tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-47330927981530360822024-02-19T01:34:10.053-08:00Brain HealComputer games and life, in that order.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09391771543846437234noreply@blogger.comBlogger29125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4733092798153036082.post-91468680379570533382012-05-08T22:21:00.000-07:002012-05-08T22:21:26.834-07:00Wandering offI am going to experiment with the Dark Side - you can now follow me at <a href="http://dolbia.tumblr.com/">http://dolbia.tumblr.com</a> <br />
<br />
If it all goes horribly wrong I may come crawling back here. We'll see. Thanks for your patronage.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09391771543846437234noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4733092798153036082.post-75493954679006976902012-03-22T19:45:00.001-07:002012-03-22T19:45:12.420-07:00Nathan Lane’s eyebrows<p>You may be familiar with the actor Nathan Lane from The Birdcage or The Producers, or from his recent guest spots on <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1627443/">Modern Family</a>. He voiced Timon the <a href="http://comparethemeerkat.com/">meerkat</a> in the Lion King franchise. </p> <p>He’s in possession of an incredible pair of eyebrows. </p> <p><a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2007/05/incharacter200705"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="NathanLane" border="0" alt="NathanLane" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh81L5MtEVo32jIzBZHn2B8Y3nLX_zZaBfJuxkFTghZmmBYI4odkgP1ZE-46biQj1LqfOq4AFt7TCdDnNx7vbujjw3VBU3zHg7i5qU_W3UT4Y42BvmM9V0Ikt3xj3QYcLWiemtQ5pgmFiM/?imgmax=800" width="467" height="307"></a></p> <p>The right and center photos reflect fairly common eyebrow positions - “normal” and “raised”. But the photo on the left features the Nathan Lane trademark eyebrow expression. The left eyebrow arches up and forward, while the right one dips inwards, giving a plaintive effect that would melt the coldest heart. (Melting hearts would be an awesome supervillain power, incidentally.)</p> <p>If I had eyebrows like Mr. Lane’s, I might go for days without speaking, communicating only through eyebrow expressions. </p> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09391771543846437234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4733092798153036082.post-54627713890395939552012-03-15T00:02:00.001-07:002012-03-15T00:30:52.059-07:00What’s the difference between lying and make believe?<p>I say a lot of things that aren’t true. For example, I wouldn’t really prefer <a href="http://dolbiasbrainheal.blogspot.com/2011/07/i-am-done-with-diet-pepsi.html">drinking laundry detergent to Diet Pepsi.</a> But recently, a friend of mine introduced me as “Jez, the source of all lies,” and that got me thinking. Where is the line between a joke and a lie? </p> <h3>Why are you even thinking about this?</h3> <p>Once upon a time, when I were just a lad, I was in the next door neighbor’ s back garden. They had a climbing frame which they were giving us, and I was there for a test drive. As I climbed up on it, the neighbor lady (who was a child psychologist) was chatting to me about something or other. On my way down, she waited until I was on the bottom rung of the ladder, and then asked me the question in the title of the post. I lost myself in thought so rapidly that I fell off the frame and broke my arm, which then took my mind off lying fairly rapidly. </p> <p>Nowadays there are three kinds of falsehoods I enjoy sharing, but I never considered lies. I’ve been including common-or-garden sarcasm into my repertoire for a while now, and it always makes me feel a bit smug that I saw the opportunity. I also enjoy exaggeration for comic effect, which I think I probably learned from the television.</p> <p>More recently, I’ve been trying out statements that have no relation to the truth, like claiming that some bottles had spiders living in them, or that I taught Ron Paul to read. I don’t know if there’s a name for this kind of humor, but it’s a way for me to entertain myself using the power of make believe. </p> <h3>Is it really lying?</h3> <p>As I see it, a lie has to have two properties:</p> <ol> <li>It is false.</li> <li>The intent is for the listener to believe that it’s true – usually in order to give some advantage to the liar. </li></ol> <p>Sarcasm is clearly marked as falsehood by tone of voice and its absurdity, so I don’t think it meets the second criterion. Similarly for the exaggeration – no-one really believes that Midori has so many shoes we needed to build an extension to the house for more than a second. </p> <p>But the absurd statements? I’m not expecting to convince anyone, but I am amused by the thought that someone might believe that <a href="http://www.classybritishvoice.com">I’m from Tennessee</a>, or that I was a <a href="http://www.mailorderhusbands.net/order/">mail-order groom</a>, or that I first met my friends by selling them <a href="http://youtu.be/x8dBo-GcrXU">illicit substances</a>. Those few seconds of watching facial expressions as they parse the sentence and think “could he be… no, that’s not possible” make me giggle on the inside. So I suppose those really are lies. Sort of. </p> <p>What do you think? What is it that pushes an untruth into the realm of lies? Am I missing something? Did a philosopher that I’ve heard of but never read have a theory about this?</p> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09391771543846437234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4733092798153036082.post-18024564029223004452012-01-17T10:29:00.001-08:002012-01-17T10:29:12.869-08:00Treatment<p>Now that I’ve <a href="http://dolbiasbrainheal.blogspot.com/2012/01/here-comes-downer.html">broken the seal</a>, the depression words are spilling out.</p> <h3></h3> <h3></h3> <h3>There’s, like, a stigma?</h3> <p>Even amongst people who acknowledge that depression is A Real Thing (as opposed to something you need to just get over), there’s an uneasiness around treating it with medication. People who have never been depressed believe that the first line of treatment should be enhanced diet and exercise, then changes to routine and sleep schedule, then self-help books, then talking therapy, then voodoo, then antidepressants.</p> <p>Now, I’m not saying that lifestyle changes don’t help. But they didn’t get me close to functional – and I had professionals keeping me on track for 6 months. Without support, and without fairly immediate results, it’s not really feasible for someone who’s severely depressed to take on these kinds of changes. When you’re barely coping with life as it is, how do you fit in 5 hours a week of cardio?</p> <p>Part of the problem is a misconception that antidepressants are “happy pills” which replace all genuine emotion with unspecified elation, and so taking them really just avoids the problem. This couldn’t be more wrong. If people want to feel good regardless of what’s happening in their lives, they <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocaine">have</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroin">options</a> – we go to doctors to feel <strong>normal</strong> again. Antidepressants don’t replace real feelings – they enable them in a person who would otherwise just see grey.</p> <p>There’s also concerns about the effectiveness of some antidepressants (most notably the SSRIs, which have never worked for me but do for some other people) as well as generic fears of Big Pharma. No fears of Big Diet and Big Exercise, I would note. </p> <h3>Me and my meds</h3> <p>It wasn’t easy to find meds that work for me. I am currently on a cocktail of 3 different drugs (an antidepressant, a stimulant, and an anticonvulsant, for some reason) which get me out of bed in the morning and let me taste food. It took YEARS to find this combination, and it’s changed my life. </p> <p>For a long time, each new treatment I tried worked for a while and then stopped. For medication, the pattern usually went something like this: </p> <ul> <li>One month to build up to a therapeutic dose. <li>Two months of things working out pretty well. <li>One month where it starts dropping off. I understand that people have good times and bad times, and put it down to bad times, and give things a chance to clear up on their own. <li>One month where I stop being able to function. I miss work, can’t socialize, and otherwise exhibit full-on depression. <li>One month to taper off the drug; and the cycle starts with the next one.</li></ul> <p>Throughout this I’d have ups and downs at work and in my personal life, making commitments when things were going well that I’d break when they weren’t. </p> <p>The current regime has been working for about 9 months now. Let’s hope there isn’t a next one.<!--EndFragment--></p> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09391771543846437234noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4733092798153036082.post-8698314628595322952012-01-16T14:44:00.000-08:002012-01-16T15:23:03.495-08:00Here comes the downer...This blog is called Brain Heal for two reasons.<br />
<br />
