Saricks, Brendan J.

Perfume

Sat, 17 Jul 2010 01:35:00 -0500

The toilet seat was down…

There should be no reason for the toilet seat to be down; he certainly hadn’t put it down. He lived alone and, when you live alone you can leave the toilet seat in whatever position you see fit. There was a time when the seat was always down (unless he forgot - an act the invited extreme overreaction,) but those days had long since passed.

But the toilet seat was still down…

It must have fallen down. These things were subject to gravity just like anything else. It must have fallen down. There was no other potential explanation for it, nothing rational anyway. Gravity exerted its dominance over matter and slammed the toilet seat down. Elementary my dear Watson.

However, there is the question of the perfume…

What a stupid idea. It was only a bottle of perfume, not a religious artifact. Even if it were, it was still just an object. Objects do not have ill intentions. Objects do not have agendas. Religious bullshit or not, objects aren’t a danger to people. People are a danger to people, and sometimes they use objects to focus that danger.

But she didn’t think so. She saw it as something more than an object…

Just because it came from overseas? That’s racist, really. Oh no, it came from a country of heathens! It must have some of the heathen Mumbo-Jumbo on it. Quick Mom, get your Bible! We got some prayin’ to do! Oh Lord, save us from the heathens!

But that was what she did, wasn’t it? When he told her where he had gotten the perfume, she lost it. She had already taken a deep breath of it, letting it fill her lungs, and loved the scent. Loved it so much that he watched his stock rise in her eyes. Rise so high that, if the stock didn’t split, love was gonna shoot out of her head like a sprinkler. But then she asked where he had gotten it.

Things were going so well until that point…

He wasn’t to shop in Chinatown. Just because he didn’t understand the weight of spirituality didn’t make it weightless. Doo-dads from other countries sometimes could come back with…Mumbo-Jumbo. Mumbo-Jumbo poured into them by agents of the so-called “enemy,” something that sounded like McCarthyism to him. But he would never say that to her. It didn’t matter now, but back then it did; back then he would never disparage her beliefs in front of her.

But he would, apparently, go shopping in Chinatown…

When you think about objects imbibed with Mumbo-Jumbo, you think of back alleys and smoke pouring ominously out of sewer grates. You think of streets illuminated by thousands of neon signs and men with long mustaches. You don’t think of a well-lit, neo-modern Chinese restaurant. You don’t hear gift shop and think lobby desk covered in knick-knacks. And you certainly don’t think Oh, I bet there is a pretty white girl running it. But that was the reality of it. And, let’s be honest, a white girl wouldn’t peddle a potentially damaging spiritual object to unsuspecting tourists; she’s one of us!

Now who is the racist? Asshole.

Back home, none of this mattered to her. Do you know what this could have done to us…done to me? And that’s when it happened. She took the vial and threw it on the floor, shattering it. Its sweet scent filled the room. She got onto her knees and started praying.

Praying loudly.

Time had taken the words from him, but his heart had held onto the message, it was very clear. The Lord protects this house. The Lord protects this family. The Lord protects this unborn child. Anything here that doesn’t answer to The Lord be cast out of this place. May the enemy be cast from this place. Satan has no place here. This place is The Lord’s, and he shall keep it.

He didn’t answer to The Lord…what did that mean for him?

His answer would come months later. Months after the perfume smell had finally dissipated from the room. Months after they found out that The Lord would have one fewer to protect. The pain was too much for her to bear. This place was no longer theirs, it was his.

She blamed him. Blamed him and that fucking perfume.

But that was the past. That didn’t matter anymore. Life goes on, he went on. The song that played in his heart when he thought of her had quieted. That was how it worked. You live, you learn, and you start over.

And over.

There was still the matter of this toilet seat. Gravity was the rational cause. Perhaps it would be better not to dwell too much on other the potentials. Just because the song had gotten quieter didn’t mean that it had stopped playing entirely. The pain still traveled in waves, and sometimes they crashed into him with the force of a semi-truck.

