REkzkaRZ video on

Moving closer and closer to web2.0, from video to ... EVERYTHING!

I edited this video in ~ 30 min's.
It's not the best, but hey -- 15 min's! :)

The video has my music (namely song -- Selteeb) and artwork.

Video Surfing on YouTube

Youtube. Wow. I spent the whole day there yesterday (since work was really slow), made my own youtube site w/some of my own videos.

There's truly a TON of crappy videos on youtube, but there are some gems. Hard to filter thru the garbage...

I'm tripping on some amazing slow-mo stuff that I'd never seen before.
Here's an AWESOME clip of a water balloon hitting a guy in the head in slo-mo.

Also a few other sick vids...
Water Balloon popping
Slow Motion Glock

Trash Totem on

Video revolution ... almost here!

Trash Totem on is where we're heading. AWESOME ...

but I miss the slow old days of 30 min's of quality-ish programming. Now it looks like we'll be in soundbite mode while the digital TV medium evolves for awhile.

Oh well. :)

Sick Martial Arts

To paraphrase the site, "this is some sick ass martial arts."
Looks like the video revolution has begun... -- a GUI for

I hate Craigslist interface. It's not friendly and you have to click a lot.


Hope it lasts!!!

Dark Chomsky Lyrics

I posted my songs on\realityenhancer. It allowed me to type in my lyrics, which I'd never done. Powerful stuff! The following are the lyrics from the 'speech remix' Dark Chomsky.

The essence of Democracy -- you don't have to move far from the Cambridge Elite. Propaganda - conscious manipulation of the organized habits and opinions for controlling of the masses - the public mind.

How come people are deluded if we have the right to vote? And we MUST vote. It's the central feature of a democracy. I mean, these lies are glaringly obvious. It's the way to maintain power structures, authority structures, and wealth.

These aren't particularly subtle facts. Rhetoric. They must regiment people's minds as efficiently as the armies regiment the body. Everyone lies to people all the time -- first you convince yourself that its' true. We are so deeply overwhelmed by doctrine and propaganda.

If you go back to the origins of American society, it was founded by the principle that was stated very explicitly by the leading framer, James Madison, at the Constitutional conventions, that
You can't even think in other terms. That "The primary responsibility of government is to protect the opulent (the minority) against the masses (the majority)."

Obviously that's intolerable.

And the same is true about the masses calling for redistribution of property - nowadays we call that agrarian reform. "The masses have to be controlled (by ensuring that the rights of property prevail), they have to be controlled in the workplace, kept out of the public arena."

He recognized that it's a problem now, he was already concerned. "They're not going to understand the need to protect the needs of the minority of the opulent against the majority. They're going to have all these strange levelling impulses. They'll do all kinds of things which will mess the world up in horrible ways, make property more equatibly distributed. That's a danger. Equal distribution of life's blessings is a danger. So we've got to keep them out of the public arena somehow, and make sure it's just us smart guys. It's for their good."

But he said the danger will get more severe over time. Which is what the govt is all about - to interfere where they don't belong. To protect the minority of the opulent against the majority, to marginilize the disposessed, to interfere where they don't belong, like in the public arena.

He says that "We must not succumb to the democratic dogmatism about people being the best judges of their own interests. They are not. We are the best judges."

Private power is the tool and tyrant of government. It overwhelms it by its combinations, it's bribed by it's largesses. This is what the government is all about - lies and rhetoric. This is the industrial capital system of today. Propaganda.

RPGing does not mean "DeathGaming". Making a real "Pro-Life" Statement.

(This post is clipped from a letter to I wrote to the Troupe Berkeley RPG group.)

One part of 'gaming world' that really bugs me (as with TV & film):

> and when you explain you pop off bits as they get
> damaged, the hook is set and they GOTTA play.

I'm not critiquing THIS particular game -- I'm critiquing gaming in general (and also war-gaming).

Does anyone else feel like games that feature as a central component "DEATH" or vicious battling are perhaps in part responsible for American society being death-loving? This is in line with the Hollywood arguement of whether the increasing and explicit violence in TV/films is b/c of an increasingly violent society, or vice versa.

My view of RPG'ing is it gives me the chance to pretend to do things and be someone that I will not do / not be in my real life. Perhaps these things will influence me in my real life, however (build self-esteem, etc)?

Personally, I don't consciously seek violence in RPG's. I seek overcoming obstacles and having successes as an individual and for my team.
My biggest grief with modern American games is that much of the "game" parts have vanished, and all that remains is violence and destruction.

Doom and other "1'st person shooters" really defined a genre that makes no sense, but does help expand the militarization of the world. I'm constantly amazed (or is it repulsed?) that X-Box and similar consoles present 'pure' military simulations as games. I don't see most of these as games at all, but rather as lures to bringing young people into the military.
If they had any realism, if a player 'died' they would stay dead (and how fun would THAT be in a RPG?).

My interest in indie games is often piqued b/c so often 'violence rules' (ie hit points, damage, and so on) are not the main focus of the games, but more of a side-bar. In some indie games, there are no rules specifically for violence.
Indie games that I've played focus more on story line, character development and growth, and the 'conflict' and 'challenge' resolution system -- which can be between people, places, and things -- doesn't always involve violence or death.

It may not be as exciting or zippy in game-world, but for me the most intriquing magicians of fantasy are the incredible creators, the travellers, the communers, the healers -- and rarely the destroyers.

However, in American pop-culture, we put the hero who is the death dealer on a pedestal. Much of this comes from the Crusades (and prior) embracing of the soldier-hero concept.

Personally, while it's good to have muscle on your side in a RPG that's themed around lots of physical conflict and killing, who among us enjoys hanging out in reality with people that are like that? Real killers?

I love life.

I want to make a life-affirming statement in our gaming group. This might seem silly to some of you, but in the current US-Iraq war, they play heavy metal music to get the troups psyched (and scare 'the enemy') before sending them in for battle.

PS: I'm not pro-life as in anti-abortion. I think that line of argument is nonsense. But the "pro-life" concept has been stolen and re-packaged to such a degree that 'pro-lifers' can also be pro-capital punishment. (American life is nothing if not amusing!)