Blizzard finally announced the winners of their creative writing contest. I offer hearty congratulations to those who won and those who got honorable mentions.
I received neither. My selfish ego keeps conjuring up this notion that my work overstepped some boundary that disqualified it for reasons beyond pure content quality. This is mostly a defense mechanism. When you play the Mega Millions on a big pot, you can't help but fantasize about how your life will change if you win. This contest became something akin to that. It was my big chance to get out of a line of work I don't love and into one I would. But rather than a meager $5 investment, I poured a bit more into it, and random chance wasn't to blame for my loss, all of which adds to my frustration and feeling of inadequacy.
Blizzard has released few details aside from winning titles and authors. My wish, unrealistic as it is, is to hear from someone at Blizzard who can say “hey, this is why you didn’t place”. But with 1500 entries, what we’re more likely to get, if anything, is a canned response that will end up insulting more entrants than it soothes. I do hope that the winning content is revealed soon, so that I can know that I was either displaced by a superior work and sharpen my pen for the next one, or take heart that my work was equally strong, but cast aside for arbitrary reasons. At which point, legal matters be damned (Blizzard apparently owns all submissions), I will release my work to anyone who wants to read it.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Friday, May 15, 2009
it is So Choice
To anyone shopping for a high def TV: buy a plasma. They are simply better than LCDs in every respect, especially if you’re shopping within a budget. I fully admit I am incredibly fussy, but even I can find no fault with mine, except for the fact that we are frequently mesmerized by the thing.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Squiggle mouth
To piggy back on Alex’s post, I too was recently told I resembled a celebrity I don’t care for. At a baby shower this weekend I was told by a stranger that I look like Jake Gyllenhaal, specifically his character in Brokeback Mountain. Ouch. The person paying what she thought was a compliment didn’t register what might not be awesome about that.
My dislike for Gyllenhaal has nothing to do with that movie at all. I’ve never seen it, so all off color jokes aside, it doesn’t weigh in on my opinion one way or another. I just don’t think he should be in movies. He’ll always be Bubble Boy to me. His mouth is shaped like a tilde (~). He seems simple minded and awkward. The roles I’ve seen him play, such as in Jarhead, were weak and unconvincing to me. That’s pretty much why I don’t like him. Who would want to be told they look like that? Caitlin says it’s the beard.
My dislike for Gyllenhaal has nothing to do with that movie at all. I’ve never seen it, so all off color jokes aside, it doesn’t weigh in on my opinion one way or another. I just don’t think he should be in movies. He’ll always be Bubble Boy to me. His mouth is shaped like a tilde (~). He seems simple minded and awkward. The roles I’ve seen him play, such as in Jarhead, were weak and unconvincing to me. That’s pretty much why I don’t like him. Who would want to be told they look like that? Caitlin says it’s the beard.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Sat down for a drink in my father's favorite chair
Earlier this week I was allowed into the Stereo Advantage showroom to test a Nintendo Wii on a few different flat panel HD TV's to see which, if any, made the damn thing look acceptable.
The first thing I tested was the Panasonic TC-P42S1 Plasma TV. AV gurus seem to favor plasma and this was cheap 1080p with a higher contrast ratio (2,000,000:1) and refresh rate (600hz) than any LCD. What could possibly be the catch? Turns out, power consumption is really it. It costs about 2.5 times as much energy to use a plasma than an LCD.
On the Wii: looked better than the Philips I bought earlier, that's for sure. Recognized the signal well, still had lots of jagged edges, but this was mitigated by the depth of color.
Standard Def: Again, better than the Philips, but still wasn't great.
So, unconvinced this was the saving grace, I asked about an LG LCD a friend pointed out to me, which at the time was on sale at Best Buy for $300 off. Stereo Advantage doesn't carry LG so the technician couldn't show me that specific model (42LH40), but he did plug into a Toshiba LCD with identical specs. I was impressed with the punchy, bright display.
On the Wii: it wouldn't give us 16:9 aspect ratio, but even crammed into 4:3, which normally smoothes out jagged lines by making them smaller, it still didn't look as nice as the plasma.
Standard Def: Not bad. Again, still gobbledy gook, but Toshiba did a nice job.
My final choice was the plasma. Stereo Advantage threw in too many goodies and the price was where I wanted to be. A later trip to Best Buy resulted in an attempted upsell to a Samsung Series 7 LCD, which, good though it was, didn't hold up to the Panasonic Plasma it was mounted next to. And that plasma was lower end than the one I bough. If the expensive, high end Samsung was better than the LG, but still worse than a 720p plasma, the choice to me was clear.
As for standard def help... we're in a transitionary period right now. Standard Def will slowly go away, or become an alternative, within the next few years. All HDTV's make HDTV look good; it's what they do. All the unsightliness of standard def is going to be magnified on any HDTV right now, because none of them will do us the simple favor of drawing CRT-Style scan lines across standard def to hide that shit. Some do an ok job, some don't even try. Until a set is made with this simple enough feature, we all get to suffer. There is no silver bullet for this. Trust me, I've looked under every corner for the right answer. Fortunately, most stations are offered in HD, except USA and Comedy Central, who both suck for that. So the suffering is limited.
As for LCD vs Plasma, again, no clear choice. What you see and like is what you should buy.
Sorry to any Ned's Atomic Dustbin fans who were hoping for something else from this post. I like my references.
The first thing I tested was the Panasonic TC-P42S1 Plasma TV. AV gurus seem to favor plasma and this was cheap 1080p with a higher contrast ratio (2,000,000:1) and refresh rate (600hz) than any LCD. What could possibly be the catch? Turns out, power consumption is really it. It costs about 2.5 times as much energy to use a plasma than an LCD.
