Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Photos Galore
It's been months since I posted any photos and years since I updated any of the photo pages, and since I had some free time over the long holiday weekend, I decided to do something about that. Every page in the Photos > Pets section has been updated, though a few only got a new link in the nav bar, thanks to the new
Photos > Pets > Darwin page. Yes Darwin, Malaya's mom's scrappy little beagle mix has his own page with a dozen pictures. Some even include me, and one includes Malaya's mom, not that you'll get any more idea what she looks like than you have about Malaya.
Besides Darwin's new page, I added a bunch of recent (most of which have not been posted in blog updates) photos to the
Jinx,
Dusty, and
Jinx vs Dusty pages, and a few shots of my stepsister's cats to
Misc Pets, as well as a new shot of one of my
mom's cats. Speaking of animals, I even added a dozen or so shots to the
Flux Photos page, though simply looking at my own graven image for as long as it took to do so disturbed me deeply. (Pretending the grossly-misnomered Sexy Flux page simply doesn't exist is about all that gets me through most days. And no, the lack of a link in the previous sentence is not an oversight.)
On top of those, I've got a bunch of miscellaneous photos that don't fit on any of the photos pages, and you're about to see those right here; along with a few of the best shots from the aforementioned page updates.
Dusty looking particularly hapless as he struggles weakly to escape Darwin's jacket. The dog wears it much better, and doesn't flop over the minute you put it on him. Jinx had a quite different reaction, which you can read about in this shot's caption on the
Dusty page.
Yes, I'm cupping water in my hand for the dog to drink. Yes, Malaya thought it was the sweetest thing ever.
More Darwin here.
A very recent photo of me out on a trail with Malaya, shepherding her while she took a bunch of photos with her new camera. Her next project is to work on portraits, and I've been volunteered for that, tragically enough. In other words, you might be seeing more of me, like it or not.
A shot of part of the grove of elephant ear tropical plants in my dad's backyard in San Diego. I will waste no time planting a patch of these when we get our own home, though I doubt they'll grow as verdantly in the colder, cloudier NorCal weather.
Back in March, we had some interesting weather, including the fiercest burst of hail I've ever seen. (Though that's not saying much, with my last 25 years spent in moderate portions of California.) It never snows here, but it does get down into the high 20s at times in the winter. This hail came with spring well underway though, as the daffodils here demonstrate.
It's hard to judge the scale from this angle, but trust me, these were three frighteningly-large onion rings. Three was the whole order, for one thing, and each one was easily larger than a hockey puck or a McDonald's burger, though just about as greasy. When next you're dining at Claim Jumper and the waiter asks if you want the giant onion rings, kick your curiosity in the balls and just take the regular size.
I've blogged in the past about my basic disagreement with Japanese food, and this pretty well shows it off. I like most of the stuff in Japanese food, I just don't like it in the giant sizes they serve. And that includes shrimp, especially when 1) I'm not entirely sure it's dead, and 2) it's staring at me.
And finally, this is a shot of an object that's been perplexing Malaya, me, and all of our friends and relatives for as long as I can remember. We see these blue things beside a house almost every day, but have never been able to hazard a guess as to what they might be. They look like something you'd store a Rubik's Cube in, but you can see how large they are with the fence and garbage can beside them. They're easily chest-height, they've been sitting out in that driveway for at least 2 years, and while we've never gone up to lean the front one over and see if the second one has an identical square depression in the center, it seems like a safe bet.
What on earth could they be for? They couldn't be shipping containers, could they? They're blue, plastic, and way too large, and anyway, they're not well-padded to the top and bottom, only to the sides. Even if they were, what would you put in such a large, cube-shaped hole? The material makes them look like some sort of swimming pool cover, but you couldn't even cover a jacuzzi with something this size, and the thickness and the hole makes that a ridiculous idea.
If anyone has any idea what they are, or even an educated guess, do let us know. We've never been motivated to park, knock on the front door, and ask, but if the mystery goes on for too much longer we might just risk it.
Labels: darwin, dusty, food, photos
Monday, May 29, 2006
Fiction and Fan Fiction
While doing some idle, late night surfing a couple of days ago, I found myself reading
my old blog entries from shortly after I moved up here in the summer of 2003. Let me just apologize now for the quality of the blog lately, since I found those old ones far more interesting than anything I'm writing about lately. Then again, I enjoy my old, rambling posts more than most, I suspect.
Anyway, I eventually happened upon the
August 5, 2003 entry, in which I babbled on about this and that, before finally working my way into
a semi-review of the last Jean M. Auel novel,
Shelters of Stone. Though I was only able to tolerate skimming over the first 50 or so pages, I talked to Malaya, who skimmed the entire book, and felt that was sufficient to give it an overall score of a 1, the lowest I've ever given any novel.
I also couldn't resist reading (again) some of the outraged and
deeply-disappointed reader reviews on Amazon.com. They're sad, really. People who loved the first four books in the series, waited loyally for book 5, and wanted so badly to like it... and gradually realized it was horrible, and a complete rip off.
While looking over those reviews, I saw a few mentions of the term "Mary Sue" in regards to superwoman Ayla, and remembered how much I liked that concept. What's a Mary Sue? A quote
from a review:
Ayla's the kind of character that I have come to find myself rooting AGAINST, even though it's a fixed game - the author clearly loves her creation so much that she can't bear to think of Ayla being insufficient in any way. She's so beautiful that every guy wants her. Whenever you get the male viewpoint, it's never "Ayla was reasonably attractive, though Jarovar preferred smaller, brown-haired women." No, she's always considered dazzlingly beautiful...
Not only is Ayla beautiful, but she's a supergenius. She has already invented or discovered the domestication of animals, the needle, the use of flint to start fires, the atlatl, the travois (I believe) and the role of men in human reproduction. Let's not forget that she's an incredibly talented healer, able to learn foreign languages in less than a month, and, I think, psychic. And she's a great orienteer - she's able to find a cave that has been overlooked by the people who live directly on the site.
Does everyone love Ayla?, Well, yes, unless they're psychotic, insanely jealous jilted lovers, drunken bums or otherwise amidst the dregs of humanity. In fact, I can't even recall anyone who's lukewarm about her.
