kismetism

Look here, Nintendo. As a reasonably hardcore gamer who has enjoyed every (non-handheld) console Zelda game released in the N64 era and beyond (okay, that’s not that many…), I was prepared to endure just about any heinous mechanic you wanted to throw at me, because I’m a fan and fans do stupid things for the games they love.

And I forgave you for turning me into a rolly-polly goron (and other equally awkward things) in Majora’s Mask. And for forcing me to sail the seas for interminable lengths of time to get from place to place in Wind Waker. And for making me do this really tiresome nunchuk-wiimote-shakey-thing whenever I apparently fail to disguise my incoming strike at Ghirahim. And for the intense growling frustration I feel when I fail to shake it enough (because my wrists are tired, omg) and he whacks me into next Saturday.

But this explore-an-area-you’ve-explored-before-already-and-collect-three-thousand-little-things-to-get-this-one-little-part-and-not-even-the-whole-thing shit HAS GOT TO STOP.

Seriously? The “Silent Realm” gimmick was kinda cool the first time, like some kind of weird Pac Man parody. But I was really disappointed to enter the second Silent Realm to find out it was exactly the same — couldn’t you have given me a variation at least? Mind you, this isn’t just the voice of someone complaining because I found it difficult… I managed to get through the first two Silent Realms in a single attempt, and the third one in two (and the second one took two because I naively thought that Nintendo could not be cruel enough to hide tears on the mountainside — har har). I just found it incredibly annoying.

Trekking around in areas you’ve already explored, even with weird artsy effects applied, is not fun. Collecting pieces on a timer is not fun, and definitely not if it’s the fifth time you’ve been asked to do it. I know you guys must have gotten feedback from Twilight Princess that said this was okay and hey, guess what, in Twilight Princess… it was! Because there was NO TIME LIMIT and you were only asked to do it three times. And when you were collecting these things, you were making something that would help dispel the twilight (read: turn you back into a human) right there and then, it wasn’t just some subquest of a subquest, like ALL of these have been.

Now I’m being asked to collected TADTONES????????? Not just like fifteen of them either, but … jeez, I can’t even count that high. AND AND … you don’t even have the decency to give me the ability to douse for them until I’ve already found half of them! And I have to do the whole thing underwater, which has harder maneuverability AND I HAVE TO FIND AIR BUBBLES FOR BREATHING:LKJR#:UJ${#)UJIRESFKMC

I’ll still finish the game, there’s nothing that’ll keep me from doing that. Just wanted to vent about how very tired I am of picking up the pieces. Sigh.

In other news, I am beyond annoyed by the recent Google Talk / AIM integration. My contacts list is already a suffocating morass into which I dare not venture, and now it’s populated with a gazillion AIM/AOL contacts too.

And now people who only knew me through AIM will not be able to see me anymore, without going through and adding my Gmail address. Granted there aren’t a lot of those left, but it’s a little sad to have to give that up.

I’ve been using Gmail’s janky chat client exclusively for years now and it’s only just been barely adequate. With this last change, I’m pretty much at the breaking point. It’s pretty stupid that I can consolidate people into a single contact in the Contacts book (or whatever you want to call it), but then these people don’t show up as a single contact in the chat list. So I have multiple entries for quite a few people… many with two, as many as three or four for others.

I want to get a “real” AIM/Jabber/whatever all-in-one client, but I am super reluctant to give up my convenient Gmail logging-of-everything and I’m not really sure if I can keep that without using one of Google’s clients.

A pointed example of uber convenience trumping quality. Arrggghhh.

After two (and a half) weeks of working, I’ve deduced that there aren’t a whole lot of things to dislike about my new job. The people are intelligent, the company culture is overwhelmingly fitting, and there’s food and dogs everywhere. Though my own workload has mostly been about generating content thus far, I usually encounter something on a regular basis that is mentally stimulating about the field, so I’m not too discontent there either.

In fact, the only thing I really dislike is the commute. And I have tried just about every combination of getting to work that there is: driving vs BART + MUNI and/or company shuttle. Going home, the best way is absolutely to drive, since I don’t leave until after dinner and all the traffic has cleared out by then. It actually only takes forty minutes to get all the way back.

