Videos

Vid blog 1

A conversation with max

Rafi: Hey max, hypothetical question.
Max: Shoot.
Rafi: So, what would you do if I told you "Man, my girlfriend sucks at street figther, I don't know if I can be with her" and like, I've been with her for a while.  What would you do if I said that?
Max: I would probably disown you as a friend.
Rafi: Nice
Rafi: I'm going to go blog about that.

High fives ensue.

Inspired from this: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Atdaqu4XWNYOBeWjL_dndgsjzKIX;_ylv=3?qid=20081213183126AAqc1Tc

Dear 5 hour energy, piss off

Dear 5 hour energy.

I don't care.  I don't care that you give 5 strait hours of energy, I don't care if you do not have a crash afterwards, i do not care if you have less sugar, less carbs, or are good fore me.  And I certainly do not care about your goddamn commercials.

In addition, who the fuck is Braylon Edwards?  I don't drink energy drinks for the energy.  Lord no.  I drink them for the taste, and because they make me feel silly.  I drink them because I normally have rushes of inspiration, and a push of willpower.  I feel like kicking walls, and energy drinks are always closely followed by a nights worth of good sleep, ironically enough, because of the crash.

So fuck you 5 hour energy, and fuck all of your spin off products, because if I wanted a healthy alternative I'd drink odwalla.

Seriously.

Scribefire second test

attempting ubiquity test with scribe fire...

rye


http://tinyurl.com/5lf7n7

megaman

Scribfire test...

Testing scribe fire...

Responsibilty in Media 02

http://kotaku.com/5145182/the-secret-language-of-world-of-warcraft

So, I'm honestly not sure which of the two i should comment on, the kotaku post (Kotaku being a hardcore gamer blog) or the ladies news report.  Honestly? Their both biased as hell.

Lets start with the NBC report.  First off, this isn't even news.  The lady is reporting on World of Warcraft speech (WoW) which, I'm pretty damn sure is just slang, not news.  News is like...Black President now elected, or bombs dropped on American City, Thousands dying, but the news today is gamers have a "Secret Society" where they have their own "Secret Language".  Load of crap, really, but lets move beside that point.

This article manages to skim over a couple of minor points as to what specific words mean, and what their significance is to the culture, but the piece seems to half heartedly educate where it could cover good points.  The point of the news presentation isn't news to begin with either.  It seems almost like a curious highschool girls giggle fest over an outsiders culture.  "ohh, they say kek instead of lol, ohmigawd thats so weird hahaha".  Smirth would wag his index finger.  Bad reporter, no cookie.

Moving on, we then have the opposing piece, the one written by Kotaku.  He tries to sound reasonable, but the article also skims the surface.  He makes the same points i do.  The article is not informitive, its not strong, and its shallow.  But the blog poster comments on precisley what the wow player was saying, translating the WoW speak.  I feel like he's adding flame to the fire just by translating and re-writing what the man has said.

Really, WoW speak is a way for the anti-social to put up more walls and barriers.  As a gamer, I find WoW speak to be horrid.  Whenever i'm at a dinner table and someone brings up WoW, everyone their who plays breaks into a conversation about the latest path, scrambling the conversation up with this language.  The report shouldn't be on the translation of the language, but about the community and culture, the diversity of it, and what the language does to break up average conversations.

Maybe im just too hopeful, maybe I'm just bitter of the pieces of my time that have been destroyed by the bull-crap of WoW speak.  Regardless, thiers something lost in a conversation every time someone pulls up WoW.  Its just a downer, really.

I'm afraid of internet people.

I am afraid of internet people.

I am afraid of the people that are playing mmo's with me.  The people who are on my team on live.  The people i fight against in left4dead.  I am afraid of forum posters, the people who comment in blogs, online avatars and icons.  I'm afraid of messageboards, and ventrillo.  I'm afraid of twitter people who follow me without me following them, and I'm afraid of annonymous messages on AIM.

I am afraid of internet people, but god do I love the internet.

