Earlier today, I hammered out some paragraphs about New Orleans and The Way Things Are Now. Well, I take it all back. Not only was the post self-indulgent, but it was also unbearably dreary and clichéd: it had all been said before, and better. Thankfully, I was interrupted mid-stream, and when I got back to my desk and a very hot, very big cup of coffee, I’d regained my senses. Hello, delete button.

That’s not to say I’m feeling much better now. Maybe it’s the gray day (I’ve never experienced Seasonal Affective Disorder, but there’s a first time for everything), or maybe it’s the slight but persistent pressure of our upcoming show, or maybe it’s the rut that I’ve fallen into, but the items on my wish list are clearly not being delivered. Yes, they are mere wishes at the moment, but they are on the verge of being needs:

1. I wish I could sleep more than six hours a night.

2. I wish my eldest dog didn’t shed so much.

3. I wish my eldest dog was still able to jump into bed with me.

4. I wish I could get rid of the mouse that’s raiding our kitchen.

5. I wish Lola were still around to startle the mouse, although she probably wouldn’t raise a paw to catch him.

6. I wish I could finish writing and editing the collection of reminiscences I put together for some of my college friends.

7. I wish all of my friends were alive to read it.

8. I wish I could stop eating.

9. I wish someone would pick a fight with me.

10. I wish I could find a tennis partner or sparring partner or someone to aid and abet controlled, sports-related violence.

11. I wish New Orleans wasn’t so lethal.

12. I wish there were an alternative.

13. I wish I could take a real vacation.

14. I wish I knew why my knuckles are still itching.

15. I wish that some people listened more often.

16. I wish I could focus.

17. I wish I could commit.

18. I wish I could stop worrying.

19. I wish people could give me the benefit of the doubt.

20. I wish I could give people the benefit of the doubt.

21. I wish I didn’t sound like the lead-in to a bad commercial for Prozac.

If I were a better napper, I’d go back to bed. Not that I could sleep, but, you know.

P.S. Send help. Or beer. In fact, just send beer.

Info and tickets at www.NORunningWithScissors.com.

As I was saying about Fable 2 [vid nsfw]:

http://static.escapistmagazine.com/media/global/movies/player/FlowPlayerDark.2.2.4-tm.swf?1.1?config=%7Bembedded%3Atrue%2CplayList%3A%5B+%7B+%27url%27%3A346%2C%27linkUrl%27%3A%27http%3A%2F%2Fwww.escapistmagazine.com%2Fvideos%2Fview%2Fzero-punctuation%2F346-Fable-2%27%2C%27linkWindow%27%3A%27_top%27%2C%27name%27%3A%27Fable%2B2%27+%7D+%5D%2CsplashImageFile%3A%27http%3A%2F%2Fwww.escapistmagazine.com%2Fglobal%2Fcastfire%2Fsplash%2F346.jpg%27%2CshowVolumeSlider%3Atrue%2Cpid%3A%27html_test%27%2CinitialScale%3A%27fit%27%2Cloop%3Afalse%2CautoPlay%3Afalse%2CautoBuffering%3Afalse%2CusePlayOverlay%3Afalse%2CautoRewind%3Atrue%2CbufferLength%3A15%2CmenuItems%3A%5Bfalse%2Cfalse%2Cfalse%2Cfalse%2Ctrue%2Ctrue%5D%7D

via Michael

Vavelta is a new treatment for concealing scars and fine lines that involves injecting the skin with cells derived from foreskins donated by mothers of babies circumcised in U.S. hospitals. This “seems to rejuvenate and restructure ageing [sic] and damaged skin from the inside by repopulating the lower layers of the skin with millions of healthy young skin cells.” One woman used it to treat acne scars on her face. Other trial subjects say it reverses aging. Unlike Botox, Vavelta is permanent. Yummy.

—Daily Mail via Jezebel via New York Magazine

I was concerned when Obama’s transition website took down details of the president-elect’s agenda. I thought some underpaid staffer might’ve overstated Obama’s position on Iraq or climate change or, say, LGBT rights. I thought some disgruntled politico or interest group might’ve threatened to start a shitstorm around one of the issues. I thought something was going to get rolled back.

