lzim

The dare is to watch this film without feeling anything. Not get misty a little like. How it would be nice to have a happy ending to this type of emotional misery if you live with it every day.

But the tragedy being how do you reconcile it if you don't know what's making you miserable until you find it? Can you live a fulfilling life searching for whatever it is that can replace that misery once seeded or flourishing?

I've been playing Destiny heavily since February on Xbox and PlayStation.. became unemployed in June.. and nothing seems to make a dent. Or maybe only because nothing seems to be making a dent.

How it must be nice to not really know with such clarity why things can't be a happy ending for those of us who just don't have that kind of luck.

Lately, and let's say most recently with a very high magnitude of poignancy (to the point where I'm depressed without a specific cause like losing her last year.. or since then, even though it feels like it was more than three years ago.. in a gyre-like cycle that just keeps repeating itself), and vaguely has this misery when looking back to when I was a kid really not really been there.

You can't take anything like that or what anyone else has to say into this film other than it really is a fantastic piece that should resound with something similar in all of us. As in apparently you can take this type of misery into this film and still have it ride you like a tsunami.

Actually the film's depiction of that search for something.. kind of led me to seeing it. Normally, as stated above, nothing makes a dent.. especially not anime. Not recently anyway. I mean I love anime and have been waiting for a really great one to make an impact for years.. and well.. At first I said forget it (actually being able to find a way to see it any time remotely soon) since it was only just released to its domestic audience and so no publically avaiable digital copy should exist. And still didn't think one would be available when I checked for it a few weeks ago.

But it nagged at me. It nagged at me like the memory of all the people that I've walked away from.. but my spirit is still searching. Seemed like my itomori (place/event which was required to be reconciled) was going to be seeing this film. A force of nature.. something powered solely by will. And I made peace in my childhood with the fact I can't control my own will and that there would be, and have been, and will yet be many events and situations to overcome lest more misery.

I meet people and get to know them.. befriend them.. then drama-llama spits on those friendships and I walk away. But that hunger for what was there remains there. In between these friendships is really powerful hunger for what was and for more. Else why should a heart beat. I mean shit if there was an undo button? Won't that be the big call for VR.. being able to really live and relive things.. not just live in someone else's mind.. but to really explore our own and to occupy someone else's. Then you could find understanding.

But it grows (the misery). I just want to find something and really want to be able to nurture it. No matter how many things I find.. nothing happens.. nothing emotional. Nothing spiritual. Not even games seem to survive. I used to play with legos until they were taken away. I bought my own and well.. it isn't the same. Eventually it's like I can't use just these toys to build something to satisfy the huger.

Destiny.. designed basically to force the player cycle to the new and manage or discard the old. No Man's Sky.. couldn't be more open to exploration and building.. but only now after the big update should anyone bother to touch that mess. And Ark.. Which has grown and will keep growing. Each one I could take as representative of how easily sated I am but only momentarily.. in how much I'd want to put into something lasting. Each just brings a different kind of misery instead of properly sating the hunger.

Sadly.. the same with people.. if anything seems off.. then done.. time to move on. They told me it was a coping mechanism.. but I really do think there's something wrong. Being betrayed, being lied to, being ignored.. how and why do people deal with that shit?

As if I'd simply rather that nothing did work out or last.. that there would be nothing there to lose. Nothing would turn or at least not fast enough. Let me just have something and let it die quickly so I can just keep a log book of memory and have nothing else to continually feed the misery.

Something like the hunger for some people is self-sated.. but for people like me.. who were brought up never knowing how to properly deal with the hunger for more.. but who are very easily sated.. like it doesn't bother them. As a kid I really wished it wouldn't be this hard.

Meanwhile... CES 2017 Nvidia keynote.

It was weird because before finally finding a copy of 'Your Name'.. I'd spent the evening, as has become custom, on Destiny while in party chat with my friend.

Destiny which as of Tuesday last is dead.

There's no point in playing it.

The Wrath of the Machine raid only holds anyone now that doesn't have the ship. So I said fuck it. Something like 70 run at that raid in, each at least an hour long but usually two or more.. I'm like fuck this shit. I'm OUT. I'm done busting my head trying to get 1 drop after 3 years with this game's repetitive fucking bullshit RNG. I mean see above.. I'm really miserable and don't need this bullshit.

Otherwise the game's probably last content update, and only reason to play, the ludicrously named 'The Dawning' Christmas event, brought with it the 'chance' to get one of the game's original exotic weapons. The IceBreaker. Not a new weapon.. one that they made obsolete. And SRL.. something also dear to me which they ran for 3 weeks. But only designed so that you could max out your rank in a couple of days.. then what?! nothing. SRL would be dead again. Pay them money to unlock stuff.. for what?! SRL is dead again!

