The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

Hello.

I’m about to work 3 double shifts in a row and my ankle is already shot.

Man, I dunno. I’ve always had a shitty ankle. Just what I get for walking like this for so long, I guess. But it is just disheartening when it gets like this and I can barely even walk. It’s really more a limping shamble. CJ and I went out and bought a new ankle brace for me last night, and man, my ankle already feels better wearing it, but that’s just really lame. Like, we were trying to find the ankle braces in the store? And I saw a display of canes. I jokingly grabbed one and used it. But it really helped and my ankle felt better and then I kind of despaired for a moment.

I don’t know. I feel like I should be working as hard as I can this summer, and trying to keep money flowing in. I shouldn’t really be resting and playing video games and doing nothing. At the same time, fuck, I’ll take working all day at grading and teaching than all day at Kohl’s any fucking day of the week. It’s so goddamn boring, and being on my feet on that tile all day makes my ankle hurt something fierce after several consecutive shifts so that I can’t even enjoy my time off, because I’m limping all day so much I can’t even really get out of the house.

Basically, when it’s at the point where my boyfriend and mother and everyone is constantly telling me I shouldn’t do this to myself, maybe I should listen. I’m really debating picking up this many shifts in a row again. I’m really debating if a positive cash flow is worth feeling shitty like this when I could probably get by with less until the end of the summer.

At the same time, I work with ladies more than twice my age that do these sort of millions of double shifts in a row literally every week somehow. Fuck if I know how, but they do. That makes me feel like a stupid wuss for backing off, especially when the money could be very useful.

Eh, I don’t know.

I’m talking to this lady at work, and we’re talking about relationships for whatever reason (I think I mentioned CJ in something and she asked me basic relationship questions or something, I dunno) and she’s talking about her past experiences and I’m like “Okay, empathy time, I’m going to tell this story and relate to her situation and stuff” and then I realize that story makes no sense unless it’s obvious I’m a transsexual, and I cannot remember if she’s worked there long enough to know that about me. In fact, I was pretty sure she hadn’t, and I wasn’t going to tell her if it was otherwise, because that’s dumb. But I was also at a loss on what to say at that point without being able to relate via my story.

Later on, I’m talking with Stiv, and I go into this discussion about friend problems, and they all revolve around me being trans, which he knows. But it then occurs to me how many of my serious problems and things I really worry about revolve around me being a transsexual. Like, a lot of them do. Quite a lot.

That’s kind of depressing, right?

I just remember how refreshing it was, after I transitioned, to suddenly have “normal” problems like getting a good job and things like that. I’m like, thank goodness I can actually focus on my life now! But I never really got past all that, I suppose. I worry about these issues all the time still, from trying to figure out how I’m going to budget for future surgeries to dumb things like “that would be a fun weekend but I don’t think I can swim in my current state so I guess I shouldn’t go.” It’s just depressing to realize how much of my life is still dictated by this bullshit, and how much I still have to take it into account in everything I do.

Today I kind of realized that. That’s pretty frustrating.

Nintendo! Amirite?

I want Paper Mario Sticker Whatever very badly. I want Luigi’s Mansion: Night Moon very badly.

The rest is pretty eh.

It’s funny to me how Nintendo is like “we’re supporting core gamers because we have a special edition of the Batman game you already played! So, you know! Also, a Zombie game! You still like those, right?” It’s just kind of sad, I guess. Nintendo, you are not going to be a “mainstream” console. I honestly don’t even know why you court getting these ports. You should be trying to convince developers that coming up with new IP for the platform and doing creative shit is a good idea. Point towards Rabbids or something as proof. You can do this. You’re never going to be generic shooter game console, though it’s cute when you were describing the controller and were like “and look, it has triggers, for the shootman games!” I chuckled.

