The PlayStation 1 and Nintendo 64 were good consoles, but ultimately flawed. The early use of 3D was interesting and allowed for some fun experiments (such as the exploration elements of 3D platformers as seen in Super Mario 64). However both consoles delivered on 3D with some caveats, such as the blurry mess that was the Nintendo 64's trademark, or the wobbly textures and polygons that plagued even the PlayStation 1's best. Despite the technical ability for both consoles to output in 480i, few games did, and pretty much everything ran at 10 to 30 FPS.
It wasn't until the PlayStation 2 and beyond that the experience of 3D games was really solidified. The limitations of the PS1 no longer held back the games (even though many of them stuck around - see the similarities between Final Fantasy 9 and 10 as an example) and as such they were allowed to blossom and become greater in ambition. Whatever the genre, it expanded in scope from the PS1 to the PS2. Super Mario Sunshine's scope was markedly larger than Super Mario 64. Limited platformers like Crash Bandicoot gave way to open, vast worlds like Jak and Daxter. Janky action games like Syphon Filter and Goldeneye gave way to the rolling hills of Halo or the complicated maps of SOCOM.
The point being that from the jump to the PS2 era, creativity blossomed because they lacked the limits of the early 3D era. Suddenly series like Ace Combat could do pretty much whatever they wanted, with some missions spinning into epic dogfights that the PS1 could only dream of - in addition to an increase in graphical fidelity and resolution. This was my favorite era of gaming, and until recently, I was loathe to leave it, choosing to hop back to the PS2, then to the Wii, then to the 3DS in a futile effort to stay there.
Now turn your mind's eye to the PS3/360 era. With the advent of HD, games became narrower in scope again. The fidelity of the games in this era were astounding, but only achieved through a lot of sacrifices. Real HD was never quite accomplished, with many games rendering at 720p or lower despite the 1080p capabilities. Frame rates dropped back to PS1 era 20-30 FPS from the PS2's astounding amount of 60 FPS games. Pop-in, loading times, faked vistas, graphical tricks, and a whole other slew of issues were commonplace. Unless you played on PC, of course, which I'll get to in a moment.
My major thesis for today is suggesting a parallel between the PS1/N64 era and the PS3/360 era. Where the PS1 struggled with 3D, the PS3 struggled with HD (which encompasses not only HD resolutions, but the whiz-bang artistic styles that were the graphical standard). As someone who finds the sacrifices in both eras to be a distraction to the games themselves, I found it difficult to take each generation on its own terms because of how it reflected back or forward to other eras. If the NES struggled with gaming, the Super NES blew it away. In many ways, you can use this across each generation: the PS2 is a Super PS1.
With the release of the PS4, I believe we have reached the next step - the Super PS3 era, if you will. Unfortunately, we have yet to play the games ourselves, so this blog is largely based in the perception of what was shown at E3, not necessarily what the generation will be. However, what we have seen reminds me a lot of the PS2. It's what we had last time, but with much bigger scope, in addition to an increase in graphical fidelity and resolution. Games look better, with vast draw distances that echo the first time I witnessed Jak and Daxter with a sort of awe inspired look on my face that inspired my mother to take me to the hospital in fear of a concussion.
The PC is indeed a technologically powerful platform, but even it has limitations that are born from the limitations of the console. Shooters this generation have been mostly limited in size, even narrowing down from your average shooter on the Xbox 1. They all tend to play the same as a result, with the player hiding behind chest high walls and poking their head out from time to time to take out a few bad guys. Mobility requires room, which is too costly when you're dealing with 512MB RAM on the consoles, and few PC ports have taken advantage of the extra space.
Aside from a few PC exclusives such as Hard Reset or Crysis, even the best PC shooters were held back by this paradigm. Now the PC suddenly jumps into a proto-next-generation, which echoes what is to come. The Witcher 2, one of the most celebrated RPG's of the last decade, was still a narrow, hallway-limited experience that is being upgraded to an open-world in Witcher 3. Shooters like Planetside 2 are just as enormous, and the variance in strategy available is really exciting.
This carries over to the consoles in question. Where shooters were limited and cramped on the PS3/360, they're now vast and much more epic on scope. What was once a crazy scripted event made of skybox trickery and nifty use of distance is now an actual game occurrence. For example, an alien ship touches down on the planet in Destiny, knocking over a far-off skyscraper, before sending shockwaves through the ground and zooming overhead. The player chases after it (exhibiting the freedom that was once foreign) and interacts with enemies falling from the ship. This is all seamless and effortless, where this entire sequence would have once taken a vast amount of cleverness and technical savvy to create on the PS3/360.
This is just one example of the impressive displays shown at E3. It reminded me how tired I am of limited, scripted experiences. Games like Ryse for the Xbox One seemed dated when the narrow hallways and on-screen events were out of the player's hands, because everything else seemed dynamic and fluid, even effortless. Why place scripted events off of the hallway's path anymore? You're not limited by the PS3 and 360! I'm no longer impressed by a cacophony of warfare around me unless I can interact with it. Battlefield 4 spits in the face of the limits of Battlefield 3's lack of control, with boats ripping in half and airplanes sliding around the surface of the ship, and none of it requires taking away the player's control of their characters nor any of the other tricks games have used this generation.
I've missed shooters like Halo, and the draw distance that took my breath away, at least at the time. It was unthinkable to me that I could explore that entire landscape, and yet there I was, zooming around, dying and then approaching the combat a different way. I've missed action adventure games that don't have to take away the control every few minutes to make something cool happen on the screen; where the action happened naturally because the software didn't have its fat face smudged up against the technology's limitations. I've missed games with the scope of Fallout 3 and Skyrim without the incredible jank associated with the developers. I've missed being surprised by what developers thought of next.
Maybe I'm wrong, and the PS4 won't be the Super PS3 I hope it is. But hey, a little hope and hype never hurt anyone.
---
Further notes.
I'm tired of my PC. I'm tired of fighting with Games For Windows Live, UPlay, Origin, and waiting for Steam to finish updating. I'm tired of console games ported poorly, and exclusive games so buggy I can't even see them straight. I'm tired of wondering why my graphics card doesn't work properly and the endless money I have to spend to fix every goddamn problem. I'm tired of constantly being on the precipice of "good enough" and never having enough money to get to "good." I'm tired of working to play a game.
I'm tired of indie games with the barest hint of mechanics stretched thin over four hours fueling a premise I don't care about. I'm tired of indie games with the most grueling difficulty and complicated mechanics that force you to grapple with situations well beyond your means. I'm tired of indie games that endlessly force me to jump across 2D platforms to experience yet another poem with some twinkling ambiance and a retro aesthetic harkening back to an era of games I never played. I'm tired of platitudinous ramblings and philosophical discussions that wouldn't pass muster in a middle school English class. I'm tired of video games wanting to be "greater than video games," whatever the hell that means.
I'm tired of playing PS2 and Wii games. They don't surprise me any more. They used to, and they filled their purpose, but I get no glee in playing new games from that technology period. I keep going back to the same experiences, Resident Evil 4 mostly, to get a fix and then jump out. Satiated, but never enthused.
I am not tired of my 3DS. There's still joy in a new Luigi's Mansion or a new Mario Kart. Sure, not one big enough to get me to buy new hardware (sorry WiiU, I'm looking for more than your echoes of the past provide), but it's nice and enjoyable. I wish the digital account system was stronger because there's some downloadable games I'd like to try, but won't pay for if it's locked to the system.
I'm not tired of old games. The SNES was a good console, and I haven't even scratched the surface of what it offered. I barely know anything about Sega's Genesis and Saturn systems. So much to still explore.
E3 came at the right time for me.
Thursday, June 13, 2013
Friday, May 24, 2013
The Xbox One Sucks
The Xbox One is Microsoft's third video game console. I'm here to tell you why it's terrible.
Digital Rights Management
I've always had the opinion that if a game console really wanted to hit the mass market, what it really needed to do was make the console really complicated to use. Oh, and while you're at it, make the market shrink instead of grow. Those two principles of dumb-fuckery economics is probably why Microsoft decided to make every game on the Xbox One tied to an account, even retail games. Also, the system will not let you play games unless it's checked with Microsoft's servers within the past 24 hours.
Let's think about why this is a good thing for consumers. Wait, hold on, I'm thinking. Okay, I'm done.
Let's think about why this is a bad thing for consumers. Well, for one thing, sometimes I don't have Internet. I know, this is a shocking concept - but it's possible to be without Internet sometimes. For some people, this entirely theoretical exercise is like pretending you don't have air. But the fact that you admit that it is possible suggests that it removes a potential chance to play a video game - possibly at a time when you would want to the most.
There are people who won't buy the system because they won't be able to reliably play their games. In addition, this sort of limitation makes the system a lot harder to use, especially for technically challeneged people who make up this mass market that the device will apparently sell towards. That's two ways you've already shrunk the market, and I'm not seeing anything to make that up.
Plus, note that every time we have a game like this that is heavily tied to servers, it explodes catastrophically. For examples, see every MMO launch, the recent Sim City, Bioshock back in 2007, and the launch of Steam and Half-Life 2. People are foolish to think it won't happen again, especially on a console-wide scale. Whenever Microsoft's servers are down, so are your games. Plus, not only that, but the games won't be playable once the servers go down, and you can be sure that they will.
So, in summary, it lowers both the control I as a consumer have over my games, while lowering the potential market and giving no real benefit to me or the game industry.
It Will Kill Used Games, Which is Terrible
You think this is an obvious statement for the header, and yet prominent games journalist Ben Kuchera said in an article the very opposite, arguing that the lost profit from used games could save the struggling games industry in light of closing studios and layoffs.
Jesus fuck.
It's the developing industry's own goddamn fault for the shit-hole they're in. Who is asking for games that cost into $100 million dollars and took an entire generation to make? Would the sales be impacted if that were halved or quartered? Is there enough sales potential (realistic, actual sales potential, none of this "it might sell better than Pokemon" wishful thinking) for stuff that big? What happened to the mid-tier developer?
The industry aimed too high, suddenly started ballooning budgets, and then went "oh god there aren't any sales here to cover it up." Their response to this? Homogenize, wring the AAA space of any creativity and put the advertising on full blast. But we can't have smaller budgets, oh no. We've got to cover for your mo-capped dogs, fish AI and celebrity voice actors that nobody fucking asked for. We've got to cover the cost of letting you develop your game for five years because you have no direction. We've got to cover you trying to wedge into an already saturated market of shooters and brown, and then failing miserably. We've got to cover you closing development studios the minute the game comes out and then wallowing in creative deserts.
And then, time and time again, the consumers are expected to show up at the door every time these developers come out with some new way to make the package look worse. Oh, now you get half the content. Oh, now we're going to sell you that content back to you over a period of a year. Oh, now we're placing your game's access on computers you don't control, and then those computers won't work. Oh, now the game doesn't actually belong to you, it never did.
