|
April 22, 2008
Manitoulin Illustrated Volume 1 Now Available!
Hot off the presses! Manitoulin Illustrated Volume 1 is finally available!
Click on the link above to read more about this exciting new project!
April 16, 2008
Happiness is a Warm Gun
I was watching the excellent "Across the Universe "Across the Universe" (I'm serious, if you haven't seen this movie yet, go out and buy or rent it today!) the other day, which is the first DVD that I have actually purchased in ages and something struck me about the Beatles tune "Happiness is a Warm Gun".
In the movie, they, of course, relate this song to intravenous drug use, in the case of one of the characters, recovering from traumatic wounds incurred whilst on a tour of duty in Vietnam. My best guess about the original meaning of the lyrics is much the same, but perhaps related more to heroin, which ties into mystery lyrics from songs like "For the Benefit of Mr. Kite" with lyrics about "Mr. H and Henry the Horse", which could both be taken as analogies for "H".
However, I started to find my own meaning in the song when I started to think of the "gun" not as an instrument of illicit drug use (which I can't imagine how or why anyone would get into), but as an instrument of art, as in a tattoo gun.
As anyone who knows me can attest, I have been captivated with tattoos and body art for as long as I can remember. Tattoos are interesting on so many levels that it is hard to find just one to focus on, there's not only the artistry and symbolism involved, but there's also the fascination with touching and playing with pain. The endorphin rush associated with getting ink is thoroughly addicting, perhaps not as much as a true chemical addiction, such as what's experience with opiates, but in a different, cathartic sense, where the act of being "drilled" with ink is equal to huge release of pent up energy.
Tattoos can also be quite therapeutic when it comes to those who suffer from chronic pain, which is not a subject to ever be trifled with. But why would somebody who is already suffering want to hurt more, you may ask? It's because the pain of a tattoo is guaranteed to end when the tattoo heals, leaving a mark, than unlike a typical scar, is beautiful and symbolic. Sometimes of strength, sometimes of survival, sometimes of something even deeper, it doesn't really matter; the point is that tattoos always having a meaning of some sort for the wearer that will last a lifetime.
Anyhow, my point in writing today is to mention my absolute favorite tattoo shop down in Mississgauga, Ontario: "Moonshin Tattoo". Moonshin is run by "Chuckster", his wife "Gwan Soon" and partner "Evel". I've been drilled by all three of these fine artists (sometimes by more than one at once, tag team ink, cowabunga!) and I can attest to their excellent skills and professionalism.
Unfortunately I don't have photos of my personal ink at the moment, but I promise to post some in the coming months. I'm actually hoping to get some fresh ink at the start of May, so hopefully I'll have pictures of even more than just my current six pieces.
I also wanted to add a plug for one of my favorite websites for pictures of ink: Inked Girlz. To me, there's nothing sexier than soft, feminine curves and loads of ink! (I guess this explains why my significant other has over 16 tattoos and nearly as many piercings, LOL!)
April 1, 2008
A Nice Surprise for April Fool's
One of my fans just noticed that my upcoming book "Beaded Chain Mail Jewelry: Timeless Techniques with a Twist " has been officially listed on Amazon.com!
Having spent more than the past year working on this title, it's very exciting to finally see things taking shape. Of course, the actual release isn't until this coming fall, but it's great to know that things are progressing as scheduled!
Stay tuned for more information!
March 26, 2008
Net Neutrality Hits Home Hard
It looks like the great overlords at Bell have decided to start Über-throttling internet traffic on the lines that they resell to smaller ISPs all across Canada.
As an Internet user who specifically chooses to go with a smaller ISP to avoid throttling activities, I find this kind of behaviour on the part of Bell to be completely egregious and quite irksome.
Oh course, with all issues in the business world, things may not be quite as they seem. If the comments section for the article above is to be believed, it seems that what Bell is really attempting to do is protect it's own proprietary ADSL2 service, the rollout of which conspicuously coincides with their decision to start throttling traffic on re-sold lines.
Only time will tell what will happen with the entire Net Neutrality issue. With more and more data getting slung around the 'net for the purpose of providing entertainment content, such as high definition movies, we are unlikely to hear the end of this debate for some time to come!
March 7, 2008
Synesthesia
Synesthesia (a.k.a. synæsthesia or synaesthesia, plural synesthesiae) is a term that literally means the combining of one or more of the five human senses. Nominally, in from the standpoint of neurology, this is actually an unusual condition found in less than 4% of the human population, which causes people to make unusual associations between items of thought or memory. Examples would be somebody whom thinks of Thursdays as having the texture of concrete, or remembering the smell of the basement of your old house as being the sound of pigs grunting.
