Nathan Heiss

I like staying at Crystal's house. She has unguents.

Crystal's bathroom is special because it is ornamented with an abundance of shower gels, body washes, facial scrubs, and ointments. As such, the shower becomes a special luxury; I go in old, frumpy Ferrett and come out anointed with unearthly scents of payayas and sea salt and cookies. I dabble in everything she has available (but not too much, no, I never want to be a bad guest; I scrimp out just enough to get a taste for it) and take luxurious showers where I am transformed into some sort of perfumeried chemist.

When I come out, only I know that I am suffused with cranberry, my skin exfoliated, my hair scented of lavender. It is a secret known only to me, since when I am at Crystal's I am at work, and the long amorous hugs that would give me away are few and far between at StarCityGames.com.

I might load my own bathing parlor with such scents, but they give Gini fits of sneezes and rashes. Plus, it seems like a lot of work, buying all that stuff from Lush. I don't have time to wander through malls and shopping forms, finding just the right hint of jasmine-infused cream to soothe my aching feet. That's not my lifestyle; I'm too busy beating Dragon Age to search for emollients.

Still, for a day I can wander through the banquet. Today, I smell like banana bread. AND NOBODY KNOWS BUT ME.

In debating large numbers of people on the Internet, you almost run into someone's mother. And it's difficult to get around her, even though she obstructs rational debate.

See, most people have a few strongly-held opinions on their upbringing. And why not? The circumstances that forged you helped make you who you are. And one of those strongly-held opinions tends to be about their parenting. For a lot of folks, their momma did a great goddamned job, or Mom was a worthless wastrel who held them back from their true potential.

The problem is when the mother in question is exceptional in one circumstance or another, and the child (now grown up and participating in discussions) cannot realize this. To wit:

"HOW DARE YOU SAY THAT CRACK-ADDICTED MOTHERS IN THRALL TO THEIR PIMPS ARE, ON THE WHOLE, LESS DEVOTED TO PARENTING? MY MOTHER WAS A CRACK HO AND SHE WAS A SAINT!"

Or:

"HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT BEING WEALTHY AND BEAUTIFUL IS USUALLY BETTER THAN BEING POOR AND UGLY? I CAME FROM DANBURY, CONNECTICUT, LAND OF PLASTIC SURGERY AND SOCIALITE BRIDE TANTRUMS, AND YOU SHOULD SEE WHAT MY MOTHER DID TO ME!"

The problem of Your Momma is not restricted to Your Momma; it's basically any circumstances where someone has a deep-seated emotional tie to what is, on the whole, a circumstance that is either a) really, really rare or b) so personally painful that they are blind to the idea that other circumstances might be even worse. It doesn't have to be Your Momma; it could be Your Body, or Your High School Experience, or Your Sexuality. Regardless, the Your X issue really makes it difficult to carry on rational debates.

Because every debate, at its core, has to involve generalizations. That's because the really good debates, the ones that can't get settled, involve people, and people are such a multifaceted array of personalities that you cannot come up with any set of circumstances we could inflict upon the planet that would make every last human being happy. No matter what you did successfully, someone would gripe.

Thus, the best we can do is try to discuss what's going to make the vast majority happy. This involves discussing the things that will, in general, encourage people to make good decisions and finding the things that are bad decisions. That's tricky enough as it is, especially given that trying to find that majority and then discuss what's going to motivate/thrill them is a task that's almost impossible for humans and their small-numbers minds to encompass.

But it gets more difficult when you have people who are clearly from a background that's exceptional who cannot recognize that ("My mother was a single, paraplegic, out-of-work leper, and how dare you say that mothers like that are unlikely to provide a decent home for their kids?"), then you're placed in a position where you're not debating with them - you're debating with a formative event in their lives.

So it's almost always impossible to get across the point that "Look, what happened to you isn't what usually happens to people in that circumstance" (or worse, "What happened to you is indeed very terrible, but other people in even more horrible situations may have had it worse") without triggering all sorts of emotional landmines.

You're dealing with the core experiences that have shaped people. If someone feels good about themselves out of the gate and their Momma was a devout Christian who taught them the Bible, well, Christianity is very likely to be something that person feels that every right-thinking household should have. And if someone spent years recovering from the wreckage of their childhood and their Momma was a devout Christian who taught them the Bible, well, they're quite likely to be convinced that Christianity is a plague upon the Earth. And neither one is likely to acknowledge the pros of the other side and the cons of their own.

