Waiting for the Gift of Sound and Vision

One of my favorite means of indulging my nostalgic needs of late is to peruse old gaming magazines that I had read in high school and some of college, late 90’s to early 2000’s. This is easy enough thanks to sites like Retromags and the Internet Archive. The scan quality isn’t always great and there’s a few gaps here and there, but the fortunate part about what I was looking for most recently is that advertisements tend to repeat month to month. If you’re very lucky, what gets advertised eventually gets featured in the magazine proper.

I don’t consider myself an audiophile. I don’t know enough about speakers to know my studio monitors from my bookshelves from my ribbons from my… whatever the speakers I was looking for are, but I know enough to know what sounds good to me. One thing I’ve learned over the years is that with the possible exception of the iPhone, the internal speaker on any electronic device is bound to be terrible. If you’re lucky, it’s terrible in a way that makes it good. The speakers in my PSP would crackle a little when sound peaked, such as during an explosion or a crash of some vehicle, but I found something oddly satisfying and reassuring about it. I know charm is an overused term, but I can’t think of a more apt term for this particular flavor of the warm and fuzzies.

Sidenote: we had our N64 hooked up to a TV whose internal speakers weren’t shielded from the cathode ray tube. Before I understood anything I just said, I was convinced the screen flickering during loud parts or bass-heavy sounds was the awesome power of the artificial intelligence written into the game’s code. The system (and specifically Shadows of the Empire) was just too damn powerful for our meager little television set.

Maybe I don’t read enough magazines, but it always felt like the ads in videogame magazines were especially creative. They were bold, edgy, funny, clever, and memorable enough that I found myself looking back through those old issues for a set of Sony speakers I saw advertised in an issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly. The ad was two pages, but it wasn’t a spread like you’d expect. The first page was a tall, narrow, black speaker with a few buttons and a green slit of an LCD. Its cord ran out from its back and to the right of the page. A few pages later, the second page showed the speaker’s mate, its own cord running in the opposite direction. The first page asks if you need a reason to get surround sound, advising you to keep flipping the pages. The second page observes that you’ve seen no shortage of reasons. A few more buzzwords about the quality of the speakers and an image of how the speakers are intended to be set up, with one on either side of a modestly-sized television. 

I think I was fascinated by these speakers, blandly branded the SA-VA7’s, because they didn’t fit any conventional models of audio setups I was superficially familiar with. It mentioned surround sound, but in my experience, surround sound required more than two speakers and they all had to be hooked up to a massive receiver under your VCR and/or DVD player. These looked more like the speakers you get for a PC, but they were so much bigger and imposing looking. Too insubstantial for the former and too over-engineered for the latter, I think the reason I didn’t inquire further into them was that I doubtless couldn’t afford them, be they a cheap surround system or an expensive PC speaker. Moreover, I already had a really nice stereo system that I’d gotten unexpectedly for Christmas, so they’d be redundant as well.

Sidenote: It’s worth pointing out here that I can be an exceptionally frugal person. My brother likes to tell this story about the time he asked me, “If you could have any car in the world, any at all, what would it be?” My response was a Geo Storm. He thought for a moment and explained that cost wasn’t an issue, that it could be any vehicle regardless of price. I stuck to my guns. In those decades since, my taste in cars has become more high roller than coupon-clipping, and I’ve also learned to distinguish between purchases and investments.

A few years later, something unexpected happened. The family computer, a Bondi-blue G3 iMac with a DVD drive, became my computer. This meant it wound up in my room on my desk, against the opposite wall of my TV, Playstation, and stereo. Obviously, hooking up my TV and Playstation to the stereo was easy and straightforward. If I wanted to hook my iMac to the stereo, I would have had to run a cord from my desk and across my floor to the entertainment center. Even if I wanted to deal with the tripping hazard, there’s the problem of the speakers being behind me while I’m at the iMac at my desk. In fact, they were behind me and to my left, so it was far from an ideal arrangement.

Along comes another issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly and with it the solution to my problem. If SA-VA7 was a bland name, these had the exact opposite problem. These had at least two names and from a brand that seemed to be in the process of restructuring, so there were two additional names. The full title of these little dynamos was the ScreenBeat Sound Station by SpectraVideo/Logic3. The apparatus consisted of two small speakers wired up to a subwoofer that was meant to sit on the floor (or on your desk if you wanted to the Jurassic Park thing with any cups of liquid you had). This made it what’s known as a “2.1” sound system, with the decimal referring to the subwoofer as that’s generally less something you hear and more something you feel. They retailed for about 70USD (I never found out what the SA-VA7’s cost) and their absolute best feature that stood out to me: they matched my iMac. 

