At dinner tonight, I was elected to be the official “reviewer” for tonight’s evening show, The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs. Not because I’m a terribly witty and insightful writer, but because I am the only one with a space to put it in. Not a very flattering assessment in the end, but I’ll concede to “write the review” not because they’re making me, but because… shit, it was really damn amazing! However, it’s going to be relatively short (at least, in comparison to the things I could say and definitely feel) and absolutely not synopsized. Mike Daisey’s remarkable performance is really very well covered by far more qualified entertainment critics, so I don’t have much to add there anyway. Instead, I will offer something personal. The really short version is that it was a very powerful performance, aimed at probably almost exactly our generation of consumers. Daisey’s stage presence and characterization is totally riveting and it’s really difficult not to be swayed by his persuasive passion. I was originally attracted to attend because of the play’s title, The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs. What flair, what verve! More importantly, it almost perfectly describes my personal relationship with Apple’s products and, yes, their users. It’s well known that I am not really an Apple fan. I have an iPod Shuffle, but that’s the extent of my Apple product exposure. Yet I cannot deny (or even want to) the fact that Apple is revolutionizing our daily technology usage, so I was very much interested in this monologue which sounded like a sociological review of technology’s affect on humanity. It wasn’t until a later that I heard that Daisey had An Agenda to go along with it, and that made me a little unhappy. For the same reason I often avoid documentaries: I prefer to not learn of the “true horror” of some subjects, because I’m of the opinion that neither I nor the cause will really benefit from my full exposure. The actual performance was a well-balanced blending of the two topics, which pleased me immensely and made the soapboxing more palatable. Furthermore, Daisey doesn’t just “lecture” about how we’re all supporting an ecology that subsists on subhuman labor conditions. It’s not a guilt trip; it’s his obsession, his revelation, his disillusionment. The fact that he’s able to provide so many anecdotes and insights into Apple geekdom endears him and his journey to us. It moves us plainspoken mortals who are just too caught up in our own little handheld-device-powered bubbles to investigate what’s going on half a world away. So it is with some amount of shame and frustration that, even after seeing that terribly wonderful performance and not regretting a penny of it, I’m unable to commit myself to a course that will actively work to reverse the conditions that our technology consumption has propogated. I was moved, it’s true, to a greater extent than I believed myself capable. I won’t be able to look at my electronics in entirely the same way again, even after time has slowly chipped away at my memory. But my world has not crumbled to the degree that I must turn it upside down to recognize it and restore my sanity. My guilt over having observed this of myself has been somewhat bruising. But I realize that all I can do is hope and pray that Daisey is reaching and moving someone more than myself, someone who will want to take his crusade and make it their own. Please, oh please, I really hope he finds that someone. I hope he finds a lot of someones.

At dinner tonight, I was elected to be the official “reviewer” for tonight’s evening show, The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs. Not because I’m a terribly witty and insightful writer, but because I am the only one with a space to put it in.

Not a very flattering assessment in the end, but I’ll concede to “write the review” not because they’re making me, but because… shit, it was really damn amazing! However, it’s going to be relatively short (at least, in comparison to the things I could say and definitely feel) and absolutely not synopsized. Mike Daisey’s remarkable performance is really very well covered by far more qualified entertainment critics, so I don’t have much to add there anyway.

Instead, I will offer something personal.

The really short version is that it was a very powerful performance, aimed at probably almost exactly our generation of consumers. Daisey’s stage presence and characterization is totally riveting and it’s really difficult not to be swayed by his persuasive passion.

I was originally attracted to attend because of the play’s title, The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs. What flair, what verve! More importantly, it almost perfectly describes my personal relationship with Apple’s products and, yes, their users. It’s well known that I am not really an Apple fan. I have an iPod Shuffle, but that’s the extent of my Apple product exposure. Yet I cannot deny (or even want to) the fact that Apple is revolutionizing our daily technology usage, so I was very much interested in this monologue which sounded like a sociological review of technology’s affect on humanity.

