rated PG for "mild thematic elements" and brief language. *wonders what themes are objectionable and why they don't say which one(s) it is* as it is, it kinda sounds like they object to movies with themes. heh.

good guys point guns at bad guys. bad guys point guns back and explain "we have a team watching us. if anything goes wrong they will detonate the bombs we placed here which will destroy a whole city block."

ok so the good guys have 2 choices. defiance or appeasement. now i don't want to take anything away from the defiance option, but in the specific case i believe it was credible that if they let bad guys leave, they would not detonate bomb anyway. also it was pretty credible that defiance meant boom.

and of course since Alias is kinda wussy, appeasement it is. so you expect bad guys to back out while still being aimed at. but instead bad guys demand good guys drop guns or boom.

ok now again defiance or appeasement. but now if you say no, bad guys have nothing to gain from boom. they aren't facing death or death. they have the choice between killing themselves or leaving. and all they have to do is endure having guns pointed at them a little longer. so defiance looks like the good bet.

but of course since Alias is a kinda wussy show, they went with appeasement. good guys dropped their guns. this is idiocy. now bad guys can shoot whoever they like before leaving. and in fact in the show after good guys dropped guns, bad guys decided to take one hostage and bring her with them. that wouldn't have happened if good guys kept their guns.

just watched Wild Things. quite good. nice plot twists.

now you may be thinking "isn't that the movie with the kinda infamous sex scene?" yup. but it was good apart from that too. as i said plot twists. also v nice atmosphere.

you might also be thinking "what's so great about a sex scene in a movie when porn is easy to come by?" (ok you probably weren't thinking that)

i suppose the answer parallels the difference between one night stands and sex as part of an intimate, longterm relationship.

sex completely out of context seems boring. motion and nerve impulses. much like walking, swimming, or typing.

or compare these:

- touching molecules
- touching flesh
- touching a girl
- touching the girl you care about

( If you're a female reader and feeling alienated, you're too sensitive ;p )

( If you're a gay guy and feeling especially alienated now, good. I hate you. )

all of them could have been the exact same event! but each has a different meaning.

porn is notorious for its bad plots and lack of character development (when there is any token effort made at all). but this doesn't just make the porn worse by some snobby, artistic standards. it makes the sex scenes worse!

if we identify with, care about, or feel attracted to the characters it makes all the difference. hollywood movies often achieve this. porn doesn't.

also putting sex into everyday life makes the fantasy more accessible (ok not quite everyday life, but closer than cheesy porn flicks)

i'd also like to point out that i explained this *without mysticism*. many people would say one night stands and porn is "soulless sex" or lacking in "spiritual energy" or that somehow the marriage ritual makes all the difference. but when there is an explanation that makes sense and uses meaningful terms instead of fuzzy, mystic ones, we ought to prefer it.

----

on the sex scene being infamous. it overshadowed the plot in a lot of ppl's minds. here's a comment:

now i agree The Usual Suspects was great, and had a strong plot, and was more of a thriller/drama. but Wild Things had a good plot too, dammit.

and down a bit more the commenter asks my question! (but comes up with a different answer)

also got asked to clarify what attracted to, care about, and identify with mean, nonmystically.

identify with = shared values

care about = care about ...? like it matters to you what happens to the person, even though s/he isn't you.

attracted to = person satisfies your criteria for attraction. these are sometimes (always?) kinda irrational and/or arbitrary. and probably very strongly entrenched and not worth fighting with or worrying about either. *shrug*

how is it that TV and movie writers, who i believe are not generally particularly above average people (certainly some are, and some suck too, but on the whole i figure the group is fairly normal morally), anyway, how is it they consistently create characters that are far more likable and more moral than most people, including themselves?

i don't really know if this happens with written stories, cause i rarely read present day stories, and it's pretty hard to judge characters from different eras WRT the morality of ppl in the US today.

i'm not giving examples cause it would be futile. if i gave a dozen examples to try and "prove my point" or something, someone would just give a dozen examples of bad ppl in movies. there are so many movies and tv shows that it'd be pretty trivial to come up with thousands of examples for both sides, so counting examples simply can't be the way to judge the proportion.

I wrote a tetris clone named curi's blocks in python! It took a little over 2 days. It's free unless you really like it. If you really like it you're absolutely required to give me lots of money. My paypal email addy is curi[at]curi[dot]us.

Download it in a here: curi's blocks.zip

It comes with a readme with instructions to run it and key controls and such. But I'll repeat one thing here: you need python and pygame installed to play. Get them here:

Python

Pygame

I tried to make a standalone windows executable version using py2exe and it actually ran but pausing or losing would crash it. So sorry, source code only. If anyone clueful wants to make an exe or app that'd be cool (hint hint).

Oh also, post your highscores in comments!

WARNING: MASSIVE ALIAS SPOILERS FOR SEASON 1

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ok so anyway, my thesis is: Sydney isn't hardcore enough!

