The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

Bleh, I didn’t want to get into this again. Sorry. But I have to vent and get it out, and it’s a bad idea to put it in its actual venue on Talking Time. So.

First, some background. Some people made this horrible game called Tentacle Bento, which is this game is really poor taste where you are a tentacle monster trying to rape the most schoolgirls. They made a kickstarter to fund it. People complained like crazy that this product shouldn’t exist because rape is clearly bad. Kickstarter took it down from their page.

Kickstarter probably made the right move. No reason to get lots of shitty press for this, and they had every right to pull it down. I think it’s lame of them not to stick to the guns they supposedly had when they allowed the whole thing to be posted on their site, but sure, why not. People have the right to complain as well. It is a game in very bad taste.

But people don’t just stop there. People go on and on about how this product SHOULD NOT EXIST. And that’s where I draw the line. Of course they should be able to make this product. It’s a dumb product nobody should buy, but the idea that they should not be able to express themselves with a game in very bad taste is just ridiculous to me. And a large number of people arguing against it seem to call me a fan of child rape because I feel this way? This is so stupid.

Anyway, here’s a quote from Kylie. The whole post is here if you want more context. I like Kylie a lot. But goodness, this frustrates me.

You’re not preserving art or communication if you’re defending this; you’re preserving the ability of a medium to make a game out of virtual child rape. If that’s important to you, then by all means stand up and defend it. But you have to know that that’s what you’re defending. “Freedom of Speech” is a convenient smokescreen.

This is a red herring fallacy. “This isn’t covered under freedom of speech because I can prove child rape is bad.” How is a game about virtual child rape NOT communication? That game is communicating a very clear message. In fact, it is that message Kylie is reacting to so strongly.

I sure as fuck don’t think this game is art, but I sure as hell think there could be a game based on these themes that could be. I’m pretty sure making the poor have babies so that the upper classes can eat them and turn their skin into stylish gloves is a pretty horrible thing that nobody wants to advocate, but history has proven that can be art. I’m pretty sure all manner of horrible things and terrible memes can be used in the pursuit of art, and they should be. When “trivializing” rape is the point of a work of art, when that’s being done towards a purpose, is there still a problem? I certainly don’t think so. And just because someone tries to make a satire and utterly, utterly fails at it in a fairly offensive way doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have tried. And just because someone thinks something is okay when it clearly isn’t, and creates something from that assumption doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have created a thing. Stopping people from creating is 100% an attack against art and freedom of communication, and I in no way understand how a game with an offensive and shitty premise is somehow an exception to this.

Kickstarter the company has every right to shut this down, and I would not even begin to argue they shouldn’t be able to. Hell, it’s probably a good move for them to have done so. Sure. But that’s where this ends. People should be able to express themselves, and hell, making a game is a form of expression. Just because those people are horrible people doesn’t mean we get to say “that should not exist.”

Bleh I’ve been grading all day I don’t care have some links and go away!

Someday I will print this up and distribute it.

Pinkie’s Brew has never been more gypsy.

One of those dumb moments from the show that got stuck in my head.

Just add ground beef, apprentice.

An important chart showing when soon-to-be parents are doing it.

Probably the best dog costume. You all can stop trying now. Seriously.

The heroes of Retsupurae team up for one climactic battle!

I am confused as to what Hideo Kojima is doing on twitter. Not like, why he has an account, but just what he’s doing. In general.

In case you needed a reminder about how awesome Three Word Phrase is, here you go.

SPIN, DOG!

Here’s some really damn cool Pokemon art, if you’re into that. I am.

That looks really relaxing.

Anyway, those are the links you’re getting. Bye!

That EA Grand Slam Tennis 2 sure is a tennis game, huh guys?

I mean, I like me some Tennis Games, to be sure. When I played Virtua Tennis 4, I was blown away (IGN.com) by how much fun I had. So I heard this was coming out with some sort of crazy stick controls, and people seem to think EA can make a sports game once and awhile, so I thought I’d give it a try.

Can I just say I hate the EA Sports way of doing things? I have not booted up an EA Sports game that I did not feel had a terrible menu and was completely uninviting. Grand Slam Tennis 2 is the first of these games on 360: you’d think they’d put more time into that shit. Then again, I guess they’re just expecting everyone to have played some other EA sports game at some point. I don’t know. Anyway, all the menus and shit are really not intuitive, and it will often throw like three screens of shit at you when it should really put all that info on one screen.