But going TO work in the morning? It sucks no matter what mode of transportation I take. Driving means enduring 580’s stop-and-go, a super clog on the bridge, and hunting for parking. BART is faster, but it’s more expensive than driving (since you only pay one way when driving across the bridge) and the company shuttle is always packed to the gills. Plus it means on the way home, I get an extra 20m tacked onto my commute because the return shuttle is perfectly timed to miss a Dublin/Pleasanton train, so I’m always waiting the full duration for the next one.

Also I don’t really like having to watch the clock for going home at night. Bleh.

Maybe when my standing in the company is less super noob, I can be lazy like Quad and show up after morning meetings (i.e. at friggin’ 10:30a or 11:00a)… but honestly, I kind of like being there early enough to make those. >_>

The one thing I really hate about the “new web” (or web 2.0 or video generation or whatever the hell term you prefer)…

The proliferation of video tutorials over text.

It’s a steadily increasing irritation… that I’ll go to a website for a service of some sort, expecting to look up something technical, and instead I encounter an abstract listing of topics and a video for each one that guides the user through using a particular feature.

EVERY time I see this, I want to scream. (Not to mention, immediately turn away to find another source.) I do not want to sit through your ten minute video, waiting to hear about the tiny snippet of information that I am interested in which, let’s face it, is probably too advanced or irrelevant to be part of your newbie guide video anyway.

I am sure there are plenty of people out there who are benefiting from these videos, especially if they are really so new to the service that they absolutely need a visual guide to help them understand every aspect. But cynically I believe that tutorial videos are a symptom of the bigger problem, that people’s ability to communicate clearly through written text is deteriorating.

For some types of people, I am sure that it is less effort to film a short video of the usage of a feature than it is to write several clear paragraphs about it. And for similar people, it is less effort to watch a video than it is to parse text.

So I’ve been observing the latest trends in Facebook game viral techniques, where now you have these wall posts in which players need x people to click on the link to help unlock an area or to build a structure.

I’m not really sure what to feel about all this move away from the single player experience in which you can buy virtual allies to a more multiplayer experience in which you need real friends to progress. Naturally I’m feeling somewhat vindicated because my thesis was, of course, all about more meaningful multiplayer gameplay and how current Facebook games fail at this because you don’t actually need other people to progress.

However, this isn’t exactly what I had in mind. It’s like the devs and I both looked at WoW, right? And I wanted to grab the positive experiences and figure out how to incorporate those. And they wanted to take the ANNOYING aspects and incorporate those, especially because they already fit in so nicely along with all their other quasi-evil viral marketing methods.

Sigh.

BRANDON. YOU DIDN’T SHOW.

;x

So more badminton anecdotes for you, since I’m doing such a good job failing to write about anything these days. You know that lady I ranted about some time ago who plays badminton at the same place as us. Well I’m not totally over that dislike, but she was doing a pretty good job of not inspiring it since I got back… until today. When she and her partner played two matches against my dad and I (1-1) and we were lined up for a third when a court opened and her son and his friend went to it.

There were no other people lined up to play on the court (people often avoid the younger players.. because… well, they suck >_> ) and my dad spent a short while calling for other players to take up those two positions rather than having the two kids rally by themselves.

So with no other people, my dad was like, fine, let’s go. Because he’s more interested in just playing (and in me getting exercise >_> ) than anything else. So we went and played with them… and they wanted to play together, so it was me+dad vs them. ::lol::

We went easy on them and my dad was, as usual, kind enough to give them good shots that would stretch their abilities while not being too difficult. (I gave a pointer about returning serves to the left-handed kid, too. :X )

After a full game, my dad went to put his cards down for a new match and the lady (whose son we were just playing with) had the nerve to get mad and scold him for disrupting our planned match-up. I nearly choked on my own fury. We were playing with HER son! How can she get angry at us for doing something for her OWN KID.

ARGRRGLKHGKHLFEKJRLQ. Horrible mother is horrible.

It’s been a while since I publicly vented about something so personal (i.e. a public “flogging” of a person I care about), but I’m really struggling with this. So, time to get it all out… in the only way I know how.

My mother is becoming intolerable.

