The Long Road

Archives: September 2005

Monday, September 26, 2005

Here there be spoiles. Albeit, minor ones.

I feel absolutely compelled to write about Galactica after the mid-season finale. Best show on TV! (after Lost). One of the things that impressed me the most about this series is that between season 1 and 2, they were able to pinpoint a lot of the things that I thought weren’t working and jettisoned them. Stuff like Dr. Baltar’s sexual fantasies, or the crew’s constant paranoia of every new character turning out to be a Cylon. These two points were very repetitive in the first season and distracted greatly from the overall plot and themes of the series. The changes that came with season two were most welcomed.

The most unique aspect of BSG is the way it handles space flight and combat. The ships really manage to convey a sense of weightlessness and frictionlessness in the way they move. Star Trek/Wars dogfights have always looked like modern aerial combat but with black backgrounds and laser weapons. BSG transcends that legacy and gives such a unique look and feel that it’s hard to imagine why no one has done it like this before.

For all its spectacular effects, the true strength in Galactica is its human drama. It’s so good that I didn’t realize we went something like 10 episodes without seeing a big fight until I realized it.

The only thing that irritates me about BSG is that certain issues tend to get forgotten all too quickly. Two major ones being, first, that Dr. Baltar is supposed to be testing for Cylons and pretty much knows who is and isn’t one. He was given the parts for one of the only nuclear warheads left on Galactica to run his tests, yet somehow the commander has conveniently forgotten this really important work that was suppose to be happening? Secondly, insubordination and downright mutiny just gets forgiven without so much as a slap on the wrist! The President undermines the military and instigates all kinds of damage for some insane religious quest yet never has to face the consequences of her actions. She needs to get it!

Between BSG, Lost, and the removal of Enterprise’s desecration to the Star Trek name, it’s a great time to be a fan of science-fiction.

Posted by Rayne @ 04:42 PM EST [Link] [2 comments]

Friday, September 23, 2005

She gave us food when we were drunk
and drank with us when we were sober

Puts the seat of our pants
at the edge of our seats

She's the bee's knees AND its wax
overkill really kicks the lama's ass

Some would spout all that and a bag of chips
no one doubts 32 flavours and then some

Posted by Rayne @ 05:42 PM EST [Link] [5 comments]

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

is the hottest one there is. I'm not saying that lightly either; she is honestly the most attractive girl I have ever seen (a picture of). There are not enough words in elvish, orc, entish, nor all the tongues of men to describe the effects her architectural perfection have on the male physiology.

Sure, we can talk about how she's only 28 and already France's most watched and highly paid news anchor, or how she loves to travel, or maybe even how she single handedly made France the most up-to-date and informed country in the world. Perhaps we could discuss the fine line she walks between exuding sexuality on air while bringing serious news to her countrymen.

But who really cares about all that because she is, as they say in French, Le Hot.

Posted by Rayne @ 09:16 PM EST [Link] [12 comments]

Saturday, September 17, 2005

So this Mario guy, everybody thinks he's so wholesome and wonderful, but they're just specieists. Just because we're not humans doesn't mean our lives aren't important too, you know; but no, humans are such self-centered chauvanists. Sorry...maybe that was out of line; I'm just really shook up from the last few days, I think everyone is. I mean, Len and I were just walking around trying to figure our way out of that hole we fell into between these two pipes and then the guy, Mario, he comes out of nowhere and stands on one of the pipe and he starts blasting fire balls! Motherfucking fireballs! Not just one or two, but like 100 over 60 seconds. We're just turtles, man; we couldn't do anything..totally helpless and he's just blasting away at us from above.

Anyways, I was lucky, really lucky; all I lost was a hind leg , but Len...the guy totally fried Len. There wasn't even enough of him left for his family to identify. Len, my buddy of 57 years, who loves nothing more than wading in a warm, shallow pool of water at sunrise, he was nothing but a pile of ashes by the end of that nightmare. We're mostly a kingdom of benevolent turtles and mushrooms, right? But Mario, this guy who can fly and throw fireballs, he just didn't care. He swept through our entire world and killed all of us he could find; kids, wives, whatever, it was all just target practice, most of us were just going on with our daily lives. We had nothing to do with Princess Peach's kidnapping. He could fly for fuck's sake! Why didn't he just do straight to the Castle?

