This story, taken from (I think Reuters?), is probably the most articulate description of a New York Yankees fan, ever published. Go Sox.
BOOSH.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Getting Sick
Christ I think I'm getting sick.
Fuck.
Since I got up to take this watch at 2330 I've felt like total shit: my nose has been running harder than a black guy from a paternity suit, my head feels as swollen as it does normally due to my ego, and I just feel run down as if someone just spent an afternoon beating the shit out of me with a pillowcase filled with sodas.
I hate getting sick, and for the most part I almost never get ill. My immune system is like brigade of super intelligent, hot-shotting-anabolic-steriods-into-their-eyeball old-school Russian troops standing the line at Leningrad, fending off the invading Nazis with their bare fists. So in the rare times that I do get sick, I'm usually taken off my feet with good measure.
What makes matters worse is that I'm at work. Nothing's worse than being sick at work. For the typical person, you slug it out for eight hours and you get to go home, or even better, call out. In m case, I'm at "work" for up to fifty hours at a go. When I'm sick, I like to lay in bed, read, eat crackers, watch tv, jerk off, and nap in that order. It's part of my healing process.
And obviously I can't do that here.
And what compounds this further is the fact that my girlfriend basically doesn't have an immune system of her own. Her's is as frail as the bird's that flew into a sliding glass door. It's bad enough that right now her roommate is dying on a couch in her living room; and now her one safe-haven (my place) is going to be crawling with death and disease as well.
She's going to be pissed. Great.
I think I know how I got sick: We were working on one of the boats tonight, doing some fire-fighting training. I got wet. I wasn't wearing a hat over my skull. I then, being that I was "roasting" in my mustang, stripped down to just my t shirt and the mustang bottoms and walked the quarter mile back to the station from the end of the pier, wet and sweaty, with a light breeze.
I rack out for a few hours to rest up before the mids, and when I wake up my head is congested. I'm sitting up on the side of my bed, letting all the snot drain out of my face, thinking to myself "nice going, kid."
So to The Lady, who will read this in a few hours, "sorry luvy, hopefully I'll be better by Wenesday afternoon..." and to everyone else, go screw. I'm sick and authorized to be slightly more crabby than usual.
Fuck.
Since I got up to take this watch at 2330 I've felt like total shit: my nose has been running harder than a black guy from a paternity suit, my head feels as swollen as it does normally due to my ego, and I just feel run down as if someone just spent an afternoon beating the shit out of me with a pillowcase filled with sodas.
I hate getting sick, and for the most part I almost never get ill. My immune system is like brigade of super intelligent, hot-shotting-anabolic-steriods-into-their-eyeball old-school Russian troops standing the line at Leningrad, fending off the invading Nazis with their bare fists. So in the rare times that I do get sick, I'm usually taken off my feet with good measure.
What makes matters worse is that I'm at work. Nothing's worse than being sick at work. For the typical person, you slug it out for eight hours and you get to go home, or even better, call out. In m case, I'm at "work" for up to fifty hours at a go. When I'm sick, I like to lay in bed, read, eat crackers, watch tv, jerk off, and nap in that order. It's part of my healing process.
And obviously I can't do that here.
And what compounds this further is the fact that my girlfriend basically doesn't have an immune system of her own. Her's is as frail as the bird's that flew into a sliding glass door. It's bad enough that right now her roommate is dying on a couch in her living room; and now her one safe-haven (my place) is going to be crawling with death and disease as well.
She's going to be pissed. Great.
I think I know how I got sick: We were working on one of the boats tonight, doing some fire-fighting training. I got wet. I wasn't wearing a hat over my skull. I then, being that I was "roasting" in my mustang, stripped down to just my t shirt and the mustang bottoms and walked the quarter mile back to the station from the end of the pier, wet and sweaty, with a light breeze.
I rack out for a few hours to rest up before the mids, and when I wake up my head is congested. I'm sitting up on the side of my bed, letting all the snot drain out of my face, thinking to myself "nice going, kid."
