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I am a dude on the phone who is going to sort out his insurance--
And I'm done. Well. That was easy.
Traveler's Insurance, people. The chaps with the big red umbrella. They are good folk. I endorse them.Psychological integrity: Accomplished What's that racket?: Peter Gresser - From the Nahuatl... |
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I set out with no real purpose, only the purpose that involved typing "livejournal.com" into my web browser and logging in to post. I suppose that counts as a certain amount of purpose, but the purpose behind this post is nothing more than to attempt to rehabilitate my writing skills, they having atrophied from disuse while I spent the last months sulking or writing academic papers or some combination of the two. I posted yesterday, mind, and thought that it seemed like a good thing to get back in the habit of doing.
I think that I might try my hand at writing some sort of fictional work later; I haven't done that in longer than I haven't written an entertaining post here, and that pretty much takes us back years at this point. It will be rusty as hell and probably suck, but I think that it is a thing that needs doing. If nothing else, I can write stories and try to shill them on Ralan or something. I could use the money.
So who wants to shower me in cash and exciting prospects?Psychological integrity: Hopeful What's that racket?: Minus The Bear - Knights |
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I must be doing something else that is a lot more important than posting a thing on Livejournal. I think at this point I am writing just to keep in practice; I don't have a lot that I am obligated to write these days and instead of taking advantage of that fact and writing what I want, I have gone in a completely opposite direction and have managed to write absolutely nothing in the interim between the end of schooling and this post. I guess there were some cover letters written in there, but let's be honest: for all of us who have ever written a cover letter before, we all know how basically brainless that process usually manages to be.
For the life of me, I couldn't end that sentence on anything else than a form of "to be" and that rankles in the back of my brain. "You are out of practice," my brain tells me. "You used to be able to write entire papers without using the verb "to be" and now look at you! You're ending sentences with it."
"Hush," I tell my brain, "it was good enough for the Romans."
I suppose that's all I've really got for the moment, and I really should get back to marking up these library books for future reference and thesis writing purposes. Ah, well. Off I go, then.Psychological integrity: Tired. What's that racket?: The Aquabats - Canis Lupis |
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I have to write five pages of paper before 1 PM tomorrow; I also have to present on said pages in class. This is not a particularly enviable position for me to be in, but it just wouldn't be the end of a semester--even a summer one--without me putting off work until the last possible second. And really, one of these things will easily follow the other, due to the nature of the assignment. I'll most likely be up early tomorrow morning (boo, hiss) to finish the whole thing off, but I'd like to get a good start on things before I go to bed--two pages would be ideal, but then again I am writing this instead of the paper due to my extreme aversion to doing the smart thing.
Anyway, pleased to meet you; hope you guess my name.Psychological integrity: Whoo whoo What's that racket?: The Rolling Stones - Sympathy for the Devil |
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Really, I've neglected far more than just you, it just so happens that I'm addressing this little thing to you because I'm posting on you after an absence of... a while, I suppose. I'm not going to bother with exact times. Tom Waits wouldn't want me to do that.
I'm not sure, actually, whether Tom Waits would care or not. Whatever. I'm not going to bother with exact times, no matter what Tom Waits would have to say on the matter.
I haven't really sat down and written anything in a good while, probably since I finished my final papers for the spring semester. I don't really like that I have let a part of me that I'm pretty sure I enjoy above most other parts of me atrophy in such a shameful manner. I wish that I could say that I have been writing privately, just not posting anything for public consumption, but that would be a lie and while I am a compulsive liar I have some scruples, thank you, and this is not something to lie about. I am a self-professed writer who has not written anything in probably a few weeks, maybe a month, of any substance. I have written many cover letters, but those are short and petty and don't really count for much in the long term. Certainly if they had been compelling in any way they may have occasioned a response from a potential employer.
That isn't to say that I'm entirely unemployed at the moment. I have a commission job that I do not suck at, but that is based in part on luck, of which I've no manner at all. It is not the sort of employment that fills me with a confidence that I can pay the bills. It is the kind of job that makes my butt clench in terror at the words "bill," "rent," "loan payment," and "anal violation," though I suppose that last one is more of a permanent fixture of the "things that make my butt clench in terror" list.
If this post seems rambling, it is because it is rambling. I haven't done this in a good long while and I am at the moment doing this instead of reading for class because I fear class readings will be boring as shit. This happens when the conversation in the classroom is much more interesting than the stuff that we have to read to prepare for classes, but in order to best participate in the discussion one has to have read the material. Catch 22, that.
