Molly's on the left platform

I know the roof of Mercy Hospital better than you could possibly imagine.

In my mind is a very detailed map of that place, all its topography laid out clearly. I could draw you an overview from memory.

The metal walkway leading up to the heli pad.

The narrow stairway that leads up to the air conditioning unit platform.

The two catwalks that flank the mounted machine gun.

Oh, hello! I'm talking about video games!

Of the four extraction points in Left 4 Dead's zombie apocalypse simulation, the roof of Mercy is widely regarded as the most difficult. It's got almost no open ground, so very little room to run. You constantly have to be aware of what's behind you so you don't get pinned in a corner. Compared to the other extraction areas (an airport runway, a farmhouse in an open field, and a lakeside camping area) that roof is like a postage stamp. A postage stamp of a middle finger.

And that would be enough by itself, but the icing on the difficulty cake is that this is all on top of a very large building. So if you get hit by a tank in the wrong spot, you go flying right the hell off the side.

That ladies and gentlemen, is not a "game mechanic." That is a "big 'screw you' from the programmers."

But Mercy is possible, even on Advanced mode where the proverbial men and boys are sorted into their appropriate groups. I've done it. We've done it (the we being my usual crew.)

But not without a lot of trying that level, over and over again.

I am still on the roof of Mercy Hospital being decimated. And I am on that helicopter with all 3 of my friends, looking back at the place that tested us. And I am standing in that chopper watching our fourth man get dragged away before anyone could help him. And I'm standing there alone because I left them all.*

I had to.

*And then we watched and episode of "Man v. Food" and called it a night.

This post gets a 7.8

If I could leave behind only one idea, it would be this:

(Actually, that's not true. There are lots of ideas I'd like to leave behind, but this is an important one.)

"The mark of a connoisseur is not that he knows what's good and what's bad, but that he finds both good and bad in everything."

That is to say, a person who's truly knowledgeable about something doesn't turn up their nose to anything but what is considered the "best." Instead they're always trying a bit of everything. To the master critic, there is only one insult: boring, and there is only one praise: interesting.

Another way to put it is this: "On the day I learned to appreciate fine cuisine, I didn't stop liking bubble gum."

And on the road to this sort of appreciation, I think services like Netflix and Gamefly are one of the best modern aids.

I think a lot of the snooty element of criticism ultimately comes from the purchase of it. People read reviews because they don't want to waste money on an experience they won't enjoy. As a side-effect, though, we develop the idea that some works are "good" while others are "bad,"* and many people miss out on things that, although not entirely sound, are still valuable and thought provoking.

But once your media becomes a single service, a single fee that gets you access to a large bank of material, it does a lot to change your perspective.

Why should I even read a game review now? If it seems even a little interesting I can add it to my queue and see what it's about. If I don't like it, I can just ship it back the next day and try something else. Why should I care what the current Metacritic score of a movie is? If I don't like it, I'll just stop the DVD.

The only review that matters now is the kind that don't score at all, but are instead just an intellectual discussion of a work's merits . . . which is really what a review is supposed to be anyway.

*This does not include movies with vampire turkeys.

L4D 4Life

I've always been a big fan of Steam, Valve Software's digital distribution platform, but there's one feature that I find unsettling.

It tells me how long I've spent playing.

It came to my attention a couple of weeks ago that I'd spent 30 hours (of the previous two weeks) playing "Left4Dead," Valve's popular co-op zombie apocalypse game.

I essentially had a part time job destroying the undead. Not even a job really, because I wasn't getting paid. I had an internship. (I'm using had only because the number is now down to a mere 10 hours out of the last two weeks.)

Zombie stories are frequently used as social commentary, most notably in the movies of George A. Romero. I guess when your genre has given you free reign to show humanity at it's most desperate, social commentary can really sneak up and get into your mind

 . . . like a zombie would, I guess.

But I'm always trying to figure people out, to find their "thesis," so I tend to treat creative works as the author's waking dream. And that's why, as I was spending all that time playing Left 4 Dead, I had a revelation about why zombies have remained such an appealing topic.

Left 4 Dead has a set of special "super zombies" that you have to manage.

"The Hunter" is always in a black hoodie, he leaps at you and pins you to the ground.

"The Smoker" has a stream of smoke pouring off of him, and he strikes from a distance by lashing out his long tongue and dragging you away.