I think theres an explanation for it.  I'm almost certain their is, if you were to know me when i was 10-14 most of my time was online.  I played Gaia, Nexus, and Quiz Quiz.  I posted on forums, I met people at cons and kept talking to them in person.  I made little pieces in RM2K for others to use, I followed message boards, I posted all the time.  I was friends with the moderators, I E-mailed the webcomic makers, I IM'd messageboard members and even called some of them up, trusting them enough to give them my phone number and get mine in return.  Everything was cool, or OK back then.  They were people.

Now adays, shits a little different.  I don't trust anyone online.  I constantly change my aim name, so only people who know me and talk to me regularly know my aim name.  I jump E-mail addresses, I change services constantly, I move accounts or make new ones, so that when i lurk I lurk annonymously.  I use bugmenot on deviantart so I can see "Mature" pieces, I block AIM bots, and constantly de-friends people on facebook.  And when you compare how silent I am on the internet to how loud I am in the real world, it doesn't make sense.

To those who know me, you can see why I'm writing on this.  I check my RSS feeds literarly 4 times a day.  I love being the center of attention, i make on campus get togethers, I start up tons of conversations.  When im in the cafeteria, i literally string together 3 or 4 tables, just so all of my friends can sit together.  why the hell would I be afraid of internet people?

It makes sense, to me, when I think about the internet and my past relationship with it.  It's a time waster.  Sure, you can connect, you can socialize, you can meet and greet and connect and be a part of something bigger then you.  But I've had some less then stellar things happen online, none of which Im happy about.

I've had online girlfriends, thats confession number one.  I've been "Bullied online", is confession number two, and I've once chosen my online friends over my real world ones.  Let me explain each instance.

1. I've had online girlfriends.  Yeah, akward, I know, but consider this.  I was a fat kid, a loser, and an outcast in highschool.  No one liked me out of my direct circle of friends, no girl in the school would look at me twice, and no one of the opposite gender spoke with me for more then an hour without planting me firmly in the "Friend Zone".  I was akward, confrontational, pissy, moody and angry.  So inorder for me to find someone, anyone who would spend time with me, I turned to (guess where).  My akwardness was removed when i was online.  Suddenly I could be whoever I wanted.  I got to act out all of my romantic fantasies, playing a knight in shining armor to a girl who exsisted somewhere in NH, or Washington, or  Boston.  Somewhere, far far away from where I lived, and I would never see her face if it wasn't magnified, pixelated and digitalized but I could read her thoughts when she typed them out to me.  I would comfort her when she came back from school, and she'd be interested in the things I'd have to say.  And when one got akward, uninteresting or bothersome, I'd go back online and just meet another girl.  I had girlfriends for multiple months, their names were spins off of anime characters or roleplayed counterparts, but despite the lack of physicality, she seemed to have an invisible touch (yeah).  I'll dive deeper into this with number 3.

2. I've been online bullied.  Like I said, I was an akward, angry, unsociable guy in highschool.  My friends all played DnD with me, and while I ws a dork, I was still loud.  I was vocal in classes, I tried to have fun and where I could, and I still knew almost everyone.  All of that stuff still held true about me, but people didn't like me.  And they wanted me to know.  Regularly, people would IM me, and tell me that none of my friends liked me.  It didn't matter who my friends were.  I'd meet people in other districts, counties and schools, and somehow, some where, someone knew I had new friends, and they didn't want me to keep them.  They'd IM me, telling me they were secretly being my friendss, that they hated me, that they didn't really like my company.  And in the end, they'd always tell me to go kill myself.  This happened often, maybe once every 2 or 3 months.  Eventually, I went into the AIM settings and made it so that no one could IM me without me having their AIM name on my buddylist.  I needed to create a literal barrier of entry before you could talk to me online, because people in my highschool seriously wanted me to go jump off a bridge or go shoot myself.  Sometimes I wonder about people, and what could push someone to tell another human being "Go Die".  I have to stop thinking about it, it really just makes me depressed.

