Immoral cells made good
You've probably already heard about this, but I'll tell you here just in case. A woman in South Korea has been paralyzed for the last twenty years because of damage done to her spine. Yet, last week, she was up and shuffling around in front of reporters. How is this possible? Through the miracle of stem cells.

I really wanted to shake an accusatory finger at the Bush administration, using this story as background. Unfortunately, the stem cells used to save this woman were from the blood of an umbilical cord; and it turns out that GW has always been a fan of those stem cells. The issue is not the umbilical stem cells, which are limited in the number of tissues they can build into, but the embryonic stem cells, which are capable of becoming almost any tissue in the body.

Still, even if I don't get to stand on my soapbox, and rail on the President, it is an amazing story. This should change the way we look at medicine, and challenge the limits of medical care.

- posted by BrandG @ 7:13 AM 2 comments

 
I think I just might cry.
There's a balloon in my head, creating all kinds of pressure on my skull. There's pressure, but no headache. My chest has the other balloon, making it difficult to breathe. On the screen, a few tiny strings of characters sit quietly:

I frown at the words stupidly for a minute, then they disappear. Well, that's not right. They can't do that. Can they do that?

I haven't touched the PSI except to cycle the power for the last two weeks. I've been playing GAD: SAA for so long, it's a part of my daily life. The sheer enormity of this is swimming through my head. All the tags, all the photo ops, all the oysters, mixed out skills on all weapons, all stamina, all strength. 100% on denies, 80% on Michel. All gold from the Driving school. Nearly done with jazzy and the garage missions.

Man, that hurts. You know the really sad thing, I'm going to pick it up again in a minute, shuffle into the skin of a skinny, inexperienced, unknown black kid. I'm going to step off a plane in Los snatch, and restart the whole damn thing.

Why? Because it's worth it. This is one of the best games I've ever played, and I MUST finish it. Come Hell or High water, I will finish it.

But damn, it really hurts.

- posted by BrandG @ 4:51 AM 2 comments

 
If aliens really are watching our TV . . .
What happens when we switch over to another format? I mean, SETI is based on the idea that we can read signals from alien civilizations in the radio signals, and it's been a longstanding sci-fi standby that aliens watch our TV shows. So, picture this:

2006, all television stations have been changed over to use a HDTV signal. Also by that time, Sirius satellite radio has taken a serious hold over international radio, and is offering a satellite HDTV service.

By 2009, cable television, in an attempt to keep dominance over media transfer, sets up a grid of wireless repeaters with 75 miles distance (latitude and longitude) between each node. Each node is tied to the others by buried fiber optic cable. Each node has a wi-fi signal strength of about fifty miles, thus covering Japan, Eastern China, Europe, Belarus, Northern Africa, Australia, India, Middle America, the US and Canada.

2010, the last transmission by CBS is made using our high power, low frequency message system. By this time, all news agencies have been moved over to the wifi messaging system, and only hobbyists still watch "broadcast" TV. Since no one is watching for news, the "majors" do not bother explaining why it is shutting off. The last message is, "This concludes our broadcast era."

2014, Alpha Centauri, which has been monitoring the signals coming from earth notices that there is a sudden, unexplained cutoff in the Earth broadcasts.

For the last few millennia, Earth has been considered off limits as a neutral zone between the warring people of Wolf 359 and Proxima Centauri. Alpha Centauri was tasked with maintaining the border between the two factions, and has maintained peace for eons. However, Alpha Centauri is unable to pick up the messages from the WiFi repeaters.

Since they are made to send messages only fifty miles away, the signal from the repeaters is very weak, and high frequency. Since there are millions of them, all sending different patterns of data, they garble the signal coming off of Earth; and since they are all encrypted and compressed, any message that could be received is considered trash.

Alpha Centauri announces that Earth has been neutralized, and since neither faction will admit responsibility for it, they both assume that the other has taken over Earth as a staging point in renewed conflict. The war begins anew, with both sides using Earth as their first target.

So, in order to save the human race, support SETI, and keep sending out those broadcast messages. The planet you save might be your own.

- posted by BrandG @ 2:36 AM 3 comments

 
Existential game saves.
I was just playing GTA: San Andreas a second ago, and I noticed something wholly unseen in the history of man.

First of all, you have to understand something about the way they do savegames. When you step on the little floating floppy disk, the game will do five things: save your game progress (obviously), fully heal you, fully feed you, drop any wanted level you may have gained, and advance the clock by six hours.

In the past, I have always assumed that it worked like this: I walked into my safehouse, got something to eat, had a bit of a lie down to refresh myself, and then came out six hours later. However, I have a spinning savegame icon that's standing in between two pillars in front of a garage, so it's not really a safehouse.

Anyway, I was running out of health, because my wanted level was at about three stars (not impossible to survive, but impossible to ignore). Cops were pouring out of the landscape, shooting off all of my armor, then most of my health. I got to the savegame icon with only one percent health, and a cop pointing his gun in my face. As I was looking down the cobalt blue barrel, the screen flashed to a "Save Game?" prompt.

I said yes, and the game resumed. It was six hours later, I was still standing in the middle of the parking lot, and still looking death in the barrel, when the cop put his gun down and walked away.

It had such an existential feel to it, that I figure this is what happened: The cops were pursuing me when I suddenly blipped out of existence. They ran a five-hour exhaustive manhunt, during which I could not be found. One cop stayed in place, swearing to all the others, "I don't care what you say! He freakin' vanished, man!" Then, just as he was giving up hope, I blipped back into existence in front of him. The vision of me, appearing like magic in front of the cop was a highly religious experience, one that made him rethink his whole moral outlook. He put his gun down, swearing never to raise it to another man in anger, and went home to tell his wife that they were going to buy a farm and live off the land.

Of course, it could be one of those normal gameplay invariants, but I like my version better.

- posted by BrandG @ 2:34 AM 4 comments

 
Yes, we really do work that hard.
Today on Slashdot a reader asked, "Can People Really Program 80+ Hours a Week?", which infuriated the hell out of me. All of the posts said, "No, that would be silly, you'd have diminishing returns after about sixty hours. Nobody can work that hard without making more mistakes than they fix. Preposterous!"

< rant on >

To both the poster and all the people who responded, I would like to send out a heartfelt, "No Shit, dumbass!" I mean, no offense, but when you're staring a fact in the face, then saying, "Is this possible?" then you are a dumbass. We have been doing this for years, decades, nearly two generations! We've always known they were crap work conditions, and we have always done it because we love our work. We have told you about it in the past, and you have still denied it. You have laughed at us making "Toys" while we worked harder and longer work weeks than you can apparently conceive of.

Are there diminishing returns with "crunch time"? Of course, dumbass! But unlike you, we have not thrown up our hands and said, "Impossible". In my industry people who give up like that become part of the high turnover rate in our industry. Instead, we become masters at writing stable code, making our engines data driven, and generally owning our code on a level that you cannot easily understand. I'd bet even money that we are better at crunch time than you "normal" programmers are, because we're trained in sleep-deprived work conditions.

Wives and girlfriends are called "computer widows". People who have outside lives are called slackers. I heard once of a designer who completed his degree while working for Acclaim. Nobody could believe it, because "who has the time?"

If you want to be helpful, fight to stop this stuff. Boycott EA, join the IGDA and support their findings. Christ, do something! But don't look me in the eye and tell me that I am not able to do the things I do every day.

Do not deny us our dedication just because you can't imagine our level of commitment.

</ rant off >

- posted by BrandG @ 1:37 AM 1 comments

 
Boobs on C-SPAN
This is just awesome.

Our senate was given a report by the National institute for Media (NIM, weren't those the guys with the superintelligent rats in that really great Don Bluth movie, can't remember what the movie was named). The report must have been really bad, because NIM decided to punch it up with a video of "The Guy Game" a really crappy cross between "You Don't Know Jack" and "Girls Gone Wild".

In their presentation, they show clips of the bikini-clad bimbos taking off their tops. Of course, anything that is even vaguely interesting in the Senate gets put on C-Span, so sure enough, we've got breasts on C-Span!! Wow!

Warning: this link has the story, related images, and much more ( link )

So, if the FCC fines the Senate the same way they did Janet Jackson, isn't that like the executive branch taxing the Legislative branch? Isn't that illegal, regarding checks and balances? And if not, does this mean that George can finance any war he wants without congressional approval, just by fining them 80 billion dollars for showing tits on TV?

Okay, so thinking about it, that probably wouldn't work, because C-Span isn't actually run by the legislature, and besides, it's cable, it doesn't get regulated by the FCC (wow, got enough commas, Brand?) So now, knowing that there's nothing the executive branch can do about showing breasts on C-Span, and given that they're probably going to see a lot more viewers paying attention (the same way adolescents will watch scrambled porn channels because, every few minutes, the picture is totally clear), does this mean that C-Span might decide to do this more often?

C-Span might try to convince the Senators to have more racy displays, and tackle the hard-hitting issues like excessive sunbathing, and indecent hemlines. Someday, we could see, "Girls Gone Wild: The Girls of the DNC".

The revolution may not be televised, but television may bring on the revolution.

- posted by BrandG @ 11:50 PM 0 comments

 
Our new anti-piracy Czar
We took the idea of a Russian monarch, or emporer, and turned that idea into a bagholder, or scapegoat. Well done, America.

So, now we've got a copyright infringement czar. Never mind that national debt, the lack of pay for skilled teachers, the lack of police nationwide, and an escalating war. Right now, what we need to do, is stop the geeks, even if they don't hurt the RIAA.

