Fortress of Perpetual Midnight

I received my one-year evaluation this week. Apparently, I've been doing everything almost perfectly (at least according to the supervisor who wrote it). Consequently, I've received a 25¢-an-hour raise, which, according to materials posted in the break room, puts me up to exactly what will be the minimum wage by the time another year has gone by.

I'm moving ahead with the other two applications. The guy at Privateer Press sent me a message worrying about me moving out there and doing a half-assed job because I'm expecting to get something else in the company. As my reply included a lot of whining about what I have, I decided I may as well post it here (minus names and such) for illustration purposes.

( Excerpt )

Since Thursday was my one night off, I stopped by the other side of town yesterday. Unfortunately, I had not realized that it was the release date of 4th-Edition D&D, so the clerk at the desk immediately asked me, "Have you gotten your books yet?" I made the mistake of telling the truth: that I had gotten a better deal elsewhere, which of course didn't make him and Carlos happy. They made fun of me for the fact that my copies hadn't been delivered yet. I neglected to mention (as a comeback, one of my principal weak points) the fact that, as over the last few months the Wizards have revealed more of their master plan to tell repeat customers to go to hell (as mentioned here), I wouldn't be buying them at all if I weren't intending to use them to save more than the money I paid for them.

Due to the fact that 4th Edition is trying its darnedest not to be D&D, there's also the problem of the theoretical chance of publishing my campaign setting. I have no intention of retconning it to the point of being 4th-Edition-friendly, so the only chance I would have of using the d20 System or something similar is if someone else ends up producing the books and allowing them, such as the Pathfinder RPG. The reason for this is that the d20 System requires you to note on each book that it requires the 3rd-Edition or v.3.5 Player's Handbook, which Wizards will obviously be discontinuing if they haven't already. The Pathfinder RPG is designed to allow people to continue to use v.3.5-compatible materials, so it would work with that, but I don't know whether they'll allow me to actually tell people to use it. I could instead use the OGL, but that would require publishing my own basic materials. Since this was designed as a D&D setting, that would mean either (a) repeating pretty much the same stuff that's in the Player's Handbooks and Pathfinder RPG or (b) changing the setting so that those have something original worth printing as well. The latter means completely reworking the setting, which may be a good thing considering that it's not very original so far, but it defeats the purpose of publishing something I've already developed if I have to go back and start from the ground up. Of course, the chances that I'll ever have the resources (money and name recognition) to do this are rather slim.

By the way, on the topic of the subject line, DUNKIN' DONUTS® CMs have nifty tunes, but the first two* have really dumb lyrics. The "doing stuff [things]" one is pretty self-explanatory (as is the issue with this one, the one for which it's not the creators who are stupid), but as Ms. Maelwaedd noted, it's an odd strategy to tell customers, "We understand your idiocy and provide for it!" The thing about this is, as with every spoken language except English (as far as I know), French and Italian have simple, consistent rules for how every word is pronounced. (lokodraucarn once tried to defend his mispronunciation of "coup de grâce" by saying, "I took German and Russian! No silent letters!" Yeah (again, a very belated comeback), I took Spanish and Japanese. That doesn't stop me using an American English dictionary. When I play a game where I have to vocalize a term often, it makes sense to know how to pronounce it and what it means.) A more common problem is trying to figure out which language the word is, but that's often easy, too.

*As usual, I tried looking for the videos to illustrate, but apparently now Google™ Video BETA doesn't index them anymore and instead has hardcore pornography openly displayed. (YouTube had both.) I never got that before.

Edit (2008.07.31): Easier to find when I get the lyrics right

Right on the heels of what I didn't mention about my résumé last time, there's another guy who claims smokers are being persecuted by the hostile majority. Well, Mummert, I wish I lived in your country. In America, smokers are allowed to smoke anywhere on their own property and almost anywhere outside (and the police ignore the fact that they still smoke in the places where they're not allowed to smoke outside). In a democracy, people wouldn't have their rights to poison others for the sole purpose of poisoning themselves protected. At least alcohol can be used as an anæsthetic, and you're held responsible for the harm you do to others when you use it. Most other recreational drugs are completely illegal.

I know I sound like a broken record, but this shows that I'm not the only one.

Wikipedia is an important source of encyclopedic information for me, as I know no other reasonable resource for information on Japanese topics in general. Sources in English are very unreliable, particularly in the case of popular media, where information is generally based on one to three crude translations, all with parts deliberately changed from the original meaning for various reasons. There are two main problems with it as compared to Wikipedia: that the contributor base appears much smaller, resulting in less information and much less discussion; and that they have very few images, possibly due to more strict enforcement of licensing.

