Showing posts with label impartial reporting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label impartial reporting. Show all posts

5/15/12

Diablo 3? Let's get drunk and play Diablo 2.

While I am somewhat interested in Diablo 3, it's just easier to find an old copy of D2, with the expansion pack if possible, and just drink and play that. Considering: D3 is a 12 gigabyte download and will murder anyone with a bandwidth cap; D2 installs in under 2 GB with the expansion, offers similarly limitless possibilities for time wasting and compulsive gameplay.

Probably the best part is that 60 dollars can buy a decent amount of liquor, which makes getting drunk and playing Diablo 2 cost-effective compared to drinking and playing Diablo 3. Analysts have offered the ludicrous explanation that although the game will sell very well, it will not outlive its predecessor.

Personally I don't know what I'm going to do. Nothing even seems real anymore in this brave new world.

Diablo 3 + 18 hours. Servers are down, the title screen and introduction cinematic were nice, there were plenty of graphics options and I can't play but I can fiddle around for optimum (imaginary) performance. My attempts at a screencapture were  failures, and since Diablo 3 does not run in the Steam framework, pressing F12 did nothing.

The second login attempt was successful, I had to accept a terms of use contract. Then another one, and then a third one, at which point I thought the game was bugging out. Then I got to the character creation screen. The options, it seemed, were tenfold. Five classes, four of which I am unfamiliar with, and two gender options... long gone are the days when an assassin was a woman and there was nothing to do about it.

Ongoing coverage may follow, especially if the game ceases to function normally or servers go down again.

Diablo 3 + 20 hours. The game alt-tabs very smoothly, perhaps more smoothly than any modern game I've recently played. This is extremely surprising and I post immediately about it. More exciting discoveries remain to be found, and the idea of drinking and playing Diablo 2, in which you can't even break the scenery to pieces, seems laughable.

Diablo 3. 24 hours later. Battle.net has been killed and will return whenever. 

7/29/11

The Jon Stewart / Juan Williams Interview

Apparently on the 27th of June at some point there was a discussion between two individuals about certain things regarding, vis a vis, et cetera... partisanship in the media. Jon Stewart being a media person, and Juan Williams as well, it was kind of interesting. I'd recommend it for anyone looking for hope, really. Were that discussion to be multiplied a millionfold, or at least the questions involved, things might look a bit better for everyone.

American Heroes in Action, or 'Everyday Joes'?
And that's kind of why America is still a sort of beacon, though distorted and melted, because at various times and places certain important questions still manage to bubble to the surface. This happens everywhere and has always been happening alongside its counterpoints. Because, who knows, maybe there's some evolutionary advantage to willful ignorance. The Darwin Awards beg to differ, but how trustworthy are those who would mock serious clusterfucks?

It was simply interesting to hear the issue addressed, because perhaps the time for mocking dysfunction is actually past and we are in more serious times. Or most likely of anything, dysfunction needs to be analyzed and only then mocked, once it has been brought out of the dim caverns where it assembles its myopic empire.

The interview asked one question that so imposed itself on my imagination that I couldn't shake it, and consequently missed part of the interview. I'll paraphrase for the gentle reader's convenience, but the bit deserves to be watched by a wide audience and some of it filed away. "What would a non-partisan news agency look like?" Would it be CNN, with its gaping loss of viewership in the last decade? According to Stewart/Williams the liberal paragon is NPR and the conservative paragon is Fox News.

I admit, their delineation does not shake my weak conception of US politics. It's kind of a no-brainer and since they are de-facto Kings of North America... all I know is Canadian Prime Minister Harper is planning to built condominium jails in Toronto. Back on topic: what would such a network look like? Are there global examples? Does Canada have that sort of reportage? Yes Canada is also a theme.

Well we have recent Fox News rat finks Sun Media, aka Part One of the Royal Plan to Put Conrad Black in 22 Sussex. Furthermore, the CBC is kind of our NPR. And of course I jest frivolously, but I learned something important from the Stewart/Williams interview – inflate and deform everything to hideous dimensions. That's how demons were made in the olden days and that's how honesty can be beaten. And the whole partisanship media shenanigan is proven by the past, and that is why it can be correctly attributed as a strategy of both progressive and regressive social elements anywhere. Like any currently known tool it is ultimately directed by some person, and like any old trick it is a pedigreed thing.

And is there any uncolored information? Along with the general increase in raw volume of information, our ignorance and pettiness seem to increase as well. Our famed high-density areas are largely full of indifference and spite, and that microcosm is played out on the screen and even in governance, apparently. Which begs the question: which is the true show and which is the farce? Or is it simply that they're both fucked?

The Moment of Zen was an uncanny failure, perhaps only because July 26 2011's episode had one of, if not the best Moment of Zens I've ever seen.