The Next Dark Age
We're in it Now
Dracula 3 – The Path of the Dragon
Just to get it out of the way, “The Path of the Dragon” sounds like a Bruce Lee film, not a vampire game. “The dragon” in this case is Dracula himself and “the Path” is the way to find him. To put it simply. Some people might call it the Path to Immortality, but whatever.
The interface (I think that’s what it is called) is very similar to the first two games. But happily, there is also an “objectives” feature to which a player can refer so that she is not required to cheat quite so much. The player-character also gives more hints for things like, “I’d better call the bishop now” so I wasn’t wandering around trying to figure out how to get to the next stage.
While the second Dracula game was a sequel to the first – which featured the Harkers of the Stoker novel, this third game calls the Stoker novel fiction. It does, however, speculate on the extent to which the fiction is based on reality (or game-reality as it may be). It calls Stoker on the obvious – if everyone from whom Dracula drinks became a vampire, why aren’t we are world peopled with vampires?
The PC is a priest sent to Transylvania to investigate whether a local doctor should be canonized. It is 1920 and the town was left in ruins after the war. And, of course, one of those ruins is the castle of Vlad Tepes (as pictured). The original investigation is quickly resolved when the PC discovers the doctor was fighting vampires. But now the Vatican wants an investigation into the existence of vampires. You know, to prove that they don’t.
So the story was good with the usual quirky characters and betrayals. I wish there had been better continuity with the landscape of the previous games. In the castle, for example, I didn’t recognize anything and it would have cool if I had.
I liked that you don’t actually see Dracula until the end. I like that the PC is dealing with science and history and actual people screwing with him for most of the way. Traditionally, Dracula’s minions just freak me out. But when that confrontation happens…well first, the character of Dracula is nothing like he was in the previous games. And he actually has blood on his face. His voice is all wrong and his wording seemed off.
I found the puzzles tiresome, so that’s where I did most of my cheating. One was so annoying, even with the cheat, that I thought I might quit so I read ahead to see if it was worth continuing. Unfortunately, I read how to win the game when I might have figured it out myself.
I liked that when something killed the character, the game sent you back to try again. There was only one time where it didn’t help – I had to reload because I messed up something before the return point.
Overall, it was decent. But I’m looking forward to getting back to the Agatha Christie games.
Star Trek
At times you think you’re watching trick-or-treaters dressed as Sulu (played here by John Cho), or Chekov (Anton Yelchin, making hay with the Slavic accent). But only at times.
I hadn’t thought I’d go to the movies. I haven’t been in a theater since The X-Files last summer.
Once a Year
The Board of Directors is in town for Big Meeting today. We were all asked to clean up our workstations. Carpets were shampooed, so no boxes were allowed on the floor. I even dusted my Legos:
Don’t they look cute by my very official-looking certifications?
I really took the pictures so that my mom would believe that My Room is All Clean.
About Leonard Cohen
My brother and I discovered Leonard Cohen in a Christian Slater movie. Pump Up the Volume, 1990. Actually, that’s also where we discovered Concrete Blonde. Seriously, folks, that was the best soundtrack of my teen years – including everything from the Brat Pack.
Anyway, sometime last year, Scott picked up a two disk compilation from Cohen. I borrowed it and never gave it back. There are songs I am still trying to figure out.
The Chicago Tribune ran an article today about Cohen that said his masterpiece, Hallelujah, has 15 pages of verses as written (as opposed to recorded). This YouTube clip has some of the (new? alternate?) material:
Cohen is going to be in town this week. We thought for five seconds about getting tickets, but concerts aren’t my favorite thing and they started at $250.00. But seriously, 15 verses? I am going to be meditating on this guy for the rest of my life.
Now excuse me while I get on the Internet to find the entire text and try to analyze it like The Rime of the Ancient Freakin’ Mariner. (Was it Rime or Rhyme in the Ancient Mariner?)
Anne’s Chopped Salad
I made a chopped salad for dinner. My mother asked where I got the recipe.
“There’s no recipe. It’s a salad!”
OK, fine. For your amusement, here’s the salad for lazy people that are also picky eaters:
1 bag of romaine lettuce – because I don’t like that goofy “field greens” stuff
1 package Purdue Short Cuts (the pre-cooked and sliced stuff), oven roasted
1/2 package reduced fat blue cheese – I forget the brand
Some shredded carrots
One cucumber
Croutons
Craisins
Salad dressing of choice – I used reduced fat Hidden Valley Ranch
So. First I dump the bag of lettuce into my biggest mixing bowl. Then I cut up the cucumber the way my daddy taught me (before seedless cucumbers were invented). Use a carrot peeler to peel the skin-
I read somewhere that if you are not eating the skin of the fruit/vegetable, that organics are really unnecessary because the bad chemical-whatever doesn’t get through to the actual vegetable. I just don’t enjoy the texture of cucumber skin.
Then slice it in half, long-ways. Take the utensil of your choice and dig out the seeds. I once used a spoon, but am now too lazy to walk acroos the kitchen to get one. So I used the knife, making my mother happy about washing one less thing. My father would hate it because he is convinced that I am going to slice off a finger, the way I cut produce. Good thing he didn’t see me with the chicken and the kitchen scissors. Once the seeds are out, slice in half long-ways again, then chop. Repeat for the rest of the cucumber.
Toss in shredded carrots. I just bought a bag, but I am not above using my baby Cuisinart for the job.
Add bag of chicken. After I used the kitchen scissors to open the package, I used them to chop up the chicken a bit further. Because it is a chopped salad.
Add blue cheese. I used less than half the container, in fear of overdoing it. But half the container would have been fine.
Add in some craisins. Enough so the pretty color stands out. Or something.