When I first found out about synesthesia I wasn't at all surprised, I had related smells to colours, tastes to shapes, the seconds, minutes, hours, days, months and years of my life to giant clockwork mechanisms, etc… for as long as I can remember. What I was surprised to learn is that it was such an uncommon occurrence, and that there was actually a technical name for it!
However, after initially discovering this concept, I sort of set it into the back of my head. Sort of the same reaction I had when somebody explained Asperger's Syndrome (a type of mild autism, which causes many kinds of environmental sensitivities, which seems to be a common thread among the world's geek popular), which was "cool, file in the cerebral databanks and move on".
Actually, thinking about Asperger's and Synesthesia just now has got me wondering if anybody has ever attempted to discover a cross-correlation between the two? Sounds like a research paper worthy of Kaitlen from Douglas Coupland's "JPod" . (Which, incidentally is the funniest book I've read in ages!)
Anyhow, sorry for my digression, back to Synesthesia, which has actually become a bit of a buzzword in the gaming industry these days, which brings me to the subject of this post, a couple of really cool games I just came across.
The first is a literal attempt to create a Synesthesia based game. It's called "Synaesthete" and basically combines the mechanics of Robotron with the rhythm basics of a "PaRappa the Rapper" or "Dance Dance Revolution " (which in turn spawned the epically famous Guitar Hero games) with a very Tron (looks like we're going to get a Tron movie sequel in 3D for 2011, I wonder if it will be as good as the Tron 2.0 FPS that came out a while back?), or Darwinia -like (A fun little RTS set inside a computer) aesthetic.
Basically, you run around glowing mazes, defeating enemies by taping out various musical beats and receiving Marshall McLuhan-esque philosophy each time you defeat a group of enemies. The beats that you tap out add to the visual experience, so that the music and visuals become a Synesthesia. A very interesting concept indeed and after playing through the first 3 levels, I can say that it's pretty good fun. (I understand that the old PS2 game "Rez ", which has recently been re-released as a download on the X-Box 360 is a similar experience. Although, differing in being a "rail-shooter", as opposed to directly moving your character, the concept is the same, shoot things to make beautiful sound and light shows.)
I think it is cool to note that Synaesthete was created by students at Digipen, which is possibly one of the coolest schools on the plant and just won the 2008 student award at the IGF.
The second is actually one of the most inventive and entertaining games I've come across in ages. It's called "Audiosurf", and no, it's not about being some poor Rockstar slave to the RIAA (that would be an "AudioSerf"), it's a game which translates songs of your choosing (in several popular audio formats, including ubiquitous MP3s) into multi-lane digital highways that again follow a bright-glowing colour motif. The beat of the music determines the bumps and shape of the highway, which you must ride along in an attempt to score points by either hitting or avoiding (depending on the game mode) various coloured blocks. In effect, the game world combines with your choice of music to create a Synesthesia upon which you race through (sometimes at breakneck speed, depending on your chosen song).
At the end of each race, Audiosurf connects with a high score server to show you how well other players did with the same song. I can't stress enough how brilliant this design decision was. Let me attempt to explain: You see, the rest of the game is basically a combination of other concepts melded together in a highly creative manner. The blocks on the highway are very similar in concept to the notes you hit in Guitar Hero, although, you're not actually strumming, you just have to move from side to side to hit them. The matching of blocks can be linked back to puzzle game time immemorial, with classics such as Tetris or Bejewelled. Even the overall look of the environment basically breaks down to one of those cool musical visualizations that have been a common component of software for playing digital music files for ages.
So, while the concept is highly original take on old ideas, the "drive" or want to play only crystallizes after you've finished your first "race" and you see the tally board of other players. All of a sudden, we are not only driven to compete for higher or more complex scores, but we're also drawn into thinking "Oh, I wonder if anyone has ever set a high score for this song or that song". Our minds become overloaded, as we think of song after song to try, we want to know if it's popular, we want to know who else has the same taste in music as us.
In short, it is brilliant marketing. The designer has driven us to buy his product, not just because of how cool it is, but because it allows us to utilize a commodity (music files) that just about everybody possess. And admit it, how many of us don't believe that there's something interesting or unique or special about our own taste in music?
Audiosurf delves into a region of collective unconscious that groups (beyond regular game developers) like the RIAA really need to study. Music is not about "the old ways", such as radio and CDs anymore, it's about new ways of interactive with music as a graphic and visual whole. The success of games like this is proving that every single day, I personally believe that more and more developers are going to run with these concepts and produce some absolutely spectacular results!
