If there’s a theme I’ve experienced with television and pop culture, ever since I was a kid, it’s the “I wish I hadn’t missed that phenomenon. I missed Highlander in the theatres because I never heard of it. Later, I missed the shows Nowhere Man and Threshhold, both of which I blame network tv. And yes, I’m one of those geeks that thought SportsNight was the best thing on TV.

Recently I hunted down the Warren Ellis’ Global Frequency pilot - don’t ask me how because then RIAA would have to sue me, effectively a dead-on-arrival TV show due to [insert favorite Hollywood rumor here]. What amazes me is that someone could watch the show and not carry it through, especially after spending the money and time to get something like this off the ground. The show is based on Ellis’ Global Frequncy comics - which is something I never got into.

For those that are not going to see it ever, the story is simple: It’s the end of the world [or humongous terrorist attack or very large natural disaster - you get the picture] and Michelle Forbes gets to play the cold hard bitch that going to save it, including recruiting you. Strike one: how can you deny Michelle Forbes a role she’s born for? Hollywood hates strong women, and has been particularly rude to Forbes, in my opinion.

You have the very cool Warren Ellis twist on it, in this case a psychic quantum bomb, but that’s not the important thing: the Global Frequency is potentially everyone - smart, skilled, or simply the best available person at the moment.

As big as Ellis’ internet ego-footprint is (here and here), I picked out an underlying idea that’s common with a lot of Ellis’ work: we’re all on this planet together and it’s a good thing. This is something we’ve seen on his run of the Authority. Strike two: Ellis’ viewpoint is perfectly represented on the show.

The characters include a hot repressed librarian er, physicist who has yet to let her hair down - her first exposure to the audience is effectively a very common character reaction to a corpse: the humorous barfing scene. It’s a great exposure to the character and humanizing moment.

Add to it Aimee Garcia’s sonorous voice (and body) as Aleph, the comptroller of the group. She humanizes much of the story and characterization bringing the three different characters together - a role that would’ve allowed Garcia to have some of the best lines in the show.

The end of the show forces an excellent character choice that would’ve killed most shows in the 80s and 90s, but is perfect for Post 9-11 television.

Plus - San Francisco! What better place to put a freaky storyline?

So what was the problem? I don’t know. The conspiracy theorist in me says the ideal is dangerously democratic. The cinematic fan tells me it was shot far too dark, whcih could’ve been my recording. Wikipedia has it’s own theory. Either way, while I’m a bit of a Warren Ellis freak, I regret finding good things out that have already been cancelled. Feels like I keep missing the important calls - the good news is that I’m planning on getting copies of the trade paperback today.

For those who like and follow internet light saber battles - the masters have returned. For those that don’t, I find your lack of faith disturbing.

There’s games and then there’s games. Valve’s Left4Dead has basically opened up and polished up a genre of games, and has done so in a way that other co-op, post-apocalyptic, four-on-four person teams will never be the same. Yep, the genre is “COPAFOFP w/ Zombies.” Ok, I kid.

This game was hard for me to write about not because everyone else has given it a great review, but because it is so. damned. good. Plus, I really wanted to say something important about it’s game play.

Reviewer credentials - never review a game you haven’t played extensively. Yes, I’m whining at YOU, Yatzee!
According to my Steam account, I’ve got:
34 hours of playtime
37 of 51 achievements
My biggest Hunter pounce was 10 points (out of a potential 25)
and I’ve yet to make it through any campaign on Expert.

But I keep trying. So why’s it taken me so long to write about this game? Hell, it’s been out for weeks - what’s defective with me? It’s because I’ve read and watched a ton of reviews and all of them have raved. Simply raved about this game, except the standard Yatzee Croshaw wingeing and nit-picking, telling me he phoned this one in.

I’m going to talk tangentially about this game: it’s a fucking masterpiece like most Valve games, and it’s got the polish that EA would’ve simply ignored to put into it. So raving more about it isn’t going to help.

A core of the L4D gameplay is cooperation, and helping each other. Everyone knows that the clock is ticking - you have to make it through the map. You have to kill zombies. Everyone, except the very newbie, knows that this game is bent on killing your character and simply will not allow a “respawn” - it’s do or die. In versus mode, it’s even more pronounced.

What is important is that I’ve added more Steam community “friends” in the last 2 weeks than I have since I’ve installed Steam. You can immediately tell good players from bad after one game of L4D… scratch that… not good players, but good PEOPLE. Bad people - like jerks and whiners - are almost completely cut out of the game play because… well, they’re jerks. Either through voting or a tit-for-tat Dawkins’ like grudging (from Dawkins’ Selfish Gene), where you help someone, but they don’t help you - no one else helps them either.

