Writer's Block

Okay, so I've done a little research, and what I've found out is that, until very recently and depending on publisher policies, most novels are averaged at 250 words per page.  So, a 100K word novel is going to come in about 400 pages.  (As a side note, Stephen King says that 180K words is a "goodish length for a novel" -- and that translates to about 720 pages.  Yow.)

As always, however, it's a good idea to check genre publishing sites or ask a publisher putting out the kind of work you want to do for submission specs.  A fast way to get rejected it to submit something that doesn't meet their requirements.

So far to date, I've got about 45,200 words in my blog, recounting my childhood memories.  That's not a novel, but it's a good start.  The sad thing is, it's taken me about 6 months to get that far, and there's no sign of any burning inspiration to light up the last 35K-40K words to make it a full-length novel.

On the other side of the token, however, maybe it's not really a subject matter that most people are interested in reading.  If my blog hits are any indication -- and one of them is being helped along by a friendly and very sweet Stranger so that it looks busier than it is -- not a lot of people are interested in reading about my childhood misadventures anyway.  That's fair; I don't know that I would want to wade through someone else's either.  And if there were some sort of poignancy to the project, some life-lesson that I'd gained from my experiences, something I could pass on to someone about to cross through those same junctures, I might have been able to pass it off as young adult or children's literature, for that age 10-12 group.  That's a pretty narrow audience, and I don't think I have the skills to pull them away from the Wii or the X-Box to read it.  Not without them thinking "I'd rather be playing Wii or X-Box," anyway.

So what do I do with this fiction that I've had so much fun writing, and have invested so much time in?

Hmm.  Good question.

I can't really keep entertaining the notion that this can somehow be a novel.  It really can't; there's no plot, no underlying story, nothing that really ties the events together except a common set of characters.  They're not really related in any way, they don't really have a point, there's nothing that the characters are struggling through as a theme and there's no underlying conflict.  It's just a series of memories from my childhood that I've put down as best I can remember them, and have tried to tie nice resolution into each one so that it was a self-contained vignette ... which they actually were.  There's really nothing else for me to tell, and I don't know how interested a publisher would be in a collection of memoirs from someone that has never been a politician, game show host or movie star with secrets to tell.  I'm not a famed NYT journalist or 20/20 or 60 Minutes anchor that a lot of people find interesting.  I'm not a war hero who oversaw the execution of the Secretary of State's war plan in some foreign conflict.  I am, in fact, to quote one of my all-time favorite movies, "no one of consequence."

Besides that, whenever I ask someone other than my wife to read it -- especially those that fancy themselves writers -- they tear it apart and make me feel bad about it.  I'm kidding, of course, but when I hear the input of outsiders that I don't know well and really don't trust much except that they won't blow sunshine up my rear, I generally get told things like "Well, it was okay, but I was lost here ..." or "Yeah, it was okay, but there are too many modifying words in your sentences, they need to be shorter and punchier," or "this isn't bad for a first draft; it needs a lot of work though."

Those things are probably all true.  I know for certain that when I read through them I see them for what they are, and I like the flavor and the tone of them, but I'm the creator.  These are, so to speak, my children.  Just as I think my son and daughter are the most beautiful, intelligent, challenging and yes IRRITATING children ever, doesn't everyone think that of their kids?  So it is that while most other writers don't like what I've done, I have to acknowledge that they're probably being more honest with me than my other readers (MOST, not necessarily ALL).

So what do I do with it?

Well, I have recently been encouraged to continue writing, and blogging (that sweet, kind Stranger I was telling you about before was a major help and encouragement, and my wife was absolutely adamant that I continue), so I'm not going to quit.  If I'm going to be going back to school soon (it's still up in the air right now, on an unanswered prayer), there won't be very much time for it.  And what do I want from it?  Do I hope to publish, or am I content to write just for my wife, my friends and for the person that happens across my blog and takes a minute to read it?  It's going to make for a full Wiki, I can tell you that.  But what am I hoping for from it?  Anything?

