As If I Had Control to Begin With, Ian!

My wonderful friend Amanda and I were talking about Joy Division and the Smiths and the Cure and all of those depressing 80s bands. I like the Smiths and the Cure but I've never really gotten into Joy Division.

However, after seeing this video, by gum, I believe it's time I start checking them out.



I am a notoriously, uh, "creative" dancer. This is exemplified by Mr. Curtis above. We are basically kindred spirits in dance moves and I find this both empowering and endearing.

Be right back, downloading "She's Lost Control", "Love Will Tear Us Apart", and some How To Dance Like Someone Who Hasn't Lost Their Mind videos.

SCHOOOOOL'S OUT FOREVAH

Not really, unfortunately. But as of today I'm FREE for the summer! YAY. Call me up, Bieber. I know you're not busy.

Since I have nothing to do all summer and have no friends whatsoever (SOMEONE PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT AND PROVE THIS IS FALSE D:), I'm going to be doing lots of blogging, about things like:

• Work of Art, that new art-related reality show on Bravo that is my latest guilty pleasure
• Pokemon, because it rules (and just tons of video games in general)
• Lady Gaga, because she is the complete opposite of Pokemon in that she does not rule, and for a second there I wrote "Pookemon," whoops
• Intervention and Obsessed, two of my favorite shows EVER that are going to be showing new episodes ALL. SUMMER. LONG. THERE IS A GOD AND HIS NAME IS KEN SEELEY
• Hopefully NOT college. No, we will speak about that as little as possible.
• how much I love making lists (expect a lot of them!)
• reviews of movies that I plan on seeing, like INCEPTION! and SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD! and maybe The Last Airbender...if someone PAYS ME. Hee hee, haw haw
• and other random popular culture-y things that may or may not be scarily random or pretentious

Most importantly, though, I will be posting .gifs of people dancing. LIKE THIS ONE:


GIFSoup

I never tire of that. EVER. That's the summer for you/me/US. Now give me a hug! ...Just kidding.

Have you read that Persona 4 comic yet? READ IT READ IT READ IT

Seriously though. Stick around, or I will weakly attempt to cause you physical damage, by such PAINFUL methods as poking and staring menacingly. Oh, yes. SO KEEP READING. 

E3 2010 Day 1: Microsoft and a Little Bit of EA

So, whoops. I thought E3 started tomorrow! Guess how shocked I was when I came home today to find that Microsoft had just started their media briefing (answer: I was screaming)!

For what may be the first time ever, Microsoft's conference was shown live on TV exclusively on Spike. Surprise #2 of the day. GameTrailers TV/Gametrailers.com must have won exclusive coverage of it (although I checked G4 after and their Pre-EA conference show was all about Microsoft's briefing, so). It was strange.

Let's get to the actual conference, though!

Microsoft Media Briefing: June 14th, 2010, 10:30 AM Pacific.

The big M took the majority of their hour-and-a-half-long conference to showcase their new Minority Report-esque peripheral, Kinect (formerly known as Project Natal to us cool kids who have been following it since last year). The Kinect is...I'm not sure what to call it, really. It's not a controller, please make that distinction. If you don't, Microsoft will send someone to your house to set you straight. Painfully. Kinect allows you to control your games and the XBox interface with your body and your hands. It's basically this little camera thing that tracks you and your movements 1:1 with the game/menus.

The Kinect. Coming November 4th, 2010.

Microsoft wanted us to really get that, yes, your body is the controller, guys! It's totally cool because you can't lose it in the dark and you can move things WITH YOUR HANDS. You're totally in the game, guys! Totally! Except, Microsoft, you're no more in the stinking game with this stupid, poorly named camera than you are with a camera. God darnit.

I mean, I guess some of the Kinect games were sort of cool. Kinectimals (WHAT A HORRIBLE NAME THOUGH UGH) was pretty adorable. It was actually pretty hilarious, because there was literally no segue whatsoever into the demo. You just saw this little girl (Asian, like a LOT of the demo-ing people. Actually, almost all of them were minorities. I felt like it was to clear up that rumor from last year started by N'Gai Croal that it couldn't recognize black people) walk up to the screen and just start saying, "SKITTLES! YO, SKITTLES! WHERE YOU AT, BOY?" ...Okay, she didn't say that, but that would have been the bomb. She just started taking to her pet TIGER, SKITTLES. Because that makes more sense. This went on for a long stinking time. But it was cuter than my very cute pants, so it's okay.

