The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

That’s right. We’ve evolved beyond math.

We did the Bachelor party thing.

I planned and ARG for Jonathan to play through. Basically, Jonathan was a secret agent with amnesia. He was also an agent in at least 5 different secret agencies. One of these agencies was attempting to blow up Cape with a bomb made of something called Woodtonium. Someone was going to have to stop it. That someone was Jonathan Long: Groom.

It went fantastically because Jonathan totally bought into it. He was constantly cracking jokes and role-playing, even sometimes more than my actors. It was fantastic. Jonathan decided everyone went to spy school together, for example, and that one of the major effects of the Woodtonium bombs is hard-ons. Also, beavers only increase the effects of Woodtonium, and all spies, of course, must be completely trusting and open with information. It went off great. Everyone was laughing. I was glad I put in the time to make props and organize people. It was fantastic.

Afterwards, we came back home for an intense round of Guesstures and a Smash Brothers tourney. Jonathan dominated both, as expected, but a lot of fun was have by all. Now he’s playing Dominion with some stragglers, and I’m taking a break and blogging.

I was worried I wouldn’t do a good job, or it wouldn’t be “bachelor” enough due to the whole me female thing. I was busy and stressed, and I hoped I wasn’t going to let him down.

Sitting here now, it’s clear to me I didn’t. I’m relieved and happy. This was a pretty special day, and I gave it to him. That’s exactly what I wanted. I wanted to make him feel special. I’m glad it looks like I succeeded.

Lately, I’ve been reading this book of poetry theory, and taking pictures of some pictures of bits I like for twitter, since that’s totally faster than transcribing them and much less hassle. I got through it, and then it was time to write a review. I did that today, and it went well! I was pretty pleased with it. Which just reminded me how much I hate most of the reviews I write for the press. I’m not a good reviewer.

Granted, I “review” shit on here all the time, and I’m never unhappy with those. (Well, okay, when I find a typo awhile later, when I’m trying to refer to the review, then I’m kind of unhappy. Heh.) There’s something inherently different about that, though. These reviews are inherently biased. They’re completely from my personal point of view. Sometimes I might point out this or that about a game which I think appeals to people who are not me, but that’s about the extent of it. If you’re reading my personal blog, for some silly reason, you inherently want to know what I, personally, think. If you want a pure review of quality, you can get that elsewhere. Here, you get the me perspective. That I can do, no problem.

However, the readers of Big Muddy don’t give a shit who I am. If they’re reading the reviews in the back, they ARE wanting that objective evaluation of quality, or at least something to give them a good idea of the content of the book. I am so terrible at this. I do have some reasons for it, though.
Part of the problem is that I am horribly under-read. I don’t read as much of these sorts of books as part of me feels I should, since I have so many important vidjeogamez to get to. As such, I can easily tell if, say, a book of poetry adheres to my personal standards of what a good book of poetry should be, but I honestly don’t have a totally great idea what the, you know, standard, middle of the road poetry manuscript looks like to be able to objectively rate something like that.
The other part is that I just can’t seem to figure out what to talk about. I want to give enough information to, you know, inform, but I also don’t want to tell the entire plot summary of the book, except for when that’s appropriate because it’s non-fiction. I also don’t have the crutch of mechanics to lean on, like I do when talking about a game. I mean, if it’s a book of poetry, I can talk about the poet’s style a bit, I suppose, but if it’s not very experimental, there’s not a lot to say there.

I get my assignments in the press done, and I write the reviews. I just always feel like there’s something wrong with them. I don’t have the non-subjective reviewer gene. I guess it comes from all my whatever about believing in a subjective sort of reality, etc. Maybe. Or maybe I just suck at it. That’s fine. I can write many other things. Like silly blog posts about how I can’t write certain things. Yeah.

Upon attempting to do my reading for one of my classes and do the homework assignment, I instead ended up writing a short description about how some theorists tended to explain my personal concepts of interpersonal relations without resorting to metaphors of D/s sex and BDSM situations, which is what I always tend to fall to. As such, I thought I’d put it here, since it honestly seemed more appropriate for a blog than for an assignment. (I’m totally turning it in as the assignment, though.)

