Musings on Life, Episode 1

I am going to try my utmost to make sense, but I make no promises. Consider yourself fairly warned, or else.

Also, I've realized that I'm kind of preachy and/or condescending maybe (is didactic the right word?) and I am trying to remedy this. Please let me know if I do or do not.

So, kind of oddly (although this is eventually going somewhere, I promise), I've thought a lot about the evolution of transportation and its effect on communication between people. There used to be a kind of camaraderie amongst travelers, back when any travel of any length took weeks or months. People walking down the road or riding horses could nod and wave and smile and maybe fall in and chat with other people on the same road. There was even more safety sticking with a larger group in some places. And even with wagons, people were out in the air and could be shouted to or at with ease. Even when richer people were bouncing along in carriages, they would stop at wayhouses and inns and maybe they would take a meal or two in the common room, amongst all the rest of the travelers. (Note: Most of this I have gleaned from reading fiction and not actual research, but I think it holds fairly true nonetheless.)

Now, by and large, we travel around in a little room on wheels. Because that's what a car is. We are mostly completely enclosed in our own space and we can shut out the rest of the world. Also, the speeds we drive at, especially long-distance driving, would make conversation with other cars near impossible. In hotels, many people, if not most, scurry back and forth in the halls from their rooms to the dining room or the laundry or maybe the pool or game room, keeping their heads down and avoiding contact with the other patrons of the hotel. At least, that's what I do, and I think it holds true with a lot of people.
Technology has helped very little. Now in places where we might have engaged in some manner with our fellow travelers (i.e. buses, metros, trains, planes, or walking down the street), we stick in our headphones (or maybe earplugs, on planes and long-distance buses) or keep our cellphones glued to our ears and ignore the other people around us in much the same way as they ignore us. There are still some people who will try to engage their neighbor in conversation, especially, in my mind, on planes, but I know that I would mostly find this an unwelcome intrusion into my life. I would probably be quietly annoyed with these people, they'd probably realize this, and then they'd leave me to Vergil (my iPod, remember) and book.

However guilty I am of doing my share of insulating myself against other travelers (and I do love my Vergil), I find this a little sad. In this day and age, with internet and Facebook and cellphones, shouldn't we be even more connected to the world and not less? Yeah, connection with people we know is different than connection with complete strangers, but it's still a little sad. Especially since travel is so much easier now. I can go to China in however many hours (hours!) that flight is, instead of the sixish months it took to get there, what, a couple hundred years ago? That's amazing! And yet, I barely look at the people I walk past, some them people I probably walk past every day who probably think of me as that weird headphones girl who is always making weird gestures with her hands (faux-conducting classical music) or playing air-guitar or bobbing her head mouthing the words to songs that no one else is hearing. And yet (again), I don't seriously plan on altering my behavior anytime in the near future.

So what am I doing to try to connect to the world? I'm being a jerk.

I am one of those people who loves to drive with the windows down, and I think a large part of that is to blast my music out the windows. Really loudly. (Also, I sing along, but that is less to expose the world to my lovely (ha!) voice and more because I love to sing along with the songs (even classical)). I do this with any music I happen to be listening to, so the people on the street and in the surrounding cars may be subjected to classical, eighties, anime, or the really random amount of music that I have managed to become attached to through the years. I have never found a genre of music that I absolutely did not like. Not country, there is some country that I like. Not rap, because even if I don't listen to any completely rap artist, I am quite attached to Linkin Park and they have a fair bit of rap. More often than not the music will have words, because, as I've said, I love to sing along and it's a tad more satisfying with words to the songs than with classical music (or anime, where most of the words are Japanese, so I don't really know them).
Now, I myself think I have pretty good taste in music, but I would, wouldn't I? And I'm certainly not trying to be malicious with my music-blasting. Mostly, I like to think that I am maybe bringing a little culture into people's lives (if I happen to be rocking out to Mozart or Bach or Tchaikovsky), or introducing them to some music they hadn't listened to before and will spend years trying to track down on the internet. See there? New music and an adventure and a story to tell your kids and/or nephews/nieces and/or just your friends.

This is how I am trying to break down the walls we've built as we travel. This is my contribution to the traveler's society. Being the jerk who blasts music out the windows of her car. Sure, I could try talking to someone once in a while, but where's the fun in that? It's much more fun to be the loud music jerk.