Instead he chose to systematically wipe out everyone and anyone he could find, and it just didn't phase him because we're not humans. What gets me, what really makes me angry, is that he's hailed as some kind of hero over at the Mushroom Kingdom. Here's a guy who not only went after King Koopa but decided to wipe out all his children while he was at it too. You should have seen the queen when she got back. Totally devastated, she's been in counselling, but it doesn't look good. Rumour has it that she's pretty much gone insane. Which is understandable, I mean, her husband and her seven kids, gone. Jesus, all seven kids. I can't even begin to imagine what that's like. And the guy who did it is considered a hero? and wholesome? There's just no fucking justice in this world.

Posted by Rayne @ 02:24 PM EST [Link] [3 comments]

Friday, September 16, 2005

When the Dreamcast (*sniff*) lightgun came out in 1999, one immediate thought that came to me was: FPS. The addition of the d-pad to the gun made me think that there would soon be a game where you could walk around via d-pad while looking around and aiming with the lightgun. For those of us who are not uber-precision gods of gaming, this would have been a really good way to play FPSs - no precise targeting with the analog stick necessary. Unfortunately, that kind of game never came to pass. I think the limitation being that the game doesn’t know where you’re pointing the lightgun until you fire.

When the Revolution controller was unveiled last night, one immediate thought that came to me was: WTF?! No, seriously. What. The. Fuck. It has a distinct lack of buttons, for one thing, and looks nothing like what we’re used to. For well over 30 minutes, my reaction was total and utter flabbergast. How they came up with this, expect 3rd parties to innovate with it, how anyone is going to play a traditional Street Fighter or any of Nintendo’s SNES games was far beyond me.

Having calmed down a little and read more on the topic, I’ve decided that yes, this will be revolutionary. If it truly provides full control over all 3 axes then we’re going to be in for some very interesting game mechanics – the current dual-analog setup for 3-dimensional manoeuvring is still very flawed. What I would have liked to see is Nintendo showing a guy holding the controller with an image of the controller on screen duplicating exactly all the tri-planar movements of the person. This would have given a truly better idea of the technological achievement of the motion sensing technology.

While I’m convinced on the hardware, I’m wary on whether Nintendo can sustain development of unique uses for the controller and if there’ll be enough third party support that will use it as a legitimately new way of playing games instead of just a gimmick. Nevertheless, if successful this controller represents a paradigm shift beyond anything we’ve ever seen in gaming since the advent of polygons.

The next generation so far looks like either an XboX or PS3 (both very tempting right now), with a slight leaning towards PS3 and the Revolution as a secondary console. Unless, as stated above, massive 3rd party support for the Revolution comes around and it starts getting some of those AAA franchises…but this doesn’t seem likely.

Posted by Rayne @ 04:32 PM EST [Link] [3 comments]

This link was making the rounds yesterday about Chinese Mainlanders at HK Disneyland and their lack of manners and sophistication. It’s sorta like invasion of the hicks over there with women sitting around barefoot and kids peeing everywhere. You know what this really means though? Disneyland HK doesn’t have enough washrooms. I wonder at the mainlanders’ ideals for manners, etc. Surely not everyone adheres to western standards?

This article prompted me to think of some amusing failures of sophistication on my part and some people I know (consider yourselves lucky, no names shall be named). Mostly, it has to do with a few individuals who have no qualms with personal grooming while in the presence of others. I seriously think that there are certain parts of yourself you should not be touching/cleaning while friends are around, it’s just uncalled for. Maybe it’s just me and my clean-hands thing though. Personally, I know that I tend to eat/chew rather loudly. Call it “mainland manners” or whatever, but it was simply never stressed upon me to eat “gracefully” as a kid. Food! Belly! Quick! Other table manners mattered to my parents but small mouthfuls chewed slowly 10 times wasn’t one of them.

