Static Zombie

Rocking the Paradise

I don't like racing games. They bore me, whether they're on the table or on the television. There are exceptions-- Daytona 500's system is very clever, and Project Gotham Racing's kudos system, focusing on jumps, drifts, and tricks, gave me a really fun way to avoid the whole "racing" angle. "Serious" or "pure" racing games, like the Forza series or even Formula De, leave me cold. So I wasn't expecting to have any interest in Burnout Paradise, a driving game on the 360. Even after friends bought the game and told me how awesome it was, I remained unmoved. I tried the demo, but wasn't sold.

Then we started using Burnout Paradise as a demo for Project Natal, and I played quite a bit of it as we tuned the experience. I was surprised by how much fun I was having, even when we switched Natal off and I used a controller. Eventually I took home the team's copy, and I've been hooked ever since.

It's a brilliant piece of game design. Instead of a series of racing circuits, Burnout Paradise drops you into Paradise City and its environs, a sprawling network of highways, dirt roads, railroad tracks, city streets, and back alleys that you're free to drive through however you like. Sprinkled-- no, poured-- throughout the map are various flavors of collectibles: billboards to break, fences to drive through, and jumps to land. You could spend dozens of hours just finding all of them, and in many cases figuring out how to actually collect them. And collecting them feels good. Flying off a ramp and through a billboard is yee-ha thrilling thanks to the game's breezy controls and forgiving driving model.

If you want some more structure, just pull up to a traffic light. Every single one in the game hosts an event you can opt into. They come in a few different flavors-- straightforward races, Marked Man races where you need to reach a destination before enemy cars run you off the road, Stunt Runs, and timed runs. My favorite is Road Rage, where there is no destination, merely a goal-- run the required number of cars off the road before they do the same to you. There are records for the fastest time on each stretch of road, and Showtime mode lets you set up absurd chains of point-gathering crashes anywhere, anytime.

Crashes in Burnout, whether your own or your victims', are spectacular affairs rendered in slow motion so you can appreciate every shard of twisted, broken metal. Cars fly through the air, tumble end over end, and shatter in viscerally satisfying ferrotechnic displays.

As you complete events, new car models get released into the city. If you take them down (run them off the road), you gain possession of them and can drive them yourself. As you play deeper into the game, the cars become faster, stronger, and more performant. The game keeps rewarding you and dangling more carrots in front of you.

Burnout Paradise is bursting with cool places to drive, whether it's over the top of a railroad trestle, around the bowl of a rock quarry, careening through hidden tunnels or jumping over the dam. You can complete events to collect cars, or you can drive at your own pace to find all the fences and billboards. You can beat the fastest times on every road in Paradise. You can perform other fun tricks for achievements.

And then... you can go online.

Last night I played multiplayer for the first time with 3 friends, and we spent hours playing through a bunch of 4-player challenges. The game offers 500 challenges for 2-8 players, ranging from "everyone meet up at the wind farm" to "collectively drive against the flow of traffic for 10000 yards at the same time" to "collide in mid-air at the drawbridge". Tackling those challenges cooperatively was a blast. If one of you is forced off the road by another player, the camera takes your picture and sends it to the driver that beat you-- a great opportunity for funny moments. There was a lot of laughter. If the other players in the group hadn't had more willpower than I and signed off in favor of sleeping, I'd have played through the night.

Burnout makes getting into a multiplayer game super-easy. You don't need to use the klunky default 360 invitation system-- instead, they built a custom interface directly into the game that lets you invite friends without plucking you out of the driving experience. Every element of the game has been polished to a glistening shine.

A sequel is inevitable, and I'll be lining up to play it.

Still Tapped Into the Zeitgeist, Effendi!

As part of Marvel Comics' 70th anniversary celebration, they ran a customer poll to determine the 70 greatest Marvel covers of all time. When I heard about this, one cover instantly leapt to mind. When I went to their site to see the winners, I was pleased to see that very issue was voted #3. Number two is iconic, I'll grant you, but if removed from its historical context I really don't think it's anything special. Number one is OK, but not something I'd put in the top ten. I agree with the high marks for #4 and #10, but there are covers later in the list-- notably many of the paintings-- that are much better than some of the ones that precede them.

