The other day Ashes and I went to a laboratory and was forced to participate in a taste test. This is that story.
What started as a lovely stroll through the campus to an old farmhouse to purchase some tomato plants quickly went south. After purchasing our plant from a young flower child holdover from the 1970s we started back to our car. A simple poster caught our eye advertising some free snacks and it being midday we were a bit peckish. We decided to take advantage of the opportunity. When we got to the building and made our way inside there was quick change in atmosphere. The entryway was a standard lobby setup but the signs started pointing us in an ominous direction. Pipes and exposed brick were surrounding us on all sides. Signs warning of radiation danger and hazardous materials. Out of the corner of my eye I sensed movement in the dimming light. Inside the rooms we were passing I could see eyes peering at us through the dark. Hastening our pace we continued deeper and deeper into this complex. Down several dank stairwells and into a hallway that could only be described as looking like a repurposed asylum we finally got to the site of the supposed free snacks.
I was bundled into a room by a shifty looking dwarf and put into a little box with a computer screen and a sliding food door. You know the food door, common in medieval prisons, in which the burly jailer would push scraps through the door and make a dozen malnourished inmates scramble for their daily nourishment. I sat there under dark eyes and brooding figures of what could only be called mad scientists wearing lab coats with dark red stains. The little food door slammed open with a loud bang and a dirty plate was shoved in front of me. On this cracked ceramic plate were several samples of some indistinguishable goo. The computer screen zapped to life displaying only green letters on a black background. "Eat sample TX01, now" it prompted me. I felt uncertain about it and hesitated. A new message flashed on the screen. "Eat sample TX01 or suffer a shock." Not wishing to find out which meaning of the word was implied I picked up TX01. It was a pasty white goo splattered on a shred of stale bred.
With a bit of apprehension I ate the first sample. The taste of it immediately exploded, overcoming my senses. The taste was horrible, like rotten fish dipped in napalm. My sinuses burned. The texture was oily and after chewing twice I swallowed. TX01 clung to my throat and slowly slimed it's way down. Feeling sick I almost vomited at this point but managed to just barely keep it down, though I suspect that it would cling to my insides and resist coming back up. I could sense a buzz from behind me as the lab coats talked in hushed tones amongst themselves. My head was spinning.
The computer screen flashed to life again with the words "Eat Sample TX02, now," written in front of me. I was feeling very uneasy but I didn't want to push my luck. TX02 was a thick whitish-blue substance with a consistency that looked like whipped cream. As I went to pick it up I noticed my hand was shaking much more than usual. Ignoring, like so much else at the time, the shaking I picked up TX02 and quickly put it into my mouth. There wasn't so much a flavor blast as the first sample but when I took the first bite it was like getting punched in the face. I spit it onto the desk in front of me and hoped tasting it would be enough. My jaw was stinging. More hushed talking behind me. The computer flashed a new message, "Please finish sample TX02." My spirits crushed I grabbed the sample and tried to eat it again. The same violent sensation flared inside my mouth. I swallowed it as quickly as possible. I was feeling sick to my stomach and extremely dizzy. I knew the third and final sample still had to be eaten.
"Eat Sample TX03, now." The room was spinning and I almost fell out of my chair, but a pair of clammy hands grabbed my arms to steady me. I weakly turned to look one of the lab coats in the face. His eyes... I'll never forget those eyes alive with madness, dancing and unable to look at me for more than a second. I turned back to the desk. The third sample was a pink paste spread thickly on the same crusty bread as the others. Not knowing what would happen if I didn't eat I did as the computer told me. As I bit down on it I had the sensation of breathing in smoke directly from a hookers mouth. I was wracked by a fit of coughing as I wasn't accustomed to the taste of smoke. Luckily, I suppose, I kept the sample in my mouth and swallowed it after only the second bite. My eyes started to water. I could feel my entire throat burning like I had been breathing volcanic ash for an hour. My vision was clouded with tears and I couldn't read the new message that came onto the computer screen. I started coughing much harder. My dizziness finally won over and nothing could stop me from falling out of my chair this time. Hushed voices and the feeling of being huddled over and colors running together and then nothing.
I woke up in a bright room sitting upright in a comfortable chair. The only thing I could taste was spit. Thankfully there wasn't an aftertaste. I realized somebody was saying something to me over and over. I shook my head and looked the woman in the eyes, "What?" There was something in her hand. A basket filled with candy and granola bars. "Which free snack would you like?" I reached in and pulled out a granola bar. She went back to the desk that was situated by the only door in the room. "Thank you for your participation and have a nice day." I slowly nodded in her direction and gave a small smile. I walked out that door faster than I'd ever done anything in my life. Outside the room I saw Ashes. She just smiled at me, happily grabbed my hand and started walking back to our car.
It was one of the most horrifying experiences of my life.
But, hey, I got a free fucking granola bar out of this!
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Heatwave 2010
Heatwave 99
Rob Van Dam & Sabu vs Lance Storm & Justin Credible
Heatwave 2010
Sitting on my ass sweating while Ashes is away at the beach.
Today was the first truly hot day of the year. It's been unusually warm for this entire year, with winter effectively in March. So far the weather in Maine has been pleasant and favorable for activity, which led to my upturn in exercise.
Now we are in the midst of the first heatwave of the year as temperatures reached into the 90s today. I had the fortune to be sitting inside with a fan blowing not unpleasant air into my face. I could feel the heat and had the sweat to prove it. So summer has now borne down upon us and has left us caked in crusty sweat stains where we sit. With daylight stretching past 8 and the greens in full bloom the world is at it's most alive. Naked people were dancing in the rain in our parking lot earlier! Go outside! Sweat, smell, and just fucking take the world in.
I still want an interval-o-meter damn it! I do so much. Bills, man, they really run you roughshod.
Rob Van Dam & Sabu vs Lance Storm & Justin Credible
Heatwave 2010
Sitting on my ass sweating while Ashes is away at the beach.
Today was the first truly hot day of the year. It's been unusually warm for this entire year, with winter effectively in March. So far the weather in Maine has been pleasant and favorable for activity, which led to my upturn in exercise.
