I Bet These Guys Freaking LOVE their jobs!

Found This, made me love Pixar more. Enjoy.

Now here's something I never even considered!

I just found a wonderful blog post arguing that Portal is an interactive lesbian metaphor. Interesting to say the least. Vagina!

Oh My God

Seriously... Oh My God

This is why I love it so much!

I really love Avatar: The Last Airbender. It is an absolutely gorgeous show. Last weeks episode is one of my favorites thus far, and if you want to know why I love the show so much, it is as good a place as any to answer. Enjoy "Sokka's Master", Episode 4 of season 3.

Alex, you're alowed to have an orgasm now...

HADOKEN!

This is what I'm talking about!

Portal.

Oh my sweet sweet juicy brain juices Portal.
I've been excited for this game for oh so long. When it was first teased, the concept was almost too much: A first person puzzle shooter which would bend physical space and allow players to use PORTALS to their advantage. What? How? When?
And then it hit at about 3am last Thursday (the 11th). There aren't a great many games that can jump in front of a Half-Life Sequel for me, but this game did it. I played it from its release at 3am until about 5:30 am. Now here's the thing, by 5:30 am, only 2.5 hours after starting, I had beaten the game. Beginning to end, final boss battle and all, the game was over.
The game has been greatly poo-pooed because of this. I admit, 2 hours to complete a game is a little slim, but for those of you who read my argument in an earlier post will know, I feel that a game is justified in its short length by the fact that each and every moment of gameplay adds to the overall story. AND THIS GAME DOES IT! From the moment you awaken in the cryo-chamber which imprisons you, and you hear the cold voice of GlaDOS, the game's omnipotent Artificial Intelligence, you are sucked into the world and live in it. As you unravel the coiled reality of Aperture Science and make your way through the sadistic puzzles which present themselves to you, there is an unnerving dreadful feeling that cannot be shaken. GlaDOS's dialogue, while hilarious, is always just a little off, and as you move forward with the puzzles, and find clues left for you by former test subjects, you can start to piece together who you are, why you are here, and what it all means.
To add to that, the gameplay itself is also simply brilliant. For those of you who haven't heard, you get to play with portals. You carry a weapon which (after it is fully upgraded which takes only a few minutes) can fire off two portal "doors". These doors can be placed on most any surface, and can then be passed through, one to the other. For example, if I were to fire a portal at the ceiling directly above me, then the second portal at the wall, I could look through the wall, and see myself from a birds eye view. I could also walk through the wall, and end up FALLING back to the position I started from. Confusing? That's the point. The puzzles in this game forces you to think in ways I guarantee you never have before. Not once in my life have I ever thought "Hmm? How am I going to cross that chasm? OH! I know! I'll shoot a portal at the top of the very high wall behind me, then I'll jump into the chasm, shooting another portal at the floor on the way down. This way, my falling momentum will carry me through the floor and out of the portal on that high wall, flinging me across the chasm, solving all of my problems."
Now I have also played through Half-Life 2: Episode 2, and it also was fantastic, for many of the same reasons, but that game is just a stellar sequel to a game I already love, portal had something to prove, and hell if it didn't. Anyone who is at all interested in gaming, or even one who feels that a game cannot tell a convincing story, purchase Valve's Orange Box (available at any games retailer or for download over Steam), you owe it to yourselves to play this game!

http://www.aperturescience.com/
Login
Username: Cjohnson
Password: Tier3
The Cake is a Lie!

HOLY MOTHER OF CRAP!

If this is true then I will not have shit my pants in vain!
Check out the pant shitting glory!

New Favorite Website

www.totallyradshow.com
YAY! Just Launched!

An Art Guy I Know

Every now and again I make mention to my brother-in-law (is that what he is? I think he is.) Joe Pascale. Joe is a brilliant visual artist who works mostly with cartooning and animation (He also Rawks the Casbah solid with his brosefs in Calvaire). Any time I visit the Pascale family (whom I love wholeheartedly by the way) I make a point of taking some time to have a look at any of his newer work, or revisit my favorites. So I'm going to put up a few of my favorite pieces here, with their titles, and I hope you all enjoy!

Stomach Hungry....Won't Shut Up....Must Eat Kittens...Too Allergic....


Fuck Your Dance


Morgan and Blogggs


Stan the Man... What's the Plan?


Untitled


Most Women Aren't Funny


EDIT: Apparently, blogger is cutting off the edges, its not really ruining the images, but to see them in their full splendor, check out the group "The Wet Nurse" on Facebook.

The Halos are a comin'

I recently submitted a short article to an editor of a St. FX school newspaper, my good friend Will Fitzpatrick. I am publishing it here verbatim.