The first is a reference to the nickname of a healing spell in World of Warcraft that doesn’t require a lot of thought to use. I was planning on posting a lot about WoW, so having a reference to it would be relevant.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEUg_0R_aEWl7jerad4rtp9y-AxbrbHsQE2FRjPEboH6GzJY2_aCpPs6Sm3GQpsBIeijRJywRBSypVaxFkZKDMESwW4jqFCJ9g3l70jSzzFjwe8bgeGwHiy-fh3LUVyR0jqopDHb_CY4Y/s1600/depressed.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEUg_0R_aEWl7jerad4rtp9y-AxbrbHsQE2FRjPEboH6GzJY2_aCpPs6Sm3GQpsBIeijRJywRBSypVaxFkZKDMESwW4jqFCJ9g3l70jSzzFjwe8bgeGwHiy-fh3LUVyR0jqopDHb_CY4Y/s320/depressed.JPG" width="281" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Every picture of "depression" on the internet is of a<br />
person in this pose.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The second is a reference to my own mental health, which is not always good. I was also planning to post about my experiences, my challenges, and the treatments that have worked for me. I put it off for a long time – in part because it’s kind of a downer for me to think about, as well as for anyone to read. I’d much rather be sarcastic about people on the internet – that lets me feel like I’m better than them.<br />
<br />
But then I saw <a href="http://freethoughtblogs.com/wwjtd/2011/11/25/why-the-skeptic-community-must-convern-itself-with-mental-illness/">this video</a>, and read the accompanying post. It’s focused on people in the skeptic/atheist communities, but the call for people who have struggled with mental illness to speak out and let others know that they aren’t alone is universal. It's the only way we can change the culture that believes that the only cure for depression is to "just get over it."<br />
<br />
I'm still going to post more about what I've been through, but I want to get this out there while I'm stalling:<br />
<br />
<strong>I have suffered from depression off and on for much of my childhood, and my entire adult life. I am on a drug regime that is keeping me functional. And it's time for me to start talking about it.</strong><br />
<br />
If you enjoyed this post, please share it with your friends using the buttons below, and/or leave a comment telling me why I'm wrong about everything there is.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09391771543846437234noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4733092798153036082.post-5247202078031822852012-01-09T01:48:00.001-08:002012-01-09T14:03:46.651-08:00Third life crisisI am 28 years old.<br />
<br />
I own a <a href="http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/15280-NE-15th-Pl-APT-C-Bellevue-WA-98007/83230711_zpid/">house</a> and a <a href="http://www.edmunds.com/suzuki/aerio/2002/">car</a>. I pay bills for electricity, water and sewer, sewer capacity charge*, cable internet and television, voice over IP phone, mobile phone, rubbish collection, mortgage, property tax, and homeowner’s association dues. They are all automated except for the water bill and the capacity charge. If I forget to pay the water bill, the city will cut off my water. I don’t know what they will do if I forget to pay the capacity charge.<br />
I have been in the workforce for longer than I was at university. I have been a Subject Matter Expert in three technical areas. I have presented on one of those subjects to an audience of 200. I have trained my colleagues in my areas of expertise. <br />
I have been in the same relationship for 2/3 of the time since I became sexually active, and married for half of that time. In the past 6 years, the longest we have spent without seeing each other is 2 days. I cannot imagine how I would live without her. <br />
<br />
I am 28 years old. <br />
<br />
Most of the “books” I read are <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellblazer">comics about wizards</a>. Many of the non-comic books feature <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Slaughterhouse-Five-Novel-Kurt-Vonnegut/dp/0385333846/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1326101164&sr=8-1">people who believe they have been abducted by aliens</a>, or <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Perdido-Street-Station-China-Mieville/dp/0345459407/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1326101193&sr=1-1">pan-dimensional spiders</a>. <br />
Today I spent 4 hours virtually <a href="http://store.steampowered.com/app/18500/?snr=1_7_suggest__13">positioning guns to shoot aliens</a>, preventing them from stealing my stuff. After the first 3 hours, I discovered a sneaky trick which made it a whole lot harder for the aliens to steal my stuff. This made me feel inordinately pleased with myself. <br />
I spend an obscene amount of time watching television. I wish I could tell myself that it’s some form of high art, but <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon's_Law">90% of what I watch is crud</a>. I wish I could tell myself that it’s a social tool, giving me something to talk with my friends about, but I watch far more TV than any of my friends. I wish I could tell myself that it fulfills a critical role in my relaxation process, but I don’t have a relaxation process.<br />
<br />
I am 28 years old.<br />
<br />
When Seth MacFarlane was my age, Family Guy had been cancelled and renewed. Twice. When Freddie Mercury was my age, he wrote Killer Queen. When Johnny Depp was my age, he had played Edward Scissorhands. When Morgan Freeman was my age, he was an extra. When Jim Morrison was my age, he had been dead for a year. <br />
I don’t have a clue what I want to be doing in 5 years’ time. I’m iffy on what I want to be doing in one year’s time. Not being entirely sure on where the apostrophes were supposed to go in that sentence made me feel uneasy.<br />
I thought of myself as being 15-and-a-bit for years. Then I was 22-and-a-bit. I don’t think I can be 22-and-a-bit any longer. Midori says I’m 40-minus-a-bit.<br />
<br />
I am 28 years old. I am an adult. And I have no idea what that means.<br />
<br />
<br />
*My house is in a new development, so the city had to lay a new sewer pipe. To cover their costs, they charge a fee to residents for the first 10 years.<br />
<br />
If you liked this post, please leave a comment or share it with your friends using the buttons below. If you didn't like this post, please leave a comment or share it with your friends using the buttons below.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09391771543846437234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4733092798153036082.post-16559184589315713122011-12-29T14:52:00.000-08:002011-12-29T14:54:03.877-08:00Be like me, buy a flail!A few months ago, <a href="http://store.steampowered.com/app/46560">Robin Hood - the Legend of Sherwood</a> became available on Steam. It's currently on sale for $5. I wrote this email to some friends to express my feelings towards it. While I'm working on some longer posts, I thought I'd share it with a slightly wider audience.<br />
<br />
This is a fantastic game, as in the best game EVAR. It was released in 2002 so will run on most hardware that's available today. The story is engaging (if a bit familiar), the control is intuitive, the characters are personable, and the dialogue is funny. <br />
<br />
If you have ever played any kind of game, you will like this game and you should get this game and play it and then you should tell all of your friends so that they can play it. <br />
<br />
This game is better than ice cream. This game will clean your house for you. <br />
<br />
There is a lull in the plot about 80% of the way through. This low point is better than any other game you have ever played. <br />
<br />
If I had to choose between never playing this game again and drinking a can of Diet Pepsi, I would drink the Diet Pepsi. And I hate Diet Pepsi with the heat of a thousand hot wings. <br />
<br />
When you play this game, you will know what it truly means to be alive. On the fourth Thursday of November, you will list this game as one of the things you are thankful for. You will want to thank me for introducing you, but instead of the traditional blow jobs and cocaine, please send money.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09391771543846437234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4733092798153036082.post-34553031640541485052011-12-16T03:18:00.000-08:002011-12-16T03:26:34.413-08:00What's on the internet?I like the internet, because it's where all the things are. Here are some things.<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b>Igor Presnyakov</b></span><br />
Igor arranges music of various styles for solo guitar, and plays it on <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/Iggypres?feature=g-all-u">YouTube</a>. He's doing familiar things in an unfamiliar way, and he's very good at it. He's clearly having a lot of fun in all of his videos, which makes them a joy to watch. [He also writes his own music, but that interests me less.]<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/IeVsHYVoFxY?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
Igor is planning a tour of the US in 2012, and <a href="http://www.igorpresnyakov.com/minitour/">taking suggestions</a> as to which cities to visit. I would like it very much if he were to come to Seattle, because then I could go and see him play live. As such, I'd be grateful to anyone who votes for Seattle. Not <i>eternally</i> grateful. Just for a few months. Shouldn't that be enough?<br />
<br />
While you're on his website, please consider buying his albums. If we want a culture of art and entertainment, we need to pay for it when we can.<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b>Louis C.K.</b></span><br />
