Did some say LIGHTHOUSE!

Last weekend Wade Owen and Bernadette "Bernie" Nebus were wedded in Columbia, South Carolina. It was a beautiful wedding. Selfishly, it was a great time to meet old friends again and encounter cool people from the couple's life. Selflessly, I greatly enjoyed witnessing their happiness together and seeing the start of their new life.

A typical boring rundown of the weekend's experience from my perspective follows.

• I flew out of San Francisco since it was MUCH cheaper than flying out of San Jose. That meant I had to wake up at 4:30AM on Thursday morning. I took the VTA to Diridon, transferred to Caltrain, went to Millbrae, transferred to BART, and rode that in to SFO. I flew out on Delta, which was great. The first leg to Atlanta, on a 777, was only half full so I got a row to myself. The second leg was on a 737, packed but much shorter. While in the Atlanta airport I ran into Meg, Wade's little sister who I haven't seen in years.
• Wade's parents picked us up, and together with Josh and Dave (from the bachelor party) we headed out to the Nebus estate. Pat gave a wonderful meal of lasagna and the dozen of us mingled and got to know each other better.
• We went back to the hotel and the guys hung out while we waited for Nate, whose flight out was delayed until after 1AM. We caught the much-hyped and greatly disappointing Oprah interview on Letterman and the White Stripes on the Daily Show. Nate made it in in one piece and we returned to crash.
• Friday was an extremely social day for me; I'm incredibly introverted so it was a little draining but also quite fun. The morning was breakfast and conversation in the hotel. For lunch the groomsmen and fathers went to lunch at an excellent seafood-and-steak restaurant; Wade continued a distressingly generous trend of buying all our stuff.
• The afternoon held the rehearsal ceremony. I had forgotten a tie and was doomed to feel vaguely self-conscious the rest of the day. While at the church (a lovely building which holds a memorial to Cardinal Bernardin, my favorite Prince of the church and a native of this parish), we met the Wedding Coordinator, henceforth the WC because I cannot remember her name. She was a character out of a movie, a domineering and aggressively committed individual. I think the first sentence out of her mouth condemned the "street people," and it went more or less downhill from there.
• In opposition to the WC was Father Richard, who served at Virginia Tech, Wade and Bernie's alma mater. He was very friendly and professional, having done this 500 times before he had a great idea of how to communicate what worked. Unfortunately, this frequently clashed with "the way we do things here." He told the groomsmen to let our hands hang at our sides; she instructed us to clasp our hands. He finished his instructions with an encouraging talk about how "There's no such thing as a 'perfect' wedding; if anything goes wrong, just act like it was supposed to happen that way, nobody else will notice." Seconds later she was saying, "There IS such a thing as a perfect wedding, and tomorrow's will be perfect!"
• After all that, everyone was ready for a drink. So we headed off to the highest place in Columbia, the 25th floor of the Capitol Club for the rehearsal dinner. This was also nice, the drink selection was good (due to the funky SC liquor laws, the Owens had to buy all the booze at a liquor store and bring it upstairs, where the serving staff distributed it), the food was excellent (halibut and potatoes and steak), and conversation flowed smoothly. Josh made an extremely good toast to the couple, which was followed by several more or less entertaining toasts from relatives.
• While I was having a great time, two consecutive nights of 6 hours sleep and a whole day of socializing had wiped me out. I begged off on the after-hours bar hopping, returned to the hotel, and fell asleep within a minute.
• I woke up bright and early on the wedding day. Before everyone else made it downstairs I ran into Jennie, a great friend from high school who is now teaching in northern Virginia. We got some Wheaton North spirit going before the wedding party split for the chapel.
• I love wearing a tuxedo. This is only the third time in my life I've worn one, but they are incredibly comfortable besides looking very sharp. This may seem like a betrayal of my geek pride and defiantly slovenly dress, but in fact is not. For a fuller treatment of this topic please see Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, Chapter 34, "Suit."
• The bridesmaids were all lovely. Besides Franny the maid of honor, Bernie was attended by Meg, Sarah and Katie. (Groomsmen were Josh, Nate, Dave and yours truly.)
• The wedding was perfect.