I mixed the salad up and then filled a bowl so that my mother could take some to work tomorrow. Before croutons and dressing.
Then I added croutons and dressing. The secret, for me, to the salad dressing, is use less than you think you need. Because you can always add more.
Then I mixed it all up and this is what it looked like:
Actually, it looks pretty pale. But that’s what happens when you use ranch dressing. But I thought it was very tasty.
I had a bowl, my mother had a bowl, there was the one I set aside and there was some left over. So I am going to say this makes four bowls of salad. We also had some odd, but good pumpkin bread from a new bakery in town and it was a nice, light spring dinner.
Spring Cleaning
Some people clean out their closets and air the place out. I cleaned out my car. Things I found:
- Notebook from Principles of Marketing (Winter 2008)
- Notebook from Operations Management (Fall 2008)
- Every insurance card my car has ever had, including the temporary one (April 2003)
- Every annual registration my car has ever had (April 2004)
- Dried out container of car wipees – you know, like Lysol wipes, but for the car
- The first hat I ever bought, to go with the first sun roof I ever bought (April 2003)
- Mapquest directions to Nicki and Jerry’s house (December 2007)
- Sunscreen stick (date unknown)
- Water damaged book by Richard Feynman – my mother left it in the passenger side door
- Various parking lot tickets for my allergist’s office
- Business card and list of needed documentation to re-finance my mortgage
- Liz Phair cd in Trans Siberian Orchestra case
- The Joshua Tree in Liz Phair case
I was expecting to find a pair of summer loafers that I lost last September, but no luck.
Anyway, the clutter is gone. Which, of course, doesn’t mean the car is clean.
Dropping Books
I can’t tell you when I last put a book down for real. So as not to finish it and start something else.
Wait..ok, I can. Bill Clinton’s autobiography. And the Alison Weir about Mary Queen of Scots. And that other one about Queen Victoria’s death.
But I am going back to those. Every single one. Someday.
I read five or six chapters of Alice Sebold’s book, The Almost Moon, and was so disgusted that I dropped it. I am not going to finish it. It is going straight to the pile of donations for the library book sale.
What went wrong here?
Nevermind. This is not worth lamenting. I have got to stop choosing material based on what all the books clubs are reading.
But you know, I really chose it because I read Sebold’s first two books – The Lovely Bones and Lucky, the memoir – and enjoyed them both. My to-be-read bookcase is filled with material that I chose because I liked the author’s other books. Ann Patchett, Solzhenitsyn, Ward Just…and oh, my. So much Philip Roth.
I am disillusioned.
So I pulled Raymond Chandler off the shelf. Should’ve done that in the first place.
Did I Mention I Hate Overtime?
You know – when I tell the Bears that I am tired of overtime, they just go ahead and lose. The Bulls, on the other hand, mock me.
I left for the library without my laptop last night. I decided that I was going to ignore this game and it would be all over by the time I arrived home shortly after 9pm. I sorted some books, listed a few on Amazon and read. It was most pleasant.
When I got home, I found my mother watching basketball. “So what happened?” I ask.
They were in overtime. I rolled my eyes and sat down. I could watch for two minutes.
Double overtime. I think, “Geez, guys. The dog really has to pee and I want to take a shower.” And by that time I was online tracking the Blackhawks, too.
Triple overtime. She let the dog out and I took that shower. I was back in front of the television to see it: Joakim Noah stole the ball and slammed it in. With God as my witness, I will never call him “hair-boy from Florida” again.
I have to wonder, though. Whichever team wins tomorrow night – how are they going to get through Round 2?
I hate overtime.
Race Court with Judge Jason
I do not always agree with Jason Whitlock, the “edgy” Fox Sports columnist. And I am only a semi-regular reader anyway. But he has always had something interesting to say about race as it relates to sports and sports media and lately, diversity has been a big issue at work and at school.
This article is great. Whitlock talks about the difference between jokes, picking on people, and actual racism:
As RAC [racial apology czar], it would not be my goal to legalize idiots to say whatever they want under the pretense that “it was just a joke.” But it is quite evident that a professional, someone with expertise in tasteless humor and racial politics, needs to define the difference between a McNabb lookalike and hoping Tiger Woods serves fried chicken and collard greens at Augusta National Golf Course.
This isn’t just about sports, people. He is referring to the everyday question about the line between what is funny and what is offensive – and the line between what is offensive and what is racist.
The State of Consumption
I don’t imagine this is news to many people, but it seems we haven’t learned anything. MSN Money reported on a study by the National Foundation for Credit Counseling that says :
“Nearly a third of Americans are without savings of any kind outside retirement plans.
A full one-third had not saved anything in the past year for retirement either.
One in four had paid at least one bill late in the past year.
28% of those with a mortgage said they were unaware of the terms.
Of those spending less, about 45% said they saw their newfound thrift as temporary and planned to recapture their old lifestyles once the economy improved.”
So 45% of us aren’t even pretending to think that maybe we got ourselves into this mess and should change our behavior.
We thought this would be a wake up call. But really, I think we just made bargain-hunting the national past time. A new Home Goods store opened near me and I couldn’t even get a parking spot on a Tuesday afternoon. At the Whole Foods two stores away.
I did it myself a couple of weeks ago. I walked into a TJ Maxx needing a last-minute Easter gift for my niece. I was in that shopping center and knew they had a toy section. I walked out with a lovely toy and a Michael Kors tote bag.
It was 55% off! And I needed a new bag for summer!
I guess for me, because I have 30+ years until retirement, the Dow Jones average means less to my spending habits than the fact that I have a job. Maybe that is how everyone else sees it, too.
The Next Dark Age 