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0x10c

Gaming

It isn’t often that I get excited for a game before it releases. Well, unless that game has zombies in it. I’m always excited for zombie games. But I have been such a huge fan of Minecraft, and as a graduate of a Computer Science degree program when they still required us to know bit processing, registers, assembly and all that stuff that plenty of developers don’t concern themselves with, the announcement for Notch’s next game, called 0x10c, has me excited.

From his site, the back story is this:

In a parallel universe where the space race never ended, space travel was gaining popularity amongst corporations and rich individuals.

In 1988, a brand new deep sleep cell was released, compatible with all popular 16 bit computers. Unfortunately, it used big endian, whereas the DCPU-16 specifications called for little endian. This led to a severe bug in the included drivers, causing a requested sleep of 0x0000 0000 0000 0001 years to last for 0x0001 0000 0000 0000 years.

It’s now the year 281 474 976 712 644 AD, and the first lost people are starting to wake up to a universe on the brink of extinction, with all remote galaxies forever lost to red shift, star formation long since ended, and massive black holes dominating the galaxy.

He gives a few other details, like the game being similar to EVE Online in that you pilot a ship, and that ship has a generator with limited power, and everything on the ship draws power. And you’ll actually have to program the 16 bit CPU of your ship yourself, though I expect rather quickly people will begin trading code. And it’s going to have both a single player mode and an MMO-type mode with a monthly fee.

Being that it is Notch and the model worked so well for Minecraft, he plans on having an early release paid alpha where players can help him quickly iterate the design. The minute that becomes available, I’m in as this looks like another platform for emergent game play.

I’ll close with a screenshot of the in-game CPU running a simple program.

Hello world indeed.

The Reviews Are In

Reviews, Stuff on the Net

Here are some links to my latest reviews over at Shakefire.

And that’s it for the last month or so. Some gems, some turds, some in between. All movies and TV, no music and thus far more pleasurable to review, even when it isn’t particularly good.

Man vs Wife: Zombie Dice

Gaming, Man vs Wife

Man vs WifeZombie Dice is the award-winning dice game from Steve Jackson Games. In it, you play a zombie and try to collect (eat) the most brains. The game comes with a cup (cardboard with two plastic lids for each end) and thirteen dice (and instructions – because selling games without instructions would be very silly – that said, if anyone put out a game with no instructions, it would probably be Steve Jackson Games).

The game is played as follows. The winner of the previous game, or the person who can most convincingly moan “BRAAAAAAAINS!”, goes first, they shake the 13 dice in the cup, then (without looking) they select and roll 3 of those dice. Dice that show brains or shotgun blasts stay on the board, while dice that show footprints go back in the cup. The player can stop at any time to end their turn and collect their points (brains), but if they get a total of 3 shotgun blasts their turn ends with zero points collected for the round. Put all the dice in the cup and pass it to the next player. When a player reaches thirteen (or more) brains at the end of their turn, finish the round and whoever has the most brains wins. If there is a tie for first, then those players play one more tiebreaker round.

Zombie Dice
Braaaaaains!

In our play, being only two players, we decided that simply the first player to 13 won, that way we wouldn’t have to keep track of which one of us went first so we’d know if the other person got another turn. Also, I totally forgot that rule when we played. (Wife: Cheater!) I didn’t cheat. (Wife: But we played without you telling me all the rules!) And? (Wife: Just sayin’…)

Anyway, we settled on playing a best-of-three series. We used the results of playing Life last time to determine who went first. (Wife: And I won at Life.) She went first. (Wife: Yay me!) On her first turn, she rolled three dice five times, ending her round after getting a second shotgun blast and scoring 4 points. I then rolled twice, getting 2 brains the first time and then two blasts on the second and quitting. Her second turn netted 2 more brains in four rolls, quitting when she got her second shotgun blast. For my second turn, I got 1 brain, one shotgun blast and one footprints on the first roll; on the second roll I got 3 brains (Wife: You suck!); on the third roll I got 3 brains again (Wife: You really suck!) and then I quit, scoring seven points for the round – more on why I quit despite only having one shotgun blast later. 2 brains and two blasts on her third turn. 2 brains and two blasts on my third turn as well. On her fourth turn she rolled twice, 2 brains on the first and 3 brains on the second, bringing her total to 13. (Wife: I win!) Only if you stop. You can keep going. (Wife: Nope. I like winning.) I know.