Another cool Kinect game was one by Harmonix, a poorly-named dance game called Dance Central. Personally, I think the game will either flop or be the best-selling game for this stupid camera thing. You do these insane dance moves to these classic songs (one of which is Bell Biv DeVoe's "Poison," which was demoed by a Japanese woman so wonderfully; THAT GIRL IS POI-SOOON) - you ACTUALLY do them. The thing is, though, I find it impossible for someone like me, for example, or my bro Matt Damon, to be able to play this game at all without failing out immediately. Regardless, it's a cool concept.

Some other funny Kinect-related moments: my much-maligned Kudo Tsunoda came on stage and acted pretentious, per-usual. He was dealt massive damage when one of the greatest people who has ever lived came on stage to demo the dreadful Kinect Adventures game called him Lorenzo Lamas in a great deadpan voice. Sheer hilarity. He also then referred to his "BFF Oscar." It was fantastic. 

Let's see...what else? That was pretty much it on the Kinect front. There was a cool Star Wars trailer, but that was about it after the other stuff. There were lots of other games shown, but none of them seemed to have much potential or appeal to a more "hardcore" audience. It was pretty disappointing. Not that I was expecting much, anyway. Kind of a 360 hater here.

The rest of the conference was dedicated to letting us watch other people play the games that WE want to play, which was boring and unfair. Plus, the majority of the games (save for one by Crytek, whom I do not care for one bit) were ones we had already known about, which was a completely snooze. The one cool part, for me, was the gameplay footage from Metal Gear Solid: Rising, the ONLY Japanese game in the whole lot. I'm not very interesting in the MGS series, but I do find it quite interesting. Also, Rising did look fun in a completely grotesque way. It's much more blatantly action-y than the other games, and I think a lot of people will get excited for it. Dude, Raiden's power is CUTTING PEOPLE IN HALF. If I wasn't so squeamish I would want that game something awful.

The last part of the briefing was the absolute WORST. They announced one of the worst-kept secrets of the show to be real, the new model of the 360, affectionately (?) dubbed the Slim. It's incredibly ugly.

LOOK AT IT. LOOK AT ITS UGLINESS. P.S. Thanks for the pic, Kotaku, love ya, xoxo

And you know what they decided to do, those stupid rich jerkfaces, right after they announced that this baby was coming out on Friday? THEY DECIDED TO GIVE ONE TO EVERY SINGLE STUPID PERSON IN THE STINKING AUDIENCE. What a gip. A TON of people are mad about that on the Internet. Seriously, that is not cool. People gave our guy a standing ovation after that, but who wouldn't? It was still lame.

So, that was basically it. All-in-all, it was an incredibly boring press conference. I was still glued to my seat, of course, but it was kind of a disappointing start. People have already made comparisons to the two worst conferences of recent history: Nintendo '08 and Sony '06. While I'm not sure this was THAT bad, it surely wasn't much better. Hopefully Nintendo and Sony will clean Microsoft up tomorrow.

The EA conference came on later, shown live on G4 where it rightfully belongs. While it's not one of the Big Three, it may still be worth discussing briefly.

EA Press Conference: June 14th, 2010, 2:00 PM Pacific. 

Quick highlights:  

• Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit did actually have a very cool trailer. I actually really like the concept, even though at first it just seemed like the most stupidly dramatic racing game ever.

• The Sims 3 for consoles had a presentation that waxed philosophical (am I using that correctly?) very weirdly. He started blabbering on and on about life and death. Strange. But the game looks cool. I want it. The Kris Allen song in the trailer was...strange, though, to say the least. 

• I enjoyed the enthusiasm of the audience during the Dead Space 2 and Medal of Honor segments. 

• 3D Crysis 2 would have been cool if 1. I cared about Crysis 2 and 2. I could see the evidence of it being 3D on my TV. Oh, but it was funny when the background character kept screaming "STOP! SHE'S RIGHT HERE! WAIT!! STOP!!" Haha.  

•  Not from the show itself but on Kotaku's liveblog, Mike Fahey called Cliffy B (Cliff Blezinski for you common folk) Clifford the Big Red Dog, hahaha. 

• That Star Wars: The Old Republic trailer was pretty intense. Not that interested in the game. 

So, that was about it. Today was not that great; I'm more looking forward to tomorrow, where both Nintendo and Sony will have their conferences. Really excited for those -- they're supposed to be promising. VERY promising INDEED. I'll make sure to give you the recap manana. Ta-ta!  

