To the Dogs 
I've know that I'm going to get it since it's a platform defining game but the new Penny Arcade comic just cements it:
| I've known for a long time that it was a game with dogs in it, and pictured myself rubbing the dog in various places and so forth. Let it be known: dogs get rubbed in this game. I was right about that much. You brush, scrub, rub, and welcome your pup into its ghoulish, emulated life. You might know this already, I missed it because I was ignorant and reveled in that ignorance, but it's the game's use of voice that seizes the very machinery of human empathy. This starts with naming, and moves on to training with verbal commands. |
| It can be trying (as the strip suggests), before you learn that enunciation is more critical than threats or volume. I initially named my hound dog something barely pronounceable: I would describe it as the sound a straw makes when you rapidly push it in and out of your shake cup. It was so ridiculous that I could not produce it without laughing, as Gabriel the Elder will attest. I had to discard the creature, collapsing his universe with the button combination that means destruction. |
| It felt momentous to me, of course, but that's because I'd just distinguished that entity from every other, as Adam once did. I doubt the simulation felt any undue stress. You'd imagine that his replacement would feel some trepidation as he scrabbled out onto the hardwood, the fruit of my wrath now evident, sun-ripe and taut with doom. No, he was just thirsty. And so I set about devoting my life to Sunderer, the black dog of Hell. |
Perhaps Casandra and I will let our dogs play together. Perhaps Shari will need her own blue DS. :-)
Ninja Wizards
| Improved dialog for the Fellowship scene.
Via MScott. |
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High Flying
My friend Chris has been having a lot of problems on the way to realizing his dream of flying. Over the weekend he finally made it and has his solo certification on his trike. Congrats Chris! Here are some of his really cool photos. He invited me up...uh, I'm going to have to lose a few pounds first Chris. Or at least that a convienient excuse. :-)
I Feel the Engery!
Thanks Lisa! Back to work on the script now.
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom Podcast
Mark Forman in Taiwan is podcasting a reading of Cory Doctorow's great first novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. I've subscribed.
The Creative Commons license is an amazing thing. Look, I'm talking about his 2 1/2 year old novel again! Why? Because someone is doing something cool with it - and Cory get's more free advertising. It's really not that hard to figure this out.
My big plan to do a semi-dramatic reading of Cory's short story Anda's Game with my daugther in the title roll is still on hold. There's always to much going on but I think it would be really cool.
