Viva Forever

I signed up for an account at Miss Bimbo almost two weeks ago. I first came to know about the site from an article on Feministing and various other news sources (wiki gives links to a few) and my first reaction was that it sounded like one of the most horrible things in the world. Teaching kids to be bimbos and get plastic surgery and taking diet pills? WTF? A while after that, one bored afternoon, I decided to see what the fuss was about for myself.

Upon registration, I was awestruck by two aspects of the site. Firstly, one of the face-palmingly ironic aim of the game, which was to be the “most intelligent” bimbo… ever. Do these people not know what the word “bimbo” means? Secondly, I was baffled by the fact that the “bimbo” character that you start off with has an IQ of 70 and you need to work your way up from there. That’s… two standard deviations from the norm, i.e. you’ll be in the bottom 3-ish% of the general population in terms of the smarts. Why you are given an almost retarded virtual woman to start off with is a complete mystery.

As for the game play, it’s pretty shitty for a semi-popular virtual game that boasts to have 500-1000+ players at any one time. Many of the pages are incredibly buggy and poorly coded and the mini-games are horribly banal (except for maybe sudoku). Unlike other online games, Miss Bimbo seems to consciously try to limit the amount of time any player would want to spend on the site, as there is little activity that would motivate one to keep playing continuously at any one time.

On your right, is my “Bimbo” as she currently is.

As for the actual complaints and defences for the game? Here’s a couple of things to note:

• The creators of MB had tried to downplay the existence of plastic surgery in the game as being just a minor, “optional” thing. This isn’t true, as one of the actual goals to advance a level actually requires you to perform surgery on your character. Also, boob jobs and face lifts are by far the quickest and biggest ways to boost your “bimbo attitude”, which is a form of status currency in the game.
• The whole fear that “bawww little 10 year olds are playing the game!” is kind of unjustified; I haven’t seen anyone younger than 16 years old play, and usually the age ranges from early to late twenties. But still, doesn’t mean young women aren’t impressionable.
• They’ve gotten rid of the “diet pills” that apparently you could get before to lose weight, but it doesn’t excuse the fact that they have an “ideal” weight for one’s “bimbo”, which is 127lb (about 57kg). Given how the character is relatively tall, that weight is probably lower than what’s normal.
• I’m surprised that no one has complained about the fact that one of the main ways to earn money in this game is from your boyfriend. That’s right, you are more or less obliged to get a boyfriend, who does nothing but pay you daily (for what, who knows) and gives you status. The higher level you are, the “better” the boyfriend you could get, who then gives you more money and more status dollars. Also, to complete goals, you’re constantly asked to break-up with current boyfriends and get newer, better paying ones.
• A number of the goals require a ridiculously high number of “bimbo attitude” points, which is quite difficult to get. One of the main ways to get it is to spend lots of money on changing one’s hair, makeup, getting a tan, body scrubs and of course, plastic surgery.
• One of the daily flash games that gives a small amount of “bimbo attitude” points, involves “french kissing” as many guys as you can in a club.
• While there is a thankfully wide range of clothing you could get for your modelesque bimbo, there is a disturbing amount of clothing that is incredibly revealing and just plain tacky. Also, you’re encouraged to shop as often as possible for clothing, as various goals require you to have a certain amount of clothing. One of the end goals require you to own at least 500 items of clothing.

I play this game for the fact that I like dress-up, virtual games to an extent, though I tend to abandon them after a while (e.g. neopets). Besides the horribly coded site, I have to say that many of the clothing items and the “bimbos” themselves are nice to look at. However, is this a bad game in a general, “people harming” way? I’d err on the side of “yes”. If I were to do a psychological test, and I was tested before and after 20 minutes of game play to rate my self-image/esteem, I’d probably do marginally worse after playing than not because I simply do not look like that character, even though she’s being portrayed as a desirable, modern woman. It’s not a mind-crushing, “I’m going to kill myself now” comparison as obviously this is a game, but it’s still a vaguely negative experience. To my mind, it’s simply not possible to say this is only “harmless fun”, as the sheer amount of focus on artificial and specific appearances and the prevalent ideas that men are to be used as resources really creates a specific image of how women should be/behave. The game never contemplates different types of women, but that only all women want to be cool, hot, talented and intelligent, superficial and heartless.

There really isn’t any reason for me to continue to play, except that it really doesn’t take up much of my time and that the whole “levelling up” system touches on my RPGesque need to improve gaming characters I’ve invested in. Do I recommend it? Not really. If anyone’s curious to try it, feel free, but I hope what I’ve listed is distasteful enough so that you’d give this a miss.

