The AmericanUS Pleb.orgPleb

Vol. 1 | Issue 1 | March the Twenty-fifth, two thousand and eleven

How to get around on public transit

Dragon Age II review

Local college woes

Tunisia in crisis

The Bay Area’s Boldest Magazine

Extra Action Marching Band

Invades SXSW

The Nor th• Public Trans i t Apps• Apple ’ s New MacBo ok Pro

The West

The Coast

• Dragon Age 2 Rev iew• Ex t ra Act ion !

•The Photography of Alex Mora

The Eas t• DVC’s Film Troubles

The South• Might In Tuni s ia

In this Issue…Staff & Contributors

Letter from Editor In Chief | Christopher C. Long

The American

Pleb

Edi tor In Chief | Chr i s topher C . Long

Edi tor of the West | Troy Pat ton

Edi tor of the South | Scot t Baba

Edi tor of the Nor th | Chr i s topher C . Long

Edi tor of the Eas t | Ar ie l Messman Rucker

Ed i tor of Des ign | Chr i s Corbin

Ed i tor ia l Board

Commerce Manager | Ryan Beck

Operat ions

Columnis t | Gerardo Recinos

Columni s t | Par janya Hol tz

Wr i ter | Juli u s Rea

The Plebs

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Christopher LongEdi tor In Chief | Chr i s topher C . Long

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If you don’t have a car or are just trying to get home safely after a night of bar-hopping, the Bay Area offers a wealth of public transit options to get you from A-to-B. The problem with most public transit options is that you have to navigate the maze of colors, numbers and letters plastered onto every bus stop and BART station. Luckily, a few clever software developers have written some pretty sweet apps for some of our favorite smart phones Here are some of the best:

Getting FromA BIn the Bay Area

By Chris Corbin

BART BuddyPrice: FreePlatform: AndroidThe application is still in beta and can be a bit unstable, occasionally freezing when it suddenly loses data or GPS access (like when traveling in BART tunnels) but these crashes are few and far between. Despite its single-mindedness, BART Buddy’s ease of use and clean design has earned a place on my home screen and in my heart.

Key Features:• Live arrival times• Interactive System Map• Fare Calculation• Nearest stop mapping

PATH2GoPrice: FreePlatform: Android, iPhone, WebAppPATH2Go was developed by a group of dedicated UC Berkeley students, desiring an all-in-one solution for their public transit needs; and they did a very good job. If BART Buddy is a stand-alone application, PATH2Go is a complete commuting application suite. Pulling data from 5 agencies including: SF Muni, Caltrain, SamTrans, VTA and BART. The PATH2Go mobile application pairs nicely with the webapp available to any standard browser, allowing you to plan a trip on your computer and ‘push’ the plan to your phone so you can keep track on the go. Perhaps the most notable features are the, “your stop next” and “your train is coming” features. The public transit newbie is alerted by his or her phone when to get off the bus or pay attention to the tracks, which is an extremely useful feature. PATH2Go has one huge problem though: the user interface. It’s not only one of the ugliest applications on this list, but also is rendered nearly useless by its UI’s un-intuative nature.

Key Features:• live arrival times• Nearest stop mapping• “your stop next” feature

AnystopPrice: FreePlatform: AndroidAnystop is actually a group of apps from one developer, each one featuring a different form of public transit from any major city across the U.S. The apps feature a UI that would make angels cry, containing endless lists of text void of any graphics or color. Applications like this should feature large map-based interfaces, not boring, meaningless lists. Anystop caters to a large number of bay area agencies such as BART and AC Transit but has none of the deeper features that a transit newbie would find useful like fare calculation or the step-by-step directions. If you are a seasoned commuter and know your routes and trains this will be good enough but if you are new to the scene or visiting from out of town this app won’t cut it.

Key Features:• compatible with dozens of bay area agencies.• Live arrival times• Nearest stop mapping

iBartPrice: Free, $3.99Platform:iPhoneThis app comes in two flavors: free and not free. The latter offering live arrival times. The application is well designed but does not include the all-important interactive map. iBart also has one of those, “why doesn’t everyone do it?” ideas, a list of phone numbers for BART police and the lost and found, it sounds small but it’s one of those little pieces of polish a lot of apps on this list lack.

Key Features:• Live arrival times($3.99 version)• Trip planner• Nearest station mapping• f are calculation• system map

511.orgPrice: FreePlatform: WebApp for Desktop and MobileAn oldie but goodie, 511.org is the official public transit app for the bay area. Developed in-house by the transit authority, it allows you to plan out every last detail of your trip across multiple agencies.

Key Features: • live traffic and arrival times• extremely detailed trip planner• fare calculation• system map

Apple wants you to go pro.

