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Welcome to the New Digs!

I originally began my blog over at Vox, which remains a great service, but its inability to export posts and some technical difficulties I experienced over a long period of time made me consider changing bloging hosts and platforms for a while now.

Life intervened, as it often does, and I’ve been pretty busy for the past couple of months. Then, one night last week, I had a dream that I was migrating my old Vox blog over here to WordPress by hand (as is required of me, since Vox can’t export one’s blog). Only I would dream about migrating my blog (right?), but it was the reminder and kick in the butt that I’d needed, and so, here I am.

I will be slowly bringing everything over from Vox by hand, piece by piece, hence the existence of a tag on here called “from the archives”, which I will use for each old Vox post. In the meantime, I plan to spruce the place up and truly move in. Hopefully the welcome will be warm.

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Band Hero Features More Female Vocalists

When reading through gaming news on Monday afternoon, I read that the whole setlist of the tracks in the upcoming Band Hero game had been released. I went to take a look to see what songs had made the cut, and was pleasantly surprised to see names of female singers or bands with female vocalists over and over throughout the list.

About one third of the songs in the game are sung by women, and they represent a variety of musical styles. Corinne Bailey Rae is there, as are Janet Jackson, No Doubt, Pat Benatar, and Taylor Swift, among others. While I enjoy playing Guitar Hero and Rock Band, most of the default songs in the game have always been from bands with male vocalists. But in the past few years, these titles have been at the forefront of social gaming, and found fans among both genders. Yet it wasn’t until now that there was a respectable number of songs there from female vocalists. Before, it felt a bit like tokenism. Perhaps seven or eight tracks out of fifty or sixty would feature women. It made it more difficult to find something in one’s vocal range if singing that round.

Maybe they realized the game appeals across gender lines. Maybe it was developers realizing that adding more songs by women wouldn’t alienate or weird out the male players. Maybe licensing came more easily this time around. Whatever the reason, I consider it progress and look forward to playing the game.

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Farewell to The Matrix Online

The game was released buggy, like many MMOs. Yet at the same time, the devs tended to be receptive to feedback. Regardless, the game underperformed in the end, despite the love that went into The Matrix Online. Sales numbers were not as predicted or hoped for, and the number of retained subscribers  dipped very low.

The game had a ton of faults, and a lot of missed potential, but when it comes to who dropped the ball, I would have to place more blame on Monolith/WBIE for selling the property off to SOE. Now that said, SOE put effort into the game but it was never treated as a star property. One might say, with good reason, noting the underperforming history as above. They had to keep profitable.

But MxO was Monolith’s baby and the devs and designers there worked hard on it. They had a good launch strategy, and the first four or five months after release were truly great stuff. Live Events were plentiful, characters would drop in and greet you outside mission areas, the story was immersive and included the players in the action. There were three factions fighting for control, as well as splinter groups. Updates were pretty frequent and robust at first: full cinematics voiced by the original film actors. The events that they held and the LET appearances really helped tie the community together. One really felt like a part of something. But of course, back to those numbers again — it just wasn’t financially sustainable.

The sale to SOE gave the game a longer life, but also a slow death. Fully rendered cinematics gave way to comic book format animation and, finally, to some drawn, barely animated storyboards that were hard to make out. Major characters were killed off or otherwise removed (likely as a way to save money), and there were few development updates.  There were some new spawns and gear, but items from past events or storylines, such as a helicpoter dropping propaganda papers, were left in the game long after the missions for that chapter were over. For the most part, the game just hung on as something for Station Pass holders to jump into now and then.

I doubt there will be another like it for some time — urban, smart, featuring an abundance of modern clothing options and styles, and filled with a mix of philosophy, supernatural elements, lots of places to enter and secrets to uncover, and a very unique playerbase full of extremely dedicated individuals. And in the beginning, the Live Events team played it well, and created the most memorable MMORPG experience I have had so far. It was fun, but sadly, the game did not realize its potential at all.

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We Now Resume Our Regular Programming

So I was finally fed up with the technical difficulties that have been plaguing me regarding Vox for the past none or ten months. I was fed up enough to start customizing a new blog over at WordPress today because the ideas have been knocking at the door of my head waiting to escape the darkness and be born of my fingers. I've been feeling the need to write and express myself in this format again.

Twitter has been fun, but unsatisfying. I'm not a soundbite writer. I longed for these shores once more and came here to Vox to see if there was a way to export my old blog data over to WordPress painlessly.

When it worked.

The edit option on my posts had returned. Wait, when did this happen?! I am also able to, once again, customize my theme and blog in addition to editing posts I make.