It wasn’t a perfect color match, but close enough that, when I moved into my college dorm, my roommate’s dad asked if I was a computer science major. When I said I wasn’t, he asked about the tower I was setting up under my monitor. I explained that the monitor was the whole computer and the “tower” was just a speaker. That shows you how revolutionary the design of the iMac was; beige boxes were still the industry standard. The elaborate, Windows-based gaming rigs you see today were around, but they were almost rarer to see in the wild than an iMac. Simply put, it seemed like these speakers were made just for me.

A lot of time passed, I graduated college, the iMac was getting a bit long in the tooth in term of technology (and it was already admittedly a little bit underpowered for anything outside of video editing in Quicktime Pro, writing papers, making Powerpoint presentations, and simple 3D modeling in Poser), and Windows XP had fixed pretty much every complaint I ever had about previous offering from the House of Gates. So, the iMac went away and my proper PC tower became my monolith to all things media and productivity. The ScreenBeats had gone away somewhere in this timeframe, either before I graduated or just after, and I mostly stuck to using headphones if I was going to be immersed in whatever I needed the PC for.

A lot more time passed and the most elaborate sound system I had was a speaker bar for my TV and game consoles. If I was using a computer or a phone or a tablet, headphones were my default. They were also the default for when I listened to music as I was in an apartment and I didn’t want to be THAT neighbor blasting music through my speaker bar. Of course, I watched plenty of movies and played plenty of games through that speaker bar, but that just seemed different to me somehow, like it would be more forgivable or bearable than going through the entire Daft Punk discography. Also, my roommate has little to no concept of an indoor voice when she’s gaming on her PC and headphones were the best defense.

Toward the end of my time in that apartment, I was watching a YouTube video from a games reviewer named Caddicarus. This particular video was sponsored by a company called KOVE and the product on display was a cylindrical Bluetooth speaker that fit nicely into the cupholders of a car, likely hence its name of the Commuter. When I checked out the website, I saw KOVE had a new speaker on offer called the Commuter 2 (which they changed recently to a "K"), the sequel to the speaker I’d just seen. If you’re in the market for a Bluetooth speaker, KOVE is a little hard to recommend. I think they’re a drop-shipping operation. That is, KOVE is the branding middleman for a generic speaker you can probably find cheaper elsewhere under a different name. It’s also one of those sites that is running flash sales all the time, so it’s virtually impossible to pay the full advertised price for the speaker. I know there’s a name for this advertising tactic, but I can’t be bothered to look it up. Needless to say, the speaker was cheap despite being advertised on a massive sale, but like those iMac matchers from years ago, they had a little special something to them that intrigued me. I took the chance and got my 200USD speaker for a mere 64 (which is technically less than what I paid for the Sound Station if you consider inflation). 

The intriguing feature was the ability of the speaker to split into a stereo pair. It twisted in the middle with a bayonet-style locking system and this middle seam was actually angled in such a way that the two halves would rest with their drivers aimed slightly upward. 

Did I think this was an absolutely inspired piece of design? Very much so. Did I ever actually use it when I was writing on my iPad with my little keyboard and case that folded into a stand for the iPad? Maybe once. I mean, I wasn’t about to set this up in a coffee shop. An especially clicky mechanical keyboard? Yes, I’m THAT guy. Speakers? No, that’s just plain obnoxious. 

I ended up giving the speaker to my roommate. It wasn’t a hard decision because, despite the intriguingly cool design, the KOVE Commuter 2 had a crippling flaw: latency. If you were simply listening to music or an audiobook or a podcast, there was no issue. If, however, you were watching a video, you’d notice a bit of a gap between the lips flapping on the screen and the sounds hitting your ear. If you were using a music-making app like GarageBand or a digital instrument of some kind, forget it. It was at least a full beat behind, making it practically unusable. I have no idea why it has this problem; I don’t have this issue with Bluetooth headphones. My best guess is it’s something to do with the way the two speakers are tethered together, since you’re still only connecting one speaker to your source. It must simply be too much number crunching to receive the signal from the device and then beam the other channel to its mating half. Maybe this is why I’ve never seen another Bluetooth speaker like this one, why I don’t see this stereo splitting by other companies like SONOS or JBL.

As for replacing my KOVE, I came across a slender little number from Sony, the SRS-XB23. It didn’t split in two, but could still play a stereo signal through its two drivers, requiring you to place the speaker on its side for best results. I paid roughly less than the Commuter 2, it fills the room quite nicely, and there’s no latency when I’m watching something on my phone or making music.

