It’s because I’ve been buried deep in a prolonged DVD marathon of some of HBO’s finest serial dramas: The Wire, Carnivale, and The Sopranos.

Since these series are not exactly new, I expect to be called late to the party by proclaiming the serial drama as the storytelling form of the present and immediate future.

Nonetheless, I’ve come to the conclusion that television serial dramas are a superior form of storytelling than the traditional 2 hour film. I’m not arguing that great stories haven’t been told in movies and won’t continue to be told in the future; however, the amount of character development, backstory, subplots, conflicts, rises, and falls you can fit in say, 50 hour-long episodes of a television show just can’t be crammed into a two and a half hour movie.

I’m not arguing quantity over quality. But all things considered equal, (production values, acting, writing, etc.), you can craft a story with greater depth given more time.

Serial content is not just episodic content. Episodic content is nothing new; pretty much every narrative on television is episodic. You never need to know what happened in the last episode of Law and Order or the last episode of Full House to understand and enjoy (well, that may be a taller order) the next episode; the events in the previous episode (usually) have no bearing on the next. These are independent stories told with familiar characters. Such is not the case with a serial drama, which represents one large story arc told in installments. Seeing prior episodes is essential to understanding the context in which the characters operate. But perhaps this is why so many otherwise quality serial dramas ultimately fail on television. It’s too hard to catch up or understand what’s going on if you’ve missed a week or two, or, god forbid, try to join a season half-way through.

The serial drama is a more perfect form presented through the wrong medium. These shows belong not on TV but on DVDs, where they can be watched in sequence (as many or as few as desired), but more importantly, in their entirety. The fact that these stories don’t fit on television is painfully clear in early examples of serial dramas such as Twin Peaks, where NBC tried to get new viewers “up-to-date” on characters through painful exposition with forced flashbacks and recaps. It ended, some would say prematurely, after two seasons.

There’s no reason to limit the serial to drama, either. Arrested Development is a fine example of a serial comedy. It’s telling that this show also failed after just two seasons on television but retains a cult following, and, as any loyalist will tell you, is surely best enjoyed on DVD. How much richer are jokes that require subtle understanding of past events than the generic gags of a 30-minute sitcom whose redeeming quality is merely that it can be understood by anyone devoid of all but the most basic context? Arrested Development is both more challenging and more rewarding than the usual television comedy.

Naturally, I expect serial content to come to the web, and not just as re-broadcasts of television. Perhaps the best example so far is Channel101/Channel102 - every month live audiences vote on whether or not to allow independently-made series to continue for another episode. The result is a library of ’seasons’ of independent content. They’re short and mostly comedies, but once the production values and writing catches up, I dream of full-length, web-based serial dramas. The O.G. Shutterbugs even has a few flashes of Arrested Development-style subtlety. Has anyone spotted these in the wild yet?

I’ve never seen so many laptops on a flight. The plebs worked on their powerpoint presentations and excel spreadsheets while journeymen tackled javascript consoles and other various forms of coding. I stated my own claim to nerddom by blitzing through a couple hundred feeds in Google Reader’s clumsy but well-intentioned offline mode.

The grand prize has to go to a gentleman touching up some beautiful b&w photos in Apple’s fancy-ass Aperture: a program I may have deemed worthy of a purchase (or another term with a p) had I not been so thoroughly scared off by the putrid stench of iPhoto.

Until next time.

They brought back the Fiat 500!

Call it late to the retro party, call it a Mini Cooper or New Beetle rip off, call it a Fiat- whatever. It just shows that you simply don’t know.

There is hope for this world yet.

Yes, digital pictures are instantly accessible, and yes, digital prints are easy to create at home or at the pharmacy, but I believe there’s something to be said for the appeal (and marketability?) of a camera that produces not only an instantaneous copy, but a tangible one. How many images are being hidden in unwieldy iPhoto libraries and how many are lost forever on decaying hard drive spindles? It’s good to have a print: you can see them without a screen. Are there any digital cameras on the market that can claim this functionality, without a plug-in photo printer? (Asking genuinely, not meaning to goad you film-haters out there.) Perhaps we’ll see the Polaroid name put to use on such a product, someday.

Expect tears from me when Kodak pulls the plug on Super-8… although others are ready to carry the torch. Maybe we can hope for the same from Polaroid?

Passage is an art game. Although I deplore the term, it is actually the most consistent term we have to describe this genre of game: there is no right or wrong way to play, no stated objective, and, ultimately, no way to win. The game lasts only 5 minutes and represents your character’s condensed lifetime.

The game is an interactive (another term I despise, ranking up there with “multimedia”) reflection on life, the tradeoffs between achievement and exploration, and death. Despite admitting its own purposelessness (the creator notes that even your score “looks pretty meaningless hovering there” in the end) the result of playing even one round is surprisingly powerful. But I won’t draw your conclusions for you…

So go ahead, try Passage. Even if you don’t like games, you have no excuse. It only will take 5 minutes, it runs on PCs and Macs, and takes up a svelte 5 MB. Read the creator’s statement before or afterwards: there are some interesting thoughts on the representation of death in video games as well as explanations of some of the game’s various metaphors.

