Well, I think it's pretty clear that the holiday season took a definite toll on my free time and my blogging. There is a big hole between right before Thanksgiving and today, but this is how it goes I guess. In any case, I figure New Year's Eve is as good a time as any to reflect on the year that's gone by and think about what's ahead.
It was definitely one of the more eventful years I've had and I'm really glad I was able to document most of it on this blog. I certainly didn't expect such an eventful year to happen 12 months ago. As much as I dislike reading myself, I am glad I've been able to keep track of a few memories along the way.
I started out the year in Honduras. Back then, I was hoping it would be at most another year before I was able to return but sadly it won't happen this time around. With any luck I'll be visiting home sometime in 2011. I miss my family and my friends and Christmas is just not the same not being home, though I can't complain about having spent Christmas with Rock and his family surrounded by yummy food, neat presents, and an intermittent day-long WoW playing session.
But, anyway, some other events: i had my septoplasty, which has been a great improvement; shortly after that, Rock and I tied the knot, assisted by Subie, and even my mom, sister, and brother were able to travel up here for it; Rock and I finally went to Disney World and had the most awesome vacation, even if he was afraid on the plane the whole time; and we rounded out the year by finally taking a big plunge and buying a house.
I guess I can't really say what 2011 will bring, but I do know this: if all goes well, we are done living in communal quarters in two weeks! No more people blasting t.v. at all hours, running up and down stairs, or bringing their loud friends over. We get a whole new list of problems but I am certainly looking forward to being a home-owner.
I'm hoping there's a trip to Honduras in there somewhere. At the least, there is a trip to Chicago for my sister's wedding. Other than that, I guess I don't know.
There is at least one new thing happening for me next year. I'll be joining this crazy crowd called Pajiba as they undergo their traditional Cannonball read. I first became aware of the site and Cannonball through my friend Figgy. She doesn't know it, but part of the inspiration for this blog came from her and her blog and reading her reviews and really liking what she did with it. Anyway, I figured since I was already having a good time reading and reviewing books, I might as well join the community that hooked me into it. I don't think this means the rate of reviews will go up, however :(
Happy New Year everyone.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
The Remains of the Day is not in my deck of cards. I picked this up because I’ve been hearing a lot about that movie Never Let Me Go, and it just sounds like such a mash-up of Gattaca and The Island that I was wondering why people keep going on about it. And from what I’ve read, it seems that the real driver in the novel is the character development and Kazuo Ishiguro’s prose (and that if that can be translated and captured onto film then the movie will be pretty solid). Now, I’m a sucker for good prose. There’s probably a fine line somewhere in my head where I prefer the way a story is told over what the actual story is or who the characters are. One of the reasons 100 Years of Solitude is my favorite book is because the prose and narrative itself is such a huge part of the novel as a whole. It makes the book fun and interesting and compelling to read. And if I look back at the list of books I’ve blogged about since I started this, the books that stick out the most to me are the ones that were told in interesting ways: All the Pretty Horses, Slaughterhouse-Five, Catch-22, A Handmaid’s Tale. So I was pretty sold on reading Ishiguro after reading so many praises regarding his prose and style. Clearly, this isn’t Never Let Me Go, because that book is all out at my local library, but damn it I was determined to read something by Ishiguro, so here we are.
The Remains of the Day is told from the first person perspective of Mr. Stevens, a butler who once served for one of the grandest houses in pre-WWII England. The story follows him on his vacation, a journey through the countryside, during which he reminisces about his past life, his accomplishments, and his relationship with Miss Kenton, who he is planning to visit at some point during his trip. I was pretty skeptical when I started the book because that is not a particularly interesting plot. But I have to say, Ishiguro writes masterful prose.
Stevens’ recollections (told in flashbacks during his road trip, as if he’s writing a letter to someone, presumably another butler) are mostly about examining his life, to assure himself that he has lived with dignity and purpose because he has served a great man. It’s a quietly sad story that Stevens is telling but he’s too damn proper to come out and say it. In fact, he’s a very unreliable narrator, but there is enough for the reader to read between the lines of the stories he is re-telling and get at the real heart of it. As his unreliable narration continues, the reader gleams that Stevens is actually doubtful, both about his purpose and the greatness of the man he served, and that’s the real tragedy of the story.
The writing is probably the most proper English I’ve ever read, and I think I said the same about Jane Eyre. But where Jane Eyre was boring me to tears (the narration was just too damn dry*), Ishiguro uses it to unfold his story, drawing you in, setting up an environment, and using it to fully describe the character of Mr. Stevens. The novel begins as a study of proper English manners and subtly transforms into a study of character, life lessons, regrets, and missed opportunities. By the time I was halfway in, I couldn’t put it down.
And the heart of the whole novel really is the prose. Ishiguro weaves in Stevens’ flashbacks, unreliability, and melancholy musings, while always maintaining an excruciatingly proper English demeanor. If this was just a story about a butler taking a road trip during which he realizes his life could have been better, it would be pretty straightforward and unremarkable. But the manner of the telling is what makes the entire story interesting and deeply affecting.
Now I need to get my grubby paws on Never Let Me Go. You out there holding on to those copies: return them to the library, now!
* An aside: if I were to explain what “dry prose” means, well I wouldn’t be able to put it into useful words. But it just so happens that I was reading Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland last night and towards the beginning of the book (chapter 2 or so) there’s the bit about how Alice is all wet because of the pool of tears she created and she meets up with a bunch of other animals that also got caught in the pool and when they finally get out they want to dry off, and so the mouse says “this is the driest thing I know”, and he starts reciting some passage about William the Conqueror (har har, but actually that was pretty funny commentary on Carroll's part). My point being, Lewis Carroll also says prose is dry so that’s good enough for me, and also how weird is it that coincidences like those happen at all. (And, that was quite an aside.)
Perhaps, then, there is something to his advice that I should cease looking back so much, that I should adopt a more positive outlook and try to make the best of what remains of my day. After all, what can we ever gain in forever looking back and blaming ourselves if our lives have not turned out quite as we might have wished? The hard reality is, surely, that for the likes of you and I, there is little choice other than to leave our fate, ultimately, in the hands of those great gentlemen at the hub of this world who employ our services.
~The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro
The Remains of the Day is told from the first person perspective of Mr. Stevens, a butler who once served for one of the grandest houses in pre-WWII England. The story follows him on his vacation, a journey through the countryside, during which he reminisces about his past life, his accomplishments, and his relationship with Miss Kenton, who he is planning to visit at some point during his trip. I was pretty skeptical when I started the book because that is not a particularly interesting plot. But I have to say, Ishiguro writes masterful prose.
Stevens’ recollections (told in flashbacks during his road trip, as if he’s writing a letter to someone, presumably another butler) are mostly about examining his life, to assure himself that he has lived with dignity and purpose because he has served a great man. It’s a quietly sad story that Stevens is telling but he’s too damn proper to come out and say it. In fact, he’s a very unreliable narrator, but there is enough for the reader to read between the lines of the stories he is re-telling and get at the real heart of it. As his unreliable narration continues, the reader gleams that Stevens is actually doubtful, both about his purpose and the greatness of the man he served, and that’s the real tragedy of the story.
The writing is probably the most proper English I’ve ever read, and I think I said the same about Jane Eyre. But where Jane Eyre was boring me to tears (the narration was just too damn dry*), Ishiguro uses it to unfold his story, drawing you in, setting up an environment, and using it to fully describe the character of Mr. Stevens. The novel begins as a study of proper English manners and subtly transforms into a study of character, life lessons, regrets, and missed opportunities. By the time I was halfway in, I couldn’t put it down.
And the heart of the whole novel really is the prose. Ishiguro weaves in Stevens’ flashbacks, unreliability, and melancholy musings, while always maintaining an excruciatingly proper English demeanor. If this was just a story about a butler taking a road trip during which he realizes his life could have been better, it would be pretty straightforward and unremarkable. But the manner of the telling is what makes the entire story interesting and deeply affecting.
Now I need to get my grubby paws on Never Let Me Go. You out there holding on to those copies: return them to the library, now!
* An aside: if I were to explain what “dry prose” means, well I wouldn’t be able to put it into useful words. But it just so happens that I was reading Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland last night and towards the beginning of the book (chapter 2 or so) there’s the bit about how Alice is all wet because of the pool of tears she created and she meets up with a bunch of other animals that also got caught in the pool and when they finally get out they want to dry off, and so the mouse says “this is the driest thing I know”, and he starts reciting some passage about William the Conqueror (har har, but actually that was pretty funny commentary on Carroll's part). My point being, Lewis Carroll also says prose is dry so that’s good enough for me, and also how weird is it that coincidences like those happen at all. (And, that was quite an aside.)
Perhaps, then, there is something to his advice that I should cease looking back so much, that I should adopt a more positive outlook and try to make the best of what remains of my day. After all, what can we ever gain in forever looking back and blaming ourselves if our lives have not turned out quite as we might have wished? The hard reality is, surely, that for the likes of you and I, there is little choice other than to leave our fate, ultimately, in the hands of those great gentlemen at the hub of this world who employ our services.
~The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro
Friday, November 12, 2010
The Color Purple - Alice Walker
This is another selection from my 52 Great Books to Read list. Even though The Color Purple falls in the category of books that I know something about because I watched the movie, the only thing I remember about the movie was that I bawled like a baby. So I was already a bit apprehensive about this book, and I went into it assuming it would just end up being a tear-jerker. I don’t necessarily mind being emotionally abused by a book (or a movie) to the point that I’m actually crying, for real. But if I suspect that that’s the entirety of what the experience will offer, I tend to lose interest. It’s the main reason I haven’t watched quite a few movies, because if it sounds so soul-crushingly devastating, I wonder why I would want to go through that. But, like I said, I don’t mind crying during books or movies. The most recent book that had me crying was Deathly Hallows, which I just finished re-reading a few weeks ago. Yeah, I admit it. I was bawling during the two chapters that reveal Snape’s true intentions. You know what’s even worse? I re-read those two chapters a few days later and I was still crying. I own up to it, but I’m not proud.
Anyway, I wasn’t too excited to start this one and I was preparing myself for one long sob story. And what happened instead was so much better. It is a sad story, clearly, but ultimately it’s a story about hope and redemption and finding true happiness. I would now say that it’s actually a pretty damn uplifting story. If every asshole you ever met in the world could turn himself around and find it in himself to become a good person, I would have a much better view of humanity. At least, this book showed me what that view could be.
The book is written entirely as a series of letters, first by the main character Celie, a young African-American woman, to God. Celie has already been tragically abused for someone her age by the time she decides to turn to writing as a way to cope with her emotions and the hardships she endures daily. Eventually, Celie begins to write her letters to her long-lost sister Nettie, once she becomes angry at God for the things that have happened to her. And somewhere in there, Celie discovers letters written by her sister that had been kept from her (Celie). At a young age, Celie is married off to a man who only wants a wife to take care of the house and kids; she is separated from her sister Nettie, who becomes a missionary in Africa; and she is impregnated twice and forced to give up her children. And as crappy as that sounds, and despite the other really crappy things that happen throughout, the story really does grow more and more uplifting. Celie grows stronger, an emotional growth that is flawlessly executed in the tone of her narration.
The book also weaves in the story of a number of characters, including Celie’s sister, Celie’s stepson and his strong willed wife, and Celie’s husband’s mistress, among others. Everyone in the book goes through some kind of change and in some cases, some pretty amazing changes (particularly Celie’s husband).
The book won Walker a Pulitzer Prize and I guess it’s one of the most contested books out there. I’m not particularly interested in looking up what aspects of the book are the most debated, but I would bet a good $5 that scenes of homosexuality take the top of the list rather than scenes of domestic abuse. I’m not in the mood to get riled up and find out, though.
I was pleasantly surprised by this book. Even the writing style of presenting the story in letters worked out much better than I thought it would. And for a book with such a sad premise, it ends up being a pretty happy story. Surprisingly, I didn’t even cry at all.
30 down, 22 to go.
Anyway, I wasn’t too excited to start this one and I was preparing myself for one long sob story. And what happened instead was so much better. It is a sad story, clearly, but ultimately it’s a story about hope and redemption and finding true happiness. I would now say that it’s actually a pretty damn uplifting story. If every asshole you ever met in the world could turn himself around and find it in himself to become a good person, I would have a much better view of humanity. At least, this book showed me what that view could be.
The book is written entirely as a series of letters, first by the main character Celie, a young African-American woman, to God. Celie has already been tragically abused for someone her age by the time she decides to turn to writing as a way to cope with her emotions and the hardships she endures daily. Eventually, Celie begins to write her letters to her long-lost sister Nettie, once she becomes angry at God for the things that have happened to her. And somewhere in there, Celie discovers letters written by her sister that had been kept from her (Celie). At a young age, Celie is married off to a man who only wants a wife to take care of the house and kids; she is separated from her sister Nettie, who becomes a missionary in Africa; and she is impregnated twice and forced to give up her children. And as crappy as that sounds, and despite the other really crappy things that happen throughout, the story really does grow more and more uplifting. Celie grows stronger, an emotional growth that is flawlessly executed in the tone of her narration.
The book also weaves in the story of a number of characters, including Celie’s sister, Celie’s stepson and his strong willed wife, and Celie’s husband’s mistress, among others. Everyone in the book goes through some kind of change and in some cases, some pretty amazing changes (particularly Celie’s husband).
The book won Walker a Pulitzer Prize and I guess it’s one of the most contested books out there. I’m not particularly interested in looking up what aspects of the book are the most debated, but I would bet a good $5 that scenes of homosexuality take the top of the list rather than scenes of domestic abuse. I’m not in the mood to get riled up and find out, though.
I was pleasantly surprised by this book. Even the writing style of presenting the story in letters worked out much better than I thought it would. And for a book with such a sad premise, it ends up being a pretty happy story. Surprisingly, I didn’t even cry at all.
30 down, 22 to go.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys
Wide Sargasso Sea is Jane Rhys' response to Charlotte Bronte's "madwoman in the attic" character, depicted in Jane Eyre as Bertha Mason. In Bronte's novel, Bertha only represents an obstacle between Rochester and Jane, and his source of unhappiness. She is briefly described as Creole, foreign, lunatic, and not belonging to the same world that Rochester and Jane belong to.