Well, the agenda is online once more, and it doesn’t appear to have been scaled down at all. In fact, on the subject of LGBT rights, it’s been significantly expanded. Here’s that section in its entirety–you know, just in case the site goes down again:

Support for the LGBT Community

“While we have come a long way since the Stonewall riots in 1969, we still have a lot of work to do. Too often, the issue of LGBT rights is exploited by those seeking to divide us. But at its core, this issue is about who we are as Americans. It’s about whether this nation is going to live up to its founding promise of equality by treating all its citizens with dignity and respect.”

— Barack Obama, June 1, 2007

The Obama-Biden Plan

• Expand Hate Crimes Statutes: In 2004, crimes against LGBT Americans constituted the third-highest category of hate crime reported and made up more than 15 percent of such crimes. Barack Obama cosponsored legislation that would expand federal jurisdiction to include violent hate crimes perpetrated because of race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, or physical disability. As a state senator, Obama passed tough legislation that made hate crimes and conspiracy to commit them against the law.

• Fight Workplace Discrimination: Barack Obama supports the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, and believes that our anti-discrimination employment laws should be expanded to include sexual orientation and gender identity. While an increasing number of employers have extended benefits to their employees’ domestic partners, discrimination based on sexual orientation in the workplace occurs with no federal legal remedy. Obama also sponsored legislation in the Illinois State Senate that would ban employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

• Support Full Civil Unions and Federal Rights for LGBT Couples: Barack Obama supports full civil unions that give same-sex couples legal rights and privileges equal to those of married couples. Obama also believes we need to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and enact legislation that would ensure that the 1,100+ federal legal rights and benefits currently provided on the basis of marital status are extended to same-sex couples in civil unions and other legally-recognized unions. These rights and benefits include the right to assist a loved one in times of emergency, the right to equal health insurance and other employment benefits, and property rights.

• Oppose a Constitutional Ban on Same-Sex Marriage: Barack Obama voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment in 2006 which would have defined marriage as between a man and a woman and prevented judicial extension of marriage-like rights to same-sex or other unmarried couples.

• Repeal Don’t Ask-Don’t Tell: Barack Obama agrees with former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff John Shalikashvili and other military experts that we need to repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. The key test for military service should be patriotism, a sense of duty, and a willingness to serve. Discrimination should be prohibited. The U.S. government has spent millions of dollars replacing troops kicked out of the military because of their sexual orientation. Additionally, more than 300 language experts have been fired under this policy, including more than 50 who are fluent in Arabic. Obama will work with military leaders to repeal the current policy and ensure it helps accomplish our national defense goals.

• Expand Adoption Rights: Barack Obama believes that we must ensure adoption rights for all couples and individuals, regardless of their sexual orientation. He thinks that a child will benefit from a healthy and loving home, whether the parents are gay or not.

• Promote AIDS Prevention: In the first year of his presidency, Barack Obama will develop and begin to implement a comprehensive national HIV/AIDS strategy that includes all federal agencies. The strategy will be designed to reduce HIV infections, increase access to care and reduce HIV-related health disparities. Obama will support common sense approaches including age-appropriate sex education that includes information about contraception, combating infection within our prison population through education and contraception, and distributing contraceptives through our public health system. Obama also supports lifting the federal ban on needle exchange, which could dramatically reduce rates of infection among drug users. Obama has also been willing to confront the stigma — too often tied to homophobia — that continues to surround HIV/AIDS. He will continue to speak out on this issue as president.

• Empower Women to Prevent HIV/AIDS: In the United States, the percentage of women diagnosed with AIDS has quadrupled over the last 20 years. Today, women account for more than one quarter of all new HIV/AIDS diagnoses. Barack Obama introduced the Microbicide Development Act, which will accelerate the development of products that empower women in the battle against AIDS. Microbicides are a class of products currently under development that women apply topically to prevent transmission of HIV and other infections.

from Change.gov

So, um, YAY.

GAME REVIEW: FABLE 2
Not So Much

I’m an on-again, off-again videogame junkie. I’m picky about what I play, and I won’t just turn on a console to have something to do, but when I find a game that suits my interests…well, I’ll see you in a few months.

