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.

After ten minutes of unsuccessfully trying to satisfy the captured Athenian women in God of War: Chains of Olympus I started to feel a newfound sympathy for the heterosexual male, until I remembered that I have never kicked anyone off of the bed for incorrect input.

The 401 is a legendary highway that runs along southern Ontario and Quebec. It is the lifeblood of the greater Toronto area, and it connects my hometown of Kingston to Toronto. My family used to make frequent trips to Toronto in my youth to visit relatives or Canada’s Wonderland. Later, in my teen years my friends and I used to drive up to go see concerts, go soak in Queen West’s hipness, or hit the similarly legendary comics shop The Beguiling in Mirvish Village. There was always a perverse sense of optimism connected to passing the “401 WEST” sign on the ramp, plus it’s a lovely stretch of road.

My host in Toronto, a friend of hers and I went back to Kingston today for some poutine and Vietnamese food, and to see what had changed. It rained the whole time, making the whole presentation beautifully bleak. A lot of the stores have gone under or moved. The building I used to live in downtown has been remade into an eyesore. My hairdresser has done quite well for himself.

I had a chance encounter with some old friends, and some of the news left me conflicted. I’ve been sitting browsing things I shouldn’t be for the past few hours. Maybe I should have left well enough alone but it’s becoming clear to me that getting my next job is probably going to take longer than I can reasonably expect to surf the air mattress waiting for me in the next room. I had to investigate my options.

There was something I wrote about the place and people there in a line of dialogue for a screenplay a long time ago, and it has held more true than I would ever have wanted. I had good times in Kingston, and I had some of the worst; and I had to do desperate things to get as far away as I did. They say you never really leave Kingston, and if you can you’ll never stay away, for the ones who are lucky enough to even get out. Some of the shop fronts have changed since I last set foot in the place over the holiday season of 2001; but it also appears that time is marching as slowly as ever. Adding to the problem is the fact that history has started repeating itself but I won’t be getting caught up in that madness this time.

Eight days ago I left my home to return home, and today I went home. I don’t know how to feel about it.

It appears that the Toronto chapter of the IGDA may be more active here than the video game industry itself, judging by the turnout at last night’s monthly social gathering.

As the familiarity of my homeland is sinking in I am still finding in hard to believe that I was in Texas yesterday. This morning hit me particularly hard, because nothing here is mine, and my place among these things is makeshift at best. Spending the night having my face swatted at by one of my all-too-gracious host’s fur demons didn’t help.

The next task is finding a job and finding myself a new place, wherever it may be. I’ll be getting myself a new phone number tomorrow. I did a lot of panicking before the move, and wonder if that is what helped the flight, trip through customs and arrival in Toronto go so smoothly for me; or if I simply did a lot of worrying for nothing.

I have to find myself a new job as soon as possible, but the question is what is between now and my eventual success? I think of the box of Smarties I had earlier and know that the answer is fear itself.

They taste remarkably the same.

Tomorrow.

Fresh off the plane from Texas.