The Musings of Fish

Broken Dreams Barbie

2009-07-02T20:10:00.003-05:00

My sister-in-law just unearthed some of her old toys that have been in hiding for 20-some years. A couple nights ago, she was showing us these toys in a trip down memory lane. One of them is a little ballerina doll that spins around when you push down a plunger that comes out of her head (yes, a little odd, but it's a toy). Unfortunately, one of her legs (the one on which she's supposed to twirl) hyperextends at the knee. This is hilarious to me. I imagine the doll having little phrases, such as "Oh, my leg! I'll never dance again!" "The pain is unbearable!" and "I don't have health insurance!"

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE REST OF THIS POST IS PRETTY SICK HUMOR AND MAY NOT BE APPROPRIATE FOR MORE SENSITIVE READERS. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Heidi and I have expanded this admittedly morbid joke to a line of dolls (Barbie is a good placeholder, but it could be a different line of toys) called the Broken Dreams Barbie line. Each would have its own playset, which would hook into the Boulevard of Broken Dreams playset (which comes with a "Street Corner"). Some of the dolls are a little too sick/mean/dirty for me to post here, but I'll give you a few ideas:

-"Ex-Child Actor Barbie" with McDonald's playset
-"Philosophy Major Barbie" with Telemarketing Call Center playset
-"Homeless Barbie" complete with 3-wheeled shopping cart (naturally, she wouldn't have a playset)
-"Pimp Ken" (who has the obvious counterpart that we're not going to discuss here)

There are numerous others that we're thinking of, but since many people who read this don't get my sense of humor sometimes, it's better to let this stand as is. Although this has become a common topic of conversation over the dinner table at Chez Fisher. Maybe we'll actually get these into production in time to traumatize Nola!

Obligatory New Father Post

2009-04-15T22:06:00.011-05:00

On Tuesday, April 14th at 3:54pm, Nola Mercy En-Ai Fisher was born. She was 6 lbs 2 oz and 21 inches. I have participated in the creation of another human being. Holy Crap.

I've heard numerous new fathers talking about how life-changing an experience, how unutterably wonderful it is, and I never understood it. I'm still getting there. When huge, monstrous events happen that have such intense amounts of emotion tied to them, I tend to process the information for many days (or weeks). I'm still processing, I think. Only just today have I been able to hold her and think of her in any way beyond just intellectual acknowledgement that she is actually my daughter. But I'm still chugging through the huge emotional impact. Over the past few days I noticed that when I'm not there, I couldn't wait to hear her plaintive little whiny cry/whimper again. Now (and I doubt this is going to last), crying is not an annoyance to me, but rather a signal of life. For the first time in my life, I've started singing little spontaneous songs as I'm holding her. I've also noticed that I'm much more open and accepting of other people, as if the world is a better place.

Let me tell you how everything happened:
WARNING: FROM HERE, THERE IS TOO MUCH INFORMATION. IF YOU'RE UNINTERESTED IN THE SOMEWHAT GRUESOME DETAILS, STOP READING NOW.
I had been up too late, playing a free trial of Age of Conan (which I recommend, by the way), so I got up a bit late that morning. As such, I was rushing around to get myself ready in time for work. Heidi had gone to the bathroom and taken a shower after I got done, and when she came out, she told me she thought her water might have broken. She lay down on the bed for a bit and nothing seemed out of the ordinary, so I decided to head to work. As I was walking to the bus stop, I saw the far-too-familiar sight of the bus driving by as I was two blocks away. I've gotten used to that, so I wasn't a huge deal to me. However, just before I got to the bus stop, Heidi calls me and said, "Yep, my water broke." I turned right around and headed back home as she called her doctor.

What followed next was a pretty quick labor. I should state right now that Prentice Women's Hospital is a very nice hospital in which there is one patient per delivery room and one patient per room in recovery. It's one of the few hospitals I've been in that wasn't depressing and scary. In any case, the hospital staff kept a pretty close eye on Heidi's blood pressure and the baby's heart rate during the labor. At each contraction, the baby's heart rate dipped a little bit, which is fairly common. However, at one point, the baby's heart rate dropped from it's usual 140 to the mid 50's, and didn't come back up. Immediately, there were a dozen people in the room and Heidi was rushed out to an operating room. They left me in the normal delivery room, alone and clueless. This was a pretty rough time for me. It was as if I walked off a cliff and fell into the sea, and didn't know when or if I would rise back to the surface. I called people to pray, and then sat there alone, praying on my own. After about 10 minutes, someone came in and told me that the baby's heart rate came back up and both mother and baby looked like they were doing OK. Then she left, asking me to stay where I was, and I was sitting there alone for another 20 minutes. Eventually, our nurse came into the delivery room and took me back to the OR. This wasn't something that any of the medical professionals thought of, but Heidi had asked them to go get me, as she knew I'd be panicked. I married a good woman.

When I got in the OR, Heidi was on a table, surrounded by a few doctors and nurses, who were discussing whether or not she should go back to the delivery room to finish up delivering normally. Heidi had dilated from 5 cm to 9 cm (10 cm is fully dilated) in the space of an hour, and the kid had had a hard time tolerating that. Evidently the motion of rushing her to the OR had worked it's magic, and the kid was in much better shape. They waited for two hours to see if she should go back to the delivery room and finish up. After that, the doctors realized that Heidi was not dilating any more despite some pretty intense contractions, and determined that the baby should come out via Caesarian. Since this wasn't an emergency C-Section, I was able to stay in the room with Heidi; they put a sheet up between us and the operation, so we could avoid the nastiness. Before I knew it (but what seemed like 30 years), the baby was out and shrieking her tiny little lungs out.

She tested almost perfectly on the Apgar test (a scale that measures the health of a newborn), but since she was still considered a preemie (she was 36 weeks, 6 days; 37 weeks is acceptably "full term"), they wanted to run some tests on her, and the test that measures her ability to regulate the glucose level in her blood came back a little weak. So they took her to the NICU, where she still is.

For a NICU, Prentice's is very nice. We're able to have an alcove to ourselves, and we have 24/7 visiting. They have a solid once-every-three-hours feeding schedule, which is convenient, because we know when to go down and be with her, and then at night we actually can get an adequate night's sleep. Still, Nola had to have a Dextrose IV for the first couple days of her life. she soon established her ability to maintain a good glucose level, but then the staff doctor noticed she was a little jaundiced. Jaundice is really common for Asian kids (Heidi had it much worse when she was freshly out of the oven), so this was nothing unusual, but still a bit annoying. Tomorrow, if all goes well (which the doctor is confident it will), she will be here in the room with us, as Heidi finishes up her recuperation.