Obviously, there is some part of me that wants to be published.  I want to be an author -- a successful, rich, eccentric author -- and fulfill a dream I've had since I was in 6th grade.  Most other dreams I've had, I let fall.  I wanted to be a doctor until I dropped out of college.  I don't know why I let that one die, but I did.  I wanted to be a comic book artist, but I let that one slip away too.  I wanted to be a writer, and while that one hasn't died, I'm not getting any younger and I really didn't want to be one of those people that doesn't write their first novel until after they retire.  Besides, with the way things are going in my life, I don't think I CAN retire -- ever.  (Not that there's anything wrong with publishing your first novel after retiring -- that's fine, and God bless those people.  I just wanted to do these things while I was younger ... like, 23 or 25 younger.)

So what am I going to do with these stories, these tales that from time to time pound against the inside of my skull until I finally let them out?

A rhetorical question, perhaps.  I haven't decided yet, but I don't think I can just let them die here in my blog or on my hard drive.  I think I have to try and do something.  I just wouldn't feel right, wouldn't feel complete, if I didn't.  I would feel like a failure for not even trying.  I suppose, therefore, I'll try.  But what I'll try, I haven't got a clue.

Any suggestions?

-JDT-

Technorati Tags: writing, random thoughts

Bill vs. the Pool

When I was a boy, we didn't have a swimming pool in our backyard.  They were commonplace among a lot of the cookie-cutter tract homes in California, but not everyone had one.  That's why the public pool down at Buchanan Park was so popular when it finally opened.

It wasn't too far from where we lived at the time.  I couldn't have been more than 14, maybe not even.  The hot California valley summers sweltered our little hemmed-in town, surrounded by a river delta and the hills of the Diablo Range, cooking in its little pocket of high temperatures.  The concrete and asphalt writhed in anguish under the bright angry sun, twisting the air into little shimmering mirages just over the streets and sidewalks as they begged for mercy beneath the searing rays.

That day, Bill and I decided we'd go to Buchanan Park pool and cool off.  Ryan would be left behind with my mother in the safety of the central air conditioning in our new house up on the hill in a recent subdivision by the monopolistic land developer who seemed to have built everything in the city.  A rare treat, we even were provided the $2 entrance fee so that it didn't have to come out of our summer Bill visit allotment of funds.

The walk downhill toward the park took us through an older neighborhood, after passing over the dirt-clod riddled streets of our new area.  The stick frames and sapling trees sizzling under the bright yellow orb of the sun gave way to mature manicured lawns, cracked driveways and large, shading trees as we made the walk down the rolling avenues to the small dish of grass and playground on the corner of Buchanan Road and Harbor Street.  We joked and laughed, carrying our towels over our heads to shield out some of the heat, passing beneath the few trees in the park to get to the pool facility.

Once inside, we were greeted with a rote overview of the rules, given through wagging jowls and jiggling second chin by a blob of a woman that looked like a lump of mayonnaise had been plopped onto a creaking, straining stool that fought with its very life to keep her up there.  No spitting, no running poolside, no pushing, no diving unless it's from the board, no shoes or shirts or cut-off shorts in the pool, and no urinating.  I stopped on that last one, but the plump, meaty hand whisked my $2 away and buzzed us through a heavy fake wood door that felt like it was bound and determined to keep kids out.

Bill paid and joined me at the door.  His bulkier, muscular body -- nearly 15 by then -- pushed the door aside easily and he held it so I could scoot under his arm into the pool area.  We passed through a squealing metal turnstile and around a section of cyclone fence about 4 feet high, where a wading pool for washing your feet before putting on your shoes was provided.  An older lady and a couple of kids were arguing there, the old lady trying to pull on her protesting shoes while the kids laughed maniacally and splashed her from the clear, chlorine-scented water.