Sadly,
Shelters of Stone isn't fanfic, it's by a best selling author, but that doesn't make the character any less of a Mary Sue. The fanfic type can
be found here, in a good description from a very good fanfic writer's guide. There are even
Mary Sue tests, to subject your characters to before you inflict them upon an unsuspecting world.
The problem with a Mary Sue, besides clearly advertising the author's wish fulfillment issues, is that, like Ayla, they're boring. They're perfect, they're infallible, they always win in the end (or fail nobly, sacrificing themselves to save everyone else), etc. Amateur writers want to have cool characters doing cool things, and that works for a while, but it gets old in a hurry for readers. There's no suspense since you know how things are going to turn out. You need heroes (in most stories, at least) but you don't want to make them unbelievable and so perfect that readers actually start rooting against them.
While surfing for Mary Sue humor in fanfic, I found a link to this site and its collection of
truly horrendous fanfic; we're talking MST3K quality. Literally. It's fanfic that's been archived and excerpted, with the story in bold, and MST3K-style commentary inserted around it. The first link I saw sent me to this story, and I laughed so hard I got sweaty and had to take my shirt off to cool down. If it hadn't been 5am I would have enjoyed it even more, since I had to constantly stifle my mirth to avoid waking up Malaya.
The original story would have given me the shakes, it's so incredibly bad, but with the commentary added it achieves something akin to genius. Remember, the original is in bold. And grammatically horrendous. And constantly misspelled. And...
Legolas was riding along the woods and one day he found a baby whaped in colth
DG: Whaped?
Teegs: Colth?
Doodles: I'm not the only one who didn't get that, I see...
so he got off his horse and went to the baby and then Legolas said"who
Teegs: Could have written such a horrible thing?
Hika: CAPITALIZE, DAMMIT!
Doodles: (To Hika) Simmer!
left you here little one"
DG: Obviously someone who didn't want the thing.
and then the baby just cryed and then Legolas pick her up
Teegs: *commanding tone* Legolas, pick her up!
Hika: This author has real problems. It's like... one big run on sentence... and cried is spelt wrong... and...
Doodles: We GET IT, Hika.
and hold her and then the baby stoped crying and then Legolas said"your name is going be Laura"
DG: What a wonderful Elvish name!
and then Legolas and the baby went onto the horse and went back to the castle where he lived.
Doodles: ...that's the first period in the whole thing.
DG: That's sad.
All: *nod*
That's just the start of the "story." It goes on and on from there, with more insane events and grammar and spelling and just generally enough writing atrocities to kill most literary agents. It's not the only one either; the site has half a dozen other MST'ed pieces of fanfic, all of which are as bad
or worse than this one. They're so bad you'll find yourself questioning their authenticity, and assuming someone must have made up the worst writing possible, just to see if they could do it. (Please God tell me it's true.)
Reading these stories though, greatly improved as they are by the sarcastic commentary, I realized why people have such a low opinion of fan fiction, and why various authors (Anne Rice and Anne McCaffrey are 2 I know of) attempt to circumvent the first amendment and fair use laws in the US by banning even non-commercial fanfic. It's one thing to have people writing good stories set in your world and using your characters, stories that fans enjoy reading and that make them eager to buy more official material by you. It's quite another to go online and find
something like this:
Legolas said sorry but I lied my love you are the descendant of gods you have to go to Frodo and take the ring from him Sary said well I'll go are you coming Legolas said I’m afraid I can't becouse I'm dying and then Legolas died
Sary yelled NOOOOOOOOOO!! My love you will have the last kiss Sary kissed Legolas and then she went to find Frodo only Legolas’s bow with her that she got from Legolas when she arrived to Frodo's cabin Frodo pulled her in and raped her and hit her with a sword but then the door opened and Aragon stepped in and killed Frodo and took Sary and headded for home
On the other hand, my future plans to host forums on my writing website, including a fanfic forum, might work nicely with this sort of work. After all, I couldn't read any good fanfic, since then I might see ideas that I was going to use myself, I'd be open to lawsuits for taking someone else's intellectual property if there were coincidences, etc. But with stories of this quality, 1) there's no way one earth anything would be worth stealing, and 2) they'd also be a great deal of fun to read.
Anyway, read some of those
MST'ed fanfics, but not when there's someone sleeping in the next room, since muffling your own laughter promotes suffocation and sucks a lot of the enjoyment out of the whole process.
Labels: fan fiction, writing
Segways; useful after all.
I'm one of the many people who laughed at the self-balancing, two-wheeled Segway scooter things, and thought they'd sell about 11 worldwide before going bankrupt. I still think they're ridiculous and could be greatly improved by adding a third wheel to actually make them balance like a sensible vehicle, and I've never actually seen or heard of anyone using one in real life, but apparently they are popular.
Mostly with cops, oddly enough.
In Los Angeles County, MTA's Blair said officers prize it because it allows them to stand a head taller than they would on foot, so they can see over crowds and cars and project a more prominent presence at events like the Rose Bowl parade.
The scooters, which travel as fast as 12.5 mph, also allow an officer on patrol to cover a much greater distance than on foot, and go indoors, onto elevators and other places bigger vehicles can't. Blair said the added efficiency allows a force to cut down on the number of patrol officers on each shift and recoup the Segway's cost in as quickly as a month.
In other applications, several bomb squads such as those in Ventura County, Calif., and Little Rock, Ark., are using Segways to transport officers in bombproof and hazardous-material suits that can weigh as much as 100 pounds. The Segway allows them to scoot in and out of a scene quickly, without having to waddle in on foot in the bulky suits. Segway marketing Vice President Klee Kleber said emergency workers responded to the London bombings last year on Segways, as traffic clogged the routes for larger vehicles.
Plus, it's hard to point and laugh at someone standing on one of the ridiculous devices when they're wearing a gun. The segways are very efficient too; they run on electricity and get the equivalent of 450 miles per gallon. Still, though the vehicle has found a niche market and some popularity, it's still fun to look back and laugh at the outrageous announcements the device's promoters made upon its unveiling.
Its inventor, Dean Kamen, famously predicted in a 2001 Time magazine interview that the Segway "will be to the car what the car was to the horse and buggy." In the same story, venture capitalist John Doerr predicted the company would be the fastest ever to reach $1 billion in sales. (At today's prices, the company would have to sell somewhere around 175,000 to 250,000 units per year for the Segway to rack up $1 billion in sales.)
