The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

This page of Homestuck has made me very happy, honestly.

Why?

I dunno. I mean, all of everyone’s interests has only had a sort of passing, thematic significance to the story thus far. Maybe it’ll tie in more? Maybe it won’t? But I guess the point is that the fact that Jade likes furry stuff is just a thing. It’s just something in a list. It’s not anything to laugh at, perse. It’s not anything to make her less of a character and a person. It’s perhaps a bit silly, but come on, furry stuff is a bit silly. But it’s just a thing. A part of her, but not all of her.

That’s awesome.

I mean, not that I’m some fursecution type or whatever, but it’s still nice to see such things portrayed in a manner that isn’t just to make the author feel better by “Well, at least I’m not one of THOSE” means. Everybody has stupid interests. Everyone does weird things. Granted, some people do weirder things than others, but it’s so pointless to judge. If it’s not ruining your fun, who cares? I know Mr. Hussie won’t make stupid jokes like that. I know he cares about his characters more than that. And that’s neat. (Then again, he was also the person who drew Humanimals, so…)

So yeah, I’m kind of happy about a stupid thing. Gotta take the little stupid happy things when you can get them, yes?

So, I have this kid in my class. He is like… the sort of person you would put next to the term “Emo kid” in the dictionary in look. Wears all the clothes, has bangs that cover his eyes, stays in the corner, never says anything, you know. Stereotype, through and through.At the same time, he’s a nice kid. Turns things in on time. Never an issue. It’s not like I hate him. It’s not like I have anything against him wanting to play that emo role, either. If it makes him happy, more power to him. It’s fine with me.

At the same time, I do things like, say, play Forumwarz, which is awesome. But I play an Emo Kid, and so I’ve sort of gotten myself used to laughing my ass off at these ridiculous emo things. I mean, they are funny! That’s why I laugh. It’s motivated by some of the same reasons I would, say, laugh at more ridiculous aspects of the furry subculture, or the gamer subculture. Any group is likely to have aspects of it that are ridiculous, you know?

Still, I get his papers from class, and I read them, and I’m met with a problem. This is exactly the sort of text that is displayed in Forumwarz when I make an emo attack. Exactly. Like, I could cut and paste parts of it and put it into the game, and nobody would know it wasn’t parody.

This puts me in a spot. I just don’t know how to react to this genuine, heartfelt text that is, at the same time, hilariously an emo stereotype. I know this guy takes his writing seriously, and is wanting to write something good. Though his style is so painfully, painfully emo, he is trying to cultivate a style, and I should encourage that. It feels very wrong to laugh at him. I don’t want to do that, just like I don’t want people to laugh at me for my oddities, or at the very least laugh with me, you know? But damn, separated from him, in my office, grading these papers, it is really hard to remember there’s a person behind it that I shouldn’t make fun of. Incredibly hard.
So I almost always have to take these long breaks before I write comments on his paper so I don’t write anything weird. But it’s hard.

It just goes to show you how dangerous stereotypes can be, I guess. I mean, I feel like I’m pretty good about such things? But then here’s this clear situation where I’m fighting with it? I don’t know. I guess it’s, to some extent, inescapable.
Somewhat.

Molly does not like that I hang out in non-Molly approved places.

She does not like the computer room at all, and, well… that’s kind of where I spend, oh, 95% of my leisure time. All day she has been trying to get me out of the room constantly. I gave in a few times, but then I’m like, “Fuck it, I have Brutal Legend to play.’ So I stopped giving in. So she got more insistent. So I said “Okay, let’s compromise. I’ll sit on the couch while I play so you can sit with me.” That helped for a little while, but then she started climbing all over me and trying to lick me until I stood up.
This kind of behavior is really cute when I don’t feel bad locking her out of the room when I’m fed up with it, because she can just go back to my parents. In short bursts, it’s really cute. “Aww, she wants my attention!” When I’m alone, and I don’t want to lock her out? It’s really aggravating. My temper started flaring. It was difficult resisting pushing her away forcefully. It pretty well sucked.

I just put in her ear medicine, and now she’s mad at me, and hiding, and honestly, that’s pretty great. Relaxing.

Man, maybe I couldn’t handle having kids… that’s kind of a depressing thought, though…

Ugh, hopefully it’ll be easier when I’m at the office for most of the day. I wasn’t expecting to get this annoyed this fast.

I’m acting like this is going to be a multiple part series, but it probably isn’t. I’m just THAT AWESOME.

