Girl wants to circumnavigate the globe. It was planned to take two years. Now that's important because apparently, it was ok for a 16 year old male to start off in November of 2008 and take only about 9 months to make the trek. That's really dangerous. If the plan involves a 2 year length of time that's probably for really bad weather conditions in certain areas at certain times of the year, which means most likely months long layovers in different countries.
I'm very sure that if it was a boy, instead of a girl, they'd be arranging commercial endorsements and a ticker-tape parade. I hate double standards like this.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Introduction to my nonexistant future cook book
I love cooking. I can't draw for shit. I can't paint. I can sort of write, or so I'm told. But cooking is something I've always enjoyed. I mean really liked. I still think one of the roots of one of my break-ups was because she banished me from the kitchen unless I had a precise recipe for her devouration in hand.
Bitch.
Some things I don't like:
1) Bell peppers. These guys just jump out and smack you upside the head. They grab onto your tongue and don't let go. If you like bell peppers and don't want to taste anything else in your dish, go with these guys. Green, yellow, orange or red, I don't care. They stay the heck out of my kitchen. Ahhh.... But what about the French trinity or the Cajun trinity, or whatever else sort of thing you could think of to make me look like a freaking idiot who doesn't know taste? Sit down and shut up. For every bell pepper in a recipe, take a jalapeno or similar little pepper, slice it open, take out the seeds and chop that bastard up. Throw it in, and you get the bonus of a pepper's accent without the heat, and without that bell pepper warhammer numbing your taste buds. Note that bit about accent. It means subtle. Bell peppers are not subtle. They're fucking painful.
2) Squash. I don't like picking these guys, I don't like eating these guys, I don't like cooking these guys. If I'm starving I can work with them, but they have something that just doesn't jive with me.
3) Eggplant. Though some people equate eggplants with squash, they're actually in the nightshade family with tomatoes and potatoes. Regardless, they have similar taste qualities to Squash, and I just haven't found a dish where they make me happy. Everything it starred in that I've tried that I almost liked wound up tasting better to me without it as an ingredient.
4) Cranberries. Don't get me started. There's a maniacal conspiracy here. Trust me on this. We'll talk later.
5) Yellow onions. And kind of white onions. I DO like red and green onions, and shallots. Yellow and white are just too strong for most dishes. Green onions in particular have this nice fresh "spring" taste that's hard to pass up. I do a lot of substitution in my dishes, making red and green onions pick up the slack. It's not hard if you remember that cooking is an art, not a science, and when is more important than where. If you put a green onion in, remember it is not as hardy as a yellow or white onion. If it's got to stew, use the white half first, then add the green bits later. But if you're doing something like spanikopita, then it's ok to saute the whole green onion right at the front because when you bake it, its flavors seep through and make it all better.
6) Beets. If I wanted to pick up a clod of dirt and eat it, I'd pick up a clod of dirt and eat it. Enough said.
7) NEVER, EVER, NEVER, EVER, NEEEVVVEERRR mix tomato and cinnamon. EVER. Unless it's a curry. I've not had the inclination to unearth exactly which spice in a curry makes cinnamon ok with tomatoes, but for most plebeians, trust me. Just don't go there.
At this point people will always want to know, "Well, what DO you like?"
Those people can bite me. Really. Right here on my left rear cheek. I'll pose for you. *POSE* Yeah. Didn't think so.
Once upon a time, I was homeless. I dropped everything, ran away from my problems, and was taken in by a lesbian who needed somebody to take care of her for a while. I cooked and cleaned and tried to keep my nose clean. She was dirt poor, and we lived in a basement, but it's amazing what's available from community shelters. The big problem is that most people don't know what to do with it.
If I knew then what I know now about cooking, I could have taken a bag of rice, a bag of beans and a 1993 dollar and done wonders. I did a lot of experimenting. It was few years later that I realized where the one dismal failure originated from. And that was the whole cinnamon+tomato thing. *Shudder*.
Let's take what I did tonight. On the fly. Because I didn't feel like going out. (Read: too drunk to risk it.)
Few tablespoons of olive oil
About a tbsp of dried basil
same of dried oregano
a dab of sundried tomato paste
1 small shallot
a smidge of salt
couple of cloves of garlic
splash of white wine
(These things are standards. If they are not regularly in your pantry you need to add them. They will hate you until you do. If you don't like garlic, then fine. Leave it out. I'll probably hate you more than the garlic will.)
That bunch of funness just needs some time in a pan to mingle and play nice with each other. Maybe it was a saute, maybe it was only slightly more than a simmer. It's like trying to count brush strokes. Figure it out yourself.
1 can of diced tomatoes
They get introduced to the party a little late, but hey, they didn't get an invite and everybody was wondering why they hadn't shown up yet. The paparazzi were getting nervous, and they get cheeky when they get nervous. It's all good, since they finally arrived, a bit winded, but at least they got there in more or less one piece.
For some reason, and this is where things get interesting... There was something missing. I mean REALLY not right. It was almost a hair too acidic. I don't know why, probably the canned diced tomatoes, or their particular pick date. Regardless, I let my freezer do the walking.
4 ounces of tilapia
Tilapia's a very mild fish, it's much more a "Chicken of the Sea" than tuna is. It's mild, it takes other flavors well, and it doesn't over power. All fish types lean towards a base ph balance. That's why there's lemons with most fresh fish servings in restaurants. It canceled out the acidic taste, and gave some bonus protein. Not that I really cared about that as I had the drunk munchies.
Last ingredient:
Box of whole wheat linguine pasta
Gads that nailed the love. The slightly nutty quality of the whole wheat pasta gave a better result than your standard pasta. The linguine size probably would have been just as good with fettuccine. I admit I lucked into that one. My usual pasta choices were absent due to my not having bought a box of fettuccine in a few weeks.
Bitch.
Some things I don't like:
1) Bell peppers. These guys just jump out and smack you upside the head. They grab onto your tongue and don't let go. If you like bell peppers and don't want to taste anything else in your dish, go with these guys. Green, yellow, orange or red, I don't care. They stay the heck out of my kitchen. Ahhh.... But what about the French trinity or the Cajun trinity, or whatever else sort of thing you could think of to make me look like a freaking idiot who doesn't know taste? Sit down and shut up. For every bell pepper in a recipe, take a jalapeno or similar little pepper, slice it open, take out the seeds and chop that bastard up. Throw it in, and you get the bonus of a pepper's accent without the heat, and without that bell pepper warhammer numbing your taste buds. Note that bit about accent. It means subtle. Bell peppers are not subtle. They're fucking painful.
