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Archive for August 2011

City of Bones

Aug31

Title: City of Bones

Author: Cassandra Clare

Genre: YA urban fantasy

Length: 460 pages, 131,000 words

Read: August 17-19, 2011

Summary: Fun until the end

ANY CHARACTER HERE

City of Bones is the first in a series of fairly typical urban paranormal. We have a girl who thinks she’s nothing special, but she discovers she’s part of this whole world of demon hunters, fairies, vampires, werewolves, etc. And right under our noses in New York City!

Seen that before?

Well yes. Certainly one of my biggest problems with this book is just how similar it is to lots and lots of other late 2000s urban fantasy. It’s much like Holly Black‘s stuff (White Cat, Tithe), but with a bit less atmosphere. In fact, the two authors are friends and share the same agent (coincidence?). But City of Bones is similar to a lot of other things as well. At times there’s a wee bit of a unique feel involving the Shadowhunters (that’s what this book calls the demon hunters clan the protagonist hooks up with). Just a little. There’s certainly very very little rooting in any kind of traditional mythology, but instead a whole hell a lot of stuff stolen from contemporary pop myth. Werewolves and vampires both, and guess what? They hate each other. Author Cassandra Clare started off as a Harry Potter fanfic writer, and that shows because she borrows a lot from HP. But not what you’d think. There’s next to no similarity of feel, no wizard school, etc. Instead City of Bones borrows things like naming conventions and loose bad guy structure. Names like “Pangborn” and the like. The evil guy (who faked his death) is back with a “Circle” (ahem Death Eaters) and their’s more. Clare loves capitalized terms like “The Circle,” “The Uprising,” “The Institute.”

Still, for at least the first 50-60% I really enjoyed reading this novel. It’s well written. Albeit overwritten. I can’t understand how the hell they let her through the gates at 130k words. At least 15% could be cut with just a good line edit and there are long long dialog exchanges that are either datadumps or serve only as barbed chatter between the male and female leads. The POV is a little wonky too, 95% of the time focusing on the female lead (Clary), but occasionally shifting to the male or even a baddy. Clary’s very very typical. She’s pretty, but thinks she isn’t. She dives into crazy life threatening fight scenes time and time again, but has no skills herself. But somehow you don’t mind her. In fact she’s pretty likeable. The male lead (Jace) is less typical. He’s genuinely obnoxious (verbally) but mostly tries to do the right thing in deeds. His aloof self is actually pretty well crafted, although annoying at the same time. There is some good tension in the interpersonal stuff — although not even the whiff of sex, which would have spiced it up.

All this criticism aside, I did actually enjoy the first half of the book. I even said to my wife half way: “I’m reading one of those rare urban fantasy’s that’s actually good.” Truth be told, there’s all sorts of drivel I don’t finish and don’t mention on my blog. City of Bones is a long book, and I flew through it to perhaps the 75% mark. I can’t exactly say what made it enjoyable, but it was. Despite the pretty derivative scenario, the characters were engaging for the most part. Clare’s a good action writer — not perfect, but her action scenes are to the point and clear. There’s a definite urban feel to things. Sometimes a little too much as this is one of those worlds where the fantasy types spend a lot of time at clubs posing as hip weirdos. They have “cool” swirly tattoos too (in this context quotes = sarcasm). There are twists and turns and reveals. Some of the big ones you can see a mile coming. Like the deal with Clary’s father. I guessed that one about page 20. The hints were slathered on like a redhead with the sunblock.

Really the only thing that prevents this book from being a solid guilty pleasure (it was never aimed at classic), and me from starting in on the sequel (which people say is actually better), is the cheesy final showdown. It totally lost me. Mired and tortured me in fifty pages of “bad guy gives lots of Scooby Doo explanation in the middle of a fight.” Yeah, he’s like stabbing with a sword and he has time to get about three pages of dialog in during each stroke. We even have this cheesy flashback from one of the older characters (a werewolf named Lucian — we’ve never seen that before!) to a supposedly crucial scene right around the time of Clary’s birth. A big flashback at the 85% point? It’s the only one in the book too. A couple lines of dialog would have told us what we needed to know. The whole end just felt forced. Clare should have kept the villain off screen or something, because he was so ham-handed he was begging for a slice of pineapple. Which is a shame, because there was enough craft in the other characters that I actually grew to like them.

For more book reviews, click here.

Related posts:

  1. Book Review: City of War
  2. Waterloo & City
  3. Waterloo & City is Victorious
By: agavin
Comments (7)
Posted in: Books
Tagged as: Book Review, Cassandra Clare, City of Bones, Fiction, Harry Potter, Holly Black, New York City, Novel, Shadowhunter, The Mortal Instruments, Urban fantasy, Vampire

Brief Status

Aug31

I’m going to hold off publishing the next installment in my So you want to be a video game programmer series until Thursday September 1. The next chunk is on “School” and I’m doing some additional research. So instead today will be a biz as usual food or media post. Tonight is also the night for my coveted Ludobites 7.0 reservation, so Friday will hopefully be a delicious post on that.

And I’m cranking away on the third second draft (call it a 2.5 draft or something) of Untimed 🙂

By: agavin
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Posted in: Uncategorized

So you want to be a video game programmer? – part 3 – Getting Started

Aug30

…CONTINUED from PART 2. Or start at Part 1.

Some kid is always asking me, “I love video games, how do I learn to program them?”

First of all, a warning. Reaching the skill level to be a professional video games programmer takes years. There are no shortcuts. You can not possibly go from nothing to professional grade skills in less than perhaps 2-3 years — and for that you’d have to be an uber-genius — usually it takes 5-10.

The good news is that you can start very young (8-10 — I started at 10) and you can do it on your own with common equipment and readily available information.

There are two basic approaches: home training and school. And while I personally recommend both, I’m going to use this post to give my own “origin story.” In followups we can apply these lessons to the present (programming itself hasn’t changed all that much in 30 years — there are just more libraries).

[ BTW, if you’re new to the blog and wondering who the hell I am in this context, click ]

Rewind to 1979. Some of my favorite things in the world were Dungeons and Dragons and arcade games. I was really too young to actually play D&D accurately, but I loved reading the books and modules (besides my regular diet of fantasy novels). I went to the Apple Store (not actually owned by Apple or nearly as glamourous as they are today — in fact, the owner resembled Gandalf) and saw the game Akalabeth running on an Apple II (not a + or an e, but an old school II). Boy did that set me to dreaming!

Then in 1980 my science teacher brought into class a Heathkit H8 her husband built (yes built). This early computer ran a lousy version of BASIC and possesed the world’s worst storage device: the audio tape drive. Actually punch cards were worse, but with the tape drive, saving your program bordered on impossible (at least for the sharing audio tapes with the rest of the class) and so you had to type it in repeatedly. We were given a single mimeographed sheet of paper with the BASIC commands. I read this a couple times and then wrote out longhand the first draft of a text-based RPG where you wandered around and fought orcs and trolls for gold and tretchure (this is how I spelled treasure at 10). During lunch I typed in and debugged the game, editing my paper copy as needed. I used my friends as beta-testers. It may seem overly ambitious to try and recreate D&D as one’s first program, but it illustrates the programmer principle of: program what you love.

Then my best friend got himself a brand new Apple II+ (just released). This was a slick update of the Apple II. It had a whole 48k, came with BASIC, and was often (but not always) accompanied by a 143k floppy disk drive! Low low price of $900 just for the floppy drive! In any case, the II+ was so much more awesome than the Heathkit. It even had graphics!

So I began pestering my father for an Apple. This took 9-10 months of continuous harassment — the machine was expensive — and all sorts of creative techniques to convince him. I offered to mow the lawn for free. I explained how various accounting software would make balancing his checkbook a breeze, etc. Once I was victorious (Jan 1981) we got the accounting software, but he never used it, leaving me to my own devices on the machine. And I think I kept getting paid for the lawn. Still, this episode illustrates another important programmer principle: persistence.

After the Apple arrived, I spent nearly all of my free time (perhaps 6-8 hours a day) on the thing for years. This is essential. You must offer up blood onto the alter of the programming gods. Principle: sacrifice. I used this time in many ways. I played a lot of games. I used every piece of software. I taught myself to program. I hacked. Principle: market research. But I couldn’t afford as many games as I wanted and in those early years the available library was small, so I was always trying to make my own.

I wrote totally lame versions of nearly every arcade game ever made. In BASIC at first (we’ll get to the issue of environment later). I would generally spend a day or three banging these out until they were marginally playable and then move on to new projects. Lesson here: practice. I chose more and more ambitious games and would use each one to teach me something new. I did this in incremental steps, mostly 1-2 day projects. By way of example, I might upgrade something or I might add a load/save system (requiring learning about I/O). My early games didn’t have much in the way of collision, later ones did. I started with text, then moved up to lores graphics, then highres, then shape tables, then bits of assembly language subroutines for blitting. Principle here: baby steps.

Baby steps are incredibly important. You can’t learn everything there is to know in computers in one shot. Each little area takes multiple projects and days — at least — to learn and master. Take file I/O. I’m sure I got something up and going the first day or two back in the early 80s when I decided to add a load/save system, but I was still learning about file I/O 25 years later on Jak 3 (of course then I was inventing new ways of doing stream I/O, but it was learning nonetheless). Your first pass might work, but often you barely understand any of the principles involved.

You have to start simple, build up blocks, and go from there. That’s why interpreted languages and text programs are a good way to begin. You need to learn about variables, scope, and flow of control before you can jump into 3D graphics. And forget about complex unforgiving environments like C/C++ or assembly to begin with. Those come later and are just one more thing to spend a series of baby steps on. Just learning about makefiles or projects and compile options could stop a novice dead. So don’t — yet. Each task (and thing to learn) should be broken into some chunk that only takes a couple days at most to digest — or at least make some headway on. This leads to a virtuous feedback loop of progress and learning.

I kept writing those lame little games for about 3 years (100s of them). Of all my friends with computers (we all programmed in that era because computers didn’t do much if you didn’t program) my games were the coolest. I used them to invent all sorts of excuses to develop new skills. I wanted to learn about interpreters so I made an engine to allow the creation of text adventure games using a custom scripting language. Once I got this going I upgraded it to graphic adventures, which proved to be a perfect excuse to implement an idea I had seen in the Sierra games where line drawing and fill commands were used to compress images to a fraction of their raw size. On the Apple II a raw graphics screen was 8k. So a floppy only fit 17. A normal compressor (ancestor of zip) might squeeze this to 3-4k but that is still only 30-35 images. This “save the drawing commands” style made them a fraction of that. But for it to work I not only had to create the “renderer” (including an assembly fill routine) but I also a whole “paint program” to allow the recording/creation of these proprietary images.

However, each of these sub-steps resulted in satisfying progress on its own. Principle: chunking. For example that fill routine. It took several days, and my mastery of recursion in assembly wasn’t the best so it left little corners unfilled, but it was cool in of itself. My first fill routine (in BASIC) took 5 minutes to do a fill, and the assembly one only a second or two. Plus, I was to keep using it in all sorts of programs for years (with improvements). Principle: reuse. Building on the tools you make is essential to programming.