The good people work together as a team, who have low tolerance for whiners, who have a willingness to both teach and learn new strategies and tactics. Team Fortress, Halo and all the rest of the group vs. group games wish they had this level of excellent game play. And yes, there are some guilds that develop impenetrable cooperation, but it does congeal as part of the game play itself. It doesn’t evolve from the game play. We will get back to that evolution point in a bit.

The strategies used on the first week of game play have completely transformed in less than two weeks. As players get familiar with other players and maps, they enact different strategies - usually variations of fast/slow for survivors and bottleneck/harrying for infected (that’s zombies). The players have developed standards - one or two people end up becoming tactical leads and the others simply support them.

Also, players develop different tactics based on the situation - as we (the collective players) learned of weaknesses, we’ve also learned of strengths - in the characters of the infected or the maps, or the ability to teamwork. As the strategy is consensus based, all it takes is one ass-tard… sorry, player… who wants to Rambo the game and the entire game play is changed. And one person who whines about the speed of his computer simply gets booted because there’s a low tolerance - the game play is too fast and communication too important to tolerate whiners.

So, not only does L4D have evolving strategies, tactics, but culture as well. If communication is a precious commodity, tolerance for someone whining “Fuck fuck fuck they’re cheating that’s bullshit you fuckers” on a webmic will immediately get the boot. Thus, a meta game exists enforcing good standards of team play.

And this is where we’re seeing an incredible change in player behavior. If you act like a jerk, your three partners “darwin” you out of the gene pool. As a human being who wants to have a good time, you learn either because it’s in your nature, or because you’re force to cooperate. You learn to play - not “nice” but “good”.

In a world that celebrates evil-wins-out behavior prominently displayed in reality shows Left4Dead is a really “good” thing.

–
P.S. It would be neat if, when playing solo, the bots need a command console such as “Protect [character]”, “Defend HERE” - just a few simple commands would help a lot. Plus, I hate it when the bots set off the car alarm… but.. ok, I can live with it. Stupid bots. Also, should be able to play solo as infected to learn the tactics.

I’m not lying to anyone anymore - there’s similarities between a prison and day job. Granted, I’ve only been in a jail cell and only for a day and a half, so I truly don’t know prison as some of my friends have experienced it. But the privilege of others was forefront on my mind this week.

So a bit about my work, effectively I’m a process and web architect working through the impacts of perceived improvements. And I work for a large multiple leader group and they sometimes are infected with groupthink. This week, this entire week was one long infection of groupthink after groupthink “great ideas.”

From improving the speed of the website, to let’s just call the backend through SQL, I felt it was the same conversations I’ve had for years. We’re not going to improve the speed of the website without adding extra processing of orders - the trade for automation (a one-time cost of development) is eyeballs (an ongoing cost for manual work). And, if someone is buying a large order, say 40 line items on it, it’s going to take some time to process that order correctly to save it.

In short, there’s a method to giving clients good feedback of order creation when you have a system that takes a long time: it’s called GRAPHICS. It’s the appearance the order is being created that is the most important. Appearance. I am telling my company to LIE to their CLIENT. And yet…

So, one part of privelege is the ability to participate in groupthink without punitive measures… much like everyone going along with the emperor has no clothes.

But, as I was talking technical stuff with co-workers, slightly bent down to point at some data on his screen, one leader (way above a manager position) came up behind me and put both of his hands on my shoulders. It was a friendly, man-on-man gesture of appreciation… I’m sure… but the privilege was there. I could never feel good about doing that to him… nor would he.

And this was when I thought… there’s a LOT of similarities between prison and where I work.

Recently, Grinding.be posted a response to a Daily Galaxy’s longevity articles’ counterpoint by Bioethicist Leon Kass, and the cultural barriers he’s creating to longevity.

A quote that guts me is “the finitude of human life is a blessing for every human individual.” I’ve heard these words before from my mother of all people, who is smart but has no social agenda such as Kass and his ilk. I’d love to live to a thousand to see what humans become and how they change. I am overwelmed with what humans have done in our past and wonder what we’re going to be like. My mother doesn’t share that interest - she wants to die happy, healthy and secure. A “good, long run” as they call it today. Granted, the medical discoveries in 20 years may not be enough to trans-humanize her, but she’s dying on the cusp.