Now we're expected to give up the option to sell our own games away on eBay just because EA felt they were entitled to the profit generated by people selling their games after they were done? What the hell is this? No other medium has ever felt the need to chase after that profit as if it was theirs, and no company has ever received such profit as actual payment. Used games shouldn't be the reason why your company is in the negative because it's a non-factor. It's cash you never had, and never will have.
If I buy a game, that covers the cost of the entire lifetime of the game's existence and play. Who owns the game, and under what circumstances, do not matter.
Kuchera also argues that Microsoft and game publishers will likely lower the prices of the games - a direct quote says, "as profit margins rise it's possible we'll see prices drop."
This is utter nonsense. Microsoft has been terrible about lowering digital prices on the 360 and there's no reason to believe they will do so on the One. Companies aren't charities - they won't start being nice just because profit margins go up. In fact, that might make them cockier and then never lower the prices at all!
The digital, no-used-games landscape works on PC because there's an ecosystem of competition, which can all be accessed with a click of a single exe. Steam is a major player, but there's competitors across the board, so prices go down at a good, reasonable pace. But the only way to get an Xbox One game is new from retail or digitally from Microsoft. Any access to competition is locked behind the threat of losing all of your games. That's bad for gamers.
The Bro Gamer Won't Save It
The argument goes something like this: there's a large contingent of gamers out there, which we will call the "bro gamer" because the term tends to cause mass hysteria, that will buy the Xbox One no matter what anybody else thinks about it. This is because it has sports and Call of Duty and Madden. This is America's "print money" button, right? Automatic sales, right?
Madden sells systems, we know that. But we have no evidence of console loyalty in that sector. Basically, whatever console is selling the most continues to sell the most, and along with it, the most copies of Madden. So, basically, it will push people to next-gen, but not necessarily to Xbox One.
As for Call of Duty, this is where things get murkier. The Call of Duty phenomena has yet to jump from one console generation to another, so we don't know if people will buy new hardware for the series. But I don't see it happening early on, because the games are still coming out for the 360/PS3/WiiU generation of hardware. Activision doesn't care; they'll pump it out on whatever hardware the game sells on. Maybe this audience doesn't care about better graphics or a new piece of hardware. In addition, none of those different versions of compatible with each other (yet) so if the audience does move, it would have to be a substantial enough exodus of players before it becomes self sustaining. And that's before it even begins to grow.
They've also been advertising the exclusive DLC for the next Call of Duty game, which will be available only on Xbox One. We have yet to see if exclusive DLC actually matters to people. Historically, it hasn't, at least in this generation. I doubt again Activision's desire to lose out on spreading that DLC around to markets that want and will buy it, so I don't expect it to be exclusive for long.
So aside from a few lingering questions, all we have left are sports, which everybody already has access to anyway. Segue into the below point.
It Offers Nothing New
The big features of the Xbox One, the ones that have been pointed at as the ones that will expand the One's market beyond just peasant gamers, are dumb and redundant. Look, I've already got like five devices that have Netflix/Hulu/Skype/Apps on them, and companies really need to stop bragging about how you can watch movies on a marketplace. (And do we really need Skype on a TV?) I also want to note that every other device I have will allow me to use these apps without paying for Xbox Live, something the 360 and probably the One will not offer.
The cable TV stuff is equally pointless. In an era where cable subscriptions are being cancelled in droves, it seems foolhardy to think that fancy overlays and multitasking with normal, already-available TV is going to be a killer app. Why do we need to talk and wave our arms around at the Kinect when the TV remote is already sitting next to us? This is the very definition of needless technology; it's a pile-on of useless functionality. And it's only going to be useful for a small subset of television - what overlays can you offer for The Price is Right?
And even if all of this was somehow useful to the mass market, who would buy it at the inevitably high price Microsoft will be asking? Even at $200, which is an insanely low figure for the tech inside, you can still buy a Blu-Ray player with streaming video for half the price. Even as a "one media box to rule them all," it's kind of a limp-wrist-ed package.
The Gaming Press is Full of Douchebags
I swear to god, if this thing wasn't a gaming console and the press didn't have such a hard-on for telling gamers that they're wrong and their opinions don't matter, any proposition of the Xbox One becoming a mass market hit would be laughed out of the room. It's big and ugly and probably expensive without offering any meaningful upgrades to the already saturated market of the devices that play Netflix/Hulu/video apps or your cable TV box. It's a bad product.
Instead, we've had everyone remotely close to a keyboard they get paid to use clacking away at how stupid gamers are, as if holding a controller suddenly makes you incapable of being reasonable and critical. Either games are jealous, or they're mad, or they're asking for too much. The onus is always on the gamers for the failure of the Xbox One to entice them.
Hold on, let me break that down in case that didn't enter your brain. It's not the Xbox One's fault that it's a stupid, incoherent mess. It's your fault for not liking it and wanting to buy it. God, gamers, why do you have to be so entitled? Do you think you're entitled to being critical?
Some of the press is asking the tough questions, but they should be as critical as anyone else is. They're a consumer just like the rest of us, at least in theory. Instead, we hear them spout the same inane PR bullshit that Microsoft is spouting, assuring us that we're wrong, all of our concerns are actually just melodramatic emotionality, and that the Xbox One is really everything we've wanted and more.
It's Less Powerful, and the Cloud Won't Save It
Because the above wasn't already enough to put you off the Xbox One, it's also less powerful than the PlayStation 4. Rough estimates put the PS4 at 50% more powerful than the Xbox One. So games will look and run better on the PS4.
Microsoft has been touting the infinite power of the cloud as a possibility for furthering the power of the One, off-putting processing of particular elements on the screen to servers somewhere else. First, it's not like the PS4 won't also be capable of such technology - Sony's technology will allow them to stream entire games, so it's not like this is a feather exclusively in Microsoft's cap.
Second, Internet connectivity even on the best of days fluctuates, is slow and unreliable. I would rather you just let my box do those computations so that I'm not putting my entertainment into the hands of my lame wi-fi router, which forces Netflix down to a low-bitrate stream every so often.
Third, the technical aspects of this sort of technology is still in its infancy and you won't see a working game using the cloud in conjunction with your hardware anytime soon.
Digital Rights Management
I've always had the opinion that if a game console really wanted to hit the mass market, what it really needed to do was make the console really complicated to use. Oh, and while you're at it, make the market shrink instead of grow. Those two principles of dumb-fuckery economics is probably why Microsoft decided to make every game on the Xbox One tied to an account, even retail games. Also, the system will not let you play games unless it's checked with Microsoft's servers within the past 24 hours.
Let's think about why this is a good thing for consumers. Wait, hold on, I'm thinking. Okay, I'm done.
Let's think about why this is a bad thing for consumers. Well, for one thing, sometimes I don't have Internet. I know, this is a shocking concept - but it's possible to be without Internet sometimes. For some people, this entirely theoretical exercise is like pretending you don't have air. But the fact that you admit that it is possible suggests that it removes a potential chance to play a video game - possibly at a time when you would want to the most.
There are people who won't buy the system because they won't be able to reliably play their games. In addition, this sort of limitation makes the system a lot harder to use, especially for technically challeneged people who make up this mass market that the device will apparently sell towards. That's two ways you've already shrunk the market, and I'm not seeing anything to make that up.
Plus, note that every time we have a game like this that is heavily tied to servers, it explodes catastrophically. For examples, see every MMO launch, the recent Sim City, Bioshock back in 2007, and the launch of Steam and Half-Life 2. People are foolish to think it won't happen again, especially on a console-wide scale. Whenever Microsoft's servers are down, so are your games. Plus, not only that, but the games won't be playable once the servers go down, and you can be sure that they will.
So, in summary, it lowers both the control I as a consumer have over my games, while lowering the potential market and giving no real benefit to me or the game industry.
It Will Kill Used Games, Which is Terrible
You think this is an obvious statement for the header, and yet prominent games journalist Ben Kuchera said in an article the very opposite, arguing that the lost profit from used games could save the struggling games industry in light of closing studios and layoffs.
Jesus fuck.
It's the developing industry's own goddamn fault for the shit-hole they're in. Who is asking for games that cost into $100 million dollars and took an entire generation to make? Would the sales be impacted if that were halved or quartered? Is there enough sales potential (realistic, actual sales potential, none of this "it might sell better than Pokemon" wishful thinking) for stuff that big? What happened to the mid-tier developer?
The industry aimed too high, suddenly started ballooning budgets, and then went "oh god there aren't any sales here to cover it up." Their response to this? Homogenize, wring the AAA space of any creativity and put the advertising on full blast. But we can't have smaller budgets, oh no. We've got to cover for your mo-capped dogs, fish AI and celebrity voice actors that nobody fucking asked for. We've got to cover the cost of letting you develop your game for five years because you have no direction. We've got to cover you trying to wedge into an already saturated market of shooters and brown, and then failing miserably. We've got to cover you closing development studios the minute the game comes out and then wallowing in creative deserts.
And then, time and time again, the consumers are expected to show up at the door every time these developers come out with some new way to make the package look worse. Oh, now you get half the content. Oh, now we're going to sell you that content back to you over a period of a year. Oh, now we're placing your game's access on computers you don't control, and then those computers won't work. Oh, now the game doesn't actually belong to you, it never did.
Now we're expected to give up the option to sell our own games away on eBay just because EA felt they were entitled to the profit generated by people selling their games after they were done? What the hell is this? No other medium has ever felt the need to chase after that profit as if it was theirs, and no company has ever received such profit as actual payment. Used games shouldn't be the reason why your company is in the negative because it's a non-factor. It's cash you never had, and never will have.
If I buy a game, that covers the cost of the entire lifetime of the game's existence and play. Who owns the game, and under what circumstances, do not matter.
Kuchera also argues that Microsoft and game publishers will likely lower the prices of the games - a direct quote says, "as profit margins rise it's possible we'll see prices drop."
This is utter nonsense. Microsoft has been terrible about lowering digital prices on the 360 and there's no reason to believe they will do so on the One. Companies aren't charities - they won't start being nice just because profit margins go up. In fact, that might make them cockier and then never lower the prices at all!
The digital, no-used-games landscape works on PC because there's an ecosystem of competition, which can all be accessed with a click of a single exe. Steam is a major player, but there's competitors across the board, so prices go down at a good, reasonable pace. But the only way to get an Xbox One game is new from retail or digitally from Microsoft. Any access to competition is locked behind the threat of losing all of your games. That's bad for gamers.
The Bro Gamer Won't Save It
The argument goes something like this: there's a large contingent of gamers out there, which we will call the "bro gamer" because the term tends to cause mass hysteria, that will buy the Xbox One no matter what anybody else thinks about it. This is because it has sports and Call of Duty and Madden. This is America's "print money" button, right? Automatic sales, right?