Foucault is a cool dude who not afraid of anyone. He’s got some great ideas that really tie into my personal philosophy. Combining some of these thoughts with those of Lyotard from earlier really kind of encapsulates my own personal theories of interpersonal interaction, which I will share with you now because I’m the one behind the keyboard and I can.

Foucault talks about the idea of power being the key element of interaction between people. This is so completely true, from my experience. It’s the interaction between power levels, whether that be power based in knowledge, experience, position, or any other such form, which really sets the stage and the rules for interaction between people. It creates the notion of what is acceptable and what isn’t. For example, the power that exists between me as employee and someone as my supervisor sets serious guidelines on the ways that I can interact in an attempt to achieve my goals. Simple, obvious situation. But even between friends, family, and other such interactions that are less clear-cut, this power struggle exists and defines the rules. Again, I go back to my constant D/s metaphor. All relationships, in my view, are in some way D/s relationships, and in order to succeed in said relationship, you have to determine, through playing the game, who is the dominant one and who is the submissive one.

Even in establishing power, you are working at playing Lyotard’s language games. Your interactions are used to feel out and determine the rules, or the power structure of the relationship, so that you can move forward with your goals while working within that power structure, or, in extreme cases, attempt to completely throw it out. Language games, and interpersonal interactions, are never games of complete information, such as chess. They are always games of incomplete information, where one perhaps has a good idea of what could be in someone’s hand, and perhaps even has a good working knowledge of how they play the game, but in the end, the specifics of their options and goals are unknown. You work with the hints you have to establish their strategy as best as possible, and adapt yours accordingly. Your methods of doing this, of course, change based on your status in the D/s power structure. The D member of the interaction could much more easily simply ask or demand this information. The s member of the interaction might have to use different methods, manipulating the fact that the source of the D interactant’s power comes from the s member of the conversation in order to get what they want without the D member knowing.

Most of the time, this isn’t obvious. As I mentioned, the level of power difference between two people is not always as clear cut as talking to a boss, a mother, or a child. It’s also something that most people use and manipulate without a distinct knowledge of the game being played. However, it’s also something where knowing the rules, or even the fact that there are rules, is something you can use to your advantage. As a verified “rules laywer” in the various games I play, it’s extremely clear to me that that’s the case. Lyotard breaking it down into the fact that it is a game, and Foucault pointing out the ruleset of that game, well, that’s just a very nice added benefit, and hey, it doesn’t even have to use sexual subcultures to explain it, as I always tend to for whatever reason.

Yeah, this is the kind of bullshit I do when I’m getting edumacated.

The future, right? That’s certainly a thing.

There was a time in my life where I never felt like I had one of those. Nothing in my life was going right, and there felt like there was very little I could do about it. Every day was simply another day. I’d think about what I needed to do that day, and do it. Sometimes not do it. It was pretty bleak I guess. I didn’t feel like myself, and nothing I did felt significant.

Then, for awhile, progress was made. I started accomplishing stuff useful in moving forward in my life. It was crazy. I started thinking about jobs, lives, futures. It was scary as fuck, sure. But finally I felt like I had some control over who I was and what I was doing. It was lovely.

Recently, I’ve lost that again. I’m doing things that are important. I’m preparing for the party this weekend. I’m continuing to kick butt at my continuing education. There are things going on that I feel are very important, but my actions feel completely disconnected with the bigger picture. I feel like I don’t have a grasp on that bigger picture, and all these other things aren’t helping me find it.

I feel like this keeps happening to me. I make some progress, and that feels great. But I don’t finish becoming myself. Things aren’t done. But I become unable to take direct action. The vision of the future fades. I’m left with nothing. I’m left in depression.

That’s really fucking frustrating.

I’m not out of the woods. I’m going to keep going. But it’s annoying it’s so hard. It’s annoying I can never seem to accept the things I have done as significant. How many times have I written this blog post? How often do I feel like this? It’s so stupid.

I tell Brer, and I tell my little blog, but I’m such a broken record that that doesn’t do as much as it should anymore. I debate doing things like talking to Mom, or other friends, but I get scared. I don’t want to burden people with this stuff. My mom would focus on less what I wanted to talk about and more her reaction to who I am, which is understandable but unhelpful. I don’t feel like the dynamic between my friends and I leaves me open to just throw out topics like that, even though I know they’d listen and support me. I always feel like I’d be ruining a good time. I tell my psychologist, but sometimes I feel like I’m preparing so much for our talks that some of these feeling stuff gets missed, because it gets to the point almost where I’m giving a speech because I don’t want to forget to mention “relevant” information.

