It can be difficult for many of today's expanding market of gamers to realize just how far we've come. It can also be difficult to know just who the great visionaries were who started the domino effect which led to what we know today as "video gaming".

For many gamers, one name that has stayed in the forefront as belonging to an innovator is that of the founder of Atari, the individual usually credited with first bringing home video games to the masses in the form of a timeless little c1assic called "Pong". That name is Nolan Bushnell.

Bushnell definitely deserves a lot of credit - not for "Pong" per se, but for his ability to market home video games to the masses in a way that actually proliferated it into a viable market of its own - one that couldn't be killed, even with a rather large recession in the industry less than a decade after his initial "Pong" consoles hit the market. He contributed not only some of the more polished versions of the "Pong" game, but also a grand console that blew the market wide-open, a console we knew then as the Atari Video Computer System, but which is remembered now more as the Atari 2600. But for all the credit Bushnell deserves, inventing the first home video game console and the titular masterpiece "Pong" aren't really among them.

In fact, an individual named Ralph Baer first came up with the idea of using the then relatively new device called the "Television Set" for something other than just receiving broadcasts all the way back in 1951. Those ideas eventually blossomed into a proposal in 1955 pitched to the company he then worked for, a manufacturer of television sets called Loral. His proposal, simple but radical for the time, was to include an interactive game built into the television as a way of differentiating the Loral sets from those of their enormous competition.

The management of Loral didn't really grasp the potential of it, gave it a firm rejection, and the idea clearly proposed before its time went into stasis. A long hybernation ensued, but the core never died in Baer's mind. Eventually in the process of dealing with his engineering duties, his ideas and thoughts resurfaced and motivated him to write a proposal on what he called "Television Games" in 1966. He began developing the idea and testing out models, which eventually led to a functioning unit he called the "Brown Box". The idea was pitched and the model demonstrated to several outlets, including cable companies, but it was not taking root in the minds of executives, who likely saw it as a bit far-fetched, and more costly to produce than could be recovered in the proceeds of the service.

It was then that Baer and his colleagues decided to try television companies again. They approached many companies with some interest but limited success. That is until 1971, when Magnavox, an established television producer, took interest. Seeking to set itself apart from the increasing competition it was facing at the time, Magnavox chose to license the "Brown Box" and hired Baer to remodel it against their own specifications. Among the many games that Baer had developed for Magnavox's effort were a simple game modeled after "Table Tennis". Most of us will recognize that game today as a more primitive version of what we know as "Pong".

Thus the first home video game console, and the first real attempt at marketing video games to the masses, was born in 1972 in the form of the Magnavox Odyssey. It was while attending a demonstration of this console that Nolan Bushnell was inspired to design the popular home Pong consoles and ultimately lead his company to develop the mega-popular Atari 2600. And not only did it stimulate the new minds of the burgeoning video game console industry in the West, but also in venerable Japan. In fact, the gaming giant we all know as Nintendo got its start in the important role of home video game console provider by obtaining the rights to distribute the Magnavox Odyssey in Japan in 1975, selling it under the Nintendo name. One can easily see that Ralph's magnum opus not only planted the seed for what eventually became the Atari 2600, but for what eventually became the Nintendo Entertainment System as well.

I won't speak much here on what made the Odyssey so special. You can read about that in my review. What I will say is that despite the fact that it was extremely simple, many concepts we see today are still in use from its meager beginnings, including the light gun and accompanying games that were sold which have been a mainstay to the industry as a whole. This console holds a special place in my heart because it was my first video game experience, and my first home console. I've been a console gamer ever since, and I owe it to Baer's vision. Ideas he hammered out well before I was born are still playing a part in my life thirty-four years later. It may seem primitive today, but as someone who saw it at the time, it generated a lot of enthusiasm from everyone in our household, from my grandparents to my parents and all the way down to me. It was a favorite for many years among my family even after the now-famous "Pong" consoles were released in collaboration between Atari and Sears. It remained active all the way up until the Atari VCS (2600) took hold on the market and happily invaded my home.

The story of Ralph Baer is not just one of technical achievement, but of survival and triumph. As a Jew caught up in the furor of the Nazi Regime's takeover of his homeland, he and his family escaped to the United Statues only a few years before the infamous Kristallnacht. He kept his ideas alive, even without realizing just how popular they would become. Once implemented, his notion of "television games" became one of the most explosive industries in the country in less than a decade, and for all the worry that it was a dying fad at the end of that run, it still lives on today in ways he probably couldn't have fathomed. It's the reason why we're here on a gaming forum in the first place, reading this. He's more than just a gaming personality to me and I am sure many others -- he's a personal hero.

For many years his contributions have been shadowed out in many cases, to the point that many gamers simply don't know who he is. Bushnell's place as a legitimate industry star has in some cases unfairly outshined Baer's more foundational contributions. But lately, the tide has been turning. In the last few years, Baer has received a few awards honoring his place in the history of this industry. In 2005, he received a "Legend Award" at G4's G-Phoria video game awards, and in 2006, he was awarded the National Medal of Technology by President Bush for his pioneering work in the video game industry. Just a few days ago on January 12, 2008, Baer received the 2008 IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Electronics Award, and on February 20 of this year, he will be awarded the "Pioneer Award" at the GMP 2008 Developer's Choice Awards.

It's nice to see the tide is turning. Congratulations Ralph! You deserve it!

P.S. I am not the only Gamespotter who has written on this industry hero's legacy. Shame-usBlackley wrote about Ralph's contributions in even more detail a few years ago in his blog entry entitled Forgetting the Face of Your Father. It's an interesting read, and for anyone interested in hearing more about this industry veteran, it's well worth checking out.

I was at the Kane and Lynch website established by Eidos advertising and marketing departments several days ago, and noticed from their blurbs that both Game Informer and Gamespy had given this game perfect scores as well as at least one truly glowing comment. I also seemed to notice the same thing being said on advertisements for the game on another site which I visit regularly. Now, I simply had no reason to investigate this or question it. Gametrailers, after all, gave the game a reasonably high score though obviously no where near perfect, and not being a regular visitor of Gamespy as well as discontinuing my reading of Game Informer more than two years ago, I just assumed that the ad was reporting accurately.

Then MrCHUP0N pointed me to this article. If you don't want to read it, I'll summarize it for you. Basically, neither Game Informer nor Gamespy gave such scores to Kane and Lynch, and the comments in question were not from reviews but from previews from E3 -- made many many months ago and under a different context.

It's hard not to take information that is so seemingly false personally, especially when you are the one who has been caught by it unawares. Beyond just taking it personally, it is also bewildering that a company with such a strong record would run such ads at such a sensitive time. There's a lot of controversy regarding both that game and at least one review in particular that we at Gamespot are all very familiar with right now, so this just seems to add to the controversy. So what should we make of all of this. There has to be a bigger picture here. So I talked about this on a few other boards, and something very interesting came up on one of them in particular which I hadn't considered. Armed with this newpossibility generated by those discussions, I went back and took a better look at some of these ads to verify it. It was then that the sad truth of it all hit me.

It's a marketing ploy.

That might actually seem like the understatement of the year, since any dishonest reporting of information in an advertisement is a marketing ploy, but this one is particularly pernicious. I actually think what they've done is a little bit of advertising/marketing visual trickery. They aren't using the horizontal star bars as scores per se. They're using them as separators. In other words, the five star bars are being used to separate each "positive" comment.

It's a common thing in advertising to design an ad in such a way thatit is technically true and yet still misleading. By using the horizontal five-star bars as separators, they know that many readers will read that as a score, and yet they can plausibly deny that this was their intention. At the same time, they aren't calling any of their quotes review quotes, so putting in preview quotes can also be plausibly denied as intentionally misleading as well. Of course, they know all too well that using the star bars as separators only reinforces the illusion that they are quoting reviews.

