A long time SkateFan and close friend of mine resides in Cleveland, home of the 2009 US Nationals. She's started a blog to provide nationals coverage plus maybe some neato local tips and tricks for getting around, where to eat, where to see and be seen, etc. Okay, maybe just some great coverage of Nationals.
If you're going to be there, or if you'd just like to pretend you are, drop by Ought Nine Nationals:
http://oughtninenationals.wordpress.com/.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
REVIEW: Imagine Figure Skater
I'm not sure if I should be comforted or not that the game begins with a disclaimer that "rules and techniques have been changed from real-life." It's not an auspicious beginning. One wonders what they got right and what they got wrong... and how annoying it will be. But, I soldier on.
First, I choose a skater. All choices are girls in the large-eyed, cute anime style. I'm going for the pink-haired pixie with the pony-tails. Her response is an annoying, high-pitched, "I did it!" Now, I get a coach, a young anglo-looking woman with green eyes and wavy brown hair. Her name is May Summers. She's a world-class coach and is strict, but not tough without a reason. Summers introduces some of her famous, former students, causing my first cringe of the game. One student was the first in the world to ever complete a "Quadruple Spin Jump." Perhaps this is just a translation error (this the literal translation of the term used in Japanese). I'll let it slide for now. Now Summers introduces my avatar, saying she's been skating since she was 3 and is very talented and hard working.
It appears from the top screen that I'll have weekly goals and a monthly competition. The first one is the Town Competition. The first week, the goal is to increase stamina and learn a double toe loop (incorrectly capitalized as Double Toe Loop). The coach cautions you not to just skate. You must interact with people to "grow as a person and become more expressive." You must win competitions to earn training money. As you earn training money, your KP increases--don't ask me what KP is other than Kitchen Patrol. Maybe I shoulda read that manual! Oh now, wait, with KP, I can... go shopping?!?!? Say WHA?
After this long speech, the interface dumps me out next to the ice surface. I click on the Coach's Office and once inside, Coach Summers explains that the best way to raise my stamina is to play mini-games. She also wants me to visit the Training Center. Back out in the hall, I click on the Rink and trade small talk with the rink owner. That was pointless. Trying the Exit puts us on a cute map of the town. You can scroll right and left with the pink arrows at the bottom.
Next, I go to the Training Center to meet my square-jawwed and OH SO HOT, conditioning coach Kline. But it's the annoying Julie, making fun of how weak I am, who shows me the conditioning game to increase my stamina. She explains how a skater has three basic attributes: Stamina, Coordination, and Artistry (Presenation!). Without Stamina, you can't complete your program. You collapse at the end if you have too little Stamina left. The more difficult the move, the more Stamina it uses. Coordination improves your items. The game simulates this by reducing the amount of time you have to input your moves. Artistry improves your spins. You need both Coordination and Artistry for steps (footwork) to improve. Also, you're limited to raising each attribute a maximum of one level per week, which I suppose encourages you to become well-rounded as working extra hard on Stamina won't help you beyond that first point. Wish you could make skaters do that in real life!
The first mini-game is pretty easy. I have to eat sushi to raise my Stamina. OH HURT ME! Mom, make 'em STOP! They're making me eat SUSHI! I got my first Stamina point. And back in town, the School building has little sun-rays coming from it. I go there and find two people at the School Gate. Julie is there, mean as ever, so is the adorable Kevin. Whoops! My avatar is blushing. Kevin's got a crush on me! Julie is not amused.
Back in town, there's someone standing by My Room so I go in. Mom gives me money, tells me my wallet only holds 9990 KP and that I should come home any time to save.
At the rink, I get on the ice to learn the double toe. First, I get to change into my practice outfit. I have three choices of hairstyle, but only one dress. Fair enough. I guess this is the point of shopping, you get to buy dresses and accessories and other... stuff. (The choosing of clothes before practice gets REALLY OLD about half way through the game. There's not enough cool clothing either, you run out of things to buy.)
Now dressed and on the ice, Coach Summers explains what a toe loop is (correctly!) how the jumping system works. To do a jump, a pattern appears on the screen. You have to trace it with the stylus the required number of times. For a double toe loop, I have to trace a circle two times. I'm not a terribly coordinated person, but I'm able to do it okay after
a couple of tries. Each time I do the jump correctly, I get the option
to practice or leave the rink. As the jumps get harder, the patterns get more complex and supposedly more difficult. As with real skating, the harder jumps are sometimes easier for some people. I STILL can't do a double toe loop, but can toss off quad Axels with aplomb.
Back in the coach's office, she gives me my next week's assignment. I have to increase my Coordination and learn an upright spin. When I get out of the coach's office, I find a cute little doggie outside the rink. I take him to the skate shop since Mom is allergic to dogs and Mr Kelly agrees to keep him--nice bit of narrative there. Then its back to the rink to do the Coordination game which requires me hurl Curling rocks at penguins on the ice. COOL!
After that, it's time to practice learn my upright spin. For some ODD reason, the upper screen shows this as a "stand spin," (a Japanese term) but, oh well. The spinning controls are pretty easy. You scrub the stylus back and forth within a defined space to control your spinning speed. When I have raised my stats, learned my new item and visited pretty much every available place in town, I'm prompted to go see the coach who congratulates me and introduces my new tasks for the week.
