The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

Let it be known that I will never buy another Blackberry.

I mean, in general, I’m pretty happy with my Blackberry Bold. The keyboard is awesome, and it does all the neat phone internet things that I want it to be able to do. But while on my trip, I realized that the camera is defective on this phone. This is the third defective Blackberry Bold I’ve gotten. This is just ridiculous at this point. I’m going to abuse my warranty again, but gods.

It’s not just bad luck, either, I don’t think, as EVERY one I’ve had has had basic flaws. The cutting out of the mic on speakerphone and the inability to read SD cards, even though it has a slot for it and really needs it, seeing as it has almost no internal memory.

I had always heard such good things about Blackberries, and most of it revolved their keyboard. If they can get that structurally perfect, which is really is, I’m just kind of confused why they’d have so much of a fucking problem with the rest of the package. Needless to say, my next phone will either be running Palm’s webkitOS, or Android, I can promise you. (And hey, if you have an unlocked G1 you’re ditching for one of these better Android phones, sell it to me cheap!)

While I was off in the beautiful land of Arkansas, I had to have something to do! So I went to see a movie, that being Where the Wild Things Are, mostly because Fantastic Mr. Fox wasn’t showing yet and, on retrospect, I had heard lame things about Men Who Stare at Goats, and good things about this one, so I went for it. (Okay, that’s kind of a run-on sentence. Whee.)

Originally, I was kind of down on the film, based on the previews. It just looked like more CG crap to ruin a classic children’s story. But at some point, Essner pointed out that the movie was directed by Spike Jonze, which quickly made me interested. He’s the director of some of my favorite films, such as Being John Malkovitch and Adaptation. (And, apparently, writer on the Jackass movies, or so his IMDB page says, which kind of blows my mind.) Him being involved made it have potential. So I went to see it.

It was pretty good, but I left feeling like I missed something. The various monsters on the island that Max goes to obviously have connections to his real life that we get a glimpse of. Seeing as some of them share voice actors, it’s pretty completely clear that a connection is being made. However, perhaps because I was at an English conference, I was trying to put on my English Major hat and figure out the connections, and I didn’t quite pull it off during the first viewing. Some are clear. Carol is obviously a near-copy of Max’s social frustration and anger, for example, and the little goat dude is how Max feels ignored. I just didn’t get everything. I’m sure I would on another viewing. Still, it was nice to see a movie that had that kind of plan in place. It was obvious that the movie was written for adults who grew up with the book as kids. That was the focus. There were children in the audience enjoying it too, but that was really what as being pushed, it seemed.

I feel like I have to mention the child actor for Max. He does a good job, but damn, he’s creepy. There’s something about the expressions he has that is unsettling. It’s like he’s acting younger than he really is. I think that’s a deliberate choice on the part of the filmmakers, though. He’s supposed to be holding on to this playful, childish childhood while his life gets more serious, and he runs away into his imagination. It’s not hard to figure out why Max would feel out of place, and why other people would have a hard time interacting with him. It’s just kind of odd that you feel very little sympathy for him, or at least I didn’t. I bet children would, but I was often going, “You stupid kid, you’re going to get yourself killed!” Maybe I’ve got too much parental instinct wanting to get out.

In any case, the visuals did come together in a significant way, and the story is something worthy of looking at and attempting to break down. This is completely a movie for adults, and I did really like it. I’ll have to watch it again when it hits DVD sometime to fully grok it, though.

The keynote speaker at the conference talked about Shakespeare, and how in his time, speaking was everything. You didn’t see a play, you heard a play. He went on this tangent about how now, we are focused on seeing, as opposed to telling. Seeing is everything (we need to be shown to believe, we need agreements in the visual medium of writing, we need to tits or GTFO, etc) in our society, and we’re constantly, more and more, dependent on the visual.

That got me thinking.

