The Secret Lair

Confession time: I play a lot of so-called “casual” games. I’m talking about the video games that make hardcore gamers cringe: gem matching, time-management, hidden object games. Games like Diner Dash, Big Kahuna Reef and Mystery Case Files: Dire Grove. For over a year, I had a membership to Big Fish Games and plunked down $6.99 every month to buy titles like Airport Mania: First Flight, Heroes of Kalevala, Mall-a-Palooza and Life Quest.¹

It’s not quite as bad as playing FarmVille on Facebook,² but it’s close.

The truth is, I enjoy casual games. A lot. And I’ve played a nigh-embarrassing number of them in the past eighteen months, both on my Windows desktop and on my MacBook. The full list contains over two dozen titles, but here are just a few:

Windows

That's one cute plane.

• Airport Mania: First Flight. This is the one that started it all; the gateway game I started with when I first joined Big Fish Games. You manage inbound and outbound flights at a series of airports, shuffling planes from runway to gate, to baggage handling, refueling, repair, and even repainting. And the planes are all ridiculously cute,³ smiling and cheering when they arrive at the gate early; frowning when there’s a delay.
• Airport Mania 2: Wild Trips. More cute planes! I’m pretty sure there are new aspects to the gameplay in the sequel, but I’m hard-pressed to recall what they are, on account of those planes are just so darn cute.
• Build-a-Lot. This real-estate mogul game has thus far spawned four sequels, including Build-a-Lot: The Elizabethan Era. Build, buy, upgrade and sell houses, improve neighborhoods with essential businesses, and create a real estate empire.
• Mr. Jones’ Graveyard Shift. Quite possibly the only sexton simulator in existence.⁴ Mr. Jones is trying to earn enough to retire with his septuagenerian sweetheart and it just happens that he works in a cemetery. As with most time-management games, you begin with only the basics and work your way up to high-end accoutrements; it’s class warfare in the afterlife!
• Mystery Case Files: Huntsville. Time-management and gem-matching games are one thing, but hidden object games take geek shame to a whole new level; nothing to build, nothing to move, nothing to shoot, nothing to do. You’re playing Where’s Waldo? on your computer; even solitaire is more active! Despite this, I’ve played Mystery Files: Huntsville—which has the player searching for clues in various crime scenes and adds some puzzle-solving elements to the hidden-object genre (as most recent titles do)—through to completion…twice.

Mac

No tricked-out nametag?

• Diner Dash. If there is a patient zero in the time-management game genre, this is probably it. The basic concept is fairly straightforward—seat customers, serve them food, take their money, and bus their tables—but Diner Dash and its simple mechanic have spawned not only a number of sequels but dozens of knockoffs involving coffee shops (Coffee Rush), hotels (Hotel Dash: Suite Success), hospitals (Hospital Hustle) and beauty parlors (Belle’s Beauty Boutique).⁵
• HappyVille: Quest for Utopia. This game, which is essentially Sim City-lite, pushes the boundaries of my definition of a casual game. Most importantly, it is not divided into a series of bite-sized chunks, (e.g., gem-matching boards, time-management levels) each of which takes 5-20 minutes to play. Instead, HappyVille is a single city that the player must build from start to (ideally) utopian finish over the course of the game. Build farms, homes, hospitals, schools, stores, and other buildings, always with an eye toward what will keep your citizens happy: nearby shopping, schools and safety facilities, but nothing downwind from the farm, please.
• Heroes of Kalevala. The story behind this gem-matching game is based on the epic poem of Finnish folklore. Unfortunately, it is presented without any trace of a Finnish accent, so words like “kantele” and names like “Wainamoinen” lose their character. As with most recent gem-matching games, the goal in Heroes of Kalevala is to clear a board by changing all of the tiles beneath the gems to a single color. In most cases, tiles can be cleared by simply completing a match over them, but some tiles are locked and require specific (and often multiple) matches to clear. Some levels feature ice that must be cleared or spreading pools of tar that must be eliminated before they spread across the entire board. Each hero has an ability that can be used to clear otherwise-inaccessible tiles, stop the flow of tar, or otherwise assist in the clearing of the board.
• Mall-a-Palooza. I caught some guff from Madame Overlord Johnson for playing this game, and deservedly so. There’s a certain amount of hypocrisy in mocking her for playing My Cafe World on Facebook while I’m trying to balance the distribution of Old Navy-like clothing stores and not-really-Radio Shacks in my virtual shopping mall.
• My Kingdom for the Princess. A time-management game with a medieval fantasy twist. The kingdom is in ruins and you must direct your minions to repair roads and bridges, gather gold, build farms and ferry the princess to safety before time runs out. As with most time-management games, the trick for me is not simply completing each level, but managing to do so before the first timer expires in order to achieve a “gold” ranking. This leads to me playing some levels multiple times, trying to find the most efficient way to use my minions’ time to accomplish all the required tasks.

