I'm Not Even Angry, I'm Being So Sincere Right Now, Even Though You Broke My Heart, & Killed Me, & Tore Me To Pieces, & Threw Every Piece Into A Fire

--"Still Alive", Jonathon Coulton (sung by GLaDOS)



STILL ALIVE
by Jonathon Coulton

This was a triumph.
I'm making a note here:
HUGE SUCCESS.
It's hard to overstate
My satisfaction.
Aperture Science--
We do what we must
Because we can
For the good of all of us
Except the ones who are dead.
But there's no sense crying
Over every mistake.
You just keep on trying
Till you run out of cake.
And the Science gets done
And you make a neat gun
For the people who are
Still alive.


I'm not even angry.
I'm being so sincere right now.
Even though you broke my heart.
And killed me.
And tore me to pieces.
And threw every piece into a fire.
As they burned it hurt because
I was so happy for you!
Now these points of data
Make a beautiful line.
And we're out of beta.
We're releasing on time.
So I'm glad I got burned.
Think of all the things we learned
For the people who are
Still alive.

Go ahead and leave me.
I think I prefer to stay inside.
Maybe you'll find someone else
To help you.
Maybe Black Mesa...
THAT WAS A JOKE, HA HA, FAT CHANCE.
Anyway this cake is great.
It's so delicious and moist.
Look at me still talking when there's Science to do.
When I look out there
It makes me glad I'm not you.
I've experiments to run.
There is research to be done
On the people who are
Still alive.

And believe me I am still alive.
I'm doing science and I'm still alive.
I feel fantastic and I'm still alive.
While your dying I'll be still alive.
And when your dead I will be still alive.
Still alive.
Still alive.

----

Before yesterday Portal, the computer game was barely a blip on my radar. I'd heard of it in passing if only because I still sometimes check on all the old computer and video gaming websites that I was once addicted every so often. All the reviews and buzz regarding the game seemed to have been positive--just not positive enough to have compelled me to go out and buy an XBOX 360 or Playstation3 to play the game for myself.

Yesterday, though, I was reading through Felicia Day's blog when she posted up a video of her singing "Still Alive" at the Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle this past weekend. What can I say? I totally fell in love with the song. Not only is it catchy, but there's a sense of humor to it that's hard to locate in most other songs. That's when I found out, not only is it a video game song (from the aforementioned Portal), but it's sung by the game's nemesis, evil boss, what have you &... as a final taunt to the game's heroine. Well, that just brought to mind all sorts of funny images. HAL, the computer from Wall-E, and even the aliens from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy--all of the great bureaucratic characters with their over-amplified sense of politeness even as they're stabbing you in the back made for some of the great villains in our time.

GLaDOS, the villain from Portal trumps them all, I'd say, because she does all her plotting with refined manners and a hilarious repertoire of self-help slogans and psychobabble jargon. As Wikipedia describes her:

Over the course of the game, GLaDOS' motives are hinted to be more sinister than her helpful demeanor suggests. Although she is designed to appear helpful and encouraging, GLaDOS's actions and speech suggest insincerity and callous disregard for the safety and well-being of the test subjects. The test chambers become increasingly dangerous as Chell proceeds, and GLaDOS even directs Chell through "a live-fire course designed for military androids" due to the usual test chamber being under repair. In another chamber, GLaDOS boasts about the fidelity and importance of the "Weighted Companion Cube", a waist-high crate with a single large pink heart on each face, for helping Chell to complete the chamber, but then declares that it "unfortunately must be euthanized" in an "emergency intelligence incinerator" before Chell can continue.[19] Some of the later chambers include automated turrets with child-like voices that fire upon Chell, only to sympathize with her after being disabled ("I don't blame you." and "No hard feelings.").

I don't know--the very idea of a petulant and snarky computer tickles me to no end. Not only does it make me curious to play the game, but it also calls to mind how it's not so far off to see that kind of behavior in real-life people.

----

On Saturday, I went to what I thought was another board game meeting in Torrance. I was all prepared to break out my copy of Agricola and teach it to the unfortunate masses who had never had the pleasure of playing it before. I expected it to be to exactly like all my other boardgamers club meetings--a gathering of people who lived and breathed Euro-style boardgames.

I think the first tip-off should have been the fact that it was held at a church. Churches and me have never mixed--well, occupied churches, that is. Abandoned churches are fine if a certain Southern belle is with me. The moment I walked into that church I had a bad feeling that the meeting wasn't going to turn out as I expected. Yet I had hope. Appearances can be deceiving and I was willing to let the evening play out in the hopes that I would have a location much closer to home with which to alleviate my gaming itch.

The second tip-off was twofold. The first is the fact that none of the people who arrived were all that gung-ho about starting up a game. The meeting time was written as 6:30. I don't believe the first game hit the table till close to 7:15. Forty-five minutes is an eternity when you're expecting to start a game as soon as you arrive. Couple that with the fact that I'm used to games being started within five or ten minutes after the meeting starts and you can see how I started to think that these people weren't exactly gamers of my mentality. Secondly, before the games even started (again, almost an hour after start time), the entire group gathered in a circle to pray.

Pray.

PRAY!

Who the hell prays before playing board games? I don't even pray when it's supposed to be a time to pray. I don't know why anyone would expect me to pray when it's my own time I'm wasting.

That's when I figured out where I was. All the nice welcomes and "how are you doing?" weren't just good manners. The folks there were buttering me up so I could join their little coven. I mean--had they announced it as a church meeting I would have declined the invitation, but I wouldn't have thought less of them. It's the very notion of being nice to a person only to try to recruit them that bothered me. Yes, they could have been naturally happy people for all I knew, but when you obscure the agenda because you're afraid people are going to be turned off by it, that smacks of censorship. I hate the feeling of being lied to. I hate the sensation that I'm the last person to know what's really going on. And that's the sensation I got when I started overhearing the conversations around me.

It was bad enough that their idea of great games were Monopoly, Risk, and Pokeno (Pokeno for chrissakes isn't even a game you play; the game plays you!), they had to go so far as to proclaim themselves a game club. What they were and what they will always be is a church group that happens to play games, which is fine. I have no problem with them billing themselves as such. But when you go through the trouble of advertising on gaming networks and forums, you should put the gaming first (which they don't). Nothing else--and I mean nothing else--especially gods, idols, or damn superstitions should be anywhere near top priority at meetings.

I mean--I've been preached to before. When your best friend is heavy into the G-O-D thing, it's hard not to listen to a lecture or two. But at least she has the decency to be open about, at least she has the fortitude to let me know she wants to see me saved. When you promote an air of secrecy about your intentions, when you have to cloak your purpose with lies, you're playing on the dark side.

It doesn't matter how nice you are and that you claim you're only trying to be helpful. Helping someone entails earning their trust, being honest with them. When your help only comes at the cost of being tricked--well, that's the kind of assistance that I don't need.

Not only did this church group ruin one of the few days I have off, but they left a bad taste in my mouth at the fact that even something that brings joy to me can be tainted with the stink of religion.

That's why I find the character of GLaDOS so hilarious because she's every religion in the world to me. They'll lie to your face and act like they're helping, but the minute you try to go another direction it's all fire and brimstone for you. Suddenly, you're on the wrong side of their good graces and they're coming after you to right yourself.

It doesn't matter how nice of a person or organization you are; if your intentions are not straightforward, you're evil.

Fucking evil.

Case closed.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

JoCo and Felicia Day singing "Still Alive" at PAX 2008