Beards

The following are pros and cons of growing a beard:

• Pro - You get called boss and sir far more often when shopping for things
• Con - You get asked "Are you buying these for your kids?" when buying cartoons or family movies (only really a con if you don't have kids or aren't buying said cartoons/movies for your kids)
• Pro - You can save parts of meals for snacks for later
• Con - Other people can see you saving parts of meals for snacks for later
• Pro - Men respect you more (see Chuck Norris)
• Con - Women are less likely to find you attractive
• Pro - You're one step closer to becoming a wizard, mighty pirate, first mate of a starship, lumberjack, computer programmer, etc.
• Pro - You can really emphasize how hard you are thinking at any given moment
• Con - People will know when you're plotting evil schemes (no no I wasn't twirling my moustache!)
• Pro or Con - People are highly unlikely to kiss your cheek
• Pro - A good, thick beard successfully hides zits underneath it
• Con - An improperly cared for beard may cause zits
• Pro - At any moment (assuming the beard is long enough) you can shave off the beard and gain back 10 years of your life
• Con (possibly) - You look 10 years older with a beard
• Pro - You have an excuse to get a moustache comb
• Con - You have to buy beard trimming equipment (unless you want the gross, unkempt beard look)
• Pro - You get asked one less question when getting a haircut (ie "Do you want sideburns?")
• Con - Wearing fake beards will no longer work as a disguise

Indiana Jones and the Waggle Staff of Kings

So I just finished Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings. Apparently the Staff of Kings is Moses' staff from the Bible. I don't remember it ever being referred to as the staff of kings, but I guess I'm not a big archaelogist buff. This game started off incredibly fun. At first I was thinking all the Wii motion controls made a lot of sense and fit the game really well. You put your Wii-mote at the screen to fire the gun when you're in shooting gallery mode, you put up your dukes with nunchuck and Wii-mote in hand and do jabs, uppercuts, and hooks by doing the appropriate motion. You even fly a plane by holding the Wii-mote like you would an airplane joystick. As is always the case with Wii games (at least the ones I've played so far), it starts off making sense, but then the more you do it, the more you realize just how imprecise it is and just how frustratingly stupid waggle controls are in the heat of combat. At one point I'm surrounded by 8 nazis and was constantly just running around throwing things at them and fighting like a pansy because everytime I tried to stand and fight using my fists or the objects I was throwing at them, Indiana Jones would stand there uselessly while Eric Heine was shaking the circuit boards out of his controllers. Not fun. Another part of the game had the opposite problem, where the controls were too sensitive - the plane. I crashed into more walls because of overcompensating turns than anything else. Not fun. The last motion control problem was when the controls just plain didn't make any sense. The very very very final part of the game has you driving a motorcycle, but instead of driving it Mario Kart style with the Wii-mote sideways and you turn it to turn, you have to hold the Wii-mote AND the nunchuck as if they were one handlebar. How did that ever make sense to anyone? Half the time the bike wasn't turning because I guess I wasn't holding the controllers correctly and the other half was overturning just like the plane. Not fun.

Okay, so enough of my rant. Most of those complaints are from the final level, so if you bought the game and stopped playing right when Indy gets on a zeppelin, I think the game would still be fun. They clearly rushed the last level with no test time or just had very rookie designers and programmers working on them. At least that's how it felt to me.

Okay really. I'll stop complaining now. What's fun about the game is every other level; the exploration, shooting, and level design are all really good. The voice acting is good. It wasn't Harrison, but it was a very good sound-a-like. The music was very Indiana Jonesish. The two reasons I bought the game were co-op mode and the inclusion of Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (including voiceovers!). Co-op mode is Indiana and his dad essentially playing a varied amount of mini-games working together with a completely different story than the main story. I haven't beat it yet, but I enjoyed what there was so far. I only started playing through Fate of Atlantis to see what it was like on the Wii (I've beaten it countless times as a child). The version I owned as a kid didn't have voiceovers, so I do look forward to playing through that at some point.