Now we are in the midst of the first heatwave of the year as temperatures reached into the 90s today. I had the fortune to be sitting inside with a fan blowing not unpleasant air into my face. I could feel the heat and had the sweat to prove it. So summer has now borne down upon us and has left us caked in crusty sweat stains where we sit. With daylight stretching past 8 and the greens in full bloom the world is at it's most alive. Naked people were dancing in the rain in our parking lot earlier! Go outside! Sweat, smell, and just fucking take the world in.
I still want an interval-o-meter damn it! I do so much. Bills, man, they really run you roughshod.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
6 Words
I've been blogging on and off since 2004. Never committing to any one style, topic or schedule for more than a month has made it so my readership is effectively zero. As stated before this just doesn't bother me. I think that blogging is an important part of my (continuing) quarter-life crisis and will be an invaluable resource to look back upon once I become a more established writer and person. In general I use my blog as a jumping off point for other blogs.
As a semi-regular blogger I am also in the habit of reading other blogs in order to get inspiration and, more often, to see the daily lives of people living elsewhere in the world. I read a fair amount of blogs on a weekly basis, somewhere around 20-40. I've come to live vicariously through these bloggers of whom I am not acquainted. What is normal to these people is so very different from the life here in Maine that it becomes exciting just to hear their tales. I tend to frequent the writers that live in Asia. These often tend to be expats from the US, UK, Ireland or Australia who are in their mid-20s.
I have a few pet peeves about blogs and blogging in general. This brings me to the reason I decided to write this post, the overuse of words in the *ugh* "blogosphere". You can find these words in just about anybody's blog, from the longtime "pro-blogger" with 11,000 followers to the middle aged mom that posts five times and quits. They are the go-to words for the masses. The hipster words, the words that show you have a complete lack of heart for what you're doing. Double bad if they appear in the title of your blog. Believe me you know a few blogs with some of these words in the title. I'm guilty of using many of these words at times. That's mostly due to pushing myself to blog when there's nothing going on to write about, or laziness. Probably both. Here they are, my gentle brigands.
What is the solution for the appearance of these words in blogging? A thesaurus? Better education? Doubtful. They'll continue appearing for as long as we put our thoughts onto the web, which is certainly going to be a long time.
I was clearly very mean here, but I think if a person is going to blog on the internets than they should write to be interesting. These words and problems persist from blog to blog and indicate a trend in our ability as a culture to communicate effectively. Where is the root of the problem? Most likely it's people being flippant about their own education. Maybe it's just me being an old man, grammar nazi combo. I honestly don't know.
As a semi-regular blogger I am also in the habit of reading other blogs in order to get inspiration and, more often, to see the daily lives of people living elsewhere in the world. I read a fair amount of blogs on a weekly basis, somewhere around 20-40. I've come to live vicariously through these bloggers of whom I am not acquainted. What is normal to these people is so very different from the life here in Maine that it becomes exciting just to hear their tales. I tend to frequent the writers that live in Asia. These often tend to be expats from the US, UK, Ireland or Australia who are in their mid-20s.
I have a few pet peeves about blogs and blogging in general. This brings me to the reason I decided to write this post, the overuse of words in the *ugh* "blogosphere". You can find these words in just about anybody's blog, from the longtime "pro-blogger" with 11,000 followers to the middle aged mom that posts five times and quits. They are the go-to words for the masses. The hipster words, the words that show you have a complete lack of heart for what you're doing. Double bad if they appear in the title of your blog. Believe me you know a few blogs with some of these words in the title. I'm guilty of using many of these words at times. That's mostly due to pushing myself to blog when there's nothing going on to write about, or laziness. Probably both. Here they are, my gentle brigands.
- Musings/muse - Attempting to fake an appearance of being a philosopher or deep thinker. Really masking a post about cats, knitting, or hand lotion.
- Random - My generations favorite word. Because you lack the vocabulary to properly describe your mood or draw a connection between all the crap you're thinking about this word gets dropped in. Combine this one with the first one and you have about 35% of the blog titles on the net.
- OMG/LOL/LMFAO/etc - (Not actually etc, that's legit). Writing like u r txtn is an atrocity! Unless that's your gimmick. If it's not your gimmick and you're too moronic to actually learn to type... I weep for you. Can you imagine turning a paper in using this language? I just shuddered because I know it must happen somewhere.
- Adventure - Okay, I'm partially guilty on this one. Don't use this for everything, even ironically. Unless your gimmick is, y'know, some sort of Indiana Jones thing.
- Ramblings - This is right there with musings. If your thoughts aren't going to be cohesive maybe... don't post them? Sit down and think about it for a while and put something together? Or use the words sparingly, because it really is a great word. You're butchering it you cruddy bloggers.
- Addict - If you aren't really addicted to something don't use this. It's not as cute as you think.
What is the solution for the appearance of these words in blogging? A thesaurus? Better education? Doubtful. They'll continue appearing for as long as we put our thoughts onto the web, which is certainly going to be a long time.
I was clearly very mean here, but I think if a person is going to blog on the internets than they should write to be interesting. These words and problems persist from blog to blog and indicate a trend in our ability as a culture to communicate effectively. Where is the root of the problem? Most likely it's people being flippant about their own education. Maybe it's just me being an old man, grammar nazi combo. I honestly don't know.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Monday, May 17, 2010
Used Games are the Enemy?!
When did this whole concept of used video games devastating the profit margins of developers become popular? I had never heard a single word about this until a few months ago. Now it's on every blog of any relevance and is on the lips of every company. It's the frontline in a war on gamers. The issue is one of the more hotly debated of the day. Retailers vs Companies, and the loser is the gamer.
I'm not sure when this came into the public mind. For years it was distributors vs pirates. Major game publishing companies have been trying to squeeze every penny from gamers by fighting the pirates that are supposedly cutting into their profits. Now these companies have moved on to attacking used game retailers? At the same time they have exclusive deals with the very same retail chains offering content to people that purchase from specific locations. Preorder at Gamestop and get a free outfit for your character. Buy it at Walmart and unlock a special background for your title screen. The offerings were often less than impressive, as displayed here, and I don't think they did much to encourage anybody save the obsessive completionists desperate for every tiny bit of content. That's why the 'offers' are starting to go a bit overboard. EA is coming up with the idea that in order to play their sports games online you have to buy them brand new, otherwise the option is locked. Buying one of these games used doesn't mean those options are forever locked due to the missing one-time use code, oh no not at all you just have to shell out $10. That's right, you have to pay $10 extra just to get a fully functional game. And to think that we used to only be worried about paying for DLC that's already on the disc.
