Music

I think I've done postings like this before. I know that I've talked about my own musical journey a bit, how important I think music is, and how polarizing music can be.

That being said, I think that everyone has a bit of music within themselves (even if they don't know exactly how to express it).  That expression can take so many different forms, from just the simple taping of a finger on your thigh, to a tapping of your foot, to air guitar/drums, to full on singing. I find myself doing any one of those things whenever music is playing, and really enjoy watching people out and about doing the same.

I know that I'm not alone with that enjoyment.

When I was traveling back from Hungary, I was standing in line to get my boarding pass at 5AM after being up for the last 24 hours. Of course I had my earphones in and was listening to music in an attempt to keep awake. One of the other people in line turned to me and smiled saying "You're a musician aren't you? I can tell because musicians can never keep still when listening to music." It's true though. As musicians we're trained to feel the music as it's being performed. We're taught to let the music be a living thing that moves and breathes like anything else. It's only logical that we'd continue to do that while we listen music, as well as when we perform it.

Everyone has music that moves them in some way, shape, or form, and just like personalities, no two people will have the same taste in music. What moves me might just be completely dead to somebody else. The important thing is the fact that there is something that moves you. Something that grabs you and makes it so you can't sit still. Something that makes your day better, no matter how good or bad it was before that.

That's my challenge to everyone and anyone that reads this. Find that music. Find that something that moves you, that grabs you, that makes you smile no matter what. When you do that, do me a favor: listen to it and just go with what you feel. Don't feel inhibited or shy about what you want to do. If you want to sing, sing! If you want to drum on a table top like an idiot (as I do so often) do it!

Don't let your own mind get in the way of you enjoying the music as much as you can.

Modern Technology and Us

When was the last time that you wrote a letter? Not an email, not a text, not an IM. 

A letter. 

I get emails on a daily bases, texts on an hourly basis, and have instantaneous IM conversations throughout the day. I don’t see these people though. I’m communicating with them, staying informed, but I don’t see them. It’s personal and impersonal all at the same time. 

Think about how you feel when you get an email. If you’re like me it’s just a little notification that pops up when I get an email. I don’t have a feeling of “Yay an email!” or any other form of excitement. It’s just an email after all. Same thing for texts or IMs. 

There’s no sense of it being special. 

Now think about the last time you got a letter from someone you care about. Your name is handwritten (usually) across the envelope and you can feel the thickness of the paper within. You can almost feel how important you are to the sender just from the amount of paper that’s within. You know that person took the time to sit down and write out their thoughts to you. 

Physical letters have become something special, because we now have to “take the effort” to actually handwrite something. I’m much faster at typing something than I am at handwriting the same thing. It’s just something I spend more time doing, so handwriting something really is more “special” than just typing. 

Now it’s a bit ironic that I’m talking about not using technology to communicate on a blog, which is a large technologically based communication tool. I’m not against using technology for it’s intended purposes. Facebook has kept me in touch with people I never thought I’d be talking to all across the world. Texting has been a great way for me to communicate with friends, and IMs are a convenient way to “talk” to people wherever they are. I just have to make sure that I’m not just relying entirely on those technologies to communicate. It can be horribly impersonal to just communicate through technology. 

So I’d like to issue a challenge everyone who reads this blog. Go write a letter. Doesn’t matter who the letter’s to, but write the letter and mail it. 

I’ll bet that the person who receives the letter will feel like they’re way more special to you than if you were just to email it to them. 

Music and the Musician's Life

Yet again I seem to be writing a blog post while being slightly intoxicated...perhaps this is just the norm for me now. 

This post is about a few things, but mainly about music. I’d like to think that I’m a somewhat accomplished musician, and I’ve worked hard at getting to the level that I’m at currently.

I’ve played countless shows, ranging from solo performances, to small ensembles, to full on orchestral masterpieces, and each one has their own little bit of wonder and magic to them. That being said there are still a select few performances that stick out in my mind as ones that I truly feel changed me as a performer. 

Tonight was one of those times. 

It’s tough saying goodbye to someone who has become such a regular part of your day to day life, and it’s only right that you should celebrate all you’ve had once they start to leave it. It was during this celebration that my good friend inadvertently gave me one of the best gifts they ever could. 

They gave me the gift of music all over again. 

I’ve been done with my music degree for about a year now, and I’ll admit I was a bit burnt out. Playing this show reminded me why I love being a musician. It’s not about the scales, the notes, or even the musicians on the stage. Music is about reinvigorating life. 

Playing this show tonight reignigted my love for my instrument. It reignited my desire to perform. It reignited my love for music. I’d become so tired of the endless work with so little payoff. I’d become so tired of the endless politics I had to play beyond just my audition. 

Tonight was just the opposite. Tonight was spontaneous. Tonight was music for the sake of music. Tonight was a celebration. 

I think that’s one of the most important things that a young musician has to realize. You can’t get too caught up in ever little thing that is going on. You have to once and a while take a step back and realize why you’re doing this. You have to remember why you loved playing your instrument (or singing for that matter) in the first place. 

Music is nothing without those with passion for it, and the passion to pass it on to others. So I just want to thank you to all those who have inspired that passion in me and many others. What you do is more valuable then you will ever realize. 

Siblings

I just recently got older. 

Yes I know each day, minute, second, I’m getting older, but I just hit the marker where I now say I’m actually a year older. For those of you who know me (which I’m assuming is pretty much everyone who reads this), you know I have a younger brother. We never went to the same school (he was in private schools I in public), and we (like most male siblings) would argue and fight a lot of the time when we were younger. 

