Here Is a List of Games I Will Not Be Buying This Tuesday:

1. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2


2. Lots of other games

Now, number two is obviously a given, but why, you might ask, am I not buying what is likely to be the best-selling, critically-acclaimed game of the year? Is it because I am mad that there are no dedicated servers on the PC version? Last I checked I'm not not a douchebag, so that's not it. Am I boycotting it because of that leaked video where you play as a terrorist and kill innocent civilians? No, but I do have some thoughts on that, but we'll get to that. The real reason I'm letting this game pass me by is because of Uncharted 2.

When the first Modern Warfare came out, I thought it was the bee's tits (which is to say, I thought it was good). It was like being in a summer blockbuster whose budget was approximately all the money in the world, and you were the reliable mute buddy of the hero of the movie. Every single scene in that game could have been the big crazy climax of the biggest, craziest Michael Bay movie.

But therein lies the problem. If every second of the game is climax, then there's no pacing to it. You spend the entire game brutally charging forward, and when you reach the end of the game, it just stops. You can't even call it anticlimactic; it's everything BUT anticlimactic.

Uncharted 2 is similarly based on a big action movie that has been financed by God, but it introduces the concept of pacing. Hot damn is that game well paced. It follows this basic pattern of a few light gun fights, gradually increasing in scale, until you approach an epic set piece, kick its ass, and then there's some nice relaxing platforming or puzzle solving while you reflect on how awesome you are. It's these quiet moments that really drive home the sense of accomplishment. In Modern Warfare, you can't really enjoy the fact that you just blew the shit out of everyone with an AC-130 because it's 30 seconds later and you're already running down a street dodging rocket fire. It says a lot that the calmest section of the game is the part where a nuclear bomb goes off.

Another thing that sets Uncharted 2 apart is the fact that you're actually the wise-cracking badass hero of the game, rather than the retarded freak who's following him around. Captain Price is obviously the hero of that game, as he's the only person with any characterization at all, and he's the one who gets to do all the cool stuff. As Nathan Drake you get to jump out of moving trains and kick people to sleep, all while spouting cool one-liners (such as, "I'll kick you to sleep."). In Modern Warfare, the only meaningful way you can interact with anything it to put bullets into it.

Oh, and there's also the fact that Uncharted is an Indiana Jones movie (not Crystal Skull, one of the good ones), which automatically trumps the Michael Bay vibe of the Modern Warfare games in terms of style. Amazing action with deep characterization is just better than anonymous explosions.

It's actually kind of a shame these games came out so close together. If Modern Warfare were coming out in, say March, I might have been interested in it. But coming just one month after Uncharted, I'm having trouble getting it up for the similar but inferior game.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot about the terrorist thing. Ok, so if you didn't know about this, there's a scene in the game where you apparently play as a terrorist, going through an airport killing hundreds of innocent civilians. This has upset a fair amount of people, and unleashed a low-level PR shitstorm at Infinity Ward, the game's developer. Now, I see where they were going with this, it's like that scene in a movie where you see the villain do something really villainous and terrible, and that increases your desire to see them taken down. But the problem is, that doesn't really work in a game. In the movie you're just watching the terrible thing go on, but in the game you're actively making it happen. I know that playing that part of the game won't make me go, "these guys are fucking horrible, my passion for defeating them is renewed!" It'll probably be more like, "I'm not enjoying this, I'm going to turn off the game and listen to Bob Dylan for a while."

Even worse was what came out after the story broke. The developers revealed that the before the sequence happens, a message comes up warning about the upcoming content, and offering the chance to skip the section. Bullshit. Even though this idea turns me off, I respect their prerogative as artists to include it. But pussing out like this completely ruins it for me. This is not doing the respectability of the medium any favors. True art is not optional. When you watch the Godfather, you're not offered the option to skip the horse head scene. On the other hand, if the scene is skip-able because the developers don't feel the scene is absolutely necessary, then it shouldn't be in there at all.