So to The Lady, who will read this in a few hours, "sorry luvy, hopefully I'll be better by Wenesday afternoon..." and to everyone else, go screw. I'm sick and authorized to be slightly more crabby than usual.
Monday, May 5, 2008
The Roommate and The Prostitute from Friendly's
"You eat like a soldier," The Lady says as she sits next to me at the counter of a homey diner in Orleans while I'm digging into a stack of pancakes. I keep my head down as I eat, shoveling food thoughtlessly into my gullet, chewing, sipping coffee, intent on my next delicious morsale, not taking the time to enjoy the one that's currently in my mouth.
I bring this up because we tend to go out to eat alot. It somewhat burns me up that I'll drop a hundred bucks on groceries at ... sigh... Shaw's, and then go drop another 50 on dinner with The Lady and The RM.
So this takes us to last night: We three are sitting at the local Friendly's at The RM's behest and being served by a reasonably attractive blonde. The Lady remarks about how attractive she is to the RM, who is turning red with each passing minute.
A long discussion is had about my RM's lack of balls. We, The Lady and I, keep provoking him to ask for her number and he's still acting like himself, not taking intiative - yet complaining about how he's going to go through life lonely and sad....
It makes for a very tiresome evening meal.
So fast foward to the end of the meal and the RM's all nervous... he asks us, me and The Lady, to step out and get a smoke and we do so. He then mans up and gets the digits from the waitress while forging my name on the receipt. He exits the Friendly's smiling ear to ear, and it seems like everything in the world is right for once.
So again, fast forward and I'm in bed right at that point where you're about to fall into a delightful slumber, when in busts my RM, panic-stricken.
"Dude, I texted that girl..." He says. We had given him explicitly strict orders not to make contact with her for at least the night.
"Why?" As I'm laying face down on my bed.
"Well she text me back," he manuavers around the question, "and told me to lose her number, because we didn't tip her!" I can hear the panic in his voice so I look up, half push up style.
"What? Why didn't you tip her?!" I'm somewhat angry... well agitated mostly, by this news and as well as being interupted as I'm close to sleeping. But importantly, I'm somewhat pissed at the fact that we didn't tip this waitress, because I'm very fond of tipping, and tipping well. So the idea of this waitress (she was a shitty waitress though, had a whole lot of attitude...) going without a tip got under my skin.
"I thought The Lady was leaving a cash tip!" What had happened was that we had discussed seperate bills and a cash tip during the meal, but I just said 'fuck it' and opted to pay for everyone on my card because it was easier. The Lady had taken out some cash to leave towards the tip but I told her to put it away. Hence all the confusion.
So at this point, the RM is up in arms and freaking out. I tell him, rather grumpily to forget about it, "if she's so into the money, then why would you be interested in her at all?" I say from my pillow. He closes my door and goes to bed.
...So I think....
Turns out, right after that, the RM takes off to an ATM, gets twenty bucks in cash, and with a note places it in an envelope and shoots back over to the Friendly's as it's closing. He manages to talk his way inside and confronts the waitress giving her the envelope.
"I threw it in her face," he goes on to tell me this morning, "like an OG would."
She text messages him back shortly there after apologizing for her gold-digger-like first impression and they set up a date for a movie.
Now, what hits a couple of key sour notes in this tale is that, 1) where did my roommate's balls suddenly come in, where he would march back into an closed establishment, and pull of this Jack Bauer-like stunt? Especially without witnesses. And then! And then! I check my bank balance this morning online and see that Friendly's took out 58 dollars from my checking account last night. ...I remember distinctly that the bill for the three of us was 49.00 even. So where did this extra 7 dollars come from?
Either the RM actually did leave a tip (a seven dollar tip seems about on point for what he'd leave) and this entire story is a farse, or the little prostitute took it upon herself to help herself to a tip. If that's the case I plan on filing a complaint with the Friendly's.
