Does Anybody Have a Patch for Women?

I've been thinking a lot lately. Not having a job tends to afford me a lot of time to do that. I've been thinking about games and life. I think on some level I could probably relate any facet of my life to a game. It's true that being a gamer isn't just a hobby; It's a way of life.

I've also been pondering why it is that, in general, gamers have a hard time meeting women. And here's what I've come up with.
(This is meant to be humorous. Don't take any of it too seriously. I actually think women are wonderful.)

Women, like everything else, are like playing a game. Except in the case of women it's a poorly designed game that is very difficult to play.

First off, the images on the packaging never seem to properly communicate the actual content. It seems a lot of time and money can be spent making the box look pretty. But that doesn't every necessarily mean that you'll enjoy what you get once you get that box open. There's really now way to tell for sure what this person is like, so the only way you're going to find out is to install her into your life and find out first-hand. You just can't use the box art as an accurate judge.

Second, women don't come with a manual. Whoever made this product didn't even bother telling us gamers how to use it. Granted most of the time we wouldn't read the manual anyway, but it would be nice to have one to refer to sometimes. Especially when a problem is encountered that requires some troubleshooting. When the red lights start blinking and alarms start sounding it would be nice to have a guide telling us how to interpret those warning dialogues and properly diffuse the situation.

Thirdly, women are terrible from a gameplay perspective. The rules aren't clearly defined and are changing constantly. The controls are unfriendly and difficult to master. Mission goals are cloaked in a complex and sometimes daunting series of puzzles. Helpful user feedback or guidance are seldom provided, leaving the gamer confused and frustrated and uninterested in playing. In some cases there is also a heavy time commitment that just doesn't cater to casual play.

There are also major technical hurdles with women. There's no way to remap major functions into a more workable solution. Hacking the .ini files is out of the question, as they are most definitely "read only" when it comes to women, and only the woman has the the correct privileges to change that. Installation is difficult at best. If successful, removal and uninstallation is an even messier process. They're hard to get rid of, and often leave traces of themselves behind while wreaking havoc on your memory. It's nearly impossible to get a woman to behave and perform exactly the way you expect, not too mention that female software is full of all sorts of technical flaws and a patch never seems to be available.

Don't even get me started on the lack of multiplayer support...

Of course, if you can miraculously get past all that, the results can be absolutely amazing and totally worth all the trouble. Women are also far superior to games in that they have built-in support for haptic feedback. Games rarely have that, and if they do it requires some phenomenally expensive hardware.

My action plan is this:
I'm going to get a job designing games. I'm going to make some great games and build on that experience. And then I'm going to apply that knowledge, but not to meet women.

Instead, I'm just going to design a better woman, dammit.
(ugh. Weird Science flashback.)

Pirate Funk Was a Sunken Ship

Nothing interesting to report. The pirate funk party was probably fun. I wouldn't know since I didn't go. Everybody bailed out at the last minute. Instead I spent the evening with a friend eating snack foods while watching Say Anything starring John Cusack. It wasn't nearly as funky or booty-filled (pirate booty, of course) as the night had originally promised. It was an enjoyable albeit quiet evening nonetheless.

Trent Reznor is Insane!

I take it back. If you read the comments for the post below, you no doubt saw Sarah's comment about the phone number. I replied that it has nothing to do with the forthcoming album.

But then I googled the phone number and did some research. Low and behold, it does in fact relate to the new album. The new NIN album is a concept album based in the year 2022. And it seems Trent Reznor has orchestrated a complicated viral marketing campaign to promote this concept album. The campaign includes a variety of hints and clues hidden in t-shirts and on websites. The websites themselves seem to represent the fiction that is the basis for this new album.

There's a pretty explanation of what's been going on at the blog I've linked below. It also provides links to all the little bits and pieces so that you can get sucked in to the mystery, if that sort of thing suits you.

Click here for the blog post

Enjoy.

One More Thing

I almost forgot! Nine Inch Nails has released two new tracks from the upcoming album Year Zero for preview on their myspace.
If you're a fan check them out here.
I especially like My Violet Heart.

I can't wait for the full release of this album. I hate to sound like one of "those people", but everything Trent Reznor touches turns to gold. Okay fine, I admit it. I basically am one of "those people". Except that in no way do I feel that somehow his music magically saved my screwed up life. My life was never really screwed up. I've had it pretty good. I just really like NIN.