Madden sells systems, we know that. But we have no evidence of console loyalty in that sector. Basically, whatever console is selling the most continues to sell the most, and along with it, the most copies of Madden. So, basically, it will push people to next-gen, but not necessarily to Xbox One.
As for Call of Duty, this is where things get murkier. The Call of Duty phenomena has yet to jump from one console generation to another, so we don't know if people will buy new hardware for the series. But I don't see it happening early on, because the games are still coming out for the 360/PS3/WiiU generation of hardware. Activision doesn't care; they'll pump it out on whatever hardware the game sells on. Maybe this audience doesn't care about better graphics or a new piece of hardware. In addition, none of those different versions of compatible with each other (yet) so if the audience does move, it would have to be a substantial enough exodus of players before it becomes self sustaining. And that's before it even begins to grow.
They've also been advertising the exclusive DLC for the next Call of Duty game, which will be available only on Xbox One. We have yet to see if exclusive DLC actually matters to people. Historically, it hasn't, at least in this generation. I doubt again Activision's desire to lose out on spreading that DLC around to markets that want and will buy it, so I don't expect it to be exclusive for long.
So aside from a few lingering questions, all we have left are sports, which everybody already has access to anyway. Segue into the below point.
It Offers Nothing New
The big features of the Xbox One, the ones that have been pointed at as the ones that will expand the One's market beyond just peasant gamers, are dumb and redundant. Look, I've already got like five devices that have Netflix/Hulu/Skype/Apps on them, and companies really need to stop bragging about how you can watch movies on a marketplace. (And do we really need Skype on a TV?) I also want to note that every other device I have will allow me to use these apps without paying for Xbox Live, something the 360 and probably the One will not offer.
The cable TV stuff is equally pointless. In an era where cable subscriptions are being cancelled in droves, it seems foolhardy to think that fancy overlays and multitasking with normal, already-available TV is going to be a killer app. Why do we need to talk and wave our arms around at the Kinect when the TV remote is already sitting next to us? This is the very definition of needless technology; it's a pile-on of useless functionality. And it's only going to be useful for a small subset of television - what overlays can you offer for The Price is Right?
And even if all of this was somehow useful to the mass market, who would buy it at the inevitably high price Microsoft will be asking? Even at $200, which is an insanely low figure for the tech inside, you can still buy a Blu-Ray player with streaming video for half the price. Even as a "one media box to rule them all," it's kind of a limp-wrist-ed package.
The Gaming Press is Full of Douchebags
I swear to god, if this thing wasn't a gaming console and the press didn't have such a hard-on for telling gamers that they're wrong and their opinions don't matter, any proposition of the Xbox One becoming a mass market hit would be laughed out of the room. It's big and ugly and probably expensive without offering any meaningful upgrades to the already saturated market of the devices that play Netflix/Hulu/video apps or your cable TV box. It's a bad product.
Instead, we've had everyone remotely close to a keyboard they get paid to use clacking away at how stupid gamers are, as if holding a controller suddenly makes you incapable of being reasonable and critical. Either games are jealous, or they're mad, or they're asking for too much. The onus is always on the gamers for the failure of the Xbox One to entice them.
Hold on, let me break that down in case that didn't enter your brain. It's not the Xbox One's fault that it's a stupid, incoherent mess. It's your fault for not liking it and wanting to buy it. God, gamers, why do you have to be so entitled? Do you think you're entitled to being critical?
Some of the press is asking the tough questions, but they should be as critical as anyone else is. They're a consumer just like the rest of us, at least in theory. Instead, we hear them spout the same inane PR bullshit that Microsoft is spouting, assuring us that we're wrong, all of our concerns are actually just melodramatic emotionality, and that the Xbox One is really everything we've wanted and more.
It's Less Powerful, and the Cloud Won't Save It
Because the above wasn't already enough to put you off the Xbox One, it's also less powerful than the PlayStation 4. Rough estimates put the PS4 at 50% more powerful than the Xbox One. So games will look and run better on the PS4.
Microsoft has been touting the infinite power of the cloud as a possibility for furthering the power of the One, off-putting processing of particular elements on the screen to servers somewhere else. First, it's not like the PS4 won't also be capable of such technology - Sony's technology will allow them to stream entire games, so it's not like this is a feather exclusively in Microsoft's cap.
Second, Internet connectivity even on the best of days fluctuates, is slow and unreliable. I would rather you just let my box do those computations so that I'm not putting my entertainment into the hands of my lame wi-fi router, which forces Netflix down to a low-bitrate stream every so often.
Third, the technical aspects of this sort of technology is still in its infancy and you won't see a working game using the cloud in conjunction with your hardware anytime soon.
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Books I Read In 2013
I made a list and now I'm making it digital because paper is for wimps. Updates until the end of the year.
Count Zero by William Gibson
The Fifty Year Sword by Mark Z. Danielewski
Foundation and Empire by Issac Asimov
Process: An Improviser's Journey by Michael Gellman and Mary Scruggs
Second Foundation by Issac Asimov
Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea by Guy Delisle
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
Still With Me by Thierry Cohen
Oedipus trilogy by Sophocles; The Bacchae by Euphrates
You Deserve Nothing by Alexander Maksik
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (re-read)
Zoo City by Lauren Beukes
Losing It by Cora Carmick
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
Little, Big by John Crowley
---
My "currently reading" list includes: The Diamond Age, Leviathan Wakes, The Book Thief, The Brothers Karamazov, and Good Omens.
The current count is 11 physical books and 4 digital books.
The 2012 list.
Count Zero by William Gibson
The Fifty Year Sword by Mark Z. Danielewski
Foundation and Empire by Issac Asimov
Process: An Improviser's Journey by Michael Gellman and Mary Scruggs
Second Foundation by Issac Asimov
Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea by Guy Delisle
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
Still With Me by Thierry Cohen
Oedipus trilogy by Sophocles; The Bacchae by Euphrates
You Deserve Nothing by Alexander Maksik
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (re-read)
Zoo City by Lauren Beukes
Losing It by Cora Carmick
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
Little, Big by John Crowley
---
My "currently reading" list includes: The Diamond Age, Leviathan Wakes, The Book Thief, The Brothers Karamazov, and Good Omens.
The current count is 11 physical books and 4 digital books.
The 2012 list.
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Game Review: Journey (PS3)
Journey spoilers in this review.
Journey is a Playstation 3 downloadable video game by ThatGameCompany. It's a quiet, calming meditation that is more of an experience than a game (though one wonders if Journey knows which is wants to be). Journey jumps from floaty 3D platformer to linear exploration to gorgeous slip-n-slides within its two hour running time, offering several different world themes, occasionally gorgeous visuals, nice music, and a lot of people on the internet smacking their fingers over the keyboard singing its praise.
The very core of Journey is Super Mario 64, heavily abstracted out. The linear landscape is littered with ledges to pounce up to and it echoes that same proto-playground feel that the Nintendo 64 was barely capable of pulling off a decade ago. Journey's scarfed protagonist interacts with its world in the same exact way Mario does, except that in Journey those jumps are a limited resource. Jumps are powered up by recharge points hovering around the environment, which are activated by another button press.
This is emblematic of an overarching simplicity in the entire game. Journey is minimalist. However, saying that doesn't immediately draw praise to the table, it just means the core of the game is more accessible - or if we wanted to be cynical, it's easier to write about at great length on the internet when the game doesn't hide anything from you. Game design in general could use more minimalism as opposed to the never-ending stream of hyper-stimulation that plagues the expensive, higher-end titles. Games are better when you turn off everything and just experience it alone; this has always been known. This doesn't make the game magically good. Minimalism is not a pill that cures everything.
An example is in the way the main character of Journey controls. Movement is the only resource-less ways for a player to interact with its environment (there's the minimalism), so it suggests that said interaction should be gratifying. Instead, the game tightly controls how fast the character moves, and most of the game is set at a slow, plodding pace that only forces the player to look around at the environment and hopefully enjoy the simplistic art design. Over time the game rewards the player with more graceful movements, culminating in a final sequence when that movement speed is finally upgraded and the player blasts through a wondrous and narrow hallway of colors and euphoria.
Said set-piece is wondrous to experience, but it's frustrating as well when the rest of the game is so drawn out and slows you down. It's artificial momentousness. A similar pitfall can be found in the actual platforming or stealth portions, which are so simple but is held back by these limitations making the experience mind-numbing and uninteresting. Journey feels like a toybox filled with nothing but four or five large building blocks. You can play with them separately, but they're dull. You can connect them, but they don't add up to anything.
The game teaches the player several mechanics over the course of the game, sometimes with a button flashing on the screen or with an environmental puzzle that is supposed to explain itself just through experimentation. The experimentation aspect is less successful because of that limited interaction aspect: if you tell me that jumps are valuable, I'm not going to jump very much. I'm not going to risk dying if you're going to punish me with a slow walk through boring area I've already seen. Thus, parts of the game feel deliberately obtuse, especially when it comes to the game's basic environmental puzzles. Trial and error seems overly punished with time-wasting walks back around to the ledge and jump-resource gathering.
This is in direct opposition to the game's story, which is very much drawn out, piecemeal delivered with only a few unexplained elements. Every few levels the game presents static ruin-like drawings, which the camera pans across Reading Rainbow style. The basic gist is that a civilization once lived in these ruins, and the player character is on a pilgrimage to find something. The environment doesn't reflect the ruins very much - it's very basic and uses a lot of repeated geometry. This is purely a criticism of taste and approach, but the game would have been better served without the cutscenes, which interrupt the flow of limited-to-unlimited interaction, and instead communicated through the environment.
This overall vagueness is yet another aspect of the game design that doesn't immediately draw praise. Sure, it would be nice if modern games didn't bother to over-explain things, bogging the player down with hours of tutorials and dull scripted missions. But not answering the game's own questions does not necessarily mean that the questions have an answer. I found myself more captivated by the mysteries of Monster Hunter than the unexplained in Journey. The latter have no consequence aside from artistic; they're empty. At least the weird stuff in Monster Hunter has a reason for being there, if only it's because the whole game is weird.
This is my fundamental criticism of Journey. It is stripped down to the very essential, and yet the essential doesn't feel perfected, or even thought about beyond its first initial inclusion. The platforming is weak and sometimes frustrating. The slip-n-slide scenes are visually gorgeous but barely interactive. The opening whispers of exploration are barely present. The environmental and level design is bland and loose. The story is purposefully incomplete, yet it still seems convinced that it has to submit you to its lore in unsubtle ways. I didn't even mention the social aspect because it's so empty and pointless - another grafting of online onto a game that doesn't need it.
