Month: February 2016

My favorite video games from a hundred years ago

Pong was the first popular video game. I first played it in a darkened pizza restaurant in 1974, the video screen casting an eerie blue glow on those gathered around it. I was nine years old.

And hooked.

In 1976 we got the home version of Pong. It had two control knobs built into the console. My brother used his advanced high school electronics wizardry to pry the knobs out and then attach them to longer wiring, allowing us to sit back and play while reclining on those giant weird pillows that were so popular in the 70s. It was great.

Through the mid-70s and early 80s, my love of video gaming saw me spending many an hour in video game arcades–my first full-time job was handing out quarters at an arcade. The job was about as exciting as it sounds, but it was still cool to be surrounded by the light and noise of forty arcade cabinets. My manager was less impressed when a group of teenage boys gathered around a machine one night, managed to jimmy it open, and then empty all the quarters from it. Hey, I just thought they were really into Sub-Roc 3D.

Looking back, some of my memories and recollections of arcade games include:

  • the Williams games were technically dazzling and impossible for me to play competently. These included Defender, Stargate (no relation to the movie or TV series) and Robotron 2084. I loved these games but my roll of quarters would vanish all too quickly attempting to play them. I’m pretty sure I lost a ship just pressing the one player button in Defender.
  • while I enjoyed Time Pilot, there was something almost transcendental about its sequel, the space-oriented Time Pilot 84, that really hooked me. I actually got pretty good at this one. A local laundromat in Vancouver had it and I probably spent more money on it than others did doing their laundry.
  • I never quite mastered Dragon’s Lair but could play through (the superior) Space Ace with a single quarter. It was pretty much watching a cartoon with a joystick. That sounds wrong and in a way it was.
  • A friend and I played Super Mario Bros as player vs. player since you could push or otherwise manipulate the other player into the crabs, turtles and mean ice cubes. You didn’t get points by indirectly offing the other player but in a way that made it even better.
  • I remember thinking laser disc games were not the future. I was right (fortunately). Williams had one called Star Rider that was decent, cleverly using the laser-y part as a fairly seamless background to a respectable racing game (there’s even a YouTube video).
  • The cocktail table version of Ms. Pacman was awesome. Suddenly, standing in an arcade was obsolete (several arcades started providing stools).
  • The Movieland Arcade in Vancouver was one of my regular haunts and had a row of Sega’s Daytona USA machines near the front. Racing against friends was great fun. The arcade and those Daytona USA machines are still there more than twenty years later, but the arcade always looks forlorn and empty. The sign in the window also still advertises “girlie movies” in the back. I never watched the girlie movies.
  • by the mid-80s, we reached a kind of golden age of arcades. Most games were still 25 cents, with new games sometimes being 50 cents. Graphics had improved dramatically so titles like Toobin’ still look pretty good today. Home consoles were in the pre-Playstation era, so arcades still had a place with a technically superior presentation. That would fade by the early 90s. Coincidentally I was edging toward 30 and my own interests began pulling me away.
  • a friend and I played Cyberball against the Deluise brothers. I don’t remember why they were in Vancouver at the time.
  • another friend and I would drive from Duncan to Victoria to play games like Star Rider and Crystal Castles at Xanacade. Yes, we drove nearly an hour just to play video games. Both ways, in the snow!

Video arcades still exist, mostly on the appeal of massive novelty machines that cost a lot more than a mere quarter, but like many things you adore in your youth (hello, Mad magazine), the magic has faded. Alas and such.

Writing prompts for the highly educated

Here are some writing prompts related to school, education, learning, or the lack thereof.

As always, I provide the caveat that these prompts are deliberately terrible and are not meant to be used. If you use one and create something decent from it, consider it an accident gone gloriously and strangely right.

  1. In an effort to make the paperless office a reality, all faculty are given tablets. The tablets are made of stone and each comes with a chisel. Describe the reaction of the faculty.
  2. A student has a grand, sweeping vision on how her university can be better-managed in this highly competitive, technologically-challenging time we live in. It involves logrolling and lawn darts. Write the speech the student gives to the board assembled to hear this vision.
  3. The Department of Psychology runs an experiment in conjunction with the IT Department to determine how many superfluous confirmation prompts someone has to click through when trying to print a document before totally losing it. Write about the exciting results of the experiment.
  4. Rather than trying to fight students constantly checking Facebook in class, teachers instead embrace this by having a hologram of Mark Zuckerberg appear in classrooms. Write about Mark teaching students what’s really important. Share and like if you agree.
  5. It turns out that modeling a school on Lord of the Flies is actually a bad idea. Explain why in 500 words.

