I finally got around to watching Appleseed (the 2004 movie). It was a really strange experience.

I watch a ton of movies, and I watch a lot of animated movies. I’m particularly fascinated by movies that do crazy things, that show the viewer a new world. While I understand that Howard’s End may be a quality movie, it’s unlikely I’m going to flip over it.

But back to my point — I love seeing something entirely new in a movie. So I loved the Matrix, and (like many) was disappointed by the sequels. I didn’t like Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, but I was smiling while watching it, enjoying the sheer head-first energy that showed in its creation.

Appleseed was both good and terrible.

The graphics are beautiful, as great as any I’ve ever seen in an animated movie. There’s a great sense of style: the landscapes are beautiful, if sometimes too shiny (which along with “weight” is a endemic problem to animated films). But the characters are flatter, looking more like traditional cell-shaded animation. And some of the scenes are just amazing, I was floored at how good they looked, they were almost electric to watch. I don’t get that back-of-the-head tingle very often, so it’s notable for that if nothing else.

The downside was that it’s based on an animated series (or possible a comic book?) so there’s a long plot that possibly makes sense in context, but here’s my plot summary, with spoilers:

Deunan’s a soldier, fighting these evil armored dudes (robots? cyborgs?) in a destroyed metropolis. During a reaaaally cool fight scene, she’s trapped but rescued by armored dudes in white suits. They take her to this utopia city.

One of the people who rescued her was a former fellow soldier who got blown up and is now mostly dorky-looking robot parts. In this utopia city, there are two races: humans and genetically engineered clones called “bioriods” who are tweaked. In the utopia, the humans control the army (these humans are anti-bioroid), and there’s this council that works with the supercomputer that controls everything.

New story begins: someone tries to kill Deunan. Her comrade aids and then betrays a regular army/terrorist coup. That coup turns out to have been engineered by the council, who is trying to destroy all humans for some reason. Their scheme is stymied by Deunan, and the utopia city is saved.

There were times during the movie that I was swept up in a scene or even just looking at the city and didn’t care, but particularly during exposition scenes I kept thinking “that doesn’t make sense, how would they have known that at the time? Why would that character do that then, if they knew… whaaaaat?”

By comparison, take “Kung Fu Hustle”. Not as deep — you’re not intended to watch KFH and contemplate the essential horror of man’s inhumanity to man, or whether humanity’s warlike nature dooms us. But it’s a much more fun movie, with the same kind of nutty sense of the world it lives in, and after I’d seen it I felt a lot more happier and satisfied.

So Appleseed: wacky.

Expanding on the bike route thing, here’s the first version of the loop page I’ve been working on. If I’m only duplicating someone else’s work, let me know — I haven’t been able to find any good complilation pages that aren’t 50% dead links.

I know web polls are garbage. And yet on the History Channel’s web page today, I came across this whopper:

Should female troops be barred from engaging in ground combat in all branches of the military?

Wow. That’s a terrible question. The results?

Yes
46%		5810 votes
No
54%		6823 votes

	Total Votes: 12,633

I have two things to say here.

First, women are already in combat. The only issue is whether we acknowledge this or not. They may not serve in infantry platoons, but they’re the gunners in HUMVEE convoys, they’re being ambushed, shelled, bombed, and they’re shooting back. Pretending that this isn’t the case only denies them recognition for what they endure.

Second, barring women from combat means nothing. Do people think that the people ambushing, shelling, and bombing American troops would respect a declaration that female soldiers aren’t supposed to be in combat? Should those women stand around and do their nails until someone comes by and puts the bullet into the forehead up close and personal?

As a country, we need to acknowledge what’s going on — women are already in combat. Combat doesn’t respect artificial distinctions between combat and non-combat designations, and it wouldn’t respect a rule barring them from combat. If you allow women into the military at all, you’ve allowed them into combat. We should give them their due respect.

I’ll update this with miles, etc.

1. Lake Washington. From my house: down to Marymoor (early, before people get up — even then, you’ll be dodging walking clubs/jogging threesomes), N on Burke-Gilman around the top of the lake*, then follow the UW-Seward instructions to get to Lake Washington Blvd, take that to Seward, Seward to Jean Coulon, then take the trail up along the W side of Lake Washington that kicks you out at the I-90 Coal Creek underpass. Added bonus: throw in some Mercer Island loops for extended hill work to hit your distance/hill goals.

* I love the stretch through Woodinville/Bothell early in the morning, when no one’s there and it’s still a little bit cold as you whip through the turns. The poor trail condition (roots! roots! roots!) down to and through the UW is hard. Burke Gilman through Redmond becomes more and more dangerous as morons fill it, to the point where you may as well sit up and soft-pedal it through.

2. Duvall-Snohomish-Monroe-Duvall. I used to ride this all the time when I lived out there. Head out from Duvall and follow the Flying Wheels route. Pretty easy on the hills. Lots of easy rural roads. Only problem is you’re exposed with short shoulders on some curves, which would be scary if there was more traffic. For added fun, you can throw in the loop down to Carnation.

3. Not-so-Chilly Hilly. 33m, ~2600 feet of climbing. Take the ferry out to Bainbridge, do the Chilly Hilly route. Repeat as required to reach your distance goal, or until you die. Beautiful. Also painful as all hell, especially if your friend is (say) 25% lighter than you are and likes to kick your ass up long gradual climbs. Seems like it’s hard to get food/water during the ride.

