MOTHERBRAIN

Talking Ourselves Into A Recession

Over the past year or so, while the media has been feverishly scratching the word “recession” into our retinas even though there continued to not be one, it seems like they have finally gotten their way.  That’s made me wonder about the role of media in this whole economic slowdown thing. 

As a consumer, I am going to run my financial life a certain way unless either experiencing directly a habit-altering event, or if the threat that such an event could happen is made more severe.

As a 24/7 media outlet, I have to attract eyeballs as much as possible for as long as possible.  Feel good stories give people the warm and fuzzies, but disaster, doom and peril are good for ratings, especially when it’s close to home for enough people. Just ask the Weather Channel what happens to their ratings in Virginia Beach when a hurricane is heading up the east coast. 

The problem here is that unlike a hurricane, an economy is an ever-changing thing.  A hurricane’s path isn’t influenced by the media the way that human behavior can be. 

As Live Science points out: 

“Warnings about a recession create a similar self-fulfilling prophecy — or, thought of another way, an anti-placebo effect. Just as a placebo (a non-effective "remedy") can make people feel better simply on the basis of their belief and expectation, recession worries can make people panic because they feel like they should.

In fact, much of the expert advice for how to survive a recession (save money, reduce debt) actually perpetuates it. Later this year the government will be issuing checks to taxpayers in an effort to stimulate the economy, but that will have little impact if those dollars go into savings accounts instead of being spent on consumer goods.”

Which makes me wonder if there's a way that media can be used to help correct the problem. Or is that too weird and Orwellian?  Maybe it’s just a matter of waiting until something more interesting comes along and distracts us.  Maybe our short attention spans will save us in the end.

Here’s hoping the election does the trick…

When Did Sex Become More Offensive Than Severed Heads?

I don't know if this is more of an implication of our being desensitized to violence in video games or our cultural priorities being out of whack, but it seems to this casual observer that severed human heads should ALWAYS be ranked more offensive than what a man and a woman do when they love each other very, very much ... no matter what the context.  Am I wrong?  

(via Water Cooler Games)

High Stakes Research

Either they'll find out some useful things, or the fabric of the universe will FOLD UP ON ITSELF.

If You Don’t Like It, Take A Hike

I might be writing a blog for a subscription college football website this fall.  No big whoop, but in order to get access to their blogging platform, they had to give me a subscription. I received this email today addressed to presumably all of their subscribers.  About half way through, you’ll notice the customer service equivalent of a novelty-sized foam middle-finger.  I kind of wish they had signed it with something more along the lines of "We'll see you in hell."

Dear VTInsider.com Subscriber,

Effective July 11, 2008 the price of your Annual VTInsider.com subscription will increase from $89.95 to $99.95.

If you would like to cancel your subscription you may do so by calling the Scout.com Sales Center (toll-free) at 1-888-979-0979

Thanks for your support,

VTInsider.com Staff

Offset The Evil

The tricky part about an agency taking on a video game client is navigating the perilously narrow passage between having a good idea and just showing game footage.  The result of this is most of the time essentially a movie trailer/poster/banner.  The “In a world…” model. 

There are exceptions, however; most notably the Cannes favorite Halo 3 campaign, as well as ilovebees and Beta-7. 

Clemenger BBDO created a campaign to promote the game Condemned 2: Bloodshot in Australia in a similarly interesting way.  The game itself is rated Mature as it's a bloody, violent game where the player takes control over a homeless alcoholic who is investigating something or other, which requires the beating and killing of other characters along the way.  Sounds like my daily commute! (zing! *novelty bow-tie spinning*)

Anyways the Website is clearly in line with the tone of the game, setting up the story and characters and mood:

 

But the creative work took a strikingly different route, bringing gamers into the world of the game in a very different way:

 

(via Beyond Madison Avenue)

The Dicey Business Of Video Game Journalism

Slashdot is reporting that Atari has begun suing video game publications that have started publishing reviews for their upcoming release, Alone in the Dark.  They are claiming that anyone who has reviewed the game has pirated copies of it since it has not yet been made available to the media for review. Not only has Atari filed suit, but they have pulled all advertising from the sites as well. 

The situation gets a little more interesting though when looking at the reviews themselves.  They aren’t good, and gamers have noticed that there might be a correlation. 

