When the day came for the warriors,
They stood up and were counted.

The leader of them stepped forward and looked upon his fellow tribesmen. Boys danced among their ranks, eager to see those they would one day follow. Dark clouds held over their village as they listened to the rain fall upon their forests and their people. The hills glistened in the downpour as the glow over the hills raged on. The men were silent as they thought to themselves of their sons and daughters and wives. The children continued to dance and began to tumble about, warring in their own worlds as the chiseled faces and furrowed brows above relaxed at the sight.

Darkness was across the sky, a blood red hue, but beneath the pouring thunder there was light, shining beyond the sun.

Camera!

So I played the Tomb Raider Underworld demo and found myself begging for mercy. Tomb Raider is exactly the type of game that I love: acrobatic world-exploration with fighting interspersed. But the core of the game is movement around luscious environments with a plethora of movement puzzles that force Lara Croft to pull off awesome looking stunts. And when the events work right, then the game is really cool. Hanging on ledges, leaping to rock outcroppings, doing random backflips, awesome stuff. All of these things are set up in a fashion so that each puzzle is a twisting rail that you've got to navigate to create a beautiful balance beam routine.

However, between each routine the game hates on your movement. There are so many context-sensitive dynamic events that the computer doesn't realize when you're just trying to run around or enter one of these things, when you're near something. I have never experienced before a AAA-game where I pressed a few different direction keys and nothing happened. I don't know if I want to see my character run in place, but not even having that image of the game being confused, it threw me. When I press the forward key, something should happen! The game is a lot of fun when it works, but be cautious about approaching anything while running on level ground. You will be stopped and Lara will attempt to do something and often fail.

In addition, I found the camera far too sensitive. I would set it up how I liked, but moving only slightly would shift camera position dramatically. This is especially an issue in tight spaces, where you might suddenly get a wonderful close-up on Lara that is appreciated for the few seconds before you attempt any movement, and then the camera freaks out. Also, I actually found myself sometimes falling to my death because I would approach a ledge while the camera stayed too low for me to know that I was about to plunge very far down.

All of this is too bad, because the game has a lot of potential. It feels very fluid at times, and animations interacting with the world are very enjoyable, especially the often easy ability to pull off incredible stunts. Perhaps the final game will correct these camera issues and movement sensitivity, but I'm not holding out immense hope for these things to be corrected to the point that I'd buy the game...

We'll see, Lara, we'll see.

Insomnia?

I'm not sure if this is an issue, but is it insomnia if I actually sleep quite well, it's just my inability to go to sleep? I find myself working here in the lab and it's almost 3am, I have to
get up in about 5.5 hours, and I only slept about 4 hours last night? I feel tired, but I find myself slightly strung out, not able to just drop things and leave? Am I allowed to leave? I've got more to do before I sleep but I think instead I should just sleep.

I want to play Mario Super Strikers though, or perhaps God of War, both of which have been preoccupying my random spare moments of late. Both incredibly addictive games for completely different reasons. But files are finished transferring now, so I best do some work and sleep while I can. I'll talk more about my respective experiences with those games in bit.

Mass Across The Charles

I wonder how often people dive off this bridge.
And when they do, what are they thinking?
The challenge set, to enter and escape
Or let winter waters swallow one whole.
Do they see infinity or an end?
Does the city crumble in their vision?
Or conquer the sky?
Do they sweat or freeze with the serenity below.
How long will trees last here?
Laughter, what timeline for that?
There's so much clarity as the darkness cools to black.
How long will these lights last?
Will the wind ever die or the mirror give up?
The water answers,
Its four dimensions clear.
But I comprehend not,
I am lost in this moment.
Forever right now.

A new poem

Do I know what action is?
Sometimes I say the answer's yes.
It's not true, just a presumptuous guess.
And I know it's wrong
Through every note of this song.
From each thought unhad,
Action silence-clad
So don't ask me if I know the way
When I'm taut with decisions
Fraught with revisions
Molded into the fray.

