Category Archives: Words

Video game stuff

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“Japan used to define gaming,” said Jake Kazdal, a longtime developer who has worked at Sega in Tokyo and the American game publisher Electronic Arts. “But now many developers just do the same thing over and over again.”

Part of Japan’s problem, Mr. Kazdal said, is a growing gap in tastes between players there and overseas. The most popular games in Japan are linear, with little leeway for players to wander off a defined path. In the United States, he said, video games have become more open, virtual experiences.

“Smarter developers in Japan are trying to reach out to the West,” Mr. Kazdal said. “They’re collaborating and trying to make games that have more global appeal.”

– Hiroko Tabuchi, New York Times.

Interesting read on how Japan has fallen behind the West in video-game design, which came as news to me.

And the point about more open, virtual experiences is an interesting one. Video games probably simulate reality better than any other artistic medium in that they provide the gamer some agency — limited by the world of the game, granted, and so not quite free will, but more control over the experience than is given to consumers of film or novels.

So it strikes me that as video games gain legitimacy as an art form — something that seems more or less inevitable — and a higher percentage of creative young minds begin dedicating themselves to game design, I imagine video games should present aesthetic experiences more thorough than those available in any earlier medium.

Does that make any sense? I guess I mean to say that, while a movie in which the protagonist makes a series of misguided choices that lead him down a desperate road to agony might be heartbreaking to watch, it seems like it would be exponentially more heartbreaking to be controlling the protagonist, making all those poor choices, and leading an avatar down that desperate road in the game world you control.

Of course, that’d make for a pretty crappy video game. And though I haven’t played many video games — especially of the non-sports variety — in years, it seems to me that they still lack the emotional timbre of good films and novels. So maybe it’s not to be.

Just thinking out loud I guess. I just really wanted a good excuse to mention an idea ex-roommate Mike and I came up with a while ago, I guess while we were hatching plans to design a video game or maybe just playing video games: The Mars Volta should score a video game. I think they’d be awesome at it, and that game would probably rule.

This whole thing

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Let’s give Jeff Wilpon the benefit of the doubt here for a moment.

Let’s say he is not short-tempered. Tone deaf. A credit seeker. An accountability deflector. A micro-manager. A second-guesser. A less-than-deep thinker. And bad at self-awareness.

Fine, he’s none of these things. But here is the problem: This is his perception in the industry as the Mets try yet again to fix their baseball operations department.

– Joel Sherman, N.Y. Post.

Look: I’m not here to write a whole post defending Jeff Wilpon because everyone would just question my motivations and I’d have to deal with that whole thing again, and I’m just not in the mood.

And the truth is, I have no idea how business goes down in the Mets’ front office. I see what happens — the decisions not to eat sunk cost or invest in the draft, the pervasive inefficiency and misallocation of resources — but I have no idea who is responsible. Actually, it baffles me how so many other writers and bloggers could have such a firm grip on the precise inner workings of the Mets’ bureaucracy while I’m out here in the dark.

What I’m certain of is this, though: The media and fanbase love a bugaboo. When things go wrong like things have gone wrong for the Mets these last couple of years, we tend to oversimplify and identify a single problem in place of the much more complicated truth. So instead of acknowledging that the Mets have been mismanaged at almost all levels for the past several years, we say, “Jeff Wilpon! This is Jeff Wilpon’s fault! We must somehow get rid of Jeff Wilpon!”

But I seem to remember not long ago that it was all Tony Bernazard’s fault. And now Tony Bernazard is gone, receding shirtless into the sunset, and yet the Mets are still 15 games out of first place, two games under .500, playing meaningless games in September. Tony Bernazard, it turned out, was not the problem.

Smart money says Jeff Wilpon is not the problem either. For all I know he may be part of the problem, and hell, as the Mets’ COO he is the one ultimately responsible for the problem, but it likely took a lot more than one man to put together back-to-back losing teams with payrolls over $125 million. And a smart, strong, savvy GM — should the Mets find one — should have the ability to stand up to a meddling owner and politely advise against poor decisions.

