My Project Wonderful ads over on the sidebar have earned me $10.02 over the course of nineteen months. That’s enough for me to withdraw the credits from my account and convert ‘em into cold, hard cash. Cash with which I can go across the street and buy a delicious cheeseburger.

For the sake of comparison, I earned $10.30 in my two years with Google AdSense. Google won’t pay out until you’ve made $100, though, so that’s not much help to me. Nothing like a steady paycheck that comes every twenty years.

So: thanks to everyone who, for some reason, still visits this site. I dedicate the cheeseburger I plan to buy with my winnings to you.

I no longer remember how I first discovered Daring Fireball. It’s been in my bookmarks since before I had a Mac, in my newsreader for as long as I’ve known was a newsreader was. Although I’m not as interested in the minutiae of Apple as I once was, it’s still one of my favorite websites.

Last month DF’s John Gruber linked to a blog called Big Contrarian, promising “Good writing, interesting links, and an original, thoughtful design.” I added it to the newsreader and promptly buried it at the bottom of the list. Occasionally I invoked the “Mark All in Feed as Read” command to soothe the uneasiness caused by unread items.

A week or two ago I added 43 Folders to my newsreader. I’ve been aware of the site (and its proprietor Merlin Mann) for a long time, and have even been an occasional visitor, but I never thought I was the intended audience — I seem to get by just fine without any “lifehacks.” More recently, though, I’ve become a Merlin fan from his hilarious Twitter and, through that his You Look Nice Today podcast, so I thought I’d give his website a chance. It grabbed my attention, and I began paging back through the most recent posts.

In one of Merlin’s posts I saw a familiar-sounding link — Jack Shedd’s Big Contrarian, the same blog Gruber had recommended. I dug it out from the bottom of my RSS feeds and began paging back through his most recent posts.

Jack’s blog soon revealed another familiar-sounding link — the personal blog of Diana Kimball, one of the people behind the fantastic ROFLCon. I read the essay Shedd had linked to — which I highly recommend, incidentally — and then (naturally) I began paging back through her most recent posts.

It only got worse. From Diana’s blog I found one of her other projects, a neat video series called The Tim and Diana Show; from there I found her co-collaborator Tim Hwang’s site, The U.S. Bureau of Fabulous Bitches (which is excellent, and much more cerebral than its title lets on). From there, I decided I had better quit my newsreader and look out the window for a few minutes.

After spending the whole morning skipping from blog to blog and slurping up content as I went, I looked up and followed Tim and Diana’s Twitter streams — fully aware that I risked starting the cycle over again. Who knows how many blogs I’ll end up subscribing to when I’m through with those?

But then I noticed something odd: Tim has been following my Twitter stream for two months now. I imagine he ran a search on ROFLCon and pulled up my mindless tweets from back in April. Maybe I’m leaving another trail of links leading in the opposite direction.

Tommy Tallarico is a veritable video game industry icon. As one of the most successful video game composers in history, he has helped revolutionize the gaming world, creating unique audio landscapes that enhance the video gaming experience. He is considered the person most instrumental in changing the game industry from bleeps & bloops to real music now appreciated worldwide by millions of fans.

I referred to this viewpoint as “a load of bull.”

Tallarico himself then dropped a line in the comments to defend himself. As it turns out, I overinterpreted him, and we’re more or less on the same page:

I actually agree 100% with you!

I think you’ve possibly misinterpreted my words because of editing. Sometimes when interviews are done they don’t take all the words or parts.

I have always talked about how the “old school” game music was some of the best written because the only thing we really had back then was the melody!

So when I read the Onion A.V. Club’s interview with Tallarico today, I had to laugh at this exchange:

AVC: At that point, it was only programmers who made music?

TT: Yeah, all of the music that was being done was a very simplistic. And don’t get me wrong, some of the greatest videogame music of our generation was written during or before that time. Mario Bros., Zelda, Castlevania…

Anyway, I really recommend the interview. Tallarico is an interesting guy and an important industry figure.

If you read and enjoyed Minus, though, check out the new blog MetaMinus. It interprets the strip as “a metanarrative of modern thought,” and while it is perhaps a little tongue-in-cheek (”It is significant that the entire comic series begins with a panel of a white ball and Minus. I do not think that I can adequately verbalize the importance of the symbolism found here.”), it’s great fun. Well, it is for me, anyway — this is the kind of thing English majors go apeshit over.

To be honest, though, I didn’t really get into podcasts until last year, mostly because I couldn’t find a good time to listen to them. I don’t have any long commutes, so I can’t listen then; if I put one on while doing something else, I end up losing track of the discussion. And if I’m out walking around or jogging with my iPod, I want to listen to music, not some dude(s) talking — regardless of how interesting said dude(s) might be.

The solution was to listen to podcasts the way I listen to a new album: lying on my bed with my headphones on and my eyes closed so that I actually pay attention to the damn things. Now that I actually concentrate on them while listening, I’ve found that these podcast things can be pretty enjoyable.

These are the shows I’m currently into:

• MetaFilter Podcast: I think of MetaFilter as my “home” web community; it’s where I spend most of my online time, and where I’ve been hanging out the longest. In the podcast, moderators Matt Haughey and Jessamyn West recap interesting posts from the site, interview members, host call-in segments, and post songs from MeFi Music. It typically runs an hour per episode and comes out once or twice a month. NSFW.
• The Brainy Gamer podcast: The Brainy Gamer is run by Michael Abbott, a theater professor at Wabash College. It’s where all the intelligent and critically-minded gamers trade ideas — the nexus of my corner of the blogosphere, if you will. The podcast features thoughts on games Michael’s been playing, interviews with people connected to the industry, and general discussion of the gaming community. It runs about an hour per episode, give or take, and comes out once or twice a month.
• Downloadable Content: This is the podcast from the Penny Arcade guys, Mike “Gabe” Krahulik and Jerry “Tycho” Holkins. It documents the strip-writing process, which involves reading the news, ridiculing each other, talking about video games, and discussing lunch (and the acquisition thereof). They’re two of the funniest guys around, so it’s frequently hilarious. Episode length ranges from fifteen minutes to an hour, and the release schedule is sporadic. NSFW.
• Play Value: A video podcast about the history of the console video game industry. This is one from the pros, so you’ll see some higher production values here than in the other ones on the list. A decent overview and great source of “Did you know?”-type info from a bunch of designers, writers, and fans (not that I’ve heard of any of them, but they seem to know their stuff). The shows used to be precisely eight minutes each, but are now ten minutes; they come out a couple times per month.
• The Talk Show: A no-frills conversational podcast primarily about Apple, but also covering technology, movies, and general nerdery. Another fine project from the endearingly haughty duo of John Gruber and Dan Benjamin. They go into ostensibly dull topics (e.g., keyboards) with so much enthusiasm and in such detail that you can’t help but enjoy it. Episodes are usually around half an hour, with the occasional double-length show; the release schedule is sporadic, but it usually comes out twice a month.
• You Look Nice Today: An irreverent comedy podcast from internet superstars/Twitter funnymen Merlin “hotdogsladies” Mann, Scott Simpson, and Adam “lonelysandwich” Lisagor. As is common with humor nowadays, the show is rife with inside jokes, so I recommend starting from the beginning. It’s well worth it, if you ask me. YLNT runs 30-45 minutes per episode and new ones are released weekly (or close to it). NSFW.

• An interview with game composer Winifred Phillips on Bella Online.
• An article called “Getting Started as a Video Game Composer” from Bobby Prince. I can’t tell how old it is, but it’s interesting even if it turns out to be out of date.
• Three interviews with game composer/Video Games Live dude Tommy Tallarico:
  • Guinness Book of Records
  • David Perry
  • Gamasutra podcast (haven’t listened to this yet)
• Two communities for game audio professionals, which seem to have some overlap:
  • Game Audio Network Guild (there’s a yearly membership fee)
  • GameAudio Forum (regular ol’ phpBB forum, free reg. required, lots of good info/links)

Take a look.

A few days ago, “Jessi,” who has “been a fan of [my] blog for a while” (really? I don’t think I’ve seen you around), asked if I would check out a new band on her record label and tell her what I thought. She didn’t directly request that I put up a link — that’s not the kind of relationship that Jessi and I have — but she did suggest that I should “feel free” to do so. (Which is good, because I’d hate to be compelled to promote whatever random crap people email me.) “P.S.,” Jessi concluded, “You are hilarious. :-)” See, I was on the fence, but it’s hard to turn down a pitch from someone who appreciates your sense of humor.

Anyway, enough ragging on the friendly PR people. The group is called Feral Children, and you can download their EP for free here. As for the music itself…well, it’s not really my cup of tea, to be honest. But free is free, right? It’s only four songs; check it out.

imbored1996: haha i had onece dreamed that i was playing outside and like fucking sephiroth comes and like fucking is trying to chop my fucking head off it was kewl!:)

EternalSailorKitsune: u had a kewl dream

imbored1996: yup it was one of the best dreams ever cuz i’m like outside and i go in my friends house and he’s outside and i notice it’s empty inside and everyone that lives in his house is outside and his lil brother tells me to get out and right when he tells me that i just see like sephiroth charging at me and i run to the back of one of the cars and he goes to the back and i got in one of the cars and come out throught the other side and he goes around fast enough so catch me on the other side. and then right when i get out he uses his sword on me but luckly i ducked and his sword hit the car and he sends the car flying with one strike and i keep on running really fast to my apartment complexes and i just keep on running and running with this running behind me and he appears in front of me and slices but all of a sudden theres this sword on the ground and it happens to be clouds swords so i quickly grab the sword and use it on him to defend myself and i could do any damage on him so i run around my apartment complexes and enter through the parking lot and i got near the dump lol and he comes flying down from the sky and wat i did is wat happened in advent children where cloud strikes the dude that becomes sephiroth and then sephiroth and his sword appear.so then this shock wave goes and all of the cars blast away and some exploded and we’re fighting in a fiery hell while the music played.before the song ended i did clouds special to kill sephiroth in advent children :)

Klaue77: Dude…you’re weird…

(via)

Survey question: Did you do a senior thesis?

Answer: No.

Survey question: Why not?

Answer: Towards the end of my junior year, I visited my advisor and asked him, “Should I do a thesis?” And his response was “Nah.”

Survey question: Is there anything Tufts could have done to make you consider doing one?

Answer: If he hadn’t said “Nah,” I might have considered it.

Survey question: Why did you double major?

Answer: No big reason. I like English, but I also like music.

Survey question: How did the double majoring affect your experience at Tufts?

Answer: Frankly, if I had just majored in English, I don’t know what I would have done with all the free time.

Survey question: Which course best characterized what a truly excellent college course should be?

Answer: Music for Multimedia II.

Survey question: Why?

Answer: When I took this course, there were only four students, and we learned to use state-of-the-art recording software in a fancy computer lab. We went on a class trips to visit a recording studio video game developer. It should be on the cover of every Tufts pamphlet.

Survey question: Any additional comments about your Tufts experience?

Answer: Tufts was pretty great. My high school guidance counselor encouraged me to apply to Harvard — we didn’t have enough Ivy-bound students, I think — but I told him I’d rather be here. I think I made the right choice.

I’ll confess that on several occasions I thought that the editors of the OED were having a joke at the reader’s expense. The entry for unpoetic gives no definition, but there is a note that tells the reader to ‘cf. next.’ The reader dutifully looks ahead to the next entry which is unpoetical, the definition of which reads ‘cf. prev.’

Inspired by sites like The Brainy Gamer which explore video games from a more critical, intelligent angle, I’ve started a new blog about video games called Cruise Elroy. So far there’s only one real post, but I think it’s about as long as everything I’ve written here for the past two months put together. Take a look, won’t you?

I was never a D&D player, but I have indirectly felt his influence through video games for years. Alec Meer at Rock, Paper, Shotgun writes:

Would we ever have had PC RPGs without Gygax’s laying down of roleplaying foundations back in 1974? Oh, probably - in some form, anyway. But would we have had Ultima, Fallout, Diablo, World of Warcraft, even Deus Ex? Probably not. Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights and Planescape Torment? Definitely not.

In short, he was an enormously influential figure in interactive entertainment, and will be missed.

For further reading, the MetaFilter thread eulogizing Gygax has some great stories.