After I’d been off at college for a while and came home for a break, we were talking and he said to me “Since you’ve gone to college you’ve become a lot cooler and easier to talk to”. I kind of shrugged this off at the time, but now that he’s in college too I see what he meant. 

When we were younger I would always tease him. I would always be irritated with the things that he did. Sibling rivalry was very much present. To this day I still call him “short man” or “little man” even though he’s now my height. Here’s the thing though, I think that for brothers (I can’t speak to sisters), the teasing and the like is just how we deal with our younger counterparts. 

There hasn’t been a single moment in my life that my brother’s been present for that I wouldn’t have gone after anyone who hurt or made fun of him. I’m not a violent person, but that’s just how I felt (and still feel) about him. 

He’s my younger brother.

He’s someone who I can’t imagine not having been a part of my life. He’s amazingly intelligent, caring, and is so like me in so many ways (thank you genetics). 

I don’t think I’ve ever explicitly told him that I would do anything for him, but somehow I think he knows. 

I’m sure he’ll read this posting. I’m sure at some point or another I’ll be made fun of by him (or possibly one of his friends who may also read this), but I think it’s something that has to be put out there. 

He’s my brother. He’s going to be around for all the things I go through in the future, and I for him. It’s just how life goes. 

Nothing can change the fact that he’s my little brother. 

Dating/Relationships

Disclaimer: While this is a posting about dating it will not be a whiny “my life sucks because I’m single” kind of deal. It’s not going to be a look back on things that have failed. It’s just going to be a set of observations. 

First dates suck. It’s like an audition to see if the person is going to be the right fit for you. Having done enough music auditions, I know exactly how it feels to feel like you’re on display, having every bit of yourself being quickly analyzed by someone else. The main difference between a music audition and a first date (besides one being for a job and the other for a potential relationship), is that for a music audition you know exactly what to expect in terms of the things you’ll have to “perform”. First dates are all improvisation. 

You never know what the next topic is going to be when you’re on a date. You don’t know if the other person is going to like what you’re saying, how awkward it’s going to feel (and let’s be honest a lot of first dates are amazingly awkward), or how well the other person is going to open up to you. 

If you do happen to make it past the first date, then comes the period of time where you’re “dating” someone, but not “in a relationship”. This period of time has always felt like a bit of a grey area. The best comparison I can come up with is that it’s like an extended test drive of a car. You take it for a spin, try it out for a while, and then decide if it’s actually what you want or not. If you’re lucky, you’ve found someone that you actually want to start something serious with. If you’re not, you go back to the drawing board and try again later.

An actual relationship is a whole other thing in and of itself. It has different “rules”, different expectations, and different outcomes than just dating. It’s a step up in many different ways from dating. You end up putting more into it, and in return you get more out of it. Along with that though is the fact that if things end when you’re just dating, it isn’t nearly as bad as when things end after a relationship. By putting more in, you stand to lose more in the end, but at the same time you could gain a whole lot more if it all works out.

In the end relationships are tricky. There’s no set way to approach them, there’s no set way to start one. Most of the time you just luck into it, and then you work your hardest to keep it going. The thing is, when it’s right you never feel like it’s work. You never feel like you’re having to do anything particularly special for that other person. You just do what feels right with them and it works out. So when you do find that person, enjoy every moment of it, because you truly are lucky.

The Sequel That Wouldn't Die

How many Call of Duty games will we see before the franchise folds? How many different Halo games can there be? Even referring back to an earlier post (therssfeeds.blogspot.com/2011/02/who-can-catch-em-all-anymore-theres-too.html), the Pokémon franchise just refuses to quit. 

I get that there are certain franchises that have a story to tell and can’t fit it all into one game. I also get that the company executives want to get the most money they can out of something that is a proven success. It’s good business for them to do so and they’d be dumb not to, but sometimes enough is enough. You can only take an idea so far before it just becomes...old hat. 

You can’t sell the same thing with just minor improvements or changes either. Oh look you now have two wrist blades in Assassin's Creed 2 instead of just one. Look we added a new texture to this map, we can totally resell it as new now! That just doesn’t cut it, and yet it still happens. 

This holds true for anything artistic though. If we look at the movie industry they fall prey to the same problems. There are so many times that a movie series just needs to be ended. The Fast and the Furious movies, the Land Before Time series (of which there are thirteen movies and one TV series), or the Friday the 13th franchise which has twelve now, are all movie series that have just been milked for all they’re worth. They’re not even quality movies anymore. The Land Before Time was an iconic movie of my childhood (the original being released in 1988) and to think that there are now twelve other movies under that umbrella is just depressing. 

Stagnation kills when it comes to the creative field of work. If you look at some of the bands that have been around for a long time, you’ll notice an evolution in their sound. This comes from both the maturing of the artists as they age, as well as the changes in tastes of the majority of the listening base. 

If you don’t evolve as a franchise you’ll get looked over and eventually left in the dust. The worst thing that can happen to you is for people to think “Oh, I’ve already experienced the previous iterations of this...I don’t need to get/see the new one”.

It does take a certain amount of guts to abandon a system that was a proven way to make money and just say “We’re going to change pretty much everything”. To me the best example of a company doing just that was the Mass Effect series. Between Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 the development team listened to many of the things that the fanbase was saying and did a major overhaul of the interface of the game. They changed some of the combat, streamlined the use of extra things, and just built on the successes they’d had in the first game. It’s great to see that there’s a company out there who really does take into consideration what the fans are saying. 

In doing so they created a game that was not only a sequel, but something that felt like a totally fresh game that just continued the storyline from its predecessor. 

