Channel 4, 1983.
I wonder if the phrase "the real Frank Zappa" the interviewer uses is the genesis of The Real Frank Zappa Book.
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If You Can Read This, You Can Read This
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If You Can Read This, You Can Read This
Hi, I'm Thad. I build websites.
This blog's been up in one form or another since 1999. In that time I've written about topics ranging from comic books to video games to copyright law to creators' rights to Frank Zappa.
I also write eBooks and narrate audiobooks. Here's where you can find them:
Dragon Age: Origins: Another medieval fantasy RPG influenced by Game of Thrones. To the point that it's about a kingdom that needs to repel a zombie invasion but is too busy fighting amongst itself. Also it spells "sir" with an "e".
Pretty standard plot; you're recruited to an elite fighting force, something goes wrong and you have to pick up the pieces. It's a BioWare game, and the gameplay is like Knights of the Old Republic with Final Fantasy 12's combat support system.
I enjoyed the hell out of it (and the expansion, Awakening, was pretty good too) but never got around to playing the sequel, which I hear is a much different game and which got pretty mixed reviews.
Ghostbusters: The Video Game: As a game it's okay. As a Ghostbusters sequel, it's great. They managed to get basically everyone from the movies except Sigourney Weaver and Rick Moranis back together; it's funny and it makes for a great continuation from the movies.
Do not confuse it with Ghostbusters: Sanctum of Slime. I haven't played that one, but it doesn't have the actors from the movies in it, and from what I've read it's terrible.
Mega Man 9: Another downloadable game. It's a new Mega Man game in the NES style. Think of a game as complexly designed and bitch-ass hard as Mega Man 2 or 3; now think of it with 20 years' more of game design knowledge attached to it. (There's a Mega Man 10, too; it's neat but not as good as 9 and I never did get around to finishing it.)
Also, I've started Gears of War; I haven't gotten far but it seems like a damn decent cover-based third-person shooter. And I got it for under $5 used. I also enjoyed the demos I played of Fez (a puzzle platformer based around rotating a 3D world that you can only move through as a side-scroller) and Pac-Man Championship Edition DX (which is a new Pac-Man game with different maze layouts, slightly different play mechanics, and a whole lot more ghosts -- another retro-style game with a really good modern design sensibility). The neat thing about all the downloadable games on Xbox Live is every single one of them has a demo you can download; given sufficient bandwidth and a hard drive you can try out a few levels of a new game or three every day and enjoy the hell out of just doing that.
Other games I haven't gotten around to playing but hear are good: Dead Rising, Bioshock, Skyrim, The Orange Box, Bayonetta.
I started a thread called Xbox 360 101 over at brontoforum.us; it's full of various recommendations.
So there ya go -- more games than you can shake a stick at and probably more than you can find time to play. That's like 5 years' worth of games for me, even though I just got my Xbox six weeks ago, since I played most of these on PC.
Highlight reel from a stage adaptation of Thing-Fish at the Battersea Arts Centre, August 2003.
NSFW, BTW. I mean, quite a lot of these Zappa posts are, but this one's probably the NSFWest yet.
The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings -- My favorite game of 2011, though the Xbox version just came out a few months ago and is still pricey. (I saw it on sale for $30 recently; maybe you can find a deal.)
Now, the first game is PC-only, and in fact the whole thing is based on a series of Polish fantasy novels that were only recently published in English. But you don't really need to know all that stuff. Here are the important bits of the backstory:
It's a medieval fantasy setting, of the dystopian sort that's currently vogue. Think Game of Thrones, only even more bleak.
Witchers are mutants who fight monsters. They're all male, they have yellow eyes, age slowly, are immune to disease, can cast a few simple spells, and use various potions to enhance their senses.
Our Hero, Geralt of Rivia, is supposed to be dead, but for some reason he's not. He's got amnesia (and if you're playing an RPG cliché drinking game, drink up) and has recently been caught in the middle of a race war in the city of Vizima. A terrorist organization of elves and dwarves called the Scoia'tel invaded, a Knights Templar-like religious organization called the Order of the Flaming Rose seized control of the city, and ultimately the King of Vizima showed up and managed to regain control. The first game ends with Geralt foiling an assassination attempt on the King, only to discover that the would-be assassin has yellow eyes.
