Youse been playing da FOOOSBALL agin???

The true purpose of Twitter

Do you follow sockington? You should BE so lucky! @sockington really cuts through the meaningless observations and pointless musings that tend to clutter up Twitter.



Thanks for classing up the joint, sockington! /pet /pet

Geekumentary: Classic Game Room

This is the story of one of those "I wish I'D done that" ideas that you wish you'd done because it's basically something you DID do - if you've sat around with your friends talking and joking about video games, the only part you forgot was taping it and making it a weekly show.

Classic Game Room is a bit of a mix of actual Classic Game Room episodes with a story about the "rise and fall" of the show intertwined. If you want to revel in the memories of your Atari, Genesis, or NES, it's definitely worth a turn in your Netflix queue.



The hosts are likeable, and the reviews are funny, but not hysterical. The forumula's since been perfected by X-Play's Adam Sessler and Morgan Webb, though they were almost certainly influenced by this 1999 predecessor (which has also returned in 2008 with new reviews).

What kind of bugs me is that, while I respect the effort that went into making this documentary, and recognize its value as a bit of history of the game review industry, you can get Classic Game Room (or, for that matter, Gamers) on Netflix, while you cannot get my favorite geekumentaries like TILT or Uber Goober (or Pizza! the Movie; I'd like to see that one). Come ON, Netflix! Give the geekumentary genre a chance to shine! I'm discovering an awful lot of good material out there that's rather difficult to come by. I really hope Get Lamp and Second Skin will be available.

Dr. Manhattan!

SpongeBob documentary announced

Are ya ready, kids??

PARK CITY, Utah -- The duo behind the docs “Wordplay” and “I.O.U.S.A.” are tackling a lighter topic: SpongeBob SquarePants.

Patrick Creadon and Christine O’Malley will write, direct and produce a one-hour doc about Nickelodeon’s hit toon series as it marks 10 years on the air.

SpongeBob SquarePants, if you don't watch, is one of those kids cartoons out there that throws in a little something for the grown-ups. Not a Family Guy level of something, but definitely something. As a Marine Biology major in college, I guess I'm biased, but I love this show! Which is why it's one of the things I made sure to hook my kids on, that and TMNT.

The kids are doomed.

Geekumentary: Uber Goober

Uber Goober is about gamers, primarily miniatures gaming and role-playing (pen n' paper, LARP). It includes viewpoints from both gamers and detractors, and a trip to Origins, a large gaming convention in Ohio where, in 1996, I had what was technically my "first date" with my husband, a tournament Magic: the Gathering player with a #2 world ranking in Type 2 back then. I still remember sitting on the steps there with him, sipping coffee and watching the vampires LARP. So romantic.

Uber Goober covers the gaming scene of 4-5 years ago, when female game geeks were less common, and gaming was far less en vogue than it is now. One guy comments on his choice of appearing in sillouette (i.e., anonymous) in his interviews. He said he comes from a very conservative work environment (law enforcement), and he doesn't want any of his co-workers to know he's a role-player.

DUUUUDE! If they're ultra-conservatives who would take a dim view on this stuff, they're probably not going to be watching a geek documentary about gamers. Be proud of your heritage! Of course, that's easier said now than it was when this doc was made, but it made me a little sad that he felt he needed to hide the fact.



Gamers, in fact, are normal. Religious fanatics, NOT religious people in general, but the ones that believe that a D&D GM is actually masquerading as God and can project their image into movie theaters to see movies for free...THOSE guys are the freaks.

There's a lot of interesting information about the hobby in general, and some really great comments from D&D creator Gary Gygax:

"The modern hobby gaming industry is not going much of any place because of the severe competition from electronic games. Home computer games are going to be like the feature film industry in their popularity. Even more popular are going to be online games; that's the television of gaming. And then I'm afraid that the broadway theater is the in-person paper and pencil gaming. The finest experience, but relatively small."

- Gary Gygax

Now there's a prophetic statement. This movie came out in 2004, before the gaming industry surpassed the film industry in revenue and before World of Warcraft...did what it did to the MMO gaming landscape. If you ARE an uber goober, this movie is worth watching PURELY for the Gygax footage, including the additional interview material found in the bonus section where he talks about the origins of Dungeons & Dragons, TSR, and GenCon. Wow.



Well, that and the songs. They're great.

All up in the PvP hizzouse

So my husband and I are actually playing WoW again. Honestly The Lord of the Rings Online is a MUCH prettier game, and we'd rather be playing that, but our problem is time, or the lack thereof. We have no business playing an MMO right now to begin with, but last week there was a fateful moment of reminiscing that went something like this:

Me: Remember when we used to stay up till 2 AM in Colin's room? Back when it was our computer room?

Him: OMG, I forgot that even used to BE the computer room. Yeah, that was fun...Sunken Temple...

Me: Remember when we'd all lay in the road near Booty Bay and wait for Alliance to happen by?

Him: LOL, yeah, that was comedy.

Me: We should fire that back up and just play it casual, for fun.

Him: OK, let's do it.

And so began an epic journey...of downloading. We only had the original launch CDs, and instead of being clever and hitting up Fileplanet or something, we just installed and started patching.

Two days later, we decided to go buy the Battle Chest, cuz we were still patching. That took care of the problem. We headed for the nearest open PvP server, and two new Blood Elves were born. After about half an hour on the random name generator. Which kept suggesting names that we couldn't take, as well as "Line." It really really seemed to want one of us to name our character "Line."

Now, while I'm very much a socializer/explorer when it comes to the Bartle playstyles, my closest friends know that I'm also a closet griefer. I used to get up on the rooftops of Gadgetzan and gank Alliance, not even remotely entertaining the idea that it might be an exploit, I just did it because it was funny. What makes me PvPing amusing is that I'm not especially skilled at it. I'm no Dread Og...



I'll see you all up in the PvP hizzouse, yo! Alliance beware!