Thank the Gods I have a Mac and can’t play console games for crap; otherwise I’d probably spend a lot of time in immersive games. But I would’t want to live inRapture or Columbia. It’s always the same: being in these places eventually feels exhausting, and not because I’m running around shooting at things. It’s because they’re not real, and my brain gets tired of pretending they are.

And so:

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg explains his “Metaverse” virtual world concept, which he says is about “connecting with people.” pic.twitter.com/24YZk5ag5J — The Recount (@therecount) October 28, 2021

You’d think that if they’re going to give you the Holodeck, they should choose a spokesman who doesn’t make Data look like Rip Taylor.

We’ve been told this is the future for as long as I can remember. “VR,” back in the day when it meant “3D” shopping areas on your browser. Second Life, with its persistent consensual hallucination. Chat rooms with avatars, which ended up being a useless space full of cartoon characters bumping into each other with word bubbles over their heads saying 13-year-old things. The Star Trek Holodeck held out the eventual direction, but here’s the thing: the Holodeck was necessary because there wasn’t any access to any sort of experience other than life in corridors and small rooms.

What happens when the Holodeck is available in a place that actually has a diverse physical environment? This Meta twaddle. A place where we don’t really move at all, but sit wearing a facehugger experiencing input and passing along input to others, floating around nonexistent things in a nonexistent with pretend friends. You stay in longer this time because you don't want to confront the shame you feel when you leave.

This is how you get people to give up on the real world. It had its chance; it proved to be too random, unscripted at best and intensely scripted at worst, uncontrollable, and inevitably lacking in actual magic. In here, though, everyone’s a conjurer.

I think we’ll reject it, again. It seems so frictionless, but it takes work to still the part of your brain that protests. It might be most popular with those who have the worst lives, a form of corporate anesthesia that gives you the world and asks only the privilege of tailoring ads for your consideration. They can stop trying to sell you real sneakers that cost $100, and sell you incorporeal ones that cost just as much to buy, and nothing to product. In-game purchases don’t have to be hauled across the ocean in container ships.

Maybe that’s just me. As I said, I like immersive games. Of course I’ve been playing Planet Coaster again, starting from scratch with new ideas and skills learned from past failures. The entrance hall above is better than anything I'd done, with animated signage and a subway system. I rebuilt Paris:

But the real project was a "Dark Ride," as they call . . . rides in the dark. I wanted to build someting Hallweenish. I'd found some downloadable blueprints for deserted, abandoned French village structures.

Tombeville! Har de har.

To tie this all together: I enjoy building more than inhabiting. You can walk around in this game, but it's never as much fun as hovering above, building, planning.

Anyway. The immense project was called "Escape from Hell." It's about escaping from Hell. The idea: an entrance through a graveyard by a ruined church, then the entrance down into the queue. The ride goes through a dungeon area, then plunges into something vast and horrible before you're pulled up into the light, given a glimpse of the Great Celestial Beyond, before traveling through a great valley that signals your return to earth.

As always, widescreen is recommended. Happy Halloween!

		If it seems a bit jerky at times, well, RIP my CPU.

More context, so we can be a bit more forgiving.

Actually, no. I don't feel too much like forgiving. I suppose they had constraints, client demands, and the like. But this was supposed to be the landmark building, the anchor of a revitalized segment of downtown.

It isn't.

And the Firehouse Project. Last week I said "soon we'll go into the pit."

Except there's no pit. It's still a parking lot, and there's no site prep at all. Makes me wonder if the project was cancelled.

Did Lance bring a crowbar to wave around in a threatening manner?

It's always the little things.

Solution is here.

I believe this is the standalone recording of the "Thirteenth Juror" theme, taken from the suite of cues. It's by Morton Glickman. He really pours it on, but the strings don't seem to share his enthusiasm.
		Here's what the audience heard.

You can imagine the composer gritting his teeth as his music is talked over, and briefly allowed to shine before being talked over again.

I suppose they were used to it. Came with the job.

Not sure this burned up the charts:

		But for the sophisticates, why, it was like having the fellow in your living room. Without the choking clouds of cigarette smoke.

		1975: Oh, you've been there. I think this was the first year I went there.

		Thank your for your visits this week. Back on Monday!