It's a dangerous assumption by these companies that the person who purchases a used game two years later for $10 would have ever paid full price. Yet that is always factored into their numbers in an effort to further increase the image of the so called damage. The decision of a consumer to purchase a used game is really all about price and impulse. Seeing a game that was once popular a mere six months ago fall from grace and sit on the used game racks at $15 while it's still new for $40 is a choice that seems to make itself. It might have received some popularity due to word of mouth which meant a person knew of it but wouldn't actively seek it out. Seeing it on the used game racks leads the consumer to vacantly shrug and go "Okay, I'll buy that. I heard it was good and it's wicked cheap."
There's also the argument that going to a video game store and holding the game physically are valuable experiences of being a gamer. That's definitely true but the main issue is that the whole experience of being a gamer is changing. Be nostalgiac about it, certainly, but also understand that the world is changing and conceptions of the gaming industry is changing. The developers are winning the used games "battle" by pushing digital distribution. It's not entirely efficient on the current generation of consoles, but the future is leaning towards the end of physical video games.
I have issues with the developers solution to used games which is digital distribution, the most notable being my access to that game in 20 or 30 or 80 years time. I can still get a cartridge from an NES or Atari 2600 and plug it into the system and play, but how will this be achieved with digital distribution? Will I only be given access to the game for the life of the console? Will it only be available for me to play for a limited time even though I've paid full price? Will we still pay outrageous fees even when production costs are negated? Maybe I'm just an old time gamer that can't see past the singularity into the next phase of gaming (probably not, I'm ready but I'm bitter) or it could just be that I feel consumers and gamers have rights.
But if you can download it, you can pirate it. That's a battle they'll never win.
I'm not sure when this came into the public mind. For years it was distributors vs pirates. Major game publishing companies have been trying to squeeze every penny from gamers by fighting the pirates that are supposedly cutting into their profits. Now these companies have moved on to attacking used game retailers? At the same time they have exclusive deals with the very same retail chains offering content to people that purchase from specific locations. Preorder at Gamestop and get a free outfit for your character. Buy it at Walmart and unlock a special background for your title screen. The offerings were often less than impressive, as displayed here, and I don't think they did much to encourage anybody save the obsessive completionists desperate for every tiny bit of content. That's why the 'offers' are starting to go a bit overboard. EA is coming up with the idea that in order to play their sports games online you have to buy them brand new, otherwise the option is locked. Buying one of these games used doesn't mean those options are forever locked due to the missing one-time use code, oh no not at all you just have to shell out $10. That's right, you have to pay $10 extra just to get a fully functional game. And to think that we used to only be worried about paying for DLC that's already on the disc.
It's a dangerous assumption by these companies that the person who purchases a used game two years later for $10 would have ever paid full price. Yet that is always factored into their numbers in an effort to further increase the image of the so called damage. The decision of a consumer to purchase a used game is really all about price and impulse. Seeing a game that was once popular a mere six months ago fall from grace and sit on the used game racks at $15 while it's still new for $40 is a choice that seems to make itself. It might have received some popularity due to word of mouth which meant a person knew of it but wouldn't actively seek it out. Seeing it on the used game racks leads the consumer to vacantly shrug and go "Okay, I'll buy that. I heard it was good and it's wicked cheap."
There's also the argument that going to a video game store and holding the game physically are valuable experiences of being a gamer. That's definitely true but the main issue is that the whole experience of being a gamer is changing. Be nostalgiac about it, certainly, but also understand that the world is changing and conceptions of the gaming industry is changing. The developers are winning the used games "battle" by pushing digital distribution. It's not entirely efficient on the current generation of consoles, but the future is leaning towards the end of physical video games.
I have issues with the developers solution to used games which is digital distribution, the most notable being my access to that game in 20 or 30 or 80 years time. I can still get a cartridge from an NES or Atari 2600 and plug it into the system and play, but how will this be achieved with digital distribution? Will I only be given access to the game for the life of the console? Will it only be available for me to play for a limited time even though I've paid full price? Will we still pay outrageous fees even when production costs are negated? Maybe I'm just an old time gamer that can't see past the singularity into the next phase of gaming (probably not, I'm ready but I'm bitter) or it could just be that I feel consumers and gamers have rights.
But if you can download it, you can pirate it. That's a battle they'll never win.
Friday, May 14, 2010
Making a Healthy Turn Perhaps
There's no way that I can lie about the fact that I'm not in the best of shape. Since my unemployment I've probably put on some weight and taken on an increasingly unhealthy sedentary lifestyle. I've decided to get this under control and take back my life in an attempt to use this 'free' time to turn my habits into healthy living. In the last couple of weeks Ashes and I have made a solemn decision to actively change the way we're living.
I can't even remember how it happened. A month or two ago I grabbed my bike from my parents house and started going biking every few days. It felt really good and I kept doing it on occasion. Then Ashes and I started walking. It just happened, and then we decided that we really liked the walks as both leisure and fitness. We started going on walks every day. If we weren't in the mood for walks we'd still go for at least 2 miles. They started out leisurely but gradually we picked up the pace. The great thing about our apartment is that it's situated less than a mile from the Orono Bike Trails. A quick walk down the road and we have a 2 1/2 mile path through the woods for us to use. It's brilliant for use because we can go out and back for a total of 5 miles which makes charting how far we're going no problem.
Earlier this week (or last weekend?) we went down to Portland for the day. Towards the end of our trip we made our way over to the Back Cove Trail and briskly walked around the whole thing once. You can check out our vlogs at my Youtube page which were shot while we were doing that walk. The great thing about walking is we can tack it on to any trip we take. There's always someplace to walk anywhere we go and usually it will lead us to someplace we wouldn't normally have seen if we were just going to shop or drive around hitting the sights. We're determined to walk along the coast in Acadia this summer and do a hell of a lot more hiking. Once we're in shape it won't be half as hard as it is now. Sure Ashes has asthma and back/spine problems, but she's clearly willing to work through them.