So if you take my advice and stop playing the main story when Indiana jumps onto a zeppelin, then I'd say this game earns 4 fedoras. If you hate yourself enough (or if you're like me and just have to complete things) then it earns 12 poisoned dates. What do those numbers mean? Absolutely nothing. If you remember my original purpose for starting this blog, then you'll remember I hate review numbers because they're meaningless. If you played Uncharted, Prince of Persia (the newer set, not the original), or any game that involves ledge climbing around ancient ruins with (in my opinion) combats that really mar the whole experience and liked them, then you'll like this. If you want a good Indiana Jones experience, this game will fit that well. If you want a really great Indiana Jones experience, get Lego Indiana Jones.

Motion/voice controlled gaming

Ever since the Wii was announced, there's been a trend of motion control technologies released.  Two of these were just announced at this year's E3 and the technology isn't finished, so I'll try not to judge them on how glitchy they may look.  My big concern with this trend is that a lot of games do not work with motion controls.  At least not without losing precision or feeling gimmicky.  Project Natal specifically has this video of a family very happily playing a bunch of really dumb looking mini-games together.  Let's assume for a second that anything shown in that video is possible (a big assumption in my opinion), sure that's great for like a 10 minute gameplay session with a bunch of people, but I don't see how that entertainment would last at all or be any fun when I'm playing a game by myself.

You've got a racing game where three people sit there and watch one person play for a very very rare moment of "Now I get to play!"  If I were that dad, I'd tell my daughter to go to the pit stop every lap just so I could get to play.  You've got a Godzilla game that looks like a glorified EyeToy game, which had the same problem of no games for it besides lame mini-games.  You've got a game show game where the motion is hitting the buzzer.  Didn't they sell that game only with an actual buzzer so you can't complain about it not registering your hand movement in time?

Maybe I'm just jaded because of the Wii's waggle-rificly inaccurate motion controls and constant stream of shovelware mini-games.  Speaking of the Wii, they've released some new technology to make their motion sensing more accurate.  If that works then that helps one problem, but developers still have the problem of slapping in motion controls in games just because.  Like Wario Land: Shake It!, which would have been a fantastic old-school platforming game save for the fact that every half a minute or so you'd have to violently shake your controller to get money out of bags or get enemies out of their armor.  This completely broke me out of the enjoyment I was having playing the game every time I had to do it.  That's not the goal in my opinion.

Some games did manage to do the motion controls incredibly well without feeling gimmicky.  Mostly because it wasn't shaking or waggling the controller to do things.  It was pointing the controller like a gun to fire my in-game gun at people or making a motion like I was tossing a garrote around someone's neck to choke them (violent I know, but it is a game based on the Godfather).

So I guess my problem is two-fold.  I really don't trust Project Natal for most games because I think it's important to have the feel of something in your hands while playing a game.  Imagine playing Rock Band with no instruments.  Air Rock Band Hero.  Closets around the world would love that because they wouldn't have to hold so many plastic peripherals, but the controls would have to be so dumbed down to feel at all accurate, which would just ruin the experience.

The other problem I have is that for most games, I play at home to relax sitting on the couch.  I can't do that if you're making me stand up and punch the air or run in place to get across the land of Azeroth or some such thing.  If I had to run around as much as I make my virtual counterparts run around in games, I'd be the world's fittest marathon runner in existence.  I don't see that being fun.

On the other hand, I do see Project Natal being great for workout games or line dancing or something related.  My biggest complaint about working out is that it's mind-numbingly boring.  I'm sitting there doing a repetitive motion staring at nothing, trying to get my mind wandering so it can be happy, but at the same time trying not to lose count of how many sit ups or push ups I've done.  If I could be running on a treadmill while my TV is in front of me displaying a hiking trail I'm "running" on, that would be awesome!  Or having a virtual personal trainer.  Or even if I just had a simple progress bar above a virtual me that counted my reps for me and kept track of my stats so I could level up (ie turn working out into an RPG) then I'd buy that no questions asked.

So I'm wary of the future.  If developers just cram in motion controls everywhere just to try and make a quick buck with "casual gamers", then I fear for the future of gaming.  If developers are smart and use motion controls as a clever tool for more interactive gaming that makes sense and isn't a lot of work for the player, then I'm all for it.

Movie Rules

Horror movies:

• Splitting up is certain death.
  
• Hooking up with the hot chick before the killer is dealt with is certain death.
  
• Walking up to inspect a body lying on the ground is certain death.
  
• Thinking it's over is certain death.
  
• If you're a jerk, you're going to die a horrible death.
  