In the long run, this might be a good thing. After all, in 1988, we created the "Drug Czar" position. Since then, we have seen a steady increase in drug use, with a massive amount of state spending on correctional institutions ( needed for all the new hardened criminals, presumably ) link.

What about an Intelligence Czar? Even though the CIA chief said we didn't need an intelligence czar (link), the president pushed for one anyway (link) and at the last minute, the deal fell apart because we weren't sure the Pentagon could protect troops if we had an intelligence czar (link).

Did I miss any Czars? Is there one out there that has been so effective, we never see him/her? It's pretty late at night, so I might have skipped somebody.

Maybe, we'll be lucky, and the new copyright czar will be as effective as the other czars. And, of course, this does mean that the RIAA will stop suing teenagers and pensioners now, right? Now that the government has stepped in to solve their percieved problem?
- posted by BrandG @ 3:57 AM 0 comments

 
Quick Hitman Level up in GTA: San Andreas
I kinda stumbled upon this by accident, but it's been pretty foolproof so far. It's a really easy way to get to hitman level in either the shotgun or handgun.

Note: This post is not intended for people who get offended by things like this post. : )

So, I got busted by the cops after that damned Catalina got lost trying to find the car during a getaway. I was standing outside the SAPD HQ, so I entered the building. Now, unlike GTA: Vice City, they will let you walk around the station (as long as you have no weapon armed). So, I walked around, found the secret object, then I noticed that they had two sets of body armor in the building. They also had a shotgun and a handgun just lying around.

So, if you grab either of the weapons (make sure you've grabbed the armor first), the cops will start pouring out of the woodwork, shooting at you. If you just hold your position, and start wailing on them, there will never be an end to them, and you can just keep on shooting until your skill level gets really high. In the space of twenty minutes, I managed to become a shotgun master and a handgun master (which comes in really handy with the dual-wield feature).

Presumably, you can build up any weapon skill level, by getting the weapon before you enter the police station, then opening fire once you get in. (Worried mothers, please note: No, I am not recommending this in real life, as doing this would involve the quashing of another human life which is an abomination to all things decent in a human.)

Anyway, the downside to this system is that it does put you in a lot of danger, and you're more likely to leave the building on a gurney than on your feet (just like in real life).

- posted by BrandG @ 8:56 PM 1 comments

 
Business gets you Politics, Games get you fired.
As many of you know, I'm a game programming veteran. My wife is also a programmer, but she works on business software (Delphi, SQL, Java, database programming really). I could probably do that, if it didn't seem so soul-crushingly miserable.

Anyway, while I don't pry into her work, I've noticed that everywhere my wife works, there's been a complicated set of office politics. I mean, every place she has worked for has had backstabbers, schemers, and at times, real bastards (people who use such weapons as fake sexual harassment claims). In most of the places, she's had multiple bosses, and spends a lot of time soothing ruffled feathers from when they all disagree.

By comparison, I've seen almost no office politics at all. In the game industry, there is a clear-cut chain of command that goes something like this:

God
^
Director
^
Producer
^
Lead Peasant(Lead Programmer, Lead Artist, Lead Designer)
^
Peasant(Programmer, Artist, Designer)

So, as long as you know your place, there's no way to get multiple bosses, and very little backstabbing to climb the corporate ladder.

However, I can't help noticing that all the big companies I've worked for had a lot of office politics above my eschelon of understanding. Once you get up into the baliwick of Management, Marketing, and other such drek, office management rears its ugly head again. What does that mean to me? It means that the company has no clear vision, no direction, and it will probably fold in on itself.

So the choice is this: stay fast on your feet in a business job, or keep a nice safe job that will disappear when you get locked out of the office because your company hasn't paid rent in six months.

Tough choice.




- posted by BrandG @ 1:13 PM 4 comments

 
Update on the BlogExplosion stuff
A few posts back I talked about a rouge who is going around giving everyone low ratings. That didn't hurt the high-volume popular sites, because they already had lots of votes to dilute it. However, it hurt a lot of the newer little guys out there (of which, I am one).

Some people, reading this, decided to help by giving me an abnormally high rating, attempting to "rebalance" the system. While I sincerely appreciate this from the bottom of my heart, you really don't have to do that. I was only relaying a situation that's hurting lots of blogs out there.

After all, even I don't think my blog's worth a 10. :) Not yet, anyway. I'm still learning.

In other news, the mal-poster trend seems to be building, probably because there are multiple sad, anger-displacing children out there trying to screw with other people. Oh well.

The good news is that BlogExplosion will only let you rate a site once per week, so if we all start rating the sites we see as we explore through this vast and interesting array of personalities, we can dilute the efforts of the childish malcontents.

So, everybody, get out there and vote!

Oh, yeah, and leave comments too. It makes the web community feel more like a, well, community.

- posted by BrandG @ 8:45 PM 4 comments

 
IE Support
I just realized that I never tested this website in Internet Explorer. I haven't used IE in a dog's age, so it never even occured to me that half of my viewers were seeing no content. So, if you happen to be using the oldest, buggiest, most crippled browser out there, you are also denied the joy of seeing my posts! I feel for you, deep within my heart.

Anyway, I'm working on that now. I literally stayed up all night putting together the little menu system for the "Best of Brand" section (can you really have a "Best Of" if you've only been going for two months)?

- posted by BrandG @ 6:57 AM 1 comments

 
Cryo chapter two
Carl exited the elevator, subvocalizing to his guide. In his mind, it looked like there was a little man walking purposefully beside him, matching his deliberately hurried stride.

The guide was a cartoon version of a real human, drawn in monochrome, wearing a white shirt, black pants, and a gray bow tie. His head was a single circle with floodfill black hair, a sharp angle for a nose, big glasses, and a cowlick that stood half a foot higher than his head. His glasses were huge white circles with no dots for pupils. He looked like something out of a Monopoly board set, and moved like a 1950's PSA cartoon.

Like most people of his generation, subvocalizing came naturally to Carl. His mouth would move, and he would breathe like he was talking, but no sound would pass his windpipe. All the same, he knew the Guide could get every word.

"How long has he been under?"

"Since April of 2142." The guide spoke in an lilting, intellectual voice.

Carl weaved through the busy hallways. He had never seen it this busy, with people rushing from one patient to the next, pushing patients past in wheelchairs, pulling the occasional gurney.

"What was his reason for going under?"

The guide's answer was immediate, "Political."

"Shit." Less than a decade after cryo was invented, the price had come down so low that people started using it for non-health related issues. Lock up your house, drive to the clinic, and wake up in the future! Some people did it for a holiday. One person was going under every evening in the belief that this would extend his life.

Other people, however, got into cryo to escape political situations. If they didn't agree with the man who was elected President, they would just go to sleep for the next four years. Carl knew how to keep professional detatchment as well as the next guy, but the political cryos bothered him. They represented the ultimate expression of pushing your problems onto the next generation.

"So, he's been trying to escape a political situation for the last forty years? What's he trying to get away from?"

There was a slight pause this time, "I can't find anything on file regarding that."

Up ahead, Carl could see the cluster of people. Orderlies, Nurses, and Doctors were gathered in a semicircle around the back wall of the administration floor mail room. The ones closest to the disturbance had their arms spread out wide, holding back the rest of the viewers. In the center, a man in a surgical gown held a saline drip stand in one hand, and a bone saw in the other.

He was bald, with no facial hair, just like all the other patients. He was crouched as though ready to spring, with a caged look in his eyes. His head darted back and forth, surveying the crowd, "I said stay back! I saw that! I saw that! Stay back, you!" He swiped at one section of the circle with the saw.

Carl saw Dr. Carstark standing on the periphery of the crowd, watching with his hands fisted on his hips, frowning slightly. He was a small, wiry man with an immaculately pressed suit under his lab coat. He was bald as a cueball on top, with a thick ring of gray hair just above his ears. He had on thick glasses and a bow tie. As Carl wove through the people to get to him, he suddenly thought about how much his guide resembled Dr. Carstark.

Classic displacement, ordering my own boss around. It's not healthy. I need to change that avatar.

Carstark was standing next to a nervous looking medico, who was wringing his hands and darting his head back and forth to keep a good view of the disturbance. He was dressed in medic greens, and had long blonde hair cascading down to his shoulders. He had the long face, rat-like in it's intensity.

When Carl reached them, he looked at the medico, "So, Simon. Been kicking the patients dog again?"

The medico looked at him sharply, "Bite me, Polame," then turned back to watching the patient.

Dr. Carstark did not take his eyes off the patient, "Apparently, Dr. Kelley was talking to this patient, a Mr. Johnathon Wesley, when he was unexpectedly called away. Before he could return, Mr. Wesley left his room, obtained a surgical weapon, and began threatening the staff."

"Where'd he get the bone saw, Simon?"

Simon whipped his head around to face Carl again, "You're not pinning this on me, Polame. You're the psychologist, I only work with the body." Simon started jabbing a finger at Carl, "You said you were overloaded. You said you needed help. You said you needed anybody who could read from a card. I put every available body in my staff on to helping you with your problem, myself included. Now you are not going to act pissy at me just because you gave me a psycho to deal with."

Carl threw up his hands in mock submission. In a quiet, measured tone, he said, "No, Simon, I'm not upset that you fumbled working with a psycho. I'm just a little curious how he got a fucking bone saw."

Simon waved him away, "I don't know. I wasn't there. I didn't see him escape."

"No. Of course not. You stepped away for one minute, he left the patient's briefing room, and walked across the hall to the unlocked 'Dangerous Surgical Weapons' closet, right?"

"Fuck you, Polame."