Louis is a stand-up comedian and writer. He's had a couple of sitcoms of his own, currently <i>Louie</i> on the FX channel. He combines pithy observations on the human condition with grotesque confessions of his own debasedness. He's one of a few people who I've heard able to articulate the gap between what we know is the right thing to do, and what we actually can be bothered to do; and to point out that the opportunity to be so lazy is only granted to a few humans on Earth, who have done <i>nothing</i> to deserve it.<br />
<br />
Last week Louis recorded a show at the Beacon Theater, which is available on his <a href="http://buy.louisck.net/">website</a> for $5 (via PayPal). The video is DRM-free, so once you have it you can play it anywhere on pretty much any device. The show was an experiment to see whether it would be possible to reach a broad audience without going through traditional channels such as television or DVDs. Within 12 hours of going on sale, the video had made back its costs and started turning a profit.<br />
<br />
Louis's humour is often incredibly tasteless, so if you are easily offended, or moderately easily offended, you may want to steer clear. Otherwise, check him out at the above link. You can also see some of his work on Netflix and Hulu, but I'll let you find it yourself there.<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b>Captain Awkward</b></span><br />
I followed a link to this <a href="http://www.captainawkward.com/">advice column</a>, which tackles personal and work problems for the socially inept. As you may recall, I have <a href="http://dolbiasbrainheal.blogspot.com/2011/08/awkward-and-creepy.html">dabbled</a> in being unable to interact with human beings in my time, so I found the site interesting. There's a perspective that would have been great to see when I was about 15. Who's got the DeLorean keys?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09391771543846437234noreply@blogger.com015280 NE 15th Pl, Bellevue, WA 98007, USA47.598755284818012 -122.15698242187546.919544784818008 -123.420409921875 48.277965784818015 -120.893554921875tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4733092798153036082.post-31773913365714675452011-12-13T02:11:00.001-08:002011-12-13T02:11:23.118-08:00Well, do you like the Muppets?<p>I love the Muppets. Most of my humour is based on the work of <a href="http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Fozzie_Bear">Fozzie Bear</a>. So of course, I went to see the <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1204342/">new film</a> about them. <a href="http://muppet.wikia.com/index.php?title=The_Muppet_Show"><img style="display: inline; float: right" align="right" src="http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20070113044235/muppet/images/thumb/8/8b/Tms-muppets-cast.jpg/299px-Tms-muppets-cast.jpg"></a>And I really enjoyed it. It started a bit slow, but then once they got to the bits with actual Muppets, it was great. In the process of sharing the pleasure with people I’ve met, I’ve had the following conversation about a dozen times:</p> <p>I: Have you seen the new Muppet film?</p> <p>They: No. Is it any good?</p> <p>I: It starts a bit slow, but then… well, do you like the Muppets?</p> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09391771543846437234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4733092798153036082.post-29668206896831630932011-12-12T02:52:00.000-08:002011-12-12T02:52:00.314-08:00OK geeks, stop it.Something I’ve seen a lot of from geeks recently is this sentiment:<br />
<a href="http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/10/28"><img height="616" src="http://art.penny-arcade.com/photos/i-LSSz64B/0/O/i-LSSz64B.jpg" width="507" /></a><br />
<br />
It’s often more aggressive than that, and used to bring adult non-geeks down rather than lift teen geeks up. I'd like to use all of my internet geek community clout (currently measured at 0.3 microwheatons) to stop this. When you see someone who was mean to you at school and now isn't doing so well, just wish them good luck and be on your way.<br />
<br />
The attitude is based on the belief that there are two fundamental kinds of people: geeks and non-geeks. In this model of society, geeks are smart, compassionate, funny, have diverse interests, are a bit physically weedy, and just want to be friends with everyone; non-geeks are dumb, tough, only interested in sports and cigarettes, and bully the geeks mercilessly because we're different. The non-geeks made school miserable for the geeks, but due to their superior brains, the geeks have had success in college and the workplace, leading to money and power. This gives them confidence, which is all they need to make lots of friends, some of whom they may get to see naked. The non-geeks, on the other hand, are relegated to manual labor, or even selling organs. They have fewer friends, and only get to see the less attractive ones naked. Eventually, the geeks will die happy on a pile of Nobel prizes at 90, while the non-geeks perish under a pile of rubble when the shacks they live in collapse.<br />
<br />
When I exaggerate it, it's clearly ridiculous, but the core belief that geeks lost at high school but are righteously winning at adulthood is held fairly broadly. And it's wrong. Here's why:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Geeks aren't uniformly smarter than non-geeks. We like to tell ourselves that we are, because it makes us feel better. But it's not true. Want some evidence? Think of a geeky subject, find a web forum on it, and observe the idiocy of geeks.</li>
<li>Geeks don't necessarily have better jobs than non-geeks. Sure, the unemployment rate is much lower for people with college degrees than it is for those who only graduated high school. But the majority of people who go to college aren't geeks - there just aren't enough geeks for that. The ratio's a bit more tilted than high school, but not a whole lot. It only feels like there are more geeks because you're not being bullied anymore. But then... </li>
<li>Unless you went to a really small school, chances are most of the kids didn't actively bully you there either. A handful of them did, but most of the population had no idea who you were. This isn't because they considered geeks unworthy of their attention, it's just that most people don't really know anyone outside of their immediate circle. They might be able to put a name to a face, maybe they know that you're co-Treasurer of the Action Figure Collecting Club, but they don't really know anything about you. And it's not personal. So when you say things like "haha, now I lay off people like you for fun," you're stepping on a lot of folks who did NOTHING to you. [Disclaimer: I'm not saying that bullying is OK. What I am saying is that as a teenager, a dozen bullies can feel like hundreds. And that in hindsight, we should be able to recognize that.]</li>
<li>Geeks aren't as compassionate as we like to think we are. I can only speak for myself, but I've been thinking back to my school days and I wasn't always as pleasant and charming as I am now. I was frequently oblivious to the people around me, which led to about 90% of the grief I got from my classmates. I wasn't any worse than most of them, but I wasn't much better either. [There's a 30 Rock clip where Liz goes to her high school reunion, and discovers that while she saw her snark as a defense against bullies, the rest of the school were terrified of her saying mean things to them. I would link it but I can't find it anywhere.]</li>
</ul>
<br />
And even when you're talking to someone who really did bully you throughout high school and is now in hard times, while you're much more successful - that should be its own reward, and if you can't be happy without rubbing their noses in it, maybe you haven't come as far since high school as you thought.<br />
<br />
So then what do you say to despondent teen geeks? Just tell them how good your adult geek life is, without bringing up anyone else. If they ask, you tell them that when you're happy with your own life, what happens to someone else <b>doesn't matter</b>.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09391771543846437234noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4733092798153036082.post-40916738191946329452011-08-13T00:04:00.001-07:002011-08-13T00:06:57.763-07:00Awkward and creepy<p>I have had phases of my life when I’ve been incredibly shy and socially awkward, and then phases when I’ve overcompensated and been loud and obnoxious. The past few years, I thought I’d kind of found a sensible middle ground, where I can talk to people without either worrying about how they’ll perceive tiny body language cues that I’m not even aware of, or making them the audience to The Fantastic Dolbia Show. And then there are days like today.</p> <p>I have been going to my current hairdresser for a little over a year, I think. She does cuts and colours and we banter and it’s always been great. I had an appointment today to have my hair done, and it’s little overdue, so I’ve been feeling scruffy. For those of you who have not had their hair dyed by a professional, <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiHMNFY8LlnsR65xnHSaj-q-Ng4OzVmnEorkx_5fQlNFv_UrD7KdxJgYAgSKLBPvK7PYTNX3jFyLHVLwacaW6UUORgLvhzMv15Hyhr69Bgpmm3-ctViU8E28xQZAMDb2qk41AjMvPWQbM/s1600-h/Hair%2525202%252520%2525288-12-2011%25252011-56%252520PM%252529%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: right; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="Les feuilles mortes" border="0" alt="Jez's hair has pretty colours." align="right" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0MTBPM71NPQgfRHL1RYwQa-dhy_xn4tLn3Z77l6Jkp9azqtk8vvVBI7ceIK109UVHuxeKvoSuZPShBI_2RYSEAmVL5uEi_4i3vk9ce23nxGZFa5JCl8hhRIXhZ-JgQJfB2lWW6h5vQwM/?imgmax=800" width="209" height="204"></a>typically they colour it and then cut it, rather than the other way round. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, because it means they’re dyeing hair that’s just going to be cut off and thrown away, but there must be reasons.</p> <p>Today my hairdresser, who I shall call Mandy in order to preserve her identity, started by putting in the dye and foils on the left side of my head, and then spun me round so that I faced away from the mirror while she did the right side. When she turned me back towards it, I saw the ridiculous image of myself in a black smock with a head full of foil. I looked like a volcano that spewed out silver instead of magma. And I said – and this where it all started to go wrong – “I look so pretty today!” Mandy misheard me and said “Thank you! Some people have said!”</p> <p>Now, Mandy <em>was</em> looking cute today, which she always does. She’s curvy and has a couple of facial piercings, and a bright smile. I never say anything, because I’m terrified of sounding really creepy: <em>“You look so pretty today. I want to touch your face.” </em>It would be extra awful if I did something that grossed Mandy out and then she felt she had no choice but to cut my hair for another 45 minutes when she’d really rather be scrubbing her hands. So I never tell her that she looks nice because I don’t want her to see me as “that customer who’s always perving on me” and dread our appointments. So when she thought that I had told her that she looked pretty, I started damage control and said “No sorry, I said that <em>I </em>look so pretty today.”</p> <p>And this is worse, because now I’ve taken back what sounded like a compliment. Shit. And she was OK with the compliment in the first place so if I’d just let it go, it wouldn’t have mattered! But now I’ve implied that she’s not pretty, which is worse than telling her she is. Aaargh! And at this point, I look a bit lower down in the mirror, and I realize that under the smock, I’m tenting my hands in my lap. Which means that there’s a suspicious looking bulge coming from my crotch. </p> <p>And after I’ve collapsed my hands, too much time has passed for me to really say anything without making it worse. Besides which, there’s lots of people around so if I dug myself in even deeper, it would just escalate and escalate. So through the rest of the appointment, I’m contemplating apologizing and ultimately I decide that the moment’s passed and it wasn’t a big deal. Mandy’s still very chatty so I don’t think she’s actually upset. </p> <p>But now 9 hours later, I’m still thinking about it and whether there’s any way to recover now. I could track Mandy down on facebook and send her an apology, but I’m worried that that would only reinforce the creepiness. I could bring a card to my next appointment saying I was sorry, but that’s in 6 weeks and she’ll probably have forgotten by then, so bringing it up again would be weird. </p> <p>But then, is blogging about it any less creepy?</p> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09391771543846437234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4733092798153036082.post-20642343116725314052011-08-05T23:31:00.001-07:002011-08-05T23:31:19.257-07:00Grotesque Tactics: Evil Heroes<p>It’s been a while since I did a game review, which is what this blog is supposed to be about. I’ve been playing <a href="http://store.steampowered.com/app/46450/?snr=1_4_4__13">Grotesque Tactics: Evil Heroes</a>. I was eyeing it on Steam for several months before the Big Sale, and I’m glad I was able to snap it up cheap. I have mixed feelings about it.</p> <p>The gameplay is very simple – you have many characters who run around and smack monsters. When you smack enough monsters, your characters level up and get more powerful. They have special attacks and equipment which you can also improve over time. It’s almost like it’s an action RPG. There are quests and stuff. It starts to feel pretty samey after a while. </p> <p>The characters are intentionally RPG stereotypes – the brooding hero, the <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StaffChick">healing lady</a>, and so on. There are cute jokes and references. The story is not sophisticated – people send you to kill things and fetch other things, and along the way you pick up more party members. There is an evil empire that at some point you will have to defeat, but I didn’t get that far.</p> <p>The game itself has been a bit unstable, although I’m not sure how much of that is the laptop I’ve been playing it on. It takes two tries to launch it each time – the first time Steam gets stuck trying to install a Visual C++ runtime or something. It’s also plauged with spelling errors which make the experience feel a little unpolished. I stopped playing after it crashed on the same zone a few times in a row.</p> <p>Overall, I’d give it 6 maidens out of 10. It could make 7 or 8 by fixing the technical problems. </p> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09391771543846437234noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4733092798153036082.post-87285712127547202242011-07-27T17:10:00.000-07:002011-07-27T17:11:39.239-07:00More Harry Potter<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I'm probably spending too much time and energy on this, but something further occurred to me about one of my <a href="http://dolbiasbrainheal.blogspot.com/2011/07/easy-targets.html">earlier points</a>. Specifically, this:</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; line-height: 21px;"><strong>No-one loves their kids.</strong> The story starts with Harry miraculously surviving a murder attempt, and it’s revealed later that when his mother threw herself in the path of the spell, the force of her love for him caused it to rebound. But… the killing spell has been around for centuries. Surely in that time SOMEONE would have noticed that sacrificing yourself to protect a loved one causes rebounds?</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">What this means is that when Lily sacrificed herself, she had no idea that the curse would bounce back to Voldemort, banishing him and so setting up the major plot of the series. To her, she was buying Harry the 4 seconds it would take Voldemort to cast another curse (slightly more if he's a slow speaker). There was nothing apparent that would stop him just killing Harry afterwards - no-one else was around to interrupt him, he wasn't going to run out of bullets, and it wasn't likely that he'd just change his mind. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I understand that faced with the imminent death of a child, a parent will do anything that has a chance of saving them, no matter how unlikely. But as far as Lily knew at the time, it was <i>very</i> unlikely.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09391771543846437234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4733092798153036082.post-32651581046725819202011-07-25T00:38:00.001-07:002011-07-25T00:38:39.467-07:00Tell them why not, then walk away<p>Over the last week, I had two encounters with high-pressure salesmen on big transactions. I managed to get out of both of them with my finances intact, but I felt icky afterwards.</p> <p>I wasn’t expecting a sleazy dealer at the proper <a href="http://www.toyotaofbellevue.com/" target="_blank">Toyota dealership</a>. I’d just come from the Honda place where the salesman let me test drive 3 cars, told me about the features, and accepted it when I told him I’d be back in September. The Toyota salesman, on the other hand, put on the pressure from moment one. He told me that the cars I wanted weren’t being made any more, due to the tragedy in Japan earlier this year. This was true. But then he immediately steered me towards used cars before giving me a chance to catch my breath. I tried a Yaris and a Matrix, and I really did not like the Matrix. So he whisked me back to the showroom, and rounded up my “I preferred the Yaris” to “I would like to purchase the Yaris.” And at this point it was on my list of possibilities – but before buying, I wanted to try at least 5 more cars, talk to Midori, and to my credit union.</p> <p>He assured me that his dealership had the highest customer satisfaction for certified used cars of any Toyota dealership in the US, glossed over the minor accident the car had had, and brought in his financing guy to show me the numbers. It was super cheap – assuming that the accident really only had done cosmetic damage, which had since been repaired. And even then, I was thinking about the car as a maybe. But there was no way I was going to buy it that day. When the finance guy asked me whether an even lower price would get me into the car that day, I told him no – the issue wasn’t the price, it was that I hadn’t made up my mind on the car yet. They told me it would be gone soon, and I said that if it was gone, I’d find another car. I gave them fake contact details and walked away. </p> <p>The second one was a mortgage broker from <a href="http://www.quickenloans.com/" target="_blank">Quicken Loans</a>. My first inkling of sleaziness was when I realized that they weren’t affiliated with the Quicken accounting software. (Wikipedia tells me that they used to be, once upon a time.) I spoke to a broker online about a month ago, and she offered me a deal which would lower our payments slightly, but not significantly. I wasn’t going to do anything more, but various representatives from Quicken kept leaving me voicemails saying that they had new information. So, I thought I’d call up to see if I could get a better deal. And after a full day of giving the new salesman my information, him calling back, working numbers, blah blah blah, he finally made me an offer. And it was a good deal. It would have saved us a good chunk of money every month, with low up-front costs. I just needed to check with Midori, and get some competitive quotes. And I told him this, and that he could call me tomorrow after I’d had a chance to do that.