Archive for the 'Me' Category
Saturday, April 25th, 2009
Walkabout
I wrote once about the singular most important yearly ritual holiday that my family practices, Thanksgiving, and the meaning it has attached to it as a result of its excercise by my grandfather. In terms of rituals, my family truly has very few. I can count them on perhaps one hand. The annual ones, like Thanksgiving and Christmas are the most obvious and most frequently experienced. I had actually forgotten about the Walkabout blessing and the benediction of the new until very recently.
I was on the phone with Mom, and was sharing the news about how the move to the new house was going. She told me that Pop would be incredibly proud, and then she asked me if I was going to do the walk. The walk? What walk? Well, she explained, when you move into somewhere new, some place that you intend to make a true home, Pop would visit and bless it. This was accomplished by walking the perimeter of the place, slowly, in prayer. Prayer to protect, bless, raise a defense, cause to prosper, set aside. He had done this at the family home, and when my brother moved into his house, and my Aunt’s, and every time my mom moved.
It is hard enough for me to write this, and when she told me, I broke into tears. I had never seen him do this. I don’t think I had ever heard this described. The thing that got me was that I knew this ritual. I had performed it before. Having never seen or heard of it, I had yet performed it, in Baltimore, Austin, and of all places, Moonglow. I know how this is done. I know why it is so necessary. I called my brother about it, he had seen it done and walked with Pop when he did it, and described it to me. I could not speak. How do I know this rite? I still cannot talk about it out loud, nor have I been able to describe it to my partner.
Yesterday, I performed it at our new home. Circumnavigating the yard starting at the furthest corner, each step is a request and a seal. To raise a grand hedge of protection against harm or malice, establish a haven and a respite. To bind, remove and unfetter any dark force which may be arrayed against this home or its inhabitants. To bless it against disaster, natural and spiritual. Each step a trace, drawn in land, set aside, owned by a servant to a god of hosts. And underneath this packaged appeal, this high request for a blessing, a mark of gratitude and humility. “Look, Lord. Look at what you have given me.” That’s why it has to be done in the sunlight, you see.
Each room, room by room, set in and blessed, the walkabout ritual, stupid name for it, is a benediction for structure, land, and inhabitant. It would be assumptive of me to think that such a blessing would prevent fire, annihilation by hurricane or tornado, destruction or home invasion… but some portion of my heart stands in the middle of my conscience and insists in the loudest voice that “It does. Trust me, it does.” The part of my mind that tends to agree with the heart more often than not tells me, what the hell, perhaps it augments some statistical probability through the metaphysics of faith. The soul reminds me of Job, and that all benedictions are at the behest and grace of the author of the universe.
With the addition of a puppy siberian husky and my relationship remaining very strong with my partner, I have my own little family now, and I have my home. I am thankful for them, and I know that I am already blessed beyond what I could have imagined just a few years ago. I know Pop would be proud. I’m reminded of a tattered little plaque that hung up next to the air conditioner closet in the hallway of the home where we all lived. It was a quote from Joshua. But as for me and my house, we will serve the lord.
Wednesday, December 24th, 2008
A Look Back at 2008
So I’m sitting here chewing on a Mrs. Prindable’s candy covered apple that the mother in-law sent down, and I’m thinking, this has been quite a year. I don’t think I’ve the energy for a retrospective at this point, but I’m remarkably thankful this year came and went. Talk about change. For me, things went from being the worst they’ve ever been to the absolute best they have ever been this year.
This year, I had the opportunity to move back to the black hole that is Brevard County, and I lept at the chance. At the time, it felt more like a forced choice than a conscious one, but in retrospect it was a choice I really wanted to make. Before he died, my grandfather tasked me with keeping my family from falling apart, as his had when his parents died. Proximity is everything when it comes to family, and I’ve transitioned into the role of keeper, patriarch-in-training. I have a feeling that’s probably why Pop forced me to carve the turkey the last few years before he passed away.
Being close to my brother has also been important this year, as he went through a divorce after being married for something like 8 years. I feel that he is a better person and certainly happier being out of a destructive one-way relationship. I’m glad that he’s around, there’s a comradery we share that went lost during our later formative years that has returned. We’ve dabbled with being roommates earlier in the year, and it was successful enough an experiment that he’s going to move in with us.
