Disapproval

I love this Disapproving Rabbits website.

My rabbit is actually pretty accommodating but yes, he disapproves of many things, like syringes, and having the floor vacuumed.

I, Darth Bunnywabbit, on the other hand, disapprove of a wide range of things (including vacuuming) and I thought I’d list a few of them.

I disapprove of people who get all judgmental about computer games, such as this elderly alcoholic. He can go scribble on birchbark with feathers for all I care.

I disapprove of stupid unenforceable legislation like this wasting taxpayers money, dreamed up by non-gamers whose sole source of information about them is sensational media. For the record, the bill would make selling games that feature “physical torture” or “mutilation” a felony. Star Wars Galaxies has several major characters who are physically mutilated, including two (Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader) with severed hands. World of Warcraft contains numerous depictions of physical torture, including routine atrocities in the various cities, evil inquisition-minded monks in the Scarlet Monastery, trolls that joke about cannibalism, quests where you have to bring back amputated body parts and the like. And Sims2 allows one to do all kinds of mean things such as murder sims by forcing them to ride up and down on deadly elevators (if they didn’t want you to do that, why did they put it in the game?). Not to mention the user-made downloads where you can acquire all kinds of mutilation and physical torture (including Vader and Skywalker skins). So according to this stupid law, about 99% of all games (including the most successful ones) would be playable by 18 year old youths, but not by any of the under-18 players whose virtual company I have enjoyed in the past.

I disapprove of sexist computer game marketing that panders to the male youth market, marginalizing the vast majority of middle aged and female gamers, and causes industry profits to limp along at a feeble rate which no doubt is disapproved of by investors who would prefer to invest in successful companies, such as EA (makers of Sims games).

I disapprove of stupid people who can’t manage their gaming hobby.

I think I disapprove of leveling, but I’m still pondering that. All my most recent game addictions have been games where you start out weak and become strong, even Sims, where your character has to grind skill points and make friend points before they can afford to buy the cool stuff, which sometimes leads me to cheat because I really don’t want to spend an hour cycling through the noob parts yet again. So guys like this one ranting about leveling
have a great point, and in fact there was no leveling at all in most of my favorite games. The strategy games sometimes had combat units that could get stronger but the main way to get stronger was to have larger and more complicated holdings, so your qualification to be a badass general was based on your ability to organize a large community rather than your boredom threshhold for repetitious monster killing. And one of my favorite fantasy RPGs, Might and Magic, had a rudimentary sort of leveling that basically gated you toward clearing region 3 before releasing you into region 4 rather than sending you out to kill 99999999 identical critters to prove your worth as a critter slayer.

Plus I’ve mentioned how getting myself in a leveling headspace messed with my head to the point where it’s hard for me to get out of that “race past the boring parts to the end” technique. So I don’t think I disapprove of all leveling, just the kind where you’re required to spend hours working through boring, repetitious, “eat all your broccoli before you can have your cake” combat because the designers couldn’t come up with something people would willingly play for hours, like draw poker or tetris. (Ironically, last night when I went on WoW vacation to build sim houses, my soon-to-be vampire sim advanced in her gamer career to the rank of “power leveler”).

I disapprove of any game where victory is tied to my ability to tolerate smack talking idiots, and not only applaud Halo 3's decision to make a one-button idiot silencer, I also applaud their use of the words “poltroon” and “maroon” (I guess the Bugs Bunny reference sailed right over the head of whoever wrote this article – whadda maroon!).

Goes without saying that I also disapprove of this gadget for lazy smack talkers.

While I disapprove of Lindsay Lohan driving around drunk, I disapprove even more of the media devoting more time and attention to complaining about her than about worse celebrity miscreants like football players into dogfighting and suspected murderer Phil Spector, not to mention that Girls Gone Wild guy who’s about to get sent back to jail – I’d kind of enjoy reading about his adventures being fondled by his cellmate, in a karmic justice sort of way. I’d almost whine about sexism if most of the people I’ve heard complaining about Lohan were male, but it seems to be a female thing, so I disapprove of my fellow women that devote all their judgmental-ness toward other women.

I also disapprove of gossip for the most part, of name dropping or writing personal details about what my friends are up to or things like that. If they’re making their handle public and using it to say things I’ll refer to them, but I think people who use their blogs to bitch about their friends or violate peoples’ privacy are creeps.

I disapprove of the enchiladas downstairs. Too much cheese, not enough sauce.

I haven’t installed or played it because I’m at work where I officially disapprove of downloading executables, but I still think this game about marriage, created by a guy who worked on the original SWG with Raph Koster which he describes as “intended to be art,” sounds intriguing.

I disapprove of not talking to Lifa in a while. Thanks for commenting Lifa!!!!! I’ve been trying to force myself to log into SWG for a few days now to get my new chapter paintings (and transfer assets from the Livia and L’yra accounts to the Easter account) but just moving my cursor towards the icon makes me depressed. Maybe this weekend. I did notice from the SOAL site that you were into LOTR but you guys will have to save Middle Earth without me, hobbits make me sneeze.

I disapprove of the incomplete building variety in Sims 2, although I created a nice brick apartment building with quoining last night, along with a residence for my two hippie sims who are going to help me test that new greenhouse feature. I hate to resort to mods and 1-dimensional user-content just to create the kind of normal typical buildings I see every day in San Francisco. Why are there so many stained glass windows and only one bay window (that comes in dorky pastel colors to match the fairy tale building scheme)? Why no decorative exterior medallions or finials or other detail work when there are bowling alley lights you can slap on the sides of buildings – tres cheezy! Why so much east coast stuff in general? How come there are so many shades of aluminum siding? Sorry to be a building snob, but hey, I just am, and EA’s a half hour drive from the city in case the art staff needs an excuse to come up here and goof off having a five hour design research lunch. By the way, I wouldn’t mind exterior concrete molding like the building I noticed in the Mission last night, which reminded me of stuff in the old town section of Guadalajara. And while I went looking for architectural illustrations, it seems most of the good photos are copyrighted and in coffee table books already, so I’ll have to go wander around town with the Nikon one of these days looking for examples of what makes me feel at home.

I disapprove of the 75 hertz refresh rate on this monitor. I just asked them for a new one. I would much rather have a clunky old CRT than a budget LCD and am hoping one of my co-workers with an old CRT will want to swap for my “modern, high tech” flatscreen. Hehehe.

I disapprove of there being several more hours until the weekend, and that I have to do some vacuuming when I get home due to massive quantities of shedding. I already disapprove of vacuuming, but I also disapprove of housework in general, and of shedding, and of non-weekends too.