So yeah, I am responisble for creating another human being. That human being is partially me. Blows my mind.

William Chen, 1939-2008

2009-01-04T06:13:00.002-06:00

My Father-in-law died on Sunday. The funeral was yesterday. It's been a busy week.

We originally were on a cruise to the Caribbean all week. The first couple days we had were freakin' glorious, but Sunday night we got the call, and the next day we were landing in the Dominican Republic. The ship had 24 passengers that didn't make it down in time for the launch from Miami, and instead went through Santo Domingo and took the 2 1/2 hour cab ride from the Santo Domingo airport to Samana, the port in which the ship was. We took the other way. We really felt the prayers of our friends & family on the way back, and all our flights (and the cab ride) not only left on time, but came in 20-30 minutes ahead of schedule. It was pretty cool, for being such an exhausting and difficult travel day.

The next few days were a busy time of making funeral arrangements. I never really realized how much work goes into a funeral; it's slightly more complex than a typical "party," but you're also mourning the loss of whoever it was.

I didn't know my father-in-law for a very long time; it was coming up on four years. In that time, I did realize that his motivation for the vast majority of his thoughts and actions was love. He was irascible, opinionated, and grumpy, but that was on the surface, whereas his love for God and his family was the deepest part of him. He was a brilliant, creative man, if a bit disorganized, who would frequently bite off more than he could chew, and then figure out how to finish whatever project as he went.

Heidi gets a lot of her personality from him: not so much with the grumpy aspect (and I hope that doesn't increase with age), but his stubbornness, creativity, sense of humor and attention span are hers.

I knew this was coming, but it still saddens me. For me, it's more of a regret that he won't get to meet his granddaughter (at least not for a long while), and an understanding that I'll miss him. I spent most of this week doing support work, and that will continue for months to come.

If he drank, I'd pour a forty for him. In lieu of that, I'll just say I loved him and miss him.

It's only a model

2008-11-22T21:26:00.001-06:00

Little Fishie

2008-11-01T20:00:00.002-05:00

Yes, I freely admit that I have been lax in the blogging department. My job has a super-tight internet blocking policy, and being that I work in computers, I don't spend so much time on the computer at home. Therefore, I don't write on the old blog so much anymore. Most of my latest updates are on Facebook (and it's likely that many of my friends are reading this off the facebook feed anyway). Yes, our super-tight internet block allows me to be on facebook, but doesn't allow me to hit blogger. If you can think of a rational explanation for that, I would welcome it.

In any case, for the few people who do have this on their feed (or, heaven forfend, actually visit the blog), we're adding to the population. Yes, I have spawned, and the Little Fishie is due in early May.

So, to answer the questions:
1. We don't know the gender of the kid yet.
2. Everything seems pretty normal in the ultrasounds.
3. Heidi is doing OK. She has pretty much all the standard symptoms of pregnancy, except that she has yet to actually puke.
4. Heidi has yet to experience "the quickening" (which sounds like something science fictiony, but in actuality just means when Heidi can feel the squirt moving).
5. The government has been notified, and they'll be checking into registering his/her superpowers once the election is over.

Kung Fu Panda

2008-06-10T07:20:00.002-05:00

I quietly dreaded Kung Fu Panda for quite a while. Here was a pretty clever idea, done by DreamWorks animation. DreamWorks doesn’t have a very good track record with animated movies. They typically have big-name stars voicing their movies, a weak story with lazy/sloppy writing, and then market the movies based off the star power (I remember a couple trailers of movies that did this, actually showing the stars in the recording studio instead of showing clips from the movie). Don’t get me wrong, they do make some pretty good movies, but for every Shrek, there are a couple Antz or Shrek the Third's.

And the star power they got for this show pretty much spanned the spectrum of voice talent. Jack Black, good choice. James Hong, excellent without resorting to the A-List. But Lucy Liu as a rather friendly snake? Seth Rogan as a kung fu bug? Jackie Chan doing voice work? In English?

And then there was the Kung Fu Panda licensed game demo on Xbox360. Now, movie-licensed games are typically bad games. You can’t judge a movie based on the game, but you can get some flavor of the movie. And yes, as a game, Kung Fu Panda is pretty ho-hum. Except for the intro. The intro pulled straight from the movie. The movie that instilled more joy in me and pulled more laughter out of me than any movie I’ve seen this year.

Yes, Kung Fu Panda is freakin’ wonderful. I don’t really know where to start. The writing was probably the best part. As Pixar demonstrates over and over again, you have to start with a good script before you make a good movie. The script here has a good, if formulaic story, and the “believe in yourself” message is a bit heavy-handed (although I personally think that this message is one that bears multiple repetitions), but the dialogue is snappy and witty and the story just works. And the acting both by the animators and in the voices, was excellent. The story does have The Furious Five (five “star” fighters) as supporting cast, with the aforementioned Seth Rogan, Lucy Liu, and Jackie Chan among the voices. And other than David Cross, their voices don’t add much (Angelina Jolie was the fifth, but also not that notable). But even with the weak voice acting, it’s less noticeable because the animation acting is so subtle and “real.” And, adding to the excellent animation acting, Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Ian McShane, and yes, James Hong, shine. They more than make up for the mediocre voice work of other people in the cast.

I’m a big fan of kung fu movies, and was a little concerned about how an animated film was going to handle it. Yes, with the recent trend in over-the-top action that the kung fu genre has become, animation is the way to go with it, but I was still a little concerned that the action would appear stiff and contrived. And another no. The action was really on par with most recent movies of its ilk. It’s obvious the action wasn’t choreographed by Woo-ping Yuen, but it’s still a graceful and artistic ballet of violence, one in which it’s easy to forget that the characters are animated (even despite them being animals).

I could go on, but it’s becoming a long post already. This is a must-purchase movie on my list. John’s recommendation: see it.