It wasn’t until a later that I heard that Daisey had An Agenda to go along with it, and that made me a little unhappy. For the same reason I often avoid documentaries: I prefer to not learn of the “true horror” of some subjects, because I’m of the opinion that neither I nor the cause will really benefit from my full exposure.

The actual performance was a well-balanced blending of the two topics, which pleased me immensely and made the soapboxing more palatable. Furthermore, Daisey doesn’t just “lecture” about how we’re all supporting an ecology that subsists on subhuman labor conditions. It’s not a guilt trip; it’s his obsession, his revelation, his disillusionment. The fact that he’s able to provide so many anecdotes and insights into Apple geekdom endears him and his journey to us. It moves us plainspoken mortals who are just too caught up in our own little handheld-device-powered bubbles to investigate what’s going on half a world away.

So it is with some amount of shame and frustration that, even after seeing that terribly wonderful performance and not regretting a penny of it, I’m unable to commit myself to a course that will actively work to reverse the conditions that our technology consumption has propogated. I was moved, it’s true, to a greater extent than I believed myself capable. I won’t be able to look at my electronics in entirely the same way again, even after time has slowly chipped away at my memory. But my world has not crumbled to the degree that I must turn it upside down to recognize it and restore my sanity.

My guilt over having observed this of myself has been somewhat bruising. But I realize that all I can do is hope and pray that Daisey is reaching and moving someone more than myself, someone who will want to take his crusade and make it their own.

Please, oh please, I really hope he finds that someone. I hope he finds a lot of someones.


#review #musing #apple

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It Girl

It’s almost against my will that I write a review of this game. But it has provoked a fair amount of emotion in me, good and bad, so I think it should be a fruitful exercise in the end.

Games that are so singularly female-oriented usually make me cringe away, so when I first heard of It Girl, I didn’t pay much attention. But it kept coming up and “as a designer”, it became too hard to avoid if only for the sake of understanding why it’s been getting so much press. So I started playing it and… well, I was almost immediately hooked.

Let’s step back a bit: this game is about shopping. Clothes shopping, specifically, which is an activity that I really cannot stand in real life to any degree. So I was really taken aback by how entertaining it was, even for me. How is this possible?

Because the game gives you all the perks of intense clothes shopping without any of the downsides.

I mean, really, why do people enjoy shopping in general? The acquisition of new material goods is a base instinct that humans have never been able to fully escape and women tend to be even worse if the items will help satisfy their vanity. But the act of shopping requires getting out of the house, treasure hunting through multiple stores and clothing racks, to only find a couple items that really appeal. Then you have to wait in some kind of obnoxious line to check out. Even going through the ritual of hauling pieces to the fitting rooms grows tiresome after a while.

It Girl takes out all the physical travel and time and lets people build up their clothing collections without wearing their shoe soles out. Searching, trying, and buying are all just clicks away, and somehow the satisfaction that you’re getting-cool-clothes is not diminished. There is still an energy component, but it’s obviously no comparison to really trudging out and getting things done.

I don’t tend to care about what clothes I wear, as long as they’re clean, relatively neat, and comfortable. In my opinion, looking good is usually too much labor to be worth the effort, so if my clothes end up doing that for me, it’s just a nice bonus. But It Girl lets me (well, my avatar) look cute and fashionable without any exceptional effort.

In summary, the game naturally taps into these particular base instincts (materialism, vanity) without aggravating a person’s inertia (too lazy, don’t care). It’s kind of amazing that way. :x

The game also sports a sleek design, very modern and chic. Great art, from avatar customization to a ton of carefully crafting clothing and accessories. Everything’s just visually attractive and appealing to look at.