But yeah, man, there is just nothing exciting on the WiiU. I mean, I guess that’s not really true. People like a Mario game. (I’m one of those horrible people who enjoy a Mario platformer game from time to time, but it sure isn’t a system seller to me. Have barely played any of 3D Land and whatnot, even though I can agree it’s great.) Pikmin 3 is honestly going to be FANTASTIC AND WHAT EVERYONE ALWAYS DREAMED OF! I am all about that. But seeing as I never really played much Pikmin, that isn’t a system seller for me either. So what do they have? Not really anything. It’s a shame.

Seriously, everything I got crazy excited about (listed above) was 3DS teasers that aren’t really going to be talked about until tonight (when I’ll be at work. Boooooooooo!). There wasn’t even a mention of Kirby and it’s his anniversary, isn’t it? Fuckers. Give me more Kirby. I will play all the Kirbys forever.

I also agree with the internet that ending with Nintendoland was stupid, even though many of those minigames look like a fun time. That Luigi’s Mansion game looks like a ton of fun with the right group. But again, that’s not going to sell you a console. None of that is Wii Sports Bowling.

I dunno! I dunno Nintendo. I believe in you. But I’ll just stick with my 3DS for now.

Man, I guess it just never occurs to me how few of Sony’s key brands I give a shit about until I watch this sort of thing and I’m like “Wow, I care about none of these.” I mean, I sure don’t give a shit about a new God of War that is exactly the same as every other God of War but has some shitty multiplayer? I believe I continue to be the only furry on the face of the planet who is not excited about a new Sly Cooper game, as well. Maybe I really do need to rent that Sly collection and try them. I dunno.

Anyway, I suppose that cross-play between Vita and PS3 is a nice feature. I think it’s kind of cool. If the Vita was anything I even vaguely wanted to own, I’d be down with that. Playing the Vita version against PS3 people. That’d be cool. Of course, is the PS4 going to support this? I kind of doubt it! The Vita will be very behind the times powerwise then!

I don’t know. I was really confused as to why they didn’t push the Vita in their presentation. They said several key games are coming to both, but why do I care if I already own a PS3, you know? I’ll just get that one if I want it. Isn’t the Vita a big deal? Supposed to be? I don’t know. I’ve yet to see a really good reason to buy one. I guess this exclusive Assassin’s Creed game is supposed to convince you. That’s awesome, but seeing as I really only jones for Assassin’s Creed multiplayer, that sure doesn’t convince me. Even their “exclusive” CODBLOPS game wasn’t even shown, which is really dumb of them.

The Last of Us was really the only vaguely interesting thing at the Sony presser. It was REALLY interesting, though, let’s be honest. I love everything about Uncharted except playing Uncharted, so I’m more than willing to jump on a new game with different gameplay by those guys. I could really get into that. I really could. I hope it lives up to potential.

Beyond: Two Souls also seems hilariously David Cage-like, and I’m sure I will play it and love it in a half ironic half not way, like I did Indigo Prophecy and Heavy Rain. Still, it’s weird that they spent so much time on it. It’s not really a big seller to people that aren’t, you know, me.

Wonderbook… man, they were proud of getting J. K. Rowling on board, weren’t they? Granted, if they sell the Wonderbook book with the Harry Potter game thing and a Move, they may sell a decent amount, but them even thinking this is going to be a big hit they can develop lots of little games for is kind of funny. The fact that the demo worked like shit and went on for like 10 hours didn’t help things either.

Anyway, Sony? You did alright. Nothing embarrassing, nothing bad… but nothing exciting, really. I wasn’t all thrilled and pumped about anything you showed. Apologies.

Yeah, I’m going to ramble about the big three Electronic Three press conferences for a few days. Deal, yeah? I like this shit.

So yeah, that Microsoft press conference.

Man, I love my Xbox, but goodness. I can’t say I disagree with our whole IRC chat. Who was this press conference for again? It was really weird.
I mean, okay, they had the Halo 4 and the CODBLOPS2. Expected. I don’t really care that much, but I expected that. But really, what did they bring that was actually exciting to the table this year? I just don’t know.

