Plants vs Zombies

I was never really into video games as a kid. I suspect I escaped this vice mostly because I had bad hand eye coordination, since I was willing to watch others play Super Mario Brothers or Doom, in order to be social.

But that all changed last month when I bought Plants vs Zombies. I bought an iPad last month and, on the recommendation of one of my friends children, bought Plants vs Zombies. I figured it might be something I could play with my nephews-maybe I'd enjoy screwing around with it myself. As it turned out, I had just purchased an app to make time disappear. I started playing it one night and the next thing I knew it was an hour and a half later-during which time I had not moved. I'm a fidgety person, I stopped going to movies because I can't sit still long enough to enjoy films (certainly not to allow the friends who came its me to enjoy the film). So it was a surprise to me that I had sat still for that long.

This proved to be a reproducible phenomenon- the same thing happened the next night. I started feeling the need to get home from work or from social occasions in order to plant snow pea plants and kill bucket heads. I was glad to have an activity that was so diverting, but I was a little embarrassed to be obsessed by a kids game. I looked Plants vs Zombies up online. Apparently there are versions of it for Windows, Mac, Xbox and Nintendo, as well as iPad and iPhone (one of my colleagues told me about the phone version.)

Over the weekend I let one of my buddies who is regularly into games play Plants vs Zombies. He revised his original statement--" this is just a kids game that's kind of fun." after it kicked his ass a few times. Then he bought a version of the game himself.

I brought the iPad home for Christmas. I downloaded a copy of the book I was reading onto the bookshelf so that I wouldn't have to haul it down to New York-I could just bring this slim device instead. I didn't read any of my books on the train ride home ( this is a first) instead I killed zombies between Boston and New York City.

I was unable to really interest my nephew in the game ( I stopped trying after it gave my niece nightmares) but I played it to relax the whole of my Christmas visit and the whole way back to Boston. I'd gotten to a level where I had to kill an almost indestructible zombie. In stead of just repeatedly getting my brains eaten by zombies I started to think about strategy--I would need a lot of the plants that blew up when planted. Would the freezing mushrooms help? I started experimenting in the quick play part of the game ( you can pick a level and just play it if you've got only a few minutes to kill or if you want to practice killing a particular zombie before having to do it "for real."

I was *practicing*--rehearsing before trying to play a particular zombie. How often do I do that in real life? My gamer guy friends were amazed "I love seeing how obsessed you are by that game." said one. My girl friends laughed at me as I was quietly horrified by the degree of my obsession.

I'm glad to have something that interests me this much--even if it's just a game. What I really wish however was that there was some activity that fascinated me so much that I could take up *professionally.*

Because You Have The Innernet

At brunch this morning my buddy said he wished he could win the lottery so that he could solve his parents money problems and the problems of another mutual friend. I asked him if his parents would take monetary assistance from him and he replied "you've obviously never been poor."

This reminded me of a story from when I was poor. I was working two jobs at the time. It was a Sunday and I was just finishing up a shift at Brookline Booksmith and meeting my former boyfriend for dinner. It was Summer and we had decided to meet on the lawn in front of Cambridge City Hall. This way if one of us got there early we could sit on the nice green grass and read a book (this was pre-iPod) until the other one showed up.

So I was headed into Cambridge from Brookline. For a number of reasons (starting with I like to walk and ending with T service sucks on Sundays) I got off at Hynes Convention Center and walked into Cambridge instead of transferring from the Green Line to the Red Line.

As a result of my decision, I ran into a friend of mine (let's call him Harry.) Harry worked at the Middle East. When Harry came into a lot of money it was well known he'd get drunk, get others drunk and hand money around. I knew that Harry did this because he told me so himself. When I ran into Harry he was clearly well lubricated. He said "Oh Hey Doll--let me give you something because you have the internet at your house. Also--this is for your phone bill because you call Ryan* in California." I did try not to take his money, ("No Harry, thanks I can pay my phone bill.") but he made me feel like I was being rude not to take his cash, so I did.