</p> <p>And this wasn’t good enough for Captain Quicken, who proceeded to tell me that this was the best deal I was ever going to get anywhere, so I didn’t need to shop around. And if I agreed it was a good deal, and Midori had the same priorities as I did, why would I need to ask her? Why not just assume yes and send him a $500 good faith deposit cheque today? When I explained that that’s not how my marriage works (she wouldn’t like the news that I’d borrowed hundreds of thousands of dollars without mentioning it to her beforehand) he moved into bad-cop mode – if I didn’t agree today, the interest rates could go up, and he’d need to pull my credit again. So I told him directly that I had been considering the loan, but thanks to the pressure he put on me I didn’t want to deal with him anymore. So I was going to hang up and I didn’t want to hear from Quicken again.</p> <p>And I haven’t.</p> <p><a href="http://theoatmeal.com/comics/sell_generation" target="_blank">I’m not the only person</a> who finds this sales approach really unpleasant, but salesfolk will keep using it as long as they don’t see any negative effects – as they see it, if they make a sale it’s evidence that it worked, and if they don’t then there was nothing that would have worked. Since their pay is so heavily commission-based, they’re going to try whatever they think will have the best chance of success. So if we want to make it stop, we have to give them negative consequences, and let them know exactly what those are.</p> <p>Sales patter works under a pretense that they don’t get anything from the sale – you want to buy the item, and they’re just helpful people trying to get you the best deal. You know it’s not true, and they know you know, but the pretense serves a purpose for them – it makes it more awkward for you to call them out. They just want to HELP you; what could they possibly gain from you buying something you don’t want? So if we don’t want something, most of us either make an excuse and run, or sometimes give in and buy it, if it’s something you kind of wanted anyway and it’s not TOO expensive.</p> <p>But this just encourages them to keep pushing and make life less pleasant for the rest of us. To change their behavior, we have to change how we react to it. Here’s what I’m going to do from now on, and I would encourage other people to do the same:</p> <ol> <li>When I am given the hard sell, I will not buy the item from that business even if it’s something I wanted. (Unless it’s something that I NEED, and can’t obtain or afford elsewhere.) I will inform the salesdrone that I was interested in the product but his/her sales tactics have put me off and I will now be leaving the premises.</li> <li>When a salesperson is genuinely respectful, informative and helpful, I will thank them, and commend them to their manager. </li></ol> <p>It’s only going to work if lots of people do it, though. I call it the Campaign Against High Pressure Sales, which I would like to abbreviate to CHAPS, but Midori informs me actually spells CAHPS, which isn’t even a word. So, please share. We could make the world slightly more pleasant.</p> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09391771543846437234noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4733092798153036082.post-70066820198287197032011-07-20T13:02:00.000-07:002011-07-20T13:02:35.445-07:00New shirtsI have some new shirts in the Holomorphic Apparel store. Link is on the right side of the page.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09391771543846437234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4733092798153036082.post-54108293832592512442011-07-19T21:32:00.001-07:002011-07-19T21:32:10.809-07:00Easy targets<p>Using the internet to make fun of inconsistencies in a children’s fantasy story isn’t clever or funny. It makes me feel like I’m in the skit where Dana Carvey asks The Shatner what the combination was for a safe he opened in an episode of Star Trek, 20 years previously. I would have embedded the clip, but it is nowhere to be found on YouTube. But picking holes in Harry Potter is cheap and easy, so I’m going to do it. </p> <p>This post contains spoilers from all 7 books. Bite me.</p> <ol> <li><strong>No-one loves their kids.</strong> The story starts with Harry miraculously surviving a murder attempt, and it’s revealed later that when his mother threw herself in the path of the spell, the force of her love for him caused it to rebound. But… the killing spell has been around for centuries. Surely in that time SOMEONE would have noticed that sacrificing yourself to protect a loved one causes rebounds? <li><strong>No-one minds slavery.</strong> It’s tradition in the wizarding community that non-human sentient beings are not worthy of equal rights and status. The worst impacted are the house elves, who are kept as slaves. Ev<img style="display: inline; float: right" title="Why would you trust him not to pee in everything he fetches for you?" alt="Picture of Kreacher" align="right" src="http://ts3.mm.bing.net/images/thumbnail.aspx?q=1017657491842&id=e546683cf0f20dddebc6b703b3df469e&url=http%3a%2f%2fwww.harry-potter-movie-buzz.com%2fwp-content%2fuploads%2fharrypotter%2flarge_Kreacher-gt96dg9g.jpg">eryone just accepts it, because that’s how it’s always been done. (The house elves seem to enjoy it, but then they live in that same culture too.) But… every year, at least a 3rd of the new kids at Hogwarts were raised by non-wizards. And Hermione is the first one to ever do anything about the whole slavery thing? <li><strong>Everyone is far too naïve.</strong> Polyjuice Potion allows anyone to appear to be anyone else, and it’s something that most 13-year olds can make with easily obtainable ingredients. The kids exploit this multiple times through the series. Super-secret groups have passwords, but most buildings are completely insecure – if the doorman knows your face, he’ll let you in. <li><strong>The Sorting Hat/House system.</strong> In order for the school to run smoothly, the number of kids in the houses, in each year, need to be roughly equal. Each house has to have fewer children than dorm beds, the class sizes have to be manageable, and you want each house to be able to field a Quidditch team. Most real schools do it randomly, or by an objective way to divide the student body into 4 (or 6 or 8 or however many houses they have). Hogwarts works on the Sorting Hat principle, by which each kid gets into the house that they want to. (We know it’s desire-based because Snape got into Slytherin, despite not meeting one of the stated requirements). So in order for the school to work, every year the new kids need to WANT to be equally divided – otherwise the system doesn’t work. And it’s been said before, but… who chooses Hufflepuff? <li><strong>Someone hired the Dementors.</strong> Dementors are floaty wraith creatures <a href="http://www.entertainmentearth.com/item_archive/items/Harry_Potter_Dementor_Mini_Bust.asp" target="_blank"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: right; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="FOUR souls a week, or you'll be hearing from my union rep." border="0" alt="Picture of a collectable toy Dementor" align="right" src="http://ts4.mm.bing.net/images/thumbnail.aspx?q=1058984306527&id=0d4f2c0f4361dafc238a006e682c3acb&url=http%3a%2f%2fwww.entertainmentearth.com%2fimages%2fAUTOIMAGES%2fGG8396lg.jpg" width="200" height="200"></a>that hate you. Interaction with a Dementor ends one of two ways – it sucks out your soul, or you cast a Patronus spell which chases it away. We first meet the Dementors in the 3rd book, where they’ve been hired to guard the wizard prison. Various characters question whether it’s a good idea to have nightmare monsters as guards, but no-one ever explains how they were hired in the first place. How did anyone negotiate a contract without getting their soul devoured? And more worryingly, how are they paying the Dementors? </li></ol> <p>There are several other things that make very little sense in the books, but these strike me as being the most egregious – and I haven’t seen them called out elsewhere. (I haven’t looked very hard.)