Still Alive

My daughter came into the bedroom where I was working earlier today and said, “Alexa, play 'Still Alive'.”   This got my attention, because this is one of my favorite songs—a song I used to sing to the children when they were babies, but not one I thought my daughter remembered or knew the name of.

Then, she surprised me even more when she stopped the version Alexa started playing and said more specifically, “Alexa, play 'Still Alive' by Jonathan Coulton.”  Then she proceeded to sing along to the song.   I pulled out my phone and recorded her singing and sent it to my childhood best friend, saying I was so proud.

The song has an interesting back story.   There was a small indy game developer who had this concept of a game they were calling Portal.  You had two guns, one which opened up one side of a portal and the other that opened up the other side of the portal.   You could open the gate, or portal on the wall behind you and then aim at a wall far across a canyon, opening up the opposite side there.  Then by taking one step into the door behind you, you stepped out on the far side of the canyon.

It was new and different.  It was novel.   It was a puzzle game.   You could do strange things with gravity like opening a door on the floor of that canyon far below you and then completing the portal on a wall high above.   You could fall down into the door and you’d fly out of the wall with all your falling inertia translated into lateral motion.   It was cool.

The little indy game got released as a free add-on to a big game release.   That big game was fairly popular, but it in no way achieved the fame that the little game named Portal did.  In the game you wake up and you’re a test subject with no choice but to test the portal guns.   The computer AI tells you things like hopefully you won’t die like the other subjects did and that if you do survive, there will be cake at the end.

This evil AI is the voice of the game and the foe you ultimately have to defeat.   When you beat the game, after having destroyed the computer, the credits roll and a song is sung—by the AI—called 'Still Alive’.

It’s catchy in tune and the lyrics are funny and it launched the artist’s career in part.   Today the artist, Jonathan Coulton, has his own week’s cruise where all people are there with similar nerdy interests and in particular to see him perform.    And while I have sung the song to my children on more than one occasion since they’ve been out of their high chairs, I didn’t expect my daughter to know it.

I found out later that for some reason they played the song on the way home from the beach today and my daughter liked it enough at this age that she asked for it to be played multiple times.   Tonight as I dried her hair we sang the song together.

The Big Boy Update:  My son ran downstairs last night just after bed, saying he was going to be sick.   He threw up mere seconds later and said he felt much better.   He wanted to stay in the bed with me for a bit and then we both fell asleep.   He threw up fluids later in the night while I was asleep.   This morning I told him and he very sweetly got a cloth, wet it and came to wipe the bed.  I told him he was so nice to be willing to clean it up, but that I thought we were going to have to wash everything anyway.   He felt fine other than that.   Something must have just disagreed with him from dinner.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter had fun at the Spring Outing with all the Y Guides in the area at a camp at the beach this weekend.   She did lots of things including zip lining.   She also did a good bit of bike riding, which surprised both her husband and me.   She can see enough to ride a bike.   We thought it was beyond being able to see to do that since she hasn’t wanted to ride her bike here at home in a good while.