Meteo Xavier

YES YES YES! Oh man, that was awesome. Good show! I've totally had that coming for some time now.

I was going to write a long post here, but I was halfway done when I discovered I was actually just bragging about my accomplishments than offering anything useful (you might be surprised how often that happens when composers offer advice). Best advice I can offer is to never do music for free or for exposure. At all. Ever. Always charge a minimum of $300 a minute, otherwise the entire infrastructure of the industry will collapse, your favorite composers will find themselves without jobs, and they will find you and burn down your house. Professional composers recommend you must charge a premium price no matter how good or bad you really are so that industry can stay healthy (and by staying healthy, I mean not making yourself look like a more attractive option to cheap videogame companies wanting to save a few bucks during development so that you're not active competition to them). And also, if anyone ever does offer to use your music for free, make sure you write an incredibly long, exaggerated, pissed-off response and then Print Screen it and show it off in game music threads so that you'll earn street cred from other composers and a lot of high fives without really having to earn it or anything. If there's anything composers like more than job openings, it's viral picture memes that shame people. Just do these things like the other professional composers do and you'll be well on your way to success. That's how success works, right?

I just now saw that. I've yet to decide if that makes things better or worse. :S

Someone actually hired a marketing company to create a successful viral campaign against 4chan and timed it with Emma Watson's speech and raise more support for feminism... just to take down 4chan? SERIOUSLY WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT I don't even know who the root for in this fucklewit debate anymore. It's so ungodly stupid and aggressive and insane that I can barely finish this sentence.

Which is pretty elitist and snobbery, since anyone who does music for something other than pure self-fulfillment will have to eventually find a point in their creativity to "settle" at. Artistic creations are, by definition, pretty much impossible to perfect - there's almost always something that could've been done better at every stage of the creation. But those who seek money or audience know that infinite possibilities does not mean infinite parameters for availability. There are deadlines, there are medium limitations, there are limitations for the employer or label head, limitations for the commercial prospects of the music giving the time it is eventually released, etc. etc. If you're someone who really holds to the idea to never compromise your music, you might as well not release anything, since the very act of pulling a finite song out of the artists' infinite potential is itself the way very act of settling. The trick is, instead, knowing what, when and WHERE to compromise to get the best real success out of yet-to-be-realized potential.

It's not to say I don't agree with your point here - I continue to ask the same questions myself, but this series of points here keeps making me go back to a point I keep trying to make, as I've yet to find a satisfactory answer for it. For more than 20 years, the same complaints have been made against the level of violence in videogames spurred by Mortal Kombat, Doom and the like, and for 20 years, gamers of almost every make and model have responded with "lol moral guardians. It's entertainment. It's art, so stfu" as a basis for defending why you can massacre hundreds, thousands and hundreds of thousands of lifeforms with all sorts of creative gibbing effects and death scenes with next to no moral repercussions or any realistic form of response from the hero. The level of violence you've seen in thousands of games for the last 20 years have also been totally superfluous and completely beyond the realm of reality, yet the gaming culture has largely dismissed it as being censorship to freedom of artistic expression. Why then do gamers, many of them the same people who rejected violent game criticism, complain about female characters with big boobs and g-strings? I'm totally a guy gamer. I don't particularly need my female characters to have giant tits and asses, but I'm not going to pretend I don't like it when its there either. I don't "get it" for that reason (which is also a form of sexism, but anyway), but I still want to know what the difference is here. Why is it ok to have gratuitous violence in gaming, but not sexualized content? Why is it offensive that Mileena wears this but it's not offensive to disembowel her after a match when you've already won and there's no real need to? Why is it ok to essentially be indirectly offensive to survivors of gun violence, survivors of torture, survivors of abuse, PTSD inflicted soldiers, people with major phobias, people with disabilities, people of certain religions, people without religions, and people with other sensitivities they are justified and legal to have, but not ok to essentially be indirectly offensive to sensitive, feminist gamers? I could even attempt to make the argument that violence in videogames continues to be a higher priority of social watchdogging than sexism. You remember how school shooters used to blame their rampages on first person shooters? How many rapists do you know of that got caught and blamed their actions on Dead or Alive Beach Volleyball? This argument intentionally makes no sense, but since we're diving that deep to come up with points for this particular issue, why not throw it out there all the same? Again, I don't even disagree with you at the foundation, and I still ask the same questions myself. I would totally get behind a game that sexualizes men as much as women and I think it's more than fair but needed to do so. I just want to know why there's so much seemingly arbitrary focus on sexy women in gaming as a negative. It's like, what, there aren't women with big boobs in real life? There aren't women strong enough to wear a G-string in a tundra and confident enough with themselves to show their assets off when they want?

