play ZEALOUS, JERICHO – on a triple word score! – and AREOLA all in one game. Don’t ask where my head was on that last one. Go look it up if you haven’t heard of it, it’ll perk you right up!)
Y’know, maybe there’s a reason no one’s played Scrabble with me in the past 18 years.
JOZYXQS!Of course, I also got this absolutely unplayable hand, which any Red Dwarf fan worth his weight in smeg will recognize as a Cat Word. (Although now that I look at the picture, I realize I could’ve at least gotten JEW out of the deal.)
Anyway, that’s my early Christmas story. I really love this thing. If you want to look into getting your own, check out the link below.
Order this gameRead more

Categories
Critters

SAMMY CAT Update!

Probably the most popular series of posts and pictures I ever came up with on my now-extinct Digital Press blog had nothing to do with sci-fi or video games. It had to do with a kitten named Sampson who lived in my house for about a week and a half and captured everybody’s hearts…and was then taken off to his new life as a “Barn Kitty” by my sister-in-law, which was always the plan – only since she took so long to come get Sampson (a.k.a. Sammy Cat), we actually started to think that we were going to keep him. Afterward, my niece would talk about how much she loves Sampson and her other cat, Spaz. But I haven’t seen Sampson since he was a tiny kitten (or Spaz either, for that matter). And I didn’t get to today, either – but my wife did, and she took a few pictures for me, because I’ve always wondered how the little Sammy Cat was doing.
Apparently he’s turned into a fine handsome young man of a cat.
Sammy Cat!Read more

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Television & Movies

Oh yeah, I’ll pick up that bill…NOT.

So, Monday, I got a certified mail slip in my mailbox (good place for mail, no?) indicating that I had a certified letter from my ISP, Cox Communications. (Also my cable carrier.) I’ll admit, this has been nagging at me since then, as work has kept me from picking it up, and I’m also completely caught up on my payments to Cox – why would they be sending me a certified letter?
I mentioned it to my wife tonight and she told me that it’s a promotional offer. Sent certified at a rate of something like $4.00 apiece. And not just that, but a promotional offer pushing Cox’s high-speed internet service (to which I already subscribe, or else how would I be typing this as we speak?). Gee, I wonder if we’ll have a rate increase soon to cover what has to be one of the most insipid promotions I’ve ever seen? I sure hope someone in Cox’s marketing division feels important having sent all those certified letters. A few years ago when, behind in paying the cable bill, we were getting calls from Cox, my wife once brought me the phone and said “It’s Cox.” “No dear,” I corrected her, “it’s pricks.
One day, he shall come back.Couple of other notes: happy 42nd birthday (hmmmm…) to Doctor Who on November 23rd (I’m eagerly, eagerly awaiting the upcoming release of the first three stories in restored DVD form so I can resume my custom of watching part 1 of An Unearthly Child at 5:25pm on November 23rd every year). Also, according to an ABC notice that hit my e-mail at work today, what you’re reading is true – Alias has indeed been cancelled. Unlike Night Stalker, which wasn’t even allowed to conclude a two-part cliffhanger, Alias will run through its series finale in May. I’m not sure anyone can actually claim not to have seen this coming, what with Jennifer Garner’s pregnancy and just a general jump-the-sharkiness surrounding the whole current season. Frankly, I’d rather have J.J. Abrams’ attention focused on Lost. (Of course, that’s easy to say with Mission Impossible 3 on the horizon…)
Have a safe Thanksgiving. Go forth, eat turkey (and/or stuffing), play some Utopia, and fall asleep on the couch. Not necessarily in that order.… Read more

Categories
Gaming

And the winner is…

MEMORY!!!  DOCTOR MEMORY!!!So, over the weekend, I posted on the Retroputing forums, inviting the users there to pick the first game I’m going to play and review for the Mattel Aquarius. I’ve had a section devoted to that system for ages, but I’ve never gotten around to actually playing any games on it. The machine has such a sterling reputation – for sucking – that I’ve never dared to power it up beyond what is necessary to confirm that my Aquarius actually works. Lucky for me, the users at Retroputing decided that, from my list, the first cartridge I try out should be the 16K add-on memory cartridge! Whew! That was easy.
OK, I lie. It was Utopia. I couldn’t luck out that easily. I just don’t have the box scanned yet for Utopia.
At any rate, keep your eyes open – I’m reading the Utopia manual now and hopefully will have time to give it a shot on the “system for the 70s” (those are the words of one of the Aquarius programmers, not mine!) this weekend.
God help me.… Read more

Categories
Television & Movies

The greatest South Park episode, ever.