2) Squash. I don't like picking these guys, I don't like eating these guys, I don't like cooking these guys. If I'm starving I can work with them, but they have something that just doesn't jive with me.
3) Eggplant. Though some people equate eggplants with squash, they're actually in the nightshade family with tomatoes and potatoes. Regardless, they have similar taste qualities to Squash, and I just haven't found a dish where they make me happy. Everything it starred in that I've tried that I almost liked wound up tasting better to me without it as an ingredient.
4) Cranberries. Don't get me started. There's a maniacal conspiracy here. Trust me on this. We'll talk later.
5) Yellow onions. And kind of white onions. I DO like red and green onions, and shallots. Yellow and white are just too strong for most dishes. Green onions in particular have this nice fresh "spring" taste that's hard to pass up. I do a lot of substitution in my dishes, making red and green onions pick up the slack. It's not hard if you remember that cooking is an art, not a science, and when is more important than where. If you put a green onion in, remember it is not as hardy as a yellow or white onion. If it's got to stew, use the white half first, then add the green bits later. But if you're doing something like spanikopita, then it's ok to saute the whole green onion right at the front because when you bake it, its flavors seep through and make it all better.
6) Beets. If I wanted to pick up a clod of dirt and eat it, I'd pick up a clod of dirt and eat it. Enough said.
7) NEVER, EVER, NEVER, EVER, NEEEVVVEERRR mix tomato and cinnamon. EVER. Unless it's a curry. I've not had the inclination to unearth exactly which spice in a curry makes cinnamon ok with tomatoes, but for most plebeians, trust me. Just don't go there.
At this point people will always want to know, "Well, what DO you like?"
Those people can bite me. Really. Right here on my left rear cheek. I'll pose for you. *POSE* Yeah. Didn't think so.
Once upon a time, I was homeless. I dropped everything, ran away from my problems, and was taken in by a lesbian who needed somebody to take care of her for a while. I cooked and cleaned and tried to keep my nose clean. She was dirt poor, and we lived in a basement, but it's amazing what's available from community shelters. The big problem is that most people don't know what to do with it.
If I knew then what I know now about cooking, I could have taken a bag of rice, a bag of beans and a 1993 dollar and done wonders. I did a lot of experimenting. It was few years later that I realized where the one dismal failure originated from. And that was the whole cinnamon+tomato thing. *Shudder*.
Let's take what I did tonight. On the fly. Because I didn't feel like going out. (Read: too drunk to risk it.)
Few tablespoons of olive oil
About a tbsp of dried basil
same of dried oregano
a dab of sundried tomato paste
1 small shallot
a smidge of salt
couple of cloves of garlic
splash of white wine
(These things are standards. If they are not regularly in your pantry you need to add them. They will hate you until you do. If you don't like garlic, then fine. Leave it out. I'll probably hate you more than the garlic will.)
That bunch of funness just needs some time in a pan to mingle and play nice with each other. Maybe it was a saute, maybe it was only slightly more than a simmer. It's like trying to count brush strokes. Figure it out yourself.
1 can of diced tomatoes
They get introduced to the party a little late, but hey, they didn't get an invite and everybody was wondering why they hadn't shown up yet. The paparazzi were getting nervous, and they get cheeky when they get nervous. It's all good, since they finally arrived, a bit winded, but at least they got there in more or less one piece.
For some reason, and this is where things get interesting... There was something missing. I mean REALLY not right. It was almost a hair too acidic. I don't know why, probably the canned diced tomatoes, or their particular pick date. Regardless, I let my freezer do the walking.
4 ounces of tilapia
Tilapia's a very mild fish, it's much more a "Chicken of the Sea" than tuna is. It's mild, it takes other flavors well, and it doesn't over power. All fish types lean towards a base ph balance. That's why there's lemons with most fresh fish servings in restaurants. It canceled out the acidic taste, and gave some bonus protein. Not that I really cared about that as I had the drunk munchies.
Last ingredient:
Box of whole wheat linguine pasta
Gads that nailed the love. The slightly nutty quality of the whole wheat pasta gave a better result than your standard pasta. The linguine size probably would have been just as good with fettuccine. I admit I lucked into that one. My usual pasta choices were absent due to my not having bought a box of fettuccine in a few weeks.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Ancient Book Reports
Hmm. A friend of mine made me read a book, "The Hero and the Crown" by Robin McKinley back in high school. I'd managed to forget about it, but something pinged my little grey cells. I don't hate many books, and while this one cannot hold a candle to the hate I have for "The Old Man and the Sea", it's close. It's really not the plot, or even the characters, though I do dislike the inability of the heroine to master her own fate, most of what happens in the story, as my memory recalls, was passive. It's the damn insistence on using made up words without explaining what they fucking mean. There's no obvious reason for it, other than to make it feel more "fantasy-like".
I remember we had to do a book report each nine-week period for that class. For some reason, I only remember 2 books I reviewed. The first was "The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul," by Douglas Adams. I pulled a reverse review on that, using a tactic Gene Shalit used for the movie "SpaceBalls." You intro with a biting cutting description of what you're reviewing, chewing it up and spitting it out. In LDTTotS, it's that it's disjointed, fraught with grammatical errors, possesses one of the most outlandish plots imaginable, and almost runs like a stream of manic thought. But it's still one of the funniest books I've ever read.
It wasn't written, it was an oral presentation, and I got good marks for that one.
I also got good marks for "The Hero and the Crown", but the reasons were very different. I hated that book. Mr. Bryant admitted he'd never seen a student give a negative review of a book. He actually seemed rather shocked, in fact. The fear that the teacher would hate a student for disliking a book keeps most students from "bucking the system". Screw that. I didn't like the book, and I'm honest enough to admit it. The plot wasn't bad, the main character had some annoying traits, but she wasn't horrid. What sucked was the introduction of a word that wasn't defined until nearly two thirds through the book. Not explained, and the syntax clues were considerably more vague than calling a Great White Shark a multi-cellular predator.
It was a fairly significant plot point, and after finding out what it was, there was absolutely no reason whatsoever for keeping it from the audience. None. Except to make you keep reading just to find out what the damn thing was. And this book won a Newbery award. This is the sort of writing that keeps kids from reading books because they run away in abject horror at the poor presentation of the story.
