Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has survived the Hunger Games twice. But now that she’s made it out of the bloody arena alive, she’s still not safe. The Capitol is angry. The Capitol wants revenge. Who do they think should pay for the unrest? Katniss. And what’s worse, President Snow has made it clear that no one else is safe either. Not Katniss’s family, not her friends, not the people of District 12.

I just finished reading “Mockingjay,” the last book of Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy. (Warning … slight spoilers may follow!)

The book picks up immediately where “Catching Fire” ended: Katniss has been rescued from the arena by the rebels from District 13, but they were unable to rescue Peeta who is now in the hands of the government forces. As part of the resistance, Katniss reluctantly becomes the titular Mockingjay, the face of the revolution, and a tug-of-war of propaganda ensues between the revolting districts and the Capitol.

The revolution in Panem takes center-stage in this final book of the trilogy while the love triangle between Katniss, Peeta, and Gale continues to be a main plot point. Peeta is eventually rescued from the Capitol but turns out to be brainwashed, no longer his gentle self, but a ticking time-bomb programmed to (hopefully) kill the Mockingjay.

Can Peeta fight his demons be returned to normal? Will the Districts be able to overthrow the Capitol and win the war? Will Katniss get her final revenge and kill President Snow? Most (but not all) of your questions are answered in the final chapters. I found the end to be a little rushed (and my daughter had ruined one of the major surprises for me) but still enjoyed the series.

It will be interesting to see how all of this plays out on the silver screen. We went to see “Beauty and the Beast” in 3D today and all of “The Hunger Games” movie posters were hanging up (only two months to go!) which got my daughter all psyched. It’s going to be PG-13, though, and even though she’s read the books I’m not sure how seeing some of those sequences on screen are going to affect her (real or not real?) so we may have to do the “wait and watch at home” thing.

I’m actually a little surprised I haven’t written about IF before on this blog considering how fond I was of playing Wishbringer or Moonmist on my Atari 800XL back in the day. Even my daughter had even gotten into playing IF games on my iPad with Frotz. She’s an avid reader and also loves playing games, so IF games are a natural fit for her. Back in late August I decided I wanted to try my hand at writing her a personalized game which eventually evolved into the idea of making the game a scavenger hunt of sorts for her birthday in December. That gave me about four months to plan, design, write, and test the game.

The first thing I did was to download Inform 7 and start reading the documentation. Inform is a natural language design system for IF games which makes it pretty easy to learn. In almost no time at all, I was creating the rooms of our house, writing (a LOT of!) descriptions, linking rooms with exits, and creating objects.

The screenshot above shows the basic Inform interface. On the left-hand side is my source code and the right-hand pane is showing the running game for testing. Tabs along the top of each pane allow you to quickly switch between different views, like the skein (a flowchart of in-game commands you’ve run, showing the branches), the map, compilation errors, etc.

Inform’s syntax is extremely flexible, allowing for the simplest definition of objects and rooms to more complex actions like wandering NPCs, conversation tables, almost anything you can think of. The Inform web site contains an impressive library of user-contributed extensions: re-usable modules of code you can include in your own to add features like locking doors (with keys), vehicles, or even writing games in different languages (like Spanish) which let you avoid writing all of that code from scratch.

Over the next few months while I worked on developing the game, I made extensive use of Inform’s built-in help system, code examples, and also participated in the Interactive Fiction Community Forum whose members were very helpful when I got stuck on a particular coding problem or needed advice on how to approach something. At last, I was ready for testing so I “released” my game and published it on my Dropbox account using Quixe, a javascript-based IF interpreter. This made it easy for my play-testers (my brother, sister, and sister-in-law) to play the game without needing to install their own Z-interpreter like Frotz plus I was able to quickly re-publish new builds as I made corrections or changes to the code.

Finally, it was December and time for the game to be released for real. I put the final game into Frotz on my iPad told her I found a new IF game I thought she’d enjoy. Her reaction, once she realized she was playing a game as herself in her own house, was priceless, and well-worth the months of effort it took to write. Unlike my play-testers who had a hard time with some of  my puzzles (since a) they were new to IF games and b) the game was tailored for a young girl), my daughter blew through the game in just under a day and completed the scavenger hunt, laughing almost the entire time. Lucky for me she missed some of the non-critical puzzles so the game still has replay value. She has even expressed interest in writing her own IF game, which is pretty cool.