Once you get into the game, though, it’s fine, if not amazing, game of tennis. The “total racquet” control using the right stick is fine. It takes some getting used to, but it’s not a big deal. It also did feel kind of unique and got me into the game a little more. I never had anywhere near the control I have in a Virtua Tennis or Mario Tennis, though. I feel like I know those games well enough to always put the ball right where I wanted. I never quite got the hang of how to mix up my shots in this game. The game does offer button controls as well, but why am I not just playing Virtua Tennis at that point?

The campaign or whatever you call it tries to mix itself up by giving you little achievements during each match. It’ll be like “try to have a winner after a dive!” or something dumb like that. It also suggests you boost the number of sets you play per match in order to unlock more achievements. This is fucking insane. Anyone who has ever played a tennis game knows you do not want to play a virtual tournament where it takes more than one set to finish off a random player. It takes FOREVER otherwise. Save that stuff for the dramatic finals or something. Anyway, since these achievements did not always fit with my play style, I found them pretty dumb. I’m a rush the net power player, you know? I’m just not going to do some of those things, even on defense.

The commentary, too, was nice, but really repetitive. The first few games you play, it feels way, way better than normal commentary in a game like this. Very natural, and so on. McEnroe rambles on about strategy relating to what’s happening, and it feels super awesome. It’s like you really are playing a tennis game on TV! Except, again, when you lean heavily on one strategy like I like to do, there’s only so many things he has to say about power players who tend to rush the net. And once those are exhausted, which will happen before the end of your first tournament, I guarantee it, it’s not nearly as magical anymore.

If you want a Tennis game, buy Virtua Tennis 4. I bet it’s super cheap now, and that game rocks. I mean, I suppose EA Grand Slam Tennis 2 is a good first effort from EA. It’s certainly competent. But it lacks variety, and what it tries to do well, like the different controls and the commentary, just don’t hold up over long play sessions. It’s a shame, but it’s a good start, certainly.

I’ve got all these ramblings, and I’m going to use them, dammit! Watch out!

In preparation for Brer getting here, we have combined all beds in this house into one SUPERBED! SUPERBED! It’s pretty nice! The one smaller bed is apparently firmer, which is good for CJ, and since we’re dog-sitting, we had plenty of room for extra dog last night. Lots of room. Hopefully it’ll fit all three of us. Heh, mostly because if it doesn’t, well, we can’t really fit a bed that’s much bigger in there, so, uh… heh…

Today CJ and I went disc golfin’. I only won by a single stroke, though. I am a terrible disc golf teacher type person. In any case, though, it was a really nice time! I got some play coins to unlock shit in Revelaitons, and we threw discs about… it was a nice afternoon. What I really like about it, though, is that it’s a workout, at least a little, but it’s not exhausting, you know? I finish, and I don’t feel like garbage. It’s nice to get fresh air and exercise without feeling like garbage. Wow, me, getting fresh air and exercise. Crazy.

When I went shopping with my mother, I got new and improved bangles. I like bangles. Dunno why. I think it’s because they’re so simple. Anyway, I got some like… serious ones now. The only problem is, unlike the ones I was wearing which I could barely fit on my wrist, these fit me. That means I can put them on and remove them with relative ease. This has turned into a bad thing. I am playing with these damn things all the time, and they make a satisfying clinking noise. I’m sure I must be pissing all sorts of people off with these things. Or maybe I’m just imagining pissing people off. Either way, I’m going to continue wearing them, so there.

Okay, so I have this plan, alright? I’m not going to tell you about it because that is super lame. But I have started to form this scheme plan in my head over the past few days. My mind is always working on it, it seems, fleshing it out. That means I’m interested, you know?
But here’s the thing: this project would be a huge commitment to actually do. Like, a huge commitment. I’d have to be really dedicated to get this done. It would be a lot of work, and I’d have to improve on skills I barely have.
It would be good for me.
But it seems really lame to start this if I’m not going to follow through, and it just kind of FEELS like something I wouldn’t follow through on, you know? So I’m nervous about starting on it.
That’s probably about the dumbest reason not to work on a neat project ever, I suppose.

More later! Bye!

I’ve been playing a lot of Super Monday Night Combat recently. Because, you know. Combat. Anyway, I’m having a lot of fun.

I don’t claim to know what the fuck I’m doing, perse, but it really is a lot of fun. I mean, I enjoyed the way the first MNC was kind of TF2 mixed with DotA. This is more straight up DotA MOBA Lords Management, but it’s got tons of style still. It’s very shooter-y, but most of the real “shooter” classes are the more hardcore ones, and you can be very useful by being less of a crack shot in these things. That’s what makes it so appealing.