Early this morning I was hauled out of bed by my parents for a trip to our dentist. I was informed by my orthodontist weeks ago that I need to wear a “night-guard” mouth thing instead of my retainers at night because of my constant teeth-grinding when I sleep, which is starting to wear away at my teeth. He also said I should also go see a psychologist to help “deal with my stress” that he thinks is causing the grinding, but fuck him, what does he know about psychology. -_-

Anyhow, the point of this entry is to talk about a freaky really old woman who’s always hanging around the dental surgery. She’s this incredibly ancient Asian woman whom I think is related to the dentist; probably his grandmother or something. She never actually helps out with anything, but is either just standing around or found slowly shambling through the corridors (kinda like the NPCs in Pokemon games).

Now, I generally have nothing against old people, for example, I have no issue with my grandmother and grandaunt who are really spry old women and are incredibly loud, energetic and have a tendency to pinch little children and myself. But this woman at the dental surgery is just creepy in a Japanese horror film kind of way. I’ve never heard her speak, she’s really small, wrinkly and balding, and has these really sallow eyes and never seems to smile. Even though she’s really small, for some reason whenever I encounter her in the corridors between rooms, I always find myself in her way, having to apologetically step around her as she continues her slow, aimless shuffle to the next room. She looks like the type of character in a horror movie, whose only role is to continually look ominously quiet before dramatically doing something different, like pointing behind you, and when you turn to look you get your face eaten off by some vengeful ghost woman/child/doll. Fuckin’ unsettling.

I also went to the library today and was able to borrow both Thud! and Going Postal. Hooray! I don’t know if I have time to read both as I have my stupid International Law assignment to start (I’m thinking about doing it on the US Iraq war, but I don’t know, might be too huge a topic), awesome games to play and cool people to hang out with.

I’ve said this on LJ already, but I’ve started playing Team Fortress 2, which is such an awesome game. If any of you guys also play it, add me!!

So! Today (technically yesterday since it’s 3:23am), Xuan, Tracey and I met up with Amanda on her last day visiting Sydney. Xuan has already written out a nicely detailed recount of what happened (with pictures!) so there’s no need for me to repeat what he’s already said. Here’s a couple more of my own tidbits:

• I felt absolutely horrible for being 40 minutes late to get to the meeting place; a delayed bus meant missing out on trains I needed to catch to get there on time. Grr. But at least the guys were really nice about having to wait for me to show up!
• I remember remarking during lunch, “hrm if only we brought cameras” only for the three of them to immediately reach into their bags to take out their respective cameras. Damn me for not being more prepared!
• it is amazing how Amanda can just walking from one shop to the next in a seemingly untiring way. Towards the end of the day, Xuan, Tracey and I were shuffling after Amanda and clamouring for seats to sit on where we can as she shopped. I know other people who can do that too, it’s mind-boggling how much stamina they have for shopping so extensively.
• Speaking of shopping, while I had previously concluded that I’d never find anything that fits me and is within budget, I was happily proven wrong today. I bought a lovely suit jacket from Events that was on sale that happens to fit me very snuggly (but just a tiny bit tight around the waist). I’ll let the receipt do the talking (red bits added by me):
  

All in all, it was an excellent but exhausting meeting! :D

In other news, the other day I got to participate in my first game of Dungeons and Dragons! I played as a level 3 bard as there was already an existing group of players with fighters, sorcerer, cleric etc… just not a bard. It was lots of fun, with me entering the story at a point where it just begun to get kinda epic. I didn’t get to actually say or do very much, which I didn’t mind as it allowed me to see how the others roleplayed.

Life
Not much has been going on, gave in my huge assignments. My Intellectual Property assignment was left to the last minute AGAIN, and even staying up all night, it turned out all shitty anyway. Tim said it’s not bad when he helped proof read it for me, but we all know he’s just trying to make me feel better. :3 I need to get my Gardasil booster and maybe a blood test too, the perpetual tiredness is still bugging me.

Watched
On the night before my Corporate Law assignment was due, rather than working on it, I instead watched the documentary The Dying Room that’s basically an undercover report on orphanages in China. It’s well worth watching, though incredibly depressing. All the children in the orphanages were girls (except for a small number of handicapped boys). The living conditions in the state orphanages were absolutely appalling, with toddlers being literally tied to chairs to keep them from moving around. The looks of lifeless boredom in many of their eyes as they rock back and forth was absolutely horrible.

One of the commentators interviewed blamed the One Child policy for the huge numbers of baby girls being left in the streets because their families don’t want them. While the policy no doubt exacerbated the problem, the real problem is 1) the cultural disregard for the sacredness of human life and 2) the treatment of women as second class citizens. My mother once said that the more people there are, the more expendable they are. When we’re dealing with more than a billion of people, I guess it is easier and easier to think of people as just a number.

