General Tsao

My Awesome Brother and Terminator 2

2009-10-18T22:51:00.000-07:00

The last time I blogged, I mentioned that a lot of things were going on in my life that were preventing me from having the mental energy to write on my blog. And though I don't exactly feel like I've "caught up," I do have the sense that either things are returning to a pace I can handle, or I'm getting my annual burst of fall energy that is making life seem a bit less overwhelming and hard. (I really love this particular change of seasons--from summer to fall.) It's nice, and I'm thankful.

And while I do have several little posts starting to at least poke their heads through the haze in my head and request to see the light of the Internet, I wanted first to share a couple of the things that have kept me so hazy for so many weeks and months. I'll start with the easiest--which is the easiest only because it involves linking to a post someone else wrote.

My brother has been undergoing chemotherapy for the last few months, and he's been blogging about his experience so friends, family, and other people struggling with cancer can follow along. Last week he wrote something profound and beautiful, and I wanted to share it with as many people as possible. So do yourself a favor and check it out -- I find the wisdom contained therein applies to a lot of the struggles, small and large, life threatening and trivial, that we all constantly face. It's called No Fate, and maybe I especially like it because it takes its title from one of my favorite films, Terminator 2.

Thankfully, my brother is coming to the end of his chemo, and though the next week or two are supposed to be the worst, at least it will be over soon. We'll all be glad to see him get through this and on to the rest of his quite extraordinary life.

Too much!

2009-08-13T21:11:00.000-07:00

Lately there has been a LOT going on in my life, more than I can talk about openly, and more than I think I've ever experienced all at once. Every time I think things are settling down, a new wrench gets tossed my way (I even have mysterious bruises that are possibly evidence of these "wrenches"). Not all of it involves just me, which is why I really can't share details, but I hope it explains just a little bit why I haven't been writing much of substance here. I've also realized how difficult it is to use the social networking sites to express one's true feelings. Facebook really needs to add a "share only with the people who won't judge you when you say you are depressed or stressed or feel like crap" button.

But anyway, it's been a while since I wrote, and I just felt like putting something -- any words, really -- out there. And I'll leave you with this very important Bill Moyers' piece about the health insurance industry -- just watch the first few minutes for a reminder of why reform is necessary. In this economy, I hope more and more people are realizing how very precarious employer-based health insurance is.

That's the way it is

2009-07-17T21:13:00.000-07:00

I really liked Katie Couric's show tonight on Walter Cronkite. It's truly the most appropriate format for an obit on this legendary newsman.

Watch CBS Videos Online

I really hope Cronkite's standard of journalism isn't dying. Some would argue that it's already dead, but I don't agree. I think things are simply evolving and adapting to some seriously disruptive technological changes. The love of truth and representing important issues and stories to the public is what drives real journalism, and I can't see human beings ever surviving without that.

All these deaths lately are making me realize that I guess I finally am "growing up" (a.k.a. getting older). With Michael Jackson, it was remembering "Beat It" as one of the first music videos I'd ever seen. This time, it's remembering watching Walter Cronkite on the evening news. My mom would have it on during dinner, and I remember hearing him count each night how long the hostages had been held in Iran. I guess getting old isn't so bad -- think of all the history you get to see! (Uncle Walt himself would probably attest to that.)

I think what astonished me most about Katie's report was the part where they showed his old papers, and his old reporter's notebooks. He kept everything! I can't wait until that guy publishes his biography. I'd love to see some of Cronkite's old notes. It also makes me sad my own notebooks have rarely if ever captured anything worth saving for decades, and even when they have, my notes have always been so sloppy I don't think they'd be worth poring over ever again. I might have 'em tucked away somewhere nonetheless. (I guess reporters are reporters, whatever the generation! Gotta save your notes!)

Belonging

2009-07-09T21:46:00.001-07:00

I hope I'm getting this just in under the wire of relevant Michael Jackson posting, because it has got to be said. Every time the question of Michael Jackson's kids' paternity and custody comes into question, somewhere an adoption angel dies. Really. I've really been wondering how adopted (or any non-traditionally conceived) children feel when they hear these newscasters pondering that because Jackson may/may not be the biological father to those children, it's just a complete MYSTERY who is going to take care of them now that he's gone, and really, to whom do these kids belong? It's ridiculous. Why should his kids (which I assume are legally his kids, especially if their mother relinquished her parental rights) be treated any differently than any other kids whose parents/guardians die? To say that they should be treated differently because they might not be genetically related to their father is such outright ignorance and stupidity, and I can't believe how glibly it keeps getting stated and questioned over and over again.

The other thing that has been nagging at me is this question of whether the kids are his, based completely on their looks, and whether there's any way those kids could be half-black. I thought we had come farther than this as a society, I really did. I mean I grew up with people questioning whether my dad was really my dad, questioning whether I was really Chinese, etc. and I never really held it against anyone. Back when I was growing up -- believe it or not -- multiracial marriages and mixed children were still quite unusual. But nowadays it is so obvious how quickly "dark" genes can get diluted. I'm not saying it's the norm, but it can happen in a single generation. Genetics are weird, and there's so much living proof of this fact that it is simply ignorant and embarrassing for people to insist that there's just no way those kids could be half-black. That's simply not the case. I'm not gonna go on record and say I think they actually are half-black, because frankly, Michael Jackson's life and ways give me plenty of reason to believe that they might not be genetically related to him at all. But to be so ignorant of the reality of mixed ethnic heritage in the multicultural era in which we live makes you painfully out of touch.

And then finally, to top it all off, today when I was finally saying, ah, well, I'm taking this all too seriously and just need to let it go, I see this ridiculous, embarrassing, preposterous story on ABC News of all places (Peter Jennings, please be rolling in your grave!) about Michael Jackson's "white" kids and the challenges they are going to face getting along with his black family. I don't think I need to break down all the things that are wrong with this article, but I do have two questions for our friends at the network:

1) Did Luchina Fisher, the author of this story, and whoever edited it get a serious talking to? Will an apology be appearing for this frankly racist "news" article?