A few weeks ago, I was thinking about those old SA-VA7’s from the magazine ad and did a little investigating. I found exactly one YouTube video of someone showing them off, along with some scattered pages in various audiophile databases. Overall, they don’t seem to have sold very well, which may be attributed to Sony marketing them to gamers to use with their Playstations. If gamers are going to hook up their consoles to a sound system, they’re probably just going to do what I did and use the one I had for music anyway. That was when an idea hit me. The SRS-XB23 may not have had the ability to split into two speakers, but there is a feature that plays right into the devious marketing of those bigger audio equipment companies like JBL or Bose: Stereo pairing.

It’s simple enough in principle. If you have two of the same model of Bluetooth speaker, you can pair them together so that one is the right channel and the other is the left channel. This is the “that’s where they get you” of the scheme. Why sell one speaker that does the work of two when you can have two speakers at twice the price? The SRS-XB23 had been out for a few years and was still available as New Old Stock on Amazon. In fact, I got it from the same third-party seller for about the same price.

Although simple enough in principle, actually setting up the stereo pair is a little bit tedious. For starters, I’ve already got one SRS-XB23 saved in my phone’s Bluetooth settings, so now there’s another identical speaker to add to the mix and I can’t just nickname them like some other devices. Secondly, you’ve got to pair the speakers with each other first, which means you have to turn off Bluetooth on the device you’re ultimately going to tether them to. Tedious may be a strong word, but it’s not very intuitive and certainly not discoverable without consulting an online guide. Once you’ve got the stereo pair sorted, each speaker conveniently announces whether it’s the left or right channel. Finally, you turn the Bluetooth back on your device and hope you pick the correct of the two identical speakers and you’re off to the races in stereo and with no noticeable latency.

Am I going to use this setup? No. I don’t do a lot of writing on my iPad anymore since I’ve got a recently upgraded desktop setup that I plan to get as much use out of as humanly possible. As for using them with my desktop (music coming from my iPhone and to the speakers) my monitor is too wide and my desk is too narrow to place them at each side as intended. Did I waste my money? I don’t think so. I’ll still use the stereo pairing on occasion. They sound great in tandem, plus I’ve got one as a backup given the first is almost 5 years old at this point and with semi-regular use. Most importantly, after 30-some years, I finally have (the option for) two tall, narrow Sony speakers on either side of a display.

Razer Left Me Wanting

As I've likely prattled on about before, I use a mouse left-handed. I am not actually left-handed, at least when it comes to handwriting and most of my artistic ventures. The art I make on my computer benefits from a mouse over a pen tablet since the number pad does most of the work whenever the slower, precise movements of a mouse are not adequate. Most legit lefties I know have cruelly forced themselves to simply use their mouse right-handedly, especially when they're at work, and especially at work if someone got it in their head that everyone should have a so-called ergonomic mouse. Fortunately, most of the mice at my work are as ambidextrous as they are basic. 

As much as I don't mind keyboard shortcuts, having some of those shortcuts on the same hand as my mouse is extremely convenient. Perhaps it's from years of console gaming wherein all your important moves are managed by your thumbs rather than your fingertips. Before the Apple Pencil, my favorite stylus for my iPad was from Adonit, and it had two little shortcut keys near the tip. I mapped my un/redo keys to these two buttons and I got so used to it that when I used a real pencil and needed to erase, I instinctively squeezed the end I was holding. As for the mice I've had, there have been many, and I'll spare you the long, drawn-out narrative and get to the point by showing you the mouse I'm currently using at home:

No words. Should have sent a poet.

I like the Maus. I love the styling, it's got a good heft and weight to it, and the wireless has never been a hindrance to me. My only real gripe about it is it's a little small. This is hardly a dealbreaker as you shouldn't necessarily be resting your palm on your mouse anyway. Your forearm should be parallel to your desk and you shouldn't drag your arm on the surface, just as you shouldn't necessarily be resting your wrists in front of the keyboard. When the workaround is getting rid of a bad habit, I can let some things go. Given that, there is another gripe that's a little harder to ignore. It's that little silver button below the scroll wheel. It controls the DPI. 

If you don't know, DPI stands for Dots Per Inch and it refers to the sensitivity of the mouse, how fast you can move your cursor across the screen. The higher the DPI the faster and farther the arrow flies across the screen with less movement of the mouse itself. Most of you probably never bother with this, especially if the computer isn't technically yours (even if it is yours in the sense that you use it regularly and are expected to be productive with it). Some of you probably know you can adjust this sensitivity setting in the control panel, especially if some jerk who used your computer before for some reason needed the sensitivity way down so you'd have to practically sweep everything off your desk just to move your cursor halfway across the screen (or picking it up and putting it back down over and over, feeling a little more ridiculous each time you repeat the motion). 