This isn’t the first time that bad reviews have sparked controversy in gaming journalism.  Just last year, it was rumored that Jeff Gerstmann, an editor at Gamespot, was fired after penning a bad review of Kane and Lynch.  An anonymous insider suggested that the firing was motivated by pressure from the game’s publisher, and Gamespot advertiser, Eidos.

I think this is troubling as it proves the line between editorial independence and advertorial bias is under assault, if its not dotted already.  Who knows how prevalent this is in other specialty mediums.  But I think it also shows that in the high-stakes world of gaming, companies have become so tied up in creating blockbusters that they will stop at nothing to make sure they succeed.  They have too.  Very often, all their eggs are placed into the same basket.  But the problem is that instead of making sure the basket is allowed time to be lovingly crafted, they are very quickly machined, with little regard for craftsmanship or quality control (from the business folk, not the actual production team ... so I’ve been led to believe). 

The videogame industry is at the forefront of the future of marketing.  If the positive reviews aren’t there, you’re not going to change (many) people’s minds with a slick campaign. Marketing can only help reinforce the decision to purchase.  The power is firmly in the court of the reviewer. 

The problem with this ‘future of marketing’ as it relates to videogame sites is that they are heavily dependent on advertising revenue from game publishers, seemingly making them more susceptible to being strong-armed into favorable reviews by game publishers with everything riding on their next game. 

Priorities have a funny way of changing when one’s livelihood is threatened. 

Coolest Job I Never Thought About - Movie Infographic Designer

Mark Coleran has a great job.  He’s the guy that makes infographics for movies.  So he creates visualizations for data that aren’t real. When most people make charts that don’t mean anything, it’s a bad thing.  This guy has made a career out of it.  His only have to look like they mean things. I guess I never realized this would be someone’s specialty, and I kind of feel bad for always making fun of this stuff now that I'm jealous of the guy who makes it.

See his entire reel here

(via FlowingData, via Ben Fry)
 

Duke Football Legally Terrible

 
There's a saying in sports when dealing with one team that, on paper, should completely dismantle another team.  "That's why the game is played on the field". 

That's always been the case.  The abilities of any team are always judged in the end by what takes place on "Any Given Sunday." 

However, the perennially terrible Duke football program is so horrific that they now have a court ruling to prove it.

"At oral argument, Duke [with a candor perhaps more attributable to good legal strategy than to institutional modesty] persuasively asserted that this is a threshold that could not be any lower," Shepherd wrote in a summary judgment issued Thursday, according to the paper. "Duke's argument on this point cannot be reasonably disputed by Louisville."

Duke, according to the suit, asked the Cardinals to find a replacement opponent and promised to pay Louisville only if the school could not find one after a "good faith" effort. A $150,000 penalty for each game was included in the contract if a "team of similar stature" could not be found to fill the date.

Talk about a motivation killer. 

You Don't Piss Off Johnnie Nascar

My old boss had tongue in cheek a theory about the research the Japanese did which led to their decision to attack the United States: they scouted the west coast, not the deep south.  They only saw Brent and Chip, they never laid eyes on Bubba.  They had no idea who they were up against … and we all know how that ended.

 

Now, with the dollar down and the economy teetering on oblivion, A different kind of foreign invasion is taking place.  Only this time it’s an invasion of foreigners wielding superior foreign currency and a powerful lust for commerce.  It’s been noted that tourism is way up because of the sudden bargain New York City shopping has become, but it doesn’t stop at the average consumer.  In the past few weeks both the Chrysler Building and the Flat Iron Building have been sold to overseas groups.  The sale of both of these historic landmarks hardly caused any commotion at all. 

Anheuser Busch, however, is another story.  InBev, the Belgium-based maker of Stella and Beck's, is trying to buy the iconic American beer brewer.  At the precise nanosecond that the American public caught wind of the sale of their beer brand to a non-US entity:

•    Over 70% of the Internet has been transformed into petitions opposing this sale – savebudweiser.com alone has over 49k signatures
•    Protestors took to the streets
•    Government officials were prodded to take action
•    Women wept, children screamed, men gnashed their teeth, and everyone Googled

When you threaten to buy the brewer of the signature beer of the American working class, you are no longer trifling with highbrow, metropolitan culture.  You align yourself against the most unrelenting of all Americans:  the blue collar NASCAR set. 

