tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-154160102011-12-14T08:12:05.967-05:00A log of the intersections between my analyses and the cultural objects that catch my interest; mostly RPGs, literature, cinema, television, and the industries that surround them; updated whenever the Muses put the boots to me.The Salvage Barhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08190872179146389897noreply@blogger.comBlogger451100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15416010.post-42357188890858562942011-12-14T08:12:00.000-05:002011-12-14T08:12:05.973-05:00

I have to admit, I am not a TEDhead. A lot of the presentations seem oversimplified, overwrought, or obvious. Every once in a while, though, an astonishing genius breaks through.

The Salvage Barhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08190872179146389897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15416010.post-71719851323866583852010-11-06T23:27:00.000-04:002010-11-06T23:27:09.970-04:00

The Salvage Barhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08190872179146389897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15416010.post-59805434085706306822010-01-15T15:34:00.003-05:002010-01-15T15:36:11.006-05:00

   Pivot, slice, drop widen your stance don't lean over so much elbows down but not out turn the fist and think UP UP UP and THROUGH set the bag swinging follow it lead with the left the off-hand the weak hand the wrong hand use it use it use it Because what will you do when he gives you angles? Turn and turn and turn? Into the crouch don't lead with your head you're made low to the ground use

The Salvage Barhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08190872179146389897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15416010.post-4282633202802879692009-10-07T13:34:00.004-04:002009-10-07T21:32:01.526-04:00

for A.U. There's a cord between me and the bar on the way home. It pulls, gently, at my center of gravity,  bending the path of my steps if I am not paying attention. Pulling towards Susan, the Duchess of Happy Hour, towards a a drink or two or five while I wait for the Muse. Most nights she stops by; she's reliable in that way. She leans up against the counter, lithe and smiling, and we work

The Salvage Barhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08190872179146389897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15416010.post-30590050711572425412009-09-26T19:25:00.002-04:002009-10-07T13:36:00.776-04:00

Review of Gamer (2009) directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor First, the supporting cast of this film is wonderful. Keith David, Ludacris, Michael C. Hall, and John Leguizamo steal every scene they are in. The two scenes when actors sing in character are incredibly effective and creepy. It is strange to write this, but while I was very engaged by this movie, I am not recommending it to

The Salvage Barhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08190872179146389897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15416010.post-68134059777204578312009-09-23T18:30:00.004-04:002009-10-07T13:36:12.347-04:00

It comes in under the closed door, through the window screen, pushing in under my eyelids, into my nose, my ears. It's getting in, like a hard rain, bouncing off bricks and doors, its drops bending in their flight, coming in under your umbrella, to hit your shirt, your collar, your face. I talk with myself to let it out, because it's built up, scaring people who can't hear the other side of the

The Salvage Barhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08190872179146389897noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15416010.post-44095125477348415572009-09-19T13:27:00.007-04:002009-10-07T13:36:41.077-04:00

Never discard a dream. It will not explode when deferred, like an errant missile. I bought the cut-rate bacon; it is nearly as good. Put it in the oven for twenty minutes, but the fat wouldn't render. Cooked it slow in a skillet, until it seemed right. Pulled the strips of meat from the grease and chewed them, wishing they were crunchy. I leave old dreams in the freezer now. They don't spoil,

The Salvage Barhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08190872179146389897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15416010.post-73101365780356679132009-09-16T19:34:00.005-04:002009-09-23T18:40:24.520-04:00

This is a bad sign,this strong, unnatural glee. Someone just said hello to me, and I stopped for four seconds with a smile on my face.one two three fourThat is a long time.Wait four seconds between two words,any two words,the next time you talk to someone.Four seconds is much too long.