It's a flimsy subterfuge. Anyone who is savvy can easily see their strategy here -- especially when it would have been easy to use more suitable separating bars. To use a four or five star bar as a separator when four and five star rating systems are so common from review sources of any type, not just gaming review sources, just piles intention to mislead on top of intention to mislead, all in the convenient name of visual utility. Unfortunately, and here's the kicker, this is a COMMON PRACTICE among advertisers for movies, games, et. al. Eidos' marketing and advertising departments aren't the first to do this sort of thing and won't be the last.

A lot of my friends both on and off of Gamespot know me as a headstrong Capitalist who unashamedly defends his individualist money-making ideology to its greedy end. That is absolutely true of me. I am guilty as charged! As a result, some of the ones who know me more passively expect me to defend practices like the one we are discussing here as just the acceptable status-quo of doing business. Nothing could be further from the truth, but in order to explain the seeming disparity, I am going to have to wax exceedingly philosophical for a moment.

First it should be obvious that just because it is common to do things like this doesn't mean that it is RIGHT to do things like this. But there's really more to it than that. Here's the problem I have with this sort of thing from the perspective of a staunch Capitalist -- Capitalism isn't just an economic system to me. It is rather metaphysically tied to the issue of self-ownership and freedom. Capitalism is in fact derivitive of those greater principles. It is dictated to by them. It is the only system that allows the individual to create and enjoy the product of his mind, whatever form that may come in, including profits and property which he earns. A man who cannot do that isn't a free man. To take this a little further, in order for self-ownership and individual sovereignty to be regarded in the world, two things must be completely banished from human relationships. Those two things are the initiation of force and the initiation of fraud, including all threats thereof.

Initiatory force and fraud (as opposed to the sadly necessary defensive force and even defensive fraud) are both blatant attempts to circumvent the individual's ability to apply the thoughts and conclusions of his rational mind to his daily life. Force seems more obvious as it is a direct circumvention of the individual's control of his own person and property through overwhelming compulsion, but since it isn't the culprit in this case of mal-advertisements, I don't need to discuss it further here. Instead, I'll discuss the much more subtle fraudulent means by which human beings are denied their right to self-determination. Initiatory fraud is basically an attempt to pollute the filters of your rational faculty with faulty information in order to influence the direction of your decision-making to ends it would not be guided to without such faulty information. It is much more common than acts of violence, but can have consequences which are just as dangerous.

And in my epistemological view, initiatory fraud is just as separated, even opposed, to the metaphysical properties of Capitalism as is any form of forceful compulsion.

I have no real tolerance for the typical argument that this is just "business as usual". As I rationally define "business" as the honest exchange of value for value, it is pretty obviously not business in the first place. It isn't the selling of a product or service through the passing of clean information, but an attempt to mislead to gain more sales from honest men than they would have made otherwise without passing polluted "facts". This isn't persuasion at the expense of the truth, as true persuasion carries truth as a natural co-requisite. It is a clever deception.

No, Eidos isn't the only company to blame for this type of thing. And like every other company that has pulled this advertising ploy, they would have likely gotten away with it unscathed with a few more sales to celebrate had it not been for all the attention they've gotten recently. But I can hardly complain that the present situation has helped expose these dirty practices for what they are, and as Eidos is one of the culprits, it's not really all that unfair to single them out in this case as long as the proper context isn't forgotten.

There isn't much I can do here but just point these things out. My advice? Learn from this experience. "Force" these guys by your own intelligence and through your own sheer will to keep the information they distribute for the purposes of selling their wares clean. Show them that you give meaning to the old adage "Buyer Beware!" Deny them their plausible deniability.

NOTE: It looks like the Destructoid article I pointed you to at the beginning of this now includes an edit which indeed suggests exactly what I have in terms of the use of the marketing ploy by Eidos in these ads.

NOTE 2: Looks like Gamespy insisted that Eidos change their listings. And apparently they have.

I've been struggling to close all of these constant threads and then take on the menial task of writing one last post in each one telling every upset user to go to the Off-Topic forum where his comments will be more appreciated. Doing this has allowed me to keep busy while I think about this situation, which in turn has kept me fromdoing something stupid in the heat of fury. So I am calmed now and amthinking more clearly, and I think it's safe for me to post some thoughts on this situation with Jeff Gerstmann.

I'm not going to pretend I was a big fan of Jeff's. I really wasn't. I think he might have been one of my least favorite reviewers here. He's one of the smartest guys here and has a tremendous presence, and I find him to be extremely entertaining to watch and read, I just never really found myself completely able to rely on his opinions ultimately mirroring my own once I actually played any given game he reviewed. Some will probably realize that the Twilight Princess reviews have something to do with that opinion, but in reality they only added to a growing pile of disappointment with his reviews over time. For me, the first review that really began my saga of not being able to identify with Jeff's opinions was another Zelda game, namely "Majora's Mask". But it wasn't just Zelda. There was just something about his opinions that left me unable to rely on any recommendations to buy or to pass. Invariably, when Jeff was the reviewer, it was a flag to me that I would need to try the game myself regardless and see what I thought about it, instead of using his review in the way it was intended.

I am saying all of this at such a sensitive time because I feel like I have to get that out of the way before I go ahead and say what I am about to say. The bottom-line for me with Jeff Gerstmann is that whatever I felt about his reviews or his opinions, I always knew he was being honest. He never sold out -- not to me -- not to others -- he wrote it like he saw it, and that's that. In other words, he was CREDIBLE.

It's apparently confirmed that he's gone. I am just not sure why he's gone. I can say though, without reservation, that if what is being reported is really how this went down, then it just throws that hard earned credibility out the window. I can't say that kind of thing lightly. I firmly believe that this valuable asset is what kept people coming back and made the site what it is today, and Jeff was one of the largest contributors to that asset. In the reviewing game, credibility is both the all-powerful Queen you use to your offensive advantage and the King that you defend above all else. It is NEVER the pawn. Gamespot has been my favorite source for objective reviews for many years, and I'd hate to see them checkmated due to a questionable decision for short-term cash at the expense of long-term credibiility.

If any of this is true, then Gamespot and CNET can only really call their future editorials on the evaluation of games the title of "reviews" in name only. Reviews are by definition objective evaluations, not intended to be colored by other alliances, whether they be emotional or economic. And if they aren't really "reviews", then they won't be on my plate. Again predicating this on the validity of these rumors, I firmly believe that it was unfair to task Jeff with writing a review for K&L, and then expect him to write an Eidos company-line instead.

I guess what I am saying is that I am with you on this one Jeff. That probably sounds meaningless coming from someone who just said he didn't value you as a reviewer, but I think if this has taught me anything, it's that I should have valued you more than I did.

I realize that the primary focus of the majority of the rather large base of Samus fans anxiously waiting on Metroid Prime 3: Corruption's imminent release is naturally concentrated almost entirely on the gameplay the title promises. This is to be expected. After all, it is an extremely important entry in the series as far as gameplay is concerned. This is true not only because it expands significantly on core gameplay that is now commonly known by Metroid Prime players, but also because it is the first game to showcase the abilities of the Wiimote for potential influence in games similar to this, such as FPS or other FPA. As both a full entry in one of the greatest gaming series of all time and simultaneously a powerful proof of concept for the Wii's suitability in games approximating this genre, it has a lot on its shoulders.

But while I am completely sympathetic with those who feel that gameplay is the most important element with a lot riding on it, my mind is also firmly on the story, something usually overlooked by Metroid fans as peripheral to this series. And as someone who obsesses over this to a fault, I haven't been able to hold back the concern that Metroid Prime is going to continue to be oddly placed as a subseries. And by "oddly", I mean chronologized in ways that don't really destroy anything, but don't really add anything significant either. I love this series, and I want it to do well, so I feel like I have a stake in this, albeit primarily an emotional one.