One other thing: I’ve seen it written multiple places that Mets’ ownership lacks the motivation to put out a winning team because of the profitability of this network. Think that through. That logic assumes that the Wilpons see the Mets and SNY as businesses for generating profit, but that they somehow don’t realize that a winning team would generate more profit through ticket sales, ad revenue and television ratings.

Even if you’re certain Mets’ ownership is just about making money, winning is the best way to make money. The Mets have just been going about winning in all the wrong ways.

Reading about reading

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I have just realized something terrible about myself: I don’t remember the books I read. I chose “Perjury” as an example at random, and its neighbors on my bookshelf, Michael Chabon’s “Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay” (on the right) and Anka Muhlstein’s “Taste for Freedom: The Life of Astolphe de Custine” (on the left), could have served just as well. These are books I loved, but as with “Perjury,” all I associate with them is an atmosphere and a stray image or two, like memories of trips I took as a child….

But this cannot be. Those books must have reshaped my brain in ways that affect how I think, and they must have left deposits of information with some sort of property — a kind of mental radiation — that continues to affect me even if I can’t detect it. Mustn’t they have?

– James Collins, N.Y. Times Book Review.

Excellent read on reading. I discovered this phenomenon relatively recently. For most of my life I only read fiction for leisure, so when I began reading non-fiction I assumed I’d be picking up and retaining all the new information I encountered and priming myself to dominate Jeopardy!, unleashing my inner Ken Jennings.

But I found out that, as Collins writes, it doesn’t quite work like that for me; I enjoyed good non-fiction books like I enjoy good novels, but I remember only snippets and factoids and overarching ideas, not every single detail.

The conclusion of this essay, though — the one Collins touches on in the second paragraphs excerpted above — is a rather redeeming one I came to when struggling with how I spent so much time and money in grad school on a master’s degree that prepared me for no particular trade. I realized that all the reading, writing and critical thinking impacted the way I approached just about everything, and made me feel smarter, like I was using new and previously untapped parts of my brain.

And that’s similar to what Collins — with the help of a neuroscientist — comes to in the linked essay. Even if you don’t remember every detail of what you read, just having read it and considered it likely enriched you mentally.

It’s a comforting conclusion, I think. Reading is good.

R.A. Dickey, August and September

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R.A. Dickey, May-July: 7-4, 2.32 ERA, 14 GS, 93 IP, 62 K, 24 BB, 5 HR

R.A. Dickey, Aug.-Sept.: 4-3, 3.74 ERA, 10 GS, 67 1/3 IP, 33 K, 15 BB, 7 HR

OK, lots of things at play here. First of all, pretty arbitrary endpoints, and I don’t think anyone reasonably expected Dickey to be as good going forward as he was in the first two and a half months of his Mets career.

Plus since we’re dealing in 14- and 10-start samples, all the trappings of small sample size are in play. It’s really hard to draw any firm conclusions from any of the information above.

But it does look as though Dickey is regressing a bit with exposure, which probably could be expected. Again, it’s not a perfect comparison because they’re hardly identical knuckleballers, but Dickey’s initial run of enormous success bears some resemblance to Tim Wakefield’s in his first time through the National League in 1992 and then the American League in 1995.

Obviously Wakefield settled into a nice career as a solid Major League innings-eater, which Dickey certainly seems fit to become as long as he can control his knuckleball and yield a ton of groundballs.

Plus he has the funny pitching face and the love of literature and all that, which is cool.

Jets beat Patriots; Mark Sanchez once again awesome, handsome and totally cool

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It did not bode well for the Jets when the Bengals beat the Ravens in the early game Sunday and held them to ten points. After all, one of the few positive takeaways from Gang Green’s Monday Night debacle was that Rex Ryan’s defense held Joe Flacco and the newly high-flying Ravens offense in check. If the Bengals, a team that yielded 38 points to the Patriots in Week 1, could stop the Ravens so effectively, clearly the feat is not so impressive. Plus, since the Patriots beat the Bengals, the Bengals beat the Ravens and the Ravens beat the Jets, then by the transitive property…

Luckily, that logic doesn’t hold in the NFL. The Jets, despite a slow start and the loss of Darrelle Revis late in the first half, beat the Patriots, wiped the smug look off Tom Brady’s stupid face, and restored confidence that they might, for once, match the hype.