In Wide Sargasso Sea, Rhys (a Creole herself) writes a story for Bertha, and gives her a voice and a distinct identity, that of Antoinette Cosway, a white Creole heiress. The novel follows her life, from her childhood growing up in the West Indies to her arranged marriage to Mr. Rochester, through the deterioration of their marriage, her relocation to England, and her eventual complete mental breakdown. As a sample of post-colonial literature, the novel explores racial inequalities, colonization, assimilation, and the parallels and differences between colonists and the colonized.
I wasn't aware of the connection to Jane Eyre before starting the book. I had already read Jane Eyre a few months ago as part of this same reading list and the character of Bertha Mason didn't grab my attention beyond being the mystery behind the story and the one reason Rochester and Jane couldn't be together. Rhys' story fits so well with the narrative already presented in Jane Eyre, that it feels like a necessary prequel that makes the story complete. Bronte's character Bertha is merely a caricature; Rhys' Antoinette is alive and complex; also deeply disturbed, yes, but the backstory sets up the events that happen in Thornfield Hall perfectly.
So, why Bertha - Antoinette? The novel explores issues of identity and assimilation. Rochester, in his role as patriarchal English colonist, assigns Antoinette a new identity, and renames her as Bertha. In fact, Rochester is pretty much a jerk this entire book too. Like Antoinette, however, his backstory is also fleshed out further, for example his relationship with his father and brother. Antoinette's progression into madness plays out throughout the entire novel, getting increasingly worse until the last third of the book when she is living in England and has lost all sense of self.
I would recommend reading this after reading Jane Eyre. I can think of no other prequel that complements the original story so well (though, the book works as a standalone read as well due to the lush descriptions and heavy symbolism). Are there any other good prequels out there? Seriously, I'm asking...
29 down, 23 to go.
In Wide Sargasso Sea, Rhys (a Creole herself) writes a story for Bertha, and gives her a voice and a distinct identity, that of Antoinette Cosway, a white Creole heiress. The novel follows her life, from her childhood growing up in the West Indies to her arranged marriage to Mr. Rochester, through the deterioration of their marriage, her relocation to England, and her eventual complete mental breakdown. As a sample of post-colonial literature, the novel explores racial inequalities, colonization, assimilation, and the parallels and differences between colonists and the colonized.
I wasn't aware of the connection to Jane Eyre before starting the book. I had already read Jane Eyre a few months ago as part of this same reading list and the character of Bertha Mason didn't grab my attention beyond being the mystery behind the story and the one reason Rochester and Jane couldn't be together. Rhys' story fits so well with the narrative already presented in Jane Eyre, that it feels like a necessary prequel that makes the story complete. Bronte's character Bertha is merely a caricature; Rhys' Antoinette is alive and complex; also deeply disturbed, yes, but the backstory sets up the events that happen in Thornfield Hall perfectly.
So, why Bertha - Antoinette? The novel explores issues of identity and assimilation. Rochester, in his role as patriarchal English colonist, assigns Antoinette a new identity, and renames her as Bertha. In fact, Rochester is pretty much a jerk this entire book too. Like Antoinette, however, his backstory is also fleshed out further, for example his relationship with his father and brother. Antoinette's progression into madness plays out throughout the entire novel, getting increasingly worse until the last third of the book when she is living in England and has lost all sense of self.
I would recommend reading this after reading Jane Eyre. I can think of no other prequel that complements the original story so well (though, the book works as a standalone read as well due to the lush descriptions and heavy symbolism). Are there any other good prequels out there? Seriously, I'm asking...
29 down, 23 to go.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Sin's Adventures in Wonderland
Many thanks to Rock and Subie for the pictures featured below. Looking back, none of the ones on here are actually mine :)
Rock and I took a 6 day vacation to Disney World in Orlando around mid-September (seriously, time flies). Subie joined us for the first four days. We stayed at the Animal Kingdom Lodge and had access to all the parks and also took a day to see Universal Studios. And I’ll just get this stated now; it was seriously one of the best vacations ever! Below, a lengthy list from Bad to Awesome of how it went, and a few pictures that are not in any particular order.
The BAD
- Dear lord, are there lines. Lines for rides, lines for food, lines for the bathroom, lines for the bus, lines to take pictures…I do not like lines. That said the longest line we voluntarily stood in was 45 minutes long to see a 30-minute scene of “The Lion King on Broadway Show” at Animal Kingdom (which was awesome). I say voluntarily, because the longest line we actually stood in was about an hour and a half long, after the Electrical Magic parade at Magic Kingdom just to get out of the park and onto our resort bus. Guess who was not a happy tourist that day? Poor Rock and Subie, evil Sin came out and it was not good for anybody :-(
- The walking. Yeah, yeah, it’s an obvious one, but it had to be said. We were so exhausted when we got back, we slept twelve hours straight the next day. That’s not an exaggeration. And maybe the walking wouldn't have been so bad but for the horde. Not the WoW Horde. I'd take lovable orcs, trolls, and the walking undead over the thousands of tiny feet and hands that were swarming every inch of the place and rending the air apart with their furious high-pitched squeals. Yes, I don't necessarily like kids, but the magic of Disney is that you get used to them pretty quick. So much so, that I didn't even remember I had an opinion on it till Rock pointed out that Magic Kingdom is the unofficial spokeperson for birth control. So true.
- Rock on a plane. To be fair, he’s not afraid of heights or of small spaces, it was the “dear god, we’re trusting this human-made piece of metal to not crash 35,000 feet” that got to him. Outwardly he seemed ok, but I was really nervous for him…poor Rock.
- Disney Quest’s Build Your Own Rollercoaster. Rock and I built it together and, thinking it would just be a movie of the ride, we went ahead and put in all the crazy loops and figure eights and jumps. And then we’re ushered into a capsule that will simulate the experience. Holy hell. Ok, disclaimer: I am NOT a fan of rollercoasters. I’ll go so far as to say I hate rollercoasters and don’t see the attraction in them, at all. I was not prepared for this ride to feel like an actual rollercoaster but, I don’t know how they do it, you can feel the acceleration (I have been in rollercoasters before, once or twice) and the capsule does flip you upside down and sideways and it jumps and all the rest of it. It was the closest thing to a rollercoaster I rode during the entire trip and it took me completely by surprise.
- That’s about it for badness. I complain about lines but honestly, since it was off-season at the parks, we got into the rides we wanted in 20 minutes or less, and about 80% of the time we just got to walk right on with no waiting.
The GOOD
- Disney Quest. It was pretty awesome to play some old school arcades as well as some immersive virtual games all in the same floor space (and five stories of it!). Unfortunately, the virtual games already feel terribly dated and we get better graphics and motion-controls from a Wii. The place was probably the bomb not even five years ago, but it could use a major overhaul. Why hasn’t Disney partnered up with Microsoft or Sony to showcase some in-the-works technology? Which leads me to:
- 3D, 4D, and virtual-immersion attractions. The rides that use 3D technology are still fun in their own right, either because they have cute stories (the PhilharMagic is adorable, with Donald Duck running through various Disney storylines like Fantasia, The Lion King, and The Little Mermaid), or have interesting 4D effects (smoke, water sprays, smells, seat movements, lighting effects, human actors), but with the 3D saturation clogging up every local movie theater, the charm has faded a bit. Clearly, just a few years ago, this would have been THE place to experience some solid, fun 3D action. The 4D elements still keep the rides alive, but the 3D technology is now second fiddle.
- The craziness of it all. I spent most of the trip remarking on the strangeness of certain jobs. I mean, someone’s job out there is to be the Sebastian the Crab puppeteer on the Voyage of the Little Mermaid. The show was cute and whacked out but I seriously spent the entire show feeling bad for the guy that has to activate the smoke machine and light effects (though it’s probably just a computer at this point). The kid in me loves seeing the guys in the mouse costumes and the actors dressed up as the Princesses, but I find myself just thinking “how weird is that?” I don’t know, we met “Mary Poppins” at breakfast and she came over to talk to us and I felt like such a dumbass for talking to a woman in a costume pretending to be Mary Poppins, when this woman knows I am not five and therefore don’t actually believe she is Mary Poppins, so we both know she is just a woman in a costume pretending to be Mary Poppins, and that just makes the whole thing…awkward. But she was very adorable.
- Wizarding World at Harry Potter. I’m aghast at myself for putting this here and not in the Awesome category below. They did a fantastic job with the architecture and building facades, and Hogwarts is built to a pretty awesome scale. But there wasn’t a lot of content. The entire place is essentially one big store (shocking, I know) but I was disappointed to see that some things weren’t pushed far enough. Like the candy store from the books (the name escapes me). The candy in the store is your generic grocery store candy: peach rings, Swedish fish, jelly beans, etc. I was really hoping for an actual confectionary, where they make the candy right in the store and you can watch. The joke shop was cute but you can’t play with any of the stuff so you can’t really tell what’s inside the boxes. I didn’t get on the rides because I’m a chicken and they didn’t have any mild versions from what I could tell (no 3D virtual immersion type rides, although Subie tells me the Hogwarts castle ride was close enough). I felt very silly for doing this but of course I tried the “butterbeer” and “pumpkin juice.” The butterbeer was cream soda with extra foam (whipped cream I think) and the pumpkin juice tasted just like pumpkin pie. Very cute and silly. Finally they had an acapella group made up of “students” and of course they sang the "toil and trouble" song, and a few other things. I love acapella so that was a neat surprise.
The AWESOME
- Everything else. But I really should elaborate.
- THE FOOD. Oh my god, the food. I really didn’t expect the food to be all that great, for some reason, and to be honest some things were pretty unremarkable (like all of the quick service/fast food counters in the parks), but we went to some pretty awesome restaurants. My favorites were the ones in the Animal Kingdom Lodge where we stayed. There was an Indian-inspired restaurant (Sanaa) and an African-inspired buffet (Boma) that made me sad I couldn’t keep eating.
- The pool and hot tub at the hotel, and the water park. I’m so glad I got to do some actual swimming this summer. I want regular access to a pool so badly. We only went to Blizzard Beach (not Typhoon Lagoon) where we rode a really fun raft ride.
- All of the parks. I’m trying to rate them but I really can’t. All of the parks feel different enough that I just can’t compare them.
- Epcot: I loved Epcot’s Soaring ride even if I was freaking out for the first few minutes, and Spaceship Earth is very cool (though the storyline ends with Jobs building the first Mac so Disney really needs to update this and add some more scenes at the end…I can’t really get misty-eyed over the first Mac when I have a much better computer that fits in my pocket). World Showcase was very neat but we didn’t have time to see any of the live performances. We did see the belly-dancer in the Morocco restaurant; she wasn’t super authentic but, as Subie pointed out, it is a family restaurant.
- Hollywood Studios: this was the smallest park and it doesn’t offer a ton of rides. I loved the Indiana Jones stunt show, more so than the Sinbad stunt show at Universal Studios, but overall Hollywood Studios paled in comparison to Universal. I also loved the 50’s Cafe, which really feels like you stepped into someone’s house from a 50’s TV show. And they had amazing fried chicken and s ‘mores :-) I’m also very glad I got a FastPass for the Toy Story ride because, while it was extremely cute and fun, it does not justify an 80-minute wait in line at all (the standby time for the queue when we redeemed our FastPass).
- Magic Kingdom: I loved this park more than I expected to, I think because it has the most stuff out of any other park. We bought tickets to Mickey’s Not-So-Very-Scary Halloween party, which ended up being absolutely awesome. When I planned the trip, I didn’t devote a full day to MK, thinking it would be mostly kid stuff. So at the last minute we bought tickets to the Halloween thing, which was a trick-or-treat event at the park from 7 to midnight, but the rides are also open. It was awesome because, while everyone else stood in line to get candy, we got to just walk onto all the rides. We walked straight up to the Haunted Mansion twice (best ride ever!). In the end, we went to MK three times: one night for the Electrical Parade, again for the Halloween event, and on the day we left for another three hours. The Halloween parade was more fun than I expected, especially because the crowd was pretty small so we got front row seats (as opposed to the Electrical Parade where it was packed and we had tons of people in front of us).
- Animal Kingdom: Rock didn’t really like this one, and I admit I didn’t like how confusing the layout is, but I absolutely love seeing animals and the whole place is essentially one giant zoo. I wasn’t convinced that the Safari felt like a real safari, like other reviewers have said, but as far as zoos go, it was great to drive through all the animal habitats. Different, at least. The Lion King show had acrobats, singers, and dancers, so obviously that ranked high with me. I was upset I didn’t think to get FastPasses for the Dinosaur ride, because by the time we wanted to ride it, the line was 45 minutes long. At least we rode the Jurassic Park ride at Universal.
- Universal Studios: this place is huge! And I think the themes are even more cracked out than Disney’s. They have a Dr. Seuss section where everything (even the trees) looks like the books. They have an ancient temple section that has the Poseidon ride and this restaurant that resembles a cave. I liked the Jurassic Park section, I was not expecting that big drop at the end of that ride but it was fun. They have a comic strip section which had great buildings but I didn’t really recognize the comic strips (it’s older ones like Hagar, Popeye, stuff like that). The superhero section was fantastic and my favorite pictures will forever be Rock posing with Cyclops, Wolverine, and Captain America. Shame there was no Spiderman. The Spiderman ride was my favorite of the entire trip, hands down, even if I had to shut my eyes for a few seconds cause I was getting motion sick. We did the obligatory Jaws and Rock got soaked :-) and saw the Terminator 2 4D show, which is a 3D movie with some parts played by live actors. Very cheesy but very fun. And I think Universal does the movie theme much better, they have entire streets that really feel like actual movie sets, and Disney doesn’t really do that.
So I rambled for thousands of words and there are still other things I could talk about. It was a great trip and we were pretty lucky, the weather was great, the crowds weren’t too bad (most of the time), we got on a lot of rides, and I think I ended up seeing about 90% of the stuff I wanted to (which is way better than I expected). And we rode the Haunted Mansion ride four times all told :-) That’s enough of a win right there.
Rock and I took a 6 day vacation to Disney World in Orlando around mid-September (seriously, time flies). Subie joined us for the first four days. We stayed at the Animal Kingdom Lodge and had access to all the parks and also took a day to see Universal Studios. And I’ll just get this stated now; it was seriously one of the best vacations ever! Below, a lengthy list from Bad to Awesome of how it went, and a few pictures that are not in any particular order.
