Critiques and Steambots

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It feels like a million years since I've been in my regular groove (and I'm not quite back just yet) but things are partially normalizing—at the very least, I'm in front of my computer and not passed out in bed, so that's something. At this point I'm quite all right with small steps.
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Writing: Got my pre-conference critiques back for Speaking in Forked Tongues, and the feedback was pretty good. The only thing that I had a hard time digesting was that one of the reviewers said that my pacing was “breathless, but uneventful.”
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Honestly, I'm not even sure what that means.
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It moved quickly and kept her glued, but… nothing happened? If nothing happened, then how could it really be ‘breathless’? I mean, I sort of associate that word with being a fairly positive, fast-paced thing, so maybe this person means it a different way than I take it? Not sure, and since the critiques are anonymous, I can’t go back and ask for clarification.
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That particular issue aside, I really can't complain about the rest of the comments. They all seem in line with what I was hoping for, and that's definitely a good thing.
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Games: I’ve barely had time to play anything between work and the in-laws, but I finally completed Steambot Chronicles Battle Tournament on PSP, and it's one of those games that really should be a hell of a lot better than it is. I mean, nearly every aspect of it made me say ‘wow, this is cool, BUT…’ and those buts ended up being pretty significant.
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I wanted to like it a lot more than I did and it was so close to being worthy and that it was painful, but I'm afraid to say that the review won't be very positive. I haven’t started writing it yet, but I've got a feeling it will be a quick one.
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In the meantime, I've got to get back to Magic and Garou: Mark of the Wolves on Live, in addition to Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood on PS3 before the next round of must-reviews comes in.
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Need a few more hours in the day, please.
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Family: The in-laws are still here and my ability to get stuff done is still in la toilette... Gonna try to do a proper update ASAP, but the opportunity hasn't presented itself yet. Check back in another day or so... Apologies for the lack of content!
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In-Laws, Call of Juarez, and Magic Addiction

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Family: The in-laws are still here.
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Don't get me wrong, they are fantastic people and I love them a lot, but my wife and I aren't exactly social butterflies. We have a pretty good home routine and we like it, so anything that takes us out of it is a little tiring and potentially stressful… and that's before you take into account our oldest being here for the summer, on top of our newborn.
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The thing that's the real killer is that since they’re here from Russia, everybody kind of feels like we have to make the most of their time—I mean, they did fly halfway across the globe so I agree, but how often do you have to entertain relatives all day, every day? I don't know about you, but that sort of thing is pretty seldom for me.
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I'm tired now.
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Games: Started Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood on PS3 tonight. I was having a little trouble keeping my eyes open so I didn't play past the first two chapters. However, it definitely seems better than the first CoJ so far. It's still not a graphic powerhouse, but the visuals have improved and I'm always a sucker for a Western (or Western-ish) setting.
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The first chapter was pretty lame… it felt a little messy and confusing, and was the equivalent of a WWII trench battle set during the Civil War. Nothing special here.
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The second level was much better. After the main characters desert from their unit, they walk back to their Southern antebellum mansion and fight off the Union.
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The generally open design of this level (not open-world, just open) and the main characters traveling through it with fields and wooden fenceposts in the background definitely hearkened back to a classic sort of Southern imagery which I definitely appreciated, and it was kind of a trip just to be playing characters fighting for the South at all.
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At this point I'm not entirely convinced that the shooty gameplay will bring very much new to the table, but the unusual setting and gruff characters are keeping my interest.
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Games: I definitely recommend the recently-released Magic: the Gathering game on Xbox Live.
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If you’re a person who’s ever been curious about playing Magic but didn't know where to start, it's an excellent introduction to the game thanks to a series of very comprehensive tutorials and the level of automatic help that the game provides.
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If you’re a person who’s already experienced at Magic, you may find that the game is very limiting and feels unsatisfactory since the option to build custom decks is not available.
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Players select from eight pre-made decks and can re-jigger a few of the cards in them, but basically, play is limited to these eight. Although playing under these conditions feels a little like trying to write a novel using only the first five pages of the dictionary, the fact is that Magic is an extremely overwhelming pastime to tackle, and narrowing down the options was a very smart move given that it seems fairly obvious the entire reason this game exists is to draw more players into the world created by Wizards of the Coast.
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Reinforcing this theory, playing Magic over Live completely re-ignited my passion for the game.
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I used to play it heavily, and spent a lot of my free time designing decks, collecting cards, and combing local shops for new additions. For various reasons I basically quit cold turkey, packed up all my cards, and haven't touched the game for probably six or seven years. Maybe longer. After playing just a few rounds of this electronic version, all the old cravings started coming back and before I knew it, I had a stack of cards separated into color-coded piles in front of me.
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Interestingly, my seven-year-old was watching me play the game on Live, and instead of being completely bored way I thought he'd be, he was actively interested. He caught on to what was happening quickly, started asking questions, and eventually I had to pass him the controller and let him make my moves for me. When I mentioned that there were actual paper cards that went along with this game, his eyes lit up and the next thing I knew, the two of us were down at a local comic shop picking through a Commons box.
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The intricacies and strategy of the game are still beyond him for the moment, but he's got a really good handle on the basics and has been very into playing real tabletop matches with his old man.
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The Live version of the game may be kind of crippled, but it's still pretty fun and certainly served its true purpose-- brainwashing the people playing electronically and sucking them into the five-color card-fueled whirlpool called Magic.
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Pride and Point Lookout

