Her voice graces my car-speakers, timid lilts that end on notes higher than birdsong, and I remember how innocent love can feel.
“And I suppose I could tell you how I feel
But I’d rather play it cool and keep it real”
Month: July 2005
The last two weekends I’ve spent at the beach. A week ago, I went down to the Oregon Coast to hang out with family in a house we rented in Lincoln City. I got to see my brother, sister, sister-in-law, mom, two nieces and a nephew. It was an awesome time. This picture is from that trip.
Yesterday, I went out to Westport, and read the new Harry Potter book while laying on a towel in the sun. I applied lotion, and thought I was doing okay, but my legs definately got a lot more burnt than I would have liked.
Still, there’s something about having been in the sun that makes me feel more full of energy, as though I might be solar-powered. This only heightens my suspicions that I may in fact be plantlife, masquerading as a human, and somewhere along the way the trauma of the human existence made me forget what I really am. I wonder if I should be plotting your downfall, or just studying you closely …
… I like my coffee.
In a paper cup.
Follow-up story from Gamespot about GTA:SA “Hot Coffee Mod”.
Honestly, I’m getting really tired of video game controversy involving Grand Theft Auto almost implicitly. I even had a debate with my family about it over the weekend, which was odd. I was the sole vanguard of the first amendment. I fully agree it’s a complicated issue, but really feel like it boils down to looking for someone to blame for societal problems. Years ago, Rock n’ Roll was responsible for all sex, vandalism, and delinquency. Now it’s video games. In either case, I don’t think they could be farther from the mark.
Aperitif: a light follow-up on the palindrome post.
Entree: Desperate times call for desperate measures. Like, when you’re short on materials and you need to make a scarf, you use your “desperate measuring tape” to make you feel like it will be long enough, when actually it’s neither thick, long, nor wide enough (remember, we’re talking about a scarf here). So I posted a personal ad on craigslist – which you can read here for another couples weeks if you like – which I’d like to think is less desperate than it is modern. I am a man of the times. Here is my internet personal ad, hear me roar. It’s a good ad. I put a lot of thought into it. I’m a decent writer. It contains a lot of who I am, and if you get my sense of humor, it’s even pretty funny. I sat back and waited for the replies to roll in. Soon, I knew, I’d be fighting girls off with a stick, and Keira would be calling me to have coffee with her while she was in town for some red-carpet event or another.
Well, so far it hasn’t gone quite as planned. I have gotten multiple responses. By multiple, I mean two. I understand that the tone of my ad is fairly intellectual, so I immediately scared away all the vacuous rain-bunnies that the soggy northwest has to offer. Still, are there only two girls out there who read Craigslist, have an odd sense of humor, and are looking for a nice guy? The funny thing is, both responses I received were in response to my speaking French. I’d pretty much ruled out my French skills as a way to meet girls since, oh, High School when I met Helena Teddergreen in French class my freshman year but was entirely too flustered (and too much of a dork) to talk to her. Besides which, she was like two grades ahead of me and in High School that’s a super-big deal. That and the fact that during my stay in France there were no French girls who fell immediately for my moody and sophisticated American demeanor pretty much ruled out French as a valid method of seduction. Maybe I shouldn’t have crossed it off my list so soon.
One of the respondent lives in Tacoma, and did nothing more than invite me to the TacomaCityFrenchUp! picnic on July 20th. Not with her, just in general. I emailed her back, but she hasn’t yet responded. The other respondent lives in Seattle, and so far has been mostly restrained and reticent in our correspondence. It’s hard to get excited about meeting someone when getting them to tell you about themselves is like pulling teeth. Granted, we are strangers, but there’s a certain social contract involved with placing personal ads, and with answering them, that implies a level of voluntary information sharing. Perhaps La Francaise from Tacoma will email me again, and I’ll go to that picnic. Perhaps I’ll drive to Seattle and meet Ms. Taciturn. In either case, my expectation for true love via internet personal ad is greatly diminished.
Though I’m still waiting for Keira to call.
Digestif: In the meantime, I went to the swing dance last night after playing swing hookie for a couple weeks. My friend Lee was in town DJing, and I had a blast dancing and chatting with people. I did meet someone new, who seems very nice. We even exchanged phone numbers. It just goes to show that the best way to meet people is, and probably always will be, to go out and do things you enjoy. The rest will follow.
Linguistics are fun!
Answers.com presents: palindromes!
This part blows my mind:
The Latin palindrome “Sator Arepo Tenet Opera Rotas” (roughly “The farmer by his labour keeps the wheels to the plough”) is remarkable for the fact that it reproduces itself also if one forms a word from the first letters, then the second letters and so forth. Hence it can also be arranged into a square which can be read either horizontally or vertically:
S A T O R
A R E P O
T E N E T
O P E R A
R O T A S
Isn’t that just too cool for words!?