So, my parents are all taking a vacation to beautiful San Francisco. I don’t know exactly why they wanted to go to San Fran, but they did, and good for them, I say! But that leaves me at home with Molly who can be a handful. While I love her and how she follows me around and constantly begs for my attention and stuff (she’s too adorable) she is also an incredibly picky, and overly pampered dog. My parents normally take care of that part, so I just have the fun cuteness part. Now I’ve got to take care of all of it. Joyful.

Night 1 did not go off without issues. I got to clean up dog pee, which is always exciting, but that’s mostly because I wasn’t thinking. I knew I should take her out before I go to bed, but I wasn’t thinking about the fact that when I go to bed is not when the parents go to bed (although more and more it is. I’m old, gah) and that Molly was used to doing her business then. So, right around the time when the parents would normally take her out? Peed in the floor. I won’t make that mistake again.

Still, she slept very well, which is something I was worried about. I put her in my bed, and she slept next to me all night. I even woke up before she did, which I felt wouldn’t be the case because I figured she’d bother me to go outside around 6. She slept right up against my armpit, which was… annoying. I normally sleep on my side, with one arm under the additional pillows on my bed, and she got right there under my arm. Still, it was cute at the same time, since her head was on the other pillow.

So yeah… I’m sure it’ll go alright, but it is a lot more to think about. I’m going to have to work at home more instead of at the office, which, honestly, is an issue, because I do things like write this bloeg post instead of grading papers. Distractions are like that. But we’ll see. I’m sure if anything particularly noteworthy happens, you’ll hear about it.

Back on Talk like a Pirate Day, Steam had a sale, as they usually do. What was on sale? Why, only the most pirate-y games! This included The Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition, a game which I had been meaning to pick up anyway. So I did. Then, eventually, I finally got around to playing it, even though I have two whole episodes of Tales of Monkey Island sitting there, unplayed! I am so awesome sometimes.

So how was it?

There were some weird decisions made in this game. They decided to re-draw all the graphics, but not re-animate them? They just redrew the frames. So although the art looks great, it also animates like shit. They then decided to totally re-do the interface on the PC version (mostly to make the XBLA version easier to play, I’m sure) which made the game actually harder to play, just so they could fill the entire screen with graphics. I mean, yes, the whole SCUMM interface is pretty archaic, but there were multiple puzzles that were made HARDER by the new interface, just because there was a time element and it was so cumbersome to interact with. I actually had to hit F10, which switches the entire game back to the original graphics (a nice touch) in order to complete these puzzles. That’s kind of bullshit.

Still, it was great to visit a classic, and see where this series I love quite a bit came from. I had tried it a long while ago, back on a Monkey Island Collection disc, but I just couldn’t get into it. I need voices in my Adventure games! I just suck like that. Luckily, Lucasarts did a great job getting everyone they needed to get in on this game, and it sounds great. Although I do have to admit I was surprised to learn that I agree with Chris Remo on the voices. In this early game, Guybrush was not, by default, a lovable cartoon character that is voiced so well by Dominic Armato. Depending on what you chose, he could very well be a very serious guy. There are almost always options for being an actual swashbuckling adventurer as opposed to a comedy guy, something that’s mostly gone in something like Curse of Monkey Island. As such, Armato’s voice does potentially detract from the game a little. Not enough to ruin the fun, but it’s interesting to note. I could definitely see how someone who played the original back in the day might not like it.

Those are pretty well the only drawbacks to the game, though. The game, while old, is still amazingly clever. Even though Insult Swordfighting had been iterated on several times in future games, the original was still quite a lot of fun and funny to read. The text in the game is very strong comedy, and there are only one or two bullshit puzzles in the whole thing, and those I solved with just a couple of presses of the new in-game hint system, which does a pretty good job of keeping you from having to go to a walkthrough if you’re stuck.

So yeah, I totally got my $5 worth. As Guybrush says at the end of the game, Never pay more than $20 for a computer game. So I didn’t. If you’re in the least interested in the history of the series, you owe it to yourself to pick it up for $10 or whatever. It’s a good time. Now here’s hoping they get Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge Special Edition underway at some point. Cause once again, I’d love to play through it and see more history, but damn. Voices, man! I need voice acting!

I think I’m almost more savvy a consumer. Almost.

