Heaven, in The Lovely Bones, is a non-religious afterlife where everything is just as you want. Susie encounters a heavenly intake counselor, a former non-profit caseworker whose heaven is working for people who thank and appreciate her, and a heavenly roommate, a Vietnamese girl whose heaven includes speaking accentless English and having an American name. Unfortunately for me, Susie’s own heaven was the least appealing one described, involving a townful of dogs (I think this proves I have no heart but I can’t really get into all the maintenance required for slobber machines), but the details here, like the 14-year-old reading of Seventeen or the smells she most loved on earth, make any reader imagine their own heaven, without harps and angels, but perhaps the smell of new plastic and endless brand-new scenes in the Harry Potter movies. At least for me.

Susie leaves heaven to watch her friends and family. She watches her sister learn of her death, and grow up as dead Susie’s younger sister in school and around town. She visits her siblings, parents and school friends, watching them live their lives for years, and appearing, now and then, in a reflection or for a second at the corner of their eyes.

She also watches her high-school crush, Ray Singh. The relationship between Susie and Ray is absolutely perfect. High school relationships in books and movies tend to appear as whirlwind perfection or unwatchable awkwardness. (I do pull the embarrassment pillow over my face when this happens, but this isn’t always effective, since my father and my boyfriend both like to narrate movies as they unfold.) The Lonely Bones perfectly captures the awkward beauty of teenage connection without turning either Ray or Susie into a caricature.

Susie also watches the man who killed her. She learns his habits, and his history, even meeting in heaven a collection of other girls and women murdered by this man.  Descriptions of him are almost sympathetic, which is the most disturbing part of the book, far creepier than Susie’s rape and murder. As Susie is almost omniscient in heaven, she looks through his life. In a book like this, with characters that are so fully developed, it seemed weird to track the killer’s life back to his mother’s abandonment, transferring the blame for all the deaths (and Susie is one of a long line) not on the killer, but on his mother.

Without giving too much away, Susie’s father and sister determine her killer,  but readers are brought not to revenge or retribution, but to healing. The story ends with a satisfying conclusion, a conclusion that’s more of a beginning than a resolution.

I have to wonder how this story will translate to a film. I can read about Susie’s death and be moved by it, but I don’t think I want to see it. This is entirely different from my usual skittishness towards movies based on books I enjoyed, I’m not worried that the filmmakers won’t show it the way I pictured it in my head, I’m worried that the filmmakers will show it at all. Tragedy and violence are moving on the page, but usually gratuitous and messy on the screen.

I also wonder how Susie’s appearances to her family and friends will translate to a movie. I’m reminded of the topiaries in The Shining, which terrified me in the book, tickling that creepy sense that something is moving just beyond our field of vision, but somehow killer shrubs just looked goofy on film. I found The Lovely Bones gentle and disturbing by turns, and it will be interesting to see how it appears in a movie.

The folks at Ology asked me to write a book review as part of their Lovely Bones Book Club, and, once I was assured that I could bash it if I hated it (What? I’ve been known to trash a bad book), I agreed happily.

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The Lovely Bones

I recently rented Harry Potter for the DS, and the Quidditch parts are just as annoying as they are in the books and movies. Unlike the books and movies, I can’t flip a few pages or fast forward to when Gryffindor wins the Quidditch Cup.

The Quidditch World Cup is, coincidentally, when Stick stopped reading the books.

(I want to review the game, but my love of all things Harry Potter makes me biased, and completely able to overlook the fact that the first dozen or so missions involve running around Hogwarts picking up items and delivering them to different people. You get to use the Marauders’ Map as a GPS so it’s ok.)

When I get to a minigame I don’t like on the Nintendo DS, like the bug-squashing part in Sims Castaway, I can just hand the console over to Stick. He played for a while, complained about stupid Quidditch, and finally finished.

“I’m done. And Ginny Weasley says she wishes she had a reusable hangman.”

“Oh, man, just ’cause she’s my girlfriend I’m going to have run all around Hogwarts doing stupid tasks for her.”

“Welcome to my world.” Stick said.

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Playing Quidditch

“Um… what’s it about?” I asked.

“It’s a secret Harry Potter film in which Mr. Darcy is the new Defense Against The Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts.”

“It’s almost cruel to tease me like that.”

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He’s Also A Vampire

This is not a paid advertisement (those are over in the margin!), I am not getting cash or a free t-shirt for this. (I did ask for a sample of Magazine Pages, though.) Weird Fragrances didn’t ask me to write about them, but if they happen to find my blog, I suggest Hotel Swimming Pool as a new scent.

Update: Since I posted this 9/08 and it’s now 4/09, and I’ve never gotten this scent in the mail, it’s probably safe to say I’m never going to find out what Magazine Pages scent smells like.

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Bertie Botts Every Flavour Perfumes

Aren’t they cute? These two are in all the margins in the game, reminding me a bit of the moving doodles in Harry Potter, and making me want to go to wizard school even more.

And here is a shot from the shopping screen. You can also pick the colors of your clothes, a feature I really love. In WoW, it’s always a tough choice between the cloak with better stats or the one that matches my hat.

Don’t forget about my full Wizard 101 game review! You can also get this feed or subscribe by email.

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Wizard 101 Pictures

I was asked not to post screenshots, (edit 8/25: that’s changed, my W101 pictures are here) as the game’s still in beta, so you’re just going to have to believe me that one teacher is a qipao-clad animated cow. And there’s an attack leprechaun! Even the menu screens are draw like classroom doodles. If I could post just one screenshot, it would be the stick figure cartoons on the map and in the margins… a girl and a boy who are always getting into mischief. Also, I would put a pair of glasses on the girl!

