Jeff Gerstmann is Still Alive

Welp, the bank that I owe a few hundred grand to for this house failed today. You know what that means… FREE HOUSE!

AW YEAH! Wait, are you saying it doesn’t mean that they’ll all just go away? And that I’ll probably have to keep paying money to the company that’s taking control of the old bank? Crap.

My receiver woes are at an end, and I’ve gone Onkyo. It’s the TX-SR606, brushed aluminum to be exact. It was an extra six bucks to get a shiny one, obviously totes worth it. Setting it up was crazy easy, and being able to go HDMI end-to-end eliminates a lot of unnecessary steps from the process. Between the new receiver and some new front speakers, games sound crazy. Totally hearing things I’ve never heard before, like more nuanced engine noises in Burnout Paradise. It’s pretty cool and feels like it’s worth the investment.

The only problem with all this is that it sets off a chain reaction of spending. I have a set of new front L/R speakers from Aperion Audio, and I have a new subwoofer on the way, as well. I think that by the end of all this, I’ll be able to shake the entire neighborhood apart with this setup, a move that will surely lower the property values in this neighborhood even more!

Gah, I’m talking about home prices just as much as I’m talking about hot speakers. If that’s not a clear sign that I’m slowly turning into an adult, I don’t know what is. Then again, it’s hard not to pay attention to all this stuff these days, since it’s everywhere. I bet it’s a really interesting time to be enrolled in an economics class. Lots of modern examples of things going bad to (hopefully) learn from.

“Sir, why is it still so hard to figure out which home theater receivers are right for me?”

That’s the IM-based cry for help I sent out to a friend this morning after finally realizing that I wouldn’t be able to come to any conclusion on my own. Here’s my situation:

I have a rapidly aging home-theater-in-a-box setup made by Kenwood. It’s a standard 5.1 deal, nothing ultra fancy. It’s done a fine job for the past, like, seven years or so. But I’m looking for something more, something that will handle 1080p video and has at least two HDMI inputs, as well as component ins (for my Wii) and perhaps an S-video (for my DirecTV receiver).

Right now, I have to run HDMI to the TV and use optical audio to my receiver. Since I only have one optical port there, I have to run the optical cables out of my 360 and PS3 into an A/V switcher that I used to use when everything was using component. It’s messy, using more cables than I’d like and making switching everything on take some time.

I also don’t want to spend a zillion dollars. Last time I looked, something like this was around 700 bucks, which seems too high of a price to pay for mere convenience. I figure I’ll save my money for when I want to get some new home theater speakers instead. I’m pretty sure I blew out my subwoofer at some point and figure I might as well replace everything while I’m at it.

I’m sort of surprised that there isn’t some sort of big gaming-focused article or section of a site out there devoted to addressing this topic comprehensively. You’d think that a retailer would put something like this together, even if all us gaming-focused sites are too busy covering games to really nail the peripheral stuff.

Considering the fast-paced world in which we live and the entertainment medium that I choose to follow, it’s probably no surprise that I’m not much of a reader. Actually, I’m not much of a viewer anymore, either. My television viewing has gone down to maybe one or two shows that I follow religiously, and one of those–Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job–is edited like a well-considered ode to ADD.

But I do still buy a couple of books a year, like the occasional wrestling autobiography (which I usually forget to read) or books about Japanese graphic design (which are notable for their pictures). I am, however, always a sucker for a good non-fiction book about various aspects of hip-hop. But I guess I never knew why I had this thirst for hip-hop knowledge. I started listening to it sometime in the early-to-mid-’80s, when a relative exposed me to some sort of K-Tel breakdancing compilation. My love for the music would be solidified a couple of years later when I picked up Raising Hell and Licensed to Ill and made completely unbreakable when, as an 8th-grader, I got my hands on Straight Outta Compton and Eazy-Duz-It.

Jason Tanz, a Brooklyn-based writer, has done his share of thinking about hip-hop, and the place of white people in it, with his book, Other People’s Property: A Shadow History of Hip-Hop in White America. While I don’t really expect most readers to feel as I do, many pages of this book felt more like a mirror in my hands. Tanz relates stories of his own induction into the world of hip-hop and backs it up with plenty of interviews, some inspiring, some (like the time he spends with a bunch of confused wannabe gangsters from Canada) downright embarrassing. The book also briefly touches on the marketing forces at work behind hip-hop, how they subvert it for their own twisted needs, and how the artists are more than happy to oblige–which taps into the scary culture-bending science behind marketing, another topic that has my clicking the BUY BOOK NOW button once or twice a year. So anyway, yeah, loved the book.

Of course, it also helps that the author, like myself, found himself recording and releasing rap albums in the mid-90s. As I transitioned out of Headboard and started the Suburban All-Stars, Tanz and his posse were probably already thinking about how best to shout rhymes into a Mac’s internal microphone as they formed a group called Commodore 64 and released an album that still has some beats on it that I wish I had made called K-Minus Initiative.

