Old People Are Losers

2005.09.29 - Thursday

New Battlestar Galactica too hot for "Colonial Fleets"

Well, these old people are, anyway. "Colonial Fleets" is apparently some lame message board or mailing list for disgruntled hippy losers who still live in the 70s and think the old Battlestar Galactica series was actually good. Not only do they love and praise the original, but they think the new one is awful, immoral, and disgusting.

For the record, just because a show has terrorist characters and portrays their point of view at times, doesn't mean the show is justifying terrorism. Just because a show has a rape scene doesn't mean the show is justifying rape. Sometimes you can have these things in a story in order to show that these sorts of things happen in reality, and that they are wrong.

I don't even know what I would say to one of these "Colonial Fleet" losers. Probably nothing, as they're too far gone to even bother with.

Giant Squid

2005.09.28 - Wednesday

First photo of Giant Squid

Awesome! For years we've seen pictures of them, or pieces of them, after they've died and washed up on shore, on been caught in nets, but this is the first picture of a living giant squid in its habitat. Eight metres long is pretty huge, but it still makes me wonder if this is as big as they get. Could there be even bigger ones living in the deep places of the ocean?

There's still so much we don't know about the deep sea. I mean, it's 2005 and we've just taken the first pictures of an animal that science has been trying to find for decades. What else is down there than we don't even know about?

Fanboy Films

2005.09.27 - Tuesday

The Fanboys are coming! How Laissez-faire could revolutionize SciFi

Here is another article on the growing trend towards decent fan produced programs. I hope that this trend continues, and the fan shows become more and more sophisticated. It's nice to know that there are talented people out there who are willing to work because they care about something, as opposed to most of those who are currently part of the "real" film industry, the people who are where they are because they're good at kissing ass and passing the buck.

Go Away Feminism!

2005.09.24 - Saturday

Martha Burk protests new NHL ad

You may remember Martha as the psycho feminist who tried to get Augusta National golf club to admit its first female member. We'll ignore the idea of "freedom" and a private club's right to do what they want for now, and focus on this latest attention grab.

To be honest, I don't like the new NHL ads. They don't represent hockey, and with all of the Reebok equipment featured so heavily, you could easily mistake it for an ad of theirs. So there's a hot, scantily clad woman acting as a sort of "shield maiden" or something, dressing the player as if she were helping a knight into armour. Apparently this is enough for the ad to "demean" women and all of that other rubbish, since Martha is on the war path again.

First of all, the man in the ad is well built, muscled and attractive, but obviously all men look like that, otherwise the ad might be said to demean men as well. Please. Second, and this is really the most important part, look at that picture of Martha. Jesus. Take away the lip stick and the earrings and you'd almost think she was a man. Seriously, I'm willing to bet that what she's angry about isn't so much the good looking women found in all media, every day, but is more likely the fact that she looks nothing like them, never has, and never will.

She does have kids though. God, what a nightmare it would be to be married to that.

New image in the gallery.

Visualizations

2005.09.23 - Friday

I swear there isn't a single good visualization for Media Player or iTunes or even Winamp anywhere on the net. I was looking through a bunch of them last night, and while a lot of them provide some cool effects and weird colour patterns, none of them respond well to the music itself. They're just spinning colours and streams of light particles for no reason. If you stop the music, they keep going. Oh sure, the colours might get brighter with higher volumes, but that's just a cop out.

Luckily I don't really need any visualizations anyway. If there was a really cool one, I might use it more often, but every single one of them sucks. God, the internet is so useless.

Pad Delay

2005.09.22 - Thursday

I got the news last night that there is a delay with my pads. They have to order in the maroon coloured bindings, which come from another company apparently, since it's such an unusual colour to use. So I'll have to wait an extra week, which isn't too bad. So far it looks like I'll be waiting about a month for this set of gear, which is a lot better than waiting four and a half months, which is how long my Vaughn set took. I guess that's one good thing about going with the small guy.