However, I just found something very useful on a page I where I was doing a bit of research: a spoiler hide box. I have always found that part of the fun of series is the thrill of wondering what's going to happen next. That's why I've always been irritated by the fact that, in most cases, almost the entire English article was under the "spoiler warning" tag. The argument has been made that if you haven't already seen/read it, there's no reason to read the article, but that isn't true for me. The fact is, I usually have no idea whether there is any other place for information on a series other than reviews, fan material, and publication data. If people are kind enough to tag the spoiler parts individually, the reader has the option of whether or not he wants to spoil any particular part, and this system just makes it even more convenient.

So, I dropped by the English site to see if they had a tag like this, and I found that they've changed the policy: although there is still a tag, the discussion claims that you are now not even supposed to tell people if there's a spoiler. I find this even more disappointing, not just from a user's point of view, but as a contributor as well. I thought that if my projects reached the status of notability, I'd just rely on the Wikipedia article for the list of background information, as there'd be one anyway, so I could wait for other people to write what they felt was necessary, and I could personally oversee it to correct any mistakes. But if they feel that all spoilers are required to be included without notice, it doesn't fill that need, so there'd have to be one somewhere else with a different policy. That would be a pain in the ass, because I've seen that small wikis have little exposure and less people to edit them, and each one has to write its own set of policies (although cut-and-paste would work for the basis) and get the contributors to learn it in addition to those from other wikis for which they contribute, which may be very similar but differ in a few key points. I suppose we could say, "The rules are the same as Wikipedia, except ____," or something.

Edit (2008.05.03): I forgot that Comic Genesis has its own wiki, and upon closer inspection, it doesn't have that problem, so I don't have to worry about it as long as I use them and they don't change that policy. It also has a built-in rating system.

Contrary to the title, this is not another post about downloading bootlegs—at least not primarily.

I finally managed to get hold of my new job coach a few weeks ago and set up an appointment. I went in without any clear idea of what to do, hoping to ask her for advice, so she sent me home to codify my criteria and think about what kind of job I'd want. Consequently, I've made a few rough notes based on my experience so far:

1. The most immediate and obvious criterion is that I need enough money to be able to afford a home. Judging by the low-end rents I've seen in the paper I assemble, I would be able if I stepped up to full time at my current just-above-minimum wage, but for the rest of the reasons, that would just be even worse.

2. There are two problems that both are detrimental to my long-term health and really tick me off. The first is that the work environment is incredibly loud. This is rather inevitable for a factory job, of course. It also results in the facts that no one can understand what anyone else is saying (in my case due to my ADD making it difficult to discern individual voices from background noise, in the others' because they've suffered so much hearing damage already due to their job and their music-listening lifestyles), which requires that they yell incoherently at each other all the time, and that the alert signals all have to be even louder and more ear-piercing due to high pitch so that they aren't missed in the cacophony.

The second is more of a morality issue. The workplace is smoke-free, but workers are encouraged to smoke right outside the entrances, including when the garage doors are open, and they generally smoke just before getting to work, both of which meaning I have to breathe their second-hand smoke if I'm nearby. About half the workers (including three of the four supervisors) smoke at least one cigarette every couple of hours. As you know, I particularly hate smoking not just because it's harmful, but because it has no purpose other than as a poison. However, U.S. law protects the right of smokers to poison others, and even beyond my policy*, I prefer to avoid complaining about it within earshot. In my experience, smokers are, on average, even more bad-tempered than others with whom I've spent time, and the last two to whom I've mentioned that I didn't like it claimed that it was my own fault and that I was making fun of him, respectively.

3. The fact that almost no one there gives a damn about doing even the bare minimum makes my own apathy even stronger. (I tried to wean them off my picking up after them before my trip, but we'll see about the results when I get back tonight.) I imagine this stems from the fact that it's a horrible job. There's also the fact that the company apparently can't even afford to tell us even the most basic things about stuff that we're supposed to do, so learning is mostly by educated guess. This is no doubt due to the fact that annual employee turnaround appears to be about 200%, again stemming from the fact that it's an awful job. I haven't bothered to call them on these things because of my policy*, which is reinforced by the fact that some people get extremely ticked off if I try to do my own job efficiently.

