Outside the Asylum

Doctor Who Spoilers

shmitz — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 10:18:04 GMT

How the Afterword should have read:

"Hello Doctor! We bought that plot in the graveyard and put a headstone there. We also got River's book published! But it's 1942 now and we're kind of bored, so come get us ya dunce!"

While I think it's an important part of the current incarnation's growth to be able to separate himself from Amy and Rory and take on new companions, this was an incredibly poorly conceived way of doing that.

Sorry for ruining picnic day

shmitz — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 18:36:36 GMT

Apologies to gillacatan and Brian for wrecking the dining platform at the rancor park. In my defense, that was the flimsiest cooking pit I'd ever seen, and definitely wouldn't have lasted long if we'd brought any rancor in. And second, the guy was crazy who designed that place so the only way to get up there was by trampoline.

In the last 17 days I...

shmitz — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 23:40:48 GMT

Got irradiated at two different airports
Played Rock Band 3
Started playing through Link's Awakening again
Suffered writer's block with the Machine of Death story I thought I would write
Played new board/card games and showed some of my own to friends
Visited downtown St. Louis
Visited downtown Atlanta
Visited downtown Charleston
Tried out the FATE roleplaying system
Went to a drive-in movie theater
Slid down a ten story spiral slide
Crawled underneath a miniature city
Buried a friend with sponges
Ate Chick-fil-a in three different states
Experienced thunderstorms in three different states
Saw captive dolphins frolicking
Saw wild dolphins frolicking
Tried 10 beers I had never had before
Rode through a real covered bridge
Watched Super 8 (awesome), Green Lantern (blech), Thor (fun), Sucker Punch (meh), and Rio (meh)
Lounged on a boat on a lake
Discovered that root beer floats with cinnamon ice cream are awesome
Survived the dander of four different cats
Suffered sips from two accidental sweet teas.
Helped two different 2-year-olds get into their car seats
Bought two hats
Rode a bunch of roller coasters at Six Flags Over Georgia
Went to a meeting at a Spanish-speaking congregation (couldn't understand anything but everyone was very friendly)
Slept a lot
Ate a lot of amazing food
Had a fantastic time with a lot of friends that I wish I could see more often

Wish we could have seen more of our friends in the midwest and eastern US, but there just wasn't time enough to visit everyone.

Cheater cheater pants on a heater?

shmitz — Tue, 10 May 2011 14:11:31 GMT

I had a dream that I was playing Starcraft 2 with skyknyt. I was doing surprisingly well and by sheer luck ended up with an advantage... until he used a Blizzard-employee-only superweapon on me that destroyed almost all of my stuff.

I tried to complain to him about it, but he just played me a dirge so sad that it required two trumpets to play properly.

Me vs. The Sandman

shmitz — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 16:32:42 GMT

I didn't really know who I was. Everything was kind of fuzzy as my coworker Tom and I picked our way through the city. The backlot segued to a mall which segued to a 1920s jazz casino. It was only when Tom stopped to tickle the ivories of an upright that I noticed the hat on his head. My hat. He had stolen my hat.

That's when it came back to me: the smoke, the burning. I knew who he was, and he knew who I was. I wouldn't exactly call us enemies, or even rivals. But he'd taken my hat. That had to be dealt with.

I picked him up, slammed him against the wall a couple times, and then threw him to the other side of the casino hall. People began to press themselves away from us. As I approached him again, I called out to the crowd as loud as I could, "Hey everybody, you ever heard of the Sandman?"

In proper jazz call-and-response manner, everyone shouted back in unison, "Yeah!" Oh yeah, the Sandman was infamous for burning whole forests and towns. Anyone that wasn't shouting back was screaming and running.

"Well I'm about to beat the crap out of him!" I shouted again. More screaming and running. "And there's gonna be a whooooooooooole heckuvalotta collateral damage!"

See, the only person who knew my power was Tom, A.K.A. the Sandman. Anytime I punched someone, it also made a small grenade drop out of the air onto their head. Tom, standing up in front of me, was still smiling. I picked my hat up off the ground and set it firmly back on my head.

What Tom didn't know is that I could also use MIRVs.

shmitz — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 01:08:40 GMT

I don't want to have to be strong. I want to be me. I want that to be enough.

Recognition

shmitz — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 22:49:16 GMT

I'm not sure which is more painful: not recognizing people I know I should recognize, or not being recognized by people I know should recognize me.

A Difficult Concept of Morality

shmitz — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 18:17:26 GMT

Warning: this may ramble.

