> jim rossignol

One thing that book has illuminated for me is that Richard Garriott has made some games. And he’s still making them! The crazy fool.

As it was in 1981, with Akalabeth:

And as it is right now, in 2005/2006:

Something about Tabula Rasa is making me suspicious. I have a vague inkling that it might be really good. Guess I should try and find out just how good. (Are you reading this, Leo?)

Too late for Christmas: Graffiti Rugs.

via BB.

EDIT: Probably a hoax. Still, the Hoover biography is worth reading.

NEW BEDFORD — A senior at UMass Dartmouth was visited by federal agents two months ago, after he requested a copy of Mao Tse-Tung’s tome on Communism called “The Little Red Book.” Two history professors at UMass Dartmouth, Brian Glyn Williams and Robert Pontbriand, said the student told them he requested the book through the UMass Dartmouth library’s interlibrary loan program.

The student, who was completing a research paper on Communism for Professor Pontbriand’s class on fascism and totalitarianism, filled out a form for the request, leaving his name, address, phone number and Social Security number. He was later visited at his parents’ home in New Bedford by two agents of the Department of Homeland Security, the professors said. The professors said the student was told by the agents that the book is on a “watch list,” and that his background, which included significant time abroad, triggered them to investigate the student further.

NEWSFLASH: It’s no longer the 1950s, paranoia fans! Communism is no longer a significant threat to Yankee internal security. And if you read this excellent biography of The Last King Of America you might conclude that it never was…

I’ve been deleting the scores of mail-order drug spam comments that get captured by the WordPress crap filter. Each one is a piece of random gibberish followed by a link to a sales site.

Today’s comment:

“Heartbreak substructure bevels disillusioning sexton gnaw, BUY XANAX ONLINE!”

I wish I knew why.

“You remember the weird kid from school that used to keep insects as pets? Well his fever-induced dream of providing a virtual interactive environment for his pet house crickets has become a reality.”

It’s my Gamasutra column.

If you take a look at their front page Gamasutra have now fixed up the front page architecture to make finding the columns easier. http://www.gamasutra.com/

“Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic space travel company has ironed out an agreement to utilize a futuristic spaceport to be built in New Mexico, with first flights of a suborbital spaceliner now planned in late 2008, early 2009.”

“Another popular name that we’ve not visited for a while is Jamie Fristrom, who has been playing one of my personal favourites, Capitalism 2. He notes that, like many people, he was drawn in by the vague irony of its title. It was “a game that I once bought for Mark Nau’s birthday because of the title alone.”

Back in the dark days when I was a magazine writing slave the jokes about the Capitalism games were rife. “Who’s reviewed Capitalism?” The editor would bark. “It’s okay, but less ethical than free-market socialism,” we quipped.”

Still penning those Gamasutra columns, although they get a bit lost in GS’s peculiar web-architecture.

The many faces of…

According to Dr. Solomon Snyder, a leading psychopharmacologist at Johns Hopkins University, which conducted drug research for the Chemical Corps, “The army’s testing of LSD was just a sideshow compared to its use of BZ.” Clinical studies with EA-2277 (the code number for BZ) were initiated at Edgewood Arsenal in 1959 and continued until 1975. During this period an estimated twenty-eight hundred soldiers were exposed to the superhallucinogen. A number of military personnel have since come forward claiming that they were never the same after their encounter with BZ. Robert Bowen, a former air force enlisted man, felt disoriented for several weeks after his exposure. Bowen said the drug produced a temporary feeling of insanity but that he reacted less severely than other test subjects. One paratrooper lost all muscle control for a time and later seemed totally divorced from reality “The last time I saw him,” said Bowen, “he was taking a shower in his uniform and smoking a cigar.”

“We want to COLLECT BANANAS FROM MAGIC CASTLES not earn respect from fictional gang leaders!”

Having just played Crime Life, True Crime: New York City and 50 Cent: Bulletproof back to back, I have to agree.

Alternatively: FOR THE LOVE OF GOD buy pre-order Psychonauts, you skinflint scrooges.

Here’s an EXCLUSIVE Kieron Gillen review of Psychonauts, just for Rossignol-blog: “Psychological terrain as physical terrain: a conceit and a slice of genius.”

And if that isn’t critical acclaim enough, then you people are lost to me.