ETA: URGH, Ubisoft is having a conference at 5:00 Pacific, but I don't think I'm going to cover it. I'll give you any major news tomorrow. (Stupid, stupid finals to study for.) 

We'll just stay in our homes, in our homes, in our homes!

The Take-Away Show is one of the greatest concepts to ever come out of the Internet, I think.

The Take-Away Show (or "le Concert a Emporter") was created by La Blogotheque, a popular French music blog. Here is how they define it:

Every week, we invite an artist or a band to play in the streets, in a bar, a park, or even in a flat or in an elevator, and we film the whole session. Of course, what makes the beauty of it is all the little incidents, hesitations, and crazy stuff happening unexpectingly. Besides, we do not edit the videos so they look perfectly flawless, instead we keep the raw sound of the surroundings. Our goal is to try and capture instants, film the music just like it happens, without preparation, without tricks. Spontaneity is the keyword.

Does that not sound amazing? Because it is.

Call me a hipster (although I will deck you something awful if you do), but one of my favorite bands is The Dodos. They're not really that hipster-y, though, at least, I don't think they are. Anyway, they make "freak folk," which is basically just really high-energy folk music. It involves yelling, but the yelling is cool. The drumming is also insaaaaane, as is the guitar playing.

I thought I had seen the majority of the worthwhile Dodos videos until I checked again last night and found that Current.tv, one of my most favorite TV channels that I don't have, had partnered with La Blogotheque last August (!!!) to create an AMAZING 20 minute Take-Away Show with the Dodos in San Francisco!

Set list:

1. Beards

2. Joe's Waltz (Download)

3. Fools

4. Horny Hippies

Nice mix of Visiter stuff and Beware of the Maniacs stuff, yay. "Horny Hippies" and "Joe's Waltz" are the stand-out performances, so if you don't want to watch the whole thing (and shame on you if you don't) then at least watch those two. Although Joe's Waltz is seven minutes long. But still!

Here are some other cool Take-Away Shows:

Guillemots - "Made-Up Lovesong #43" (Download)

The dressing like a hobo theme continues from the Dodos video into this one! Tee-hee. That was a joke. I really like the location. It's so perfect for this video. And I like how the camera guy runs away at the end. Or do I? It's actually pretty weird. But, like, "ha-ha" weird. Not like "I think that man is a mass murderer in the making" weird. Anyway.

Ra Ra Riot - "Dying is Fine"

Ra Ra Riot is a band that you'd think would suck live, mainly because lead singer Wes' voice is kind of...it has its quirky charms, let's put it that way. But this actually sounds really excellent, a lot like the album version. And you gotta love the violins.

Bloc Party - "This Modern Love" (Download)

Once again, Kele from La Fiesta de Bloc is someone who you would think wouldn't sound so great live, but he does, and it's acoustic, too! I luuuurve this song. Especially the "Jump left/right" parts. And he makes those parts sound so meaningful! Not that they weren't originally, but you know what I mean. He does a heartfelt rendition.

Arcade Fire

Set list:

1. Neon Bible

2. Wake Up

Yeah, this one's pretty long, but it's probably the single most popular Take-Away Show, after the Fleet Foxes and Bon Iver ones. The Dodos one is still better, though! But, ahem, I like what was written about this on the site:

We knew that the Take Away Show with Arcade Fire wouldn’t be like the others. The project was made for them because they’re of a different kind, a different essence. We had spent the afternoon with them when suddenly we realized, in a flash: “yes, this group is different.”
We had been playing the role of “outsider” the entire day, like a foreign body that latches onto the daily grind of these magnificent musicians. We had to adapt, through astonishment and wonder, as the band took up their instruments and started to play. But Arcade Fire didn’t take us as outsiders. It all seemed to unfold naturally: we entered into their logic as they awaited us and eventually swallowed us up. It was now Win Butler’s Take Away Show, and we followed.

Win Butler is, of course, Arcade Fire's leading man. I really like the part where they walk into the stadium into the GIGANTIC crowd, and then they just swing "Wake Up" like it's nothing into a megaphone. Wouldn't it be just so cool to be in that crowd, to witness that? ("REACHES AND TOUCHES MY HAND!" yaaay that part)

I would love to see any Take-Away Show. For people not in the know, it could just seem like particularly bold street performers doing their thing, but to see a band you really like just walking around and singing without a care in the world, I just think that's the coolest.