4. The fact that I have to be heavily sedated to sleep puts quite a damper on my life when working graveyard. Most significantly, I have difficulty getting to appointments (including the job coach) and stores while they're open. (In the latter case, essentials such as food and drugs are usually available 24-7, but I do like to go to stores that are actually interesting, such as hobby shops and bookstores, once in a while.) Of course, most jobs are available during the day; this current one just happens to be a morning paper about events the day before.

Just to break up the large block of text, I'll talk about my current prospects (such as they are) in a separate post.

*As you can see from the Cool Hand Luke (which I've never seen) quote in my notes, I was planning on typing an entire post about how it doesn't seem to be worth it to let anyone know about any opinion I may have unless that anyone happens to be a close friend. To sum up, it's been my experience that doing so just ticks him off, causes him to be if anything more opposed to my view (either out of spite, perverseness, or the fact that he respects me so little that he feels my opinions are automatically ineligible), and adds to the ongoing friction between us. When combined with the fact that I find arguing very hurtful, this comes to my admittedly dysfunctional policy. Hopefully if I manage to find coworkers who have less negative attitudes than the people around here, the people on the LG Yahoo! Group, the people on daily_yuri, etc., I will be able to work better. Otherwise, I just have to keep thinking about what to do about it myself.

Between my falling out with daily_yuri and my irregular schedule, I haven't had it in me to watch my videos lately. Consequently, the files on Mother's computer are piling up again. (As I've mentioned before, I prefer not to burn files until I've watched them, to make sure they work properly and so I don't have to look up the official titles and episode subtitles.) My only solution has been to move things to the computer in the bedroom, but there are two problems with that. First, I only have a 1-GB portable container, so it's a pain in the ass. (This part might be solved if blitzcon ever actually gives me that broken laptop, because I might be able to hook it up to the others using that ethernet cable I bought a while back on the false assumption that my laptop had a port.) Second, even there, I only have an 80-GB hard drive, so that'll fill up eventually, too.

Of course, one might wonder why I'm even bothering to download this stuff if I'm not watching it. The main reason is that I'm restricted to torrents, meaning that I have to get the files while they're fresh, because it's unlikely that I'll ever have another chance once people throw away the files and seed the fansubs* instead. (I'm still bitter about the fact that I can't take advantage of Share because no one will tell me how to use an Internet connection.) Ms. mizuno_youko tells me that IRC isn't as bad as I thought, but if I'm too depressed to watch the videos, it stands to reason that I'm not going to wade through trying to figure out how that works.

*It's rather sad that "Anime" has become so mainstream that even bootleggers cater to people who can't figure out how to use a separate ji-maku file.

Most of you have no common interests with me, so you won't have noticed the fact that I removed myself from contributing to public sources back in late October. As you can see from ( my notes ), I was planning on typing up full reasoning behind the factors that contributed to that. Of course, one of the problems was the fact that I didn't get any response to what I posted here, either. I talked to blitzon and arifyn about that a bit, but even after they started communicating, it was quite a large project (as many of my planned posts that have been sitting in my notes for months, including most of the ones way back here), in addition to the fact that I was trying not to think about it because it was so depressing. Further, I don't think I should lower myself to the others' level by adding too much to the hate, so I'll merely give an overview.

I've already whined extensively on the topic of the geeks I've met in person and online who feel the need to régale me with how much they hate the games they play, the shows they watch, and the fact that I am allowed to have opinions that differ from theirs. Well, their griping was enough to destroy the campaign that my friend had tried to run. Meanwhile, while I was researching for Project Abdiel, I tried adding what I could to LEXICANUM, but ended up starting another fight and feeling be[i]tter about the fact that still no one had noticed that someone got on my ass for something I didn't say. All this negativity about my contributions reminded me of a long list of minor negative comments I'd received for what I gave to daily_yuri as well, and the fact that I have an awful job undoubtedly added to my deep white funk as well.

The result? Just like I did with the aforementioned campaign, I tried to avoid conflict as much as possible. I stopped contributing to LEXICANUM and daily_yuri. This also removed some of my motivation for watching videos, so, in my depression, I haven't used the rare chances I get, and I'm getting in trouble again for taking up hard drive space. It turns out that the chance of jobs at a place where people know me and actually have common interests was a false alarm, and they're even looking to downsize, so there's nothing to suggest that I'll ever have a home, and thus I will not be able to fully rectify this problem without giving up downloading videos.

