Started the morning annoyed with the BBC Breakfast show’s discussion of video games.  They asked for people’s thoughts on video games asking do they have no impact or do they have a negative impact on children.

There was no option for positive impact on motor skills, hand-eye coordination, literacy and I seem to recall a study of multi-player online games leading to transferable skills for management in the workplace. Yet all video games were being tarred by the same brush.

It seems what they’re really concerned about is clueless parenting. Consenting, responsible adults should not be penalized and required to consume strictly content sanitized for children’s protection. Not everyone draws the line in the same place, so there needs to be room for a multiplicity of community standards…none of this was discussed.

In better television news, I am thoroughly excited for the new series of Misfits to be starting.

After a bizarre day at work, went to the MFC shop to purchase a Boro Brick in honour of my friends coming to visit from Chicago. I’m taking them to a match and now we will have a permanent souvenir of the occasion. : )

Stopped off at the new Caffe Nero in Middlesbrough before heading to the train.

Getting home tonight was misery. Took my usual 5.32 train only to hear an announcement saying we would have to get off one stop later at Thornaby to transfer to a bus which was of course not waiting for us. A very cold over an hour later we finally got on a bus. We stood at the side of the road waiting as empty buses drove past mocking our misery. Finally made it home a little over 2 hours after I started. Good mass transit is really the thing I miss most about NY.

The sad part was my plans for the evening were back in Middlesbrough again!

All’s well that ends well. We missed the first few opening acts but caught a really good mellow set by Billy the Kid and then new band The Vaccines at the Westgarth Social Club in Middlesbrough. The Vaccines reminded me of James crossed with a bit of the Ramones and a random folk singer. Julie thought they sounded a bit like the Editors.

A nice way to end the day. Here’s a vid of them playing Wreckin’ Bar (Ra Ra Ra) on Jools Holland last week.

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Kev and I went to see Video Games Live at the Sage – Northern Sinfonia performing music from video games.
Possibly the only time we will see Northern Sinfonia at the Sage decked out in Threadless Gaming T-shirts.
Kev was wearing:

I was wearing:

Would have been just as happy wearing:

Some photos from the evening:

The show was good fun.  Multi-generational audience. Our only lament was that we weren’t seeing it in the US or Japan where it would have been sure to sell out and more people would have been dressed up.

Jack Wall was the conductor, Tommy Tallarico was the MC. It turns out he composed the music to one of the games I used to play Earthworm Jim (also loved the cartoon). Martin Leung the video game pianist also performed including a rendition of Super Mario blindfolded. There was also a skype video chat with Marty O’Donnell.

You can watch a good chunk of it with the youtube playlist below.

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Kev and I just got a Wii Family Trainer from Tesco while getting some milk and a few other bits. This was on the recommendation of a woman I commute with in the evenings. It has a whack a mole game on it : )

Had fun playing with it the only thing that pissed me off about it was that there is still a difference in price between buying a gadget here vs. in the US. It is called Active Life Outdoor Challenge in the US and is a bit cheaper for the exact same game and mat. The only differences as far as I know are the box artwork and the ratings systems used in the US vs. Europe.

Artwork:

UK edition features visuals of a whole family – mom, dad and a boy and girl.  Boy and girl are playing – parents are on the couch behind them. The mom has a evry traditional crossed-legs pose. The U.S. version features only a boy.

The evolution of the artwork in the 2 regions via  Extreme Challenge (the next game from this series) UK version has a whole family again but this time mom is moving rather than having her legs crossed. The U.S. version now features a boy and girl and still not targeting adults.

Wii Family Trainer

Wii Active Life

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Kickstarter is a way for creative people to get their dream projects, big or small, funded by the general public through microfinance as opposed to big massive sponsorship deals. These can be events, art projects, documentaries.

Similar to PBS / NPR funding drives there are donation levels and rewards, decided on by the creative people.

Many post videos to peak interest that are fantastic and status updates can be really creative too.

I found out about kickstarter via Ken Jennings (highly recommend his book) when he linked to Eric Berlin’s crossword puzzles.

Eric Berlin creates crossword puzzles. He wanted to create a suite of puzzles that interlink. To generate interest he linked to a pdf of a previous suite of puzzles on Brooklyn as a theme. They’re quite good. Just donating$1 gave you access to the puzzles and helped them to get made. For $5 people could participate in a competition. Reward levels above that included copies of his book.

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Consumerist has posted a solution to flying wii controllers. Comment on waiting for an official solution from Nintendo: “It ain’t carved from Zelda’s hyperpolygnal ass and handed down by the hands of many small Japanese gods, but it’ll do the trick.”

Nintendo Wii is a new gaming system where you move the controllers through the air to control the action on the screen. Some people have been doing so a bit overzealously. [See Wii Have a Problem; also the twisted take by Penny Arcade; Originally noticed the Wii on boingboing with a funny post by Mark Frauenfelder]

Official Solution: Nintendo is replacing straps. Information Here.

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