"The Boomer" is a big, fat, burping thing that vomits on you, which attracts a rush of regular zombies.

"The Witch" lies crying in a heap, but if you disturb her, she'll scream and knock you down.

"The Tank" is a huge beast that's big on damage and defense.

What I found interesting about these five was how I started seeing them in real life. "The Hunter" looks an awful lot like the gang banger (or kid who wants to look like a gang banger) that you tense up around at Kroger. "The Smoker" is not so a not-so-subtle reference to cigarette smokers, who can annoy you from a distance. "The Boomer" is an exaggerated form of all the most unpleasant bodily functions. "The Witch" reminds me a lot of some tantrum-prone children at the supermarket. "The Tank" is . . . I don't know, an SUV? Let's go with that.*

When I look at this lineup of villains in the context of a game that's already about hordes of reanimated humans, it shows me one thing.

Zombies aren't about our fear of death. They're about our fear of humanity. Zombie stories are tales of people trying to survive against hordes of other (albeit undead) people. 

This is the nightmare world of the malcontent. This is how super antisocial people see the world. They're so afraid of other people that they stop viewing them as human, and think of them as mindless monsters.

*If I think of a way to fold auto-shotguns into the metaphor, I'll let you know.

End of year two

"Recursive morality" is a concept I've been thinking about for so long, I don't really remember what made me think of it in the first place.

I say "think of it" like I'm the sole author, but I'm not saying it's an entirely new concept. If you're working in a "young" or even "young-ish" field, computer programming or space station design, the chances of you coming up with a revolutionary idea are pretty good.

Morality is something humans have been thinking about for a pretty long time, actually, so it's somewhat more difficult to break fresh ground.

With the disclaimer aside, I'll explain what it's all about.

Most moral doctrines justify themselves with one of two ideas:

1. Because God says so - This casts God into what Brennan Manning calls an "eternal, small-minded bookkeeper." Just an entity making a tally of what we do right or wrong, scoring us as we go along. Not only does this perspective smack head-first into all my personal, spiritual experience, it also does nothing to explain why "good" is good, and why "bad" is bad. The moral concepts might as well be arbitrary, just a set of rules by which we play.

2. Because it's what you would want - This empathetic or "golden rule" is a fine idea, but it only works if you take it as self-evident. But "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is only an approach to morality, it doesn't explain why this is better than being out for yourself.


My "recursive morality," on the other hand, offers not only an approach to moral ideas, but an inherent justification for why some things are "right" and others are "wrong."

To sum it up as best I can:

"Happiness" is not only a matter of creating a certain state, but also of being receptive to that state. When you honestly earn the money to buy something you want, you've not only acquired the thing, but given it added value by working for it. When you steal money to buy something (or just stolen the item) you've cheapened it in your own heart, thus robbing it of the full enjoyment.

But more importantly, in both cases you've changed a little about yourself. The action of theft has caused you to do harm to someone else. In order to do that harm, you had conclude on some deeper level that either 1. You hate the people you've hurt or 2. You don't care about the people you've hurt.

You are, by your own moral action, a different person.

And that's what "recursive morality" is really about. You, as an individual, have authorship over who you are. Your subconscious may guide you without your notice, but you are also constantly at work on it. When you cause harm in the world around you, you're telling YOURSELF that you're the kind of person who acts without love or concern. When you help someone in need, when you pick up litter and throw it away, when you fold your clothes in the morning*, you are telling yourself that you are a considerate, loving person.

And only one of those two people, recursive morality argues, is CAPABLE of being happy. At the same meal, one person enjoys every bite, while the other complains, thinks about all the things that would be better, and suspects that he's going to get stuck with the bill.

Perhaps then there is no real judgment in death. Heavens gates are not barred, but rather some souls refuse to enter, incapable of receiving it's treasures.

*Maybe that's where I started thinking about it. This quote perplexed me for a long time:

"a spiritual thing is folding your clothes at the end of the day. A spiritual thing is making your bed. A spiritual thing is taking cookies to your neighbor that is shut in or raking their front lawn because they are too old to do it. That's spirituality. Getting a warm, oozy feeling about God is an emotional thing-there is nothing wrong with it-I think there is nothing more practical than real spirituality." -Rich Mullins

Monologue

Thank you so much, folks! We've got a great show for you tonight!

