In Laws

They arrived late this afternoon, having gotten used to the sedate, rural charm of Calais, Maine and got thrown into the maelstrom of the automotive grid lock that is the 401 coming into Toronto. We walked to Bloor, we had Korean food. I am going to bed. That’s a pretty big jump, going from a “city” with a population of 3000 to the 5 million plus of the Greater Toronto Area…

The Night Before

The In-Laws officially arrive some time tomorrow and we are now going to bed at a reasonable hour of the night, just like most sane people. It looks like we’re going to go down to the Paradise Comic-Con on Sunday (thus missing out on the Gail Simone talk) because a) a group of editors from DC will be looking at portfolio submissions on that day, and b) the Wife’s family leaves on Sunday. This does, however, mean that we will be inundated with Cos Players galore since people that dress up on Sunday will get free admission. For those of you that don’t know, Cos Play is a Japanese term for people that dress up in costumes of favorite anime/manga/comic/TV characters, as evinced by the video below of some of the more successful–and cute–attempts that craft.

Almost Normal

Things are slooooooooowly beginning to start feeling normal again. Woke up at 3 am, pottered around the house, and then walked through the neighborhood and a little up north to keep the Wife company as she picked up some canvas someone was selling online. Turns out the woman who was selling them had bought them during an intense oil painting phase, and now that the phase had passed, knew that she wasn’t going to put the canvas to use anymore.

Other than that, more Grim Fandango was played, a walk down to Bloor got us more coffee, art supplies and continuing episodes of Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi, Excel Saga and now FLCL, as well as more coffee.

Bed time was actually sometime after 9 pm, so it was a weird, long day in that my body was desperately trying to grab back onto a daylight cycle wakefulness and actually managed some success since we spent the majority of our waking ours up during the day.

Time Is Funny

When your anchor to it has been cut off. Woke up before midnight today after going to bed some time in the middle of the afternoon. There is a weird–though not actually unpleasant–feeling of drifting through the day in a disconnected sort of way. It’s kind of like that feeling you get just after waking up, or after you’ve been a up a really, really long time, though without the feelings of drowsiness, just that sense of things happening at a remove from you.

The morning was one of those rare times where we were not only conscious, but actually did something. We went down to Front Street with the neighbor to do some shopping at St. Lawrence Market, which, I am amazed to realize, has been kicking around in that same spot since 1803. It’s a big ol‘ place, divided into two buildings. The more recent, northern building is the Farmer’s Market where some of the most colorful vegetables I’ve ever seen in my life are sold by farm girls that are as buxom as they overly made up. This is strictly a weekend market, opening way early in the morning and closing in the early afternoon. The south market, which is St. Lawrence proper, has coffee, fish, meat and all kinds of other things in a big, bustling building that has played both jail house and city hall over the course of its life. Many fixin’s were purchased during this run.

However, after that, we did something very uncharacteristic for us. Since the neighbor mentioned that an affluent neighborhood just to the north of our home was having a massive, coordinated yard sale, we took her up on her invitation to wander it. Taking place in the Austin Crescent area. Going there was kind of like walking into the middle of every Hollywood movie that ever featured a “typical, suburban neighborhood” in that the houses–though not mansions–were gorgeous, the inhabitants were affluent, and even the dogs smelled like perfume. It kind of reminded me of what I’d always imagined the rest of Ferris Bueller’s neighborhood would look like.

I did, however, make a couple of surprising finds. It would seem that one of the guys living in the neighborhood is a gamer who has more or less fixated on the Real Time Strategy game Command & Conquer and was saying goodbye to other games he no longer played. I went nuts and immediately picked up these two when I saw them:

Homeworld: Game of the Year Edition

Man, was I ever amazed when I saw this. I first saw this game in Singapore and thought it would make a good gift for a friend of mine over there, so I picked it up and gave it to him for his birthday. We sat, hunkered in his little closet/computer room, smoking cigarettes and thinking, “Hm, not bad graphics,” until the full enormity of the game’s brilliance suddenly hit us with the force of a hammer.

