Shameless personal plug...

Slaves of She Devils take the IM B League championship


Full reso

mmmmm IT crowd....

Adlai Stevenson, New York City (27th August, 1952)

For the last 4 year or so I'd felt a strange connection to the 50s. We have a large resurgence of conservative values, a social phenomena corrupting youth, and very few liberal, level headed charismatic leaders who actually stood against the tide of conforming. Because most of the very few peers of mine who have even a remote chance of knowing who Adlai Stevenson was, I'll throw you a bone, he said something that was funny to the Soviet UN ambassador during the cuban missile crisis that was included in the movie 'Thirteen Days'.

This was a speech he made in New York City in 1952 after speaking out against witch-hunters like McCarthy, which I'm SURE we can find a parallel to in todays society... So it is my opinion that you should reread his words, conveniently copy and pasted here for you, because after a single democrat was silenced filibustering a vote on the renewal of the Patriot Act recently we are going to need all the independent thinkers we can muster.


We talk a great deal about patriotism. What do we mean by patriotism in the context of our times? I venture to suggest that what we mean is a sense of national responsibility which will enable America to remain master of her power - to walk with it in serenity and wisdom, with self-respect and the respect of all mankind; a patriotism that puts country ahead of self; a patriotism which is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime. The dedication of a lifetime - these are words that are easy to utter, but this is a mighty assignment. For it is often easier to fight for principles than to live up to them.

Patriotism, I have said, means putting country before self. This is no abstract phrase, and unhappily, we find some things in American life today of which we cannot be proud.

True patriotism, it seems to me, is based on tolerance and a large measure of humility.

There are men among us who use "patriotism" as a club for attacking other Americans. What can we say for the self-styled patriot who thinks that a Negro, a Jew, a Catholic, or a Japanese-American is less an American than he? That betrays the deepest article of our faith, the belief in individual liberty and equality which has always been the heart and soul of the American idea.

What can we say for the man who proclaims himself a patriot - and then for political or personal reasons attacks the patriotism of faithful public servants? I give you, as a shocking example, the attacks which have been made on the loyalty and the motives of our great wartime Chief of Staff, General Marshall. To me this is the type of "patriotism" which is, in Dr. Johnson's phrase, "the last refuge of scoundrels."

The anatomy of patriotism is complex. But surely intolerance and public irresponsibility cannot be cloaked in the shining armor of rectitude and righteousness. Nor can the denial of the right to hold ideas that are different - the freedom of man to think as he pleases. To strike freedom of the mind with the fist of patriotism is an old and ugly subtlety.

And the freedom of the mind, my friends, has served America well. The vigor of our political life, our capacity for change, our cultural, scientific and industrial achievements, all derive from free inquiry, from the free mind - from the imagination, resourcefulness and daring of men who are not afraid of new ideas. Most all of us favor free enterprise for business. Let us also favor free enterprise for the mind. For, in the last analysis, we would fight to the death to protect it. Why is it, then, that we are sometimes slow to detect, or are indifferent to, the dangers that beset it?
~Adlai Stevenson

NYC from a urban perspective...

What the hell is with Zagat's survey? 70% of the restaurants we walked by in Little Italy, SoHo, and plenty of the under midtown areas, you could not escape a Zagat's review clippings next to ever posted menu outside a restaurant. As far as I could tell it said "EAT HERE FRIGHTENED OUT-OF-TOWNERS." Thats not the way to have a goo time on vacation, and its not the way to get me into your shop. Its surprising though, I wonder who is these people that treat that book like its the freaking bible.