Have you guys heard the new single by "Nickleback" called "Something in Your Mouth"?* You know, I'm a person who believes in free speech, and the idea that all people have a right to be heard, even if their message is unpopular. That being said, everyone involved with "Nickleback" should be JAILED.

But speaking of rock bands, somone recently pointed out to me that there's a book called "Metallica and Philosophy." I guess I'm not surprised. I learn an important philosophical lesson from every Metallica song. That lesson? Don't be a member of Metallica.

I guess you've all heard about Circuit City declaring bankruptcy? Turns out that now they'll have to close more stores than they first expected because the company couldn't find a corporate buyer. Supposedly they had one buyer interested, but it fell through when Circuit City started trying to sell them on an "extended warranty" plan.

You know, the Pope came under fire this week after he said that condoms don't help the spread of AIDS, and that distributing them only aggravates the problem. Sounds like the Bush administration's science advisors have found a new job! 

And speaking of politics, last year Ann Coulter broke her jaw and had to have it wired shut. Yeah, that's true. Now that she can talk again, she finally explained how it happened. Apparently you can only swallow so much conservative bulls*** at one time!

Oh, and you're not going to believe this. But on a lighter note, a few nights ago I actually heard a guy at a bar say "Come here often?" to a girl. You know, at that point, buddy, you might as well walk up to her and ask, "What's your favorite clichè?"

We've gotta take a quick commercial break folks, but we'll be right back. Fantastic show tonight! An angry mob of "Nickleback" fans will be joining us!

*I refuse to link to anything related to this for fear of exposing anyone to it. But suffice to say, yes, they really did.

The Candy Post

"The Learning Channel" is the new "MTV."

In much the way that people ask what MTV's programming has at all to do with music, we now have to ask how much "Learning" is going on in shows about tatoo parlors and people with lots of kids.*

In fact, they should really have to put "Learning" in quotation marks, even in the abbreviation: Tonight on T "L" C. *

Or maybe they could put a hyphen in the middle of "Learning," forcing the reader to sound it out. Making everyone say it as "The Learn-ing Channel," the way Ralph Wiggum might pronounce it, seems like an appropraite denegration.

For now, the Discovery Channel proper, T "L" C's parent station, remains a pretty good network. But it seems like only a matter of time before their other stations fall into the "Lifestyles" gutter.  Soon Discovery Health will be nothing but celebrity weightloss and more "look how many kids we have!" shows. The Military Channel will consiste of programs about custom Humvee's that celebrities drive., and of course, military families that have 6+ children. 

Animal Planet will, somehow, broadcast nothing but reality dating.

These people have made a living of selling info-tainment. It is their stated thesis. Yet their credibility is regularly called into question by flipping over to the Food Network, where one episode of "Good Eats" references science more frequently than T "L" C can manage in a day. 

*As of this writing, the top story on TLC's homepage is "What's Your Bridal Style?" Seriously.

A VH1 Counterpoint

There are two mysteries of humanity that I'll probably never understand.

The first one is why Kenny Rogers Roasters, though a commercial failure in the United States, is a huge success in the Philippines.  Apparently southern U.S. cuisine resonates strongly to the "Asian country with a strong Hispanic influence" palate.

The second mystery is why people retain any affection for the 1980's*.

Imagine for a moment that a small child brought you a picture he drew, but instead of the usual smiling stick figures, sunshine, and grass, it was a wash of bright neons and pastels-greens, pinks, and purples all jammed together.

You would take that kid to a psychologist, wouldn't you?

And you'd be right to do so. This is the aesthetic of a crazy person.

Combine those hideous colors with the 80's affinity for the screeching of a keyboard synthesizer and you've got quite a psychosis going.

It's no wonder, then, that there were so many good movies about time travel during the 80's. "The Terminator," "Back to the Future," "Flight of the Navigator," and "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" (yes, I consider that a good movie, even now) all represent a generation of creative minds who were thinking very hard about finding a way to get out of their decade.

How we finally shook free of the 80's is a matter for debate, but there seems to be a general consensus that the 80's lasted until about 1992. In that year, the rise of a grungier, minimalist idea finally toppled the shoulder-padded, tube-topped neon wall that had blotted out the Earth's sun for so long.

Some say that Nirvana's "Nevermind" signaled the cultural shift when it toppled Michael Jackson's "Dangerous," but personally I think it was the "Wayne's World" movie.  Here we have a film about two metal heads (grungy)  making a show in their basement (minimalist) who get swindled by a slick-haired producer (Rob Lowe portraying a typical clean cut  materialist).  It was a huge hit, transformed the pop-culture lexicon of the time, and maybe saved us from the 80's.

