The Camera Broke

Yeppers, that's me. Ah well, so much for anonymity.

So I finally got the Season 2.0 (which makes me wonder about 2.1) of Battlestar Galactica.
Ohboyohboyohboy!

Granted it wasn't until 8pm, so I've gone through the first disk. 2 disks and something like 6 hours to go!

Screw New Year's, I'm geeking out.

Oh and by the way, why didn't anyone tell me about Morgan Webb?!? I caught the show and bleh, but man. Hotness!

Yep that's me, single guy, 37 years old, likes computer games. Go figure.

Chrsitmas is Over! Shut Up!

Actually this will be a relatively bile-free post.
So that's it, the presents have been unwrapped, the nog has been nogged, the tinsle on the tree has lost it's sparkle (if not its edge) for another year.
So this year not much for phat lewt, as usual but I'm okay with that. I'd prefer the exchange of cards and small tokens over the soul-crushing need to find that perfect gift for that special someone and, in return, getting socks. So I got everybody socks or a reasonable facsimile. Maybe I am cheap. Too bad.
One really great thing was a chance encounter with some old friends of mine. After the usually 'how are you? you look great! / haven't changed a bit!' routine, numbers were exchanged. After the holidays, went over to their place for a few beers and to watch a PPV hockey game and catch up. So I am reforging those social links, even though the live 2 hours away :)
They're having a New Year's Eve party which I may go to.

So Merry Christmas, have a Happy New Year, let's all get together and drink lots of beer!

And do expect a rant/rave/rambling at about 2am Jan, 2006. 2006! The future is now!

For a Depressing Time, Date Online

Oi gevalt.

Okay as part of being a singleton/singularity/singulation kinda dude, I started up my profile on good ol' Lavalife. And so far, it's a very depressing experience (again)

Profile: Or Try to Be Sexy in 500 Words or Less

Okay you always start by trying to do a fun, witty, charming, sexy essay on yourself and what you are looking for in a 'mate'. Despite my writing aspirations, I simply cannot write a cohesive paragraph about myself. Just can't. You try and make yourself sound funny (which I am) fun (which I can be for a specific subset of fun), intelligent (without proving the Pythagorean Theorem) and sexy (yeah, right).

Honesty = Chastity

I don't want to have kids. I'm really, really reluctant to go out with a women who has kids. At age 37, this now eliminates the dating pool by 90%. Add to that, I am actually honest and say I smoke on my profile. Not 'Prefer not to Say', not 'Trying to Quit', not 'Socially'. So there goes another 9%. I am making quitting my New Year's resolution because of this. Health be damned, I need a little sumthin'-sumthin'. I am not going through another 5-year drought.

Women My Age Don't Want Men My Age

Harsh but there ya go. Most women between 32 and 40 are looking for a guy 10 years their junior (at least according to the profiles I clicked on). While one part of me can see why this is happening, when I look at women's profiles 10 years my junior, they state very explicitly they want nothing to do with 35+ men. The other part of me thinks that mid-life crisis happen to both sexes.

Saying Hello is a Turn Off?

For those not in the know, most of these dating sites work by people buying credits (or similar). With these, you can email, message etc those you are interested in. So I bought the mid-size package. In 22 emails, I had one response. She was kind enough to send me a link to her site, which listed her rates; hourly, for an evening or for an 'all-nighter'.
Other than that, nada. No responses from emails (except one, see below). Not even a courteous 'no thanks' or even a 'fuck off creep!'.

Smile!

Lavalife does have one free feature. You can send a 'smile' and one of a selection of notes (most of which I could not see myself saying to a live person). This is of course to show your interest, with hopes that they 'smile' back (with equally cheesy phrase) . Then you can spend your credits with confidence. One tactic is to shotgun them: send them out to anyone and everyone in hopes that a few hit the mark. I'm all for gun control. I try and be very specific and discerning with my smiles. No smiles back though.
Now I do understand that happens alot. What I don't understand is, alot of women say 'send a smile!' or 'write me!'. You do and nada. Again, I'm not indiscriminate or go just be the pictures: I read the profiles, compare compatibility and if its seems like it's a good enough match to start a conversation, I smile or send an email.

Now I did get a smile, out of the blue from a girl from out of town. We sent a couple of emails, but then she asked me about the whole not wanting kids thing. I was honest. Then she blocked me.

Do You Think He's Prettier Than Me?

So now I'm thinking I might not just be a congenial, kinda goofy-looking geek. I'm a monster, a hideous, illiterate, slavening, primal-urge-driven monstrosity. An Oh Henry! bar floating in the filter of the gene pool. So I did what any guy would do. I did a search on the guys. What's the competition like out there?

Dear god in Heaven.