The BAD- Dear lord, are there lines. Lines for rides, lines for food, lines for the bathroom, lines for the bus, lines to take pictures…I do not like lines. That said the longest line we voluntarily stood in was 45 minutes long to see a 30-minute scene of “The Lion King on Broadway Show” at Animal Kingdom (which was awesome). I say voluntarily, because the longest line we actually stood in was about an hour and a half long, after the Electrical Magic parade at Magic Kingdom just to get out of the park and onto our resort bus. Guess who was not a happy tourist that day? Poor Rock and Subie, evil Sin came out and it was not good for anybody :-(
- The walking. Yeah, yeah, it’s an obvious one, but it had to be said. We were so exhausted when we got back, we slept twelve hours straight the next day. That’s not an exaggeration. And maybe the walking wouldn't have been so bad but for the horde. Not the WoW Horde. I'd take lovable orcs, trolls, and the walking undead over the thousands of tiny feet and hands that were swarming every inch of the place and rending the air apart with their furious high-pitched squeals. Yes, I don't necessarily like kids, but the magic of Disney is that you get used to them pretty quick. So much so, that I didn't even remember I had an opinion on it till Rock pointed out that Magic Kingdom is the unofficial spokeperson for birth control. So true.
- Rock on a plane. To be fair, he’s not afraid of heights or of small spaces, it was the “dear god, we’re trusting this human-made piece of metal to not crash 35,000 feet” that got to him. Outwardly he seemed ok, but I was really nervous for him…poor Rock.- Disney Quest’s Build Your Own Rollercoaster. Rock and I built it together and, thinking it would just be a movie of the ride, we went ahead and put in all the crazy loops and figure eights and jumps. And then we’re ushered into a capsule that will simulate the experience. Holy hell. Ok, disclaimer: I am NOT a fan of rollercoasters. I’ll go so far as to say I hate rollercoasters and don’t see the attraction in them, at all. I was not prepared for this ride to feel like an actual rollercoaster but, I don’t know how they do it, you can feel the acceleration (I have been in rollercoasters before, once or twice) and the capsule does flip you upside down and sideways and it jumps and all the rest of it. It was the closest thing to a rollercoaster I rode during the entire trip and it took me completely by surprise.
- That’s about it for badness. I complain about lines but honestly, since it was off-season at the parks, we got into the rides we wanted in 20 minutes or less, and about 80% of the time we just got to walk right on with no waiting.
The GOOD- Disney Quest. It was pretty awesome to play some old school arcades as well as some immersive virtual games all in the same floor space (and five stories of it!). Unfortunately, the virtual games already feel terribly dated and we get better graphics and motion-controls from a Wii. The place was probably the bomb not even five years ago, but it could use a major overhaul. Why hasn’t Disney partnered up with Microsoft or Sony to showcase some in-the-works technology? Which leads me to:
- 3D, 4D, and virtual-immersion attractions. The rides that use 3D technology are still fun in their own right, either because they have cute stories (the PhilharMagic is adorable, with Donald Duck running through various Disney storylines like Fantasia, The Lion King, and The Little Mermaid), or have interesting 4D effects (smoke, water sprays, smells, seat movements, lighting effects, human actors), but with the 3D saturation clogging up every local movie theater, the charm has faded a bit. Clearly, just a few years ago, this would have been THE place to experience some solid, fun 3D action. The 4D elements still keep the rides alive, but the 3D technology is now second fiddle.
- The craziness of it all. I spent most of the trip remarking on the strangeness of certain jobs. I mean, someone’s job out there is to be the Sebastian the Crab puppeteer on the Voyage of the Little Mermaid. The show was cute and whacked out but I seriously spent the entire show feeling bad for the guy that has to activate the smoke machine and light effects (though it’s probably just a computer at this point). The kid in me loves seeing the guys in the mouse costumes and the actors dressed up as the Princesses, but I find myself just thinking “how weird is that?” I don’t know, we met “Mary Poppins” at breakfast and she came over to talk to us and I felt like such a dumbass for talking to a woman in a costume pretending to be Mary Poppins, when this woman knows I am not five and therefore don’t actually believe she is Mary Poppins, so we both know she is just a woman in a costume pretending to be Mary Poppins, and that just makes the whole thing…awkward. But she was very adorable.
- Wizarding World at Harry Potter. I’m aghast at myself for putting this here and not in the Awesome category below. They did a fantastic job with the architecture and building facades, and Hogwarts is built to a pretty awesome scale. But there wasn’t a lot of content. The entire place is essentially one big store (shocking, I know) but I was disappointed to see that some things weren’t pushed far enough. Like the candy store from the books (the name escapes me). The candy in the store is your generic grocery store candy: peach rings, Swedish fish, jelly beans, etc. I was really hoping for an actual confectionary, where they make the candy right in the store and you can watch. The joke shop was cute but you can’t play with any of the stuff so you can’t really tell what’s inside the boxes. I didn’t get on the rides because I’m a chicken and they didn’t have any mild versions from what I could tell (no 3D virtual immersion type rides, although Subie tells me the Hogwarts castle ride was close enough). I felt very silly for doing this but of course I tried the “butterbeer” and “pumpkin juice.” The butterbeer was cream soda with extra foam (whipped cream I think) and the pumpkin juice tasted just like pumpkin pie. Very cute and silly. Finally they had an acapella group made up of “students” and of course they sang the "toil and trouble" song, and a few other things. I love acapella so that was a neat surprise. 
The AWESOME- Everything else. But I really should elaborate.
- THE FOOD. Oh my god, the food. I really didn’t expect the food to be all that great, for some reason, and to be honest some things were pretty unremarkable (like all of the quick service/fast food counters in the parks), but we went to some pretty awesome restaurants. My favorites were the ones in the Animal Kingdom Lodge where we stayed. There was an Indian-inspired restaurant (Sanaa) and an African-inspired buffet (Boma) that made me sad I couldn’t keep eating.
- The pool and hot tub at the hotel, and the water park. I’m so glad I got to do some actual swimming this summer. I want regular access to a pool so badly. We only went to Blizzard Beach (not Typhoon Lagoon) where we rode a really fun raft ride.
- All of the parks. I’m trying to rate them but I really can’t. All of the parks feel different enough that I just can’t compare them.
- Epcot: I loved Epcot’s Soaring ride even if I was freaking out for the first few minutes, and Spaceship Earth is very cool (though the storyline ends with Jobs building the first Mac so Disney really needs to update this and add some more scenes at the end…I can’t really get misty-eyed over the first Mac when I have a much better computer that fits in my pocket). World Showcase was very neat but we didn’t have time to see any of the live performances. We did see the belly-dancer in the Morocco restaurant; she wasn’t super authentic but, as Subie pointed out, it is a family restaurant.- Hollywood Studios: this was the smallest park and it doesn’t offer a ton of rides. I loved the Indiana Jones stunt show, more so than the Sinbad stunt show at Universal Studios, but overall Hollywood Studios paled in comparison to Universal. I also loved the 50’s Cafe, which really feels like you stepped into someone’s house from a 50’s TV show. And they had amazing fried chicken and s ‘mores :-) I’m also very glad I got a FastPass for the Toy Story ride because, while it was extremely cute and fun, it does not justify an 80-minute wait in line at all (the standby time for the queue when we redeemed our FastPass).
- Magic Kingdom: I loved this park more than I expected to, I think because it has the most stuff out of any other park. We bought tickets to Mickey’s Not-So-Very-Scary Halloween party, which ended up being absolutely awesome. When I planned the trip, I didn’t devote a full day to MK, thinking it would be mostly kid stuff. So at the last minute we bought tickets to the Halloween thing, which was a trick-or-treat event at the park from 7 to midnight, but the rides are also open. It was awesome because, while everyone else stood in line to get candy, we got to just walk onto all the rides. We walked straight up to the Haunted Mansion twice (best ride ever!). In the end, we went to MK three times: one night for the Electrical Parade, again for the Halloween event, and on the day we left for another three hours. The Halloween parade was more fun than I expected, especially because the crowd was pretty small so we got front row seats (as opposed to the Electrical Parade where it was packed and we had tons of people in front of us). - Animal Kingdom: Rock didn’t really like this one, and I admit I didn’t like how confusing the layout is, but I absolutely love seeing animals and the whole place is essentially one giant zoo. I wasn’t convinced that the Safari felt like a real safari, like other reviewers have said, but as far as zoos go, it was great to drive through all the animal habitats. Different, at least. The Lion King show had acrobats, singers, and dancers, so obviously that ranked high with me. I was upset I didn’t think to get FastPasses for the Dinosaur ride, because by the time we wanted to ride it, the line was 45 minutes long. At least we rode the Jurassic Park ride at Universal.
- Universal Studios: this place is huge! And I think the themes are even more cracked out than Disney’s. They have a Dr. Seuss section where everything (even the trees) looks like the books. They have an ancient temple section that has the Poseidon ride and this restaurant that resembles a cave. I liked the Jurassic Park section, I was not expecting that big drop at the end of that ride but it was fun. They have a comic strip section which had great buildings but I didn’t really recognize the comic strips (it’s older ones like Hagar, Popeye, stuff like that). The superhero section was fantastic and my favorite pictures will forever be Rock posing with Cyclops, Wolverine, and Captain America. Shame there was no Spiderman. The Spiderman ride was my favorite of the entire trip, hands down, even if I had to shut my eyes for a few seconds cause I was getting motion sick. We did the obligatory Jaws and Rock got soaked :-) and saw the Terminator 2 4D show, which is a 3D movie with some parts played by live actors. Very cheesy but very fun. And I think Universal does the movie theme much better, they have entire streets that really feel like actual movie sets, and Disney doesn’t really do that. So I rambled for thousands of words and there are still other things I could talk about. It was a great trip and we were pretty lucky, the weather was great, the crowds weren’t too bad (most of the time), we got on a lot of rides, and I think I ended up seeing about 90% of the stuff I wanted to (which is way better than I expected). And we rode the Haunted Mansion ride four times all told :-) That’s enough of a win right there.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
My Kingdom for a Ram
Despite what it looks like, what with the numerous posts on the subject, I don't necessarily want to post about WoW all the time. I love the game but even I understand that this makes me seem, well, just plain hopeless. But every now and then things happen that I just need to write about. In my geeky head, it is as if mystical goings-on occur that nudge my faith in super-cosmic powers just a wee bit more. Such a thing happened this Tuesday night.
Those that read my recent ramblings on aquiring a certain purple dragon, obtained by doing many Herculean feats revolving around in-game holidays for the better part of a year (some of those occuring during actual real-life holidays and events, so I leave it up to you to decide how much I ignored my real life friends, family, and duties for virtual duties), may remember that one such holiday was Brewfest. And some of those very attentive readers may even realize that it's been a full year since the last Brewfest and that this year's festivities were upon us just a few weeks ago. Ah, but how time flies.
Trust it to real life to get in the way again, however. My Disney vacation (post still in the works; there were A LOT of pictures) intersected with the start of the holiday so there were four days lost, during which I could have consumed virtual beer as opposed to the real beer I did consume (it was tasty, to be fair). But more importantly, that was four days during which I could not fight the Brewfest boss for a miniscule chance at obtaining one, or both, of the very very very rare mounts that he drops. I was...not pleased.
I went to work at once upon my return. Last year I had seen one mount drop in 14 days and obviously lost the roll. This year: the gods were kind! I got one of the mounts on my third day of trying! It was exhilirating. And I was only the tiniest bit disappointed.
The reason the boss drops two mounts is because they are faction-aligned. One mount is designed off the Kodo mount that is exclusive to the Horde (my faction) and the other is designed off the Ram mount that is exclusive to the Alliance (the filthy enemy). Except these Brewfest mounts can be used by either faction. And well, I already have Kodos. I have many Kodos. Several colored Kodos. This does not make the drop any less sought after. I was certainly happier than a clam, but...a Kodo is not a Ram (hey, that rhymed!).
I kept going. I diligently killed the boss everyday for my daily attempt. I heard many horror stories of people having to destroy several beautiful Rams because they already had one and the item could not be traded. The days ticked down and hope was dwindling.
Tuesday, the last day, dawned and i didn't even realize it, I was so sure the festival ended the next day. With a heavy heart I arrived home that day to face my last attempt for the year. Hope was rock bottom. There was no "tomorrow is a new day" for my character. This was it.
And then, the stars aligned! The fates swirled, gushed, spun, gargled, and spit out a shiny Ram! I could barely believe it! It was EXACTLY like every cliche movie ending where the main character faces insurmountable odds and then, at the last second, evil is vanquished, the bad guy is killed, the guy catches up to the girl, the ring falls into the fire, all of it, but BETTER because I had no idea it would happen that way! It was glorious. Just...beautiful.
Those that read my recent ramblings on aquiring a certain purple dragon, obtained by doing many Herculean feats revolving around in-game holidays for the better part of a year (some of those occuring during actual real-life holidays and events, so I leave it up to you to decide how much I ignored my real life friends, family, and duties for virtual duties), may remember that one such holiday was Brewfest. And some of those very attentive readers may even realize that it's been a full year since the last Brewfest and that this year's festivities were upon us just a few weeks ago. Ah, but how time flies.
Trust it to real life to get in the way again, however. My Disney vacation (post still in the works; there were A LOT of pictures) intersected with the start of the holiday so there were four days lost, during which I could have consumed virtual beer as opposed to the real beer I did consume (it was tasty, to be fair). But more importantly, that was four days during which I could not fight the Brewfest boss for a miniscule chance at obtaining one, or both, of the very very very rare mounts that he drops. I was...not pleased.
I went to work at once upon my return. Last year I had seen one mount drop in 14 days and obviously lost the roll. This year: the gods were kind! I got one of the mounts on my third day of trying! It was exhilirating. And I was only the tiniest bit disappointed.
The reason the boss drops two mounts is because they are faction-aligned. One mount is designed off the Kodo mount that is exclusive to the Horde (my faction) and the other is designed off the Ram mount that is exclusive to the Alliance (the filthy enemy). Except these Brewfest mounts can be used by either faction. And well, I already have Kodos. I have many Kodos. Several colored Kodos. This does not make the drop any less sought after. I was certainly happier than a clam, but...a Kodo is not a Ram (hey, that rhymed!).I kept going. I diligently killed the boss everyday for my daily attempt. I heard many horror stories of people having to destroy several beautiful Rams because they already had one and the item could not be traded. The days ticked down and hope was dwindling.
