Bradezone

So yeah, here are some updates.

• I may be redesigning the site soon. By soon I mean some time during 2008.
• My fantasy hockey team won my league this year. Another t-shirt is headed my way.
• Baseball season is here, and I am rocking MLB Extra Innings this year. Yes, I am one of those people who celebrates Opening Day the same way a young child wearing one-piece pajamas celebrates Christmas morn.
• What is the origin of the phrase “I’ve got no beef with you”? What the heck does beef have to do with interpersonal conflict?
• At work I am helping improve our content management system, BlueInk, by creating an intuitive experience that would allow you to control your website’s layout, design, and content all from the front-end view of your site, eliminating the need for a separate administrative interface.
• I got a call recently from long-time friend, novel co-author, Bench member, and world traveler Ed Long, who is now rocking a beach house in Florida. I am due for an imminent visit.
• Less than four months stand between me and a two-week jaunt in the Pacific Northwest.
• My friends and I have contracted Rock Band fever. I am now executing most songs with lead guitar on Expert.
• My mom now has e-mail. And I think she visits my site from time to time. Hi, mom!

The fish died today.

E Pluribus Unum, or E. Plurb for short, was snuffed out overnight. Yesterday he had been as giddy as ever, shotputting himself throughout his waterlogged homestead with characteristic gusto. Today he was positioned sideways near the bottom of his refuge, frozen in a majestic pose as if he had thrusted himself to “the other side” readily. My sister had given him to me before she and her husband began their long trek to Toledo. Gleaning that the fish (whom she had named Franco) seemed ill-equipped for such a voyage, she allowed me to assume ownership. Soon afterwards, with the assistance of Ben and Ben, he received his new name in honor of his characteristic eyeballs, which reminded us of the pyramid eyeball on a dollar bill.

For several months thereafter E. Plurb lived life vigorously, chomping his goldfish pellets with a sense of purpose and only rarely pausing in quiet contemplation near the top corner of his abode. So today we see him off. I know not the cause of his expiration—my personal feeling is that either he choked on his food or suffered a heart attack due to hyperactivity—but I do know that BigBlueHat’s mascot will not soon be forgotten.

Look, I’ve got no beef with Greenville, generally speaking. But what in the wide world of sports is the deal with our electrical infrastructure in this town? Every stinking time a rain cloud comes through, not only do massive wads of the city lose power, but the traffic lights on MAJOR ROADS routinely malfunction. When is the last time I have cruised down East North Street during rainy weather with the traffic signals operating normally? WRONG! It was a trick question, the answer is NEVER. And once you hear the crack of thunder, you can forget it, brother. Cars piloted by oblivious ne’er-do-wells will be flying through intersections as if they are avoiding roadside missile launchers.

The situation has become a complete joke. Greenville desperately needs to get its act together and improve our ability to sustain the mildest of summer storms without becoming the prototype for post-apocalyptic turmoil. All we need is ominous blue light throughout the city to complete the effect, but unfortunately that would require electricity, something we’re not great at producing in adverse conditions (if you define “adverse” as “not perfect”).

Perhaps one problem is the overabundance of traffic lights that need power. Witness the fact that 80% of the signals on East North are blatantly unnecessary and may actually include several private driveways (this data is currently unconfirmed). I advise getting rid of these lights and instituting a more sane solution that involves posting STOP signs at insignificant side streets. Seriously, what have some of these roads done to merit their own traffic signals, and why do they so often generate red lights for the main traffic on East North? I realize that 90% of the residents in this town prefer a driving pace somewhere between “leisurely” and “clinically dead,” but some of us tend to prefer a more efficient approach to travel.

I have said my piece. Now I challenge you, Greater Greenville Area, to step up to the plate and generate a solution. HINT: see previous paragraph for tips on a possible solution.

Even now I feel the sting of defeat. Oh sure, I won my ESPN fantasy basketball league handily—an impressive feat given my previous lack of success with this particular sport. ESPN will be mailing me a t-shirt for my efforts, probably by the time we are using automated hover-cars for transport. But never has winning a fantasy sports league felt so empty. You see, I managed to finish 4th overall in the universe on ESPN’s final leaderboard. This would rank me squarely outside consideration for the major prizes, bestowed solely upon the top 3 players. So any hopes of winning $500, $1100, or even $3000 flew out the window the moment the NBA regular season ended.

Oh, but it gets worse. For those of you familiar with rotisserie leagues, you know that each team earns points based on how well the actual players do in the actual statistical categories of the sport. As you can see, my team’s weakest category was free throw percentage, in which I trailed the next player by 13/10000th of a point. Yes, lucky number .0013 indeed. If I had managed to squeak out the victory in this lone category by simply hitting a handful more free throws, not only would I have ranked in the top three overall, I would have WON THE WHOLE FREAKING SHOW. Not that I am bitter or disappointed or bitterly disappointed, or what not.

Anyway, if you check out my team stats and decide that it deserves some sweet loot, you are more than free to tap that friendly Paypal button on my site and let me know your feelings via cash. In the meantime, I would like to thank Shawn Marion, Vince Carter, Pau Gasol, Marcus Camby, Carlos Boozer, Lamar Odom, Chauncey Billups, Ricky Davis, Jason Richardson, Mo Williams, and the other bit-players for their magnificent efforts. But man, y’all need to learn to hit some free throws.

No, I haven’t committed a felony homicide. A friend of mine shot a movie by this title recently, and I have a plum role. It’s a five-minute short film that he submitted to the upcoming Fox reality show On the Lot. So watch, enjoy, tell all your friends, and get ready for Fatt Misher to take the movie industry by storm. Yeah.

So I don’t really know Chris Sligh personally, but I know his brother Jon, and like them I spent several years living in Germany before later ending up in Greenville, SC. That’s grounds enough for me to post this clip of Chris in action on American Idol where he proceeds to achieve victory on behalf of our ‘hood. To all my peeps out there, vote for this guy when he takes Hollywood by storm. It has been decreed.

UPDATE: All good things must come to an end. After reaching the top 5 rated videos in the entertainment category, the video I posted of Chris Sligh has been removed by YouTube because YouTube is, in the words of Mike Tyson, “a scared coward.”

I am a submarginal blog updater, I readily admit. My latest updates include the following fun facts:

• I have a new job. Now that I have officially parted ways with BJU, where I worked with some great peeps, I have moved on to BigBlueHat, where I work with similarly great peeps. Advantages include higher pay, a company-provided laptop, not having to chaperon student events, not having to wear a tie or dress coat at any time, and the ability to regrow my long-missing beard.
• My sister is getting married in January. This isn’t exactly news, but I haven’t mentioned it on the ole blog, and I have realized that my failure to do so borders on the idiotic. Congratulations to Lindo and Hoppy on their happy day of happiness.
• I have recently purchased the new Beatles album Love and must insist that all music lovers promptly do the same.

Peace out.

I offer this advisory warning: the content of this post concerns a video game. If you predict your time will be wasted by continuing, then read no further. Otherwise, I’d like to tell you about Final Fantasy XII, the greatest video game ever.

Okay, so that’s a strong statement, and I may or may not have total conviction about it. But the point is that for the first time in many years, a new video game has actually forced me to reconsider my list of all-time favorites. Final Fantasy XII seems to be the culmination of every good idea that has ever been hatched about how to craft a sensational RPG. As someone who has played and beat every installment in the FF series (aside from the online FF XI), not to mention a bevy of other console RPGs, I feel at least somewhat qualified to crown FF XII the new king of the genre, its excellence readily apparent in the areas of story, art direction, battle system, and soundtrack.

The first thing I have to mention is the battle system, since it is both a radical departure from anything to which gamers are accustomed and yet a seemingly obvious evolution of the tried and true gameplay mechanics that have come before it. When I first heard of how much automation took place with the new system, I cringed. I didn’t want the battle system deprived of its strategy, which for me is a key aspect of the fun factor of any RPG. But when I bought the game, I decided to go “all in” with its pioneering concept of Gambits and resist my urge to slow the game down to its traditional pace. One impressive quality about FF XII is that it allows you play both ways, but clearly the game designers intend for you to get the most enjoyment from using Gambits—automated actions that are prioritized by you, the player. This system has just the right amount of complexity to make it accessible, but becomes even more enjoyable as you progress through the game. As you steadily compile a vast array of techniques, healing spells, status enhancing spells, and weapons, you are forced to rearrange your Gambits for maximum effectiveness. And when your party launches into battle, the fun is witnessing how well your Gambits translate into victory—and you can still interrupt the normal automated flow of battle at any time to enter a manual command. The battle system of FF XII truly is revolutionary and even causes me to have reservations about playing some of my old favorites, knowing I’d have to start entering each command manually again. And coupled with the impressive Gambit system is a challenge level that is nearly ideal. I would say I died about eight times during the game, and those demises were the legitimate result of a lack of refinement in my strategy. A couple of tweaks later, and my new set of Gambits were leading me to victory.

Since the battle system is the core of the game and the primary basis by which I judge any RPG, I will not delve into as much detail about Final Fantasy XII’s presentation, but it stands far above the competition in this area as well. The art direction is truly inspired, resulting in fascinating character designs and breathtaking locations. The textures and lighting are incredibly impressive for the PlayStation 2 and noticeably surpass the already high standards set by Final Fantasy X on the same system. The music is utterly gorgeous and perfectly complements the on-screen action at all times. Many of the creative team behind FF XII worked on Final Fantasy Tactics, another game with sterling art direction and and incredible soundtrack, so I approached FF XII with high expectations of its graphics and music, and the game surpassed those expectations demonstrably. The story in the game manages to be richly woven with political intrigue, yet remains more tightly unified than many RPGs. Because of the scope of many games in this genre, their plots too often lose focus, especially near the end. But FF XII stays on course, delivering a powerful end-game sequence without relying on contrived events to bail out any dangling plot threads. The mission is clear from the start: prevent war between two powerful nations and protect your own centrally located kingdom. FF XII never loses sight of that mission, even with the side quests that are inherent to any RPG.

For three weeks Final Fantasy XII kept me riveted (and even piqued the interest of my roommates from time to time), and I was a bit hesitant to see it come to an end, but I am thoroughly convinced I have just played something that will revolutionize the genre. I waited patiently for another modern RPG to supplant Star Ocean 3 as the best of this generation, but Final Fantasy XII goes for broke and dares to take its place alongside such legends of the genre as Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VI and VII, Dragon Force, and Panzer Dragoon Saga. It has become the crown jewel of RPGs.