So let's dance!

GIFSoup

Thirteen (Or, I Review Parks and Recreation, The Office, and 30 Rock)

So I didn't post reviews on Friday like I said I would consider doing. Sorry.

I was going to review the season finales of Community, Parks and Recreation, The Office, and 30 Rock (AKA NBC's entire Thursday night line-up) but then I barely paid attention to Community and I just got lazy.

I'll just sum up my opinions on the other three for you, anyway, while I rock out to B.o.B (Nothin' on YOOOOOU, baybeh).

Parks and Recreation: #2.24 "Freddy Spaghetti"

I wouldn't really consider myself a Parks and Rec fan, nor did I watch every episode this season, but every episode that I did see I enjoyed. Season 2 was a major step up from that crudtastic season 1 that I hated so so so so so so so much.

This episode was especially good. I did a lot of "awwing" Thursday night because of this and 30 Rock, which I'll get to. (And from what I heard, I probably would have been grinning madly at Community too). There were lots of sweeeeet moments between Wamy ("Amy" to you people out of the loop that really only includes me but okay) Poehler, aka Leslie Knope, and Ben, who was played by the guy from that show I've never seen on Starz, Party Down. Ben was Rob Lowe's (oh yeah, he was guest-starring, too) partner, and they came to Pawnee to authorize budget cuts or something. Ben started off as the main antagonist, but eventually became pretty close to Leslie, empathizing with her ambitious political dreams. The episode is kind of based around Leslie trying to set up a fundraiser to build a new park, and the main attraction was supposed to be the titular Freddy Spaghetti, a name that I always feel idiotic for typing; however, when Freddy nearly bails out for some other gig, it's Ben who gets him to come back to play Leslie's fundraiser. Yes, it was as adorable as it sounds. (As was the last scene with Leslie and that guy, um, Mark, who left the Parks and Rec department. In the end, nearly everyone lost their job to buget cuts, I think. It was sad.)

The B-plot of the episode was centered around the love triangle between Andy, Ann, and April, who is probably too young tot be dating Andy, but that doesn't stop her from trying. We see a new side of April - she's not completely apathetic! But she is an insanely jealous person. This was a continuation from the previous week's episode, when April is suspicious of Ann and Andy and then turns Andy down or something. In this episode, Andy and April almost get together until Ann ruins it. She's lonely, you see. That's all I'm going to say.

This episode was a lot more emotional than most episodes of the show and had lots of character development. It really felt like a finale, though; I got shades of "Casino Night," The Office's awesome season 2 finale. But it was still funny, mostly because of Ron (others would include Tom, but I despise Aziz Ansari), so it was a balanced and satisfying conclusion to a very good season. Too bad we're going to have to wait until January for more Parks and Rec.

I'll give it 4 Pregnant Wamy Poehlers out of 5.

The Office: #6.26 "Whistleblower"

I'll be blunt: This episode sucked.

There were some funny moments, mainly because there was a good amount of Andy, and Andy is probably my new favorite character. There was a sweet moment or two, particularly the one at the end with Michael and Kathy Bates playing some chick from Sabre or whatever it's called. But all-in-all, it did not feel conclusive, very little happened, and it was BORING. It felt like a mid-season episode that shows in one of those slow March weeks.

Here's the plot: Sabre printers catch fire. Press finds out from an employee who leaked the info to them. Who is this employee question mark exclamation point.

A writer is supposed to take this boring-sounding plot synopsis and make it funny, engaging. These new Office writers, picked off the streets outside their Ivy League colleges, do not understand how to do that. The actors try their darnedest (Ed Helms, Mindy Kaling, Steve Carell, and even Jenna Fischer especially), but it just fails so much because of the writing. Jim and Pam used to be the two most popular characters, and amongst the most well-written, but, sorry to be a hater, they're absolutely dreadful now. Jim just lazily makes faces to the camera and says something sarcastic every now and then. Pam whines and talks way too much. Thus, the writers have been steadily shifting to the relationship between Andy and Erin, which is still interesting, but very little time is devoted to them.

