BriBlog

About Recent Entries

What if the Player is Black? Nov. 5th, 2008 @ 05:34 am
Yesterday, Brenda Brathwaite of Savannah College of Art and Design, put up an article on The Escapist that poses a lot of thought-provoking questions regarding blacks in video games. She notes that when creating one's own character, if they should try to make a black person, the skin tones are vague and hair styles limited and stereotypical. The voices don't accommodate all breeds of black voice and accents. This, she claims that for her children, and certainly more black children out there, this creates an unwelcoming environment in video games...while white people can make a character that roughly matches them in appearance and / or sound, this luxury is not quite there for everyone else.

The other main issue she raises involves the representation of static black characters within video games. She points out that your average black video game character is a cookie-cutter stereotype that fits into certain areas of black culture that aren't representative of all blacks. These are good points, all and I've done some thinking on the matter.

In regards to the inability to make a good avatar within a game of one's self if they are black, I believe this issue is different from game to game. It's true that in a game like Rock Band, you've got some shades of skin for white people, and then some broad shades to cover the spectrum of blacks, to asians, to latinos...I feel like maybe too big a fuss is being raised. On average I'd say games like that feature, maybe 3 different tones for whites...pinkish, "peachy," and pale white. I don't think those effectively capture all different shades of white people, and what of those who tan, or are albino? To be honest, I usually just take a guess at which one looks like me, because I don't spend much of my daily life staring at my skin. I take this lack of advanced tone customization like I acknowledge my inability to custom-shape my jaw line in the game...it's all just very basic.

Now, in a game like Oblivion or Fallout 3, which pride themselves on their advanced character editors, the issue gets a little stickier. It can be hit or miss in these games, and more often than not, you find that the black characters wind up looking like white characters who have baked in the sun for far too long. Many times, their skin tones are pale brown, like a potato, or almost orange like...well, something brown with a shocking level of orange. In those games, the voice actors tend to sound the same between white and black, but I won't knock off points because this works both ways...the black voice actors also do white character voices.

At the end of the day, I feel that yes, black people do have something to ask for in a more rich environment to design their characters, but at the same time, I have to wonder exactly why this happens to begin with. Depending on where the development is taking place can have a big impact, in my opinion. In a country like Japan, which is almost defined by its xenophobia and homogeony, they churn out stereotypes of other races like it's a competitive sport. At the same time, this comes from their government's efforts in globalization and the importing of cultural awareness only really beginning to come into fruition over the past handful of decades. They just don't know any better. Take a look at Mr. Popo in Dragon Ball Z from the 1980's, and you'll know what I mean.

In North America, and Europe however, there isn't as much of an excuse. This isn't so much of a problem in Europe where, in so far as I can tell from my experience there, the black culture and white culture have a lot of common ground. But in North America, the fence is pretty well defined. While it would be absurd to insinuate that the words "black culture" and "white culture" are absolute definitions that come with one's own race, the fact is that these concepts were born out of prevailing trends and majority presentation. More blacks make rap and R&B music, more whites make heavy metal and country music. More blacks wear their pants around their ankles with no belt, more whites wear wife beaters smeared with mustard and car oil. It is because of these stereotypes presented to us on a daily basis in the media that we get these images crammed into our heads.

When an white, American developer's political correctness guilt complex hits him in the process of drawing up characters for a game, and he realizes he must insert a black character he had not originally thought of, he will turn to the television and see Diddy or Snoopy or Fitty bouncing around on TV and think, "how can I appeal to that audience?" It is from that narrow-minded approach that we get the Augustus Coles and Barret Wallaces of the gaming world. The thick-headed, tough-as-nails, heavy-swearing guys who shoot first and drink later. Do these types of black men exist in real life? Certainly. Is that type of person limited to blacks? Of course not.

I finished the Call of Duty 4 single player campaign just a few days ago, having spent the past year on multiplayer alone and in the last few missions, there was a supporting character...Sgt Griggs I think? Anyway, I actually took a moment to stop and feel refreshed by his presence. He was a black man without a thick, urban accent. The only thing that defined him from the others just to listen to him was a witty, tasteful joke about the color of his and his partner's skin. While hiding in a tower, preparing an ambush, the black Griggs suggested to the white guy with whom he was sitting, "you're lucky I'm here...you don't look Russian at all." I laughed.

Maybe it is a cause and effect of who the developers are surrounded by in their day-to-day lives. This clearly explains the lack of blacks in anime and Japanese games, but I can't speak to the personal lives of American developers. I suppose I can just give them the benefit of the doubt and hope they get their act together. At the same time, that's not to say that I want to see some sort of black character affirmative action. If the vision you have in mind happens not to feature many, or any black characters, you oughtn't have to shoehorn one in just to please people because, more often than not, it will be a joke of a character that will only offend. Conversely, if you do plan to put a black character in, try to have a little decency about it and define them as you would define any other character. It's 2008, for God's sake.

Lastly, my personal input on this whole thing. I hear what Brenda is saying, and while I think it's a nice suggestion that she has proposed, the fact is in some cases these characters sell. Certainly, their real-life counterparts sell and that's a big problem. 50 Cent as a human being is a societal ill, in my opinion, and I haven't heard anyone trying to tone him down because he is a poor representation of civil, middle-class blacks in America. At best we can only ignore him. But—and this is a coincidental reference—if we have 50 Cent turn around and make a video game, people snatch it up because of his image...of course it certainly can't be because of solid gameplay.

A fellow former Game Crazy employee once shared this story with me...I have copy-pasted it, so you're getting it in his words:

2 black kids looking at the pre-order case for 50 Cent: Bulletproof
Kid 1: Yo check dis out son its legit dat 50 cent joint!
Kid 2: What does RP (Rating Pending) mean yo?
Kid3: Random playa nigga! you get to play as one of the g-unit oh shit!

The problem is a combination of the poor role models and the audience that has been created because of them. This isn't a situation we can fix just by adjusting our in-game characters. In order to see Brenda's—and I think all civil peoples'—ideal world realized, we as a culture need to stop celebrating people who are, in and of themselves, negative stereotypes. The man boasts about gang wars, and sexual exploits...if less people ate that shit up, I think it would appear less frequently in various sorts of media.

Now that I've soundly confused myself and lost track, I'll wrap it up by suggesting that while Brenda does have some valid concerns, I think the answers to her problems may be more complicated than she and many of us may be hoping for. Godspeed, anyway.
Music: Andrea Ross - Moon River

Wait... Oct. 30th, 2008 @ 03:46 am
I just saw this on Engadget. Can someone explain to me how this is more efficient than four keystrokes on a computer? To write it all out by hand?

Music: Infantile Dependence, Adult Dependency

Regarding Treyarch's "Call of Duty: World at War" Oct. 28th, 2008 @ 04:31 pm
I sense that no matter who I talk to, they all feel that Treyarch's Call of Duty 5 (as it were) will be a steaming pile of shit. I don't know where they are getting these ideas. I hear these arguments come up all the time:

"Well, Call of Duty 2 was amazing, and then Call of Dut 3 was shitty. Call of Duty 4 was amazing, so Call of Duty 5 will be..."