Did you see the footage of the A320 emergency landing? No big deal, since nothing happening is exactly what's supposed to happen. The media sure hyped it up though, and most reporters have a painfully bad knowledge of aviation. Actually, they probably have a painfully bad knowledge about everything.

Child Care

2005.09.21 - Wednesday

Child care key to confronting China, India: PM.

So Martin wants to make sure that the education of Canadian children starts as early as possible, to give Canadian kids an advantage in the world market. It sounds like a good idea in theory, but what kind of education are these kids going to be getting? That's right! Only the best in Liberal Party education and values!

8:30am - Block A - How to waste taxpayer money 101
9:30am - Block B - How to steal taxpayer money 101
10:30am - 11:30am - One hour "recess" in solidarity with our Union family
11:30am - 1:30pm - Two hour lunch in solidarity with our Union family
1:30pm - Block C - Health Care 101 (How being fair is more important than saving lives)
2:30pm - Dismissal & Play time - Short days in solidarity with our Union family. Games include "Spread lies about the Conservatives" and "Skip rope with the NDP".

Yeah, I'm sure our country is going to be a lot better off when everyone is learning these important lessons.

Video Games Live

2005.09.20 - Tuesday

I've just ordered tickets for the October 30th Video Games Live concert here in Vancouver. I didn't bother to check the website for a few days because I assumed all of the tour dates for the show would be in US cities. I was very surprised and glad to see a Vancouver show on the list.

It should be a good time. The only concern I have about the show is that it looks a tad over-produced, but then again, what isn't these days? I know it's a concert of orchestrated video game music, but I'm just not convinced that the video display and laser show are necessary. I suppose they figure that since they won't be able to draw in the typical symphony attendee, that they need that stuff to get gamers to actually go to a theater and watch an orchestra. I suppose that's probably true for a lot of gamers, so I can't blame them.

We'll see how it goes. I know I'm not going to recognize all of the music on the program, but I'll probably recognize most of it. It should be fun.

Climbing

2005.09.19 - Monday

I went rock climbing up near Squamish on Saturday and had a pretty good time. I don't think I'll make it a full fledged hobby or anything, but it's pretty fun and relatively inexpensive. I always compared the cost of any sport to being an ice hockey goaltender, so the chances are pretty good that not too many sports will seem expensive in my eyes. I mean, people complain about the cost of skiing, but they don't know what "expensive" is.

The new gear is being made this week, and hopefully should be here sometime next week. I'm looking forward to it.

Revolution Controller

2005.09.16 - Friday

Yesterday in Japan, Nintendo finally revealed the controller for their "Revolution" console, due out next year. No one expected this:

The controller may look like a simple DVD type remote, but it is not. Using some kind of sensor technology, the console itself (seen in the background) can detect the position of the controller in 3D space. The controller is also able to understand pitch, yaw, and roll. Combined with the minimal number of buttons, Nintendo clearly believes this level of interaction will provide enough control to manipulate any game. At the moment I can see how it would be an amazing device for some game types, but a cumbersome one for others. We'll have to wait and see how the interface plays out for each game released.

There is huge potential here. This kind of controller could revolutionize the way people interact with computers in the same way that the mouse did. After all, it's basically a 3D mouse, although the rolling and tiling aspects add even more possibilities. I'm not sure exactly how it's going to work, but I want to try one, right now. I wasn't sure about getting a Revolution until last night, and now the launch date can't come soon enough.

Blank Today

2005.09.15 - Thursday

I've been surfing for the past few minutes but just can't find anything I want to talk about. I've got to stop leaving these posts to the last few minutes in the morning before I leave for work. Still, not much is happening. I'm working on some cool shots right now, I'm waiting for new pads, and NASA sucks.

Space Delay

2005.09.14 - Wednesday

In the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, the Shuttle program is in even deeper water than before. Some NASA facilities were damaged in the storm, and many workers left homeless. It seems like people can't even hazard a guess as to when another Shuttle launch could be attempted.