The search comes up, it's like a buffet from a friggin' Firemen Beefcake Calendar! Muscled up, tan guys who can actually string a sentence or two together. No wonder nobody sends me an email back. The only smiles I get insist that the men show them a picture, but they don't bother to supply one (bug, big, bells go off at that). I'm friggin' doomed to an eternity of celibacy.

I'll have to see what those rates are, and if she takes credit cards...

It's Christmas! Shut up!

Okay. Yes. I know I said I'd start up the Rocket Surgeon site. I know I said I'd do stuff, but it's Christmas, the annual sinkhole of the Time/Money continuinuinuoum.
Okay that and I have discovered more wonderful wastes of time.
Board Game: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ti3about.html Twilight Imperium. $100 and 3 hours just get the damn pieces outta the sprues. Joy! Rapture! Xacto-blade cuts! Conquering spaaaaaaace!
Okay dammit I like Space sci-fi. Lord of the Rings is wonderful and all but I need big frikken lasers to keep the geek mojo spinnin'. And George Lucas has not helped in this regard with Episodes I-III (Star Wars: I Ran Out of Ideas) , which is ironic 'cuz he started me on this path.

And it won't get better. Aside from going to Mom's place for Carbo-Load 2005, tomorrow (the 20th) is geek day: Serenity DVD and Battlestar Galactica season 2 DVD in stores. I'll be damn lucky to make it into work once I get my mitts on those sci-fi treats.

My Blog Is Down

So I'm attempting to republish

Uh yeah

Hey all (okay, you two).
Again, I have been lax on updates here. But Project:Rocket Surgeon is underway, I just need to put some notes together. So far, I've done a preliminary object model based on the rules and abstracting the parent-objects out. Very rough at the moment, and will chnage quickly. I just need to organize my thought.

On other fronts, well still single (no shocker) but coming to grips with it. Not like I'm moping about or anything, but trying to perform damage control on friends whom I've lost contact with over the past three years. Kinda tough but doable.

So lessons learned:

1. Don't abandon friendships because a s/o demands so much of your time
2. Physical attraction is a must, follow the rules (which I have yet to publish)
3. Common interests are a must. While people may have interests in common, it's more important that they have sensibilities in common.
4. Don't date Daddy's Little Girl
5. She has to make me laugh as well

Rules. Right.

Okay I came up with about 10 a while ago, based on previous relationships. Now I'm keeping some, tossing others, so in no particular order:

• Face makes or breaks
• Smile makes the face
• Smarter makes me harder
• Must have a career, not kinda maybe planning one someday, if she has to
• Cannot be taking long-term medication for a mental disorder
• Must like at least one of: sci-fi/fantasy, comics, games or misc geeky pursuits
• Must have geek-like tendencies
• No Daddy's Little Girls

And Homer's First Rule: No Fat Chicks! Fat means morbidly obese, I like curvy wimmins!

Hopefully Project Rocket Surgeon will go online tomorrow.

Oh yeah one more thing http://www.answerology.com rocks my socks off. Having fun being a know-it-all, getting some good advice and fun place to be!

Stage Three

Okay, two weeks post-breakup.

A buddy of mine says I have to go through Stage 3, which is apparently a Friends reference. Stage 3 is going to a strip club.
Now I think I've been to the peelers once in the past three years. And in that interval something strange (at least to a fogey like me) has happened.

The majority of the clientele were female. At the strip club. With nekkid wimmins on stage.

While I certainly think this is a good thing, when the hell did this happen? Most were coupled up with guys, but there was a stagette there as well, and not just dropping in for a drink. And alot (estimates show about 70%) were good looking. Also note that very, very few were over the age of thirty. One or two that were with boyfriends looked distinctly uncomfortable (which I have seen before) but most were right into it: throwing loonies, wooping it up. And the strippers, I mean exotic entertainers were right into it as well, paying more attention to the ladies than the men.

Which makes sense because the ladies were the ones shouting appreciation and chucking money at the posters held between the thighs and buttocks.

So once again, I was born too late!

Girls, sorry I mean women, my age simply don't do that. Or play video games. Or understand the appeal of cartoons. And if they do, they're taken. Or 15 years younger than me.

It was me who said he wanted to be single right? Well I still am glad I am, but feelin' a tad older than I thought I was.

Need to find me a copy of Dirty Old Men For Dummies. Or something.

Singularity

There will be a slight delay on my Rocket Surgeon project. My girlfriend and I broke up on Saturday.

Its not for the reasons of the previous post, then again it is. The kid thing threw her for a loop (when we had met she felt the same way as I, but seems to have changed her mind).

That, and every couple of weeks she would get very upset that we weren't living together yet, even though we both agreed to wait until she was done school in May.

Other reasons as well, but boil down to we really weren't into each other anymore. Another just friends scenario, but the first one I agreed with.

