Sep. 30 - Live Music at St. Francis
This year I have actually made an attempt to participate in student activities. I joined film club and I went to a bunch of the crap going on for homecoming week (a week in which I don't think anyone came home). And there seems to be a serious problem with all the events on campus, no one who isn't part of SGA comes. The handful of people outside of SGA that come tend to be complete assholes. There are people at St Francis who are reasonably cool, and there are of course a lot of d-bags, but there is a special group of people who stand out as complete and total assholes that always seem to come to these things and make it miserable. The prime example was tonight.
Tonight on campus, for free, a band called Recycled Percussion played. These guys have been called one of the best live acts touring today for a reason, they put on a great show and if they are coming to your town/school you should go check them out. This is what it looked like when I got there, well after the doors opened and not long before they were supposed to start playing.
hooray camera phones!
I almost left, I wasn't about to spend an hour or two in a crowd of less than a dozen people from SGA watching some band I never heard of. The only reason I stayed was because I was standing outside and met one of the band members who was a little pissed off (and reasonably so) because some jackass student came up to him and asked him if something was going on tonight, believing that he was a student. Ironically later I was mistaken for a member of the band, so St. Francis students might be retarded. Anyway, the guy convinced me to stick around and it really was a great show, and about 50 or so people showed up. But the person standing behind me was the biggest asshole I know at St Francis. This is the emo wanna-be-punk who wears his sisters jeans and goes around telling people he is hardcore and that he cant watch movies like Fight Club because its like they are about his real life (the fact that anyone buys that shit makes me weep for all of humanity) and for some fucking reason I have had like 9 classes with him and had to deal with his shit constantly.
So basically events at St Francis: 90% of the student body don't come because they are too fucking jaded to think that anything other than binge drinking to forget that they are catholic could be fun and the other 10% are SGA members and assholes who just want to talk about how much they liked whatever shitty band they saw at warped tour when they came to deer creek or verizon music center or whatever the fuck that shitty venue is called these days. I know I've been known to make fun of... everything, and make it known what i think about something, but I do make exceptions, and one of them is that I don't make fun of live music while its playing, especially when its free, and especially when its good. And I make comments for humorous effect or because they are how I actually feel, not because I think it makes me cooler in any way, or its what my friends want to hear.
Fuck this School.
I originally wanted to make this post mostly about the band, but this sort of shit has been bothering me all week.
So. Yes. The band! They are called Recycled Percussion, as i said above, and a very accurate name it is. Its 3 drummers and a DJ and everything they play on is basically useless shit, mostly buckets, broken drums, themselves, plumbing parts, the stage, fire extinguishers etc.. And they are rightly called one the best live show touring today because their show is truly alive. A lot of performance to accompany their music, the stage was basically one giant drum set so there was a lot of movement, lots of them fucking with each other, lots of drumsticks being thrown (and often dropped) at a few points in the show the stage was littered with drumsticks. Their final number was played entirely with circular grinders on sheet metal strapped to the stage supports, shooting sparks everywhere. it was the ultimate combination of music and pyrotechnics as they were made with the same instrument. So anyway, if they are in your town and you are in the mood for something really different go check them out.
Sep. 22 - So you decided to leave SNL: Classic Edition
After witnessing Dan Aykroyd's shamefully more-than-cameo role in Crossroads, I decided to do a little rundown of former SNL cast members and what happened to them when they decided to go into movies. Let's just say some where more successful than others.
Dan Aykroyd
SNL: 75-79
High point: The Blues Brothers ('80)
Low point: Blues Brothers 2000 ('98)
Recent project: Christmas with the Kranks ('04)
Bill Murray
SNL: 77-80
High point: Groundhog Day ('93)
Low point: Larger Than Life ('96)
Recent project: Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties ('06)
Chevy Chase
SNL: 75-76
High point: Caddyshack ('80)
Low point: Caddyshack II ('88)
Recent project: Zoom ('06)
Steve Martin
SNL: Most frequent host from 76-06
High point: The Jerk ('79)
Low point: Cheaper by the Dozen 2 ('05)
Recent project: The Pink Panther ('06)
John Belushi
SNL: 75-79
High point: Animal House ('78)
Low point: about 6'
Recent project: impersonating Keith Richards
Eddie Murphy
SNL: 80-84
High point: Beverly Hills Cop ('84)
Low point: Nutty Professor II: The Klumps ('00)
Recent project: Shrek 2 ('04)
Sep. 20 - Pirates!
