Mac Justice: The Blog

Macs and Mac and games and drinks and stuff. You know. Internet people things.
Jun 9 '10
You guys the Soviets made flying tanks!

You guys the Soviets made flying tanks!

Jun 7 '10

Red Dead Redemption

I’ve been playing Red Dead Redemption on my Xbox here and there when I get a bit of free time, and it has grabbed my imagination more than I had expected. It was an iffy buy for me, as I haven’t really liked Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto series, and early previews just screamed “GTA on horses!”.

What’s suprising is that it’s really the other way around. GTA is really RDR with buildings, traffic laws, pedestrians, and other obstacles. People like to play up the drugs, guns, and sex, but the real appeal is the freedom. The best part of GTA is just driving around, doing whatever comes to mind. The fact that I had to deal with actual traffic in a game always rankled. Sure, you don’t have to obey the laws (so long as you can deal with the police attention) but you still can’t drive down a street without swerving to miss all the cars and walls and poles that will bring you to a sudden halt, laws or no.

The beauty of RDR is that you can just run around under the open sky. I know, insert “get off your ass and go out in the real outside” admonition here, but I don’t live in the southwest in 1910, don’t own a horse, am uneasy around guns, and really wouldn’t be taken seriously in a cowboy getup. Also, people wouldn’t ask for my help thanks to my skills at the above. Modern video gaming has always had an element of escapism, even as we slog through the gritty brown “realism” of your Modern Warfares and the pseudo-New York of GTA IV, and I think the GTA formula of giving you the room and tools to find a good time for yourself has finally found a home in the open landscape of the frontier West.

Tags: games

Jun 7 '10
“We’ve become spoiled and lazy here in the States. Instead of crafting cocktails from scratch, many turn to pre-made mixers full of food coloring and high-fructose corn syrup to help mask the taste of vodka—OF VODKA, a drink that’s rated based on the lack of taste. Meanwhile, the vodka industry pumps out flavored varieties to appeal to the juvenile tastes of a nation that is number one in the world in soft drink consumption. America, we can do better.”
— American Drink

Jun 7 '10
(via americandrink)

(via americandrink)

22 notes (via americandrink)

Jun 6 '10
“For all its power and majesty, the river in Twain’s work was often a source of freedom. It acts as an adventure playground for Huck Finn, breaking loose from the constraints imposed by the Widow Douglas, and for his companion, Jim, the journey up the Mississippi will bring freedom of the most vital kind—from slavery. Though the pair are bent on escape, heading northward on a home-made raft, there are delights and diversions along the way—lazy mornings, sweet breezes, refreshing swims. Huck (and, you sense, Twain) never loses his sense of awe.”
—

A RIVER RUNS THROUGH HIM | More Intelligent Life

This article on Mark Twain’s relationship with the Mississippi just lost my serious attention when the author describes Huck and Jim heading north on the raft. North? Really?

(via Instapaper)

Jun 3 '10
“For every man who ticks me off for being an overdressed popinjay there is some hand-wringing beetle-browed whiner who complains that I am simply genetically fortunate to be able to wear the clothes I do. These persons then point out that I am thinner than they are, younger than they are, healthier than they are, luckier than they are – ad nauseum. The problem is not that they are anything they claim (without a shred of evidence). The problem is that they are unwilling to look at themselves as anything else.”
— No More Excuses (via thisfits) (via putthison)

27 notes (via putthison & thisfits)

Jun 3 '10
Vacation rentals, private rooms, sublets by the night - Accommodations on Airbnb

This could come in handy for the honeymoon.

Jun 2 '10
seoulbrother: glass: Extreme Greenies: See now why we push “Drill, baby, drill!” of known reserves & promising finds in safe onshore places like ANWR? Now do you get it? – Sarah Palin (Oh right, I guess I didn’t see your angle before…)

seoulbrother:

glass:

Extreme Greenies: See now why we push “Drill, baby, drill!” of known reserves & promising finds in safe onshore places like ANWR? Now do you get it? – Sarah Palin

(Oh right, I guess I didn’t see your angle before…)

28 notes (via seoulbrother & glass)

Jun 2 '10
“If I knew more about the actual characters of Sex and the City, I would be able to make more parallels. I do know Miranda is your C-3PO. That’s obvious. Beyond that, I’d just be guessing. Which I can do, legally, because I’m a blogger. Carrie is your Luke. Charlotte is Han Solo. Samantha is Chewbacca. All men are Darth Vader. And I bet there are vibrators involved. Hello, R2-D2.”
— Tim Siedell: A Review of Sex and the City 2 by Someone Who Doesn’t Know Anything About It

Jun 1 '10
Morgan Spurlock's 30 Days

I had absolutely no interest in the movie that made Morgan Spurlock’s name, Supersize Me, because it seemed like another part of the Michael Moore school of sensational documentaries. I heard positive things about this series somewhere though, and it showed up on Netflix Instant, so I decided to check it out. It’s really really good. There’s a mix of “big issue” episodes (Minuteman lives with illegal immigrant family, Christian lives with Muslims) and smaller scale social experiment episodes (mother drinks at a college student pace for 30 days to show her ASU daughter the risk). While it seems a little sappy to spell it out this way, I think the core message of this show is that when we actually approach people we may think we disagree with as people, we tend to recognize our common humanity. I’m always worried going into each episode that I’m going to get all anxious and political-y feeling, but the resolution is usually such a good relief. It does make me wonder how the whole thing is set up, sometimes it seems like the placements are a little too perfect, but not so much that it makes the show unbelievable as a documentary.