So I will not be leaving Vox, but instead will be relaunching this blog next week. I suppose it really begins today, but I'd like to put forth something better, as well as possibly introduce a new custom design.

I'm glad to be back. I like it here better, anyway.

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“I wonder if he’s nervous.”

My boyfriend caught me off guard the other night when we were talking about the upcoming inauguration.

"I wonder if he's nervous," he said.

There is so much confidence, so much trust, and an incredible amount of political capital on this one man's shoulders. and right now, watching the television coverage and seeing the crowds, and President-Elect Obama (to be President in 20 minutes or so), looking pensive, without his big, bright smile that he so often shows, I wonder if he might be too.

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Hodgepodge

My latest piece for The Escapist is up. I was happy to see
that it got the lead spot on the homepage for the week. I don’t know how that
decision is made, but it was certainly nice to see. This piece was a bit
personal, sprung out of a little reflection last summer about Silent Hill 4. I
decided to do some further reading on Hispanic female video game characters
only to discover that no one had written it yet.

 

I read an editorial over the summer by author Steven Saylor,
whose Roma Sub Rosa series I read in its entirety last year, where he
said something along the lines of: writers are always advised to write what
they know, but a writer should write the story he or she would like to read.
This was in reference to fiction, but it’s definitely equally applicable to
nonfiction. So I saw an opportunity and ran with it.

 

In other news, I joined Twitter a while back and I’m finally
starting to use it a little bit. At first, all I had was Greg Grunberg on my
follow list, but now I’ve added some other interesting people. What an
amazingly trivial concept, yet such an addictive site. I must say that LeVar
Burton has one of the coolest tattoos I’ve ever seen. It’s an ambigram of his
first name and “Kunta”, a tribute, of course, to his Roots role. Dan Brown may
have brought ambigrams into the popular conscious, but LeVar’s tattoo made them
cool.

 

Finally, the Times Square Virgin Megastore is set to close
in April. I haven’t bought a CD there in a while, but that store holds so many
memories for me. I went there very frequently as a teen, attended signings,
in-store concerts, and sometimes just considered it a throbbing, lively, oasis
where I could drop in to listen to some of my favorite new songs and wander
around what seemed to me quite the cool location.

 

The prices were sometimes a tad high, but sale time was the
best. Lots of gems to be had. Apparently, a six-million dollar annual profit
isn’t enough for the chain’s new owners. The location is set to house a Century
21 discount designer clothing shop. I recall Century 21 liked to advertise
itself as “NY’s best kept secret”. Hard to live up to that when you’re taking a
prime Times Square area location. No matter. If it hadn’t been C21, it would’ve
been another client willing to fork over the cash.

 

Even for this native kid, this store was a destination. Say
what you will about big box type places, but this one going is a loss. I loved
how the jazz and vocal section was so quiet, even though the rest of the store
had loud, pumping music throughout. The last time I was there was for Christmas
shopping last year, and it was still the same chaotic, bright place. And I’m
sure it will remain so until April.

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Keeps Gettin’ Better: A Decade of Hits – a Review

It was at the movies in 1998 that I first discovered Christina Aguilera. The film was, of course, Mulan, and the song was Reflection, a ballad about struggling to remain true to yourself. Now, ten years later, Christina Aguilera has released Keeps Getting’ Better: A Decade of Hits, her first greatest-hits package.

 The debut single, title track Keeps Gettin’ Better is an energetic electropop tale of a Catwomanesque temptress superheroine who just can’t stop straddling the line between good and naughty:

Some days I’m a super bitch
Up to my old tricks
But it won’t last forever.
Next day, I’m your supergirl
out to save the world
And it keeps getting’ better

The track leaked in early September, followed a few days later by a sexy performance (along with a preview of another track on the album, “Genie 2.0”) on the MTV Video Music Awards. The other new song, “Dynamite”, is a light, splashy dance track you’d expect more from the likes of Gwen Stefani. There’s no social commentary in here, no long-stored pain, it’s about feeling free. One can imagine two bodies together in a club enjoying each other and the moment.

“Genie 2.0” is one of two remakes on this hits set. “Genie in a Bottle” is redone with a slow purr as electronic dance beats swirl in the background. The other remake, “You Are What You Are (Beautiful)” takes a song already full of emotional power and makes it damp and moody. It’s faintly reminiscent of some John Lennon with a touch of Radiohead’s occasional weird sonic distortion. While the original version is still best, this is a highlight from an artist who prides herself on reinvention and usually includes new arrangements of older tracks during her concerts. Both “Keeps Gettin’ Better” and “Dynamite”, along with the two remakes are, according to Aguilera, a taste of what’s to come on her new album, scheduled for next summer.

