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Below are the most recent 23 friends' journal entries.
| Thursday, July 9th, 2009 |
shadowofsummer
|
11:01p |
Drumroll
There's a theory of game design that says if you punish players arbitrarily than they will hate you, but if you give them a narrative element that punishes them in the exact same way, no matter how flimsy the narrative explanation, they will hate the narrative element for the perceived 'unfairness' and be much more likely to accept you screwing them over. This is probably true. All the times I was supposed to shepherd my cohort through a drug deal gone bad in Vice City, I never blamed Rockstar for coding a character's AI in such a way that he would stand perfectly still while being shot repeatedly: I blamed the character, because clearly he was an idiot. When I play any of the Zelda games and get snagged by a Like-Like, I don't get mad that Nintendo saw fit to create a monster that exists only to deprive you of a vital piece of equipment and make you waste time and resources finding a store to buy a new one: I'm mad at the Like-Like, and, to a lesser extent, the moron in green who won't go where he's told. So it's hardly surprising that I spent twenty minutes of my half-hour Wii Fit session today cursing out the Auton-looking personal trainer every time he said anything. It wasn't the fault of the exercises themselves, or me for being in worse shape than Mickey Rourke's face. It was the creepy plastic mannequin calmly telling me you're doing great, just three more to go, hold that pose! and return to your original position.As with these other cases, the transference is a good thing. If I got pissed off at the game itself -- say, a disembodied voice, or just some text on the screen telling me what to do -- then I might be more likely to turn off the game altogether. It's much easier to carry on if you think one character within a game is against you, instead of thinking the entire game is against you (as opposed to many 8-bit games back in the day, where the entire game was against you. The only helpful person you meet in the entire first Zelda game is the old man that gives you a sword right at the beginning, and I'm pretty sure he's only doing that because he just killed Link's family.) The same rule carries over to other forms of entertainment. Jar Jar Binks, while a terrible character, does not deserve the epic level of hatred he garnered. But many people did not want to accept the movie they'd waited sixteen years to see was a big pile of animal droppings, so they transferred that ball of rage and confusion and disappointment onto the most glaring example of why The Phantom Menace was like finding out that Santa is real but that instead of bringing presents he steals your TV and licks all your cutlery. I mean, just think about that: a movie in which future badass Darth Vader is shown as a whiny, bratty kid delivering such classic lines as 'Oops!' and 'Let's go LEFT!', and collectively as a culture we somehow decided that the only thing wrong with the film was a barely offensive racial stereotype playing the only slapstick role in a movie otherwise cast entirely out of plywood. Once you realise the power this effect brings, you can consider how it might have practical applications away from covering up gaps in game mechanics. If you're making unpopular political decisions and you're in the cabinet, blame tends to defy the usual way of things and roll uphill to your superior, leaving you largely out of the firing line and free to continue making unpopular decisions. If you're a company with a call centre of any kind, mandating that your workers all state their names and are encouraged to inject their own personality into their work is a good way of making sure anyone dissatisfied with their service will blame that girl Alex they just talked to who seemed more interested in asking how the weather was than extending their credit limit, and not blaming the big faceless company that makes the formula by which you're deemed eligible or not. Something to consider the next time you have trouble at work: how can you make sure you're a part of the faceless system that's screwing someone and not the face that they think is screwing them? |
joellevand
|
10:31p |
Running with Wii Fit
Went on a 10 minute jog with Wii Fit tonight. Every step of the way, I could feel my ass and thighs jiggling. It was not pleasant. I don't think I'll do that again for a while. Current Mood:  fat |
shadowofsummer
|
10:20p |
|
wretchmuffin
|
2:14p |
What's been taking up all my time
Quitting smoking is hard, but it's not that hard. A week and a day in; I might make it, but I should have been smoking nastier cigarettes before I quit, because the ones I was smoking were deeeeelicious. Which is a moot point, because I don't smoke. |