In my book, Audiosurf is a 10 out 10! (and it's only $10 and can be downloaded straight away, you can't get any better than that!)
P.S. My personal favorite songs for Audiosurf so far have been "Sabotage" (Spike Jonze, you rock!) by The Beastie Boys, "Woke Up This Morning" (The Sopranos) Theme) by Alabama 3, "Tom Sawyer" by Rush and "Revolution" by Aimee Allen.
February 29, 2008
Learning my ABC's
I saw something extraordinary this evening at approximately 9:20pm est; just outside of M'Chigeeng, on the side of highway 540, heading east, just after the dump road, in front of the small rock cut was a large, black animal sitting in the ditch.
When I first spotted the animal by the flash of its large, bright yellow-green eyes, I thought it was a bear, which wouldn't be an uncommon site lumbering around any of the island's dumps. However, this animal was different, it didn't lumber, it moved with measured steps of a sleek predator.
Caught in the flash from my Silver Cavalier's headlights, it pulled its torso up to stare directly at me as I slowed to get a better look. There was something decidedly feline about the form that I observed, from its flat face, tucked ears, long neck, long sleek body and crook of the tail, there was no doubt in my mind that I was momentarily face-to-face (as it were) with what looked that world like a black panther.
It turns out that the term "black panther" is actually a collective bit of nomenclature for several species of large black cats, generally known as "melanistic leopards or jaguars".
Now, there's a slight problem with having spotted a "black panther" on the island, which is located in Northern Ontario, Canada and that is that the island is located in Northern Ontario, Canada, not exactly a region known for its abundance of jungle cats!
So what the devil did I see? Well, these are the facts as I witnessed them:
- The animal was larger than an average dog, I've had friends with Newfoundlanders and I'd say that the animal I saw was a similar height at the shoulder, but longer, not including its tail, this beast was at least 6 feet long, with another 1.5 to 2 feet of felid tail behind.
- The was jet black, I mean, it was absolute glossy black, the light from my headlines refracted a little from this perfect black coat. (I should note that in the past, I had always assumed that large black cat sightings were just made by people under bad lighting conditions, mistaking the silhouette of a tan cougar for a large black cat. This wasn't the case for my mystery animal; it was caught fully in my headlights and reflected almost no light whatsoever with the exception of its eyes and gloss coat highlights).
- It was gone by the time I got the car stopped and turned around, unfortunately, it was frigidly cold tonight (minus 16 F according to Environment Canada), so there was little chance of finding any paw prints in the icy hard snow banks at the side of the road. Neither my travelling partner nor I were inclined to look either, visions of hungry black beasts leaping upon us from the rock face above swirling in our minds.
- The animal was not a figment of my overactive imagination, as my partner observed it as clearly as I did. Her only deviation is that she doesn't remember the eyes reflecting for as long as I did and she thinks the animal was larger than my observation.
So, if this was a "black panther", which is clearly not native to this region of the world, excluding unsubstantiated reports of melanistic mountain lions, then what I observed was an official ABC aka "Alien Big Cats".
Now, I'm not talking about space aliens here, I am just referring to the common classification for non-native (alien) cat species in the cryptozoological canon.
General ABC lore would have us believe that these alien big cats fall into one of the following classifications:
- Misidentified large dogs or other animal. I fully admit that I may have misidentified a bear or large dog. However, against this hypothesis is the frigid temperature, which should see any black bears well in winter hibernation and the overall look of the animal, which was like no other canine I have ever observed.
- Escaped/Released exotic pet or circus animal. Well, I don't know of any circuses that have visited the island recently, but I could by the escaped or released pet theory. If so, I feel sorry for this animal, which must be used to much warmer conditions than the island in February. I'll have to keep an eye on the local papers for any news of escaped beasties.
- Previous unknown species. Highly unlikely in such a small geographical region, although, plausible that cougars, which have been spotted previously in the Espanola region (and much like the moose in the Espanola Hills), could have wandered south onto the island over the frozen North Channel. I which case, this would definitely be a sample of the previously unidentified melanistic mountain lion (puma) sort!
- Spirit or otherworldly creature, living half in our world, half in some other parallel dimension. This really isn't my sort of cup of tea, but what I saw was surely black enough to imagine that it could indeed be some sort of shadow brought to life. Owing to the fact that I actually had a dream about a black panther chewing on my hand a couple of weeks back, I found this page on black panthers as spirit totems to be quite fascinating.
http://wolfs_moon.tripod.com/blackpantotem.html
- Shapeshifter/Lycanthropy/Skinwalker. Well, like the strange combined bare human footprints with black bear footprints that I found out on the south shore of the island a few years back, I suppose there's always the possibility of folks who walk on two legs during the day and on four legs at night. I suppose too, that it has been a bit of a mystical time of the year, today, being the rarest day of the year (February 29th) and just having passed that lovely lunar eclipse last week, so who knows what kind of strange mystical beings may still be lurking about?
