Archive for the ‘culture’ Category

Creative Fatal1ty Keyboard: Same Shit, Different Name – Gizmodo

Friday, September 1st, 2006

I had forgotten about Fatal1ty after his initial press onslaught a while back in November last year. He’s the successful professional gamer that won the Cyberathlete Professional League World Tour (athlete?) last year and was profiled by 60 Minutes, of all people. Anyway, this Gizmodo post showing off (and making fun of) the Fatal1ty keyboard reminded me of his existence.

Now, I don’t want to make it sound like I’m poo-pooing the idea of professional gamers — we should be so lucky to be able to get paid for doing something we love to do — but I have to ask, why would anyone buy Fatal1ty merchandise? Is anyone such a big fan of this gamer that they would buy a Fatal1ty motherboard? Fatal1ty clothing? Really?

I guess I’m just having a hard time imagining a gamer as iconic. We celebrate sports stars because what they are able to do on the field or court is something most of us will never be able to do. I’ll never be able to play in the NBA no matter how much I practice, I’m just too short (and too old for that matter). And even if I did make it to a professional level sport, it’s still pretty unlikely that I’m going to be able to drive a lane like Jordan, drive a ball like Tiger Woods, or throw a ball like Peyton Manning. Those guys are larger than life, and very few people will ever rise to their level.

But with games, I feel we all can achieve a level of greatness if we just spent some time with the games we liked. It doesn’t matter how old we are, how tall we are, or how much in shape we are in, we can all be pretty good at a game. Which kind of makes Fatal1ty’s achievements not all that interesting.

Now, I’m not saying me or anyone else can go right now and whup his ass in a one-on-one deathmatch (especially since I don’t even play PC games). I’m just having a hard time thinking he’s something special when in the back of my mind I’m also thinking I could beat him down in Guitar Hero. That may or may not be true, but it’s in the realm of possibility and as long as a regular guy like me thinks like this, I doubt Fatal1ty or any other professional cyberathlete (snicker) will ever become an icon.

Creative Fatal1ty Keyboard: Same Shit, Different Name – Gizmodo

Snakes on crack…

Saturday, August 19th, 2006

My gawd.

Folks, I had no expectations when I went to see Snakes on a Plane this evening. People were worried that it would not live up to the hype but I wasn’t worried about that. I didn’t even CARE if it did or didn’t. I went to see Snakes on a Plane because it was something special. A film that got to where it was purely on blog hype and mostly unmanufactured hype at that. The world saw the hilarity of such a simply title and just ran with it. This might not be ever reproduced, anything that comes after is just going to sound cheesy and too blatant.

So no, I didn’t care if it was terrible because I would at least be seeing something unique. But the movie did me one better. It was actually a hell of a lot of fun to watch. It’s pure B-movie. It’s silly. You’re going to laugh at things that aren’t meant to be funny. You’ll start guessing who’s going to die and who won’t. It has a few jumps and a few surprises. It’s even a bit more grotesque than I expected. All in all, a pretty good ride.

I imagine it’ll be even better when you can get it on DVD and invite your wise-ass friends over to give it a MST3K treatment. I had a few of those in the audience tonight and while they were trying way to hard at first, they calmed down and timed their riffs nicely towards the end.

Seriously, I’m glad this movie was made. It’s proof that a movie studio doesn’t always have to spend millions upon millions of dollars to make a film we will watch in a theater. Sometimes all you need is to make a movie that doesn’t take itself very seriously. Nice job.