Chawlk

1. Drawar
2. Fenxy
3. Decaflon
4. Two Credits
5. Wriging
6. Loose Suits
7. Chixe
8. Dud3s
9. Wing Colors

 

"Rockafella" by Fatboy Slim.

Backups: "Right Here Right Now" also by Fatboy Slim; "Re: Your Brains" by Jonathan Coulton.

And, further to MindPlunge, what's ugly today may be beautiful tomorrow. Or vice-versa.

La Traviata was hated at its premiere for its offensive subject matter, its score and the ordinariness of the costumes and the sets. The music of Bizet's Carmen was described on its opening to be "as ugly as it is senseless." And of course Stravinsky's Rite of Spring provoked a riot with shocking staging and a score that was "atonal and anaesthetic."

And what great works of art were described on their debut: "...the State's acceptance of such garbage is the sign of a very great moral decay"? That would be the Impressionists.

For the average young user, Myspace pages are difficult to customize and so they rely on the (largely free, largely abrasive) prefab pagelayouts and backgrounds that they can find. In addition there's a desire to add 'cool features' to personalize their pages and display their pictures, their music and so on without any great regard to what looks nice.

They know the page is ugly, all their friends pages are ugly so it's no great surprise--the goal is to take the page beyond its ordinary predetermined ugliness to a place where it's both individual and anarchic, the way a child takes a doll they love by the foot and smacks it on the floor until it breaks or paints its clothes with nail polish or chops at its hair with scissors. Some of that is lack of dexterity and skill, but there's also a desire to set something apart from the sameness of all the others, from the bland prettiness of the mass-produced. It's the desire to make something your own.

Stefani and I have exactly the same taste :) But I would have to add Jake Gyllenhaal in there as well.

Oh Santa, why don't you bring me what I *really* want for Christmas??

Social anxiety.

Twinkling lights.

Overspending.

Ghost stories.

Sugar cookies.

Tryptophan.

Leftovers.

"Is not a tumor."

The Guvernator, 'Kindergarten Cop'

Yes, the "you'll see a variety of different scenery" line as one of the "good" features in the review summary was a pretty clear signal to me. Yet what's the point if the number score you're forced to attach to your review doesn't reflect what you're actually saying?

I'm sure Jeff was told he couldn't score it lower than a six (because it was a so-called AAA title) so he compensated/rebelled in the text and in the video review.

The video review is on YouTube and while it's a bit rough and ready there's nothing that makes me think "unprofessional". What was he supposed to do--one of those intros from Masterpiece Theatre?

I haven't been back to any of the CNet sites since, and I can't imagine why I would return. It's all just left me disgusted and dismayed.

Gee. Sounds like my workplace!

But seriously, this has blown up so spectacularly in their faces, I can't imagine what they can do to resolve it. Their official statement yesterday basically amounted to 'the game company didn't tell us to fire him.' Wow, that's different! That makes everything all better!

I can't imagine what it must have been like in those offices yesterday.

I've never paid much attention to Gamefly but clearly I'm going to have to check it out more.

To this point I've been following game reviews the way I follow movie reviews--I either read as many as I can and try to get an 'average' in my mind of good points and bad points, or I read two or three reviewers who I think are fairly consistent and then weigh their tastes out against mine.

User reviews are harder, I find, because some people will just slap 10s or 1s on any old thing. Plus it's a system that's easier to game by the publishers. (Or, until this week, so I thought.)

I don't have too many regrets about games I've bought (except that I regret not having enough time to play them all) but there are some on my shelf that make me wince when I see them. Overhype was definitely a factor in their purchase. I think now most game customers are going to want to hear more word of mouth about a game, or at least play more demos and such, before they sink their hard-earned money into a purchase. It may be a boon for the rental industry though.

Sigh.

Overseas, I would live in Hong Kong. I had been reluctant to go when my bf took me a few years back, but fell in love with it almost the moment I stepped off the plane. It's unfortunate that it's under Chinese rule now--I would have loved to have spent some time there before the handover occurred.

In North America, I would live in Austin, TX--it too is a place I fell for the moment I arrived. I love the mix of urban sophistication, university town amenities (great bookstores, great coffee shops and bars, great repertory movie theaters) and laid back Texan vibe. The summers are brutally hot, but that's what vacations (and air conditioning) are for. Oh, and I love the bats. Standing on the bridge at dusk in the fall and watching them suddenly all fly out from under you is amazing.