I remember we had to do a book report each nine-week period for that class. For some reason, I only remember 2 books I reviewed. The first was "The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul," by Douglas Adams. I pulled a reverse review on that, using a tactic Gene Shalit used for the movie "SpaceBalls." You intro with a biting cutting description of what you're reviewing, chewing it up and spitting it out. In LDTTotS, it's that it's disjointed, fraught with grammatical errors, possesses one of the most outlandish plots imaginable, and almost runs like a stream of manic thought. But it's still one of the funniest books I've ever read.
It wasn't written, it was an oral presentation, and I got good marks for that one.
I also got good marks for "The Hero and the Crown", but the reasons were very different. I hated that book. Mr. Bryant admitted he'd never seen a student give a negative review of a book. He actually seemed rather shocked, in fact. The fear that the teacher would hate a student for disliking a book keeps most students from "bucking the system". Screw that. I didn't like the book, and I'm honest enough to admit it. The plot wasn't bad, the main character had some annoying traits, but she wasn't horrid. What sucked was the introduction of a word that wasn't defined until nearly two thirds through the book. Not explained, and the syntax clues were considerably more vague than calling a Great White Shark a multi-cellular predator.
It was a fairly significant plot point, and after finding out what it was, there was absolutely no reason whatsoever for keeping it from the audience. None. Except to make you keep reading just to find out what the damn thing was. And this book won a Newbery award. This is the sort of writing that keeps kids from reading books because they run away in abject horror at the poor presentation of the story.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Part Six
FFIX. I tried for the first time a month ago, in Late July 2009. The only plus I can state is that from the first moment I entered the game, I had a quest. That is exactly the end of the appreciation I had for the game. I spent several hours running around trying to find objectives in said quest, only to discover at the end that it didn't give me much more than a few bits of the game's money. NO XP. None. Zip. Zero.
I played that game for what I think was around 10 hours, and only getting to level 2 due to a combination of lack of direction, lack of assistance, and lack self-hatred. I thought I could overcome. I didn't.
That's a confusing paragraph that deserves some detail. I barely got to lvl two as a red mage. I had to grind, outside any quests, to do so. The successful MMOs mentioned up to this point at least recognize this is a problem. I could find no one able to assist me as my hours of playing were either not the same as other or the "innovative" multi-language interface didn't reflect my troubles.
I'm stubborn, therefore, I tried very, very hard to get around, but I could have managed lvl 5ish in City of Heroes and WoW totally solo in a similar time frame, so I quickly lost all interest in FFXI.
I played that game for what I think was around 10 hours, and only getting to level 2 due to a combination of lack of direction, lack of assistance, and lack self-hatred. I thought I could overcome. I didn't.
That's a confusing paragraph that deserves some detail. I barely got to lvl two as a red mage. I had to grind, outside any quests, to do so. The successful MMOs mentioned up to this point at least recognize this is a problem. I could find no one able to assist me as my hours of playing were either not the same as other or the "innovative" multi-language interface didn't reflect my troubles.
I'm stubborn, therefore, I tried very, very hard to get around, but I could have managed lvl 5ish in City of Heroes and WoW totally solo in a similar time frame, so I quickly lost all interest in FFXI.
Part Five: The Wyvern Bites Its Tail...
I grew up on computer user created content. Literally. I was born in 1973, so the only people creating computer content in my childhood were users with tendencies towards self-aggrandizement. A historical "I put my flag here first!!!". A sentiment that remains to this day. One which I appreciate, but tends to cause a lot of hard feelings.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilroy_was_here
Around 1987, there was my first epiphany. It was a program created for the PC which allowed one to create text based adventure games. I loved it. Triggers, and exposition. It made it "easy" to create some interesting stories. It probably flopped due to lack of a central depository for retrieving them.
Pre-internet. It was a wild world.
It allowed you to create an Infocom-like text based adventure game. I ate it up like candy. I was also 14. You can imagine how immature it was. My recollections of it were fairly pedestrian, but my father, the biggest, most useful critic I know, actually kind of liked what I came up with. With his usual reservations. Thus the reason I sort of disappeared for some years.
In 1990, as a new senior in high school, I landed in a programming class that was trying out not requiring the higher level math classes that had been previously required for the class. Previously, as I was a senior, I wouldn't have gotten into the class.
I was in the college curriculum track, but I was behind the curve. Three different schools in seventh grade has that effect on people like me.
It was one of the few classes between 8th grade and graduation where I shined. Or so I remember. As I type this, I see where it helped develop what I do now. In that specific class, of 18 or 20 people, I was number two.
I was still so insanely quiet and unsure of myself... The teacher of that class asked me why I wasn't shooting for smoothing out my programs for extra credit. I admitted, quite honestly, that I was graduating, it wouldn't matter, and Ben Wood deserved it more than I did. I just wanted to finish Prince of Persia.
Today, don't think less of me, I have a lot of down time to think, and I do a lot of things that that computer teacher espoused:
1) When teaching people how to use a computer interface, nothing beats using it themselves.
2) Never touch their interface. Point, gesture, state implicitly, but never TOUCH the interface.
You are the guide, not the operator.
3) People are users, and they should always be treated as though they don't know anything when they begin using your application.
As time has proven to me, people forget that there's a sizable proportion of the population in the USA that's functionally illiterate. And I'm not talking about mountain people who ain't seen a book that made them wanna read it without pretty pictures and lotsa naked boobies.
We've created a generation that has difficulty writing in a way their elders have difficulty understanding. Then there's the population that's programming interfaces that outside people deal with, yet their guinea pigs aren't able grant positive feedback because they're being hovered over by the interface operatives. Really, changing "Invalid Loyalty Card" to "What are you trying to scan?" with suitable submenus would solve pretty much all the negative feedback I get, which is inappropriately directed at me instead of the system. It'd be significantly cheaper to fix the system. Or better yet, heuristic (not even HARD heuristics, based on ISBN bar code numbers) that recognize familiar bar codes would erase this problem.
An interface is only as good as a newbie to the interface is able to use it instinctively. This was the innovation that Apple has continually brought to the playing field, and has yet to falter in producing.
Since I was 12 years old, I was trying to produce content people would enjoy reading. This blog is only the latest example of a long running desire for social acceptance of what I felt was a viable opinion of the world around me.