Fiercely patriotic and brand loyal … InBev better be ready to go to the mat on this.  Because like a Pit Bull with its jaws clamped down on the leg of a neighbor, this group of people will not let go until the deal is dead.   

Spring finally hits Boston

Like a filthy dog finally surrendering to bath-time, the Boston winter seems to have finally lost its grip on the area for the summer.  Which isn't to say there won't be a few rainy days spent wondering how its within the realm of possibility that it can be 40 degrees at the end of June, for the most part though, it seems to be smooth sailing for the next few months.

Its these months that must be the reason why the colonists didn't just close up shop to look for a more reasonable climate to transform into metropolis.  The Red Sox now provide another reason … I’m fairly certain people here wouldn’t leave if the place was radioactive.  Picture The Hills Have Eyes as a baseball movie.  People here are hardy, and they take pride in their baseball fandom.  There’s no amount of radioactive burn that could chase them out of this place. 

But I digress.  You can really feel a change once it warms up in May. 

The throngs of wooing boozed up college kids talking loudly about how drunk they were last night are gone, replaced by kids wearing bad suits who are very impressed with each other for starting law school and talking very loudly about that.  All of that nets a population drop of noticeable proportions, along with a substantial reduction in Friday night hollerin'.  I know I sound like some crotchety old man, but there’s a marked slowdown that occurs that, combined with the pleasant weather makes for an incredible summertime experience. 

The pace of everything is noticeably slower.  For instance, this morning my commute to work was less hectic and harried, leaving time to stop and smell the roses, realize that the woman who has been serving me coffee for going on a year and half has actually spent time living as a man at some point.  Also, the guy cleaning up trash for community service now has time to not only sit down, but to “place [his] ass on something.”  

I love this time of year.  Its kind of like when you’re a kid and you get home from church, and it’s the furthest possible point away from the next time you have to go to church.   Its the time of year that no one mentions when you mention you live in Boston.  “Whoa its really cold up there!”  No kidding.  I think from now on I’m going to make it a point to talk about the 4 months when it turns into San Diego. 

Uwe Boll missunderstands Grand Theft Auto

"Grand Theft Auto would be super interesting for me, and I think I would actually be the right guy to do it, because my movies are all bloody and violent and I don't have a problem with action scenes."

Uwe Boll quoted in New York Magazine (via Destructiod)

I'm pretty sure I've never played a good videogame that is based on a movie.  Conversely, I've never seen a good movie that was based on a videogame.  The reason being is that the story and characters are not the reason for the games being successful.  It's the gameplay. 

So now this guy thinks its a good idea to make a Grand Theft Auto movie.  And it seems like he thinks that the essence to making a Grand Theft Auto movie is gory violence. 

Destructoid seems confident that Rockstar wouldn't license its premier franchise for a movie, which is a good thing, because I think Uwe has missed the point of GTA and what makes it so phenomenally popular. 

Freedom. 

And not George W's freedom that "the terrorists hate".  GTA has been so wildly successful chiefly because of the complete and utter freedom that it allows the player.  It's not the story or the characters that wow gamers, its the ability to run wild, non-linear, in a enormous, complicated and lifelike cityscape.  You can't make a movie that recreates that feeling.

...this one goes to 11

I've always loved how ridiculous the marketing of guitar paraphernalia can be.  There's probably never been a cool guitar company poster or ad EVER, despite how hard they try or the celebrity they have access to.  One thing that some companies have mastered though, is standing out from the cornucopia of gear for sale with incredible product designs and names. 

One of the guys that plays guitar in my band had seen an amplifier featuring a setting called "Ninja Boost". Which is hilarious, until it almost becomes your band name.  He actually found one for sale, and sent pictures as proof that he was thinking about buying an amp for its ability to boost a guitar's ninja:

Luckily he didn't buy it, and I'm not in a band called Ninja Boost.  But it reminded me that I haven't actually looked through the guitar section at a music store in a long time, so I thought I'd see what kinds of strange and absurd things companies are trying to sell to the real life guitar heros. 

Here goes...