Look, bub. IGN US gave it an 8.8, IGN AU gave it a 9.0, the press average from 43 outlets was an 8.5. If you are involved in any way with the gaming industry and you genuinely think an 8, or even a 7 is a bad score, you're a fucking retard. I want to be nicer about this, but I can't. It's the fault of our schools who tell us that 59% = failure, but we're on a slider system here. One end is bad, one end is good, and in the middle is THE FUCKING MIDDLE, average. What I am saying is that a game with a 9 out of 10 instead of a, say, 9.3 out of ten is not a bad game. It's an outstanding game. One of the things I explicitly remember from the review was that it was even graphically superior to CoD2, a game that in 2005 looked like nothing we'd ever seen before.

I don't want to play another World War II game, I'm sick of World War II games...

Okay, fine. You've got me there. If the prospect of shooting Nazi zombies doesn't sound appealing to you, then I guess that's your choice.

It's running on the same engine as Call of Duty 4.

I'm sorry, what? I'm...maybe I missed something here. Treyarch uses a different engine than Infinity Ward for Call of Duty 3 and they get complained about. They used the same engine as Infinity Ward for Call of Duty 5, and they...get complained about? You fucking people can't be pleased, can you? And let's look outside of that who's-using-what argument and step back to the bigger picture. We are a year later from the release of Call of Duty 4. What game are you still playing religiously on Xbox Live? Oh, really? You're playing CoD4? So, you must really like that engine, huh? You like the perks, and the customization? You like the stunning graphics, the expansive maps, the ROCK solid framerate? You like the fact that that engine has defined your multiplayer world? But you now dislike that they're using that engine in another game, complete with more weapons (including a flamethrower), more maps (some vehicle-specific), and a zombie mode? Are you insane?

People want to have their cake and eat it too because people are naturally drawn to complain about things. Because all people are inherently assholes. Well, Treyarch, I've put my faith in you. I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is. Let's see what you've got.
Music: Bon Jovi - Livin' On a Prayer

Re: Nintendo Just Can't Win With Core Gamers Oct. 8th, 2008 @ 10:59 pm
GayGamer.net had piece quoting Nintedo's Chief Executive Fuckface, Reggie Fils-Aime. He mentioned that you cannot please "core" gamers. Those crazy kids cannot be satisfied by the likes of 2 "core" games and Wii Fit. Who'da thunk it?

This is not a Nintendo hate piece, though. I think even though they turn out less "core" [read: real] games than the other two companies, they aren't doing a bad job with the release rate of their games. The problem is that the third party support for the Wii is so niche, it's trapped in this "casual" ghetto where the only "core" games are, by and large, either terrible or few and far between. While we get a Halo, Gears of War, or Too Human from Microsoft during the year, we get supplemented with Call of Duty 4, Devil May Cry 4, and the list goes on. When the only desirable games on your system are coming from one single company, you come to rely on them for 100% of your entertainment regarding said system.

The other problem is that Nintendo doesn't have enough franchises on the Wii to provide for more games per year. Microsoft can crank out 2-4 great first party titles per year, but Nintendo has already showed its hand with the first wave of good games...Metroid, Zelda, Mario...only Pikmin remains and we will wait for maybe 3-4 years to see their sequels with nothing important in-between. This is because Nintendo makes a habit of re-hashing the same franchises instead of cooking up things that are new or buying IP's that are in the works like Microsoft does.

So...really, it is their fault after all. Fuckers.
Music: Sigur Rós: Saeglópur

Fracture Demo Impressions Sep. 29th, 2008 @ 01:55 pm
Fracture is a game from LucasArts that tries to introuce a groundbreaking (pun intended) new element into the shooter genre to try and keep things spicy...land deformation. The idea is that now futuristic humans can battle with guns that reshape terrain by sinking or raising it, and while I can see that as sounding like a good idea on the drawing board, and I commend them for trying, at the end of the day this game does far too many things wrong. For starters, it looks terrible. With a world and characters ripped straight from the Unreal franchise, and the most awful video encoding I've seen in this console generation, it's just not pleasant to look at.

Once you get into this demo, they spend a hell of a long time walking you around and making you play with terrain deformation. I guess I had hoped it would play a less integral role and thereby seem not as much a gimmick. Sadly, that is not the case. Not only is this something you will be doing constantly, but you are even given a series of icons to tell you exactly when and where. That takes away the feeling of awesome that should come with a ground-fucking gun, and replaces it with the unshakable feeling that you're just following a script.

The control scheme (and largely everything else) are stolen from Halo's book...and let me just say this: I do not now, nor did I ever have a problem with full-body, recharging energy shields (like in, ya know, Halo). The problem is that Halo did it first, and did it best. It was contextually relevant to the plot, only one person had such shields on the human side, and when his shield wore down, he had a health bar. That was the beauty of it...Master Chief still had a health bar in Halo. Now every single shooter on the planet has some sort of recharging health, regardless of whether it makes sense, and more to the point, if your shields are exhausted, you do not have a health bar but instead a pathetic grey area of "maybe I will, maybe I won't die." The idea is that this keeps the player from getting frustrated by low health and no med kits, and they won't stop playing.

Well I do stop playing regardless of health. This is nothing but a dumbing down of games that ought to be more challenging. Instead, the only challenge I found in Fracture was trying to launch myself out of a corner in which I was stuck while trying to reach an objective. Two ground-warping grenades and a shattered "overshield" later, I had quit the demo. No thanks.
Music: Metal Gear Solid 3 Theme
Other entries
» Six Million for the Six Million!
Caring is trendy. It's even trendier now that the internet makes it easier than it ever has been to make yourself look like a real citizen of the world, with website buttons and MySpace layouts to really show how much you care about one cause or another. This mentality of "I can care by signing my name to an internet petition, or by buying a $1 Lance Armstrong chachki," is ludicrous. The whole fucking nation went through a period where not only did we all have Lance Armstrong chachkis, but some of us had more than one! And where have we come in cancer research since then? And to really drive the point home, let me remind you that money was made off of that marketing ploy. Some of these are just internet movements that don't even raise money so you can imagine how much they help the world.

A friend of mine turned up on my Facebook news feed as having joined a group (groups being like clubs) called, Six Million to Remember the Six Million. Ideally, from the time this group was founded, eventually it will reach 6 million members for the estimated number of Jewish people who were murdered in the Holocaust. This is a cute sentiment, but let's acknowledge that this group does nothing for the world. It does not bring back the dead. It does not raise money for the families of the dead. It does not raise money for Holocaust museums. It doesn't make anyone more aware. All it asks is that if, during the course of your life, you were ever aware of the Holocaust, go ahead and join up to make yourself feel better by showing the whole world that you remember the dead.

Let me be exceedingly clear here. I understand what there is to be understood about the Holocaust. I have seen the books, videos, been through a real concentration camp, and at times it has made me cry. I believe that, save for wartime or when being immediately threatened by someone, no human has the right to take another human's life. So you can imagine how unsettled almost 12 million innocent deaths can make me. The photos are just the worst...seeing all those people naked, exposed, a starving to death...and don't get me started on Anne Frank. The Holocaust was an absolutely horrifying event, and as future-dwellers, it is our unprecedented obligation to learn from it and never let it happen again. The fact that it was even allowed to happen in the first place is unthinkable to me.