Most of the time was spent with Michael and Kathy Bates. Michael proudly defends his new parent company against the "allegations" that their stupid printers catch fire, although he does it more because he's excited to be on TV than because he cares about Sabre. Because who really cares about Sabre, anyway? I don't. They brought that creepy tall guy into the office. What's his name, anyway? Wikipedia says Gabe...he is so creepy. Speaking of people we don't care about or like, the best part of the episode was also the most awkward: the IT guy who I had never seen before, Nick, announced that he was leaving. No one cared. There was a funny callback to the old IT guy, the Arabic one that Michael thought was a terrorist. (Where'd he go, anyway?) And then there was a hilariously awkward scene where Nick yells at everyone for treating him like dirt and then leaves to teach in Detroit. Poor guy, hope he doesn't get shot.

So basically all that happened was that we find out that Andy was the "whistleblower," everyone hates him more than usual except for Erin, and then Kathy Bates tells Michael that she'll try to get Holly back. For a finale to have only two minor conclusions like that is really anticlimactic. I wasn't a Holly fan, at all, although I appreciate them at least furthering Michael as a character in terms of his relationships and such. But what is Kathy Bates even going to do about it? What can she do? I don't know. I miss David Wallace.

2 Creepy Sabre Employees Who Always Look Scared out of 5.

30 Rock: #4.22 "I Do Do"

A lot of people thought that this season of 30 Rock was the worst, but I'm a relatively new fan, and I liked this one as much as the last season (although I watched Season 2 over winter break and nothing beats that). This episode, which was a continuation, like Parks and Rec, of the previous week's, was especially good.

Following "Emmanuelle Goes to Dinosaur Land," which is an amazing title, Liz tries to find a way out of "settling" with her hilarious British soul mate Wesley Snipes. Yes, like the actor. Wesley is the one who brought us such great phrases like "Gangway for the foot cycle" and "My velocipede!" and we love him for it. Well, "we" meaning everyone but Liz, who can't stand Wesley at all. I think everyone who watches the show wants Liz to be happy, but I would've been fine with her marrying Wesley if that meant that we got to see him again. Alas, that was, of course, not to be.

As Liz begrudgingly attempts to get used to the idea of having Wesley around, Jack tries to work out his own relationship problems - should he choose Nancy or Avery? At the beginning of the episode he's convinced that he wants Nancy. It's understandable, considering Nancy is sort of like the way more Bostonian female Jack, but at the same time, you can tell that this really is a hard decision for Jack. Personally, I HATED Nancy. I couldn't stand her horrible accent. There were lines she said that I normally would have thought were funny had she not been the one saying. I don't really care much for Avery, either, but one of the things Jack wanted the most was an heir, and he wasn't going to be getting that from Nancy. Avery reminded me of Edie Falco's character from season 2, and I actually kind of liked her, and I thought that type of character was good for Jack. And guess who he really chooses in the end? A pregnant Avery. I read somewhere that this might mean next season will be all about Jack complaining about not being able to be a good father because he didn't have one growing up, and I really hope that's not the case.

Matt Damon guest-starred as the pilot that Liz meets at Wesley's office, Carol. Within two minutes of talking to him, Liz discovers that HE is her true soulmate. Carol likes everything that Liz likes and even likes TGS, so he's kind of like Liz's scary fanboy, except awesome. Also, he is a horrible dancer, and I find that endearing. Carol is so perfect for Liz that I could not stop awwing at them. I like the characters on 30 Rock so much that seeing them happy makes ME happy. It's infectious. Unfortunately, when Liz tells Wesley that she and Carol are soul mates and Carol overhears, she nearly ruins it. I felt like Carol's reaction was realistic, but at the same time, he was just kind of like, "Wow, creepy. Bye," and then he specifically said bye to Jack in a way that was supposed to bring us back into Jack's story, but it kind of bothered me. That's a nitpick, but still. However, Carol comes back. Why? What normal person would do that? He says that he thought about it and that he's getting old, too, and...basically, he tells Liz that he's settling for her. It's kind of like Wesley and Liz all over again, with the roles reversed, except that there's a mutual interest there. I think I'm the only person seeing it like this, but Carol specifically says "I'm 39 years old" as if he's saying he has no other options.

Whatever, I love him anyways. I even made this really bad .gif of him dancing!:

I haven't even talked about Kenneth yet! Kenneth had one of the best parts of the episode when he drunkenly gives a speech at Grizz's wedding about how he loves everyone after losing his job. Basically, Jack got Kenneth a promotion -- to LA. Kenneth gets mad. Kenneth acts totally and hilariously un-Kenneth-like to lose the promotion, only to end losing the job. Then he shows up the wedding and gives a heartwarming speech. Yay, Kenneth. The best part of that was that he sounded completely angry the whole time...oh, Kenneth! I love you.

