More Like... Co-Wreck!

Back at good ol' Where Else High, I played in the Co-Rec league, on the fine team of Taurus. And even in the undergrad days, I managed to get on a few rec leagues. To date, I've played on: (high school) the basketball team, floor hockey team, soccer team, slowpitch team, handball team, and the steal-the-sticks team. And in undergrad, I played in three different volleyball leagues and on a soccer team. I have played, then, with approximately 75 different team mates, in hundreds of games, over the course of past ten years.

I have never, ever won a game.

There's been some close calls. Games that went into overtime, extra innings, final shootouts. Games that were close, but not quite. And huge, monolithic blowouts. Ever lose a volleyball game 25 to nothing? Ever lose a soccer game 25 to nothing?

But you keep trying. And you keep playing. Because sooner or later, that glorious title of 'game not lost' will be yours.

And all of this is preface to today's Event, the inaugural baseball game of the English U of Blank graduate students. I'm glad to be on the team. Let me put that out there, front and center. They need the numbers, and if there's one thing I can do, it's arrive and take up space. But out of all the sports that are not my bag, baseball is not my... you know, there's nothing that really comes to mind when you try to think of "something bigger than a bag that you put things in." But if there was, baseball would not be that thing for me. I'm an average hitter, an average catcher, and Lord knows I hustle, but I cannot throw more than ten feet. Which is a problem in an outfielder.

But I'm in good company. There's no real all-star on the team (ok, maybe one, but as long as he bats directly after me, I'm not going to complain), and our errors are more or less a team effect, so it's fun. It was a beautiful day for a game too--sunny, but not so much that it was quite scorching. I'm probably going to be burnt tomorrow, and I have a throbbing skinned knee from a slide at first, but both of those are my own fault (especially considering the rule that you can run past first is designed especially so that people don't slide and skin their knees.) We really started to click in the end too--the score for the last inning was 4-0, so really, we won 1/5 of the game.

Of course, that leaves the other 4/5, which we did not win. Not even slightly. In fact, the final score was 17-8. The game, while not a blowout, did not really leave the outcome in doubt at any particular point. (Maybe at the first pitch. But I had my doubts.)

Our second game is tomorrow. Stay tuned, and see if the Consequence curse holds up for yet another term of sporty action.

Later Days.

Book Reviews: 3 Perspectives on Video Game Theory

As you heard earlier, one of my many, many questionable decisions as of late included an attempt to compress a lot of theoretical reading in a very short period of time. Mission accomplished! As of last Tuesday, (the same day as the great pancake experiment) I finished reading 800 pages of theory in under 72 hours. For a while there, my head was so full of knowledge that it threatened to slosh off the top if I turned too quickly. The knowledge is fading veeerrry fast, but I’m glad I did it---and glad that the aformentioned friend gave me the opportunity.

But how were the books? Why, I thought I'd never ask.

This is going to be a little less detailed than the usual reviews. If anyone really wants more info, feel free to request it in the comments.

The Medium of the Video Game. Edited by Mark J. P. Wolfe & Ralph H. Baer. Out of the three books, I’d say this one was the simplest, more or less. Essentially, it’s a run-down of the history of video games, with particular attention paid to early developments, and a quick evaluation of some video game elements: time, space, narrative, and genre. It’s all fairly basic and fundamental—except for the last two chapters. The first, “Play It Again, Pac-Man,” by Charles Bernstein, looked at video games as expressions of sexual desire. The second, “Archetypes on Acid: Video Games and Culture” by Rebecca R. Tews, takes a psychoanalytic approach to video games. Despite having titles that shed very little light on their subject matter, both papers are worth reading.

The Video Game Theory Reader. Edited by Mark J. P. Wolfe and Bernard Perron. Wolfe again. This guy gets around. This book is a lot like Medium, but a little meatier in terms of diverse points of view and theoretical complexity. It starts with a brief sketch of video game theory history, rather than just video game history, which is a welcome switch. In its 13 chapters, it runs the full gamut from ludology to narratology, and also delves into film theory, interactive story telling, and a gender-based investigation of Final Fantasy IX (which endears it to no end in my mind. Mia Consalvo is entirely right: Zidane’s hypermasculine adorability disturbs me in strange ways.). There are also chapters that deal fairly well with postmodernity and pyschoanalysis, which is nice. While there was no break-out piece, the majority of the book is solid. I hear there’s a second volume, and I’d be interested in reading that.

