What Will I Achieve Today?

Granted, there are some things I'll never achieve, but courtesy of XBOX 360, there are a few I can hold out hope for.

Courtesy of that game pusher over at Jim Dandy Goodness, I now have Gyruss on my 360. As I'm playing it, I managed to unlock an Achievement. The burst of soul cleansing joy I felt at that made start thinking about how Achievements have changed how I game. Now, it's not enough to finish a game--a herculean feat on its own-- but now the obsessive in me wants to go back and get every single Achievement. Why? So I can boost my GamerScore.

Again, why? So that complete strangers who see my score will think I'm awesome. Even though I don't know GamerDude69 and probably don't want to, I want him to think I am worthy to stand in the brutal world that is XBOX Live.

Yet some Achievements are impossible to attain, and if you do, then at what cost to your soul? Geometry Wars Retro Evolved has the most brutal I've ever seen. It makes me appreciate those that are within the grasp of the merely human, or are simple rewards for gentle persistence. (Thank you Street Fighter II for Blinding Speed. That's not something I generally want to achieve with a woman, but I was happy to get that with Chun-Li.)

So, yay to XBOX Achievements. They make me forget all the dreams I'll never achieve. Especially the one that included a Busby Berkeley chorus line and a giant cake. That has been particularly difficult to let go...

My Virtual Arcade is Now Complete. (Achievement Unlocked: Dork!)

Downloaded (takes breath)...Super Street Fighter II HD Remix to my XBox tonight. Now I sit back and sigh, enjoying the burst of warmth that comes from realizing my life's work is done. I have now recreated the virtual arcade of my wayward youth. I even have a sign hanging outside. It's black, with two shooting stars flying over a castle. On a mountain. Neon Kingdom Star is now open, with Cokes and O Henrys for sale at the back.

Pac-Man Championship Edition, Mega-Man 9, Asteroids...I mean, Geometry Wars, and Street Fighter line the walls. The carpet is torn and burnt, and smells of mildew, Export A and crushed hopes for heavy petting with Stacy from Biology class.

I'm feathering my hair, putting on my jean jacket, and going to check out that girl's ass in the tight Jordache while I totally go for Hi-Score. Soon, everyone in my imaginary arcade will wonder who this SEX guy is, because he totally rules.

Just let me hit the music...

New Scientist Readers Are Science Fiction Fans,Too? Weird.

So New Scientist played to the audience, giving us a break from telling us how fucked the world is and dedicating some glorious pages to science fiction. And in a moment of drunken glee, they also did two top five list. What science fiction novels do New Scientist readers love? What movies do they think are the best of the best?


New Scientist Top Five Science Fiction Novels

1. Dune

Read that at fourteen, and while I didn't fall in love with it, it did knock the dust out of the head of a Delaware boy. I remember my mother getting nervous when she saw Dune: Messiah around the house, wondering if I was going to join a cult.

2. Foundation series

Again, read it when I was 14. The Westminster Secondary School library had these really Sixties looking copies of it (you know, when art designers felt science fiction was best described by geometric shapes against a black background), and I tore through them. What I enjoyed most was how Asimov explained his ideas so well, introducing me to the concepts of deep time in a way I understood far more than I understood Grade Nine science with Mrs. Bezeau.

3. The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy

I read a lot of great books at 14. This one was introduced to me by Mr. O'Flynn, my Grade Nine English teacher, who thought it would be something I would enjoy. I owe the man many debts, and this was one of them.

4. Ender's Game

Just read this a couple of years ago. Recommended reading for any gamer. Great book, but I have no desire to read anything else by Orson Scott Card, let alone his 'reimaginings' of this book.

5. Hyperion series

I love Dan Simmons. Have not read this. I feel...shame.


New Scientist Top Five Films

1. Blade Runner

Well, of course.

2. 2001: A Space Odyssey

Saw this with Jim Dandy's brother at the Park Theatre on a rainy Wednesday night. We felt very cultured that night.

3. Serenity

Nice to this here. I said back when this came out that it was the new Star Wars, and it really should have been.

4. Forbidden Planet

Haven't seen it. I feel...well, nothing, really.


5. The Matrix

You know what? I loved that film, but after seeing the first sequel, I swore off seeing a third. I have seen a bit of the last one, and it wasn't as painful as I thought it would be, but it's still got nothing on the first, best one. Trinity remains the girlfriend every geek wants, and only a few of us actually get.

Thanks, New Scientist! Next week, it's back to quantum physics and how we're all going to die of solar radiation in fifty years!

I Think Too Much When Reading The Funnies

It's like being fourteen again. I'm ogling covers of Uncanny X-Men.

If you ignore the return of Madelyne Pryor to the X-Men saga (what, again?), there are some other interesting bits here. Namely, that Scott lets Emma 'walk' through his libido, letting her see all of the women he's fantasized about as they waltz around a very classy hotel/bordello. To his credit, I did not see Kitty all slutted up there, but Mohawk Ororo? To each his own, I guess. He's redeemed by Bellhop Rogue, though, but just.