I like older cities though, unlike newer cities, you see big name shops and restaurants and even chain stores you recognize, in buildings that they do not belong in and it looks awesome for that. An Applebee's in a 5 flat, barely 600 ft wide but 4 stories high, thats cool. Times square is small chunk of the Las Vegas strip, cool. The various neighborhoods all felt like areas of Chicago, just bigger. In fact the whole town, just felt a lot like Chicago, but bigger, except our tallest building is taller. :P

The only time I ever thought, "...only in New York" was when we visited 3-4 art galleries where we saw the largest collection of Tiffany lamp and pieces in the world. There is only about 10 Tiffany dealers in the nation, they all know each other, and they all have showrooms or collections in New York, I saw 5-6 different styles of Tiffany then I ever knew existed. Sotheby's and Christi's often have auctions of these lamps because they are simply amazing.

Tiffanies are incredible works of art and I've just been awestruck by them. But the most surreal thing I can think of though is that people own these things AND are in museums, hell I kept having scenes from Indiana Jones pop in my head where Indy beats up some guy for a artifact yelling "That belongs in a museum!" And then I saw this... that piece is modest in market value, but very nice piece of large turtleback glass and glass beads all around, there is a nob missing on the base though. This lists in on my desk. I own something that could be in a museum. Wow, I just can't get over it.

Lastly though, the 6-8 year old girls in Uggs and big sunglasses made me realize something, these coasties just weren't raised to know the difference between right and wrong, they cant help it. I won't look at them with irritation and disapproval.... now its more like...oh well...

I'll post more probably.

extra blog...

linking as follows...

Continued Ravings...

I felt resticted as I want to keep these posts more formal...

so crazy it just might...wait.. no it wont

Russ Feingold has either lost it completely or the only sane human in congress. Moving to censure President Bush...
"It's a big step, but what the president did by consciously and intentionally violating the Constitution and laws of this country with this illegal wiretapping has to be answered."

Man he's got BALLS. Especially for a guy who as ALMOST as many farmers as urban city voters.

Think someone else in congress may be sane? Not bloody likely; exhibit A ) Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, also speaking on ABC, said Feingold "is just wrong...He is flat wrong, he is dead wrong," said the Tennessee Republican -- also a potential presidential candidate in 2008 -- adding that "attacking our commander in chief ... doesn't make sense."

WHAT?! Why is not agreeing with Bush a bad thing? Oh yeah, you get called a traitor by fucktards like...well...everyone from Tennessee.

12 steps to making gamers not look like social outcasts who like guns

As I read at Ars today...

12-step plan for the games industry (Game Marketing Conf Keynote)
1. Talk up the rating system. The goal here is to inform people that videogames are rated just like movies, and no one is suggesting that the federal government start regulating those.
2. Extol the virtues of video gaming. Let your friends and neighbors know all the wonderful things that videogames can do for you. Geohegan used examples from the book Everything Bad is Good for You to make his claim that videogames can boost reflexes and intelligence.
3. Do research. Game developers should partner with respected universities to conduct accurate testing on the good and bad effects of videogames and publicize the results. (If you're wondering why the step comes after the step in which you tell everyone about the benefits of videogames, you're not the only one.)
4. Remind people that youth culture is often opposed by those in authority. The obvious example of this is rock 'n roll, and Geohegan believes that videogames are just the latest example of the trend. His point is that new forms of culture usually don't turn out to destroy society after all.
5. Encourage both moderation and good parenting. Just because people like to game doesn't mean they should do it round-the-clock. Parents who are concerned about what their children are playing ought to get involved and start making decisions about what is and is not appropriate; in other words, they should start being parents.
6. Benchmark against sex and violence in other media. Gamers should point out the frequency of sex, violence, and profanity on television and in the movies, thereby proving that videogames aren't so bad after all.
7. Embrace the Constitution. Gamers need to wrap themselves in the flag and start talking more about freedom of speech.
8. Lobby. Find some willing congressman and start throwing cash their way.
9. Get good spokespeople. Find gamers who are also respected for their work (like Peter Jackson) to helped promote the industry and change the stereotype of gamers as children.
10. Show people the best games. Make sure people know that there's more to video gaming than dropping opponents with head shots. Tell them about the wonders of Guitar Hero, Mario Kart, Katamari Damacy, etc.
11. Put the issue in perspective. Eighty percent of all games are not rated M, so the extreme violence so often referenced when talking about videogames only occurs in a small section of the market.
12. Be proud. Gamers should not feel shame about their hobby, and they should get better at explaining to friends and neighbors just why they enjoy it so much.