By the way, that so-called "natural" option for scroll direction can kiss my ass.

Some mouse makers have decided burying this slider in a menu not many people bother with until something goes wrong and solved the "problem" by allowing you to adjust the sensitivity of your mouse on the device itself. It makes sense, but I've always wondered why the button to do so is typically below the scroll wheel and tilted towards the wheel (as it's following the slope of the mouse's shape) to make accidentally clicking on it virtually inevitable. The Maus compounds this problem by giving you the option of about a half-dozen different DPI settings, at least four of which seem to be for people who move their mice by gently breathing on them. Maybe on a 4K monitor it evens itself out, more pixels on screen means a higher DPI is needed to cover the same distance. 

There is a genius alternative to this that I hope more mouse makers catch on to. It's called a clutch. The idea is that your mouse is set to a higher DPI to let you navigate the screen faster. When you need to slow down to make more precise and controlled movements, you push a small button on the mouse to bring the DPI down to its lowest possible setting. When you need to go fast again, simply release the clutch. 

It's currently on the Razer Basilisk and the Logitech G502, both of which are ergonomic mice with no left-handed option. In fact, Razer used to be rather friendly to the lefty crowd, with left-handed versions of some of their most well-regarded mice, including the Death Adder and especially the Naga. The Naga has a full 12-button keypad for the thumb, which may sound crowded, but is fairly navigable. I had one of these mice for a long time and it served me well. I speak of it in the past tense because the middle click gave out. Despite their internal switches being rated to some insane number of presses, the one under my scroll wheel missed that QA inspection. 

Fortunately, Razer has a pretty generous support and warranty policy. Unfortunately, that doesn't guarantee they'll be able to replace or repair everything in their product range. As the left-handed Naga was no longer made, they offered me a short list of mice to replace it with, which were all right-handed ergonomic mice, including the Death Adder, whose lefty counterpart had also been axed recently. 

How's about HELL NO!?

Further mucking things up was the oversight of these many alternatives being out of stock. The silver lining to all of this was that I could opt to take a store credit and wait for a mouse they had coming out called the Viper. I could conceivably have gone for a cheaper mouse that was ambidextrous, but that would have left me with almost half of the store credit left over and nothing to use it on besides maybe a really nice mat. The choice before me then was either to take a gamble on this new mouse, or remap the middle click of the Naga to one of its many programmable buttons and therefore throw off my entire workflow (as I would have proper middle click on every other mouse I'd use). I chose the former option. 

Have I ever mentioned how much I love braided cables?

The Viper has been good, but it is so very just shy of perfect it almost brings the whole thing down. For what it costs and what it offers as a mouse, it's overpriced compared to other offerings in the catalog. Given it cost the same as my Naga did when it was new, it really felt like a downgrade. However, as I didn't have much of a choice what with being given store credit and all, I figured its size would be its saving grace, being near enough to the Naga that I wouldn't have to reorient myself with its feel. It gets a lot of other things right; it's got the braided cable, the DPI switch is out of the way (on the bottom of the mouse, in a small recess that you need a pen to push), and it is truly and legitimately ambidextrous. 

While it doesn't have the full 12 keys of a Naga, it's got two shortcut buttons on either side of it. Assigning my two most common shortcuts to them has, for all intents and purposes, made up for it not being a Naga. What it doesn't make up for is Razer's slow crawl towards a right-handed catalog. There's also the weight, which is my biggest complaint about it. For its price, the Viper feels cheap, almost fragile. I'm almost convinced the cord weighs more as sometimes the cord slipping off the back of my desk will pull the mouse down with it. It hasn't sent it tumbling into the narrow chasm between the desk and the wall, and I doubt it would, but I don't get why this mouse needs to be this lightweight. 

Computer mice occupy an amusing space of product design. Once upon a time, the computer mouse had to be the size and shape it was to accommodate a rubber-coated metal ball. Too big and the mouse would be hard to move. Too small and the ball would just as soon slide on a surface as roll. More importantly, the mouse had to house the mechanism needed to make sense of the ball's movements, little roller pins and optical sensors reading off tiny slotted flywheels. Later on, the optical sensor took center stage and could read off the surface directly. This meant the pins and flywheels had to be replaced with a few more chips and other components because it had to do more processing power to make sense of what it was seeing. As time went on, those components became smaller and smaller, with less hardware needed overall for the sensor to make sense of where it was on your desk. This made for a fair bit of empty space inside the mouse. 

One of the most audacious uses of that empty space was an arrangement of slots for metal weights. Weighing down a mouse seems like a weird thing to do, but just like the DPI adjustments, sometimes you need to be able to move your mouse in a fairly controlled and precise manner. A high DPI combined with a weighty mouse gives the best of both worlds. 