How’d they do all that? Well, last week’s goat Antonio Cromartie redeemed himself. The defense adapted to and ultimately stifled Brady and the Patriots’ offense. Some of the new, old guys — LaDainian Tomlinson and Jason Taylor — showed why Ryan and Mike Tannenbaum thought they had enough left to bring ’em to Jersey. And our hero Mark Sanchez played the game of his life.

Sanchez got help from pretty solid line play, much more aggressive play calling, and a run game that gave him breathing room to spread the ball around the field. But he made plenty of plays on his own, too, improvising, eluding defenders with his feet, checking down to the open receiver, looking like a calm, cool veteran and not the gun-shy rookie he resembled just six days ago.

The Sanchise threw touchdowns to three different receivers and finished 21-for-30 with 220 yards and no interceptions. Entering the game it was clear the Patriots’ secondary was their weak spot, but Sanchez exploited it with particular aplomb. The performance should be plenty to quiet the maybe-never set that emerged earlier this week ready to write off Sanchez’s career.

Perhaps the future… IS NOW!

Ultimately, I should note, one game means little in the scope of the 16-game schedule, regardless of the quality of the opponent. And depending on the extent of Revis’ injury, this could be something of a Pyrrhic victory for Gang Green.

But it was an awesome and exciting one regardless, and a convenient excuse to post a picture of Mark Sanchez with a mustache and ridiculous 3-D glasses.

Who ya got?

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With American League playoff picture appearing more or less set, it seems like the most interesting pennant race approaching the wire this season will feature four teams — the Braves, Rockies, Padres and Giants — vying for two spots — the National League West pennant and Wild Card.

As it currently stands, the Braves hold the Wild Card lead by 1.5 games over the Padres and Giants, who are tied for the NL West lead and a game ahead of the surging Rockies.

I know where I’m at on this one but I’m interested to see where you stand.

[poll id=”9″]

Sandwich of the Week: Brooklyn style

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I never felt like I fit in when I lived in Brooklyn, which is perhaps why I liked it there so much. As I’ve said, I’m contrarian by nature. I am also irrepressibly suburban, unwilling to forgo my khaki cargo shorts even in a sea of skinny jeans or baggy jeans,or jeans befitting whatever the trend in denim in either of the Brooklyn neighborhoods that housed me for most of my 20s.

I remember my first night back in the borough after a month-long study abroad grad-school program in China, the most unfamiliar, overwhelming and downright different place I had ever been. I went for a walk around Prospect Heights and came back to find the teenage kids who hung out on the stoop of my apartment building freestyling, their session ending with the inevitable refrain, “It’s Brooklyn!”

It was a too-perfect moment, something that would’ve seemed lame if it happened in a movie — especially timed the way it was — but I was groggy from travel and it felt perfect. I wanted to wrap my arms around the whole neighborhood. After a full day of airplanes, and after a month of strange food, strange air, strange places, I felt so rooted, so comfortable, so thoroughly home. It was a connection I never made with a place before, and one I didn’t even know I had the capacity for.

The sandwich: Egg salad with bacon, BKLYN Larder, Flatbush Ave. in Park Slope.

The construction: Egg salad, lettuce and bacon on white bread.

Important background info: I go back to Brooklyn from Westchester almost weekly; a lot of my friends are there and I play baseball in Red Hook on Saturdays. But when I find myself in my old neighborhoods, I often feel strangely put off. Who are these people? Look at how young they are! What are these places? BKLYN Larder? That sounds pretentious.

And sure, I know that I was myself a transplant, patronizing a bunch of new stores that probably seemed pretentious to someone who lived there before me. And I recognize that every lifelong Brooklynite I know maintains that the constant change, frequent turnover — the general fluidity to everything — is part of what feeds the bustle, the vivacity that made me so appreciate the borough in the first place.