I think that closing this post out on the Beatles is as good a way to end it as any.Psychological integrity: Buggy What's that racket?: The Beatles - Good Day Sunshine |
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I am writing this post whilst assuming the dynamic post-writing pose, which doesn't actually exist and I couldn't tell you why I thought it did in the first place.
I am currently lacking employment, and though I may be disheartened at that fact, I'm still looking with vigor and sense of purpose. The purpose is finding a job. This process, though ongoing, leaves me with free time every so often, and so the question that has slowly begun to rattle its way around my mind with increasing frequency is "why are you not using this free time to pursue your hidden dream of being a Published Author of Fictive Works," a question to which I have no answer, satisfactory or otherwise, to give. Really, I have no idea. I'm a lazy, unmotivated fuck who would rather spend all my time with pre-made stories and interactive entertainments than make my own. I am a sham of a writer.
And I shouldn't be, and I don't want to be, and so I think that one of the things that is going on my List of Things to Do Today will be to stare, pleadingly, at a blank document and try to will some kind of story into existence. A short one, for starters, I should think. Maybe something occasional, probably not anything that I would submit to any of the myriad submission-places on Ralan's helpful site, but something that will perhaps shake the cobwebs loose from my brain and start the process of fictioneering again. Character sketches, anything.
Which I suppose is also part of the reason that I am writing this; I have not written anything of substance in a long time and so I suppose that a short update here is as good a way as any to shake loose the cobwebs and to get that typing speed back up to par and to do whatever the hell else I think needs doing before I go and try to write things for fun again.
You wouldn't think that it would be such an arduous process, would you? You wouldn't think that. Maybe it isn't, and maybe I'm blowing it all out of proportion. We'll see. We shall see.
May. 18th, 2009 @ 11:25 am
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| » On Evils in Residence and the Biohazards They Cause. |
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So Ford and I beat Resident Evil 5 today, and I think that it was a pretty good experience, except for the ridiculous amount of Quick Time Events that the final boss fights were composed of. I understand that they are somehow supposed to make awesome set-piece battles less frustrating, but really they were just getting on my damned nerves by the end of it all. I'd have to say that I enjoyed the game overall, from the fights to the cutscenes full of camp and extremely well-animated action sequences. RE5 is a game that knows its cutscenes are worth re-watching, and so they helpfully give you the option to do so in the main menu.
This is something that I think more games could stand to have; the last game I remember that just gave you the cutscenes was Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes. I thought it was nicely done then, and I think it is nicely done now. Final Fantasy X had a version of this wherein you had to purchase the scenes from a vendor and watch them in the context of the game-world, and Lost Odyssey operates on a similar level, but you had to buy an expansion pack to get the item. Eternal Darkness also just lets you watch the cutscenes, which means that Silicon Knights was probably on to something there. I haven't checked for that functionality in Too Human, but I'm willing to bet it is in there. I don't see why this basic functionality isn't included in more games. I mean, people obviously put a lot of work into these cutscenes, and the only way you can see 'em is in the context of the game, which means that if you want to re-watch one, you'd have best saved your game in multiple slots so that you don't over-write it. More Final Fantasy games (VII onward, and I'll throw in the Kingdom Hearts games here as well) need to have that kind of functionality, because the FMVs were definitely part of the allure of the games--for me, anyway--and I always wanted a way to just watch 'em again.
But, this post was originally about RE5, and so I'll continue by saying that there are enough unlockables and little options and whatnot to make the whole contraption worth playing through again. I don't think that I'll pick it up again for a while--I have three other RE games to get through, if it really comes to that--but I am fairly confident that I will pick it up again at some point. It is just one of those games that lends itself to replayability. Not quite as well as RE4 with its separate campaign for Ada and such, but enough that I would be interested in such a thing as replaying. Also the co-op element almost guarantees replays, to be perfectly honest. How could you not? It's killing fast bio-weapon intelligent zombies with a friend. All the fun of playing RE4 with your friends on the couch cheering you on plus the addition of an extra gun to the mix. You can't go wrong with that; you just can't.
Oh, I interviewed with a Temp Agency (boo hiss) today, and hopefully that will translate to more gainful employment than what I will have in a week (that is, no employment at all). And I finished another final paper, which leaves one more to get out of the way by Wednesday. And I posted my best time running my little 1.4 mile circuit since I started trying to get back into shape. So it was a pretty good day for me, I guess.
