An Interview With Pixel:

The Guy Who Created Doukutsu Monotagari, One Of The Finest Games In Years. It's free too. Check out the interview, check out the game. It's for the PC. It's free. It makes me wish 2d gaming wasn't essentially dead.

The Independent Gaming Source: The PIXEL Interview

Everybody Loves Raymond?

I never felt compelled to watch a single episode. I do not love Raymond. Sorry, Raymond.

Sunday

~

Sometimes I like my music loud. So loud that it sort of arrests my other senses and forces me to listen with everything I've got. My body feels numb in a way that is indescribable. When it is loud enough that other things cannot be concentrated on, those other things that cannot be focused upon cease to matter. In a way though, they matter more than everything else. If the music is loud, I can reflect on things that I would otherwise be too busy for. Every day, one is bombarded by so much information. Every sight, taste, smell, feeling, and noise; these are all pieces of information that are force-fed to our persons every conscious moment. For me, it is helpful to just concentrate on a single sense sometimes. I usually do not do this, but in the future I will make a point to do it more. I feel like if I saturate myself with one sense, it will help the others along in some strange way.

People, Why?

I walk around every day feeling like just beneath the surface, our culture is fundamentally damaged in some way. Suicide, depression, obesity; these things are everywhere, and the people who experience them are not to fault. It could not simply be a trend because it is too widespread. Somewhere in the fabric of our society is a seed of corruption, and it has spread outward, causing people to either lose their lives entirely or live with greatly diminished quality of life. Don't believe me? Then look elsewhere to other Westernized nations. The Japanese who adopted Western culture very rapidly after being essentially cut off from the rest of the world for hundreds of years have an extremely high suicide rate amongst their youth. In fact, it has been higher in the past than the suicide rate of American kids. Their overall suicide rate is higher; the highest of all Westernized nations. Want another example that backs the idea of Western culture being not as ideal as its champions would like us to think? Look at this painfully current fad in the UK: teens engaging in risky group sex. Daisy Chaining! Wow, what a great term. HIV and other diseases are spreading among the youth there. Maybe we'll just have to go back to teaching kids that sex will kill them indiscriminately, and anything that feels good is a sin! That's the way you all were brought up, right?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1588791,00.html

Oatmeal Swirlers

Damn, does anyone remember those? So good. I only had them one or two times in my childhood, but something about that product was simply magical. What child would not want to put some red syrupy stuff into his oatmeal and make designs with it, or basically do whatever he wants inside of the bowl? If you were one of these kids who was not impressed by this, we cannot be friends. Ever. If you did not know about this delightful breakfast cereal until now, that is okay with me. I just wish I had more to tell or show you about it. Google only turns up a few pages of results, and no images. I know that if I were to eat this food today I would probably be disappointed, but I still want to try it. Maybe the magic will carry over, and it will make me a better person.

Here is a petition to General Mills to get this food produced again: http://www.petitiononline.com/Oatmeal/petition.html

Over-Sentimentality: The Battle Against Mush

I abhor mushy shit. Maybe I just don't like romance; I hate seeing a movie and there being a bunch of needlessly mushy shit in there. Often times it makes me cringe. That is not the way I choose to live my life. I don't believe that people are that way by nature...not most of us anyway. I worry that people see movies with this kind of stuff in them, and then they emulate it in real life, which is pretty bad. You've been around it, you know how it is. I believe romance in a movie can be done without all of this nonsense. I believe one can create a great movie that does not end with someone getting what they always wanted in a significant other. I have seen such films! Such films though, are few and far between, because Hollywood at large believes that these mushy scenes in films are more palatable for the average movie-goer. Is this true? I hope not. I fear it might be.

Sometimes, I wonder:

People who scream loudly when they get upset; do they do this because they think perhaps God will hear their plea and help them out? Example: A man screams "I HATE THIS CAR! IT IS A PIECE OF SHIT!" It is obvious that this man hates his car and considers it of equal or lesser worth than the contents of his own bowels. Does he scream this at the top of his lungs in the hopes that some divine benefactor will give him a new car? Or perhaps a wealthy person who is in a giving mood will take pity on him?

