Monthly Archives: December 2008

Blog Flakes and Compulsive Editing

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So, my blog’s birthday came and went not too long ago. I didn’t mark its passing because I’ve been a flake about writing, which I’m sure makes orphan kittens cry.

If I believed in New Years resolutions, posting more on the blog again would be a good one. I know this is an issue a lot of writers in general struggle with. There are many tricks of the trade to deal with it. Blogging itself is really a trick to get you to write more. So, what’s trick to make you blog? Where will this trickiness all end?

The tricks to get oneself to wake up in the morning, the tricks to make oneself exercise, the tricks to get oneself out the door on time, conserve gas, eat right, get more done at work, stay organized, stay in touch with people, stay working on art…

I have several drafts of posts in my little WordPress CMS thingie. Keeping drafts might be the key to this. I don’t usually have enough time to write a post from beginning to end or edit to where I’m happy. Often I’m not even sure if it’s a post that ‘works’ for me. Being a draft takes the pressure off a bit. It allows random things so when you sit down to post, really all you have to do is sit down to edit something. That’s certainly not something I always feel like jumping up and doing, and sometimes I want to edit a piece of writing 6,000 times before putting it out there.


Compulsive editing is a big issue I have with longer story writing. I tend to want to reread what I’ve written so far before I go on to write more. If I reread I want to edit. This leads to me spending that time reserved for writing doing edits instead.

To work out compulsive editing I’ve been trying to write before rereads. If it doesn’t fit exactly right because I didn’t remember all of the details of the story so far, or what I decided to name a few characters, that can be worked out during editing time. We’re trying to make writing time for writing. What a concept.


It’s easier to write for me right now since I’m on vacation and doubly since I’m traveling. Many of my distractions are at home and in its place are inspirations as I’m exposed to what I don’t normally see every day. I think people tend to block things out as they get used to them. Most of our life then becomes routine, and thus blocked out. How does one maintain wonder and inspiration as their days are a series of blocks one doesn’t remember independently or distinguish from one another? Sometimes when a week of work goes by, and I try to remember the individual days and what happened, I come up pretty scarce.

It’s important to break your routine as uncomfortable as it is. Life churns and bubbles much more brilliantly even if the resulting boiling chaos can throw us off kilter.

So I’ll do my best to throw the kilter off and battle blog flakes, and let me know if any of you out there have the secret key to this business. I’d be interested to hear how other people deal with these things.

Things I Learned Yesterday

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Sometimes I think in the style of Carl Franklin who does a bit on Mondays called “Things I have learned this week.” Some days I don’t need to make a thing up for any comedic reason, as life just sometimes manages to be way more unbelievable than anything I’d dare to make up.

These days are far more educational than I expected.

Since yesterday I have learned…

In the sovereign nation known as Rhode Island there are two acceptable spellings for the word train that have two distinct definitions. I learned this at the Amtrak station waiting for my train as I watched red, digital lettering scroll by…

“All trains are running on or near schedule…”

This, as a Massachusetts native spelling and meaning I am familiar with.

“…please do not enter or exit any moving trians.”

I watched this about twelve times wishing my camera wasn’t packed securely away as it was the sort of failblog submission that would make it to a post.

But I don’t want to be racist in saying that it’s a fail to have culture where trians is an acceptable spelling of train. In Rhode Island culture, when one refers to the act of jumping out of one, you spell it trian. It’s a cultural distinction, since in Rhode Island they have a jumping out of and entering moving trains issue that plagues their population.


I have learned…

The best way to advertise a maker of cell phones and other electronics in New York City is to wear large, black afros even if, especially if, one is a young Caucasian female. Add blue long coats to the ensemble and that just makes me want to buy their technology so much it hurts.

I thought this was weird until I looked online and learned that this is similar to an event last year where they dressed people in blue hair and white button down coats. This is a tried and true technique of advertising apparently, and I guess its working because I’m blogging about it. Now, what product were they advertising exactly?

I have learned…

Don’t stand so close to the grates in New York city or you will be forced to ask the question: “Oh, dear god, what is that SMELL!?” and prey that you never actually get an answer.

I have learned…


That some guy in Brooklyn was way too busy playing with Jills boobs to notice. I’ve heard some funny things walking by people while they’re talking, but this is the first time I’ve been so educated.

There are all kinds of information we learn from this statement:

1. Jill has some amazing super power boobs that can completely hypnotize men. The alternative to this is that this guy has an inability to do things like walk and chew gum, it’s a wonder he remembered to breathe with her boobs present.

2. Something worthwhile was to be noticed. It was worth while and amazing enough that this friend must have been “What!? OMG!! Didn’t you notice…?” even though he was obviously having a great time with Jill nearby. What this worthwhile event was, we can only imagine, but we know it was big, and that friend thought it was bigger than Jill’s boobs.

3. Jill probably didn’t let him play with his boobs. Let’s face it, if he’s the kind of guy to make a statement like that, this guy also may be the type to use hyperbole to make a point, or maybe even stretch the truth. While this is something I have not learned for certain, I greatly suspect that the truth may have been something like “Too busy mentally playing with her boobs from across the room when she wasn’t looking”.


I have learned…

The end of the universe is in New York City, specificly near Times Square in Manhattan. Not only is there a Starbucks across from a Starbucks, there are many Starbucks across from Starbucks. I bet if you mapped the Starbucks, they would make a significant shape of some kind that would tell us more about the order and nature of the universe we live in.

