A tragic end of an era

I very much fear that Sir Terry Pratchett's affliction of Alzheimer's Disease has begun it's inevitable and lamentable onslaught.

I just finished reading Unseen Academicals, and I regret to say, I don't think Pratchett wrote it.
I have no doubt the story is his, and that he was involved with the book's writing, but the book itself...

It didn't feel right. It didn't read like Pratchett's previous works. It lacked some... spark, some infusion of wit that used to lead to the smallest pune (or pun, possibly) being worthy of laughing aloud.

The satire was there; the keen observations of human nature, of the peculiarities of society, but the book as a whole lacked Terry's uncannily deep and lively touch.

I think I shall now begin a period of mourning that will last approximately the rest of my life.

The human mind is a puzzling thing

And this even a "zomgwtf is wrong with these people" post.

So, I glanced a the headline for the most recent post from my friends @ Davis House News and all I saw was a jot about the last trombone class for the year. I had to stop and purge my brain before I double checked.

Huh.

Looks like I flubbed the html on that last one.
Maybe I should have just used youtube's embed code.
Oh, well.

So... apparently, I graduated today.
I'm not entirely sure what that means.

I can tell you for damned sure it doesn't mean I'm done.
All the classic cliches about endless struggles? The others about being one's own worst enemy?
Yeah.

But it's cool. For a given value of "cool", anyway.
I haven't got much else to do most days but kick the shit out of myself. ;)

Missed out on a job opportunity today. Turns out they interviewed internally first, then hired one of their receptionists on the spot. From answering the phone to IT. The American Dream, I guess.
Oh, well.

Don't read too much into it...

it's just a song I liked enough to share.



Oh, it stings at times, but it's just a song.

hm.

…
What to do with myself?
I’ve got a strange skill set, to say the least.
There are plenty of things I’m good at, but none of the stuff I enjoy really works as a way of life.
At the moment, I’m afraid, I’m having trouble finding true enjoyment in anything; understandably, I think.
I spend much of my time these days examining the things flitting, oozing and blazing through my mind. Trying to excavate parts of me too long calcified.
Some of it, I’ve come to terms with. Other things, I’m still processing, still exploring. Some, I might never understand. I think that I’ll be able to accept the bits that elude me, once I have some idea of what these things are. I may be able to accept riddles with no answers, but first I need to find out exactly what those riddles are.
I think I understand where I’ve been these past years. I’m quite certain that I understand the better part of how current events came to be. I regret it, and it shames me, but I’m trying my best not to get sucked into it. That’s no way to live.
An (un)healthy part of my mind wants to do just that, though- just curl back up in my hole until I’m emotionally dead again. To be honest, it’s not that it hurts any less in that hole- but at least the pain in there is familiar.
Instead, I breathe. I try to relax and let the feelings move like waves- coming in, then receding. Admittedly, a lot of the waves are still crashing in, but I try. Day by day, breath by breath, I work at it. In some things, I think I’ve enjoyed some measure of success. But I know there is so much more ahead. I know the fight is far from done. Some days are so much harder than others. Sometimes it feels like too much. Sometimes it’s all I can do to hang on to what I’ve gained, to keep hold of the clarity I’ve gained, the clarity that is, frankly, my only hope as a human being. So I keep breathing. I put these thoughts down in writing, hoping to alleviate some of the pain, hoping to draw some of the venom out.
I’m not sure what I want out of life, and that anxiety is added to everything that’s going on. I’m afraid of the future. I try to keep things day-to-day, try to keep myself grounded and keep things immediate enough to focus on things without the anxiety, without the fear, but that’s hard, too. But I cannot avoid the future. It descends inexorably- a mountain grinding down on all of us moment by moment. And I don’t know how to face it alone.
Oh, I know the mechanics of how to survive out in the wide world. It’s been a while since I had to worry about that stuff, but I know how it’s done. But between having no idea what I want, without a tangible rudder and starting from pretty literally a backward-moving starting point, the future seems more than daunting.

heh. Not bad, I guess.