I'm not sure that's entirely bad. Our personal reaction to things is the only way we can analyze the world. A society of people who quoted statistics, ignoring their own personal experience, would be inhuman and rather creepy. And the fact that marginalized peoples - who, horrifyingly, are often told that their experiences are not only fringe cases, but do not even exist because majority idiots often believe that a minority existence is some kind of illusion that doesn't really happen - use this furor to push their way into the mainstream means that Your Momma has some good power behind it, too. Sometimes, that exceptional experience needs to be highlighted even if it's not the norm. (Sometimes because it's not the norm.)

But still, it does mean that it's almost impossible to find what the majority of people think because nearly every edge case is convinced that their way is just How Things Are. Any attempts to show other folks that that hey, maybe their formative experiences aren't representative of the entire galaxy will result in an argument that will inevitably feel like a personal assault - and flames, flames, flames.

I don't remove myself from this circumstance, of course. I had a sister-in-law who we spent two traumatic years battling insurance companies, trying to save her life because she had a rare kidney condition and scumbag insurance folks who we could not affect. I've done a lot of research to see that my circumstances are not that exceptional, at least in America. But at the same time, whenever I debate this fact of what is clearly a very poor insurance scenario involving a disease that only fifty people on Earth have had, I feel my own blood rising because goddammit, you had to be there and see what those assholes did to her. This is why I don't post about health care as often as I should; I'm simply not capable of holding a rational debate beyond a certain point.

It's my Momma. And what am I gonna do? I'll tell you what I'm gonna do: I have seeded this very essay with tons of outs, strewing it with "some people"s and "a lot"s and "most"s. And now even though I've written an entire essay on how people in edge cases often cannot recognize that they are the product of statistically-anomalous circumstances, and allowed room for those edge cases to flourish, I will brace myself for the inevitable barrage of comments on how, "Well, I don't feel this way."

Good for you. That wasn't the point.

I like girls who've slept around. A lot. The more they've been with other people, the more I'm likely to want to be with them, for a very simple reason: I figure they're more likely to know what they're doing.

It's no guarantee, of course. Some novices just know how to move, while others can sleep with a thousand men and still never learn a damn thing - but in general, those who've had a lot of sex generally have the experience to be better in bed and in a relationship. They have new techniques to show me, are less inhibited, are far more likely to tell me exactly what they want emotionally and physically.

Which is another way of saying that I have always been attracted to slutty women.

I'm a little uncomfortable with that term "slutty," of course; I've never understood why having a lot of sexual experience was supposedly a bad thing for a girl, whereas being a virgin was something desirable. It just doesn't make sense to me - because logically, all other things being equal, the girl who's been around the block should be the one you'd want.

Let me be clear here by saying that in an ideal world, for long-term relationships, sexual experience shouldn't much matter. If you're looking to date someone, it shouldn't matter how much or how little they've slept around - what's important is whether you like them. What happens after you've tumbled in the sack? Can you carry on a good conversation, laugh at the same jokes, dance to the same music? Sexual compatibility is an element of any relationship, of course, but if you don't actually enjoy spending time out of the sack then all the hot monkey sex in the world won't make you a good dating partner. (A magnificent booty call, perhaps, but not a boyfriend.)

So for me, "sexually experienced" is like a +1 on a scale of one to ten - a preference, not a dealbreaker. It's not going to make me want someone I find loathsome, but it can push someone over the top from "meh" to "hello there."

Yet there are guys I know who are obsessed with finding virgins, or ideally sexually naive women - the minute they find someone who's slept with another guy, they're turned off to the point where they have to be talked into dating them, like a deflowered girl was some battered Datsun on a used car lot. They can't date anyone who's been touched. They can't bear to hear that their partner's been with other men.

And why? What does a virgin get you?

I mean, yes, it's cool to introduce someone to an activity for the first time - you get to watch their excitement as they go, "Wow, this is cool! Who knew?" And that is, I grant you, pretty neat.

Yet you also have to teach, and answer a lot of questions, and endure the inevitable awkwardness of someone exploring stuff for the first time. I mean, it's fun to introduce someone to the game of tennis, too, but I think all things being equal you'd want a partner who's at your skill level, rather than trying to train up an endless series of newbies. (Not that making love is anywhere near as complex as tennis, of course, but a good sex partner can show you things you never knew how to do.) And you deal with people who may not be used to the emotional pitfalls of sex, of which there are many, which can bite you in the ass if you're not careful.

The Cult of the Virgin seems to spring from a lot of issues that I'm deeply uncomfortable with: first off, that as a guy, your goal is to get to women first and mark your territory. Your whole goal is to basically treat women as though they're some kind of fucked-up Pokemon ("You use HOARY PICK-UP LINE on Hymenestra! It's super effective!"), collecting them because of some trait they possess as opposed to who they actually are.