3.  I often left real world friends for online ones.  My online friends were perfect, my real world ones were flawed, just as akward as I was, and weren't female.  All things considered, it made sense.  My real world friends were akward doods, my online friends were either just as super cool and into manga as I was, or supposedly cute interesting girls who loved me just as much as their favorite comic book bishonen.  They "Loved me", in a way people in the real world couldn't, and that I needed more then I tought I needed my real friends.  Man, was I wrong.

Turns out that all I needed to kick the habbit of my online addiction was get a job.  The horrors of the real world needed to be faced, so I faced them, and now I can't go back to my escape.  infact, I'm afraid of my old escape, ot the point where I can't join any kind of online community.  I can't post on destructoid, comment on Digg items, or even talk on the champlain messageboards.  I'm too afraid.  Much too afraid, and I don't know what to do about it.

I can't play mmo's, I can't post online, I can't even talk to people on the internet without having made real contact with them in the real world.  I'm paranoid, I'm scared, and I wonder if this is the name of some kind of mental illness.

Eitherway, its something I thoght I'd scribble in digital stone, just so I can get it off my mind.  Feel free to comment, but know I might not respond ( :-P )

 - Rafi

Responsibilty in Media 01

So I'm doing some responsibility in Media homework.  If you read this because your itnerested in my day/opinion, this is also vaguely related.  all of my Responsibility in Media homework will be tagged as "RIB" so you can skip anything tagged that way.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28039226/?pg=7#Tech_JerkGadgets

This is what we like to call blatant company bashing.  For those of your who don't understand whats going on, let me make it abundantly apparent:

From O. Rafael: The Game

Oh....Ah....I see what you did there!  This is one of those "News as Editorials" thing, isn't it?  If you still don't get whats going on, lemme give you the skinny in an easy A-B-C format.

Microsoft owns the computer Software industry.  In order for a computer to run, it needs what is called an "Operating System".  This is what teaches a computer how to communicate with a human.  Now, when it comes to "Operating systems" (or OS), thier are two main marketed choices: Apple, and Microsoft.

What people don't know, is that their is a third operating system.  Linux, is what is called "Open Source" software. Its a special type of software thats free for everyone to use, everyone to distribute, and its totally free.  So wheres the missing link that has me in outrage?

MSNBC is owned by microsoft.  Hence, the "MS" tacked onto "NBC".  The MS stands for "Microsoft".  The news source that comes from microsoft is flat out telling its readers that usage of Linux makes you a jerk, a loser, a douche.  This "Fuller Spectrum of News" website doesn't nuture, help or inform.  The article is essentially flat out telling you that the usage of this third party alternatives makes you an annoyance.

However they were honest enough to point out that the publication is owned by microsoft, and that they even don't like some of the commands from rich, totalitarean orginizations (Its small smite on comcast shows some humanity) but this article isn't news, its strait forward pandering.  They are insulting an alternative target, and while they do compliment it, its only to soften the blow they are setting up.  Its by no means an honest entry, and should really, really not have been published.

Too much to blog about

So here is a short list of one word summaries that say whats gone on in the last week

Economy

funds

fight

e-mail

save

resurrect

start

Kanye west

Heartbreak

obsession

fusion

pixel

bachelor chow

VGLive

Obama

Thats everything that happened last week, in a nutshell.  I don't know if I'll ever get around to a full post, but I will be posting more.

See you soon

Why I normally don't listen to game music.

So, I'm a game designer, right?  I guess.  Well, maybe not officially.  I mean I've been paid to do a game before, and I've had ideas, so lets just say I'm a game designer.

At least, I'm a game afficianado.  I like games.  I like random games, small games, tripple A games, games with and without meaning, and games with and without strong subject matter.  And while i regularly enjoy games, their artwork, presentation, sounds, etc, I rarely, if ever, listen to game soundtracks.