Wikipedia Challenge

2008-05-15T07:13:00.004-05:00

Here’s a challenge that I think is fun for no reason other than I think it is. Start at the Wikipedia homepage. Hit Random Article, and whatever comes up, try to drill down to a page for the following:
One real person (alive or dead)
One organization
One fictional person
One location
One thing related to a hobby of yours

I’ve found that in order to be fun, you need to be very specific. Instead of Computer, choose RAM or Red Hat. Instead of Beer, choose Ethanol Fermentation or Dogfish Head. Instead of Italy, choose the Piazza della Repubblica or Bolognese sauce. Being obscure can be fun, too, but it could take a while. Here’s what I chose:

Peter Gabriel
Monty Python
Skeletor
Rogers Park
Liberty City (the city in which GTA IV is set)

And so goes the search:

1. Brodow->Germany->European Union->United Kingdom->British Music->Genesis->Peter Gabriel

2. Cuisine of Cameroon->European Cuisine->English Cuisine->Cheese->List of Cheeses->Cheese Shop Sketch->Monty Python’s Flying Circus->Monty Python

3. Sanoodi->Wales->BBC Wales->Television->South Park->Animation->Filmation->He-Man and the Masters of the Universe->Skeletor

4. Constant Velocity Joint->1927->Repeal of Prohibition->Prohibition in the united States->Al Capone->Chicago->Neighborhoods of Chicago->Rogers Park

5. Leo Burnett Building->Chicago->List of People from Chicago->Robin Williams->Video Game->Video Game Controversy->Grand Theft Auto Series->Liberty City

Don’t bother with the searches that don’t bear fruit (these last two were really difficult, with me abandoning nearly a dozen searches total), just the ones that lead to your goal. And if you don’t do all five, no worries, just do what works for you (although I did have a lot of fun with this).

And y’know what? I’m going to tag a few people, because I want to see their searches: Mattox, Zach, and Hunahpu. Go forth, discover, proclaim!

And the band plays on

2008-05-10T15:16:00.002-05:00

One might think from the title, this is a post about Rock Band. One might be incorrect in that assumption, although that post will probably come soon. This is another one about the continuing fracas surrounding Grand Theft Auto IV. It’s a long one, so read at your own peril.

Wow, this is the story that doesn’t die. It’s not the first videogame issue that’s come up, but it has been one of the most widely touted, at least in recent memory. And it’s all about protecting the children. Think of the children!

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that Take Two Interactive sued the CTA for breach of contract when the CTA pulled GTA IV ads. I noticed Friday that the bus stop outside the Aon building has a GTA ad. Hooray for capitalism!

The rest of this post is inspired by this article in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune. No, it’s not a paper I read regularly, but GamePolitics has been following the GTA thing extensively, and this was one of the articles they brought up. It’s a well-thought-through article, but wrong on a few points, and these are some points that have been bugging me for quite a while. And although the bulk of my regular readers have no real understanding of what I’m talking about, I’m still going to talk about it.

First, let me get this out of the way: this is a game kids should not play. Younger minds can be influenced by what they see and do, because they have yet to develop a thorough understanding of who they are, who they should be, and the difference between right and wrong. They have a less clearly defined separation between reality and fantasy. Which is why younger minds should not see R rated movies. This is why the term “adult themes” exists. And Grand Theft Auto IV, and many other quality games, are rated M, equivalent to an R rating in a movie.

But think of the children! You know they’re going to get their hands on it! Ask any 15 year old boy about whether his parents are the gatekeepers of their children’s play! And to that I agree, to some extent. In actuality, underage buyers of M-rated videogames have about a 20% success rate. Sounds like a lot, right? Not so much if you consider that an underage buyer can get an R-Rated DVD about 50% of the time, or get into an R-Rated movie 35% of the time. So in that sense, the videogame industry is clamping down pretty hard (at GameStop, the success rate is actually about 6%… makes me want to give them more business). And yes, parents sometime may get the game for their kids, not knowing about the content (that argument gets brought up all the time with games). Well then, I guess the parents are actually the gatekeepers of their children’s play. I could follow with a rant about good parenting, but I won’t.

But still, think of the children! They’re going to get their hands on it somehow! Think of the damage it can do to their fragile psyches! Yes, I agree, to some extent. And these children can also buy an R-Rated DVD, sneak into an R-Rated movie, look at things they shouldn’t on the internet, drink alcohol, smoke, possibly even get into drugs. I guess in the light of that, playing a videogame, even a very adult one like Grand Theft Auto IV, doesn’t seem as horrific. The idea that a game will influence them to do horrible things, when they have an almost limitless variety of other cultural influences, to say nothing of the influence of their peers, is foolish.

OK, well, think of the adults! These husbands and fathers can’t be any good if they spend their free time fantasizing about shooting hookers or running down pedestrians! And to that I agree. If someone spends their time fantasizing about these things, they have some pretty serious issues. However, not so many actually bring that away from the game. It has been my firm belief for a long time, that all of life is experienced through your own personal lenses. You bring out of any media that which is already inside you. I’ve known people who saw Star Wars, and they brought any number of things with them: some wanted to study film, others science, others music, others martial arts. Some parents refuse to let their children watch or read Harry Potter in case it influences them to get into witchcraft. That is more than a little ridiculous, and so is the concern about adults playing videogames.

I have seen myself be influenced by video games. After playing Burnout: Revenge, I find myself having to be careful while driving. After playing Katamari Damacy, I find myself influenced to clean up around the house, and thinking about what would roll up well wherever I go. I have gone to sleep and dreamt about matching gems after playing some games, and had music from other games floating through my head for days after. And I play Grand Theft Auto. In the game, I have driven a bus the wrong way down an expressway, plowing down cars as I see fit. I have stolen cars, mugged people, driven through crowded pedestrian areas, have gotten falling-down drunk (and once tried to drive that way… boy that didn’t last long), driven off "stunt ramps" so my car could fly dozens of yards, and done donuts on a baseball diamond and a beach. Am I influenced to do anything I have tried in game? No. Why? Because it is so far removed from who I am in real life that it's not a draw. At all. It is a game, not one in which I'm acting out my violent fantasies, but one in which I'm either trying to accomplish a goal or taking the opportunity to experiment and explore. And that right there is the kicker: games are blamed for corrupting people (much in the same way movies and television and comic books and rock & roll and cartoons and alcohol have in the past), while the truth is people don't need the help. Videogames have been blamed for the Columbine and Virginia Tech shootings. Some tried to pin the blame on games for the NIU shooting before any evidence was in, and it turned out that the guy hadn’t played a game for years. It is my belief that these people were seriously messed up to begin with, and would have gotten the desire to kill others and themselves had they watched TV, played videogames, listened to music, or read the newspaper. It wasn’t in the media, it was in them.

Video games are the nation's current hysteria. It seems every decade or so, something has to be demonized. The most extreme example is prohibition in the 1930's. Alcohol was the evil “flavor of the month”, and a constitutional amendment was passed (yes, they changed the Constitution of the United States for this) declaring that this evil must be abolished from society. Fewer than ten years later, people realized how silly they were being, and repealed the amendment. Videogames have been the most recent perpetrators of evil in our culture; as they have become more mainstream they have attracted more attention, and those that don’t understand the influence fear the change, just like television, rock music, and the Internet.

Children: don’t play the game. Parents: communicate with your kids. Society: relax.

