Yet another Friday is upon us and therefore it is the duty of OL to present a beverage with which you can forget the work week. While I normally revel in my Friday night ritual of drankin’n’writin’, I don’t think I’d bring my A-Game tonight. Truth be told, I’ve felt like caca ever since I got home and although I’m going to guzzle some smile-potions, I don’t think I have the heart to give an earnest review.

“Shit,” I muttered to myself in front of a pack of third-graders, “who the fuck is going to handle the task of the Friday Brew Review?” Initially, I thought about outsourcing the job to one of my high school students, offering extra-credit for a minimum of five-hundred words. But something told me that administration may frown on that (apparently extra-credit is a Big No-No). I then considered asking for Caffeine Powered’s assistance, but since that guy shoulders most of the writing burden at OL, I didn’t want to add to his workload. I felt lost.

And then it hit me: Mrs. Krueger

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Oh shit, comic book and outer space nerds, get ready to jack off! Apparently the multiverse exists! Watch out for Earth 2^4’s Superman, he farts fire and ejaculates shotgun bullets. No, not really. And this probably isn’t hard science, or anything more than a theory, but kiss my ass, it’s fun to think about.

Via New Scientist:

The dark flow appears to have been caused shortly after the big bang by something no longer in the observable universe. It has no effect today because reaching across this horizon would involve travelling faster than light.One explanation for the flow would be the gravity of a huge concentration of matter, but this is very unlikely. Within the standard big bang picture, massive cosmic structures were “seeded” by random quantum fluctuations, so overall, matter should be spread evenly.There could be an exotic explanation. Laura Mersini-Houghton of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, thinks the flow is a sign of a neighbouring universe. If the tiny patch of vacuum that inflated to become our universe was quantum entangled with other pieces of vacuum – other universes – they could have exerted a force from beyond the present-day visible horizon (see “Nosey neighbours”).

It would be pretty great if this was true, it would make existence just a bit more intriguing. But it probably doesn’t. Who knows. Scientists, always throwing rocks at one another! Just pretend with me its true, and try to imagine an alternate version of yourself, in some Sliders type shit, where you secretly pine for your Mom, or you can fly because all humans have wings, or something equally gay.

This is the week before we all put on seven-hundred and fifty-five pounds at Thanksgiving. And then spend a trillion, zillion dollars on sweet stuff we probably don’t need. I want a pony.

Monday Morning Commute. Every Monday I’m going to detail the various things I’m either currently or will be watching, reading, playing, and listening to in the next seven days. It’s Monday. You’ve got a long week of school, work, or compulsive masturbation to get through. Tell me the arts that you’re indulging in, to stave off suicide.

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Am I hippie? Short answer: No.

To be fair, I probably have some tendencies with which the average hippie could agree. I’m a big fan of questioning the man (whoever the fuck that is). I consume almond butter & Nutella sandwiches on a regular basis. I fucking love Les Claypool.

But the fact of the matter is that I’m not a hippie, as I think they invest a lot of their time in bullshit. Unless you’re playing in one or watching one of the best, jam bands are boring after about ten minutes. Smoking pot can lead to great, nearly spiritual experiences but definitely shouldn’t be an everyday activity. And while there may be something behind the arguments that organic foods are tastier and more environmentally friendly, I think it’s worthwhile to recognize that most are distributed by uber-mega-big-buck companies hoping to strike a profit.

With such an attitude about the world of organic foodstuffs, I’m not really sure why I chose this week’s prospective brew. Perhaps part of my decision rests in the fact that I’m purposely avoiding the winter seasonal beers until Thanksgiving. But getting closer to the heart of the beverage-choice, I think I may have been looking for a challenge. Something that, had I not made a pact to drink a new beer every week, I would never buy. A brew at which I normally just scoff; not scoff and then actually purchase.

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When I read earlier this week that Borderlands was probably going to get a sequel, I was significantly amplified. I’ve written about my love for the game, but I was worried that it wouldn’t sell well enough to garner a second installment. It wasn’t because it wasn’t a great game, but rather its release date seemed to come in the heart of the lion’s den. It was dropped in the middle of the Fall blitz, where I assumed that new IPs went to die. I’m fucking glad I was wrong. I figured that in the middle of the sequel bombardment that saw Modern Warfare, Uncharted, Left 4 Dead, and Assassin’s Creed all dropping new titles on our collective gaming asses, what sort of love would this diamond in the rough get?

Answer: Apparently a lot.

Answer: Apparently it isn’t in the rough that much.

I’m weary of new IPs failing in general. Games that take risks like Mirror’s Edge seem to be cast into the Land of Forgotten Games. Even shit like Dead Space, which was well-received really didn’t sell like gangbusters. I suppose it’s all relative. Dead Space is a “success” at one-million sold worldwide. Uncharted 2 has as already sold a million, Modern Warfare 2 has sold a zillion fucking copies in two days. No, seriously. I think they’re giving away copies of MW2 with the Sunday paper this week.

So what chance did Borderlands have, I thought to myself.

It’s such a busy part of the year for gamers. I mean, I’ve bought Borderlands, and I’ve loved it, but I definitely haven’t given it the attention I would have if it was released in May, or June, or something. I don’t know. Maybe there isn’t a good time to release a video game anywhere. Is there saturation everywhere? Even the old-school dry spells that were the winter and spring are seeing a deluge next year: Bayonetta (SWEET, SWEET BAYONETTA), Bioshock 2, Mass Effect 2, Final Fantasy XIII. And so on, and so on.

But Borderlands has punched through, it’s sold well. I don’t know, I’m not an economist, I have no idea how much it cost to produce. My rough estimate is: a lot.

