Author Archives: David Crampton

Video Games & Family

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The living room is where both Nikki and I spend a lot of time. Our dual recliner couch thing is there. Our TV is there. When we have people over, due to the 100+ year old floor plan, many of our guests are there. So, when we were moving in and setting up the entertainment center, we put Nikki’s PlayStation 2 there. We knew that she wouldn’t get a ton of use out of it, what with the imminent release of her gestating fetus, but it’d be there when she had a moment or three to rub together.

Hunter would occasionally play it, as well. He’s the ruling gamer of the house, and would regularly want to take a break from his Game Boy Advance SP and play on something hooked up to a larger screen.

Fast forward a bit. Hunter saved up to buy his own used PS2. Mine came out of storage to serve as a DVD player for the bedroom, then went downstairs to my basement nerd cave for use when I was taking time to myself. Hunter upgraded his handheld to a DS, thanks to his Dad, and passed his GBA SP to Aidan. Cian got a Leapster 2. Nikki and I played EverQuest 2 on our laptops. We gamed, as a family, but casually and separately.

As my relationship with Hunter became gradually more strained, he reached out to play video games with me. This was hit and miss, and I realized that all of the games that I own and enjoy are single player games. Yes, this lesson echoes in many other aspects of my life.

I got bored with EQ2, and let my account expire. We had another podling on the way, and we got news that for Christmas, our family was going to be gifted with a Wii from Nikki’s Aunt and Uncle. Nikki and I made grand plans. We got each of the boys their own Wii remote, each with a different LED color, so there wouldn’t be arguing over remotes. I brought up the Super Nintendo from the nerd cave for classic gaming. I kept my eyes peeled for some classic games for the Dreamcast (have the system, but no games). We let all the grandparents and aunts an uncles know about the incoming Wii, in case they wanted to get the kids games. We’d turn the living room into a place where we could game together, as a family.

Yeah.

The SNES and the PS2 still hardly ever get used. The Wii is primarily a Netflix machine. Nikki plays Facebook and Jewel Quest games on her laptop, but hasn’t played EQ2 in forever, because the game outpaced her graphics hardware. Hunter plays his PS2 or DS in his room, Aidan plays his GBA SP in his room, and Cian… Cian is three. We still game casually and separately. Why? Where did the plan fail?

Mostly with me.

The kids’ excitement can get loud, boisterous, and overwhelming. I have problems dealing with all of the movement and the noise and the crazy, especially when I’m already stressed or emotional. So, instead of the living room being a welcome space for gaming and family time, the kids get swept up to their rooms, so that they can be crazy at a distance. The living room has stayed an adult space, unless it’s for something passive, like TV watching.

Off and on, Nikki has mentioned missing EQ2, and I’ve been getting the urge to try again to finish Myst 3. By this time, I had recognized my previous failure on some level, and wanted to fix it. There was only one machine left in the house with the hardware chops to play EQ2, and it was my desktop, which resided in the basement. (Hey, I can do amazing things with old-ass hardware, and hand-me-downs are free, which fits our entertainment budget.) It also had Portal and Myst Online installed. The rusty gears in my skull creaked and ground, and I had an idea.

Last Sunday, for my alone time, Nikki took the kids out of the house. I sprang into action (more or less) and dismantled the half-a-laptop that was serving duty as our media center PC. I took it downstairs, dismantled my desktop, and brought it upstairs. I shifted consoles around in the entertainment center to make room, and made sure that there would be proper air flow. Didn’t want the desktop overheating. Got it hooked up, set up my wireless trackball and solar keyboard, and set up some links to the sites we’d usually access on the media center PC. I got the wires tucked away out of sight, and took a deep breath. It was the moment of truth. I sat in our recliner sofa thing, adjusted the size of the fonts and icons on the TV (OMG resolution!), and then double-clicked on the EQ2 icon.

That shit looks really good on the big screen.