So you now understand the weight of the situation.

The Viper definitely has the empty space for such weights, but the only way I'm going to get that is the DIY route, and I'm not about to start drilling holes and prying stickers and panels off of an 80USD mouse (that's also what the G502 costs, weights included). 

Luckily, I've found a few alternatives outside of the Razer catalog such as Steelseries and Corsair. They don't have weight options, but they are notably heftier than the Viper along with sharing a similar form factor. That includes those shortcut buttons on either side of the casing. To be fair to Razer, since its release, the Viper's price has come down a little. It's still not low enough for me to begin exploratory surgery, but I don't hold the price point against them anymore. Last week, I was looking through their site to get some specs for a LinkedIN post I'm writing covering this topic in a little more work-related depth. I saw they offered two new versions of the Viper, one wireless, and one labeled "mini." I thought all my problems were solved. Wireless mice make use of that empty space by storing a battery. The battery adds weight, and I've got hefty where wimpy once was. However, Razer, in their wisdom, found a way to make the wireless Viper weigh virtually the same as the wired version. That's okay, I thought, I've got an option. Yes, the mini is smaller, but it's also about half the price, well within the territory of being modified with no real blow to the bottom line. 

Then I got a better look at it. 

Can't see the problem? That's okay. I didn't spot it right away, either. 

... 

... Razer? I want you to look at me. I want to ask you a question and I want you to think long and hard about your answer before you tell it to me. I want you to think about all that I've said about the past designs of your products which I have praised you for. Okay, here we go:

How can it be an ambidextrous mouse when the shortcut keys ARE ONLY ON ONE SIDE!?

It's the LITTLE things....

Look, I get that making left-handed versions of your ergonomic mice isn't ideal for you. There simply are not enough left-handed mouse users to justify production on that scale. 

By the way, LoFree isn't off the hook either.

Define symmetry for me, please.

In their defense, the place on the right-hand side where some shortcut keys would be nice is taken up by an adorable little storage compartment for the wireless dongle as well as the charging port. As I said, I do like the Maus, but I prefer it as a portable accessory for my iPad when I need to use a mouse with it. The same goes for the keyboard I've got at home right now. It's fine enough for the Mac mini, but it's better suited to accompany a tablet. 

A wise one once said that art is never finished, only abandoned. I suppose I've got the same philosophy with my workspace, a constant work in progress. That reminds me, I have to get back to designing my new desk. 

Playstation Plus

The newest round of free games was announced for Playstation Plus a few days ago and it made me a little sad. It's the second month since Sony announced that PS3 and Vita games would no longer be featured in the monthly lineup of free games for members. This was inevitable; the PS3 had long since proven it could have a 10-year life cycle and even beyond, once and for all debunking that arbitrary 5-year cycle that somehow came to be accepted as fact somewhere between the 16-bit generation and the first Playstation. Still, it leaves me a little melancholy as the last 2 months of offerings have only yielded 4 games in total. It's clear Sony is trying to make up for the lack of platforms by offering fewer, but higher-end games. Before that, a player would get maybe a half-dozen total titles, most of them smaller, indie games or older titles that already had their time in the spotlight. 

Without getting into some long-winded explanation for what Plus is, the best way to describe it is a Jelly-of-the-month club. If you're old enough to remember Time Life books or if you're a fan of monthly subscription boxes like Loot Crate or Blue Apron, you've got a pretty good idea of how the system works. The important added caveat is that if you ever cancel your Plus membership, you will not be able to play any of the free games you've gotten up to that point. That's probably the dealbreaker for a number of people, that they're not so much "free" as much as they're "included," which is perfectly understandable. 

The first two games I ever got while having a Plus membership were Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light and Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine, which meant that first year pretty much paid for itself. This trend continued with some dry months and a few awesome months, at no point ever feeling like I was paying too much. It was set-and-forget as far as I cared. I've built up a massive, massive library of games. I don't think it comes anywhere near the library of my PS2 back in the day, but it's sizable nonetheless. It's big enough that I feel a little guilty when I buy a game. I'll often go through the list beforehand to see that I'm not buying one type of game when I've already got a perfectly good example of the genre on hand. Unfortunately for anyone jumping on board Plus right now, they don't get that back catalog as I've taken advantage of. 

PSPlus is not for everyone, and that's especially the case now. while I don't plan on getting rid of my Plus membership anytime soon, let it be known the selection is going to have to work that much harder to impress me every month. I'm more likely to recommend PSNow than Plus to anyone getting a PS4. 

PC Master Race... Leans Left?