These are the types of games that my hardcore gaming buddies simply don’t talk about, much less admit to playing and enjoying. None of the Olde Fartz—a group that convenes online every Thursday to play first-person shooters, racers, and real-time strategy—has ever copped to playing Diner Dash, must less a game with “Princess” in the title. Am I alone in my enjoyment of both “casual” and “hardcore” (or, as Amazon calls them, “core”) games? What are you playing when no one is watching?⁶

1. I’d still have that membership if I hadn’t reached the point where I simply have so many games that I don’t have time to play them all. [↩]
2. Zyngaaaaaaaa! [↩]
3. Yes, cute! Don’t you judge me! [↩]
4. It’s a niche market. [↩]
5. Not to mention inspiring games like My Cafe World on Facebook. [↩]
6. Be very, very careful how you answer this question. [↩]

Not too terribly long ago, we invited some Friends of the Lair to reveal their deepest, darkest secrets under the shroud of anonymity; we promised to keep their identities a closely guarded secret and offered them the opportunity to bare their souls—to share with us their hidden shame without fear that they would be exposed for the damaged, dysfunctional individuals they really are.

No one was more surprised than we were that they actually fell for it.

Presented here, for the first time, are shocking revelations from people who have the audacity to call themselves geeks. Here is Geek Shame at its finest:

• Chris M. “deeply enjoyed” the second and third Matrix films.¹
• Derek S. has never watched Doctor Who. In his own words, he “couldn’t even point out Dr. Who in a lineup.”²
• Mick B. has never seen an episode of Babylon 5 beyond the pilot.³
• David M. liked Highlander II: The Quickening.⁴
• Kris J. has never watched all of 2001: A Space Odyssey.⁵
• Greg H. “couldn’t get into Firefly.”⁶
• Doctor John C. has never seen Blade Runner.⁷
• Chris M. has “never read Lord of the Rings straight through.”⁸
• Jay L. doesn’t “get” Transformers.⁹
• Natalie M. has never seen an entire episode of Star Trek, the original series.¹⁰
• Derek S. has not seen Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.¹¹
• Mick B. has never read any of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series.¹²
• Greg H. never finished Grim Fandango.¹³
• Kris J. found Ben Affleck as Daredevil “pretty watchable.”¹⁴
• Natalie M. has never seen a single episode of LOST.¹⁵
• Jay L. doesn’t see what all the fuss is about Princess Leia in a metal bikini.¹⁶

There you have it. True¹⁷ confessions of people who profess to be geeks. Do you have some hidden geek shame? Go ahead: let it out. Your secret is safe with us.

1. Just like some people “deeply enjoy” cavity searches. [↩]
2. Hint: Look for the guy with celery fastened to his lapel. [↩]
3. I’d make a clever comment here, but I haven’t even seen the pilot. [↩]
4. I hope he enjoys Highlander XIX: The Shunnening. [↩]
5. The only HAL he’s familiar with is the guy from Barney Miller. [↩]
6. This is actually grounds for execution in some sectors if the Internets. [↩]
7. Or Logan’s Run or TRON. On the other hand, he has known the touch of a woman. [↩]
8. “You shall not pass…page 328!” [↩]
9. Here’s a hint: The Transformers! More than meets the eye. Autobots wage their battle to destroy the evil forces of the Decepticons. The Transformers! Robots in disguise! [↩]
10. In her defense, she was minus thirty-three years old when they originally aired. [↩]
11. “From Hell’s heart, I stab at th—are you even listening to me?” [↩]
12. I got nothin’. [↩]
13. I know, right? What the hell is Grim Fandango? [↩]
14. You want me to make a “Matt Murdock is blind” joke here, keying on the word “watchable”; I know you do. [↩]
15. It’s almost as though she’s got better things to do than sit around watching television. [↩]
16. Okay, now I’m just making stuff up. [↩]
17. Mostly true. [↩]

