The Sky Has Limits

Lost Planet 2

I just saw this trailer and it kinda blew me away.  Maybe I need to go rent Lost Planet 1 and give it a whirl....

End of Innocence

When  I was 10 and lusting after my high school math teacher--her name was Mrs. Wise, I shit you not--I thought that "putting the meat in the taco" was a rite of passage and innocence was lost.  Never could I have been more wrong.

I recount the loss of my virginity with mirth, because I'm pretty sure that no boy is ever a virgin in his mind from the first moment he discovered those magazines in the back of his dad's closet.  These days, "magazines" = "low-loss compressed full motion video" and "closet" = "PC in my room", but my point is, boys like boobs, and as soon as we know they are there, our purity is no longer in question: it is obliterated.

That being said, I find that forum posts and YouTube comments sever a tween's ties to youth far earlier than parents probably expect, and others agree with me.  The sheer multitude of adult education a young person can experience with a mere 30 minutes of high-speed Internet is staggering.  It, paired with the screaming children at my job, is one of the reasons I have not yet chosen to procreate.  Something is broken, and we should probably fix that first.

But I had an epiphany only moments ago.

It might have been prepped by a rather lascivious chat conversation (web-cam included!) I had with one of my prospective dates from OkCupid.  Or maybe it was earlier in the evening when my D&D troupe devolved the name of their grouping into "4Chan & Glory", and ridiculous adult jokes poured forth (at one point Sarah was laughing so hard she couldn't participate).

Whatever the case, when I read on Evil Avatar that "Party PIgs Farmyard Games" was releasing this week for Wii, I let out such a guffaw that I'm certain my neighbors heard it.  And it was not because I think pigs are funny.

That was when I realized that I had ascended to a new level of impurity.  The game's title doesn't seem like it should convey anything unsavory, but it does.  In so many circles, it does.  I almost guarantee that within a week, FailBlog will have some incarnation derived from the poor marketing department of that software.

I lost my mental moral cherry tonight.  While I wasn't a "virgin" by any sense, this definitely marked a milestone of sin.

Bastard of the Nentir Vale

The man who swore he would pursue every vile/evil choice in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is finally finished with his tale.  Parts one and two were captivating and very entertaining, but I enjoyed his last chapter the most.

It is not terribly deep, but deep enough that I'm glad I had the chance to read about what being a true douche-bag is like.  I tried to be bad in KOTOR, and arrived at the same sentiment:  I liked being good too much.  In Fable, my tyranny was limited because I found divinity so much more satisfying, and in Black & White... well, I couldn't get far enough in B&W to really make any particular judgment (I encountered a point where the in-line tutorial was so unclear, I literally couldn't figure out what to do), but I like to think I would have been a benevolent God.

Enter Dungeons & Dragons.

You may think this paints a rosy picture for my group, but I am warm to Tycho's school of antagonism.  Cross that with the wisdom of Dungeon Masters past: friends around me who have already taken the reigns, including Kathie--who has been speaking with Scott Lockhorn, my former master.  Add to that, James Ahlschwede, who taught me more in a 3 page e-mail and an afternoon of chatting than I had gleaned from the Dungeon Master's Guide in a week.

But I do not intend to crush them immediately.  I have learned from the chronicles of a Star Wars Bastard that true cruelty is much more easily manifest when initial trust has been earned.  So I shall play "their game" tomorrow night, and the first tendrils of my creeping destruction will take hold in the cracks of their psyche.

OkCupid's Arrow

Aaron recently turned me on to the on-line dating/social-networking site, OkCupid.com, and I'm beginning to like it.  Unlike my very negative experiences with Chemistry.com/eHarmony, and Facebook/MySpace, so far it seems to bridge the gap between the two types of sites quite well.

Gone are the ridiculous layouts and over-stylized visual explosions that the social networks forced upon me.  My Internet-driven career made me think that I should at least try them out, if only to see what they were about.  I was hoping to meet people, and I ended up hating their tastes instead.

The fact that eHarmony only matched me with one person in the Omaha/Lincoln area showed me that I'm not what their site seems interested in.  And while Chemistry.com matched me with one really good match (she seemed attractive to me) and five so-so ones (they were interesting, but I was not jumping at the chance to meet), it only caused me to cough up $50 (for one month!) and then didn't find another match for me until my membership expired.  Needless to say, I feel taken.

OkCupid is free!  And instead of bombarding me with variations of the Myers-Briggs test I have already seen 100 times, it asked a few short-answer questions about who I am and what I like to do.  The tests are there, but the few I have taken are more playful and entertaining than anything.  The site encourages you to take them because which tests you take reveals to others more about your personality than the tests themselves.

I'm also suspicious that they use these tests and a variety of other tools to group you with others of similar interest.  I can use a simple markup in my personal descriptions for words like "Sudoku" or "Techno Music".  I'm not sure exactly what that does yet, but I intend to find out.