In Canada...it's hard to say. I like Vancouver but it's too expensive. I love Halifax but I think I'd find it hard to get work there. It's also difficult moving from a large city, with all that that offers, to a smaller city that doesn't get movies as soon as they're released elsewhere, that doesn't have many theatre or musical options, that has only a few major stores. I'd be afraid I'd spend my time traveling to other places to get my big city fix in. I like Montreal but many French Canadians (not all, but many) drive me nuts. And my French stinks.

I nearly died about six years ago, from a previously undiagnosed congenital disorder called Hypokalemic Periodic Paralysis.

I was admitted into Emergency completely paralyzed with a heart rate of 45 and dropping. Everyone at the hospital did a good job of keeping me from realizing how close to death I was, except for an orderly who was assigned to sit with me while the potassium drip was being administered. No one told him anything, so he assumed that I knew everything about what was happening. I told him he could leave, that everything was fine, but as you might imagine he insisted that he would stay with me.

Because I am painfully slow-minded even at the best of times, it finally dawned on me that there might be a reason he was staying beside me. Since I knew by then that my paralytic attack had been caused by a sudden depletion of potassium, I asked him what would happen if I were to receive too much potassium too quickly. He basically said that it would be the inverse of what I was experiencing earlier, but that the result would be the same: I'd become paralyzed, have a heart attack and die, and they would be unable to revive me because the excessive potassium would still be in my system. A little woozy at the thought of all this, I asked him if it would be painful. "Oh no," he said, "you'd pretty much just go pop like a light bulb."

In the end I spent about 30 hours in ER and a total of three days at the hospital before I was sent home. Since then, I'm not as fearful of death as I used to be--I mostly worry that I'm going to leave some mess behind (finances, possessions, taxes, burial/cremation/organ donation) for someone else to clean up. I have to get to work on that.

Knowing a precise date and time would give me a deadline (pardon the pun) to work against. But in the end it probably wouldn't matter. I'm late for everything these days.

I too heard this a while back--and saw the video too. It never fails to bring a smile to my face. A few jingle bells in the background and it could be the perfect new holiday song!

You're not old, Tyme. (I'm the one who's old!) I first joined Facebook when they opened it up to the public so I could see wht the big deal was...and promptly became bored with it. A few months later, I checked back in and found that about a dozen of my friends had joined--and this improved my experience considerably. I now have 141 friends on there (some more friend-ish than others) and it's tough for me to log off.

Peroty notes one major advantage: the vast majority of people on Facebook use their real names so that it's easier for friends, colleagues and family to find them. There is a huge incentive to do this, as the site is only as good as the number of contacts you have on it.

Beyond that: Status updates can be used as kind of a Twitter equivalent, advising your contacts of what's up at your end. Poking can either be flirtation, or a general 'thinking of you' kind of gesture. Some of the applications are lame or dull (or mini-infomercials--ugh) but a few are real gems. I'm hopelessly addicted to Scrabulous, for example. There are groups you can join--though I have to admit that I've had very little interaction with the ones I belong to; I'm just in there to provide support in numbers.

There's the wall, which is a way to turn messaging between friends or among a group into a kind of public discourse; you also have wall-to-wall which makes it convenient to have a public conversation with a friend by filtering out everyone except the two of you.

Plus there's conventional e-mail type messaging, a fairly detailed profile questionnaire, the ability to join networks based on your workplace, school or location, the ability--as Ozone mentioned--to have your blog updates appear as part of your feed to all your contacts, the ability to post (privately or publicly) links, photos, videos and other items, plus a few other features I can't even remember right now.

It does have a young user base but that is changing as more people gravitate to it. If you're not into social sites then you probably won't enjoy it. But I definitely feel that the experience changes as more of your contacts appear there and interact with you.

C'est tout,

David D.

"I don't always smell like this."

I have a relatively new desktop, running Ubuntu Linux (and Windows XP when necessary, which is seldom) and a 13" G4 iBook that I've yet to upgrade to Leopard.

