Andy Laub they call me "The Solution"

The Matrix is a great movie. Somehow, in an age where we thought we’d seen everything, it managed to bring something completely new and innovative to the action/sci-fi genre in terms of both plot and filmography. It’s a film that is wonderful all on its own, which is why there were tremors of confusion when the Wachowskis announced it would be a trilogy.

Similarly, Bioshock is a great game. If you wanted, you could call it innovative simply because it was a first person shooter in 2007 that didn’t have you fighting aliens or Nazis. But beyond that, Bioshock furthered gamers’ assertions that games could indeed be art. The plot, while still dependent on you fighting your way through… things… was refreshing in the context of this beautifully creepy underwater world. And, like The Matrix, Bioshock has that single moment of clarity in which the jarring reality of things completely blows your mind.

Of course, it could also be argued that Bioshock didn’t need a sequel. And I agree; the game is a work of art that begins and resolves an interesting story, and I would’ve been content with that. But 2K didn’t agree, and so Bioshock 2 is upon us. Like many jaded gamers, years of Tony Hawks and Call of Dutys have made it clear that not all sequels are good sequels. And when I first sat down to play this new installment, it was with much skepticism.

(I could go on an entirely different rant here about how reading reviews and previews of games can drastically and irreversibly alter someone’s opinion of them for better or worse, but I will save that. For now.)

Suffice it to say, I had been reading a lot of reviews of Bioshock 2 because I was genuinely looking for an excuse to skip it. Reading reviews is not something I do for games that I know I want to play, for reasons stated above. But the reviews all played the same tune: yes, Bioshock didn’t need a sequel, but here is one, and it’s pretty good, so get over it.

And they’re right. Unlike the rest of The Matrix trilogy, this new Bioshock turns out to be a lot of fun for those of us who enjoyed Rapture the first go-round. While it would’ve been impossible to do anything but put you in the (very heavy) shoes of a new protagonist, the strategy works. You get to experience some things that are only made possible by who you are in this game, and another layer of the Rapture saga is revealed as well.

All in all, it comes down to this: the original game is so highly-regarded partially because there was a certain novelty about it. That the second installment is enjoyable and interesting even now that that novelty has worn off speaks volumes about how ripe the setting and gameplay are for further exploration.

When I was younger, I went a couple times with my dad to the Greater Milwaukee Auto Show. At the time I considered it to be the greatest thing in the world, as I was interested primarily in new cars and that’s what I got.

The thing with the Milwaukee show is that it was put on by the car dealers of Milwaukee, so the exhibits were limited to whatever cars they had on hand (which were admittedly nice), and anything above and beyond that could only be considered a favor from the manufacturer (like such as a concept car that’s already made its rounds to the “big” shows).

I returned there as an adult (debatably), and while it was still enjoyable, I decided next year it would be worth the extra time to check out the Chicago Auto Show – a “real” industry event that takes place around the same time, but where manufacturers are happy to spend all kinds of money to get you take a second look at their offerings.

2010 marks the first year I’ve made it back to the show (or Chicago, sadly) since 2006, as life and general apathy seem to have gotten in the way in the successive years. But finally, finally I committed to getting back down there, and had a great time in the city, only a minor part of which was spent at the auto show itself.

Notable Inclusions

I don’t know that there were any cars that I was genuinely surprised to see there. Perhaps the Fiat 500, since it’s a car not (yet) sold here. Same goes for the Equus, the new top dog from Hyundai. I was happy to see the new Mercedes SLS and Lexus LF-A in the flesh, since they’re both cars that will probably never see the likes of Wausau. Fisker made a welcome appearance, as did the Lotus Evora and a pair of Lamborghinis.

Notable Exclusions

Saab was missing, which was disappointing but not a huge surprise given the turbulence of the brand lately. I was really hoping to see the new 9-5 and 9-4x but I guess I’ll have to wait for them to recombobulate themselves. Also notably absent was Porsche (although it was represented by a local dealer so I did finally get to see the Panamera) and other high-dollar offerings like Bentley and Ferrari. Edit: also Tesla.

Best Display

My first instinct is to give this one to Audi, since they decided to make all of their cars the same color (and it’s my favorite color). Scion also had a strong showing despite not having any interesting cars. In terms of the vehicles themselves, though, it’s hard not to like Ford. Between the 2011 Mustangs, the Fiesta, the new Focus (finally), the Taurus, the Raptor, and their myriad of other great vehicles, it’s hard not to have a lot of hope for the American auto industry.

Worst Display

While there were a fair number of merely average displays, only a few qualify as completely phoned in. The Fiat display was nothing to write home about: two cars and two models, roped off from the general public. All four were boring. The Maserati wasn’t much better; it just sat there lonesomely on its turntable, surrounded by Fiats and Chryslers. Honorable mention goes to Land Rover for leaving all of their cars locked (dicks!).

