Setting: The town library, after school this week. I go to extract Shackleton from a computer where he is playing a game on-line. I watch for a moment. I like the graphics - just stick figures wandering around an outdoor cafe. Then I see that the player (i.e. Shackleton) is focusing on them as through a rifle scope. The object, apparently, is to shoot the figures in their round dot heads, which then become red blots, if the shot is successful. The game, I see, is called "Assassin."
Me: Oh my God! That is terrible!
Shackleton: What?
Me: "Assassin?!" Shooting people in head?
Shackleton: Well, you can't shoot them anyplace else. I've tried. Like, if you shoot them in the middle you would think that would cut them in half, but it doesn't.
Me: That's awful. I don't want you playing that game. Play something nice, like Club Penguin.
Shackleton: Club Penguin is boring. You can't shoot the heads off the penguins.
Me: Yes, that's part of its charm.
Shackleton: Oh man!
. . .
(For the record, Shack was laughing during all this.)
In other news, I had a lovely mid-day hike in the woods on Thursday with my new phone/camera in my pocket - not the iPhone I coveted and had briefly last month but a much inferior thing from Verizon. But that is water over the dam. You may be surprised (NOT!) to learn that I took a few pictures on this walk, including today's banner.
It wasn't easy. The sun was so bright I couldn't really see the screen and I still don't know how to work the thing. I just pointed and took a snap of faith. I almost skipped that walk because I had a bunch of other things to do, but it was the high point of a dull week. So, here are just a couple more pictures of my favorite woods.
7 comments:
it will be in the 60's this weekend, here in kansas.
just had to share that with you after seeing all the snow....
Not bad pics for a phone. As for temps, mid-50's here and I'm in shorts.
Huzzah!
Cheers.
Great photos. I can see spring almost beginning over here now and I feel almost cheerful. Share your views on the game by the way. But children seem less perturbed than we ever do by such things.
The boys do love their killing games, don't they?
I am very impressed with the quality of your photos from your phone, mine have a horrible yellow tinge to them so I don't really bother using it. Shame because I kind of hate lugging around my camera!
What model is it?
R and Deb - The Snow is _Good_ now because it is hanging around only in the woods and the mountains, where it is welcome (by me and the people who run ski resorts) and is off the roads! Also, it is nice and bright. So, I am not, at the moment, in a rush for the final melt off. I am glad you are enjoying your own warm temperatures, however.
Hi Madame - Thanks for the kind words. I think I spent as much time trying to take pictures that day as I did walking. Lots of stabbing at the phone and kind of guessing what the lens was seeing since I couldn't make out the image on the screen. As for violent computer games, the one my son was playing was sort of a cartoon, and still a bit (or more than a bit) horrible. They have simulation games that are really life like now and I have to wonder what it's doing to the boys who play them...
Hi Denise - I'll have to ask my daughter, who is 12 now and has become the family IT department. It's not a Blackberry or anything else I have ever heard of.
Great snow, hard to believe the difference between that and the weather in Kansas eh?
Kids - what can you do?
Post a Comment