• I was really impressed by how comfortable and relaxed everyone looked. I'm used to seeing either the bride or the groom lose it in one way or another, by crying or getting the giggles or whatever, but there was nothing like that here.
• Pictures were not nearly as painful as I had feared. My smile usually feels forced pretty quickly, but I was having a good enough time to keep it going throughout.
• We got to ride in a stretch limo for the four blocks between the church and the reception.
• The reception was just as well planned and executed as the rehearsal dinner, despite having probably four times as many people. I didn't circulate as much this time, mainly sticking with the Wheaton North crowd and the wedding party.
• A live band, whose name I should remember, played at the reception. Josh had one for his as well and I think it's a great idea. A live band is a great way to infuse a room with energy without blasting people out of their seats. I'll probably get a DJ if and when I get married, but that's just because live bands have a hard time with house and trip-hop music.
• Yes, I danced at the reception. Not well - my only one-on-one dance was with Meg and was very Middle School - but, since I didn't go to dances in middle school, I'm resigned to being in arrested development when it comes to these things. Still, there were enough general fun dances ("Play that Funky Music White Boy" had to be the best one) that I got in some good time on the dance floor, did my little thing in the corner, and left tired but really happy. I need to find a way to do this stuff in between weddings. (And remember, DDR doesn't count since it isn't dancing.)
• Had a nice long chat with Jennie later. This was the day of Virginia Tech's championship game, so the entire hall went from full to nearly empty over a span of about 15 minutes as people filed out to catch the game. Nate tried to keep things going on the floor, others of us retreated away from the music to continue catching up.
• When it was all played out, we returned to the hotel, where we were slightly nonplussed to find our room as messy as when we'd left that morning. A handwritten note on the bed explained that they couldn't clean because we'd left things on the bed. Has anyone else encountered this? I don't claim to be a hotel expert but this was the first time I'd heard of such a policy. We basically said "Screw it" and went right back out, clad in tuxes, to continue the party. (Except for Nate, who was finishing up a monster assignment due on Monday.)
• We caught up with the VT crowd at a sports bar and watched in amazement as a game at a respectable 3-3 before halftime descended into a blowout, as FSU intercepted and dominated over a seemingly helpless VT. Wade and Bernie made their exit. The Hokies were clouded with despair. We ate some spring rolls, drank the last of the beer and retreated.
• Some girls were EXTREMELY drunk.
• The rest of us made it safely to the Liberty bar, conveniently abutting the Hampton. Here we upgraded our beer and stared as VT gave just enough hope to keep people from abandoning. I met with Bernie's uncles, whose reputation preceded them. I was also introduced to a fellow St. Louis student who was pursuing his PhD in Columbia, and we had a good and long conversation about BREW, something I can rarely do outside of work.
• I'm really impressed by people like Nate, who go to bars to meet people. As in meet them, not hook up with. Anytime I go I'm focused on my social group or the game that's playing and don't really do enough to seek out who else is around. I think I'm missing a lot, as this can be one of the most relaxed environments for making those kind of connections.
• It can have its disadvantages, though. Nate (who made enough progress to join us) had to endure an hour of being awkwardly hit upon by a psych student specializing in suicide.
• The game finally ended, 22-27, still a major disappointment for our fans but close enough to save them the outright pain of true humiliation. We went back to the hotel.
• I know alcohol is a depressant, but when I drink I seem to get way too much energy. [When I started writing this post, I had no idea it would end with so much alcohol.] Despite being well past midnight after several exhausting days, I stayed up another hour packing all my stuff up, chatting with Nate, and continuing to read "Best American Non-Required Reading 2004."
• Sleep eventually came.
• I got to see Jennie again the next day before she headed out on one of the earliest flights. Nate decided to try and catch an earlier plane so he joined me and Earl in a cab to the airport. One thing I love about small Southern cities - cheap cab rides.
• My flight was delayed, and apparently I'm still on United's terrorist suspect list, but I got home to SFO around 7:30. All my connections back home went smoothly, and I walked in my apartment door right as the clock turned to 10:00.