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Family: The in-laws are still here from Russia, so since today was such a nice day (by anyone's standards, not just Seattle’s) the menfolk decided to accompany the ladies up to Capitol Hill.
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The women were getting their hair done, so to kill time, we were going to go to a nearby park after grabbing a cup of coffee and then all go have lunch together afterwards. It was a good plan, except for the fact that none of us realized that this was Pride weekend, and Capitol Hill is GLBTQ Central for the greater Seattle area.
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We got there fairly early in the day, but it was still unusually crowded. That should have been our first hint that a change of plans would be in order. The topless butch lesbians playing croquet and twister (!!!) in the park should have been our second hint -- not that any of us has anything against GLBTQ folks or Pride, we just wanted a parking spot and the chance to walk down the sidewalk to get some good Vietnamese.
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After the women were done getting beautiful, we were only able to get about a quarter of the way to our destination before the streets were either blocked off or just too crowded to navigate with two in-laws, an excited seven-year-old and a baby in a stroller… rather than pushing through it, we ended up wishing the Priders well and had Thai on the other side of the city instead.
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Games: I just completed the vast majority of things to do in Fallout 3’s new DLC, Point Lookout.
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Although I have a certain affinity for Operation Anchorage just because it's such a break from the Fallout norm, it's no secret that the first three add-ons from Bethesda have been less than impressive. However, all that changed with Lookout.
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Nutshell: It's huge, it's deep, and it feels a hell of a lot like the main game -- and this is certainly a good thing. It's not quite the ‘Survival Horror’ experience that some were painting it as, but there are certainly Horror elements and the expansion has its own unique flavor thanks to the murky swamps and deranged hillbillies, not to mention the scenic rocky coast and lonely Ferris Wheel rising above the rotting boardwalk.
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I got about eight hours out of my $10 purchase, and I could have put in at least another two hours, if not more. If you're looking for some advice whether or not to spring for this latest DLC, I feel totally comfortable in saying that Point Lookout is an absolute winner. Recommended.
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BTW, the review is in the can, look for it at GameCritics soon.
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Flash Update: I'm a Contest Finalist!

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Writing: Got some great news today – The Pacific Northwest Writer’s Association called to let me know that my first book, Speaking in Forked Tongues, was a Sci-Fi/Fantasy-category finalist in their 2009 Literary Contest.
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Winners will be announced at the summer conference at the end of July. Finalists like my book will be critiqued, and people taking the top prize in each category will receive some cash as well as face time with editors and agents.
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The person who informed me that I was in the running said that this year's SF/F category had some fierce competition, so my fingers are crossed and I'm hoping for the best… although even if I don't win, it's pretty exciting just to have the book be a finalist at all-- just having that little bit of validation is a great encouragement, and now that I know I have a reason to go, I'll be attending the conference this summer after all.
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It's certainly too early to celebrate anything right now, but I did allow myself a little “woo!”
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…Now, back to the grindstone so I can get caught up with all of the deadlines I'm behind on.
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A Hell of a Week -- Some Quickies

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Been a busy week here at the homestead… missed a couple deadlines, missed my regular blog update, haven't met my fiction word count, and I'm a couple days behind on e-mail. Back when I was a kid, I really couldn't understand it when grown-ups said that there weren't enough hours in the day, but I'm living that phrase constantly now.
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Just some random bits here before bedtime:
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> My Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor (DS) review will hopefully be posted sometime this week. I had meant to get it done today, but, well…
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> Look for a Steambot Chronicles Battle Tournament review (PSP) very soon as well. Hopefully this week also, but no promises…
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> If ANYONE knows how to beat the gorilla (jungle boss) in WiiWare's recent Cocoto Platform Jumper, for God's sake, please let me know how. This is completely humiliating, but I have to admit that I have no idea how to even damage the damn thing, and my son is losing faith in his dad's game powers.
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> Downloaded Point Lookout for Fallout 3 yesterday and I've been pushing through it slowly, but so far (completed two quests, have at least two more to go) I'm absolutely loving it, and I feel pretty comfortable in saying that at this point it is by far the best DLC that’s available for everyone’s favorite post-apocalyptic nuclear wasteland.
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The quests are very interesting, the coastal landscape has a very specific feeling all its own, and it has the same sort of ‘go anywhere, explore everything’ feeling that I love so much about the main game. For those of you who are afraid to be early adopters, I can say that it chugs a little in spots, but it’s been bug and glitch-free the entire time, in contrast to the last few releases. I still have more to see, but at this point I'm pretty ecstatic. If you are a Fallout fan, this is strongly Recommended.
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> Just about done watching True Blood, Season 1 on DVD and I have to admit that I really don't get why it seems so popular. Is it just a current wave of vampire mania? I don't care for much of the cast, the writing doesn't seem especially clever, it's a little ridiculous how there has has to be at least one sex scene in every episode regardless of whether it makes sense or not, and if I was actually from the south I'd be completely offended by the way the show portrays everyone in the town of Bon Temps as dysfunctional, substance-abusing, loose. and ridiculously ignorant.
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Maybe my opinion will change by the time we get to the end (doubt it) but at this point I'm giving the books the nod over the TV show by a large margin.
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Father's Day, Pork Recipe, Lair, and a Gay Dog