misterfallen
|
5:15p |
Reminder
Birthday drinkage at The London Stone from 4:30pm and Garlic and Shots from 8pm on Friday. |
| Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 |
kittiethedragon
|
1:07p |
EAT IT DOMA!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090708/ap_on_re_us/us_gay_marriageI repeat: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090708/ap_on_re_us/us_gay_marriage(You may read the above links as me screaming my head off in support of Massachusetts and threatening to metaphorically KICK BARACK OBAMA'S ASS if his toadies try to cock block this again) See, folks, I don't think Marriage should have benefits. And I am in a position to benefit from them. But I won't feel right about taking what's wrong. HOWEVER, there's no reason to discriminate based on what holes people prefer and to whom they are attached. None. Now, we can argue whether or not queer-sexuality is acceptable or not to the high heavens, but when it comes down to it, that's a matter of religion. The state should have nothing to do with that. Ever. And when it gets right down to it, what does it matter to you? Even if your g(G)o(_)d does say it's wrong, most versions also having h(H)im say "But hey, judge not. That's my job. You take care of /your/ life first. The log in one's own eye, as it were. He who is without sin, etc." Dude, If you look at his words and actions critically, I, the agnostic, would have LOVED to jam with Jesus. And if you're not into Jesus? Still cool. Sure there's all that condemnation, but given the last thousand years, I think other religions understand that it ain't so hot when someone else forces their beliefs on you, now is it? So, folks, fight for those who find their lives meddled in. You might win a few allies. |
shadowofsummer
|
1:02a |
Chekov
Latest comic is taking longer than expected because I appear to have had all the Art punched out of me. Drawing basic things like two people in a room is a daunting Herculean task where I have to redraw every line five times to get it in place. Photoshop isn't helping by refusing to run properly when I have anything else open, because dammit Adobe products need 100% of your processor time, not 95%. This will become a bigger problem tomorrow when I start colouring the thing, because the act of converting one of the greyscale comic pages into RGB immediately makes the machine stutter to a halt and causes long, Kasparov-like pauses between each action. In other news, I finished reading 'The Kite Runner' by Khaled Hosseini today. It's not bad. Not as good as I was led to believe, but not bad. I think a large part of its success is owed to cultural slumming, whereby middle class white intellectual idiots like me read books about other cultures and horrible poverty before fluttering our lashes, cow-like, and imagining that we're somehow attuned to a more noble culture than this horrible Western capitalist materialist society we despise and depend upon so much. The worst part of 'The Kite Runner', without a doubt, is the story's climax in which a story about a weak-willed, shy chap trying to come to terms with never living up to his father's expectations while struggling with the discovery that his father did not live up to his own expectations suddenly takes a left turn and spends three scenes as a Hollywood blockbuster in which astronomical coincidence and cosmic irony draw multiple threads together. It's such a jarringly badly-written plot point that it completely brings you out of the story and destroys the emotional intimacy you've made with the characters. It's not so much Chekov's gun being brought out of the drawer as it is Chekov's desk being bought by someone's uncle while simultaneously an orphan girl who found the key to Chekov's desk drawer grows up and marries the nephew, at which point a wild tiger attacks the nephew only to have him realise that not only is he holding the key, but is standing in his uncle's study, with just enough time to get the gun out of the drawer and shoot the tiger. Well, okay, maybe it's a little less blatant than that, but it's really just an improbability too far to maintain suspension of disbelief. Tomorrow: a new book, and colour for the comic. |
| Tuesday, July 7th, 2009 |
kittiethedragon
|
9:51a |
I KNEW it!
Apparently I was right–mosquitos are really bad right now. Friggin' rain and stupid weather bein' stupid. |
| Monday, July 6th, 2009 |
misterfallen
|
11:30p |
Errr...Thunderbird help
Does anyone know how to turn off the "domain name mismatch" error message? My abbeylan account has a security certificate from the hosting company rather than from abbeylan itself, which causes Mozilla slight issues... |
misterfallen
|
11:18p |
Nobody say ANYTHING!
