I finished Mass Effect 3 this past Sunday. I played all three games in sequence, one right after the other, as one character, with a consistent role-playing mindset, and I only back-tracked the story once (and then just a couple minutes of story time) when I got ultra-fed up at the bullshit game mechanics at the end of ME2.

The first game was a bit tedious in its side quests but the game part (the shooting) was enjoyable enough and main story was solid and set the stage for the arc to play out.

The second game had the best side quests (loyalty missions for every squad member, all of them great little short stories) and propelled the main arc forward in a good way, but the shooting was poor.

The third game had the best gameplay and some interesting quests, but was mostly concerned with wrapping up the arc in grand fashion, which it did.

As games, I'd have to rate them ME3, ME1, ME2. As stories, ME2 followed closely by ME3, then ME1. But if you compare them to other games, I think they're lacking as games. The gameplay without the stories would be pretty crap. You might ask, why make them games at all? Why not just movies? 

I think there's value in the gameplay anyway, even though it's rather dull. Doing the missions lends weight to the storyline as you propel it forward. You become invested in the characters and their decisions. Because it's your Commander Shepard, wearing the face you chose, fighting the way you want to fight, saying the things you want her to say, it becomes much more personal.

BioWare, the company that makes these games and some other games like them, states its mission as, "[our] vision is to create, deliver, and evolve the most emotionally engaging games in the world." I think it's interesting that they don't emphasise gameplay in this statement, just emotion. I mean, they do a pretty good job with the emotions.

I just wish they'd pay a similar amount of attention to the game. More than once, especially in Mass Effect 3, a battle was stopped at a certain point in order for a scripted event to take place in lieu of defeating an enemy, and when that happens the emotion I feel is "jerked around."

So I'm on the fence about whether BioWare games are my thing or not. I can see the appeal. And maybe Dragon Age: Inquisition, with it's vast, open world, would appeal much more than the ultra-linear Mass Effect story. I guess we'll see.

Right now I'm playing Bayonetta. About which I'll have more to say later, I bet!

Vince got me a ticket to see this the other night for my birthday. 

Five stars, highly recommended, would see again, would name my kid after it.  

And then there's the tech, which is its own 5-star event. 

Seriously, my capsule review is that the script is so tightly woven, the actors so genuine and the moments so heightened, that you really could have done this show with just "lights up, let 'em at it, lights down." and then Danny Boyle (who directed the London Summer Olympics opening ceremony, Slumdog Millionaire, etc. etc.), brings in his visual aesthetic, while being smart enough to stay out of the actors' way.  So you have what seems like an ocean of starlight descending from the heavens, and then you realize it's a million individual antique light bulbs, each on its own cord, each globe housing a visible glowing filament. 

Miller and Cumberbatch complement each other perfectly, and I wish I could have seen it twice. I saw it with Miller as the Creature, an incredibly physical, potentially exhausting role. Victor, comparatively speaking, is British and wears beautiful clothes.  So, seeing it with Cumberbatch as Victor was kind of like watching Sherlock with the volume turned up higher. Not bad, just not wildly different. 

If the Creature hasn't been on stage for a while and we get a little break from the absolute force of nature that he is, we can see Victor's brilliance, his drive for knowledge and desire to dissect the indefinable spark of life. Put them both on stage together, and it's like watching an orca meeting a seal; the seal's really pretty and wonderful in and of itself, but blink and you might miss it. Unless the orca's decided to let you see the seal.  

It gave me a ton of food for thought, which is why I'm digging into a Mary Shelley biography right now. 

It is still playing through the month of November, but hard to find. There are two screenings scheduled in Princeton in the next couple of weeks. I don't think I'm going to have time to see it again, but if you do, you should. ntlive.com. 

A while back, I offered some free portraits.

Anyone recognize this lovely lady? (Who I must appologize to for not doing her justice...)

This weekend I had the pleasure and privilege of participating in a local choral festival with a fabulous, talented, and accomplished director as well as a wonderful organist and several instrumentalists (harp, oboe, flute, and handbells). We had nearly a hundred voices, most members of church choirs in the area. Although it was a large group, singing with an exceptionally skillful director turns even the hard work parts into a pleasure. One comment this man made has stuck in my brain even more than any of the music or technical tips.

He talked a bit during the first part of the rehearsal about why we were there, and about the experience of singing with each other, music created from our voies working together to create a . His comment was, "If everyone got together and made music with other people once a week, the world would be a very different place."

I think he's right. Choral singing is, as most group musical endeavors are, about more than each person making our own music well. It depends on each voice being in tune with their neighbor and fitting their contribution into the group. It means holding back, perhaps, so one voice doesn't dominate or stand out, or so another part comes forward when its line needs to be heard.