Labels: segways
Sunday, May 28, 2006
Dumb, but amusing.
The title describes the best possible outcome for a US beer commercial, and though I hate to admit it, I've got to give a stamp of approval to
the new Miller Lite "Man Law" spots, that appear to make up at least 1/3 of the commercials played during NBA playoff games. The ads feature 6 or 8 semi-famous guys sitting around a large, square wooden table in a huge warehouse, debating various "unwritten" social rules. How long you've got to wait before dating a buddy's ex, if a beer taken to a party can be reclaimed if no one opens it, etc.
The premise is that there's some sort of secretive, Knights Templar council of men who determine the laws for these sorts of things, and they've even got an aged record keeper who nods in approval as he officially records them in an appropriate-sized ancient tome. Sports metaphors pervade the spots, of course. They mention the "tuck rule" and "down by contact" and other phrases that are without meaning if you don't share a sports fan's lexicon, and if they have to check video for an example of a rule violation, they look up at a four-sided replay screen, like those dangling from the ceiling in every US sports arena.
There's even
a cute website with clips of the commercials, bios of the men at the table (which is what I went surfing to find), hundreds of additional man laws (displayed in faux sports ticker fashion), and a way for visitors to vote on pending laws as well as submit their own.
Needless to say, these ads are not without their detractors, as I discovered when my first web search (I wasn't even sure which beer did the commercials, despite having viewed them dozens of times.) led me to
this blog entry. A sample:
In the marketing world, beer is synonymous with machismo and heteronormative sex. In the world of beer-swilling Manly Men, women and beer are consumables, and in all of the new Miller Lite ads, all Man Laws pertain to ownership of either beer, women, or both. The first ad cast the hypothetical ex-girlfriend as the ex-property of the best friend, even though the writers granted said girlfriend agency by letting her be the dumper. The second ad concerned the rules pertaining to beer possession and loss. The third ad of "You poke it, you own it" fame is obviously an allusion to both the ownership of beer and of women.
... The bottom line is that patriarchal culture has men buying and and selling women like slaves wherever they can get away with it. In most parts of the world this is really happening; female trafficking is a big dirty secret that much of the world doesn't want to acknowledge or talk about. Somewhere in the world right now some owned woman is being poked against her will without a condom. She will likely die of AIDS.
Similarly-disgusted female sentiments can be found
here, and
here. The "you poke it you own it" law seems to be the one that's really setting them off, since it's got some historical connection that I'm sure at least .001% of the TV viewers will grasp.
Of course, the beer company didn’t invent the phrase. In his influential 1789 treatise on private property, De droites du doigt (literally, "The Rights of the Finger") French philosopher and monarchist Joseph de Maistre declared "You poke it; you may kill it, or give it to your bootblack." Miller Lite, in an effort to strike a chord with its super-intellectual audience of civic-minded philosophy buffs, is clearly paying homage to one of the great authoritarian conservatives of the French Revolution.
I'm generally sympathetic to their sentiments, but um... are you guys (women) out of your mind? Spending this much intellectual effort critiquing the not-very-catchy catch phrase from a beer commercial? I can get behind using a dumb beer commerical as the starting point in a women's rights essay/blog entry, or at least an essay on men being humorously stupid (which is pretty much what all Miller and Bud commericals are about, being as their beer isn't good enough to compete on taste) but there's clearly some baggage being unloaded on a bunch of fairly innocent and clever commercials. "Poke it and own it" or not, these Man Laws commercials wouldn't even crack the top 50 most sexist beer commercials I've seen this decade. Overreactions to minor foolishness like this is what gives real assholes like Rush Limbaugh grist for their "feminazi" mills.
Labels: advertising, feminism
Chop Socky Review: Shaolin Deadly Kicks
Yet another from
the 50-pack of martial arts "films" Malaya got me for Xmas, and this one was one of the best yet, in terms of overall quality of the film. It still wasn't any good if compared to actual movie requirements, but for chop socky it had good acting, a good plot, decent martial arts, and was well-photographed.
To the scores, which as always, are meant to be compared only to other chop socky films.
Shaolin Deadly Kicks, (Flash Legs, 1977)
Script/Story: 7
Acting/Casting: 6
Action: 7
Combat Realism: 6
Humor: NA
Eye Candy: 6
Fun Factor: 5
Replayability: 5
Overall: 7
While it's not any good, and has an ending so bad it loses several points right there, it's not a horrible film, and for chop socky, it's actually pretty good. Hence the scores. I wouldn't give it more than about a 2.5 against real movies, but for chop socky it's damn near a masterpiece. The acting isn't horrible, the dubbing is tolerable, and the plot is almost involving, though the pacing is a wreck. More on that in the story comments, below.
Production ValuesCheesy, but not painful. This one is set somewhere around the late 1800s or so, since they've got explosives in a few places, but no signs of mechanization, and 90% of the scenes are out in the forest somewhere. The woods are pretty, even though most of the scenes are on what look like agricultural roads; dirt paths with brush chopped down beside them. The fight scenes are in focus though, and the camera is far enough away that you can follow the action.
StoryThe film opens with eight men robbing some sort of temple, and stealing a large octagonal disk that's said to have a map to a "treasure" on the back. The monks, or whoever, come back just as the thieves are leaving, and since the monks see the faces of the robbers, the robbers murder the monks (or whoever; they're not wearing anything especially monk-y) before escaping. The next scene shows the 8 men out in the woods, arguing if they should go for the treasure then. Some want to, but others argue that with the deaths there is too much attention and that they'll be seen, so they decide to come back together in three years, and when they men grumble about that, their leader cuts the map into 8 triangle pieces and gives one to each of them.
Next scene it's apparently nearly three years later, and two men are trying to track down all of the pieces. They trick two of the thieves into coming out into the countryside with them and commence to fight for the pieces. One thief dies, the other kills his attacker, and then the remaining "other guy" beats him down and takes both pieces. As far as I knew he was just another thief, until near the end of the fight we find out that he's actually a policeman.
This guy is the main character, an "actor" named Tao-Liang Tan, and he's the fast kicking guy in the title. And yeah, he's got pretty fast kicks. Not exactly a master at them, and he's got no leaping kicks at all, but he can certainly stand on one leg and wave his other foot around with speed and accuracy, if not much power.