The Individual thinks, "I am strong." The Individual thinks, "I am smart enough to handle Activity A. I am wise enough to handle Situation X. It is my right as an individual to partake of Activity A and involve myself in Situation X as much as I like."

None of those statements may, in and of themselves, be wrong. But often the Individual's choice to indulge that right is socially irresponsible. The Individual projects his (or her) own strength onto those around him. Or the Individual just doesn't care.

While the Individual may be strong, and may be able to handle intellectually or emotionally difficult things, the majority of those observing the Individual probably aren't. Who will tell them, "Don't do what the Individual does"? Who among the weak will accept their weakness in the face of the strong?

In short, the concept is this: Something may be logically right in an ideal world, but it is a responsibility of the strong not to lead the weak into activities and situations they can't handle, even if it's simply by example.

I think this concept may be easier to explain in cultures where the community is placed at a higher value than the individual, but it's a bit difficult here in America. I've encountered a lot of "free thinkers" arguing against stricter moralities based on admirable ideals, and their arguments were logically compelling. Unfortunately, I don't believe any of those ideals can be realized while man himself is so woefully imperfect.

I might also phrase it like this then: A strong moral code isn't about finding a way to live your own life well, rather it is about finding a way to help others live well.

A clarification on clarification

shmitz — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 19:30:18 GMT

Sometimes I say something to someone about a topic, or some aspect of a topic. Maybe my statement takes the form of "I think X and really Y", or something like that. Then, the other person responds as if I'd said "I think Y and really X", or maybe they think I was talking about W.

At that point, I'm pretty doomed. Even if I don't really care that much about my opinion of X or Y, I care a lot about clear and accurate communication and understanding, and I find I will spend a lot more time and effort debating a point if I think I've been misunderstood than if I just simply feel the other person disagrees with me. I often fear this makes me come across as an argumentative jerk or dramamonger when really I just want to make sure I'm being clear.

On nostalgic dreams

shmitz — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 23:03:56 GMT

Had a dream this morning where we met up with a bunch of #AR people at a tropical resort, which turned into some kind of cooperative adventure RPG as we explored some green and purple coral caves all while talking about Light Hawk's love life, Gamoid's obsession with comics, Eien's webspace, and the miracle of Kemayo and SunTyger's kid suddenly becoming a real person capable of conversation.

SDCC

shmitz — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 21:20:11 GMT

On our way to Comic-con!

Narnia

shmitz — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 17:54:43 GMT

I reread the Chronicles of Narnia this week, due to being excited about the Voyage of the Dawn Treader movie but realizing I hardly remembered anything that happened in it.

They were all a lot shorter than I remember from my childhood, but I suppose that makes them good movie fodder. I was disappointed though that Voyage of the Dawn Treader is basically the climax of the series, and it just goes downhill from there. The few bits I had remembered from The Silver Chair were really the only bits worth remembering: the introduction of Jill and the completion of their quest. Everything else was dullsville, and a rather anticlimactic way to end the stories of Narnia.

Which, of course, is to say it was the last real story of Narnia. I suppose I have a better perspective now to understand that The Last Battle is no true Narnian tale. The other books did have Christian symbolism tossed about here and there, but with The Last Battle it's the exact opposite. It's more or less one great big allegory for the last days, Armageddon, and paradise, with a few bits of Narnian continuity tossed about here and there. As Biblical allegories go, it's probably not terrible, but it sacrificed too much of what made the series great to achieve it's goals. It treated its characters without any of its previously awarded respect (casting aside Susan just to get the symbolic number seven), and beat just about everyone involved about the head with the stupid stick.

Treachery and weeds

shmitz — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 17:52:04 GMT

The princess, strangely dressed in civilian attire, approached me through the crowd with a confused expression on her face. "You seem really familiar..." she commented.

"Well, you're the princess," I answered, to explain why of course we knew each other. But she just laughed.

"I'm not the princess just yet, silly! The contest hasn't started yet to see who gets to be the new princess." That, at least, explained the large crowd that was forming in front of the palace.

I didn't really know what to say, so I decided to just play along. I put out my hand. "Well it was nice meeting you," I said. She took my hand and shook it, smiling and thanking me. Then she made her way forward to take her place with the other 'contestants'. I might have thought she was pranking me, but there was no way every single other person in this crowd could have also failed to recognize her. Someone had made her forget who she was. Someone had made everyone forget who she was, and I needed to find out who, and how.

I trekked a good ways up and down the boulevard as the beginning ceremony was being announced, just to check the audience's reaction, look for any suspicious types, and to see if there really was nobody but me who recognized her.