I went to the green in front of Cambridge City Hall to wait for
the Boyfriend. I told him the whole story--was I wrong to take Harry's money? Could we put it in an envelope and leave it at the Middle East for him to collect when he sobered up?

He replied "I think Harry just bought us dinner because you have the Intranet."

And then we went to the Border Cafe and ordered catfish bites.

*A mutual friend who had moved from Cambridge to California

Why Yes, my Mom is an Intellectual Badass

My parents are retired and they're now grandparents (although their version of retired involves working at least once a week, running a soup kitchen and grand-parenting--which is to say it's still pretty lively.) As our conversations over the past few years have been more about what my niece and nephews are up to and less about Hamlet, I've begun to wonder--is my impression that my parents are intellectual badasses an illusion? Is this just something I tell myself to keep them on a pedestal?

As it turns out, no. I called home tonight to talk to the Ageds. We talked Christmas shopping, I told them what day I was arriving and we discussed Angry Birds.

Towards the end of the conversation I remembered that I wanted to get a book on the Avignon Papacy (AP)--a conversation I'd had with some friends last Friday about medieval Christianity* had made me think that the AP was something I might want to know a thing or two about. When I looked up the Wikipedia article on the AP, all the sources were in French or German and when I tried to search the subject on my favorite indie bookstore's website the results were..less than promising. So I thought I'd tell mom I wanted a book on this subject matter and turn her loose on the booksellers of New York City.

When I told her what I wanted and why (information on the origin of Purgatory and other things which led to the reformation) she replied "Oh! that's not where all of that comes from! It's all due to the black plague. What you want is some of the books I read in college."

She then went on to explain (or rather remind me) a great deal about the social reactions to the black plague (flagellants, witch burning, Jews accused of well poisoning, etc.) And then we went back to discussing the reformation.

It's nice to have common interests with my mom. I can't keep up with her in a shopping marathon, but at least we can talk about medieval history together.


*What do corporate drones like me do for fun? We go to the Old Spot in Salem to talk about the history of Christian schismatism over beers with Latin teachers.

Bad Dreams

Since my professional life has gotten so busy/interesting this past year I've been treated to a set of rich nightmares, most of them this summer. I thought I was done with them until Monday morning. I woke up at 5 am from an awful dream. Awful enough that I don't want to talk about it*

But of course, the subject matter of the nightmare hardly matters when one slams awake in the middle of the night. The fact of it being the middle of the night, along with the leftover bad brain chemicals that linger are enough to make one terrified and awake and upset. I called in sick. True it was 5 am and I did not have to leave the house for another 2 hours and 40 minutes, but my lizard brain was in charge at the time and my lizard brain knew things were not well.

This was one of the few times I wish I had a boy (the others tend to be when I'm sick or very upset). I started to think about how nice it would be to have some nice, sleepy boy throw his arm around me after a nightmare...and then stopped thinking about that. Because I imagined some Lovecraftian creature throwing one of it's many tentacles around me.

I left the lights on and Felt Bad until the sun came up. By then my the nightmare brain-chemicals had burned off and I could grab some of the sleep I'd missed.

I've found myself thinking of this--the only time I really wish I had some boy is when I'm upset or sick (waking up from a nightmare qualifies as both) and wondering how one would express this in an online dating profile.


*Much worse than the one where my former colleague had taken to killing every one in the office who wandered into the server room and hiding their bodies. I could smell the corpses when he showed me where he had hidden them.

Set your Phaser for Stun

When we got the Xerox Phaser 8860 and I installed it I wrote a poem about the device. Like Mr Silas Wegg, I don't dip into poetry much. I'm not posting said poem, because I strongly suspect it was a bad poem.

So why did I write a poem about a network printer? Because it was a thing of beauty! It printed brilliant color and it did duplex. It actually prints from wax--the cartridges are like giant crayons. It could print files from our most difficult applications. It had routines for cleaning itself. You can take the contents of the waste tray out and write with them. It made the Financial Planning staff happy because they got to say "Phaser" a lot. Finally, I installed it myself without calling for help.

