toe knee hulk

10:30 pm, still at work but about to wrap up (it has been quite a long day!) - do you think I can make it home in time to bang it at cinespace? Nah, but i might wash my dishes and i think i will pass out after. Truth be told I would love to throw in a load of laundry, but i might not have enough stamina to wait for the cycles to go through. Still - geez, some clean underwear might be sort of nice? You know???

So after my recent political blog, the news has been pretty much declaring McCain/Palin the loser party this go-'round. All the poll projections show Obama Yo Mama with a ridiculously healthy lead. Granted it's not quite Super Tuesday for another week, but it looks like this thing has been decided in spite of my doomsaying. Well it feels a little weird, but let's hope things don't awkwardly fall apart at the last moment (which would be, well.... unbelievable, more so than anything seen before!) 270 electoral votes needed to win the election. Obama's projected with 355, McCains at 156. Mind you this is PROJECTED and it's a week early. To make matters more bizarre, Cloris Leachman's been voted off Dancing with the Stars. You got it!

my own, personal

mon-day ni-gh-t, 9pm, just wrapped up the day's work. I should buckle in and do a nice late night, but I haven't got the power to do that, especially since I am trying to make an effort to come into the office a little bit earlier these days...

things are alright, I guess there's not a lot to say over what's been said lately. I am kind of feeling like a hamster in a ball, lots of energy but no matter how much I expend it's only gonna kind-of propel me in some sort of general direction. I always consider myself as a focused sort of personality, but I think it's a disservice to myself to suppose that much (focused yes, but far from razor-sharp, then!) Well whatever, like anyone else I am just trying to do the best I can.

I feel like I am suppressing the more philosophical parts of my personality lately, like my deeper thought and consideration must just take a back-seat to being practical and productive, those are thoughts I don't like to admit (as it DOES run contrary to my personal philosophy) but with the way all things seem to go in my life, it seems like the only way to head towards some kind of solvent goal, and therein lies the notion of "focus." I think I have grown up in this day and age where freedom and personality are championed, but really as I get older I can see how that's just a myth really, if you try to act out and .. uh.. follow your natural rhythm in those regards (in their purer forms) then you're only going to end up broke and alone, possibly in jail. Well, in many parts of this country anyway (at least the ones I live in). As I write that, it fascinates me a little "if i am so drawn to that rough idea of freedom, why does my personality reject the idea of living under the radar, in a wayyyy more antisocial fashion?" I guess it's just not so simple an equation then. There's always a few more big factors to consider.

Maybe I feel limited enough from the outside world as it is, and then when I do subject myself to it, it can only be under extreme circumstances (i.e. if I am gonna go out ot a club, I need to be intoxicated). How silly an idea it seems to go out to a club and NOT be drunk, or conversely to participate in otherwise "sober activities" while otherwise mentally misaligned. I don't like thinking about this stuff, it makes me feel like I am just full of shit. It is interesting though, and something that's just not really approached in society, and it makes me feel like we are all no better than cavemen, still...

I am a little tied up, I want to bend my borders, I want to hop in my car and leave my office and pick a direction, let my mind wander, and just drive, drive until my Gas Tank is getting low, fill it up, and then drive some more, ignore the highway signs, don't care where I am going, don't care when I am coming back, or if I am coming back..

you're ON!!

hello, texturizers, nothing to see hare. Mauve along.

I have been silent in my game blog for awhile now, maybe a bit longer than I'd like - I would think it'd be prudent to post in here maybe once or twice a week, at best, if I ever want it to be taken any-kind of seriously. But as usual, I have life and work and such to think about, and I do have my "real blog" to pour into when the writing bug strikes. Still, I have much to say on the world of gaming (and my work), so it'll come when it does. And it does, now..

At Oblivion, I mean Obsidian (was that a slip?) I have finally moved over to the Aliens team. Not sure how much I am allowed to talk on this stuff, so I must keep it pretty brief. After spending the last year and a half of my life living in Alpha Protocol, and all that entails, it is bittersweet to move on - I'll just say that the last work I was doing on that project looked like my best so far. Aliens-wise, well - I took the job with this studio specifically because I wanted to work on this title. So there! I am gonna miss working with Unreal Editor, though. I whined about it a good bit at first, but I feel pretty capable with it these days. So gratifying!

Nothing is spinning in my disc tray lately. AT ALL. The only modern-ish game-ish thing i have spent any time with was the Pixeljunk Eden demo on PS3. I seriously logged a good 10 hours in there - I didn't even feel the need to buy the full game, it was one of those where you can totally just cruise with the demo as it is. Fun though, nice little game to chill out and kick back with and while away some hours. Also downloaded the Mega Man 9 demo, expecting to make short work of it. holy CRAP tough. I am ashamed to say I could not pass the halfway mark of the stupid demo level - it only succeeded in pissing me off. Mind you I am a longtime lover of Mega Man TWO specifically - but geez. Anyway I think I am a huge loser if I don't shell out for Mega 9 sometime soon. 10 bucks, geez. Why the hell not.

LittleBigPlanet is the game I have got my eye on. I am going to see if I can snatch this business up this week - I sense this game might be something else. I haven't actually shelled out an honest $60 for a PS3 title yet, in the nearly one year I have owned the device - and the title that packed-in with it, Motorstorm, never got more than maybe 5 minutes of playtime from me (for shame! I know) so it is high-time to pick up something worthwhile, and this game looks like it's gonna be at least that. In this day and age of franchised IPs up the wazoo, it's no small feat when a game comes out with backing like this and interesting possibilities this intriguing. I expect it might end up boring, but I suppose that's only if I don't give it a chance...

Reading online about Wii Music, this is a title which most are scoffing at - and deservedly so? Maybe not - it looks deep, for whataver "it is," though I am not sure how one classifies this exactly. It looks like something I'd've had great fun with as a kid, and also looks like it is something I could enjoy playing with my girlfriend (and so, that is why I am eyeing it..) Weird looking title, but again, it's so refreshing to see Nintendo always going their own way with everything and sticking to their guns, their philosophy. It's nice to see this rubbing off a little on the competition as well (reference LittleBigPlanet, above) - trying weird things and just seeing it through to the end. This is what makes things interesting in the world, as opposed to the "static media" as I'll call it..

I bought an X-Arcade stick off a guy at work for 60 clams. This is basically a big chunk of wood with pro-grade joysticks and buttons sticking out of it, professionally manufacture of course. I have had a Hotrod for years, which is the same thing, but Hotrod's only good on PC - I feel a little out of place with that huge behemoth butted up against my workstation. The X-Arcade hooks up to my Xbox 1 as well, that being a modded Xbox with about a bazillion Mame (arcade) roms stored on it's HD. I love having that console but I hate playing arcade games with an XBox controller - the X-Arcade feels wonderful! Sucks that it took me so long to get this all figured out, but the price worked out at the end of the day. I'd still love to get a dedicated Mame Cab set up somewhere down the line, but this is a WAY more than satisfying substitute, perhaps superior in several regards. Playing Ms Pacman is STILL loads of fun, even all these years later.

Nintendo DSi, this cracks me up. What the hell is this? DSlite looks great as it is, a wonderful library, everyone loves it, etc. etc. This is kinda pushing it a little. Two cameras? No more GBA slot? Bah. It's interesting, and they will get some cool gear out for it I am sure. But let's just say I still have yet to buy any DS models at this point. I wonder how the new PSP is faring. Is there yet ANY halfway compelling reason to buy a PSP, for real? Hello? Echo-o-o-o-o-o...

how does it go, tomato

And so Roctober arrives to a blustery finish, another weary month drizzled by with little fanfare, depressing the world with it's economically troubling events, and few (if any) half-decent movie releases to sew up past a crazy-blockbuster summer. But no one is complaining about any of that. America's codpiece is tuned towards the coming elections, about a week and change to go. And of course, everyone has an opinion on the topic - and so, I am no different.

I seldom touch on politics in my blog, for several reasons, but it's always coloring my life, my mind, and all who cross my path, to be sure. When it's as relevant as it is now, I feel somewhat compelled to spit out a couple of words here or there on the topic, and so then..