Another rationalization they offered is that in this scene you are in fact not an evil baby-killing terrorist, but rather an undercover agent infiltrating an evil baby-killing terrorist organization. Something was said about tough decisions in the name of the greater good, but once again: bullshit. As far as I can tell the only choice you're offered is to either take part in the mass murder, or stand by and allow it to happen. That's not a choice. "Oh gee, should I kill and eat this puppy, or just stab out both its eyes and kick it down the stairs? Which is the moral thing to do?" And I doubt either option has any real effect on how the game progresses.

The thing that really annoys me is that they could have done the exact same scene, but had you play as a civilian rather than one of the murderers. Then the scene would have exactly the desired effect of horrifying you and filling you with righteous fury. But I guess they don't want to do that because they feel it would be too similar to something they did in the first game. As it stands, the only emotion it evokes is slight disgust. Which is not ideal.

Before this came out, I might have considered picking the game up sometime around next summer, or whenever they knocked a few bucks off the price. But at this point I think I just don't care anymore. Of course, not like that's going to stop the game from selling millions of copies.

Whatever. I think I'll go play through Uncharted 2 again.

An Extravagant Amount of Garfield

More Of Dreams

This afternoon, after having eluded me for about 36 hours, I finally caught hold of a decent scrap of sleep. During that time I was transported away to the strange and magical, and occasionally terrifying, recesses of my own mind in the form of the vivid hallucinations that sometimes accompany the rapid fluttering of the eyes. I have made the point before that if dreams do indeed offer a rare uncensored look into the processes behind a person's mind, then what I am about to reveal to you is probably deeply personal and very embarrassing. However, the narrative of this dream is just too hilarious not to share, so whatever to all of that.

As before, I can verify that all of the key elements of the following story were present in the dream, with embellishments only for dramatic effect or to ease the transitions between scenes. No major plot points have been added.




TRANSCRIBED DREAM BEGINS HERE



So, I’m walking along the beach, when I notice something weird about the ocean. The last few feet of the waves come up about a foot and a half above the sand, and just sort of hover there, never crashing down to the ground below. Clearly, I figure, someone has fucked up the coast. I call out to the Coast Guard, “Hey idiots, nice job on the coastline!” Suddenly the boat changes direction, and begins speeding toward the shore. People are starting to shift around, obviously terrified of the maniacs in the Coast Guard. Some people actually flee. Looking back, maybe I should have run too.

I stand my ground as the boat hits the small jump at the end of the sea and boffs onto the sand. Three large men climb out, and begin to advance on me. I find myself surrounded. One of them pins me to the floor and begins to handcuff me. I allow him to, and the man drags me to my feet. As they begin to take me back to the boat, god only knows how they’re going to get it back up into the ocean, I position myself behind who I take to be the ranking Coast Guard officer. Instantly, I dislocate both of my shoulders and throw my handcuffed arms over my head, bringing the tiny chain down around my captor’s neck. Holding this man hostage, I demand that my handcuffs be unlocked. They comply, and one of the men returns with a small key. The second he turns it in the lock and the handcuff pops open I whip the newly freed cuff into his face. I then throw my hostage to the floor and proceed to summarily kick all of their asses. As I leave the beach, one of them croaks out a warning. “The Coast Guard will not forget. The Coast Guard never forgets.”

The next day I am visiting my old high school with my good friend Superman. There is a commotion at the front gate, and we quickly realize why. The Coast Guard has shown up in force to arrest me. Quickly we move to the back gate to escape, but they have cut off our route there. In an act of desperation, we duck into an English classroom.

The Coast Guard eventually find us. Superman pulls a gun on them, and I simply place a hand on his shoulder. He understands now, this was all part of the plan. You see, what I have not told you is that I am a secret super-spy, and my mission is to take down the corrupt and brutal Coast Guard.

A man walks in who I have not seen before and introduces himself as Agent Johnson of Coast Guard Special Operations. He explains that I am to be taken out of the country for “deep interrogation.” Superman pulls out his wallet and gives me a hundred dollar bill to cover my expenses while in captivity, and I go with the Coast Guard.