This is a partial paraphrasing/rewrite/expansion of an article I wrote on LinkedIn about something I meant to talk about on DeviantART (and may still since I want this to focus on gaming and not art) but that's about as complicated as this story gets... maybe. 

A lot of artists I know use graphics tablets, with many of them calling their mice bars of soap and about half as useful for drawing digitally. It surprised me, then, to learn from Ash Vickers of Megacynics that vector art is primarily done with a mouse. It made sense the more I thought about it, especially as I started experimenting with vector graphics. I also started doing CAD for work, which also uses a mouse (Solidsmack has a wonderful article about using a stylus for CAD, by the way). Needless to say, I had my work cut out for me. This made what happened next a little more scary than it normally would have been. 

I'm right-handed (that's not the scary part) and one morning, I found that I slept wrong somehow and my right arm was extremely sore. It more than likely would have gone away on its own (and it did), but given that I had a full day of design work ahead of me using that very arm, I would be playing a dangerous game of either keeping my arm in pain or making it worse. This made me really anxious, if rather pitifully so. I sat down at my desk, looked at the arrangement of peripherals on my desk, and took a calculated risk. The keyboard got shifted to the right, and the mouse hopped over it and landed on the left. My left hand was going to have to learn CAD and vector work the same way sadists and deadbeats teach nervous kids to swim, chucking them straight into the deep end. 

There wasn't even five seconds of adjustment. 

Seriously, I didn't even need to switch the left and right buttons in the control panel. Using my middle finger for left click and my index finger for right click felt every bit as normal as the opposite arrangement on my right hand. Okay, there was a little bit of a learning curve in the precision and accuracy department when it came to clicking and dragging, so let's bring that five seconds up to about five minutes. This was all about a year ago, and I have no intention of going back. In fact, I'd like to invite all of you to give it a try. You can switch the left and right mouse buttons if you want to, but you may be surprised how intuitive the setup truly is. If you're skeptical, and you're at your desk while reading this, I want you to look down at your current arrangement of mouse and keyboard. Unless you're using a small laptop or you specifically asked for a narrow keyboard, yours likely has a number pad, with a little cross of arrow keys separating it from the nation of QWERTY. Those arrows are going to become important later. This added real estate, which is wider than your hand when it's in a relaxed position, creates a rather onerous compromise when it comes to productivity. 

Seriously, why does this look weird?

Think about it, in order to center the home row of your keyboard under your screen, you have to put your right arm at almost a 45 degree angle away from your body to operate your mouse. This is a little less drastic if you have a trackball, but let's save that discussion for when we talk about Centipede and Missile Command. (let's just say if you're not tossing the keyboard aside and putting that beautiful billiard ball front and center, you're doing it wrong!). If your job involves more typing than clicking, you may be okay with this and it's entirely possible it will never pose any problems for you. Likewise, if you need your mouse more than your keyboard, then having home row off-center can be equally tolerable. In either case, though, you're missing a trick, quite possibly the ultimate office life hack.

If your HR department has invested any time and effort into discussing office ergonomics with you, it may be familiar to hear something along the lines of keeping your arms as straight as possible. This is spot-on. Arguably, your muscles can get used to being at odd angles, but 1) you shouldn't have to, and 2) your muscular system is fundamentally give-and-take. If muscle group A has to work a little harder, muscle group B doesn't. Simple isometric exercises and stretches can help with these, but like we said in point 1, you shouldn't have to. 

Here's where this gets interesting: gamers already get the most out of this clumsy arrangement, but only because of a compromise. The typical keyboard-and-mouse arrangement for something like a first-person shooter or a few other genres that involve navigating a three-dimensional space works out like this: the mouse controls the camera or where your character looks, while the W, A, S, and D keys move your character forward, left, back, and right (respectively). In this setup, the far left side of the keyboard and the rightmost reach of the mouse allow your arms to rest straight in front of you. 

You've nailed it... or have you? 

In my CAD work, I don't use my keyboard that often, not compared to the number pad. It's used about as equally as the mouse. Having my mouse on the left lets me center the home row of my keyboard, which puts my arms straight ahead, with the left resting on the mouse, and the right resting on the number pad, with those arrow keys almost equally accessible. I've even got the arrow keys on the number pad thanks to the Num Lock key if needed. 

Having my mouse on the left lets me use the arrow keys for what they arrow keys are made for. 

Yes, that sounds obvious, but if that's obvious, why is the WASD arrangement somehow "the norm"? What do you typically use the left analog stick on a game controller for? The camera, with the right analog stick controlling your movements. Funnily enough, this arrangement for dual analog controllers as pioneered in Alien Resurrection for the Sony Playstation was heavily criticized at the time before quickly becoming the norm. Now consider that in old-school gaming, especially in the arcade, movement controls are on the left. Meanwhile, left-handed arcade sticks put movement controls on the right, where right-handed console gamers operate movement controls anyway. 

