Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Once again Obama makes history.

Something just shank in today for me about this Healthcare law.

The first Black President of the United States (and first woman to be speaker of the house) has done something other presidents have been trying to do for a long time...pass healthcare reform.

It may not be as good as I wanted but at least it's a nice first step

Thursday, March 04, 2010

I just read an article about the fact that it is expected that wii sells will go down this year. That's not surprising everything has to stop at some point and this includes wii's high sales.

What I found interesting is that there are game publishers who state they aren't haven't manage to sell games well on the wii and that they won't focus so much on wii games. The publishers talked about in the article where EA, Capcom, THQ and Ubisoft.

A person form EA said that the Wii market was unpredictable. Part of me thinks what that means is they haven't really figured out how to sell to people who may have bought the wii that aren't really big gamers.

But then I remember that many gamers dislike the wii because they can't find many games aimed at them. So the problem isn't the game companies making games for gamers on a system they don't want, because the reason games are unhappy with the wii is because they don't have enough games to make them happy.

So I looked at a few of these companies sites to see what are they selling for the Wii and it looks go me that the problem is these companies aren't really putting out compelling games out on the system. At least there aren't many games that look like something I would want.

EA had the most attention paid to them in the article so I looked at their site to see the what they had for the wii and noticed only a few games that appealed to me. Though they did have a number of things I think would have sold well even if I don't care to much for them (sports games and sims related stuff)

They also have a game similar to wii sports and I think the problem there is that I am sure someone with wii sports won't fell the need to get another game similar to one they already have. Remember a big chunk of wii owners aren't games. There's a lot of older folks who got a wii for things like wii fit and wii sports. I can't help but remember when I was a kid and I wanted say a new edition of a sports game or street fighter II my mom would turn and say well you already have game like that why would you want another? I can see a lot of older wii owners taken that mindset...heck as I have gotten older I'm taking that mindset more and more.

I found similar problems across the board. The Wii has an odd mix of games, there are many tie games to stuff like game shows (There is a biggest loser game...really who would want that game) and of course lots and lots of kids games. Which makes sense giving that another big group of wii owners are kids, but the problem with having such a huge focus on this market is that kids don't buy games their parents or other adults do and I can see a bigger limit on the over all sales one can make to kids then to adults.

Now on one hand I think it's good that the companies are putting out games in hopes of drawing in more people then just hardcore gamers. It reminds me a bit of the days of the NES when we had a wide range of games, the problem is that just like back in the 80's a lot of those game being pushed out on the wii don't really look that good and back then everything was pretty much released on the NES good or bad, games for hardcore games and causal gamers. The wii just seemed to aim at the causal games and forgotten about the hardcore gamers.

I'm all for making games for causal gamers but a lot of these games don't really look that good.

I'm also surprised by the fact that some of the biggest gaming publishers didn't sell some of their biggest properties on the wii.

But what really sticks out is that even thought these comapanies say they are having a hard time selling games looking at the top selling games (at lets those listed on this wiki page) The wii has some of the highest sells figures of any game system, EVER. now it's true that it's Nintendo the company that putting out most of the high selling games on the wii and I think it's do to the reasons I listed. These are good games, they use their biggest characters and a lot of companies are just copying what the big N puts out (why get another multi sports mini games game when you already have wii sport and wii fit? And how many party games can someone really play?)

also looking at the top selling games on different platforms their seems to areas that publishers can focus on that Nintendo either doesn't really have covered or seem like there is room to grow the market for on the Wii. Like a sandbox adventure game (like grand thief auto), fighting games (wii has super smash bros but I'm shocked capcom doesn't have a Street Fighter game for the wii...the closet is is Capcom vs some group of characters popular in Japan but haven't really crossed over to America much.), etc, etc.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

aw yet another Birthday

We'll I turned 30 today.

Truth be told the day so far is pretty uneventful. Which is good in the fact that at least nothing bad is happening but I'm short of now in the it's my birthday I should be doing something fun and interesting yet it's just another boring day blues is setting in.

Interesting I learn that I share my birthday with famous witch named Dorothy Clutterbuck (who was born a 100 years before I was)

the Character Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Edgar Allan Poe

Shawn Wayans

Dolly Parton

and the Apple Computer LISA

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Is it the shoes? It's gotta be the shoes

I've been missing around with Zazzle and created some shoes.

