The state of gaming in the year 2011.

I overheard a customer ask a Best Buy Employee whether the PSP or Nintendo 3DS could play Angry Birds.

Narrative and Ideology (& Recess)

In college, I took a senior seminar called "Narrative and Ideology," a typically generic liberal arts college title belying a typically iconoclastic liberal arts college curriculum: watching 80s movies and analyzing them for the hidden ideologies buried in the narratives.

It was the kind of course that had undergraduates swooning: using the tools of semiology to dissect cultural artifacts that didn't seem like they should be on the syllabus. Why bother reading Karl Marx when you can just use Ferris Buller as the embodiment of the logic of late capitalism?

Not to say that our professor was a bloodless academic.

After we spent three hours interrogating Pretty Woman for its trafficking in the hoary cliche of the whore with a heart [hoart?] of gold, our professor told us that his dad, a well-educated emigrant doctor, still like the movie because it was a nice fairy tale. The director Gary Marhsall seemed to be admit as much when he confessed, "I [do] recess."

Which brings me to two recent Ryan Gosling films: Drive and Crazy Stupid Love. Both strike as two sides to the same coin of why we watch movies.

Drive is the sleek subversion of the masquerade of the Hollywood fairytale. It almost demands to be added to the curricula of future film studies courses. It is also quite good, I might add. The kind of movie that has you thinking about it weeks later.

In contrast, Crazy Stupid Love is… well, stupid. Everything about it feels false. The plot is filled with implausible contrivances. Nobody speaks like actual human beings. During the emotional nadir of the film it actually rains on the main protagonist. Even the actors seemed to being playing un-parodying parodies of themselves

Yet despite all of this, it is entertaining. You get to watch pretty people saying dumb but emotional satisfying words. Throw in beer and popcorn, and it is not a bad way to pass a couple of hours.

Sometimes you just want a little recess.

Tim Tebow's Legendary Awe-Inspiring Divine Greatness

Kevin Burkhardt, a NY based sports broadcasting type tweeted this, "All the love/hate for Tim Tebow this year in the NFL, and there is just one thing that matters. He is 4-1 as the starting QB." -- Okay, fair enough, I can see why someone might think that, if that person were a rose-tinted Bronco fan, or a Florida Gator fan, or an Evangelical Baptist, or a COMPLETE IDIOT. But someone whose job is to be analytical about sports!? Please.

It's 5 games. 4-1 doesn't mean anything. If it were 40-1 or even 40-10 it would be a different story, but 4-1? Need I remind you (obviously I do) that just a couple years ago Kyle Orton was traded to the same Denver Broncos. Josh McDaniels named Orton the starting QB and he was Elway-esque. Orton led the Broncos to a 6-0 start, including three last minute game winning drives. It was a fine time to be a Denver fan, do you remember, Bronco Nation? Do you remember what happened after that shining 6-0 start? I'll remind you? Kyle Orton has started 27 games since then. The Broncos have won 6. 6-21. So what is the difference between Orton's 6-0 and Tebow's 4-1? Anyone? Okay, I'll tell you. Orton actually looked like a good Quarterback. Tebow has looked like a pile of discarded bloody effluvia.

Orton went 124/194 (64% comp.) for 1465 yds 9TDs and 1INT during those six games. A QB rating of 100.13. That's like Steve Young/Peyton Manning territory. Tebow has gone 52/115 (45%) over his five games, for 630 yds, 6TDs and 1INT. A QB rating of 76.36. That's like Jon Kitna/Ty Detmer territory.

Granted, Tebow is a better runner. He does have 356 yards rushing over the 4-1 stretch. Which is not too shabby. But the offense has looked awful under Tebow. Inept. Impotent. And let's not forget Tebow was born in the Philippines! Doesn't that make him at best a Muslim and at worst a terrorist? Doesn't it?

I really haven't felt this much vitriol toward an NFL QB since, well, Okay, since Tom Brady. But god dammit. GOD DAMMIT! For some reason I can't stand that everyone is all up in Tim Tebow's jock. I mean, except the ladies of course. Why can't everyone see that Tebow is awful?

I must admit, Tebow has been great for the NFL, I loved watching every second of the beating the Lions handed to the Broncos, I can't for the life of me imagine why noone figured out what the Lions did. Do not blitz. Tebow can't throw. Maintain containment, do not blitz. No need for nickel or dime packages. . . ever. Tebow can't throw. Do you hear me Rex Ryan you podophile, do not blitz!

Ah well, I guess I'll just have to wait for Tebow's full exposure. Until then I'll at least have this:

Besiktas Milangaz off to a 5-0 start

Looking at that photo does make me miss the NBA. And D-Will. But knowing what we know now I think the trade the Jazz made with the Nets was the best move. At the time I thought the move was a little bit panicky. Now it seems like incredible value for what could end up being only a couple months of basketball.

Also, I'm wondering where everyone stands on this lockout thing. It seems apparent that Stern and the owners are somehow winning the PR battle, even though the players are the only ones who have made any concessions at all. Me being a pro-labor type of guy I've always sided with players in these sorts of struggles, so I'm wondering if others see what I see. Do you?

Midnight Souls Still Remain

Dark Souls
How hard is Dark Souls?

I joked in my review of Demon's Souls that the sequel would have to develop all new ways to torture players, including deleting their saved games if they failed to beat the last boss.

It appears From Software one-upped me.

I'm convinced that Dark Souls is actually trying to kill me. Like in real life.

I had to go to the hospital because I developed a ganglion cyst on my left wrist from using the left trigger button to block too much.

And now Dark Souls is trying to kill the tattered remains of my social life by forcing me to explain to people I have my arm in a splint because of a video game.

I have no regrets.

Grade: A-

Limits.

To be human is to have limitations, physical or mental, that shape and define us.

For me, it is the trials and tribulations of being ruggedly handsome. For Ben, it is the crippling inability to manage a fantasy sports team.

I recently met someone who cannot travel over 4,000 feet in elevation without suffering from brain hemorrhages. It is an odd affliction that doesn't have much of an influence on day-to-day life as it does on future planning.

Flying is out of the question. A weekend getaway to see friends in New York would be inconceivable. Intercontinental vacations would have to budget additional weeks for travel by boat.

Worse still: even getting to the east coast by car has its unexpected hurdles. From Oregon, one would to travel south along the California coast before you could head east due to impassably high Rocky Mountains and Sierra Nevadas.

It would be like living in a parallel universe where all of the traveling innovations of the past 100 years never came to fruition.

A small reminder to be grateful for the limitations each of us does bear.

1,000!

My iPhone is making me stupid and so is yours

As much as I like my iPhone and my iPad, I'm convinced that it's ruining my brain. And everyone else's too.

I'm sure it's killing my brain to never be bored and to always be bored. I can't take an elevator ride from the first floor to the fourth without pulling the stupid thing out. I don't spend as much time daydreaming. Or focusing on one thought until I find my way to what I need to create, remember or change. The phone doesn't do anything to entertain or challenge me, and yet I use it constantly.

I'm also sure it's killing my brain to look up the answer to any question I can't remember. I'd guess memory is strengthened in some way by actually finding the right neuropathway. Rather than just bypassing it's way through short-term memory and not actively involving more than a few locations in my brain.

But that's just speculation. I guess I should ask Siri.