So it was mutual, but not 50/50. More like 75/25 with me being the 75. 10% of that is her constantly calling me cheap despite the fact I always paid the lion's share when we went out. Not to mention (okay I'll mention in) that I have car payments, student loans, a line of credit to pull down, my own tution for the course I've been taking etc ad nauseum. And I don't have Daddy to run to (uh-oh, getting a visit from the Bitter Fairy).

Post preakup blues in 5...4...3...2...

But I will start on Rocket Surgeon this week, as I have taken the next three days off of work. That and house cleaning.

Rock On ye Christian Soldiers, drinking as to War!

Rocket Surgeon in Training

Okay, as per my last post, I would like to take on the heady mantel of indie game developer.

The one teeny, tiny hitch is that I never coded a game.

Sure, I've designed games in my head, even gone as far as mapping out the mechanics on paper, but I even haven't done my own clone of Tetris. So I'm gonna put my money (which in this case, equals time) where my keyboard is.

As my 3Ds class has ended, I now have free Saturdays. I'm going to dedicate those Saturdays to building a game. Here's the rules:

• The game will be a single-client, 2-player version of Rocketmen (see sidebar for link)
• The game will be written in C# (which I have yet to really learn, and work sure as hell ain't paying for training).
• The game will only use basic top-down graphics as graphics are not the focus of this. The caveat to that is to make graphics as non-coupled with the game engine as possible.
• The game will be complete by March, 2006.

However I will not be distributing code, as WizKids Games does hold the copyright. This is an educational exercise only.

I will be blogging the experience though (separate blog) as I go long, almost live, so I'll have an intense developer journal. I'll post a link when I post the first blog.

Now, to find a copy of Visual Studio for C# I can use.. oh wait, the Borg are happy to supply one!

Here I go!

Eeep!

The PC Gap

So a couple of days ago I went into my local EB games to pick up a used copy of ICO and maybe Shadow of the Titans. Now while its rare I go specifically for acquiring console games, I did check out the PC game rack. The first and perhaps most significant thing I noticed was the amount of shelf space devoted to PC games shrunk. Alot. Like, by a half.

I think that's a pretty succinct statement on the state of PC gaming right there.

We have new consoles gearing up over the next year, so alot of the developers have been frantically developer console games. Sure, some of them fully intend to deploy ports to PC, but it wasn't so long ago that it was the other way around.

PC gamers are getting the hand-me-downs now. Which completely changes the dynamics of game play.

Now a port from a PC to console meant that the console got fewer features, primarily because of hardware limitation. You don't have a full keyboard to play with, just a controller with a limited number of functions. Graphics are hardwired, so your resolutions would below PC standard (although in some it's hard to tell if they did it right). Space was limited to one cartridge or CD.

So PC ports were essentially stripped down, bare bones version of the games.

Now it's going the other way, we have PC games that looks and play like console games, with everything that entails.

Now don't get me wrong, there are alot of platform to PC games I love, two that come to mind are Psychonauts and Beyond Good and Evil. Great games. Fantastic games. Er, I had a point here.

Oh yeah! Okay, as a PC gamer I'm looking for something with a little more depth than your average platformer game. I have a keyboard and kick-ass graphics card. I have gigs of hardrive space. C'mon developers of the world, use 'em up! Whatever happened to combat flight simulators that simulated flight?

Okay back to my original point, shrinking PC game space. First, everyone jumped on the MMO band wagon. So every shop was forced to make an MMO by their parent companies smelling huge profits (and no clue on cost) So right there, no single player RPG for you! And like I said, those who aren't building the next big thing in the MMO space are building the next big gun for the next gen console wars.

And PC gamers? Well we have MMOs. And no new games, really. Thus the shrinking shelf-space for PC games.

But I think this will (eventually, certainly not right now) be a good thing.

I've often commented (ie complained) about Big Business taking over the game space, with all the mediocrity that entails.

So what if all the big boys focus solely on the consoles? We have a gap. A gap to be filled by the indie developers. So (hopefully) we get games built for PC gamers, by PC gamers, that use the potential of the PC.

It'll be 1984, all over again.

And maybe this time I can get in on it. Here's hoping anyway.

Fluids! Dear God, the Fluids!

Okay, mee-sa sick. I mean, Exorcist ill. There's stuff being produced and projected from my body that belies description or even comprehension.
The human organism is a truly disgusting thing, especially when it's not functioning at 100%. I mean, dear God, I am getting a very poignient lessen on hydro-dynamics and sluices.
This shouldn't be happening on a Friday. That's what Mondays are for. Not promising to be a good weekend.

Jacko Gettin' A Smacko

Heheh, looks like everyone's fovorite Game Critic is being investigated by his local BAR Association.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20051019-5458.html

Ale & Whores for Gabe and Tycho!

That's a Big Margin, Jack

So for those who don't know, here's a little background.
http://www.penny-arcade.com

Personally, Jack Thompson fascinates me. Not the man himself, but the methods he uses and the greater context of how this has been used in the past. From what I can see, he's aggressively persecuting a marginalized social group to bring attention and aggrandize himself and his goals.