Well, evidently not. *snicker*
Some of my other favorites, listed:
Able was I, ere I saw Elba. (the famous Napoleon’s Lament, source unknown)
I nam’d am devil Eros; a sore-livéd madman, I.
Name now one man’s sensuousness. Name now one man.
Are we not drawn onward, we few, drawn onward to new era? (Bill Bryson)
“Lewd did I live, & evil I did dwel.” (John Taylor, the Water Poet)
Reviled did I live, said I, as evil I did deliver.”
Aias sadas saia: “It rains white bread in the garden.” (Estonian)
“Esope reste ici et se repose”: “Aesop is resting here and relaxing” (French)
“Et la marine va, papa, venir à Malte”: “And the navy, father, is coming to Malta” (French)
Eh, ça va la vache?: “Hey, how you doing, cow ?” (French)
Rám német nem lel, elmentem én már: “The Germans won’t find me, I’m already gone.” (1943) (Hungarian)
È Dio, lo gnomo mongoloide?: Is the mongoloid gnome God? (Italian)
Sum summus mus. (“I am the mightiest mouse.”) (Latin)
God apa gavs galna anlag, svag apa dog: Meaning “Good monkey was given crazy genetic disposition, weak monkey died.” — note that all the spaces match, which is rare for longer palindromes. (Swedish)
anropa aporna!: Meaning “Call the monkeys!”. (Swedish)
Woo, Swedish monkey palindromes! Life rocks. 🙂
But first, a treat for fans of Final Fantasy.
What is Second Life?
I first read about Second Life here, and I thought, “Hey, that sounds pretty neat.” Since they were giving away basic accounts for free through July 13th (normally costs $10), I thought I’d give it a go. The install was easy, only 17MB, and though I was nervous about giving away my CC info, nothing was charged to my account. On firsting logging in, you choose a gender (which you can change at will as often as you want), and walk through a small, introductory island that introduces you to the basic commands and movements the game has to offer. At the second informational post on the island, I spent a good hour customizing my character’s appearance, which gives you some idea of how many options you have in this regard. After I was satisfied with little Enzo’s appearance, I continued down the island hill, where I learned how to manipulate objects, zoom in and out on objects (and around them) without moving, and fly. Yes, fly. Everyone in Second Life can do it, which is great, because nobody knows how to run. Funny, that.
Learning to fly graduated me from the island, and I was left on my own in a cold, wide world. Humming Cat Stevens, I flew around for awhile, until I got annoyed with how low my clip plane was set, how choppy the graphics still were, anyway, and how I had to click on objects and then wait 10 seconds for them to come into focus. Eventually, I found a sign that offered something of an introductory game, a treasure hunt, which would not only garner valuable prizes (such as my character’s very own pair of converse), but would also help me explore the world and get a sense of what all was out there. Using the teleport command (yes, everyone can fly, and teleport … but still can’t run), I hopped around the world looking for fame and glory – and sneakers. What I found was that half the game was broken and yielded no prize (though I did get a blue inner tube of my very own!), and the other half was dull as hell. I also got tired of trying to fly through walls I couldn’t see, only to be balked, realize there was, indeed, a wall there, and have to wait a good 20 seconds before it would load and I could actually see it.
Having realized rather quickly that this wasn’t a game to offer a challenging “adventure”, I decided to see what the social aspects were like. I went to where the people were, mostly strip joints, casinos, and VIP clubs, and rather than converse with people, I stood around and tried to get a sense of what people who had spent way too much time in this game already did for fun. Mostly, it would seem, they stand in a club, turn on a dance animation, and chat about random shit. So, basically, it’s MSN Messenger with a pole dancer as your background. How exciting. Feeling voyeuristic, I peeked into various “orgy” and “private” rooms, where there were plenty of scripts that, when clicked, would move your character into nasty positions, but I didn’t run across anyone actually using said rooms. Still, I could see it being an ideal spot for an online tryst between Kandie (a hot, 17-year-old blonde cheerleader who is actually a fat middle-aged man), and Kyle (a high-powered CEO with a gun who is actually a horny middle-schooler who doesn’t get enough sun). I sincerely apologize for the visual.
The main drive of Second Life, aside from the social aspect, is building, and in this sense I could see why people might be interested. With a premium account ($10 a month) your character can own his or her own land. Using powerful tools, scripts, textures, and your imagination you can pretty much build any damned thing you want. You can create your dream house, complete with a lake outside, actual paintings inside, a television that will actually play video in-game, streaming music for anyone than enters your property, and so on and so forth. Of course, land, and buildings, and furniture, all cost money. Your premium account character makes $500 in-game a week, and though I’m not entirely sure what that gets you, I doubt it buys you an acre. And so your Second Life, much like your first, is largely preoccupied with ways to make money. There is gambling, there are rote chores than can be completed for paltry sums, and there are sales. Sales are, by far, the biggest market in Second Life. Create a nice outfit using Second Life tools, photoshop textures, etc, and then offer it up for sale on your property. Anyone who thinks it’s haut couture can pay whatever your asking price is, and the outfit goes to their inventory read to wear. Your stock in unlimited, so the only challenge is to design something people will want. From what I saw, the current fashion trends are largely s&m with some schoolgirl fantasy looks thrown in for the “innocent” types. Fantasy looks are also hip, and there is a complete island devoted to animal and furry avatars and culture. Yeah, scary.
