Re: Proposition

Dude, no offense but we don't even have a consistent following on this blog. Other than TL, you and I are dominating the blog. (AYE DEMAND SAYTIZFACKCTSHUN) It's just going to be you and me posting on the board if you started another message board. I wish there was enough buzz to start a board. Prove me wrong gentlemen. Prove me wrong.

proposition

we've had about three or four message boards that bit the dust. the most successful one was killed by mario trolling pat aurelio (lol you remember that? that was kind of crazy funny). with us basically posting offtopic topix on the bsnfl fantasy board and a potential for creating discussion about content on this board and just a general wedding/engagement centralized discussion... are we prepared to create a new board? how many ppl here work with computers? just a topic to throw in here that is probably not necessary for any of the non-readers (all 2 of you i think) that frequent this site.

Seriously, I can't keep up

I stopped following music in August and I find myself with a plethora of things to listen to. I can't believe Bloc Party, Jenny Lewis, TV on the Radio, and Of Montreal released(or will be releasing)albums. The Of Montreal and TOTR albums are really, really good. Bloc Party and Jenny Lewis, meh. I'm also digging the new Rosebuds which is better than their last album. Deerhoof I haven't listened to the whole thing, but I like what I heard so far. Ladyhawke is sick groove shit. The new Streets, hit and miss. Veronica Maggio is some Swedish pop and I'm a big fan of that kinda music. Woman, I think they're new. That's a cool album too. I guess I don't have much to say because I haven't given everything I've mentioned a deep listen with the exception of TOTR and Of Montreal because I liked those albums instantly. I'm surprised I like the Of Montreal so much because I hated on their last album "Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?" mainly because I don't think they progressed from "Satanic Panic in the Attic." "Skeletal Lamping" is the last two albums, but super funky. The songs sound like collections of multiple songs, like it doesn't stay in the same place for too long which is a downside at times because you become interested in a certain melody, and you want to hear more, but they abruptly move onto something else. It's okay those because they move on, and you get stuck on whatever new tangent they're on.

Anyway all this stuff has reinvigorated me. I'm actually listening to more music at work than podcasts when just last week, I couldn't be bothered with music. Maybe the shows I'm listening to just have been boring of late, I don't know. The new music is just really good I guess. I listened to "In Rainbows" again. I'm not sick of it yet. I was playing with the idea that it might be my favorite Radiohead record, but saying that feels blasphemous to those popular choices for best Radiohead record(OK, Kid, Amnesiac, throw the Bends in there). I don't know. Rainbows is good man. I can't justify it any better at the moment, so I lose. After that I listened to "You Forgot it in People" by Broken Social Scene because I wanted to see if I really like BSS more than Radiohead. The conclusion I came to was: don't make me choose. YFIIP is timeless for me. We all need to go see BSS live. Go Canadia!

It just sucks I can't keep up with everything. I want to start reading hardcore again. I'm reading Watchmen right now, but very slowly. The busy video game season is about to start too so I don't know how I'm going to get to all of these things. Sucks too because I don't have my own TV to play on so I haven't been playing much lately. Only when Andrea's not around. What are you guys reading/listening/playing/watching?

Obama/McCain III

In response to a message board post proclaiming McCain knocked out Obama.

I totally disagree. I don't think it was a total KO. McCain kicked Obama's ass for the first 30 minutes. McCain was on the offense and kept bringing up flaws in Obama's policies which kept Obama on the defensive and that made him look so weak. After that however Obama settled down and McCain kinda screwed up by kinda doing what Palin did and he avoided answering questions. He brought up that Bill Ayers shit out of nowhere and kept bringing it up. Obama tried to maintain the clean campaign image, but again lost control and he eventually explained himself. He did do a good fucking job totally disconnecting himself from Ayers, but I already knew that was some made up Palin bullshit(what isn't?). I also thought it was awesome for McCain to strike back at Obama for relating him to Bush. "I am not President Bush. If you want to run a campaign against Bush, you should have done that four years ago." Great line. Whether or not it's true...but great line nonetheless.

The one part that stuck out in my mind was when they talked about Roe v Wade and they were asked about whether or not they would elect judges based on their ideas and beliefs. I was sorta impressed with McCain's response, that he wants the most qualified people and wouldn't elect someone just because they felt like he did. That was all well and good UNTIL he slipped this line in at the very end. Something like, "Someone who believes in Roe v Wade is obviously NOT qualified." Just like that, throw out everything you just said Skeletor.

I still think Obama did better. He answered the questions as best he could and didn't sink to McCain's level by using unnecessary attacks. However, even if people say they want to hear the issues, it's not true. I don't have that much faith in America. People watch politics for scandal, for hate messages, etc. so I McCain did what he had to do. He rallied his supporters for sure. Obama, despite looking weak at times, he never fired back with cheap shots, and I hope that people see how fucking awesome that was.

Chapter Six up and running

I posted chapter six over at Collective Balderdash, but I am not too happy with how it ends so that last part is mad tentative until I come up with something better. If you haven't caught up, read the first five chapters by clicking on the "untitled novel project" link in the tags section.

Chapter 6 here.

excerpt:

"Mullin was cute," Monica said. "I remember Mullin."

"They've been sucking lately, " Ivan said. "I haven't paid attention though, really."