It's been done, many, many times before. There's some nasty examples, but in the 20th century it was comic books, television, Rock and/or Roll music (and every variation since the birth of R&R). Now it's video games.

You see, if you go at a group that has no power, there is no capability of retaliation on their part. It's very effective, of course. The 'crusaders' appear (or try to appear) as paragons of virtue, protecting the innocent (won't somebody please think of the children!) and rooting out those who would destroy society. In a way they are right. Many of the marginalized concepts, ideas, media etc that are persecuted in this way do threaten society: they attempt to change the status quo.

Technology has always done this (going back to medieval times, crop rotation anyone?) and there has always been those who are violently opposed (Jacquard's Loom. http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/jacquard.html) What I don't see in alot of references is that Jacquard's earliest looms were burned and Jacquard forced to flee a mob. At least that's how my profs told the story.

So here we are at the beginning of a new millennium and computers pervade every aspect of our lives. (Heck you are reading my diary from a remote location and can access this instantly. That's Big JuJu). The rapid pace of this leaves most people with a nagging, quiet discomfort in technology. Which opens up the door to doubt, which leads to fear. The thin edge of the wedge. And we nothing to fear but fear itself.

So here comes Jack.

Video games are cop-killer trainers and child-rape simulators. They mentally hurt our kids, they teach people to become mass murders. Technology, if uncontrolled by those who know better than you, will run amuck and destroy the very fabric of society. That's the middle of the wedge. The back end of the wedge is limiting use of technology. It starts with games, then moves on to other bits. like you can't record Desperate Housewives and watch it later because you gotta take the kids to soccer practice. You need to pay a fee every time you listen to a song because that's the only way to ensure you aren't stealing it. The authorities need a way to break into your computer without you knowing because you may be a terrorist. And what scares me, what terrifies the life out of me, is I hear alot of people say you should just ignore him and he'll go away.

He's not going to go away.

If we ignore him, it gives him free reign to say whatever he wants. And if those views aren't opposed with logical counter-arguments, opinion or even down-right anger, those who don't know what's going on will think he's telling the only version of the truth. And at that moment we lose. Not just gamers.

Everyone.

The first wedge is locked in place, and there's more behind it. And behind each wedge there someone with a hammer... Now the entire presumption is that gamers are a marginalized sub culture. I honestly think Jack believes that gamers are a bunch of nerdy dorks who have nothing better to do than play games in their parents' basement. That may have been somewhat true at one time. Now, not so much. You just need to watch the news and how gaming is the next big money market for media companies. there's alot of gamers out there, in all levels of society and of all ages. If gamers are marginalized, it's a wide margin.

Penny-Arcade, whether you like it or not, is a locus of gaming culture. They have alot of clout in that marginal community, and at their word, they can focus that drive very, very tightly. Their charity events raise a boggling amount of money and goods for kids, and it all comes from that 'margin'. The wedge may have, with a clumsy carpenter holding the hammer, hit a knot in the wood.

As entertaining as the situation is, I think what comes next will be a turning point in Mr. Thompson's career. His call to have Gabe and Tycho arrested crosses a certain boundary. Not of civility or even law. It's a statement that says that gamers are citizens that should be arrested for voicing an opinion. the exertion of power, any kind of power, is to be handled the fastest and most damning curtailment that society can offer. Civic arrest. If not violence, at least the threat of violence (which is basis of any police force) is what an arrest is. Mr. Thompson didn't threaten to sue, he requested that Gabe and Tycho be arrested. Even if the Seattle police don't follow up on this, even if Gabe and Tycho don't react and choose to ignore him, it sets a precedent that's dangerous indeed. More requests for arrests will come, and eventually an arrest will be made, for no other reason that someone who enjoys and supports a gaming culture can be arrested merely for supporting that culture.

And that is tyranny. Being persecuted not for what you do, but for who you are. By those who hold power. I'm watching this one with both eyes.

Been a long while, but that's just me.

Okay so I haven't been on in a while. The game reviews are still under way, but frankly I haven't had the time and/or inclination to do much gaming lately. It is time for an update though, meaning I'm in one of my 'pensive' moods.

