Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Little Big Planet

You may have noticed that I have not been posting much for the last few days. I've been busy. We got the call Friday night that our copy of Little Big Planet would be at Gamestop on Saturday. So it was early! Well, really it was late, because it didn't come out on Oct. 21 as it was supposed to. (Boo!) But it came out before Oct. 27, which was the new date. (Yay!) So I'm not sure whether I'm still irritated that they delayed it or impressed that they replaced the original disks so quickly. Maybe both. Either way, we have the game now and we love it!

Caradorn, The Kidd and I played for around 8 hours on Saturday and another 8 hours on Sunday. The only reason we didn't play more was that real life kept interfering. (Grumble, grumble.) The controls are easy and intuitive, the levels are challenging but not impossible, the Sackboys are adorable, the soundtrack is catchy . . . so far I have no complaints. None of us have even tried to get online yet, which is just as well because they turned the servers on yesterday and back off today - lots of lags and glitches, apparently, but Story Mode should keep us occupied for quite a while. We also have not tried to design any of our own levels yet, but I'm coming up with lots of ideas and I'll probably start doing that soon.

I've watched videos of other player created levels on youtube and some of them look almost as good as the Media Molecule created levels. This game has the potential to last a loooooooooooooong time with all of the user generated content that will be shared. The story mode is really only a small part of the game, but it's a really good small part so far. LBP definitely gets my vote for Game of the Year at this point. . . it has completely lived up to all the hype and I feel like we've barely scratched the surface so far.

I'm still looking forward to Animal Crossing, which comes out in a little over two weeks. I don't know what I'm going to do when it gets here, though - I don't have enough time for all these games and real life. Maybe I'll just go without sleep for a while to buy myself more gaming hours.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Little Big Delay

One of the biggest reasons that we got our PS3 was so we could play Little Big Planet as soon as it was released. As soon as we heard about it we knew we would buy it. It looks like it's a great game. It is a four player co-op game (or can be, at least - it can also be competitive) and it's hard to find games that we can all cooperate on. Plus, it's such a cute game, which apparently is off-putting to some but I love things that are cute. (I don't love obnoxiously over-the-top cute and sickeningly sweet, but I do love cute.)

It has already won awards, and the reviews so far have been great: "A must own game", "a five out of five", "the reason to buy a PS3". Other than a few small critiques of the controls I haven't really heard any complaints yet. Everyone who was chosen for the beta fell in love with the game.

For months we have been counting down to today. And finally the day is here! But Little Big Planet is not.

I was doing the rounds of all the sites I read on Friday when I saw the headlines announcing that Little Big Planet would be delayed in Europe. A few minutes later the other reports began to trickle in. Little Planet was delayed globally, and it was all because of two lines of lyrics in the backgound music of one of the stages. The Singing Safari stage, to be specific. The lyrics aren't even in English, and I think most people wouldn't even realize that they were actually words. Someone did, though, and more importantly he realized that they were actually two lines from the Qur'an. Apparently this is a very bad thing. The lyrics themselves aren't particularly offensive, though they don't really fit the game all that well.

At the 18th second of the level, the line says "Every soul shall have the taste of death". At second 27, the line is "All that is on earth will perish". Not exactly cheery, but certainly unoffensive. And not exactly a unique concept, either - the same basic idea can be found in many other songs, as well as other books and movies. Though I don't know for sure, I would be shocked if the same concept didn't also appear in most other religious texts.

Muslims are supposedly offended by this because the Qur'an is their holy text and shouldn't be set to music or included as part of a game. I say supposedly because some people are saying that Muslims themselves often set lines of the text to music. So some Muslims are offended, and Sony was afraid that more would be so they recalled all copies of the game - which were already waiting at the stores for the release this week - and they are releasing new copies starting next week.

I have two problems with this.