In the early 1990s when SSI came out with Unlimited Adventures, I disappeared for months. I understand there's still a community out there that eats up UA. It's successors include both Neverwinter Nights titles. What collapsed for me between the latter two was ease of use. It's a pain in the damn ass to try and put stuff together for those.
From my point of view, I'd have to find one person who can translate the scripting into something I can understand, another who can work the creation of new maps, and then another to work on new creatures to be fought.
Never mind the bit about possible new gaming mechanics.
*Shudder* I'm not that charismatic. I'm not that rich.
Ergo the title of this specific blog post. What I wanted out of CRPGs turned full circle with Mission Architect in City of Heroes. It's by far and away the easiest of its type to use. You don't get easier, and even within its limitations, it still rocks in comparison. There's no comparison.
With CoX (City of Heroes/Villains is frequently abbreviated CoX), you get a solo friendly intro, a genre with a lot of wiggle room, and people shitloads better at producing content than I am. But I know my limitations. If two people like what I did, I'm happy. I consider "like" to be 3 out of 5 stars.
I've spent 24 years trying to find my niche between quirky humor, dialogue and plot. I'm still playing that game.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilroy_was_here
Around 1987, there was my first epiphany. It was a program created for the PC which allowed one to create text based adventure games. I loved it. Triggers, and exposition. It made it "easy" to create some interesting stories. It probably flopped due to lack of a central depository for retrieving them.
Pre-internet. It was a wild world.
It allowed you to create an Infocom-like text based adventure game. I ate it up like candy. I was also 14. You can imagine how immature it was. My recollections of it were fairly pedestrian, but my father, the biggest, most useful critic I know, actually kind of liked what I came up with. With his usual reservations. Thus the reason I sort of disappeared for some years.
In 1990, as a new senior in high school, I landed in a programming class that was trying out not requiring the higher level math classes that had been previously required for the class. Previously, as I was a senior, I wouldn't have gotten into the class.
I was in the college curriculum track, but I was behind the curve. Three different schools in seventh grade has that effect on people like me.
It was one of the few classes between 8th grade and graduation where I shined. Or so I remember. As I type this, I see where it helped develop what I do now. In that specific class, of 18 or 20 people, I was number two.
I was still so insanely quiet and unsure of myself... The teacher of that class asked me why I wasn't shooting for smoothing out my programs for extra credit. I admitted, quite honestly, that I was graduating, it wouldn't matter, and Ben Wood deserved it more than I did. I just wanted to finish Prince of Persia.
Today, don't think less of me, I have a lot of down time to think, and I do a lot of things that that computer teacher espoused:
1) When teaching people how to use a computer interface, nothing beats using it themselves.
2) Never touch their interface. Point, gesture, state implicitly, but never TOUCH the interface.
You are the guide, not the operator.
3) People are users, and they should always be treated as though they don't know anything when they begin using your application.
As time has proven to me, people forget that there's a sizable proportion of the population in the USA that's functionally illiterate. And I'm not talking about mountain people who ain't seen a book that made them wanna read it without pretty pictures and lotsa naked boobies.
We've created a generation that has difficulty writing in a way their elders have difficulty understanding. Then there's the population that's programming interfaces that outside people deal with, yet their guinea pigs aren't able grant positive feedback because they're being hovered over by the interface operatives. Really, changing "Invalid Loyalty Card" to "What are you trying to scan?" with suitable submenus would solve pretty much all the negative feedback I get, which is inappropriately directed at me instead of the system. It'd be significantly cheaper to fix the system. Or better yet, heuristic (not even HARD heuristics, based on ISBN bar code numbers) that recognize familiar bar codes would erase this problem.
An interface is only as good as a newbie to the interface is able to use it instinctively. This was the innovation that Apple has continually brought to the playing field, and has yet to falter in producing.
Since I was 12 years old, I was trying to produce content people would enjoy reading. This blog is only the latest example of a long running desire for social acceptance of what I felt was a viable opinion of the world around me.
In the early 1990s when SSI came out with Unlimited Adventures, I disappeared for months. I understand there's still a community out there that eats up UA. It's successors include both Neverwinter Nights titles. What collapsed for me between the latter two was ease of use. It's a pain in the damn ass to try and put stuff together for those.
From my point of view, I'd have to find one person who can translate the scripting into something I can understand, another who can work the creation of new maps, and then another to work on new creatures to be fought.
Never mind the bit about possible new gaming mechanics.
*Shudder* I'm not that charismatic. I'm not that rich.
Ergo the title of this specific blog post. What I wanted out of CRPGs turned full circle with Mission Architect in City of Heroes. It's by far and away the easiest of its type to use. You don't get easier, and even within its limitations, it still rocks in comparison. There's no comparison.
With CoX (City of Heroes/Villains is frequently abbreviated CoX), you get a solo friendly intro, a genre with a lot of wiggle room, and people shitloads better at producing content than I am. But I know my limitations. If two people like what I did, I'm happy. I consider "like" to be 3 out of 5 stars.
I've spent 24 years trying to find my niche between quirky humor, dialogue and plot. I'm still playing that game.
Part Four: Free to Play Redux
I decided to start here with DDO, for reasons to follow.
I kinda like DDO, it was familiar, thanks to my childhood. That made the bits I didn't like all the more jarring. I still hate how the voice option works. Some people I can hear very well, and I can barely hear, and there's little in between. Having played City of Heroes, I can attest that the voice option really isn't as important just yet when the bandwidth doesn't allow viable communication.
The "Looking For Group" options, or LFG, still suck. They're clumsy, and still feel slapped together.
When DDO was in open Beta, I knew what I was getting into, but I just simply didn't enjoy it. The voice thing combined with a clumsy interface never really appealed to me. There was limited solo ability. I worked third shift at the time, and there just wasn't anybody to play with, and it was very party centric. That's changed over time, but it's still overly rewarding of grouping at the expense of people who aren't veterans.
Over the years as DDO's subscription numbers have declined, I've noticed that they've increasingly improved the single player experience. It's still my biggest gripe with the game, and I'll go back when they go Free to Play, but I'm still grumpy they didn't focus on this sooner. And they should have just dumped the voice thing right off the bat, in my opinion. I later discovered a lot of people that quit the game because of other's reliance on this feature, when it was inherently prejudiced against common aural setups. I'm sure it's still what I consider broken, but hopefully the only people I'll be playing with on a regular basis will be on Skype so I can over look this.
World of Warcraft
In late 2007, I ran into a work related situation where I was frustratingly left with a great deal of time on my hands. (There was a union grievance eventually filed, and much frustration resulted.) It left me with enough time to try out World of Warcraft.
It's, sadly, my second favorite graphical MMO after City of Heroes that's currently available. I wish it wasn't sad, but I'm a very casual gamer, by my definition, and WoW does not reward casual gaming as much as I would like.
I can, while working, invest about 25 hours a week to an MMO, at most. Otherwise, I give up all my television time, and writing time, and socialization time. I tried to continue playing WoW after I got back to work, and I felt left behind, and the quests started loosing their appeal.
There's only so many times you can fight a wolf and harvest livers before you lose interest. They're predators, so they're toxic anyway.
Repetitive quests and lack of time to keep up with maintenance made me quit my subscription.
Mark that, please. This is still part of why I think FFXI sucks.
A secondary aspect of why I decided to try WoW was the .hack series of Playstation games, both the original and the G.U. variation. The idea of a multi-million subscriber base as a future impetus to a scifi catastrophe is simply a matter of time, equipment, and a programming or network person making a mistake.
(What's interesting to note here is that between the original .hack and the G.U. PS2 iteration, there was an Asian MMO effort. It flopped. It had a random dynamic to leveling that's sort of got to be experienced to be appreciated, or hated, depending. Without a solid story base, which I understand was reserved for "special" people, it flopped before it hit Western audiences.)
To this day, WoW, CoX and the Iron Realms family of MUDs have been the only games I have played where I felt like there was something worthwhile in experiencing PvP. For WoW it was that there was virtually no loss for trying it, and eventually you'd get something even if you continually lost, it just took three times as long to get something.
For Iron Realms, it was story. There were more visceral, story oriented, reasons to want to kill somebody.
For CoX, it's just bloody fun. If you're of the right mindset, it's just bloody fun. I long for WoW-like rewards, but I'm not going to hold my breath. Those PvPers can bite my ass.
(For the record, Arathi Basin is a place I know like the back of my hand, and I enjoyed using mages or rogues to attack people for the sole purpose of distracting them from somebody else targeting a resource point. PvP as a F2P option? Yeah, I'd go back to Arathi in a heartbeat. Now THERE's a business model.)
I kinda like DDO, it was familiar, thanks to my childhood. That made the bits I didn't like all the more jarring. I still hate how the voice option works. Some people I can hear very well, and I can barely hear, and there's little in between. Having played City of Heroes, I can attest that the voice option really isn't as important just yet when the bandwidth doesn't allow viable communication.
The "Looking For Group" options, or LFG, still suck. They're clumsy, and still feel slapped together.
When DDO was in open Beta, I knew what I was getting into, but I just simply didn't enjoy it. The voice thing combined with a clumsy interface never really appealed to me. There was limited solo ability. I worked third shift at the time, and there just wasn't anybody to play with, and it was very party centric. That's changed over time, but it's still overly rewarding of grouping at the expense of people who aren't veterans.
Over the years as DDO's subscription numbers have declined, I've noticed that they've increasingly improved the single player experience. It's still my biggest gripe with the game, and I'll go back when they go Free to Play, but I'm still grumpy they didn't focus on this sooner. And they should have just dumped the voice thing right off the bat, in my opinion. I later discovered a lot of people that quit the game because of other's reliance on this feature, when it was inherently prejudiced against common aural setups. I'm sure it's still what I consider broken, but hopefully the only people I'll be playing with on a regular basis will be on Skype so I can over look this.
World of Warcraft
In late 2007, I ran into a work related situation where I was frustratingly left with a great deal of time on my hands. (There was a union grievance eventually filed, and much frustration resulted.) It left me with enough time to try out World of Warcraft.
It's, sadly, my second favorite graphical MMO after City of Heroes that's currently available. I wish it wasn't sad, but I'm a very casual gamer, by my definition, and WoW does not reward casual gaming as much as I would like.
I can, while working, invest about 25 hours a week to an MMO, at most. Otherwise, I give up all my television time, and writing time, and socialization time. I tried to continue playing WoW after I got back to work, and I felt left behind, and the quests started loosing their appeal.
There's only so many times you can fight a wolf and harvest livers before you lose interest. They're predators, so they're toxic anyway.
Repetitive quests and lack of time to keep up with maintenance made me quit my subscription.
Mark that, please. This is still part of why I think FFXI sucks.
A secondary aspect of why I decided to try WoW was the .hack series of Playstation games, both the original and the G.U. variation. The idea of a multi-million subscriber base as a future impetus to a scifi catastrophe is simply a matter of time, equipment, and a programming or network person making a mistake.
(What's interesting to note here is that between the original .hack and the G.U. PS2 iteration, there was an Asian MMO effort. It flopped. It had a random dynamic to leveling that's sort of got to be experienced to be appreciated, or hated, depending. Without a solid story base, which I understand was reserved for "special" people, it flopped before it hit Western audiences.)
To this day, WoW, CoX and the Iron Realms family of MUDs have been the only games I have played where I felt like there was something worthwhile in experiencing PvP. For WoW it was that there was virtually no loss for trying it, and eventually you'd get something even if you continually lost, it just took three times as long to get something.
For Iron Realms, it was story. There were more visceral, story oriented, reasons to want to kill somebody.
For CoX, it's just bloody fun. If you're of the right mindset, it's just bloody fun. I long for WoW-like rewards, but I'm not going to hold my breath. Those PvPers can bite my ass.
(For the record, Arathi Basin is a place I know like the back of my hand, and I enjoyed using mages or rogues to attack people for the sole purpose of distracting them from somebody else targeting a resource point. PvP as a F2P option? Yeah, I'd go back to Arathi in a heartbeat. Now THERE's a business model.)
Friday, August 14, 2009
Part Three, The New Addiction
So, in early 2005 I had hard earned cash saved up between beer benders and had purchased a computer that was considered well inside the upgrade curve (a nebulous thing dependent on its application, but here applied to PC gaming). The recent Matrix sequels had helped me decide to try out The Matrix Online as my first MMO.
It wasn't bad. Really. It wasn't bad. What it suffered from was lack of content. They had (thankfully) realized this and installed a randomized content generator for their missions, so that you wouldn't be repeating the same thing over and over again. But... You did anyway. There were only three factions in the missions: Machines, Merovingian, and Zionist. And of those, the character models were random, but except for the Mero faction, you saw pretty much all there was to see new by level 20.