The game goes on like this week after week. There are six mini-games: sushi eating, penguin squishing, cake decorating, poster puzzles, snow-flake catching, and locker matching. Unfortunately for me, I suck at half of them, so I was able to use only three of the six mini-games to raise my stats. Suffice it to say, the mini-games got old about half way through (it took about 15 hours to finish), and none of them got really difficult until the last quarter of the game--and then they got freaking impossible! Though in general, that's more due to my lack of eye-hand coordination than it really is to the difficulty of the game. My fast-twitch teen daughter does just fine with both the mini-games and the competition. My middlest, age 8, does less well. She has trouble both with the mini-games and the competitions... the game might be a bit too "old" for her... not that it's going to stop her from playing, just that it creates a bit of frustration.
What is really engaging about the game is the narrative. Your avatar gets her jumps, but she also has to navigate multiple skating and romantic rivalries, including two boys who both like her. She also struggles with her school work, finally succeeding through hard work and extra studying. There's even an adorable stray dog named "Milk." The constant flattery from the other characters was a bit syrupy, but I think it might build self-esteem for girls in the target age range. Anyway, the story is a delight and the characters have much more depth than you'd imagine. I also like how you never really come to like Julie. It's not very American for there to be people you simply don't like--seems like everyone's got to group-hug at the end, ya'know?
The competitive framework isn't too bad. There are multiple competitions. Each level has its own set of rivalries. You get a choice of three program "patterns" one of which you can make yourself. After you choose a pattern, you can have the coach choose your jumps and spins or you can choose them yourself. I did notice that coach often chose an easier set of jumps than I would have--making it much harder to win, as the scoring system is a variant of Code of Points (CoP). So after the first comp, I chose my own jumps, though I often used one of the pre-made patterns. It would have helped if the game showed some more information about the items, specifically: Stamina cost, Stamina remaining, points earned, and total points for the program so far. But, it's not the the most difficult thing in the world to make a decent program that will win, just choose the hardest items which are always towards the bottom of the screen. For the world comp, you can eschew combinations in favor of quad jumps, there's no Zayak Rule to prevent you.
You get one chance to run-through your program before the competition, and that brings up one of the major game-play flaws. The ONLY time you get to practice combination jumps, is in the run-through. It takes practice to get the timing right and it's impossible to know if you can complete a particular combo before choosing it because you can't practice it. And you don't get to rework the program before the competition if you happen to choose (or the coach chooses) a combination you can't do. Fortunately, if you don't make the cut (3rd, 2nd or 1st depending on the comp), you can go back and re-skate from the long, the short, or the beginning of the month. I ended up reskating a fair amount, at least once for every competition beyond Regionals.
The music will be familiar to most rabid skate fans. In fact, for 15 hours, I racked my brains trying to remember where I'd heard "Nobody Sleeps," one of the first songs you can skate to along with Bolero. It wasn't until I was getting in the shower after finishing the game that I thought, "Nessun Dorma! I'm such an idiot." While you run out of music to buy half way through the game, most skate fans will be happy to know that Maleguena didn't make the cut and does not appear, nor does Paint it Black or On the Waterfront. The music is tinny and repetitive, but you have to give the developers props for choosing the most hackneyed skating music on earth. It proves they're paying attention.
Of course, one wishes they actually WATCHED some skating before they did the animations. Things have not just been "changed." I can cope with the misspellings and poor translations. I can cope (barely) with the sexist remarks about the restaurant run by women. I can cope with the minor changes to point values. I can cope with the fact that there's no Zayak Rule. I can cope with the Technical and "Artistry" marks. I can almost but not quite cope with the high pitched "I did it" every time your avatar lands a jump (majorly annoying). What I can't cope with is that they got the animations wrong.
All the spins are entered from three turns. Three turns. Yeah, me too. I have literally NEVER seen a spin entered like this in ice skating. In roller skating, yes, but only camels. On ice, NEVER. There's no butterfly on the Death Drop. It's just a sit spin. The Flying Camel doesn't fly, but the traveling camel, which should be entered from three turns, has a flying entry. The Back Scratch spin is just a medium-fast upright with the foot held high instead of being down near the other skate. The Cross Foot Spin is actually a Back Scratch not a Cross Foot. They also have something called an "Upwards" camel, which looks like an inverted (from roller skating) or a very extreme Harding spin. It's something basically almost never seen in ice skating. The layback position is bad: poor back position, poor leg position, poor foot position, and it never improves.
Worse, though the coach's description of the jumps is mostly correct (only mostly), the jumps themselves don't look all that different from one another. You never see the feet to tell, only the mid-body--shades of NBC's skating coverage. Jumps are often under-rotated or worse, rotated fully and landed on the wrong foot! Your skater visibly changes feet. No deduction is made.
Footwork is a similar travesty, though they got the straight line, circular, and serpentine correct. Your avatar never does anything that really looks like footwork and at times, often appears to lose her balance. When you finish the simple puzzle that makes the footwork happen, your avatar just strokes through the rest of the pattern.
One thing they did do fairly well was the spirals. Spirals don't require you to do anything. They are a resting section. Rather than using a standard arabesque position spiral, they use the peeing-on-a-hydrant side spiral position. Kind of odd. But, there's also a Beillman (really a half-Beillman) and an absolutely lovely Ina Bauer. It's so beautiful, you get the feeling that Shizuka Arakawa posed for it. Of course, they usually have the Ina Bauer on an edge or curve, something you never see in real life.
Much of that sounds very damning, but it really isn't. Educated, rabid skate fans and former skaters aren't really the target market for this game. The target market is girls ages 8 to 12. Most of these girls are not skaters themselves and wouldn’t know a Lutz from a layback. The inaccuracies in the skating scenes didn't bother my daughters in the least. They didn't know any better.
No, I'd say the most important measure of a game like this is, "is it fun?" The answer is a resounding, high-pitched "YES."