"They still suck, I guess," Clark mumbled but with a hidden electricity. "It's just part of the deal when you root for a team like that."

"What do you mean," Ivan queried.

"Like, it's just part of the culture to be a Warriors fan. We haven't made the playoffs since '94 and the last time they won a world title I wasn't even born yet. It's like rooting for Wile E. Coyote."

"Wile E. never gets The Roadrunner, right?" Ivan asked. "You're talking about him right? Not some new band or new Marxist rebel?"

"Yeah, that's the coyote," Clark answered. "That's the guy. He comes up with these ideas and they seem plausible and realistic -- at least in the world of cartoons -- but either the Roadrunner is too good or we fuck it up because that's what we do. I mean, the guy can probably look for easier prey. I can move on to rooting for another team or choosing favorite players or even just watch basketball as a neutral party. But I don't and he doesn't. You go in knowing that the odds aren't necessarily with you, that the past is more of an indication of what will happen because let's face it, as much as we learn from the past it's not really a lack of imagination that hurts us but the execution.

So I come back every year to root for this godawful team and every year I remain optimistic and every stupid year I end up rolling my eyes halfway through the season. It's this blind hope that someday we can make it, and I will not be one of those bandwagon douches that come out of the woodwork, I will be there from the insufferable and intolerable days to see us finally get the Roadrunner and it will feel better than just latching on, because the suffering is what makes everything afterward satisfying."

The third quarter had started. Monica picked up her cup of coffee, her hand slightly jerking and shaky. It was not blatantly noticeable. It was a shake one would have after a hangover from heavy drinking. Clark pretended like he didn't notice, but he couldn't discard the image from his mind. He tried watching the game. All he saw was ten men in a rectangular stage throwing the ball around.

offtopic:

• Banksy's Pet Store and Charcoal Grill (open until Oct. 31 in NY)
• Awesome, awesome NYMag article on projection stat deity and inventor of PECOTA, Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight and BaseballProspectus
• new Madlib for download "Beat Konducta v6- Dil Withers Suite": http://sharebee.com/e792827e
  

Mega Man 9

If you noticed, I didn't post a review of Mega Man 9 last week. Mostly because I played Rock Band 2 instead because Mega Man 9 is very hard. However I feel great joy when I play the 9th installment of the classic Capcom action platformer. To be honest I haven't touched an original Mega Man game since 1990 and Mega Man 3. I really had no desire to play a Mega Man game and fortunately the best of the series(2 and 3)were behind me. To come back to the series again after 18 years, it just brings me back to the days of only having one game to play on your console, and you had no choice but to play the fuck out of the game, and get really good. This concept is critical if you want to really enjoy Mega Man 9.

If you've played a MM game before you probably won't have any trouble learning how to play MM9. You run, you jump, and you shoot. There are 8 Robot Masters that need smashing, then after you defeat each one you gain their weapons. Overall, the weapons were kind of disappointing. I only found myself using 2 or 3 weapons regularly(of course, against the bosses I would use the weapon of choice), but the other weapons were either too slow to fire(Magma Man), or I didn't really have use for the weapon because of it's pattern(Plug Man). Rush, your trusty robot dog, returns as well to help you jump higher or fly over parts of the level if you choose to use him. They changed the way the Rush Jet flies though. Before, you had complete control and could fly him in any direction. Now he goes automatically in the direction he's facing, and you can only control his vertical movement which kind of sucks when your trying to fly through tight spaces, but I guess they did that to make it a little more challenging.

It's all about memorization and pixel perfect jumping. Some people like to belittle the fact that all you have to do is memorize the stages, and finish levels is a snap. I don't think it's that easy. You can know what's coming, but you still have to execute. The feeling you get once you finish a level is so much jubilation because it's so satisfying to hit your jumps that you had trouble with just a few minutes earlier. It's funny because I don't remember struggling this much with a Mega Man game other than the first one, so I walked into this feeling all cocky. However playing MM9 made me remember that it wasn't always easy, and I played a lot of 2 and 3 before they became like second nature. Plus I didn't have that jumping glitch that made MM3 a fucking cakewalk.

The look of the game was quite a risk for Capcom as well. It seems to have divided Mega Man fans because the developers decided to use NES technology and create a brand new game, but with 8-bit graphics and sound. This was an outrage to some people. With the way games are now, why would you go back and use old technology? Imagine how great a current generation Mega Man game would look. They(the four people that made this game at Capcom) chose retro over current gen for fans like me. They knew that seeing an NES style Blue Bomber, mouth wide open while jumping, would appeal to old school gamers like myself. I won't even talk about the music though because no game, Mega Man or not, will ever touch Mega Man 2. If you're a graphics whore like Dibsy(he hated Mario Galaxy, what's wrong with him?) then you probably won't tolerate this game.

Mega Man 9 is total fan service, simple as that. The controls are still tight, the action is great, and Capcom has been on a roll farming out their classic franchises like Bionic Commando and Street Fighter. They seem to be doing right though unlike other game developers. They're not just doing complete re-hashes, but rather they're adding something new, whether it be new graphics or a completely new game. I would only recommend this game to fans of the series. Otherwise you'll probably try one stage and say, "Why would I want to subject myself to this?" It hurts so good. That's how I feel anyway.

i don't do much but i did this during the weekend

yeah life sucks right now..