The first is that a recall was completely unnecessary. Media Molecule, who made the game, had a Day 0 patch ready before the recall was announced. They could have released the patch when the game servers went live and required everyone to download it. Sony found that solution to be unacceptable because not everyone has internet access, though they could easily have sent replacement disks to the 2 people who have PS3s and don't have access to Playstation Network.

The other problem I have with this is more complicated. I am bothered by the fact that Sony was so quick to delay the game to avoid offending Muslims. It's not the fact that they are changing the game that bothers me. Certainly if people are offended by such an inconsequential part of the game then changing it makes sense. I believe that the only reason they want to destroy all of the affected disks is because those that are offended are Muslims. I think that a few extremists have made people afraid to offend Muslims. There are extremists in almost every group, and right now Muslim extremists are getting lots of press. Because of this, it seems to me that a double standard has developed. Companies who don't care if they offend most groups will fall all over themselves to avoid offending Muslims.

Ideally, no one would be ever be offended, but that's really not possible. People can be offended by almost anything, and in fact it seems some people look for reasons to take offense to everything. The problem is that most companies, especially those that make video games, don't seem to care if they offend most groups - as long as Muslims are not offended. I've seen games that are offensive to almost everyone - Christians and Jews, Gay and Straight, Black and White - but not Muslims. I think it should be all or nothing. Once you put one group off limits, then offending everyone else seems wrong to me.

It's sort of like South Park. Everything they do on that show is offensive to someone, but the whole thing is so over the top, and they are such "equal opportunity offenders", that it is funny to me. If they were to put one group off limits then the rest of the show would seem far more offensive.

And again, the background music of this one stage of the game is not a crucial part of the game. I don't mind a bit that they are changing it. I just think they should have used the Day 0 patch rather than issuing a recall.

I still intend to buy Little Big Planet, of course. I'm impressed that there will supposedly only be a one week delay before we can get our copy. I'm frustrated and irritated that there is a delay at all, though. The patch that Media Molecule made would have solved the problem much more quickly and efficiently. And I can't help but feel that they would not have delayed the game if I had been offended because they had included something from my religion. But maybe I'm just being cynical. I hope they would have gone to all this trouble and expense if it had been a Christian or a Jew that was offended because quotes from the Bible or Torah had inadvertently been included.

And I hope that the delay will really only be a week, because I'm anxious to start building my own Adventurers Club themed levels!

Friday, October 17, 2008

Vote for Blondie!

The amazingly talented Blondie is asking his fans for help. He and his wife have created a video that is now in the top ten of the "High Five on the High Seas" contest. The winner gets to cruise with the Barenaked Ladies and Gaelic Storm, among other bands. I will be terribly jealous if they win but I will also be quite happy for them.

If you are so inclined, please check out the video . . . and then cast a vote for them! You can vote daily until Oct. 24, so vote often! He's given all of us Adventurers so many hours of entertainment and laughter, and this is our chance to return the favor. The video can be found at the following link. It is the one entitled "1st Annual Epcot International FIVE and Wine Festival" by Karl O. The voting does require a quick registration, but Karl has assured us that they will not be sending any spam.

Thanks, and Kungaloosh!

http://highfiveonthehighseas. shipsanddip. com

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

I feel like such a fraud

I've said before that I am a bit of a geek, but I have some things to confess. Sadly, they might take my "Geek" title away from me after I admit these things.

I don't like comic books and I won't watch "Star Trek II - The Wrath of Khan".

There. I've said it. I feel so much better now!

Before you discount me completely and consider me a total non-geek, let me explain. First, the comic book thing. I had a bit of a scare yesterday when we passed our local comic book shop and I saw a "For Lease" sign out front. It turns out that another store in that strip mall has closed, but The Deep (our comic book store) is still open. It got me to thinking, though, that I very rarely buy or read comic books. There are a few that I collect but not that many. Overall, comic books really irritate me. It's because I read quite fast - too fast, really; I read the last Harry Potter book in under 6 hours and that was with breaks to grab more kleenex (there were some sad parts) and snacks. When I read a comic book I finish it in only a few minutes and then I have to wait a month to find out what happens next. I hate that! I would much rather wait until the graphic novel comes out and read the whole storyline at once. Or at least wait and read all of the comics in that storyline in one sitting. So it's very rare that you'll see me sit down to read a comic book, though I do enjoy the stories. I don't like all the different storylines that go on, though - I do much prefer it when there is one accepted universe for a story rather than the multiple (and often conflicting) storylines in the comic universes.