I almost think its immature.  Not to say that music from games isn't real music, it just doesn't have as much of a message to me as the music I like to listen to.  Here's a quick list of things I listen to, just to give an Idea as to what I like:

Gorrilaz, Aesop Rock, The Postal Service, Plushgun, Frankmusik, The Flamming Lips, Mc Frontalot, smashing pumpkins.

So i guess this stuff is "Vocal Heavy", and that might be part of it.  Theres a huge lack of vocals in game music, and I love memorizing the words to songs, and singing along (I always play vocals in rockband, everything from Disturbed to No Doubt.)  None the less, I am cappable of admitting that there is good game music out there.

Just recently I started listening to the galaxy man theme a ton, the menu song from Street Fight II HD Turbo Remix is wicked good, but I don't listen to these songs.  Not casually, not at parties, not on the bus or anything.  At most if im in the mood at random in my room, I'll boot up a game to hear the song, but its normally because i have the sensation to play it as well.  I hardly find the need to just hear the song and nothing else.

The worst part is that I do feel higher and mightier then though about it.  Almost as if "I listen to real music, and you can't escape the realm of games", and trust me when I say that I RECOGNIZE THIS IS A TERRIBLE THOUGHT.  But I think it, and I poke its validity.  Is there a difference between the signed artists and the songs played in a games sound track?  Game musicians work HARD, daily, to create masterpieces.  Kingdom hearts made me cry, I can rock out to Sephiroth's theme, but I can't put on my headphones and relax into the music of these artist.  I know nobu's music when i hear it, I plan on (if i can) going to video games live, but I always feel a strange statisfaction of knowing about a song before it hits guitar hero or rockand, and another sense of loss when I find out about a band through the same medium.  Almost like I don't deserve to know about the band's exsistence to begin with since I didn't know about it before the game.

Its a wierd thing I've had to pull my hair out about, and I still try and think about what it means to me and why I keep thinking it. I've tried changing my point of view, opening up, but something about me just keeps thinking that you shouldn't listen to video game music outside of the game.  I just don't know WHY!

Getting my rant on: Death of 1up, and why I'll probably only read kotaku for now on

Wow.  1up is dead, just when I finally found the perfect source for paid gaming news.  I have (for a long time) read only kotaku and Destructoid, almost exclusively, as these publications offered the best, unfiltered gaming news.  Their editorials made the most sense, they are actually funny, and they're actually fun to read.  They have an entire community backing them up, they have tons of features daily, and most news is instantly posted on their site, so im always ontop of the industry.  I don't have to get the news through ads, finding out weeks before something comes out that a game is coming, and i don't have to read through a thousand digg comments before i hear news or rumors.  I had long decided i wouldn't read publications like Game Informer or Hardcore gamer because they were slow to press (Being print publications) and i wouldn't read Gamespot since the rumors of paid reviews began to have merit, and i wouldn't read IGN because I often disagreed with their reviews.

Then I found EGM, 1up, and the 1up show.  They talked to lead members of game development crews about games, instead of PR people.  They wrote editorials on why the ps3 was tanking, and interviewed people from sony about why certain promised features were cut.  They had the balls to say "we wont review metal gear solid 4" when Konami had the audacity to tell reviewers not to mention the install times, load times, or length of cutscenes.  Their reviewers had names, faces, likes and dislikes.  They had personalities, features about gaming culture, not just game reviews.  They talked about industry jobs, and how to get them, and interviewed people with those jobs.  They had features about japanese games, imported them to try them and actually talked about their significance.  Their rumors were normally true, informed and ontime.  They had a podcast, a video blog, each reviewer had a blog, the entire community was a mini facebook where you could speak with the reviewers themselves.  And their video blog had features, like interviewing developers for things other then their games, like their interests and their background.  Infact, developers even perferred 1up over most publications, having blogged on the website themself.  It made sense to me, this is how printed publications should work.  Apparently, not so much.