No sense in playing in traffic.

He lifts the seat, placing it in the upright position and resting it there. After finishing, he tests the seat, pulling it towards him gently. It falls backward against the tank with a quiet thunk. It would have taken a lot of gravity to pull this down, but what else could it be?

You aren’t a Communist, are you son?

He washes his hands, turns off the light, and walks towards the bedroom. His footsteps echo off the hardwood floors and now-empty walls in the hallway. He stops and briefly looks at a portion of empty wall. This was where their engagement picture hung. He smiles briefly, and walks into his bedroom.

Gravity was the only potential culprit. Seemingly impossible given the physics he himself had tested, but the only plausible answer. Mumbo-Jumbo didn’t live here; at least not anymore.

But then, sometime in the night, the toilet seat fell again.

The Birthday Post - Welcome to 3.0

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 04:19:00 -0500

It is currently 1:30am here in middle America. It will be significantly later by the time I finish this post, and later still by the time you actually read it, but right now its 1:30am on July 13th, 2010; my 29th birthday.

When I decided to start blogging again I wanted to avoid posts that delved into my personal life. To most, my life is as uninteresting as the guy they sit next to on the bus, and is therefore not really for public consumption. It is my opinion (I hope) that will drive readership here, and that was my intended focus.

But man, you guys would not believe what has happened to me in the last few months.

It’s my birthday and even though I’m only 2 posts in to my original content-pact, I am going to go off the reservation a little bit and talk frankly with you. I don’t want to give you too many details, I fear some situations herein are still too delicate to even be approached, let alone touched, but I want to tell you about me before, me now, and where me is going. Grammar school is not on the docket (sorry Aaron.) This will probably be scatterbrained. But come on, it’s almost 2am at this point, you would be scatterbrained too.

It’s pretty wild how far a year can take you.

A year ago, I was in the middle of Four Player Coop’s 15 minutes of fame. I remember sitting on the couch at Joe’s place (a name that means nothing to you, but means the world to me) watching G4 and seeing “Four Player Coop” scroll across the bottom of the screen in relation to a news story we had broke.

That was it kids, we had made it.

Upon reflection, all the bullshit that happened before and has happened since was insignificant to that moment. But even that moment has been upstaged by Bullshot!’s marginal success. I cannot give you the emotion I feel when it comes to finding out someone makes time to listen to your inane bullshit. It is a feeling without words. It has happened a lot of the past year, and it never gets old. I will never be able to thank you guys for that, but I will do what I can.

I cannot tell you what lay in 4pc’s future, I can only tell you that its past was a lot of fun.

I haven’t played a video game in a month. Seriously, you can check that shit. What’s worse, I haven’t enjoyed a video game in 2 months (apologies to Alan Wake and Prince of Persia - although I was still fair to both of you.) Guys, maybe you don’t understand the weight of that statement. I have not, in my 29 years on this earth, ever experienced an apathy towards video games like the one I am experiencing right now. In any other similar episode (similar in terms of feeling - not in terms of duration) I would simply chalk it up to being burnt out.

But this time feels…different

Is is permanent? (God I hope not, StarCraft 2 and Dead Rising 2 are just around the corner!) I don’t know for sure because I don’t know anything for sure right now, but it feels like its on the backburner until some other things get sorted out.

Yes there is a girl, yes there is a idea…yes, I think everything will be ok. Three topics so unrelated that the dial spins all the way back ‘round to “related.”

The bottom line is this. The last 2 months of my life have been wonderful and terrifying. I don’t know if this is the start of a mid-life crisis or if I legitimately just starting life as I will know it, but it’s pretty incredible. I don’t know what is going to happen to 4pc, I don’t know what is going to happen to me, but I know I’m going to write. I am going to write a lot and see what comes of it. Hopefully, you will stick along for the ride.

Welcome to 3.0

The Horror of Horror

Sat, 10 Jul 2010 16:04:30 -0500

This is a topic near and dear to my heart. Horror has ever been, and will continue to be, my favorite member of the genre pantheon, and I’m tired of seeing its definition and flavor watered down and applied to everything. Let me help you see the truth.