Games aren't different than any other form of entertainment, except its the scape goat for anytime a kid goes apeshit in a white neighborhood.

Stop shifting blame

I can honestly say this is a great summation of my feelings on "video game violence" in convenient Tshirt form

Music: theories and commentary

I don't know how often you listen to music. I listen to music. We all do really. Except robots, I don't think they like music much at all. Everyone can think music as playing a part of his or her lives. We all run to soundtracks of our own makings. We characterize the 60s by the revolution of rock; the 70s by disco, the 80s by the synthesizer and the electric keyboard, 90s by grunge rock and the emergence of hip hop and rap, the new millennium by MTV exploitation and artificial pop....

I personally can't go 5 minutes without a song forcing its way into the front of my mind, and it’s not something I mind either. There is just far too many theories and thoughts I have on music for me to keep a continue in an organized fashion, so I have to admit I'll just have to wing it and hope you keep up. Organization isn’t what music is really about anyways so expect random tangents and interjecting thoughts, after all if you ended up where you thought you would be at the end of a song its not a good one is it?

Foremost in my mind, I cannot stand people who disregard a type of music to be ‘worthless’, or ‘not music’ or ‘not art.’ I consider it a type of racism to consider a genre of music to be worthless. I will repeat myself; I cannot take people discounting a whole range of music as "not music.” I cannot stress enough that it tantamount to racism; as generally its rap that weathers the brunt of “that’s not music” comments. Classical music snobs (as the most common music racist) call rap and hip-hop as a medium of bitches, cars, drugs created by no talent ex-drug dealers. Well clearly because of their enthusiasm for music so steeped in European history, they have the right to decide what is or is not a performing art. I wanted to write a strong, emphatic article but I cant promise clean, fuck them. If you can't find artistry in an entire style of music, you are clearly uninterested in looking. If you think hip hop was never a real art and are dancing on its grave then you need to listen to ‘The Documentary’ by ‘The Game,’ its an amazing album; even if you haven’t been to the hood recently or never sold rock on the street corner, that album can move you. On the other side of the coin, to be fair, if you think classical music is all Bach and elitist snob music then you need to find the scores for the movie The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" and the Batman Begins score. Hans Zimmer and Harry Gregson-Williams worked magic on these soundtracks. I've so far gone after the obvious targets of music hate, hip-hop and classical; but what about music's other rivalry?

Lets not ignore Country and Rock, these two have not exactly been at war with each other but with themselves for some time now; country has had the obvious problem of manufactured fake country that lasts as long as an artificial sugar high, luckily this kind of country has crashed and burned as the community of country music fans seem quite good at spoting fake artists; unfortunately Rock has suffered from a collapse from a civil war. Rock is actually second generation Rock and Roll which is characterized by the Rolling Stones, Blue Öyster Cult, Led Zeppelin, and the late Jimi Hendrix. Modern Rock was the first new genre to come out as the new mainstream rock and roll music, but eventually they cut the bullshit and called it Rock when they realized it was no longer modern or able to stand up to the now "classic" rock of the greats. The alternative rock scene breathed life back into Rock, bands like Nirvana, Bush, Offspring, Smashing Pumpkins, Foo Fighters, Godsmack, anything grungy, and fast. I find it interesting that a generation of Alt rock fans now generally goes nuts over bands like Coldplay, Dave Matthews, and the Killers; but I might get into that sort of commentary later.