Something occurred to me today on my way… home… from my emo-moshing at Kaiser’s East Interstate facility:
I’ve been driving through downtown every day for the last week or so!
That may seem like a really odd thing to be excited about or proud of, but not so long ago it was a huge trial for me to even ride in a car downtown, let alone drive.
This realization led to another- other drivers don’t bother me so much anymore; at least, not like they used to.
Oh, I admit that other drivers still frustrate the hell out of me sometimes, even piss me off. But there have been times over the last few years when they would absolutely enrage me.

This all came to me as I was sitting on the raised Burnside Bridge, waiting for a ship to pass beneath. It suddenly struck me that I had never done that before. I’d never been on any of the bridges here, waiting for a boat. Not that this is actually a banner accomplishment or anything- it was just a thing, but a novel thing. Something I had not experienced.
As small as it may seem, it was sort of cool.

Journalism without Sensationalism

Huh.
I didn't realize anyone did that anymore.

NPR

I got bored at about 2 this morning.

So I rented a movie from On Demand.
I watched a scifi/horror flick by the name of Pandorum.
It starred this one guy, one of the Quaids and a German chick. And a couple of other people, but whatever.

It was ok.

The ship (LOVED the exterior design- very unconventional), was more believable than, say, the Event Horizon (inside-out porcupine was just too Hellraiser-ene), offering the dark, tight tension of the colony on LV426 (Aliens) on a much grander scale (again- ref. Event Horizon).

So, it's got a running thread about Hibernation Psychosis, Hibernation Instability, whatever. Cool- psycho-thriller aspects, but it doesn't hijack the scifi/action/horror core of the story. I can appreciate that- I didn't rent this hoping for The Usual Suspects- I don't need a mystery-thriller trying to take over my spaceship-in-danger movie.

It's also a race-against-time-to-save-the-ship movie.
That works, too. All things considered, the ship probably could have used some maintenance, anyway.

It's also an origin story of super-Reavers. Or something.
The monsters are kind of explained- just not satisfactorily. For me, anyway.
I mean, I understood the explanation, and I can even accept it within the realm of suspended disbelief- I'd have liked to have seen a little more crunch, though. Just my thing.


Now- the HUGEST thing the movie has going for it is the guy that plays the protagonist- you know: that one guy.

He can act pretty well, I suppose. I've got no real complaints.
But what he does brilliantly is this... well, it's like the sudden-pain "o-face".
He doesn't grunt, or scowl or grimace like a traditional action hero when dropped on his spine, oh no- his whole face widens with shock, his eyes bugging, mouth gaping like a fish as the air is knocked out of him.
It's perfect.

oh- completely forgot!

I'm an internet hooligan!

I got banned from CNN's comments section on Thursday!
It all started with an article about suicide.

It was a pretty good article overall, if a bit narrow-minded for my tastes in certain areas.

Some cat commented that the nature of the individual must be considered, the situation, and above all, the individual's rights.
He didn't write well, and his opinion was fairly ill-received, but I felt his position had merit, so I stepped in to support his ideas.

Keeping things civil, I participated sparingly in the ensuing... conversation.
I was surprised how few religious-right "abomination against God" replies; but overall, no one seemed to be willing to consider the notion of a consenting adult's right to order their own life- or death.

No one was willing to accept the notion of choice.

So I tried one last tactic (as it turned out, one last post before everything I said was deleted and I was banned)-
I asked (more or less), "If you can support a woman's right to choose to abort a pregnancy, whether the choice is based on convenience or anything else short of medical necessity; how can you not support the choice of a 40 year-old severe chronic pain victim when he decides to abort a life of continued and increasing pain?"

Apparently CNN's got an allergy to my version of liberal ideology.
Not as severe as Fox News, perhaps, but still...

...just what the FUCK was that?!

Look- I don't usually blog about video games... hell , I don't usually blog at all, but shit, man!