Carl looked at the patient. He seemed to have enforced a pretty tight little area around himself, standing behind the desk right in front of the wall of administration mailboxes. Looking back to Dr. Carstark, he said, "This is nuts, Dave. There's just too many people, and with too little time. Congress can't enforce this, and we only hurt ourselves by pushing this time limit."

Dr. Carstark didn't take his eyes off the patient, "I'd love to discuss it with you, Carl. I'd love to go and sit and have some tea with you, discuss our problems with Congress, and my hospital management policies. But before we go running off to the cafeteria, I'd like to get that nice man to put down his bone saw."

Carl frowned, "You want me to stop him?"

"You're the psychologist. I could send Simon here, but last time they talked, the patient bolted for the exit, and armed himself."

Simon glared at him, "So you're coming after me, too?"

Carstark shrugged ever so slightly, "I don't care whose fault it is. I just want someone to go talk him down, and so far you're not batting a thousand." He took a deep breath, "Carl, please ask the nice man to put down his weapon."

Carl swore under his breath, and the cartoon nerd walked up to him, "I'm sorry sir?"

He subvocalized, "Nothing." And started walking toward Mr. Wesley. The cartoon guide popped out of existence as Carl shouldered his way through the orderlies. He shoved his hands in his pockets, and walked up to the patient.

One of the first things they tell you about hostage negotiation is that you should have your hands out by your sides, to show that you are open, approachable, and unarmed. Somehow, though, Carl just couldn't bring himself to do it. It just felt like lying, like smarmy supplication, and he was just too mad to play that part. He walked up to the patient, stopped just outside swinging range, and said, "Excuse me."

Mr. Wesley had the saw pointed directly at his chest, "What do you want?"

Carl pulled one of his hands out of his pocket, and pointed behind the man, "That's my mailbox." He started walking toward the mailbox, unhurried.

Wesley jumped back, maintaining their distance, "What? What do you want?"

Carl pulled a stack of letters out of a box and began rifling through them, "I'm just getting my mail, pal. Calm down."

Wesley cast his gaze about, then seemed to come to a decision, "Yeah, well, you picked the wrong time to do it, buddy, 'cause you're my hostage now!" He started to move around behind Carl to put him in the classic TV hostage hold. Unfortunately, moving behind Carl while pulling the Saline drip proved more challenging than he had expected, and he stumbled a bit while rounding on Carl. Carl pushed Wesley back, keeping an eye on the saw, "Get away from me. What is your problem?"

Wesley dropped back into a crouch, holding the saw out at him, "What?"

"Look, before they come in here with stunners and tranquilizer darts, just tell me, why are you standing there, with your ass hanging out of your gown, threatening people with a saw?" The little jab of shame worked, as Wesley straightened up a bit, pulling the back of his gown together.

"I know what's going on." it was almost comical how unsure he seemed when he said this.

"Okay. So tell me. What's going on? Hell, if you convince me, I just might grab a scalpel and join you."

"This is no cryogenics lab."

Carl resisted a sarcastic impulse, "Okay, then. I give, what is it?"

"This is a Malaysian spy camp. You drug normal citizens, fly them to Malaysia, release them in a controlled environment, then train them to be spies for the enemy."

Carl had to deliberately fight an impulse to laugh. The "vast Malaysian threat" was an old spook story from about fifty years back. Hearing someone bring it up again was about like being accused of working for the British Redcoats, or the Russian communists.

"Wow, that's the dumbest thing I've heard in a while." In his peripheral vision, Carl could see Dr. Carstark pinch his eyes closed and shake his head. Wesley's eyes narrowed to slits.

He continued, "No, seriously, did the guy who was talking to you tell you about how cryogenic freezing feels like it takes no time at all? That's why it just feels like you've been drugged."

"It happens. I saw it in a movie."

Carl was openly smiling now, tapping the mail in his free hand, "Well, then it must be true." He took a deep breath and said, "Look, John, what year is it?"

"2142, that's how I knew the doctor was a fake." They both looked over at Simon. "He wouldn't tell me what year it is. And he wouldn't tell me anything about my family." He raised his voice to make sure Simon could hear, "Maybe because in Malaysia, they don't know anything about my family, huh?" Simon threw up his hands and shook his head.

Carl turned to Wesley, "In 2164, who took the gold in men's swimming 1500 meter freestyle?"

Wesley's eyes widened, and he looked down for a moment, "Uh, Graham Simmons. An Australian."

"How do you know that?"

"I don't know. I can picture it in my head, like I watched it on TV."

Carl shrugged, "In a way, you did. Turns out that when people are in downtime, they learn things much faster and easier than when they're awake. We think it's something to do with assimilating data while relaxed." He waited a beat for that to sink in, "Of course, that also means that you know facts that happened in 2164, so the year can't possibly be 2142, can it?"

Wesley seemed to understand, and it made him more cautious. He raised the saw again, "You're trying to trick me. You implanted that memory while I was drugged, just so you could quiz me about it later."

Carl sighed, then looked up suddenly, "John, who am I? No, don't look for a nametag, I don't have one. Just look at my face. Who am I?"

Wesley frowned a little, "You do look awfully familiar."

"Watch this." Carl struck a pose, as though holding an air guitar, and sang out, "In my early incubation, I left my childhood flame alight -" A couple of people in the peanut gallery applauded suddenly.

Recognition burst through Wesley's expression, "That's it! You're Sy Polame, from the band Solame." The band name was a pun, based on the lead singer's name, it was pronounced 'So Lame'.

Carl smiled again, "But that's not possible, is it? How old is Sy Polame?"

Wesley lowered the saw and cocked his head to one side, "That's right, Sy Polame is only about twenty years old. But you look at least fifty."

Carl's smile vanished, "Thirty-seven, thanks. I'm actually Sy's son, Carl."

Wesley stood still, trying to process that. "No. I read about that. He doesn't have any kids."

Carl folded his hands over his chest, tucking the letters under one arm, "Okay, genius. My explanation is that you've been in downtime for the last forty years, and that Sy Polame had a son, Carl. What's your explanation? Cloning? Plastic surgery? What?"

"Um. Hold on. Wait. I'm not sure." That was when the orderlies tackled him. One of them grabbed the arm where he was just barely holding on to the saw. Two others went for the rest of the body. He squealed a bit as they grabbed him, "Ow! Wait. Watch the needle."

Carl started walking back to Dr. Carstark, holding the letters up, "These belong to a Dr. Laura Kennelworth. Can somebody take care of this?" He handed the letters to an approaching secretary, "Sorry, I don't remember which box they were in."

She just smiled, "That was an amazing impression of your dad."

As he reached Dr. Carstark, he could see the doctor wasn't happy. Simon was gone, presumably to check on John Wesley. Dr. Carstark was shaking his head, hands still fisted on his hips, "I do not approve, doctor. That was wrong on so many counts."

Carl shrugged, "Do you know how hard it is to do damage with a bone saw? I mean, it's a saw. You have to hold a person still long enough to draw it across their body. It's no real weapon. I wasn't in any danger, and neither was anybody else." He stopped suddenly, and narrowed his eyes as he looked at Carstark, "Hey, how do I know you're not the head of a Malaysian spy ring?"

The doctor silently fumed, "My office, thirty minutes, senior staff. Don't forget." He pivoted on a heel, and headed back to his office.

As Carl headed back to the elevator he suddenly thought, "Oh, man. If Mr. Ruiz escaped while I was gone, there's no end to the trouble I'll get about that."



So, once again, what do you guys think? Leave me some comments, so I can fix issues.

- posted by BrandG @ 5:21 PM 0 comments

 
Warning to the BlogExplosion people.
First off, Hi. I've been on BlogExplosion for two days, and I can say that I've had about fifty times the number of hits per day than what I had got before (of course, I've only received two comments over those two days, and 99% of people only stay their required 30 seconds. Que sera sera).

Anyway, there's some rogue out there who is giving bad ratings to just about every site I'd seen today, and never with a comment. Guess he/she just wants to make us all look bad. He gave this site a 2. Wow. I know it's not Fark, but really, a two? I mean, how does he keep a perspective for when he rates weblogs about people's cats?

So, keep a lookout for him, and I wouldn't sweat it if he comes by your site.

In other news, I'm writing a sort of outline for the cryo story, setting up the characters, scenes, red herrings, etc. I hope to have a chapter 2 available tomorrow.

- posted by BrandG @ 11:46 PM 3 comments

 
Cryo Novel (at least, a little)
I'm too late to start the NaNoBlogMo thing, but I've had this novel running through my head for a long time. Here's a bit of it (the first chapter, most likely). So, tell me what you think. Should I bother with chapter two?



The old man reclined in the plastic padded chair that dominated the small yellow room. His eyes moved between the poster on the wall showing layered cross-sections of an eyeball, and the flat, metal contraption suspended above his head by a crane. It was industrial gray, about as big around as his head, and flattened, with two circular halves. There were holes in the lowest part, near the point where the two halves touched. It looked like the eyes of an owl, dark, angry, and accusatory, with hollow pupils. As he lay back in the chair, the eyes seemed to grow slowly bigger, inexorably closer.

The moment was broken as a quick rap on the office door announced the doctor. He followed the knock almost immediately, walking in holding the door in one hand and a clipboard in the other. He was holding a Styrofoam cup in his teeth, and nodded carefully to the old man as he put the clipboard down and reached for the cup.

The doctor wore a white lab coat over his suit and tie. The lab coat was bright and clean, all straight lines and no pockets. The suit underneath it looked crumpled and disheveled. He had dark circles under his eyes, and his auburn hair seemed to hang limp over them. In the past few days, he'd picked up the nervous tick of brushing his hair out of his eyes.

