Because it is so cold out...

...my dog has decided that this would be the best way to cope:



Is it possible for any creature to look more comfortable and cozy?



(Editor's Note: This is how I found her this morning. She was not positioned this way for the sake of a cute photo.)

In other news, the Gamers With Jobs podcast featuring Shawn Elliott and myself is up Click here! Apologies for the fact that I sound like I was in a wind tunnel. The truth is: I was in a wind tunnel! LOL!!

Rainy weekend FTW

So I don't know how it was around your neck of the planet, but over here is was wet and cold all weekend long--which made it the perfect excuse to sit around the house and do absolutely nothing. Yay! Actually, I shouldn't say "nothing." It's not like I was suspended in one of those isolation vats for 48 hours. I did do some things. It's just that the things I did were those quiet, lazy things you do when you don't feel like going outside. Like making a belt out of human skulls.

Anyway, so the first thing I did was finally take care of the ongoing lack-of-sound problem I had with my Xbox 360. Thanks to my pals at Quarter to Three, it is now fixed. Woot! This meant I could finally boot up Mirror's Edge, which has been sitting around my house since it came out. We don't get "free games" at EA. What we do get is points--10 per year, that can go towards getting games at the EA Store on campus. Console games cost 2 points, while PC games cost 1 point---proof, again, that PC games are the retarded in-bred step-cousin of gaming.

In any case, I used 2 of my precious 10 points to pick up Mirror's Edge, but it has been mocking me for weeks, cuz I didn't want to play without sound. So yesterday I plowed through the prologue and first two chapters, and my short review is: Me likey, but me throwy controller a couple times too. The game looks fuggin' fantastic. I love the art direction, all bright and clean with big dollops of primary colors everywhere. And the platform game meets FPS hybrid is a really nice concept--adding tension to your every move. But, as others have noted in more official reviews, the combat is really not so hot. At first, I thought those people had missed the point. Clearly DICE didn't really intend this game to be about combat. But the fact is, even by Chapter 2 it's *also* clear that some enemies need to be dealt with--at least if you're not playing on Easy, which I'm not. Yes, I know you can blitz through the game, in theory, without ever engaging the enemy, but some of the scenarios just almost demand you at least engage in some disarming, which, in my case, usually means I'm going to end up dead. The worse problem I see, however, is that, unless you are really lucky or really great at this kind of thing, you basically need to die over and over and over to figure out the right path to take. DICE is super generous with the checkpoints, so that's cool, but it does get wearying to have to play this way after awhile. I find myself only able to play in short bursts so that I can keep enjoying myself and not get too frustrated. I credit DICE for this though: They didn't go out of their way to baby everyone too much, just in some misguided attempt to PLEASE EVERYONE EVERYWHERE. They let this be a somewhat hardcore game--and that's not a bad thing. I'd rather they err this way, with a game like this, then hold everyone's hand all the way through and not provide any challenge whatsoever. I just may suck too much to ever finish it.

Also played: Wow Lich King, of course. God I love this expansion. Luuuuuurve it. The more I play, the more I am certain that this is the best WoW content Blizzard has made to date. I've already blabbered on about the phasing---and that was *before* I got to the epic surprise in Dragonblight--so I won't do it again. But all the other little touches, the funny quest chains (I loved fighting along with "Future Eggbertt"--who told me afterward to "get us better gear"), the mounted missions, just really have renewed my love full-on for this game. Really, Blizzard could just be coasting at this point, laughing and high-fiving each other in their beds of money. But they went out of their way with Lich King. And to that I say: Kudos!

And in further gaming news: Brodeo fans will hopefully be pleased to know that my good pals at Gamers With Jobs invited both Shawn Elliott and myself to appear on their podcast together, which we recorded yesterday (Saturday) for airing on, errr, I think December 17. I think. Check their website for details! I always enjoy talking with those guys, and it was extra super-dee-duper fun to be reunited with Shawn for a couple hours of podcasting blather. We had a good time recording it, so I hope y'all like it!