So I googled it. Here is what I learned: In Times Square, there’s one Starbucks for every .04 square miles. There are SIXTY-TWO Starbucks in the Times Square area… I’m talking easy walking distance from each other. They don’t want you to discover the mystery of the pattern so they only will put up to nine on the map at one time.

They’re tricky like that.

And that is what I learned yesterday.

Worst Controller, Best Controller

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I can still remember when the Nintendo64 came out after so many Nintendo Power magazines of anticipation. What was once code named the “Ultra 64”, which I though was a cooler title at the time, was finally released. Sure, it was supposed to be a CD system, and turns out it was cartridges instead. Being a steadfast Nintendo loyalist I didn’t question this.

I didn’t question this until I played the system.

Worst controller ever.

I felt so completely let down. All of my willpower tried to enjoy the Nintendo 64 the way I did my Nintendos before it. Alas, I found myself wanting to go home to play some Super Nintendo or a PC game.

I have small hands, so I rationalized several minutes of trying to figure out the best way to get my hands around the damned thing to control Mario by blaming myself at first. How many buttons are on this thing? Do most of these even do anything?

Controllers should be comfortable. I did end up playing 007 and Super Smash Brothers with people who had the system and my fingers and palms ached more than the blisters from playing Street Fighter II with the Sega Genesis controllers (Why did they put a ridge around the buttons? No, I don’t know either.). The controller was too wide, had too many buttons, for no reason had some like phallic symbol in the middle. Don’t get me started on the d-pad and analogue. Making characters move has been effortless since the invention of the joystick. It’s pretty hard to screw that one up and, yeah, they managed it.

Controllers should be intuitive. There are buttons on that thing that I never bothered to reach and I’m not sure what were for. I don’t think the game designers knew either.

I know I’m not the only one who was left feeling unsatisfied with this system. Many people put them on the shelf or tried to sell in to get a Playstation.

Me? I got a Playstation. Their controllers were essentially a next generation version of the Super Nintendo controllers. Also it sported the disc media that Nintendo had promised and then backed out on. Nintendo so completely dropped the ball, I never thought to look back to see if they were throwing it again.

Best Controller Ever

Years later, there is a Nintendo product sitting next to my old, old SNES. This next generation of consoles has a lot to offer. Not one of the systems sucks… well, the PS3 is too expensive for anyone’s tastes, but people would probably say it was a good system if that weren’t the case (likely doomed to be clumped with the Atari Jagar, 3D0, and Dream Cast before it- all good systems, but overpriced- but since it’s a blue ray player too, maybe not). The Xbox360 is probably the first true online gaming console to even take a chip off of what PCs have been doing for years, and its hardware is nothing short of sweet (with the exception of a very noisy fan and lower end version).

And the Wii is just something else.

The original Nintendo was revolutionary not because of its hardware. Few people realize this, but it was actually a step back for its time. Look at any game that was a port to the system (and most of them were) and you’d see what I mean. It was graphically inferior to an Atari or Commodore of the times. And yet, it stole the heart of the average household.

The Wii is in that category, but it’s more than that. The Wii came out at a time when it seemed like the only place for console technology left to go was to become more similar to a mini, cheap, gaming PC.

Nintendo proved us wrong.

The Wii reminds me of another console that Nintendo tried and bombed. Did anyone else have a Virtual Boy? I think my parents threw ours away (after buying it for us for $30 with several games). It was awkward, clunky, very red (no color), and kind of dangerous to the eyes and body. Video games do not make me dizzy the slightest, but this thing made me light headed and wobbly after playing. The warning in the manual said not to play for more than fifteen minutes at a time. I think that’s why it mysteriously disappeared into the closet and then from the closet to video game heaven. By then, we had kind of stopped using it anyways. It was like a novelty item, extremely cool for a limited time only.

The reason why the Wii reminds me of this is because that’s the attitude I cautiously approached the system with. I played it over people’s houses many times before I was convinced it was more than a novelty item. I’m still a bit worried that game developers will fail to step up and make games for it that take advantage of the power of rethinking video games it’s put in my hand and head.

I admit, I gawked at the price of the Wiimote and Nunchuck as much as I gawked at their names. Since then, I keep finding out what else this controller can do.

It’s just a controller… or maybe it’s a ball of potential masked as a controller.

Look at me, I’m a Nintendo controller. I’m a laser pointer. I’m a sword. Woah, it just talked, is there a speaker in there? Pull my trigger. Punch me out like I’m brass knuckles. Put me up to your ear, twist me to control this, bump into you, and perform the most fluid fighting moves ever.

This controller is the most intuitive yet complex thing of it’s class I’ve ever seen, a true marvel of design. The intuitiveness carries over to the point where one game and another have very different controls and uses for it, yet I can pick them up in a few minutes. And the ways I’m controlling and number of controls are learning I’m realizing are more than for any other console I have in the past. Without thinking I’m switching the thing around, and using all of the buttons. There are 9 buttons (including the home button) and 2 d-pads. It doesn’t feel like it when I use them all. I was surprised when I counted.

This is what they were maybe thinking about when they made the Nintendo 64 controller, arguably the worst controller of all time.

And here it is my beam katana, my master sword, my light saber, my platforming controller, my boxing gloves, my steering wheel, my phone, and whatever else the game designers will think up.

The phone was the latest ‘woah didn’t see that coming’. But, with the built in speaker, makes sense. Way to add that much more game flavor.

You taste that? That’s a win.