The intention, it was obvious, was meant to be a "MUSH"/MMO hybrid, a hands on flexible content generator where a small group of people referred to as the "Live Events Group" or LEG, would act as a throwback to the old table-top rolls of GameMasters. They'd take over signature characters, spawn enemies appropriate to the on-going story, etc. The problem? The players outnumbered these LEG types about 10000+ to 1 in the early days. No good interface for speeches was allowed, and they tried to interact with their audience by asking questions requiring response, and while it was an insanely insightful vision of what people wanted, it was crippled by social dynamics and the evil lag beast.
It was sold to Sony, and took four years to finally die a slow, painful death at their incompetent hands.
I consider it an object study in why giving people what they want isn't always the best action to take. It's much more nuanced and "on this hand/on the other hand" than that, but I'm sketching a history here, not painting a mural. Maybe that'll be a future post.
After MxO stalled, I decided to try Star Wars Galaxies. Remember, this was the summer of 2005, right after the "Combat Upgrade" had gone live, and people were still griping. "The Total Experience" that I purchased, and played, resulted in the worst experience I think a new player can have.
1) The online documentation hadn't caught up to the game's current iteration.
There were two types of damage, and one was a penalty for dying, but recuperating from this required a medic, a PC medic, which were unwilling to assist without a sizable donation of cash, which you didn't have at level 5 because you were expected to have started due to a friend's invitation, even if you were going in blind. The documentation implied that sitting in a medical bay would remove the damage, but it didn't. I discovered later that ONLY PC interaction would fix this, and there implications in the forums that I was an idiot for being frustrated by this.
2) The level of frustration caused world class headaches.
Really, I was trying everything, and had headaches that lasted for nearly a week before I realized they only struck while playing SWG. I stopped playing for a day, and the headaches stopped, and that prompted my canceling my account.
3) Contrary to the forum posts telling me was an idiot "Newb", people really weren't keen on playing with a newbie.
Letting that go as is.
So, I left SWG. I was pretty much done with MMOs, I'd given up hope that I'd find anything worth playing that wasn't a fantasy MMO, an itch I could scratch with countless offline computer RPGs.
City of Heroes
This was the paradigm shifter. I found with City of Heroes a very relaxed, fun, and friendly community. Well, overall. I'm still subscribing to this one four years later, so obviously it made an impact.
The big one that appealed to me was the honesty. The Developers are fairly open when there are mistakes that were made, and they really do go out of their way to minimize their impact.
Where other companies hide behind the proverbial "Digital Curtain", similar to the Iron Curtain, where you only know what is happening AFTER there's a socio-political repercussion when the Developers drop a nuclear device into a field of ganking daisies , with City of Heroes, you knew they were watching and were going to extensively test the repercussions on test servers before dropping anything on your head.
A lot of this can be summed up by a comment I remember from MxO... "Why can't I fly like Neo?" To which someone responded, "He was The One. He was special."
Someone else popped off with, "If you want to fly, try City of Heroes."
—John Smedley, president of Sony Online Entertainment
It wasn't bad. Really. It wasn't bad. What it suffered from was lack of content. They had (thankfully) realized this and installed a randomized content generator for their missions, so that you wouldn't be repeating the same thing over and over again. But... You did anyway. There were only three factions in the missions: Machines, Merovingian, and Zionist. And of those, the character models were random, but except for the Mero faction, you saw pretty much all there was to see new by level 20.
The intention, it was obvious, was meant to be a "MUSH"/MMO hybrid, a hands on flexible content generator where a small group of people referred to as the "Live Events Group" or LEG, would act as a throwback to the old table-top rolls of GameMasters. They'd take over signature characters, spawn enemies appropriate to the on-going story, etc. The problem? The players outnumbered these LEG types about 10000+ to 1 in the early days. No good interface for speeches was allowed, and they tried to interact with their audience by asking questions requiring response, and while it was an insanely insightful vision of what people wanted, it was crippled by social dynamics and the evil lag beast.
It was sold to Sony, and took four years to finally die a slow, painful death at their incompetent hands.
I consider it an object study in why giving people what they want isn't always the best action to take. It's much more nuanced and "on this hand/on the other hand" than that, but I'm sketching a history here, not painting a mural. Maybe that'll be a future post.
After MxO stalled, I decided to try Star Wars Galaxies. Remember, this was the summer of 2005, right after the "Combat Upgrade" had gone live, and people were still griping. "The Total Experience" that I purchased, and played, resulted in the worst experience I think a new player can have.
1) The online documentation hadn't caught up to the game's current iteration.
There were two types of damage, and one was a penalty for dying, but recuperating from this required a medic, a PC medic, which were unwilling to assist without a sizable donation of cash, which you didn't have at level 5 because you were expected to have started due to a friend's invitation, even if you were going in blind. The documentation implied that sitting in a medical bay would remove the damage, but it didn't. I discovered later that ONLY PC interaction would fix this, and there implications in the forums that I was an idiot for being frustrated by this.
2) The level of frustration caused world class headaches.
Really, I was trying everything, and had headaches that lasted for nearly a week before I realized they only struck while playing SWG. I stopped playing for a day, and the headaches stopped, and that prompted my canceling my account.
3) Contrary to the forum posts telling me was an idiot "Newb", people really weren't keen on playing with a newbie.
Letting that go as is.
So, I left SWG. I was pretty much done with MMOs, I'd given up hope that I'd find anything worth playing that wasn't a fantasy MMO, an itch I could scratch with countless offline computer RPGs.
City of Heroes
This was the paradigm shifter. I found with City of Heroes a very relaxed, fun, and friendly community. Well, overall. I'm still subscribing to this one four years later, so obviously it made an impact.
The big one that appealed to me was the honesty. The Developers are fairly open when there are mistakes that were made, and they really do go out of their way to minimize their impact.
Where other companies hide behind the proverbial "Digital Curtain", similar to the Iron Curtain, where you only know what is happening AFTER there's a socio-political repercussion when the Developers drop a nuclear device into a field of ganking daisies , with City of Heroes, you knew they were watching and were going to extensively test the repercussions on test servers before dropping anything on your head.
A lot of this can be summed up by a comment I remember from MxO... "Why can't I fly like Neo?" To which someone responded, "He was The One. He was special."
Someone else popped off with, "If you want to fly, try City of Heroes."