But we don't help any cause by joining these silly fan clubs. All we do is appear vane to the sensible-thinkers out there. It's like saying, "hey, I care, can you see, hey look at me, I care." If you care, then care for yourself. Tell your children. And if you are ever in a position to oppose what appears to be a new generation of Holocaust, then do what is within your power to fight it. Fight it tooth and nail! But do it because it is right, and not to try and impress anyone. By not being in this group, any of the 48,777 members could tell me I don't care. But if I avoid the group and maintain my ability to think for myself, I can care in my own way, and somehow I think it will mean far more than any stupid thing these people can do.
Aug. 26th, 2008 @ 02:11 pm
» New Tattoo

Aug. 23rd, 2008 @ 03:32 pm
» Sony Announces 7th PS3 SKU for N America, Life Goes On Uninterrupted
“[Multiple hardware SKUs] just confuses the audience. They don't know which one to buy, developers don't know which one to create for, and retailers don't know which one to stock. So I think we wouldn't take that strategy. We wouldn't create confusion." – Phil Harrison (former Executive Vice President of Sony Europe), on the 360’s strategy of multiple console configurations

That's the quote that Phil Harrison made before the PS3 launched. He said that having 2 different machines was just a pain in the ass for developers, consumers...man, Microsoft really fucked up by releasing Core and Premium models. In the almost 2 years since the PS3 launched, we have had 6 different PS3 SKUs, and today, Kotaku reported that Sony has announced another SKU for America. This 160GB PS3 will ship with Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, and while it's a steal at $500 all I see is confusion and market saturation.
Aug. 20th, 2008 @ 01:15 pm
» I Remember Why I Hate World of Warcraft
So a friend, Zeke, is home from the marines, and when he is home, he usually spends 95% of his time in my home as opposed to his own. To be fair, his house burned down and the only other option is his mom's 1-bedroom apartment. My other friend, Kyle, asked me if it's driving me nuts to have Zeke in my house for 2 weeks straight, and I replied, "no, it's actually not like it used to be where he would just sit there like a lump of shit playing Warcraft and watching Naruto online all day." Knock on wood.

So, two days ago, he and Dustin began playing WoW (again) and Zeke woke up this morning at 9, began playing WoW, and has left the room twice today...once for food, and the second to go home and get a shower. But get him out and social? Don't even think about it. What was once a welcome visit from a long-missed friend has turned into an appendage on the house that talks into a headset about stupid fucking quests. It wouldn't be such a problem if 1) the players could put the game down at will, like any other game on the planet and 2) if the game was anything more than a giant grind cake with grind icing covered in just a bit of chocolate grind sauce.

The game is all about leveling up to perform more difficult quests, in attempt to get exponentially higher gold and experience, and therefore, go on to get more expensive weapons and quests and such. This is the standard RPG grind that one expects out of, say, a Final Fantasy title. But here are the key differences:

1) You can pause Final Fantasy...moreover, you can save your progress and turn the game off

2) Final Fantasy has a cohesive story...with a plot, character development, drama...a reason to be engaged other than just repetative grind

3) Final Fantasy has an ending.

The whole business model with MMOs, and the reason that it has become such a robust market since the advent of WoW is that there is no meat to the game. There is only grind. You level, level, level, level, level and finally fight and kill a boss...before leveling more and more. And once you get hooked on that desire for a higher level, a better sword, a newer quest, you become willing to sacrifice all your time and energy to make tiny little steps toward a very distant goal, and for your $15 / month they rope you in and keep you going for "just one more level, just one more level," until you've given up literally months of your life into playtime. I knew a tattoo artist whose cumulative time on the game came out to 44 days...that is one thousand, fifty-six hours on a game with no plot, no characters, and no real point.

Time that could have been spent hanging out with friends. I'll bet you ten dollars I go to Starbucks by myself tonight.
Aug. 17th, 2008 @ 09:29 pm
» Dominican Republic, Part 4
Wrapping Up

Throughout the week, we split our time between interacting with the children and getting real work done. Our main job was to scrape down metal doors and bars from rust and chipping paint, and then give it all a fresh coat. On the day we were set to head home, we ran across some other mission workers who explained to us that they had been installing a water purifier into a batey. It made our accomplishment feel small, but David had reassured us that our work was not a waste of time, because in the Dominican culture, pride is everything. He explained to us that it made the orphanage inhabitants embarrassed on a daily basis to see their living spaces in such a state, and that we had really helped with that.

Working was always a point of mass confusion. With a limited supply of brushes and no Wal-Mart within hundreds of miles (read: Florida), we were constantly running back and forth along the length of the orphanage to relocate supplies to whomever could make the best use of them. We generally had teams of scrapers, primers, and painters in multiple locations, and communication was probably more difficult than the actual work we were accomplishing. Being in the houses though, got us close enough to the kids to eventually break our fear of trying to get them to play. We had scheduled a soccer match for Friday, our last day of work, and in a nation where kids' entire free time is used to learn sports, I was right to be afraid.

In interacting with the kids, I realized that their desire to communicate with us was just as great as ours, and for all the language barrier issues, they usually got the point across. They even explained to me that one little girl had a crush on me. Once I made it clear that I understood, she took off running in embarrassment. It was adorable. The kids were more than willing to play any game you could not explain. Eventually it boiled down to leading by example, and I taught them some silly hand tricks along the lines of that thumb removal thing you do with toddlers. I showed them the trick where you take two index fingers up, slam your hands together, and simultaneously put one finger on one hand down, while raising a finger on the opposite hand to give the impression that you had simply moved the raised finger to the other hand. Simple stuff, but they loved it. The kids were, by and large, a real joy and they were mostly all happy to see us all the time. One house in particular though, put a smile on my face more than any other.

The house for special needs children contained nine wonderful kids that had an assortment of different issues. One was functional enough that they were planning to integrate him into a regular house with the other kids. I asked David whether or not this would be difficult...I remember being a child with little understanding of other kids with special needs and knew that some kids would take advantage of an opportunity to pick on this boy. He told me that yes, despite the glossy coat of all the kids being happy whenever we saw them, they were not immune to the flaws of all immature people, and needed to be coached from time to time on how to behave around the kids with special needs.

Other house occupants were less functional, and many of them not on a speaking level. There were two terribly undersized little girls, one of whom I never saw due to her position in the infirmary. I understand she was no larger than a baby, but was five to seven years old. They believed that she had digestive problems which would not let food pass through her properly and therefore, not allow her to gain any weight. The other girl was more the size of a toddler, but bone-thin...she was a real darling, and would latch onto you when given the chance. A boy who only knew two words was given a nickname from one of them, "Caki." He was a biter but not from any anger issues, he just loved getting his teeth on things.

Other girls were shy or playful, but they were all precious. We got to play with them, clapping and passing balls, and Dustin drug Caki around in a small wagon. I asked David what the plan was for these children as they got older, and he explained that the orphanage was in the process of raising money to build a third school building, one for special needs kids. This all just struck me as above and beyond what I had ever expected coming in. I pictured kids without smiles, and a dirty establishment scraping resources just to keep afloat. Instead, it is all more akin to a growing business, flourishing and expanding.