Run 410: Now with orthotics

Run 410
Average pace: 5:56/km
Location: Burnaby Lake CCW
Distance: 5.13 km
Time: 30:32
Weather: Overcast
Temp: 6ºC
Wind: light
BPM: 166
Stride: n/a
Weight: 168.6 pounds
Total distance to date: 3330
Device used: Apple Watch and iPhone 6

I replicated last week’s run, doing the same route, with one change: I used the orthotic insoles in my Speedgoats. While my left foot did hurt, it started to hurt much later and minimally enough that I didn’t consider it a serious issue during the run.

Despite a few sprinkles en route to Burnaby Lake, it remained dry for the entire five km and the trail was in much better shape, with the need to dexterously dodge and weave and sometimes plunge straight through puddles being unnecessary.

The Speedgoats proved to be a mixed success again. They passed the shoelace test but as I was nearing the dam on my walk back the lace on the right shoe was on the verge of coming undone. Had I still been running, I’m sure it would have, so I consider this a technical fail. Worse, the color leeching happened again. This time the only moisture in the shoes came from my feet sweating but this was enough to leave prominent blue stains on both socks. I’ll probably be taking them back to Kintec for a refund or exchange (likely an exchange, as I have to believe this is some sort of flaw in a specific production run).

I tried to pace myself a little better at the start of the run but mostly failed there. My first km was 5:24/km, fell to 6:10 for the second km and stayed in that general vicinity for the remainder of the run. The pace was a five second improvement, which was nice. My heart rate was also lower, which is also good. I expect to be sore again but not quite as sore.

I may wear the Tom Tom watch the next time just to compare (it also syncs to my Nike+ account).

Overall, I was hoping for small improvements and got them, so I’m pleased. Now I just need to finish runs without ruining more socks.

Book review: Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

Twenty Thousand Leagues under the SeaTwenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea by Jules Verne
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Spoiler: The squid gets it.

I suspect many if not most people who first encounter Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea think the title refers to how deep the Nautilus dives. Going by the conservative measure of a league being four km, that would equal 80,000 km and put the Nautilus in outer space, which is indeed a long way down.

But even when considered correctly as distance traveled, twenty thousand leagues is a lot of ocean to cover. And in Jules Verne’s classic novel, the protagonist and narrator Pierre Aronnax provides an episodic recollection of the many months he and two others spend as captors aboard the submarine Nautilus, held there by the mysterious and perhaps mad Captain Nemo.

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of this nearly 150 year old novel is how well the science holds up. Unlike his more fanciful efforts such as Journey to the Center of the Earth, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea depicts an eerily realistic electric-powered submarine. The story is a curious blend of exploration and travelogue, with odd dashes of humor mixed in with bursts of action or violence. More harrowing than the squid attack made famous in the 1954 Disney film is the depiction of the Nautilus becoming trapped under ice while in the Antarctic, with the crew struggling to break the vessel free before their supply of oxygen runs out. You may never want to step foot in a submarine if afforded the opportunity.

Despite the occasional action, most of the story is presented in a deliberate fashion that may feel slow or even ponderous to those accustomed to our information-overload culture. This is a tale to be savored for the sights, sounds and other sensations presented. The arc of Nemo would no doubt be handled more forcefully in a modern telling, as he begins and ends as an enigma here, but other than the “I hit my head and suddenly it was all over” ending (perhaps due to the novel originally being a magazine serial), I enjoyed the more leisurely pace. Considering the dual facts that the novel relies so much on science and was published in 1870, it is all the more amazing how sturdy it still stands.

For anyone interested in the history of science fiction, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea is an essential read.

View all my reviews

Two days after not running for two months: twice as sore

Note to self: If you run regularly, then don’t run at all for just over four months then don’t run again for another two months, you may find that two days after the second-run-in-six-months your legs will still be pretty freaking sore.

It’s kind of embarrassing, but not surprising.

Daylight is lasting just long enough now for it to still be a little light when I get home from work, teasing me about the days ahead when I’ll actually be able to run after dinner once again. The current lack of light post-work means I have some time to get into a comfy new stretching routine before regular runs resume. I look forward to making my legs sore without having to run at all.