Snow Day

I used to live for snow days when I was a kid. I would do all the superstitious things, like wearing your pajamas inside out, in order to make that blessed event come true. Sadly it didn’t happen very often, but when it did, it was glorious. A snow day was like a sick day, but instead of being cooped up by the house you had the freedom to go outside.

Logically, if it’s a snow day there must be copious amounts of snow on the ground. This makes for fantastic childhood fun. I would go out with my friends and build snow forts, have snowball fights, go sledding, or just act like a general goof. After we’d finished doing that we’d go inside, enjoy a nice cup of hot chocolate, and then sit down to play some video games. 

With today’s youth though, it seems they skip right to that last part. After sleeping in they sit down in front of their large screen TV and just play video games all day. They don’t have their friends over to play, they just are there by themselves in front of the screen. Sure they have the in game audio chatting, but that doesn’t have the same effect as actually having your friend right next to you, looking at your screen to figure out where you are (GoldenEye was one of the best games ever).

Even during the summer it seems like kids don’t want to go outside and play like they used to. I remember going swimming almost every day during the summer at one of the community pools in my town. If I wasn’t doing that I was outside playing with my best friend until well after dark, just running around and exploring the world. Sure I’d stay in and watch TV sometimes, but more often then not we were just out playing. 

I don’t see that as much anymore. Maybe it’s now where I live (going from the suburban to more urban setting), maybe I just don’t notice those things anymore, or maybe it really is that change from the outdoor explorers to that of XBOX Live talkers. 

That’s not to say that I haven’t changed as well. I find myself on my computer a lot more and enjoying the things outside a lot less. I play video games more often then I go for a walk in the park, I sit listening to music more often then I go for a bike ride, and I haven’t been swimming on a regular basis in a few years. 

Technology is an amazing thing. It’s provided people with an amazing resource in terms of being able to keep in touch with people across the world (hello readers in Brazil, England, Bulgaria, Canada). It’s provided amazing medical innovations. It’s made the world better in many many different ways. 

Let’s just make sure that we still take the time to take our eyes off the computer screen or TV and go outside. Let’s show the kids of the next generation how it’s done.

Object Permanence and Self Awareness

Somewhere between 8 and 12 months after being born, human babies usually gain the understanding of something called “Object Permanence”. The idea behind this is that, before this stage of development if an object is taken out of the field of view of a baby, that object would cease to exist.

Being slightly older than 8 months, I feel it’s safe to say that all the people I know have the concept of “Object Permanence” down. I know that my keys still exist, even if I can’t find them right away. Something I find myself thinking about sometimes though is not just objects, but people. Sure I know that they still exist when I’m not around them, but it’s interesting to actually think about how they are perceiving the world. They’re off doing their own thing, having their own experiences throughout the day, and probably aren’t giving a second thought to what it is that others are doing. 

We know that everyone is experiencing the world in mostly the same way as everyone else, but when you apply that thought to people who are “larger than life” (celebrities, famous company owners, politicians), it’s refreshing to have that commonality. It’s also interesting to think about how even the people you interact with daily perceive things. 

When I was younger, I would think about how people perceive the world, and what was common/uncommon in different people’s day to day lives. When I thought about the perception of people, it led me to some strange things. For instance, to me John is a normal fixture in my day, but to John I’m a normal part of his day. I’m used to seeing John walk about, talk to people, interact with objects and the like. You don’t see yourself for most of the day though, and while you may be doing many of the same things, I found that I wasn’t thinking of myself like that. 

This lead me to start thinking more and more about how my everyday actions were being viewed by other people. How my face was a common thing for people to see on a day to day basis. Basically thinking about what I was doing during the day, but trying to truly make it from a third person point of view. A few times while I was doing this, particularly on long rides on buses, I really started to be able to view myself in this way. 

In retrospect I realized I was having minor out of body experiences. It’s been years though since that has happened, and I couldn’t replicate it to save my life. I just remember closing my eyes and really being able to see myself and how I could be viewed by other people. There were no big religious revelations, there were no moments of depression or euphoria, just a sense of awareness of what was going on around me. 

I’m not sure that it’s not something I didn’t just imagine, or if it was just a dream (it’s very possible it was), but those few times it happened are intriguing to say the least. The things I took away from it I feel are still very important. Know that everyone sees you the same way that you see them, but at the same time they don’t see everything you do the same way you see those actions. Also remember that even if the person is rich, poor, famous, unknown, normal, or just a tad on the crazy side, that they experience life the exact same way you do.

Unless they’re on drugs. But that’s a whole other ballgame.

Blogger Disclaimer: Blog written at 4AM after inability to fall asleep. Blog may not make sense.

Owwww

I have a massive headache tonight, so I apologize to any who come expecting a blog posting today (all three of you who subscribe). More tomorrow...I hope.

Aggressive Driving

While I may not be the perfect driver, I like to think I’m pretty good and pretty safe. One of the nice parts about living where I do, is that I don’t have to worry about driving to work. Walking to and from work gives me time to think and time to decompress after a long day. 

When I was driving around town with more regularity, I noticed a few things that just made no sense to me. Other drivers are way more aggressive, and are particularly dangerous when snow hits. Many seem to just try to power through the slippery conditions, relying on their cars to take care of the rest. 

It’s also become apparent that drivers here have little regard for people who ride bicycles. Being somebody who’s been both a driver and a biker (and I’m not the only one I know), it’s kind of crazy to see the way that biker’s are treated, particularly on some of the side streets. I’ll admit it’s not the smartest of ideas for a biker to be on the street of a heavily traveled road, but at the same time drivers need to be aware of who’s out on the street. 