I'm kind of embarrassed to admit this last bit was such a big deal now. Network printer installation is not exactly Rocket Surgery. But at the time I was just starting to learn that I was, in fact, a competent grown up. That was in 2007.

I love tools. I particularly love beautiful, useful objects. The Phaser, with it's wax printing and self cleaning falls into the category of beautiful and useful, from my point of view.

The Phaser is not doing so well these days. There are some light streaks in large blocks of color. Every time I've noticed this before I just ran it through the basic cleaning program and hoped it would get better. There's an advanced cleaning program---where you put in the number of the ink jet that's not working--but that always seemed alarming to me (what if I screwed it up?). The printer has a test sheet which prints little Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black streaks with numbers next to them. The numbers are the print jet numbers. If there is no Cyan streak next to 134 in the Cyan block, then there is probably something wrong with Cyan jet 134.

Today I tried to clean the printer and wondered why I'd found the idea of using the advanced method so intimidating previously. So I told the printer to clean Cyan jet 134. As it ground away I looked at the rest of the test page and lined up a recently printed document (so that I could see where the light streaks on the page were) If this worked I could go through and get the printer to clean each of the jets that lined up with a light streak and then the printer would work as beautifully as it had the day we bought it!

Alas no. Seeing the light streaks on the test page in after cleaning jets number 8 and 134 saddened me. There's nothing I can do for my old friend.

Handel's Messiah makes me cry

I have had a few discussions with my best friend lately re: music, non-popular.

My friend is a violist and I grew up singing in choirs. When we were in college together she played in the orchestra and I sang in the choir. In winter terms the orchestra and the choir tended to present a work together (like Brahms Requiem.)

We are both verbals--she's a poet and I'm...well I'm me. I write essays about myself and post them on the inter-webs and I'm the one the B School students want editing our group paper.

Last week we were discussing choral music and she was lamenting that some of it is, in fact, written in English--because that distracts her from the music. I was saddened by this. It may be because I've been in choirs, or it may be because I'm twitchy, but I get bored by instrumental music with no vocals.

When presented with lyrics in a foreign language (which is most of the time--there were few good English composers) I try to map them on to the English translation. I did this when I was in choir and singing a work and I do it when I'm sitting in the audience listening to the work. I do this because I care about lyrics and what they mean (also, I suspect because it's a puzzle.)

Apparently, not every one does this. I learned this when explaining to my friend how I try to map meaning on to foreign language texts--because the lyrics are as important as the music and so I feel that it's important to understand them. I was surprised to find that she did not think as I did--about as surprised as she was a few weeks ago when she discovered that I can't read music.

"Really?" she asked. "What do you think when you see this?" She asked after googling the music to a Vivaldi piece. I explained that the nice little black dots give me some indication of whether or not the next note was higher or lower than the previous one and let me know what the duration was likely to be, but I really learned music by listening to those around me.

Last night she stopped by my place. For reasons that are not entirely clear to me, I had put on Handel's Messiah. When she arrived I offered to turn it of because it was Christmas music and she--like me--has worked for a long time in retail and therefore she has developed an antipathy to Christmas Music.

She said however that I need not turn it off because it was "good classical music" although I think he technically is Baroque. "It's not like the Christmas music you hear in the mall." she said, which reminded me of the video I've embedded--which I showed her (technically, no--you don't hear Handel in the mall. But you hear Handel in *this* mall.)

I asked her if the lyrics annoyed her and she said that she couldn't understand them--so they didn't bother her. This was strange to me--the lyrics to the Messiah are in English and since I first heard it sung and learned that in fact the lyric in "For Unto Us a Child is Born" was not "and his name shall be call-ed Wonderful! Bouncible*!" I've been familiar with the lyrics of the Messiah.