As always, the solution is to just keep going. I always keep going, and I never stop. It’s hard not to wish to stop sometimes, though. Just as a fucking change of pace. Then at least it would feel like I did something. Something happened. “I ruined my education, lost my job, or worse, but hey, that’s something!”
That’s horrible depressing talk I shouldn’t engage in, though. I should just keep going. Always.

Here’s an interesting side effect of me trying to take care of myself. At least, it’s interesting to me, and it’s my blog, so shut up, I’m writing about it, nyah.

Basically, in an attempt to take care of myself. I’ve been going to bed early. Now, this doesn’t mean particularly early for a lot of people. I’m going to be around 11 or whatever. However, it’s a huge bunch of early for me, who normally gets to bed at 1 or 2. This creates an interesting dynamic with my internal clock. It tends to wake me up early, because it knows how much sleep I tend to get. Therefore, I’m getting to bed earlier, but I’m waking up earlier, too. Since I normally wake up at 6ish, that’s getting pretty early. For example, today I woke up at 4 AM.

This is good and bad. For one, I’m still getting more sleep this way than I was before. It still might not be 8 hours, but when I wake up at 4, I do at least have the option of staying in bed for awhile, unlike when I stay up late, and I have to get up and go teach. Overall I’m more rested. At the same time, it still feels like I’m losing time. I mean, I’ve been grading for hours today already. I got extra time. It was working out. But it doesn’t feel that way. I’m so used to staying up late, it feels like I’m wasting my time sleeping when I don’t stay up. It’s not a fact. It’s a mental issue. But it’s still something I have to be concerned with.

Basically, I could have slept in today, but I found myself worrying about stuff I had to do when I woke up. I could have stayed in bed, but I wouldn’t have gotten to sleep due to worry. Now, I’ve knocked out the problem. I got my grading done, and I’m ready to face the day. That’s nice.

Or something like nice.

I guess my internal clock will just have to deal. Then again, in a few weeks, this semester will be over, and next semester will be much more sleep-friendly. Maybe I just have to deal a little longer. I dunno.

Sometimes I forget why I play games, I guess. I do it because it’s what I do. I mean, I enjoy myself, but often it’s not so much a thrill as a way to pass the time. I don’t always realize it, of course. It takes those rare moments to smack me out of it. Whether it be a game that’s so frustrating, I question why I’m using my leisure time on it, or a game so fantastic, it pulls me out enough to make me go “wait a second, this is so much damn fun!”

I don’t know. I got DJ Hero 2 in from Gamefly, and immediately after putting the disc in, I was thrilled. It drew me in. It made me feel excited and energized. After playing for hours and stopping, I stepped back and went, “Holy shit, I was having fun.”

I remember other moments like that in life, where I’ve looked at myself and realized, “Oh, this is happy, I guess. Crazy.” Like, say, the first time I saw They Might Be Giants in concert. I was completely lost in it. Completely happy, and it was extended over a long period of time. At times, the nostalgic feelings that creep up on me when I view a Christmas tree does the same thing. I feel fantastic. I feel loved. It’s great.

There are times I wonder if the fact that I feel this way indicates how horrible I feel most of the time. “Does everyone normally feel like this on a good day?” I wonder. I’m pretty sure that’s not the case. I’ve got lots of good in my life. It’s pretty solid. No, it’s just a heightened sense. A sense of getting away from everything, and of being completely free. It’s great when a good game experience can give you that rare moment.

Needless to say, I paid to keep DJ Hero 2. I’m really loving it. I’ll write more about it later. But it just reminded me how rare that feeling is. I guess I’m lucky the game gives it to me, at least for a little while.

I bought a game while it was on sale. It was called “Snoopy Flying Ace” and it is a game where Peanuts characters fly around and shoot each other in planes while wearing really, really ridiculous WWII-style costumes. When the planes explode, the characters always parachute out, so you know you’re not ruining Peanuts canon by murdering time-travelling Peppermint Patty during WWII.