The war of PC vs. Mac has raged for as long as the internet has existed and its populous have decided to argue in leu of being productive whilst online. One could point out pros and cons for both platforms for many hours but it all boils down to personal preference. My prefrence has always been skewed toward the Apple side of things mostly due to the “shiny object” factor.

I recently picked up Apple’s newest 13in Macbook Pro. I debated my selection for a long time, I could have gone with the cheaper macbook but that white plastic body looked mighty fragile not to mention stain-able. As for the size, I have previously owned a 15in incarnation of the Macbook Pro(two generations ago). The 15 inch range is less laptop more desktop replacement to me, I need something lean and mean on the go. The 11inch Macbook Air was also a cheaper option and would certainly qualify as a portable but lacked the oomph required to make Photoshop and

InDesign run smoothly enough to use as often as I do.

The Macbook Pro has the traditional Apple build quality which has always been exceptional. The Macbook Pro looks less built and more grown. Apple touts its “unibody” structured laptop’s strength and durability and that certainly holds true, It truly feels like a single solid piece milled aluminum. No longer will you start to cry when your computer starts to creak from slight bends in the frame.

The computer is just downright sexy. Sparse, clean lines barely letting you know that this is indeed a functioning computer and not a elegant metal sculpture. A rare piece of functioning art is welcome on my desk any day.

The LED lit screen is love-it-or-hate-it covered in a glossy screen that makes the blacks just velvety and rich, I originally thought that the

glossy screen would kill me but the backlighting is bright enough to compensate for most of the glare but you still wont be watching movies whilst sunbathing next to the pool.

The much lamented iPad-ification of OS X might actually be a good thing adding a app drawer style applications stack to your dock by default makes life a whole lot easier. Multitouch gestures are probably the best idea apple has ever had: three fingers left or right sends you back or forward in a browser window, four fingers up and down controls the much loved Exposé. Pinch to zoom and rotate also make brief appearances but since I rarely spend more than a minute or two in iPhoto.

The new button-less trackpad looks pretty enough and for the most part is extremely useful except when clicking the very top of the pad. The glass the trackpad is made of extremely smooth, almost identical to an iPhone screen if you close your eyes.

Battery life is more than exceptional with about 4-5 hours of real-world use. Bear in mind, that 5 hours is battery is with the LCD backlighting set to about half power(more than enough for

indoor use with natural window light) typing in OpenOffice, iTunes playing a audio podcast and Google Chrome running. If you haven’t figured it out, thats pretty damn amazing. Whats even more amazing is that those numbers are right on the mark with Apple’s own in-house testing.

I havent mentioned the new Thunder Bolt port until now because frankly, its pretty much useless. Sure, you could use it to power your display-port compatible Apple display but the promised crazy fast data transfer is completely useless without any compatible accessories.

The new Macbook Pro is a great computer and ill definitely be keeping it close to me for the foreseeable future.

Review by Chris Corbin

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Dragon Age 2 Technology advances fast, and we’ve come a long way from playing pen and paper RPGs in dark basements whilst avoiding the female creature and arguing with fellow players about dice rolls. We now lurk in dark living rooms yelling extremely racist remarks over Xbox Live for no reason at all. While I’m not sure the company has improved, the game certainly has.

The first Dragon age was a sophisticated creature. It was full of exceptional polish that catered to someone well versed in the ways of tanking and quite comfortable sitting for hours staring at menus, and was filled with more numbers than the average math book and was almost as enjoyable. What the game lacked in personality it made up for in depth and substance.

Dragon Age 2 lacks some of the refinement of its older brother but makes up with something rarely seen in a game of this genre: fun. It’s filled with one liners, witty retorts and good old fashioned button smashing combat. Bioware pulls a fair amount of the franchise’s newly acquired fun from its distant cousin Mass Effect, and while that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, someone

at Bioware got a bit carried away with the whole copy/paste thing. Occasionally I would be watching a cutscene and could pick out an identical scene from Mass Effect 2. The set pieces were originally fantastic, but here they are getting just a bit stale.

At first I missed the witty compatriots that I had grown to love on my first adventure, but they where quickly replaced by a colorful cast of characters with loveable (or not) vibrant personalities. The franchise no longer leans on Alistair, the witty gray warden, for its humor, and instead uses player’s character’s own

responses as the backbone for much of the comic relief.

The story has gone from “the generic fantasy adventure of [insert player name here]” to a tale with a protagonist that actually speaks. The moral choice system is ubiquitous as

ever, but that’s not a bad thing. Choices, endings and

quest opens all vary wildly depending on the choices you made and the words you chose to use, which adds significant replay value to the game along with a slew of downloadable content that is sure to follow the game’s initial release.