Round two… Despite her winning the last game, she let me go first (Wife: It’s because I’m awesome.) just so that I could see what it’s like to go first (Wife: And because I’m awesome.) and to shake things up. (Wife: Because if I went first, I’d just win.) That too. For my first turn, I got myself two brains and one blast on the first roll, then one brain and two feet on the second, and finally one brain and two blasts on the third. (Wife: Score for the human race!) I exit the round with no points. (Wife: Ha ha!) Laugh it up. (Wife: I will!) For her first turn, she rolls three shotgun blasts, and stops laughing. (Wife: I hate the humans.) Not so funny now, huh? (Wife: Just take your turn.) My second turn is looking good, I’ve got five brains and one shotgun blast, I’m about to stop when I decide to chance it, and get two more blasts. (Wife: The human race strikes again! Ha ha!) So, it’s only funny when it happens to me? (Wife: Yes.) Noted. She racks up 4 brains and stops when she gets two blasts. (Wife: 4 to nothing! I am winning!) Then on my turn I get 6 brains before stopping with two blasts. (Wife: I am not winning.) She gets 2 brains, then I get 2 brains. She gets 1 brain, then I get 3. She gets 2 more brains, and so do I, but my 2 brains happen to be the two I need to get 13 and win the round. (Wife: Come on, humans, kill that zombie!)

Round 3… You see, in a best-of-three series it’s always nice when the first two rounds are split because then you get to play the third round. (Wife: Duh.) Well, it’s better than someone winning the first two rounds and just trouncing the other person into the dirt. (Wife: Unless I win, in which case it is awesome.) And when you lose? (Wife: I don’t, because I win.) Round three goes like this: 2 brains for her, 1 brain for me, 3 for her, 4 for me, 2 for her, 4 for me, 3 for her, 1 for me, and then 3 for her. (Wife: I win!) She wins. (Wife: I win two out of three!) The match goes to her. (Wife: And I rub it in your face!) And I glare at you. (Wife: And I smile.) And I cave. (Wife: And I do a victory dance!)

I love the simplicity of this game. The rules are uncomplicated, and scoring is easy. You can pass the cup around while still having conversations. In that way, it is a very social game. I plan to take this with us to Dragon*Con this year to have available for random games. I also might pick up the expansion, Zombie Dice 2, and a Zombie Dice Bag.

Another reason I like this game is that as simple as it is, there is also deep strategy if you pay attention. (Wife: You paid attention?) Yes. (Wife: But you lost.) Yes. (Wife: I’m going to go grab a nap while you get into boring math stuff. See ya!) As I was saying, there is a little more to the game than just rolling dice. Back up there in round one, I had a turn where I got 7 brains, 6 of which came from rolling 3 brains two separate times, and then I stopped. Here’s why. The game has 13 dice, each of them with brains, blasts and footprints on their sides, but they are also colored green, yellow and red. The green dice, of which there are 6, have three brains, two footprints and one shotgun blast, so a 50% chance of rolling a brain and a total 83% chance of not rolling a blast. The yellow, of which there are 4, have two brains, two feet and two blasts, so 33% brains and 66% not-blast. And the red, of which there are 3, have one brain, two feet and three blasts, so a 17% chance of a brain and a 50% not-blast. That means a red die also has a 50% chance to roll a shotgun blast. On my 7 brain turn, I had 8 dice on the table, 7 brains and 1 blast, and none of them red. That left 5 dice in the cup, 3 red and 2 yellow. I stopped because I felt that as awesome as it was to roll three brains twice in a row, there was a pretty high chance I might roll two more shotgun blasts and lose all those points.