Gamers are already fundamentally ambidextrous and we don't even realize it. 

It's only appropriate, then, that Razer (By Gamers, For Gamers) would be pretty much lead the charge in producing left-handed ergonomic gaming mice. There are others, but they're playing catch-up on the whole, with many content with catering to office environments where fewer buttons are required. 

Ironically, despite what I said earlier about not needing to reverse the mouse buttons in the control panel, the default layout of the left-handed Naga mouse reverses the clicks. Luckily, Synapse (the application Razer offers to customize their mouse buttons) makes the switch easy. Unfortunately, because it's an application, it's not there right away when I boot up, and there's a few minutes every morning when I have to mentally swap sides until everything gets up and running. For the sake of convenience and not dealing with adding more programs to startup, I swapped the clicks in the Control Panel. So, the left-handed mouse is actually less intuitive to my left hand than an ambidextrous one without modification. Razer, if you're reading this, worry not, for I forgive you ;) ... but if you really want to make it up to me, maybe you can put that MOBA-friendly Naga Hex mouse on fast-track to getting a left-handed version? This 12-button keypad is kinda tedious ;P 

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective (First Impressions)

As a rule, I've more or less forbidden games on my phones and even my iPad. It's not that I don't think the platform is a viable competitor to the likes of the DS or Vita (In fact, earlier today before editing this, I just beat Daxter on my first generation PSP I still play reguarly). The problem is I have something of an addictive personality, especially when it comes to puzzle games. Growing up on Tetris, Dr. Mario, and Bust-A-Move has engrained the genre in me as a kind of comfort food for the middle ground between my left and right brain. 
As a compromise, I limit one game per device, a maximum of one microtransaction if the game is free-to-play, and with very strict rules on genre, namely no puzzle games like Bejeweled (I still haven't forgiven my Dad for getting me hooked on it) or endless runners like Jetpack Joyride (my Dad still hasn't forgiven me for getting him hooked on it). Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective from Capcom, which at first I thought was a spin-off title in the Phoenix Wright series*, is almost a puzzle game. It's a point-and-click (tap-and-hold?) adventure game with logic and time-based puzzles. 

Hmm, that "D" looks familiar....

You play a disembodied spirit recently separated from his mortal coil by way of a convoluted murder conspiracy involving a group of blue men (No, not those guys). Unfortunately for you, not only did your red-suited carcass end up in a very undignified position, and not only have you completely lost your memory, but someone else in the same junkyard as you is about to be sworn in as a new denizen among the dearly departed by way of a golden shotgun. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, however, as another spirit in the form of a desk lamp named Ray (yes, as in "ray of light" tunnels notwithstanding) is quick to take you by the phantom limb and teach you to use your newfound powers of the dead. 

Like that there parrot that done ceased to be...

The gameplay reminds me mostly of Firefly's Diary (htoL#NiQ) on Vita, particularly with the Ghost mechanic. When in "Ghost" mode, you're able to possess various inanimate objects. The catch is that you've got a limited range, which can sometimes be hard to judge. Often you'll have to "join the dots" and move from point to point. Sometimes an object must be manipulated not only to solve the puzzle, but also to get you to another and more vital object. Think Final Destination with good intentions or Ghost if it was directed by Miyazaki. 

Manipulating possessed objects forms another third of your suite of phantom powers, called "Trick" mode for the sake of a title drop. Although the backgrounds have the same degree of awkward clutter as a hidden object game, the number and type of objects you can inhabit is limited, complete with a few red herrings thrown in. If Ghost mode reminded me of Firefly's Diary, this part of the game reminds me of Haunting with Polterguy on the Genesis. In that game, your goal was to scare away the inhabitants of a house. Your tricks here are a little more versatile and subtle, though getting attention via diversion and distraction is a core part of the gameplay. This part can become the most frustrating as many of the tricks you have to pull off rely on characters standing in specific spots, looking a certain direction, or performing some subtle action you're likely to miss more often than not. It always strikes me as a cheap tactic to reduce strategizing and problem solving to a time trial in order to make something more challenging. 

A Dead Dog, a Distressed Damsel, and a Dastardly... Dog-killer? Yeah, let's go with that.

