Happy Memorial Day!

I'm going to celebrate today with lots of hotdogs, hamburgers, and movies!

Hope everyone does the same :)

The Bachelor's Life

Ah, yes, the single life. As a guy, I've set up a nice bachelor pad and enjoy hanging with my buddies. Sometimes, though, I ponder my circumstances and wonder if I couldn't be doing something more to meet a nice girl?

I've given lots of thought to this lately, since one generally doesn't meet eligible partners of the opposite sex (or same sex, whatever you prefer) in one's mother's kitchen.

Yes, I've pulled the timeless classic; as an adult, I have now moved back in with my parents. My bachelor pad happens to be the spare bedroom.

It is a temporary arrangement as I hunt for a job and start saving up some cash now that I'm back State-side. (At least, that's what I reassuringly tell my parents. Personally, I wanna live as long as I possibly can! I cite Failure to Launch as a personal inspiration.)

This situation does, however, present a considerable amount of problems when it comes to dating.

Nor does it help that I don't actually have a cell-phone. So I give out my parents phone number, right? And when girls call, invariably during the one hour a week that I'm not actually in the house, playing video games, they're always confused by the answering machine which fails to mention me.

Oh, and I don't exactly have a car, so I'm always like "could you swing by and pick me up?" And as I mentioned before, I don't have a job yet. So like, I always have to make sure the girl is willing to pay for me. (I'm a modern man, freed from outdated concepts of gender roles!)

If things work out well, the lucky gal and I can come back to my (parents') place and sit on my bed, watching TV. Of course, the door has to stay open - house rules. "Aren't you 26 years old?" Yes, well, when you're not paying rent, you have to roll with the punches.

Most of the time, I get bored of TV and try to show them World of Warcraft. Which of course, by "show them" I mean "ignore them for". More often than not, when I log out for the evening they're nowhere to be seen. Mysteriously slipped off during the raid, apparently. Again.

Yes, life as an eligible bachelor is pretty sweet. I just wish I had more opportunities to bump into women in my daily life. You know, women who didn't give birth to me.

On Gaming Addiction

I first started hearing about video game addiction back during the early Evercrack days. It was blamed for at least one suicide, for countless divorces, and for several child neglect cases.

I was just a teenager at the time, and since I didn't venture outside of the family computer room very often, I wasn't particularly wise to the ways of the world. I didn't realize that everyone was looking to blame their problems on outside factors, and not on their own dumb-ass choices. What I did know was that the media seemed to be unfairly blaming a video game that had no undue influence over my own life.

I had arrived at the right conclusion by faulty reasoning. The way I saw it, there couldn't be an addiction because I myself had not been addicted. I would eventually learn about how different people do have addictive personalities and can indeed get hooked on video games.

But I was dead right on the media's unfairness. The ratings-mongers saw a sensational story in video game addiction, and they set about demonizing it as a threat against the nation's children! What's so effed about this is how video games are far less addicting than cigarettes, alcohol, gambling, and most illegal drugs.

It just depends on the personality.

I am happily blessed with a personality that allows me to play games that I love for 12 hours a day if I have nothing better to do, but at the same time if I have a social life (which, at this time, I do not) or a job (nothing happening there either) then I could easily control my gaming so that it wouldn't prevent me from having fun, hanging with friends, or getting enough sleep to feel well-rested the next day. (I mean, 100% experience bonus? Totally worth being well-rested!)

Speaking of WoW, I started playing again recently, and it has caused some of my friends (who had also quit) no small amount of strife. A few of them have become worried that they might be lured back as well, and they apparently lack that control which helps regulate how much time one chooses to spend with a particular vice.

How about you? Are you in control of your gaming, or do you have an addictive personality type such that you have to carefully avoid playing games that are "too fun"?

Lost Series Finale (Spoilers a-plenty!)

Well, I watched the Lost series finale! It was pretty amazing and I felt really happy with how it ended. Not everyone agrees with me, but I felt like it was a great ending to a great series.

Warning: Spoilers Ahead!




So basically, not every question was answered. In my opinion, the show was never about the mysteries as much as it was about the characters. And in wrapping up the story about these people, they did a very good job.

I love how the alternate time-line worked out. I love the overall realism inherent in the depiction of the way things are, and how they managed to make it optimistic at the same time.

The recent episode that gave us the history of the Man in Black and Jacob was one of my least favorites. I don't care about those characters, and I don't care that much about the island's mysteries. Things are the way they are, and it takes the fun out of something when you go and explain it all. In fact, that's probably the thing I liked most about that episode; the lack of clear-cut explanation.

I find it very interesting that all of my friends are split pretty evenly about their enjoyment of that episode. Some loved it for providing many answers, and others (like myself) didn't care about it because we want the story to keep focusing on the characters we know and love.

Kind of like how a lot of people were getting upset with Robert Jordan, may he rest in peace, for continually introducing and developing new characters in his Wheel of Time series while not advancing the well-developed characters' various plots. (Nonetheless, still an amazing series and perhaps my favorite. I highly recommend you get started if you haven't read it thus far!)

It will be interesting to see if approval for the series finale follows along the lines of love/hate for the MiB/Jacob episode, but with opposite representation.

Now I suppose its time to start watching one of the new series that people have been recommending. V, perhaps? (Gotta love anything with Morena Baccarin in it!)

Playing God

I woke up this morning thinking "What on earth am I gonna blog about?"

Of course, as soon as I went online I was bombarded with the news about artificial life actually being realized.

Huh.

Well, I will say that I'm not the least bit surprised at all the hullabaloo. I am a bit surprised at the Catholic Church's reaction, with a cautious approval given the appropriate constraints. That is far more progressive and forward-looking than I've ever come to expect from the Vatican.

On the other hand, all the uproar from various groups claiming that this is Pandora's Box... well, I will grant that it very well could be. There's always that possibility. But I'm just not as worried as they think I should be. Call me a Modernist, but I put more faith in humanity's capacity than most groups would like to believe. Especially the religious types, who believe God, in his/her/its divine wisdom, created human beings to suck. Awesome.

I don't think progress happens without taking steps towards the future. This seems like an appropriate baby-step into the world of genetic engineering. And given the political fallout, I feel like it had to come from a relatively independent scientist. Hopefully from now on, it can be regulated and become mainstream, with the end result being a capacity to cure genetic diseases.

Or maybe it'll be with a small terrorist group able to wipe out the human race.

Either way, I feel like Earth will be better off for it. :)

Gamer Skills

So, as I said last time, Mom's learning to play a new type of game. The experience of helping her learn the controls and all has really brought to my attention the vast amount of worthless skills I've picked up in my lifelong career as a dedicated gamer.

It also reveals to me why the industry tends to be rather unwelcoming of newcomers. Almost all games are designed with an assumption that you know the basics. Sure, they always have that introduction of the key binds in the opening level, but nonetheless if you have never played that type of game before, the learning curve is steep!

I never noticed this myself, because I'm already equipped with the skills necessary to start playing just about any game and intuitively understand its controls due to my vast experience in almost every genre.

I also enjoy games such as the Grand Theft Auto series, where you have a world to explore. Learning to find my way around such games has, I sincerely believe, helped me to develop a better sense of direction.

Playing Everquest through high school and early college helped me to develop my typing skills; I can type over 90 wpm nowadays!

What skills has playing video games given you?

Video Games and Mom

Although this is over a week late, I thought that in honor of Mother's Day I might share the tale of my lifelong efforts to get my mother involved in video games.

At a tender age, I got Dr. Mario for Christmas (at my excited and persistent request.) Of course, I just thought it was another Mario game... not realizing this was more akin to Tetris. It turned out to be far more more fun for my mother than it ever was for me, and she began enjoying the occasional use of video games.

Flash forward to a summer during my college years, where I was having one last hoorah with Civilization 3 before Civ 4 was released. She expressed the tiniest glimmer of interest in what I was playing, and without wasting any time at all I promptly installed it onto her laptop and showed her how to access the tutorial.

