World of Arcana

Today, between research for my massive Economics paper, I snuck a quick look at my e-mail inbox, and was delighted to discover that East Carolina had been accepted into the Masters of Song Fu competition!

However, our spot would be given up to another artists if I did not submit a photo and biography by 6:00 EST…

I was soon forced to close the window and continue my investigation of unemployment rates of the past 9 quarters (including and not including part-time workers!), and at 3:15 PM, when school let out, I was both elated that we had made the competition, and scared out of my mind that I wouldn’t be able to find a computer to submit the information. Luckily, I went over to my friend’s house, and he let me use his computer, so I think East Carolina’s going to be okay for the contest.

Then I went into my friend’s basement and proceeded to lose 4 Mario Kart races in a row.^*

^{*I did win both songs I did in Guitar Hero though, so it’s okay.}

It’s been awhile since the last update, partially due to my busy schedule. Since my last post, I mainly was not writing because I needed to devote most of my energy into studying for the AP Economic exams. Luckily for you, the reader, this was not all a waste, because I did write a new song while I was studying - the economist’s love song, currently titled “Have Faith (feat. Adam Smith)”, and I may record that and put it up at some point in the future.

Also last week we had a band concert, where I was required to play the crazy synth parts in Peaches en Regalia among other things, which was fun, yet crazy tricky (I had to play on two keyboards at one to keep up with the song. But I have gotten positive feedback, so I guess it went good).

In addition, I have finally beaten Sam & Max 205: What’s New, Beelzebub? I had mostly been distracted and too lazy to have gotten around to the end. Once again, I will reiterate my belief that Season 2 hasn’t had any highs like there were in Season 1. I don’t know if Telltale is planning a Season 3 (I can only assume that they will), I hope that they can figure out what made Season 1 better than Season 2, and fix it. I’m not quite sure myself. One theory I have is that, since Season 2 had more of a planned story-arc, and Season 1 was more self-contained, that finishing an Episode in Season 1 just gave you more closure and a greater sense of accomplishment than just solving the next step in a series. The other issue I really have with Season 2 is that even though the idea was to create a fuller story-arc, to me it doesn’t really make sense. The overarching idea of the season is that Bosco is missing, and you need to find him. However, this isn’t really a driving force - who cares if Bosco’s missing? That’s not the thing that you can drive approx. 15 hours of gameplay from. Anyway, there goes my minor rant.

And finally, me, Stuart, and friends have finished recording “The Chemistry Album”. Stuart and I are thinking about potentially putting all of our East Carolina albums on the site for free download soon, so perhaps you will be able to hear all of the new tracks in a few days.

Ever since I’ve gotten the Orange Box in January, I have been in love with Team Fortress 2. For not being a huge online gamer, I’ve had an incredible time on most of the servers I’ve been on.

Now as anybody who knows anything about videogames knows, for any given game there is a certain amount of high-quality official content, and a thousand times more craptastic fan-made content. However, I’ve noticed that with Team Fortress, there is actually a wealth of high-quality and occasionally very creative fan maps. One particular one that sticks out in my mind is the map Best In Class. As opposed to the play systems that Valve shipped the game with, Capture the Flag and Control Points^*, this map instead creates an obstacle course for every class in the game that, for the most part, only that particular class can complete. In addition, the map is bloated with easter eggs (i.e. hidden areas) to the point where I’ve played games were nobody actually kills each other, they just work together to get to the hidden areas. Some other maps that have been fun are the Orange series of maps, which are all incredibly evenly balanced.

Anyway, Valve has been teasing fans for a few months that a huge update was coming in April, after the 15th, which will contain 36 new achievements and three unlockable weapons (all for the Medic class), plus a new map with an entirely new play style.

I have been on the edge of my seat for this, and am starting to get a little impatient. Come on Valve, I want my update!

^{*Hydro doesn’t really count - nobody’s been able to figure out how to replicate it in Hammer.}

Because I’m just so excited to crack into the AP Econ review book I purchased today, I also picked up some “lighter” reading at the library, a fascinating new book titled Grand Theft Childhood. I first read about the book through GamePolitics.com, who also led me to an interview of the author’s by Adam Sessler.

I’m just over a third of the way through the book as of writing this, and I heartily recommend it to anybody interested in the video-games-cause-violence-in-our-poor-babies debate. The book’s authors are the first people to actually take a step outside of the debate and to look at all the studies done on the topic. And their general sentiment about them is: WTF. I don’t want to give away all the juicy details, but, for example, a lot of the studies that have “linked” violent videogames to real-world violence have measured aggression using a method that has never actually been verified as valid.

I’m also currently still reading I Am America, And So Can You!, which was a birthday present for me in January… As well as knocking off Brave New World for English Class. Both recommended as well.