The Worf Effect

And now for something completely different: Worf getting beat up. A lot.

Unnecessary notification

I don’t know exactly why, but I found this one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a while when I logged on to Facebook today:

Thanks, random Facebook application, for demonstrating your complete inability to do anything useful and then telling me about it!

Myers-Briggs Personality Test

Took two different versions of this test, with two interesting outcomes. One said I was ISTP (Introverted, Sensing, Thinking, Perception), while the other said I was ISFP (the same, but Feeling instead of Thinking), but only with a slight preference for Feeling and a moderate preference for the other traits. According to the Myers-Briggs website, the two types go down like this:

ISTP
Tolerant and flexible, quiet observers until a problem appears, then act quickly to find workable solutions. Analyze what makes things work and readily get through large amounts of data to isolate the core of practical problems. Interested in cause and effect, organize facts using logical principles, value efficiency.

Famous ISTP:

Michael Jordan

ISFP
Quiet, friendly, sensitive, and kind. Enjoy the present moment, what’s going on around them. Like to have their own space and to work within their own time frame. Loyal and committed to their values and to people who are important to them. Dislike disagreements and conflicts, do not force their opinions or values on others.

Famous ISFP:

Frederic Chopin

And hey, I’m actually both of these, depending on the situation and what mood I’m in. I’d analyze this further, but right now I’m in more of an ISFP mood, and don’t want to force my opinions or values on others. Maybe later I’ll be in an ISTP mood and will analyze what makes this work and readily get through large amounts of data to isolate the core of the practical problem. You know, I’ll be interested in cause and effect, yadda yadda yadda. Also, I want to go to bed.

EDIT: According to another website, an ISTP is known as “The Mechanic,” while the ISFP is known as “The Artist.” Fitting since my strengths lie in tech theatre and computer-assisted music composition. One thing’s for sure: I’m definitely an introvert, as evidenced by all these blog posts trying to figure out who I am and what my role is in life.

And now for some nightmare fuel

It’s always looking at you.

Whose Line Sketch

And now, possibly the funniest Whose Line Is It Anyway sketch:

Any other top contenders?

Disney Shakespeare & Stoppard

While most of the Disney sequels of the late ’90’s and early, uh, whatever this decade is, felt like uninspired cheap knock-offs designed to leech off the original movie’s popularity without creating an interesting movie on their own (I’m looking at you, Return of Jafar!), The Lion King 1 1/2 was actually a pretty good movie in its own right (and better than The Lion King 2). Then it occurred to me. One of the reasons The Lion King works so well is that it’s basically Hamlet with lions. And one of the reasons The Lion King 1 1/2 works so well is that it’s just Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead with a meerkat and a warthog, at least conceptually speaking. This may seem obvious in hindsight, but I thought it an interesting comparison when I came up with it. I wonder if it was intentional.

Then what chain of stores would be located within an English Hogi Yogi?

True story:

(An English girl in my Songwriting class comes in early, eating something Oriental)

ME: Hey, that smells pretty good, what is it?

ENGLISH GIRL: It’s something I got for lunch. I’ve never tried it before. It’s rice and chicken, but with some sort of sauce on it.

OTHER GIRL: Is it soy sauce?

ENGLISH GIRL: Not really. The best way to describe it is it’s kind of like soy sauce crossed with treacle.

(Stony silence. Everybody in the room is racking their brains trying to remember/figure out what treacle is or what it tastes like.)

ENGLISH GIRL: They gave it a weird name too: Terr-ee-yack-ee, I think.

EVERYONE ELSE: Ohhh!!!! Teriyaki!

ENGLISH GIRL: What, you’ve tried it too?

Seriously, though, I saw tons of oriental restaurants when I lived in Spain. Are most English unfamiliar with the concept of teriyaki sauce? Really makes you think.

Also, who puts treacle (which, it turns out, is molasses) on rice?

