2685.5: Abyss
Because it depresses me to report in on failure of employment, I won't say anything else about it until I post a photo saying, "HAY GUYZ HEER IS WHERE I WORKS NOW LOLOLOLOL!!1" [BTW, you guys know when I use chatspeak and "!!1" for anything, you have to take it with a grain of salt, right? That's my shorthand for "I have my tongue in my cheek," or maybe, "I'm making this bucktoothed face like =B now."]
Anyway, I made a Jobfox page, ironically enough after seeing it advertised on one of my side [hence, not ad-free Premium] accounts on Neopets =p It's MySpace for job hunters, I guess, but whatever, couldn't hurt. [MySpace, on the other hand... can't really see how it would help.] Of course, the longer it takes me to finish this damn book, the longer I don't mind not really having anything else on my plate...What kind of cheese is made backwards?
I find that my decreased patience for games extends to movies as well. I found that Vantage Point succeeded [in my mind] almost perfectly in what it set out to do, with only the maybe half-point off for nausea-cam, since I actually recovered fairly quickly by comparison. It wasn't too long, and I found it interesting even though it was basically covering the same half-hour six times. There weren't really any one-liners like in Die Hard, etc., but I didn't care, 'cause it felt too serious for that. I mean, would you expect Die Hard to have cute talking puppies a la Snow Buddies? =p
In contrast, you have something like Harry Potter, for which--no matter how long they might make them--the movies will never have all the bits from the books that every fan wants to see. For that, you don't want a movie, you want a damned SERIES. You want Heroes or Journeyman. In a way, I hate the idea that Deathly Hallows is going to be broken into two movies, 'cause I don't think they'd need to do it, and I hate that people think it wouldn't be as serious as a series than as a movie, but movies aren't really any better, when you get down to quality. So they try to get the best of both words by making longer movies.
Fuck three-hour movies. I don't have the attention for that anymore, especially with having to get to the theatre at least half an hour in advance and having to sit through the same pre-movie garbage they showed for the last movie I saw in the same month. DVDs aren't much better--having them means getting to watch them any time, which means never watching them, like the disused exercise bike in your basement that's saving you money 'cause you don't have to go to the gym now. That's just like my thing about having no deadlines means no incentive to do it. I bought all the shows from my childhood once they hit DVD, but I haven't watched many of them, because having them is enough--they will still be there when I feel I have time to kill instead of when I feel I could be doing something better with my time.
This is where my age shows. When I was younger, I wanted games and movies to drag out, because I had all this time and not much money. These days, even with unemployment, I can buy stuff that's quick entertainment, but unless it hooks my interest out the gate, I'm inclined to treat its length as a minus, rather than a plus. Example: My disappointment with the Nancy Drew DS game--not having realized it was a severe downgrade in difficulty from the PC games--was diminished at having finished the game quickly and, subsequently, not feeling as though I missed anything by leaving it unfinished. Also, despite growing to like the movie adaptation as Best Movie of 2006, I can't for the life of me get through the already short A Scanner Darkly, most likely as it reads like more of an encyclopedic-documentary on druggies than a compelling narrative.
Char would attest to this, too--it's why he likes shmups, 'cause the whole game can be played and replayed in under an hour, for most of them. Final Fantasy and its ilk, if you only have a few hours a week to devote to it, it's too easy to forget where you were and what you were trying to do, and that can ruin the game. [Ever tried playing through FF6 and getting the "only three people in my party" ending? I couldn't manage...] Tetris is almost hands-down the most successful video game of all time. Maybe Bejeweled could topple it, but I doubt it. Tetris, people will play it over and over and over and never get tired of it. Final Fantasy? Beat it, done that. Next?
This is also why CDs cost almost as much--and sometimes more than--DVDs, because people will listen to a CD until it's scratched to hell, but people watch DVDs, what?, once or twice? Maybe more if it's really good, or if it's something in the seat-back DVD player to get the kids to shut the fuck up for the duration of a road trip. People like three-minute songs more than they like three-hour movies, because it's that much faster to digest the entirety of them to the point of memorization. Stand-ups are good, too, 'cause even if they're videos I can have one on and not watch it but be working on something else at the time [besides writing--that makes it harder]. If a movie's on and no one's watching it, it feels like a waste.
Lately, I'll wake up, then lie in bed for a while just thinking. After a bit, I realize I've fallen back asleep =p because I'll have these really vivid dreams within the span of five minutes, even.
I have all kinds of ideas that can't possibly get off the ground. Like, I have this concept of "magic tape" that does something really spectacular, then this scene of the tape owner's desperate attempt to conserve as much of it as possible, trying to tear off the tiniest of tiny pieces from the roll that, once it runs out, there's no more where it came from.
