Aperti Gnosco

I’ve been fascinated by prisons for quite a while now. Their whole culture is incredibly strange and frightening to me. What’s doubly fascinating is death row and how people live their lives there knowing that eventually they’re going to be killed for a crime they (most likely) committed. The whole ritual of a last meal and last words is interesting, especially when you’re able to look at what they asked for and what they said. Here is that list for the state of Texas. Some of the last words are sad, some of them are strange, but some of them are incredibly moving.

Please read Napoleon Beazley’s last words. They touched me deeply.

The act I committed to put me here was not just heinous, it was senseless. But the person that committed that act is no longer here – I am.

I’m not going to struggle physically against any restraints. I’m not going to shout, use profanity or make idle threats. Understand though that I’m not only upset, but I’m saddened by what is happening here tonight. I’m not only saddened, but disappointed that a system that is supposed to protect and uphold what is just and right can be so much like me when I made the same shameful mistake.

Read the rest

YES. Love their videos. So fantastic.

Been listening to this for the past couple of days. Love it. I’ve heard that Universal Religion Chapter 4 is really good, so I’ll probably pick that up. Been getting back into trance recently. Good stuff.

Awesome, truly awesome.

I see you! (completely work safe, ignore the url’s name)

Hilarious ad from old spice.

I’ve been a huge fan of The Wheel of Time series ever since Alan Gasperini introduced me to it in 7th grade. I’ve read the first seven books 3 times each, the 8th book twice, and the other books only but once. When Robert Jordan died a couple of years ago without finishing his epic story, I got worried that I’d never see the end of it, similar to what happened with the Dune series.

Aside from Book 11, none of the recent books had been much good. They were still in the world that Jordan created, and stuff still occasionally happened, but they didn’t have the pizazz that the first seven or so books had. In fact, one of the books started before the other book ended and didn’t catch up until 250 pages later. It always seemed like the story was heading towards the end, but at such a leisurely pace that it was almost painful.

Brandon Sanderson’s writing for The Wheel of Time is not 100% like Jordan’s, but he said that was going to be the case. It is, however, amazing. I haven’t been enthralled with a book like this since forever. Jordan built up the world and the story, and now Sanderson is going to finish it. He got a long way there, tying up many, many storylines and even creating some more of his own.

I don’t want to put any spoilers in this review, but suffice it to say the book is fantastic. There are, of course, several things I didn’t care for, but that’s going to be true of every series that is taken over by anyone else other than the principal author. At least he didn’t fuck up the series like the Dune son did (man were those terrible books even if they were prequels).

If you’re a fan of the series at all, I highly, highly suggest getting back into it and picking this book up. Good stuff. I can’t wait for the next two books, which look to be slated for November of this year and November of next year. That’s an outrageous pace, but it looks like he’s going to be able to stick to it.

First there came a ridiculous game about being a china store owning minotaur.

Then there comes a video done by RJD2 (my second favorite musical artist behind BT).

Coincidence? I think not. Also, both RJD2 and BT are coming out with a new album in the next month. YAY!

Also, the song by Kid Cudi at the end is really awesome. Gave me the chills.

I’ve been a huge, huge fan of indie games for a couple of years now, ever since I really tried them out after Cave Story. I realized that a lot of new ideas can come out of the ether when you don’t have the constraints that big companies do (like the one I work at). Watching some of the movies from the finalists is like watching all of the talks I’ve had with friends over the years about what we could do with our game ideas come into their own. I can’t wait to play some of these. I highly, highly suggest you go over to Boing Boing and read that article, watch the videos, and taste the excitement. It’s really interesting for me also being able to see some of the people I went to DigiPen with coming into their own and being a moving force in the video games industry. Marc Ten Bosch was somewhat of a legend while I was there, and his stuff has only gotten better.

After that, I also suggest you read this article on how the IGF games get judged. I like that their process is fairly open even if I don’t necessarily agree with the choices they make. Can’t wait for GDC to see who actually wins all of the prizes!

Ever since reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma I’ve been trying to eat local, in season food a lot more. The problem with that is I’ve never really known what was in season. That is why this chart is so amazing. I’ll probably be printing this out to look at before I grab food at Pike Place or order it on the amazingly cool Amazon Fresh.

Last year I beat 12 games, 11 of which were on the 360, and one (which I had started years ago and finally decided to finish) was on the PS2. I doubt I play enough games in order to accurately assess the best game of the year or anything like that (especially because I don’t buy new games for full price anymore), but I certainly played some awesome games, so I’ll talk about those. Oddly enough I don’t think I really played my DS or PSP much. I really should pick up some of those games, but haven’t gotten around to it. My PSP is dumb because I was trying to mod it to get it to work with homebrew stuff, but I ended up not being able to do it easily so kind of gave up. I tried playing some of the old adventure games on the DS, but got frustrated with them as they were ridiculously difficult and it was hard to play, put down, then play again a month+ later.