Of course, knowing probabilities doesn’t always help that much. Smart people will sit at a craps table in Vegas losing all day long, or slowly winning small amounts, but then someone will come along who doesn’t know any of the math and will take the house for thousands. A case could be made that I lost round one because I thought myself out of taking the chance and getting more than 7 brains on that particular round.

Anyway…

Man, 0. Wife, 2.

(Wife: I’m back now. I win again! Victory dance!)

YouTube TV

Stuff on the Net

Due to poor quality of my photos, the blog post I was going to put up today will be delayed. In the interim, I’d like to take just a second to talk about something else. YouTube, a while back, put together an initiative to try to launch channels, less like their normal “someone posts videos” channels and more like a TV channel with programming and schedules and such.

Out of this have come two channels which launched today that I am very interested in. The first is from the Nerdist. I’ve been enjoying their podcasts, and much of the Nerdist podcast network, for some time now. Their new channel is going to feature a few awesome things, like Weird Al doing interviews and a show with the Muppets and cartoons. Here is a sneak peek at their line-up:

The second channel, and the one I am much more excited for comes from Felicia Day and it’s called Geek & Sundry. The channel has Dark Horse providing motion comics, Wil Wheaton’s Table Top, a book club, The Guild, Felicia’s own Flog, Written by a Kid and more. I am currently annoyed to be at work today where I can’t be watching the episodes they’ve already released. Check out this set of previews (it’s a playlist):

Given the level of awesome of previous music videos from Felicia & the Gang, I’m chomping at the bit to get home so I can properly watch this:

Until now, I’ve subscribed to few channels on YouTube, trusting that the best things would find their way to me on their own, but this new direction will have me actually going to YouTube on purpose to watch shows regularly and subscribing to channels so that I don’t miss a thing.

This is going to be great!

A Different Cover

Random Thoughts

I really enjoy cover songs. Especially when an artist can take an original and put a spin on it, often by changing the speed of the song, and give the song almost an entirely new meaning. First, the original, “Last Friday Night” by Katy Perry (forgive the format, it’s the entire mini-movie):

Now, the cover, “Last Friday Night” by Julia Nunes:

The first song feels like a party, a celebration of debauchery. The second is the exact same song, the same lyrics, but at this speed and played in this way, now it feels like a song of regrets. To me, it is just so awesome that two very different sounding songs that convey such different moods can actually be the same song.

Anyway, this musical interlude was brought to you by my not participating in April Fool’s Day shenanigans.

You have to play to win!

Random Thoughts

Mega MillionsThe motto of the Lottery is simple: You have to play to win.

It is flawless in its logic, because you can’t win if you do not have a ticket. I have a ticket. I have several, in fact. The wife and I have a few, and I chipped in $5 to the office pool. I mean, it’s (as of this writing) a $640,000,000 jackpot. As a former math junkie – Okay, fine, not really former, I just hide it better these days – I know that the odd of willing are hilariously small. 1 in 175,711,536 to be exact. However, the entertainment value really can’t be beat.

See, for the low price of a single dollar, you can daydream about how you would spend your winnings (a $462 million payout if you take the lump sum, and you should, because winnings are non-transferable, so if you take the annuity and then die, your family gets nothing). You can share your dreams with other people and plan out how you are going to get the life you want – the life you deserve – if you manage to be holding on to the winning pick. Just in the last three days (including today), that single dollar (okay, $10) has given me at least a dozen hours of joy. Day dreams and fantasies, all with just the remotest of chances of becoming real.

By comparison, it costs $10 or more to see a movie and be entertained for a couple of hours, maybe more if your friends also see the movie and you talk about it, but really, how many movies are worth spending lots of time talking about it? Usually it’s just 2 hours and done.