This was also the year I got married. It isn’t legal as far as the laws of this state go, but it is as real and bonafide as ever marriages ever have been. It is a comfort to finally be able to answer the pesky question “Is there someone out there perfect for me?” with a definitive “Yup.” The whole “better half” thing took some getting used to this year, and lord help me I still struggle with pronouns. Our instead of My. We instead of Me. Anyone who knew me beforehand would likely find it amazing that I was able to get over a raging fear of intimacy and defensive pomposity to let someone closer than arm’s length, but fate and love wins out. I was always afraid of becoming a “They”, but as of this year, I am content to bask in the warm glow of codependency.
Which, I think, has altered me somewhat. In least in respect to my friends. Great segueway into the friends retrospective, they are the second point of reason I moved back to Florida. Friends, the very hint of their existence provides a support structure that doesn’t exist otherwise. Flat tire on the freeway, eviction notices, and boring Sunday nights are all potential disasters that friends provide insurance against. I make friends SLOWLY, and I make them for life. Jay and Dan may not be aware, but they are in large part why I moved back. Same goes for Dean, Andy, Kevin and even Nat. Friends are the bulwarks we build against horror and calamity, brothers and sisters that we get to pick and commiserate with.
Career-wise, this was a weird year. It started decently enough, with the continuance of the historically troubling doubling of my salary couched in a fleeting disaster. My first year working remotely, and I am truly spoiled to the concept. I have never gotten more work done in a day’s time than in the earlier months this year in VMK. With no interoffice politics, I can get crazy amounts of work done. No stupid producers leaning in my office doorway talking mindlessly about patching and the latest problems with the publisher. If it’s important, it goes in a bloody e-mail and I action it. I’m tempted to keep the community growth percentages I achieved in VMK a secret, as there’s only a handful of other remote-style CM/Director level types in the industry now. Hah! That would SO TOTALLY explain Eve Online! Holy crap!
Moving on though, closing that damned game was… eh. Traumatizing? It was emotional, that’s for sure. I’m just glad I was able to help most of my employees find work before the end. And I’m also pleased that the community continues to survive in some fashion in another virtual world. That really makes it worthwhile to me, that promise of continuance. I chalk the whole experience up to providence. The past few months have been weird. Moments of boredom in the limbo of being on retainer punctuated by spurts of community creation. Working on the genetic code of a new international online community is thrilling, but the continued unsatisfied anticipation is SO damned anticlimactic. Previously, I’ve only been the symphony conductor, stabbing my wand this way and that to build crescendo and pace the rhythm, but now I’m writing the effin’ sheet music. It’s slow going, but I expect the reward will be intoxicating.
Also in 2008, I found myself becoming more political than ever. I got involved in a local campaign to replace the Sheriff, which ultimately failed, but not before I culled what lessons I needed from it. Obama gave me hope, and I’m eager for the change. I’m also willing to become the change I wish to see in the world, as the old quote goes. After looking at the numbers and seeing the abysmal selection of candidates during the primaries this year, I decided that in 2010 I would attempt a run at Congress. Seriously. I’m going to give it a shot. Sure, it’ll be state level. Likely Representative, but I haven’t ruled out State Senator. After looking at some of these other jackasses and absolute buffoons making a run for it, why the hell not!
So that’s it for my look back. Later if I have time, I’ll go over the games that came and went. Tootles!
Wednesday, July 30th, 2008
Give Us This Day
The Daily Bread is a soup kitchen here in Melbourne that specializes in the production and operation of manageable, efficient miracles. One of perhaps two locations where God is Kept on the Space Coast, it is populated with volunteers who sacrifice to sit at the mouth of the void and point the way back for the lost.
I strongly urge anyone reading this to imbue and enable these right ones. Even if its just $5, there isn’t a better thing you could do. I’m not one of those modern-day pharisees types who’d go so far as to say that whatever you give magically turns into brilliant white holy power and will come back to you ten-fold. But, in this particular case, I’m confident that giving even the stringent minimum is correct and good and right in a very cosmic sense. Opportunities to purchase wholesale this variety and quantity of grace rarely occur, so I very much encourage it.
Go here. Click the Paypal button, tap in your info and plunk down a satisfying number. Immensely satisfying, I promise, and you’ll set humanity ahead a couple of dots to boot.
Thursday, June 26th, 2008
My Opponent Hates Puppies
Handful of things-
Doing a lot more in the way of tickets and shows and things lately. As I grow older, culture seems to be more and more a product that can be purchased and consumed. Going to check out Arabian Nights horse show, looking into the Orlando Science Center and potentially a cruise for an upcoming vacation. I’ve never quite been out of the country, and the Bahamas or Mexico would *totally* count.
