livingtech

Are we defined, (as hypothesized in Hornby’s High Fidelity) not by what we’re like, but by what we like?

This weekend I bought Dynasty Warriors 3: Extreme Legends. It’s more of the same. If you liked Dynasty Warriors 2, you were pleasantly surprised that DW3 was exactly the same game, but with more of everything, (and a much better UI). DW3XL doesn’t even pretend it’s a sequel. It’s just an upgrade. But one that’s worth the $30 price, if you ask me. There are 7 new musou (or story) modes (for the “unaligned” characters that you could previously only play in “Free” mode.), and tons of new items to collect, including a new 5th weapon for every character. I’m excited for DW4, (which comes out in a month or two), but this is enough to keep me slaughtering hordes of enemy soldiers for at least a few weeks straight.

Now, how does this game define me? Last night I dreamed I was at a science fiction convention, (perfect setting for this, actually), and presumably slaughtering hordes of people… I only remember the last part, when I sat down by the pool, just after dispatching someone with my smaller sword (I had two). I was wiping it off, and cleaning it before putting it back in my sheath, so I could go swimming, (I was wearing trunks underneath my ninja/samurai garb) when Laura said I had to drag the body at least a certain distance away from the pool… I did so, grudgingly.

Second purchase last weekend (first chronologically) was a book that Jason recommended to me on the basis of a few preview chapters he’d read online. I read the chapters too, and decided it was definitely something I was going to have to read. I know he bought the book for his trip (he’s been out of town for a week–and we have his kitties!) and so I was going to wait for him to finish it before I read it. But somehow I found myself at barnes and noble on Sat. night, with a giftcard for $20. So Max Berry’s Jennifer Government ended up costing me less than $2. I finished it Monday morning, around 2AM. It was damn good, and well worth reading.

I found myself, upon later reflection, a little puzzled at the end of the novel. For a very satirical (and generally negative) portrayal of capitalism, the novel ended on a note that in many ways could be considered a pro-capitalism way. I don’t want to say too much. I’d love to have this discussion with anyone who has also finished the book. As a purveyor of Adbusters and most things anti-corporation, I find myself (despite having thoroughly enjoyed the book) left with a rather bitter aftertaste.

That last poem was inspired by Laura, who said I should write a poem using the sound of snowpants.. “vvvvvt-vvvvvvt-vvvvvvt-vvvvvvt” (which I had IM’d to her). But… it’s dedicated to irish-girl, who was the second person I showed the poem to, and who apparently actually broke her brother’s leg sledding when she was a kid. (Hmm. On second thought she didn’t specify when the leg was broken. Perhaps it was recently.)

My previous entry, the agate poem, was written as I woke up wednesday morning. I was feeling the particular slowness of winter eroding into spring, and the agate metaphor popped into my head. “Seasons change like agates smoothing”. I let the line run through my head as I did my morning rituals — shower, get dresssed, collect things to bring to work for my lunch… I didn’t actually type it out until just before I left for work. I also didn’t title it until then, and the title is the part I most question at this point.

Poetry is one of those things that I love to think about. I was all crabby and pissed off after reading a news article about bush’s tax breaks for the rich, and now I’m feeling at least a little better. Poetry is therapy. Poetry is rich cream in your coffee.

In the frozen foods at the grocery store after I pointed out the chocolate ice cream pops with chocolate filling, my friend Alex said “I think the world is coming to an end. There are movies about movies, and chocolate filled chocolate… Creativity is dead.” (I’m paraphrasing, I can’t remember the exact quote.)

xomina and I have agreed to disagree on this very subject. I enjoy writing poems about my poetry. (And even collect good quotes on the subject.) Does this make me less creative? Perhaps it’s true! (I’ve never felt coming up with new ideas was my strong point. More coming up with new ways to say the same things — hopefully they’re good, inventive ways.)

EL Fudge has come up with a new way to say Butterfinger (inside an ELFudge cookie), so I’m going to go have that conversation now…

I’ve been a juggling fiend. Friday: at least two hours of unicycle hockey, split up into the “good” and “peewee” teams. There were so many people there that I didn’t make the “good” cut, and consequently scored about 5 or 6 times against players who were generally younger than I’d care to admit.