And there you have it, folks: the last shot in Weddings 2005. Was it worth two days' vacation? Heck yes! The wedding exuded so much joy, friendship, and love that it will continue to propel me even as it provides further wind to Wade and Bernie's sails. May their future together be richly blessed.

In which Christopher pays lip service to the importance of Thanksgiving before spending an inordinate amount of time writing about the games he plays

This is a busy time for me. Finished the bachelor party and Thanksgiving, next up are the wedding and Christmas. I'm regularly context-switching between two [fun] projects at work, one of which is currently crystalizing.

Thanksgiving was nice. I got to play some with Truman, our replacement for Sadie. It's fun having a young dog again, he has a lot of energy and love. I really miss Sadie a lot, but I also enjoy running around with a spry young thing.

Our family has developed a few traditions since moving to Illinois nine years ago. My favorite is our pre-dinner walk. Every year we go to a new park and go on a mini-hike. This year it was incredibly cold, very high winds, and yet we bundled up and trundled off with the dog. Just gave us one more thing to be thankful for when we got back indoors. Another is the late-afternoon movie. In past years it's been Harry Potter; this time it was the first Wallace and Grommit flick, Curse of the Were-Rabbit. I've enjoyed the earlier W&G shorts, this one was just as good.

I think it's odd that I see my family two or three times a year, and two of those times are within a month of each other. Does that happen to anyone else?

The day I got back from Chicago, I continued my Civ 4 game. I was on the verge of abandoning it - I had overexpanded and had to deal with a hostile England on my borders - but I found that the patch had come out and wanted to test it. I ended up beating the game late last night. Following are yet more thoughts on this game.

• First off, the patch is great. Version 109 completely removes the stutters I experienced in wonder movies, so I can now enjoy them. The game feels like it's running more smoothly overall.
• This was my first cultural victory. I identified three promising cities (Paris, Orleans and Lyon) and made sure they had enough cultural improvements in place. Then, around 1820, after I had discovered Biology and Mass Media, I switched my science down to 0% and culture up to 90%.
• The big thing with a cultural race is that you need to be most concerned about the city that's farthest behind. In this case it was Lyon. I made sure all my other cities had lots of gold improvements (grocer, bank, etc.) and put my biggest cities (including Paris) onto building wealth. I generated massive amounts of cash, which I used to rush units for some wars, but more importantly rush improvements for Lyon.
• Improvements that multiply culture are HUGE. You want Broadcast Towers (or, in my case, the Eiffel Tower), Broadway, Hollywood, Rock & Roll, and cathedrals. I didn't figure this out until too late, but you can build one cathedral (in my case, Confucian Academies) for EACH three temples you have. I'll definitely do this earlier in the game if I try for culture again; I rarely built temples because I didn't need the happiness. (Note that only temples in your own civ count.)
• I also came to really appreciate the value of Free Religion. I was going to ignore this because I didn't have any cities with more than 1 religion, and didn't need the science boost. However, when you don't have a state religion, religion no longer affects your relationship with other civs at ALL. Wiping that -4 off my chart allowed me to stay at peace with two large other civs.
• However, it also works the other way around. Late in the 20th century most other civs had also switched to Free Religion / No State; I then switched back to Confucianism and Pacifism to boost my Great Person birth rate and get those Great Artists.
• The game can move REALLY quickly late in the game when you aren't at war and are going for culture. I had no units to move and most cities were building Culture or Wealth, so I just kept hitting Enter (and occasionally F4 to keep up on my neighbors' status).
• However, it drags when you're at war. Late in the game I fought against Germany and Mansa Musa. Neither ever posed a serious threat to me; I took out their navies early and then would spend 20 or 30 turns blockading their major cities and reducing their defenses to rubble. I also fought a few land skirmishes against Germany, and for the first time ever got a unit up to Level 4.
• I didn't win until 2010 (shortly after Alexander built Apollo), so my final score was pretty mediocre. However, there IS a victory movie for a Cultural victory. Either there wasn't one for Diplomatic or I totally missed it.
• I've enjoyed playing as Hugh Capet (i.e. Louis XIV), but I'm thinking I'll pick someone else for my next game. I picked both Frederick and Louis specifically for their Cultural trait, but I now think that this isn't as powerful as I'd initially thought. It is EXTREMLY helpful in the early portions of the game, since your cities almost immediately grow their radius, and the cheap theater gives an even more powerful boost. However, it is almost useless later in the game; the extra 2 culture a turn are almost nothing, and the theater is cheap enough anyways that the boost isn't too helpful. (The Colosseum is pretty useless anyways on lower difficulty levels as you probably won't need the happiness.) I'm thinking Mao next turn, I believe he's Industrious and Philosophical, which would combine the other two traits of Louis and Frederick.

I'll be taking a little break from Civ until at least after the wedding; my co-workers talked me into buying World of Warcraft last week and I want to give that a shot before giving up on it. No chance in heck I have time for both that and Civ, and Civ doesn't charge me $15 every month. Right now I have a Gnomish Rogue named Cirion on WindRunner, and a Night Elf Druid named Seberin on Khaz'goroth. If you happen to be on either server, say "Hi" if I'm ever on.