For one thing, have you ever seen 24? Did you notice Jack? Jack is hardcore! Sydney's just not. One of Jack's best qualities is the way he shoots people. Sydney almost never shoots people. So that's my first two points: Sydney should be more like Jack, and should shoot people more often. Also, when she shoots people, she should use bullets, and shoot to kill, instead of using tranquiliser darts.

Oh, my other thesis is the show has kinda bad morality. Far worse than say 24 or West Wing or Buffy or even worse than most anime (anime is from *Japan* so the morality is a bit lacking and addressed at a different problem situation. Like they worry about pacifism and have trouble justifying using force ever. The majority of Americans don't have that issue. Though apparently the media does. *ahem* anyway)

so like when Vaughn wanted to report Sydney's dad for being a KGB agent (before they knew about her mother) ... to get him punished. wtf. regardless of his past he (Jack Bristow) is now a double agent working for the US government and a really valuable asset towards like saving the world. and Vaughn would give that up because long ago in the past Jack did bad things? b/c he should be punished? what for? how does punishing him help anything? it doesn't!

so then sydney said no b/c ... he's her dad. her argument was like he shouldn't be punished b/c A) she cares about him and B) she shares genes with him. it's such a bad defense you almost want to see him punished. except nah, cause he's far more hardcore than Sydney, almost like a mini Jack Bauer. ok rather different, but he's still cool.

ANYWAY

and they were pissy about sacrificing (via framing) that SD6 agent to save sydney. but sheesh. jack saved an important double agent who routinely makes the world a better place. at the "cost" of getting a bad guy killed. one who'd done some pretty horrible stuff. and sydney gets pissy b/c somone died. oh how sad. *cough*

and then later she decided "i would have done the same thing, to save someone i cared about" which was supposed to mean it was acceptable to her. nevermind that right isn't in terms of what I (or whoever is wondering) would have done. and nevermind the issue shouldn't be decided by who we care about more -- this was an issue of national security and life and death. it needed an objective answer about the real and major effects each option would have on the world.

and sydney handcuffed anna esperanza (sp) instead of killing her one time. and shot her handbag instead of her one time. etc keeps running away while beingt shot at rather than fighting effectively. (in season 2 sydney fires a machine gun a few times which is cool)

like there was the scene where they (sydney and anna) are trying to climb up a rope ladder at same time, and fighting. everytime one gets advantage they try to climb more, and get grabbed from behind. when obvious thing to do is first throw other person off then climb peacefully.

and Alias uses some unrealistic crap to avoid some hard but right decisions. like when sydney and her father are both captured in cuba (sydney went there to help father, who was supposed to assassinate anini hasan (sp) the weapons dealer), and Hasan wants Jack to shoot Sydney. then he shoots the guards and they win the fight unharmed. what weak sauce guards!!!

He should have shot her irl, i think. assuming guards weren't that lame. cause alternative was them both dying.

update: just saw an ep where sydney knocks this badguy out instead of killing him, then a few minutes later he wakes up, gets a gun, and comes after her. easy victory turned into barely getting through alive.

this is a fairly common theme. sydney always leaves a trail of live enemies behind her. she shouldn't.

UPDATE: this entry is old. go here if you want my tetris.

i wrote a tetris clone is python using pygame. started 24hours 20min ago

the source code comes in 2 files:

[removed]

you wanna run tetris with blocks in the same folder. but first you need to have python and pygame installed.

NOTE: you have to right-click save-target-as to get the files, then name them correctly (tetris.py and blocks.py) because if you just click you'll open them in your browser. this will remain until someone explains to me how to put them up right.

get python here

get pygame here

the game isn't documented yet, but:

KEYS:

KEYPAD 4 or LEFT ARROW = LEFT
KEYPAD 6 or RIGHT ARROW = RIGHT
KEYPAD 5 or DOWN ARROW = TURN COUNTER CLOCKWISE
KEYPAD 8 or UP ARROW = TURN CLOCKWISE
SPACE or KEYPAD 0 = DROP
ESC = QUIT
B = redraw the screen. a debugging function. should never do anything. if it does there was a bug. tell me.

also there are some constants at the top of the blocks file you can change with a text editor. you can change the size of the blocks in pixels, the number of rows and columns the game uses, and the minimum brightness of blocks (they get a random color). changing anything but those 4 is highly NOT recommended unless you're a programmer.

if you find a bug please tell me. hopefully stupid, large bugs, if any, will be found before monday.

UPDATE:

version 1.1 now. a redraw bug fixed. rotation keys swapped. arrow keys added. b key added. game a little faster now. your score displays while you play. keypad 0 drops

INTENDED FUTURE FEATURES:

pausing (p key). game will get faster relative to your score up to a max speed. controls to send piece all the way left or right with one keypress (7,9,c,v keys). you currently can't slide a piece after hitting drop. i might change that. no guarantees (you can if you wait for it to fall)

NOT intended features: seeing next piece and a key to make piece drop faster but not instantly while held down, custom keybindings in-game. music. just play your own.

suggestions welcome, including extra keybindings

green leftist commie types are inclined to "knit their own pasta" ROFL

courtesy of emma in comments