...I have lots of first world problems...

Chief amongst them is neglecting my blog. Oh hi, yes I know you still exist and that you probably don't care about this anymore, but that's not going to stop me from spewing my self-righteous gibberish into the intertubes.

Quite a few things have happened since I last posted, so I guess I finally have more things to talk about at least for a little while. So why don't we just take a quick run-down of things going on in my life. And yes I'll be getting back the aforementioned topic of this post in a little bit.

First and foremost, I reached a huge milestone in my life, realized a goal that has ever sat in the corners of my mind. I have finally built a gaming computer. Now many of you readers out there (who aren't gamers in the strictest sense) are wondering "how is that at all significant in any way, shape or form?" Well dear readers, the fact of the matter is, this is something that I have been thinking and talking about doing since I was in MIDDLE SCHOOL. (Back when most kids were just hoping for more money to fund their Neopets addictions, I was thinking BIG.)

This whole gaming addiction started back when I was young. Back in the day, my parents were pretty controlling about TV usage (remember how we didn't get cable until I was in college? Yeah.) and I was typically tied up with my extended day program in elementary school, so it didn't leave much time for me to watch what few cartoons I had access to at the time. But one day, my cousin sent me back his old game system from Taiwan. It was a Chinese NES clone that had a single cart which could play something to the tune of 80 DIFFERENT NES games. I played a TON of them without even knowing what they were or what system I was playing. I played Mario, Excite Bike, Elevator Action, Baseball, Penguin Adventure and even Battle Tanks (complete with a level editor!).

But my favorite of all time was Contra.

(For those of you who feel like waxing nostalgic for a bit here, throw on the Jungle Jam music on youtube for this next section).

The cheap little Chinese knock off cart that I was playing on had every possible permutation of Contra, complete with the 30 lives konami cheat preloaded. I loved that game. Can't say why or how, perhaps it was because it was the first game I ever beat (with the help of my cousin...and the 30 lives cheat...SHUT UP I WAS FUCKING 7). That was what started this addiction in me. This eternal lust for all things gaming was furthered along by the afterschool program's decision to buy a Sega Genesis to allow us kids to play on. This was my exposure to all things Sega. From Sonic and Sonic 2, to Aladdin and even Ecco The Dolphin, I was a genius. (By which I mean I could get past the first level). Children from all around flocked to watch me work my magic. Even the children after me opted to let me take their turn so they could catch a rare glimpse into Marble Zone Act 2. Vacation weeks were especially wondrous for me. This same program held a special vacation week for school vacations full of field trips to the roller rink and Disney on Ice shows. There were movies and snacks and it was a wonderful time. But I was more interested in the Super Nintendo they had. This was an area of gaming that I had no idea about. All I knew was the controller made different things on the screen do different stuff, and that was enough for me.

Eventually playing these weren't enough. I eventually begged and pleaded my parents for a Game Boy. They said it would kill my eyes and I'd go blind, but I begged and begged. Finally one christmas, I got my very own Game Boy Pocket. It was bright yellow and glorious. I kept that thing in immaculate condition and fed it a constant stream of triple A batteries. I fought my way through Zelda: Link's Awakening, got retro with Super Mario Lands 1 AND 2, and beat the Elite 4 at least four dozen times in Pokemon Blue. Then the school banned game boys in all forms. So my nerd-dom took off in new directions. Magic the Gathering, pokemon cards, Dungeons and Dragons, Pogs, Crazy Bones everything.

Finally I made it to middles school. Thoroughly indoctrinated in nerd lore, steeped in geek culture and infused with dorky tendencies, I got involved with the hitherto undiscovered world of PC games. Prior to this point, I was running a Mac LC520 and playing freeware games and rocking the shit out of space blaster and number muncher. But it wasn't until the middle school started a fundraiser by having us sell magazines that I realized what gaming truly was. In case your school didn't run these kinds of fundraisers, the gist is that you go around and annoy your neighbors, parents, parents' coworkers and extended family, trying to sell them magazine subscriptions which you could then trade in for points which you could use to buy stupid bullshit prizes like "SPY SUNGLASSES" that had SUPER AWESOME REAR VIEW MIRRORS TO SEE WHO IS "FOLLOWING" YOU! I used this opportunity to buy myself (and by buy myself, I mean make my parents buy) a subscription to PC Gamer.