[Here is where I should admit another shameful secret - I don't like to start to read a long ongoing series of books until it's finished. (The exception being the Harry Potter books.) That started when Stephen King was hit by a car before finishing the "Dark Tower" series. What if he had died?! We would never know how it was supposed to end! As a result I refused to read "The Wheel of Time" series even though Caradorn wants me to. Finally I was about ready to go on and start them anyway but I held off a little longer. And you know what happened? Robert Jordan died, that's what happened! I stilll haven't read the series and I might not. Supposedly he left instructions and someone else is going to finish the story. If they ever do, then I'll read the books.]

I do love Star Trek. I willl admit to not being a real Trekkie - I can't name all of the episodes and the dates they aired, and "DS9" is my favorite of the Trek shows. (Followed by Next Gen, then Voyager, then the original, then Enterprise.) I like the TV shows more than the movies, but I do enjoy most of the movies. I'm really excited about "Star Trek: Nemesis". I do admit to finding the whole Save the Whales (Collect the whole set!) thing cheesy, but I'll still watch the movie. I refuse to watch "Wrath of Khan" ever. You can't make me watch it. I hate it. I do have a good reason, though. When I was younger my dad used to take me to see the Star Trek and Star Wars movies in the theaters and so when "Wrath of Khan" came out we went to see it. The scene with the earwigs absolutely terrified me, and it didn't help that my ear was hurting a little bit. By the time I went to bed that night after watching the movie my ear was really hurting and I had nightmares all night that there was an earwig burrowing into my ear. When I woke up the next morning I was even more terrified because my ear hurt really badly and my pillow had a big wet spot on it. I was convinced that there really was an earwig eating my brain. My mom took me to the doctor and it turned out that I had an ear infection and my eardrum had ruptured. Talk about bad timing! I still feel sick even thinking about the movie and I just can't bring myself to watch it. The few times I've stumbled across it on television I almost ran out of the room and my ears started hurting. I'm sure it's a great movie but I don't think there's any way I will ever watch it again.

In the interest of full disclosure, I suppose I should add that I like "Star Wars" better than "Star Trek", though I didn't love the newer trilogy. And I do think the Ewoks are cute (I'm sorry! They're just so fuzzy and adorable!) but I hate Jar Jar Binks, so that should help a little bit.

I hope you don't think too badly of me because of these shortcomings. I promise I usually embrace all other things geeky. Hopefully they won't kick me out of geekdom just because I finally admitted my failings to the world!

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Underneath the moon in Florida

We're still here at the beach and are heading out for a walk in a few minutes but since they just fixed the router here in our condo I thought I'd post a quick update.

Did you know there's such a thing as a Mole Crab? I've seen their shells often but today we finally saw a live one. It looks like a cross between a horseshoe crab and a lobster, and it's a tannish white color. Apparently some of them are bioluminescent, but it was light when we saw the one earlier so I don't know if the ones here are or not. Maybe we'll dig one up while we are walking and find out.

Also, did you know that there are octopi that live along the Gulf coast? I didn't, but one of the wives from the work group caught one today. I was about to start marching up and down the beach with a "Free the cephalopod" sign, because I was afraid they were going to hurt it, but it escaped.

A fish adopted us today and followed us around for a while. It stayed right by my shoulder for a long time, and I felt bad when we went back up on the shore. Hopefully he found someone else to keep him company.