It seems to me that horror has been distilled to mean anything scary, from aliens to ax-murderers. This is incorrect. “Scary” is almost completely subjective. There are people out there terrified of cats (I know, weird right?), but I have a cat sitting right here next to me, and I do not live in a house of horrors.

Well, not for that reason anyway.

Horror does not equal scary. Horror IS scary, but it isn’t the embodiment of the word. Horror is bigger than scary. Horror is scary without explanation. But hold on, we are getting ahead of ourselves here.

The Ax-Murderer movie confuses me the most. I think this comes from the idea that an ax-murderer is horrible which, I admit, is awfully close to horror, but just because the root is the same doesn’t mean that the word means the same thing. Horticulture also shares the same root, but I don’t know how scary gardening is.

No wait, I take that back, I do.

Your ax-muderer isn’t a horror flick, it’s a thriller. The evil is a real, tangible thing and his motivations are real world motivations. A vengeful asshole with an ax isn’t horror, its just scary. Thrillers, however, are not the big villain here. There is a sub-genre that is mislabeled as horror more than any other.

Science-Fucking-Fiction

I love Sci-Fi, love it, but it causes me more horror-based heartbreak than any other genre (yes, I realize how ridiculous that statement is.) Without taking 20 minutes to show you every single wound this has caused me, let me save us some time and break it down quickly for you: If something that seems supernatural is then explained by science, even if its fake science, that makes it SCIENCE FICTION. I don’t care if your story has zombies, vampires, or Killer Klowns from Outer Space, if you explain their existence through science, then its Science Fiction. Please, for the love of my sanity, stop fucking this up.

So what is Horror?

Horror is the super-natural. Horror is the unexplained. Horror is ghosts, monsters, and anything that we can’t say “this is logical” or “science made this” to rationalize. There may even be a religious quality to horror (ghosts being the physical manifestation of souls for example), but the bottom line is that you cannot explain away a horror element. It exists for no rational reason, and that is why it is scary.

But, then again, this cat exists for no rational reason and I’m not really afraid of it…

Should I be?

The Line Between Fan and Fiction

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 17:55:00 -0500

I don’t know if you have seen this or not, but Blizzard is running a creative writing contest. The long and short of it is that you submit a story based on one of their universes, they read it, and if they like it YOU WIN. What you win is largely unimportant (to me anyway) but the opportunity to flex the creative muscle muscle is always appealing to me.

There are, of course, problems with this.

I am not a Blizzard Loremaster. Diablo means little to me, World of Warcraft was more about the loot than the story (even though the story, from what I gleaned of it, can be described only as thorough), and Starcraft is a Real Time Strategy game; I hate Real Time Strategy…but I loved Starcraft.

You’re confused. Hold tight, I got this.

I don’t like RTS games, but man Starcraft, fucking StarCraft. That game possessed my being for 2 or 3 years. Make no mistake, I was not the next Korean Starcraft Super-star, but I was the master of the Marine rush. The straight up, no bullshit, mother-trucking MASTER of the Marine rush.

And lets be honest with ourselves for a moment here, that game had a pretty bad ass story (40k-ites need to settle down - I get it ok?). Maybe it’s because I love a good Sci-Fi yarn, or that I could blur my eyes and see the zergs as Giger’s Alien (I love me some Alien - Aliens is number 3 on my Top 5 movies of all time), but whatever the case was, I really dug that story. I was so enamored by the story that I read the goddamned manual. Yes, Starcraft’s manual served as a prequel piece to the game’s storyline, and I read the whole thing.

But I don’t really remember anything.

I mean, I remember Xel-Naga, the zerg, the overmind (spoilers: dead), Jim Raynor, and being called a Judicator…but nothing else really stuck. So here I am, wanting to enter this contest for shits and grins, but finding that I may not be equipped to give the universe the respect it deserves.