Destiny is annoying because Bungie intentionally screws around with in-game items, just because they feel like it. IceBreaker, Gjallarhorn, and a couple of other weapons were required in the first year if you wanted to complete the raid... or again, there's no real reason to play. You didn't need them if you knew what you were doing, but the people that would allow you to play and learn with them (assuming you didn't have friend and no luck for getting the weapons due to their low drop rate any other way), they felt compelled to use those items as a gate.

Thankfully I met her on one of my first raids and so.. perhaps things would have been different.. I wanted to be thankful because raiding with her and her friends made it possible to pick up those items and continue to play.

Can I look back on that as being good luck?

So why would IceBreaker coming back mean anything? I mean why should it.

IceBreaker is a very annoying sniper rifle with a dumb perk. It makes its own ammo and can't be reloaded. You get only 6 shots, which is half to a third what you'd be able to shoot for just about every other sniper.. but instead of those rounds being twice as good.. they really aren't unless you land them on weak enemies. Most of the activities since year 1 don't have add spawns that really make using IceBreaker worth it.

So why bother with it? It seemed like getting it would be the same 'struggle' against miserably low RNG.. and would just make me miserable again.. for something that I already know isn't that great.

Because Bungie finally decided to put the gun back in the game.. and if you pay attention to add spawn and behaviors.. they do bunch up. 20 nightfalls later.. I got one on Xbox.. but have yet to get it on PlayStation. I don't need to get it on PlayStation but I mean I could keep trying. Mightn't try as hard mind.. but I'd like to get it on both.

But I found myself playing alone tonight. I didn't expect to play alone. I got my IceBreaker and told her how I got mine and she tried and didn't get hers.. it feels like a street I've been down before. It felt like I'd betrayed her.

I do strongly believe she's going to get annoyed with me for not being 'enough'. Not in the sense of available or helpful.. I mean I don't make the experience of Destiny fun. If Destiny can't make itself fun.. I'll probably lose her like the others that I played Destiny with that have quit the game.

As I'm only her friend I'm going to just ride these nearly blank hours, that are otherwise filled by Destiny.. until she says something. Of course we've been friends for going on 2 years.. and she's got to know by now I'm probably not a great friend.

Once I realized I was playing alone though and just before the misery could surface I said fuck it.. there's supposed to be a CES something happening involving some mystical Mass Effect 4 game play.

So I searched for it and found that it was a minute from going live. .. ok..

I mean I was a little shocked at that because as the dude was saying Nvidia didn't really provide a great schedule for the event yet I literally out of nowhere tuned in live.

Wtv.. I dropped the stream google had promoted for the actual live stream on Twitch. Because Twitch is familiar.

And they (Nvidia) promptly smacked that in the face by saying that the real place to view the stream live was supposed to be Facebook Live.

I'm leaving that alone for now and staying with Twitch.. but that slap felt tangible.. something meant for Amazon to feel.

So having dumped Destiny for a little bit and failing to quietly stomach the BS spewing from CES dude guy.. I'm like please leave the stage and please get on with the Nvidia keynote.

When Jen-Hsun came on all seemed to be well as he comically he pushed CES guy off the stage so that we could (PC gamers who were summoned) see what we were summoned to see.. Mass Effect 4's promised game play trailer. 'We need to get this out of the way'.

I mean I was doing my little hoorah at CES guy being bulldozed off the stage and all but the actual promised footage for a game that's already several months tardy.. for which I'd purchased an Nvidia GTX 1070 from Nvidia.. and etc else to get it running.. was only what felt like a 30 seconds tech demo.

Dafuq?! what?! Nvidia using Mass Effect as bait to get people to listen to their keynote?! preposterous!

Because as I was watching the opening I'm like.. that was ripped from Halo, that was ripped from Destiny, that was ripped from No Man's Sky.. but this is BioWare. It isn't like they could possibly over hype their game and fail to deliver like Hello Games did.. This is BioWare. Before that thought could even solidify... the demo was over and it was back to the Nvidia keynote.

Ok.. Fine.. So.. what do they have to show?

Also surprisingly even though they opened with it.. VR wasn't that big.. ?!?! K.. so.. what else do you have to show.

Scary Home Automation and scary Car Automation.. so you're still chatting up the death of probably hundreds of thousands of jobs and the death of personal privacy.

