Games indeed

So I've been thinking about games, and the type that we play out in the northwest. There is a definite meme out there about hipsters and wanting to replay every childhood game because it is some sort of ironic thing to do. "Look at how crazy I am, I'm a grown man playing 4 square!"

But I think this meem misses something. With dodgeball season starting up next week, I think I would equate it more to work softball leagues back in the day. 

Back when baseball was America's past time, everyone had some basic understanding of the game, and could probably play if you made the ball bigger and threw underhanded (i.e. softball). People just want to get out and play with each other. I imagine this is still going on in places with large baseball fanbases, although I'm not sure.

But that is not an option for us, so we play dodgeball, or wall ball, or 4 square. Because it is an accessible game that everyone can play and knows how to play. Furthermore, the veterans of these games have only been playing for a few years at most. This isn't the same impossible hurdle as trying to get into a pickup game of basketball or soccer, where most people on the court/field have been playing since they were six. 

People want to play games, and that doesn't stop as we get older. The reason these games were awesome in the first place is that there pick up and play factor is through the roof. Except in outdoor games, which are obviously roofless. Then the play factor is just really really high.

Black 2.0

Check out Leonard Pitts' column in the Chicago Tribune. There's really not much else for me to say, great article.

Of dinner parties and puppies

I was listening to Jesse Jordan's blog again about the New Sincerity. He has a whole list of things to do that are new sincerity (newly sincere?). Among them are go someplace wet (done and done, thanks Oregon), hold a parade, and throw water balloons at people. All great ideas, if you live in Southern California. Otherwise, here in the soggy northwest we're going to need more creative ideas, if we don't want to (a) catch a cold, or (b) get beat up.

Games. Everybody loves games, while I was camping on the coast in a yurt this week (flooding and 50mph winds, awesome!...R.I.P. Kyle's pop up tent) we played "catchphrase", pretty much a mix of taboo, and hot potato. Selena and I are addicted to Lux (a.k.a. Risk), and have learned that parker brothers has Monopoly on lock down and there's like no way to get a free version of monopoly for mac.

Have a dinner party. I wish I had room to host dinner parties. But I think that it would be awesome if the new cool thing for 20 somethings was dinner parties. With cocktails and sweaters, and slacks. A dinner party with massive quantities of food and wine. A dinner party that ends with dancing and someone going home with somebody else, while a completely different person prays to the porcelain god. That kind of dinner party.

Do something creative (DIY bitches!) make music, write a story, make a movie, draw pictures of puppies. Seriously, draw pictures of puppies and send them to me, that would be so cute and hilarious! They don't have to be good, I drew one on a post it note in 5 minutes! Just do something, maybe you could start a blog and write about how awesome dinner parties and pictures of puppies are.

I'd love to hear what else you could do that is simultaneously awesome, joyful, and fun. Please post new ideas to the blog, or email them to me eshell6681@hotmail.com

The ancient myth of Irregardless

I have a teacher who says "irregardless" when she really means "regardless". This drives me up the goddamn wall. What does that even mean? "irregardless", that's a double negative you idiot. How did that even get started?

Some guy was like "hey how do I say the opposite of regardless?"
Then somebody else was all "uh..regarding?"
"No, no, it must be irregardless"
"I think that means the same thing"
"what? no.."
"yeah man, if something doesn't matter, that's regardless, you should have no regard for it."
"yeah but I want to say something doesn't matter"
"that's regardless"
"No, I think it's irregardless"
"why? the word already means what you want it to mean, you don't have to put an 'ir' at the front, it's already ready already"
"all ready ready already?"
"fuck you don't get off topic"
"I'm not off topic, you're off topic"
"the word is regardless, ok?"
"irregardless"
"You're an asshole"
"You are."
"I have no idea why we talk."

And hence, idiots have been saying irregardless and will continue to do so until the end of time.

Common is not quite so common

Check out what Common is on CNN saying.

"I think hip-hop artists will have no choice but to talk about different things and more positive things, and try to bring a brighter side to that because, even before Barack, I think people had been tired of hearing the same thing,"

As I was listening to some older hip-hop as I am often want to do, I realized a line was “wanna run up in the white house and kick in the doooooor”. I thought to myself: “you can’t rap about that anymore, not in 2009 anyway.” It’s the same thing with that Nas song where Johnny Polygon is singing the hook (Props to Johnny P!), where they sample Tupac “we ain’t ready for a black president”. I remember listening to that Tupac song over at our old friend Jay’s house. And I remember how true it was at the time, this was two years after Rodney King and the L.A. riots, and one year after the deeply polarizing O.J. Simpson trial. Now O.J. is going to jail for theft (but really murder) and we DO have a black man as President.

