Bret, you’ve got it going on

From Flight of the Concords

I recently went out with some acquaintances, all guys, and realized there are a lot of reasons I don’t usually go out with people I hardly know.

We met up at a bar. That’s not usually a problem, as I am intimately familiar with bars and their tenders, but this bar was basically the graduated frat boy hang out. As I watched my compatriots ogle women and tell me what they’d like to do to “that” while they tried to put each other down by calling each other gay, I realized these “men” were really insecure. Despite hearing much about their bravado and seeing a peacock’s display of machismo swagger, I did not see one of them approach a single woman at any point in the night. In fact, my female friend that tagged along (sorry, E!) commented on their behavior.

I would say one man telling another man about his sexual exploits could be considered rather homo erotic, but they clearly thought my unwillingness to participate in the topic made me the gay one. Not going into any detail, I would have to say I doubt any of them had seen a naked woman in the past year without paying for it (with the possible exception of the married one).

Which brings me to the point of the video I posted. For all their “experience,” they were entirely clueless as to how their behavior comes off. If they stepped back to think about the things they said, they would realize paradox of the situation. As the ladies at the bar indicated with their lack of interest, these guys certainly have something going on.

Social network relationships and real world breakups

My relationship status recently went from “it’s complicated” to “single.” My torrid love life is not really the reason I’m writing this post, but is a precursor into the subject. What do you do with your ex on the social networks you both belong to?

Am I supposed to make it known that I’m on the market? I mean, isn’t that the real reason for social networking Web sites anyway - to stalk the other attractive single people? Am I supposed to remove pics of us together so other people know that I’m available?

Although the photos help me remember good times, what am I supposed to do when I meet someone while I’m out and they friend me on Facebook? I don’t really want the new interest to think I’m dating someone, but my photo albums would suggest otherwise. I don’t usually advertise my relationship status (or sexual orientation for that matter) because its really no one’s business, but how do I get the message across to the girl I just met that I’m single when she’s browsing my photo albums and sees 50 or so pics of me holding hands with the same girl?

I don’t hate my ex, so it’s not like I feel a strong desire to take the photos down. I don’t want to send the wrong message to her either. How would she react if I suddenly untagged myself in all of her photo albums? The ex might be upset that I’m trying to forget about her (we’ve had several postmortem conversations, and she continually says that she doesn’t want me to forget all the good times we had) or interpret my actions as hostile. I’m not that angry person cutting out their former fling from all the pictures in the album (admittedly, it would be funny if I Photoshopped other people into her place). At the same time, if I entered into another relationship, the new girl would probably find it awkward that I’m hanging all over some girl like a monkey on a banana. I imagine these photos would be the source of many drunken arguments and the new girl would likely talk to her friends about the insecurities this causes. That or I would be told to get over it already as I tried to not have a second breakup in as many months.

What do I do with all the mutual acquaintances that I met through my ex and will never speak to again? Do I unfriend them? They didn’t really do anything wrong. Although many of them were nice, I don’t really have any desire to strike up a conversation. As far as I’m concerned, they shouldn’t be keeping tabs on me and they really don’t need to know what I’m up to. Thankfully, no we had no mutual acquaintances prior to meeting, making going back to our regular routines much easier. I can’t imagine what would happen if mutual friends were forced to pick a side. Would I be set to limited profile view for certain people because my ex was posting messages about me?

Digitizing our lives really brings a lot of new situations that still need societal norms. So, take the pics down, untag myself or post enough new pics that these are 40 pages deep in the photo albums? You tell me.

Mass Effect - A delayed review

I finally got around to finishing Mass Effect for the Xbox 360. The game is a third-person action game with role-playing elements. If you’ve played any of the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic games then you have a pretty good idea of what to expect.

One of the radical differences of Mass Effect from KOTOR was the removal of the ability to freeze combat to give commands to your squad. Maybe I couldn’t figure out how to do this or maybe it simply is not possible, I’m not really sure. I found the controls to be less than intuitive, and the removal of KOTOR combat system caused a bit of emotional turmoil. Part of the allure of KOTOR was the ability to micromanage your squad if you so desired. It added a certain finesse to the game. You could freeze the action, stack several commands or special moves for each of your party members before reengaging your targets. Mass Effect allows you to give one command at a time, no stacking. The real-time task assignment was detrimental to the game play. While this may speed up the action, most people will completely forget about their squad’s special moves until the action is over. At one point during the game I found the option that allowed your squad to use the special moves as the game artificial intelligence saw fit. Without turning the feature on, your team members aren’t using their strengths to your advantage in combat situations. Since managing single special moves with cool-down timers is not fun whatsoever, this should have been turned on by default.

Another change from KOTOR was the inability to switch between characters in your squad. In KOTOR you could control whichever character you wanted at any given time. In ME, you only control the Sheppard, the main character. While this doesn’t hurt the playability of the game, it reduces your squad to retarded sidekicks that die a lot and shoot at walls.

The story of ME was not all that gripping either. I found myself playing a repackaged KOTOR game. You go to a planet, solve the trivial problems of the locals by finding whatever item they want, while ultimately getting closer to solving the big mystery. So for all the talk of an immersive world and compelling dialog where every decision effects the outcome, the game pretty much rides the rail from point A to point B, and you can either be evil or play as an uptight, law-abiding cop (see figure). So for all the talk about choosing a “destiny,” you end up on one side of the good vs. evil dichotomy.

I also unlocked the “controversial” sex scene. If you’ve played the game and watched the video in the link I just provided, you will know it was blown way out of proportion. The way the Fox “analysts” carried on about the “hardcore pornography” contained in this game made you think that the creators of Mass Effect used underage girls to recreate an extended version of Two Girls, One Cup (you can look that up if you so desire, I’m not linking to it). Not the case. You maybe see some side boob, maybe. So, suck on whatever is in that cup, Fox News talking heads.

The graphics were so-so. I have an HD TV, so most everything looks good. Some of the animations didn’t always look right, like the bitmapping didn’t line up with the character models. Whatever. There are better looking games out there, but it’s not the worst.

In summation, borrow it from your buddy. The game takes about 15 hours to beat, the side missions aren’t anything more than “fetch” quests. If you want a good RPG, go play World of Warcraft. Since WoW is the best game ever, I rate games on a scale of one to 10 days away diverted from logging into WoW. Mass Effect took four days away from my WoW playing.