May 1, 2005
Good God, Another Blog
Well, it took a while, didn't it? I didn't want to get a website up until I could code it myself in HTML, a learning project that I suspect will go on for a while. It'll take time to get everything the way I want it; lots of fun stuff to learn and too little time to learn it in. Eventually I may throw in the towel and switch to weblog software, but for now I'm just going to plug along and see what I can accomplish on my own.
This website was inspired by pretty much every weblog I've ever enjoyed, but it's mostly inspired by Genevieve, so expect a lot of pictures. But I'm also fascinated with politics, game design, media and other things; the result should be a thoroughly uneasy mix.
Enjoy!
UPDATE! A note on format
For the first month of this website, I'll be formatting entries in chronological order, not the typical last-post-first setup. So jump down to the bottom to see the most recent posts!
May 5, 2005
Tempus Fugit!
Gen is 4 months old! Here's a quick update.
As I type this, Gen is asleep in the nursery. I've heard her wake up a couple times, say something, and drift back to sleep. There are always a few false starts. I made formula to greet her with as soon as she's up for good, though sometimes she tricks me and sleeps so long I have to make a fresh bottle. She's been sleeping 10-12 hours nightly for a little while; this officially makes us the luckiest parents in the world.
According one of our baby books, we're entering the "golden age of babyhood", and I think there's some truth to it. Yesterday morning she was staring at her hands, bending them around, and uttering word-like sounds; just charming to watch and listen to. She strikes up conversations with her parents, her hands, spotted blocks, her image in the mirror, and her favorite cloth books.
She's OK at reaching out, grabbing things and pulling them into her mouth, though sometimes she seems to forget she's got hands at all -- she just opens her mouth, shoves her head forward, and hopes she can nab a plastic ring dangling 8 inches away. (After a few minutes, this usually results in an argument, as she hurls baby insults at the ring, and eventually howls for backup.)
More than anything, since she's still not mobile, she likes getting carried around so she can see new stuff, and loves a good stroller ride as long as she's got trees to look at. This past weekend I whiled away several hours listening to my Harry Potter audiobook while rolling her around some of the local campuses.
We love her daycare, and she seems to love it too. The place is a kaleidoscope of activity for her to watch, somewhat more enjoyable than watching the parents fold laundry, do dishes, and work on portfolios and resumes. One side benefit of daycare is that we discover things she likes there and get them for the house. We just found a new baby swing for her on Craigslist. (The picture makes her look dubious, but she's actually reacting to Daddy's face having been replaced by a camera.)
RetroGen: January 5, 2005
First Picture
It doesn't seem fair that Livia isn't in Gen's first picture, since she did all the work. At the moment they took this, I had just followed Gen into the nursery while the doctor was stitching Livia up in the operating room.
May 7, 2005
The State of Nostalgia: 2005
Looking at the two pictures above, I'm thinking about how people's sense of personal nostalgia stems partly from the technological limitations of the photography. Pictures from my childhood look more like Gen's first hospital picture: Polaroid shots with big borders, but in black and white, or washed out color, and with a little yellow date stamp burned into the image. This becomes my innate sense of how the world looked at the time, and my method of differentiating those times from these times. I can't separate my memories of the house I grew up in from the photography that recorded it, and for the purposes of nostalgia, I don't want to.
Genevieve's childhood pictures will be marked by slightly oversaturated colors and blurriness, the mark of our digital camera. (She'll also have about 10 times as many pictures available and she'll have to look them up on the computer.) One day, when the kinks are worked out of digital photography -- or it all goes holographic -- her memories of the past will depend on these vibrant images, digital and unfaded. I wonder what kind of nostalgia that will create for her?
RetroGen: January 6, 2005
We are Family
I believe these are the earliest pictures of us as a family. Geoff and Erin stopped by and snapped a few shots while Shannon rolled the hospital basinet around the room.
Thanks guys!
May 8, 2005
Jade Empire
The first impression I got from Jade Empire was one of lost opportunity; the exoticism of the setting and lore is wasted on pedestrian dialogue and voiceovers that feel very American. The various "students" in the opening school are as petty as any California 10th grader, and an old childhood friend in particular talks like someone out of an After School Special. While it's probably true that you don't want everyone to be speaking with an air of "eastern mystique", the minor concerns and jealousies on parade, the gassy dialogue, and the unenergetic line-readings without a hint of Chinese accent all contribute to robbing the game of its intriguing premise.
It takes a long while to shake this feeling, but it does happen. As the game moves through major settings, the dialogue seems to grow more mature, playful, intriguing and rich. There are more characters whose voices seem to match their appearance (and perhaps my sense of Chinese culture gained from watching dubbed Chinese films...). By the time I got to a major city setting with several plot threads ripening, I was finally getting excited about the characters and intrigues.