“Couldn’t you daydream without spending the dollar though?” It’s the question lots of people pose when they object to the Lottery. “It’s a tax on stupid people and poor people.” they might say, or some other way to degrade the people who buy a ticket. And they are right. You can daydream without buying a ticket. Daydreams are free. But the one thing you can’t do without a ticket: win. If you don’t spend the dollar, your daydreams are just daydreams and nothing more, but for the cost of just $1 those daydreams become potential plans.

What are my dreams? What would I do if I won? Well, a lot. I mean, even if the government took half in taxes you’re still talking about $231 million. All at once. If you put it in the bank at just 1% interest, you’d earn $2.3 million a year. That’s a lot of money. But I have tickets, so I have plans. I have lots of plans…

EverQuest at 13

Gaming

EverQuestFor its thirteenth birthday EverQuest has gone Free-to-Play. Given that no game since has been able to grab me like EQ, in large part because no game since has had a class like the monk, I reinstalled.

I know going in that this isn’t the game I used to play. That game does exist, over on EQMac, but I don’t have a Mac to play it. It’s going to be different, but hopefully in a good way. I’m dusting off Ishiro, and the wife is bringing Lochie out of storage, the monk/rogue duo is back! I’ve heard we get mercenaries, so the monk and rogue will likely have warrior and cleric pets.

I’m actually looking forward to messing around in EQ again, and I hope to be able to drag some of my old friends (and maybe some new friends) in as well.

I really do like the Free-to-Play model for games. I expect if I stick with the game, I’ll pony up a little cash for extra bag or bank slots. Though I doubt they’ll get me for extra characters or many of the other bits. And they definitely won’t be getting a full $15 a month out of me.

Anyway, if you care to look me up, I’m on the Tunare server. I was originally on E’Ci, but that server is long gone, merged with others. I’ll be playing either Ishiro (the monk, level 66, when I group up), Orihsi (the druid, level 59, when I mess around solo), or Jhaer (the random character I’ve created to check something out).

The Walking Dead, Season 2

Reviews

The second season of AMC’s The Walking Dead ended just a few days ago, and I figured I’d go ahead and put down my thoughts on the events we saw.

We start the season with the survivors heading to Fort Benning. They quickly come to a traffic jam, and while taking a break and trying to make their way through, a herd of zombies comes strolling by. Season 1 of the show deviated from the books in small ways, introducing a couple of new characters, of course the CDC (Robert Kirkman says he wasn’t aware the CDC was in Atlanta, or else he would have included it in his original story), and Shane didn’t die like he was supposed to. The zombie herd was a concept that didn’t get introduced in the comics for a long while, but given the nature of it, it makes sense to have it sooner. After the herd mostly passes, Sophia is spotted by one and runs off into the woods. Rick goes after her, tells her to hide while he takes care of the chasing zombies and when he comes back she’s gone. This sets in motion of the worst parts of the season: search for Sophia. For seven episodes the survivors will spin in circles searching the woods for the missing girls, and while there are a few bright moments (and by bright I mean exciting) it is an extremely dull series of events. But before we finish the first episode, we see people scouring the woods and Carl gets shot.

This gets us to Hershel’s farm. Lots of stupid happens here. For one, this farm is surrounded by flimsy wood and wire fences, totally unsafe, but most of our survivors sleep in tents with no protection. Hershel and his family have added no additional security to their house and basically live like nothing has changed, except that when they go to town for supplies now they don’t have to pay. (Interestingly enough, that’s actually a nice touch in that the town’s general store/drug store has a sign up about taking only what you need and it isn’t fully looted, presumably because any people like Hershel on nearby farms have been only taking a few items at a time rather than clearing the shelves.) People stand around and talk a lot. They talk about finding Sophia and yet only a couple of people ever really go out looking, the main one being Daryl.