What makes music important? Music can make you remember things (remembrance value), feel things, change your thinking or your mood, and make you feel connected either to other people or to something greater. Remembrance value is a term that came up in a discussion I had about Abbey Road about 5 years ago and the term stuck. Abbey Road was the greatest album ever created according to my friend; his argument was that at the time he was listening to the album heavily, he was going through an episode with a close friend, or love interest or something like that. The point is, every time he heard an Abbey Road song from then on, and he remembered those feelings he was having about this girl. He claimed the remembrance value of Abbey Road was the highest of any album/song/music because of the vividness of the memories that came to him every time he heard the songs. We all have those songs, thinking “Ah that takes me back” is a big clue the song has a large remembrance value to you. Any time a song makes you want to close your eyes and just listen, is a great song. Songs like that are important to us because they give us a moment of clarity and peace, no matter if we are stuck on a subway train. Songs that change your thinking/mood are also important, the song that makes you smile by 30 seconds in, that is a great song. Songs that make you feel connected, to me, are usually some of the same songs that give me the 40 seconds of peace. I can’t really describe it better than this: some songs make me feel there is a higher plane, a connectedness among humans that only exists when we’re all listening to the same rhythm. This brings me to a new point…

Music is a religion to me because of songs like that. In a practical sense, a religion is a construct designed to make you feel good in the moment, feel assured about the future, and connect with other people. Music does all of these and more. If you can’t rattle off 5 songs that make you feel just GOOD…change your oil because you are a robot, if you can’t share an emotional connection or a certain song/album that is either private or with another person (ever have an “our song”?) go stock up on WD-40 because you are still a robot. I don’t want to declare any new paradigm about what music is, but as far as music causing a connection between people, I have 2 pieces of evidence: the concert and the church. Concerts tend to form a sense of community, people who find they were at the same concert talk about it and get excited hence the obligatory concert t-shirt purchase. Church is also another good example, its historical record that adding music to the Catholic church increased its popularity but even when you considered yourself ‘stuck’ at mass, you can’t help but feel something… especially at holidays, its slightly out of reach to describe to me, but I feel like you probably know what I mean.

I dug at MTV in this article’s opening so I feel a need to justify that comment. I do feel contempt for MTV. Since I was born, MTV has revolutionized and has attempted to destroy everything that is important to music. MTV is really an entity that started with good intentions and went from bad to worse. The first day of airing, MTV ran music videos non-stop; quickly this got old as you can imagine. MTV began running game shows, award ceremonies, the Real World (which is actually the pinnacle of scripted reality, network TV’s shows don’t even come close), and various crap like “Pimp my ride” or as I like to call it “Destroy any value my car may have had when sold for parts.” MTV has helped foster, extend the life of, and even create its own pop music icons. Fake music is the bane of all creative musical endeavors. The 1-hit wonder pop groups and the boy bands are the biggest offenders. If its been test marketed and remixed into an entirely different sound its not music any more. That is my biggest problem with MTV, not only does it feed off music, but it feeds off itself creating its own hype for itself. In the last few years one other problem as occurred, the music video became extremely popular. There are many good ones but they are far outnumbered by the bad ones. As Lewis Back once said, “Music goes in your ears and your brain creates an image. But now we have music videos, those go through your eyes, and if your brain makes an image that looks like the music video… kill yourself, you have no reason to live.” I can’t think of a better way to put it, there is nothing special, unique or inspiring in most music videos and it very well might destroy the special meaning you might have associated with that song. The loss of the special, personal, meaning in music is an assault on my religion, so I avoid it as much as possible.