2) If not, then when are you guys going to do a retrospective on my life growing up as the one "white" kid dealing with an all-Chinese family? The language barrier! The hair color! The pressure to do well in school! The chopsticks! Oh, the stories I can tell! If only I'd realized earlier this was breaking news!

Race in this country is a complicated issue, and judging by how contemporary media are handling the strange, sad, unusual story of Michael Jackson's life and death, it's clear that whatever progress we so celebrated when we elected our first black president back in November was -- important though it may have been -- still just a baby step toward combating our tribal, xenophobic, and prejudiced human nature.

On <3 and Animal Crossing

2009-05-30T11:14:00.000-07:00

I've been playing this game against my will lately. My niece and nephew adore it, so I've sort of been peer-pressured into playing it on Alex's behalf. He's not quite old enough to play it on his own, but he is old enough to appreciate it and understand that he and his cousins can play it "together" online, visiting each other's towns and such.

We all know the <3 emoticon denotes love. What's the opposite of that?

See, I've played the previous Animal Crossings, on Gamecube and DS, pretty extensively. I've already paid off multiple mortgages to Tom Nook and filled numerous museums with dinosaur bones. I've shaken trees and conversed with town inhabitants ad nauseum. Even the hottest show in town, KK Whatever-his-name-is on Saturday night, got boring years ago. So this third time around, enduring all of Animal Crossings odd quirks (the endless dialogues, the not-quite-exact enough controls, the lack of new content or gameplay) doesn't feel quite as rewarding or enchanting as it was, especially, the first time around.

The game makes you pay a steep price -- especially if you want to go online. I knew about friend codes, so I was expecting that part. I wasn't prepared for the fact that, before you can even get your damned friend code, you need to complete your first round of odd jobs for America's favorite predatory lender Tom Nook (which happens to involve having lengthy conversations with every bleepin' animal in town). Then, once you have all the friend codes (and every human player needs his/her own code -- fun fun fun!), you have to be online simultaneously, with your gate open (a setting which requires a save and restart to change) and Wi-Fi firewall settings fixed just so. For some reason, I had a ludicrous notion that I'd be able to mail letters to another friend's town, but I couldn't get that to work. I mean, there's absolutely no way in hell you are ever getting Animal Crossing set up online without also having to be on speakerphone with the people you are trying to contact, which just seems ridiculous. What's the opposite of <3 again?

But when we finally succeeded, and Alex's cousin made her first exuberant foray from Pretty town into Gearland -- with Wii Speak enabled and everything! -- I've got to admit, this game that has frustrated me so, the game that has been shoveled from system to system with the most minimal of effort, became magical all over again. My ennui evaporated and I was full of <3!

I'd still like to know the other emoticon, though. Alex and I haven't even made our first mortgage payment to Nook, and given how he always gives us an earful even for the simplest transactions, things are bound to get ugly.

"NO! MINE! [pause] Thank you!"

2009-05-07T08:17:00.000-07:00

"NO! MINE!"

There are few more classic symptoms of the terrible twos than this phrase, which Alex has started saying lately. He doesn't so much say it as he does bark it like a dog trainer or German soldier. It's so curt and stern-sounding that it is obvious if it were being typed, it would be in ALL CAPS. It's mostly uttered in reference to a cherished toy or piece of candy, and it's usually said in the expected context -- if he fears something is going to be taken away from him, either by us or by another child. We're trying to cope with this as we have any of his other "terrible" stages -- correct when possible, ignore when necessary, divert and distract when all else fails.

Sometimes, though, "NO! MINE!" comes out at strange and (since this is my blog, I can say it) really darling times: at the dinner table, right after he's helped himself to something off my plate, or at random moments throughout the day, like recently when Nick heard Alex say the following:

"NO!!! MINE!!!" Then a pause. Then, in the sweetest, most polite tone of voice ever, a chirpy little "Thank you!"

Mind you, Alex said this to nobody in particular. When he was playing all by his lonesome, with unchallenged access to every single one of his earthly possessions.

The little guy may be in his terrible twos, and he may be developing a real sense of territorialism. But you can't say he isn't being polite about it.

Chocolate Snobbery

2009-04-27T11:04:00.000-07:00

I never thought I had the potential to become a chocolate snob, because I'm really not much of a fan of dark chocolate, and everyone knows that dark chocolate is the finest chocolate and people who have fine tastes prefer dark chocolate. My husband is one of these people. He won't even eat Hershey's Kisses! I've always been pretty open-minded about chocolate, though I'm also not someone who really obsesses about it in any way. So I was very surprised the other day when, at a work function where I had access to a giant bowl of candy bars, I ate a Kit-Kat and found myself completely not enjoying it at all! The chocolate just tasted...weird -- synthetic almost. I need to dig a little deeper to find out if they changed their formula or ingredients. I mean, Kit-Kat has always been one of my faves -- I'm fine not being a chocolate "snob," per se, but I'd hate to think that for most of my life I had genuinely bad taste!

Help a robot!

2009-04-12T15:57:00.001-07:00

Read the story of the little robot who made it!

The ever awesome Greg Orlando (formerly of Xbox Nation and Daily Radar) sent me this link. It's lovely....

Twitter: The New Smoking

2009-03-15T12:41:00.000-07:00

Twitter drives me crazy. I'm not saying I'm not drawn to its infectious, somewhat addictive nature. But I realized recently that for me, Twitter is a lot like cigarette smoking, and social smoking in particular. I want to do it -- all my friends are doing it, and it looks rather cool. Everyone's talking about it -- it's all over the blogosphere and news, and it certainly seems like the "thing to do" of the moment. But when I actually sit down in the bar and light up a Twitter account, first of all, I find I don't actually enjoy its strange, abbreviated form of oversharing. Then I realize I'm surrounded by fumes and totally can't control which ones invade my consciousness -- it's pretty much all or nothing. And then even after I've left the bar, I can't get the smell out of my hair. If I had an addictive personality, I'd probably be coming back for more (luckily, I don't). Yup -- Twitter is the new smoking.