I didn't ask for this confusion,
I thought I've always had questions
But now those questions are absent,
I search and wonder if I've curiosity left.
A million reasons in every direction
I can't be bothered to spell them out,
Stretching far as I can decipher
The way is clear but it's so dark out.
Even still, moves so fluid,
A partial step so long to start
Momentum is strong the action ain't over,
Silence keeps flowing, one part, next part.

These actions continue, seen or not,
In quiet, cacophony, calm or storm.
With winds whistling harsh approval
Of time exploding, reducing form.
So the ripples leave me,
A shell of previous,
True or devious art
I lose the blue,
As nothing grows
Swallow my absence
Tender reaction
That nothing knows.
Way, not way,
Path unwound
Bitter tear I'm sick and tired
You've done your damage, be gone I ask.
Inaction is the same as action,
Priorities, really, that's the task.

Extrasensory perception

I used to believe that I could sense when people were looking at me. In fact, even today I'm not sure whether it was my imagination or not. There was just this other sense when I was younger, much younger, that I could feel eyes looking upon me. I would turn around and people would be looking directly at me. I would glance over to catch eyes upon me. There was never a question in my mind that I had this power of perception, this sixth sense. It never failed me.

But then there came a point when it stopped working. Suddenly I had no idea whether or not people were looking. A sensation of people watching would come and I would turn to see nothing. Or people would turn to see me staring. What happened to what I had? My power of perception disappeared. Was it just simple science that when a little kid starts to turn his head you glance over at him?

I'm a strong believer in science, but I think there are elements of the universe that are beyond our current understanding of said science. Every couple hundred years we realize we missed something simple and yet extraordinary. So perhaps we're missing something big right now, like those things we can't "test". It's hard to justify this, yet I do believe there are things beyond our current understanding of reality. Ghosts, who knows? God, I think so. Everything being related, most definitely.

So maybe I did have this extrasensory perception and then I lost it because of my lack of belief in it or my increasing scrutiny of the ability. Trying to understand it, I lost it. That's how the tao works, after all. What does this say about life? I believe that we need to accept the wonder of it all, and hope that we maintain a sense of awe. Not that we shouldn't try and understand, we just need to love what's here and keep believing, keep stretching our thoughts and imaginations. Because maybe if we believe and keep believing, our thoughts will carry into our actions. And then who knows what might happen.

Election games

So we often call each other liberals and conservatives (I myself would probably/hopefully be labeled liberal), but what exactly do we mean? There seems to be this idea that liberals embrace change, whereas conservatives are, well, conservative and want to keep things the same. However, I view things in a slightly different manner.

I don't believe that liberals really like change any more than conservatives, or conservatives any less than liberals. Rather, I feel that the concept is more about what is change to the individual. A conservative has a more restrained view of how things perhaps "ought" to be. There is a tighter vision of what is normal and what is not-so-normal. Gay marriage, for instance, does not fit within the normal vision of certain conservatives, and as I see it, people are against gay marriage because it doesn't make sense to them, it is beyond them, and would require a change to reality of sorts. The liberal doesn't want to change things by making it legal, but rather sees it as something that was already there and is no change to reality. Therefore, a law would only enforce the freedom of what is already a fact of life.

I would keep going, but I feel a crash coming. Before I crash, I have to mention that election games are awesome. I've now done a turn-based battle for the US, popped other candidates' balloons, and, probably best of all, fought kung-fu against the various candidates. Look up election games. Not very complex, not very helpful about the election, but fun. Definitely worth the search.

Edit: I was really tired when writing this post a couple nights ago, and I don't think I emphasized anything about the election kung-fu game and it's much tougher a game than the other ones, much more soundly built for what it is. It's fun, and you have to actually settle down for a little and learn how to block your opponent and take the open shots where you can and each one definitely gets harder. They're very aggressive opponents (except John Edwards...). You get many choices of the candidates (from about a year ago) and they all have special moves and really seem to have different styles, at least visually. The only way you'd know they were candidates would be from their faces, but it just makes the game all the more amusing when the rest of them is a sumo wrestler or some crazy assasin ninja. Go play it if you like fighting games or just want to see Bill Richardson as a sumo or Michelle Obama kicking some bloody hurt into any and everyone. Funny and fun.

And here it is: Election Kung-Fu