The stuff I saw in that magazine entranced me. I wanted all of it. I had to have all of it, play all of it. The colors, the graphics, 3D! Words couldn't describe how badly I wanted to get my hands on these games. I wanted, no needed to play Starcraft, Oddworld, Half Life, Doom, EVERYTHING. But my computer at the time couldn't handle any of them. Thus started my desire for a properly built gaming PC. I didn't know anything about computers or how they worked, I just knew that the higher the numbers were, the better it was and the more expensive it was. So I stared at the Alienware and Falcon Northwest ads with envy, wanting it all. I even remember a time when, in middle school, we were given the task to furnish our dream room (probably as a lesson on looking shit up on the internet, I don't remember...) Given a budget of a few thousand dollars, we were told to look up prices and figure out how much items cost and to stay under our budget. Needless to say, I factored in my would be new computer into this mix. Sure I wanted a TV and I needed a bed and the like, but I found ways to cut costs there (I bought a futon so that I didn't need BOTH a sofa AND a bed). Every spare dollar I had was spent into customizing my very own Alienware Area 51 desktop, complete with lights and glass side panel.

All of this was eventually sidelined by the acquisition of my N64 and eventually my PS2 and later my Xbox 360. From the moment that N64 entered my house, I was a console gamer through and through. Everything else pretty much fell by the wayside. I realized that the constant fight with PC required specs was a losing battle and that I should just stick with the relative simplicity of console gaming. Recently though, I began entertaining the idea of building that computer again. And now that I could (barely) afford it, I finally decided to dive in head first (leaving my bank account significantly lighter than before).

So at this point, all of you are probably wondering what this has to do with first world problems, (especially those of who you DIDN'T BOTHER READING MY IN DEPTH AND HEARTFELT RECOUNT OF MY DESCENT INTO THE DEPTHS OF NERDDOM.) Well to put it simply, I'm finding that I need to prioritize in a way I never had to in the past. Let me make a list of things on my to do list right now. (In no particular order)

1) Buy Curtains

2) Buy Groceries

3) Beat Batman Arkham City

4) Play Battlefield 3

5) Beat Battlefield 3's single player

4) Re-rank myself in Starcraft 2

5) Get better at Team Fortress 2

6) Begrudgingly give Modern Warfare 3 a shot (because Amazon forced me to)

7) Improve my Minecraft fortress (and find even more goddamn diamonds)

9) Go to the damn gym more

10) Play Gears 2 AND THEN Gears 3.

And that's just the top 10 items...there's also Just Cause 2, finishing The Hunger Games, starting Catching Fire, figuring out when I'm going to buy Skyrim (because lets be honest, I'm GOING to play it) and getting better at drafting MTG (among quite a number of other things I forgot to mention...you know like continuing to update this blog...).

So what's my first world problem? I've got too many fucking video games to play through and not enough time to play through them (because I work).

That's my first world problem du jour.

...And that's what I learned today.

PS If you're not a gamer and didn't like this post, too fucking bad. If you REALLY want me to write about something you want to hear about, why don't you suggest something on TILT's facebook group? https://www.facebook.com/pages/Today-I-Learned-That-TILT/133134800089942

...Some concepts just aren't theme park material...

Theme parks are an interesting concept to me. No where else will you find such flagrant milking of a piece of intellectual property. The simple fact is that, if you have a moderately successful IP, be it a movie, book or tv show, if there is a theme park tribute to it, not only is it officially a successful business endeavor, but your producers/publishing companies believe that there is still money to be made off of it by luring tourists into a fiberglass world full of falsehoods and facades (both literally AND figuratively LOLOLOLOLOLOL). That said though, I do love the shit out of my theme parks and roller coasters. In fact, just a few weeks ago I spent three days and an exorbitant amount of money at Universal pretending I was a wizard right there with the soccer moms and their 12 year olds. (yes that's right, given the opportunity I would have dueled every kid I found and probably just defaulted to the killing curse because I like winning and they should have seen it coming from someone with a giant fuck-off skull on the end of their wand and a slytherin patch in his hand)