As I was about to compete my circuit, I spotted my friend and rival for the princess's heart. I didn't know if he had anything to do with this, but I did know I needed to get him out of the picture so that I could help the princess unhindered. As he fell in beside me and put his arm across my shoulder I said, "We need to talk", and I began leading him towards a gap in the chain link fence making off this part of the palace grounds.

The street on the other side was residential, but not overdeveloped. We walked a ways in silence. "So, what did you want to talk about?" he asked, sensing that this meeting was likely to be more rivalry than friendship. I just chuckled and kept walking.

He remained in step, not wanting to make the first move and give me an opening. Finally, as we were stepping down into a ditch I grabbed his arm and did a flip, causing us to land on our backs, with me on top of him. "Ok," he wheezed, "I'll admit, that was a pretty good one." I rolled off and to my feet just as we heard the most terrible noise coming from up the street.

Standing about twenty feet away was a brutish, black skinned creature standing on two legs but making sounds that no human could make. As my friend stood up we looked at each other. There was no discussion, we just ran. The creature screamed again and began its chase.

As I ran, my legs began to fail. It felt like I was running with ten bricks tied to each foot. My friend surged ahead of me, and somehow I found myself aimed for a solid part of the fence, rather than the opening we had come through. I stopped at the fence. "Look, this is just silly," I said, "For one, there is no way that guy is faster than me. Two, I definitely would have run straight for the gap. It's not hard!" I turned around and sat down. "I'm just going to sit here. You can do whatever it is you're gonna do, because this just isn't fair or cool."

For a second, I thought the creature was going to go chasing after my friend, because he had moved, and some predators go for the thing that moves before the thing that's still. But it only swayed a moment and looked back at me. I glared back at it.

It's expression changed to concern. "Hey, don't look at me like that," it said. "I just wanted to show you something!" It backed away a bit to start crossing the street. "Come on, come over here, I want to show you something." Nervously I followed.

When we reached the other side of the street, the beast entered the yard of the house there and strode into the vegetation. It scooped up a giant mass of leaves in each hand and threw them all into its face. "Wheeeeeeee!" it cried. It scooped up another handful and buried its face in it. "Wahoooommmnmnmn" it went.

I stepped back and surveyed the scene, and that's when I realized it. The yard of this house was completely overgrown with monsternip!

And then I woke up.

Dream concurrency

shmitz — Fri, 28 May 2010 18:49:03 GMT

I was having two dreams at once. In the one dream, I was investigating the disappearance of a doctor from some kind of medical research facility. It was an interesting, fairly calm dream, and is where my vision and thoughts were focused.

My subconscious, however, was busy clicking away deciding events in another dream, or maybe in the 'future' of the dream I was having. It wasn't something I even noticed until the explosion that woke me up, but in memory I recalled a whole long series of other noises full of action and excitement that just wasn't happening in the dream I had been looking at. It makes me wonder about time flow in dreams, and how much it (doesn't) correspond to real life time flow.

Dreaming of Conan

shmitz — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 20:16:30 GMT

We found Conan O'Brien in the dusty canyons, pretending to be the Incredible Hulk. We took him back to town and tried to impress him with life-sized LEGO creations, but then I noticed the way he was reacting to the various giant Peep-like creatures that shared the town with us humans. As he went around connecting them with large translucent tubes, I realized that each color represented a note. I could feel this pressure in my chest though, and I knew something was missing. I knew then that I was to fulfill Conan's Dolphin Prophecy, and complete the song that had been stuck in his head since the beginning of time.

I rearranged the way the Peep creatures were connected, and with each tube inserted the creature would croon its distinct note. Then, when all but one note of the chorus had sounded, I lifted my face up and sung my own note until I had no more breath left to sing.

The most interesting thing about the dream was that when I awoke, I found myself actually out of breath, as if I really had just slowly compressed all of the air out of my lungs. Makes me wonder if things like talking/singing in dreams can affect actual breathing patterns.

Untitled

shmitz — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 07:38:32 GMT

The water seeks. The brook trickles. The creek wanders. The river lays out across a plain of limitless potential.
The banks grow. The soil breaks. The stones give. The prison walls rise and the horizons die.
Into the trench the river runs.
Through the gorge the current flows.
At the bottom of the ravine the water courses.
Down the deep canyon the trap is formed.
Every day along the same path.
Every week without deviation.
Every month ever familiar.
Every year the sky gets smaller.
The storm breaks. The torrent beats. The wind howls. The outside world assaults the chained leviathan.
The river rages. The currents churn. The rapids thunder. The weight of the water pulls it down its inescapable course.