We deposited our shoes in a couple of open lockers and held the keys to our trunks with the safety-pins attached to them.  The pins had a number that looked like it'd been melted in with a soldering iron in some guy's garage marking the locker numbers.  I shyly dropped in my T-shirt; Bill didn't wear one.  We jotted into the main pool area at last.

The voices slapped uselessly off the foaming, churning water and died in the air, dampening the noise of the screaming, laughing and playing kids that literally crowded every corner of the pool on one side of a mark that went up the lip of the pool then down into the water and out the opposite side.  On the shallow side of that line, the water was packed with people, under water, above the water, beside the water.  On the deep side was the diving area, and a line of older kids waited to scale the 13 feet to the platform and dive off.

"Hey, are you going to --" I spoke to empty space beside me.  I was going to ask Bill if he was going to dive off the platform, but I didn't really need to ask ... he was already in line.

I found an open spot by the lip of the pool and stared at the light playing off the surface, mist from splashing kids occasionally cascading down my body and raising gooseflesh.  It felt good against the burning heat of the scorching sun, high in the crystalline blue sky, but for some reason I was hesitant to go in.  I looked around through the cyclone fence and saw the contrast of colors from the deep, rich green from the well-water grass of the park, to the grayish white concrete surrounding the pool, to the crisp, clear blue of the sky, and felt another splash on me.  It was cool, but ... not cold.

Something that big lump of a woman said was troubling me, but I couldn't figure out what it was.

Bill was about three kids back from the ladder now, arms folded across his chest.  He caught my gaze and just shook his head in disgust.  The kid at the top of the ladder was making a huge production, wailing and crying, too scared to jump and too scared to back down the ladder.  A parent was trying to talk to the kid, but he was having none of it, his beet-red face contorted into an ugly mask as tears streamed down his freckled, sun-burned cheeks.  Or maybe it wasn't a mask and he was just ugly.

I looked back down at that water, and it was clear and blue; it didn't look weird.  All I could smell was chlorine.  I watched as Bill waited patiently while the dork dad climbed the ladder and took his wailing kid's hand, pulling him into his arms so they could waddle back down the ladder.  Red faced, the dad whispered something to the kid, who wailed even louder while the dad carried him like a bag of potatoes under one arm toward the exit.  The next kid in line darted up the ladder, and started out on the diving board, but the springy plastic plank quivered more than he thought, and with a loud cry of surprise he went off the side of the board.  All I saw was flailing arms and legs, and then a brief grunt as his body landed broadside onto the water with a thunderous slap.  Mist sprayed over me again, and the water was cool.  But it wasn't cold.

I looked up, shielding my eyes under my soda-bottle glasses, staring up at the rays flashing down from that hot yellow dot in the sky.  It must've been close to 100 degrees, and my body was beaded with sweat.  But there was no shock from the water, even though there should have been.

That lady ... something she said about no urinating.  She just spat it out like it was just another rule, but she'd made a point to say it.  Everybody knew you don't pee in a pool; it's not a toilet.  Why did she mention it specifically?

Bill was behind one final kid, but that kid had seen what'd happened to the belly flopper, and he ducked and darted off away from the ladder.  Bill grinned at me and started up quick as a wink.

I looked down at that water, the myriad sounds of shouting kids, splashing water and yelling adults all mixed and tied together in a sound knot, bouncing off the water and concrete to vaporize in the summer air.  I felt my skin with my fingertips and it was hot to the touch.  A kid kicked the surface of the water frantically trying to escape someone chasing him, and I felt the spray on my chest.

It wasn't cold.

Bill was at the top of the platform, about to make his way out to the end of the diving board.

I realized what was bugging me.

I waved in a panic, trying to shout and get Bill's attention.  From the top of the platform, he was focusing on the dive, trying to decide whether to cannon ball or do some real dive.  I jumped up and down, trying to get his attention.  I yelled, cupping my hand around my mouth, and for a moment, he glanced at me, brows knit over his concentrated face.