</p> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09391771543846437234noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4733092798153036082.post-75995873483649487982011-07-15T04:24:00.001-07:002011-07-15T04:24:18.418-07:00Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale<p>I haven’t played a JRPG since Final Fantasy 7. Well, I played the first 2 hours of Final Fantasy 8, but since I didn’t get far enough to find out who the people Squall was dreaming about were, I don’t think I can count it as a game wot I have played. Midori is much more of an RPG fan in general, so I’ve seen my way through several over the years – the one I remember most vividly is Eternal Sonata, which was cute, even though I found the scattering of musical terms a little disconcerting. At the moment she’s playing Tales of Vesperia, which seems much the same. A band of young (or youngish) misfits saves the world while solving their own deep personality flaws. And after I’ve seen her play them, I know the story, so what’s the point in playing them myself?</p> <p>So I’m not sure that I’m really the target market for Recettear, which is a loving tribute to JRPGs. You play as a sweet-toothed item vendor named Recette, and a host of JRPG stock characters (the eager teenage boy warrior, the sassy teenage girl thief, the bratty pre-teen boy mage) come in to buy and sell items. You can pretty much always get items from your supplier at 70% of MSRP and sell them on at 120%, so the core game is not that difficult. To supplement the stock items, you can go dungeon diving with one of your adventurer friends – a key part of the game is building relationships with them to the point that they’re willing to take you along. </p> <p>The characters are twee, but the game is short enough that it doesn’t get too grating. Recette’s primary concerns are sugar consumption and making OMG FRIENDS LOVE, which would be more irritating if there were more dialogue. Her business partner Tear is full of bile and French cussing, which is much more entertaining. My favorite of the adventurers is Charme the Lady Thief, who gets drunk and tries (without any success) to seduce Recette when Tear isn’t watching. (She should have tried offering her frosting.)</p> <p>Before the start of the game, Recette’s father took out a loan and then disappeared. The initial goal is to pay back that loan, in 4 weekly payments. If you miss a payment, it turns out that the events from Day 2 onward were just a sugar coma dream of Recette’s, and you wake up with all of your levels and stock, but none of your cash. Knowing this, if you’re going to miss a deadline you can sink everything into stock, ready to sell the next time around. Once you pay back the whole loan, you open up a bunch of other game modes. I haven’t played any of them. (Lazy reviewer. Bad Dolbia. No airship for you.)</p> <p>The dungeon gameplay is pretty basic top-down hack-and-slash. The warrior is by far the easiest of the companions to play as, and you can complete the game without using any of the others. The monsters aren’t particularly inspiring, but that’s not really the point of the game. </p> <p>Other aspects of gameplay include “merchant level” progression (higher levels get you a bigger shop and pretty wallpaper and nicer items) and a crafting minigame (that I didn’t get very far with, slap on wrist.) They’re not exciting enough that I’d stay up an extra half hour to get to the next merchant level, but they give the game a sense of forward momentum. Wait, that’s a lie. I did stay up an extra half hour to get to the next merchant level.</p> <p>Some gripes about the game: </p> <ul> <li>It would really benefit from an autosave feature. There are 99 save slots – you can’t save for me at the end of each day? Week? Maybe I’ve been spoiled.</li> <li>Mouse control would be nice.</li> <li>The wizard kid is a nightmare to play in the dungeons (or maybe I just suck). Your options are to use his auto-attack, which gives the monsters 2-3 seconds to hit you between casts, or cast a proper spell, which burns mana like a magnesium ribbon. The wizard kid is also annoying in the dialogue scenes.</li> <li>It’s slightly odd that NPCs will buy items back from you for twice what you paid them earlier that day.</li> <li>Recette and some of the other characters can be irritating – the moments that irked me most were when Recette got upset because she’d “failed” a price negotiation, when the customer wanted to pay 1/5th of the market value of the items.</li> <li>As well as the named NPCs, there are 4 generic townspeople – the Man, the Old Man, the Woman, and the Little Girl. Of these, the Little Girl almost always asks for things she can’t afford to buy. You then have the choice of taking a loss or going through 3 rounds of haggling only for her to storm off (and Recette to collapse into self-pity and diabetes).</li></ul> <p>The game was a lot of fun, and I intend to keep playing on Endless mode until I’ve maxed out my merchant levels, crafting, and dungeons. Or until the sickly-sweetness leads me to set fire to my laptop. All in all, I give it 7 cupcakes out of 10.</p> <h4>Links:</h4> <ul> <li><a href="http://store.steampowered.com/app/70400/?snr=1_4_4__13">Recettear on Steam</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.carpefulgur.com/recettear/">Recettear webpage at Carpe Fulgur</a></li></ul> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09391771543846437234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4733092798153036082.post-8720261612755520352011-07-12T01:26:00.001-07:002011-07-12T01:26:16.509-07:00Steam summer sale<p>I started this blog in response to last year’s Steam summer sale, when I bought an obscene number of games for a slightly less obscene sum of money. This year’s sale has just finished, and yes, a good blogger would have mentioned it while it was still going on. I’ve been a little overwhelmed, though. After a while, all of the different games in a class (World War II first person shooters, sci-fi shooters, Western fantasy RPGs, JRPGs, puzzle platformers, abstract puzzles, and so on) start to blend into one, and I can’t remember whether I’m looking at Dungeon Siege III or The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. </p> <p>As well as the blanket sale, they’ve been having daily deals which are even more heavily discounted, and daily challenges, where getting specific achievements in some games will get you points. And what do you points mean? The daily sales and challenges tend to overlap, but not be identical, so there’s a decent sized set of games that you need to get TODAY RIGHT NOW BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE. So far, I’ve mostly restricted myself to getting these daily ones – aside from anything else, I would be irritated with myself if I paid $13 for a game only for it to be available for $11, three days later. On the last day, I picked up a bunch of games that I’ve wanted for a while but haven’t been daily features. </p> <p>All in all, I ended up buying 57 games, costing something over $320. I can’t tell for sure, because the receipt for one of the days has gone missing. At full price, these games would have been $960. So who’s laughing now, overdraft fees? Using a non-strict taxonomy, there are:</p> <ul> <li>17 Action games</li> <li>5 Adventure games</li> <li>2 Driving games</li> <li>6 first person shooters</li> <li>2 Platformers</li> <li>3 Puzzle games</li> <li>3 Puzzle platformers</li> <li>7 RPGs</li> <li>10 Strategy games</li> <li>2 Tower Defences</li></ul> <p>After all the rush, I’m not sure I can face playing any games for about 3 months. </p> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09391771543846437234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4733092798153036082.post-58610791426655800892011-07-09T21:27:00.001-07:002011-07-09T21:27:31.442-07:00I am done with Diet Pepsi<p>No more. Life is too short for me to continue to drink this odious beverage. I will order water instead. I will knowingly pay $1.85 for water that came out of the tap and was bottled by an unscrupulous corporation, rather than subjecting my tongue to Diet Pepsi. It is the worst of all the diet drinks. Here is a list of diet sodas, in my order of preference:</p> <ol> <li>Diet Coke <li>Caffeine Free Diet Coke <li>Diet Dr Pepper <li>Diet A&W root beer from a small bottle <li>Diet Cherry Coke <li>Sprite Zero/Diet 7-Up (tie) <li>Coke Zero (has the questionable benefit of making me feel a little bit like Scott Pilgrim.) <li>Toothpaste with baking soda <li>Diet A&W root beer from a large bottle <li>Diet Mountain Dew <li>Diet MUG Root Beer <li>Toothpaste without baking soda <li>Diet laundry detergent <li>Diet Pepsi</li></ol> <p>The worst thing about Diet Pepsi is that it tricks your brain into expecting Diet Coke. There’s a split second before it hits your tongue, when you get a flickering notion that it might taste okay this time, maybe the other Diet Pepsi you had was just poorly rehydrated due to problems with the syrup canister or the water supply – and then your hopes are dashed against the rocks and your mouth is filled with what might as well be mole urine.</p> <p>And then the self-loathing starts. How could you have been so stupid as to order Diet Pepsi again when you KNEW that it was this bad? What kind of person continues choosing something so unpleasant when there are better options available, like drinking your own sweat, or dehydration?</p> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09391771543846437234noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4733092798153036082.post-11570572885063924852011-07-04T10:22:00.000-07:002011-07-04T10:22:53.259-07:00New things about old postsScott Adams is now declaring that his ideas that he posts on the open internet for everyone to see <a href="http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/3/24/">aren't for general consumption</a>, they're for people who are interested in letting their preconceived ideas go to consider the controversial. Thing is, Scott, "men are testosteron<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">e-fueled beasts" isn't a new or controversial idea.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span>S</span>orry.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> To quote The Dude, "<span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Hey man, why don't you fucking listen</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"> occasionally? You might learn</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> something."</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br />