Allow me to go off on a brief tangent: Being that service industry folks make like 3.50 an hour, they depend on tips. I understand this, and my heart goes out to the hard working waiters and waitresses that literally slave for customers like me. That's why I try to over tip as often as possible, even when the service isn't what I'd consider up to par. That's the situation we had last night. The waitress, the RM's apparent new paramour was lifeless, sarcastic and unpleasant. I thought her waitressing sucked. She dropped plates in front of us, had very little enthusiasm when taking our orders and had zero personality. All that said, since she was taking care of three of us on one bill, I would've left her probably a ten or twelve dollar tip.
If the case is that she tipped herself, thinking we were cheapskates, she had no right. No tip or gratuity is considered a guarentee. You EARN a good tip, and you do so by being polite, friendly, a little outgoing, etc. I'm not asking her to adorn flair and sing happy birthday songs and stand on her fucking head, I'm just asking for decent service, maybe with a little less sarcasm/spit in my food.
Also, if she told the RM to lose her number, would it be conceivible that she would've deleted his as well? How would she have been able to text him as he was leaving?
So, what's it going to be in the end? I need to sit down and grill my RM about all of this and get down to brass tacks. If he tipped her out I need to know if his whole story is make-believe or not. If that's the case then I'll sit down with him and have a man-to-man about making shit up. If it turns out his side of the story is true, than I know of a local Friendly's that'll have a 'help wanted' sign posted in their front window, very soon.
I bring this up because we tend to go out to eat alot. It somewhat burns me up that I'll drop a hundred bucks on groceries at ... sigh... Shaw's, and then go drop another 50 on dinner with The Lady and The RM.
So this takes us to last night: We three are sitting at the local Friendly's at The RM's behest and being served by a reasonably attractive blonde. The Lady remarks about how attractive she is to the RM, who is turning red with each passing minute.
A long discussion is had about my RM's lack of balls. We, The Lady and I, keep provoking him to ask for her number and he's still acting like himself, not taking intiative - yet complaining about how he's going to go through life lonely and sad....
It makes for a very tiresome evening meal.
So fast foward to the end of the meal and the RM's all nervous... he asks us, me and The Lady, to step out and get a smoke and we do so. He then mans up and gets the digits from the waitress while forging my name on the receipt. He exits the Friendly's smiling ear to ear, and it seems like everything in the world is right for once.
So again, fast forward and I'm in bed right at that point where you're about to fall into a delightful slumber, when in busts my RM, panic-stricken.
"Dude, I texted that girl..." He says. We had given him explicitly strict orders not to make contact with her for at least the night.
"Why?" As I'm laying face down on my bed.
"Well she text me back," he manuavers around the question, "and told me to lose her number, because we didn't tip her!" I can hear the panic in his voice so I look up, half push up style.
"What? Why didn't you tip her?!" I'm somewhat angry... well agitated mostly, by this news and as well as being interupted as I'm close to sleeping. But importantly, I'm somewhat pissed at the fact that we didn't tip this waitress, because I'm very fond of tipping, and tipping well. So the idea of this waitress (she was a shitty waitress though, had a whole lot of attitude...) going without a tip got under my skin.
"I thought The Lady was leaving a cash tip!" What had happened was that we had discussed seperate bills and a cash tip during the meal, but I just said 'fuck it' and opted to pay for everyone on my card because it was easier. The Lady had taken out some cash to leave towards the tip but I told her to put it away. Hence all the confusion.
So at this point, the RM is up in arms and freaking out. I tell him, rather grumpily to forget about it, "if she's so into the money, then why would you be interested in her at all?" I say from my pillow. He closes my door and goes to bed.
...So I think....
Turns out, right after that, the RM takes off to an ATM, gets twenty bucks in cash, and with a note places it in an envelope and shoots back over to the Friendly's as it's closing. He manages to talk his way inside and confronts the waitress giving her the envelope.