Daryl was given to us in season 1, a character not from the books, he was essentially just the crossbow hunting brother of the racist guy who got left handcuffed to the roof. In season 2, Daryl is fully fleshed out. He tells a couple of stories of his youth. After an injury he hallucinates about his brother and we get to see some depth in him. His relentless search for Sophia and his kindness to Carol. Daryl quickly became a fan favorite, as well as a person favorite. (He’s so popular that Kirkman will be adding him to the comic.) Throughout the season, Daryl exhibits the kind of clear-headed decision-making and purpose that Rick lacks.

Shane turns into a complete asshole this season, which as a comic reader I expected. But it is just so drawn out and often poorly handled. It’s almost like they had a bunch of different writers with different ideas of how the story should play out, and they tried to do all of them. Every conversation between Shane and Lori becomes a reason to punch the screen. In turn, most of the stuff between Rick and Lori hurts too. The decision to let Shane survive season 1’s story (where he dies in the books) added a wrinkle that could have been good but played out terribly on the show. The love triangle just had no traction, and Lori’s pregnancy with both possible father’s still around made for melodrama that the show didn’t need. Everything about it made Lori unsympathetic and hated by many fans. Hopefully that can be fixed in season 3 before… well… yeah.

Anyway, the gang eventually finds Sophia. She’s been in the barn the whole time. She’s a zombie. Otis (who died a couple of episodes in getting supplies to help Carl) put her there and no one else knew. But the barn got opened and all the other zombies Hershel was keeping there to try to cure are killed. The mid-season break comes as Rick is forced to put Sophia down for good.

The latter half of the season had more action. There was a bar fight, of sorts, and having to deal with a prisoner whom they don’t want to keep and can’t just let go. But like with Sophia, it takes them about 5 episodes to deal with the prisoner, dragging the story out to the point of annoyance. Meanwhile, Carl is back on his feet and constantly getting into trouble. First he goes places he shouldn’t be and then he starts wandering off. He almost gets himself eaten by a zombie, but instead leads it back to the farm where it eats Dale instead. This’ll be an interesting twist because in the comics Dale survives for quite a while and even has a relationship with Andrea. As a reader, I’m happy they are changing things up as it gives me less fore-knowledge of events, at least the specifics.

So we get to the penultimate episode and finally people stop acting silly. They start gathering supplies, boarding up the house, preparing for the coming winter. But Shane finally goes off the deep end and concocts a plan to kill Rick so he can have Lori for himself. It doesn’t work out so well for him, and Rick kills Shane. Then Carl shows up and kills zombie-Shane. This shooting has attracted a passing herd of zombies.

The final episode of the season really delivered. Not just in zombie action, but in character defining moments. Sure, given the slowness of so many of the thirteen episodes of season 2, the onslaught of the zombie herd overrunning the farm was glorious. They broke fences and (slowly) stormed buildings, and they ate a couple of people. But for me the most excellent development was with the character of Andrea. Season 1 ended with her wanting to give up and die after the death of her sister, and throughout this season she has dealt with that, in part due to Dale’s coddling and pushing. She went from wanting to run off with Shane and leave the group, to leaping out of a truck where she was safe to go rescue Carol in this final episode. She gets left behind and resorts to escaping on foot, pursued by zombies. And when we see that all the other characters are safe, we return to Andrea who is several hours into gaining a lead, then turning to fell the lead zombies, which by the lack of zombies following her you can tell she’s been doing and succeeding all night long. Andrea, through the course of the season, went from defeated and weak to protecting others and fighting for her life with every ounce of her being.

As much as I love the comic and have mostly been enjoying the show, if next season with the full cast is going to be more of what we got a lot of this season (slow drama), I’d rather Andrea and Daryl run off together and we get a real zombie survival show. But the final scenes give me hope. Face it, even in the books Hershel’s farm was kind of dull. That’s why they didn’t stay there very long. But the prison on the other hand, that was good stuff, and what do we see not too far from our band of survivors? The prison. Plus we also got a scene with Michonne, and entertainment news has told us they cast “The Governor” which pretty much cements what next season will be. Hopefully they’ll do it well and not drop the ball.