Tuesday, the last day, dawned and i didn't even realize it, I was so sure the festival ended the next day. With a heavy heart I arrived home that day to face my last attempt for the year. Hope was rock bottom. There was no "tomorrow is a new day" for my character. This was it.
And then, the stars aligned! The fates swirled, gushed, spun, gargled, and spit out a shiny Ram! I could barely believe it! It was EXACTLY like every cliche movie ending where the main character faces insurmountable odds and then, at the last second, evil is vanquished, the bad guy is killed, the guy catches up to the girl, the ring falls into the fire, all of it, but BETTER because I had no idea it would happen that way! It was glorious. Just...beautiful.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
I have to put up my Disney vacation post soon but I need to arrange my pictures first, so I figured I would put up this post quickly in the meantime. This is another book from my deck of cards.
A few weeks ago I came across this illustration, which I’m sure is pretty well known by now (it’s actually over a year old). I like the drawing, and it is especially helpful in this case because it almost sums up Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451: he imagined all of these things happening at the same time.
Montag is a fireman who has only ever been taught to start fires, not to put them out. In this dystopian novel, books have been banned and are illegal, and any houses suspected or known to have books are burned down. The story follows Montag as he begins to question the reasoning behind the book burning, and as he meets others who teach him that things were very different once. That’s about it for plot, without giving away the ending. It’s a short book and a simple storyline but the significance is in the message. I feel lazy doing what I’m about to do but I love these passages from the book and they portray what Bradbury was trying to get across pretty well, and certainly better than I could. Besides, I think people are already fairly familiar with the book’s message. Like Orwell and Huxley, Bradbury was issuing a warning, for people to not get complacent, to not allow themselves to be lulled, to wake up.
“If you don’t want a man unhappy politically, don’t give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war. If the government is inefficient, topheavy, and tax-mad, better it be all those than that people worry over it. Peace, Montag. Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of noncombustible data, chock them so damned full of ‘facts’ they feel stuffed, but absolutely ‘brilliant’ with information. Then they’ll feel they’re thinking, they’ll get a sense of motion without moving. And they’ll be happy, because facts of that sort don’t change. Don’t give them any slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy. Any man who can take a TV wall apart and put it back together again, and most men can, nowadays, is happier than any man who tries to slide-rule, measure, and equate the universe, which just won’t be measured or equated without making man feel bestial and lonely. I know, I’ve tried it; to hell with it. So bring on your clubs and parties, your acrobats and magicians, your daredevils, jet cars, motorcycle helicopters, your sex and heroin, more of everything to do with automatic reflex. If the drama is bad, if the film says nothing, if the play is hollow, sting me with the theremin, loudly. I’ll think I’m responding to the play, when it’s only a tactile reaction to vibration. But I don’t care. I just like solid entertainment.”
“…when we had all the books we needed, we still insisted on finding the highest cliff to jump off. But we do need a breather. We do need knowledge. And perhaps in a thousand years we might pick smaller cliffs to jump off. The books are to remind us what asses and fools we are. They’re Caesar’s praetorian guard, whispering as the parade roars down the avenue, ‘Remember, Caesar, thou art mortal.’ Most of us can’t rush around, talk to everyone, know all the cities in the world, we haven’t time, money or that many friends. The things you’re looking for, Montag, are in the world, but the only way the average chap will ever see ninety-nine per cent of them is in a book. Don’t ask for guarantees. And don’t look to be saved by any one thing, person, machine, or library. Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were headed for shore.”
“There was a silly damn bird called a phoenix back before Christ, every few hundred years he built a pyre and burnt himself up. He must have been first cousin to Man. But every time he burnt himself up he sprang out of the ashes, he got himself born all over again. And it looks like we’re doing the same thing, over and over, but we’ve got one damn thing the phoenix never had. We know the damn silly thing we just did. We know all the damn silly things we’ve done for a thousand years and as long as we know that and always have it around where we can see it, someday we’ll stop making the goddamn funeral pyres and jumping in the middle of them.”
Unlike Orwell and Huxley, however, Bradbury didn't place the blame on the government first, but rather on the people. He saw people's interest in entertainment and television as catalysts for their disinterest in reading and in literature, a movement which government would take advantage of for their own purposes (in the book's case, to wage a long war indefinitely).
In the book, government has taken control of information, the truth can be modified and presented to the people as the government sees fit, and the people are complacent with it all because the ‘truth’ is good and entertainment is always on. The other message here is the harmful effects of a lack of education, either when it's taken away from people or when people don't want it anymore.
It's an interesting take, the idea that people can bring about their own dystopian future, not because there will be supremely powerful governments, but because people will forego their own free will, their own education, in exchange for comfort and pleasure (I'm resisting making aggrandizing comparisons to today's society because I'm not equipped or prepared to make that kind of post but, well, it doesn't exactly sound like science fiction, does it?). The book is more famously known as a warning against censorship and state-sponsored banning, but Bradbury has always emphasized that he was more concerned about people's interest in literature in the first place (though he appreciated the irony of his book being censored by Ballantine editors to remove swear words).
28 down, 24 to go.
The sun burnt every day. It burnt Time . . . Time was busy burning the years and the people anyway, without any help from him. So if he burnt things with the firemen and the sun burnt Time, that meant that everything burnt!
A few weeks ago I came across this illustration, which I’m sure is pretty well known by now (it’s actually over a year old). I like the drawing, and it is especially helpful in this case because it almost sums up Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451: he imagined all of these things happening at the same time.
Montag is a fireman who has only ever been taught to start fires, not to put them out. In this dystopian novel, books have been banned and are illegal, and any houses suspected or known to have books are burned down. The story follows Montag as he begins to question the reasoning behind the book burning, and as he meets others who teach him that things were very different once. That’s about it for plot, without giving away the ending. It’s a short book and a simple storyline but the significance is in the message. I feel lazy doing what I’m about to do but I love these passages from the book and they portray what Bradbury was trying to get across pretty well, and certainly better than I could. Besides, I think people are already fairly familiar with the book’s message. Like Orwell and Huxley, Bradbury was issuing a warning, for people to not get complacent, to not allow themselves to be lulled, to wake up.
“If you don’t want a man unhappy politically, don’t give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war. If the government is inefficient, topheavy, and tax-mad, better it be all those than that people worry over it. Peace, Montag. Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of noncombustible data, chock them so damned full of ‘facts’ they feel stuffed, but absolutely ‘brilliant’ with information. Then they’ll feel they’re thinking, they’ll get a sense of motion without moving. And they’ll be happy, because facts of that sort don’t change. Don’t give them any slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy. Any man who can take a TV wall apart and put it back together again, and most men can, nowadays, is happier than any man who tries to slide-rule, measure, and equate the universe, which just won’t be measured or equated without making man feel bestial and lonely. I know, I’ve tried it; to hell with it. So bring on your clubs and parties, your acrobats and magicians, your daredevils, jet cars, motorcycle helicopters, your sex and heroin, more of everything to do with automatic reflex. If the drama is bad, if the film says nothing, if the play is hollow, sting me with the theremin, loudly. I’ll think I’m responding to the play, when it’s only a tactile reaction to vibration. But I don’t care. I just like solid entertainment.”
“…when we had all the books we needed, we still insisted on finding the highest cliff to jump off. But we do need a breather. We do need knowledge. And perhaps in a thousand years we might pick smaller cliffs to jump off. The books are to remind us what asses and fools we are. They’re Caesar’s praetorian guard, whispering as the parade roars down the avenue, ‘Remember, Caesar, thou art mortal.’ Most of us can’t rush around, talk to everyone, know all the cities in the world, we haven’t time, money or that many friends. The things you’re looking for, Montag, are in the world, but the only way the average chap will ever see ninety-nine per cent of them is in a book. Don’t ask for guarantees. And don’t look to be saved by any one thing, person, machine, or library. Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were headed for shore.”
“There was a silly damn bird called a phoenix back before Christ, every few hundred years he built a pyre and burnt himself up. He must have been first cousin to Man. But every time he burnt himself up he sprang out of the ashes, he got himself born all over again. And it looks like we’re doing the same thing, over and over, but we’ve got one damn thing the phoenix never had. We know the damn silly thing we just did. We know all the damn silly things we’ve done for a thousand years and as long as we know that and always have it around where we can see it, someday we’ll stop making the goddamn funeral pyres and jumping in the middle of them.”
Unlike Orwell and Huxley, however, Bradbury didn't place the blame on the government first, but rather on the people. He saw people's interest in entertainment and television as catalysts for their disinterest in reading and in literature, a movement which government would take advantage of for their own purposes (in the book's case, to wage a long war indefinitely).
In the book, government has taken control of information, the truth can be modified and presented to the people as the government sees fit, and the people are complacent with it all because the ‘truth’ is good and entertainment is always on. The other message here is the harmful effects of a lack of education, either when it's taken away from people or when people don't want it anymore.
It's an interesting take, the idea that people can bring about their own dystopian future, not because there will be supremely powerful governments, but because people will forego their own free will, their own education, in exchange for comfort and pleasure (I'm resisting making aggrandizing comparisons to today's society because I'm not equipped or prepared to make that kind of post but, well, it doesn't exactly sound like science fiction, does it?). The book is more famously known as a warning against censorship and state-sponsored banning, but Bradbury has always emphasized that he was more concerned about people's interest in literature in the first place (though he appreciated the irony of his book being censored by Ballantine editors to remove swear words).
28 down, 24 to go.
The sun burnt every day. It burnt Time . . . Time was busy burning the years and the people anyway, without any help from him. So if he burnt things with the firemen and the sun burnt Time, that meant that everything burnt!
Thursday, August 26, 2010
The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
In The Handmaid's Tale, the United States' government has been overthrown by a totalitarian theocracy. This would be enough to make the current society a religious fundamentalist Nazi-like state, but there is also the added bonus that procreation and births have greatly diminished (either for environmental or social reason that are not fully explained). It has that Children of Men storyline going on. Now, you combine a patriarchal, male-driven, extremely religious, chauvinist society with declining birth rates and you end up with the story of Rachel and Leah from the Bible Remixed. That story tells of an infertile Rachel who used handmaids as proxies to have children for her:
And when Rachel saw that she bare Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister; and said unto Jacob, Give me children, or else I die.
And Jacob's anger was kindled against Rachel; and he said, Am I in God's stead, who hath witheld from thee the fruit of the womb?
And she said, Behold my maid Billah, go in unto her; and she shall bear upon my knees, that I may also have children by her.
- Genesis 30:1-3
How messed up is that passage? Anyway, in the world of Gilead, handmaids such as the narrator are the first generation of women to be used as concubines for the wealthy elite class in order to bear them children.
The novel, as narrated by Offred (not her real name, just a moniker meaning she belongs to Fred, the head of the elite family that she serves), immediately plunges us into this strange new world where women are not allowed to read, they wear huge costumes to cover their entire body including most of their face, they must be chaperoned at all times, and public hangings are the daily ritual. Right away I'm thinking "yeah, right," eye-roll. I think the story begins to gain an eerie believability when Offred describes her life prior to the coup. She was married. She had a child. She had a job, a mother, she went to college. She describes herself as "I am thirty-three years old. I have brown hair. I stand five [feet] seven [inches] without shoes" (I immediately cast Natalie Portman in the role, though she is considerably shorter I think). That juxtaposition, the description that things were perfectly normal "before" until everything started to degrade and eventually became a bizarre reality, is what most captivated me about the story.
The Handmaid's Tale is thought provoking because, as strange and unlikely as the Gilead society may seem to us today, these things have already happened. Subjugation of the few by the many, total government control and societal shutdown, unchecked repression, trading freedom for security and progress. And that's just the larger themes. The book also explores sexual violence, social conservatism, religious fanaticism, censorship. Hell, these things are still happening. Atwood pushes these themes to the extreme, into territory that we can only hope is really just the stuff of fiction. She has said: "this is a book about what happens when certain casually held attitudes about women are taken to their logical conclusion." As a skeptic, I want to shrug off this comment as a lot of hot air. But as a woman, I already deal with enough male-centered, misogynistic views, and a noticeable dose of fear. I think a lot of other women do too, and the themes in the book are not completely off the wall.
Two themes from the book profoundly shook me and, to be perfectly frank, downright scared me. The first is when Offred begins to doubt whether her husband Luke harbors the same anti-feminist beliefs as the rest of society:
"He doesn't mind this, I thought. He doesn't mind it at all. Maybe he even likes it. We are not each other's anymore. Instead, I am his. Unworthy, unjust, untrue. But that is what happened. So Luke: what I want to ask you know, what I need to know is, Was I right? Because we never talked about it. By the time I could have done that, I was afraid to. I couldn't afford to lose you."
It is a very sad and lonely moment where she wonders if she might lose all support. Wondering if someone you trust without question could betray you has to be the loneliest and most soul-crushing realization.
The other moments that were very discomforting were when Offred is trying to find the motivation, not just to keep living, but to accept that this is her new life and that the old one isn't coming back. Makes me wonder where my motivation would come from if my life were turned upside down. It is the backbone to any apocalypse/survivor/dystopian story and it always makes me wonder how I would survive, if at all. And those types of questions are definitely not just relegated to fiction.
The narrative uses stream of consciousness heavily and is almost too poetic most of the time to ring true, but in the book's epilogue we learn why Offred's narrative is like this. For such a short book, it takes on some hefty themes, presents very complex characters, and tells a unique story.
Another good pick out of my deck of cards. Thanks for the loaner, Subie!
I would like to believe this is a story I'm telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance.
If it's a story I'm telling, then I have control over the ending. Then there will be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it. I can pick up where I left off.
It isn't a story I'm telling.
It's also a story I'm telling, in my head, as I go along.
Tell, rather than write, because I have nothing to write with and writing is in any case forbidden. But if it's a story, even in my head, I must be telling it to someone. You don't tell a story only to yourself. There's always someone else.
Even where there is no one.
And when Rachel saw that she bare Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister; and said unto Jacob, Give me children, or else I die.
And Jacob's anger was kindled against Rachel; and he said, Am I in God's stead, who hath witheld from thee the fruit of the womb?
And she said, Behold my maid Billah, go in unto her; and she shall bear upon my knees, that I may also have children by her.
- Genesis 30:1-3
How messed up is that passage? Anyway, in the world of Gilead, handmaids such as the narrator are the first generation of women to be used as concubines for the wealthy elite class in order to bear them children.