My point is this: I think that a shift for hip hop is a large part of our new movement. I’ve been listening to hip hop since Snoop Dogg’s “Doggystyle”. (And I know, I know, I’m just some stupid white dude from the suburbs, but good music doesn’t have racial lines) I’ve been watching it change and people were saying that hip-hop died in 2000 with P.Diddy and shiny costumes. I still enjoyed it, but it did feel empty. People WERE tired of hearing the same old thing. It’s exciting to see where it goes. I imagine it will be more celebratory. Young people, and black people went overwhelmingly for Obama I mean, the same groups that have historically been disenfranchised and turned out in low numbers, this year though, for christs sake, we elected a President!

So it's time to celebrate! Yeah the economy is taking a dump on us and we got a lot of work to do but whatever, out of adversity comes opportunity.

BTW, that acapella thriller video is amazing!

Pop Songs Reduced to One Sentence

This is from McSweeney's, and totally hillarious. I wonder when they will finally put out a new book of lists?

Hopefully back tomorrow with more substantial posts.

One man Accapella Thriller

I saw this over on Ta-nehisi Coates' blog:

Thought it was pretty fantastic. The guys not even that great of a singer (compared to Michael, which isn't really that damning.) but his idea is crazy cool. Never seen a multi-video track before.

Getting pretty busy with the end of the semester, but here's a pretty awesome online game, called Auditorium.

I'd call it a great timekiller, but that seems like a disservice to the originality of what these guys are doing. Just check it out.

UPDATE: This is much better with sound.

Is our culture going to be inherently nerdy?

In response to eli's post that is directly below the one I'm writing now, I'd say that our culure is going to be inherently nerdy, but I think that is sort of what is driving our shift to sincerity in the first place. It is sort of all tied in to the rise of the creative class I think.

Culture tends to reward the traits that are good for society. In a way, I think that you could say when it comes down to it, success is cool. Thats an oversimplification obviously, since we all know successful people that are total tools, but still holds in the general I'd say.

But what kind of people do we need now? We need crazy creative people that are going to come up with new ways to entertain us, help us communicate, solve our energy and consumption problems, etc. This won't come from people that are jaded and overly self-editing.

Its going to come from a group that embraces the idea of doing whatever you like and following it down the path for as long as you can. Basically, we need nerds. They are driving our economy and our culture is going to reflect that in the future I think, for at least a while.

Along this line, here's a writer for the Atlantic talking about teaching his son D&D. Now I wouldn't say that D&D goes on the list of things I'd think of as "awesome". But its interesting that parents are intentionally getting their kids into the game because it promotes skills like imagination and problem solving that parents want them to have.

One last point, I think that a lot of "nerdy" activities were blacklisted because so many of the people that were doing them were socially inept. But two things are going on now:

1) We are realizing that there is nothing that says you can't find people to do those things with who aren't socially inept. Lots of cool people do nerdy things now.

2) Because so many people are invading their activities, lots of traditionally socially inept people are getting more socialized. So you might say they are getting less "nerdy" (which is vague i admit, since we never really defined nerdiness. hopefully people know what we mean.)

What do you think about this idea of sincerity and nerdiness and how it relates to the rise of the creative class?

What does my love of melee really mean?

I totally agree about the medieval melee by the way. I watched that movie role models the other day and remembered when we happened upon that melee tournament. What a day that was! I snorted derisively at "those nerds" battling with foam weapons. But in my heart of hearts I yearned to join them. To take up the foam sword, football helmet and cape in support of my king (only to later betray him so I could take the crown). "Pshh! Nerds!" I said, going to back to the much "cooler" frisbee golf game in progress. One last longing look back to the dwindling battle.

So am I saying their is an inherent nerdiness to the pop culture of the future? Being totally sincere means not caring what others think, which means being a nerd right?

My fist, Your Face, an introduction

Your Face meet My Fist.
My Fist is very pleased to meet you.
My Fist hopes the experience is as pleasant for you, as it is for my fist.
My Fist was been wanting to meet you for a long time.
In fact, My Fist has been counting the days down on a little calendar,
crossing days off with a red sharpie marker.
Personally, I’ve never seen My Fist so excited before today.
Ahh, it looks like I’ve embarrassed My Fist.
Look at how red My Fist is!
But Your Face is bleeding I think.
I hope everything is ok.
This always happens to My Fist.
I can’t take My Fist anywhere.

Imaginary Band Names

Before I head out, this article on band names at the A.V. Club is hillarious.

My favorites: Kermit the Frog and the Wifebeaters 

Thanksgiving

Hoooraay for Thanksgiving. It should be a good one. Can't make it back home to the family, but lots of festivities none the less. You know how the song goes, if you can't be with the ones you love, eat drink and be merry and play football and karaoke with the ones you're with.