I saw for the first time yesterday the "Aurora" preview on the Metroid Prime 3 Preview channel on my Wii, and I have to say it really blew my mind. I had to watch it several times to get the significance of what was being said. For those of you who haven't seen it yet and need context, I have posted it to Gamespot here. Take a look before reading if you haven't seen this short sequence already. Also please be advised that this editorial WILL contain SPOILERS for the series, and possible spoilers in describing my own thoughts on what Aurora means not only to Metroid Prime 3, but to the series as a whole.

With that out of the way, I can begin.

Being a long-time Metroid fan, I was left amazed and frankly, a little relieved by this preview video, which was as astounding to me as it was short. I know that many people will argue this point with me -- that Metroid is not about story but gameplay, and really I do agree to a large extent, but Metroid has still ALWAYS had a reasonable backstory to provide detail for what was going on through each iteration of the traditional 2D game series. The plight of the baby Metroid that mistook Samus for its mother was one that left me teary eyed at the end of Super Metroid -- having been there when he was discovered and bonded with the suit-clad beauty of a bounty hunter, it choked me up to watch him give up his life in order to save what he perceived to be his mother. Heck, I guess I am an overly sensitive guy, as I still get all teary-eyed thinking about it now. In any case, all but the first of the original 2D Metroid games involves the baby Metroid in some way, even Metroid Fusion, where he indirectly saves Samus' life for a second time and even has his DNA merged with Samus', the significance of which was not lost on me.

When the first Metroid Prime game was announced and went through the punches, I was FAR too concerned about the gameplay mechanics in a 3D world to worry about something as seemingly trivial as the backstory or the chronology at the time. I was much more worried about the game being touted as an FPS. I realize the FPS genre is a popular one, and for the need to make a spash after so many years absent from the gaming scene, Metroid in 3D almost had to do something to gain ground. But that didn't mean that I would necessarily like it. I am not a fan of FPS. It's just not a genre that works for me, and I was fully prepared to just write off the 3D series as something that violated my almost religious observance of the series.

So when Metroid Prime was finally released, I reluctantly decided to give it a chance. Much to my surprise, and great joy frankly, it wasn't like an FPS at all. Other than being told from the first-person perspective and having some shooting involved, it eschewed almost every FPS convention made to that point, and dared to be at its heart a Metroid game first, and everything else only a distant second. For that I was thankful -- I could love the series in 2D and 3D, and not have to do any kind of selective filtering of white noise entries from the overall picture in my mind, as I usually have to do in expanded universe sets (such as Star Wars).

Having gotten that worry about the first Metroid Prime out of the way, it suddenly occured to me one day that the series does NOT actually take place after Metroid Fusion, but in between the original Metroid and Metroid 2. I had always known this really, but as I said, my concerns were on other things, and it took time for me to realize I might have some objections to this chronology. And while the Metroid Prime story itself was truly touching, particularly in the previously unclear part of her role in the history (and prophecy) of the Chozo, it still wasn't clear how the main storyline fit into it all.

My objections only grew as the chronology grew -- with a full sequel and a handheld iteration, it suddenly seemed to me that a LOT more had happened in between the original Metroid and the rest of the 2D series than I had ever anticipated, and it wasn't really making that much sense to me. The Metroid Prime series in a way had to happen before Metroid 2, simply because Samus had destroyed all of the Metroidsafter that point, but still it seemed to me that there had to be SOMETHING linking these things together, and that this something had to make sense. And while I didn't anticipate Metroid Prime 3: Corruption giving those details needed for that something -- that "Aurora" preview has given me hope that the Metroid Prime subseries will indeed fit into the main series in ways I couldn't have hoped for previously. I think this is definitely opening up some possibilities here to the storyline. In fact, things are starting to come together for me in a way that I hadn't anticipated. This is all opinion of course, but I think it's plausible.

So let me go through my list of presumptions and state where I think things might go:

(1) It's obvious that the original Mother Brain in Metroid was an Aurora dedicated by the Space Pirates to be their director/leader. This is evidenced by the preview's statement that the Auroras were made twenty years prior, making it impossible for Mother Brain to have been the first or unique in any way, or if not impossible, at least not very likely. We know that the original Mother Brain in Metroid was basically JUST a biological computer. She had a defense mechanism in her tunnel (the part of the Aurora video that looked like Tourian from the original Metroid, where Mother Brain rested), but she didn't fight back herself. She used her defense mechanisms instead. (Of course, this was heavily retconned in Metroid Zero Mission, in which Mother Brain did fight back, but that's another story).

(2) The Mother Brain in Super Metroid not only had her defense systems in place, but after being defeated in that manner, she mutated into another form with a body, a face, eyes, etc. How did an Aurora do that? It doesn't seem to be a function of an average computer. The Mother Brain in Super Metroid behaves differently than her predescessor in ways that are unmistakeable, not the least of which is her ability to mutate into a Japanese mega-monster and defend herself by means other than her surrounding automated defense system.

(3) As stated previously, the Metroid Prime is a subseries takes place between the original Metroid and Metroid 2: Return of Samus. (At least, I hope we all know that at this point as it has been broadcast like crazy since the original release of Metroid Prime).

(4) The Metroid Prime subseries deals with the Metroid Prime in every instance except for the ubiquitous Metroid Prime Hunters. The Metroid Prime is at first a Metroid which was mutated by the dangerous Phazon substance and as a result BECAME the source of Phazon. After her defeat in Metroid Prime, she mutates into Dark Samus, and returns to fight Samus in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. She is now returning in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption with the express purpose of corrupting all of the worlds with Phazon, which again, she is the source of.

(5) The initial premise of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption is that the Auroras have been infected with a virus that causes them to malfunction, while simultaneously, Dark Samus is corrupting the worlds with Phazon. This is a double threat that Samus and the other bounty hunters have to face and eradicate. But it could also be that the virus isn't a virus at all -- perhaps what is corrupting the Auroras only *seems* to be a virus on the surface, but turns out to be the effect of Phazon contamination?

Given these assumptions and possibilities, my theory is that the Mother Brain in Super Metroid is a new Aurora, not the one which was destroyed in the original Metroid (and Metroid Zero Mission). And this new Mother Brain gets corrupted by the Phazon contamination leaked by Dark Samus, becoming the new Mother Brain that could mutate and make such a tough battle in Super Metroid.

There are several ways this could happen. One is that the virus that they are trying to combat in the Auroras is actually a mutation brought on by Phazon, which requires that that one Aurora be captured by the Space Pirates and thus not cleansed by Samus, to then be used by the Space Pirates in its mutated form. Another possibility is that the Aurora itself merges with Dark Samus (again, Dark Samus is the same being as the Metroid Prime was, only mutated), meaning that the new Aurora/Mother Brain actually is partly controlled by the Metroid Prime/Dark Samus, and sees gain in an alliance with the Space Pirates. But a third possibility also exists, and it's not only the most daring one storywise, but also the most likely given the history of the Metroid Prime in the subseries so far. That possibility is that the Metroid Prime mutates INTO an Aurora, and takes on the role of Mother Brain, in much the same way that it mutated into Dark Samus after coming into contact with and being defeated by Samus Aran. This last possibility, put more clearly, means that Super Metroid's Mother Brain may actually be another iteration of the Metroid Prime/Dark Samus/et. al.

It's just a theory, but it seems plausible at this point. I don't want to overanalyze this before I actually get the game and can start playing it, but I have to admit that the possibilities are drawing me in and tempting me to do just that.

