Crossover

Before I met the Lovely Lady Duck, the most important thing in my day to day life was music  It is still the case that offered a choice between my music collection (and suitable audio equipment) and most human company, it would be the music that came to the mythical desert island.

Music can have a dramatic effect upon my emotions.  It can powerfully affect me, invoking various feelings.  Some pieces have brought me close to a state of euphoria.  Also I find great intellectual interest in listening to music and understanding the histories and development of the musicians.

Although I prefer to listen to music in a state as close to that intended by the composer as possible, I find interest in experiencing different ways of listening; mono rather than stereo, really bad speakers, with earplugs in, and so on.  Different experiences can give different, and wider understandings of the music.

Another of my favourite activities is playing computer games.  I have been intrigued by games such as Guitar Hero, or the open source alternative, Frets on Fire, but have never managed to try them out.  All of a sudden there was a flood of coverage on gaming websites about Audiosurf.  The constant positive comments nagged me into submission; I submitted and purchased Audiosurf on Steam.

Wow.  I am not going to bother explaining the game mechanics, I am getting too excited.  Wahoo!  Why I find this game so wonderful:

• Fun, action game play that shockingly hasn't got frustrating (yet).
• A wide variety of styles, different modes, different intensities, but a standard core game.
• Trippy graphics that are trippy.  Wahoo!  Trippy.
• My music defines the game.  I can pick and choose what I want to play based on my choice of music.   I can be competitive with other people about something the really matters to me.  Wahoo!

For a long time there has been a conflict between music and games.  I dislike listening to my music whilst playing games as the sound effects and incidental music can spoil my listening.  Very few games lose nothing with the removal of sound (one reason for the vast amount of Civ that I played).  Audiosurf is my saviour.  A great game, that interacts with my music, and which doesn't disturb it.  Wahoo!

Depressive cycle

After a couple of really good weeks, I have been on a depressive cycle again.  The Lovely Lady Duck has been a great support and she gives me much strength.  I have also been trying to think about what is happening to me as much as possible so that I can overcome my problems in the short term, and predict and fight future occurrences.

Work seems to be the major factor at the moment.  I read a blog named Crazy Nurse.  The author has also been having some problems with her mental health, and recently posted about the relation this has to her work.

Its odd that even when I think I don't care, I do care about my job. I think I gain self worth from my job.

The last few days, I have been feeling exactly the opposite.  I have been feeling no emotional attachment to my job, I care very little that i haven't been going in.  I love my job, I enjoy the work, and the principle of the role is exactly what I seek; yet my desire to do anything has dribbled away.

I have a number of ideas about why this is:

• At present, we are having a very quiet period.  Not very much is happening, and most of my tasks involve working on long term projects that have no definite goal or sense of urgency.
• In general, the role doesn't tax me much.  I enjoy the administration tasks, and take pleasure in completing them, but sometimes I have to make things difficult for myself to gain any real satisfaction.
• I feel quite strongly (at the moment) that the rest of the team could do very well without me.  During these quiet times I don't think that my absence would be noticed from a work perspective.
• I still really don't like having to talk to people on the phone.  As one of the major parts of my job is acting as first point of contact for the Unit, this causes problems, which I then go on to feel increasingly guilty about.

To reiterate, I do love my job.  When I am feeling well, I enjoy doing it, and helping people in a concrete fashion is a wonderful thing.  I am worried that it is increasingly triggering some episodes of my depression though.

Something else that Crazy Nurse said also rang true for me:

Plus hospital is kind of an escape, a time out where I can lie around and I am not expected to do anything and by the time I am discharged whatever it was that was stressing me out always seems lessened.

Being ill has often felt like an escape for me.  In the past, where a down period has been triggered by worry about a particular issue that I feel that I can't face, I hide.  These last few days have been different.  As stated above, I have been disconnected from my job.  A part of my reaction has been, why should I go to work when there is so little that I can achieve?  In reality, this has led to me moping and sleeping a great deal, and feeling very guilty about not being in work because I do know that there is plenty that I could and should do.

(Time to change to the second CD of the B Minor Mass, and close this post.  Follow up to come.)

Fluoridating MPs

A missive that I sent to my MP, Hugh Bayley, using the excellent Write To Them service.

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Dear Mr Bayley,

I noted last week that the Health Secretary, Alan Johnson MP, is
leading a drive to encourage the fluoridation of water supplies. Two
parts of his statements seemed important to me. Firstly, he suggested
that there is strong evidence that the fluoridation of water is of
benefit to dental health. Secondly, he encouraged debate of the issue
at a local level.

