Goofing Off

Guitar Hero 2, Second Life, the movie Dodgeball and some Walking With Dinosaurs goodness. Pretty much in that order. Oh and there was a script I should have been working on today, but I’ll leave that for tomorrow.

Wendy Is No Longer Good And Is Very, Very Naughty.

The wife has gone and done it again. For reference, here’s the old, traditional version of Wendy, the good little witch, friend of Casper:

And now here’s new Wendy, as done by The Wife. Which is the tastier cola?

I vote new. Once again, you can click on it for a larger view.

“WE’RE NOT WRONG… wait, we are? Oh… then…. YOU’RE STUPID!”

What an odd morning.

After arriving at the GameAxis office, I was told that a story I’d posted on the GameAxis blog had been pulled by the editorial team at the request of Singapore Press Holdings. For those of you that don’t live in Singapore, SPH is company that runs the local newspaper. It is also owned by the government, in the same way that SingTel, the local phone company is also owned by the government, and the Television Corporation of Singapore is also owned by the government, in addition to Radio Corporation of Singapore which is… you guessed it, owned and operated by the government. Recently SPH actually bought out the company that publishes GameAxis.

The reason I mention all this is because last week, in the blog post which is no longer there, I wrote a story about how the local newspaper ran two articles in the same paper. One story in their technology section called Digital Life, called the Playstation 3 the must have Christmas gift of the year and urged people to buy it. The other story, in the “Home” section of the newspaper, claimed that the PS3 violated voltage standards for Singapore and so any retailer that was caught selling the console would be fined by the government.

Yes, you read that right. The newspaper told people to buy the console, but told retailers not to sell it. In an amazing second round of even greater confusion, the two articles were written by the same person.

At this point you might be thinking “That’s incredibly stupid,” and if you thought so, you’d be thinking exactly the same thing that I was thinking, which is why I wrote the story pointing out this amazing contradiction. I also pointed out that said contradiction was based on a factual error, because the Playstation 3 comes built-in with a universal voltage convertor and can thus safely operate anywhere in the world without bursting into flame, unless Singapore is operating on some unique Cold Fusion generator that I’m not aware of that requires a canister of hydrogen be present and attached to all consumer electronics.

So I–and the rest of the GameAxis team–were a bit cheesed when we were told that the story had to be pulled now our new “owners” had heard about it and weren’t entirely happy with the criticism. They also said that they wanted an e-mail out of me explaining why I would tell such a hideous story.

Unfortunately for them, I don’t think they have much knowledge of the game industry or how things work around here. Most of the points of contention they wanted explained were wholly on my side. For example, one of the points I mentioned in my article was that since journalist had written a glowing article reccomending the PS3, it must have been one of the “illegal” consoles. SPH didn’t take kindly to this and insisted that the console they used for review was completely legitimate as they had received it from Sony itself.

Sadly, what they weren’t aware of was that Sony gave them PS3 models from the Taiwan/Hong Kong region, which, according to their definition, made the consoles illegal. They had, in fact, just admitted to using contraband technology as they had quite precisely defined it in their article.

Suffice to say after the e-mail was written and a few other people made some relevant points to it, it was sent off and the basic message was “You’re getting mad at us for telling the truth.” After it was sent, we didn’t hear another word from them again.

I suppose we could lie and say that the PS3 doesn’t have a universal voltage convertor, but then Singapore would be the only country in the world that believes this, and I think the country is more interested in not looking ignorant than it is about having one magazine apologize for pointing out they were wrong.

Still, I can guess I can add them to my list of People Gunning For Me. Just a couple of months ago I annoyed the Media Development Authority (owned and operated by the government) and now it’s the press. Man, I just can’t play nice anywhere…

Now Steroid Free

The Wife has gone and done her rendition of famous Streetfigher II combatant Chun Li, otherwise known as Thunder Thighs, with legs traditionally rendered in such a way that they look like the prototype for car compactors. This version still has super long legs, she just doesn’t look like the vibrations from her merest thigh-muscle twitch could cause hurricans to spontaneously rip through Hawaii and ruin that year’s coconut harvest. As usual, you can click on it for a more detailed version. I have already started compiling a list of other characters to throw at the Wife’s Slut-O-Matic machione. Chun Li wasn’t actually one of them, she did this herself out of sheer disgust, but hopefully future characters will get similar treatment.

