Archive for May, 2008
On the bus this morning I overheard a guy complaining to his friend about some problems he was having with his boss. It started off as a pretty standard rant for the bus I take, which is usually full of local kids talking shit about the other kids they work / go to school with / etc. and normally I just tune these conversations right out. This particular conversation was pretty much indistinguishable from any of the typical job-related rants I’ve heard on the bus (stuck with a wack-ass shift, yelled at by some old-ass customer, sick of that bitch who works the counter, etc., etc., etc.) until I started to pick up on the subject matter of what this guy was pissed about. As it turns out his boss had basically:
- Wasted this guy’s time for a week running down a bunch of shit she was supposed to do
- Dragged her ass on turning around feedback for the Photoshop comp he put together for a promo flyer (He also described himself as “The Photoshop King”)
- When she did finally get around to reviewing it she asked for 3 seperate rounds of revisions, only after asking the guy to do a full run of 500 prints each time before she looked at it. (To which he remarked, “We killin’ trees over some drafts, man!”)
So yeah… Instead of your usual complaints about crummy shifts or annoying customers, this guy was totally banging up against some iterative process shit! I wish I could have offered him some kind of project managerial advice, but as we all know: The only way out of revision hell is… more revisions.
But anyway though, I mainly just wanted to write this post to give some context to the amusing Google search results for: “Photoshop King” and “King of Photoshop” which this guy inspired me to investigate. There were some cool ones, and there were some bad ones, and there were some very, very bad ones. (I also tried searching for “Emperor of Photoshop” but the results were much more mundane.)
Here is a story about jet lag that I believe reflects both the mood & thematic subject of Primal Scream’s Vanishing Point album pretty well. And here, for your listening enjoyment while reading, is a song from that album:
From Charlie’s Diary, Exam Question 2028 (links added as commentary):
The oil shock of 1973-74, when the price of oil soared more than threefold over eighteen months, has subsequently been attributed to the collapse of the Bretton-Woods agreement and the revaluation of the dollar (post-gold standard). Oil didn’t necessarily cost more; the devalued dollar merely bought less.
In May 2008, oil hit $135 a barrel. To what extent was this due to scarcity (the “peak oil” theory) and to what extent was this due to a revaluation of the dollar? Discuss. For added marks, examine the possible reasons why the Federal Reserve stopped publishing the M3 money supply figures in March 2006 and its relevance to the situation two years later. Take into account the rise of the Euro as an alternative planetary reserve currency.
Seriously dude, sometimes I feel like just setting up shop on a street-corner in Europe with a ratty-ass sign around my neck that says “Will work for EUR!” Oh well, I guess if things get bad enough I can always just get my hustle on. (FYI on that last link, I assure you that the video has absolutely nothing to do with the still frame that comes up when you first load the page, so don’t let that stop you from tapping that ass (so to speak) because the clip itself is totally worth it. And for those of you who might be disappointed that the clip doesn’t deliver on the still frame’s promises, then you’ll be pleased to know that there are any number of videos on the internet that do!)
Questions the guy on the BART has for the girl he just introduced himself to…
Published May 22nd, 2008 in Uncategorized. 1 CommentRanked by frequency:
- “You feel me?” (Frequency: 60+ times)
- “You know what I’m sayin?” (Frequency: 10-15 times)
- “You ain’t got no boyfriend?” (Frequency: 8-12 times)
- “For real?” (Frequency: 8-12 times)
- “So where you goin’ to?” (Frequency: 5-10 times)
- “You look good, you know that?” (Frequency: 4-7 times)
- “You ever been up to Vallejo?” (Frequency: 2-3 times)
- “You don’t got no Filipino in you or nothin?” (Frequency: 1 time)
- “You sure?” (Frequency: 1 time)
I didn’t have time to graph this out, but I’d speculate that it shows a pretty clear Power-law distribution. Seriously though, people say “fuck” is like a comma to New Yorkers, but “You feel me?” was like a comma, a period, a hyphen and possibly even a space to this guy. I’ve never heard anything like it! By the end of the conversation, I was pretty convinced that he was (perhaps unintentionally?) trying to hypnotize the girl.
Here is a thing I wrote basically just to support the nerdy punchline of “Branching Dialog Trees.” Obvious references acknowledged:
Characteristics of Video Game dating
1. Stealing Sports Cars
2. Demonstration of Performance Driving skills
3. Clear, visual indications of progress
4. Strong focus on Cutscenes
5. Success is directly correlated with further gamingCharacteristics of Real Life dating
1. Leasing Volkswagens
2. Demonstration of Parallel Parking skills
3. Subtle, implied indications of exasperation
4. Strong focus on RTS Tactics
5. Success is inversely correlated with further gamingShared Characteristics
1. Wardrobe customization
2. Branching Dialog Trees
Klosterman writes in the Guardian now? Sorry about this chaps, just scoop him up and send him along his way, will you? He shouldn’t put up much of a fight. Might I suggest sending him in the direction of Russia? There’s a fellow there who might want to have words with him.
Incidentally, I’ve been re-reading David Foster Wallace’s E Unibus Pluram recently and when comparing his writing (& thinking) on the subject of TV & pop culture to Klosterman’s, I get a mental image in my head that looks something like this:
…wherein DFW is the crazy Aphex Monster & Chuck is the cowering old lady. “Come to Daddy” indeed!
From SFGate’s interview with Ubisoft’s Laurent Detoc:
Casual games are attractive not only to gamers but also Ubisoft, which can develop many of those titles for cheaper. But Detoc said the casual games are not complete cash cows because Ubisoft’s is using a certain amount of those profits for marketing, which he said is necessary to draw in new casual users, who are not as hooked in to games as hardcore gamers.
“The margins on these games are good when you look at development, but it takes a lot of marketing dollars,” he said. “It’s like packaged goods. You have to think about marketing, retail space, branding.”
When you sell games to “non-gamers” you’re not only selling the game, you’re selling the concept of “games!”
We were somewhere around the Warp Zone, on the edge of the desert, when the mushrooms began to take hold.