I know you are still wondering how the soccer match went. The short version is, "it was definitely a soccer match..." while the long version is more like "We got our asses handed to us by a bunch of kids not even as tall as my belt line." Things started off with an epic failure that we learned was just a warm-up. After a short breather, we started the real game where I was reminded exactly why I have always hated team sports: I have never, and will never be good at them. Sweating and stumbling, I was ready to die when we were told that those were not the kids we had been scheduled to play. Those were the younger kids who just got squeezed in for some fun. After the real game took place, which could only rightfully be described as a failure on par with the Ford Edsel or New Coke, we took our shabby and beaten selves to the side-line where we were promptly swamped by kids looking for chicle, gum.

When we explained to them that there was no gum, they made motions as if they wanted piggyback rides, and so, soundly sore and tired from the soccer game, I accepted. After all, how often was I going to get the chance to tote these kids around, and how often would they have the chance to be toted? One by one, I ran them around the dirt rode, swung them in a helicopter motion, and eventually crash-landed right on my face with a child on my back, smacking me in what I think was a gesture of motivation not to stop the fun now. Some kids who had been learning Judo over the summer approached me to show their moves and so I struck a karate pose in response. They were baffled by the challenge and so tried to take me on, to which I replied by flipping them all to the ground. They seemed to be entertained by that.

At the last lunch before departing, David sat us all down to have one last dialogue about our experiences. We got a few more questions answered and he left us with a message to carry on with us. He vocalized what I had been thinking since the moment we touched down and I got hassled by baggage men. "No one is going to understand when you tell them about this. They might try, but without seeing it...without being with these kids...it's just words, just like any other vacation story you might tell them." He continued, "because of that, because it is easy to get distracted once you get home, you will have a choice...you can forget about what you saw and did here over time, or you can remember it vividly and keep trying to help as you live your life. If that's...coming back and working again, or if it's donating money...even if it's just being aware and acting accordingly, you can still remember this experience and try to live a life with eyes that are open wider to these things."

This speech ran through my head as we left the hotel the following morning, rode the bus past the unbuilt homes and street vendors...as we got on the plane and flew away from the hangar with the hole in its roof. It gives you a profound understanding that America is not the only place in the world, and we are not the only people. We don't just live a privileged life in this nation, but we live one of overprivilege and excess. That does not mean we should be ashamed, and I am not trying to bedevil the Sam's Clubs and McDonald's establishments...I just mean that we have it better than anyone here. We take things for granted, things that we expect to have every day when we wake up...we will never go hungry, we will never have to pick and choose which source we take water from. But there are people who do. In African countries where food is sparse and water is even rarer, the numbers on television aren't just numbers. When the person on TV asking for a dollar a day to put food in a child's belly says that X thousand people die a day from starvation and malnutrition, each number is a person. They wake up the same as you every day, and blood beats through their heart in just the same way.

Whether we speak the same language, or worship the same God, it is of little significance. We owe it to one another as coexisting humans on this giant rock to take care of one another. This fundamental realization puts so many things into perspective that it is bewildering. War, politics, religion, food, garbage, morals, animals, it's all tied into the survival and cooperation of humans just like you and me, and it makes it an absolute horror to know that such silly issues ever get in the way of our helping one another to do what we were born to do: survive. When politicians go on television and say, "America first," it is easy to be swept up in the idea that we are looking out for number one, but it's really not that simple. You are looking out for number one by going to the grocery store and buying food for yourself and your family, but by buying a TV that is just 2" bigger, or buying a car with just a bit more sex appeal, you are living in excess, the dividends of which could be put to better use helping other people. Get the smaller meal, get the store-brand clothing, and put the rest of your money and time to a better use. Help people. When we finally begin taking care of those around us, we can open our eyes to start helping those that are farther away. We are all humans, we are all the same. It is time to help each other live the same, as well.

End
Aug. 16th, 2008 @ 06:05 pm
» Game Thoughts: Alone in the Dark Inventory
I haven't played Alone in the Dark and probably won't, but I have heard the complaint over and over again that the awesome 'reach-into-jacket-and-pick-your-items' isn't actually so awesome because the game doesn't pause in an attempt to make your situations more panicked whie you desperately try to stick explosives to squirrels to create bombs or however it is supposed to go. I agree that the concept was good but obviously, poorly executed.

I have a solution that, while too late, is somehow more intelligent than anything the people at Atari got paid to think up: when reaching into the jacket, pull a FEAR and go into slightly-blurred-vision bullet time, not to actually place your hands on the items but to select them and what you want to do. No, it wouldn't be as heart-poundingly crazy but that would be replaced with cinematic excellence...imagine it, you have three ghoulies chasing you...you hit the jacket button (I assume Start) and everything warps into war movie quiet bullet time, where you whip your jacket open, and select Handgun, then Kitten, and upon confirming your selection, your character immediately reaches for the items, speed returns to normal, and he combines them in real time to create a melon baller. It would have been great and I think rememdied a lot of accusation leveled against the ame to help people overlook some of its other flaws which could have been cured by simply putting more time into the product.
Aug. 13th, 2008 @ 06:01 am
» Retro: Dominican Republic, Part 3 (August 10, 2008)
Part III

Tuesday, Work Begins

The part of this trip I have yet to outline for you is the actual work being done. Although I have told countless people that I was building an orphanage hospital wing with my bare hands while also performing the necessary medical procedures and handing out free kittens, the actual truth is potentially more disappointing. We were stripping and painting all over the place to basically make to look nice what a few years of rust have made to look shabby. It's hardly glamorous but I'll have more on that later. It is impractical to talk about anything pertaining to the orphanage when first we had to actually get there. And getting there was not nearly as easily as it sounds. But I am still getting ahead of myself.

I woke up on Tuesday at right around 5am, with the sun still on the fringe of deciding whether or not to rear its head for the day. To those who know me, the word "obscure" fails to even come close to describing this scene...a scene which would repeat itself throughout the week and represent the first good sleep I have had in two years. The average person gets tired and goes to bed around a certain time every day, and wakes seven to eight hours later, completely refreshed and, with the help of a bowel of name-brand cereal, ready to take on the day. For me, however, sleep is a recurring annoyance that merits me no real comfort or refreshment. I wake up tense and groggy, and remain that way throughout the day (assuming I wake up at all), and for that reason I try to stave it off for as long as possible.

But I was laying in a resort bed, stretching out and opening my eyes to realize that I had gotten my fill for the night. I actually wanted to spring out of bed and get my day started with all the enthusiasm of a coma victim whose first waking moments in 20 years have yielded mobile phones and broadband internet. By the time everyone else woke up and realized I was not only showered and dressed, but that I had spent the last three hours leveling up my Pokémon, jaws were hanging dangerously close to the floor.

After thoroughly inspect and carefully choosing my food from the breakfast buffet, we chowed down from 8 to 8:30, and by 9 o'clock, all 12 of us were gathered in the entrance to the resort, dressed in our silly painting clothes and soaking up excessive amounts of uncalled-for sun. Our driver, Henry, was supposed to arrive around 9, and though we were told he would not be there on the dot, we wanted to be organized and efficient, like a free labor machine powered by love and coal. Henry finally arrived in a small, old Toyota van, which was much different [read: more cramped] than the small bus in which we had originally been picked up. Consuming every last cubic inch of space in that little Japanese auto, we took off with vigor and excitement for our first day on the job. But as it turned out, the van had a better idea: screw with us for a good laugh at our expense.

