by Melinda Snodgrass | Mar 30, 2013 | Blog
I’ve been thinking once again about happy endings since I’ve been spending a bit of time over on the BioWare Social Network where the grief over the end of Mass Effect 3 is still prevalent now that we have reached the one year anniversary. Somebody said something about Tolkien talking about “illusion” so I went looking and found his essay on fairy stories. It’s fascinating reading, and some of it went right over my head, but toward the end he talked about happy...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Mar 26, 2013 | Blog
One of my favorite bloggers is the gay, Catholic, conservative Andrew Sullivan, but I think he’s off base on his hope that the Supreme Court will go small, make a very narrow ruling on the gay marriage ruling. He thinks it should continue to be argued state by state, but I see real problems in that approach for a lot of gay families. So let’s say the court rules that the parties defending Prop 8 had no standing so they couldn’t bring the case. Then the earlier ruling...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Mar 25, 2013 | Blog
I’m cooking breakfast this morning and they have a Republican guy on The Daily Rundown talking about how gay marriage really is a conservative value because marriage is good, and because the Republican party is all about, yah know, Freedom, and keeping the government out of people’s private lives. And I just lost it. I’m yelling at the television “What about my right to control my fertility? To make choices about when or if I want a child?” This is the most...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Mar 25, 2013 | Blog
I realized I didn’t have my music on my laptop and since that is going to become the California computer I wanted my music. I was preparing to do some difficult transfer thing, so I Google how to move music from my desktop to my laptop. It told me to turn on Home Sharing. I did, and the music transferred. That was it. No muss, no fuss. And I still have two more devices that I can authorize. I need to find out how to remove my old dead MacBook Pro from my list of devices. Back to...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Mar 25, 2013 | Game/Writing
I’ve been having a really interesting discussion with a number of fans over on the BSN (BioWare Social Network). This group seemed to be moderate, thoughtful, and far more polite with one another. The topic was foreshadowing, and needless to say we ended up discussing the tragic failure to foreshadow pretty much anything that mattered at the end of the third game. A year of analysis, looking at this game solely as a writing exercise, and the enjoyment of writing my own ending, and...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Mar 21, 2013 | About Writing
I thought it might be fun to do a post about commonly used phrases in Hollywood and what they mean. Actually, many of them are very useful and can offer real guidance to a writer. The reason for these musing was I learned a new one today, and I think it’s great. So today I went off to a very helpful and productive meeting with my excellent producer/executive Gregory Noveck over on the Universal lot. A brief aside, it always makes me pinch myself when I’m walking across the lot...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Mar 7, 2013 | Game/Writing
I joined the BioWare social network because of my deep enjoyment and interest in both the Dragon Age franchise and the Mass Effect franchise. Unfortunately there does seem to be a tendency to go for the flame among some of the members. Because we are all geeks there is also a tendency to focus on minutia. We saw it a lot when I was on Star Trek:TNG. After each episode aired there would be so many letters about our technobabble pointing out that we had said something that was contradictory...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Mar 5, 2013 | Game/Writing
So the final DLC (Down Loadable Content) for Mass Effect 3 dropped today. Thus far I have resisted purchasing any of the DLC’s for this game. I had the same reaction to Dragon Age 2. I didn’t buy a single DLC. But for Mass Effect 1 and 2 and Dragon Age: Origins I bought every DLC. The games were just that good. But now my resolve is being tested. From the trailer it’s apparently old home week all the living characters with whom you’ve adventured return. And you...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Mar 1, 2013 | TV & Movies
It’s no secret that I’m a huge Daniel Craig fan. I think he’s a terrific actor and oh so easy on the eyes. I had never seen the role which apparently helped him land the mantle of James Bond, that of a middle man drug dealer in LAYER CAKE. I watched it last night, and it was great. Really innovative direction, and a script where things just kept getting worse and worse but usually because of human idiocy or frailty, greed and viciousness. It struck me again how much I...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Feb 26, 2013 | Blog
I have to ask. Are there no women on the design teams creating these games? Could we please have a few? How this latest musing came about was I was grousing about the dresses at the Oscars — most of them were dead ugly — with a friend and fellow game geek, and we fell to talking about the outfits for female characters in games. I mentioned how that black leather dress created for a female Shepard in Mass Effect 3 was really tacky and ugly. And just be sure I remembered it correctly I went...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Feb 23, 2013 | TV & Movies
I was chatting with a friend about the increasing escalation in movies of spectacle and action, and realizing that it’s cheapening the sense of a hero’s accomplishment. If nothing can hurt these people then their struggles are meaningless. This started over a discussion of the fight in Goblin town in the HOBBIT. I really despised that whole sequence. If felt like an amusement park ride, and the idea that people could fall vast distances and just jump up and run off made me...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Feb 13, 2013 | Blog
This is why, despite it all I’m proud of my country and her citizens. This from the President’s State of the Union speech. “We should follow the example of a North Miami woman named Desiline Victor. When she arrived at her polling place, she was told the wait to vote might be six hours. And as time ticked by, her concern was not with her tired body or aching feet, but whether folks like her would get to have their say. Hour after hour, a throng of people stayed in line in...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Feb 10, 2013 | The Craft of Writing
I’ve been dithering over a scene in the latest novel, THE EDGE OF DARKNESS. In the interest of efficiency and moving the story forward I wanted this to be a simple set of actions. People get locked up so hero and his Scooby Gang can escape. Eventually locked up people have to be freed, and take their nefarious actions. Which had me reflecting on cell phones. If you leave them with phones they call the cops and claim they are being kidnapped/illegally detained, and my hero’s...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Feb 6, 2013 | Game/Writing
It’s a strange phenomenon when a person who has entered our homes either through television or been a familiar figure in movies dies. You feel a sense of connection, and can feel grief for that loss. But I’m feeling it all the more strongly with word that the very talented Robin Sachs who voiced so many games has died at age 61. I feel especially close to that actor because he voiced characters with whom I’ve gone adventuring. As Zaeed Massani in Mass Effect 2 and 3, he...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Feb 3, 2013 | TV & Movies
I’ll probably go see SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK tomorrow since football bores me, and the country shuts down for the “national Superbowl holiday”; but of all the nominated films I’ve seen my favorite has been sweeping the awards so far. ARGO is the little picture that could, and I’m delighted. I really liked the movie on so many levels. I wish Affleck hadn’t gotten snubbed by the Academy, but if he wins top honors from the DGA that may remove some of the...
