Entry 36: "Violent Reality"

Yo!

My fellow MySpace-icans..... It has recently come to my attention that the way I mentioned last week's blog title, "Britney's Millions," being connected to Richard Pryor, was a tad too discreet and the joke might not have hit as hard as I had hoped for those of you who haven't seen or at the time didn't think of Pryor's 1985 film "BREWSTER's Millions." Memory-jogging info about it can be found at IMDB; Wikipedia has some stuff about the novel on which it was based (as well as the four earlier film versions), and the movie itself is buyable at Amazon HERE. I apologize for any confusion I may have caused.

Now that the explanation and promotions are out of the way, let's get this done. Violence and Video Games have been hand-in-hand throughout the entire history of the gaming industry. Whether players had to eat blue ghosts after consuming certain power pellets or avoiding barrels being thrown at you down a series of slopes by a wannabe King Kong that somehow got the name of a donkey, or picking up prostitutes and killing police officers on the fly or dealing out twenty-six hit combos right before tearing out the guy's spine through his mouth. But it's only during that magical holiday-time, once every four to five years, that the gamers of America inadvertently unleash their primal urges in their quest to get their hands on the latest, lean, mean fraggin' machine on their Christmas list. At any cost.

Seven years ago, the last generation of gaming began with the debut of Sega's last console, the Dreamcast, on September 9th, 1999. One year later, Sony's Playstation 2 was unleashed to the world. Another year later, Microsoft dipped their toe into the waters of "the biz" with their first Xbox, launching three days prior to Nintendo releasing their fourth console, the GameCube. Not one of those four launches suffered the, as Google's "console launch violence" results page puts it, marring of riots on the same level as the big, bad new supercomputer on the block: Sony's trinity-completing, bank-account-slaughtering PlayStation 3.

Last weekend saw the most massive, country-wide onslaught of video game street violence probably ever on record, and the PS3s weren't even out of their boxes yet. Retail outlets scattered across America, from California to North Carolina reported customers taking extreme measures left-and-right, just to keep their place in line as they waited in front of stores for hours, even days in advance of the launch. According to gjsentinel.com, there was an actual shooting before a sale had happened at a store in Connecticut, because the guy didn't want to give up his money and place in line, at gunpoint.

On the one hand, of course it's a good idea to get one of these units fresh from launch if possible, since they turn such a profit on eBay (upwards of $1,000-$3,000 for PS3, not counting the knuckleheads charging in the millions), but on the other hand, the obvious flip side, aside from the violence, is the whole having to wait outside in the freezing winter weather for so long, fork down so much money, and if you're not eBaying it, getting it home and booting it up, praying it doesn't glitch up and self-destruct internally thanks to shoddy manufacturing, like SOME sophomore console efforts. Remember, PS3 was delayed over a year because they fell short of working Blu-ray read lasers to put in the disc drives. Sure, if you're an eBayer, I guess the end justifies the means, but at what cost, and not just monetarily?

GAMERS OF AMERICA! At some point, you have to accept this new technology being so popular is only that way because it's gotten such a positive advertising and word-of-mouth push from the big manufacturing companies that everyone of course will want it. It's all in the advertising, or "plugging." But the instant some newer, fancier hardware comes out that claims to run circles around its predecessor, and DOES IT WELL, then of course that's the new thing to get and fight and almost kill over, hours before launching, yet only six years away from the $49.99 bargain bin at Value City. That's why you never have people rioting about PCs, because it's not make-once hardware, meaning there will be upgrade kits released eventually that can be installed yourself if done correctly.

Think about it: If Dell came out with a special computer, desktop or laptop, that was make-once, meaning it could never be upgraded, and promoted the crap out of it by filming a "behind tha' launch" special and got MTV, Spike or G4 to air it and plug it constantly, who knows what'll happen once the gates open? Well, other than MSN. Besides, what if Sony released the PS3 without a single ad, not a single promotion whatsoever? Last Friday comes and goes, and after the launch weekend happens, how many people do you think would've forked over $600 so willingly, not knowing what it could do, or what it may be able to someday do? More than that, would they have even made the system in the first place without a way to guarantee such an extreme need from the target consumers that no matter how much of a loss they take in manufacturing each console, they could make it back in nothing flat, without having to wait for the cost of the parts to die down? Why do you think Xbox 360's been out over a year without a single penny's worth of price drop? (still $399.99 for premium version, and $100 less for core system, 54 weeks strong) ...And don't give me that "no competition" speech, cause they could've brought down the price at least a month before PS3 and Wii (not a typo) launched and really took them down by now.

Sony gave this console so much of a push, and there was so much hype purposely orchestrated for it, what if--- and I'm not at all pointing the finger at Sony Computer Entertainment of America, the Sony corporation or brand as a whole, the networks, webmasters, board posters, retailers or fellow Bloggers, but I have to mention this conspiracy theory--- what if they pushed this so hard for a reason? They had to know that at some point there'd be so much hype built up that these gamers, so used to virtual violence, that as I said earlier, their baser, well-trained instincts broke out subconsciously, but without a controller in-hand? There was just so much of it, as you've probably heard by now, police had to break out tasers and paint ball guns, to keep the peace, way too much for a simple game console release.

My final MySpace Bottom Line is Microsoft, time to bring the cost down for 360 a little bit. Nintendo: Good launch yesterday, but I'm not sure repackaging old hardware with a new gimmicky look will work in the long run. It didn't work for the N-Gage QD, and I'm not sure it'll work for you. Sony: What the heck were you thinking? I'd love to go all out with what I really think of your latest business practices, but children could be reading! Quit blocking PSP homebrew, and maybe you'll pose a threat to the Nintendo DS. Keep pushing PS3's limited supply this hard, I'll pass on PlayStation 4. Consumers deserve better treatment than that for our money. And time. And lives.