"I threw it in her face," he goes on to tell me this morning, "like an OG would."
She text messages him back shortly there after apologizing for her gold-digger-like first impression and they set up a date for a movie.
Now, what hits a couple of key sour notes in this tale is that, 1) where did my roommate's balls suddenly come in, where he would march back into an closed establishment, and pull of this Jack Bauer-like stunt? Especially without witnesses. And then! And then! I check my bank balance this morning online and see that Friendly's took out 58 dollars from my checking account last night. ...I remember distinctly that the bill for the three of us was 49.00 even. So where did this extra 7 dollars come from?
Either the RM actually did leave a tip (a seven dollar tip seems about on point for what he'd leave) and this entire story is a farse, or the little prostitute took it upon herself to help herself to a tip. If that's the case I plan on filing a complaint with the Friendly's.
Allow me to go off on a brief tangent: Being that service industry folks make like 3.50 an hour, they depend on tips. I understand this, and my heart goes out to the hard working waiters and waitresses that literally slave for customers like me. That's why I try to over tip as often as possible, even when the service isn't what I'd consider up to par. That's the situation we had last night. The waitress, the RM's apparent new paramour was lifeless, sarcastic and unpleasant. I thought her waitressing sucked. She dropped plates in front of us, had very little enthusiasm when taking our orders and had zero personality. All that said, since she was taking care of three of us on one bill, I would've left her probably a ten or twelve dollar tip.
If the case is that she tipped herself, thinking we were cheapskates, she had no right. No tip or gratuity is considered a guarentee. You EARN a good tip, and you do so by being polite, friendly, a little outgoing, etc. I'm not asking her to adorn flair and sing happy birthday songs and stand on her fucking head, I'm just asking for decent service, maybe with a little less sarcasm/spit in my food.
Also, if she told the RM to lose her number, would it be conceivible that she would've deleted his as well? How would she have been able to text him as he was leaving?
So, what's it going to be in the end? I need to sit down and grill my RM about all of this and get down to brass tacks. If he tipped her out I need to know if his whole story is make-believe or not. If that's the case then I'll sit down with him and have a man-to-man about making shit up. If it turns out his side of the story is true, than I know of a local Friendly's that'll have a 'help wanted' sign posted in their front window, very soon.
Friday, May 2, 2008
Best Of: May 2006
This was my very first "unmailed letters" article (there'd go on to be about five installments, each getting angrier I think...) so I thought it'd be nice to show you guys what was pissing me off roughly two years ago.
Hope you enjoy!
Hope you enjoy!
Often times people say that if you have a problem with something, you should write a letter, but not mail it. It helps get all the anger out. Well, for the first time ever, exclusive to this blog, here are some of my more favorite Unmailed Letters....
To the white trash family that lives at the top of the street:
Good morning, crackers! It's your neighbor James, you might remember me from a few weeks ago when I came over to politely ask you to stop having the three of your nineteen kids that drive, to stop driving so fast up and down the street in their shitty cars? Do you remember that? Remember how I even identified myself as a Peace Officer, and we shook hands? You were shirtless at the time, and presumably barefoot as well. Your smaller children were scattered all over your makeshift property? They had dirty clothes and dirty faces? You smelled like burning marijuana?
Anyway, I just wanted to let you know how much I love being ignored! Even more so, I wanted to let you know how much I love the fact that you also ignore safety on a regular basis! I love how your property is littered with shitty cars, some running, some not. I love how you all decide to use our tiny street as your personal drag strip! I love hearing the shitty loud exhaust at all hours! I love how you keep me from maybe taking a 45 minute long nap by racing up and down the street all day. Also, that tinny whine from that mini bike you ride, which is illegally unregistered and illegally operated by an unlicensed individual, makes my ears bleed. So thank you for ruining some of my more favorite t shirts with a fad toy from two years ago that you just got off of lay-away.