Living in the future has turned me fickle where watching television is concerned. Thanks to my DVR, I almost never watch episodes of series I enjoy when they originally air; I’ll often go several weeks without watching a particular series, then sit down one evening and have a multi-episode marathon—Madame Overlord Johnson and I have a three-episode backlog of Game of Thrones, and we’re planning such a marathon later this week, when my young apprentice stays at his grandmother’s house.

Add online streaming video services to the mix, and I may not watch a series until there are one or more full seasons available online. I recently spent much of a Wednesday evening watching six episodes of Season One of Sons of Anarchy on Netflix Instant. Just this past weekend, I watched multiple episodes of The Invisible Man, a Sci Fi Channel series canceled in 2002, on Hulu Plus.

I currently use three services to stream television series to my television (via a Roku XD|S): Amazon Prime, Hulu Plus and Netflix Instant:

• Amazon Prime is not primarily a streaming video service; it is an annual subscription that offers free two-day shipping on most Amazon.com purchases and a discount on overnight shipping. Amazon added access to over 5,000 movies and television series via Amazon Instant Video in February 2011. An Amazon Prime membership runs about $80 per year, though students can currently get a year for free. Cost: $6.67/month.
• Hulu Plus is the premium subscription service offered by Hulu.com. The basic Hulu service features free movies, television shows and video clips, all of which can be viewed via a web browser. Hulu Plus features more content (over 1,000 seasons of classic and current television series, plus hundreds of movies), and many (though not all) shows can be streamed to a variety of devices, including smartphones, gaming consoles, set-top boxes, and Internet-enabled televisions. Cost: $7.99/month plus ads in most, if not all, streaming television shows.
• Netflix Instant is the on-demand service of the popular movie-rental-by-mail company. The last time I saw numbers was several months ago, but at that time, Netflix had well over 40,000 titles (including both movies and television series) available in their streaming catalog. Cost: $7.99/month.

To compare the three services, I selected a handful of television series—past and present—that I’m interested in watching and checked the availability from each provider.

1. Three episodes from Season Two, one of which expires on May 20.
2. Season One only (all episodes).
3. Hulu has 189 video clips related to Burn Notice, but no full episodes.
4. Three episodes.
5. I’ve yet to see an episode of Fringe, though many people have recommended it to me.
6. Five episodes.
7. Hulu has the first season of Knight Rider (1982), but is not licensed to stream it to televisions or mobile devices.
8. Netflix had most of the first four seasons of Knight Rider at one time, but the license has since expired and they are no longer available on Netflix Instant.
9. Hulu has all 17 episodes of Knight Rider (2008), but is not licensed to stream them to televisions or mobile devices.
10. Six episodes.
11. Seasons One and Two.
12. Seasons One and Two.

In terms of availability of television series that interest me, Hulu Plus appears to be the front-runner…until all of their licensing restrictions are taken into account. Most current series have three to five episodes of the most recent season available, provided that series has not been on hiatus for more than a few weeks. The only exception to this rule I’ve found thus far is Castle, which just wrapped its third season; every episode of that third season is available except for the finale, which aired on Monday and will be available sometime Tuesday.

Unfortunately for the guy who wants to start watching Castle from Season One, there doesn’t appear to be a subscription-based on-demand option. Out of curiosity, I checked Blockbuster On-Demand and found that they don’t offer a streaming option for Castle, either. If you’re willing to pony up an extra $9.90, you can buy Season One of Castle from Amazon Instant Video, and if you’ve got one of the Netflix plans that includes DVD delivery, you can get it that way, too.

For my money, Netflix is still at the head of the game. The Instant Video offerings for Amazon Prime subscribers are just sort of tacked on; there’s plenty of old Doctor Who and Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, but the catalog lacks any real depth. That’s not a big deal, really; I signed up for the free two-day shipping, which should save me a pretty penny come Christmas.