The other "big" weekend activity was watching "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind" on DVD with the family, which I'd never seen. I've loved every Miyazaki film I've ever seen, and actually had intended on reading the manga for this years ago, but never did. This movie didn't disappoint either. But what is it with him and the weird creatures? Either he did (or does) a lot of drugs, or maybe he just has a brain naturally geared towards the surreal. The great thing is, as weird as he gets, there's always so much heart and sincerity in his stories. He never lets things get odd just to be odd. "Totoro" will always be my favorite. And "Spirited Away" was just so moving. I'm not sure how I'd rank "Nausicaa"--but, like all Miyazaki, it was two hours of animation that had me completed wrapped in its spell.

Finally, I did have to leave the house at one point today for a potluck dinner for my kid's cross-country team. That itself was fine. What was notable, in a blog-worthy way, was the teen word usage I learned at the event. That would be "beast", used as a verb. As in, "I totally beasted that test on Friday," or, "even when she wasn't feeling well, she totally beasted it at practice every week."

Okay, the resident Jew in the house must now sign off to carry the Christmas tree inside. WTF? What's next? Putting the honey glaze on the ham? Oy vey!

The artichoke dabbler.

Last night, my wife served artichokes for dinner. We also had soup and bread and cheese, which was a good thing, because I am, as I announced at the dinner table, an artichoke dabbler. My daughter laughed at that announcement, but it really is true. Some foods are just things that you don't mind putting in your mouth once in awhile, because they're there, but they don't really do anything for you that makes you want to continue eating them. Artichokes is one of those foods for me.

I think the artichoke problem is compounded by the fact that it doesn't seem like food to me so much as a project. You can't just tackle it and shove it in yer mouth, like regular food. Oh no. You have to meticulously break off one leaf at a time. Then you don't really *eat* the leaf, you just kinda scrape the gunk off with your teeth, amassing a discard pile of gross, teeth-scraped leaves. Then, after all that, you have the heart to deal with. The way I always deal with the heart is to give it to someone else at the table, since they kind of make me sick.

So there it is. The artichoke is just 1) Too high maintenance, and 2) not much food for all the work you put in, and 3)not very tasty even for the little you get. In short, it's a lot of work for not much payoff.

Case fucking closed.

Happy Monday.

Wow, what a lazy weekend I had. So lazy that I couldn't even bother to blog, despite the fact that I was basically home all day two days in a row. Sue me: I needed a break from thinking. New job that involves brain work + 70 miles of commuting every day = Jeff tired by Friday night. I think I did intend to blog, but every time I sat down at the PC, I somehow ended up playing WoW instead. Funny how that works.

I've said this already, but in Lich King, Blizzard has really outdone itself. The quest chains in Northrend (and for the Death Knights) are just outstanding--clever, engaging, funny, and in some places almost, if not revolutionary, then at least pointing the way towards what is likely to be at least part of the future of MMO gameplay. I'm talking specifically about the "phasing", which is the coolest thing I've seen in an MMO in a long time (other than Warhammer's public group quests, which also rock.) "Phasing," in WoW, means that the public zone you are in dynamically changes for you as you complete quests. In a way, this is somewhat of the holy grail that Chris Metzen was pining for years ago in an interview with me when WoW was still fairly early on. How do you make gamers really feel like they're having an impact on an MMO world? Rather than just being a guest at Disneyland, where nothing ever changes?

Phasing, it turns out, is an excellent answer to this question, and I'll be danged if I can even wrap my head around what exactly is happening. All I know is, you complete a quest, and the landscape around you, what NPCs are doing, whether a building is on fire or not, whatever, is now different for you than for players who have not yet completed that quest. You are not instanced. You are not on a separate server. You are still right there in the game with everyone, in that zone, but it now all looks different--and it is done without a load screen either. The fact that it is invisible this way is just astounding, and opens up worlds of possibilities now for storytelling in massive multiplayer games. This is just a first iteration of it. And what's funny is that Blizzard didn't even really tout this as a big deal for this expansion, nor has the gaming media really focused much attention on it. But I think it's going to go down as a landmark in MMO design and will influence games (and maybe not just MMOs) for years to come.