At the moment we're not quite in shape enough to do full jogging spurts. Working ourselves into a fit state that will allow us to jog for more than a quarter of a mile is a big goal. More calories are burned if we're doing a job instead of just a walk. Our goal is really to get a good schedule by mid-to-late summer. Something like walk two days, jog one, day off, walk one, jog one, day off, cycle here and there. Similar to that y'know, something that will keep us healthy. It really will take us a while to get to that point, me in particular. I haven't jogged at all since high school, probably second year. So that means it's been ten years since I've pushed myself at a fast pace. It feels good, let me tell you, it feels really good. We did about a quarter of a mile jog at the end of a 6 mile walk the other day and it hurt me, but it was a good pain. The pain of accomplishment and adrenaline. I expect a lot more of that by the end of the summer, wherever we are (which probably won't be South Korea or Japan or anything cool).
The main contributing factor that is making this change so easy, especially for Ashes, is the availability of apps and widgets that make tracking our progress very simple and fun. In particular there is the website The Daily Mile. This website is very handy. Posting every bit of exercise is a simple matter of finding the route you took and mapping it in their system. This will calculate the mileage that was covered, and after inputting the amount of time it took the program will be able to calculate the pace and the amount of calories burned. Each user has a profile page that also functions as a journal of sorts in that it keeps a record of all previous exercise and will provide weekly updates that make charting progress simple. Separate entries for walking, running, or biking will calculate the burned calories for that activity. It's a valuable resource for anyone that needs extra motivation or visualization in order to stick with something, which is definitely us.
The other app that we (well she) use is similar but instead of charting exercise it monitors food intake. It's on the Livestrong website, but since I don't use it I'm not sure what it's called. At signup you make a decision on the amount of weight you want to lose from 1-2 lbs. a week. It then gives you a daily calorie limit and allows you to input each thing you eat in a given day, calculating the calorie count and showing how many are left in a given day. Obviously exercise will help keep the count under the daily allowable limit. Consistently going under the daily limit will lead to faster weight loss and better health. Like I said this isn't a program that I use, but I don't eat any more than Ashes eats on a given day. So if she is coming in under the limit than I am too.
All of this is working in my favor. I'm not being pretentious about this, buying expensive gym memberships and douchey training clothes. It's a slow process that we're going to keep plugging away at and slowly increasing the amount of effort we put into our program. Like I've said we will start out walking, integrate jogging and cycling, and eventually we'll be in great shape ready to take on the world!
Don't sit around and expect change to happen! Take control of your life and force change into your life. I've been a lazy gamer for my whole teen-to-adult life and I've had enough of it. All this time is mine and I refuse to spend it sitting on my ass when I could be making progress on any number of things, and I AM.
Enough about all this for now. I have more writing I need to do. I've got some great ideas and I can't let them slip away.
Well root for me my loyal brigands. Root for me because I need it. I need to become not-a-fatass and healthy. Cheers.
I can't even remember how it happened. A month or two ago I grabbed my bike from my parents house and started going biking every few days. It felt really good and I kept doing it on occasion. Then Ashes and I started walking. It just happened, and then we decided that we really liked the walks as both leisure and fitness. We started going on walks every day. If we weren't in the mood for walks we'd still go for at least 2 miles. They started out leisurely but gradually we picked up the pace. The great thing about our apartment is that it's situated less than a mile from the Orono Bike Trails. A quick walk down the road and we have a 2 1/2 mile path through the woods for us to use. It's brilliant for use because we can go out and back for a total of 5 miles which makes charting how far we're going no problem.
Earlier this week (or last weekend?) we went down to Portland for the day. Towards the end of our trip we made our way over to the Back Cove Trail and briskly walked around the whole thing once. You can check out our vlogs at my Youtube page which were shot while we were doing that walk. The great thing about walking is we can tack it on to any trip we take. There's always someplace to walk anywhere we go and usually it will lead us to someplace we wouldn't normally have seen if we were just going to shop or drive around hitting the sights. We're determined to walk along the coast in Acadia this summer and do a hell of a lot more hiking. Once we're in shape it won't be half as hard as it is now. Sure Ashes has asthma and back/spine problems, but she's clearly willing to work through them.
At the moment we're not quite in shape enough to do full jogging spurts. Working ourselves into a fit state that will allow us to jog for more than a quarter of a mile is a big goal. More calories are burned if we're doing a job instead of just a walk. Our goal is really to get a good schedule by mid-to-late summer. Something like walk two days, jog one, day off, walk one, jog one, day off, cycle here and there. Similar to that y'know, something that will keep us healthy. It really will take us a while to get to that point, me in particular. I haven't jogged at all since high school, probably second year. So that means it's been ten years since I've pushed myself at a fast pace. It feels good, let me tell you, it feels really good. We did about a quarter of a mile jog at the end of a 6 mile walk the other day and it hurt me, but it was a good pain. The pain of accomplishment and adrenaline. I expect a lot more of that by the end of the summer, wherever we are (which probably won't be South Korea or Japan or anything cool).
The main contributing factor that is making this change so easy, especially for Ashes, is the availability of apps and widgets that make tracking our progress very simple and fun. In particular there is the website The Daily Mile. This website is very handy. Posting every bit of exercise is a simple matter of finding the route you took and mapping it in their system. This will calculate the mileage that was covered, and after inputting the amount of time it took the program will be able to calculate the pace and the amount of calories burned. Each user has a profile page that also functions as a journal of sorts in that it keeps a record of all previous exercise and will provide weekly updates that make charting progress simple. Separate entries for walking, running, or biking will calculate the burned calories for that activity. It's a valuable resource for anyone that needs extra motivation or visualization in order to stick with something, which is definitely us.
The other app that we (well she) use is similar but instead of charting exercise it monitors food intake. It's on the Livestrong website, but since I don't use it I'm not sure what it's called. At signup you make a decision on the amount of weight you want to lose from 1-2 lbs. a week. It then gives you a daily calorie limit and allows you to input each thing you eat in a given day, calculating the calorie count and showing how many are left in a given day. Obviously exercise will help keep the count under the daily allowable limit. Consistently going under the daily limit will lead to faster weight loss and better health. Like I said this isn't a program that I use, but I don't eat any more than Ashes eats on a given day. So if she is coming in under the limit than I am too.
All of this is working in my favor. I'm not being pretentious about this, buying expensive gym memberships and douchey training clothes. It's a slow process that we're going to keep plugging away at and slowly increasing the amount of effort we put into our program. Like I've said we will start out walking, integrate jogging and cycling, and eventually we'll be in great shape ready to take on the world!
