Now...
..."Can't we all just get along?"
Wednesday, February 09, 2011
Song's over: Activision cancels Guitar Hero series
The big news coming out of the video game industry today is Activision shutting down the Guitar Hero series: once one of the most insanely popular set of video games in recent history. The company cited declining sales as being the biggest factor in the decision to bring the "music 'n rhythm" series to a halt.
This reminds me a lot... a whole lot even... of the "video game crash" that took place between 1983 and 1985. This might come as a shock to the younger readers of this blog (ooh-boy am I dating myself here :-P) but once upon a time, video games were not "hip" at all. Ya see, in 1982 the Atari 2600 was the king of home video gaming. It seemed nigh-invulnerable. But within a year or two the home video game industry hit rock-bottom hard.
What happened? Mostly it was a market way over-saturated with games that were, well... crap. Turkeys like E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (a title now infamous for how Atari paid the mob to bury millions of unsold E.T. cartridges in a New Mexico landfill) and Pac-Man (HOW did Atari mess that one up?!) did plenty enough damage, but so too did M*A*S*H and Porky's and Custer's Revenge (I refuse to even begin to describe what that game was like, it's so unbelievably... wrong).
Same thing has happened to the music game genre. Between Guitar Hero and Rock Band and seemingly "new" titles for those series every few months - not to mention the over-abundance of the gaming peripherals - there is simply too much music video gaming on the market right now.
I don't think the genre is ever going to disappear completely. But today's announcement from Activision is certainly gonna obligate the studios to re-assess where music gaming goes from here. Personally, I think it'll prove to be a good thing. It has mandated an obligation to be innovative. I've little doubt that music games will not only continue to be produced, but will also become better in the long run.
Congratulations to Denise and Nick...
...on the birth of their new son Olin!
What a beautiful little baby! God has certainly blessed them :-)
Tuesday, February 08, 2011
My prayer for this afternoon
My Heavenly Father,
This afternoon I ask for peace and comfort for those who need it most.
And for myself, I ask only for a peace of mind that I have been unable to know for so very long.
YOU GO GRANNY!! 75-year old woman stops SIX jewelry thieves with her handbag!
"I was not going to stand by and watch somebody take a beating or worse so I tried to intervene," said the sweet little lady in the red coat and white tights. The 75-year old retiree, who declined to give her name, witnessed a gang of six punks on motorbikes trying to smash their way into a jewelry store in Northampton, England with sledgehammers.
With store employees looking terrified from within as the droogs began pounding their way to the goods, "Super Granny" came running up the street and began beating the hoodlums with her handbag! She even knocked at least one of them off of his moped. Four of the six were arrested.
Witness heroism in action, dear readers!
Monday, February 07, 2011
BEING BIPOLAR: Video Log 2: Depressive Episode #1, "I Want To Live"
I was wondering over the weekend if this might happen. And unfortunately, it has now. I am writing and posting this video during a bipolar depressive episode.
I need to reiterate something: managing bipolar disorder doesn't mean that I'm going to be totally free of its effects. There will be times when I go through episodes of severe bipolar. But I am thankful that it doesn't have to ruin my life as it has before.
I said last week in the first Being Bipolar video supplement that I intended to document a bipolar episode if and when it happened. This is the first bipolar depressive episode that I have been able to record. I don't think there's anything in this clip that most people would at all consider "disturbing" but, I wanted to give a heads-up about all the same...
And Part 4 of Being Bipolar should be up later this week! :-)
Two upcoming new features on The Knight Shift
As if the Being Bipolar series wasn't enough: I'm about to put even more on this blog on a regular basis!
(Maybe it has something to do with the recent redesign of this place, that it's just demanding lots of new content...? :-)
The first is something that I've had in mind since Christmas, and is coming out of some necessity but also I think it'll be a lot of fun: Movies I've Never Seen! It's like this: my DVR is fast filling up with stuff that I've recorded from TCM and some other channels. And I haven't seen them yet. Like, not ever. Even though most of these are movies that I've heard of all my life! Well, I'm going to begin watching them, and posting reviews of them here. Expect that to start up sometime this week.
And then, there is something that... is going to be quite different.
It's like this: for awhile now I have been wondering if, well... I should perhaps consider going into ministry.
(Feel free to laugh at that. I don't mind. I find myself chuckling a little at it myself :-)
I could literally write thousands of words expounding upon that notion and why it is in my head and why I am entertaining both doubt and un-doubt about it.
Well, it occurred to me over the weekend that... maybe I should "try out" a bit what that would mean.
So beginning this coming Sunday... and I don't know what this will be about, 'cuz I really am just waiting for God to show me... there will be A Sermon A Week. And each Sunday for the next year, Lord willing, I will be posting a "sermon" (actually just a glorified essay) for anyone who might come across it.
To me anyway, that is gonna be much more interesting than Movies I've Never Seen. And hey, who knows: God might lead me to write a message based in some part on one of the films that I'm about to watch.
Well, like I said: Lord willing, this will be going on for the next year. And if I stumble and fall and fail to measure up to that goal well... I'll have tried. And I'll no doubt have learned something along the way (which itself will make this worth doing). But I really am going to aspire to go the whole way.
So then, expect the first chapter of Movies I've Never Seen in a few days and A Sermon A Week this coming Sunday! :-)