In 1982, I met Jason Rubin. He also programmed. He was an amazing (by the standards of the time and our age) artist and his games LOOKED REALLY COOL. But they crashed a lot. Mine rarely did. From the beginning I hated crashing. Still can’t tolerate it. I have trouble leaving the keyboard if a crash bug is still outstanding. Principle: perfectionism. My programs also did much cooler “programming” stuff. They just didn’t look cool. When we combined our talents, things really took off! Our games now looked cool AND ran decently. Impressive stuff. Lesson: partnership. Not everyone can be good at every aspect of computers. Nor even of programming itself.

CONTINUED with Part 4 – School!

_

Parts of this series are: [Why, The Specs, Getting Started, School, Method]

If you liked this post, follow me at:

My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed
or the
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or win Crash & Jak giveaways!

Latest hot post: War Stories: Crash Bandicoot

Related posts:

  1. So you want to be a video game programmer? – part 2 – Specs
  2. So you want to be a video game programmer? – part 1 – Why
  3. How do I get a job designing video games?
  4. Matsuhisa – Where it all started
  5. Making Crash Bandicoot – GOOL – part 9
By: agavin
Comments (27)
Posted in: Games, Technology
Tagged as: Andy Gavin, Apple, Apple II, Apple II series, Apple Store, BASIC, Computer Programming, Dungeons & Dragons, Floppy disk, Game programming, Heathkit, Origins, Programming, pt_career_advice, Steve Jobs

So you want to be a video game programmer? – part 1 – Why

Aug29

This post is a sequel of sorts to my How do I get a job designing video games. The good new is — if you’re a programmer — that nearly all video game companies are hiring programmers at all times. Demand is never satisfied. And the salaries are very very competitive.

The bad news is that it takes a hell of a lot of work to both be and become a great game programmer. Or maybe that isn’t such bad news, because you absolutely love programming, computers, and video games, right? If not, stop and do not goto 20.

I’m breaking this topic into a number of sub-posts. Although this is the intro, it was posted a day after the second, number 2, on types of game programmers, but I’m backing up and inserting this new number 1 (I’m a programmer, I know how to insert). Other posts will follow on topics like “how to get started” and “the interview.”

_

So why would you want to be a video game programmer?

Let’s start with why you might want to be a programmer:

1. Sorcery. First and foremost, being a programmer is like being a wizard. I always wanted to be a wizard. Given that magic (as in the D&D variety) doesn’t seem to be real (damn!) programming is the next best thing. Computers are everywhere. They’re big, complex, and all sorts of cool everyday devices (like iPhones, set-top boxes, cars, and microwaves) are really basically computers — or at least the brains of them are. 99.9% of people have no idea how this technology works. As the late great Author C. Clarke said, “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Yay computers! If you actually know the arcane rituals, incantations, and spells to controls these dark powers then you are… drum roll please… a wizard.

2. Career security. Computers are the foundation of the 21st century economy. Nearly every new business is based on them. Knowing the above incantations is secret sauce. All the growth is in high tech (product possibility frontier and all that). Hiring is supply and demand too. The demand is for programmers and other high tech specialists.

3. Even more career security. Programming is hard. It requires a big New Cortex style brain. This means lots of people can’t do it. It takes years of study and practice. I’ve been programming for 30 years and there is still an infinite amount for me to learn. Awesome!

4. It’s a rush. Creating stuff is a rush. Making the infernal machine bend to your warlocky will is a huge thrill. It never gets boring and there is always more to learn (related to #3).

5. It pays really well. This is related to #2 and #3. People need programmers and they can’t get enough, so they have to pay competitively for them. Even in the late 90s early 00s at Naughty Dog it was very rare for us to start ANY programmer at less than $100,000, even ones right out of school. Good ones made a lot more. And if you’re a total kick-ass grand master wizard (nerd) like Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg you can even start your own company and make billions. Take that you muscle bound warriors!

6. Solo contributions. You like spending time with machines and find all day dealing with illogical humans at least partially tedious. Sorry to say it, but even though most professional programming is done in teams a lot of time is spent at the keyboard. For some of us, this ain’t a bad thing.

7. Socialization. You need an excuse to hang out with others. On the flip side, because of this team thing you’ll be forced to socialize on and off between coding. This socialization will have certain structural support. This is convenient for the would-be wizard, master of demons but terrifying forces, but afraid of starting conversations.

So why would you want to be a video game programmer specifically?

8. Video game programming is really hard. Probably the hardest of the hard. It combines cutting edge graphics, effects, the latest hardware, artistic constraints, tons of competition, very little memory, and all sorts of difficult goodies. The really serious wizards apply here.

9. Other types. Video game teams have artists, musicians, and designers on them too. Lots of tech jobs don’t (although they sometimes have those pesky marking folks). Artists etc are cool. They know how to draw or compose cool stuff which makes your code look and sound much cooler.

10. Consumer driven. If you make it to work on a professional game they often sell lots of copies and people will have heard of what you do. This is much much cooler than saying “I worked on the backend payment scheme of the Bank of America ATM.” It’s so cool that it might even get you laid — which is an important concern for bookish wizards of both genders.

11. It’s visual. Seeing your creations move about the screen and spatter into bloody bits is way more exciting than that green text on the bank ATM. Talented artists and sound designers will come to you with said bloody bits and all sorts of squishy sounds which will make your coding look 1000x more cool than it would by itself. If you aren’t into bloody bits than you can work on a game where enemies explode into little cartoon rings. It’s all cool.

12. It’s creative. For me, I have to create worlds and characters. I’ve been doing so my whole life. Right now I’m not even programming but I’m writing novels, which is also about creating. Programming in general is pretty creative, but game programming is probably the most so.

13. Love. You love video games so much that working on them 100+ hours a week seems like far less of a chore than any other job you can think of!

I’m sure there are more reasons, but the above seem pretty damn compelling.

CONTINUED HERE with Part 2: “The Specs”

_

Parts of this series are: [Why, The Specs, Getting Started, School, Method]

If you liked this post, follow me at:

My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed
or the
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or win Crash & Jak giveaways!

Latest hot post: War Stories: Crash Bandicoot

Related posts:

  1. So you want to be a video game programmer? – part 2 – Specs
  2. How do I get a job designing video games?
  3. Crash Bandicoot – Teaching an Old Dog New Bits – part 2
  4. Making Crash Bandicoot – part 6
  5. Making Crash Bandicoot – part 5
By: agavin
Comments (56)
Posted in: Games, Technology
Tagged as: Andy Gavin, Bill Gates, Console Platforms, Crash Bandicoot, Game programmer, Game programming, Games, iPhone, Mark Zuckerberg, Naughty Dog, New Cortex, pt_career_advice

So you want to be a video game programmer? – part 2 – Specs

Aug28

…CONTINUED FROM PART 1.

There are a couple of broad categories of programmers working on video game teams. If programmer is your player class, then the following types are your spec. Programmers are all warlocks and mages so instead of “demonology” or “frost” you can choose from below. (NOTE: if you don’t get this joke, you don’t play enough video games) This is the real world however, and many programmers dual (or even triple) spec — i.e. they handle multiple specialties.

1. Gameplay programmer. Programs enemies, characters, interfaces, gameplay setups etc. Probably also does things like AI and collision detection. These programmers are sometimes a little less hardcore technical than some of the other types, but this is the sub-field where the most “art” and experience are often required. Learning how to make a character’s control feel good is not something you can read about in Knuth. It takes the right kind of creative personality and a lot of trial and error. In a lot of ways, this is the heart and soul of game programming, the spec that truly differentiates us from the more engineering programming disciplines.

2. Tools programmer. Works on the extensive tools pipeline that all games have. This is the only branch of game programming where you don’t absolutely have to know and breathe video games inside and out, and it’s a little closer to mainstream applications programming. That being said, life at most video game companies is so intense, you better love them. Tools programmers tend to be very good at practical algorithms, data processing, etc. For some reason, perhaps because it’s more “behind the scenes” this spec is often viewed as less glamourous and there are fewer programmers who want to go into it.

3. Sound programmer. A very specific niche. Here you have to not only know how to program well, but you have to care about the esoteric field of sound. You need the kind of ear that can tell if there is a one sample glitch in some audio loop, and you need to care if the 3D audio spatialization is off or the sound field isn’t balanced. This is often a fairly low level area as audio programming is often done on DSPs.

4. Collision programmer. This is a really specific spec, and often overlaps with Graphics because it involves totally intense amounts of math. You better have taken BC calculus in tenth grade and thought “diffy-q” was the coolest class ever if you want to go into this.

5. Network programmer. In this era of multiplayer and networked gaming there’s a lot of networking going on. And programming across the internet is a bit of a specialty of it’s own. In general, video game programming takes any sub-field of programming to it’s most extreme, pushing the bleeding limits, and networking is no exception. Games often use hairy UDP and peer-to-peer custom protocols where every last bit counts and the slightest packet loss can make for a terrible game experience. If this is your thing, you better know every last nuance of the TCP/IP protocol and be able to read raw packet dumps.

6. Graphics programmer. Some guys really dig graphics and are phenomenal at math. If you don’t shit 4×4 matrices and talk to your mom about shaders, don’t bother. This sub-specialty is often very low-level as graphics programming often involves a lot of optimization. It may involve coming up with a cool new way of environment mapping, some method of packing more vertices through the pipeline, or better smoothing of the quaternions in the character joints (HINT: involves imaginary math — and if you don’t know that that means the square-root of -1 then this sub-field might not be for you).

7. Engine programmer. For some reason, most wannabe video game programmers hold this up as their goal. They want to have created the latest and greatest video game engine with the coolest graphics. Superstars like Tim Sweeney,John Carmack, and even myself are usually seen as falling in this category. The truth is that superstars do all kinds of programming, and are often distinguished by the fact that we are willing and able to handle any sub-type and tie it all together (see lead below). In my mind engine programmers are jacks-of-all-trades, good at building systems and gluing them together. The top guys often blend with Graphics and Lead below. There’s also tons of stuff like compression (nothing uses compression like games, we’d often have 8-10 different custom compressors in a game), multi-threading, load systems (you think seamless loading like in Jak & Daxter is easy?), process management, etc.

8. Lead programmer. People also dream of being the lead. All the great programmers are/were. This is the hardest spec, and no one ever starts out in it. You need to be able to do any of the other specs, or at least judge what approach is best. You need to be able to roll up your sleeves and dive in and fix crap anywhere in the program. You need to live without sleep (4 hours a night every day for years baby!). You need to be able to squint at the screen and guess where the bug is in others people’s code. You need to know how to glue systems together. You need to be able and willing to trim memory footprints and optimize (no one else wants to do it). In fact, you have to know the entire program, even if it is 5-10 million lines of code, and you have to do all the crap that no one else wants to do. Plus, you often have to manage a bevy of other personalities and waste lots and lots of time in meetings. Still want the glory? Being lead is all about responsibility!