Well, okay, here’s what I’m excited about. Rape talk be damned, I think the new Tomb Raider looks like something I want to play. It’s a bit over the top, sure, but it looks like the gameplay itself is going to be a good time. I also think the new Splinter Cell is looking fun enough. I enjoyed the angst-fest of the last game because it made me feel powerful, and this seems to be keeping everything like that to give me a stealth-based game I enjoy. I’m down with that. I’m also not going to complain about Dance Central 3. Someday I will play and love those games. (Although fuck, Usher dance forever, wow.) Stick of Truth also has a lot of potential and I hope they pull off making something I’d actually want to play.

That’s about it, I guess.

First off, who the fuck would ever, ever listen to music on their Xbox, much less purchase it there? Stuff like Spotify and Last.fm make a bit of sense on the system to put on during a party or something, but buying music is stupid. Why did they spend any time on that at all? The ridiculous pop-up-video tablet mode while watching stuff also seems like complete useless bullshit. I can get that on my tablet already. It’s called Wikipedia. You know?

Frankly, all the “Smart Glass” stuff worries me. If they really want people to use it, they actually have to put it on “all devices” like they’re saying, and not just Windows Phone and Tablets, but I will be shocked and amazed if any of that stuff works on my iPad anytime soon, or if it does, it’s probably going to have “reduced” features, you know? The fact that they made fun of this initiative in their own conference. (Well, Matt and Trey did) says something about how stupid it is, you know?

Sports is sports. Sure that’s cool for someone.

All the time they devoted to Nike + was insane. Once they actually showed the video, it literally looks like every single fitness game for the Kinect. What’s different about this? They didn’t tell us. Why did they show it, then?

Ascend was hilariously stupid-looking and the worst goddamn thing. The people making that game are going to be sorry they showed it with all the insults that are going to be thrown at that horrid trailer. Seriously, that guy’s armor! Holy shit!

I’m really excited for RE6, but that demo was terrible. It showed me no Resident Evil shooter gameplay. I need to know that’s intact. I got no indication of that. Shitty.

They kept showing so many games with “Kinect” built in, but they all just have voice controls, which I can’t use with my headset for no real reason. Awesome. That’s really showing the power of Kinect, you know?

Anyway, trainwreck? I don’t know. Honestly, it wasn’t THAT bad. Nothing went wrong. Nobody was overly embarrassing for the most part. It just wasn’t interesting. Nothing cool was really shown. I guess it could have been worse.

More E3 coming because I can’t get enough of this stuff. STAY TUNE.

Hi, blog.

Sorry I was gone so long.

Let me just kind of explain what happened, and then we can all move on with our lives.

I was in a big bad emotional place and I just couldn’t focus at all. So much shit was going down, and I still don’t want to talk about it. Sorry about that. Overall, though, I’m feeling a lot better. I feel like things are going to work out in a positive manner with everyone happy and lives moving forward in useful ways. I hope that’s the case, anyway. Either way, I’ve stopped falling into my old patterns of singing about how terrible I am and imagining my own death in very gruesome ways, so that’s probably a good sign.

In any case, I just really needed a break from this. I couldn’t fabricate something to write about that was happy, and I didn’t want to write about how depressed I was constantly. I’m sorry. That’s pretty shitty of me, I know. That sort of stuff shouldn’t be an excuse. But it was nice to relief pressure on myself in this little way when I felt so much otherwise.

I wasn’t lying about the project, though. That’s a thing I hope moves forward smoothly. It’s NaGaDeMo or something like that. I really want to make a small version of everything I have planned. I don’t know if I’m going to have enough focus to do so, but I’m going to try. Pester me about it constantly or whatever, okay? Or not. Whatever.

Anyway, daily blogs will resume tomorrow (See, this is today’s blog! Ha! I’m totally cheating and shit!) and we’ll move on to a new age of stupid blog-like ramblings. Sound good? Cool.

Thanks for understanding.

Again, sorry about yesterday. I just suddenly felt utterly and completely drained. I guess the reunion drained me more than I thought it would.

Anyway, here’s how that went.