Off topic. Back to the point. New NIN album coming out. New songs to listen to. HOORAY!

1:00 am, Sunday Night. All is Quiet

Well, quiet except for the sound of me typing while my mp3 collection continues to shuffle along in the background. There's also the low rumbling of music coming from through my bedroom wall. My roommate falls asleep to music.

The weekend was, well, a pretty average weekend. The positive news on Friday about my upcoming job started it off pretty well. Friday evening I found myself ushered out of the house to get a Thai meal and see a movie with Scott and Rachel, so that the other roommate could have some alone time with his fiancee. We watched Hannibal Rising. I quite enjoyed it. I'm not sure Rachel can say the same. Never take a vegetarian who hates horrors to see a movie about a cannibalistic sociopath. Oops.

Following the movie, I headed downtown to catch a Flood of Fire show. I had a few celebratory drinks and visited with the guys. Did I mention I'm a bit of a groupie? I forgot my earplugs and so my ears suffered a little bit, but the ringing has mostly gone away now. I'll remember them next time.

Saturday was a short and uneventful trip to the mall, followed by some video games. I decided to put green spiker-gel in my hair for the hell of it. It feels a bit like putting in a thin layer or acrylic paint, but it looks neat. There had also been plans involving some friends and alcohol, but that didn't pan out due to poor planning and a slight case of laziness on the part of all parties involved. Poor Alison was most disappointed. Next time I think I'll just take some initiative instead of leaving the planning to others.

Instead a few of us watched Running with Scissors. I hated it. Have any of you seen this movie, or maybe The Squid and the Whale? They're rather similar. They're both these ultra-sophisticated high-drama contemporary period pieces (70's and 80's respectively). And they both claim they're "comedies". I'll admit that both movies have their moments, but they're NOT comedies. There's nothing funny about a bunch of messed up miserable people who are ruining each others' lives. Jason told me it would be "dry humor". This wasn't dry humor. It wasn't even humor. It was just three hours of "dry" interspersed here and there with snippets of slight amusement. But I digress...

I spent the better part of today with Scott, Kyle, and Jeff. Sushi, a comic store, watching Metalocalypse, some TV, and finally having some pizza. 8 hours later I returned home. It was nice to get out of the house. And now I'm sitting at home writing a blog post.

I'm also reading a lot of Questionable Content. (Don't worry, it's entirely safe and not in any way inappropriate). It's an excellent web comic. One of the best I've read by far. Thanks to Sarah from E-town for mentioning it on her blog a while back. I checked it out, and liked it so much that I've been sharing it with all my net-savvy friends.

I'll hear more details about my job tomorrow or Tuesday. Any news is good news, but if they're able to offer me what they were trying to offer, I'll be ecstatic.

I'm looking forward to Friday as well. There's a funk band hosting a pirate-themed party. Costume is expected, but I'm going to put a personal twist on it. I'm thinking a sunglasses eyepatch and a jacket adorned with floppy disks. Maybe I'll post some pics next week, if I remember my camera.

Enjoy your evenings (or, rather, early mornings in this case) ladies and gents. Tomorrow (today?) is the beginning of a new week of possibility.

One of Those Mornings

I hit the snooze alarm only once this morning, giving myself a few extra minutes of rest before dragging myself out of bed at 8:09am this morning. I hadn't been up that early in months. I'd had trouble getting to sleep the night before, and I could feel the drowsiness beginning to set in.

I had a job interview at a game company this morning. It was my second interview there, and I wanted to make a good impression. So I made sure to prep the coffee maker last night and have it ready to go.

I had a shower, shaved, got dressed, checked my e-mail, and mentally prepared myself. But the moment I left the house, things started to go awry.

Riding a caffeine high, I sauntered to the bus stop at 8:55 in anticipation of my bus at 9:08. The 9:08 bus didn't arrive, leaving me to wait for the 9:23 bus and setting me a full 15 minutes behind. It's a good thing I had planned to try and catch an earlier bus, just in case this sort of thing happened. Things got worse though, as the bus hit a construction zone which slowed traffic and put me another 5 minutes behind schedule.