The game can be found within the game scope and mindset as Portal - they're both short and have elements of minimalism and vagueness - but where Portal seems done and complete within its three hours, Journey feels like the overly long first draft of something much greater, where the disparate elements are all tied together. Journey can't decide if you're playing a super-limited art experience, a prototype-edition of Super Mario 64, or a full on action-adventure game. In the end, we're left with nothing, because Journey doesn't know what it is. It tries to be all of them and ends up being none.
Which we get back into the theme that Journey once again swirls around. Emptiness is not the same thing as pathos or ethos. A void may be easier to write about (how can you be wrong when there's only interpretation?) but it's also shallow, only a transparent glass of water with which you can look through to see the world unchanged. It is an experience, but an experience that in the end expresses nothing, leaves nothing but the general feeling of "meaning" upon you.
Journey's not a bad game, it's just unnecessary.
Journey is a Playstation 3 downloadable video game by ThatGameCompany. It's a quiet, calming meditation that is more of an experience than a game (though one wonders if Journey knows which is wants to be). Journey jumps from floaty 3D platformer to linear exploration to gorgeous slip-n-slides within its two hour running time, offering several different world themes, occasionally gorgeous visuals, nice music, and a lot of people on the internet smacking their fingers over the keyboard singing its praise.
The very core of Journey is Super Mario 64, heavily abstracted out. The linear landscape is littered with ledges to pounce up to and it echoes that same proto-playground feel that the Nintendo 64 was barely capable of pulling off a decade ago. Journey's scarfed protagonist interacts with its world in the same exact way Mario does, except that in Journey those jumps are a limited resource. Jumps are powered up by recharge points hovering around the environment, which are activated by another button press.
This is emblematic of an overarching simplicity in the entire game. Journey is minimalist. However, saying that doesn't immediately draw praise to the table, it just means the core of the game is more accessible - or if we wanted to be cynical, it's easier to write about at great length on the internet when the game doesn't hide anything from you. Game design in general could use more minimalism as opposed to the never-ending stream of hyper-stimulation that plagues the expensive, higher-end titles. Games are better when you turn off everything and just experience it alone; this has always been known. This doesn't make the game magically good. Minimalism is not a pill that cures everything.
An example is in the way the main character of Journey controls. Movement is the only resource-less ways for a player to interact with its environment (there's the minimalism), so it suggests that said interaction should be gratifying. Instead, the game tightly controls how fast the character moves, and most of the game is set at a slow, plodding pace that only forces the player to look around at the environment and hopefully enjoy the simplistic art design. Over time the game rewards the player with more graceful movements, culminating in a final sequence when that movement speed is finally upgraded and the player blasts through a wondrous and narrow hallway of colors and euphoria.
Said set-piece is wondrous to experience, but it's frustrating as well when the rest of the game is so drawn out and slows you down. It's artificial momentousness. A similar pitfall can be found in the actual platforming or stealth portions, which are so simple but is held back by these limitations making the experience mind-numbing and uninteresting. Journey feels like a toybox filled with nothing but four or five large building blocks. You can play with them separately, but they're dull. You can connect them, but they don't add up to anything.
The game teaches the player several mechanics over the course of the game, sometimes with a button flashing on the screen or with an environmental puzzle that is supposed to explain itself just through experimentation. The experimentation aspect is less successful because of that limited interaction aspect: if you tell me that jumps are valuable, I'm not going to jump very much. I'm not going to risk dying if you're going to punish me with a slow walk through boring area I've already seen. Thus, parts of the game feel deliberately obtuse, especially when it comes to the game's basic environmental puzzles. Trial and error seems overly punished with time-wasting walks back around to the ledge and jump-resource gathering.
This is in direct opposition to the game's story, which is very much drawn out, piecemeal delivered with only a few unexplained elements. Every few levels the game presents static ruin-like drawings, which the camera pans across Reading Rainbow style. The basic gist is that a civilization once lived in these ruins, and the player character is on a pilgrimage to find something. The environment doesn't reflect the ruins very much - it's very basic and uses a lot of repeated geometry. This is purely a criticism of taste and approach, but the game would have been better served without the cutscenes, which interrupt the flow of limited-to-unlimited interaction, and instead communicated through the environment.
This overall vagueness is yet another aspect of the game design that doesn't immediately draw praise. Sure, it would be nice if modern games didn't bother to over-explain things, bogging the player down with hours of tutorials and dull scripted missions. But not answering the game's own questions does not necessarily mean that the questions have an answer. I found myself more captivated by the mysteries of Monster Hunter than the unexplained in Journey. The latter have no consequence aside from artistic; they're empty. At least the weird stuff in Monster Hunter has a reason for being there, if only it's because the whole game is weird.
This is my fundamental criticism of Journey. It is stripped down to the very essential, and yet the essential doesn't feel perfected, or even thought about beyond its first initial inclusion. The platforming is weak and sometimes frustrating. The slip-n-slide scenes are visually gorgeous but barely interactive. The opening whispers of exploration are barely present. The environmental and level design is bland and loose. The story is purposefully incomplete, yet it still seems convinced that it has to submit you to its lore in unsubtle ways. I didn't even mention the social aspect because it's so empty and pointless - another grafting of online onto a game that doesn't need it.
The game can be found within the game scope and mindset as Portal - they're both short and have elements of minimalism and vagueness - but where Portal seems done and complete within its three hours, Journey feels like the overly long first draft of something much greater, where the disparate elements are all tied together. Journey can't decide if you're playing a super-limited art experience, a prototype-edition of Super Mario 64, or a full on action-adventure game. In the end, we're left with nothing, because Journey doesn't know what it is. It tries to be all of them and ends up being none.
Which we get back into the theme that Journey once again swirls around. Emptiness is not the same thing as pathos or ethos. A void may be easier to write about (how can you be wrong when there's only interpretation?) but it's also shallow, only a transparent glass of water with which you can look through to see the world unchanged. It is an experience, but an experience that in the end expresses nothing, leaves nothing but the general feeling of "meaning" upon you.
Journey's not a bad game, it's just unnecessary.
Monday, April 1, 2013
Children
Children are insufferable little farts. Look, if I wanted to make another version of myself, I'd just straight up clone myself using a facility identical to Jurassic Park, excessive 90's cheese and all (except that I'd have Jeff Goldblum working there before the shit hit the fan). I wouldn't be mucking around with all of this "needing other people" nonsense, nor any of the randomness in creating the perfect offspring. Look, science has solved these problems in 1993, in a movie about dinosaurs. Besides, you can't get preggers from doing it in the bum.
Human larva is small and plump and slimy. In fact, if I had to categorize it, I'd say they share all the negatives of actual human beings, simply multiplied. If you thought that gibbering nerd next to you smelled bad, at least he could distract you with his inane, tone-deaf rants about which Paper Mario game is the best. Children sometimes can't even speak, and smell worse. They produce practically comical amounts of oil on their skin so you can't even grab them when you're attempting to stuff them into a box, and once in the box they won't stop making all that goddamn noise.
It's insane how much time and effort we as a society invest in children. Entire channels on TV devoted to these drooling imbeciles, entire aisles dedicated to mushy food because they can't chew properly, entire buildings created purely to the maintenance of their brains. I even hear there's a genre of theater dedicated to their entertainment. What other realms of our higher esteemed culture have they invaded? What good do children do for us anyway? It's not like they'll suddenly become actual human beings some day.
Sure, there are other segments of society that don't pull their weight. Old people are full of wisdom and don't share it with anybody, instead letting it pool in their skin. Goths and punks hate everything about culture, which means they have to adopt everything in our culture that has to do with death. Dogs are nice to have around, but they don't even look like humans (I've never been quite convinced that dogs are human beings, but you can't say stuff like that in today's uber-politically-correct world). So, you may be asking rather fairly, why on earth pick on children specifically?
It just makes me particularly mad that usually respectable and productive members of our society will throw their lives away dealing with these dull and slobbering human-shaped goats just because they kind of look like them and some other person that they may or may not love, depending on the current tax brackets they reside in and how much of their cheekbones they can see. I have cheekbones, and you don't see me wasting my time on this sort of nonsense. I spend my days ranting about dumb people on my blog. That's a sign of a better man.
Human larva is small and plump and slimy. In fact, if I had to categorize it, I'd say they share all the negatives of actual human beings, simply multiplied. If you thought that gibbering nerd next to you smelled bad, at least he could distract you with his inane, tone-deaf rants about which Paper Mario game is the best. Children sometimes can't even speak, and smell worse. They produce practically comical amounts of oil on their skin so you can't even grab them when you're attempting to stuff them into a box, and once in the box they won't stop making all that goddamn noise.
It's insane how much time and effort we as a society invest in children. Entire channels on TV devoted to these drooling imbeciles, entire aisles dedicated to mushy food because they can't chew properly, entire buildings created purely to the maintenance of their brains. I even hear there's a genre of theater dedicated to their entertainment. What other realms of our higher esteemed culture have they invaded? What good do children do for us anyway? It's not like they'll suddenly become actual human beings some day.
Sure, there are other segments of society that don't pull their weight. Old people are full of wisdom and don't share it with anybody, instead letting it pool in their skin. Goths and punks hate everything about culture, which means they have to adopt everything in our culture that has to do with death. Dogs are nice to have around, but they don't even look like humans (I've never been quite convinced that dogs are human beings, but you can't say stuff like that in today's uber-politically-correct world). So, you may be asking rather fairly, why on earth pick on children specifically?
It just makes me particularly mad that usually respectable and productive members of our society will throw their lives away dealing with these dull and slobbering human-shaped goats just because they kind of look like them and some other person that they may or may not love, depending on the current tax brackets they reside in and how much of their cheekbones they can see. I have cheekbones, and you don't see me wasting my time on this sort of nonsense. I spend my days ranting about dumb people on my blog. That's a sign of a better man.
Monday, March 11, 2013
Minimalism Blogging
What is a blog, but simply a means to complain about other blogs? Besides, I'm an expert. I've been blogging for years. This makes me an expert. I have business cards that say "Mr. Expert" on them, which makes it official.
Here is a Cracked.com style list of things that minimalism bloggers do that piss me off.
1) Brands, brands everywhere
The power of minimalism compels them to write about their amazing lifestyle changes, which involve mostly just listing off the crap in their room because it's better than your crap. This makes them better than you. Minimalism is basically the same thing as elitism, right?
Example:
It was only once I started into the soul of my MACBOOK PRO 2013 REVISION WITH 8 GB OF RAM AND A UNIBODY EXTERIOR that I found minimalism. It was inside me. I could change. I could be better. I immediately grabbed my IPHONE 5 with a special CUSTOM WOODEN CASE THAT MAKES IT LOOK LIKE A DIETER RAMS DESIGN and then went onto a minimalist blog using GOOGLE CHROME and found my answers. All I had to do was buy a MOLESKINE NOTEBOOK and ALL OF THE APPLE PRODUCTS and then I'd be set, my lifestyle would be complete.
