A couple of months ago, I bought a Playstation 3. I was a little surprised actually. My general rule of thumb for buying a console is that it has to be less than $400 and there must be more than $400 worth of games (released or upcoming) that I want to get for it… otherwise I’d be in the apparantly ridiculous situation of spending more on the console than on games for the console. Usually this means that I won’t buy consoles until a couple of years after they are released. (The Gamecube and Wii are notable exceptions since they launched at less than $400.)
Anyhow, throwing my rule of thumb aside, I bought a Playstation 3 for $699 with a game (Heavenly Sword) included in that price (yay GameTraders!). I think that clincher for getting the Playstation 3 was seeing it running at Phil’s place. He had all these demos downloaded and seemed to spend a fair amount of time just playing them. I thought that was great because, being a jaded gamer, I tend to get bored with games after a few hours (if that) and I could just get the demos instead of shelling out for the full game. Also, HD output looked fantastic.
Thus far I’ve downloaded a dozen or so demos and I figure that has saved me a fair amount of money; most of the games aren’t worth shelling out money for IMHO. The exceptions possibly being skate. (which has an awesome control scheme) and Heavenly Sword (which I already have). I bought Flow (which was worth it) and LocoRoco Cocoreccho (which wasn’t). I enjoyed the Sega Rally, Stuntman, and GT4 HD demos, but I don’t enjoy driving games enough to buy them.
I drew this picture for our engagement party invitations:
Heidi wasn’t too sure when I explained the concept (two robots initiate a hand-holding procedure while a synthetic voice pronounces success with the word “engage!”), but she likes the outcome.
I wonder how closely it was based on the technical images I created. I made ortho images from different views so it should have been pretty straightforward. Is Gaffyh out there? Feel free to send me a message! 🙂
Also, does anyone out there feel like making a 3D model of my PSP redesign?:
I went to see The Golden Compass with Heidi last night. We were initially put off by the low score on Rotten Tomatoes, but decided to see it anyway. I think it was well worth it, and I’m genuinely surprised by the low average score after watching the movie.
Here’s the preview:
I get the feeling that a lot of the reviewers were predisposed to giving it a low score due to the apparant controversy surrounding the film. For example, the Christian Science Monitor review is incredibly brief, and it doesn’t even get the story right (the protagonist doesn’t travel “into a parallel universe ruled by armor-plated polar bears and ‘daemons'”) which makes me wonder if they even saw the film. Most highly critical reviews seem to open with a discussion of the apparant anti-religious sentiment rather than the movie itself, which is a bad sign.
I enjoyed the film visually and thematically. The steam punk style was very well executed and the actors were exceptionally well cast. Thematically, it was much more mature than I was expecting. There appears to be a recent resurgence of children’s fantasy epics (starting with the Lord of The Rings films) and I usually find them to be rather shallow entertainment. I haven’t read the His Dark Materials trilogy, upon which The Golden Compass is based, but I could never get into The Lord of the Rings (which I read) or The Chronicles of Narnia books (I read the first few books) because I found them very basic. In contrast, The Golden Compass dealt with complex themes.
To me, The Lord of Rings had no real depth. It felt like it was written by someone more concerned with locations and timelines (and related minute details) than themes or characters. I know it’s subjective, but it’s not really my type of book. I actually enjoyed the films much more. Probably because the director couldn’t delve into every elfin song and the small environmental details were seamlessly visually and aurally presented (rather than laboriously explained).
I also never understood the appeal of The Chronicles or Narnia. The story was far too infantile and escapist to appeal to me. The characters were very one-dimensional and it treated the quest for power, the consequences of war, and death very lightly (almost trivially). Seriously, the film has Father Christmas give the kids weapons so that they can kill their enemies in battle. He also gives Lucy some magical liquid that she uses to revive fallen comrades (while happily prancing around the battlefield with a stupid grin on her face). I found the entire concept deplorable; shouldn’t children be reticent to kill and aghast at a field full of the dead and dying?
Anyhow, back onto The Golden Compass. The story takes place entirely in a parallel steam punk world where people’s souls live outside of their bodies and manifest as animal companions called daemons. Lord Asriel has discovered proof that there are parallel worlds and that daemons can act as a sort of conduit between people and “dust”, which is what connects parallel worlds. The ruling authority, called the Magistarium, doesn’t want the general population to know about dust (or anything else subversive) and works to prevent Asriel from proving its existence. The main character is Lyra, Lord Asriel’s niece, and her commitment to making her own decisions and finding the truth drives the storyline.
I don’t want to give much else away, but I’ll try to explain in general what I liked about the film. The film is very anti-establishment (anti-facist really) and seems to do everything possible to empower groups that are often disempowered or neglected (in society and common literature). Following are a few examples. The poor, dirty, low-class Gyptians are the good people, and the upper class Magistarium are morally bankrupt. Traditionally negative terms are used for positive elements: A person’s soul is called a daemon, witches are compassionate creatures, and heresy is used to describe seeking the truth.
Women are well-represented in the story. Examples include: wise witches, a strong protagonist, and a strong antagonist. Children are also empowered. Lyra is a strong female and a child, and presented as the leader and protector amidst weaker male characters. She uses intelligence and compassion to overcome her fears and enact change (rather than exhibiting raw power and fearlessness to do as she pleases), and this sets her apart from other characters in fantasy stories (eg. Harry Potter).
There are a number of violent scenes in the film, but violence is never glamourised. There is always a feeling of fear and aberration; it’s clear that the intention is for the audience to wince rather than get excited, and I personally feel that’s important for violence in anything considered to be a children’s film. Gleely slaughtering others is something that I really can’t understand in a children’s film (see Narnia); I find it rather disturbing. The Golden Compass is concerned with truth and I found a lot of honesty in how it was presented.
Could this lead to native GL support in Firefox? That would be awesome. Although looking at the source code of the example pages is crazy… it’s like GL sample code crashed into a Javascript tutorial. How crazy could it get? Could you use AJAX and COLLADA to create a live multi-user modelling program? That’s crazy!
We moved houses around 2 weeks ago now, but the telephone line wasn’t disconnected by the previous tenant so our telephone connection, hence our ADSL connection, was delayed.
Unfortunately internet access here is slower than our last place. Stil internet is better than no internet (and it’s still >6Mb… just).
I made a Scorpion out of watermelon seeds left in my bowl after dessert.
I declare it awesome!
The watermelon seeds all sort of stuck together (due to hydrogen bonds?) and it was really easy to create pictures. I also made a ring, and the number eight (it was a “magic eight bowl”; har har), and the letter A (which I was ridiculed for since it wasn’t as awesome as the ring or number eight; that ridicule led me to the awesomeness above).
Update: The stinger is a bit of strawberry calyx that was also in the bowl.
Things keep getting better: after getting engaged to Heidi, I got a promotion at work, and found a new place to live (a rental house near work; we sign the lease tomorrow morning). Also, I finally somehow managed to find some free time to post to my blog. Yay!
Note: No engagement photos yet; the ring is being resized and I just wanted to post a picture of it on Heidi’s hand.