If I had to guess, I’m going to say it’s been buoyed by a few things.

First, the gaming community was abuzz about the title for a while. I knew about Borderlands for quite some time, and with every review that came in, it cemented my idea that the title was dope. Sites like Kotaku and Destructoid were all up on its junk. And that’s a good thing. When a game garners a buzz, it attracts gamers. There’s the sense that something is going on, something you want to be a part of.

Oh shit, ended my sentence with a preposition. Don’t tell my professors.

But no seriously, it does. Especially with the online community these days. Games that are drawing players in, draw other players in. “Dude, this game is sweet” gets one friend to buy the game based on another friend. The hive mind, collective consciousness type shit. It has been impressive, even with Modern Warfare 2 cracking open the very Gaming Earth with its saturation this week and filling us with gunshots and Russian terrorists, Borderlands has still been able to bubble up to the surface.

Secondly, I’ve seen advertisements for it everywhere. It’s nice to see a commitment to spend furiously on a new IP. Again, I’m not an economist, but if I had to guess how much they spent on their advertising campaign I’d say: a lot. There’s been tons of commercials on television, and they’re pretty sweet. The game is slick and looks sexy in action, the artistic design has even cell-shaded haters impressed, and if you wrap that all around a catchy song like they did – Cage the Elephant’s Ain’t No Rest of the Wicked, you’re going to draw people in.

It’s nice to see some new shit amongst the same old franchises. Listen, I worship at the altar of Final Fantasy, but I’m always looking for something new to experience. A new franchise, a new title. And every time they seem to fail, I can only imagine it reinforces the thought bubble in the Talking Heads’ minds: New titles flop, play it safe.

And as I said, that makes me stoked.

Maybe it can’t happen for every title, but Borderlands proves it’s possible. Score.

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MARCH 9, 2010. Fuck yes. That’s when Final Fantasy XIII drops. And I’m shooting ridiculous loads onto my own face in excitement. I’m screaming at my Nana, yelling at her about Final Fantasy. She’s cowering in the corner and I don’t care! Why? Because fucking Final Fantasy XIII has a release date! I’ve been sweating this thing forever. I’ve gone through some serious shit since this game was released! I lost my virginity, got addicted to sleeping pills, got unaddicted to sleeping pills, watched my fucking Patriots lose the Super Bowl, three girlfriends, fourteen pairs of shoes, nine beards, four hundred and fifty thousand cans of soda, and a new sweet ass cat.

MARCH 9, 2010. Don’t knock, don’t call, I will fucking stab you.

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I’ve given up on being good at first-person shooters for a long time now. I simply accept that I don’t have the quick-twitch muscle fibers, or the brain capacity to be excellent at them. So when I try and talk my friend Bags into playing some MW2 with me, and he hits me with:

It’s going to be tough, because I’m going to suck at first.

I can absolutely relate to him. I’ve just come to grips with that a long time ago. I am not a unique gaming snowflake. There’s always going to be noobs that school my sad ass. Even with my acceptance of this fact, it still burns deep down inside to hear some twelve year old kid laughing at me because I missed with two full clips and then had the dishonor of him meleeing me to death.

The horror, the horror.

It didn’t always use to be so resigned to mediocrity. I used to be the shit in my close-knit gaming circle. High school friends and myself spending hours in my room as I took them to task with the beatdown stick in Mortal Kombat II or Mario Kart 64. My mortal enemy was also my best friend Joe, and it was usually the two of us giving each other a run for our money. Of course, even back then I sucked at FPS gamers. I can recall the teenage rampages I’d go into as Joe would remember spawn points (before we knew they were called spawn points) and usually throw a knife through my dumb face.

Then everything changed when Al Gore invented the fucking internet. And global warming. He condemned me to bake under the sun’s unleashed fury amidst a legion of gamers far superior to me. I was like the high school quarterback, trying all of a sudden to play college ball.

Oops.

Double oops.

I learned quickly that whatever lame skills I had on a local level didn’t translate to the global scheme. Fucking internet! I was aghast, I mean, I won the local Blockbuster video game challenge! A year’s worth of unlimited gaming rentals (which they stipulated in the small text was two a week; even my pre-pubescent brain recoiled at the trickery) at my disposal! But I wasn’t special, I wasn’t even good.

Fucking shit.

So the same applies to Modern Warfare 2. I’m not really good. If I get five kills, I feel like the fucking man. Oh, those ungracious gamers who rattle off 15 kills a session. What does a kill mean to them!? What does sex mean to a pornstar! Probably fucking nothing!

But Modern Warfare 2 is different. Because It’s kind of like little league. Everyone can win! Well, sort of. In other words, there are things even retard gamers like myself can strive for. With their dope-ass built in leveling system, this RPG whore right here can work towards swag, even while blowing. If I have enough persistence I can unlock new guns, modifications, et cetera. This is probably old hat to other Call of Duty players, but for me, it’s friggin’ tight. I mean, what other way to suck in a WoW-addicted gamer who sucks at FPSers?

Give them swag to work towards! If there’s one thing I like, it’s loot! LOOT, sweet, delicious loot. And even if I never come in first place, I can still garner myself a tight grenade launcher.

It’s a nice balance. Because of course, the skilled gamers, as in not me, can unlock this shit quicker. Every match gathers you XP, and the better you do, the more points you gain. They even have “Aw, you’re cute at sucking” type rewards, like getting five assists. I mean holy shit, they reward you for breaking your own death streak. It’s like free experience points. A little league reward for the kid who finally hit the ball. There you go Charlie, you may drool and you run to third base instead of first, but you successfully threw a ball to first base today.

Well done, here’s a cookie.

I love it.