Not 15 minutes down the highway, Henry had to pull over because the van was overheated. No one complained, but instead half of us buried our noses into books we had brought with us. The rest either sat and stared at the traffic, or stepped outside to stretch their legs. When, in 10 minutes, we were not back to driving, Henry made a phone call to someone else at the orphanage to give us a helping hand. Eventually, a pick-up truck arrived and out from it jumped a chipper man who promptly reminded us that "this is all apart of the culture." I want to say his name was Jean-Pierre, but it may have been someone else. Regardless of who brought the truck, within minutes we were piling into the back of it with nervous, giggly excitement. The workers tied a single, black rope (not a chain, or a bungee...a rope) between the rear of the pickup and the front of the van, and with Kris in the van with Henry, and the majority of us in the pickup truck (a couple in front, most in the bed), we departed once more for the orphanage. And boy howdy, was it fun to ride in the back of that truck. It was intoxicating, really...because you see, most pickup trucks actually have tailgates.

The rest of the ride gave me a brief moment of reflection as I watched other cars speeding down the highway with disregard for any sense of safety. Not having drinkable water is an intangible idea like photosynthesis to most people...they assume it happens, understand it happens, but since they never experience it themselves can never wrap their minds around it on a core level. In this country, if you want water to drink, the very essence of life itself, you must either pay for it or have your own water purification facility handy. We had stocked up on bottled water from the resort at breakfast, but other people didn't have that luxury...to be handed some water for nothing. If I were to get thirsty in America and choose between drinking nothing, and drinking from a dirty, rusty water hose in my back yard, I would comfortably suck it down from the house, because American municipal water is safe.

People all over America will put $2 into a bottle of water from the gas station, or buy expensive water purifiers for their faucets to avoid so-called "impurities" like trace amounts of lead or other debris. Maybe Dasani or Aquafina taste a little better than the water pouring into your sink. Well, in the DR, water that is not pre-packaged is so polluted that a mug of it can ruin you for days at a time. I encourage everyone to think twice about paying money unnecessarily when they have perfectly good tap water. You have no idea what "bad water" truly means.

By the time I was wrapping up my mental soapbox, we were pulling up outside the walls of the 40 acre orphanage. After much honking, the door keeper opened up and we pulled in. I expected maybe a few close-together buildings, but nothing this elaborate. About 12 houses for the kids, 3 volunteer houses, a medical building, two schools (one operational, one in production), a main office, a kitchen...they had done something wonderful in creating this place.

Pulling up outside of the building where maintenance was performed, we all dismounted the truck and van and awaited orders. We were taken one of the volunteer houses, where we would be leaving our things and eating our lunches each day. Showing up 2 hours late, we were already fast approaching lunch time. This day was not looking too impressive as far as work output was concerned. As our bags and bottles settled onto the floor, our guide David offered to lead us on a guided tour. We agreed, and he walked us by one area at a time. First, he explained to us that each house was named after a saint (this was, after all, a catholic establishment) like Santa Maria, Santa Diego, et cetera. Of course I may have forgotten the exact names, but you get the point. David told us we would be getting to know the houses and their names more intimately throughout the week, but I have to disagree with that assessment since, as far as I could tell, the houses were not readily marked for us to take note.

Next up was the beautiful hospital building. It was small, one floor, open-air Spanish architecture...painted a lime green, I think. In this building, all necessary medical services were rendered...surgery, pediatrics, dentistry. They would bring in doctors from outside if necessary. After that, we sauntered by one of the two 6-house collections, and past the basketball court where a group of children were playing. David encouraged us to go out and mingle with them after lunch, and even meander in and out of houses to greet the children. That's easy for someone who speaks Spanish and lives with these kids to say. Not only would it be awkward for us to just invade any of their homes and try to get them to play, but the language barrier added a whole new level of pain to the equation, making it impossible for us to either express our wishes or that we weren't creeps, we'd been instructed to play.

Moving back past the entrance and main building, we walked down a strip leading to the elementary school which, to be honest, resembled a penitentiary on the inside. What impressed me most about the school was its computer lab with access to the internet. In a country where, with few exceptions, everyone is that homeless guy that you try to avoid making eye contact with, it shocked me to see a full computer lab, and one with access to the information super highway. This would be a valuable tool for the kids' education, no doubt. Another impressive trait was that the kids could begin school from any age. That a 10-year-old could start pre-school just because he has never had the chance before, was remarkable to me, coming from a nation where we answer kids' academic deficiency with harder tests.

Lastly on the guided tour for the day was the under-construction baseball field. As the DR's main export is baseball players (no, seriously), almost all of the American Major League teams have training camps on the island, and this field was being constructed as an investment from the Chicago team, to not only hopefully return them some ace players, but to give these kids a truly luxurious way to play a great game. It was refreshing to know that in exchange for a couple of pro players when they grow older, the team was also giving a free gift to the rest of the youths who will pass through the orphanage. And such an elaborate gift, at that.

The following day, we would take an outside tour, to the nearby batey, which is essentially a shanty town about the length of two McDonald's restaurants. This was the poorest of the poor in the DR, and it was far from the only one. Essentially, these are plots owned by the sugarcane companies but that, due to the underwhelming demand for sugarcane in this day and age, have become unused. The companies could come in and uproot the squatting batey-dwellers at any time, but they don't because they do not need the land. The batey is a scene of every "give a dollar a day to feed the children" ad you've ever seen on TV. People dressed in ill-fitting, years-out-of-style clothing, children sitting naked and curious, animals with mange roaming around un-neutered...but the surprising part was that they all seemed happy. It brought to mind an entirely new concept...that though dirty and impoverished, these people could be happy with nothing because they had never had anything to lose.

Upon returning home, I would find a computer that didn't work, video games I would lose at, and a myriad of other stupid things that would make my blood boil. But life was not so unnecessarily complicated in the batey, or really, anywhere in the DR. They woke up, worked hard, and lived for the sake of living. Even if life was a struggle, their family and friendships were enough to get by with. I think that the word "inspiring" is an understatement in this case.

For the rest of this journal, I will not go into mundane detail regarding specific conversations or much of the work being done because that is all minute in the greater scheme of things.
Aug. 12th, 2008 @ 12:05 am
» Retro: Dominican Republic, Part 2 (July 15, 2008)
Arrival in the DR

As we drove along the highway in our mobile Xanadu (I think that's Spanish for air-conditioned bus) I tried to take in the the sights around me. I came into this trip with next to no knowledge about the country. Just how poor was it, for example? My gaze was met with a lot of foliage, the highlight of which were beautiful, red-leaved trees that seemed to sprout genuine flowers from each branch...so they couldn't be as poor-off as, say, Ethiopia where the soil is basically impossible to grow life from. Things didn't seem so bad here. Or at least, that's the initial impression I got.