And this, friends, is the trouble with Fan-Fiction; a trouble I am no longer concerning myself with.

I find that, in most cases, when someone releases a fan-fiction story for a franchise, it is overly wordy. Fans, for the most part, are proud creatures, and want to demonstrate their intimate understanding of the ‘verse to you. Marines don’t shoot bullets from their guns. They fire Tungsten-Carbide encased rounds made of Depleted Uranium from their T-734i Standard Issue Pulse Rifle. I’m all for being wordy, but at some point your average reader doesn’t give a shit. Sure, you will impress other fans with your technical vernacular, but a great story is a great story, blue-print analysis or not.

My understanding of the StarCraft universe is pedestrian bordering on handi-capable, so I don’t concern myself with that bullshit. My weaker understanding runs me into another problem however.

The story I’m writing for it is good (I think anyway - thanks, jerks) but is it a StarCraft story, or am I just taking a claustrophobic Sci-Fi tale and coloring it in with StarCraft crayons? Am I just pasting StarCraft construction paper onto this story and declaring it part of the ‘verse? I guess we will find out.

One thing that has always stuck with me was my buddy Hodapp’s words about the Halo Novels. He said they felt like a fan-fiction circle jerk. I think he may be kind of right. I loved the Halo novels (you noticed the past-tense too? Weird) but they skated that line between story and fan-fiction, sometimes falling into the ladder. I’m hoping I don’t fall prey to that, but I am also hoping that I manage to make a good StarCraft story.

That being said however, I suppose I would be ok with just making a good story. Maybe I’ll focus on that and see if the Xel-Naga want to play along…

Yes, We Can

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 00:58:00 -0600

My friends would never describe me as an emotional person. Irrational, Irritable, and (occasionally (maybe)) crazy but never emotional. So the revelation that I was very close to tears watching Obama’s acceptance speech tonight will probably come as a bit of a surprise. Hell, I was surprised. Love or hate Obama what you witnessed tonight is something you will tell your children about and that is an incredible thought.

Yes we can my friends. Yes, we can.

Teaching Old Dogs

Wed, 07 May 2008 12:14:00 -0500

It’s been a while since I have actually learned something new in regards to computers. Sure, when I switched over to using a Mac almost exclusively I certainly had to adapt, but I wouldn’t call that actual learning. My brain didn’t absorb any new knowledge; it simply transformed and shaped old knowledge until it was compatible with my new platform. Nothing i do in OSX is anything new… I just do it differently. Not since I struggled to teach myself DOS in order to play my father’s copy of Strip Poker 3 (without his knowledge of course) can I say I have felt like I was discovering something. Mining out a new section of brain so I can later fill it with the treasures of my labor.

Then came Another Plachy Project.

I won’t go into detail here regarding the weight that that sentence holds because that, in itself, is probably another blog. I will say that this is the first time I have been genuinely excited and willing to put my own time into something that wasn’t originally mine. Granted, my vision of The Project isn’t nearly as grand as everyone else’s but who cares. I get to write. I like to write.

I am also finding, however, that I enjoy web design. Before you get all riled up I’m not considering any career changes; but the whole process is intriguing. And, thanks to the project, I am now learning how it works. Did you catch that? I’m learning. After all these years I wasn’t even sure it was possible anymore and yet here I am, learning. How far I will take this process and how much time I will commit to it is still a mystery (even to me) but it’s nice to know I am still capable of said process. There is still, apparently, room in this mine for more shit… so, for now, I must keep digging.

Youth Movement

Tue, 06 May 2008 03:11:00 -0500

It’s dark in this room. To my left I can hear Plachs snoring softly on the couch. Behind me, Chester sleeps soundly in his room (with the door locked to prevent any nutsonface attacks from Joe) and beyond that, Joe sleeps while Arrested Development plays on his TV.

So what am I doing awake at this hour?