That said, I like to believe that there is a certain limit to what kinds of intellectual properties can get turned into theme park attractions. In fact, it's generally safe to say that most non-kid-friendly IPs (or at least IPs that most sane human beings figured their kids have already watched behind their backs on HBO while they were out to dinner) are perfectly safe for family consumption. So that said, the most hardcore thing you'll find at a theme park (besides a few seriously awesome roller coasters) are based around things that are strictly PG13 (Jaws, The Mummy, that fucking holy land thing...you know...somewhat childish fiction). So naturally something like Pookie the pedophile bear's adventures in touchy-feely land really wouldn't be considered for theme park material. (Though I have to admit, the nightmarish Doctor Seuss land they have a Islands of adventure does come fucking close to that level of creepy)

Well color me surprised when I heard that Eli Roth of Hostel fame would be designing a theme park exhibit for Hollywood's iteration of Universal Studios. Now Hostel, in case you didn't know, falls into the niche genre of movies delightfully known as torture porn (or gore porn). For those of you who are still with me and who still don't know what I'm talking about, whatever you're thinking it stands for is probably, if not definitely, accurate. In retrospect, Hostel was an interesting movie insofar as I realize now that it could be a litmus test for normality on whomever you choose to watch it with. Act one of the small art-house film that was Hostel takes place in...you guessed it...a hostel somewhere in Europe (the exact locale escapes me and I'm too lazy to google it so you'll just have to deal with it). And in typical teen summer movie fashion, there were more boobs than you could shake a stick at. But beyond the near soft-core porn levels of nudity, there was little to no horror (or gore, or torture...just porn). No all of the blood and guts were saved solely for the second act. No lead up. No justification. No suspense. Just a smash cut to a torture chamber where our previously scantily clad young male and female leads (if you could REALLY call them that) were being cut on by psychopathic eurotrash with far too many power tools and surgical equipment. Why did I say this would be a good litmus test for your friends? Well put it this way. For the average teenage boy (because this kind of movie should attract pretty much no other demographic) 45 minutes of straight nudity should, in any healthy teenage boy, cause him to stir in his shorts. (And before you jump down my throat about the heteronormativity of that statement, there were plenty of shirtless guys too, so calm the fuck down). Suffice it to say, after flipping the switch from sex to death, if any of your buddies is still rocking his hard on, it's probably best to avoid talking to them from now on....just saying.

Anyways back to the point (heh heh boners...) of this piece, SOMEONE with a LOT of money got it in his head (and I say his because again as with the vanity plates issue, no self respecting female would ever think this idea up) that this halloween, they should open a special section of the park just for Eli Roth himself to design a tribute to his glorious contribution to film, Hostel. That's right, this halloween, if you're in the hollywood area, you two can feel the sheer terror of bored rich Europeans chaining you to a chair and burning your face off with a blow torch. No really I don't understand how these people expect to pull ANY of this off. The entire POINT of the movie was that youth hostels are kinda creepy and that Europeans are prone to kidnapping and torturing unsuspecting teenagers that are trying only to bring a bit of money to their obviously destitute countries (because I mean really...if Europe had...y'know...like...ANY money...they'd...like...be able to renovate all those silly castles...amirite?). And that said, unless there are actors who are paid to randomly grab toursits as the pass through this "horror maze" only to horribly maim and ultimately kill them while their friends gawk gormlessly wondering where their buddy got all that super real looking (and tasting) fake blood, then this maze feels like it's going to miss the mark somewhere.

Ultimately, if the point of a theme park is to make one feel as though they are a part of whatever movie or book it is based off of, I for will will accept nothing less than 45 minutes of girls jumping around shirtless followed by being tortured and killed for the next 45 minutes. Because that is the only way they can claim ANY kind of immersion into the Hostel IP.

Come to think of it...you remember how I said that you could tell if your friends were fucked in the head if they were still pitching a tent into the second act? This kind of attraction will probably only attract THOSE types. Do not want.

...And that's what I learned today.