I had forgotten how much more active the dolphins are on this part of the beach. On our vacations we stay further down the beach and only see the dolphins in the early morning and the early evening. On the island where we stay for work trips (which is where we are now) we see them all day. I sit on my bed and drink tea every morning and look out the glass doors and watch the dolphins jumping. I wish I could do that every day but we don't have too many dolphins in Rocket City, which is a shame. I've gotten a few pictures of them but no good ones yet - maybe tomorrow.

No Gypsy Moth sightings yet, though we have seen some F-15s. I've been hoping to see some Warthogs but we rarely see those here. We do sometimes see the Blue Angels, but none yet this time. We have seen lots of other interesting planes, though.

I saw some shooting stars the first night, so of course I had to make some wishes. They haven't come true yet but of course they will (isn't that a requirement of wishes made on shooting stars?) so I'll just have to be patient. I think I even saw one breaking up fairly close to us (a meteor, not a wish), though I'm not sure - all the others I've seen have been a brilliant greenish yellow, and the thing I saw the other night was a silvery blue. It was pretty, whatever it was. Hopefully we'll see more tonight.

Time to go walk. I wish I could go swim - the water is beautiful with the moon reflecting on it. The waves look like liquid silver. I don't swim in the gulf after dark anymore, though. I haven't since the unfortunate Jellyfish Across the Eyelids Incident. I only swim in the gulf when it's light enough to see the jellyfish. I don't ever want to dive into one again! Fortunately, unless it's storming, the water here is clear enough to see everything.

I'll let you know if we see any bioluminescent mole crabs!

Monday, October 06, 2008

It's still Florida - just a different part

I was supposed to be at Disney World right now. We had initially planned to go there not once but twice this month. Once for a family vacation during fall break and once for an Adults only trip at the end of the month for the Tower of Terror 13K.

Obviously we are not there after all. Once they announced the closure of the Adventurers Club we decided not to renew our premium annual passes. We also decided not to go back again until The Kidd's band trip in the spring. Even though I don't have any desire to stay in a Disney owned hotel again any time soon, and even though I don't want to set foot into the shops and restaurants at Downtown Disney again, I do still like the parks and I sort of wish we were planning another trip. This is the first time that I can remember when I haven't already known when my next family trip to WDW would be. And even though we will probably still plan frequent trips to do non-Disney things in Orlando, I miss the idea of always dashing off to WDW. Most of the changes there lately have not been improvements, so it wouldn't be the same even if we were still going there as often. It's just sad to me to see this family tradition ending, but I guess that means we'll just have to start some new traditions to replace that one.

This weekend there's a Black Ship Sky concert in Orlando that I really want to go to. Of course we wouldn't have done that anyway on a family trip since even though I'm sure The Kidd would like to go he's not old enough for that yet. (And I'd prefer to think for a while longer that he wouldn't understand all of their lyrics!) Still, it's times like this that I wish we lived closer to Orlando even without the Adventurers Club. I'd love to be there to cheer on Black Ship Sky in the Battle of the Bands.

We will be in Florida for part of the week, just not the Orlando part. It turns out that Caradorn has to go to the beach for work. (Really, I'm not kidding. He actually does.) I wouldn't want him to be lonely so The Kidd and I are going to sacrifice our time to go keep him company. And of course we'll have to come up with something to do with our time while he's in meetings, so I guess we might have to swim or hang out on the beach while we wait for him to finish with work.

Oddly, we might still see another Adventurer there - last time we were at the beach, Andre, one of the former bartenders from the Club, was working at a place across the street from one of our favorite Irish pubs. We'll have to keep an eye out for him.

Time to get to work finishing trip preparations, I guess. I'm still hoping to finish Lego Batman later today but I have quite a bit to do before I can play. And then later this week I'll be relaxing on the beach in Florida. We do see lots of interesting planes flying over the beach we go to - and Hathaway Browne won't be spending all his time at the Adventurers Club anymore, so maybe I'll spot the Gypsy Moth flying over the beach!