</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre-wrap;">And <a href="http://www.treelobsters.com/2011/07/283-word-please.html">Tree Lobsters</a> understand the trouble with<a href="http://dolbiasbrainheal.blogspot.com/2010/08/scrabble.html"> Scrabble</a>.</span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09391771543846437234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4733092798153036082.post-27267469123031556402011-06-30T03:35:00.000-07:002011-06-30T08:48:04.036-07:00Reading Comprehension<div><blockquote></blockquote>Over the past few months, <a href="http://dilbert.com/blog/">Scott Adams</a> has been doing his best to pick fights with feminists (and various other groups of people). His modus operandi is making an outrageous and offensive statement, and then accusing anyone who gets upset of having "poor reading comprehension" and taking things out of context. There are some flourishes, like sending sockpuppets in to comment on the websites of people who are calling him out.</div><div><br /></div><div>The latest noise has been around a post called <a href="http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/pegs_and_holes/">Pegs and Holes</a>. Here's the bit that people have been most bothered about:</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px; "><blockquote><p class="MsoPlainText" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 20px; padding-left: 0px; ">Powerful men have been behaving badly, e.g. tweeting, raping, cheating, and being offensive to just about everyone in the entire world. The current view of such things is that the men are to blame for their own bad behavior. That seems right. Obviously we shouldn’t blame the victims. I think we all agree on that point. Blame and shame are society’s tools for keeping things under control.</p><p class="MsoPlainText" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 20px; padding-left: 0px; ">The part that interests me is that society is organized in such a way that the natural instincts of men are shameful and criminal while the natural instincts of women are mostly legal and acceptable.</p></blockquote></span><div>Adams doesn't ever define "natural instincts of men" (or of women), although later on we get this gem:</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px; "><blockquote> If we allowed men to act like unrestrained horny animals, all hell would break loose.</blockquote></span></div><div>So I'd interpret "natural instincts of men" to be unrestrained horny animaltude, and the "all hell" to be a pandemic of "tweeting, raping, cheating, and being offensive to just about everyone in the entire world." I can't see another reasonable interpretation of this post. (I'm still waiting to hear what women's natural instincts are.) </div><div><br /></div><div>Sample size of one, but I have no instinct to tweet, rape, or cheat. And while I'm happy to be offensive to my friends and family, I don't think it would be fair to inflict that on the rest of the world. (Although maybe if I were a syndicated cartoonist with a 4-figure IQ, I'd feel differently about that.) </div><div><br /></div>Now, I don't know what's going on in Adams's head. His claim is that his <span class="Apple-style-span" >"<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 14px; ">only goal is to be interesting", but the whole schtick about men wanting to fuck anyone and anything isn't interesting, clever, or original. </span> </span>He's somewhere on the axis between completely clueless and intentionally trolling, and my suspicion is that as he gets more reactions he moves in the trolling direction. He clearly gets his jollies from feeling smarter than people around him. I can't really blame him for that - I like feeling clever too, but I prefer it to be collaborative rather than competitive. Plus, if I have smart people around me they're more likely to say interesting and funny things. Bonus.</div><div><br /></div><div>Anyway, the "poor reading comprehension" accusation kind of touched a nerve. If you write something down, and the English-speaking world (with the exception of a handful of sycophants) infers something from it that you didn't intend, then the problem is not in their reading, it's in your writing. As usual, <a href="http://xkcd.com/">Mr Munroe</a> captures this human failing perfectly.</div><div><br /></div><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 740px; height: 538px;" src="http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/words_that_end_in_gry.png" border="0" alt="" /><br /><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>In his <a href="http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/its_an_epidemic/">latest post</a>, Adams compares himself to <a href="http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/">Kruggers</a>. Scott, I subscribed to Paul Krugman, I read Paul Krugman, Paul Krugman is an idol of mine. Scott, you're no Paul Krugman.</div><div><br /></div><div>(I've been following this saga for the last couple of weeks, but the event that inspired this blog post was watching the new Futurama episode, "Neutopia", which manages to cram just about every gender stereotype into a 22 minute episode, and STILL have time for everyone to learn a lesson and everything to get back to normal in time for next week. The lesson I learned is that women like crazy things like "shopping" and "Diet Coke" and "being listened to" and men like crazy things like "fart jokes" and "not asking directions" and "lying". I expect this crap from sitcoms in 1992 with laugh tracks, not from you, Futurama.)</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Other helpful links:</b></div><div><a href="http://www.salon.com/entertainment/tv/feature/2011/06/23/scott_adams_dilbert_responds_to_salon/">Mary Elizabeth Williams at Salon</a></div><div><a href="http://jezebel.com/5814538/scott-adams-vs-jezebel">Irin Carmon at Jezebel</a></div><div><br /></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09391771543846437234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4733092798153036082.post-68148944625118579612011-06-27T16:30:00.001-07:002011-06-27T16:33:00.254-07:00The Magicka post<p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxHtyBoCOtT9AYUzMqIEY9dsN8MQeo6_g_KeZFHo8qJfHeg1uYGj8aS35feDLdTHlNve5AeaR-iQVJ7oI5pfPqQN0l6Z8Ud5LE94Kvs3jUC1_PAOHpxOblnI0-61ebyC_lsywCkL7aZ0U/s1600-h/magick_revive_4%25255B2%25255D.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="magick_revive_4" border="0" alt="magick_revive_4" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJISSpAajZnC0Jen9aAhlvPhEZSGR0Yqrbx3Uqz_8ztDRW5rQb5IMfk1fQlA8CdDqScE_38lsEPGKLtdWzEussg9ZhUj-QExBJjtmEmWRIiAa4IpdeeU16AGjliiQBuwYi_m64mVSL6J0/?imgmax=800" width="244" height="154"></a></p> <p>Very short review: Magicka is awesome and you should play it. Now.</p> <p>Short review: </p> <p>Magicka is an action-adventure game in which you play as a faceless wizard and do wizardy things, like magic and spells. The gameplay is unlike most similar games – it removes leveling, quests, and resources entirely, and minimizes the impact of loot, in order to provide a purer monster-blasting experience. </p> <p>High points:</p> <ol> <li>The game is full of in-jokes and references to every meme this side of Rickrolling. (THIS… IS… MAGICKA!)</li> <li>You can set yourself on fire.</li> <li>You can drench and then electrocute yourself.</li> <li>You can blow yourself halfway across the screen with mines.</li> <li>If you use the right spells, monsters swell up like balloons before exploding.</li> <li>There were other things, but I haven’t played the game in about 3 months so I don’t remember them.</li></ol> <p>Low points:</p> <ol> <li>The game was pretty buggy at release, and it’s still not all fixed. On one level, your healing spells are supposed to hurt you instead, and you can get an item that switches it back. But… sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t.</li> <li>For a game that’s relatively small and doesn’t have spectacularly flashy graphics, it’s a bit of a resource hog.</li></ol> <p>They’ve added a PvP mode and a bunch of cosmetic DLC lately, which I haven’t played. Yes, this is a lazy way to write a review.</p> <h5>Useful links:</h5> <ul> <li><a href="http://store.steampowered.com/app/42910/?snr=1_4_4__13">Buy Magicka on Steam</a></li> <li><a href="http://sinn.storenvy.com/products/74033-official-magicka-wizard-bathrobe-pre-order">I put on my robe…</a></li></ul> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09391771543846437234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4733092798153036082.post-67519745799891700032011-05-26T09:18:00.000-07:002011-05-26T09:51:24.087-07:00It's Thursday, ThursdayI'm repurposing this blog, slightly. This far it has been all about games, with an emphasis on World of Warcraft. This no longer really works for me:<br />1) I stopped playing games in January 2011. I just lost interest and needed a break. Without playing, writing about them didn't make a lot of sense. Over the past month I've started again, but...