The original Fable for Xbox was totally my kind of game: mind-blowingly beautiful and expansive, with a well-crafted storyline and a variety of side-quests. The game also offered a level of social interaction with its NPCs (i.e. non-playable characters) that I’d never seen before in an RPG (i.e. role-playing game). So understandably, I was excited by the release of Fable 2 for the 360–so excited that I went out and bought the damn thing instead of, you know, waiting for someone to give me a copy. Several weeks later, I’m not entirely sure it was money well-spent…

FABLE 2: PROS

It’s damn pretty. The developers really used colors to their advantage: happy, friendly places are full of nice, warm, fully saturated tones, while the more dangerous locales are washed out and gray. Also, everything has a Doris Day, Vaseline-on-the-lens fuzziness about it, which is majorly hot–though it’s possible I just need stronger glasses.

Its gameplay is pretty varied. In many videogames, side-quests become repetitive: go find this object in a cave full of trolls, go rescue that princess from a cave full of trolls, go kill all the trolls in a cave full of trolls, etc. In Fable 2, there’s enough variety to keep things interesting, which encourages players to dally a bit instead of plowing straight through the main storyline.

It’s a friendly game. Tutorial advice pops up constantly, and there’s even a sweet little glowing path that’ll guide you through the landscape toward your current goal. (You can turn that off if you’d rather find your own way.) Also friendly: the fact that you can’t die. Well, maybe you can, but you’d really have to work at it. Some might say that cheapens the game and lowers the stakes; I’d say it allows players to focus on other things.

It’s a highly social game. Every NPC has been articulated, and each has specific personality traits, including likes and dislikes, conservative or liberal views, raunchy or prudish tastes. And through a variety of expressions at your disposal–from dancing to laughing to playing dead to farting–you can make NPCs like you or fear you or hate you. Most interestingly, you can play your character as good, evil, or somewhere inbetween, which affects not only your appearance, but also the way folks perceive you. In fact, I’d argue that Fable 2‘s social interaction is its biggest selling point, and possibly where the designers spent most of their time. The end result is not unlike The Sims, but with more swords and voiceovers from Julia Sawalha (Saffie, darling!).

It’s seriously naughty. After you’ve made people like you, you can run off to the nearest bed and bonk the bejesus out of them–and before you do, you’re always asked whether you want to get busy avec or sans condom. (Just like real life, unsafe sex can lead to pregnancy and communicable disease.) Then the screen goes black, and you hear a bit of choice dirty talk from your partner. If you want, you can marry them, or you can leave their affections unrequited. Also: there are TONS of prostitutes–male and female–covering the waterfront, all of whom are available for hire. No patch or minigame necessary; sex is easy to find here.

It’s very GLBT-friendly. If you were playing a male character in the first Fable, there were a couple of guys you could marry. (One was a schoolteacher, I think, and one was a blacksmith.) In Fable 2, there are many more Gayz (and presumably Lesbianz) to choose from, and they’re all over the place. Also, there’s a small side-quest that involves a sweet coming out story, and it’s told very well. Perhaps this should’ve been made available to California voters several months before the last election.

It doesn’t make me want to vomit. Some games–especially first-person shooters–tend to give me vertigo and make me nauseated. (I’ve heard that this is extremely common for players of Asian heritage, but I have no data to back that up.) In fact, I’ve had to drop some games entirely because I just can’t watch the screen. Fable 2 works in third-person, meaning that the camera sits above and behind your character, and that, apparently, keeps me from hurling. So, yay.

Now for the bad news.

FABLE 2: CONS

The interface is awful. On the Xbox 360, 15 of the controller’s 16 buttons, bumpers, sticks, pads, and triggers is used. That’s a lot of fingerwork to keep track of, and it’s rarely intuitive.