Meanwhile, the wacky license restrictions on Hulu Plus content plus the presence of advertisements in a premium subscription model add up to a one-two punch that knocks the wind out of the service. I’ll stick with it long enough to get a dose of Green Wing (a bizarre British version of Scrubs, from what I can tell so far) and maybe a trip down nostalgia lane with a few episodes of Remington Steele, but unless Hulu pulls a serious rabbit out of its hat in the next month or so, they’re not going to keep me as a customer.

…the Need For Speed.

It’s been more than twenty years since I first played a racing game on a personal computer. That game was Test Drive, and I played it¹ on an Apple //GS. The Duel: Test Drive II, followed and many, many more hours of my late teens were spent behind the virtual steering wheel of various supercars, fleeing from Johnny Law. I was a high-octane rebel, racing at breakneck speeds and violating more motor vehicle laws than the entire Duke clan combined.

Shortly after I purchased my first PC, Test Drive 4 was released, but it was pretty much unplayable, and I didn’t buy another racing game until I joined the ranks of console gamers and picked up Burnout 2: Point of Impact for the Xbox. I’ve played every Criterion-developed installment² in the Burnout series since: Burnout 3: Takedown, Burnout Revenge, and Burnout Paradise.³

I’ve also dabbled with the Project Gotham Racing, Midnight Race and Midtown Madness series on the Xbox, but no racing games have consumed my time as much as the Burnout titles. As of this writing, Burnout Paradise on the PC has stolen fifty-four hours that could have been spent for the betterment of humanity.⁴

As much time as I’ve spent driving like a nitro-powered maniac through the streets of Paradise City, racing faster and faster cars from the marina to the ballpark, trying to beat the clock as I barreled toward the wind farm, and taking down dozens of cars, trucks and SUVs in aggressive Road Rage events, I’ve always felt that Burnout Paradise (and the entire Burnout series in general) is missing something; a mode of play I haven’t seen since I played that first Test Drive game way back in the late 1980s.

Enter Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit. Developed by Criterion, the same folks who have been serving me heaping helpings of crash-and-Burnout goodness for the past half-dozen or so years, NFS: HP (as the kids are calling it…or not) brings back the chase mode that I loved in Test Drive and The Duel,⁵ putting the player behind the wheel of a souped-up police interceptor or looking at that same interceptor in the rearview mirror.

I’ve only played NFS: HP for a couple of hours, but I did notice one fairly significant difference between it and Test Drive: my dashboard isn’t magenta.⁶ I’ve also unlocked at least a half-dozen cars since I began playing: Vettes and Beemers, Porches and Nissans and, yes, that yellow Camaro. Compare that to the original Test Drive, which featured a grand total of five cars. And while I seem to recall deploying a spike strip or two, I’m fairly certain that I wasn’t executing the PIT maneuver on my Apple //GS . Change is good.

What are your favorite racing games? Do you prefer an arcade style of play that allows for ridiculous, unbelievable driving, or a game that provides realistic physics and allows you to tweak your car (weight distribution, tire pressure, etc.) to shave fractions of seconds off your lap times?

1. …and played it, and played it. [↩]
2. Burnout Legends and Burnout Dominator were not developed by Criterion, and neither were available on the Xbox. [↩]
3. I own and play both the PC and Xbox 360 versions of Burnout Paradise. [↩]
4. I’ve only recently begun exploring the online multiplayer gameplay in Burnout Paradise with Minister Lynn and Commandant Moore. [↩]
5. Yes, I’m sure other games released in the intervening years have featured pursuit modes, but I haven’t played any of them. [↩]
6. In fact, Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit does not feature a camera view in which the dashboard is visible, but as I prefer an external chase camera, I don’t mind. [↩]

During a recent conversation with our Secretary of Artistic Propaganda, it occurred to me that vampires have been cropping up in an awful lot of the books I’m reading lately. I haven’t been making any kind of conscious effort to read vampire stories, but a quick glance through my reading list from the past year puts me at just shy of one bloodsucking tale per month. Granted, vampirism isn’t always front and center in these novels, but here’s a list of books I’ve read in the past twelve months that feature vampires in major and minor roles:

1. Fool Moon by Jim Butcher. The second Dresden Files novel is really about werewolves (as if you couldn’t guess from the title), but it’s Dresden and I’m sure he must have had dealings with vampires at some point.
2. Soulless by Gail Carriger. I really enjoyed the first outing of Alexia Tarabotti in Victorian England, which features both vampires and werewolves. I only wish the cover model bore more of a resemblance to the main character.
3. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith. Vampires abound in this secret history of the 16th President of These Here United States.
4. Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story by Christopher Moore. The first of Christopher Moore’s San Francisco Vampire Trilogy, which tells the tale of Jody, the newly-befanged Countess of the City by the Bay, and her boyfriend, Tommy. I listened to the excellent audio edition, narrated by Susan Bennett.
5. Grave Peril by Jim Butcher. The third Dresden Files novel is likely the last one I’ll read for the foreseeable future. But there are vampires. Yup.
6. You Suck: A Love Story by Christopher Moore. Yes, it’s the continuing adventures of Countess Jody and her boyfriend, Tommy. This time out, they’re joined by goth chick and nosferatu-wannabe, Abbie Normal.
7. The Buntline Special: A Weird West Tale by Mike Resnick. The vampire in this steampunk/fantasy retelling of the showdown at the O.K. Corral isn’t really a major character, but…he’s still a vampire.
8. Bite Me: A Love Story by Christopher Moore. The third and final (for now) installment of Moore’s San Francisco Vampire trilogy has most of the bloodsuckers from the first two novels, plus vampire cats. Meow!
9. Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch. Usually, urban fantasy takes place in These Here United States, and fantasy in Jolly Olde England tends to be set in the Victorian Era. The adventures of Probationary Constable Peter Grant take place in an era of smart phones and high-definition television. Vampires play only a minor role…for now.
10. Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris. Overlord Miller’s better half tore through the entire Sookie Stackhouse series in a matter of days. I’m about halfway through the audio edition of the first in Harris’ Southern vampire novels.
11. Changeless by Gail Carriger. I’m just over a third of the way through the second volume of The Parasol Protectorate. Vampires, werewolves…and dirigibles. That’s what it says on the cover, and so far Alexia has encountered all three.

Honorable Mention: Zombies

• The Affinity Bridge by George Mann.
• Feed by Mira Grant.
• Patient Zero by Jonathan Maberry.
• Boneshaker by Cherie Priest.

What sort of common threads are running through your recent literary choices?

When I was a boy living in the untamed wilds of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, the nearest bookstore was approximately twenty miles from my parents’ house.¹ Over the years that distance has decreased,² thanks to a highway that has been re-routed to bypass a couple of small town along the way.³ Even now, Google Maps estimates that it will take thirty-seven minutes to drive from my parents’ house to the Copper Country Mall, former home of B. Dalton Booksellers.

I moved to Ohio in 1994, living first in Mentor-on-the-Lake, where the nearest mall had both a B. Dalton and a Waldenbooks and was a mere five miles away. A few months later, I moved to Fairport Harbor and those bookstores were suddenly ten miles away. In 1997 I moved to Mayfield Heights and there was Waldenbooks within walking distance. In 2001 my wife and I established the International House of Johnson in Willoughby; nearest bookstore: Barnes & Noble (where my wife worked, briefly) at the Great Lakes Mall, just over six miles away.⁴

Like Overlord Miller, my local Borders—if ten miles from home can be considered “local” in the suburbs—is closing. Or perhaps it has already closed; I don’t know. Unlike Overlord Miller, I didn’t venture out to the store to wander through the aisles or sit at the café once more before the doors closed, not even when the discounts hit 60% and a Kobo eReader could be had for a mere $60. The last time I visited Borders was to spend a gift card I received for Christmas, and even then it seemed like it wasn’t worth the hassle of driving ten miles out of my way to get there.

When did driving ten miles to a bookstore become a hassle? When I was a boy,⁵ a trip to the B. Dalton was something I looked forward to. The opportunity to spend hours browsing through the Science Fiction and Fantasy section was a treat. When I lived within walking distance of the Waldenbooks, the novelty of having a bookstore so close had not yet worn off, and I would usually visit once or twice a week. Perhaps that proximity spoiled me, but I think there’s another explanation.

