Friday, January 06, 2006

The Da Vinci Shuffle



My webmail informs me that my new Shuffle is waiting for me at home. I know I should know better at this point, but I'm a romantic at heart. I believe my new Shuffle is sitting in yet another DHL soft pack, waiting for me to rescue it from between the front door and the screen door. Like Santa Claus and Nintendo's new console, I can't prove its existence. It's just this benevolent matter of faith that they are out there somewhere.

Fingers crossed, this will be the end of the whole damn saga. Eager to plug in the new widget, charge it, fill it with music, and take it to the gym and work Monday so I can drown out the world. Been surrounded by CNN at the gym and the hostile crackle of my co-workers, and I wonder why I have headaches. True, I prolly lose my hearing on the nth repeat of Morcheeba's "Undress Me Now," but it's worth it. Tis better to be deaf after listening to Skye Edwards than to have hearing and listen to office gossip.

Speaking of distractions and matters of faith, I finally got around to reading Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code." At this point, with the book hovering in the best seller's list for going on two years (and a major motion picture based on the novel coming this year), it's almost pointless to write a criticism of the title, lest you end up sounding like A.S. Byatt's knickers-in-a-twist attack on Harry Potter or (more apt) Salman Rushdie, who was quoted as saying the novel was "a book so bad it makes bad books look good."

So, I fall back to the critique style of my recent writing classes: say something positive before saying something negative. Here goes.

If you are a conspiracy theorist, history buff, or crossword puzzle addict, this book's for you.

However, akin to "The Devil in the White City," it feels like a glorified book report, but "Da Vinci" feels it has to juice up the eye-catching islands of historical intrigue by throwing in murders, family secrets, religious masochism, and boring tracts of talking-down exposition between characters that we're lead to believe are smart. There's also a "police procedural" feel with the book, where you know (by the Law of Minimal Characters) at the end of the hour, one of the people you were shown has to be the murderer, or in this case the head of the UberConspiracy. It's all very flat when Brown rotates the action to the major fictional characters, and you expect there to be a "Scooby Doo" moment where the villain exclaims "And I would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for you meddling professors/cryptography experts."

The worst thing about "Da Vinci" is that it could have been a better book. The fiction aspect slows down the action, and Brown's obvious raisonneur of hero Robert Langdon is alternatively condensing and helpless. When he's not being rescued by the beautiful French cryptologist Sophie Neveu, he's talking down to her about the religious symbology found in art, specifically Da Vinci's "Last Supper." Brown's so wrapped up in speaking through Langdon that he strips the wonder of discovery of the UberConspiracy from us and makes the exposition feel like a second-rate Discovery Channel episode*. Brown, in my humble and worthless opinion, should have dropped Langdon and focused on Neveu, who gets two earth-shattering revelations about her family history clumsily dropped on her in the climax and denouement. And this for a woman investigating the murder of her beloved grandfather at the start of the story. Neveu had the most invested in the adventure, while Langdon gets dragged along, somehow shoved to the forefront. Imagine "Hamlet" with Horatio in the lead.

Again, it's impossible to talk negatively about a publishing force of nature like "Da Vinci." Hate it and there's a thousand people to take your place who are inspired by the meta-theme that there's more to spiritually (and even iconography) than means the eye, that organized religion isn't all about truth, and the guilty pleasure of when gossip crashes into pious history. As something to inspire further questions and deeper explorations into Gnosticism, or as piece of "Indiana Jones meets Art History 101," it's serviceable. Its popularity, I reckon, comes from a need to belief in a greater spiritual wonder, that the story of Jesus isn't finished, and that the greatest secrets come on a platter of a puzzle handed down to us, ready to answer when we are ready to hear it. There's a seduction to it all, that we are the ones on the cusp to begin a new, more enlightened way of faith (a concept alluded to in the book). It's a shame "Da Vinci" was content to be mired in flat characters and grinding exposition instead of letting us experience that wonder, too.

*It's important to note that "Da Vinci" (for being an historical thriller) has gotten spanked for taking liberties with the subject matter. Whether this is sour grapes from critics, a deliberate campaign to undermine the book, or true...that's up to you.

Thursday, January 05, 2006

Oy Vey eBay

I just had the worst computer experience of my life right now, trying to buy a surprise gift for my wife on eBay and using PayPal. Long short story (it's really embarrassing in long-form): I think I ran face-first into every no-no you can do on eBay and PayPal.