Saturday, October 04, 2008

Even better than Pizza Day

Today we are having a Pajama Day. We don't actually spend the entire day in our Pajamas - but we could, if we wanted to. On Pajama Day we stay home all day. We don't go anywhere at all, and no one comes over. We don't answer the door at all. We don't do any work around the house or yard, we don't run errands - we don't do anything at all except the things we really want to do. That means a whole day of lounging around, playing video games (and board games and cards) or watching movies. And surfing online, obviously.

We don't do this very often, but it's one of my favorite ways to spend a day. We don't even cook on days like this. We went to Fresh Market last night to stock up on some our favorite things, and we have leftover Thai food, so we don't even have to worry about figuring out what to eat.

Tomorrow it's back to life as usual and we will have to be productive again, but today I'm going to enjoy an entire day of doing nothing but whatever sounds most appealing.

Friday, October 03, 2008

They haven’t carried me away yet

I was reminded today that I haven't posted an update lately about our bizarre Africanized Butterfly infestation. They haven't gone away - if anything, there are more now than there were. I think Becky summed it up best when she got here the other day. I opened the front door to find her staring around the porch. She stood there and then said "Well, it's like 'Silence of the Lambs' out here!" And it really is kind of creepy out there at night, with all of those cocoons hanging everywhere.

During the day it's very pleasant, with all the butterflies fluttering all over the place. We seem to have reached an understanding with them. I've been rescuing them when they are about to get eaten or stepped on, and they seem to have decided not to attack us. Today when I was walking out to my car one of them fluttered over in front of my face and when I held out my hand it landed on my fingertips. I'm going to assume that means we have a truce.

But he’s married!

I really, really have a problem with people who are interested in married people. As far as I am concerned, if someone is married they are Off Limits. Completely. Think you have feelings for them? Get over it. They are married. They are not available. Forget it and move on.

When Caradorn and I were newly married he was active in several different sports and I often went to the games to watch him play. At one volleyball game there was a pack of girls sitting next to me who kept talking about one of the players. They were giggling over him and talking about how cute he was. Eventually I realized that it was Caradorn they were discussing. I found it funny, at first. They weren't being at all subtle about it, but Caradorn (being his usual self) was totally oblivious about all of it. At some point during all the giggling one of the girls realized that he was wearing a wedding ring and I would have thought that would have been the end of it, but no. (Bonus points if you just heard that in a Snoopy/Fletcher accent. I did!)

They kept right on, and each time he would glance in our direction they'd giggle more and squeal "Oh, he looked at you!" or "Look! He's checking you out!" at each other. It was rapidly becoming less amusing, because now they knew he was married and they still were trying to catch his eye. It wasn't until the end of the game, when he came over and starting talking to me, that they realized I was his wife. Only one of them looked at all embarrassed; the others just glared at me. Caradorn never noticed any of it and was shocked (and didn't entirely believe me) when I told him about it.

On our last few visits to the Adventurers Club I noticed something similar going on. There was a gaggle of girls there, and one of them (who we dubbed "Stalker Girl") seemed to have a crush on one of the actors. They were really giggly about it and being very silly, and at first it wasn't that weird, but as the evening continued it got odd. It started to seem like more than just a casual crush. Stalker Girl kept staring at him and the group was making all kinds of comments about their interactions. Of course there was the chorus of "He's looking at you!" and "He's totally in love with you!" but then there were also comments about the fact that he was being a jerk because he didn't speak to her at one point. At another point they were calling him mentally ill because he wasn't as nice to her as he sometimes was.

Now if you were to overhear some of my comments at the Club you might wonder about me, I suppose, because as I've mentioned I often joke about Hathaway Browne. Caradorn and I would often talk about our plans for the next day while we were at the Club, and I would often agree to whatever plans we had come up with and then add " . . . unless Hathaway asks me to run away with him before that." Or I'd joke that he'd be on his own if Fletcher needed any help with his artifact. Of course we both knew I was just joking, but I guess it's possible that someone who didn't know us might have thought I was serious. I really doubt it, though - I think it was obvious that we were kidding. So it's possible that I misunderstood these girls and it was all just innocent fun, but I really don't think so.