(PS That's actually the justification for the whole movie [SPOILER ALERT]. It's all just rich bored Europeans who pay the kidnappers money so that they can "legally" kill another person...THAT'S THE WHOLE FUCKING )

(PPS Did anyone else reading that castles bit do it in a dumb blonde/valley girl accent in their head?)

...Duke Nukem should have stayed dead...

Lets start off with a few ground rules here. If you're reading this, you've likely already formed your opinions on Duke Nukem Forever. Most gamers will fall into one of two categories. The first of these groups will be the gamers that played Duke Nukem back in the day and have been looking to this day much the same way as crazily-religious folks were looking forward to the rapture. The remainder of you will likely fall into the "I never really played it, so there isn't any real nostalgia factor here for me" group. And since my gaming CV didn't really start until the N64, (and it was heavily regulated until halfway through my PS2 ownership cycle), naturally I never really played much Duke Nukem, which places me firmly in that latter group. I will state again for the record, that you have already likely formulated your opinions about this game and nothing I say will change how you feel, but feel free to read on and maybe you’ll be able to see the game through the dark smoky tint of my cynical, hateful eyes.

I agree with Yahtzee that Duke Nukem Forever was a game that could (and probably should) have been shat out by any halfway decent studio in an incredibly short period of time. And I don’t remember what production cycles were like back then. But looking at a game like Half Life, they came out with Half-Life, Opposing Forces AND Blue Shift within 3 years. That’s one super hit game and two full length add-ons in a matter of 3 years. Compared to the 15 fucking years it took to make Duke Nukem Forever (DNF HAHAHAHA GET IT? IT’S LIKE THE ACRONYM FOR DID NOT FINISHLTROLOLOLOLOLOL), the legendary “valve time” seems like fucking nothing at this point. But, intrigued and perturbed by the prospect of getting a playable demo of Duke Nukem, I decided to give it a shot and see what it was all about.

Yes I already knew the critics were lambasting the game, crucifying it for not being the second coming of Christ in video game form. But I, being the impartial, unbiased, objective paragon of critical quality that I am, decided to give the game a shot just to be fair to it. Well needless to say, even having not held my breath for 15 years for this game, I was still somehow sorely disappointed. Rife with piss a shit jokes, the demo certainly kept the immature tone of the original works. The very beginning of the demo started with Duke peeing into a urinal (as a quicktime event). Naturally, Duke is not known for his silent stoicism, and as such, takes every opportunity to speak. This gave me the strange and somewhat uneasy feeling that I was actually controlling another person against their will (as opposed to most other games where the protagonists do us all the favor of keeping their fucking mouths shut). This was most prescient when I, as allowed by the game, forced Duke to pick a large turd out of the toilet and fling it around the locker room. Quite frankly, his protests of "why am I doing this?" only made me want to continue, cackling with glee the way one would imagine an evil puppeteer would. Finally growing weary of that nonsense (and with the vast majority of flat surfaces now stained with digital feces) I exited the locker room to find some NPCs dressed in military wear, discussing a fight with a large alien that had taken up residence on the football field outside. After a brief mechanic where Duke (again through quicktime type events) draws up a battle plan (with markers that actually leave no visible mark on the white board), I could only conclude that not only did Duke suffer from some kind of massive psychosis that not only causes him to believe that someone else is controlling him, but similarly, he hallucinates drawings marks on a whiteboard.

Well after a good deal of faffing about, Dicktits McGee wanders out into the hallway only to watch a few unnamed soldiers get destroyed by....something. After guiding the addlebrained ape through a series of corridors and picking up something called a "devastator", I rise up onto the field via an unexplained (and entirely impractical) elevator to confront my foe. The thing is hard to describe. But suffice it to say, it is ugly and shoots missiles. Well I will give it one thing, it doesn't suffer from the "glowing-weak-point-shoot-me-here" syndrome that some other games fall into. That said, it also means that would-be boss battle was BEYOND easy. It charges, I move and shoot at it. I run out of ammo, go pick some up, dodge missiles, shoot at it. Rinse. Repeat. After probably 15 minutes of this drool inducing bullshit, the monster goes down and Duke kicks its eye through the field goal posts. Cue American flag, title and fireworks. So far, so cliche.