*Which is really best viewed as a recovery period from the 70's.

Milestones*

I don't retain any particular fondness for high school, but I also don't look back on it with the seething disdain that so many people seem to harbor. A big part of the reason is that I simply don't remember that time (I usually can't remember what I did more than a couple of days ago without some thought.)

I guess this is good, in a "Tiger or the Rocks" sort of way, because it suggests that I won't miss out on life's little "strawberries." I don't know if that's true, but I can tell you that it makes for awkward Monday morning conversation when someone asks what you did over the weekend and you genuinely don't know. (And then you have to convince everyone that your amnesia isn't chemically induced.)

But I can say that high school was definitely weird, and now I have the persepective to see why. 

It's a time of intense scrutiny.

It is a place where, if you knock over one of the poles on the rope-barrier for the lunch line, making it clang on the floor, the room will go quiet and 300 people will sarcastically applaud you. 

That's not a joke. That's something I saw happen. 

And that's a pretty typical response. When you take a group of people who's grip on social grace is somewhere in the "fumbling" range, put them together in a space that's roughly equivalent to Gilligan's Island, then begin sorting them into recognized groups, that tends to create a somewhat cuthroat environment.

So if I could give those in high school one piece of advice, it's this: 

In the real world, for the most part no one gives a crap about you. 

It may sound harsh, but it's actually quite liberating!

*Post 100

Sugar

Fiction isn't true, by very definition. But good fiction isn't exactly "false" either. Rather, stories represent a kind of distilled reality, where all the underlying elements of human life filter out though characters who, for whatever reason, seem really motivated to move their collective narrative along.

In other words, fictions works on the following basic principle: ignore the fact that most people are fairly non-confrontational.

And that's why I love it when people are unintentionally poetic. When, in normal conversation, someone will drop a line that's espectially profound, or so well composed that it seems thougtfully constructed.

One of my favorites was when a friend told me, "I know you don't understand, and I don't know that I can explain."

(I pause here to let you know that, although that line sounds melodramatic, it really wasn't in that context. We were talking about her buying a house.)

I wrote her an entire email back about how nice a line that was, what a good symmetry it executed (I know you . . . I don't know that I . . . ) but I'm pretty sure that she was only convinced of me being a crazy person who fixates on words.

But those poetic moments need not be so elegant. The one that really sticks with me came from a guy I knew who was always in debt. He had recently managed to pay off all his credit cards, and I wanted to know how. 

"Well, he said, it was simple. I took the $100-$200 a month I usually spend on crap, and put it towards my bills."*

That's not just poetic, folks, it's a damn revelation.

*He also once said, "Thank you, Sam, for coming along on the rolling, clanging freakshow that is my life." Remind me to someday name a band "Rolling Clanging Freakshow."

That's reimagining, itself

HBO's "Rome" series is really good. The cast is top-notch, the cinematography is high-quality, the story is . . . well it's been retold for two-thousand years, I think it's safe to say that the story has something going for it.

Aside from HBO's usual "here are the nipples you paid for, enjoy!" content, there's not much negative to say.

Yet I do have a big problem with "Rome," and it's this: At the end of Season 1, they kill off the most interesting character, Julius Caesar.  (Sorry if that's a spoiler for anyone, but as has been established, there's a statute of limitations on this kind of thing.)

The series does such a good job of establishing that character, understanding him not as a tyrant nor a savior, but just a complicated individual who did what he did because that's what his mind was built to do. 

And then they squander it all by having him get murdered.

And yes, I know that in a historical epic there's some expectation of adhering to what "actually" happened. But is that really important?

This story has been told so many times over so many years, what can one honestly expect to bring to the table? Most of the time, when you see a "fresh" take on an old work, it's just the same old thing set on, like, Mars or something. So it's the same story with a different backdrop.

If I'd been writing that first season of"Rome," I would have have looked down at the page, shrugged my shoulders and said, "you know what, screw it, he lives!"

Maybe he undoes the robe and he's got on armor on under there, like Doc Brown in "Back to the Future," and it turns out someone came from the future to warn him*. Or maybe he just takes 23 stab wounds in stride, cause he's JC and that's how he rolls.*

*"And the warning wasn't all they brought me! Check out my T-Rex!"