"Vote Ron! Wy don't you vote? Vote, vote, vote. or you can't complain when things aren't running the way you wish they were." To the contrary. I am tired of explaining this, but I will put it out there once again - I don't vote for much the same reasons I will never by a lottery ticket, it feels like a WASTE OF TIME. If I wanna make a difference in an election, then I must do something to raise my visibility and develop my voice or something like that. Otherwise, punching a confusing card (in a state which always votes Democratic, anyway) feels somewhat pointless. But the larger issue, is the fact that it just goes against my philosophy - bearing witness to the past two elections, it has pretty much been proven to me how things work, and how much of a BS job the whole electoral process is. It just does what it wants. It makes us feel like "we have a voice, we have control" of this fiasco to some degree but honestly, it's so far out of our hands it's just not even funny. Is this a bad thing? Ummm.. well.. is it even relevant? Sure I would say "I WISH things were different and "good would prevail over evil" but at the same time, to be a superpower, to run the world "for the betterment of mankind" in the way that we do, things just sort of follow the way that they do in sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is not to say that massive foreign policy arguments wouldn't be different under a democrat-controlled white house - but at this point, with all the groundwork laid down by the GOP, there's nowhere to go but up, anyway. This war we are in, whatever state you'd like to call it now, isn't going to peter out no matter who is in charge... It's not a faucet that can be turned on and off.

I will give the Dems this much, though, they may be wussier and less shrewd than the Republicans, but at least to some degree they seem a littttttle less evil. Ah well. We will see. This is all pointless anyway, because as I have maintained all along McCAIN WILL WIN THE 2008 ELECTION. That's right, look at history, look at what's happened in the past as the prior Electoral Eves drew closer, how tight those races were, and here we are again, same old business. I think we all easily forget about what John Kerry pointed out last time, "The Two Americas" - you have us, the creative dudes, the hard workers, the intellectuals, the businessmen, the trendy hipsters, etc etc. And then you have THEM. The rednecks. The old-fashioned people with much worse grammar. The people who fear Jesus, Aliens, Terrorists, all with the same ferocity. I would still say those guys have us beat like 4 to 1 easy, at least. And these aren't the folks who go out to rallies, they don't "put out the vote," they sit at home with their curtains drawn and their shotguns loaded and their grits cookin'. They mind their own, but they fear everything, and they've been taught that, they've had it beaten into them, and they beat it into their own kids likewise, and it festers, it perpetuates. The Star Wars generation can't really touch it...

And these people aren't "bad." They are just people. They are our brothers and sisters, they watch the same movies an TV that we do, but it's all viewed through a slightly different prism - one that would never ever want to vote a black man into office, I will say that. On top of being black his name is "Barack Obama." Tell me that's not the one-two punch. Yes, America professes how badly it wants change, and it knows it needs it, look at the sorry state of affairs we've got ourselves into now. But it's not going to come that dramatically, not with all the hatred and confusion and Mickey-Mouse constitution we've still got, it's our foundation, it's our backbone, and in this way it is sort of our shame. America is the great big Melting Pot, but it's being tended by a fat old white guy with a straw hat, cowboy boots and the thickest southern drawl you ever did hear.

In spite of all I say, some part of me thinks that the Republicans put McCain out there to dry. Like they send him over ("is this REALLY the best we can do?") And some crazy person decides to strap a handgrenade named Sarah Palin to his chest and pull the pin. That was some craziness if I ever did see any. All they had to do was play it straight, get some good-looking large-chinned rich goofball in there as a subordinate, some no-name, it would have been boring but it would have been safe and, dare I say, pret-ty smooth. But no, somehow they decided to embrace this whole "America needs Change" attitude as well and wanted to pick up the Lesbo Vote which Hillary left in the lurch. Well this was not the way to do it, that's for sure. Anyway, that's what's frazzled my radar. Are the Pubs trying to throw the fight? Are they leaving us in this big stinking mess with the war fallout and the economy in cinders and trying to wash their hands of the affair, "let the dems clean it up!" It wouldn't be easy for anyone to take that mess and make sense of any of it, and by the time the next election rolls around the Pubs'll be sitting mighty pretty like the old father figure "it is okay son, we can handle it from here, you gave it your best shot." I don't know, something about that feels a little believable to me. As for all their investors, constituents, etc., they have enough firewood to keep warm during the long winter, and this will just weed out the wannabee's. I don't know. Something is up.

Anyway I stick to my guns. McCain's got this one locked in spite of all the weirdness. I would prefer to see Mr. Obama taking charge in his stead. I guess we can all just watch and wait - nailbiting.

the blankets were the stairs

apologies to that band.

Friday night, 1 week prior to Halloween, a time of the year that is very scary to me for reasons other than the usual (it's the Bermuda Triangle to me! Typically when I get dumped, fired, etc - while everyone else is out carving pumpkins and dressing like freaks, I just wanna stay at home and bury myself beneath my bedsheets for like.. TWO WEEKS, my eyes peering out, waiting for the blackest clouds of fate to pass me by so I can just get on with business as usual). Oh okay it's not ALWAYS horrible, but the human brain sure loooVVvvvVVes it's patterns. So, y'know.