I'ts a little late for talk like a pirate day, but I've been adding to this little by little for a few months and I think its finally done. It took me so long because I rarely color anything in illustrator and my line style isn't made for easy coloring.
I was going to enter it into the St. Francis "postcard show" but there have been some twists and turns and long story short I'm not an art major any more. I still want to do art, but I can't stand doing it for them any more. so now I'm joining the cool kids in the math department.
Sep. 11 - Never Forget That Day We Didn't Forget to Remember
Today is an important day. It's a day that we remember a day that remembered an important event. It's finally happened.
The three-year anniversary of the two-year anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center.
September 11th, 2003. I remember it like it was a year and a half ago. A Thursday like any other Thursday. My senior year of high school. Rehearsals for Much Ado About Nothing were just underway, the prospect of college was in my sights, and I woke up that morning thinking it would be a typical school day.
How wrong I was.
I turned on the news to see those tragic images. Suddenly all the memories came rushing back. The death. The destruction. The sorrow. I remember being in the same place two years prior and all the anger I felt towards Saddam Hussein, the man responsible for the tragedy. I never would have thought he could tie those suicide bombers onto WMDs; flying over 6,000 miles to deliver their precious cargo of murder and freedom-hating. It's a good thing every channel decided to replay that footage, otherwise I would have completely forgotten. Anniversaries are important, for they incessantly remind us of things we're all completely aware of. September 10th, 2003 was ignorable horseshit. But not September 11th. That particular anniversary sticks out in my mind more than any other.
So much has changed since 2003. Back then, the conflict in Iraq was a mere baby war, in tune with a Grenada, Kosovo, or Spanish-American. Janet Jackson was preparing for her most tit-tacular Super Bowl performance ever, paving the way for overreaction and censorship to be cool again. Bush was in his first term, still getting his sea legs. And Senator John Kerry had yet to break onto the political main stage with his losing strategy of droning logic and soporific compassion. It was a gay olde time.
Now it's three years after that epic day; time to remember once again. The old news footage is dusted off, and America comes together to reiterate jingoistic bumper sticker slogans and compile montages of crying bald eagles masturbating into Uncle Sam's mouth.
It's comforting to know that the news media allow us to remember an event that none of us forgot in the first goddamn place.
September 11th, 2003: Never forget to keep on remembering.
Note: Be sure to show your patriotism by purchasing the World Trade Center Gold and Silver Clad Commemorative Pop-Up Coin, which somehow encapsulates everything wrong with America. Belittle the deaths of thousands! Only $29.95!
Sep. 9 - For the Germans who want to step outside the realm of sausage, but like the familiar shape.
Look at this.
That right there is German soup-wurst.
I had something big I was going to write about Germany, it was fun, but I think we should leave the rest to the German soup-wurst.
Sep. 3 - The only thing we have to FEAR is an over-used pun
FEAR was one of those games that while I just owned my laptop I just looked at and said, "Wow!" and was just excited that it existed. It looked cool, was scary as crap, had cool slow-mo effects, and would melt my computer into glass if I ever tried to run it. That was OK. It was a new game with high system reqs and cost, like, 50 bucks. Neither my computer nor my wallet could take it, but I was OK with that. That all changed when I got my new computer. Suddenly one of the impairments to me getting new games was removed. Those of you who know me are aware of my...frugality. I usually wait until a game is $20 or less before I buy it, but here was a game that looked way too cool. Thanks to Wal-Mart cutting dental insurance for all its employees, however, they were able to sell me FEAR for a mere $30. And so, while laughing at and capitalizing on the misfortunes of others, I purchased the game.
Nathan playing FEAR...or minesweeper, I don't remember.
