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“I guess I just like liking things”

March 18, 2015 A Familiar Face

I was watching the trailer for Pixels when I noticed a well-loved celebrity (no, not Adam Sandler):

pixels

Now, I was planning to see the movie anyway (you can’t just throw in a bunch of classic arcade games and expect me not to show up), but now I have to see what happens with Q*bert. Given the conceit of the movie (that these classic characters have come to destroy us), I expect he’ll somehow be evil. That doesn’t sit right with me, but maybe some good will come of this… like, maybe some actual Q*bert figurines, which we never got with the Wreck-It Ralph movie.

 

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March 17, 2015 Tuesday 10: Movies of 2000

crouchingtigerIt’s weird to think that 2000 was 15 years ago.  Everybody was done freaking out about Y2K and on to freaking out about… I don’t remember, actually. People are always freaking out about something, though.

I have seen 67 of the films released in 2000. These are my favorite 10:

10. Cast Away – I know I’m not unique in this, but I still can’t figure out how they made the loss of a volleyball so sad.  Kind of like the Companion Cube in Portal, really.

9. Almost Famous – I’m not sure there’s another “music movie” that’s more music-y than this one.

8. Chicken Run – Made by Aardman Animations, and my love of Wallace & Gromit carries over tot his film.

7. O Brother, Where Art Thou? – Even now “Man of Constant Sorrow” floats around at the edges of my subconscious.

6. Memento – The DVD has a feature where you can watch this one “forward,” and I’ve always intended to try it but still haven’t.

5. The 6th Day – Please note that I am aware this is not a better movie than several listed above it, but I thoroughly enjoy it.

4. Gladiator – I remember learning that the Coliseum had been done in CGI and that was when I first realized CGI wasn’t just for monsters and spaceships and such.

3. X-Men – We can be forever grateful that we got Hugh Jackman as Wolverine instead of Dougray Scott (who?).

2. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon – This movie is so beautiful.

1. Unbreakable – My favorite M. Night Shyamalan movie, but now I can’t read the title without hearing this.

Further mentions:

  • Battlefield Earth – Someone rented this one for me when I was sick because they thought I’d like it. They were wrong.
  • Best in Show – I enjoy it, but I like Spinal Tap, Waiting for Guffman, and A Mighty Wind more.
  • Duets – I still have the Gwyneth Paltrow-Huey Lewis duet on my Zune.
  • Requiem for a Dream – Great movie that I hope I never have to see again.
  • What Lies Beneath – Michelle Pfeiffer and Harrison Ford in the closest thing to a Hitchcock movie we were ever going to get.

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March 16, 2015 New Radio

Over the weekend I got a new radio installed in my car. The CD player in the previous radio only worked about 80% of the time, which was frustrating. I’m sure that’s it’s 100% frustrating for you to learn there are still people who listen to CDs, but I know cassette- and 8-track-listeners, so quit hassling me, man.

I can’t tell if it actually sounds better or if I’m just imagining it does because it’s new, but either way I’m really enjoying it. It’s also put the bug back in my ear about doing Music Mondays more faithfully. I’ve long considered doing a “Ranking The Beatles” series, and this could be the impetus for doing exactly that.

I’ve also considered going through my CD collection in alphabetical order and doing an article apiece on them, but that seems rather daunting, honestly.

How about you? Any other thing you’d like to see out of Music Mondays?

March 13, 2015 Terry Pratchett 1948-2015

As you probably know, Sir Terry Pratchett died on the 12th of March. He was with his family, and his cat. His death was not unexpected since his announcement of a diagnosis of early onset Alzheimer’s disease. He campaigned for the legalisation of euthanasia, and for better understanding and care of dementia sufferers. He kept writing. He could easily have hung up his hat (so to speak, though a hat so marvelous could never be hung up) and sat down to watch the days pass, but that wasn’t going to happen.

In 1992, a friend handed me a copy of “Soul Music” and told me to read it. Which I didn’t, for months. I wasn’t really into Fantasy as a genre and it looked a bit like it might be fantasy. Eventually I picked it up and once I started I couldn’t stop. I never met him, and I didn’t know him. From the thousands of comments and memories online today, it’s easy to see he was a lovely man who gave all he could to his fans. No one has had a bad word to say about him, either his writing or his personality and that’s a big thing online these days.

Best of all, best of anything, he gave us the Discworld. It sounds impossible on paper or screen. A flat world transported endlessly through the blackness of space resting on the backs of four massive elephants, who stand on the shell of Great A’Tuin who is an even more massive turtle. A world where magic sloshes around and concentrates in certain places, where luggage has feet and the Wee Free Men roam the Chalk. A place where light is heavy and dawn travels slowly. Where witches rule the Ramtops and Wizards rule the city (so they say), and where an orangutan shelves books in the University Library.

It’s hard to explain, but although the Discworld is by turns outlandish and completely sane, it’s also the most solid fantasy world I’ve ever encountered (I read a lot more fantasy since 1992). The leaking of our world into the Discworld makes it feel like somewhere behind the curtain of our reality – if you could just find the gap – you’d find Ankh Morpork in all it’s stinking, noisy, riotous glory. Or perhaps you’d find the horse in the Chalk that Tiffany wore on a silver chain. With luck you’d find Nanny Ogg’s kitchen because you’d probably be able to get a cup of tea there and rest your feet. If you were to find yourself in front of CMOT Dibbler’s stall it’d be best to pass on whatever he’s selling.