CONTINUED with Part 3: Getting Started

_

Parts of this series are: [Why, The Specs, Getting Started, School, Method]

If you liked this post, follow me at:

My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed
or the
video game post depot
or win Crash & Jak giveaways!

Latest hot post: War Stories: Crash Bandicoot

Related posts:

  1. How do I get a job designing video games?
  2. Making Crash Bandicoot – part 3
  3. Making Crash Bandicoot – part 5
  4. Making Crash Bandicoot – GOOL – part 9
  5. Crash Bandicoot – Teaching an Old Dog New Bits – part 2
By: agavin
Comments (43)
Posted in: Games, Technology
Tagged as: Andy Gavin, Artificial intelligence, Character class, Console Platforms, Crash Bandicoot, Digital signal processor, Game design, Game engine, Game programmer, Game programming, Games, History, Jak and Daxter, Programming, pt_career_advice, Video game

Eyeborg – Resistance is Futile

Aug27

As my friends who’ve known me since the 80s will recount, I’ve always been an enthusiastic advocate of upgrading the human race. In fact, before going to M.I.T. to start my PhD (aborted after two years to make Crash Bandicoot), I applied to all sorts of MD/PhD programs in biomedical engineering. I chose M.I.T. (AI Lab) over Johns Hopkins (Bio med eng) partially because I always had more fun with computers than in bio lab (despite having majored neuro-bio) but also because my enthusiasm for “improving” mankind with technology seemed to fall on deaf ears in the medical community. Somehow it’s perfectly alright to talk about giving sight to the blind — which, by the way, I’m all for — but uncool and oh so Dr Neo Cortex to discuss bionic eye upgrades.

In any case, check this guy out!

He’s replaced his eye (albeit already missing) with a camera and transmitter! For real!

Too bad he hasn’t yet overcome the really big hurdle: sending the signal to his brain! That’ll be a while, splicing any kind of video signal into an optic nerve or V1 (the early visual cortex) is, as we used to say at M.I.T.: non-trivial!

Get too it Eyeborg!

More information can be found at the Eyeborg Project’s home page.

By: agavin
Comments (3)
Posted in: Technology
Tagged as: Biomedical engineering, Crash Bandicoot, Cyborg, Doctor of Philosophy, Eyeborgs, Medicine, Neo Cortex, Rob Spence, Technology

Quick Eats – Bar Pinxto

Aug26

Restaurant: Bar Pinxto

Location: 109 Santa Monica Boulevard, Santa Monica, CA. (310) 458-2012

Date: August 19, 2011

Cuisine: Spanish Tapas

Rating: Quick little lunch bargain

ANY CHARACTER HERE

After seeing Fright Night we shopped around Santa Monica for a lunch place and decided to revisit Bar Pinxto. This is a genuine Spanish Tapas Bar, in that it’s a bar first, restaurant second. Still they have a wide variety of traditional Spanish Tapas (as they would in Spain).


There is a small amount of outside seating.


And the cute little interior space.


Being Spanish, olives grace the table. Bar Pinxto has a $15 3 course lunch menu which is an excellent deal and a lot of food.


First course was Gazpacho. This was certainly a good implementation of the classic form of the soup. Not quite as good as the Jose Andres variety at The Bazaar/Saam/Tres, but good. I like the fine pureed texture.


Classic Paella, one of the second courses. This was pretty traditional, with muscles and chorizo. It could have benefited from a few more ingredients, but was respectable.


Squid with squid ink over Spanish rice (basically paella). The squid was soft and tasty, although the portion was smaller than the paella.


Pot du creme, chocolate. This was a damn good chocolate cream/mousse thingy. Damn good. Sort of a chocolate version of Gjelina’s butterscotch one.

Overall, the quick Pinxto $15 lunch is an excellent deal. The food was good and pretty authentically Spanish, and you certainly get a lot for your money.

Click here to see more LA restaurants.

Related posts:

  1. Quick Eats – Wilshire
  2. Quick Eats: Kreation Kafe
  3. Quick Eats: La Cachette Bistro
  4. Quick Eats: Caffe Delfini
  5. Quick Eats: La Serenata
By: agavin
Comments (2)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Bar Pinxto, Bazaar, Gazpacho, Los Angeles, Paella, Restaurant, Restaurant Review, Santa Monica California, Spain, Spanish rice

Conan the Barbarian – I live, I love, I slay

Aug25

Title: Conan the Barbarian

Director/Stars: Jason Momoa (Actor), Ron Perlman (Actor), Marcus Nispel (Director)

Genre: Fantasy

Watched: August 24, 2011

Summary: Plot holes galore, but fun!

_

The new Conan is surely a guilty pleasure for the fantasy hound like myself. Yeah, the plot and characterization is a little weak, but it is gorgeous, and the action is comprehensible. I have to admit, I enjoyed it. It’s certainly faster paced than the awesome although slightly dated and admittedly cheesy original — my recent review here.

The casting is decent enough. Jason Momoa lacks a bit of the gravitas he had as Drogo in Game of Thrones, perhaps because he speaks English here. He has charisma, and handles the action well, but the American accent really bugged me, and he plays it with a touch of the comedic. Ron Perlman is fun as dad, although he doesn’t mention Crom, but he does talk about the secret of steel — at least indirectly. Stephen Lang has already proven he makes a good one-dimensional bad guy (although he’s no James Earl Jones). There are a bevy of distinctively made up sub-bosses, although none of them are as cool as Rexor and the other headbanger. Rachel Nichols is a little dull as the screaming victim/love interest, although she’s cute enough. But call me twisted, I thought Rose McGowan was hot and funny as nasty sorcerer-girl daughter of big-bad. Yeah her fivehead is CG, but she’s looking great for 38.

And the world looks awesome! The cities and temples (as seen in overhead shots) look totally kick ass. Funny too that they’re all so close together, as it never seems to take anyone more than an hour to ride/walk between locations. I guess the lack of public transit notwithstanding, the Age of Hyboria predates traffic. This is a fairly authentic (to the 1930s source material) Conan world. It has slave girls. Even George R. R. Martin likes slave girls. Said women in bondage are properly absent their tops.

The action scenes are fun and surprisingly clear. They could have edited this to death like a lot of recent movies, but you can make sense of what’s going on in a physical way. I had the good fortune to see it in 2D, without sunglasses.

Someone also did their medieval torture research. The noseless sub-boss employs a genuine torture device in his nameless workcamp. It’s somewhere between The Head Crusher and the Thumbscrew, but it’s real. I went to a torture museum in Volterra Italy, home of Twilight’s most leather-conscious vampire clan, so I’m all up on this stuff. Later in the movie, Tamara spends some quality time bound to a wheel, which is most reminiscent of this, fortunately for her, she’s way too pretty to break and leave for dead. Big-bad even uses a clever homebrew version of the Lead Sprinkler to harass Conan and dad.

But there are a lot of lost opportunities here. The backstory intro is cheesy as hell and not really necessary. Conan has some friends, but we don’t get to see him meet them, nor do they play a really important role in the story. There’s basically no characterization of anyone, but there could have been. Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark manage to characterize and have plenty of action. We don’t really find out much about the world or any people in it, instead it merely serves as pretty backdrop.

 

But did I mention I really liked skanky sorcerer-girl Marique?

However, I do have a few questions:

Who cut infant Conan’s umbilical cord? Why did the big-bad bother with the whole “torture dad” bit when his little witch-daughter could just sniff out the mask piece anyway?  When Conan and friends role a bunch of boulders down at the slavers, how is it that they miss hitting all the slaves? Imagine the coincidence that after 20 years of searching for the “pure blood”, Conan arrives at the temple on the exact day in which the big-bad finds her. If sub-boss Remo is such a badass, why does he run from Conan the moment he sees him? Why does the big-bad travel with a ship carried on the back of twenty elephants? And given said elephants, why does he need a whipping crew of slaves to pull it too? And given all that, how do they get the ship on and off the elephants without a crane? Why after big-bad and daughter fall for the ancient trick of being taunted to kill their informant (the old priest) do they gloat? Why did not much come of sorcerer-girl’s poison? Why don’t we see sorcerer-girl at the hair salon, obviously this is where she spends most of her time? Why does Conan let the girl go wander in the woods after sex, knowing that the bad guy is looking for her? And where did those woods come from anyway, as they were on a rocky coastline? Oh, and when sorcerer-girl leaves a calling claw, how is it that she has all five a minute later? How does Conan manage to ride all the way to the city of thieves and back to big-bad’s hideout in about an hour? Why does the hideout have a little monster fun pool in the basement? How does Conan get out of said hideout? And how does his thieving friend? Why if sorcerer-girl is so badass, does she fall for a little cat-fight action and not pull out some new magic at the end? Why if this mask is so powerful does it not really help the big-bad any? Or even curse him as payback for his big-badness? After winning, why does Conan drop off the girl at home and ride off into the sunset with hardly a word of explanation? Surely he could have brought her home to his ruined hovel or had at least one more literal roll in the hay!

Overall, though, it’s about 1000 times better than the Clash of the Titans remake.

For my review of the original manly man Arnold version, click here.

For more Film reviews, click here.

 

 

Related posts:

  1. Conan the Barbarian – Lamentation of their women
  2. Thoughts on TV: Lost vs The Love Boat
By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Movies
Tagged as: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Conan, Conan The Barbarian, Hyborian Age, Jason Momoa, Marcus Nispel, Rachel Nichols, Robert E. Howard, Ron Perlman, Rose McGowan, Stephen Lang

Quick Eats – Wilshire

Aug24

Restaurant: Wilshire

Location: 2454 Wilshire Boulevard Santa Monica, CA 90403-5823. (310) 586-1707

Date: July 23, 2011

Cuisine: New Californian

Rating: Solid

_

Wilshire is a New American in the heart of inland Santa Monica. They belong to the approachable ingredient driven California style popular in recent years (the older LA styles being “asian fusion” and “80s eclectic”).


The unassuming frontage (really sideage) conceals a rather extensive interior with a big bar space and a lovely outside patio. Their website has an up to to date menu.


“Art basil. kanon organic vodka, muddled grapes, basil, lime, ginger ale.” Pretty tasty.


A beet, burrata, and tomato salad with a bit of pesto and balsamic.


“Bacon and eggs. speck, housemade ricotta, poached egg, frisee.” This was a tasty combo, although the egg was just a touch underdone. This is a tricky balance as I like the yolk totally liquid but the white pretty well cooked.


“Scottish salmon. salsify, sprouting broccolini, king trumpet mushrooms, meyer lemon.”


“Braised shortrib. mascarpone polenta, swiss chard, romesco.” A classic short rib combo, as this kind of heavy meat is usually paired with a starch like mashed potatoes, polenta, or risotto. In this case it was the beef gravy that made the polenta, as it often does.


Part of the patio.


The patio bar.

One of the two interior rooms.

I haven’t sampled Wilshire in enough depth to form a really solid opinion. I like the patio area and the food I had was quite tasty, although it didn’t blow me away. Perhaps it seems just a tad too typical New Cal Cuisine. It’s also a hair over priced, but we certainly had a good meal here.

My index of LA Restaurants here.