The combat is fast paced and gives an excellent sense of action and pacing. You can still pause the game and issue individual orders to your companions, but this is neither necessary (at least on normal difficulty) nor in keeping with the new “fun” aesthetic.

While the new humor and fun may be a pleasant change, the lack of detail and somewhat predictable storyline leaves the game feeling hollow.

Dragon Age was like walking into an antiques shop; sure it was stuffy and sometimes a bit boring, but it had substance.

Dragon Age 2 very nearly becomes a generic hack and slash action game, which isn’t necessarily bad. This odd hybrid creature that is half action and half number crunching RPG can be a bit awkward at times. How is it that I can change my own armor while my otherwise completely controllable colleagues’ are off limits, and why are three different amulets with different stats all named “amulet”? These decisions look a whole lot like a lazy developer, or perhaps one being forced to push the game out quickly.

What DA2 loses in numbers it makes up for in choices. Every choice has a consequence, leading to a myriad of different play-throughs. While most developers like to put on the back of the box “never play the same game twice,” this is the first time that might actually be true.

DA2 impresses on pure length and depth. Consequences run deep and quests run long, giving the game a more than hefty 60-hour play-through, including the main story and some side quests and not at all taking into consideration the DLC already available (the exiled prince). And if the first Dragon Age is any indication, there is much more DLC to come.

Two players will have completely different experiences; main characters might die off or protagonists might change depending on what option you select in any given dialogue box.

I was unable to finish the game by the time of this writing. This game is looooooong, I work a full-time job, “I want to play videogames” is not a valid excuse as far as my boss is concerned, and I want to savor the experience. ultimately this game is one that should be savored, not rushed through in a attempt to get to the next triple-A title to come out this month.

So what are we to do? If we call Dragon Age 2 a hack and slash, its definitely not the best. It’s fun, but the controls are a bit too awkward and clunky to call DA2 a member of the hack and slash genre. DA2 isn’t a proper RPG either, as the game lacks the sophisticated customization options usually present in modern RPGs, including its older brother.

So, what is Dragon Age 2? Call it an RPG, a hack and slash, a slightly confused game rushed out of the studio. I simply choose to call it what it is: fun.

Dragon Age 2 lacks some of the refinement of its older brother but makes up with something rarely seen in a game of this genre: fun.

Review by Chris Corbin

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Marches Twoard SXSW Article by Christopher C. Long

Photos Courtesy of Aengus Anderson

Forget everything that might be familiar to you about marching bands: pressed uniforms, precision maneuvers and pompous, perhaps dated music. Instead allow the images of nearly-naked flag girls grinding away at bystanders and sounds of traditional drum and bugle instrumentation playing modern Afro-Cuban and rock influenced music flood your imagination.

The Extra Action Marching Band (EAMB), trampling the Bay Area music scene for over a decade now has, in addition to their regular performing schedule, made a short film produced by and featuring members of the group. The Burning Wigs of Sedition, which won for best music video this year at San Francisco’s independent film festival, IndieFest, tells the tale of a libertine sailing ship captain and his mutinous crew having it out in a high seas dance battle.

“Our specialty is the surprise attack entrance where we appear suddenly, out of nowhere and at full volume,” says trumpet player John Lieb. “We have the freedom to be spontaneous and creative in our performance,” clarifies Violett Angell.

EAMB, “a venue for marginalized characters… more [stylistically] influenced by the brass bands of eastern Europe than your average Rose Bowl band,” according to another trumpet player, Ruben Tomar. “And we have tried to cull the best of [our] energy, while minimizing damage.”

Indeed, that “damage” might already be done, only to their collective pocketbook though, as the group has recently and unexpectedly been invited to perform at the popular South by Southwest (SXSW) music and film festival in Austin, Texas. Due to the such short of notice, the band is now left scrambling to raise funds

to pay for their travel.

To do so, the band is turning to their primary support base; their fans. EAMB has launched a campaign with the fundraising website, kickstarter.com.

The site provides means for participant groups to advertise for and collect donations minus a small percentage fee levied only if a group reaches their fundraising goal. EAMB has until March 14 to raise at least $5,000 or else, as stipulated on kickstarter.com, they will get nothing.

EAMB is composed of volunteer members and all income from performing as a group goes directly toward maintenance costs. “We are a big, expensive group with big appetites,” says Tomar.

Indeed, the group is planning their next film, which will center around the events of the Punic Wars. Of the experience so far, “of course working with elephants is no walk in the park,” says Tomar.