Fallout 3
Such a fantastic game. The depth of this game and the storyline possibilities astounded me. There was such a massive amount of content and stuff to do that the world never seemed to get old. The weapons were fun, the bad guys were awesome, and I just wanted to do more. So much so that I put 50 hours into it and then got into the “I don’t want to beat it because it’ll be over mode”. I finally had to force myself to finish it because I knew that if I didn’t I’d probably put the game down and never end up beating it. If you love RPGs and good character interactions, this is the game you really, really need to play. Also, the music was fantastic. I love, love, love that era’s music and so kept the radio running all the time even though it just played the same 30-40 songs over and over and over again.

Mirror’s Edge
I loved this game more than I probably should have. The art style is nothing short of beautiful, the movement of the character is fantastic, and the music and atmosphere really made this game fun to play sometimes. Note the sometimes part. Any part in which you had to run from people shooting guns at you made me want to blow my brains out. I really think that people should pick up this game to experience it though, you can probably find it for pretty cheap now. I loved the time trial DLC stuff as well, but then again, I’m a whore for time trials. I borrowed this from work, but I’ll probably end up buying it some time just because I had such fun with it.

Shadow Complex
Modern day Super Metroid. If that doesn’t sell you, you never played one of the best games ever and need to first go play Super Metroid. Absolutely loved everything about this game except for the story, which is atrociously bad (to the point where it’s more funny than bad). Best $20 game I’ve spent money on since Katamari Damacy.

Batman: Arkham Asylum
One of the most complete and well executed games I’ve ever played. Everything fit well together from the voice acting (god I love the guy who does the Joker’s voice, it’s so fucking creepy), to the ambiance, to the gameplay, to the outstanding combat mechanic, to the challenges at the end. Please, please go play this game. Just be warned ahead of time that it may corrupt your save game file causing you to lose everything you’ve ever done in the game. Yep, it happened to me. Yes, it’s common. If that hadn’t happened, I’d probably still be playing it. I’d say this game is even more complete than Fallout 3 and reminds me a lot of the feeling the Ratchet and Clank series gives me. Just pure awesome.

Trials HD
This is nothing other than a time trials game in which you’re a person on a motorcycle traversing insane courses using nothing but the bike and some awesome physics. I’ve played this game an absolute ton and love it. Most people will probably like it for a bit and tire, but my god do I love this stuff. I played it so much sometimes that my shoulder muscle would hurt from holding the right trigger (the gas button) constantly.

If you’re curious, here’s my list of games I’ve beaten. It doesn’t include games like Trials HD since you can’t really beat it, but I think I’ll probably remedy that this year and include all games I’ve played. Hopefully that’ll be a more accurate representation of everything I’ve played since I certainly have at least 5 more games to add to that list that just really don’t have endings.

Can’t wait for this to come out. I absolutely love that game. I’ve gotten gold on every single track except two of the tournaments (which take fucking forever and are soooooo unforgiving). Love it to death. Just wish people would play it against me so I could have some competition. SAM I AM LOOKING AT YOU.

Pretty cool little short. Dan will absolutely love it. Apparently the guy who did it got a movie contract deal similar to what happened with the District 9 guy (which also started out as a short on youtube).

Good stuff.

I hate Twilight. It’s a terrible, terrible series and the movies are an abortion. I actually gave the first one a chance and watched it thinking “it has vampires, it can’t be THAT bad”. Ooooooooh boy was I wrong. It was so bad that I couldn’t stand it. I laughed the entire way through and if I weren’t drinking while watching it I probably would have been incredibly bored and saddened that I was wasting my life in front of the tv watching this horrible movie. It was so bad that I’m refusing to watch any of the other movies (like New Moon) even though my friend wanted me to go watch it with her.

That being said, I think Kevin Smith’s analysis on the series is spot on. I highly suggest you watch this as the man has a way with words and explanations.

Too bad he’s not alive anymore. The man had a way with words.

I’ve been loving Karsh Kale recently. The combination of Indian (dot, not feather) music with electronic is a pretty awesome sound. Another of my favorites is this:

Both are great and very different from stuff I’ve been listening to lately. It gives me a great adventure type of feeling, like I want to go to far off lands and explore.

I’ve been thinking of picking up making posts again on this blog after a large hiatus. Hopefully I’ll have the time again now that I’m not crunching ridiculous hours and can relax again.

I feel like posting again. So I will. This is a really good talk on stories, and how you shouldn’t just listen to one.

Do or do not, there is no try.

-Yoda

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.