And I appreciate the splashes of humor that I see. There are male NPC avatars that walk around and can be picked up as boyfriends, but all of them state their employment… I saw a “Social Gaming Engineer” at one point, which made me laugh, and other amusing titles. Once I was shopping and found a green and white striped scarf that was named “Evil Wizard Scarf” … later I found a “Good Wizard Scarf”, which was red and gold. ;x

It’s not all peaches and cream, of course. The Flash generally works fine, but I think there must be some sort of memory leaking problem, since the game noticeably slows to a crawl over time… and not even a very long one.

I also think its too reliant on players recruiting their friends. This is a practice that I generally refuse to get involved in and it’s resulted in me being basically stuck since certain missions or unlock-ables require you to have larger “cliques” to participate. Boyfriends also have a happiness meter that decrements faster than you can increment for free, so you have to recruit friends or pay real money in order to keep them.

Generally I’m quite impressed by this game which feels like an evolution of the basic Mafia Wars game play. Like MW, you have separate energy and confidence meters, one for PvE and the other for PvP. But unlike Mafia Wars, the dueling/PvP aspect is much better integrated into the game, making it a necessary component rather than the ignorable extra that it is in MW. But in the end, the overarching goal is still to get to a high enough level to progress into the next “district” of hot shopping opportunities.

I should note that the exact breakdown of PvP duels doesn’t totally make sense to me… again, it seems to be overwhelmingly dependent on how many friends you have, rather than anything you do in game. But you’re allowed to “inspect” potential opponents and infer from their win/loss ratio if you might stand a chance, so that’s kind of neat.

Anyway. Very solid title overall, but I’ll probably stop playing soon, due to the over-reliance on friend recruitment.


#review #social games

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I finally got around to playing, and finishing, LostWinds II… which I bought shortly after it came out and basically ignored it because I honestly wasn’t super excited about it and had other things on my mind. Then I was finally bored enough, so I pulled it up and tried it. And pretty much felt immediately guilty that I had ignored it so long, cause it’s a really solid little game. :P I’m not sure if I ever reviewed the first game, but basically the sequel is more of the same. The vast majority of puzzles are based on navigating terrain and managing door switches, but the linearity makes them fairly easy to figure out. I think, if you set me in front of this game years ago, I would have said that was a bad thing… but these days I don’t have much energy for serious brain busters, so honestly the simplicity was kind of a welcome relief. >_>; They did have a couple of standard game mechanics show up from time to time that I had mixed feelings about… the beginning where you have to stand near torches or you’ll freeze really bothered me, but shortly went away. Breath meters for when you’re underwater, a sidekick AI that sometimes suffers from the usual AI issues. They were minor niggles though and generally I was impressed by how well integrated these bits really were to the original game scheme. Plus it was just cute. (Well, except that baby head singing statue thing. That was kind of creepy. >_> ) (also, that image isn’t from the game, it’s from the official website and serves as the footer image (which is what the tan gradient is all about), but I liked it more than any other screenshot I could find, so there. :x )

I finally got around to playing, and finishing, LostWinds II… which I bought shortly after it came out and basically ignored it because I honestly wasn’t super excited about it and had other things on my mind.

Then I was finally bored enough, so I pulled it up and tried it. And pretty much felt immediately guilty that I had ignored it so long, cause it’s a really solid little game. :P

I’m not sure if I ever reviewed the first game, but basically the sequel is more of the same. The vast majority of puzzles are based on navigating terrain and managing door switches, but the linearity makes them fairly easy to figure out. I think, if you set me in front of this game years ago, I would have said that was a bad thing… but these days I don’t have much energy for serious brain busters, so honestly the simplicity was kind of a welcome relief. >_>;

They did have a couple of standard game mechanics show up from time to time that I had mixed feelings about… the beginning where you have to stand near torches or you’ll freeze really bothered me, but shortly went away. Breath meters for when you’re underwater, a sidekick AI that sometimes suffers from the usual AI issues. They were minor niggles though and generally I was impressed by how well integrated these bits really were to the original game scheme.