Many of you who read this blog I’m sure are not these kinds of offenders, so I know I’m preaching to the choir in this case. Nonetheless I felt like it had to be said. I’ve never been an aggressive driver. I’ve never felt the need to make a “Pittsburg Left” (a particularly dangerous driving maneuver for those not used to it), and I know that I should take my foot off the gas when my car hits an ice patch or starts to hydroplane. 

Being an aggressive driver doesn’t do anything for you. Laying hard on the accelerator makes you burn more gas, hard on the breaks wears them out faster, weaving in and out of traffic is just plain dangerous, and none of it gets you from point A to point B any faster. Even over a 130 mile journey, where you average 75 MPH vs 65 MPH, you only shave off an extra 16 minutes off your originally 2 hour trip. Even going 90 MPH you shave a half hour off your time, but that’s if you average 90 MPH (and don’t get busted by the cops).

In the end it’s really up to you as to how you drive, just don’t come to me when your knee deep in tickets, or have your car wrapped around a phone pole.

...Aggressnif (you know who you are)

Death of a Language

I’m no writer. I do, on occasion, put one word after another in a semi-coherent manner and then post them for other people to read. I’m just no writer.

Fortunately for me, this blog doesn’t really have to contain a plot. This blog doesn’t have to have a deep meaning behind it. It’s a dialog. If you were to ask me about these topics that I’ve posted about, you’d probably end up hearing many of the same things. 

I have to blame one of my friends for this (and they shall remain nameless), but I recently started watching “Californication”. An interesting point was made by the show about blogs in general, mainly how they are adding to a technological dumb-down of our society. 

I’m not sure I quite agree with that view point, but at the same time see the validity in it. In a cyber world of “lol”, “brb”, and the death of capital letters, the tweet, the text, and the IM seem to be in command. I’m not a pillar of perfection, I fall into this category as well, but I’m not sure how I feel about it.

My last semester in school I took a course called “Survey of Forms: Fiction”, where we looked at short stories, collections of writings, and wrote our own. I never wrote the next great story. I didn’t write something that was going to be completely riveting and that nobody could put down. What I found I was best at was writing dialog. I could write a conversation that would feel like it was actually something people would be saying. 

Is the world of the sound bite giving way to the world of the tweet? We are already a society with such a short attention span we can’t listen to one thing for more than 30 seconds. Are we now becoming a society that can’t read more than 140 characters at a time? Are we becoming a society so lazy that we can’t take the extra nanosecond it takes to type “you” as opposed to “u”? 

I regularly come across posts where people are mixing “to”, “too” and “two”, or “there”, “they’re” and “their”. With this change in mindset we may as well just have one version of the word that fits all three uses, since nobody seems to care which one they use. For that matter instead of letters we could just use “2” for all three forms and just start to phase letters out altogether. 

As I said before, I’m not a perfect writer. I am well aware that my grammar isn’t the best at times and my spelling is horrible (thank you spellchecker). However, I really fear for the day when I go to write a dialog and find myself typing a non ironic “LOL”, instead of having the character actually laugh.

Completionism in Video Games

One of my most vivid memories from my childhood was of the YMCA. It’s where I learned to swim, play basketball, and went to hang out after school. I remember going there and descending into the basement area where they had set up rooms for the kids to hang out in, complete with pool tables, foosball tables, ping-pong, and a SNES. I would play Super Mario World, Dr. Mario, and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.

This was an introduction to a great new world for me. Unfortunately I didn’t have a gaming system of my own for a long time. It wasn’t until many years later that my parents relented and got my little brother and I our first gaming system, a N64. Super Mario 64 was a given to go along with that, but the other game we got was one that became an instant classic and favorite: The Legend of Zelda- The Ocarina of Time.

I played that game for hours upon hours, exploring every nook and cranny of that game, trying to get all the Golden Skulltulas, Empty Bottles, Weapons, Upgrades, Magic Bean Locations, Heart Pieces, and of course trying to find if the Tri-Force was hidden anywhere (it’s not...least not that I could find). I had to find everything though. Even though I’d beaten the game I still wanted those bragging rights and the knowledge that I’d done it.

Zelda wasn’t the only game I did this with. I tried to get every Star in Mario, and every Jinjo and Note in Banjo-Kazooie. I tried every route in Star Fox 64, and tried to get every unlockable mode in GoldenEye 007. 

In these games though it only took a few hours to do all those extra things. Now we have games like Fallout 3/New Vegas, Fable 2/3, Mass Effect 1/2, and Borderlands, where you’re given a huge world to explore, and probably more side quests and collectable items than you’ll ever be able to find. For the modern completionist, this poses a problem. 

The completionist wants to go through and find everything, but they may not have the time to do so. You also have the tendency to wonder “Did I really look everywhere in that cave?” or “Which room had the box I couldn’t access because my inventory was full?”. You could spend multiple hours going over one region of a game, just to make sure that you’d gotten every little thing you could find.

That’s not to say though that the game still isn’t fun. I think that as games evolve, so do the gamers. You still have that casual gamer who goes through, plays the basic missions with some side quests involved, and beats the game with a completely satisfied feeling and experience. You also have the completionist who tries their best to really find everything out there, but now doesn’t flip out if they can’t find that one box in the corner that they think should be there.

I get just as much joy now playing games like Mass Effect 2 as I did playing Ocarina of Time when I was younger. I’m also sure that I’m having as much fun now as those who played Pong did back when that was the modern game, though I’m not sure how the completionist would achieve that goal with that game.

“Oh I beat the computer...that’s it huh?”

People Watching

I love sitting in a coffee shop.