No End In Sight

It was with a certain amount of relief that as I was listening to Ron Moore’s commentary on Battlestar Galactica season 2.5, he admitted that for the most part, it’s quite normal for him (and for many TV shows in fact) to NOT know how the season (let alone the series in its entirety) is going end until over halfway through the actual season. This was intensely reassuring to me, because not only did it remind me that creative types are human beings, it also reminded me that even as human beings, they are not the most far-sighted or plan-ahead types.

Of course not all writers are like this. When it comes to giving me a major inferiority complex, JK Rowling of Harry Potter fame has supposedly mapped out the entire arc of the Harry Potter series since the very beginning. But the one who really makes me bow my head in shame is Neil-O himself. The fact that The Sandman ended the way it did and that when you go back, you can see the various mechanisms that would propel Morpheus forward towards that conclusion is an astounding piece of writing. Ron Moore makes me feel slightly better about myself when he does stuff like admit that for the emotionally satisfying end of Star Trek: The Next Generation, entitled “All Good Things,” they didn’t actually have the conclusion to this 7 year old series until about a month before shooting of the series finale was due.

Personally, I like to think that I write in a way similar to Neil-O, though without his obvious experience and or natural instincts at play at the same level. What Neil-O does makes a lot of sense and seems a lot more fun to me; have some kind of conclusion in mind, but leave everything leading up to it up for grabs.

While I’m still not sure that he actually followed this with relation to the conclusion of The Sandman (unless he simply looked back on it afterwards and THEN started building up to his ending) it seems like a very spontaneous and interesting way to write. And it’s something that I’ve pretty much employed in my last three books. I always had a vague idea of how it was going to end (ie, this person dies, or that thing gets destroyed, or this crisis occurs) but I never knew what the events were that led up to this conclusion.

And for me, that’s where all the FUN is. If I have my point “A” and my point “Z”, I know which direction I’m going in, but all those letters in between are spontaneous adventures, and somehow knowing that I’m free to do what I want, provided that it leads to Destination Z gives my brain ample opportunity to play. Suddenly characters, situations, emotions and crises that might never have occurred to me if I were meticulously planning (or simply writing with no clear direction in mind) can spontaneously combust in my brain on any given day as I try to get to the end. Perhaps it’s not the most organized way to work, but it sure is fun for me.

So in the event that my books finally do get to see print and people ever ask me, “Did you know how it was going to end?” I can honestly answer “Yes, I did. I just didn’t know how I was going to get there.”

The Emo Post

I figured I’d do something a little different today and write something that reaches out to the kids and appeals to them on a level they can understand; ie, narcissistic and pretentious. So in an effort to appeal to this next generation of Goth, here’s something for you from the depths of an imagined MySpace hell:

WAAAAAAAAAAAH! NOOOOO ONE UNDERSTAAAAAAAAAAANDS MEEEEEE!!!!

Oh online friends out there in the great, digital void… you feel my pain, you know my pain, you ARE my pain… I could just cry thinking about the dark shreds of agony that tear my heart into fragments of crying misery one jagged breath at a time. In fact, I think I WILL cry.

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!

I feel better.

Today was a horrible day. Just like yesterday. And last week. And last month. And last year, except for that one part where I finally sold my Playstation 2 for an original Nintendo Entertainment System with Duck Hunt, but other than that… anyway, today SUCKED. It was like this relentless fist that squeezed my soul until there was nothing left by bits of goo, like a spent tube of toothpaste, trust me it was AWFUL. I’m devastated. I’m destroyed. I’m nothing now and my pain has bottomless depths to it that can’t be comprehended by the world at large because it simply doesn’t have the room for this kind of Pain That Annihilates All.

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Anyway… The pain that so consumes me is the fact that I’ve lost all the pictures I took of myself. How can I express my inviduality and quirky sense of self if I don’t have a picture showing the same haircut as 1 million other kids have, with my arm extended as I photograph myself in with the same moody expression and pose as those other millions of Emo kids? How am I supposed to be unique if I can’t add my standard issue look to the already growing pile?