"Mr. Ruiz. I'm Dr. Polame." No hand was offered as the doctor sat down on the stool next to the huge green chair.

The old man frowned a bit. He felt naked without his beard, and couldn't shake a chill. He waved a hand at the poster, and the model of an eyeball on the counter, "Something wrong with my eyes, doc?"

The doctor removed a manila folder from the clipboard and opened it up without looking at the old man, "No, no. I'm just borrowing the office from an optometrist on staff. We've had a bit of a shake-up recently, and office space has been pretty hard to find." He looked up from the folder, "Can I get you something? Coffee, tea, milk -"

The doctor's teeth clacked as he shut his mouth. Not milk. Caffeine would boil right out of his system in the cryo process, but milk would gum the whole thing up. Christ, that was a bush-league mistake. Get it together, Carl, this isn't your first heart patient.

Dr. Carl Polame had been working double shifts for the past week, and it was starting to show. He didn't have the energy of an intern anymore, and there just wasn't enough time to get through all his work. He was saved as the old man shook his head dismissively, "No. I'm fine. So you found a cure." It wasn't a question, just a statement of the most logical explanation.

Dr. Polame closed the manila folder, "Ah, no sir. I'm sorry, but we had to interrupt your downtime -"

"I was told that couldn't happen." The old man cut him off softly, but Carl thought he could sense an edge in the old man's voice. According to the file, the old man was a captain of industry. A real heavy-hitter in his day.

"When you were put under, sir, that was true. You had a standing agreement with the company that we would hold you in cryogenic sleep until we could find a proven cure for your heart condition. However, about thirty years after you were put under, Congress enacted a new bill requiring all cryo patients to have media in their chambers. Your sister acted as nearest, um, relative," that was a near slip. Carl caught himself before saying 'nearest Living relative'.

The old man nodded, "Figures. Is she still alive?"

The doctor shrugged slowly, "Given your ailment, we are going to try to put you back into downtime as soon as possible. There won't be any time to meet with family, and any information I give you now may not be valid next time you wake up. So, you're probably better off not knowing."

The old man leaned his head back and looked up at the owl eyes. He made a rolling motion with his right hand, signaling to get on with it, "Okay, right. They told me when I woke up I should expect to have a brand new life ahead of me." He paused for a moment and looked up, "Is my money still good around here?"

This was something Carl was prepared for, "Yes, for the most part. We've got a financial advisor that you need to talk to, just about inflation adjustments."

One corner of the old man's mouth perked up in a grin, "Jack up the price before plugging me back in. Well, I've heard worse squeezes." He sighed slowly, "Okay, so I had a bum ticker. You guys plugged me in, said you'd pull me out when you got a cure, but Congress threw a monkey wrench in it, and now you guys have to pull me out to sign some papers."

"Not quite, sir." Dr. Palome flipped open the manila folder again, and pulled out a pamphlet, "You see, not long after you were put into downtime, researchers found out that people in cryogenic sleep could still hear and see." He looked down at the pamphlet, "It turns out that when a person is in downtime, they still assimilate stimulus, sort of like the way a coma victim does, only on a much more elevated scale. The downtime person can remember things that were said, and things that were displayed in front of them, even years after they experience it." This was a part of the patter he'd been through dozens of times, and he repeated it almost like a mantra, "So Amnesty International argued that it was cruel punishment to put someone in downtime without giving them some kind of media outlet."

The old man nodded, "Congress caved, and you had to put TV's in everybody's tube."

Dr. Palome looked up, and picked up his coffee, "Exactly, except that Congress worded their law so that we would have to keep up with the times. They said that we, the cryogenic lab, would have to provide the most 'commonly used media outlet' for each patient. Of course, at the time, that was Television, and it has been for many years. When new versions came out, with better bit-depth, resolution, 3D, and other such additions, we were able to resist altering the tubes. We argued that it would be an enormous expense, and a potential risk to wake everyone up just to make minor changes to their tubes." The doctor took a long sip from his coffee.

The old man picked up the thread, "Then somebody developed a better TV. One that was so different, so much better, that everybody switched over to it."

"Yes sir. Now we are required by law to wake up three million patients within the next two years, and explain this new media outlet to them." The doctor handed the pamphlet over. On the front was a picture of a person from behind. The man in the picture had what looked like a metallic growth attached to his spine, just between the shoulders. The text above said, "The IMV Cherry. Be wherever you need to be."

"What the hell is that thing?" The old man looked worried.

"Well, sir. It's a media unit that attaches to your spine, so that it can interact with your nervous system. By communicating directly with your brain, it simulates images and sounds that appear to be in front of you."

The old man frowned, "I don't want a machine in my head making hallucinations."

Dr. Palome said, "I understand sir. But this system is tightly controlled. It does not have the capability to show random hallucinations. It's linked to the wireless net, and it is only able to show you the things that you request. For instance, if you subscribe to a newsfeed, that feed can appear as a crawler at the periphery of your vision; also, you can use this system as a communication line, so that you can talk to people as though they were standing right next to you."

He took a deep breath, "But the most common usage is the guide. This is an avatar that appears in front of you and organizes all of your mail, messages, calendar, and news. He will also respond to questions, and do data searches based on your questions. This brings a whole new level to news retrieval, sir." He shrugged, "That's why it's so much more different than television. That's why we had to wake you. We need your permission to -"

The doctor stopped abruptly and cocked his head to the right, as though listening to something no one else could hear. It was common body language for letting people know that you were answering an incoming call.

In his ear, Carl could hear his boss, Dr. Carstark. He spoke in a slow, easy monotone, but Carl wasn't fooled. Anything important enough to break in on a session with a patient was worth worrying about. "Sorry to bother you Carl, but we've got a problem down here in 37-G. Could use your help." Carl's eyes widened slightly.

Carstark was a quiet, understated man, who had the look of someone who'd seen it all. He had never used the word 'problem' in front of Carl, preferring to refer to issues as 'opportunities' or 'situations'.

Carl stood up suddenly, knocking the clipboard to the floor. As he reached down to scoop it up, he turned to the old man, "I'm terribly sorry about this, sir, but I'm needed upstairs. I'll be back as soon as I can, and if there's anything you need, just ask one of the nurses." He bustled out of the door quickly, shoes sliding slightly on the waxed floor.

The old man waited for the door to close, then folded his hands over the pamphlet on his chest. He frowned up at the machine over his head, "This might be more difficult than I'd thought, Mr. Owl."


- posted by BrandG @ 9:11 PM 5 comments

 
Some interesting little stats about you.
So, I've been on this BlogExplosion thing for a couple of days now, and I took a look at some of the stats originating from it.

From your time zones, I'd say that 70% of you are American (North or South) or Canadian.

Internet Explorer seems to be the browser of choice (with 48% of the hits), but Good News! Mozilla comes in at #2 with 44% of the hits! Sweet! One day, all men will throw down the yoke of oppressive, buggy, proprietary browsers. And when that day comes, O when that sweet day comes my brothers and my sisters, then we shall walk arm in arm through the . . . Whoa. Lost myself there for a second.

85% of you speak English, which makes some sense given the time zone ratio.

Half of you have browsers capable of version 1.3, and the other half get as high as 1.2 (I'm guessing this is the same divide as the Mozilla vs. IE split).

Every single one of you have had cookies enabled. Well, I guess I can start tracking data from you now. Muhuhuhuhahahaha . . . Just kidding.

- posted by BrandG @ 7:54 PM 0 comments

 
Video Game Ethics: Part Four - Sex
It's kind of tough to talk about video games, ethics, and sex, because I don't think humanity has completely defined what appropriate sexual ethics are. I mean, sexual issues seem to wax and wane with each generation. For instance, in America, just thirty years ago, homosexuality was almost unheard of on TV or film. In that thirty years, however, we have seen Will & Grace, The L Word, and even the Crying Game. So, morals swing a lot over time.

Rather than try to determine where games stand on the right or wrong of sex, let's look at where they stand on individual issues within the realm of "sex".

Before I get started, let me point out that I'm drawing a distinction here between sex in games, and sex games. The first group is personified by games that you can buy on the shelves at any Best Buy or Electronic Boutique (Leisure Suit Larry, Tomb Raider, Grand Theft Auto). The second group is usually bought over the internet or downloaded (Hentai games, strip blackjack games, stuff like that). Without trying to offend anyone, I'm going to call the first group "Normal" games (games that revolve around gameplay), and the second group "Hentai" games (games that revolve around sex).

Who's the Boss:
I should point out that there are very few games out there that have courtship or sex, and of those few, they all feature a male courting a woman. This doesn't count "The Sims" of course, because you don't really have a single main character. But you won't ever see a strong female lead striving to convince a male to love her. In this, at least, art imitates life. : )

Monogamy:
Of the entire range of "Normal" games, there are almost no games that support monogamy. Whenever courting is represented in a video game, it is almost always a man courting a woman; and in all of those situations, the man is allowed to court as many women as he wishes. Every episode of Leisure Suit Larry was about the player trying to have sex with as many girls as he could. In Fable, a man can marry a woman in a grand ceremony, then walk to the nearest town and marry again. In Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, there are six different women who are designated "girlfriends". It is quite possible, and apparently pretty common, for people to co-mingle in "The Sims".

Now, there are several games out there that have a woman as a goal ("Save the Princess" to receive a chaste kiss on the cheek), but in those games, there is never an alternative. You can't get to the end of the game and say, "Actually, I think the evil witch is more my type." Because there's no choice, it's not really monogamous (was Adam monogamous with Eve?).

