A Life Well Wasted

Heres one of the best things Ive heard off the internet in quite a while:  A Life Well Wasted is "an internet radio show about video games and the people who love them".  Created and produced by Robert Ashley and featuring uber quirky pop music from him and his band, I come to Shanghai.   Very good editing that sounds like a very hip version of NPR and provides incredibly interesting material.   Trust me when I say you dont have to be a video game aficionado to enjoy as the episodes venture from the death of print journalism to musings on fame, creativity and ideals.  Currently there are six episodes and Ive listened to three.


Episode 1 - The Death of EGM includes interviews with the writers from Electronic Games Monthly at their going out of business party.  Suprisingly interesting with amusing travels down memory lane of guys who seemed to live in the land of misfit toys.  Reminded me a bit of skate culture from the same time period.  Makes a fine, though subtle, case for why we should care about the loss of print culture. 


Episode 3 - An outstanding piece on Jason Rohrer, a bohemian game designer intent on creating art through video games designed for 256mz systems (I gotta download Passage soon - its free!).  Another pretty good interview with a game designer who discusses what happens when a game turns bad (and is reviewed as thus).  Both pieces really translate well outside of the ideas of game design and are just plain interesting to listen to.


Episode 6 - A musical montage of user submitted game ideas.  A narration on ideas that sounds like Jim Morrison in an American Prayer circa 2010 (this was the highlight for me...really well written).  A man who licensed Tetris, made millions and now wants to save the world from itself.  A well endowed, fame loving video game geek.


I will probably finish up the other three episodes this week which is a shame as new episodes of this one man show seems to get made very sporadically but its definitely worth the wait.