Carbon Operator

At this point in history, where World of Warcraft has so locked up the MMORPG market that other developers and publishers can’t even think straight, apparently the race is on to find the most idiotic and gimmicky “feature” imaginable.

Exhibit “A” (safe for work, second link has some genuinely painful acts of Flash and, uh, “schmoove jazz”).

I understand that at the end of the article that this technology is being prepared for deployment in Age of Conan has been discredited, but I have no trouble imagining that the MMO market is something this company would definitely like a piece of.

In an MMO there are certain things I expect. I expect competent world design, a consistent art style, and mechanics passable enough to keep me from canceling my subscription. I expect that an in-world avatar will only be able to look a certain way which is entirely consistent with the game’s art direction; and that male avatars’ appearance will range from somewhat homely to attractive, and that females will run the gamut from hot to smokin’ hot, unless it’s a Funcom game. The demonstration on the company’s site shows a future full of highly inconsistent lighting, and that’s just the least of it.

While I am not a huge fan of the World of Warcraft theory of character identity rendered wholly meaningless in favour of RTS-style convenience and utility, I certainly prefer it to a world of avatars turned into the equivalent of shopping mall kiosk personal-photo coffee mugs.

Marilyn Chambers has died. My baby clothes were washed in Ivory Snow that came from the package she posed for back in the early 70s.

This is absolutely ridiculous. Now, after the after the social regression North America experienced during the Bush regime, I suppose I shouldn’t find this entirely surprising, but it’s a bit late in Amazon’s history to pull the “sensitive customers” excuse — not that I would expect a retailer offering to bundle me up some Crest with a hardcover copy of Twilight to be a vanguard of library sciences and free speech. Reading over the list of stripped books and how arbitrary it is, it almost seems as if this is the work of one person with a chip on their shoulder, but for a merchant of Amazon’s size this is highly unlikely.

Incoming PR disaster in (NSFW for those of you who are reading)3, 2, 1…

Updated: epic backpedal. I suspect the handful of wage monkeys that publicly acknowledged the “new adult policy” will be out of work soon.

The phone interview I was scheduled to have with a company in the UK tomorrow morning has been cancelled because the parent company has apparently gotten the memo about hot economic doom. I was really looking forward to speaking with these people.

The old proverb says that March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb, but in Canada we also have the grand tradition of conditions after April Fool’s Day being anyone’s guess; and this year like so many others, it started snowing again this morning. I walked three quarters of a kilometer to get some McDonald’s and get away from the two cats that have been going bonkers all day because they couldn’t go outside.

The sky has looked different in all areas of North America that I have lived in. Canada’s is constantly changing; Boston’s was as well, but it was less vibrant in its extremes, probably a consequence of being on the ocean. Texas was an almost constant bright blue, and overcast conditions never seemed to be quite there in the colour of grey. I have spent the past year trying to send myself to see the sky in any part of Europe, and today is just another setback on a wide open field.

Tonight I am looking out the window at something I had forgotten. There is no describing the violet grey of the night sky, or the pervading hush as snow is falling.

Today of all days, Blizzard thinks of a way to get me into the arenas.