Fun to browse.

So Much For My Juicyfruit Lawsuit...

A judge today ruled that crunchberries are not, in fact, fruit. More accurately, he ruled that your average consumer would not be misled by Cap'n Crunch's packaging into believing that the product contained actual berries.

He did not rule on whether or not an average consumer would be misled into believing that the cereal contains actual nutritional value.

Natal

Since we announced it today at E3, I can finally talk about what I've been working on for the past few months. Code-named Natal (rhymes with fatale, as in femme fatale), it's a peripheral for the 360 that brings full 3-D motion control and voice recognition to the 360 without requiring any controller in your hand. You just stand in front of the TV, get recognized, and control gameplay with your body. Your avatar mimics your body motion with real-time motion capture. Scratch your nose, your avatar scratches his. Do the moonwalk, your avatar does it with you. Every movement is tracked, analyzed, and processed.

The net effect is the most accessible gaming device ever. You don't have to explain to someone that they need to use the A button, a thumbstick, a trigger. They just get into the game and play the way they expect to play. Our team's demos at E3 showed two activities: Ricochet, a full-body Breakout game, and Paint Party, where you can free your inner Jackson Pollock by throwing paint at a canvas and creating stencils with your body.

I can tell you that Ricochet is super fun to play. You just get up and move your body. You can slam the ball with your hand, or you can just step into its path and have it bounce off your body. You can butt it with your head, spin a roundhouse kick, move in or out, etc. No controls to learn-- when you move your arm, your avatar moves his. It doesn't get more intuitive.

People are also floored by the simplicity and whimsy of Paint Party. This is a painting activity that isn't about creating the next great work of art. It's not about fine control and accurate rendering-- it's about the freedom to fling paint without worrying about the mess. It's about the fun of unbridled exuberance and expression. It's about the visceral satisfaction of flinging paint in a wide swath across a blank canvas. It's about the simple joy you had with fingerpaint as a child, before you were told to stay within the lines. And to play it, all you need to do is call out the colors and fling your arms.

Gamers frequently complain that motion control isn't for them. They're wrong. I think we're going to see some mind-blowing, innovative games developed for this platform that gamers will poop their pants for. Just imagine, for instance, what a great development team could do with the Star Wars license on Natal.

The big win, though, isn't with the gamers. It's with their families. There are a lot of people out there who are intimidated by game controllers. The Wii remote is certainly friendlier than most, but it's still something new to learn. Natal bypasses all of that. There doesn't even have to be a game to suck people in-- you'd be amazed how compelling and fun it is to just stand in front of the device and puppeteer your avatar. Everyone who uses Natal for the first time does some kind of silly dance or martial arts moves, just to watch their avatar mimic them. With your focus on your avatar, you feel free to experiment with your body in ways that you don't in front of a mirror. The fundamental functionality of the device is fun out of the box, before "game design" even enters the picture. And a lot of people who have never picked up a controller in their lives will get sucked in by Natal and have fun with a gaming console.

You can see the vision video shown at E3 here. Haven't found any online video of just the Natal E3 presentation yet, but our demos can be seen here.

Various news sources:

Time
Wall Street Journal
Yahoo
CNet
ABC

Update: complete footage of the Natal E3 presentation (albeit, sadly, without the elephant reveal) is here.

Abusive Relationships You Can't Bring Yourself To Leave, For $1000 Please Alex.

Attention, Heroes writers. You used Adam's blood to restore Nathan to perfect health after he got nuked at the end of season 1. You used Claire's blood to bring Noah back from the dead after he was shot in the eye and killed in season 2. And somehow nobody in the Petrelli/Bennet clan thinks to use Claire's blood to resurrect Nathan?

