tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8949801605132466552011-04-21T17:14:44.318-07:00Thoughts on many things you didn't know you cared about...Jason Gaj.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04308614631964520520noreply@blogger.comBlogger181100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894980160513246655.post-44376523463748248372009-01-29T20:18:00.000-08:002009-02-04T04:52:35.114-08:00

Well, it's official. I received a few suggestions via email, the comments section, and Facebook, and I appreciate them all, but I actually managed to think of a new title myself. In the end, I decided to go with Nuclear Houseplant. You might like to know that the new address is nukeplant.blogspot.com, and since you've now been made aware of that, I'll be expecting you to visit regularly. See

Jason Gaj.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04308614631964520520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894980160513246655.post-86346732023471912362009-01-29T06:56:00.000-08:002009-01-29T07:10:08.622-08:00

Well, it's been fun the past two months, operating under what has felt like an ego-stroker of a masthead, but I think it's time to change the title of this blog. "Gaj Forum" is too specific, and it doesn't say anything at all about what this blog is really up to. I guess that I tend to insert some autobiography into many of the posts I write, but hopefully my posts are much more outwardly

Jason Gaj.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04308614631964520520noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894980160513246655.post-12721120892252371492009-01-27T19:13:00.000-08:002009-01-28T06:35:17.171-08:00

A couple of months ago I wrote an entry about my early experiences with The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and I've since felt just a little bit guilty that I've now blogged about that game but neglected my favorite of the Zelda games, which is, unquestionably, The Wind Waker. By complete coincidence, I also happened to overhear a Twitter exchange Friday night between Steve Amodio of 8-bit

Jason Gaj.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04308614631964520520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894980160513246655.post-75789355898649013712009-01-21T21:40:00.000-08:002009-01-23T21:32:13.988-08:00

I don't know why I didn't realize this much earlier in life, but you know what? Zombie stuff and post-apocalyptic stuff are so proximate!I figured this out last week, when, in a desperate bid to squeeze the greatest amount of fun out of my diminishing holiday break, I finally did the right thing, by which I mean that I bought Left 4 Dead. I've long had the tendency to assume, with or without

Jason Gaj.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04308614631964520520noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894980160513246655.post-74739719736666149842009-01-15T05:03:00.000-08:002009-01-15T07:06:08.231-08:00

Aww, guys. Rebel FM was already good enough that I would have listened to it as long as you kept making it. You didn't have to bring the GLaDOS voice! You didn't have to tell stories about drinking (hard) with Ayami Kojima or singing duets on "Hard to Say I'm Sorry" with Koji Igarashi or terrorist fist-jabbing Hideo Kojima. But you did. You did, and I think I might have liked this week's

Jason Gaj.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04308614631964520520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894980160513246655.post-61574587071060947172009-01-12T05:16:00.000-08:002009-01-12T07:56:13.360-08:00

A while back, I had the chance to play for the first time a video game that's a fifteen year old classic in Japan but officially sort of new in this country.The game is Castlevania: Rondo of Blood (Akumajō Dorakyura Ekkusu Chi no Rondo in Japanese), originally released for the PC Engine CD system, essentially the original Japanese version of the American TurboGrafx CD. Aside from the poor

Jason Gaj.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04308614631964520520noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894980160513246655.post-39504253157911875492009-01-09T18:21:00.000-08:002009-01-09T21:26:13.798-08:00

I was going to open with some stuff about former 1UP staffers, striking from their hidden base, having scored their first victory, etc., but come on! How obvious is that? Also, their base isn't all that hidden, really. It's in Oakland. Follow the car alarm. Yes, seriously.Seriously, though, when I went to bed Wednesday night, I knew that the next morning would bring something great. Tweets

Jason Gaj.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04308614631964520520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894980160513246655.post-33153564636686946322009-01-07T07:54:00.000-08:002009-01-07T10:11:40.435-08:00

Once upon a time a young man moved from a teensy little state called Texas to The City. He wasn't quite ready to live all on his own in a huge city where he had no friends, but fortunately he didn't have to, because the generous and nurturing family of a friend welcomed him to their home in Connecticut every weekend.One weekend, when he should have been working on a Greek Prose Composition

Jason Gaj.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04308614631964520520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894980160513246655.post-88608050804206141912009-01-06T11:00:00.000-08:002009-01-06T23:50:25.470-08:00

This posting is so full of spoilers that you should probably ignore it if you have yet to play Metal Gear Solid 1 or 2 for the first time and you have plans to do that. If you don't fit that profile, enjoy!So, I was just writing a comment in reference to a link a Facebook friend posted this afternoon. The link goes to a short blog posting at Topless Robot talking about trivializing merchandise