<br />2) I'm not planning on going back to WoW in the foreseeable future. It just wasn't working for me anymore, for various reasons, and if a game isn't fun you shouldn't play it. That's one of the rules of sanity.<br />3) I want to write about other stuff, too. I can't count the number of times I've read a book or seen a film and thought "The Internet <span style="font-style: italic;">needs </span>to know my thoughts on this."<br /><br />As such, I'm opening the blog up to be about whatever the hell I want it to be. I'm keeping the name and URL, because when you have 3 followers you don't want to lose them by moving around the whole time.<br /><br />Next post will be about Magicka. Because Magicka is awesome. See, not that much change.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09391771543846437234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4733092798153036082.post-80449802955257025412010-09-07T12:54:00.001-07:002010-09-08T12:54:50.561-07:00Guilds, or How I learned to stop worrying and tolerate 24 people<p>I realised that most of my posts start with “OK,…” or “So,…”, which I’m sure is very bad style. I believe it comes across as dropping you in in the middle of a thought, which may be slightly disorienting. I’m going to try not to do that going forward.</p> <p>In my previous WoW post, I mentioned groups and raiding. To recap the relevant bits – when you reach the end of the WoW levelling train (currently level 80), you really have two choices. You can start another character from scratch to experience a different class or different zones, you can start fighting other players in big groups or small groups, or you can start raiding. Three choices – start from scratch, player vs. player, raiding, or go for achievements like OK I’m already bored with this Monty Python bit.</p> <p>My choice was to raid. To recap, this means coordinating a group of 10 or 25 people to kill some really BIG monsters. In the current iteration of WoW, the 25-man raids are seen as the “real” ones and the 10-man raids are usually used for training, impromptu groups, and people who aren’t as good at the game. Putting this together with the previous paragraph, this means that in order to continue progressing past the level cap, I needed to work together with 24 other people. Yuck. </p> <p>Option 1 is to try and join groups made up of whoever happens to be around at the time. This is sketchy for several reasons, most of which are related to the problem that none of these people will necessarily see you again. What this leads to is playing with:</p> <ol> <li>People who suck. As MMO’s go, WoW is not difficult to learn, and yet there are people out there who cannot manage to push the same button over and over again. <li>Dicks. Due to the <a href="http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/">John Gabriel Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory</a>, you’re going to encounter people at their absolute worst.</li></ol> <p>Option 2 is to gather a group of people – a “guild” - with whom you can kill monsters week after week. In addition to being able to select out some of the fail from PuGging when you are recruiting your guild, you also eliminate it by the mere act of staying together – you can train people to get better at the game, and the sense of anonymity which enables the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory is lost if you have to deal with these same people tomorrow.</p> <p>My current guild celebrated its 3rd birthday a few weeks ago. We began as a splinter from another guild, and have gone through a number of changes during the intervening time. We’re currently on our fifth Guild Master (GM) – me. I pretty much seized control after our last GM decided he was going to reorganize the guild without telling anyone, about 6 months ago. The guild has had its ups and downs, but we’re currently doing pretty well (if I do say so m’self.) </p> <p>Next WoW post will be about… probably managing guild recruitment, with what has worked for us and what hasn’t. Probably.</p> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09391771543846437234noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4733092798153036082.post-18100910549708040132010-08-11T05:25:00.001-07:002010-08-11T05:25:06.723-07:00Scrabble<p>OK, blog post about a game that is not WoW.</p> <p>If you watch enough television you’ll get to see some people playing Scrabble. And what happens in those television shows is always the same: one character will put down the 7 tiles he has, revealing something which is almost phonetically pronouncable but definitely not an actual word. Another character will then question the word, and . If the show is smart, another character will then use the made-up word later in the episode.</p> <p> Red Dwarf has done it.</p> <div style="padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: none; padding-top: 0px" id="scid:5737277B-5D6D-4f48-ABFC-DD9C333F4C5D:722b1484-47b7-4e77-b7b3-223657a4ec78" class="wlWriterEditableSmartContent"><div><object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/v2u_DVkK1Rc&hl=en_US&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/v2u_DVkK1Rc&hl=en_US&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object></div></div> <p>The Simpsons Did It, but then The Simpsons ALWAYS Did It. This does have the distinction of being from the first season, where Homer had the “Walter Matthau” voice. I don’t know whalt a Matthau is either.</p> <div style="padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: none; padding-top: 0px" id="scid:5737277B-5D6D-4f48-ABFC-DD9C333F4C5D:41c7459b-df94-49b2-9081-093102fead4f" class="wlWriterEditableSmartContent"><div><object width="480" height="270"><param name="movie" value="http://www.hulu.com/embed/WnQ9eMB5Gmbt7tBFhoX7FA"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.hulu.com/embed/WnQ9eMB5Gmbt7tBFhoX7FA" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="270" allowFullScreen="true"></embed></object></div></div> <p>It even crosses over into the iPhone Scrabble-based game “<a href="http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/6/18/" target="_blank">Words with Friends</a>”. </p> <div style="padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: none; padding-top: 0px" id="scid:5737277B-5D6D-4f48-ABFC-DD9C333F4C5D:dbb9006d-92ff-4c9a-91e3-0db32b1a325d" class="wlWriterEditableSmartContent"><div><object width="480" height="270"><param name="movie" value="http://www.hulu.com/embed/Q8jqvX0Ml8n1oUJM1Av3Yg"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.hulu.com/embed/Q8jqvX0Ml8n1oUJM1Av3Yg" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="270" allowFullScreen="true"></embed></object></div></div> <p></p> <p></p> <p>TvTropes calls this a <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Kwyjibo" target="_blank">Kwyjibo</a> after the Simpsons example. On a related note, Eddie Izzard describes any word that’s spelled with more letters than it’s pronounced (e.g. “through”) as “cheating at Scrabble”. </p> <p>So why do I care if I don’t play Scrabble? Well, I’m interested in the cultural resonance this simple joke has with us. Neither I nor anyone I know is a fervid Scrabbler, but pretty much everyone I know has Scrabbled at some point in their life. And everyone’s had this experience of someone trying to claim a word that’s clearly made up. Typically it’s not quite as egregious as the seven-letter monsters in the above examples, but it’s definitely familiar. Why is cheating at Scrabble a meme when cheating at Monopoly, chess, or Risk aren’t? </p> <p>My theory is this: Scrabble is TOO HARD for mass consumption. Most of us just don’t have the vocabulary that we’d need in order to make a game fast-paced and rewarding. My theory is that there are three types of Scrabble players:</p> <ol> <li>People who are actually good at and enjoy the game of Scrabble.</li> <li>People who coast by on 2 and 3 letter words until it’s blissfully over.</li> <li>People who cheat.</li></ol> <p>If you just pull two people into a Scrabble game at random, odds are pretty high that at least one of them won’t really be ready for it. I know that as a type 2 Scrabble player, I’d much rather be beaten by someone’s real word skills than play against someone who’s scribbling new words into the dictionary – or playing as badly as I do. In short, only playing agains a type 1 players is fun for me, a type 2. I would imagine that for most type 1s, playing against other type 1s is the most rewarding, but I don’t know for sure. </p> <p>So what’s the solution? Scrabble should be seen as more of an elitist game, not a game that everyone has lying around the house. They’d sell fewer copies of it, but it would have a much better reputation – no longer being “that game where everyone cheats”. And then when someone says “Fancy a game of Scrabble?” I can say “No, sorry, I’m not really a Scrabble person” without them looking at me as though I’d said “No, sorry, I’m functionally illiterate.”</p> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09391771543846437234noreply@blogger.com1