Older: April 2007
Newer: June 2007

Play! San Jose was full of disappointment and lies

Sunday, May 27, 2007 »

Went over to hear the Play! Symphony yesterday because the nerdometer was running dangerously low. (Also, because Dear Friends a couple years ago was really great.) When I bought the tickets a month or so ago, it was because I was so impressed with the huge repertoire on their Website, most notably Shadow of the Colossus and mofo-ing ActRaiser. So we take our seats, the lights dim, and the orchestra launches into some Super Mario Bros. and Sonic. Some great arrangements, yes, but the whole time I kept thinking, ooh, I wonder when we're going to hear Fillmore!

Well, guess what games they didn't play.

Here is how the program ended up:

  • Super Mario Bros., Shenmue, Sonic the Hedgehog
  • World of WarCraft, Metal Gear Solid
  • Lair
  • Kingdom Hearts
  • The Darkness, Chrono Cross/Chrono Trigger
  • Oblivion, Halo, Blue Dragon
  • The Legend of Zelda
  • Final Fantasy VII

So it turns out the Website is just incredibly misleading. They didn't even have Castlevania. And there was a really uncomfortably delayed applause when they announced that one of the world premiere pieces was a suite from Lair—which, by the way, easily ran three to four times longer than the songs from any other game.

I don't mean to blame my disappointment at all on Symphony Silicon Valley, which performed wonderfully. Everything sounded great. It's just that if they had advertised the actual pieces to be played, I wouldn't even have considered attending.

Incidentally, I also realized less than 24 hours before the concert that there was an anime convention going on two blocks away, so of course every other seat at the concert was filled by some sort of costume or geek t-shirt. Also, standing behind us in line were two three- or maybe even four-hundred pound beings who spoke the entire time either in Japanese or Orc. I WISH I WAS MAKING THIS UP.

» comments: 3

It's profound quote week

Friday, May 25, 2007 »

I enjoyed this:

"I do this thing and it's art!" = okay, it's art.
"This thing I do means your thing isn't art!" = pretentious fuckwit.

-- from cmyk on Metafilter, in response to Dru Blair's photorealistic painting that I recently linked over there →

The Internet, summarized

Thursday, May 17, 2007 »

I can't say exactly when this happened, but a few years ago I transcended from a Normal Internet User to an Internet Zen Master. Nowadays I'll skim through forums and blog comments, taking in interesting opinions and observing the frequent Internet Argument. When I run into the latter, I'll read a bit of it and then just smirk knowingly and return to my chair, surrounded by countless monitors displaying countless locales around the Web. I try not to meddle in the affairs of these Normal Internet Users, or attempt to show them the foolishness of what they do, because that would just be absurd. It would be like the sphere trying to explain itself to the Flatlanders. Some day, I think to myself, stroking my impeccably-groomed, white beard. Some day they'll all understand.

Anyway, I felt the need to write that out because I noticed that someone else gets it. Over on this thread responding to a totally asinine uproar over some Spider-Man statuette (we're still on the Internet, remember), user infinata leaves this gem:

If you're not outraged, then clearly you don't have enough free time.

The next time you start typing a reply to the top ten reasons to buy your dog an Xbox 360 instead of a PlayStation 3, or you turn on your webcam to record a video response to anything, please consider those words.

» comments: 0
Older: April 2007
Newer: June 2007