From what I've heard, WoW changes a lot the higher up you get, so I won't let my present boredom with the game prevent me from playing at all. I'll probably shoot for reaching level 20 by 2006 and see whether it's fun yet. Right now it's incredibly rote - you just fight over and over again, with just a few other quests thrown in. I'll save my thoughts on WoW and MMORPGs for another post.

Back to Civ: I know of one other person who has the game (Hi, David!) and a few others have mentioned that they might be picking it up. I'm serious about wanting to try an MP campaign sometime. Please let me know if you decide to grab the game, and we can start discussing how to make this thing work.

I'm leaving on Thursday. I will wake up at 4:30, walk out of my apartment at 5:30, take a series of trains (VTA, Caltrain, BART) to get me to SFO by 7. I will get on a plane at 8:30 AM PST and get off around 7:00 PM EST. But 2.5 solid days of fun with old friends and new will follow, as we all recognize with joy the union of Wade and Bernie. May their love grow ever stronger and their lives ever longer!

Because you asked.

... okay, nobody asked. This is entirely on my own initiative.

Saw an interesting exchange over at Roger Ebert's "Answer Man" feature. It's the third letter, about the artistic potential of video games. This happens to be a topic I've put a lot of thought into, and since Ebert's position seems entirely reasonable (albeit wrong), I took a little time to compose an unsolicited response. Following is the text of my email.

Dear Mr. Ebert,

I have enjoyed following the discussions in your "Answer Man" column about the artistic potential of video games. I'm sure you're receiving piles of mail regarding this issue, but I wanted to raise a few thoughts of my own.

First, when considering video games, I find it more helpful to compare them to visual arts or theater rather than film or literature. In the first two art forms, the eye is controlled by the viewer. People stand closer to or farther from a painting, they decide which of several events or characters on the stage to focus on, and so on. The artist uses several techniques to guide the viewer's attention, but what they are really doing is creating a tiny world and letting the observer engage with it.

In contrast, literature and film give much more power to the artist when determining how the world is experienced. A reader can only rely on whatever narrators the author supplies, and the watcher cannot see anything beyond the lense's edge. This gives the creator far more powerful tools to control the experience and make persuasive statements, but it also enables passive engagement and gives less freedom for the viewer to establish their unique relationship with the work. Of course, no art form is inferior to the others, they operate using different rules and have different strengths. I think that simply comparing video games to film isn't sufficient; while film is far better at some things, those aren't necessarily the goals of a video game.

Secondly, it's important to remember that we're in the infancy of video games. There have been only a few decades in which to experiment, innovate, criticize, and build on the works of others. Compare this with over a century for film, several hundred years for novels, and thousands of years of plays and visual arts. It can be very difficult to see the potential of a new medium; even the Lumiere brothers said "The cinema is an invention without any future." Perhaps no one can find a game that compares with Citizen Kane simply because it has not yet been created yet. Then again, it might be right under our noses, and we won't know it until video game criticism evolves to the point where we can identify and appreciate the works in their own idiom.

Sincerely yours,
Christopher King

"I'm sick of it."

Time for another largely autobiographical post. "Yay!"

Writing about The Colbert Report and Arrested Development set me off on a train of thought, leading backward from my current stable of shows to my earliest encounters with the tube. For the sake of posterity, I will rearrange these thoughts in chronological order and present to you how I became the conneseieur I am today.

My parents, in a decision I will always love them for, decided that we would be PBS kids. I grew up with only non-commercial programming, Mr. Rogers and Sesame Street; later 3-2-1 Contact and Square One. As far as I remember the only exception was on Saturday morning we would get to watch classic Looney Tunes for an hour.

Even now, people I tell this to sometimes react with amazement. They rattle off all the cartoons I should have been watching, vast swaths of pop culture that passed me by. As perplexed as they seem, I'm more perplexed at their perpexion. I really don't feel like I missed out on anything. When I happen to catch children's programming now, I'm stunned by how mindless much of it is, and how aggressive and manipulative the advertising. I have good memories of Mathnet and King Friday and don't feel I missed anything else. The only time I did was during one conversation in fourth grade when two kids asked me what my favorite shows were and laughes when I said "Square One."