The fact that the game was created by a group called “Linden Research, Inc.” makes me suspicious that it’s just a big experiment created to see who people would be if they could be anyone, what they would do if they could do anything, and where they would live if they could live anywhere. Of course, the type of people that will get into this sort of thing are fairly specific, so it’s not very good research if you’d like to learn the inner thoughts of your general person. Still, I’d much rather be on the research end, postulating theories on why so many people build mansions and put Da Vinci prints in them instead of living in suburban houses with a hot tub in the back; than on the player side, being studied. I wonder what they hope to learn.
In the end, I’ve got my first life to think about. I’m moving at the end of the month, and I don’t get to build a mansion to live in. Instead I get to pay rent for a little 1-BR apartment, and I’m fine with that. I’ve got to put in significant hours during to day at work to make money, to pay rent, to buy food, and with a little cash left over to go talk to real people, in the real world, and do some fun things that actually make my blood circulate. If you’re going to offer me a game, offer me escapism, let me slay orcs, play chess with dragons, and wield high magicks on the open sea; but don’t give me a variation on what I already do every day, because honestly, the first life is more than enough.
Categories
WTF GTA:SA SEX OMG!!1
I always find these stories vaguely amusing, if also a little infuriating.
Also interesting, from The Guardian. Honestly, some of his lingo eludes me, but I get the cut of his gib. The bit about New York at the bottom, and the Olympic games, I found the most interesting.
P.S. Has anyone had any personal experience with Second Life?
I find the idea intriguing.
My ring broke.
In the same fashion as all the previous ones have, with a perfectly horizontal crack, like a fault-line in a once infinite loop.
I don’t wear a lot of jewelery. At one point in 1999 I had two rings and a bracelet, all silver. I gave the smaller ring away, which I had worn on my left pinky, to a girl I had just met. I didn’t have any romantic intentions at the time, it just felt like she should have it. Just before I went to France I gave the bracelet to my girlfriend at the time, that she would have something to remind her of me. That she broke up with me while I was in France (and she in India), means either it didn’t work, or it worked all too well.
Since then, I’ve constantly had one ring on the ring finger of my right hand. Stupid people ask me constantly if I’m married. Wrong hand. Okay, some of them weren’t stupid, they were Japanese. I have no idea what, if any, customs they have surrounding rings and marriage, and don’t expect them to know ours. But other people have asked, and they were, in fact, dumb.
Now that we’ve cleared that up.
Rings have always had a lot of symbolism for me. They’re both small and go on forever. By themselves, they’re empty. Worn, they’re a part of you. I’ve always thought that silver, too, was a very neat metal. So yes, they’re very symbolic, and when they break, it usually portents change. Usually, I suspect it implies a breaking free of residual attachments that are holding me back. This, in turn, implies a heightened ability and chance to move on to something new and good. Sometimes, it means I’d better shape up and change some of my bad habits, because even things which seemed to go on forever can all of a sudden have an abrupt end. Once that crack is there, you can still hold the ring together for awhile, but you can never really get rid of it. I used to wear cracked rings until they completely broke in two. Now I’m much more ready to let go of them when they say it’s time. Holding on until the bitter end has never really done anyone much good.
Who knows, maybe I attach way too much meaning to a piece of metal. But I think they’re cool, and it never hurts to have a little impetus to create some revolution. Besides, my necklace broke pretty recently as well, so it’s obviously like, a sign from the heavens or something. Yes, that’s right. God broke my ring.
*FREEDOMCOSTSABUCK-O-FIVE*
Most of the gamers of my generation are aware of something that newer and older generations both might be missing out on. Video games help develop intelligence. They aren’t all about mindless violence or senseless escapism. They are, in fact, about solving puzzles, fixing problems, and completing objectives. Sound like a job? It is, and now Discover Magazine has released an article, involving numerous studies, that states that not only are video games good exercise for your mind (the brain’s equivalent to a healthy jog), but help sharpen skills that are of actual use in the real world. Gasp! But then, any gamer in their mid-twenties could have told you that. People just tend to ignore us … and mock us … and occasionally throw things at us.
The article is interesting. You can read it here. You can read the first two paragraphs for free (lucky you), and then use my login information to continue.
email: bava-track01 (at) mailblocks (dot) com
password: 9f6f50c0
They raise a good point that video games as development tools for children are much more effective if used within a parenting framework that encourages the learning aspects. When used as passive babysitters, they aren’t quite as edifying. Still, I long for the era when parents encourage their children to play video games for an hour a day, just as they would encourage them to eat their vegetables, or go outside and get some exercise.