Suboptimist
I’m not quite a pessimist. I’m more of a suboptimist.

Trust me, I’d like to talk about what’s going on in Gaza, but I swore to myself that I would steer clear of talking about Israeli-Palestinian politics in polite company. It’s killing me. Let’s see how long it takes for me to break down.

One of my Christmas presents was the video game Mirror’s Edge. I finished it tonight. I’ll share my thoughts.

You play as the character Faith, a “runner” in a future totalitarian city-state like thing where citizens are under constant. Your job is to run goods from point A to point B in an extralegal manner, keeping primarily to the rooftops. Generally, the cops leave you alone. Faith, however, discovers corruption in City Hall, and now she finds herself as public enemy number one trying to save her sister who has been framed for killing a prominent mayoral candidate.

The game works pretty well as a concept. It’s the kind of game I’ve been waiting for for some time. The game focuses more on running away from enemies than confronting them. I like games where running is the object of play. It doesn’t work well beyond this though, and the game has numerous shortcomings. In the earlier levels, the acrobatics are interesting and are conceivably within grasp of any athlete. Later in the game, they just seem…bizarre. Complex acrobatics require impeccable timing, and the game can be rather unforgiving as a result, causing some of the obstacles to be more aggravating than interesting. Some obstacles took me upwards of 20 attempts to clear. Once you finally move past an obstacle, there is a sense of accomplishment.

The game has the potential for a good story. However, the components of the story aren’t well put together. The story probably would have been more interesting if it focused more on the life of a runner than the conspiracy theory story, which didn’t even resolve itself.

Visually, the game is stunning, and it’s certainly worth playing at least once. There are rumors on the internets that a Mirror’s Edge 2 is in the works. I think they have a good foundation here. I just hope they improve on it. I’d give it a 7/10.

With that rating, I feel no urge to hang onto to it for too long. I’ll probably trade it in and pick up Fable 2 (assuming I can find someone to co-op with) or Soul Calibur IV on the Xbox 360. Right now I’m playing a fair amount of LittleBigPlanet on the PS3 with Emily.

I’ve come to loathe MMORPGs. I used to love them, now I want them to burn. BURN.

This post is not about MMORPGs. This post is about nothing in particular. Yesterday was Christmas, which I spent with my family. It was a pleasant day for the most part. Dealing with the massive amounts of snowfall last night wasn’t great, but otherwise it was good. My family usually sees a movie on Christmas day. Last night we chose to see Valkyrie. Anyone who says the movie sucks is a communist. By my appraisal, it’s one of the best movies of the year. The major criticism of Valkyrie is how Tom Cruise sticks out like a sore thumb as the sole American amongst a team of seasoned British actors. I recognize that it was a little jarring at first, but the other options weren’t any better: either Tom Cruise could fake an accent (either English or German), or they could have cast someone else. The former would have been terrible. British actors rarely fake accents. Cruise would have looked even more retarded if he was the only one. The latter wouldn’t have worked either, in my opinion. All the actors chosen looked like the men they represented (Cruise himself is the spitting image of Stauffenberg). I don’t know. I thought the movie was great.

In other news, I got a rice maker.

Yes, it’s been too damn long since I’ve updated the blog. I’ll do better. Seriously, this time I mean it, even if all I do is comment on stupid Salt Lake Deseret Tribune News posts.

I’ve always felt I was comfortable with death. I was introduced to it pretty early on. I’ve had several people close to me die. They were old and sick. To me, that makes sense. Death is what happens to old and sick people.

My admittedly simple world view was challenged this past week. My good friend and fellow linguistics grad student died in an avalanche last Sunday. It was hard to come to grips with the fact that people my age die so unpredictably.

At funerals, I’m generally the stoic one. I rarely cry at the funeral or upon news of the death itself. Later on (sometimes much later on) I’ll break down randomly. When I first heard of Heather’s death, I spent more time pondering the meaning of death. My conception of death is forged by my Mormon upbringing and my Masonic practice. Pondering this is generally a distraction from the emotional pain of death. Today at the funeral, I ran out of philosophical quandaries to ponder. Today at the funeral, I shed actual tears.

Heather loved to dance. She would dance spontaneously, even at times when it seemed to me to be inappropriate. A beautiful hymn was played — “Lord of the Dance”, set to the tune of the Shaker hymn “Tis a Gift to be Simple.” During the fourth verse, I couldn’t contain myself:

I danced on a Friday when the world turned black
It’s hard to dance with the devil on your back
They buried my body, they thought I was gone
But I am the dance, and the dance goes on

Dance, dance, wherever you may be
I am the lord of the dance, said he
And I lead you all, wherever you may be
And I lead you all in the dance, said he

We’ll miss you Heather. Keep on dancing.