Eventually the bag is removed from my head, and I find myself walking through a South American slum alongside Agent Johnson. I have no idea where I am, but luckily we pass a guide map. I notice there is a Sea World nearby. I point this out to the agent, and he looks away longingly. He confides in me that he has never been to Sea World, but it has always been his wish to go. I tell him how great Sea World is, lying my ass off. In truth, Sea World is boring and dreadful, but I sell it as the greatest thing entire goddamn universe. I am trying to earn his trust here.

Catching my enthusiasm, he buys us two tickets, and we spend the day at Sea World. During the Shamu show, there is an unexpected appearance in the show by Superman. The crowd goes wild. Superman says, “You know what I love best about Sea World?” He pauses for dramatic effect.

“BASEBALL!”

The crowd cheers as Superman produces some baseballs, and a bat. He knocks several home runs into the audience, and they all fly directly into my hands. I shove the baseballs into my pockets, because of course they contain secret coded documents relevant to my mission.

On the way out of the park, Agent Johnson stops to negotiate with a prostitute. He asks me if I am cool with this. “Hey man,” I say, “whatever you want to do.” He does not seem satisfied with this, and tells me never mind, it was only a joke anyway, but I can see in his eyes that he was serious, and now he is embarrassed.

We pass a door marked, “Employees Only.” The agent asks me if I’ve ever wondered what kind of crazy pumps they must need to pump all that water into the tanks, and haven’t you always wanted to see something like that? He takes my awkward silence as some sort of begrudging acknowledgement, and we begin to break into the backstage area of Sea World. We find ourselves in a hallway, and we hear footsteps approaching. The agent instructs me to hide, but it is a hallway, so the best I can do is to lie down on the floor. He places a small wastebasket in front of the door, and lies down next to me on the floor. The door opens, easily tossing the wastebasket aside, and a woman walks through. “Oh, Jorge,” she says, “somebody left a bin in front of the door, could you pick it up?” We look at each other realizing she somehow thinks we are the janitor, and incidentally one person, and begin giggling uncontrollably. She shoots us an annoyed look, and we look away innocently.

Finally arriving in the pump room, Agent Johnson is filled with a school child wonderment. He starts gushing about how he’s never seen pumps like these before, and isn’t it amazing, though wouldn’t they get more pressure if they were closer to the source, and on, and on, and on. It was starting to get really annoying, and I began to question whether it was really all worth it. I finally decided that it wasn’t, and I went home.



END TRANSCRIPTION

The New Version of Itunes Has a Problem

You know what it is? It doesn't play songs. Isn't that just wonderful, how it fails to do the one thing it's programmed to do? It's like if a company was making a blender, and when it got to the testing department, there was the following exchange:

Dickless Manager: So, does it blend?
Worthless Employee: Nope, I press this button and nothing happens.
Dickless Manager: Well, let's ship it out anyway, we can always patch it later.

Seriously Apple, that is some outstanding quality assurance. You should really branch out, just think of all the good you could do outside the field of computers. You could make a pair of scissors that can sing the alphabet backwards, but can't cut paper. Or a shoehorn that slices off your heel and attaches it to your ankle. Or you could make a staple remover that rather than removing the staples, makes your documents 50 times more stapled than than they were before you interfered.



What really makes me mad is that I just got the Beatles remastered stereo box set, and I decided it would be peachy keen if I could encode it in a lossless format. After some research, I figured the Apple lossless format would be the simplest without installing new software to learn, test, and obsess over. So now all my sweet, sweet Beatles albums are locked away in the oppressive .m4a format, and I'm to fucking tired to figure out how to get at them right now. I guess I should just learn not to update apple products, but they were doing so well for a while there. Maybe I'm foolish, and I just can't change the laws of the universe. The sky is blue, the grass is green, and Apple will fuck you over if you give them a chance.

Um, I guess this is the part of the rant where I vent about what horrible things I want to happen to them.

Um... hang on a minute...