This is the difference between you and gifted practitioners of the writing craft. A Joss Whedon or a J. Michael Straczynski, after establishing the power of Claire's blood earlier in the series, would bring that thread back at such a critical moment. If that plot point became inconvenient, prior to the finale they'd illustrate why Claire's blood would not be a viable solution so that when the fateful event happened, the outcome would feel logical and tragic. What a good writer would not do is pretend that Claire's blood of Lazarus does not exist, while balancing on one foot and waving his hands madly through the air in the hope that the audience wouldn't notice.

I complain because I love. The show had such promise, once. It had wonder, and fun, and mystery. It had characters with motivations that made sense. It had the audacity to put a character named Hiro on the hero's journey. Then it developed an ability. The ability to defy logic, defy credulity, defy established characterization. The ability to go completely off the rails.

I should break the cycle of disappointment and leave the show, but I'm still in love with what it used to be. And deep inside, it has the potential to become that thing again. So I beg you. Find your characters again. Rediscover who these people were, and why viewers tuned in to watch them.

Otherwise, I might finally develop the ability to change the channel.

Free is the New $19.95

From now until Friday, Big FIsh Games is offering full PC and Mac versions of four of their games-- Azada, Hidden Expedition: Everest, Fairway Solitaire, and Spa Mania-- for the bargain price of zero.

I played through Azada a while back and was underwhelmed-- I kept waiting in vain for it to impress me. Fairway Solitaire, on the other hand, I've come close to purchasing on a number of occasions. Lots of people I respect have said great things about it, and I was sad when the clock on the demo version expired. So I urge you to grab the free download while it lasts.

Details here. Make sure to follow the instructions-- you have to apply the coupon code to have the price reduced to zero.

Opraha!

It's not enough for Oprah Winfrey to earn more than the GDP of several African nations. Now she wants to own public domain phrases. Lawyers for Oprah have sent a cease and desist letter to Mutual of Omaha for using the phrase "aha moment" in their advertising. According to the lawyers, that phrase is synonymous in the public mind with Ms. Winfrey.

Really?

Those of us in the puzzle community have been using that phrase for years to describe the ideal result of a sublime puzzle. Allow me to direct both parties in this legal scuffle to Martin Gardner's aha! Insight, which used the phrase as early as 1978.

Perhaps Oprah could make that her next book club selection.

And So Our Story Becomes An Entirely Different Game

I've been playing Fable II slowly, and a little late to the party. I've enjoyed the game's palette and lighting. Wandering the world at sunrise can reward you with some breathtaking vistas. The world has an almost campy, super-saturated, medieval-England-by-way-of-Maxfield-Parrish look that invites play. Even the W, who gets motion sick at the merest mention of 3D movement, watched for a while and commented on the pretty look.

Last night I accepted the Spire quest and went to the docks, where I promptly boarded the H.M.S. Ennui and disembarked into a completely different game. It was as if a bondage flick got spliced into my Care Bears cartoon. Suddenly I'm being yelled at to submit and obey, the game controller is throbbing to an everpresent foreboding heartbeat in a citadel of evil, I'm forced to choose between letting captives starve to death or losing experience points when my obedience collar shocks me. The game makes me run from point A to point B in a monotonous citadel for no apparent reason. The W pauses from her online sudoku puzzle long enough to give me a sidelong look and ask disgustedly, "What kind of game are you playing?" And when the sequence finally ends and I return to the game I wanted to play, ten years were stolen from my character's life (but I received no commensurate income boost from my various retail properties).

Boooooooooooooooo.

Aside from the heavyhandedness of the entire sequence, I think what I most object to is the notion that my character was in that hellhole for ten years. It took control away from me, when the whole essence of Fable is that you're in control-- your actions have consequences, you can be good or evil, who are you going to become? So it gave me two choices-- feed or starve the captives, kill or don't kill a friend (but when I spared him, an NPC killed him anyway)-- but otherwise, the arc of my character's story was removed from me. And in those ten years, the rest of the world hasn't really changed. The story jumped forward in time, but the world isn't selling that time shift to me.