The major problem with Kass’ words is “blessing for every human individual.” I’m fairly certain that many boys dying from bullet wounds, parentless in Sierra Leone do not share that belief. Whereas, ironically, the suicidal religious people we’re encountering throughout the world feel extremely blessed.

Setting the blessing aside, I have to ask - “what is Kass’ goal?” Kass and people like Kass have some sort of entrenched meme that locks them into thinking breeding-is-good and redemptive-death-is-good. But living intellectually free is bad. Kass’ is creating a cultural barrier, or perhaps simply participating in a cultural barrier, that restricts change. Through capitalism, such barriers cause high risk-vs-reward mechanisms, but in this case, I believe the rewards is much more than money and resources.

Kass’ approach is an inhibitor of wide-spread use of life-extension, and those who have the resources to circumvent the obstacles Kass and ilk propose will cause a have/havenot split.

Now, you can almost argue that there’s the root of human races in our current world: homo sapiens capitalis (Western people with long lives and surmounting technology and culture) and homo sapiens restrictis (a population restricted to geography by infrastructure and warfare).

Right now, it doesn’t take much to cross over - in fact, those who reason/strive/risk it out, leave their community to societies more tolerant and stable. Those left behind without the resources are stuck in worn-torn areas (Congo, Sudan, Sierra Leone). But even that risk adds Darwinistic competition to the human race.

If homo sapiens capitalis develops a technology that creates such life extension, and Kass-ites can prevent just enough access, the race will split.

And compete for resources.

That’s a little foreboding. However, the alternative is that if individuals were allowed to choose their evolutionary paths, if they could decide which of their genetic and memetic views would procreate. What’s strange, if you think about it, is that Kass is choosing. It’s just he’s fighting to prevent our right to choose as well.

All my life, my mother has wanted to weave rugs - big, fancy rugs that people hang on walls. She’s not exactly been successful at doing it. For a woman who has managed to raise two children by herself, had a profitable career, and a trove of friends who she loves and loves her back, she’s only attended a few classes. All my life, she’s placed obstacles in front of her to prevent her from doing things. Slowly, she’s learning how to get around these obstacles. I’ve learned from her example, and I hope to have returned the favor.

It’s odd, these obstacles, it’s like navigating around your self, your mind, your structure of the world.

For my own dreams, I’ve finally removed one of those obstacles from my path that I’ve been worrying over. These have been the type of worries that wakes one in the night in bone-chilling panics. The price of doing business has cost me a lot - money, career, friends - most importantly friends, and faith in myself. I’m leery of paying that price even though I know there’s more coming in the future. Well, after finding the right legal council, I’ve finally done it.

On Tuesday, at 2:45 I signed documents officially creating Heresy Research Labs, llc. It’s mission is to create entertaining copyrightable materials for licensing and publishing. I like that mission: I’m here to create fun, of all interests, and with a name like Heresy, I’m hoping to break a few rules.

I’ve got heroes - well, minds that I admire - all of whom have said, “I’ve shown you, now you show me what you can do.” I am so tired of having reams of written material that goes unpublished, unseen and un-commented on. There’s only one way I’m going to improve and that way requires me to my material in front of others.

My first project will be Arcanopocrypha, a collection of short stories I’ve written for a graphic novels format, with a single overall arc. I’ve discovered a wonderful artist which I’m hoping to expand my business relationship.

I love twisting the minds of those who will listen, and I really want to play rough. Stay tooned, I’m going in!

I’m a proud owner of a T-Mobile G1. I’m ahead of the curve. I’m showing brand name loyalty to Google, the smart and cool technology brand. I’m… well, I’m a little miffed at my experience with getting this damned thing fixed.

It began when one of my other early adopter friends came over and said, “Have you seen Bubble?” Bubble is a beautiful level tool. Set your G1 on any surface and a level bubble comes up and tells you all sorts of good details. Great for carpenters and home decorators who want a level surface. And when it doesn’t work, it means your G1 isn’t as cool as the next guy’s G1. That’s it. You, my trendsetting G1 friend, can’t level your desk with your phone.

So… I went to the T-Mobile store. To the T-mobile teen-aged drones working there, I had to explain the mercury switch sensor. “Why would you want that?” They, a trio consisting of a young man, and two young women, had never seen a G1 and of all of the explanation, finally understood one word: “games.” But they did what any mcjob drone did, they called tech support for me. Heareforafter, I shall dub them the Drones.

Now, I’m not angry at the Drones, but the goddamned music in the store was so loud, they could barely hear each other. I don’t think any one of them had the braincells to turn the volume down so they could talk amongst themselves let alone on the phone. And while they have all the common courtesy I’ve come to expect from the-young-and-the-brainless, they just. didn’t. get. it. that I had a phone and wanted service.