Related posts:

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  3. Quick Eats: Brunch at Tavern
  4. Quick Eats: La Serenata
  5. Quick Eats: Brentwood
By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: California, Eggs, Food, Los Angeles, Restaurant, Restaurant Review, Salmon, Santa Monica California, Short Ribs, Wilshire, Wilshire Boulevard

Pleased by Picca

Aug23

Restaurant: Picca [1, 2]

Location: 9575 West Pico Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90035. Tel: 310 277 0133

Date: August 15, 2011

Cuisine: Modern Peruvian

Rating: Really interesting flavors

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I was really excited to try this new Modern Peruvian. As best I can tell (having never been to Peru other than an airport stop in Lima) Peru has a really interesting culinary melange going on merging Spanish, traditional South American, and Japanese influences. I’ve heard that much of the wave of innovation in American Modern Japanese started by Nobu Matsuhisa (detailed look here) is really just Peruvian. In any case, on to the food.

This space is just above what used to be Test Kitchen last year and is now the excellent Sotto. The chef is Ricardo M. Zarate, a Lima native, and as far as I can tell, he rocks.


The menu. This is all served Tapas style, which you all know is my favorite.


Burgundy! Parker gives this 92, “Bachelet’s 2005 Gevrey-Chambertin Vieilles Vignes – from 60- to 70-year-old vines both below the route nationale and north of Gevrey in Brochon – offers lovely black fruit aromas with hints of anise and mint. A truly palate-staining intensity of vividly-fresh, tart but ripe black cherry and blackberry is underlain by firm, fine tannins (not precluding an emerging silkiness of texture) and augmented by bitter-herbal and stony notes. Although palpably dense and abundantly tannic, this outstanding village wine still comes off as juicy, sleek, invigorating and refined. Put it away for at least 5-7 years.”


“jalea mixta. crispy mixed seafood, tartare sauce.” Some really good fried seafood. The tartare sauce was fantastic too.


“chicharron de pollo. marinated crispy chicken, salsa criolla, rocoto sauce.” Also good fry. Like uber chicken nuggets.


“tres leches de tigre. rocoto, aji amarillo, sea urchin shooters.” Three different gazpacho-like shooters. I had the Uni one. It was very limey/vinegary which I like.


“ceviche mixto. mixed seafood, sweet potato, choclo.” Mixed fresh seafood marinated. Those things on the right are the giant peruvian corn kernels. The fish was very fresh, particularly the shrimp. The marinate was tasty, but certainly had a very strong lime/vinegar thing going on.


On the left: “santa barbara prawns. lemon grass yuzu kosho pesto.” Very tender sweet prawns, with the sauce definitely adding.

On the right: “black cod. miso anticucho, crispy sweet potato.” Tasty too. The potato chips though were even better 🙂


Apparently in Peru sushi is done with these yellow blocks instead of rice and called causa sushi. The stuff looks like polenta but is actually a mash of yellow potato with some spices.

This is the “unagi. avocado, cucumber, eel sauce” and it’s pretty much your eel sushi. Of all these causas this was my favorite as the polenta is heavier and stronger flavored than rice and the eel held up to it best.


“scallops. mentaiko.” Certainly tasty, but it would have been better with rice.


“albacore. garlic chip, ceviche sauce.” My second favorite of this set.


“spicy yellow tail. spicy mayo, green onions, wasabi tobiko.” Also good, but the fourth potato bar was beginning to feel too heavy.


“arroz chaufa de mariscos. mixed seafood, peruvian fried rice, pickled radish.” This was a nice version of paella. Brighter and more citrusy (by far) than it’s Spanish cousin. The ingredients were very fresh.


“seco de pato. duck leg confit, black beer sauce, cilantro rice.” This was a slight disappointment. It was perfectly cooked, but given the volume level of the flavors of this meal it felt a little muted, particularly the rice.


“chicharron de costillas. crispy pork ribs crostini, sweet potato puree, feta cheese sauce, salsa criolla.” This however was pretty spectacular, one of the best pork sandwiches I’ve tried.


We finished the wine and decided to explore some of the awesome cocktails as “dessert beverages.” These drinks are by mixologist Julian Cox. The cocktail menu.


This was “chilcano de anis, lime juice, ginger syrup, anise syrup, pisco, soda, mint sprig, pernod.” It was pretty damn good, tasting like sweet mint licorice.


“Sabertooth. cachaca, muddled blueberries, apricot liquor, fresh lime juice, simple syrup, shaken, lime wheel & blueberry.” Pretty great too.


“Rhubarb Sidecar.” Cognac, pisco, fresh lemon juice, rhubarb gastrique, shake violentyly (and they mean it), garnished with spiced sugar.” Also great.


“Christopher Oaxacan. Single village mezcal, passion fruit, fresh lemon juice, orgeat, lavender bitters.” The super smokey (and very good) mezcal overwhelmed everything else. It basically tasted like mezcal with lime.


“Lemon tart.” This was a pretty amazing dessert. Light and airy, almost foamy, the intense lemoness paired nicely with the sweet pineapple stuff on the side.


I love even street cart churros but these were pretty supreme. The churros were stuffed with some kind of dulce de leche custard. It kept squirting out but was intensely good. The carob sauce was surprisingly amazing. I remember carob from the 1970s as the horrible chocolate bars that weren’t. This could have been caramel.

Picca was pretty fantastic. They didn’t hit every note perfectly, but it’s a fun (and loud space), the server was very very nice and enthusiastic about the food, and the flavors were bold and powerful, the ingredients first rate. What’s not to love? Unless you prefer crap like el Torito.

For more LA dining reviews, click here.

Related posts:

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  5. Takao Two
By: agavin
Comments (2)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: California, CAUSA SUSHI, CEVICHE, Cocktail, Dessert, Lima, Los Angeles, Nobu Matsuhisa, Paella, Peru, Picca, Ricardo M. Zarate, Ricardo Zarate, South America, Sushi

Waterloo & City is Victorious

Aug22

Restaurant: Waterloo & City [1, 2, 3]

Location: 12517 Washington Blvd, Culver City, CA 90066  310.391.4222

Date: August 14, 2011

Cuisine: Gastropub

Rating: Really tasty!

_

My wife and I went to Waterloo & City back in May, and I enjoyed it, so I thought we’d try again with a slightly larger group. By way of introduction this is a new wave comfort-food Gastropub joint. This place exemplifies the gastropub trend of more is more.


The menu.


I decided to test out some of the wines I brought back from my Eating Italy trip. This 2006 Brunello by Il Cocco can not be found in the US. The owner/winemaker makes 7,000 bottles a year only of all his wines combined, perhaps 3,000 of the Brunello. He does 99% of the work himself! It’s awesome, if it were rated, it’d be a 96 point wine.


We went for the “prince” of  Charcuterie. Yum yum, heart stopping fun!


The cured meats, and some fine ones at that. There are at least three types of salami and two prosciutto variants. Stone ground mustard. The white stuff is some kind of beef gelatinous product.


The “Pig Trotters, Sweetbreads, and Salsa Verde terrine, with anchovy.” This was a freebee, but was rather too extreme even for me!


“Duck & Walnut Country Pate, orange-apricot marmalade.” This was very nice. Interesting crunchy texture too.


A special. “Boar terrine with romesco.” Really tasty. All that pork goodness you might want.


“Pork & Truffle Pate, Madeira Jelly, toasted Broche.” Wow. With the jelly (you can see it to the left in the zoomed out first photo) this stuff tasted like carmel sauce. The texture was super silky smooth too. Wonderful mouthfeel.


Spaghetti pomodoro for my son.


“Arugula, Grilled Mission Figs, Smoked Almonds, Pamesan.”


“Tuna Tartare, Fried Piquillo Pepper, Avocado.” The tuna part was good but ordinary. The pepper, however, was pretty interesting, although certain FRIED!


Parker gives this silky Rosso 90. “The 2009 Rosso di Montalcino is totally beautiful and elegant in its expressive bouquet, silky fruit and understated, harmonious personality. This is a wonderful, impeccable Rosso from Le Potazzine. Anticipated maturity: 2011-2017.” I’d rate it perhaps 91-92, with a little boost for understated style.


A vegetarian special. Some kind of vegi monster on top of cous-cous with a brioche. Apparently it was good.


“Indian Butter Chicken Pizza, Murgh Makahni Sauce, Mozzarella.” I really wanted to try this because I make a similar pizza myself. This one didn’t lather on the Tikka Masala sauce like I do so it was more subtle, but it was damn good, a bit closer to a “normal” pizza. I loved the addition of the raita-like sauce in the middle. I might try that myself.


“Beef shin ravioli, wild mushrooms, red wine, burrata cheese.” This was really good. The meat was super flavorful, as was the rich sauce. But the bacon/burrata combo really sold it.


A special. “Veal with fried polenta and eggplant sauce.” The veal itself was tender, but not super flavorful. The sauce was great, and in combo every was very yummy, particularly the fried corn balls (i.e. polenta).


The dessert menu.


“Sticky Toffe Pudding, Salted Caramel, Vanilla Ice Cream.” Also excellent, with a not so dissimilar flavor profile. Both were intensely sweet. The ice cream helped cut it.


The menu called these “Waterloo Bourbon Glazed Doughnuts with creme anglais and raspberry jam.” But I think that would be the version we got on our first visit here. These were sugared. They were still good, and the carmel sauce in particular rocked, but they weren’t quite as decadent as the glazed.


A special. “Profiteroles.” Pretty classic, with both ice-cream and whipped cream.

Waterloo & City is still going strong. This isn’t a light cuisine — in fact, nearly every dish is loaded with fatty goodness — but it is damn good.

Read my previous review of Waterloo & City here,

Or for more LA Restaurants.

Related posts:

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By: agavin
Comments (3)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Charcuterie, Cocco, Culver City California, Dessert, Meat, pasta, Pizza, Restaurant, Restaurant Review, Restaurants and Bars, Sweetbread, Waterloo & City, Waterloo & City line

Fright Night (2011) – Not a waste of film

Aug21

Title: Fright Night

Director/Stars: Colin Farrell (Actor), Anton Yelchin (Actor), Imogen Poots (Actor), Craig Gillespie (Director)

Genre: Horror

Watched: August 19, 2011 (and before)

Summary: Fun update!

_

As a lifelong vampire fan — hell, my first novel is (somewhat) about vampires — I saw and loved the original Fright Night when it opened in 1985. Truth be told it was always one of my favorite vampire movies (up there with Coppola’s Dracula, Interview with the Vampire, Let the Right One In, and The Lost Boys). The 1985 Fright Night offers up a clever blend of comedy and horror. Not only is the movie very funny (and it holds up well today), but it’s not a pure spoof. The plot’s moderately clever, and the vampire, played by Chris Sarandon (Susan’s first husband) has a sinister charm and a genuine sense of menace. In my opinion vampires need a sense of menace (even the goofy Master from Buffy Season 1 is menacing). No sparkles for me.