Last week’s South Park may be the crowning achievement of that show’s entire run on the air. I’ve been quite a fan of South Park for a long time, especially since Matt and Trey have spent recent years getting absolutely Swiftian on us, but last night’s episode may be their best yet. And apparently – due to the chain that leads from South Park to Comedy Central to Viacom to Paramount to Tom Cruise – they had to fight like hell to get this episode in. South Park has gone after Scientology before, though usually in a very metaphorical way (i.e. “Blainetology,” the religion formed around magician David Blaine in the Super Best Friends episode, another of my all-time favorite installments). But this time, you really got the sense that the guys went after it with heads down, teeth bared and no intention to take any prisoners. Normally I’m not the kind of guy who derives any amusement from a less-than-respectful view of anyone’s belief systems – arguably, the world we live in now can be boiled down to such misunderstandings in the broadest sense. But Scientology…I’m just not sure anyone’s taken in by it any more, y’know? Well, aside from Katie Holmes.
In this episode, Stan’s “E-meter” count reveals him to be the Chosen One – the reincarnation of L. Ron Hubbard himself. The Church of Scientology quickly rallies around him (as his friends quickly distance themselves from him), declaring him the new prophet and begging him to pick up where Hubbard left off. But before he can do that, Stan has to know where Hubbard left off – and then follows a sequence where Stan is told the whole spiel about alien souls, with “THIS IS WHAT SCIENTOLOGISTS ACTUALLY BELIEVE” printed across the screen in large letters.
This is what Scientologists actually believe.
A shocked Stan then begins to write new tenets and tracts of Scientology, but his “followers” draw the line when Stan writes in a new rule about no longer charging for the services of the “Church of Scientology,” as this means they would no longer be making money off the deal. When Stan outs the whole thing in public, his followers all announce that they’re going to sue him. (Tom Cruise even pops up and says “I’ll sue you…in England!“) Stan then says “Okay, then, sue me!” – only at this point, he’s speaking for the show’s producers, whose credits then roll by attributing everything on the show to John Smith and Jane Smith.
There are no “B” story threads running through the episode, as there are with many South Park episodes. This story didn’t need extra threads. By coming right out and laying its cards on the table, it becomes gut-bustingly funny enough as it stands.
Just beautiful stuff. I highly recommend you see this episode when it comes around again, or when the current season hits DVD.… Read more