I was so upset about this that I couldn’t even cut my wrists properly, it was terrible. Then some stupid African kid came running up to me screaming about how I shouldn’t hurt myself! Like, HELLO?! How you can you possibly understand my pain, you little refugee?! I mean, oh, boo hoo, you barely escaped with your life from a tribal war in Mogadishu and you watched your parents gunned down before your eyes and nearly died and starved to death in a miracle escape from your hellish environment, but you don’t understand what REAL PAIN is! Real pain is when you try to talk to the popular kids and they… they… IGNORE YOU…

WAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

And then to top it all off, I got told off by my older sister, who used to be a Goth. Goth is kind of like Emo, but extremely lame, because they’re into all this depressing stuff like philosophy and art, and I lost all respect for Goths when I found that not only do they talk suicidal, they actually sometimes go and DO it. I mean, hello? YOU’RE ONLY SUPPOSED TO TALK ABOUT SUICIDE BECAUSE IT’S FUN AND COOL, NOT DO IT, MORON…

And I mean, they cut themselves wrong and everything! Once, my sister cut her arm lengthwise and opened up a major artery. Everyone knows you’re supposed to cut across, so you get lots and lots of attention that way and post the photos on MySpace, how LAME… I mean, what kind of idiot talks about how much they want to die and then… dies?! Only losers actually go through with what they say.

Speaking of which, I need to go now. There’s a girl I really like, so I need to get into a relationship with her, get her to dump me and then wail and rant about it while taking pictures of myself and cutting my wrists at parties! Oh my God, I love being sad, it’s so much fun!

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

And To Bookend Velma

The Wife has gone and done the inevitable Daphne rendering. As some have pointed out, there’s really not much further you can take Daphne since she was drawn with a certain amount of sex appeal to begin with. But I think the Wife has managed to add a teensy bit more to boost it up a notch. Personally, I still like Velma more, but then I root for the underdog and hate them universally liked cheerleader types…

Observation Of The Day

“The only thing a man loves more than his penis is his car, because that will always be bigger.”

–The Wife & I

Also, I just finished writing up an article for GameAxis about a comic book artist named Sonny Liew. This one is a particularly gratifying and at the same weird article, for the simple fact that Sonny’s actually a friend of ours, and for about three years, we lived across the street from him. So while on the one hand it was a lot easier to get material because it was a simple matter of just flat out asking him, on the other, it’s very strange to be writing about someone you personally know and realizing that there are kids out there that wish they were in the same position he is, and will be hanging off every nugget of wisdom he drops in his interview.

It is a difficult thing to think in fanboy terms of someone if you became friends with them first. Oh well…

Round 7: FIGHT!

I am now patiently neglecting the 7th draft of the Script That Wouldn’t Die in favor of writing a daily blog post with no substance, insight or value of any kind. Go me. With any luck, there will only be a few more revisions left on this script, though I was kind of hoping that it would have been mostly done by now. At first this program was supposed to have been done by the end of November. Then it was supposed to have been done by December 21st. Now I’m told it likely won’t be done until the end of January, which is spectacularly inconvenient for all concerned since I took on the job under the assumption it would be finished before 2007 and now it looks I won’t be around by the time it actually goes into editing and voice over.

On the other hand, I am now left with only a few articles to write for GameAxis and a part of me feels weirdly sad about that. It’s a good magazine. It’s not perfect, but I’m actually pretty proud of the job we’ve done, and I’m going to miss being a part of the team.

On the other, other hand the occupation of playing games because someone is paying me to review them has now changed to playing games for other reasons entirely which I can’t yet talk about. I’m going through The Longest Journey: Dreamfall for a second time, this time paying attention to names, putting more thought into character details and relationships and generally just getting a better, more critical understanding of what is happening in the story. The first time I played was purely for pleasure and was unbelievably fun. This second time is for more creative reasons, and is proving to still be immeasurably fun, but also a lot more interesting now that I’m actually thinking about what’s going on, and actively pursuing all the references scattered throughout, such as the many allusions to Australian Aboriginal dreamtime, something I’d completely missed the first playthrough, which is now making many more things in the game much more significant thematically.

Too bad they don’t have any “Game Studies” classes in the same way they had Film Studies when I went to university. I’m pretty sure I would have kicked serious ass in such a class.

When You Lack Trauma Or Drama In Your Life

This happens. Yet another day where I went to the office, wrote some articles (am now churning out my take on the Playstation 3 console) and thought about strange things like art and people and choices and consequences and other assorted things. Okay, granted, I could probably also make a post with a bit more interest to it if I just put in the effort, but I’m feeling lazy and only want to report to talk about things that actually happened, since that’s a convenient cop out, and nothing really happened.

I’m going to try and enjoy this little bit of downtime, since there’s a move imminent and I’ve already been warned ahead of time that the Video Game Documentary That Wouldn’t Die has once again, zombie like, reared its head for yet another round of changes. Oh well, this too shall pass…