The Blues Room

Schroedinger's Rickroll: A link is implemented to a script with a single argument (the argument being the intended destination of the link). The script's code serves a single purpose: redirect randomly to either 1) the destination listed in the argument or 2) a Rickroll. As the link itself is variable before it gets executed, pre-click, it can simultaneously be considered both a Rickroll and not a Rickroll.

A couple of days ago, I was hanging around with Emmanuel and talking about the new Batman movies and how much more realistically-OTT they happened to be. The topic of Robin and Batgirl came up, and I spent more time than was appropriate trying to figure out how they could possibly be introduced into the new movieverse without taking the whole "applied realism" feel of the new movies and Schumachering it, as well as make them into relatively-realized people.

I've still got a few problems here and there with how to pull it off, obviously, but I probably put in more time than I should have into thinking about this anyway.

In order for Robin to work, they'd need an actual kid, probably about 12 or 13, to play the role, and act accordingly. This is obviously kind of difficult because most kids are pubescent at that age and their voices are bound to change during filming. But you need that kind of youth for the father/son aspect of the Batman/Robin relationship to work. I mean, how could anyone really think Chris O'Donnell could pass for "young enough to require a ward?"

So, yeah. My first thought, purely in terms of appearance (since I only saw him in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and was too distracted by how wrong the movie felt to pay attention to his performance), is Freddie Highmore.

As for Batgirl, my first thought was "old enough to make a relationship between her and Batman plausible, young enough for said relationship to be disturbing." There needn't actually be a relationship between the two. Also, seeing what we have of Jim Gordon's family in Begins, I don't think it's possible to introduce her as his daughter. Rather, I can only imagine that they'd kind of make her a Sakura Kasugano to Batman's Ryu, to make her a kind of Batman otaku.

My first thought, again mostly about appearance since I don't think I've seen any of her movies, is Evan Rachel Wood.

I'd type more, but I think I'm gonna run out of the office for the time being. While this was more or less a passing fancy, I'm curious to hear your suggestions for treatments of these or other Batman characters.

Having just gone through the "I've seen XX out of XXX movies!" meme on Facebook, I decided to look through the envelope I keep my movie tickets in and index them here as they are. Some of them are faded enough that I had to spend a couple of minutes trying to glean off the traces where the printer ink would have been before I could figure them out.

This is by no means a complete listing of the movies I've seen since the first ticket listed--I can tell you immediately, there was a ticket for X-Men in August 2000 that I would kill to have, for sentimental reasons (having it for sentimental reasons, not killing for sentimental reasons)--but it encompasses most of it (I'm pretty sure I saw a lot more movies in the theatre in 2001, like Ocean's Eleven). I can immediately list said X-Men ticket, Crash, and either Jarhead or Batman Begins, depending on which Hollywood ticket that was, amongst the missing. There was also the family outing to Enchanted to which I appear to have misplaced the stub around Thanksgiving 2007. Sometimes things simply get lost when they've been building up in my wallet for a long time, despite my attempts to preserve them.

I'm not sure if this list will be added to in the future, or if I'll simply post a refresh from time to time.

( The listing: )

Oh, bah. BAH.

Normally, I like Steven Levy's entertainment articles (granted, I don't think I've picked up a Newsweek regularly in a few years, but I recognize the name on articles I'd read frequently), but this one gets me, right here.

A few points to take down on this one. Firstly, as one poster at Kotaku mentioned, "So playing guitar games makes people not want to play real guitars, but playing shooting games makes people want to shoot real guns. Makes sense to me."

Granted, Steven Levy isn't exactly one of those video game alarmists in general, so he might not stand with that logic. It was just a funny remark that I enjoyed reading.

The real point I'm looking at is the following point of dispute, which does kind of play along the lines of the initial GTA-style argument: "But by bestowing the rewards of virtuosity to those who haven't spent years to earn it, is it dumbing down musicianship? If a teenager can easily become a make-believe guitar hero, does that mean he won't ever bother to master the real thing?"

Say it with me now: OH FOR CHRIST'S SAKE IT'S A GAME. PEOPLE KNOW WHEN THEY'RE PLAYING A GAME.