Originally I was going to write (I do that now thank you very much) but I found myself instead looking through the 2 years of intermittent blog posts on my myspace. You laugh now but myspace was, at one point, a place for friends and all my friends were on it. It was also a creative outlet for me. My first foray into blogging was, of course, a passage insulting myspace and the terrible habits practiced on it. From there it was an emotional roller-coaster taking me from the highs of my 24th birthday to the lows of Megan leaving for the FBI. It was depressing to read but also somewhat enlightening. Like a tiny time capsule of how I evolved through what was one of the most important times of my life. The first time I knew I had friends who would lay down in traffic for me. The first time I had a “real” girlfriend. The first time I had fallen in love. The first time I had my heart broken. All milestones in a life that, for so many years, consisted purely of video games. The most startling realization, however, had nothing to do with any of those things.

For some reason, back then, I was a better writer.

I think it’s because I wrote more often then (granted, I have spent more time writing this fucking game in the last six months than I ever did in that two year span) and enjoyed what I was writing about. I like writing pompous diatribes about how I feel the world should be. It pleases me and, back then, I was doing it more regularly. I intend to get back on that horse in the hopes that I can again achieve the level of blogging excellence that I once was capable of.

I know that, in reality, these posts will mean little to people other than those closest to me. To most people who somehow stumble across this page (looking for religious trinkets no doubt - heathens) I am just another asshole with an opinion. And that’s true. But if that opinion is worded beautifully and is fun to read (Yes Joe, things can, in fact, be fun to read) maybe they will come back to “see what that crazy fuck has to say next.” Who knows, a year from now people may visit this page regularly because, by means of releasing a game, my worthless opinion now has some sort of value associated with it.

One day, I hope to be as capable a writer as Tycho… but that day is years off. Until then, I will keep trying to entertain you and climb back up the blogging mountain in hopes of seeing the summit once again.

Zeros And Ones

Mon, 05 May 2008 00:28:00 -0500

One of the things I dread in life is going to the movies.

Don’t get me wrong; I thoroughly enjoy seeing a movie as God intended, but that isn’t the portion of the movie-going experience that frightens me. I fear the post-coital Q&A session that inevitably follows. Five words is all it takes to invoke one of those rare situations where I am void of intelligent thought (you roll your eyes now? - I’m just getting started…)

“So, did you like it?”

I am the type of person who likes to think my comments through. Sure, I jump without looking nine times out of ten but when it comes to critiquing something I like to have my thoughts straight. My selfish self-image is that of a wise and learned individual who’s word is taken as absolute law. Obviously this is rarely the case but I like to think that my critiques are, if nothing else, respected by those who ask for them. When Thugg (Calm Intensity) turned to me after the credits rolled on Iron Man and spoke those 5 terrifying words I simply shrugged my shoulders. This, unfortunately, gave the impression that I was apathetic to the movie when, in fact, I had enjoyed it a great deal. I just wasn’t sure how much I enjoyed it. After a 10 minutes of reflection I was able to decide that I enjoyed it more than Spiderman 2 and it was well on its way to being more enjoyable (for me anyway) than Batman Begins (which speaks volumes to the quality of the flick.) This reply was met with surprise from Thugg. Not because I dared tread on the sacred Nolan Ground but because he thought I didn’t like it. The shrug fucked me. To me, it meant that I enjoyed the film but wasn’t sure how much… to him it meant apathy.

This idea touches on one that we had been arguing about earlier in the week concerning GTA IV and the reviews for it. Maybe you have read them, maybe you haven’t so for those of you in the audience who have I hope you will excuse me a moment so I can, briefly, summarize the scores for those who haven’t: “10.” The Ten Point Oh score is riddled with more controversy than your average 911 “documentary”: To some, the 10 means perfection, to others it is the high watermark of the genre, and, to (other) others (including, it seems, the majority of the reviewers out there) it means “really good.”

I personally have no problem with a game receiving the highest honor a reviewer can bestow it. I find that any rating system that contains a value that is unreachable (IE: “10 = perfect” scale) is defective by default. (Why have an ruler so long that you will never measure anything that equals it in length?) Thugg and the others with whom I like to wax intellectual about the industry with, however, are appalled.