And that's something I've missed from the Metroid series for a while -- consistency. I suddenly realize that the last five years may have been a build up to something more consistent than I realized -- and it all started with this little trailer that runs at less than two minutes. Even if I am completely wrong, I have some hope now that things will resolve in such a way that will make the Metroid Prime subseries more than just a last-minute addition and mythos revisionism; the subseries is finally starting to show some value in being not just a great self-contained subseries, but an excellent bridge between the original Metroid and the rest of the games in the original 2D series.

And of course, we can only hope that the gameplay will be great too.

This is written off the cuff, more as a rant than anything else. It isn't as well organized as I usually write, but that's to be expected. I just need to get this off of my chest about the recent E3 performance, particularly how Sony performed this year vs. Nintendo and how that contrasts with previous years' performances.

Judging Sony's presentation strictly as a show, it was SO much better than what the other two companies put out there. It was energetic, fast-paced, wasn't built on a numbers game, and showed new things I hadn't really seen before. I know the PSP redesign isn't fantastic, but I really liked it personally. I like its smaller design, that they kept the screen size, extended the battery life, and added a feature to use it as a console so you can play the games on your TV while at home. Given that that's the way I prefer to play any handheld (except for the DS), I really appreciated that feature. Hell they had Chewbacca, and that simple PSP game they showed where the physics of your environment changes based on the player's viewing angle -- I almost had a nerdgasm for those two things alone. But the biggest thing is that, unlike last year's Sony show, this year's didn't work as hard on offending my sensitibilities with viral marketing ads. Regardless of whether or not you liked or were impressed by what Sony showed, they very clearly took charge and made the experience one of strictly showing what they had to offer rather than endlessly talking about numbers.

My worst memory of the Sony show from last year was that stupid and needlessly long montage video of "real people on the street" talking about how great Sony was. It stinks of treating gamers like dumbies who can't identify a viral marketing ad when they see one. It had a huge negative reaction from gamers similar to the reaction from that dumb "I want a PSP for Christmas" website they set up which came back to bite them in the behind only five months later. This year I think they learned their lesson, but Nintendo seems to have failed to learn it by observation. I honestly hated that Nintendo had to follow suit this year and put those dumb youtube-esque video montages up -- not just one mind you -- every time that Reggie wanted to take a break, there was yet another low-IQ commercial popping up there full of viral marketing hype. It was so Sony-from-last-year's-E3 -- they almost made me feel played to. I think just by removing those dumb things they could have improved their presentation -- that's how much of a negative I think they were.

I love Nintendo's direction. I really do. It's my favorite console this gen. so far. I don't like being negative about Nintendo. But that conference was simply underwhelming, with the only thing saving it from being a total loss being that they showed clips from some of their anticipated upcoming games, showed some new peripherals and games that looked interesting, and gave a real timeline for online play experiences. Even then, the gameplay they showed of Zelda DS and Metroid Prime 3 was so short and full of talk, that it was hardly noticeable -- it almost seemed like an ad for that couple's "hardcore gaming website" more than a glimpse of those games. I doubt the time they spent showing actual gameplay during those segments was as long as even one of those youtube-esque video montages. Now obviously, the "hardcore gaming website" couple were brought on stage and featured in a video because Nintendo is concerned that they might lose that group of people. But you don't do that by adding more wallpaper to your marketing presentation -- you do it by SHOWING us what you have coming up that caters to us.

I believe that this year Sony had the best presentation. They may not have "stolen the show" overall the way Nintendo did last year, but their presentation was the most enjoyable and did the least to insult my intelligence. And even after all I said about Nintendo's show, I could easily say much more negative about Microsoft's, which I thought was even worse with all the dubious number throws that were intended to prove to me that Microsoft is "driving the industry", while targetting becoming the new Wii with a Disney sign-on. Obviously I still think Nintendo has the better overall direction, at least from a business standpoint, and my comments here are strictly related to the show they put on at E3. But that's really what E3 is anyway -- a show, and the level at which a particular company talks down to its audience in their part of that show has always been one of the biggest factors for me.

I think what I am looking for in that kind of show is excitement -- a clear, compact, and fast-paced presentation of exciting things to come in the future. In the past, Nintendo was clearly on the prowl in their shows. They intended to steal the show, and they did it, even though they weren't sure at that point they would win the market. They had no marketshare to lose and could only really go up rather than down. There was this energy to it that the other two didn't have. Now it seems like it's been reversed. Nintendo almost seemed like it was in protectionist mode, like they were doing their best to protect their new marketshare from intrusion rather than keep it by demonstrating it was viable for the future. As someone who really believes it is viable, I find the failure to demonstrate it on stage to be almost inexcusible. I wish they remembered from before that the best way to do that is by showing us real things that are coming up in thick, long segments that concentrate on them as new content to be excited about, instead of viral marketing displays and number crunches.

In the vast scheme of things, it's better that Nintendo has actually gained marketshare this time around and lost the E3 performance rather than the inverse condition, which has been prevalent for the last couple of years. But Nintendo needs to remember that E3 was one of the biggest vehicles for their current success. It was at trade shows like E3 that they were able to demonstrate their direction and generate the interest they are currently enjoying. It got their ideas out there and showed they were viable. The best approach is not to tell us your numbers and how viable you are from a financial perspective -- let us, the buying public worry about that. Instead, show us what you have coming down the pipeline. Convince us that you have things worth taking a look at, things that are coming in the future, things we won't want to ignore. We don't need another hard sell at our door with you wearing your Sunday best and handing out quasi-religious pamphlets about the Kingdom of God. We want to see the Kingdom in action.

I don't know how many of you have read about the recent news going on here in my neck of the woods, but it has definitely been a sign of disturbing things to come.  Gamespot recently put out a post in their Sidebar News Blog talking about the situation in some detail.

You can read about it there, but I will summarize here.  A student at a high school in a neighboring township built a map of his school in the PC game Counter-Strike.  He apparently did this and shared it among students at his school.  It is unclear if they used the map or not, but if they did, the natural assumption would have to be that they did so for purposes of living out a fantasy of taking part in the game in the one building outside of home they are most familiar with.

But that isn't how the majority of school board members at Clements High School in Sugar Land, a few miles from the Southwest edge of Houston, Texas, decided to view it.  The hype and hysteria built around the recent Virginia Tech massacre has awakened memories of other past disasters, particularly Columbine, which involved some kids who also happened to play video games.  As a result, the school board voted to overreact in one of the more extreme manners they could have mustered.  The police searched his home and room, forced him to remove the data from his computer (without a court order, I might add), found decorative swords in his room and assumed they might be for violent purposes, and then the school board basically relocated him to an "alternate educational facility", which is a term that likely refers to a Fort Bend County First-level Reform School.

This reminded me of things we used to do when I was a young kid playing Dungeons and Dragons in the '80s in Virginia (not even two hours away from Virginia Tech).  Our Dungeon Master drew up new labyrinths to explore on a regular basis, and one of those was made out of a combination of all three of our town schools -- Elementary, Middle, and High School.  Even though D&D was more than frowned upon in school, we still brought such maps to school and shared them.  Our Dungeon Master himself collected knives and swords.  It's hard for me to imagine that in this culture of fear, but it could easily be him or even me designated as the target of just this kind of reaction.

When Gamespot posted, I thought that it would be obvious to most gamers that this was, in fact, an overreaction, and something that should be quickly undone in the name of justice rather than furthered in the name of unnamed fear.  And for the most part, I was right, but there were a few individuals who felt that the situation was in fact justified.  I responded to them in the comments rather hastily, but decided that I would probably rather do it in a blog post as well, were I can refine my thoughts a bit.  Basically, what follows is a summary of some of the comments I disagreed with the most, and my responses to them.  I think it summarizes my view on the dangers of this sort of "no-tolerance" behavior encroaching into strangleholds on the rights we have grown to love as Americans.

