Oddly, it's a Text Editor, not a Text Adventure...
To minimize the effects of that great distraction which we call 'Firefox', I have decided to compose this post in the no-frills word processor "dark room", and then post process it in my usual Openoffice.org. Should this yield faster composition times than usual, I think it's safe to say that I will make the use of "dark room" a habit. Of course, all the focus in the world is useless if I've nothing to say. Fortunate, then, that I am never at a loss for words...
...but what if they aren't the right words?
Something terribly ironic happened just a few days ago. I held something of an early birthday party, in order to celebrate with as many of those people soon-to-be-leaving as possible (my real birthday is coming in mere days now, when they have all left). A fair number of guests - possibly half - left without saying goodbye. The other half (especially the Windsor-bound Daydream Believer) did bid me farewell, but it left me thinking about how it's just something people do. There are tearful goodbyes, but movies and TV have for years made our best efforts at putting into words the myriad moments of elation and sorrow that we have shared with one and other feel empty, undramatic, and inadequate. I wish that I could bring myself to say in person the sort of things I write here when in a whimsical mood. Were that my tongue posessed of such poetry, I would not feel so intimidated by the prospect of inventing long-term, if not permanent, goodbyes to those departing whom I have come to love over the course of years. Reality, however, has no designs to so imbue me with that power, and as such my restraints remain in place. Until such time as I learn to compose and edit with the necessary alacrity to speak in a refined fashion, I propose a stopgap solution of sorts:
A toast. To those people who have made every minute of my live worth living Take a pic of yourself raising a glass of whatever you can spare, whatever you like to drink (silly expressions are cool, too) and post it somewhere. If you blackmail me into getting facebook
so I can make a group of this, the answer is "maybe". For now, post and link works fine for me. I'll start us off...
For those interested, these are quickly made pics from my Logitech QuickCam, with a single
fluorescent lightbulb providing illumination (bouncing off an orange wall, mind you). The cup is
a plastic pink goblet, and I'm drinking President's choice "Orange Frizzante", aka. Orangina-knockoff.
Sköl!
In gaming news, the Bioshock demo delivers enough of the game to make you know you want it, but not enough for me to tell you how well it scares throughout the game. This is, of course, to be expected. If I have any complaint thus far, it is that after a memorable cinematic in which your character - "Jack", if memory serves - acquires his first genetic upgrade, new plasmids are simply picked up from the ground (or elsewhere, one supposes). I think that the game should at LEAST show the main character injecting each plasmid, and include a period of disorientation after it has been administered, to drive home the magnitude of the biological changes which are occuring. Shooting fire isn't just another pickup like health and ammo, dammit! I think I will buy Bioshock, as much for the gorgeous art design as for the game. I like a good, lived-in, well-constructed gameworld, and Bioshock, like Half-Life 2 and the first 5 minutes of Doom 3 before it turns into a monster-closet crawl... well, it simply delivers those goods and then some.
If Bioshock 2 is indeed coming (and I think that it's reasonably established), it's my present opinion (which may change after I play the full game 1) that it should star a pre-collapse citizen of Rapture. Whether doomed to succumb to the plasmid-induced madness of the splicers, or to remain one of the few sane humans in the city, the character would be more or less doomed from the beginning, shadowing a utopian game introduction with that horrible, horrible feeling of impending doom. I think that this is narratively intriguing, and I think that it would reveal a great deal about Rapture as an intact, functioning city. Finally, I've been inspired by a friend's soon-to-occur spending spree to get a job, and immediately start dropping cash on a new computer. My challenge to myself is to build something equal and opposite in as many ways as possible, because building a copycat rig has little appeal, and also because I like to make simple tasks into complicated ones for my own pleasure.
Progress reports and pictures of the construction process will undoubtedly appear in this space
LOUD and distinct in a crowd!
2 comments:
I've been using the Dark Room too in order to collect my thoughts. Tangets are easier to explore when they're all you can see.
The Bioshock demo absolutely refuses to work on my better system.
It dies just after the company splash (just before the menu).
Most troubling.
You know how I feel about pictures and the internet, Loud. That's ok though... maybe I'll find a creative way to circumvent it, I usually do.
In the mean time, once again you've managed to put into words what we're all (or at least this part of we) thinking.
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