Best of Show

Despite the recession, there were a lot of great cars this year. The SLS is certainly a looker, and I was actually really excited about the Toyota FT-CH concept (NERD!) because it embodies everything I want to see in the future of day-to-day cars: creative design elements, smart packaging, and an efficient powerplant.

Worst Place

Again, there was a lot of good, and a lot of average, and very little that was just unequivocally bad. But there was one car there I could never, ever, EVER spend money on, and that would be the smart. Completely useless in pretty much every way, and to add insult to injury, it’s way overpriced. It’s like a MINI with none of the fun or practicality. Worst concept goes to the Chrysler Lancia Delta… thing. As Autoblog said so eloquently:

You are looking at… well, no one at the Chrysler booth seemed to know exactly what this is. They didn’t even have a proper name for it.

And it’s true. It was just… there, the wallflower of the Chrysler display. It wanted our attention but nobody could say why it deserved it.

Last year I introduced the new year by participating in what had to have been one of the lamest questionnaires ever. This year I feel the need to again look back on the year that has just passed, but I want to do something that’s a little more original. Instead of a bunch of arbitrary questions, I’m choosing one event or experience from each month that has held the most significance in my mind.

The year started strong. January didn’t bring the same drama this year that it brought in 2008 (thankfully). Instead, I get to point out that that was the birth of the current iteration of this website.

February was relatively uneventful as well, aside from preparing for shows. But I did put together some awesome LEGO.

I spent a lot of time complaining about the weather this year, as I was already raring to get back on two wheels when March rolled around. That was only exacerbated by the new toy. The day trip to Minneapolis to pick it up was awfully fun too.

In April I put new wheels on my car. No, I mean I put them on. By myself.

May brought the first of a number of shows last year: The Last 5 Years, in which I was approximately 50% of the cast. It was a great experience and the theatrical accomplishment that I continue to be most proud of.

Then Godspell happened in June, and that was awesome too! Great cast, great technical staff, great venue, and a great show. Probably one of WCT’s best, ever.

Things wound down a bit in July, but we had the official Godspell reunion / cast party up in Tomahawk. AKA Real World: Godspell. TEXT MESSAGES!

August was a quiet month, so I spent a lot of time on the bike, and did my first (and second!) 40-mile ride(s).

After years of planning and months of labor, Citizen Wausau 2.0 was finally launched in September, much to the excitement of those involved.

In October, I ran.

The only potentially negative item on the list happened in November, when I passed out on stage. Even then, it’s just something that happened, but I don’t think of it as being decidedly “bad”.

I had such a great vacation in December, you guys. Seriously, it was wonderful. Plus it was my birthday!

After what seems like decades, Abe and I finally have a week where we don’t have extracurricular activities eating up every evening. Thanks to a Target gift card and some smooth talking on my part, we decided to spend some of that time with New Super Mario Bros. Wii.

We played through the first world last night, and looking back I think I enjoyed it. The game looks great, and we did a decent job of remaining alive (a definite plus) and so I hope that trend continues. Similar to 2006’s New Super Mario Bros. on the Nintendo DS, this game is a spiritual successor Super Mario Bros. 3 from the NES days. A prime choice; I consider SMB3 to be the pinnacle of Mario side-scrollers. So all is great, right? Well… no. While the game in and of itself has a lot of potential, there were also some attributes that really felt detrimental to the whole experience.

The big news in NSMBW is that you can play with up to four people simultaneously – no waiting for your turn; everybody’s on the screen, all the time. Except when they’re not. Unfortunately, it is possible for players to find themselves scrolled right off the screen, which can be overcome but may also result in death if they’re beyond the threshold of what the game decides is “safe”. Fortunately, the deceased player will quickly return in a bubble that you need to pop to get them back into the action (imagine Baby Mario in the Yoshi’s Island series).

Player interaction is another iffy item. For better or worse, your characters cannot all occupy the same space at the same time. This becomes problematic when two overzealous teammates decide to tackle the same obstacle simultaneously and instead end up as obstacles themselves. You can overcome this by constantly trying to call out your plans (”okay, now I’m going to jump on this Koopa”) but that seems like a strange thing to need to do for what should be a relatively casual experience. At the same time, it really does add to the atmosphere of the game and make it more interesting.

The biggest problem with this game, though, is where it is. My opinion is and always will be that the Wii platform is a hinderance to “normal” games. The controllers suck, not only in a physical sense but in an “it takes me 5-10 minutes to even get them to work” sense. By the time I’ve gotten the console to function I’m already beginning a game with a feeling of disappointment. Maybe it’s a repetitive fluke (oxymoron?), but how can Nintendo expect the console to appeal to non-techy casual gaming types when they can’t reliably sync their controllers to their consoles?