The maps are totally useless. Fable 2 wants to be a “sandbox” game, meaning that the creators have created a large “sandbox” for you to explore as you please. However, the maps they’ve given you to navigate this world are minuscule, and no one without a powerful telescope would be able use them for any serious purpose. Remember in Oblivion, how you could wander vast countrysides and quickly, easily refer to a giant map for reference? Not an option here. Of course, that’s of no importance in Fable 2 because of the game’s most annoying flaw…

There’s no jumping allowed. I’m not kidding. The landscape is beautiful, and you’re given 15 buttons to interact with it, but none of those buttons allows jumping. Remember how nifty is was in Assassin’s Creed to hop up to the top of a building just for the hell of it? Remember how gorgeous the cityscape looked, sprawled out before you? Well, the Fable 2 team may have put in an assload of hours building boulders and mountains and spires, but you’re not going to be exploring them anytime soon–even when it looks like there’s cool stuff at the top of the hill. Essentially, they’ve turned Fable 2 into a moderately big, relatively flat maze a la Tomb Raider. For a game that claims to offer total freedom, this is totally frustrating, and pretty much unforgivable.

Using inventory is a drag. There’s no limit to the amount of stuff you can carry in Fable 2–weapons, gifts, treasure, clothing, food, and so on. However, to access all that goodness, you’ve got drill several clicks into a chunky, slow-ass menu system–so slow that it’s often not worth your time. In some cases, by the time I found the item I needed, I’d forgotten why I needed it in the first place. And no, sweetie, I’m not that old.

Anticlimactic isn’t the word. Seriously, the ending of Fable 2‘s main storyline is…well, remember M. Night Shamalamadingdong’s The Village? Yeah, um, EW. I mean, sure, you can keep playing after it’s done and polish off a lot of nifty side-quests, but if that’s the best they can do for the game’s ne plus ultra moment, why bother?

IN SUM

If you’re cool with maze and puzzle games, or if you really liked Clive Barker’s Jericho, you’ll probably be fine with Fable 2. However, if you were a fan of the original and were hoping to see a vastly expanded, sandboxy version of it in round two…well, can I suggest the “Shivering Isles” expansion for Oblivion instead?

* * * * *

P.S. You know, I’m just realizing that in none of the above did I ever mention the dog. Yeah, see, you’re given a dog in Fable 2–in fact, it was one of the things about the game that Peter Molyneux loved most, and it was meant to be major selling point, but honestly, it’s not that big a deal. The dog doesn’t do anything except play fetch and whine when s/he is hurt, and s/he kinda helps you in battle, but not much. The dog is essentially another NPC, but you can’t sleep with it. (Ironic, since the developers seemed to have screwed the pooch in so many other ways.) Call me old-fashioned, but throwing a tamagotchi into the middle of an RPG doesn’t seem all that groundbreaking to me.

I think I’ve made it pretty clear, my feelings about gay marriage and state constitutional amendments banning it. In sum: I think the institution of marriage is deeply flawed, and its origins are misunderstood by the general public. I think the conflation of religious marriage and civil marriage in practice and in law is troublesome, to say the least. And although we live in a democracy, I’m dubious about civil rights issues being put in the hands of voters. If we’d done that in the 1950s and 1960s, we’d still be marching to Montgomery.

Some folks who are more activist-minded than I am are organizing a series of rallies this Saturday against hate and in support of gay marriage rights. If you’re in New Orleans, meet at City Hall, 1300 Perdido Street, at 12:30pm. (There’s more info over here .) If you’re not in New Orleans, (a) I’m sorry to hear that, and (b) check this page for state-by-state listings, including another Louisiana protest in Shreveport.

Finally: I’m pretty sure that most of you have seen this editorial from Keith Olbermann, and the majority of you probably don’t need convincing, but for both of the rest of you, have a look.

Things that have recently made me say: HOLY CRAP

1. My sleep habits: I mean, I know that the time shift has thrown me off, and I know I’m an early riser, but bounding out of bed–literally, bounding–at 4:30am is unseemly.

2. Al Gore: ZOMG, he does the same thing everyone else does with profile pics (i.e. uses one that’s a decade or so out of date and rilly flattering and stuff). Yeah Al, you’re hot and all, but sweetie wasn’t that photo taken 80 pounds ago?

3. The creation of alternate universes: Which is what this $20 kit promises, but then you realize that it’s essentially a philosophical exercise. The frosted side of me is not amused.

4. The effect of shopping locally: Gambit Weekly and other alt papers around the country are encouraging readers to spend at least $100 in local shops this holiday season. That’s a pretty modest amount, and in New Orleans alone, it could pump almost $20 million into the city’s economy–which, on the contrary is no small change. (Hippies, take note: you can do this and still swear allegiance to Buy Nothing Day; just wait ’till November 29 to buy those hackysacks.)

