Happy Birthday To Me

Well, I made it to 30. It didn't feel like much until a friend asked how it felt to have lived three decades.

That made me feel a touch old.

Still, no use complaining--on the whole I'm quite happy with my life. I like what I do for a living and it's a career path with some good growth potential. I'm happily married, although currently childless. This is not a point of contention--I just always figured I'd have kids, or at least a kid, by now.

So yeah. Happy birthday to me. I'm 30.

Now what?

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Blind Satellite Blog

The Band blog has been revamped. It's not attached to the website yet (long story), but you can follow the link and subscribe for updates or you can do what everyone else does and visit this blog daily and check the blog-roll along the left to see what's going on.

That's right, I've become a hub.

Either way, as we wrap up one recording project, we're embarking on another, and we've got an interesting approach to it this time around.

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Would I Lie About Cake?

After Valve's mini-adventure Portal became the darling of 2007, a sequel would be inevitable. There was so much unexplored with the concept, and so many lovable characters to bring back (by "so many" I of course mean "GLaDOS"). There were rumblings of a Portal 2 early on and expectations were set at a fairly reasonable place: Chell had escaped, GLaDOS had survived--her "death" appeared to have been part of the test. I imagined, as most others no doubt also imagined, that a sequel would follow basically the same way L4D2 did... new protagonist, same basic gameplay in a slightly expanded world with perhaps a new technology to play with and some kind of multiplayer involved. But, all in all, the same game with different maps and a couple new twists. Maybe we'd finally get to meet the Rat Man.

When Portal 2 was officially announced a few months ago, I was excited, but nervous. I trust Valve to make a quality product, but the details that were coming out didn't exactly thrill me. 300 years have passed, and the lab has been overgrown by jungle. GLaDOS is dead, but rebooting. The ending of the first game was ret-conned to show Chell being dragged back into the lab after her escape, but for what purpose? Also, there were dynamic paints that you could put on surfaces to make them more bouncy and what-have-you. I didn't get it. Why bring back Chell? Why put the lab in a jungle setting where your portal gun won't work?

Then I saw the E3 trailer (Tom's Hardware has the trailer and a gameplay demo that are definitely worth your time). And I get it now. The two big bits of information are that the lab is capable of quickly reconfiguring itself, and GLaDOS's dialog during the trailer defines your relationship with her, and how that relationship is going to drive the story of the second game.

You see, in the first game, GLaDOS was always twisted and planning to kill you (for science!), but you were at least somewhat endeared to her. Now, she's angry. She wants nothing more than to kill you on the spot, but with the lab in such a horrible state, you can't get out, and she can't really do much of anything. You need each other. As you solve puzzles, you effect repairs to the lab and the test chambers. As those repairs occur, you get closer to your goal of escaping the facility, but GLaDOS grows more powerful. There's probably a lot more to it than that, but one thing's for certain, this game is going to be a lot bigger, a lot more dynamic, and a good deal darker than its predecessor.

So, I'm excited.

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Side note, anyone want to start a campaign to get Yahtzee Croshaw to voice the British personality sphere?

Rebel Rebel, You Tore Your Dress

Last weekend was spent visiting the 'rents in Nashville, and I've decided that I never want to live there. It has all the things (except traffic) that I hated about LA (crowds, expense, impenetrable music scene) with a patina of redneck over everything and more religion than I can wash out of my clothing in a weekend. And then there's the ever-pervasive rebel flag, which was particularly evident in the town of Lynchburg (where we toured the Jack Daniel's distillery). In one of the little shops around town I found what may be the most offensive retail display I've ever seen: a shelf full of confederate-flag kitsch (shot glasses, et al) and Uncle Tom figurines.

I'm kicking myself for not getting a picture of it, if only because it's almost too outrageous to be believed by people who aren't, you know, inbred dumbshits.

I've always thought confederate flags were a sure sign of ignorance, but I got to thinking--these weren't hillbillies so much as they were die-hard southerners. They were also very conservative. In short, these are the type of people who would hear my views on Health Care and call me un-American. And while that didn't literally happen, it absolutely could have, and the more I thought about it, the more it pissed me off.

Because is there anything more overtly un-American than the Confederacy? This was a group of people who loved America so much that they couldn't bear to be a part of it anymore. They said "America, fuck you, we're through". They filed for a divorce on a national level. And don't give me that Southern Pride bullshit. If I got a swastika tattooed on my back and claimed I was celebrating my German heritage, I'd be taken out back and shot.

So here's my new stance--if you are willing to display a Confederate Flag in any context other than "oh yeah, that was a horrible thing that happened a long time ago", then you clearly hate America and cannot be trusted with the right to vote. That or you don't see anything wrong with proudly displaying the emblem of the most violent anti-American movement in history, and are therefore an idiot and should not be trusted with the right to vote.

Your call.

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