Flit

A SIGNIFICANT OMISSION As important

A SIGNIFICANT OMISSION

As important as Jeffrey Goldberg's New Yorker piece on the Iraqis and the Kurds is, its opening tableau of a gas attack on the Kurds is somewhat disingenuous. The writer focusses on the 1988 attack on Halabja, and the effects on its civilians. Yet he also writes that the Iranians, then at war with the Iraqis, controlled the town at the time. A logical explanation, not strongly put forward in the New Yorker piece, is that the Iraqis were using gas to dislodge the Iranians and the Kurdish civilians were caught in a chemical crossfire. This is appalling, of course, but it's not necessarily genocidal. (Thanks to the nattering nabobs at Sgt. Stryker for the reminder.)

I NOT ONLY KNOW THESE

I NOT ONLY KNOW THESE GUYS... I AM ONE OF THESE GUYS

All my thoughts on the Oscars, in a nutshell.

THING OF BEAUTY: JAMES LILEKS

THING OF BEAUTY: JAMES LILEKS

"It also turns out that a British organization, Indict, is already pursuing an indictment against Saddam for war crimes."

And the Belgian organization Frown is already drafting plans to mount an international campaign of scowling, which will force his regime to divert precious resources to rubber chickens, joy-buzzers and Singing Telegram Gorillas to improve their standing abroad. Meanwhile, the French organization Surrender is drafting plans to cede Marseilles to whomever wants it, just in case.

Lileks, today, dismantling the NYT's Nick Kristoff.

DARK AGE OF CAMELOT --

DARK AGE OF CAMELOT -- FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Finally cracked open my Dark Age of Camelot box last night (I passed my exam, so I think I was allowed). For those who don't know, DAoC is a massively multiplayer fantasy roleplaying game, like Everquest but a little more rooted in real human mythology, as opposed to post-Tolkien, bloody-elves-everywhere schlock. I know a couple of the people at Mythic behind the game, and I knew it was going to be a quality product. And it really is, as promised, like "Everquest without the parts that suck." Leveled up to 3 as a Saracen warrior in desultory play on the Nimue server, and here's a few newbie impressions.

Pros: The newbie zones on Nimue are refreshingly empty, actually. It was fairly easy to find oneself alone when hunting, and there was none of the mass mini-mob, rat carrion-everywhere insanity of Freeport gate, say. I also really liked the quick customization of the characters... it always bothered me in EQ taking so long to make my character look even slightly different from the others. Each armor piece changes your appearance slightly, and after I bought a nice blue cloak I was clearly my own person. The initial forest zone is pretty enough, although not as scary as some EQ forests. The default mouse/keyboard settings were clunky (who plays like that?) but it was easy enough to reconfigure. Of course, installation, the manual, the help tips were all professional and trouble-free, as one expects from Mythic. Best of all, there were a ton of good names for characters still available on the server, including basically all of the so-called Arthurian "House of Babylon" (Saracen relatives of Sir Palomides). Amazingly, I picked up "Safere," as in Sir Safere, brother of Palomides, one of the minor characters in Malory. That was one of my big hopes for DAoC, actually, that it would allow one to roleplay one of the minor Arthurian knights, one of those whose "story had never made the books." I was really surprised it was that easy. Now I just need to figure out how to create Safere's "or chequy vert" coat of arms...

Cons: Not much chatter, yet: we'll see if that changes. It's not that I miss typing "gratz" everytime someone says "ding" but it would have been nice to have had one interchange with another human player. Maybe that'll improve higher up. The mobs (monsters) are less aggressive and threatening than EQ... none of them came after me, or ganged up. Unlike, say, fire beetles at Qeynos, attacking one didn't bring them all down on me. I saw some too-big-to-handle monsters, but nothing ever tried to chase me, either. Maybe their AI gets better further out. Also there was a lot more lag than I would have thought, for a fairly empty server, with monsters blink-dogging away from their locations a fair bit.

Anyway, the first month is free, so I'll mess around a little longer. I'm looking forward to trying out the Norse and Celtic mythological areas, too.