We went to a reunion and it was alright and then we went home.

No, wait.

I was not some ridiculed whatever the fuck. I didn’t expect it, but I dunno, so many years of my mother banging that into my head makes me worried deep inside when I do this stuff. Everybody was nice to me, most tried to call me Alexis, though everyone used the wrong pronouns, which was annoying but, I suppose, understandable seeing as this was sort of the first time they’ve been around me for quite some time. I mostly just talked to Bradley Bo, who is still completely awesome, and who is apparently all getting married and stuff, which is sweet for him. He was fun to hang out with again. It’s always nice to see him.

Part of the whole reunion was a mass, which was probably the first mass I’ve been to since, uh, I graduated high school, probably. I was worried I wouldn’t remember all the little rituals. I did, but many of them had changed. There’s so many little changes in wording that make basically no sense to me. Like, they don’t sound better, and they just seem more complicated or less straightforward than what it was before. It’s not a big deal, or anything, but I just wondered why change it to THAT, if you’re going to change it, you know? It’s strange.

We walked around Notre Dame. My old locker combination no longer works, but the fume hood I had a part in cracking my first year there is still totally cracked, even with all the renovations they were touting. I also got to use the women’s bathroom in my old school, which was weirder to me than I expected it to be. Really, though, the whole tour was kind of a big sales pitch to try to get us to give the school money. I loved that school, but, uh, no. No, I’m not going to donate. Sorry, school. Got way better things to pay for than giving money to you. Though CJ was all like “they’re calling you and your teaching out, you should work there!” after I mentioned I was teaching and got gestured towards during a speech, and if they want to hire me, even with me being a sinful transsexual polygamist, then, you know, fuck yeah. I would love to teach some writing or lit courses there. But they probably don’t want me, so.

After that, we went to this winery out in Jackson. Steele Crest Winery, I think? It was kind of stupid. We all came for this thing, and there were tables that said “Reserved,” so, you know, we’re a private party at this place, so we sat down. But nope, it wasn’t for us. There were like two other groups there. Place was damn crowded for no reason. It was kind of silly. Everyone was off in their little groups, so I mostly just talked to Brad, and that was fine. I also tried some of their wine, and fuck, I had the first wine I ever liked the taste of. It was this raspberry wine that was sweet, but the raspberry flavor was strong enough that it kicked BACK in after that wine taste. It was pretty awesome. I bought a bottle to share with Jonathan and Shauna and such next time I have them over for dinner. CJ also got some wines that he liked, one of which was a sweet cherry that was okay, but I wasn’t thrilled about. I haven’t tried the other, but I guess it’s okay? We’ll see what I think.

I’m glad I went. I don’t have to feel like I ran away. Overall, though, it was as lame as predicted. It was a passable time, but not a great time. I survived and made it back. Here I am.

Brian is here. I went to a reunion. I’m exhausted and feel useless.

This isn’t happening today.

Tomorrow, maybe.

Sorry.

Bleh, I didn’t want to get into this again. Sorry. But I have to vent and get it out, and it’s a bad idea to put it in its actual venue on Talking Time. So.

First, some background. Some people made this horrible game called Tentacle Bento, which is this game is really poor taste where you are a tentacle monster trying to rape the most schoolgirls. They made a kickstarter to fund it. People complained like crazy that this product shouldn’t exist because rape is clearly bad. Kickstarter took it down from their page.

Kickstarter probably made the right move. No reason to get lots of shitty press for this, and they had every right to pull it down. I think it’s lame of them not to stick to the guns they supposedly had when they allowed the whole thing to be posted on their site, but sure, why not. People have the right to complain as well. It is a game in very bad taste.

But people don’t just stop there. People go on and on about how this product SHOULD NOT EXIST. And that’s where I draw the line. Of course they should be able to make this product. It’s a dumb product nobody should buy, but the idea that they should not be able to express themselves with a game in very bad taste is just ridiculous to me. And a large number of people arguing against it seem to call me a fan of child rape because I feel this way? This is so stupid.

