sharon and yunhee's great adventure

The girls with Micah from Australia

First, an admission: I don't understand Overwatch. To me it's a bunch of blinky lights on a computer screen. But Sharon and her friend, Yunhee, love it. I'm not sure how long they've been playing it -- at some point they graduated from Minecraft. At this point they're on teams -- Sharon's the captain of her team, which means that she has to schedule practices and scrimmages (against other teams). And she's had to deal with unpleasant tasks like recommending to the coach that someone be removed from the team.

Yeah, video games are team activities with positions and everything. Sharon plays "off-tank." Other positions include "DPS," "healer" and "main tank." As with baseball or football, the different positions do different things. And they play their games, each player in his or her (but usually his) own locations. This is nothing like the videogames -- Asteroids, Donkey Kong, Galaxian -- that were around when I was younger and had to pay a quarter for every game. And it's all possible because of the internet.

And somehow this is getting to be a big time sport. It still has the fan friendliness of minor league baseball, but it's getting lots of coverage in the media.

Anyway, Sharon and Yunhee have been in tournaments at Microsoft's flagship store in Manhattan (and won some money at it). This past summer they were at a videogame camp in Missouri. But this past weekend they were in California for BlizzCon, which apparently has a heavy emphasis on Overwatch. And that was after spending the weekend before at TwitchCon.

With members of the San Francisco Shock
Note the girls are wearing jerseys for the New York Excelsior

At Twitchcon they were in computer-building contests (Sharon's team would have won if not for the fact that one of her teammates broke one of the parts), and got tours of Berkeley's e-sports* complex, and met with the coach and several players on the school's Overwatch team.

I don't quite know how it works, but somehow they became some kind of minor celebrities. Two cute teenage girls who are good at the game, and have the support and encouragement of their moms -- Blair was there as were Yunhee's parents. That attracted attention. By the time TwitchCon was over, they had been contacted by all sorts of big shots from the Overwatch world. They all wanted meet these two girl gamers. At BlizzCon the girls met players, coaches, general managers and owners, big-time streamers. And, of course, the President of Blizzard Entertainment. They were hobnobbing with the big shots, and have already gotten invitations to get the full VIP treatment next year.

computer-building contest

Funny thing -- maybe I shouldn't be thinking along these lines, but if we were still working with a certain red-shirted charity, we would have been giving them lots of great exposure. But, well, that's the way the game goes.

Anyway,  as a father I'm torn about where I hope this goes. Could Sharon turn pro? Could she parlay her abilities into a scholarship? I guess we'll see...

One other thing -- and this was bad for my diet -- the girls brought back sample boxes of the soon-to-be-released Lucio-Oh's cereal (from Kellogg's). It's sort of like Froot Loops or Apple Jack's, only vanilla-flavored.

*Yeah, I'm having trouble wrapping my head around "e-sports" as a concept being treated as a sport, not to mention the fact that major high-status schools offer scholarships in it.

some thoughts on political facebook posts

I have Facebook friends from all over the political oort cloud. From far right to far left. I tend to avoid arguing politics on Facebook -- on all social media, in fact.* Life's just easier that way. But I do see lots of posts, including memes, that my friends post.  Some I take seriously -- and some I don't. I have some general thoughts to share.

Now, before I begin, I should make a disclaimer. If you post your political stuff to vent your spleen without really caring about whether you persuade, then you can ignore any suggestions that I make; my suggestions are made under the assumption that political posts are intended to change opinions.

I am really tempted to illustrate the points below with real life memes that I've seen. But that would take us down the road of arguing specific issues, which isn't my goal here.

If you see a meme that supports a politician or cause you like, or makes fun of a politician or position you oppose or loathe, think for a second before posting it. Does the analogy hold up? Does the logic withstand scrutiny? Is the quote materially accurate and in context? If not, you may not want to post it. I have seen many memes that don't stand up to scrutiny, and it lessens my estimation of the poster's political positions. I have seen claims that someone said something, and thought "wow! Well, I can't defend that!" only to find out that there was some crucial element of context that was missing. In one case someone posted a quote. When I Snopesed it, I found that the politician in question never said what was attributed to him. I sent the Snopes link to the poster, who insisted that the quote was accurate because [highly-partisan website] said it was.