- Large feral housecats. This is actually a fascinating concept coming from the pages of Fortean Times, which in its August 2007 mentions anecdotal evidence of regular house cats gone feral and growing to enormous sizes in the Australian outback. Which I doubt is the sort of thing that could happen on the island without somebody, somewhere having noticed!
Well, that's it for my list, what do y'all think, any other explanations (reasonable or otherwise?)
One thing is for sure, I won't be forgetting tonight's late night run to the crossroads (and you do know what they say about "the crossroads!") Timmy's in Espanola for a long time to come!
January 31, 2008
Hellgate: London - Gripes and Possible Bugs
Ok, so as if I hadn't complained enough about Hellgate: London, I have some more gripes. They all relate to the single player game, as mentioned before, I'm not interested in shelling out a monthly fee for multi-player experience.
Gripe # 1 – Ok, so I've finished the game in regular mode and now I'm playing on "Nightmare Mode". At first "nightmare" was anything but, as I was able to wade through hordes of monsters with nary a scratch, in fact, by the point I was done with Covent Garden Station, I was selling off Advanced Health Injectors, because I had too many.
Then all of a sudden, all hell broke loose, I ended up using nearly 20 AHIs just to get to Charing Cross Station, then when I started to do the first Charring Cross missions I got totally ganked, I must have died about 30 times, just trying to get a foothold into Piccadilly Approach. I couldn't figure out why the monsters had suddenly gotten so damn tough and by the time I actually got to Piccadilly Square, I was nearly out of Advanced Injectors and was getting into my supply of shiny new Nanodyne Health Injectors.
Then I noticed that the monsters I was fighting were all level 39 and 40, while my character was still only level 32, holy unbalanced game Hellgateman! I'd done all the sidequests to get to this point in the game, so I have no idea why I ended up so far behind. The only solution was to backtrack and do some levelling, so I went back to Covent Garden Station and started to do runs on the Covent Garden Portal and the Sewers, trying to collect Health Injectors and Experience. After a couple of days of messing around, I was up to level 34 and had made back all the Injectors I lost in Piccadilly, so I was ready for another shot at it. This time, success!
I was able to get through the Square no problem this time and did several more missions, like the Death runs in Green Park Station, but all of a sudden, "Poof!", I've hit another wall trying to carry on at Charring Cross. I've level 35 now, but all the creatures are level 42 and higher, yeesh! It seems that when there's a disparity between monster and character level, of 6 to 7 levels, the monsters get some kind of extra boost when it comes to getting through the character's defences, bleh!
Gripe # 2 – Ok, the best items in the game are the five star gold "unique" items, which drop very, very rarely. In fact, having gone through the game once and now into Act 2 of Nightmare, I can say that I've seen less than 10 gold items, only 3 of which have been usable by my character and of those 3, 2 were shoulder armour.
That's no big issue, I expect good items to be rare. What really sucks is that the item drops are suddenly not random, in fact, the last 3 "unique" items have all been the exact same item, not very unique there, boys! It's been something called the "Subtle Converter", a mind-control weapon that's absolutely of no use to my Blademaster. Is this a bug? I think so! Double Bleh!
Gripe #3 – Here and there I've decided to use skill points in an unwise manner to try out new abilities. There's absolutely no way in the single-player game to get these points back. However, if you play the multi-player version and have a paid account, you automatically got a "respec" token with the last multi-player patch.
This totally bites and is something that Titan Quest totally got right, with TQ, there's a special merchant that allows you to buy back skill points, he starts off fairly cheap, but soon has exorbitant prices if you want to respect too much. This is a great game balance feature, it lets you try out skills, but not be punished, except in the virtual pocket book, which keeps things balanced.
It's obvious that Flagship knows that people should be able to respect somehow, as they're offering the option to subscribed players, which is basically admitting that there's a lot of useless skills. But they are totally deciding to punish folks that want to enjoy the single-player game.
What's the big deal? Why punish single players? If I'm happy I'll totally being into buying the inevitable expansion pack(s), so stop pissing me off and don't make me turn to third party hacks to correct minor errors in judgement. TRIPLE BLEH!
December 19, 2007
Abandonwhere?
Here's a fun list of interesting abandoned urban structures in the US, check out the bottom of the page for more cool lists!
|
|
April 2008