Something happened when the Waldenbooks closed and the nearby Barnes & Noble relocated: the bookstore wasn’t a bookstore anymore. A third of the floorspace at the new Barnes & Noble⁶ was devoted to overpriced movies and music; patrons browsed through books while they sipped lattés at the new in-store café. Ditto for the Borders bookstore that opened on the east side of Mentor—and just now informed me (via e-mail) that their closing sale is in its FINAL DAYS!

On a conceptual level, the idea of a bookstore in which customers are encouraged to spend the better part of an afternoon browsing and sipping cappuccino and eating biscotti seems like it ought to appeal to me. In reality, the more-than-a-bookstore model wore out its welcome two or three years ago; maybe more. I’ve never been comfortable with the idea of parking myself in the café with a white chocolate mocha and an orange scone while I flip through the pages of a book that I may or may not ultimately buy. I always feel like I should finish my damn coffee and buy the damn book and get out of the damn store because it ain’t a library, fer chrissake!⁷ Never mind the paranoia about dumping an organic soy chai latté all over the pristine pages of The Red, White and Extremely Blue Book of American Erotica 2011.⁸

The more-than-a-bookstore is not a nostalgic place for me. No fond memories,⁹ no social significance. I don’t even mourn the loss of a free wi-fi hotspot. It is, as I commented on Overlord Miller’s personal blog earlier this year, not my Third Place. The only level on which I am at all concerned about my local Borders closing is for the employees; I hope they are able to recover quickly and completely from what must be an utterly disheartening and stressful experience.

The closing of my local Borders doesn’t herald the end of books as we know them. I don’t fear for the future of the pulp and ink book any more than I fear for the future of the double-shot caffè macchiato with extra foam; as long as there are trees left on the planet, we’ll keep turning them into books.¹⁰ And if we have to buy those books from Internet stores without leaving our homes or interacting with another human being…well, that’s just the first step toward a utopian society, isn’t it?

1. Ditto for the nearest movie theater. The nearest fast-food joint was three miles further down the road. [↩]
2. It’s now less than twelve parsecs. [↩]
3. Atlantic Mine? Where’s that? [↩]
4. Currently, the nearest bookstore is M & P Bargain Books. [↩]
5. Living in the untamed etcetera. [↩]
6. The “new” Barnes & Noble closed last year. [↩]
7. A library with a café in it…now that might work. [↩]
8. By Anonymous. [↩]
9. I worked in a bookstore one summer. Not one of the major chains, but a place that dealt almost exclusively in used books. I say “almost,” because the store also dealt in porn and adult toys—”marital aids,” if you will. I remember boggling at the sheer quantity of used books that we simply could not accommodate on the shelves. I also remember being asked to sign the centerfold in an old copy of Playboy for some students who were on a scavenger hunt. Second-hand skin magazines. Try not to think on that concept too much. [↩]
10. We’ll cut the corners off, like all the paper in Ron Moore’s Battlestar Galactica. You know, to save paper. That wasn’t stupid; not at all. Shut up. [↩]

Quick! Name three Russian science-fiction writers. Yes, you can count the Strugatsky brothers as two, if you absolutely must, but you shouldn’t have to. You’ve got Lukyanenko (Night Watch, Day Watch), of course, and Gluhkovsky (Metro 2033, basis for the video game of the same name) and Tolstoy (the other one, who wrote The Garin Death Ray instead of Anna Karenina)…the list goes on and on.

Now name three Finnish science-fiction writers.

Go ahead, I’ll wait.

No names leaping to mind?

Here’s a little help for you—in the category “Finnish science fiction writers,” Wikipedia lists seven names:

1. Aarne Haapakoski
2. Risto Isomäki
3. Leena Krohn
4. Kimmo Lehtonen
5. Martti Löfberg
6. Hannu Rajaniemi
7. Johanna Sinisalo

Compare that to the category “Russian science fiction writers,” which yields forty-eight names (forty-nine, if you count Arkady and Boris Strugatsky as two people).

It never occurred to me to search for Finnish science fiction writers until the latest in a series of literary conversations with a Russian-American colleague at work. When the topic wandered (as it does) into the realm of science fiction recently, we spoke of Stalker, a 1979 film directed by Andrei Tarkovsky (who also directed Polish science fiction author¹ Stanislaw Lem’s Solaris in 1972) and based on the Strugatsky brothers’ novel, Roadside Picnic.