Zoom out of the TV and Duke is playing the game about himself while two likely illegal school girls finish up their...homework.... They crack a joke about how the game "had better be good after fifteen fucking years of waiting" as the girls wipe their mouths. Suddenly, I find myself in a monster truck, nuclear logo plastered on every surface dodging helicopters dropping bombs on me. And that is as far as I got. I'm sure there was a joke somewhere in there about a shitty vehicle section or what have you, but I just was not in the mood. I'm sorry Duke, but you put a fucking vehicle section in your goddamn demo?! You must either be seriously stupid or just not give a flying fuck to do something like that. A shitty vehicle section is not something you show off when you are trying to wow customers into buying your game. A shitty vehicle section is something you surprise and dismay your customers with AFTER they've bought the game, much like herpes or a cajun demon baby.

I am all for a game that is over the top. I loved the hell out of Bulletstorm and its unending torrent of dick jokes. And a game that is aware of how bad it is generally manages to endear itself to me much like Nick Cage's entire repertoir. However something about this game feels dated and out of place...even after a game like Bulletstorm. It feels childish and old, immature and crude, but somehow misses the nostalgia mark completely. Duke is ultimately an aging relic of games past, and ultimately, was only kept fond in memory. And that's where he deserved to stay. Bringing back the Duke was the one thing they could have done to destroy the franchise completely, and they did it. In the end, I feel bad for everyone who bought the game for nostalgia's sake, because the utter disappointment of this game could only be comparable to hiring a hooker to come to your house, only to find out that not only is she packing a rod of her own, but hers is bigger than yours.

Duke should have stayed dead.

...And that's what I learned today.

...Technology is changing our lives...

And in this case...not really for the better. These days, everything is about integration. You don't just want a phone anymore. You want a phone that is also a camera that is also a computer that is also a video camera that is also a prophylactic which can surf the web, check email, make phone calls, send texts, stalk people on facebook, test the mineral content of your tap water AND transform into a smart car. (For an extra $30 a month, AT&T will upgrade you to a Prius, but you can only drive it 20 miles each month...)

Now all of this is well and good from a consumer standpoint, but to be quite honest, there have been some serious downsides to this trend in technology as well. If you have been to a concert in recent history, you'll know what I'm talking about. Yes I'm talking about "that person" that everyone hates. You know which one I'm talking about. The one who pushes their way to the front and, rather than enjoying the music and the crowd, or even basking in the glory that is the band's lead singer. Nope, that person insists on trying to capture every moment of it on their phone. Yes this is that person. That person that insists on experiencing the concert through the 3 inch screen of their phone, attempting to capture every single moment, despite the fact that their phone's camera has the resolution of a brick and the sound capture capabilities of a jar of old mayonnaise. Inevitably, this video makes its way onto youtube, and you, like I, eventually stumble on it. You, like I, think "hey, someone took a video of that concert I went to! Maybe it will be a professional quality video of the great time I had!" and you, like I, click on that link, hoping to recall all those good times you had that night. But calamity strikes the moment the video loads. The camera can't see a goddamn thing and the bass keeps blowing the levels on that puny microphone that was only designed to capture the sound of a human voice from 2-3 inches away. But SOMEHOW, despite the cacophony of the concert, one sound ALWAYS finds its way through the noise. At first you don't want to believe what you are hearing...but as it continues and continues, you can no longer deny your ears. The camera operator is singing...and INCREDIBLY poorly at that. It is pretty clear that they are singing vicariously through the lead singer of the band, and you wish that they could hear themselves...because if they could, they would never EVER sing at a concert again...because what they interpret as singing is not singing, it's rhythmic screaming...and we all know how I feel about that...

