I went to see Ghost World the other night. I'm still not entirely sure what I think of
it, yet. Beforehand, I'd been comparing it to Daria—that loveable, vitriolic teen for
our ages. The similarities are pretty superficial, though. Sure, both Enid and Daria hate the phoniness of everybody
around them and take delight in showing it with stunts and nasty put-downs. The difference for Daria is that nothing she
does or says, except to a few people, has any consequences. Nobody cares. So Daria has a fun air of fantasy about it.
Ghost World... doesn't.
Also, despite what they say, Ghost World isn't a comedy. Not that I could tell, anyway. Nunchukus not withstanding.
All that doesn't mean I didn't like it. And, to an extent, I found myself seriously relating to the characters. But I
didn't have the emotional attachment to them that I thought I might. I'd sorely love to find Enid, take her aside and
show her the error of her ways. Unfortunately, I wasn't in the movie. No one really helps her, and she can't really
help herself. She's in control of the situation, but she doesn't know what to do with it. Seymour's a bit of a sad case,
and while I could, under dire circumstances, see myself being him in 15 years or so, 15 years is still a long way off.
When I identify with characters, I find I'm not quite as sympathetic to them. If anything, I'd smack him upside the head
for being clueless.
So in the end, the movie was disheartening without being particularly moving. Which is a shame, because I really wanted
to like it more than I did.
Gran Tourismo III is coming along nicely. I whisked through the Type-R battles with my Integra. Right now, I'm trying to
get through the Audi TT series. Unfortunately, the Audi TT really bites. My Impreza always kicks its butt during the 4WD
races. It seems a waste to dump money into a crappy car.
GT3 is coming along nicely now. I have a bunch of cars, and used some money to buy an Impreza WRX something. It got me
into the 4WD races. I was hoping it would get me into more, but it didn't. But I figure if I fully upgrade it, it'll be
faster and more maneuvrable than my current work-horse, the Mazda MX-6 Infini III. Then maybe I'll be able to win some
of the races I can't win with that.
In other, less important areas of my life, I'm being forced to decide between apathy and exasperation. Apathy's looking
more appealing. Time to find other ways to waste my time.
Work's picking up again. You might have noticed, I only seem to post these things when I'm actually busy at work. When
I'm stuck doing nothing, I can't seem to drum up the energy to do even this. My project seems to be coming along well
enough.
Oops. A screen saver virus seems to be circulating the office. People don't seem to appreciate my helpful advice to
uninstall the demon Microsoft Outlook, which stupidly propogates these things without user intervention.
Gran Tourismo 3 isn't going well, I'm afraid. My poor little Trueno still too underpowered for me to win any more races,
but too powerful for the lame "sports" tires to hold to the road. And for some stupid reason, real soft racing tires
cost about as much as I'd pay for a (marginally) better car.
Gran Tourismo also has questionable physics when it comes to things like collisions. For instance, when I'm drifting
through a turn, the slightest nudge from another car sends me spinning out of control. The best I can do to any other
car, however, is maybe nudge them into a wall, if I'm lucky. If I'm unlucky, I just spin off myself. (Yes, one of my
favourite tactics in car racing games is running people off the road. It's just so much more fun. GT3 refuses to let
me do this, however. :`( ). My main problem is that, after doing so well during my all-nighter, I forgot how to drive
after my 18 hour nap.
I still haven't really delved into Havest Moon yet. I'll probably get to that next week sometime. That's when GT3 will
have sufficiently frustrated me. It requires more concentration. It really is something to be savoured.
I think I want to get Grand Theft Auto III. Now there is a car game. Why race
in circles when you can run over pedestrians and evade police. That's cool!