Michael Coorlim's Blog, page 31

Gore Vidal Quote

“There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party … and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat. Republicans are a bit stupider, more rigid, more doctrinaire in their laissez-faire capitalism than the Democrats, who are cuter, prettier, a bit more corrupt — until recently … and more willing than the Republicans to make small adjustments when the poor, the black, the anti-imperialists get out of hand. But, essentially, there is no difference between the two parties.” – Gore Vidal

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

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Requisat in Pace, Púca

Four years ago, I meet this cat, Púca.

I was dating his owner, and the first time I’m over at her place he just walks up to me as if we’re already tight, rubbing against my legs and angling for some pets. And just like that, we’re buddies.

That’s sort of what he was like, you know? Entitled. But you couldn’t even be mad at him because he was so friendly. He was that guy who was a little bit over the top, but so boisterous you couldn’t help but smile.

Púca was magnificent.

He was one of those cats that was just brimming with personality. If he wanted your attention, he’d start poking you with one of his paws. If you gave him that attention, he’d be more than happy to chat with you.

“Meh.” – Púca

I had no idea what I was in for, to be honest. He was smart. Smart enough to, once we were roommates, train me to get up earlier and earlier to feed him. I’m a light sleeper, so he quickly learned that making sad noises would get me up to give him breakfast.

By the time his owner pointed out to me what was happening, it was too late. I tried to ignore him, but Púca decided not to learn that lesson.

He didn’t like being picked up. He wasn’t a lap cat. But he’d settle down between us on the couch, just to be in the same room, just to be around us doing whatever it was we were doing.

Funny thing, too. He was ten when I met him, fourteen when he passed, but seemed blissfully unaware that he wasn’t a kitten. He’d race around the house like a cat a quarter of his age, zooming to and fro, pouncing and tackling any toys he happened to come across.

Oh, and if you had a laser pointer? Watch out. He’d chase it in circles until he physically couldn’t, then fall over and expose his belly.

A mighty hunter he was not.

Raised in a series of Chicago apartments from his very kittenhood, he knew nothing of the outside world. He knew nothing of a reality where everyone who met him didn’t immediately love him. He knew nothing of a world where people could be cruel or unkind or indifferent. That was the world he entered, and that was the world he left.

And through it all, as entitled as he could be, as selfish as he was, as manipulative as he tried to come off, he was still this radiator of endless love, compassion, and companionship.

I loved him. He was my buddy. I’ll miss him.

My partner set up a GoFundMe campaign for Puca while we were still trying to figure out what was wrong with him. He doesn’t need help, not anymore, but if you’d like to donate to help cover his veterinary expenses it would be appreciated.

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

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Radioactive Grace 9: New Digs

Radioactive Grace is a Let’s Play of the games Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas, told in a narrative epistolary form. You can find the index page here.

August 21 2277

Things seem clearer this morning. I’m going to head north, deliver Lucy’s message, collect the land mines for Moira, drop them off, collect my pay, gear up for an expedition into DC, and go find my father at that radio station.

Before that, though, I guess I should take some photos of this place. I won’t be back for awhile.

It’s spacious. Our entire vault apartment could fit into this living room. And there’s a second floor.

Whoever lived here before me left a lot of crap behind. What’s with the skulls? But hey, guns. And a big fuckoff hammer.

Oh, and the place comes with a roommate.

Wadsworth. A Mister Handy utility bot running a Butler protocol. Reminds me a lot of Andy, the Handy down in 101, but less glitchy. Tells jokes. Has a water condenser, which is great… I’ll give a bottle to the old man dying of thirst out front, if he’s not dead yet.

The similarities to Andy, though—same voice chip, same snark—leave me feeling homesick. I never thought I’d miss the vault. Maybe it’s just the people. Either way, Wadsworth’s company just makes me feel more alone than ever.

Before I head out, I have Wadsworth give me a haircut. New beginnings, you know?