Anyone with a personal blog already understands the desire to share one's thoughts with the world. Individual reasons vary beyond that broad, overarching goal. I started this blog as a way to motivate myself to formulate my random thoughts into somewhat coherent written essays and vignettes. Over time, I realized it was a great way to keep in contact with long-distance friends and family. And now that I've moved on from EGM and 1UP, of course, it is a way to keep in touch with the community of gamers and friends I made along the way. A bonus is being able to share my thoughts and knowledge with people typing particular keywords into search engines. So, lots of good reasons, if I may say so.

Facebook enabled me to share my thoughts in a more automated manner with many of the same people. I call it "automated" because Facebook's format means you can be expressive without actually having to come up with a thesis, developing arguments, and a conclusion. You certainly don't need to be articulate, and even proper grammar and spelling is rather optional. Plus, what with superpokes, photo tagging, chain-letter notes, having the Bigger Brain or Word Challenge score, and the like, Facebook gives you words when you can't think up any of your own. And often, those means of communication end up being much more effective than a beautifully penned treatise. Sure, you could come right out and say, "Hey, we were good friends once, and I've thought about you a lot over the years. I'd love to reconnect and keep in touch, but don't expect to hear from me very often because obviously I have a pretty busy life. Still, that doesn't mean I don't care!" But that's so direct, emotionally honest -- even confrontational. It's much more humane to just invite your old friend to play Scrabble once in a while, occasionally noting in the chat how cute their kids are or how you've been stressed out at work lately. Better yet, you just challenge them to an '80s movie trivia quiz and remember fondly the slumber parties where you watched all those movies together. I appreciate Facebook for this ability to make connecting with friends less emotional, less articulate, less carefully thought-out, and it's been a damn near miracle how it's reconnected me with people I thought were totally gone from my life for good.

And then there's Twitter. To me, Twitter is like a double-derivative. You take the derivative of blogging and you get Facebook. Then you take the derivative of Facebook and you get Twitter. It's all that oversharing boiled down again and again to its most addictive, infectious essence. I've noticed this among my circle of friends. You had the early smokers -- the ones who got right into Twitter and really enjoyed the up-to-the-minute newsiness of it. Then, just the way so many otherwise healthy-living, conscientious folks will smoke cigarettes socially, Twitter started to ensnare friend after friend into its weird, stream-of-consciousness blabbing. The difference for me between Twitter and Facebook or a blog is that I often care what people write in those other two forums. I really like reading people's blogs, because they often have some thought and care put into them. And Facebook is a nice way of recounting the overall ups and downs of ordinary life. But Twitter gives people a little too much freedom in recounting a few too many ups and downs. Like, bodily functions, people? Really? It's also taken the questionable grammar practices of 1337speak and Facebook and put them front and center, to the point where it seems people are almost trying as hard as they can to write 140 characters of broken English. And it's made this whole @soandso format seem like an almost normal way of referring to your friends. Like, "Yeah, what'd you do this weekend? Oh I changed @Alex's diaper and did @Nick's laundry. Went out to breakfast with @Grandparents and then took @Fido for a walk."

It drives me crazy. Obviously, Twitter is not going away, and luckily, it's a hell of a lot healthier than smoking. But it's also lucky I don't have an addictive personality, and though I do give my occasional update on Twitter, I think for now I'll stick with my other two primary avenues for oversharing.

Play Time (or, how I learned to stop worrying and hate Mirror's Edge)

2009-02-22T12:10:00.000-08:00

An hour was all it took for me to decide that I was utterly uninterested in Mirror's Edge. But I couldn't help but feel that I should keep on playing for at least a few hours before I could authoritatively state that I hated it. Perhaps this is a vestige of my life as a member of the (modern-era) EGM Review Crew, when we took game reviewing so seriously we would never consider forming final opinions on a game until we'd damn near finished it or at least made sure that we'd seen all of what the game had to offer. But really, how long should you have to play a game before you can determine whether or not you like it? The closest analogy I can think of is reading a book, where you often have to give it 50 or 100 pages before you really get a sense of the story, characters, and depth. Writing style is apparent and may be immediately engrossing or off-putting, but the more macro aspects of the book take a while to develop.

With Mirror's Edge, though, I felt pretty immediately and consistently throughout the first level or two that I was basically going to hate almost everything about the game. The world was kinda interesting architecturally, and the cartoony graphics were pretty cool. But I hated the voice actor who played Faith. I hated the story line and the silly tomboy runner who was showing me the ropes in the tutorial. I hated the first-person perspective and not being able to see my character doing all these ostensibly cool parkour moves. I hated the fact that the game made me use my left hand more than my right. I hate the constant insta-death scenarios. I hated how long it took to reload after you died. I hated being chased by "blues" shooting me. I hated that my reflection didn't show up in glossy windows except during the scripted parts. At a certain point very early on (right after Faith kisses her sister goodbye in awkward first-person view and then has to outrun a bunch of cops), I decided that there was absolutely no reason for me to continue playing something I was hating so much.

But still, I can't shake that nagging feeling that I haven't played enough of the game to truly see whether I've made a fair judgment about it. I know quite a lot of people who'll beat games they don't even like, but they too are all former reviewers. I also remember playing a bunch of games during my time as a reviewer where you get used to the controls or the camera and then the game starts to be not so bad (though I've rarely seen games go from seeming bad at the beginning to becoming really good eventually -- only from bad to OK). But since Mirror's Edge was rated fairly high (wasn't it?), I am wondering if I missed the point or something.... Did it get really good a few more levels in?

Unless you enlighten me, we'll never know, because after 2 levels and 30 achievement points, I'm done.

Layoffs

2009-02-01T12:43:00.000-08:00

I probably would have blogged sooner after the inauguration, but that day, moments after Obama was sworn in, I learned of layoffs happening at my company. I was very, very lucky to have been spared, but that was a difficult week in general. It's hard seeing people lose their jobs, even if you don't know them too well. So I was feeling rather uncommunicative for a while afterward.

Life moves on, but these are dark days indeed. Not a weekday passes when you don't hear about another company shedding dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands of employees. I don't care how few it is or how justified the expense may be; my heart goes out to those people. I've been unemployed before, and that period goes down as one of the toughest in my life. The money problems might be the most tangible, but losing one's place in one's career and one's sense of immediate purpose are, in my opinion, much more damaging. The good thing about unemployment is that it does end. Some day, some way or another, you're gonna work again. It's too bad it's nigh impossible to enjoy the time off when you have it, but that's just one of those harsh realities of life.

Anyway, today I'm starting to write again, even though I might not have a whole lot to say, and what I have said isn't particularly upbeat. It's a beautiful (albeit a bit ridiculously is-this-global-warming-in-action? hot for a Super Bowl Sunday) day in San Francisco. I just got back from a glorious outing with my family, and now I'm gonna draw the blinds and play some Fallout 3. 'Cause, y'know, I like a little postapocalyptic role-playing with my global warming ;)

The Music of Wall-E

2009-01-17T08:51:00.000-08:00

I really like the movie Wall-E, and I realized the other night that a couple of the songs from the soundtrack are going to evoke some really powerful memories when Alex is grown up. That's because for the last month or so, ever since his cousin's Wall-E-themed birthday party and we bought it on Blu-ray, Alex and I have watched Wall-E almost every single morning. See, when Alex wakes up at some ungodly hour, the most Nick or I can muster is to plop Wall-E into the PS3 and then curl up on the couch and attempt to watch it with him (though often "watching" consists of me dozing and Alex narrating the movie while trying to stick vegetarian sausages, scrambled egg, or other microwaved breakfast foods into my mouth).

The first 45 minutes or so of this movie are positively brilliant. I'm sure this has been written about all over everywhere so I won't get into too much detail, but the physical storytelling is amazing and makes the movie appeal to my two-year-old as much as it does to me. I'd say most mornings we only watch that first part (he usually doesn't wake up quite that early) before it's time to get ready for work. But sometimes we leave it on in the background, and that's why the soundtrack of Wall-E has become such a prominent part of this little era of our lives.

Of course, there's the song from Hello Dolly that opens the movie, during which Alex dances around looking as cute as a two-year-old could ever look. Then there's my favorite part of the movie, where Eve waits until the spaceship is out of range before busting out into her freeform flying and exploration. I love the song that plays during this part, so much that I can already almost feel the future tears in my eyes when I hear it and remember the joy of having little two-year-old Alex all cuddled up warm with me on the couch saying, "Bye-bye spaceship!" and "Eve flying!"

The same theme plays a little later in the movie, when Eve and Wall-E are in space, Wall-E using the fire-extinguisher to propel himself through the stars. That song is definitely going to remind me of the time I came into the kitchen and saw Alex by the breakfast table with his little space shuttle toy and a car, twirling his arms around in imitation of that part of the movie and gleefully exclaiming, "Eve and Wall-E dancing! FAAAATHT!" (That's how Alex says "fast.")

I wonder if the Peter Gabriel song at the end will remind me of the feeling..."Oh my god, did we watch the whole thing?! What time is it? Am I late for work??!" And how around that moment, Alex would come sit on my lap and refuse to move, saying, "No shower" as I'd try to skulk off to begin getting ready. Or how when he'd glimpse me all dressed at the top of the stairs, he'd say, "Mama work" and then either try to climb over the baby-gate to come with me, or run off to Tutu's room, where they'd wave at me from the window as I rode my scooter off.

I'm sure at some point we'll all tire of Wall-E and move on to the next movie -- as I'm writing this, we're watching Pixar Shorts for the first time, and Alex, Nick, and Tutu are positively rapt. But I hope when Alex is older, I can help him remember how much he savored every minute of his first really beloved cinematic experience, from the Walt Disney title at the very start ("Castle!") and the Pixar intro animation ("Lamp jumping!") all the way through the end credits and their accompanying storyboards and simple cartoon animations. It's brought us pure joy, through and through.

No. I'm not psychic.

2009-01-06T20:21:00.000-08:00

My farewell bio happened to be in what now turns out to be the final EGM. It was just a coincidence, and a sad one at that. We all knew something like this was coming, but I'm not sure anyone realized how extensive the purge would be. I can't sugar-coat it and say this is great for anyone.... just how sad I am for so many people, and that at some point things will all turn out to have happened for the best. Life is just like that.

Update: I know everyone already reads Jeff Green's awesome blog but just in case you don't, this post is worth a gander. While I disagree with a couple of his comments, he's got an extremely enlightening take and one that any true fan of EGM, 1UP, or GFW/CGW will appreciate.

The New Prince of Persia

2009-01-03T14:16:00.000-08:00

I like the latest Prince of Persia, but as I've been playing it, I keep noticing certain things that drive me crazy. Everyone's praised this game for the fact that you don't die and have to restart, and I like this feature. But I still find myself having to do complex platforming sections over and over (and over and over...and OVER AND OVER AD NAUSEUM) because the section where I'm supposed to go next isn't well lit or the camera doesn't swing around in time to show me the jump I'm supposed to be making. Then I miss, and I have to restart from the very beginning. (Right now I'm experiencing this in the Spire of Dreams, but I've struggled throughout the game.)

Obviously, not many other people are having this problem, or the game wouldn't be receiving accolades as easy and "casual-friendly." But because of this challenge, I'm probably not going to finish the game, even though I really really want to! I just don't have time to keep doing the same jump sequence until my creaky fingers press all the buttons just right. Nap time (when my son is sleeping is my only real time to play games) is precious, and after trying something 10 times or more, I just say, "Basta!"

