John Walker's Electronic House

Yesterday I taught my nephew to fist bump. I feel this is exactly the sort of role an uncle should be playing in this new millennium. The word “poo” and modern handshake-equivalents are the sorts of things a parent might forget while educating their own children, so it’s important that an uncle is around to fill in these gaps.

While I’m aware that everyone wrongly thinks their children/younger relations are geniuses, when in fact they are complete idiots, my nephew is a genius. He’s just turned two, and he can already read basic words like “cat”, “daddy” and “car”. He can recognise all the numbers from 1 to 10, and most of the alphabet. And most impressive, he knows the names of all kinds of cars, and excitedly points them out as they drive past, or appear in the background on television programmes. This impresses me the most, as I haven’t the faintest idea about such things. Which means a two year old is smarter than me… on that subject, at least. Although he has decided to reject the name “Toyota”, and instead refer to them all as “Beep Beep Cars”, which is more on my level.

Jetlag is a funny one. I got back from America feeling all sorts of excellent, having slept on the plane due to some manner of miracle, and then getting to bed at 9pm and waking up at 9am. Mmm-mmmmm. Which of course meant the following night I wasn’t tired at all, and was still on US time, and so got about 5 hours sleep before heading to see my family. So on the train on the way back, on the Guildford to Reading leg, for some reason I thought it would be sensible to just lean my head on the window, just for a moment.

I was woken up by a member of the train’s crew, asking if I really wanted to go back to Guildford again. People were getting on board for the train’s next journey, and I was there like some sort of vagrant, a hobo riding the rails, snoozing comfortably. Still, it filled the otherwise dull gap that would usually be spent standing in Reading station, pulling penknives out of my back and legs.

So what I’ve realised, as I spend Sunday feeling absolutely ruined, is that the only way I can properly sleep sitting up is to be jetlagged. On the flight I managed two or three hours by leaning forward in my chair and resting my forehead on the reclined seat in front. It might make me look like I’m dead, or adopting the brace position, but it appears to trick my stupid car-not-knowing brain into thinking I’m at least on my front, and thus able to nod off for a bit. But on the train I was sat up, in a chair less comfy than the worst economy flight, and with my head on a glass window, and yet fell into a slumber that required repeated shouts from train staff to awake. So my future plan for sleeping on planes properly is to immediately take another flight across a major timezone right before… Oh wait.

As I’ve often thought, and as was discussed on our recent trip to the States, it’s hard to imagine a good reason why it’s not an option to just be drugged when you get on the plane, and then given some sort of reviving medication upon arrival. You feel groggy when you get off a plane anyway, and I’m willing to sign whatever forms are necessary to accept the risks of such a method of travel. And once commonly accepted, airlines would be able to fit five times as many passengers on board, slumped in stacked compartments, and wouldn’t have to feed or wait on people during the flight. It’s obviously the best idea ever, and I demand it be implemented immediately.

Election Day

I spent Tuesday inside a room with no windows, spending seven hours shooting at literally tens of thousands of zombies, for the second day in a row. It was an enormously fun time. At the same time, it was impossible not to slightly regret not being able to see what was happening in the election. Ideally I’d have spent Tuesday sat in front of CNN, absorbing it all while chatting in a dozen IM windows. That’s how to follow elections, right? Instead, the results were a mystery.

After the day’s “work”, we went for dinner with the fantastic Kim who generously drove us into Seattle to find a more interesting restaurant than Bellevue offered. Before we left I scurried to my hotel room to see what was happening. It was peculiarly concerning. The vote at that point was so close that CNN were meticulously breaking down each district of Virginia to see if there was any possibility that Obama could take a significant portion of territory from McCain. Such fine detail did not bode well, and Indiana was looking likely to stay Rep, while Florida remained its elusive uncallable self. There was good news in Pennsylvania, but it was looking like it might be a remarkably tight race.

This meant I had my Chief Naysayer, Nick M, declaring that while he still thought Obama would win (a position he only adopted very late on after McCain’s polls dropped through the floor, and in complete contradiction to his utter certainty that McCain was definitely going to win by a significant margin a couple of weeks earlier), his chances were now much worse, and it would be by the narrowest margin. Not a great state of affairs to leave things with.

After a splendid dinner (pulled pork sandwiches really are the best), we then set out to find a bar in downtown Seattle that was showing the election results. The first, which looked like a cinema from the outside, had an enormous line waiting outside and we were told was at capacity. But while we were stood there, suddenly madness broke out, with people screeching, cheering and whooping, while most cars driving past held down their horns. There was noise from all over, and people were smiling madly. Although the only logical reason for this would be that Obama had been declared the winner, I didn’t let myself assume this. I thought it must be the case, but I also couldn’t believe that it could be that clear a lead, that early on (9pm East Coast time).

