yet more questions

[jazzfish]

Here endeth Mike Ford: Occasional Works, and the glory of the world is less than it once was. "In This Hour," on dealing with stress (posted in the wake of Katrina) is particularly recommended. "A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance. To live in one of those times need not mean turning one’s back on the other."

Thanks to everyone for useful PS2 game suggestions. Based on sheer cheapness I'm probably going to keep my eyes open for Metal Gear Solid 3, Ratchet and Clank (and Jak and Daxter), Katamari of course, and Ico/Shadow of the Colossus. Dark Cloud, Disgaea, and God of War are also likely candidates.

Still working my way through questions.

From merseine0613:
1. What is your favorite movie (or book... your choice) of all time?

Hm. The movie I watch most often is probably Heat. I'm not sure if it's my favorite; it's got aspects I'm not fond of. It'll do until another comes along.

2. Which superpower would you most want to have?

Super-motivation. Instead I'm super-lazy.

. . . okay, flying would be pretty awesome, too.

3. Would you rather have unlimited money or unlimited time?

With unlimited money I'd be able to quit my job, and thus have a lot less limited time. On the other hand, I don't really need a lot of money, but I could certainly use (or "waste") all the time I can get. (That's not an answer, but in my defence the question is prone to my kind of overananlysis.)

4. What accomplishment are you most proud of?

This question always makes me twitch. I am consistently hard-pressed to come up with "accomplishments" of which I'm proud, because at the end of the day I've "accomplished" very little beyond making it through another day / week / year.

But I aced Len Hatfield's course on Ursula Le Guin, despite it having the workload of a graduate seminar and despite it being during my first semester back at full-time status. That I'm proud of.

5. You're stranded on a desert island with all your favorite games. How many would there be and which one would be played most often?

I'm assuming this involves being stranded with enough people to play said games with. The 'Geek says I've got nine games listed as 9 or above ("always want to play this"). That list could probably do with some tweaking, but 10-15 is a good guess. Of those I suspect it'd be either Fairy Tale, because it's light and fast, or Sleuth.

---

From plumbob78:
1) What made you choose Virginia Tech?

Laziness. I knew (and liked) an awful lot of people who were already down there, and they had a good engineering program. I did go down and visit before submitting my official acceptance, but I don't think anything I'd seen would have changed my mind about going there.

2) What's the accomplishment/work you are most proud of?

The work I'm proudest of is Orders, a play I wrote half of on the way back from my first visit with my extended family in five years. Needs polish badly (I've gotten excellent feedback from jonny_law that wants incorporating, for starters) but I still think it's the best I've done this far.

3) What's the hardest decision you've ever made?

The hardest thing I've ever done was walking away from my parents almost exactly ten years ago, and moving to Blacksburg. I'm not sure I've made any decisions that were harder than that. I was trained in conflict-avoidance from an early age and tend to not make decisions until they get made for me.

4) What's the first thing you remember?

The first thing that comes into my head, you mean?
(No, the first thing you remember.)
Oh . . . No, no good, it's gone. It was a long time ago.
(You don't take my meaning. What's the first thing after all the things you've forgotten.)
Oh, I see . . . I've forgotten the question.

Coming into the apartment in Germany for the first time. The painters were still painting the walls. I would have been a few months shy of three years old at that time. (I am no longer sure whether I actually remember this, or whether I've thought about it and told people about it so often that I'm just remembering remembering it.)

5) You want fries with that?

I have actually never had to ask this question. It was always "You want to make that a combo?" or, if it already was a combo, "You want to Bonus Size (tee-em) that for thirty-nine cents more?" Later it was "Do you have a Preferred Reader card?" and, still later, "Would you like to save twenty-five percent off your next purchase by signing up for our email newsletter?"

("Waldenbooks New River Valley Mall, this is Tucker, how can I help you? No, I can't put you through to Electronics. Wal-Mart is below us in the phone book.")

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From elvenyukiryu:

1. What is the translation of the latin that you put on the envelope of the letter you sent me? (yes still driving me crazy)

*laugh* After I'd written it, I realised I'd screwed up the verb endings. Literally it's "We're having a wonderful time; we wish you were here with us." Should have been "Experio" and "Volo" instead of "Experiamus" and "Volamus."

2. Who is your favorite jazz artist and why? (because of your name)

I own a whopping three jazz albums: Miles Davis's _Kind of Blue_, John Coltrane's _A Love Supreme_, and the Turtle Island String Quartet's _Skylife_. (Well, plus Iain Ballamy's jazz-ish score for _Mirrormask_.) Of those my favorite is _Kind of Blue_. So, I guess that would be Miles.

The username, though, comes from a book by Howie Green that scathach made me read, um, eleven years ago.

3. Was it really hard to come up with questions for all the people who answered for your journal?

Yes. Gah. It's been rewarding reading people's answers, though, so absolutely worth it.

4. If you could go anywhere where would you go?

Home. Only I'm not sure where that is.

I want to visit Wales and London and Rome and northern Italy and Bavaria, and other places in the east and south that I don't know about yet. I want to see friends that have scattered to the four winds.

5. What is the capital of Assyria?

Eh? I don't know that! Aaaaaaah!

It's Aleppo, right? Oh, Damascus . . . and that's the capital of Syria, anyway, and the name Assyria clearly means "not Syria." Hm. "region on the Upper Tigris river, named for its original capital, the ancient city of Assur." So, there you go.

Comments

[shadowsong.livejournal.com]

I've decided I want pattern recognition for my superpower. Basically, given the internet, I can pick out valid information and trends. This would also make me a badass tactician.

What sort of jazz would you recommend for someone with an irrational dislike of saxophones and of songs without a logical, predictable rhythm?

[jazzfish]

. . . yeah, that would be pretty cool. Well, super-pattern-rec, since pattern-rec is basically all human brains /do/.

Um. Based on my limited experience, definitely stay away from Coltrane. (He's a saxomophonist, and _A Love Supreme_ is beautiful but you can't dance to it.) The Turtle Island stuff is rather good and definitely has a beat. Sometimes it's a complex one that takes you a bit to recognise but it's there. Strings in general will probably be good for you.

[ndkid.livejournal.com]

If you like, I can ship you a bunch on indefinite loan... while I enjoy Disgaea, I doubt I'll pick it up for a replay anytime in the immediate future, and I'm sure I can part ways with at least one Dynasty Warrior version, and I could hand off Soul Caliber II, since I have Soulcaliber III... oh, and Resident Evil 4, which is rather unlike any other of the series, since it's more Invasion of the Body Snatchers than anything else.

[jazzfish]

I'm alright for now but thanks.

I have an intense aversion to the Resident Evil games. They're scary. That control scheme is the most frightening thing I have ever had the misfortune to experience.

[ndkid.livejournal.com]

*laugh*
So true. Nothing like a game that makes zombies hard to evade by making evasion hard.

[jameshroberts.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure the capital of Assyria was Nineveh.

[jazzfish]

Once it got famous and sold out, yeah. /Real/ Assyrians lived in Assur.

[fuzzyamy.livejournal.com]

Heat is also the movie I watch most often. Holy crap, I love that movie. "Procedural guy films," is how I've heard Michael Mann's stuff described, and it may well be true. Also, I picked up the phrase, "elevated experience of his life," from the director commentary from Heat, and now I use that to describe how I sometimes feel about science.

[jazzfish]

It really is an amazing film. So many things done so well. The opening scene was what got me last time I watched it. You get introduced to the characters very quickly but with enough detail that you know who's who. In particular there is something about Waingro's thirty seconds that just makes you not like him at /all/.

There are a couple of pieces on the soundtrack that grate on me but most of it is equally amazing.

I should really sit down and watch the commentary, now that I have the ginormous two-disc edition.

("You proud of me. What you proud of me for?" Breedan's chracter arc gets me every single time.)

[plumbob78.livejournal.com]

You score infinity +1 bonus points for quoting Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. I like Heat, too. It's been far too long since I've seen it.

[jazzfish]

Those are two of my all-time favorite movies. I'm also exceedingly partial to the play of R&G.

[jsciv.livejournal.com]

Did I ask you if you wanted to ask me questions?

You did not.

[jazzfish]

1) How's life treating you?
2) Ever thought of going back into tabletop RPG design?
3) You still singing at all?
4) What's the worst thing about California?
5) What do you want a do-over on?

[lilac-breeze.livejournal.com]

I definitely think you'd enjoy both Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. And the Katamari games; those are awesome and tons of fun. Most of what I play are RPGs and I seem to recall you saying you didn't want text-heavy games, correct? So, um, that kind of makes it difficult. ^^; Try Disgaea, certainly. I think you'd really enjoy the humor in it, and the battles are a lot of fun.

[jazzfish]

Ico was absolutely amazing when I played it, um, four or five years ago.

It's not so much text-heavy, though that's a part of it. ("Press A repeatedly" is /not/ gameplay.) The other part is the tedious leveling-up process, and the endless nigh-identical not-very-difficult-or-fun battles. It seems that the tactical RPGs have solved both these problems. Fire Emblem introduced the really annoying thing of having to make sure that the character who needs the XP gets the hit, though, which is frustrating when someone gets an unexpected killing critical. But I'll be trying out Disgaea, definitely.

[desfido.livejournal.com]

re: B4 I totally know what that's like. However, I'm almost entirely sure that I'm only remembering remembering and not actually remembering mine. I also recently found out that it may be from up to three months later than I thought the latest time it could be from (which may not sound like a big deal, but since I previously thought that it could be from no later than nine months, is (IMHO)).

Also, I think that under the rules, this qualifies, and I'm totally looking at this post funny, so hit me up with some questions. I'll dig up and review my answers to the questions Ross and Kelly gave me three million years ago, and do a post sometime in the next few days while procrastinating about my proofs for Math 290 (which are clearly written by someone who has had a lot of CS, according to the GTA: when she looked at what I had so far this afternoon, she immediately asked if I was a CS major).

Also, on the topic of PS2 games, are recommendations for PS games also sought? Even if the actual title isn't remembered? Because if they are, I recommend that fighting game Joe had, where you played little kids, and chucked things at each other. It was awesome.

Poi Poi, and yeah, it was nifty.

[jazzfish]

1) What did you learn from your time in Blacksburg?
2) What was the worst part about Jefferson?
3) How well do you get along with your family?
4) What's your second-favorite movie, and why isn't it your favorite?
5) What's something I ought to know?