It's as though women don't really exist until you come along and validate them with your amazing schlong. At which point they only exist as long as you possess them.

Second, by sleeping with someone, that attitude puts you in quiet competition with everyone they've slept with before - and if you can remove that competition, thus making her worship you by producing these feelings and knowing that no one has ever surpassed them, that you are somehow now superior. It seems to be a desire born out of a fragmented ego, the terror that maybe your dick isn't the magical holly wand with the phoenix feather core, the concept that your best way to satisfy a woman is to hunt down someone who doesn't know what she's doing and, via social pressure and studied insults, keep her so that you're the only one she ever knows. Congratulations, Bluebeard. You've done it.

Third, it's kind of a passive event. Not to knock anyone's virginity, but the reason I like sexually aggressive women is because in general, they know what they want and have had the motivation to go get it. One suspects that if a man of the virginical persuasion were to find a woman who actively wanted to be deflowered, without having to go through a song and tapdance to change her mind, he'd be repulsed. It's as though these guys get off on the mind control aspect, the thrill of breaking down someone's defenses in a kind of brainwashing thrill, and then pouncing on them.

Me? I'd rather be pounced upon.

Keep in mind that I'm not knocking you for what you may have or haven't done. If you're a virgin, I'm cool with it; it's not something I find really attractive in a sexual partner, but by God if you're going to get upset every time some pudgy, toothless forty-year-old with a blog says, "Well, I'm not that into your type," well, you should learn to pay a fuck of a lot less attention to me.

Still, the concept that virgins are the best thing to have just strikes me as being, well, illogical. If anything, a sane society should hold up a woman who's had some experience as being a finer thing, since the experience will make it more likely (if not guaranteed) that your relationship will work inside of the bedroom and out. (And ideally, it would be done in such a way that doesn't lead to teenaged girls then bashing virgins the way they currently mock sluts - but goddamn, humanity's so stupid that if there's any slight difference they'll turn that distinction into a way to make you wish you'd never been born. The "if one choice is good, the other must be bad" paradigm has destroyed more innocents than I'm comfortable with.)

So down with the Cult of the Virgin! Up with the Mild Preference for the Experienced Woman! And guys, get used to the fact that you're not there first, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

I was tracking my XBox achievements on True Achievements the other day when I realized I had statistical proof that DJ Hero wasn't a very popular game. Specifically, my multipliers are ridiculous.

First, some mild geekery: when you accomplish certain tasks in an XBox game, you're given achievement points, or "G." Finish the first level, you might get 10G. Kill all the enemies on a level using only your fists, you might get 50G. The harder the accomplishment, the more G you should get.

...in theory. In practice, since developers design their own achievements, some games are overly generous (in one Simpsons videogame, you get 5G for just pressing the start button) and some games are ludicrously stingy (if you can find all 200 glowing balls in Prototype, you deserve more than 50G). So some of the hardest accomplishments may well short you on G, whereas a game that's generous (usually kids games) hand them out like candy.

So to even it out and have your score reflect your actual gaming talent, True Achievements evens it out by assigning multipliers based on how many people have this game, as compared to how many people actually got this achievement. For example, that Prototype achievement may be only 50G - but True Achievements sees that only 12% of game owners have actually gotten this level, and multiplies that achievement by 2.88 for an "adjusted" total of 115G.

(Of course, since you have to sign up for True Achievements before it starts tracking, it means that 12% of the most devoted gamers in existence have gotten this achievement - the actual number's probably closer to 2%.)

Though DJ Hero has some fairly easy accomplishments, there aren't a whole lot of people who've gotten them. Which means that compared to other games, there aren't a lot of people who've picked up DJ Hero and really gotten into it. In other words, it may have been purchased, but it's not getting played.

As a game publisher, I'd be fascinated by those numbers. The paradox of the sales is that the sales are roughly equivalent to quality, but not exactly. A heavily-hyped game could sell a lot before people realize it's not good. The sequel to Halo 3 (or ODST) is going to sell a zillion copies even if it's a remake of Pong. What the Achievements can tell you, if you structured them appropriately, is whether people enjoyed the game once they bought it.

Just as a quick example, one of the fine tricks of any rhythm game is your choice of songs. Did you get the mix right? Did people, by and large, feel that this is a good mix? Well, if you put in an accomplishment that could be achieved incidentally, like "Played all songs," then you could see what percentage of people thought your songs were good enough to play all of them. (It wouldn't be strictly true, since there are idiots like me who'll unlock everything, but you can filter me out.)