Imagine Figure Skater was fun--loads of fun--fifteen whole hours of fun. My daughter was addicted immediately and so was I. I loved the narrative. I like the interface for the most part. I even got nervous when I was "skating" in a competition. It was so much fun I considered asking for a Nintendo DS Lite for myself for Christmas!
Imagine Figure Skater is a delight. Buy it for the tweener girl in your life. I'm sure she won't tell if she catches you playing it.
First, I choose a skater. All choices are girls in the large-eyed, cute anime style. I'm going for the pink-haired pixie with the pony-tails. Her response is an annoying, high-pitched, "I did it!" Now, I get a coach, a young anglo-looking woman with green eyes and wavy brown hair. Her name is May Summers. She's a world-class coach and is strict, but not tough without a reason. Summers introduces some of her famous, former students, causing my first cringe of the game. One student was the first in the world to ever complete a "Quadruple Spin Jump." Perhaps this is just a translation error (this the literal translation of the term used in Japanese). I'll let it slide for now. Now Summers introduces my avatar, saying she's been skating since she was 3 and is very talented and hard working.
It appears from the top screen that I'll have weekly goals and a monthly competition. The first one is the Town Competition. The first week, the goal is to increase stamina and learn a double toe loop (incorrectly capitalized as Double Toe Loop). The coach cautions you not to just skate. You must interact with people to "grow as a person and become more expressive." You must win competitions to earn training money. As you earn training money, your KP increases--don't ask me what KP is other than Kitchen Patrol. Maybe I shoulda read that manual! Oh now, wait, with KP, I can... go shopping?!?!? Say WHA?
After this long speech, the interface dumps me out next to the ice surface. I click on the Coach's Office and once inside, Coach Summers explains that the best way to raise my stamina is to play mini-games. She also wants me to visit the Training Center. Back out in the hall, I click on the Rink and trade small talk with the rink owner. That was pointless. Trying the Exit puts us on a cute map of the town. You can scroll right and left with the pink arrows at the bottom.
Next, I go to the Training Center to meet my square-jawwed and OH SO HOT, conditioning coach Kline. But it's the annoying Julie, making fun of how weak I am, who shows me the conditioning game to increase my stamina. She explains how a skater has three basic attributes: Stamina, Coordination, and Artistry (Presenation!). Without Stamina, you can't complete your program. You collapse at the end if you have too little Stamina left. The more difficult the move, the more Stamina it uses. Coordination improves your items. The game simulates this by reducing the amount of time you have to input your moves. Artistry improves your spins. You need both Coordination and Artistry for steps (footwork) to improve. Also, you're limited to raising each attribute a maximum of one level per week, which I suppose encourages you to become well-rounded as working extra hard on Stamina won't help you beyond that first point. Wish you could make skaters do that in real life!
The first mini-game is pretty easy. I have to eat sushi to raise my Stamina. OH HURT ME! Mom, make 'em STOP! They're making me eat SUSHI! I got my first Stamina point. And back in town, the School building has little sun-rays coming from it. I go there and find two people at the School Gate. Julie is there, mean as ever, so is the adorable Kevin. Whoops! My avatar is blushing. Kevin's got a crush on me! Julie is not amused.
Back in town, there's someone standing by My Room so I go in. Mom gives me money, tells me my wallet only holds 9990 KP and that I should come home any time to save.
At the rink, I get on the ice to learn the double toe. First, I get to change into my practice outfit. I have three choices of hairstyle, but only one dress. Fair enough. I guess this is the point of shopping, you get to buy dresses and accessories and other... stuff. (The choosing of clothes before practice gets REALLY OLD about half way through the game. There's not enough cool clothing either, you run out of things to buy.)
Now dressed and on the ice, Coach Summers explains what a toe loop is (correctly!) how the jumping system works. To do a jump, a pattern appears on the screen. You have to trace it with the stylus the required number of times. For a double toe loop, I have to trace a circle two times. I'm not a terribly coordinated person, but I'm able to do it okay after
a couple of tries. Each time I do the jump correctly, I get the option
to practice or leave the rink. As the jumps get harder, the patterns get more complex and supposedly more difficult. As with real skating, the harder jumps are sometimes easier for some people. I STILL can't do a double toe loop, but can toss off quad Axels with aplomb.
Back in the coach's office, she gives me my next week's assignment. I have to increase my Coordination and learn an upright spin. When I get out of the coach's office, I find a cute little doggie outside the rink. I take him to the skate shop since Mom is allergic to dogs and Mr Kelly agrees to keep him--nice bit of narrative there. Then its back to the rink to do the Coordination game which requires me hurl Curling rocks at penguins on the ice. COOL!
After that, it's time to practice learn my upright spin. For some ODD reason, the upper screen shows this as a "stand spin," (a Japanese term) but, oh well. The spinning controls are pretty easy. You scrub the stylus back and forth within a defined space to control your spinning speed. When I have raised my stats, learned my new item and visited pretty much every available place in town, I'm prompted to go see the coach who congratulates me and introduces my new tasks for the week.
The game goes on like this week after week. There are six mini-games: sushi eating, penguin squishing, cake decorating, poster puzzles, snow-flake catching, and locker matching. Unfortunately for me, I suck at half of them, so I was able to use only three of the six mini-games to raise my stats. Suffice it to say, the mini-games got old about half way through (it took about 15 hours to finish), and none of them got really difficult until the last quarter of the game--and then they got freaking impossible! Though in general, that's more due to my lack of eye-hand coordination than it really is to the difficulty of the game. My fast-twitch teen daughter does just fine with both the mini-games and the competition. My middlest, age 8, does less well. She has trouble both with the mini-games and the competitions... the game might be a bit too "old" for her... not that it's going to stop her from playing, just that it creates a bit of frustration.