Further down the road however, there would be a patch of field here in there that was polka-dotted with more garbage than animals, and eventually we began to drive by civilization. These buildings were the first genuine look I had at the world by which I was now surrounded. The first thing to really catch my eye was the fact that at least half of the buildings before me were either unoccupied, or only half-built. Were it not for the handful of homes which actually contained human life, it would have seemed more like a ghost town than anything. By the end of the trip, my inquiring mind would later come to find that people are so poor in the DR that they can only afford to build their houses brick-by-brick. That is, they will save and save and save, and then add a few more blocks to their house. Some in the inner city are even used as giant trash cans. The conclusion I drew was that when the financial burden became too heavy and people ceased adding to their houses, the public would take notice and eventually make some use out of the structures.

Houses in the DR range anywhere from sheet metal shanty to somewhat sizable one-level homes, but these are not built on acres like in America. You are within spitting distance of your neighbors and in many cases, the homes seem to be connected like a large house of cards—and that simile also applies aesthetically. I even saw a house or two that were built using guard rails from the highway. I couldn't make this stuff up.

Beyond all the sorrowful landscape though, remains a shining beacon of comfort standing out like a flashlight in a dark field: the hotels. Designed to fuel tourist attraction these places set a brilliant standard in genuine beauty and comfort and unreal prices. For something like $65 / night / person, we would be treated to what I have formerly called a hotel, but can only honestly describe as a resort that was all-inclusive, and lying right on the beach with an in-pool drink bar, an all-meal buffet, fancy reservation restaurants, air-conditioned rooms (bigger, I might add than more expensive Holiday or Mariott rooms at home), and so forth. This resort was truly a sparkling, gilded lie amidst a much dirtier truth. However, in exchange for the air conditioning and pool opportunities, I took little issue with putting my philosophical differences to the side for the week.

If the resort was the magic lantern from Disney's Aladdin, then actually getting into the hotel was something like the great lava-spewing, stalactites-falling pain-in-the ass escape scene involved in actually retrieving the stupid thing. At our arrival, we all took a seat in sofas or on the floor to wait on my mother to get us all checked in. But after a while, we began to wonder why we weren't already living it up beyond the entryway. Before I knew what was going on, a half-hour seemed to have passed and I could see my mother and Shelly in the manager's office, having a discussion. Mom looked like she could cry and all I could think was, if we flew all the way down to help these people out and they won't even let us into the damn hotel, I will throw down against this entire nation. After another half-hour though, we finally made it through the eye of the needle and were well on our way to getting officially checked in.

The Resort

The resort was a real testament to Spanish architecture, in that everything was open-air. You were never really inside or outside. Walls surrounded, but never locked you in completely. It was truly beautiful. Even the rooms in which we stayed were like that to a certain extent. After an ash tray caught my eye, I took note of the fact that this room obviously did not smell smoked-in, and after pulling the curtains away, I found hiding a window roughly 2/3 of the whole wall's size. It was amazing.

The rest of the place was made up of connecting paths lined by different types of gorgeous trees, flowers, lizards, and flamingos. One path led to the beach, and another to one of something like four pools. There was a spa, and a small theatre wherein the employees put on performances each night. There were several restaurants on the property, which lay directly on the beach where the water was a gorgeous shade of turquoise and the only thing to complain about were the plethora of vendors trying to sell you all sorts of silly nick-knacks from hair braids to Cuban cigars. While many people in our group got sick of them very quickly, I had to be patient because I knew that if these people didn't get their sales in by trying each and every person on the beach, they might not eat that night.

For me, however, the main draw was Mary's Mini-Market across the street. It was a little, family-owned shop...so little, in fact that every time you walked in, a young lady would invariably shuffle behind you to ensure that you didn't pocket anything before darting out the door. Here they had a plethora of snack, drink, alcohol, tobacco, a Baby Urinate doll, some BB guns, Haribo-brand candy, contraceptives, all sorts of stuff. The selling point for me was the charm of it all. The ladies running it were especially nice after a few visits and by the end were so familiar with me that they would even dance around and sing to what was on the radio, paying no mind to the concept of embarrassment...and we didn't even speak the same language.

Our first night was a short one, as after arriving at the airport at 5am and flying across the ocean, we were all understandably tired by the early evening. We would have to drink up all the sleep we could get, because tomorrow we would begin work at the orphanage.
Aug. 12th, 2008 @ 12:05 am
» Retro: Dominican Republic, Part 1 (July 14, 2008)
Introduction

The youth group of the Lutheran Church of Our Savior (here on referred to as "we") have been raising money this past year to fund a trip to the island nation of the Dominican Republic. The country shares real estate on the island with the bordering nation of Haiti. The DR and Haiti are the third- and poorest countries in the Western hemisphere, respectively (with Nicaragua placing 2nd, in between). The goal of our trip was to provide whatever volunteer service we could to a growing orphanage just outside of Santa Domingo. 12 of us went...my mother, brother, sister, best friend, family friend, and 6 participants from the church outside our household.

Disembarkation

Airport employees are unloved, soulless Nazis whose main goal in life is to make the world harder for those of us who have ever known the loving embrace of someone who cared if we lived or died. Not 10 minutes after I had tried to explain this to my brother Kris, who just seemed not to get it, I found myself stopped by airport security to rid myself of liquids and aerosols. Most people who knew how this whole process worked would have knowingly thought to pack their toiletries bag into their checked luggage, but as for mine there was no room. So, as it was, it wound up in my carry-on and that's where my trouble began.

"Please check that you are not carrying any liquids, or aerosol sprays over 3.4 ounces," droned on the living stay-in-school ad that was this large, female employee. "If you do have any liquids or aerosol sprays that you plan to bring, please insert them into a plastic bag, here," she said, pointing to a stack of zip-locks on the small desk at which she sat.

Shit, I thought...I knew I had a couple of cans and bottles in my bag beside my infinitely more life-threatening Shick Quattro razor, so I began to wrestle through my tiny bag while the rest of my group moved ahead. Over and over in my head, I repeated the mantra, they're Nazis who want to keep me from getting to my flight on time, they're Nazis who want to keep me from getting to my flight on time...

First up was a can of Axe body spray. Weighing in at .1 ounces too dangerous to put my fellow passengers in freedom-destroying, kitten-hating harm's way, this hygienic investment would have to go. Next up on the chopping block were two bottles of hair care products, both tamers. One was a great, big, 6 ounce bottle of Garnier Fructise, and the other I think, was Pantene, with a similar volume...5.7, probably. If my Axe was too much of an unplanned element at 3.5 ounces, then these liberty-crushing 6 oz bottles of hair care tamer must be the stuff they used on 9/11...the worst.

So, after ridding myself of somewhere between 10 and 15 dollars of completely harmless hygiene items, it was obvious that on this trip I would be neither smelling nor looking my best—all hope of drawing the attention of a girl whose language I spoke none of was now out on its ear, leaving me in a state of frustrated depression for all of two minutes before I found another reason to get angry. It was nothing I hadn't planned on, but the security threshold...you know, the one where they make you take off your shoes for America? Well, it was painfully understaffed, and as such Dustin's and my bags went through the X-ray machine and both flashed big "SEARCH" lights. Instead of being searched, though, we were let on through.

This means that I could not bring on my axe body spray, but I was able to bring a 4-bladed shaving razor through with my carry-on just because they were under-staffed. The size of this security crisis had me spinning but I'll admit, I was more concerned about the irony of me losing my tamer than the thought that someone beside myself, and of a more hateful nature might have brought more than a Shick onboard. Once we finally moved through the entire Patience Decathlon that is the airport's opening hour and a half, we boarded our plane to our connection in Atlanta.