I have talked a lot what makes music good to me but not at all about what kind of music I like. Music that is good to me generally has a few characteristics that they seem to hold in common. First and foremost, FULL. Music has to be full; it has to be big and robust, not loud mind you, but complete, full. Fullness to me is using the entire spectrum of audio, I don’t mean it has to have all different type of instruments and played from high treble to low bass. From left to right, the music has to occupy the entire range, a good example of this is why I like orchestral strings so much, it’s very common to hold the entire range of sound left and right. The score to The Chronicles of Narnia that I have mentioned before has these characteristics too. Other good examples could come from live rock, and electronica like BT and Chemical Brothers. Electronica is a very BUSY medium, I have listened to certain songs on repeat dozens of times trying to mentally isolate every track running through the song, and then once I think I had then, follow certain ones through the whole song, or attempting to tap a finger to each beat, that’s a challenge. One I would like to single out as well is “Hart of a Champion” by Nelly, however only the version of that includes a large vocal band remixed into the song, it sound much like Carmina Burana with rapping over it, odd but its good.

Music that can make you feel good about life in the moment are the ones that make you smile to repeat myself. An entire album that can do that for me is Dosage by Collective Soul, I’m a sucker for 90s rock because that’s what I started listening to when I independently, its just good rock sound that is more uplifting than angry. Interestingly enough the score to both the Last Samurai and Batman Begins also do this in some of the songs.

Heavy, powerful voices are also make a sucker out of me, Crash Test Dummies is a one hit wonder with a powerful vocal lead, though Depeche Mode is the ultimate example of a powerful vocal to me, Creed is also right up there. Depeche Mode is also a great example of full sounding music in many of their singles, the best one I can think of is “It’s No Good.” Most Better than Ezra songs, Guster, and Eve 6 songs also are insta-mood-improvement

Songs that make me question the existing of something more, quite aptly named for how I described this, is “More than This” by Peter Gabriel. Various other songs strike me from time to time but not quite as constantly as “Under pressure” by David Bowie and Queen. “I see death around the Corner” by 2Pac, “Headful of Ghosts” by Bush, “Lucky Man” by The Verve, “Organ Donor (Extended Overhaul)” by DJ Shadow, “The Best things” by Filter. God, ok I’ve saved most recommendations for a list I’ll put at the end.

Hip Hop is also a huge favorite of mine; different types for different reasons though; some songs the lyrics seem just incredibly powerful, like “Dream” by The Game just… it just kills me every time. Early Dr Dre and Snoop Dogg are lyrical masterpieces. On the other side hip hop with good beats generally could replace their lyrics for instructions to assemble Ikea furniture, the beat is just that good. In the words of Chris Rock, “If the beats all right, she’ll dance all night.” Hip Hop may be misogynistic and crude to some, but those who enjoy it, could not care less. And either do I.

Classical music is a bit of a mixed bag for me, Bach, Beethoven does not interest me in the slightest, and it violates the fundamental law of music being full. Carmina Burana (mentioned before) is epic in quality and many of the songs in the set are a joy to listen to at very very loud volumes. Same goes for Holts’ The Planets. ‘Liberi Fatali’, the opening song to Final Fantasy VIII, is amazing, as is a good chunk of the Original Soundtrack pieces from Final Fantasy X especially ‘Suteki da ne’. I swear serenity is in that song.

As far as live music I have seen, I will always remember this one all-day outdoor concert set. It was at the Rosemont Horizon, later called the All-State Arena but who wants to call it that? Anyways, it was getting into the evening and the sun was just fully set where the sky was dark purple but not black yet. Airplanes had been flying directly over the stage because the airport is right next to; and it had been pissing off people and the performers all day for the most part until Kill Hannah showed up. These guys had a very very strong fan base, extremely loyal people and they were going nuts with them on stage, I was standing a small distance from the main crowd and they had just launched into ‘Welcome to Chicago’ one of their best known songs and just as the chorus was starting, a plane went over and they didn’t miss a beat, the fans didn’t notice. The sound normally drowned the music out but for some reason I just didn’t hear anything, I have this perfect image to the band performing, the crowd moving back and forth, up and down perfect with the music I knew they were hearing, hands in the air…rocking. The lighting of the stage playing off the landing lights of the plane strangely complementary, perfect, soundless. Whoa.


Not really recommendations, but these are a small sample of songs I consider to be good examples of the qualities I enjoy most in music : a taste of music