I’ve been meaning to get back into cooking. The creation of a really awesome meal as a reason for family to get together and the exhilaration of trying a new recipe (or three) is something that really appeals to my nesting nature. Southern Fried Chicken (without cheating), fresh green beans with those little bits of bacon in them, seasoned red potatoes and a big boiled pot of super-sweet Zellwood yellow corn would make for a perfect summer “Just ‘Cuz” feast. Chalk this Normal Rockwellesque delusion of a Publix commercial style family get-together to a heat stroke.
The likelier outcome of an attempt of the above would be a war with blood pressure as I figure out how to precisely burn or undercook the chicken while fending off the dramas of the ol’ dysfunctional gang. Ah, but anticipated failure never stopped ME from doing anything! Something to brew about, anywho.
In other news, I’ve been playing a handful of newly released games here and there. The Guild 2 came out with an expansion, and it feels pretty close to a massively single-player game, something along the lines of a Port Royale and The Sims. Manipulating your dynasty for monopoly over the Hanseatic League is fun, until you run out of buildings to buy and towns to subdue.
Settlers 6: Rise of an Empire is a giddy-making game, and it has me mired for hours on end (when it works). Some of the scenarios are really quite well thought out, and it really took me back to strategy 101. My singular peeve is that in each scenario, you start with this hideously designed infrastructure with roads going every which way and all your necessary shops arranged in an insanely inefficient circle, rather than grid format. So you have to wait until you can safely kill off that first iteration or try to build around it. I’m sure that’s how regular old cities worked out, but ugh, annoying!
Supreme Ruler 2020 was an absolute abysmal failure in every single regard. It is as though someone took everything that could even be remotely classified as “global strategy” and shoved it without care into a hideous, unintuitive, mind-searing interface and slowed any semblance of time lapse to a crawl. Inflation is unexplained, nations gradually grow to hate you for no other purpose other than your continued existence, the supply chain from natural resources to finished products is obscure at best. Domestic and international trade are meshed together with no clear figures about what’s going to who or where or why, or how much of it. The resource progression is arcane and non-intuitive. Short on timber? Think making more Timber Yards will fix it? Think again. A horrible game that could have been a shining jewel.
As for Age of Conan, well, I haven’t touched that game since a few days after it came out. Yes, it runs on my machine, but it doesn’t run what I would classify as “well”. And I have a damned good machine. If your minspec is too high, it doesn’t matter if your game has content and fun - if I as consumer-player perceive the reduction in QUALITY as greater than 50% of what the game is intended to run at, you’ve lost me at the gate. I could probably run WoW on my blackberry. And I haven’t heard any word-of-mouth stories about Conan that would prompt me to overlook the initial 5 FPS tutorial barrier to entry. Eve Online also take note - reduce your “tutorial” to less than 48 hours of my life and we’ll talk.
The Political Machine 2008 was eh, alright I suppose. A fan of the 2004 version, I was really hoping the latest installment was going to bring a lot more features and fun to the table. Apart from the Bobblehead thing, umm, yeah, not much change. There’s a handful of new issues to take a stand on, like High Gas Prices and the Mortgage Crisis, but there are still no debates, still no primary season. As a player, what’s the point on taking a stand on any of the negative issues if there are no rewards involved in assuming that risk? I’m walking through the game as Joe Pishgar up against Giuliani to Lincoln and beating them squarely by 10% or more every time by simply coming out in favor of The Environment, The War on Terror, More Jobs, Social Security. If real politics is anything even remotely similar, I’m going to have an easy race when I run for congressbastard in a few years. Here’s how one of my ads will go-
America is a great nation, a nation of ideals and courage. As a person of ideals and with great faith in our country, I’ve always stood in favor of oxygen. It’s in the air we breath, the water we drink, and through it we have one of the most powerful rights in the history of the world - the right to free speech. Oxygen is an important resource and should be recognized for the pivotal role it plays in our day to day lives as Americans. Come November, you are going to have a choice in candidates - I’d be honored if you put your faith and trust in me. I’m Joe Pishgar, and I’m in favor of oxygen for America.