Plus it was just cute.

(Well, except that baby head singing statue thing. That was kind of creepy. >_> )

(also, that image isn’t from the game, it’s from the official website and serves as the footer image (which is what the tan gradient is all about), but I liked it more than any other screenshot I could find, so there. :x )


#review #game

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Tron: Legacy was deliciously liquid and slick. Perhaps it is a little sterile and cold and unfeeling, but oh… oh so shiny. Story? Um, yeah, not really. In fact, I get the feeling that they didn’t really try too hard. But it’s actually almost okay, cause everything was just so attractive to look at all the time. >__> And the reference to The Door made watching the first film all and totally worth it. ^__^ [edit] After reading like ten different critical reviews of the movie, I will basically just say this: yes, they could have tried to “fix” the nonsensicalness of the original movie and yes, they could have tried to do much more with the plot… but if it really bothers people so much that an algorithm can take human form (oops, spoiler XP), then they should just pretend that the world of Tron is just an ALTERNATE EARTH WHERE THIS KIND OF THING CAN HAPPEN. Because let’s face it, nothing in that film was technologically accurate except for Cillian Murphy’s “kill -9 pid”.

Tron: Legacy was deliciously liquid and slick. Perhaps it is a little sterile and cold and unfeeling, but oh… oh so shiny.

Story? Um, yeah, not really. In fact, I get the feeling that they didn’t really try too hard. But it’s actually almost okay, cause everything was just so attractive to look at all the time. >__>

And the reference to The Door made watching the first film all and totally worth it. ^__^

[edit] After reading like ten different critical reviews of the movie, I will basically just say this: yes, they could have tried to “fix” the nonsensicalness of the original movie and yes, they could have tried to do much more with the plot… but if it really bothers people so much that an algorithm can take human form (oops, spoiler XP), then they should just pretend that the world of Tron is just an ALTERNATE EARTH WHERE THIS KIND OF THING CAN HAPPEN.

Because let’s face it, nothing in that film was technologically accurate except for Cillian Murphy’s “kill -9 pid”.


#film #review

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Facebook games lineup

Just wanted to briefly go over some of these games that I’ve been playing and/or tried recently. I have more things to say about some of them than others, so meh. ;x

Chocobo’s Crystal Tower: a really interesting hybrid of D&D Tiny Adventures and virtual pet games. I loved this one conceptually, but Square Enix really dropped the ball on certain things. It’s incredibly buggy for one… a lot of people complain it doesn’t load at all, whereas I have just encountered a lot of slowness and everlasting loading bars. (I also bugged my brown chocobo… he can’t go to dungeons anymore. >_>; )

And besides the severe amount of technical issues, they screwed up some other more basic things… as far as I can tell, you can’t get any farther than the second dungeon without spending money, which is a huge huge HUGE HUGE mistake for microtransaction games… the rule is that you only ask people to spend money on things that will save them time or energy in the game, not totally roadblock them entirely. This decision is driving free players away and very possibly paying players too, because it happens so early.

The other big mistake is having the upgrading currency (gold/lucky feathers) also be the social currency… it results in nobody using it for the social interaction at all. Worse is that there appears to be no way to actively replenish feathers. I have noticed that my stock increases on occasion, but not by a predictable amount, nor by any discernible cause. Also bad, to have rewards without a clear trigger and no method for the player to experiment and find the trigger.

(I also found it really funny that there is chocobo breeding, but the chocobos have no genders. kek?)

Did they do ANYTHING right? Well, yeah… the dungeon aspect is pretty great and I’m definitely learning from that. And I like how they encourage people to visit other ranches… usually you will catch other ranches in a state where you can get some actual XP for helping out. And having a unique store-per-ranch is cool, so you can go around and buy discounted items from more than just your own store.