And while I realize that motion control is the Wii’s bread and butter at the moment, I think it’s ridiculous that they feel obligated to tack it on to every game just because it’s there. Making the game rely on motion control means that we are stuck with the basic Wiimote turned sideways (ugh, just like Super Paper Mario) instead of being able to use a Gamecube controller, the Wiimote/nunchuk combo, or the classic controller.

And that interface! Still so terrible.

Back in February I talked about a show that I was going to be part of called The Last 5 Years. Rehearsals for that picked up in early April and posting here (at least as far as articles of substance) correspondingly became few and far between.

Well, the show ran at the end of April/beginning of May and went absolutely great. We got so many compliments, and the Jefferson Street Inn totally delivered as a venue – seriously some of the nicest staff ever (thanks for the cookies). Shortly thereafter… actually, that’s not accurate; while L5Y rehearsals were going on, auditions and rehearsals for Godspell also started. I’m not going to go into details here with regards to the story of the show (uh – the bible, basically), but I will say that there were a couple weeks in April in May where I found myself totally overwhelmed with the prospect of a) working on two shows at once and b) catching up on the second show after the first show wrapped. There were some rough nights as I struggled to pick up choreography that I was absent for, and to experience that bond that actors get after they’ve been seeing eachother on a daily basis for 3 weeks in a row.

As June rolled around I was still stressed but starting to feel better about things. As though I didn’t have enough going on, I also was trying to squeeze in a daily bike ride and manage the graphic design for the show, which required not only materials for Godspell “the show” but also the imaginary band we created – but I digress.

Because both shows are so great, Abe jumped at the opportunity to direct both of them, leaving him in basically the same boat as me. His vision for Godspell (an interesting attribute of this show in particular is that it can really be set where ever you want, as long as it involves people coming together and forming a friendship) was that it would take place after a massive rock show at the Grand Theater. Thus, the setting for the show could remain as it had been during the concert, and the actors are “fans” of the band that have hidden away in the theater and snuck back on stage after the crowd departs.

So if you’re going to have a rock show, and fans, you need a band. Thus, The Almighty was born. And with the Almighty came posters, CD covers, and T-shirts, plus a generic graphic that could be easily applied to other items.

End digression. Anyway, so yeah, as if being stressed about acting weren’t enough, I was also stressed about the identity for this imaginary band. But in the end, everything clicked.

It would not be a lie to say that this is the most amazing show I’ve ever been apart of. I’ve enjoyed pretty much all of my stage experiences, but this one in particular stood out as the perfect storm of really great material, a strong and original vision, and a cast and crew who came together to produce what we’ve been told over and over is one of the best theatrical experiences they’ve had in a very long time. I really want to thank everyone who had a part in it, because everybody gave it their all and it shows.

I think everyone has their own way of deciding whether a particular performance was strong – I definitely reflect on my own contributions and try to determine what needs to be adjusted. But I also really enjoy trying to read the audience. I suspected we had a winner when there was screaming (of joy, obviously) after the first big song. I knew we had a winner when the standing ovations were immediate, every time. If you’ve ever been to a play, you know what I mean. Sometimes the audience won’t stand at all, or will stand reluctantly and gradually because a couple overly enthusiastic people jumped up right away. That was not the case here. As we lined up on stage, before we even got a chance to bow, butts were out of seats.

And now I’m thinking about it and feeling a little sad. I’m so proud of what we were able to put together. I mean, I’m really proud of my work in Last 5 Years, especially the singing that high, that much for 6 shows and not losing my voice part. But like I said, Godspell was a perfect storm. Of awesome.

I’m not sure I can describe how I felt at the end of Apple’s iPhone event yesterday. Indeed, it was two hours spent talking about what to expect from the next major release of the iPhone OS, and while that actually affects me now (yay), I think I found myself in kind of a neutral state afterwards. I am certainly glad to see progress being made, but the new features and fixes don’t generally hit close to home for me.

Copy and paste is a welcome addition, obviously, as is MMS for those that actually use those. The additional calendar protocols are nice to see, although Google Sync addressed that issue a month ago. I don’t know how useful Spotlight will be, as I don’t think I have a lot of things that I have lost on my phone, but it will be fun to mess with.