We've learned a thing or two with our experiences with the NGE and don't plan on repeating mistakes from the past and not listening to the players.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Part Two
Neverwinter Nights debuted in 1991, and I wanted to play it so bad, though I never did have the opportunity. I watched someone else play it, though, and was able to see it in action. People quibble about what the first MMO was, and I still think that Neverwinter was it, even if the "Massive" didn't match the later numbers of some developers.
(One of the remarkable things about those "Gold Box" D&D games was that it was eventually released as "Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures", which basically allowed you create your own games. I was not able to buy it at its original price, but a few years later, around 1997, I finally got my hands on it and it was /good/. The limitations were legion, but I did not care. We'll get back to this eventually.)
In 1993 I got into a little text based MUD, Multi-User Dungeon, called Lost Souls. It still exists, believe it or not, at lostsouls.org. For the most part it was a little place with a lot of drama, if you bothered to pay attention, or stuck with it. The admin was drunk on his own power, and would clear out the character list every year or so. Guilds (another name for classes) would just disappear overnight. It had lots of flaws, but it was still fun. I recall a new guild that was introduced, and a character of mine, a sort of lawful stupid almost paladin type, took it upon himself to try to stop this new guild of witches. Evil types. They kept starting a plague and my character's guild was one of two guilds that could cure it. I found their secret lair, which took me a few days to find. I don't even remember exactly how I did it, but with a little luck and persevereance, they had a Justicar sitting outside their cauldron room.
It led to my atman, essentially comparable to my account name, having an alt that was a member of this little band of witches. I had to be reigned in, actually, I had a little too much fun being evil. I have my moments.
When that character was purged, I pretty much gave up Lostsouls.
A related memory is when I worked with the guy that eventually coded the Kazarak guild. He was fixated on "wizzing", or reaching "Wizard" status. It is now known as "Dev" status in other games. You completed all the quests and such and they let you dance in the proverbial playground. We worked as telephone operators at a university, and it was third shift, so I covered the phones while he did his thing. I watched over his shoulder as he hacked his way into the university gateway, and telnetted in. In a way it was sad how easily he was able to do it.
After I finally gave up on Lostsouls, I found myself lost. What do you do to compete with that kind of experience? It was a while before I stumbled across something called "Achaea".
I started playing in 1998, and it was a for-profit, free to play set up. It's all the rage now, but back then, it was revolutionary. I'd actually stumbled across its existence when I asked a guy on the Alternity forums (a now defunct effort by TSR to create a sci-fi counterpart to D&D) with the name "Sarapis" what sort of domain name was "Achaea". He promised me he'd send a note to my email when they went to beta. That email didn't happen. I'm still a little grumpy about that.
It had been live almost a year before I stumbled across it. I started as a paladin, and hooked up with a mentor that got banned from the game about three weeks later. There was a depth to the gameplay you still can't get. I lost myself in that game and its clones for seven years.
http://www.achaea.com/irex/helpview/help.php?id=157 Scavenger Nusiki, that's me. I was there for the first time the Dun valley was opened.
http://scavenger8.tripod.com/cgi-bin/dunvale.txt
That's a log of that night. It was magical. It really was.
I sometimes miss those days. Political intrigue, making a difference. "Dev" teams going out of their way to make things special. You just don't see it any more. Not like that. Flip side of the coin? I obsessed. OMG did I obsess. It wasn't an addiction, not quite, but I really couldn't find a reason to not do it. And then there was Feverfew. I didn't like her much at all, at first. Her first postings were atrocious. They were insanely clumsy. I "met" her for the first time climbing my way out of Dun Valley. I wish I still had that log. We became really good friends. I see a lot of qualities she had in my current wife. Good qualities.
Luerim derives from those days. It's actually Sumerian for "Evil Person". More or less. It's totally weird to find yourself playing a game, but that's where I was. Under the moniker "Luerim" I was able to give into the dark urges in a very positive way. I really like the name, too. Rolls off my tongue nicely. I'm not an evil person, but do tend to be very critical of certain things, and most people don't like my brand of criticism, because it's respectfully accurate, but slices.
In the graphical MMO arena, everything after that is almost a let-down.
(One of the remarkable things about those "Gold Box" D&D games was that it was eventually released as "Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures", which basically allowed you create your own games. I was not able to buy it at its original price, but a few years later, around 1997, I finally got my hands on it and it was /good/. The limitations were legion, but I did not care. We'll get back to this eventually.)
In 1993 I got into a little text based MUD, Multi-User Dungeon, called Lost Souls. It still exists, believe it or not, at lostsouls.org. For the most part it was a little place with a lot of drama, if you bothered to pay attention, or stuck with it. The admin was drunk on his own power, and would clear out the character list every year or so. Guilds (another name for classes) would just disappear overnight. It had lots of flaws, but it was still fun. I recall a new guild that was introduced, and a character of mine, a sort of lawful stupid almost paladin type, took it upon himself to try to stop this new guild of witches. Evil types. They kept starting a plague and my character's guild was one of two guilds that could cure it. I found their secret lair, which took me a few days to find. I don't even remember exactly how I did it, but with a little luck and persevereance, they had a Justicar sitting outside their cauldron room.
It led to my atman, essentially comparable to my account name, having an alt that was a member of this little band of witches. I had to be reigned in, actually, I had a little too much fun being evil. I have my moments.
When that character was purged, I pretty much gave up Lostsouls.
A related memory is when I worked with the guy that eventually coded the Kazarak guild. He was fixated on "wizzing", or reaching "Wizard" status. It is now known as "Dev" status in other games. You completed all the quests and such and they let you dance in the proverbial playground. We worked as telephone operators at a university, and it was third shift, so I covered the phones while he did his thing. I watched over his shoulder as he hacked his way into the university gateway, and telnetted in. In a way it was sad how easily he was able to do it.
After I finally gave up on Lostsouls, I found myself lost. What do you do to compete with that kind of experience? It was a while before I stumbled across something called "Achaea".
I started playing in 1998, and it was a for-profit, free to play set up. It's all the rage now, but back then, it was revolutionary. I'd actually stumbled across its existence when I asked a guy on the Alternity forums (a now defunct effort by TSR to create a sci-fi counterpart to D&D) with the name "Sarapis" what sort of domain name was "Achaea". He promised me he'd send a note to my email when they went to beta. That email didn't happen. I'm still a little grumpy about that.