Three tracks, which I’m guessing must be long-lost tracks from some never-completed second album, recently got posted onto last.fm. Sounds like they did the right thing and got something that more closely resembled a real microphone. You know, there’s a reference or two in the tracks that make them sound a bit newer than the typical “long-long track” would be.

…it’s stuff like this that makes me want to hook up my mic.

This line is in EB/GameStop’s top slot copy for why you should buy Fable 2.

“You can even get married and have children or take Smokey Robinson’s advice and shop around.”

You know, it wasn’t until someone injected Smokey Robinson into the conversation that Fable 2 made any sense to me at all. THANKS for putting it all in such a clear and relevant perspective, EB!

Of course, all this is coming from a guy building a site where most headlines are even more obscure references than that one… hmm…

Speaking of said site, it’s awesome. It’s coming together so, so well. And quickly, too. It seems like there are like five or ten new things about it that blow me away every day. And everything I think of and worry about, the guys building the site have almost always thought of already. Like we said on the podcast this week, look for something to show up the week after E3.

A handful of you have been posting comments here asking about Points! videos. We are effectively building a site where the editorial tone makes the whole thing like one big installment of Points!. It’s freewheeling and from the heart, but respectfully so. I don’t really see me recording any videos at home in the near future, because anything I would say here, I can say on Giant Bomb instead.

Though I was thinking of maybe doing a live stream from my bedroom. That might be funny. And by funny I mean sad. Funny/sad is funnier than funny every single time.

Next week I’ll be in Los Angeles for E3, which is actually pretty thrilling. After covering this trade show in a very specific way for the past several years, it’s going to be fun to try something different.

Of course, there are games there, too. Maybe I’ll write up a list of games I desperately want to see more of at some point, but I can tell you that any such list starts with Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. Apparently MKvDC will also be at Comic-Con. That was almost enough to make me go to San Diego, but this whole “putting a site on the Internet” thing is pretty important, too.

Oh, last thing. I got this via a Kane’s Wrath press release earlier today and thought it was pretty awesome.

• Game with Developers – Sign onto Xbox Live Friday night from 7 PM – 10 PM ET and show off your multiplayer skills against members of the EALA development team, including:

·         KWDevJim: Jim Vessella, Lead Producer

·         KWDevAlan: Alan Newton, Tester

·         KWDevJason: Jason Savopolos, Tester

·         KWDevJeremy: Jeremy Feasel, Designer

·         KWDevKeith: Keith Schaefer, Producer

·         KWDevWes: Wes Eckhart, Development Director

·         KWDevNick: Nick Clifford, Lead Tester

·         KWDevGreg: Greg Kasavin, Producer

·         KWDevMario: Mario Grimani, Development Director

Now that’s a Game With Fame if I ever saw one. 

Just finished Metal Gear.

Yeah, it’s awesome.

- Sitting in the Vegas airport, writing about Capcom games on my laptop that’ll post on Tuesday. Impressive lineup.

- Scanning the airport’s free wi-fi network for shared files.

- Hoping my 7:35 flight doesn’t get delayed.

- Noticing some stiffness in my left thumb, which indicates that I don’t play arcade games nearly often enough anymore.

- Wishing I didn’t throw away the Burger King cup I had, so that I could go get a refill.

Highs in the low-to-mid-90s here at home, making me realize how great it is to work near the water. Actually, it was crazy hot there, too, but a nice shady lunch spot on the water can always beat the heat.

My house likes to retain heat. So it’s 83 degrees outside right now, but it’s probably more like 85-88 inside. Naturally, that makes this the perfect day for me to start playing Wii Fit, right?

I should have bought a house with a pool when I had the chance.

So I’m doing some data entry type stuff for work and I’ve got wrestling on in the background. They have a text message question tonight where they want you to vote on the following question…

“Do you think Shawn Michaels is telling the truth about his knee injury?”

…I know, super exciting stuff, right? How many realities must I pull myself back through to find the answer? I mean, are we talking “real life” or “wrestling real life” here? I feel like the layers are peeling back and that I’m seeing the very nature of the universe unfold before me… maybe this cold pizza has been in the fridge too long.

Obvs, they want people to play along with the story, that’s sort of the whole point of wrestling. It’s just weird to see them essentially ask “do you believe the lies we’re telling you in the form of a story?”

72% voted yes.

Nothing like catching a cold right before a busy week. I’m over here mainlining soup and DayQuil with hopes for the best. The great bonus is that while I was out getting more cold-deflecting drugs, I managed to stop by the game shop and get a copy of The World Ends With You. After reading so many nice things about it, it sounded like the sort of thing I needed to see for myself.

But first I need to play more Boom Blox.

We both agree that the movie Go is impossible to watch in this day and age. Don’t watch Go.

We also agree that Clerks ain’t all that anymore, either. I love Clerks, but dude!

Also, we’re split on the topic of an Anchorman sequel. He’s all “whatevs.” I’m all “they’ve been making Anchorman sequels for the past few years, haven’t they?”

I still need to unwrap and watch my copy of Clerks II at some point. It’s on HD-DVD, so it’ll surely have The Look And Sound Of Perfect on its side.

Also, Big Audio Dynamite. Pro or con?