We walked up the street looking for another bar, and eventually asked someone working in a coffee store where we should go. She recommended a place called The Pink Door, which she explained was down an alleyway, through a pink door, and then beyond. Which was exactly true. Bizarrely it was down an alley we’d walked past on Sunday after visiting Pike Market, and one I’d walked past earlier in the year when in Seattle with Craig. I recognised it because it has a splendid drainpipe at its entrance, that has peculiar twists and turns with plants growing out of it at various exits. So down there, and indeed there was a small alcove that glowed pink.

Heading through the door, we found a peculiarly plain corridor, that led to a strange open area with a staircase heading down. It looked like the back entrance to a university dorm, or something. But to the left was another door that opened up into the most unlikely, thriving bar. Projected onto a giant screen was CNN, with the latest numbers at the bottom. Numbers I quadruple-took at. Obama: 353. But it was a race to 270. That can’t be right. 353 – that’s… that’s a landslide. That’s an unequivocal victory. I stood and stared at the screen for a long time, sure I must be misunderstanding it, until the headline, “Breaking: McCain to deliver concession speech” appeared. He’d won Florida, he’d won North Carolina, he’d won Indiana. This was impossible. Obama had won!

Soon after, Obama’s victory speech began, and we all stood in the main room with the screen, watching his gracious and passionate speech while the fantastically partisan crowd clapped and cheered with enthusiasm. Every newspaper and TV channel has said this phrase to death, but it really is a significant moment in history, and to be in the right country at the right time, to share it with people who cared so much about it, was wonderful.

Walking back to the car afterward, people were still cheering in the streets. It made me smile and smile. Something good had happened – something genuinely good. Eight years of that despicable murderous criminal have come to an end, and a genuinely good man is soon to be president of the most powerful country in the world. A country that I wish I could live in more than ever.

Back in the hotel I thought I’d put on Fox News to see how they were coping. I wondered if they’d all be sobbing on their desks, or in complete denial and pretending McCain had won. Their angle was slightly more subtle. The headline on screen was, “Obama asks for help from McCain voters” which was a hilarious angle to take, and in the studio they were slavering over what a difficult job Obama now faced and would he be be up to the challenge? A black female member of Bill Clinton’s campaign group was being interviewed via satellite, and they were desperately trying to get her to say something negative about Obama. But beautifully she could not stop beaming. She was grinning from ear to ear, just lit with delight, and their questions bounced off her. It was beautiful.

Good grief, I’ve wanted to update my blog this week. I’ve been in Seattle visiting Valve, along with the other three members of Rock, Paper, Shotgun, playing an awful lot of Left 4 Dead. Which is a many-splendored thing. And of course, I was also there for election night.

However, for reasons unknown the WordPress software point-blank refused to resend me my password, so I was locked out all week. Now I’m back, dizzy with jetlag, I must splurge.

Clearly I was amongst most of the population of the world in desperately hoping that Obama would win. I was also an optimist that he would, throughout, although obviously feared a terrible repeat of the events of 2000 and 2004. But I realised early on in my stay in America that such election rigging was going to be close to impossible this time. Watching the various US national news outlets on Sunday evening, it became clear that none of the networks or cable news channels were going to allow it. Video clips of fixed voting machines were looping on their broadcasts, reporters were providing in-depth analysis of how the election could be fixed if people weren’t looking in the right places, and an air of cynical awareness was ever-present. They were looking in the right places. Criticism of the ludicrous queuing to vote took place before the inevitable queues formed. Poor, black areas of the nation were under heavy scrutiny from the media to make sure people were able to vote. The US news media called bullshit, and about time.

Obviously by this week the polls were showing Obama with a distinct lead. But everyone knows that means very little after Gore and Kerry’s having shown leads pre-vote as well. Then on top of that, trying to factor in the “Bradley Effect”, let alone the brazened racism in so many regions, it was still so hard to feel any sense of confidence.

I was staying in an odd region of Washington. As a state, it was always going to vote Democrat. But I was staying in Bellevue, a peculiar Republican bubble. On our first evening we walked past a pathetic gathering of protesters on the sidewalk, brandishing banners reading, “DEMOCRATS FOR MCCAIN”. This meaningless epitaph was somewhat undone by everyone else (by which I mean, the other four) holding traditional “MCCAIN PALIN” banners. The home of many banks, businesses, and their ant workers, Bellevue was destined for disappointment. But that didn’t hinder the placing of placards and posters all over.