The story proceeds in video game fashion from there, with him tracking down the remaining "eight devils" one after the other, beating them up, and taking their piece. He's nice about it though; he offers to let several live if they just give him the piece, and he feels bad for one guy who has an old blind mother and a sick child; though he of course goes ahead and kicks his ass anyway. How that ties in to him being a policeman is hard to say, since he doesn't seem to be arresting anyone; he's just taking the pieces to find the treasure.
The pacing is the only real problem with the plot, since the biggest showdown comes as he takes on a rich lord who has the fifth piece. In the course of that one Tan gets captured, beaten, tortured, and has to beat numerous lackeys including guys with spears, and a huge fat guy who moves about as quickly as the Marshmallow monster in Ghostbusters. There might have been a missing scene, since he got the fifth piece in that big battle, and then suddenly he's in a village and has six pieces, with no explanation.
The plot thickens when Tan happens to save a cute girl from some roadside bandits, and she turns up later as the daughter of a doctor who has the 7th piece. Predictably, the doctor gets second thoughts about the murders and robbery, and the 8th piece guy kills him, thus forcing his daughter to join up with Tan as they chase after the 8th guy. Mr. 8 has cheesy looking plastic claws on chains he throws as weapons, and even has flash grenades and bombs, and after a protracted and completely ridiculous fight scene with Tan and the daughter against him, he climbs up onto the hiding place of the treasure, an old stone tower that looks like a small grain silo. Tan fights him to the top, and in the last scene #8 falls into the top of the tower through a secret panel (that looks about as plastic as you'd expect in this sort of film) and blows up as he falls. The scene freezes there, with Tan and the girl running away and a pink flare going off behind them, on top of the foam brick tower.
And that's it. So um... the treasure is lost? Destroyed by his bombs? No telling. There's also never any actual view of the map, or a mention of how Tan can't find it with 6 out of the 8 pie-shaped pieces in his possession, or how he knows the names of the eight devils, or how someone needed a map to find the treasure in the only stone tower in all of China, etc. If these elements had made any sense I'd have had to give this one a really high plot score, since while it's not actually any good, it's great for the genre.
Martial ArtsNot bad, if almost entirely open hand. The hero never uses any sort of weapon, even when he's fighting a guy who has one, and he tends to either punch or kick; he's not good at blending them into the same sequence or combo. He's very good at kicking though, in very classic side kicks that go high or low. No jumping kicks, no spin kicks, no left/right kick combos, no straight kicks, no spinning heels, and not even very many crescent kicks. He's very competition TKD in form, though not quite that rigid.
The bad guys have a bit more variety in their forms, but it's all very obviously choreographed, with the constant "punch and then hold your arm straight out for a second so the other guy can block it and do a counter." It's also very non-lethal, with mostly jabs and light hits, and never any joint locks or neck breaks or eye gouges or anything practical. In numerous scenes the bad guy has a weapon, the good guy has only kicks and punches, and he repeatedly dodges the weapon, hits the bad guy from close, and then lets go and steps away, thus letting the bad guy get back up and swing at him again. "Finish him!" Malaya and I yelled at the screen, constantly.
The weapon work is quite awful, as is almost always the case in these old Kung Fu films, but I suppose it had to in this one, since the good guy never uses a weapon, and if the guys with sticks, spears, swords, knives, etc were any good... he'd be dead.
OverallExcellent, for chop socky. Unfortunately, I'd much prefer a "so bad it's funny/good" film of this type, or a crappy movie with really good fight scenes. This one does everything pretty well, and earns a high score overall, but it's not good enough to watch again for itself, and the fight scenes aren't good enough to watch just for the action. So score it well, and then move on.
Labels: movie review
Saturday, May 27, 2006
Almost done...
Editing and reviewing the last chapter of my novel, written in haste just before I left for E3 some weeks ago, I enjoyed this little exchange and thought I'd quote it. The names have been changed to keep it from being spoilery; not that I believe any of you would remember it a year or three from now, when the novel is published and you get to read the whole thing.
"Why am I alive?" Mary asked herself, as the bells filled her head and the bright light of day came crashing down as the grove appeared around her. At least she'd meant to ask herself, but when John turned and looked at her she realized her lips had betrayed her.
"You live for vengeance, Little One. As did your mother before you."
"Will I die for it as well? As did my mother before me?"
John shrugged. "There are worse things to die for."
Cool? Or trying to hard to be cool and therefore only appealing to younger readers? Not that anyone can really say, reading it totally out of context like this. I like the dialogue, though that descriptive sentence at the start needs some tweaking. I don't like saying "as the" twice in a row like that. At any rate, it's not horrible, and I'll post again, hopefully later today, when I'm actually done with the full rough draft and can give an actual word count.
It's going to be a busy summer, as Malaya helps me try to get this thing published and I scurry to rewrite and streamline the 500k+ words of chapters 2-6.
Labels: the fantasy novel, writing
Friday, May 26, 2006
Worst Tech Products of All Time
Enjoyable article on the
Worst 25 Tech Products of All Time. It's odd to have an all time list that only covers the last 20 years, but I suppose that's the definition of "tech." The top five, in order: AOL, Real Player, Syncronys SoftRAM, Windows ME, Sony BMG Music CDs. The list seems relatively fair overall; lots of MS bashing, but they core a few Apples too, and in addition to hanging it on big companies like Sony and AOL and IBM, they single out a few lower profile disasters as well.
There's not much software on the list; understandable since it's about tech
products and services, but they do find space to immortalize a few especially awful offerings.
8. Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 (2001)
Full of features, easy to use, and a virtual engraved invitation to hackers and other digital delinquents, Internet Explorer 6.x might be the least secure software on the planet. How insecure? In June 2004, the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) took the unusual step of urging PC users to use a browser--any browser--other than IE. Their reason: IE users who visited the wrong Web site could end up infected with the Scob or Download.Ject keylogger, which could be used to steal their passwords and other personal information. Microsoft patched that hole, and the next one, and the one after that, and so on, ad infinitum.
13. IBM PCjr. (1984)
Talk about your bastard offspring. IBM's attempt to build an inexpensive computer for homes and schools was an orphan almost from the start. The infamous "Chiclet" keyboard on the PCjr. was virtually unusable for typing, and the computer couldn't run much of the software written for its hugely successful parent, the IBM PC.