This was Daye's first flight, and my mother apparently worries about gremlins or hijackers or mechanical foul-ups every time she takes off, so we had at least two nervous fliers going on. Having been apart of the plane scene since weeks after I was born, I still take a real interest to watching as we begin our takeoff, and first lift straight into the sky. I'd be lying though if I said I didn't worry from time to time about the likelihood of failure. It's really not so much anything to do with planes as vehicles, or the procedures used to prepare them before every flight, which are much more meticulous than anything you would ever think to do before jumping into a car to go to Rally's...I think it is simply the fact that you are putting your life in the hands of two or three people in the cockpit that you don't know, and will never be on a personal relationship with. Much in the way that one might worry in the back seat of a distant relative's car, you don't know how well these people operate, or how carefully they have prepared for this...what if the old stereotype is true about pilots at bars, and they arrived into the cabin with the smell of Jack Daniel's clinging to their uniform?

Of course we traveled safely though on all four flights, or else I would not be writing this right now. One layover, a plate of Chinese food, and a trip around Cuban airspace later we were flying into the Santa Domingo airport, where to my unrest I took notice of a large hole in the roof of one of the hangars. This was not a good sign, nor was the exceptionally short runway which had us braking at an uncomfortable speed. However, we touched down successfully, and were shortly moved into the airport where, after a quick and confusing trip through customs we changed our money into Dominican Pesos (or Sparkles, as I called them due to the shiny nature of the bills). $50 and a changer's fee became 1,600 sparkles. In the context of Japanese money, it is pretty easy to remember that $1.00 is 100 yen, $50.00 is 5,000 yen, etc., because that is a simple exchange rate. The dollar-to-peso rate however, is something like $1 to 33, so this became a real trick to learn. How much did that soda cost in terms of my money...did she just rip me off? and so on.

On our way out of the airport, we were looking for a man with a sign to grab our attention. Previously, I had only seen this done on television and in movies, so I took a silly kind of joy in experiencing it in person. Outside however, things got weirder.
We arrived in the DR at around 2 in the afternoon, dog tired.
The heat was like the hottest day in Ohio, but apparently par for the course in the DR. Humidity, too. After crossing the street into the parking lot, we found our bus and before I knew what was happening, I was bringing up the rear of a line of people handing over their luggage to be loaded onto the bus. As they took my duffle bag from me, the men formed a circle around me, demanding a tip.

"Tip, tip!" one prodded.

Still another tried to break it down for me, unsure of how well his partner's English had gotten across: "Tip for the work, tip!"

I tried to back away but they would not have any of that. "Just give me a moment," I started, trying to lean into the bus to get a few singles from anyone that had them. They didn't quite grasp the sentence and continued pushing persistently for the tip that I was actively trying to acquire for them.

My mother looked at me, and asked what the problem was. I explained that they wouldn't leave me alone without a tip, and that I could not provide it since I had turned my $50 into 1000, 500, and 100 bills. It was really starting to get on my nerves and I took a tone with her that, in retrospect was probably unfair but she seemed aggravated as well, muttering something about how "this" was what she was trying to avoid. I wish someone had given me the memo or I would have thrown the damn bag on the bus myself.

After we slipped them a few of our only remaining American currency (you see, 100 pesos wound up being something like 3 dollars so no one was willing to sacrifice their new bills for these clowns who had cornered us and forcefully snatched our bags away) we finally boarded the bus to depart for our hotel. The bus was air conditioned, a luxury that I would soon be required to forget about almost entirely.
Aug. 12th, 2008 @ 12:05 am
» Retro: Skeet Skeet Skeet (Date Unknown)
There is a lot that bothers me about culture today. This has to be how parents 60 years ago felt about rock and roll. In that sense, there is nothing to do but sit back and accept it, but in another sense it is a matter of opening the flood gates for far worse things to come. Rock eventually led to the idea of rebellion for the sake of rebellion--not only an inability to put a cap on one's natural angst, but a causeless desire to take it further an strike out for no good reason. Maybe Elvis was harmless but violent 80's punks and death metal push things to the point of discomfort.

Here I am talking about what I have seen tonight in and out of the club. To start, the stage show this evening featured dancers in 1950's attire. They wore those capri-style pants you imagine a cold war housewife—or Peggy Bundy—wearing. They accent the figure and leave something to the imagination; you want to see those pants come off, in contrast to the pants girls wear today, where everything is already exposed, giving you nothing to get excited about.

But the big offender, an dwhat got me writing, is the one-two punch of grinding and rap music. "Gangster" rap has single-handedly destroyed the culture and civility of a large part of our nation. Children are brought up surrounded by imagery of excessive materialism and female objectification. I don't say this lightly, as I consider modern feminist activity to be wholly laughable. I don't mean it objectifies women like people make strippers out to be. I mean, rap songs and especially viedos protray men to be golden idols and women to exist only for sexual service to these idols.

My mom brought home a poem she caught being passed through her class from a boy to a girl about 5 years ago. This poem was about fucking, and the only line I distinctly remember was "the man gets pleasure, the woman gets pain," evidencing not only that this kid would never win a pulitzer, but that he had a profound misunderstanding of the nature of sex. It makes sense, however, as these kids were in the 4th grade. That is 10- and 11-year-olds. A girl in that same class turned up with pubic lice later that year.

So, maybe grinding isn't the worst part of rap culture, but it's still pretty fucking bad. With the girl standing in front and guy immediately to the rear, the "dance" is basically just rhythmic dry-humping. This isn't a failure of observation, either. I used to think that it was simply an immitation of something sexual, with a relatively generous spacial gap between dancers, but after watching it for a week in a club, I say that it is generally nothing like my preconceived notions.

I saw crotches wedged into asses, hands near vaginas, thrusting, rubbing—it is effectively stranger-bound public foreplay. So this is only my opinion, and my opinion is that it is fucked up. And while I can do nothing about it, it is a sign of worse things to come. Trust me.
Aug. 12th, 2008 @ 12:05 am
» Retro: からおけ (Karaoke) (Date Unknown)
There's a lot to be said for karaoke. I think people need reasons to hoot and holler in support of each other, instead of to ridicule. This is especially true for children, both talented and otherwise. Few need confidence like children. It is great to see the smallest, most tone-deaf little one feeling proud to have a room full of people cheering him or her on. More than that, I think it is a wonderful plier for pulling the stick out of a room of people's collective ass.

I made a lot of acquaintances on the ship because they liked hearing me sing karaoke. A darling little girl, a guy who sings like Isaac Hayes, a couple who sung for the first time, another couple consisting of both a very talented and a very talentless singer...by the end of the trip, I had no less than 25 people giving me handshakes or compliments over how much fun it was to watch me sing or just be apart of the karaoke crowd. I even had a herd (I don't use that term lightly) of middle-schoolers corner me and force me to sing for them, before suggesting I go on American Idol. I would disagree with them, but it was nice to have a compliment.