It also means letting go of the distractions of judging each others' performance, allowing those thoughts of how someone else should be doing something better or differently melt away into the unified sound that is the choir. It means giving, not only giving of our talents in performance or worship, but giving of our egos to become a unified group and to allow others to join with us as equals in making that joyful noise.

And that, my friends, is peace and harmony that sticks with me long after the final note has sounded.

Started reading Harry Potter's Philosopher's Stone to Ben this morning. After one chapter, he is enchanted - and wanting to know when he will be old enough to learn how to "magic himself into a cat."

http://results.chronotrack.com/event/results/event/event-11080?entryID=11569771&lc=en

2:45:15. I don't really care about the time so much as the fact that I never stopped running.

Apparently, "half run, half walk" is a thing people do in half-marathons. That was what most of the people around me were doing. Unfortunately, if all you're doing is running at an uncannily steady pace (only 0:07 difference in the mile pace between the first half and the second!), that means that you're passing those people a LOT. One guy seemed to be switching between running and walking every 30 seconds toward the end, and it started to feel like he was just running to catch up to me, then walking to catch his breath, then running to catch up to me. But every time he'd pass me, he'd run until he was DIRECTLY in front of me, then stop walking. It was amazingly irritating. Some other people were much more polite when we were similarly situated, and I appreciated that a lot.

I wore an awesome hat, which helped way more than I expected. It kept my head warm, but it also generated at least 9 "I love your hat" type comments, and it's silly, but those comments did way more to inspire me than all of the "good job!" comments that all the people along the way - volunteers, police officers controlling traffic, residents of neighborhoods we ran past/through, and people who just happened to be out for a jog or bike in the opposite direction - were handing out.

I felt wonderful for 11 miles. Mile 12 was rough, but mile 13 was just miserable. The backs of my knees started hurting, which I've never experienced before. The only thing keeping me running was the fact that I knew if I stopped running, I wouldn't be able to start again, and it was really important to me to run the whole way. That actually turned out to be a blessing, because as  soon as I crossed the finish line I started walking, and learned two things: 1) I was right that once I stopped running, I wasn't going to be able to start again, and 2) walking actually hurt a lot more than running at that point. My top speed for the walk back to the school bus that shuttled us to the parking lot was probably about 1.5mph.

For any of you who haven't seen them elsewhere, here are the first three images that I've done NaNoDrawMo 2014:

This first one is "Goblin Minion" the card allows you to play it along with another card. While each individual card is wimpy, this quickly allows you to build a formidible force. I kinda feel like that's a good, quick summary of my thoughts on Goblins, so this card is kinda the ultimate Goblin card imnsho.

The Goblin King. No - there's no David Bowie here. Kinda a challenge because I wanted to make him more 'powerful' than the other goblin images, but he still needed to be... well, crappy. Worn clothing, and nothing of real value. The necklace was supposed to be a copper piece with a hole punched through it and worn as a medallion because of its great value. Don't really think that came across.

Big, dopey, and powerful, the Goblin Champion was fun to draw. I enjoyed tweaking his body shape and trying to maintain the biology of the standard goblin while distorting it enough to make this guy a 'champion'.

It has been craaaazy-windy here for the past 36-ish hours. My windchimes are making the most beautiful racket, and i'm so happy I finally decided to hang them up, and that I hung them on the front of the house so I can hear them loud and clear from the bedroom.
Thanks to a weird teeny health thing I'm currently working around (and shall not be discussing because it's not worth it), I spent all day in bed because the thing I take for said thing knocks me out. 
Tomorrow (Monday), Matt and I I gladly hand the gummint  $85 each so we can get in on that tasty, tasty, sexy, TSA Pre-Check action. Never again shall we endure the bullshit of taking off our shoes and jackets at the TSA line; nor will we take our laptops or our ziplocs of liquids, gels, and aerosols out of our bags.  It's about to be all 1997 in this jawn.
YISSSSSS

Thought we'd have net at home yesterday, turns out the tech will come Monday morning instead. Two days without connectivity. We can do this.

I am eating the breakfast I was fantasizing about last night: omelet on lavash. Mmmf.

Last night we watched the second Hunger Games movie. Roberta and I are thoroughly sucked in and eager to see the new movie and we don't want to see the trailer, hear any spoilers from the book, or otherwise know anything about it. My kid is eager to tell us all about the politics of the movies vs. the books and what her Tumblr peeps are disappointed about— but has neither read the books nor seen the movies. I am resolved not to listen to a word until I've formed my own opinion.

We are getting ready for the house painters. Everything smaller than a breadbox must go to the basement. Soon we will be blue and yellow and green and...