My Sarah Palin Article

Not to come off so explicit in the first few keystrokes but can a motherfucker get one day without some right-wing doofus writing an obligatory Palin article? Scratch that, can a motherfucker get one month? It’s sadly getting to the point where the editorials about Palin are becoming jokes unto themselves. A couple of months back Dana Milbank wrote an editorial about how he wasn’t writing an article about Sarah Palin and all that entailed. I dunno Dana, maybe I think you’re missing the irony boat here when you essentially correct a supposed wrong with an entire article chronicling your lack of writing about Palin for a month? Friend of The Town of Haterville® Kathleen Parker last week writes (paraphrasing): “Is this the end of the Palin media behemoth? Gee, Ms. Parker I don’t know either. Perhaps if you’d stop shining a light in to that dark, winking abscess of darkness for one fucking minute, maybe we would find out?

It’s about on par with Ms. Parker's “Voters need to take names of people who had a hand in the debt ceiling debacle” editorial. Wherein, she “named” pretty much NO ONE of import (or that could be voted out of office), oh and a couple of TEA Party leaders. Great job Ms. Parker, I’ll make sure to cast a vote for the other guy once I figure out those names you named!

Am I so wrong for expecting editorials to provide some sort of information, instead of the pushing one pile of bullshit and nonsense from one side of the page to the other and yelling “Taa-Daa!”?

Is there some sort of quarterly quota that each right-wing writer must adhere to that includes mentioning Palin? It’s bad enough that she’s riding around the country, Clampett-esque, in a ego-fueled arrogance wagon, mocking the media to it’s face and keeping Palinmania alive. Can we just toss her in the politico dust bin where Newt Gingrich, Howard Dean, Ron Paul and other has-beens reside? The only attention is of the sleepily yawing “Oh you again?” variety of unimportance afforded these people when they appear on television or in the paper?

I sincerely think she’s leaning perilously over the lip of that dust bin, but right-wingers keep tugging her back for one more go at the ol’ girl.

I do understand the allure that she still must have. Before our country started nose-diving, she was a breath of fresh air and stiff boners for the right wing males. But times are different now, and cartoon characters need to stay the fuck away from the big kids table that is presidential politics. And not even that it’s necessarily because of a mature tone, it’s that Palin has no ideas. It’s why I’m not necessarily looking forward to Rick Perry’s run. He knows that his brand of yee-haw, bible thumping, boots wearing, brush clearing cowboy bullshit works because we let that shit slide for eight years previously. We as a society cannot afford this nonsense right now. Come back when we’re on steadier economic footing.

Maybe I shouldn’t expect too much of those that have the license to fill our daily newspapers with nonsense. After watching mostly everyone avoid writing about the debt ceiling debacle, then come right out and basically pull the thesis “everyone caused it”, I guess I should be relieved that we’re returning to some normalcy writing about a perennial political nonstarter and her black hole pull on our media in general. Perhaps the Palin article is to shore up some much needed finances so that right-wingers can weather more of this recession. Seeing that it isn’t going to end, and probably worsen with the current climate in D.C.

This bologna of a non-Palin centric, sharp focus Palin article is fast getting old, and shows a deficit of writing and character from these ideologues who could actually write something informative, or at the very least a decent take on the news at hand. It’s sad to see on the top of a newspaper page “Opinion” and find nothing of the sort in the editorials below. What are you afraid of right-wingers? That Sarah Palin won't bless you with some sort of access?

I'm still confused why newspapers won't just add community writers to their opinion section and have far less of these syndicated press boobs. Wouldn't it be far nicer to have more editorials about the happenings of your tiny hamlet and things that matter on a more local level than a paint by the numbers ideologically redundant rehash? Certainly in these times of newspapers going the way of the dodo, wouldn't it be at least more cost effective?

Review: Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet (XBLA)

The Big Takeaway: Summer of Arcade continues on with a game featuring a heavy art styling infused with Metroidvania game play and creepy twin stick shooter vibe.

The Little Takeaway: Crappy controls, Way Too Short, Unintuitive Puzzles and Design. The art style becomes boring and uninspired with time.


Review:

In my review of Bastion a few weeks ago, I talked about those “indie” games that are heavy on atmosphere and art style, while the game attached to it suffered. Lo and behold, Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet comes around and satisfies that gap in the Summer of Arcade.

Far from a bad game, it’s a diet Metroidvania genre trope-fest wherein you wander around the game space picking up increasingly more powerful weapons, shields and items. It supposed to be like an easy mode version of a Metroidvania, but I found that most of the difficulty came from unclear goals, incessant (often unnecessary) backtracking, and unintuitive controls.

The art style of the game is great and eye-catching from the beginning cinematic, but it quickly wears out its welcome. Even with the brief playtime, you pretty much see everything the game has to offer in the first hour.