 

First up is the SNARLING DOGS.  While I think it would've been more effective if they had used a Z to pluralize DOGS, I do love the "Attack Control" on this one.  Do you want all SNARL and no BITE, or are you going to shove your boot down the audience's throat by going all BITE and no SNARL?  Well, luckily for guitarists everywhere, you don't have to choose anymore.   There is a knob for both.

And who can forget the Big Muff.  No clever named knobs here, just a really great/absurd name. 

It turns out there are a number of Muffs out there...including the METAL MUFF.

Its often hard to get the correct amount of Inject, Bleed, or Filth from the typical, less ostentatious effects pedal.  Luckily there is the Blood Drive.  Never before has giving blood rokked you so hard. 

And if you find that your guitar's tone isn't using women as objects quite enough for your liking, you can always switch on The Womanizer.   

 

Genius. 

I would be interested in doing the Pepsi Challenge with these pedals to see if guys that swear by them could tell the difference between them and their less ostentatious counterparts. 

 

My personal battle with information overload and nerdery

Coming back from being in Mexico for a week and a half followed by a week of focus groups has left me tremendously behind on my RSS feeds.  So far behind that I'm not even looking at them because I know the only effective way of dealing with the problem is to mark them all as read, and I feel like I'm going to miss something vitally important.  I hate this feeling.  Especially because I know full well that while there is surely some good stuff I'd be missing out on, there is nothing vitally important in there.  (or is there?)

What it has done however is once again raised the problem of trying to deal with RSS overload.  I did have my feeds set up in categories (Advertising, Sports, 16th Century Norwegian Ship Paintings) when I realized that that system doesn't really help anything.  So I did some digging online and found the current system I'm using:

Daily - read daily, no matter what
Volume - try to read daily
Bulk - try to read eventually
Probation - feed tryouts, more or less

So now I've usually got my daily feeds under control.  But Volume has over 300 unread items while Bulk and Probation each have over a thousand unread items.

The other problem has been sites that are good, but are so frequently updated that they clog things up.  I don't always want to look through 5,000 Boing Boing entries in a row to get to Mr. Gaffney.   So I've now started removing those sites that spew forth incredible volumes of content from folders so I can just see them and browse through them if I have time.  But now I don't ever feel the inclination to open up Volume or Bulk or Probation.  Maybe I'm just subscribing to too much stuff that I'm "supposed to" instead of the stuff thats actually good. Or maybe there is a better way.  (is there?)

But don't tell anyone

Mexico con Mayans Y Zipline

Thanks to everyone for all the well wishes here and elsewhere.  Everything went great, the weather was perfect, and the fajita bar was delicious (so I'm told). 

For our Honeymoon, we jetted off to Playa del Carmen, Mexico. 

Yeah, it looks like that.  All the time. 

Besides hanging out on the beach of the resort, we were able to check out some of the Mayan ruins  scattered throughout the Yucatan (which one of our tour guides said translates to "I don't understand" in the native dialect, although the Internets seem to disagree.)

Chichen Itza, despite the 3.5 hour drive was well worth the trip. I knew that the Mayans were advanced mathematicians and astronomers, but it was entirely different to experience this in person.  The pyramid at Chichen Itza is a large representation of the Mayan calendar, indicating the length of the calendar and the 52 year cycle of their generations, and aligned so that it accurately marks the solstices  equinoxes throughout the year using light from the sun.  The coolest thing about it though, which I had never heard of before, was that it was acoustically engineered so that when people clap in front of the stairs, it returns the sound of the Quetzal bird, the sacred bird associated with both the name of the pyramid and the chief Mayan deity, Kukulkan.  If you're off to an angle, like where the above picture was taken, you'll only hear echoing clapping sounds, but if you're directly in front of the steps you'll hear the bird (as demonstrated by some guy on YouTube):

 

Some other buildings at Chichen Itza:

This was the observatory, where they had a circle of water in the tower that reflected the stars allowing the Mayan astronomers to very accurately track them.

This is a bad picture of the Ball Court and a Russian guy in a wife-beater.  The Ball Court is another structure where the builders flexed their acoustic  know-how.  There were seven players on each team of the game that was played here, and when you clap in between the two walls, it echoes seven times.  Also, there are two buildings at each end where it is thought that the referees officiated the game.  These were designed so that the acoustics allowed the refs could talk to each other with ease despite the huge gap between them. 