Last year, June of 2006 to be exact, I went to New York for an SOA Developer's Conference for about a week.  I went to see several shows, including the Tony Award Winning Avenue Q (which I highly recommend).  I also saw The Producers, Phantom of the Opera, and a few other plays with gratuitous nudity and one other one with that dude that played Darth Sidious in the Star Wars movies.  In any case, after seeing Phantom of the Opera, I came out of the theater and noticed that while I was within, one of the Marqees had been completely removed and replaced with another just across the street.  It was for a show I hadn't heard of called Manhattan Memories.  I was baffled for a moment until I saw that one of the stars was Mary Jane Watson, and I knew I had to have suddenly stumbled into a filming session of Spider-Man 3 on the streets of New York City.

Now, I probably wouldn't have stayed, because I figured that as crowded as it was, hardly anyone would be able to actually see the filming or the stars of the movie even in brief cameos.  Still, I couldn't go anywhere.  EVERYTHING was blocked off until those involved were finished filming.  Besides, my best friend on Earth and his son (who is also my godson) are probably the biggest Spider-Man fans in North America.  So I decided to stick it out and do my best.  I pushed my way to the front and pulled out the only camera I had available at such short notice, the one attached to my cell phone.  Now, this should tell you something about the quality of said photos.  Only three of the photos I took were worth showing, and even then, they weren't that great in terms of quality.  But with the Spider-Man 3 movie and the video game adaptations on practically every console known to modern man looming on the horizon, I've decided to share them with you anyway.

This one is of the false marquee of the Manhattan Memories show, note the bottom star's name listed on said marquee -- our own Mary Jane Watson.

This one is of actor James Franco, right after he filmed a scene playing Harry Osborn with Tobey Maguire.  He's escaping into the crew's van.

Finally, here is the Spider-Dude himself, or at least the most realistic version of him that our sadly-grounded-in-reality planet can produce.  He's escaping after filming another scene, he turned to the crowd and smiled of course, but I wasn't quick enough to catch that one.  I'd have preferred that this picture not have included the less-impressive entourage of movie-making technical assistants, but what can ya do?

So yeah, that's all I have to show.  Believe me, the rest of the twenty or so photos were basically me trying to get good shots and failing miserably.  In short, they are not worth seeing.  Yes, I know these pictures kind of suck, but they are better than what most of you took on that day, right?

Are video games art?  That seems to be the question of the decade, and practically everyone has an opinion on the matter.  As this debate keeps raging both among the industry moguls and among the players in forums, it seems that it's often the artists themselves who are their own worst enemy in the defense of their work.  The creator of Mega Man, Keiji Inafune, joins the ranks of many great video game artists in trying to deny their ... identity as artists.  Take a look at this recent quote from Keiji Inafune at http://kotaku.com/gaming/keiji-inafune/gdc07-capcoms-inafune-slams-clover-producer-242796.php :

Last week I read that special-edition bundles of "Blue Dragon", the Japanese RPG that Microsoft is sponsoring in hopes of grabbing some of that tough-as-nails Japanese market, have actually sold out.  It has also spawned some renewed sales of 360 consoles in Japan.

While sales are still low compared to the US and Europe, even the staunchest advocate of Japanese isolationism has to admit that this is a threatening start.  Going from a "crack and crevice" market to a niche market with a single RPG demonstrates that they are at least starting to think in the right direction.  Still, I can't help but think that more needs to be done.

Here's a fact: various nationalities have extremely varying cultures, and where they really seem to differ most is in the field of entertainment.  That might not sound controversial, but sometimes it sure seems that way given the approach that some business entities take when entering new markets.  Microsoft cannot hope to win the Japanese market by trying to market direct action games like Halo.  I've said for a while that what Microsoft really needs is a bevy of Japanese RPGs, and though they have had some in the past, they haven't really made enough.

Another thing they need to capitalize on is this recurring theme in Japanese games where characters and environments from alternate warped realities which mirror our own come through a variety of portals and manifest themselves here in the normal world.  Let's face it, Japanese gamers love to play with their yin-yang (no pun intended), and Microsoft needs to think of how they can use that to their advantage.

The premise can be as light-hearted as Mario vs. Wario, and the Japanese market will eat it up.  They can also sell the alternate in dark and sinister realities merging with our own world, such as a small and isolated Japanese town known to worship an interdimensional alien god who copies his M.O. from the Gospel according to Luke, which landslides into an alternate reality full of chess-playing Zombies and screaching sirens in the backgroud.  They can even make it insanely hard, and it will still sell like water in a desert.  (Disclaimer:  Any similarities to "Siren" are completely coincidental).

Still, even if they made a thousand Japanese RPGs and stole the lucrative Final Fantasy series from the pits of Sony and Nintendo exclusivity, and even if they made games that had so many levels of yin and yang that it would confuse an Egyptologist, they still need a certain other ingredient that they are severely lacking in.  That element is what I like to call "strangebrew".

"Stragebrew" is my term for the myriad of odd Japanese games with themes that only make sense in la-la land, but for the strangest of reasons become mega-hits first in Japan, and eventually all over the world.  I have to admit -- even I have become addicted myself to these crazy themes.

Maybe Microsoft just needs someone to jump-start them with a nice pool of fresh ideas while all the best ideas aren't already taken.  Anyone from Microsoft reading?  I doubt it, but if you are, here are some of my brilliant and COMPLETELY original ideas:

*** A game where a spikey haired lawyer fights a judge with a below-80 IQ, a few genius prosecutors uninterested in justice, and a floaty underage psychic in training who channels the spirit of your beautiful but recently-deceased legal assistant.

*** A surgery simulator with a unkempt youthful doctor who is constantly berated by his cute but fussy know-it-all nurse, and who has the strange ability inherited from his Greek God ancestor to cast spells which slow down time.

*** A rhythm game about Government "men-in-black" cheerleading agents who put our tax dollars to work by dancing up pyschic energy to '70s Disco music to solve a whole host of civilian problems, like bringing boy and girl together during a strenuous babysitting session, or helping a poor wonewy dog find his way home.

*** A strange compilation of increasingly insane mini-games featuring a blue horned devil, a shirtless Japanese uber-hunk trying hard to look like Frankie Avalon, and a bikini-clad babe from the theoretical Japanese version of Baywatch.

*** A game centering around a super cyber being who is a cross between a King, a God, and a cheesy mustached adventure actor from American movies in the '30s, who loses all of the stars in the universe during a drinking binge, and thus has to send his shy, short, but princely son to roll practically everything he sees (including stray, useless people) into a set of giant spheres to replace those lost stars.

*** A game about a cute and chubby but largely immobile smiley-faced blob capable of only the odd jump, which the player must move around by turning the Earth on it's Axis and defying the laws of gravity, with the express intent of making said chubby smiley-faced blob even more chubby.

*** Maybe the most unlikely of all, a game that presents you with a host of tests and practice exercises which might remind you of 3rd grade multiplication table tests with the express purpose of measuring your brain's speed, and with the additional express purpose of improving your brain's speed over time.  Add to the mix an annoying and preachy Japanese professor with a face which itself could inspire a new "count the polygons" game, and you'll have a sure hit.

Ok, so these aren't my ideas.  I ripped them off from legitimate game designers.  If these games sounded familiar, they should.  They've all been done, or are currently in the process of being done, on systems that are selling far greater in Japan than the XBOX 360.

I've heard a lot of talk lately on forums, from some game journalists, and even implications from Microsoft itself, that the Japanese market may be too closed-minded for an American console to do well within its North Pacific shores.  There may be some truth to that.  But I think the problem might be more complicated.  Maybe Microsoft is the one with the closed mind.  XBOX 360 developers probably need to open their own minds, take a look at what is working there, what isn't, and act accordingly.