This episode was the most truly conclusive out of the three I saw; it ended Liz and Jack's season-long arcs in a nice way. I'm just worried that Liz and Carol aren't actually going to end up together. That's the nature of the guest star, although Carol's a pilot, so, hey, maybe it can work?

5 Dancing Matt Damons out of 5 :)

Those were like extra-long, out of order summaries with "I love you"s and "Hilarious"es thrown in, but OH WELL. NOW YOU KNOW. I'd recommend you go watch "Freddy Spaghetti" and "I Do Do" on Hulu, as well as Community's finale, "Pascal's Triangle Revisited," which I heard was pretty good. I only saw some of it, and it involved the usage of the term "Tranny Queen," if that will compel you any.

In parting, here's a clip of Kenneth's speech, with bonus Carol and Liz time! And Will Forte as Jenna's creepy boyfriend...or whatever he is...

In Which I Get An Obligatory Post Out of the Way So I Can Post .Gifs of Conan O'Brien Dancing

This is Malcolm Gladwell.

As you can see, he's one classy bro. Unfortunately, when I read Outliers for school this summer, I came back in the fall to find myself as one of the only people who felt that way. The name "Malcolm Gladwell" is largely met with a sneer now, even by people who aren't between the ages of sixteen and eighteen, I find, and it saddens me, because how could anyone hate this guy, even dislike him? (He's like Paul Rudd or something! Everyone loves Paul Rudd!)

Despite its age (because 2005 is so old), this review makes me like him even more. I guess I'll summarize it for you, if you're really that lazy. Basically, Gladwell reviews the book Everything Bad is Good For You: How Today's Pop Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter, which is about how today's pop culture is actually making us smarter. Sorry, was that obvious?

Anyway, sarcasm aside, the book discusses how today's popular culture is much more complex than it used to be, which causes us to think more and become much more active participants in what we're watching (or playing; he cites video games as examples, too) than we used to be. This is something I've been saying for years. Critics of the television and video games are only seeing one side of the picture, only taking things at face value. I find that many of them have only sat through a show or a game long enough to be able to develop a thesis statement and be able to denounce it without sounding uninformed.  But they are uninformed, because the things that make these shows, movies, games, whatever, so great are the things that you actually have to think about: the allusions, the references, the metaphors. Why do they think there are so many sites like Television Without Pity or The AV Club, both of which have hundreds of thousands of views? Yes, for every TWOP you have an IMDB, which has way too many whiny preteens complaining about the dearth of shirtless pictures of Devon Werkheiser there are out there, but the TWOPs and the AV Clubs prove that there is a thoughtful, intelligent audience out there willing to be sucked into the television. These people prove that it can't be all bad.

This is one of my favorite parts:

Most of the people who denounce video games, he says, haven’t actually played them—at least, not recently. Twenty years ago, games like Tetris or Pac-Man were simple exercises in motor coördination and pattern recognition. Today’s games belong to another realm. Johnson points out that one of the “walk-throughs” for “Grand Theft Auto III”...is fifty-three thousand words long, about the length of his book. The contemporary video game involves a fully realized imaginary world, dense with detail and levels of complexity...This is why many of us find modern video games baffling: we’re not used to being in a situation where we have to figure out what to do. We think we only have to learn how to press the buttons faster. But these games withhold critical information from the player. Players have to explore and sort through hypotheses in order to make sense of the game’s environment, which is why a modern video game can take forty hours to complete. Far from being engines of instant gratification, as they are often described, video games are actually, Johnson writes, “all about delayed gratification—sometimes so long delayed that you wonder if the gratification is ever going to show.”

Exactly. As I said before, for every Ico and Final Fantasy IV you have at least two dozen mindless first-person shooters, but even those are more complex than your parents' Pong. Ico is one of the most frustrating games that I've ever played, but it's all worth it because I take away so much - it's like a well-made film, complete with a great story, beautiful art, and an immerse world. Gladwell and the author (Steven Johnson) are exactly right - video games today involve a large amount of critical thinking and are often incredibly complicated. But that's what makes them great.

I said before that I am not so keen on the idea of calling this a "pop culture" blog, but after reading this review, I feel less ashamed of the term. If we can learn to ignore Kim Kardashian and Two and a Half-Men then maybe we can start to realize popular culture's true merits.

Now here is a picture of Conan O'Brien (and Andrew W.K.) dancing:

You're welcome.