Oh, and the captain of either the winner or the loser's team got decapitated at the end.  Huzzah!

All of this kind of made me wonder why modern architecture doesn't seem to be interactive in the way that the Mayan's buildings were. Seems like some architect would've at least tried it once or twice since then...

We also went to the ruins at Tulum, which are the only Mayan ruins on the ocean.  It was beautiful there, and there were iguanas everywhere.  The ruins there are somewhat less awe inspiring than those at Chichen Itza, but that might be due to the ocean views stealing the show. 

We also took an excursion into the Jungle to go repelling, ziplining and snorkling in a Cenote (picture withheld due to extremely pale skin). 

All in all, it was a great trip.  Highly recommended. 

Closed due to marriage and honeymoon

Hi. 

Due to getting married and going on a honeymoon, I'll likely not be posting very much (big change, I know) over the next week and a half.  I'll be in Mexico if you need me ... just look for the sunburn (don't get any ideas, Gareth). 

MILF Island

After a prolonged and painful absence, 30 Rock finally came back last night with its first new episode after the writers strike.  It was a tremendous relief to me, as I hate most of what is on TV nowadays, and I think 30 Rock is probably the best written show on TV. 

Overall it wasn't a great episode, but what saved it for me was the parody reality show they had running throughout the episode:  MILF Island.  They opened the episode with a commercial for it that felt exactly like an NBC promotional ad and was placed right at the end of the in between show ad-pod.   Krissie and I both stopped what we were doing and watched, mouths agape, with an odd feeling that can only be described as disbelief mixed with a sad resignation of believability.  Nice job Tina.  Its funny because its (almost) true. 

They are usually brilliant about extending the show beyond its 30 minutes on TV, and in continuing that theme, they are now selling the MILF Island shirt on NBCstore.com. 

Burn the Rope

One of the great things about the internet is the ability of people to make incredibly stupid things (read: brilliant and simple) and share them with people who enjoy such things.  This is one of those things, and I enjoyed it.  Stay for the credits...

Burn the Rope

(via Raph (like most everything else lately...sorry!))

Forbes reveals America's most sinful cities

Forbes has created an interesting data visualization of America's most sinful cities based on the seven deadly sins of lust, gluttony, averice, sloth, wrath, envy and pride. 

"For each sin we stretched our imagination to find a workable proxy--murder rates for wrath, per capita billionaires for avarice--then culled the available data sources to rank the cities. Some of the results were surprising: Salt Lake City as America's Vainest City. Some were not: Detroit as America's Most Murderous."

I wish it were a little more in depth ... and I really wish it was embeddable ... but its still kind of interesting.  I have to say that Salt Lake City being the most vane and 5th on lust does seem like a surprise, but now that I think about it, the one person that I've known to be from there kind of fits the bill.   

Boston only placed in one: averice.   Though I can assure you its no fault of my own.   

Can the Wii weather a recession?

Daniel Ernst of Hudson Square Research has predicted that Wii will continue to dominate the next gen gaming market through fiscal year 09. 

"Microsoft got the jump on the industry with a one-year headstart, but nine months after its the launch, the Nintendo Wii overtook the Xbox 360 on a global basis. While the PS3, has struggled out of the gate, we note that since last fall, the console has been outselling the Xbox 360 in Europe, and in the first two months of this year has even outsold the Xbox 360 on its home turf, in the U.S. (In Japan, overtaking the Xbox 360 was almost immediate). With its strong slate of software scheduled for the coming year, we expect a material acceleration for the PS3 this year, but we believe the Wii will sell more than the PS3 and Xbox 360 combined this year," he commented.

Which makes me wonder:  if Nintendo is in fact selling to their stated non-gamer target, and that has been what's fueled the popularity of the Wii, what's going to happen as we enter a recession?  I get the feeling that non-gamers will not exactly be falling all over themselves to spend money on new Wii games or consoles as the economy sours, whereas gamers who own Xbox 360 and PS3 and have gaming much higher on their priority list will continue to spend. 

So the question becomes: can Nintendo continue sell its non-gamer machine at such a high rate to gamers if it becomes necessary?  If not, I think that sales could flip-flop heading into the next twelve months ... unless they do not.

(Via GameDaily via Destructiod)