May. 7th, 2009 @ 09:14 pm
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| » What have I done? |
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Lately? I suppose I've written some papers, I know I've played some video games, and I also know that I haven't managed to find a job.
I've also thought, wistfully, about writing fiction again, because I find reality to be awkward and silly, and try to avoid it as much as I can, which is probably why I majored in English in college and not something useful. Yes, it's self-deprecating humour day at the compound today, in part because I'm writing a paper that's due Wednesday, but mostly probably because I could make fun of myself all day. It seriously is just that fun.
After spending so much time listening to music that I was convinced was the only reason I was actually sitting down and getting work done, like some kind of hypnotic suggestion, I have gone back to listening to stuff in my library that doesn't generally get listened to. It is a different thing, and it is a good thing, for all I can figure.
I am over halfway finished with that paper, you guys, and it's not even due tomorrow. For me, this is a condition approaching sheer madness.
Oh! The Lady returned from Boston today, and she was all in one piece, and she hadn't been killed by Red Sox fans or anything, and so that is a good thing for a fellow to discover.
May. 4th, 2009 @ 07:02 pm
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| » Stress. |
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I'm fairly certain that I am, at this moment, under a certain amount of stress. I'm almost entirely certain that this stress has no other origin than my own lack of foresight and planning, although I suppose that the shit-ass job market has a little bit to do with it. Less than I'd like, though. Mostly it's just me.
I've requested a reprieve on one of my scholarly endeavors, because I am not going to get it together by tomorrow and I'd like to have at least asked before I show up empty handed with a sheepish grin and no excuse other than my terrible planning skills to fall back on. I don't care, though, I need the space to breathe and am less and less concerned with what it might do to my grade in the class. I don't think it will affect it adversely.
I'm meanwhile trying to forge ahead in a paper trying to make heads or tails (both, if I can manage it) of Ibn Tufayl's Hayy the Son of Yaqzan, and before you ask yes, it is an old and dead Arabic philosopher that I am writing about because at some point I got tired of writing about old and dead European philosophers. I'll get something approaching a coherent argument out of it by the end of things; I'm fairly confident on that score. I generally do. I don't have a point to what I'm writing yet, but I'm only on the third of twenty pages so there's plenty of time as far as I am concerned.
Of course, I need to be doing that rather than nattering on here, so I'm going to uh... go do that instead of nattering on here. Adieu, fair Internet.
Apr. 29th, 2009 @ 09:20 pm
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| » I need to write a paper by Friday. |
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So obviously this means that I will instead get around to posting something here on the interblognetospherejournal and try to forget the fact that Hayy the Son of Yaqzan exists, and the fact that I have to delve into the meaning of his odd little Crusoe-before-Crusoe adventure of enlightenment, repatriation, expatriation, disillusionment, and re-enlightenment and what that means for political philosophy for twenty damned pages. Ahem.
I whinge, and I bitch a little, but to be perfectly honest the last paper I wrote I ended up really enjoying, and it showed in my writing enough that my professor (Herr Doktor Müller) noticed it and commented on it and enjoyed it as well. So here I am, a master, if you will, of my craft, more or less, about to plunge into philosophical meanderings--something that I can do with the best of 'em, I confess--and I am still going to avoid it for a few more minutes and write here that I don't want to do it even though, deep down in the darkest corners of my heart, I know I'll enjoy it.
And with that enjoyment, of course, comes the fear that my prose will be a little too enthusiastic, a little too interesting and off-the-cuff, and will not get a favourable reaction from my professors (two of them, in this case).
But you know something? You know something? I'm going to do it anyway, because just because I am writing acadamic doesn't mean that I have to write like a boring fart. So I guess I should get on that, eh wot?
Apr. 28th, 2009 @ 06:42 pm
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| » Man this is what happens. |
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If I had to say it in one sentence, I'd probably say it with "I very rarely am left to my own devices." That is, I'd avoid saying something a bit more true to form like "I am not alone, pretty much ever, and I have gotten mighty used to that, so when I am alone (well, there's a cat here) I just sort of putter around until I'm not alone any more."
To condense that into something more intelligible, I would say that I spend my days alone as fast as I can, because I don't particularly enjoy them, as much as I do enjoy them. Does that make sense? I didn't think it would. Ah, well. Let me try again.