Likewise, you can see what level people got to on average before they quit. Was that level too hard? Did the story flag here? Regardless, you could analyze those breaking points and try to find out what stopped people, and fix that in the sequel. Or to see whether this game deserves a sequel, regardless of the actual sales up-front.

There's whole worlds of data to analyze. And then I think about Netflix streaming, where you can see not only how many people watched the movie, but how many got to the end - and the points where they gave up. What happened at this point in this film where people flung up their hands and said "Fuck this," and how can you fix that in future movies? Obviously, there will be anomalous points of data, where the baby started crying and they just figured what the hell - but with enough viewings, you can see where people paused, where they walked away, giving you some clue as to what they liked about the movie. And you can see what movies get rewatched, and what sections of movies get rewound, and you can use that.

I'm not a data miner. But if I was, man, I'd be drooling over the access to all of this. It's incidental tracking to see how you reacted to something, anonymized, and usable. I'd like to think that someone was putting all of this glorious data to good use.

Step 1: Discover your account has been cancelled because you didn't update your credit card. Proof that you don't use the TiVo enough, but let's say you feel an urge to settle debts.

Step 2: Go to Tivo.com's activation page, as it says to in the message they sent you, to reactivate your account.

Step 3: Put in your TiVo Service Number.

Step 4: Get the following message straight from Tivo's site: "Oops! The TiVo service number you entered has already been activated. If you think you may have entered an incorrect number, please try again or call Customer Support at 1-877-367-8486."

Step 5: Call number. Go ahead. I dare you.

(EDIT: Apparently, some people can get through; when I call from either my home phone or from my cell, I get a "This number has been disconnected" message. Weird.)

I'm by no means an expert on the subject of Truth or Dare. Having been an uncombed, neurotic, and isolated mess through much of my teenaged years, I missed out on all the "classic" adolescent games; I've never played spin the bottle, never played post office, never had seven minutes in heaven. So I've only had a handful of Truth or Dare games, and all as a grownup.

Still, it seems that every game of Truth or Dare I've played follows the same basic patterns, regardless of who's there:

1) All the girls will give the other girls sexy dares involving mouths, hands, and bras. When daring boys, however, it's "You go eat a bug."

2) Unless you're directly involved in a sensual dare, the truths are generally far more interesting.

3) ...But you're pressured into choosing dares anyway.

4) There's always one person there who was just sort of hanging around and is now sucked into the game of Truth or Dare, and is hoping that nothing really crazy happens because they're not going to do it if asked.

5) As a result dares will take forever, because people really want to go for something risque and astounding in the hopes of triggering some wild orgy, but they hem and haw as they try to find the line between wild and sex AND what the lowest tolerance in the room is comfortable with. (I can, however, easily see an opposite world where someone's shouting, "SHOVE THIS COKE CAN UP YOUR TIGHTEST BODY CAVITY!" while everyone else is like, "WHOAH, GIRL.")

6) The iPhone apps and pre-generated games you can get for Truth or Dare are either so tame that you can't believe it (DARE: Dance with a broom) or so aggressive that you feel like it's a yappy, aroused dog at the end of a disintegrating leash (DARE: Put Dan's balls in your mouth).

7) The wild orgy is always, always tanked by the network of anti-attractions - Mattie doesn't like Dave and Aaron that way, Dave's only into boys, and Jack and Rayna are a committed couple. You try to devise a Travelling Salesman algorithm that will satisfy all people in this room without having any anti-attractive nodes touching, yet can create nothing. So you get some mild titillation, perhaps touching someone you like in a way you weren't expecting, and then go home feeling like hey, you got more than you would have, but it coulda been different.

My Roomba is cleaning my living room using an algorithm called "The Drunkard's Walk."

Funnily enough, that's the very same method I'll use to mess up my living room later tonight.

...based on yesterday's "If I came to visit you and you could request anything of me" meme, a disproportionate amount of you want me to explain things to you. Swingers, the appeal of Magic (several times over!), religion, and so forth. I should go on a lecturing tour.

Failing that, the number one thing people want to do with me is "chat," which is something I'm entirely happy to do. In general, if you're reading enough to comment, you're someone who's interesting enough to talk with for hours. And if I could chat over a game of multiplayer Magic, as many others suggested? Even better.

Only one person was naughty, and even she mildly so. This is a mild disappointment, of course, but I understand.

"I promised you," I said. "I'll be there by New Year's Eve."

"Some days it seems like a dream," said Gini. "Like you don't really exist."

"I know. I know."