Also, thank you so much for providing me with a real life episode of COPS twice weekly. Having Biddeford's Finest respond to your domestic issues at all hours, and screaming obscenities into the night air gives me a warm fuzzy feeling down in the base of my balls.
By the way, you're also very poor.
I hope that life finds you all well, with unscrubbed faces and unlaundered clothing. Also, the can of paint I plan on tossing on to that shitty primer gray VW Golf that keeps racing up and down the street is complimentary.
Bests..... James.
To my former upstairs Jewish neighbors in Queens, NY:
Shalom! I hope that whatever crazy Jewish holidays that have passed recently found you all well. I'm so sorry things didn't work out for us better... I was really looking forward to the man of the family letting himself into my apartment to turn down my appliances again. Nothing says "welcome to the neighborhood" like a creepy Jewish guy standing with muddy boots in my freshly washed kitchen floor, touching my property while I'm taking a piss.
I'm sorry that my work schedule was inconvenient for you and your family, and you had to report my landlord to the authorities, after less than a month, instead of just catching me while I was home and asking me to not play my tv/stereo/lady I was having sex with so loudly.
However I commend you on your ability to find a corrupt Russian landlord in a city that's only filled with them, and then reporting him to the City's Housing Board so that the only punishment that would be meeted out was me losing my home.
Anyway, I hope your small child grows up unathletic and greedy.
Mozel Tav! ...James.
To Howard Stern:
Howard... just a quick note to say that you're really not that funny. You're not god's gift to free speech. Just because you can get porn stars to fuck each other with modified power tools on your radio program only means that you were the first to put the idea in action. There are literally a million other people out there that had the same idea/s as you, but you only had the good fortune of getting on the air first.
Good luck with the satellite radio thing. It only downside is that your replacement was a post-rehab David Lee Roth, who is the only person on this entire planet who is more opinionated/bitchier than me.
Oh and I miss the awkward pauses on live radio early in the morning.
Baba-Booey.... James.
To Tv's Jack Bauer from FOX's '24':
You're awesome. Keep up the good work.
Man-crushing on you..... James.
To Olympian Bode Miller:
As if it wasn't already hard enough to be American in the world's eye, you come along and make it that much harder, you fucking choke artist.
Granted, the Winter Olympics in Torino were months ago, but you know, I just wanted to take an extra second here and tell you how much you suck. You suck harder than Howard Stern's show. You suck more than the Yankees, and they suck a whole lot.
All I can think of is the poor kid who worked his ass of, who wasn't born with the same talent as you, who missed the team cut off and was forced to be an alternate by maybe three seconds. He would've appreciated going to the Olympics, and he would've represented America proudly. Instead of going to night clubs all night, fucking ridiculously hot italian broads (the ones with the waxed mustaches), and presumably doing ice booze louges into the wee hours, he would've been at practice, and shit, maybe would've medaled. But no one will ever really know, will they?
So again, thanks for all the unnecessary hype. Thanks for affirming the idea in the international community that Americans are excessive consumers and have zero respect for age old cultural traditions, you fucking hack.
Next time you choke, I hope you die.... James.
To President Bush:
At the risk of having my door kicked in by federal agents (maybe... Jack Bauer? That'd be really hot actually...) I'll keep this short and thinly veiled... you're not doing a very good job sir.
I don't necessarily blame you, I mostly blame your administration. See, as a proud republican, you guys are making it awfully hard for me to stay along the party lines. You all are so super fucking conservative that you make the Nazi Party seem somewhat warm/friendly.
Everyone in your administration is on their own agendas, and quite frankly sir, you were somewhat under-qualified for this job you took on to begin with. When you first took office, we all thought that "hey, we're progressive! This will be a quick four year stint, and then we'll get back to having an actual president, not a funny go-betweener." The 9/11 happened and the shit hit the fan. We all turned towards the administration, with their figure piece, and collectively said "oh shit..."
We still are progressive though, ... we're the first country to elect someone who is clinically retarded to the office of President. Hey, we got a retard in before a black guy! NICE.