It had been live almost a year before I stumbled across it. I started as a paladin, and hooked up with a mentor that got banned from the game about three weeks later. There was a depth to the gameplay you still can't get. I lost myself in that game and its clones for seven years.
http://www.achaea.com/irex/helpview/help.php?id=157 Scavenger Nusiki, that's me. I was there for the first time the Dun valley was opened.
http://scavenger8.tripod.com/cgi-bin/dunvale.txt
That's a log of that night. It was magical. It really was.
I sometimes miss those days. Political intrigue, making a difference. "Dev" teams going out of their way to make things special. You just don't see it any more. Not like that. Flip side of the coin? I obsessed. OMG did I obsess. It wasn't an addiction, not quite, but I really couldn't find a reason to not do it. And then there was Feverfew. I didn't like her much at all, at first. Her first postings were atrocious. They were insanely clumsy. I "met" her for the first time climbing my way out of Dun Valley. I wish I still had that log. We became really good friends. I see a lot of qualities she had in my current wife. Good qualities.
Luerim derives from those days. It's actually Sumerian for "Evil Person". More or less. It's totally weird to find yourself playing a game, but that's where I was. Under the moniker "Luerim" I was able to give into the dark urges in a very positive way. I really like the name, too. Rolls off my tongue nicely. I'm not an evil person, but do tend to be very critical of certain things, and most people don't like my brand of criticism, because it's respectfully accurate, but slices.
In the graphical MMO arena, everything after that is almost a let-down.
Friday, August 7, 2009
Final Fantasy 11 and other MMOs both past and present... The Prelude, or Part One.
My biggest gripe of late is FF11, FFXI, FFbiteme, or whatever you feel suits your current mood. In order to properly appreciate the hell I narrowly avoided, you have to understand my past MMO experiences. But to tell that tale, we're going back to the very, very, very beginning.
Ok, not THE beginning, as that would entail warnings about adult content. We'll start at age eight, or there abouts, and my first exposure to a computer game. I literally started on Zork, before it was properly called Zork, played on a TRS-80 home computer.
How can a eight year old appreciate a text based adventure game? It was interactive. It talked to me. Oddly enough, I'm not sure how, I knew that somebody made the game, I knew it wasn't magic, and had a vague understanding that there was math involved. But it was telling a story, and I was the hero. That was what mattered to me.
Because it was the early 80s, and my family didn't get a computer until the TI99-4A was about to get dropped like a flaming hot lead balloon filled with cyanide gas, my formative years were spent with a LOT of text-based adventures. While other (comparatively VERY well off) families were playing their Nintendo, we were watching dad trying to spreadsheet. (Incidentally, this was the first indication of the Y2K "bug". The date entry didn't extend beyond 1999. Yet another sign that a kid with lots of time, few friends, and a new toy really doesn't need flashing sprites to make his day).
Shortly before we moved to Fayetteville, NC, we aquired an IBM PCjr. Those in the know realize this computer prompted one of the grandest advancements in gaming, the graphical adventure. Specifically, King's Quest. Supposedly, King's Quest was the result of a direct request from IBM. They were looking for a way to show off the 16 color display, a significant technical achievement for the time (1984). King's Quest was the end of the text based adventure game as we knew it.
Just before the Fayetteville move we got our hands on Wizardry. The PC version. Before I moved to Fayetteville, that was all I had in the way of RPG goodness. CGA line drawings and learning what Ninjas and Samurais were. I didn't know they were cool until that game.
Later, Starflight sucked up a lot of time. I still love the memories of that game. What really surplants that game, though, is Pools of Radiance. Wow. Not WoW, but really amazing all the same.
This time there was D&D, I didn't have to buy miniatures, and there was exploration that I could enjoy. At the time it had revolutionary game play. I still prefer the turn based play, but I'm not going to harp on that.
Ok, not THE beginning, as that would entail warnings about adult content. We'll start at age eight, or there abouts, and my first exposure to a computer game. I literally started on Zork, before it was properly called Zork, played on a TRS-80 home computer.
How can a eight year old appreciate a text based adventure game? It was interactive. It talked to me. Oddly enough, I'm not sure how, I knew that somebody made the game, I knew it wasn't magic, and had a vague understanding that there was math involved. But it was telling a story, and I was the hero. That was what mattered to me.
Because it was the early 80s, and my family didn't get a computer until the TI99-4A was about to get dropped like a flaming hot lead balloon filled with cyanide gas, my formative years were spent with a LOT of text-based adventures. While other (comparatively VERY well off) families were playing their Nintendo, we were watching dad trying to spreadsheet. (Incidentally, this was the first indication of the Y2K "bug". The date entry didn't extend beyond 1999. Yet another sign that a kid with lots of time, few friends, and a new toy really doesn't need flashing sprites to make his day).
Shortly before we moved to Fayetteville, NC, we aquired an IBM PCjr. Those in the know realize this computer prompted one of the grandest advancements in gaming, the graphical adventure. Specifically, King's Quest. Supposedly, King's Quest was the result of a direct request from IBM. They were looking for a way to show off the 16 color display, a significant technical achievement for the time (1984). King's Quest was the end of the text based adventure game as we knew it.
Just before the Fayetteville move we got our hands on Wizardry. The PC version. Before I moved to Fayetteville, that was all I had in the way of RPG goodness. CGA line drawings and learning what Ninjas and Samurais were. I didn't know they were cool until that game.
Later, Starflight sucked up a lot of time. I still love the memories of that game. What really surplants that game, though, is Pools of Radiance. Wow. Not WoW, but really amazing all the same.
This time there was D&D, I didn't have to buy miniatures, and there was exploration that I could enjoy. At the time it had revolutionary game play. I still prefer the turn based play, but I'm not going to harp on that.
First Post!
First post! I've always wondered what to say first at a time like this... Fnord somehow doesn't cut it.
I plan to focus on political and societal commentary, as well as throwing my own two cents into the morass that is popular media. Books, games (both analog and digital), movies, and music. More of the latter than the former. I hope. I'm not a wonk, after all.
Occasional random musings as well. After all, I like pie and/or cake.
This blogging thing's not a fad any more, so I figure I might as well get into it. Still not sure about that cell phone thing, though.
Luerim
I plan to focus on political and societal commentary, as well as throwing my own two cents into the morass that is popular media. Books, games (both analog and digital), movies, and music. More of the latter than the former. I hope. I'm not a wonk, after all.
Occasional random musings as well. After all, I like pie and/or cake.
This blogging thing's not a fad any more, so I figure I might as well get into it. Still not sure about that cell phone thing, though.
Luerim
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