Flawless Failure

Posted on 27th April 2011 in Something Daily

I like to think that I’m pretty good at video games. I play them enough, I feel like I should know what’s going on. Give me a platformer, especially a 2D one, and I’m pretty much set. I’ve essentially been playing the same mario game in some form or another since 1997, so I should be pretty good at platformers. Also racing games I can do pretty well with, as a result of my Lego Racers/Mario Kart/DKR addiction in elementary school. Adventurers and shooters I can figure out as well. I don’t have as much experience with those types as I do with racing and platforming, but Zelda and the Halos have trained me well enough to hold my own.

The thing is, though, I kind of suck at fighting games. Like I suck really bad at them. Like I was just playing with my friends and I won one match out of about ten. It’s not that I don’t have experience with the genre; I played Tekken when I was younger, got 100% completion in Soul Calibur II, and recently owned Street Fighters 2, 3, Tekken 4, and Mortal Kombat: Armageddon. I played through them, and got to the point where I could at least make it through the single player fights. The thing about fighting games, though, is that just making it through the single player mode doesn’t really prepare you for a human opponent. Especially one as inhumanly skilled as Trevor, my friends’ roommate, with whom I played tonight, and who gave me the most thorough beatdown I’ve had the pleasure of receiving in a long time. He was literally ripping my characters in half in Mortal Kombat. He did the Noob fatality on me where Noob duplicates himself and he and the duplicate pull your legs in opposite directions and rip you apart. It was demeaning, seriously.


It actually looked just like this, because I was Scorpion when it happened. So rude.

Practice Street Fighter II as I might, for some reason I feel like I’m not really going to get to that level any time soon. Fighting games are awesome, but my gaming niche is the fact that I know every secret in Super Mario World and…you know….stuff like that.

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Donkey Kong Country

Posted on 24th January 2011 in Something Daily

Donkey Kong Country is not an easy game. I have this vague idea that I’m going to finish all of the SNES games I own before I buy any new ones, and starting with Donkey Kong I seemed like a good idea last night. It’s got physics that are kind of foreign to someone used to playing Mario Bros III, but even after getting around that fact, the game is just not easy. The level at the end of world III (“Millstone Mayhem”) was especially giving me some trouble. I have no doubt that I’m going to be able to finish DKC, but I’m also sure that it’ll take a bit of dedication. That and Chrono Trigger (which is going well by the way).

I went to the Upright Citizens Brigade again last night, this time bringing along a few roommates and Jen, who had all heard about it and wanted to see what was up. We left about 90 minutes before the show was scheduled to start, and we still ran through the frigid air to make it to a decent spot in the line. In the process of running, Eric, Leo, and I left London and Jen behind, as they were lagging a little bit. So we three got to the theater about fifteen minutes later, only to find that the 9:30 show had been canceled and another act had been tacked on to the 7 o’clock. We managed to get in (we were luckily the last three they let in), but London and Jen were too late! I was disappointed, and felt bad for running ahead, even though there was of course nothing I could have done about it. In fact, if I’d stayed with them, none of us would have gotten in. It’s just a good thing we ran, as we made it to the back row of the room right as they were coming on stage. It worked out, and I hope we’ll all be able to make it next time. So it was a good evening for me, and I got to bed quite early in preparation for my first day of classes.

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Sudo Take Me to New York

Posted on 21st January 2011 in Something Daily

I made it back to the zone last night, arriving at 9:45 totally exhausted and irritated from carrying my disgustingly heavy skateboard backpack apparatus. It was a long trip because of that. For whatever reason, I had an unfounded assumption that I would be able to grab some time to myself upon arriving at my room…no, people wanted to do shots. I didn’t, of course, but I ended up going to bed close to 2 AM after watching Amelie – fantastic movie, by the way.

My time to myself came when I woke up this morning, when I got to clean house obsessively, finally catch up on some Chrono Trigger, and grocery shop (meaning that I just bought bagels and cream cheese and orange juice. That’s pretty much what I mean whenever I say “groceries”). I’ve decided that I will hold myself to the rule of doing my own dishes as soon as I’m finished using them, and keep the kitchen as clean as possible on my own. Not because it’ll encourage people to be neat, more just because I’m compulsive about the kitchen being tidy for whatever reason.

