Well, since you ask, a friend of mine is keen to promote Fair Trade clothes & shoes in New Zealand. So I thought I’d help out by putting her banner on my site.

The shoes are cool. And if you’d like to put the same banner on your site, you can do so using the following HTML code:

<a href="http://www.autonomieproject.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=shop&Store_Code=AP&Affiliate=sehz4justice" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://www.autonomieproject.com/mm5/graphics/00000001/AP-banner-eco_120x240.gif" border="0" alt="AP - Fair Trade Fashion and Footwear" /></a>

Or if you would prefer just to link to the website, use this code:
http://www.autonomieproject.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=SFNT&Store_Code=AP&Affiliate=sehz4justice

And in fact I always thought I would play computer games, I just enjoyed them so much. It seemed to me I would be able to play computer games until I died. The companies would find ways to meet me in the middle, I was busy but there would always be time.

Strangely, maybe sadly, it hasn’t worked out that way. I don’t think it is a comment on the games themselves, because occasionally I’ll read about them or see footage of gameplay online and think “Wow, that looks awesome”. I’ve found it seems to be more how I want to spend my time. There are a lot of things we can do with our time and the idea of investing my hours in a game, for fun, actually ends up feeling really indulgent. I get no sense of accomplishment and the return on investment, if you will, is absurdly low.

It’s kind of bewildering. After all, I know perfectly well the enormous satisfaction of completing a computer game or winning an online match against international opponents. Often the level of strategy & intensity played out in these online battles is epic. Online gaming is a compelling personal experience – it is no wonder computer games are bigger business than motion pictures now. But yet, here I am, not playing games and I’m fine with it.

Why? Well, partly it is that there are other things I find more interesting & important. And another part of me seems to feel some relief at having done away with “wasting my time” on computer games. That social stigma associated with computers games is not something I have completely shaken yet. But mostly, I just don’t see the point. What is making computer games so important that I should prioritise hours of my time towards them over everything else?

Now, like any argument, it is fair to point out some of positive uses of computer games: professional training, exciting entertainment, stimulating experiences for young children (or aging minds), social experiences unhindered by gender, race, body, etc. I have friends who play online computer games as a way of hanging out with friends or as an alternative to TV. There are bound to be lots more examples.

But my central point can be drawn from looking at computer games as an alternative to TV. Just being an alternative doesn’t make it better. And like TV, a lot of online games have “hooks” for you to tune in next week. The next level, the next unlocked power, the tuning out of those other things that are harder, more difficult or make you think & feel things you don’t want to. Indeed, when I was younger computer games were a way for me to use up my free time in an extremely monopolistic fashion that seemed an end unto itself. Games were also a way to shut out the world & control it on my terms.

We live in a world that doesn’t look kindly on mistakes. It is hard sometimes to get back up or to ask for help. But we need to encourage the makers of computer game entertainment to ask the question of what their products should ultimately do: improve the way we are or provide synthetic anaesthesia. Our worth is in who we are & what we will be become. That will never be properly contained or measured by online entertainment.

2007 New Zealand International Film Festival:

Radiant City
Set to the unique guitar soundtrack by Joey Santiago of The Pixies, the reality of planned suburbia on the fringes of the USA’s cities is terrifying. I could feel the cellphone waves in my teeth. Do they really call shopping malls “Power Centers” over there?

This was one of those films where you come away indignant at the West’s greed and opulence but at the same time with some pity those trapped in soccer-work-ballet-shopping cycles. Your wife wants a new home. In the suburbs. With a new kitchen. And she really wants it. And why don’t you want it? And don’t you love her? And the children? Don’t you want the best for the children? How can you be so selfish!

Out Of The Blue: “The movie about the 1990 massacre that rocked New Zealand is a restrained, sad, moral tale of a small South Island beach community where everyone knew one another by their first names – even their killer.” – The spirit of Aramoana [listener.co.nz]

This live video of The Mutton Birds performing ‘A Thing Well Made’ is moving but two things in particular that move me:

• The guitarist’s face at 3 minutes & 49 seconds
• Don McGlashan’s facial expressions after he sings “AK-47′s” at 4 minutes & 29 seconds

Source: YouTube

LINKS

• Lyrics to The Mutton Birds – A Thing Well Made [lyrics.wikia.com]

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

Source: theodoreroosevelt.org

The full-screen works best: http://www.molleindustria.org/everydaythesamedream/everydaythesamedream.html

Source: molleindustria.org