Too bad it takes so long to just LOAD the other ranch. >_> I really want to like this game, but … yeah, Square just screwed some key things up. plzfix

Knights of the Crystals: I was disappointed beyond belief that this was an xWars game. Like I basically didn’t want to play the game at all disappointed. And I really haven’t, so I’m not totally qualified to say much. It’s certainly way more functional than Square’s other game, so that’s a relief, and the art style is visually unusual and unique… so that’s a plus. And I have to admit that the chest upgrading system is a pretty intelligent way of almost guaranteeing at least one “help me” share for players to do.

And the music’s cute, very Final Fantasy. So for an xWars game, if you’re into that kind of thing (which I am abjectly not anymore), may as well give this one a try.

SimSocial: Okay, wtf. >_>

I could rant all day about the “mistakes” this game made but… as it turns out, I think a lot of them are not applicable. Because this one’s actually not a microtransactions game at all… there’s no way to spend money to get ahead. (and I’m surprised it took me this long to realize it. -_- ) Which is kind of too bad… you would think EA could figure out a way to leverage the Sims brand and actually make a good FB game out of it, especially when the Sims audience is generally considered to be more casual than your average console or PC gamer.

Still, conceptually, this game isn’t that great and while there are a number of similar elements, it doesn’t really bring over the spirit of the original Sims games very well. They also made a number of fairly lousy UI decisions. Bleh. But again, it’s not meant to make EA money… just a promotional game for Sims 3, I guess.

Warstorm: This is the best Facebook game ever. (not sarcastic; I haven’t failed to log in since I started playing it months ago) There are some really small issues, but they are very few and far between, and fairly easy to forgive considering what sort of game the studio set out to make. It’s really too bad that the game is so “niche”, as Quad puts it…

Schism: THIS GAME IS AWESOME. but there are more problems with it than Chocobo’s Crystal Tower. qq.

[edit] WHY CAN’T I SLEEP. ARGH.


#social games #review

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Day two in Hangzhou, we caught an evening show of Impression West Lake. It is, in fact, a very well documented experience according to Google… so I won’t go into too much detail about what it is and just stick to my impressions. I was more or less enthralled for the entire performance. The director, who (i guess) was also responsible for the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony celebration, made use of natural backdrops, color, sound, light and dance all to very good effect. It wasn’t perfect, but I must admit that the novelty value of people stepping and dancing “on water” almost never wore off and probably prevented me from noticing many potential flaws. The drum piece was my favorite, and the storm one just after that. (They might have been part of the same movement.) I loved the innovation in using water, sound and light in synchronization with the music and dancing. (there are videos of both… just couldn’t help myself) The dancing was toned down, but it was “good enough”, both in complexity and execution. There is only so much you can do when people are so small to the audience’s eye: really elaborate motions lose their effect at such a distance, really difficult acrobatics might be too risky on such an unconventional stage. The costume direction was thoughtfully done to make the dancers as visible as possible: big sleeves, primarily single-color robing. If I had to complain about one thing, it would probably be the lack of focus on story. I don’t watch enough live theater to really judge, but I get the feeling that the unique staging provided a large enough distraction that the story and resulting choreography suffered. The performance was based on a very famous Chinese legend, Lady White Snake, which owes its origins to Hangzhou… so it’s an appropriate choice. And while there are many variations to the story, you would think they’d keep at least some of the details intact. Not so… they basically reduced the entire thing to four overly simplistic acts: boy meets girl, girl and boy fall in love (and get married), boy and girl are separated (for totally inexplicable reasons…), boy recalls their time together and mourns. Mmmyup, that was it. Or at least as much as I could glean from it. And this is already knowing how the myth went before watching the performance. I do recognize that the lack of speaking capability might have been an intimidating factor in making the plot too complicated, but I think they were too interested in the stage setup to really explore all their options for bringing across the story, as a result. Still, generally speaking, just about everything was too pretty to look at to complain. Even if I would have preferred a variation with a happ(ier) ending. Or at least some kind of resolution. >_> Very lovely. Judicious use of technology to enhance the performance, rather than overpower it, and they didn’t forget to use traditional “low-tech” theater techniques to dazzle the audience. Hope to see more work like this in the future… it’s definitely one way in which simple video could never hope to compare. Off to Fujian tomorrow, for my last two days in China. :x

Day two in Hangzhou, we caught an evening show of Impression West Lake. It is, in fact, a very well documented experience according to Google… so I won’t go into too much detail about what it is and just stick to my impressions.