Nowhere is there a more prescient example of this than what I encountered over the 4th of July celebrations down in Altamonte Springs, Florida. Every year we gather as a country to celebrate the birth of our nation by getting drunk and blowing shit up. More to that point, fireworks, in my opinion, are the manifest definition of transient beauty (that's right I'm getting all philosophical up in this bitch). Fireworks, by nature, are meant to burst and burn bright before fading away quickly, beautiful in its brevity. Well I was quite dismayed to see that, out of every 5 or so people around me, one of them had their phone pointed towards the sky, attempting to capture the fireworks display. Now it's not as though I've never seen fireworks before in my life, but there is definitely something lacking when you watch even a professional display like the Pops goes the Fourth on television. You miss the percussive wave of the explosion, the feeling of your eardrums discontent with being subjected to such noise, the smell of sulfur afterwards. All these things are, in my opinion, crucial for the proper fireworks experience. To say that these same people, the ones who would attempt to capture a concert on their phones, were filming fireworks struck me as an incredibly backwards way of thinking. Not only would their phones have an INCREDIBLY difficult time focusing with the changing light levels, the noise would do quite a number on the mic AND when there were no loud bangs, only the chatter of the crowd would come through. All technical issues aside, to film fireworks is, in my opinion, entirely contrary to the POINT of fireworks. More than that, these people were staring at their screens trying to make sure that the shot was framed well. This is a perfect manifestation of everything that is wrong with this mentality. You, a spectator at a fireworks show, are opting to STARE AT YOUR PHONE'S SCREEN because you want to make sure that your shot of the fireworks going on RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU is good so that you can GO BACK AND WATCH IT LATER.

I hope I'm not the only one here who things that this kind of behavior warrants some kind of phone-suspension or at least a severe talking to. Sure I have no real moral ground here because there is nothing illegal about recording a fireworks show, but if you're just going to record it and watch it on youtube later, why don't you just skip a step and watch it on TV while recording it on TiVO and don't bother showing up for the real thing? Just saying.

...And that's what I learned today.

PS saying "that person" to be PC was incredibly difficult for me, I hope you appreciate the effort :)

...Video games alter one's perceptions...

I'm a gamer. And a pretty big one at that. No I don't spend all my time on WoW nor am I part of an MLG wannabe CoDBlOps clan (though I totally COULD be if I wanted to.... /self aggrandization). But yeah I play games. Violent ones. I just finished up systematically dismembering infected former space colonists turned insane mutant zombie like shambling affronts to god to leaping around the rooftops of Rome stabbing countless Roman PMC-type solders in their respective throats. Well naturally all of this has left me a twisted husk of a person, plotting the murder of everyone around me as I listen to Marylin Manson and scribble dark poetry in blood all over the shrine to satan I keep in my closet. Of course, that's what the vast majority of violent game critics would have you believe, that playing violent video games somehow turns everyone who plays even a little bit of it into a murderous sociopath who believes that shooting everything that moves in the face and that entering another person's home and rifling through their stuff looking for potions and weapons to take with you when you leave are both perfectly acceptable forms of behavior in this modern society we live in today.

Well given my criminal record of no counts of murder, no charges of breaking and entering, no charges of assault and battery and no chickens kicked, I think I can say that I've somehow managed to make it through this purportedly harsh transition period somewhat unscathed. Of course, as a psych major, I've been incredibly interested in this sort of thing from a research standpoint (so interested that I wrote my senior thesis on this topic AND somehow managed to convince the UMass Social Psych department to buy an Xbox 360 AND and HDTV for my experiments). But I can now say, without the shadow of a doubt, that in my own personal experience, yes playing video games altered my perceptions.

Now let me clarify that statement. In case you didn't pick up on the blatant sarcasm, I obviously don't mean that I plan on going on some kind of murderous rampage because the little master chief on my shoulder told me to murder and tea-bag everyone around me. No, I've been more affected by games like Assassin's Creed or Mirror's Edge. Yup that's right, video games have made me liken myself to a renaissance assassin or skinny asian free-runner. More importantly though, I tend to think I am some kind of parkour badass. In what I can only imagine is the best example of fantasy intruding on reality, I will look at a building and immediately think of what Ezio Auditore would be able to do on that particular surface.

Perhaps this is a credit to Ubisoft and their ability to make incredibly immersive games, but there have been more than one occasion where I have looked at a building and immediately thought "Oh I know how I can get on the top of that building. I can just climb up the outside here, then jump to that hold, scurry up that dome..." and by the time I'm halfway done with that thought, I find that I'm already trying to wipe the sweat from my hands and making sure I have the right pair of shoes on for climbing (a function for which converse low tops really don't cut it, stylish though they may be). It is usually at this point that I stop myself and wonder what the hell I'm thinking (this is what some would call "maturity") and go on my way.

