online game: falling sand

This online game is sometimes called world of sand too. You can google either phrase if you don’t like my link.  They are all pretty much the same.

 The basics are that you have a box with streams pouring down of different materials.  They are sand, water, oil, and salt.  You can draw with cera, wall, spout (water line) and plant. 

It’s a bit like rock, paper, scissors.  Oil breaks through cera and wall.  Fire burns oil.  Water puts out fire and turns sand to plant.  Salt whittles the bouncy spikey thing.

There is no way to win exactly.  You just play with it.  I like to make water parks best.  I also like to turn sandy islands into green hills.  

 You can’t really lose either.  You could feed the bouncy spikey thing too much and it gets huge and you can’t break it down with salt and it fills the screen and you have to reload the page.  Not that I’ve ever done anything like that.

quick review: watching & reading

I’m watching

Spies directed by Fritz Lang – suggested by Andy (silent spy movie)

Wolf’s Rain (anime/fantasy)

I’m reading

Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray (satire, I’m up to section 102 of 357)

The Cipher by Katha Koja (horror – part of my 5 book challenge)

Laura (1944)

This is so famous but it failed for me.

A cop investigates the murder of a charismatic business woman. He falls for her and mopes in her apartment and listens to all her would-be lovers and friends talk about her.

The music was heavy-handed and the story was slow. The actors were all fine: Dana Andrews, Gene Tierney, Vincent Price, Clifton Webb.

It’s just that nothing much was worth caring about. Not the characters, not the relationships, not the puzzle, not the costumes, nor the set decoration (hated that lacy lamp-shade).

Oh well.

 I think it might have more to do with men and how they can get crushes on fantasy women.  I kept reminding him that she was dead, for heaven’s sakes.  Laura, even in flashback, was kind of a cipher.

book 28: My Fair Temptress

My Fair Temtress by Christina Dodd

Caroline, a woman whose only skill is flirtation, is hired to makeover Jude who has zero appeal. He acts dumb, waves a handkerchief a lot, and insults women whenever he comes into their vicinity. His reason is that he is a Spy.

I didn’t like it at all.

-The tone was uneven.

-His “disguise” was pathetic: he is young, healthy, titled, rich and handsome. Most women would have forgiven his handkerchief then. Most would now, for that matter.

-She was oddly knowledgeable and aggressive in the bedroom arts considering that she was a middle class Victorian virgin.

-And, at one point, he threatened her with a knife. Under fairly unforgivable circumstances.

It was just not for me.

All About Romance has a more positive review.

His Royal Badness, Tatsuya Ishida

“Sinfest Unplugged“ by Tatsuya Ishida.  I completely love it. 

Ishida is, indeed, his royal badness.

My take on Sinfest is here.

The Casual Gamer

This was going to be a long post on my video gaming history starting with Space Invaders on a movie screen, and how it was a guy thing.  But then I thought that would be boring, and so I’m won’t talk about it.

I love my title though.  It was inspired by the statistic that 51% of people playing games online are middle aged women (like me!).  They are mostly playing puzzle games apparently.

My first game that I like is Nation States, or as I like to call it the Jen Gov game.  It was made up by an author Max Barry to promote his book Jennifer Government.  I really know nothing about it.

You create a nation by making up a name, a motto, a national animal and a currency.  Then you take a quiz (yay!) on your politics, which determines what kind of issues you get.  It helps if you think you want to be nice or evil. More about that later.

You can “win” by making it to the top of the UN list as most bread-eating nation or highest literacy or something.

OK, the issues.  You decide on whether to support the arts or allow religion to be legal or something along those lines.  Two or people present you with arguments and you choose which one you prefer. 

Or, you can dismiss it.  If you dismiss it, nothing happens.  If you choose one stance, it has dramatic and ludicrous effects on your country.  The effects can last a long time. 

Teenagers are still running amok in my country. I think it was curfew law or something.

(The issues are much funnier than I am making them sound.  The decisions are often quite hard because none of the arguments are completely right or wrong.)

At first, my country had great political freedoms but my economy was a basket case.  In desperation, I approved a strip mine.  My economy did not improve and I felt a lot of virtual guilt over the environment.  But I made up for it later.

Now things are more balanced but I’m getting bored.  I can start submitting my own issues. 

Or, I can join the posting board because they have an elaborate role playing system for war and trading and so on.  It’s pretty amusing.  You can also elect leaders for your region.  I’m not exactly sure what my leader does but everyone seems happy.

1940s movies – top 25

my life is a bit hectic and my computer is down so…

This list is taken from Digital Dream Door’s list of 100 best movies from the 1940s. These are only the first 25. My first list was for the 1930s, and a bit about Digital Dream Door.

Here are my other top 25 lists:

Silent :: 1930s :: 1940s :: 1950s :: 1960s :: 1970s :: 1980s :: 1990s :: 2000s

Underlined means I’ve seen it. Blue text means I haven’t. A ♣ means I want to see it.