• If you're a jerk, but redeem yourself at some point, you'll die, but it won't be as painful.
  
• Only the nice guys and hot girls survive.
  
• If you see/hear something suspicious, don't investigate.  Really just a more general version of the "dead" body rule.
  

Action hero movies:

• If you haven't killed your nemesis yet, then the moment you're happy and think everything's going your way is the moment right before true tragedy strikes.
• Everything blows up.  Use that to your advantage.
• No matter how much you get shot at, the worst that'll happen is your leg will get shot.
• You'll never have to feel guilty for killing the hundreds of guards just doing their jobs.  Don't worry.
• Don't make friends with anyone because they'll either betray you or get killed right before your eyes.  (See the first rule of action hero movies)

Romantic comedy movies:

• If you're in a relationship at the beginning of the movie, expect it to fail very shortly.
• No matter how many embarassing situations arise that would make a girl in real life lose all interest in you, she'll still be interested in you.

Any movie with a computer:

• You never have to worry about learning Unix or DOS commands because every system has a convenient GUI to use when you've hacked into their system.
• Hacking is a simple process of hitting random keys very rapidly until you say "I'm in!"
• Viruses always have some visual effect to your computer like a silly animation mocking you or graphical corruptions on the screen.
• All computer programmers are geniuses can make any program for any purpose.  This one's actually true.

Leadership

Ever since moving to Monterey, I've been trying to get more and more connected to a church.  This is especially true after Pastor Bryan spoke on faithless action and faithless inaction.  Faithless action is when you strive so hard for something you want without putting God in the equation until at some point, that thing you are striving for becomes your god.  Faithless inaction is when you rely so much on God's promise to bless you that you do nothing, but wait.  God doesn't reward laziness.

After hearing that sermon, I finally got off my butt and got the courage to join a dGroup (Monterey Church's small group).  Then the following Sunday after going to church, I was invited to Easter dinner by the leader of my small group and met more people.  So I could immediately see God's blessing with just one tiny bit of action.  But still I was afraid to do much more for awhile.  There's been a constant call to help with children's church and setup/teardown of the theater we meet in before and after church, but week after week I would dash out of church passing those sign up sheets by.

Over a month later I wrote this and realized I was doing the same thing as before.  Letting my excuses control me.  So the next Sunday service I signed up to help setup since I figured I'm always up early anyway, I might as well do something good with that time before church.  So I sign up and then the following Saturday, I get an e-mail telling me what time I need to be at church for this.  Turns out my early (around 7:30) wasn't as early enough since I needed to be at church at 6 am.  I had also promised my housemate, Mike, that I would pick him up from Monterey airport at 11 pm the night before I had to be at church at 6 am.  So this was ample opportunity for me to come up with excuses that were actually somewhat legitimate.  But I remembered what I had resolved to do about excuses and did both like I said I would.  It was difficult, but it was worth it.

So I figured now I'm connected enough.  I'm doing some nice behind the scenes work for the church and I've got my small group and I've been going to church consistently.  Well I guess God's not done with me yet.  After small group this week, one of the other members suggested I become a small group leader myself.  Immediately I felt scared and I could feel the excuses coming up.  I've never really liked being a leader, I prefer the behind the scenes stuff.  I have concerns for meeting at my house since I have three housemates and I don't want to kick them out of the main room.  Etc.  Etc.  Blah.  Blah.  Blah.  After more discussion, our current dGroup leader, Pam, said she might be leaving for good soon.  She's still not sure, but if she did she wouldn't want the group to just fall apart.  So I'm pretty much getting all the signs that I should be doing this (I don't want to, but I feel I should; there seems to be a need; I seem well equipped to fulfill that need).  As a first step I'm going to teach a lesson (I guess next week?) at dGroup.  We'll see how God guides me after that, but I'm pretty sure I've finally gotten the hint.

The most comforting thing for me is Pastor Bryan has said on a few occasions that he also never wanted to be a pastor.  He too wanted to be a behind the scenes guy.  But he felt God calling him to being the pastor and I'm glad God did because Pastor Bryan was one of the biggest reasons I kept going to this church.

