Why the Internet Sucks Part. 1 - Yelp

Yelp.com is a site where you can review businesses with the intention of sharing about why you love or hate a particular business. Anyone could register and it's a free service. This sounds like a novel concept, but in practice it proves to be something else. In theory, it should work, but to quote Homer Simpson: "In theory, Communism works!"

There lies several flaws with this structure. Most people either don't have the tolerance to have a pallet wide enough to love all types of food, like a good food critic, most people are vain, and finally, people are just stupid. Here's a review I found for Asahi Ramen (http://www.yelp.com/biz/asahi-ramen-los-angeles) in Los Angeles:

"I'm sorry but I don't understand why people come here."

Followed by one star ranking. Now, I have no problem with the one star ranking (despite that I love the restaurant). What I have a problem with is the review, or what claims to be a review. A review usually discusses something about the particular store or restaurant, it's products and it's service, be it negative or positive. This doesn't offer anything. It's just some asshole who's complaining and being vague about what he's anger is directly aimed to.

I bring up, my next point. Race superiority. Look at this review for Noodle Planet (http://www.yelp.com/biz/noodle-planet-los-angeles):

"Please don't let yourself believe this is what Chinese, Vietnamese, or Thai food tastes like..."

She goes on to say:

"but i guess if you're a college student confined to westwood area with no way to get to SGV...this is okay...
ehh...
i don't really even want to say that because I don't want to endorse this as real Asian food..."

But what is authentic cooking? If she means her Grandma's house in San Gabriel Valley, then by all means she may be right, but when you're reviewing a chain restaurant like this, it's just stupid. It's common knowledge it's not authentic. If you go to a place like this and believe for one second it's authentic, you're just as stupid as the reviewer. This is just one of several reviews in this style. I've seen countless reviews all exclaiming things along the lines of "I'm [insert ethnicity/race], and I can say this is not authentic!", just with more spelling errors. No one will ever get the cooking exact to what you think is authentic. Restaurants don't cater to your specifics needs. They try to cater a bit to everyone. No restaurant is ever perfect. If you want to take care of your needs, either open your own restaurant or cook at home.

Next, we got hipster douches. Here's a gem for Hyper Game (http://www.yelp.com/biz/hyper-game-los-angeles), a store that specializes in rare, imported video games from Japan:

"I think this is the only import game place near the city. Good selection. But they were out of what I wanted and though they took my number to call me when it is in stock I never heard back. Also, you can just order online."

Wow, not only is she picky, but she's stupid. She complains because she can't find one Japanese game and the only store that carries Japanese games doesn't have it. Having collected video games my entire life, I can say that games that don't have huge budgets tend to go out of print quickly, and if it's obscure, there's even a harder chance of finding it. She never gets a call about it, and complains online. What she needs to understand is that, once again, stores don't cater to specific needs. They try to please to get your money, but little imperfections like this tend to drive people nuts. People need to understand that the world doesn't revolve around them.

Here's a last one, from the place I work at, Videotheque (http://www.yelp.com/biz/videotheque-south-pasadena):

"I found out this was the only place in Los Angeles that actually rented out Larry Clark's "Ken Park" - which was very surprising - as he never found a US distributor for this controversial film. I wound up paying for the membership which included 3 rentals - but I only rented Ken Park (which is a burned DVD copy) and haven't been back to use the other two. That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the store - just that I have netflix and it's obviously more convenient - except when it comes to movies like Ken Park where your only other option is to download it.

I really like that they actually had sections sorted by Directors - that's pretty awesome - for a video store."

So he gave this store three stars because the rare film that he knows is out of print, and that we carry, is in fact, a bootleg. Gee! Who saw that one coming? He goes to say there's nothing wrong with the store, yet gives it a mediocre review. I don't care if he gives this place a bad review (unless he said something directly about me), but what I care about is that there are people like him that don't understand how the world works.

What I'm trying to get at is that Yelp was a cesspool of assholes and idiots and helps embody why the internet sucks!

Join me next time when I continue to discuss why the internet sucks, but until then, have a nice day!

The High Art of Comedy and Why I Haven't Been Around.