This is a fun summary: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/gamergate

Hi the hell O. I would've posted this sooner but I was sick last week and struggling to catch up until today. I got published in a new hyperviolent zombie anthology, and I wanted to post it here for anyone who may be interested. > http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00N4MZHJU/ref=pe_398040_123402030_em_1p_0_ti I also committed the now cardinal sin of doing this FREE FOR EXPOSURE, so even if you're not interested in picking up the book (and why not? There's some good stuff in here even for as saturated as the zombie market is now! More than your average Romero knock off!) might you do me and the other good authors on here a favor by posting it around? Thank you for your attention and your patronage, Ocremix.

Most independent game store places offer repair work. As can be expected, the quality ranges all across the spectrum, but worth a look. I had some success with them earlier this year.

I'm currently actively buying Japanese Sega Saturn stuff, or perhaps a Sega Saturn Gameshark. Games, consoles, whatever! Sell to me! Sell! Sell! Sell!

If there are people in this world who still think game music isn't art of some kind, this track probably won't convince them by now either. They're trapped under concrete strength ignorance by then.

YES. Because you didn't. Because if you did, you'd find out I mostly agree WITH YOU. I just don't agree 100%. More like 80% at its lowest, and not because I don't want to, but because that's just not how the real world works. But if you didn't read it then, you're not going to read this now.

Then I wonder how you've been able to type as much as you have without having the ability to read...

Ok, dude, stop going "so basically...", there is no fucking basically here. Nothing about this is basic. There is no simple scapegoat here. If there was, there wouldn't be a huge controversy on this subject going on right now. We'd KNOW who the fault was and there wouldn't be any argument. Chill out. If you're that desperate to pair it down to something you can squeeze into a single sentence, wait some weeks or months or years until more is known about it and the case can be closed.

Not that I think explaining it to you at this point would do any good, but I doubt they'd be getting death threats and harassment if they hadn't done the things they're known for in the first place. I'm not saying that makes it ok to make death threats and harass people, I'm simply explaining the mechanics of how real world actions and consequences work. Having a political/ethical position doesn't suddenly change the mechanics of how that stuff follows one another. This is not a black-and-white issue, there's some major gray area, a lot of speculation, he-said-she-said, and bullshit on all sides of this to make it what it is.

I feel like you guys (or kids) are arguing two halves of one truth here. When a crime or conflict happens, from a mechanical standpoint, there's a bit of blame to go around, as it usually requires both someone of malicious intent of to initiate the morally reprehensible, and someone leaving themselves exposed for the crime to connect. It's not an equal share, and anyone with common sense will tell you that, most of the time, at least 80% of the blame goes to perpetrator. However, just because a perp is wanting to commit something does not mean crime always gets committed as there is no window of opportunity, because target was smart enough to secure themselves properly so consequences would not occur. Not every person exposing jewelry gets robbed, so we can strike out that victims bring it on themselves. Not every crime goes as planned because there is no window of opportunity, so we can also strike out any idea that there isn't at least some responsibility of the potential victim to be smart about what they're doing so they don't attract trouble. Trouble requires both to actually succeed. Let's stop bickering like children and accept that, until harder proof and information is brought to light, there is most likely blame to go around for an explosive issue like this to happen. You guys keep trying to find simple scapegoats for why complicated problems occur and it's just senseless. Might as well be trying to shove square pegs into round holes.

Not disagreeing with your main point and position, but this sentence is, tragically, very far from true. Some people will do ANYTHING for a few bucks. Look at the Phelps family that are doing that Westboro shit, not all of them are up on their insane gay-bashing, and they likely wouldn't keep doing it if they weren't making some money from somewhere. Look at what Bernie Madoff accomplished (granted that was a lot more than a few bucks). Many more examples fitting or surrounding what you're saying have taken place in the last 5 years alone. Look at Octomom. Don't fool yourself. People are more than capable of doing horrendous things for the smallest reasons. If they decide the personal rewards are worth the risks, you bet your ass they'll do it, no matter how intelligent they are. I know nothing about Zoe Quinn or have any personal opinion on her whatsoever as I've only just heard about this story, but I wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised if she really was trying to mastermind something just to get more exposure. "Desperate times call for desperate pleasures." - Vulgarity For the Masses. Always remember that.

