endurablegoods

California Extreme: Back To The Video Game Future

A couple weekends ago I went down to San Jose to catch California Extreme. Competition paint-ball? Roller Derby? Hunting expo?

California Extreme is the "Classic Arcade Games Show". It's an annual celebration of coin operated pinball machines, video games and other novelties you once found in game arcades. All games on display are set for free play, so leave your quarters in the ash tray in your car. You won't need 'em.

While being dazzled and terrorized by the sit-down Sinistar game, a kind fellow from the San Jose Mercury News began taking photos. Obviously, he could tell I was a Sinistar genius. Or maybe he was attracted to the staccato bursts of expletives that shot from within the game's enclosure every few seconds. He took lots of photos and lurked around until I was sufficiently dazed by the twitch-tacular game at which time he hit me for a few questions. Watch me stumble through the interview.

I spent over three hours playing old favorites and discovering "new" games. For instance, while I knew that there was a Journey-themed video game, I was stunned to see a Gallagher game. Was he popular enough in 1992 to warrant a video game? Also played: Burgertime, Food Fight, Xevious, Q-Bert, Battlezone, Jungle Hunt, Zoo Keeper, GORF, Wizard of Wor, Reactor and others.

I had plans on editing a really elaborate video game dream sequence piece but my original footage is crap. So, I'll give you this.

Kite Fight in Berkeley!

Stacia and I went to the Berkeley Kite Festival this weekend armed with a tapeless HD video camera, a 3CCD standard video game, my trusty Canon Elph and a sheet of acid. It is one of the bigger kiting events of the year and I was looking forward to watching bright and bouncy colors tug and snap on razor-thin strings...skitching with the furtive winds and blasting breezes.

You could see the kites from a mile away as they had some of the bigger ticket floaters taking the vertical point of the festival. Giant octopi seemed to be this year's big thing and they hung high with long, brilliant tentacles flopping crazily around. Throw in a giant rainbow manta-looking kite, a huge, spinning windsock, a lobster and a hundred smaller consumer models and you had a sky full of Skittles tethered to a ground.

The highlight: I managed to get into the final round of Rokkaku - or Japanese Kite Fighting.

VIA

The Rokkaku dako(六角凧) is a traditional six-sided Japanese fighting kite. Traditionally it is made with bamboo spars and washi paper. The rokkaku kite is often hand painted with the face of a famous Samurai. The structure is a vertically-stretched hexagon with a four-point bridle. One spar runs from tip to toe and there are two cross-spars. Flown on a taut string the kite is stable and rises rapidly. When the line is released the kite tumbles until tension is put on the line, at which point it takes off in the direction of the spine. Fighting two or more of these kites involves tipping over or destabilizing the opposing kite or cutting its kite line or bridle.

There were about 40 of us out on the designated playing field. Kids, adults, smarmy teens and grumpy old men each gazing up at their spot of color as is danced in the crisp, blue sky. A strong and consistent wind made flying the kite a breeze (ha, ha) but the treacherous terrain threatened snapped ankles at every step. We were given a basic overview of the rules by a boisterous fellow in a fur-lined pimp hat. It came down to this: knock the other guy's kite down. To do this you had to either "tip" your opponents kite towards the ground at which point it pretty much flies straight down - fast. Or you can tangle kite strings and work to create enough tension and abrasion to cut the other guy's line. VIDEO

I felt pretty confident in my approach to winning; let the other suckers flail around and take each other out while I masterful maneuver the mobile minefield and bide my time. Sadly, Frankie Flails-A-Lot got all ambitious and thought it'd be fun to fly his retarded and clumsy paper trash heap into my glorious and regal airborne hexagon; and became wrapped in my bridle. It's called a "death spiral" folks - and there is no recourse. It averted my eyes as #20 hit the dirt.

Kite fighting has a long, interesting history and can be found in many different cultures. The Thai version. India. Afghan. Hipster.

Yeah - I know.

Furries. Apparently, they skate 3 Up - 3 Down.

Adidas is courting the skate scene pretty hard.

The shoe giant has enlisted ultra-good artist Michael Sieben and dropped a solid chunk of change to promote the new Superskate shoes and a few branded t-shirts.

The Story: Sieben and his life-sized cartoons come to life find a treasure map while skating a ditch in Texas. The crude parchment guides them to San Francisco where the quartet has whimsical adventures. They gang ends up at Fecal Face where they learn the lesson that all travelers do; the real treasure is the journey itself.

Spend a few minutes at their elaborate new site and watch the madness. And Kink did a nice piece on the shooting they did at the famed 3 Up 3 Down.

Yes - this is the same building you may remember from Do You Have a Telephone?

Ultimate Surrender - Summer Vegeance 2008

On Friday, I'll be attending a special live shoot of the nation's most popular undiscovered sporting event - Ultimate Surrender. Haven't heard of it yet?