The Wizard 101 quests are flavored with mixed-up fairy tales and subtle puns for adult players. While the quests themselves are the usual fare of “kill 5 baddies” or “return this item to an NPC”, they’re mixed with a Fairground of minigames. The minigames are quick casual games, a bit like the puzzle games in Neopets. The point of the Fairgrounds is to recharge your mana and make a few coins, but I really liked Potion Motion. (Ok, I should come clean about this. If I’m talking on the phone, I’m probably playing a casual game at the same time. Thus, Neopets.)

Usable items don’t give a visual sign on mouseover, which made it hard to tell if I could open doors or pick things up. I got a bit frustrated as I tried to pick up items that were just part of the scenery. Games have changed… when I was a wee lass, we pocketed everything not nailed down! You can, however, tell whether you can enter a building based on the color of the windows. If they’re dark, no one’s home. If they’re yellow, come on in! Bluish lights indicate an errand for you inside, usually the location of your quest or battle.

Combat is animated magical attacks, in turns between players and bad guys. The villains disappear when they’re thwarted, players are teleported home to recoup. I think the bloodless combat caters to tween girls, without going the annoying all-pink route.

The combat system is based on learning spells and adding them to your deck, collectible card game style. When I’ve played card games, I can never remember what all the little symbols describing the card mean. Icons are just the nature of squeezing a complicated system on to a card, so I’m frustrated that this computer game doesn’t allow you to click the icons and find out what they mean. There is a help section for looking up the icons when you’re not actually in combat, but Wizard 101 seems to be missing what makes computer games superior to card games, it seems like a huge oversight not to have clickable card info, or info that pops up on mouseover.

Maybe the plan is to branch out into a collectible card game. Some of the some of the “gold” cards as random rewards really seem like specials in sealed packs.

The game is intended for tweens, and I was a little annoyed by all the safety controls. Users must be over 13 to even have access to chat. Also, you can’t pick your own name, there’s a spinner that chooses a first name and a two-part last name (something like Starspinner or Whitethorn). You can set the spinner to your favorite combination, but there’s no chance to make up your own name. While it does eliminate the players running around cleverly named “YOURMOMSUCKS”, it’s billed as a safety feature, forbidding kids to use their real names and identifying information, and I think it’s taking ‘net safety a bit too far.

In general, I think internet safety programs are a waste of time, they’re treating the symptom and not the disease. Sadly, there are bad people who’ll hurt children. Kids should learn general safety rules, like not telling strangers their address and what time Mommy isn’t home, and then be reminded to apply those rules in the game as well. There are potential problems with wee ones playing online and innocently telling the wrong person their address, but a chat filter can’t substitute for good parents teaching their kids about stranger safety and making sure those rules are followed. I haven’t seen a chat filter that you can’t get around if you’re really determined to swear, you could probably get around this one as well.

I’ll stop here before getting into my usual rant about how game companies shouldn’t be expected to parent. Occupational hazard of being a twentysomething gamergirl, I guess!

If you’ll excuse me, I have to go cast some spells now.

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Wizard 101

We wanted to check out a coffeeshop and library near the Old Summer Palace. The library’s called One Way Street (not to be confused with my Yantai haunt, the One Way Ticket), and it’s separated from Beijing traffic by a garden of the Old Summer Palace, and shaded by trees. Not newly-transplanted saplings in a row, these were big shady climbing trees, with hammock-style camping chairs underneath. We got some coffee and tea from nearby Mima coffeeshop and played with the bookstore cats. I understand the summer palace much better now that I’ve used its old grounds as a peaceful escape from frantic Beijing.

I had a fantastic afternoon talking with Sven and Stick, so good that I had Harry Potter open on my lap the whole time and didn’t read it.

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One-Way Street

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My high-school stats teacher once explained, during a lecture on how to lie with statistics, that Simpson’s Paradox is a statistical phenomenon where the data seems to prove the reverse of the truth. Simpson’s Paradox is how Gryffindor can lose to Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw and still get the Quidditch cup.

Anyway, it’s appropriate metaphor for life in China. I set up this site when I was living in Beijing and Blogspot / Blogger kept getting banned, thanks to the Great Firewall.

(Thanks to XKCD. There just aren’t enough stats comics.)

I blog to create an online scrapbook of good times — and some hilarious bad times — to look over later. I love having a digital scrapbook of life in other places when I travel. I started blogging to keep in contact with distant friends (which can be difficult as an expat) but blogging has also led me to awesome new friends.

I like that my blog generates enough income to pay its hosting fees, but this is my hobby before it’s an income stream (trickle). I’m interested in new sidebar adverts or exchanges with interesting sites, so feel free to send me your idea. Unless your idea was to do a search of female-authored blogs and massmail a mommyblog pitch about sippy cups.

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What Is Simpson’s Paradox?

If I didn’t live with Stick, I would fall asleep on the couch every night watching one of the Harry Potter movies. I try to tone it down for him, because unlike my wonderful roommate Kristine, he can actually get sick of Hogwarts (I fast forward through the muggle parts).

I don’t like most recent movie, Harry Potter and the Order Of The Phoenix. It’s not the continuity problems, or ways the movie differs from the book. But somehow a film about the government-appointed administrator with no educational background who makes teachers’ lives miserable and ruins all chance to actually educate students, just doesn’t offer the same fantasy-world escape.

Anyway, I was finishing up dinner when Stick put the Narnia DVD in.

“I think we were duped!” Stick called into the kitchen, “Unless… you read the book… Are there Nazis in Narnia?”

Turns out, the beginning of the movie is, uh, shot from a Nazi pilot’s perspective in the London blitz. Not quite what I expected, but I knew Gua Ye wouldn’t let us down.

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The Lion, The Witch, and The… German Fighter Pilot?

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