QuestionAbel Parenting

Today I finished playing Ocarina of Time on the Wii Virtual Console. We don’t have a “classic controller” but the GameCube control was more than apt. This is still an excellent game. The replay value is amazing, which I think is a good criteria.

The cons of the game are pretty minimal. I tend to ignore things like dated graphics and sound – they get the job done here so they don’t distract. Controls are good. The challenge is good. I’ve played through maybe twice before, and I still died twice (stupid Shadow Link).

I love the openness of the gameplay. Once you finish the first level – the Deku Tree – you get a huge area to explore and play in. You have missions to complete, new weapons to unlock, money to collect – wait. That sounds like Grand Theft Auto. Yes, I’m comparing the two. Think on it. One is a far more massive game, but there’s a similarity. There is, I tell you!

What I love about OoT: The story. It’s fairly good. Zelda nerds place it first in the Zelda timeline for the games. I love the weapons – to hookshot around Kakariko village is very fun. The sidequests. Not all are amazing, but they’re all a nice distraction from the main game. The game itself. Is fun. Some games I’ve replayed – started to – and quit because playing them seemed like work. The sequel, Majora’s Mask, falls into that category for me. Twilight Princess somewhat does as well, but only as I’ve not had a long period between plays.

One little thing I really love about this (and most Zeldas) is the save function. Especially with this game. From the start menu, you press B. You press A. You’re saved. Considered the limit curve to infinity amount of times you go into the start menu, you save more times on accident than any other reason. It just happens. I find special save points obnoxious. While you don’t end up “exactly” where you saved, it’s nice to save anywhere.

Still, I’d love to be able to save anywhere and start anywhere. Even as a battle begins.

Anyway. That’s my love letter to one of the best video games I’ve ever played. Love it.

I’ve changed my blog a little.  Not much, since I don’t update it much.  But, whatever.  I dont’ use it much as a showcase for writing or drawing anymore, so I thought I would update what I talk about the most:  Life.  Which is me, mainly, staying with Zachary and trying to understand his noises.  He’s discovered he can shriek at a pitch designed to burst adult eardrums, which makes him ever so happy lately.

And so, if I ever get the inkling, that’s what I write mainly about.  The fam.  So, there you have it.

Well, people have been spamming me since I mentioned a certain cable company, so I won’t do that anymore.

I was thinking today about the phrase “That’s not funny” and how it needs some sort of companion.  In typical conversation, I find it to be used to show offense to often hilarious comments.  When used to denote something that really isn’t funny – a bad joke impossible to laugh at ironically, or The Great Gatsby – people get annoyed.  “No, no,” I might add.  “It just is devoid of humor.  I’m not offended.”  What can one say?

Although, sometimes people make “jokes” that are what I would describe as “anti-funny.”  This means I am offended that anyone would find this humorous.  Like when people call it “Taco Hell.”  We get it!  It ryhmes!  Why do you want to go there if you are calling it that?  Not really the point.

The Point:  What do you way when something isn’t funny?  I feel cruel telling the person “That’s stupid.”  I can’t stand the awkward silence of everyone standing around not laughing.  “Nice try” won’t work either.  I don’t want to encourage the poor person.

Some people are okay with it.  I worked with a very funny guy who nevertheless had some clunkers.  He had an odds theory; at least one out ten of his jokes would be funny.  So he’d just go until he hit one.  By being told what wasn’t funny, I feel he managed to work it down to one out of five.  That’s good odds for casual conversation.

There is something that speaks about our society when we are often too polite to tell that one person out of a hundred they aren’t funny.  You’ve met them.  The person with no delivery sense of humor.  They laugh and they know what is funny when they hear it, but they are incapable of crafting their own hilarious joke.  Even worse are the poor people with no humor at all.  Oh, I mourn for them.  They laugh when everyone else does because they think they’re supposed to.  Those poor kids who never made the connections that fart noises = comedy gold.

Mathematically, if the decibel level of a fart is greater than x, x being the snootiness of the group you’re with, then the gold you’re trying to find is expressed as Fx=G.  That’s math!

EDIT!!!

This was actually a post about the season finale of Grey’s Anatomy and how little I cared.  I think me forgetting to mention that illustrates my point.