Game Night the First

Gaming

Game NightThe wife desired a specific sort of birthday celebration this year. She wanted to have a game night. We counted up all the board games we had access to, decided on food and sent out the invites (a month in advance).

Two guests, eager to get out of the house, arrived early. We chatted and played a round of Zombie Dice. After the wife won, we sifted through a few other games trying to pick one to play but more people began to arrive. There was food and drinking, and much conversation.

Eventually, most of the group (about 16 people showed for the night) settled around the big table to play Apples to Apples. We’ve played this game at many gatherings and it is definitely popular. A few (including me) stayed in the kitchen to eat food and talk of other games (video games and tabletop RPGs). With over 10 people playing, you only play to 4 points, but it can take a long while to get there. Eventually a winner emerged and a break was taken.

A couple of people left, and we settled in to a 3 teams of 4 game of Logo. I think the game contributed, but also the mix of people lead to much mirth and merriment, with a heavy helping of sarcasm and snark. It also helped that we tried to split up couples onto opposing teams (though one managed to sneak through) and engendered a healthy level of friendly competition. Team 3 ended up winning after spending much of the game in last place, but then the game is specifically designed to allow for teams to catch up and take the lead if they can just manage a few right answers. I think Logo might make repeat appearances.

By then it was getting late and people with baby sitters, those with curfews, and the elderly (joking!) had to leave. We quickly did the birthday cake and said goodbye to those who were leaving. The night whittled down to just six people and we adjourned to the media room for a round of shots and a game of Scene It! on the 360.

We called it a night sometime between 1:30 AM and 2:30 AM, and then the wife and I cleaned up the things that couldn’t wait (food) and retired to slumber. One lesson was learned: order less food, the two of us will be eating Mexican leftovers for a month. Another lesson learned: take photos.

All in all, the night was a huge success. I look forward to hosting another game night in the future.

Review Response

Random Thoughts, Stuff on the Net

Just the other day I was wondering, “Does anyone leave comments on my reviews over at Shakefire?” So I searched through and found that, as expected, most of the time the answer is “No.” Rarely, someone will leave a single comment either in agreement with or disagreement with my review, or some aspect of my review. For example, on a review I did of one of those baseball DVDs that compresses a whole season into a couple or three hours I said it was the best way for most people to watch baseball since baseball can be pretty boring. The comment was that people are missing out by not watching the entire season.

However, one review I did got a number of responses, and I thought I would, rather than reply there, reply here. The review in question was for the album Impulse by ERRA. The main fault of this album is that I hate the genre of growling/screaming music. Since this review, I’ve sorting things out with the guy who runs the site so that I don’t get these sorts of things to review. It’s actually in both our best interests – I don’t have to review something I hate and he doesn’t get a site full of low-grade reviews due to poor product/reviewer pairing. Anyway, the original review is here.

Admittedly, because I didn’t like the album, I went for sarcasm and humor in my review. Like most other reviews, it probably would have gone uncommented on. But someone went and posted a link to it on ERRA’s Facebook page’s wall. As expected, fans of the band didn’t like that I didn’t like the music, and posted comments.

Without further ado, the comments…

Im disappointed in both your review and the website’s decision to give you this album to review. You can’t compare the quality of an album where there are screaming vocals in it to something that doesn’t. It is a genre of music. And your reviews are supposed to inform people about the qualities and the downfalls of a record. Being a journalism major, and being someone who actually wants to write publicly about music, I am disgusted by this review, especially the last half. Pure garbage.

Being a journalism major, this guy probably has some high ideas about what journalism is. He wants to write publicly about music. He can. Blogs are free (which is why, in part, print media is dying). And as far as I can tell, assuming he’s one of the guys who also posted on Facebook, he does have a tumblr account, where my review apparently inspired him to write a review of the same album and give it a 5 out of 5 over a month ago, but hasn’t posted anything since. Allow me to impart a single piece of advice to you: a writer writes. If you really aspire to work as a writer, write, even if no one is paying you.