Proof that I do go outside sometimes:

I played EA Skate for more hours than I care to admit today, because I figure that’s what this part of my break is for. If there’s any time to play video games for way “too long”, it’s right now. Skate is a really hard game for someone used to playing Tony Hawk Pro Skater. There are no button controls; rather, everything’s done by flicking the two analog sticks around. It’s a really tough system to get used to, but interestingly enough, the difficulty of the controls makes it a lot more rewarding when you do land tricks in the game. I feel like the controls of Skate mirror the actual act of skateboarding a bit more than those of Tony Hawk, if only because it’s based on a system of mimetic motions rather than just button presses. That having been said, I am very bad at this game. I get hit by cars very frequently, as well as hitting curbs and “spraining my head”…I don’t know, but that’s what the game said. It said my head was sprained. Now, wikipedia tells me that sprains affect joints and ligaments, and I’m pretty sure your skull isn’t either of those. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they meant the neck. You can’t sprain your head. Come on now.

It’s wonderful to be back in “the zone”. “The Bro Zone”. “The Brone”. “The Chill Zone”. “Room Nine Thousand Fifty”. “Room Over Nine Thousand“. Now let’s just get my mind back here with my body. Ok, sounds…..great!

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Take me to New York

Posted on 20th January 2011 in Something Daily

I started this morning, my last day in Downingtown for the winter, by attempting to install WordPress (where? I don’t know), because I’d read that that was the requirement for installing plugins. Only about three hours later did I discover that without a 3rd party web host, this is impossible. I banged my head against the wall for quite a while only to realize that what I was attempting was impossible. Great job! I did buy a new domain name, though – through WordPress, not a 3rd party. It’s a lot more expensive to get one from an outside source. You’ll notice, though, that it’s no longer “threestegosaurusmoon.wordpress.com” – it’s just “threestegosaurusmoon.com”. For only 17 bucks a year. Sweet. The longer URL still redirects here, obviously, but it’s less to remember now.

I’m now on a bus to New York after winter break slightly overstayed its welcome, listening to Funcrusher Plus and imagining all the Chrono Trigger I’ll be able to play in the next few days. Seriously, it’s such a good game. The only other RPG I’ve ever played is Pokemon, and I feel like a big part of the reason I’m so into Chrono Trigger is that I’m so unfamiliar with the genre. Since I haven’t become desensitized to the idiosyncrasies of RPGs yet, everything that it throws at me seems fresh. I don’t really understand yet why it’s known as such an incredible game – I mean, I’m sure it is, I just haven’t found out the reason yet. So far, I’m just enjoying the ride of leveling everybody up and meeting the enemies. Chrono Trigger does make me feel a bit dorkier than the average game does, probably because to talk about it requires one to at least mention the levels that the characters can go through; it’s pretty likely that I also end up naming a bunch of different weapons they carry (“Yeah, I thought about it, but I decided to switch the red katana to the iron rod – way more HP, dude”). It’s just got a pretty high dork potential. Funny, I don’t think twice about how I talk about the shooters or nintendo games I play.

I’m also looking forward to having my Steam games back again – I made the egregious error of putting the game files on an external drive and then leaving that drive in my apartment over break, so I got home and found myself Team Fortress, Half-Life, and Portal-less. I have a lot of catching up to do, and a lot of new things to start learning and accomplishing. I’m going to skateboard more; skating over break ended up being mostly a fantasy, as it snowed constantly when I was home. I’m going to catch up on some much-needed gaming time, chill with my roomdogs, and get ready for some sweet classes in the coming semester. Data Structures is going to be rad, as is Recording Tech. I can’t wait.

Tim and Eric Awesome Show: Great Job! is mostly an absurd parody of public access television. It’s really, really funny if you like non sequitur and absurdism (and you have a strong stomach). But seriously, it’s a sweet awesome show. Also, xkcd is quite clever, and Dinosaur Comics…isn’t. But they’re both rad, and I’ve read all of them. Also Amazing Superpowers and Dr. McNinja are sweet. If you were looking for some webcomics to waste your evening on, there you go. You can thank me now or later, whenever is good for you.

Alright, this is it: time to start having some more hilarious and interesting thoughts! I can already feel my creativity returning! Yeah ok…we’ll see about that.