Since then, there’s been a bit more gaming in the living room. Nikki’s tackling the learning curve of all of the updates that she missed. I’ve made it into the Voltaic Age in Myst 3 on the PS2. There’s been some YouTubin’. Searching is a hell of a lot easier when a keyboard is involved, that’s for sure. This weekend, I’ve played some neglected DVDs for the kids, and they’ve been all over some Wall-E and Incredibles. But, in truth, the real test came today. During nap time, Hunter asked if we could do something together. He was respectful about it and wasn’t pushy, so I told him that it depended on my ability to get my chores done. I hustled, got them done, and came to another moment of truth. I sent a txt message to Hunter (What, you want me to risk waking up the baby by going up to the attic? You crazy?):

“Up for some Mario Kart?”

Achievement unlocked – Stepdad.

Enterprise, concluded.

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All right, now that I’ve seen the entire series, let’s break this down. Fair warning, I am a long-time Trek fan, and can get a little nit-picky about some details.

  • Temporal war… was done already by the time that I wrote the last post. When they resolved the issue at the end of Season 3 and the opener for Season 4, that apparently unraveled the cause for the temporal cold war. Thankfully, they handle the time travel physics as consistently as possible to the Trek universe. Which is to say, I can’t put into words the rules involved in time travel, paradoxes, etc, but it feels solid. It doesn’t feel phoned in.
  • I wasn’t wrong to look forward to the mirror universe episodes. I have to think that they were having fun and knew that they didn’t have another season, because they seemed to throw everything into their mirror universe counterparts. There was a Vulcan with a goatee! And a whole new intro without a shitty song with shitty lyrics! On top of that, seeing the TOS ship from the primary universe whoop some newer-looking Enterprise-era arse was extremely gratifying. These two episodes were total fan service, and I loved them.
  • As for the final episode, I liked the concept, but it was implemented for crap. I’m not saying the Federation phase cloak discovery wasn’t an extremely stressful time for Riker, and I think that it was a neat idea for him to visit the decommissioning of NX-01on the holodeck to set his own internal conflict into perspective. However, Jonathan Frakes was… not the same man that he was during the taping of Next Generation. I was surprised as hell to see NCC-1701-D instead of E. It was difficult for me to suspend disbelief and see Riker as Riker, instead of a hastily slapped together linkng to the overall Trek universe. And lest you think I’m just a naysayer without any constructive input, I have two suggestions for better ways to end the series:
    • Instead of the discovery of the phase cloak device, fast forward to Picard’s retirement, and Riker’s promotion to Captain of the Enterprise E. Keep the nervousness, and cap off the character’s constant struggle with leaving Picard’s side to assume his own command. Appearance wouldn’t kick the viewer out of the story, and it would have ended Enterprise while continuing the progression of the Trek universe up until the reboot 8 years later.
    • Trash the entire idea, have the Traveler and Wesley Crusher show up in cowboy hats (and possibly an epic beard for the Wes), declare to Archer that they have a course he can plot, steal the ship, and conquer Risa in a bloodless coup.

I’m happy that the series didn’t suck rocks like I’d remembered. Except for the intro. Sooooo much rock sucking.

Star Trek: Enterprise

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I get sucked into television. Much like when I read a good book, I get sucked in so far that I tend to close out everything else going on in the real world. When real life denizens dare to pull me back for whatever reason, important or not, I get irritated. So much so that I don’t want to watch shows or movies that I’m looking forward to until the kids have gone to bed. I want to be immersed in the story. I wouldn’t call it an addiction, but it is something that I have to actively fight when it comes to grander plans, like writing.

So, like some of my other compulsive quirks, I’ll defuse this one by sharing it.

When Star Trek: Enterprise first hit the airwaves, I was lukewarm about it. Starting off with time travel was ballsy, and I’ve never been impressed with the way that it’s been done on TV. Then there’s that infuriating, enraging, pluck out my own eardrums opening theme. Thanks to Netflix, I can skip its aural atrocities every episode. Nevertheless, I abandoned the entire series, and I don’t really remember why.

Could have been the Borg episode. Seriously, the Borg are going to show up before Q sends Picard out into the Delta quadrant? Was this because the Borg episodes in Voyager were the only really good ones? (Not that I’m opinionated.) I neglected to remember the time traveling Borg in the First Contact movie. The wreckage from the sphere had to go SOMEWHERE. So, in the end, the Borg episode was forgivable enough for me to relax and enjoy it.