I was more or less enthralled for the entire performance. The director, who (i guess) was also responsible for the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony celebration, made use of natural backdrops, color, sound, light and dance all to very good effect. It wasn’t perfect, but I must admit that the novelty value of people stepping and dancing “on water” almost never wore off and probably prevented me from noticing many potential flaws.

The drum piece was my favorite, and the storm one just after that. (They might have been part of the same movement.) I loved the innovation in using water, sound and light in synchronization with the music and dancing. (there are videos of both… just couldn’t help myself)

The dancing was toned down, but it was “good enough”, both in complexity and execution. There is only so much you can do when people are so small to the audience’s eye: really elaborate motions lose their effect at such a distance, really difficult acrobatics might be too risky on such an unconventional stage. The costume direction was thoughtfully done to make the dancers as visible as possible: big sleeves, primarily single-color robing.

If I had to complain about one thing, it would probably be the lack of focus on story. I don’t watch enough live theater to really judge, but I get the feeling that the unique staging provided a large enough distraction that the story and resulting choreography suffered. The performance was based on a very famous Chinese legend, Lady White Snake, which owes its origins to Hangzhou… so it’s an appropriate choice. And while there are many variations to the story, you would think they’d keep at least some of the details intact. Not so… they basically reduced the entire thing to four overly simplistic acts: boy meets girl, girl and boy fall in love (and get married), boy and girl are separated (for totally inexplicable reasons…), boy recalls their time together and mourns.

Mmmyup, that was it. Or at least as much as I could glean from it. And this is already knowing how the myth went before watching the performance. I do recognize that the lack of speaking capability might have been an intimidating factor in making the plot too complicated, but I think they were too interested in the stage setup to really explore all their options for bringing across the story, as a result.

Still, generally speaking, just about everything was too pretty to look at to complain. Even if I would have preferred a variation with a happ(ier) ending. Or at least some kind of resolution. >_>

Very lovely. Judicious use of technology to enhance the performance, rather than overpower it, and they didn’t forget to use traditional “low-tech” theater techniques to dazzle the audience. Hope to see more work like this in the future… it’s definitely one way in which simple video could never hope to compare.