What is really engaging about the game is the narrative. Your avatar gets her jumps, but she also has to navigate multiple skating and romantic rivalries, including two boys who both like her. She also struggles with her school work, finally succeeding through hard work and extra studying. There's even an adorable stray dog named "Milk." The constant flattery from the other characters was a bit syrupy, but I think it might build self-esteem for girls in the target age range. Anyway, the story is a delight and the characters have much more depth than you'd imagine. I also like how you never really come to like Julie. It's not very American for there to be people you simply don't like--seems like everyone's got to group-hug at the end, ya'know?
The competitive framework isn't too bad. There are multiple competitions. Each level has its own set of rivalries. You get a choice of three program "patterns" one of which you can make yourself. After you choose a pattern, you can have the coach choose your jumps and spins or you can choose them yourself. I did notice that coach often chose an easier set of jumps than I would have--making it much harder to win, as the scoring system is a variant of Code of Points (CoP). So after the first comp, I chose my own jumps, though I often used one of the pre-made patterns. It would have helped if the game showed some more information about the items, specifically: Stamina cost, Stamina remaining, points earned, and total points for the program so far. But, it's not the the most difficult thing in the world to make a decent program that will win, just choose the hardest items which are always towards the bottom of the screen. For the world comp, you can eschew combinations in favor of quad jumps, there's no Zayak Rule to prevent you.
You get one chance to run-through your program before the competition, and that brings up one of the major game-play flaws. The ONLY time you get to practice combination jumps, is in the run-through. It takes practice to get the timing right and it's impossible to know if you can complete a particular combo before choosing it because you can't practice it. And you don't get to rework the program before the competition if you happen to choose (or the coach chooses) a combination you can't do. Fortunately, if you don't make the cut (3rd, 2nd or 1st depending on the comp), you can go back and re-skate from the long, the short, or the beginning of the month. I ended up reskating a fair amount, at least once for every competition beyond Regionals.
The music will be familiar to most rabid skate fans. In fact, for 15 hours, I racked my brains trying to remember where I'd heard "Nobody Sleeps," one of the first songs you can skate to along with Bolero. It wasn't until I was getting in the shower after finishing the game that I thought, "Nessun Dorma! I'm such an idiot." While you run out of music to buy half way through the game, most skate fans will be happy to know that Maleguena didn't make the cut and does not appear, nor does Paint it Black or On the Waterfront. The music is tinny and repetitive, but you have to give the developers props for choosing the most hackneyed skating music on earth. It proves they're paying attention.
Of course, one wishes they actually WATCHED some skating before they did the animations. Things have not just been "changed." I can cope with the misspellings and poor translations. I can cope (barely) with the sexist remarks about the restaurant run by women. I can cope with the minor changes to point values. I can cope with the fact that there's no Zayak Rule. I can cope with the Technical and "Artistry" marks. I can almost but not quite cope with the high pitched "I did it" every time your avatar lands a jump (majorly annoying). What I can't cope with is that they got the animations wrong.
All the spins are entered from three turns. Three turns. Yeah, me too. I have literally NEVER seen a spin entered like this in ice skating. In roller skating, yes, but only camels. On ice, NEVER. There's no butterfly on the Death Drop. It's just a sit spin. The Flying Camel doesn't fly, but the traveling camel, which should be entered from three turns, has a flying entry. The Back Scratch spin is just a medium-fast upright with the foot held high instead of being down near the other skate. The Cross Foot Spin is actually a Back Scratch not a Cross Foot. They also have something called an "Upwards" camel, which looks like an inverted (from roller skating) or a very extreme Harding spin. It's something basically almost never seen in ice skating. The layback position is bad: poor back position, poor leg position, poor foot position, and it never improves.
Worse, though the coach's description of the jumps is mostly correct (only mostly), the jumps themselves don't look all that different from one another. You never see the feet to tell, only the mid-body--shades of NBC's skating coverage. Jumps are often under-rotated or worse, rotated fully and landed on the wrong foot! Your skater visibly changes feet. No deduction is made.
Footwork is a similar travesty, though they got the straight line, circular, and serpentine correct. Your avatar never does anything that really looks like footwork and at times, often appears to lose her balance. When you finish the simple puzzle that makes the footwork happen, your avatar just strokes through the rest of the pattern.
One thing they did do fairly well was the spirals. Spirals don't require you to do anything. They are a resting section. Rather than using a standard arabesque position spiral, they use the peeing-on-a-hydrant side spiral position. Kind of odd. But, there's also a Beillman (really a half-Beillman) and an absolutely lovely Ina Bauer. It's so beautiful, you get the feeling that Shizuka Arakawa posed for it. Of course, they usually have the Ina Bauer on an edge or curve, something you never see in real life.
Much of that sounds very damning, but it really isn't. Educated, rabid skate fans and former skaters aren't really the target market for this game. The target market is girls ages 8 to 12. Most of these girls are not skaters themselves and wouldn’t know a Lutz from a layback. The inaccuracies in the skating scenes didn't bother my daughters in the least. They didn't know any better.
No, I'd say the most important measure of a game like this is, "is it fun?" The answer is a resounding, high-pitched "YES."
Imagine Figure Skater was fun--loads of fun--fifteen whole hours of fun. My daughter was addicted immediately and so was I. I loved the narrative. I like the interface for the most part. I even got nervous when I was "skating" in a competition. It was so much fun I considered asking for a Nintendo DS Lite for myself for Christmas!
