Surname [chat]

Sibling has a new last name now due to the marriage. I just received an e-mail from her new e-mail address but had no idea who it was from.

So weird.

TLDR: Progress Quest is Good

So I've been thinking about video games lately, as I am wont to do, and I've been paying particular attention, thanks in no small part to the conversation we've been having about Quick Time Events, to the phenomenon of how the player understands his role in the game world via the actions he is permitted to perform, and what it would mean to subvert it.

In an arcade there is often little to no overarching logic behind many of the games, yet the player is able to construct purely from context what his goals are supposed to be. By playing Space Invaders, a player, through experimental interaction with his controls, should quickly deduce that he is supposed to move some sort of artillery back and forth while firing on the "Space Invaders", and if he succeeds, he'll do it again, but with a tighter time constraint, and if he fails, the game will ultimately end. He doesn't need to question why it is that he's shooting down Invaders, nor does he have to consider what it is that his avatar represents, he simply tests the limits of his powers as encoded into the game, and coming from his own ability, and concludes that he is supposed to shoot all the Invaders down.

Most of us here, having played all sorts of video games, have compiled a set of expectations regarding different kinds of games. We probably no longer need to experiment with controls and rules for long before we settle in to the role intended by the designer, and then spend our time focusing on achieving the goals appropriate to the role. We approach games as being a member of a genre, which entails certain expectations, and we quickly understand our relationship to the game without necessarily ever questioning it.

These expectations are sometimes subverted, The Longest Journey and Chrono Cross come immediately to mind as games that rely on the player's preconception of their role in the game, and then betrays it in a plot twist which should cause the player to reflect on why it is that they were so blinded by convention that they couldn't predict this inevitability.

One thing I think games could do to become art is to explore this idea more fully; to take that set of expectations we've built up regarding games and then force us to reflect on what they mean. To borrow from the list of RPG cliches, why do we accept all rumors as true in games? Why do we essentially steal from other people under their very noses? Why do we accept certain weapon and armor choices for our characters as being practical? How can we maintain contradictory attitudes toward death, with the notions between "in-battle" death being so different in impact than an "in-cutscene" death? Granted there are games that include false rumors and practical weapons and meaningful deaths, but I think those games simply avoid the issue just as completely as games that rely on the cliches, so why not make a game that is about answering these questions? Progress Quest, I think, is a good example of something like this. It's essentially a (non) game that addresses the somewhat mechanical and ultimately meaningless process of "leveling up". When one considers what it means to be a high level in PQ, I think one should likewise consider what it means in any other game.

Just some thoughts.

Maths Finally Made Useful To Common Man

Alternative Title - USA Today Daily Infographic Contains Useful Information For First Time Ever.

Quantum of Solace

New Bond semi-trailer/making of bit. Watch.

Say it with me now. Moneypenny!

Born-Again Virgins are Ignorant Sluts

I'd like to thank MSNBC for publishing this article about Born-Again Virgins. You see, this week nothing has really pissed me off enough to merit a true rant, an actual rant, a genuine rant. I've had to feign rant, pretend that I was ranting. I had to present my writings as a rants when actually they were not in fact rants. My rants so far this week were faux rants, writings presented to be one thing but in actuality were something else.

See what I did there?

Born-Again Virginity is, for me, a hybrid ranting topic. It combines religion, sex, semantics, and pure unfiltered stupidity in an inescapably infuriating manner. It is a perfect, untarnished, untouched form of stupidity. Revirginization is undoubtedly the most perfect form of "having one's cake and eating it too", or, to put it more appropriately, "having one's hymen and breaking it too".

To understand why revirginization is so idiotic we must first discuss sex. Due to our hyper-accepting society our definition of sex is stuck in an infinite regress; we know where the definition starts but we do not know where it stops. If a male puts his penis into a female's vagina that is sex; few would argue this point. But where "sex" stops is unclear. A tongue in a vagina? A finger in a vagina? A penis in a mouth? Two penises rubbing against each other? Two vaginas rubbing against each other? A finger in an ass? Two fingers rubbing against one another? Sitting on a couch with someone?

As a result of trying to accommodate everyone, of structuring our definitions so that we do not leave anyone out, we are left with a fluid and lubricated definition of sex which never settles at one spot but constantly wraps, entwines, and thrusts itself into various orifices of possibility. We are left unable to rigidly define sex and rather have a very flaccid and loose definition. But this is fine.