He froze, looked quizzically at me with his head cocked to one side like a bird studying a seed.  I jumped like a frog in a frying pan, waving my arms over my head.  I pointed at the pool, then shook my head violently.

He cupped a hand over his ear and turned to hear me.

"Don't jump!" I shouted.  "It's warm water!!"

He shook his head, indicating with his screwed up face that he couldn't hear me.

"DON'T JUMP!" I screamed, trying to be louder.  "THE WATER'S ALL WARM!!"

The next kid behind Bill had climbed up the ladder and was standing on it with his chin resting on the platform.  I saw the kid speak to Bill, and Bill looked back sort of irritated, then held up a finger to let me know he'd be just one second.

"NO!!" I screamed, "DON'T!!"

Bill jounced on the board once, and the mechanical springing sound it made drowned out my voice even further.  He bounced once more, and I waved again desperately, trying to get him to stop, but it was too late.  He was in space, tucking his knees to his chest as he sailed out from the board and in a graceful arc toward the water.  For a split second he saw the look on my face, the horror as I mouthed the word "pee", and realization dawned on him.  He tried to clutch the board behind him as he dropped, but it was too far behind him and he twisted, his body going from a graceful ball into a frenzied gyrating caricature, hands clawing in space, legs bicycling wildly.  He fell, and finally had to sink back to a ball to keep from belly flopping like the idiot before him.

I couldn't do anything to help my friend, standing there frozen, watching the nightmare unfold as Bill's body hit the water, sending it crashing in a huge geyser rush out from his point of contact.  It shot out and sent a solid sheet onto the concrete, melting over a couple of adults sunbathing beside the pool.  They shot up with their arms held out away from them like they were trying to keep them dry for some reason, mouths gaping open as they gasped beneath their Jacqueline Onassis sunglasses and broad-rimmed shade hats.  The water pounded the rest of the pool, splashing over the heads of screaming little kids and momentarily silencing them.  I saw him under the water for a moment, then he flashed free of the surface, and his hands landed palms-down on the edge of the pool.  In one continuous motion he hefted his body out of the water, spitting and wiping his face furiously, shaking his head to get the water out of his hair.  He looked ticked.

He rounded the corner and came to me, snatching the towel I held out to him and frantically wiping his face and arms, his legs and chest.

"Ugh!" he moaned, "oh God, oh GOD, that's so disgusting!"

"I'm sorry, man, I tried to tell you," I said apologetically.

"I know," he said, "I couldn't hear you.  By the time I figured out what you were saying I couldn't get back on the board."

"How ... how bad was it?" I said gingerly.

"God," he spat, "it was nasty.  It was like jumping in a bowl of spit."

He didn't say anything else; he was headed for the exit.  As we passed through the heavy, fake wood door, he turned and looked at me, still clearly shaken.

"I guess now I know what it's like to be a turd," he said heavily.

I never went in the pool, but I did wonder how much pee it would take to warm that many gallons of water.

We never went back to the pool.  The following year, my parents installed a pool in their backyard.

-JDT-

Technorati Tags: fiction, kids, writing

DarkRoom

Remember my post about JDarkRoom?  The one in which I told you that this was one of the most helpful tools around for just getting down to work and concentrating on your text?

Well, I also mentioned that it was based on WriteRoom, a Mac-only application doing the same thing, and was a springboard from DarkRoom, a Windows-based version of WriteRoom.  Now, I'm using DarkRoom instead of JDarkRoom (for this post only), because I wanted to tell you a couple of things about it that differentiate it from JDarkRoom.  They also, in my opinion, defeat the purpose of a full-screen, text-only program that allows you to forget the surrounding distractions usually plaguing someone using a computer, but that's going to be left to the reader to decide.

First off, if you're interested in obtaining DarkRoom, it can be had here.  Download it for free; if you like it, consider donating to the author, who's done a lot of work for us to use freely.  Okay, sermon over.