Jeez. There I go about WoW again. Sorry. I'm just fully addicted again and yes I know there are tons of other games to play, including some made by the company I work for, which you should all support, vigorously, with your cash! But back to WoW. I'm level 73 now and am having a blast with the new instances (put me in the camp that is happier that they are shorter and easier). And, personal query to fellow warlocks: I think I'm bailing on Destruction for now, but can't decide between Demonology and Affliction. I heart the Felguard, so I'm tempted to go that way, but conventional wisdom seems to have deemed Affliction the new cool spec. I dunno. Given I'm mostly a soloer, what should I do?

In other news, my back and leg are feeling a little better, thanks to my new regime of exercises, and my new consciousness about my posture and chair position. Thank you, physical therapist! And thank you blogger palz for all yer advice, too.

Finally, since I am no longer running, and have yet to pick an alternate form of good cardiovascular exercise (I'm still temporarily banned by my PT anyway), this means I need to watch what I eat a little better. Because I am sort of watching my formerly svelte figure (okay, so it hasn't been svelte for 30 years, whatever), getting a bit, oh, shall we say....rotund? No, we shant. That's too harsh. But yeah. One needs to watch it a bit. One does not want to be called Obesio McFattypants behind one's flabby back.

Which is why the EA Holiday party, this past Saturday night, was a bit of a disaster for me. I actually hadn't intended to go, at first. Not being much of a party guy, for one, but also cuz I actually had plans for a different party that I really did want to go to--but that one ended up getting canceled. So, the wife and I put on our fancy clothes (i.e. I ironed my Fallout t-shirt and wore the levis without the holes and spaghetti stains), and headed over to the swanktastic party in downtown San Francisco, which ended up being quite fun, for, ya know, an office Xmas party. One might be a little bothered by the fact that they had one of these given 1) the economy and 2) recent layoffs and game cancellations, but, hey, the people need their Xmas party too, even us Hebrew folk, and canceling altogether would probably be even more depressing. So they had one. And it was good and not overly obnoxiously extravagant the way they probably were back in The Salad Days. In any case, the point is that there was a LOT of food there, and most of it was not of the healthy variety. For example, there was this kinda stuff all over the place:





Looks great, doesn't it? THAT'S WHY I ATE TWO TONS OF IT. There were also heaping, gigantic spreads of sushi, pasta, pizza, burgers, paella, etc etc etc. And why have just one kind of french fries when you can have three?



The next day, Sunday, I sat down and watched five hours of documentaries on Africa. Now not only did I feel like a heaving, bloated oafsicle, but I felt guilty too.

YEAH SO THANKS A LOT FOR THE GREAT PARTY, EA.

My aching back.

It is official: I am old. Actually, it was probably official about 10 years ago, when I started getting called "sir" at rock concerts, or maybe five, when the grey hair really started kicking in. But now it's like extra super official, because I now have Old Guy Malady #1: A Bad Back.

Actually, it may not be my back entirely. It may be my leg, too. Or something else entirely. Like leprosy. Okay not leprosy. That's a joke. I hope. I sure don't want to end up on one of those colonies, with my nose falling off and stuff. That would suck. All I know is, a few months ago, I started getting a dull pain in the back of my right knee. I'd mostly feel it when I would walk up or down stairs, but sometimes it would happen just wherever I walked anywhere. Then it would go away again.

Being a relatively healthy guy--except when I'm dying of pneumonia or fainting on the kitchen floor--I am not used to pain. And so I ignored it. Or figured I was imagining it. Or that maybe it was just a cramp. But then a weird thing started happening: The pain migrated. What started behind my right knee now traveled up to my right lower back, above my hip. And when it kicked in, it was worse. Going up stairs, I now found myself doing the Old Man Grunt out loud, and holding my side, in classic Old Man Gait. Still, though, I kind of ignored it.

Last Saturday, though, I could ignore it no longer. The wife and I were out on a run. I felt the pain in my hip even before we left the house, but, as usual, I ignored it. But about 1.5 miles from our home, it really started hurting. I told my wife to continue on, that I was in a little pain and needed to walk for a minute. She ran on. The problem was, though, that I could now barely even walk. Every time my foot touched the ground, sharp pain went shooting up my leg and into my hip. Being only in running clothes, I had no cell phone on me. If I had, I would have called to get picked up. As it was, I had to limp all the way home, stopping every few feet to rest.