As for his claim that my reviews should inform people about the qualities and the downfalls of a records – I think I did: there is screaming, and that is the downfall of the record.

You don’t know what you are talking about.

Yes I do. Since I’m giving my opinion on the album, I am, in fact, the only person capable of knowing what I am talking about.

im laughing hard…..

ERRA FTW

I’m unsure of what is going on here. Is he laughing at my review (win!), the other comments, or just in general? He’s a fan of the band, so I think he’s with the other comments and laughing at me (not with me).

Did Shakefire pay you for review this? EY! WHOEVER HELL HIRED THIS GUY, CAN YOU HIRE ME TOO?

Nah, this review was epic. Epicly shitty. If you hate their screamer then you hate a lot of really good low-pitch screamers from hardcore/metal bands, no ?

Come on dude, chill the fuck out. They’re incredible.

Like with many review sites, no, Shakefire didn’t pay me. Well, they gave me a free copy of the album, which is dubious payment at best. They might hire you. Want to know how I got the job? The guy running Shakefire tweeted that he was looking for writers and I replied. Done. Which takes us back to the first guy… want to know how easy it is to get a “job” writing reviews? It’s that easy. Now, getting paid cash to write reviews… that’s another story. And to answer this guy’s question, yes, I hate a lot of screamers from hardcore/metal bands.

You should have gone against your instinct and given this album at the very least an “A.” You have admitted to letting your individual aversion to screaming cloud your review. I’ll chalk up the fact that you gave this an album “a big fat F” as being due to your hearing going progressively downhill since 1974. Listening to music with an objective ear is not a crime, Sir.

“at the very least an ‘A’.” Honestly, looking back and playing a few cuts from the album again (I didn’t delete it because seriously, what’s one album when you a terabyte of drive space?) I think, if I could ignore the screaming, I might give them a ‘B’ if I was being charitable. See, this isn’t a 7-9 scale. We (I) use the whole thing, from top to bottom. As for my hearing, it’s fine, except maybe a little worse after listening to this album from ERRA and the other screamer bands I’ve had to review. And listening to music with an objective ear isn’t a crime, but it also isn’t my job. I’m not teaching a music appreciation class, I’m reviewing, which is a broad spectrum of writing that includes my chosen take: giving my personal opinion of what I experience.

hahahahaha ur such a faggot dude. don’t review this kind of music if you don’t listen to the genre. Its like giving someone who listens to only rap, Carnifex’s new CD Until I Fell Nothing. which is NOTHING close to rap. and don’t say you are use to this genre cuz ur not just admit it. if you still believe you are, then ur mind is playing tricks on you.

I don’t really want to respond to a guy who uses “faggot” in this way, but he does have a small point which I addressed earlier. I don’t choose what to review, I’m assigned it. The boss sends me links by email or physical products in the mail which I experience and then review by the deadline assigned. We’ve cleared up some issues so that I’ll have less of a chance of getting stuff I am biased against, so in the future I won’t be reviewing bands like ERRA unless there is simply no one else to review them.

I give your review a -10 out of 10

So do I. Did you know that all reviews are scored only in Absolute Values? Thanks for the 10!

Seriously, though, when reading reviews or opinion pieces, it is important to approach it from the same direction the author did. One week in Entertainment Weekly, there was a column which I read and thought was hilarious. My wife read it and found it to be despicable. We discussed it, and while I had approached the article from a point of satire because I knew the history of the author’s satirical style, she had approached it as a serious piece, and since part of it was praising the awesomeness of the Twilight movies and how Bella Swan can teach us things, I understand why we had such different responses to the article. But then again, someone who loves Twilight and really does think Bella Swan is a great role model, reading the article in a satiric tone would be harsh.

And that’s what happened here. I listened to music for review that I have zero interest in because I don’t like it. So I took a humorous approach to my review with hints of scathing scorn for the genre. People who like the genre didn’t like my review. Only one of us devolved into name calling. Hint: it was the guys who used the words “faggot” and “douchebag”.