At this point I honestly don't care. With every passing day I become more convinced that we should scrap the Shuttle and move quickly into the next generation of simpler launch vehicles. NASA has a rocket on the drawing board, which would use many of the Shuttle's existing pieces (such as the solid rocket boosters), be bigger than the fabled Saturn V and be capable of lifting one hundred tons into orbit. That kind of capability is something we could use right freakin' now, and given the cost and time it's going to take to get the Shuttle working again, maybe it's a better idea.

I really don't care how it's done, I just want to see space stations, moon bases, and manned missions to Mars, and I want to see it now.

Prospects Game

2005.09.09 - Friday

I went to the UBC Thunderbirds vs. Canucks Prospects game last night at UBC, and shockingly enough the game was actually really good. UBC won 3-1 after putting one into an empty net. It was the first time that UBC has ever beaten the prospects team and the "home crowd" seemed to like that quite a bit.

The only one of the new rules that was in force during the game was the lack of a two line pass. It made for some great plays, but also plenty of risky passes that ended up backfiring. I imagine it will really speed things up in the NHL, as well as put more pressure on the defense not to get caught too far up ice. No one scored as a result of a long pass last night, but there were several breakaways and 2-on-1's, which lead to some great saves and lots of excitement.

Also, the more I look at current goalies the more their equipment looks ridiculous to me. North America isn't even as bad as some European teams. The goalies over there just look plain silly.

More Music

2005.09.08 - Thursday

Listening to the Mario big band stuff has made me go back and listen to some of the other orchestral arrangements of game music that I have. Some of them are still a little simplistic, even though the basic melodies are there. A lot of the Final Fantasy stuff is the best, which is understandable since the music begs to be played by an orchestra, and because the games themselves are hugely successful and benefit from large production budgets. Even so, it's worth listening to Zelda and even Metroid in their orchestrated forms.

I know the gaming industry is concerned with skyrocketing production budgets, but it would really be nice to sink a bit more money into game music for the games themselves. You can't really make a case against pre-recorded, high quality music for storage purposes, considering that most console games and even some PC games ship on DVD. I'm sure it's a money thing, which is why we still end up with MIDI, or a sort of "Super-MIDI", soundtracks while playing. Maybe we'll have to wait until sound hardware can actually make a computer generated trumpet sound like a trumpet before the quality of music production starts to improve. There's also the whole argument of MIDI music and sound being able to change dynamically with the game, as opposed to only being able to switch from one pre-recorded track to another.

I honestly don't care how they go about it, I just want the music to sound better.

Season Start

2005.09.07 - Wednesday

Exhibition games start this weekend for my hockey team. I haven't been on the ice, in net at least, since last spring so it should be interesting. These days I always look forward to hockey starting again, and it seems like there's even more anticipation this year. It's probably from not playing all summer, although I'm sure the excitement around the NHL's return plays a part as well.

Hopefully we'll have another good season. Check out the "Ice Cats" link below for game information, if you're interested.

Game Orchestras

2005.09.06 - Tuesday

After five straight days off I'm headed back to work. I'm sure I could still use more time, but there are things to be done. Maybe I'll do it again in a couple of months.

I finally got a whole bunch of new game music organized and into iTunes, after several hours of file renaming and MP3 tagging. Mostly it's original soundtracks from some SNES and N64 games, but I also managed to find a couple of arranged CDs of Mario and F-Zero themes, as well as a complete live big band Mario and Zelda concert from Japan. The orchestral and big band stuff is always the best, and it makes me wish we had that sort of thing in North America. There was a concert down in LA a few months ago of Final Fantasy music, among other things, but that doesn't really help me. Still, I suppose it's a start.

I don't know what it is, but I just can't stand the idea that professional orchestras are only allowed to play "the right kind" of music. Usually that means stuff that's at least 150 years old. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the classics, I like them, but there are other choices out there. New music is being made, and it's not all mindless pop and rock. People need to widen their vision a bit.