Meanwhile, yesterday, I saw a rant on Irregular Webcomic! David Morgan-Mar's works are one of the few things liked by my other DM at Dungeons of Purdue that aren't hateful like he. For the most part, he only derides stupidity and inaccurate physics. It may be because he's hitting me where it hurts, but I don't recall any other time when he's been hostile enough to claim that other opinions should not exist and the entire English language should be dumbed down to the least common denominator. (Since he's a GURPS guy, he also failed to mention the choice I prefer, the one used by Wizards.) I found myself especially disappointed. The iron lining of this cloud is the fact that it was enough to motivate me to type this post. Now at least I've got that off my chest.

Things I should really type up and post here in the near future:

*My new character ideas [Done]

*Strangers in Paradise Pocket Book 1 [Done]

*Whining about semantic drift (once I get my IME back) [Done]

As promised, here are my comments on the other Dreamcast games I got from arifyn (and played):

Shenmue: I remember hearing long ago that Shenmue was supposed to be an innovative, realistic game, so I wanted to try it first. As noted before, it turned out a bit differently, but once I was done with Eternal Arcadia, I went straight to this one. It started out well, with the opening cinematics and, as gameplay began, the looting of my character's own house. The picking up of random items reminded me of Shadowgate, Uninivited, and Deja Vu, but in the end, I didn't figure out anything to do with any of the objects except to look at the photos. Other than that, it was just a bunch of taking picture frames off the walls and putting them back, and opening drawers and closets and closing them again. Once I left the house, the more impressive part of the game showed itself. The fact is, they recorded a hell of a lot of voices for this game, and have a huge number of named characters, making quite a community. Unfortunately, all that's done with this is a lot of questioning locals in order to find clues. Although I admit it was rewarding when Ryō (the main character, with a typical Japanese main character bad hairdo) jots down something new in his notebook, all the talking gets old, particularly when it's hard to figure out whom to question next. There was a total of two action scenes (other than the intro), and these were just Dragon's Lair-type scenes where you just push the buttons it says to push. Still, I soldiered on until the point where I could only find one more lead, and it required one of those pointless minigames that are so popular in the FINAL FANTASY series. Imagine, if you will, that the first time you had ever seen a pool table, you were required to make a bank shot to pocket a ball on your first try. Grr. Suffice it to say that I was too lazy to continue after that avenue of investigation was closed to me.

It wasn't until after that that I realized that it was rather odd that it was a murder mystery, and there was absolutely no police involvement. I couldn't even find the guys in their little boxes to ask directions.

Meanwhile, I found myself nostalgic to go back to those three old 8-bit adventure games. Shadowgate was the only one that I ever cleared, and only after reading the walkthrough. I also remember The Uninvited creeping the hell out of me, but then again, so did FINAL FANTASY VIII when I was stuck in Caraway's office with the creepy painting, followed by the sewer sequence. (It may have had something to with the fact that I was playing in the basement in the middle of the night.) Anyway, once I switch back to Windows, maybe I'll try getting ROMs of those other two.

Sakura Taisen 2/Sakura Wars 2: Kimi, Shini-Tamou Koto Nakare: I've heard about this series from time to time. At first, I only knew that it was a steampunk robot strategy game. Then I heard from arifyn that it had elements of a ren'ai adventure. (He also told me that he misunderstood the Japanese and accidentally opened the door before putting on his trousers. I thought I could deal with that, but then found that the door is automatically opened unless you change really bloody fast. . . .) I waded through several scenes, but eventually was too put off by the concept of two ugly male officers in charge of a unit of overly affectionate young ladies. I never even got to combat. . . .