Don't sit around and expect change to happen! Take control of your life and force change into your life. I've been a lazy gamer for my whole teen-to-adult life and I've had enough of it. All this time is mine and I refuse to spend it sitting on my ass when I could be making progress on any number of things, and I AM.
Enough about all this for now. I have more writing I need to do. I've got some great ideas and I can't let them slip away.
Well root for me my loyal brigands. Root for me because I need it. I need to become not-a-fatass and healthy. Cheers.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
V Word
VLOGGING!
Ultra capped yelling out of the way, I really must comment on this topic. I purchased a Flip UltraHD digital camcorder a few weeks ago. It was one of two purchases I felt necessary for me to own if I were to go South Korea. Why? To vlog of course.
I first found out about vlogging way back in 2004 while perusing the web for blogs of expats in Japan. I came upon one website, AvoidingLife, that actually focused on video blogs which were actually a new idea at the time. Digital camcorders weren't as widely available as they are nowadays, though I'm sure they were still there filling YouTube with crap. I followed AvoidingLife up until the author left Japan for his home in Canada. His vlogs faded by the end of his stay there until eventually drying up completely.
Fast forward 6 years. I scoffed at the entire Youtube site for as long as I was aware of it's existence. As far as I knew it was full of stupid videos of dumb teenagers singing and dancing, fools injuring themselves in pointless ways, idiotic and unfunny animations and boring people talking about their boring lives (of which I am now one, see more in a bit). Then I found Rodger Swan's excellent vlogs about his life in Japan earlier this year. Slowly from this starting point I found more vloggers of quality. Sadly Rodger passed away a month after I started following his videos, but thanks to him I am now following some great vloggers on Youtube. Tokyo Cooney, BusanKevin, Qi Ranger, simonandmartina and Softypapa are some of the best. These are all expat vloggers living in an Asian country, which I use to live vicariously as I have done with blogs in the past. There is a feeling of community amongst these vloggers which is also really cool and makes it easy to constantly find new videos to watch.
So now I've decided to join the vlogging community. I can't promise that my videos will be interesting (in fact I can almost guarantee they won't be) but I'm going to try my damnedest to make them watchable. Some as Nigel maybe?
The first two are up on my Youtube channel and feature Ashes and I walking and talking BusanKevin style in Portland. Nothing is going on in my life at the moment so don't expect too many videos at the moment. Once we move, be it Korea or somewhere else in the country, we'll have a ton more to post about. Anyway go check out our attempts at vlogging.
ProfessorDMJ's Vlog
Ultra capped yelling out of the way, I really must comment on this topic. I purchased a Flip UltraHD digital camcorder a few weeks ago. It was one of two purchases I felt necessary for me to own if I were to go South Korea. Why? To vlog of course.
I first found out about vlogging way back in 2004 while perusing the web for blogs of expats in Japan. I came upon one website, AvoidingLife, that actually focused on video blogs which were actually a new idea at the time. Digital camcorders weren't as widely available as they are nowadays, though I'm sure they were still there filling YouTube with crap. I followed AvoidingLife up until the author left Japan for his home in Canada. His vlogs faded by the end of his stay there until eventually drying up completely.
Fast forward 6 years. I scoffed at the entire Youtube site for as long as I was aware of it's existence. As far as I knew it was full of stupid videos of dumb teenagers singing and dancing, fools injuring themselves in pointless ways, idiotic and unfunny animations and boring people talking about their boring lives (of which I am now one, see more in a bit). Then I found Rodger Swan's excellent vlogs about his life in Japan earlier this year. Slowly from this starting point I found more vloggers of quality. Sadly Rodger passed away a month after I started following his videos, but thanks to him I am now following some great vloggers on Youtube. Tokyo Cooney, BusanKevin, Qi Ranger, simonandmartina and Softypapa are some of the best. These are all expat vloggers living in an Asian country, which I use to live vicariously as I have done with blogs in the past. There is a feeling of community amongst these vloggers which is also really cool and makes it easy to constantly find new videos to watch.
So now I've decided to join the vlogging community. I can't promise that my videos will be interesting (in fact I can almost guarantee they won't be) but I'm going to try my damnedest to make them watchable. Some as Nigel maybe?
The first two are up on my Youtube channel and feature Ashes and I walking and talking BusanKevin style in Portland. Nothing is going on in my life at the moment so don't expect too many videos at the moment. Once we move, be it Korea or somewhere else in the country, we'll have a ton more to post about. Anyway go check out our attempts at vlogging.
ProfessorDMJ's Vlog
Friday, May 7, 2010
FMW - the W is for WTFX
So I've been watching my old FMW dvds over the course of the last 3 days. Since I only have three it didn't really take me very long. I got the idea after watching a ton of stuff on NJPW's YouTube channel, figuring I'd go back to where my interest in Puroresu (Japanese Pro Wrestling) began. It all started with the masked Hayabusa and went down hill from there.
Let me give you a small bit of history before jumping into the tragedy that is FMW's dvds. FMW was a Puroresu company that was founded in 1989 on the "deathmatch" principle, meaning over the top "wrestling" matches with fire, bladed weapons and the ropes replaced with barbed wire. Atsushi Onita was the hero of the company for the first six or seven years. After he fucked off into politics the high flying ninja/luchadore combo known as Hayabusa stepped into the spotlight. He continued the tradition of deathmatches and had some legendary feuds with Mr. Gannosuke, Masato Tanaka and Mike Awesome. Sadly control of the company ended up in the hands of Kodo "Samson" Fuyuki who proceeded to go the WWE route of entertainment above matches. This led to Hayabusa unmasking and becoming simply H, and fighting Mr. Gannosuke in an anus explosion match. A fucking ANUS EXPLOSION MATCH! Gannosuke put a FIRECRACKER in Hayabusa's ASSHOLE and lit the damned thing. That was the entire concept of the match! Well it is a fitting metaphor for all of FMW, or WEW as it came to be known, at the time. A while later Hayabusa suffered a career ending injury which quickened the downward spiral, and then Kodo Fuyuki died which also put an end to the company.