Until I got angry. First, I was on tech support, straining to hear the poor woman with a thick Jamaican accent. Just as I had to explain the mercury switch feature to the Drones, I had to do it all over again. She didn’t believe me that a phone had a tilt-sensor. She didn’t think I was calling about the right phone. In fact, she put me on hold after saying “Just one moment.”

“Thank you for calling, HTC Support, this is Brian.”

“What happened to the other woman I was talking to?”

“Who? Who is this?”

*sigh* Thus, for the third time I launch into the spiel of mercury switch explanations. O, happy day. This eventually ends up with “Sir, we can open a ticket for you but the phone will have to be sent in.” “Ok,” I reply. The Drone manager - not quite a queen bee by any intellectual measure - but has picked up that something has begun to go wrong, not because I’m coming in with a broken phone, and not because my ears are bleeding now, but because of my demeanor.

Princess Drone takes the phone, talks it over with HTC, and eventually comes to a conclusion that T-Mobile Tech Support forwarded me to someone else entirely, but they work out that I’d have to turn in my phone and start the entire experience all over again, by… wait for it… calling T-Mobile Tech Support. I, before I raised my voice, said “Thank you, I’m going to be late as it is,” and left, wish the Drones a good evening. I enjoyed their chorus of “We’re sorry,” and filtered my last comment, wishing it was the wails of the damned in Hell, rather than incompetent T-Mobile Drones.

So, today, I’m going to a DIFFERENT T-mobile store, and hoping for a DIFFERENT client experience. I get it that G1 wants to compete with Apple, but by now, I’d have a working Apple phone, whereas, my mercury switch still doesn’t work. I realize my phone works fine except the sensor, and my complaints are few and far between. It’s just that it shouldn’t be so hard to get decent service.

For those that don’t remember, I’ve been interviewing lawyers and getting my legal papers in sync. Finally, I’ve found a lawyer I’ll tolerate. I don’t trust him, but I’ll tolerate him. $1000 for incorporation and all that nonsense, and then the other crew will do the copyright agreement.

While I’ve interviewed a six (seven?) lawyers now, all of them have had the same problem: “why not work for hire and retain all copyrights?” Now, I’m not ignorant to the fact that MAYBE, very little chance, my stories can be made into movies. And MAYBE, very little chance, the license of such a thing could be used to ween me off of the corporate teat I suck, and MAYBE, very little chance, I could be happy just writing comics.

Lawyers’ jobs are to look out after the client, however, in this case, I’m trying to create an Ellis Band book, which is to say, a book that has three artists and one writer, and everyone gets paid the same exact money. But to do this, I’m having to draw up the legal papers and it’s nearly breaking the bank before I’m getting the work done. I’ve always equated work-for-hire as fuck your contractor, now I understand WHY I need to use work-for-hire, but in the case of a creative endeavor… it’s just not worth it. Share your copyrights, my friends.

The moral of the story? I’m tired of being bounced around: I’m happy I didn’t go with the first few lawyers, but fuck it, I’m putting the money down. We incorporate on Wednesday. Now I got to decide on the name of my company, which I’m thinking is going to be Heresy Research Labs, llc. All in all, I’m looking at about $3000+ which I know is necessary, but I’m in tears thinking of all the art that would buy (almost an entire 20 page book).

Fuck, it’s shouldn’t be so expensive to be creative.

For every story I’m writing for Arcanopocrypha, I’m thinking of other opportunities, such as if this were a game license, what would the game play be?

For “The Authentic Life of Josiah Dempsey”, the comic is about a US Marshall escorting a young orphan through the rough-and-wild Silver City in the 1880s. It’s go sheriffs, deputies, pistoleros, and Apaches, which is the best kind of western for me. I’ve also nicknamed it “Pistol Porn” as every characters’ weapon has been thoroughly researched. It’s a story of redemption, the perception of evil and shooting pistols.

But as a game, it’s be a little boring if I did a direct non-RPG translation. So, here’s what I’ve come up with.

You would play Josiah Dempsey, a fifty year old US Marshall dealing with hunting down ne’er-do-wells in the American Southwest during the 1870s and 1880s. During one misadventure, you’re teamed up with Sheriff Patrick Garrett. Your prey? Billy the Kid. One by one, you hunt down Billy’s posse and bring them to frontier justice.