I was busy kickboxing, so nobody make any mention of Torchwood until...oooh...Thursday morning? |
| Friday, July 3rd, 2009 |
ladymalchav
|
3:04p |
|
| Wednesday, July 1st, 2009 |
shadowofsummer
|
10:54p |
Abstruse
Having been reading David Foster Wallace's 'The Infinite Jest' since, oh, last September/October or so, it's a relief to finally finish. Admittedly, I took several months off in between when we were doing the comic a couple of times a week so I really didn't have free time. Now I can read some of the shorter, less dense works that have been piling up in the meantime: 'As I Lay Dying', 'The Kite Runner', the dictionary... Perhaps the biggest problem the Infinite Jest has is that it doesn't quite make it to the end without tipping its hand and letting you in on the joke, or, indeed, the jest. It's got some great concepts, a lot of comedic scenes, and some major foreshadowing of the depression and eventual suicide that was apparently eating away at Wallace like a cancer for much of his life. It poses more questions than it ever answers, yet still probably answers more than it should. A large amount of effort is put into deliberate attempts to disorient the reader, be it with the shifting/overlapping mass of the hundred-plus characters, or the intentional obfuscation of the timeline via 'subsidized time', flashbacks, dream sequences, hallucinations, or the copious amount of footnotes that serve to jag you back and forth from the narrative to the endnotes of the book like a literary tennis match. I'm left with the overwhelming impression that this is the kind of book that grows on you, and once it gets inside your head you're doomed to have it gestate in there until one day you can't stop yourself from picking it up and, provided your spine can hold out, devouring the whole thing in a fraction of the time it took you the first time around. |
kittiethedragon
|
12:43p |
|
misterfallen
|
5:33p |
Uh-oh...
There appears to have been a slight fuck-up, and I now have 4 Avenue Q tickets instead of 2. Before I send them back, does anyone want them? They're £36.75 apiece, but I don't mind taking a little bit less than that instead of having to try and sort out sending them back. They're for the 20:30 performance on the 7th of August (Friday). Any takers? |
| Tuesday, June 30th, 2009 |
misterfallen
|
6:20a |
|
shadowofsummer
|
12:06a |
Commenting on LJ does not give any app access to all of your personal shit
Hello! Some of you might remember me from such times as When I Used To Post and When I Used To Be Funny. Here is a meme; feel free to comment with your answers, or not. All comments screened unless specifically requested otherwise. If screened, the only one that will see them will be me. Well, I'll probably read any funny bits to Mary, but you should expect couples to talk about you behind your back by now anyway, and if you're anything like me you find it completely impossible to write anything anywhere without assuming some audience is reading it and, like Tom Cruise, silently judging you. ( This shit is memetic, M - E - M - E - T - I - C. ) |
| Monday, June 29th, 2009 |
joellevand
|
11:56p |
|
ladymalchav
|
6:30a |
|
| Sunday, June 28th, 2009 |
joellevand
|
11:56p |
|
| Saturday, June 27th, 2009 |
joellevand
|
11:56p |
|
misterfallen
|
6:02p |
Flativersary
A year ago today, I moved into my current home. It's been fun thus far, although plans are afoot for me to move in with some rather lovely people in the not too distant future. :) |
| Friday, June 26th, 2009 |
joellevand
|
11:56p |
|
joellevand
|
10:26p |
What else does the box say? How about, um, YOUR WIFE'S A BITCH, STEVE! ?
I really hate this commercial. Especially the wife character, the definition of harpy or harridan. Poor Steve has clearly noticed his wife is a little chubby and looks like she's going to go for a walk after this. So he's paying attention, trying his best, doing what a good husband should, and he's treated like shit. Every time I see it, I yell at the TV, "The box also says, 'Get a divorce, Steve!'" So, answer a question for stupid Cheerios, please: Poll #1421741 Poor Steve
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: AllWhat else does the box say, Steve? PS: I'd also like to recast this commercial with Jon and Kate Gosselin. |
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raincannon
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