You're actions in Afghanistan were warranted, but then the whole Iraq thing happened. Your administration poured honey into your oversized ears and told you to lie to us, to coddle falsified reports about Weapons of Mass Destruction. Cuz I mean, basically, you're just the pretty face on the program. You're the picture of Mr. Clean on the bottle. You don't really do anything at all, except go to press junkets and do photo ops holding a giant turkey at Christmas for our troops overseas. You're a bastard, but the rest of your crew are even bigger bastards.
In closing sir, I'm still going to stay the course with the Republican Party, however, as a formerly staunch Republican, I'm going to ask that you consider maybe lightening up a little. I mean, fuck, you love to quote Jesus this and Jesus That.... dude, Jesus was the definition of bi-partison.
And don't even get me started on gas prices around here... dude, you worked in the oil business... that's no excuse to why I put 20 bucks into my small 4 cylinder truck and the needle doesn't even touch the half-way mark. Goddamnit.
Anyway, good luck with the next two or so years fucking us all in the collective asshole.... James.
All Obligations Aside...
Typically this sort of shit is saved for like a bulletin post on myspace... but rules (which you'll find below) are rules. The Lady posted this on her blog and I got stuck with having to spread it around like AIDS. And since I have like... four readers, it'll be fun to see this go no where.
The rules:
A) The rules of the game get posted at the beginning.
4. Three bad habits: Picking Nose, Killing People, Libel.
The rules:
A) The rules of the game get posted at the beginning.
B) Each player answers the questions about himself or herself.
C) At the end of the post, the player then tags five people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog.
1. Ten years ago I was: …Sixteen, believe it or not! I had braces and a bowl cut parted down the middle. I wore an inordinate amount of forest green hooded pullover sweat shirts and black track pants. I played three sports per school year and was unaware (apparently) of how hot I was to the females I went to school with.
2. Five things on today’s to do list: 1. Clean my sty of a room and make my bed. 2. Pay my bills (update, I fucking hate Comcast with a goddamn passion. I miss TWC...) 3. Go on a killing spree on GTA 4 4. Attempt to entice The Lady to go down on me. 5. Eat a sandwich.
3. Things I’d do if I were a billionaire: Travel extensively, learn more different languages, maybe follow one of my favorite performers/band around on tour, buy a giant sail boat with a crew to operate it and sail off the horn of Somalia egging on Somali pirates to "bring it" while I wave a machete at their fast boats. Basically become Sir Richard Branson.
4. Three bad habits: Picking Nose, Killing People, Libel.
5. Five places I’ve lived: Boston, New York City, And the Cape.
6. Six jobs I’ve had in my life: First job I ever had was working for my dad on his boat, which was Balls Mahoney. Then I worked for Hannafords, but it was called Shop n' Save back then as a bagger and a cashier, which was more of a hassle than a job. Then I worked in the UNE kitchen just doing food prep which was ok, but the guy I worked for was a massive loser and I suspect a pedophile. Um, then I did landscaping for a few summers, became a cop and ... yeah, that brings us to about here, doesn't?
And... I tag no one, because no one will read this anyway, and if they do, I'm sure they'll feel gypped.
All Good Things (Pixelated and Otherwise...)...
By now I'm sure you've heard the hype surrounding the latest installment of what many video game aficianados consider the artful masterpiece that is Grand Theft Auto. This, the... Christ... like, sixth? game to come out since the franchises debut in 1998, seems to set the bar at it's highest, not just for the GTA games themselves but seemingly every other video game yet to be produced.
I'll spare you all the details in the story line, just know that your character, a humble-sounding Eastern European ex-military immigrant is wandering around the massive landscape that is a digitized Liberty City (a doppleganger to New York City.).
The game truely is a work of art, with the enviromental elements so stylized and crisp that at times driving around I have flashbacks to living in NYC. The game producers put such hard work into every nook and cranny of this sprawling urban topography that seldom, if ever, do you see the same pedestrian or building twice.