Making a todo about what to do

I’ve got a lot of projects in the air right now, but I can never seem to remember them all when I get some free time. So I’ve decided to list a bunch of things I’ve been meaning to get to; trivial or life-changing, old or new, easy or difficult — here they are:

• Finish college (this current semester, plus the music history core, form & analysis, an English class, and an internship, is all I have left)
• Finish my Super Metroid Limit commentary
• Finish up all the disks on my Atarieviewer site, plus video reviews
• Somehow save up enough money to be able to buy a new Mac, so I can:

1. Buy Logic and a couple of good sound libraries to be able to compete professionally in the music business, particulary in the arena of film/tv scoring and/or minus track writing, and
2. Finish editing all those home videos Mom wanted me to work on like four years ago. (If that goes well I may end up scoring them. If those end up going well, I may use that as a source of income! “Hire me to score your home movies!” Rich bishops who live in Mapleton would love it!)

• Write a choir piece for Tuesday’s choir arranging class.
• Write a ten page research paper on something in the field of Media Music for my songwriting class before next Friday.
• Write two entirely original songs, plus two hymn parodies, for the Called to Murder murder mystery show that Annelise is organizing, preferably sometime in the next week or two.
• Help Annelise with that script, along with the casting and other responsibilities I will no doubt assume upon the whole opening of the murder mystery show here in Orem.
• Watch the entire series of: 24, The Office, Doctor Who, Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis, and whatever other shows society and my friends and family deem I need in my consciousness.
• Finish my Rescue Ranger Adventure game.
• Work with Crystie Cook on her pioneer script (for which I’ve done less than nothing, sorry!)
• Get the Easter program to run smoothly for Easter Sunday (luckily I’ve delegated well on that count).
• Talk to Ron Simpson and get an internship going, preferably local so I can still help Annelise out.
• Finish my Facebook Diplomacy games (there’s only one left now!)
• Film and put together my birthday present for Josh Reese: an action movie trailer where Billy and Dan Omer take over the future with a clone army.

That’s all I can think of right now; I’m sure there are more. I’ve also omitted items from a few categories, from the ones that are so far off and vague that I can’t make real specific plans at this time (getting married), to the ones that are both personal and inconsequential (playing through Final Fantasy VII like my roommate Shaun wants me to do, watching last night’s Colbert Report), to the ones that are obvious (go to work every day, eat, read scriptures).

The murder mystery show, oddly enough, is the same one I was doing waaay back when I started this blog years ago. It’s needed a major rewrite, since we’re not affiliated with the Hunts any more and the format has changed. Also, the songs are all going to be originals. It’ll be performed in May and June at the Wise Guys comedy club in Orem, near UVU. I’m a bit pressed for time right now (we’re hanging up posters around town advertising auditions), but maybe later I can relate the whole story of how this opportunity came to be. Needless to say, ’tis very exciting!

You’ve got to pray just to make it today!

I don’t remember where I found this, but I know it’s awesome.

That is all.

You’re not the boss of me, Nancy Pelosi!

#53 in the Better Know a District series; Stephen Colbert interviews Jason Chaffetz from Utah’s “Fightin’ Third” district. I voted for this guy! He does pretty well; I shudder to think how Chris Cannon would have dealt with Colbert.

By the way, our black person is pretty nice; I saw him on BYU campus one day last year.

Disney Curmudgeon

I’ve made several attempts to write a post on this blog about why I’ve never enjoyed the phenomenon of High School Musical, at least not nearly as much as my siblings seem to, other than that I’m much more cynical, but then the Agony Booth crystallized it much better than I could. It’s not that it’s a bad show, or franchise, it’s just, as they put it, “stunningly mediocre.” Filled with black-and-white issues and cliches. That’s great for 10-15-year-olds, but I like to see a bit more humanization in things I watch.

That’s all.

Water Harmony

The practice of improv comedy has many levels. Many performers believe that if you can make an audience laugh, you have accomplished your mission. But there comes a time when a performance transcends the simply comedic; when the different players and pieces of a game coalesce to form a true work of art: a game at which people don’t simply laugh, but they are compelled to stand up and applaud.