Iron Man

2008-05-06T22:23:00.002-05:00

I had absolutely no expectations for Iron Man before it came out. I had seen the preview once or twice; since we don’t get TV, we don’t really get the media saturation that goes on for some movies. What I did know is that any superhero movie can make a spectacular trailer. Ooooo, big effects! Oooo, the superhero using his superpowers! Ooooo, cinematography! Oooooo, look at the actors! The trailer is usually spectacular, the movie, not so much. Therefore my expectations were pretty much nonexistent. I have a lot of bad superhero movies buried deep in my Netflix queue, and if I get to them in a year or two, they’ll be lucky. I was going to see what Rotten Tomatoes had to say about it, and if it was good, then I’d see it. On Wednesday, Rotten Tomatoes had it rated at 90%. On Thursday, it slipped a bit to 86%. Friday was a busy day, so I only had a few moments to see, but it went up to 95%. So I didn’t really get excited for it until Wednesday, but when I did get excited for it, I got really excited. So we saw it on Saturday morning, when the prices are cheap, and damn!

First off, this isn’t Batman Begins. Its initial reaction is definitely positive, but not as much for the fancy action or climactic battle. What really sticks with me is that it’s actually a good character piece, particularly strong considering it’s a flashy superhero movie. I’m not saying it’s Citizen Kane, but we see Robert Downey Jr (who’s a really good actor, despite his checkered personal life) developing from a playboy, care-free, self-centered genius, to someone who recognizes value in people after an attack, capture, and subsequent escape from Afghan terrorists. There are believable human moments, and moments of real, but not forced or excessive, comedy (which is something that isn’t in enough superhero movies). The action is nice and fancy, but nothing special. I like the power armor concept, and am kind of surprised that I never got into Iron Man when I wore a younger man’s clothes, so I was able to overlook the fact that some of the action really isn’t all that exciting (please note that I did say “some”). The climactic battle at the end is actually a little awkward, but I was able to give in to the moment and accept it. But what made the movie for me, what makes me want to see it again, what makes me want to own the DVD, is the fact that I really like how Tony Stark is played, and I really like who he becomes, and I really like the relationships that develop.

John’s recommendation: see it.

GTA IV

2008-05-02T07:30:00.004-05:00

Evidently, I plan to steal, kill, and destroy. I contribute to the end of all that is good and holy for our children. Look upon me, for I am the face of moral decline. I purchased Grand Theft Auto IV.

There has been a media circus regarding the release of this game. Admittedly, I follow news like this, but it seems that every day someone else (or several someone elses) have to put their two cents in about theage of darkness that will be ushered in by this game. One would think that the cover of this game is a little gate to hell, and opening it will unleash such evil that the western world will dissolve into anarchy.

This game has been called a murder simulator, a cop-killing trainingdevice, and pornography. And it’s a game. One that is played while sitting on the couch, looking at a TV. If this game had been a movie, nobody would have complained. If this game had been a book, nobody would have thought twice. But no, since it’s interactive, it will unravel the fabric of society.

This game is rated M by the ESRB, a rating that is equal to an R rating in a movie. And yes, it earns its rating, perhaps more so than any other videogame I have played. It is a game in which it is inevitable that you will be running from the police. It is a game in which it is very easy to run down pedestrians, and actually a little difficult to avoid it. It is a game in which your character has the option to do any number of illicit things, such as kill a cop, steal a car, pick up a hooker, drive drunk, or go to a strip club (and no, from what I understand, the naughty bits are not visible). It is also a game in which your character can go bowling, watch TV, buy clothes, play darts, or go to a comedy club (and yes, they actually have real comedians doing virtual performances). You have options, just like life.

I understand the concern of parents who don’t want their child exposed to the less virtuous aspects of the game. The language alone is pretty bad. However, several places (including the CTA) have pulled advertisements based off of the complaints of various concerned citizen groups. Is that going too far? To remove advertising because of the damage the product might do to someone that is not in its target audience? Will this advertising be replaced for ads for an R-rated movie? Alcohol? Is this media assault not giving the game tons of free advertising?

I’ve never been a parent, but I do know that if I don’t want my children exposed to something, one of the best ways to do so is to not bring it into my home. Yes, it would be naïve to think that children won’t get exposure to it outside the home, but I am led to believe that’s why parents are supposed to communicate with their children. I feel like the attacks on this game are reflected in the South Park movie. In that, the kids go see aCanadian movie that is far too adult for them, and it affects them negatively. The parents never asked what movie they were going to see, nor did they talk to their children about the effect it had on them. Instead, they chose to Blame Canada for their children’s new vocabulary.

This is a good game. It provides a hugely detailed city to explore, has adeep, engaging storyline, and gives you tons of leeway about how to live your new life in America (the main character is fresh-off-the-boat from Serbia). Yes, in my first few hours of playing I stole four cars (one of which I used to do donuts on the beach before I drove it into the river), ran from the police three times, beat up three people, and shot four more. I also went bowling on a date, ate a hotdog from a street vendor, and watched the sun come up while on a Coney-island-esque pier. Are kids going to buy this game? Not legally. Are kids going to play it? Yes, if their parents let them (through understanding of the kid, or through negligence).Would I let my young kids play it? Hell no. Will I play it? Hell yeah!

20 More things for which John is thankful

2008-04-10T07:23:00.003-05:00

OK, last post was good, but when I was writing it I kept thinking of man-made things for which I’m thankful. A handful of things that make me want to shake the hand of the person who first thought of them. Some of these are debatable that they are man-made instead of instituted by God; for the sake of argument, I’m attributing all these to mankind, even though I personally think a lot of them are God-given. Again, these are in no order whatsoever:

1. Varying languages
2. Varying cultures
3. Humor (and the subsequent laughter)
4. Food (please also note how this relates to #2 [and I mean the cultures thing, not poo])
5. Computers
6. The Internet (particularly Wikipedia)
7. Photography
8. Literacy
9. Dramatic structure (combine this with photography to make movies, literacy to make books)
10. The dividers that go between urinals in men’s bathrooms
11. Games
12. Music
13. Education
14. Denim
15. Automobiles
16. Beer
17. Wine
18. Toilets
19. Toilet Paper
20. Hugging

20 things for which John is thankful

2008-04-08T21:54:00.005-05:00

I've been kind of limited with the blogging thing as of late. There's a lot going on, but I have no desire to discuss it here.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about things for a few days. There are a lot of things that are in this world that are really cool, that make me feel all warm and squishy for no reason other than that they exist. I’ll make this list about what God has designed into the universe; nothing man-made will appear on this list (and yes, I understand the conundrum of how much is us and how much is Him in great works). This is just a list of things that make me happy, in no order whatsoever:
1. Magnets
2. Waves
3. Clouds
4. Stars (the Sun is included in this)
5. The moon
6. Thunderstorms
7. Trees
8. Mountains
9. Desert
10. Large expanses of water (such as oceans and huge lakes where you can’t see the other side)
11. Volcanic islands
12. Cats
13. Dogs (particularly big ones)
14. Wind
15. The sky
16. Day
17. Night
18. Fresh air
19. New fallen snow
20. Fire

It's a trap!