DarkRoom has some advantages and some disadvantages over JDarkRoom.  For one thing, it has a scroll bar integrated into the black screen so that you don't have to use the PgUp/PageUp and PgDn/PageDown keys to move vertically around the screen.  In addition, it has complete Windows-style menus available, so that you can do your standard FILE, EDIT, VIEW and HELP things just as with any other Windows program.

Another thing that DR can do that JDR lacks is the ability to be reduced to a window on your screen.  This is especially helpful should you need access to information in another window or program and you don't want to leave DarkRoom completely.  When you want the distraction-free mode again, press F11 and it's full-screen once more.  A nice feature which removes the task bar and all the other programs on the screen from view, as well as DarkRoom's own menu and title bar.

It allows you access to all the Windows-installed fonts your computer has to offer, too.  Some of us just don't like the monospaced, Courier-style fonts that JDarkRoom limits itself to using.  For those of you that want to use Arial, or Tahoma, or Comic Sans (hey, it could happen -- I've seen it used as the default text in emails, for pity's sake), you have the ability to do that in DR, whereas it's missing in JDR.

The color choices for DR are also vast -- it allows you to open the standard Windows color choser and define your own colors if the ones presented by default aren't to your liking.  You can apply the full range of Windows-available colors to both your font and your background, so feel free to be creative and have fun.

DR also outputs as a .txt file; while JDR outputs a file that it can read, if you want to use the file in another program it has to be named with a .txt extension.  I haven't tried .rtf, but it may work too, since JDR by default doesn't place an extension on the file name.  In addition, DarkRoom allows you to set it so that it runs in a more portable-compatible mode, so you can drop it on your USB flash drive and go with it.  You know I love that.  It allows you to choose other options for the look of the program as well as it's behavior, and that includes something called "Neutral highlighting," which implies that text which you highlight with your cursor will be automatically colored for you.  JDarkRoom allows you to choose this, and I'm sure DarkRoom does too; this option probably just overrides your choice and can make the decision easier.  No matter what font color and background colors you choose, you're highlighted text will stand out and be visible.  I guess.

There are a couple of drawbacks, however, with DarkRoom.  Of course, there were drawbacks with JDarkRoom, too, but I have to point them out.

Another handy feature is use of the standard Windows shortcuts for certain features, like SHIFT+UP (the arrow key pointing up) to move from one paragraph to another, and moving one word at a time with SHIFT+(direction key, the arrows), just as in Word or any other Windows-based editor.  I seem to recall that JDR has less of these available, but that hasn't -- and won't -- keep me from using it.

For one, the program is dependent on, and requires the installation of, the .NET framework on the PC.  A link to the download site from Microsoft is on the DarkRoom website, so do a check in your Add/Remove Programs utility in the Windows Control Panel and see if you have the .NET Framework installed.  If not, get it; DarkRoom won't work without it.

The biggest thing, though, is that DarkRoom was originally designed to be a distraction-free writing environment.  With all the bells and whistles added to the program, it almost feels like it's lost its way.  It's not that clean, small, very useful app that it probably started out being; the demand of users for more and more features led to what we have now.  It's not a full-blow word processing program, but we're getting closer.  While JDarkRoom could probably take a few tips from DarkRoom, I hope it doesn't go too far.  I hope that JDR remains a clean, uncluttered and tiny program that can do wonders for you if you just want to get some text down out of your head.

That isn't to say DarkRoom is a bad program though.  Considering it's speed and size, it's really useful.  And, it's a bit easier to use it at work for things I'm not supposed to be doing (like this blog, for instance), because I can minimize it and make it a standard sized window, making it "blend" with the other apps on my PC.  When I want to focus and get things done, I can run in FS mode and the room will go dark.

For my personal use at home, I'll probably retain JDR instead.  For one thing, the cross-platform capability means that my impending move to either Mac or a Linux-based PC.  ("Impending' is writer-ese for "when I can afford it", especially where a Mac is concerned.)