In the beginning I understood where they were coming from but, like any critique, the more I sat on it the more I disagreed with them. First, you must understand, I don’t care for GTA games. When I played GTA 3 for the first time it was 20 minutes of pure elation followed by 2 hours of complete apathy. I won’t bore you with my laundry list of reasons why I don’t care for these games but, much like zelda, I understand that they are good games. I, however, will never be able to objectively critique them because they will forever be associated with an intense feeling of ennui in my head. Thugg (and his Ten Point Oh piss party constituents) are in a very similar mental boat with regards to GTA and, knowing that, I began to dismiss their arguments more.

Your Hero: You will never be able to objectively critique GTA because you have a inherent prejudice against it.

Villains: But it’s not a Ten Point Oh

Well, what is? I’m not naive enough to believe that the people charged with “professionally” reviewing GTA IV were without a bias of their own. There are more fans of GTA than there are registered Jedi* in the world so hoping to find someone who can be completely objective when reviewing it is certainly a fool’s hope. I am, however, naive enough to believe that “professional” reviewers are in the business of providing realistic assessments of their assignments and passing that assessment down to the reader. I think that a lot of reviewers were (like me in the first 20 minutes of GTA 3) downright giddy when playing through the majority of the game. This allowed them to ignore the obvious problems of pop in, sup par graphics and a (still) extremely loose driving model. In their eyes the pros trumped the cons and still had points left over and therefore justified (in their mind) the 10.0. Again, my feelings about “professional” reviewers aside, I can certainly empathize with them. There have been games that force me to look through rose covered glasses because of how much I am enjoying the majority of them. And I, like the reviewers, will list the problems with the game and still end up saying “Fuck, its the best game I have played this year” (COD4, Bioshock, and Portal - I’m looking at you.) Personal bias is a bitch and, unfortunately, will never go away so why not just cater to it?

The problem is the Ten Point Oh (or any number on the scale for that matter.) Why do we need a leveled rating system to begin with? The reviewers 9.0 will certainly differ with at least one reader so why assign a value to it?

Wouldn’t it be easier to just use a binary system? A simple “Recommended” or “Not Recommended.” If a game is good, its just good, bottom line. Grading it’s level of “good” is purely subjective and silly to do when you know how vastly opinions of people can vary. Roger Ebert had it right all along. If a movie is good: Thumbs Up. Bad? Thumbs Down. Seriously, there is no flaw in that system. I know, I know, now you can’t say that Halo 3 was rated better than Gears of War and is therefore a better game. What a terrible predicament to be in! But, before you send hate mail, just remember there are people out there that enjoy GOW more than Halo and, by saying you recommend both, you have satisfied them both rather than deflating one and empowering the other. You have given both an accurate review to accompany the recommendation and have not tried to show which game is better than another… just that they are both good.

Because games themselves are binary. They are either good or they aren’t. Once you try to go into “how good” they are you start down a trail that will only lead to people, like Thugg, being angry at you.

So what is Thugg doing right now? Vigorously playing through GTA so he can write “an accurate review.” From what I have seen, I would say he is probably going to recommend it.

*Statistic Made The Fuck Up

Nightmares

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 17:18:00 -0600

The mind is a funny thing.

When you are young it’s all about what’s hiding in the dark. Your mind is so new and unexperienced that you don’t know what is hiding where you cannot see. Your imagination betrays you and starts concocting all manner of terrible shit that could possibly be lingering under your bed. Then your subconscious gets in on the fun and suddenly those unimaginable beasts are given life through your dreams. When you are a kid, that’s what nightmares are: An inexperienced mind terrorized by an imagination.

Of course, as we get older, we know that the Beasts of the Underbed aren’t real because our mind has been educated enough to know that the boogeyman cannot exist in the real world. So just as a child acts up when it is neglected, your imagination, once again, begins plotting against you.

