What’s in a Name?

OCReMix recently posted a ReMix titled “JESUS CHRIST IT’S A DINOSAUR GET IN THE EPOCH”, which I must say is simply bad form because of it’s horrendous title. The shameful title may be a result of a combination of factors, such as poor experience or recollection of the overly remixed game in question, disregard for conservative language, a broken keyboard, a case of American quality education…. The list could go on.

The title makes a reference to a religious figure not appearing in the game. This has led to some fundamentalist feedback, and turned the review thread into a debate on how intolerant fundamentalists demand that other fundamentalists tolerate them. The question of which fundamentalist persuasion is responsible for what is obvious from the reviews thread.

More disturbing is the lazy capitalization of the title. All uppercase suggests the ReMixer wither has a broken caps lock key, or is too lazy to write the title properly. It might be that he has been influenced by German capitalization, something not too surprising considering the US status of being a capitalist Mecca. A capitalist Mecca in decay, with failing economy and education.

This brings us to the third issue that can be found in the title. While the capitalization can be attributed to style, the negligent punctuation can only be a sign of improper education, tho it can be taken as a sign that the liberal mentality has spread to language. This is only the beginning, the english language will deteriorate among Americans.

KALI OCREMIX HITS A NEW LOW THIS CAN’T LEAD TO ANYTHING GOOD I HOPE SOMEONE FROM OCREMIX WILL SMURF READ THIS SOMEONE MUST TAKE ACTION YOU MIGHT BE EVOLUTION CALLED A GRAMMAR POLICE ANGEL THIS IS IMPORTANT OCREMIX MAY NOT STEER ENGLISH DOWN THIS NIRVANA PATH ENGLISH NEEDS PUNCTUATION AND LOWER-CASE MUEZZIN LETTERS AND DOES NOT NEED RANDOM MARTEL REFERENCES TO RELIGION

See how confusing it is to read? So stop it!

Cute, ain’t it?

Starla, who seems to be #ocremix’ bitch ( or perhaps #ocremix is her bitch), pointed me in the direction of this cute little guy (or gal) with this cute little complaint. And it’s the same complaint everyone seems to have.

“There’s not enough X. You suck!”

OCReMix isn’t like a public service company that caters to everyone’s desires. OCReMix works by bribes. Cutie ought to learn how things work in the real work: either you work for free to get what you want where you want it… or you bribe.

With WordPress effing up the tags, I’ll have to retag the whole blog, so no tags on this one.

Surprisingly Bad

Recent events has led me to post about something not strictly vgm-related, although still related to OverClocked ReMix. This hardly updated blog has been a watchdog for the site featuring teenagers posting diverse electronic remakes of the music in their favorite daily time waste, but now it’s time to take a step up and cover something else. Namely, gaming force. dot org.

gaming force. dot org is a site that from my extensive research appears to be a site that derails threads in order to rant on other websites, and is run (or overrun) by people so pretentious and inbred that they make DarkeSword seem humble and ocremix diverse. Respectively.

To gaming force. dot org’s merit, they have not only pretentious users but use of pretentious language. However, a well phrased uninformed rant remains a rant, something I know very well. What surprises me is neither the ignorance or the prententiousness, but the blind faith that one’s own community is the one true way. The disciples of Drunkard gang up like retarded zealots for a self-proclaimed messiah of a site that from my research hardly seems worth the domain cost.

As a result, a lot of idiots revealed their idiocy, some of whom appeared to be proud of it; a site other than ocr revealed the merits of ocr through their own epic fail, a few humorists revealed they should have a TV show, and the great and mighty Ass pretentiously plunges beneath the level I once held Bleck. With that I don’t mean in any attempt to drown him, as it’s something I reserve for biased jurors and lawyers.

Let me show you a quote from the highly prestigious and on gaming force. dot org revered master of language:

“Either that or just rip off some of the fucking awful efforts from ocremix.”

Yes, high marks for excellent language, kid. It strikes me as odd that someone old and wise such as yourself resides in a thread concerning a Sonic video game.

While the efforts of zircon, starla, and others were wise, some ocr regulars were less than constructive in their argumentation. Larry Liontamer’s efforts seemed to worsen the situation. However, the entry that made the thread worth it has to be that of DrumUltimA, who spitefully provides a rendition of To Zanarkand.

Criticism of Criticism of Criticism

After a long break from anything music, courtesy of locked doors and armed guards, I’m back. Most people spend their summers visit friends and family, relaxing, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Most people.