Star Treknology

Star Trek has a lot of technology that I really look forward to enjoying (whether that's a realistic hope or not).  Teleporters to eliminate traffic jams, car pollution, and long distances.  Replicators to eliminate hunger, lack of food variation, and bad cooking.  Holodecks to see what it's like to pilot a Gundam, to travel to Ireland without going anywhere, and to play in a jazz club without fear of being booed off the stage.  But after this week, the technology I want most from any series of Star Trek is the Borg alcove.  I had to look up the name for this thing and I am incredibly underwhelmed.  The purpose of the alcove is a place for a Borg drone to go for 6 hours for their regeneration cycles (basically sleep).  What I would love is if every night, I could go into a device and just turn it on and not worry about having to fall asleep or being woken up by stuff in the middle of the night or getting the right amount of sleep.

The quality of my sleep seems to come in cycles and I am currently in the "constantly being woken up in the middle of the night" cycle.  Whether it's because I didn't drink enough water that day and wake up at 4, 5, or 6 with a very dry throat, because I'm overheated, or because of a bad dream, something keeps waking up in the middle of the night and then my brain thinks it's morning, so it starts going off thinking about what I want to/have to/get to do that day and I can't get back to sleep even though I need it.  Even if I can get back to sleep, it never seems to be as useful as a full 8 hours of unconciousness.

Eventually this loss of sleep catches up and then I start sleeping well again.  This is very tedious and overall I find sleep to be very stressful and not a pleasant thing.  As Q put it in the episode Deja Q (I had to look this all up, I'm not THAT much of a Star Trek geek):

Q: [Captain Picard visits Q in the brig] Truthfully, Jean-Luc, I've been entirely preoccupied by a most frightening experience of my own. A couple of hours ago, I've realized that my body was no longer functioning properly. I felt weak, I could no longer stand, the life was oozing out of me, I lost consciousness... 
Capt. Picard: You fell asleep.

Time Management and Hobbies

The reason I left Liquid back in November was because the job was taking away all of my free time, so I had no time to invest in anything else.  Whenever I did get any time and spent it with friends, I never had anything interesting to say about what I had been up to recently because it was always the same: "Work."  This really started to bug me because it always made me feel like I was a really boring person to talk to.  It also worried me because part way through Rise of the Argonauts I realized that I didn't want to move up in Liquid and thus I wanted my life to be about something other than that job, but I had no time to make my life about anything else.

Now that I have the time to spend developing my hobbies and doing other things I enjoy, I'm finding I completely suck at time management.  I have so many different projects I want to work on or games I want to play or TV shows I want to watch that I find it hard to pick one and focus on it.  I'll be in the middle of something and then a stray thought will pop into my head making me think of one of my other projects or remember a great moment in some game I played and then suddenly I'm switching projects again.  Or when deciding what to do, my infernal need to complete my mental checklist will sort it in order of quickest things to complete, which is almost always watching my weekly shows or playing a video game and then BAM no more free time.  I don't always feel like this time is wasted, but I feel like I let down the projects that are actually more important to me and my future.  What's worse is that the longer I take to get back to a project, the harder it is to go back to it because I'm either out of practice (piano), forgot what I was doing (game design), or I feel like no one's going to care since I ignored the project for so long (blogging).

What I've realized lately is that these are all just really lame excuses.  A friend of mine once called me the King of Excuses back in high school.  That comment has haunted me to this day because of how true it was and still is.  I'm quite masterful at giving excuses why I should or shouldn't do something (not usually very good excuses).  What's even worse is I know I'm doing it and the part of me that knows I should or shouldn't do whatever it is I'm weaseling out of/into to has a hard time fighting the much stronger lazy and selfish part of me.  If you've ever seen the movie Yesman (and if not I highly recommend you watch it - with me if possible), I feel almost exactly like Jim Carrey's character.  What I've started to do (prior to watching that movie, but more so after watching it) is if I feel a reservation about doing something for a lame or selfish reason, then I commit myself to whatever it is I'm trying to get out of before I have a chance to make an excuse.

What started this particular ramble is that it's almost been a month since my last post and it was a few weeks between that and the previous post.  I know myself well enough to know where that's going to leave this blog if the part of me that cares about this blog doesn't take a stand.  So from now on I'm committing to at least one post a week, most likely on Fridays (because I do so love routines and schedules).  Hopefully once I get that discipline down I can commit to more a week because my favorite webcomics and blogs are the ones that post consistently a few times per week and I want to be one of my favorites.  :)