I checked my watch as I got onto the skytrain. It was only 9:35, so I was still making okay time. I figured I'd probably be about 5 minutes late for my meeting. I also know that game companies are petty relaxed environments, so I didn't worry much about it. There's no point stressing over something I have no control over. So I arrived at their office at 10:05am, as expected, and I don't think anybody noticed my tardiness.

I greeted Mark Baxter, the interviewer and a former instructor of mine, with a "Good morning."
"Good morning. It's been a while," he said, and I smiled back.
"It sure has."

Mark lead me down a hallway to a room dubbed "the fishtank".
"We'll do the interview in there," he said. "Please have a seat. I'll be back in a moment, I just need to fetch somebody else." I thanked him and turned for the doorway.

It was at the very moment that I walked, face-first, directly into a glass wall.
F#$k. For a split second I understood how it feels to be a starling at my parents' house in the spring.

Luckily I don't think anybody noticed, including Mark. I'm the kind of person who will laugh these sorts of things off, and so I did just that, shrugged, and had a seat on the couch.

The interview went very well. I treated myself to a tall caramel macchiato on the way home. I've got a good feeling about this one.

Honestly though, who walks into a glass wall? Next time I'm making stronger coffee.

The day that shall not be named in my presence

So here's why I hate Valentines day. And no, it's not because I think it's a holiday invented by greeting card companies to drive mass consumerism and help the slow decay of civilization. I hate V-day because it's a day that caters exclusively to couples, and leaves single guys like me in the dust. I'm single, it's February 14th, and I'm homocidally jealous of everybody who's got a special somebody.

I want to try and convince myself that it's just another day unlike any other, but that's pretty hard to do when everybody else you know who's in a relationship is "getting it on" at least once in the 24 hour period known as Valentines Day.
The day has been otherwise referred to by some friends of mine as "hump day", which sounds pretty accurate to me. I also had one friend, during a discussion of how the holiday is even unfair to men in a relationship, suggest that Feb. 15th makes up for that, as it has been unoffically dubbed "steak and a blow-job day".

But where does that leave me, and guys like me? The only way I'll get that is if I go to the keg, buy my own steak, and miraculously convince the waitress to meet me in the men's room during her break.

I delved into some Valentine's Day history to see if I could come up with some gem of knowledge that would make me feel better about the day. You know what I found out? The holiday really IS a day made for couples! Even history failed me.
It originated around 270AD in the Roman Empire. St. Valentine was a bishop who was known for marrying couples in secrecy after the emperor had forbidden marriages.

The part of this story I like is that he was later martyred for his apparent treachery to the emperor and the state. That's right folks: he made couples happy, and he got executed for it. If I were in a relationship I would probably feel a bit better about this whole stupid day, and would probably feel bad for St. Valentine. But since I'm single, I've gotta side with Emperor Claudius II on this one.

I was going to plan some sort of mass armaggeddon as a personal protest celebration. But it turns out mass armageddons require a lot of time, money, resources, and planning. So with such short notice, I guess I'll just have to do what many single women out there are probably doing tonight: curl up on the couch with some ice cream, watch a sappy movie, and cry myself to sleep.

You all suck. Enjoy your stupid Valentine's Day.

(Parental Disclaimer: no Mom and Dad, don't worry, your son isn't actually this shallow.)

A Little Four-Player Fun

I'm going to pose a question. I'm sure it's a question that's crossed all your minds at one point or another. I think it's a reasonably poignant question that deserves much thought and consideration. It's a question that I think is fully representative of our subconcious collective social conscience.

If two guys and two girls are having a 4-way and half way through the two girls start going at it with each other, what are the two guys to do? Do they just stand there and self-service in front of each other, or should they pair up too?

My Brain Needs Reformatting

A lot of people have been asking a particular question of me a lot lately. Every time I give an answer. I've been asked many times and I've given many different answers. And anybody on the recieving end of those answers knows as well as I do that they are over-rationalized excuses.

That's all they are excuses. They're not real answers.

I've been toying with this same question myself for quite some time. I won't say how long, so suffice it to say that it's a two digit number and the units of measurement are longer than minutes.

The advice everybody has been giving me is (mostly) right. It's good advice. I understand what everybody is saying, and it only makes perfect sense.

So why then, do I refuse to take that advice?

The only answer I have is that at present I do not feel I am properly emotionally equipped.

That's my answer. And for now it's the only real answer I'll give.