In order for a printed publication to work, you need a contract with the biggest game store to give out free copies of your mag.  In order for a printed publication to work, you need to take it in the ass from big name publishers and say "Yes sir, we will not talk about these flaws from your game, despite the fact that they may affect the experience."  Apparently, in order for your publication to work, you need to be like cosmo or people, and be a giant ad.  Its impossible to be a sophisticated gaming publication, its impossible to be independent.  Someone needs to own you, someone needs to be your boss.  You must submit to the hive mind, advertise games, used is just as good as new, cheaper too.  Gamers don't care about culture, community or art, people or independence, nor the industry they buy from.  Gamers want Tits, ads, gore, good reviews for the tripple A's, bad reviews for the unheard of games.  They want constant coverage of GTA and Halo, they want to be told these games are good, and that they should go buy them.  Their is no interest in independent publications.  Apparently, Cliffy's opinion doesn't matter, despite the fact he made the game your thumbs desire.

No, gamers want tits, high scores, good marks, guns and blood.  Thats what matters right? your gamer score?  You inability to get laid?  What you will spend your money on next?  How to get headshots?  Top 10 reasons why Japanese games don't make sense?  These are the things you want to hear, because you're a gamer.  You are a simple creature, and you are satisfied by violence humor and sex.  Shakespeare was right I suppose.

Am i being out rageous? Yes, but I think what im saying has some merit.  I can't recal another magazine that prints what their editors really think.  I can't think of another magazine that prints editorials.  I can't think of another magazine that goes over gamer culture and niche communities, like the hidden arcades of san fran and new york, or the hand made goods made by loving gamers.  I can't think of another publication that would review and interview Alec Holowka.  I can't think of a publication that would import Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, and review it.  I can't think of any publication who would do all these things, and now, none will.

I can only hope, deeply, that rev3 takes up the fired members of 1up and give them a show, blog, site and the like.  But from now on all we will see is more of the same.  Gamer girls!  They're cute and they play games (In their underwear).  How to unlock alternate colored stinger in halo 3!  OMG god of war 4 already being planned?!  Inteview with Lara Croft, says "She wants your phone number!"  New DLC for gears says they will make lancer also have optional gun attachment, making first gun with mounted chainsaw with mounted gun in gaming history!  Break through! Innovative!  Video Games!

Fingers crossed UGO does it right, or Rev3 picks up where 1up left off.  Fingers crossed, or we might as well submit to a stereo type.

Notes and thoughts, Jan/04/09

Manga -

Rose hip Zero

Geek Monthly - 

baconnaise.com

  Bacon Manaise, how is that 

  not awesome?

Rest

  Comic, maybe should check out?

Royal/T

  L.A. maid cafe

lazertag.com

  Office lazer tag toys

Brian needs wii points

Has anyone made a 3d bubble 

engine? People worked hard to

make a smoke engine, what about

bubbles?

nom, cold pizza.  I can't believe

this is the first time I've had

cold pizza in college.

people are talking about twilight

again.  I rage, I lose.

Project lore?  Must look up.

Reminder of why i can't stand teen

media:

Flow chart of crushes:

Your crush is at the same newyears

party as you, he:

Ignores you

You get a D in math, he says:

Too bad

Your friends think:

He's totally awesome

The magazine's advice?

"OMG! he might be your night in

shining armor!"

Thank you teen magazine, for 

giving women terrible advice.

You know the Frightening thing

about magazines? You can't tell

the difference between the adds

and the articles.

I really need to buy a copy of

the Watchmen, thought weathermen

the weathermen should have been

super heroes.

William aires! with the power to

be associated with barack obama

Grabbing watchmen to read again.

Twittering offline is not nearly

as interesting.

War talk, keeping my mouth shut.

These were all random thoughts written at a borders, inbetween reading magazines and the like.  They're also known as cheap blog entries.

Death of a Medium

Whenever a store that sells exclusively one media closes, I have a tendency to think that the medium is dead.  This happened to me with Sam Goody, an old CD and DVD vendor I used to go to when i was younger.  They sold some games, some movies, game assecories and the like, but they're primary focus was CDs.  I remember buying my tenacious D album (an album i still have to this day) from Sam Goody.  But, long story short, Sam goodies is closed.  It does not exsist, it has ceased to be.  The ITunes store, torrenting, rapid share and album burningkilled this mega franchise, and with it, the medium has gone by the way side.

