Passage

Today, while reading a few blogs, I discovered a tiny game (not quite a game, but keep reading) that changed my state of mind, and probably speeded up my heartbeat rate for a while. It's called Passage, and it's an old-fashioned side-scrolling game with a unique characteristic:

It represents your whole life during 5 minutes.

The game itself only lasts 5 minutes, then you die. It's a simple, yet complex maze where you control a young character. Eventually, this character will grow old, slowing down, and at the end, die. You can read the author's notes to become fully aware of what this game means, in it's full complexity.

At the start, you have the possibility to team up with someone else (your wife). But you can choose not to, and your character will walk faster and manage to get through mazes you couldn't reach with company. But if you team up, you'll walk side by side (in love!) through the whole thing.
You begin in the left side of the screen, and the right side (which represents your future) is a giant amount of blurred pixels. As you walk by, you can search for treasures in complicated mazes, increasing your score. But you won't live to see all the scenery, and just walk around freely with your love. As you get near the end, you're already on the right side of the screen, not much future to look up to, and the left side of the screen is now the blurry part... your past.
And you begin to think if your score is really that important.

You get the idea of the game, but you really have to play it to feel what it has to tell you. I was shocked when I felt that the "life algorithm" could be recriated in 5 minutes alone, and altough impressed, I'm now afraid of playing this game.

Download it here, and don't forget to read the author's notes.

Deliveries: part II

My god, I can only update this at weekends! College is being quite time consuming, I barely have time for myself, so the blog doesn't really have a word in this. The sad thing is, during the week I have a lot of ideas and cool stuff I want to share here in this blog, but I always forget them...

Well, first things first. The band that's going to introduce the The Cure concert has been announced! They are 65daysofstatic, a nice post-rock band from England which has been raising a big legion of fans for the last couple of years. I only listened to a full album of them yesterday, and I enjoyed it. Yes, they seem somewhat of a Godspeed You! Black Emperor rip off, but still they sound pretty good. And post-rock bands are always wonderful to be seen live, so I'm looking forward to it.

As for new albums, I've been listening to "No Fighting In The War Room", from Harrisons... but it's disappointing. I'll probably even delete it soon. "Dying To Say This To You" from The Sounds has a few good songs, including the so much acclaimed single "Painted By Numbers", and it's recommended for the grrrlriot new-aged fans. I'm currently trying to get albums from Meat Puppets, Yes, and The Replacements, three bands I listened to some tracks during this week and loved them. Can't wait to get the full business!

As for the video industry, I discovered one marvellous piece of stop-motion art, which was even about to get into the Oscar Nonimees! Unfortunately, and I still don't know why, it was rejected. It's funny, bloody, both beautiful and ugly, and it's a somewhat different approach to this kind of art. Highly recommended, it plays for less that 10 minutes and you can watch it here:



As for cinema, I watched the new Planet Terror, which is... amazing! In a very stupid way. The movie managed to compile all of the greatest action movies clichés and punchlines, and mix them with a really rotten kind of horror. A pure bloodfeast, but quite hilarious at the same time. I had a great time watching it, but you really need to be open minded about the whole concept. The role Tarantino played is small but freaking delicious!
I also wached The Messengers... which is the worst horror (horror? where?) movie I've seen in a long time.
The Devil's Rejects is another Rob Zombie movie - and the guy really knows how to build some characters. The plot is weak, but it works well enough to get your attention through all of it.

And for the first time, technology news! My laptop is an authentic oven nowadays, I can almost fry an egg on the top of that thing. On a regular basis, my processor's temperature gets about 79ºC, sometimes almost 90ºC during intense use. So I decided to give a try to Cooler Master Infinite, a very light base support for the laptop... and guess what, 18ºC less! Talk about keeping the technology fresh, it really works. And it's so light, I can carry it around with my laptop as well. It's relatively cheap and it works greatly, not to mention it's really pretty.

I guess that's it for the week.
And I'm listening to Velvet Underground!

Lost... and found!

Those who know me are fully aware of my terrible lack of orientation. I can't really tell where's North and where's South, I can't even find my own car in the parking lot most of the times, and whenever I'm stuck on a new street or city I get highly confused and never get out of there.

Everytime I had to go somewhere, I spent more than an hour visiting the place in Google Earth, taking notes, lots of notes, and still I managed to get confused. But those days are over! I got myself a GPS, and I shall find my way and purpose in life!

Well, maybe not the purpose, but certainly the way... It's a bit awkward having a woman telling me when and where to go, but hey, that's life. Maybe I'll improve my general orientation, but don't worry, I will still be the same old distracted folk you always knew and loved.

(The GPS voice's name is Catarina by the way, and she has a sexy metalic voice :D)