December 27, 2007 6:17
Video Game Violence Holiday Roundup
SYRACUSE, New York (AP) -- Police and firefighters were called in to break up what was described as an "all-out riot" between members of the Sigma Chi and Pi Kappa Alpha fraternities. According to witnesses, the adjacent fraternity houses were both playing a popular version of the video game Rock Band, called "Beer Rock Band," when the wireless guitars, drumsticks and microphone controls of the nearby games started interfering with their neighbor's controls. Despite strident requests from both groups, neither fraternity would cease their playing. Four buildings, seventeen cars and two Xbox 360s were destroyed in the rioting. Observers described the rules of Beer Rock Band as, every time you lose a round of Rock Band, you drink a beer.
MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin (CNN) -- Kenneth Gurman, 35, was taken to an emergency room on Christmas Eve -- his genitals apparently caught in a hole that had been drilled in the middle of the disc for the video game Portal. According to his roommate, Kenneth fell in love "some chick named Gladys or Glados or something from the game." "Kenny said he had to 'get his cake on,' whatever that means," said the roommate. "He wanted to put his blue portal in her orange box."
EUGENE, Oregon (AP) -- Police announced today that they have discovered the body of a fifteenth plumber, the latest in a series of grisly crimes perpetrated by the serial murderer known as "The Super Mario Killer." The latest victim was Datev Abulian, 50, a sewer worker of Armenian descent. "He sure looked Italian, though," said his brother, Yeznig. "Now he's never a-gonna win."
LORDAERON, Azeroth (Reuters) -- A family of skeletons returning home from a holiday party were murdered by a roaming group of living adventurers, an attack local authorities are calling a hate crime. "This premeditated and brutal assault was clearly racially-motivated," said Sergeant Ribworth "Ribsy" McFemur. "As the warm-bloods were hacking the family to pieces, cries of 'die bone-face' and 'back to the grave, boney' were clearly heard. And on Skull-mas, too. It just makes me sick." Police are offering a reward of a hundred skullars for any information leading to the arrest and flesh-eating of the attackers.
STROUDSBURG, Pennsylvania (Reuters) -- Jason Sanchez, 10, received superficial abrasions to the exposed flesh of his buttocks after he refused to stop playing his Nintendo DS during Christmas dinner. When asked to close the DS and halt his game of Pokemon Diamond, he reportedly told his father, Juan, 45, "When I get to a save point, dickhead!" Moments later, a full-fledged spanking was in progress. The DS was last seen in the kitchen garbage disposal.
December 21, 2007 12:01
PERSON OF THE YEAR: Q &A -- Vladimir Putin Answers 10 Questions About Harry Potter
In his interview with TIME, the Russian President reveals a few more secrets, answering the same questions asked to Person of the Year runner-up J.K. Rowling
1. Why doesn't Fred appear in the woods at the end as well?
There are snipers in the woods. Do not stray from the Dacha, it is very dangerous. I cannot protect you outside the Dacha.
2. Did Harry die?
Many people, including journalists, are tempted to make a little bit more money here and there, which means they get involved with entrepreneurs, sometimes with criminal businessmen. If this "Harry" became involved with such people, death is a possibility.
3. What was that creature in the corner at King's Cross?
Perhaps it was NATO, a putrid corpse of the Cold War.
4. What was Dumbledore's wand made of?
Polonium 210... I mean, how would I know? That wand had nothing to do with the radiation poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, if that is what you are implying.
5. What did Dumbledore really see in the Mirror of Erised?
Well, Dumbledore is a well-known гомосексуально. If he were to look into a mirror which reflected his strongest desire... BOISHE MOI!!!
6. Where do wizard children go to school before Hogwarts?
Hogwarts is a Western institution, one which purposefully creates a negative image of Russia in an attempt to influence our internal and foreign policies. I prefer Durmstrang.
7. Are Harry and Voldemort related?
In America, I saw a message on the bumper of an automobile declaring a political alliance between Cheney and Voldemort. Russia has no intention of joining such military-political blocs because that would be tantamount to restricting its sovereignty.