I remember back in the day, when I was working as a janitor and was getting paid to essentially play GBA and read Manga, and I’d buy so much Manga. So, so much. (Now I’m down to Yotsuba!& and xXxholic. And, I guess, Hourou Musuko, though that isn’t translated officially so I’m not buying it, perse. Oh, how I’ve changed.) I’d walk into Waldenbooks and they would have a sign that said “Buy four books of manga, get one free!” And I’d do it. Every time. Even when I only had, say, 2 titles I wanted. I’d buy five. Every time. I couldn’t pass up the deal, even though it was a shitty deal, and I was getting books I didn’t really want. I was awesome.

Now, Toys R Us and Amazon are both having Buy 2, Get 1 Free game deals, and I keep looking and looking for what to buy, and I can never find three. Instead of just buying something I didn’t need, I have, gasp, not purchased any games.

I’ve worried somewhat, since starting Gamefly, that I haven’t really cut down my game purchases THAT much. But then, when things like this come along, and I realize all the titles I could buy are all titles I was just going to rent, and there’s no good reason to change that plan? That really is like… $100 or so I’ve saved. That is savings. I am saving. I am doing better.
Probably.

It’s fall break!

Sort of!

Last week was so shitty, oh yes it was. I was so busy. I was so looking forward to this break. I’d get to sit back, relax, and play Brutal Legend. What more could you ask for? I even started it off on a good foot this past day, with a monster Beatles: Rock Band session where we actually took time out for Vocal practice to hit the harmonies. It was so sweet and so fun.

Now, I’m thinking about what I have to do this weekend, and I pretty well have work to do every day. I have a midterm I have to take, papers to grade, a teaching journal I should probably catch up on… suddenly, my break has disappeared.

Man, is this what it’s like to grow up? Fuck that shit. I dunno. Bleh blarg.

I mean, it’s not really as bad as it looks. The vague plan is to finish it all today, but I kind of doubt that will happen? So probably the midterm today and the grading Friday or something. It really won’t be that bad, and I’ll have plenty of time to take ample breaks. I just…
Man, I’ve really got myself into a fuck-ton of work, you know? I really have.
I’m making it. I’m surviving. But I really have.
Man.

Man, I continue to feel like I got really lucky having gotten into the Lucasarts adventure games and such. Every time I really get into looking at these Sierra adventure games, I go “Man, I am so glad I never tried to play one of those.” Well, okay, I tried to play the time travel Space Quest, but that went really shitty, so… makes me glad I didn’t continue to try.

Anyway, I watched a pretty good LP of King’s Quest V awhile back, and it made me feel the same way. This post is mostly to say, hey, feel free to check that out here. It’s pretty good.

But yeah, goodness. Some of the stuff in that game? So completely dumb. And I understand this was the start of games that had voice actors, but goodness.
Goodness.

Maybe if I’d been with King’s Quest the whole time. Maybe. But man, that game…
Just watch it, and be amazed at how random and nonsensical it is.

I do feel kind of bad, though. I saw a link to this LP in the thread for Sky Render’s LP of the game, and it’s probably going to make me not read it. Sky Render has done some awesome LP’s of this series of adventure games, called the Kyrandia series, that I didn’t even know existed. He’s pretty awesome. So you should give his LP a look, too. Or at least go back and read his other ones. They’re also worth your time.

There was this one time when the internet went out for a whole 10 minutes, and I got so mad that I went to Barnes and Noble. Once there, I spent too much money on books. One of the books I bought was Civilwarland in Bad Decline by George Saunders, because I seriously, seriously did like that story “Jon”, and wanted to read more.
Then, I read the book.

I’ll admit that this is the first book I’ve read solely for fun in… fuck, I have no idea. Since the last Harry Potter? (No, actually, I bet it was When You Are Engulfed In Flames by David Sedaris) And that was really more out of an obligation at that point, since the series had gotten so bad. I am such a horrible English Major… no, wait… English Grad Student now, I guess.
One of the reasons I felt like I could read this book for fun is because it’s a really small book. It’s not even 200 pages, and it’s not like the text is tiny of anything. One of the reasons I rarely read, besides not being willing to invest the time into a book I won’t like and then not knowing what I will and won’t like, is because it FEELS like this huge time commitment. Which I know is a lie, especially because I read so fast. But I dunno. Having a small book of short stories just felt right for my own entertainment, so I went for it.