Next week (Sept 25) Halo 3 is being released. The sheer number young people who will be standing outside of their local video-game selling outlet at 11:59 pm on Monday the 24^th would shock and astound even the most stalwart gamer. Why would so many give up their time and money (approx. $150 for the limited edition box of the game) for a video game. If you need to ask, you've obviously not played this game's predecessors. Halo and Halo 2, both released on microsoft's former console, the xbox, were some of the best selling and most loved games that the world have ever seen. An engaging storyline, cooperative gameplay, and one of the most well delivered multiplayer experiences ever offered on a console (especially in the second iteration).

With the third game, Bungie, the company producing the game, has promised a number of features which should push this trilogy's closing act into a whole new realm of popularity. Firstly, the cooperative gameplay (my personal favorite aspect of halo games) has been buffed from two players to a maximum of four players over xbox live. So you and three friends can all be working on ridding the world of the evil alien covenant together in the comfort of your own homes.

Secondly, every multiplayer game is automatically recorded and offered to each player after the match has ended. The replays can then be edited, viewed, and shared over xbox live. This means never again will a player be disappointed when his cries of “DID YOU SEE THAT?!” are not answered in the affirmative.

Lastly comes a genre defying multiplayer gameplay type, called 'The Forge'. A team based game, The Forge invites each team to select one player who receives omnipotent power. That player can alter the map in wonderfully radical ways. They can bring in new weapons and drop them near teammates. They can pick up vehicles and fly them across the map, with teammates inside. They can create and control walls as cover for teammates. Essentially, each team gets to have the favor of a minor God.

I for one am very excited about this game, and will be one of the many waiting until midnight come this Monday, and if you're reading this, I'm sure you are too. Probably not my game of the year (That battle rages between Bioshock (which has a good head start), and Half-Life 2: Episode 2), but one I will be playing for years to come.

My erection grows by the minute...

So a writer for Absolute punk magazine put up a personal review of the forthcoming Coheed and Cambria album on the band's top fan site, cobaltandcalcium.com. Those of you who know me well, know that Claudio Sanchez is the only Human Being with whom I would break both my vow of chastity and my strict heterosexual policy. Thus, I'm sure you can assume that my excitement levels are peaking, as is my penis. The review uses some phrases which I think must have been designed by some out of work propaganda writer specifically wanting to make me salivate. For example:

"This is the hardest rocking, loudest, and most instrumentally intense Coheed record yet..."

or this gem:

"...the riffage is on fire, seriously I feel like it's burning a hole in my CD player, this record is hot, flaming fire."

and of course the writer's final message to me, personally:

"Coheed and Cambria were the saviors of rock and roll but now..... they ARE rock and roll."

I mean Jesus Fucking Christ. The album releases on the 23rd of October, and I recently bought tickets to see the band in Toronto several days later, the 29th, and according to this, I will be complete on that day, both mentally and sexually. I won't introduce the band here for lack of time, but if anyone reading this that has not yet introduced themselves to Claudio and his squadron, PLEASE ask me, and I will lend you albums, and DVDs, and comic books, and I promise you will be won over.

The madness must end

I swear to the Heavens a post is coming...

I just have to finish Bioshock and Metroid, and then I'll be talking for days...

This is some ENTERTAINING FUCKING TELEVISION!

At the bottom of this post is a link (or video if I can figure out how to embed Google video) to a British television show, starring a man named Darren Brown. It's called "The Heist" and it explores the truly massive potential of the unconscious mind, and what fairly simple emotional suggestions can do to an average person. Brown takes a few British business people, all with middle management salaries. He convinces them that they will take part in a motivational week in order to become better business people. The finale is one of the greatest sells I've seen in a while! This is what reality television can be, and there is no prize money involved.

Promise I'll have a real post up soon.

A Gentleman's Duel

Where's My "Dirty Harry"... or "Pterodactyl"?

I am a gamer.

At my very core, and inside my very being lives the heart of a gamer. I find the medium to be so fresh and new and full of potential. Think about it; what other medium of story telling allows the audience to not only take part interactively in the piece of art itself, but to in fact shape and change the message, in order to more deeply identify with that message.
As a gamer, I am fairly well immersed into the culture of gaming. And as such, am often involved in meaningless debates about "the greatest game of all time", or "Which game offered the most to the world of gaming", and here's what I've come to realize after some introspective thinking:
There have been no (or at least very few) classic games, speaking from a strictly story-telling perspective. There are plenty of games whose game play mechanics have changed the industry, but there have been very VERY few games whose story lines could stand up to those in the film and literary mediums. What video game could even attempt to match Catch 22, or the Seven Samurai, or Watchmen.

WHY?! I realize the medium is new, very very new, under 40 years essentially. And I know that soon (hopefully VERY soon) the games will come, but as of right now, I purchase a game for $70, and have come to expect 1 hour of story telling (often through cinematics) to every 19 hours of meaningless action. Often very fun action, but I feel as though the game-makers consider the story to be a necessary evil, and I wonder if I should settle for simple escapism in my gaming. Should I not demand something more?