2) All you have to do is
This blogger looked into their heart and found the true meaning of Christmas, err, I mean minimalism. All YOU have to do to is buy their eBooks for a simple easy payment of $20 and follow every single step outlined in this beautifully typeset PDF with massive margins. And there's a lot of steps.
Example:
With my simple 100 Things process, you too can be a minimalist. All you have to do is pare your stuff down to 100 things. And then stand on your head for nine days. Put your leg behind your head. Eat nothing but ice cream and salmon for a month. If you've done this process correctly, and in the proper steps, you can look forward to your Certified Minimalist card in the mail within 6-12 weeks!
3) It's actually pretty complicated
Nothing says minimalism like a 20,000 word expository essay that proves nothing other than how you can't edit.
Example:
I was once but a lowly, insignificant, meaningless, poor and ridiculously unhappy, wool-pulled over the eyes, ignorant, foolish, ridiculous, cockamamie, delusional member of the unwashed masses. But now I'm all better. I'm totally fine. I've come up with a way. The world looks so much better. The sun looks so much brighter. Life is sweeter, I can sing again over the hills, the grass rises up to meet my hand. Little did I know back when I was bit a wee one, unknowing in my gentle and kind ways, that it would all change, all at once, out of nowhere. This is why you shouldn't buy artificial sweetener.
4) Buying stuff
Buy your way into having less stuff? What could go wrong?
Example:
All I had to do was buy a can opener that wasn't terrible! I just threw out the old one, because it might as well have been packaged in the garbage can it would eventually land in, and then I went to the store and bought the most expensive can opener they had. I also bought a book shelf, because minimalists read books. I don't have any books, but I think I will buy some now. If I keep buying this stuff, I'll be a minimalist in no time!
5) Children of the revolution, unite!
Minimalism is great and all, but it makes you happy? We've got no time for that! There's a cause to be had!
Example:
I don't buy things because I don't want to give any of my money to those horrible imperialist PIGS who think they can take my money by FORCE (which they call taxes but which I call ILLEGAL) to fuel their SPACE WARMONGERING and secret alien EXPERIMENTS!!!!1!!! DON'T BE A SHEEPLE!!!!!!one
Here is a Cracked.com style list of things that minimalism bloggers do that piss me off.
1) Brands, brands everywhere
The power of minimalism compels them to write about their amazing lifestyle changes, which involve mostly just listing off the crap in their room because it's better than your crap. This makes them better than you. Minimalism is basically the same thing as elitism, right?
Example:
It was only once I started into the soul of my MACBOOK PRO 2013 REVISION WITH 8 GB OF RAM AND A UNIBODY EXTERIOR that I found minimalism. It was inside me. I could change. I could be better. I immediately grabbed my IPHONE 5 with a special CUSTOM WOODEN CASE THAT MAKES IT LOOK LIKE A DIETER RAMS DESIGN and then went onto a minimalist blog using GOOGLE CHROME and found my answers. All I had to do was buy a MOLESKINE NOTEBOOK and ALL OF THE APPLE PRODUCTS and then I'd be set, my lifestyle would be complete.
2) All you have to do is
This blogger looked into their heart and found the true meaning of Christmas, err, I mean minimalism. All YOU have to do to is buy their eBooks for a simple easy payment of $20 and follow every single step outlined in this beautifully typeset PDF with massive margins. And there's a lot of steps.
Example:
With my simple 100 Things process, you too can be a minimalist. All you have to do is pare your stuff down to 100 things. And then stand on your head for nine days. Put your leg behind your head. Eat nothing but ice cream and salmon for a month. If you've done this process correctly, and in the proper steps, you can look forward to your Certified Minimalist card in the mail within 6-12 weeks!
3) It's actually pretty complicated
Nothing says minimalism like a 20,000 word expository essay that proves nothing other than how you can't edit.
Example:
I was once but a lowly, insignificant, meaningless, poor and ridiculously unhappy, wool-pulled over the eyes, ignorant, foolish, ridiculous, cockamamie, delusional member of the unwashed masses. But now I'm all better. I'm totally fine. I've come up with a way. The world looks so much better. The sun looks so much brighter. Life is sweeter, I can sing again over the hills, the grass rises up to meet my hand. Little did I know back when I was bit a wee one, unknowing in my gentle and kind ways, that it would all change, all at once, out of nowhere. This is why you shouldn't buy artificial sweetener.
4) Buying stuff
Buy your way into having less stuff? What could go wrong?
Example:
All I had to do was buy a can opener that wasn't terrible! I just threw out the old one, because it might as well have been packaged in the garbage can it would eventually land in, and then I went to the store and bought the most expensive can opener they had. I also bought a book shelf, because minimalists read books. I don't have any books, but I think I will buy some now. If I keep buying this stuff, I'll be a minimalist in no time!
5) Children of the revolution, unite!
Minimalism is great and all, but it makes you happy? We've got no time for that! There's a cause to be had!
Example:
I don't buy things because I don't want to give any of my money to those horrible imperialist PIGS who think they can take my money by FORCE (which they call taxes but which I call ILLEGAL) to fuel their SPACE WARMONGERING and secret alien EXPERIMENTS!!!!1!!! DON'T BE A SHEEPLE!!!!!!one
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Apps and Books
On the discourses brimming over the various inevitable and looming cultural apocalypses, few would stand up to the cacophony surrounding the death of the book. Outdated, the refrain goes, a medium for the gentry crowd stacked next to shuffleboard kits and shoe-boxes stuffed full of racism. This is a Brave New World, full of phrases like "Brave New World" where nobody gets the reference, or they used to in high school but man reading sucks so I just forgot it as quickly as possible. Except that people still buy copies of these books, and understand the references, and maybe the apocalypse isn't as near as we once imagined.
The future of books, we are frequently told, is in the App. "App" may or may not be a trademark of Apple Inc., and frankly I can't be buggered to find out. But the argument goes that because books sell less and iPhones sell more, that must mean the market is throwing their dollars into nice little electrowhizzles that quickly graft themselves onto your skin like an organ and which you stroke the surface to give yourself pleasure. The people who actually think this sort of thing is bloody fantastic will tell you that pretty much everything will die thanks to the smartphone, including both you and me, so we might as well just stand at the wall, close our eyes and wait for the gunshot.
To understand why this argument is dumb and stupid, we must first discuss the concept of the book. The nature of the medium dictates a longer, more enveloping thought or set of thoughts. There's very few chances to get any reasonably lengthy thought out into the populace these days, and certainly none as long as the book. Not that this is an inherently good or bad thing, it's just good to have the option. Not everybody wants to make ten movies just to tell a single space opera epic. There are different mediums to tell different stories; to suggest that the entire populace will en-masse give up the option for a specific type of story is nonsense. Just because it takes time to consume or create doesn't mean it will stop being relevant.
But then we get to the argument that the future of the book is in Apps, which basically means we take pre-existing mediums and then graft them together because we've run out of other good ideas. You can hear the Apple Genius Asshole gibbering on about how the book world will be disrupted because his unedited mess of a novel had a few whingdings and was hosted by the App Store. Some guy on Hacker News types up a couple of paragraphs detailing how the App Book is better because we have wretches Wired-style type-facing and videos inset with the text, and next thing you know there's a gang of snide nerds smirking at their local libraries while they stroke their long white screens in their pockets in ecstasy.
Digital books are one thing, and I've already made fun of people who think those are evil. Text is text. But I fail to see how a book could be improved by putting an interactive bullshit into the middle of things, or making parts of the book link all over the place, or making the book only readable on electrodoodlescreens. It's not because I'm failing in imagination, or because I'm going to be left behind when the apocolypse comes. It's because I read. I know that books are awesome because you're following someone else's thoughtstream for a long time, and any interruption to that thoughtstream makes it an inferior end result. Interruptions like...perhaps...video content or fonts that make my eyes bleed. Oh. Ohhhh.
The real apocalypse is from silly people who get a new gadget and immediately start trying to throw it at everything that they don't like. It's not just that they really fucking love their new phone, but that they won't be pleased until it takes over the goddamn world. "Say, you know what's bullshit? Toasters. Ah, look, there's a toaster app that heats up my phone to bread-burning levels. Haha, take that. Another foolish mainstay brought up to the world of the future where we have jetpacks and Seth MacFarlane."
The future of books, we are frequently told, is in the App. "App" may or may not be a trademark of Apple Inc., and frankly I can't be buggered to find out. But the argument goes that because books sell less and iPhones sell more, that must mean the market is throwing their dollars into nice little electrowhizzles that quickly graft themselves onto your skin like an organ and which you stroke the surface to give yourself pleasure. The people who actually think this sort of thing is bloody fantastic will tell you that pretty much everything will die thanks to the smartphone, including both you and me, so we might as well just stand at the wall, close our eyes and wait for the gunshot.
To understand why this argument is dumb and stupid, we must first discuss the concept of the book. The nature of the medium dictates a longer, more enveloping thought or set of thoughts. There's very few chances to get any reasonably lengthy thought out into the populace these days, and certainly none as long as the book. Not that this is an inherently good or bad thing, it's just good to have the option. Not everybody wants to make ten movies just to tell a single space opera epic. There are different mediums to tell different stories; to suggest that the entire populace will en-masse give up the option for a specific type of story is nonsense. Just because it takes time to consume or create doesn't mean it will stop being relevant.
But then we get to the argument that the future of the book is in Apps, which basically means we take pre-existing mediums and then graft them together because we've run out of other good ideas. You can hear the Apple Genius Asshole gibbering on about how the book world will be disrupted because his unedited mess of a novel had a few whingdings and was hosted by the App Store. Some guy on Hacker News types up a couple of paragraphs detailing how the App Book is better because we have wretches Wired-style type-facing and videos inset with the text, and next thing you know there's a gang of snide nerds smirking at their local libraries while they stroke their long white screens in their pockets in ecstasy.
Digital books are one thing, and I've already made fun of people who think those are evil. Text is text. But I fail to see how a book could be improved by putting an interactive bullshit into the middle of things, or making parts of the book link all over the place, or making the book only readable on electrodoodlescreens. It's not because I'm failing in imagination, or because I'm going to be left behind when the apocolypse comes. It's because I read. I know that books are awesome because you're following someone else's thoughtstream for a long time, and any interruption to that thoughtstream makes it an inferior end result. Interruptions like...perhaps...video content or fonts that make my eyes bleed. Oh. Ohhhh.