Categories
Music

Shifting a pair o’ dimes

Confirmed.I don’t quite know when it happened to me, but it has happened to me like it’s happened to so many other people. When I got my new PC (a.k.a. “Zen”, actual photo seen at right) in July, I immediately shifted all of the responsibilities of my cranky and slowly-dying old PC (a.k.a. “Orac”) to the new box. And with my then-upcoming trip to CGE just weeks away, I immediately set about ripping a bunch of my CDs to the hard drive -at 364 gigabytes, the most massive storage device I’ve ever owned – to transfer to my NetMD player.
Now, tonight, with one of my first free nights away from work in very nearly a month, I’ve reached a milestone – I’ve ripped my entire soundtrack collection to the hard drive, and a goodly chunk of my mainstream rock/pop collection. (Okay, admittedly, anyone who knows me knows that perhaps “mainstream” is perhaps not the most applicable term.) And why? I’m not listening to the NetMD that much. No. It’s because my computer has become my main music source. It’s hooked up to my stereo system. I’m listening to it right now as I type this (now playing: Night Fever by the Bee Gees, and no, I’m not kidding – more on my playlist in a moment), through my stereo amp and headphones. (I’m not sure my wife would dig getting down with the Brothers Gibb at 4:30 in the morning. While she’s trying to sleep and while, by all rights, I should probably be giving sleep a fair shot at happening.)
Oh, hang on, just went to the next song – Fade To Grey by Jars Of Clay.
One of the big reasons I made the leap, some 13 years ago, from being a guy with hundreds of cassettes to a guy who would someday have hundreds of CDs, can be summed up in two words: random access. I had experienced the joys, at my radio job at the time, of using a CD player with a full numeric keypad. (Funny, isn’t it, how that feature has largely fallen by the wayside? My preferred model of CD player, the massive, Borg-ship-like Pioneer TM-3 18-disc magazine changer, still has the keypad…but then again, it was made in 1993.) Having everything on the PC pushes that random access paradigm to extremes. Point, click, queue, bang, it’s there, or coming up in just a few moments.
Now playing: Lenny Kravitz – It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over.
Okay, and while we’re talking random access, let’s talk about my playlist. I’m an old radio fart – meaning that I was DJ’ing on air back when saying the word “ass” on the air wasn’t trendy, but rather a one-way ticket to unemployment and unemployability, and so help me I miss that standard – so my tastes, while they clearly do include some mainstream stuff that everyone knows, usually tend to veer far, far off the 130bpm beaten track. Almost 1/3 of my 800+ CD collection consists of scores from movies, TV, games, and stage musicals, so there’s a lot of that in there. I’m unwinding after 3+ weeks of nonstop activity at work, and (God willing) enjoying my first actual two-day weekend in about a month), so I’m in a weary, contemplative and somewhat relieved mood tonight. Keeping the words “random access” in mind, here’s what I’ve been listening to tonight:

…anyway, you get the idea by now, I’m sure. I’d love to find a radio station that programs like that. There’s only one catch: radio stations have to keep an audience awake to play their commercials too. (I didn’t list, in the list above, a few of those that I threw in as well – albeit things like Firesign Theatre spoof commercials, NPR pledge drive spots from the Star Wars radio drama box set, and whatnot.) That’s the beauty of an MP3 player program (in my case, Winamp) that allows you to playlist whatever the heck you please. It’s Earl-FM.
I knew my whole way of thinking shifted one day this past week when my copy of the Firefly soundtrack arrived in the mail – and I yanked it out of the shrinkwrap and stuck it in the computer, and then put it back in the jewel case and then into my bag to take to work on the off-chance I’d have time to listen to it there.
So it’s happened to me too. My poor old CD player, much as I love its blinky yellow LCD lights and its keypad and its remote control, just isn’t seeing as much action these days.
Oh, and with roughly 80% of my CD collection ripped, only about 25% of my hard drive is in use – and that includes applications, this entire site, Windows XP, tons of photos, and other documents that aren’t music.
Man, I love computers.… Read more

Categories
Television & Movies

Dimensions In Time 2: Gallifreyan Boogaloo

Barcelona!!Everyone remember to visit this site tonight to get your first glimpse of the new Doctor Who in action. I have to admit, I’m curious – and Anthony Stewart Head declaring David Tennant “the best Doctor Who since Patrick Troughton” in an interview is almost like throwing down the gauntlet.
Addendum: Having now watched said mini-episode, I have to say it was rather enjoyable. I was surprised that it was as relatively dramatic as it was (it’s still hard to erase the thought of Dimensions In Time from my mind) and not more light-hearted, but whatever gets the pledges and donations in to the worthy chartity in question, that’ll work for me. The hopping bit made me instantly flash back to Tom Baker and Ian Marter skipping rope in Robot, and ya know, if you’ve going to evoke the spectre of a past Doctor, you can probably do much worse than deliberately go for something that makes the viewers think of Tom Baker.
Now there’s just the interminable wait until the unspecified-interval-after-Christmas-when-I-get-a-tape-of-the-Christmas-special-from-Canada. Here’s hoping that the ability to watch this special online isn’t just a one-off fluke. I’d plunk down a little bit of money to watch new Doctor Who adventures immediately after they air – I think the BBC would be stunned at how much money they’d make from outside their own territory with such a service.… Read more