That's a quick and very brief history of FMW. For a much more thorough one check out BAHU's FMW site. His HISTORY of FMW is an great in depth read. I recommend it highly. About ten years ago the company decided to start branching into the USA, forming an alliance with ECW and TokyoPop. In theory this should have helped them gain a whole new audience. In reality it led to a series of pure ridiculous crap. A side effect of the ECW partnership, however, was the Rob Van Dam & Sabu vs Jinsei Shinzaki & Hayabusa tables match which stands as one of the best ECW matches of all time. Seriously, go watch that shit. Anyway the whole point here is that they gave TokyoPop the rights to release their footage in America. The problem with this is that the FMW footage was raw, as in the commentary was in Japanese. This was really an era where information on the internet wasn't as easy to find as it is now and meant many of the fans didn't know a thing about FMW. So TokyoPop decided to make the shit up because nobody knew any better.
When I say they made it up I mean they literally just made the shit up as they went along. FMW Crash 'n' Burn is the first FMW dvd I ever got and it's the one I'm going to focus on today. The show starts off with our hosts John Watanabe and Eric Gellar. Saying that these two are the absolute worst commentators in the history of wrestling may not be a stretch. It's an painfully awkward pairing as Watanabe is left speechless by the utter stupidity that comes out of Gellar's mouth more than once. This guy clearly had no experience whatsoever with FMW or even wrestling! I could that both of them had not been given any direction and were just making it up as they went along. It was like Stranglemania! I almost think that it was an attempt to rewrite what was going on in the matches, kind of like a much less funny Most Extreme Elimination Challenge. To be fair, Gellar was eventually dropped on later DVDs for the much less foolish Dan "The Mouth" Lebronsky and they started referencing the real FMW storylines and history.
Let's take a look at some of the bullshit that was going on in this DVD. Let's take Mike "The Gladiator" Awesome. They claimed he was in the Japanese Marines, which don't exist, and that he was kicked out for fighting in underground street fights. And they were very serious about this! Every time Masato Tanaka was in the ring they kept talking hush-hush to each other in an awful attempt to avoid a touchy subject. Eventually they caved and revealed that Masato Tanaka had KILLED "Lord Darkness" in the ring and that the FMW board were reviewing the match to see if he had cheated. Of course, because that's what we were all concered about! What was this supposed to do for Tanaka? Make him look like a killer? They were trying to treat it so seriously which is the really sad thing. Kintaro Kanemura is just a fat guy that does some serious deathmatch stuff. What could they come up with for him? He was a professional circus clown and circus strongman who made the move into wrestling because that's just a natural move, y'know? They really played up his how all of his moves were variations of stuff he had learned in the circus. Chigusa Nagayo was a "naughty nurse" that used her skills from the medical field to do more damage to her opponents! And Sub Miss Sato? Well she was a prostitute of course. Not a high class one, a street walking, disease ridden prostitute. And apparently John Watanabe had frequented her quite often. Seriously.
If the fake commentary wasn't enough there were cutaway sections between matches in which Eric Gellar and two very underdressed models/prostitutes attempted to "teach" moves to the viewers. This was a trainwreck of Diva search proportions. Gellar just didn't know what he was doing. Hell the moves he was trying to "train" us to perform weren't even real. He just made up a name for something and let the models touch each other. This really served no purpose other than to show off some boobs. This was also dropped in later DVDs due to pointlessness.
I really want to pick up the other 5-6 DVDs just to see how bad they were compared to this one. The other two that I have, Rule the Asylum and Final Encounter, weren't half as bad as this particular outing. I know that Gellar is on at least one other DVD so I really want to get that one to hear what kind of outlandish bullshit they make up. It's really worth watching if you're an informed Puroresu fan since you know exactly how bad these stories are.
FMW wasn't bad by any means and was in fact one of the more entertaining promotions in wrestling history. They just attempted to expand their influence into America in a very half-assed and ill advised manner.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Your Champ Sucks: Rating the 'World' Champions
The thing about professional wrestling is... I don't really watch it anymore. I haven't watched it on a steady basis since probably 2006-2007. Even then I was watching mostly Japanese and ROH stuff. I'm just not very interested in the modern "major" pro wrestling scene.
I realized years upon years ago that I had outgrown what they were trying to push on people. I've covered my disillusion with pro wrestling in detail before, so I'll give a a brief rundown before getting to my main topic. The idea that wrestling is a soap opera is foolish. It's a sort of low-brow performance art. It's something fun for pseudo-intellectual types to critique. Or something. What it shouldn't be is 1 hour 40 minutes of talking and developing horrifyingly stupid stories that are an insult to anyone with a shred of intelligence. The way ahead is through amazing in ring action, and all the major companies have forgotten this despite possessing some of the top talent. Ring of Honor is a huge underground hit, Japanese wrestling never changed it's format, and TNA made it's name based on good old fashioned ACTION.
That whining aside I'll mention the greatest goal of all pros, championships. Every promotion has a prize at the top. Over the years there have been several companies that could truly claim "World" title status. Most of them are dead. Like boxing championships there can never truly be one top champion, but instead dozens of titles all claiming to be the most important in the world. Some companies even have TWO top titles... which is very, very unwise. So let's take a look at the current wrestlers at the peak of their profession.
And yes, I know I probably should have written more about the role that championships play in wrestling. That's sort of a given really. They mean the same thing that any "belt" type championship does. In essence gaining a championship means one of three things: you kissed the right ass, management thinks it's the right move, or the fans are outright demanding it. Sadly the last one happens the least. Fans opinions don't count in wrestling. Ever.
On to the champions!
WWE WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT (Big Gold Belt, WCW Title, Smackdown champion, Trips belt)
Jack Swagger
Grade = F
I don't even know who the fuck this is. I watched one promo he did and it was awful. He had no emotion, a dumb looking face, and a boring suit.
WWE HEAVYWEIGHT (Spinner Belt, Cena Belt, Ugliest Title in the World, RAW Champ)
John Cena
Grade = C+
I don't like him and he really can't get any better than a passable match. Although by this point he's really got the whole "being a champion" thing down. It's not as bad as it was 5 years ago, but that's just because I've gotten used to him. The idiots really like him, anyway, so he'll always be champion.
TNA WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT (NewWCW championship, nottheX Title)
Rob Van Dam (Johnny the Asp, Robbie Winkle)
Grade = A
Rob Van Dam gets only his second world title run... ever. For one of the most popular wrestlers of the early 00s this is well deserved. He was perpetually a top candidate for the glass ceiling award, but finally broke through a few years ago and never looked back. For once, good job TNA.