The point is, karaoke more, than beer or cards or pin the tail on the damn, stupid donkey is just a wonderful way to get people to loosen up, feel good about themselves, and generally have a good time with people they may or may not ever see again. Refreshing.
Aug. 12th, 2008 @ 12:05 am
» Retro: Thinking At the Ocean (Date Unknown)
During this trip I have spent a sizable amount of time pondering things. The nature of human bodies (are beer-bellied adults fat, or just filled out like nature intended?); how slick it feels to wear a suit; sex. But one thing has come up most regularly: the ocean. It is a tired cliche to call the ocean 'tranquil,' 'majestic,' and 'blue.' I would liken it more to a computer music visualizer. You know, those crazy patterns that Windows, iTunes, and your Xbox play when music is being pumped? It is colorful, swooshy, and largely pointless but by God, sober or intoxicated, you cannot look away. At least, for as long as it takes for a shapely ass to prance by and bring you back to pondering sex.
Aug. 12th, 2008 @ 12:05 am
» Retro: I Get Knocked Down (Date Unknown)
I Get Knocked Down

It's astounding how easy it is to crush me. All it takes is a little anticipation, a little hope that I am finally getting some sort of shot at something I have been looking forward to, and the wild card that is the rest of the human race.

I can hardly blame anyone for shattering my self-esteem, and crippling me with disappointment. They are, after all, just living their own lives, making their own choices, and never realizing how their decisions affect people. IT's just the nature of individual actions. Yet, somehow, if I suggested even to myself that I have ever disappointed anyone in this way, it would seem rather egotistical. But odds are, it has happened.

Tonight at karaoke, after my allegedly well-received performance of Soul Meets Body by Death Cab For Cutie, two girls, nervous, and with giggles about, approached me. They poured praise on me for my singing and when I reminded them that I would be singing all week, they dropped word that they would be hitting the club in a little bit. Being as they were gorgeous, I took the tip to heart and arrived at the club a half-hour later.

Finally showing about 30 minutes after me, I began to approach them when I noticed they were flirting with two guys, one of whom I was quite familiar with from karaoke. He was fun and outgoing...a real dick. I mean that sincerely, he is that kind of guy that is so fun to be around that he is fully aware of how much people like him, and as such, just becomes cocky. An asshole.

At this point I decided to just wait and be noticed, but if I wasn't I would just brush it off. But of course there's that "human factor" wild card, again. They moved to the dance floor and before you could say, "so much for that," they were grind dancing.

You know, it's easy to say you'll just brush something off until you see that something being publicly dry-humped to the sounds of some fucking rapper. That is the crippling blow. You have this sweet image of these well-dressed young ladies, and then the one guy on the giant fucking boat that you hate goes and wedges his woody between her their ass cheeks and grabs their inner thighs.

It goes without saying that the girls, Asshole, and his friend all left together. And all I got was a pity glance.

In hindsight though, I can't begrudge those girls. They were just doing the same thing I was: looking for some company and taking the first bite they found. And isn't that what we all do when we're bored, or lonely? Just look for someone to spend some time with?

I can still begrudge that asshole, though.
Aug. 12th, 2008 @ 12:05 am
» Retro: Am I Dying? (Date Unknown, Censored for Facebook)
Before I start this one, I'd like to admit that I have censored it for the web. It originally contained too much detail regarding the state of my visits to the bathroom, and upon reflecting that while some people may be mature enough to read it, I'd rather not even plant the image into the head of any friends who have never desired to picture me on the can. So, there, you get the cleaned up version.

It would be laughable to suggest that I am ready to die. At 20 as of this writing, I have a lot more living to do. I have wanted a family for as long as I can remember...a classic, down-to-earth wife, two kids, and a '65 Mustang...the American dream circa the era where children were well-mannered, and cars were made of metal. I still want to learn 4 more languages, and apply them regularly; travel back to Europe, and have sex many more times before the grim reaper finally waves his finger in front of my face and says, "it's time to go."

But the idea that death can be easily predicted and more importantly, planned for is even more audacious. Since my father died 5 years ago, I have been on edge about death. I mentioned this to my last long-term girlfriend, but she was little comfort. It was not her fault of course, as no one can offer a sincere reassurance that you will somehow manage to allude death better than anyone else.

When my father died, it wasn't just his young age that startled me (almost 41), but the fact that they never successfully identified the disease that did him in. Over the span of a month he lost his ability to maintain blood pressure, and as a result, eventually the red stuff stopped pumping. Because they could not identify the ailment, I live in constant fear that it may be hereditary. Beyond that, I worry that any small lapse in health on my part may be a sign that my time is rapidly coming to an end.

Leaving on this cruise, I brought no cigarettes as a way to prove to everyone worried about my habit that I am fine without them. However, on the last day before embarking, I began to change my mind. I found my bowels very uneasy, and on the first day on the boat I found myself sick in the bathroom more than once. Perhaps I ate something bad, most people would think, but my mind jumped straight to, maybe I got worms in the DR.

As of day 2, not only has the sickness persisted, but three times now it had the appearance of...well, this is the censored version...but it was unnatural, and frankly, horrifying to me. Like clockwork, my mind has toyed with the possibility of my own entrails beginning to disintegrate within me. I am shaking as of this writing and am reasonably sure it is not the transfer of motion from the boat.

This all brings me back to the cigarettes. Smoking is something I genuinely enjoy and the fear of unpredictable, unidentifiable death at sea has driven me to purchase a pack of Reds despite my previous commitment. The idea that I might be a cold, lifeless shell by the time this boat hits its next port is somehow more palattable knowing that I was not denying myself any simple pleasures beforehand. Here's to hoping, anyway, since it's the only part of death that is consistently in your control. Smoke if you got 'em.
Aug. 12th, 2008 @ 12:05 am
» Retro: Flying - Saturday 19, July 2008
I am sitting aboard a small plane on a trip to Tampa, FL where from I will depart on a cruise. Of my 5 most recent flights, this one allows particularly great visibiliy, the clouds beneath us forming a shapely landscape (or perhaps the word 'skyscape' is more appropriate), not unlike its greener, more terrestrial counterpart so far below.

Everything is here: rolling hills, deep valleys, and what reminds me vividly of a nebula. Quick test, cloud fans: which does not belong? This sort of scene, unobstructed by darkness or sheets of other clouds flying by the window is perfect fodder for the imagination. If I had more self-respect, you'd never catch me describing the turbulent siege at Nimbus Field, where dozens of soldiers gave their lives to defend the Liberty Puff.

Similarly, if I had more dignity, I would know better than to describe the Great Cloud Mountain which has only ever been scaled by the great Jeffrey Cirrus, whose feats are chronicled in the autobiography, "Lighter than Air: The Jeff Cirrus Story." Indeed, if ever being intimate with a woman again seemed like a tempting proposition, I would never dare to describe a tuft of gas as a 'nebula,' but there it is.

Truthfully, I have been staring out the window, admiring the clouds and hoping for some kind of inspiration. Maybe the rolling cloud hills would inspire me to write something fantastical. I have been thinking, maybe the nebula puff would inspire me to write something in space. But I didn't write anything like that. In fact, by reading this story to the end, you the reader have allowed me to get away with literary murder: stalling. But instead of padding a quality work with some mindless ranting, I have made an entire piece out of that filler. You just let me waste two minutes of your time by jabbering on about water vapor I hope you're proud of yourself.
Aug. 12th, 2008 @ 12:05 am
Top of Page Powered by DeadJournal.com