Game Space
Not much happening here I'm afraid. I am beta testing another couple of games (can't say which, NDA and all that). I can say one needs alot of work at a concept level and the other is rocking. Not surprisingly, the former has been delayed and the latter is due out soon.
I did pick up a couple cheapo Playstation 2 games. Mark of Kri is a great 3rd person action game except it's nearly impossible to do combos, and you need to do combos. Just more practice I guess.
Final Fantasy X-2 proves why I don't like Japanese RPGs all that much. Confusing but gorgeous, so the animator in me still pays attention. However the actually game play is annoying (a random encounter every 5 feet? c'mon!) and gets me wishing for a fast forward button for the next part of the story...
The third one is Rumble Roses. I am a sick, sick little boy. A mediocre wrestling games with great ... polygons.
And there isn't much coming out that I'm terribly interested in. Since the Big Corps are now taking over the market, well I'm bored with the pablum. There are some people trying to get more organized for the small and mid-sized developer (check out http://www.costik.com/weblog for someone I hope gets huge success. I love reading The Escapist (www.escapistmagazine.com/) as they have some more professional journalistic writing than say, IGN or Gamespy.

Book Space
And for books well, I'm taking a 3d Studio Max course at the local educational instipitution, and lovin' it! I can spend (and have on numerous occassions) 8 hours just playing and experimenting. The class itself is pretty good, covering the basics to get you on your way. Since I want the deep dark secrets I picked up a couple books.

3ds Max 6 Bible: well I've tried 3 of the tutorials and only 1 actually worked as advertised, so I'm not impressed so far. However it's a thick book so I won't write it off yet.

modeling a Character in 3ds Max by Paul Steed on the other hand is a fantastic book. Essentially one long tutorial on how to model the babe on the cover it goes into minute detail on every step with lots of pics. It's also well written and Mr. Steed certainly has a sense of humour. I haven't started the tutorials yet (and may not be able to) but I've read through some chapters and it's exactly what a new 3d modeler needs.

And of course Thud! by Terry Pratchett! Bringing back the Guards of Ankh-Morpork (my favourite) it's a great read, but with most of his later books, you really, really need to read a few to get the background.

Geek Space
Okay like I said, I have been taking classes in 3ds Max. Since they are Saturdays from 9 AM to 4 PM it basically means I have another day of work, but if my other 5 were like my Saturdays, I'd never leave the office. So that's going well.

So my latest addiction is getting ships from WizKids Rocketmen http://www.wizkidsgames.com/rocketmen/. I haven't actually played yet and I've spent waaaaytoo much cash on the cards. On the upside I'm using them as models for creating my own 3ds max models and animations, so I guess I can justify it....

Yeah I'm totally geeking out on this whole animation thing.

Head Space
We with winter approaching fast, I'm slowly degenerating into my Winter Grump (it's early this year). Work is driving me nuts, but since I said I wouldn't post work rants anymore, I'll leave it for the tell-all book. However I have engaged the services of a head-hunter and am following up on contacts with great urgency so I getting my ass in gear instead of just whining (hear that Stray Lemming?). Of course I will continue to whine loudly and publicly at every opportunity.

The other thing is the girlfriend situation. Lately I've been doing alot of soul searching (my Granddad died about a month ago) and I think I'm coming to the conclusion that I want to be a single guy for the rest of my days.

I've tried the whole relationship thing a couple of times (okay 4 times) but the awful truth is that:
1) I don't want kids. Not just "I'm not in a place right now where I want kids" I mean I neverwant kids. Actually considering getting the boys snipped in that cause. I like kids, as long as they are not mine and wrecking my place. Besides, I'm 37, a tad late in my view.
2) I don't want to get married. I mean I've been to all seven of my parents' weddings (counting the one to each other twice) and frankly the whole marriage thing seems outdated to me.
3) I like living alone. My own space, my own stuff, and my own money. Relationships are expensive and with the current GF back at school I'm paying for everything. Add on top of that, she wants to buy a place together the day she graduates. She'll be neck-deep in debt, looking for work and she's hinted that if she gets a job out of town, I'm expected to follow.

And I know that sounds close-minded.

Lately I've been feeling that everyone wants something from me, but when I ask for something, it's not convenient, or not do-able right now. It's boiled down to 'I'll do what you want as long as you leave me alone after'. And that never actually happens in real life.

Like I said, the winter blues and blowing hard and fast from the north.

So yeah winter is coming, I'll be indoors more so I'll probably update this once in a while (I know, you've heard it all before).

Anyway, last load of laundry is done, have fun!

DM

Pigs!...In!...SPAAAAAAAAACE!!

Hello and welcome to another edition of no-hate blogging. Really.

This is a quick update, just to let you know I'm working on two reviews; both of them space games, both of them written by folks on the 'other side' in the infamous Eastern Bloc. Or former Bloc. I dunno, all the socio-cultural-political changes make my head spin.

First up will be Star Wolves, fighter-squadron based space combat against space bad guys. In space.Secondly will be Nexus: The Jupiter Incident which is capital ship based space combat against even more space bad guys. In space.

Yeah, I had enough of 'Ooo like, be an elf with a big bow and kill Orcs!' games. For now anyway.

Miss Piggy, warm up the Blog-Drive, we're going hunting for truffles! In Space!