The other thing that I'm completely confused about is combat. I understand the combos (though I really had to study the combo tree to figure out how the system worked). But I just can't get used to the way the game constantly reminds you to block by flashing "RT" (for the Right Trigger button) on the screen. If this has to do with the counter system that was explained briefly in the tutorial, well, I missed or forgot that part. All I know is that *just* as I'm getting ready to attempt a great combo, the game reminds me that all I can do at that point is block. I think. Or am I missing something? Am I actually supposed to spend half my time in combat pressing RT and waiting for my turn? And if this isn't the case (which I hope it isn't, because pressing RT and waiting isn't any fun), then why hasn't the game, which obviously has a huge fondness for flashing text on the screen in the middle of combat, reminded me how to do a counter? Or given me any way to figure out how to do it? I'm not complaining that the combat is too hard, because it isn't. I just don't like being forced into blocking all the time, and I wish the game gave me a way to enjoy the combos and be more active in combat.

I've always loved this series' acrobatic platforming, and this game does that better than ever. But I also loved how the previous games' levels were sort of like puzzles you had to solve, as well as being tests of your reflexes. This game loses the puzzle-solving and mostly just has you power through levels, pressing Y or trying again when in doubt. I miss the puzzles a bit, but -- when I don't have to redo sections because I couldn't tell where or when I was supposed to jump -- I'm enjoying the faster action of this game. And I am still totally digging the architecture and ambiance. Sure, the corny dialogue and voice acting do tend to kill the vibe, but it's a rare game that lets you gaze out at gorgeous vistas while teetering on a ledge that feels like it's a mile high in the sky.

So I'm pretty bummed that I'm not going to finish it. (At least they packed a whole lot of achievement points into the first half-hour of the game!)

Also: HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

Wii Holidays

2008-12-28T22:33:00.000-08:00

Among my friends, many of them professionals in the video game industry and therefore extremely hardcore gamers, the Wii has a very, very bad reputation. Bad graphics, stupid control scheme, no good games, annoyingly family-friendly, etc. It's not hard to come up with a quick and dirty list of all the Wii's problems. And it's a common complaint to hear these guys say, "I haven't touched my Wii in months," after which they usually make a joke about how dirty that sounds.

And I get it. After Super Mario Galaxy, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, and maybe a handful of other hardcore games, there just aren't a ton of truly next-gen Wii games to appeal to the fan of Fallout 3 and GTA. I've experienced it myself: I was recently trying to buy a Wii game as a gift for some friends, and I found myself in Best Buy wandering the aisle really not able to find anything remotely "respectable" (from my perspective as a former game critic). It was all this casual crap and Nintendo games they've already played. So I get that it's hard to see the Wii as the savior of the game industry that the rest of the world views it as.

But if the Wii phenomenon isn't something special, then why, during my recent Christmas visit to my old home town, where I stayed with a few different friends, was the Wii turned on in their households, with various combinations of family members playing games on it, for hours and hours at a time? I was shocked. My friends who don't even use cell phones were playing Mario Kart with their kids all morning long. They even asked me to help them hook their Wii up to the Internet. My other friends who only play PC games are obsessed with Animal Crossing -- but they're not using the snazzy new multiplayer. No, instead, they sit there as a group watching each other run around town picking up shells and writing real letters to buddies in town. They even correct each other's spelling in said letters that will only ever be read by computer-controlled characters. They do not seem to mind the fact that the game has not genuinely been upgraded in the 6 years since it originally came out, and that its graphics have hardly changed. Members of both households went out in the days after Christmas searching for more Wii Remotes.

These Wiis are not collecting dust, and their owners aren't complaining about the lack of good software for the platform. They may not buy quite as many games per year as the hardcore crowd, but I was excited to see over-30-year-olds who haven't touched a console game since the 80s eagerly opening up their (or their kids') shiny new video games on Christmas morning and popping them in their Wiis. The other strange thing? I don't think it occurred to any of them to make a joke about how dirty that sounds.

Thanksgiving Catering from Bi-Rite

2008-12-15T07:57:00.000-08:00

Ever since before Thanksgiving, I've felt insanely busy so I'm only now getting to write about the holiday. I hosted Thanksgiving at my house, with family visiting and also Crispin and Shoe and their partners. You'd think we'd have done at least a bit of gaming, but neither my planned Rock Band session nor the awesome board game 25 Words or Less ended up happening. We did have a kids table, though. I think Crispin and Shoe both kinda wanted to sit there, but it was occupied by real kids.

I got the food catered from a very beloved local market, Bi-Rite. I was really happy with the oven-roasted Diestel Ranch turkey, which was cooked to perfection and only needed reheating. Their garlic mashed potatoes beat mine easily (we had two versions because I hadn't realized we'd ordered some). I'd probably rate their wild mushroom bread stuffing and wild mushroom & Zinfandel gravy a 6.5 on the old EGM scale (in other words: Fine, but not something you get really excited about, while actually lacking a few key ingredients that would have made it good). And while their butternut squash soup with fresh sage was really good, I wasn't even able to serve it with the Thanksgiving meal, because adding soup bowls to the table settings would have just been too difficult. The best dish, in my opinion, was the roasted cauliflower and brussel sprouts with meyer lemon butter. Which is a line, I think, that if my brussel-sprout-loathing childhood self had read, she would have been terribly disappointed in what she would eventually grow up into. But to my childhood self, all I can tell you is that as long as you demand fresh, locally grown brussel sprouts prepared in a simple, classic manner that highlights their distinctive flavors, you'll probably never have to eat them, because your parents will be freaked out at your apparent early-onset food snobbery. The menu also included a cranberry and honey-tangerine relish, which sounds good but I somehow forgot to try.

The other thing I thought was a bit weird about their menu was how they delivered it in tons and tons and tons of plastic containers, which made it a pain to transfer to serving dishes and heat up (and seemed environmentally rather negligent). But I hope other people who ordered the catering realized, as we did, that the Bi-Rite containers made perfect to-go packages for departing guests.

(Ramah packaged them up smashingly in her inimitable way.... I really wish I had sent home more of those little containers with her and the human food-vac, Crispin Boyer.)

We also had a plethora of pies and cakes.

Thanksgiving 2008
Originally uploaded by marytsao.

And though our pies came from all kinds of fancy bakeries and stores (including Bi-Rite and Mission Pie), I can say that in blind side-by-side taste tests, the scrumptious (and gigantic) Costco pies won unanimously in both the apple and pumpkin categories.

A couple reasons the SF Chronicle sucks

2008-11-29T18:00:00.000-08:00

1.
This was an actual front-page story a few months ago. It reads like filler text some editor wrote late at night as a joke that accidentally ended up making it through the edit process and getting printed. Frankly, that's the only excuse for this horribly written story getting published at all, much less on Page 1 of a major metropolitan newspaper.

And if that is the reason this story ended up where it did, then it is a perfect example of why we had a rule at EGM that filler text had to be all XXXXXXXXs. This was both extra work and decidedly unfun, eliminating as it did the opportunity for snarky editors to fill copy in as a joke that was to be replaced later with the real text. But at least it made it completely obvious to any editor reading the page, at any step in the process, what was real text and what still needed to be filled in.

The other possible explanation, which I suspect is the real one -- that this is a fair story to run on Page 1 because of its legitimately local appeal -- is really no more mitigating. The story is so badly written that readers have virtually no reason why they should even keep reading past the jump, much less look up the guy's blog or follow him on Twitter for pete's sake. I mean I subscribe to the damn Chronicle, read it fairly regularly, and still had completely forgotten who this person was. Why the hell should I care that he's now a "real journalist?" Especially when the story I'm reading, ostensibly written by a "real journalist," is so clearly an example of...bad journalism. It's so meta it's giving me a headache to think about.

2.
I really hate their headlines. You can find examples of their weak headline writing every day, but today's example illustrates a crucial rule I learned from Merv Block (a fabulous writing teacher I had at Columbia Journalism School): Don't start with a question or quotation. Now, Merv Block is a pro at writing for broadcast, but in newspaper writing, the headline is basically the same as the first line of a broadcast news story. So to ask such an inane question as the headline is basically asking anyone who answers no to just move on and quit reading.

And I kinda suspect a LOT of people answered no to that question.

Now, obviously I support the Chronicle's fundamental mission or else I wouldn't subscribe. But the more bad headlines and crappy stories I read, the harder it gets to feel bad about the sad state of newspaper publishing in San Francisco. While I'm criticizing the Chron, though, I will say that I really like the local columnists, and if the paper is going to survive at all, I'd think it'll do so by providing great local coverage -- stories that are better reported and more thoughtful than what you can get anywhere else.

My last bio! (Review Crew Spoiler Alert!)

2008-11-20T22:49:00.000-08:00

My farewell EGM Review Crew bio recently went to the printers, and since it was my last one, I feel like I can pull back the curtain a bit FOR THE FIRST TIME. (I know, totally overdramatic there, but what can I say? I had dinner at a one-Michelin-star establishment this evening and I'm feeling giddy.)

See, every time my picture appeared in print, it caused me a bit of...anxiety? excitement? perplexedness? I wanted not to care, but it was so very hard not to care. I mean, multiple hundreds of thousands of these pictures were being printed, and for many of our readers, that bio was the only chance they had to connect a name beside a review score to an actual human face. And dammit, I wanted that face to look good. (Or at least I wanted it to represent who I actually was that particular month.)

So I pretty consistently -- for 6+ years -- put a significant effort into my bio pictures. I don't think this was that unusual, though I may be the only one man enough to admit it. Some of the guys were very mellow about it. Others were as fussy as I. But almost everyone had to do at least one or two takes. Even Dan "Shoe" Hsu, the king of devising the perfectly complementary pose that worked ever-so-harmoniously with his bio text, often had to do a couple of takes. (Also, while I'm at it, why not give props to various photographers over the years. Mike Cruz, Demian Linn, Joy Fremont, my husband, and many others who pinch-hit month to month...it ain't easy being the one responsible for capturing the Review Crew's mugs and I always appreciated those people who were patient with my many many takes. And our wonderful art director Mo always made sure to color-correct everything so that everyone's skin looked easy, breezy, and beautiful. And hell, while I'm giving props, why not mention Crispin Boyer, my go-to guy for putting in the funny. And Mark MacDonald, whose SOCOM-themed bio in my early days really...well, as you can see, once I start giving props, it's hard to stop, so I'll just cut it out now.)

But my final bio really took the...cake. Literally! I mean this one required multiple props, staging, creative and art direction, and, perhaps most importantly, America's Next Top Modelesque posing. I ended up with several options, and picking which one to go with was pretty tough. Did I make the right choice? YOU BE THE JUDGE.

Rock Band and the Story of Stuff

2008-11-16T21:54:00.000-08:00

I love music games, but Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero World Tour offend me on an environmental level. Games that come in boxes so big you can't carry them in a backpack shouldn't be allowed to come out every year. It's just completely not cool. It's the same with iPhones and iPods. I love the improvements they are able to make so quickly, but it's so wrong to expect, tempt, or even want people to buy new versions of perfectly good stuff every year or even every other year (for particularly expensive items). I know that you don't have to buy the new peripherals or upgraded versions, and I guess I'm hoping that most people don't. But I'll be the first to admit that it's hard to play with my old crappy Rock Band 1 drums when I know the new kit has so many needed improvements (quieter pads, mainly, but also the better attachment for the pedal so it doesn't fall off so easily). If the better drums didn't exist until two or three years from now, though, I'd probably feel perfectly satisfied with my old ones. What would be so bad for them if they just put out new drums every few years and rolled all the upgrades into the rarer, better versions? I suppose that's just completely at odds with our consumer culture though.... There's this longish but really well done little video about this problem called The Story of Stuff.

At least USB as a standard means the controllers are compatible with the different franchises. Proprietary controllers would simply be unacceptable.

Changes

2008-11-11T20:08:00.000-08:00

OK, I know it's a little pathetic how Ziff Davis Alumni like to blog about how their new jobs offer such mad benefits as multiple flavors of tea and plastic spoons. But my new employer? Totally offers lots of tea, dozens of types of flavored coffee (the futuristic kind where you insert the pod and it makes whatever mixture you want), and spoons, forks, and all other manner of corporate-sponsored utensils. Pretty rad.

New York was awesome. I loved being in Rockefeller Center the night of the election. They had the electoral map projected on the ice skating rink, and whenever a state would be announced for Obama everyone would cheer. The weather was unseasonably warm, which gave the whole evening a more festive atmosphere. And when the actual announcement came projecting Obama for the win, people just started cheering out of every window, honking horns, dancing in the streets and smiling everywhere. It was really something special.

Amy and I took a bunch of pictures, and at first I just snapped a few mundane shots the way I would document any other event. But then I made us walk back and at least try to get some really good ones, because it was obvious that, one way or another, the night was going to be a real moment in history. I know our country and our political system face problems that run much deeper than the presidency, but I'm so happy that someone with such a diverse heritage, who is such a symbol of unity and hope for so many, has made it to the country's most powerful office, and with such dignity and character.

Plus, how completely awesome is it that we managed to elect someone, at this point in our history, whose name rhymes with Osama and whose middle name is Hussein? That alone tells you something about the changing face of this country.

In-Flight Entertainment

2008-11-04T17:32:00.000-08:00

Flying in the post-9/11 environment is no fun, but one way it has gotten seriously, noticeably better is with all the entertainment options now available to fliers -- and I can't quite express how annoying it is that all these cool diversions became available after I had kids. I can’t enjoy any of them!

Downloading whole TV shows off iTunes or Hulu and watching them on your laptop, which happens to be fully powered by your personal seat outlet? It's amazing! I could be catching up on, oh I don't know, Arrested Development or season 2 of The Wire (though I've watched the rest of The Wire, that's the year I kept nodding off in the middle of the show). Or gorging on VH1's reality TV shows, movies on demand, and the latest pop sensations through my in-seat entertainment center. (I flew Virgin America.) To say nothing of all the portable video-game treats available these days. (Donahoe and Mike Cruz have convinced me it's time to play Phoenix Wright parts 2 & 3.)

But guess what I got to "enjoy" during my recent 5 1/2 hour flight from SFO to JFK?

OSWALD. OSWALD. AND MORE OSWALD. (Or, as Alex says it, "WA WA!!!") Here's the description that comes up for that web page in Google: "Oswald's a decent sort of fellow. A thoughtful guy. A good friend. Never mind his eight arms or his bright blue colour - Oswald is just like you!"

Yup, after watching 16 episodes straight of Oswald on the flight, I can tell you in great detail what a decent, thoughtful fellow this wholesome blue octopus is. (But for your sake, I won't share. "Decent" doesn't exactly mean "interesting.") Oswald is so decent, you kinda wanna punch him (or worse), at times. Well, not really -- anything that keeps a kid happy on a long flight is magical. And I know I and everyone around me on the plane were pretty grateful for Oswald, the thoughtful octopus.

But I'd much rather have been watching Arrested Development.

Working Mom's Score

2008-11-01T20:42:00.000-07:00

Photo courtesy of Matt and Ruth and their awesome green-screen Halloween pic project

Wow. I got lucky this year on the whole kid's Halloween costume thing. The past two years, I've been able to find, quite nonchalantly and almost accidentally, pretty awesome get-ups for Alex at the extreme last minute. I usually shop at this store that has really great kids costumes, and I guess I thought the third time would be a charm; even though I was shopping even later than usual, I hoped to repeat the feat this October 30.

But it was not to be. The place had, like, three costumes left, not in the right size and a bit too girly for my little man. (Yeah, we're in San Francisco, but I think he's still too young for cross-dressing. Call me old-fashioned.) I tried not to panic, but I started to get really mad at myself for leaving so little time for shopping. The stakes get higher, after all, the older a kid gets. During the infant years, costumes are largely optional and mostly for the benefit of the parents. But toddler Alex had a Halloween playdate scheduled with his cousins, and I knew they would both have great outfits. Plus, Aunt Mary is a wonderful photographer and I seriously felt like the president of the RNC trying to get Sarah Palin ready for the photo opp of a lifetime.

After about 15 minutes of frantic rushing around, looking high and low for strategic items that could be fashioned into something resembling anything, I ended up at the 8th Circle of Halloween Hell, the Target Clearance Aisle. (The SPIRIT Halloween Store is the 9th Circle, in case you were wondering.) The place had been gutted; three shopping carts overflowed with sad remainders of formerly two- and three-piece sets. Desperate shoppers shambled about, arguing over a pair of tattered Capt. Jack Sparrow pants here, a princess tiara there. Compounding the confusion was the fact that half the costumes were actually for dogs. (I'll admit, I considered getting Alex a doggy lobster suit, but I just didn't think it would be big enough.)

And then, glimmering in a pile of detritus, I saw it: a Yoda costume in Alex's size. Sure, it was missing a crucial component, as in, the...Yoda part (someone must have snagged the mask). But I didn't care.

I HAD A PADAWAN COSTUME IN SIZE 2T.

I mean, Yoda's so, y'know, been-there, done-that anyway... "F- Yoda," I thought as I madly zipped over to the Star Wars aisle in the toys section and grabbed a blue lightsaber. My little Padawan would definitely choose the light side path. The costume was complete, during normal business hours no less.

I gotta be honest, though. The brush with mommy failure made me completely forgive my mom for the Halloween pictured below.

I'd always wondered what was going on with my get-up in this picture (though isn't my brother the Empire State Building amazing?). Now I totally understand.

Girl Talk

2008-10-31T10:16:00.000-07:00

(Since 1UP appears to be down for many of you, I've cross-posted this here!)

