With my love for games that, in particular, happen to fall into a realm of “simulation”– namely, Guitar Hero and skate, of late– I’ve been stumbling across the ever-present detractors who, for whatever reason, apparently can’t fathom the reason why such games might be entertaining.
“Go out and buy a real guitar,” they whine. “Get a real skateboard and get outside, noobs,” come the plainitive wails.
Well, I have a real skateboard, and I pretty well suck at it, but I especially suck at it during the times I want to play video games the most: late at night, in shitty weather in the winter in Oregon, while I’m drunk. Getting hit by virtual cars is much less costly. And I have a real guitar, too. I’m a much better guitarist than I am a skater, but I don’t have four band members sitting around to rock out with me like, ever.
A lot of other good counter-arguments have been made to the effect that no one jumps into a Call of Duty thread and tells people to join a real army, or in a Madden thread to say “go play real football you pansies”, or into a Zack & Wiki thread to say “go find a real golden space monkey to help you find real pirate treasure you inadequate douchebags”. To the extent that many games are simulations, it seems to be those that the closer they get to the real activity, the more you hear this response. (Except, for some reason, the flight simulator community seems immune to this.)
So why do is there such a strong response from people bothered by these simulators? My first thought was simply that they saw unfulfilled potential, people wasting their lives away when they may be able to derive more real-life experience doing these things. But is dicking around on a guitar or skating in the Safeway parking lot in the middle of the night going to do any more to improve my value as a person? And if that really were the point, wouldn’t these advocates of the outdoors do better to argue their case with WoW players, who probably spend much more time ensconced in Azeroth than I do skating San Vanelona?
However, it is a strong posture to adopt. I have a feeling we might just be dealing with the “real life” guitar heroes whose lives are being threatened. Such as from the South Park production blog, where they talk about making the Guitar Hero spoof episode:
“More often than not, a dude who pulls out a guitar looks and behaves like a total douche. We’ve all seen it before: some jerk trying to impress the ladies with his badass skills banging out Coldplay as hard as he can. Ugh.”
Okay, I’ll admit: I’ve probably been that guy at some point in my college career. Well, except for the Coldplay part. So I can relate: it appears to be a cheapening of something authentic that takes some actual talent/skill, and turns it into a damn party game that (gasp!) anyone can play! Now who’s going to be impressed by my rendition of “Everlong”?
I guess I was never threatened by it because I’m a gamer first and a musician second (and a skater a dark, distant third). And so the circle of douchebaggery continues.
November 30th, 2007
Via Pitchfork, Georgie James (which, confusingly, is the name of a band, not of a person like Georgie Fruit, Kevin Barnes’ alter ego) has canceled a slate of upcoming shows due to illness, including next Saturday (11/3) at the Holocene. I was looking forward to it, but at least there are a lot of good shows hitting town between now and the end of the year, starting with Apostle of Hustle @ Doug Fir Lounge next week.
October 26th, 2007
I am now officially interested in an iPhone.
And they’re extending the SDK to the iPod Touch, too; excellent.
October 17th, 2007
This game is addictive.
September 27th, 2007
Since finding a healthier, albeit lengthier, route to work, I’ve started biking and taking the MAX three to four times a week, depending mostly on random factors. I had a pretty unpleasant MAX experience yesterday, however– I had to wait for three trains in the morning, and on the ride home a guy was puking water all over the car floor right next to me, which was lovely– so today I decided to be lazy and drive.
However!
It seems that it’s always the case that when I drive, something is there to remind me why I don’t. Usually, the soul-crushing traffic on highway 26 is sufficient. I managed to get up early enough today to ease through a lot of the worse traffic, but that didn’t prevent some jackass in a Nissan Versa from nearly sideswiping me. Twice. At least I got to use my horn the second time.
The Nissan Versa, of course, ingrained into my brain as being the car that Hiro and Ando rent when they come to the U.S., in “Heroes”. Good times.
September 27th, 2007
My phone takes crap pictures, particularly in the dark. I have plenty of evidence to prove this, but some of these pictures are worth trying to take anyway. Here’s a couple of case in points from the last couple of months.
The blurry man just above was taken the last weekend when we went out to Seaside. Seaside is predictably located on the coast, just below Astoria, that place where they filmed The Goonies. This guy was in the arcade, playing “In The Groove 2″, which is a game in the vein of the more familiar “Dance Dance Revolution”. So he was playing the game on some insane difficulty level, where the moves spin around and disappear and the songs are spectacularly fast. He was playing across two gaming pads. He was also juggling. It was complete madness.
