As if we needed even more technology to mediate the world for us, someone has come up with the ambient walkman. Basically, the product is a pair of headphones which sample ambient noise and turn it into some form of music. Its creator prefers to style it "The Ambient Addition," which frankly I find insufferable. The idea that we need even more mediation seems ridiculous to me. I suppose that the technology represents a somewhat cool achievement, but I'm at a loss to understand why anyone would want to listen to an approximation of music created by the birds, the bees, and those jackhammers down the street (although I suppose that combination would be pretty wild).

How appropriate! Just when we were all lamenting over the lack of videogame reviews in the media, I open up my browser and lo and behold! a videogame review appears on the frontpage of my city's online newspaper site! The San Francisco Chronicle occasionally reviews videogames using the same rating system that they use for films. The clapping man jumping out of his theater seat is a sign that the video game is super awesome. Anyway, this videogame review rates this new videogame called Bully. This is an "immersive boarding school experience" where you have to play "Tough kid Jimmy" whose "weapons of choice were itching powder and wedgies." Cool!

I've often wondered why it is that people of our generation seem to find Jon Stewart much funnier than people my parents age do. It's not as though the concept of spoofing news is particularly new; SNL has been doing it for years. I'm still trying to sort through the significance of this, but last night, as I was watching the Daily Show, I was struck by the similarities between the show's format and the format of a blog. Instead of "link, commentary," the Daily Show offers us "video clip, commentary." While SNL comics did something similar, they tended to stay in character. Jon Stewart doesn't try very hard to maintain the persona of a newsperson. His own voice and opinions come through very clearly. In this way, he isn't so different from political bloggers.