The novel, as narrated by Offred (not her real name, just a moniker meaning she belongs to Fred, the head of the elite family that she serves), immediately plunges us into this strange new world where women are not allowed to read, they wear huge costumes to cover their entire body including most of their face, they must be chaperoned at all times, and public hangings are the daily ritual. Right away I'm thinking "yeah, right," eye-roll. I think the story begins to gain an eerie believability when Offred describes her life prior to the coup. She was married. She had a child. She had a job, a mother, she went to college. She describes herself as "I am thirty-three years old. I have brown hair. I stand five [feet] seven [inches] without shoes" (I immediately cast Natalie Portman in the role, though she is considerably shorter I think). That juxtaposition, the description that things were perfectly normal "before" until everything started to degrade and eventually became a bizarre reality, is what most captivated me about the story.
The Handmaid's Tale is thought provoking because, as strange and unlikely as the Gilead society may seem to us today, these things have already happened. Subjugation of the few by the many, total government control and societal shutdown, unchecked repression, trading freedom for security and progress. And that's just the larger themes. The book also explores sexual violence, social conservatism, religious fanaticism, censorship. Hell, these things are still happening. Atwood pushes these themes to the extreme, into territory that we can only hope is really just the stuff of fiction. She has said: "this is a book about what happens when certain casually held attitudes about women are taken to their logical conclusion." As a skeptic, I want to shrug off this comment as a lot of hot air. But as a woman, I already deal with enough male-centered, misogynistic views, and a noticeable dose of fear. I think a lot of other women do too, and the themes in the book are not completely off the wall.
Two themes from the book profoundly shook me and, to be perfectly frank, downright scared me. The first is when Offred begins to doubt whether her husband Luke harbors the same anti-feminist beliefs as the rest of society:
"He doesn't mind this, I thought. He doesn't mind it at all. Maybe he even likes it. We are not each other's anymore. Instead, I am his. Unworthy, unjust, untrue. But that is what happened. So Luke: what I want to ask you know, what I need to know is, Was I right? Because we never talked about it. By the time I could have done that, I was afraid to. I couldn't afford to lose you."
It is a very sad and lonely moment where she wonders if she might lose all support. Wondering if someone you trust without question could betray you has to be the loneliest and most soul-crushing realization.
The other moments that were very discomforting were when Offred is trying to find the motivation, not just to keep living, but to accept that this is her new life and that the old one isn't coming back. Makes me wonder where my motivation would come from if my life were turned upside down. It is the backbone to any apocalypse/survivor/dystopian story and it always makes me wonder how I would survive, if at all. And those types of questions are definitely not just relegated to fiction.
The narrative uses stream of consciousness heavily and is almost too poetic most of the time to ring true, but in the book's epilogue we learn why Offred's narrative is like this. For such a short book, it takes on some hefty themes, presents very complex characters, and tells a unique story.
Another good pick out of my deck of cards. Thanks for the loaner, Subie!
I would like to believe this is a story I'm telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance.
If it's a story I'm telling, then I have control over the ending. Then there will be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it. I can pick up where I left off.
It isn't a story I'm telling.
It's also a story I'm telling, in my head, as I go along.
Tell, rather than write, because I have nothing to write with and writing is in any case forbidden. But if it's a story, even in my head, I must be telling it to someone. You don't tell a story only to yourself. There's always someone else.
Even where there is no one.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Loremaster Sinnh
Loremaster was an achievement that I resisted for a long time. It just sounded like the most time-consuming achievement that would end up requiring a lot of grinding and running back and forth. What do you expect from an achievement that asks you to complete 2,705 quests? That's a pretty big number! So I always looked in awe at people sporting their Loremaster titles but I also felt bad for the poor bastards that must have spent hours and hours every day grinding out all the last quests. As you can probably guess, I ended up being no better...
I was actually relatively well on my way towards the Loremaster title before I actively started working for it. I had gone through all the Northrend quests (875 of them) and picked up the Northrend Loremaster achievement as a way to earn gold for my epic flying training. With that, I was already well past the 50% mark, more or less (obviously, a lot of quests, probably 35% or so, were completed during the leveling up process).
Now I just needed to make up my mind. That extra nudge came when Blizzard released a new patch that would let you query their server in order to find out which quests you had and had not completed. Previously, there was no way to keep track, unless you had a fine memory :( and/or spent some time tracking and filtering quests on wowhead.com. But now Blizzard had released the key. Pretty soon, add-on developers integrated the server query into their programs and created a compact little tool for telling you what quests you were missing and where to find them. Suddenly going back to the level 20 through level 60 zones where I had quested nearly two years ago didn't sound so daunting. At least I knew where to go and who to see when I got there. And so I did. Others may bemoan that the achievement got easier with quest tracking and to those I say: the best part is that my title and tabard look just like yours :)
Once I decided to get started, I heeded Rock's advice, who slapped me upside the head (metaphorically speaking) because I was going to do Outland Loremaster before doing Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms Loremaster, and that was just crazy balls because the upcoming expansion will make the current Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms Loremasters go the way of the dodo, thus it would make sense to focus on the ones that might be going away. So thank you, Rock.
THEN I settled on starting with Eastern Kingdoms, as rumor has it that it's the easier of the two old world Loremaster achievements to do. And it's true! There are a ton of quests there, much more than you'll need for the EK achievement (I didn't even step foot in the Badlands and I still got the achievement). Most of that time was spent weeping in corners in the Blackrock Spire dungeons because I was horribly lost, and coming quite close to tearing hairs out when some random quest giver sent me to those dungeons for the umpteenth time.
It is still on my bucket list that I have to do the Fallen Hero of the Horde quest line that starts somewhere outside Stonard. I even got the achievement without doing any of that, but I hear it is quite epic. Some of the highlights I did do for EK included: the Tirion quest line in Eastern Plaguelands to save his son; the ghost Pamela quest line to bring peace to a little girl's soul and restore her dad through a pretty badass battle; the quest line to obtain the key to Scholomance, including unlocking the ghost town of Caer Darrow; and the Blackrock Spire quests that reward you with wolf pup and spider pets.
Then I moved on to Kalimdor. People weren't kidding that Kalimdor would be a pain to complete. It is quite a battle to seek out the last 30 or so quests you need to finish. It's even more maddening to spend a couple hours on a single quest only to turn it in and find out it didn't count towards the achievement (there was much swearing involved). But Kalimdor does have some of my all-time favorite zones: Winterspring, Un'Goro Crater, Azshara, and the Shimmering Flats in Thousand Needles.
I love that the majority of the Un'Goro quests are a love letter to Nintendo: there's the quest to kill the gorillas that drop empty barrels, the quest to help “Linken” remember his identity by bringing him his Sword of Mastery, and the quest to help Larion or Muigin who reward you with a zapper to kill carnivorous plants. I also found a very out of the way quest in Azshara to help Kim’jael retrieve, among other things, his stuffed chicken and his wizzlegoober :) Wailing Caverns has a neat storyline and the quest to recover Cuergo's Gold is pretty amusing. However, hunting down five different animals in the Barrens to get items that begin quests does stick out as the most time consuming pain-in-the-rear portion of the entire Loremaster experience.
But, with the old world zones out of the way, the rest of the trek was relatively painless. All that was left was three zones in Outland. I say that like it was just a trifle, but Netherstorm had 120 quests to complete, Shadowmoon Valley had 90, and Blade’s Edge Mountain had 86. So there was still some work to be done, but at least Outland marks the start of Blizzard's revamped quest mechanics, where quests didn't take you halfway across the world to continue or complete. Most quests are contained inside the zone and progressing through the quests is just a much better experience overall. I especially loved Shadowmoon Valley, which has the extremely long and lore-filled The Cipher of Damnation quest line. I also liked the Blade’s Edge quests to help the ogres and eventually become their queen, and the quests from the troll that got buried up to his neck and is out for revenge.
Finishing Loremaster in Outland really made me sad that I didn't experience end-game content during the Burning Crusade expansion as I have during the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. I haven't even stepped foot inside most of the Outland dungeons, even on my alts. That's definitely something I plan to do on my death knight or my alliance shaman.
And pretty soon that was it. Loremaster, done. Add one more poor slob to the pile. To be fair, it really didn't end up being as time consuming as I thought it would be. I even got several other achievements along the way, like The Keymaster, and I maxed out my reputations with the other Horde factions and got The Ambassador. I even got The Seeker achievement (Complete 3,000 quests), which I actually completed before I got Loremaster. That seems backwards to me, but I guess I ended up doing WAY more quests than I needed to. The craziest part is that there are still a ton of quests I didn't do, so I wonder how many there actually are in the game. According to my character's statistics on the WoW Armory, I've completed 3,170 quests. Lord! 0_0 And I wonder why I don't really remember them all.
 Gold Tag |
I was actually relatively well on my way towards the Loremaster title before I actively started working for it. I had gone through all the Northrend quests (875 of them) and picked up the Northrend Loremaster achievement as a way to earn gold for my epic flying training. With that, I was already well past the 50% mark, more or less (obviously, a lot of quests, probably 35% or so, were completed during the leveling up process).
Now I just needed to make up my mind. That extra nudge came when Blizzard released a new patch that would let you query their server in order to find out which quests you had and had not completed. Previously, there was no way to keep track, unless you had a fine memory :( and/or spent some time tracking and filtering quests on wowhead.com. But now Blizzard had released the key. Pretty soon, add-on developers integrated the server query into their programs and created a compact little tool for telling you what quests you were missing and where to find them. Suddenly going back to the level 20 through level 60 zones where I had quested nearly two years ago didn't sound so daunting. At least I knew where to go and who to see when I got there. And so I did. Others may bemoan that the achievement got easier with quest tracking and to those I say: the best part is that my title and tabard look just like yours :)
 Every time I wear the tabard, my reaction is something like "oh, it's hideous...I LOVE it!" |
Once I decided to get started, I heeded Rock's advice, who slapped me upside the head (metaphorically speaking) because I was going to do Outland Loremaster before doing Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms Loremaster, and that was just crazy balls because the upcoming expansion will make the current Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms Loremasters go the way of the dodo, thus it would make sense to focus on the ones that might be going away. So thank you, Rock.
THEN I settled on starting with Eastern Kingdoms, as rumor has it that it's the easier of the two old world Loremaster achievements to do. And it's true! There are a ton of quests there, much more than you'll need for the EK achievement (I didn't even step foot in the Badlands and I still got the achievement). Most of that time was spent weeping in corners in the Blackrock Spire dungeons because I was horribly lost, and coming quite close to tearing hairs out when some random quest giver sent me to those dungeons for the umpteenth time.
 By the time I got EK Loremaster, I could navigate Blackrock Spire with my eyes closed. It’s all about the little victories. |
It is still on my bucket list that I have to do the Fallen Hero of the Horde quest line that starts somewhere outside Stonard. I even got the achievement without doing any of that, but I hear it is quite epic. Some of the highlights I did do for EK included: the Tirion quest line in Eastern Plaguelands to save his son; the ghost Pamela quest line to bring peace to a little girl's soul and restore her dad through a pretty badass battle; the quest line to obtain the key to Scholomance, including unlocking the ghost town of Caer Darrow; and the Blackrock Spire quests that reward you with wolf pup and spider pets.
Then I moved on to Kalimdor. People weren't kidding that Kalimdor would be a pain to complete. It is quite a battle to seek out the last 30 or so quests you need to finish. It's even more maddening to spend a couple hours on a single quest only to turn it in and find out it didn't count towards the achievement (there was much swearing involved). But Kalimdor does have some of my all-time favorite zones: Winterspring, Un'Goro Crater, Azshara, and the Shimmering Flats in Thousand Needles.
I love that the majority of the Un'Goro quests are a love letter to Nintendo: there's the quest to kill the gorillas that drop empty barrels, the quest to help “Linken” remember his identity by bringing him his Sword of Mastery, and the quest to help Larion or Muigin who reward you with a zapper to kill carnivorous plants. I also found a very out of the way quest in Azshara to help Kim’jael retrieve, among other things, his stuffed chicken and his wizzlegoober :) Wailing Caverns has a neat storyline and the quest to recover Cuergo's Gold is pretty amusing. However, hunting down five different animals in the Barrens to get items that begin quests does stick out as the most time consuming pain-in-the-rear portion of the entire Loremaster experience.
 The quest line starts when you discover a sunken raft with a compass, a map, and a key. |
But, with the old world zones out of the way, the rest of the trek was relatively painless. All that was left was three zones in Outland. I say that like it was just a trifle, but Netherstorm had 120 quests to complete, Shadowmoon Valley had 90, and Blade’s Edge Mountain had 86. So there was still some work to be done, but at least Outland marks the start of Blizzard's revamped quest mechanics, where quests didn't take you halfway across the world to continue or complete. Most quests are contained inside the zone and progressing through the quests is just a much better experience overall. I especially loved Shadowmoon Valley, which has the extremely long and lore-filled The Cipher of Damnation quest line. I also liked the Blade’s Edge quests to help the ogres and eventually become their queen, and the quests from the troll that got buried up to his neck and is out for revenge.
 You can barely see me but there I am, right in the middle. |
Finishing Loremaster in Outland really made me sad that I didn't experience end-game content during the Burning Crusade expansion as I have during the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. I haven't even stepped foot inside most of the Outland dungeons, even on my alts. That's definitely something I plan to do on my death knight or my alliance shaman.
And pretty soon that was it. Loremaster, done. Add one more poor slob to the pile. To be fair, it really didn't end up being as time consuming as I thought it would be. I even got several other achievements along the way, like The Keymaster, and I maxed out my reputations with the other Horde factions and got The Ambassador. I even got The Seeker achievement (Complete 3,000 quests), which I actually completed before I got Loremaster. That seems backwards to me, but I guess I ended up doing WAY more quests than I needed to. The craziest part is that there are still a ton of quests I didn't do, so I wonder how many there actually are in the game. According to my character's statistics on the WoW Armory, I've completed 3,170 quests. Lord! 0_0 And I wonder why I don't really remember them all.