Last night, during an Absoludicrous improv practice, such a work was created. Out of a simple ABC story game came a tale worthy of Dostoyevsky, regarding a snowman that just couldn’t melt. As the seasons turned he mocked his creators, then creation itself for sustaining and prolonging his existence. Contemplating the babbling brooks that flowed him by, he yearned for a return to that blissful harmony of running water that was denied him. He tried to move to Arizona, but the xenophobic citizens there sent him away, back to his native Russian homeland. He pleaded with passers-by to end his life. He lamented each autumn he was forced to behold, noting that snowmen should never see autumn: they should be built in the winter and melt in the spring. Finally, in a last-ditch attempt to end his wretched sojourn upon this bleak earth, he jammed a firecracker into his torso and lit it.

His fate remains unknown.

The changing face of life, and blogitude

I used to blog about important, personal things that were going on in my life. Lately, however, I haven’t done any of those, for fear that the wrong people may read it. I’ve got a lot of personal posts, still, but I haven’t made one in a very long time. Even posts about mission stories and Diplomacy just aren’t the same as some of the more thought-provoking (for me, anyway) posts of early days. I’d say that it’s been at least since last March that I posted something relevant to why this blog was made in the first place, and the best example before that is nearly a year old. Since now nearly everyone I know has his or her own blog and they’re all linked, it’s more likely that people will stumble across the stuff I post; people who aren’t either complete strangers and therefore don’t care or people that are good enough friends with me that they can handle anything I post.

For example, during the past semester I’ve had a girlfriend and almost had another one. I’ve learned a lot about and through the experiences. Have I posted about it? Nope. Because I know that both the girls in question know about this blog. And even if they didn’t know, I know they could find it easily, what with Facebook and Google and all. I know that at least one post from the past made both of those relationships a little more uncomfortable than they needed to be. So, within this past year, most of my posts have been about either current projects or just things online that I found that I wanted to share, like the map at the top of this post showing, county by county, where people say “pop,” “soda,” or “coke.” And if a post ends up being personal, it’s either much too short to be of use other than general ennui or frustration, or is about something rather inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. In other words, this blog is becoming much more generic than it used to be.

I’m not sure if I like that. While some privacy and uncomfortable situations may be avoided, writing in here is not nearly as cathartic as it used to be. I used to use this blog as a way to organize my thoughts, or voice frustrations or other problems I was having, to be better able to face life. In fact, most of the earlier posts on here (not counting the “old journal” posts) were quite angsty, but for good reason. Now that it’s all fluff, I feel like there’s a lot I’ve needed to express, but haven’t had an outlet to do so. Just typing a private online journal isn’t quite what I want either, though, since there are some things I love to share with the world that I think can add to the grand tapestry of life, even if they might be a bit embarrassing for people who might know me personally. In addition, some of these older posts I want to share with people so they can understand me better. I know that some of my siblings, while they are dear friends and I’m very close to them, don’t get me at all. That’s partly my fault, as I’ve never been one to forcefully express myself in my family; too many dominating personalities in one room at a time kind of leave the youngest out of things. But that’s they way it’s always been, even if they’ll never understand that. In any case, I had hoped that through this blog they, and others who cared, could get to understand what really made me tick.

Some of this frustration is why I ended up moving all of my Atari reviews, although for some reason search engines aren’t directing any traffic to that site, choosing instead to send people to defunct posts here that no longer exist. I moved them so this blog could get back to its roots: a sort of online journal, where I could express freely my thoughts and feelings openly. Can I still do that? Is this blog culture that has sprung up even since I started this three and a half years ago grown so inconsequential that posting personal things on a blog is not only taboo, but just a bad idea? Will anyone really care if this blog suddenly gets personal again? Does anybody but myself even care about this dilemma? I sure hope not; because that means I’m writing this post for myself, at least, and that’s helping me get back to my roots. Even just writing this post feels good; just to get something off my mind and be myself in one of the only places I feel I can, without people interrupting me to either tell me that I’m wrong and/or I’m too hard on myself. You know, where I can express opinions and feel they’re valid, even if they’re not.