8. Who does Draco Malfoy marry?
I would like to take the time here to address alleged similarities between myself and a small man by the name of Dobby. This is absurd. I wear tailored suits. Dobby wears a sack, with a filthy sock for a hat.
9. Where do the main characters work as adults?
To continue, Vladimir Putin is the President of Russia. Dobby House Elf is the leader of a group of dirty, subjugated, ugly peasants. There is no similarity between us. Other than the height thing.
10. Was Teddy Lupin a werewolf?
Absolutely not. Teddy Lupin is a Metamorphmagus, as is Tonks. Many do not know this, but Tonks is a Hufflepuff. I have great admiration for Tonks. (An aide whispers something to Putin. He is visibly upset.) What? Dead? No! It cannot be! Not Tonks -- not my Nymphadora! Not Vladdy's Nymphy! Tonks! TONKS!!!
December 20, 2007 2:29
J.K. Rowling Is No Vladimir Putin
Rowling wasn't Time's person of the year, but she was one of the runners up. There's a rare interview with Rowling here, plus a bonus Q&A here. (Tonks was in Hufflepuff! Is that news? I can never remember what's news and what isn't.) Plus there's a great picture of Rowling doing her trademark melancholy sorcerous smile.
Every interview she gives, she seems less and less resolute about keeping her elegant fingers off of the Harryverse. Here's where her head is at currently:
"There have been times since finishing, weak moments," she says, "when I've said, 'Yeah, all right,' to the eighth novel." But she's convinced she's doing the right thing to take some time away, do something else. She's working on two projects now, an adult novel and a "political fairy tale." "If, and it's a big if, I ever write an eighth book about the [wizarding ] world, I doubt that Harry would be the central character," she says. "I feel like I've already told his story. But these are big ifs. Let's give it 10 years and see how we feel then."
Let's. Especially now that the New York Times has given us a terrifying glimpse of the shape of things to come in the form of Scholastic (Harry's U.S. publisher) first big bolus of post-Potter intellectual property, The 39 Clues.
Not to be confused with any similar-sounding intellectual properties, The 39 Clues is a 10-book series that "will be aimed at readers 8 to 12 and offer mystery novels telling the story of a centuries-old family, the Cahills, who are supposed to be the world’s most powerful clan. According to the books, famous historical figures ranging from Benjamin Franklin to Mozart were members of the family. The plots will revolve around the race by two young Cahills, Amy, 14, and Dan, 11, against other branches of the family to be the first to find the 39 clues that will lead to ultimate power." It's the YA version of the novelization of National Treasure!
Even better, the series will integrate websites, blogs, collectible cards, online games and cash prizes! What a wonderful business plan, I mean, reading experience, for a new generation of consumers, I mean young minds hungry for literature.
December 19, 2007 5:58
re: Worst "Best of" Of 2007
Enthouse is effing genius. Also Letters to Enthouse.
I'm having a recovered memory of passing off as my own, in a letter to my friend Matt (different Matt) when I was around 11, the parody of "Norwegian Wood" in Larry Niven's Dream Park:
I once had a sword. Or should I say, it just had me.I just picked it up. Oh, what a sword: it was +3!
Etc. He never busted me on it. But somehow I sensed that he knew.
p.s. Dude, Oscar Wao is way better than Cloud Atlas
p.p.s. @ commenter O, I don't get the Clarke thing either
December 18, 2007 8:00
Worst "Best Of" Of 2007
It's the end of the year, and all the critics are churning out their "Best of 2007" lists. My colleague Lev Grossman has so many that I would be hard pressed to choose my ten best lists among of all his "Ten Best" lists. Anyway, here's my list:
BEST EBAY ITEM I DIDN'T BUY BUT WISH I BOUGHT
A quilt made of Jimmy Buffet concert t-shirts
BEST EXPLANATION FOR HULK HOGAN'S DIVORCE FROM WIFE LINDA
It's an evil scheme by Rowdy Roddy Piper, Yuri Badenov, and the Rock ‘N’ Wrestling heels. The Iron Sheik dressed himself up as Hulk, and The Fabulous Moolah pretended to be Linda, and in their clever disguises they poisoned the marriage. Hopefully the Junkyard Dog and Andre the Giant can unmask these villains before the divorce is finalized!