I installed the Ubuntu mainly to fool around with, but over the last year it's become my primary operating system. As for the laptop, I've always enjoyed OSX, and the portability and comfort of the iBook has helped me enjoy it even more.

That said, I'll probably have to get a new iBook sometime in the next year or so, so I'll likely have to pass this one down to someone computer-deprived in the family.

Frightful. Absolutely frightful. It hurts my eyes just to look at it.

Saturday Night Fever! Hit after hit and the distillation of an era. I can't believe no one has mentioned it so far.

For somewhat more recent films--I agree with Requiem for a Dream, Rocky Horror Picture Show, Donnie Darko, plus Run Lola Run and Superbad.

Wacky Cake is a good vegan approach to regular cake. I love the chocolate version, but here's another to try, from Cooks.com:

RICK'S APPLE AND WALNUT WACKY CAKE (plus substitution suggestions)
DRY INGREDIENTS:

1 1/2 c. whole wheat flour (or white, or half/half)
1 c. brown sugar, firmly packed (or half-white, half-brown)
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 med. apple, peeled, cored, grated (other option below)
1/4 c. walnuts, chopped (other option below)

LIQUID INGREDIENTS:

5 tbsp. peanut oil (or canola or safflower)
1 tbsp. apple cider vinegar (or regular white vinegar)
1 tsp. vanilla
Apple cider (see first step)

Add apple, grated to measuring cup, fill to 1 cup level with apple cider. Mix dry ingredients. Make 3 holes. Add oil, vanilla, then vinegar to each hole in turn. Begin mixing. Add walnuts. Now add the apple-apple cider mixture. Pour into greased, round cake pan. Bake at 350 degrees 40 to 50 minutes. Check with toothpick.

For a Banana and Pecan Wacky Cake, substitute 1 medium mashed banana for apple, 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg for cinnamon, 1/4 cup chopped pecans for walnuts, water for apple cider.

You can find a lemon version here -- but heed the comments on the right hand side of the page about making it more lemony.

Good luck!

I have a G4 iBook so I'm not sure how well it'll run Leopard. And I'm also not big on crowds. So I think I'll be waiting at least a week or two and checking in here to see what others say about their experience. I'm looking forward to QuickLook though.

I Looked All Over Town by The Magnetic Fields:

I wandered in these big blue shoes,
till we had nothing left to lose.
Nobody wants you when you're a circus clown.
I should know.
I looked all over town.

I guess folks just don't like my face.
They make out like I'm some disgrace.
But nothing's gonna change this painted frown.
And I know.
I looked all over town.

Maybe somewhere I could be free.
Somewhere they won't throw rocks at me.
Somewhere this crazy hair could be my crown.
But all my life,
I've looked all over town.

So whistling this circus tune,
I inflated one more balloon.
And as I floated up I looked straight down.
And I looked all over town.

One last time.
I looked all over town.

Any extra payments or "found money" (such as the flukey three-biweekly-cheques-in-a-month or income tax refunds or gifts of money on your birthday or during the holidays) should go into a second bank account that you never touch. Gnorb above has some recommendations of high-interest bank accounts that are worth checking out.

This money adds up surprisingly fast, and if you don't see it in the account every day, you won't be tempted to spend it.

Very nice tie. Very nice cufflinks. I want those shoes.

So I'd say you did good!

You can look amazing--just don't upstage the bride.

If you're too matchy matchy with the bridesmaid, people will think you're her sister. Or something.

You can't go wrong with a black suit, black shoes, black belt, black or grey socks, black or grey tie maybe with a faint stripe or some tone-on-tone action, and a white shirt. French cuffs on the shirt with silver or silver/onyx cufflinks would be terrific, but they're not essential. You could try a grey or silver pocket square for the jacket, but then people will think you've watched too much Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.

If you're not sure what shade of red/pink/burgundy she's wearing, don't even go there. If you end up with colours that don't quite match, everyone will squint at the two of you and wonder what's up and if you maybe got dressed in the dark together.

The last wedding I went to, I wore a charcoal suit with dark grey socks and black shoes, a black belt, a really lovely grey tone-on-tone shirt and a rather daring tie with small orange squares outlined in silver on a darker grey background. It was eyecatching but not busy.