Anyway, here’s a quote from Kylie. The whole post is here if you want more context. I like Kylie a lot. But goodness, this frustrates me.

You’re not preserving art or communication if you’re defending this; you’re preserving the ability of a medium to make a game out of virtual child rape. If that’s important to you, then by all means stand up and defend it. But you have to know that that’s what you’re defending. “Freedom of Speech” is a convenient smokescreen.

This is a red herring fallacy. “This isn’t covered under freedom of speech because I can prove child rape is bad.” How is a game about virtual child rape NOT communication? That game is communicating a very clear message. In fact, it is that message Kylie is reacting to so strongly.

I sure as fuck don’t think this game is art, but I sure as hell think there could be a game based on these themes that could be. I’m pretty sure making the poor have babies so that the upper classes can eat them and turn their skin into stylish gloves is a pretty horrible thing that nobody wants to advocate, but history has proven that can be art. I’m pretty sure all manner of horrible things and terrible memes can be used in the pursuit of art, and they should be. When “trivializing” rape is the point of a work of art, when that’s being done towards a purpose, is there still a problem? I certainly don’t think so. And just because someone tries to make a satire and utterly, utterly fails at it in a fairly offensive way doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have tried. And just because someone thinks something is okay when it clearly isn’t, and creates something from that assumption doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have created a thing. Stopping people from creating is 100% an attack against art and freedom of communication, and I in no way understand how a game with an offensive and shitty premise is somehow an exception to this.

Kickstarter the company has every right to shut this down, and I would not even begin to argue they shouldn’t be able to. Hell, it’s probably a good move for them to have done so. Sure. But that’s where this ends. People should be able to express themselves, and hell, making a game is a form of expression. Just because those people are horrible people doesn’t mean we get to say “that should not exist.”

I’ve got all these ramblings, and I’m going to use them, dammit! Watch out!

In preparation for Brer getting here, we have combined all beds in this house into one SUPERBED! SUPERBED! It’s pretty nice! The one smaller bed is apparently firmer, which is good for CJ, and since we’re dog-sitting, we had plenty of room for extra dog last night. Lots of room. Hopefully it’ll fit all three of us. Heh, mostly because if it doesn’t, well, we can’t really fit a bed that’s much bigger in there, so, uh… heh…

Today CJ and I went disc golfin’. I only won by a single stroke, though. I am a terrible disc golf teacher type person. In any case, though, it was a really nice time! I got some play coins to unlock shit in Revelaitons, and we threw discs about… it was a nice afternoon. What I really like about it, though, is that it’s a workout, at least a little, but it’s not exhausting, you know? I finish, and I don’t feel like garbage. It’s nice to get fresh air and exercise without feeling like garbage. Wow, me, getting fresh air and exercise. Crazy.

When I went shopping with my mother, I got new and improved bangles. I like bangles. Dunno why. I think it’s because they’re so simple. Anyway, I got some like… serious ones now. The only problem is, unlike the ones I was wearing which I could barely fit on my wrist, these fit me. That means I can put them on and remove them with relative ease. This has turned into a bad thing. I am playing with these damn things all the time, and they make a satisfying clinking noise. I’m sure I must be pissing all sorts of people off with these things. Or maybe I’m just imagining pissing people off. Either way, I’m going to continue wearing them, so there.

Okay, so I have this plan, alright? I’m not going to tell you about it because that is super lame. But I have started to form this scheme plan in my head over the past few days. My mind is always working on it, it seems, fleshing it out. That means I’m interested, you know?
But here’s the thing: this project would be a huge commitment to actually do. Like, a huge commitment. I’d have to be really dedicated to get this done. It would be a lot of work, and I’d have to improve on skills I barely have.
It would be good for me.
But it seems really lame to start this if I’m not going to follow through, and it just kind of FEELS like something I wouldn’t follow through on, you know? So I’m nervous about starting on it.
That’s probably about the dumbest reason not to work on a neat project ever, I suppose.

More later! Bye!