BEST LIST OF MIDDLE EARTH PORN MAGAZINE TITLES I FOUND IN A DRAWER IN MY OFFICE
Playboy: Girls of the Third Age, Enthouse, Letters to Enthouse, Orcs Illustrated: Swimsuit Issue, Shaved Sauron, Numenorean Sorority Sluts, Mandalf, The Quim-arillion, Barely Smeagol
BEST BOOK OF 2004 THAT IS BETTER THAN ANY BOOK OF 2007
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (Prove me wrong)
BEST RECOVERED MEMORY OF CHILDHOOD PLAGIARISM
1982: Read the Mad Magazine parody lyrics to The Greatest American Hero theme song, then passed them off as my own during a sleepover at James Allegro's house. Fraud later exposed by Allegro.
BIGGEST SURPRISE IN HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS
Magic cannot be used to MAKE FOOD.
MOST BAFFLING INSULTS HEARD DURING HALO 3 ONLINE
Anoid, scrotus, assy, horkwad, and kike (How did they know? Was I playing Jewish?)
BEST HEADLINE ABOUT ARTHUR C. CLARKE IF YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ARTHUR C. CLARKE
December 18, 2007 11:23
Also, the Hancock Trailer Is Up
I would never, ever be one to question Will Smith's box office acumen -- see this interesting profile we did, plus last weekend's box office receipts -- but did this trailer strike anyone as a bit off?
I mean, just racial politics-wise? The black, apparently homeless superhero who just can't pull it together? I'm not saying I didn't laugh -- the reaction shot after the train crash is pretty choice, and Jason Bateman gives good timing on "Greenpeace does" -- but I kinda wasn't totally sure I should've.
December 18, 2007 10:13
Another WALL-E Trailer Goes Up
My brain has been colonized by friendly cold bacilli that are helping my body to produce lots and lots of phlegm. So I'm going to do some low-IQ posting today, starting w/ this new WALL-E trailer:
Earlier this year I kinda harshed on WALL-E as too cute and sentimental-looking and Short Circuit-y, based on the little footage that was out there. But I'm coming around. I mean, a devastated, trash-covered future earth goes a fair ways toward cutting through the treacle. And the animation is really astonishing -- look at those airborne dust effects! And, you know, spaceship.
Below is the plot synopsis from Wikipedia -- it's presented as a quote from John Lasseter to some Disney investors:
WALL-E is the story of the last little robot on Earth. He is a robot that his programming was to help clean up. You see, it's set way in the future. Through consumerism, rampant, unchecked consumerism, the Earth was covered with trash. And to clean up, everyone had to leave Earth and set in place millions of these little robots that went around to clean up the trash and make Earth habitable again.
Well, the cleanup program failed with the exception of this one little robot and he's left on Earth doing his duty all alone. But it's not a story about science fiction. It's a love story, because, you see, WALL-E falls in love with EVE, a robot from a probe that comes down to check on Earth, and she's left there to check on and see how things are going and he absolutely falls in love with her.
I really hope there's a part in this for Maximilian. It's his year, I can feel it.
December 17, 2007 2:32
The Nerdies: The 10 Best Nerd Things of 2007
I'm on leave from Time for a month to work on a book, which is leaving me less exposed to nerd things than usual. I haven't even seen fricking I Am Legend, for frick's sake. But I'm keeping the blogging flame burning, sort of. Because, you know, it matters.
Today I spent my lunch break noodling around with a list of the best nerd things of 2007, regardless of category:
1. Halo 3 -- backlash be damned, it was beautiful.
2. The iPhone -- at this point it's such a mainstream status symbol it hardly counts as nerdy, but you have to give it up for a beautiful engineering feat. Plus when developer kits ship next year, I think we'll see some backlash to the iPhone backlash.
3. The Orange Box -- Half-Life 2 is just my kind of thing. Big emphasis on the single-player campaign, gorgeous virtual firearms, lots of big cinematic vistas, a dash of horror. I'm only on item #3 and this is already sounding like one of Stephen King's Entertainment Weekly columns.
4. BioShock -- run Bioshock hype macro here.
5. Harry Potter and Thingety Thing -- it had its flaws, but it got me where I needed to go. And where will the next thundering fantasy epic come from after this, one wonders?
6. Beowulf -- It was smart, and sad, and violent, and had Crispin Glover in it. I don't ask for much more. Insert honorable mention for 300 here.
7. MC Frontalot's Secrets from the Future -- if a great nerdcore album dropped this year, would anybody care? I would and did. All together now: I hate your blog.
8. Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao -- a great novel about the fall and fall of a fat Dominican-American nerd.
9. The return of Futurama -- let this also serve as an omnibus post that embraces my whore of a co-blogger's Simpsons episode, featuring the voice of Alan Moore.
10. Scrabulous -- it's not cool. I know that. I'm just being honest.
Don't bother quibbling about the order, I know it's wrong, or at least arbitrary (or you can, but don't worry, I get it), but I'd be curious to know what I missed. Obviously it's heavily weighted toward games, but that's because it was a frickin' unbelievable year for video games, what with all those hot-ass high-quality second-wave Xbox titles arriving. I could have done the whole list in games, what with COD4, etc. Probably should have.
It also made me think about how unbelievably great next year looks, especially in movies, with Cloverfield, Dark Knight, the new Trek movie, and Indy 4 all in the pipeline. Plus there's a new Nerf Herder album coming. Sweet.
December 14, 2007 6:13
Barfing Las Vegas -- Part 3
I ran through a maze of backstage corridors, desperately trying to make it back to the Spike TV Video Game Awards in time for Dave Navarro to give me a stupid prize. Finally, I found the way back into the show. And only one gentle old man was blocking my way. Unfortunately, that man was Stan Lee.
Stan Lee? No. Not here. Not now. But... STAN LEE. I had to talk to him. Stan looked so vital, I idiotically asked if he had been bathing in Ra's al Ghul's Lazarus Pit to stay young, or was it not cool for a Marvel guy to use the life-prolonging magic from the DC universe? Stan, the eternal Ham, told me he wanted another guest spot on The Simpsons. I said of course, if the strike ever ended -- which reminded me of my plan to end it by bearing my WGA shirt on a basic cable channel. I had to go.
I made it back to my seat just as Dave Navarro taking the stage. Whew! Since everything Spike TV does is "radical," instead of opening an envelope, Dave revealed The Simpsons Game's victory by pulling over a sexy lady wearing only body paint -- with Homer Simpson drawn on her boobs, and Bart peeking around her crotch. (Feminist Lisa, I think, was drawn on her butt.)
I've never seen Matt Groening so aroused and appalled at the same time.
As planned, I pulled off my jacket, proudly displaying my WGA emblem. We donned looks of fake surprise and took to the stage. When Dave Navarro saw my red shirt, he gave me a big dude-hug. We did it. We won the award we knew we were going to win. And I got to show off my union pride. Screw you, food poisoning.
After a taking in few rounds of the next night's Ultimate Fighting Championship (certainly, the death sport most resembling prison sex), we enjoyed Hans Klok's The Beauty of Magic show. (For a trick where Hans disappeared from a box and "teleported" into the audience moments later, I like to think he used one of those Tesla machines from The Prestige, and that under the stage was a confused, drowning Klok clone.)
...
Back at home Sunday night, I eagerly turned on the Spike TV Video Game Awards broadcast to witness my pre-arranged triumph. When Dave Navarro called out "The Simpsons Game," the camera zoomed in on a dorky guy in a bright red shirt with a DIGITALLY BLURRED LOGO on the front.
Those bastards. Those Viacom-owned bastards. To watch myself gamely pumping my fists and smiling like a doofus, with that blurry, indistinct red t-shirt... it's heartbreaking. Curse you Spike TV, for censoring my feeble support for my cause. Bless you Spike TV for giving me a free vacation to Las Vegas that I would price at about $1500. So, mostly, bless you.
