Ridng that old bike round the nabe

Natalie and I riding around the neighbourhhod earlier this evening

Blogging from my Phone

Couple reasons for this post. First is to test out the blogging functionality from my phone - along with a photo attachment.

The second is is to post a photo of the old bike I picked off the side of the road in East Van for Natalie. We took it down to a bike shop on main to have it restored, and she's been riding it since.

Test title

Test body

Simple Open Letter to Nintendo and the CBC

Please set up a partnership in Canada like the one between Nintendo and the BBC!

Nintendo and the BBC partner to offer "Wii TV"

Nelson's Aspen Switzer plays in Vancouver

Four flats above the Cobalt, crammed into a newish East Van apartment this Friday night, gathered a crowd of young Vancouverites, eager to take in Aspen Switzer, a new folksy Canadian musical artist, on the western leg of her recent cross-Canada tour.

Flanked by Jessa Koerber's harmonic vocals on one side, and Jesse Lee's acoustic on the other, Switzer and her banjo plowed through the familiar titles from her CD, "Narrow Sky," then added a selection from an upcoming album before ending the first set with her rendition of the progressively political, "Jerusalem Revisited."

The trio's sound - banjo, acoustic guitar, keyboard, and unassisted vocals - came across fully balanced in the intimate and crowded room. Switzer and Koerber's two-part harmonies, solid on their own, would occasionally gain depth from Lee's third-part assistance. Demonstrating an octave range as long as his string-plucking digits, Lee wasted no opportunity to dip from harmonies down into tenor, providing a well received vocal bottom end to round the trio out nicely.

The content of Switzer's Kootenay inspired lyrics detailed personal development, relationships, and her surroundings, without fear of delving into various social and political issues.

You're not likely to see Aspen on Canadian Idol anytime soon, and we're thankful for that. With a few more CD's under her belt, an expanded politically-charged repertoire, along with a decidedly feminist approach to song-writing, Canadians will benefit from a home-grown mainstay - an old soul with a young voice, refreshingly unique and increasingly rare amidst iTunes' overly commercialized fare.

Lend a listen to Aspen Switzer with Thistledown, on Myspace:

or her website

Teachers want bullying game pulled from stores

It's quite rare that I sit on the fence on any given issue, but this one has me scared right up off the grass.

On one hand, you've got the entire video game censorship debate, which I'm a bit more conservative on than the majority of the industry. I don't think any game should be banned outright - (not even the US Army-funded titles advocating para-military invasions of Venezuela) but I do sympathise with those calling for a more strictly regulated, movie-industry-esque rating system.

I didn't defend the ability in Rockstar's more violent series, (Grand Theft Auto) to pick up a street worker, enjoy her services, carve her up with a chainsaw, and then take all the money from her carcass. In no way did I ever consider that an "artistic expression," and in my view, that game should have been regulated far out of the reach of under-agers.

The main reason I've yet to take a position on Bully, is because quite frankly, I haven't played it. But in light of the new controversy, stemming from a sector I have a good deal of patience for, I fully intend to grab a copy today, and reserve comment until I've completed it.

Until then, here's an article that appeared in the Province this morning.

_____________________________________________

By Clare Ogilvie, The Province

Published: Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Canadian teachers are adding their voices to four million educators globally to try to stop stores from selling an updated teen video game that was rereleased Tuesday.

Bully: Scholarship Edition, produced by Vancouver-based Rockstar Games, pits a 15-year-old student against other students and teachers.

"The concern is that it is glorifying violence, [that] it is glorifying bullying," Emily Noble, president of the Canadian Teachers Federation, said yesterday. "It is a story about a young lad who goes to school and his way of dealing with situations is to bully others."

Noble believes this is the first time teachers have banded together in this way to fight a video game. That's partly because the game is produced in Canada and because the game is set in a school, she said.

When asked why the CTF would take a stand against a game in which no one dies, there is no blood and guts and in which the bully gets as good as he gives, Noble said: "I think people are standing up and speaking out and saying what was acceptable a little while ago is not acceptable anymore."

The game's creator, Sam Houser, said in a press release: "It's really difficult to make a compelling comedy action game about anything, let alone about the experience of being at high school, and we think we achieved something unique with Bully."

At the University of B.C., curriculum studies associate professor Don Krug said trying to get stores to stop selling the video is just a quick fix. It's also likely, he added, that removing it from circulation would simply make it more attractive to kids.

Instead, suggested Krug, caregivers, educators and others should use the game-playing experience to talk about the behaviour. "It is not going to go away," he said.

Zero Punctuation's Yahtzee calls Uncharted: "Racist"

Great review by Yahtzee over at Zero Punctuation

the Irate Plagiarist

Anyone who's become a fan of internet-video based game reviewer, "the Angry Video Game Nerd," like I have, should take a look at the video below. It's been compiled to expose a blatant plagiarist calling himself the "Irate Gamer" who's been ripping the Nerd off for quite awhile now - posting horrendously-done remakes of the Nerd's videos on Youtube, bothering to rearrange his words only slightly.

The Angry Video Game Nerd has become an instant cult hit amongst retro-game fans like myself, and it's enraging to see some idiot rip his shit off so blatantly. Even more maddening is that this bastard has either disabled the comment boxes from his YouTube videos, or moderates them heavily, deleting or disabling anything in reference to the Nerd, or anything negative about his rip-offs. The prick even went so far as to have the video below removed from YouTube, citing "copyright infringement," ironically.

To see the real deal, check out the Angry Video Game Nerd at his own site here. Or catch him at another great game-review site here.


Chris Bores (Irate Gamer) - Confession To Plagiarism - More amazing video clips are a click away

Real-Time Wii Games to be Weather-Channel Linked

Japanese video game site: GameWatch, has reported that the Sega's upcoming Wii game: NiGHTS: Journey into Dreams, will have in-game weather variations depending on what the Wii's weather channel is reporting.

What this translates into, of course, is real-time in game weather that reflects exactly what you're seeing out the window beside you.

Exactly which role weather plays in NiGHTS, beyond adding a new asthetic value, is yet to be seen. The technology is exciting, however, if applied to the upcoming Wii version of Animal Crossing; a game played entirely in real time.

A Wii update of Harvest Moon would undoubtedly benefit from weather channel-linked environments, plausibly affecting when players plant crops, etc.

The development does raise the question of course... when is Nintendo going to make it easy for 3rd party developers to incorporated Miis into games in a meaningful way? Or better yet... when is Nintendo going to do it itself?