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An Incomplete List of Movies and Music that have Made Me Cry

Posted on 19th January 2011 in Something Daily

I don’t know if I’ll ever get tired of listening to Enema of the State. I don’t listen to Blink-182 for the middle-school nostalgia, despite the fact that that would be a great excuse. I actually got into them just before coming to school. Pop-punk is sweet, don’t worry about it. I like how shiny and ‘produced’ Blink sound on that album, like that one Sum 41 album that has “Fat Lip” on it, and Dookie by Green Day. Those have the sound that I love, and the whiny teenage lyrics that I don’t really care about pretending not to love. I mention this because, as i sit here in my parents’ dining room, my laptop, trackball, and external drives spread out around me, typing whatever pops into my head, I am blasting the previously mentioned Blink-182 album in my earbuds and mentally adding a major 3rd harmony to every single vocal line, because even if it’s not ‘there’, it’s still there – and if it’s not, it should be. It’s not like I have any big memories attached to Enema, I guess it’s just the feeling. – I just noticed that at the beginning of “The Party Song”, you can hear Mark saying “here we go, motherfuckers”. As I mentioned, this album will never get old to me.

Also, the Green Day American Idiot broadway show was fairly rad. I don’t know if it’s still running, but I liked it when I saw it back in September. I cried a little bit during the title song.

  • Also at the end of the Peter Jackson King Kong movie, when the planes keep shooting him and his girlfriend is freaking out;
  • also during the Extras finale when Ricky Gervais looks right at the camera and apologizes to Maggie;
  • also at about six different points throughout the Lord of the Rings trilogy, including “You shall not pass!” and Theoden’s pep talk before the battle of Pelennor Fields where he hits everybody’s spears with his sword;
  • also the first section of “Echoes” from Pink Floyd’s Live at Pompeii;
  • also when Largeman and Sam kiss in the rain to Simon and Garfunkel in Garden State;
  • also at the part in the live version of “And You and I” where the build ends and they go to the “I listened hard but could not see” section;
  • also the second verse of Yes’ “Sound Chaser” from Relayer

That’s enough for now; seriously, I could go on.

I have this bad habit of getting totally obsessed with a project until it’s finished. It happened a few weeks back when I reworked my automatic data backups, and when I thought I was going to get totally into drawing, both to varying degrees. Something similar happened this morning when I got it in my head that today was the day I would finally draw the new header for this website. I worked from about 11 AM to 6 PM without stopping or eating, scanning each section of this new monstrosity separately, eventually creating this…thing right here.

I think it looks wonderfully homebrewed. We’ve got a stegosaurus, a Gameboy, an LED, a capacitor, and a little pink guy all hanging out and playing some classic video games. They’re having fun. I wish I had a sentient Gameboy to chill with. Break would have been significantly more fun, at least. I realize that there’s only one stegosaurus on it, and no moon to be seen. Don’t worry about it. Anyway, I hope you like it, but that’s where my involvement with your opinion on the matter ends. If you don’t like it…..GTFO. Or wait a few months for the day when I get bored with it and make a new one.

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Pancakes in the Age of Enlightenment

Posted on 15th January 2011 in Something Daily

I spent the bulk of this morning and afternoon hiking around the Red Rock area of the mountains surrounding Las Vegas. It’s my mom’s birthday, which means that today, more than any other of my break days, she is in control of my activities (a fact that I admit but don’t care to endure for long periods of time). Not that hiking around today wasn’t enjoyable – the mountains out here are beautiful, and I was able to attempt a few tripodless 360 degree panoramas. I can’t wait to patch them together and see if my hands are as steady as I think they are. We’re seeing Penn & Teller tonight, and I’m certainly looking forward to it. I saw them on TV once and I remember it being funny.

I’m in the middle of a book I recieved for Christmas that comprises a collection of essays on video games, written from a philosophical/media studies perspective by an NYU professor. Right now, the book is discussing the orgins of the first person shooter genre by examining films that have utilized the subjective camera perspective that typifies FPS. The author mentions Robocop and Terminator as examples of the first-person perspective being used to indicate an inhuman or computerized consciousness. It’s not a very difficult connection to make, but it’s very interesting to read it in such a deliberate style. It’s also making me think about the games that I play (due in part to the plentiful citations and examples the author uses) in a new way. It’s great that someone is taking the time and effort to consider video games with the same mindset we see applied to film and literature. But what in the world do I know about philosophy? A little. But not too much.

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Jake the Dog and Finn the Human

Posted on 13th January 2011 in Something Daily

I remember seeing a funny youtube cartoon way back in about 11th grade called Adventure Time where Jake the Dog and Finn the Human battled the Ice King to save Princess Rainicorn and also met Abraham Lincoln on Mars. If you’ve never seen it, I’m sure you can just tell from the description that it’s awesome; and if you still don’t, the fact that Finn’s exclamations are stuff like “mathematical!” and “rhombus!” should help you out. The point is that I saw this little eight-or-so minute video back in high school and thought it was awesome, and then recently learned that it was the pilot for a Cartoon Network show, and that the ensuing show is my new favorite cartoon (with the possible exception of Aqua Teen Hunger Force). Adventure Time has this crazy sensibility that allows it to do stuff like having Finn’s voice be autotuned whenever he sings, or giving the two a pet computer that loves to dance. I don’t know if those are great examples, but you get the idea. There is, however, a fair chance that the actual reason I like Adventure Time is that everything is so cute. They all have little mouths and little eyes and little legs and that makes them adorable. I mean, Adventure Time is great for other reasons. The guy who voices Bender on Futurama also voices Jake the Dog. It’s just pretty unpredictable in everything it does – voices, characters, animation, et cetera. Watch Adventure Time. Or don’t.