The XBOX was never very popular in Japan.  I mean in last week's sales charts, the last-gen Microsoft offering only sold SIX consoles in the entire country.  That's less than one per day.  That may not seem so bad for a console that was dropped a year ago, but when you compare it to the fact that the original Gameboy Advance, which was discontinued almost five years ago when the Gameboy Advance SP was released as its replacement, sold TWICE as many, you begin to see the breadth of the problem.  While the XBOX 360 is doing much better than that, it's still nowhere near where Microsoft needs it to be.

I don't buy into the apologist view that Microsoft doesn't need to do well in the Japanese market.  Microsoft's vision for the XBOX 360 is larger than America and Europe.  In fact, it's larger than the gaming market itself.  Gaming is a means to an end here, not an end in itself.  When Sony announced their intentions in the late '90s to design the PS2 as a Linux-driven PC centralized in the home, it jump-started Microsoft's plans to enter the gaming market to counter those plans.

Even after Sony later pushed those plans from the PS2 to their future PS3, Microsoft saw the worrying trend and acted swiftly to enter the market.  Sony's almost decade-old vision of releasing a gaming system that could replace the home PC is a threat to Microsoft's one extremely lucrative product line -- it's own PC-based operating system.  Whatever anyone else thinks, Microsoft knows that it can't afford not to take Japan.  But it will take more than a powerful system to do it.  It will take a change of direction.

I thought about blogging about this, but I am too speechless, disturbed, and just plain saddened to even know what to say.

Then MrCHUP0N sent me this, and I knew that it said all I could ever hope to say:

http://video.msn.com/v/us/msnbc.htm?g=e9d9c055-e810-453a-a80f-ecc7b46bd340&f=00&fg=email

I am going to admit that I don't particularly like the guy who did this: Olbermann.  I usually dislike the sliding sillouette of his shadow.  But that's neither here nor there.  Nobody on a major network has yet to say it in this strong of language as this guy has on the underdog news network MSNBC, and yet I can't think of anything that has warranted such a direct approach in years.

This isn't just a suspension.  This has no time limit attached.  Habeas corpus is effectively gone until a court or a new law says otherwise.

There isn't even time for a funeral.

I come from a small Virginia town that borders West Virginia. While growing up, it became apparent to me that the State of West Virginia is eaten alive with a particularly dreadful strain of socialism which in some ways mirrors syndicalism -- specifically, the coal mining union dominates the State, controls its politicians, and even makes decisions for or against other completely unrelated industries on a regular basis. In fact, one of the reasons I left the area was because the State legislature blocked a well-known software development company from opening shop inside its borders, a company which had already pre-hired me for a position which I would have taken after graduation. The reason for this was apparently a fear that the near dead coal mining industry might be supplanted by something more important which might wrest from them their entrenched power.  I've become fond of calling it the Soviet Socialist Republic of West Virginia.

I've long since escaped from behind its iron curtain, and now reside in Houston, Texas.  Houston (and Texas in general) is an area I think isn't so poisoned with the anti-businessman mentality.  Where I live now, production is valued.  Business is not only legitimate but absolutely necessary.  Work is not only valued but rewarded by the right to keep what you earn.  Whenever I return home to visit my parents, I am always amazed at just how much things are continually decaying.  New businesses are practically non-existent, and old businesses are taxed out of existence continually.  Even businesses that could afford to exist in this bear trap move across the border to Virginia's greener pastures.  It's truly depressing, and I try to keep such visits to a minimum.

Anyway, to make a long story short(er), I went back to that area a few years ago to take my niece to a musical in Roanoke for her birthday.  While I was there, I noticed a headline blaring on the front-page of the local newspaper: URBAN RENEWAL COMING!

So I stood in line to buy the newspaper, something I almost never do.  I was somewhat eager to find out which bright-eyed entrepreneur would dare open up an enterprise in a State which in practice despises both entrepreneurs and enterprises. Does this guy know what he's up against? Do his stockholders realize that a huge portion of their profits, already taxed doubly at the Federal level, will be taxed even further and even more unreasonably within the borders of this State?

I get the paper and eagerly read through the first two paragraphs of introductory nonsense used to fill up any given article, and I finally get to the meat of the matter: "but it looks like good fortune has smiled on our area once again. The State has decided that our area is the chosen location for the new State Prison, which has become necessary due to the increase in prison population."

And with that, it all makes sense -- well, at least in the warped alternate universe that this State operates under.  *THAT* is urban renewal?

There are several things that baffle me about this. How can a state prison be described as urban renewal? This thing isn't creating new capital -- its draining it from other areas. That this destitute area of West Virginia is going to be kept up by the rest of the State, and by the numerous Federal grants coming its way for this very purpose, is hardly "renewal" of any kind.

The other aspect that is driving me nuts is that, somehow, a State that loses population through migration to other states on the average of two per hour, and is one of the only States in the union to have a much higher death toll than a birth rate, can still find new people to jail and new reasons to jail them.  Maybe after a while, they'll use this as a new excuse for yet another tax increase on businesses.  How else will they ensure those prison guards will keep their jobs if they don't tax those businesses?

I am new to the XBOX 360.  I bought one on a special deal that left the total price for the platinum edition at almost exactly $360, which includes both tax and shipping.  After reading about the backwards compatibility updates recently, I figured that maybe my boycott against buying the 360 was becoming irrelevant, and at this price, I felt like I was getting a deal.

Tonight I played through "Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth" again.  Needless to say, I was almost immediately disappointed for a variety of reasons.  First off, the game's very important introductory scene in the insane asylum doesn't play.  The screen goes black with only the lighting behind widnows showing up.  I searched the XBOX forums at www.xbox.com, and I see that there are many other very serious glitches I can look forward too -- including crashes that take place during a boss battle, and at the ending sequence of the game.

After feeling a good bit frustrated at this experience, I decided to pop in "Knights of the Old Republic".  I went ahead and searched the forums to see what I might be up against, and with a few reports of jerking here and there, I figured I might be ok.  NOT!  The dialogue skips, stutters, and holds up.  During any battle, the presentation starts to sputter and jerk around to the point that many battles were practically unplayable.  I had to turn the thing off in a fit of anger just avoid smashing it up against the nearest available wall!

Here's another observation!  Both games required an "update" to be downloaded before they played.  Hmmm!  I had heard that Microsoft had written emulators for each individual game, but I had kinda been dissuaded of that recently by a Gamespot friend.  Seeing that each game required an update download, it makes me wonder if indeed Microsoft is taking the route of making individual emulators for each game.  If they are, I can honestly say that as a software engineer, that approach to hardware emulation stinks to high heaven.

I simply cannot BELIEVE that Microsoft has faltered so completely on the "feature" of backwards compatibility for it's XBOX 360 console.  I honestly thought that Microsoft was poised to steal a significant portion of the market from Sony with it's release almost a year in advance.  But there was more than just early entry that made the Playstation 2 a success for Sony -- backwards compatibility with the Playstation was a BIG reason that many careful parents and more dedicated players were less hesitant about buying a new console.

I feel like I should have waited longer.  It really angers me that I have to keep my old XBOX just to enjoy even the games that XBOX 360 "claims" compatibility for.  If these two games are any indication of what "backwards compatibility" means to Microsoft, then it looks like I'll have to hold onto my XBOX console for a long time to come.

A touching film of self-discovery, starring two chronically-high college kids caught up in the angst of a competition for world domination.

No, this isn't really the long-awaited sequel to one of the funniest and most poignant youth culture films of this generation, "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle".  It is much more serious than that.  It's a commentary on the race North Korea and India/Pakistan seem to have to see who can obliterate the West Coast of the United States first.

If the news of North Korea's recent attempts weren't enough to give me a chronic case of mental diarrea, the current progress made by India practically gives me dysentery.  A New York Times article written by Hari Kumar reported on India's recent tests of just such a missile capable of hitting targets 1800 miles away.  It should be clear that with such threats on the horizon, it will only be a matter of time before Pakistan does something similar as a continuance of its arms race with India.