Speaking of irony...

Quick question: Is it even possible to have an objective, non-emotionally, non-politically biased opinion for this subject anymore?

There is a major difference between you, me, or virtually anyone here airing their opinions, and Joss Whedon airing his opinions. Let's just say ME here for simplicity's sake. I currently convince NO ONE of anything. My opinions have less proverbial gravity than a helium balloon. If I make an opinion, I sometimes get a few likes and a 70% chance of a debate followed by a 10% chance of a lower friend count on Facebook. When Joss Whedon makes an opinion, MILLIONS listen. At least thousands mobilize and put his words into actions of some kind. He's not just making opinions, from what I've seen, he's actively trying to be some sort of crusader for the modern age, and his credibility just keeps going up in some small part because of it. He could almost move mountains if he really wanted to. Remember that line from Gladiator? I don't, so I'll paraphrase: "Power of the people IS power." Problem is, it's not his job or his authority to be doing that. If he was a professional women's studies academic or something, damn right he'd be qualified and authorized there, but he's a writer/director. Our culture, mainstream or not, still puts far too much weight in the words of celebrities, and that's what I'm getting at here. Celebrities going on about how women are oppressed are tainted sources of information BECAUSE SAID SOURCE HOLDS MORE POWER THAN 10,000 WOMEN COMBINED. It's pretty jarring, and one is encouraged to wonder what they're real credentials are when they go on about it. So that's my point here. Yeah, he can make opinions, but with great power comes great responsibility, and therefore great criticism too. He's not peasantry like us, he might as well be the crowned ***damn king.

I see what you did there. > And so what? 99% of every opinion and argument is a logical fallacy of some kind. I'm a human being, not a program. I'm kinda lying about that last part.

Dude, Joss Whedon is an overrated horse's ass. He's an above-average writer that is far more a master of manipulating his fanbase's wants to boost his nerd cred than he is anything else. He, and most other "male feminists", are just jumping on a political bandwagon and pandering to a lower common denominator of "thinking" to serve personal gains and possibly push progress forward while doing the least amount of real thinking they can muster. It's not a completely asinine way of accomplishing things that need to be accomplished, but they're capable of so much better and more efficient ways to rally people to knowledge, wisdom and movement, and they just don't because it's often too much work, and it's counter-productive to the one thing every smart celebrity knows they need to do to remain relevant in the entertainment industry: tell people exactly what they want to hear. Ask yourself this - why is nearly every significant celebrity and entertainer that you know of a hardcore liberal? Sometimes they're hardcore conservative too, but how often do you really see them in the middle? Not very often at all, which is a bit odd considering how political and religious beliefs really run the spectrum across a wide selection of people (and being of a certain type of person to succeed in art really doesn't count either). When you're in the public eye, you are a business and a brand, and like all brands, you do things in the public eye to grab attention and try to remain relevant. Many do dumb stunts to grab headlines, and others simply seem to do no wrong while remaining outspoken on so many issues. Some work and some don't, but each person in the public eye knows that to remain there and milk it for all it's worth and act accordingly to the fanbase that supports them. To keep them buying, you keep doing exactly what you think they want, whether you agree with it or not. It's just business. So, bottom line, don't trust celebrities to know jack shit about social issues. They currently live in bubbles making millions of dollars doing movies, writing music, doing books, going all over the world, managing their brand, surrounded by a team of people, etc. etc. When do they have time to study intensively these issues intensively? They don't. Most of them barely qualify as educated in the first place, and yes they used to be homeless, but they haven't been in some time. Once you get money, you forget what it was like when you didn't except to know you don't want to go back to doing that again. And if it takes some bullshit to keep that money flowing, of course you'll do it. Who wouldn't regurgitate some high school sophomore politics if it meant you still got to do AAA, $$$ work again?

Well, as it turns out, and very typical of the timing of this project, I ended up just doing the fuckin' tracklist tonight and finishing it (with one track off) anyway. So, off to Rozovian and we'll see where it goes from there!