The real apocalypse is from silly people who get a new gadget and immediately start trying to throw it at everything that they don't like. It's not just that they really fucking love their new phone, but that they won't be pleased until it takes over the goddamn world. "Say, you know what's bullshit? Toasters. Ah, look, there's a toaster app that heats up my phone to bread-burning levels. Haha, take that. Another foolish mainstay brought up to the world of the future where we have jetpacks and Seth MacFarlane."
Monday, February 11, 2013
Play Script: The SHRO Office
The SHRO Office
a play by me cuz I'm cool
Grace: secretary of the office
Dinger: office maintainer, ends up doing all the work
Hellman: chair of the department, useless
Larissa: representative of Human Rights Management
[Set: a standard office, four desks, phones on two of them. Various papers and folders are scattered about on them. Scene opens on Grace, Hellman and Larissa. Phone rings, Grace answers.]
Grace: Hello, this is SHRO, how may I help you? You have a...a what? [beings writing] Okay. Got it. We'll get back to you. [hangs up] Larissa, this seems like your department. A cow has gone missing every night for the past two months in Alabama. Same farm, over and over again.
Larissa: What do they want? Compensation?
Grace: Not sure. I'll get back to you. Just a heads up.
Larissa: Thanks Grace.
[Dinger enters]
Dinger: Larissa, did you get back to those guys caught in the black hole?
Larissa: No, I'll get on it. [picks up phone, dials, waits.] Hi, this is Ms. Krumpich from Space-Human Relations Office? Yes, hi. Yes, can we get the paperwork filled out for a technological advancement for the two young men stuck in the black hole for three years? Yes, yes, they fell in. Legal hasn't figured out if it was accidental or stupidity. Well, if you send me the-- [pause] Yes, but if you can just-- [pause, and then very quickly and loudly] If you send me the paperwork I'll take care of it. Yes. Thank you. Yes. Bye. Yup. Bye. [hangs up phone] Can I never talk to those people again?
Hellman: Well, they're mind readers, aren't they? So, I mean, sure.
Larissa: Shut up Hellman.
Dinger: Hellman, get the administrative work done. If the power goes out again I'll throw you out the window.
Hellman: I'm in charge here and--
Dinger: Do you think the electric heating gods will accept the department chair's apparent suicide as sacrifice?
Hellman: Appeasement is a fickle goal.
Dinger: What do you have for me, Grace?
Grace: I just got a call. Some woman in Alabama keeps losing cows.
Dinger: Is is the Glipherophs?
Grace: We don't have many reports yet.
Hellman: If it returns with a probe up its butt, we know who to call.
Dinger: Shut up, Hellman. [Hellman turns away, Dinger thumbs up at Grace]
Grace: We got a call from the Time Travel people. George apparently said in '72 that you should talk to your wife more often.
Dinger: Do we have a log of it before this?
Grace: No sir.
Dinger: George needs to stop talking to my wife.
Larissa: Be careful when dealing with him.
Dinger: I know.
Larissa: Last time he was talking to someone's wife, it turned out they had been having an affair for months even though they hadn't.
Dinger: God, why can't they find another oracle. I'll live to regret talking to him at all.
Hellman: You'll have lived to regret what you will haven't done.
Dinger: I wished he worked here so he would feel the pain I feel.
Grace: Do we want to follow up?
Dinger: No. But if he puts any more nonsense into the old prophecies about my marital life, Larissa, are you listening? If he does that again I want to get some lottery numbers for compensation.
Larissa: Got it. Though can Kiffkoffs even--
Dinger: Doesn't matter. Next.
Grace: A planet of Tralfamadorians passed away from a thing.
Hellman: A thing?
Grace: I'm an expert but there are words even I can't pronounce sometimes.
Dinger: A disease or a...
Grace: A computer virus made corporal.
Dinger: So it goes. I'd take them over a Kiffkoff any day. At least Tralfamadorians don't mess with the time stream.
Grace: Any action?
Dinger: Get the press secretary to say a few words, maybe we can get the executive branch to send their relatives a pen. They'll see it coming, but they'll like it.
Larissa: Technically don't they already know that a planet will die? So are they even mourning?
Hellman: It's more for appearances.
Dinger: It's just a pen. It's more about showing that we care.
Larissa: Do we?
Dinger: Not really.
Hellman: I do.
Dinger: Is that electrical bill form filled out yet?
Hellman: Yes.
Dinger: Is it?
Hellman: Yes.
[stare down between them]
Hellman: No.
Dinger: Larissa, does your office deal with human-on-human issues?
Larissa: No, just human-on-alien.
Dinger: Good. See, Hellman? None of those people are here. I can do what I want.
Grace: We might have a visitor from General Space Hospital. So avoid leaving dead bodies around.
Larissa: Ugh, those people are so dramatic. "Oh, hey, look, my zero gravity extends even when I'm on Earth, life's so hard."
Hellman: Marshmallows are better in zero-g. The most fluffy thing I've ever eaten.
Larissa: See? Exactly. Plus all they do is glower and have affairs.
Dinger: Says the lady from Human Rights Management.
Larissa: I was born and raised there, but I am not one of them.
Hellman: You're a HRM clone?!
Larissa: Do you even know what the word "humor" means?
Dinger: You've dug your own grave.
Hellman: Those jars that the clones go into at night, what is that goopy stuff?
Larissa: Discharge.
Hellman: Oh my god.
Dinger: Now you'll never convince him otherwise.
Larissa: But now he'll stop hitting on me.
Hellman: I *am* still in the room.
Larissa: Women clones are so clever, they know how to make men leave them alone.
Dinger: If I expelled goop from my pores every night, I would hope I could keep away unwanted attention.
Grace: Guys? I can't get any outside contact.
Dinger: Oh god, what now?
Grace: I'm not sure. I'm cut off.
Dinger: Go outside and see what's up. Hellman, don't you kind of know stasis fields?
Hellman: Yeah. Fine, I'll do it, Dinger.
Dinger: Go with her and check it out.
[Hellman and Grace leave. A long silence between Larissa and Dinger.]
Dinger: So are you a clone?
Larissa: Why do I even like men, really?
Dinger: Start dating Orithal men.
Larissa: Aren't those the ones with the hyper-intelligent men and the women that look and act like toasters?
Dinger: Yes.
Larissa: I'd prefer to date a species who doesn't think of women as a kitchen appliance.
Dinger: You should look up to see if we're biologically compatible with them.
Larissa: I don't think I'm warm or sedentary enough. Besides, I'd have to talk to the HSWA department. They're a creepy bunch.
Dinger: I wonder if we can convince Hellman to transfer himself over there.
Larissa: He can't even get a human girl, much less willing scientific specimens.
Dinger: It's for the betterment of human-alien relations.
Larissa: It's to see which species will stick a barb through Hellman's heart the fastest.
Dinger: Just because there's side effects doesn't mean they're unwanted.
[Hellman and Grace enter]
Hellman: You were talking about me.
Dinger: What's going on?
Hellman: I can tell, you were talking about me.
Larissa: When you're out of the room we try and think of the best ways in which you will die. Mostly Dinger.
Hellman: You do that when I'm in the room too.
Larissa: It's an addictive pastime.
Dinger: What's going on?
Hellman: The office both exists and doesn't exist.
Grace: It's encompassed the entire building, but it's sectioned off across each floor. So we're blocked off from the rest of them.
Hellman: We're here and not here, that would be called--
Dinger: Do we have any sensory equipment?
Grace: The SHRO office has some basic detection machines in the back.
Hellman: So then basically--
Dinger: Maybe some manuals and references too.
Hellman: Are you going to let me--
Dinger: No, you've been sitting on that joke for so long it smells bad. I want an internal time clock running so we still get paid.
Hellman: I'm going to say it.
Dinger: I swear to god.
Hellman: It's almost like SHRO-Dinger's job.
[silence.]
Dinger: Grace, check the machines in the back and try and get a wavelength. If you can, ride it and Morse code out a message. Larissa, tape together some paper and make a sign, put it in the window; we might get lucky. Hellman, I'll kill you.
Larissa: Okay.
Grace: Yes.
[Larissa and Grace leave. Dinger walks over to Hellman's desk and presses a button under the table. Prolonged silence.]
Hellman: Why don't you like me?
Dinger: Do you really want to ask me that now?
Hellman: Why not?
Dinger: After you just farted out the world's worst pun and we're stuck in an existence field?
Hellman: Seems like the proper time.
Dinger: [after a pause] Because I do your job and I still get paid less than you.
Hellman: I know that.
Dinger: Then why does nothing ever change?
Hellman: Because it can't.
Dinger: When I was hired, I thought I'd be here or there. Now I'm neither. I'm not just another worker. And yet, I'm not running the joint either. I should have been hired to replace you.
Hellman: You were.
Dinger: [pause] Oh yeah?
Hellman: I convinced them to let me stay.
Dinger: Why?
Hellman: This is all I have left. [pause.] I have space cancer.
Dinger: Is that...is that a real thing?
Hellman: Yeah. [pause.] I have cancer, but it's not in me, it's in space. But I do have it. And no department will hire me on for it, because of the health benefits and stuff. None of the health plans have enough money to go up there and shoot the cancer down, so either someone accidentally destroys it or I die. But this job is all I have.
Dinger: Then why don't you do anything?
Hellman: It's kind of hard to concentrate on work when you're liable to die or be cured at any moment. Besides, it's good that you're running the place. You'll get my job soon enough. It wouldn't be fair if I ran it all and then disappeared.
[prolonged silence. Dinger eventually moves over to Hellman and shakes his hand.]
Hellman: Here come the women.
Dinger: Famous last words if I ever heard them.
Hellman: I still think Larissa is a clone.
Dinger: So do I.
[Grace and Larissa return]
Grace: The field is down. We're back in existence.
Dinger: That's nice. Who was behind the--oh never mind. [rubs his face] You know what? Let's go get lunch early. All of us. Together.
Larissa: Wait, really? but don't we have appointments and--
Dinger: Trauma. Existential crisis. Come on, let's go.
[Grace and Larissa exit, Dinger is about to go with them but turns to Hellman.]
Dinger: You coming?
Hellman: [rummaging on desk] I'll be with you in a bit, I need to check something.
Dinger: Cool, we'll see you there.
[Dinger exists. Hellman watches him leave, and then waits. He picks up his phone and dials a number.]
Hellman: Hey. Yeah, it worked great. Listen, can you get another one of those fields working for me? Yeah...I've got a date at February's down on Lacie Avenue. Eight o'clock tomorrow. Awesome. Yeah, it worked really well. Thanks, bye. [hangs up phone, exit, blackout]
a play by me cuz I'm cool
Grace: secretary of the office
Dinger: office maintainer, ends up doing all the work
Hellman: chair of the department, useless
Larissa: representative of Human Rights Management
[Set: a standard office, four desks, phones on two of them. Various papers and folders are scattered about on them. Scene opens on Grace, Hellman and Larissa. Phone rings, Grace answers.]