I just feel like a lot of the basic DotA things are very simplified in a very accessible way in this game. At least, way more accessible than your DotA 2s or what have you. It even has things like Rune Pages from LoL, but it’s a bit more streamlined, and the game will set you up with “standard” sets most of the time, if you don’t mess with them. Of course, you need to in order to be effective, but, you know.

I love the Combat Girl. She’s like super support healer, which is great. Unlike the Support, she can heal 3 people at once, at a reduced rate. This is, most of the time, preferable for me. Her turrets are weaker and have shorter ranges, but you can throw out a lot of them. And her laser beam… man, that beam is great. That beam lets you snipe people and get kills as a fucking healer. Combat Girl is aces.

The other pros… I just haven’t gotten the hang of yet. I am not completely garbage at using the Assault? But I just don’t know. I don’t know who else is going to fit my play style. I suppose I’ll just have to keep playing and see.

But yeah, it’s a brutal game, but it’s silly and fun. I’m going to keep at it for awhile, I think. At least a little while.

Hi, Mom. Time for me to write a letter to you on a blog that, as per usual, you probably won’t see. It only happens like twice a year. That’s okay, right?

My psychologist said, jokingly, that I was clearly put on this earth to expand your worldview, what with me being so out there in so many ways. I admit my life has gotten… non-standard. It’s all in ways that I am so goddamn happy about, but non-standard, certainly, is a word that could describe it. And you’ve had your issues with it. Who wouldn’t, I suppose.

But in the end, you’re in my court. You’ve come around. You support me in all my crazy endeavors. I mean, I’m baking and cooking you shit for Mother’s day, and I hope you enjoy the crap out of it. It makes me really happy to be able to do that. And I’m helping you with tech stuff, so much stuff, all the time. I’m there for you too. But not in the same way, you know? You always have my back, and you’ll always make sure I can get up from whatever disaster befalls me. You’ll always make sure I have time to do the fun things in life. I can’t ask for anything better than that. I really can’t.

Hey Mom! Thanks. Seriously. Happy Mother’s Day.

Yeah, I walked with the dead, what of it? Spoilers, clearly.

Here’s what I knew about The Walking Dead before I played this game: it has the slow kind of zombies. The main character is a sheriff or something who was in a coma. They go live in a prison at some point. The TV show is different from the comic. It’s in Georgia. That’s it, really.

But, you know, I played it anyway, because everyone was raving about it and it was made by Famous and Video Games. So, you know.

Anyway, I really enjoyed it. It’s just always awesome to see a game be based pretty well completely around talking to people and conversing that makes everything feel so tense and important. When you’re just talking about people’s lives, the game makes that seem important. You feel like you’re bonding with people who you might have to rely on to save your ass later. When people start shouting, it’s way more scary than when the zombies are after you. It’s pretty great!

The way they put the action in there, kind of out of nowhere, does set you on edge though, in an awesome way. You very often are going OH SHIT OH SHIT! and you have to make aiming and stuff happen quickly. There was a “combat” scenario in the game I straight-up failed, and the game continued. The person I didn’t save was saved by someone else, and they’ll remember I fucking suck and can’t protect them. That is so fantastic.

It was a really compelling experience, and while I’m watching CJ play through it, and he’s making different choices, and it’s easy to see how they wrap some choices around to make the basic story work either way, now that I’m seeing it again, it does feel like I had a big impact. I love the percentages at the end. Apparently I made the unpopular choice in several situations, which is interesting to me. CJ and I have yet to make the same choice, too, which is also interesting. Indeed.

Anyway, there is one part that is bullshit. THAT FUCKING BRICK. There are so many way more sensible ways of getting that brick than the way you get it in the game. SO MANY. I WAS SO FUCKING MAD AT THAT BRICK. I wasted a ton of time trying to figure out what I was missing, and why I couldn’t pick it up, but it turns out there was no reason at all: you just can’t get it at that point, even though it’s right there and you know where tools are to get you to it. It’s absurd. Fucking brick.

I’m glad I spent my 5 bucks (to play it on 360 just to piss my two PC gamer boyfriends off. Also because I wanted to play it on 360) on the first episode and I will gladly buy the rest. It’s shaping up to be a good story! I hope it can keep it all up.

Sometimes, people gotta avenge, you know? It’s like, you can’t just sit there and NOT avenge. It’s avenging time. Gotta do it.

Anyway, yeah, I watched The Avengers. Spoilers and shit, probably.

First off, we saw it in 3D. This was totally useless, but CJ hadn’t really seen any 3D movies, so, you know. Novelty. Still, don’t waste your money if you don’t have a reason like that.