But that’s the rational mind. The initial, visceral reaction doesn’t think it through that thoroughly, it just screams, “What the hell is going on here? What’s happening to this place I loved? It’s not how I left it!”

What it looks like:


How it tastes: Hmm… that’s a good sandwich right there. Simple, dignified, tasty.

The white bread is soft, hearty, thick-cut and obviously fresh. The egg salad tastes freshly made, too, and perfectly seasoned with pepper. I sense a hint of vinegar, maybe — either in the egg salad itself or
on the lettuce, that gives the whole thing some depth.

And that bacon. That’s some delicious bacon. Perfectly prepared, thick, crispy, flavorful, bacony bacon.

I need to re-think this. I judged this place before I came in, but that’s on me. This place is pleasant. It’s clean, they serve good sandwiches, the people are friendly. The showcases display an array of fine meats and cheese. This is a good place.

So it’s new. So it has sort of a silly name. Whatever.

And those young people outside? How old could they be, 24? That’s exactly how old Mike and I were when we moved here, isn’t it? Dammit, I have no right whatsoever to claim ownership of a place that’s been growing and changing and living for centuries, that I passed through for half a decade and happened to enjoy.

Straight up: Who the hell do I think I am? I am aging, and I moved, and those things kind of suck. But Brooklyn is here and going nowhere. I need to put aside my hangups and learn to just sit back and enjoy the sandwiches of this fine borough when I have the opportunity to do so.

What it’s worth: This thing was pretty pricey for an egg-salad sandwich, even if it was a classy one, especially considering that it wasn’t very big. Cost about $7, if I recall correctly, and across the street at familiar Bergen Bagels you could probably get it for half that. But what price amazing bacon?

How it rates: All the elements of this sandwich were excellent, but it was probably limited by its size and scope — how high could an egg-salad sandwich possibly rate, even if it’s got delicious bacon? It was an egg-salad sandwich maximizing its ability, but still an egg-salad sandwich. I’m thinking an undersized shortstop making the most of his potential — the Orlando Cabrera of sandwiches. 68 out of 100.

If you’re going to endeavor performance art in this town, you better damn call James Franco

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“The reviews were so angry,” said Mr. Affleck, who attributed much of the hostility to his own long silence about a film that left more than a few viewers wondering what was real — The drugs? The hookers? The childhood home-movie sequences in the beginning? — and what was not.

Virtually none of it was real. Not even the opening shots, supposedly of Mr. Phoenix and his siblings swimming in a water hole in Panama. That, Mr. Affleck said, was actually shot in Hawaii with actors, then run back and forth on top of an old videocassette recording of “Paris, Texas” to degrade the images.

“I never intended to trick anybody,” said Mr. Affleck, an intense 35-year-old who spoke over a meat-free, cheese-free vegetable sandwich on Thursday. “The idea of a quote, hoax, unquote, never entered my mind.”

– Michael Cieply, New York Times.

Oh, so it turns out Joaquin Phoenix rap career was all an elaborate hoax intended to make a good “documentary”? F@#!ing shocker.

Also, it really sounds like Casey Affleck only gave up the big secret because the reviews were bad, right? Like he was just a little bit defensive about all the criticism of the crappy camerawork and everything else, and so came out and was all, “Well the joke’s on you because it wasn’t even real!” Even though the crappy camerawork was real.

I love the idea of the long-form hoax, but I think if you’re going to do it you really need to have an endgame in mind. Revealing it to the New York Times “over a meat-free, cheese-free vegetable sandwich” does not seem like a suitable culmination of two years of deception.

I went and saw Man on the Moon before it opened at a special showing in D.C. and Bob Zmuda, Andy Kaufman’s frequent collaborator who was played by Paul Giamatti in the film, spoke afterward.

Zmuda said that he and Kaufman actually once worked on a script about a comedian who faked his own death and showed up at the premeire of his biopic 10 years later. So though Zmuda was nearly certain Kaufman was actually dead, he said he still harbored some small doubt that he could show up on the red carpet. He didn’t, obviously. But that, that’s a hoax.