On the Wii: looked better than the Philips I bought earlier, that's for sure. Recognized the signal well, still had lots of jagged edges, but this was mitigated by the depth of color.
Standard Def: Again, better than the Philips, but still wasn't great.
So, unconvinced this was the saving grace, I asked about an LG LCD a friend pointed out to me, which at the time was on sale at Best Buy for $300 off. Stereo Advantage doesn't carry LG so the technician couldn't show me that specific model (42LH40), but he did plug into a Toshiba LCD with identical specs. I was impressed with the punchy, bright display.
On the Wii: it wouldn't give us 16:9 aspect ratio, but even crammed into 4:3, which normally smoothes out jagged lines by making them smaller, it still didn't look as nice as the plasma.
Standard Def: Not bad. Again, still gobbledy gook, but Toshiba did a nice job.
My final choice was the plasma. Stereo Advantage threw in too many goodies and the price was where I wanted to be. A later trip to Best Buy resulted in an attempted upsell to a Samsung Series 7 LCD, which, good though it was, didn't hold up to the Panasonic Plasma it was mounted next to. And that plasma was lower end than the one I bough. If the expensive, high end Samsung was better than the LG, but still worse than a 720p plasma, the choice to me was clear.
As for standard def help... we're in a transitionary period right now. Standard Def will slowly go away, or become an alternative, within the next few years. All HDTV's make HDTV look good; it's what they do. All the unsightliness of standard def is going to be magnified on any HDTV right now, because none of them will do us the simple favor of drawing CRT-Style scan lines across standard def to hide that shit. Some do an ok job, some don't even try. Until a set is made with this simple enough feature, we all get to suffer. There is no silver bullet for this. Trust me, I've looked under every corner for the right answer. Fortunately, most stations are offered in HD, except USA and Comedy Central, who both suck for that. So the suffering is limited.
As for LCD vs Plasma, again, no clear choice. What you see and like is what you should buy.
Sorry to any Ned's Atomic Dustbin fans who were hoping for something else from this post. I like my references.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Priceless
It's not much of a secret that I like Penny Arcade, or that I think Nirvana is overrated and stale as shit (thanks edge 103.3 and edge 102.1 for keeping their entire library in your daily playlists for 10 years straight), but this recent comic... it's like chocolate and peanut butter.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
A splendid little war game
I picked up Civilization for the DS, which is fantastic, for only $15 new at EB games. I also picked up the GTA:Chinatown Wars. Once you let go of the idea that you'll be getting an experience as immersing as GTA 3 and it's successors offered, it's also quite fun.
Monday, April 13, 2009
I live
You may have heard about Blizzard’s “Creative Writing” contest, which ended yesterday. I decided to take a stab at it, not because I wanted the outwardly offered prizes, but because I thought it was their way of scouting talent for a writing position they have available over there.
I was right. When I submitted my story, which I had to reformat several times to fit the 100k max file submission size, there was a check box that read “I am interested in professional writing”. Click!
I’ve spent a good amount of time and energy on this thing. Maybe too much. The home stretch ‘finishing touches’ prior to submission amounted to about 15-17 solid hours of writing between Friday night and Sunday morning, all crammed into the spaces between repeated and lengthy Easter festivities. I also burned up the last free uses of Word that came with my computer. I’m now exiled to MS Works (the coach class of word processing programs) unless someone knows a way I can get a Windows Product Key without paying more than the $20-30 it’s really worth.
The various families and future families-in-law I’ve been seeing all weekend asked me what I’d been up to lately. My mind was –is– still consumed by the project, which made answering that question awkward, to say the least.
I keep re-reading my submission and catching stupid little errors. Will it be these amateur mistakes that cause the Great Pumpkin to pass me by? Forgot a pronoun here, left some ugly syntax there. The red, blue and green squiggles are still showing up. They only asked for my address and email… don’t they want to call me? Crap, I forgot to put my info on the header… what if there’s a mix up? And so on.
As a reward for completing the story (and not before then!) I promised myself I’d get some new DS fodder. But what to get! Age of Mythologies? Civilization DS? GTA: Chinatown Wars? Fire Emblem? I am once again paralyzed by choice.
I was right. When I submitted my story, which I had to reformat several times to fit the 100k max file submission size, there was a check box that read “I am interested in professional writing”. Click!
I’ve spent a good amount of time and energy on this thing. Maybe too much. The home stretch ‘finishing touches’ prior to submission amounted to about 15-17 solid hours of writing between Friday night and Sunday morning, all crammed into the spaces between repeated and lengthy Easter festivities. I also burned up the last free uses of Word that came with my computer. I’m now exiled to MS Works (the coach class of word processing programs) unless someone knows a way I can get a Windows Product Key without paying more than the $20-30 it’s really worth.
The various families and future families-in-law I’ve been seeing all weekend asked me what I’d been up to lately. My mind was –is– still consumed by the project, which made answering that question awkward, to say the least.
I keep re-reading my submission and catching stupid little errors. Will it be these amateur mistakes that cause the Great Pumpkin to pass me by? Forgot a pronoun here, left some ugly syntax there. The red, blue and green squiggles are still showing up. They only asked for my address and email… don’t they want to call me? Crap, I forgot to put my info on the header… what if there’s a mix up? And so on.
As a reward for completing the story (and not before then!) I promised myself I’d get some new DS fodder. But what to get! Age of Mythologies? Civilization DS? GTA: Chinatown Wars? Fire Emblem? I am once again paralyzed by choice.
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