Needless to say, the jump from simple-puzzle game to complex-turn-based-strategy wasn't an easy transition. She had me sit and help her play through a few maps, and she took copious notes. I discovered these notes tucked away in the Civ 3 instruction manual the other day, as I was sorting through some old stuff in the attic. I fondly remembered my mother's brief foray into the world of gaming, and thought "it is a shame she gave up."

Then, a thought popped into my head: "Isn't Portal free for the month, to celebrate Steamwork's Mac release? And doesn't my mother have a nice Mac?" So I told her if she wanted, I could download a free game for her and she expressed interest. Thus began my mother's journey into the realm of nausea and motion sickness that prevents her from playing more than 90 minutes at a time. Haha, but to her credit, she's doing extremely well for someone unused to the WASD/Mouselook movement schema.

I have to say, I'm proud of my mother's propensity to give my favorite hobby a try, and hope that this time I can entice her with enough easy puzzle games that her new hobby sticks.

I think I'll save Civ V for after she masters the basics, though.

How far is too far?

This here is a bit old, but I've been meaning to mention it.

In April, a militia-group was rounded up and placed under arrest for planning to shoot up a bunch of police officers. There was a debate over whether to release them or not, since their case was mostly based on speech alone, with no definitive plan of action to show intent.

On the other hand, if you arrest a group of radical militants that meet together to talk about how the government holds tyranny over their lives, and that the only way to stop it is to become martyrs in a grand gesture of multiple murders, then you let them go free briefly before their trial... does this not give them incentive to believe their views and furthermore give them no reason to not act on them?

I believe in the protections of free speech, and I don't believe in locking people up for no good reason... but I also recognize a need for public safety.

I just don't know how to think on this one. What about you?

A rant on American Judeo-Christian extremism

After watching last night's episode of LOST (whew... intense!) I thought this would be funny to share. Press The Buttons seems like a fun site, I'd encourage you to check it out if you have some time to kill. And you obviously do, because you're reading my useless drivel! ;)

If you're less into video games and more interested in scary political realities, then maybe you could waste some time at the Texas Freedom Network instead. Texas terrifies me. They are seriously re-writing history under the guise of correcting a liberal bias, and their public school textbooks will now be ingraining generations of young Americans with highly slanted, politically conservative views on history. I don't identify myself as "right" or "left," "Democrat" or "Republican", and I personally hate hate hate the two-party system and how it polarizes Americans. It seems like a castration of the brains.

Every time I see "straight party vote" options, I rage. There is such a huge range of issues that everyone seems to ignore.

There is so much demonization of the "other side", whichever side you're on. People that disagree with you about what's best for our country are obviously trying to attack you and your way of life. It is so ridiculously divisive, and splits people fairly evenly into two equally stupid camps of fanatical extremism.

I wish I could believe that a wealthy elite enclave that rules from the shadows created this system to make people easier to rule over... but sadly, I'm convinced that it is truly just an ignorance developed by ourselves, with no grand Sith Lord's manipulations that brought about such a state of affairs.

In any case, let me say that I hate extremism on both ends of the spectrum, but the recent Texas decision regarding their public school text books seems like something Orwellian. There is no real "debate" about America being founded on secular principles, most especially the separation of Church and State, by Deists. They weren't Christians, and they didn't want America to be a Christian nation. There's no debate.

Anyone that says otherwise is perverting historical fact in order to push a religious agenda. Doing so seriously threatens the very freedom that America espouses as sacred. Yet they can't see their hypocrisy, nor envision why it would possibly be a bad thing to force Christian mantra as a State institution. Sheria Law is a lot harsher, but at the same time it seems to me like a slippery slope.

I might just go back to Japan if this type of religious extremism continues to spread.

Nintedo's Next Big Thing

When I saw this article in the Japan Times, I knew I wanted to share it with my vast legions of readers.

I've previously written about my views on piracy, as well as a treatise on Nintendo being the only true innovator in the gaming console industry, so I'm aware that I'm in danger of repeating myself.

