Back on campus

I never thought that driving back to college on Labor Day would be so simple. There was absolutely no traffic to deal with even in the city. Heck, there were hardly any cars to deal with! I can only imagine what the roads were like about two hours later.

But I really don't care about that. I'm back, 1st class is about to start in ten minutes, and I have only one major issue to tackle: My cell phone is on its very last legs. The screen has been flickering in and out for the last week, and last night it went dead for good. now it is having troubles powering down and the reception is horrid. I'm thinking of making an early trip to the mall tomorrow before my four block of classes at noon.

1up has an interesting article about the Playstation, which turns 10 very soon. It has some interesting facts about the history of the machine, but for the most part it seems to be another oppurtunity for the gaming media to give Sony a free ride (which they've been doing for the last ten years) and kiss their butts. While it is true that the CD based systems of the time were an absolute wreck, and the only other option was the eventual cartrdige based Nintendo 64, if the Playstation didn't exist I don't believe gaming would have crashed and burned. Instead, I think Sega would have had an even bigger market for the Dreamcast, and Nintendo would have eventually adopt the CD format in order to keep up with Sega.

There's no doubt that the Playstation did a lot of good for the industry. But I also believe it did some harm by changing the focus of a lot of genres towards glitz and graphics rather than solid gameplay, and by popularizing blood, gore, sex and other "mature" themes in the eyes of the new money maker, the mainstream consumer.

I saw that MTV has a new show devoted entirely to showing rich girls celebrate their sweet 16's. Are TV viewers really that desperate/stupid?