So, at any rate, if you're interested in these things, there's another option for you.  The fact that it's cross-platform makes JDR a bit more useful to me, but DarkRoom is a very well-written and documented program that has a lot of great features and can become an indispensable tool for the writer that needs to crunch words in an uninterrupted way ... without excluding the possibility of being interrupted if necessary.

-JDT-

Technorati Tags: software, reviews

Deus Ex Machina

I just sat through a rather brutal and overwrought affair called The Departed.  It was a hit movie from several months ago, starring Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson (who, interestingly, got third billing), Leonardo DiCaprio (whom I like to call "DiCrapio"), Martin Sheen, Mark Wahlberg, Alex Baldwin, and a plethora of others.

I'd heard so many good things about the movie, I was a little excited to see it.  Like most movies, my wife and I don't bother to watch first-run.  We have two children under 6 years old; theater experiences aren't all that fantastic for us; and we just don't like shelling about nearly $10 a ticket to go see a movie.  So, it's on Pay-Per-View now, and we thought this would be a good opportunity to finally watch it.

We actually started watching something else, the name of which I can't even recall now.  But it was so incredibly bad in acting and writing (great music behind everything though) we just couldn't stand to sit through its 94 minute run time.  So, we killed it and went with The Departed instead.

It started off good.  Soon after, it became a bit convoluted and a tiny bit confusing, at least for me.  My wife finally clarified some of what was going on for me, and I tried to keep up.

I've got to reiterate -- Matt Damon is a great actor.  He played, for the first time in my experience, a villain.  And not just a run-of-the-mill villain, but a rather weasely sort of back-stabbing, conniving villain.  He cheated and killed most everyone in the movie, including the ethnically confused character portrayed by Jack Nicholson.  Mark Wahlberg was an under-developed character but we get the impression that he's extremely committed to his cause.  That's good, because we don't get to identify with him as audience members very much, so using him as an archetypal anti-hero was all that remained, I suppose.

In summation, Matt Damon is recruited into someone's branch of mafia at an early age.  He goes on to the Massachusetts State Police Academy, becomes a State Trooper, and rises quickly to the rank of plain clothes detective.  At the same time, Leonardo DiCaprio is going to the same Academy a year or two behind Damon, and he also graduates, but is recruited by Martin Sheen, a captain, and Mark Wahlberg to the undercover division of the force.  There, he is placed deeply undercover, including an arrest for assault and battery to create a criminal record for him.  He then has an incredible stroke of luck when he beats the tar out of two mafia henchmen from Providence.  Rhode Island, I assumed, but I couldn't be certain.  At any rate, Damon informs Nicholson of what's occurred, and before long, DiCaprio is taken into the care of the local Mafioso.  He works directly for Sheen and Wahlberg, and is in cell phone contact with Sheen on a regular basis.

After months of work undercover, DiCaprio determines (because he scored 1400 on the SATs) that there is "rat" in the organization.  It's him, of course, but he also figured out there was another cop betraying his efforts.  That would be Damon, who called Nicholson from time to time in the movie and told him about various police activities, surveillance, and impending raids.  Nicholson always slides free, and before long DiCaprio discovers that Nicholson is also an FBI informant.  There is utter chaos regarding whom to trust and whom to accuse.  Eventually, to protect the identity of DiCaprio from the mob who come to kill him, Sheen is thrown from the top of a waterfront building to his death.  Now with no help, Damon and DiCaprio form a tentative and terse, not to mention short-lived, contact.

In the end, there is a lot of shooting and head-blowing-off that goes on.  I've never seen so many brains separated from bodies in a single movie, but then, I don't see that many movies.  The problem I had was that the movie pulled a maneuver that was frequently used during plays in ancient Greece and Rome, wherein a protagonist is pitted against a situation that is next to insurmountable.  In most cases, it actually is insurmountable, but to resolve the irresolvable problem, they would literally provide divine intervention.  The gods themselves would intervene and allow the resolution impossible by human means.