Late, 2:30am, doing laundry, though it's almost done and then I'm to sleep shortly. Quite tired these days, things have taken a toll on me, I am out of shape, my nerves are quite frayed, the usual whining, etc etc. I feel like an awful pill of a person to be around lately, I don't know how/why my girlfriend puts up with it, hopefully for her sake she is a bit oblivious or something 'cause I feel like a major drag these days! Still, I tease her that "she's always happy and in a good mood" and I know that I appreciate that of her, it just makes things easier sometimes when I am feeling like I just wanna napalm all the fools on the freeway...

I have weird thoughts in my head, a lot of the same garbage/flotsam and jetsam that tends tt like to resurface ad nauseum, I wonder if I will ever be free of it (probably not, I guess I am not "me" if it is not there). Once in awhile, maybe more often that not I have this shitty urge of wishing I could just press a button and replace so many things in my life (particularly myself) - though I don't really know what that accomplish, after the novelty of "new everything" then I would probably just sink back to the same way I feel anyway, only set back some paces. Maybe that ain't a good way to feel about it. I think I am just looking for some direction, some belonging, something. I have all my shit all figured out (as much as it is gonna be) and maybe that bothers me too in another way. Maybe the bottom line is that despite my age, a part of me is frozen in this permanent-immature state, waiting for that next event which woulda happened long ago anyway if some things in my life had been different. Not sure if that's a good thing, a bad thing, or totally irrelevant, it's just a feeling, maybe I am just inventing crap.

Ah, seasonal affective disorder, where are you when I need you...? On that note, I am sick sick sick (not really so dramatically so, I just view the trend as pathetic/lame) how quick we as a society are to label everything with complicated-sounding names that brand them as "debilitating conditions," things that we have no control over," limiting factors that prevent like 99 percent of us from ever wanting to aspire to be more than some half-assed schmuck who's not good for very much at all. Who are we trying to make feel better, the old and infirmed? Come on, sickness and dying is a part of life! But more so, mediocrity is as well, in fact it's something of a saving grace - limiting factors are what truly define anybody as an individual. It's what draws us together, puts the humanity into us, and still we feel so shamed for it, somehow even when it's something ("talent") that we should not feel the least bit shamed for. It's not to terribly bad now, still kind of at a comical stage, but I can see where it's going and it sure ain't good. Again, my catch-all "this is part of our design" rings in my ear and so I can't just outright lambast it, people hate their humanity sadly, and this is an expression of that, and like all things in this world that too will grow and evolve however it will. Some will take advantage of it (ad agencies, pharmaceuticals, gov't) and others will know better, ad if not that then something else anyway, just like as usual. Okay I am pretty sleepy now.

my understanding has pretty much ground to a halt

greetings, those of you who read my blog, all fifteen thousand of you. How are you guys doing, I mean I really want to know! Jennifer, have you had that mole on your tucous looked at yet? And Bill, did you resolve that squabble you had with your neighbor yet (you know, after his god bit your wife and all). To be fair, she shouldn't really have been snooping through their yard anyway, I mean honestly, it's kinda not-cool to be going through you neighbor's trash and stuff looking for.. oh, I don't know.

It's a chilly night here in Los Angeles, as I sit here at my desk in my bathroom with the heater just-turned on, sipping a coke (it's filling and I've not really got any food here). The weekend was alright, busy times as usual in my life - let's see, last week my parents were in town (1st time in 4 years) so there was a lot of running around as I wanted to make sure they had a memorable trip. We rented a car and blasted all over town. this past weekend, I was hoping to just relax ad sit on my ass and not do too much at all, as it turns out it was still rather busy anyway - though I did get a little reprieve on Sunday. I sat my ass down on the couch to watch the final sox game this evening, unfortunately they got their hides tanned by the Mental Rays from tampa bay. I am sort of glad that I don't watch professional sports very much, though it is nice to be distracted I can see my personality just getting stressed/tense from too much getting-caught-up in that kinda stuff.

A few of us went out last night, it was a full night all around - dinner at Geisha House, drinking and dancing at Beauty Bar, and then back here to my pad for Pizza and Rock Band. I guess these are the Golden Days I'll look back at someday when I am old "for real." And of course today dragged my butt over to Los Feliz to meet some friends for a very tasty lunch. Life here isn't bad, I suppose...