First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game. Edited by Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Harrigan. This book, on the other hand, is nearly Medium’s polar opposite. It’s set up in the format of a series of conference papers and panels, which means that each essay is very short—some clocking in at under eight pages. That means you don’t get a lot of depth, but you do get a lot of different viewpoints: there’s twenty-five different writers here, representing some of the best thought in the field, from ludologists Eskelinen, Aarseth (reviewed previously here; Aarseth has the added advantage in scholarly writing in that his name will always appear at the top of a works cited list), and Frasca, to the other side of the debate with narratologists like Jenkins and Murray. Even digital media superstar Katherine Hayles contributes a piece.

The book has eight sections: cyberdrama, ludology, critical simulation, game theory, hypertexts & interactions, the pixel/ the line, beyond chat, and new readings. As you might imagine from the book’s subtitle and subsections, it’s not all on video games, but it is all fascinating. The downside of the book is the choice of format. The beginning of each essay is split, top and bottom, so at the bottom there is a reply to the main essay. Then another reply. Then the author’s reply to the second reply. What you get is a real sense that there’s an evolving conversation going on, which is an impressive effect for a print medium, but it really disrupts the flow to have to either flip back after reading the article proper, or mentally switch back and forth between the two points of view. That said, I probably want to get my own copy of this one. Already, I’m planning on using the Utterback piece on text-based installation art for a conference proposal—more on that if and when it develops.

There you have it—three books, three days, one sore head. And if this experience has taught me anything, it’s always to put off for eight months what can be done in 72 hours. Which I’m sure is the best possible lesson here.

Later Days.

A Deep Philosophical Discussion on HIMYM.

WARNING: Heavy spoilers follow from the season 4 finale of How I Met Your Mother.
Posted below is a facebook conversation I had with a friend over said finale. And by conversation, I mean I ranted for a good long time. His comments are in italics, mine are in normal font.

Heya,

So the TV season is wrapping up and I have a few questions. This one specifically is about how i met your mother, so if you can't keep up with your torrents consider yourself spoiler-warned.

wtf was with the mini-arc about stella?? it was a two episode story that ted phrased as having a huge contribution in meeting the mother, and yet by it doesn't seem to have played any role in his decision to become a professor. is this just bad writing or will the break up... and immediate consolation of stella still play some part in the eventual conclusion of the story?

Oh, dude, strap yourself in, 'cause this is going to take a while.

First: there is a minimal connection, in that it was Stella's ex/current guy that pulled the strings to get Ted the job. (Incidentally, I do hope it's exactly that easy to get a sessional position.) But, more importantly, you've put your finger smack dab on the biggest flaw of the show this season, (besides the high levels of fecundity in its female cast) and maybe its biggest flaw period.

TV shows face a constant problem: they need to be seen as fresh and innovative, and progressive in their storylines, but at the same time, they need to stay as static as possible, so that whatever attracts current fans is still there. Comic books face the same problem: there's no suspense in the battle to replace Batman storyline, because you know Bruce is coming back. There's just too many people who won't accept anyone else as Batman. In fact, I would go so far as to say that this is a problem for any serialized product marketed towards consumers: you need an innovative product, but you don't want to lose your base. As much as people like the next new thing, they don't like change in general.

It's particular problem for TV shows, because they're so cast-based. You can't easily add or remove characters, so shows continue long after every possible permutation of relationships have been performed and every plot run into the ground. And it's an even bigger problem for HIMYM than most. The show is set up around a single premise: how Ted met the Mother. Theoretically, every episode of the show should be moving towards that goal. But at the same time, the show is ongoing, so it can never actually reach that goal. So instead, we get things like Season 4, where, when all is said and done, we spent an entire season on How I Met Someone Who Wasn't Your Mother.