In regard to sexism, it’s kinda weird. In modern times, every since the Cultural Revolution, it at least seems that there is more of an equality between genders. I’ve seen a number of women in parliament in China, and women are encouraged to work as much as men. But watching that documentary, female children are despised whereas male children are infinitely more desirable. This can’t be just an anomalous finding as generally speaking, there’s already way too many men in China because of people’s persistent desire to have male children over female. It frustrates me beyond words that there’s no movement in China to counter the mind-numbingly stupid cultural traditions of how women ought to be viewed and treated. It’s probably better now in the city areas of China at least but it is problematic that the idea that women are not as good as men are allowed to be trickle through.

Oh and yesterday I watched Moulin Rouge. I’ve never seen it before, and wow, talk about disappointing! :P I first heard the soundtrack from a friend when it was released and I quite like the songs on it. But watching it was excruciating at parts, the acting was bad and the choice of song was at times just bizarre (“Smells Like Teen Spirit”? Really, Baz Luhrmann, was that necessary?). And this is coming from someone who generally like musicals.

I finished watching xxxHOLiC, I have a review of it up. I watched the beginning of the first episode of Code Geass, but so far, the story hasn’t really sucked me in. I’m really not very into political conflict type anime. But yay, CLAMP artwork.

Games
I watched Tim play Portal (well the beginning and end, I fell asleep halfway through). It’s an awesome game to even watch. The finale was one of the most memorable I’ve ever seen, just in how funny GLaDOS is. I love the taunts she’d throw at you, oh and her ending song is just fabulous. More games should put emphasis on their scripts! The game itself looked fun to play, but given how un-coordinated and crappy at spatial tasks I am, I think I’m a little too intimidated to play it.

Site stuff

I finished this a little while ago. Mwaha, yay the Pucca fanlisting is finally mine! :D Heh, I love that little broad. Yeah, the layout isn’t very good, but I was in a hurry and I had a huge brain freeze. Why is it that I use image rollovers whenever I make bad layouts? Spin has also finally gotten an update after 11 months of no activity. I’ve got a bunch of other site updates that I need to make as well.

Right now, what I should be doing are my Uni readings though. Bah.

Today was Wilson’s (my bratty brother) 14th birthday. Tim and I got him Final Fantasy XII, after I asked Wilson a few days ago if that’s what he wanted (he’s a huge Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts fan). I’ve always wanted to play tricks on people for their birthdays but I’ve always either been too lazy, or just thought better of it at the last minute.

In a drug-induced haze (read: a cup of coffee) this afternoon, I decided once and for all to give it a go. I whipped out a piece of paper and made my own crappy version of the Final Fantasy XII cover. Compare below (click on the pictures for a better view!):

(Excuse the spottiness on the scanned actual cover; my scanner is pretty crappy) And yes… I had no idea what FF12 was actually about, except that it was “political”. :P I also don’t know what that black creature is, but he looks kinda unhappy. Another caption could’ve been “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

I got out my supplies of scissors, tape, a buttload of old newspaper, wrapping paper and cardboard. I basically cut out two pieces of game-box-sized cardbox sheets, put a folded piece of newspaper between them to bulk it up, and wrapped my “alternative” FF12 cover around it. I then proceeded to wrap it with sheet after sheet of newspapers, while throwing in random balls of scrunched up newspaper to make the shape more ambiguous. Last of all, I wrapped it with Christmas wrapping with the non-Christmassy side up (I was going to buy wrapping, but a non-discounted 2 metre roll costs $7!! What the hell). The before and after are below.

So after dinner when it was present opening time, I handed the “present” to Wilson with the real one hidden inside a bag. Anyway, he was so excited about opening the present! It took him ages to get through each layer, and he got more and more excited as he made his way into it. He was obviously expecting FF12. When he finally saw my version of FF12, his face literally fell and confusion erupted as he slowly exclaimed “what… the hell?”

He then tore the cardboard apart under the desperate hope that the inside bit of newspaper actually hid the CD, but when he opened up the newspaper there was nothing there. My reaction was:

xD !!

His was:

-_-; -> :(

I felt so bad that I whipped out the real game and said to him, “looking for THIS??? :D” and his face just lit up like a Christmas tree on fire.

We then had his birthday cake and tried out the game.

The graphics are AMAZING. And wow it *is* very political. The game starts off with a wedding and a war. Lots of pretty Caucasian people and CHOCOBOS OF RAAAAAGE in the war scenes. Hooray for no more random battles with enemies you can’t see in real time. I might play it after my brother finishes with it. He’s not allowed to play it until his holidays start though (in a week’s time).

All in all, well worth spending the hour or so not doing my Corporations readings. :P