Why the 1856 Leaves of Grass is a better value than Wii Fit Plus

Wii Fit Plus: 6 more yoga/strength exercises, 15 new minigames, for a total of 21 new items
Leaves of Grass: 20 more poems than 1855 edition, total number of new pages difficult to ascertain due to smaller size
Winner: Wii Fit Plus

Wii Fit Plus: Requires Nintendo Balance Board, which can be stowed neatly under a seat or leaned against a wall
Leaves of Grass: Fits in a large pocket, definitely in a purse, briefcase, or backpack
Winner: Leaves of Grass

Wii Fit Plus: Lets you imagine yourself Mario
Leaves of Grass: Lets you imagine yourself a kosmos
Winner: Leaves of Grass

Wii Fit Plus: Rowing, squats, downward dog, jackknife crunches, sun salutation, skateboarding, others
Leaves of Grass:

The swimmer naked in the swimming-bath, seen
as he swims through the transparent green-
shine, or lies with his face up, and rolls
silently in the heave of the water,
The bending forward and backward of rowers in
row-boats, the horseman in his saddle,
Girls, mothers, house-keepers, in all their per-
formances...
The young fellow hoeing corn, the sleigh-driver
guiding his six horses through the crowd,
The wrestle of wrestlers, two apprentice-boys,
quite grown, lusty, good-natured, native-born,
out on the vacant lot at sun-down, after work,
The coats and caps thrown down, the embrace of
love and resistance,
The upper-hold and under-hold, the hair rumpled
over and blinding the eyes;
The march of firemen in their own costumes, the
play of masculine muscle through clean-set-
ting trowsers and waist-straps...

Winner: Leaves of Grass

Wii Fit Plus: Allows you to create exercise routines of 20, 30, or even 60 minutes
Leaves of Grass: Contains poetic sequences which can take well over an hour to read
Winner: Tie

Wii Fit Plus: No jumping on the Balance Board. No sex. Ever.
Leaves of Grass: Jump in the grass. "Jump" in the grass. "Jump" the grass itself, if that's your thing.
Winner: Leaves of Grass

Overall winner: Leaves of Grass

NaPoWriMo Bonus Post #8

Someday I'd like to work on a video game. A few things that I'd incorporate (not all the ideas I have, since these ideas are more likely to be stolen than ones for poems):

1. Have an avatar creator that is incorporated into the storyline. If the game is to be dreamlike or surreal, have a voiceover talking about a dream s/he had in which s/he was molding his/her own face, like clay. If it's more realistic, perhaps use backstory questions as a way to semi-randomly assign features (e.g. "Are you a tough guy?" Affirmative answer gives the avatar a scar).

2. A game that involves dimensional travel through mirrors. If you fix a problem in one world, another problem arises in the other world. You can never fix all of them. Insert plenty of revelations for the player, such as realizing that the [highest government official] of the current world must be corrupt, because the other one is a saint.

3. Offering players the chance to play as three different characters who will ultimately come into conflict. Don't tell the player this until the conflict is immanent, at which point imbalances will already have arisen. The player cannot "lose" this situation, but it may turn out differently than s/he would have planned.

Greatness/Smallness in Perspective

Poets are (rightfully) up in, well, not so much arms as gesturing angrily from their arm chairs over the NYT article by David Orr. I'll not rehash the whole thing here. You can Google the hell out of Orr and Greatness, or jump over to Poeta y Diwata or Nothing to Say & Saying It, where I've been at least tangentially involved in some discussions.

But just to keep it all in perspective, it could have been worse. I mean, Orr could have called Super Mario Kart the most influential video game of all time like Guiness did recently. You want a group of people who will get even more rabid about crap rankings and claims than poets, just say something idiotic like that and teh interwebz will just about explode from gamer froth. Mine included.

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If I'm lucky, you laughed a little bit at that one. Here's something that's not funny at all. I'm angry at whatever jackasses followed this woman and harassed her. I'm angry at Microsoft for not pursuing said jackasses. I'm angry at people on message boards saying, "Oh, XBOX Live is no place to put your sexual habits."