Imagine Figure Skater is a delight. Buy it for the tweener girl in your life. I'm sure she won't tell if she catches you playing it.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Janet Lynn Speaks
For those of us not lucky or dialed-in enough to attend this year's governing counsel, Janet Lynn gave a speech at the Alumni Dinner. I haven't seen this bandied about on the net too much. It hasn't been mentioned on Skatefans. But About.com has the full transcript of Janet Lynn's speech and it looks like a gem.
Without further ado, I give you the timeless Janet Lynn:
Without further ado, I give you the timeless Janet Lynn:
When I was a new figure skater at age 2_1/2, little did I know that I was being entrusted with a unique and graceful culture and language that has brought joy to generations of skaters and observers. Many of us hold in trust the inheritance of our beautiful sport and art. Perhaps we can be inspired to find the best ways to transfer these treasures in healthy, excellent, practical ways to future generations of figure skaters.The speech goes on for another 11 pages... enjoy.
I invite you to consider with me the question: From Whence Comes the Joy of Figure Skating?
Why do skaters start to skate? What compelled people throughout history to find ways to glide on ice and develop art forms with etchings and movements? Why did you start to skate, or be involved in skating? Why did I? Why are we still drawn to our sport and art?
What draws observers to enter into this magnificent gift of movement across a frozen surface? Is it the sense of freedom? Is it when the illustrious skating language touches the soul of an observer?
I have concluded after years of consideration that the motivation to enter into the world of figure skating, whether as a skater, an observer, or in some other way, results from some sense of joy. In my experience, two of the main sources for the joy of figure skating are:
I was welcomed into a culture of figure skating that beckoned me to come and have fun! Come and glide and learn, and play on the ice with Turns…. Edges….. Stroking…. Hops….Jumps…. and Spins! Feel the fresh air flow across your face! See how fast you can skate! How many interesting ways can you can turn and glide on ice? Oh yes, there’s music! Can you find ways for your feet and knees to express the rhythm of that music? You are welcome to glide and play…… join those who are drawn to moving across a frozen pond! Strengthen your body…. learn a fascinating language on ice…. get lost in practice… then fly and be free!
- the graceful culture of figure skating
- the graceful language of figure skating.
Figure skating has often been said to lift the human spirit. To those who have experienced this exuberance, skating reminds us of something grand in our lives, and it draws us back to its goodness.
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Don't buy your books from Amazon
So, it's been a long time since I've posted. Lots of reasons. Mainly, I guess, that I've been busy with paying work--a contract that went south a couple weeks ago leaving me high, dry and as usual, broke. In the meantime, Amazon.com did something appalling. And it concerns me because:
1) I am an Amazon stockholder; and,
2) because I have long planned to publish the On the Edge books under Private Ice's own imprint using Print on Demand to print them.
Basically, Amazon bought BookSurge, one of the minor players in POD printing a couple years ago. That printer had an appalling rep for low quality, bad service, and shady business. Recently, publishers which print with with major POD printer (LSI) have been getting calls from BookSurge saying "switch to us for printing or else." The "or else" was "or else we'll turn off your book's buy buttons, meaning that to get books sold on Amazon you have to pay to have them stocked ($29/yr plus small quantity postage every time Amazon wants a few more) or you have to say good-bye to the lifeline of Amazon sales--most small and micro publishers rely on Amazon sales almost exclusively since bookstores won't carry them. You can read more about Amazon's extortionate demands in Let BookSurge Print Your Books, or Else... and IT'S NOT OVER! Amazon Tells Publishers, Pay Us To Print Your Books...Or Else and at the Amazon BookSurge Information Clearinghouse
Now, most of you are readers, not publishers, not writers, how does Amazon's move affect you? Well, say you want to buy a POD printed book (and they come from big publishers as well as small). You won't get free shipping. You might have to buy it from Amazon Marketplace and pay whatever shipping a third party wants to charge. Even if you do get free shipping, to make up the losses that Booksurge's higher printing costs and higher discounting demands cause (or the increased costs of Amazon (dis)Advantage, publishers will have to raise prices... by 30-50%. That's coming out of YOUR POCKET. What's more, eventually, Amazon will remove all LSI printed books from their catalog... that's right, they will tell you which books you can buy and which ones you can't. It's just plain fascist.
But say you're a traditionally published author, the travails of POD crap-houses don't concern you. How do you think your backlist gets printed? Right. POD. So when a buyer orders your book from Amazon and it comes with cover on screwy or the last 4 pages missing, who do you think they're going to blame? Not Amazon, whom they don't even know is responsible! But it'll make YOU look bad. Not only that, but in order to be available both at Amazon and at regular bookstores, your publisher will have to maintain accounts at BOTH LSI and Booksurge, raising the costs of producing books and lowering your eventual payday... higher costs means fewer books bought, lower advances, and an eventual hit to your pocketbook.
This is a bad move for everyone: authors, publishers, customers, stockholders. Amazon is not known for backing down in the face of even overwhelming public disapproval, but they will notice if we stop shopping there. So despite being a stockholder, I encourage you to STOP spending your money at Amazon. Use their web site to do research, but order and buy elsewhere. Don't point people there for book purchases. If you can get along without revenue from Amazon Associates Program, take those links down. Send letters to Amazon's Investor Relations at ir@amazon.com. Sign the Stop the BookSurge Monopoly petition.
Here's the text of my email to Amazon:
If BookSurge cannot compete in the marketplace, they should not use Amazon's large market share (more than 10% of the US book market) to force people to use their more expensive, lower quality service.