The entire series is on Netflix streaming, so I added it to my queue. I’ve been watching it. I’ve been enjoying it. I’ve been awed and horrified at the amount of damage dished out to both the Enterprise and its crew. They tear the shit out of both. Just so much hull damage, system damage, blood of all colors, psychological damage, emotional upheaval… I’m impressed. And I’m enjoying it. The characters are developing (mostly), and to see the initial interaction between Humans, Vulcans, Klingons, and Andorians. Though, I was surprised that the Klingons had the ridged skulls, unlike in the original series.

I would have abandoned the series at the end of Season 3. Instead of getting a well-earned warm welcome home after months and months of hellish reality-warping travel and conflict, with the end of Earth always looming just in the distance, they get punked and sent back in time to World War 2. What, is this the Wheel of Time? Is this an Amy campaign? Am I watching any Spider Man movie ever? The slight was quickly remedied, and even explored some of the emotional and social scars left behind from all of the crazy that went on.

I haven’t yet finished the last season (4), but I’m greatly looking forward to the Mirror, Mirror episodes. I’m also hoping that they can tie up this temporal war crap before they got canceled. I mean, three seasons short of the standard Star Trek 7, so how hard did they have to scramble, and how much notice did they have?

Writing Journal

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From my writing journal on 7 September, 2012:

The prologue is about Adam’s creation. It cannot set up the tension of the story, as the conflict between Adam and Walter is setting, where the conflict between OMGSPOILER is the actual story. Re-ordering the story to put these two closer to the front is a good idea, but am I going far enough? Should the creation myth introduce the Adam POV chapter?

This would allow the reader to get to know Jonah, Julia, and Sol while having Adam be introduced as part of the scenery, as he should be. But would that be too much Adam at once?

The creation myth belongs outside of the main narrative. It doesn’t work inside the story, unless they’d discovered OMGSPOILER. So, it can’t be added to the Adam chapter.

It comes down to whether the prologue helps the reader to understand and get into the story, or if it serves only to confuse the reader.

Also, I need to determine what it is about the minor characters that connect them to Adam and OMGSPOILER. They have to have no strong link to the main characters in their stories, or to the worlds in which the stories are being told.

Or, that’s how they have to start out when they meet Adam. Who knows what will happen between then and when they OMGSPOILER. Running into Adam has all kinds of unpredictable results.

Family Fun – Part 2

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Open, airy beach house. The bath-like warmth and shallow beach of Lake Huron. Kids playing for hours upon hours in the water and sand. Family talks around a bonfire over good beers. Time alone with Nikki in the town – bookstore, coffee house and souvenir shop. Venison burgers and local pizza.

It was only a couple of days, but it felt like a full vacation. It was exactly what I needed.

Family Fun – Part 1

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A weekend back, I had an experience that I’ve been longing for, but wasn’t quite sure that I would ever actually enjoy.  But enjoy it I did.  Cue the sitcom music, because we had a mini family vacation and I loved it.

For the second year in a row, my parents rented a house in Caseville, right on Lake Huron, for a week.  Last year, we weren’t able to make it out.  This year, they rented the same house and despite Hunter’s school year extension, we made it a priority to get our butts out there.  I’m pretty sure that if we hadn’t, grandkid withdrawal would have kicked in and things would have gotten ugly.  Needless to say, we made it.

I took a half day off from work on that Friday, and picked Hunter up from school early.  We went and grabbed gas for the Pacifica, and then headed home to meet up with the rest of the family.  They’d been packing and getting ready all morning, so the loading up went fairly smoothly.  We left later than Nikki would have liked, and inevitably forgot some things, but as my Dad said, we were on fluid vacation time.