The Big Writing To-Do 2016, Step 1: Tidying up UPDATE

I have gone through the many folders scattered hither and yon (but mostly on OneDrive) containing my writing and have organized everything into three main folders:

All Writing – current
All Writing – old
All Writing – non fiction

The folder names are pretty self-explanatory. Anything in the “current” folder is something I think is worth working on, though if I’m feeling whimsical/desperate I can also pull from the “old” folder at any time. I have further divided the folders into subfolders for easier sorting–short stories, plays, novels, ideas and so on.

Now that I have done this I need to start writing again or something.

Run 409: Speedgoat debut (more goat, less speed)

Run 409
Average pace: 6:01/km
Location: Burnaby Lake CCW
Distance: 5.18 km
Time: 31:56
Weather: Overcast
Temp: 9ºC
Wind: light
BPM: 171
Stride: n/a
Weight: 171.2 pounds
Total distance to date: 3325
Device used: Apple Watch and iPhone 6

For the past month or so I’ve been planning on resuming running, having completed an entire run back on December 20. In fact, I was hoping to get a monthly streak going for 2016. That didn’t happen because I got sick, got better but was recovering, sort of got sick again, then actually did get sick once more. This weekend I felt sufficiently recovered from all of that to get out and run.

Run is a bit generous, though. My pace was so slow you may be excused for thinking I used a walker for assistance. In my defense:

  • I was wearing new shoes for the first time, the Hoka Speedgoats. New shoes usually lead to slower runs the first few times.
  • I am obviously still not 100% after battling multiple viruses
  • I am really out of shape, and what little shape I have is reminiscent of a pear
  • my left foot (you know, good ol’ #@$%!) was hurting even before I started

That said, conditions were decent, with the rain holding off apart from an occasional sprinkle, and the 9ºC proving balmy enough that I could have worn a regular t-shirt and not the long-sleeved one (the running jacket, which I briefly considered, would have been way too warm).

I elected to break in the custom orthotics with the new shoes, even though I’ve been wearing them relatively trouble-free for weeks now. This may have been a mistake as halfway to Burnaby Lake the left foot started to hurt. It remained tolerable so I stuck to my 5K plan, once more using my Apple Watch and iPhone combo. It seems reasonably accurate but distance seems to be a little generous, with me hitting marks slightly before I’d expect. I’ll probably switch back to the TomTom for the next run.

The first 500 m, on the spiffy resurfaced section of the trail, went fine. No matter how out of practice, that first stretch you always feel great. I knew this would change and braced for it. As I moved onto the Spruce Loop trail, it changed. Suddenly it felt like I had lead weights in my shoes, in my lungs and possibly tucked away in other spots. I thought about pausing the run, about walking for a bit, but instead I pressed on and let my pace drop.

Somewhere between the 2.5 and 3 km mark the second wind kicked in, though it was a gentle kick. This was still enough for the lead weights to go away. My pace didn’t especially improve but I felt a lot better and finished out the run without any further undue suffering.

I walked back from the lake and the left foot, while still sore, did not present a notable obstacle.

Overall, I’m disappointed at the sluggish pace, but it is totally in line with the conditions of the run. I am pleased I got out and completed the full 5K and look forward to more runs soon. The addition of the custom orthotic will be interesting to observe, as it’s bound to be quite noticeable when running vs. walking (I don’t particularly notice it now during my day-to-day walking).

The Speedgoats were a mixed bag. On the plus side, they passed the shoelace test, with both remaining tied for the entire duration. The right shoe felt a tad loose on the walk back but still remained secure.

On the other hand, they did nothing to prevent the left foot from hurting. I think I’m pretty much doomed to all shoes being like this without an orthotic in them. Stupid foot.

More distressing was the fact that my socks had blue stains on them from the interior of the shoes. The trail was wet and squishy and I came out of it with mud splattered up my legs and my feet not exactly drenched but very much damp from a few unavoidable plunges through water. The interior of the shoes had a few wet spots and these appeared to allow the color to leech from the shoe to the sock, the first time I’ve had this happen in any running shoe. I was kind of shocked, actually. This shouldn’t happen, especially in a trail runner. I’ll be looking into whether this is a known defect of the Speedgoats or just bad luck on my part (49 reviews on the official Hoka site did not yield any mention of the issue).

When people favorably describe you as a convincing liar

I just completed a three day Conflict Resolution course at the Justice Institute of British Columbia (I know, I was also expecting to be greeted by spandex-clad superheroes when I entered the lobby–it even looks like a superhero headquarters) and the course requires a certain amount of roleplay (the third day is devoted entirely to it), with you taking on both the role of person causing conflict and person trying to resolve it. We had bonus roleplay when we divided into groups to demonstrate the different styles of conflict resolution. My group opted for a live demo of the right and wrong ways rather than go with flow charts and bullet lists.