December 14, 2007 2:36
5 Minutes of Cloverfield
It used to be you felt like you were getting away with something when you embedded video in your blog -- you were "appropriating" the Man's media, "recontextualizing" it within your own "agenda." Truly, early 2007 was a heady time for our nation's idealistic young dreamers. Now I just feel like I'm another footsoldier in a viral marketing campaign.
Though I am still my own man enough to say this: J.J. Abrams needs to work on his cue-card-reading manner. There, I said it. The revolution lives.
And when did it get to be a "thing" anyway, releasing 5 minutes of your movie online? In the past few days I've seen the opening credits of Sweeney Todd ("I will have vennnnnnnngeance") and 5 minutes of I am Legend.
And before I forget, in other hand-held-camera-movie news, check out this deeply messed-up trailer for the Spanish horror movie [REC]. ¡Yeesh!
December 13, 2007 4:32
Barfing Las Vegas -- Part 2
It was every Hollywood jerk's worst nightmare: not getting to stand on stage and be handed a statue. Food poisoning had laid me low, and I was going to miss getting my Spike TV Video Game Award. Or was I? Hell no. Boot and rally, as people I hated in college used to say.
I unsteadily made my way to the Video Game Awards, armed with two ginger ales. Every ginger ale-y burp, a kiss from an angel. As a legion of delightful publicity yentas guided my shaky frame to the red carpet, I saw a familiar all-American-looking guy. Who was this dude?
Then I saw the annoyed expression on his wife's face and I knew -- it was King of Kong star Steve Wiebe. I asked Steve if his hot sauce-distributing nemesis Billy Mitchell was going to be there. He didn't think so. I'm not sure who holds the Donkey Kong record these days, but as Tony Hawk high-fived Steve's kids, there's little doubt who the real winner is.
We were planted at Table Fourteen, in perfect award-accepting range of the stage, next to nerd comedy Hall-of-Famers Brian Posehn and Patton Oswalt. But my stomach would have none of it. Renewed waves of nausea surged through me as the start time to the show ticked down. Not wanting to hurl on 50 percent of the Comedians of Comedy, I bolted for the bathroom and unloaded a torrent of used ginger ale so unyielding the toilet auto-flushed three times.
Warm with the heroin-like high of the freshly-purged, I headed back in just as the show was starting... but security blocked my path. Through ginger ale-barf breath I tried to explain that I was winning the first award of the night. Not nominated. WINNING. Security didn't care; the entrance I was trying to get through was about to become part of the show's parkour kick-off. I was going to miss my award and parkour?
I felt as low as Brian Kuh watching Steve Wiebe get a Donkey Kong kill screen.
To be concluded...
December 12, 2007 12:03
Barfing Las Vegas -- Part 1
In my many years as a writer for The Simpsons, I've been nominated for my share of Hollywood honors. So I know well the heart-pounding unease of sitting in the cold audience of an award show, waiting for my category to be announced. That's why winning my first Spike TV Video Game Award was so memorable. Because instead of sitting uneasily in a cold audience, I was on my couch, getting a call from a producer telling me I'd won -- and the award show itself wasn't for two weeks. (Also, I didn't know I was nominated and I'd never heard of the show.) Now that's a stress-free way to win an award.
I guess there are two kinds of award shows. The kind that wants to honor those who are truly excellent, and the Spike TV kind. Spike TV just wants to put on an awesome show. That means telling the talent well ahead of time that they have won, so they will be sure to show up. So when I got the chance to go to Las Vegas for free and pretend to be surprised when The Simpsons Game won for "Best Game Based on a Movie or TV Show," I jumped at the chance. (Meaning, I told my wife that I "really wanted" her to go with me, but "the more I thought about it," I realized that wouldn't "work out," and I guess I would "just have to go with the guys.")
On the flight to Vegas, my seatmate was the charming, tattooed rock star Dave Navarro. Dave, it turned out, would be presenting our award. With this to bond over, we chatted amiably about Hollywood sushi places, the difficulty of keeping The Simpsons fresh, and the upcoming porno movie he wrote and directed. I confided in Dave a little scheme of mine: when called up to accept our award, I was going take off my jacket and reveal my red Writer's Guild of America t-shirt. No self-important speech about the strike, just a visual shout-out for my cause. Dave agreed it was a cool idea. And I promised to buy his movie -- one promise I intend to keep.
