Monday, January 24, 2011

Feats of strength, busloads of gypsies, and other marvels of the modern age

This week, Mosquito Fleet said goodbye to our beloved Awful Hen. Our poultry pal served us well, and many fine voyages were had upon her dirty, yellow wings. People flew in from Arizona to buy her. I'd like to believe that they were a band of Polish gypsy school bus drivers, taking her back to a mobile Polish gypsy school district.

Maybe they'll escape their nazi pursuers and make their way to a new world. Who knows. Hopefully it won't just become a "burner bus" and end up at Burning Man every year. All I know is that the people that bought it were most certainly confused as shit on the drive back by the inside-moped-joke graffiti that cover the walls.

















This week I installed springs on a Hobbit clutch. After cutting my hands to shit and getting nowhere, I tried a different approach. I put the clutch in my bench vise, hooked one of the stock springs around the red spring, hooked the other end around an m6 bolt I had laying around, and performed a Travis-impressing feat of strength as I pulled back the spring over the eyelet on the clutch arm. Once hooked I tapped it into place with a rubber mallet.

Safety suggestion: Use eye protection as the stock spring stretched out pretty far
and would have most certainly flown into my face if it stretched any further. In fact, at one point I wound the excess spring around the bolt just to make sure that it wouldn't hit me in the face-parts.















This weekend I finished Mass Effect 2. It's one of the finer examples of what a video game can achieve. One of the best sci-fi stories I've seen in years, and one of the most fully realized game worlds I've ever experienced. Really amazing stuff.















Now that I'm done I'll either start playing Bioshock 2 or Dead Space 2. Speaking of Dead Space 2 this ad campaign hit the internet last week.


I'm still not sure how I feel about the trailer. My initial reaction was to be offended. Mostly because EA seems to be playing into the violent video game controversy. I know they are trying to move units with a viral-type video, but it bothers me when this sort of thing just gives the anti-video game alarmists more ammo (so to speak).

I wish they would focus in on how brilliant and original this game is. How well done and interesting the story is, and how it's some of the most solid game play out there. But really they'd rather just showcase how this game will turn twelve year olds into psychopaths.

EA could attempt to make a case as to why the gaming industry is the most profitable industry in the world, and how sophisticated games have become, rather than just focusing on the grotesque nature of a game, thereby stripping away everything that makes it a compelling and interesting form of entertainment, and when it's at it's best; an art form. Maybe I just don't get it.

3 comments:

Philip Patrie said...

That looks like THE most dangerous thing I've ever seen anyone do with a moped.

seth said...

yeah, i suppose the thing to be more concerned about is the potential for the clutch to come free from the vise and hit you in the face.

カート said...

I still don't get first and/or third-person shooters. Even if they have a great story, amazing visuals, or just play really well, you still run around shooting things. That was fun when I was 13, but if I'm going to waste my time playing video games these days, it gets old really fast.

Also, my "catcha" phrase for this comment is "jewars", which is pretty hilarious and/or offensive.