She was hospitalized a while ago, can’t remember how long exactly. Since I wasn’t in town when it happened, I’ve little to no details as to the cause, though it seems like she was diagnosed with diabetes and given meds, a test kit, etc. Since then, she’s gone on a major health kick… totally changed her diet and started taking up walking (the dog) and now she gloats about how she’s gotten so much better that she doesn’t even need her medication anymore.

(and no, of course that’s not a doctor-provided diagnosis.)

This is all really great, of course, and I wouldn’t complain if it weren’t for the fact that her zealotry has now targeted me. She’s never been quiet about her opinions regarding my weight and body; I can’t even recall what it was like before she decided that I would look “so beautiful, if (you) could drop 10 pounds”. It’s become her mantra, regardless of what I actually weigh (and I would know, because I have Wii Fit and I know how much I weigh at all times now) … I have absolutely fluctuated in a range of nearly 30 lbs, but it’s always “lose 10 more”.

It’s never been so bad as it is now; I don’t think she’s said anything but criticisms or orders regarding my weight, my diet, my clothes since I got back last Thursday. Anything from dictating what I eat at lunch (“salads only!”) to saying I can’t drink water with my meals. And my clothes! She can’t stop going on about my clothes and how I am not fit to judge whether or not I can wear this item or that. She complains about how she has to take it upon herself to buy me clothing because I don’t have a clue what I look good in.

(since when do I give a damn anyway?)

Less than an hour ago, she came into my room again to harp on me. She goes on to say that she has a “sixth sense” about these things and that at my graduation, when my thesis chair pointedly crept up to us in order to snag an introduction… she claimed that he took one look at them (my parents) and then gave me a once-over from head to toe. And she said that she knew he was thinking, “how did parents like this produce such a fat girl?”

… Are you %*#$ing kidding me?

Because my self-image isn’t already suffering enough from her constant declarations of my being overweight, now she has to slander my chair advisor who has been nothing but supportive of me and my work all year?

This was amazingly hurtful and, totally stunned, I lashed back, saying that I refuse to listen to her when she was saying such things that had no basis in reality. She screamed back that she was the only one who would ever tell me the truth about these things and stormed out in a huff, claiming I’ll never get a job “looking like this”.

Yeah, Mom, you know… I believe in a sixth sense too. It’s called empathy, and I’m starting to think that you don’t appear to have a shred of it. I’m sorry I’m such a disappointment to you, for not being enough like a girl… for being overweight… for not having any sort of fashion sense… but do you really have to twist the knife like that?

…

… Okay, I guess that’s it. ::spent::

Soooo, I have seriously lost nearly all faith in internet commerce, especially on craigslist. I’m sure it’s still a wonderful service for some things, but as far as housing is concerned… it’s just painful.

It’s probably partially my fault for being attracted to entries that have low rates, but still. One particularly elegant scam involves filling out an application, which in itself does not require any overly personal information, but then asks that you send a credit report which you can obtain for free at such-and-such website.

The site itself is actually really credible looking, but despite its claims of “free!”, it asks for your credit card info and your SSN. Yeah, right. I balked and immediately turned away.

Just now I received a response from another inquiry I made, where they list the address of the apartment so I can “drive by and look at the neighborhood”… and it’s actually the same freaking address provided to me by another scammer. If I didn’t think something was suspicious before, I certainly do now.

I do have a couple credible leads and an appointment to see a place tomorrow. This seems to be the only way to hound out the “real” offers… taking the communication straight to face-to-face as soon as possible. And picking out unique details in the original posting doesn’t hurt either.

Siiiiiggggghhhh.

I’ve used Craigslist in the past to mostly good ends… finding housing, buying a cheap GDC pass, selling an SC2 beta key…

… Been posting to it recently to try and find month-to-month housing starting from the fall and it’s turning out to be a really ugly process. Out of maybe five or six inquiries, at least two of them (didn’t follow up on all of them) have been scams.

The most annoying thing is that I can’t do anything about it, since I posted to Craigslist and these people are just responding to my ad… so they don’t have a craigslist account to report or anything.

Arrrrrrggghhhhhh.

(This seems like a topic that should be addressed in TIC too. >_> )