We were married, and had only spent a chopped month in each others' arms. That month was stolen in snippets - a weekend convention here, a week's vacation there, a drive back to Michigan after the wedding - each part as glorious as a fragment of diamond, but too small to keep in the chaos of our "normal" lives.

We chatted. We called. But we each had these full, wonderful lives with friends and jobs and family, and even though we'd been married a month ago I still had to move up to Alaska to be with her. When that happened, this strange and wonderous journey would be complete. Yet we both had this continual fear that maybe, it wouldn't really happen. This felt too good. Our lives felt too real, these happy moments felt too transitory. Something would break.

I planned to be there in October, but my job gave me an offer I couldn't refuse: a huge bonus to stay through the Christmas season. It was enough to cover my move up to Alaska - no cheap thing - and the final flight. I had to take it. And Gini and I felt that pang of being stretched further, our marriage bonds seeming thin and fragile across this gulf of three thousand miles and two long months.

"New Year's Eve," I said. "I don't care if they offer me fifty thousand dollars. I'll watch the ball drop in your arms."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

And right after Christmas, I flew out, and arrived on the 27th for Alaska flights are long, and my real life started. On New Year's Eve, we cuddled up but not watch the ball drop; at midnight, we were making slow, sweet love, renewing the promise of our personal faith, bonding in the best way we knew how.

That was 1999. This is 2009. And it's been the decade of Gini. Great things have happened to me in that ten years; I've settled down in good ways, becoming more stable, wiser, less prone to shooting myself in the foot. I went to Clarion, got my first pro sale. I got a job with a site that sells Magic, and now work out of my living room with wonderfully smart people for a product I love. I have new friends, a Monster Penis System, a home that feels as snug as a bathrobe, a journal with a wondrous audience....

That's all Gini. That's all Gini. None of that would have happened if I hadn't fell in love with that fabulous intellect, arguing every topic in the Star Wars Compuserve forum with wit and passion and intellect, and decided that I had to throw everything to the winds to be with her. I flung all my chips on the table, saying, "I will risk everything for this woman," and the dealer dealt me a straight flush.

It's the decade of Gini. And God willing, I know what the next decade will be: the next decade of Gini. And the next, and the next, as long as our bodies function and we still have lips to whisper. She's mine, and I'm hers, and being with her is a cornucopia of goodness, and there is no other woman who can do what she can. She is the light that illuminates me, the star I steer by, and God only knows what I'd do without her.

In 1999, I made a promise. In 2009, I'll have a larger party, and we will still be making love at midnight. It won't be physical, for that would disrupt the guests, but when we kiss it'll mean the same thing: You're here you're here you're here. And that thrill never fades, it never does.

It's the meme that's going around LJ:

If I came to visit you and you could request anything of me, what would you like to do together? Be specific--you never know, it might be possible!

All comments screened.

I was just there. I saw them. And they were cute. But I hope they're happy wherever they've gone.

After the initial shock of "Oh, no!" all I can think of is "So long, and thanks for all the fish."

Based on an article I read a few weeks back, I Netflixed The Persuaders, a PBS documentary on the scary power that advertising holds over us.

I am amused, however, to find that in the first half an hour they tout the now-defunct Saturn and Song Airlines as people who are doing a brand right. Whoops. Advertising's powerful, but it's not quite bulletproof yet.

Interestingly, as a side note, I know my own branding's really weak. I vacillate too much. If I was just about crazy sex stories, or just about heartwarming relationship advice, or just about writing nattering, I'd probably be a lot stronger of a blogger. That's the nature of a brand; if you try to encompass everything, you encompass nothing, and I've occasionally thought about just sticking to just one damn topic. Unfortunately, that would bore the crap out of me.

As it is, I suppose people ask, "Well, what does he write about?" and the answer is a muddled shrug.

This weekend, I topped 15,000G on TrueAchievements. Then I emailed jackofmany to crow that though he had beaten me to 10,000 achievement points won in various XBox games, I beat him to 15,000.

In return, he emailed me this link, about a girl who may well be my future.

Dammit, I think he won.

Upon getting a Roomba, I've gotten two types of comments: the first are from people asking, "Can you tell me how it is?" The second is from people going, "Ugh! It's awful."

I can only presume that the complaining people are far pickier than I am.

The first thing you notice about the Roomba is OMG I HAVE A ROBOT AND IT'S SO CUTE. There's that Jetsons thrill of realizing that yes, you have an electronic minion to scurry about your feet. And it doesn't hurt that the Roomba has a low-grade personality. Amy calls it "the retarded puppy," and it does have a forlorn charm about it. It goes in a straight line, completely undeterred by any approaching obstacles until it BONKS into a wall, a full-on face plant. Then it pauses as if baffled by this strange and unearthly barried, revolves around, and charges hopefully off to BONK into another wall.