Right, so here's the deal- last fall, a pretty sweet FPS (First-Person Shooter) by the name of "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2" (henceforth, "MW2") was released. It was the sequel to the equally sweet CoD: MW released a couple of years ago.
The opening of MW2 was pretty intense, from this vet's perspective- 'urban' Afghanistan looks a lot like urban Eritrea or Somalia, or Iraq, for that matter. I've got an Iraq vet's testament for the... striking verisimilitude of the setting, as well.

After the opening of the game, though, with the Russian invasion of the US and all that stuff, the story becomes... fantastic enough that the stressors of simulated combat aren't really an issue.

Great game- graphically and technically astounding, great gameplay, far-fetched but entertaining story. However far-fetched the invasion might be, it was at least justified by the ongoing tread of the story.

More recently released is what is thought of as the prime competitor to MW2, "Battlefield: Bad Company 2" (BC2 from now on). It's gotten the same rave reviews from the same media sources as MW2.
And frankly: it sucks.

Graphically, it's far inferior; making out-of-date uniforms on 'near-future' US soldiers look like they're woven from coarse wool and poorly dyed, weird geometries slashing across characters' flesh instead of fluid movement, et cetera.
The mechanics of gameplay are old and outmoded, and the voice acting and characterizations are pathetic.
The player's team throughout the whole game consists of a crusty black sergeant on the cusp of retirement, a hillbilly Texan, and a techy machinegunner with acne scars from Jersey. Oh- and the civilian hippy chopper pilot that ferries the team around. WTF is that all about?

The story... hooooo boy... it started well enough, I suppose- a fictional Japanese superweapon towards the end of WW2- then sort of fell apart and oozed along. The superweapon is lost and forgotten as we drop the Bomb(s), and history moves on.
I'm still not entirely sure why my four-man team has anything to do with any of this- it's stressed over and over that we're not 'special ops'- so what in the wide, wide world of sports are the four of us doing in foreign countries waging small wars? Conventional units aren't that small and don't do that sort of shit.
But here's the real kicker: the thing that made the whole story a weak, derivative piece of coprolite: after all the shit you go through in the campaign, the game ends with you being informed (by a lieutenant general [the same asshole that got you into all this shit to begin with]who conveniently happens to be nearby when you crash a plane near Nacadoches, Texas) that the Russians are invading the US! Nowhere in the story are US/Russian tensions or hostilities mentioned- we save the day, get back to the US and then: "lol u n00bs- all ur base r belong to Ivan lolomgwtfhax!" Like I said- fucking pathetic.

A single huge credit to BC2- as you unearth certain parts of the Japanese superweapon history through the game, various cut scenes give you a little insight as to wtf is supposed to be going on.
What makes these cinematic intermissions frigging awesome is the musical score- it's straight out of the Indiana Jones movies. The softer, slower orchestral pieces as Indy examines a prize? Yep. That's the stuff.

I've got to try out the respective games' multiplayer functionality next- I can only assume that's what the comparative reviews are based on.
If they are, though, why are devs wasting their time making singleplayer campaigns? If good multiplayer excuses all faults in singleplayer, why waste the extra development time and effort?
If the BC2's multiplayer is so good as to rate the same overall ratings as MW2, then they should have just made a mp-only game with an sp tutorial.

well, bugger...

Chris linked me.
I suppose that means I'm obligated to do one of my notorious biannual posts. :p

Right... So.
Um.
I really don't have much to say.

I've been put on and gotten off Methadone now; no, not detox- chronic pain therapy.
That was some nasty shit; sorta like a two-month blackout. I was a complete dick the whole time and entirely unaware of it. Long story on how I figured out what was up.

Working on re-sculpting skulls for casting/production right now- always best to avoid trademarks and all that shit. Only eastern Asia manages to throw all international copyright laws out the window and get away with it.
Once I finish in the next few weeks, it may very well turn up on the frogblog.


Like I said: I've not got much to say. Everyone else that blogs seems to have most of my topics pretty well covered.