The book itself consists of a few short stories and then a novella. The main theme of the whole thing seems to be “amusement parks.” The only story that doesn’t really fit this theme is “The 400 lb. CEO,” but it can almost count because they go to this crazy theme restaurant. Sort of. When I say “amusement parks,” though, think places much more surreal and fucked up. We’re talking the kind of places that would have “SafeOrgy” rooms and exhibits where an actual plate glass window is installed into a living, breathing cow so kids can see the insides. Those kinds of amusement parks.

I feel that nothing in this collection was anywhere near as good as “Jon,” which is a shame. That one just came together on such excellent conceptual and character arc levels. These stories tend to be of the same quality in concept, but seem to lack the extremely strong character arc that pays off in the end. The ideas and strange worlds are mostly worked through, but the characters showing us these worlds rarely get a satisfying conclusion. The best in this regard was probably “Offloading for Mrs. Schwartz,” but it was also the story with, perhaps, the least strange setting, so maybe that had something to do with it.
I did learn, however, that a lot, though not all, of the qualities that make the writing in “Jon” so offbeat are more elements of Mr. Saunders’ style than elements of Jon’s voice. Not that Jon doesn’t have a distinct voice, but it was simultaneously neat and kind of sad to learn he just normally writes like that. I love his voice! It’s neat! But it was also cooler when it was a very specific thing he adopted just for one story, you know?
I also learned Mr. Saunders really likes the work Milquetoast. Seriously, he used it like.. at least 4 times in this book. That’s rather a lot for a word like that.

Still, George Saunders is a really good writer. He’s great at creating internal monologue and has that excellent voice and neat ideas. I find myself coming away from the book a little frustrated, but that’s simply because so much of his work is so high quality that the flaws stand out. His characters in this book, especially in the novella at the end, really never get proper closure. The ride, however, is completely fun for all of them. You have a good time reading them. But it just feels like such a waste when, for example in the novella “Bounty” (Are novellas in quotes or italics? I’ll have to look that up sometime) the huge road trip that showed so much about this nearly apocalyptic world is ended in about a page and a little change. The main character makes it to his goal, but nothing really becomes of it. It was still a fun read, but it’s frustrating, because it would have been a significantly greater read still if it had paid off better.

I guess that’s essentially what I think about this book. Many great ideas that certainly could have paid off better, but was still fun enough to experience. I’m sure if you weren’t the kind of person who cares so deeply about characters above all else, like I am, you’d probably be in heaven with the world building of these stories, especially the novella. If it sounds interesting, certainly give it a read. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. But I’m not going to go crying out all over the place that you should check it out, either.

I bought another one of his collections, too, called Pastoralia. Maybe that one will be stronger? I suppose we’ll see sometime soon. I’m sure I’ll let you know when I read it.

In watching Zombieland, I learned something. I apparently subconsciously think that dark humor is not “genuine” or “real” humor.

I mean, that’s not true. Dark Humor can be totally and completely awesome. I enjoy dabbling in it from time to time. It also seems like a decent fit for a movie called Zombieland, as well. I mean, you’re obviously going to have some gore (And Zombieland doesn’t pull too many punches in that department) and death and whatnot. Dark Humor seems likely. Zombieland didn’t really go that way, though. What you find is a strong, character-based comedy set to the background of a Zombie Apocalypse for no reason other than Zombies are hot right now, I guess. (Also, why did I just capitalize Zombie Apocalypse?)

Seriously, the cast is very small. Just the four survivors. But they all do a really great job in being entertaining, but real people, which is just the perfect sort of combination. Tallahassee, Woody Harrelson’s character, is really the most “cartoonish” of the bunch, and is indeed the source of many of the strongest laughs in the film. At the same time, the movie makes sure to make him a real human being, and does so in a way that doesn’t seem all that forced or tacked on. It’s actually kind of nice, really.

So yeah, instead of humorous, over-the-top zombie kills, you have entertainment based on strong characters interacting. And it works well. And it involves a great cameo by a fucking awesome guy. So I totally, totally dug it.

A final note: They’re pushing a line as quotable in the ads, it seems, that of the mantra of “Nut up or Shut up.” This is not a memorable line. Seriously, one of the best lines of dialog in the entire movie is “Let me start the first part of my three-part apology by saying that you are a wonderful human being,” and I can totally see THAT being a quotable line. Conversations of Balls works alright in the movies, but man, who would actually say that?
Okay, so, people would. But nobody I know. Thankfully. Besides Spaeth. But he would probably say something completely different about balls.

I’m done now.