At least half, and probably a lot more of my communication happens via text in some fashion. All my leisure time is spent talking with people via various messengers, exchanging text over the internet. Maybe I’m writing on here, or posting on a message board. Hell, now that I have an unlimited texting plan, my mom just texts me from downstairs instead of talking with me. So, so much of my communication is visual.
Frankly, I can’t see it being any other way, and frankly, it’s only going to get more and more that way was time goes on. As the internet gets everywhere, people are just going to exchange e-mails and messages almost all the time, just passively, and more and more I’m betting times when you talk to your friends is going to be very rare. They’re going to be far away, connected to you via the internet, or just busy, and it’s less hassle to respond with text when convenient.

The good doctor who was doing the keynote seemed to be very depressed that the verbal was getting forgotten in performances, that we were leaving that behind. Maybe we are. I certainly think such skills are going to become more and more rare as effective writing communication becomes more and more important. Maybe it will eventually become a completely lost skill. Conversation will be awkward, start stop, and only when necessary. Maybe, just conjecture.
But it really, really made me think about the nature of communication. Though I think about such things all the time when writing and teaching people how to write, I never considered the fact that the very nature of how we communicate, what’s important and what isn’t, has changed over time. It’s kind of a simple, “duh” idea now that it’s in my head, but it was really kind of shocking. The sort of way communication works has always been something I’ve played with, used, abused, and counted on. It’s my lifeblood and an essential part of who I am. When I lose my words, I feel completely and utterly helpless. It’s just kind of mindblowing to think about the fact that I couldn’t communicate worth shit if I were to travel back in time (if we’re in a normal time travel movie and just forget about things like dialects and stuff) and that the things I’ve learned about effective verbal communication, even, wouldn’t be as effective, since a lot of it is based on visual gestures.

I don’t know. It’s a huge, huge thing. At least to me. Maybe it seems stupid to you. I suppose, if nothing else, I got that idea to ponder out of the whole trip.
It’s just scary to find out that my natural kind of “feel” for how language and communication works, which has always been right for me, even if I didn’t have words for it… it’s scary to find out that might not be something that works always.
I don’t know.

I’m back home. Well, okay, by the time you read this, I will have been for a little while, but I’m just now back home when I wrote this. Sometimes time-shifting my bloeg posts gets weird. Anyway, trip over.

This morning, I got up, and packed, and prepared to go to the last day of the conference. I realized I didn’t really want to, though. Still, I might as well, I thought. I was there, and I didn’t want to let people down, so I headed over.

In the middle of the first of the two sessions of that day, I realized there was nobody to let down. Most of the people HAD fled that day, and it was unlikely I was going to see any of these people again or, if I did, that they would remember who I was.
So I skipped the last session and drove home.

The whole trip in general just felt kind of meh. It was only partially interesting and mostly boring, with no guidance. I never really knew what to do, so I saw a movie, and went to eat a big, long meal, and walked around in a mall, and when faced with the prospect of doing more of it, I decided I’d rather go home, relax, and play more Modern Warfare 2. Maybe.
I suppose it was my fault for thinking this was going to be a fun time, a little escape, and not work. Nothing about it wasn’t going to be work. It was all about things I am working to do FOR work. But with it not being framed exactly that way, I couldn’t take it as such. It was just dull.

In the end, I suppose I’m glad I went. It’s good to present these things. Makes me look professional. But man, it’s going to be that much harder to convince myself to submit next time. It really is. Maybe if I had been in a conference somewhere more interesting, it would have been more fun? I don’t know.
I really don’t know.
But at least it’s over.

The conference happened! Well, the Saturday happened, and it was… okay? I guess?

My main problem was that when I think “conference” I think, like… PAX. GenCon. Which this was never going to be. Not at all. So I was expecting a lot of people, or at least a decent number, but instead I mostly just got a small, sort of dedicated group of about 30 or so. Which is fine. I’m mostly here for a notch on my Vita (because the scholarly world can’t use the word resume!) and to get the experience, but even knowing I should temper my expectations, it’s kind of overwhelming.