I like it for a couple of reasons. The first being my caffeine addiction (see therssfeeds.blogspot.com/2011/02/caffeine-addiction.html), and the second is the chance to go people watching.

If you don’t know what people watching is, it’s simply sitting in a public area (usually with friends) and just observing the other people who are out and about. You might see the compulsive workout person, still dressed in their workout clothes. You might see a family out trying to control the young children who have far too much energy. If you’re really lucky you may see the awkward first date (which is one of my favorites to observe and chuckle about...when it’s not me). You also may see that guy sitting off by himself on a computer, with headphones on, typing away (that may or may not be me right now).

Once you see someone interesting go ahead and make a comment to your friends. Draw their attention to the woman who’s hair is just absolutely out of control. Make up what you think the conversation is between the awkward couple sitting down for coffee. Wonder how that girl fit into those jeans. 

You might even make up a back story for those people. You could say that slightly awkward looking guy at the front of the line is well...anyone. A undercover CIA operative, a costly gigolo, or just a CS nerd jonesing for that caffeine fix.

People watching isn’t something that can only to be done at a coffee shop. You really can take part in any public space. You could do it on the bus, where you might spot that person who has far too many bags for public transit. 

Just be sure to enjoy yourself and have some fun. A word of caution though, make sure whoever your talking about can’t hear you...that could be awkward.

Video Game Realism

Video games are blending the line between reality and fiction.

With games that strive for authenticity (like Gran Turismo 5 and Forza 3) gamers are getting a more and more realistic experience. The two games that I mentioned before are particularly know for this, and they aim for not only realistic driving physics, but also realistic sounds for those same cars. With the increased graphic capabilities of consoles like the Playstation 3 and XBox 360, these cars approach the quality of the real world as well, though they're not quite at that point yet.

Games like these also try to replicate famous race tracks from around the world, like Germany's Nürburgring. These tracks have all the turns, dips, hills, and conditions of the well known locations. While you don't experience of the G-Forces that would really be present in the real car, you also don't run the risk of wrapping a Ferrari around a tree. Also it's much cheaper to buy a $60 game, then a plane ticket all over the world.

Moving beyond racing games you have games like the Call of Duty series, which instead of realism in cars gives you realism in weapons. The way that different guns act when fired, and the sound of the different weapons are where these games shine. 

Still other games give you realistic physic engines, meaning that objects in the virtual world act like they would in the real world. One of the most famous physics engines is in the Orange Box (Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2, Portals). The makers of that series even went beyond just making a great physics engine, they also put that engine in the hands of the players with Garry’s Mod, which gave players the ability to play with the physics in ways the original developers never would have thought to.

Bloggers Note: Just because you can do things in a realistic video game, doesn’t mean you can do it for real...you dummy.

The Get Out of Jail Free Card

Don’t take this the wrong way, but you sir, or madam, are an ass. 

You can’t be mad at me for saying that you’re an ass because I clearly stated that you shouldn’t take this the wrong way. Since I said that I could say anything I want and you wouldn’t be able to be angry with me...right?

Wrong.

People seem to think that because they preface their phrases with statements like “don’t take this the wrong way”, “no offense, but”, or “I can say this because we’re such good friends”, that they can get away with saying whatever the heck they want to.  That is a load of bull. 

If you’re going to say something critical of someone, have the backbone to stand behind your words. Don’t try to hide behind a distancing phrase in an attempt to lighten the blow to somebody’s ego. People who you’re friends with should know already that if you’re going to be criticizing them, or making a comment they may not like, that it’s coming from a good place. If it’s really not coming from a good place, you’re either a jerk and the two of you shouldn’t be friends, or you’re already not friends with the other individual and there’s no reason to sugar coat it. 

People, myself included, have started to take comments made by friends far too personally. You shouldn’t assume that just because somebody is saying something critical of you that they mean to hurt you. With friends it’s much more likely that they are actually attempting to make things better for you, or to make you a better person overall.

Could these people phrase things a little bit better, in a slightly less confrontational way? Of course they could. Could we all learn to not be so offended by these comments?

No offense, but yeah we could.

Who can catch em all anymore? There's too damn many of em.

F*** Charmander. F*** Bulbasaur. Squirtle was the man. If you disagree, you’re just wrong. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then you’ve been living under a rock for the past thirteen years. 

Pokémon was, and still is, one of the most popular and best selling game franchises that Nintendo has ever put out. The original American releases (the Red and Blue versions were games that I, my little brother, and my friends had to have. The games weren’t exactly mind blowingly difficult, but they were addictive. With each version of the game having their own set of exclusive Pokémon, it was a great marketing decision for the company. You would pair up with your friends in an attempt to trade and get that ever elusive 150 (151 if you cheated) complete the collection. The game gave kids a way to not only compete with each other (through records, linked battles, and game progress), but it also gave them ways to collaborate (through trading strategies and trading Pokémon). 

It was also a franchise that reached out into so many different mediums besides just the video game. There was the ever popular TV show, trading card game, and even a comic book (that was never really over in America). They even brought the popularity of the TV show into the game world with the release of the Yellow Version of the game. In this version you had the famous Pikachu that would not go inside a Pokéball as your starting Pokémon. You also had the chance to, by talking to other trainers within the game itself, get the original three starters.

Since 1998 there has been seventeen different video games that progressed from the original GameBoy to the modern Nintendo DS: Red/Blue, Yellow, Gold/Silver, Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald, Fire Red/Leaf Green (updated remakes of Red/Blue), Diamond/Pearl/Platinum, Heart Gold/Soul Silver (updated remakes of Gold/Silver), and finally the upcoming Black/White. With each game new Pokémon have been added, bringing the total from 150 up to 649 with the latest installment.

