Soo

As I sit here, pretty much half asleep and bored.

I begin to wonder about things, this has never led to good things in the past (or to good spelling and grammar), so that would usually stop a person wouldn’t it? Well, not me. For as you see, I am not a normal person in any form. I have strange eating habits, my musical selections generally draw the ire or at least a strange look from people when they hear a song they don’t know, don’t like, or a combination of the two. Probably the closest to the “norm” I become is my parents, in that we live a quiet “normal” life.

So this leads me to a question… What really is “normal”?

Is it owning a home in a small town, or is it living in the apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan? Does our society dictate what is “normal”? Hell if we all lived in TV we would either live in pristine neighborhoods, the perfect apartment in the big city, or in that white-picket fence. Is normality dictated by what foods we eat, what music we listen to, what TV stations we watch, the latest in gadgetry? That is debatable, when one’s perception of normal can be so radically skewed from one viewpoint to another. Which is the inherent problem with subjective terms such as “normal”. What is normal for one, is never necessarily normal for another.

And I think i’m just going to end it there.

The (Updated) Rant of Christmas

And so begins the greatest time of the year for any company.  Its time for Christmas!!!!  ….Wait…. No… No, its not.  I am sorry Christmas is great… but 55 days of Christmas?

Mirror’s Edge Demo Impressions

Now I know Irv already did a Post on EA’s…Strategy? If you can call it that. But since the demo for Mirror’s Edge was released on Xbox Live, I figured to take a look at it, and it looks amazing.

More after the jump.

EA Games… Corperate Confusion

Okay… so I should be doing homework right now, but instead I think I am gonna post here.  EA Game has a long standing tradition of Franchises and Sequels of great Sports games, and mediocre games in other genres.  Earlier this year EA started to flex its creative muscles, developing new names based on :gasp: new ideas…  It looked like EA was finally moving away from it 1995 business strategy, and poised to become a huge player on today’s market.

Then… I guess the companies bean-counters and corporate voodoo masters decided to get into the mix.  Spore, a game that many people, even people not easily classified as gamers, have been waiting on for years, well… it flopped.  Sure the sales were pretty good, and I am sure that EA made money on it.  But Spore had has DRM issues.  EA limits the amount of times that the program can be installed and on how many computers.  The casual gamer may never notice the restrictions, but there are many people who buy new computers regularly to be able to play the latest and greatest games, or reinstall routienly to keep Windows from becoming overly bloated.  These are just the issues if you actually buy the game, but the way the DRM works, it makes it impossible to rent the game or buy used copies.

EA has caught alot of flak over Spore’s DRM issues, so they decided to fix them… sorta… not really.  They upped the limit of installs from 3 to 5.  Not removing the issue, just delaying it.  Many people are now boycotting EA’s games because of this issue.

EA has now also annouced that any infractions or bans on its offical forums will carry over into the actual games.  This means that if you are banned from the forums for any reason, you will not be able to play ANY of your EA games.  This seems like someones idea that sounded good the first time they said it, and it was implimented, and THEN everyone actually got sober.  Being on many forums myself, I can see where almost any form of Troll Control can be used successfully.  But this is a bit harsh even for use against the internet’s worst citizens.  If this were actually used, it may mean a $300+ loss for the person that has been banned.  In all likely hood this move will result in killing off the offical EA forums and more bad PR at a time when EA can scarsely afford it.

Oh and remember all that talk about new ideas and moving away from sequels and what not….

Just announced, Mercs3 – 10, Mirrors Edge Trilogy, Dead Space 2. So much for that idea…

/rant

-Irv

Blog Post about Nothing

Blog Review: Tom Scales Economic Blog

Admittedly the title sounds like its something you would want someone to read to you if you were having a hard time sleeping, or something like that, but really this is a great place for current information.  If you have ever wondered what this huge $700 billion stack of pennies is really gonna do, I would suggest reading the posts here.  Tom Scales has been my Econ Prof in the past and look forward to taking some more of his classes, no matter how complimajacated the topic he will find a way to break it down into easy to understand chunks.

I put a link to it on the side, so I figured I might as well explain why its there….. I wonder if I should do that for the rest of the links…

-Irv

Review of the Trivium, All That Remains, 36 CrazyFists and The Human Abstract at The National

With me going to the concert last night, may as well review it, not that i’m a part of the press or anything

Starting with the opener The Human Abstract, they weren’t bad, and I did kinda like the music that they played, well that I paid attention to anyway

More after the jump…

First Look: Ubuntu 8.10 beta Intrepid Ibex

Not quite a full review yet, just an over view of some of the new features.

The Plight of a Bum

I’ve always been the shy one,
never one to step outta place,
never one to get in your face.
I’ve always been the lonely one,
never the one with the date,
never one to have someone to hold.

Two reviews for the post of one!

Well, seeing as how Senses Fail and Rise Against dropped albums on the same day, why not review both?

Lets start with the Senses Fail album, Life Is Not a Waiting Room.

It reminds me alot of their earlier album Still Searching, with the screaming less aggressive and a bit more of a focus on the lyrics and the music itsself, I noticed that the album seems a little more down-tempo than their previous albums, which fits the album as a whole. But when they do speed it up a little, it’s great, especally on Lungs Like Gallows and Wolves At the Door.

I really enjoy the album, there’s maybe one track that I don’t particularly care for, but it’s near the end of the album.

Favorite Track: Wolves At the Door.

Most Skipp-able track: toss up between DB Cooper and Ali for Cody

Which brings us to the new Rise Against album, Appeal to Reason.

Now, I’m a Rise Agaisnt fan, and I really enjoyed the last album they released (The Sufferer & The Witness), whereas most RA fans I’ve talked to around VCU didn’t much like it, and with the new album it feels a little like old Rise, and a little like new Rise.

When I was listening through it the first time after I got the album through iTunes,  I wasn’t much of a fan of alot of the tracks, but then again, I wasn’t really listening to them, it was more of a skim through than a real listen. One track that feels out of place on the album is Hero of War, only because of where it is in the album, maybe if it was moved after Savior then it would feel like it’s in a better spot, not that its a bad track, it just feels otu of place to me.

Favorite Track: Savior

Most Skippable Track: Hmm, I would probably have to say The Dirt Whispered.