Josh Greenfield's "Cutting Through the Knot" is the type of book that gives self-publishing a bad name.

Greenfield's book wouldn't be quite so bad... if it had a plot. Instead, it's a mind numbing 156 page ramble.

The synopsis on the back of the book reads:

"A humorous coming of age story, told in conversational first person voice, recounting a young man's adventures in overcoming mental illness."

Doesn't sound too bad, right? Wrong.

I've read freshman creative writing stories written better than this piece. Pages and pages of misspellings, grammar errors and unformulated paragraphs are not funny. They're distracting.

Greenfield begins the book by giving a summary of the book. He finishes the paragraph with,

"It makes for a good story if I can tell it right."

I'm not convinced. Any book that likens being "manic depressive" and "O.C.D." as having two scoops of ice cream, one vanilla and the other butter pecan, should stay safely buried in a computer's hard drive until it's had several massive revisions.

PS3...3D?

Sony, Sony, Sony. What are we going to do with you? It's not like CES, Las Vegas' annual consumer electronics show, is really that big a deal (it's no E3 or Leipzig, or anything) but it seems like you'd want to bring a something a little more interesting than...3D PS3 games.

Yes, you read that right. At this year's show Sony had tech demos of Gran Turismo 5, Motorstorm and Wipeout HD running in RealD 3D, a new kind of 3D technology. So far, all the impressions I've read of Sony's demonstrations have been pretty positive. And while the idea of a 3D game is cool, this idea seems troublesome to me.

Aside from gamers having to wear 3D glasses in order to experience this technology, this feel like a gimmick to me. Anyone remember Nintendo's Virtual Boy? If that didn't work, (although Nintendo's console was situated so that it was almost impossible to play for more than 10 minutes before it became extremely uncomfortable--Sony's just asking you to wear a pair of dorky glasses like some Persona 4 reject) I'm not sure it would work this time around, either.

Now, Sony stressed that these tech demos were just that--demonstrations of new technology experimentation. That means there are no official plans to make 3D PS3 games. At least, not yet.

The bottom line is, until we can get 3D holograph displays like the ones in Blade Runner, should gaming really move in this direction? It seems like a bit of a misstep. Why don't more developers continue to try thinking outside the box in terms of game innovation? LittleBigPlanet, Mirror's Edge, Braid--last year these games (to name a few) made gamers think in new ways, while delivering on the sort of forward thinking the gaming industry needs--especially if we're really supposed to get "next-gen" games.

Look, the idea of games that "pop", even at the cost of wearing ridiculous 3D glasses, is admittedly kind of cool, but c'mon guys. Until the industry starts taking itself in a more creative direction, can't we focus on making games more progressive instead of just making them a tiny bit flashier?

Thanks to IGN's PS3 site for the story.

Obama likes Wii bowling!

It seems that Obama likes to play Wii Sports' bowling, according to John Harwood of The New York Times political blog. Obama actually claims to be better at Wii bowling than he is at actual bowling. The important part of the article, titled "Obama predicts a Florida victory," as is follows:

"Mr. Obama said he’d have his hands full attempting to rescue the American economy. But he has gotten in a little practice in bowling lately on the Nintendo Wii his daughters received for Christmas. Mr. Obama, who famously struggled in bowling during last year’s Democratic primaries, said he performs better in the video game."

That's right, Mr. president-elect Obama! We knew there was a reason we voted for you. Please keep supporting the industry. But not with crap Wii shovelware. A man who wants change would know better than that, right?
Thanks to our dear friends at the New York Times Political blog.

Win tickets to Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!

Thanks to the largess of Cartoon Network’s foremost pair of comedic Dadaists, the Vanguard is offering 10 (!) free pairs of tickets to Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! show this Tuesday (Jan. 13) at the Crystal Ballroom.

To win two of these ticket just send an email to arts@dailyvanguard.com with a description of what you would do given a green-screen and an otherwise unoccupied afternoon

The 10 most interesting/frightening responses will win a pair of free tickets to Tuesday’s show, which is sure to be every bit as awesome and terrifying as the duo’s regular Adult Swim spots.

Up Okkervil River

I've sort of lost track of Okkervil River over their last couple albums and this makes me regret it/confirm my previous convictions.

The balls to the wall emoting that originally attracted me to Will Sheff and the boys is still there but at the same time I feel like it hasn't gone in many interesting directions.



Does some own The Stand Ins? Is it worth the price of admission?

Manhunt 2, uncensored

Any of you remember the great Manhunt 2 scandal?

I was perusing GamesRadar's wonderful website earlier this evening when I came across this little gem. That's right, view 'em and weep--here's all of Manhunt 2's gory, gory, gory kill videos in all their uncensored, uh, mediocrity. Be warned--this video is extremely graphic and violent (duh) and is also guilty of not aging well, despite only being a year old.

So, now you can take solace in the fact that you're allowed to see what the ESRB so many gamers were so horribly cheated out of last year, or cry because of how silly and stupid most of it looks now, how much of an uproar people were thrown into over its existence, and how Rockstar could have easily just cut a few of these scenes and the game would have been fine. It's up to you.

Harry Potter gets watered down

Via MTV:

“Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince” seems to be on a crash course to disappointing the Harry Potter fanbase. First, there were usual rumblings about changes to the story and characters, and then came the awful decision to delay “Half-Blood Prince by more than a year.

Now, Rope of Silicon reveals that the movie has finally been given the rating by the MPAA — and it has earned a rather soft rating of PG. As fans know, the books continue to grow darker as Voldemort’s power grows, and there are scenes of intense violence in “Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince."

I think my geeky/creepy fandom of the Harry Potter series has increased in direct proportion to the "darkness" of J.K. Rowling's content. Therefore, it's really disappointing to see what could have been one of the most brutal and disturbing films of the series get stripped of its potential to revel in the emotion gray spaces in which it (impressively) started to venture.

Of course these predictions could prove to be horribly off the mark but the fact that the studio behind this film would even shoot for a PG rating puts me on edge.

Sigh. If this is in any way due to the influence of "Twilight" I am going to launch an official war on the tweens/lonely older women of America.