It’s okay as long as they don’t explicitly say Sebelius supports Iran…. Right?

Update: Stay Red Kansas weighs in on Kansans For Affordable Energy:

Kansans for Affordable Energy, a non-partisan activist group designed to encourage responsible production of domestic energy, has begun to fight back against the liberal interest groups that found themselves whispering in the ears of Governor Sebelius - doing so from a comfortable location in her hip pocket.

Kansans for Affordable Energy is undoubtedly non-partisan (western Kansas Democrats are up in arms about the ruling), but that doesn’t mean they don’t represent special interests.  I haven’t been able to find their filing on the Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission  homepage (terrible site by the way), but I’ve been told the group didn’t form until October and that the funding comes from sources that stand to gain a lot from the construction of the Holcomb plant.

To clarify, self-serving interest groups aren’t necessarily a bad thing: of course a business, or a business interest group will pay money to advance their agenda.  But Kansans for Affordable Energy is definitely making a link between Sebelius’ administration and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (along with Putin and Chavez), emphasizing innuendo over sound fact.

Stay Red Kansas can whine all it wants about the “politicization” of this issue, but they need to face the simple truth.  First, not flinching when a group uses fear as a tool of criticism is lazy, and disgusting.  Second, criticizing opponents of the coal plant for being in line with “out-of-state natural gas [interests]” is conveniently ignoring that out-of-state and in-state coal interests stand to gain a lot by the construction of this plant.  Remember that coal is only a cheap source of power when considering the dollar-cost per unit of energy and ignoring the long-term environmental effects.

Stay Red Kansas’ third and worst offense?: using the word “Coal-Gate” without laughing.

A Drop or Two, originally uploaded by Cook Jones.

A shot from my study of natural “knots” and other small stuff that hangs off trees. Mostly posting to test flickr’s posting ability.

…Play Bioshock now. This game is incredible. Two days ago a massive glitch made me replay about two hours worth of game, and I didn’t care too much. Like other great games, I plan on replaying this one a lot — the glitch just allowed me to start replaying some of the game early.

I have always believed that videogames can be, and are, art. This game only solidifies my belief. I will say this: game critics and fans alike can shove this game in Roger Ebert’s face all they want, but I don’t think a game as violent as Bioshock will change his mind — if that is even possible. If I was trying to sell a non-believer on photographs being art, I wouldn’t start by showing them a street execution or the works of Diane Arbus. Regardless of me thinking “YES! this is art”, photographs that are hauntingly violent or uncanny are not good introductions.  The same goes for games.  I plan on thinking and writing about both Bioshock and games as art in a more meaningful manner; for now I will continue enjoying this great game. You should be too.

(This isn’t a complaint — yet — so much as it is a concern. I’m really enjoying playing through Bioshock, perhaps later if I get unstuck I will post impressions. For what it is worth, I will be discussing certain elements of the Bioshock story that could be considered spoilers, so don’t continue reading if you are concerned about that type of thing.)

In the Fort Frolic level my most recent game save is unable to progress because of an apparent glitch in the quadtych mission. After collecting and posting the photographs of Fitzgerald (the guy at the piano) and Martin Finnegan, I set off to collect the final two photos. After messing around with a big daddy or two, I ran out of film. I searched for more film in Paradise Plaza and some other areas within Fort Frolic and couldn’t find any more, so I headed to the bathysphere and went to Acadia. After finding some film and screwing with a few more big daddies, I returned to Fort Frolic. Upon entering the atrium, I noticed that the quadtych was no longer there: the red curtain that covers the scene before the photo mission starts was in its place.

Hopefully the two photos above are demonstrative enough to show the apparent glitch. Sorry I didn’t capture cleaner pics.

I initially didn’t concern myself with this problem and went after the last two photographs. I dispatched Silas Cobb and then went and found Hector Rodriguez. Hector ended up getting between myself and a big daddy, so I went ahead and hypnotized the big daddy. After a very comical chase, I lost track of Rodriguez; eventually, I got word that he was dead. I still can’t find his body, but I won’t chock that up to a glitch just yet because I haven’t looked hard enough for his body.

I took the photo of Cobb back to the quadtych, and it still wasn’t there. I’m going to spend some time catching up using old saves (thankfully I create lots of save files), but I’m concerned that a glitch of this magnitude made it into this great game. If anyone out there has seen this problem and/or knows how to fix it, please let me know.

Update: I went ahead an launched a save that took me to just before planting the Lazarus Vector. I have all my old saves, so if a patch comes out or some workaround comes about, I’ll check it out.

Apparently, 30% of Xbox 360 owners haven’t heard of Xbox Live Arcade.  Perhaps Xbox Live Arcade awareness would be higher if XBLA had its own blade as opposed to residing on the games blade.  I understand that having too many blades would clutter the interface, but I honestly think XBLA is a good enough component of the Xbox 360 experience that it should feature more prominently.