Shooting with a single roll of Super8 film meant not knowing what we got until the results came in weeks/months later. It also meant we didn’t have an exact estimate of how much of the scant ~3.5min on each reel we had left to work with. Sadly, the ending of this masterpiece didn’t make it onto the roll. If I had realized at the time, I would have switched to a new one to complete the saga. As it is, the conclusion will have to remain a mystery. Do I smell a sequel?

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Nikonos V. The fifth iteration of Nikon’s legendary underwater camera. Look at this thing! The photographic equivalent of Nemo’s Nautilus, the Nikonos is straight seafaring, nay, all-terrain. Specialty for certain, but I can’t help but think a camera like this would prompt me to explore the California coast a bit more often… Aperture priority and scale focusing with a variety of lenses available, from 15mm to 80mm. Pictured here is the handy 35mm 2.5. One of only two ‘affordable’ cameras on this list.

Epson R-D1. The world’s first digital rangefinder camera created by, yes, Epson. Well, not really. This camera is a modified Voigtlander Bessa, compatible with all Leica (makers of that other digital rangefinder) screw mount and M-mount lenses. A shame Voigtlander had to rely on Epson for them digital innards, or perhaps the camera would have had some better support (not to mention design). Sure, it’s not without its problems, but the biggest problem has to be its limited 10,000 production run, which, of course, translates to prices that continue well past $2000 for this 6MP manual camera. Oh well. But what fun it would be…

Olympus XA. Discussed at length elsewhere, but what a fine companion for every moment spent out of the house. Classic 35mm 2.8 lens with aperture priority and a rangefinder! Less than $60. Hoping to land one soon. Very soon.

Mamiya 6. Wow. A light and compact medium format camera that isn’t a Holga (no disrespect intended.) Hardly well made but what a sleeper when traveling amongst those who simply don’t know. This camera is the equivalent of the boxy 80s Japanese sports car that surprises the BMW M3 (again, no disrespect) driver at the stoplight. All but full-frame digital cameras beware. Years after production ceased, prices in the states are well past $2000 (incl. lens).

Fuji Natura Black. Speaking of sleepers, this discreet little box has a wide 24mm 1.9 lens in a modern (well, if you count the 35mm film, which I do), automatic P&S package. When the Olympus XA subs out as the sun goes down, the Fuji Natura S steps in to close the game with finesse. Japan-only, and therefore, too expensive.

Who is Bobby? What is his deal? What’s the hurry to get home, anyway?

Who knows? Who cares? Wherever he is, Bobby is getting the hell out of there and is going home, and it’s your job to make sure it happens.

The game itself offers no further contextual clues. Bobby must merely waddle his way, stage after neon-colored stage, past feeble winged creatures and gaping holes in the ground. All of this must be achieved with the use of only his wits and some surprising hops n’ hangtime.

The more I thought about it, the more this ridiculous and slightly pathetic little game exemplified the Atari 2600 era* in my mind: forget story, cutscenes, or characters- hell, you’re lucky to even be entrusted with the control of a vaguely humanoid shape. After all, you could be stuck navigating a colored square, or something.

Enter Bobby is Going Home 2. Originally conceived as my first attempt to create a game free from the trappings of a story or high expectations, it eventually grew to encompass far too much of my life. So here it is, a side-scrolling platformer with 40 “mind-bending” levels and 5 “awesome” powerups; bigger and badder than the original (at least in some respects) and enjoyable to me if only for its homage to delicious obscurity.

* It should be noted that I am in no way opposed to simplicty and elegance in game design- in fact, I generally classify overwrought “storylines” and bloated cutscenes alongside low-carb beer, cheap merchandise, and “Access Hollywood” on life’s grand barometer of desirability.

As you may know, Bobby is Going Home 2 is (finally) complete! Although it may seem to be of questionable taste to bribe you to play my game, I’m interested in seeing what sort of scores you can come up with. The player who can send me a screenshot of the highest score by November 15th, 2007 will win this refurbished Nintendo Entertainment System (Bobby is Going Home 2 Edition)!

This veritable and truly unique ‘pleasure pak’ includes:
1 refurbished NES system (Bobby is Going Home 2 ed.) with replaced pinset
All necessary cords
2 original NES controllers
1 Tetris cartridge
1 Super Mario Bros. / Duck Hunt cartridge
1 Super Mario Bros. 3 cartridge

I believe this package is all you need to have a quality retro gaming blast in your pants. Although the prize is straight notable and although it would be easy to do so, somehow I trust you heady members of my inner circle to abstain from doctoring screenshots.

Goodluck and godspeed, Bobbys-