Saturday, March 19, 2005

Happy 69 months

To my wife, whom I am so lucky to have in my life. Every day, you surprise me and leave me in awe with your wisdom, love, and strength.

And yes, I'm sorry I subjected you to "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" on DVD tonight.

Friday, March 18, 2005

Today's Word: Strung

He unwound from the post and slipped as mercury does, slow and malicious, down the side of the bed until he rested in a crouching pool of intent.

Getting over busy spell here at work. Other distractions have kept me away from writing, and last night I finally got back on that millstone to generate nouns and verbs. Forgot the liberation of creating text, and that is a sad revelation in itself.

Tomorrow (or today depending on where you are) marks a global day of protest again the war in Iraq. Information here, including searchable database on the nearest place to non-violently raise some hell. Looking over my shoulder I can't believe it's been two years already, with 1,500 American troops and an estimated 100,000 Iraqis dead. All for lies. All for conquest dreams and imperial aspirations. Two years ago, my wife and I were in a restaurant, celebrating a monthly installment of our anniversary. TVs normally tuned to college basketball playoffs were locked on cable news channels, one I remember with a countdown clock, as if we were ringing in a macabre New Year with night-vision tracer rounds and on-air explosions. Remote cameras fixed on Baghdad, a Disneyland of the damned. A few weeks later, my wife and I would be in England, taking in ancient sites while bombs reduced the cradle of civilization to dust. Everything we did was shadowed by war, and everything we do now in America is followed by the rolling carnage. It is a grisly suitor who cannot be dismissed, but tomorrow millions of voices will vent their frustrations to try.

I'm not sure if I'm going to take part. I've been drained of revolutionary juice since the November election, and I wonder what good will it do to take to the streets when those who maintain this war cling like addicts to their vision of the world. How can you reason with opponents who craft fake news reports and regularly deceive and conceal? Do we really think the masses in the streets will pull at their heart strings, will awaken their consciences a la Dickens' three ghosts on Christmas Eve?

Yet staying home is coward's way out. Something must be done, but what? You can't "out evil" these people in power. You can't talk sense to their Fox News/Free Republic ilk. You don't want in to give to the frothing flag wavers and let them run roughshod. You educate yourself with independent and foreign media; you get a bigger, better picture of what's happening and then you are doubly bummed out. Maybe being in a massive crowd will lift the spirits. Maybe they, with their signs and chants, need this boost to their karmic batteries. Strength in numbers, glances with hopeful eyes saying, "I'm not alone." It's how movements build. It's how democracy is supposed to work. It gives solace to the forlorn, and strength to the advocates. Faces of youth and of the wrinkled, skin tones diverse, and all that. Marching and being seen. A slow, benign army. Look, listen, know we are here.

I don't know if I'll be there, but I hope tomorrow is a peaceful day.

Thursday, March 17, 2005

Today's Word: Heroine

She does twice the work as a normal hero, but only gets half the credit. She's held hostage to the kick-butt mythos of Ripley and Buffy. What she fails to know and what we fail to ask of her is to be her strongest self, to love herself without reservation.

In answer to your question

Mrs. P (link to the right) asks what's the deal with Grand Theft Auto.

Answer: It's a wildly successful series of videogames where you play a criminal who, through various missions of illegality, rises in stature and wealth. You kill, harass, destroy, steal, and plunder to win the game.

One day, someone who has played it* will be the president of the United States.

And I'm done talking about videogames for a while.



*Note: This may have already happened.

Tuesday, March 15, 2005

What He Said

"Nintendo agrees that it's an excellent game but we doubt if it's really suitable for children to play. We have to consider the influence that games have on our society. That is more important than making it a success and making lots of money. So as much as we personally appreciate the fun of GTA, I would feel uneasy making a success with it."

- Shigeru Miyamoto, who knows a little something about video games, on the Grand Theft Auto series.

Today's Word...


Is still "Lid," so no new entry.

Rich Man, Poor Man.

A bit of compare and contrast.

First, I hope this game kills the thug genre dead. I hope it salts the earth so no developer goes within 20 miles of another like-minded title. I understand there's violence in mass media entertainment, but I have never seen it glorified in such a way, especially in gaming. This is what titles like GTA hath wrought, and it's time the whole damn genre withers and fades. Anti-social bloodletting is not entertainment.

Second, I point you to the latest in a series on the working poor that the newspaper I work at it doing. In this installment, we learn what's been creeping to public consciousness for a while (but no lawmaker wants to admit): one catastrophic illness can devastate a middle class family, plunging them into the frightening jungle of bankruptcy, an arena about to be made more lethal by the Dickensesque changes from the recently passed bankruptcy bill.

While 50 Cent has every legal right to take his violent swagger into world of gaming, there's something karmically sick about a celebrity who extols violence getting wealthy and famous beyond measure while people who obey the rules and work hard get screwed because someone in their family got sick.

Monday, March 14, 2005

Today's Word: Lid

Holding it all down in the middle of the party as the scream built in his throat. He couldn't compress the recreational horror of the guests taking sniper rifles to the crowd of homeless in the park, trying to find cover.


Brought to you by The Blue Pill

A couple of pieces worth your eyes and/or ears. First, award-winning author and former Newsday reporter Laurie Garrett talking about the state of American news today. Garrett's been covering disease outbreaks for a couple decades, traveling around the world to see organic death in motion (and you thought your job sucked). She wrote "The Coming Plague" and "Betrayal of Trust," both I'd recommend unless you scare easily or are a hypochondriac.

Second, also from Democracy Now, is a bit on VNRs or Video News Releases. Long story short, the New York Times published a report on Sunday saying the government has been crafting up fake news reports (they look like the real thing, but aren't) to beam out on the airwaves to make the viewers have a certain impression of a topic. In other words, propaganda. Paid for by taxpayers.

While it's not a new concept, I marvel at how much the Bush White House hates reporters. Lying to them, having former male prostitutes sit among them in the press room, and now doing an end run around them and beaming their reality into the homes of millions of Americans. The word we are looking for is "contempt." Contempt for the truth and the public's intelligence.

Tom Tomorrow (start here) has a bunch more about the New York Times article, including a startling little dissection that makes the brouhaha over Dan Rather look like peanuts.

It's a shame that a reporter probably won't continue to cover the government's peddling fake news to the public. Sounds like there a real story here with a White House having to distort reality to look good. There's likely fame and fortune in doing some investigation. As well as a good dose of honesty that needs to come out.

Kicking and Screaming

Found this today. It's a transcript from a panel discussion at the recent GDC in San Francisco. Sounds like a raucous time had by all. While I don't agree with Warren Spector's take that Wal-Mart totally controls the sales of gaming, I nearly swooned with the rants by Greg Costikyan (Big budgets will kill innovation in gaming) and Brenda Laurel (An interesting, if rambling, take on "responsibility" in gaming).