2008-03-12T17:18:00.001-05:00

This one made me laugh out loud. I would be remiss if I didn't share.

The End of the Beginning

2008-03-04T20:14:00.002-06:00

And so it goes, one of the inspirations of my youth has gone the way of all flesh. Gary Gygax, the creator of Dungeons & Dragons, has died.

I'm not particularly moved. His influence changed the face of gaming; he introduced the concept of a role-playing game, and for that I will be forever grateful. A lot of concepts came from the tactical wargames from which they evolved, and these games became a cross between wargames and improvisational theatre. But still, gaming has moved on since his 1970's and early 80's influence. If he had not followed his muse, would something like role-playing games exist? It's a good question, and an interesting debate. Not sure if it matters, or if I would have missed it if it hadn't existed, but I'm glad it's a moot point.

In any case, I'm very glad Gygax lived, and in that sense he has achieved immortality. He had a good run. Pour a forty for him.

Gone Baby Gone

2008-02-23T21:52:00.003-06:00

We just saw Gone Baby Gone, Ben Affleck's directorial debut. He also cowrote the script, and really the best thing I can say about it is, "Go Ben!"

In it, Patrick Kenzie (palyed by Casey Affleck, yes, Ben's brother) is a private investigator charged with the task of looking into the abduction of a four year old girl. Yes, the police are working on the case as well, but the girl's aunt knows that some people won't talk to the police, which is why she hires Patrick. What follows is really heavy. There are a lot of obvious things that come to mind when the terms "child abduction" and "really heavy" are used to describe the same thing, and those things are obviously on a lot of people's minds during the film, but the movie doesn't go there, but to places I never expected.

It is a movie that explores the depth of humanity, not the depth of human depravity. Humanity is in a fallen state, and we see that clearly. Integrity has a price, and we see that clearly. This is ultimately a film about choices and the cost/benefit of them. It's a show in which morality is not particularly clear-cut, much like actual life.

I can't go into greater detail than that, other than to recommend the movie highly. This show is difficult to talk about without spoilers, and I would hate to spoil such a deep and powerful film. I will say that I can't recommend it very highly to parents. If I had children and watched this film, I wouldn't sleep well for a week. I still would have liked the movie, but it would havee left me much more uneasy than it already did. This is not a fun escapist movie; it is deep, it is powerful, it is disturbing, and it is freakin' wonderful.

Mass Effect

2008-01-24T13:39:00.000-06:00

Considering the media hooplah that's been going on lately with Mass Effect, I figured now was a good time to review it. My response to the media hooplah is moot. Other people have said it, and sometimes better. Fox News and other conservative publications are simply ridiculous, uninformed, insulting and wrong regarding this. Egad! Fox News distorting the truth for sensationalist purposes? Say it ain't so!

So anyway, Mass Effect. I've mentioned that Heavenly Sword had the best digital actors in any game to date, and after some thought, I'm reconsidering my opinion. I still am crazy impressed by Heavenly Sword, but the digital acting in Mass Effect is on equal footing, it's just that the characters aren't as over-the-top.

Let's start from the very beginning (it IS a very good place to start, isn't it?). When you start the game, you have the option to create your character from relative scratch, or choose one of the two default characters. All the advertising is based off the default male character, and that kind of confuses me. I created my own character, making him look vaguely like a badass version of myself. He had the acne scars, auburn hair, reddish unshaven look, big nose, that sort of thing. I remember going through the game as him. I see the advertising for the game with the default character and think, "Wait. That's not the same game I played. The guy is different. Who's this guy?" Then I get back to thinking that yes, I changed the default, and its someone else. It's akin to watching the TV show M*A*S*H for years, and then going back to the movie and wondering who this Elliot Gould guy is where Alan Alda should be. Or Michael Gambon as Dumbledore instead of Richard Harris. You get the picture.

So anyway, I went through the game with badass-me as the main character. And we start, and I'm already blown away. It's a movie, complete with recognizeable actors, but you're able to interact with the story. There is actual cinematography, actual acting in an interactive sequence. For those who are not as exposed to gaming, this is unusual. Yes, games have been getting more and more artistic as of late, but this raises the bar dramatically. These conversation sequences play to the viewer's emotions, unfolding according to how you respond, but portrayed in a very watchable style (there's even a rack-focus in one of the tense scenes). There were times when I was watching the story unfold in conversation sequence, and I thought, "Meh, I've seen movies like this before." And that's the thing. Games are still a relatively young art form, not nearly as advanced as film. And yet, I was comparing this game to a movie and favorably.

The story is moderately straightforward, but difficult to summarize. For that, I'll pull straight off the website:

The galaxy is trapped in an endless cycle of extinction. Every 50,000 years, an
ancient machine race invades the galaxy. With ruthless efficiency, the machines
wipe out all advanced organic civilization. They leave behind only the scattered
ruins of technology, destroying all evidence of their own existence. Few believe
this ancient legend. You, however, know it to be true. The fight to stop this
extinction event has become the most important mission in the galaxy. As
Commander Shepard of the SS Normandy, you will take your elite recon squad
across a galaxy in turmoil, in a desperate race to stop the return of an enemy
without mercy. To stop this enemy, you must act without remorse, without
hesitation, and outside the limits of the law. Your only imperative is to
preserve the safety of civilized life in the galaxy - at any cost. You must
become the tip of the spear of humanity, for you alone know the full extent of
what is at stake if you should fail.

Yes, it's something similar to what I've seen before: Ancient big nasty thing wants to destroy everything in your world, and you have to stop it (Babylon 5, anyone?). But the way it is told is what makes it magnificent.

The gameplay varies, depending on the style. In conversation sequences, as noted above, it's freakin wonderful. Each choice you make changes your path in the story. You can be a tough-but-good guy, or you can be a heartless bastard. It's all up to you. I understand that this changes how the story unfolds, but I have only played the game once. The action side of it, not as good. It works, and you learn it as you go, but in order to be proficient in combat, you really have to stop the action periodically so you can queue up your next ability. Not such a big fan of that. Ultimately, it didn't leave a bad taste in my mouth, but it did bring me out of the story.

This is a great game, and I recommend it highly. And yes, as the big hulabaloo is all about, there is a sex scene, if you choose to develop your relationships well. However, this game is rated M, and therefore has restrictions for sale placed on it, just like an R rated movie. The fact that the sex scene is about as tame as that which you would see in a PG-13 movie, or on TV after 9:00 doesn't seem to enter critics' minds, but it seems as though reporting impartially and factually doesn't either.