I entered the world of commercial television very gradually. It all started during a sleepover at my friend Justin's house, probably during eighth grade. Like usual we played a lot of computer games and stayed up really late drinking caffeine and watching movies. Late at night, when my resistance was weakened, Justin popped in a videotape of recorded Simpsons episodes. Under ordinary circumstances I would have protested. Everything I had heard about that show made it sound evil and cancerous, a slimy half-hour of animation that directly attacked moral fiber. I'd never have watched it of my own volition, but I felt drained and accomodating.

Granted, I was in a receptive mood, but even so, the experience was surprisingly moving. The episodes were the one where Flanders goes crazy and "Streetcar! The Musical." There might have been another one in there too. I was blown away by the sharp humor, intelligent references, and rapid-fire pace of jokes. Not being steeped in pop culture, many allusions went over my head, but enough punches landed for me to laugh long and hard.

After that, I was hooked. Now, The Simpsons were still clearly Persona Non Grata in the King household, so my viewing would be on the sly, at friends' houses or late at night. I was jumping in after many seasons, so I had little sense of continuity and only gradually came to identify with the cast of characters. The more I saw the more I appreciated and the more I wanted to watch.

I could do a long post on just The Simpsons, but the purpose of including them here is in their role as gateway show. The next one I started to watch was the X-Files. This was during the peak of my fascination with the Illuminati and conspiracy theories, so this show's elaborately paranoid plots delighted me greatly. This is another show that gradually crept into my consciousness; I'd read about it in the paper years before I saw my first episode after moving to Illinois.

After leaving for college in 1999, the theoretical limits on television were lifted, but since Brad and I did not have a TV in our dorm room, my viewing schedule remained largely the same. I would go down to the projection TV in the building lobby on Sunday nights to watch the Simpsons, and that was basically it. When living in a suite with some other friends my sophomore year, we acquired a TV and the watching began to take off.

Shows from this period were almost exclusively Comedy Central pieces. Here is where I first encountered the Daily Show, which I still am devoted to. I would also catch classic episodes of Saturday Night Live, from the golden years of the early 90's and the dredges of the middle 80's. Beyond these staples, I kept up my Simpsons viewing and would occasionally catch stuff others were watching, mainly Discovery Channel documentaries and the like. I still didn't feel like I had embraced television, just that I'd found some things worth watching.

During this period I developed some survival skills for dealing with commercials. I never went into the living room without some homework or reading material, and made sure to keep busy during the filler. It was a small gesture, but one that allowed me to convince myself that I wasn't really wasting that much time.

This pattern of TV viewing continued through the rest of my college years, with the lineup changing (I found I could no longer stay up until 3AM watching SNL) but my habits remaining largely the same. We became slavishly devoted to TDS and would attract others who came just for the show. We discovered some gems on the International Channel - the original non-subbed, non-dubbed Dragonball Z, which Brian would halfheartedly translate for us while we stared at two battling characters who would pause for ten minutes between punches. Later came the Irresponsible Captain Tyler, to this day one of my favorite anime. Family Guy left. Iron Chef made a huge splash for a while. Dan developed a weird fascination with Bill O'Reilly. Win Ben Stein's Money was mildly amusing and then left. And there were regular parades of heavily edited-for-TV movies like Billy Madison. Oh, and every football game, generally with a crowd of enthusiastic Fantasy Football spectators.

I haven't had cable since graduation, which has changed things but not in the way you'd expect. While in downtown KC I could get grainy network TV and so I valiantly kept up Simpsons viewing (for a little while; it was around this point that I ceased caring about that terribly influential show) and Sunday football. There was a much better TV in the basement, and when working out I saw episodes of "Friends" and "Seinfeld" for the first time of my life. They were amusing, Seinfeld was definitely better but I can see why some people would like Friends.

Other than that, I was totally fine with not having cable, up until the 2004 campaign started. At this point I started getting some serious jones for the Daily Show. I missed Jon's incredibly trenchant commentary and the articulate political guests they were getting; even worse, I was reading in the paper about what a force the show was finally becoming. After some digging, I found ShunTV, a private Bit Torrent network that posted Daily Show episodes almost immediately after they aired. It became yet another ritual: I would start downloading the previous day's show in the morning, then watch it when I returned from work.

At first ShunTV was extremely focused and did almost nothing but TDS. As time went on, they added more shows, still generally hewing to the comedy lineup. I got my first taste of The Office (BBC) from them, as well as Drawn Together and some other edgy cable fare.