So it was with some trepidation that I checked out the remake. See the trailer below:

I was pleasantly surprised to find the new version pretty fricking good. The story is loosely faithful to the original film. Buffy writer Marti Noxon penned the screenplay. She’s a consistently excellent writer, with the exception of the incredibly sucky I Am Number Four (maybe someone butchered it after the fact?) with a knack for catchy dialog. Most of the original elements survived intact, but character and balance has been adjusted significantly. Most substantially, Roddy McDowall‘s campy older vampire-killer TV host has been replaced by David Tennant channeling a campy blend of Chris Angel and Russell Brand. But that works.

The casting is top notch. Anton Yelchin is fast talking, self deprecating, and likable as Charlie. Imogen Poots is smoking inferno hot — and 21st century feisty/competent — as Amy. Hers is a career to watch, I wouldn’t be surprised to see her carrying a movie in the next year or two. The rest of the cast is fun too. But it’s Colin Farrell that steals the show with his visceral new take on the ancient killer. Farrell’s Jerry isn’t so slick or romantic as the classical vampire, but he brings a feral intensity to the role which is extraordinarily predatory. Supremely confident, this Jerry starts off the movie as a mere “human” predator, clearly a man not to be trusted with the ladies. But when he senses the kids are on to him, he doesn’t just depend on the defense of disbelief that the original did (although he does have some good fun with this) but goes straight for the jugular — literarily and figuratively. Part white trash, part serial killer, part vampire, he’s all around delicious to watch.

Noxon’s script is full of dark humor and quippy (but not too campy) lines. The story has been rearranged to suit modern tastes. Essentially act 1 has been compressed to almost nothing. Gone is the first third of the movie where the characters (although not the audience) are trying to sort out exactly what they’re dealing with. Instead, we open with vampire, and by scene three (perhaps 4-5 minutes) Charlie’s friend Evil is desperately trying to convince him that the new neighbor Jerry is a vampire. The movie makes no bones about confirming this either. It leaps right into fang games and breaks into a very extended second act filled with big chase and action scenes. This could have ruined the film, but the scenes are slick and intense. The final showdown perhaps felt a little rushed, and there was at least one major story error (the vampires show up in Vegas at exactly the wrong time and place with no explanation of how they knew to be there), but none of this really detracts from the fun and mayhem.

The effects are top notch and don’t get in the way too much. Sure they’re gratuitous, but they’re supposed to be. The editing is more classic, not the frantic mess that’s popular these days. And the cinematography was often quite striking. Certain shots were highly memorable: particularly both fang outs (Jerry and another), the stripper’s final number, and many others.

So vampire fans, go see.

For more Film reviews, click here.
For more vampire posts, here.

Related posts:

  1. About Last Night
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By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Movies
Tagged as: Anton Yelchin, Chris Sarandon, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Colin Farrell, Craig Gillespie, Dracula, Film Review, Fright Night, horror, Imogen Poots, Lost Boys, Marti Noxon, Roddy McDowall, Vampire, vampires

Introducing the Writing Index

Aug20

In my continued effort to improve site navigation I’ve introduced a new page to index all my writing posts, sorted by topic. You can also find it in the “Writing” menu at the top of the site or by clicking on the gold “Writing” icon on the righthand sidebar.

As an added bonus, the page includes a blurb of my new novel, Untimed, check it out.

Related posts:

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By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Writing
Tagged as: Book Writing, Creative Writing, Novel, Untimed, Writer, Writing

Gjelina Brunch

Aug19

Restaurant: Gjelina [1, 2, 3]

Location: 1429 Abbot Kinney Blvd, CA 90291. (310) 250-1429

Date: August 6 & 14, 2011

Cuisine: New Californian

Rating: Great food, annoying service!

_

I hadn’t been to Gjelina (despite it being a favorite) in a few months but I headed back there for two brunches only a week apart, one with my son and the other with my brother and cousin.


The all important Cappuccino. They make a good one as attested by the nice micro-foam. I’m not a fan of those coffee with a pile of foam on top versions.


“Moroccan Baked Eggs with Merguez, Chili, Tomato Sauce, Cilantro & Spiced Yogurt.” This was REALLY tasty. The sausage was awesome, as was the sauce and yogurt combo. It had a pretty genuine Moroccan flavor profile.


My son wanted eggs. He didn’t even touch them though. Toddlers!


“Crispy Sunny Eggs with Prosciutto, Romesco, Arugula & Lemon.” This was also very good, and very similar (except for the ham) to my special Breakfast Eggs.


“Pizza Margherita.” A very nice version of the classic. Rich tomatoey sauce, lots of basil.


My son ate most of this, although he complained about the “green stuff” and made me remove it.


“Duck Sausage, Nameko Mushroom, Garlic & Mozzarella.” The sausage was fantastic, and the overall pizza was very smokey with an interesting chewy mushroom texture. I liked it a lot, but you certainly have to be a shroom person.


“Peach crumble with Crème Fraiche.” I like my crumbles more crumbly.


“Butterscotch Pot de Crème with Salted Caramel w/ Crème Fraiche.” This is just incredible as always. I could eat like 10 of them. Bad me. Bad me.

Overall, the food at Gjelina is fantastic as always, but I need to snark about the service, and I’m not the first. Apparently the owner/managers even like to hire staff with attitude! Boo hiss! The first time, I asked to get some eggs that on the menu had strips of bacon on top with the bacon on the side (or gone). I was told (very rudely) that I could remove the bacon myself. In this day and age of people with dietary restrictions this just isn’t acceptable. I can understand not building totally custom dishes, but trivial omissions? Give me a break.

On the second trip we ordered some vegetables which didn’t come (the waiter read them back to us too). Plus similar with an ice tea even after asking about three times. Eventually, after the waiter went AWOL we found him and brought up both. He didn’t even apologize. 10 minutes after that he brought the ice tea and said he’d take it off the bill. Ooh ah, $4 ice tea for free (it’s all profit anyway). We mentioned something to the manager. He didn’t apologize either, just nodded his head. Then finally, about 5 minutes after that he snuck back and apologized, like it had been eating at him and he felt he needed to. There was no offer of a freebee or anything. My brother asked him point blank about that and he took a dessert off the tab.

I go for the food, but they do need to lose a bit of the ‘tude.

You can check out two other Gjelina reviews HERE and HERE.

Or my index of LA Restaurants.

Related posts:

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  4. Gjelina Scores Again
  5. Quick Eats: Brunch at Tavern
By: agavin
Comments (3)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Abbot Kinney Blvd, Breakfast, Brunch, California, Cooking, Dessert, Eggs, Fruit and Vegetable, gjelina, Merguez, Pizza, Prosciutto, Restaurant, Restaurant Review, Romesco, Sausage, Tomato sauce, Venice

Knocked out by N/Naka

Aug18

Restaurant: N/Naka [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Location: 3455 S. Overland Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90034. 310.836.6252

Date: August 13, 2011

Cuisine: Modern Kaiseki

Rating: Awesome

ANY CHARACTER HERE

I first went to the amazing Omakase only N/Naka just three weeks ago, but seeing my review, my Foodie Club partner EP desperately wanted to go again. So we did. Now bear in mind that this lovely restaurant has only a set menu (they offer it in two sizes, plus vegetarian) but the talented young chef Ms. Niki Nakayama concocted a whole new menu (just three weeks later!) without a single repeat — and it was even better!

We start off our wines with a light Spanish white. Parker 90. “A candidate for top Albarino of my Spanish tastings, the 2005 Bodegas Don Olegario is medium gold with honey and apricot aromas and flavors. On the palate the wine is viscous with enough acidity to hold things together. Very Condrieu-like at about half the price.”

Saki zuke

(a pairing of something common and something unique)

Chef’s garden eggplant puree, scottish smoked salmon, osetra caviar

Crème fraiche, chives

This opening course had a wonderful silky mouthfeel and tasted of smoked eggplant, a bit like baba ganush.

Zensai

(Main seasonal ingredient presented as an appetizer)

Japan ayu, pacific lobster roll, nanohana, daikon and kanpachi, lotus

Root kinpira

Zooming in, the Japanese Ayu. This is a smelt relative known as sweetfish. It was crispy and grilled. Alongside are cubes of watermelon and aged balsamic. The combo was lovely.

This is the lobster roll. Kind of like a piece of uber california maki.

A bit of diakon with either eel or kanpachi inside, not 100% sure. The little tomato is from chef Niki’s garden (as are many things in the meal).

Nanohana, a kind of broccoli rabe.

Lotus root kippira. Slightly sweet with a bit of crunch.

This is an alternative form of the dish for my wife who doesn’t eat shellfish or meat. You can see the lobster is replaced with a bit of seared Toro! N/Naka requires that you specify which menu and dietary restrictions a few days in advance, but they are very adept at customizing the menu.

Now stepping up to this killer California Chardonnay, Parker 95! This one is from EP’s cellar. “The Chardonnay Belle Cote is always a more exotic wine. There are 2,200 cases of the 2005 Chardonnay Belle Cote, a wine with undeniable notes of crushed stones, white peach, orange, nectarine, and quince. Medium to full-bodied, with zesty acidity, stunning minerality, and a firm structure, this is a gorgeous, French-styled Chardonnay that should drink nicely for up to a decade.”

Modern zukuri

(modern interpretation of sashimi)

Japan bonito, marinated onions, ponzu, myoga, shiso, shiso air,  ginger

A lovely bit of bonito. And not only do I love shiso, but I get to try it as “air!” Although the real shiso had a bit more flavor punch than the airy form.

Fantastic containers add to the fun.

Owan “still water”

Black cod and shiitake, green tea soba, nameko mushrooms, dashi broth

This is one of those mild, but lovely, Japanese soups. With a vaguely sweet, soft mushroomy fishy taste. Very pleasant and soothing.

Sake- shichida, sago  japan. This is an ultra-ultra rare sake I had the previous time and it blew away the entire table (except for the 6 year-old who was left out!) One of the best sakes I’ve ever had. Each grain of rice is hand shaved before brewing!

Otsukuri

(Traditional Sashimi )

Big eye otoro, shima aji , sea bream, santa barbara sweet shrimp,

Kumamoto oyster

Zoom into the bucket, where you can see the shima aji , sea bream, santa barbara sweet shrimp.

And then over here, past the hand ground wasabi, to the Big eye otoro and Kumamoto oyster. The Toro (o-toro is the most premium Toro) was absolutely amazing.

An alternative basket my wife received. She has hamachi belly and scottish salmon instead of the shellfish.

To pair with the upcoming lobster, this Parker 90 white from Alto Adige in Northern Italy. “The 2008 Muller Thurgau literally sparkles on the palate with well-articulated aromas and flavors that come together with notable harmony. The finish is subtle and nuanced in its suggestions of mint, flowers, lime and passion fruit. This polished white also happens to be a terrific value. Anticipated maturity: 2009-2012.”

Yakimono

Pacific lobster, maitake, enringi, tamale sauce

This was a wonderful dish, and the pairing (recommended by the sommelier) with the crisp white was delightful.

My wife had to tough it out with this fish alternative, topped with a bit of dynamite.