In Hentai games, monogamy is not even a consideration. Most of the game is involved not with which woman you should sleep with, but rather details about how you sleep with them.

The Act:
In Normal games, showing the act is very rare, and usually involves creative editing. GTA will show a car bounce up and down if you hire a prostitute. Leisure Suit Larry will show some suggestive imagery, but put black "Censor bars" over the private parts of the couple. Probably my favorite example of this was in the first LSL, where the Censor bar was the exact same size as Larry, so it looked like the bar was bouncing on top of Larry's date.

A more common form is to fade to black, or show an exterior shot of the room, while you hear the moaning coming from inside.

Either way, games apparently don't think it's necessary to show much in this situation. Why, you may ask? Because it's got nothing to do with gameplay, and gameplay is king.

In Hentai games, you rarely see much of the act, because in most cases, it's just a series of images with lurid descriptions. However, in the games that show animated sex, they rarely shy away from showing any part of the act.

T&A:
Given how much it's been covered in the past, it's almost not worth mentioning that body styles in video games have grown unbelievable. Every leading man has a 22-inch waist, washerboard abs, four foot wide shoulders, and rippling muscles. Every leading lady fits a 36-24-36 DD format, and in some games, you can even set how much they bounce when she moves. This section is obviously tailored to the lowest common denominator. Why? You may ask? Because there's a lot more people in the lower common denominator than in any other group, and they spend money the same way anybody else does.

And, of course, it's even worse in the Hentai games.

Re-cap:
So, games seem to be physically and emotionally immature, either incapable or unwilling to commit to one relationship. Also, they seem somewhat chauvinistic in their portrayal of men pursuing women. However, they seem to be pretty prudish when it comes to nudity in the games. That seems kind of odd, that they are okay with multiple partners, but unwilling to show naked people. But when you think about it, it's not that odd. They have to sell games in areas that censor not on content, but on images.

I can't think of any other issues that are brought up regarding sex in video games. Can you?

Next up - Gluttony and Envy

- posted by BrandG @ 11:45 AM 0 comments

 
The self portrait.
Not bad for a guy who's never, ever, ever done anything artistic before, huh? And it only took me about two hours. So much for programmer art !

- posted by BrandG @ 11:52 PM 1 comments

 
Today's news
This is something I've never done before, but always wanted to. It's a recap of the funny news I found online today, from sources like Fark, Slashdot, and BoingBoing:

Funny:

40% of AOL users don't own a computer. You can't make this stuff up. link

For some reason, people are worried about a man attaching a hunting rifle to the internet. . . link

Press the red button to be liked. . . link

How to fold a shirt. It's cooler than it sounds. link

The Naked News comes to Cleveland. link

News:

Metal Gear Solid 3 Ships. Not suprisingly, Metal Gear Solid 4 is already being developed. link

The latest version of Wine will run ITunes. Not all the ITunes features are implemented, but most. But get this, running Linux, you can emulate Windows, to run an Apple program. "I'd like to teach the world to sing, in perfect harmony" link

TiVo is planning to set up banner ads for when you fast forward through commercials. YOU CANNOT ESCAPE ADVERTISING!! This really shows how desperate TiVo is becoming. link

The RIAA wants to eliminate the ability to record anything. Even music off the radio. link

So, check this out. Tom Delay may be indicted for illegal fundraising to support Texas redistricting. However, new rules passed today mean that he can still keep a leadership position. Now, I'm a conservative, but MAN, the audacity. link

California is considering taxing people based on how much they drive. Hm, you may wonder, how can they track that? Easy, put a GPS device in all the new cars and trucks, then watch where every car goes. I certainly can't see a downside. link

Spring, Texas is working on tracking all students by an RFID tag. Guess it was just a matter of time, Comrade. link

- posted by BrandG @ 9:01 PM 0 comments

 
Quality of life as a game developer.
Looks like the whole "Quality of Life" issue is finally coming to bite the game industry in the ass. My prediction, it won't make a bit of difference. I've been in this industry for seven years, and I've spent half my career in overtime. Which, I guess, means I've actually been working for 10.5 years. Yay!?

Here's another one about the problems between publishers and developers

- posted by BrandG @ 8:17 PM 0 comments

 
Really tall trees
I can't sleep, but I can come up with some odd visuals while I try. This is from a half-sleeping dream I had:

Thousands of years ago, the trees of Saliphood grew too thick. The branches intermingled, and fought for position in the light of the sun. The branches and leaves grew so thick together, that they blacked out the sun over Saliphood completely. Still, the trees fought.

With agonizing slowness, they grew taller, and thicker, to gain purchase over each other. After a thousand years, it stopped raining in Saliphood. The rain would fall down on the trees, and they would collect the water, absorb it, and let it evaporate on their leaves. Hundreds of feet tall, as thick as a house, the trees made even the rain their servant.

Eventually, the lower branches began to starve and die out. As new trees grew, they stopped producing low branches altogether. The high branches of the old trees were so tightly interwoven, that the trees did not fall. Even when a tree died (usually of old age. Most trees had grown beyond being killed by a lightning strike or minor fire), it would not fall because of all the support it had from the others around it. Instead, it would slowly rot as it hung by it's branches.

The people of the hood had long ago learned to live without. They had energy for their street lights, and the water came from the ground, or the nearby river. The parents had stopped telling children about sunlight, because the stories had long ago slipped from their legends.

The trees weren't forgotten, though. They couldn't be. The trees were as real as the ground, and were treated in much the same way. They weren't things to look up at (the canopy above Saliphood was homogenous and thick, so that only artists would look for patterns in it), they were things to build around.

And when they died, they were huge events to move. Thompson was one of that crew. Once a tree was declared dead, his crew would begin stripping it. They would climb to the top of the tree, where the first branches took root. The only way to climb a tree was for five men to tie lines to each other, encircling the tree. They would all hug their portion of the tree, and slowly start to climb. Each man would hoist the line to the man on his left, and they would shimmy up the tree together.

From the top, they would cut a long strip, about six feet long and two feet deep. Then they would pry a long wedge into the cut, pushing it down to make the strip peel away from the tree. At this point, they would push down on the wedge with tremendous force, usually using the lower branches for a base. As the strip began to peel from the tree, each man would find himself nestled in a small alcove created between the strip and the tree itself.

There was a tool, much like a jackhammer, that attached to the tree, and pushed the wedge down lower. Slowly, inexorably, the men would pull strips hundreds of feet long, and two feet thick, away from the tree.

These men were skilled craftsmen. They knew just how much pressure and just when to apply it to make sure the strip didn't break away from the tree. Hundreds of feet below, neighborhoods would be evacuated in case a strip broke away. It was rare, and usually grounds for a dismissal, but not unheard of. These men were so good at their jobs, they had contests to see who could reach the ground first, strip intact.

Then, once the last strip was broken off from the stump and carted away, these men would begin their climb again, to pull down another strip.

The whole process would take weeks, and when it was done, there would only be a thin strip of the stump left. That would be chopped up, from the top down, by one man who made the entire climb on his own. Thompson was the key man for his crew, and he was usually the one to make this climb. He would climb to the lowest branches, throw a guideline over a branch, and repel down the tree, cutting off four-foot long sections as he went. Each section, he would tie to the guideline, and lower to his crew on the ground.

When they were done, there would only be a dead stump on the ground, and a dead stump in the sky. Both would be assimilated by their surroundings.

- posted by BrandG @ 2:37 AM 2 comments

 
A little off topic
I can't tell if this is a good thing or not:

You Are a Snarky Blogger!
	You've got a razor sharp wit that bloggers are secretly scared of. And that's why they read your posts as often as they can!
What kind of blogger are you?

- posted by BrandG @ 11:39 PM 0 comments

 
Video Game Ethics: Part Three - Lying
You know, I thought this would be easier than it was. I mean, I've been playing video games for most of my life, and I've been thinking about them in the abstract for just about as much time. So, the idea of analyzing the different aspects of ethical conduct in video games seemed like a no-brainer. The first two were easy, Murder and Theft. There's lots of those in video games, but very little else in ethical concerns.

For instance, lying. I've got examples of games that let you give responses to questions, but they are very old examples, and the responses were always fairly limited. There's very little opportunity for lying, and when the opportunity is there, the games seem to spend very little time doing anything with the information.

By the way, this whole post is completely devoid of action games, as they never ask questions ("Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no lies.")

Types of questions:

• Gameflow-altering questions: These are questions that define the direction that the game will go. For instance, at the end of Half-Life, the protagonist is offered a chance to join an elite group headed by the apparent antagonist. The rest of the game is dictated by this decision (granted, the rest of the game comes two minutes later when the player either walks off into the sunset, or gets pounded on by a really staggering number of enemies). These questions usually come up at the end of the game, and help define the last few seconds of the game (basically, would you like to win, or lose?).
  
  Rarely, does a game allow you to alter the gameflow early (because, that requires that the game developers create a lot of content that may never be seen). If they ever do, chances are that there's another hook that will invalidate that choice (for instance, in Deus Ex 2, the player can decide which side of a given battle to be on, but the player gets the same missions either way. The briefing is just given by a different talking head.)
  
  
• StoryTelling: This type of question is posed as a multiple-choice question, with a prepared answer for each. It goes like this, you walk up to a milkmaid and initiate conversation. She says, "Hello", and you respond with "Where is this village?" or "Where is the wizard?" or "Where are my pants?" The milkmaid will respond with an answer like this: "This is the land of milk and honey", and then you get to ask questions like "Milk? Honey?" It feels a lot like hyperlinks on a webpage.
  