Off to Fujian tomorrow, for my last two days in China. :x


#travel #photography #review

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Umm, so, first impressions? This thing is pretty amazing. >_>; I’ve never used any eInk devices previous to this, so the biggest thing that is weirding me out IS the eInk itself. There’s a slightly frightening flashing that happens whenever it loads or refreshes which I usually associate with “uh-oh, graphics card is crapping out”… but is totally normal, I guess, on an eInk device. Sometimes there are also trails or residue left from a previous screen, like a recently erased etch-a-sketch which makes me uneasy. And when the device is in sleep mode, it doesn’t clear the screen at all but instead prints a stock photo (which you can’t change; WTH, Amazon? personalization much?) onto the screen and LEAVES IT THERE with a friendly reminder of how to get it out of sleep mode. Yeah, this thing is really throwing me for a loop as far as screen expectations are concerned. >_>; I’m kind of getting used to it, though, this sort-of monochrome demo iPad unit with a sticker over its face. It’s incredibly lightweight, but doesn’t feel overly fragile (though I certainly won’t be dropping or ‘tossing’ it into my bags). I admit that the large screen makes my fingers itch to interact with it, but the cursor buttons are serviceable and I do like the tactile feedback of using a physical keyboard, tiny as it is. I picked up the mid price-point model, which has the wi-fi and 3G. And this was something I grappled with for a short while, partially because I certainly had not been aware… Amazon is providing free 3G access to all Kindle owners? And the Kindle 3 has a new WebKit based browser on it? What? Are you %#$&ing kidding me? Apparently text and images are cheap, because it’s freaking true. So I obviously spent maybe the first couple of hours futzing with, of course, the experimental web browser and seeing how far I could push it. It definitely doesn’t like Facebook much and crashed a ton, despite my ability to update my status with it. But I did a little looking around and figured out the address for the mobile version of FB, which works very well. I can also access the mobile Gmail client and send e-mail and read it. And it loaded Tumblr all right, though Tumblr does NOT have a mobile web version of the Dashboard available to post from (though apparently every Tumblr log has a mobile version to view). So now I basically have free e-mail and Facebook and Wikipedia, worldwide, without a laptop. What the hell. >_>;; I did buy a book (see above!) and all the book reading stuff is pretty self-explanatory. I also checked out the mp3 player and was totally shocked by the quality of the speakers on this thing, though it’s unlikely that I will use it much for this, since it probably kills the battery life. Anyway. First impressions are fairly good! … though we have yet to see how it performs in the long run. I kind of need more books for that. ;_;

Umm, so, first impressions? This thing is pretty amazing. >_>;

I’ve never used any eInk devices previous to this, so the biggest thing that is weirding me out IS the eInk itself. There’s a slightly frightening flashing that happens whenever it loads or refreshes which I usually associate with “uh-oh, graphics card is crapping out”… but is totally normal, I guess, on an eInk device. Sometimes there are also trails or residue left from a previous screen, like a recently erased etch-a-sketch which makes me uneasy. And when the device is in sleep mode, it doesn’t clear the screen at all but instead prints a stock photo (which you can’t change; WTH, Amazon? personalization much?) onto the screen and LEAVES IT THERE with a friendly reminder of how to get it out of sleep mode.

Yeah, this thing is really throwing me for a loop as far as screen expectations are concerned. >_>;

I’m kind of getting used to it, though, this sort-of monochrome demo iPad unit with a sticker over its face. It’s incredibly lightweight, but doesn’t feel overly fragile (though I certainly won’t be dropping or ‘tossing’ it into my bags). I admit that the large screen makes my fingers itch to interact with it, but the cursor buttons are serviceable and I do like the tactile feedback of using a physical keyboard, tiny as it is.

I picked up the mid price-point model, which has the wi-fi and 3G. And this was something I grappled with for a short while, partially because I certainly had not been aware… Amazon is providing free 3G access to all Kindle owners? And the Kindle 3 has a new WebKit based browser on it? What? Are you %#$&ing kidding me?

Apparently text and images are cheap, because it’s freaking true. So I obviously spent maybe the first couple of hours futzing with, of course, the experimental web browser and seeing how far I could push it. It definitely doesn’t like Facebook much and crashed a ton, despite my ability to update my status with it. But I did a little looking around and figured out the address for the mobile version of FB, which works very well. I can also access the mobile Gmail client and send e-mail and read it. And it loaded Tumblr all right, though Tumblr does NOT have a mobile web version of the Dashboard available to post from (though apparently every Tumblr log has a mobile version to view).

So now I basically have free e-mail and Facebook and Wikipedia, worldwide, without a laptop. What the hell. >_>;;

I did buy a book (see above!) and all the book reading stuff is pretty self-explanatory. I also checked out the mp3 player and was totally shocked by the quality of the speakers on this thing, though it’s unlikely that I will use it much for this, since it probably kills the battery life.