1. Citizen Kane (1941, Orson Wells)
2. Casablanca (1942, Michael Curtiz)
3. The Third Man (1949, Carol Reed)
4. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946, Frank Capra)
5. The Grapes of Wrath (1940, John Ford)
6. The Maltese Falcon (1941, John Huston)
7. The Philadelphia Story (1940, George Cukor)
8. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948, John Huston)
9. The Bicycle Thief (1948, Vittorio De Sica)
10. Double Indemnity (1944, Billy Wilder)
11. Notorious (1946, Alfred Hitchcock)♣
12. The Big Sleep (1946, Howard Hawks)
13. The Best Years of Our Lives (1946, William Wyler)♣
14. The Killers (1946, Robert Siodmak)
15. Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942, Michael Curtis)
16. White Heat (1949, Raoul Walsh)♣
17. Hamlet (1948, Laurence Olivier)
18. The Red Shoes (1948, Michael Powell)
19. Great Expectations (1946, David Lean)
20. The Great Dictator (1940, Charles Chaplin)♣
21. Fantasia (1940, James Algar)
22. The Magnificent Ambersons (1942, Orson Welles)
23. Beauty and the Beast (1946, Jean Cocteau)
24. My Darling Clementine (1946, John Ford)
25. Pinocchio (1940, Walt Disney)

Josei Jaunt

After posting about Shojo Beat, I was thinking about how much I like the shojo (young girl) stories. I did renew my subscription to the magazine and I have and plan to collect many more girl stories.

But sometimes I want something more. A similar magazine for grownup women. A josei jaunt magazine, as it were.

I’d like to see women who are aged 20 and older. Women who have the means to change their communities. Women who work to support themselves and their dependents. Women who know a bit about who they are.

So, here is a wish list for a josei manga magazine:

• A domestic series like Maison Ikkoku. (It’s really a young man’s story of growing up but there are lots of good female characters.)

• A work series like Tramps Like Us (Journalist who tries to balance her boyfriend, her job, and her teenage “pet.” Her career troubles fascinate me.)

• An historical title: Millennium Actress (Emotional story of a woman’s film career reflecting the historical changes around her. I know it is animation.)

• An environmentalist title: Gorillas in the Mist (Both Nausicaa and Princess Mononoke have young girls as protagonists, or I would have listed them.)

• A dark fantasy/horror title: Tarot Cafe (A witch helps fantasy creatures find peace. I know it is not Japanese.)

• A SF adventure title: Alien (I don’t know of any adult women who are the lead character in a SF manga. I like Faye from Cowboy Bebop but she’s not the lead.)

I know that I’m out of the loop, and there are probably lots of these kinds of manga available in English. I also know I can find these kinds of stories in US independent titles and European titles.

*wistfully* I would just like to read the manga ones.

book 26: Yesterday’s Bestsellers

Yesterday’s Bestsellers: A Journey Through Literary History by Brian M. Stableford.

Stableford closely reads several bestselling authors’ works. The impression I got from reading his essays was that these authors are mostly unconscious creators. They didn’t have much control over the themes and issues that arose in their works.

He touched on a lot of authors but I’ll just mention three of them.

Stableford mostly treats the authors without condescension which made it enjoyable to read. The only exception was a Marie Corelli. His description of her novels made me laugh because she sounds like the first Mary Sue writer.

Her protagonists often had her initials. They are amazingly talented in art, beautiful, possess supernatural powers and are highly virtuous.

How virtuous? Well, in an early work, her lady protagonist wins the heart of an angel. Later, another lady heroine converts and wins the heart of Satan himself. I’ve got to read her stuff.

The analysis of No Orchids for Miss Blandish by James Hadley Chase particularly struck me. Miss Blandish is a wealthy young woman is abducted for money by some complete thugs. Apparently, even George Orwell of 1984 felt it was too brutal. It has such a jaunty title that I didn’t realize it was such a grim story.

Green Mansions by W. H. Hudson is a novel that is not spoken of much nowadays. I remembering being spellbound by it years ago but haven’t reread it.

The basic story is that a European man travels to Guyana and meets a mysterious “nature” girl named Rima. Rima has her own language and seems to communicate with animals. She’s also pretty. Our protagonist falls for her hard.

I’ve never seen the movie version with Audrey Hepburn because she doesn’t strike me as a nature goddess. I think of her as being much more the urban sophisticate.

Claw of the Conciliator: sci-fi blog

The Claw of the Conciliator   is a blog about SF and religion, specifically Christianity.  His posts are thoughtful, civilized, and intriguing. The tag-line is “a mixture of gravity and waggery.”

Not much personal stuff.  The posts are mainly about his thoughts on science fiction books, movies and other related media.  He finds all kinds of critiques, pro and con, for the authors he likes.  

Since he is studying religion, he often brings up obscure religious groups and theories (these are a little too erudite for me).

Sometimes he posts a poem he has found.  Other times, he offers links to interesting stuff on the net that pertains to SF, fantasy or religion.  Whenever I’ve commented on his blog, he is refreshingly courteous.

I go and read his blog as an island of urbane calm when life gets too random and frenzied for me.