PSP = Ow

Lately, my conspicuous consumption gland has been kicking in. I think it's been stimulated by the overwhelming barrage of iPod, Gameboy and cell phone (It's got a camera! It's got text messaging! It has bits that will make you look so cool!) I've been craving, nay, jonesing for a portable electronic device so I can be 'hip'. Which is the best I can do, despite that 'hip' is a term used by those who have had one or more replaced via surgery.

First obvious choice is a cell phone. Now to most this would make sense, as it has a practical use: you can talk to other people equipped with similar devices wherever you go. The downside (for me) is that other people similarly equipped can contact me at any time. Although I've deleted my previous rants on the work situation, the summary is that, if my cell phone number was ever released to certain parties at my place of employment, the damn thing would be vibrating into the next universe, DC’s The Flash-style. That, in itself, would be cool but then I would have to actually pick up the damn thing, as they would keep on calling, sending me to the next universe. And so on. Eventually I would end up in a world devastated by a cataclysmic struggle by those who worshipped the Three Stooges and those who revered the Marx Brothers. Scary.
My second choice was going to be an MP3 player (or isotope thereof). However, I'm not one of those who feel the urge to have music piped directly into their lobes 24/7. There was a significant portion of time in my life when this was certainly the case (call them the Rock 'n' Roll years). The means of delivery was a very large set of speakers (a wall of them you could say), several socially dysfunctional, hygienically questionable young 'musicians' and four or five hundred drunk and disorderly teenagers who paid $5 a head at the door, of which I took a 25% cut. Besides, a very sure way to summon someone who wants to ask me a question is to put an earphone on a lobe, so that's out.

So I reached down, way down deep into the very essence of my being and questioned what shiny thing should I get to parade around with. The words "you play games you idiot" resounded from the abyss.

Of Course! Portable Gaming!

I had seen ads for the PSP etc and debated weather I should get such an insidious time-leecher. The price was a tad out of my comfort zone and the line up of games is currently mediocre at best (at least to my tastes). However it does actually play games, you can listen to music on them and, if you really went hardcore, watch movies on them.

So I hummed and hawed over this. For weeks, the debate consumed my very soul. I surfed around for information, opinion and outright lies at work when I should have been punching code. Which is the same thing really.

A solution came when I mentioned the internal fracas to a work mate, who said he had acquired the gizmo in question and loved it. Do I want to try it out?

The next day, after I came home from work, I fired up this little black lozenge, with its ever-so-cutely shrunken controls. I only had one game, Wipeout:Pure. Now the game itself was a joy; great graphics, a challenge to race and enough variation in gameplay to keep me entertained for hours on end. And this was only one game!

The problem is, after about thirty minutes of play, both my hands cramped up so bad I couldn't even operate a mouse to check email.

Now I do not have gorilla-like mitts by any stretch. Due to a genetic mutation, my feet and hands are disproportionately small for my height. The machine's sleek design may be a detriment in this case. I found my hands constantly slipping on the shiny black plastic casing while trying to keep the weighty block steady. The controls are too close to the sides to use my palms on each edge to brace the thing. So the resultant effect was turning my hands into grotesque, twisted claws. Lord knows what long-term effects it would have on my body parts.
Other than the sinister unergonomics of the Playstation Portable (which could be resolved by creating and deploying a framework matching a normal PS controller, making it into the Playstation Luggable) I found the machine to be quite enjoyable. The unit price I'm sure will go into a comfort zone where it would be (with the sizeable memory card and accessories) slightly less than my monthly rent. I'm also hoping that someone at Sony, when faced with a class action suit brought about by thousands of wretched, crab-like creatures waving their grotesque mockeries of pincers in the air, may consider a more comfortable design rather than something that looks good in ads for the next deployment.

So it looks like I may be delving into the MP3 player world. Or maybe I’ll just purchase a set of white headphones and plug them into a block of mozzarella taped to my belt. It’s cheap and, unlike an iPod, a nutritious snack any time of day.

Okay I'm back(ish)

Alright deleted the so-full-of-hate posts and will get back to posting at least once a week.
So up and coming is my play test of a PSP, a review of Star Wolves and Fate.
More to come.

Phone Cam Redux

Yup the guy from the floor below came steaming up to my place, red as a beet, and slunk away.

I'm telling this story until I'm in the old folks home. Then Ahlzheimer's will kick in and I'll forget.