The main problem with Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet is the lack of game attached to all this fancy art style. Lacking a story, there’s no mortar to keep the game together if the game is going to lack the intuitive nature to keep you chugging along. There’s not enough power-ups to justify looking in every nook and cranny, and what there is to find is concept art and other tchotchkes that add nothing to the game itself.

The controls in this game are abysmal. The ship moves far too slow and it’s unclear how much damage your ship has taken or how much more you can take before exploding. The generous checkpoints are a decent band-aid to this problem, but giving me a life bar, or one that is clear enough to give me a heads up, could’ve gone a lot further. The weapon/item load out wheel is cumbersome and ridiculous in that you have to hold down the right bumper then use the right stick to select your weapon. Each face button can be used as a hot key for up to four weapons, but often times you’ll need to open up the weapon/item radial to just use a one off item. In the meantime the game does not pause! So, if you’re in the middle of something, namely being shot at with homing needles or trying to navigate a particular puzzle, you’ll probably wind up exploding. When pushing the “Back” button it brings up the world map. Which is great, and tells you where you need to go next. Now, you’d think that pushing the back button again would take you back to the main game. Nope. You go deeper into the menus when you push back again. When was the game designed? That’s completely ridiculous and unintuitive!

Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet is that one game in the Summer Arcade that’s purposely aimed at the same people that gobbled up Limbo last year, in theory this should’ve been a home run. However, what Limbo lacked in depth in more than made up for in its aesthetic, excellent puzzles and game play. Aside from a blistering excellent initial big bang of animation at the beginning, nothing about this game is inherently worth your time or money, especially at 1200 Microsoft Points ($15). I would even go so far as to say that 800 Microsoft Points ($10) is still asking too much. Definitely pick this up in one of those end of the year deals at Christmas time on XBOX Live.

Isanely Twisted Shadow Planet fails on every videogame trope it lays on the table: it’s a sluggish twin stick shooter, it lacks any of the depth and “just one more item to find” frenzy and joy of exploring found in a Metroidvania title, and it’s art aesthetic is limp-wristed, bland, and uninspired save the opening cinematic.


Final Verdict: Pass

Ramblings and Rumblings...

To attempt to write anything political in nature right now would lead my head to exploding. In the past few weeks I've typed up half-a-dozen tirades. I wrote something about Jack Krier being an idiot in response to an editorial he wrote saying if Casey Anthony had just aborted her daughter, she'd be celebrated by liberals and "pro-abortion" people as a saint. Some weeks later he would publish a guest editorial that represents "the average American" and their promise to stop being the cause of our economic turmoil, and to try and not be a xenophobic, hate mongering, idiotic piece of shit. Yeah, it's been weird following this asshole's editorial trajectory.

Most of the editorials that could and should have gotten my ire up were just never present. I swear, all these pundits just didn't have the balls to write ANYTHING about the manufactured debt crisis. I had Kathleen Parker and couple other right wing ding dongs writing about how Obama lied about the depth of his mother's cancer treatment. A politician exaggerating something to dramatic effect during an election season? You don't say! You have Keith Olbermann on his illustrious show saying to his viewers (paraphrasing)"Rise up, I don't know where or how, that's what instant messaging is for, but go out and...." Gee, thanks? This is what I want from my punditry: feigned leadership with a side of do-it-yourself and brushing away hand gestures. Are you to busy to maybe lead this uprising you keep shouting for? Or is this just street cred upkeep to maintain viewership and advertising dollars?

No, instead of trying to educate readership about what's really going on in the ol' D.C. these buffoons just wrote and thump their chest to the same stupid, staid bullshit, as if nothing was happening.

Granted, they're probably like most of us in this entire political marsh: under informed, angry and finding ourselves (the general masses) just the same as ever. Just getting by and wondering what all the fuss is about.

Regardless, most of that bullshit theatre in Washington wasn't for anyone who had half an idea what was going on. It was more for the "independents" who only pay attention in the even numbered years, or when the panic button keeps getting smashed on accident under the weight of someones idiotic fat ass.

It's even got to the point that listening to lively "debate" on the days topics has made even me, the steady hand of your Mayor, just turn up the apathy and listen for the crash. This past weeks Real Time with Bill Maher was a revelation in the general lack of anything substantive being said or done on anything that faces our society. Just talking over each other and then snarky sarcasm leading up to a dick joke.

There's need for a third party, but it's more like this: We're uninformed, angry and want to do something about it. We think we did do something by standing around with thousands of other people in rallies and such. We even got permits, time and places to do our civic duty. Nothing happened but the usual nonsense of replacing one party with another to see if that would help. The anger is mostly made of disappointment. We gave all our money to another guy a few years ago, we're not necessarily sorry we did it, but now we don't have enough to effect real change.

Honestly, we do deserve this. If we as a society cannot and will not stop yawning and shrugging our shoulders then this is what we're going to keep receiving year in and year out. It shouldn't take economic turmoil to open eyes and minds to this!