So needless to say, I was kinda freaked out. What was happening to me? The plague? Scurvy? Rickets? Okay,so maybe I've read too many books set in medieval days or on ships. Still, there was clearly a problem. So I made a doctor's appointment. The early diagnosis? Problems with my sciatic nerve. Solution: Get thee to a physical therapist.

Yesterday I went to the physical therapist for the first time. I go back again tomorrow for round two. According to her, I have any number of possible problems, with the sciatic nerve being only one diagnosis. So, in the meantime, I am banned from all exercise, except walking. I have to sit up straight, which really sucks for me because I am a big time sloucher. And I am not allowed to lean into my computer, which makes reading guild chat in WoW that much harder.

Overall I suppose it's no big deal, in the grand scheme of things. Still, it rankles a bit. "Your body is getting older," the physical therapist said. And, yeah, she's right, it is. It's not like I didn't notice this before. But it is, nevertheless, still pretty easy to remain in a permanent state of denial about your own mortality and fragile place in the world. There's a secret part of you that still thinks you're just going to live forever---or at least never have to face up to your own aging process. I mean, wasn't I just in college like just a few years ago???

Most of the time, I'm happy--or at least somewhat at peace-- being as old as I am. I feel like my life has gotten progressively better. I find my 40s much more satisfying than my 30s, and don't even get me started on my 20s, which is like the most overrated age bracket ever. But today, I gotta say, aging sucks.

Bah!

Whooomp! There it Is!

Ack! I actually have that ridiculous song from 1993 stuck in my head now. Which really sucks because I am trying to write a review of The Sims 3 for the folks at EA here, and it's really hard to write with that phrase repeating itself endlessly in your brain.

The reason for this particular malady is the otherwise freaking *awesome* mashup CD Feed the Animals, made by a DJ calling himself Girl Talk. Now, mashups have been done to death, I know. You don't need to think I just discovered this because I'm old. I had Danger Mouse's Grey Album back when you were still in diapers, and since that only came out four years ago, I think that says something quite disturbing about you.

Anyhoo, this CD is great. The mashups are funny, surprising, and ever-evolving with every song. The "Whooomp! There it is!" line stuck in my head is actually superimposed with, of all things, Big Country's "Big Country" song, with that cheesy fake bagpipe guitar line. I know, it sounds ridiculous and impossible. But, whooomp, there it is: it works, and how the heck this guy ever thought to put those two songs together is a mystery that points either to genius or insanity or both.

So that link I pointed to, if you check it out, will reveal to you that you actually can just get it for free, if you want. He's doing a Radiohead deal here, where you can pay what you want, even though Amazon is selling it for $10. Still, if you like it, do the right thing and pay. Even a little. One should support such creative endeavors. Like this blog! Feel free to send me money. LOTS of it. Then I could do things like stay home and play WoW all day, and sleep, rather than be here at EA, trying to write a mock review of Sims 3 and thinking about old Miami rap songs instead.

EDIT: Ya gotta love Wikipedia. Here is a link to a work-in-progress cataloging all the samples on the CD. However, don't cheat right away! Listen first and check this list later!

To the clown at my office

in the denim jacket with the Star Trek Enterprise emblazoned on the back: I know you must be excited and all, what with the new Star Trek movie coming out. That Zachary Quinto--he looks just like Spock! And didja see Leonard Nimoy at the end of the new trailer! Oh yeah! So I can understand why you might be a bit distracted. Still, may I suggest, as you boldly go through the front door to our building, that you, perhaps, set your phaser to CONSIDERATE and hold the door open for two freaking seconds for those walking a mere three feet behind you, who you know are there, due to the loud clomping of motorcycle boots that you could not fail to hear. Next time, just pretend, like, I'm Uhuru or something, and you're Kirk, and this is that episode where we finally kiss. Whatever it takes. I mean, sheesh. Happy fuckin' Monday to you too!