But... on the ride to the hotel, a creeping feeling of sickness started to bubble in my belly. And if there was ever a city not to be nauseated in, it's Las Vegas. The city abounds with loud noises, buffet smells, and images of Carrot Top. (Have you seen this guy lately? He looks like the Joker's Joker-ier brother.)
By the time I staggered into a Mandalay Bay men's room, I was spewing airport nachos with the velocity of someone who actually had seen Carrot Top's show. It was food poisoning. I had to confront the unthinkable: I was going to miss out on the experience of pretending to be surprised to get an award someone told me for sure I was going to win.
To be continued...
December 11, 2007 2:00
Wherein I Am in Thrall to Schäffer the Darklord
I feel the need to say that I've been listening to a lot of Schäffer the Darklord lately. Billyuns and billyuns of years ago I saw him live at a nerdcore show, and blogged about it, and then more or less forgot about him till his CD Mark of the Beast found its way, by divine means, into my hard drive. And you know what? It's pretty damn rich.
Schäffer the Darklord -- STD to the fanz -- comes across as a bit more of a homebrewing amateur than my nerdcore mainstays Frontalot (with whom STD has lately been touring) and mc chris, but he's definitely their equal in terms of performing and songwriting chops, and the rough edges are part of his charm. A list of standout tracks from Mark of the Beast (STD's real name is Mark; you get it) would have to include "The Rappist," which I'm embedding below, though the determined should seek out this higher-res version here:
But now that I've plowed through the obvious fan favorites, which would also include "Cat People" and "Revenge of Attack of the Clonef___er" and "Nerd Lust" ("Let me see you shake it -- shake your inhaler baby!"), I'm getting into the odder tracks, which turn out to be just as good: "Bitter Musician" and "Night of the Living Christ" and "Tin Man," which is a rewriting of The Wizard of Oz via Black Sabbath's "Iron Man":
Here comes the Tin Man!And he will hack you apart
His skin is made of metal and he has no heart!
Etc. Check it out, do.
This would be an appropriate time to plug Stop Standing Still, which was set up (by some stalwart Nerd World commenters) to glorify geek culture and in particular live shows relating to same. If nothing else you should read the Geek Culture Manifesto, which is a searing defense of all that is right and good in the world.
December 10, 2007 2:43
The Top 2 Top 10 Lists
Time.com has posted my top 10 video games of the year and my top 10 graphic novels of the year. Take a spin through them. There may be no better time this year to call me an idiot! Though there have been some pretty good ones. And the year ain't over yet.
What did I leave off? As far as the video games go, I note that there's no massively multiplayer love on there. It's surprising how few really good new entries there were this year, when you think about how heavily this was tagged as a growth area. Should Tabula Rasa be on there? It's really hard to know -- part of it is that the deck is stacked against MMO's, critically, because they're so hard to review. Blah blah blah.
Graphic novels: I put two webcomics on the list, Achewood and Erfworld. I couldn't decide whether webcomics belonged on a graphic novels list at all, and I wasted way way too much time thinking about it before I finally decided these two were just too deeply great to leave off the list, whether or not it really made sense, and their greatness qualifies them for virtually any list of anything. Then I went to bed and slept soundly.
I also wrote Time's list of the best novels of the year. This may or may not interest you, but my pick as best novel of the year, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, is worth a look just for its extremely authentic portrait of a fat, awkward Dominican-American nerd. Not something you see enough of in contemporary literature.
December 7, 2007 11:20
The Speed Racer Trailer Is Up Too
Right here. If that music doesn't give you a massive nostalgia seizure, check your internal hard drive.
I'm not saying this is going to be a good movie. But it does look like the best possible Speed Racer movie you could make.
December 6, 2007 10:28
The Prince Caspian Trailer Is Up
It's here. Scroll down for the high-def version.
Prince Caspian is, of course, a very weird book, since it starts a millennium after the last book ends, so the first thing the Pevensies have to deal with is that everybody they knew and loved in Narnia is dead. Except Aslan -- maybe that's the point? But you can imagine how pissed his editors were. Clive, the kids want more Tumnus. Waddaya mean he's dead?