The Salvage Barhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08190872179146389897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15416010.post-7660756705762972392009-09-15T13:10:00.003-04:002009-09-23T18:41:50.081-04:00

Wind struck the sea as I looked west. The sunwould dim and flare as distant waves rose and fell.The black stern of my ship stood like a monument.Did my father watch the same sun set,leaning on his cane, feet planted in the dark earth?Did he look east and wonder, “Are the same stars shining on my son?”Peleus, will death wait for your child's homecoming?Two men on deck make light, the tripod's

The Salvage Barhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08190872179146389897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15416010.post-77984378124097932292009-09-15T12:25:00.003-04:002009-09-23T18:42:11.550-04:00

“Burning Tower was a good movie,” I said.“What was it about?”I want to answer as best I can.It had Shavian overtones, and I hadn't seen a filmthat really showed me anything I hadn't seen before in months.It had flaws, yes - sex was awkwardly handled,as it is so,so,so,so many times.There were three lines that made me cringe;howlers, howlers.There was one scene in it that I had written a long time

The Salvage Barhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08190872179146389897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15416010.post-71826344470028922642009-08-29T17:07:00.005-04:002009-08-29T17:19:52.237-04:00

Batman: Arkham Asylum (XBOX 360)Zero/Five Stars out of FiveIf you don't know who Poison Ivy and Killer Croc and Two-Face are, if you think Batman must occasionally kill someone with all the fights he gets into, this game has zero stars for you.For everyone else: holy shit. This is the Batmaniest Batman game, ever. You cannot have more Batman in a game.Arkham Island is a moody horror. It looks

The Salvage Barhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08190872179146389897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15416010.post-81770786598018408442009-08-01T11:10:00.002-04:002009-08-29T17:21:35.020-04:00

Story Games: How to Play Them and Why, by Mike Sugarbaker from Substance on Vimeo.

The Salvage Barhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08190872179146389897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15416010.post-10150983646729074802009-07-29T15:09:00.003-04:002009-07-29T15:12:04.993-04:00

Voting for the 2009 Ennie Awards is open through midnight, August 1st. If you have an RPG game you love, or even just like, go vote.

The Salvage Barhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08190872179146389897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15416010.post-83102583440198901402009-06-18T11:29:00.002-04:002009-06-18T12:24:19.426-04:00

At last, I have begun my RPG actual-play podcast. I am using podbean, a free host, for the time being, and Feedburner to normalize the feed so there'll be no need to change links if and when I move to a new host.RSS feed to the podcast episodesLink to podcast blog at podbean

The Salvage Barhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08190872179146389897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15416010.post-70552723661784792172009-05-29T16:14:00.010-04:002009-12-06T19:20:23.584-05:00

The latest game-heroin hybrid from Popcap Games is Plants Vs Zombies, a modification of the "tower defense" style game. Zombies are attacking your house, and you use plants with different powers to defend your lawn and prevent them from entering your house. You buy these plants with Sunshine, the most important resource in the game, which comes from certain plants which generate income, and

The Salvage Barhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08190872179146389897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15416010.post-2629650226844414822009-05-19T01:10:00.004-04:002009-05-20T11:55:25.798-04:00

This is from an argument I got into over the most common RPG gamer divide - systems with mechanically-enforced character levels, versus systems that do not have these.* * * * * Hold on hombres. Whether you classify Savage Worlds as level-based or skill-based, powers-based, turkey-basted, is really not the point. Let's say it IS level-based, for the sake of argument. I can't defensibly say what

The Salvage Barhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08190872179146389897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15416010.post-670600171074815182009-05-08T13:02:00.005-04:002009-05-08T13:17:47.649-04:00

I was lucky to catch the encore screening of “Return to the Scene of the Crime”, a project of “This American Life”. It was simply wonderful – one of the best things I've seen on a movie screen in months. I have a man-crush on Ira Glass, and I am not ashamed to admit it. The greatest show is just watching someone do something that is truly their joy. Somehow, he made the business of audio

The Salvage Barhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08190872179146389897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15416010.post-10893303737531693122009-05-06T13:34:00.003-04:002009-05-06T14:13:10.686-04:00

I didn't revive this blog to talk about myself. Really.I don't see this as a forum for extemporizing. If I broadcast something, it will be something I've taken the effort to think through and polish.That being said, there was a little medical incident in my life that inspired what I'm putting up today. I've turned this into a fiction piece, but autobiographical asides like this will be the

The Salvage Barhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08190872179146389897noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15416010.post-51784911665328795072009-04-29T14:08:00.005-04:002009-04-29T14:41:01.193-04:00

A mini-update to point to two things:The PathYou're either onboard the 'video games are art' train, or you are not. I definitely am.Also, if you are aware of the work of the Brothers Grimm, you know that original versions of many of the faerie tales that have come down to us from the European tradition differ from their modern interpretations. In a word, they have been Disneyfied. The sorrowful

