It’s been a while, yeah?
Long story short, I’ve spent the last 3-4 months (when did I even post last?) slaving away at Robot Bomb, before falling into an inevitable pitfall: boredom. It’s a personal failing, but the truth of the matter is that I’ve got a short attention span, and tend to get tired of things quite easily. Case in point, attempting to run a multi-writer website with long-term goals probably wasn’t the best idea I’ve ever had.
*Shrug*
Life goes on, right? Something like that. Anyway, I ought to be writing here on a semi-regular basis again, though I’d still like to move to independent hosting at some point. The brief flurry of insanity that was Robot Bomb going live will probably make for good training when that happens. Until then, I’ll be making every effort to soldier on over here.
What a Gamer Wants: Borderlands
Yeah, I’ve got the game, and I like it, but here’s the deal: it could have been WAY better, and it wouldn’t have been very hard to drastically improve the PC version. Here to school Gearbox on what PC gamers want in their role-playing shooters is the entire community of RockPaperShotgun, a gaming website devoted entirely to the PC. Check it out: what begins as a short post mentioning that a Borderlands 2 is very likely quickly turned into a very intelligent and thought-out list of the improvements Gearbox should make on the next game. I think they’ve pretty much nailed it, but see for yourself.
CoD Modern Warfare 2: I’ll pass, thanks
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 came out today. Hordes of fans stampeded stores at midnight, grabbed their own copy, and ran home to play the damn thing. Gamers have proclaimed it their favorite shooter ever, a generic shooter, an excellent story, and a practically non-existent one. Worldwide, it’s retailing for more than most AAA games do. From the US to the UK to Australia and everywhere in between, gamers are grumbling and kicking and generally raising hell. Right before, you know, they eagerly swipe their credit cards at the checkout line.
Me? I haven’t bought it. Continue reading
Episode 5283: In which I adopt one child, but neglect the other
Robot Bomb!
In my desire to make sure Robot Bomb become something worthwhile, I’ve fallen into the habit of ignoring most all else, most directly evidenced in my lack of posting here on T+L, or on TouchGen, or on Indie Clauses, or on Blogcritics (save for that 3-part train wreck in which I offended fans of various bands by not loving the groups as much as they themselves do). My other big writing project right now, my first attempt at a novel, has temporarily been placed in second-class status – frankly, I only work on it two or three times per week, and only right before the deadline each Wednesday (or directly after, when I don’t finish in time).
Though my actions haven’t shown it of late, I have no intention of letting this blog end or fade away. Most of the reviews I write from here on out will appear on Robot Bomb, but all other content should continue to be posted here. The plan, eventually, is to move T+L to independent hosting, though I’ve yet to settle on and purchase a domain.
The main point of this post, though, is more to inform the teeming masses of Robot Bomb, not blather on about T+L. So, with that in mind…
Robot Bomb. Continue reading
Live @ Austin City Limits Music Festival
Hey e’erbody: We’re live at ACL! Follow my tweets as I wax poetic on the various wonderful bands performing here: twitter.com/BrianMurff.
An Update, A Date-up, A Cop-out
Life: it’s a bit ridiculous. I’m busy as anything, and this blog has suffered as a result. Rest assured that my time has not been spent in vain; I’ve been a busy little bugger.
Here’s what’s up: I’ve been writing a novel, for starters, and I’m an estimated 15% done. That might seem a little exacting, but I’m estimating the total at 70,000 words based on what I’ve plotted out and how much I’ve written as of yet. As much as I love it, finding a regular time to work on it has been… difficult.
I’m putting a lot of time into making sure Robot Bomb ends up something slightly better than still-born. My original goal was for it to go live on October 9, but that’s looking nearly impossible without cutting a lot of corners. In an effort to make it more solid, the deadline has been changed to a decidedly more nebulous October 2009. Hopefully it won’t be more than a week or two late, but I’m not holding my breath.
In slightly better RB news, there’s a good chance we’ll have some actual semi-pro video types helping out with our periodic video shoots. I’m not entirely sure how soon I can get them in on the process, but it might be as early as this week. If that’s the case, it’ll be a huge load off the rest of us. Finally, we’re revamping the structure a little bit so that it’s divided into more manageable chunks. Basically, that means I’ll be doing a little less editing and a little more shameless whoring and promoting of the website, getting referral accounts set up, sucking up to PR reps, and all that jazz. Instead of me editing and approving everything that gets posted, I’ll have four section editors that will be in charge of the individual areas of coverage. I haven’t yet informed those folks of my intentions for them (shhh, don’t tell).