¿Le Gusta Leer? Porque me gusta leer. Y eso es lo que importa. Screw you, internet denizens! This post has become increasingly nonsensical. My favorite! Man, this feels good! Cheese puffs can kill your dogs!

In any case, now my blog has been recently updated. So you Blogger people whose blog lists change based on how long ago they posted, maybe now you can take a break from “Check out my new photos” and “Proposition 8: My View” and “Here’s twenty questions about me! Now YOU answer them!” and read something different! At least until this post gets old, at which point the blog of your friend halfway across the country who is posting thirty pictures of her toddler every week with inane captions will top your list of recently updated blogs and you can go look at those, under which no less than fifty people will comment “Aww! So cute!”

B…or not a B?

I don’t know why, but I found this the funniest thing I’ve seen all month:

Atari Reviews: Moved!

For a while, I’ve hosted reviews of old Atari Games on my blog here. Now, in order to separate them from the more personal posts found on this blog, I’ve moved them all to a different site: http://atarireviewer.wordpress.com/. So if you’re really craving a wacky description of Drelbs (and I know you all are), then you need not look further than that new site. It’s still being customized and fixed up, but it should be completely up and running soon. For now, I’ve just moved all those old Atari posts over there.

Pimp Lando X Preview

Coming soon…well, sometime…probably…

The Pimp Lando website

Two more blogs!

I transferred all of my Rescue Ranger-related websites to new WordPress blogs, here and here. Now you can see how hopeless I truly am. Or at least check out a promising adventure game!

That’s all I got.

A bold era comes to a close…

It’s official: Star Trek: The Experience closed down on Monday. Never more will fans be able to boldy go, themselves, where no man had gone before (or at least only where 3 millions fans had gone before). ST:TE was not only the site of a great vacation I had last summer with Billy and Casey, but our destination the last time I took a trip with my dad before my mission. We went on that ride probably four or five times in a row (which probably annoyed the attendants, due to having to deal with my dad’s wheelchair each time), but ’twas a lot of fun, and a fitting tribute to both my dad and one of the positive things we had to share together: Star Trek.

Well, as the exhibits are dismantled, pour a cup of BLOOD WINE! on the ground in honor of our fallen friend. You will be missed, ST:TE.

Lessons from Diplomacy

Recently Annelise got me playing a game of Diplomacy on Facebook. If you’ve never played it it’s this old game based in pre-WWI Europe, where the seven Great Powers (England, France, Germany, Italy, Austrio-Hungary, Russia, and Turkey) duke it out. The two main gimmicks are, first, the elimination of the element of chance. Unlike Risk, where battles are determined by dice, in this game every unit (army or fleet) has the same attack strength, and units can only overpower other units if supported from nearby territories by other armies (your own or even a different player’s). This leads to the second gimmick and the reason for the name of the game: the diplomacy factor. In the game you form alliances with other players to wipe out or at least attack enemies. The kicker: it’s all a verbal (or written or typed, in the case of Facebook) thing, and you can easily mislead or screw over other players by agreeing to do one thing and doing another. All players write down their moves secretly (or pick them secretly from a drop-down box in the php version) and then all moves are revealed and happen at the same time. This is to provide some subtle subterfuge to the whole thing, as if you agreed to do one thing and in reality did something else, there’s nothing the other player can do about it that turn. If you want more info about gameplay itself, go search Wikipedia or something; I’m not going to retype the rulebook here.