As well, there's a nice throwaway scene where Kurt calls Emma a filthy girl. Kurt, who wouldn't say scheisse if his mouth was full of it.



I must be a sadist, but I love Spidey stories like the one in Amazing Spider-Man #578.. Stories where Spidey is just well and truly fucked over somehow make me relate more to the character, and feel better about myself. It's cathartic. Remember that story from the Seventies where Spidey had root canal in the morning, then went out webslinging and kept getting punched in the face? Adored it. This is a close second.

Essentially, Spidey is broke (relate!) and finds a free Metropass with enough on it for a ride on the subway. Elated that he won't have to weblsing through the rain, he jumps onboard the crowded car. He is happy, which for Spider-Man and myself, is merely a prelude to a big kick in the ass/face and/or nuts. And, true to form, Spidey gets it when all hell breaks loose on the subway.

So many nice little shots. Spider-Man holding up a subway roof in his tattered clothes, his costume visible, with his only having had time to put his mask on. Spider-Man almost meeting a really hot chick, but messing it up in order to save lives. The return of an old Seventies villain. And a big reveal at the end of the story that is partly ludicrous but enjoyable nonetheless.

$2.99 for this sort of therapy? OHIP should look into it.



Oh, surprise! Action Comics #871 reveals that some of the eleventy billion Kryptonians now on Earth are assholes! Wow! Did not see that coming!

An Episode One That Didn't Suck!

Finished this game late Friday night. It was one of those rare times when a)I actually finished a game and b) really didn't want the thing to end.

I realize that, of late, I have fallen deeply in love with things that my constant readers of this missive have not fully embraced as much as I. I take this a sign that the day has come closer when I must leave the Internet and retire to my hidden mountain compound where I shall prepare for the Last Battle. And so I will add to the list of things that I enjoy most deeply and others simply clear their throats and look askance by saying that I fucking adored this game.

Liking this game requires a small supply truck of givens. You must be a fan of Penny Arcade, you must have a deep appreciation of adventure games, you should probably enjoy the works of H.P. Lovecraft, and you must still be about fifteen years old inside your skull. I have rarely laughed out loud during a video game, but I laughed very, very much whilst playing.

(Which would always end horribly when I would call in Vulcan Ninja and try to explain what was so funny. Like why it's funny when the screen flashes Dangereux! before a battle, the constant use of mimes, or why little robots love to have sex with oranges. This would result in a tired smile before she retired back to beating the living hell out of a Wavemaster in the basement.)

So I liked it, and happily downloaded Episode Two. But I know I am alone in that, as I am in all things. I will now start packing my Dorkmobile, since it's a long ride out to the mountains.

The Death Of Hope

Pushing Daisies has been cancelled.

Okay, the facts are that no more episodes have been ordered, but that's like a doctor telling a terminal patient to not start reading any big novels and just stick with short stories. I'm sure the official announcement will arrive soon that one of the best shows on television is gone.

To which I say Fuck.

So live on, Big Brother. Live on, Sophie. And please keep making hilarious shows like Little Mosque on the Prairie. Keep the hilarity rolling!

It's Friday, and now I'm depressed. Life is bleak. Is there anything good on the net today to cheer me up?



Okay...feeling slightly better.

Why Am I Loving This So Much?

Maybe I should change the name of this blog to SEAN WATCHES CARTOONS AND GEEKGASMS ABOUT THEM. Sell T-shirts. Get a real dot com and everything.

Even though I had expected to hate this--and did hate the first episode, which featured Yoda and those irritating as anal fungus Roger Roger droids--I have fallen in deep crush mode with Clone Wars. Last Sunday's episode, for example, was the best Star Wars experience I've had since the Park Theatre days.

I love the 30s style announcer summing up the previous episode at the beginning of each show. I love the animation style. I love the battle sequences. I love lightsabres. I love how General Grievous does everything but snicker and twirl his mustache each episode. And I love watching Artoo give another droid a Glasgow kiss.

I'm even starting to like Ahsoka. Girl's got herself some moves.

All Shades of Awesome!

There's this thing on my face. I don't recognize it. I think it's called.... a smile?

After watching the first episode of Batman: Brave and The Bold, I can't seem to wipe it away. From the very first scene, where we see Batman tied beside Green Arrow (dressed in his Silver Age outfit), hanging upside down over a giant vat of acid marked ACID, with a villain with a clock for a face called Clock King, I knew life was worth living.

This is a show that loved the Silver Age, and isn't afraid to show it. Within minutes, Batman is in space, flies through a wormhole, and lands on a planet made of gelatin aliens. But if you think this is just a Silver Age love in, the team up partner this week is the current Blue Beetle, Jaime Reyes (one of DC's best new characters). And if you think this is just for kids, the show actually manages to work in the infamous 'Aristocrats' joke, which is easily the filthiest joke ever told in the history of forever.

The art style screams the Sixties, the storytelling is bugfuck crazy, and the dialogue made us laugh out loud on at least three occasions.

Simply put, Brave and The Bold is just what we needed right now.

Brave And The Bold

Tomorrow morning on Teletoon at nine a.m.

