The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

Feeling as shitty as I do, it can be easy to forget the nice things in my life. It can be easy to forget the completely fucking awesome people who make my life not only bearable, but also a joy. It can be hard to see through the darkness I find myself in and then write about dramatically. I have trouble. I’ve been having trouble. I will probably continue to have trouble.

Thanksgiving is a day when I’m supposed to take the time to see through all that, and really figure out how wonderful what I have is. It is wonderful. Things suck, but are also wonderful. That’s the paradox.

Brer, I love you. Thanks for putting up with me, because you see the worst of me. There’s a reason I want to stick with you. There’s a reason I call you my boyfriend.
Cris, I love you. You’re fantastic.I worry I don’t do enough for you. I don’t see you as often as I’d like, but every time, it’s a joy. I look forward to it.
Ecks, I love you. I see you even less, but dammit, you’re still a fantastic friend.
Jonathan, I love you. You’re my brother, and I’m so glad you’re making this important steps in your life, and feeling good about them. I hope I’m not letting my stupidity cloud your fantastic moments. I’ll always be there for you.
Essner, I love you. I cannot ever measure how much better my life is because you’re in it. Thank you for being such a fantastic friend, and for being almost solely responsible for getting me out of my shell.
Spaeth, I love you. You’re silly and crazy, but you’re also so fucking genuine. You’re a wonderful person to the core. Don’t ever let that change.
Kale, I love you. Your constant reminders make me feel so special. You make me feel like someone good and important. I hope I return the favor.
Molly, I love you. You’re my dog. Every time you greet me when I come home late, with such innocent affection, I want to cry.
Mom, Dad, I love you. I know we’re not on the same page at all. I know things are horrible between us. But they’re only hard because we all care so much for each other. We’ll survive somehow.
Grandmas, Grandpa, I love you. As I get busier, I get to interact with you less. I’m sorry. Heh, it’s hard to stay above water sometimes. But I know you’re there for me. You’ve done so much for me.
Every other wonderful friend I have, I love you. I’m sorry I can’t call all of you out by name. Heh, gotta wrap this up and get to class, actually, preferably without the tears currently in my eyes. But hell, just reading this, you make me feel special. You make me feel not alone.

I am not alone.

I’d do well to remember that.

Thank you all, and Happy Turkey Day.

Today I’m going to talk about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1.

No, not the movie. The video game.

First off, I guess I need to justify why I have even played such an amazingly awful game. Well, the answer to that is fairly simple. Basically, I thought the idea would create a mediocre but playable experience. I have always been of the opinion that, if you’re going to make a tie-in movie game on a low budget, you might as well steal mechanics directly from other good games, so that the game will at least play decently well. Death Hollow One seemed to be doing this: it was being called Gears of Potter, and was supposed to be a third-person, cover-based shooter. That’s pretty easy to get into a passable state. I had confidence it might happen.
The other main reason is that, even though I certainly bitch about it and point out its flaws an awful lot, I really do enjoy Harry Potter. It’s kind of stupid in a lot of ways, and there are a lot of writing problems, but it’s also pretty fun, if you just go along for the ride. I’d enjoy running around shooting Death Eaters, right? Maybe?

Anyway, so I randomly put it on the top of my Gamefly, and Gamefly sent it out to me. I played it for an evening and put it down, because oh man, is it awful.

Let me explain to you the situation where I stopped. I was sneaking into the Ministry of Magic. I had to do a horrible stealth section, where I then picked up some information. Then, immediately after that, I got swarmed by death eaters and about 3 dementors. I could not defeat these guys, even on easy, because there was nowhere to take cover. I though, for a second, that maybe I was supposed to sneak past them, but every time I picked up the information, I got kicked out of my invisibility cloak and everyone was alerted to me, and every time I died, I had to redo the stealth part.

Everything that’s not shooting dudes in the game is really awful. The sneaking under the “power draining for no reason” invisibility cloak is boring at worst and frustrating at best. The “walk around and talk to people to solve puzzles” would be cool, except there aren’t puzzles, and you’re walking around in tiny hallways with only one way to go. It’s pointless and time consuming.

The shooting is, unfortunately, not much better. Wands don’t have any kickback, which makes all the spells feel really weak. Plus, they all are. Stupefy is really your only combat option. You get other spells, but they do what Stupefy does, but with more cooldown, or less accuracy. It’s really pointless to use any other offensive spell. In addition, it’s impossible to hit anything unless you “aim,” which actually just locks on to targets. However, if those targets are moving, at all, Harry can’t hit them, even when locked on. It’s ridiculous, and not the Bogart-related spell.