I cannot speak from any experience what your imagination comes up with when you are happily married. I imagine your spouse dying or your children in peril are right near the top of it’s list. I can, however, tell you what it does to a single person.

It brings up the happiest moments in your life (in regards to any relationship) and plays them over and over for you. Maybe it’s just confused and thinks you will enjoy reliving those times. In part it’s right… Dreaming those dreams are great when you are dreaming them. But then you wake up… and realize it was all a dream.

Or, as the day progresses, a nightmare.

I just want the boogeyman back.

New Years Resolutions...

Sat, 12 Jan 2008 18:48:00 -0600

It’s been a while since we spoke last. I will skip the pleasantries because I assume your answers will be “Fine” and “No, nothing new.” Oddly enough, those are my answers as well.

Writing you ask? Well, it’s been so long since we talked that I’m sure you are expecting my opus to be complete. Hell, I’ve had a year to complete it; surely that was enough time.

Have I mentioned I’m a terrible procrastinator?

The truth of the matter is that I have done some writing in the last 365+ days since I last posted here. I wouldn’t say it was a “substantial” amount of writing… but it was certainly “an amount.”

So why am I here? That’s a valid question and I applaud you for asking it. Writing, in general terms, is a stimulus for me. It doesn’t matter if I am writing a blog, erotic Mirrormask fan fiction (Neil Gaiman Joke!), or the project formally known as “My Opus”, as long as I am writing something. Writing is the lube that allows the cogs in my brain to continue to spin and maybe, just maybe, churn out a story or two.

The ideas are many but the motivation is little (writing faux pas) so we will see how far I get with this year’s resolution.

Something real quick

Tue, 12 Dec 2006 20:04:00 -0600

Sorry for the lack of updates - been a busy few weeks. For those of you looking for a quick update: No writing to speak of but a lot of Windwaker.

For now you should all read this. It’s one of the best articles I have read and may earn The Wiikly a spot in the links section (a true honor indeed.)

Fish Out

The Blogger Beta Is Buggy As Shit

Wed, 29 Nov 2006 06:53:00 -0600

I’m going to bed because I am tired of trying to understand the reason the blogger beta (to which my account was moved automatically this evening) insists on double and triple posting my posts even after I delete them and republish the entire blog. If there are double posts of this or any other entry you know now that it isn’t because I’m an idiot.

Maybe this is why they call it “beta”.

Edit: Oh, and comments aren’t showing up for some reason. I have a feeling that may be on my end. I’ll investigate tomorrow when I am better rested (and care more.)

It's Long - But I Allude To Sex Twice!

Wed, 29 Nov 2006 05:39:00 -0600

I’ve never had anything good to say about the Zelda games. Since the beginning of time I have beat a total of 2 Zelda games: Zelda 2 - The Adventure of Link (mario+elves+shooting sword - who the fuck didn’t love this game) and Four Swords (had to justify the purchase of the gba link cable… and I got to call io_burn a “loot-whoring fuckwit” which is always a plus.) Every other game (yes, I own all of them) has been given the standard 3 hours of play before it is inevitably shelved. Those play-throughs are, I imagine, quite similar to spending a night in bed with me (3 hours of boredom followed by no climax.) That is until the fucking Wii showed up. But I’m getting ahead of myself… let me go back a few weeks.

On the nights that I don’t have to get up at the ass-crack of dawn (8:20) I sit on the couch with my roommate Aaron. We watch Music HD (in the hopeless attempt to sneak a peak at Kelly Clarkson’s midriff is that fucking incredible outfit from that video where she is singing in the forest) while we sit on our apple laptops scouring the internet for nerd news. On the night in question I stumbled upon this bad-ass scripting program that trumped Final Draft (to which I have been a slave to for years) and was free.

