November 2008
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Month November 2008

Entries 8 Total

Thanksgiving 2008 Postmort

Nov 30, ’08 4:31 PM

The leftovers are gone. The fullness has subsided. It’s time to document.

Thanksgiving 2008

For much of the last six years, cooking had become more an act of desperation than a usual course of action. A year of frequent but uncreative cooking in Ithaca gave way to five years of constant dining out while in Astoria. Our pots and pans sat lonely in our oven, doing very little.

But the situation has turned around once more, and I am cooking regularly. So much so that we’ve successfully appealed to both sets of parents that we wanted to spend holidays here, rather than making the standard trips to upstate NY and Maryland to split the holidays. (For reference: our previous two Thanksgivings spent in the city were 2003 – invited to two friends’ dinners – and 2007, which we ate at Eleven Madison Park.)

Katie and I spent much of the last week scrambling. After scouring our cookbooks and favorite websites, we had settled on preparing six dishes and three sauces. It is the largest meal we’ve ever cooked to date – and will probably only be topped by Thanksgiving next year. And, just to be clear: we’ve only been cooking in earnest for three months.

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Burn The Witch

Nov 18, ’08 10:23 AM

I’ve been having a blast playing Left 4 Dead – possibly the greatest co-op experience I’ve had this year, far beyond Gears 2 and Little Big Planet. I cannot recommend it enough. (I’m playing on the Steam version, in case you’re looking for teammates.)

Rock, Paper, Shotgun has a fantastic post up today about the one enemy that really unnerves me (and many others) – the witch.

This is an ode to a strange, huddled creature. A crying, singing, tangle of ragged limbs and ferocious eyes. Terrifyingly deadly, and yet so distressingly vulnerable. Left 4 Dead’s Witch is unparalleled for me amongst all of gaming’s enemies, more frightening and fascinating than any before. She is pure fear.

…She casts no spells. She possesses no apparent magic powers. She does not cackle, and she certainly does not wear a pointed hat. No cats surround her. She throws no runes. She shuffles no bones. But she is a Witch. The most terrifying form imaginable. For God’s sake, turn off your flashlight, stop firing toward those cars, and just walk past. And whatever you do, don’t turn around to look.

My first play-through of the L4D demo, we came upon a witch in a subway car. We weren’t quite sure how to proceed – all of our flashlights were off already, but having not dealt with one before, we weren’t sure how peripheral her vision could be.

I eyed my inventory – I had a pipe bomb. Surely, I thought, a squarely thrown pipe bomb could take her out.

I lobbed it at her, and watched it land right at her feet. I smiled as the beeps increased, and waited for the explosion.

Thirty seconds later, after my teammates had saved me from a severe witch-induced ass kicking (which coincided with another zombie swarm appearing), I had learned my lesson.

Friends don’t let friends pipebomb witches.

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Consider This Post To Be A Bucket Of Truth

Nov 14, ’08 1:28 AM

Quick quiz:

What do they have in common?

What do Marcus Fenix, Bender, and Steve Ballmer from TNT’s 1999 TV Movie Pirates of Silicon Valley all have in common? You may think to answer “They are all fictional characters!” – but you would be wrong. Steve Ballmer actually exists, despite popular belief that he is just a cartoon character.

Your answer might be “They all have six letter names!” – but you would not only be wrong, but also unable to count.

You may be so clever as to answer “You put them all in the same image!” This is very true. But this is only for illustrative purposes, and should not be taken as something they have in common. Still, two points for effort.

Have you given up?

THEY ARE THE SAME MAN. All three were voiced and/or portrayed by John Di Maggio.

(Of course, if you read Giant Bomb, you already knew this.)

This has blown my mind as much as when I learned that the bushes in Super Mario Brothers were just re-colored clouds.

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Strictly Business

Nov 8, ’08 11:10 AM

Les Freres Corbusier present their latest show, the world premiere of Dance Dance Revolution, created by the company, directed by Alex Timbers, and featuring original songs by Gary Adler and Phoebe Kreutz.

Les Freres transforms the Ohio Theater into a fully immersive, bombed-out discotheque as it fuses unmerciful Japanese rave music with deeply regrettable sophomoric comedy in the futuristic dance spectacular, Dance Dance Revolution.

Riffing on fizzy dance musicals like Flashdance and death sport movies such as Rollerball, the show is set in an Orwellian society where dance is illegal. A group of local street toughs harbor no hope of overthrowing the fascistic no — fun government — until a mysterious dance prophet named Moonbeam Funk arrives.

Inspired by the wildly popular video game of the same name, Dance Dance Revolution is like Footloose set in the future — but much scarier, and with 40 really attractive, barely-clothed young actors as well as free beer!

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A Moment Of Disturbing Honesty From Activision

Nov 5, ’08 7:54 PM

Stephen Totilo of MTV reporting on a moment of honesty from today’s Activision/Blizzard earnings call, emphasis mine:

During today’s Activision Blizzard earnings call, a financial analyst asked the company’s CEO, Bobby Kotick, why the company didn’t keep all of Vivendi’s games when the two gaming companies merged.