I'm happy with the (greater number of) people defending her. I'm happy with the posts noting that to point out one's sexual orientation is not to detail one's sexual habits. I'm happy with straights and gays writing to Microsoft or at least writing about this to give it greater attention and discussion.

Go to Hell?

All right, I thought that a fighting game a la Street Fighter based on Fight Club was the worst possible video game adaptation. Then I saw this. God-of-War-style Beat 'em up based on Dante's Inferno: next sign of the impending apocalypse? What's with the mace/scythe thing? And is that Beatrice being kidnapped by some kind of demon? Where's Virgil? Did somebody confuse Minos with Minotaur to create the big boss monster? The game itself looks cool, to be honest, but why oh why did they have to make the title Dante's Inferno? It doesn't work like that!

Bad Videogame Cover Art & My First Spammer

Well, boys and girls, apparently posting about the RNC CD debacle got me my first spammer. Congratulations to Jackpot - your comment has been deleted.

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I sent this link to my friend Jeremy once upon a time. The whole series of bad videogame cover art posts from 1UP.com is pretty funny, but this bit in particular made us laugh aloud. First, the cover for Cowboy Kid:


And then part of the commentary from Scott Sharkey:

I hate pointing out when things look gay -- but, yeah, this looks pretty gay. Not the unacceptable "gay as a synonym for bad" kind of gay. I mean that the men pictured here are having sex with each other. They're the gayest gays that ever gayed a gay. And that's all right. Totally acceptable. It's a lifestyle choice that should in no way impede them in their pursuit of careers in the fields of moustache-having and being-a-racial-stereotype.

In a field that is too often filled with "that's so gay," I love seeing an piece of writing that hits so smartly. First, it sets you up to think it'll be the typical "oh noes teh ghey" kind of post. Then it steps back to differentiate between acceptable and unacceptable uses of the term. Which leaves you, momentarily, in a bit of a conundrum - is he still going to attack homosexuality? Then you get the verbal hilarity of "gayest gays that ever gayed a gay." Note that we're still up in the air over whether or not this is going to be homophobic or not. And then he manages to wrap up with the crack about being-a-racial-stereotype, which reveals the whole item to be not only progressive, but aware on several sociopolitical levels. All in a one-paragraph mockery of a videogame box cover.

Smart Games, Dumb/Smart Gamers, Dumb Politics

Smart Games:

Real world definition of "mature": Showing the mental, emotional, or physical characteristics associated with a fully developed person; involving serious thought.

Videogame definition of "mature":
Shits, tits and gibs.

What is adult? According to ratings boards and hand-wringing politicians, the only qualifications necessary are a bucket of blood, a stream of foul profanity and a parade of naughty lady parts. Ironically, the very things that are included to win over immature teenage boys.

The following games, however, define adult in a different way. They tackle challenging themes, explore intellectual ideas and deal with complex characters in complicated relationships. They add shades of grey to an otherwise black-and-white form of entertainment.

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Smart Game, Smart/Dumb Gamers

Yesterday we received an email in tips from Nsider on behalf of True-Gaming.net that was sent to Media Molecule and Sony regarding the Qu'ran passages in LittleBigPlanet's music that resulted in the worldwide recall of the title just a week before release. the email explains the passages and goes on to request that they be removed from the title.

In case you don't pick up on it, the gamers writing comments to the effect that this is not censorship are the smart ones.

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Dumb Politics

I try to not weigh in on politics on this blog. I have various reasons, not least of which is my position as an instructor. For better or worse, I help my students to define/redefine/develop their own political position, even when I stringently disagree with those positions. I get a certain amount of enjoyment from reaching the end of a semester and getting student feedback that says my politics were evident, then seeing very different politics named by different people.

This particular moment is getting to me, however. It's the William Ayers issue, specifically the Right's attempt to connect Obama to Ayers. Now, my problem isn't even the mudslinging aspect of this game. I've read editorials and political pamphlets going back to the founding of the country, and if you think this kind of shit hasn't been around since Washington's reelection, you're kidding yourself. Actually, they were even meaner back then.