Deeper and deeper.
Farther and farther.
Longer and longer.
Forever and ever.

Stuck.

Internet dramas

shmitz — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 02:27:12 GMT

People who value a smug sense of moral superiority over a socially functional community need a brainwipe.

Own your opinions.

shmitz — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 12:15:16 GMT

I've noticed this trend, particularly among people expressing their opinions online. Take "Item A" and expose it to Person in a situation completely devoid of social contexts. Person would evaluate Item A and possibly find some worth in it, but judge it to be not particularly exemplary or special. Now add in the context of Item A being super incredibly popular with lots of fanboys/girls, and Item A becomes, in Person's mind, the most worthless, despicable piece of crap in existence, and Person will go to great lengths to declare this fact any time Item A is mentioned.

The sad thing is Person will probably never realize that their opinion is being dictated by the opinions of others just as much as those fans who only like Item A because all of their friends do.

So remember, just because something is more popular than you think it deserves to be doesn't mean you have to hate it.

Steam holiday game sale.

shmitz — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 02:03:02 GMT

Of the following, which one should I get: Eufloria, Trine, Machinarium, Gratuitous Space Battles, or The Witcher?

They're all pretty cheap right now, but budget is ridiculously tight. =\

I made things

shmitz — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 09:09:01 GMT

So Valve, the makers of Team Fortress 2 and other games, held a contest for faux war propaganda posters. I made four!

Rain of Pain
One Eye in Team
Stick Together!
Bullies

~Where have all the women vocalists gone~

shmitz — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:16:52 GMT

What happened to female vocalists? Where are the likes of Tori Amos, Sheryl Crow, Alanis Morissette, Garbage, Cranberries, and so on and so forth, that actually wrote interesting songs and sounded like, well, women? How come every time I hear some chick singing on the radio these days, it sounds like some goofy pubescent girl (both in content and quality) that they picked up off the street and slapped an autotuner on?

At least we still have Imogen Heap.

Scribblenauts

shmitz — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:00:36 GMT

The following is a list of very useful words in Scribblenauts. You may want to avoid reading them if you're just starting the game, since half the fun is in discovering what you can make and how it interacts with things.

In no specific order:

For moving things:
large air vent
air vent

For moving you:
wings
pegasus
ufo
snorkel

For attaching things together:
glue
chain
cord

Environmental utility:
drawbridge
lightning (will trigger switches)
ramp
wall

For destroying things:
lava
fire
beaver (eats wood)
rocketlauncher
sledgehammer

For destroying creatures:
zeus
longcat
cthulu
dragon
kraken
vampire (don't use against humans!)
naval mine

For trapping/disabling people:
van
chopper
virus

Miscellaneous:
shrink ray
invisibility cloak

A couple years late: Xenosaga 3

shmitz — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 23:53:38 GMT

It took me a good long while, but I finally located a used copy of Xenosaga 3 while we were in St. Louis a couple weeks ago. In terms of overall quality, I would say it goes back to being as good as the first game. Unfortunately, the story began to unravel in this third installment. Or rather, it became abundantly clear that the developers were having a hard time trying to tell everything they wanted to tell in only three installments after having the rest canceled (with the second installment largely wasted due to terrible writing).

It's kind of depressing as a creator to see ample evidence of why you don't see many broad epics planned across several games. It doesn't matter how great a story you've come up with if you can't hold a creative team and a source of funds together.

Going to San Antonio and St Louis

shmitz — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 06:24:12 GMT

See everyone in a week and a half. Except for those of you I'll see in five days. You know who you are!

Angsty sci-fi for an angsty kid?

shmitz — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 04:20:41 GMT

I've been trying to reread through my old sci-fi short story anthologies, of which I picked up several when I was younger. I read these huge volumes over and over as a teenager, but they've just been sitting on my shelf collecting dust for at least a decade now.

The thing I'm discovering and becoming a bit frustrated with is how negative and pessimistic nearly every single story is. Nothing good ever happens to the protagonists. Nobody saves the day. Everyone goes insane, loses everything they gambled, and/or inadvertently triggers the apocalypse.

Now, I can appreciate that things shouldn't always turn out fine, but I'm scratching my head at how universal this trend seems to be in these old books, and why on earth I enjoyed them so much when I was younger. I'm also really wondering if this is just some inexorable quality of the sci-fi short, or if it may also be linked to the fact that most of these stories were written between the end of WWII and the end of the Cold War.

Anyone have much experience with more modern science fiction short work, and can comment on whether or not it's gotten any more optimistic?