BIOHAZARD CODE:Veronica: It was only after I had ruled out all the other "RPG"-type games that I returned to ones of which I'd already played the North American localizations. As you are no doubt aware, the BIOHAZARD series has been translated into Resident Evil in English-speaking countries. You'll also remember that I absolutely abhor challenges, so naturally I set it to "VERY EASY." I soon found, however, that the true horror of the game is not the strength of the monsters or the scarcity of ammo and healing (neither of which being much of a problem on this setting), but the diabolically unwieldy gameplay. I can only imagine that the designers did it this way to give you the sense of helplessness that makes it so scary. It's another game where you explore places and search for items, but, frustratingly enough, it's a third-person view, and you can't even control the camera angles. (It is quite evident that the environments are fully mapped in 3D, as you can see when the camera pans as you move into a new area, but the player doesn't get to use that to his advantage.) This means that whenever you walk into a room, all you can see is your character and the entrance; any enemies in the room are shambling (or fluttering, or loping) around behind the camera, out of sight. The controls do include limited auto-aiming, but unlike in the first 64-bit Zelda no Densetsu (to give the one real counter-example in my experience), it doesn't track the enemy if it moves, and vertical aiming appears to be fixed to only three angles (straight, diagonally up, and diagonally down). This means it's very difficult to catch fast enemies and those that aren't necessarily standing at chest level, both categories including the Dobermans and the bats on the first disc. Further, contrary to the camera, the controls are first-person-based: the "up" button moves the character in whichever direction (s)he is currently facing, and "left" and "right" are used to turn. This makes it very difficult to maneuver quickly, particularly in the case when a certain juggernaut-like boss stands right between you and the camera, so you can't tell which direction you're facing. I understand that this is supposed to be a horror game, not an action game, but it would be nice to have a somewhat more user-friendly system. (I seem to recall hearing that you can unlock a first-person perspective, but this would require first clearing the game in some way or another.)

Despite the tedious and frustrating combats, it was still fun to wade through the puzzles in the first disc (of which I could remember very few from having seen the game before). Then it was on to the second, and a whole new world of (emotional) hurt. You don't like the controls in the first half? Then try it when you can't see a damn thing, not just because of the camera angle, but also because it's bloody dark. Added to this are the completely invisible enemies (I can only assume they're some sort of tiny bug) that periodically attack you (including in the safe room), automatically hitting and causing poison. There are also big-ass moths that are harder to hit than the (much smaller) bats, cause poison, and automatically respawn every time you enter the corridor that you need to use to connect to everywhere else (including the safe room). Poison is hardly a lot of fun, as not only does it mean you have to get back to the blue herb planter (which is also in the moth-infested corridor) after every trip to anywhere, you also can't tell how much life you have left when you're poisoned (not to say that the life meter isn't already really imprecise). And don't even talk to me about that spider under the floor that scares the hell out of me all the time because it charges at me where I can't see a damn thing and it's hard to be sure that it can't get at me. Still, I fought on, but eventually ran out of options. The only two things I could find were a bunch of machinery that doesn't have power even after I started up the generator, and a trapped cabinet that wasn't even armed until I found a piece elsewhere and used it. I can't even set it off. So, with no other ideas, I just moved on to the next game.

By the way, I was quite surprised to start the game and find that all the dialogue was in English, and better English than I've seen in some North American localizations of Japanese games. I'd thought that Mel Gibson was the only one crazy enough to make a work of semi-mainstream media in a language that neither the creators nor the target audience can understand. It all sounds pretty natural, although Alfred still has a really weird laugh. I also still find that Steve reminds me of Leonardo DiCaprio with a really whiny voice.

Grandia II: This is the only one I had played through all the way in its other incarnation. Still, it had been quite a while, and I hadn't played it in its pure form, so I thought, what the hell. One of the things I like about this game is the fact that you can actually see enemies before you're stuck in combat, and even ambush them if you're quick (although having three party members trailing behind you can make it awkward). This makes it convenient to be a completist like me, as once you've cleared out the monsters, you can explore an area with impunity. The flipside of the coin is the fact that you have to talk to every townsperson multiple times to find out all he has to say (and what your own characters have to say in return). My own perverse perfectionism on this point is what eventually bored me enough to give up on the game, combined with the fact that I don't actually own a TV (which wouldn't be much use anyway, since I'm living in a room in Mother's house that doesn't have any room for it), so I had to pull the Dreamcast out and set it up in the living room every day, then put it away when I was done.

I did find rather interesting the contrast between the 3D images (which depict the characters as all looking like little kids) and the portraits that appear on the status screen and when people talk (which are hand-drawn, in a somewhat more realistic style). I only got to one real FMV, in which the characters looked just like slightly more detailed versions of their usual CG selves. It's also unusual that each of the Valmar-spawn has an FMV for its ultimate attack. Most of these are CG, but, for some reason, Ms. Millennia appears in hand-drawn form in hers, with the proportions of the CG character rather than the portrait.

Incidentally, I also had a dream one night where I was Harry Potter and I was being menaced by Ms. Millennia. I remember thinking (in the dream) that I had gotten Valmar and Voldemort mixed up. . . .

Translation of the Day: 「あんたの作業ね！」 → "You cross-dressing freak!"