The last 3 episodes of this season have been basically dealing with the fallout of this problem. To salvage the narrative thread of the season, Stella HAD to connect to the Mother in some way, even if it's this ridiculous, barely there connection. But now the law of diminishing returns sinks in--viewers get tired of being screwed around with "Look! It's the Mother!" and then being told "...no, it's not, but we spent the last six episodes on her anyway." (Or at least, I am.) And considering the entire series started on that joke ("And that's how I met your aunt Robin"), it's wearing a little thin, and viewer tolerance won't stretch that far again. Next season, for example, they can't have Ted get seriously involved with a woman NOT in his class, because the long-term viewers will dismiss the relationship.

It's an ongoing problem. In a lot of ways, to get the most satisfactory story out of HIMYM, you need to stop watching right at the point where Ted meets Victoria for the first time--that was actually where the series was first intended to end, because that's how many episodes they were originally slotted for. (Note that I said story; in terms of awesome, the show doesn't really hit its stride till season 2 and the slapfight.) For the next season, they're going to need another focus--probably either a pregnancy with Marhsall and Lily (although they can't do that too soon, because of the fake/not fake pregnancy shout-out Monday), or a heavy focus on Barney and Robin. Putting Barney into a committed relationship is probably the biggest game-changing move they could have done without definitely naming the Mother, so it'll be interesting to see if they pull it off.

Well, that was a long way from your original question. I hope you've learned a valuable lesson about questioning things that will aid you in your academic future.


PS. Can I post this on the blog? It feels like something I want to post on the blog.


He let me post it on the blog.

Later Days.

They're Not Clouds, But They Are Fluffy and Soft

My family is not one given to many traditions. Of the few we have, some are bitterly, bitterly contested. (You know who you are, Christmas Holiday Cracker. With your loud noise, your festive hat, your little toy, and oh-smug-riddle. Pick one thing and be it!) But there's one that stands out as memorable: Sunday is pancake day.
Granted, as the great Consequence family diaspora took hold, the tradition has fallen into disuse. And even at its height, it was a series of careful negotiations and opposing ideological stances. Substance. How much syrup is too much? Is it time we got a waffle iron? Is cheese whiz an acceptable condiment? Is peanut butter an acceptable alternative? And time. Do we have pancakes before Church, or after Church? Are we going to church? Do we have to go to church? I know there are pancake, but how do I know there is a God?

Theology and food. What more could a family ask for?


Second stream of thought: I have recently decided to add cooking to my skills. (Purely to attract women. Every improvement I have ever made in my life has been to this end. And if I ever tell you any differently, I'm lying.) I started with eggs (to align myself with previous conversations, I think the chickens that laid them were free range. Probably. The picture on the carton hinted as much. Look, I'm not trial here.). Results have been mixed. So far, I have "mastered" three types: scrambled, runny, and burnt. Rather than refine this effort in any way shape or form, I decided that my culinary difficulty stemmed from a lack of ambition. Thus, I invited my postcolonial class to come over to my place next Thursday to watch the movie version of our first novel--and to attend a pancake dinner. I also promised I make "a damn good pancake," which I assumed must be true. It's practically my family heritage. That, and squinting.

Ultimately, I decided not to leave everything up to fate. I called up my brother yesterday, and got the pancake recipe he used when I was last living with him. And I tried a trial run. And again--mixed results. See, I forgot that the recipe my brother used was for when he was living in a house with four early twenty male bachelors--and even then, the proportions were chosen so that there'd be plenty of leftovers. I live alone. Problem. To compound matters, I accidentally put in twice as much milk as was required into the batter. That meant the only way to save the batch was to double all my ingredients--and double the amount of pancakes I'd produce.

Good news: by the time next Thursday rolls around, I will be as good a pancake expert as I pretended to be.

Bad news: There is no time in the forseeable future in which I will not be eating pancakes. I have made a dozen so far, and barely made a dent in the total batter. It's a good thing pancakes are loaded with nostalgic value for me, 'cause I'm going to be dining on nostalgia for quite some time.
Cooking Rule of Thumb #1: If your recipe involves 8 eggs and you're cooking for one, there will be leftovers.

Later Days.

*Insertclevertitlehere*

Today’s theme, children, is masochism. Specifically, the well-worn theme of how I seem to go out of my way to make my life more difficult. Or, in other words, it is the story of what I did this weekend.

First up is this blog entry itself. As I said previously, my home keyboard is on the fritz, as the spacebar is no longer functioning. This entire post was composed by using the letter qtwice where every space went, then using Word’s search and replace function to make the switch to something more legible. All because I really felt the need to vent RIGHT NOW and couldn’t be bothered to buy the damn replacement keyboard.

