Scary Pictures

Now that Halloween is rapidly approaching, I'd better post something Halloweenish. I always like this time of year - not for the costumes and the trick or treating, but rather for all the horror movies they show on TV. It's like Christmas in October.

Here are some scary pictures for today: over at a blog called The Knight Shift (courtesy of Neatorama), they list their 10 Best Ghost Photographs Ever Taken.


All the stories behind the pictures are pretty interesting, but if you think skeptically about all of them, you can say that they are either faked, just someone who walked into the exposure, or incorrectly dated. Too bad they didn't have digital time stamps in the early 1900's.

Still, if you buy into what they are selling, then they're pretty neat. Woooo!

Xbox RIP

After over six years of service, my faithful Xbox has breathed its last breath (the thing just won't turn on anymore). As a tribute to my dearly departed console, let's reminisce about the best of times (and worst) with the Xbox:

My Top 5 Favorite Games I've Played On The Xb0x:

Halo - One of my all-time favorites of any system, period. Usually, first-person shooters make me nauseous and queasy if they zoom around too much, but this game doesn't do that. Add in some massive environments and a top-notch story, and you've got a winner. This is one of the games that you can play through multiple times, and it's always a lot of fun. I've played Halo 2, but the original remains my favorite. Hopefully Halo 3 will be a huge step forward.


Burnout 3: Takedown - If you like racing games and nothing pleases you more than side-swiping your opponent off a cliff or into a wall, look no further. If you like to cause multi-car collisions, fiery explosions, and lots of property damage, this is the game for you. Nothing is more satisfying that causing a major pile-up at an intersection, then watch the replay in slow motion as you pile up the rewards. I have the sequel Burnout: Revenge for Xbox, but now I can't play it. Aaarrggh!


Black - My other favorite first-person shooter, besides Halo. It's great to look at and even more fun to play, with it's numerous weapons and destructible environments. Sure it didn't have much of a story, but who cares? The only thing it was missing was online play. However, this is one of those rare games that I can just load up at any time, jump into any level and have lots of fun shooting things up. I guess I just like shooting things.


Fatal Frame - This is got to be the creepiest game I've ever played. Snooping around an old Japanese house as a little Japanese girl taking pictures of ghosts with your magic camera can be a fun but chilling experience. As you get deeper into the story, things get more twisted and the ghosts get a lot meaner. Someday, I'll play Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly and Fatal Frame 3: The Tormented...after I've fully recovered from the first one.


Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy - I'm not really a big Star Wars (or Lego) fan, but when the reviews I read said this game was "short" and "easy", I knew this game was right up my alley. The game turned out to be a lot of fun. The game mimics the violence of the movies, but on the other hand it's really cute to see a Lego figure bust apart into a lot piece when they've been shot. Unfortunately, this was the last game I played before my Xbox went kaput, and now the disc is stuck in its lifeless jaws.


The Thing I Disliked Most About Xbox

Xbox Live - I had a trial subscription for a year, and I probably only used it for a few days out of the year. I liked playing games like Rainbow Six 3 with people I knew. However, I hated playing with little foul-mouthed kids. I once was waiting for a game of Crimson Skies, and this kid literally spazzed out because the game didn't start fast enough. Hopefully his voice will change soon and he'll learn to like girls.


I also didn't like playing with people who were too good at the games, which really spoiled it for people like me who generally suck and are just playing for fun. For a beginner at Halo 2, I got tired really fast of getting killed by players who knew the maps by heart, knew where all the weapons were, and knew exactly where I would respawn after just getting killed. I hope their voices change soon and girls avoid them because they smell bad.


You might think that this is the perfect opportunity to get a Xbox 360, but you'd be wrong. Sorry man, not in my budget. However, if someone would like to take pity on me and give me one, hey- let me know.

Comic Art Issue 8

Here's my plug for today: Comic Art was a magazine that published seven issues from around 2002 to 2005. Each issue was nicely put together - nice production values, full-color layouts, and deep intellectual analysis of the comics medium. No other comics-related magazine really matched its style or quality.

However, after seven issues, it vanished. It was disappointing to see something so good go away.

But just a few months ago, Comic Art number 8 was released! Back from the dead, the magazine is bigger and better than ever. It's now published by Buenaventura Press on an annual basis, which is great since it will take me about a year to make my way through this sucker.

There's articles on Richard McGuire, Drew Friedman, Jim Starlin, and much more. There's even a long essay on the historical origins of the speech balloon.

As a bonus, there's even a small booklet that comes with the magazine called Forty Cartoon Books of Interest, written and drawn by Seth. It's a revealing look at Seth's favorite books that he's collected over the years from thrift stores and rummage sales.


Comic Art number 8 is available from Amazon. Try it, you'll like it.

So Long, Tower Records

Tower Records is shutting down, and its assets have been sold to a liquidation company (story here) . This bums me out a little bit. When I was in school, I spent a lot of time going to the Tower Records on Durant Avenue in Berkeley and scouring the aisles for records, tapes, and CD's. In those days, I found a lot of great new music beyond whatever was being played on the radio.

I must admit that I am one of the many that contributed to Tower's demise. I haven't stepped inside a record store and bought something for ages, since I buy all my music online. Hey, it's hard to beat cheaper prices, and you get to listen to samples of the albums from the comfort of your own computer. Plus, you never have to wait for the guy who's slowly browsing through the CD's that you want to look at to get out of your way.

However, I still kind of miss going to the store and seeing what's new. Ah well... in Berkeley, at least we still have Rasputin and Amoeba (for now).

Penguin By Design

I never realized how cool Penguin Books were until I read Penguin By Design by Phil Baines. It's a fascinating look at the evolution of the Penguin Book covers from the 1930's to the present.

In the early days, the goal was to establish the brand by maintaining consistency across the company's various imprints and subject matter. The approach was very systematic: Penguin for fiction, Puffin for children's books, and Pelican for original works on current topics. They also had color coding for their covers, with orange for fiction, green for crime, and blue for biography. The early covers had set guidelines and used restrained fonts.

Eventually, Penguin saw the need to compete with other paperback publishers and allowed various forms of photography and illustration onto their covers. However, their covers always maintained some form of consistency in their design format that was part of the brand's identity.


The thing about these covers is that individually, they may not always be the most eye-catching design, but put a series of them together in context with their history, then the graphic impact really comes through. Someone should put out a book showing the entire Penguin catalog - I'd buy it.