And so our story continues.

Foodier Than Thou

I've never understood Williams-Sonoma. Don't get me wrong, it's a wonderful place to browse. Walking into Williams-Sonoma, I feel like Dorothy as she opened the door of her tornado-tossed black-and-white house and stepped into the technicolor wonders of Munchkinland. Le Creuset cookware in every color of the rainbow. Glistening stainless steel pots. Artisanal sauces, jams, chutneys, and condiments in attractive, fabric-sealed jars. If Little Shop of Horrors moved from Skid Row to Park Avenue, Williams-Sonoma would feature prominently when Audrey belts out Somewhere That's Green.

Browsing there's one thing. Buying there's something else again. Williams-Sonoma is a full price shop. Everything is high end, and everything is full retail. In an age where Amazon will deliver the same stuff to your door for much, much less, who uncorks their credit card at Williams-Sonoma? It just never made any sense to me.

Apparently, it's making less sense to everyone else. The chain reported a 90% drop in revenue for the quarter, with profit falling from $1.15 a share a year ago to just 12 cents a share! And they don't expect to make a profit again until Christmas. Sales actually dipped more at Pottery Barn (29% vs 16.8% for W-S), which is owned by the same company.

Crazy! Sanity!

Fringe glyph code cracked

If you're watching Fringe (J.J. Abrams' winning answer to The X-Files), you know that each commercial break begins with a placard showing a dot and a glyph-- a seahorse, a frog, a butterfly, etc. The glyphs felt carefully selected and meaningful in some way, but exactly how was a mystery. No longer. The code has been cracked.

I already enjoy Fringe, but details like this make the puzzle geek in me squeal with delight. This isn't the only easter egg hidden in Fringe, and any show that is both entertaining to watch and goes the extra mile to build interactivity and meta-fun into the show itself gets my TV-watching vote. Fringe returned from a two-month hiatus last night. If you've missed the bandwagon so far, you can catch up for free at Hulu.

Angels and Feldercarb

Spoilers ho for the series finale of Battlestar Galactica.

It's hard to know where to begin. There were so many disappointing reveals and moments of lazy writing in the finale, it was as if the producers, much like the ragtag fleet itself, was just exhausted and wanted the long journey to be over.

• Anders can just be put in a water bath and "plugged in", and suddenly he's a hybrid, and can "confuse the hybrids" and get them to shut down the defenses? How very Locutus of Borg. "Sleep... Data..." What the hell are the hybrids, anyway?
• We never really found out what Starbuck was. A ghost? A spirit? Makes no sense-- they ran tests on her when she got back, so she was flesh and blood. And yet, when her "journey" was over, she just vanishes. Gone. And Lee doesn't blink.
• Baltar and Caprica have been seeing ANGELS all this time? Angels that manipulate them in petty ways, with no obvious goal? Angels that did whatever the writers wanted them to do because they didn't have an endgame in mind at the time? Bah.
• The dream of the opera house was about various people protecting Hera during the battle on the Galactica? Why did that need to foreshadowed to those people years in advance? It made no sense.
• Speaking of no sense... Cavil agrees to give up Hera in exchange for Resurrection. I buy that. But when things go a little weird during the transfer of data, the Cylons freak out and start shooting everyone without being provoked. And then, in the midst of all this... Cavil kills himself. What?!
• They'd already established that Ellen knew the secret to Resurrection, back when Cavil held her captive. So the Final Five needing to join minds in order to transfer that data made no sense. On top of that, it was just a deus ex machina for a) finally revealing to Galen that Tory had killed Cally, and b) getting the Cylons to freak out and essentially self-destruct.
• Speaking of deus ex machina-- with a pilot actively navigating, a rock still flies through the canopy of a raptor and kills everyone. Yet that raptor-- now without a pilot to dodge incoming rocks or missiles-- manages to remain intact within that same debris field during a space battle, only to get nudged by a random impact so that it's facing the station when the dead pilot's arm falls on the exposed, unprotected, glowing FIRE button. Completely unnecessary and breaking credulity.
• No surprise that the mysterious notes deliver the fleet to our Earth, but what a cheat that the "Earth" we saw earlier wasn't the one we're living on. They more or less telegraphed it earlier in the season by never showing an establishing shot of the planet where our continents were visible, but it still felt cheap.
• We STILL don't know why Hera matters. They wound up on a planet full of primitive humans-- plenty of breeding stock. What's the big deal about Hera?

