loonyblog.

I don’t have Tiger yet (it just shipped from Apple yesterday), but I did install Quicktime 7 (and upgraded to Pro) on my existing Panther installation, and I’ve been checking out the new HD trailers that Apple’s released. These are awesome. Really, really, really awesome. Right now there’s Batman Begins, Kingdom of Heaven, Fantastic Four and Serenity, but hopefully they’ll release more trailers like this, because at 1080p (for the ones that support it — the others are 720p) the quality can’t be beat. To put that in perspective, 1080p is more than all but the highest of the high-end HDTVs can display (high-res computer monitors of course can do more).

It happened so quietly I barely noticed it, but when Apple announced their new G5 lineup this week, they also announced the availability of DVD+R/DL capable SuperDrives. Since I don’t see myself buying a new desktop Mac anytime soon, I’m more interested in software support for dual layer DVD burning, and it’s this part that is somewhat hazy. According to Apple’s G5 info page, you can make dual layer DVDs using either DVD Studio Pro (which already had DL support) or iDVD. That second one’s news to me! And yet there hasn’t been a software update released for iDVD since this announcement. So has DL support been in here all along without my knowledge? Since I don’t actually have a DL DVD burner, I have no idea. But I do know this much…I want one now. Too bad I can’t afford it. As it is I’m spending too much just getting Tiger. But I’ll get one eventually. Oh yes. Yes I will.

The newly opened art exhibition known as “i am 8 bit” opened up this week at Gallery Nineteen Eight Eight in Los Angeles, to much hype and talk among gaming circles. I’ve looked over the images in the gallery section of the official web site and this collection of photos, and you know what? As a gamer, I find it insulting.

Actually, that’s really not true. I’m not deeply offended at this exhibit by any means, but I do think that this is not in any way, shape or form an exhibit that pushes the idea that games are art to any mainstream audience. Why? Because there are no video games on display at this show. Nor are there any pieces from video games. Or pieces by video game creators, or modders. No, what “i am 8 bit” is really, is a collection of pieces that look at video games (primarily the NES and earlier days, hence the name) as pop culture. To make my point abundantly clear, think of it this way: “i am 8 bit” is no more about video games than Andy Warhol’s work was about Campbell’s Soup.

I’m sure some will think that I’m just being grumpy about the whole thing, and maybe I am. But I look at the work of someone like Brody Condon, and I see someone who really understands games and art and is combining them in unique and innovative ways. His 650 polygon Carmack sculpture is more clever than two dozen paintings of Mario could ever be. Even the installations of Eddo Stern, while admittedly gimmicky, are infinitely more clever than anything in “i am 8 bit”. Stern at least gets the whole mod culture, and works that into his art.

And let’s not forget about avant-garde games that make it to market. Rez, Vib Ribbon, Katamari Damacy, FreQuency, Wipeout, Panzer Dragoon or the oft-misunderstood works of Kenji Eno, are all examples of games that push the artistic envelope. And let’s not forget about the reams and reams of beautiful concept artwork that’s created for games but never seen! Blizzard, BioWare, Square Enix…any company producing epic RPGs creates really spectacular artwork that rarely gets seen outside of those flimsy freebie art books given away in collector’s editions.

So no, “i am 8 bit” doesn’t really insult me, but at a time when Square is discovering a growing audience in this country for Uematsu’s Music (if they ever come to either Lincoln Center or Carnagie Hall, I’m dropping everything to go), it seems sad that something with so little solidarity for the video game industry would get so much press. It’s not insulting, but we deserve better.

A scene from my office’s lobby this evening:

Actually, that headline isn’t quite true…FedEx loves me. The poor person who comes to pick up packages from my office every day? That guy is probably ready to kill me by now.

At a time when it seems like every graphic novel ever written is being turned into a movie, I think I can be forgiven for this…

A story popped up on SciFi wire yesterday announcing that the upcoming movie Click will feature Kate Beckinsale and David Hasslehoff. Now my first thought was…wow. Kate Beckinsale is going to star in a movie about a woman who gets a remote-controled orgasm device implanted in her? Now that I’d like to see. I sat through the dreadful Underworld because she ran around in skin tight leather for 90 minutes. I’d pay good money to see her in a movie based on a Milo Manara graphic novel.

But alas, this isn’t an adaptation of Manara’s famous work, it’s the latest movie from the director of classics like The Waterboy, Around the World in 80 Days (the recent one…he’s a young guy) and The Wedding Singer. Oh well. Supposedly there really is an adaptation of Manara’s Click in the works, but somehow I don’t think the relatively chaste Ms. Beckinsale will star in it.

Today’s USA Today featured the first look at Brandon Routh in costume in the now-filming (w00p) new Superman movie. How do I know this? Because by lunch, I had been sent it about twenty times. Thank you to everyone that sent it to me. If you missed it, and don’t feel like looking at the cropped version on USA Today’s site, it’s right below (I pulled this one off Dark Horizons).

So what do I think of it? Read on for the whole dissection. I used crops from the gigantic version of the image at BrandonRouth.com as well as lots of other images from around the web to illustrate this post, so read on for the nerdiest post you’ll find this year (we hope).
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From CVG’s interview with Peter Molyneux about his upcoming strategy game The Movies:

Well there’s some very funny stories with it. Hollywood is insane, as a place, how any movie is made I just haven’t got a clue. It’s an amazing place to make a movie.

The first reaction from the movie industry is that they wanted to buy the rights to make the movie - I’ve got to get this right - to make the movie of The Movies. I had to sit down and explain to them, because they approached us and said: “We’d like to make some movies about some of your games and the movie we want to make first, is one based around The Movies.” So I had to say: “Well look this is actually a game about your industry, and it’s not really suitable. I don’t think it’s a really good idea.” I had to convince them it wasn’t a really good idea.

Making a movie about a game about making movies? That’s almost as bizarre as a bad game based on a bad movie based on a good game, as pointed out by 1UP.

One of the nice things about owning a lot of television shows on DVD is that I’m able to watch complete runs of my favorite shows at my own pace. I went through the complete Deep Space Nine and Babylon 5 recently, and then moved on to watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But where I own full runs of those other two shows, I only picked up seasons one through three of Buffy. Why? Because season four sucked big time. But I still wanted to watch it, so I went the cheap route and Netflixed my way through the season. And sure enough, it’s just as bad as I remember it. Read on for my theories as to why it’s so painful.

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PVRBlog: No TivoToGo for Mac OS X Due to Cost.

TiVo, why do you hate me so?

Speaking of Tiger, the essentially-useless-to-me-but-required-because-Apple-sucks-that-way update to OS X, my friend Jeff discovered an interesting use for Tiger’s dashboard: DashBlog. It’s a little widget that can be used to update blogs from the dashboard. That’s kinda cool, I suppose, although I’m such a big fan of Ranchero’s MarsEdit/NetNewsWire combo that I doubt I’ll have any use for it.

Speaking of NNW, the version 2.0 beta is phenomenal. NNW is already my favorite OS X app, but with version 2.0 there are features that are genuinely useful. .Mac synchronizing works flawlessly. Every time I quit the program, it sends data to my .Mac account with my current subscriptions and headlines that I’ve read. That means if I open NNW on my laptop when I’m on the road (as I am right now), everything is exactly the way I left it from my desktop machine. This even includes browser tabs, so I can actually continue browsing where I was when I quit the program. I’d totally pay for the upgrade, but it’s free for registered users. Kick ass.
I know I’ve said this before, but if you’ve never tried NNW, you really owe it to yourself to do so. It just keeps getting better.