When I am left alone, I tend to do things that I think I want to do, or things that I prefer to do by myself. Thing is, the only things I really care to do on my own are play JRPGs and watch animé, two things which the people who are around when I'm not alone don't particularly enjoy. Normally I'm fine sneaking a bit of it here and there, but when the house is empty (except for the cat), I tend to go all out and spend as much time doing these things as I can.
So I did, and so here I am, telling you (in its most general form) about the fact that I don't operate on my own well because I invariably think that there are better things that I could have been doing, also how did that bottle of Mountain Dew get in here?
Anyway, that's what I got.
Apr. 24th, 2009 @ 07:44 pm
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| » We post, we post. |
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We post about things, things which are usually unrelated to anything, things which are both generic and yet deeply personal, as we're the only ones who care about the generic things we post.
Today, we post about the fact that Samuel L. Jackson talking like a crazy old man and dropping the word "motherfucka" to the soundtrack of the RZA enhances what would otherwise be a competent brawling game to legendary heights. I'm not saying that I'm going to rush out and buy the Afro Samurai game, because it is probably too expensive for my tastes at the moment. I am saying that I will probably play the demo again.
I'm also saying that if you've an Xbox 360, and if it is internet-capable, then you should download the demo and play it and keep an open mind about a samurai with a ridiculous hair-do and his cranky old ninja companion, both voiced by Mr. S.L.J.
Apr. 22nd, 2009 @ 12:39 pm
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| » I am at work. |
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I am at work, which means that it must be A Tuesday, even though we're going to pretend, for purposes of how long I stay at work and what classes people go to that today is, in fact, A Monday, because Monday is a day that the University often is closed, so they like to spread it around with Tuesdays sometimes. I guess it makes sense, but all it means to me is four hours of work that I wouldn't be doing on a Tuesday normally.
I have a lot of things to write. Important things. School things. And I don't want to write any of them. I started writing A School Thing yesterday that needs to be about 19 pages more than what I have written currently, and that does not improve my Mood One Bit. You can tell that this business is weighing on my mind because I am using Unnecessary Capitalisation, which means that I've either been reading eighteenth century literature or am in a State of Perturbation (perturbment? Nah, couldn't be).
Twitter still exists as an entity that I have congress with every so often. Tristran and Yseut manages to be only sort of interesting, which is a shame because that's what the aforementioned paper is supposed to be about.
Confidential to Professor W. Mueller: What the hell is with the 1.5 line spacing rule? Go 2.0 or go home, you silly German fellow.
Apr. 14th, 2009 @ 11:19 am
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| » Easter |
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Hello everybody it is Easter which is the day we pretend a dead fellow got over a case of extreme and painful death and not some pagan holiday with bunnies and pastel colors oh my no.
Which is to say that Catholicism had a killer PR campaign and that's probably why it caught on like few other religions ever did.
But Happy Easter anyway, because we as a human race need an excuse to consort with our own families and treat each other nicely for a day. And, y'know, because on some sunny day or another in an ancient land some 2,000 years ago there was a dead fellow in a tomb who decided that death really wasn't his style and so he walked on out and spent the next few days going "boo" to his friends. White garments may have been involved.
Apr. 12th, 2009 @ 09:28 pm
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| » Effects Massed. |
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I beat Mass Effect yesterday, one of those things that always surprises me because I generally don't think of myself as a guy who beats games on a regular basis, though I suppose my record has slowly improved over the years. It is as good as sign as any that games used to be much, much more difficult.
It was a good game, with a solid story, some exciting bits thrown in, a strong finish, boss fights that weren't totally retarded, and the worst music since Starcraft. I don't know who decided that science fiction called for suck-ass synth music, but whoever that was I want to take them aside and quietly explain to them that no, this is not the way we do things.
Anyway, aside from that it was an eminently enjoyable game that I'll probably play through again at some point.
Knights of the Old Republic, now there was a game with some good damned music.
Apr. 11th, 2009 @ 11:12 am
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| » Have I talked about this before? |
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I've talked about this before, but I'm going to talk about it again.
I just finished reading Flame of Recca, a trope-filled manga in which nearly every enemy encountered by the main cast at some point will do a Heel Face Turn and centers mostly on the rapid expansion of martial prowess and discovery of new abilities, finishing with a fight against a main bad guy whose power surpasses theirs in every way but wait, there's more and everyone lives happily ever after, except the one or two obligatory deaths of secondary/tertiary characters to make things a bit more real.