I wish more television writers would look to J. Michael Straczynski as a model for how to do long-form television with a roadmap. He planned Babylon 5 as a 5-year story, knowing the broad strokes of where all the characters and plotlines were headed before the first episode was written. The result was a series that thundered to a satisfying close with payoffs that made sense and felt natural. I suppose there's little incentive for television writers to go that route. It doesn't matter if the conclusion fails to satisfy, as long as they brought enough eyeballs along for the ride. TV writers are snake-oil salesmen, and we keep buying.

Frak.

Puzzle Hunt 123

The Microsoft Puzzle Hunt, which I've been working on for about 15 long months, is now over. This event broke me. It is probably the last puzzle event I will ever run with a volunteer committee.

We tried some big, risky things in this event, and I'm very happy about that. I'd rather fail spectacularly for trying something different than do something safe that doesn't push the envelope. At least one of our innovations-- timed puzzles that teams were encouraged to solve as a team as an in-conference-room event-- was a resounding success. This concept was born from my feeling that out-of-conference-room events represent a tremendous amount of overhead for something that a small percentage of players ever see. From a cost/benefit perspective, they're a horrible investment. I wanted to find a way to create special moments the entire team could partake in. Timed puzzles, specifically constructed to be conducive to group solves, were a great low-cost, high-impact solution, and they seem to have been universally adored.

Some experiments work, some don't. In retrospect, it's clear how different decisions would have made the event better. I take the blame for all the problems that didn't get corrected. There was no one leader-- the hunt was essentially run by committee. That doesn't excuse me from responsibility for poor design or execution. We had a chance during the event to correct the biggest problem-- players being blocked from accessing more puzzles-- and I pushed the wrong priorities. Instead of looking at the evidence that teams just didn't want to use our existing release valve of moving from the Competitive to the Recreational division, I stood by it under the belief that any change of course at 3 AM would represent a breach of trust to the Competitive teams that had moved beyond the blockage, and to the teams that had already switched to Recreational to get around it. I still believe that to be true, but breaching that trust and unblocking players may have been the lesser evil.

I feel deeply disappointed that, after 15 months of planning, the event we ran was not the event people wanted to play. I grossly misjudged what people wanted from Puzzle Hunt. Competition is deeply ingrained in the DNA of its players, and they accepted enormous amounts of frustration rather than give that up. Some people on the organizing committee thought that might happen, but I didn't believe it. I was wrong. I accept the blame. I deeply apologize to all the players whose fun was compromised as a result. I also feel terrible for all the puzzle authors whose work got less exposure because of it.

The event was created when two teams, each planning a Hunt, ran out of steam on their own and merged (the events merged; almost all of my original team simply bailed). That was reflected in many ways in the event, and usually not for the better. Elements conflicted with each other. Problems compounded each other. And mostly, the creators were just tired and ready to be done. It frustrated me to be the front man for an event that I didn't entirely believe in, and it depresses me to feel so defeated by the experience. I don't intend to put myself in that position again.

Bug-Eyed Lament

Spoilers for the Top Chef finale follow.

The W and I wailed in dismay last night as we watched Carla get steamrolled out of making her own food. At the start of the season we never would have guessed Carla would make it to the finale ("That's what I believe, Tom!"), but we've been rooting for her the whole way. And what got her there was staying true to herself, executing perfectly on simple dishes. So when she let Casey talk her into sous viding her beef, a technique Carla had never used before, the chorus of "Nooooooooooo!" from our living room could be heard down the block. When Casey nudged her from a cheese tart to a cheese souffle, we knew Carla was in trouble. I just felt so terrible for her. She lost for the wrong reasons, and she'll never know what would have happened if she'd only cooked her own food (or drew a different sous chef!). I think the judges would have loved to have awarded her the title, if Carla had only given them the room to do so.

