Category: Uncategorized

A clutch of my amigos (all of whom write for webshite, I believe) have

been sucked into a black vortex known as World of Warcraft. I do not

play Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Games for a variety of

reasons, nor do I have any interest in high fantasy games, or mayhaps

I might have joined them. Fortunately for my sanity and carpal

tunnel, I did not.

I tried to explain MMORPG’s to Her Worship the other day. It went

along these lines:

A: So, it’s a videogame, but it’s not linear or plot-driven. You walk

around and do whatever.

HW: And you can do whatever you want?

A: Just about. If you do anything too nuts, an admin shows up as a

god and smacks you around a bit.

HW: Yeah, yeah. But you can just wander around in the world?

A: If you want. Usually there’s some kind of over-arching plot, but you can…

HW: Like Pern?

At this point, our hero starts to get grandiose ideas of getting Her

Worshipfullness into MMORPGs, of needing to buy a gaming rig to handle

the games, one of those hot Alienware PCs, and we’d spend nights

together in the gameroom, me on the Xbox, her on the ALX. And it

would be joyous.

A: Sure. So you would be a merchant or a dragonrider or whatever you

want. Just existing in the Pern universe.

HW: Can you imagine the time it must have taken to program all that?

Every person in every town?

A: Well, the people are other players.

HW: What?

A: Yeah, you know. People from all over, just like you, playing the game.

HW: Well, fuck that.

The tag came off the back of my tie today, but I really can’t bitch too much. You see, I went back to my home town of Merrimack, NH for a wedding several months ago. My mom no longer lives in Merrimack, but my brothers do, so I crashed with one of them. Had the suit, the shoes, the handkerchief, but forgot the tie. By some miracle, my brother had a few ties. I picked the most conservative. I packed the most conservative. Unintentionally.

Now, one might think I would remember to bring the tie to Thanksgiving to return it to him. One would be wrong. One would be correct, though, if one thought that I would accidentally abscond with the same brother’s snow-scraper.

Chew on this. I’m a classics nerd, and therefore will ofttimes cite Homer as my favorite author. My favorite artist? Winslow Homer. Nickname of close friend? Homer*. Unfortunately, my favorite Simpson’s character is Moe and my best sports moment was making a save in gym class floor hockey, so it’s not enough to be a full obsession. More of a streak, I guess. Still — weird. I like stuff called Homer.

*Why not “favorite”? Grown men don’t have favorite friends.

You know what sucks? Aspiring to write and watching Carnevale. I’ve got some catching up to do.

A co-worker asked what I did this weekend. When I told her I watched Carnevale last night, she asked what kind of show it is. Being far too pavloved to say “well, I guess it would be classfied as urban fantasy, even though it’s not in a city, but that seems to be the term used for anything fantasy that isn’t high fantasy with like elves and stuff, and it’s definitely not sci-fi, so I guess I’d say urban fantasy / alternate history” to a normal person, I found myself at a loss. I ended up saying “almost like spiritual, I guess” then trying to back-pedal forthwith. Just what I need: the “jesus-freak” moniker in the workplace. Spiritual… what was I thinking?

Went to work for a bit today. The office is weird on the weekends. An hour feels like half a shift. This means that you get all kinds of work done, but also that you look at the clock every two minutes. I’ve got a deadline on Friday and lots to do before then, so I figured I’d give the old Xbox a well-deserved break this afternoon.

Does anyone know the Seven Habits of Highly Effective people? Is one of them “plays a lot of videogames”? If it weren’t so cold, maybe I’d be doing something in real life (like sitting on the porch), but until then the digital realm will likely be by residence.

I have forgotten all in life that is not Ninja Gaiden. I will permit it to pass over me and through me, and when it is gone, all that is left wil be me. Until then, though, I am an automaton built for Gaiden and Gaiden only.

Like the original, good but hard. Once you figure out that they want you to use specific attacks, it gets a little easier. Not too heavy on the jumping puzzles, which is nice. A big enough world for exploration. And you’re a goddamn ninja.

Weird dream last night. I was in an office building with a couple of teenagers. The floor we were on was flooded with black water. We assumed the elevator was out so I suggested we take the stairs. Just as one of the teens asked “the stairs to where?”, the corner I was turning became a dark back hallway with peeling paint on the doors. A 6-year-old version of the teen ran past me in terror, and I turned the corner to go up to what I knew was the attic. To face what, you ask? Just at the climax, I could no longer see and my head was forced to the swiftly side by cold, thin fingers. A fingernail lightly grazed the jugular on my exposed neck. Vampires! I lashed out against the arms, only to find that my wife was trying to wake me up so I would stop screaming. Oops.

Sorry ’bout the dearth of posts recently. Been playing way. too. much. Ninja Gaiden. It’s horribly embarrassing to even bring up the title. I mean, playing videogames is geeky enough, but play games with ninjas? Geez. If you need me, I’ll be getting my lunch money stolen.

Sorry ’bout the dearth of posts recently. Been playing way. too. much. Ninja Gaiden. It’s horribly embarrassing to even bring up the title. I mean, playing videogames is geeky enough, but play games with ninjas? Geez. If you need me, I’ll be getting my lunch money stolen.

As I imagine is the case for many blogwrights, for a long time there as been a part of me that wants to be a writer. Of the various genres I’ve tried over the years, the essay is my strongest, but there really isn’t much call for essays written by people what don’t do anything or know anything. I mean, if I wrote magazine articles on my travels in the Yucatan, people might be interested, but I’ve never been to the Yucatan.

This brings me to reflection on the purpose of published writing. We write to communicate information, to make points, and to entertain. I have no information to impart, few well-backed opinions, and my fiction has consistently been terrible. Thus, I have no right to write. Thus, also, this blog. I enjoy writing, but can’t keep up with all the work involved in doing it in a meaningful fashion, so I spill my thoughts here for you all.

Writing is about the only productive thing I have consistently enjoyed or taken any pride in. That means I’m supposed to go for it, right? Aren’t I somehow less of a person if I don’t follow whatever foolhardy dreams I may come up with? Problem is, aside from the dreams of sitting quietly at a desk and finding the notes that resonate, I also have dreams of being able to consistently pay my rent. So, I guess I should pursue it as a hobby and plug away at ye olde grind.