No, my problem is the ideological and military implications of casting Ayers as a terrorist. If that's the case, it means that even though he's now a professor, hasn't bombed anything in years, and lives a fairly quiet (if still politically active) life, he's still a terrorist. Which in turn means that terrorists can't change. Once a terrorist, always a terrorist. Which means the only thing we can do is kill them. We can't reeducate them, can't win their hearts and minds, can't convince them they were wrong or even misguided. At best we can turn their attention to someone they hate more than us. But more likely, we'll just have to fight until one or the other is dead.

That position is neither Right nor Left. It's just scary.

in/nuendo delicto & Watchmen (these items unrelated)

I'm up at school, responding to student work. Last time I mentioned them, it was at the beginning of the semester. I haven't taken time to note that there are some promising writers in class. Some generally-creative minds, as well. Hooray :-)

Yesterday Kate and I took a break from the insanity-that-is-our-current-schedule and watched the first couple episodes of The Tudors. At one point, the Duke of Buckingham walks in on a knight having sex with his (that is, Buckingham's) daughter (the idea that "his daughter" means "his property" plays out pretty strongly here). He later confronts King Henry VIII, saying he caught the man "in flagrante delicto." Now, we've all heard that phrase. I'm not bothering to look it up in the OED right now, but I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that "flagrante" is related to the modern "flagrant." In which case, I have to ask-

Is there an innuendo delicto? A subtle delicto? I mean, can you catch someone in the sex act, but they're kinda pretending that it's not happening (I'm picturing the awkwardness of co-ed dorms and roommates coming home early here)? And to the other end, can you have flagrantissimo delicto? Riding down Main Street, USA on a unicycle while making love?

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In totally unrelated news, but posted here to avoid posting again: the Watchmen movie is on the way. I feel great trepidation, don't think the movie can in any way, shape, or form approach the movie. Shot-by-shot recreation of scenes does not necessarily mean that the film will be faithful to the comic. Potentially worse, especially for someone who likes video games, is the video game spinoff that's being worked on. With that in mind, however, there is hope.

Once upon a time, there was a game that essentially had a "Press x to think introspectively on your life" command. I'm thinking of Planescape: Torment. Not the best-selling game ever, but one of the most philosophically-complex games I've ever played. Within the first few minutes of playing, you're confronted by a quasi-Buddhist character telling you the world is illusory. Within twenty, you're given the option to convince another character that it's OK to die...because that person is losing his faith, and his religion posits death as a good thing, a passage to a better world. I really, really doubt that the the Watchmen game would try for that angle, but there's always the possibility.

Of course, then we'd end up with a comic book that pushes the boundaries of what a comic book can do, a video game that pushes the boundaries of what a video game can say/mean, and a movie that turns out to be the lesser/least product. Ironic, no?

Also, instead of a movie, an HBO/Showtime miniseries would rock. Webisodes/blog entries/etc to mirror the non-comic interludes. A multimedia experience that could (finally) capture the spirit of the original

The plural of "anecdote" is not "data"

Super-extra-gold-star-of-the-day goes to Empress in Yellow over at Kotaku, a gaming site, for responding to this:

haydenaurian at 03:12 PM on 09/20/08

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The last time I was online playing XBOX360 there was a woman playing online with us and nobody in the room called her a "cunt", "bitch" or anything else. So this claim of widespread sexism in gaming is about half bullshit. If anything, the ones claiming sexism and talkin shit about men might just have some sexist issues themselves.

with this:

EmpressInYellow at 03:22 PM on 09/20/08

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Connectedness Index: 0

@haydenaurian: The plural of "anecdote" is not "data".

I love all of the defensiveness here, too. "Well, -I- don't behave in a misogynist fashion, so clearly it never happens!" or "How dare this article claim that all male gamers are misogynists?" (Protip: It doesn't).

Here's a hint: Saying, "Hey, there are still some deeply-entrenched misogynist attitudes in certain sectors of the gaming industry" does not mean that you, personally, are being called a misogynist. It does not mean that your hobby is being threatened. It is not making a value judgment about you as a person. This kind of knee-jerk reaction that occurs ANY TIME some potentially controversial subject is discussed RE: the gaming industry is exactly the sort of nonsense that ends up helping to -perpetuate- these stereotypes.