 

Technical Notes:

I picked up the Wasteland Explorer theme for Grace’s home. It seemed to fit, more than the others, anyway. Her new haircut goes into the inspiration for her name; Jamaican vocalist Grace Jones.

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

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The Age of the Microcomputers

Growing up in the late 80s and early 90s I thought computers were just amazing. Spectacular.  I liked playing games on them, but even more so I liked making games on them, programming in basic and seeing, you know, stuff happening. This, I felt, gave them an edge over consoles like the Atari 2600 or Colecovision. Or even the Colecovision with the adapter that let you play 2600 games on it.

So I was a bit of a nerd

I’d spend hours alone in my room, typing in procedural code found in magazines like Rainbow or books checked out from the library. It was the way I learned, seeing how other people did things and then trying to tweak or adapt the code.

There was a certain purity in figuring it out, in hunting bugs, in making it work. I remember designing different iterations of text parsers in BASIC that were able to break apart input into disparate words and compare them to list of understood phrases. Crude, probably, but I was like twelve and it felt like a huge accomplishment.

What I used

My parents were supportive to the point of picking up cheap microcomputers at garage sales when they weren’t too expensive. these were little more than keyboards that you hooked up to the back of your television, though sometimes I’d have a few peripherals.

Time and nostalgia have faded my memory, but as clearly as I can recall, these were the machines I cut my teeth on.

TRS-80

I can’t say that the TRS-80 (affectionately known as the “Trash 80”) was the first microcomputer I owned. It very well may have been, and I used it longer than the others in this list, despite how terrible the “chicklet” keyboard was. I learned BASIC on one of these things.

It didn’t, if I recall, have a  hard drive, so I could never actually save any of my work. But that didn’t really matter to me.

Atari 400

Had one of these, too. That flap in the middle opens up, and you can put a cartridge inside. The one cartridge I had was “ATARI BASIC” and you really couldn’t do anything without it. The keyboard is one of those flat membrane keyboards… they’re really awful.

Timex Sinclair 1000

Another computer with a membrane keyboard. The thing plugged into the back of it… I don’t remember what it’s for. Extra RAM? A hard drive? No idea.

Commodore 128

The C128 was probably the most impressive, because at the time I got it you could actually still buy games for it in stores. I remember vividly playing Wasteland and figuring out that if you reformatted the discs you saved your progress on, you could revisit the same locations and complete the quests over and over again.

In addition to the external floppy drive, I also had a cassette tape drive for the machine. You could use ordinary music cassettes and record computer programs over them. It was pretty neat.

Best part, though? Real keyboard. Surprising how much that matters.

Others?

There may have well been others, but I don’t remember any of them. The age of Microcomputers passed quickly, as Apple and IBM upped the game considerably. In the end, for me, they were mostly toys and tools upon which to learn.

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

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Let me tell you about my cat

This is Puca.

I met Puca four years ago when I started dating his owner, Kat. He’s super friendly, bold, and like most cats with Siamese blood, very chatty. Within moments he’d started begging for attention, meowing at me, and rubbing up against my legs. He does this with basically everyone he meets. He’s a cat who just loves people.

Smart, too. Quickly figured out that it was easy to manipulate me into getting up and giving him his breakfast. It’s my fault, I guess, teaching him that if he made enough noise I’d get up and feed him. His favorite gambit was to slam the door shut then act all distressed that he couldn’t leave the room.

He doesn’t like being picked up. Or brushed. He likes being around people, though. Even if he’s not the center of attention, he’ll happily just sit and chill in proximity to anyone around, happily dozing, thrilled just to not be alone. He’s active, too, racing around at night with our other cat, playing happily. You’d never guess he was 14.

Puca’s sick.

We don’t know with what. His appetite has petered off, he’s displaying signs of nausea. The vet’s bloodwork shows an elevated white-count, but no other signs or symptoms. Frankly, they’re not sure what’s wrong either, other than some guesses about pancreatitis.

The other day we tried to feed him some antibiotics blended into tuna pills, and he gagged so hard that his heart literally skipped a beat. His legs went out, he hit his head, he released his bladder, and he collapsed, limp.