Of course, my new coding challenge is now … how do I top this for next year?

Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has won the annual Hunger Games with fellow district tribute Peeta Mellark. But it was a victory won by defiance of the Capitol and their harsh rules. Katniss and Peeta should be happy. After all, they have just won for themselves and their families a life of safety and plenty. But there are rumors of rebellion among the subjects, and Katniss and Peeta, to their horror, are the faces of that rebellion. The Capitol is angry. The Capitol wants revenge.

During our summer road trip we listened to the audiobook version of Suzanne Collins’ “The Hunger Games” and my daughter quickly read the remaining books in the trilogy shortly afterwards. With the upcoming March 2012 release of the movie, I know I’ll probably be taking her to see all of them anyway so I figured I might as well read the rest of the books myself.

“Catching Fire” is the second book in the series and begins about six months after Katniss and Peeta emerged as the dual victors of the 74th annual Hunger Games, as they prepare to go on their Victory Tour of the other Districts. This year’s Hunger Games will be a Quarter Quell, which occurs every 25 years and usually includes some sort of miserable twist to the Games. The surprise for this Quell is that the Tributes will be selected from past victors, which means Katniss and Peeta are going into the Arena … again.

The secondary plotline continues to be the unrest in the Districts towards the Capitol. As the title suggests, Katniss has become the spark that could ignite a revolution and the Capitol will do everything in its power to prevent that. So where the first book focused more on the Games themselves, this story gives us more detail on the other Districts, their relationship with the Capitol, and the current political situation in Panem overall.

Just like the first novel, “Catching Fire” is laid out in three parts of 9 chapters each, and is an easy read (not surprising since it’s really young-adult literature). It seemed to end rather abruptly just and events were really picking up, but having started “Mockingjay” now I know it picks up immediately and keeps going, so it was the logical break point for the book.

Just remember who the Enemy is …

woot! had indicated the Kindle had a 1-year warranty from Amazon, so I called up Kindle Support (or rather, they called me once I initiated the request from their support site, which is pretty cool). The support rep (an extremely friendly, American gentleman) told me refurbished devices only have a 90 day warranty, not a year, and the warranty on my particular device expired in July 2011 (a month after I got it, so that must have been tied to the original warranty before the unit was refurbished and then purchased by me).

I was dismayed by this, since woot! claimed the 1-year warranty which turned out not to be true. The rep told me my options were to (obviously) buy a new Kindle or for $40 they would replace my broken unit with another. Digging a little deeper with the rep, I learned that the $40 replacement fee would get me a 3rd generation Kindle (now called the Kindle Keyboard) with the same free 3G service my daughter’s current Kindle has. Basically they would give me the closest current device to what I already owned. That sounded almost too good to believe so I went ahead with the replacement request.

Two days later (thanks to my Amazon Prime membership), my daughter’s new Kindle Keyboard arrived. Not only is it smaller and thinner than her 2nd gen device, it has the free 3G plus WiFi, has more storage, and it’s not the “with Special Offers” version either (it’s the $189 one). Very nice! Except for the fact that the new Kindle didn’t fit in her M-Edge GO! case, my daughter was thrilled. I was able to easily re-download her all of her books by “pushing” them from the Amazon web site and she was back in business (except for having to re-create her Collections).

I’m sad the Kindle 2 screen only lasted six months before inexplicably dying (I see a few other people on the woot! thread reported the same problem, so maybe it was just a bad batch of refurbs) and I’m a little upset at woot! for misrepresenting the warranty, but overall I’m very satisfied with Amazon’s support and the final outcome.

My daughter and I immediately got in line for Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. It seemed like our wait was shorter overall than our Easter visit but we had more time to see the cool stuff inside the various waiting rooms in Hogwarts Castle (it actually snowed in the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom). Definitely a cool ride. After that we hit the two rollers coasters (no lines for those!). By now the park was open to the public and Hogsmeade was starting to get crowded so we moved on.