The technique was common.  A "god" would be lowered onto the stage.  An actor, portraying the deity, would be lowered onto the set with a machine to simulate a god descending from heaven.  The term given to the theatrical device was deus ex machina, or god out of the machine.

Now, it represents any piece of writing or filmmaking wherein some device not previously introduced is suddenly injected into the story to resolve the issue and make things possible that weren't before.  And what, you ask, does this lengthy and unnecessary explanation have to do with the movie?

Well, as things seem to be tidy and clean for Damon's character, and DiCaprio has figured out that he was the one on the police side providing information to Nicholson's character and providing the means for escape and elusion, DiCaprio sends a recording to Damon of a conversation he had with Nicholson.

I sat there, literally, confused as all get-out wondering how the heck DiCaprio got the recording.  I saw that he was in the theater, but couldn't understand how the recording came into existence.  Fortunately, DiCaprio explains in a phone conversation with Damon that Nicholson's character recorded it; and that he recorded everything.  He had, apparently, boxes and boxes of tapes from recordings he'd made, and had sent them to a lawyer.  After Nicholson's demise in the movie, those tapes, somehow, became available to DiCaprio.

Ah, deus ex machina at its finest.  We know, as the audience, that Nicholson was an FBI informant, and that there were at least two cops working under cover in Nicholson's organization.  Now we will soon find out that there was another cop working for Nicholson in the police force just as Damon's character was, and that character would save Damon's career at the last possible minute.  DiCaprio is killed trying to arrest and expose Damon, and then Damon kills the rescuer in order to pin the entire mole operation on him and thereby clear himself.  It all would have worked perfectly, except that for some reason, there is another instance of deus ex machina at the very, very end, and Mark Wahlberg murders Matt Damon and ties all loose ends together.

Whew!  Confused?  Well, that's partially my fault.  I've not done a great job of explaining the movie, but I didn't want to give a play-by-play plot recount.  Basically, one good cop, one bad cop, one mafia boss, one bloody movie.  Every one of merit in the movie is killed.  Only Alex Baldwin and Mark Wahlberg remain alive at the end.

It's the deus ex machina that gets me, though.  We haven't been told, as an audience, that:

1. Nicholson's character is recording every conversation he has with anyone.  This is important information and giving it to the audience ahead of its appearance in the movie would have been beneficial to making this aspect of the movie believable.
   
2. How DiCaprio came to be entrusted by the lawyer to whom all these tapes have been provided such that he would then have access to them.
   
3. That there is another cop on the Nicholson character's payroll.  That would have made the last half hour of the movie less ... well, deus ex machina, frankly.

Those three points may not kill the movie, but they did for me.  I think that you should show the gun over the mantle if you're later going to have a character pull the gun off its display and murder another character.  Not having a lot of explanation for these things makes them what I call "groan points" in the movie, completely removing any chance I may have had of suspending disbelief and actually enjoying the movie.

The cons: weak story at best, weak execution, too many rabbits being pulled out of hats, especially at the end.  The pros: well acted, very believable from a character portrayal standpoint, top-notch cast and director.  Heck, I even like Alex Baldwin and Martin Sheen's acting -- something I'm not normally accustomed to doing.

So, overall, The Departed was an okay movie, but I'm really glad I didn't see it on the heels of Good Shepherd.  That one remains one of my all-time favorites, and following it with this flight of fancy would have diminished it for me, I'm certain.

I recommend it on DVD or on premium channel; don't bother even paying the $3.99 for it from PPV.

-JDT-

Technorati Tags: movie review

What Ever Happened to Cheats?

You remember the slogan, right?

"Play ... Cheat ... Win."

It was so cool.

Back in the good ol' days, my wife and I used to play simulation games.  Our favorite was "Sim City 2000".  When we first married, we'd play long into the night on weekends.  We found an easy way to overcome a lot of the problems that made the game hard and less fun: we'd let it run at high speed overnight on Thursdays when we started a new city.  By Friday night, we had a huge amount of money with which to start our city and then we'd build, build, build.

It was great.

