Gism Butter

I absolutely despise wrestling. I think this picture of Bret the Hitman Hart’s family makes me hate it even more. Thanks to the Death Vegetable for finding this picture.

Danger, the maker of the Sidekick mobile phone handset, is working it’s little ass off to fix a problem at its data centers today. Remember when the Blackberries went down a couple months back? Well, everything on your Sidekick goes through one server, too. That server seems to have died today, because T-Mobile is claiming foul.

I wonder if Danger Sidekicks are working on other networks today. Here’s hoping Danger gets it together and back online so as to facilitate teenaged AIMing around the country.

UPDATE: Two days on, and it’s still down. I called T-Mobile today, and they’re still not able to fix any data problems I may or may not be having with my Sidekick. Something went waaaaaaaaaay south down in Palo Alto!

I hope they are still able to do it next time, but the Oaklandish capture the flag game is phenomenal fun and great exercise. It draws a hell of a lot of odd stares from security guards, passers-by and police officers. And it’s getting quite popular.

The game is played, usually, at 8:30 PM on the first and third Tuesdays of the month. It’s played on the block of Broadway and 14th, in Frank Ogawa Plaza. Last night, there were 82 people playing, a combination of multi-cultural 20-something hipsters and a broad swath of black kids between 8 and 16 years old. Truly a uniquely Oakland experience.

Those kids serve to keep the whole affair squarely in the realm of grammar-school gym class. Whoever’s referee is always fighting to be heard over the din and cry of silly jokes, young voices caterwauling, and tittering dudes with goatees, chatting with their girlfriend’s friends.

I think that’s a good thing, because no one takes it too seriously. I saw no rules disputes, myself, save for some bickering over where no-man’s land begins and ends. The game is played on the entire block, so you can sneak around back along the sidewalk. This is the sort of place where I ambushed a bunch of people by jumping out from hiding to tag them.

Here’s hoping and praying that the Oakland PD lets Oaklandish do this without hindrance. Thanks to Thomas Hawk for the photo, from Flickr.

Ever been to the Albany Bulb? It used to be the landfill for, I believe, El Cerito et al. Now, it’s a mishmash of plants growing out of crushed highway pieces and jutting pieces of rebar. It’s also a great place to take pictures of collaborative art. I have a sinking suspicion that the sophisticated hippy hobo tends to camp out here, too.

As an aside: Observe the glory that is the Multi-meter Fresco!

For a number of years, there, I was using the phrase “Radical Ninja” as an adjective. I dunno, I just liked it. I’d say things like “Prefuse 73 is radical ninja.” Note the lack of an article in front of the phrase. This is key to usage. Maybe it should be hyphenated. Radical-Ninja. This burrito is radical-ninja. George W. Bush is not very radical-ninja. The movie Rad is kinda radical-ninja. The movie Ghost Dog is definitely Radical-Ninja. Capitals denote seriousness.

Looking back at the Matrix (Watched it again today, alongside its Riff Trax), I’m struck by how allegorical the whole thing kinda is. Say what you will about the sequels, the original is still an excellent film, all around. Keanu not withstanding.

What I think now, when watching the movie, is that the film is basically a tale of the geek overcoming the jock. Of the geek overcoming everything. If you turn The Matrix inside out, it’s just a great metaphor for the 90’s and beyond.

Essentially, there’s this unknown network that controls everything. But in real life, the metaphor dictates that those who AREN’T plugged into this network are the ones deluding themselves. A small band of super human geekazoids discover the network, and begin to fuck with it. Just like geeks did in the 1970’sm with ARPANET, and what happened with the Web over the course of the 90’s.

When The Matrix was released, the Internet had arrived, but it was still being called the Information Super Highway. Those that weren’t ready to be assimilated by the Internet were doomed to failure. And this sort of thing is playing out, albeit slowly, now. In twenty years, anyone who doesn’t know how to use the Internet won’t be able to get a job, won’t be able to find other people with the same sexual fetishes, won’t reproduce, won’t exist. Doom.

Of course, the metaphor does include a lot of kicking. Not really sure how that shit translates, yet…

Today, Travis and I went to California Extreme 2007, a celebration of arcade and pinball games. Hundreds of them, to be exact. It was a great time, though the $35 entry price was a bit higher than I’d have liked… Nonetheless, a unique experience that is not available anywhere.

We begin the Flickr tour with St. Louis, a Williams pinball machine from 1949. Probably the oldest one in the building, this machine’s flippers have their backs to each other! There were a few other machines from this era nearby, though Orbiter 1, from 1982, was wildly different. That wacky machine had ruts and (I think) magnets, making the ball waggle all over and behave very oddly. If Hawking is right about gravity, this machine is probably a great model of the fundamental physics involved.

Then there was Championship Fast Draw, a quick-draw gun fighting game that was more fun, by far, than any cabinet
of the 80’s gun-based shooting games. Simple premise: Two hombres line up, and cock their guns in the holster. Then the machine beeps and flashes after a random pause. First one to get the gun out, level it, and pull the trigger wins. 7 rounds come at a time. I’m good against nerds, but Travis whipped me.

The Lucky Juju was present, of course. this beautiful trailer has such a great atmosphere: 5 old pinball games and a 45 record player piping in tunes. It normally lives on Alameda Island. I really liked Mars Trek. It has a fantastic artistic flair.

Of the 80’s games on hand, Narc is probably my favorite. There are others I love more, but the statement Narc makes really hammers home the psychotic hysteria that was generated by the Reagan administration. In a day when Mortal Kombat and Night Trap hadn’t even been invented yet, Narc was the most violent game in America (Chiller not withstanding). Use your machine guns and rockets to blow up drug dealers. There’s not one character in the game, aside from the protagonists, that aren’t meant to be killed. They’re all druggies, and they deserve to be killed! With a properly placed rocket, you can disintegrate dealers, sending their bloody heads and arms flying around the screen, and bouncing out of sight.

When all was said and done, Travis and I played more of The Main Event than anything else. This glorified Rock’em Sock’em Robots was a hoot, and only a direct chin-shot would knock the other guy out. The metal men inside had little buttons on their chins, which made me think of the Marx Brothers…

There are a lot more pictures on my Flickr page, so go look at them!

EDIT: This post is also on the radical ninja GameSeWatch. Elsewhere on the Web, Nathan wrote up a posting with some great pictures, as well.

Last night at the Oakland Art Murmur, we saw the work of Arthur Huang at Mercury 20. I haven’t met Arthur yet, but he obviously suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder. On display were his daily tabulation of what he’s eaten, laid out in a periodic-table-like chart with a coded date and food types.

This fellow also set up every coffee cup he’d used in 2004, with notes on each about that day. Mostly Peet’s. The Mercury 20 Gallery at 25 Grand was a relative latecomer to the Murmur, but then, at its present size, it’s no longer a newbie. I believe it is so called because it is a collective of 20 artists who show their stuff in turns each month. Arthur is certainly the most… dedicated, I would say. Intriguing, all around.

EDIT: Turns out, the coffee cups weren’t from Huang. However, I maintain my assessment of his obsessive tendencies. Difference is, Mary, the other artist, also exhibits this trait! Certainly something new in art, I must say.