[via Kotaku]

I finally settled on a new theme, and, lo and behold, it is the default WordPress theme Kubrick. I have added my own header, a modified footer, and changed the stylesheet and some of the PHP a tad. I think the new look is cleaner than my previous theme (Giraffe2), and I plan on keeping it for awhile.

I haven’t settled on certain aspects so I’d like some feedback on the following:

• The corners of the page are square (as opposed to the default rounded corners). I think square corners are more consistent with the design of the header graphic (the band of colors).
• Link coloring: the colors are based upon the colors in the header graphic. The lighter blue might be too light.
• Justification of text: should text be justified or aligned left (with a hanging right side)? Also, what is the justification for the text being there in the first place? (And the crowd yells “Lame!”)

Of note: I will be changing most of my old posts to conform with the new stylesheet so for the one subscriber out there, sorry about all the feed repeats. I suppose there is a lesson here about not trying to be standards compliant as an afterthought….

I’ve been messing around trying to either design a theme or find one I like. Meanwhile, this site is going to be slightly jacked.

Edit: Not jacked anymore.

Kotaku pointed to a blog that has an interview with Gamespy PR peoples about the Wii’s multiplayer support. If this is true, Nintendo really just doesn’t get it. I am really only familiar with X-box Live, but after using the 360’s dashboard and hooking up with friends for games, I don’t understand why Nintendo won’t just copy Microsoft’s service. Nintendo has not presented a compelling reason why the DS, and apparently the Wii, do not have full backends for multiplayer services. Virtual Console is great and I think the Opera browser will eventually be great, but the built in wireless features of the Wii aren’t worth very much if I can’t easily connect with friends to play games.

(via Kotaku)

Over the course of the last month I have been watching the first two seasons of HBO’s The Wire. This show is incredibly good, and I really think the critical accolades for this show are spot on. The story execution is great, and the pacing and mood remind me of my favorite crime novels (primarily John Harvey’s Charlie Reznick series). My friend Greg pointed me towards this show (after years of my ignoring the ads that aired after The Sopranos); he pointed out how each show isn’t geared towards getting viewers watch the next episode (LOST being the exemplar). Rather than rely on gimmicks, the show retains viewership because the depiction of the gritty world of crime in Baltimore is so good. The DVD presentation is as good as any other HBO show: each episode has its own menu allowing the viewer to see “previously on”, “next on”, etc. I think the show was filmed in 4:3 so the lack of widescreen wasn’t too bothersome. My only complaint about the boxed set is the box, literally. After messing me with the genius Rome packaging, the boxes for The Wire leave a lot to be desired.

Speaking of crime, I also finally saw The Departed. I didn’t get a chance to see this movie in theaters (big mistake), but I still really enjoyed the DVD. Unlike the borderline-0bsessive attention detail of The Wire, The Departed presents a more sweeping view of organized crime in Boston. (Sweeping compared to The Wire, not compared to other Scorsese films) . The two-disc DVD package has decent extras and the movie looks great. I look forward to having access to a high def player so I can watch this movie in 1080P.

I rented Stranger Than Fiction yesterday and found the movie to be enjoyable. This movie probably falls into the quirky-romance genre that has been popular lately (e.g., Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), and I have no complaints: Weird characters are always enjoyable. The only portion of the movie that bothered me was the white line / text overlay: it didn’t make me like the movie any less, I just don’t know if it made the movie any better. The Spoon-heavy soundtrack is very enjoyable.

Highly Recommended: The Wire, The Departed
Recommended: Stranger Than Fiction

The O.C. finale was about what I expected: cheesiness (the Marissa locket, how sweet!), quirky-humor (the sons named after Texas towns and then…Hanoi), self-reference (one final shout out to the Valley), and an ounce of drama (Frank v. Bullit) to go out old-skool O.C. style. Personally, I hoped the O.C. would go the wigtastic Six Feet Under route and give 10 minutes of all the characters getting old and dying, or at least getting old. A nice little “Breathe Me” like tune as a backdrop (or perhaps even something Icelandic) would have sealed the deal. Nonetheless, this episode, along with the rest of this season were good reminders of that great first season.

Luckily, the O.C. time-slot vacancy allows me to stop watching tapes of Scrubs and 30 Rock. 30 Rock has been getting better all season, and tonight’s episode was no exception. Seriously, I don’t know how successful this show will be, so watch it while you can.

I had not known before hand that J.J. Abrams was directing tonight’s episode of The Office. Good episode, especially considering the end of Pam and the apparently-psychotic Roy.

“TELEVISION, ON! PORNOGRAPHY!”