  This gives you the opportunity to slowly, inexorably, draw out the small bit of story that this milkmaid is keeping. And if you navigate the menus correctly, you might even find out a secret! This is what makes people step through all the menus, even when they know what the answers will be.
  
  
• Inventory Questions: Sometimes a NPC (non-player character) will send you out on a mission ("Go bring back the vicious Chicken of Bristol") and you return two seconds later. The NPC who gave you the mission will ask "Did you find the vicious Chicken of Bristol?" and you can respond positively or negatively. Here's the thing, though. The game can (and will) check your inventory to see if you have the mission item. So, if you lie about it, your NPC will say, "But I can see by your pack that you are full of it! Don't come back until you have the Chicken!"
  
  Now, on the one hand, this can be used to test or influence a players moral standing. You could store how often a person tells these lies, and refer to them as a cad or a bounder throughout the game. But games generally don't do that. You can come back two seconds later, and the NPC will still ask, "Did you find the vicious Chicken of Bristol?"
  
  
• Moral questions: Ah ha! These are questions that affect the game itself is small subtle, but noticable ways. For instance, in Fable, lying can make your character's morality bar shift toward the evil side, and away from good; and in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, lying will shift your alignment from the light side to the dark side.
  
  Notice a similarity there? The only games that give a damn about lying are games that deliberately monitor your alignment. Once again we see that if something is not directly part of the gameplay formula, it is completely ignored by game developers. That is neither a good thing, nor bad. But it is worth noting that there are very few morality-based games out there.

So, basically, you have only a few types of questions. Gameplay effecting (very few, and usually toward the end); Storytelling (Far too many, but limited opportunity for original input); Inventory questions (Not many, and usually toothless), and moral questions (very very few, and even then, only in games that concern themselves with morality).

There are very few questions in video games, and among them, very few attempts at moral / immoral input. It is worth noting that the games that employ morality are very ferverant about it, and they usually try to show consequences of the moral choices. But there are still very few of them.

Why are there so few games that allow lying? Because it's not good gameplay. A player knows walking into the game whether he wants to be good or bad, and any attempt by the developer to make the player do one thing or another is seen as an imposition. As I noted in the previous post, players are barbaric. They don't want to be ethical, and they feel like the game is annoying when it tries to dictate morality to them.

So, in this situation, unlike murder and theft, games seem to be taking a pro-active step. Although there are few games out there that pay attention to lying, those that exist show penalties for it (thus, in theory, encouraging the players to be moral). Can't fault them for that.

Tomorrow, Sex!

- posted by BrandG @ 11:22 PM 0 comments

 
Video Game Ethics: Part Two - Theft
For those just tuning in, this is a short series I've started on Video Game Ethics. Note: this is not about what video games do to children, society, etc. This is just an attempt to define what is considered right or wrong in an average video game.

We know that video game developers build their worlds from the polygon up. Because they have to define every action, interaction, and decision in the game, we can use the rules and their enforcement to determine what video games themselves see as right or wrong.

"Thou Shalt Not Steal"

It must have started with the inventory. Or perhaps, it was the first health pickup; but at some point, gamers gained the ability to store items. With the sense of virtual property, there came the possibility of virtual property loss. And, because of that, virtual property greed.

I think it's worth drawing a line between two types of theft in video games: Adventure game theft, and Action game theft.

Adventure Games:

Take the basic adventure game, like Zork or Leisure Suit Larry. As you walked into a room, almost the first thing you did (sometimes even before looking at the room itself) was to look at the items around you. In many of the rooms, you encountered locks of different types (the doorknob is too high, if only you had a stepstool, or there is a red lock on the door, if only you had the red key). While the original intention of these locks was to make the player search for original solutions, it really bred a feeling in the player that if he didn't collect absolutely every useless scrap he came across, he would regret leaving it behind later.

At first, this wasn't really a moral question, because most of the things were just sitting on the ground, or on a shelf, or generally not spoken for by anyone. However, the possibility of a guard added a new gameplay opportunity. If you walk into a room, and see a Troll with a red key hanging from his belt, you had a pretty good idea that the red key was something that you needed (especially if you had just come from the room with the red lock). This was a new dynamic to the game, not just accumulating game pieces, but actually getting around other characters to get the game pieces. Whether you killed the Troll, or created a distraction and tried to pickpocket the key, you were involved in video game theft.

The Action Game:

Action games were very progressive and original in their early years, and they quickly hit on the idea of improving the player's arsenal by picking up weapons, upgrades, extra life, etc. Many of these items were used as carrots, to pull players into locations they wouldn't normally go, or to show the player an area that they might not know they could access. Very early in the process, though, they learned that the player could be pushed to perform if he/she believed that they had to kill enemies to gain those pickups. This could be seen in games like Raiden, Smash TV, and Gauntlet.

Now, in much the same way that video game murder started out as seemingly innocuous (it's just one sprite shooting another sprite, it's not like really killing anybody), theft was really broad based, and not really dangerous (I'm just taking a virtual object from a sprite, it's not like he needed it). However, in the same way, that line became blurred later, as the games became more realistic and the situations more lifelike. In Ultima 6 (a game that was based on "Virtues"), I would habitually go through people's closets and dressers, taking what I wanted, and hoping no one saw. The rationale was the same (they're digital people. They don't need these things.) but the action was the same, too.

Now, it's easy to see how these things come to pass. For instance, imagine you're working on Ultima 6.

1. The designers say, "We've got this room. It's a bedroom. It needs some furniture. Can we do a bed, dresser, and closet?"
2. Once those are implemented, the designer comes back with, "If we can open the door to the room, why can't we open the door to the closet?"
3. So the closet becomes a live object, that can open and close. Then the designer thinks, "It's kinda pointless to have a closet that never has any stuff in it. Can we put some clothes in it?"
4. Now that you have clothes in the closet (and the dresser, for continuity's sake), the designer thinks, "We should put something good in there as well. Like something hidden, so that the player has a reason to use all this code we've written."
5. Now, without intending to, we're pushing the player to steal.

Some games will recognize theft, and deliberately avoid it. Some games give shopkeepers an eerie omniscience, and will boot the player out immediately when he/she tries to steal. Another, more obvious way to avoid theft, is to put items in areas where the players couldn't reach them, or to make them non-interactive.

However, in the interest of maintaining "reality" the game has to allow the player to steal. It doesn't make sense that I can see a fishing pole by the dock, pick it up, but not be able to pick up the bucket of bait. If the game designers want a way to make some things available and other things non-available, they have to come up with clever ways of improving gameplay. Whenever a game developer is given the choice, they will go the easy route to gameplay.

Action games still keep up their practice of "looting the body" to gain ammunition, money, and powerups. It makes sense, from a gameplay standpoint, because the pickups gain value when the player has to fight to get them. It keeps players from avoiding the enemies, and makes them want to play a more challenging game.

These days, theft need not even be a secret, or something to avoid. There are several games where the lead character is a thief (including the game "Thief"). In the game I'm currently playing (GTA San Andreas) there was a level where I had to sneak into a rap star's home, past his guards, to steal his "rhyme book". So, we've reached the point where game developers feel no impetus to avoid this ethical issue (oddly, Sony will still prosecute people who make hardware that lets people steal their games. The irony lacks subtlety).

Something else to note, is the barbaric nature of the player in general. While we can point at the game makers as being responsible for the world in which the player interacts, it is nevertheless the player who will fight tooth-and-nail for a chance at an edge over the game. The player feels almost no ethical investment at all in a video game (after all, if something in-game punishes him for unethical behavior, he can reset the game, and wipe away all sin).

Game developers hire skilled people whose only job is to play the game in ways it was not intended to be played. These QA testers are masters of finding the one angle that game developers didn't look when making the games, and they are needed because the game playing public is a thousand times better at the same job. The game developers hire the QA staff to keep the game honest (making sure it can't be broken), but also to keep the player honest.

QA personnel have to play with the same lack of ethics that the game player will use, and the game developer then gets to decide how much or how little he wants to enforce those ethics. Peter Moleneux once said in an interview that in the game Fable, he was forced to disarm the player when he/she entered a city, because the QA testers were killing entire towns. This only goes to show that the developers themselves can be surprised by the amount of vicious freedom people will take in their games.

Still, it is the game developers who decide what is and is not possible in a game universe, and it seems that, ethically, this issue is considered a non-issue by most games (you don't hear about any court cases where a defendant says that he learned to steal by playing Thief).

Tomorrow's ethical issue, Lying!

- posted by BrandG @ 8:04 PM 0 comments

 
Video Game Ethics: Part One - Death
I was playing through GTA: San Andreas, when I noticed a singularly odd predicament. My character was told by the crooked cop to burn down a house run by a rival gang. So, I found myself with a pocket full of Molotov cocktails, lighting up the place with my deadly pitching arm. I shot a cocktail through one, two, three, all the windows for the first floor of the building (this is presumably because the second floor would collapse and burn down after the first floor was ruined). Mission accomplished, I turned to walk away, when I heard a woman screaming from the second floor. My mission then altered to one where I was to enter the burning building, get the fire extinguisher, get the girl, save the girl, and drive her home.

Wait a minute. Wasn't I the one who burned the building down? I mean, I wasn't under any mistaken impressions when I torched the place. I knew there would be people inside, and that their screams would haunt my nights forevermore, driving me to a state of madness that would one day find me with tears running down my cheeks as I bit down on a cobalt blue muzzle and . . . Anyway, I knew what I was getting into. So, why the change of heart? Why did I decide that this person now deserved to live, while I let all the others die? If I was okay with killing everyone in the building, why did I suddenly rush in to save one of them?