It was considerably exciting to be in the country at this time. About two thirds of the commercials on television were political ads, which allowed the all-encompassing presence of the election to be complete. And a peculiar collection they were, mostly consisting of extended sniping at opponents, each ad clearly a response to a previous ad for the other side, trying to state their version of the truth in the most fervent fashion. Especially interesting was a proposition being voted for in Washington on the 4th which, if passed, would allow people the right to choose to die once diagnosed with fewer than six months to live. The “vote no” ads were completely astonishing, claiming that the bill would give doctors the freedom to murder your grandparents against their will. The “vote yes” were a response to this, filling the screen with the word “LIES”, then trying to sell assisted suicide as if advertising a comfortable retirement home. There was another set of ads for a particular congressman, presented by the anti-ads as having caused a devastating landslide through his deforestation programme (performed by a company who happened to be on of his main sources of funding). The pro-ads announced that he had apparently spent the previous few years doing nothing but planting trees and caring for the environment. Not knowing the background to any of this, it was more hilarious than anything else.

And of course amongst them all were the McCain/Obama ads, which were both desperately trying to be positive, but held back by the shackles of needing to berate the opponent. The Republican commercials were unquestionably the most negative, mostly bilious, and entirely founded in generating confused fear. The Democratic ads clearly intended to begin somewhere positive, attempting to put forward progressive answers, but then collapsed on themselves by finally yelling how the opponent was going to eat your babies, or whatever.

But surely it was too late for all this nonsense to make a difference? It was all noise to fill the gap between then and Tuesday.

WOOOOOOOOOO PHILLIES!

Birthday 31 has come and gone, re-revealing the previously known truth that with age comes less significance for the day. I had a lovely evening having dinner in the company of lovely people, which was a fine time. The rest of the day before it, however, was spent playing a very average and tiresome videogame for work, while the phone incessantly rang two rooms away, cleverly ensuring that it was a stupid robot bank lady calling for someone else only 50% of the time, so I couldn’t ignore it.

The day was bookended, however, by baseball. Stop reading now if you don’t care. I’m going to talk about baseball at length, and don’t care if you’re not interested. But I’m going to talk about it to an imagined audience who doesn’t already know much about it. Proving that I am magic, my following the Philadelphia Phillies this year, at the expense of my other team-of-interest, the White Sox, has seen them through to the World Series. (Just as my following the White Sox properly in 2005 saw them win the whole thing). And by “properly”, I mean staying up until stupid hours to watch them throughout the year. It requires a strange level of dedication to keep up with it all in a country that doesn’t even know the sport exists.

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As we know from South Park this week, breasts are a dangerous menace, attempting to kill us all. Fortunately a brave few are fighting back, through the power of walking for ages. The Breast Cancer 3-Day is a sixty mile walk to raise money for Susan G Komen For The Cure.

I mentioned that Kim was planning to take part earlier this year, and she’s on the walk right now. Many people reading were incredibly generous, and sponsored someone they don’t know for a really excellent cause. And brilliantly, Kim’s completely smashed through her target amount. However, I’ve got a feeling there are still some people out there who somehow forgot to donate before. Phew, now’s your chance! Head here, and then stick in what you can. It’s to protect us from those boobs, so we need live in fear no more.

The archive of videos at the TED talk site is all the reason I will ever need to adore human beings. Great minds sharing ideas with other great minds, in all manner of fields, made available for less great minds to watch in wonder. After my chum Steph reminded me to delve back in once more, by linking me to the very short talk by wunder-artist Theo Jansen and his mechanical creatures, my evening was eaten by leaping from subject to subject, hoovering up information, music, and, er, beatbox.

Then on a whim I typed “magic” into their search box to see what they might have, and I found Swedish close-up magician Lennart Green. His half hour set is distinct from so many close-up card magicians by his wonderful performance predicated on deceptive clumsiness. Where most card magic relies on clean, crisp displays of digital dexterity, Green relies on cards falling everywhere, dropping them, seemingly making mistakes, and somehow out of this performing the most extraordinary card tricks I’ve ever seen. I suppose people might first think of Tommy Cooper, but that’s an inappropriate comparison. Cooper was a terrible magician, and while he would make lots of pretend mistakes and then reveal the real trick, they were all pretty average tricks. Green isn’t clumsy for pantomime. In fact, while it’s all part of his misdirection, you wonder looking at him – flop sweat and all – whether he really has any choice but to work this way.