Pick whichever definition of sex you like. Alright. Once two people have done that they are, by definition, no longer virgins (or, technically, a woman is no longer a virgin and a male is no longer chaste). They have had sex. Given how time works once two people have sex they cannot have not had sex.

And this is the hard, rigid, unbending line with which revirginization enthusiasts take issue. They attempt to manipulate the rigid line, lubricate the unbending line, jostle and toy with the unbending line to the point where the line becomes spent and no longer resists them. They wish to have their way with the definition of "virgin" so that the term is meaningless while at the same time meaningful.

Is there some justification for the idea of revirginization? Is there a solid foundation upon which one might erect a strong argument? Let's look at the argument of Victoria Watts from the MSNBC article:

"So Watts engaged in a lot of prayer and thought, and now declares herself a virgin once again. “The most important thing was to realize what my values were and what I want in the future and the bigger goals in my life," she says. "That’s why I can call myself a renewed virgin.”"

Yeah... No!

Prayer and thought have nothing to do with virginity; virginity is not that sort of thing. But more frustrating than the "I prayed a lot and now I'm a virgin again" argument from idiocy is the lack of self-awareness people have who utilize such an argument.

By their own admissions, through their own actions, they have declared virginity to be a meaningful binary state. To recapture one's virginity that virginity must have been lost. To revirginize one must devirginize, so to speak. If one maintains that virginity is a binary state (an implicit admission) and one maintains that virginity is a meaningful state of existence (an implicit admission given their desire to recapture it) then by their own arguments revirginization is impossible.

Pull any definition of "virgin" from your proverbial sack. Utilize any definition of "virgin" for which you have a hard-on. Snatch any definition you like. Is virginity physical? Is virginity emotional? Is virginity physiological? These distinctions do not matter so long as virginity is maintained to be meaningful. There is no way by which virginity can be regained once it is lost given what it is to lose one's virginity.

Now, do not fail to understand me. I am not making the argument of the Pregnancy Resource Center:
"Have you already unwrapped the priceless gift of virginity and given it away? Do you now feel like 'second-hand goods' and no longer worthy to be cherished? Do you ever wish you could re-wrap it and give it only to your future husband or wife?"

I am not arguing that virginity is some priceless gift to be saved for one's wedding night. I am not arguing that people who have sex are somehow flawed or "used goods". I am not arguing that one ought use a "wrapped box" metaphor for one's sexuality.

My firm and unbending point is that virginity once lost cannot be regained given how time works, what words mean, and what virginity signifies. Once one has sex one is no longer a virgin (or, for males, chaste). That's how it works. To argue otherwise is lunacy, ignorance, and doltish delusion.

You cannot unfuck yourself.

Sorry.

But what if revirginization is possible? What if one can become a virgin again? Well, were that possible we would have to ask what it is to be a virgin. If "virgin" means "has not had sex" and one has had sex then, well, revirginization is an idiotic delusion maintained by shitheads. But if "virgin" means something other than "has not had sex" then we must assess the rigid criteria by which "virginity" is established and delve into the meaning behind the notion of virginity. We must sniff around and probe the depths of virginity, so to speak.

And, personally? I don't mind doing that.

Be Kind Rewind

The trailer for Be Kind, Rewind hooked me. The idea of a film consisting of cleverly if shoddily done remakes of well-known movies was, I thought, a good one. I went to see Rewind on Saturday, and I still agree with myself. A film consisting of clever if shoddily done remakes of well-known movies would be a good idea, but as my careful wording will probably lead you to guess: Rewind is not that film.

It starts out silly and a little cliche, then breaks into the movie remake routine and is fun and entertaining, then suddenly gets unabashedly cliche before ending with what is, for me, one of the best and most sincere expressions of what movie lovers believe to be true about the art. It wasn't until that ending sequence that I started to appreciate the movie for what it was: a celebration of movies and movie making.

I'm afraid I'll need to see it again with that in mind before I can say anything else conclusive, but after one viewing I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by the ending, and I haven't seen a movie so misrepresented by its trailer since Phantom Menace.

This is just brilliant.

First you watch this:



Then you watch this: