I finished Snapshot by Linda Barnes
That said, good as the last Sunny Randall
I first tried this series out because the detective plays steel guitar (and in fact, that was the name of one of the books in the series)…
You know, I also have to wonder how many people are a bit taken aback by how many series detective novels I consume. 🙂 Well, the next book on my vacation stack is an Andrew Greeley generational saga, so we’ll see how all the game geeks cope with that…!
If we are what we eat then dogs are kibble,
All bounding grains and some
Substantial portion of lamb.
And us? Walking past a park we are all
Gangly asparagus and sly cabbage,
Chicken more often than we’d like,
All too often greasy fingered from fast
Eatings, while time takes away time.
Society ladies folded and folded over
Canapés, some revealing dustbin leftovers
And a tasteless heart, others housing
A surprise of flavor within complexity.
Powerful men made of the juices
Of dried up things, raisins and plums,
Often sniffed and judged wanting, with
All the taste in the bouquet.
Working men, beefy and blood red
Hearty from the day and from the dirt,
With a dash of potatoes behind their ears
And a dash of hops to keep their heads up.
Last, a surprise, the girls from both coasts,
Willowy to haggard, caught in their seasons,
Rose and primrose, orchid, dandelion,
Haughty, wondrous gaudy, tasteless flowers.
– July 8th, 2001
Just the other week, while I was in Korea, I faced the interesting task of explaining to Korean native speakers the phenomenon of “texting,” asking whether there was imilar jargon and slang being used in korean Internet-speak. They said that yes, there was, but they were intensely amused by the linguistic distortions inherent in the best SMS and l33t.
And now I see that the classics are getting translated. I dunno, as a former English major I ought to be horrified, but instead, I find charm in these:
Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice,” which describes hunky Mr. Darcy as “fit&loadd” (handsome and wealthy). the ending to Jane Eyre — ‘MadwyfSetsFyr2Haus.’ (Mad wife sets fire to house.) Hamlet’s famous query, “To be or not to be, that is the question,” becomes “2b? Nt2b? ???” John Milton’s epic poem “Paradise Lost” begins “devl kikd outa hevn coz jelus of jesus&strts war.” (“The devil is kicked out of heaven because he is jealous of Jesus and starts a war.”)
In particular, color me unsurprised that Bleak House reduces down to a couple of sentences. That’s Dickens for ya.
Blog posts may slow down somewhat. I intend to read, visit family, play guitar, and sketch, not necessarily in that order.
The Making Light blog does open threads every once in a while. Consider this to be one. Post whatever, have a conversation amongst yourselves. Argue politics and religion.
Think Like a Player! provides us with this handy list derived from the not-dead-yet-dammit world of interactive fiction:
The Player Doesn’t Know What’s Important “…authors know what’s important in the text that’s mentioned and players don’t…”
- Don’t bury relevant messages
- Don’t make the player have to remember too much
The Player Doesn’t Think Your Game Is Special “…games are special and magical and beautiful to the authors. To the players, on the other hand, they’re exactly the same as the three dozen other games waiting for their attention…”)
- The game must have something cool about it
- This should be the most interesting story to be telling
- Don’t do stupid things out of habit
The Player Can’t Read Your Mind “Important things should be in the game, and things in the game should be important.”
- Puzzle solutions should be conceptually reversible
- The game shouldn’t tell the whole story, it should tell the right parts of the story