A price tag nearly twice that of competing home systems from Commodore and Atari didn't improve the situation. Two years after Junior's splashy debut, IBM sent him to his room and never let him out again.
22. Apple Pippin @World (1996)
Maybe if they'd called it the Winesap instead of the Pippen... Nah. This game console was slower than a worm through a Granny Smith.Before Xbox, before PlayStation, before DreamCast, there was Apple's Pippin. Wha-huh? That's right--Apple had an Internet-capable game console that connected to your TV. But it ran on a weak PowerPC processor and came with a puny 14.4-kbps modem, so it was stupendously slow offline and online.
Then, too, it was based on the Mac OS, so almost no games were available for it. And it cost nearly $600--nearly twice as much as other, far more powerful game consoles. Underpowered, overpriced, and underutilized--that pretty much describes everything that came out of Apple in the mid-90s.
Given my interests, I of course want to see a list of the top 25 worst games. How those would be calculated is hard to say, but it would be fun to figure it out. Games that weren't playable due to bugs and other programming issues would be there, but do you include Triple A big budget titles along with those Bass Fishing things you see for $5 in the discount bin? Do games that weren't awful, but were just endlessly delayed get a mention? And so on. In fact, I'm sure someone's done a list like that already. Feel free to send me the URL if you've got it.
Labels: bad products
Saturday, May 20, 2006
Movie Review: The DaVinci Code
Malaya and me ended up at
The DaVinci Code on Friday, more or less by accident. We'd been considering seeing the film, but the 15% positive score on RT was giving us, as semi-rational humans, pause. We actually tried to just go out to lunch, but I got up late and Malaya went to the gym just after noon and by the time we got to the mall it was nearly 2:30, and Todai was about to close.
They do the Chinese/Japanese buffet, and you can enter the restaurant up until 2:30 for lunch, but they clear all the food out at that point to clean and cook and prepare for dinner (which begins at 5ish), so you're limited to eating what's on your plate. Which is not a real good deal, at a buffet. So we wandered the mall a bit and looked at $100 shox I didn't want quite enough to actually buy, and then decided to see a movie.
The DaVinci Code was playing at 3 at a nearby mall, so we drove lickety-split and got there in time to pick up a popcorn and water to tide us over until lunch-become-dinner. I'd rant about the concession prices, but whatever; it's not like the ludicrously high prices at movie theaters are news to anyone. Still, while waiting in line to pay $8.50 for 15 cents of popcorn and 10 cents of water, I found myself reflecting -- you know how after natural disasters there are laws to prevent unscrupulous merchants from gouging desperate survivors for gas and water and other necessities? Would those laws apply to movie theaters? Because honestly, in a world where 24 packs of water bottles are $6, doesn't $3.50 for one small bottle cross some sort of line?
Pity Friday was highlighted by a tsunami or earthquake or locust swarm, or I might have gotten some change back for my $10.
Anyway, as for the movie... eh. To the scores.
The DaVinci Code, 2006
Script/Story: 5
Acting/Casting: 7
Action: NA
Combat Realism: NA
Humor: NA
Horror: NA
Eye Candy: 6
Fun Factor: 3
Replayability: 5
Overall: 5
I didn't hate it and I wasn't exactly bored, but it didn't do much for me. Malaya enjoyed it more than I, though she was far from excited by it, and basically it just sort of was. The movie added nothing to the book, it had no suspense or tension, the gorgeous settings and artwork wasn't shown off to any great effect, and none of the performances were remarkable. Workmanlike, faithful to the novel, informative, but utterly unremarkable. I would have almost certainly gained more enjoyment from simply rereading the book, and the snacks would certainly have been better.
It reminded me of the LotR movies, in a way. I hate to make the comparison of this film to those, or Brown's book to Tolkien's masterpieces, but here's what I mean. Peter Jackson and his writing partners took the source material and remained faithful to it, while making changes to improve the plot and characters. Unnecessary stuff was jettisoned, minor plot points that reflected on the characters were pumped up, and overall the movies were the books, but improved, and with visuals.
The DaVinci Code movie isn't awful, but it's not any better than the book, and the screenplay changes don't improve it, or really make any substantial difference. It's not awful; it's just a lost opportunity that might have really been made to shine in more competent hands.
Speaking of the book, the main thing I learned from
The DaVinci Code movie is how little I remembered of the novel. I misremembered everything, and had combined events from
Angels and Demons with
The DaVinci Code, since I kept waiting for things to happen that never did, and I remember the book having far more puzzle-solving and thriller action and suspense and intrigue. The movie seemed like it retained every bit of the whole Jesus/Holy Grail/Mary Magelene/Royal Blood business, while compressing and de-thrillering all the murder and chase stuff and mystery that gave the book it's pulpy-but-compelling and fast-moving suspense. So you had lectures on art and history and religion, which I enjoyed, but the action and suspense elements that were supposed to tie the scholarly information together were flaccid.
Malaya says there weren't any more plot and action things in the novel and that I'm thinking of
Angels and Demons, and she may be right, but I recall thinking that
The DaVinci Code novel was a blatant rip off/reuse of the plot of
Angels and Demons, but how could that be so if the movie really preserved all the action of the book... when the movie didn't have any action.
As it turns out, my review reaction is nearly identical to the critical consensus, much to my disappointment.
The DaVinci Code has a woeful
19% fresh score on RT, with a 4.7/10 average score from 144 tabulated reviews. The story is much the same over on Metacritic, where
it's at 49% approval. No one really hates it, but no one loves it either, it's getting a ton of 1.5-2/4 star reviews, and lots of comments that it's basically boring and talky.
I didn't mind the talking, since I find the history of the early Christian Church interesting, but the plot wasn't good enough to keep my interest the rest of the time, and the characters were so vanilla and paper-thin and one-dimensional (and true to Brown's novel) that I never really cared about them one way or the other. So I gave
The DaVinci Code movie a 5,
the book a 6, and
Angels and Demons book a 7.5. Read that book, if you can only touch one of these three properties.