It's a very humbling day for yours truly, someone who thought he knew how to handle everything the web threw at him.

Some Good News: Got the BSG screeners, and a lot more DVD swag. Maybe some Chinese food will ease the pain.
Shufflin' and Stumblin'




Last night, I get home and scoop up the brown DHL soft pack waiting for me. I rip it open as I pet the cats and drop my gym gear, and my joy evaporates.

Apple didn't send me a replacement Shuffle. Instead, I got the widget you see above. It's the Shuffle dock, which looks adorable, as if it came from the clonemasters of Kamino. Like most things Apple, it's a blend of form and function, making tech a small piece of furniture, blurring that space between machine and decoration. And I got it for free. On paper, it's great.

Except I still have a dead Shuffle, and a dead Shuffle in a cute dock is still a dead Shuffle. Now, it looks like a snow-colored middle finger, flipping me off from beyond the gadget grave.

"I think they are taunting me," I mutter to my wife, as I wait on hold minutes after I open the soft pack. I hear Counting Crows as I wait on hold. I hear a pre-Muslim Cat Stevens. I hear that soft melodic hum of pseudo alt/coffeehouse, all earnest and symbolizing the corporate core wrapped in the veneer of mushy guitar-folk-rock. I pray to the Elder Gods that the Eagles don't make an appearance.

The first human I reach tells me I need to talk to someone else, this time in repair. I get a phone number with about 17 minutes before the Apple Support lines shut down for the night, and the tech support listen to 8 hours of NIN or GWAR to get "American Girl" out of their heads.

I hang up, I re-dial, my wife snarks about my devotion to Apple, I waitwaitwait, eyeing the minutes before the close of business. An automated voice intones I have a 15 minute or less wait time.

It's 12 minutes before close.

I sit on the floor. My wife exercises in the other room, and I pull out a graphic novel to distract myself from the coming disconnect. It's past 6 now, when the call center closes, and I'm still on hold. The last time this happened, when I was on past closing, I got the happy tones that I was about to transfered to a human (in Cupertino or Calcutta, I can't fathom), and then the gate slammed down. Disconnected. Dial tone. Game over, chump.

So, I wait, leaving through a trade paperback of "Star Wars: Empire." Beeping ensues, I'm about to transfered. I await the inevitable hang-up and head off frustration with petting a nearby cat.

"Hello, this is Brett, can I have your repair number?"

"Holy fuck, you're real," I stop myself from saying. I talk fast, thinking I'm going to lose him. I explain the whole sordid history of the dead Shuffle, and he apologizes for the mix-up. He tells me I'm getting a replacement Shuffle, tells me to keep the Dock, and to mail back the dead Shuffle to Apple when I get the new one. Details are arranged, and I get an email a few minutes later saying, yep, a new Shuffle's a-coming. My wife says if Apple botches it this time, I should push for a Nano, or stock options, or a hug from Steve Jobs. I should get my new distraction device in seven business days.

I thank Brett. I hang up and do a little victory dance. Then my wife tells me to make dinner.

Will our hero get his Shuffle? Will he burn the meat in the pan? Will our hero be able to endure his job without music for much longer?

Find out next time, in "As the Shuffle Loads."
TV Alert

I'm stealing a page from my lovely, wise and sexy wife and going to alert you all to a film festival starting tonight on Turner Classic Movies, an American-based cable channel. Thursdays this month, TCM is running a Miyazaki film festival. And if you haven't seen a Miyazaki animated film, you are in for a treat. Imagine animation as a serious art form, and not a cookie-cutter toy promotion/theme park pimp that we have here in the states. Imagine joy and sorrow as technicolor beings. Imagine the practical and the wondrous butting together. Imagine a small girl in an elevator with a gigantic radish spirit, no words exchanged, but there's a respectable acceptance of each other. No questions asked. Stuff to make you feel like a kid again, recapturing the sensation when you first saw something like "Fantasia," and you just weren't sure what it was, but you felt this elemental sense of wonder about where the imagination and the heart could go. Miyazaki is that times ten.

Very good stuff. And tonight, a heck of a one-two punch, "Spirited Away" and "Princess Mononoke."

Setting the DVR so I can record and savor them at my leisure. Tonight, I'm meeting a valued source in a fog-heavy alley for the advance screeners of the new season of Battlestar Galactica. Can't wait.

And there's more drama in the now-epic Death of a Shuffle saga. More later.

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Making a list, Checking it Twice...