For the love of God, I've played Guitar Hero, DDR, Donkey Konga, Beatmania IIDX, and lord knows how many of those Time Crisis and Ridge Racer games, all of which provide some sort of instrument to "immerse" you, draw you a degree closer into the game. I've done pretty okay-ish on most of them--lots better on some, actually pretty crappily on others. But I don't use those as an evaluation of how I'd perform equivalent tasks in real life. Sure, I can't Max anymore, but I can still play my share of catas; that doesn't mean I don't realize I look like an idiot on the real dance floor. That's why I go out on the dance floor in the first place: now that I've got my basic sense of rhythm down, I'm going out there to work on actual dance moves. Hell, if DDR WERE just like dancing, we wouldn't have separate competitions for technical and freestyle.

As for Guitar Hero, despite being pretty good at the game, I am well-aware that I'm never going to play at Nassau or the Arena, or even the fucking Usine by five-starring Hangar 18 or Free Bird, even at Expert.

For that, I'm aware that I need real guitar practice.

Sure, I'm probably not going to go through with it, but you know what? Odds are that the people who aren't willing to go on with it are the people who were gonna drop playing guitar within a couple of months of lessons in the first place. You know, the kind of lads whose only endgoal for picking up the guitar is to play Phish, DMB, and Stairway to lure (insert sex-oriented slang term of preference) into their dorm rooms and get the other kind of play. (Guilty as charged, I guess.)

Just as easily, Guitar Hero just might inspire someone to go check out the real thing. And with Guitar Hero, while they may not be able to shred as soon as they pick up, at least they're given some of the basic concepts at work, like hammer-ons/pull-offs and the understanding that the note is determined by the highest fret held down.

The article even kind of collapses on itself with the following sentence: "it's no different from other experiences made virtually accessible by the computer, from being a World War II sniper to playing golf like Tiger Woods."

Because again, those are games. Nobody, not even the author, expects to be able to pick up a mouse, go "BOOM! HEADSHOT! BOOM! HEADSHOT! BOOM! HEADSHOT! BOOM! HEADSHOT!" and then replicate exactly that in real life the first time they wrap thier hands around a rifle; nor does he make any suggestion of lament that there are fewer snipers or Tiger Woods in this world.

All the people at Harmonix (and Konami, and Namco, and Sega, and all those other people who've made arcade cabinets/custom home controllers that simulate actual devices) are doing are optimizing the work/fun ratio so that you can feel like you're doing something that's producing results. And you are--but you don't feel like you're playing the guitar, no more than you would playing air guitar (uh, also guilty as charged).

And despite the fact that, yes, it feels awesome to hit 97% on Bark at the Moon Expert and watch your friends' jaws drop (alas, not guilty as charged), I have this sneaking feeling that it feels nothing like the high you'd get playing to a rousing ovation from your first sold-out audience of 200 (or 200,000--also, unfortunately, not guilty).

But we GH players are well aware of that.

And if we're ambitious enough to go for that kind of high, you bet your ass we'll pick up a real guitar for it.

There are other parts of that article that annoy me, but that's the bulk of the main argument, so I'll leave it there for now.

For those unaware, YDKJ.com is back, with a DisOrDat question every weekday.

Now to dig out the old CDs...

How DO you count the number of gifts your true love gave to you over the twelve days of Christmas? (Written and debugged in about fifteen minutes this morning, most of that figuring out the one statement I commented on.)

...has just begun its official release.

So, of course, my inner fanboy's first impulse upon joining hogwartsch (And being sorted into Gryffindor! Yay!) was, "MAKE RUROUNI KENSHIN ICONS! SORT THE CAST! SORT, SORT, SORT!"

...so I spent parts of last night trying to hone a decent-looking iconset for some of the main RK cast members. As of right now, I have the four members of the Kenshin-gumi, and Aoshi, and Saito.

I tried integrating quotes from the Sorting Hat's songs into each of the icons. Aoshi gets a little bit more, since I wanted to put that "Heart of Ice" bit in from the moment I thought of these icons. Works, since Ravenclaw's color is blue anyways. ^_^ Anyways, here we go:

Ravenclaw:
1.

( Five more behind the cut. )

More icons are going to be a pain in the ass, because I'm thinking of at least one more Hufflepuff, and I've already used up the good Hufflepuff quotes. I guess I'll have to come up with original ones now...

Blame bigbigtruck and her damned Bebop Thumbnail Theatre (which is where the quote comes from). I wanted to do other quotes, but the quotes were too big, unfortunately. ;_;



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