Jason Gaj.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04308614631964520520noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894980160513246655.post-58030030765579190772008-12-16T05:49:00.000-08:002008-12-16T12:42:58.707-08:00

So, this morning I woke up and came down to campus, and what to my wondering eyes should appear but the second minor snow New York's gotten this year. That honestly didn't rhyme the way I originally typed it, but see what happened? Sorry about that.And I'm only partially sure about this "second snow" thing. We had this bizarre out-of-nowhere flurry in late October, I think, and that's the only

Jason Gaj.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04308614631964520520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894980160513246655.post-6988182091541288052008-12-10T21:22:00.000-08:002008-12-12T05:38:39.666-08:00

When I posted Part 2 of this series about a month ago, I blithely announced that in this post, I would be discussing "what the D-pad means." That's turned out to be kind of a tall order, or a weird thing to try to think about, but I think I was right to put it that way, because that's exactly what this post is about.When video games became popular in arcades, there was an appeal to them that I

Jason Gaj.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04308614631964520520noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894980160513246655.post-76521602587192407652008-12-08T10:06:00.000-08:002008-12-08T12:09:30.166-08:00

(c) 1955 United Feature Syndicate Okay, so today's post, or my post for the next few days, whatever this turns out to be, is sort of an experiment. I'm sitting here with my lunch, and in between bites I'm trying to say something interesting and meaningful over the next few minutes. So here goes...And no, this isn't Super Wonder Cross Part 3. You know what? By Thursday night at 11:59. I'm

Jason Gaj.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04308614631964520520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894980160513246655.post-48008398826478629672008-12-04T05:19:00.000-08:002008-12-04T08:17:17.901-08:00

I'm mildly embarrassed to admit it, but my favorite scene in all of film is probably the closing scene from The Empire Strikes Back. ESB is probably also my favorite movie. I understand and acknowledge that it isn't the best movie there is by whatever silly standards there may be of measuring these things, but it is my favorite.Anyway, the last scene is beautiful. If you haven't seen the movie

Jason Gaj.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04308614631964520520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894980160513246655.post-59850314223651863472008-12-02T22:53:00.000-08:002008-12-02T23:03:21.307-08:00

Hydlide, screenshot from www.consoleclassix.comI feel a little bad about taking so long in getting "Super Wonder Cross Part 3" up, when I know that at least one person (and probably exactly one person) is waiting for it. Rest assured, I am working on it even now! What's taking so long is, honestly, the process of sorting out what I need to say about the NES' capabilities from what I just want

Jason Gaj.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04308614631964520520noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894980160513246655.post-24502510841218002492008-11-26T09:04:00.000-08:002008-11-26T09:10:04.588-08:00

Yesterday's session of the class I teach started bizarrely. Before the passing period ended, I overheard several of my students talking about, of all things, Mario Kart 64, with one student speaking passionately about the game's sublimity. I never can stay out of these things, so I said, "Wait. I thought Mario Kart DS was the best one! That seems to be the consensus..."One student responded that

Jason Gaj.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04308614631964520520noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894980160513246655.post-77861897766496186402008-11-17T06:25:00.001-08:002008-11-17T07:48:30.567-08:00

"Alexandrian Theatre?"  It's kind of a pretentious title, yes, but hopefully the "re" spelling of theater/theatre, in this context (my blog), kind of defuses the snootiness and makes everything seem a little more absurd.  Basically, the point of this "series," which I'll update as necessary, is to keep an index of the more impressive references I notice in different media.  Today's particular

Jason Gaj.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04308614631964520520noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894980160513246655.post-53212940612806106032008-11-13T05:49:00.000-08:002008-11-13T08:09:46.865-08:00

If you'll remember (or flip back to the last post), I left off with 1979 and the horrendously painful Intellivision controller.  Then I somewhat misleadingly said, "our liberation was only a year away."That's kind of true.  The seeds of our liberation had been sown, and the first tender shoot was poking out of the ground.  This is what it looked like:Behold!  Ball.  What is really important about

Jason Gaj.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04308614631964520520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-894980160513246655.post-31989298515451108542008-11-10T07:29:00.000-08:002008-12-11T06:15:40.813-08:00

Alas, this section of this long blog, article, thing, does not actually so much as MENTION Gunpei Yokoi.  But the subsequent section (I think I can keep this down to two posts) does.  So... If you were an uncoordinated youngster in the early 1980s, and if, despite being so young and so uncoordinated, you happened to be playing an Atari 2600 in those days, you may very well remember the following

Jason Gaj.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04308614631964520520noreply@blogger.com0