I’ve got ‘em.  You know I do.  This is after reading the PC World article.  What fun.  Sam and I have talked a lot about dropping TV and having only Internet.  We get our movies through NetFlix, and I’ve started Hulu-ing.  Of course, I don’t actively watch TV that much anymore.  I like to catch the Daily Show, but now that Scrubs is over I don’t have any programs I feel I must see.  I can catch most of the Daily Show online.  Same with South Park.

Not that it matters, since the Internet is freaking expensive no matter what.  I’ve been checking into DSL and all that bidness, and I’m not very happy with my options.  I have enough problems with Sudden Link.  Most of them are summed up in this Penny Arcade comic.  We are paying for this garbage.  The Irony is felt especially in the Sudden Link commercials featuring the “gunk.”  If SL is so speedy, why am I not viewing my Netflix movies at full resolution?  I have seen the miracle of instant viewing in high-def in other places.

As far as TV, what stinketh most is there are very few options.  Satellite?  Bah.  The ISP of satellite smells.  Antenna?  Do they still make those?  So, we’re somewhat mired in the mediocrity of modern cable.  Which is asinine in many ways.  Of the several channels we get, we watch around ten.  If only we could pay for ten.  I know that’s something that would have to be solved outside the cable company, since it’s the providers of the channels to the cable folk, but it would be nice.

Armed with decent laptops, I honestly think Sam and I could live a life without TV or Internet being paid for by us.  There’s the library we can frequent, as well as a bevy of coffee shops.  Although, I have been to several that charge one for Wi-Fi use.  Interent seems the more necessary, since it solves the need for TV.  So, if I could find a nice, inexpensive ISP in Stillwater, I would work hard to grab a hold of that.  But I doubt it will happen.

I saw Star Trek on Sunday – and it was good.  I loved it.  JJ Abrams manages to make a movie about time travel and space extremely excellent.  I love the reboot – the anything can happen feeling now that the timeline has been altered.  As much fun as it may be to keep track of every little smidge of canon, I find it refreshing to have a clean palette to paint upon.  Surely, the future flicks will have soem retreads of TOS episodes (I’m hoping for “Space Seed,” as I’ve mentioned) but they will be different.  Some may be better.  Some may not.  Dependent as it is on how many sequels are sustained.

Man, I love Star Trek.  Especially TOS.  Admittedly, it is the only series I can watch an episode from and generally be totally immersed in.  The Next Generation does that often enough, too, but it’s movies aren’t as good.  TNG is the Star Trek I grew up on, so I’ll always have a fondness for Geordi an Data, but I still check to see if Spongebob is on.

Star Trek is full of action, excellent characters, and solid references to Trek past (Admiral Archer’s beagle?).  And it’s good.  JJ Abrams good.  I love Abrams’ movies.  Mission Impossible 3 is, to be honest, the only one I’ve seen, but I really liked that and didn’t expect to after MI2.

Anyway.  It is nice to have a Star Trek movie like this, years after the last good one (First Contact, IMO), and for me, after Doctor Who has kicked Trek off “My favorite sci-fi franchise” platform.

In real life, I am working on my science project.  This involves the collection of gas from decomposing organic matter.  Cow Manure in this case.  And it’s a project I am quite excited to get underway.  Methane is going to be produced, why not use it as fuel?  I suppose I will research the question of which is the worse greenhouse gas – CO2 or Methane.  Does anyone know/have a link?

In the reading world, I am re-reading “Bone,” the classic comic as well as trudging through “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins.  I find Dawkins’ message interesting, but it is a bit dry.  I like to have my thoughts shaken up so I can determine what I think is going on.

Zachary continues to be cute.  Although, today I was nibbling his cheek (a game we play called “eat the baby”) and his grip set upon my eye socket.  The sharp daggers he has as fingernails came very close to stripping me of vision, and I accidentily bit his cheek – which didn’t make the situation easier.  After prying his grip from my eyeball and reinserting it, we tearfully embraced and I put him down for a nap.  Babies can be exciting.

I find myself with nothing to do.  Not because I have nothing to do, but because at this time last year I was entrenched at Camp, prepping for the season.  Camp Prep for me was very much an every-second affair.  So I am feeling somewhat undriven.  Which, to be honest, is why I’m updating the blog.  That damn Mafia Wars has been sucking away my minutes.  And I recently noticed the bookshelf is in no order whatsoever.  Fixing!

Rain continues here in Oklahoma.  If we had a rain barrel, it would be full three times, I swear.

And so, I continue typing my abstract for my experiment.  Whee.