Okay, I've got one. Apple, I hope whoever is in charge of your quality service department has to eat 52 beer bottles, shit them out, light them on fire, and then eat the flaming shit with the glass shards in it. I hope his legs fall off, and his eyeballs turn inside out, and everyone laughs at him and calls him fat. Then just for good measure you should blow up the department and kill anyone who has ever had contact with him. After that, you should probably start fixing your horribly broken program.

So Apple, until next time you decide to fuck me, hugs and kisses.

More From the Time Cabinet

Here is another thing I found in my journey into the past, written on a small scrap of paper. As to its age, I have no idea. I don't even remember writing it. It's clearly my handwriting though.




TRANSCRIPT BEGINS

Nobody ever told me where the secret to perfect waffles lay, but I found it in the heart of all of us. And that's how I saved Christmas from the mole people, whose hearts are full of love and kindness, two ideas wholly incompatible with Christmas. Ultimately, time will judge me, as it does us all. I hope it will judge me fit for duty, on the sandwich press of life. Gooooooood night!

END OF TRANSCRIPT




Final thought: Baffling!

Something From the Time Cabinet

While going through some of my old possessions, I found an old bit of writing I had done. It's a very short short story, more of a micro-narrative really, hastily scrawled while waiting in line for something, if I recall. It makes reference to Conan O'Brien's perceived nemesis from his Finland special, which I suppose would date this to about 3 years ago. I should warn you, it's not particularly funny, it's ridiculously short, and doesn't make any sense at all. In fact, the only person this thing is probably of any interest to is me. But I do feel bad about not posting anything, so here's a bit of silliness.






Only once did I have the pleasure of meeting Forss Fagerstrom. It was the winter of '88, the coldest one yet recorded by the weather gypsies. As I recall, he was wearing forest green moccasins, and smoking a rather large rubber phallus. We were at the same fancy dinner party, on the occasion of Admiral Forsythe's eleventh birthday bash. Fagerstrom's eye caught mine, and for whatever reason he chose to impart some wisdom.

"Jimmy," he said, though my name was Wagsley, "Jimmy my boy, has anyone ever taught you the secret to successful banking?"

I could honestly say no one had.

"Well, the secret, dear Jimmy, is to take all of your money and fashion it into tiny paper boats. And the change, well, they can be sailors, can't they?"

I saw no reason why they couldn't, yet the entire process still confounded me. "And how does one gain returns in such a venture?" I inquired.

"Poor naive Jimmy," he ticked. "Don't you see? You send the ships out to sea, and they return from the new world with gold, and spice, and stuff."

His breath reeked of cheap brandy as he leaned forward to deliver the final word. I wasn't sure which "new world" he was talking about, so I did the only rational thing I could. I drew my revolver, pulled back the hammer, and blew out the back of his head all over the balloon animals.

In the ten years since the murder, and the resulting police shootout that claimed 18 lives, I have been able to see that his words, though profoundly stupid, do carry some wisdom. He didn't mean physically fold your money into ships. Or maybe he did, point is it's a metaphor. Probably. I'm not really sure, but then I guess I'm not as smart as Forss Fagerstrom.

He really had so much to teach us. It's a shame his life was cut tragically short by me.

I Finally Found a Use For My Wii...

So, I picked up a wireless adapter for my Xbox 360 today, and it turns out both it and the cooling stand I have the beast sitting on have incredibly short cords that can only reach the same lone USB port on the back of the console. Now, the cooling stand (which is an absolute necessity if you own a 360, that fucker will start to melt if you leave it running on its own) has its own little passthrough port so you can plug two things in, but the wireless adapter doesn't seem to like it very much.

The solution it turns out lie three inches to the console's left. The Nintendo Wii, which other than being absolutely delightful for a period of three and a half days coinciding with the release of Wii Sports Resort, has simply been gathering dust over there. Well, not anymore. Now, useless Wii, you finally have a purpose. Your sweet USB ports will power my Xbox's cooling stand. This is the true power of the Nintendo Wii, that even when turned off it delivers 5 volts of glorious phantom power through those cute little ports.

Plus the best part of this little tip is that based on sales numbers, if you're reading this there's a very good chance you own a Wii. So go on, put that little bastard to good use.