Homeworld is an important game in many ways. It was the first truly beautiful looking Real Time Strategy game ever released, but beyond the graphics, it innovated the genre in many ways, embracing science fiction, taking things to space and actually allowing Z-Axis movement (as in players could send ships north, south, east, west, UP and DOWN), and doing the one thing that Sci-Fi nerds had been clamoring for for years; giving the ability to participate in massive space battles using mixed units of big, hulking capital ships, nimble squads of one man fighters, and throwing in the mix of mid-sized units like frigates and light cruisers. It also did something incredibly brilliant in terms of story-telling; it made you give a damn without ever showing a single face. The plot is pretty interesting; on a small, deserted, hostile world, the inhabitants, coming into technology similar to our own, find something on their satellites buried in their world’s great desert. Going there reveals a vast starship and technology beyond their wildest imaginings, except that it’s all in an ancient language that is the root of their own. They finally realize that they are not native to this world, and use the technology to advance their culture and build a ship capable of traversing star systems and finding their true home. Unfortunately, doing this violates certain conditions of surrender established millennia ago and as payback, their entire planet is purged, leaving only their new mothership, a some thousands of people in cryogenic suspension and boundless rage. The game plays out entirely through the communication exchange between the fleet, and somehow, those faceless characters convey more determination, loss and fear than you’ll normally see in 90% of the games released today. It’s particularly cool that your fleet from mission to mission continues to grow from your existing resources, meaning that if you had one particular cruiser you built at the beginning, that same cruiser–at least if you’re careful–will fight for and with you right to the bitter end. Amazing stuff. A real landmark in the genre.

This particular addition includes a strategy guide and, the happiest of bonuses for me, the soundtrack on CD. And the cost? Five bucks. MAN…

And then there’s this:

When you talk to fans of the Adventure Game genre, there is an argument, akin to Sci-Fi film/TV fans, that will ensue as soon as you try to talk about the best of the best. In SF, this is usually the tired old Star Wars versus Star Trek argument (though anyone remotely sane will tell you this battle has already thoroughly won by Battlestar Galactica) and in Adventure Games, it’s The Longest Journey or Grim Fandango.

This one of those games
I’ve been meaning to play for YEARS. Not only is one of the very best the genre has to offer, it is, with no room for debate, flat out the funniest. Tim Schafer was the man who created this game, though console gamers will probably know him better as the guy that made Psychonauts. This, however, is Schafer at his prime. You play Manny Calavera, one of many “reapers” who’s duty is to visit the newly dead and sell them “travel packages” that can speed their way to their final after-life reward depending on how good they’ve been in life. Otherwise, it’s going to be a long 4 year hike, and the more really killer packages Manny sells (the best being a bullet train that reduces the trip to 9 minutes) the faster he can work of a massive karmic debt he has accrued that prevents him from beginning his own journey.

This is Schafer at his prime. The writing is so smart, so funny and so constant you’d never understand why more wasn’t done with this property. The only downside to finding this game is the fact that it was hell to get up and running because it was designed to run on Windows 95 and Windows XP… did not like it so much. The Wife had to play tech support for a couple of hours tweaking things in Safe Mode and MS-DOS windows to finally get the thing to even install and run properly. But it is a great, GREAT game, and a must own for anybody that thinks games can’t be well written. And the price? Again, five bucks. CAN’T. GO. WRONG.

Damn. Didn’t See That One Coming.

I am now well and truly in full on vampire mode, having gotten out of bed as the sun was almost completely set.

I am also now amazed and somewhat bummed out over the fact that Ron Moore has announced that Battlestar Galactica will–as Edward Olmos hinted–be ending as of the fourth season. This is a bit weird for me since I love the show, but am only half-way done, since I watch the DVD collections rather than the actual broadcast episodes. On the other hand, this is a pretty logical progression since–in novel-like fashion–Moore has been advancing the characters and stories with irreparable changes and the whole “we’re looking for Earth” thing kind of needs to be addressed. Still, better to end it with people loving the show than just let the momentum run out and turn your fans against you, a la the X-Files back in the day. It’s a gutsy move, and I’m really curious to see how this will go, since I had thought they wouldn’t be able to tell the entire tale in four seasons and would need at least a fifth to pull it off.

