Author: gala5931

From the B A Start News Desk — An area man displayed signs of shock and awe last night upon hearing that Jon Stewart, host of the popular parody news program The Daily Show, was dead. The events transpired at a downtown bar and restaurant at the back table. A local businessman told a joke about movie star Tom Cruise in a P-51 Mustang, a World-War-II-era fighter plane, shooting at cinema legend Jimmy Stewart, and then corrected himself when he was reminded that Stewart is no longer living. Parts of this tall tale was overheard by a friend, who expressed extreme concern and surprise at the death of Jon Stewart. Once the misunderstanding was resolved, drinking continued unabated.

When the rest of the world is fixated on actual major, important, and awesome events in real life, you can count on B A Start to bring you back down to fantasy.

Saw a few mentions in a magazine about Okami, an upcoming PS2 title. I’m a sucker for any videogame where the visual style is new, and with its whole looks-like-a-silkscreen-painting thing, this game certainly meets that criteria. No idea how running around as a wolf will work out, but I’ll let you know.

Now, you could go to the usual suspects for screenshots, movies, et cetera, but why would you when you can go right to the developer’s website? Sure it’s in Japanese — that just makes it cooler!

Not four hours after Sarah points out this story to me, I run across this one. There’s only one logical explanation: The Playstation 2 attracts lightning bolts.

Oh man are you guys lucky. You were this close to getting an eyeful of my opinions on last night’s premiere of the ABC mini-series Empire, replete with ill-founded statements along the lines of “Octavius wasn’t a good-guy” and “but he just killed Pompey” and smattered with my standard list of likes/dislikes. I’ll sum it up for you: I liked it, the departures from the history are well-handled and more than understandable, and if Caesar had the people’s best interests in mind then I’m Jay-Z.

Fortunately for you, I saw this before I started typing and the following rant ensues: $400 for a Playstation 3? Forget it. We all know I’m mad cheap when it comes to videogames. I don’t need a damn media center — call me crazy, but I buy videogame consoles to play videogames. I don’t need online play; I play videogames to get away from jackasses. Why would I add jackassery to my gaming by going online? Yeah, sure the graphics will be great, but just how damn realistic do we want games to be? So, you’re going to make assloads of titles about zombies, magic ninjas, aliens and whatnot and tell me how realistic the games are? And I do mean assloads — several iterations of the number of games an ass can carry. Maybe if I played Madden I’d give a couple shits about how well-rendered the chest-hair of that fat dude with a ramhead painted on his beergut is, but I don’t so I don’t.

Stories all o’er the nets* telling us that the code on cover of X&Y has been cracked, that it’s based on an old telegraph code. What they don’t say often is that the key was included in the liner notes. I say the following:

#1: To Coldplay’s label: Weak. Let the geeks go all geek on it. Let the legend grow, all mysterious-like. Better press that way.
#2: To the news sites: More weak. That’s not news, that’s a cryptoquip.
#3: To Coldplay:

*The best story I’ve seen on it is here, if you’re that bored.

How do you know when you play videogames too much?

I have never watched a NASCAR race. Today I went to a family member’s house for dinner and NASCAR was being watched. As I sat to partake, the cars sped around a turn that looked all too familiar. “Hey, I’ve raced this track. Infineon Raceway, right?” Odd looks, I tell you. My love affair with GT4 strikes again.

Yorda! Yorda? Yorda?!?! YORDAAAAAAAAAA!

Yorda?

Do you miss my GT4 pics? I set up a Flickr slideshow for ’em. Your life is now fulfilled.

At a social event last night, I ended up in a conversation about music. This is usually a good tack when at a party and you don’t know many people — there’s always that guy who likes music. We did not, as one might expect, go through the normal ritual of do-you-know-this-band, did-you-hear-that-album kind of stuff. Instead we talked about mp3 players, subscription services, and XM radio. Conclusion: for this brief period of entertainment history, how we get our music is more interesting than what we listen to.

Okay. So, the first two innings of a minor league baseball game will be played on the Xbox, and the other seven will be played by the real teams. Local fanboys have been competing at CompUSA (where else?) to be holding the controllers for those first two innings.

#1 – This is lame.

#2 – Here’s my favorite part of the story: “The idea for the promotion came from the 6-year-old niece of Bryan Williams, director of community relations for the T-Bones.”

How did this go?

“Unkoo Bwyan! You pway game!”

“What’s that, honeybunch?”

“You pway game on TV!”

“Yes, that’s right. I play games on the TV. Videogames. That’s why my brother got to marry your mommy and I still live with mine.”

“You pway game wif men outside!”

“Uh huh, I play baseball in real life too. Well, sometimes the guys let me go get the foul balls for them.”

“You pway boaf!”

“Yes, honey, I play both.”

“You pway boaf! You pway boaf!”

“Wait a minute — that’s a great idea! We can play videogames AND real baseball at the same time! You’re a genius Rita-Mae!”