Now, this is not a treatise on the ethics of the game itself. It is, rather, a treatise on the common ethics allowed in-game. When a programmer, designer, and artist get together, they define a microcosm world. Rather than take the real world and limit it, these people are responsible for building a world from nothing, and trying to make it as real as they can (at least, real enough to make it enjoyable, and help the player suspend their disbelief). However, given that you have a limited world, and that everything you decide to add is a conscious effort, the content of the game speaks volumes for your ethics. This is not a question of what is right and wrong in the absolute form, it's a question of what you allow to be right or wrong in your microcosm world.

So, I'm going to be taking a look at that over the next few days, giving what insight I can find about the video game ethics culture in general. Today, I look at the big one, Murder.

Thou shalt not commit Murder.

Let's define this one, lest I get in trouble for the gray area between a Terminator robot, Extraterrestrial, and Zombie. I'm going to define Murder as rendering a sentient being non-functional, through elimination, destruction, or complete removal. I will further define a sentient being as an object that interacts with the player (non-static, it can walk, talk, shoot, but needs do only one of those things to be sentient). Note that I am allowing animals in this list, because most games anthropomorphize animals to a greater or lesser extent.

Without murder, games would be in serious trouble. I feel safe in saying that 90% of all games made involved murder, from Space Invaders all the way up to Half Life 2, there has been a remarkable amount of shooting in video games. In the days of Space Invaders, it was easy to distance the player from the idea of killing, because all the enemies are sprites, and you are a sprite, and they're only about 16x16 pixels in size. The suspension of disbelief was easily maintained.

However, as we become more technologically advanced, it became more difficult to suspend that disbelief. As the enemies started turning into articulated, animated, anthropomorphized creatures, it was harder not to see it as visceral killing. In Space Invaders, when an enemy died, a little starburst came out of the center of the alien, and when it cleared, the alien simply was no more. However, in a modern game like Manhunt, a player can sneak up behind a guard, grab him and kill him while he struggles. When a player has killed a character in Manhunt, the character doesn't disappear, it lies on the ground in a steadily widening pool of blood.

Now, all game developers know that they are dealing with killing when they make the games, but most see it as the ultimate in struggles, and so it makes up the majority of their gameplay. The only way to influence a game developer is to point out how to improve gameplay. As an example of this, the makers of Thief came up with a difficulty level, where you got extra points if you could go through the entire game without killing anyone. Game developers will pick the road to the best gameplay possible, and if you can point out the great challenge of sneaking around guards instead of killing them, game developers will build that game.

Most games will keep the killing, but will come up with cheesy ways to make it look less like killing. For instance, if you're friend gets bitten by a zombie, then comes back to life as a zombie, you don't have to worry about blowing his head off. You're not killing a person, you're killing a zombie! Also, it is somehow okay to kill aliens, even when they're bipedal life forms that have fingers that can hold weapons just like humans do, communicate with each other using their mouths just like humans, and even have blinking eyes.

Robots, too have been given a pass. No matter how lifelike you make a robot, it can always be gleefully annihilated for a higher score. It reminds me a lot of Blade Runner. In that movie, the underlying question was, "Where do you define humanity, when everything human can be exactly imitated?" Apparently, video gamers and their makers have drawn a line in the sand stating that Philip K. Dick can postulate, while they ventilate.

There is so much of this now, that killing has become a euphemism of itself. When I'm destroying or forcibly deactivating a robot, I'm not actually killing anything, no matter how hard the robot may have clung to life.

I should point out that there are a few games out there (mostly published by Rockstar) that completely ignore the euphemisms. It's not that they curtail their killing, but rather that they do it honestly. GTA gives you no pretense of a euphemism when you run over a person and see a blood red tire trail being left by your car. The game doesn't shirk from killing in any way. Remember, somebody wrote code that determined where the blood streak would be, how long it would last, and how it would follow the car. They seem to follow a common game developer's philosophy, which, to butcher an Oliver Stone quote, goes like this:

Violence, for lack of a better word, is good. Violence is right. Violence works. Violence clarifies, cuts through and captures the essence of the gameplay. Violence puts boxes on the shelves, and violence pulls people to the stores to clear those shelves. Violence drives players more than puzzle games, engages them more than strategy games, and holds more respect than board games. Violence was widespread before video games, and when all other games are gone, violence will still be with the human race. To deny that violence is an essential part of humanity is a stupid lie, and to deny that violence is enjoyed by humanity is a pleasant lie. *

So, the game developers take the high road while taking the low road. But with these euphemisms in place, let's try to boil out some of the lies. Let's look at two game situations:

1) A chunky plumber is running from the left side of the screen to the right. His girlfriend is being held in a castle far to the right of the screen. As he is running to her rescue, he encounters a slow moving mushroom, with eyes and a mouth full of teeth. As the mushroom slowly slides toward him, the plumber jumps in the air and lands on the mushroom's head. There is a brief flash, and the mushroom is gone.

2) A convict, held prisoner by a rich psychotic, is left in an urban jungle. All the citizens have been evacuated, and only roving killers walk the streets. The convict spys one of these killers and crouches down, sneaking up behind him. The convict crawls slowly forward, attempting to stay in the shadows to avoid being spotted. At the last moment, the convict slips a plastic bag over the killer's head, and holds it tight while the body shakes and fights underneath (there's even a little bit of shaking from the rumble pack in your controller). Finally, the body slides down to the ground, and the convict picks up the body. He finds a dark corner, where no one else will see the body, and dumps the body there.

Now, of those two situations, which is more "right"?

The motives behind the first attack seem more honorable (saving the princess, rather than killing an unsuspecting person) , but when we look at their situations more closely, it's not so black and white. For instance, the plumber in the first game is moving toward a castle to save the princess; however, he has been through three castles already, and each time he has been told "Sorry Mario, the Princess is being held in another castle." So the likelihood that the princess is in this castle is . . . suspect. When Mario is fighting past all of these enemies without even knowing if the princess is in that castle, would be like a nation going to war with another nation without any clear intel about . . . maybe I should skip this one.

Consider this, Mario has the capability to jump horizontally several times the width of the mushroom. It would be the easiest thing in the world for Mario to jump over the mushroom and go about his business. Why then, would he choose to destroy the mushroom, who has a wife and five children at home (one of which has just got lost his first baby fang)? Mario does this because he also gets a hundred points for jumping on the mushrooms head.

By comparison, the convict is in a very tight setting. There are many streets in this game, but they are all blocked off, leading to only one path that the convict can take. Following this path, he sees a killer standing in front of him, with a weapon. In his ear, he has a direct link to the rich, psychotic who tells him that he'll alert the killer if the convict doesn't act. So, realizing that there's no where to hide, and no better time to attack, the convict acts.

Now, which one is on better moral standing? The one who casually, passively kills for the extra hundred points, or the one who actively, viscerally, kills to protect his life. The answer: Neither.

Death is death. And when one entity brings death upon another, that's murder. No better or worse depending on what euphemism you use. And no matter how we frame the murders, it is obvious that murder is okay in most video games.

This is not the same as saying that the two situations are equivalent to each other. One is obviously more disturbing than the other. All I'm saying is that either we agree that both are "right" or neither one is. Based on the player's comments and quarters, I would guess that the gameplayers have decided that it is "right".


Next up, Theft!




* My wife points out that I shouldn't say Violence, because violence and Murder are not the same thing. I would argue that the premise is the same whether an enemy dies on the first shot or the hundredth. The question is the ethics behind the decision to attack with the intent to kill.

- posted by BrandG @ 11:27 PM 0 comments

 
Big day.
Today, I joined the august ranks of a sacred order whose members include Thom Robertson and Guy Ritchie. I am now one of the many who spends his days working on his personal projects, while his wife works to support them.

I have become a kept man, a house hubby. I don't know how long I can keep up like this, or how long she'll let me do it, but it should be fun to find out.

I got my office put together today, and I've started packing the stuff that I have to ship to my ex-co-workers.

Hopefully tomorrow, I'll be able to ship that stuff, get some work done on my remote monitor system, and finish some more on a blog post that's been running through my head.

I've been thinking about morality in video games. Not the "lessons" it teaches us, or the "influence" it has on society. Just the rules of ethics that a player can expect to see in the average video game itself.

- posted by BrandG @ 11:13 PM 0 comments

 
Too Busy
I've been just too busy today. I went back to Acclaim today to pick up stuff for some other ex-co-workers (is that an illegal use of dual-hyphenation?) Then, after I grabbed all that stuff, I came home and wrote a data encryption tool. Nothing really incredible, just a good way of hiding data by encoding it in an image (using the minor bits of a pixel's colors). It was a lot of fun, and I got pretty good results with almost no changes to the original image.

Anyway, I've been running back and forth all day, and I think I'm going to crash now. It's sad, really, because it's only seven o'clock. Either I'm really tired, or I'm getting really old.

- posted by BrandG @ 5:03 PM 0 comments

 
Ponderous. Really Ponderous.
So, I had this dream, where there was a guy who was always coming up with great, radical ideas. As I walked around, following him, I thought to myself, "This is going to be a real short dream. I'm just not clever enough to keep coming up with good ideas to put in this guy's mouth."

Of course, when I wake up, I can't remember any of them, except this one: We could cut our insurance costs in half if we agreed to only make claims on even-numbered days.

Okay, I realize that's a stupid idea in practice, but I thought it was pretty funny all the same. And, of course, while I was dreaming it, it sounded like a perfectly reasonable idea.