Other than that, I don't see much to get excited about. There's some pretty CGI work, obvs -- a pink petal-spirit, a water-spirit, some bending trees -- and some welcome faces -- Tilda Swinton gets a frozen cameo, and how did I not know that perennial Nerd World favorite Peter Dinklage was going to play Trumpkin? (Pete, if you're reading, two words: Tyrion Lannister.)
But otherwise, it reminds me that a great book that's adapted merely competently can become a pretty but absolutely empty movie. Cough, Golden Compass, cough. And what is up, yo, with Prince "Gaspian's" accent?
December 4, 2007 11:58
The Tantalizing Fascism of Legoland
If Ayn Rand liked children's toys, which she most certainly did not, she would have loved Legos. And if the shovel-faced founder of Objectivism liked amusement parks, which she totally didn't, she would have adored Legoland. After all, the Atlas Shrugged-y motto of Danish Lego creator Ole Kirk Christiansen was "only the best is good enough," which some translate as "the best isn't good enough." The Best ISN'T Good Enough? Ayn would have jazzed on that so hard.
The Howard Roark-like triumph of Legoland is, of course, Miniland. This is the area of the theme park where Lego Master Builders have created perfect scale replicas of famous cities and world monuments. Miniland is like a much better, smaller, plastic, lifeless -- but still better -- version of reality. Case in point, in Miniland, the Lego Freedom Tower is already up and running (unlike Daniel Libeskind’s mired-in-political-infighting-and-then-changed actual Freedom Tower), giving the finger to Lego terrorists everywhere. The Lego Freedom Tower even contains working wind turbines that power 20 percent of the building's electricity. Truly, the best isn't good enough.
Ultimately, the world of Lego is a world of total order. No, not a world. Worlds are messy and unpredictable. A SYSTEM. A system so organized, so well-thought out, so simple-yet-ingenious, so meticulous, so well-made, that, by comparison, real life is a lumbering, smelly Brobdingnagian doofus. Finally, a totalitarian society that works! The acrylonitrile butadiene styrene Lego elements (Master Builders call Lego pieces "elements") last forever. Pieces, I mean, elements made in 1963 still connect with those made today. Using only simple images -- no words -- Lego instruction manuals are so intuitive they could teach a Kalahari Bushman to build a Technic Formula One Racer. Good luck figuring that out via "written" language, Click Click, or whatever your name is.
The Legoverse is so anally utopian that I'm dropping everything and moving to Carlsbad, California -- no, better -- the Legoland in Billund, Denmark. That's keeping it real. I'll buy up the rarest, most beautiful Lego pieces in colors you've never seen -- by the pound. (Yep, they sell it by the pound.) I've already got my The Unofficial LEGO Builder's Guide, or as I call it, the good Bible. It's full of great techniques, like bracing, staggering, and graphing design grids. They'll start me on Dulplo, but soon I'll be moved all the way up to the highest echelons of power: Mindstorms. Finally, I'll create my own Lego version of John Galt's secret valley -- and the only sound I'll ever hear will be the satisfying click of two Legos becoming one.
Yep, time to ditch real life and become an Adult Builder of Lego. Just spend everyday at Legoland... if there just weren't so many stupid kids there.
(NOTE TO NERDS: Lego branding these days is just exquisite! In the Lego Batman Arkham Asylum set, Lego orderlies have strapped down the Lego Scarecrow for a nasty Lego torture-session. In the Lego Harry Potter Slytherin Common Room, Ron and Harry's polyjuice potioned-up Lego heads turn into into Crabbe and Goyle! And in the Lego Star Wars II video game, when I saw Lego Chewbacca happily rip the arms of a Lego Stormtrooper, I almost cried. A Lego Massively Multiplayer Online game is in the works too. I don't know anything about it, but SPLORT.)
December 4, 2007 12:49
I Saw the First Six Minutes of The Dark Knight
Last night Warner Brothers decided to screen the first six minutes of The Dark Knight, a.k.a. Batman Two (but not Batman Returns). For some reason -- basically because it would be cool -- director Christopher Nolan shot the first six minutes of the movie in a fancy IMAX format. Then he showed them to a bunch of dorks and journalists and bloggers. I was there.