Grace: Hello, this is SHRO, how may I help you? You have a...a what? [beings writing] Okay. Got it. We'll get back to you. [hangs up] Larissa, this seems like your department. A cow has gone missing every night for the past two months in Alabama. Same farm, over and over again.
Larissa: What do they want? Compensation?
Grace: Not sure. I'll get back to you. Just a heads up.
Larissa: Thanks Grace.
[Dinger enters]
Dinger: Larissa, did you get back to those guys caught in the black hole?
Larissa: No, I'll get on it. [picks up phone, dials, waits.] Hi, this is Ms. Krumpich from Space-Human Relations Office? Yes, hi. Yes, can we get the paperwork filled out for a technological advancement for the two young men stuck in the black hole for three years? Yes, yes, they fell in. Legal hasn't figured out if it was accidental or stupidity. Well, if you send me the-- [pause] Yes, but if you can just-- [pause, and then very quickly and loudly] If you send me the paperwork I'll take care of it. Yes. Thank you. Yes. Bye. Yup. Bye. [hangs up phone] Can I never talk to those people again?
Hellman: Well, they're mind readers, aren't they? So, I mean, sure.
Larissa: Shut up Hellman.
Dinger: Hellman, get the administrative work done. If the power goes out again I'll throw you out the window.
Hellman: I'm in charge here and--
Dinger: Do you think the electric heating gods will accept the department chair's apparent suicide as sacrifice?
Hellman: Appeasement is a fickle goal.
Dinger: What do you have for me, Grace?
Grace: I just got a call. Some woman in Alabama keeps losing cows.
Dinger: Is is the Glipherophs?
Grace: We don't have many reports yet.
Hellman: If it returns with a probe up its butt, we know who to call.
Dinger: Shut up, Hellman. [Hellman turns away, Dinger thumbs up at Grace]
Grace: We got a call from the Time Travel people. George apparently said in '72 that you should talk to your wife more often.
Dinger: Do we have a log of it before this?
Grace: No sir.
Dinger: George needs to stop talking to my wife.
Larissa: Be careful when dealing with him.
Dinger: I know.
Larissa: Last time he was talking to someone's wife, it turned out they had been having an affair for months even though they hadn't.
Dinger: God, why can't they find another oracle. I'll live to regret talking to him at all.
Hellman: You'll have lived to regret what you will haven't done.
Dinger: I wished he worked here so he would feel the pain I feel.
Grace: Do we want to follow up?
Dinger: No. But if he puts any more nonsense into the old prophecies about my marital life, Larissa, are you listening? If he does that again I want to get some lottery numbers for compensation.
Larissa: Got it. Though can Kiffkoffs even--
Dinger: Doesn't matter. Next.
Grace: A planet of Tralfamadorians passed away from a thing.
Hellman: A thing?
Grace: I'm an expert but there are words even I can't pronounce sometimes.
Dinger: A disease or a...
Grace: A computer virus made corporal.
Dinger: So it goes. I'd take them over a Kiffkoff any day. At least Tralfamadorians don't mess with the time stream.
Grace: Any action?
Dinger: Get the press secretary to say a few words, maybe we can get the executive branch to send their relatives a pen. They'll see it coming, but they'll like it.
Larissa: Technically don't they already know that a planet will die? So are they even mourning?
Hellman: It's more for appearances.
Dinger: It's just a pen. It's more about showing that we care.
Larissa: Do we?
Dinger: Not really.
Hellman: I do.
Dinger: Is that electrical bill form filled out yet?
Hellman: Yes.
Dinger: Is it?
Hellman: Yes.
[stare down between them]
Hellman: No.
Dinger: Larissa, does your office deal with human-on-human issues?
Larissa: No, just human-on-alien.
Dinger: Good. See, Hellman? None of those people are here. I can do what I want.
Grace: We might have a visitor from General Space Hospital. So avoid leaving dead bodies around.
Larissa: Ugh, those people are so dramatic. "Oh, hey, look, my zero gravity extends even when I'm on Earth, life's so hard."
Hellman: Marshmallows are better in zero-g. The most fluffy thing I've ever eaten.
Larissa: See? Exactly. Plus all they do is glower and have affairs.
Dinger: Says the lady from Human Rights Management.
Larissa: I was born and raised there, but I am not one of them.
Hellman: You're a HRM clone?!
Larissa: Do you even know what the word "humor" means?
Dinger: You've dug your own grave.
Hellman: Those jars that the clones go into at night, what is that goopy stuff?
Larissa: Discharge.
Hellman: Oh my god.
Dinger: Now you'll never convince him otherwise.
Larissa: But now he'll stop hitting on me.
Hellman: I *am* still in the room.
Larissa: Women clones are so clever, they know how to make men leave them alone.
Dinger: If I expelled goop from my pores every night, I would hope I could keep away unwanted attention.
Grace: Guys? I can't get any outside contact.
Dinger: Oh god, what now?
Grace: I'm not sure. I'm cut off.
Dinger: Go outside and see what's up. Hellman, don't you kind of know stasis fields?
Hellman: Yeah. Fine, I'll do it, Dinger.
Dinger: Go with her and check it out.
[Hellman and Grace leave. A long silence between Larissa and Dinger.]
Dinger: So are you a clone?
Larissa: Why do I even like men, really?
Dinger: Start dating Orithal men.
Larissa: Aren't those the ones with the hyper-intelligent men and the women that look and act like toasters?
Dinger: Yes.
Larissa: I'd prefer to date a species who doesn't think of women as a kitchen appliance.
Dinger: You should look up to see if we're biologically compatible with them.
Larissa: I don't think I'm warm or sedentary enough. Besides, I'd have to talk to the HSWA department. They're a creepy bunch.
Dinger: I wonder if we can convince Hellman to transfer himself over there.
Larissa: He can't even get a human girl, much less willing scientific specimens.
Dinger: It's for the betterment of human-alien relations.
Larissa: It's to see which species will stick a barb through Hellman's heart the fastest.
Dinger: Just because there's side effects doesn't mean they're unwanted.
[Hellman and Grace enter]
Hellman: You were talking about me.
Dinger: What's going on?
Hellman: I can tell, you were talking about me.
Larissa: When you're out of the room we try and think of the best ways in which you will die. Mostly Dinger.
Hellman: You do that when I'm in the room too.
Larissa: It's an addictive pastime.
Dinger: What's going on?
Hellman: The office both exists and doesn't exist.
Grace: It's encompassed the entire building, but it's sectioned off across each floor. So we're blocked off from the rest of them.
Hellman: We're here and not here, that would be called--
Dinger: Do we have any sensory equipment?
Grace: The SHRO office has some basic detection machines in the back.
Hellman: So then basically--
Dinger: Maybe some manuals and references too.
Hellman: Are you going to let me--
Dinger: No, you've been sitting on that joke for so long it smells bad. I want an internal time clock running so we still get paid.
Hellman: I'm going to say it.
Dinger: I swear to god.
Hellman: It's almost like SHRO-Dinger's job.
[silence.]
Dinger: Grace, check the machines in the back and try and get a wavelength. If you can, ride it and Morse code out a message. Larissa, tape together some paper and make a sign, put it in the window; we might get lucky. Hellman, I'll kill you.
Larissa: Okay.
Grace: Yes.
[Larissa and Grace leave. Dinger walks over to Hellman's desk and presses a button under the table. Prolonged silence.]
Hellman: Why don't you like me?
Dinger: Do you really want to ask me that now?
Hellman: Why not?
Dinger: After you just farted out the world's worst pun and we're stuck in an existence field?
Hellman: Seems like the proper time.
Dinger: [after a pause] Because I do your job and I still get paid less than you.
Hellman: I know that.
Dinger: Then why does nothing ever change?
Hellman: Because it can't.
Dinger: When I was hired, I thought I'd be here or there. Now I'm neither. I'm not just another worker. And yet, I'm not running the joint either. I should have been hired to replace you.
Hellman: You were.
Dinger: [pause] Oh yeah?
Hellman: I convinced them to let me stay.
Dinger: Why?
Hellman: This is all I have left. [pause.] I have space cancer.
Dinger: Is that...is that a real thing?
Hellman: Yeah. [pause.] I have cancer, but it's not in me, it's in space. But I do have it. And no department will hire me on for it, because of the health benefits and stuff. None of the health plans have enough money to go up there and shoot the cancer down, so either someone accidentally destroys it or I die. But this job is all I have.
Dinger: Then why don't you do anything?
Hellman: It's kind of hard to concentrate on work when you're liable to die or be cured at any moment. Besides, it's good that you're running the place. You'll get my job soon enough. It wouldn't be fair if I ran it all and then disappeared.
[prolonged silence. Dinger eventually moves over to Hellman and shakes his hand.]
Hellman: Here come the women.
Dinger: Famous last words if I ever heard them.
Hellman: I still think Larissa is a clone.
Dinger: So do I.
[Grace and Larissa return]
Grace: The field is down. We're back in existence.
Dinger: That's nice. Who was behind the--oh never mind. [rubs his face] You know what? Let's go get lunch early. All of us. Together.
Larissa: Wait, really? but don't we have appointments and--
Dinger: Trauma. Existential crisis. Come on, let's go.
[Grace and Larissa exit, Dinger is about to go with them but turns to Hellman.]
Dinger: You coming?
Hellman: [rummaging on desk] I'll be with you in a bit, I need to check something.
Dinger: Cool, we'll see you there.
[Dinger exists. Hellman watches him leave, and then waits. He picks up his phone and dials a number.]
Hellman: Hey. Yeah, it worked great. Listen, can you get another one of those fields working for me? Yeah...I've got a date at February's down on Lacie Avenue. Eight o'clock tomorrow. Awesome. Yeah, it worked really well. Thanks, bye. [hangs up phone, exit, blackout]
Friday, February 8, 2013
I Think I Already Called A Blog "People" And This Is A Cop-out
There's a multitude of reasons why I think "The Game" is bullshit, but the greatest of them all is largely because the quiet people are more interesting. The guy with the large fuzzy pink hat and Barney branded suspenders is the one I trust the most, because he actively wants to be seen. Besides, he's so memorable I can see him once and I'll never have to see him again, and while I'm frustrated that his dumb memory battering ram was successful, I can rest safely with the knowledge that on my personal radar of my surroundings, this sex-seeking missile has no compunctions about being a massive, all-encompassing dot.
It's the people in the corner, watching, waiting. They're the ones I want to know more about. They're the ones who go underwater, like a submarine, and if you try to board them they crawl even deeper into the depths and you never get any penetration. Ha ha, guffaw sex joke. No, but seriously, I was talking about the submarine. You know how submarines don't show up on radar? Well, also in real life. It's almost like I picked this simile because I know what I'm doing, even though we both know that isn't the case at all. This entire paragraph was just me congratulating myself on how good of a writer I am. Gold star.