Posted by Rayne @ 03:17 PM EST [Link] [2 comments]

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Is the aversion to adult-oriented material, by which I don’t mean porn or hyper-realistic violence or what not but just solid R-rated stuff. Analyses at boxofficemojo.com always have some executive being surprised at how well R rated films do, recent examples being Wedding Crashers and 40 Year Old Virgin.

A few reasons I can think of all the way up and down the demand/supply chain:
Pressure from “special interest groups”. Those “think of the children” crazies who insist that all entertainment products be wholesome enough for their impressionable 10 year olds to consume. These small but vocal minorities are able to attract enough attention that no one is willing to go through the trouble of fighting them. These guys are just too lazy to do their own parenting and want a sheltered existence for their kids. Maybe they don’t even have kids and just want the rest of us to watch teletubbies.

Audiences. A PG movie will of course be available to a larger segment of the population, but I can’t imagine that the difference made up by the 1-day olds to 18 year olds would be large enough to try to make every movie with them in mind.

Distribution. Some places just refuse to carry adult material. Wal-Mart and Toys ‘R Us, as seen by the Hot Coffee fiasco, try to remain “family oriented”. I remember Roger Ebert going on very long rants about how Blockbuster insisted on not carrying R movies for the longest time, forcing studios to tone as much down to PG-13 as possible. Movie theatres are also guilty of this seeing as pretty much none of them ever show anything NC-17. The question is why? Do adults just not want more mature forms of entertainment and if not, why not? Why does my local cinema show a 10:30 pm viewing of the latest G-rated Disney movie to 2-4 people instead of something like Havoc, which even though might only attract 2-4 people would cost them less to show.

This post was inspired by a recent decision by Marvel Comics. Their line of “mature comics” includes the title Supreme Power, a “realistic” take on superhumans taking over the world. Supreme Power is one of their only two R rated books, but they’ve decided to move it to PG-13 by taking out all the swearing and nudity in hopes that it will sell better as a PG-13 title. While this makes legitimate business sense and the book will no doubt sell several thousand more copies than ever, I just have to wonder why it will. By most, if not all, accounts comic books are read mainly by adults in their 30s – most of them male. Why do 30 year old makes avoid books with a fully naked Wonder Woman clone but will buy it if guaranteed that wisps of clouds cover her naughty bits? I just don’t understand…

Posted by Rayne @ 03:30 PM EST [Link] [9 comments]

Friday, September 9, 2005

Like a lot of people, I have been absolutely GLUED to cnn.com and msnbc.com this last couple of weeks. The most interesting aspect of this story isn't the destruction of New Orleans or the incompetence of the people in charge; no, the most interesting aspect of this story is the media. I have never seen the US Media like this. Reporters are emoting on screen, anchors are editorializing, they're demanding answers, questioning authority, and hounding Michael Brown like paparazzi after a pregnant Olsen Twin. Getting to the truth - this is what the media is for! This is the kind of barrage we should have seen when Bush started talking about going into Iraq and when WMDs were never found.

Alas, as focused as the media is on The Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the Bush Administration just seems smarter and better than them. They are adept at manipulating the public and the media, masters of the spin - spinmasters, if you will. I have never been as angry and frustrated at politics as when I read the September 6 and 7 White House Press briefings with Scott McKellan. His amazing ability to dodge questions, condescend to the press, and to position the government on a higher moral ground by declaring that their immediate concern was to take care of the citizens of New Orleans and not to play the "blame game" must be of great value to Bush (I fully expect a video except of all the times he says “blame game” and “taking care of people on the ground” to pop up any time now). This administration has been incredibly skilled at making criticism levelled against them to seem petty - questioning your leaders is "unpatriotic", or "divisive", condemning the War suddenly means you’re condemning the all-important U.S. troops. In short, if you don’t agree with Bush et al. you don’t have the best interest of your country and your fellow citizens at heart.