The PC version originally had a steep-ass learning curve (as Penny Arcade put it, "It's not that hard. You just have to use abilities they won't discuss and techniques they haven't entirely taught you via controls they never quite explain.") but I hear the Xbox version fixes that and has a tutorial section that doesn't just throw you in the deep end.
Sonic Generations: The first good Sonic game in a decade. There's a plot involving time travel that causes 2011 Sonic to team up with 1991 Sonic; you play through new versions of levels from previous games (Green Hill from Sonic 1, Chemical Plant from Sonic 2, etc.), and each is split into one 2D level you play as '91 Sonic and one 3D level you play as '11 Sonic. The conceit works really wonderfully; the levels are well-designed, full of nostalgia, and have some good remixes of the old music; there's not much to the plot but it's pretty funny (particularly when 1991 Robotnik meets his future self).
Sonic CD: And speaking of 1990's-vintage Sonic games, they've ported this one to the Xbox as a downloadable title. (BTW, a friend of mine advised me never to buy Microsoft Points directly from Microsoft; they store your credit card online, tie it to a Windows Live/Hotmail/Whatever account, and if one of their affiliate sites gets broken into there goes your credit card information. You're better off buying a Microsoft Points card at GameStop or wherever and then entering it into your Xbox.) A few tweaks here: the game works in 16:9, they've changed the spin-dash to work the way it does in Sonic 2 instead of the original clunky version, you can choose either the Japanese or American version of the soundtrack, and after you beat the game you can replay as Tails.
(I think they've got a bunch of other old Genesis Sonic games for download, but they haven't been updated in any way.)
A short doc about the London Sinfonietta performance of Greggary Peccary.
I always love stuff like this -- I feel like I learn something. Plus it's nice to see that people who understand music know that yes Frank was a legitimate genius.
To: NPR's All Things Considered
On this afternoon's All Things Considered, you referred to the computer-illiterate, failed copyright bills SOPA and PIPA, and spoke with economist Steve Siwek. You noted, "Although both bills seem to be on permanent hold, Siwek says their critics have offered no real alternatives." You did not challenge this assertion.
A Google search for the phrase "alternative to sopa" produces 41,100 results. A Google search for the phrase "real alternative to sopa" produces 4,930.
These proposed alternatives range from simple -- focus on the biggest infringers -- to the more radical -- completely overhaul copyright law to provide shorter copyright terms and broader exceptions for fair use.
Indeed, there is a proposed alternative to SOPA and PIPA working its way through Congress right now; it's called the OPEN Act.
To put it bluntly, it is impossible that Siwek is unaware of these proposals. When he says no one has offered any alternative to SOPA and PIPA, he is lying.
Embedding disabled; clicky the linky: Ruth Underwood interview. It's a chunk of a BBC piece on Zappa from 1993; it's from a program called The Late Show which, presumably, is entirely unrelated to the American Late Show.
(Although speaking of the American Late Show, I did watch a bit of a Zappa appearance on Letterman the other night. I may post it later but honestly I thought it was pretty boring.)
Welp, couldn't think of an entry to write this evening, and I got to thinking -- my brother just got an Xbox (rather like I did), and I was meaning to recommend some games to him. So hey, howzabout a blog post about my favorite Xbox games.
(Actually, I've mostly played the PC versions of these. Because, again -- just got the Xbox.)
Mass Effect -- I haven't played 3 yet, but the first two games are, straight up, my favorite games of the current hardware generation. It's the guys who made Knights of the Old Republic, but it's a new science fiction setting they've cooked up. Humans have begun exploring space and are treated as second-class citizens by the Galactic Council; your character is the first human to be selected for an elite special-ops position. Of course, as these things go, you uncover a threat to all of galactic civilization.