 Another fun quest in Netherstorm to save Bessy the Cow...who doesn't love cows? |
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert A. Heinlein
Finally, it comes to this. It’s quite a feat really, I can’t remember the last time I got so impatient with a book that I just tossed it aside and never looked back. I certainly don’t think I’ve ever tossed a book aside with as much disdain and relief. Hell, I even finished the first Twilight book all the way through. So, unfortunately (or, rather, appropriately) Stranger in a Strange Land will now have this infamy for me: god, I hated this book.
First, a quick background. The book tells the story of Valentine Michael Smith, a human born on Mars during a failed expedition. He is raised by Martians until a second expedition brings him home, sometime during his early adulthood. The book then focuses on Smith’s interactions with Earth’s culture, and basically examines humanity and society from an outsider’s perspective (Smith’s bewilderment when he learns about money, clothes, God, etc, and how he tries to understand such things, or “grok” them). In a nutshell, that’s about it, eventually Smith focuses on religion and begins teaching Earthlings his point of view, which is derived from what he’s learned about Earth religion and combined with his Martian beliefs. I don’t believe the book calls it a cult but, come on. Anyway, I think he royally pisses people off but I didn’t read past the part where his new religion is getting off the ground and gaining a strong following.
The book, published sometime in 1961, became a favorite of the hippie movement, which is no surprise given it’s themes of paganism, sexual freedom, anti-government, individual liberty, so on. It won the Hugo Award for best fiction of the year and, according to Wikipedia anyway, it’s considered one of the most important works of science fiction. I mean, so far all of the books on that 52 books list have been groundbreaking and important in some way. So just because I didn’t like it doesn’t mean it isn’t…I don’t know, I can’t say great because it really wasn’t to me, but I guess I can say that it’s important. There’s even a real life religion (cult?) that exists today that is partly based on the religion created by Smith in the book.
I may really hate the book, but I certainly can admire it for a few reasons: for the time when it was published, it was very radical. A lot of scenes were edited out from the original publishing because they were considered to be too much for audiences (I’m assuming they’re referring to the commune scenes with free love, sexual freedom, multiple partners, what have you). The themes explored in the book were probably considered taboo back then, and probably still are to this day. And it has been embraced by thousands of people, it sparked a real-life religious movement, and it pioneered a real-life social movement as well. I don’t know how many other books out there have done that.
There are also other elements about the book that I will admit I can’t fault it for. Feeling dated, for example. This was written in the 60’s, that’s literally a different world to me. It’s the same thing as looking past Star Trek’s (the original series) miniskirts, beehives, and glossy filters. It was just a different time, it is allowed to feel dated. You can argue that there are plenty of works out there that don’t necessarily feel dated, but I think that’s just a bonus. If it feels dated, oh well.
I also can’t fault it too much for being set in an alternate reality that I didn’t believe in or like. This is science fiction, it’s supposed to be a completely alien environment, and while I completely did not believe in the environment, that’s not the books fault. Finally, I can’t fault it for producing emotional reactions from me that were unpleasant. For instance, I cringed during the scene where two of the main characters started having sex in the middle of the commune. Call me a prude, I probably am, but that was just painful to read. I’m sure I’ve read other books that elicited an unpleasant reaction, its part of the experience.
HOWEVER, I have MANY other issues that I think are completely the book’s fault. The entire book is incredibly preachy. It really feels like it’s just a vehicle for Heinlein to spout out every tiny minutiae of his beliefs. Ultimately, that’s what books are for an author, but dear god, good authors know how to do this without becoming a pain in the butt. It was just too preachy, entire pages of characters not really doing anything expect having a huge back and forth about this one thing or another. They didn’t even sound like real people. That’s the other thing. None of the characters were even remotely interesting, none of them had any unique personality, and at the end of the day I cared absolutely nothing for any of them. The “plot” may sound interesting in a nutshell (an outsider inspecting and dissecting our day to day lives while teaching us new things about ourselves in the process) but it was just drowned in pages and pages of preaching.
The famous parts, the ones about Smith becoming a new-age prophet and leading a new social movement, don’t happen till the last third of the book. Everything before it is legal battles regarding his inheritance (he’s the heir to everyone on the first failed expedition, and all of their estates), then goes on about…god I don’t even remember. The point is, it was all boring. It was a chore to keep flipping pages. There was absolutely no emotional investment required, all the characters were flat and shallow, and the plot happened in between huge segments of preaching about why society is wrong and what beliefs are the truths. A lot of people argue that some people just don’t get the book’s message. That’s crap. I “got” the message, I’m just not buying it.
Finally, I keep having a debate with myself. I found the book extremely hard to relate to. While the point is to hold up our society to a magnifying glass and allow us to examine ourselves as an outsider would, I could not relate to the society depicted in the book.
“But its science fiction, it doesn’t have to even remotely resemble the society you know.”
Yes, ok, but then that kind of misses the point of having the reader reflect about his own society.
“But other science fiction works (let’s take Star Trek again because Rock and I have been on a Star Trek marathon for the past year) present completely different societies and you can still relate to them.”
I don’t know, like I said, I didn’t believe in the environment or the way people acted and reacted, but I can’t necessarily fault the book for that. I feel the same about Klingons, for example…”today is a good day to die?” The. Hell? But if the point of the book is to get us to question ourselves, then shouldn’t it resemble us? Ugh, well, to me it didn’t, so take that as you will. I’m never thinking about that book again.
First, a quick background. The book tells the story of Valentine Michael Smith, a human born on Mars during a failed expedition. He is raised by Martians until a second expedition brings him home, sometime during his early adulthood. The book then focuses on Smith’s interactions with Earth’s culture, and basically examines humanity and society from an outsider’s perspective (Smith’s bewilderment when he learns about money, clothes, God, etc, and how he tries to understand such things, or “grok” them). In a nutshell, that’s about it, eventually Smith focuses on religion and begins teaching Earthlings his point of view, which is derived from what he’s learned about Earth religion and combined with his Martian beliefs. I don’t believe the book calls it a cult but, come on. Anyway, I think he royally pisses people off but I didn’t read past the part where his new religion is getting off the ground and gaining a strong following.
The book, published sometime in 1961, became a favorite of the hippie movement, which is no surprise given it’s themes of paganism, sexual freedom, anti-government, individual liberty, so on. It won the Hugo Award for best fiction of the year and, according to Wikipedia anyway, it’s considered one of the most important works of science fiction. I mean, so far all of the books on that 52 books list have been groundbreaking and important in some way. So just because I didn’t like it doesn’t mean it isn’t…I don’t know, I can’t say great because it really wasn’t to me, but I guess I can say that it’s important. There’s even a real life religion (cult?) that exists today that is partly based on the religion created by Smith in the book.
I may really hate the book, but I certainly can admire it for a few reasons: for the time when it was published, it was very radical. A lot of scenes were edited out from the original publishing because they were considered to be too much for audiences (I’m assuming they’re referring to the commune scenes with free love, sexual freedom, multiple partners, what have you). The themes explored in the book were probably considered taboo back then, and probably still are to this day. And it has been embraced by thousands of people, it sparked a real-life religious movement, and it pioneered a real-life social movement as well. I don’t know how many other books out there have done that.
There are also other elements about the book that I will admit I can’t fault it for. Feeling dated, for example. This was written in the 60’s, that’s literally a different world to me. It’s the same thing as looking past Star Trek’s (the original series) miniskirts, beehives, and glossy filters. It was just a different time, it is allowed to feel dated. You can argue that there are plenty of works out there that don’t necessarily feel dated, but I think that’s just a bonus. If it feels dated, oh well.
I also can’t fault it too much for being set in an alternate reality that I didn’t believe in or like. This is science fiction, it’s supposed to be a completely alien environment, and while I completely did not believe in the environment, that’s not the books fault. Finally, I can’t fault it for producing emotional reactions from me that were unpleasant. For instance, I cringed during the scene where two of the main characters started having sex in the middle of the commune. Call me a prude, I probably am, but that was just painful to read. I’m sure I’ve read other books that elicited an unpleasant reaction, its part of the experience.
HOWEVER, I have MANY other issues that I think are completely the book’s fault. The entire book is incredibly preachy. It really feels like it’s just a vehicle for Heinlein to spout out every tiny minutiae of his beliefs. Ultimately, that’s what books are for an author, but dear god, good authors know how to do this without becoming a pain in the butt. It was just too preachy, entire pages of characters not really doing anything expect having a huge back and forth about this one thing or another. They didn’t even sound like real people. That’s the other thing. None of the characters were even remotely interesting, none of them had any unique personality, and at the end of the day I cared absolutely nothing for any of them. The “plot” may sound interesting in a nutshell (an outsider inspecting and dissecting our day to day lives while teaching us new things about ourselves in the process) but it was just drowned in pages and pages of preaching.
The famous parts, the ones about Smith becoming a new-age prophet and leading a new social movement, don’t happen till the last third of the book. Everything before it is legal battles regarding his inheritance (he’s the heir to everyone on the first failed expedition, and all of their estates), then goes on about…god I don’t even remember. The point is, it was all boring. It was a chore to keep flipping pages. There was absolutely no emotional investment required, all the characters were flat and shallow, and the plot happened in between huge segments of preaching about why society is wrong and what beliefs are the truths. A lot of people argue that some people just don’t get the book’s message. That’s crap. I “got” the message, I’m just not buying it.
Finally, I keep having a debate with myself. I found the book extremely hard to relate to. While the point is to hold up our society to a magnifying glass and allow us to examine ourselves as an outsider would, I could not relate to the society depicted in the book.
“But its science fiction, it doesn’t have to even remotely resemble the society you know.”
Yes, ok, but then that kind of misses the point of having the reader reflect about his own society.
“But other science fiction works (let’s take Star Trek again because Rock and I have been on a Star Trek marathon for the past year) present completely different societies and you can still relate to them.”
I don’t know, like I said, I didn’t believe in the environment or the way people acted and reacted, but I can’t necessarily fault the book for that. I feel the same about Klingons, for example…”today is a good day to die?” The. Hell? But if the point of the book is to get us to question ourselves, then shouldn’t it resemble us? Ugh, well, to me it didn’t, so take that as you will. I’m never thinking about that book again.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
This is not the book that I’ve been complaining about, that I (still!) haven’t been able to finish because it’s awful (not finishing it, either, screw that, so that is a post for another day). I picked up The Great Gatsby because it is also one of the last audiobooks I bought, and I bought that audiobook because it was another Frank Muller narration, but either way this book is also on my 52 books to read list. And, actually, this book falls into the rather large pile of books that I have read before but I may as well have been sleeping through at the time for all I remember about them.
And sleep through I probably did, in the most literal sense, because this book was assigned reading for my first year seminar in college (which, at my school, was sort of an introductory college class for freshmen, to help them bridge over the transition from high school to college level…the other three mandatory college classes being, what? A momentary diversion I guess…I still don’t know). Anyway, that seminar was in the English department and it had the tantalizingly grand title “The Jazz Age.” I picked that particular seminar because it promised to be a vibrant mixture of film, music, and literary studies on…well, you can imagine, and I figured that was a sound way of not being bored straight through it. It got me halfway there I suppose. We attended jazz concerts featuring our professor and his other ragtime professor buddies (yeah, it was pretty cool), watched Porgy and Bess in opera version (dear lord those were the longest four hours of my life, and I like musicals…an opera is like a musical right? No? hmm), and read really good works like T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland (so cracked out but I really did enjoy it) and other poetry by William Carlos Williams, and so on. And, of course, we read The Great Gatsby, and it’s not that this is an obvious choice for a class like this, but that it is the reason why there is a class like this. Fitzgerald himself coined the phrase The Jazz Age and he put it all there in this book. So it’s really very sad that I don’t particularly remember the class discussions but I’m positive (even though I have no real memory or proof of this) that it was the first book we read and that the tone of the class followed from there.
If you want to know what American literature was like during this period, and what the period itself was like, you start with this book. The Jazz Age starts after the end of World War I, through the Roaring Twenties when prohibition existed and the stock market would have taken the 2008 stock market out for Cristal to drown its sorrow, and on to the Great Depression. My English professor would have emphasized how the book illustrates the rise of the ‘nouveau-riche’ in the wake of a soaring stock market, their clash with the established wealthy sectors, the opulence, seductiveness, and flamboyance of the two, and how it all crashes down as the Great Depression starts to take hold. Fitzgerald fittingly describes the flashy, wealthy period but he criticizes it as well, symbolized by the ultimate hollowness and lack of morals of his characters. Gatsby, with his new-money (questionably obtained), earnestly chases a wonderful, dazzling dream personified by the so-called love of his life, Daisy, only to realize that the dream was more splendid, and probably worth more, than Daisy herself.
It is a very tragic novel because it offers a glimpse of wish fulfillment for an endearing and charming character (Gatsby) only to crush it under the malicious, self-preserving, oblivious actions of everyone else (except possibly the narrator, who tells Gatsby, in the only sincerely affectionate moment in the story, that he’s worth more than the lot of them). That’s not to say Gatsby is played to be a saint and everyone else is played to kick him down. On the contrary, none of the characters ever feel one-dimensional and, to some extent, they all undergo change and self-reflection. It was a very good read and it helped me realize that if a book is good, you’ll want to keep turning the page without having to force yourself to do it (god, I hate that other book).
I also need to relate this here because I don’t know where else I would do it, but one of my favorite parts about reading this was reading Fitzgerald’s biography and telling Rock, “I think if I ever have a girl I will name her Zelda. It’s a real name you know.” And Rock replies, “I know, she was the wife of Fitzgerald.” And I say, “How the hell do you know that?” “Where do you think the Nintendo name came from?” “No way.” “Yeah, Miyamoto says he named the character after her.” And this blows my mind because I never would have learned that tidbit without him and it makes me wonder what the hell else is stored in that noggin and honestly how can someone remember so many details about video games, ever? But he does and it truly is a very neat thing to me :)
Ta-da: Zelda's glamorous image also inspired the name of video game creator Shigeru Miyamoto's character Princess Zelda in his The Legend of Zelda video game series. Miyamoto explained, "Zelda was the name of the wife of the famous novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald. She was a famous and beautiful woman from all accounts, and I liked the sound of her name. So I took the liberty of using her name for the very first Zelda title."
Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And then one fine morning—
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
And sleep through I probably did, in the most literal sense, because this book was assigned reading for my first year seminar in college (which, at my school, was sort of an introductory college class for freshmen, to help them bridge over the transition from high school to college level…the other three mandatory college classes being, what? A momentary diversion I guess…I still don’t know). Anyway, that seminar was in the English department and it had the tantalizingly grand title “The Jazz Age.” I picked that particular seminar because it promised to be a vibrant mixture of film, music, and literary studies on…well, you can imagine, and I figured that was a sound way of not being bored straight through it. It got me halfway there I suppose. We attended jazz concerts featuring our professor and his other ragtime professor buddies (yeah, it was pretty cool), watched Porgy and Bess in opera version (dear lord those were the longest four hours of my life, and I like musicals…an opera is like a musical right? No? hmm), and read really good works like T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland (so cracked out but I really did enjoy it) and other poetry by William Carlos Williams, and so on. And, of course, we read The Great Gatsby, and it’s not that this is an obvious choice for a class like this, but that it is the reason why there is a class like this. Fitzgerald himself coined the phrase The Jazz Age and he put it all there in this book. So it’s really very sad that I don’t particularly remember the class discussions but I’m positive (even though I have no real memory or proof of this) that it was the first book we read and that the tone of the class followed from there.
If you want to know what American literature was like during this period, and what the period itself was like, you start with this book. The Jazz Age starts after the end of World War I, through the Roaring Twenties when prohibition existed and the stock market would have taken the 2008 stock market out for Cristal to drown its sorrow, and on to the Great Depression. My English professor would have emphasized how the book illustrates the rise of the ‘nouveau-riche’ in the wake of a soaring stock market, their clash with the established wealthy sectors, the opulence, seductiveness, and flamboyance of the two, and how it all crashes down as the Great Depression starts to take hold. Fitzgerald fittingly describes the flashy, wealthy period but he criticizes it as well, symbolized by the ultimate hollowness and lack of morals of his characters. Gatsby, with his new-money (questionably obtained), earnestly chases a wonderful, dazzling dream personified by the so-called love of his life, Daisy, only to realize that the dream was more splendid, and probably worth more, than Daisy herself.
It is a very tragic novel because it offers a glimpse of wish fulfillment for an endearing and charming character (Gatsby) only to crush it under the malicious, self-preserving, oblivious actions of everyone else (except possibly the narrator, who tells Gatsby, in the only sincerely affectionate moment in the story, that he’s worth more than the lot of them). That’s not to say Gatsby is played to be a saint and everyone else is played to kick him down. On the contrary, none of the characters ever feel one-dimensional and, to some extent, they all undergo change and self-reflection. It was a very good read and it helped me realize that if a book is good, you’ll want to keep turning the page without having to force yourself to do it (god, I hate that other book).
I also need to relate this here because I don’t know where else I would do it, but one of my favorite parts about reading this was reading Fitzgerald’s biography and telling Rock, “I think if I ever have a girl I will name her Zelda. It’s a real name you know.” And Rock replies, “I know, she was the wife of Fitzgerald.” And I say, “How the hell do you know that?” “Where do you think the Nintendo name came from?” “No way.” “Yeah, Miyamoto says he named the character after her.” And this blows my mind because I never would have learned that tidbit without him and it makes me wonder what the hell else is stored in that noggin and honestly how can someone remember so many details about video games, ever? But he does and it truly is a very neat thing to me :)
Ta-da: Zelda's glamorous image also inspired the name of video game creator Shigeru Miyamoto's character Princess Zelda in his The Legend of Zelda video game series. Miyamoto explained, "Zelda was the name of the wife of the famous novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald. She was a famous and beautiful woman from all accounts, and I liked the sound of her name. So I took the liberty of using her name for the very first Zelda title."
Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And then one fine morning—
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been
[Warning: EXTREMELY long WoW-related post ahead]
When achievements first came out in WoW, I looked at this achievement as something only a hardcore player would do. Not only does it take a year to achieve, it requires the player to perform a variety of tasks that range from easy to mind-numbingly repetitive to downright infuriating. AND you generally only have a week or two during which to do those tasks. AND every other player in the server is going after the same thing at the same time. For the uninitiated, WoW has in-game holidays that mirror real life holidays, such as Halloween, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, etc. For each holiday, there are holiday specific achievements and one meta-achievement (which means an achievement for completing the achievements). And there’s also What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been, which is the meta-achievement for completing all of the meta-achievements of all the holidays. There are 8 holidays that are required for What a Long, Strange Trip it’s Been, and all together those meta-achievements add up to around 70 achievements. So in a nutshell, we’re talking about completing over 70 achievements throughout the year, but only during specific times of the year. WHY on earth bother to do this, you ask? The reward for completing What a Long, Strange Trip it’s Been is the Violet Proto-Drake, a flying mount that flies 310% faster than the normal speed. It’s the fastest mount in the game, a step ahead of the lowly 280% mounts. So there’s that…
I didn’t have much desire to attempt this when it came out, since I was still leveling up and I had never really participated in holidays and dear god that sounded like A LOT of work. But a little less than a year later my character was finally 80 and the first holiday during which she would be 80 was coming up (coincidentally, because of the timing of when the achievements came out, this was also the holiday during which players would be able to complete their long, strange trips and get their mounts…so maybe I was slightly influenced by all the shiny new purple dragons flying around, is what I’m saying).
And so I decided to venture into what still seemed to me to be a mad endeavor. I started hesitantly at first, telling myself I was just doing the holiday achievements for fun…but as one holiday after another came around I started to notice that I was getting increasingly more and more worried about completing each holiday’s achievements. I still looked forward to the holidays coming up, but I was also FREAKING OUT during each holiday. When the last holiday finally came around, I breathed a huge sigh of relief but I was so done with stressing out that when I got my Violet Proto-Drake, it was slightly anti-climactic…I probably said “good riddance” more so than “woot!.”
Well now I get to relive my year-long accomplishments and sincerely agree with The Grateful Dead: it was a long, strange trip. In order of appearance:
Brewfest
The one that started it all, an homage to Oktoberfest, complete with beer, beer goggles, pink elephants, rowdy drunken dwarves, and racing rams (which I don’t believe are featured in the real event…).
Most fun achievement: Down with The Dark Iron. You have to defend your festival (and most importantly, the beer!) from a pack of meddlesome dwarves that spring out of the ground like moles. Best part? The only weapon you seem to have are full beer mugs, so you chug and hurl the mugs at their heads, and get increasingly drunk as you do so.
The beginning of the grind: right out of the gate, this holiday has one of the more grindier requirements. You need to collect about 400 tokens to complete some achievements, and you get those by completing daily quests. No, you don’t get all 400 in one day, silly…then there’d be no point in doing them every day, now would there?
What eluded me: the holiday boss drops not one, but two unique mount models. Have I ever seen one drop? Not a chance. Did I group with someone who happily relayed that they won both in one day? :(
Hallow’s End
WoW’s Halloween, the fare is pretty standard, there are costumes, you go trick or treating to the different villages, eat candy, kill the Headless Horseman…that last one isn’t standard, is it?
Most fun achievement: also the best title for an achievement, Bring Me The Head of…Oh, Wait. Out of all the holiday boss fights, I adore the Headless Horseman fight the best. The setting is awesome (haunted graveyard), the voice acting is fantastic, and the fight mechanic is so much fun (he flings his pumpkin head at you as a distraction and during his last dying moments summons a pack of pumpkins to give you the hurt).
Most stressful moment: you’ll hear PLENTY about the abomination that is the random number generator for this holiday. Part of the meta is to loot a pumpkin pet and a pumpkin hat…which are random drops…which might not drop during the entire event…which has happened to people…talk about a sigh of relief when I finally got that darn hat.
What eluded me: I saw the Headless Horseman’s mount drop once during the entire holiday. Rock’s character actually tied during the roll but lost the tie-breaker. In the two years I’ve done this holiday, that is the only time I’ve seen it.
Winter Veil
It’s a goblin sponsored Christmas! I love this holiday because it really does put you in the Christmas mood. There’s actually no holiday boss for this one but there is a quest line to save Metzen the Reindeer (named after one of Blizzard’s creative team members).
Most fun achievement: With a Little Helper from My Friends. A lot of people stress out over the PvP achievements (and rightfully so if they’ve never done it or just don’t like it), but the sight of a pack of winter gnomes assembling for battle makes this achievement completely worthwhile.
It’s a merry Christmas: I love, love, love that you get to open presents under the tree on Christmas morning. The sight of all those players up early amassing under the tree is too funny, and SO Christmas!
What eluded me: actually, I managed to get all the pets on my main character (I pilfered pets from my alts).
Love is in the Air
I like this holiday so much I dedicated a whole post to it . This is easier than rewriting stuff here :)
Most fun achievement: first of all, the entire holiday is a vast improvement over what it used to be, and a lot of fun all around. But, that said, there isn’t one achievement that really sticks out as being the best. Dangerous Love would come close because the boss fight at the end of the quest line is my second most favorite boss fight.
Inspiration: for one achievement, you have to share a romantic picnic basket with someone and find true love. The image of Rock’s and my character sitting under the umbrella with hearts above their heads was so cute it became my wedding invitation.
What eluded me: the new boss fight also comes with the chance of looting a big rocket mount (complete with zebra-striped seats!). Alas, I did not see a mount drop the entire time. The Rocket is a Lie.
Lunar Festival
One of the less traditional WoW holidays taken from real life, this is a reference to the Chinese New Year. I’m not very familiar with the actual Chinese holiday but I believe some of the similarities are honoring the elders, fireworks, and gifts contained in red envelopes. But my ignorance is showing so, moving on…
Most fun achievement: eh, I’m pretty neutral on this holiday because on the one hand, it is incredibly time consuming since you have to visit a ton of elders located all over the world; but, on the other hand, all of the achievements are very easy and the entire holiday is the least stressful one. Plus, it was relatively fun to watch ANTM reruns while flying from one elder to another.
Most interesting and least interesting boss: the holiday boss for this event is the only boss actually located in the world (as opposed to inside an instance), and it requires around 10 players to kill easily, and it doesn’t matter what faction the players are (everyone gets credit). So it is very neat to see a bunch of players, of all levels and of either faction, gather around to kill him. Sadly, he doesn’t drop anything remotely interesting, that I’m aware of.
Noblegarden
WoW’s version of Easter, complete with bunnies (oh, so cute, bunnehs!), colored easter eggs, chocolate eggs, and flowers everywhere.
Most fun achievement: Spring Fling. Even bunnies are looking for love in WoW. If you park your pet bunny next to someone else’s bunny, they’ll fall in love, and little eggs pop up that hatch into baby bunnies!
Second most dreaded achievement: during the holiday you need to collect about 350 or so chocolates (I forget the number) in order to complete the other achievements. You get chocolates by finding hidden easter eggs in four specific towns…where every other player in the world is also trying to get 350 or so chocolates…my plan B, if I didn’t get the chocolates during my normal playing hours, was to wake up at 3 am…thankfully, it didn’t come to that.
What eluded me: another holiday with no boss :(
Children’s Week
Here we go. This is THE holiday most hated by the WoW community. See where it says “second most dreaded achievement” in Noblegarden? This is where you’ll see “the number one most dreaded achievement” that I also wish I could take out back and shoot in the head. But, besides that, I don’t dislike this holiday in general. I don’t think there is a real world counterpart to adopting a war orphan for a week and training him in the finer aspects of military life, including killing your enemies, touring dangerous locations, and killing deposed kings.
Most fun achievement: Aw, Isn’t It Cute? is doubly fun in that you get to do a neat quest line and get a neat pet as a reward. The quest line involves taking three orphans out for some sightseeing (like a Big Brother, Big Sister kind of thing). The reactions from the NPC’s involved and the orphans are very, very cute and more than a little heart-warming :)
The MOST dreaded achievement: people have written EXTENSIVELY about the pain that is School of Hard Knocks. The PvP achievements required would be easy enough to do as they are a main component of the mechanics for that particular battleground, were it not for the horde of other players that are out to simply kill you (the enemy faction) or to diabolically impede your progress (your own f-ing team!). This achievement really does bring out the worst in people, from griefers who are there to purposely make other people miserable, to the regular players who are just there to get their damn achievement regardless of what it takes and how many teammates they have to screw over to do it. It turns battlegrounds upside down for an entire week and does the exact opposite of what the Blizzard team “envisions:” instead of getting people interested in PvP, it turns people off entirely. Argh, end rant.
What eluded me: actually, I can complain a lot about School of Hard Knocks, but I didn’t have as hard a time completing it as I thought I would. Hell, I even did it twice because Rock was too lazy to do it for his own character. I was definitely the most stressed out, out of any other holiday, but I was lucky enough to walk into battlegrounds where people, even enemy players, were actually helping each other (the enemy team purposely losing the flag and such). But I even complain about this because that is NOT what battlegrounds are supposed to be. I would much rather see them change the achievement to win a certain number of battles or kill a certain number of players. At least that is in keeping with the spirit of the battleground. Ok, now end rant…
No, wait, did I mention you only get one week to do this and that the holiday was on the same week that my family was visiting for my wedding and during which I got (obviously) married? Not a good time.
Midsummer
A reference to Midsummer celebrations during the summer solstice, the event has activities that are all fire related (breathing fire, juggling fire torches, dancing around a fire pole).
Most fun achievement: Torch Juggler was the most fun achievement because I was completely dreading it until I realized how ridiculously easy it is to do :) And because when I was coaching Rock on how to do it I got to say “just click those keys like it’s Space Invaders at the arcade,” and he got it!
Once more around the world: the last of those holidays where you travel all over the world to visit or collect or do something. It was fun and cute during Hallow’s End (you’re trick or treating, how can it not be fun?), tolerable during Lunar Festival (I did it in October, it wasn’t so bad), and downright annoying during Midsummer (oh my god how many more places? I have to visit the alliance places also???).
What eluded me: another grindy holiday where you can complete quests every day to get tokens but it is literally impossible to get enough tokens to buy all of the special items…so I’m missing a pet.
Oh, god, I’m done.