Brown suits are great, but don't go buying a brown suit before you get your black suit all put together. Every guy needs a good black suit. (I only have charcoal, and I'm pushing it.)

With all due respect, Oli, I must disagree. Maybe to eight-year-olds it has no link to sexuality--it's just what they've heard from other eight-year-olds in the schoolyard. But I'm pretty sure everyone from the age of twelve onwards has a very clear link in their heads when they say "How can you even think of wearing that? Those pants are so gay!"

Not that "Those pants make you look like a homosexual," but "Those pants are so inferior to what everyone else is wearing, the same way that gays are inferior to straight people, ergo--those pants are so gay." Except the thought process is probably a lot faster, to the point where the word "gay" is just shorthand for "inferior" (but with the subtext still lurking there in the background), and probably without the actual "ergo".

I definitely believe that the word used that way has a subtext for heterosexuals and that it totally has a link to sexuality (or rather, sexual orientation) for the people saying it. I agree that it's not underlying homophobic rage; I instead think that it's more like a socialized homophobic distaste.

You look at the pants. Your mind flashes on, say, Jack McFarland (Sean Hayes) from Will & Grace. You say "Those pants are so gay!"

Of course, I look at the pants and say, "I have to have them."

Memo to me: Must buy pants.

I put the two asterisks in because some people are reading this from their workplaces. I have no personal aversion to the letters "un"...some of my best friends are *un*s.

Besides, Oli, we all know perfectly well why words like c**t are considered more obscene: because women have them, and men don't. We're still, by and large, in a misogynistic culture and this is a direct reflection of that.

We're also, by and large, still in a homophobic culture. Last I heard, calling a straight man a slut or c**t is practically nothing, but calling him a fag, queer, homo or c**ksucker (or even gay) is considered far more defamatory.

One. I had to take a moment to remember which exercise the push-up was.

Never never never never NEVER. Never. Not unless you're ready and willing to be suddenly unemployed, or suddenly have all your co-workers dislike and distrust you.

If you value your potential affair with your boss more than your job, quit your job first and then follow through on the affair. If that sounds crazy to you, then turn your bedroom eyes elsewhere. There are about a million other people you could be sleeping with besides your boss. Go find one, or five, or twenty.

I have always tried to be a responsible sexual vixen.

The problem with waiting for someone you want to be with for the rest of your life is that, from about 11 to 17, you're absolutely convinced that anyone who you've been going out with for more than a milkshake is absolutely the person you want to be with for the rest of your life.

I was considered to be a loser in high school for waiting till I was 17 for my first sexual encounter. My friends spent a great deal of time trying to set me up (with, it has to be said, a whole bunch of other losers). Despite that, I managed to find someone who I found attractive and who found me attractive--probably partly because I was 17 but let's try to ignore that--and we had a perfectly nice time in the front (bucket) seats of his car even though we couldn't see very well and the stick shift was poking up menacingly between us.

He couldn't believe it was my first time. I told him I'd done a lot of reading up.

I then scared a lot of men away because I was much more serious about being in a relationship than they were. Consequently my first real relationship wasn't till I was about 25...which, coincidentally, is probably about the time that I was mature enough and secure enough within myself to actually handle a relationship.

Let's see...I loved Jet Grind Radio, Unreal Tournament, Phantasy Star Online, Ecco the Dolphin, Seaman, Typing of the Dead (!), Ikaruga, Resident Evil: Code Veronica, Chu Chu Rocket and Quake III Arena.

It really was a great console--ahead of its time (perhaps fatally so) in so many ways. I don't know if we'll ever see such an intense concentration of high-quality games on one machine anytime soon.

Christmas is coming. Don we now our gay apparel!

Oli, as I think has been demonstrated, no one--at least no one gay--has taken this perfectly lovely word away from you. You are free to go out and rent The Gay Divorcee, sing along with Candide's "Glitter and Be Gay," and read Gay Parties for All Occasions (though maybe not on public transit). Even the Flintstones, as far as I know, are still having "a gay old time."

Similarly, no one has altered the original meanings of queer, fairy, pansy, sister, mary, bitch, queen, fruit, poof, gearbox, invert or swish. If you think it's queer for a fairy to fly down onto a pansy, or for your sister Mary to bitch about the Queen of England while watching a magician make a bowl of fruit go "poof" on television, then that's just fine by me. I think it's perfectly gay, myself.