We watched the flash mob, remarked on which of the singers reminded us of friends of ours and speculated as to how they might have practiced for this and I didn't cry at all.

Handel's Messiah makes me cry. To a certain extent--good, live classical/baroque music will always have the potential to do so, but the Messiah is a shooin. I have often wondered why this is so. One year at Christmastime I went with my mom to hear my dad's church choir sing the Messiah. A week or so earlier a friend of mine and a member of the choir had killed himself. The pastor mentioned him and dedicated the concert to him. I knew that when the music stared I was going to start leaking at the eyes. I hoped my mom would just assume that I was crying about my friend--because otherwise it's awfully hard to explain.

When presented with something beautiful I sob like I'm heartbroken. I used to think this was so because I was living a life with no beauty in it. Lately I've begun to wonder if maybe the reason that the Messiah makes me cry is because I can understand the lyrics and tie them to the beautiful music with no effort.

I'm not religious, but I can see the beauty and the rightness of the lyrics and how they fit to the music.

Even as I write this it seems an unlikely hypothesis. More likely I cry because the work of Handel is beautiful and the Messiah is emotionally charged--being Christmas music.

Elaboration on that theme is work for another night.






*Wonderful Counselor

Today is Veteran's Day

Today is the 93rd anniversary of the end of the Great War--Veteran's Day.

This is a holiday to honor the men and women who have fought in this country's wars and to thank them for their service.

Last year the wife of one of my colleagues died. I read in her obituary that she had been known to pay the bill for men and women in uniform if she saw them out eating at a restaurant. She did this, the obit claimed, because she loved her country. Having known the lady myself I can attest that she did it because she was an absolute sweetheart, but since reading that I have spent some time thinking about what it means to love your country or to be called to national service.

First--I personally could never be part of the armed forces because I can't be part of an organization who's goal is to kill people. Yes, I know, the army doesn't just kill people. The Corp of Engineers builds bridges and the organization as a whole can do good for the Americans who serve in it by paying for their college educations, teaching them useful skills and, in the case of career service people, giving them comrades and, well, a chance to be all that they can be.

However, I don't think that the armed forces should have a monopoly on serving their country or doing what they do because they love their country. Teachers serve their country by educating people. Doctors and nurses (and nurse's aids, social workers, radiation techs, etc.) in public hospitals serve their country. Civil engineers serve their country by designing bridges that won't fall down.

Before you ask--I am not at all about to imply that everyone serves his or her country professionally (I certainly don't) or even that everyone on the federal payroll serves his or her country (politicians and capitol hill pages? I don't think so.) I am simply trying to point out that we aught to broaden the definition of "serving your country."

It is true that the reason we thank our men and women in uniform differently than we thank our high school history teachers is that history teachers are not often shot at, nor do we require them to shoot at other people. We don't require them to leave their families for long tours of duty either. On the other hand we don't compensate them particularly well either.

I am not suggesting that we change the name of this holiday to People Who Were Willing to Be Shot at To Advance American Foreign Policy Goals Day. I am simply suggesting that we think hard about the nature of service (doing something because it needs to be done, for the benefit of the many--not because it would be profitable to do so.)

Furthermore, I have long wished that there was a way to do national service that didn't involve joining the army. Many countries have a requirement that all people server in the army for one year after college. I think that's a great idea--except for the "army" bit. All people should be required to serve their country for one year. This service should take many forms--if you're a cook you can cook for the country for a year, if you're a geek you can update government websites and answer tech support questions for IRS.gov (heh heh heh).

Everyone should be required at some time during their year of national service to do unskilled labor--whether it's heavy lifting or peeling potatoes. Everyone should be required to do what they do best--whether it's fixing cars or giving financial advice as well. In this way everyone will have done their part to cut down on the unpleasant chores that need to be done to keep the world spinning and everyone will have had a chance to do what they do best in the service of their country.

I admit that this is impractical and unlikely. It might even cost a country more to maintain such a program than the country would gain through its application. It's just something I've been thinking about for a while.