The same thing happened recently, with KB Toys.  If you waren't familiar with KB toys, they were the  toy store with the barking robot dogs and displays of children in cheap above ground pool outside their store, fasioned under a yellow and red banner.  They sold nerf guns, and legos, and cheap made for children video games.  But really i went in for nerf guns (almost spelled nerg funs, which i will probably call them for now on) and legos.  Apparently employees shoplifted from there all the time.  If that can lead to the fall of a retail chain maybe I should start picking up some 3rd hand video games (for the good of the industry ofcourse, but this is a jooooke.)

So my point is, that if KB toys falls, does that mean that toys are dead?  I mean, CDs are kinda dead, as are DVD (in a way, most people are about blu-ray, net flix or D2D).  How are hot wheels sales doing?  Do they make nearly as much money as the next itteration of Burnout? or Grand Turismo?  Maybe kids want to play the next avatar game.  And if you can play Avtatar, the game, why bother with an avatar action figure?  One moves beautifully in a 3d world, constructed to look and sound just like the TV show.  Maybe kids just perfer games now.  I hardly think its cheaper.  I mean, a nerf gun plus darts is less than 20 bucks.  Can anyone thing of a recent console/game como you can get for under 40? 60?  Didn't think so.

But how is it that toys could die?  I mean, they're toys!  I love video games, but nothing beats a nerf gun fight down your dorm hallway.  Or how about spending a saturday morning building legos?  What about the literal hours spent smashing action figures against each other, over and over and thinking it was the coolest thing in the world?  Is this experience just...Dead? not Economical? not what the next generation of kids is looking for? I' certianly hope not.  How am I supposed to play with action figures again if my kids don't think they're fun?  I mean knowing -exactly- what game is on my kids christmas list (and probably some of the people who worked on it) would be really cool, but what about toys? I always find it so sad whenever stuff like this happens.  Part of me understands, I mean when i was a kid I'd rather Video Games over toys, but toys aren't even sell able to the point of a chain store anymore?

I hope I'm wrong.  Maybe online dealers like amazon just give better deals, or maybekids are still asking for legos and nerf guns and action figures, I just don't know any more.  But I always found it odd when i was a kid that not only can elfs program, but they can recreate the hardware of an NES perfectly, and happen to know how to recreate Sigeru Miyamoto's legacy in gaming pixel perfect.  I was too smart for my own good when i was a kid.

But its just a thought, I doubt toys are dead.  Bakugan sells like mad and happy meals still feature plastic wind ups.  I guess toys aren't in trouble until happy meals start providing 1.99 games...Actually, some one call nintendo, I just got a good idea.

FIRST!

Hi, welcome to my blog.  I'm going to write things here, and hopefully you will read them.

Feel free to not read them though.  I mean, this is the Internet, you can pretty much do what you want.

I'm going to be posting musings and random thoughts here.  It could be something i see, a rant, a video, whatever.  Hopefully I'll be posting often.  Once a week? twice a week?  I dunno, it'd be nice to hear from me often.  I hardly ever write, and I don't return my own phone calls.  Maybe I'm cheating on me.

If i can also re-direct you to the left hand side, there is a news feed their.  This feed features all of my favorited items from my RSS feeds.  This way you can read what I'm reading, or follow what i find interesting.  Who knows, you might find something interesting there too.

Be warned though, this is my uncensored opinion.  I will probably curse, say things you might not be comfortable with, or express my opinion.  If cussin', opinions, or things of that nature upset you, I will tag the post with something like "Explicit Content", and you can feel free to skip it.

Also be warned that my grammar and spelling are terrible, and I will probably confuse my There's, punctuations, and other things of that nature.  But maybe, like a web comic artist, my skills will strengthen over time until I'm some literary master mind.

 

If you found this interesting, and want to know more about me, feel free to dive into my brain.