Any time I suggest a movie like "You Don't Mess With The Zohan" or "Step Brothers" to someone at my job, I get dirty looks. Either they don't take me seriously or they belive they are better than to watch a low-brow comedy. People constantly criticize Adam Sandler, yet he keeps making movies and he keeps making tons of money off of it. Are we secretive about out love of comedies?

Take a good look at the history of cinema, and you'll see comedies are rarely taken to be on par with the drama. In the eighty year history of the Academy Awards, only four films have been (mostly) comedy (not counting light-hearted musicals), but with time, we've seen people foundly remember something like "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure" over multiple Academy-Award winner "Titanic". It's movies like "Pee-Wee's" that we want to share with other people and even have the hopes of passing on to the next generation. Let's be serious; who remembers films like "The English Patient"?

But why don't we take comedy seriously? Laughing is as human of an emotion as crying, pain, or anger, and arguably, one of our most enjoyable emotions. We all laugh at different things, be it prat falls, witty comments, puns, or even dick and fart jokes, but people who pride themselves on be intellectual or having better tastes than the average folk will dismiss it as just comedy.

Comedy is just as careful of an art as the drama.



In the above scene, every line is constructed excellently, leading it's way to the next joke. It keeps pushing forward and builds momentum. It's not something easy to do. It takes lots of care, focus, timing, and attention. It's as intricately pieced together as any good drama.

So why do we ignore comedy as a serious art form? I believe people think if something can make them cry, it's a lot more powerful that comedy. When you cry or feel any emotion aside from laughter, you begin to dissect it and think about how it effected you. Comedy hits you more at a gut level. When you see it or hear it, you laugh. You can't really intellectualize it (and when you do, it takes the fun out of it).

I think all we need to do is acknowledge that comedy should be taken as seriously as any other genre. I think the flood of comedy garbage that's constantly released doesn't help the genre, but it's good to understand it and see what good is in it.

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So, I haven't been around here for about two months. I haven't had time to write anything in fact, but now I'm forcing myself to make time. I'll try to increase the number of posts after this and see what I can get the other contributors to do! Thanks!

Also, if you have a MySpace, I've been updating my works blog. You can read it at:

www.myspace.com/videotheque

Social Networking

So for the first time in over a year, I've been tempted back to Facebook. I went to go get lunch with a friend, and she told me to add her, that she sent me a friend request. So I went, logged, added her along with a few more, but then decided to actually start using my profile.

I updated my interests, tastes, and photos and then sent a few messages to people I haven't spoken to in a while. Now, I've been doing this everyday, like I have to know what's going on with everyone's life, and with this I feel an undying guilt. Am I so selfish or noisy that I need to tell people how I'm feeling or what I'm doing at that exact moment?

And now it's bothering me. I've become addicted. It's very pleasant to be able to communicate with someone I haven't seen in months, or due to poor handling of phones in the past, being able to find out about them after losing their numbers. But as soon as I log on, I see people who want to be my friends who I haven't talked to in ages and really wouldn't want to talk to. But like an idiot, I add them anyways, just because I know them. They don't send me a message, and neither do I. We both just become an other number in our tally of friends, just like adding an inch in a dick measuring contest.

So, should I feel guilt? There are these elements that sincerely bother me, but the fact that I can stay in communication with those I actually care about helps. As much as I love actual human contact, it looks like I should at least keep up with the times and use the internet to keep in touch. It's a small sacrifice that requires no more effort than moving my mouse across a mouse pad. I think I can do this without the guilt.

I would like to end this post by needlessly plugging my Facebook profile, so those who haven't found me can add me.

The Heavy Burden of Deliciousness

As of late, I've been feeling very guilty of what I eat. Since Christmas, I've been eating shit all day, but god damn is it delicious shit.

Tonight, I picked up a piece of fried zucchini and was very aware of the lack of nutritional value. If I'm going to eat a crispy vegetable, why don't I eat at least one with minor nutritional value, right? But I couldn't help myself. One piece turned to over a dozen. I got to the point where I wasn't even eating the zucchini, but was just eating the breading.

I was well aware of what I was doing and felt sick for doing it.