Watching TV in this way was a revolution. I was finally free from commercials, and found myself enjoying great programs even more; you get in a good mood after a few minutes of TDS and can keep it going for the whole 20 minutes without being interrupted by Levitra commercials. I felt some initial guilt about "stealing" my TV this way, but largely resigned myself to it. I still don't download software or movies, because there are clear and easy and legal ways to acquire them. I haven't downloaded an album since I got iTunes, because I'd rather pay a few bucks for a legal album than muck around on the Internet hunting for it. But content is shown on TV for free anyways; someone else has simply taped it for me and removed all the commercials. And I do support the shows I like - I bought the Firefly DVD set after downloading some episodes, I will pick up Arrested Development later this week, and even own the "Indecision 2004" box set from TDS. I just don't like commercials, and I like watching shows when I want to.

Anyways. Despite my occasional forray into other programming, I remained pretty focused on TDS and Fox animation. That changed last year when, for the first time ever, I got hooked on a network drama. Two, in fact.

Hugh Laurie has been my favorite actor for most of my life. I have many fond memories of watching him and Stephen Fry in "Jeeves and Wooster" (on PBS, natch). I've cheered him on as he gradually gets more US movie roles, and was elated when I learned that he had landed the title role in Fox's new drama, "House." I've been disappointed way too many times to give myself much hope, but I wished that Americans would finally realize what a great actor this guy is.

Much to my surprise, they did. Fox did an excellent job promoting the show and it really took off. I dug it, too. I saw the pilot based solely on Hugh Laurie's name. It hooked me from the opening notes to the title theme, brilliantly adapting Massive Attack's "Teardrop," one of my favorite songs. It sealed the deal with the excellent closing sequence, set to The Rolling Stone's "You Can't Always Get What You Want." What was in between was good - as I told people at the time, it would be an OK show on its own (fairly routine medical procedural), but Hugh Laurie's amazing performance takes it to another level. The character is fascinating and well-written, but Hugh is one of the only actors who could pull it off convincingly.

(Incidentally, the show has gotten even better. I need to pick up the Season 1 set at some point and re-acquaint myself, but I think it follows an interesting evolution. The first few episodes felt like they were written as "C.S.I. meets E.R.!" Then there was a stretch where it felt in danger of becoming a soap opera. It really found itself with the Volger arc, which featured several sequential episodes developing an ongoing plotline while further exploring the principles' motivations and abilities. "Three Stories" rightly won an Emmy for Best Script and should have given Hugh a statue as well. I've been swallowing up Season 2 so far, they're still letting the show evolve and give us more depth while not stinging on the excellent House-isms that drive each episode.)

In the case of House, I caught each episode when it first aired, commercials and all. In my new apartment, I don't get any Fox signal at all, so Bit Torrent rides to the rescue. (ShunTV got shut down, so I now use mininova.) Being able to do this keeps me hooked on the show and will mean more of my dollars in Fox's pocket when all is said and done.

The other show was "Lost." I was attracted to this for the same reason I was to House, pure name recognition. In this case it was Dominic Monaghan, Merry in Lord of the Rings, who was prominently featured in all the promotional spots for this show. I missed the pilot and the first few episodes, though, and had mostly forgotten about it. But then I started reading some criticism about how popular the show was, and how it was really good, and thought I'd give it a shot. Now, with a serial adventure like this, I never would have jumped in at episode 6. As it was, though, I could download the shows I'd missed, watch them, and decide that it really was a good show. Now I catch each new episode right when it airs, and fortunately I do get an ABC signal here.

These two shows finally convinced me that it's possible to get really high quality programming on television that rises to the level of movies. Sometimes better, even. TV shows have the advantage of an open-ended format and long running times. The latter allows a good show to do much more with character development, allusion and thematic exploration than a work with a 2-hour time limit. The former allows some exciting creative possibilities, as they are essentially redesigning the show while making it. I still think most TV is dreck, but I no longer think it has to be.

I'll probably look back at the House/Lost combo and identify this as the point when I really got into TV. Now I have so much on my hard drive I don't always get through it all in a week. I'm regularly viewing the Colbert Report, the occasional DS, House, Lost, My Name Is Earl, Arrested Development (don't kill it, Fox!), The Office (NBC), Everybody Hates Chris, Stella, American Dad, and Family Guy. They're great shows that ingest a dollop of humor or thought (or both) into my life and leave me with some extra energy, rarely thinking "Well, that was a waste of time."

