Black Ice

I know that there is probably no reason at all to be interested in the new AC/DC record. But. Still.

Salon article

So I read the article linked, and yeah, I dig on it. Of course, going to the letters section there are a small but extremely viscous group of people-hating creatures who neither understand or empathize with someone who is having trouble. My general feeling towards people who cannot put their objections civilly is summed up thusly: Fuck them.

What is less good is the questions it brings up for me. The insistence that I cannot quit my job, because there are lots and LOTS of stories, especially now, about how bad things are. And, I have to admit; I fear poverty. Not being able to get new things-don't care. Not being able to eat properly, or pay rent; big care.

So that preys on me. What also preys on me, however, is the ache in my side I get from just sitting at this desk. I can't stay here. I have to stay here.

You might see the issue there.

It's weird being smart and so scared. I feel like I ought to have the skills to manage, but they seem to elude me. That's no fun.

The trick

Last week was a shit week at work. I can't remember being so angry at work; my frustration levels went through the roof.

I need a new job. I am afraid that my skills of mediocrity have left me with few avenues to pursue one. My Dad suggests 'leadership skills', but I honestly have no idea what that means or where I'd go to learn such a thing. I do not recall seeing these kinds of classes taught at GU.

I've always had trouble figuring out what I 'ought to do with my life'. I like to write but I have no idea how I'd ever get paid for such things, and time really does become an issue. Writing is hard work, and even though I like it, it takes time and effort to get something out that's worth reading. Then you have to be lucky enough to have someone pay you for it. I've never been much for promoting myself, so I generally hit a dead end when it comes to going anywhere.

They say there are two problems; you know what you want but you don't know how to get it, or you don't know what you want.

I seem to have a little of both. Maybe I should make a list of what I do want, so things will become clearer.

However, there are a few things that need to be done.
1) I need to not be angry at my supervisor. I need to figure out a way to release this soon, as she'll be in the office next week and will no doubt want a sit down with me. I need to be able to be civil with her.

2) I need a plan of action to get me out of Dodge. I really really have to leave here; I can feel it taking a toll on me physically. That is bad, no matter how you cut it.

3) I need a thought as to what I ought to be doing. If writing won't pay (since I have no idea how to make money at it), and I shouldn't be a teacher, what is there? I honestly don't know, and I'd like to stay in Portland to do it, whatever it is.

Mass Effect

At this rate, I'll be up there with GamersWithJobs or something. Except tardier.

But: Mass Effect: I have completed it.

Mass Effect is a story driven game, and I really mean that; a large chunk of the gameplay is a 'Choose your own adventure' game, where the conversations that the player had tend to influence the outcome of the events around you. The major plot points remain the same, but in between those are mini-quests that you choose to do or not, and those choices allow for certain stories to develop. The completion of those stories gives you more experience and potentially access to other goodies.

After that, the game divvy's up into two main gameplay elements: shooting and driving.

The shooting elements are pretty well managed I think, and one could spend hours, no kidding, mixing and matching the gear used as armor and weapons for this part of the game. This goes a little overboard, and it becomes cumbersome because the inventory screen isn't very easy to move through. I had to scroll down individually to each item to get to the next one. Being able to move through pages would've been easier, as would the grouping of items by name.

Once thrown into combat though, I found the game really easy to work with. The fighting scenes worked well, my squad rarely got stuck, and the environments were challenging enough that moving through them kept me on my toes. I didn't mind that spaceships or bases had the same layout; that's the way things get built, so I didn't care. The planetary environments were cool enough that I was happy.

Moving around the planetary environments, however was another story. Driving was a pain in the ass because the control for the tank turret could also cause you to move in the direction it was pointing. As a result, moving in a straight line was a challenge.

Now, BioWare (the developers) did the right thing by making it pretty much impossible to flip your vehicle and end the game, but they also didn't do themselves any favors by including so many mountains to try and climb over, slowing and sometimes even stopping my progress. The maps were only mildly helpful for navigating terrain; the places I wanted to go could be marked with a flag, but finding them on the map was sometimes a real chore. Terrain was marked by light blue and black, but locations I wanted to find had icons that were small and did not readily stand out against the light blue.

