November 15, 2011 at 10:31 pm · Filed under Personal, Thoughts
I paid my second visit to Occupy Wall Street this past Sunday–some friends of mine were playing music there. It had been just about a month since my first visit, and the park was a much denser tent city than it had been before as the protesters hunkered down for the winter. The impromptu concert I attended didn’t draw much attention, but there was some polite clapping and a rotating cast of cell-phone photographers.
I tried to stay out of the way as OWS participants and coordinators flitted around, some cleaning up accumulated garbage and bringing it out to the curb, others passing out flyers or offering trinkets. Something about the unspoken energy there reminded me of my alma mater, which is perhaps the only place I’ve ever felt completely at home. That’s how Occupy Wall Street struck me–as a community, one I felt I could fit into, at least as a visitor–and I think that’s exactly the kind of atmosphere the park’s 24/7 residents were trying to create.
This morning, I woke up to images of an empty Zuccotti Park being power-washed by cleaning crews, shown as part of continuous live coverage by NY1. The police had descended and destroyed the encampment minutes after I’d gone to bed. Without its vibrancy, its voices, its tents, the park was barely recognizable to me.
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November 7, 2011 at 8:57 pm · Filed under Reviews, Thoughts
I got the game today, and thought I’d share an early list of pros and cons. I’m three zones in; I haven’t fought the first boss yet.
Pros
- The nostalgia factor is exactly as high as you’d expect it to be, yet the “classic Sonic” stages don’t feel like remakes or rehashes (a big improvement over Sonic 4).
- All the music is great. The classic songs are perfectly preserved, the newer remixes hit just the right notes (I can’t wait until I start getting the reverse, i.e. Genesis-style remixes of later-era songs!), and the stage select music is fascinating. It blends slowed-down versions of the different zone songs depending on your proximity to the zone gates, sort of like the hub world in Banjo-Kazooie.
- I haven’t yet seen any of those awful button-matching minigames in the modern Sonic stages, and they seem to have made the Starposts impossible to miss in both modes, regardless of what height you’re at when you pass them. It’s about damn time.
- So far, the selection of stages represents an excellent cross-section from the various Sonic eras. It’s nice to see Sega apparently knowing what makes its games good, for once. (That said, I would totally welcome a redone Sonic 2k6 stage at some point, if only because this is probably their only chance to make amends for that game.)
Keep reading….
I paid my second visit to Occupy Wall Street this past Sunday–some friends of mine were playing music there. It had been just about a month since my first visit, and the park was a much denser tent city than it had been before as the protesters hunkered down for the winter. The impromptu concert I attended didn’t draw much attention, but there was some polite clapping and a rotating cast of cell-phone photographers.