Wait a minute, I thought, after our conversation had come to a close. What about Finnish science fiction?

The Finns are my people; the music that sings in my blood is a kantele, strummed by the eternal bard, Väinämöinen. In nearly thirty-eight years on the planet, it never once occurred to me to seek out Finnish sci-fi. When it did occur to me, I wondered if I might learn that in the great Venn diagram of science-fiction, the circle representing Lapland was empty.

It’s not, of course, but nor is it bursting at the seams;² compared to the rest of what we consider Scandinavia,³ Finland is the most science-fictional (at least according to Wikipedia). The tally for the remainder of Scandinavia is as follows: Denmark, 2; Norway, 4; Sweden, 5.

Finnish science fiction does exist, but there’s slight hurdle that must be overcome before I can actually read any of it: Suomalainen, the Finnish language. Apart from a handful of terms related to misbehaving, sawing lumber and cursing at farm animals, I can neither speak nor read Finnish. In order to experience Finnish science fiction, I’ll either need to learn the language or find English translations.

If you’re expecting me to announce that I plan to learn to speak (or read) Finnish in the short term, don’t hold your breath. It’s something I’d like to do, but it’s not exactly on my short range radar. On the other hand, I’m very well aware that one of the Finnish science fiction writers listed above, Hannu Rajaniemi, has a new novel—The Quantum Thief—that will soon be available in these here United States; in English, no less.⁴ And so my journey into the realm of Finnish science fiction will begin later this year.

Who are the science fiction writers of your nationality? Have you read any of their works? How do they compare with American sci-fi?

1. Poland: 30 science fiction writers. [↩]
2. American science fiction writers: 1,058 [↩]
3. Geography Trivia: Finland is not a part of what is classically considered Scandinavia. [↩]
4. Alas, no Kindle version has been announced. [↩]

According to a recent post on Cult of Mac—a website that pretty much lives up to its name—a couple of executives at Apple took pity on a guy whose wife wouldn’t let him have an iPad 2. After this fellow returned his iPad 2 with a sticky note reading “Wife said no” attached, Apple set him a replacement with a sticky note reading “Apple said yes.”

This is all based on rumor and hearsay, but I could probably use up at least one whole pad of Post-Its¹ labeling things that my wife has told my I can’t have. Gosh, it sure would be great if anonymous executives at Apple, Dell, Microsoft and any number of other corporations sent me free stuff with sticky notes attached. Here’s your chance to build some consumer goodwill, faceless corporations; don’t let it slip through your fingers.

1. 22″ (or larger) LCD monitor (Dell, Samsung, ViewSonic).
2. iPhone 4 (Apple).
3. Slimline Xbox 360 w/250GB hard drive and Kinect sensor (Microsoft).
4. HP Color LaserJet wireless printer.
5. Roku XD|S streaming media player.
6. She-Hulk.

That should do for starters. Now, executives, just because you don’t see your corporation’s name on the list, don’t be discouraged; there’s still a very good chance that my wife has nixed the purchase of one of your products at some point,² so go ahead and send me free stuff anyway. You’ll be glad you did.

1. I don’t go for the generic sticky notes; a man’s got to have standards. [↩]
2. “We have to pay the car insurance premium/preschool tuition/electric bill.” “Kyle needs new boots so his feet won’t freeze.” “The refrigerator sounds like a outboard motor; we should replace it.” The excuses are endless. [↩]

Sometime in the last smurf or so a smurfy new trailer for The Smurfs appeared on the Internet. Where the original teaser—released way back in Smurf of last smurf—was merely a montage of familiar landmarks and monuments being “Smurf’d” in some fashion followed by a smurf of the titular characters in New York, the new trailer smurfs a lot more action of the three apples high variety and hints a bit at the smurf.¹²

When it comes to The Smurfs, I’ve observed an interesting phenomenon: I appear to be the only person on the planet who wants to see the movie. In fact, every comment I’ve smurfed about the movie so far contains nothing but pure, unadulterated scorn. Oh noes, my precious childhood memories are being destroyed!³ When will Hollywood stop remaking, rehashing and/or rebooting material from thirty years ago?⁴ What the smurf were they thinking when they smurflighted this movie? Why would Neil Patrick Harris smurf himself like that?