I mean, it’s not a good sign when, during the first session, yours gets cancelled and combined with another because simply that many presenters didn’t show up. Why you would present a paper and then not call ahead and show up is beyond me. Why you would be someone who goes to school AT THE UNIVERSITY and show up late is also beyond me, but both those things happened, and it was kind of strange.

Anyway, my presentation went fine. I had, if I can brag, certainly more presentational polish about me than the other speakers in my session, and my ideas seemed to go over well enough, as people came up and talked to me about them afterwards somewhat. So that’s good, I suppose. I did have someone call out that I should read such and such book during the question and answer, which I wasn’t sure if I should interpret as an insult or not. Was he saying I didn’t do my research? But no, it soon became clear that trading sources is just what is done. Or at least was what everyone was doing. I paid it no mind.

As the day went on, though, the big guns started coming out. I heard this most excellent paper on Harry Potter and political activism which was just… really well thought-out. Better than Harry Potter actually deserves. (Reminds me of something else I need to talk about, but stay tuned for a future bloeg on that.) The keynote speaker was also excellent. I have not seen a man that got such a strong physical and emotional charge just by talking about Shakespeare before. He had some things to say I’d not thought about either, which was neat.

In any case, it went… okay? I really don’t know if it was worth all the trouble to come out here, but I suppose I gave it a shot. Gotta try things. That’s the only way anything will ever move forward. Sometimes I’m lucky, and sometimes I’m not. Maybe this trip was a little of both. I don’t know.

Anyway, I’m going to go eat at Olive Garden because I DESERVE IT and then sleep. I… kind of doubt the trip back will have any stories worth telling, so I wouldn’t expect a part 3! But who knows, maybe I’ll make up some shit just to fill another day anyway. Because I am completely committed to writing some stupid bullshit every single day. Yep.

Hello! I’m writing you from Arkansas, where the hotels don’t believe every room should include a pen and notepad! What a crazy world I am in right now.
Getting here, however, didn’t really pose too many problems. For the navigation to the hotel, the TomTom worked like a dream. I had absolutely no issues coming here, only stopping to grab some BeeK for a moment, which the TomTom did not seem to appreciate. I’m sorry, GPS, but I am not a robot! I sometimes must feed.

The GPS worked significantly less effectively finding my nightly entertainment, however, I looked up movie times on internet, and I tried to program the address of the biggest theatre (I wanted to get into, I dunno, something resembling a city) into the TomTom. It said my address didn’t exist, but here’s a place near where that would be. Foolishly, I trusted, and I spend close to 2 fucking hours trying to find this phantom movie theatre before I finally decided to Google Maps it on my phone, of all things, and found it quickly. I made it barely in time to get in before the previews ended, but not early enough to get something to eat, so I kind of wasted money on popcorn instead of dinner, so healthy of me.
Still, the movie was good. Not Fantastic Mr. Fox, unfortunately, as this apparently isn’t “selected theaters,” but I did see Where the Wild Things Are, a good movie that I need more time to percolate on before I write up. So I’ll do that tonight, or something.

Anyway, I best get going. I’m writing this the morning before my presentation, and I want to give myself plenty of time to get lost as hell again. More, ah, “adventures” as they develop! Away!

I guess I should write all this out, just so it’s written out. Just to examine it. We’ll return to normal stupid blogging shortly. Maybe it’ll be about Modern Warfare 2! Nobody is writing about that, right?

It’s been awhile, but on last Tuesday, I had a little bit of a breakdown. It wasn’t long, because I had things to do that required me to, you know, keep face, but it certainly rippled from there.

So Tuesday night is the night of the writing workshop. I wrote a story called “Transitional Conflict.” You can guess the kind of subject matter with a title like that, I’m sure. Anyway, I though the story turned out pretty well, if I was a bit minimal, and I was really interested in finding out what everyone had to say.
We get to my story, and it suddenly becomes so awkward in the room. Probably not to anyone but me. But I couldn’t look at anyone. Everyone was close to who my main character was, but also so far off, and it sort of pained me to hear them talk about it. I mean, from a writer’s perspective, it was useful. This was great feedback. But it just really bothered me.