G'night.

- posted by BrandG @ 2:29 AM 1 comments

 
Crazy Brand's Dry Goods
While we were doing overtime on Turok: Evolution, I noticed that the vending machines were charging about $1.50 for a cup of Ramen. I know that Ramen only costs maybe $0.33 a cup, and the blatant price gouging got my blood up. So, being the hothead that I am, I ran to my nearest Sam's Club, and bought all the Ramen Noodles, Candy Bars, Pop Tarts, and Cheetoes I could. I filled my filing cabinets with the low-priced goods, rounded the price up to the nearest quarter, and taped a menu to my office door. I called it "Crazy Brand's General Store". The process was simple. People would come in, select something from my stores, and drop payment in the money bowl. I also left enough change in there to let people make change for their purchases.

It was totally on the honor system, and while I doubt I ever turned a profit (especially when factoring in labor), I enjoyed providing a public service.

Here's the funny part. After I had been locked out for the past month and a half, I came in to find my money bowl full. Apparently, while I was gone, the auctioneers and inventory people bought food from me. So, Crazy Brand's lives on without me.
- posted by BrandG @ 8:57 PM 2 comments

 
Stomping Grounds Revelation
So, today I went back to the smoking remains of Acclaim Austin. There were empty hallways, empty cardboard boxes strewn about, and a very few, suspicious people walking around. There was the IT manager, who looked weary from trying to help out both his friends and his former employer. There were security guards, who scowled at you to make sure you weren't vandalizing anything, and auctioneers, who looked through your stuff to make sure you weren't stealing Acclaim property. That kind of stuff freaks me out, so I always opened up everything, and offered to let them look through it. I think that made them more nervous.

It took me several boxes, two trips to the car, and 2.5 hours to take down my office. I completely filled my car, so I went home to empty it, then returned to help out some of the others.

I'm a proxy today. You see, since the company closed more than a month and a half ago, many people now have jobs in far off lands. Because I'm helpful sucker, I offered to help them out by cleaning out their offices for them.

I cleared out two offices with just two boxes. Comparing that to my glut of stuff really was humbling. I never realized how much I lived out of my office.

I had video game box covers all over the walls, with obscure movie posters in between. I put up concept art as office decoration, and I have a plush alien hanging from the ceiling. I had food in all my filing cabinets. This was partly because a video game company is one of the best examples of a paperless office, and partly because I used to run a clandestine general store out of my office.

While I was going through the offices, I realized something. In the last month or so, I've had several interviews with game companies. I've been applying for senior game programmer jobs because I've got seven years experience, more than three shipped titles, and a broad range of skills in the gaming industry. However, I seemed to be hitting a brick wall with most of the companies. You see, I don't specialize in 3D programming; and these days, a programmer is measured by his 3D programming skills. Don't get me wrong, I can build an engine in D3D or OpenGL, I just don't enjoy it as much as building a game. 3D programming just feels like building a tech demo, no life, no passion.

Because I don't like working in 3D, I haven't got much work experience in 3D, and as I've said, we seem to measure intelligence by polygons. So, because of this, I've been passed over on several of my interviews. In one interview, a potential employer actually asked me, "So, you really think you're a senior level programmer?" It had started to build up, bothering me a little more each time, until I started doubting my own skills. Maybe I wasn't a senior programmer. Maybe it takes more than experience making games.

Then I cleaned out my office, and I saw all the notes that I had made. I remembered times that people came to me for help on code design problems. I remembered when I was the sole controller of huge sections of code. I remembered being the lead on my own project. At Acclaim, the lead of the technology group would come by my office several times a day, and we would occasionally talk about issues he was dealing with. If he valued my input, if other people came to me for answers, how could I not be a senior level programmer?

I think the problem might just be the economy. There have been a lot of people fired from game companies recently, and there's a glut of talent out in the market. Maybe companies feel like they can always find the next Bobby Fisher, and they don't have to deal with anyone who isn't a 3D guru. Maybe they're right. But we are rapidly approaching a point where the technology is not going to push us any more. When we all have blisteringly beautiful rendering systems, they will need people who can do original thinking on Networking, AI, and Gameplay; And typically, the 3D gurus don't like to spend time thinking about the game side (just look at John Carmack). Maybe then they'll decide that flexible thinkers are useful again.
- posted by BrandG @ 8:56 PM 1 comments

 
Quiz
For some unknown reason, I'm on the mailing list for "For Him" magazine. I know I didn't ever pay for the subscription. I think I got it free with ten gallons of gas or something. Anyway, the latest one came in the mail yesterday.

My wife handed it to me smirking, "Should you dump her? Ten ways to find out."

I looked at the cover and read the headline, "huh. They're probably just trying to mock Cosmo for it's quizzes."

She started back to her desk, "Yeah." Then after sitting down and waiting long enough for me to forget the whole thing, "So, you going to take the quiz?"

"Wha - ah, no. No. Of course not."

"Because you already know?" With her back to me, I couldn't read her intent, but I smelled a trap.

"Yes. I don't need to take a survey." Then, because I was getting cocky about avoiding the trap, I threw in a little barb, "I made that decision a long time ago."

She turned in her chair, every bit the evil genius, just missing a Persian cat in her lap, "Are you saying you feel trapped by your decision, or that you're afraid of what the quiz might tell you?"

Suddenly I felt the trap that I thought I'd avoided spring all around me. In these moments, I usually panic and fall back on the only defense that I can truly get behind; The unadulterated truth. "I'm not afraid to take the quiz, but I have no need to take it, because I already know that I am steadfast in my love for you."

I waited through a pregnant pause, as she frowned slightly. I didn't dare say anything, because the key to unadulterated truth is that it has to be short. If I started talking, I could still screw it up. Meanwhile, she tried to find an angle in my defense, but that's the best thing about the unadulterated truth. There's no two ways around it.

"Well, I love you too." It was as close as I could get to a victory. I was quietly exultant.

About an hour later, while she was working on school work, and I was playing GTA, she turned to me and said, "Hon, I'm sorry, but the noise of the game is starting to get to me."

"Say no more. You're school work takes priority. No problem," I turned off the PS2, and swiveled back to face my desk.

After another moment, I heard, "You're not taking the quiz, are you?"

I dropped the magazine, and said, "No. uh. No. I was, uh. Looking at the naked women. Yeah."

That might be the first time I've used the, "I don't read it for the articles" defense.

- posted by BrandG @ 2:12 AM 0 comments

 
Losing it.
I have a pretty serious problem regarding my personal projects. I will normally start out with a flurry of activity, culminating in a working prototype in a remarkably short amount of time. However, once I'm past that point, made a schedule for all the remaining points that need to be visited, and started work on that, I lose all concentration. I start playing a video game, or working on another project, or just spend a lot of time reading. Next thing you know, three weeks have passed, and nothing is done on the project. Or worse, I lose the thread of the project altogether, and it sits on my hard drive as just "sample code" to use for future development.

I should point out that this only happens on my home projects, I don't know why, but I never seem to suffer this at work. Maybe it's because I'm required to be sitting in front of my computer at assigned times, and that leaves me little argument for attention alternatives (always be alert for alliteration : ) ).

Anyway, I'm at one of those points now. It's really harsh this time, because I've got GTA: San Andreas to contend with as well. I could happilly spend the next few weeks doing nothing but playing that game, if it weren't for physical and familial repercussions.

So here I sit, in front of my computer. I cleared my desk off. No distractions; and come hell or high water, I will implement a scroll bar mechanism in my report generator today. Oh, that's right. It's on now. I'm Mr. Industry today. Gonna get stuff done. Yeah!

But, actually, I'm just writing a blog post. And I gotta go to the bathroom. Come to think of it, did I pay that water bill my wife handed me? Technically, I should do that first. Yeah.

After that, though. Definitely.

- posted by BrandG @ 3:27 PM 0 comments

 
No more posts after 1:00 a.m.
Okay, I was really tired yesterday, when I posted that thing about the teeth warriors. I had originally written something about the guy who climbed into the lions pen in Taipei, hoping to convert the lions to Christianity. I used it as an example of American thinking, the righteous self assurance that can sway all other factors.

Anyway, it was looking pretty preachy, so I deleted it, and threw together that teeth thing. It was just to have something to post.

I spent all day today working on building Windows Services with "managed" C++. God, I hate Microsoft. They made it really easy to build a Windows Service in .Net, and really easy to do event logging through the same. However, the executable is really big, there's no way to access the object you're creating (because it doesn't 'really' exist ?!?!), so there's really no way of knowing why or where stuff falls apart. This was day two of Windows Service training, and I now think I understand it well enough to say that it is a bubbling pile of poo. Every serious programmer I could find online, writing about services, said that services should never be written in "managed" C++ or .Net. However, I can't find any samples or code illustrating an alternative. Great.

After that, about 10:00 p.m. I started in on GTA: San Andreas. I figure I'm about 30-50% of the way through the game. I completely owned all the 'hoods in my area, but then a twist of fortune screwed it all up. Now I'm in a much larger world, with no clear goal in mind (except the eventual revenge against damn near everybody on Earth).

The game is growing on me. I still hate the environmental stuff (certain hours of the day are just un-freaking-playable because of the sun flare or because it's too damn dark), but I'm starting to like the radio more. I listen to DST a lot, or Los Santos Radio. Even K-Rose is starting to grow on me.

Anyway, I'll try to have a more interesting life tomorrow, so that it will be worth writing about.

- posted by BrandG @ 11:35 PM 0 comments