On top of all this, the graphics are nightmare-inducing. The characters are drowning in the uncanny valley. They’re too realistic while being too stiff. They creep the fuck out, and not in a good way. The enemies, which you might want to be creepy, are always so far away that they aren’t. It’s always Harry, Ron, and Hermione who are creeping me the fuck out.

Yeah, this game is horrible, and this experiment with licensed games is over. It was silly of me to think it would be a passable weekend distraction, I suppose. Now I know, though. Maybe Part 2 will iron out the problems, because the core idea is still fine. Shootdude in Harry Potter Land is an idea I can get behind. However, I doubt it will come together into something vaguely playable, and I probably won’t check it out to see.

I don’t want to brag, but I am now a bartender, apparently. I even have the .jpeg to prove it, as you can see. How did I earn such obviously official training? Why, by playing Nimble Strong: Bartender in Training, of course.

Nimble Strong is a fascinating game, since it is in a fairly small group. Here’s a game that’s actually entertaining that teaches you a potentially useful set of stuff, much like, say, the majesty of Typing of the Dead. While you aren’t mixing the drinks for real on your iPhone, of course, you are having to memorize the names and recipes of many drinks in order to succeed in mixing them in the time-crunch scenarios the game puts you in. You can always look at your little book to read the ingredients while playing, of course, but you have to look at the book in real time, and eventually taking too long to review will cause you to not have enough time to mix the drinks properly. It really does start to make you learn the various drink types, and once you finish with the story, a “survival” mode lets you quiz yourself by constantly throwing drink orders at you, outside of the story, and without being able to look at your book of ingredients.
The only thing, gameplay-wise, that bothers me is the Recipe book you have outside the game. There’s a menu option to just let you look at the book, to help mix your own drinks. However, you have to unlock them with the tip money you get from playing the game. This seems needlessly game-y. It would be much more useful, if I was going to actually attempt to mix drinks, to simply have that reference always available for IRL situations.

The story elements of the game are acceptable, although not particularly amazing. The website promises an “epic storyline,” which it really isn’t. At the same time, it does a decent job. It’s obvious from the title and character design that the game is trying to steal some style from Phoenix Wright, and it does that to an extent. The characters are interesting enough to keep you from being completely bored in the story segments, though aren’t spectacular, perse.

Still, if you’re the sort who’d like to learn how to make these drinks, this game seems like a fantastic purchase. I had fun just with the game aspects of it, though perhaps it was a bit pricey, considering I’m probably not learning anything that will ever be of use to me. However, if you were to drink, I think this is a great way to learn the basics. Wrapping it up in a game just makes sense, and it is fun. It’s worth a look, anyway.

I am fucking exhausted.

Like, I have no energy today. Most of the time, when I’m tired, I can still function, you know? I’ve been completely useless.

I guess the logic is that I had a lot wrapped up in getting that Bachelor party done, and now that it’s over with, and the crunch “have to do things” time is over, my body is just kind of shutting down. That’s fair enough, I suppose. Still, what’s up with those whole having a corporeal form that I have to take care of bullshit? So bullshit. When do I get to be a being that exists purely on the internet? When’s that happening? Come on, science. Pick up the fucking pace, here.

Anyway, expect, say, horrible reviews of Harry Potter and the Hallow Death The First, and Nimble Strong, and shit like that this week as we lead up to the giving of Thanks. For now, don’t look at me, look to Kris Straub. He’s a funny dude, and I recently learned that he is youtube celeb. His Youtube status is kind of old, but still really hilarious if you’re the sort who enjoys, say, his work on Tweet Me Harder. I mean, look. Here he is being a hard-boiled cop on the streets! And here he is dispensing valuable job-seeking advice. How could you not enjoy this?

Anyway, I’m going back to bed. Maybe after sleeping okay, I’ll be feeling better for the additional dentistry I’ll be dealing with tomorrow. ONE NEVER KNOWS.

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.

That’s right! I’m phoning it in! Since, uh, it’s almost today as I write this, and I was already in bed, about to go to sleep, when I remembered I hadn’t written anything.

So!

Uh.

Here’s some entertaining things to watch.

I’ve been watching this New Super Mario Brothers Wii LP for awhile now. It’s entertaining, if mostly just chaos. Just like the game is with that many players! It’s kind of fun to get a little of the feeling that many players would give you without actually getting that many people over. I don’t think I could get a group that would be, you know, committed to playing through it like these guys. We’d have fun for awhile, but that would be it. They were dedicated! Check it out.

Also, Phen linked me to this MST3K short I hadn’t seen before. It’s got a humor. Watch that too.

I’ll write something tommorow! Promise! Hopefully.
(Whew. Crisis averted. Shitty content made. Back to bed.)

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.