The first pair of shoes I did used drawing I already had on Zazzle (made ties with it) which was a nerdy skull and crossbones type joint.

I used it to design a pair of pink sneakers.




Next I have a pair of shoes with my name and a drawing of me on them. Hopefully I'll become a line that everyone wears. Like Jordon's.



Right now I'm just fulling around but more will more then likely becoming.

so far Zazzle only has kids and womens shoes. Which is OK but I would like a pair of my own shoes.

So if you like what you see or just want to give me money go ahead and buy something.

Monday, January 11, 2010

Note to the Bad Robot crew about Star Trek sequel

Well there has been some news that J.J Abrams will be working on a sequel to Star Trek soon (movie expected to come out by 2012).

I felt that since the movie hasn't been written yet I would share my view on some things they should try to do for the next movie, just in the off chance that someone working at Bad Robot will see this post (I figure there is a 1 in a zillion chance of this happening)

When the J.J Abrams Star Trek movie came out there where plenty of Trekkies talking about a sequel. One of the common things I heard/read people say they wanted in the next movie was to see Khan.

Personally I say this is a bad ideal. Why? Because everyone seems to be expecting to see the return of Khan.

People wanting to see the return of Khan ties into the next thing I noticed people saying they want and that is to see nuTrek redoing stuff from old Star Trek show. I think when we are looking at stories that are redoing themselves that fans would want to see how stories would turn out in the new setup. But I don't think this is what should be done in this alternate time line or at least not yet. Since in the new reality we are following a Kirk and Enterprise crew that are active much earlier then the events in the first Star Trek TV show, So this crew wouldn't run into many of the events they ran into on the show or at least not until a later part of their voyage.

But if for some reason Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman want to reuse old Star Trek stories I would I would like to see them redo the pilot episode but with Kirk instead of Pike or for that matter any of the other Pike stories (they have a series of Pike era books.) Or if you are going to do stories tied to the show try to do stories that have events that happened before the show started. For example there are episode dealing with people that have crashed on some planet years before the Enterprise find them do a story where the Enterprise finds them before they would have in the normal show or maybe even prevent the events that would have happened on the show.

So I said what I don't want to see what do I want to watch. Well basically I want to see something new and good.

I wouldn't mind seeing more effects of Nero and Spock going back in time. For example it's stated that Nero was held prisoner by Klingons, that means that the Klingons had access to tech from over a hundred years in the future. I think it would be interesting that in this Star Trek-verse we follow an Federation that has to deal with Klingons more advanced techinolgy then they would have normally.

also with Vulcans being an endangered species I can easily see story ideals dealing with a Vulcan(s) going to extremes to try and repopulate the race.

oh and I wouldn't mind seeing tribbles

Friday, January 01, 2010

2010

Well the new year is here. As I wrote I can't help but feel that 2010 is going to be a good year.

Friday, December 25, 2009

hmmm...yet another christmas

Well it's Christmas as of 25 minutes ago (as I write this)

It's odd how such a day that people try to make so joyous can be just the opposite.

I think it's because we are expect to put so much into the holiday.

It's nice to exchange gifts, you get a nice feeling when someone is happy with the gift you got them. But the fact that on this day someone is going to give you a gift, there can be pressure to try and get that person a gift as well.

Some may stress out trying to find the prefect gift others maybe down because they don't have enough money to get someone something.

Some of the later may go in debt because they just put everything on their credit card and they will be stressed all year trying to pay it off.

Christmas is also a time to be with loved ones, your family of course there maybe those you don't really want to see for one reason or the other.

Thursday, December 03, 2009

MC Frontalot gets eating by a Grue

I was looking for this song a while and randomly ran across it today. So I'm putting on my blog just because....



and I might as well put this up too

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Not so fast with that sale of the Silverdome

Recently the city of Pontiac Michigan had an action to sell the Silverdome (a football stadium that the Lions used to play at from 1975 to 2002 for those who didn't know) the winning bid was to an unnamed Canadian company (with plans of turning the Silverdome to a soccer stadium) for the really low price of $583,000.