Repeated at 12:30 p.m., if the early hours of post-dawn are a challenge that cannot be met.

This looks like it might actually be--dare I say it?--fun.

Seriously....

...this book is fucking my shit up.

I can't put it down. When I'm not reading it, I keep thinking about it, like a painful mouth ulcer I can't stop pressing my tongue against, cringing each time. Yet the beauty of the prose lures me back in to yet another scene that makes me gasp, makes me put the book down for a few seconds, a scene I know I'll take to the grave burned into my head. The dark beauty of horror done oh so right.

The Franklin Expedition. Starvation. Evil. Cold. Cold. Cold. And A Thing On The Ice, waiting. And sometimes, not waiting at all.

Only 200 pages left. I savour them.

Your Sunday Thought

A Warrior, Awaiting Wine And Wenches

...is how I feel right now. Climbed a little closer to finishing the video game work, much in the same way a man clinging to the side of Everest by one hand climbs when his fingers find a new purchase on the granite. Which is one hell of a tortured metaphor, since I'm not even sure Everest is made of granite.

Random stuff today: a co-worker expressed interest in crosswords today, professing proudly that she does them --in French--which must surely indicate her awesomeness. Or ego. So, in a rare attempt at being social, I ran her off a couple of Monday New York Times puzzles. (Mondays are the easiest of the week, steadily getting harder until your brain boils on the rack that is Friday's puzzle.)

She took one look at the Mondays, and declared that they were too hard. I suspect she was hoping for clues like:

ACROSS

1. An animal that meows (3 letters)

DOWN

3. Something you wear on your head (3 letters)

Oh, I'm nasty when I'm sleep deprived.

Still, it was a beautiful day here today, the sort of day you want to pack up and keep in a box in the attic so that you can open it when you're old and feel the warmth of tangible nostalgia, of autumn done right, of a golden time that actually was.

Blame Tad Williams

And his wife Deb, too. They drew my attention to this. For which I am eternally grateful.

Lost To The Treasures That Compel Us

Two years. After two years, I've finally quit World of Warcraft.

I knew it was time to quit when I was forcing myself to stay awake last Friday night, waiting for a seven hour patch to finish loading. At three a.m, it finally finished, then this message appeared:

Data corrupt. Please re-install patch.

Something deep inside me snapped. Within a minute, I had cancelled my sub.

I've been having problems with the game lately, with constant crashes, with rejigging of the WoW files on my hard drive, with spending more time trying to make the game work than actually playing it. As usual, it was never the game, according to the official forums--it was me. It was my cheap ass computer. It was my lack of RAM. It was my lack of the correct driver. It was my internet connection. It was this, it was that.

So, like a fool, I took my computer in to be upgraded. Spent the cash, came home, and it still didn't work. And then it hit me. I'm 43. I have a ton of work I have to do. I'm behind on deadlines. I have known the touch of a woman. I shouldn't be wasting my time with a computer game about elves--especially one that simply doesn't want to be played.

So I canceled my subscription. I spent Saturday feeling a combination of regret and freedom, like I'd broken up with a very troublesome girlfriend who I knew was bad for me but still loved our time together, late at night, when no one else was around. You can be lost in certain treasures even when you know they aren't good for you. But when you're with them, all you see are the curves and the sparkles, all you want is for this feeling to last just a little longer. But then you wake up to the harsh reality of morning, see the bags under your eyes from an all nighter, and you have to ask yourself: Where is this going? Is this really what I want?

So,still on the rebound Saturday night, I went back to an old love--Final Fantasy 12.

Put the game into the PS2. Pressed the red button. And played the damn thing. No crashes, no dropouts, no 14 year kid telling me to go fuck myself because I wouldn't give that piece of shaman gear the monster just dropped. Just me, a game, and a sense of...what is that strange emotion? Oh, right...fun.

No commitment. No drama. Just a good time.

Blizzard tells me they'll keep my characters for me forever. Just like an old girlfriend giving me her phone number, you know, just in case...

She's Now 42

Vulcan Ninja turned 42 today. I said she looks good for someone so ancient. She then did a spin kick and nearly took my head off.

Beautiful day here in the kinda/used to be a Forest City. Dragged myself out of bed and blearily re-watched Doty's Vagabonds and Visionaries, which if you haven't watched it, I recommend you do. (If you have Rogers Digital, you can find on the Documentary section of Rogers On Demand, and best of all, it's free to download). Nice bits with Herman Goodden shot in his wonderful writing room, some nice footage of Curnoe, with the whole film giving more of a sense of London than anything I've seen in the past few years. I hear Jason Rip is doing good work in this area, but because I'm lazy, I haven't actually seen anything he's done. I simply listen to Vanessa Winters and Jason Dickson, who tell me that he's amazing. So, therefore, he is.

Drove around the city today, and did she ever look golden. London looks best in the fall, and there's an optimism in the air that is as fantastical as it is deceptive. I stopped in at the Starbucks on Wharncliffe and Oxford for my weekly sin of a Grande Americano, the sunlight illuminating the young and the laptopped. My barista danced to Car Wash. I'm not sure if that was in his job description or not.