Ponder that.

Lamentations About Foobar2k:

Just kidding, it's as awesome as ever.

YES!!!

"MARCH/05 UPDATE:

MC Paul B is hard at work on a new LP!"

http://www.mcpaulbarman.com/

Going to pick my hair out; Then go and use what lies under that hair

I mean, fuck it. Why not?


God, I hate that kid. I hope he gives me a reason to act on my feelings.


Peace to Scoggin.

Pruning / Reorganizing MP3s

This process involves me deleting music which is no longer relevant, or albums that are incomplete or otherwise fucked. My rationale for deleting albums that are really just missing a song or two is that I would not want to listen to an album that is incomplete, and to spend the time searching for just one file is a waste of my time. After all, there is an ocean of music out there and I can't ever possibly listen to everything I would like to hear.

Libertarian Perspective: Father, Son, and Environment

My friend Peter has an interesting and thought provoking blog. His most recent entry can be seen here:Libertarian Perspective: Father, Son, and Environment

I am giving up on DeadAIM and moving on to Trillian

It's good so far. Really.

My iPod Needs Purging

All 30GB are filled up. I need to go through and remove what I know I will never listen to again.

There's a new AIM virus going around

Don't click links unless you ask a person if they are legit

Read about it here

DFA79, or: How I Got My Face Melted Off And Enjoyed Every Moment Of It

Holy fuck that show was all kinds of awesome. The crowd was absolutely rabid. Sebastien was talking a lot of shit to the kids in the audience who were saying things. His caustic wit was hilarious. Like, someone was complaining about the bass, and he was like "Well you're in the fucking mosh pit, if you want it to sound good go stand in the middle like everyone else." (That is not exactly what he said, but it was pretty similar.) There was a lot of other stuff that happened, and all of it was cool. All of the other bands were pretty good but Controller.Controller was really awesome as well. When you have 5 people on stage rocking out, it is generally awesome. I want to hear more of them, and I want them to put out a full length album (they had an EP on sale at the show that I did not pick up but would like to hear very much).

It was memorable to say the least.

Something beautiful happened in the church house, but it didn't have to do with God

I saw Q And Not U last night and it was an amazing and fun show. There were a lot of good people there, I had a great time. I spent about 45 minutes trying to find parking, and it was such a fucking bummer I almost gave up and went back home. A decent spot magically appeared on Market Street though, so I stayed in Philadelphia. No, seriously, it was like 45 minutes.

In any case, I went into the show and I missed some of Horses' performance. What I saw was really pretty good though. Manhunter was next, and they showed the crowd a good time. People danced, Manhunter danced, fun was had by all. Then there was this hip-hop act, Food For Animals. I did not like it very much, and I am a gigantic hip-hop fan. I really dug the noise, but the rapping was lackluster, although there were a few good punchlines. I felt it was more like some guys on stage jamming, and a fat bearded guy just enjoying himself doing some rapping on the stage, and not really giving a shit about the crowd, or his flow. Actually, that's EXACTLY what it was. The crowd was bored. We were all bored, but they were enjoying themselves pretty hard. It was like they were just all up there masturbating, and we were waiting for them to finish up. Q And Not U though: Damn they were amazing. It was so much fun. I don't usually shake my ass, I am a pretty rigid person, or at least I was until then. Last night I shook my ass. I shook it for quite a while and enjoyed it.