If you repeatedly post political items that don't withstand even minimal scrutiny, then I am less likely to take any of your posts seriously. So when you actually have a valid point to make...well, I assume you've heard about the boy who cried "wolf." Now, that may not be the most logical way for me to approach things. But I don't have the time to research every claim I see. So I am more likely to take seriously the claims from people who don't have a history of inaccuracy.

But, of course, if your Facebook posts are simply your version of primal screams, then have at it.

*which is not to say that I avoid politics completely, so don't look for some post or comment where I git kind of political and think that it's some kind of gotcha moment.

cinema history class: the horrible dr. hitchcock

Session: Italian Gothic Horror Month, Week 1
Movie 2: The Horrible Dr. Hitchcock (1962)
Directed by Riccardo Freda

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL

Plot:
Some things happen involving a coffin and some other stuff, but I don't know what, since I didn't see it. Hilarity ensues.

Reaction:
I had to miss this class because of work. Still, I am posting this for the sake of completeness.

There was clearly a split opinion, with the class' older members rating the film much higher than the youngsters who seemed largely unimpressed.. It's hard to say where I would have stood -- In age, I am closer to the older class members. But, as far as sensibilities go, I am definitely not of the same mind as Joe and Dave.

Ethan told me that the guys expressed some surprise that he didn;t rate this higher, seeing as it was very gothic. His answer is that he likes a movie to have some gothic elements, but he doesn;t want it to be full on gothic. It'll be interesting to see his reactions to other films in this session; will that description of his taste be borne out?

Ratings:
Dave: 10
Ethan: 6
Joe: 10
Sean: 2 out of 4

a final favor

In October, 2014, I got a call from my father. He needed a favor. Could I take my mom to the dentist in a couple days?

At that point, they were spending their summers "in the country" -- at a house they had in upstate New York -- and summer, as far as they were concerned was ending in a week with their flight to Florida. But in that last week before they went south, my mom had an appointment with their dentist in Manhattan. A visit to the dentist was, when you considered travel time, an all-day affair. Normally he would have driven her, but he wasn't feeling well. He'd been having some dizziness that he couldn't shake -- the doctors told him that was a normal after-effect of some procedure (I forget what) that he'd undergone. At any rate, he wasn't confident that he'd be up for the round trip drive.

So I drove up the evening before the appointment, and got to their house well after they were both asleep. In the morning I had breakfast with mom -- dad was sleeping late and took her down to Manhattan. After the dentist and some lunch we headed back up. I went inside to say hello to dad. He was awake, but still in bed. He sat up, and winced at a wave of dizziness. We exchanged some chit chat, but he wasn't up for conversation. Despite the fact that he had spent the entire day in bed, he wanted to get back to sleep. So I left, saying we'd talk more when he was feeling better.

He never did feel better. He made it to Florida, but was in the hospital almost immediately after he got there. He passed away four years ago today without having regained full lucidity.

There are many things that, regretfully, will forever go unsaid. But at least I was able to do that last favor my father asked of me.

'cause i got class

I've been watching the series, Frasier, on Netflix. Don't ask why.

Right now I'm in the second half of the seventh season. A couple seasons ago a glass vase showed up in the background in Frasier's apartment. I'm pretty sure it first showed up in season 5, episode 3 (the one where Niles has a Halloween party and we all find out that Roz is pregnant). At least that's when I first noticed it, and I'm sure it wasn't there at the beginning of the series. The first time I noticed it I thought it looked like a Chihuly. I asked a couple people if it looked like a Chihuly, and got a lot of shrugs.

Well, in season 7, episode 16 I got my confirmation. At one point Daphne says that "the Chihuly needs a good dusting" and picks it up. I was right! I recognized it.

Yay, me and my classiness!