"But how's it clean?" you ask. The answer is, "Adequately, but not brilliantly." As you'd expect from something that tiny, its motor isn't all that strong, so it doesn't have the super-suck of my normal vaccuum. And because it is tiny, you have to empty it after every twenty-five minute cycle - an inconvenience that at least provides helpful proof that yes, it did suck up a couple of handfuls of hair and dust.

It's also surprisingly nimble - yes, it did get caught on a few obstacles, but for every rise it got caught on there were at least three other places where I said, "Whoop, it's toast" just before it escaped in a motor-whirr of triumph. We do have to move a few chairs for full cleaning, and you do have to make sure the floor's not cluttered (the first time it got into the kitchen it sucked up a jar of poultry seasoning that had rolled underneath the butcher's table and then beeped plaintively like some cyber-Heimlich victim), but I was happy to see that it was, in general, pretty effective.

Now. Was it as effective as getting out my hyper-suck vaccuum cleaner and running it myself? Of course it isn't. The vaccuum cleaner is more powerful, and I can move it where I want. One good vaccuuming from me is worth at least three Roomba cycles.

But to say that the vaccuum isn't as good as the Roomba is missing the point. Yes, one vaccuuming from me is worth three Roomba cycles - but am I going to vaccuum daily, or even weekly? No. I am slothful, and I hate vaccuuming. But I will press a button daily to have my Roomba faceplant its way about the house.

So if the choice is one vaccuuming once every ten days, or a thrice-a-week Roombaing, then cleaning-wise I'm way ahead with the Roomba. The lowered efficiency is made up for by the increased convenience.

I suspect that those who have been decrying the Roomba as a waste of time are those who are natural cleaners - people who vaccuum twice-weekly on their own, who wipe down counters after every usage, who make their bed the instant they rise. And for them, I suspect the Roomba is a waste of cash, because they're more inclined to clean.

If you look at the Roomba as a gentle incentive - something that not only encourages more frequent vaccuuming but also requires you to pick the stray clutter off the floor before you can use it - then for those of us in the "I like a clean house, but hate spending so much effort on it" camp it winds up being a net win. Thus far, it works.

My only concern is the reliability: I hear they break relatively easily, and if that's the case then spending several hundred dollars a year for the increased convenience is suddenly overmatched by a vastly increased expense. But we'll see.

I'll keep you updated on the health of my Roomba, which is called Opposite Cat, because unlike a normal pet it runs around crazily and cleans up messes. (Thanks to icedcoffee0928 for the comparison.)

I had a friend of mine who expressed concern about talking with me, lest her personal issues end up in my journal. That's a reasonable concern, because I do give the illusion that I share everything in this journal. (I don't, but I share more than many people do.)

So let me list the things that I don't talk about in this journal:

I don't write about ongoing issues. I do often discuss the problems Gini and I have had in our relationship - but you'll note that those posts are on fights we had several years ago, and are invariably about problems we've solved.

But if it's an argument we're having now, I don't talk about it. There's no sense dragging people on LJ into a fight that neither of us have finished negotiating, for reasons outlined here (in Rule #4). Any sort of open debate does not get aired in public until it's absolutely closed, and Gini and I have come to the same conclusion about whatever it was that was bothering us. (Which is why I run all those posts by Gini first - she has veto power.)

Likewise, I don't discuss arguments I'm having with my friends. Being polyamorous, I've gone through three breakups in the time since I've had this journal - and none of that's ever made it to the page. I don't name names, I don't discuss specifics, I don't accuse. Breakups are painful enough without having to endure excoriations from strangers in someone's journal.

Until it's dead and trapped in amber, I don't write about it.*

I don't write about ongoing issues. I'm putting this as a separate bulletin point because it doesn't apply to just Gini: it applies to all my friends and their issues.

Now, I can see where it seems that I ignore this rule, because I do write about things my friends are going through. Often, though, those posts are just generic advice I've given to people that's not tied to anything in their lives.

But if I know they're going through a trauma that they wouldn't want debated in public, and the entry is on something where there's no question that it's them, I'll wait until it's something that's no longer bothering them. And then I'll change the details of their information. And, more often than not, turn it into an identical incident that I've gone through. (And if it never really ends, then I don't write about it at all. An entry isn't worth upsetting a friend.)

I've had friends read entries and not realize it was inspired by them three months ago. That's my goal.