The game delivers some shrewd plot twists. Several times, when I expected it to take a left, it instead feinted right, then jumped up and dug straight downward into layers I wasn't expecting. The long "fighting arena" sequence features several interesting variations on what could have been a rote exercise.
Unfortunately, that sequence also puts a spotlight on the biggest flaw of the game: Very Long Load Times. When you travel from one large map to another, long load times are reasonable -- you catch your breath, get a beer, then sit down for a long session of exploring. But when the game consists mainly of talking, then fighting, then talking again, load times can destroy the pacing and excitement. That you're shifting between fairly small environments makes the problem especially baffling.
In fact, the game seems to go out of it's way to kill its own momentum. In addition to the load times, the dialogue tends to be overwritten by half, most fights are preceded by an establishing cutscene or dialogue, and several quests and situations (like the entire 2nd chapter?) seem designed mainly to slow you down en route to the interesting stuff.
Jade Empire gets especially interesting in the 2nd half, but then makes the (all too common) mistake of ending some time after it peaks. The very best sequence takes place in a broken down monastery -- beautiful and authentic, full of interesting things to do, with a tremendous sense of history and destiny. But game designers seem to have a hard time following the "leave them wanting more" rule. They build to a great finale and then either destroy the momentum with a brutally hard boss fight, or they can't resist just one more plot twist that drains the life from the whole enterprise. Ultimately you're left wanting less.
Jade Empire is a decent game that rewards patience. If you're inclined to sink 50-60 hours on a single game, you could do a whole lot worse.
RetroGen: January 9, 2005
What's going on?
Adjusting to the house, the camera, and existence in general.
May 9, 2005
Social Security
Nice column by Paul Krugman today. Registration is required, so I'll just point to the part that made me whoop.
...let me deal with a fundamental misconception: the idea that President Bush's plan would somehow protect future Social Security benefits.
If the plan really would do that, it would be worth discussing. It's possible - not certain, but possible - that 40 or 50 years from now Social Security won't have enough money coming in to pay full benefits. (If the economy grows as fast over the next 50 years as it did over the past half-century, Social Security will do just fine.) So there's a case for making small sacrifices now to avoid bigger sacrifices later.
But Mr. Bush isn't calling for small sacrifices now. Instead, he's calling for zero sacrifice now, but big benefit cuts decades from now - which is exactly what he says will happen if we do nothing. Let me repeat that: to avert the danger of future cuts in benefits, Mr. Bush wants us to commit now to, um, future cuts in benefits.
This accomplishes nothing, except, possibly, to ensure that benefit cuts take place even if they aren't necessary.
The refrain from the folks pushing private/personal accounts tends to be "have you got a better plan"?
My answer to that is: Yes, let's wait until the party in power is the one that actually likes Social Security. We're not in a situation of "it ain't broke, don't fix it". But we are in a position to say "It's working well enough; keep Crazy Joe and his hammer away from it before the repairman gets here."
May 10, 2005
Film Festival at Sea
Has anyone ever known anyone who's been to the Ebert & Roeper Film Festival at Sea?
Every year, one of the Disney cruises hosts these two for four days. As a longtime fan of Roger Ebert (I should probably justify that opinion, but I don't think I'll bother at the moment), I've thought this would be fun. And there's no telling how long he's gonna be around, since his health has seemed shaky in recent years.
RetroGen: January 8, 2005
In which Gen receives a Name, and Loses a Hospital Support Staff
Gen got her name in the last hours of our hospital stay. We had been through the baby naming books over and over, and the mild-mannered name registrar kept visiting our room to ask if we'd come up with something.
Finally at 5am on check-out day, we went over the list again and started knocking names out. Goodbye Rosalind! So long Vanya! As much as we love the name Jasper, we decided to hedge our bets and make it the middle name, and give longtime favorite Genevieve top billing. (Incidentally, I've tried to figure out if there are other female Jaspers in the world, but it's hard to Google that kind of thing. I did find a couple on IMDB though, mainly because it's the only place I know that specifies gender.)
Check out time: Livia was rolled downstairs by an orderly while I wrangled luggage and fetched the car. It was pouring outside and the hospital staff gave us looks of polite forbearance as they helped us get everything into the car. We're about to roll away from the curb when I paused to take that shot of Livia, and the poor name registrar appeared and rapped on the window, holding a folder over his head to protect himself from the rain. Heh, oops, we forgot about him. We let him lean in and finish the paperwork, then we drove back home with Genevieve Jasper Knight.
May 11, 2005
Comments?
Since I'm making this page from scratch and I don't know how to make a comment system yet, the communication is sadly one-way. But if you've got something to say, drop me a line and I'll find some way to include, link, or follow up the old post with the comments.