Diplomacy, for me, has been a great learning experience, both personally and just in regards to the game. You see, in real life I’m usually a pretty fair person who prefers more for everybody to be on an equal footing than to take unfair advantage of a player to win. Sure, I like winning just as much as the next guy, but I like to do it out in the open for the most part. The problem is, in Diplomacy that’s basically impossible, so there has to be some element of deceit. If you just play as a backstabber then nobody’s going to trust you, but if you keep your word on everything you say you’re going to do then you can be sure that you won’t last long, as at least one of your opponents is sure not to. The reason is, if you’re playing with a group of the most honest people and nobody’s willing to backstab, then everyone can be prepared for all eventualities and the result is a draw, and the game really isn’t all that fun at that point.

It hurts to be backstabbed. In the first game I was playing I thought I had an alliance with Dave Omer, who was playing Russia. We were helping each other take over Austria (played by someone who never really got into the game, and eventually left it out of inaction). I supported his move into Budapest, expecting him to support me into Vienna, as we had discussed. Instead, he invades into Silesia, stabbing right into my homeland! Now, as any Diplomacy player worth his salt can tell you, that kind of stuff happens all the time. But I was outraged! We had an agreement, and Dave violated our sacred trust! For the next few turns I was fighting a defensive war against Russia, and trying to convince everyone else to turn against him. My sister, playing England, agreed to this (and was promptly slaughtered; at the time of this writing she’s only got one supply center left), while Turkey (played by my brother-in-law Mickey) didn’t, because he and Russia had a real alliance that neither would attack each other at least until one of them had 11 supply centers. I didn’t realize this, and Turkey seemed amenable to a backstab into Russia, as we had no real quarrel. Of course, due to their alliance, Turkey went right around and told Russia that I was plotting against him, shoring up Dave’s determination to crush me. (Truthfully, though, of course I was plotting against him. We were openly at war; surely I would be trying to get allies to stop him. Duh!)

In any case, in my blind rage, I was concentrating so hard on Dave that for a long time I didn’t see the real threat, which was Turkey slowly gobbling up the entire south part of the board save France (& Spain, controlled by France). I also sent England to her doom without gaining a share of her bounty (England’s basically carved up between France and Russia at this point) because of her blind trust in me. She took a few potshots at Russia and even ended up with St. Petersburg at one point, but it didn’t last long, as France came in her back door for the kill. Now I’m holed up in West Germany and the Low Countries, Turkey’s claim to the Mediterranean is supreme, and France & I, although kind of allied, are pretty much screwed at this point, unless we can convince one of the giants of Russia and Turkey to turn on each other.

Diplomacy may seem to be a mean, even harsh, game, where everyone seems to be cheating their partners. Surely I thought so after Dave stabbed me the first time. But then I realized that, with any game, this game just had a certain set of rules as to what was cheating and what wasn’t. Does this mean that I’ll become a lying, backstabbing, cheater in the game? Probably not. I still consider myself an honest person. But you can play the game based on trust just as easily as lies. The trick is two-fold. Firstly, only put forth a deception if you know for sure that it will end of advantageous to your position in the long run. Dave attacking me was probably fun for a short-term gain, but out of all the attacks he’s made on my homeland since his stab eight turns ago he’s only gained one supply center off of me. Meanwhile, Turkey’s been sweeping Austria, Italy, and is about to launch on France. So, Dave attacking me may not have been in his best interest, at least until my forces were scattered a bit more. (Of course, Turkey was helped by the fact that nobody was playing Italy and the guy playing Austria was completely clueless. I think he had something in his real life keeping him super-busy, so he never really bothered to defend or attack or do anything, really, other than occasionally move about in his homeland.)

Secondly, don’t be naive. If someone starts the game trusting everyone who writes and says, “Hey! Let’s form an alliance! It’ll be fun!” that person is doomed. If you say, “I’ll support your move into Budapest if you support my move into Vienna the next turn” and you’ve obviously left your back door into Berlin wide open, then don’t expect him to help you into Vienna. The exception, obviously, is if you both have a bigger plan in mind that will strengthen you both more effectively than a stab could. On the other hand, if a person is expecting everyone to stab him he will be unwilling to form an alliance with anyone, without the certainty that no stabbing will happen until the game leaves the other player no alternative. When somebody is afraid to trust anybody, that person is alone, and another word for “alone” in the Diplomacy world is “dead.” Like the article I linked to in the previous paragraph says, “Trust but Verify.”