Additionally, I’ve still got that pesky business known as college. When random school diversions get mixed in, it makes keeping this up nearly impossible. As a matter of fact, even this post is getting squeezed in at the Houston airport, simply because I’m tired of writing reviews of music and books, and I wanted a change of pace (ironically enough, that means going from writing for Robot Bomb and Indie Clauses to writing for T+L).
I hate to make every post on here an update on how other things are going, but that’s what it’ll have to boil down to for at least a few weeks.
Upcoming content will consist entirely of Austin City Limits Music Festival coverage, by the way. It’s this next weekend, Oct 2-4, and I couldn’t be more excited to be writing about it for Blogcritics. Everything written for it will be re-posted here as a poor excuse for content. Forgive me that laziness, but all my extra writing time is occupied with the novel and building up content for Robot Bomb.
Until next time, I leave you with a thought: if a college-age girl wears a North Face jacket despite the fact that it’s 92 degrees outside, does that absolutely, definitely make her a sorority girl, or could she merely be silly? Discuss amongst yourselves.
Austin City Limits: The Movie
Nah, not really. There’s absolutely no movie. Actually, this is a semi-post, semi-announcement, semi-plead-for-input sort of a beast. Here’s what it all boils down to:
I’ve managed to score a press pass for the Austin City Limits Music Festival, courtesy of Blogcritics. This means several things. First of all, it means I’m going to ACL for the second time in as many years, and without having payed for either experience. That’s pretty awesome in and of itself. It also means I can sell my two day passes I’d previously acquired. No, I’m doing any scalping – my friend Nick is picking them up at cost, theoretically in exchange for allowing me to crash at his apartment in Austin.
With regard to all of you internet-people: no, this isn’t a meaningless gloat (though that would be horrifically annoying, huh?). This is where the announcement bit comes in: I’ll be working with the wonderful editors over at Blogcritics to produce a three-part series covering ACL, hopefully published at the end of each day of ACL (Friday-Sunday, October 2-4). Additionally, I’ll be tweeting the whole business, which you’ll be able to follow here. Finally, I’m trying to arrange an interview with Suckers, an indie-rock outfit from Brooklyn, New York. That’ll go up on Independent Clauses, which I’ve mentioned so many times previously that if you haven’t checked it out already, there’s probably something wrong with you.
See all that? I’m earning my keep with this press pass. Don’t think I’m not!
Finally, there’s this: I don’t know all of the bands that are playing. Sure, there’s a list I can look over, and a handy schedule with which to figure out where I should be at any given time, but there are over 100 bands that will be performing over three days. Frankly, I haven’t heard of half of them, and I don’t want to miss any wonderful indie-gems just because I don’t know how awesome they are. Check out my planned schedule below, and if you think I should make any changes, don’t hesitate to let me know!
Friday, October 2nd
Saturday, October 3rd
Sunday, October 4th
Of Rock and Roll and Cameras
I purposely arrange my schedule around Apple’s media events. No really, I do. Today I actually rescheduled a meeting so that I could read about Apple’s “It’s Only Rock And Roll” event in realtime. In my defense (or defence, for you kids across the pond), I actually got it out of the way early in a responsible, adult manner.
I hate to be anything that even vaguely resembles a fanboy, but I find their announcements absolutely fascinating. Apple has managed to take something that most companies relegate to either a press release or one of a handful of trade shows and turn it into some sort of massive party/lovefest/shindig where the crowd treats company executives like rockstars and treats rockstars like, well, regular folks. Quivering journalist-types and tech bloggers hang upon their every word, frantically posting updates to their website, and mere mortals such as myself eat up those updates like so many delicious cookies. Second-hand love like that requires talent, folks; talent that Apple has in spades. I enjoyed today’s “It’s Only Rock And Roll” event as much as any other of their announcements (well, almost: I was practically jumping up and down in excitement when the iPhone and iPod Touch were announced two years ago). There was just one problem.
The 3rd-gen iPod Touch has no camera. Continue reading
Borderlands: Claptrap
This is equal parts funny and painful to watch. Enjoy the poetic justice at the end.
October 22, I can’t wait for you to arrive.
Tech + Lifestyle 