Those are the good things about this game, it has a rich, cinematic-like story line and is visually stunning. But in lie problems: Similar to other culturally significant media presentations (see also, HBO's The Wire), they become bigger and more spread out with each variation, losing sight of it's core elements.
I'll use The Wire as an example. When the first season of the critically acclaimed crime drama came out, all it was about was trying to set up and catch drug dealers, and all the drama and hard work that goes into that persuit. By the last season, season five I think, the story had blown so far out of proportion from the original idea that I had no fucking clue what was going on, who was doing what, etc. The original cast was barely even mentionable amongst all these other tangent story lines. I mean, what started out about drug dealers in the projects, ended with an expose on the slow death of the American Printed Media.
What the fuck?
GTA has somewhat become like this. At it's earliest roots, all the game was about was completing some shoot'em up-like missions, creating general havoc in a small birds-eye-view city, and jacking cars. Now, in this latest installment, you can go drunk driving, play billards, take helicopter tour rides, feed pigeons, burn down houses, whatever. Honestly, if you can think it, you can probably do it in this game.
I'm not saying this is a bad thing at all; I for one love the game and am a life-long fan of the franchise. But what I'm saying is that the game, as well as all substantially important aspects of our pop culture, should do it's damndest to stick as close to the original idea as possible. Hey, yeah it's cool that now in the latest GTA my character suffers from chronic Chrones Disease and after every five hours of continous play he's gotta spend a day shitting himself on a couch, but is it necessary?
I mean, really, you can watch television programs in this game. At one point, I was in my bedroom, watching this guy on my screen, watch tv in his bedroom. It's fucking surreal.
Improve on things, but remember to stick to the script.
I'll spare you all the details in the story line, just know that your character, a humble-sounding Eastern European ex-military immigrant is wandering around the massive landscape that is a digitized Liberty City (a doppleganger to New York City.).
The game truely is a work of art, with the enviromental elements so stylized and crisp that at times driving around I have flashbacks to living in NYC. The game producers put such hard work into every nook and cranny of this sprawling urban topography that seldom, if ever, do you see the same pedestrian or building twice.
Those are the good things about this game, it has a rich, cinematic-like story line and is visually stunning. But in lie problems: Similar to other culturally significant media presentations (see also, HBO's The Wire), they become bigger and more spread out with each variation, losing sight of it's core elements.
I'll use The Wire as an example. When the first season of the critically acclaimed crime drama came out, all it was about was trying to set up and catch drug dealers, and all the drama and hard work that goes into that persuit. By the last season, season five I think, the story had blown so far out of proportion from the original idea that I had no fucking clue what was going on, who was doing what, etc. The original cast was barely even mentionable amongst all these other tangent story lines. I mean, what started out about drug dealers in the projects, ended with an expose on the slow death of the American Printed Media.
What the fuck?
GTA has somewhat become like this. At it's earliest roots, all the game was about was completing some shoot'em up-like missions, creating general havoc in a small birds-eye-view city, and jacking cars. Now, in this latest installment, you can go drunk driving, play billards, take helicopter tour rides, feed pigeons, burn down houses, whatever. Honestly, if you can think it, you can probably do it in this game.
I'm not saying this is a bad thing at all; I for one love the game and am a life-long fan of the franchise. But what I'm saying is that the game, as well as all substantially important aspects of our pop culture, should do it's damndest to stick as close to the original idea as possible. Hey, yeah it's cool that now in the latest GTA my character suffers from chronic Chrones Disease and after every five hours of continous play he's gotta spend a day shitting himself on a couch, but is it necessary?
I mean, really, you can watch television programs in this game. At one point, I was in my bedroom, watching this guy on my screen, watch tv in his bedroom. It's fucking surreal.
Improve on things, but remember to stick to the script.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Ok, Real Quick...