Red Ring of Death

2008-01-18T15:45:00.000-06:00

It was really just a matter of time. I knew the Red Fairy would eventually visit me and lay waste to the Xbox, as she has done for so many others. I could blame Microsoft for it, but the thing has served me very well for 21 months, and they would fix it for free. And besides, it's no fun to kick even the bully when he's (kind of) down.

So anyway, the ring of death manifests in several forms, almost always three lights around the power button. The one that is off signifies the actual error. Mine is the top right quadrant (like the one in the picture), which means a "general hardware fault," or "call Microsoft and they'll pay to have it shipped back to them, fixed in 3-4 weeks, and sent back to you."

As it happens, I got the Best Buy extended warrantee thing (which could inspire my "always buy the extended warrantee" speech, but I'll spare you that), and about ten minutes of chatting to some of the friendlier-than-Microsoft Best Buy customer service team leads me to be able to bring my Xbox back to Best Buy and get a gift card for the price I paid plus tax.

Now, I happen to have a few other Besy Buy gift cards, and I know they've dropped the price a bit since I made the original purchase, so maybe I can get something newer and prettier. I was thinking of using the cards for something else (like maybe a Wii), but really, I have a lot invested in the Xbox already, so I might as well stick with what I know.

So Best Buy made things easy, Microsoft met my moderately low expectations. Yay Best Buy! Meh Microsoft!

The Closing of the Year

2007-12-31T07:21:00.000-06:00

Wow, what a year 2007 has been. This year started out full of hope and promise, and then turned into reality. It didn't turn into a bad year, just didn't live up to the potential I had hoped. I would be remiss if I didn't even mention the lofty goals I had intended to be for this year, but I stopped tracking them around June-ish. Part of that was developing a new goal process, and part of that was knowing they were too lofty to be worthwhile. In any case, I didn't finish them for many reasons.

My job for the vast majority of the year was a good job for my skillset, and developed me in a good path for my career, but it was also insanely busy with constant multitasking, and I think it trained me to be mildly ADD. It also wore me out mentally, and made it very difficult to work on anything after work or on weekends. Now that job has ended (ah, the joy of being a contractor), and I'm looking for more.

We moved into the city in August, and also got rid of a car around that time. The move was huge, and it took months to clean the place up for Thanksgiving and our subsequent Christmas party. But now we live in a home, and a lovely home it is. Our office (third bedroom) is full of boxes that we need to take care of, but we have some time to do so; we can take care of one a weekend for the next several months, while still enjoying the home that we have.

Being a one-car family has its challenges, but it's a good transition for being in the city. Both of our jobs were close to public transportation, so Heidi could take the car or take the bus/train, depending on her mood that morning. I really couldn't take the car, as there's no way to cheaply park downtown. Parking in this neighborhood can be a challenge sometimes, but it's better than other places I've lived, and it's a lot better than trying to find space for two cars.

Our marriage hit a pretty rough spot this year, and I didn't write about that (not publicly, anyway), but we came through it and we're much stronger than we were before. I've had one friend say, "Marriage is the most difficult thing but the best thing that you can have." Although I think I would phrase it differently, I agree with it conceptually. In any case, that's a good thing. I've written about how we have grown stronger, and we keep going in that direction (admittedly, we're still kind of newlyweds). That fills me with hope for the future.

I didn't get much of a chance to see movies in the theatre this year, having had a gap between Stardust and National Treasure 2 (yes, I know... my brother wanted to see it). This has led me to be more of a gamer, and I've had a lot of that to keep me occupied. I've written about The Orange Box, which took up a large portion of my time, and I have yet to write about Mass Effect, which took up just as much time.

I got two voiceover gigs this year: one non-union and one union. I can see that being an actor is going to take a lot more work, and I've been doing a lot of work already. Sometimes, it's difficult to not get frustrated, but then I kind of put things in perspective: I'm making an adequate wage (at least I was), I have a good marriage, I have a lovely home, and I get to do what I love on the side (gaming, acting, whatever). Although I'd like to do what I love for a living, I'm pretty cool doing what works for right now.

I only brewed once this year. I'm disappointed with myself for that, but the beer turned out pretty well, and I've had a busy schedule, so I'm not going to kick myself too hard. For my birthday, Heidi got me two, count 'em, two kits. So that will change for next year.

So that be me. That be 2007. Bring on the new year!

Heavenly Sword

2007-12-30T19:12:00.000-06:00

My father-in-law recenly got a Playstation 3, in order to entice me and his biological son to come and spend time with the folks. Well, it worked.

In any case, it's been a difficult Christmas, and for various and sundry reasons, we haven't been able to see Heidi's parents for a few weeks, which was to end today. We got there early in the morning and, due to some poor planning and miscommunication, ended up sitting alone at their home for a good four hours.

Since I try to take advantage of situations as they arise, I chose to play one of the two games they happened to have: Heavenly Sword.

The game focuses around Nariko, a sort of supernatural sword-weilding Lara Croft. She has been charged with the protection of the Heavenly Sword, a magical sword of tremendous power, but which comes with a curse to take the life force of the one who weilds it. As it happens, King Bohan (played by Andy Serkis) wants the sword for himself and, since he's subjugating the known world anyway, comes to claim it. Nariko figures the best way to protect the sword is to use it to destroy everyone in her general vicinity, and hilarity ensues.

This is, as can be expected, a hack and slash game. And as a hack and slash game, it's really fun. The amount of damage you can dish out to the various enemies nearby is a lot of fun, as is the figuring out of the fighting combos. But as far as gameplay, there are some notable differences; the swordplay is a heck of a lot of fun, but when you get into playing with projectiles is where it gets to be a real kick in the pants.

There are a few times when you get to shoot stuff, many of which are when you're playing as Nariko's kid "sister," Kai. The gameplay in shooting can be pretty straighforward: you point, you shoot. But that's not all that interesting. When you hold down the fire button, you jump to a Sam Raimi follow-the-projectile shot and, using the PS3's sixaxis control (the motion sensitive controller), you can guide the arrow/cannonball/whatever to your target. It makes for a heck of a lot of fun, guiding your ammo to its destination, not by guiding a stick, but by actually moving the controller itself. It's sort of like when you watch a bowler try to psychically guide his bowling ball down the lane, but actually effective. And crazy fun.

