Game Vortex Shouts Out to Little Rock with LamarPostr

I'm reaching out to the folks in Little Rock, Arkansas, using a new special digital billboard advertising program offered by Lamar Outdoor Advertising, Lamar Postr (LamarPostr.com) to introduce them to Game Vortex.

If you're in Little Rock, you might have seen any of these messages. This is just the beginning of the advertisement campaign, so they're just teasers, so far...

Got game? - Game Vortex	So, who's heard of Game Vortex?
So, what exactly IS Game Vortex?	Hello, Little Rock! - Game Vortex
What to Play? - Game Vortex	Calling all Gamers - Game Vortex
Try this at home: Game Vortex	Would you like to play a game? - Game Vortex
Never waste good money on bad games. - Game Vortex	Curl up with a good book? - Game Vortex
Game On! Game Vortex	Need ideas for movie night? - Game Vortex

One aspect that's pretty awesome is that you can change out the text on a given sign twice after the initial posted text, for a total of three messages per sign in a given day. The twelve messages you see above were posted in one day on four signs in the middle of Little Rock, Arkansas.

Starting tomorrow, I will begin an ad campaign that is alphabet-driven, highlighting some of the interesting aspects and featured content of Game Vortex. If you're in the area, pay close attention... we're looking at having a "pop-quiz" at the end, with a prize of some sort...

Stay tuned...

Awesome T-Shirts, Part 1

I wear T-shirts. Pretty much exclusively.

I often get compliments on the T-shirts that I wear, as I usually go for shirts that are a bit quirky, humorous and witty. Some of them are down-right punny.

I usually get my shirts from TeeFury or, occasionally, at Shirt.Woot, but I never really check out Threadless, even though I've heard of them before.

For both of you who also suffer from this oversight, here are ten awesome T-shirts from Threadless.
Some may make it into my collection soon...

  1) The King - Awesome mashup.
  2) Them Birds - Mashup almost as awesome as The King.
  3) The Beetles - A classic, revisited.
  4) Khaki Kickflip - What plastic soldiers do when you're not looking.
  5) Big Trouble in Little Japan - Donkey Kong must be in every fifth shirt. Period.
  6) Foam Monster in Emotional Reunion with Severed Limb - Bwah. Hahahah!
  7) The Incredible Hawk - In honor of The Avengers... also awesome as a windbreaker.
  8) Introduction to Molecular Bonding - Who's the life of the party?
  9) Rock Paper Scissors Recycled - Circle of Life and all that...
10) Occupational Hazard - Donkey Kong must be in every fifth shirt. Period.

This just in... Dub Step is awesome...

Okay, so I'm not the most wired-in person when it comes to music... especially trends taking place across the pond. Heck, I'm still greatly enthralled by Hot Buttered's Popcorn. However, I have recently discovered Dub Step (or, more likely and more often, Bro Step, which, as I understand it, is what we in America** think is Dub Step, but its bass fails to get into the truly sub-base range.)

I recently reviewed World of Tanks. The music in World of Tanks is cinematic and appropriate for the WWII period. However, once I had evaluated the game with its included music, I foudn myself muting the music, playing Dub Step on YouTube while I played and having a blast...

At any rate, I cannot fully express how awesome Dub Step is*. It is a nearly complete and ultimate synergistic manifestation of everything musical from my teenage years. It is Electronica. I uses samples from popular media, including not only movies, but videogames. It often has a certain amount of irreverence. It is often ambient or environmental in nature. It often utilizes (or, at least, sounds good with) rap. It is all about bass. Each of these elements resonate greatly with me.

I'm interested in trying my hand at forging some Dub Step*. I expect to do most of my creating on a computer, and must first find the appropriate software. I'm doing my research now, but I'm definitely open to any advice. Anyone know some good software for building up Dub Step and/or mashups?

---

* That is GOOD Dub Step. Like any other genre of music, it is possible to create something with no creativity or skill to mention and label it as Dub Step. The label, in and of itself, does not make music good. (Nor does simple addition of Wub-wubs.)

**United States of America... not necessarily the North American or South American continents. Just the U.S.

Yes, Virginia, there really is Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure

I've worked a lot of different places in a lot of different capacities in my life so far. I've worked as an apprentice private investigator, as a telemarketer and as a computer consultant. I have operated a snocone stand and a video game review websites. I've worked at Autozone, Wal*mart, K-Mart and Service Merchandise. I learned something everywhere I went. One of the things that I learned first hand, while at Service Merchandise, is that every year there are one or two "hot items" that, statistically, every child wants for Christmas. It may not actually be every child, but from the perspective of someone working in the toy department, talking to parents that have trekked to every Toys'R'Us, K-Mart, Wal*Mart and department store in the city (and, possibly, the surrounding area) and they're all asking if you have that one toy that they couldn't find at any of those places... and that's the same toy that everyone else is asking about... and the next truck is expected to have two of them on it... that's certainly what it feels like.

It's been quite some time since my Service Merchandise days and I'm not nearly as familiar with children's toys as I used to be, but it seems like a few years back, this trend was true of new consoles being released, as well. When the PS3 first launched, it was just as difficult to get one's hands on as a Tickle-Me-Elmo or a Color Blaster from back in the day. But, all of these were examples of products that caught the attention of the children. While it's true that the parents earn the money and make the purchasing decisions, it would be foolish to think that that adorable high-pitched whine (which can only be made by small children or dental drills) doesn't help them make their decision in favor of getting whatever it takes to shut the thing off.