The plan was to hit all of the water rides at once, so we were dressed in our casual “get wet” clothing. From Hogsmeade we walked over to Jurassic Park and rode the River Ride. My daughter wasn’t thrilled about the scary dinosaurs but the drop and resulting splash at the end was worth it. Slightly damp, we walked over to Toon Lagoon and rode Dudley Do-Right’s Ripsaw Falls, one of our favorite log flume rides. We still weren’t wet enough after that so finally we went on Popeye and Bluto’s Bilge-Rat Barges … twice! Completely soaked, we walked back to our hotel to change (as planned) but first let my daughter spend some time in the pool.

Showered, dry, and refreshed we walked back to the park to spend the rest of the day riding the rest of the rides (the Hulk coaster, Doctor Doom’s Fearfall, etc.) and seeing some of the shows we hadn’t seen before (The 8th Voyage of Sinbad and Poseidon’s Fury).

By 5pm we were done (again) with everything we wanted to do. We had 7:00pm dinner reservations over at CityWalk so we started walking back to our hotel to relax before dinner. As we were walking on the path back to the Royal Pacific, some dark clouds rolled in and we actually got caught in a downpour! Wet again (this time unplanned) we got back to our hotel and had time to freshen up and get dried off. It was still sprinkling at 6:30pm when it came time to walk back over to CityWalk, but we had umbrellas so that wasn’t really a problem.

Dinner at the Latin Quarter was pretty good, and filling. After eating, we wandered around the neon-lit spectacle of CityWalk for a bit before grabbing a nightcap at Starbucks and then catching the water taxi back to the hotel.

As usual, the weekend went fast … tomorrow we have to head back home.

We walked over from our hotel and were in line before the park opened at 9am. Through the gates, we made a beeline for the Hollywood Rip, Ride, Rockit roller coaster. The line was pretty short, and just by luck my daughter and I ended up in the front car. It’s a sweet coaster: you get to pick your own music from a list of about 30 songs (and apparently there are hidden tracks too) via a touchscreen in your seat and, as you can see from the photo, the first hill pulls you straight up while you rock out. Instead of the traditional over-the-head restraint system, it’s just a large lap bar, which at first seemed a little scary but it holds you in pretty well and frees up your arms. Every row in the train has a camera that records your ride and at the end you can purchase your own “music video” (more on that later). My daughter loved it so we got right back in line and rode it a second time while the line was still short.

My wife and daughter had been to Universal a few times over the summer and there were quite a few rides my daughter didn’t want to go on again (even with me!). Since I hadn’t been on some of these rides ever, I ended up doing a few by myself utilizing the single-rider line or Universal’s Express Pass Plus option (which we got for “free” since we were staying at a Universal hotel). It worked pretty well so I was able to go on Disaster (formerly Earthquake), Jaws, Men in Black, The Mummy (another cool roller coaster), and Twister (what’s with the cheesy cow-on-cables that flies by?) in relatively short order.

The Simpsons ride was cool, although I would have preferred it if was still Back to the Future (at least I got to see the DeLorean). The first part of E.T. freaked my daughter out (the chase through the woods), but she got a kick out of E.T. saying her name at the end.

By late afternoon we had pretty much done everything at the park we wanted to do so we headed back to the hotel so my daughter could do a little homework. We also all ended up taking a short nap, which was nice (yay, vacation!).

For dinner we went down to the Orchid Court sushi bar in the hotel and had a great, leisurely meal. Overall, it was a very pleasant day. The park was not very crowded and we were able to do everything we wanted to without feeling rushed or stressed.

Tomorrow, we brave the early crowds at Harry Potter.

Twenty-five years ago (Aug. 17, 1986), “Luxo, Jr.,” a short depicting the misadventures of a rambunctious little desk lamp and his weary father, premiered in Dallas and did something no computer-animated film had done before: It made audiences laugh. The first film from Steve Jobs’ newly formed company Pixar and the second from director John Lasseter, “Luxo” launched the most successful and innovative animation studio since Walt Disney’s heyday in the 1930s.

I’ve enjoyed all of Pixar‘s films but it all started 25 years ago today with “Luxo.”

If you never knew why Pixar had that little hopping lamp in its logo, now you know. Happy birthday, little guy!

(Thanks for the link, Jaime!)