I haven't heard anything about it, but I wouldn't mind seeing a movie version of A&D. It would have potential but I don't think a movie of it would really work. A&D had a great, fast-paced, ticking-bomb plot, and fun mystery solving with ancient statues and architectural clues and such, but there was also a ton of long, slow, lectury stuff about the collision and agreement between science and religion, and I see that aspect being elaborated on in the movie version and dragging the whole process to a crawl. There also might be too many plot twists and betrayals and absurdities, especially towards the end, where things get completely ridiculous with anti-matter explosions and crazy dudes trying to seize their spot as the Pope, and so on.
Labels: movie review
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Hearts: A Tragedy in Three Screencaps
This will mean nothing to those of you who do not know how to play Hearts. I'm not a big fan of the game myself, never having 3 other people to play with, but I do play the version that comes with Windows XP on occasion. I played a game today, and had the oddest hand ever. The captions on the shots tell what happened, and I wrote those so I'd remember when I saw the screencaps again in a year, when I'd long since forgotten the events. Posting them here was an afterthought, and I assure you I only intended to take one shot, since the outcome seemed so ludicrously predetermined by the deal and the 3 cards I was passed.
Incidentally, I am convinced that MS hearts game cheats like the computer cars in a driving game when you get a big lead. Not in the deal, which seems random, but any time I get way ahead, like I've got 11 and the computer opponents are in the 60s, they start playing differently. They always go spades early on, but the one hand I've got and 8, 9, JQKA of clubs, one computer opponent will have the 23567 and will lead one, forcing me to take it while the other two burn hearts and the Queen of spades on me. I'll lead a small spade, they follow suit, then lead back another tiny club, which I have to take and eat two more hearts, etc.
I wouldn't put it past switching cards around during the hands either; at least half the time I try to shoot the moon I'll end with something like AKQJ97 of hearts, and conveniently enough only one opponent will have hearts, enabling him to hold out and make his 10 or 8 good on the last trick. Every other hand they'll have 2 or 3 hearts each, of course, or will throw them off as soon as I lead a diamond or club.
And yes, I'm paranoid, but hey, it's a Windows product. Paranoia is warranted. Even required.
Labels: gaming
Football scores.
It's purely a curiosity, but what's with the fascination sports fans have for baseball games that end with football-like scores? The average baseball game is something like 5-3, and the average football game is something like 21-17, so there's seldom much overlap. But with football (the American version) awarding points largely by 3's and 7's, the scores are distinctive. Three and 7, sure, but seldom are games that low scoring, and baseball teams put up that many runs all the time. The scores that are more eye-catching are 10 or 14 or very occasional 17 or 21 in super-high scoring baseball games. And what makes it more fun is when both teams manage it.
Wednesday's scores featured a
14-10 win by San Diego over Arizona, no-doubt prompting endless jokes about the "two touchdowns for L.T. against the porous Cardinals" defense. Tuesday the Yankees beat someone 14-13, prompting instantly, "those blocked extra points always come back to haunt you" thoughts from football fans perusing the baseball scores. It doesn't even have to be a final; any inning with 7 runs gets the, "and a touchdown in the bottom of the 6th" comment from the mental peanut gallery.
The question is why? No one thinks there's any connection; and it's obviously just a random coincidence brought on by occasional bad pitching and lucky run totals. Yet it exerts a force upon sports fans that can not be denied. Especially fans like me, who like football and are basically indifferent to baseball.
This mystery brought to you by the number 3, and the letters TD.
Labels: baseball, football
Sunday, May 14, 2006
Movie Review: Mission Impossible III
In a bid for some together time and recreation, Malaya and I caught a matinee yesterday. She'd been wanting to see Mission Impossible 3 since last weekend, when I was out of town, and she also wanted to see Poseidon, which was opening this weekend. I was pretty indifferent to them both, so I let her pick, and she chose MI3. So off we went.
Surprisingly, to me at least, it wasn't bad. I've got to agree with the critical consensus, which stands
at 71% on RT. It's a fun popcorn movie, with more grittiness and violence and plot twists than I expected. I found it pretty enjoyable, and almost wish I'd ever seen an episode of Alias, if the writer of that could manage this. If the film had starred anyone but Tom Cruise, I would have really enjoyed it. More on that in a bit, but first, to the scores:
Mission Impossible III, 2006
Script & Story: 7
Acting & Casting: 2/8
Action: 9
Combat Realism: 6
Humor: 4
Horror: 4
Eye Candy: 8
Fun Factor: 7
Replayability: 7
Overall: 7.5
You can pretty well disregard the humor and horror scores, since the film doesn't try to be a comedy, though it has some jokes, and it doesn't try to be scary, though there are some thrills and scary moments. Which leaves the only bad score a split one. My Acting/Casting score is a two-parter; the 2 is for Tom Cruise in any scene of quiet love with his movie girlfriend, and the 8 is for everyone else, including Tom Cruise in scenes of action.
If I'd never read any celebrity gossip or heard about Cruise in the news during the past two years, I'd have enjoyed every aspect of the movie. Unfortunately, I haven't been living in a cave (well, at least not one with out an internet connection), and I'm all too aware of just how fully Tommy boy has bought into the nuttiness of his cult of choice, and how incredibly awkward and forced his smiles and those of Katie Holmes are at their photo ops, and so on. *shudders at the memory*
For that reason, the scenes early in MI3, where he's hugging his movie fiancee (played by
Michelle Monaghan) and kissing her and saying how much he loves her were not just unconvincing -- they were actively creepy. The fact that Michelle looks a good deal like Katie Holmes definitely didn't help. If she'd been blonde or Asian or Hispanic or just about anything but a pretty brown-haired white girl, it would have been a huge improvement. As it was, I was literally squirming in my seat while my no-longer-suspended disbelief floated in a puddle of embarrassment and waited for the explosions to begin. Fortunately, there aren't more than 3 or 4 scenes of that type, they only last a minute or two each, and they're all dispensed with early in the film. And after that, it's all pretty good stuff.
It's funny, and Malaya made this point after the film; Tom Cruise was much more believable saying he loved the girl in this movie than he is in real life when he talks about Katie Holmes. As I said, if I hadn't know anything about him going into MI3, I wouldn't have had any real objections to it (well, the plot is utterly ridiculous, but that's sort of expected with this type of cinema). But I did know about him; I knew far more than I wanted to about him, and as a result the movie's tender, emotional scenes were just painful.