It’s just stunning. His dexterity is a pleasure, hidden beneath his haphazard style. There’s something far more impressive about manipulating a deck when it’s sprawled and jumbled, rather than perfectly aligned. And there’s no “pick a card, any card” tedium here. It’s a man demonstrating remarkable skill, rather than tricking audience members. Plus you’ll be doing the wrist trick to everyone you know after you watch this.

My life has become a Tom & Jerry cartoon. Two nights ago, sat up a bit late after writing a complicated email, it was 3.30am and I was long, long overdue for bed. I heard a noise to my right, and assumed Dexter was in the room. However, looking back up at me was not the naughty face of a cat, but a cheeky little rodent nose poking out from between two piles of videogame boxes stacked on the floor beside me. A little mouse, shaking his tiny fist at being spotted by the giant human.

“Well,” I said, “what are we going to do with you?” The mouse didn’t reply, because it’s a mouse, and as such cannot talk, nor even comprehend the concept of a verbal language. However, through the mutual communication shared through our mammalian roots, I was able to tell the mouse’s instinctual reply was, “Hide behind the mess all over your floor, and poo.”

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I know literally two people who care about this, but baseball has worked out rather well this year.

The White Sox just won their tiebreak game against the Twins for the American League Central Division, with a home run by Thome, and incredible pitching by Danks. And three days ago the Phillies won the National League East Division, in a game I missed while at the PC Gamer Showdown (I got to see their meaningless encore game on Sunday night, which they won 8-3 with their B-team).

Thank goodness for baseball, or I’d have no sporting interests at all. And of course it’s hard to enjoy a sport unless you’re rooting for a team. And so while my relationships with Chicago and Philadelphia are second-hand, these are the teams I’ve followed.

I’ve been watching the sport since 1999, when Channel 5 started showing it, but didn’t take an invested interest until 2005, following the White Sox. I couldn’t really have picked a better year, since they went on to win the World Series. And I was lucky enough to be in Chicago during the Divisional play-offs, and felt the remarkable levity in the whole city as they supported their team. (Well, one of their teams – Cubs fans were less elated. This year Chicago is going to be berserk, with both the Sox and Cubs through to the play-offs for the first time in 102 years).

I think it’s safe to say the Phillies succeeded this year due to my wearing a Phillies cap at all points when outside (it’s that or have my weird, rubbish hair stick out at stupid angles), and most especially when on stage in front of a crowd of literally a few people at the Showdown. In fact, it was that very night that they won their division, so it’s pretty undeniable it was due to me. I look forward to their gratitude.

So yes – the next few weeks are going to be great, so long as both teams don’t go out before at least the divisional play-offs. I’ll allow one of them to not make the World Series, because clearly the confusion of not knowing which side to cheer on might spoil the whole affair. Although I suppose I’d be pleased whoever won or lost in that scenario, so maybe it would be for the best. Yes, okay, I shall expect both teams to make the final. Although I will not be wearing two caps to ensure this happens – there are limits. (And frankly, I’m not really able to bring myself to wear a White Sox cap any more, since it’s encroaching on Yankees territory as a fashion label in this stupid, twattish country. Oh, and all those hundreds of thousands of Yankees-hat-wearing idiots must be very disappointed that their team didn’t make the play-offs for the first time in over a decade. EXCEPT THEY’VE NEVER HEARD OF THE YANKEES, THE FASHION VICTIM MORONS).

Also (and this is a sentence that will only make sense to two people reading this), if the Dodgers win anything in the post-season, I will be demanding some major rule changes. They didn’t even win enough games to win the wildcard in their league. Ridiculous.

So after my quite impressive stupidity of announcing I’d never really taken any notice of podcasts, forgetting that I’ve been in a bunch of them, this week two more have come along.

Firstly, I took part in the most recent PC Gamer UK podcast, which you can read about here, and download the mp3 from here. It’s an hour with Editor Ross Atherton, Dep Ed Tim Edwards, Revs Ed Craig Pearson, and tiny, worthless freelancer, me. It’s quite a lot of fun when Ross isn’t going on about Empire Total War, and Tim isn’t listing things. Ha ha. Craig and I have a nice moment of channelling Collings & Herrin.

Secondly, and very excitingly, Rock, Paper, Shotgun has its first podcast up. The RPS Electronic Wireless Show: Episode 1 can be downloaded directly from here, and RSSd to from here.

The RPS one is of terrible audio quality. But that’s the thing about recording something for 45 minutes, and then discovering it sounds appalling – there’s not much you can do about it. So shut up and lump it, whining person. Next time we’ll be much better. But it’s a pretty good listen, for Kieron Gillen and me just rambling.