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Monthly Archives: January 2007

What I’ve Learned from WoW: Part 1

January 31st, 2007Blog2 comments

Whenever you get people together, even in a virtual world, they will form a community.

I’m at level 21 now (been playing the game like I’d play Diablo — solo and grinding), and I kept getting invites to join guilds. A guild is essentially an organization of players in the game with its own chat channel. It can be tight like a gang or loose like a union. So finally I was like, “Eh, might as well”, and accepted a guild invite.

So our guild has a hideout which is essentially a tower in Stormwind. The hierarchy is such that the guild leader hangs out in the top level, the officers hang out in the next level, and the unwashed masses hang out in the lowest level. I’m not sure if this is standard protocol, but it’s pretty interesting and funny. What would happen if I go up to the top level?..

I read somewhere that humans establish hierarchies automatically and sometimes even subconsciously. Whenever a new person enters a room in real life, for instance, the hierarchy rearranges itself.

Whenever you put people together, communities develop — natural leaders appear or some people name themselves as leader. And like Kim said the other day, they also automatically find “the other” — another community to hate on.

What I really find interesting about this game is how it simplifies (and makes visible) a lot of the complexities of human nature in the real world. Also killing things for loot is pretty cool. I wish I could randomly run up to animals in real life and hit them until they died and dropped money.

Win-Win Situations

January 30th, 2007General4 comments

The thing about writing is that if you do your job well, you create situations in which everyone wins.

Actors see potential in the material and want to attach themselves; great roles make them look good.

Great material allows a director’s vision to coalesce; it gives them the blueprint or the seed to bring something amazing to life on the stage or on screen.

And finally, great writing connects with an audience. It tells them that someone understands, shares their wounds, or shows them a vision of the world that they didn’t see before: How it was, how it is, or how it could be.

I think this is possible with writing because it is a business of ideas, and you are creating solid things out of thin air. Morgan Freeman (I think on The Actors Studio) said something about how the only true creator in film is the writer — directors and actors are working with something that was already there. But the writer creates something out of nothing.

No precious resources are used in the making of stories. A few trees have to be murdered for the paper, but at least it’s a renewable resource. No one loses their lives or livelihood in any insane competition. And in a universe where (as far as we know) E=mc^2, storytelling is one of the few processes where matter/energy/ideas are generated from nothing. Plus the laws of physics and sometimes even disbelief do not apply.

How can anyone not be turned on by that?

Library / Payatas

January 29th, 2007Blog4 comments

I spent yesterday afternoon in Powell Library writing. It’s nice to be surrounded by books while you work. Makes you feel like a wizard surrounded by dusty tomes or a hunter surrounded by taxidermied deer heads.

The next project is about to begin. I usually select a work place for a project and stick with it, heading there diligently until the work is done. For the last one I was at Powell, but for this next one I’m going to switch to someplace else. Maybe URL?

The location has nothing to do with the project. It just has to be quiet, have power, and preferably be open until late.

Via Harpers: The Magic Mountain: Trickle-down economics in a Philippine garbage dump

This article must be read, especially by people who bitch and moan about their cushy American existence. You can’t find anything good on TV? CostCo is out of Twinkies? Well my friend, there are people who live in a fucking garbage dump, nutritionally stunted, and have been smothered to death in landslides of trash when the heap has collapsed. You got 99 problems but being flattened by garbage ain’t one.

Mike Judge wasn’t making things up when he came up with The Great Garbage Avalanche of 2505. Sadly enough, it was based on historical events.

The Spice Must Flow

January 25th, 2007Blog0 comments

Because I’m still on that Lynch kick (just saw Mulholland Drive again, then Lost Highway, then the first disc of Twin Peaks…) I checked out Dune: The Extended Edition. This 3+ hour long version is an “Alan Smithee” cut.

For extra hoots and hollers I also watched the Sci Fi Channel’s Dune Miniseries to compare. Verdict: The Lynch Dune is dripping with style and visual power. It really grabs you by the curlies. The Stillsuits in Lynch Dune are unsurpassed in their awesomeness.

The Dune Miniseries is good in its completeness — and it actually shows the Weirding Way (the Beneges. martial art form) instead of Lynch’s “Weirding Modules”. Some shots and sequences are similar — which is interesting to see how the different teams handled the material.

But the worms in the Dune Miniseries are much better looking due to the technology available at the time (Lynch Dune = 1984, Dune Miniseries = 2000). I think both need to be seen by hardcore fans.

Another thing I noticed is that no one has ever been able to make the Sardaukar look like the badasses that they are. In the novel Frank Herbert had the luxury of giving us backstory, but in both the Lynch Dune and the Dune Miniseries they’re total pussies. Especially in the Dune Miniseries where they have big fluffy hats and dress in purple. These are Artist-Formerly-Known-as-Prince Sardaukar!!!

I think it’s because a fast-moving narrative requires that we only see the Sardaukar when they’re needed, which is when they get their asses kicked by the Fremen. Very sad.

Darwin’s Rottweiller

January 24th, 2007Blog0 comments

(Via PoeTV) The God Delusion, the complete BBC documentary. Featuring an ironic guest appearance from Ted Haggard.

You gotta admire Richard Dawkins for having the balls to lay it out on the line — his immortal soul and possible damnation if god happens to exist. However, New Testament God would probably shrug and hug him into heaven anyway — but Old Testament God should’ve given him leprosy + super herpes by now. So I don’t think Dawkins is sweating it.

At least the guy does as he says whereas Pastor Ted is Do as I Say, Not as I Do. Prayer continues to be the last refuge of a scoundrel, I guess. If god truly does exist, he needs to get better at choosing his local representatives.

Change is Afoot?

January 24th, 2007Blog2 comments

Instead of a grumpy old white man in the Speaker’s chair: A grumpy old white lady. Two black head coaches facing off in the Super Bowl. As many non-white nominees as white nominees for the Academy Awards. And Obama and Hillary as front runners of Andrew Jackson’s party?

What’s going on?

Finally, Komodo Jesus has been born!

What I’m up to: Re-reading True West, reconfiguring my lunches (just got this awesome new cooler bag — it’s large enough to store several human heads), and re-animating the dead. Glowing green liquid is all you need for immortality.