Supporters of the Extra Action Marching Band can donate to the SXSW travel fund by going to the link below:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/77798909/extra-action-marching-band-and-the-sxsw-adventure

SF Musical Group Fresh From IndieFest Win

Forget everything that might be familiar to you about marching bands: pressed uniforms, precision maneuvers and pompous, perhaps dated music.

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PLEASANT HILL – After decades of bringing cin-ema classics to the people of Pleasant Hill and the sur-rounding communities, the film department at Diablo Valley College has closed the doors on its free movie screenings.The decision was made after the most recent series of screenings, which concluded on Nov. 24 of last year due to restrictions in the school’s budget.

The large forum on DVC’s campus has exposed audi-ences to films such as My Life as a Dog by Swedish director Lasse Hallström, Amélie by French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet and even more familiar titles such as Saving Private Ryan by Hollywood icon Steven Spielberg.Professor Ken White, area chair of DVC’s film and broadcast communication arts department, reflected fondly upon the former program: “It was a vestige of this school,” he said of the free viewings.The point of the viewings was to entertain, educate and inspire those who might choose to study film theory and theoretically go on to become filmmak-ers, White said. The screenings were held during film studies classes and the college would allow members of the public to be silent participants at no cost.“What I liked about the screenings is that they gave unique information about each movie … not infor-mation you can get just looking at a regular synopsis in TV Guide or on Netflix,” said Concord resident James Rael, a former film screening patron. “And since it was also during a class, it was nice listening to the

discussion between the professor and students after the movie was finished.”White said his department will no longer be offer-ing the free screenings to people who are not actually enrolled in the film classes due to royalty fees that, due to budget restrictions facing public education insti-tutions across the country, the college is not able to afford. White said the royalty fees run anywhere from $100 to $200 per film, depending on the studio that released the films chosen to be shown.Over the past few years, DVC has been replacing its VHS tape library with DVDs and Blu-Ray discs be-cause motion picture studios only offer their film titles in these media formats. Since the school was showing movies from its own library of films, it saved money by not paying the film distributor’s fees.But when DVC’s former film distributor, Swank Mo-tion Pictures, Inc., brought up issues regarding “fair use” guidelines, which dictates that a school may only show films to students actively enrolled in a film class, the college decided to end the public screening, said Richard Woodruff, DVC’s Film Club adviser who organized and acts as projectionist for the student film screenings.Swank Motion Pictures has not responded to requests for an interview. White said the possibility of the school showing films in the future depends on the budget in the coming semesters. He said there is nothing to prevent the department showcasing films made by students or faculty members, though that would rely on both the availability of the films, as well as permission from filmmakers to allow free public screenings.The DVC Film Club usually screens student-produced films to the public at the end of every semester, which could act as a possible replacement for the former film screenings. Woodruff said this year’s student film festi-val is scheduled for May 26, but the date may change.“I think film students will willingly show their work to anyone they can get to watch it,” he said. “They’re all very proud of what they do.”

No More Free Film Screenings At Diablo Valley College

The American

Pleb Editorial Opinion

Might In TunisiaA set of circumstances have been exciting a craze among our brothers in the Middle East, a trend that has started to expose its ability to dismantle decades of status quo brought under the auspices of leaders either appointed or backed through various means by the United States.Take Tunisia for example, where the pressures of high unemployment, low prospects and an oppressive and long-ruling regime provoked recent graduate Mohamed Bouazizi to set himself on fire. Not a month after Bouazizi’s death,

While the world monitors the situation in Egypt, the citizens of Sanaa in Yemen seem to be showing signs of unrest also, as police have had to disperse growing crowds wanting to topple the government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Also in Libya, where, in spite of reports of over 1,000 killed, the people are toppling long-established rule while also expressing support for the efforts of the Egyptian protestors.Although those who reason toward the necessity of an

iron-fisted society may label this newfound inspiration for insurrection a disturbing flaw in the purity of their governmental alloy, the American Pleb supports the ef-forts of the patriots of the Middle East. It is still uncer-tain what the outcome of these still unfolding events will be but they shall no doubt have effects other than rising gas prices here in the United States. As those powerful personal allies of America begin to topple in the name of democracy, we will be forced to reckon with a region whose roots shall be similar to our own.Indeed, even protestors in Egypt, with reduced access to the internet in some cases, have heard of and are voicing solidarity for those who are protesting the union-busting efforts of Gov. Scott Walker in Minnesota.

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The Photography of Alex Mora

In our first Coast submission, American Pleb supporter Alex Mora shares his opening set of pictures. If you would like to contact Mr. Mora, email him at kampen1184@yahoo.com

The Bay Area’s Boldest Magazine

The American

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