My experience playing Psychonauts:
Love, love, love (repeat)
Last level: haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate, boiling frustration, near-controller-tossing rage, giving finger to monitor, swearing loudly
Then looooooooove.

The game goes from being fun and challenging to frustrating and nearly impossible in the last level. Disappointing and also baffling — how can someone make a great game and then right at the end take a turn to “awful”? Didn’t someone test it?

One of the best games I’ve played in years. The story is great, the dialogue is outstanding, it’s got a genuinely funny sense of humor, it’s clever, and there’s only one stretch that made me think about quitting… and then the ending’s worth it. Loved, loved, loved Psychonauts, and I wish it all the success and sales in the world.

The state’s ruled that having a license plate with a bible reference on it (JOHN316) is cool. Someone complained and they said “pishaw, that’s dumb, there’s no problem here”. Which, sure, GODSGUD and stuff is all over the place.

So here’s my question — can I get a ruling on whether I can have PAGAN1 or GOSATAN or NOGOD or GODZDEAD or whatever? If it’s cool to proselytize on vanity license plates, then it should be open to everyone, no matter who’s offended by it, right? If the state’s really willing to tolerate controversial vanity plates because they’re in favor of the country’s majority religion, then shouldn’t it be open season for this kind of thing?

And if not, why not?

I saw a bald eagle in my backyard this morning. I was working on my bike, and heard this weird sound — more like a scream than anything. I looked up into the trees to see an enormous white headed bird, and I felt a shock spread from the back of my head as I recognized it from hanging around in Juneau, where bald eagles are much more common.

Then came the crows, yelling after the eagle, trying to take a beak at it. The eagle moved, the crows pursued, a noisy angry mob. The eagle took off, soaring in long, lazy circles way above while the crows gathered in the tops of the trees, calling to each other and complaining.

I stood in the grass, my bike on the stand with pedals off, 15mm wrench in hand, and laughed.

Hamfisted metaphor time: I’ve been having problems putting up with the overhead at USSM, specifically the amount of crap heaped on us as authors. In particular, I’ve lately been told that I “need to take my meds” before writing about baseball, I’m a vile person, blah blah blah, and then today I got a snitty letter from a dude who pointed out a grammar error. His email started off “how about paying a little attention to grammar?”

I have, within arms reach as I type this, a good dictionary, thesaurus, Strunk and White, a set of style guides, a slang dictionary, and a book on modern American usage. I sometimes read them for fun. Saying I don’t pay attention to this stuff because I made one stupid error is exactly the kind of constant sniping that makes me want to stop doing things in front of an audience.

I went out for a ride, and burned around Lake Sammamish. On the east side — saw the eagle again (I assume it was the same one — having seen one so rarely here and knowning it took off in that direction from my house). This time it was chilling in a tree, all by itself, and there were no crows anywhere near it.

(found in the sidebar of an old article I just read)

Response card, which might be 2″ by 2.5″‘ reads

Yes, I want to start building powerful, granite-hard hands, wrist, and forearms.

I enclose check (or money order) for just $9.95.

Send to me immediately the KARATOK Grip Developer to try in my own home. If not delighted, I may return the KARATOK in 10 days for full refund. No questions asked.

Margrace Corp, makers of the KARATOK Grip Developer, appears to be gone. Hopefully the centuries-old Japanese karate-training techniques it was based on have not been lost.

It’s great. I don’t even like platformers and I love this game. It’s getting great reviews so I’ll skip that.

I’ve been following this game’s long development for years, because of two people: Tim Schafer, who’s been involved with some other great titles (Full Throttle in particular, one of the greatest games ever, but also Grim Fandango, which was awesome, and Day of the Tentacle) and who you may know, and Erik Wolpaw, who you probably don’t (but along with Greg Kasavin, writes the best game reviews on Gamespot and more importantly wrote Old Man Murray which has gone years without being updated and is still funny).

The thing that’s so great about Psychonauts is that it’s got a sense of humor, like the other Schafer games. It’s legitimately funny: the setting’s funny, the dialogue is funny, there are weird sight gags , satire of computer games, and adult humor.

The relationship between increased development costs and creativity’s been discussed elsewhere, but essentially the more money it costs to push out a game, the safer it is. I have enormous respect for companies that continue to do innovative and crazy things with their games (like Nintendo) even if I don’t play them, and for games like Psychonauts that display such care and attention in every detail that even when I’m frustrated with a particular puzzle or level, I can appreciate the effort and creativity they poured into it.

So go check it out. Support this kind of work.

• We’re currently experiencing unusually high call volumes
• We appreciate your patience
• We’re doing everything we can to answer your call promptly
• Your call is very important to us
• Someone will be with you momentarily
• An agent will be with you shortly

I wonder, while listenting to the loop again, if the people who record these short lies think about this as they’re recording them. “My voice will be played over and over saying things that are clearly not true, angering countless callers… maybe I should reconsider this job?”

Do they ever have personal trust issues? “Baby… you know I was only out playing poker with the guys.” “You told me I was a valued customer and my call would be answered quickly too, you bastard!”