George Bush, who only a few years ago so strongly clammored over Iraq's weapons of mass destruction that he committed to a full-fledged war for it, seems at a loss of words.  Despite the fact that it could only be verified with the shakiest of intelligence vs. these very obvious and unquestionable threats, Bush seems disinterested.  With news that North Korea's long range test was actually targetting the coast of Hawaii, and would have likely delivered a hit had it not failed about four minutes into flight, I can't help but wonder what's going through our President's brain.  The most he could muster was a very passive request to China that they deal with it, and even then his words sounded more like a suggestion than a request.  Perhaps he's too concerned about Iran to even trouble himself about North Korea or the Far East -- even though Iran is only in the planning stage for nuclear power plants and hasn't come anywhere near the stage of being capable of engineering nuclear threats.  The others are already in their testing phase, and at least one of them has attempted to use our country as their petri dish.

Now, I am no Bush basher.  Well, I am, but I am sort of an equal opportunity basher.  I bash Bush as much and as often as I did Bill Clinton.  I consider both of these to be among the worst Presidents in our history, though for a few slightly different reasons.  Nonetheless, I can't help but see more strength in Clinton's approach to these sorts of affairs.  When India and Pakistan came close to ground zero warfare in the mid-90s, it was Clinton's diplomatic intervention that prevented a Far East nuclear holocaust.  It wasn't all good, of course.  Anyone who saw the pattern Clinton had of initiating foreign military actions whenver there was a White House scandal that the press and the public needed to be distracted from knows that.  Still, his policies were far more adept than the current administration's, despite their shady origins.

Both Clinton and Bush have a few strengths (and a GREAT many faults), but dealing with the machinations of foreign Governments doesn't seem to be one of Bush's strengths.  When not only a territory, but a STATE, becomes a target for tests of long range missiles, and the only thing the President can do is make a passive request to China to intercede, what kind of security do we have?  When two Far East states known to hate each others guts (and known to have come so close to nuclear war in the past) begin to prime their weapons to reach beyond the borders of their respective enemy, and the only thing the President can do is comment on it with the same kind of verbage used by teenagers in comic book wars, what kind of "leader" do we have?  There is something rotten in "Denmark", D.C.

What is the contract a President has with his country?  Without attempting to summarize, one of the most important parts of his contract with Americans is to secure the lives and liberties of his constituents from both domestic and international threats.  In a country where domestic liberties have been stomped on for so long by both Democrat and Republican "leaders", it's not hard to fathom that foreign threats to these liberties might also be so tolerated.  "Leadership" of the kind that complements both security AND liberty is as rare as it is direly  needed.  If diplomacy is the answer, then let's have some diplomacy.  If war is the only available answer, then so be it.  But ultimately it takes leadership to come up with the right approach, and I am not convinced we've had that in a long while.    Yes, China should be concerned too, but it's not their "job" to be concerned for us -- it is our President's job.

Ok so this blog entry breaks the mold on my previous blog entries.  It's about a console system rather than politics, and it's a short screed rather than a long rant.

I hate the name "Wii".  I've hated it since it was first announced.  I've been making it a point of principle to continue calling the system the "Revolution".  In fact, I fully intended to go into the store on the say it was available and ask for a Nintendo Revolution, rather than a "Wii", and even perhaps to insist on that name if some proselytizing sales associate attempted to correct me.

Now I called Gamespot today to do two things:  complain about a terrible employee who is rude to everyone, and reserve copies of The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for my DS, and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess for both the Gamecube and the Revolution (I intend to get and play both of them).  When I asked if the game was available, I made the mistake of calling it the "Wii" version, which really upset me, because without my principles, what am I really?  In retrospect I am glad I made that little mistake.  The sales associate told me, point blank, that the system is being renamed again.  He said that Nintendo has informed Gamestop of the renaming, but hasn't released the new name yet.

I hope this is true.  I think "Wii" was a terrible name on the best of days, and being the fanboy that I am, there was virtually no way I could spin it into a successful title.  Has anyone else heard this?  Any Gamestop employees out there who have been told the same thing?  I hope this wasn't just the usual Gamestop dufus throwing out bones.

On this day of December 5, more than 200 years ago in 1791, an individual I hold to be the greatest composer who ever lived (and one of the greatest geniuses) died.  That composer is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, a man who has influenced me more than most, and my own Gamespot namesake.  Mozart was a man who more than anyone else I've encountered knew how to encode the mystery of human happiness into his music.  His sense of life pervades everything he wrote, and its positive outlook overwhelms me each and every time I partake of it.  Even when writing slow and moving numbers in dark minor keys, Mozart could not help but return to his major key "all is not lost" resolutions.  Mozart had made a few foreshadowings into the darker romantic styles that were on the way in a few short decades, such as the two Symphonies in G-minor, the Piano Concertos in D-minor and C-minor, and his lesser known but Beethoven-esque sublime Piano Sonata in A-minor (K. 310).  These were rare but much appreciated.

Theories abound about the cause of his death, ranging from liver or kidney failure, cholera, and of being poisoned by his politico-musical rival, composer Antonio Salieri.  Though Salieri had literally confessed shortly before his own death to killing Mozart, that confession is deemed to have been a dubious last-ditch effort at gaining some status after having become less and less known over time.

While most will concentrate on the mysterious cause of his death at this somber time, I choose instead to shrug the conspiracy theories and concentrate on the incredible body of work that was his life, and on the potentional we lost in his untimely death.  While its generally known that Mozart was one of the most prolific composers who ever lived, its not often reflected on just how much potential we lost on his untimely death.  After one of his most successful years at composing, a year when he had departed from his classical roots and was clearly heading in the direction of 19th century romanticism, he passed away, leaving his darkest and most penitent work, the Requiem Mass, unfinished.  This most mysterious of his compositions was comissioned by a man who hid his identity from Mozart, under sworn secrecy, with the intent to steal the work and publish it under his own authorship.  These mysterious circumstances combined with the delirium Mozart had faced in the last stages of his illness led Mozart to believe that he was being comissioned by a spirit to write the requiem for himself.  Hence, from the completed part of this work, in the sublime melancholy music, Mozart seems to be wailing his recognition of his portending death, his fear of his ultimate fate, and his own heartfelt repentant prayers to God for mercy in his final hours.

Given Mozart's stylistic moves in this last year of his life, I mourn his loss more than personally.  I mourn what powerful works we have lost in his untimely death.  In a single year, he gave us the Requiem Mass, his mysterious opera/singspiel "Die Zauberflote" ("The Magic Flute"), his religious themed chorus "Ave Verum Corpus", the Masonic Funeral Music, and his sublime clarinet concerto, all with themes that demonstrated Mozart's sudden departure from his strictly classical roots, and attempt to move into the newer musical styles of the day.  Who knows what future work we would have been treated to by Mozart's move into what became known as romanticism.

As is my custom, I'll be listening to the Requiem Mass today, in its entirety as finished by his student Franz Xavier Sussmeyer, and will be listening to his last two operas, "La Clemenza di Tito", and "Die Zauberflote".  I hope you will take some time in your busy schedule today to remember this monumental genius.

I hope it is clear by now for those of us who are seeing how politics are playing out in Washington and elsewhere, that the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform bill was a major egregious assault on the right to petition the Government and the exercise of free speech in the political spectrum.  Its been clear to me for some time that the very framers of the bill in the Senate, Republican McCain and Democrat Feingold, represent the common desire of both political parties to censor political speech in particular, especially when that speech does not represent the viewpoints of either of their power-entrenched political parties.

This brings to attention not only the direct assault on speech that is the McCain-Feingold bill, but also the various bills funding particular political opinions.  If its not obvious that a Government which supposedly takes its orders from a voting public shouldn't be advertising with public funds what it thinks those views should be, its likely that your thoughts just aren't really clear on the matter.