There was a bit of a Dr. Seuss gallery in Seaside, but my pictures of this weren’t very good. It’s only a phone.
This was on a car bumper near home in what looks like permanent marker.
A coffee shop bulletin board had this educational enticement, but I was left unconvinced.
In a similar vein. You’ll notice I’m not offering my photography skills, I quit while I’m behind.
September 10th, 2007
Far too busy of late; no, no novel-finishing epidemia, just looking for work and subsequently finding it, readjusting to a 9-to-5 life (6 to 6 if you count the commute), ad nauseum. Anyway, I’m cribbing this post from overheardintheoffice.com(a sibling to the original, fantastical overheardinnewyork.com) because, well, it just made me laugh to beat the band.
The Zen Oven Is Generally Low-Maintenance
Manager on phone with refrigeration company: That oven that never comes on but is always on? It didn’t come on.
Answering service: Would you please repeat that?
Manager: You know, that oven that never comes on but is always on? Well, it didn’t come on.
Answering service: Thank you, sir. I’ll let the service rep know.
More soon! TTFN!
August 30th, 2007
This is ginchy: one of my favorite musicians teaming up with the always entertaining Zooey Deschanel. Not much else to say on that that hasn’t been said, other than I adore the “You Really Got A Hold On Me” cover, because I’ve always loved that song. This is from a live performance on KEXP in late June 2007 (the two also are both involved in the eventually-hopefully-being-released film “The Go-Getter”).
- Magic Trick
- Change Is Hard
- Bring It On Home To Me
- You Really Got A Hold On Me
Enjoy!
Edit: Here’s You Really Got A Hold On Me in AIFF form; it’s 16.7MB, but it might work better if the mp3 causes you issues.
July 18th, 2007
The year was 1995, and the Wal-Mart was a recent addition to the sleepy town of North Bend, Oregon, and was not quite the woeful beacon of the underclass that it is today. I was finishing up my junior year in high school, and I had convinced my parents of my need to get new music.
“One album,” was apparently the official decree, and after spending many minutes of searching, I narrowed it down to the horns of the following dilemma:
The one good radio station in town was the “Good Times, Great Oldies” station, and MTV was already well into it’s “Real World” phase of not playing any new music, so journeys like this were my only chance to learn that something more existed beyond the veil.
On the one hand, there stood the first Foo Fighters album. I’d been a pretty big Nirvana fan, like everyone else of my time and place, and this was the first Foo Fighters effort, so I was naturally quite curious. On the other hand, there stood this newly-minted album called, charmingly, “Wowee Zowee”…
I’d certainly heard of Pavement. From my brother, of course, for whom they’d outstayed their welcome after “Slanted and Enchanted”, but I’d never really heard them at all.
By whatever stroke of fate, “Wowee Zowee” made the cut, and although it would be another three months of spinning this record before I cracked the code that made it one of my definitively Favorite Albums of All Time, and Pavement a member of my personal rock pantheon, I took the road that offered more resistance, and that has made all the difference.
In hindsight, although I’ve never disliked a Foo Fighters song, I’ve still never picked up that album, nor any others. I may not know what I’m missing, but should my stylus’ needle wear tired of this world, there are certainly more to tread.
July 9th, 2007
November is NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, a phenomenon I just learned about last week through a book I picked up (”No Plot? No Problem”) by the guy who started the NaNoWriMo. The goal, such as it is, is to write a novel, defined as 50,000 generally cohesive and sequential words; it is very much about the act of writing and producing quantity, rather than creating An Important Piece of Literature.
Rather than wait until November, or, indeed, even start and end within a single month, my personal NaNoWriMo started July 5th and will go until August 5th. I’ve got a few hundred words in– a palpable start– and I’ve recruited one other person in on this journey already. And we’ve got a little side-wager on the event, as added incentive, so this should be an interesting month.
So finally I will be able to say, I’ve written a novel, my weighty collection of prose and poems notwithstanding (which, incidentally, falls just shy of 44,000 words, so we’ll call it “a good start”). Come August 5th, I’ll let you know how I’ve done…
Also in the spirit of the thing, I’ve dusted off the trusty iBook, because (a.) it doesn’t have nearly as many distractions on it as my well-abused PowerBook, and (b.) the “d” and “r” keys work a lot more regularly, which is much more conducive to quantity writing.
July 8th, 2007
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