When I was eating healthy, you can honestly feel it in your body. I feel like I have more vigor and when I walk up a set of stairs, I don't end up breathing like there's fat deposits in my throat.

So I decided today was it. I can't do this again for a while. As I write this, I feel an unending guilt. Every once in a while I'll eat something that doesn't make me just question my taste in food, but instead have me question all the decisions I've made in life. Were they the right ones? The plate of fried zucchini did that to me.

But is it nature for us to eat bad foods and not question it? I see fast food restaurants all over Los Angeles and they don't help contribute to peoples health. Do people just willingly give up and accept that fast food is a way to go? If money is an issue, there are tons of markets that offer healthy foods at very cheap prices.

So what tempts us? The food just tastes so damn good. It's not high calibur food by any means, but we keep eating me. Something about the combination of grease, salt, and meat keep us content and keeps us hooked on it.

I have to say no more. As much of a fan I am of hamburgers, fries, tacos, Italian, and Chinese foods, I'm going to have to say no more. It hurts so much to say it, but I have to break up with my favorite foods, but it has to be.

Postmodernism in Video Games

Postmodernism has hit video games faster than any media. I can think as far back as 1996 with Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars having the secret where you can become (temporarily) the 8-Bit Mario or the encounters with characters like Samus and Link. Now, it's unavoidable. No More Heroes embodied this, making a game with none stop game refrences and acknowledging to the player that what he is playing is a game, and we gamers eat this up.

It's not a bad thing by any means. Postmodernism has been embraced all other forms from Jean-Luc Godard's famous first film Breathless to Frank Zappa's note by note quotations of Igor Stravinsky in "Absolutly Free" to Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. These works all make you very aware of the creation of the medium itself and that it exists, that it's not just magic but that there are human beings behinds those works. The refrencing didn't really start until the mediums have fully developed.

But with video games, you already saw Nintendo talk about their past within a decade after their NES. The Gameboy Camera had tons of preloaded images of Nintendo's systems, ROB, and characters from other games. Super Smash Bros. conciously makes you aware that you're getting video game characters and fighting them in an imaginary setting. And it's effective.

These refrences to games past are nothing but gold for these times. That's why they're is such a growing market for people who grew up with games in the eighties, because all these games are coming back in one form or an other. Take New Super Mario Bros. for example. It doesn't bring anything new to the table. It's the same loveable over-weight Italian stereotype stomping on Koopas and Goombas. But it's fun, easy, and the first time a Mario game felt this was since Super Mario World. But most importantly, it reminds people of the past.

No matter what, people look at their youth with rose-tinted glasses. Cartoons are a perfect example. Each generation will argue that the cartoons they watched growing up were better than the other generations. If you really do watch these cartoons, you'll see how they don't age well and probably were never that good. I can't count how many times this has happened to me when I got older. It turned the Garfield cartoon was never that good...

Now all these companies are capitalizing on our nostalgia. Futurists say that in these though economic times people want to buy things that remind them of happier times. The era Reagonomics that was one of the factors leading us to the financial mess we're in now had children that are full grown now and eat up anything that reminds them of their childhood. I can't count how many times movies like The Goonies, Sixteen Candles, and Night of the Comet get rented from the video store I work at.

Finally, this all came to an apex when Mega Man 9, a platformer done in the style of it's NES predeccesors, was released back in September on every new console for a budget price of ten bucks. Now ten bucks for a full fledged Mega Man game is an amazing deal.

It turned out the game was no gimmick by any means and ranks among the best in the series. It seems like the trend of all things eighties won't be going away anytimes soon. And as annoying as it is to hear something like A-Ha on the radio, you can't help but admire and love want knowledge of the past is doing to video games. Hopefully, when whatever next generation of video game developers mature, they take what they've learn from the past and use if for their medium.

Megaman Platformers, We Hardly Knew Ye!

Hello, one and all, Louie-Spunkmeyer here. Making my debut with this little piece. I'm a big video gamer and a devotee to the Megaman and Megaman X series, so I decided I'd give back to what I love so much. I suppose a little history behind my inspiration would suffice about now.

Well, I was on the train going about my day, when I happened to overhear a conversation about the popular Capcom series, Megaman. The conversation, between three gentlemen, two in their early twenties and the third around his mid-teens, was a very nostalgic one.

One went on about how challenging the series was and about how many hours he had spent getting to Wily's Castle only to end in defeat. He continued, going on about how difficult it was to beat all four stages AND Wily afterwards.

I knew exactly how he felt. First defeating the eight robot masters then the grueling task of having to beat all four Wily stages AND Wily in any given Megaman game. Such a daunting feat that presented a challenge unlike any of its time was all too exciting, and even now, still is!

His peer agreed wholeheartedly. However, It wasn't until the younger of the three spoke his piece that spurned my inspiration.

He complained it was, "Too hard to beat!" and followed by saying a successor of the series, the Megaman Starforce series, was much more fun because, "It isn't as hard, you're not stuck just jumping over holes, and the graphics are alot better."

The youngster addressed something that has been becoming more and more a recent trend in video games nowadays. Difficulty being watered down, a more subversive environment, and an emphasis on graphics.

Eventually he reached his conclusion, "Megaman plays too slow and the bosses kill you in like two hits. That's why they don't make those crappy games anymore. Who wants to play a game that you keep losing?" One of the three pointed out that a recent addition to the series, Megaman 9 was done in the same fashion. He responded by saying, "I bet it didn't do too good because there're alot more of those games with better graphics."

So henceforth, I took it into my own hands to create something in mourning of our faithful little blue bomber. The Megaman platformer, as much as I hate to admit, is slowly being pushed aside. I have no doubt in saying young gamers will know nothing of the original Megaman games in a few years.

Although it may not sound like a big deal, those of us who enjoyed the series in its prime will feel the repercussion full force when we begin to see Megaman platformers begin to disappear. In due time, it'll be such a niche crowd that wants a new Megaman platformer that Capcom won't even consider releasing a new one.

Newer additions to the series such as NT Warrior and Starforce are a good example of the direction they're taking. Those games will begin to see an increase in production because its whats selling. They still need to make money, right? But, where will that leave little Megaman, Wily, and the rest of us?

Perhaps it may be too soon to be mourning the loss of our little buddy, after all, the Megaman Zero series still holds true to its roots, difficulty wise, at least, and even still, Capcom may decide to throw us another bone like they did with Megaman 9. I still believe, however, that the signs are there. I guess all we can really do is enjoy the remainder of the ride and its been pretty awesome thus far.


View the full size image at:
http://i367.photobucket.com/albums/oo111/SpunkmeyerLouie/XsLament.jpg

A Conversation on "Street Fighter 4"

Mark Ayala: Well, I wanted to start this by saying that I was very, very weary of Street Fighter 4.

Louie-Spunkmeyer: Yeah. Me too.

MA: I honestly, you know, thought it was just a way of cashing out on nostalgia by throwing all those Street Fighter 2 characters

LS: Well, when I first heard it was a 3D fighter, I assumed something like "Street Fighter EX", which was horrible in terms in gameplay. So all those games made me very apprehensive of trying SFIV.

MA: I was preaching to you for a while how it may be potentialy awesome. I kept telling you that it handled like a 2D fighter, not like something along the lines of Tekken or Virtua Fighter. I'm honestly glad we took the time to go to the arcade and play it. What was your first thought when you started playing it?

LS: Again, the idea of a 3D fighter had still stuck with me, so I was completely blown away when the fighters were stuck on this 2D platform. It was only then I realized it was a 2D/3D fighter.

MA: I knew that all along and I think I tried to explain it to you.

LS: I wasn't getting it at first. I didn't get it. It wasn't until I saw it in motion when I finally got it.

MA: What I was most impressed with were the very detailed character models...

LS: Oh yeah.

MA: And the fact the gameplay bore closer resemblance to SFIII as opposed to the now clunky gameplay of SFII. It isn't that part two is bad, it's just the gameplay for SFIII is so much better.

LS: So much more fluid.

MA: Big time.

LS: That was one of my big hang-ups about SFIV. Could a 2D/3D fighter play as good as a 2D one?

MA: It did.

LS: Yeah, it did.

MA: The combat moved very fluidly; it felt like a 2D game! It was a little bit of a shock before. I felt games that have tried emulating a 2D style in a 3D world weren't well executed, and the only other game I can think of that had approached it so well was "New Super Mario Bros.", a game I ended up enjoying, which also handled like an old Mario game.

LS: What surprised me most was being able to pull off a perfect my first time playing! That just, it just showed the simplicity of playing. The controls weren't clunky, they were very responsive. Input for special moves wasn't a grueling task anymore.

MA: Yeah. It reminded me of the countless hours we've played of SFIII. I miss Dudley and the rest, but this one makes up for it's lack of SFIII characters by making an extremely solid fighting game. The question though: Does it offer anything new to the mix of fighting games?

LS: I think it's new in the sense that it's ground that no company has really tread on. It's a very novel idea and if they could pull it off correctly, it could be a new style of fighter. I can go so far as to say, it'll be the new SFII for this generation.

MA: The controls were as complex as they were simple. All the moves and specials were there, but the new parrying made it simple for someone new to the genre to enjoy. I thought they were going to do the lame attempt to appeal to the always talked about "casual gamers" and water down the gameplay. But nope. It felt juuuuust right.

LS: You know, I really like the parrying which I heard a lot of people did not like because it wasn't as complex as the system in SFIII. Personally, I feel the parrying in SFIV works better in the sense that anyone can pick up, play, and be a challenge while in SFIII, if you weren't parrying, there was a clear difference between two opponents.

MA: I agree. I also went in with the predisposition that I was going to hate the art style, though those worries were crushed quickly. When I saw how wacky Blanka's eyes looked when he got slapped, I was very empressed. The style reminds me more of the Alpha series. Anything to say about the art style?

LS: I was also empressed by the art style. Hold on, let me think... I was a little worried about the art style from the get go, because of all the early screenshots. I personally didn't think that the style would translate well with the characters movements.

MA: What about the trailers?

LS: There were trailers? Noooo... I, I, I didn't want to get too much hope and watch them fall apart.

MA: Like a wet burrito. In the end, I was very satisfied with the five dollars I spent to play this.

LS: Yeah, I didn't invest too much, 'cause I kept kicking those guys' asses.

MA: So what's your final thought?

LS: Kick ass. If the console version is as good as the arcade version, I want to get it first day.

MA: Agreed. Was definatly a worth while experience. I didn't mind the long train ride to play it. Again, was worth every penny.

Nick Drake and the Fine Art of Getting Your Money

I recently re-read Amanda Petrusich's book on Nick Drake's Pink Moon. I've read it before, and found the book to be a pile of hipster garbage along with the album. I didn't sell my CD of Pink Moon, and hadn't listened to it since this time last year. When I first heard it, it broke my little heart, but not for the reasons people would expect.

I heard so much about Nick Drake at this point and when I read that one of my favorite music critics, the late Ian MacDonald, loved Nick Drake, I decided to inspect it. At this point, Ian MacDonald hat yet to steer me wrong. It was through his mentions of great albums and musicians like The Beach Boys and Bob Dylan that came along side our love band The Beatles that I grew to appreciate popular music alongside classical and art music. So I took his advice on Nick Drake, and when I had to go on break for work, I took the light rail a few feet away, ran to the record store about four stops away in the heavy rain, which was another four blocks from the station. I ran back to the train station in an attempt to avoid getting as wet as possible and to get back to work on time. As soon as I arrived, the train did too. I went inside, took out Bringing It All Back Home from my CD player, and plopped in Pink Moon.

I wasn't at all prepared for what I heard. At this point everything I was hearing was radical or different that I felt was pushing the boundaries of music. When I hit play, all I got was a guy with a tired voice singing alongside a guitar with one piano overdub. Keep in mind, at the time, I was listening to a lot of Zappa, Captain Beefheart, Stockhausen, and Ligeti, all drastically different music than I was hearing. I gave the CD a couple more play through the following week and came to the conclusion that it wasn't my cup of tea.

So I picked up the 33 1/3 book on Pink Moon to help give me deeper understanding of the music. Instead, I found the book almost intolerable stuffed with lots of filler and a third of it dedicated to how Volkswagon used his song to hock their new car. Everyone she interviews, her self including go on about how the commercial pushes the boundery of the short film and how they won countless awards and got tons of recognition. What no one ever mentions is that IT'S A FUCKING COMMERCIAL!