But two features stood out and have me eagerly awaiting the magical summer day when I plug my phone into iTunes, and after it stalls and I have to restart it one or two times, I can finally download iPhone OS 3.0:

• Landscape Mode for Mail, Messaging, and Notes
  Just, seriously, duh. I never really understood why Safari was the only app to make use of the big horizontal keyboard; especially since that is not where a typical person would be doing the brunt of their typing. So I am really glad to see that option proliferate to the other apps that badly need it.
• Note Syncing
  Assuming this is implemented well, I am excited about it. I don’t use a ton of notes, but I really like the option to sync them from my computer. Now that I think about it though, a wireless sync would be even more useful than having to deal with iTunes just to update my grocery list. Oh well, we’ll see.

All in all, though, I can’t complain too much because it’s all free and it only makes the iPhone better.

Apple is a strong advocate for keeping things simple. This is especially evident in their hardware design, as one may gather from the fact that most of their hardware has only one switch or button. And generally, this strategy seems to work like crazy for them, effectively setting them even further apart from their competition.

However, there are some decisions that can be subjectively classified as missteps on their part. The new iPod shuffle is a demonstration that maybe not having any controls on the device is an idea that should’ve remained on the drawing board. I can’t say for sure as I haven’t played with one (and probably never will), but most of the complaints I’ve heard thusfar have centered around the decision to take the controls off of the device and make them part of the component that you’re more likely to replace or lose (the headphones). I don’t disagree with that particular sentiment, as having to carry specialized headphones for two different devices (iPhone and shuffle) is a concept that seems vaguely, uh, mentally deficient.

The one-button mouse, while an Apple icon, is another great example of their overzealousness for simplicity. The Mighty Mouse is a drastic improvement in terms of functionality, but only when you compare it to their previous offerings. Beyond that, it doesn’t offer much that can’t be found in even the cheapest optical scroll mouse. The scroll ball is nice – until it stops working, as it has now in every Mighty Mouse I’ve owned.

But the device where the button shortage bothers me the most is the iPhone. I pretty much despise the whole “slide to do whatever” mechanic – I would love to have the option to turn that off and just use some combination of the hardware buttons to bypass it. I’d even be fine if they used the Accept/Decline buttons that are present when the phone receives a call while unlocked. I don’t enjoy sliding my fingers around the screen for no reason; especially when it’s in an attempt to accomplish something that’s more easily achieved by pressing a button.

And that’s the crux of the matter. There’s no question that Apple makes some amazing products, but sometimes it seems they favor perceived simplicity to actual simplicity.

I launched version 14 of this site, officially, on May 1, 2007. That seems like a really long time ago, especially by my standards. I’m not sure how long I expected it to last back then, but I knew that I was pretty happy with it, especially considering how quickly it all went together.

Comparing the launch version to version 13 before it, it’s not hard to see what I felt was working and what wasn’t. A good portion of the content styles and graphic elements made it to the new site unscathed, while dropping the heavy-handed and overly divided feel of the previous design.

The Grid

Version 14’s major defining element was the grid based entirely on the Flickr photos at the top. Initial versions had nine 75px columns separated by 5px alleys, and in November 2008 I added a tenth. While it’s not a new thing for me to have grids defined by the size of my images (as evident in all of my site designs back when this was purely a photoblog), this was the first time I gave myself more than four columns to play with, and I really enjoyed that flexibility. I think the layout worked even better on pages where the Flickr photos weren’t visible; there was still a strong sense of grid and organization, but without the obvious indication of where it was all coming from.

Content Separation

The other major stylistic decision was the way status/blip/link posts were presented when compared to the regular journal entries. After experimenting with different options I ended up with the meta for the posts in the center column, while short posts would live on the right and full posts on the left. It worked best when it was populated evenly, but there were many times where compulsive Twittering would leave the home page entirely empty on the left column.

Then & Now

So how does this newest version compare to the outgoing iteration? You can see that while I haven’t done much with it yet, the grid concept remains intact.

In terms of visual carryover, though, that’s about it. The overall look of the new site was influenced heavily by those wallpapers I just did and my portfolio. I continue to use Helvetica for the headers, but I’ve moved back to Lucida for the body copy, which harkens all the way back to Version 8.x, as ever since then I’d pretty much used Helvetica for everything.

The dotted lines, which I have dearly loved for a very long time, are hanging on by a thread. Because I’m not using a white on white on white layout this time around, everything is divided by blocks of color and shading, which means borders as a whole just aren’t necessary.

Finally, the Status/Twitter posts have become the foremost bit of information on the new site, with Flickr taking the slot below that and the Journal even further down. This just seemed like the only way it could work, organizationally. I didn’t feel that the Flickr content was deserving of the most prominent spot on the page, and the Journal couldn’t be at the top simply because of length. As-is, most visitors should see all three sections when they visit and be inclined to scroll down. Or everybody reads this in RSS, in which case it doesn’t matter anyway.

All that said, I’m quite happy with this latest version, and I’m most interested to see what it evolves into as time progresses.