We were certain that This Was It.

It wasn’t.

We got him to the emergency vet and he’d recovered some by the time he arrived. She told us he’d had a vagal event. A gag reflex so strong that it stopped his heart for a moment. We were relieved, but still concerned, and got him shots for antibiotics, anti-nausea, and appetite.

And now… now we’re in that impossible waiting game where we try to see if he gets better or worse. In some ways he’s been better. Less lethargic. But he’s still not eating much. Still showing signs of nausea when offered food. I’m pretty sure that it’s only a lack of impulse control that’s enabling him to overcome his nausea and eat at all.

In a few days we’re going to have to take him in for another antibiotic shot, and there we’re going to have to decide whether or not to pay for more diagnostic treatments. We can’t afford to, but we can’t just do nothing, you know?

We’re running a GoFundMe campaign to try and raise the money for his medical expenses. If you’ve read this, are sympathetic, and can afford to give a few dollars, we’d appreciate it. If you can’t afford it and want to help by spreading the word, we’d appreciate that too.

Either way, thank you for taking the time to read me talk about my cat and how worried I am about him. That helps.

UPDATE:

We took puka in for an ultrasound. They found nodules in his kidneys and inflammation throughout his digestive system. The most likely diagnosis are lymphoma, or an incurable infection called Feline Infectious Peritonitis (FIP).

In short, he’s dying. There’s no real treatment for FIP, and given the slim chances it’s not worth subjecting him to the chemotherapy to treat lymphoma. The question becomes one of deciding how long we can keep him comfortable for before it’s time to let go.

The anti-nausea meds will allow him to eat, so there’s that. But we must now decide the point at which his right to live is outweighed by his right to not suffer.

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

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Radioactive Grace 8: In The Line of Duty

This is the continuation of a Fallout 3/New Vegas Let’s Play. You can read Part 1 here, or go to the index page.

August 20, 2277

Dear Diary,

Haven’t felt much like writing lately. Not since I got Sheriff Simms killed. Things have quieted down a little, so let me catch you up.

The guy who wanted to talk to me the other night was a man named Burke. He tried to hire me to rig the nuke to explode, on the principle that as a stranger to Megaton I wouldn’t care about murdering so many people. I couldn’t listen, and ran to get Simms.

Simms confronted Burke, and didn’t buy it when the monster tried to play it off like a misunderstanding. Arrested him.

Turned to lead him away, and that dog Burke shot him right in the back.

All at once I felt this white-hot anger ignite in my belly, and before I even knew it I was on Burke, hitting him, kicking him, beating him with my bat. He tried to get his gun on me but I was too fast, too furious. I killed him.

Just when it was all making sense, the world collapses around me again.

The people of Megaton had a funeral for him, consigning his ashes to the wasteland. I hear it was a nice service. I didn’t go. Wouldn’t be right. And, truth be told, I couldn’t bring myself to face his boy Harden. Couldn’t face the family I’d destroyed.

You might ask yourself what I could have done. Burke would have eventually hired some drifter to blow up that bomb. Maybe I saved a lot of people.

Yeah. Well.

Maybe I could have stopped him myself. Maybe I didn’t need to drag Simms into this. That’s the old Grace, the one who grew up in a vault, running to authority when something needs to be done.

That’s Vault talk. This is Outside. And Outside, there’s no Overseer. No ultimate authority. Just a whole lot of folks trying to get by. Some of them good. Some of them bad.

That’s the last time I go running for help. From now on, I handle things myself.

Can’t sleep. Nobody blames me. Nobody needs to.

Went out of the commons and saw the moon glinting off that damn bomb. Only thing Simms ever asked of me was to disarm it if I could.

So I did. Snuck down there around midnight, used my PipBoy, and managed to avoid killing all of us as a… I don’t know. Tribute to Simms. Way of setting things right.

Felt right. Felt like I could sleep. Turn around, going to go back up to the Commons and there’s Harden.

I stare at him and he stares at me and we don’t say anything but we both know I got his daddy killed.

Finally he just speaks. Tells me that his dad had said I was going to disarm the bomb, and that Lucas had set aside the key to one of Megaton’s empty houses if I pulled it off.

I didn’t want it. Didn’t want to stay. But I couldn’t turn it down. Whatever Harden wanted, I couldn’t say no to the kid. I owed him.

When Lucas died, I grabbed his hat off the ground. Didn’t want it stepped on in the Saloon. I offered it to Harden. He told me know, that I should keep it, and just walked away.

Poor kid. Poor all of us.

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

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Quote: Calvin Coolidge

“Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan Press On! has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.” – Calvin Coolidge

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

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Playing in Public: Radioactive Grace

For the last month or so I’ve been writing an epistolary narrative report of a playthrough of the 2008 open world RPG Fallout 3.

 

I wear a lot of hats. Author. Publisher. Screenwriter. Producer. Game dev. Got a lot of irons in a lot of fires. Keeps me busy, keeps me working, keeps me productive.

What does it all have in common? Storytelling. I eat, breathe, and dream story. A good chunk of my waking time is spent writing, and when I’m not writing I’m thinking about story issues.

The thing is, when you think in a certain way for a long time, the brain rewires itself to do that thing more efficiently. You burn new neural pathways. This form of optimization is a manifestation of what we think of as “intelligence.”

I’ve been at this for almost four years now, largely without stop. I don’t have a day job, I don’t have a safety net, I don’t make enough to really feel a sense of security about my financial situation, so I work at this real damn hard, all the damn time.

What does this have to do with playing Fallout?

It’s hard for me to kick back and not work. Even when I’m doing something else, I’m building story, developing ideas, and mining casual conversation for bits I can inject into my fiction later. Seriously. When I meet a new person, my priority is to get a feel for their character arc, their story, what their place and purpose is… the same way I evaluate characters in the books I write.

So it’s hard for me to justify spending hours playing a video game without turning it into story. Thus was born Radioactive Grace.

Radioactive Grace

Radioactive Grace is an epistolary narrative interpretation of a game of Fallout 3. As I play the game I put myself into the mindset of the character I’m playing, Grace, and make choices based on what her emotional state is based on the events of the game thus far. I take screenshots as I play.

Afterwards, I write it up as in-character journal entries, posted to my blog.

This has changed the way I play the game in three ways:

I didn’t build the character with optimization in mind. Instead, her stats are more or less even across the board.
I don’t explore everything, seek out every quest. I’m skipping much of the content.
I’m spending more time thinking about the character’s internal life. What she’s thinking. What she’s feeling. Sometimes this leads to sub-optimal choices.

Fallout 3 is a violent game, and it’s very difficult to avoid physical contact. Almost impossible to avoid killing people. How does this affect someone who comes from a peaceful and isolated upbringing? How does someone adapt to the sudden pressing need to kill to survive? How do the events of the game change who Grace is?

It’s been an interesting examination of character, and an interesting exercise for me… extrapolate the emotional journey of a character encountering events that I didn’t write. I do not control events. I only control the character’s reaction to events.

Sort of like real life.

And Grace Goes On

I don’t know how long I’ll continue writing and playing Grace for. A year, maybe. Maybe a few months. As long as I enjoy writing it, as long as people enjoy reading it. As long as I learn from it.

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

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Radioactive Grace 7: The People in Your Neighborhood

This is the continuation of a Fallout 3/New Vegas Let’s Play. You can read Part 1 here, or go to the index page.

I talked to Moira, told her about the supermarket, about the raiders, about the robot. I don’t remember exactly what I said, or what she said, but somehow I came out of there with more food than I went in with and some kind of food purification machine. She mentioned something about the next chapter being about land mines, but I wasn’t really paying attention.

I spent the rest of today drifting along through Megaton in a daze. After an hour of just… wandering… I bumped into the sheriff, and tried to brush him off, but he must have seen something in my eyes, because he took me to Doc Church. Or maybe it was the bloody footprints I’d been leaving all over town.

The Doctor was annoyed at first, but after looking into my eyes he got serious. We talked, and at first I didn’t want to say anything, but those two men, looking at me with such concern… it just broke me down. I broke down, and I told them everything. The Vault, my father, the Overseer, Amata, the supermarket, the man I killed. The men I’d killed.

They were quiet after that. I could see the pity in their eyes, looking at the poor little Vault Girl who couldn’t make it out in the real world. I asked them… what was the point? How could anyone live like this, out here? With all the killing. The violence. I mean, I got in fights back in the Vault, but that was different. That was anger. And nobody died. Out here… out here people would kill you for your shoes, your hat, your coat.

The sheriff had an answer, but Church cut him off. He looked me in the eye and asked me, why don’t you go ask them?

The Sheriff just nodded and brought me back outside. We spent the next few hours just going around town. He’d introduce me to people, we’d talk, and we’d move on. It was… nice.

We stopped at the Brass Lantern first, where he bought me a bowl of soup.

Jenny runs the Brass Lantern with her brothers, Leo and Andy. They came here together from somewhere back east, and opened the place up themselves. They care a lot about each other, enough to be able to run the business without strife, presenting a united front against everything Not-Stahl.

Across the street from the Lantern are the Children of Atom. Sheriff Simms introduced me to Confessor Cromwell, their leader. He was only too happy to tell me about what they believe… every atom is a universe, and nuclear fission gives birth to a trillion more.

I could tell the Sheriff didn’t much like standing next to the bomb, though, and later he confided in me that the only reason they kept it around was because the town needed the support of the Church to function.

These are Billy Creel and Maggie. Billy’s a scavenger. He saved Maggie after raiders killed her parents, and she’s basically his adopted daughter. I can tell that he really cares about her. They’re an unconventional family, but they are a family.

I think that’s key, maybe. Out here. You need something… someone… to help you survive. Someone to keep you sane. Back in 101, it was Amata. Now… now I need to find my dad. But there’s more to it than that.You need more than a family. You need a purpose. Whether it be a daughter or a restaurant or a bomb god, you need something to drive you.

While Simms and I were headed back to the Saloon so I could pay Moriarty off and talk about my father, we ran into Lucy West.

She was telling the Sheriff about her concern about her family back north, and wanting to send a note to them. I mentioned that I was thinking about heading up that way to help Moira out with her book in Minefield, and she said that her parents lived in a small community just north of that, I said I could take her message to them, and she seemed pleased.

Who knows. Maybe I can make a living as a Courier.

After we reached the Saloon the Sheriff went about his business and I went in to talk to Moriarty. Paid him his caps, and he told me that Father had gone East, into DC, to the Galaxy News Radio station.

Why? No idea. But now I know where I have to go. Problem is, everything I’ve heard about DC tells me that it’s dangerous. Deadly. Full of giant mutants and ruthless bandits. I could hire someone like Jericho or Billy as a guard, but I’ll need more caps. Collecting mines for Moira and delivering Jenny’s letter is a good start. Maybe. Or maybe I can just slip through on my own.

I’ve been sitting here at the bar, writing about the people who live here, trying to come up with some kind of plan. Maybe, for now, it’s enough to

Hold on, someone is trying to get my attention. I’ve been trying to ignore the dude, but he’s started to whistle and it’s getting on my nerves.

Gonna see what he wants. Maybe it’s a way to earn a few caps.

 

 

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

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Coorlim’s Guide to NaNoWriMo

It’s October! Pumpkins. Changing leaves. Wind. Colder temperatures. Halloween. And the looming specter of National Novel Writing Month.

NaNoWriMo

If you’re an aspiring writer you’ve probably heard of NaNoWriMo. If you haven’t, the short version is simple: You write a novel during the month of November. Yes, it can be done.

Last year I wrote a guide to help people write faster and more efficiently. If you haven’t read it, I invite you to give it a look. It’s not too early to start planning!

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

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