Interestingly enough, one of the main mechanics of the game for the main character Desmond is called the "bleeding effect". Without going into TOO much detail, suffice it to say the skills he leans while playing a video game (which is actually just a machine designed to help him relive the genetic memories of his assassin ancestry, locked away in his genes as a sort of imprint passed from generation to generation...it's highly technical...don't worry about it) ultimately begin to translate into the real world. Picture Neo learning Kung Fu in the Matrix AND THEN being able to do ALL the same things in the real world (rather than spend all his time sitting there and whining like a sad sack of shit). Maybe that's some kind of subtle commentary on what's happening with me. Perhaps they've realized that their games are so immersive that, through playing their games, we too can begin to see the way an assassin sees. After three games and countless hours of gameplay, I too can see buildings the way Ezio would see them. The routes, the weaknesses, the numerous paths to the top.

Or the alternate (and more likely) scenario, I'm actually related to a long line of middle eastern and Italian assassins who have been maintaining peace and balance in the world, ensuring that the Templars don't take over the world and bend it to their evil ways.

Yeah...I think that sounds about right.

...Video editing is time consuming...

...But totally worth it. I present you with the first ever, TILT Gaming Videocast. In this, I'll be going over some of my favorite moments from Microsoft's E3 press conference. Please comment the video and let me know what I could be doing better (bearing in mind that I was pretty sick while I was recording this)

Check out the video on my youtube channel!

Also thanks for bearing with me as the Bruins went to win the stanley cup. I know I've been neglecting writing for my blog, but now that hockey season is over, I'll be sure to post regularly from now on.

Shitty Music Monday 8

I already know that I'm going to sound like my dad writing this goddamn post...It's really an inevitability, even within the first few sentences of this post, my fate is sealed. But whatever...here goes...

Do you remember that time when you were a kid, probably in middle school, first setting out to explore and discover the wide world of music on your own? Think back to that time, that time that you finally found something really awesome, that you loved and that hadn't been force fed to you by your parental types. Do you remember that feeling of epiphany? That feeling of realizing there was more to this world than the motown, Beatles, classical and jazz that your parents ALWAYS played in the car? You felt cool, independent, like a motherfucking adult for that moment in your life. You were so proud of yourself for having found something so wonderful, so glorious, so beautiful, and you wanted to share that feeling with your parents. (Of course, this could all just have been my personal experience of breaking out from my incredibly sheltered childhood...remember I said we didn't have cable until I was in college? Yeah...THAT sheltered...) Well, if you, like me, went straight from Vivaldi to Blink 182, naturally your (my) parents were likely in for one HELL of a surprise. Well needless to say, they weren't happy with my newfound choice of music, decrying it as "meaningless noise", claiming that if gave them "headaches". But none of that mattered to you. You found what you liked and by god you were going to stick with it right up until your musical tastes changed drastically 6 months later. Well I hate to sound like my dad right about now, but I honestly find it difficult to believe that anyone, even stupid, young, impressionably teens and pre-teens are listening to this shit.

I present to you:
Scream For My Ice Cream - Blood On The Dance Floor

1) Music: Apparently I missed some kind of memo, but when did 90's style rave-pop become awesome again? (And yes, you can correctly infer from this previous sentence that I still do absolutely rock out to Cascada, Alice Deejay, and Darude...) Seriously, between this song and that poor excuse for a bridge those crabcore weirdos came out with, I like to think that that overly cheerful, needlessly bright ecstasyrave is back. Though while Alice Deejay and Cascada kept to old, outdate topics like love and happiness, Blood On The Dance Floor have localized ravepop for a whole new generation of misanthropic teens with weird hair. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Here the music is best summarized as something that I think I can safely say we all knew and loved, a reminiscent memory of a past life, the smell of your childhood home, the familiar creak of a playground swing, the feel of your favorite article of clothing, this, like those, is like a familiar sound of something you held dear to your heart, now played through the shit colored filter of terrible lyrics.