Basically, what we're looking at is a combination of BDSM and wrestling. Two girls get into a special, padded ring complete with bleachers, a referee, bright lights and bad attitudes - and wrestle. The loser(s) get fucked by the winner. Simple, really. This is competitive, non-scripted wrestling, mind you. None of this namby pamby WWE stuff. You can see the pics and video for yourself here. Uh, NSFW? Really?

Friday's event will be a tag-team bout between Team Red and Team Black. To be honest, I haven't really been following Team Black all that much. After a lackluster start to the season, I thought they be fucked to the curb by now. However, Adrianna "The Adrianaconda" Nicole and Dia "Iron Maiden" Zerva have really pulled it together in the last couple weeks showing that fire we all remember from May when they decimated the traveling Belgians (and put our country's diplomatic relationship to the test).

And Team Red, while certainly the media darlings, have really cruised through these earlier rounds relatively unchallenged. One has to wonder how battle-tested they really are? To be sure, both Ariel "The Assassin" X and her diabolical teammate Samantha "The Python" Sin are no strangers to the violent flesh dance that is Ultimate Surrender, but the 2008 Summer Vengeance has played havoc on our expectations already. How can we forget the crushing defeat of Sabrina "The Phoenix" Fox in Round 1? (Ed: Yes, I lost money on that one, too.)

Of course, do to the intense media blackout, I will not be able to provide images or video or the event itself. I will do my best to score post-bout interviews, however.

Hello? Hi.

The Prisoners' Dilemma in The Dark Knight

One of my favorite parts of The Dark Knight was the skillfully arranged Prisoners' Dilemma situation presented by the two ferries.

A quick re-cap. The Joker has been managed to force Gotham authorities to load two ferries - one with citizens, the other with criminals. While in the water we see that the Joker has rigged each ferry with explosives and given the detonators to each boat. The detonators, we are told, are linked to the other boat's explosives. Each boat has until midnight to detonate the other ship's ordnance or BOTH ferries will be destroyed.

Each ferry has to make a choice: kill or be killed - confess or stay silent. And the clock is ticking.

*SPOILER* Of course, neither ferry is able to carry through with the deed and both detonators are left un-activated. (Ed's note: I wonder if Nolan chose the ferry full of convicts to be first in remaining silent as they would be more familiar with this type of situation whereas the other ferry seemed quicker to
judge - to confess.)

However, according to the Dilemma, each ferry must still pay a price - there are no free rides once you are forced into this position. What price is it that the people on each ferry have to pay? Perhaps the price is living with the uncomfortable knowledge that you considered confessing - killing - to save your own life.

What is critical to the point of The Dark Knight is the role that this dilemma plays in the strengthening of community (indeed, human) bonds that maintain the denizens of Gotham.

The likelihood of defection in a population may be reduced by the experience of cooperation in earlier games allowing trust to build up.^[9] Hence self-sacrificing behaviour may, in some instances, strengthen the moral fibre of a group. If the group is small the positive behaviour is more likely to feed back in a mutually affirming way, encouraging individuals within that group to continue to cooperate.

See also: Nash Equilibrium

UPDATE: This guy does a way better job of explaining this than I.

An Old Album From Negativland

Jacked Off Shorts and Loaded Heads - The Next Day

I've been spending a fair chunk of time looking for music for the soon-to-be-released The Where-Is-Your-God,-Now? Burger short film. Instead of being lazy and raping the Pitchfork front page for something cool, I've been sifting through a few of the of Creative Commons music websites. My two favorites are Opsound and Jamendo.

Opsound is the slicker of the two with a crisp, clean layout and focus on simplicity. They certainly keep it interesting however with genre links to esoteric offerings such as "circuit bending" and "psychogeography". It's really a simple aggregator of existing websites housing free music (last.fm, archive.org, geocities (?!) ) and makes it far easier to seek and click. Sadly, there is no forums or social aspect to site so you are really on your own in your explorations. However, if you are like me and can spend hours clicking on anything with no apparent direction or destination, Opsound will keep your ears filled with new, wild and bewildering sounds for a long time.

Jamendo is a purpose-built, destination property that bills itself as a community as much as it does a music resource. With over 366,000 members and a vibrant member forum, Jamendo feels alive and bustling. And, as it has a majority European user-base, the musical selection is more, well, foreign. (The French put out some awesome lounge music - Ed) Jamendo also allows you to download and/all tracks (MP3) directly, sports an on-deck player, offers widget code for your blog or website and allows you to create profiles and playlists.

Apart from being a great resource for finding music for your next student film/video art project, these sites are also worth a listen to simply find music that you may like. Lord knows that there are plenty of websites to help you find new music, but, c'mon...isn't half the fun had in trying to out-obscure someone?

Jacked Off Shorts and Loaded Heads - The Next Day