At the beginning of each game you’re given the option of three Pokémon, each of a different type (water, grass, or fire). I personally have a tendency to, when given the choice of the three starting Pokémon, to go with the water type. I’m not quite sure why, but it always seems to be the one that I would want to work with the most.

Pokémon Black/White is going to be released on March 6th (according to Wikipedia). Even though I’m in my 20’s, I’m pretty sure I’ll still be getting it...don’t judge.

Thinking Up Goofy S***

I like smart people. I like people who can form a thought and then vocalize it well. I also like funny people. To get an idea on my view on how this all breaks down, please refer to the venn diagram below. 

George Carlin though is one of my favorite comedians of all time. His wit, charm, eloquence, and sense of humor made him one of the most successful comedians of all time. My introduction to Carlin was when I was on a trip with my dad and we were staying overnight in a hotel room. As we were flipping through the TV channels we came across one of his old standup routines. I was hooked. 

After that I had to find more of his work. Since I was coming in so lat in his career I really got to see his evolution as a comedian, which was really interesting to see. His early material included things like Al Sleet: the hippy-dippy weatherman (tonight’s forecast...dark), Wonderful WINO, and other lighthearted things, but as he grew as a comedian, his topics changed as well.

As his career went on though he started to talk about one of his favorite topics: words. To be more specific the meanings that different words had. He had his famous bit “the seven words you cannot say on television” which then became the “incomplete list of inappropriate words” (incomplete because after every show some jerkoff would come up and tell him “you forgot $*#@#%&!”). To Carlin though the words weren’t bad. The words weren’t what were causing problems. The words were innocent. Its the person who puts the meanings and intentions behind the word that makes them bad. 

He also loved to dissect phrases and brought to light some of the sillier phrases in the english language. Things like “You may now get on the plane” and “Please pre-heat the oven” drove him crazy. He wanted to get in the plane not on it, and knew that the oven only existed in two states: heated and unheated. 

Along with being a very controversial comedian, Carlin also had another side to him. He also played the role of “Mr. Conductor” on Thomas the Train (a role that was held originally by former Beatle Ringo Starr and later held by Alec Baldwin). It was Carlin’s role to be the storyteller on the children’s show, and was a large departure from his normal routine. It was such a change that until I was told later on in life that it was the same man who did those edgy stand-up routines that also was on one of the best known children’s show of all time. 

Carlin was a brilliant mind, a caring man, and just one of the funniest comedians I’ve ever heard. He is missed.

Caffeine Addiction

According to one of my favorite comedians, the late George Carlin, caffeine is a legal, less potent, version of speed. While I don’t think that is technically true, they are both stimulants, so there’s that.

Every so often, as I’m going through my day, I start getting a headache and it’s one of those headaches that just won’t go away. After thinking back through the day I realize that I have not had anything with caffeine in it. It’s a sad when I then come to the conclusion that I am, once again, addicted to caffeine. There are far worse things to be addicted to I know, but this is still a tad annoying. 

Every so often I try to detox myself and go without caffeine for a while. Doing this is also a great deterrent for ever doing any serious drugs. If I hate the withdraw I go through from something  as light as caffeine, I can only imagine that the experience for something much more serious would be. If cocaine is 1000x worse or even just a 100x worse, that is something I would never want to go through (as if the drugs themselves weren’t damaging enough).

I don’t like being dependent on things. I like to have my freedom and to be able to go around and do the things I want to do. It’s not like a caffeine is a completely debilitating addiction, but it’s still an annoyance.

Where’d my coffee get off to anyway?

Friendship and manipulation

Friendship can be a great thing. It’s great having people around to support you, cheer you up, take care of you, and of course you can do all those things for them. True friendship is truly symbiotic relationship. All people involved are gaining things that make them better, and stronger, from the relationship. As english poet John Donne is often quoted (though nobody knows who they’re quoting) “No man is an island”. 

Not all friendships are this way though. The inspiration for this posting came after watching a few episodes of the English TV show “SKINS”. Two of the main characters, Sid and Tony, don’t have the positive symbiotic relationship. Instead Tony takes advantage of his timid friend, and Sid just goes with it. It’s not healthy when only one part of the relationship is benefitting from it. 

Manipulating someone, either intentionally or unintentionally, is just no way to treat a friend. You shouldn’t have to trick someone into doing what you want. They should do it for you because they know, if the rolls were reversed, you would help them. True friends are ones that you can say anything to and, while they may make fun of you a bit at first, will accept it. You don’t have to censor yourself, you don’t have to hide what you’re thinking, you don’t have to worry about them judging you. 

Sure you won’t share every little thing with your friends, and sure they won’t always agree with what you have to say. For me though it’s been when my friends disagree with a viewpoint of mine that I’ve had the most fun, and most interesting, conversations. I don’t mind a difference in opinion as long as that viewpoint is defended with intelligent thoughts and eloquent words.

Friendship is to be coveted and treasured. Count yourself lucky if you have a set of people you would call “true friends”. I know I do.

Urg

No real blog posting today. Tired. Brain tired. Urg.

Parkour

Young kids love running. There is no elementary school teacher that hasn’t had to say, at one point or another, “No running in the halls!”. They also love martial arts. If they didn’t love martial arts, shows like “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”, “Avatar: The Last Airbender” (the TV show not that horrible excuse for a movie) and any of the “Power Rangers” series (is that even on TV anymore?), wouldn’t have been as popular as they were. When you combine the two into one activity you get the city running sport “Parkour” or “Freerunning”.