So how do you reach out to your fellow travelers? What're your thoughts about the evolution of travel and communication? Or your thoughts about my method of trying to change our travel isolation? Or your thoughts on anything at all? Really, I'm open to just about anything.

For Your Consideration

Isn't that the title of a movie? Whatever.

My sister advised me that I should try and post something at least once a week. I suppose I should, lest I fall into the habit of not posting anything, ever.
I am going to post here a few online games (all completely free, I promise) that have caught my attention over the last few years. None of them take very long, so this shouldn't be a huge time-waster for anyone, unless you follow links on the pages I link you too, but I take no responsibility for that.

The first, and I think it was the first online game that was truly thought provoking for me (not to mention it led, in one way or another, to several others mentioned below) is (I Fell in Love With) The Majesty of Colors. It's controlled solely with the mouse. You are a Lovecraftian (being similar to the monsters that H.P. Lovecraft wrote in his short stories) sea monster. You can affect your surroundings in various ways, resulting in several different endings. It's really quite brilliant. I'm not saying it's perfect, but it has found its way into my heart as one of my favorite go-to games when I'm bored.

(I Fell in Love With) The Majesty of Colors

You can find this game any number of places. I found it here. This is a review and a walkthrough (if you get stuck). It also links to a different site from which to play the game. This page also contains several other games by the same creator, Gregory Weir. My favorites are Exploit and Bars of Black and White. Not as thought provoking, but pretty good nonetheless.

Majesty of Colors led me to Daniel Benmergui.He's created several games, but the ones I like the best are I Wish I Were the Moon and Today I Die. They have their own very unique styles of gameplay. In I Wish I Were the Moon, you change the environment by taking "pictures" of objects and moving them around (one click takes the picture, another makes the object in the picture move to wherever you moved the frame). There are, again, several different endings (also, a really pretty harp piece). Today I Die is kind of strange and a little creepy. You change the environment you are in by dragging different words into the text; you have to do certain things in each environment to unlock new words to place in the text. It also has very pretty music.

Both I Wish I Were the Moon (pictured left) and Today I Die (pictured right) can be found at David Benmergui's blog (as linked to above). On the right side are links to his games (through screenshots of the games) and these are the two on top. If you get stuck, there are walkthroughs online if you search "(game title) walkthrough."

The last game that I'm going to give you today is Gray. It's a political commentary. Usually I wouldn't go near a political-type game, but this one is very clever and has an interesting game-play. And it resonated with me, the non-political that I am. It's very simple and easy to figure out and requires no walkthrough, although you should know that the first stage is the longest and they each get shorter after that. Gray can be found here.

Gray

So, I hope these games get you thinking a little bit, 0r that you simply enjoy the beauty and ingenuity that went into them. Also, I really like Bon Jovi. That is all.

Bored out of my mind

That's right, out of my mind. I'm working in a computer lab on campus and it's Conference weekend (General Conference, a semiannual thingy the Mormon church does, for my non-Mormon readers) which means this computer lab is EMPTY. Yes, I get paid to sit here and do nothing. At the same time, there is nothing to do. I'm not really complaining because this is a sweet job and I love it, but I guess this is just my way of telling you that this post has little point.

I am right now listening to a "Rockin' Out" playlist that I made today, largely full of songs that I have been introduced to through Guitar/Band Hero. For years and years I didn't understand why Guitar Hero was so freakin' popular, but then I was introduced to it maybe a month or two ago and now I have seen the light. It is fun. It doesn't have the story-driven appeal of most of my favorite video games but it has a huge wish-fulfillment aspect. Who hasn't wanted to be a rock star, at least a little bit? That's right, no one. And Guitar Hero does a superb job of simulating the guitar playing experience. Also, when I played Band Hero, I realized how fun it is to do vocals (at least on songs that I know). I just hope I don't annoy those I play with too much...

Anyway, my experience with Guitar Hero has a) introduced me to a lot of new music that I might otherwise have never listened to and b) made me much more physically emotive when listening to music, which I'm sure has earned me many weird looks on campus when I am listening to Vergil (my iPod). So this morning, after last night's Band Hero session with some fine, fine people, I went on iTunes and got some of my favorite songs that I've heard from Guitar/Band Hero and put them and a few other appropriate songs on a playlist that I have dubbed "Rockin' Out." And since the computer lab is pretty much empty I can be much more physically emotive than I would usually be. That is what I'm doing. Eventually I might actually do something productive...Ha, yeah right. Hope things are going well for you all. I'm going back to rockin' out.