Johnny Boy

*sigh*

So Fallout 3 is out.
I don't think I can accurately express my feelings here. I'm going to confess something: You know those rabid Fallout fans who proselytize the gospel of Fallout, and will tell you at every available opportunity that it's the best thing that ever happened, ever?
I'm one of those.
Now let me clarify.
I know fallout was largely ripped off from Wasteland. I'm okay with that. I tried to play Wasteland and didn't get into it.
I know that Fallout is not the best example of the potential of the medium to manifest works of fiction. It is not even, perhaps, the best CRPG of the 90s. Planescape:Torment squeaked under that line in December '99, and is, by just about any reasonable standard, a superior work. It's less buggy, it's much more unified in vision and execution, it has orders of magnitude more narrative, character and spiritual depth...
But it doesn't have the Ink Spots. I seriously cry every time.
And it doesn't have that damn stylin' Vault 13 jumpsuit. I mean, who doesn't want one of those.
And it doesn't have robots, radioactive ghouls, gun-toting super mutants, A-bomb-worshipping fundies...
I mean, the Blood War is a fascinating and ripe backdrop that enables a great discussion on the nature of mortality and responsibility, but there are no Laser Rifles in Planescape:Torment. I'm sorry.

Which brings me to Fallout 3.
I know nothing about this game. I've read a bit, but I don't believe half the things I see myself, let alone the things I read on the Internet. But what I've read (okay, the Penny Arcade news post the other day) suggests that it's a calculated departure from the fan service of Fallout 2, which is a wise move both in both a business sense and in an artistic sense. The billion inside jokes & fourth wall moments made it a bit impenetrable to the neophyte. The absolute mounds of bugs gave the whole shebang a feeling that the dev team spent all of their time goofing around and not actually making the game.
But it was still a magical thing, you know? There was still the sense that everyone, the whole way along, was aware of what a cool thing they were working on.

So I'm very, very worried that FO3 is just a very good game. I've played enough very good games. I've played enough okay games. I want Fallout. I want to walk out of that cave in my pajamas and see natural light for the first time all over again. I want to mosey, completely clueless about the world, into a barren little desert town full of starving & filthy & irradiated peasants and get in a rumble with slavers with forehead tattoos.
There is no question, however, that I must play FO3 either way. I just... hope.

Mikhail Gorbachov axes Stalin zombies and saves the sexy Russian peasant-women. Twinkies rain from the sky.

For serious.

I'm pretty sure that this is the best fucking thing ever in the universe.

What the hell is this crap?
There is this fuzzy crap in the big hole in the wall outside the door. I pull some out and there's these creepy little egg-like things in it. They are sticky. This is not okay! It looks like there are aliens in my wall. And I've seen three identical spiders today. Jesus mother fuck we are so moving, so hard. God damn. And it's dark in here. And the people upstairs have a kid and a parrot. And the suite's renovations are motherfuckingly shitty.

Even the trailer is hawesome.

So I saw the Jim Carrey Grinch movie a few weeks ago. I'd avoided it until then for a few reasons.
1. Happy endings give me heartburn.
2. I ODed on Jim Carrey goofiness in the Ace Ventura days (I have a low tolerance).
3. I hate christmas.

Okay, so 3 is a little bit of an exaggeration. It's just that christmas (especially in movie form) spends so much time falling under rule 1 that it deserves special mention. Now, I'm gonna compare the Grinch to the Cat In The Hat, which I haven't seen, but I have (naturally) read. Everybody looooves the Grinch and hates the CITH. Sure, dirty jokes, blah blah blah. The structure, if I recall correctly, is similar, though. Wacky guy causes trouble, mundanes are freaked (in the parlance of the times), wacky guy has a sudden change of heart, rights all wrongs, and everyone is happy.
( Who cares? Click here to find out! )

Yo. Sup.