Today ends my career at Ziff Davis Media, where I spent six of the richest years of my life as managing editor for EGM and then the 1UP Network. I'm leaving game journalism and heading over to the production side, where I'll be working at Sega as Associate Creative Director for Family/Casual games. This is a big deal for me. I started at Ziff in 2002 when EGM closed its Illinois office and moved to San Francisco with half a staff. Its managing editor at the time, Dean Hager, decided not to make the big move. I happened to need a job, having been at Next Generation magazine when it closed in December 2001, and I jumped at the opportunity to join EGM.

Six years later, I'm pretty shellshocked it's all over. The end hasn't been sudden -- obviously, my old print team has mostly dispersed, EGM has a bold new look and direction, and I've been working online at 1UP for almost a year. But having spent the better part of a week going through old work files and emails trying to decide what to save and what to toss, I've come to the bittersweet realization that I'm saying goodbye not just to a job, but to an era.

For one thing, being a girl writing about games is no longer as big a deal as it was the first several years I was in the business. Back in 2000, there were very few women editors, and those who were in the biz didn't generally attend demos, meetings, and events. There was an easy explanation for this: women tended to occupy roles like managing editor, copy editor, art director, etc. -- jobs that didn't require knowledge of games. I remember really looking up to Francesca Reyes (then with Official Dreamcast Magazine, now Editor in Chief of Official Xbox Magazine) back then. Fran was a truly rare bird -- she had her own expertise and wrote about the same games the guys did. But aside from Fran and perhaps a handful of others, it just wasn't safe to assume the girls at the mags were gamers. Often, quite the opposite assumption was made: I remember showing up at events and having PR people think I was some girlfriend on the arm of the nearest male editor. Once, one even denied me a press kit: "Editors only!" she chirped annoyingly. Clearly she meant "Boys only," and I've never forgotten the sting of her mischaracterization.

I knew I'd arrived somewhere unusual when, on my second day at EGM, fellow editors Greg Sewart and Chris Johnston invited me along to the Sony gamers' day happening down the street. They'd even RSVPd in advance for me, figuring I would want or need to go. (I doubt they knew what a shock it was for me to be included by default.) It was the first glimpse I'd have into the inclusive culture of EGM, where everyone who played games and could write was expected to play games and write for EGM, whether they were a hardcore fanboy weaned on NES or, like me, simply a gaming fan who'd happened to spend way too much time playing SSX Tricky during her unemployment. The Review Crew suffered no idle hands.

Nowadays, girl gamers are everywhere, and it's no longer safe to assume that a girl in the office can't kick your ass at Call of Duty. It's really difficult to believe what those early days were like and to see clearly just how much things have changed, but I'm really happy to have been a part of the transformation. It may have been a natural evolution, but I also feel like being at EGM helped me force things along just a bit. If I wanted to write a story, all I had to do was ask. Wanna review Tony Hawk 4? Sure thing. Think you're the best person to do a Knights of the Old Republic cover story? Go for it. Got an interesting angle for the GTA Hot Coffee scandal? Write it up. These weren't required parts of my job as ME, and often I didn't necessarily have time to take on the extra work. But I knew that by digging in everywhere I could, I was slowly infiltrating the "Boys only" society. It helped that I worked with a tremendous group of people who valued initiative and good old-fashioned elbow grease. Then again, it wasn't always easy; arguing about why "slut" isn't a fair term to use to describe women and why jokes relying on the "girlfriend" punchline were lazy, and constantly insisting we could do better wasn't exactly fun and didn't always make me popular among my coworkers. But even if there were times I would lose the fight, I'm glad I was there to fight at all. And when I look at the make-up of the gaming press now, I am utterly happy to see so many women playing integral roles.

Still, the changes in journalism aren't the only major difference. If it were just that, I'd be thrilled to stick around. The truth is that the era of the hardcore gamer is coming to an end. I used to dream of the day when women would be viewed as equally important to the creative gaming market as the traditional male demographic. But I genuinely never expected I'd see the day when I could get hired to work in game production, focusing specifically on appealing to new types of gamers. When Brain Age and Wii Fit would be system sellers. When a scenario like this would be not just possible, but normal:

Multi-generational Gaming
Originally uploaded by generaltsao.

Yes, the era of the hardcore gamer is coming to an end, and while I've loved my years at EGM, I've also been waiting eagerly for this time to come. For so long, finding a way to reach women gamers was this magical holy grail -- something people could only fantasize about. Nobody had any clue how to do it, and a lot of people didn't believe it could be done. Casual games on the web, World of Warcraft, and Nintendo Wii and DS have proven that it's not only possible, it's happening NOW -- and I simply can't resist the call to join the cause. This has long been an interest of mine (way, way, way before it was cool or profitable :), and it makes sense that now is the time to jump.

But before I did that, I wanted to take this chance to tell you what it was like for one girl during a different era, and to thank you for reading and supporting me through the years. I'm really going to miss you all, and I hope you'll keep in touch on my personal blog.

Update your RSS feed!

2008-10-30T23:44:00.000-07:00

Big thanks to Mike Cruz for my awesome new blog banner!

Also, I'm changing the RSS feed settings, so if you currently subscribe to this blog in an RSS reader, please resubscribe to:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/GeneralTsao

McCain's "Overhead Projector"

2008-10-09T21:06:00.000-07:00

I was wondering about this. During the debate, McCain mentioned a $3 million "overhead projector" for a planetarium that Obama voted to fund -- using it as evidence of Obama's rampant Democratic spending and penchant for earmarks. Having recently seen the new planetarium at the California Academy of Sciences, I figured this expensive "overhead projector" must have been McCain's way of derogatorily and prejudicially labeling the cool and technologically sophisticated projectors like they have there, which can show the scale of the universe in rapturous detail. (I would have guessed they cost even more.) And as often happens with McCain's attacks on Obama, when you find out the truth, it ends up making Obama look rather good. And this is one of those cases! Read Why does John McCain hate planetariums?