Speaking of timing and trials, the last power of the dead at your disposal is a time manipulation mechanic. In addition to connecting with inanimate object, you can also contact the spirits of the recently deceased and rewind their last four minutes of life. Not only can you see their final moments play out from a limited third person perspective, but you can actually save them from dying with your dual-wielding of possession and manipulation. This redeems the "situational" aspect of the game, albeit it replaces quick reflexes with trial and error. Still, I'd rather have my Rube Goldberg machination not work because I missed a step or misjudged a character as opposed to not being able to swipe or tap or drag fast enough at the right time. 

The way the big guy slaps that command console always kills me.

I played the game on an iPhone 5c, and though it ran well enough for those first two chapters, I'd argue that an iPad is the best way to go. This is a beautiful game, especially the character designs. They're 2D sprites, but they're based on expertly-crafted 3D models that are either meticulously animated or diligently motion-captured. It may have made for a very slick and cool-looking platformer in the Prince of Persia vein. 

As of the time of this writing, Ghost Trick is available in its entirety for 10USD, and I can't decide if that's too much for a mobile game. I honestly don't know how much I've ever spent on a phone game, maybe 6 or 7 way back in the day for the Wolfenstein RPG, and frankly that may have been too much. Then again, I've easily spent over 40USD on all the various drawing programs across all my mobile devices. Of course, there's simply no comparing the value of a productivity app to that of a game, however addicting and fun said game may be. 

Does this count as interest?

One last note about the price: As I said, the game is available for 10USD. While that's a steal compared to the full price of its original release on Nintendo DS, in what I can only guess was a foreshadowing of Capcom's more dubious business practices, you can buy chapters in small "packs" for 5USD each. Obviously, the bundle is the better deal given the game is at least 15 chapters on top of the first two freebies. Still, I don't get this piecemeal/episodic setup because the game was ported all at once from DS to iOS. With most episodic games (especially those from TellTale), they're released several months (even years) apart at a premium, then bundled together at a discount for those who waited. It's a trade-off akin to waiting for a movie to be available for streaming rather than seeing it in theaters. For Ghost Trick, though, there was no waiting. It all simply makes me wonder how often someone paid for the chapter packs rather than going whole hog for the complete package at once. 

Suspect pricing structure aside, I enjoyed the first two chapters of Ghost Trick, and while I ultimately intend to unlock the full game, it's an odd duck even in the mobile games market and I don't recommend diving in without testing the waters first. Fans of "match three" puzzles and manic tapping may be turned away by the pacing, while fans of deeper experiences like "escape the room" or remastered ports of older games may find the total package somewhat shallow. The last comparison I would make is to Jordan Mechner's The Last Express. It's a technically ambitious work of art whose only real fault is simply not having more of itself to offer. That can leave a lot of gamers grumbling, but I'm of the mindset that if a game ends too soon, it was probably just long enough. 

*Ghost Trick was produced by the creator of Phoenix Wright, and once speculated on a crossover game, but the title sadly remains a one-off. 

Lootcrate

As I mentioned on my Twitter feed, I decided to give Lootcrate a shot after seeing it featured on Rev3 Games and more recently on Dr. Ashen's YouTube channel. If you don't know what it is, it's basically a grab bag; you get a box of random stuff each month. Said stuff, if past "crates" are anything to go by, includes a lot of blindbox figures, buttons, decals, and the odd t-shirt, among other things. It's a bit silly, overall, but I can appreciate the niche novelty and, by dammit, that's the kind of bold business venture I want to support... if only briefly. I don't think I'll stick with the service, but we'll see. 
As this is a grab bag, it's likely I'll like some of what's in the crate, and not care much for the rest. To that end, and a big reason I decided to go for it, I'll be passing along whatever I don't want, try to make a few people smile. I'm actually a tad anxious about the first box I'll get as the coupon code they posted to their site was "TITAN" which, given this is geek/gaming related stuff, could mean anything from Titanfall to Attack on Titan. I could honestly care less about the former, and have even written a painfully long essay on how not interested I am in the latter. Admittedly, I have reneged on a few points since I wrote it, but not many (i.e. the skinless titan still looks fricking stupid). 
While I don't think I'll be doing unboxing videos or anything like that (seems a bit pointless, as each box is technically unique), the fact is I'm terrible at guessing what people might like, and would like to avoid simply sending things willy-nilly every which way. So, I will be making the odd post now and again or, if I happen to be on Skype with you or PMing you somewhere like DeviantART, Facebook, Twitter, or Google+, I may ask out of the blue if you want something. For the record, these will be gifts. I don't want any money or shout-outs, and I'm definitely not shilling for Lootcrate (though they did give me a referral link, which I'd appreciate you using if, by chance, your interest is piqued and you want to sign up). However, if you really want to return the favor somehow, I won't stop you. Void where prohibited, no obligation, cancel anyt---DAMMIT!