In other news, work is proceeding apace. I’m pleased as punch that I get to design a community infrastructure from the ground up. Who knew there was so much delight in affixing the nuts and bolts to a sequence of policies and initiatives? It’s fun, but very documentation intensive. I don’t think I’ve ever really thought this deep about how communities are formed from nothingness. Usually there’s a community already *there*. On the flip side, most of the major issues I’ve encountered in the past have been the result of missed steps or incorrect assessments during the infrastructure planning phases. So, I’m TOTALLY going to be the guy to blame if I accidentally miss a disciplinary policy or skirt a half-dozen less dynamic pylons of the infrastructure. On the other flip side though, if it works like a well-oiled machine, I’m absolutely going to patent the accursed thing. (Can you patent a process handling philosophies of formative relationships in a socio-psychological online group dynamic?)
Sunday, May 4th, 2008
Why I Don’t Play WoW
The reason I do not play World of Warcraft is because as a game, it is too good. Yes, I played from levels 1-60, and I experienced end-game raiding content well before Burning Crusade. I was lucky enough to have exhausted much of the content available before Blizzard dumped a heaping helping back on top, and used the momentum from my raid misfortunes to build up enough escape velocity.
I’ve escaped from World of Warcraft, and I’m proud to say that I have. But I don’t damn the game or the players who play it. For me, the world of Azeroth presents too much opportunity for fun to stand in direct competition with “RL”. The problem, if it can be seen as a problem, is that as a game it is too well done. There is so much content to go through, with such a rich, consistent history. The game itself feels easy, dangling well-deserved carrots at frequencies seemingly tailor made to the player.
I’m not going to call WoW the perfect MMO. It falls short in several areas. First off, there is no player housing. Player housing provides a sense of permanance and ownership that simply doesn’t exist in most games outside of Ultima Online. There are no live events. Nothing on a WoW server is ever going to be truly “surprising” or unique in that it happens out of the ordinary. Thirdly, endgame remains GearCraft, which perhaps is the only extant solution to the design problem of endgame on a level treadmill. You will have inflation, you will have farming, you will have economic stratification.
And it is a level treadmill. Don’t convince yourself otherwise. It is a cleverly designed, beautifully tweaked level treadmill obfuscated deeply by mounds and mounds of gooey sugary content. Level 14 to 15? Not without going to this new land and exploring wonderful new things and meeting all these awesome new NPCs and abilities! Nom nom nom.
When I went to interview for the spot of Blizz CM, they asked me if I still played, and I embarrassingly had to say no - and tried to explain to the best of my ability why. They handed me a copy of Burning Crusade, fresh off the presses, and it still sits, unopened, on the shelf in the closet of my home office. Sometimes, late at night, when I glance over the four or five rows of game icons on my desktop, the box seems to call to me. “Play me. I could give you untold hours of satisfaction.” it seems to say. And it would, and I know exactly how it would feel and what to expect if I cracked that box open.
It would consume every spare moment, every moment not dedicated to something specific, something Other. “Other” itself would be WoW, and all conversations like roads would lead back to WoW. The dulcid hypnotic music of the swirling opening gate of login screen would welcome me time and time again, until a very part of my psyche and soul were claimed by the World of Warcraft. I would find myself engaged in the evil math, the DARK MATH that I have spoken before of to friends and relatives when afflicted with the powers of World of Warcraft. You know this math of which I speak. You’ve done it yourself if you’ve played.
/played. Oh, I spent that much time in this game. I see. Well, let’s see, that’s 8 months, times subscription fee, plus original box purchase. Divided by how many hours I’ve played. So that’s X cents per hour played, enjoying a wonderful game. If I were out at the movies or having drinks with friends, it would be a lot more expensive. A night out on the town can run upwards of fifty, sixty dollars. And look at all the fun I’m having staying right here at home. It’s a smart decision, it really is. It really is.
Dark Math. Justification and truth used to reinforce what is undoubtedly an addiction. And anyone that says they aren’t addicted to WoW is pulling your leg. It’s an addictable MMO. I would go so far as to say that it is the most addictive MMO. Watch the eyes in a “casual” player when they hear that login music. They freaking dilate, as though the person were physiologically getting ready for food or sex!
I don’t play WoW because it would eat me. I was actually in the beta test, and I learned how good of a game it was then, and outright refused to buy it when it came out because I knew matter-of-factly that it would consume me cowlick to toenail. If, at some point, Blizzard decides to release a redux version, with less content, maybe more PvP, and certainly less satisfying gameplay, I will gladly consider giving it another go.