This was the first Potter film we actually saw in the theater. My daughter was too young when the films were first released (she read the whole series start to finish in 2007 when she was just 6) and we felt that it was “safer” to watch the films at home (the last few are obviously pretty dark). Just the other week we got “Deathly Hallows: Part 1″ from Netflix and she seemed to do okay with the more intense stuff. Since “Harry Potter” is the “Star Wars” of her generation (with wands instead of lightsabers), I wanted her to have that theater experience to remember so this was her last chance (until they re-release them in 20 years with newly enhanced digital effects … oh, wait, that’s just Lucas’ gig).

Part 2 picks up right where Part 1 left-off (after 20 minutes of trailers!), so I was glad we had just watched the first one. It also helped that I was sitting next to our family expert, who’s read the books multiple times. I was able to to whisper questions to my daughter about who was who, or what was going on (it’s been years since I read the books), to get the scoop. Overall, it was a great movie, although all of those actors spent a lot of time being wet, dirty, and bloody.

The whole world knows and loves this book. It is the magical epic of King Arthur and his shining Camelot; of Merlin and Owl and Guinevere; of beasts who talk and men who fly, of wizardry and war. It is the book of all things lost and wonderful and sad. It is the fantasy masterpiece by which all others are judged.

As a slight change to my regular WIJFR posts, this one should be WIAFR (What I Almost Finished Reading).

It’d been a while since my daughter and I had read a book together so back in Mid-May we started “The Once and Future King” by T. H. White.

Part 1, “The Sword in the Stone,” chronicles the Wart’s (Arthur’s) childhood and tutelage under Merlyn. She laughed at the wizard’s antics (sewing his beard into his scarf, blowing himself to Bermuda, etc.) but was slightly confused by the concept of his living backwards in time. As the Wart was changed into different animals (hawl, owl, ant, fish, etc.) by Merlyn for his lessons, she enjoyed hearing about the adventures and problems he had (I’m sure if we keep reading she’ll make the connection between the meaning of those lessons and the situations that occur later on). She even caught some of the references to other literature, like Robin Wood (not Hood!) and Maid Marian (obvious) and Queen Circe (not-so-obvious, and even though she knew of her through the Percy Jackson novels I was still impressed). Next to Merlyn and the Wart, I think her next-favorite character was Archimedes, Merlyn’s trusty owl. Of course, the book ends with the Wart pulling the sword out of the stone and becoming the King of England (spoilers! ) which pleased her as well.

“The Once and Future King” is actually a compilation of five of T. H. White’s earlier works, so I guess you could say we actually finished “The Sword in the Stone” and then stopped there. We got a few chapters into Part 2 (“The Queen of Air and Darkness“) but I felt that the content and language was a bit above a 10-year old’s comprehension level so suggested we stop and finish it later. She protested, but I think that’s the right decision for now. Instead, it’s time to show her the old Disney movie!

My random thoughts (as usual, no spoilers):

• there were some great “cameos” like Sig Hansen and the Northwestern from “Deadliest Catch” as Crabby, and Bruce Campbell as American spy-car Rod “Torque” Redline (an obvious nod to Campbell’s character Sam Axe on “Burn Notice“).
• in Radiator Springs, the movie playing at the drive-in is “The Incrediblemobiles”
• I noticed one of the advertisements along the racetrack was for “Lassityre” (presumably a reference to Pixar’s Chief Creative Office, John Lasseter)
• in Paris, I though I saw the restaurant from Ratatouille

Of course, there are a ton of easter eggs that I missed … those are just the ones I noticed and remembered.

As for the movie itself? Well … it was okay. It hasn’t been getting great reviews and I can kinda understand why. Unlike the Toy Story sequels, “Cars 2″ doesn’t feel, well … original, and lacks the emotional power of Pixar’s previous films (think about the incinerator scene in “Toy Story 3″ or the first 10 minutes of “Up” for example). It’s just a James Bond/Jason Bourne spy-thriller story with the Cars characters. There’s also way too much of Mater and probably more guns and explosions than “The Incredibles.”

Don’t get me wrong … I enjoyed it. The car references and jokes were funny, and there was certainly a lot of action. It was a good movie, but I expect great movies from Pixar. Even the new Toy Story short before the film didn’t seem to have that Pixar magic that the shorts usually posses. I guess it just seems like it’s now too easy for them to just crank out “new” stuff by re-using their “old” stuff.

I saw a poster for “Brave” (the next film) in the theater … hopefully that one re-captures the spirit of Pixar’s previous works when it comes out next year.