As for the action and plot, it's all very good. I haven't really seen either MI1 or MI2, since I've been actively avoiding Tom Cruise films since my teen years, but I've caught parts of them on cable here and there, and they're not bad. Sort of formulaic and "007 with a team" to my eye, but competent thrillers. This one was better, with a clever plot, double crosses, misdirections, crazy action sequences, and so forth. Very little of it strictly believable in a world with physics and thinking humans, but it wasn't a completely ridiculous video game, ALA
Mr. & Mrs. Smith, and I found myself caring about the outcome, while not being entirely-confident how things would happen. And that's rare, with a popcorn movie, since you know the good guys will always win in the end.
Overall, I'll recommend it. Slightly if you're like me and sort of horrified by Tom Cruise. Heavily, if you don't mind his nuttiness or are confident you can overlook it in this instance. The action stuff and tech stuff and mission impossible schemes are fun, if full of ridiculous holes in retrospect, but overall, it's a popcorn movie summer thriller, and does about all you could ask of one, once the action gets going and Tommy stops hugging and nuzzling his
captive fiancee wife.
Labels: movie review, tom cruise
Friday, May 12, 2006
Home and Happy
It wasn't a perfect working vacation, but it wasn't bad. I enjoyed my time in San Diego; the parents are fine, the weather was nice, and I even played some tennis with my mom, hitting the ball for the first time in something like 20 years. Tuesday night I drove up to LA and eventually found my stepsister's apartment and got my stuff in and got some rest. She was out of town, and the neighbor who was housesitting took 2 days off. He still came over to feed the cats though, and unfortunately for me, he'd been feeding them around 5:30am each morning. Which meant they began making all sorts of yowling noises at that time, and coupled with the bright guest bedroom, I had no chance to sleep past 6am either day I was there.
Oh well, at least I got to E3 early. That was the main reason for my trip, to see Hellgate: London at the show, and I certainly did, spending 5 or 6 hours on Wednesday and then another 4 Thursday looking at HGL and playing it and talking to the designers of it. Very informative, and while I wasn't really digging the game that much the first day, I really began to enjoy it on day 2. I left around 2 and drove straight home, but if not for my "avoid horrible traffic" plan, I'd have happily stayed until the show closed.
The main difference was my growing familarity with the controls and the game, and as I got better at moving my Templar or Cabalist around, killing things in a variety of ways, picking up items, finding new items, buying new items, moving between weapon setups and skill options, and so on, it got a lot more fun. I'll be posting a great deal more about this on
my our new Hellgate: London website, of course. Suffice to say I think the game has a real Diablo II vibe, with a much more interesting quest system, and while there are still lots of rough edges to polish, that's to be expected for a title that's still relatively early in its development process.
The drive home wasn't bad; after some traffic getting out of LA it was a smooth ride, and I even kept it to a reasonable 80MPH, which is about the flow of traffic up I5 through the central valley. It took me about 4.5 hours total from the LACC to my home, but with a variety of tunes going on my ipod and thoughts of home and HGL articles humming through my head, the 350ish miles pretty much melted away.
As for E3, other than HGL I didn't care about much. The new HGL cinematic is very nice, though I think the best movie I saw on a giant screen at any of the massive booths was the new one for Assassin's Creed. The new Metal Gear and the Warhammer MMO movies were damn good too, but not quite on the same level, since they didn't have the story interest of the HGL or Assassin's cinematics.
Also, it's been internet news for months, and it's
major media news right now, but honestly, I didn't notice any real difference in the booth babe attire at E3 this year. I hadn't been for a couple of years, and I didn't see any stripper-tastic hot pants or bikini bottoms or other ass-baring outfits this year, but they weren't much short of that. Dozens of models in very short miniskirts, skin-tight spandex suits, short shorts, belly shirts, and so on. They're all very cheerleader-hot though, I.E. they look a lot better when you see them from more than 20 yards away. Up close the caked on make up and fake smiles can be hard to take.
So what's the happy, as mentioned in the title? Home and hugs and Chinese food and some time spent with Malaya, of course. The whole trip would have been far, far better if she'd been able to go along. Maybe next year, though I hope HGL will be out by then, thus giving me/us no reason to go. Honestly though, they've said this year for a beta to begin, but I can't see it. Too much work yet to do.
More on the vacation and other blog stuff when I have a chance, but my computer is being janky and crash happy after a week without being used, and I've got to prioritize HGL updates and novel work; prioritize them above random updates on this blog, at least.
Labels: Hellgate: London
Monday, May 08, 2006
Vacation thoughts...
Since I can never sleep late on vacation (beds aren't right, rooms get bright at dawn, etc) and there's nothing really to do on the HGL site this morning since Flagship didn't do shit over the weekend, I might as well make a blog post this fine 7am cloudy morning.
San Diego's fine, the parents are fine, and I'm sunburned already. Went for a hike with mom yesterday morning at a place called Daley Ranch (google it if you're curious), and while it was cloudy the cool when we began, the mists soon parted and sunshine came raining down. If I'd been alone on that walk it wouldn't have mattered, since we only went about 4 miles, and I'd have jogged it in short order. Mom walks slower though, and stops to look at flowers, and like all women can not pass a bathroom without having to pee, so we spent longer out there than expected, and it was sunnier than expected, and today I'm pretty crispy. Which is kind of inconvenient, since mom's set me up with a massage later today, and I was hoping they'd spend some time on the neck and shoulders, since I'm always sore there. I'm not so red that it hurts to touch, at least, so with some oil it should be okay.
Even if it weren't I'd probably grimace and bear it, since my neck's been aching for a week. All those 14+ hour days working on the HGL site to get it ready added up, and I started getting weird pains, despite my ergonomic desk set up. My left wrist and hand kept having shooting pains that were only alleviated by dangling my arm from the shoulder and sort of shaking the fingers, and I'd never felt that before in all my years of spending far too much time on the computer. Both of my forearms are really sore and tight too, but I think most of that's coming down from my shoulders, and some nice kneading massage should help.
Other than those bitches, things are going pretty well. The drive down from the Bay wasn't bad; I left around 12:15 and got to LA by 5:30, and that was even after the last 8 miles on the 405 were stop and go. I don't know if it was due to the day being a weekend or what, but damn there were a lot of CHP prowlers in the central valley and down into the LA basin. I must have seen 8 or 10, and ducked over and slowed down to dodge half a dozen I saw coming up in the distance behind me.