This was brought into the mainstream media in things like the opening scene of “Casino Royal”, where Bond chases a guy through a construction site. The guy running away uses parkour to try to escape while Bond just kind of...runs through things. The video game “Mirror’s Edge” is entirely based on the idea of parkour. The story is based on people who run across the rooftops of a futuristic society to deliver the only “free” information and take down a murderer.

Of course there are plenty of people who have uploaded videos, both good and bad, who have uploaded videos to Youtube of them “freerunning”. There are even videos that teams of people who have banded together to practice, train, compete, and also some who are hired to take part in different films or TV shows. 

It’s a really intriguing and fun for me to watch when people do it well. It brings out some of the excitement that I felt when I was a kid. That doesn’t mean I’m going to run out and try doing this though. 

Egypt and the Presidency

I don’t pretend to know what the situation in Egypt is like. I’ve tried to keep up with the news that is coming out of there, and it’s really quite mixed. 

From my understanding if President Mubarak ever steps aside the Muslim Brotherhood, seems to be the next group to be likely to step into power. Their policies would be drastic change in Egypt’s policies, particularly the long standing peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. 

We’ve seen anti-American sentiments more now with the reports that are coming out of the region. We see chants demanding Mubarak’s resignation, chants against America, and even American reporters being assaulted on camera. This isn’t exactly new though. I remember visiting Cairo when I was younger and living in Bulgaria on a vacation with my family. Two weeks after we returned there was a news report about how the hotel we’d stayed at in Cairo had been attacked by terrorists. They were targeting the hotel because they knew Americans were staying there.

When the revolts started in Egypt, the United States was put in a very precarious position. On the one hand we do try to stand for democracy across the world, but on the other we have to consider America’s relationship with Egypt. That relationship between our governments is one of the best that we have in an already highly unstable region. We don’t know how that relationship would change with the change of power.

We’ve since then changed our message, now asking President Mubarak to step down and let an interim government into power until new “free and fair” elections have taken place. Mubarak has tried to appease the masses by a complete reshuffling of his cabinet, the appointment of a new Vice-President, and the promise that he will not seek another term at the end of his 32nd year. This isn’t enough in the opinion of Egyptians though, and they’ve continued to protest, most recently with labor strikes and worker protests across the country.

I don’t remember the exact quote, but I do remember hearing during one of the past few presidential campaigns that people wanted to have a President who was just like them. I’ve always thought about this in a different way. I don’t want a President like me. I want a President who is better than I am. I want a President who is smarter than I am. I couldn’t deal with the pressures of the Presidency. I don’t know how to balance the needs of our country, and the needs of the entire region.

Some people say we should be backing Mubarak because it’s in America’s best interests to have him in power, and our needs are what we should be looking out for. By that same thought though shouldn’t we be promoting the same ideals that our country was founded on, mainly the idea of democracy and an elected government. 

I know Obama, just like every President before him, has surrounded himself with smart people who are informed and can give him the advice he needs to make the right choice. I admire him for knowing his weaknesses and finding the right people to fit those positions. If the President is smarter than I am, I want his advisors to be smarter in those areas than he is. As much as I disagreed with his policies, and thought that a lot of the decisions that he made were not ones I liked, President George W. Bush did make sure that his advisors were smarter than he was. We won’t know how the decisions that the two very different men will play out in the long run, but I am satisfied knowing that they tried to make the best decision they could with the information they were given.

In the end, it’s not the advisors that make the decisions. It’s not the political pundits. It’s not the general masses. The decisions are made by the person in the chair. I’m just glad it’s not me.

Webcomics

I talked about webcomics a bit in an earlier posting, but I thought that I'd revisit them a bit now.

There are comics that cover so many different topics. We have nerd humor in the form of XKCD, gamer comics with Penny-Arcade and Ctrl-Alt-Del, life lessons with Surviving the World and A Softer World, and just plain randomness with Dinosaur Comics (there are others obviously, but those are the ones I read).

With all of those comics we also have different updating cycles. Some update daily, others a few times a week, and others still (VG Cats) update when they feel like it.

In an attempt to explain how I envision the process would go for a webcomic creator I decided to try to create a witty flowchart (because who doesn't love flowcharts).

(This process could also be applied to the creation of blogs)

I would also like to say that anorexia in the feline community is becoming a real problem. If your pet is suffering from this please don't hesitate to call 1-800-HAIRBALL. Time wasted is time lost.

Artistic Mediums (Part Two)- Video Games

We’ve gotten to a point now in video games where the sheer cinematic aspects of them border on those of the highest budget Hollywood films.  As a child I remember some of the most entertaining books I read were the “choose your own adventures”.  I would read through a section, get to the decision, and then mark it with a finger so I could quickly go back and redo the choice if it led somewhere I didn’t want to go. With video games you get that same excitement, but with objects that move and talk on the screen in front of you. 

I think this is part of the reason why video games are becoming more popular and accepted as art. You can now look at something like the “Mass Effect” series, or the “Half-Life 2” episodes and really get into them. I think this is because because not only are the games visually stunning, but they also give the viewer/player the ability to interact with the narrative even more. 

People like having input on the world. They like feeling like they are creating something special and video games are now a way for them to do that.  Not everyone can sit down with a paintbrush and paint van Gogh’s “Starry Night” or Hopper’s “Nighthawks”. It’s much simpler for them to sit down, pick up a controller, and begin to paint their own unique narrative in the virtual space. You can get much more bang for your buck when you buy something like a video game.  A game like “Mass Effect” or “Red Dead Redemption” or “Fallout 3” has about 60 hours of play time for just the main story line alone.  Add in all the extra side missions, downloadable content, and just general exploring, and you get a game that can be played for over 100 hours.  

To add to that, games are now including multiple endings depending on the choices you have made. This is giving your $40 game re-playability and just adding even more to your experience.  We like things that can end many different ways,  just take a look at the cult classic “Clue”. The movie had three different endings, and depending on the theater that you went to a different ending was shown. This gave the moviegoers a different experience each time.  

Video games are also starting to use motion capture to really get the facial motions of the voice actors, as well as for the characters actual motions. 

These games are also putting the ability to create in the hands of the user. With games like "Little Big Planet" (and it's sequel), Halo: REACH, and extras like "Gary's Mod" for "Half-Life 2" you, as the gamer, have the ability to create their own content. Media Molecule in particular has been very up front about the fact that, while their programmers can come up with some amazing things, there are just some amazing ideas that they could never come up with. They just provide the tools for people to create new worlds and art in an entirely new way.

The art wold is always changing, who knows what will happen in the future.

National Anthem and Half-time

The Super Bowl, while it didn't have the desired outcome many of us were hoping for, was still a great game. It was exciting, entertaining, and had us on the edge of our seats until the last moments.

The musical performances, on the other hand, were not.

Christina Aguilera put on a poor performance of our nations National Anthem. Sadly this seems to be the norm now when it comes to major sporting events. You grab a big celebrity and shove a mic in their face and say "have fun with one of the most important songs to our country". I get artistic liberties and choices, but when you have no sense of musical phrasing, it's time to go back to the basics.

It was so horrible that in our criticism of the phrasing, pitch, and tone, my friends and I missed the slip up that she had with the lyrics. There is absolutely no excuse for forgetting the words. I get that it's not their song, and that it's a huge stage to be performing on, but these musicians are supposed to be used to performing in front of huge crowds. That's why they get paid an absurdly large amount of money to do these things.

I know so many talented musicians who can sing on pitch, with proper phrasing, and who would get all the words right that would love to have a chance to perform on a stage that large. Sadly we now hold fame in higher regard than actual talent.

We've gotten into an era where most of the popular musicians use Auto-tune in order to achieve the sounds and pitches they want. This leads to the Black Eyed Peas having a great studio sound, but leave something to be desired when it comes to a live performance. In a show that has little margin for error in terms of the technology that has to go along with it, the Super Bowl is no place for it to happen. Assembling the stage, getting the sound right, and getting performing takes place in a matter of minutes. The second the teams step off the field the crews are moving to set up for the performance. All that rush and movement leads to mistakes. Add to that the fact that the BEP just seemed not at their best and you get a mediocre performance.

The only good moment was when Slash came out and started playing "Sweet Child o' Mine". Fergie singing it...not so much.

Television of Today.

“Salute Your Shorts” was one of the best shows on television.  

Period.  

What has happened since the 1990’s? When I was growing up we had a great set of shows to entertain us.  Nickelodeon wasn’t just random high pitched voices like Spongebob.  Even the “Angry Beavers” (sexual connotations aside) was a great show that could keep people coming back for more. 

If you go back even further you get other classics like “AHHH..Real Monsters”, “The Secret World of Alex Mack”, and “Hey Arnold”.  These iconic shows not only entertained us, but also showed us what it was like to be a kid. Sure Alex Mack was a science fiction story, but it also was a great way to show how friends should support each other.  “Salute Your Shorts” made me want to go to summer camp, which gave me an experience away from home and prepped me for actually being independent. “Hey Arnold” gave us all a great view on how you can have a great time without spending money. Also who didn’t want to have that awesome room that Arnold had with that pulldown skylight exit. 

All these are iconic things from my childhood that are realistic, not like a anthropomorphic sponge living in a pineapple at the bottom of the ocean.  

We also got phrases and songs that were universal to pretty much any kid. If you go up to a group of 20-somethings and chant “Stoop Kid’s afraid to leave the stoop!” you bet your ass they’d be right along with you chanting a beat later.  There probably aren’t many people my age who couldn’t sing the opening rap to “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air”, which is a lot more challenging than “Whoooooo lives in a pineapple under the sea?”.  

Moving away from Nick we get shows like “The Fresh Prince”, “Boy Meets World”, and “Saved by the Bell”.  These characters were great and we got to see them grow up right along with us. We got characters like Mr. Feeney, who made us all wish for a teacher of that caliber, Zack Morris, who made us all want tot be that charismatic smart-ass, and Carlton, who reminded us that there are far worse things then a fiercely loyal cousin.  

These shows gave us far more realistic (though admittedly still not entirely so) view on relationships, families, and interacting with the world.  Now we get things like “Jersey Shore”, which makes me fear for the future of civilization as we know it.

Also, what happened to kids game shows? What happened to “GUTS”, “Legends of the Hidden Temple”, “Double Dare”, and “Wild and Crazy Kids”? I wanted a shot at the Silver Monkey. I wanted to take a bit of the Aggro Crag home. Now kids don’t have those things to pine for.  It’s unfortunate that they never were exposed to those shows, except when they hear people of our generation talk about it.


My younger brother also reminded me of another classic Nick show, "All That". Our parents had "Saturday Night Live", and to a point that's still around. For us though, "All That" was our sketch comedy show. Everyday French with Pierre Escargo. Vital Information with Lori Beth Densberg (later Danny Tamberelli). Ask Ashley. All were classic sketches that as kids, had us literally rolling on the floor with laughter. And later on, Kenan Thompson went on to be a part of Saturday Night Live, making the connection between the two shows concrete. 

I miss those days. I miss those shows. I miss knowing what I was going to do every night.

Try to take over the world.