1) I am an Amazon stockholder; and,
2) because I have long planned to publish the On the Edge books under Private Ice's own imprint using Print on Demand to print them.
Basically, Amazon bought BookSurge, one of the minor players in POD printing a couple years ago. That printer had an appalling rep for low quality, bad service, and shady business. Recently, publishers which print with with major POD printer (LSI) have been getting calls from BookSurge saying "switch to us for printing or else." The "or else" was "or else we'll turn off your book's buy buttons, meaning that to get books sold on Amazon you have to pay to have them stocked ($29/yr plus small quantity postage every time Amazon wants a few more) or you have to say good-bye to the lifeline of Amazon sales--most small and micro publishers rely on Amazon sales almost exclusively since bookstores won't carry them. You can read more about Amazon's extortionate demands in Let BookSurge Print Your Books, or Else... and IT'S NOT OVER! Amazon Tells Publishers, Pay Us To Print Your Books...Or Else and at the Amazon BookSurge Information Clearinghouse
Now, most of you are readers, not publishers, not writers, how does Amazon's move affect you? Well, say you want to buy a POD printed book (and they come from big publishers as well as small). You won't get free shipping. You might have to buy it from Amazon Marketplace and pay whatever shipping a third party wants to charge. Even if you do get free shipping, to make up the losses that Booksurge's higher printing costs and higher discounting demands cause (or the increased costs of Amazon (dis)Advantage, publishers will have to raise prices... by 30-50%. That's coming out of YOUR POCKET. What's more, eventually, Amazon will remove all LSI printed books from their catalog... that's right, they will tell you which books you can buy and which ones you can't. It's just plain fascist.
But say you're a traditionally published author, the travails of POD crap-houses don't concern you. How do you think your backlist gets printed? Right. POD. So when a buyer orders your book from Amazon and it comes with cover on screwy or the last 4 pages missing, who do you think they're going to blame? Not Amazon, whom they don't even know is responsible! But it'll make YOU look bad. Not only that, but in order to be available both at Amazon and at regular bookstores, your publisher will have to maintain accounts at BOTH LSI and Booksurge, raising the costs of producing books and lowering your eventual payday... higher costs means fewer books bought, lower advances, and an eventual hit to your pocketbook.
This is a bad move for everyone: authors, publishers, customers, stockholders. Amazon is not known for backing down in the face of even overwhelming public disapproval, but they will notice if we stop shopping there. So despite being a stockholder, I encourage you to STOP spending your money at Amazon. Use their web site to do research, but order and buy elsewhere. Don't point people there for book purchases. If you can get along without revenue from Amazon Associates Program, take those links down. Send letters to Amazon's Investor Relations at ir@amazon.com. Sign the Stop the BookSurge Monopoly petition.
Here's the text of my email to Amazon:
To whom it may concern:
I hold a quantity of Amazon stock in my daughter's education account and I am very displeased with recent actions taken against small publishers who use Print on Demand to produce their books. Extortion is not good business. Nor is it good for Amazon's reputation in the marketplace.
There are no good options for most small or micro publishers. CreateSpace is NOT a professional printing option. The cover "template" is laughable. The rights grab in its contract is completely unacceptable to ANY publisher. BookSurge has a history of poor quality, rotten service, dicey business actions. And frankly, this latest doesn't help any. Moreover, thy don't even want customers with fewer than 10 books. How do you think publishers GET to "more than 10"? Amazon "Advantage" is a joke because it's so unprofitable and annoying for the publisher to have to pay postage to mail one or two books at a time.
The reduction in profit is going to either raise the price of books (how does THAT help your customers or us stockholders?) or send many small pubs careening into bankruptcy. Any way you slice it, this wrongheaded policy reduces the number of good books that Amazon has to sell. The vanity publishers have little to lose by signing away their "author's" profits, but many, many small publishers--which would otherwise put out good books that actually sell--will go under and more will never get started. Bad books will remain on Amazon, but many good books will be unavailable. This is NOT good business.
What would be good business? How about improving the contracts so they are attractive and not abusive? How about improving BookSurge's print product and pricing? How about providing MORE value for the money instead of threatening people who Amazon thinks are too small to fight back?
Oh, and for the record, I am an Amazon customer too. And I am so disgusted with the BookSurge debacle that I am boycotting Amazon. Last Christmas, I spent over a thousand dollars at Amazon. I buy all my books there. This year, I will not buy a single book from Amazon. I won't spend a thousand dollars at Christmas. I will take my money to local book stores and to Amazon's bricks and mortar competitors. Why? Because at those stores, I can buy any book I want. They may have to special order it, but they won't tell me what I can or cannot buy based on who publishes it and how it is printed.
If BookSurge cannot compete in the marketplace, they should not use Amazon's large market share (more than 10% of the US book market) to force people to use their more expensive, lower quality service.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Insurance pirates...
Okay, so this was kind of spammed to an email list I am on. It is:
1) hysterical
2) too true
3) about a critical problem here in the US.
My family is very fortunate that we have good healthcare (my husband is military and they have comprehensive healthcare), but I am often concerned about others I know who do not. Many of my friends have no insurance. My own brother had none and ended up with $20K in medical bills in the last year alone. This is something that simply HAS to change and the vested interests will not allow it. Enjoy the video, it's an amusing take on a very serious subject.
1) hysterical
2) too true
3) about a critical problem here in the US.