And while this sort of plot happens a lot in such mediums, it's refreshingly honest about what the audience wants: namely, the audience wants a happy ending, against all odds, and the audience wants the main character to be unsurpassed in skill, and it wants him to unlock his full potential and save the world and get the girl. That's what the audience wants.
And that's all right, and sometimes it pays to read a story that is so straightforward about what the audience wants. So I read it, and I enjoyed it, despite the heavy use of tropes, and if you want to read it you can find it, along with a bunch of other offerings from our Japanese world neighbors and diligent fan translators here, because sometimes you just want the hero to get his happy ending and the series to end.
American comic book heroes rarely have that luxury, and it can be taxing upon one's world-view to always watch your favourite character get dragged through the mud and end up worse off than when he started. So go read the stories with a cheerful, childlike outlook on morality and the way the world works, and enjoy some of the humor that doesn't always translate well, and by the end of the series you'll probably be rooting for the hero even if you'll never admit it to anyone else. It's okay. I'll keep your secret.
Apr. 8th, 2009 @ 12:14 pm
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| » I am posting |
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Because I don't want to be writing the paper currently. I've got it all planned out (sort of) in my head (Hur hur) but I want to take a moment to not be writing it and instead be writing this for some dumbass reason that I haven't figured out yet.
I think, this officially being longer than a Twitter post (and thus justifying me not just tweeting this sentiment) that I am going to go back to writing the paper now.
Also I guess it is officially April, which sucks ass because that means I have deadlines coming up, not the least of which is the end of my job and unemployment. Fuck.
But you have not come here to read about that. You have come here because... Hell, I don't actually know the answer to that question either.
Apr. 1st, 2009 @ 12:19 am
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| » Did I mention that I am an Uncle again? |
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I did not, and it is a failing on my part, as are the multi-day silences on this, a blog that I ostensibly keep for the express purpose of farting out text every day to make sure that I don't forget how to type all of a sudden and lose my awesome typing speed because holy crap guys, you don't know how useful it is to actually know how to type at like, 70 wpm.
I... I am totally lying, of course, because most of the time I can only achieve swift typing speed if I have something in front of me, otherwise I am typing at the speed of thought which generally means a few mistakes here and there as I get my words all jumbled in my head and crossed about and a much less impressive typing speed altogether.
On the other hand, I have been writing acadaemia instead of writing journal entries, so I guess that I haven't been a total nooblet in terms of keeping my writing up to pace.
I received a bilingual copy of No More Heroes in the mail today, and the second lingual is there because it is French. I have seriously considered playing the game through en francais if only to hear "AND ENTER THE GARDEN OF MADNESS!" in French. Besides, I know that somewhere in my brain is a basic understanding of the French language that includes the ability to decipher the spoken component as well as the written one, thus I feel the exercise would be amusing. Of course, it's probably just subtitles and not a separate audio track.
I also discovered a Rorschach figurine, of which I would post photos if my webcam (MICROSOFT webcam, mind you) worked with Windows 7. But it doesn't, and the solution--download updated software and install that--doesn't work either, as the updated software just crashes during the install.
I am also on Twitter as @vincentavatar. I am so creative with my names hur hur hur. Now go forth and follow my tweets! They're restrained to 140 characters, which means they are way more interesting than what I write here, by and large.
Mar. 31st, 2009 @ 12:09 am
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| » What happens when I realize I'm being productive. |
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When I realize that I am being productive, one can expect me to immediately dart over to something much less productive like typing up a worthless Livejournal post, because there is nothing that I love more than a bit of ironic self-sabotage.
Or it is because I actively refuse to excel, or because I know that I'll get everything done anyway, so might as well fart about instead of getting it done now because procrastination is a very bad habit that is impossible to break tomorrow.
At any rate, in any event, and other "welp" phrases, I should probably go back to what I was doing, namely, work.
Mar. 26th, 2009 @ 02:08 pm
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| » I cannot decide what to write here. |
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Come to think of it, I cannot really decide what to write down here either. It is at moments like this that I realize that my ability as a writer seems to wax and wane, much as the moon does, and at some point I began to wane and now am kicking about waiting for some waxing action to come along so that I can write things and generally feel like a productive dude who writes things that, while they may not have any use to anybody else in the world (even himself), is at least writing something and getting a feeling of accomplishment out of that.
So if you're wondering why I bother to ever write anything, it is because I am affected by the phases of the moon.
Mar. 25th, 2009 @ 09:38 pm
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