Torture Porn

David happily found and recorded the first three films in the Saw franchise on the PVR. I was dubious that I would like them, but he convinced me to give them a try. I thought it was just going to be full of gratuitous gore; I don't generally mind violence, but certain kinds of gore really bother me. From what I recalled of the trailers, these torture porn films really wouldn't be my thing.

I made it through half of the first Saw film last night. Boy, were my expectations wrong. I would have stayed up to watch the whole thing but I was just too tired. The story is quite good and compelling, and more intelligent than the typical slasher flick. Halfway through it hadn't even been terribly gory -- there was only one scene for which I had to look away. Looking into it a bit, I realize now that I was suffering from some faulty memory; I wasn't thinking of the Saw trailer, I was thinking of Hostel.

Despite having grown up watching a variety of horror films, I lost my backbone for them after several years of not watching any at all because there was no one to watch them with. I think mayhaps I'm ready to get back into them.

Clean cup, clean cup, move down, move down!

I have started a new blog. Why? It seemed the thing to. The previous blog can be seen at http://jmacaig.livejournal.com, but I will be moving posts over so I can have them all in one place.

Lazy cheating blogger

We have Rock Band 2. You can read about it on David's blog.

PSA

Strawberry Nerds are much better than their Grape cousins.

Vidya Games at the Lieberry

The Edmonton Public Library has started carrying video games for the Wii, XBox 360, and Playstation 3 consoles. As far as I can find out, this wasn't advertised except through the EPL blogs. I found out from the signs posted on the hold shelves stating that video games were being held at the information desk. They have about 150 game titles, fairly evenly split between the three consoles. At this time, they're limiting the collection to games rated Teen and younger.

My immediate knee-jerk reaction is "oh noes! lie-berries are for books!!11!eleventyone!!". But my snobbery is beaten out by what an interesting idea this is. It's been more and more common for public libraries in the UK and other parts of Europe to have video game collections and it's working well for them. I'm sure there will be squawking as there was when they introduced theatrical films (as opposed to only documentary, educational, and culturally important films) and then more recently graphic novels (as opposed to "real" books) into the collection. There's an archaic but still sometimes present line of thinking that libraries ought to be stocking only what people "should" be reading or viewing, things that will make them better, smarter, more moral members of society. Boo-urns to that, I say.

It's mostly common now for public libraries to subscribe to the Freedom of Information side of things. Libraries stock what patrons want and pass no judgement upon them for it. As I understand it, the library is taking the position that video games can be considered forms of art (both visually and musically) and recognizes that games are increasingly heavy on storytelling. Really, why not branch further away from more traditional forms of art, storytelling, and education? The only caveat I would add is that money shouldn't be taken away from the book budget to buy video games.

This knee-jerk reaction was also tempered by how this benefits me. I was never much of a gamer until recently, but I'm still wary of trying new games. Now I can try same games for free to see if I want to take the plunge to buy them. I don't know how much I'll take advantage of the collection, but I like that the potential is there.

The second reaction was wondering how they're going to combat theft. Video stores frequently won't let customers rent video games without a valid credit card on file. If you don't have a valid credit card, they won't rent games to you without enough information to send you to collections should you make off with their stuff. Sure, I can steal two bestseller novels from the library which would cost as much as a new video game brand new, but the resale value on used books versus used video games is quite different.

I don't think there's much need to be concerned about existing cardholders who know if they want to keep borrowing stuff from the library they have to return things and can't rack up their fines beyond $15. No, I think the people who check them out are fairly likely to return them. The problem is the people who steal items without checking them out. I asked at the information desk about the games since David and I couldn't find them in the AV section. The librarian told me that the first day when they put ten games out at this branch, all ten were stolen. They're now switching to holds only, so the games remain behind the counter and a hold must be placed and processed as normal. There's a limit of one game at a time per account, they may be checked out for one week, and the overdue fee is $2 per day.

I'm interested to see how this works out.

In Vernon

I'm in Vernon until Monday having an early Christmas with my dad. Last December he had to have our beloved Symba put to sleep. She was my favorite of all the dogs and I miss her. Dad has been saying all year that he doesn't want any more dogs, this is it, just Candy, Keeper, and Tigger until it's all their time to go.

The other day I got an IM from my dad "Got a new dog. Named him Brandy. They said he was a (something something) mix, but he sure looks part pit bull to me." I met Brandy last night when I arrived and he looks like he's definitely part pit bull to me, too. He was a bit growly with me and I didn't care for it, but he's only been here a week and it was the first time a stranger has come in so he wasn't sure what to do. The other dogs all crowded around me to say hello so Brandy figured I must be okay. He even tried to sleep with me, but he was too big and restless so I kicked him out.

I wasn't sure what kind of reaction I'd get from him when I came out of my room this morning. Dad's not here, and he understands that Dad is the alpha in this house, so I was a little extra unsure. Now that I've slept here, he seems to have decided that I must be of the higher members of the pack and he wants to be best friends with me. The first thing he did when I got up was trot over and offer me what's left of dad's watch, which he'd chewed up yesterday. He's about 10 months old and wants to chew up everything. I haven't had to be so careful of my belongings here since Symba was that age. Also like Symba, Brandy thinks he's small enough to be a lap dog. He's wrong.

One year down

Among the many things going on, David planned an anniversary surprise for me. December 6 was the one year anniversary of our first date. We met for lunch at Ricky's, then we went out again that evening to the mall to browse some stores and have a late supper at Jungle Jim's. December 8 was our first big night out together. He picked me up, we had dinner at Tony Roma's (we shared the Kickin' Shrimp, which is when I started eating shrimp), went to see The Golden Compass, then drove around for a while until we found ourselves playing pool at Finnegan's pub.

Despite claiming that he wasn't going to make a big deal of our anniversary since it was right after my birthday and right before Christmas, he went ahead and planned a night out. I had no idea where we going, but I knew we were dressing up for it. David wore his suit and I wore my new black dress. We looked very classy. We stopped in for an hour at his office Christmas party, at which we were lavished with compliments. After we left and were on our way to the surprise I was given three clues to the evening's plan:

1) Elephants are indirectly related;
2) There might be someone named Sam there;
3) Tom Hanks would approve.

David said they were obscure clues and he'd be surprised if I figured it out. The second part of the clue game is to connect the clues once I find out where we're going. After the long drive to the west end, we ended up at West Edmonton Mall. As we were walking in through the Bourbon Street entrance, I asked if we'd gotten all dressed up to go to Jungle Jim's (which I maintain would have been funny). We ended up on a red carpet going into the The Red Piano, a Creole restaurant and dueling piano lounge. It didn't take me too long to associate the clues: 1) Ivory; 2) Casablanca; 3) Big.

We shared a nice meal, though David was spending a bit of time texting someone. I found out later he was texting his coworkers at the office party for suggestions on a romantic song to request. Later, when the piano portion of the evening started, he made his request along with a gratuity to the pianists. It took a while, and the less dominant of the two pianists kept pushing for our song but the one running the show kept shooting down. Eventually they played Can't Smile Without You dedicated to us on our first anniversary, with the apology that it wasn't the song he requested but hoped they picked one we'd like. I asked David what song he had picked, and the suggestion that had come from his coworkers was You're Beautiful by James Blunt. While it's not a bad song, it's really not a song to be judged by the title. It's a love song about as much Every Breath You Take is.

It was a really nice night and a wonderful surprise. I'd go back to The Red Piano again for the experience, though perhaps not to dine. The food was good, but there wasn't quite enough variety of things I like.