Anyway, the game is kind of ridiculous. As ridiculous as you would think a multiplayer-focused XBL game based on Peanuts would be. But Brer likes flying, and I thought we could play through the campaign together, because it has really nice split screen stuff, even online. I bought it cheap to save for his visit. At the same time, I’m like, well, I can at least check out the online, stuff, you know?

Anyway, the point of all this is, the game is fucking fantastic.

Well, the multiplayer is, anyway, and that was clearly the focus of the game. You have your normal variety of modes: Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch (Called Dogfight, both because, you know, planes, and also because, you know, Snoopy), a Capture the Flag variant, a “kill the guy with the ball” variant, and a football-style mode called Pigskin. What’s more, there’s plenty of people playing. This can sometimes be a problem with a game, but I’ve never had trouble getting into a full game, at least in the more common modes. You can bring it up, and be shooting people in a minutes. This is a huge benefit for me.

The game has a fairly large variety of weapons, of which you can take two of into a match, along with a basic forward-facing machine gun you always have. You can set various weapon loadouts per Peanuts character, or just switch them around on one mid-match if needed. You can also fly as your Avatar, just for the hell of it. You can also pick what kind of plane you want to fly, although this is mostly cosmetic: there are stat differences between “light,” “medium,” and “heavy” planes, but nothing in between the classes.
What gets me is that all the weapons actually seem useful. When I first looked at the weapon list, I assumed many would be completely useless. But I’m working on the Weaponeer achievement, and that means I have to use a variety of guns. While I figured that the only good weapons would be the Comet Rockets and the Squitos, I’ve found that there really is a good variety of useful stuff out there. Yes, some are better than others, but if you have different styles, they are useful. Even things like the little spinning melee thing that twirls under your plane is not that hard to get kills with. I don’t see one particular loadout when I play. That’s a damn good thing. The game is well-balanced that way.

The game has kill-streak bonuses like Modern Warfare, too. If you get 4 kills in a row, Woodstock jumps onto your plane tail with two magnum pistols and will shoot people behind you. (No, seriously, that’s what happens.) Getting 9 in a row turns your plane into Snoopy’s doghouse, though I’ve never gotten close to that bonus, so I don’t know what it does. That’s neat, but it honestly doesn’t seem to come into play anywhere near as often as the streak bonuses in things like Modern Warfare. I think that’s a good thing.

There are various maps, many with weird environmental hazards, like robots or evil dragon submarines that you have to dodge while fighting. There are also turrets you can man on the field. The guide I looked at for the game seemed to indicate these are really powerful, and I do sometimes get shot down by them, but every time I’ve gotten into a turmulent, I’ve been unable to hit shit. Who knows. In any case, the maps have plenty of open areas, as well as buildings and things to maneuver around. There’s like… 6 or so of them. This is plenty for a game like this.

Really, I’ve been having a fantastic time. It’s extremely polished, and good fun if you like shooting down other people online. It’s not very Peanuts-y or anything, though there are some nice touches. Die a bunch of times with no kills, and you get labelled a “Blockhead,” along with a silly icon of Charlie Brown with a squared-off head. When you win, it plays a little piano tune and shows a picture of Snoopy dancing. It’s a weird product, but as far as online multiplayer goes, it’s aces. The demo even lets you play online matches for awhile, so I recommend doing that and trying it. It might hook you too.
As for the campaign, I’ve not played it. I’m waiting. We’ll see if it’s fun, but I bet it will be. Probably not the deepest thing, but the mechanics are solid, so I’m sure it’ll be a good time.

I hesitate to ramble about the “kids these days.” I find some people doing that, in reference to their classes, and I just find that kind of… wrong. I dunno, I was a Freshman. I did stupid-ass shit like this when I was in school. That’s why it took so long for me to graduate. I get it. It’s no less annoying to see happen, but I get it. My students are adults, and they can make their own decisions.

That said, seriously, kids these days.

The current assignment we’ve been doing all week involves two things, giving an in-class presentation of 5 to 7 minutes and turning in an MLA works cited list. I’m not grading this hard. If your presentation is long enough, you’re probably pretty good on the content. That’s half the grade. The other half is having the works cited in proper MLA format, since that’s what we were studying. Simply follow the MLA guidelines, and you’re golden.