Proper Cell-phone Camera Use

Okay this is a good one.
On Saturday, as I head to my car in the parking lot of my building, I notice a cell phone on the hood.
Now this is an unusual event: it looks like it was left there, and it's obviously a pretty top-of-the line phone. It was almost out of power though, so I couldn't get past a set-up screen to get to a phone list to find out who owned the phone.
It was one of the deluxe models with VGA graphics, full MP3 capability, internal camera and calendar, the whole shebang (I found the manufacturer site).
So I found my landlady and ask here if anyone reported a missing phone. We had a couple of move-ins this past weekend so we went around to the new arrivals to see if it was theirs. Nobody claimed it.
However I did remember some people at work that had a similar phone, so today I asked around and sure enough, Brian had the exact same phone with a charger by his desk.
So we plug 'er in.
Now, the phone list had ALOT of names, mostly female. The natural conclusions were:
1) Single Female Phone with friends names
2) Single Male phone with 'friends' names

however the actual number had been deactivated so we couldn't do reverse lookup. We considered who on the list we should call, but Brian had the idea to look at the pictures and maybe see a face I would recognize from my building (4 story walkup).

So I didn't recognize the faces from the first few pictures but I did recognize a big black pick-up that frequently parks in my space. Thought of vengeance went through my head.

Then I saw the rest of the pictures.

Now, there should be a reward for finding an expensive phone. However the blackmail opportunities for a phone where the owner has photographed themselves and their lover-de-jour are nearly limitless. Seriously, makes Hustler look tame.

I've drained the battery again, posted signs in the laundry room, and so I'm waiting for someone to claim the phone.

More updates as they occur.

Face of Mankind

Okay. Just tried the Face of Mankind Beta. After 30 minutes of wandering around, I uninstalled.
Now if this was a closed beta, I would totally understand if it had no tutorial, no online manual, no help. But an open beta is to get as many people playing as possible. You can't play if you don't know how.
So you get alot of people cramming the server, wondering how the hell you do anything. The only button I found was 'Quit'.
That worked quite well.

The Stages of Human Endeavor

All generalizations are dangerous, even this one.
Now that's out of the way here's a theory drawn from empirical evidence (ie what I see when I actually pay attention). All human endeavors seem to go through three stages. Initiation, Refinement and Exploitation. Those probably aren't the best terms, but they are sufficiently long enough to make them sound pseudo-intellectual. Creation, Ascention, and Collapse would do just as well.
Initiation
So the first step is initiation. Everything has to start somewhere.
That's when someone has the idea and makes those first (faltering) steps at seeing a vision come to life. At the time, others see it as useless, or frivolous, or an abomination. And alot of the time, they're right, the idea fizzles and becomes a footnote in some obscure history at the back of the library racks.
But once it in a while, it catches on. Others can see the importance, the possibility of that first try. It may be a clunky technology, a revolutionary idea, a new way of looking at things or just a really cool thing. Regardless, it is the starting point and it's here that the potential begins.
Refinement
So that idea goes out and spreads. Others get in and bring their own ideas (sometimes gracefully, other times with a fight). This is when things get interesting, become part of society. Here, potential is realized, and the power and the scope of the original idea are brought to the fore. This is always difficult to express because the why's and how's vary so much from instance to instance. At this time, the idea becomes (in alot of cases) a new universal constant (what did we do without it? why didn't we see it before, it's so obvious!). Then comes stage three....
Exploitation
I think the best way to identify the starting point of this stage is to see where, exactly, people who don't get the concept see those who do, and try to exploit it to their own ends, usually to those who also don't "get it".
At this point, the original idea gets lost, and only the benefits are focused on. Very quickly, the concept pales in comparison to it's results. Many times the original endeavor becomes a secondary adjust to effects it has. In some cases, this way of things comes to be the new 'standard', and not always in a negative way. In other cases, the original concept itself becomes corrupted and forgotten, and since it is forgotten, only a pale imitation of benefits remain.

So, some examples
First one is the big one, God. Some folks believe, that way back when, someone had an idea that the concept of gods as humans with power, divinity, and a daily lifestyle that could only be called a cosmic soap-opera was just humans trying to imprint themselves on the universe. And that was it, the universe itself was the only 'god': everything happened with or without human understanding. Trying to pin a motivation on crop-failure, that sudden flood, or even stubbing your toe was just silly: the universe just was and it was pretty damn incredible (and scary and beautiful sometimes all at once). I think that's why god didn't have a name, or was 'I Am'.
So this guy goes tells some friends and family, they like the idea (although I'm sure some sure as hell didn't) and the idea spreads, becoming it's own religion. In an area where every village had it's own pantheon of divinity.
So as the idea spreads, not everyone gets it. The concept clicks for some (twelve tribes anyone) but something gets lost, so once again, the concept of 'universe is god' becomes 'god of the universe'. The idea 'there are no gods' becomes 'there are no god but ours. Die Infidel!'.
And there's the exploitation, the powerful idea becomes something that is diminished as it changes.
Don't get me wrong, there are amazing people who have done (and still do) amazing things in the name of religion, but they are in the minority (at least, they generally haven't had whole civilizations put to the sword, burned women for not accepting their roles as slaves, or driven a truck full of explosives into night-clubs).