Secondly, there was frequent combat done from the vehicle, and the targeting reticle was frequently obscured by the environment. That was a huge pain in the ass. I couldn't see where I was firing, and that meant I would miss, or waste a cannon shot just to see where my bullets were going.

But there was no getting around this; any mission you wanted to take on any planet involved driving there, and inevitably confronting enemies.

Aside from that, I really enjoyed this game. Big space adventure, the ability to choose how to handle situations and people, and enough detailing that I can geek out without having to become hardcore. Fun stuff!

Get over it

I don't think Michael Ian Black is funny. It's weird to see people get riled about that.

It dawns on me.

Also. Why the fuck do I have to type in some crappy captcha code on my own blog? There's got to be a setting for that. Will investigate, because that's just fucking stupid.

Teh Crack

I started a 10 day free-trial of World of Warcraft yesterday. Bye-bye sleep. And boobies.

What We Eat

Grr

So, my car broke down yesterday. It's alright; nothing really was wrong with it, but I was stuck there for a little while waiting for someone to come jumpstart it. (The linky goes to the post where I talk briefly about that)

But I was also lucky that there was a payphone half a block away. It is making me consider getting a cellphone, again. Pros and cons?

Assassin's Creed

I finished Assassin's Creed for the PS3 last weekend and while I enjoyed quite a bit of it, the flaws in the game are problematic enough that I understand why it got such mixed reviews.

I liked the basics of the game; climbing things and jumping around rooftops, as well as stealth assassinations. But all the other missions seemed to be flawed. Picking someone's pocket feels like an awkward exercise in timing, instead of patience and skill. Combat is mostly a one button mashup affair, with the only skill being pressing a 'defend' button at the appropriate time. So anytime you have to fight someone, it becomes rather dreary with repetition. Since 2/3s of the missions are fighting based, it becomes a chore. Worse, since I am unable to dictate my moves, when I would defend then counter, I would end up punching someone instead of using my sword and I had no idea why. When surrounded by 5+ enemies this becomes an issue. It seemed like the game just decided for me; harder opponents will be ones you can only punch, weaker ones you can slice at.

Well, fuck that; give me a reward/penalty system or something, so I can decide which is best.

The stealth aspects are also implemented unevenly; all of the 'boss' missions require virtually no stealth, so it feels like I spent time learning how to behave stealthily, but there's no payoff for that. Once the boss mission is completed, you have to run for your life--there's no way to stealthily commit the deed, and then sneak away to get a head start. Exploring the city is fun but since the soldiers can follow me anywhere, it rarely feels like there is a payoff for exploring, beyond finding new missions to do and seeing the beautiful panoramics of the city.

One thing that really, really peeves me about games that encourage exploration is that the 'little bonuses' they reward you with are...well, a total pain in the ass without any payoff. Grand Theft Auto started this with the 'find 99 drug packages' thing in GTA3, and AC has a 'find the flags' and 'defeat the Templars' subgame. But there are 60 Templars, and 420 flags to find! On top of that, the map is not very helpful at letting you find those things. It should be, and there are 2 reasons why.

First, I only have so much time. Game developers, help me out! I want to play your games, but if you keep putting in things that must be stumbled upon at random, then I have no choice but to prioritize and say; Fuck that. I appreciate that some people have gone through the trouble to find all the flags and Templars and make a handy set of maps, but why should I have to go to a website to help me do something in the game like find flags? It breaks up the whole experience, and is just a pain in the ass. If I can't be a boss, or can't find my way into something, sure, I want to be able to get help. Who doesn't? But stumbling on random packages is...well, it's not fun, it's work, and that's not why I play games.

Second, if you're going to put in these little things, make it worthwhile! I climbed all the towers and got my viewpoints because it was fun to look around and then leap off. When I completed the game, I saw that I had a 'task done', so I went to look at it. All it told me was; all view points completed. Well, SHIT, I'm glad the act of doing it was fun to begin with, because I get nothing else out of the deal.