My students aren’t doing either.

I’ve had presentations that were a minute or less. I’ve gotten tons of Works Cited lists that are wrong even at a glance, much less when I zoom in to the specifics when I actually grade them. It’s ridiculous. There are going to be so many shitty grades on this, and they’re going to be upset about it.
The worst part is that I warned them. I begged them in class, please take this seriously. The assignment was designed to be easy points to make up for harder essays. It’s supposed to be a help. But every time I assign it, I get this sort of stuff. It becomes a lesson about following the rules, which is useful, I suppose, but not my intention. I don’t want to have to give tough love in the classroom, but I guess that’s how it is.

So much of school is simple. You follow guidelines, you get a decent grade. Maybe not a great grade, without knowledge of what’s going on, but a good grade, at the very least. You just follow the rules. Students, please follow the rules. Then you’ll get a good grade. Please follow the rules.

If there’s one thing I’ve been learning about, it’s taking care of yourself.

Early this week, I felt really horrible. It wasn’t completely a sickness. It was strange. I just felt like utter crap, to the point that I couldn’t do anything. I went to bed, and basically slept all of Monday and Tuesday.

Now I feel better.

I never take care of myself, really. It’s damn important to, and I really should. I’ve been trying to get sleep since. It’s frustrating, since I can’t do things like talk to a certain kitty when I’m going to bed early, but it’s not worth falling behind in all the shit I have to do, as well as just generally feeling bad.

So, in the interest of relaxing, I’m not writing anything more than this today. Sorry. But here, uh, listen to this amazing song inspired by Barkley: Shut Up And Jam Gaiden instead. Or maybe check out FakeAPStylebook’s new twitter feeds, FakeNNWMTips and FakeeEtiquette. Hilarious stuff.

I’ll be back tomorrow.

In the DungeonDragons, a slogan they used for awhile was “Never Split the Party.” You have to have a party with a unified front, or else you’re just not going to get anything done. People will die, combats will be failures, everything will break down into bickering.

But that’s, you know, Dungeons and Dragons. Cthulhu-stuff… well, in a way, that’s different. Tension between your party is part of the horror. Not knowing who is going to turn, not knowing if you’re all really on the same side, even as you’re facing a supernatural threat…

That’s what I think, at least. I’ve been playing a pre-made Trail of Cthulhu campaign on Talking Time for awhile (It’s here if you want to read) with a bunch of cool cats. It’s been progressing really slowly, but it hasn’t been, you know, stressful because everyone is willing to be patient for people to act. I’ve found it very refreshing in that regard, and we’ve been getting some solid Roleplaying done. I love being silly, but too rarely do I have an opportunity to do roleplaying of the serious variety. As such, I’ve been really enjoying it.

However, the character I’ve pieced together, using a premade character and extrapolating from the information I was given, is really at odds with the party. Everyone else seems to be playing their characters in a very Lawful Good-esque kind of manner. Very goodie-two-shoes and whatnot. There’s nothing wrong with that. I often enjoy playing characters like that. But that just doesn’t fit Jan’s back story. She’s out for herself, and she only believes in herself. She believes she knows what she’s doing, and she wants to be in control. She’s somewhere in the Chaotic Neutral or Lawful Evil sort of range. She’s working with everyone because their goals coincide with hers.

And now, we’re at the point where they no longer do, and Jan is going to make sure she’s protected. That means bringing no monsters back to her world, and that means stopping Roger, who is infected, from coming back. Clearly, nobody else thinks that’s a good idea, since he still has his mind, and they’re good people. But Jan has wanted to be in charge this entire time, and now she has a bargaining chip. She’s going to push this and establish control.

I can’t imagine a way this would work out well for Jan. Everyone’s made it pretty clear they’re not going to bow down, and Jan probably isn’t going to back off on this. But that’s part of what makes this situation awesome. It’s a true character moment. It’s deep roleplaying. It’s amazing. My character might end up getting beaten up or killed because of this, but it’s totally worth it. It’s a realistic, tense moment in an awesome game. It works. I hope everyone else sees it as being as awesome as I do, even as they knock me out and steal my gun. Heh.