Problem is, I have a lot of friends - and considering I often write about universal topics, it's almost guaranteed that my writing on someone's breakup two months back is going to be very similar to someone's breakup today. But there's not much I can do about that; all I can say is that it's not you.

I don't talk about anything that someone's specifically asked me not to talk about. If someone doesn't want to be talked about on my LJ, I won't. It's not that big a deal. If I know they're Internet-shy, I'll generally leave them off as well. This is my catch-all category.

(This is, I should add, not a letter of the law thing; I don't give universal veto power to anyone who says, "It hurts me when you talk about trees." With a large enough audience, almost every post is guaranteed to hit someone's button. But if it's personal and related to them, I'll usually avoid the topic.)

I don't talk about my children. I occasionally tell a funny story about them, or regurgitate some advice I've given, but their lives are their own. The things they go through don't make it here, and shouldn't.

I don't talk about work. Fortunately, I do actually enjoy my job, but on the days that I don't I keep my lips zipped. This is simple common sense.

I don't talk about anything that, to my judgment, would worsen the world. Which is not to say that I don't err in this occasionally, or make judgments that you'd disagree with as to what makes the world better... but in general, I want my LJ to be a positive force. So I try to avoid writing about things that are just complaining, and if I rant I try to have some underlying point. I want to write about topics that inspire people, not drag them down.

And that's it, I think. I reserve the right to add more things as time goes on. And I'll probably restructure my userinfo page to reference this.

* - I might write about my emotional state caused by the breakup, as in "I'm feeling really lonely and sad today and must listen to The Shins a million times," but that's a different thing.

Secret critique amusements: when someone says you didn't foreshadow something enough for their liking, and then you discover that in their suggested edits they've actually cut out every bit of foreshadowing that you put in.

I spent about four hours yesterday playing DJ Hero, scratching and mixing, just enjoying the hell out of great mash-up songs and fun gameplay. And in playing it, I understood completely why DJ Hero tanked.

On the surface, DJ Hero has everything you'd want in a rhythm game: great songs, an iconic culture (everyone knows to scratch the records, man), entertaining game play backed by absolutely killer reviews. Yet it sold about half of what people thought it would, and it's largely considered a flop.

So what happened? A lot of things.

First off, there's the obvious point: as people dissecting the failure of DJ Hero have repeatedly mentioned, mash-ups of songs sound good on the surface, but you don't know what you're getting. Sure, Daft Punk remixing Queen sounds potentially awesome, but do you want to drop $120 on things that might be good? Whereas Rock Band and Guitar Hero may have less exciting tracks - certainly the repeto-stomp of "We Will Rock You" isn't going to be fun to play more than once or twice - but there's no question as to what song you'll be playing.

It didn't help that the two songs featured in the Best Buy kiosks were the weakest songs in the game. As it turns out, the Queen/Daft Punk is insanely good, and the Jackson Five/Jay-Z is even better. But what did they choose? Some easy, but really boring mid-tempo tracks lacking iconic sounds. If you want to sell it to the mainstream crowd, then when they see it you need to give them Rihanna, give them Queen, give them your biggest names - not the antiquated boredom of "I Heard It Through The Grapevine" weakly mixed with Gorillaz.

That isn't the biggest problem, though. The biggest problem is that Activision's habit of catering to the hardcore gamers finally bit them in the ass.

See, for Rock Band, the instrument itself doesn't take too much for a newbie to understand. You know how guitarists play, and the mechanics are the similar: finger these buttons here where you'd play chords, and flick this plastic switch where you'd strum. Sure, there are other things you can do - whammy bars, star power, hammer-ons - but all of those are purely optional elements that merely enhance the game play. You aren't punished if you don't get it.

Furthermore, the two core mechanics are simple: fret and strum. That's instinctive.

DJ Hero, on the other hand? Well, what does the average Joe know about DJing aside from the fact that they wear headphones and scratch and do... something... with tracks? The mechanics of DJing are actually not nearly as well known, so you can't really imitate it.

So when you sit down, you have the three buttons on the turntable. And you have to press those buttons and scratch, sometimes in predetermined directions. And you have a crossfader, which has three positions (which are nearly impossible to see where it's seated upon first glance at the the screen) determines which track you're using, and if you don't then you fail terribly.

So when a novice sits down for DJ hero, they now have three separate and at-odds mechanics, none of which are instinctive. They know as a DJ that they're supposed to scratch, but the buttons? They're strange, and flip positions when you twirl the turntable. The crossfader switch? Sure, DJs use them, but how many of the unwashed masses are really aware of using them?

