I’ve found the most intriguing and addictive online game put up in the last 3 years. Create a nation, determine its level of political freedom, and lead as a benevolent ruler or a tyrannical despot. Unfortunately, the game is apparently running on an old Texas Instruments calculator, or something else that really can’t handle the load, but the game is nice in that it scales well to the level of involvement you want. You can put in a minute a day, and have something very near the BBS games of old, or you can join the United Nations and take part in the debates (which are, I might add, well worth the price of admission).

It’s nice to know that ‘violence in fun stuff’ idiocy isn’t just limited to video games. Hey, LARPers are by no means normal, but so far, they’ve proven to be innocent of most crimes, aside from possibly invading Denny’s at 4 AM dressed in leather corsets and velvet capes covered in fake blood.

Perhaps I never appreciated localization people enough. Here’s a site that displays that it is sometimes hard to get all the words right even when you’re not even translating. The link goes to some hysterically bad captions for the Lord of the Rings movie, that the webmaster says is from a bootleg version of FotR. The only explanation I can give is that this was done by a hobbit-hating non-english speaker.

As long as we’re talking about the Lord of the Rings, I should mention that I saw the Two Towers again last night. The movie is such a fantastic work of art, suffering only from some pains of being not nearly as self-sufficient as some other sequels, such as Empire Strikes Back. This was, of course, an extremely difficult task given the source material the director had to work with. Other complaints: the score was nowhere near as memorable as the first movie – a fact made clear by use of the ‘Requiem of a Dream’ score in the TV commercials for the movie. Also, why would you take an elephant to war and put a small army on his back if he was going to fling that army across the battlefield the first time a gnat-like arrow struck him? Finally, I think we have a new Rule for Evil Overlords: one should not build your citadel of power underneath a dam.

Another reason to love the internet: want to know who sings a song in a particular commercial? Try here and here. There have been a couple that have come on lately that I’ve really wanted to find, including
that song from the Smirnoff laundromat commercial (”Going To Kick You Out” by Caesar’s Palace.) and that soft techno song from the eerie Mitsubishi SUV commercial (”Breathe” by TelePopMusik). Unfortunately, my Google skills fail me, and I can’t find the soundtrack I was actually looking for – the eastern-techno music in the background of the “Angela- she’s my sister!” Miller Lite ad.

Quick hits: I hate sore losers – especially when they turn out to be the coach. This is no way to treat your fans – but it’s good to see Tales of the 7331 back. This article compares the complete media saturation of the death of Joey Ramone to that of Ratt guitarist Robbin Crosby, and draws some interesting conclusions on the nature of art and art critics along the way. This article, while lengthy, wonders what everyone has wondered over time – “how do all these crappy movies get past the pitch phase?” (a question that resonates with all of us who have experienced unfunded startups with genuinely good ideas). Lastly, is it okay to watch Fox programming if you feel really guilty about it? I will be.