Oh but please don't forget that Nvidia's long game with cloud GPU is still maturing. To the point where, like their self driving car and co-pilot offering.. Nvidia does intend to kill or seriously dent console and all but high end PC gaming.

$25 for 20 hours. The punchline being 'AND UP'. From where?!?! that's already utterly unconscionable.

So they put a price on cloud GPU.. again.. Doesn't anyone remember that 4-5 year ago cloud GPU failed to catch on because no one want PC gaming to die? AND there still aren't that many apps for it yet.

VR is that app.. but Nvidia wasn't playing connect the bullet points at their keynote. It seemed like they were pulling an Apple/Microsoft by saying we invented everything you enjoy today! GPU? US!, we invented cloud GPU, we're empowering all the greatest AI development in the world.. without really acknowledging other efforts. Playing up their industry partners in home and automotive automation was the kicker.

It all felt underhanded and smarmy.

But again.. if the real takeaway is that VR, and apparently somewhere far down the road, cloud VR is ever a thing (held back by similar latency to PC gaming.. which they are happily claiming they solved for $25 for 20 hours).. then there are some really interesting applications somewhere down the road.. nothing we haven't heard of before.. shit Nvidia didn't really invent, like self driving cars or co-pilot systems, telepresence systems (without acknowledging Microsoft's HoloLens was actually funny), and eSport growing even bigger in the west.

But they slapped Amazon again, like Microsoft is trying to do unsuccessfully with Beam, by showing that Nvidia has it's own direct to audience livestreaming. The popularity of Twitch as one of the biggest game streaming services is that it is a managed middleman. People have had other options for a very long time but Twitch is easy, popular and comfortable. Why side step it?

Then Huang is like ok that's it.. Keynote is done. Utterly devoid of ceremony. Classic. Just finishes saying the show itself is basically standing room only for 200K attendees with.. you know.. the whole frigging internet watching from home. 'That's it'. Not even an enjoy the rest of the show.

What else though? What about body swapping.. not just telepresence. Could the same cloud telemetry that powers automated cars, and the same graphics horsepower that they claim will sway Mac owners to cloud GPU and VR power something like stepping into someone else's shoes?

No? Nothing? Interesting.

Right.. so.. Back to Destiny?

Don't really wanna..

So whatever had compelled me to tune in to the keynote tapped me on the shoulder and whispered kimi no na wa.

I had shared a link to the bluray version of Kingsglaive with her and figured she'd get a kick out of kimi no na wa. But just showing her a trailer wouldn't be right.

And yeah it would be great to watch that.. but it isn't possible.

It reminded me that Jen-Hsun told me where to look. Baidu being one of their cloud computing and earth mapping partners.. I mean one of the other companies out there helping Nvidia to invent AI or however he'd worded his bullshit.

So I checked again and found that yeah... there IS a digital copy of the movie available and so started streaming it from Baidu.

One of the comments attached to the release is HOW IS THIS POSSIBURU?! the movie is still in theaters over seas... not only is the movie available but it is also professionally subbed.

Dafuq twilight zone did I wake up in ?!

Wtv.. I'm streaming the movie from Baidu and am bobbing around on emotional surges like a sneaker in the pacific ocean garbage gyre I mentioned earlier.

It really is everything people are saying about it without it being some simple chick-flick floss because it has depths and layers..

But fresh out of the Nvidia CES 2017 keynote I had to wonder.. body swapping is one of those universal things that even this slightly perverted anime's modern day setting doesn't need technology at all to make it seem perfectly real. Short of the films story alone (to explain the box office success).. I don't think anything would have been worth it.. to make even though the movie is relatively short.. and at the box office.

You know because VR could too. And arguably it could tell the story MUCH better. But anime and VR... uh.. do those mix?

One of the other important comments was a warning to not watch the movie in only 480p. No shit dude.. but I'm not waiting until October to see this movie. The whole world.. meaning China.. is watching this movie, which is probably why it was easy to find all of a sudden on Baidu. Like literally I don't think I could have stopped myself seeing this movie but really didn't expect to see it now.

Hell I was thinking this might be one of the last great classics like Disney's Snow White back in the day to manage this type of box office success on classic methods before technology strips the possibility for future works to achieve that same type of success without turning to new technology either for a bigger wow factor or just because it would be cheaper. And was again surprised that Nvidia couldn't find the time to mention how they invented CG for modern movies.. or how only their GPUs power the very best of the best render farms.

People are going to wonder how hand-drawn cel animation will work in an age of VR.

And some people in the audience might know it already.