Friday, December 28th, 2007
Real-Time Snarkiness
Mad Doc, what the hell man? Seriously? You had a crapload of time to make Empire Earth 3, and you had ample opportunity to learn the ginormous mistakes made with Empire Earth 2, and you fudged it up? Why? Dear sweet merciful god, why! Empire Earth 3 is a freaking travesty and a miserable shame to everything in the RTS genre. I have never before regretted plunking down $50 as much as I did for this game.
First off, the game lacks any polish whatsoever. It’s as though they didn’t bother. The voice acting for unit responses, and this happens to be an aspect I know a thing or two about dissing and being dissed for, is atrocious. The epic scope of the original series has been reduced to four, count ‘em, four ages. That’s fewer than Age of Empires 3 and its invariable march of “TRICORNE HAT-WEARING TOO-MUCH-TEAM COLOR COOKIE-CUTTER UNITS.” Empire Earth 3 all but completely relegates resource management to “that thing you do when you aren’t pissed about the framerate” with one singular resource known as Raw Materials.
The nukes are gone. The awesome flying gundam-style units are gone. The aircraft as units are gone, replaced instead with abilities tied to the expenditure of Wealth, which is gained through opening “slots” which are filled without your say so. Building placement is horrifying. Don’t even bother trying to build walls. At least, not where there are trees, or plants, or units, or land of any kind. I literally spent 15 minutes trying to place a tower to defend my docks, and when it finally placed it was a good ten miles away from the shoreline.
Empire Earth 3 chugs on my new machine (AMD 6000+, 4 gigs ram, 512 video card) and really looks and feels like a game you’d find next to Theme Hospital and Prison Tycoon 2 in a shadowy corner of a Big Lots. Gigantic disappointment.
Universe at War was a really nice surprise. Petroglyph has outdone themselves with this new RTS, and I got quite a bit of play out of it over the holiday. The three factions are incredibly unique, clever and quite inspired. I get a kick out of playing the Hierarchy, these big lumbering aliens with a War of the Worlds type flavor to them. Having units slam down into the ground from suborbit is a nice touch, and the fact that their method of resource management is basically the harvesting of trees, random cars and pedestrians is delightful. The Novus faction is also really intriguing, zipping around from point to point through strands of light dotting the map.
I’m not going to spoil the whole shebang, it really is fun enough to go out get, and definitely worth the buy. I’d give it a nigh perfect score as far as RTSs go, with the exception of the major pathing issues the Hierarchy walkers run into constantly. Next on the list of games is Hellgate London, so stay tuned. 
Thursday, December 20th, 2007
Are Es Ess?
After installing Windows Vista on a new machine (WHY, DEAR GOD WHY?) GreyPawn has discovered RSS feeds! Welcome to the year 2004!
Yes, I am indeed a dinosaur. Rawr. *gesticulates wildly with little t-rex style arms*
Change-resistant until there’s a nice excuse to make the plunge. Two and a half weeks ago, I got a new cell phone, a Blackberry Pearl, in fact. Quite nice. Yet, for some reason I am still lugging around my ancient LG flip-phone. As a side-effect, this expanded level of interconnectivity is somehow comforting. When Google releases the very first eye/brain embedded cyberware, I think I’ll jump to the bleeding edge of technology. Until then, steady goes it.
A few side notes, before I totally forget them.
- Moving is annoying and difficult.
- Age of Conan no longer looks as appealing as it did before they showed gameplay.
- Ice water showers are not as fun as I remember them being.
- Portal remains the funnest game of the past half-decade.
- My old boss Brian Reynolds -totally- needs to remake Alpha Centauri.
Wednesday, November 21st, 2007
Define “Crowded”
After a successful induction period, familiarizing myself with the role, procedures and policies of my new position, I am flying home tomorrow to Florida. I will be flying out of Los Angeles International Airport, one of the busiest airports on the planet, on the day before Thanksgiving, which is one of the busiest travel days in the country. Panic and mayhem!
Do I strike you, the reader, as a xenophobe by chance? I hope I don’t. I’m really not. It’s kind’ve an odd thing really, my inimitable fear of crowds. I don’t consider myself a very social person. I don’t do the “hanging out” thing much, and I make friends extraordinarily slowly. It honestly takes me about 18 months to make a friend. I’ve come to realize that this may be because my lighter grade social interaction requirements are being fulfilled by complex networks of friends on the net. As part and parcel of my career path, I am required to interact with hundreds, thousands of individual entities in a given day, usually as an operant, but passive force. Maybe this has dulled my ability to transform acquaintances into friends? I wonder if thats endemic to other CMs… hmm.