So yeah, the last time I blogged I was all "I got a job that I can't name on account of secretude" Well the secret has been out for oh... 2 months now. I'ma Plan D Coordinator, and D is for Defederation. Well, D is for lots of things. But yeah. It's been a crazy time at the KSA pimping the defederation and helping out with a billion other things. We've kicked out the creeps and thieves, but an awful lot of people elected just haven't been coming in and everyone's too busy with U-Pass negotiations and defederation and other stuff I can't talk about cause it's confidential, so there aren't enough people there to make sure byelections happen. It's nutty. But I've been keeping my head down. People tend to take on a lot of stuff because it's important and they want to make sure it gets done, and soon get swallowed up by it all (I'm talking about Laura, here) and other people get so personally invested in their place in the organization that it interferes with their ability to fill it. But none of that is my responsibility. Victoria and I promised when we started that we weren't going to get involved in the personal stuff that is so often a problem and I think I've done a pretty good job. I want to talk to Desmond about someone, though. Bah. This is depressing. I've had a long week giving away donated coffee and talking about sex to strangers.

We had a sexual health fair this week, you see. We gave away condoms. We had this game where we blindfolded people, span them around in circles and made them put a condom on a cucumber as fast as they could. It was a race. It was also awesome.

Srsly, this was not on purpose. I just didn't simultaneously have the time, inclination and minimal eloquence for bloggitry when we were at home between camping and Logan Lake.

We just got back from biking around said lake, which was really cool. Not because I'm any good, because I'm not. Because after the hilly root-filled dirt path, the roads were waaaay easier. I'm getting downright barely competent at bike riding. It's a christmas miracle. Jerry's bike has an extra skinny seat, so I probably have matching bruises in a very private place. That is the opposite of a miracle. Although this chair I put together for them the other day is muchly soothing.

But enough about my butt.

When we get back, I'ma be campaigning at Kwantlen for Plan D. D for de- something. If I said more, I'd have to kill you. It's a semi-secret. Shh.

Anyways, it's exciting, because it's for money and it's in Richmond with Victoria and we can have lunch breaks with Emily and stuff. w00t. I kinda feel like I should come home early to get started. I dunno. I mean really, there won't be a lot of people on campus this week, except for orientation which is pretty well covered. But still. I feel like... lazy, or something. Which is ironic. Because I also want to go home so I can play Bioshock. Heh.

Almost forgot. When we were packing up to get sprayed for bedbugs, it occured to me just how many humourous t-shirts I have. I've been thinking about this, and I want to run my crazy idea past you, oh wise and wondrous internet. Say I invite everybody over, put all my assorted funny shirts in a pile and let everyone take one? In secret, too. Like, I'd leave the room, so I couldn't influence people's feelings and make them take or leave some specific thing. I just have so many, and I know some people like some of them. Is this a crazy idea? Is this too wierd? I realise my shirts wouldn't fit everyone very well, but still. It has a cool really really free market vibe to it.

I am actually blogging to you live and unplugged from the campsite. They have the wifi now. I could rebuild my kernel while river rafting. But I won't, because then I would hog the bandwidth. I sent Victoria directions to get here but I haven't heard back. Either they're on their way or they aren't up or I sent it to the wrong address. And it is not yet sunny! This is worst. I think we should go up to the rifle range and get floatin' JUST IN CASE it clears up. Although the water is cold. Bah! That is what I say to your cold water. BAH!

Today is Melissa's last day at Canadian Tire. It is massively exciting. When her shift finishes at 9, we are going to the Red Robin for dinners. I invited everybody else but only Justin & Victoria and maybe Duncan can come (I think they're now my favourite people I don't live with) which is okay and not surprising. It's okay because less is more and it's not surprising because everybody lives far away now, which is sad. Soon J&V will be even farther away which will be even sadder.

Also, we took one of Melissa's paintings to SNAP today for the Factory Nights show, which is all kinds of prestigious and artistic. We handed it over to a real live effeminate silk-shirted $100 haircut art gallery guy who never answered Melissa's emails.
Actually, when we arrived there was no one in the gallery. We milled around looking at paintings, hoping someone would come out and we could talk to them. Melissa was already pretty nervous (I was trying to stay calm on her behalf, but it was either fantastically hot and humid in there or I was failing utterly) and after a few minutes I worked out why.

There were no paintings on display for less than a thousand dollars.

A thousand dollars.

These were not big paintings, either. Some were, but lots of them were no bigger than the 18"x24" we were there with. There were a couple of large ones (like, 5'x3') all by the same woman who was one of those successful painters who can afford to buy paint by the bucket. Perhaps not an inch thick, but closing in on a centimetre. They must have been heavy.

One of them was fifty-eight hundred dollars.

The price Melissa put on her painting must be pocket change to the sort of people who go to these things. It's too bad she already wrote $150 on the back of the frame with sharpie.