And I think it's also amply clear that no word, no matter how offensive, troubling or obscene, is brutal enough in and of itself enough to have its usage qualify as a hate crime. The "c" word is one of the nastiest words in the English language when used perjoratively--yet no one is likely to be locked up just for referring to someone as a c**t, even if they're shouting. (In Ireland, you'd be just as likely shouting the word right back.)

That said, you'd be hard pressed to tell a woman who's been called a c**t that she should lighten up because it's "just a word".

Unsurprisingly, I'm with Ryan. It should be fairly obvious when a word is being used in a positive or benign way, and when it is being used as an insult or in a derogatory fashion. If someone over the age of eight thinks that it's their God-given right to say that my $200 shoes "look so gay," good for them--but they shouldn't expect me to hold back from telling them to "shut your c**t."

As "a gay," I have to agree that the schoolyard usage of the word "That's so gay!" strikes me as merely juvenile and not hateful.

I do remember being in the boys' locker room in Grade 8 or so when one of my schoolmates was undressing to change for class. He was physically more mature than the rest of us, so besides having a fine body, a hairy chest and butt, he also had a sizable uncircumcised penis--the first uncut penis I had ever seen. I guess I stared at it long enough that someone else in the room shouted across at me, "What's the matter, are you GAY or something?" which resulted in lots of nasty laughter, and embarrassment for me. That may not be a hate crime (a near sexual assault in an empty gym by some of the same boys later that year is a different story), but the contempt and disgust were certainly apparent.

With all due respect to Oli, gays didn't commandeer the words that describe them. Homosexuals of the period had no real control over how they were described by heterosexuals, and used the same words that the straight world did. Words like 'gay' and 'queer' were just the most genteel words that could be used to describe those who, in the last few decades of the 19th century and the first few of the 20th, were starting to be thought of as 'the third sex.'

The first time I remember hearing the word 'gay' in its current context was in the film Bringing Up Baby (on television, not when it was first released!), where Cary Grant for somewhat complicated reasons is wearing a lace nightgown. When he's asked if this is the way he always dresses, he snarkily answers (and apparently this was an ad-lib on his part): "No, I've just gone gay all of a sudden!" Even then it occurred to me that he didn't mean 'happy'. The film was made in 1938, and even then the word was well known enough to have made its way into a mainstream motion picture as a laugh-producing punchline.

Similarly, Mae West's plays The Drag (1927) and The Pleasure Man (1928), both prominently featured homosexuals and drag queens among the characters, and both included some surprisingly frank dialogue. When one dowager states, "Ugh, such people. I can't understand them. They're so queer," a rather flamboyant gentleman answered, "Yes, my dear—extraordinarily queer. I think queer is the word."

Wellllllllll...Final Fantasy VII is an amazing game and is probably in the top ten if not the top five. Rich and complex story, distinctive characters, innovative gameplay. I personally found it to be somewhat chilly in tone, and that the story sometimes crossed the line from complex to convoluted, and for me that was somewhat offputting.

I have to admit that I have a great love for Chrono Cross (even over Chrono Trigger--I'm probably alone in the world for this) for its warmth and charm, and its considerable emotional power. For me, it's probably the greatest game ever.

There are also strong arguments to be made for Starcraft, Half-Life, Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Resident Evil 4 and Metal Gear: Solid. Hell, even Doom and Tetris could be up there, if we want to talk groundbreaking.

I too had a recent red-ring-of-death in the family, but got a brand new replacement from the usually hideous Best Buy affiliate Futureshop.

At that point I was playing Bioshock which kicked all kinds of ass. I think it's easily the best game of the year so far. I finally finished it earlier this week and got the Good Ending (cuz I'm a good guy), so I took a day off before starting the next mountain climb: yep, Halo 3.

I'm about 20 mins into H3 and I'm enjoying it but...I know it's kind of apples and oranges to say this...it's a bit of a comedown from Bioshock. Mind you, I loved the novelty of Bioshock's setting, its atmosphere and its unfolding story. H3 is a familiar franchise so it doesn't offer the same opportunities for surprise and engrossment.

But hey, it's Halo 3!

I think it's SuperHeartFunGames for the win!