These objects of desire that capture the waning attention of the American youth typically have certain key elements that make them more attractive. They may be: novel, new, interactive, collectible, and, of course, well marketed to children... ...which brings use to the subject of this post: Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure. This list could very well part of the features listed on the initial design for the game... and they've delivered on all of them.

I expect that Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure is going to be a contender for the most popular product this Christmas season. I has all the earmarks of one, and, while the game is rated for Everyone 10+ and the figurines are rated 6+, our reviewers who played the game enjoyed it immensely and most pre-ordered every figure they could and ran out to Target and Sam's Club to get the exclusive characters, as well. I've read of people changing pre-orders based on getting access to special extra items and J.R. Nip went out and bought the game for a second system just to get the exclusive figure from it that he can't buy packaged separately from the game. While it's true that some of our reviewers are collectors, they're far above 10 years old, I assure you.

I don't know that supply will be able to meet the demand this Christmas season...

Maybe if we all just pretend there's no problem...

So, I just read an article on Daily Finance entitled, "Sony Spits on Innovation." No, they don't do so physically (I checked)... it's a metaphor for the fact that Sony's response to having their gaming network (the PlayStation Network - or "PSN") hacked to heck and back is to slap a Bandaid on it and then make everyone who uses it agree that they won't sue if the network gets hacked again.

I get it... and agree... with the basic sentiment. Sony is a major force in the world of electronic entertainment. IF they offer online gameplay, it should be secure. User information should not be vulnerable to attack... and the first step is that any unnecessary customer info should not be stored to begin with. My credit card should not be sitting on a server somewhere, waiting for some hacker to break in an buy themselves something nice simply because I decided I wanted to buy a DLC song for Rock Band.

However, in addition to being a gamer and a game reviewer, I am also a software engineer. As such, I can tell you that if you're interested in writing secure software, that pretty much has to be taken into consideration from the beginning. Every time a new function/method/interface/webpage/etc. is created/fixed/upgraded or otherwise changed, it has to be tested to make sure that it is still secure... and that changes to that piece don't cause exploitable issue in other parts that interact with the part that changed. It's a tall order, especially when a lot of software developers don't know how to write secure code.

So, truthfully, taking the network code they already have and simply throwing resources at it in the hopes of "securing" it isn't truly an option. It would be better -by far- to start from scratch, either by purchasing something from a third party (MicroSoft... wanna make some more money from XBox Live?) or by building a new online network from scratch, throwing some talented developers in a dark room and throwing pizza, Red Bull, Dr. Pepper and beer into the room at carefully metered dosages to achieve the optimum development environment and keeping them in there until a new, secure, PlayStation Network is done.

That process, however, takes money, talented individuals and, well, time. Lots of time... We're not talking geographic time, here, but we're definitely talking about more time that your average gamer (and, for that matter, even PlayStation fan-boys) are willing to wait to get back online with the PlayStation Consoles. Online gamers should be fairly familiar with these types of agreements, for that matter, since you sign agreements every time you join a network or start to play a game online. This time, however, someone actually read one... hence, the flack.

I like PlayStation games, but I'm not a big online gamer, personally. For that matter, it seemed the general consensus was that Xbox LIVE had won the online gaming contest some time ago. If Sony wants to compete (on any level) in the online gaming arena, they need to reinvent their online gaming network... and I expect that, at some point, they will.

Personally, I hope that this agree-not-to-sue-us clause is merely something to buy Sony the time needed to complete the above-mentioned dark room-pizza-beverage scenario. In the mean time, you can either choose to play at your own risk or simply not play Sony games online.

How to keep a Programmer busy ...for about 2 minutes...

I can ALMOST see it...

Today's Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comic (SMBC-Comics.com) depicts a bunch of nerds (what is a group of us called, exactly?) trying to employ the "pinhole trick" of reducing the direction of incoming light to remove the need for focusing to look at their own noses, which, typically, are too close to be successfully focused by the eye.

Actually, this works... or would work, if it weren't for the thickness of the fingers. In the various contortions that are depicted in the comic strip, the fingers block the view of the nose. That is why they keep trying different contortions.

However, I found that if you use two hands, you can actually do it. Take the pointer finger of the opposite hand and, with it pointing downward, tucked tight to the bridge of your nose, use its fingernail against the thumb and pointer from the hand on the same side as the eye being used to look at your nose.

Squeeze your fingertips together to allow just a small point of light to pass through, and use your other fingers to shield light from outside of this hole. Now adjust the pinhole so that you're looking at the end of your nose. If you are doing it right, you'll be able to see the end of your nose, in focus. (In my case, I can see several short, very light-colored hairs... What do you see?)

Oh, it also helps if you can get some extra light on your nose. I suggest close proximity to a lamp or other light.

Visual Studio Express is Trying to Kill Me.

I have a copy of Visual Studio. From quite some time ago. As in Pre-dot-net. I have, however, grown quite accustomed to C# and find that I can program quickly in it. At least, I can with a full-fledged version of Visual Studio.

I am working on a top-secret personal project, however, and I'm using Visual C# 2010 Express to develop it. So far. It's great that there is a free version for people to try out if they're not familiar with Visual Studio, I guess, but I keep finding things missing that I can't see living without.

One glaring case-in-point would be the lack of ability to attach to a running process and debug through it. Really? I was using NUnit in my developing effort and when I went to debug a unit test, I simply couldn't see a way to do it. I eventually found a post online that allowed me to at least debug through my code using the Console NUnit runner, thanks to a chap named [Blokely].

If you're interested, check out Blokely's reply on this blog:
http://kenthall.wordpress.com/2006/09/09/debugging-nunit-test-within-c-express/

This will tide me over for a bit, but I see a full version of Visual Studio in my very near future. Bah. Humbug!