by request of zack, i figure i'll actually post an entry instead of automatically generated link lists. subjects i want to tackle: super mario bros. super show, world cup 2006, oblivion, the future, my daily readings.
topic 1
over the weekend jessica and i went on a dvd shopping spree...something that hasn't been done for a while. at best buy, whose selection is definitely better than circuit city's, we found the following: virtuosity (cheap), dazed and confused (she's never seen it), superman animated series vol. 1, venture brothers vol. 1, final fantasy spirits within (whatever your feelings are regarding the story, you cannot deny the cg), final fantasy vii advent children (same as previous, though i like it better), and the crowning glory: the super mario bros. super show collection. what? you don't remember the super mario bros. super show? here's a refresher. in the late 80s, nintendo started making cartoons of their bigger franchises. the two i watched primarily being the aforementioned mario cartoon and the legend of zelda. both are not really good, but their nostalgic value more than outshines the content. anyway, the mario show was a mix of mediocre cartoon with mediocre live action segments can captain lou albana played the titular role.
topic 2
moving on to something that seems a bit out of character for me: sports, namely soccer. i generally don't care about soccer except for every four years. something about the world cup stirs inspiration in me to actually watch and pay attention to as many games as possible. dvr is a godsend in this regard. with the games being played in germany and my sleep/work schedule conflicting with airings, i've started recording matches and watching them later. a bonus is that i can fast-forward through some of the slower games and just catch the highlights. teams i'm trying to keep track: usa, england, argentina, mexico, brazil, japan, portugal, and the netherlands.
topic 3
elder scrolls iv: oblivion as been taking up a lot of my free and not-so-free time. this is the first pc game in a long time that's grabbed me this much...probably since the days of star wars: dark forces or the original warcraft. i'll go ahead and add my two cents to the web. this game is good...insanely so. it's a huge world with all sorts of opportunities. actually, almost too many opportunities...i sometimes have a hard time trying to determine what i want to do next. dungeon crawling is quite nice, especially when you are good at sneaking and sniping with a bow and arrow. i also like the character creation/specialization system. i discovered that you can even create your own type of class, which is exactly what i did. i named it the shadowhunter classification and its primary specs are based on alteration magic, athletics, marksmanship, sneaking, acrobatics, blade skill, and destruction magic.
topic 4
i posted a while ago about the grim meathook future and my tracking it. there hasn't been much more to add since that week, but i did want to link to a forum in which i've been participating. it's called "die puny humans" and it was created by warren ellis for the purpose of tracking the future. some pretty good discussions by pretty intelligent people.
topic 5
lastly, i wanted to put a couple of links to some things i thought others might find interesting. first off, i've mentioned it before, but the unfortunately named del.icio.us really is a nice tool. here's my archive of links in case you wanted to see what i've been looking at. also mentioned before is bloglines, the web-based rss feed aggregator. i use it daily to catch up on my regular sites. for those interested, here's what i read on a daily basis. out.
i think i've come up with a new word. i searched through google, normal dictionaries, and urban dictionaries, but never any results...which is good because i can now say i've invented a new word....whether it actually is used is a different story.
lifejack - referring to something that hijacks your life, usually an addiction of some sort. ex. 1. Everquest 2 and World of Warcraft have lifejacked my friends. ex. 2. Too bad heroin lifejacked Danny...he used to be an okay guy.
check the link posting for today and you'll see some definition sites. out.
i still haven't been posting much besides links, but deal with it...that's all you get for now.
anyway, i've been on a futurism kick lately and have come across a few articles of interest. first of all, thanks to warren ellis, there's a new term i can attribute to futurist thinking: grim meathook. at first i was thinking that grim meathook referred to the kind of future seen in cyberpunk, but that's not true. instead, it's actually our current world situation spun out of control, which seems much worse and more desparate than anything i've seen or read in the cyberpunk genre.
a plus, though, is the person responsible for the term 'grim meathook' actually has some nice articles and quotes on his blog, zenarchery. i wanted to highlight one segment in particular because it reflects my feelings so well on the absurdity of the media's treatment of web 2.0 and similar ideologies. the passage below comes from his full explanation of the grim meathook (from Full text of the Grim Meathook Future thing.
Meanwhile, most of the people with any genuine opportunity or ability to effect global change are too busy patting each other on the back at conventions and blue-skying goofy social networking tools that are essentially useless to 95% of the world’s population, who live within fifteen feet of everyone they’ve ever known and have no need to track their fuck buddies with GPS systems. (This, by the way, includes most Americans, quite honestly.)
You can’t blame them for this, because it’s fun and it’s a great way to travel and get paid, but it doesn’t actually help solve any real problems, except the problem of media theory grad students, which the rest of the world isn’t really interested in solving.
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They want to make cell phones that can scan your personal measurements and send them real-time to potential sex partners. Because, you know, the fucking Japanese teenagers love it, and Japanese teenagers are clearly the smartest people on the planet.
my sentiments exactly. on the grim meathook subject, though, i have a few other ideas. i can't really put them into words yet as i've just begun formulating, but i know there are a few things buzzing around my skull that i'll eventually commit to writing (digitally or manually). keep an eye on my link postings and you can follow my path. out.