For example two I'd like to use the internet, but I think we're still in phase two (with a very quick dip into phase three, time moves fast in this space). So I'd like to use one of my favorite things: computer games!
In the beginning, there was the game and the game was Pong. It went 'bip'.
Yes I am aware there were other games before Pong, but to play them you pretty much had to have access to warehouse sized computers, a PhD, and spare CPU cycles. But Pong was the first one anybody with a quarter had access to play it.
It was a hit. It was new! There was nothing else like it. It went 'bip'.
Then companies formed with the express purpose of creating more games like this. After that, Space Invaders. Then Pac-Man (yes I've skipped a few). Then, you could actually go to Radio Shack and buy a machine that you could pug into your TV and it would go 'bip'. In eight colors. Magazines devoted to playing these games Games. Not sports, not fashion, not cars. People actually paid money to read about games. People bought t-shirts with weird little creatures from games on them. Programmers, instead of building large and complex airline reservation systems or atomic missile guidance software, actually made a career at making these things. And they still went 'bip' (granted in surround sound stereo loud enough to make the neighbors come around and complain). But for a long while it was still the realm of geeks and dips, so it was safely marginalized. Once in a while someone who confused the universe for this vengeful and powerful uber-entity said these games were bad and some people believed them, but that's what they said about TV.
Then not too long ago, somebody asked 'who really play these things' and the results were astounding. It wasn't the geeking male kids in the basement. Well it was, but it wasn't just them. Girls were playing, guys with real jobs, families and mortgages were playing. Hell grandma was playing! Not just bridge with the quilting bee, but she was fragging the basement-ensconced geeks!
There was only one conclusion that could be drawn: 'bip' could make money.

Speaking as one of the geeks who was in the basement playing games, I don't know what to think anymore. When I was a kid, I was buying at least a couple of games and they were good! Sword of Aragon, Arctic Fox, Wing Commander, Leisure Suit Larry (until my Dad busted me); almost everything I bought was good. And there was lots out there I heard about, played at a friends house or just drooled over at the local Radio Shack. Supplemented but hours and rolls of quarters at the arcade, these essentially became my religion.
And the way I see it, there's money changers in the temple.
I'd like to believe I've grown up. According to everything I learned growing up, having the responsible job, the steady relationship, the car loan, male pattern baldness etc was the very definition of 'grown up'. So I have considered the possibility that I have grown out of computer games; that my tastes have matured.
Bull.
We have a company that was very respected in our tight-knit, slightly greasy community that reportedly is using the dream any of us had into an excuse to practice employment policies that would make anyone else string up their boss.
We have games that at one time that could only have gotten better turn into pap. The once challenging puzzles, clever story, or grand system that allowed to become whatever we wanted to be reduced to button-mashing festivals featuring scantily clad ads for breast enhancement surgery.
Because there is money to be made.
Game companies, understandably, want to sell as many units as possible. So of course they try to make their games as attractive and accessible to Joe Playstation and Jane AOL.
Which brings me back to my original point. The idea is getting lost. The idea that, with ones and zeroes, it possible to make worlds, not just market 100000 units at Walmart.
I want games that make me think, not just measure my reaction speed. I want worlds to explore without having to put up with the mouth-breathing hoi-polloi of 'kewl d00ds'. And want to be surprised, challenged and flabbergasted.
I still (rarely) am at times. But more often than not, it's by the 'underground hit', the 'sleeper' and the 'independent' titles. That then get latched onto and repeated mercilessly.
So here's to all those guys and gals who are actually sitting at home, in their spare time, putting together a game without venture capital, a marketing department and a bulk deal with major distributors.
To them I say 'bip'.

By Way of Introduction

Every few years or so I decide to actually attempt something like a journal. Written in coil-notebooks, early eighties dicta-tape, notepad etc. Never lasts long, and I always seem to lose it. This way, it could be cached, unknown and unseen on somebody's harddrive, waiting for the next reinstall of the operating system.
So what the hell, time for at another half hearted attempt to organize my thought.
Alot of talk about computer games, work, the vagaries of long term relationships, general ventings drawn from the everyday, the occassional political rant etc. Of course the key to all this is to remember where the hell I put this thing.
So the origin of the story is a mid-thirties male, single in a long-term relationship, working for the man because not working for him almost led to a life on the streets (more on that later maybe) and sees the forward edge of a mid-life crisis.

Depending on the day it's a sit-com or a drama. Most days, it will read just like a diary:
Woke up
Went (reluctantly) to work
Went home (maybe late)
Saw my girlfriend
Went to sleep.
Just like the rest of humanity (with local variations of course).

So that's the edge of me, anyway. And like I said, this is just a way for me to vent. Any accidental public consumption, illumination, education, frustration or even decapitation is the sole responsibilty of the viewer. Hey, nobody forced you to click that link.

Oh yeah, comments will be allowed only when I'm trying to provoke an emotional response.

See ya (maybe)
DM