Google called it a 3-hour trip (Gilligan?), but we made it in about two and a half.  The two youngest kids were out cold minutes after we hit the highway, and I think Hunter zonked out about halfway there.  The trip started to get exciting when we got off of I-75 in Bay City.  That gradual feeling of excitement and squee began to build, and I can’t remember how many years it’s been since I’ve felt that.  We went down Center Ave, OOOHing and AHHHing at the beautiful houses.  We went through Unionville and Sebewaing and Bay Port, home of the Fish Sandwich Festival.  Finally, at long last, we approached Caseville, home of the Cheeseburger Festival.  It took a bit of looking to find the house’s driveway/parking lot, but we found it!  Just in time to zip into a spot at a rate that would have had the minivan rocking on its shocks.  Okay, maybe I shouldn’t be bragging about that, but I was excited!

To be continued…

Phone Geekery 4

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In which the grand saga comes to a conclusion. I hope.

After my last phone post, I called HTC support.  The hold time was very short, and the tech on the other end of the line was polite, reasonable, and friendly. Kudos to their call center, wherever it’s located. I explained my situation to him, and also explained that I had a friend with the same phone and the same update, but was not experiencing the problem. The tech said that he had the same phone that I did, but it didn’t sound like he used it as much as I did. I let him know that my friend likely doesn’t use hers as much as I do, either. So, he admitted that it might be something that he had not yet stumbled upon, but that he couldn’t verify because it hadn’t happened to him.  I expected this sort of response. I asked if there was a way to remove HTC Sense, and drop back to the default Android launcher.  He said that there was not.  I asked if there was a way to upgrade to HTC Sense 4.0, and he said that there was not, unless I wanted to upgrade to one of their new HTC One phones.  I said that I did not. I liked my phone quite a bit, except for this crashy-crashy stuff that kept happening. (That’s a technical term.) He suggested that rooting the phone was an option.

I was not expecting that response.

I wasn’t ready to void my warranty just yet, and I let him know. He apologized for not having another option (like I said, polite), and I thanked him for his time. T-Mobile was my next stop. The carrier modifies the phone as well, even if it is just to add a few non-removable apps.  So, the next time that I was at the mall‘s T-Mobile kiosk to pay the phone bill, I happened to be dealing with my favorite techy sales rep. Nikki reminded me that I wanted to ask about my phone, and so I popped the question. Er. Asked the question. And then I followed it up with a guess that it might be hardware related, since others weren’t experiencing the same issue that I was. He countered, saying that a hardware problem should be causing more issues than just making Sense crash. I agreed, and was worried that we’d once again come to an impass. I let him know that HTC had suggested the possibility of rooting the phone.

He was not expecting that response.

He asked me if I’d tried a custom launcher. I hadn’t, because I was under the impression that you had to root to replace the launcher. Not so in Ice Cream Sandwich. He asked if he could install an app called Apex Launcher, and spent a minute or so showing me how to customize it.

See, Sense still handles the lock screen, the incoming calls, things like that. Apex replaces Sense as the app that gets called when you press the home key, or when you back out of your apps. So Sense is still handling everything that it was doing right, and is no longer being asked to do the things that were crashing it. It’s still sucking down the memory as it runs in the background, but Apex doesn’t add to that load very much. On top of that, Apex has a snappy response, mimics Ice Cream Sandwich‘s look and feel well, and is far more stable than Sense was.

In the end, I’m just as happy with my selection in phone as I was when it was running Android 2.3, and am glad that I can leave it in its Otterbox instead of having to deal with hardware replacements. With that said, I’ve decided that my future purchases are likely to be the bare-bones Android models. They tend to get their updates first, and don’t have unnecessary add-ons that just get in the way of using the phone.

Do you ever run into problems like this with your phone? Is my experience typical or rare? Do you ever get a solution that lets you be satisfied with the way your pocket tech works, instead of eternally frustrated?

For serious?

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You remember that Glass Crown thing? That sequel to my first novel? Chapter 9 is finished. Did I tell you?

So is Chapter 10.

I have been worried about dropping back into the “I’ll write later” mode that comes when I pick the Glass Crown back up. Instead, as Nikki puts it, I’ve developed a good pace. I am setting aside regular time in which to write, and I am actually putting words down in that time.

And it’s gotten me two chapters closer to a finished draft.

There are a couple of excerpts that I wouldn’t mind sharing. Is that something that you would be interested in seeing here?

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