After the first one is down, we cue the Flashback Machine: it’s a time when Dempsey (you) are escorting a young orphaned boy from the Tucson, Arizona to Las Cruces, New Mexico to be with his aunt and uncle. You stop over in Silver City, where you have to deal with a lot of moral decisions between the wily sheriff, the overbearing deputy, the mining magnates, the Apaches, and the Mexicans, each who have their interests for the town. As threats to Dempsey and William come an go, Dempsey must tell, explain, and educate the young Billy.

Yep, the kid you’re hunting down NOW is the same boy you helped 20 years ago.

But the crux of the story is that Josiah’s decisions in Silver City change William Bonney into the notorious Billy the Kid. But the question is outstanding: was Billy the Kid a good guy trapped in a bad situation, a misguided guy, a bad guy or a evil guy. Somewhere in there is likely to be the truth.

Game play-wise, every flashback would have an impact to the current storyline. For example, if in Silver City, you stole Billy’s ice cream, he’d hold a grudge about that and mention it in the dialogue. If you teach Billy magic, he’ll have magic to use against you. If you teach Billy religion, he’d quote from the bible and maybe even converted to Christianity. And, as we define Billy’s character, we’d define a reason why he’s an outlaw. Was he a mercenary hired by land owners, or a rancher who had his land stolen by the bad guys and on a mission of revenge. Either way, he’s got a price on his head and you and Garrett are out to get your man.

What if the player teaches “Jesus tells us too turn the other cheek” vs. “Praise the lord and pass the ammunition”, how would that affect Billy down the line?

And once you do meet up, and you’ve learned Billy is the product of what you made him, what do you decide to do? Do you let Garrett shoot him in the back?

This allows wide variety of endings - by being completely evil to the kid, you could transform him into an evil enemy dog that needs to be put down, but if your efforts made Billy a good guy, you may have to find a compromise with Patrick Garrett. And what if Billy actually died in Silver City… what exactly are you tracking down? A gun-fighting, cattle rustlin’ Xombie?

Also, since this is a mystical story with brujahs and witchmen, I could subtitle it “Little Xombies on the Prairie” and one of the substories would be a some bastard name Landon doing evil things to a dead Melissa Ingles.

So, does this high level design/wishlist hit my ideas for a good game?
1) Cool weapons
2) Mystical spookiness to give player shivers
3) Potential killing of characters of all types: white greedy men, Injuns, Pistoleros, Xombies.
4) Characters that you would care about
5) Something that’s never been done well: flashback mode that informs current decisions.
6) Moral decisions with consequences that don’t make

Yeah, I know this is just an idea and I need to actually finish publishing the actual story, but it’s a GOOD idea.

The first thing I stumbled over on Wednesday was the reporting of how dumb is Sarah Palin. “That’s not just dumb, but Palin Dumb” is a phrase needs to enter into the memespace to inoculate the state from her brand of fundamental belief makes right politics. A lot of the reading included she was the reason “why McCain failed” to take the office: writing that I believe proves journalists don’t understand democracy. Registered voters who actually voted chose the president. McCain didn’t fail as much as didn’t appeal to the needs of a few million people.

Obama is a political centrist and a powerful symbol. A major down-the-line centrist and I feel bad for all the people who think that free health care is around the corner.

Many people have avoided me this week, which is sad. One of the reasons I stay away from leadership positions is my tendency to rub people’s nose in it. It’s a telling fault that I’m trying hard to both overcome and build bridges. Some could even call me a bully, and they wouldn’t be wrong. So, I’ve tried hard to shut up about it.

My biggest concern was that I’ve always believed in the dream of America, where anyone could become the president, or lead, or achieve what they want as long as they don’t harm anyone. And one the other side, all my life, I’ve seen the Republicans abuse power - Nixon and Watergate, the indictments against Ronald Reagan’s cabinets, the first Gulf war against Saddam Hussein, the current, sitting President. Maybe my eyes have been blind to Clinton and Carter, but I don’t see anything their presidencies’ which make me fear my government. And over every president during my life, only Obama will have my seal of approval.

But now, the power of the masses have begun to speak. Gay people voted overwhelmingly for a black president, but black people didn’t appear to return the love. In fact, I’d say that black people fucked the gay man over in a raping that’s sad. Worse, the people who I do self-identify, atheists, also had a decidingly male contingent that voted down gay marriage. One word: asshats!

I’m pretty close to a James Hughes’ Upwinger: everyone deserves rights in abundance, and they need to be celebrated and supported to a fault. Gay people deserve every dream black people have. It’s simply sad they don’t.