2) Vocals: (I'm going to sound like a terrible person...but here goes). You know that voice that everyone does to sound like a flamboyant gay guy or a ditzy blonde valley girl? Well that's what these vocals are. That's all they are. And yes sure sure you can make the argument that these guys are bi (yes I did some research, no I didn't look it up on wikipedia, this time the youtube comments section was my source) but that doesn't make these "vocals" acceptable by any standards. Maybe they're trying to be different, maybe they're trying to be Ke$ha (why do I keep coming back to her for some reason???), maybe that's just the way they talk, but the fact of the matter is, in the end, in a performance piece, to me anyways, it simply comes off as needlessly obnoxious, kind of like how your younger sibling would be annoying you by holding his/her finger as close to you as physically possible while screaming "NOT TOUCHING YOU NOT TOUCHING YOU NOT TOUCHING YOU!" Yeah, THOSE are the memories that these vocals bring to mind...And then the song goes to screamo...(so I guess that makes this the inversecrabcore...and no BOTDF, if you're reading this, inverting someone else's style does not make you not formulaic...just FYI)

3) Lyrics: Once again, here is where things quell up the majority of my bile. These lyrics are beyond filthy, and once again, that voice isn't doing them any help. Now this isn't the first time anyone has used the lollypop analogy (HE MEANS HIS PENIS) but somehow, it just seems creepy now. And once that bit is done, let the screaming begin. Now I've always assumed that screaming had it's place, mostly to express some kind of inner angst that's filling you up to the point that you just have to scream it out loud (see what I did there?). Perhaps this is a narrow point of view, but somehow, screaming about dancing and moving one's body on the dance floor (you know, modern, hip, poppy bullshit?) just seems beyond stupid. I mean you could scream about your goldfish dying and we, the consumer, would be understanding. We know that goldfish meant the world to you oh poor emo child, we know now that it was the only one that got you...and now that fish, your one and only friend has met its demise. You scream and we get it. But this? It equates to something like "AAAAARGH I'M HAVING SUCH A GOOD TIME! RRARARRAGGGGHHHH I'M SO GLAD WE CAME TO THIS CLUB! BLUGHUGHUHGBLBGUHUHLGLLGBGH I SEE AN ATTRACTIVE FEMALE THAT I WISH TO SPEAK TO!!! PERHAPS SHE WILL DANCE WITH ME RAHGHAHGHAHHUHGUHGH!!!" That's right BOTDF, you've even managed to fuck up screamo...and that was a sentence I NEVER thought I would have to type...All in all, the lyrics are a sad mess of hypersexualized content, misplaced lyrical/musical decisions, overused (and now creepified) penis/lollipop metaphors and a whole lot of repetition (you know...so the kids REALLY get the point)...I think I've said enough, the video has all the lyrics in it, when you're done reading along, you'll want to take a shower too...

4) Video: There is none, only lyrics that some fan put up on youtube. That's probably because whatever label they've signed to is too destitute to produce one for them, and so they've gone to the likes to myspace and other such social media sites to spread their word to all the poor little teen girls who have all finished twilight and are looking for their proverbial edward cullen in something more concrete.

5) Summary: Some quick background, does everyone know the story of Jessi Slaughter, the 11 year old girl who managed to piss off 4chan and suffered their wrath for it? (If not, go look it up...it'll make you lose faith in this country's future) Well SHE listened to this nonsense religiously and that's how she turned out. I'm not one to draw conclusions from just this one instance, but I reeeaaaalllllyyyy can't think of any adult listening to this and thinking "Hmm yes, this is a fine specimen of a tune. I cannot wait to show this to all my friends so that they too may partake in this glorious example of modernity and cultural advancement!" (did you read this and imagine me wearing a top hat and monocle while sipping daintily on a cup of tea?)

Suggested Audience: Your parents. No seriously, send this to your parents, because if they listen to this, you can simply point to BOTDF and all of a sudden, your obsession with GWAR and Turisas (or whatever else your parents deem offensive) seems perfectly reasonable by comparison.

PS: Thank god that's over, I really started to sound like my dad there...also did y'all manage to make it all the way through the song? I didn't, not even for the sake of journalistic integrity...in this case, FUCK journalistic integrity right in the eye...