I might be the only person I know who didn't love Batman Begins. Minus ten geek points for me, I know, but I thought it was too psychologically pat, and the way Nolan filmed the action felt jump-cutty and overhyped to me. Maybe it's because I saw it on a plane.
But this. This was different. This was good.
UGO wrote out the whole tick-tock (<--- journalist slang for "blow-by-blow") of what we saw, but basically it was a self-contained sequence in which the Joker, now played by Heath Ledger, pulls off a bank job, capping his masked associates (see pic) one by one as the heist unfolds. It's beautiful, clean, taut storytelling, and Ledger's take on the Joker is fresh. His make-up is very creepy -- he looks less like a clown and more like somebody who's suffered extreme chemical burns that kinda sorta look like clown make-up if you don't look too closely. And Ledger plays him lower-class, with a Bronx accent and a lumbering, shambling gait. The money line: "What doesn't kill you makes you stranger." I seem to remember that as a line from Aeon Flux, but whatever, it works.
December 3, 2007 11:17
Rock Band: Yeah, I'm Playing It Too
There was nothing wrong. I was deeply, deeply immersed in The Orange Box. There's something about the quality of the light in Half-Life 2 that just sucks me in -- that bleak, wintry illumination washing over a defeated, depopulated, picked-over Earth with its tumble-down, head-crab-infested farmhouses. And the audio: sometimes I reload my pulse rifle just to hear that little three-note sequence.
So I did not have a problem filling my leisure hours. Then I got a package in the mail the size of a very large cat-carrier or a small steamer trunk. It contained Rock Band. I was all: meh. I had never played much Guitar Hero -- I guess I was snobby because the basic gameplay mechanic is so simple, and I'm generally suspicious of novelty controllers, and, hey, I play a little guitar (basically "Wish You Were Here" over and over again), so what do I need with this thing?
But dudes: it really is cool. It's partly the original music, which they did an unbelievable job getting the rights to, and it's partly the great great interface design -- lots of sparky bright liquid colors and mellow gold tracery, surprisingly easy to follow even when you've got the full power-pop quartet playing. And the gratification is instant. Having basically never touched a stick, I was up and drumming along to "Creep" on Medium in a couple of tries, badly but happily. (I sometimes forget the kick drum is there.) I've mostly been rocking guitar and drums, since my singing is painful for others and shame-making for me, and the bass parts are just not that exciting.
When you can coerce other people into getting involved, something really surprising happens. You really do feel like you're getting a diluted but authentic sense of how cool playing in an actual band is. Once everybody is set up and jacked in and ready to rock, it's one of those rare almost-impossible-to-have-a-lousy-time situations, and you all look at each other with this goofy expression on your faces, and nobody wants to stop. It's not quite like anything I've ever experienced playing a game. I have it set up in my office, and people just drift in for a set. $170 is a lot to pay for a video game, but if you can get a shot at this thing, you should try it.
December 3, 2007 10:20
Nerd Music: The Portal Credits Song
My brain is experiencing another spike of interest in Jonathan Coulton, the nerd-singer-songwriter responsible for, among other things, "Code Monkey" (about office misery) and "re: Your Brains" (about office workers-turned-zombies). The video embedded below plays as the closing credits of Portal, and even though I've never played the game (I'm happily mired in the middle of Half-Life 2), and the song consists mostly of in-jokes and references to it, I find it eerily mesmerizing:
I was going to accompany this post with a list of the top 5 video game closing credit sequences. But I couldn't think of any, except this one, that didn't suck.
About Nerd World
Lev Grossman
Lev Grossman blogs about anything and everything that could be plausibly labeled geeky--science fiction, fantasy, video games, comic books, tech stuff, and so on. If it could get you beaten up in junior high, it's fair game. About the Author
Matt Selman
Matt Selman has worked on eleven seasons and over two hundred episodes of The Simpsons. He currently serves as an Executive Producer. About the Author
RSS Feed
 |