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Family: Today was probably the best Father's Day I've ever had in my life. It wasn't that my wife surprised me with tickets to Australia or that I won the lottery or anything, it was just a really great family-centered day.
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yes, it was

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When I woke up this morning, Whittaker was in a great mood -- all smiles and baby coos. The wife and I just hung out in bed, and my other son Rhys came to join us when he woke up.
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In case you're a newcomer to this blog, Rhys is my son from a previous relationship and lives with his mother quite a great distance away. I only get to see him three times a year, so just having my entire family together on this day made all the difference.
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Food: Speaking of today being a great day, one other thing that really put it over the top was the dinner.
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The wife and I were laying in bed last night and scanning Food Network. At around 10 or 10:30 pm, Paula Deen came on and started cooking some teriyaki skewers, and I'll be damned if she didn’t give me a fierce, nearly undeniable craving for the stuff. I was halfway tempted to run out to the grocery store and cook it on the spot, but my calmer side won over and we did it today instead.
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There were no leftovers.
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Here's the menu, with a quick recipe breakdown:
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Teriyaki Pork Skewers: pork tenderloin, trimmed lean and sliced thin – maybe ¼ inch thick, marinated for 2hrs in a mix of low-sodium soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, rum, vanilla extract, molasses, brown sugar and water. Skewer them fairly flat and grill about eight minutes on each side, basting with the marinade liberally.
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Pineapple Salsa: green onions sliced small mixed with diced pineapple chunks in pineapple juice.
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Cucumber Salad: one cucumber (seeds removed) and sliced in C-shapes, ¼ of a red onion, and two diced tomatoes (jelly removed). Mix vegetables and marinate in a mix of rice wine vinegar, sesame oil, sesame seeds and white sugar.
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Cook up some steamed rice (Thai jasmine is my personal favorite) and you're good to go…
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Games: I gave it an honest try, but Lair just flat-out sucks so badly that I couldn't force myself to sit through it.
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looks great in pics, but plays like a broken, spazzy nightmare

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I think I got to the sixth or seventh mission, and things were just falling apart all over the place -- I mean, the dragon only seemed to listen to my control inputs sometimes, it was nearly impossible to tell where certain enemies were, and the camera was janking all like it was being manned by somebody in the middle of having a seizure.
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I seriously wanted this game to be good; I mean, what's not to like about giant dragons razing ground troops with streams of fire and taking to the skies at will, but this game is so fundamentally flawed, so completely broken from the ground up that there's just no salvaging it.
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I was hoping against hope that the analog control patch would resolve the issues that most people seemed to have with it, but this is one case where all of the naysayers had it absolutely correct. After sitting through as much of the game as I did, any reviewer giving Lair more than a 4 (*koff*Play Magazine*koff) needs to be taken out back of the shed and beaten about the head and neck with a ratings stick until they learn to tell the difference between what's good and what's bad.
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Like the Good Book says: spare the rod, enable the crappy reviewer.
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Misc: My dog is gay.
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I’ve had suspicions over the last few years that have been reinforced by a good friend of mine every time she's dog-sat for me, but proof positive came today.
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While visiting, a friend brought along her dogs, one male and one female (in heat, no less.) We were prepared to keep our male from mounting her female, but we didn't need to worry… my dog went absolutely crazy over this other canine penis in the house, and it was all we could do to keep him from violating the visitor.
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no vagina for me, thanks

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Seriously, it was absolutely ridiculous how hard he was struggling to get some quality time with the male, and how completely he was ignoring the female. It got to the point, in fact, that when I turned around for a few seconds and came back, my dog was performing what I can only describe as ‘muzzle fellatio’ on this new fellow as the female sat dejectedly in a corner.
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Everyone in the room was a little embarrassed at the slurping sounds, so we separated the two and sort of laughed it off, although we couldn't leave the two dogs unsupervised after that… not that we necessarily objected to the dog expressing himself, but we did have small children in the room and no one wanted to have that particular discussion today.
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What a wonderfully diverse and interesting thing life is.
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