Then, we discovered that there were actually sites dedicated to providing you with the information you needed to make cheating instantaneous and easy.  We'd go in, edit a file or two, and then we'd play in the altered game.  I know, I know ... cheating takes away all the challenges of the game.  But we weren't playing for challenges -- we were playing for fun.  Cheats made the game perform so that we didn't have to be gamers to be good at a game, and being good made the game fun.

When we started using video game systems instead of our computers for gaming, we discovered CheatPlanet.com.  It was chock-full of all sorts of cheats, tips and tricks to help lowly commoners escalate to the level of supreme gamers and without the endless hours of living in one's mother's basement.  Geeky performance without the geeky price.  Sweet.

"Dr. Muto" was a favorite of mine.  There were some really great cheats for that to unlock all the secrets of the game's universe.  Coupled with a walk-through of the adventure game, the only thing you needed to do was develop facility with the game controllers so that you too could master and win the game.  It still took some skill to execute the necessary maneuvers and actually play the mini-games and such, but at least knowing what you should be doing made it a whole lot more enjoyable to try.  And with all the special equipment, powers, and moves of the character at your disposal, solving the puzzles and getting to the goals became an enjoyable game-play experience.

I got my hands on a copy of "Theme Park Tycoon" or some goofy thing like that back in 2001 or 2002, and I found a cheat online where you could manipulate the money by editing a text file and replacing the old one.  When the game ran, it found the file and gave you the amount you specified in one section of that file, and having money to build rides, food courts and other attractions made the game much more fun to play.

Now, everything's different.

My wife loves "The Sims 2", and has been addicted for years.  She nearly drooled when we bought "Sim City 4" and there was a tiny demo movie of the original "Sims" game.  We got it as soon as it came out, and she'd added on and added on for years.  Finally, "The Sims 2" came out and she made the switch.  It even prompted her to go ahead and give me the blessing to buy her a new computer capable of running the game -- the one she had was barely able to run the original -- and I tacked one on for myself to boot.  She loves it, and has gradually been building up the expansion packs (and now needs more RAM to continue, so guess what the next computer upgrade for her will be?).  She's so hooked, she wouldn't even consider moving to a Mac or Linux as her PC platform because it would mean leaving behind her beloved game.  ("The Sims 2" for Mac, however, has recently started her thinking anew.)

That game, fortunately for her, has so many people hacking away at it that they've developed an actual system for cheats.  It's a Personal Editor that allows her to alter her Sims world in a bunch of ways so that she can just play without having to deal with the temperamental behavior of her CGI miscreants.  She has a ball, and it's all because of cheats.  While she may still enjoy the game without the control she has, having that control gives so much more enjoyment than she could have without it.

I've recently searched for cheats for some of my favorite games, a few of which are left overs from the GameCube in our recent migration to the Wii.  You know what I found?

Absolutely nothing, that's what.

There's nothing out there.  For the specific game of which I speak -- which I thought would really help my son enjoy the more complex control set of the old controller -- there were a few walk-throughs, but nothing for cheats.

When I say cheats, I mean real cheats.  I mean the keystroke combinations that unlock the secrets of the game's inner workings.  You know, hit down, down, left, A, Y, X and press the Start button and a menu of cheats comes up.  Enter more combinations and unlock the anti-gravity feature; or a different one and unlock the invincibility power.  You get the idea.

So whatever happened to cheats?  Don't video game producers realize that this will make the games so much more popular for those of us that aren't pimply-faced nerds with nothing better to do than stay in a damp basement trying to solve the game's complexities?  Do they not know that for smaller kids and older people, having those things available increase the game play enjoyment by factors of ten?  Please, people, use your heads.  If you want to appeal to a broader audience, as Nintendo clearly states they do and has developed the Wii as testament, then make game play fun again.

Well, that's it for now.  /Rant, I suppose.  I have to run; I need to unlock another game feature for my son now.

-JDT-

Technorati Tags: life, random thoughts