It's weird ducking cops on that stretch of I5, since the speedlimits usually 70, but the flow of traffic is 80+. Especially once you get into the grapevine and up the hills to the Tejon pass, and the road widens to 4 lanes. Uphill people are kind of slow, but there's about 15 miles of plateau on top, and then 10 miles of downhill, and no one in anything smaller than an 18-wheeler is doing less than 75 on the way down. The speed limit there is 65, and 80 is about the average, with speedy people doing 90+ in the left lane. At least until they *cough* see the cops coming up at 95, at which point everyone jumps over a lane or two and slows down to the flow of traffic... which is still 15 miles over the speed limit.
Theoretically, the cops could give every single car on that road a ticket, since we're all speeding. In practice they look for reckless drivers, or someone who's really busting along and doesn't see the cop coming in time to slow down, etc. Those are the good cops, at least. The bad ones drive along in the left lane at like 67 in the 65 zone, creating massive bottlenecks behind them as they ruin the flow of traffic. Everyone creeps along behind them, wishing they'd fricking exit or something, and feeling like a herd of wildebeasts watching a lion. "Just single out someone and eat them, so the rest of us can get on with our day, damnit." we think, happily eager to sell each other out if it means we can return to normal crusing speed.
Anyway, I'm in SD for today and then tomorrow, until I leave to drive up to LA Tuesday night. My stepsister is out of town but she's letting me stay at her apartment in LA, and since I need to get at the LACC by like 8am wednesday morning, to get my press pass and be ready to go in when the doors open for a press only viewing from 9-11am, I'm staying overnight in LA. I might have done the same even if I hadn't had a place to stay; that 4:30 wake up to leave by 5 to get to LA by 8 isn't exactly the best way to open a convention. Especially not one when you hope to hang out with people afterwards.
As for the vacation so far... eh. Last night was pretty fun. Met dad's new girlfriend and liked her, and we had a great dinner here with roasted veggies and chicken dad made, and too much wine beforehand. I was feeling pretty mellow after that, and I hear wine is good for sunburns. Or something. I even got to read some; the first reading other than at the computer, or a few minutes of EW in the bathroom I'd done in like two months.
The book isn't very good, but it's just a library book, and it's part of my ongoing, "Read something by every famous fantasy author just to see what they're doing." project. Very young girl chick lit fantasy, with the archetypal Anne Macaffrey, "talented youth with undiscovered gifts runs away from horrible parents and ends up saving the world while making loving friendships" plot, but there's a reason Macaffrey's used that plot in like 10 novels, JK Rowling based her series on it, other authors use it reliably, etc... because it works. Every kid wants to feel special, every kid (sometimes) hates their parents and life and wants to run away to something wonderful and different, and every kid enjoys reading about someone else doing that, since they know it's never going to happen to them.
Lackey's writing is as ham-fisted as an Easter dinner, with bludgeonous character archetypes and constant, unrelenting "telling instead of showing," but even with that the book's not unenjoyable, and it's a very quick read. True, I hit a stretch every 10 or 15 pages where I'm forced to put the book down and look off into the distance while taking a few deep breaths, but those pass and then I can continue reading, while mostly enjoying it. Also, like all mediocre but popular fiction, it's kind of encouraging to me. After all, if this pablum got published and found fans, how can my writing fail to enjoy at some something resembling success?
Speaking of, I can't see me having time to work on my novel any for at least another week, until after I get home and spend a few fevered days writing up all of my E3 HGL experiences, but I'm really itching to get back into it. It's finished, in rough form, but I need to hack at the last chapter a bit since it got unwieldy. That shouldn't take too long though, and then after I give chapter one another going over, Malaya's going to help me start looking to get published. Writer's Market, query letters, etc. I'll be editing the middle of the book while that's going on, but with a first and last chapter I'm pretty okay with, I think we might have some luck. I certainly hope so, at least. And if anyone's uncle knows a guy who works for Random House or Del Rey or something like that, feel free to let me know.
Labels: driving, san diego, vacation, writing
Friday, May 05, 2006
Hellgate: London
Well, as I've hinted at here any number of times, I've been working on a new gaming fansite, and since it just went online, I might as well own up to it here.
hellgate.loadedinc.com is the URL, and it's on the same site network as diabloii.net, my long time D2 site that brought most of you here in the first place. I'm obviously recommending the HGL site as a good source for gaming news and forum chat and all of that, and now that the rush to get it online is over, I should have time/energy to get back to blogging here a bit more regularly.
Of course there will be upkeep, and especially after E3 I'll be spending a few days working long hours as I update the 100+ content pages I just finished on the HGL site, but generally speaking the 12-16 hours a day of HGL work I've been doing will be a thing of the past. Which means I can get back to the novel, and this blog.
As for the novel, I never posted here, but it's done. Rough draft done, at least. I finished the last chapter and the epilogue last week, while sticking to my "HGL in the day, novel at night" work schedule, which was leaving about 2 hours a day for food prep, gym attendance, TV watching, and Malaya time. It's lucky I don't need 8 hours of sleep very often.
Unfortunately, with the HGL rush I haven't had time to edit the last 100k words or so, and I'm not going to get all that done tonight, so there's no way I can print it out and take a copy down to San Diego for my mom to read. I'd hoped to do that, while leaving a copy here for Malaya to go over while I'm down in So Cal for a parents visit and then E3. It'll have to wait a week or so, unfortunately.
Anyway, I'm leaving tomorrow afternoon to drive down to San Diego, enjoying the $3.29 a gallon blessing our oil man president's foreign policy has conjured up. I'll be there for a few days, might have time to post a blog entry or two, before I'll be in LA on the 9th-11th at E3, and then back home by the evening of the 11th, with any luck. Most of my immediately time will be doing HGL site stuff, forums and news and such though, so if you've been dying for more Fluxiness, that's the place to go.
Also, if any of you are interested in the game (it's basically Diablo II in 3d, crossed with a shooter) I'd appreciate you checking out the site and letting me know what you think. (Comment here, mail me at the HGL site, or post it the suggestion forum thread over there.) Especially if you haven't been following HGL at all, since I tried to pitch the various HGL Basics pages to a new reader, and have no idea how successful I was at that.
Labels: Hellgate: London
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