Exhibit B: What I did Friday night. I stayed home and did my readings for the next week. Now, there’s nothing wrong with this, on occasion. But honestly don’t know how much of my motivation was actually not wanting to go out, how much of it was a feeling that I’d be imposing on someone else if I tried to shoe in on their plans, and how much was sheer pride: no one calls me? That’s fine, I didn’t want to go out anyway. And that’s a problem.

Exhibit C: what I did the rest of my weekend. So far, I’ve read 300 pages of video game theory, with another400 to go. See, way back in September, a friend very generously lent me a few books on the subject, and now, after enough time that it’s become pretty clear I won’t be giving them back of my own accord, they very reasonably asked for me to return the books. Suddenly, I’m convinced that I must speed my way through them all before returning them. It’s ridiculous, because I’m sure they’d allow me a few extra days if they knew I was honestly putting theqbooks to good use, but I can’t seem to do it any other way. Added question: given that I’m fairly certain the person in question reads the blog, what really is my motivation for writing this? Couldn’t I just ask for the extension? Or am I doing that now?

Exhibit D: my plane ticket home. I wanted to change the date of my trip home so I could make my mother’s retirement banquet. Now, if I had done it the night I heard about the banquet, it would have meant about a hundred dollars to make the changes. ,Now, because I waited, it’s two hundred. I paid it, but it still makes me feel foolish for yet again making things harder for myself. And the change itself was a nightmarish process. (Additionally, the word verification phrase was ”you Judiasm”, which is weird, right?) First, westjet needed my credit card security code, which I had forgotten. Then, to have that changed, I needed to get into my credit card account. Which I was locked out of for getting the my own date of birth wrong twice. Then after I called the representative to get that changed, I spelt my mother’s maiden wrong, and so was lockedaaout AGAIN. I can honestly say I never had so much trouble spending $200.00. But again, every step was my own damn fault.

On top of everything else, I twisted my ankle running on Thursday, so I spent the entire long weekend in my apartment, trying to stay off my foot. So I couldn’t even exercise to let off steam.

Sometimes I think that’s why I’ve stayed in school so long: it’s the one aspect of my life I can manage well on a regular basis.

Ok, this has been a pretty downer post. Things aren’t that bad for me: as the Holloways put it:” sometimes you get so low, you don't know why, or a little upset all inside. May I remind you that you don't live in poverty, you got your youth, and you got food in your belly.”

So I’ll post back in a few days about, I don’t know, fluffy clouds or something, and hope this funk will pass.

LaterqqDays.

Random Thoughts Day

This is one of those occasions where I felt like doing a post, but didn't have any topic that really jumped out at me. So: Random Thoughts Day.
--The spacebar on my home computer has decided to start a new employment era were it only works part time. Soallmysentenceslooklikethisnow.It'sreallyveryannoying.Onthehand,
itdoesbringout
someinterestingwordassocations:
'thinking'and'thin''king',forexample--whichoneamIreallyreferingto?Nooneknows...
But experimental writing aside, it's probably time to get a new keyboard. I am resistant to this. I'm exactly the sort of person who holds on to antiquated, half-broken technology forever (just ask my bike)--not because I fear technology or change, specifically, but because on some fundamental level, I believe that a failure in the objects I own translates into a failure on my part. "What kind of a man can't take proper care of his possessions?" Etc. (You can fill in the rest of the "poor little white man" speech as you see fit.)

--Building on that vein of misogyny, I came up with a line on Tuesday that I'd like to work into a story or some other creative endeavour at some point: "If Woolfe has taught us anything, it's to be wary of women who fill their pockets with stones." I like the phrase, but I can't decide whether it's more pretentious or profound--I can use it in a story either way, but the context would have to be very different.

--Just finished the second week of my graduate classes: one is on art & persuasion (the connection between art and rhetorical activism), and the other is a gender & postcolonial, with an emphasis on travel narratives. In a perfect world, I'd do a paper on Dr Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog for the first one, and a paper on the presentation of colonization in the Civilization computer game series in the other one. But I'm pretty sure I'm going to settle on something less interesting in both cases.

