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E3 day 1, continued: casual relationships
Mon Jul 16
Electronic Arts
The press briefing for the world's largest video game publisher was an odd beast. Rather than assault us with the full might of their many offerings, EA chose a few specific games . If I could suss out any theme from this year's E3, it would be that the proliferation of pick-up-and-play titles signals underscored a commitment to getting people other than hardcore gamers to turn on video-game consoles. Among EA's titles designed to do just that were rhythm/karaoke game Boogie, school sports title EA Playground, virtual quiz show Smarty Pants and Blocks, one of the games being produced in conjunction with Steven Spielberg. Blocks looks deceptively simple. Different types of cubes do different things and one level shown tasked played to collapse an entire structure by manipulating only one block.
Alain Tascan, head of the company's Montreal studio did a very funny demo of Boogie, which included a spirited version of "Don't Cha" by the Pussycat...
Tastes like chicken
Fri Jul 13
The Homebrew Project is over and I am still alive. I am also, I must admit, powerfully buzzed. Just throwing that out there.
The taste test was a fun event (though maybe not for those who hoped to see me keel over from the wine). After transferring my grape concoction from its glass carboy to a plastic bucket, I dredged up a portion of it for consumption. It looked like rainwater that had festered in a ditch of red clay for about two weeks. TONY editor-in-chief Brian Farnham asked questions about the wine's origins, and I gave some type of Mr. Wizard spiel about the oxidation in the wine being analogous to an apple core that's been left out. The audience was less than rapt. I'm pretty sure they only wanted to see if I would vomit.
Our used mopping pail ... oh, wait, that's wine.
I ended the suspense with a generous quaff of my winelike substance. I believe I described the taste to the crowd as having "notes of cardboard." If I had to compare it to something real, I...
Dontcha wanna know why we keep starting fires?
Fri Jul 13
Despite the forces of gentrification rapidly expanding through the city like the Blob, there are still moments of unscripted creativity—what the old folks called "happenings"—percolating in our fair hamlet: the Idiotarod, the Chenguin vs. Chunk fights, Unsilent Night.
Tomorrow evening is your chance to jump into the fray and join one such renegade parade, TheDanger's annual One Night of Fire.
Starting at 7:57pm (sharp!), hundreds of jugglers, dancers, acrobats, stilt walkers, musicians, court jesters and assorted lunatics will congregate on the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge pedestrian walkway and make a pilgrimage to an unspecified destination (it might rhyme with Honey Miland).
When the mad-matter march is done, you'll be treated to an ad hoc fiery extravaganza, with fire-breathers, flame dancers and the like doing their pyro thing—a mini--Burning Man, if you will.
Celebrants are encouraged to wear white, but beyond that, the sky's the...
Ten reasons why beer is better than women (or at least wine)
Fri Jul 13
There are less than two hours to go until I taste my homemade beer and wine. Who else is feeling the excitement? My colleagues have already sent a few half-joking eulogies, anticipating a wine-related calamity. Not since Homer ate the blowfish has there been this much suspense over the health consequences of a culinary event.
Reason No. 9: When you spoon it, it doesn't complain that your balls "feel gross."
But I am not here to talk about wine. Or to bury it. Today I'm going to complete the tale of the beer-making process. Last we left things, I had brewed it (with instant oatmeal packets for extra flavor) and fermented it with delightfully fizzy yeast. Beer fermentation, my instructions tell me, takes between 36 and 72 hours. Then it must settle for another few days.
Notice how blissfully imprecise all these instructions are, just as the brewing instructions were barbarically simple. I would sum those up as follows: Throw stuff in pot; boil. I ended up letting my...
Today: Friday, July 13
Fri Jul 13
I'm always leaving them in tiny cabs.
How creepy is Friday the 13th? Not very, but that's just because my efforts at scaring you seem to annoy you more than anything. You're so short-fused today. Would it kill you to pretend? I want you to ponder that while you're out there getting drunk and hooking up this weekend.
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