In other news, the second story for the Liquid City anthology has been done, sent off to the artist and he says he’s going to start on his roughs within a week. What was supposed to be my “easy” 10 page story once again ballooned into something 17 pages in length, but with the artist looking it over, there may be room to cut things down. Man, I remember there was a time when I could actually tell a story in less than 8,000 words, and now I’ve gotten to the point where it’s nearly impossible. How the hell did that happen?

There’s also a little bit of work to be done for IGN, as the editor I was previously in contact with has moved on, and after pitching an idea to the New Guy, he decided to run with it, so I’ve got to start doing some prep work on that. And the last of the articles for GameAxis needs to be put away for the month, so I guess I’d better start tidying that up as well.

Resetting The Clock

Waking up and going to bed at bizarre hours continues. This is largely due to the fact that the In-Laws will be making their first visit to Toronto in a week or so, and it would be inconvenient at best if we were conked out and unable to show them around during the majority of the day. As a result, rather than simply try to endure an all-nighter to crash back into more acceptable hours, we’ve been going to bed a few hours later every day. This particular day, that meant getting up at some point in the early evening, having coffee, only to be invited down for a talk in the backyard with the neighbors, who were having their after dinner wine. Weird, but it works.

I still haven’t finished that script for the second Liquid City story, but it’s getting there. Definitely 3/4 done at least.

How Did THAT Happen?

Last night–which would technically be this morning for most people–we had one hell of a time actually falling asleep due to something which I thought I would never have to worry about here in Canada. It was too damn hot. The temperature outside during the day stayed at a steady 30 degrees Celsius, and then dropped to 26 degrees and pretty much stayed there for the rest of the night. While it was nowhere near as humid as what you get in the tropics, it was still enough to make for a fitful sleep. On the other hand, at least geek-wise, this may have been a blessing in disguise. The sleep deprivation, however light it was, may have contributed to shutting my brain down enough that my fingers could actually take over without any of that annoying concentration a conscious mind insists on, and when I took on Guitar Hero II today, it was a day of surprises. First up:

Institutionalized by Suicidal Tendencies.

Since this was my first time on the final tier of Expert, I did what I did for the previous Guitar Hero game, I went after my least favorite song first so I wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore. Much to my surprise, I actually managed to finish this off on my first try. I’m strongly beginning to suspect that Psychobilly Freakout is kind of the “Pre-Requisite Mini-boss” song of Guitar Hero II, in that it acts as an artificial barrier that forces the player to hit a minimum level of proficiency that will make it possible to complete the rest to of the game. RPGs tend to do this a lot, but it seems like the same tactic has been employed here.

The Beast & The Harlot by Avenged Sevenfold

Having completely surprised myself by actually finishing the previous song and happy about the fact that it would not trouble me again (except in that nagging, “you really should 5-star this song” sort of way) I took on a song which initially pissed me off to no end, but, somehow, actually grew on me as I played it more and more. It was an easy 5-star on the Hard level for me, so I was expecting it be challenging but manageable. It turned out I was right. A couple of expectedly tricky bits shut me out on my first two attempts, but third time’s a charm, and the song was finished. Which now brings me to…

Misirlou as covered by Dick Dale and the Del-Tones.

This song really surprised me when I found out it actually has Greek folk music roots, rather than the Hispanic/Mariachi style roots I’d originally thought were its influences. What didn’t surprise me was the fact that it shut me out within 30 seconds of me starting the song. However, after getting lucky with the previous two songs, and feeling that burning pain in my left wrist that tells me I’ve been holding onto the guitar too hard, I decided it was time to give it Yet Another Shot and got lucky with getting just enough star power to cruise me through one Insanely Repetitive Passage, and after that, the rest of the song was actually just barely manageable. Now there’s only one song left on the main list.