The Salvage Barhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08190872179146389897noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15416010.post-69509771753797638362009-04-29T11:12:00.006-04:002009-04-29T11:21:22.297-04:00

The Deadliest Warrior is one of the best examples of unintentional humor on the air right now. The entire cast is made of rejects from “300.” Grown men in a gym pound on ballistics gel dummies and skeletons. Force pads measure the power of their strikes in pounds-per-square-inch. Adults are standing around and arguing, really arguing, and taking grievance over disagreements about which long-dead

The Salvage Barhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08190872179146389897noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15416010.post-29182245948983996872009-04-23T13:41:00.006-04:002009-04-23T15:17:22.216-04:00

Notes and links follow each itemThere's a lot of agreement that the second Knights Of The Old Republic game was deeply flawed (to give full disclosure, I liked the first game, but never played beyond a half-hour of the second). The production schedule was rushed, the original ending was changed, length was cut, and many interesting locations and quests were cut. Worse, some of the quests that

The Salvage Barhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08190872179146389897noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15416010.post-45002011293719871502009-04-23T13:32:00.001-04:002009-04-23T13:40:38.289-04:00

Long time no post. Recent events in my life have convinced me that I need a regular, public forum for my interests. There's just too much material pressing out to hold in anymore, and if I'm going to write an essay or review, it's better to take the extra time and effort to polish it into work that might intrigue or entertain someone other than myself. My usual format will be to place shorter,

The Salvage Barhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08190872179146389897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15416010.post-36114274254772654122008-04-15T15:03:00.002-04:002008-12-11T04:12:40.634-05:00

Born. Read. Diminished. Grew. Returned. Continuing.For Aneris Harmonia

The Salvage Barhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08190872179146389897noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15416010.post-74175179862057215922008-03-31T11:26:00.008-04:002008-03-31T12:00:46.030-04:00

From [craigslist.org]:=====best of craigslist > s.f. bayarea >Originally Posted: Tue, 26 Feb 17:25 PSTThanks, Mr.Hipster Record Store Clerk.Date: 2008-02-26, 5:25PM PSTDear Hipster Record Store Clerk,Thank you for judging me on the CD I bought yesterday. Our passive-aggressive altercation made me realize how conformist I am for buying an old Rage Against The Machine album. Your condescension was

The Salvage Barhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08190872179146389897noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15416010.post-70712516006553254402008-02-07T12:37:00.000-05:002008-02-07T12:57:32.291-05:00

Soon after Penny Arcade pointed me to the "28 Confessions of a Gamestop Employee," I bought "Conan" for my 360 (not recommended, really). When I reached the counter, I noticed that they had added a new ritual to the cash/wrap. It's the rare game you buy at Gamestop that is unopened, as many other writers have complained. If you pick up the case for a brand new game, the disc itself is in a

The Salvage Barhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08190872179146389897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15416010.post-72512584466268862142008-02-03T15:52:00.000-05:002008-12-11T04:12:40.772-05:00

The strife between the different parties in the house of Islam has always been interesting to me. The struggle of Shi'a Islam for acceptance as the minority group, Arab-Persian racism, the good and evils deeds of past empires from the Kush to northern Africa: these things have all contributed to involving the United States an intimate and complex turmoil.A friend pointed out that the Ismaili are

The Salvage Barhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08190872179146389897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15416010.post-13787476759783216972007-04-03T11:28:00.000-04:002008-12-11T04:12:41.137-05:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W91sqAs-_-gGood job, Alanis. A damned fine parody, even if it is a little long. Granted, "My Humps" is just a silly, disposable pop song. Unfortunately, the "shake-what-yo-momma-gave-ya take-the-playa's-cash use-your-GIRL-POWER" trope you see in music videos has become as annoying and clichéd as gangsta rap, and it needs to be lampooned.Yes, some women have wider

The Salvage Barhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08190872179146389897noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15416010.post-71307596805602684042006-12-24T13:29:00.000-05:002006-12-24T13:47:24.890-05:00