I merely offer this under-development hand-held featuring 3D capabilities (which do not require special eye-wear) as further proof that Nintendo is the only company that's doing any real innovation. The others merely continue to make consoles more graphically powerful, but for reasons unknown do not seem to possess the creative spark necessary to do something meaningfully different with subsequent generations of their products.

As far as the undisclosed anti-piracy measures they mention, I'd say that makes a good deal of sense. Outside of the States, there's an incredibly popular underground product called the R4. It is a small DS-game-sized cartridge with a slot for a micro SD memory card, and includes a USB port for the memory card. You download pirated DS game roms, transfer them onto the memory card (which also contains the R4 firmware), thus enabling you to play whatever games you want without having to go through the trouble of actually paying for said intellectual property.

It is big business in Asia; I recall street vendors in Osaka selling them every few blocks in the electronics district. They used to be widely available in actual stores, but they've been driven underground due to a crackdown by Nintendo. Supposedly they're a big ticket item in Europe as well. I'm not surprised that Nintendo views this as a major threat to their revenue, and it does seem rather unfair that the developers of the R4 are making a tidy profit by selling a means to easily steal the hard labor of game developers.

I vaguely wonder if human morality will catch up to the concept of intellectual property at some point during my lifetime?

Nostalgia: Exosquad

I'm not sure if anyone remembers Exosquad, but it was one of my favorite TV shows as a child. It dealt with a lot of mature issues, including: the ethics of "playing god", racism and the fight for acceptance, death and loss, working hard towards your goals, perseverance, teamwork, religion, and politics.

That's a lot to throw into what is nominally a kid's show, eh? But I remember it resonating within me, because even as a kid I got the idea that the world wasn't as rosy as the other kids' shows would have me believe.

One of my favorite things about Exosquad was how it avoided painting a simplistic "good verses evil" schema; they went out of their way to show that the "bad guys" were actually treated very poorly and were unfairly oppressed when they rose up to fight against humanity.

I'm sadly not familiar with modern day kids' cartoons, but I hope that there's at least one similar show out there that can help the young'ins get a head start on understanding and being ready to deal with so many heavy issues.

If you're interested in watching it, either for the first time (bear in mind it is a kids' show and furthermore its from the 90s...) or else for nostalgia's sake, you can find them here thanks to Hulu.

On a different note, we have yet another "my hot beverage was hot" lawsuit, this time against Starbucks. I swear, historians will refer to our time period as either the age of liability or the age of entitlement. Either way, I find it kind of embarrassing.

I'm off to my last undergrad final ever!

Cinco de Mayo

A Californian columnist thinks that Americans should stop celebrating Cinco de Mayo.

I completely disagree with him.

Don't get me wrong; I have no illusions that when we celebrate Cinco de Mayo, it has anything to do with a Mexican military victory against French imperialists.

We just celebrate it because its fun. In the same vein that we celebrate St. Patty's day, even though most of us aren't Irish. Or how many non-Christians celebrate Easter & Christmas. And many non-pagans celebrate Halloween. And on, and on, and on.

Holidays are about having fun, and one thing I love about Americans is that we don't really need much of an excuse to create a very in-depth holiday replete with very specific traditions and ways to celebrate.

Anyways, this Gringo's off to enjoy some drunken revelry at my local Mexican restaurant!

Early May already?

Well, I'm afraid that my post on procrastination will have to wait. I've been consumed with writing a research paper for over a good 72 hours straight now, and am very nearly finished.

In order to not offend your sensibilities of fairness, I shall try to offer this tidbit; Greece's financial meltdown might just result in a civil war. I figure its either that or the rise of an ultra-nationalistic fascist government.

Disagree? Chime in with your own predictions.

Also, I found this bit of news to be not at all biased! I've always been quite skeptical of the supplement industry, myself. It seems like most Americans think they can eat McDonald's three meals a day for seven days a week, but as long as they also take Echinacea that their health situation should balance out.

I remain unconvinced of the claims made by the supplement industry, especially when compared to the facts presented by a more reputable source.

Speaking of Mayo: I'll see you on Cinco de Mayo, my faithful readers.