It was weird and would have made me somewhat uncomfortable anyway, but it was much worse since I know the actor is married. There is a possiblity that the girls don't know he is married, but I suspect that they do. From what Stalker Girl was saying it sounds like she has really researched him. She seemed to know quite a bit about his personal life and if I knew he was married then I would imagine someone who was setting out to learn as much as they could about him would certainly know it too.

Even if he wasn't married it would have struck me as strange that they were talking about him the way they were. I think Stalker Girl actually thinks he's interested in her. The problem is that he flirts with lots of people at the Club. It's obviously nothing personal - it's just how his character behaves. Stalker Girl seemed to be taking it awfully seriously and really seemed angry when he wasn't paying as much attention to her as she thought he should. I got the impression she was really desperate for attention - she seemed to read far too much into it when his character interacted with her. I know big groups of girls do thrive on drama, so maybe it was all just silliness and they'll get over it now that the Club is closed. Maybe the old "out of sight,out of mind" thing will hold true and Stalker Girl will move on to a new obsession.

And maybe I was just overly conscious of it because I know the cast does have problems with stalkers sometimes. Maybe it's just a silly crush and she has no idea that he's married. Or maybe she really is madly in love with him and doesn't know he is married, and she would leave him alone if she knew. However, I really think she does know he's married and just doesn't care.

To be fair, I guess it's possible that he really is interested in her. I would be completely shocked if that turned out to be the case, though. I don't really know him but I know enough about him to believe that he is a good person. I really like him and I would be crushed to find out he was the kind of jerk who would cheat on his wife - but he doesn't seem remotely like that kind of person. I don't think he would be interested in anyone other than his wife. I think he's like Caradorn, and is just oblivious to the fact that he's the object of Stalker Girl's affections.

Hopefully now that the Club is closed Stalker Girl will find someone else to fixate on. If not, I hope she at least leaves the actor alone. I would hate to think that he'd be stuck dealing with Stalker Girl just because he's such a good actor that she believed it was real when his character was nice to her.

Plus, if he's running away with anyone it's totally going to be me. As long as he's willing to stay in character as Hathaway Browne, that is!

Thursday, October 02, 2008

It breaks my heart

I knew I shouldn't watch it, but of course I did anyway.

I've loved the Adventurers Club so much for the last few years, and gotten so much happiness from it, that I guess in a way I felt that I owed it to the Club to mourn it properly. So I watched.

It creeps up on me sometimes - I'll see something or hear something that reminds me of the Club or one of the cast members and then I remember yet again that there's no "next time" any longer. I can't look forward to seeing Snoopy as Hathaway or Blondie as Otis again. But overall my life is fairly happy and I have lots of ways to keep occupied and to keep myself from dwelling on the loss of the Club.

Still, I've been checking youtube to see when the videos of The End would start to show up. I saw Otis celebrate his Balderdash victory and it didn't bother me, though I do have mixed feelings about Emil not winning that last competition. The one video I was most anxious to see was Snoopy singing his last Hoopla song, but of course it was also the one I thought would upset me the most. I knew he had sung "When You Go" by Jonathan Coulton. The song makes me sad even when Jonathan sings it . . . he's usually so funny and it's such a serious song that the impact is even stronger than it would be coming from some other singer. Once I heard that Snoopy had sung it as Emil I found it even sadder, and I sat there on Saturday night (or rather early Sunday morning) listening to it and getting all teary because the Club had closed.

The video of Snoopy singing "When You Go" showed up on youtube today. I knew it would make me sad to watch it, but I still had to. I didn't get teary over it.

I flat out cried instead.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eN3XDPCh1II