Of course, nothing lasts forever. It's possible I'll get sick of staring at the screen so much and return to my hermitlike existence, only occasionally venturing out to grab a box set. Or we might be in the midst of a short-lived golden age, that will produce a flurry of good shows and then die off, leaving us with the next America's Funniest Home Videos. My personal hope is that digital methods of content distribution will ensure that people like me, who like my kind of shows, will be able to directly give financial support and ensure we continue to get our shows. Hopefully there won't be any commercials.

I like guys who got five deferments, never went to war, criticizing us who've been there

Time for another Civ IV update.

I've been playing as Louis XIV recently. (I always rename him - one game was William III of The Netherlands, another Hugh Capet of France). His attribues are Creative and Industrious, which fits well with my playing style; Creative gives me an early boost to culture which lets my borders start expanding immediately, while Industrious lets me build wonders more quickly.

One thing I really need to get better at is building up my military. I always have other priorities when not at war, and when war does come the enemy is always ready and I'm not able to ramp up in time. I usually am far enough ahead technologically that I can build more advanced units than my opponent, but the new combat system in Civ IV really flattens this advantage (as mentioned in a previous post), so producing, say, a Machine Gunner will not be able to stand against four Horse Archers. In my current game, I was stunned when Caesar (who has a +6 disposition towards me and shares my religion) abruptly declared war on me and advanced on an undefended island city of mine. I was only saved because I happened to have a galleon nearby and was able to sink his galleys before they reached me.

So, yeah. In the past I've been able to defer building up a military for a long time, then rush-build a few high-powered defenders when needed. That's just not viable any more (you can't even rush-build until late in the game), and I really need to break this habit if I'm going to get through a game without constantly re-loading.

I think I've found the world style that agrees best with me. I'm playing my Hugh Capet on a Large Archipelago map, which provides the perfect rhythm to the game. Every civ starts on an island by itself or with one neighbor, so you're able to pursue your goals early on without worrying about land-hungry neighbors beating you to crucial resources. Once you discover Sailing, which can come pretty early on, you will be able to reach nearby islands and most likely discover one or two other civs. By now you're each somewhat established and it's nice to deal with mature civs; you can trade techs without worrying that they'll immediately turn against you. Once you hit the Rennaissance, you'll discover Optics/Navigation and cross the ocean, finally meeting everyone else. Anyways, this gives the game a really nice pace that allows you to plan ahead instead of constantly reacting to whatever your neighbors are doing.

Firaxis is publishing a patch sometime next week that should fix the technical issues people have been facing; I hope this will finally remove the stuttering from my wonder videos. They also will lower the volume on the "pillage" sound effect, which will help lessen my irritation somewhat at that annoying maneuver. (I've recently heard that pillaging gives the pillager some gold, which makes me a little more understanding of why the AI does it, though I still don't plan to join them.)

What else... I need to get better at balancing my cities. My William III game was pretty good in this respect, where my capital was good at research, another city was a big naval center, another could churn out military units, etc. Now, my Hugh Capet game is a lot like my first Frederick game, where the capital is the best at everything. I've been planning to try for a cultural victory, but my next two largest cities are so far behind in production that it'll be extremely hard to raise them to Legendary status. My current plan is to have my capital produce Great Engineers, which I will use to rush cultural wonders in these cities, and Great Artists, which will directly boost culture. Hopefully it'll work, but I might end up shooting for the Spaceship Victory. If so, I can practically guarantee that every single part will be manufactured in Paris.

Oh, and in other video-game news, I finally beat Katamari Damacy last night, six months after I started it. It isn't hard, I just kept getting distracted. In the last level, you create the Moon by rolling up what seems like all of Japan, and are treated by a reward video that's even more colorful, cheerful and bizarre than the introductory video. It was a lot of fun, and I'll probably pick up We Love Katamari sometime.

AND, just to avoid creating yet another post, GTA: Liberty City Stories is really amazing. The game is really tight and entertaining, definitely better than GTA3. The programmer in me is stunned that they were able to cram all this stuff into a tiny 2GB disc. I really like the protagonist, he's not as charismatic as CJ from San Andreas, but is probably the second-best character from the series. You do a series of missions where you try to gain your mother's approval (by killing Triads and taking lewd photographs and turning one guy into sausage), but she thinks you aren't tough enough and sends waves of hitmen after you. Utterly delightful, and about as far from Katamari Damacy as you can get.