SotD - Get Your Head Around It

I'd never heard of Headlights until I saw them open for Mates of State, and I was completely blown away. This is the first track off their newest album "Some Racing, Some Stopping" and I strongly recommend the rest of it. A bit of their on-stage energy is lost in the studio, but that's a fairly common complaint for any band. The best comparison I can make with them is that they sound like a more lively Rilo Kiley. Headlights - Get Your Head Around It Buy this album

"Stay a while, and listen!"

Diablo II is a game that consumed nearly my entire high school years. I played so much that at one point, if I saw something drop to the ground in real-life, my finger would twitch, trying to find the key that would show the name of the dropped item. So yeah, it was pretty bad. The sequel, appropriately named "Diablo III" was announced today, and it looks to have improved on the original formula in every way. If you feel like watching someone play it for 20 minutes, do I have a link for you! Diablo III gameplay, courtesy of Shack News

SotD - Daylight

Today's song is from the current king of independent hip-hop: Aesop Rock. His lyrics are simply on a different tier than everyone else's in the genre. They are also NSFW, so listen at your own risk.

Aesop Rock - Daylight



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In Local News...

I haven't been able to summon up a real post, so I thought I'd just do a brief update of personally important happenings over the last couple weeks.

- Barack Obama is the presumptive nominee for the democratic party's candidate for president. This is great news for a number of reasons that I won't get into right now, but suffice it to say that I'm very excited. Also, Blogger considers both 'Barack' and 'Obama' spelling errors.

- Environmental Science is one of those classes where the material is really interesting, but it's taught in such a dry and lifeless way that makes you want to be anywhere else.

- I rented Rainbow Six Vegas 2 for my PS3, which was a lot of fun until I tried to play online. The community of players for this game have become so entrenched and perfected their tactics to such an extent that it is almost impossible to get into at this point. I don't know what happened to me, I used to be good at shooters.

- I put in some applications for gainful employment around town, but so far I haven't gotten any calls back. This means that I don't really know what to do to fill up my days. So far, the solution has been watching movies and playing video games as if it generated money.

- Going to church with Zach and Beth at Fellowship Little Rock has been a great experience for me. There haven't been very many times in my life that I actually enjoyed or looked forward to waking up on a Sunday morning, and I'm very encouraged by the knowledge that that is possible. If gas were free I'd be there every week.

- Next week, I'm flying back home to Texas, spending a few days with my family, then driving with them to Oklahoma to visit the extended family. This is the first time in a while that I've genuinely wanted to go home. I'm looking forward to spending time with my parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. It's a weird feeling.

- I'm a pretty decent writer, I think, at least when compared with most people my age. I mean, people have told me as much. But I'm reading Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut right now, and every time I sit down with it I think "Wow. I will never in a million years write like this man." I'll try to post a full review when I finish it.

Song of the Day - The Re-arranger

There's no way to make this sound like I'm not a music snob, so I'm not going to try. Look, let's be honest: you listen to some pretty crappy music. Just admit it. I used to live in that darkness myself, and I'm here to tell you that there is hope! In the past, to help facilitate your musical education, I've tried to recommend bands that I love to you. I understand, though, that it's hard to just go download random songs by a band you've never heard of just because I think you should listen to them. So to make this whole process easier on both of us, I've decided to start a Song of the Day series here on Transmissions. There's not going to be a new song every day, but I'll try to update it often. My plan at the moment is to post the song here in the main blog (for archival purposes), but you'll also be able to play it with the little player thing on the right. So, without further ado, here's the first of many fine tunes, brought to you by my sense of musical elitism.

Mates of State - The Re-arranger



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Thus Spake Miyamoto

When I was 3 years old, my parents forced me to make a life-altering decision. They took me to Wal-mart and presented me with two item, between which I had to choose. The first: a black Huffy bicycle, training wheels and all. The second: a Nintendo Entertainment System, complete with Zapper. If you anything about me, you know what decision I made. The fact that I'm writing a blog post right now and not doing something active and outdoorsy should give the rest of you a clue. However, this post isn't about how I'm a giant nerd, but rather role that video games have played in our society over the years. I've been playing games for almost 20 years now, and it has been very interesting to see how public perception of them has changed during that time.

In its infancy, the videogaming industry and its efforts were relegated to the realm of arcades and hobby shops. These were by no means the "Good Old Days." Video games weren't ever persecuted in the way comic books or rock music were, but they were seen as simply a distraction for kids. A few of my friends growing up had an NES or a Genesis, but they were secluded in the back rooms of their homes, far away from the more adult forms of entertainment.

Fast forward 20 years. April's release of Grand Theft Auto IV was the largest launch in entertainment history, selling 6 million copies in the first week. A Paramount Pictures representative was even quoted complaining that the game's release would hamper ticket sales for their enormous summer title Iron Man, which opened the same week. World of Warcraft now has over 10 million subscribers, each paying $15 a month to play it. The Nintendo Wii has been on the market for over a year, but good luck finding a store that can keep them in stock. It's become clear that video games are no longer exclusively for kids. Games with adult themes are being played by adults, while the Wii has usurped the throne of the board game in family game night.

It's been great to watch my favorite pastime evolve from the realm of kid's toys into a respected medium. Video games aren't art or literature just yet, but we're getting there.

Perception as it pertains to prediction

If hindsight is 20:20, what does that make foresight? Pretty foggy, in my experience. How does one decide that a certain course of action is the right one? To make any decision, you essentially have to take all the observable, objective information, and balance that against your emotions and gut feelings on the issue. This is very rarely a fair fight. Objectivity can hold its own in only a few types of discussions, while emotion tends to rule all other spheres. Why do we trust our emotions, something known and demonstrated to be fallible, over our intelligence and ability to reason? This imbalance is particularly flagrant when it comes to our interactions with the opposite sex. I don't mean this as an indictment of you people; I'm just as bad as everyone else. I can't even tell you how many times I've had this conversation with myself:

Left Brain: "Listen, Right. She is rude, boring, and we don't even share any interests!"
Right Brain: "But I loooooove her!"

Guess which one wins? How in the world am I supposed to pick someone to spend my entire life with when my emotions are actively poisoning my decision-making process? I try my best to shut out that swooning, lovestruck side of my brain, but can I really trust myself? There have been times when I thought, honestly believed, that I was making an intelligent, informed decision, only to think the exact opposite thing a week later. I'd love to believe the things that old married couples say when questioned about this process, like "You just know!" Really? 50% of people in America "just knew" that were perfect for each other, but they got divorced anyway. That just doesn't instill a lot of confidence in the whole process.

Maybe knowing that I can't trust myself is half the battle.