What do I do with that? I have no idea what kind of narrative could be constructed around that concept.
The queue seems to be growing, but I don't really want to post so much at once. See ya in thirty-four hours, mebbe =p
Anyway, I made a Jobfox page, ironically enough after seeing it advertised on one of my side [hence, not ad-free Premium] accounts on Neopets =p It's MySpace for job hunters, I guess, but whatever, couldn't hurt. [MySpace, on the other hand... can't really see how it would help.] Of course, the longer it takes me to finish this damn book, the longer I don't mind not really having anything else on my plate...What kind of cheese is made backwards?
I find that my decreased patience for games extends to movies as well. I found that Vantage Point succeeded [in my mind] almost perfectly in what it set out to do, with only the maybe half-point off for nausea-cam, since I actually recovered fairly quickly by comparison. It wasn't too long, and I found it interesting even though it was basically covering the same half-hour six times. There weren't really any one-liners like in Die Hard, etc., but I didn't care, 'cause it felt too serious for that. I mean, would you expect Die Hard to have cute talking puppies a la Snow Buddies? =p
In contrast, you have something like Harry Potter, for which--no matter how long they might make them--the movies will never have all the bits from the books that every fan wants to see. For that, you don't want a movie, you want a damned SERIES. You want Heroes or Journeyman. In a way, I hate the idea that Deathly Hallows is going to be broken into two movies, 'cause I don't think they'd need to do it, and I hate that people think it wouldn't be as serious as a series than as a movie, but movies aren't really any better, when you get down to quality. So they try to get the best of both words by making longer movies.
Fuck three-hour movies. I don't have the attention for that anymore, especially with having to get to the theatre at least half an hour in advance and having to sit through the same pre-movie garbage they showed for the last movie I saw in the same month. DVDs aren't much better--having them means getting to watch them any time, which means never watching them, like the disused exercise bike in your basement that's saving you money 'cause you don't have to go to the gym now. That's just like my thing about having no deadlines means no incentive to do it. I bought all the shows from my childhood once they hit DVD, but I haven't watched many of them, because having them is enough--they will still be there when I feel I have time to kill instead of when I feel I could be doing something better with my time.
This is where my age shows. When I was younger, I wanted games and movies to drag out, because I had all this time and not much money. These days, even with unemployment, I can buy stuff that's quick entertainment, but unless it hooks my interest out the gate, I'm inclined to treat its length as a minus, rather than a plus. Example: My disappointment with the Nancy Drew DS game--not having realized it was a severe downgrade in difficulty from the PC games--was diminished at having finished the game quickly and, subsequently, not feeling as though I missed anything by leaving it unfinished. Also, despite growing to like the movie adaptation as Best Movie of 2006, I can't for the life of me get through the already short A Scanner Darkly, most likely as it reads like more of an encyclopedic-documentary on druggies than a compelling narrative.
Char would attest to this, too--it's why he likes shmups, 'cause the whole game can be played and replayed in under an hour, for most of them. Final Fantasy and its ilk, if you only have a few hours a week to devote to it, it's too easy to forget where you were and what you were trying to do, and that can ruin the game. [Ever tried playing through FF6 and getting the "only three people in my party" ending? I couldn't manage...] Tetris is almost hands-down the most successful video game of all time. Maybe Bejeweled could topple it, but I doubt it. Tetris, people will play it over and over and over and never get tired of it. Final Fantasy? Beat it, done that. Next?
This is also why CDs cost almost as much--and sometimes more than--DVDs, because people will listen to a CD until it's scratched to hell, but people watch DVDs, what?, once or twice? Maybe more if it's really good, or if it's something in the seat-back DVD player to get the kids to shut the fuck up for the duration of a road trip. People like three-minute songs more than they like three-hour movies, because it's that much faster to digest the entirety of them to the point of memorization. Stand-ups are good, too, 'cause even if they're videos I can have one on and not watch it but be working on something else at the time [besides writing--that makes it harder]. If a movie's on and no one's watching it, it feels like a waste.
Lately, I'll wake up, then lie in bed for a while just thinking. After a bit, I realize I've fallen back asleep =p because I'll have these really vivid dreams within the span of five minutes, even.
I have all kinds of ideas that can't possibly get off the ground. Like, I have this concept of "magic tape" that does something really spectacular, then this scene of the tape owner's desperate attempt to conserve as much of it as possible, trying to tear off the tiniest of tiny pieces from the roll that, once it runs out, there's no more where it came from.
What do I do with that? I have no idea what kind of narrative could be constructed around that concept.
The queue seems to be growing, but I don't really want to post so much at once. See ya in thirty-four hours, mebbe =p