May 19, 2005
Jobless Claims Fell Sharply Last Week
Well, at least they did in this house. Livia's got contract work for Telltale Games and I started at Stormfront on Monday. That would explain the lack of work on the site -- we're busy as "all get out". (What does that mean, even?)
"What's your Game? I can't tell ya. Awwwww...."
All apologies to Warren Zevon, but my project is still secret. I've tried to get an ETA for an announcement, but even that is a mystery. Suffice it to say, it's pretty darned exciting. I'll tell you more as soon as I can.
May 20, 2005
Jerry Springer on Air America
So Jerry Springer is back on the radio, on lefty Air America. During the heyday of his TV show (which apparently is still going on, but without the violence), I just figured he was another self-aggrandizing pig, catering to trailer-trash culture. So it was dismaying to hear that he was being invited on to Air America. I mean, they're trying to be rowdy and full of spice, but is it too much to ask that they hold to some standards?
Well... it turns out his show is pretty good.
I was expecting gasbag demagoguery, but we get, instead, reasoned discussion and insider knowledge (he was Mayor of Cincinnati some time ago, and ran for Governor of Ohio). He adopts a measured tone, casually refutes the easy biases of his callers and acts more like a professor of politics than a ranting radio talk show host.
Honestly, I'm not sure if this forgives him. He's obviously a talented host and very listenable, but I don't think it does the left any favors to associate with an icon of sleaze TV. (Assuming that it matters at all. The fact that Fox runs it's defender-of-decency News channel and some of the sleaziest shows on television doesn't appear to bug anyone.)
Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith
I heard the crowds were pretty small, so I took a very long lunch to see it with Livia today.
I'm not patient enough to write a long non-spoiler review, so I'll just say it was pretty good, with one truly iconic moment worthy of anything else in the Star Wars films. I still get goose bumps thinking about it...
OK, that's that. Here's the SPOILER REVIEW.
But one point I can make here: Lucas has described his films (and defended his choices) in several ways over the years. He says they're inspired by Saturday afternoon serials, especially when he wants to defend some shallow dialogue or cheesy moments. He refers to some scenes and characters as an homage to great film directors of the past. He says they're an evocation of the hero myth as described by Joseph Campbell. He describes the series as a moral fable surrounding the descent and redemption of one man, and a political parable about the descent of democracy into totalitarianism. He even referred to Episode 1 as a "essentially a silent movie"(?)
Now, I think it's possible to do all this stuff in one film, and it was called A New Hope. But it seems that Lucas approached that film with a desire to create art, to balance the tightrope between all these goals, several of which could easily come into conflict.
With the prequels, Lucas seems to think his responsibility is to himself, not his art, or his audience. It's his saga, and he can do what he wants, and all those conflicting goals don't have to mesh comfortably anymore. He's just screwing around, using the movies as a showcase for technology, pet ideas, and trite political discourse, with homages jammed in where they don't belong.
An example of this is a scene in Episode 3 where Yoda slowly swishes his hand over his scalp. It's a quizzical sequence, but I think I know what Lucas is quoting from here: A main character in The Seven Samurai shaves his head early on to masquerade as a priest, and for the rest of the movie rubs his stubble while he ponders events. Most in the audience don't know this; they just know that Yoda lets one scene linger too long by inexplicably checking his comb-over.
This is what you expect of a student filmmaker who can't help but include every random, clever impulse in his films. Lucas should be way beyond that lack of discipline. He's been too self-supporting for too long; he seems to have forgotten that the show's the thing, not the showman.
May 22, 2005
When talking points collide
A commonly heard talking point about the small number of judicial nominees that the Democrats have filibustered is that Congress has no constitutional basis for blocking judicial nominations; they're the president's prerogative, the senate merely provides "advice and consent".
Meanwhile, an AP poll says that 75% of Americans want Congress to aggressively examine judicial nominations, not just accepting the choices of the president.
Well, it's a fair bet that the furor over gay marriage, Terry Schiavo, and "activist judges" has something to do with these poll results. How ironic is it that last month's talking point has come back to haunt this month's talking point?
May 26, 2005
Superbaby!
One of Gen's favorite new tricks. We hold her up and she just hangs out up there, limbs akimbo.
Don't try this at home!
May 28, 2005
If someone sees Star Wars without paying for it, then the terrorists have already won
One of those things that makes you go "Huh?"
The federal government doesn't mind if the Force is with you, but it does have a problem if you have a copy of the newest "Star Wars" movie.
Agents shut down a popular Web site that allegedly had been distributing copyrighted music and movies, including versions of "Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith." Homeland Security agents from several divisions served search warrants on 10 people around the country suspected of being involved with the Elite Torrents site, and took over the group's main server.
The agency said it was the first criminal enforcement action aimed at copyright infringers who use the popular BitTorrent file-swapping technology.
I can only assume the FBI is giving the HSD some punks to practice on during the lean times. Gotta keep those skills up!