Thirty-three - Looking at the reactions to act one of season three, I am interested in this idea of the lost mystery of BSG, especially about the Cylons. James Callis said in the roundtable podcast that “33″ was his favorite episode, because the Cylons at that point were a complete unknown, and utterly terrifying. Like the shark in “JAWS,” they were almost a force of nature which acted according

The Salvage Barhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08190872179146389897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15416010.post-1166301636115443452006-12-16T15:28:00.000-05:002006-12-16T15:57:18.573-05:00

Thoughts on the last episode of Battlestar Galactica, season three, act one:(Cylon) Pattern Recognition - Cylons are humans. They talk a good game about the "human pestilence," but once they took on human bodies, they clearly got the whole beautiful/ugly package called "human nature" as well. They get sick, have emotions like bloodlust and love, enjoy sex, and (most human of all) they have

The Salvage Barhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08190872179146389897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15416010.post-1166130663809057502006-12-14T15:27:00.000-05:002006-12-14T16:11:08.630-05:00

I was a little too late to comment on the Galactica Watercooler podcast about “The Passage,” but something about it has gotten stuck in my head. Every time that someone chimes in about Dee’s relationship with some Apollo with some version of “Billy would not have done you that way, woman!” I want to throw something. I was in the Army Reserves for six years. My experience is that military women

The Salvage Barhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08190872179146389897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15416010.post-1162503649154206322006-11-02T16:39:00.000-05:002006-11-02T16:40:49.153-05:00

TEST FEED

The Salvage Barhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08190872179146389897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15416010.post-1142451399111289402006-03-15T13:50:00.000-05:002006-03-15T14:36:39.520-05:00

First note: it is nice to see that The Guardian gets it.What is catching my interest in the Moussaoui trial debacle of the last few days is the focus on attorney Carla J. Martin. The New York Times story on her is a biography of a career climber gone wrong:Ms. Martin, 51, is a former flight attendant at World Airways, where she often flew between the United States and Germany because she spoke

The Salvage Barhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08190872179146389897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15416010.post-1139332878360836142006-02-07T12:04:00.000-05:002006-02-07T12:52:17.826-05:00

I wrote this email to Barbara J. King, Professor of Anthropology at The College of William and Mary.*****Date: Tue, 07 Feb 2006 10:19:02 -0500From: Abel Vargas Subject: Neanderthal burials Dr. King:I have been enjoying your Teaching Company course "Biological Anthropology." I have been interested in Neanderthals for a long time, intrigued by the fact that another group (sub-group?) of humans

The Salvage Barhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08190872179146389897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15416010.post-1130967501025120532005-11-02T19:30:00.000-05:002005-11-07T18:24:43.333-05:00

My cousin turned to me in his car the other day and said, “I can’t get that Katamari song out of my head.”I know how he feels.Katamari Damacy and its sequel, We Love Katamari, came from an unholy union of rhythm games (like Parappa the Rapper and Dance Dance Revolution) and real-time puzzle games like Pikmin. The game mechanic is incredibly simple: roll a sticky ball around some mundane Japanese

The Salvage Barhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08190872179146389897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15416010.post-1130254134951104872005-10-25T09:27:00.000-04:002005-10-25T11:49:40.103-04:00

As often happens in Consoleland, some of the best franchises and game ideas for a system only happen when a system is winding down its useful life. One has only to look at the fanatical followings of the Sega Saturn and Dreamcast and the nearly superhuman feats developers pulled in the last few months of the cycle of each of those pieces of technology. Nowadays, we are about to begin the

The Salvage Barhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08190872179146389897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15416010.post-1129650021246487362005-10-18T11:36:00.000-04:002005-10-18T11:40:21.253-04:00

I was reading an article in the New York Times about the book Top of the Class: How Asian Parents Raise High Achievers - and How You Can Too by Dr. Soo Kim Abboud and Jane Kim (free registration required to read). Dr. Abboud and Ms. Kim are two Korean-American sisters writing about what the article describes as their “relatively strict” upbringing. I would not describe their parents’ approach as

The Salvage Barhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08190872179146389897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15416010.post-1129226982082759642005-10-13T13:03:00.000-04:002005-10-13T14:25:45.623-04:00