I’ve been reacquainted with the apparently inexhaustible power of Mastodon’s Leviathan to make me totally wired. I’ve also been reacquainted with the difficulty of Diddy Kong Racing for N64. For someone used to playing (and pretty good at) Mario Kart 64, getting back into Diddy Kong Racing is a challenge indeed. A big issue is that the game requires you to place first before advancing. Another big issue is those horrible silver coin challenges.

Better charge my iPod battery – I’ve got a long plane ride coming up tonight. I wish I had remembered to put “A Space Oddity” back on my iPod – I always loved to listen to that song as my plane was taking off and try to time it so that the drop after the big ascending bit (some would call it the ‘second half’) would time up exactly with the wheels leaving the runway. I did that a lot on Rock School trips when I was pretty scared of flying – David Bowie helped me out. I’m pretty sure there was only one time when I actually managed to get the song to sync up correctly. I’d usually just keep restarting it over and over and then be right at the beginning when we took off. This kind of thing is fun for me, apparently. Wish me luck on my Bowie-less flight.

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Etwas Deutsches

Posted on 7th January 2011 in Something Daily

I began what’s bound to be an arduous journey today as I started the German edition of the first Harry Potter book. I took five years of German in grade school, and I got a 5 on the German AP test, and I went on a three week exchange to Munich, but still after not reading or speaking the language for a few years, I’m certainly rusty. I remember the last time I tried to write an email to the family who hosted me on my exchange – it was a lot of work with not that much of a result. I used to be so good, and now it’s a struggle to get it back! I think it’ll just come with practice, though. That’s why I decided to finally start reading my German Harry Potter after about two years of it sitting in my room: I found out that I may very well be going back to Munich for a few days this summer! Of course it’s a pretty long time from now, and it’s not certain that it’ll work out, but as of right now I’m planning to accompany my dad on a business trip and stay with one of my friends from the exchange, getting a few days to hang out in Munich and hopefully see a bunch of old acquaintances. Of course, being my very enthusiastic self, I immediately contacted my Munich friend Ines with just the vague idea of my visit, and she was excited as well. It would be rad to see the city again, not to mention being in Europe.

Clearly, I really hope this works out. That would be cool. My anticipation is also a bit inflated because I just found out about this, but the sentiment is still legitimate.

I also shoveled three driveways today after waking up to falling snow (awesome, but I’m glad I skated yesterday), got to play a good amount of Chrono Trigger, and got a little bit of bonding time with my little sister. We did practice SAT questions together, and I gave her some strategies for rocking out on the harder math ones. I like bonding with her, even if she does watch Tyra when we’re home alone. Through Nellie, I’ve gotten a more-than-partial education on the shows of TLC and Tyra Banks. I just get bored once in a while, you know? I mean, my sister’s watching, and I want something to do while I eat my lunch. I’ll own it: I have certainly enjoyed watching the occasional America’s Next Top Model. Tyra is a bit much for me though. I prefer the Aqua Teens and the Sealab 2021s, to be totally honest.

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The Difference Between the Early 90s and the 2000s

Posted on 5th January 2011 in Something Daily

I played a bunch of really old games for the first time today. A friend of mine got a Nintendo Entertainment System and some games for Christmas, so I got my first taste of the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the first Battletoads, and Double Dragon (the contacts of which were covered in white paint when he got the cartridge, allowing me to save the day with the isopropyl alcohol I use to clean tape heads. Surprisingly, it worked with little hassle). Those games are pretty sweet, and playing them makes me realize the difference between how we play games now and how people used to. The typical NES (and even SNES) game had to be designed to be playable in one sitting, due to the lack of persistent memory capability of those early consoles. This resulted in a different brand of replay value than today’s gamer is familiar with: in the early nineties, you had to play the same part of a game over and over until you finally mastered that section, eventually repeating that process over the whole game, which was typically no longer than a few hours. Today, replay value comes in the form of long campaigns and unlockables that require dozens of hours to acquire. In my experience, this typically means a steeper learning curve in the gameplay of older games. I’m not trying to say that one of these is better than the other by any means, only that this difference certainly exists, and as a person used to playing mostly newer games, the chance to try one over and over to finally master it is welcome. I’ve only really done this with Mega Man X before, but I’ll try with Starfox as well.

