Blackmoor Vituperative

“School choice” is to education what “right to work” is to worker rights. The powerful get more power, at the expense of everyone else.

If one were cynical, one might even think that was the goal.

“Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack” (2001) is a strange movie. Like all of the Godzilla reboots up to that point, it’s a direct sequel to the original Godzilla, ignoring everything in between. However, it goes in some new directions for a Godzilla movie.

First of all, Godzilla’s look is different, in one small but very visible way: he has solid white zombie eyes. In previous Godzilla movies, Godzilla’s eyes always looked like, well, eyes. Giving Godzilla solid white eyes makes it clear that this is a monster, not a defender of the Earth.

Godzilla has gone back and forth from being a villain or a hero, and in this one he’s the villain. That by itself is not strange. What is strange is that King Ghidorah is the hero of this movie (with some help from a sacrifice play by Mothra). Making Ghidorah (formerly “the space monster”) into a defender of the Earth is a 180 degree about-face.

Thirdly, prior to the power-up of Ghidorah into King Ghidorah, none of the three monsters facing up against Godzilla are as large or as powerful as Godzilla. They are at best about three-quarters of Godzilla’s size. That’s different. In the only previous movie where Godzilla fought smaller monsters, it was a swarm of them, and they eventually merged into a giant monster as big or bigger than Godzilla.

And the ending is the most bizarre of any Godzilla movie ever made, in my opinion.

It’s a good movie, though. I enjoyed it, anyway.

I recently posted the following question/comment to both a Facebook RPG group and a Google+ RPG group, to see if there would be any substantial difference in the quantity and quality of the resulting conversation. This was not a “troll” post, in so far as 1) the post accurately described my opinion, and 2) I was careful not to denigrate the games or the people who wrote them (in fact, I complimented the games, and those compliments are sincere). However, I did choose this topic because I hoped that it would spark a conversation, and I did deliberately phrase my initial post in a manner intended to elicit a polarized response. So take that for what it’s worth.

So… transhumanist games. On the one hand, Eclipse Phase and Nova Praxis look like well-made games with interesting settings. The skill and the creativity of the authors are admirable. On the other hand, a core premise of these games is that people will willingly — even routinely — commit suicide in the process of having some sort of copy of themselves made. I just can’t fathom any sane person ever doing that.

Even if you could have a duplicate of yourself made, why would the real you bother killing yourself? I can’t think of anyone other than a “suicide bomber” — someone willing to die for a cause — who would be willing to undertake such a thing. It’s madness. The closest comparison I can think of is Paranoia, but as crazy as Paranoia is, it doesn’t feature people routinely dying on purpose in order to activate their next clone.

As the conversations progressed, I kept my contributions to each conversation as similar as possible, in order to keep the experiment as unbiased as possible.

The Google+ post received 10 responses (excluding mine), from 4 people. The first response began with the sentence, “This is a lack of imagination on your part.” That generally sums up the tone of the responses on Google+: adversarial, and not focused on gaming at all.

The Facebook post received 41 responses (excluding mine), from 16 people. The first response began with the sentence, “People aren’t always logical.” This generally sums up the tone of the responses on Facebook: conversational, and focused on the characters in the setting. The Facebook conversation also branched out into the themes and genres of the games I referred to in my initial post, particularly Eclipse Phase, which I was reminded was a horror game.

Draw your own conclusions.

P.S. As a result of the conversation on Facebook, my own attitude toward playing these “transhumanist” games (particularly Eclipse Phase) has definitely changed. I can see myself actually playing in them now.

Susan and I just watched Django Unchained. Wow. This is officially my favorite Quentin Tarentino movie, and it makes me want to go back and re-watch a bunch of my favorite spaghetti westerns.

Grudges are a waste of time. They accomplish nothing and only make you unhappy. So don’t hold grudges — especially against yourself.

A random bit, just for fun. This is an Advantage, which are small not-quite-powers that characters can have:

Headquarters

The character has one or more bases of operation, equipped with supplies and equipment reasonable for the character’s background and skills. If the character is a member of a team, the base(s) might be shared with the other team members, at the player’s discretion. A headquarters is primarily a convenience for the GM and a fun asset for the character. It is not generally useful in combat, and is mainly used for flavor and a setting for roleplaying. For example, a high-tech base might have an air-tight security system, complete with laser turrets and knockout gas, but this won’t keep the base from being broken into by villains or taken over by an evil computer virus.

