In summer the need for genre reading grips me, stacks of fat squat books howling my name like newsprint-scented wolves. I love serious fiction. There are Great Books gathering dust unread on my shelf. But ultimately the call of the genre will get me, wrap me up in a quick-drawn world and plot-drive me where it will. The inevitability makes me wonder how bad a fate that is.

A few months ago I was arguing on facebook with a guy about Kefka from Final Fantasy 6. The guy claimed Kefka was an awesome video game villain. I didn’t agree with him, but it took me awhile to fully formulate my arguments. This post is the result of that formulation. I present to you, for your unadulterated amusement, what makes a good video game villain.
The thing is – I believe Kefka, while better than some, is just a poor villain masquerading as a good one. If you don’t play …

I love digital media for two reasons: it doesn’t take any physical space and it’s much easier to access, with the right setup, than physical media.
However, digital media still has one of the major problems with physical media: once you have a lot of it, accessing and organizing it can be an issue. This is especially true with the small media access devices. You might own many more gigs of music and movies than your little iPad, netbook, or mobile phone can hold, and it can be a royal hassle …