Ew. Google, this isn't rocket science. Line the bastards up.
The Great Escapism
This makes me a bit sad. I don't want to live in a world that produces such a poll result.
Quiet
Gosh, it's quiet around here, isn't it?
Links to Stuff
Some interesting articles I’ve read lately.
An article about asylum seekers that uses data and explains a rational conclusion from it. Try reading it, then imagine that you live in a world where this sort of thing is the standard for such discussions. WARNING: This course of action may depress you.
If you loved Guillermo Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth, then this is worth a read. Because this guy also loves it, and he’s watched it more times than you’ve had hot dinners (almost certainly not true).
A nice aggressive piece targeted at people who think they’re being moderate in response to controversy (normally a sound plan) but are just being silly.
I’ve always wondered why we don’t have anything on the level of The Daily Show in Australia. Craig Reuchassel explains one of the reasons why. I found it genuinely shocking, actually. You think you’re in a fucking democracy…
Sarah Palin, as hounded by John Oliver
via dailymail.co.uk
I went looking for this photo after it was mentioned on the Bugle this week, and thought I'd share. That's John Oliver of the Daily Show being mistaken for press by the Daily Mail.
Incidentally, if you're not listening to the Bugle, but you do like puns and world politics and general silliness, then you have a problem that needs your immediate attention. It's a good week to start for Australians, too, since they cover our rather peculiar Victorian swearing fines.
Graz
Possibly because it was my first European city, I fell in love with Graz quite easily. I’d never seen such old things within a city before, or a river integrated quite so nicely, or a giant clocktower on a mountain overlooking the town. Or, for that matter, a giant greenish heart-shaped building. No, not heart as in ♥. Heart as in a giant human heart ripped out and dumped next to the pavement. For some reason, I didn’t take a picture, so I’ve had to steal a picture from the internet to show you it’s tremendous ugliness.
Noire
I've been liking L.A. Noire, but reading Richard Cobbett's review made me realise that I've been enjoying it more as a somewhat serious Xbox version of Phoenix Wright than as an actual noir mystery adventure. I guess at one point I'd expected the latter, but pretty early on I worked out that L.A. Noire wasn't it, and stopped worrying about it.
As such, I don't really mind the Truth/Surprisingly Aggressive Doubt/Lie mechanic. But Cobbett is most certainly correct about one thing: Phelps is perhaps the most dull main character I've ever played (with the possible exception of Gordon Freeman). I keep waiting for him to get interesting and he keeps not doing it. There's a series of cut scenes which I sort of expect to make him interesting, but they're not doing it either. There was an odd voice-over at the start which mysteriously disappeared (was it... murder?) which was interesting in itself but failed to pass any of that onto Phelps. If he was any duller he'd be the lead character in a CSI spin-off.
Meanwhile, when I'm not awkwardly interrogating people, I'm shooting down criminals like flies. This is as fun as in any GTA-style game, but feels a little odd when I'm supposed to be a fine upstanding member of the law. I guess it's possible that there were cops that went around shooting people in the head all the time, but even if there were, Phelps doesn't really come across that way.
There's a lot to like here, and spotting actors you know is much more fun with the insane level of performance capture they've done: "Hey, it's you, bald coroner guy who's been in every TV show". But overall, it's not anywhere near as evocative as I was hoping. While playing Red Dead Redemption, I felt like I was a cowboy. While playing Arkham Asylum, I felt like I was Batman. While playing L.A. Noire... I'm just playing L.A. Noire. It's not so bad, really.
Portal 2, on the other hand, is awesome.
Tour Guides
I’ve gone on a few tours around historical sites in recent weeks and I feel eminently qualified to profile the ideal and the utterly crap tour guide. Let’s open with something positive.
The Ideal Guide
You’re an academic working on restoring the ruins you’re showing the group around. You love the stories in amongst the history and will often tell them, eagerly trying to transfer some of your enthusiasm to your zombie-like audience. You speak the language you’re touring in fluently and with excellent flow, allowing people to follow what you say while looking at other things. You will use phrases such as “we believe” and “until recently we thought” because you understand that there’s little empirical truth available to historians.
You have a repertoire of excellent jokes which you’ve honed over time. You allow people time to take photos and do not nag them unnecessarily.
You understand how the electronic headsets provided to the group work, and hence will not shout into them when attempting to herd your charges. Neither will you insist on waiting for everyone to gather round as if they need to be in hearing distance of you, unless you’re specifically pointing out something small and detailed.
The Shitty Guide
You speak the language you’re touring in at a passable level, but you’re constantly mispronouncing words, pausing to remember the right phrase, and emphasising all the wrong places so your charges can’t understand what you’re saying unless they stop everything else and stare at you.
When comprehensible, it sounds kind of like you’re reading a Wikipedia article. You have a few ‘jokes’ that you’ve noticed people will laugh at, usually involving penises or mothers in law. The penis ones especially will make nervous housewives screech with laughter. You’ll also have a series of references to various nationalities preset in the group because while you’re incapable of engaging anyone about the actual subject matter in an interesting way, you do know that Americans like McDonald’s.
You’re not aware of any reason for yawning outside of boredom, and will victimise anyone in the group who dares to do so. You smoke, and will often cut interesting stories short because you’re gasping for a fag. You’ll then discard your cigarette butt on the ground of the magical historical site that you’re supposed to care about.
You have material ready for certain rooms or areas, and will rush the group past other interesting things without telling them anything about them, even in passing. You may however take the opportunity to repeatedly call out “this way!”
Audio Guides
You guys don’t have feelings, so I’ll try to avoid anthropomorphising you any more than I have already by talking to you in this sentence.
These are pretty awesome. Yeah, you miss a certain human touch, but they shut up when I tell them to, they talk when I tell them to, and I get a map of everything to look at from the start.
As well as audio guides sold at venues, it’s worth having a look around the Internet for other guides and maps. Rick Steves has some good, if somewhat cheesy, free podcast guides to various bits of Rome. I’ve not researched any further than this but I’m hopeful that there’s tours for sale out there that are even better.