As I walked to the car afterwards, I found myself getting really angry, and fairly upset that people couldn’t understand that character. I also quickly became mad at myself for not being able to express my own issues in this character. If I couldn’t even use all my writing talents to get across this struggle, and make it clear who this person is without just having them knock people over the head with it, what chance did I have of making that happen in real life? What were the chances of me being able to just be me?
Soon, this mixed with frustration that I was letting feedback on writing get to me emotionally. Sure, it was an emotionally charged story, but dammit, I’m a fucking professional. Whatever I need up doing, at this point, it seems pretty clear it will involve writing in some way. I’m more professional than to cry about how my story was misinterpreted, even though, admittedly, it wasn’t just that.

I eventually broke down, and I made a phone call that went badly, and I eventually just bottled it up as I normally do and got back to work.
It’s just been a long time since I got so upset about these sorts of things. I suppose that’s a good sign. I’m doing better, of course. But it’s not solved, and I know that. I’ve not found a solution. I just… I feel like I have my life together, and something like this happens, and then I feel like I’ve done nothing, accomplished nothing… what have I been working for, you know?
And sometimes, I just honestly don’t know.

By the time you read this (Well, okay, as long as you’re reading this after, say, 11 AM) I will be on my way to beautiful (I assume) Arkadelphia, Arkansas to present my silly paper at the 2009 Arkansas Conference on Literature, Rhetoric, and Composition. This is like… a professional event and shit. It is the exciting times.

Honestly, I’m kind of excited about it. Mostly because I haven’t like… taken a trip in forever in general. Granted, I’m not going to the most amazing place, but it already feels like a breath of fresh air when I’m writing this and I haven’t even left yet. It is all kind of silly, though, as it might even border on boring. I’m going to be sitting about listening to people read papers! Maybe they’ll be interesting. I hope so. But it’s mostly going to be a few nights by myself having nothing to do and days listening to papers. I’ll have to find things to do! I already plan on seeing Fantastic Mr. Fox while I’m down there, (and I would expect me to write a review of it on here while I’m bored) but otherwise, I dunno. Are there interesting things to do around Little Rock? I’ve no idea.

But yeah, that’s what I’m doing this weekend! Woo! Expect updates about it! Or maybe I’ll be having such an INTENSE time I won’t write anything about it until afterwards! YOU NEVER KNOW!

Yeah, I probably will write about it, though. You know. Probably.

I’ve noticed something. I’ve been beating a lot more games since I got Gamefly.

I mean, I don’t think the amount of games I’m playing has really increased that much. I bought a TON of games before Gamefly. I still buy quite a few. But suddenly, when I get a game from Gamefly, I beat it. I do that thing where I go “okay, this weekend, going to knock this out so I can send it back” and play all the way through stuff. It’s… kind of weird.

I think a lot of it has to do with a lack of investment in the game. For example, take the game I just talked about the other day, Bound in Blood. There were sections of that game with many sidequests. Had I bought that game, I would have felt compelled to do them, which would have, perhaps, led to me getting bored of the game before I finished it. Since it was a rental, however, I did things like screw myself out of achievements, skip significant side missions, and so on, and I just shrugged and kept going. I plowed through it and had a good time, and it ended before I got bored.
I do this in almost all Gamefly games, and shockingly, I complete them. It’s actually kind of cool.

There’s probably something I can learn about my attention span from paying attention to that, one would think. There’s also probably something I can think about applying to the way I play the games I DO buy. Mainly the idea that optional content is a trap, and that I shouldn’t do it because then I’ll get bored! Maybe. The main quest or whatever should stand on its own anyway, right? It is the main quest, after all. I’ve already kind of clearly decided that I’m no longer a gamer who wants long games, so why do I make them longer on myself? I shouldn’t. I should just play through and not worry about missing things or anything else. Just play play play.
Play.