5. Fable 2: It’s kinda goddess-awful, but I can’t stop playing. I’m OCD that way. Stay tuned for a review….

More crap from the Times-Picayune

Bruce Alpert at the Picayune has written a completely speculative article (framed as “news”) about Obama’s plans to ignore Gulf Coast recovery. If you’re not up for reading the entire goddess-awful thing–and really, who could blame you?–Alpert basically says that Katrina won’t be on Obama’s list of priorities, then spends the bulk of the piece getting quotes from Bobby Jindal, Dollar Bill, Mary Landrieu, and our other hamstrung senator who’s been in hiding so long that I can’t even remember his name. Of course, there’s nothing from Obama at all, and the “writer” obviously didn’t bother to do much Googling, because if he had, he’d have stumbled across this:

As president, Barack Obama will keep the broken promises made by President Bush to rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. He and Joe Biden will take steps to ensure that the federal government will never again allow such catastrophic failures in emergency planning and response to occur.

Barack Obama swiftly responded to Hurricane Katrina. Citing the Bush administration’s “unconscionable ineptitude” in responding to Hurricane Katrina, Obama introduced legislation requiring disaster planners to take into account the specific needs of low-income hurricane victims. Obama visited thousands of Hurricane survivors in the Houston Convention Center and later took three more trips to the region. He worked with members of the Congressional Black Caucus to introduce legislation to address the immediate income, employment, business and housing needs of Gulf Coast communities.

As president, Barack Obama will partner with the people of the Gulf Coast to rebuild now, stronger than ever.

So where was that? On Change.gov, the president-elect’s official transition website that outlines his incoming agenda. You know: the agenda the reporter was criticizing? Oops.

In light of all that, the Alpert kinda comes off like Dawn French in that skit where she plays the British royal “expert” who’s got zero insider info and is clearly a total hack:

Now, just so we’re clear: I have no problem criticizing the president. In fact, we could and should have had a LOT more of that in the early days of W’s administration. (Remember back in 2001 how excited we were that Bush could form complete sentences? And how, after September 11, questioning him was made to seem unpatriotic–nay, an act of terrorism? Who was grilling the man then?) No one is perfect, and everyone should be held to task. Everyone.

That said, at least let the man take office before you start blaming him for his failure to undo all the crap that’s been left by the previous administration. In the meantime, maybe the Picayune should try its hand at reporting, say, news.

UPDATE: Obama’s agenda is down for revisions. Good news? Bad news? Killer bees nesting in the circuitry? The breath, she is bated.

UPDATE ON THE UPDATE: Obama’s agenda is back online, with the Katrina section intact.

Am I a total douchebag for being COMPLETELY uninterested in Henry Rollins’ special on IFC tonight? Here’s the description:

Three years after the destruction of Hurricane Katrina, Henry Rollins ventures to New Orleans to examine the city’s current condition first hand. Avoiding the tourist center, Henry is overwhelmed by the lack of progress being made in the surrounding areas. In his search for answers, Henry instead discovers a fresh slate of devastating problems that now threatens this community post-Katrina. Even as tourism approaches pre-storm levels, tens of thousands of residents find themselves dealing with the depression of a city still living with the wreckage of the levee’s breach and now being victimized by a surge in violent crime.

In exclusive interviews with author Jed Horne (“Editor of leading New Orleans newspaper, “Times Picayune,” during Katrina”) and city officials like Cecile Tebo (Mental Crisis Coordinator, NO Police), and Jim Bernazanni (FBI), it becomes glaringly obvious that New Orleans still needs our help. Henry’s stage performance, at the legendary Tipitina’s music venue, is thus a tribute to the people of New Orleans who continue to persevere. Henry also has the opportunity to meet with music legend, Irma Thomas, the “Soul Queen of New Orleans,” who explains how the music community has been affected and the role they continue to play in the aftermath.

So (a) it’s slightly old, and (b) feh.

FYI, this is one in a series of IFC docs that Mr. Rollins is doing–a series called Henry Rollins: Uncut. Which brings to mind a completely different image of the man. CAN WE PLEASE SEE THAT DOCUMENTARY PLEASE PLEASE?