My family is very fortunate that we have good healthcare (my husband is military and they have comprehensive healthcare), but I am often concerned about others I know who do not. Many of my friends have no insurance. My own brother had none and ended up with $20K in medical bills in the last year alone. This is something that simply HAS to change and the vested interests will not allow it. Enjoy the video, it's an amusing take on a very serious subject.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Ego Surfing in Technicolor...
So, a friend of mine, JulieAnn Henneman got a meme from someone else and didn't know what a meme was... for those who don't, it's an idea that propagates itself across the net in a viral fashion. Anyway, the meme amused me and I decided to try it. Basically, you had to look up your own name and see what kind of images popped up. Since I can't seem to contact some of the illustrators for permission, I am only going to list links where appropriate.
I started with my nickname "dejah." It came from Burroughs Princess of Mars via Heinlein's The Number of the Best--the two Dejah's are very different characters and I reference the namesake rather than the original. But most of the art out there is of the Princess of Mars (who never seemed to wear any clothes). Of the variety of really graphic ones, I like this Dejah Thoris by comic artist Frank Cho.
Interestingly, the shorter version of my nickname "dej" brought up a wealth of unusual photos. Here's what looks like an Indian Chieftain Dejazmatch Balcha Aba Nefso:
Another was a webcam of a town in Romania called Dej.
And this, the Dale Earnhardt Jr Wishbike.
Then I went looking for my real name Mary E Tyler, and among the many images of the book cover for Google Analytics, I found this odd image of a gravestone for a woman with my exact name.
Darn, JulieAnn had a lot of interesting artwork. I get weird sex pictures, motorcycles (how apropos!) and gravestones. Not even a little lamb to temper my amusement!
I started with my nickname "dejah." It came from Burroughs Princess of Mars via Heinlein's The Number of the Best--the two Dejah's are very different characters and I reference the namesake rather than the original. But most of the art out there is of the Princess of Mars (who never seemed to wear any clothes). Of the variety of really graphic ones, I like this Dejah Thoris by comic artist Frank Cho.
Interestingly, the shorter version of my nickname "dej" brought up a wealth of unusual photos. Here's what looks like an Indian Chieftain Dejazmatch Balcha Aba Nefso:
Another was a webcam of a town in Romania called Dej.
And this, the Dale Earnhardt Jr Wishbike.
Then I went looking for my real name Mary E Tyler, and among the many images of the book cover for Google Analytics, I found this odd image of a gravestone for a woman with my exact name.
Darn, JulieAnn had a lot of interesting artwork. I get weird sex pictures, motorcycles (how apropos!) and gravestones. Not even a little lamb to temper my amusement!
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Survery Jones: My Political Compass
It's been a while since I have updated this blog. I've been overwhelmed this summer. For most of the month of June, I was down with kidney stones, a sprained ankle and moving. Since I got better, I have been working my behind off trying to get the city house ready to sell (JUST in time for the housing market to go completely south). But, I was reading Crooks and Liars yesterday morning (as usual) and I came upon this nifty little political test.
The idea behind it is that there are two components to conservatism. There is an economic scale defined by the extremes of Communism (communalism) vs neo-liberalism (libertarianism) and there is a social scale defined by its extremes Authoritarianism (fascism) vs Libertarianism (anarchism). Put more simply: authority vs anarchy and communism vs unrestrained free markets. For example, here's how some famous world leaders rate on the political compass:
So, I took the test (I'd really love to see my neo-con friend Heather take this test. It's interesting!). Here's where I fall:
It appears I am just to the right of Gandhi, which I do not mind. I am a bit more liberal than I though of was, perhaps because of my libertarian leanings (and libertarians normally consider themselves on the right). But on this scale libertarian socially is left while libertarian economically is right and I tend to be more libertarian socially than economically.
But what's really telling is this image from Crooks and Liars about where the candidates fall. Even the MOST liberal of the democrats are FAR more authoritarian and far more economically libertarian. They are not very darned liberal AT ALL. No wonder I am not terribly thrilled about ANY of the presidential candidates!
I should note, at times, I found the test to be a bit too black and white. There were questions where I didn't exactly agree or disagree. Where the question itself seemed unreal. Anyway, so much for my survey jones. I'll be quite pleased when skating season begins again and when I have time to follow it.
--
In other news, my husband made Chief (E7). In the Navy, this is a BIG deal. They put you through a six week indoctrination that involves a lot of silly stuff, more volunteer work, and a whole lot of working late. I am presently conducting my marriage my cell phone. And after 5 years of not smoking, it took exactly five days for the indoc process to stress him out enough that he is back to killing himself.
No, I'm not very happy/
Five weeks and counting til pinning.
--
I've joined a new team blog. I haven't posted yet, due to email problems but when I do, the new blog is Mama Needs a Book Contract. It's a blog about writing and parenting (or in my case, women's issues). Looking forward to seeing you there!
The idea behind it is that there are two components to conservatism. There is an economic scale defined by the extremes of Communism (communalism) vs neo-liberalism (libertarianism) and there is a social scale defined by its extremes Authoritarianism (fascism) vs Libertarianism (anarchism). Put more simply: authority vs anarchy and communism vs unrestrained free markets. For example, here's how some famous world leaders rate on the political compass:
So, I took the test (I'd really love to see my neo-con friend Heather take this test. It's interesting!). Here's where I fall:
It appears I am just to the right of Gandhi, which I do not mind. I am a bit more liberal than I though of was, perhaps because of my libertarian leanings (and libertarians normally consider themselves on the right). But on this scale libertarian socially is left while libertarian economically is right and I tend to be more libertarian socially than economically.
But what's really telling is this image from Crooks and Liars about where the candidates fall. Even the MOST liberal of the democrats are FAR more authoritarian and far more economically libertarian. They are not very darned liberal AT ALL. No wonder I am not terribly thrilled about ANY of the presidential candidates!
