Today, I read an article for pedagogy class entitled Epistemology and Procedure in Aural Training: In Search of a Unification of Music Cognitive Theory with Its Applications. Sometimes the tradition of academic wordiness for the sake of sounding smart pisses me off. People seem to directly correlate obtuseness with intelligence, resulting in dry, tortured prose that only serves to create a stuffy wall between the reader and the materials. I myself have engaged in this pastime, and there's no doubt that it's added a few points to my past grades. Perhaps my music would become more academically acceptable if I renamed Vanishing Point as A Systematic Attempt at Achieving Pandemic Harmony from Obfuscation Through the Joint Efforts of Multiple Solo Instruments. On a coincidental sidenote, the article was cowritten by a professor at the University of Kentucky who was my contact point for admissions and fellowships and such.

I finished Return to Wolfenstein the other night. It had excellent graphics and was fun while it lasted, but it was no big breakthrough in first-person shooters. It's one of those games that I may play again someday, but it's lacking in the lasting appeal of games like Starcraft, which I still play regularly five years after its release.

I still haven't played any spectacular, engaging games in about a year now. I'd considered picking up a copy of the latest "massively multiplayer" role-playing game, Dark Ages of Camelot, which is getting great reviews, but I just don't have the time to devote to an online pay-by-month game. Back in '98 when it first came out, I joined the Everquest craze for a few months, but stopped after realizing that it took too much time. Persistent online games are usually set up so that progress can only be achieved with constant and tireless playing. Although I did meet a few "regulars" to play with, my available time was so much less that I'd constantly be playing catch-up to them, which just wasn't as fun.