The sad thing is that Middle America buys all of this bull. Even after this unmitigated disaster, Bush’s approval rating is at 39%. Who are these 39%? Why don’t they watch the news? Why can’t they form their own opinion? Why can they be so easily manipulated? How can I convince them that I am Nigerian Royalty in need of financial and physical extraction from my poor, doomed country?

The best way to fight against this kind of obvious manipulation, I think, is to point it out right then and there (since 59 Million stupid Americans can’t figure it out for themselves), or to do a meta-talk. Something along the lines of “Scott, look, we have people in New Orleans helping and reporting on all that is going on there. We are here in Washington because decisions are made in Washington so we have to ask questions about the decisions that are made and those who make them. And it is NOT in the best interest of the displaced people of New Orleans if the person in charge of their well-being is not in the least way capable of making the right decisions in that role.”

But, of course, it’s easier to say that while sitting here than it is in the intense and fast-paced situation of the White House briefing room and the rules that guide it.

Posted by Rayne @ 05:53 PM EST [Link] [8 comments]

Wednesday, September 7, 2005

I hate, HATE, HATE MSN Messenger 7. It is the epitome of everything that is wrong with Microsoft. The thing is overblown and crammed to the brim with "features" and buttons and pictures and options that "chatting" seems like its tertiary function.

The chat window now not only has a "send" button but also a search! The send button by itself was already superfluous like a third nipple (who doesn't just press enter?) but yo clutter the little chat window with yet another button -> stuppendously annoying. In addition to havin ads run at the bottom of the main window, we have to also put up with them in each chat window now!

And then the main window o.O
As if leaving a "msg" for people on your contact list is now a feature. It'll only lead to gross misuse like when someone's name is "*name*XXXXX dinner at my place on saturday!*/name* *msg*Dave, msg me when you're only so we can discuss which pictures to keep and which to trash, or just call me at 555-5555*/msg*. I mean, I have to stretch the window all the way across my 1600x1200 screen to see that full thing! There's not only an email alert but also a button to get to msn/spaces and the ability to see everyone's avatar in the main window. It makes it so cluttered! I hate it, I want six back!

Lets not even talk about the fact that the stupid thing takes up over TWENTY MEGS of memory!! FRIG, windows 3.1 ran on something like 2!

Although I have a lot of issues with Gtalk (which is still in beta, anwyays), it at least resembles what I want it to - "a box to chat in".

Posted by Rayne @ 03:36 PM EST [Link] [9 comments]

Monday, September 5, 2005

Fiscal responsibility is something I have trouble with. No Joke. Without ever really keeping track of how much I spend and on what, I know that I spend roughly 1000$ a month on “non-essential” (y’know, anything not rent-food-bills). Last winter I summarized all my spendings for the work-term to see where I had gone wrong (ie: I was all like “What the pho?! Where’d my all my money go?). Alas, the exercise of summarizing four months worth of spending is a long and tedious one. One that I had planned on but had never reenacted. Now that life is no longer easily divisible into 4 month chunks, it seems like a weird thing to do anyways.

However, life IS easily divisible into ONE month bite-size chunks! So in the spirit of attempting to achieve some semblance of fiscal responsibility, I have endeavoured to record all of my income and expenses in Microsoft’s wonderful Excel software!

As you’ll soon see, that 1000$ figure is pretty close for August…if by pretty close I mean “exceeded by almost 400$”. It seems a bit excessive, but in August I did get a bunch of stuff for my bed + bedroom so that made a bit of a difference. In any case, I spend WAY too much. For the month of September, I should limit myself to X$ per week and not spend beyond that. Not sure what figure would be appropriate..perhaps 200$?

Anyways, here’s my August income and expenses sheet. Help me decide where I should trim! (some numbers are x’d out because…I dunno, it seems like I should). This’ll also give you a really, really good idea of what I did last month.

Posted by Rayne @ 12:25 AM EST [Link] [4 comments]

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