5 Songs about Games that aren't really about Games.

Here's some songs about some games that aren't really meant to be about the games.  

I was going to put this on IJAG, but it seemed kinda pointless. What do you think? 

Enjoy

Gears of War

Megadeth - Gears of War

Battlefield Bad Company 2

Five Finger Death Punch - Bad Company

I realize this is a cover song, but I prefer this one. 

Cawa Doody

Lil Wayne - Call of Duty

This song might actually be about Call of Duty. I don't follow Lil Wayne, nor do I follow CoD. I feel that the quality of this song reflects the quality of the game. 

The Darkness

Disturbed - The Darkness

Halo

Beyoncé - Halo

My Kinect Dream

I could probably draw this out and post it on It's Just a Game, but I thought I'd get this jotted down here while I could.

Last night I had a dream where I buddy of mine had a Kinect. Some girls were playing a game on it.

In the game you were playing Kinect. So on the TV, in the game, you were controlling an avatar in a living room who was playing a game on Kinect. (think World of World of Warcraft.)

I wouldn't put it past Microsoft to make this one a reality.

I shopped together really quickly a visual aid to let you see what I'm describing.

What's up with the National Anthem?

The Star Spangled Banner.

I've always thought it's a boring song, but that's besides the point.

Why do they play it before every sports game?

I've never understood this.

Though I have distanced myself from sports in the last few years. (I don't care about sports at all. I don't get what all the fuss is about.)

But why play the national anthem before every sporting event?

The United States wasn't founded on the basis that everyone should be able to play sports. Hell, professional sports discriminated against minorities for a long while.

As far as I know there's nothing about sports in the constitution.

Maybe it's played before sports like Baseball and Hand Egg because this is the only country that really likes those sports. It's some kind of show of 'Merican pride.

Or perhaps the sort of people who get all riled up about some guys playing a simple game like to feel some sense of national pride once and a while. They need to remind themselves that they live in "the greatest nation on Earth." Though I feel that anyone who touts that has never been abroad.

Do they play the national anthem before tennis matches? Or before a game of golf? I doubt it. Though I don't know for sure. I feel that the people who invest their time in those sports are of a different mindset than those who would scream and rant over a missed field goal or a robbed homerun.

I don't get sports. I don't get uberpatriotism. I don't get why the Star Spangled Banner is played at sporting games. I don't get why I'm expected to put my hand over my heart when it plays. I guess I don't get a lot of things.

And that's fine with me. 

My Summer.

I can't study.

I can't focus on computer science anymore.

Arrays, Queues, Binary Trees, Algorithms, abstract data types.

No more for now.

I don't know what to do.

So i'm just going to write.

And I guess you're going to read it huh.

I need to do a lot this summer, besides take a stupid calc class and get a job.

I need to get a custom domain name for It's Just a Game.

I need to transplant my spider plant, Peter Parker into a bigger pot again.

I want to make a papercraft Boba Fett helmet.

I need to do lots of stuff with my hon bun.

I want to bike or walk downtown often to write and just relax.

I need to get in shape.

I need to read.

I have a lot of books I need to read right now.

• Currently reading The Power of Now. 
• Cryptnomicon by Neal Stephenson
• Anatham by Neal Stephenson
• Second part of Stephen King's The Dark Tower graphic novel
• All of the free comic books I got on free comic book day.
• perhaps some of my roommate's comic books

I need to get LA Noir.

I need to play the shit out of it. 

I need to beat Metal Gear Solid 3. (I agreed that I'd beat my roommate's favorite game if he beat mine.(Mass Effect)).

I need to beat Gears of War 2 co op with my hon bun. 

I need to keep It's Just a Game interesting. 

I should probably finish up my Fem Shep playthrough of Mass Effect 2. 

I want to have a lot of Nerf sword fights in my fraternity house. 

From the sounds of this I have a lot ahead of me this summer. 

Maybe I'll keep you readers updated on it. 

Anyways, I guess this post is wrapping up. I just needed an outlet of my loss of focus. 

Stupid finals. 

Ciao

Why I love Twitter.

It all started over a year ago.

Someone in my fraternity decided to set up a twitter account for our chapter in the hopes of keeping everyone better updated on what was going on.

So I signed up for twitter and started following.

Our chapter's twitter account was short lived, but I stuck with Twitter.

I wasn't sure what to expect from it, and I didn't even touch it over the whole summer. But once the summer was over I found myself getting sucked back in to Twitter.

I started following some of my friends, and I found some interesting people on twitter.

I think it all took off when I started following Felicia Day. She posted a Tweet that brought me here.

I really got into this blog. It really inspired me. And from reading that blog, I found more blogs I really like. Such as Zen Habits, one of my favorites.

So now I had been sucked into the world of blogging because of one little tweet. That's how I got inspired to start writing It's Just a Game. I'm sure you've heard of it.

Twitter also gives me lots of insider info because I follow a lot of game developers.

I can keep my German in shape with Twitter because I follow a lot of people from Germany.

And I've gotten some free stuff because of Twitter.

I got free lightsabers from my Xbox Avatar because Lucas Arts tweeted some codes. I got the Super Meat Boy soundtrack for free because one of the team members posted codes for free downloads.

So Twitter has done me good. It's helping me connect with others similar to me, it's opened me up to the wonderful world of blogging, and it's helping me get my blog out there. It's Just a Game, not this one. ;) 

Animal Language

I just watched The Aristocats last night.

Great movie. Thomas O'Malley is one smooth cat.

But it got me thinking. In most movies that have talking animals, the humans can't understand the animals right?

Ok.

But

All of the animals can understand each other.

Humans can only understand humans, but any animal can communicate with any other animal? Poppycock.

You'd think that animals would follow the same pattern, cats can only talk to cats, mice can only talk to mice, frogs can only talk to frogs, and so on.

Anywho... Thats just what I was thinking about last night. 

Smell the Music.

The Arts have a pretty big hold on two of our senses: hearing and sight.

There is an unending amount of music and auditory experiences you can find anywhere from orchestra pits to the Zune Marketplace. Music can speak to your moods, let you drift away, or compel you to run and ram into a huge crowd of people doing the same. Music does a lot for people.

The sense of sight is equally explored. Everything from fine art, to sculpture, to movies, to youtube videos, to graffiti, to tattoos, its all an art form that uses our sense of sight.

But the sense of smell is more or less untapped.

I have heard that the sense of smell is one of the most powerful senses we have. Smells can trigger memories.

So why aren't there forms of art revolving around the sense of smell?

Think of a song made up of scents.

What would that be like?

The smell would gradually change, making you feel different things, think of different things.

Right now scents and fragrances are marketed in ways to make your house or room smell better, but not as a form of art.

Do you think the sense of smell will ever have a roll in art? Whether on its own or coupled with hearing or sight?

This is just something I've thought about. And now you're thinking about it.