I was listening to an interview with Susannah Clarke on Hour of the Wolf this morning. You can catch the show here. I loved Jonathan Strange and Mister Norrell, and Jim Freund opened the show with great music, as he always does. There was Tam Lin, a nice little folk song with a fairie story I had never heard before.Listening to the troubles that Tam Lin had, I realized that there just isn't any

The Salvage Barhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08190872179146389897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15416010.post-1128953784982310252005-10-10T18:00:00.000-04:002005-10-13T21:36:58.050-04:00

I saw David Cronenberg’s new flick, A History of Violence, on Friday night. I am a big fan of Cronenberg, even though I have said that he is one of those directors with only one story to tell. Videodrome was a surreal look at the psychological changes that television has wrought on us. eXistenZ was an essay on the increasing immersiveness and photoreality of video games. Crash, based on J. G.

The Salvage Barhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08190872179146389897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15416010.post-1128703886039468382005-10-07T12:15:00.000-04:002005-10-07T12:51:26.053-04:00

I have been mulling over my experience of watching Serenity last week. Joss Whedon definitely has functional, if unstylish, camera work. The camera stays pretty still in his hands; you don’t see nearly as much movement as you do in a typical film, and it gives Serenity a made-for-TV feel. That being said, the characters are as lovable and the writing is as surprising as ever, so I didn’t

The Salvage Barhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08190872179146389897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15416010.post-1126111904047839592005-09-07T12:51:00.000-04:002005-09-07T12:52:40.786-04:00

The story goes that Edward Steichen, the famous photographer, once approached Picasso and criticized his paintings as distorting reality. “My paintings do not distort reality. I paint things as I see them,” said Picasso.“No, my photographs show things as they are,” said Steichen.“I paint things as I see them,” said Picasso.Steichen produced a small photo of his wife from his wallet. “You see,

The Salvage Barhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08190872179146389897noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15416010.post-1125455364299631892005-08-31T00:37:00.000-04:002005-08-30T22:29:24.306-04:00

I have just finished watching the final episode of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. This was a made-for-TV reimagining of the popular 1995 movie, which was itself based on a manga series by Shirow Masamune. Stand Alone Complex (SAC) is just magnificent. Over the 26 episodes of the series, it delivers time and again on many levels: hard sci-fi buzz, exciting action sequences, an intriguing

The Salvage Barhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08190872179146389897noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15416010.post-1125059316065913572005-08-26T08:10:00.000-04:002005-08-26T08:29:37.930-04:00

Very quickly, I have jumped on the Firefly bandwagon. I did not witness the ignominious end of this series on television, like I did for Farscape, but I feel nearly as angry about it now. An ex post facto rage, if you will. I am happy to see that both these series will finally be getting closure to their storylines in the shape of films, Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars and Serenity.River Tam,

The Salvage Barhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08190872179146389897noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15416010.post-1124823234157319102005-08-23T14:29:00.000-04:002005-08-23T14:53:54.163-04:00

I went to a lab today to get my urine tested. One of the temp agencies I had registered with called me about a job which would last a few weeks. The way it was described to me, all I would be doing is manning a table at a college campus in the city, passing out flyers and encouraging the students to save their hard-earned money at Illuminati Financial (*).The Legal Overlords have determined that

The Salvage Barhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08190872179146389897noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15416010.post-1124720901541125642005-08-22T15:14:00.000-04:002005-08-22T12:31:07.016-04:00

As promised, here is a pic of the little guy, doing what he does best.Last night I flew (i.e. took the subway) to The Walter Reade Theater in Lincoln Center to watch a screening of Red Vs Blue The Blood Gulch Chronicles Season Three Director's Cut. It is weird watching Machinime blown up to the size of a movie screen. If you have never been to a film festival, I highly recommend that you find

The Salvage Barhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08190872179146389897noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15416010.post-1124028788193286132005-08-14T16:27:00.000-04:002005-08-22T10:14:31.296-04:00

Welcome to the first post of The Salvage Bar. I will be using this generic template until the site evolves into something better (i.e. until I learn HTML, and some basic principles of design, usability, composition, color...)Until Thursday, I drove a 1993 Pontiac Grand Am. I donated my car to the AIDS Research Alliance of America, and you can, too. I will miss my Sexy Putt-Putt, my Four

The Salvage Barhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08190872179146389897noreply@blogger.com2