So, this is what I would like to get done in 2006.

*Lose 30 pounds, and make sure it doesn't find me.

*Get my mobile phone upgraded. This stems from a bit of techlust that washed over me after I got to play with my step-dad's Moto Razor. It's so very James Bond.

*Finish a polished draft of the novel and sent it to my agent-to-be by my birthday (April 10).

*Get high-speed Internet for the house.

*Get wi-fi for the house as well. This is not as important at high-speed. Wife and I have been in dial-up mode for years.

*Seriously purge my closets and maybe *gasp* sell back a few books. I'm in a downsizing mood, damnit.

*Organize my writing materials and drafts.

*Submit to at least 3 writing contests. I might pass up PNWA this year and opt for Vancouver in the fall.

*Save $100 a week.

*Download or import one new album a week to expand my musical tastes

*Get an external drive for the computer.

*And last but not least, let my wife know every day that she is loved.

Doin' the Shuffle

So, was at the Apple Store and yes, they determined that my Shuffle was indeed as dead as a Monty Python Parrot, but they couldn't just give me a new one as they were out of stock. So, off I go to the nearest kiosk in the Apple Store to order a free replacement, which will be mailed to me after the Apple techie guy pronounced it an ex-Shuffle.

According to Apple and DHL, my replacement Shuffle is coming very, very soon. Apparently, I won't need to ship the dead widget back to the promised land in Cupertino. Just what I'll with a flash device with no flash, I dunno. Maybe I'll take it apart and marvel at its innards. Then, like my cats, I'll grow bored with my new distraction, maybe lodge it under the fridge.
Zerg Rush

From the good people at Slashdot, a fascinating almost Jane Goodall-esque profile of video gaming in South Korea, especially the phenomena of StarCraft tournaments.

A brief snip:

Impossible, because the man on the stage is on Korean television almost every day. He is about to sit down and play what is close to becoming Korea’s national sport: Starcraft. His name is Lee Yunyeol, or in game [RED]NaDa Terran. He is The Champion. Last year his reported earnings were around $200,000. He plays a seven year-old RTS for fame and fortune and to many Koreans he is an idol. Every night over half a million Koreans log on to Battlenet and make war in space, many of them with dreams of becoming like Yunyeol. But his skill is almost supernatural. Few people who play all day long will be able to claim a fraction of his split-second timing and pitiless concentration. Practicing eight hours a day, Yunyeol’s methods and tactics are peerless. Well, almost peerless. In fact there are two or three other players who command similar salaries. They might not hold the crown now, and one of them will probably take it from him soon, but for now at least, Yunyeol is king.


While the article goes on to dissect why South Korea is a growing gaming hotspot (and how they built a Sony-Sega-Nintendo free zone), they never answered the obvious: why Starcraft? The only reasonable answer I could think of is the climate with their northern neighbors. Growing up with the DMZ and thousands of short-range missiles pointed at them, I imagine SoKorean youth find some sort of release in a RTS where you have to defend against and defeat an enemy bent on your destruction. Starcraft is a war game at heart, and an intensely addictive one with campaigns lasting 20 minutes to an hour. Perfect for quick psychic depressuration against a hostile force to the north.

Another word about the article. The writer is from the UK, so you get a sense of gaming culture from two countries.

One more word, more or less personal. Blizzard (the people who made Starcraft, as well as Diablo and Warcraft) has muttered audibly about bringing a handheld version of Starcraft to the DS, which would cause me to turn into Gollum, hiding away in the dark for hours on end as I play my new precious. Bringing an RTS to a handheld would be a Herculian task, but Gameboy-Advance.net has brainstormed a decent way it could work.

Monday, January 02, 2006

Happy New Year

A bit belated, but happy 2006.

Currently in a holding pattern in my local Apple Store to get my precious, my Shuffle, fixed. It gave up the ghost a couple days ago, not showing up anywhere on my host laptop despite all my techno hoodoo. All I want to do is trade it (it's under warranty, so just gimme a new one, please). Wife is off in a happy orbit shopping without me lumbering around behind her, hiding my petulance not that well.

Just occured to me. I've been using Apple products longer than the young whippersnappers manning tech support in the store have been alive. Hey, I lived through the idiocy of Gil Amelio. Just give me a new Shuffle, damnit.

Will write about my goals for the new year later, but wanted to check in, and say the trip to Chicago went well. My grandma is hanging in there. She's day to day, but then aren't we all.