 

I recently had a talk with a few people frustrated with OCReMix. The repeated criticism to anything and everything was getting to them. It might just be their attitude making them come off the wrong way, but I get the feeling there’s more to it.

 

A good example of criticism can read about in this thread about the Judges’ work-in-progress feedback template they demanded people to use (not in those words). Their attitude to the feedback they got from the community was generally defensive of their new formality, but they eventually adapted it to dampen the community’s criticism of it. While Liontamer and zircon remained fairly civil, other judges seem downright insulting at times. This is hardly the exemplary behavior you’d expect them to set. It makes for a more interesting read.

 

I also find it strange that they didn’t, to my knowledge, discuss it with the more active wip critics before dropping the form on them. Captain Whiner makes a number of valid points as well as uses the feedback form to critique the feedback form. Captain Positive made his own feedback list, and later explains the importance of positive feedback.

 

This seemed to have gone in one ear and out the other for some. In talking to people unhappy with the state of the wip subforum and #ocrwip, the irc channel dedicated to wips, there are two things that I find. One concerns the subforum, the fact that a handful of people comment on a lot of wips, and not many more comment on wips of popular games, leaving a lot of wips with a single response. Another concerns the #ocrwip channel, where a lack of civility has discouraged remixers from asking for feedback, or even being on the channel.

 

Perhaps this is where I should end the post, but I feel I have one last thing to say. Wise remixers usually personally ask judges for feedback before submitting a remix, but this implies some level of familiarity with them. Familiarity is usually achieved through conversation, either on the forum or OCR’s channels. Unfortunately, the nature of the channels isn’t one of civility. I would expect the less populated #ocrwip to be a more focused, civil place, but not according to my sources. Worse than the lack of civility is one of the causes for it: a jdgfgt. The equivalent of a lawyer suing his client.

 

What’s even worse is that this lack of civility seems to be spreading to other forum members and channel regulars.

Artist Name Contest

Artists, such as the geeks on OCReMix, need a good name. My lawyer suggested I change my name to something easier for a jury to symphathize with, and I got the idea for a name contest. I’m well aware that nobody reads my blog. Yet. When the OCR community does find it, it’ll be all the more interesting for them to read. This could be amusing for them, not just judgemental.

 

The first category I will judge in is long names. The two longest I found was Children of the Monkey Machine and Cuddly Battleship Kattywampus. In order to avoid looking evolution-friendly in front of potential biblical fundamentalists, I have to choose CBK. This is good practice if I ever run for president of America. I have yet to be born in America, but considering I might yet be born again, it shouldn’t be a problem.

 

The second category is two-letter names. With a number of those (AE, JV, MC, mp, mv, OA, and po! (listed only because the third symbol isn’t a letter)), it shouldn’t be hard. We’ll disqualify the transliterated umlaut, the cheesy MC, the one alluding to magic/mana points, and the one with more than two symbols, leaving us with JV, mv, and OA. Lowercase names seem a little lazy, and most good names contain vowels, so I’m gonna go with OA.

 

For the third category, I will decide the best use of non-letter symbols. Replacing letters with numbers are overused, although the existance of both a Beej and a B33J make the latter worth mentioning. Adding numbers to the end of the name is a bit 90’s. Actually, using numbers is lame. There, I said it. po! deserves an honorary mention here for not using numbers. Despite being a bit 90’s, J:/Drive has to win this one.

 

There are two kinds of funny artist names: the cheesy stupid ones, and the amusing ones. The aforementioned Cuddly Battleship Kattywampus deserves an honrary mention here, as does A Scholar & A Physician (a real abbreviation, too), the former for being cheesy stupid to the point that it’s funny again, the latter for being an unorthodox name and depth. The win, however, goes to Jupiter Crayons for the obvious reason.

 

Finally, there’s the coolest name on OCR. I have a hard time deciding what the coolest name is. Back in the days, it might have been something with a  double-X, something awesome just spelled out, something far off the beaten path, or some really cool ordinary name, but I think slightly longer names are the thing nowadays, and so are the two names I’m considering for this title, Another Soundscape and Symphonic Chronicles. DragonAvenger gets an honorary mention.

 

D’oh! They’re both losers. The winner is Sixto Sounds.

 

Perhaps I should recommend their music as well, but I have to admit there’s some whose remixes I wouldn’t. They’re worth exploring, to see how many were actually worth it, if not for actually listening. And that concludes the OCR artist name contest.