The analyst didn’t name any games, but technically, he had to be referring to the likes of “Ghostbusters,” “50 Cent: Blood On The Sand” and the new “Riddick,” which all appear to have found new publishing homes…

Kotick responded not by addressing any of the games by name, but by talking about Activision’s publishing philosophy. The games Activision Blizzard didn’t pick up, he said, “don’t have the potential to be exploited every year on every platform with clear sequel potential and have the potential to become $100 million dollar franchises. … I think, generally, our strategy has been to focus… on the products that have those attributes and characteristics, the products that we know [that] if we release them today, we’ll be working on them 10 years from now…You still need to have production of new original property but you have to do it very selectively… the focus at retail and for the consumer is to continue to be on the big narrow and deep high profile release strategy… We’ve had enough experience that I think the strategy we employ is the most successful.”

I suppose I can appreciate the honesty, but as a gamer, I couldn’t be more nauseated.

That’s not to say I’m particularly surprised – what was the last significant franchise they created?

Tony Hawk? 1999.

Call Of Duty? 2003.

Guitar Hero? 2005.

I often love the games that are too quirky, too weird, too inaccessible, or too obscure for the mass market. And it’s sad that a company that was there when I started gaming 25 years ago has become so unwilling to take risks with their titles.

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The Great Release

Nov 5, ’08 4:40 PM

And it feels like it won’t come on
And it takes like you’re full of love
Still the time never to pay on
Still the time never to pay on

And it feels like I’m coming home
And it’s still like a merry cow
And it feels like it’s coming home
And it feels like it’s full of love
Still in time is the great release
Something dying will be a great release

I recently realized that I began writing for the web not long before the 2000 election season. There was no cause and effect there – I certainly wasn’t writing about anything deep on Day One – but I do find the timing curious. Soon, what had been a predominantly vain site about my school goings-on became my emotional release to the world.

As outlets go, I’ve been hard pressed to find one that can be more cathartic than writing: writing for myself, for a nebulous group of friends and coworkers, for the world. I write to preserve thoughts, to capture feelings. I write so that I will not – so that I can not – ever forget.

With that in mind: I do not ever want to forget how I felt at 5:58 in the morning, walking to PS 16 and finding a line, the first time I would ever have to wait to vote. I was #31 at my polling station. I could not cast my vote soon enough.

And I do not ever want to forget how I felt last night, at a quarter past ten, when the path to victory became clear and I began to eagerly count down the forty-five minutes left until the west coast closed and the election could be called.

And I do not ever want to forget how the nation and the world reacted at eleven o’clock the evening of November the 4th, as the tears came to my eyes.

And I do not ever want to forget watching John McCain concede – both for his attempts to mend the wounds he had caused during his campaign, and for him coming face to face with them, as his supporters booed the president-elect.

And I do not ever want to forget listening to President Obama’s victory speech, and realizing that I no longer had reason to doubt the possibility of the American spirit, to no longer believe that hope was little more than an exercise in futility.

I can not ever forget what the last eight years have done to this country. It has divided us, such that my own relatives feel that calling me a “commie pinko” is acceptable discourse. It has destroyed our good standing around the world. It has warped our values: intelligence and eloquence had become something that we no longer wanted in our leaders.

And I will not delude myself: the next four years will be extremely rough on our new government. I do not hold any expectations that everything that is broken will get fixed. President Obama does not have all the answers, nor should any one of us expect him to. But we should expect him to do right: to uphold our rights and empower us; to work with our allies and strengthen us; to deter our enemies and protect us; to set a good example and lead us. We will hold him accountable and demand transparency, just as we should any government.

But the electorate has spoken resoundingly. No longer are we a nation who can be cowed by our government in the name of security, fear, or war. A nation that can so strongly reject fear mongering has already found its strength again. And with the leadership we have elected, we have the possibility of rebuilding from the damage of those last eight years.

For the first time in my adult life, I am hopeful for this nation.

I do not ever, ever want to forget that.

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Election Day Reading List

Nov 4, ’08 6:42 AM

Arianna Huffington declares The Internet the big winner of the 2008 election:

From the way campaigns connect to supporters, to the way those campaigns are covered, to the way voters decide who to vote for, 2008 has delivered the first truly 21st century presidential race. And election night promises to fortify the Internet’s victory.

Andrew Sullivan on why he’s voting for Barack Obama:

But there is something about his rise that is also supremely American, a reminder of why so many of us love this country so passionately and are filled with such grief at what has been done to it and in its name. I endorse Barack Obama because I will not give up on America, because I believe in America, and in her constitution and decency and character and strength.

Nate Silver on what to watch for tonight.

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Jersey City, 5:58 AM

Nov 4, ’08 6:03 AM


Let’s make this count, folks.

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