This is the commercial in question. It's not art. It's seconds of footage designed to sell you a car in hopes to eventually get your money. It's a bunch of attractive people living their cool hipster life, and really, you're not invited. It's all made up, it's fake, yet everyone in the book gushes about how beautiful it is and how it does justice to the music. It made me even more sick and motivated me to put the album away for a long time.

For some reason in my mind, names will come up again and I'll want to study them again. Recently it was Thomas Pynchon and Nick Drake. After having a nice meal with a friend, I was a little mentally shaken up from the intense conversation her and I had. Nick Drake had been on my mind the entire week, so first thing I did when I got home was put on Pink Moon. Just like the first time I listened to it, I was totally unprepared. Suddenly, every pluck of the string, every soft lyric, even the lack of sound rang true with me. The album was absolutly beautiful and one of my happiest encounters with music in recently memory. In the twenty-eight minutes of me lying on that sofa, every word and pluck of the string resonated in me, even giving me trembles. It wasn't music I normally connect to, but something did it to me this time. I even felt the boundaries of music being pushed with it. Considering what sort of music was popular at the time, it's a miracle something like that came along.

Since that experience, I've listen to the album a couple times a day, and this was only a few days ago. I thought after bestowing negative judgement on Mr. Drake that a year later I regretted, I decided to give Ms. Petrusich's book a second chance. Now that I loved the music, maybe I would see something new. Instead I hated the book even more, but it got me thinking one thing: Can a commercial be art?

I don't watch much TV outside of the occasional viewing of Alton Brown's "Good Eats", so I don't know what's happening in the world of advertising. Well, a few days ago, me and a colleague from work were discussing Vincent Gallo when he brought to my attention that about a year ago, Vincent Gallo did a vodka ad. My automatic response was "What?". I Googled the video, went on YouTube, and saw the ad.



That's the ad in question. If you're too lazy to watch a few seconds, to summarize it, a couple of dirty hipsters ruin a party full of elitests, the room starts raining, and Vincent Gallo and a girl start making out under a piano with a bottle of vodka between the two. I checked peoples thoughts on the commercial and they were usually on par with "Wow! This is great!" and then gush about the choice of director. But it brings to mind if it's a commercial or art. In the end, it's meant to sell you a product, vodka, and the vodka embodies everything that can go right. You can make out with attractive women, bring down the bourgeoisie, but look good all the meanwhile. But some would argue that it's art, getting a highly paid photographer and a hipster god to collaborate on something is enough to warrant it art. In the end, though, art doesn't try to sell you something, but instead would rather tell you a story, share an experience, or express things that normally can't be expressed fully.

So is the start of 21st century film, music and art so pathetic we have to look toward commercials for a break out? I'm not as pessimistic to say "yes", but more than ever we're bombarded with advertisments. I suppose this could be a continuation of what I was writing yesterday, but we're living in a culture that more than ever is based in the world of advertising. Even when something like Nick Drake's music is played in a commercial, can we be led to think anything is sacred anymore or can we break free from the clutter of our consumer world?

Home, Open Shitty

So after being in development for three years, Sony unleashed last month their interpretation of Second Life. Some how, they made Second Life even worse.

I will come out and say it, the video game industry for the last few years has been leading me to a path of complete dissapointment. You get gems here in there, but more so than any other media, you have to deal with marketers bullshit and their lame ideas to appeal to a mass audience. No company in my mind represents this better than Sony. I bought a PS3 for the sole purpose of playing Metal Gear Solid 4, but after that game, I've only used it to play one other game (Bionic Commando: Rearmed) and to play countless blu-rays and DVD's. But it's rarely served it's purpose of being a machine to play video games on.

I was ready to give Sony the benefit of the doubt when they released Home. I honestly thought for a brief second "This won't be so bad". I remember gaming websites and magazines practically orgasming over the idea. I logged in, got a glass of water, and prepared myself.