What you end up with is a huge disconnect between what's happening on-screen and what you're doing on the controller. I watched three people play it in Best Buy, and I still wasn't really sure how to play. It wasn't until I completed the tutorial that I really fathomed everything that was going on.

Guitar Hero has a guitar to be played. DJ Hero has an interface to be learned.

That's great... for die-hard gamers like me. I like mastering new control systems, and get satisfaction from accomplishing things that are moderately hard. But for a casual gamer, who is baffled by the two-control system of a plastic guitar? He's going to look at the buttons and the twirling and the crossfader and this twirly dial here and this flashing button and cry, "WHAT THE FUCK DO I DO?" And who wants to bother?

Activision wasn't thinking, "Wow, Guitar Hero really appeals to people who never play games. How can we do that for DJ Hero?" If they had, they would have found a way to simplify the interface, make it more apparent what control affected which part of the game. They would have watched Gramma and little kids as they scratched on experimental controllers, catalogued their reactions and really concentrated on feedback.

Instead, they said, "How can we make this a game with a lot of depth?" Which, to be fair, they did - but they paid for it in having too much of a learning curve, one that put people off when they saw it in stores. It looked like work because it was, like any hardcore game, and the people rightfully stayed away in droves.

Which is a shame. It's a fine game. I'm enjoying it as I master its control schema. But I can see Gini, bored in her chair, wondering why I'm spending hours finessing my scratching technique - and her casual gamer attitude is not only completely justifiable, but the majority of purchases these days. And so even if they did come up with a sequel to DJ Hero, it'd still use this clunky controller, then that would fail.

Boo. I love these mixes. I love this game. But I can understand why it's just for me.

Last night, I had one of those experiences that transforms your life. I have a lot of those. The difference is that I had it again.

Which is to say that I borrowed a friend's copy of Ray Bradbury's "The Illustrated Man" and read "The Veldt," and found it to be just as creepy, memorable, and shocking as it was when I first read it when I was, what? Ten?

It's rare that I go back to the well of my childhood and dig out something that holds up every bit as well as I remember it. Usually there's a few chunks knocked off the edges; Narnia's still a lovely place to visit, but I forget how sparse C.S. Lewis's text was. Isaac Asimov's characters are too simplistic. The special effects in the old Star Trek are a little hoary now.

But The Veldt? Even now, I can feel a master at work. Every bit as good as an adult as it was when I was a kid.

And so, since I asked about it on Twitter yesterday, I'll ask you all today: what seminal book/music/movie from your childhood is just as good to you today? It's rare that I get that thrill twice, and am ecstastic every damn time it happens.

(And yes, this is why I love Star Wars, why do you ask? Just the first movie, though. Empire's always a little sullied by the fact that I know Jedi is comin'.)

Because I want to know: What's the best thing you got for Christmas this year?

My answer is crazily threefold, because I am so overcome with happiness I cannot decide:

1) My Mom got me a Roomba. So I will now have a silly robot vaccuuming my living room, which is great because I hate vaccuuming and hate messy floors equally.

2) I got the complete Seasons 1 through 5 of Mythbusters. Considering that Adam and Jamie are my comfort watching, this makes me extremely thrilled.

3) This is the one where I can't say how much I like the present yet, but it fills me with warm fuzzies; Gini and I have battled for months over DJ Hero. "It's another stupid plastic toy," she said. "I don't want it cluttering the living room. I don't like the music. And I really hate the gameplay. And I don't want more clutter in our living room!" So though I wanted it, I had resigned myself to not having it.

I felt that box in my lap. I was hoping. And sure enough, even though Gini personally hates it, she got it for me for Christmas because she knew it would make me happy. And that's really filling me with a sense of love right now.

This is a very good Christmas, though. My Dad got me a box full of awesome, too, and Eric and Kat got me a guitar shirt that you can play with your hands. We don't have batteries for that right now, but I'm not going to fret it.

Merry, merry Christmas! So what made you happiest under the tree this holidays?

I ask every year at Christmas: If you'd like to get me an inexpensive gift that will nevertheless make me do little happydances of joy, feel free to post cheesecake pictures of yourself in the comments here. (Alternatively, if they're spicy or you're shy, mail 'em to me at theferrett@theferrett.com.)

(And as always, every year I do this, some guy goes, "Oh ho, here I am! You didn't expect this!" and posts a picture of himself. And it's true that I'm straight, but a) I like seeing pictures of people anyway, b) I'm never shocked by photos of guys, and c) as far as I'm concerned, posting cute pictures of yourself where attractive people - potentially girls - can see them is usually a good idea. So it's like whoah, you sure are alternative, buddy.)

Merry merry!