Another huge note about this game is that it features digital actors. Convincing digital actors. I've seen this before (I have yet to write about Mass Effect... expect that to come soon), but this game has cutscenes that, with limited exceptions, could come from a movie. The actors are expressive enough to be considered actors, pulling facial expressions so real that you have to step back for a second and think if it's a game or a movie, if it's digital or actual. The characters are incredibly over-the-top, but the acting within those characters is stunningly real, and sometime freakin' hilarious.

This game is exclusively for the PS3, and I can see how it uses the hardware's capability to its fullest. The environments are huge, and there's no real transition between what's right in front of you or what's over that hill. A lot of games will have "filler" in the background to make it easier on the hardware. With a PS3, not so necessary. The visuals are also stunning. Ina lot of games, they make the cutscenes outsie of the game's engine, and they're beautiful, only to go back to the semi-bland game. These cutscenes use the game engine (with maybe a bit of polish) and are freakin' gorgeous!

So yeah, fun game. For the first time in my life, I have gamer's thumb. And I gotta say, I'm glad to have earned it.

DIY Messiah

2007-12-22T08:44:00.000-06:00

OK, first off, I haven't posted in a while. Nothing I wanted to discuss, no time in which to discuss it. But anyway...

Last night we went to the Do It Yourself Messiah at the Lyric Opera. Holy wow. In this, there is an orchestra, conductor and four opera singers. The professionals cover the solos, but the chorus, that's all the audience. And what a kick in the pants it was.

There are four parts to sing: Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bass. You have a copy of the music (which you can buy there), and you read along, hoping you can read music and know what to sing. Here's the deal, though. I didn't know what to sing (I settled on Bass), and I can't read music. Completely. At first, I had to study the score to even figure out what was going on, but I found it quickly began to make sense. Reading the music felt a little like watching a subtitled movie. At first, you're reading, and not really being able to focus on the action so much, but after a few minutes, you're able to absorb both. Now, to be fair, I had a few years of piano when I was a wee lad, so I knew the basic premise of musical notation, but it has been nearly three decades since that. It helped that I was sitting near some other Bass folks, but I found myself able to adapt to the music before the intermission.

In any case, this was a wonderful experience, one that I can recommend to anyone that has even a passing interest in classical music. The conductor was witty and clever, the music was absolutely wonderful, and the sensation of singing this brilliant piece of music with hundreds of other people was powerful. That, and it was free.

Next year, go. I command thee.

Orange Box vs. Halo 3

2007-10-15T12:03:00.000-05:00

So here's my deal. I was in a debate with myself, a veritable spiritual wrestling match, over my next game purchase. Whether or not I was going to get a game was not in question. I had warned Heidi well ahead of time, and had discussed this in depth with her. However, which game would it be? Halo 3 recently came out, and was the reigning champion of game purchases. The Orange Box has three games in it, as well as two expansions for one of the games, and therefore was one of the best deals for a new game in history.

Half a dozen of my friends had Halo 3, and there were literally more than a million more people out there who had the game. I knew that if I got that, there would never be any shortage of online multiplayer partners. I knew that I would have a constant supply of friends with which I could play, as I could easily do a split screen multiplayer, even if I had a friend who didn't have the game. I knew the graphics would be incredible from screenshots I had seen. The reviews of Halo 3 were freakin' stellar. I hadn't played Halo 2, but I had played Halo. I don't remember enjoying Halo's single player all that much, but it would be multiplayer which would be the selling point.

Nobody I knew had The Orange Box, but it was still mouthwatering. One of the games on it is Half-Life 2. Half-Life 2 is widely considered the greatest single-player shooter ever made. Some even call it the greatest game ever made. I played it briefly on my old computer, but it kept crashing my system (like I-have-to-uninstall-the-whole-thing-t0-get-the-system-working-right crashing), so I couldn't get past a certain point. Still, I loved what I had played. The Orange Box also includes the subsequent two episodes of Half-Life 2, which I'd also heard were very good. Team Fortress 2 is another game on it. I have fond memories of playing the original Team Fortress for hours on end, and learning tricks which would serve me for years to come in various other games (as well as a few which would assist me in real life). Portal is the third game on it, and I knew very little about it, except the reviews I had read, which were generally very positive.

So that was my quandry: get the great game that several of my friends have, but which I really didn't know how much I'd enjoy the single player experience, or get the incredible deal that not many other people were getting, but which I knew would be good from previous experience. I knew I was getting one of them, just didn't know which.

Gamerankings.com is sort of the rottentomatoes of games. It aggregates all the reviews of all major review outlets and gives you an average of their opinions. Halo 3 ranked incredibly high, at 94.1% (it's since slipped a fraction of a percent, as it had one review that was only very good). Orange Box was too new to really rank, but it still had about ten reviews. I believe at the time the rating was 95.6% (it's currently 97.5%). That tore it. If the reviews were marginally more positive for the one that I already knew was going to be good, then I'll be antisocial and take the one that nobody else has.

So, I would have blogged about this before, but I was a little preoccupied. And Portal, the one I didn't know anything about, is absolutely wonderful, in addition to being laugh-out-loud funny. I finished it over the weekend, and want to play it again, even though I already know how to solve all the puzzles. Also, I might add, my friend Zach broke down and bought The Orange Box over the weekend.

Bioshock

2007-09-30T07:47:00.001-05:00

I just finished Bioshock, a relatively new game for the Xbox 360. I guess the best word to describe this game would be "creepy." Here's the story: you are some guy in 1960 whose plane goes down in the ocean, and you happen upon a small island with a lighthouse, in which is a bathysphere which takes you down to the great underwater city of Rapture. Andrew Ryan, a Howard Hughes/Charles Foster Kane type of individual thought it would be neat to create a magnificent city of intellectuals. A city of unlimited potential. A city beyond the reach of any earthly government. A city in which people could play with their genetics at their leisure. Since the substance required to play with genetics (called Adam) is found only in these slug-like things found under the sea, that's where this city should be. In one of the quotes of the game, he says, "It wasn't impossible to build Rapture under the sea, it would be impossible to build it anywhere else." With him, he brings some of the greatest minds of the late 50's, and they build an empire that swiftly goes terribly terribly wrong.

The story plays out primarily in radio communications and audio diaries, so you're only picking up snippets of the story at a time. Still, those snippets are enough to fill you in on the citizens of Rapture flirting with godhood, the subsequent need to exploit one another, and Ryan's desperate attempts to restore order. It's pretty twisted. But that's not really where the creepiness lies.

The nameless you enters the scene, and immediately you inject yourself with a "gene tonic" with which you can ignite things by snapping your fingers. And yes, it's a little odd that you immediately choose to inject yourself with a foreign substance, but that gets explained sufficiently later. Rapture is a mess. The people are all insane, the lighting is dark and flickery, there are leaks everywhere, and the groaning of metal under the sea or the crazed ramblings of the inhabitants can really freak you out. This game is built to freak you out, and it does a good job with that.

