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Friday, November 27, 2009

Mouse

Caught a mouse with a wonderfully simple Tip Trap.

I find mice to be beautiful, inventive, creatures living tragic, frantic lives. It's a pity they're such a health hazard or I would leave food out for them.

I would like to go on record saying.

If I find out that you kill mice I may:

Calmly ask why you would destroy life.
OR
Punch you in your f*cking face.


*If you are a cat then I understand. But you may want to see someone about that sadistic "toy with them" instinct.

Friday, November 20, 2009

My Dating Advice

If I were to add a chapter to the Great Book of Dating I would write about the cold shoulder.

Many people are amazed that they are attracted to people who spurn them. Are we drawn to rejection? Common macho dating philosophy encourages one to resist the urge to call back and never appear available. In this clip, Jon Favreau fails to do that and that makes it a comedy (Swingers. 1996)


But there is another way to give the "cold shoulder". Genuinely have a life of one's own. Remember that the project of this life is yourself. You should be busy, doing things that interest you and when others ask for your time it should be difficult to fit them in because you are busy doing the things that you are passionate about. If your time is precious then you are attractive. If you are doting on someone, waiting for their next command then you have become uninteresting.

In summary, there are two ways to be alluringly unavailable. One is to play the game and pretend you're disinterested and busy, the other is to live a genuinely busy, interesting life.

Bonus Advice:
Additionally, if you want someone to find you interesting simply ask them questions.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

The Kind of Surveillance I Can Get Behind

This site (DineSafe Toronto) allows you to look up any restaurant in Toronto's public health record.

Also, the police put Toronto Crime Statistics on a map. Wow! Two cars have been stolen near me. I'm not sure if this information makes me feel safer or simply acknowledge that crime is everywhere.

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Problem - Video Game Skin Tone

I'm making a video game for fun using Construct. I've run into a problem -what gender and skin tone do I choose for the main character?

I decided to:

A. Leave the gender of the main character ambiguous. Use an androgynous figure and never mention 'he' or 'she' in the game.

B. Make the game randomly generate the skin tone of the main character.

Then I ran into more problems:
-How many skin tones should I include? Four? Three? Five?
-Are these hairstyle androgynous? (personally, I only think one of them captures that look)
-Should the user be able to choose their skin tone? (including a "doesn't matter, randomly assign my skin tone" option?)

These are problems that mainstream games do not deal with. They simply use white male, white female large breasts, or Italian plumber.