In 1999 the Department of Health commissioned a systematic review from
the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (CRD) at the University of
York into the efficacy of fluoridating drinking water supplies. This
review was 'unable to discover any reliable good-quality evidence in
the fluoridation literature world-wide'[1]. The CRD has been at pains
to make its findings known, and to ensure that they are understood. In
fact, it released a statement asking that the relevant decision makers
make themselves aware of the contents of the report. The full text of
the statement and report can be found on the CRD website at
http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/crd/fluoridnew.htm.

Given the results of the review, commissioned by the Department of
Health, I am surprised that the Minister is supporting this initiative.
As my MP, I was wondering if you would be able to find out why this is
so, especially given the recent emphasis placed by many members of the
government on making evidence based decisions. Clearly, this policy is
in conflict with the existing evidence.

In addition, as the Minister suggested asked that debate occurs at a
local level, I would like to add my voice to those asking that the York
water supplies are not fluoridated, if for no other reason than it
seems foolish to waste public money on a project that has no shown
benefit. If of course any future well-conducted studies were to show
benefits of water fluoridation, I would happily change my position.

Yours sincerely,
LSNDuck

[1] CRD, October 2003: http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/crd/fluoridnew.htm

Doom 3 - a rant

Following on from my celebratory Doom 3 post, I shall also vent a little frustration at the game.

Doom 3 is an excellent combination of emotive experiences, well designed story telling, great gun action, and big scary demons trying to eat your face. What more could you want? It a first-person shooter (FPS). The concept of the genre is to take people (usually), give them big guns, and things to shoots at. Some FPS games focus entirely on giving an environment for humans to fight each other (UT, TF2). Some prefer to focus on frantic, unending player vs computer action (Serious Sam, the original Dooms). Certain games attempt to tell a story, set a scene, envelop the players in a world (Half-Life, Doom 3). The premise is the same. People. Big guns. Things to shoot.

Doom 3 does the shooting very well, it does the atmosphere very well, it does the story well enough to support the atmosphere. Then, at a handful of moments in the game, things are ruined. There are jumping sections. There are jumping sections that require considerable precision to get through. There are jumping sections where if you fail to have this ultimate precision, you not only die, but cannot progress further in the game.

During the game, I died around half a dozen times in combat (because the game was easy, not because I am that good). There was a section in the penultimate level which required you to jump down a passageway between four platforms that retracted into the walls. After ten minutes or so of endless death, I decided to create a save game each time I managed to progress safely down one platform. Even with the four separate saves, one for each platform, I spent twenty minutes of frustrating load-jump-die-reload. My poor computer didn't know what to do with itself. I spent more time watching the loading screen than attempting to jump between platforms.

I want to play an engrossing game (with lots of guns and nasty demons to kill) that involves me, that draws me into its world, that lets me kill things in a violent fashion. I do not want to have my involvement in the situation completely destroyed by constant reloading. A certain amount of acrobatics (in game) can be a good thing, it can progress a story, it can develop atmosphere. To make those sections require such a high level of ability that only the most highly skilled players or those willing to put up with endless repetition and blind luck, is absurd. Make it hard, but give alternative routes. Make it linear, but keep it to a reasonable difficulty level.

If I want to have to complete pixel-perfect tests of precision and repetition, I would play Tomb Raider, or more likely dig out my Master System for some 8-bit platform action (which usually ended up with me punching something).

Doom 3 is an excellent piece of design, and I love it to bits. The frustration of the poorly considered jumping segments to the game has marred it.

Doom 3 - completed

The posting date is correct, this is February 2008. I appreciate that Doom 3 is old news. However, I have completed a computer game from start to finish. Wahoo! Why is this so unusual for me?

• I have an attention span that can either be completed obsessive, or more often very limited. Obsessiveness tends to occur with open ended games rather than those with definite goals.
• I grow frustrated easily, which is a problem if a game starts to become difficult.
• I am easily distracted by new shiny toys.

So to complete a game with a definite end point is an achievement for me. Why do I think I managed it with Doom?

• The game is quite short and easy.
• The game design and flow is (mostly) excellent. I found the story, atmosphere, and situation engrossing. There was a high emotional attachment to events, mostly fear and tension, but also reward and satisfaction based.
• There is a clear escape from reality in the game, and there is no other human relying on my actions.
• I was almost forced to play in short bursts because of the intense emotions that the game produced.

I have been planning some posts linking why I play games, which games I play, my depression, and connections between them and wider contexts. I think Doom has given a small overview of the conclusions those posts will reach.

Doom 3 itself then? Probably vying with Unreal Tournament 2004 as my favourite FPS game. Doom probably beats UT to it, as I prefer the story elements to the straight forward multi-player emphasis.