.......................But that's just me.

Thanks for reading, Happy Thanksgiving and as The Simpsons' Krusty the Clown once put it, have a Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Krazy Kwanzaa, and a solemn, dignified Ramadan. Love that Season One DVD. Anyway, be safe during the holidays, and I'll see you in 2007!

-Donn

Entry 35: "Britney's Millions"

Yo!

Yeah, this week's blog title goes out to Richard Pryor. Had to do it. Okay, first off, a quick show of hands: Who out there DIDN'T see the Democratic takeover of Congress coming somehow? ...........Mmmm-hmm, I didn't think so. After everything that's happened with the massive war issues, Katrina, the string of closeted gay Republicans resigning every other day it seems, and even despite John Kerry's failed joke, we'll have a Democratic majority in Washington for the first time in what, ten, twelve years I think? Plus Donald Rumsfeld getting the boot less than two days after the election just had to add up to the best week ever to be a conservative. Overwhelmingly obvious sarcasm aside, I gotta keep sticking to my anti-politics rant rule I mentioned four entries ago. This week though, I have to say a few things about the worst thing to happen to music since William Hung: Kevin Federline.

Personally, I'm still trying to figure out exactly what Britney Spears saw in him from day one, really. Supposedly, the story goes that Britney first noticed K-Fed in some club near L.A., I think. I forgot the name; She made the first move (again, how does that happen?), and the rest is basically pop culture history, and simultaneously the single worst reality show ever. So as of last Wednesday, the divorce is final, the dust has relatively settled, and somewhere, Shar Jackson's laughing her head off knowing that even despite Kevin's $30,000/month alimony from Britney (I heard from Y! Answers, so it must be true), he's probably never going to get back up to the almost birdcage liner-caliber celebrity status he thought he had while he was married, and since he can't have that slight boost of a title anymore ("Mr. Britney"), his "rap career" (if you can even call it that) is basically permanently dead and he's now even more trapped in loserville than ever before. Seriously, who really bought into that retarded album anyway?

The next big thing on his plate is this wrestling match he set up last week pitting himself against John Cena on New Years Day's WWE Raw. With the whole drama surrounding the divorce still fresh, no less. Sure, some people will give K-Fed a little leeway if he fails to beat Cena, even knowing he won't have to be completely broke again at least for a good long time thanks to the alimony, and I'm sure eventually celebrity casting for Match Game 2015 will bring him about twelve and a half extra undeserved seconds of fame, but by then I'm sure we'll all care even less than we do now about his laughable existence. Which I'm pretty sure is mathematically impossible, by the way.

Bottom Line:

Pimped-out Cadillac Escalade: upwards of $90,000.
Various "Bling" jewelery: $12,000.
Crunk Juice: $23.49-$41.99/case, apparently.
The expression on K-Fed's face as Britney's text message requesting a divorce is received, caught on camera: Priceless.

Good riddance from the public eye, Fed-Ex. May you never pollute the radio or TV airwaves again anytime soon. Or period. .....But that's just me.

Later.

-D.

Entry 34: "Borat to be Wild"

Yo!

It must be good to be Sacha Baron Cohen right now. Sure, Da Ali G Show is history, but isn't it interesting how much recognition and acclaim he's gotten for his character work running solo and in the movies now that he's done with HBO? I mean, the show ended back in 2004, the guy practically vanishes off the face of the earth for over two years, he makes an extremely politically, socially, psychologically and (insert fourth similar adverb here) insane movie which happens to be really, really, REALLY good, I hear, and now almost literally overnight, people can't seem to stop talking about him! I'll just chalk this up with the list of overrated pop culture "sensations," right behind the Saw trilogy and American Idol.... There we go.

Anyway, as you can probably tell, if you've already seen the Borat movie, I haven't seen the film yet. If I had, I'm sure I'd be spouting out praising comments on how brilliant Cohen is. Which I'm sure would be well-deserved. Nothing garners more positive acclaim from American moviegoers and film critics more than a British comedian posing as a Kazakhstani reporter, almost purposely getting himself involved in some of the most absurd situations imaginable. ......Briefly forgetting about Jackass 2, of course....... Which I haven't seen either--- ANYWAY, I'll just fast-forward this before I get lost in another rant.

Bottom Line: This Borat movie better be good. Especially considering all the recent promotion it's been getting. It opened in less than a thousand theaters nationwide, and it's actually doing better than Flushed Away and Santa Clause 3! It's also on track to officially gross more than the current champion of grossing the most moolah in its theatrical lifespan despite less than a thousand theaters covering opening weekend: Fahrenheit 9/11. It's got a MySpace page, for cryin' out loud!! Only the most talked about or biggest budgeted movies get their own "MySpaces"! ......Oh, and about several thousand airplane capacity's worth of people around the world, give or take a million or two. You can only see a commercial showing this guy's exposed rear in an extremely questionable sunbathing outfit so many times before stray thoughts of watching the Bravo channel for more masculine programs begin to infiltrate the mind, you know? I'm not doing the theatrical thing with this, because I've got way too hectic a work schedule to do that, at least this month. I guess I'll rent the DVD eventually. .......But not before Jackass 2. .......But that's just me.

I am to be seeing you at later.

-D.