Hanger 18 by Megadeth.

I’ve already tried it a few times on Expert, and each time, I inched a little bit closer to finishing it. It’s one of those songs that’s actually pretty doable for the most part, until Mustaine and Friedman kick into those ELEVEN FREAKIN’ GUITAR SOLOS right at the very end, which, of course, is where there’s just not enough star power to carry you through and you just have to be good enough to survive it. I suspect a few more dedicated attempts will get me through this and then there will be the ultimate challenge, Freebird. And man… am I ever not looking forward to that…

And, just to keep the news going, the Guitar Hero Encore Rocks The 80′s website is now live. It has a few surprises too. As with previous Guitar Hero websites, it features some of the songs that are on the game, and there were a few tunes there that haven’t made it onto any “official” release lists. The new ones I noticed were:

The Warrior by Scandal, 1984.
Only A Lad, by Oingo Boingo, 1981
Balls To The Wal
l, by Accept, 1983.

Another Convert

Today was a pretty quiet day consisting of doing some of the ground work and preliminary thinking for the Job With No Name, and just doing some minor chores and errands around the neighborhood. In the evening, the Old Friend came ’round, something she hadn’t done in a few months, and now with the apartment fully set up and functioning, I got around to the one the thing I’d promising her since I arrived back in Canada.

I sat that gal down, stuck a plastic guitar in her hands, and made her play Guitar Hero II.

It should not come as a complete surprise to anyone with exposure to the game that she found it a little bit intimidating at first, but, since she’d taken piano lessons when we were younger, I was sure that some of the discipline in fingering and rhythm would actually help her and lo and behold, it did.

Her first reaction after completing Surrender by Cheap Trick:

“Oh. My. GOD. THIS IS AWESOME!”

She managed to pass her first few songs on Easy level on her first try and after that, she was totally hooked. She nearly blew a gasket when, after sitting down to take a break with cigarettes, I informed her, “In a couple of months a Guitar Hero 80′s edition is coming out.”

I’m not completely certain now, but the fact that she’s moving to a new pad and thinking of finally getting kitted out with a decent High Def TV may now also involve a trip with me chaperoning to the nearest game store so that she can pick herself up a PS2 and whatever Guitar Hero package they’re selling.

Yep. Gotta’ spread the word…

Sunday In The Suburbs

Work took a break today as we went out into the wilds of Mississauga. The Wife’s buddies in her illustration group were having a barbecue at their home, and so we got picked up by another Sketch Motel-er that lives in the Annex and motored on down. The Wife had never seen a typical North American suburb before and her first thought was, “It looks like a Tim Burton movie.”

We also met a few other new folks, some of whom now insist we come down for a visit to their studios, or, conversely, they come up and show us more of the Annex.

But on the whole, it was nice to just sit around outside, munch on burgers, and then, in true geek fashion, descend into the basement where I finally had a decent sit down with a Nintendo Wii and acquitted myself all right. Two strikes in bowling, a birdy in golf, though I apparently can’t play baseball to save my life.

I have to admit though, after actually sitting down and playing with a Wii, my enthusiasm for the console is somewhat diminished. I’m clearly NOT the target market for this thing. It’s fun, and I enjoy it, but I would get bored fast with only simple sports/party games to play, and by my particular tastes, there’s only one game worth owning, and that’s Zelda. All the other stuff is novel, but ultimately not very rewarding for me. I know the casual or non-gamers will go nuts for this stuff, but the Wii needs more games like Zelda before I’ll seriously want it.

Another Boring Day

Errands took longer than expected, though Queen Street West was relatively fast, a visit to the doctor for some minor ailments took out a big chunk of time in the waiting room, followed by business at the post office, groceries and…

Now too tired and cranky to work. Bring on the movies and games…