I should note, at times, I found the test to be a bit too black and white. There were questions where I didn't exactly agree or disagree. Where the question itself seemed unreal. Anyway, so much for my survey jones. I'll be quite pleased when skating season begins again and when I have time to follow it.
--
In other news, my husband made Chief (E7). In the Navy, this is a BIG deal. They put you through a six week indoctrination that involves a lot of silly stuff, more volunteer work, and a whole lot of working late. I am presently conducting my marriage my cell phone. And after 5 years of not smoking, it took exactly five days for the indoc process to stress him out enough that he is back to killing himself.
No, I'm not very happy/
Five weeks and counting til pinning.
--
I've joined a new team blog. I haven't posted yet, due to email problems but when I do, the new blog is Mama Needs a Book Contract. It's a blog about writing and parenting (or in my case, women's issues). Looking forward to seeing you there!
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
Editor's Choice!
I read Salon pretty often. Recently after the VT murders (which hit me really hard as you well know, I wrote a comment on an article on what English teachers ought to do about students who write disturbing stuff. Out of 122 comments, mine was chosen as one of 20 Editor's Choices. I'm tickled. Read my comment. You may need to click through a "day pass" advertisement if you don't have a Salon subscription.
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
New Figure Skating Feature
A while back, Blogger (which I use to manage this blog) added a labels feature. Of course, they didn't provide a way to LIST the labels for old style templates--only for the new style XML templates. That stunk.
So, being bored and grumpy tonight, I decided to write a script that would do exactly that. If you scroll down below the Skating News, previous posts and the archives in the sidebar at the right, you'll find the list of labels. They are in no particular order. Maybe someday, I'll add some sorting code. Who knows.
If you click on a particular label, you'll be taken to the page where all the posts published under that label have been aggregated. I haven't gone back and labeled every post, so there is a lot missing. Oh well. When I get time.
For now, enjoy.
So, being bored and grumpy tonight, I decided to write a script that would do exactly that. If you scroll down below the Skating News, previous posts and the archives in the sidebar at the right, you'll find the list of labels. They are in no particular order. Maybe someday, I'll add some sorting code. Who knows.
If you click on a particular label, you'll be taken to the page where all the posts published under that label have been aggregated. I haven't gone back and labeled every post, so there is a lot missing. Oh well. When I get time.
For now, enjoy.
Figure Skating Frozen in Time
I love YouTube. I really do. I love how you can finds all kinds of video from all kinds of time periods, from all over the world. So I am starting a little video series. From time to time, I am going to post videos of figure skaters, famous and not. Sometimes, when there's time, I'll do some commentary and other times, you'll just have to cope.
So, to kick this off, here are two very interesting videos of Dorothy Hamill. Dorothy is known for her flow, her exquisite edging, her quiet power and serenity. But this is a Dorothy of a later age. The Dorothy of 1976 was a choppy Dorothy, an athletic Dorothy, not a very graceful Dorothy--a jock. Her spins travel badly, rotate slowly, and are generally poor--except for her layback which was quite impressive and lovely. Her program was packed with footwork and action--reminded me of a CoP program in that regard--even though she never did anything more difficult than a double jump. She was dynamic--and FAST--and very enjoyable to watch. But the deep edges? The quiet flow? The serenity? M.I.A.
1976 US Nationals
Even the Dorothy of 1980 was far less of the Dorothy we have come to know, and more the jock. Her spins improved markedly, though they still travel. She still had her speed. This program is an exhibition, so it's a bit emptier, more stroking, less footwork, but all the jumps are there. There are beginnings of the smooth-as-cream stroking and the deep edges.
1980 Olympics Exhibition
Despite the jarring fall in the middle of this program, this is the Dorothy we have come to know and love. Her edges and stroking are breathtaking. She does a lovely pivot move in the program of a sort you really don't see anymore--no time for stuff like that. She had, by this time, lost many if not all of her jumps. She would later regain them. There are hints--just hints--of the athletic young girl she once was as well as the maturity of many years gone. Dorothy is a national treasure.
What a Wonderful World (1995)
So, to kick this off, here are two very interesting videos of Dorothy Hamill. Dorothy is known for her flow, her exquisite edging, her quiet power and serenity. But this is a Dorothy of a later age. The Dorothy of 1976 was a choppy Dorothy, an athletic Dorothy, not a very graceful Dorothy--a jock. Her spins travel badly, rotate slowly, and are generally poor--except for her layback which was quite impressive and lovely. Her program was packed with footwork and action--reminded me of a CoP program in that regard--even though she never did anything more difficult than a double jump. She was dynamic--and FAST--and very enjoyable to watch. But the deep edges? The quiet flow? The serenity? M.I.A.
1976 US Nationals
Even the Dorothy of 1980 was far less of the Dorothy we have come to know, and more the jock. Her spins improved markedly, though they still travel. She still had her speed. This program is an exhibition, so it's a bit emptier, more stroking, less footwork, but all the jumps are there. There are beginnings of the smooth-as-cream stroking and the deep edges.
1980 Olympics Exhibition
Despite the jarring fall in the middle of this program, this is the Dorothy we have come to know and love. Her edges and stroking are breathtaking. She does a lovely pivot move in the program of a sort you really don't see anymore--no time for stuff like that. She had, by this time, lost many if not all of her jumps. She would later regain them. There are hints--just hints--of the athletic young girl she once was as well as the maturity of many years gone. Dorothy is a national treasure.
What a Wonderful World (1995)
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