Anyway. First impressions are fairly good! … though we have yet to see how it performs in the long run. I kind of need more books for that. ;_;


#gadgets #review

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So we watched The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. Heath Ledger’s last film, of course, which threw a wrench into the everything and they ended up getting three other big name male actors to substitute for him… I suppose that worked out, since a lot of it takes place in a dream world anyway. I quite enjoyed it! It was like a cross between MirrorMask and What Dreams May Come. That is, there were a great deal of visual themes that I recognized as being similar to MirrorMask (or even the older Labyrinth!), but the film came laden with all these themes of morality and life, death and choice. Perhaps not entirely coherently, either. So I hesitate to label it “thought-provoking”, because when I think about it now, I don’t really know what it might be trying to provoke thought about… or what it was its theory was… or … whatever. My brain mostly just feels heavy, rather than enlightened. And though I think the latter is supposed to be preferred, the former might not in itself be bad. ;x It probably has something to do with the fact that I’m not sure there was a real protagonist character, so there’s no single story to follow and moral to learn. At any rate, I also enjoyed the portrayal of the Devil in this film, as a being whose goal isn’t specifically the doom of mankind. Still not a guy you necessarily want to make an enemy of, or any bargains at all, but you can’t deny that he seems to keep his promises. Anyway, despite its quasi-schizophrenic aspects, I did enjoy it. So there. :) [edit] And here’s a link to an article, interview of Terry Gilliam (director) and Salon’s Andrew O’Hehir: The imaginarium of Terry Gilliam.

So we watched The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. Heath Ledger’s last film, of course, which threw a wrench into the everything and they ended up getting three other big name male actors to substitute for him… I suppose that worked out, since a lot of it takes place in a dream world anyway.

I quite enjoyed it! It was like a cross between MirrorMask and What Dreams May Come. That is, there were a great deal of visual themes that I recognized as being similar to MirrorMask (or even the older Labyrinth!), but the film came laden with all these themes of morality and life, death and choice. Perhaps not entirely coherently, either. So I hesitate to label it “thought-provoking”, because when I think about it now, I don’t really know what it might be trying to provoke thought about… or what it was its theory was… or … whatever.

My brain mostly just feels heavy, rather than enlightened. And though I think the latter is supposed to be preferred, the former might not in itself be bad. ;x

It probably has something to do with the fact that I’m not sure there was a real protagonist character, so there’s no single story to follow and moral to learn. At any rate, I also enjoyed the portrayal of the Devil in this film, as a being whose goal isn’t specifically the doom of mankind. Still not a guy you necessarily want to make an enemy of, or any bargains at all, but you can’t deny that he seems to keep his promises.

Anyway, despite its quasi-schizophrenic aspects, I did enjoy it. So there. :)

[edit] And here’s a link to an article, interview of Terry Gilliam (director) and Salon’s Andrew O’Hehir: The imaginarium of Terry Gilliam.


#film #review

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Inception

… was pretty goshdarnedgud! I mean, I don’t think I would go see it four times in the theater… probably not even a second time. But it was a pretty good ride overall.

I’m not sure what’s with the people who call it confusing, because most of it seemed pretty straightforward to me, up until the very end which is (of course) deliberately ambiguous. And then, you have to overlook the fact that there are a ton of things left unexplained: how, exactly, the machines let people share dreams… who gets to control what and why, etc etc. I’m still not really sure what Ariadne’s role (as the “architect”) was… she just designed the dreams at the beginning and wasn’t really necessary afterwards at all, it seemed?

And I’d have to agree that it seemed like a missed opportunity in some ways… could have pushed the dream angle way more and made things actually surreal more often. I read the wiki and one of the things mentioned was how the more unreal a dream was, the more likely it was that the dreamer would figure things out… which I think is a blatant falsehood. My dreams frequently get super unrealistic and I never think anything is weird. Then again, I’ve never personally successfully achieved lucidity in a dream, and whenever I get close, I just wake up, so meh.

As long as you willingly and politely suspend your belief in a few key things, the movie’s great. XP

In other news, omg hiking. x____x

(as well as omg ankle. -____-)


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