I attended with two co-workers and both of them commented on my apparently convincing acting when playing conflict-creating people. One had me playing an indifferent IT guy who couldn’t understand why anyone would be confused by IT’s avalanche of changes accompanied by an avalanche of email, while the other was even better–I was a co-worker who openly bad-mouthed others in the office to the point of making a fellow co-worker and friend decide I was a poophead.

It was fun. I am normally quiet and polite to the point of being deferential, so playing against type is always a good time. That I can allegedly do it so well makes me yearn a little for the old days when I actually pursued an acting career (the last time I acted was in a 1988 Fringe Festival show. Think about it–that’s pre-Internet. There are adults out there who do not realize such dark times even existed). Interestingly, with the advent of the same Internet and more affordable consumer technology (eg. phones that shoot video) I could actually pursue acting again, post my efforts to YouTube and watch my efforts go viral. In this case “go viral” means getting four or five views, depending on whether I tell four or five people to watch the video.

But that’s what acting is all about, the impossible dreams.

If my morning commute was a text adventure

> Wake up
It’s not 6 a.m. yet.

> Wake up
Are you sure you want to do that?

> Yes
You wake up.

> Look
Your bedroom is dark. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

> Turn on light
The bedroom is filled with a warm light. You look at the carpeting and can’t remember the last time you vacuumed.

> Don’t judge me
I don’t know the word “judge.”

> Good
Good to know you, too.

> Eat breakfast
You can’t do that here.

> Leave for work
Are you sure you want to do that?

> No
You leave for work.

> Bah
You don’t see any bah here.

> Look out window of SkyTrain and enjoy the view
You see a slate gray sky and rain comes down in sheets.

> Close eyes
You close your eyes. For a moment it is silent, then the intercom squawks to life with an announcement.

> Listen to announcement
“This is SkyTrain Control. A family of squirrels is on the track between Broadway and Nanaimo stations. Your train is being momentarily held while SkyTrain personnel investigate. We apologize for the delay and thank you for your patience.”

After thirty seconds the announcement repeats.

> Listen to music on phone
Your phone has no charge as you did not plug it in last night.

> $#%&^!
You don’t see any $#%&^! here.

> Wait
You wait.

“This is SkyTrain Control. A family of squirrels is on the track between Broadway and Nanaimo stations. Your train is being momentraily held while SkyTrain personnel investigate. We apologize for the delay and thank you for your patience.”

> Wait
You wait.

The intercom comes to life and someone on it loudly clears his throat.

“This is SkyTrain Control. A family of squirrels is on the track between Broadway and Nanaimo stations. Your train is being momentraily held while SkyTrain personnel investigate. We apologize for the delay and thank you for your patience.”

> Wait until train is moving
The train begins moving.

> Check time
It is 7:49 a.m. You are going to be late for work.

> Call work on phone
Your phone has no charge as you did not plug it in last night.

> Well that’s just great
You don’t see any well here.

> Shut up
How rude.

> This sucks
Can you be more specific?

> Look
You are in a SkyTrain car.

In the car you see the following:

Several passengers
Crumpled newspaper (under seat)
Spilled soda
A bicycle

The floor is covered with a sticky liquid that is slowly snaking toward yor feet.

> Cry
Do you feel better now?

> No.
How negative!

> Save
Are you sure you want to save? Your score is 10 out of 500, giving you a rank of Newbie Commuter.

> Yes
Saved.

> Quit
Are you sure you want to quit?

> Yes.

The Big Writing To-Do 2016, Step 1: Tidying up

The best way to start writing again is to start writing again.

It seems obvious because it is. It’s accurate, there’s no real room for argument. Stephen King doesn’t think about writing books, he writes books. James Patterson doesn’t think about writing books, he…well, actually, Patterson may just think about writing books and BOOF, a book appears. I’m not sure how else to explain the sagging shelves in bookstores loaded down with the thousands of novels he has put out.

But for most of those who write, the process is a matter of sitting down (or standing up if you have one of those zany standing desks, or even walking around if you use the even zanier approach of writing via dictation device) and doing it. You do it regularly, you make it a habit, you slowly improve and the process continues until Oprah declares your book the next selection in her book club and you sell a boatload of copies and revel in your brief moment of fame and fortune.