Various podding casts mentioned, when it came out, that Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood was actually pretty damn good. I wasn’t sure what to think. Brer liked the first one, but while I bought it for like 10 bucks, I never played it. Essner did, though, and said it was overwhelmingly mediocre. Would the sequel (which was actually a prequel) actually be any good? People said so. I rented it from Gamefly, like I now do, to check it out.

Honestly, it was pretty great. I wouldn’t say $60 great, but if you like Westerns, it’s at least $40 great. It was a fun all the way through.

A large part of that is due to the fact that this is a game that actually pays attention to the story, and gets it pretty right. The story is about these three outlaw brothers (one of which is a priest who doesn’t actually do any fighting) and their characters are set up in a very realistic way. They aren’t the most complex people in the world, but you really buy them throughout the story, and that makes it a lot of fun. Thomas and Ray, the two playable characters, banter constantly while they fight, and while it does repeat more than it should, the banter is very endearing, as they do the sibling rivalry thing during fights.
“You can’t hit shit, brother!”
“Shit ain’t what I’m trying to hit!”
They’re just cool people like that. The story itself is not… great, but it’s handled in a smart way. It is honestly just an excuse to get Ray and Thomas into classic Western setpieces and have them murder tons of cowboys and sometimes indians. It works, though.

The shooting, as well, is pretty darn good. Ray and Thomas both have different specialties in guns, and you can pick who you want to use on every level. Ray can dual-wield pistols, kick open locked doors, and throw dynamite. (Which works, kind of unrealistically, like grenades in most shooters, but eh, it’s fun.) Thomas gets extra zoom on rifles, uses a lasso to reach high places, and can use a bow and throwing knives for silent takedowns. (but what’s the fun of stealth, hm?) You can pick which brother to use on every level, but you’re actually kind of penalized for switching it up. There’s achievements for playing all the way through with one brother or the other, and it’s much harder to keep both brothers’ guns upgraded at the same time.

Which brings me, I guess, to the parts of the game that confused me. None of them particularly detracted from the experience, but I just found them odd.
The game has this entire “buy new guns” system where you collect money from dead enemies and from taking bounties and stuff and then can go to stores and buy weapons. There are maybe 10 classes of weapons in the game (Bow, Classic Rifle, Heavy Rifle, Classic Pistol, Quickshooter, Volcanic Pistol, and so on) and then on each of these classes, they have a rating, from Rusty (so it would say Rusty Quickshooter) to Superb. Enemies don’t start dropping guns rated higher than Rusty until right near the end of the game, so if you want better weapons, you need to go buy them.
However, I don’t see WHY you’d need better weapons. The upgraded versions of the guns seem barely different if at all. I couldn’t notice the difference between a “Prime” Classic Pistol and a “Rusty’ Classic Pistol, really. Granted, even some of the pistols didn’t seem all that different. Sure, it takes a little less time to reload a Quickshooter, and a Hybrid Gun holds 9 rounds, but they’re very small differences that don’t actually FEEL different. You’ll pick a class of pistol you like, certainly, but it doesn’t seem like a significant choice, and you never feel like you’re getting that much of an advantage for going out of your way to collect money and upgrade guns.
The other weird thing about this game is a lack of co-op. This is a game where 95% of the time you are playing alongside the other brother, controlled by the AI. Now, the AI does a good job, and will kill enemies and feel like a help and not a hindrance, but it just seems like a no-brainer to let someone else pick up the controller and play along. I assume it didn’t happen because that is probably a whole lot of work to make work, but man, this game has Deathmatch multiplayer stuff. I would have much, much rather seen them put the money they spent on that into giving this game co-op. I’d probably have bought it from Gamefly if it had that, because it is really fun.

Still, none of these things ruin the experience at all. This is a really fun little Western game, and completely worth your time to play. Surely it’s dropped to a reasonable price if you want to pick it up, or you can just rent it like I did. You will have a pretty damn good time. It’s certainly made me interested in whatever the little team that put this out is doing next.