Brutal Legend

While I never quite caught the bug for Tim Schafer's games that Aaron did, I do recognize all of the titles:  The Secret of Monkey Island, Full Throttle, Grim Fandango, and even Psychonauts.  I am intrigued by his latest project (which features Jack Black) and I would imagine that means Aaron is jizzing in his pants.

And they're off!

Despite some chastising words from my writing "buddy", and in the throes of a horrible bout of insomnia, I managed to finally punch out my first 3 pages for Script Frenzy.  Only 97 to go...

But I'm not afraid.  That was only the first scene, and I kept it a bit short because I'm afraid of my superfluous tongue.  I'm also certain that I'll have much more to put into it once I have a bit more of the characters' backgrounds in place.

See, my first scene is actually the last scene that occurs, chronologically.  Furthermore, my final scene will be the one just before it.  While I'm not expecting the jizz-worthy moment at the end of The Sixth Sense, my intent is that, having seen the very last moment of the play, you will understand the true impact of what is going on in the first scene.  This was done even more incredibly in Memento, but I can only dream of having that kind of power.  My humble hope is that the tragedy of Alex's life will be more tangible when you already know the ending.

As I wrote, I began feeling uncomfortably giddy at the things I knew this poor girl was about to endure.  I would clap my hands in delight as I crafted a new torture for innocent Alex.  What instrument of brutality would I next use to break her soul?  Perhaps this is the joy Satan finds at twisting our lives for the worse as he wickedly portrays them as better.

Did I just compare myself to the unholy one?  Because I think I'm going to feel like a complete douche bag by the end of this play.  I have far too much empathy for my main character, and while the same might not be said for my future adventurers, I hope I do not forget her pain... for it is mine.

On a side note, I changed the name of the play to Alex's Pearl.  The combination of immature amusement from my compatriots and the lack of eloquence that Alex's Oyster presents convinced me that a subtle shift was necessary.  I think the entendré remains, and it rolls nicely off the tongue.  Plus, I hate oysters

We are not Lost anymore

I forgot for 24 hours that my favorite show was on.  Exquisite writing, touching character development, and excellent plot premise--each propelling the series forward, just like the good ol' days.

I'll say it with even more emphasis than I did last week.  Wow.

**SPOILER ALERT!** Read no further if you have not seen Season 5, episode 11.

The fact that the two most humor-driven characters were in the same room arguing in parallel to my own conversation with Aaron about the nature of time had me in hysterics.  When they cut to the scene and you hear Hurley say, "Now let me get this straight..." (God, what a classic line), I jizzed in my pants.

Kate's goodbye moment with Aaron had tears dropping from my eyes, and not just because of the sappy music.  Such an excellent job of building up to it, then going exactly where it always had to, ending just-so.  Answering the question, "Um... if Kate's here, where the hell is Aaron?" that we all knew the answer to, but just couldn't say.

Jack severing the ties to everyone that matters, folding into himself and breaking all of our givens about his character.  I'm really interested to see where he will go from here, and how long he can hold onto being a loveless shell.  He desperately needs a new purpose (which, of course, Juliette clues us in on) and I can't wait to see what it is.

And then there's a quote of mine from an e-mail I sent last week:

And if you think that's a fun spin on things, now start contemplating that Jack is a surgeon, and it's quite possible the most suited to save Ben's life (...again?...).  Now, it means that Ben's motivation for getting Jack back to the island (in order to drop him off during Dharma 1978) is a big fucking deal for Ben, and a VERY calculated move.  It would also explain why he was so blasé about the others coming or not.  It may also mean that Whitmore hasn't got a fucking prayer, because if Ben can remember that much and put all this together, he is quite possibly the "baddest motherfucker in the world".

So close, and yet, so far.

Alpert is some Faustian incarnate of Martha Stewart:  just shove the boy in the temple of fucking doom, crank the dial to "11", and wait for the egg-timer to go off or he has a nice sheen of malevolence about him.  At first, my mind screamed, "Shenanigans!" at such a murderously clever plot clean-up, sealing up all of the cracks in the foundation of the mythos with mystical caulk.  But Alpert's actor pulls it off marvelously with his soft baritone and fierce eyes, letting us know that some shit just got real.

And lastly, Locke watching over the bed like some damned angel of darkness, and speaking to Ben with a smug confidence we have seen in a certain someone before.  The tables have turned, and someone else will now be dealing the cards.

*applauds*

Speaking of YouTube

I found this today--long story how--and I'm kinda disturbed.  This is what America's teens are doing in their spare time?  About the time she said, "I have two kitties!" I started laughing uncontrollably.  So odd.  This is why I don't go trolling the internets.

Sick

My God...

How have I missed this video?