I’d love to tell you about my favourite characters, but I don’t really have any. It depends who’s in whatever I’m reading really. They kept cluttering up in my mind when I tried to think. I adore the witches, from Granny Weatherwax to Nanny Ogg to Magrat Garlick and Tiffany Aching. The Nac Mac Feegle, the Burser and his dried frog pills, the hapless and helpless Rincewind who ends up flailing through life in a permanent panic, Gaspode the dog, Commander Vines and his cardboard shoes that can tell him where he is even in the dark. And, of course, Death. The Reaper who couldn’t manage a skeletal horse because it kept falling apart on him and who puzzled over the life of the people and creatures he visited and was very fond of cats. All of them, even now, very much alive in a way that a lot of writers can’t achieve. Terry Pratchett gave them life, so much life that they are larger still than any book that holds them.

I like to think that right now there’s a huge party in the Feegle Mound, with no waily waily. The Big Wee Hag was invited, and Nanny Ogg would have invited herself. She’s got a drink in each hand and is probably teaching the Feegles a few choice songs. The Wizards, of course, will feast in honour because any excuse is a good excuse. There might even be a moment of silence in the Mended Drum, though probably not a very long moment.

Vale, Terry Pratchett and thank you.

terrypratchett

March 6, 2015 The Curse of Immortality

Honkus Pants

Honkus Pants

Here’s Honkus Pants again.

You might recall a while back that I stopped playing The Sims Freeplay because they added an aging component and I didn’t want my Sims to die. A couple of weeks ago a friend started playing, and she needed a neighbor to have a loungechair by the pool so she could finish a quest. I was loathe to go back in, but I was also loathe to be continually harangued, so I caved. Once I caved, I was back in, it seems.  There are all sorts of questlines for me to catch up on, and I’ve been enjoying the new mall, the horses, and the wizards.

I still don’t want Honkus to die, though, so I’ve been trying to understand the aging process a little better. There are six stages of life:

  • Baby
  • Toddler
  • Pre-teen
  • Teen
  • Adult
  • Senior

If you add a Sim to the town, it is an adult. To add a baby, you must have a married couple. A Sim moves from whatever stage of life on through the next ones. A Sim ages by doing stuff. Really. Any task you have them do uses up their available time, and when they’ve used up the time in that life stage, they advance to the next one. Once they’ve used up all their time in the Senior stage, they die.

A few updates back, they added a Life Orb mechanic. You give a new Sim a personality, and that personality dictates what kinds of tasks he likes to do. Doing those tasks fills up the Life Orb, and when that Sim dies, that Life Orb can be passed on to a new Sim, who can then level up the orb some more. It’s all very “Vulcan katra.” Life Orbs can be bronze, silver, or gold, and it seems to be that gold orbs require a few lives.

When a Sim reaches the end of a particular life stage, there are three options:

  1. Age the Sim
  2. Reset the Sim to the beginning of that life stage (this requires using Life Points, the premium currency in the game)
  3. Pause the Sim’s age using an available Life Orb. Different levels pause for different amounts of time – a bronze Orb will pause a Sim from aging for three days, for instance.

When a Sim nears the end of the Senior lifestage, the Grim (Sim?) Reaper shows up and hangs around. He floats around, looks at things, and occasionally even grills up a steak:

reaper

It’s… surreal. There’s a constant visual reminder that Death is near, yet everyone just carries on doing what they’re doing. When a Sim’s time is up, an exclamation mark appears over their head and you can’t do anything except let them die or extend their life. Here’s what the end of a Sim’s life looks like:

And just like that, the Sim is gone.

One thing I’ve found is that a Sim can use an Orb from another Sim even if that Sim hasn’t died. The process does kill that Sim, however.

It’s come down to this, then: if I want Honkus to live, I have to start harvesting other Sims. I can currently have 30 Sims in my town, and I need to be filling their Life Orbs so I can pause Honkus’s aging. If I time it correctly and don’t use Orbs for any other Sim, I think I can keep Honkus alive indefinitely.

But what does this make him? At best, he’s some sort of vampire. At worst, he’s a demented farmer. Either of those means that the actual vampire/farmer is me, though, right? I create Sims specifically to keep Honkus alive. Meanwhile, as he doesn’t age, the people around him do. He’s already had to say goodbye to so many that he’s known for so long. The town is now full of new people, people he barely knows – and, for his sanity’s sake, it’s probably best that he not get to know them! Unless he’s a sociopath, befriending those whose ultimate purpose is to keep him alive is a terrible path.

And what do I do about his loving wife, Bluernia? I have reset both Honkus and her once apiece so far, but Life Points are expensive and I won’t be able to keep up that way. But if I start using Orbs for her, there might not be any available for Honkus when I need them. But letting her die…? I can’t make these choices. At least when I wasn’t playing, it was easy to imagine they were carrying on with their lives, oblivious and happy.

I imagine this is how Wolverine feels. He barely ages while he has to watch his loved ones grow old and die around him. It’s easy to see how this would cause a person to withdraw from human contact and become surly.

What kind of life have I doomed Honkus to? Yet, I cannot let him pass. Pity poor Honkus.

 

 

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