When I first opened the box I was met with annoyance. The game is a whopping five CD's and it comes in just those crappy paper envelopes. How am I supposed to store the CD's in a protected yet easily accessible and recognizable place? I forgave Half-Life 2 for this because you don't have to have any of the CD's in the drive to actually play the game. FEAR requires you to have the fifth disc (naturally) in the drive to play so it gets to float around on top of my computer with the Oblivion disc. Anyway, after I install this bad boy I start to play. I played the single-player demo a couple times which presented a part of the first level. I was expecting to blaze through this part since I'd already worked out the difficult parts. However, they didn't just chop off the very beginning of the game and package it as a demo. The demo was actually a unique experience, which I think was a classy move. You got to try out more of the guns and combat and really experience a demonstration of the game.
Try watching the intro while listening to Space Oddity by David Bowie
I read in another review that FEAR is very derivative. I will agree with that. The creepy girl on the front of the box and who turns out to be the center of the story pretty much is the girl from The Ring. I didn't really have a problem with that because I never saw The Ring, but I don't think it would have bothered me anyway. I was excited enough by the story and the action in the game not to be thinking about some movie. I think they handle their influences well. Well enough to make me smile when I catch things. One example that actually got me to vocally point out its existence to the screen was a very Akira-like metallic sphere deep inside a psychic research facility. FEAR also tends to channel the spirit of Half-Life 2. This is not a bad thing. There are certain presentation and puzzle elements that can be attributed to Half-Life but it's all done very well. It's like saying that a film-maker is clearly influenced by Scorsese or Kurosawa: those guys were so influential that as long as the influenced work doesn't suck it just brings deeper meaning. The story progresses as the unraveling of a mystery, but, pleasantly, it doesn't shove any of its conclusions or revelations down your throat. It simply hints at several possibilities and then confirms the one you've been guessing at (that's not to say there aren't any "woah" moments).
Those people at Gushers weren't kidding when they bragged about their "explosive liquid centers."
I know it's a buzz-concept (more than just a buzz-word but perhaps a buzz-phrase) that games are becoming more like movies. I see it more that games are presenting a more realistically interactive world to play in. In that light, I would like to commend FEAR's interactive world. One experience in particular stands out. It makes so much sense in real life but is rather foreign in a game world. You come to a door; it won't open. There are many way to open locked doors in games that range from colored key cards to flicking the correct switches to explosives. Never, in my experience, have you been able to smash the glass portion of the door with the butt of your gun and open it (with the implication that you reached through the ex-window and unlocked it from the other side). That made me so happy. I'm sorry if I spoiled it for any of you future FEAR players, but to me it represented a large step for games into the realm of realism. Another way FEAR progresses in this direction is when you tilt you character's view to the floor you can actually see your legs and feet. Plenty can be said for a game's graphics (and FEAR's are top-of-the-line), but Doom 3 didn't have these kinds of touches. The one thing that is a little disappointing about the realism factor in FEAR is character reaction. Half-Life 2 set a high bar for cinematic, believable characters that really react to what's happening around them and for better or for worse everyone else is now judged against that bar. FEAR's characters look amazing and are designed very expressively. However, there's a difference between character design and character animation. It seemed a stark contrast to the very emotion-susceptible Alyx from H-L2 when my female FEAR teammate barely flinched as our chopper was shot down over an industrial complex. It's just one moment and one complaint, but in a game with such outstanding production values in graphics, sound, and dialogue it stands out.
Yeah, she's hot, but she won't come on to you like Alyx.
To me this seems like a non-conventional review so I'll go ahead with another non-conventional idea that's important to me about shooters: the guns feel good. Each gun has its own sound and they all sound good. You get aural pleasure from firing the guns. They don't sound wussy or odd. You fire the guns and stuff gets wrecked. Even if you miss, walls and boxes and windows get blown to crap. If I wasn't worried about wasting ammo I would have just run around shooting everything because it's fun. The guns are fun to fire and they mess up whatever they're pointed at; to me that's the foundation of what makes a shooter fun. Also, I got attached to my guns. You can only carry three different weapons so there are occasions when you have to choose to give up one gun for another. I found it hard to give up for my assault rifle or my trusty shotgun for a more powerful techno weapon because I had chosen them so many times up to that time and succeeded with them, too. To me, the guns became characters. Maybe I'm just crazy like that, but it is a shooter.