Saturday: The bulk of the festival here… Unfortunately, I’d worn myself out playing uni-hockey the night before, and then combat for a few hours right after getting there. I got a second wind about the time I had to sit down and watch to see if any of my raffle tickets were called. They weren’t.

Saturday night: The mondo show has continued to improve in caliber and quality under its current artistic direction. I think this was the third year in a row we’ve sold out that 500 seat theater. [I wasted more than a few minutes here trying to look up the word for foot juggling… I think it starts with a p, as in it shares the same prefix as podiatrist.] Anyway, it was a great show, and there was much juggling afterwards (until the gym closed at two AM.)

Sunday: I showed up to the festival, and didn’t practice 1 trick the ENTIRE time I was there. I played about two more hours of hockey, and then volley club until they kicked us out at 5:00. I hadn’t played volley club since ren fest, and it was fun as hell.

Of course, yesterday we went to monday night juggling practice… low attendance for some reason… (I’m guessing people were worn out, those wusses!) My sister called me to tell me about how many new bruises she had after the weekend. (At least ten big ones, apparently.) Unicycling does that, especially when you’re practicing for level 8, as she was all weekend. (For those who really care, I passed level 3 a few weeks ago. I’d been stuck on it for about a year–I couldn’t go over the board.) Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that she was in the show… I got a fair amount of comments afterward about how good she is.

Probably the most vindicating moment of the weekend was when (late Sat night) I was hanging out with a group of people including this guy Sam. Sam is not at all a bad juggler… pretty good in fact, and he regularly cleans house at combat. I was unicycling, and he said something along the lines of “You’re better than me at everything I do!” Now, this was obviously a false statement, but he was sincere (mostly in coveting my unicycle skills, I’m sure), and anyway it felt good to hear. I have been doing this juggling crap for something like 10 years now (7 or 8 with any seriousness), so I should be better than some people, damnit!

PS, Note: this is not the aforementioned meta-juggling post that I’d meant to write and hinted about a few weeks ago. I will write that someday… someday.

Prey was just OK. It got a little less believable at the end. It was fun, and suspenseful, but not especially the kind of thing I like to read. It was to gut wrenchingly edge-of-your-seat. Strangely enough, I don’t go in for that kind of thing, really.

If all goes well, I’ll be getting a second book to read by Michael Marshal Smith today. I was pretty impressed to see the Mpls. Library has three or four of his books at the downtown location. (I ordered Only Forward from amazon.co.uk a while back, and it was pretty good, nothing terribly special, but well worth reading.)

Woah, I can’t believe I almost forgot to mention that MONDO Jugglefest is this weekend. That’s where I’ll be from friday after work till sunday late afternoon. I’m going to spend a bit of time very soon and whip up some forms for the website.

I’m finally reading Michael Crichton’s Prey. I’m almost done with it, so maybe I’ll say more when I know how it ends. (It’s pretty good so far, but too much like an action movie. His exposition is too dry, and the action too intense. I want more stuff that’s somewhere in the middle, I guess. Actually, I take it back… only some of the exposition is dry… some of it is quite interesting. I have a feeling I’m going to be disappointed that he doesn’t bring up more of the topics I want him to bring up, but I’ll save that pronouncement for when I’m finished.)

My video game addiction has reached a new high (low?) with Kingdom Hearts. I played it for about 9 hours last Sunday, and fifteen hours over the weekend total. At one point, after I’d been playing for at least 5 hours straight, I realized that my index finger was going numb in the tip. I thought for awhile last night I had “burned out” on it, until I decided to quit playing the level I was on (the whale that swallows Pinocchio), and go to another one (where you get to play as the little mermaid)… that significantly revived my interest in the game, and I played for another couple of hours.

I also watched episodes 4 and 5 of Cosmos last night. Nate is out of town for a week, (on his yearly jaunt to steamboat) and absolved me of the requisite that I watch them with him, so I’ll be plowing through them as I desire to do so. They’re absolutely fascinating, and I can see why they were so popular.

After episode 4, I looked up scale models of the solar system (because I immediately wanted to build one), and I found a whole list of them over on the Gainesville Solar Walk website, and another page with a huge list of related links on it.