Shinya Aoki: Sick BJJ!
Shinya Aoki is widely considered to be one of the best submission artists in Japan. While people are still able to get his number when they can keep him from closing the distance and taking him down in MMA, or even nullifying his BJJ with strong wrestling, his highlight reel is still filled with a plethora of amazing submissions.
Nighttime Sodium Lights
When I first started dating Eva when I was in my teens, I wasn’t allowed to sleep over during the first few months. Since she lived in a different town about twenty kilometers away and I didn’t have my driver’s license yet (only elligble to get them when you turn 18 in the Netherlands), it meant I had to take the bus home quite often. We’d go out to see a film, wander around Amsterdam, and then we’d go back to hers, I’d drop her off and I’d walk to the nearest bus station to catch a bus home. Unfortunately, after midnight, busses hardly ran as often, so sometimes, when the timing was off, I’d have to wait an hour or so for the next bus to take my home. Often it was a big drag, but sometimes, especially in the late Spring, early Summer, it was actually kind of a treat.
Under certain circumstances, when it’s really wind still, and it’s very quiet out on the street, it almost feels as if you’re standing in-doors. It’s eerie to realise how far sound can carry. It always made me feel very alone, though never lonely, and I found it comforting and pleasant. The overhead sodium lights washing everything in yellowy ink also added to the overall feel that I was in a movie — like standing on the set of Deus Ex: Human Revolution. I know most people hate those lights, but I love them. I can’t quite explain why.
Anyway, ever since that time I can get so happy and content by just sitting on a street somewhere when it’s dark out, it’s wind still, quiet and there’s sodium lights overhead.
Goa, Psy, Ambient, Psycore, Darkcore, etc.
Since discovering Juno Reactor‘s Beyond the Infinite album, recommended to me somewhere in the earlier 2000s by Pistons over on Dumpshock Forums, I’ve been listening more and more to various flavours of Goa, Psy, Psycore, Darkcore and Ambient music. My go-to sites for that are Digitally Imported Radio and Ektoplazm, the former a streaming radio station with many different styles of music, the latter a free to download music site that specialises in electronica. I’ve discovered gems like Lustmord, who does amazing dark ambient, several great ambient musicians like Steve Roach, Peter Namlook, Ian Boddy and Max Corbacho, some obscure ambient stuff like Ionosphere, and too many goapsy groups and artists to name, with Cybernetika getting an honourable mention.
Some of this music, especially the Psycore and Dark Psy is probably not particularly easy listening, but it really seems to work for me in terms of, as Eva likes to call it, sitting-down-and-getting-things-done music.
Shadowrun: Corrosion vs Microsoft
One of the frightning and very real prospects of Corrosion’s future is that Microsoft will start sending cease and desist orders, much like they did with shadowrunonline.com, which was a fan-based project to make a Shadowrun-based, full fledged MMO. Why would Microsoft do such a thing? In 1980 FASA Corporation was founded by Jordan Weisman and L. Ross Babcock. They started developing different gaming related things, including Shadowrun and Battletech. Eventually, this lead to them founding FASA Interactive, a division that dealt exclusively with the development of computer games based on FASA intellectual property. They went on to make the very popular game franchise Mechwarrior. From what I understand, in 1999 Microsoft purchased FASA Interactive and all the rights to their digital IP, including the rights to produce Shadowrun computer games, exclusively. So when shadowrunonline.com was being made, they felt it infringe on their IP and the same could happen to Corrosion.
However, there’s been different online Shadowrun games over time, like Awakened Worlds, an online Shadowrun MUD which has been around since forever and they don’t seem to bother Microsoft, perhaps because they don’t deem this to be cannabalising their market. Hopefully they’ll think the same of a browser game. I guess we just continue until we receive cease and desist orders from them. We don’t intend to infringe upon the Shadowrun IP (which is partly the reason why we chose to use the out-dated SR3 rules set) nor the digital IP, actually, we’re hoping to promote it!