Grievous Offender
September 29, 2008
Recently a paragraph I had written was described as a “grievous offender.” It’s such a colorful phrase that I’m not even shamed by it.
A Video Game Idea
September 25, 2008
I’m very intrigued by alpha and beta versions of video games. It’s fascinating to see early incarnations of the final product. It’s like discovering a secret world, the backstage of the game world, that few actually witness. Granted, most of it is rough draft quality and incomplete, but it’s always interesting to see what might have been. You can find tons of screen shots and videos of alpha and beta versions of one of my favorite games, The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time. For example:
I think a compelling game to play would be one that incorporated these alternate versions of itself into the main game. Game characters, including the one you play, might stumble into another universe or a higher reality that sandboxes “normal” reality, and you can explore and discover different, distorted versions of yourselves and your world. Perhaps the characters could deduce they’re programs in a computer by observing that the laws of physics aren’t consistently applied. It’d be funny if they started worshipping the almighty Evaluator for giving them life and providing for their reality. I have so many more cool ideas, but I’d hate to give them all away in case I decide to make a game like this some day.
It’s a shame that it takes so much effort to make a video game, especially in these days of high production values. If you’re a writer, you can type all you want at home on your own. If you want to make a video game, you have to enlist the help of many people. I’m actually surprised there isn’t a popular open source project and community that solves this problem already.
This Life Brought To You By Toyota
September 18, 2008
I went with Heather to Discovery Kingdom (formerly Marine World) in Vallejo last weekend. We had a lot of fun. They have several roller coasters in addition to the animal displays and shows that make for an entertaining time. I was surprised at how commercialized it was, though. There were ads everywhere you looked. It seemed like everything was sponsored or brought to us by companies other than Six Flags. They even interrupted the whale show for a thirty second Toyota commercial to play on the jumbo video screen! What is going on here? Why do they need advertising if they’re charging us to get in and for the food we buy? Is this a cheap way to lower the ticket prices? That would be a pretty low thing to do, since there’s no expectation of that sort of thing. It would be like going to a movie theater and being forced to sit through an intermission for showing you commercials. I thought the point of paying for something was so you don’t have to deal with ads. It’s like I’m being charged twice: once for the ticket, once for the annoyance of the ads.
This boredom brought to you by Geico
This road obstruction brought to you by Toyota
Human Works As Phallic Symbols
September 15, 2008
From time to time I hear people characterize human works as phallic symbols, as if the single unifying motivation for the (assumed) men who created these things were their penises. Do people really buy into that kind of Freudian analysis? The more reasonable explanation, in my opinion, is that things worth constructing, like buildings, tools, and monuments, occupy volume and thus take up space, stand above ground, and are probably tall. If the genital symbolism were true, but women had done most of the building, we’d all be dwelling in the darkness of pits, tunnels, and underground caverns, digging pot holes to worship our gods, which is ridiculous. If it’s a giant statue of a penis, fine, I’ll grant you that one, but otherwise, use some common sense: it’s cool to build tall shit.
Capitalization For Titles
September 14, 2008
Every word in a title should be capitalized. It’s an acceptable form of capitalization and it’s super easy to remember. I don’t understand why most people don’t do it that way. Otherwise you have to memorize all these exceptions for which words can and can’t be capitalized. Who can remember all of that? What about “in,” “to,” or “on?” It’s just not obvious.
It’s like putting a comma after the second-to-last item in a list. I remember being told in school that you can omit the comma in some situations, but not others, or you could always put it there and it would always be correct. I stopped listening after that, decided to just always put it there, and kept playing Oregon Trail or whatever. Easy.