News of the latest Supreme Court nominees have brought up some discussion about this situation.   Lately, the battles surrounding the nominees have generally centered around which particular political viewpoints these justices would qualify as worthy or unworthy of Government funding.  That makes the McCain-Feingold bill combined with various public political speech funds a major point of consideration.  Now that these bills have effectively cut off the possibilities any third party or alternate political viewpoint would have at spreading its message and gaining political successes, the two existing collaborators are concentrating on finding ways to tip the balance in their own favor.  Should this surprise anyone?  When these decisions are moved out of each individual's control and put into the hands of officials, the focus will always move immediately away from persuasive requests for willing public donations to political causes, to forcefully funded grants given out based on graft and pull.

A good friend of mine, a rogue freedom-lover and advocate of gay rights, recently responded to a poster on another list regarding the Governments' recent assaults on free speech in the political spectrum, particularly in how it affects Government-sponsored propagation of views on gay rights, or rather, Government-sponsored funding of political speech it would like to see furthered vs. that which it would like to see put at a disadvantage.  It was such a fitting response, I felt I needed to post it here.  I do so, with his permission:

Trouble is, as long as government is funding the propagation of certain viewpoints, *someone* is going to be able to claim that they're being censored. As long as such funding is available, individuals and interest groups on all sides are going to try and make sure that the money is used to further their own agenda. (And rightly so, since the money was taken from all of them in the first place.) Whatever criteria are used to determine how the money is spent, the parties whose views don't win out are going to claim that the government is censoring their views in favor of their opponents.

There will always be limited funds for these purposes. Choices will have to be made. And those who lose out will claim, with some rightness, that they are being censored. (Technically, I wouldn't call it censorship. I would say in that case that the government was using my money to preferentially fund the viewpoints of my opposition. But that's equally pernicious, so this is a question of terminology and not ethics.)

We all know, I think, that Scalia and Thomas are not friends of freedom of expression (or any other kind of freedom). But neither, sadly, are Breyer, Stevens, Souter, or Ginsberg. They voted to uphold pretty much all of McCain-Feingold, which is a major assault on free speech.

McCain-Feingold, like all campaign finance legislation, begins with the assumption that "political speech" is not fully protected by the First Amendment. Given the context in which the First Amendment came about, this seems to me to be a patently invalid assumption: if those who adopted the Bill of Rights did not mean for political speech to be protected, I have no clue what kind of speech they meant to be protected. And they didn't include any exceptions.

To say that campaign finance laws only regulate money, and not speech, is an equally meritless claim. If a law prevented newspapers from selling their products at newsstands, we'd all know that this was an abridgment of freedom of the press, even if it didn't prohibit the papers from being printed. If a law prevented churches from buying bibles, we'd all know that this was a violation of freedom of religion, even if it didn't prohibit preachers from leading their congregations in services. And a law preventing me from buying airtime to express my viewpoints, from a willing provider, is a clear assault on my freedom of speech, even though it doesn't literally force me to wear a muzzle on my mouth.

I hope it is clear that my purpose is not to defend conservatives. It's to declare a plague on both their houses. Neither side respects freedom, and both sides are so evil in this respect that I cannot contemplate choosing the lesser of the two. We need new choices entirely.

Some chode came in with a pro-USSR t-shirt, and said "what would you say to someone wearing a t-shirt like this". Most of the answers given were of the typical teenage agnostic variety -- i.e. most of them didn't care. There were a few on the other side though... some that loved it and praised communism... some that hated it and ridiculed it. I was on the side that ridiculed it, but my friend CoolBreezeTX (registered on this forum) really wiped the floor with these pinkos. I had to share this on my Journal. Its too ingenious to be lost forever when the forum threads are finally deleted. Here are his replies, in order of appearance:

I was in the "System Wars" forum and I ran across this tidbit, which I paraphrase here:

So now the US Supreme Court has said that NOT ONLY does the Government have the power to take away private property for public use (something the Constitution does specifically allow), it may also take away private property and give it to others for their own private use, under the guise that this will serve a public interest economically speaking. The authoritarians have won.

What this ultimately means can be summed up in the following plank of a well-known leftist cry: Abolition of private property and the application of all rent to public purpose.

While this summary could have easily come out of the ruling itself, it didn't. This is rather the first and defining plank of the Communist Manifesto, and is now effectively the "Law of the Land". For all the reliance of the far left on democracy, It didn't even require a single democratic vote to enact this most important of legal precedents. It took a majority of elitist justices... nothing more, nothing less.

To this Objectivist, the abolition of such property rights is effectively the end of rights altogether, for if someone can claim intrinsic ownership or even controlling interest over your property, what rights could you possibly have? Property isn't just some patch of land which might be nice to look at. All personally owned property IS the fruit of your labor. Without a right to that, what is it that separates you from being slave labor for any third party, whether it be a single master on your block or the State itself? Don't kid yourselves, we went from being owners to being pwned in a single afternoon.

And where are the Conservatives in all of this? Where are the cries of foul from these supposedly traditional protectors of economic rights? While our Government is casually and carelessly enacting each of the 10 planks of the Communist Manifesto, Conservatives are concentrating on their supposed right to stuff the 10 Commandments down our throats by posting them on Courthouse doors, also recently decided negatively by the Supreme Court. And while some have called for a Constitutional Amendment reversing the Supreme Court's decision and calling for protection of property rights, Conservatives as a whole seem more obsessed with an amendment making flag-burning illegal. That's right. While the Supreme Court is actively finding ways to abolish property rights, our elected officials are looking for ways to abolish the First Amendment's "freedom of speech" and "freedom of religion" clauses.

It took a determined Supreme Court to reverse property rights. It will take an even more determined Congress to reverse the First Amendment. For those of you who sat on the sidelines all these years while life-and-death decisions were being made all around you, what WILL IT TAKE to make a DETERMINED PUBLIC actively interested in PROTECTING THEIR OWN RIGHTS? What will it take for you to hold those you helped elect to office to the flame on these important issues, issues that I dare call life-and-death issues? I'd light a fire under your collective bottoms, but the Supreme Court just did that -- and little good it did.

If playing video games is all you care about, then remember that only a decade ago, even this was under attack by the same basic political interests, and only by a few raised voices did we avert a full onslaught against our right to read, think, and speak freely. If you are the person who wants this... who wants this kind of life under the control and scrutiny of a third party with fourth-party interests at heart, then by all means BE PWNED for all I care! But for those of us who finally smell the logs burning -- are you ready to become involved, voice your position, and put a stop to this madness?

Take a look at some of these titles:

• Stupid White Men by Michael Moore
• Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them by Al Franken
• The Good, the Bad, and the Completely Ridiculous in American Life by Bill O'Reilly
• Treason and Slander both by Ann Coulter
• Deliver Us From Evil by Sean Hannity

Now I know that these were written to either criticize conservatives, or liberals, respectively, and not as autobiographies, but what's a guy to think when they see blaring titles like these and the perpetrators' (er, authors') photos spit-pasted on the fronts? Let's face it, if they were autobiographies, these titles would be MORE than fitting.

What is it about political commentators that makes them name their political commentaries criticizing their diametrically oppposite (but equally evil) enemies using colloquialisms which could just as easily be applied to them?

Out of these two tug-of-war intellectual camps, pulling one way to control our lives economically, and another to control them socially, WHERE are the intellectuals defending the right of each and every individual man to his own liberty? Where are those who defend the right of the average man to disregard the opinions of these political know-it-alls and just live their lives WITHOUT APOLOGY and WITHOUT SLAVERY of ANY kind?

Let me tell you... they are few and far between. Here's to those who speak out for liberty despite being an obvious minority!