Joaquin Phoenix pretending to be drug-addled and crazy for two years? Meh. Not even really that convincing a performance, to be honest.

I mean, a noble effort for sure, and maybe I should check out I’m Still Here before I judge, but you really shouldn’t effort performance art these days without involving James Franco in some form.

Also, I love that Affleck says, “I never intended to trick anybody.” Ahh, excuse me, Casey Affleck? Isn’t that exactly what you intended to do?

Oh, and furthermore: One time in college I was at an end-of-year barbecue for the campus theater group and I wound up very, very drunk, something I don’t often do. I’m not proud of it, but I was behaving terribly in all sorts of ways, just a total lout.

Anyway, in a brief moment of lucid thinking I realized that if I didn’t come up with some way to redeem myself quickly, these people were all going to know me as the wretched, vile human being I exposed that afternoon.

So before I left, with great focus, I feigned sobriety and proclaimed that I hadn’t had even a drop of alcohol that day and was just acting all along. And the party full of theater types clapped for me as I exited.

In truth, the most impressive part of the performance was that I managed to walk out without stumbling or otherwise betraying my inebriation.

If anyone who was at that party finds their way to this post, I apologize for my behavior, twice over.

That’s not much of an endgame, but then that wasn’t as involved a hoax.

Jets-Patriots stuff

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The Jets have put the fear of making a mistake in the forefront of Mark Sanchez’s mind. That much is clear. He’s all hesitancy and doubt. He threw only one pass downfield against the Ravens, or at least one deep pass with serious intent. Flinging one up 10 yards away from a receiver does not count. That’s a throwaway.

Now the Patriots come to town, and they can set the Jets reeling. Don’t think they are not relishing that chance. Tom Brady is dangerous, and the Jets have some problems in the non-Darrelle Revis part of their defense. They even have problems in the Revis part now that their star corner is battling a tender hamstring — one that may been caused by his missing all of camp. The best player on the first level of their defense — defensive tackle Kris Jenkins — is gone. And the injured Calvin Pace may be the best player on the second level. He’s least the most versatile.

– Michael Salfino, SNY.tv.

I watched half of the Patriots’ evisceration of the Bengals on Sunday before I got disgusted with Cincy and switched over to something more compelling, but it was enough to convince me that the Patriots are once again, sadly enough, extremely good at football.

It’s a very small sample, mind you, but they appeared to be moving the ball at will on the Bengals’ defense and they completely neutralized Cedric Benson and the Cincinnati running game. The only place they looked weak was in the secondary, especially at the corners.

Again, it’s only one game. But it strikes me that there’s a pretty solid chance the Jets could be 0-2 after Sunday, and the reactive New York media will explode, even though Gang Green will have lost only to two reasonable Super Bowl contenders. If the Jets played like they played Monday and the Patriots play like they played Sunday, that’s exactly what’ll happen.

Luckily, a lot can change in a week. If the Jets can move the ball better on offense, they’ll secure more first downs, give their defense longer breaks and keep Tom Brady and his stupid hair off the field.

But based on what the Patriots did to the Bengals’ rushing game, it seems like a safe bet that the Jets will have to pass downfield to do that, if only to stretch the defense. That means a lot should fall on our hero, upon whom much doubt has been cast of late.

Phone call for you, Mark Sanchez. It’s destiny again.

Jenrry Mejia’s shoulder: Perhaps less sucky than we previously thought

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You’ve probably already heard this by now, but the MRI on Jenrry Mejia revealed a rhomboid strain in his right shoulder, which — though I am no doctor — doesn’t seem to contain such awful harbingers as “labrum” or “tear” or “rotator cuff.”

According to SNY producer Carly Lindsay, Mejia spoke to reporters before the game today and said he still hopes to pitch in winter ball and the injury is not the same as the one he suffered in Binghamton.

It’s still not good, mind you, but I think given the wide array of possibilities that come to mind when a 20-year-old leaves the mound holding his shoulder, this doesn’t sound like the worst one.

But we shall see, then. Medical diagnoses are often hazy and difficult things.