When I saw I had to create a small little avatar, I got excited. "Hey, it's like a Mii, except (quite possibly), less lame" I told my self. So after spending a rediculous amount of time calibrating my characters body, head ratio, and height, I went to the clothes.

That when I knew something was dreadfully wrong. The options were very, very scarce. In fact, it was a wasteland. The shirt options were as varied as a white t-shirt to a wife beater. For pants, cargos and jeans. I still was in denial. "It's still in beta! They're probably just don't have their shit straight yet. Give them time!" I said to myself. I thought most of the clothes were representative of what a douche would wear, so all I decided to wear was a white shirt, sneakers, jeans, and a pair of gloves because I thought they looked awful with the clothes.

When I logged in, they gave me several options of what to visit. Finally, I felt the digital world was open to me. I checked the locations, and saw that there was a main section and locations for the games Far Cry 2 and Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. I already hate themeparks, and the idea of going to one based on video games I've never played didn't sit well with me, so I decided to go to the theatre. I love the art of cinema, and thought it might be at least an interesting experience.

So I magically transport to the theatre. Inside were nothing more than a bunch of teenages talking about how tough they are, about their shitty taste in music and trying to pick up on female avatars. It's lame enough to try to pick up on someone from a different part of the country than yourself over the internet, but these awful looking avatars just some how made the act more pathetic. In the front of the theatre, crowds of douche bags are dancing on continous loops. Finally, the theatre screen loads. I almost unloaded my lunch when I saw a trailer for Twilight playing. I'm exaggerating a bit, I know, but a trailer for Twilight wasn't what I was expecting. I was expecting entertainment, not an advertisement. I wait for the next video. Great, an awful music video for Twilight. So I wait for the next video. It's the Twilight trailer, AGAIN! Thats all the theatre had to offer, the same two commercials over and over again. It was then I knew something was terribly wrong.

So I go to the mall. I don't like going to malls in real life, but I was compelled, just to see how it looks. I see a small clothing store, look at my attire, and decide I could really use some new threads. I go inside and see what they have to offer. I click to get a new shirt, and then Sony asks for my credit card number. I thought they were shitting me, but I noticed they were charging a dollar for each article of clothing. It's ridiculous. Not only do I need to buy clothes in the real world, my pile of polygons needs clothes, and Sony wants my money for it.

I exit, go the the bowling alley and see the arcade. They had Echochrome, I game I imported a while back and one of the few recents games that's not a port or a rehash on the PSP. I start the game and prepare myself. What I get instead is a flash version of the PSP game, but somehow made absolutly awful. The music was there, the style was there, but the graphics and gameplay were so different than the excellent PSP game. What's worse it's only a few levels.

What I experienced in that arcade made me figure out what Home is. It's Sony's ad world. It's not enough to buy Sony crap in real life, but now we have to get it in the digital world. It's not enough to be surrounded by ad's all day, but now we're surrounded by ad's Sony can control, and it's sicking. What kind of freedom is Sony offering or what kind of new experience are they giving to us? People have already become so desensitized to advertising, who says Sony's venture will do any better?

It's not like Home is any fun, too. If someone's idea of fun is watching ugly avatars dance and then hear the thirteen year-olds behind thme talk about while Soulja Boy demands you respect, then they will have succeded. The thing is, it's not a game, there's no fun aspect to it. No vast worlds to explore, it's almost clostrophobic. And then Sony complains why they are in the crapper. Instead of spending the millions of dollars on developing Home, why couldn't they have spent the money on making GAMES for people to play on their VIDEO GAMES systems? And they complain when Little Big Planet fails. It's because they're making the wrong kind of software for the machine.

I can say, with all sincerity, that Home epitomizes everything that's wrong with the industry today.

Happy New Blog!

So after the failure of attempting to start a blog back in September, I'm going to try now. Despite already being in a sea of blogs already filling the dense sea of the internet, I feel we can offer something different.

Like minded compatriots, friends, and myself will be writing on all forms of culture, be it music, video games, what's playing in the theater, books, and any general ideas or news going on in an intelligent and mature manner. I hope to avoid arrogance, fanboy gushing, or pseudo-intellectualism.

We'll have our first real post tomorrow. I'll try to make this a daily thing, and I feel I have the time to do something like this!