Secondly, I was just glad they pulled the whole thing off. The worry about this sort of ensemble movie is that everyone is going to be constantly fighting for screen time and nobody is going to do anything worthwhile, or your favorite dudes are going to get completely lost in the dust. Personally, I felt like they nailed that stuff. I had no problems with all of that at all. I figured what would happen going in was that Tony Stark would steal the show, and he did, but that didn’t leave a void of cool things for everyone else to do, which surprised and pleased me.

Thirdly, it’s great that Hollywood has figured out how to make an action movie that is just genuinely funny and entertaining and at times bordering on touching in a way that’s not stupid and frustrating. Death of SHIELD dude got a little close to being a bit over the top for me, but I felt like they managed to handle that in a way that didn’t get too sappy, which was appreciated.

Anyway, what this movie showed me, more than anything else, is that Captain America is screwed. He has 0 mobility! The Captain can’t do anything useful! He was left fighting random dudes and saving civilians during the big fight. If only he had a super jump or something! I dunno! He’s so strong, but he can’t get to the fight, so what’s the use? That sucks. Poor Captain of the America.

Anyway, those are mostly my thoughts? I don’t have a lot of thoughts about it. It was just flat-out entertaining and fun, but really didn’t do anything particularly novel or whatever. The end. It’s a movie you should see. So see it, I guess? That’s a good idea.

Well, the semester is over besides the tedious job of finishing up all my grading and turning in final grades. HOW DID IT GO?

Pretty well, I suppose.

This semester was most definitely a learning experience all around. I was expanding out of my comfort zone, teaching new stuff and generally being way the fuck more busy than I ever have been before. Well, mostly, anyway. I felt like I learned a lot, and I feel like next semester will be way more productive and useful than this one for my students because of what I learned. I do.

The biggest hurdle this semester was, totally, dealing with teaching my two “remedial” classes. It was just an experience I had never really had before, besides some one-off tutoring sessions with people at SEMO, and it was way different. I was dealing with people who had basically no confidence, and who did not understand things that, to me, seemed so very, very basic. I get why many people would not understand how to use a lot of the basic techniques of writing which I teach in most of my classes, but stuff like being unable to figure out what the main idea of a paragraph is? It’s kind of… weird. It requires a completely different style of teaching that I never really associated with college before. At the same time, in a lot of ways, it doesn’t. It requires you to treat them like they know what they’re doing, and force them to do things they’re uncomfortable with, in order to get them to the point where they can actually do what they need to do in order to survive. Forcing my reading class students to try to use these skills outside of the multiple choice format of the textbook was one of the smartest things I did. They struggled and hated it, but it gave them actual experience. It was nice. Same with my essay class. I graded them the same as anyone, just required shorter papers over easier topics. But I still pushed them to have transitions, and to write things that were worth reading. I didn’t give them a pass because they were struggling and, for the most part, they stepped up to the challenge.

Really, though, this semester was all a lesson in time management. Keeping track of four classes, what I’m doing in them and what is coming up, is hard! I normally just trust my brain to sort that stuff out, but with multiple classes on different time schedules doing similar things, I got confused pretty often. I am going to take WAY better notes next semester. Definitely.

Anyway, as much as I’m dreading a summer working at Kohl’s, I am glad it’s over and I can take a breather from teaching for awhile. It’s fun, it’s worthwhile, it’s what I want to do with my life at this point, but damn, is it draining sometimes. Taking a little while to do mindless work and hang out with boyfriends and stuff is exactly what I need.

I went shopping for clothing with my mother today.

It was potentially scary experience, you know? There’s just such a history of her trying to force me into masculine clothes, and even once I was living full time, trying to force me into very masculine but technically female clothes so as “not to upset anyone” and all kinds of ridiculous bullshit. I didn’t want this to be fighting about that sort of thing, and it seemed like it was going to be, as she’s super-concerned, for whatever reason, about what I am going to wear to that high school reunion. She even voiced concern that I would be “kicked out” which is ridiculous.

But it wasn’t that at all. I mean, I was as picky as I ever am about clothes and things of this nature, and she constantly had different ideas about what I should wear, so it was a lot of “No, mom, I don’t think that’ll work,” and so on… but we… you know. Went shopping for clothes as mother and daughter. And when we were done, it was kind of surprising to me how much that meant to me. She wasn’t going in there with some agenda. She seriously just wanted me to look good. We were doing a thing that mothers and daughters do.

My mom has done a lot of accepting, to be sure, but this… this just… it felt like proof, as opposed to just hearing it from her. I was in the women’s dressing room, trying stuff on, discussing these things, and again… it was… normal. It wasn’t awkward. It was just a thing we were doing.

Every time I think about it, it’s even more amazing to me. Maybe that’s silly.

Thanks, Mom.