Right Now.

I'd really love to plop myself down onto a comfy sofa with a warm blanket, a big pot of tea, and some homemade baked goods, then nestle in and be only barely awake while music plays. Jobim sounds nice. I could go for that.

Stupid work.

Kingdom Migraines.

So, I know there are people out there in CloudReaderLand who enjoyed Kingdom Hearts and thought it was a great game. (It's been a while, but I'd like to single out duchez and katre_blog.) So, picked up the game this week, and I've spent some time playing it, and I'm getting a freaking headache dealing with the camera that acts like Tinkerbell would if she took LSD and was hit by a baseball bat several times.

I don't mean the camera is a metaphorical headache, which it is, I mean I'm getting a headache trying to do accomplish things when I can't see where I am, where I'm going, where my "allies" are, or where the thing that's killing me is.

Was this, like, not a problem for you guys? Is there anything to keep me from taking this back to the store in a few hours?

Safety

So, today, many people are dead because terrorists took over an entire school in Southern Russia. In the United States, several New Yorkers are under arrest for various degrees of real or imagined public disturbance.

I don't think that America is that much safer than it was on September 11, 2001. But then, it seems I'm rare in thinking that we were pretty damn safe on September 11.

Yes, a group of terrorists engineered a plot that killed thousands of people. I'm not arguing that. They did it by very carefully watching our defenses of a period of years, in the process developing several out-of-the-ordinary skills like airplane piloting. They exploited specific weaknesses that had to be overcome in unusual ways. And, against long odds, they were successful.

Compare this to other countries with more pressing terrorist problems. In the United States, every few weeks, the threat level changes, causing panic and paranoia. In Israel, every few weeks, someone walks into a public place and blows himself up, killing people all around him. In the United States, we debate the propriety of sending our armed forces overseas to participate in various actions that may or may not be related to terrorism, depending on your stance. In Russia, the armed forces don't go anywhere because the terrorists are taking over buildings filled with hostages within their own borders.

And yet we're obsessed with terrorist. People, we're getting off easy.

But September 11, 2001 did change the United States. It brought The Fear back. It's kind of like the Cold War Fear, except more pure. The Cold War Fear included the fear that the ultimate annihilation would be partially the fault of the United States. After decades of discord, America and the Soviets would finally cooperate . . . in the destruction of all life as we know it. But The Fear of September 11 is a pure fear, unsullied by American guilt. Because the fault will always be Them. And we won't be throwing nukes at Them because we won't know where They are. In fact, They could be right here among already! THE ARMAGEDDON IS COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE!!!!

This is why the response to the first calls for "vigilance" led to Americans helpfully informing federal agents that the mastermind of the heinous terrorist attacks of three years ago was eating fast food in Utah. And it's why my good friends are living in fear, not of terrorists, but of other Americans. Because there probably was an ordinary man enjoying his burger there, without doing anything in particular to be "suspicious". Because American's have so much fear, that they're terrorizing other Americans with their paranoia.

Hey, I guess that makes them terrorists, then.

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Oh, and while we're on the tangent of personal privacy, if you're considering paying to see if I have a crush on you, just ask.

Also, on the tangent of death, I just got a phone call from an "Advanced Funeral Planner" from Forest Lawn, Glendale. She'll apparently call back at a more convenient time. Does she know something I don't?

Further, I intend to be buried in a Catholic cemetary. But if I for some reason that doesn't happen, I sure as hell am not going to let my mortal remains settle in Glendale.

Playing da Games.

So, with this crazy camera thing going on, I've been thinking about "gameplay," and what it means in videogames. And not just console video games, all video games, including Interactive Fiction and little desktop time wasters. The questions are deliberately vague, because I feel like people will come in with different opinions about the nature of the concept. So don't worry about getting things wrong, just go with whatever feels right.
[Poll #345179]
If the boxes don't have enough room, and I imagine that they won't for some, feel free to just write things up in a comment.