I'm browsing through the news online (yeah I'm on watch, what of it?) and realizing there's fuck-all for news. It's a slow news day.
I hate slow news days.
So I'm going through the Entertainment section of Yahoo! News when I see this weird headline that strikes a sour note in my brain:
"Cloverfield DVD Sales Soar!"
See, here's the thing that kinda pinches the common sense section of my mind: Cloverfield was lauded by critics. It was abysmal. It was a failure on a massive scale. It was Blair Witch without the low-budget charm and all the big Hollywood shameless production.
If Blair Witch was like losing your virginity to the girl next door, Cloverfield was like losing it to a porn star.
So here's what I'm thinking: You can't run a headline like the one above mentioned because it's very misleading. For the few people who didn't catch (or figure out on their own) how high a level this film produced in a "I'd-Sooner-Stab-Out-My-Own-Eyes-Than-Watch-This" quotent, you're leading the blind down a patch covered in broken glass shards and HIV-infected needles. "Cloverfield" was a bad bad bad movie, and just because people rush out and buy the dvds doesn't make it suddenly better.
Here's how it works with CD and DVD sales: The numbers that you see for a "sale" aren't technically the consumer going out and purchasing or ordering online the particular title. It's the store that orders it that usually produces the numbers. So let's pull this all together real quick - you have this hyped up bound-for-Cinemax movie that for some reason 15 year olds can get behind (I'm gonna say it has something to do with buildings being blown up and army guys running around with fatigues and rifles oppose to the hand-held camera-style shooting of the film) and stock the shelves with it hoping that these brainless children with mom's credit card will buy two copies a piece.
Then you have kinda an... alternate effect. Companies like Blockbuster and (the infinitely cooler) Netflix will buy scores of copies to be rented out, due to the fact more discriminating film goers will want to see "exactly how bad" "Cloverfield" was.
Ok, here's the bottomline real quick: Don't go see "Cloverfield" for any reason, whether you have a geniune interest in the film or if you just want to slowly drive by a fatal car accident on the side of the highway.
Read a book instead.
I hate slow news days.
So I'm going through the Entertainment section of Yahoo! News when I see this weird headline that strikes a sour note in my brain:
"Cloverfield DVD Sales Soar!"
See, here's the thing that kinda pinches the common sense section of my mind: Cloverfield was lauded by critics. It was abysmal. It was a failure on a massive scale. It was Blair Witch without the low-budget charm and all the big Hollywood shameless production.
If Blair Witch was like losing your virginity to the girl next door, Cloverfield was like losing it to a porn star.
So here's what I'm thinking: You can't run a headline like the one above mentioned because it's very misleading. For the few people who didn't catch (or figure out on their own) how high a level this film produced in a "I'd-Sooner-Stab-Out-My-Own-Eyes-Than-Watch-This" quotent, you're leading the blind down a patch covered in broken glass shards and HIV-infected needles. "Cloverfield" was a bad bad bad movie, and just because people rush out and buy the dvds doesn't make it suddenly better.
Here's how it works with CD and DVD sales: The numbers that you see for a "sale" aren't technically the consumer going out and purchasing or ordering online the particular title. It's the store that orders it that usually produces the numbers. So let's pull this all together real quick - you have this hyped up bound-for-Cinemax movie that for some reason 15 year olds can get behind (I'm gonna say it has something to do with buildings being blown up and army guys running around with fatigues and rifles oppose to the hand-held camera-style shooting of the film) and stock the shelves with it hoping that these brainless children with mom's credit card will buy two copies a piece.
Then you have kinda an... alternate effect. Companies like Blockbuster and (the infinitely cooler) Netflix will buy scores of copies to be rented out, due to the fact more discriminating film goers will want to see "exactly how bad" "Cloverfield" was.
Ok, here's the bottomline real quick: Don't go see "Cloverfield" for any reason, whether you have a geniune interest in the film or if you just want to slowly drive by a fatal car accident on the side of the highway.
Read a book instead.
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