Anyway, on to the complaining part of the email. I do feel tired, and I feel like my life is kind of at a standstill right this moment. It seems like some forward momentum I have been cruising with has kinda ground steadily to a halt, it's not there yet but it's pretty decided. I am not saying that's altogether bad, this halt is sort of representative of that Stability which I am always fearful of, but my personality is as such that I need to constantly be in the middle of some great flux where everything is threatening to break all-hell-loose if something super-crazy doesn't get pulled off at the last minute. It's this feeling, as usual. which puts my mind into evaluatory-mode and makes me think "hmm what should I do, quit job/move somewhere else/etc" and of course my reaction to that is that I must keep a steady course; if there's not a huge pit of trouble all ready to drop on my business, then don't ask for it. Still, there's a good few circumstances in my life which do kin of wind up that way, (hey - always, to some extent, right?) though by now I feel more than capable to be able to tackle any last-minute escape plans which would have to be hatched, if need be. So, I am not looking forward to that so much - but it's good to be secure in my own confidence of "I know what I am doing."

Still - I don't know really what I WANT. I think I sort of have already achieved many of the goals I have set for myself, certainly a few bigger ones are a ways-off from being realized but a lot of the middling stuff is pretty ordered at this point. Someone sort of pointed this out to me recently, and I took it somewhat offensively (a little, I suppose) "What!! how DARE you accuse me of having my shit all figured out - clearly you do not know me, sir or madame!" Well, I suppose it is all relative, then. Anyway I look around my apartment, and a lot of the clutter has been minimized, so I guess it's a little symbolic of my mental space being a little tidier than it'd been. I guess I kind of feel like a bit of a weight has been lifted in my life work-wise, as well, and as sad as that may sound, it's absence kind of leaves me feeling a little less chaotic in the rest of my dealing with the world....

Anyway, I guess at this point i will just keep working hard and trying to keep that stuff all going as best as possible. At some point i really WILL get out of debt (one should hope) and then maybe I will shovel out for a new TV or some crap like that (not something I ever seriously consider, but it's fun to pretend like I am concerned about it, in a strange way). Sigh, sleepy. I've had much deeper things I wanted to get over in here, but instead I think I will just phase off into the ether.

rome is burning!!

You know, a friend of mine supposedly forecasted that "the world is gonna end Tuesday." Well, Tuesday has officially come and gone and the world is still here, but y'know, it is taking something of a beating right now. It's a weird feeling, this feeling of disarray - no one is quite sure what to make of it, how this has all happened, and quite what to do about it - nor what manner of times lie ahead. We kind of follow forward with quiet trepidation, the doomsayers among us clamoring the loudest, those with our delicate balance to protect just toeing the line, waiting for the other shoe to drop, but not so expectantly that we've battened down the hatches and locked up for the long winter, quiet yet.

The media has a nasty little habit of trying to drum up panic, but I see that as more reflective of human nature, really. Still, these are some unprecedented times we live in, with layers upon layers upon layers of - well, no one knows what's on the top and what's on the bottom anymore. Sometimes it feels like society is a very carefully-constructed house of cards. All these rules in place, intertwining and slipping and sliding all around one another, like some Eastern Traffic Pattern - but all it takes is for one sizeable-enough monkey wrench to full in place and gum up the works, and then it just all falls to shit.

Anyway, the natural order is kind of building up and breaking down, and the point of culture/society is to do that pretty much incrementally - not stop/start/stop/start with the slow determinedness of nature, but rather advance, then spread, then advance from more fronts, then spread some more. It's quite interesting really. Sure there'll be some time when that finds some weakness exposed as well I suppose, but it's hard to measure as compared to the regular patterns we see in nature, or at least that is what we like to tell ourselves. The ante just gets raised..

Anyway as I was saying, who knows what's to come. So the money will be all gone? Jobs disappear? People get hungry, lose their homes, submit to desperation - rioting, crime, strife? Never mind the problems on the world stage (they've been expressing themselves here and there to certain degrees) we have a big question mark about to slam into the Homeland of Tomorrow? The rest of the world is already definitely reeling from all this Stock Market BS.

Anyway, things continue with their momentum, all things, good and bad. Life goes on, as it doesn't know how to do anything else. We just take it a day at a time, and hope that those who we've placed in charge are smart enough to steer the course..