Hitler: The Pathology of Evil

A few days ago I finished this book, Hitler: The Pathology of Evil, by George Victor. I don't normally get down with non-fiction books, but my next book just might be another history book. It was extremely interesting to me. This book was excellent. Basically, it is a breakdown of Hitler's life, but less of a biography and more of an analysis of what specific events had on Hitler's psyche, and then once his personality had taken root, how it affected the decisions he made in life. It does a pretty good job of explaining why he did some of the extremely irrational things he did during his life; so many of his actions are contradictory. Many, perhaps even most of the decisions Hitler made while he was in power are based on extremely personal things in his life. He really used the National Socialist Party to carry out a personal agenda, none of it good. He really did loathe himself, and if one were to read this book it would be obvious. This book has changed me a little. I have read and seen things about the Holocaust and World War II era-Germany before, but those things did not make the issues real for me. After all, I was born 40 years after it all ended. What made this book significant for me was the idea it put in my head: the idea that if one terrible person, just a single tainted soul takes a position of great power, they can command the deaths of so many innocent people. Hitler himself is the only one who can be blamed for the unfathomable number of lives lost back then. He committed what are undoubtedly the most evil acts in history. No one belonging to any particular ethnic group, or nationality, or religion should be put to death simply because they belong to a certain group. The man's ideas were terribly flawed all around, not just regarding racial purity. The truth of this matter reveals itself in his command of the military and his personal life, especially. Anyhow, I recommend the book.

It's too bad she won't live! But then again, who does?

I saw Blade Runner for the first time tonight. I think I have seen all the films based on Philip K. Dick novels now. It was good, but it was not a bright film. It is one of the darkest films I've ever seen. God bless the 80s. I think Useff summed it up pretty well when he said, "This movie is a toilet."

Broomball or Broom Hockey; Either Way, It Was Rough

Today I wanted to take some pictures of things in my room and write about them. The camera I use is out of batteries though, and besides: fuck that camera. It is old and bad. I want a new camera that is good (much better than this one).

Instead, I will tell you about Friday night's Broomball experience.

First of all, I should tell you a little bit about the game. I do not know very much about it to tell the truth. Friday was my first time ever playing it, and I had not heard very much about it prior to last week. It is a game played on an ice rink with sticks that resemble hockey sticks. Instead of having a blade at the bottom, there is a triangular stopper. This tool is called a broom. I assume it is called a broom because it resembles one. We played with a large ball which is about 1/2 the side of a soccer ball if I remember correctly. We wore our sneakers on the ice. The way we played it may not have been very correct according to the official rules, but let me tell you about it. It was like a game of hockey, but with less rules. We could use our hands to swat the ball out of the air, and we could also kick the ball if we desired.

So Pat Ruff asked Useff and I to come join him for a Broomball tournament that the university was having on Friday night. We met him and a student from the dorm where he is an RA at one of the indoor ice rinks on campus. This student, Emilio, would be our goalie. There, we were not sure what we were doing because we basically just showed up. A co-ordinator told us that we had to have eight people on the team, so he gave us four total strangers. Their names were Lei, Kelly, Brad, and Brian. I am not sure if those names are spelled correctly, because I never saw them in writing and had never spoken to these people before the tournament, and I have not seen or spoken to them since. Anyhow, we got all ready to play, which really didn't involve anything. Some of us wore helmets, some did not. We went to another rink to play against our first opponents, and the rink was really slippery. I fell and busted my ass a lot, and for the next two days I was basically just one big bruise because of all this falling. A lot of people were falling. I am still sore in some places. We beat this team 2-0 and we were very proud of ourselves. I was proud that I performed so well in a sport that I did not even know existed. Our next opponents were not so easy. They called themselves an intimidating name which I cannot remember. I gave our team the name The Eggs, which was not very intimidating, but I tried to convince my teammates that it was. Against this second team we played our hearts out, and I gave it all I had, but we lost 0-2. The good thing was that the rink was not nearly as slippery as the first one. The other team was extremely aggressive though, and a few of them were actual hockey players so they knew what they were doing. I didn't realize just how fucking sore I was until the next day when I had trouble climbing a set of steps. Even in spite of our loss and injury (No one really walked away without being hurt), I am still proud of our team The Eggs. We played like champions.

If you want to read more about Broomball, here is a link to the wikipedia entry on it. After reading that article I realize we were playing with eight players, and you are supposed to have only six in an official game. This is okay though.