You Are What You Are (Beautiful)
You Are What You Are (Beautiful)
Christina Aguilera

 As for the rest of the album, there are some glaring omissions. The first is “Reflection”, the song that actually started Aguilera’s career and the track that would have officially made this set a complete decade’s worth of hits. As it stands now, all the songs are from 1999-2008. I wonder if it was her choice to leave it off or issues with using the song from Disney. Two other songs that should’ve made the cut are “Lady Marmalade”, which was a worldwide #1 hit, and “Nobody Wants to Be Lonely”, her duet with Ricky Martin that charted in the top 10 in many countries. These tracks are both on the international versions of the album, but “Reflection” is nowhere to be found. Another hit, “The Voice Within”, has been left off all but the British and Japanese editions.

 

The included tracks on Keeps Gettin’ Better showcase an artist who challenges herself to try different things. The earlier material is often poppier and less personal (“Genie in a Bottle”, “What a Girl Wants”), but songs taken from her albums Stripped (“Fighter”, “Beautiful”) and Back to Basics (“Ain’t No Other Man”, “Hurt”) hint at the growth personally, professionally, and in her ability to successfully tackle many musical genres that is even more blatant in the rest of those albums (on such songs as “Walk Away” and “Save Me From Myself”). Aguilera’s take on reinvention and of challenging herself will be familiar to any fan, but this is a collection that won’t disappoint the casual listener or someone who wants most of her hits in one slick Pop Art-inspired package. Even for a longtime fan with all her albums like myself, songs like Keeps Gettin’ Better and the remakes make this a must-own.

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Thanks

The internet. So full of voices, strangers, and millions of points of view. So many connections made every single day. More often than not, we tend to just exist in our own little nooks and corners of this vast virtual space. Millions out there may be saying interesting things that I'll never read. Visitors to this very blog may come and go without ever commenting or leaving a trace of their presence.

I can't go into much detail, but I logged on recently and received a very sincere and beautiful mail from someone that wowed me. It was in reference to something I had said. It was not a really remarkable comment, but definitely one said with great passion on my part. And it turns out that comment touched someone.

It caught me completely off guard and was thoroughly appreciated. So to the one who sent me the message that my words, and my passion, had a deep impact, thank you in return.

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“Travels With Barack”

Found this on Metafilter today:
http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0810/callie-intro.html

There's
an article about the photojournalist, Callie Shell, linked there, but the highlight is
her series of photos of Obama (dating back from 2006) here.

I really liked some of these shots. To me, they just reinforce Obama's down to earth quality that really resonates with me.

A couple of my favorites:

Obama_shell1Obama_shell2

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Will Movies Remain “Recession Proof”?

That's the subject of this article I read today. Since movies are considered a relatively cheap form of entertainment, and big releases are always attracting audiences, they're considered to be rather "recession proof".

Tickets in Manhattan, however, are around twelve dollars now. Twelve. And matinees are either so restricted as to be inaccessible for most people, or nonexistent. when I was a teen in the 90s, I'd often go to matinees. They cost about $5, and the theaters offered them every weekday and Saturday before 6pm. That was generous, and although my weekly allowance was only $5, add in a little babysitting money and a walk to the theater instead of paying for the bus, and I was able to see perhaps two movies some months. Rentals and borrowed copies not included.

Many of the local theaters closed starting around 1994, and the multiplex that had those generous matinees? The current policy is limited to showtimes before 3PM Monday-Thursday, and first show on Friday and Saturday. Their regular prices, instead of being a couple of dollars cheaper than in Manhattan, are $11.50. Local theaters used to be a respite from the high Manhattan prices, but no longer. The ultimate result is that I don't really discriminate between theater location anymore, because it doesn't really save me money like it used to.
 

At twelve dollars a ticket, I'm simply much choosier about which films I see on the big screen. I tend to take a few factors into consideration.

  • Is this a simple comedy or drama that doesn't have any sort of music or effects that call for a big screen experience?
  • Is it a musical? Musicals deserve the big screen and high-tech sound system for a first viewing.
  • How long is the movie? Because if it's only 85 minutes long, I'm likelier to wait for DVD.
  • How much would I mind spoilers? Or how long have I been anticipating this film? Both affect how long I will wait.

There is a bit of a break available. Theater chains sell discounted admission coupons that you can exchange for tickets at the box office. You often have to buy them in bulk (though I have seen them a la carte much more often lately), and they come with a host of different restrictions varying by chain. A lot of these tickets tack on a fee in New York City though, so for me the discount isn't usually that much, but it is worth looking into.

All in all, we like our movies and we need our entertainment to help us get through tough times. The business itself will survive recessions, but I suspect like me, audiences are going to be more selective.