You see kids, I’m writing a game. Writing may not be the appropriate verb for the activity I have been spending the last 5 years doing (procrastinating may be better) but that is neither here nor there. I bought Final Draft 6 way back when I thought that I may actually finish something and, shortly there after, Final Draft 7 came out so I upgraded. I spent a lot of money. Now, years later, I stumble across Celtx. Its Final Draft on steroids and its free. THIS IS WHAT I NEED TO MOTIVATE MYSELF TO FINISH THIS GAME - I NEED TO CONVERT NOW! There is only one problem: where, in my busy schedule, will I find the time?

While the obvious answer is “during the time you are sitting in front of the tv hoping to catch some Clarkson Belly Button” but it isn’t that easy… for me. I need to set time and a goal. I also can’t set a series of goals because that becomes far too overwhelming and I will end up watching House instead. So, baby steps. Turkey day is coming and I would be at my parents house with no video games. It’s perfect. My first goal: Print out what I have written so far (about 70 pages), edit it by hand, and then begin to transcribe them. I figure I have about 5 hours between the Turkey Day Movie (For Your Consideration - for those of you interested) and the dinner itself. I should be half way done with my goal which will, in turn, motivate me to finish it and get back to writing on this new program (which, in my mind, is going to be amazing.) I spend the next week getting excited about writing again. The ideas start to flow again. The floodgates open. I start listening to new and interesting music for scene inspiration. This is going to be it. I’m going to make this fucker.

Then, the Wii launches.

Have you played this fucking thing? I have. Hell, in this house alone we have 4 of the motherfuckers. We are starting a goddamned Wii bowling league. It’s amazing. And what launched with this amazing system? A Zelda game.

Have I told you about my relationship with Zelda?

Turkey Day Eve rolls around and I head to the parents to eat dinner with the fam. It’s nice, we had take out Indian Food, it’s pretty damn good, I highly recommend it. After dinner, I don’t feel so hot. Not my stomach (fuck you Indian Food Nay-sayers) I just feel shitty. It could be the fact I was working off 4 hours of sleep but it doesn’t feel like that. So I say “I’m going to go home and take a nap, pack, feed cat, and then head back over here at some ungodly hour to sleep for a few hours before I begin the trek back to writing. After my 4 hour nap I am left with an empty house and a cat who is starved for attention. So I sit down on the couch and turn on the TV while the cat takes up residence on my lap. Of course, it being midnight, there is precisely dick on. So what is a boy to do?

Well, I could do the three hours of Zelda and get that out of the way. I figure the case will look more prestigious with dust covering it anyway and I have a sweet spot for it on my shelf (between Four Swords and Wind Waker.) I do this now and I could be asleep at my parents house by 3:30 with a full day of editing ahead of me. Fuck it. Lets strap on the Wiimote and fucking do this.

And then it was 8:30am.

How could this be? Eight and a half hours? This is a fucking Zelda game. You’ve played one, you’ve played them all. Young no name kid goes on errand only to be swept up in an epic story involving an ultimate evil who, of course, turns out to be Gannon(dorf.) Whooptie-Shit. There is a reason the 3 hour rule exists. Why, the fuck, would I go almost three times as long for this game? Is it the Wii? Is it the story? What is it?

It’s really fucking good. I’m 30 hours in standing at the gates of the 2nd to last dungeon and I couldn’t be more enthralled.

What lies in the wake of the cruel bitch named Zelda is that I missed the movie (mom said I could sleep because she loves me more than she loves Christopher Guest Comedies) and only edited about 10 pages. And I’m still not done with the game. But, goddamnit, I will be. Then, only time will tell if I get back on the horse.

I can assure you of one thing though. Regardless as to how great this game is I know there is still one truth I can hold on to. No matter how much fun I have… I’m still better than Link in the sack.

You can bank on that shit.

This is how we spend our Saturday Nights

Mon, 27 Nov 2006 04:21:00 -0600

This post has been altered because it fucked up my template. Maybe it will return…

Maybe

To Do List

Thu, 23 Nov 2006 02:14:00 -0600

1) Make sure the site is bug free.
2) Thanksgiving Day write up
3) Fanboy discussion
4) Piss people off

Stay tuned kids. This should be good.