When achievements first came out in WoW, I looked at this achievement as something only a hardcore player would do. Not only does it take a year to achieve, it requires the player to perform a variety of tasks that range from easy to mind-numbingly repetitive to downright infuriating. AND you generally only have a week or two during which to do those tasks. AND every other player in the server is going after the same thing at the same time. For the uninitiated, WoW has in-game holidays that mirror real life holidays, such as Halloween, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, etc. For each holiday, there are holiday specific achievements and one meta-achievement (which means an achievement for completing the achievements). And there’s also What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been, which is the meta-achievement for completing all of the meta-achievements of all the holidays. There are 8 holidays that are required for What a Long, Strange Trip it’s Been, and all together those meta-achievements add up to around 70 achievements. So in a nutshell, we’re talking about completing over 70 achievements throughout the year, but only during specific times of the year. WHY on earth bother to do this, you ask? The reward for completing What a Long, Strange Trip it’s Been is the Violet Proto-Drake, a flying mount that flies 310% faster than the normal speed. It’s the fastest mount in the game, a step ahead of the lowly 280% mounts. So there’s that…
I didn’t have much desire to attempt this when it came out, since I was still leveling up and I had never really participated in holidays and dear god that sounded like A LOT of work. But a little less than a year later my character was finally 80 and the first holiday during which she would be 80 was coming up (coincidentally, because of the timing of when the achievements came out, this was also the holiday during which players would be able to complete their long, strange trips and get their mounts…so maybe I was slightly influenced by all the shiny new purple dragons flying around, is what I’m saying).
And so I decided to venture into what still seemed to me to be a mad endeavor. I started hesitantly at first, telling myself I was just doing the holiday achievements for fun…but as one holiday after another came around I started to notice that I was getting increasingly more and more worried about completing each holiday’s achievements. I still looked forward to the holidays coming up, but I was also FREAKING OUT during each holiday. When the last holiday finally came around, I breathed a huge sigh of relief but I was so done with stressing out that when I got my Violet Proto-Drake, it was slightly anti-climactic…I probably said “good riddance” more so than “woot!.”
Well now I get to relive my year-long accomplishments and sincerely agree with The Grateful Dead: it was a long, strange trip. In order of appearance:
Brewfest
The one that started it all, an homage to Oktoberfest, complete with beer, beer goggles, pink elephants, rowdy drunken dwarves, and racing rams (which I don’t believe are featured in the real event…).Most fun achievement: Down with The Dark Iron. You have to defend your festival (and most importantly, the beer!) from a pack of meddlesome dwarves that spring out of the ground like moles. Best part? The only weapon you seem to have are full beer mugs, so you chug and hurl the mugs at their heads, and get increasingly drunk as you do so.
The beginning of the grind: right out of the gate, this holiday has one of the more grindier requirements. You need to collect about 400 tokens to complete some achievements, and you get those by completing daily quests. No, you don’t get all 400 in one day, silly…then there’d be no point in doing them every day, now would there?
What eluded me: the holiday boss drops not one, but two unique mount models. Have I ever seen one drop? Not a chance. Did I group with someone who happily relayed that they won both in one day? :(
Hallow’s End
WoW’s Halloween, the fare is pretty standard, there are costumes, you go trick or treating to the different villages, eat candy, kill the Headless Horseman…that last one isn’t standard, is it?Most fun achievement: also the best title for an achievement, Bring Me The Head of…Oh, Wait. Out of all the holiday boss fights, I adore the Headless Horseman fight the best. The setting is awesome (haunted graveyard), the voice acting is fantastic, and the fight mechanic is so much fun (he flings his pumpkin head at you as a distraction and during his last dying moments summons a pack of pumpkins to give you the hurt).
Most stressful moment: you’ll hear PLENTY about the abomination that is the random number generator for this holiday. Part of the meta is to loot a pumpkin pet and a pumpkin hat…which are random drops…which might not drop during the entire event…which has happened to people…talk about a sigh of relief when I finally got that darn hat.
What eluded me: I saw the Headless Horseman’s mount drop once during the entire holiday. Rock’s character actually tied during the roll but lost the tie-breaker. In the two years I’ve done this holiday, that is the only time I’ve seen it.
Winter Veil
It’s a goblin sponsored Christmas! I love this holiday because it really does put you in the Christmas mood. There’s actually no holiday boss for this one but there is a quest line to save Metzen the Reindeer (named after one of Blizzard’s creative team members).Most fun achievement: With a Little Helper from My Friends. A lot of people stress out over the PvP achievements (and rightfully so if they’ve never done it or just don’t like it), but the sight of a pack of winter gnomes assembling for battle makes this achievement completely worthwhile.
It’s a merry Christmas: I love, love, love that you get to open presents under the tree on Christmas morning. The sight of all those players up early amassing under the tree is too funny, and SO Christmas!
What eluded me: actually, I managed to get all the pets on my main character (I pilfered pets from my alts).
Love is in the Air
I like this holiday so much I dedicated a whole post to it . This is easier than rewriting stuff here :)Most fun achievement: first of all, the entire holiday is a vast improvement over what it used to be, and a lot of fun all around. But, that said, there isn’t one achievement that really sticks out as being the best. Dangerous Love would come close because the boss fight at the end of the quest line is my second most favorite boss fight.
Inspiration: for one achievement, you have to share a romantic picnic basket with someone and find true love. The image of Rock’s and my character sitting under the umbrella with hearts above their heads was so cute it became my wedding invitation.
What eluded me: the new boss fight also comes with the chance of looting a big rocket mount (complete with zebra-striped seats!). Alas, I did not see a mount drop the entire time. The Rocket is a Lie.
Lunar Festival
One of the less traditional WoW holidays taken from real life, this is a reference to the Chinese New Year. I’m not very familiar with the actual Chinese holiday but I believe some of the similarities are honoring the elders, fireworks, and gifts contained in red envelopes. But my ignorance is showing so, moving on…Most fun achievement: eh, I’m pretty neutral on this holiday because on the one hand, it is incredibly time consuming since you have to visit a ton of elders located all over the world; but, on the other hand, all of the achievements are very easy and the entire holiday is the least stressful one. Plus, it was relatively fun to watch ANTM reruns while flying from one elder to another.
Most interesting and least interesting boss: the holiday boss for this event is the only boss actually located in the world (as opposed to inside an instance), and it requires around 10 players to kill easily, and it doesn’t matter what faction the players are (everyone gets credit). So it is very neat to see a bunch of players, of all levels and of either faction, gather around to kill him. Sadly, he doesn’t drop anything remotely interesting, that I’m aware of.
Noblegarden
WoW’s version of Easter, complete with bunnies (oh, so cute, bunnehs!), colored easter eggs, chocolate eggs, and flowers everywhere.Most fun achievement: Spring Fling. Even bunnies are looking for love in WoW. If you park your pet bunny next to someone else’s bunny, they’ll fall in love, and little eggs pop up that hatch into baby bunnies!
Second most dreaded achievement: during the holiday you need to collect about 350 or so chocolates (I forget the number) in order to complete the other achievements. You get chocolates by finding hidden easter eggs in four specific towns…where every other player in the world is also trying to get 350 or so chocolates…my plan B, if I didn’t get the chocolates during my normal playing hours, was to wake up at 3 am…thankfully, it didn’t come to that.
What eluded me: another holiday with no boss :(
Children’s Week
Here we go. This is THE holiday most hated by the WoW community. See where it says “second most dreaded achievement” in Noblegarden? This is where you’ll see “the number one most dreaded achievement” that I also wish I could take out back and shoot in the head. But, besides that, I don’t dislike this holiday in general. I don’t think there is a real world counterpart to adopting a war orphan for a week and training him in the finer aspects of military life, including killing your enemies, touring dangerous locations, and killing deposed kings.Most fun achievement: Aw, Isn’t It Cute? is doubly fun in that you get to do a neat quest line and get a neat pet as a reward. The quest line involves taking three orphans out for some sightseeing (like a Big Brother, Big Sister kind of thing). The reactions from the NPC’s involved and the orphans are very, very cute and more than a little heart-warming :)
The MOST dreaded achievement: people have written EXTENSIVELY about the pain that is School of Hard Knocks. The PvP achievements required would be easy enough to do as they are a main component of the mechanics for that particular battleground, were it not for the horde of other players that are out to simply kill you (the enemy faction) or to diabolically impede your progress (your own f-ing team!). This achievement really does bring out the worst in people, from griefers who are there to purposely make other people miserable, to the regular players who are just there to get their damn achievement regardless of what it takes and how many teammates they have to screw over to do it. It turns battlegrounds upside down for an entire week and does the exact opposite of what the Blizzard team “envisions:” instead of getting people interested in PvP, it turns people off entirely. Argh, end rant.
What eluded me: actually, I can complain a lot about School of Hard Knocks, but I didn’t have as hard a time completing it as I thought I would. Hell, I even did it twice because Rock was too lazy to do it for his own character. I was definitely the most stressed out, out of any other holiday, but I was lucky enough to walk into battlegrounds where people, even enemy players, were actually helping each other (the enemy team purposely losing the flag and such). But I even complain about this because that is NOT what battlegrounds are supposed to be. I would much rather see them change the achievement to win a certain number of battles or kill a certain number of players. At least that is in keeping with the spirit of the battleground. Ok, now end rant…
No, wait, did I mention you only get one week to do this and that the holiday was on the same week that my family was visiting for my wedding and during which I got (obviously) married? Not a good time.
Midsummer
A reference to Midsummer celebrations during the summer solstice, the event has activities that are all fire related (breathing fire, juggling fire torches, dancing around a fire pole).Most fun achievement: Torch Juggler was the most fun achievement because I was completely dreading it until I realized how ridiculously easy it is to do :) And because when I was coaching Rock on how to do it I got to say “just click those keys like it’s Space Invaders at the arcade,” and he got it!
Once more around the world: the last of those holidays where you travel all over the world to visit or collect or do something. It was fun and cute during Hallow’s End (you’re trick or treating, how can it not be fun?), tolerable during Lunar Festival (I did it in October, it wasn’t so bad), and downright annoying during Midsummer (oh my god how many more places? I have to visit the alliance places also???).
What eluded me: another grindy holiday where you can complete quests every day to get tokens but it is literally impossible to get enough tokens to buy all of the special items…so I’m missing a pet.
Oh, god, I’m done.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
In Which I Was Published
I hate how it's relatively hard for me to post updates here. I really want to improve my writing. I think I could find it therapeutic if I really put some effort into it, but ultimately days wind down and restart and move forward and I never get around to doing what I think I should: writing here, calling my friends just to talk, starting a new project, working on my backlog of projects. And everyday I get a little more frustrated that I don't do those things, particularly getting in touch with friends. I realize this should be easier now with all the social networking craze, but I don't do Facebook. I can't do Facebook. I hate Facebook. I would have deleted my account long ago in protest but oftentimes it feels like the only remaining link I have to people I know. So it has remained even though I never post on it. I feel out of the loop with my friends sometimes because I'm not on Facebook. I don't like the preferred communication method so for now I will keep using the "older" methods, email, phone, skype, gmail chat (which I'm on nearly 9 hours a day). I gotta get to work on that ...
Anyway, this was only supposed to be a post about something relatively neat that just happened recently. One of those update thingies. Two articles I wrote for Wow.com were picked up and actually published on their site. I only told people about the first one but they actually published both articles about a week apart. It's a very silly thing and the writing is a bit lame (and some of it was embellished just a tad). But it was fun to do, it was a complete surprise to me that both got picked up, and it was a lot of fun keeping it a secret from Rock until the first article was actually on the web page.
http://www.wow.com/2010/06/04/breakfast-topic-when-your-gaming-gets-emotionally-charged/
http://www.wow.com/2010/06/11/breakfast-topic-learn-something-new-every-day/
In other news, I am woefully behind on my reading list. I thought it was due to wedding planning and not having any free time, but I've realized that I'm just horribly stuck on this one book because it is absolutely awful. It feels painful to read but I must finish it. It's been about three or four months now since I started it and I still have about 25% of it left. Groan.
In any case, my free time for the next few weeks will be taken up by what little of the World Cup I can manage to watch. During the weekdays, I can get one game in a night before it's time for bed. Yesterday was a big day, as Honduras took the World Cup field for the first time since 1982. It is literally the first time I've seen that happen in my lifetime, and likely to be the only time I see it in my lifetime with that track record :( Sadly, they lost that game to Chile, but they put on a formidable defense. It does say something that so far Chile has had the most strikes at goal in the tournament but only one actual goal. At least we didn't end up like Australia, though we still have to play Spain :( At least Spain got one-upped by Switzerland in the biggest World Cup upset so far, so maybe that says something too... All I know is that it was rather dusty in my apartment when the Honduran flag was carried out into the field...
And, of course, my WoW activities never cease. Next week is the start of the Midsummer Fire Festival, which means that for the next two weeks I will be pursuing the last world event achievements I need to finally get my hands on that glorious 310% speed mount. It was a journey that started last October. There will likely be a separate post about that later :)
Anyway, this was only supposed to be a post about something relatively neat that just happened recently. One of those update thingies. Two articles I wrote for Wow.com were picked up and actually published on their site. I only told people about the first one but they actually published both articles about a week apart. It's a very silly thing and the writing is a bit lame (and some of it was embellished just a tad). But it was fun to do, it was a complete surprise to me that both got picked up, and it was a lot of fun keeping it a secret from Rock until the first article was actually on the web page.
http://www.wow.com/2010/06/04/breakfast-topic-when-your-gaming-gets-emotionally-charged/
http://www.wow.com/2010/06/11/breakfast-topic-learn-something-new-every-day/
In other news, I am woefully behind on my reading list. I thought it was due to wedding planning and not having any free time, but I've realized that I'm just horribly stuck on this one book because it is absolutely awful. It feels painful to read but I must finish it. It's been about three or four months now since I started it and I still have about 25% of it left. Groan.
In any case, my free time for the next few weeks will be taken up by what little of the World Cup I can manage to watch. During the weekdays, I can get one game in a night before it's time for bed. Yesterday was a big day, as Honduras took the World Cup field for the first time since 1982. It is literally the first time I've seen that happen in my lifetime, and likely to be the only time I see it in my lifetime with that track record :( Sadly, they lost that game to Chile, but they put on a formidable defense. It does say something that so far Chile has had the most strikes at goal in the tournament but only one actual goal. At least we didn't end up like Australia, though we still have to play Spain :( At least Spain got one-upped by Switzerland in the biggest World Cup upset so far, so maybe that says something too... All I know is that it was rather dusty in my apartment when the Honduran flag was carried out into the field...
And, of course, my WoW activities never cease. Next week is the start of the Midsummer Fire Festival, which means that for the next two weeks I will be pursuing the last world event achievements I need to finally get my hands on that glorious 310% speed mount. It was a journey that started last October. There will likely be a separate post about that later :)
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