Monday, April 28, 2008

the news, god of war, training

My room-mate is a big fan of the news. He gets the sunday paper and through the week will watch the local news, then the national news, then the local news again and occasionally Entertainment tonight. I usually avoid the living room while this is going on but I'll wander through at some point. It seems to me that the news is getting worse. Local news has always felt very fear based, but the national and even the entertainment feels like the end of the world.

So, I'll breeze through the room, stay long enough to get depressed, then go back to a computer game or a book.

This is not to say that I'm in the dark - I follow the news a lot on the web. In that case, though, I can take a little more open approach and mix up some of the good and bad and the other.

I understand keeping people informed, but I wonder how much of this is a self-fulfilling prophecy? If the news reports an economy in trouble, will people then behave in ways that make it worse? If a shortage on goods is reported, will that lead to a run on that good across the country? I'm not saying we should keep our head in the sand, but I just don't get all the bad news.

Instead of the news, I played a new game last night - God of War, Chains of Olympus. Interesting story - someone has kidnapped the sun god Helios and without him, everyone is falling asleep - including the greek gods themselves. And then the god of sleep is taking over. Good story, good controls, not always quite as clear where to go. I can only play it for so long since the PSP is little less comfortable to hold than the Playstation controller.

I'm in training this week for some new software. It's not too bad, but the timing is a little rough - so much going on.

Better get back to looking like I'm paying attention.

later...

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