Finding a flag, or beating a Templar (when your combat system is weak), isn't inherently fun, and there doesn't seem to be a bonus for doing the thing that is fun, so what's my motivation? (Xbox owners can say; you get accomplishment
points, but what the hell are accomplishment points good for? It's just a trophy badge to let other people know you 'did' something, and at 36 just being able to finish a game is my accomplishment. I have, as a great friend of mine says, a host of responsibilities I'm trying to ignore, don't make me work to ignore them.)

So help me out; if I'm climbing the viewpoints, open up the map so I can find more stuff, which leads me to exploring more and learning more stealth stuff, and so on.

My final complaint is; the finale of the game involved the weakest parts of the game; combat. Sigh. All those hours learning cool stuff wasted.

Assassin's Creed developers; I enjoyed your game. I liked the story. I liked climbing around cities, and I liked figuring out how to be stealthy (even if it was frustrating occasionally) and although the random beggar bugged the hell out of me, I enjoyed the experience overall.

But please step it up for the next game, because I'm only willing to accept this game up to a point, and then I get worn out.

Comic

Boy do I hate yardwork.

blah

I'm depressed today. I'm not sure what admitting that publicly will do, aside from just let people know I'm depressed. Maybe that will be enough.

Austin is pretty cool

As a place to visit, that is. It's way too goddamn hot for human beings to seriously want to live there in massive numbers.

And; there's some good beer there too!

But, next time someone insists that Austin > Portland, and says, "Anything you can get up there, you can get down here," just say this:

Sidewalks.

Vacation

Off to Austin TX for the weekend. Never been, so it should be interesting at the very least, and quite likely awesome.

Going to end up drinking very shitty beer, though. That's a bit more problematic.

Just a few things

First; 'unscribe' is not a word. It's 'unsubscribe', damnit.

Second; Note to self: do not let other people's authority tell you what you like or don't like.

Third; walking through Portland right now,they're tearing up the streets for the N/S Max line (the public rail system). As they wrecked 6th Ave SW, I could see the strata of the earth, macadam, cement, wooden rail ties, bricks, dirt.

Wait. Rail ties? Uh huh. Looks like a few decades ago, a railroad went through this part of town. On this street.

The more things change, right?

Various stuff

First: http://www.ommatidia.org/

That's just neat.

I just got back from Las Vegas, where I visited my Dad and a few ex-Consumators.

I hate Vegas. It's impossible to get a decent meal for reasonable prices, and finding a beer worth keeping down is impossible. It is utterly devoid of the fun which it insists it is selling you, unless you 1) like to gamble or 2) like to spend a fuckton of money. Which is just gambling, but, you know, on something that you might get to keep. Or nourish you. Or basically provide some kind of return beyond; It puts the quarters in the bin, or else it gets the hose again.

When you aren't in the Vegas that everyone thinks of as Vegas, you're in either a) an insidiously ugly, shitty part of town or b) in a community that's gated and surrounded by a Southwestern themed strip mall.

It's a shame, because if you leave Vegas, the countryside is really quite pretty.

Went to see Iron Man, and it's as good as they say. Solid cast, decent story, all around good stuff. Dad's take: "Well, I'm glad I got to see it for free-and hell, I'd see it again for free."
Me:"Isn't that true of anything, really?"
"Hell, no."

I've finished up the Sly Cooper series on the PS2, and you know, it's pretty good. I think it got overlooked in the PS2 world with Ratchet and Clank and Jax and Daxter as competition, but lots of fun. Ending is a little abrupt, but not bad.

Went on a stripper bus via Barfly and had an interesting experience, touring various and sundry clubs in Portland.

Fav; Pirate's Cove. Our hostess Rachel Reckless was lovely too. And my girlfriend became the hero of the bus when she asked a trucker to move his vehicle so our bus could pass (long story, but it is one of those; that's why people don't like the police, things).

I guess that's the deal.

Creepy

But totally cool.

Warriors of time

I'm listening to the new Black Tide which is resoundingly OKish.

However, I'm just not sure I can keep an album where the lyric "We are the warriors of time" is sung without irony.

Suzanne Schnetzler dba Rocking S Farm

Posting this story as a favor to a friend.

Note to self

Sometimes it really is best to stay quiet. Avoids drama.

Internet drama plays out weird sometimes, though. In this case, I'm not sure I'd've noticed, if I hadn't been asked to notice.