Those three SNES games that I picked up around Christmas had been sitting on my bedside waiting to be played, as my Super Nintendo is still in New York. I did get a chance to try them all out today, though. Starfox is really, really hard, F-Zero is awesome, and so is Chrono Trigger. Although I couldn’t figure out how to save in Chrono Trigger before my friend ‘accidentally’ jostled the console and froze my game. I guess I’m just going to end up being really good at the first hour of that game…and that’s ok with me.

In other news, I can’t wait to be back in New York. There are a lot of people there I would like to see, my SNES is there, and I’ll get to go learn rad stuff about computers and music. I won’t take the break for granted, but it has been going on for a while now.

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Bob Genghis Khan

Posted on 28th December 2010 in Something Daily

In the last two weeks of this past summer, I spent the time during which most of my friends were back at school going to my high school friend’s house every night and playing through the first two God of War games with him. This happened literally every night for two weeks, and we ended up getting kind of sick of them by the time we left for school. We did manage to finish both in two weeks though. I can’t really decide if the God of War games are good or not. I mean they’re fun to play, and generally epic beyond comprehension, but the story and voice acting are just dumb. I’m sorry, but it’s true. Still, I don’t really think those alone make a bad game. They’re fun, so I’m ok with it. I like the huge enemy battles, despite the fact that the coolest parts of those fights are often just quicktime events. I do agree, though, that it does take a decent amount of thought to come up with a non-quicktime system that would allow for the kind of ridiculous moves that you can pull off in some of those big God of War battles. See what I mean? I’m so undecided about whether they’re actually “good” or not.

The point is that I was able to continue the journey last night for the first time in several months when I got together with Eric again last night and we started his God of War III that he got for christmas. What an awesome opening sequence. Seriously, that water-horse-crab thing is just too much. The third installment is just so much better looking than the first two; I was really hoping there would be a significant jump in graphics with the switch to the new hardware of the PS3, and as of last night, I’m not disappointed. Apart from the game itself, it’s always good to have some nondiluted bro-time when I come home (even though we all forgot our SNES consoles! Most non-triumphant.)

My true Christmas break started today, as I slept in until 10 (what!?) and have spent my morning so far shoveling the driveway and watching Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. I had forgotten how bad that movie actually is – not that I expect any of it to make sense or anything, but some of the time travel stuff they do is just so ridiculous. The whole thing where they decide to leave the keys somewhere where they’ll find them and they’re just there waiting for them? I mean it’s awesome and hilarious, but the part of me that’s into theoretical physics has a problem with that. I know it’s just an 80′s teen movie. I really just watched it for the two lead characters and their vernacular. I think I’m going to start slipping “most excellent” into my conversation and see if anyone calls me out on it. I bet they don’t.

I’m watching Yessongs on DVD right now, and I have to say that it’s likely my favorite concert video that I’ve seen. It’s just the perfect era of Yes where everybody was in the band and they were really good live. I actually like the Yessongs version of “And You And I” way better than the studio one – because it rocks way more, obviously. I remember an old keyboard teacher of mine was watching Yessongs with me once and made the comment that Steve Howe is the reason to watch the show. Now I realize what he was talking about, because Steve Howe is inhuman in that video, but at the time, being the keyboard-playing prog-rock nerd that I was in middle school, I was so offended that my own keyboard teacher would disrespect Rick Wakeman so blatantly. Watching it now, though, I realize that Rick Wakeman, while also playing ridiculously well in the Yessongs performance, was really ugly in the seventies. Not that this detracts from his performance, but it’s just a hilarious realization to me.

EDIT: This just reminded me that there’s a picture of me floating around the internet from way back in the days of Rock School when we did a tour with Jon Anderson, the lead singer from Yes. I had my mom make me this sweet Rick Wakeman cape, and I wore it every night on that tour. It was awesome. Here it is, you can still see it if you google “Emmett Butler”. Sorry about the tiny resolution, it’s the only one I can find. And yes, I actually was this cool at one point in my life.

There’s the beginning of my winter break from school. I can’t tell if it’s going to go by fast or slow, or which of those I prefer. I plan to start not worrying about that (or anything) riiiight…….now.

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