But it all starts with that first step.

Which I am not taking this week (writing on the blog doesn’t count, I’m talking about writing fiction here and as much as I like to stretch the truth in the name of entertaining, this blog is mostly about actual events and things, not ones I have concocted).

Instead, I am beginning with a series of small goals–laying the groundwork, easing into things, making excuses. Well, hopefully not the latter.

The first goal, to be done before the end of the week, is to go through the many scattered folders I have filled with many versions of stories, in various states of completion, and condense them all down into as few folders as possible. At the same time I will relegate older versions of stories, alternate version and anything that doesn’t qualify as done or an active work in progress to a single folder that will be backed up and then lovingly pushed aside.

I’ve wanted to do this sort of organization for awhile and my hope is that the process will help clear out some mental space and allow me to get a better sense of what I have that’s worth keeping while hopefully providing inspiration for what is yet to come. If it doesn’t work, I’ll just go back to reading Marmaduke* and give up on writing permanently.

 

 * see, it’s funny because he’s such a big dog, lol

Random questions February 8 2016 edition

  • Back in the pre-Internet days, how did people come up with pithy quotes to pop into conversations, magazine articles and books? Did they memorize a bunch they liked, waiting for a chance to use them? Were quotes so often repeated that you’d find yourself finishing a quote someone else started quoting? Did people buy books of quotations and study them with the fervor of a student the night before a big exam? I wonder because now with the Internet it is trivially easy to find quotes said by anyone about anything.
  • Why have personal computers evolved so little in 40 years? In 1976 the first Apple computer was being built by Jobs and Wozniak. Five years later the IBM PC debuted. Look inside one and then look inside a PC from 2016 and they are immediately identifiable as being the same thing. There’s a motherboard, there’s ram and drives and cables and all of it is put together in a clunky kind of way that seems designed to draw blood should you have reason to tinker inside one. Actually, this is probably due to computers largely being commodity items. There’s little reason to innovate or improve on the low end, so it’s inertia and the steady improvement of technology combined with reduced costs that lead to things like the 5.25 inch floppy drive giving way to the 3.5 inch floppy drive and so on. Where pricing is more at a premium, like in the ultrabook market, you do see much nicer machines. Sure, they can’t be as easily expanded as a typical PC box but in exchange you get machines that are fast, light and far less likely to make you bleed. Okay, this turned out to be kind of an obvious question.
  • Why do people like to complain? Does it release a specific pleasure-inducing chemical? I could look the answer up but I’m lazy and I kind of like clinging to the mystery.
  • Why do so many dog owners let their dogs off-leash in areas that are clearly not off-leash?
  • How do countries evolve to have driving on the left or right side of the road?
    • Related: Do countries follow the same rules for which side of an escalator to stand/walk on?
  • Why do we still find violence the go-to solution for so many problems when it almost never actually solves anything?
    • Related: Why do so many politicians believe you can bomb an ideology out of existence?
  • Which is more likely to be real: aliens, the Loch Ness monster or Bigfoot?
  • Who would win in a fight, aliens, the Loch Ness monster or Bigfoot?
  • Why do I have literally hundreds of games but only ever play WoW and a Mahjong game on my iPad?
  • How do I make myself write fiction again? Are truly passionate people rare or am I just easily distracted?
  • Why do crowds of people move so inefficiently?
  • Is Social Media Widget a good band name?
  • How long will it take for humans to evolve past the need for sleep?
  • If I could remember all of my dreams in exact detail, would I want to?
  • If you get into an argument in a conflict resolution training course, do you pass or fail?
  • Seriously, what was Lovecraft thinking when he named his cat Nigger Man and then used the same name in a story?

Things I’m looking forward to in the next six months

  • Daylight Savings Time resumes on March 13. Goodbye, leaving for work and getting home when it’s still dark, how I shall not miss thee.
  • Being able to jog after work because of the aforementioned DST
  • In slightly over four months it will officially be summer and warm and sunny and men will walk around with their shirts off
  • Tomorrow is a statutory holiday and the high is forecast to be an unusually balmy 15ºC
  • I’m reasonably confident I will finally be over this #$@%^ hellcold
  • Completing the second draft of my novel, Road Closed. It could happen!
  • Winning millions of dollars in the 6/49. I know I’ve written about winning the lottery before. I’m fairly sure if you write about it when a bunch of planets are in alignment and while also suffering a hellcold and having just eaten some Triscuit crackers, it totally happens. $10 million would by a lot of decongestant.