Lets look at it this way:
Filmmakers spend months editing their films so that each and every moment an audience is watching, the story is moving forward. Films last 2 hours, but all of it matters.
Comic books blend words and images in ways that allow each panel to be a key factor in the story.
Why then do I spend HOURS fighting carbon copy NPCs in every game I play, to get to a 10 minute video filling the gap to the next arena full of thugs. Its like Buying a Spiderman book, and having 90% of it as pictures of him fighting bad guys, followed by 2 pages of prose. Its a bad use of the medium.

I feel that I would be MUCH more willing to pay the $70 if each and every moment I was playing, my actions were affecting story elements, and I felt as though I was carrying the emotional weight of the character I was embodying, even if it meant that games dropped in length.

I can't wait for the day that I finish a game, and am in tears as the credits roll.

Bioshock looks like what I imagine sex feels like.

Discuss, argue, comment...

Post 2: Post Harder (ITS AN HOMAGE!)

Ok firstly let me clear a few things up. I do not consider myself better than the fine people of Glengarry, I just do not feel as though I am a part of that culture anymore. I respect your love for your hometown, but it simply isn't my bag. Given, I poked fun at the town, but I did so in a way I hope is taken as humorous, and not degrading or offensive. I truly apologize to anyone I may have insulted.

On the plus side, the very first piece of writing I've ever made public was fucking CONTROVERSIAL!!! I'm like an underground poet, or Jesus.

This is what my brain looks like when it bleeds:

Went home (like home home) this weekend for Canada's oldest annual fair: The Williamstown fair. I'm from Williamstown Ontario. Brought my house mate and good friend Steve MF Crane with me too. And in so doing (going home, not bringing Steve) I've realized how staggeringly I've changed since my arrival in Guelph. I saw my friends, and they're all very much into being from Williamstown. They farm, and drink, and date within one or two bloodlines... all of which appeals too me about as much as shoving my manhood into a balloon filled to bursting with angered Africanized bees... well... I guess I'd have a beer before having my penis and scrotum ravaged by bees (please note, the spell checker is suggesting I change the word "africanized" to "americanized"... go figure).
My two best friends (Laura and Maggie) very much support me in my new interests (comics, films, writing, and to a lesser extent gaming), but many of my "side friends" (Keep in mind this is not ALL of them, many were just as supportive as my girls) only ask when and where I will be getting drunk next. I found myself feeling out of place in my hometown, which is off-setting to say the least. This feeling was only compounded by the fact that I know so many god-damned people in that tiny tiny place. Every two seconds I was hugging or being hugged, and time after time, after asking something to the effect of "what's up with you?", the answer being returned was "same old". When my friends then asked me what it was in fact I myself was up to, I could go on for days about writing, planning websites and comics, writing films (Alex we have to finish that shit), writing video game reviews, etc. While exciting for me, I soon found out that NO ONE FUCKING CARED AT ALL! They wanted to hear "Same Old", and drink beers.
All of this brought me to a fairly startling realization: I'm not from Williamstown anymore. The following philosophy is not for everyone, but for me, as my brother so precisely put it, home is where my stuff is. My physical stuff, my "belongings" if you will, are in Guelph. My psychological stuff, by which I mean my interests, my creative outlets, my meaningful friendships (except for Laura and Maggie who fucking NEED to visit me... whores) are also all in Guelph. The only reason I go to Williamstown now is to see the family (my mom and dad's "stuff" are there), and to see Laura and Maggie (whose stuff I sincerely hope doesn't stay there forever). When I pulled up to my townhouse on Scottsdale Drive, I was home.


That took up a lot of space so I'll throw in some pick of the weeks in various mediums:

Comic: Batman 667
Wasn't a big fan of 666, glad Bruce Wayne is back, and this arc looks like its going to be fucking baaaaaaad-ass. There's a dude wearing some other dudes head-flesh as a fucking hat... what else does it need?

Movie: Bourne Ultimatum
Cool ass fight scenes. Shaky-cam used to perfection. Edge of my seat the whole time. They did a great job of making Bourne feel so lonesome, and always in motion, never getting a chance to rest.

Music: 3
New album "The End Is Begun". My favorite track is called "My Divided Falling". Super cool, brings two of my loves together (High Musicianship, and fucking METAL)

Game: Guitar Hero II (Xbox 360)
Since getting the 360 version I've been reinvigorated by the game. It automatically puts every score you get on the Xbox Live Leader board (upon which I am doing fairly well), has several new and challenging songs (Iron Maiden's "The Trooper"!!!!) and looks freaking AWESOME in High Def (played on my dad's 46" HDTV)

Friends: Laura Lavallée and Maggie Cattanach (I still don't know how to spell your freaking name, which essentially makes me simultaneously both the best and worst friend ever.)
I love you guys and miss you more than you'll ever be able to understand. VISIT! FUCKING NOW!

Enjoy yourselves kids!