But if it couldn't be Carla, at least it wasn't Stefan. The man was clearly the best chef throughout the entire season, but he was just so insufferably smug about it that each week I not-so-silently hoped for his comeuppance. Crowning him as Top Chef would have been respectable and certainly deserved, but schadenfreude was certainly more satisfying.

As for Hosea... meh. He was good but not great throughout. Head judge Tom Colicchio has long maintained that they make each decision in a vacuum, with no regard for past performance. This season's winner certainly bears that out.

Hosea won the title, but Carla won our hearts.

25 Things About Me, Dammit

I'm determined not to get sucked into Facebook, but I have to admit that whenever a friend posts their 25 Things, I zip over to read it. This meme jumped the shark last week by appearing on the front page of USA Today's Life section, but that's never stopped me before. I'll post it on my blog, however, thereby asserting my Facebook independence.

1. I don't think anything coming out of a kitchen can possibly be more satisfying to the senses and the soul than a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie (Alton Brown's Chewy recipe, naturally). That something so simple can make me so happy is a recurring delight. And if I actually have some milk in the fridge? Nirvana.

2. I know that if instead of watching television I used that time to be productive, I could achieve more of my life's goals. I get that. But here's the thing-- I like watching television. I'm genuinely interested in the stuff I watch. And you book snobs can get your noses back parallel to the ground, because much of what I watch gets me thinking every bit as much as, and sometimes more than, a good novel.

3. I've loved game shows all my life, and always wanted to be on one. Now that I've done it, the experience was so much fun that I can't wait to do it again. I'd quit my job to go on the professional game show circuit in a heartbeat, if only some Google gazillionaire would put up the cash to make such a thing happen. I'd also accept a very modest salary to simply appear as a permanent partner for contestants on a new version of Password or Pyramid, in a mythical world where producers realize that it's more fun to watch people you don't know play the game really well than to watch marginal celebrities play the game poorly.

4. My jaw sometimes clicks when I eat. Most of the time it's quiet and normal. But sometimes, every time I chew there's a sharp click and my jaw seems to snap in and out of place, over and over again. This happens most often with bagels. Until I got married, I never realized it was audible to others, but my wife hears it every time.

5. I lied about something once, when I was a kid. It was a stupid lie, a futile denial in the face of a friend's admission of my guilt. But I was supposed to be the good kid. I didn't do stupid, careless things that damaged neighbor's property. So I stuck with it. I made up a bigger lie to provide an alternate explanation. Nobody bought it. The guilt has stayed with me ever since. The neighbor-- the sweetest man you could imagine-- died recently, and I never came clean with him. After that incident, I never played with that friend again.

6. When I was very young, before I was old enough for kindergarden, whenever I went out with my family I kept a deathgrip on a penny. Always. Because I knew that sooner or later, I'd see a gumball machine. And when I did, come hell or high water, the handle on that machine would turn. Oh yes, it would turn. I'd put that penny in the slot and, in a Henningesque feat of legerdemain, I'd turn that handle, reach my hand into the slot, and pull out something bright and shiny and sweet. But it wasn't about the gumball, or the candy, or the prize. It was all about turning the handle. And pushing buttons.

7. I once won a radio call-in contest by knowing the full name of Bullwinkle's enemy (Boris Badanov). My prize? A sack of family board games. I now own over 500 games. Most people think that's a lot. I know many people with more.

8. I don't understand how rational, educated people in the 21st century can believe in God. Want to believe? Sure. I get the appeal. But actually believe, in the face of no evidence but a book of questionable provenance? I don't think I will ever understand that.