Quiet people are better because it allows me to fill in the gaps with my own imagination, and it can change over time. Sure, maybe all I know about you is that you wear sweatpants on Friday. But that doesn't mean that I haven't already (to use a piece of gross internet vocabulary here) "shipped us" together with a long, flowing narrative about how your lazy Fridays make the sex better. Consequently, if you do something that terrifies me, like eat a burrito in a single bite, I can rest assured in my imagined escapades that you were an alien princess all along and it was that much better that I never instigated a connection, lest I find myself the main character in a cheesy but still life threatening adventure that hilariously resembles The Last Starfighter.*
A common nugget of terribleness I often find my female friends operating under involves a lurid, passionate romance between a generic "insert yourself here" damsel partnered with a strong, buff man, who also happens to be evil. A minor detail, I'm sure. The major fixation of this plot involves the crucial and generally incorrect words "but I can change him," and next thing you know the strong, buff man is not only professing his love, but isn't evil anymore. This baffling trope of fiction is widespread and goddawful, which is why it's so incredible when people actually think that it happens and that it can happen to them.
And yet I find myself thinking it when faced with a locked door of a woman, saying, "but I could unlock and make her open up and" GODDAMN why am I making all of these sex jokes, my blog is trying to tell me something "then she'll be able to still be a quiet person, but only I will see her soul." What will I find behind the locked door? A villain? A damsel who thinks I'm evil and only wishes to change me? I'm not evil, I'm just misunderstood. And horny, apparently. But then it could also be an alien princess, which is why I tend not to talk to people.
It's the villain that matters the most, which is why my radar of the situation is so important. The people who don't want to be seen or noticed are the ones I trust the least. What sort of nefarious nefarity can you accomplish while I am in your vicinity? And if you're hot, can I change you to be good? No, but a man can daydream about it for a while while staring at you with a line of drool extending from his mouth to the table. We all entertain ourselves in special ways.
*Plot hole: I am terrible at video games. Don't let that kill the dream.
It's the people in the corner, watching, waiting. They're the ones I want to know more about. They're the ones who go underwater, like a submarine, and if you try to board them they crawl even deeper into the depths and you never get any penetration. Ha ha, guffaw sex joke. No, but seriously, I was talking about the submarine. You know how submarines don't show up on radar? Well, also in real life. It's almost like I picked this simile because I know what I'm doing, even though we both know that isn't the case at all. This entire paragraph was just me congratulating myself on how good of a writer I am. Gold star.
Quiet people are better because it allows me to fill in the gaps with my own imagination, and it can change over time. Sure, maybe all I know about you is that you wear sweatpants on Friday. But that doesn't mean that I haven't already (to use a piece of gross internet vocabulary here) "shipped us" together with a long, flowing narrative about how your lazy Fridays make the sex better. Consequently, if you do something that terrifies me, like eat a burrito in a single bite, I can rest assured in my imagined escapades that you were an alien princess all along and it was that much better that I never instigated a connection, lest I find myself the main character in a cheesy but still life threatening adventure that hilariously resembles The Last Starfighter.*
A common nugget of terribleness I often find my female friends operating under involves a lurid, passionate romance between a generic "insert yourself here" damsel partnered with a strong, buff man, who also happens to be evil. A minor detail, I'm sure. The major fixation of this plot involves the crucial and generally incorrect words "but I can change him," and next thing you know the strong, buff man is not only professing his love, but isn't evil anymore. This baffling trope of fiction is widespread and goddawful, which is why it's so incredible when people actually think that it happens and that it can happen to them.
And yet I find myself thinking it when faced with a locked door of a woman, saying, "but I could unlock and make her open up and" GODDAMN why am I making all of these sex jokes, my blog is trying to tell me something "then she'll be able to still be a quiet person, but only I will see her soul." What will I find behind the locked door? A villain? A damsel who thinks I'm evil and only wishes to change me? I'm not evil, I'm just misunderstood. And horny, apparently. But then it could also be an alien princess, which is why I tend not to talk to people.
It's the villain that matters the most, which is why my radar of the situation is so important. The people who don't want to be seen or noticed are the ones I trust the least. What sort of nefarious nefarity can you accomplish while I am in your vicinity? And if you're hot, can I change you to be good? No, but a man can daydream about it for a while while staring at you with a line of drool extending from his mouth to the table. We all entertain ourselves in special ways.
*Plot hole: I am terrible at video games. Don't let that kill the dream.
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Reviews after Sick Period, Part 2
I was once again riddled with something resembling an affliction. Blah blah frickin blah. Did you know that this is the first blog post that was typed on Linux in a very long time? Booyah.
Love
Noodley sci-fi. A man in a space station starts tripping. It's probably aliens. Very 2001, so if you didn't have the patience for that, you won't have it for this. The civil-war period warfare was shot with too much slow-mo, everything else was very well done for such a small budget. Apparently produced by some punk rock band who made the song on the credits.
Mission Impossible III
I like the MI series because they're exciting and act as good visual stimuli to figure out whether or not I am experiencing nausea or vertigo while sick. I was not this time. JJ Abrams directed this one, and it has his grubby, lens-flaring fingerprints all over it. He does a great job at making the action frantic and insanely tense, while still keeping the audience in time with where everybody is and what they're doing. The plot is coherent, the bad guy is evil as shit, the stunts are impressive and the CGI is awesome. What more do you want?
Battlestar Galactica
That's not a movie, that's a TV show. I watched the first two hours. It's not bad. If I run out of sci-fi, I'll watch it. The CGI wasn't as good as I thought it looked on the trailers, but the characters are good and the plot is interesting. It's very good at getting you invested quickly, and juggles multiple plotlines well. Kinds of doles out info on the evil robot oppressors pretty slowly though.
Jurassic Park
Clever girl. Now I'm by myself...talking to myself. I will quote this movie for the rest of my life. I must say, Jeff Goldblum should be in every movie, because I wouldn't have liked this movie by half if he hadn't been here being weird and snide. The CGI holds up really well, somehow, and the tension is well orchestrated. A bit too much music in the background, but good family horror/adventure. Also, it's a Unix system!
Independence Day
WE WILL NOT GO QUIETLY INTO THE NIGHT! I don't think this movie needed to be two and a half hours long, but it was fun 90's blockbuster. I miss when screenwriters randomly inserted a cartoon character into the scene, like the scientist at Area 51. The CGI looked really good, though the walls of fire were kind of off. Also had a bit too much music, but everything else was just fine.
Lockout
The trailers made the CGI look better. The main character was an amusing asshole. The rest was dull. The best part was the opening studio sequence for Film District, whose slick CGI zip-through is always a delight.
Coraline
An amazing return to the days when Disney made horror movies for kids, but using the fantastic stop-motion that trumps anything traditional animation could have done. The art design is great and expressive, and the plot is creepy, endearing, and satisfying. This is the movie I always wanted out of the Tim Burton hype, but never got. I continue to grow as a fan of Neil Gaiman.
Escape from New York
Low-budget 80's cheeseball. Kurt Russell as Snake Pliskin, the hardest of the hard. He has an eye patch, that's how you know. Fans of Metal Gear Solid will enjoy the stuff Kojima ripped from this movie verbatim, and it's hard to not enjoy the beginning chirps of the cyberpunk genre. I really liked this movie; it doesn't take itself too seriously, but it also doesn't bother noticing either.
Foundation and Empire
That's not a movie, that's a book. Indeed. It's a quick read, but the ongoing saga of Seldon's foundation continues to delight. Epic space battles, heightened emotional debates, dramatic reveals. Top of the line space adventure. Lacks tension, but that's the case with most early sci-fi.
Love
Noodley sci-fi. A man in a space station starts tripping. It's probably aliens. Very 2001, so if you didn't have the patience for that, you won't have it for this. The civil-war period warfare was shot with too much slow-mo, everything else was very well done for such a small budget. Apparently produced by some punk rock band who made the song on the credits.
Mission Impossible III
I like the MI series because they're exciting and act as good visual stimuli to figure out whether or not I am experiencing nausea or vertigo while sick. I was not this time. JJ Abrams directed this one, and it has his grubby, lens-flaring fingerprints all over it. He does a great job at making the action frantic and insanely tense, while still keeping the audience in time with where everybody is and what they're doing. The plot is coherent, the bad guy is evil as shit, the stunts are impressive and the CGI is awesome. What more do you want?
Battlestar Galactica
That's not a movie, that's a TV show. I watched the first two hours. It's not bad. If I run out of sci-fi, I'll watch it. The CGI wasn't as good as I thought it looked on the trailers, but the characters are good and the plot is interesting. It's very good at getting you invested quickly, and juggles multiple plotlines well. Kinds of doles out info on the evil robot oppressors pretty slowly though.
Jurassic Park
Clever girl. Now I'm by myself...talking to myself. I will quote this movie for the rest of my life. I must say, Jeff Goldblum should be in every movie, because I wouldn't have liked this movie by half if he hadn't been here being weird and snide. The CGI holds up really well, somehow, and the tension is well orchestrated. A bit too much music in the background, but good family horror/adventure. Also, it's a Unix system!
Independence Day
WE WILL NOT GO QUIETLY INTO THE NIGHT! I don't think this movie needed to be two and a half hours long, but it was fun 90's blockbuster. I miss when screenwriters randomly inserted a cartoon character into the scene, like the scientist at Area 51. The CGI looked really good, though the walls of fire were kind of off. Also had a bit too much music, but everything else was just fine.
Lockout
The trailers made the CGI look better. The main character was an amusing asshole. The rest was dull. The best part was the opening studio sequence for Film District, whose slick CGI zip-through is always a delight.
Coraline
An amazing return to the days when Disney made horror movies for kids, but using the fantastic stop-motion that trumps anything traditional animation could have done. The art design is great and expressive, and the plot is creepy, endearing, and satisfying. This is the movie I always wanted out of the Tim Burton hype, but never got. I continue to grow as a fan of Neil Gaiman.
Escape from New York
Low-budget 80's cheeseball. Kurt Russell as Snake Pliskin, the hardest of the hard. He has an eye patch, that's how you know. Fans of Metal Gear Solid will enjoy the stuff Kojima ripped from this movie verbatim, and it's hard to not enjoy the beginning chirps of the cyberpunk genre. I really liked this movie; it doesn't take itself too seriously, but it also doesn't bother noticing either.
Foundation and Empire
That's not a movie, that's a book. Indeed. It's a quick read, but the ongoing saga of Seldon's foundation continues to delight. Epic space battles, heightened emotional debates, dramatic reveals. Top of the line space adventure. Lacks tension, but that's the case with most early sci-fi.
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