--Along the same time I was making light of the tragic suicide of a great writer, I got the idea that I wanted to write a shortstory about someone who could tell the future. That's it, that's as far as I went. Then I started thinking about what kind of life such a person would live, and the etymology of the word clairvoyent--really, it breaks down into "clear" and "voyage". And suddenly the purpose of my story was set: I wanted to write about the clarity of the voyeur, and what it is gained and lost when you choose to set yourself apart. (The future telling bit's there to draw in the sci-fi crowd.)

--As I discovered writing this post, I apparently have trouble with the difference between etymology and entymology. Everyone take a moment to appreciate the irony in having difficulty in remembering a word that basically means remembering what words meant.

I think that satisfying my blogging crave for the moment.

Later Days.

Book Review: The Green Knight by Iris Murdoch

I know I did the "I'm bored" post earlier, and it's certainly true that with the start of the latest term, I have more to do these days, but... it's just not filling the hours. Usually, at the end of winter term, I buy some blockbuster video game that occupies my time in the summer months. But there just isn't anything that appeals to me at the moment. And the TV season's wrapping up, so no help there. What do I do with my time?

What? Fill it with outdoor activities and social engagements? Honestly, do you even read this blog?

We'll save that alternative (AKA "normal person" response) for plan B. At the moment, the solution is books, books, and more texts. Hence the reason I managed to read 300+ pages in the short time since the last book review.

Last time, I talked at great length about the significance of the path that leads a person to a book. I came across Green Knight as part of the research I'm doing for a story I want to write on Sir Gawain, of the Knights of the Round Table fame. Murdoch, apparently, is a writer recognized enough to be considered "scholarly," as her book was one of the first things to poop up in the university library records. The connection to Arthurian legend is fairly tangential here, but it was still worth reading.

Murdoch is similar to Weldon in tone: there's a slight "fable" quality to her writing, and a definite British sensibility. The focus is not quite so much on gender issues; it's really more on character. It's certainly not on plot--without giving too much away, the plot of the novel is that A mysterious stranger stops a potential fratricide, receives a life-threatening blow for his trouble, and insists he is accepted into the brothers' family as part of the reparation. Before it's through, we've essentially reached almost Dickensian levels of coincidence.

The draw to the book is the strong set of characters Murdoch creates. Strong in the sense that they're extremely interesting, not in the sense that they personally have any strength, as the males particularly are one step away from being basket cases. Here's a list of the primary characters: there's Louise, the solid, unprepossessing mother, dominated by the three girls she's raising on her own; her best friend, the wild and flamboyant Joan; her daughters: Aleph, the eldest; Sefton, the middle child, obsessed with history; Moy, the youngest and much concerned with art and animals. Also starring is Harvey, Joan's son, who's coping with his feelings towards his pseudo-sisters; Tessa, a social worker/friend of the family who hangs around the periphery; Bellamy, a friend of the family, who's toying with the idea of giving up all his possessions and joining a monastery; Anax, Bellamy's dog, entrusted to Moy when Bellamy gave up his possessions; Clement, another friend of the family, who is in love with Louise, but slept with Joan; his elder, adopted brother Lucas, who is aloft and solitary. And finally, there is Peter Mir, the titular Green Knight. And, to just go with the cliche, after he enters the lives of these characters, they will never be the same.

As I said, it's a book where the plot exists only to bring about new reactions to the characters, and that's far better than the opposite case some books use, where the characters are just cogs for the plot. On that level, the book is very compelling: it deals credibly both with the middle age encounters facing the older set of characters, and the coming-of-age stories with the younger set. It also features some of the most moving canine scenes I can recall outside of a Herriot book. The latter parts of the book are marred by a series of increasingly eye-brow raising "shock" revelations, many of which don't quite work because of Murdoch's choice of narration--thanks to the limited third person perspective, we've been inside these characters' heads, and know they weren't harbouring secrects like this--or we should have known. There is also an annoying embracing of the "everybody marries" syndrome that so plagued the 17th century comedies. Have we learned nothing?

The bottom line though is that these characters seem real without seeming boring, which is largely what I look for in my fiction. At 476 pages, Green Knight is a worthwhile read--though if it shed the last 50 or so, I wouldn't have shed any tears.

Later Days.