My black Swingline stapler broke a week ago, and I finally got around to buying a new one today. When I got home and was looking at the packaging, I noticed that it had a limited lifetime warranty. Wondering if my old stapler was also under warranty, I called the 800 number on the package.

After navigating through the menu, I finally reached a human being: a young woman, judging by her voice.

“ACCO Brands customer service. How may I help you?”

“Hi. I have a Swingline stapler, and it broke, and I was wondering if it was covered under warranty.”

“What is the model of the stapler?”

“It says Model 646 on the bottom.”

“And how long have you owned the stapler?”

“About fifteen years.”

… pause …

“Are you serious?”

“Yes, I am being serious.”

… pause …

“Okay… I think the warranty on that is one year, but let me check… Ah. That has a lifetime warranty. We will send you a new stapler. May I have your address?”

So I gave her my address, and she said the stapler should arrive in seven to ten days.

Now that’s a warranty.

Rested for a while, and I’m feeling marginally better. Stomach is still uneasy, but perhaps it will settle down. Wondering whether eating something would be a good idea or a bad idea. Today was almost a total loss. Aside from a fifteen-minute bit of philosophizing around lunchtime, I don’t think I accomplished a single useful thing today. Which is bad. And I seriously doubt I will rectify the situation this evening. Still so nauseous…

But tomorrow is a new day! I’ll get an early start, tackle a project that I have been banging my head on for much too long, finish it, and start the weekend knowing that I have accomplished something!

In honor of my upset stomach, queasiness, and general malaise, I bring you “I’m so sick”.

I’m So Sick from BaronSoosdon on Vimeo.

I am going to post a photo of a coffee mug every day in August, and talk a little bit about where we got it and why I like it.

This is a very large Star Wars mug, given to me by my mother for Christmas last year. I am and always have been a huge Star Wars nerd. I saw Star Wars (not “Episode 4”, not “A New Hope” — that crap came much later) when it opened, and over a dozen times more before I was 11.

As it happened, Susan and I watched the Phantom Menace this afternoon. First we watched the Red Letter Media review, which is both hilarious and insightful. Then we watched Hitler’s reaction to the Phantom Menace, which is, surprisingly, also hilarious and insightful.

In a strange bit of synchronicity, we had Black Swan (another Natalie Portman movie) on Netflix sitting here, so we watched that afterward. Strange film. It reminded me of American Psycho — what is real, and what is in the main character’s imagination? I won’t give anything away, but I will say that Black Swan is slightly less surreal than American Psycho.

I took a brief break from my awesome (but slightly behind schedule) project this morning, and had a conversation about the Kentucky Fried Chicken “Double Down“.

Me: I still say the Double Down is not a new thing. It’s just two perfectly ordinary things eaten simultaneously rather than sequentially. It’s as original and innovative as eating french fries two at a time.

At which point I wondered: Why do I feel the need to mock something someone else likes? Why do I even care? When did I became so negative? Was I always like this? And the thing is, I think I was. I recall thinking this exact thing before: that I don’t want to be bitter. I have resolved to be more upbeat.. how many times?

It would be easy to blame the rest of humanity. There’s no shortage of people who are vapid, grasping, immoral, or irrational (or all four — but I’m not naming names). There’s plenty of ammunition for someone looking to complain.

But complaining about stupidity and evil certainly doesn’t make me any happier. And it doesn’t accomplish much. Complaining about other people’s irrational beliefs is as likely to change their opinion as complaining about other people’s driving is likely to get them to use their turn signals. Sure, it’s fun to read about clowns mocking racists, but there are beliefs every bit as irrational and reprehensible as racism that are far more common, but mock those and you’ll have family members and treasured friends un-friending you on Facebook. So what’s the point? You can’t change anything. It’s like trying to convince the winter to turn to spring. If it happens, arguing and complaining won’t make it happen any faster: it just makes the winter less pleasant while you wait.

And hell, I belief all sorts of nutty things. Who am I to judge?

When I was younger, being cynical made me feel hip and edgy. Now it just makes me feel old. But it’s a hard habit to break.