Smurfers. Every last one of you. Nothing but smurfers. And smurfers…well, smurfers gotta smurf. That’s all there is to it.

As for me, I’m looking forward to The Smurfs. Yes, partly because I think my young apprentice (who is now five) will get a kick out of them, but also because the cast smurfs me: NPH, Hank Azaria, Jonathan Winters (Papa Smurf), John Oliver (Vanity Smurf), B.J. Novak (Baker Smurf) and so on…perhaps not all headliners, but each of them possessed of a smurfy sense of humor. I don’t expect great things from The Smurfs, but I imagine it will at least smurf me. And I am so easily smurfed.⁵

So go right ahead and smurf all you smurfers. You know who else smurfs the Smurfs? Gargamel. Yeah. Smurf about that the next time you smurf into a smurf. If you smurf.

"Do not be fooled by their cuteness!" Too late, NPH. Too late.

1. Also: Neil Patrick Harris. [↩]
2. Also also: Hank Azaria as Gargamel. [↩]
3. Really? When is the last time you actually smurfed an episode of the Smurfs cartoon from the 1980s? What, exactly, is so precious about your smurfy memories? And don’t tell me you haven’t done your fair of memory-sullying with thirty years worth of Smurfette jokes. Yeah, I know all about those. Hypocrite. [↩]
4. Well, considering the Smurfs were originally smurfed in the late 1950s and not smurfed to your smurf until 1981, it’s a fair smurf it won’t be anytime soon. [↩]
5. In 3D! [↩]

Crackpot Schemes aren’t normally my milieu¹ but I had a pie-in-the-sky idea recently and I’d like the folks over at LucasArts or Twentieth Century Fox or whoever is responsible for the release of the Star Wars films on Blu-Ray to steal it.

That’s right, you can have this idea. It’s yours. Don’t pay me, don’t thank me; just use it. Please.

Star Wars: My Edition

One of the primary gripes fans of the original Star Wars trilogy have is that the films they saw in the theater in 1977, 1980 and 1983 have been relegated to an inferior, non-anamorphic DVD release while the Special Editions of each (with which creator George Lucas incessantly tinkers) get the benefit of digital restoration, sound remastering and anamorphic widescreen presentation. Han shoots “first,”² Boba Fett speaks with Temeura Morrison’s voice, Jabba the Hutt makes an appearance in A New Hope, and the Sarlacc is apparently related to Shai Hulud.

If half of what I’ve been led to believe about Blu-Ray technology is true,³ it should be snap to implement a simple side-by-side (-by-side in some cases) scene list for each film in the original trilogy presented in a grid with columns labeled Original Theatrical Release, Special Edition and DVD Release. From this list the viewer selects their preferred version of each scene to create My Edition, a seamless integration of scenes from all three versions.

My Edition of The Empire Strikes Back would feature the Special Edition Wampa scenes on Hoth, ditch the CGI Millennium Falcon‘s approach to Cloud City, keep Boba Fett’s original dialog (voiced by Jason Wingreen), and replace Clive Revill’s Emperor Palpatine with Ian McDiarmid (though I rather like Revill’s voice).

Keep it.

In My Edition of The Return of the Jedi, it would be Sebastian Shaw—rather than Hayden Christensen—as a ghostly Anakin Skywalker smiling beatifically at his son on the forest moon of Endor, and the Max Rebo band would perform “Lapti Nek” and only “Lapti Nek” in Jabba’s palace on Tattooine.

Cut it. Please.

Is this too much to ask for? Probably. I suspect the the only person George Lucas wants tinkering with his creation is George Lucas, and the best the purists can hope for is another substandard bone in the form of a no-frills “theatrical cut.” But a fanboy can dream.

1. We have people for that. [↩]
2. The whole “Han shot first” mantra still implies that Greedo managed to get off a shot, which he didn’t. I realize that “Greedo didn’t shoot” isn’t as cool, but it more accurately represents the crux of the issue. [↩]
3. Blu-Ray can make movies smell like bacon. BD-Live allows you to interrupt the director’s dinner to tell him that he should check himself into rehab in order to overcome his clear addiction to slo-mo. That sort of thing. [↩]