9. I believe in life on other planets. In the face of no evidence.

10. For as long as I can remember, I've dreamed about flying. Poorly. Not William Katt, flail-my-arms-around-in-midair bad, mind you-- that would be an improvement. No, in my flying dreams, I fly slowly and often can't get more than a couple of feet off the ground. Turning doesn't always work so well, either. WTF? In my dreams I could be anything, and my subconscious casts me as a fifth-rate Mystery Men reject? That is so messed up.

11. I like to sing in the shower, but I generally sing the same song every time-- an a capella version of Styx's Crystal Ball I heard Tommy Shaw sing on a radio concert a long time ago that eliminates the chorus and has great, extended harmonized notes at the finish. So much fun to sing with the shower reverb. Every now and then I throw in The Ballad of Billy the Kid.

12. I'm very good at listening to critical feedback and acting on it. I value honesty. If I do something that annoys you, I'd rather be told about it so I can address it rather than have you fume silently or kvetch behind my back. I won't resent you for saying something-- in fact, you'll rise in my esteem for having the courage to broach the topic.

13. I cried when Spock died.

14. I wrote the install program for Sierra Online's Windows games. I recorded my own voice as a placeholder for the sound test, expecting it would get replaced before it shipped. It didn't. For a few years in the nineties, my voice was on millions of PC computers, saying in my best Worfian voice, "Your system is correctly configured for playing wave files."

15. I've played cribbage in most of the major parks of Europe.

16. The first 45's I ever bought? Coward of the County (Kenny Rogers), Escape / The Pina Colada Song (Rupert Holmes), and King Tut (Steve Martin). My taste hasn't improved since then.

17. I believe the existence of career politicians is one of the worst things ever to happen to our democracy. All senators and congressmen should have a limit of one term, so they can focus on making the right decisions instead of making the decisions that will get them reelected.

18. I've gained over 30 pounds since graduating from college. Worse, my body is starting to react differently to some foods than it used to. Tomato sauce now frequently gives me heartburn. This is a betrayal of the highest order, and if I ever get my hands on my stomach, I intend to draw and quarter it in the public square as an example to keep my other internal organs in line. I'm talking to you, arteries!

19. A couple of times a year, I dress like a pirate and ride around in a van with 3-5 other similarly-dressed friends for 32 hours and solve puzzles. My wife married me anyway.

20. I have Restless Legs Syndrome.

21. I have no patience for shopping for clothes, and even less for trying things on. I can happily browse all day in a book store, however, and I can while away hours in the kitchen section at Bed, Bath, & Beyond.

22. Fashion be damned-- I like tucking my shirt in. It looks tidier, keeps drafts from blowing up my shirt in cold weather, and helps keep my pants from falling down. Who decides what's fashionable, anyway? I refuse to give power over my personal clothing decisions to some nebulous snootier-than-thou zeitgeist. When summer comes around, you can bet I'll sometimes wear socks with my sandals, because it's convenient and practical. Take that, fashionistas!

23. I hate wrapping paper. It's a waste of money and resources. Reusable gift bags are fine, though. And can we please, as a planet, just agree to a moratorium on styrofoam packing peanuts?

24. Milk chocolate? No thanks. Dark chocolate? Yes please. Caramel? Gimme gimme gimme. Black licorice? Hell no.

25. I believe spelling, punctuation, and grammar matter.

Redefining Reality

I happened to be looking at the Wikipedia article for Keyser Soze today, and saw this:

In his 1999 review of Fight Club, film critic Roger Ebert commented that "A lot of recent films seem unsatisfied unless they can add final scenes that redefine the reality of everything that has gone before; call it the Keyser Söze syndrome."

So naturally, I tried to think of films besides Fight Club and The Usual Suspects that do that. The only ones that leap to mind are The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable. The Village comes close, but the twist arrives earlier than at the very end of the film.

Am I missing any outside of the Shayamalan oeuvre? I recall hearing that Vanilla Sky had a twist, but I haven't seen the film so I don't know if it qualifies by having a reality-redefining twist.

For our purposes, let's only consider films after The Usual Suspects (1994). And please, no spoilers.