Silverdome so cheaply is because they haven't done much with it since the Lions left and it cost the city over a $1 Million a year for the up keep of the building. The city is already is in debt and saving a $1 million a year would be a great thing for the the city.

So this sale is a good thing...sadly it looks like it might not be a GOOOAAAAAAAALLLLLLL. It seems that last year the Pontiac City Council approved the sale of the Silverdom for $17 million to Silver Stallion Development Corp to turn the silverdome into a casino racetrack. But at the time the Mayor of Pontiac vetoed the sale because he didn't think Silver Stallion Development Corp president and CEO H. Wallace Parker could come up with the funding to actually pay for the Silverdome. Now H. Wallace Parker has came back with a vengeance getting a court order to stop the sale of the Silverdome to the Canadian company.


Crain's Detroit
is reporting that Parker says the reason his bid was turned down was racial discrimination. But He and then Mayor Clarence Phillips are both Black. Either Crain's report just assumed that the bias in this qoute from Parker...

“The defendant mayor openly expressed a bias against the plaintiff and in favor of our bid competitors,” Parker wrote in the complaint, referring to Pontiac Mayor Clarence Phillips. “He shared that bias openly so as to jeopardize the plaintiff’s ability to maintain funding for the project.”


...was racial.

Giving as I stated the key players are Black I'd have to say whatever bias Phillips has against Parker probably isn't racial (though I guess there is some chance Phillips is full of self hate.)

Maybe Phillips was right and Parker doesn't actually have a way of paying for all this, Parkers plains are big and would cost a lot of money, plus even if he did have the money he would have to get all the paper work to make it happen and it hard to say if the state would approve of his plans. Or maybe Phillips just didn't want a racetrack/casino in the city, there is always fear of what a gambling establishment will have on the community it is in and Pontiac isn't really doing so well right now and doesn't need the negatives that could come from a racino. Or maybe there's another factor that I am not a were of.

Sunday, November 01, 2009

Fly advertising

below is a marketing campaign by Jung von Matt, a marketing agency did at the Frankfurt book convention

they attached little banners on to flies and let them fly around



this ideal is truly unique (I mean really who would have thought of using flies to advertise a product) and is giving them lots of buzz. I would think a lot more buzz then the people that actually read those tiny little signs. Though watching the video as many people looked to see what the banner says as they where people that where bugged by it.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Happy Birthday day Nintendo

that right today is Nintendo's anniversary. The company has been around for 120 years.

what you say how can a video game company been around for 120 years, when video games haven't been around that long. simple they didn't start out as a video game company they started out as a card game company in Japan.

Tuesday, September 08, 2009

Obama no but Mike Vick OK?

there has been a lot of focus in the media on the number of idiots that are upset that Obama gave speech that was televised for school kids to see.

yet oddly gave a speech in front of some school kids at Nueva Esperanza Academy in Philly at today and no one said a thing against it.

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

Paris Jackson smacks the world with reality of the King of Pop

I have some people state that they where displeased about Michael Jackson's daughter, Paris Jackson, speaking at her fathers memorial.

I feel these people are in bad taste.

1. it was her father's memorial she has much more right to be up their then half the people singing.

2. I think the real reason those who where upset about her speaking, where displeased because they have to come with the cold hard truth that Michael Jackson, even with all the crazy stories about him and his insane level of fame, was a human being that was also a dad.

we where all enjoying the acts that performed and the famous that gave speeches at MJJ's memorial. But it seems that some lost sight of the fact that Michael was a man and had a family that loved him and the tearful words of young Paris Jackson smacked that truth into the face of the world.

Thursday, April 30, 2009

re: Open letter to Repubs

So a guy I know online is trying to save the Republican party.

He's hoping to get a lot of views to a letter he has on his site (Progressive Republicans) asking for the parties leadership to look at it self and for Republicans to stop attacking each other.

I disagree with the later part. The people in the Republican party need to dish out their issues. If the party can't stand infighting then I think it's too weak to survive

if the party dies, I think sooner or later a new party will come and replace the Republican party (just as the Republicans replaced the Whigs)

But with out the infighting I don't think they will get to a point where the party can change it, because everyone will just follow lock step over the issues that the party already runs under. which are the same issues that the party is following to its down fall.