The first game's a not-quite-perfect hybrid of third-person shooter and RPG; it's got a wonky inventory system but is pretty great aside from that. The second game streamlines out all the crap and is more of a pure shooter; on the whole I'd say it's a better game but the first has the better story. I haven't played the third yet; from what I've read it's pretty good but the ending is so bad the company actually released a new ending at fans' insistence.
Batman: Arkham Asylum -- When this game came out it got the Guinness Record for the best-reviewed game of all time. It's easy to see why. It's got a script by Paul Dini and stars Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill. The gameplay is just perfect, and the enemy AI is a great touch; a lot of the fighting is focused on the idea of sneaking around and slowly picking off thugs one-by-one. (You can even hang upside-down from a gargoyle, wait until a guy walks underneath you, and drop down and tie him up.) As you take thugs out the remaining ones get more and more agitated and have different reactions; some start firing randomly into the air, others start traveling in pairs -- the AI's not exactly brilliant but it's a really nice touch. And that's before the game even starts messing with your expectations, playing with what you expect out of the world of Batman and even the mechanics of the game itself.
The sequel, Arkham City, is supposed to be pretty fantastic too, but I haven't gotten around to that one yet.
Guess that'll do for a start. Other stuff for later: Dragon Age, The Witcher 2, Sonic Generations, Sonic CD. And, hell, Ghostbusters. Because it may be mediocre as a game, but as a Ghostbusters sequel, it's pretty great.
Well, bit of a downer, but a pretty good rundown of the man's life and career.
Plus the anchor looks like Bill O'Reilly and is named Jon Snow.
Miss you, Frank.
There's a sentiment I've seen in the CBR comments section a couple of times recently: this "How dare you try and tie this to a political agenda?" faux-outrage.
Now, there are lots of times when it's inappropriate to bring up controversial political subjects. Particularly when there's a recent tragedy in the news and you're sensationalizing it. Like, for example, after the V-Tech massacre, when soon-to-be-disbarred fuckface Jack Thompson tried to blame the killings on Counterstrike, a game which the shooter did not play.
Some things are completely inappropriate in the wake of a tragedy. Like flailing around trying to blame it on Doom or Marilyn Manson or Dungeons and Dragons. Or jumping all over a quote from some guy on the opposite end of the country about what the killer supposedly said. Or grabbing whatever Batman comic your film critic has on his desk, thumbing through it until you see a scene that takes place in the theater, and wildly speculating that the killer was imitating it. Or plastering the killer's name and stupid fucking face all over TV and the Internet to make good and sure that every crazy asshole out there knows that hey kids, if you wanna be on TV, all you have to do is murder a bunch of people. Or typing his name into Google and falsely conflating him with a Tea Party member. Or having an honest dialogue about the ease of access to high-powered weapons and high-capacity clips in this country, and the sorry state of our mental health system.
Wait, what was that last one?
The subject came up again in a discussion of the recent news that comics writer and inker Karl Kesel recently adopted a baby with a methadone addiction and is selling his comic collection to pay for the child's medical bills.
Now, it goes without saying that this is a feel-good story, that Kesel and his wife Myrna are clearly legitimately wonderful human beings, and that they're doing something great that really matters.
But if you can read a story like that and not, even for a moment, think "They shouldn't have to do that" then you and I are very different people.
Nothing but respect to the Kesels, and I certainly speak only for myself and not for them. But it strikes me that there are a lot of people out there with sick kids who don't have tens of thousands of dollars in investments, and that getting slapped with tens of thousands in bills -- even if you've got insurance! -- is a sign of a broken healthcare system.
Seems to me that stories like that are perfect opportunities to have a conversation about healthcare -- but somebody brought it up and immediately got shushed by another commenter's righteous indignation: "How dare you politicize this?"
(In fairness, the guy who brought it up was kind of an ass about it.)
Seems to me that, when presented with a story that's a clear, directly-pertinent object example of some important sociopolitical issue, it's probably a good time to talk about that issue!
I mean, should we just wait until there are no stories about gun violence or healthcare debt to talk about gun access and healthcare costs? Don't make much sense if you ask me.