ROH "WORLD" CHAMPIONSHIP (Better 5 years ago Title, Best of Whats Left championship)
Tyler Black
Grade = C-
He's not the worst and he's not the best. He really is just the best of what's left after ROH got picked clean by TNA and WWE. With the likes of Nigel, AmDrag, Punk, Joe, AJ, and others long gone they don't have a lot to work with. I haven't seen the recent ROH product enough to know if this is a good move but I always did like Black. With Christopher Daniels on his way back, however, I don't think he's long for the title.
NWA WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT (Rectangle title, Means Nothing Anymore title)
Adam Pearce
Grade = D+
He's the booker, he's the champ. Not as bad as Blue Demon Jr. (who's energy drink I LOVE), but there are so many independent workers out there that could add their name to this title. It's vanishing act after TNA dropped the NWA was total. With no exposure and no real competition, this title is unlikely to ever be in the spotlight again. Though that's what people said back in 2001...
TRIPLE CROWN (50s looking & barely holding together, Baba's belts)
Minoru Suzuki
Grade = B
Had I written this even a week ago it would have been Ryota Hama... and the grade would've been F-. Luckily he dropped the titles on his first defense to the always hard MiSuzuki. This will inevitably lead to Masakatsu Funaki vs Minoru Suzuki which will be some stiff goodness.
GHC HEAVYWEIGHT (...got nothing, Belt of Awesome title matches, Kobashi's belt)
Takashi Suguira
Grade = D+
I'm not against juniors going up a division and winning the top belts, but in this case it just didn't feel right. Suguira really doesn't feel like a top contender to me. Go Shiosaki is awesome, but I don't think he really has the fans in his palm quite yet so the title was taken and given to... Suguira? With so much amazing talent in NOAH I feel like this was just the wrong choice of champion.
IWGP HEAVYWEIGHT (Soured by Sapp, Lessened by Lesnar)
Togi Makabe
Grade = A
He was built up pefectly. After years of getting the big wins but failed title shots, a G1 Climax victory and leading his stable to war against Nakamura, Makabe finally earns his championship and it just feel right. It was a classic slow build that just doesn't happen very often anymore. It worked for Makabe.
So there it is folks. What do you think about the current champions, if anything. Or do you just hate wrestling in general. I'll admit I only found out about half of these (mostly the American ones) through Wikipedia. There isn't much of a place for wrestling in my life. Every so often, like today, I'll get in a mood and watch some. Today I watched an FMW and a NOAH dvd. Guess which one was better? Even so, the FMW was fun. Outside of these occasional days I just don't have a lot of room in my life for wrestling.
I honestly challenge you to go and watch an entire two hour episode of WWE or TNA and see if you can get through it without yelling at the screen in disgust. Or changing the channel due to massive stupidity displayed on screen.
I realized years upon years ago that I had outgrown what they were trying to push on people. I've covered my disillusion with pro wrestling in detail before, so I'll give a a brief rundown before getting to my main topic. The idea that wrestling is a soap opera is foolish. It's a sort of low-brow performance art. It's something fun for pseudo-intellectual types to critique. Or something. What it shouldn't be is 1 hour 40 minutes of talking and developing horrifyingly stupid stories that are an insult to anyone with a shred of intelligence. The way ahead is through amazing in ring action, and all the major companies have forgotten this despite possessing some of the top talent. Ring of Honor is a huge underground hit, Japanese wrestling never changed it's format, and TNA made it's name based on good old fashioned ACTION.
That whining aside I'll mention the greatest goal of all pros, championships. Every promotion has a prize at the top. Over the years there have been several companies that could truly claim "World" title status. Most of them are dead. Like boxing championships there can never truly be one top champion, but instead dozens of titles all claiming to be the most important in the world. Some companies even have TWO top titles... which is very, very unwise. So let's take a look at the current wrestlers at the peak of their profession.
And yes, I know I probably should have written more about the role that championships play in wrestling. That's sort of a given really. They mean the same thing that any "belt" type championship does. In essence gaining a championship means one of three things: you kissed the right ass, management thinks it's the right move, or the fans are outright demanding it. Sadly the last one happens the least. Fans opinions don't count in wrestling. Ever.
On to the champions!
WWE WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT (Big Gold Belt, WCW Title, Smackdown champion, Trips belt)
Jack Swagger
Grade = F
I don't even know who the fuck this is. I watched one promo he did and it was awful. He had no emotion, a dumb looking face, and a boring suit.
WWE HEAVYWEIGHT (Spinner Belt, Cena Belt, Ugliest Title in the World, RAW Champ)
John Cena
Grade = C+
I don't like him and he really can't get any better than a passable match. Although by this point he's really got the whole "being a champion" thing down. It's not as bad as it was 5 years ago, but that's just because I've gotten used to him. The idiots really like him, anyway, so he'll always be champion.
TNA WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT (NewWCW championship, nottheX Title)
Rob Van Dam (Johnny the Asp, Robbie Winkle)
Grade = A
Rob Van Dam gets only his second world title run... ever. For one of the most popular wrestlers of the early 00s this is well deserved. He was perpetually a top candidate for the glass ceiling award, but finally broke through a few years ago and never looked back. For once, good job TNA.
ROH "WORLD" CHAMPIONSHIP (Better 5 years ago Title, Best of Whats Left championship)
Tyler Black
Grade = C-
He's not the worst and he's not the best. He really is just the best of what's left after ROH got picked clean by TNA and WWE. With the likes of Nigel, AmDrag, Punk, Joe, AJ, and others long gone they don't have a lot to work with. I haven't seen the recent ROH product enough to know if this is a good move but I always did like Black. With Christopher Daniels on his way back, however, I don't think he's long for the title.
NWA WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT (Rectangle title, Means Nothing Anymore title)
Adam Pearce
Grade = D+
He's the booker, he's the champ. Not as bad as Blue Demon Jr. (who's energy drink I LOVE), but there are so many independent workers out there that could add their name to this title. It's vanishing act after TNA dropped the NWA was total. With no exposure and no real competition, this title is unlikely to ever be in the spotlight again. Though that's what people said back in 2001...
TRIPLE CROWN (50s looking & barely holding together, Baba's belts)
Minoru Suzuki
Grade = B
Had I written this even a week ago it would have been Ryota Hama... and the grade would've been F-. Luckily he dropped the titles on his first defense to the always hard MiSuzuki. This will inevitably lead to Masakatsu Funaki vs Minoru Suzuki which will be some stiff goodness.