Another lovely container, opening to reveal:

Mushimono

Unagi and gobo chawanmushi, frozen foie gras torchon powder

On the left a traditional Japanese custard with mushrooms. On the right frozen foie gras powder! This second item was sprinkled into the custard to add killer meaty umph! Really nice interplay of textures and fats.

Shiizakana

(Not bound by tradition, the chef’s choice dish to be paired with wine)

Abalone pasta, pickeled cod roe, abalone liver sauce

I had this pasta on my previous visit, but knowing this, Chef Niki gave me a different one! (below) Still, this one was amazing (or so I remember and so the rest of the party said).

Chef’s garden kabocha ravioli with truffles, brown butter sage, manchego

My wife received this dish, perfectly in sync with her taste. It was gone in about a millisecond.

Spaghetti with uni, ikura, poached eggs, seaweed, truffle

I got this, which was also delicious, tasting strongly of uni and the briny bright tone and texture of the ikura — two sushis often paired together and two of my favorites. Yum. This kind of interesting east/west fusion is very unusual, and brilliant.

As we move into the meatier portion of the menu, this 94 point Burgundy. “The Chevillon 2008 Nuits-St.-Georges Les Vaucrains projects an amazing sense of deep, dark concentration. Latakia tobacco; peat; rushed stone; roasted red meats; soy; and ripe, fresh blackberry inform the nose and absolutely stain the palate. The tannins here are as ultra-fine as they are formidable, and the tug on my salivary glands as relentless as are the finishing flavors. If this doesn’t leave you reaching for a napkin or your lips fluttering, probably no wine will. The energy and salinity here render a wine that you feel as if you must strain through your teeth nonetheless fleet-of-foot, enticing, and invigorating.”

Niku

Snake river farms kobe beef ishiyaki

Plus butter cubes and sisho peppers.

Then out comes a little hot rock.

You drop the butter on top, then the meat and cook to your taste. Like a mini version of Totoraku.

The non-meat substitute is baked miso cod, always a favorite.

Sunomono

Marinated halibut fin, cucumbers, ruby red grapefruit

Yuzu omoi, yuzu blend sake

The bright marinated flavors and the sweet/sour sake go perfectly together.

Shokuji One & Two

(Rice dish- sushi)

Jeju island hirame, o-toro

Aji (mackerel), hamachi belly.

Aji (mackerel) on the left. Not sure what’s on the right.

Mirugai, shinkomaki, miso hamachi, sesame butter chazuke.

And the other two of above, but I’m not sure which is which :-). live scallops on the left.

R.L. Buller Calliope Rare Muscat. Yum Yum! Parker 100! “Giving aromas of dark brown sugar, black strap molasses, licorice and preserved walnuts, the deeply brown colored NV Calliope Rare Muscat is again incredibly sweet and viscous with a good amount of acid to balance and is decadently rich and nutty / spicy in the very long finish. All these vintage blended fortified wines are bottled to drink now and though are stable enough to hold, they are not designed to improve with cellaring.”

Shokuji

(Rice dish)

A fish with a miso sauce on rice with seaweed.

It’s traditional to end the savories in Japan with a “rice dish.” On the left we have a very traditional bit of salmon like fish, rice, and nori. Refreshing and stomach settling. On the right were two pickles cut roll pieces. I loved these. I’m a huge Japanese pickles fan and really enjoy the crunchy vinegar thing.

Dessert

Chocolate tiramisu, ruby red grapefruit and passion fruit gelee, fruits

 These were all extremely tasty. The grapefruit thing in the middle was particularly intense with a lovely gummy texture.

Kids Omakase

EP and his wife brought his young daughter with them and she got a special “kids omakase” which was very cool.

An assortment of rolls, including toro cut roll!

Ikura (salmon eggs), sweet shrimp, and bonito sushi.

Some of the best looking tempura I’ve ever seen.

Yellowtail belly sashimi. That was one lucky girl!

N/Naka really is a very special place. Both meals I had here were spectacular (here for the first). This second was, if possible, slightly better too, which was always wonderful because often one finds a slight bloom to come off a place on repeat meals. This was very much avoided by the completely new menu, which only three weeks apart was impressive. The quality of ingredients, preparation, and presentation here is pretty stunning.

Try it!

Click here to other LA Japanese restaurants.

Or other Foodie Club extravaganzas.

Related posts:

  1. Food as Art – N/Naka
  2. Food as Art – Sushi Sushi
  3. Takao Two
  4. Takao Sushi Taking Off!
  5. Food as Art – Takao
By: agavin
Comments (5)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Dessert, Fish and Seafood, Foodie Club, Japanese cuisine, Kaiseki, Los Angeles, N/Naka, Omakase, pasta, Restaurant, Restaurant Review, Sashimi, Sushi, Yuji Naka

Old Crash 20 Questions

Aug17

This is an old Crash Bandicoot 20 questions that used to be on Naughty Dog‘s site a long time ago. I’ve gotten a lot of messages looking for them, so I dug them up, but I haven’t done any editing except for trivial formatting. They are served up “as is.” Additionally, the links in here are ancient and might not work.

_
1) Q: Are you all insane?
A:
Technically…yes.
2) Q: Help! I’m stuck in Crash! Can you give me some help?
A: No. But GameSpot
has a full walkthrough of Crash 2 online. Game Informer
Online also has good ones for Crash 1, 2, and Warped.
Or you can pony up a few more shekels and buy the
hint guides to Crash 1 and Crash 2 from Dimension
Publishing, or the strategy guides to Crash Bandicoot:
Warped and CTR (Crash Team Racing) from Prima. They
are the only ones with pictures of Crash on the cover.
Don’t be taken in by one of the unofficial hack jobs
out there, though. They all have errors. (ed.
note: Links to sites mentioned above were removed
because they are no longer active… sorry, that’s
the web for ya.)
3) Q: In Crash Bandicoot: Warped, what times are needed to earn each relic?
A:
  • “TOAD VILLAGE” sap 1:03:00 gold 0:57:53 plat 0:44:06
  • “UNDER PRESSURE” sap 1:46:00 gold 1:17:93 plat 1:10:50
  • “ORIENT EXPRESS” sap 0:41:00 gold 0:27:80 plat 0:18:10
  • “BONE YARD” sap 1:45:00 gold 1:40:21 plat 1:21:00
  • “MAKIN’ WAVES” sap 1:08:00 gold 0:58:23 plat 0:53:26
  • ——————-
  • “GEE WIZ” sap 1:35:00 gold 1:22:73 plat 1:05:93
  • “HANG’EM HIGH” sap 1:24:00 gold 0:52:66 plat 0:43:80
  • “HOG RIDE” sap 0:45:00 gold 0:41:46 plat 0:35:06
  • “TOMB TIME” sap 1:42:00 gold 1:10:00 plat 0:53:93
  • “MIDNIGHT RUN” sap 0:53:00 gold 0:38:23 plat 0:18:20
  • ——————–
  • “DINO MIGHT!” sap 1:34:00 gold 1:25:76 plat 1:03:00
  • “DEEP TROUBLE” sap 1:47:00 gold 1:25:16 plat 1:18:36
  • “HIGH TIME” sap 2:12:00 gold 1:04:12 plat 0:56:96
  • “ROAD CRASH” sap 1:25:00 gold 1:20:73 plat 1:17:10
  • “DOUBLE HEADER” sap 1:27:00 gold 1:21:16 plat 0:59:43
  • ——————–
  • “SPHYNXINATOR” sap 1:42:00 gold 1:22:66 plat 0:56:70
  • “BYE BYE BLIMPS” sap 1:09:00 gold 0:58:43 plat 0:51:50
  • “TELL NO TALES” sap 1:42:00 gold 1:25:66 plat 1:05:26
  • “FUTURE FRENZY” sap 2:01:00 gold 1:34:00 plat 1:19:66
  • “TOMB WADER” sap 2:44:00 gold 1:45:06 plat 1:24:00
  • ———————
  • “GONE TOMORROW” sap 2:05:00 gold 1:25:60 plat 1:02:13
  • “ORANGE ASPHALT” sap 1:36:00 gold 1:31:30 plat 1:21:80
  • “FLAMING PASSION” sap 1:43:00 gold 1:13:10 plat 0:59:40
  • “MAD BOMBERS” sap 2:08:00 gold 1:55:23 plat 1:38:16
  • “BUG LITE” sap 1:49:00 gold 1:34:86 plat 1:14:93
  • ———————-
  • “SKI CRAZED” sap 1:16:00 gold 0:50:50 plat 0:33:33
  • “AREA 51?” sap 1:53:00 gold 1:49:83 plat 1:44:50
  • “RINGS OF POWER” sap 1:20:00 gold 1:01:46 plat 0:51:76
  • “HOT COCO” sap 1:00:00 gold 0:30:10 plat 0:19:96
  • “EGGIPUS REX” sap 0:55:00 gold 0:50:03 plat 0:44:83
4) Q: (a) What is a Bandicoot?
(b) Why is Crash a Bandicoot?
(c) Why is he named “Crash?”
A:
(a) Crash is a Perameles gunnii, of the order POLYPROTODONTA,
family Peramelidae, commonly known as the Eastern Barred
Bandicoot. He is a marsupial, which means that he is born with a
built in fanny pack. They live in Tasmania, a small island south
of Australia, as well as on the Australian mainland. The
Parameles gunnii is, on average, 320mm from head to rump, and has
a 80mm tail. They weigh about 950g. Crash’s family, on the other
hand, tend to be about a meter tall, orange, walk on their hind
legs, and wear big shoes. They have, therefore, earned a good
living in the Parameles gunnii circus sideshow spinning real fast
and the like.
(b)Because both of his parents were.(c) Because that is the name his parents gave him.
5) Q: We want toys and stuff. When will we get them?
A: Where have you been? A toy company
named Resaurus recently released their second series of Crash Bandicoot
posable action figures! They made the Duke Nukem and Quake toys, so
you know they are good. Other stuff is in the works as well. Check
’em out!
6) Q: (a) Why did you choose to make Crash Bandicoot for the
PlayStation?
(b) Are there plans to port any of the Crash games, or make original Crash games for other systems?
A:
(a) Picking a game system, or “platform”, at the beginning of a
project is like picking horses before a horse race. It is more
of an art than a science. When we began Crash 1, the only 32 bit
systems available were the 3DO and the Atari Jagauar. There were
rumors about the coming PlayStation game console and the Sega
Saturn, and distant rumblings about the N64. It was easy to toss
the 3DO and Jaguar, neither had the power. And the fact that the
N64 wasn’t going to have a CD ROM drive made it ineligible. In
the end, we chose the PlayStation game console because it had the
best mix of power and storage. Based on its worldwide sales,
game players have picked the PlayStaton game console as well.
Looks like we picked the winning horse!
(b) Until recently, PlayStation has been the only system capable of
handling the sophisticated graphics and gameplay of the Crash Bandicoot
games. The Saturn doesn’t have the power. N64 cartridges cannot hold
the data. Also, Crash likes the PlayStation. Naughty Dog has no idea what
Crash’s future holds. We do not control his destiny. You’ll have to ask him.CTR (Crash Team Racing) is our last game working with Crash (and our last title
for the first generation PlayStation). Naughty Dog’s future lies with
completely new characters on PlayStation 2.

7) Q: What are Naughty Dog’s favorite games?
A:
We wish the following games had never come out. They have
killed our productivity:
Goldeneye(N64)Gran Turismo(PlayStation)Command & Conquer(PlayStation & PC)Tekken 3 (PlayStation)

Mario Kart 64 (N64)

Spyro (PlayStation)

Point Blank (PlayStation)

Beatmania (PlayStation)

Metal Gear Solid (PlayStation)

Banjo & Kazooie (N64)

8 ) Q: What other developers do you respect?
A: We don’t sleep well because we know
that Rare, Miyamoto san, the Gran Turismo team, and the Gex 2 team
are out there. So we’ve hired the lead programmer and lead designers
from the Gex 2 team (Dan
Arey
, Daniel
Chan
, Evan Wells.)
They don’t frighten us anymore. Miyamoto
san
, on the other hand, keeps turning our offers down!
9) Q: Does Dr. Neo Cortex use Rogaine?
A:
Yes, but only on the sides of his head.
10) Q: (a) What is it like to work at Naughty Dog?
(b) Are you hiring?
(c) What is it like to work with Sony?
A:
(a)We don’t know. Nobody here considers what we do to be work.
(b) Check
our job opportunities page
.(c) We don’t know. The people we interact with at Sony are
so good that we don’t have to work at it. Seriously, we just
make the game, they take care of the rest.
11) Q: Naughty Dog created the first software z-buffer for the PlayStation. How did you do it?
A:
Greg coded it. We don’t know how it works. It just does.
12) Q: Where do the Naughty Dog artists come up with their ideas?
A: The Naughty Dog artists are so used
to Crash’s world now that it doesn’t seem like designing, so much
as just making 3D models of a world that already exists. Still, there
is a lot of exploration on paper, as well as on the computer before
the final locations and characters exist. Take a look in our Art
Gallery
for some samples.
13) Q: (a) How many polygons is Crash?
(b) How many frames of animation does he have?
(c) How do you animate him?
A:
(a)532 triangles.
(b) In Crash 2, Crash had over 9000 individual
frames of animation @ 30 frames per second. In Warped,
Crash had around 30,000 frames! We believe this to
be more than any other console game character. If
we are wrong, e-mail usand we will change this answer.(c) We attach motion capture equipment to Crash and ask
him to do the moves we need for the game.
14) Q: What is your favorite food?
A:
The artists like sushi and Chinese, as well as Mexican. The
programmers are on the “flat diet”. We lock them in their room
until they finish a project and only give them whatever food fits
under the door. Pizza – yes. Pancakes – Yes. Hamburgers – Yes,
one layer at a time. Chicken – Yes, but it tastes horrible after
all of the shoving. They are very thristy.
15) Q: Crash doesn’t have any graphic violence. Are you against graphic violence?
A:
No, and if you ask us that question another #$@! time we’ll kick
your @#X* and rip your !@% off! Crash doesn’t need violence.
It’s that simple.
16) Q: How do I become a video game programmer?
A: All of the Naughty Dog programmers
started programming when they were very young. They all had computers
at home, and they would all spend a good deal of time in the basement
doing what was called “hacking”. Some of them took computer-related
courses in High School, but at that time you didn’t need to know that
much about computers to teach the computer lab teacher a thing or
three. Andy got
a post graduate degree in Artificial Intelligence, but one of the
biggest arguments in Artificial Intelligence is whether or not it
even exists. All the Naughty Dog programmers work very hard, keep
long hours, and have the ability to say things that make you confused.
17) Q: What percentage of the PlayStation’s power are you using for each Crash game?
A:
All of it. 110 volts. Exactly what is in your wall socket. But
there is a lot more that we can do with the 110 volts in the
future. Look for the next PlayStation games we work on to look
better and better.
18) Q: Is Crash related to the Tasmanian Devil?
A:
The Tasmanian Devil refuses to do blood tests, so we may never
know.
19) Q: What kind of shoes does Crash Bandicoot wear?
A: Big red ones. Though
if Nike would like to sponsor Crash and start a line
of shoes like “Air Jordans” called “Spin Crashes,”
we are open to offers.
20) Q: Are there only twenty questions?
A:
Yes, so far.
21) Q: I thought there were only 20 questions. Why is there a 21?
A:
Because Naughty Dog is firmly AGAINST antidisestablishmentarianism.
Go look it up.

The Making Crash series: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12]

If you liked this post, follow me at:

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Latest hot post: War Stories: Crash Bandicoot

Related posts:

  1. Crash Bandicoot – Teaching an Old Dog New Bits – part 3
  2. Crash Bandicoot – An Outsider’s Perspective (part 8)
  3. Making Crash Bandicoot – part 1
  4. Making Crash Bandicoot – part 6
  5. Crash Bandicoot – Teaching an Old Dog New Bits – part 2
By: agavin
Comments (5)
Posted in: Games
Tagged as: 20 Questions, Andy Gavin, Crash Bandicoot, Crash Bandicoot 20 Questions, Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back, Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped, GameSpot, Naughty Dog, Playstation

Takao Sushi Taking Off!

Aug16

Restaurant: Takao [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

Location: 11656 San Vicente Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90049. (310) 207-8636

Date: August 6, 2011

Cuisine: Japanese / Sushi

Rating: 9/10 creative “new style” sushi

_

I’ve already covered Takao in some detail HERE and then separately here, here, and here, but we went back (we go often) and I built another “custom omakase” trying some different things. The full menu and some information on the history of the place can be found through the first link.

As you can see comparing this to the other Takao meals, you my dear readers, come first, as I ordered completely differently for your vicarious enjoyment.

After my spectacular N/Naka Kaiseki meal and its really good sakes I decided to up my sake game. This is the cheapest of the “shaved rice” sakes on the menu at Takao. It was good, not as good as the two amazing ones at N/Naka (Takao has half a dozen “better” ones too), but good.

The chefs at work. Takao himself was cutting for me tonight.

Scallop sashimi. I do love my japanese scallops. There was sea salt to dip them in too.

Toro tartar with caviar. I just can’t resist.

Spanish Mackerel chopped with scallions. Very tasty!

Squid, two ways. On the left normal. And on the right I’m not sure, but it there was a sour (and I mean sour) plum sauce (above left) to dip it in. Same sauce as I had the other day at Kiriko.

Mysterious grilled bit of sea creature. Soft and chewy, not bad.

Grilled Alaskan king crab legs. A sprig of pickled ginger.

On the left Uni (sea urchin) and on the right Ikura (salmon roe).

Fresh water eel with the sweet BBQ sauce.

And then a winter mushroom miso to finish.

For more LA area sushi, see here.

Related posts:

  1. Sushi Glutton – Takao Three
  2. Food as Art – Takao
  3. Takao Two
  4. Sushi Sushi = Yummy Yummy
  5. Kiriko Sushi
By: agavin
Comments (4)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Alaskan king crab fishing, Atlantic Spanish mackerel, Brentwood, California, Caviar, Fish and Seafood, Japanese cuisine, Kaiseki, Los Angeles, Omakase, Restaurant, Restaurant Review, Sea urchin, Sushi, Takao

Save the Cat – To Formula or Not To Formula

Aug15

I’m always reading books on writing and storytelling. In fact, I read three this week. One of them was Save the Cat by the late Blake Snyder. This post isn’t a review per se of that book, but more some mental ramblings on issues it raised.

First an observation about the nature of “advice” books and the possible career of sceenwriter. Mr. Snyder was (he unfortunately died suddenly recently) a noted screenwriter, having sold over a dozen major spec scripts, at least two for over a million dollars each. He worked on roughly 100 screenplays in some capacity. Yet, only two of these have even been made into movies.

Eeek gads! If this is success as a screenwriter it has to be creatively bankrupt. Unlike novels, screenplays aren’t a medium themselves. In fact, I find them boring as shit. They’re just a weird but essential initial sketch of a film. Now don’t think I consider them unimportant. A production can easily ruin a great script, but it’s exceedingly rare to take a bad one and make a good movie out of it. They’re certainly the single most important element of any film. Great screenwriters add immeasurably to a film. Look at the different between Empire Strikes Back and Phantom Menace. Personally I think it was Lawrence Kasdan or some other writer who was NOT George Lucas.

In any case, having almost none of your creative work see the light of day has to be depressing. I’m also guessing that in recent years Mr. Snyder made more money selling his books/lectures/advice ABOUT writing screenplays than in actually writing the things. Hehe.

Cover of

Cover of Wedding Crashers

But that was what I intended to write about. Save the Cat is essentially a book about making your story (screenplay) correspond fairly rigidly to the classic Hollywood three act structure. It even goes so far as to break (every) film into roughly a dozen beats and assign exact page numbers in which they should occur. For example: “theme stated” (page 5) or “catalyst” (page 12). All of this can be found on his website.

Now there is some real merit to this structure and it’s certainly very useful and entertaining to be able to breakdown movies like this. In fact, if you want a giggle go to this page where you will find a breakdown of the guilty-pleasure comedy The Wedding Crashers. It’s highly amusing to see a film this silly (but admittedly funny) stripped down to include a Hegelian thesis/antithesis/synthesis dialectic. And I do admit if you are trying to write and sell high concept comedies in today’s marketing executive driven world, this whole formula has to be the way to go.

But I wonder how useful it is to try and fit EVERY story into this exact mould. You could say actually that Save the Cat represents a thesis: yes all movies should follow this fixed structure. The antithesis of course is that interesting ones, the example he uses is Memento, should not. Now Mr. Snyder’s conclusion is literally “Fuck Momento!” (actual quote from the book). But I think that Christopher Nolan is laughing to the bank — just not on that film! — he had to remake it using dreams inside of memory loss.

I myself am thinking that a synthesis is in order. A new universe blending both perspectives. The classic structure does encapsulate A LOT of solid lessons about audience expectations for story telling. Perhaps one should use it more as a toolbox or set of guidelines.

This is specifically relevant in my new novel, Untimed. It does to a large extent follow the classic structure (although certain not with such rigid page number demarkations). But there are questions. I have two ideas in the book that could be considered thesis and antithesis, but their advocates are far more muddled than formula would require. Do I restructure and state each in a more obvious way? Likewise, as is typical with me, my ending does not neatly wrap up all questions, villians, and the like. There is climax, but it’s messy. I like ambiguity, and I have gone to great length to construct a world order sufficiently complex that not all mystery is to be solved in one book. Doing so leads to the standard Hollywood sequel problem, where the followups are just more of the same but missing the best part: the discovery inherent in beginnings. If you haven’t answered all the questions, there is still more to learn.

But a squeaky voice in the back of my head wonders: do I need a more Hollywood ending?

Food for thought.

For other posts on writing, click here.

Or find out about my novels:

The Darkening Dream and Untimed.

Related posts:

  1. Lessons from a Lifetime of Writing
  2. About the Blog
  3. Call For Feedback
  4. Before I Fall
  5. Untimed – Two Novels, Two Drafts!
By: agavin
Comments (4)
Posted in: Books, Movies, Writing
Tagged as: Arts, Blake Snyder, Christopher Nolan, Fiction, George Lucas, Hollywood, Lawrence Kasdan, Los Angeles, Memento, Screenplay, Screenwriter, Screenwriting, Spec script, Three-act structure, Wedding Crashers, Writers Resources, Writing

More Drago – Via Alloro

Aug14

Restaurant: Via Alloro

Location: 301 N. Canon Drive – Beverly Hills, CA 90210. Phone: 310.275.2900

Date: August 5, 2011

Cuisine: Italian

Rating: Very nice

_

The Drago brothers have an ever expanding little empire going in Beverly Hills. This includes Il Pastaio, Enoteco Drago,  Piccolo Paradiso, and Il Buco. Plus several others on the westside, the valley, downtown etc. I’ve reviewed Celestino Drago’s flagship Drago and I’ve been to most, all are very good.


Via Alloro is new, managed by brothers Giacomino and Tanino, and only two blocks from Il Pastaio. We decided to grab a quick lunch there and check it out.


Lots of good choices on this menu. The PDF.


Excellent bread as at all Drago restaurants.


A slightly different take on fried zucchini flowers. Stuffed with ricotta and mozzarella. Then served over a light tomato sauce.


“Vitello Tonnao. Chillded veal in tuna sauce, with parmesan and capers.” This was damn good, with the very tasty zesty salty sauce really bringing out the flavor of the meat.


Lots of great pastas here — no surprise. “Homemade ravioli filled with sweet corn, served with truffle fondue.” Hard to beat that.


And “Saliccie al forno. baked sausage with mama Drago’s stew.” This is a very Southern Italian dish and I have to say it’s the best Italian sausage I’ve even had. Incredibly succulent, with fennel, and a very bright and zesty “gravy.”


Expresso to recover!

Off to a great start on the latest BH Drago Italian. I’ll have to come back for a more extensive dinner.

Click here to see Eating Italy posts.

Or for more LA Restaurants.

Related posts:

  1. Sicilian Style – Drago
  2. Locanda Portofino – In the Neighborhood
  3. Sotto – Sicily con Sardo
  4. Quick Eats: Piccolo
  5. Seconds at Sotto
By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Beverly Hills California, Cooking, Drago, Giacomino Drago, Home, Italian cuisine, Italian sausage, Italy, Los Angeles, Pastaio, Restaurant, Restaurant Review, Tanino Drago, Via Alloro

Crash Bandicoot – Interviews “R” us

Aug13

These are answers (of mine) to a series of interview questions from Russian game site  www.crash–bandicoot.ru. They’re a major Russian Crash fan site, hence the bad pun in my title. If you happen to speak Russian, they’ve it here.

The questions are in bold, and my answers in normal.

Crash Bandicoot (series)

Image via Wikipedia

_

There was the soundtrack of Komodo Bros. boss on the CB1 CD. Does it mean you planned to bring this boss to the first game? What the fight was like and why have you dropped this idea?

Time. We ran out of time, plus we already had six bosses. They ended up in Crash 2. The Crash 1 battle plan was about 30% larger than the game we shipped – which was plenty big enough – as we planned too much. Everything extra ended up in Crash 2. But we didn’t actually make it during the Crash 1 development, we realized before then that there was too much in the plan and shelved it for later. It takes much less time to write on paper, “cool snow level where crash can slide around on the ice” than it does to design, model, and program said level.

Why the cut levels from CB1 beta like Cavern, Cliff and Waterfall haven’t reached its finish point in the final version of the game? According to the video they were well developed.

These were two early levels. The Cliff and Waterfall are the same level (jungle1). The cave was (cave2). These were the first two levels we built in Spring 1995, and they just didn’t work. The designs were too open, showing too many polygons and not channeling the player well enough for proper gameplay. If the space was so big that Crash could just walk around the enemies it wasn’t very fun.

There is the screenshot on crashmania where you can see the fruit similiar to pineapple instead of wumpa. Is it right and was it planned to add different fruits to the game?

Originally (for over a year in development) we had an elaborate fruit currency for pickups. Different fruit were worth different “points.” The only problem with this was that we only had so much texture memory and so each fruit got very little, and didn’t look that great. We eventually decided to spent all that memory on one fruit (the Wumpa fruit) and make it look really good. We rendered it out rotating and stored all the angles. Doing the fruit in actual 3D wasn’t feasible because fruit are round (hence lots of polygons) and we wanted to have many of them on screen.

What the bosses’ heads of Pinstripe, Koala Kong and Papu were for in the bonus rounds in the early version of the game?

We experimented with different “bonus head” currencies. I can’t remember which. In the end Tawna, Cortex, and Brio won out.

What the famous platform with plants from the level Air Crash (CB2) was for? Lots of players used to think it could take you to some secret place however there was the published video where Crash stayed on the platform and nothing happened.

That is just a video of some uncompleted area in some unfinished version of the game (say for a tradeshow). It was under construction and was never intended to be seen. Under construction levels can display any kind of whacky behavior.

The returning characters of Crash Tag Team Rac...

Image via Wikipedia

Why Nitros Oxide wasn’t brought to playable characters in CTR?

We only had room for so many, and the consensus (particularly of the Japanese) was that the cute characters were better choices (like the polar bear cub).

Is it true that there was a secret character called Hippo in the beta of CTR? Why weren’t all the characters from original trilogy included? It’d been nice to see Koala Kong and Nitrus Brio there.

Time and space. Each character was a lot of work and took up a lot of memory. I don’t remember the hippo though.

Why did you choose Mutato Muzika as the music composer to the all games of Crash Bandicoot?

We auditioned a number of composers to give us sample music for the game. Theirs was the coolest. And we were in a hurry J. But it worked out great!

Why CB1 takes all space on CD while CB takes only 1/3 of disk space? It’d be nice to see CB2 on mini-CD.

There is a huge fake file on the CB1 CD (the data.wad) which the game doesn’t care about. The file is full of random numbers and it was there to fill out the disk. The reason for this was twofold. First of all, the outside of the CD is faster, so by putting the useless file on the inside the game would be pushed to the outside. Second, we thought that pirates would be irritated by and less likely to download a 650meg game than a 150meg game. Less pirate copies is a good thing when you make games for a living.

Why have you deleted your official site of Crash Bandicoot on www.naughtydog.com? I’d like to read 20 questions and answers for Crash Bandicoot one more time.

I don’t control or influence www.naughtydog.com in any way, and haven’t since 2004.

What do you think about the bug which allows player to take the red gem in CB2 in an alternative way, not through the secret warproom?

I don’t 🙂 But it’s just a bug. In 1996 it would have pissed me off (mildly), now I shrug and smile.

Why do Brio and Cortex quarrel so that Brio looks for the way of destroying Cortex Spaceship in CB2?

Brio turned out to be surprisingly sympathetic (because Cortex picks on him) so we thought it would be amusing to develop that a bit. The Crash series, however, is not exactly The English Patient in terms of character depth.

It is very interesting what was planned to develop and what plans of that came true in CB2 and CB3?

For Crash 1 we had this huge three-part Island and all sorts of ideas for different areas and levels. Crash 2 was to a large extent those that didn’t make it in the first game plus lots of extra cool ideas we had. There was more time for new mechanics like the surf board, zero-G, sliding on the ice, etc. For Crash 3 we needed something a bit different and came up with the time travel idea (mine!). But truth is that we all loved that idea, and both Jason and I adore time travel. My second novel is about time travel! So the idea naturally led to putting in favorite times and places as levels for Crash 3.

Have you ever regretted of selling the rights of Crash Bandicoot franchise to another company? If there was a chance would you like to return on developing this franchise?

It made sense at the time, but I love Crash. Of all my creations it’s still my favorite and it’s sad to see him drop to his current lows. As Jason puts it, like discovering that your sweet High School girlfriend is now a street walker in Atlantic City.

_

Why did you call your company just “Naughty Dog”?

We liked dogs. Plus Jason was always drawing these cool cartoon characters (in the mid 80s) and one of them was “The Naughty Dog” a studly 80s shades wearing dog who always got the chicks. So he became the mascot and source of the name.

Why Crash Bandicoot and Jak franchises are so similiar? I mean it includes the way of games (1, 2, 3 and racing). The first game of Jak is very similiar to CB1, the attack of Jak is like Crash’s one, we are destroying the crates and so more. Dammit, you can also see the Plant from CB1 in the beginning of the game?

The same people made them. Sometimes you like your own ideas 🙂 Certainly there is plenty new stuff in Jak.

Why have you developed Action-Adventure but not the platformer on PS3 as it lacks of them? I have read your Making of Crash Bandicoot series where you have said Naughty Dog was always looking for the opportunity ways, don’t you think the nice platformer could worth it?

I myself didn’t really do much PS3 development. I left Naughty Dog when Uncharted 1 was in its infancy. But market wise there seemed to be less support for pure platforming. It was seen as old fashioned.

_

What are you interested in besides the video games?

Lots of stuff. Look at my blog http:all-things-andy-gavin.com.  Food, history, travel, writing, fiction of all sorts, technology. I’m very much a fantasy geek in the broad sense of the word.

What is your favorite game?

World of Warcraft. Even though I “quit” (again) after six years. Told you I’m a fantasy geek.

According to Facebook you like classic music. What are your favorite compositions?

I like a lot of music. In pure classical everything from Mozart to Stravinsky. But I listen to a wide variety of things, from weird folk music to industrial techno.

Have you ever been to Russia or the countries of post-Soviet Union. If yes did you like them? If no then are you going to visit them some time?

The closest I’ve been is Budapest and Prague. I’d love to visit many places in the former USSR. St. Petersburg is high on my list because I have a palace and museum fetish and I must see the baroque palaces there. Jason’s been to Moscow too – and I’d love to go there myself.

How do you think if Crash Bandicoot is relevant nowadays?

Current (or recent) Crash games are not relevant, but the character is. The response I get from my blog proves this. People still love the character, his world, and the games. I’m sure if they got an opportunity to play good Crash games in an updated format — millions would.

Any wishes to the users of Bandicoot Internet Zone?

I’d like to thank all the fans. It’s always been so gratifying how much people enjoyed visiting and playing our whacky cartoon universe. We brought it to life because it was just this super silly place that we thought would be a fun to inhabit (even if virtually), and it’s so great that millions and millions of players agreed and had a blast there!

_

The index of all Crash posts is here.

The Making Crash series: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11]

If you liked this post, follow me at:

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Latest hot post: War Stories: Crash Bandicoot

Related posts:

  1. Making Crash Bandicoot – part 6
  2. Making Crash Bandicoot – part 1
  3. Making Crash Bandicoot – part 5
  4. Crash Bandicoot – An Outsider’s Perspective (part 8)
  5. Making Crash Bandicoot – part 2
By: agavin
Comments (52)
Posted in: Games
Tagged as: Andy Gavin, Crash Bandicoot, Fan Sites, Games, Mutato Muzika, Playstation, Time travel, Video game
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