In order to "purchase" more gene upgrades (which you realize quickly you need in this madhouse), you require Adam. Adam is in these undersea slugs, which are implantd in little 10-year-old girls, called "Little Sisters" (later on it is explained why it has to be little girls). You have the choice of saving the little girls from the influence of these slugs and getting your Adam, or you can pull the slug out of them, killing them, but getting you twice the Adam. I chose to play the way that would let me sleep at night, and I ended the story on a happy note, having saved all these little girls. Later on I may play through, killing them all and seeing how it changes the ending. Maybe not. I know it's just a game, but that's just wrong.

One of the more interesting facets of the game are how you can use the environment to your advantage. You can hack the security cameras and security turrets to do your bidding, which makes it a lot easier to get around (if a security camera spots you, it'll send little gunbots after you... if you hack it, it sends those same gunbots after the badguys who wander into its gaze). Hacking is a fun little minigame in which you try to connect tubes from one end to another, only given a few different pieces to work with. It's challenging, but fun and rewarding. And that does lead to a lot of options: In other reviews I've read, the reviewers discuss the different ways they killed the first boss (one of the genetic surgeons who has gone all kinds of crazy). Some led him into the water in a lower level of his area and electrocuted him. Some shot the canisters of gas near him and blew him up. Some set him on fire. I personally used a hacked turret and camera and had robots do all my dirty work.

Between the mad ramblings of the lunatics down in Rapture, the creepy lighting and sound, and harvesting the Little Sisters, this is a really creepy game. After a while you get kind of used to it, and then things are built to creep you out more (like when the lunatics figure out it'll be easier to kill you if they pretend to be one of the many corpses lying around, and then jump up right when you walk up to them). Y'know, if I'm playing a first person shooter, and I'm killing aliens or robots or criminals or enemy military, I'm OK with that. Going through this place that looks like a riot happened in an underwater asylum, not so much. I like the tenseness and excitement that comes from just making it through the enemy onslaught, but being creeped out and feeling like I'm putting these people down because they're just too sick to live.

So it's a good game, with a lot of potential. It allows for a lot of replayability, since you can try different tactics on your enemies. It's got a deep and engaging story, with some pretty significant and dynamic and surprising twists. But it's really freaky.

So, this Halo 3 thing

2007-09-27T09:21:00.000-05:00

No, I haven't bought it yet. Although it appears as though I'm the only person in the world who owns an Xbox 360 that hasn't. I even have one friend who specifically bought an Xbox 360 for Halo 3. Fortunately, he bought at a good time, as there are a lot of cool games coming out for it in the next few months.

For those who are reading this through an RSS feed, pehaps the first link above isn't working as well as perhaps it could. Read this:

Microsoft today announced that Halo 3 has officially become the biggest entertainment launch in history, garnering an estimated $170 million in sales in the United States alone in the first 24 hours. The Xbox 360 title beat previous records set by blockbuster theatrical releases like Spider-Man 3 and novels such as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Stores across the country were packed with Halo fans.

Halo 3 is the conclusion to the epic trilogy and picks up where Halo 2 left off, answering questions around the fates of the beloved protagonist Master Chief and his
artificial intelligence sidekick Cortana as they struggle to save humankind from
destruction at the hands of the alien coalition known as the Covenant. In
addition to the rich storyline, Halo 3 continues the franchise's grand tradition
of delivering innovative online multiplayer experiences via Xbox LIVE, the
world's largest social network on TV.

"Halo 3 has become a pop-culture phenomenon," said Shane Kim, corporate vice president of Microsoft Game Studios. "Not only is Halo 3 setting sales records, it's also redefining entertainment. Within the first 20 hours alone, we've seen more than
a million Xbox LIVE members come online to play Halo 3—that makes September 25
the most active Xbox LIVE gaming day in history."

Retailers have also expressed their excitement about the launch of Halo 3. Bob McKenzie, Senior Vice President of Merchandising for GameStop Corp commented that, "With consumer demand for Halo 3 and related products, we expect it to be the biggest video game title generator in GameStop's history."

"The initial demand we've seen for Halo 3 has been astounding, and the game is on track to become the number one gaming title of all time. Halo 3 is a genuine
entertainment phenomenon and our customers have responded very enthusiastically
to the release," said Jill Hamburger, vice president of movies and games at Best
Buy. More than 10,000 retailers hosted Midnight Madness events to
celebrate the launch of this third installment in the billion-dollar franchise.

More than 1.7 million copies of Halo 3 were preordered in the United States before a single store opened its doors at midnight on September 25, making this the fasting pre-selling game in history, surpassing the previous record-setting pre-sales of Halo 2. Well beyond just a U.S. phenomenon, the launch of Halo 3 was a worldwide celebration that released in 37 countries and available in 17 languages.

Now, admittedly, Halo 3 costs six or seven times the cost of a movie ticket, and three times the cost of a book. But still, the biggest entertainment day in history for a single-platform game. I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around the magnitude of this.

Excitement and Turmoil

2007-09-26T22:20:00.001-05:00

There was a fire next door tonight. Our building is fine, but one of the apartments next door is burned out.

We went to Evanston to enjoy the beautiful evening, and came home to get decent parking spot on a fairly unremarkable evening. As we were coming home, there were some people on the corner shouting. This really isn't anything unusual, so when the sirens came and stopped right near the intersection, I was thankful for Chicago Police coming to silence the loud people. We came in, and heard a three beep alarm out in the other building, and I was annoyed, thinking that it would stay that way all night. It wasn't long afterwards when the rest of the sirens started coming, and we realized that something was legitimately amiss.

After that, it was pretty much a brief and somewhat somber block party. The neighborhood was out, and we got to meet several of our neighbors while we watched the firefighters do their job. They blocked off our street and the cross street. There are still a lot of emergency vehicles outside, and the lights make me glad I don't have photosensitive seizures.

This was an interesting experience, but one that I'm very glad I'm seeing from this end. Several families have been displaced, and one guy (who wasn't home) completely lost his whole apartment. Fortunately no human died, but at least one dog did. This is a tragedy, plain and simple, but it doesn't stop me being fascinated about the process or about the reactions of the people dealing with it.

Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day!

2007-09-19T09:24:00.000-05:00

I don't have a lot to say today. I was going to put up a sign in my office stating,

"Avast me hearties! Today be International Talk Like a Pirate Day! Today I be hard of hearing if ye be talkin' like a landlubber! Yarr!"

But it takes a lot of energy to maintain that, and I'm kind of low on that today. In it's place, since I'm working with computers all day, I give you this, a pirate's keyboard: