The Lazy Sunday Edition

I got up early and called around to a few of the properties in D.C. that I have been watching on Craig's List. Several were not interested in renting in August, which is interesting. I guess I am too used to the Ann Arbor time table of leasing, which holds that if you do not have a lease signed by February, you are out of luck.

There are a few places that look quite good, and are willing to lease and I'll be visiting them next weekend with Claire.

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On Saturday I met Tenzing.
He is adorable.

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Last night I bought an AP Style Guide; The Elements of Style, by E.B. White and his mentor William Strunk Jr.; and Writer's Market.

Can I have a job now, please?

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It looks like I'll soon be writing for the Beachwood Reporter, an online culture magazine based around Chicago. Though I probably won't get paid from the gig, I've really enjoyed blog-writing (here, and elsewhere) and given the fact that it's rather in vogue these days having a few more on my resume can't hurt.

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Today, hoping to rekindle my fervor for Starcraft II, I downloaded the Zerg Awakening Trailer. I have to say that I was disappointed by 80% of it. The writing, and especially the voice acting were god-awful. You have to wonder what was going through their heads as they wrote/recorded/mixed/edited/reviewed this short 133mb video.

The monologue is bombastic, and sappy. It tries very, very hard to have an epic edge, but it falls flat. Instead, coming over more as sophomoric. To me, it sounded like the kind of thing that some gothy teenagers had thrown together in their spare time and dropped onto YouTube.

Also: Blizzard is starting to bore me. I used to feel like there was some differences between the style of their games. However, everything is starting to look more and more like World of Warcraft. There doesn't seem to be much flair or originality to the design of anything anymore. Did they sack the entire art department and replace it with one, well motivated, competent, but very boring artist? I have no idea.

The video's one redeeming factor was the in-game footage. That is to say, 50% of the in-game footage was interesting. Half of it was genuinely cool battles taking place on an absolutely massive scale, and a few other, smaller, vignettes of new Zerg abilities. The other half were totally stupefying, if not completely boring, in-game shots. A squad of some kind of air-squid flying over a desert does not stoke my fires and start me reaching for my wallet. Neither does whatever is going on here:



Are we supposed to understand that in StarCraft II, buildings will fart at each other?

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Blizzard has started to rub me the wrong way lately. While I was initially excited to see StarCraft II about to release, I have since become quite wary of it. First, they launch the site with next to nothing on it, but then fail to wet my appetite or keep me interested with regular updates. For a company that made a mint on clever, creative online communities (e.g. WoW) this seems unnaturally stupid.

If this game turns out to be another WarCraft 3, in that it is 3-D, playable, but an overall boring experience then I will be greatly dismayed.

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Tomorrow, I have to do something funny for the final meeting of my Psychology of Humor class starring the New Yorker Cartoon editor Robert Mankoff. I'm a little scared.