Deceit is part of this game. Therefore, anybody who ends up deceived needs to realize that that isn’t the person being a jerk. If you take personal offense against someone who may have deceived you in a game, remember that. If you’re playing the game to win, you will, eventually, have to deceive someone as well. How would you feel if you were telling someone to move their troops to X position and then you move yours to his homeland, surprising him, yes, but also taking a lot of territory and supply centers, helping you on the road to victory? If the answer is “terrible,” then either you are taking the game too personally, or you haven’t realized that deception is part of the game, just like rolling a die or reading a Community Chest card or suggesting that it’s Col. Mustard in the Billiard Room. It’s a whole different set of rules. One that I personally wouldn’t adapt to real-world situations, but one that is essential to enjoy this game.

And the game can be enjoyable, even if you lose. I’ve been reading a lot of Diplomacy articles online lately, and several players expressed that they’d rather lose to a master of the game than just draw with a bunch of people not willing to employ deceit. Of course tempers can get hot, but it’s just a game. Once I finally came to terms with that, I found the game much more enjoyable, even with Russia breathing down my neck. The situation is still salvageable, since I still posess five supply centers, France isn’t attacking me, and Turkey’s strength may be noticed by Russia soon. I have now learned to get past any personal vendetta-like grudges against Dave to better my situation in the game. Dave’s attitude has always been one of “Hey, man, sorry to screw you over, but it was obviously in my best interests, and if the positions were reversed, wouldn’t you have done it?” I don’t know whether I would have or not, but at least with what I know now it would be more based on strategic decisions than a sense of naive absolute trust. But Dave hasn’t personally been a big jerk about it, instead keeping a friendly air of professionalism in our messages to each other. I think that’s the best way to play Diplomacy: to not take anything personally and to always remember: be polite and cordial, even after a deceit has come to light, and everyone involved, even those on the receiving end, will have a much better time.

Now I’m starting a new game with a bunch of my college friends (and my sister again). I’m playing France this time, and my sister’s playing Italy. Everyone else playing has never played the game before, so it may be a bit chaotic, especially at the start. Crazily enough, some of the players are a bit paranoid, especially toward advice that I’m giving, because they think I’m setting them up for a fall. While that may or may not be true in later turns, I’m not going to deceive anyone unless it’s a clear advantage, and there’s still that part of me that wants everyone to have a good time and a fair chance to win. In this case, I provided a link to the Diplomacy strategies and theories I’ve been reading, for anyone who wants to peruse them. I also helped a few countries figure out some good opening moves, not moves to my detriment, of course (if they want those they can read the strategies themselves), but not ones to their detriment either, although one of the paranoid players later panicked and changed her moves, for the sole reason that I had suggested them to her earlier.

In any case, I am going to try to get everyone to play with the same sense of detached professionalism and politeness, in order to minimize any Diplomacy conflicts turning into destroyed friendships in the real world. Once a person realizes that 1)deceit is part of the game, but not the only part; 2)always be polite, especially to anyone you’ve betrayed; and 3)don’t take anything personally; then they will have a lot more fun playing the game. This also extends to the real world as well, as if a veteran Diplomacy player is betrayed by someone else in real life, he or she will have an easier time forgiving and forgetting.

Game on!

(That link may only work if you’re on Facebook and have the Diplomacy application added.)

Technical difficulties. . .

The site where I have stored some files (such as MP3s) is going under, so many of the links to MP3s and other large files here on the blog may be defunct for a little while. I will try to find another place to store them, but until then there’ll be some broken links. Sorry about that, for anyone who desperately wanted to hear the goofy-end-level-Super-Cobra ditty.