GHC HEAVYWEIGHT (...got nothing, Belt of Awesome title matches, Kobashi's belt)
Takashi Suguira
Grade = D+
I'm not against juniors going up a division and winning the top belts, but in this case it just didn't feel right. Suguira really doesn't feel like a top contender to me. Go Shiosaki is awesome, but I don't think he really has the fans in his palm quite yet so the title was taken and given to... Suguira? With so much amazing talent in NOAH I feel like this was just the wrong choice of champion.
IWGP HEAVYWEIGHT (Soured by Sapp, Lessened by Lesnar)
Togi Makabe
Grade = A
He was built up pefectly. After years of getting the big wins but failed title shots, a G1 Climax victory and leading his stable to war against Nakamura, Makabe finally earns his championship and it just feel right. It was a classic slow build that just doesn't happen very often anymore. It worked for Makabe.
So there it is folks. What do you think about the current champions, if anything. Or do you just hate wrestling in general. I'll admit I only found out about half of these (mostly the American ones) through Wikipedia. There isn't much of a place for wrestling in my life. Every so often, like today, I'll get in a mood and watch some. Today I watched an FMW and a NOAH dvd. Guess which one was better? Even so, the FMW was fun. Outside of these occasional days I just don't have a lot of room in my life for wrestling.
I honestly challenge you to go and watch an entire two hour episode of WWE or TNA and see if you can get through it without yelling at the screen in disgust. Or changing the channel due to massive stupidity displayed on screen.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Little Computer People
I have finally got what I should have had all along. I purchased a laptop the other night. Not a laptop really, but a netbook. This purchase is something I'm still mulling over and might reconsider. There are some positives, quite a few negatives, and some other stuff in general to consider. I'll give it a few days and decide if I should just holdout for a bigger, faster laptop.
As a wannabee writer I feel this is an essential tool to add to my arsenal. It's the most important tool in any hopeful modern writer's resources. I know to some people it seems that the most important tool is creativity, ambition or the doggedness to just put your head down and write. I'd argue that those are just intuitive and can't be learned or picked up later on. You may force yourself to be ambitious, but you can't force creativity. It's there or it's not. A laptop, however, is something that must be purchased. I can tell you that a desktop computer was too much of a distraction to actually get any real work done. Again that's probably a personal problem, but even though I've had this laptop less than a day I've found myself writing quite a bit. It's portable which is great and means that I can bring my writing with me instead of being stuck in (for now) a corner of the room.
When it came time to make the purchase I went with a netbook. I had been considering it for a while and really thought that a netbook would be the right way for me to go. These are even more portable than a regular laptop. The problem with this is that you make a lot of trade offs. I had to decide on one within a $400 range, which is pretty limiting. Towards $500 there were some much better models. This one was a fair price, but that small price came with a small screen and lack of power. The meager 1gb of RAM is pretty bad. My old desktop only has 1gb and I was getting quite sick of how little it could really do.
This computer seems to be handicapped in that way from the start. It is upgradable to 2gb which might be a necessity should I keep this model. The other major, major problem is the screen resolution. It is dwarfed to 1024 x 600, which is an atrocity. Many programs that I regularly enjoy need 1024 x 768 as a bare minimum, which should just be the standard on any little computer. I really wish I'd seen this before I made the purchase. This screen seems so crowded. Expectations weren't particularly high coming in, even after using a 1440 x 900 HD monitor for two years and Ashes' gigantor LED Macbook. Even so I was hoping that it would provide a bit more in the way of screen size. It's pretty disappointing.
Nonetheless all this will do is make sure that I only use this computer for the bare essentials that I should be using it for anyway, writing and browsing the internet. Especially if I end up going overseas to South Korea, which is growing less likely by the day, I would only be able to be productive and not waste my time on games. If I had to do any heavy duty stuff like video editing, I would just do it on Ashes' Macbook. Final Cut is better than anything I could get on a PC anyway.
I'll give this a few more days as a trial, but if the limitations become too much for me to handle I'll return it without regret.
As a wannabee writer I feel this is an essential tool to add to my arsenal. It's the most important tool in any hopeful modern writer's resources. I know to some people it seems that the most important tool is creativity, ambition or the doggedness to just put your head down and write. I'd argue that those are just intuitive and can't be learned or picked up later on. You may force yourself to be ambitious, but you can't force creativity. It's there or it's not. A laptop, however, is something that must be purchased. I can tell you that a desktop computer was too much of a distraction to actually get any real work done. Again that's probably a personal problem, but even though I've had this laptop less than a day I've found myself writing quite a bit. It's portable which is great and means that I can bring my writing with me instead of being stuck in (for now) a corner of the room.
When it came time to make the purchase I went with a netbook. I had been considering it for a while and really thought that a netbook would be the right way for me to go. These are even more portable than a regular laptop. The problem with this is that you make a lot of trade offs. I had to decide on one within a $400 range, which is pretty limiting. Towards $500 there were some much better models. This one was a fair price, but that small price came with a small screen and lack of power. The meager 1gb of RAM is pretty bad. My old desktop only has 1gb and I was getting quite sick of how little it could really do.
This computer seems to be handicapped in that way from the start. It is upgradable to 2gb which might be a necessity should I keep this model. The other major, major problem is the screen resolution. It is dwarfed to 1024 x 600, which is an atrocity. Many programs that I regularly enjoy need 1024 x 768 as a bare minimum, which should just be the standard on any little computer. I really wish I'd seen this before I made the purchase. This screen seems so crowded. Expectations weren't particularly high coming in, even after using a 1440 x 900 HD monitor for two years and Ashes' gigantor LED Macbook. Even so I was hoping that it would provide a bit more in the way of screen size. It's pretty disappointing.
Nonetheless all this will do is make sure that I only use this computer for the bare essentials that I should be using it for anyway, writing and browsing the internet. Especially if I end up going overseas to South Korea, which is growing less likely by the day, I would only be able to be productive and not waste my time on games. If I had to do any heavy duty stuff like video editing, I would just do it on Ashes' Macbook. Final Cut is better than anything I could get on a PC anyway.
I'll give this a few more days as a trial, but if the limitations become too much for me to handle I'll return it without regret.
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