Where was I before I went all Myspacey on your asses? Ahh yes. Flying.
Friday, November 9th, 2007
It’s Understood That Hollywood
I am now Community Manager for Sulake (pronounced SUE-locky), working with the Virtual Magic Kingdom with Disney. Sulake is a Finnish company best known for it’s flagship title, Habbo Hotel, which boasts over four bajillion users.
I’ll be here in California right up till the day before Thanksgiving, coordinating, training and setting things up to do the job remotely. Luckily, it’s been worked out that I’ll be able to live in Florida with my family and function as full CM. It’s a surprisely rare thing, as even though nearly everything a CM does can be done remotely, most companies aren’t comfortable with folks being offsite. I consider myself fortunate to not only oversee an awesome community team, but to be able to do it near friends and family and what I consider “home”.
So let me tell you really quick about my experiences here so far. My third day in, I was treated to a personal tour of the Disney Studio in North Hollywood. The Disney Studio is a closed lot, unlike others in the area, so I really got to see the awesome behind-the-scenes stuff that few get to see. I arrived with a certain level of reservation and prudence, having grown up in Central Florida, basically the shadow of The Mouse an ever-looming presence. On the way in, I was in the back seat, and we passed through a picket-line of the Writer’s Guild that is on strike right now. Ever feel like the villain in a bad made-for-TV movie? When you cross a picket line, that’s the emotive quality of that experience, I think. It was certainly surreal.
So, inside, I was shown where they made Armageddon and Pirates of the Caribbean. The cafeteria/commisary was nice, and over yonder was the Disney version of the walk of fame, with handprints in gold from Elton John, Robin Williams, and other stars. I kept my composure, it wasn’t too difficult to do. We went into a place called “The Archive”. Up the elevator, which opened on a corridor under construction, that wound around and throughout a level leading up to a very unassuming door. Marked in almost hospital-room like letters, “Archive”. We went in, and there was a lady behind a counter to the right, to the left a large rolling filing cabinet system used for storage.
I kept my cool on the outside, but inside I totally lost it. To the right, THE jetpack used in The Rocketeer. On the left in a corner, the robot from The Black Hole. The rolling cabinet was open to Cubby’s outfit from The Mousecateers. The entire room looked like a simple library at an old middle school, except for the insane treasures it kept. We walked forward a bit, to a small seating area with more artifacts up on the shelves.
I twitched, as to my right, we passed by, oh, a half dozen Emmy’s and Oscar awards in a display case. Actual Emmy’s and Oscars Walt won. Inner composure started to crack here, and I turned left to see what I had missed. The Ruby Slippers. The Key to Oz. The Bedknob from Bedknobs and Broomsticks, with the book The Isle of Naboombu. The Jug from Darby O’ Gail and the Little People. The Sword Cane Mr. Barnaby used in Babes in Toyland. The Toy Blocks from Mary Poppins. So yeah, I left the studio drinking the Kool-Aid.
Now, as for Los Angeles itself. There is probably no other place I loathe as much as the city of Los Angeles. Before you go all Red Hot Chili Peppers with your California-luvin’ on me, strap yourself in and let me explain why.
First off, the geographic location of Los Angeles is freaking ridiculous. The mountains feel like they are consistently trying to push the city and suburbs into the ocean. Everything between the aforementioned mountains and ocean is filled in with gross, expensive, non-stratified suburb. By non-stratified, I mean ghettos sharing elbow room with McMansions. There is no gradient here. One side of the street may be the worst part of the barrio you’d ever care to know about, with the other side being the gated private sixty bedroom residence of Kurt Russell. And then there is the smog. Los Angeles is a frippen bowl covered in clouds that cover a yellow haze of perpetual smog. Like to breathe? Not in LA. Inhale deep. That metallic taste on your tongue could be the smog, or it could be the stroke you are having from driving on the worst roads ever to exist in human history. The roads define the term terrible. Example, they have such an issue with putting roads places that there is actually a highway that travels UNDER the Los Angeles Airport. It literally goes underneath the tarmac where planes are taking off overhead. Are you serious, Los Angeles? Space is that bad that you have to build roads UNDER YOUR AIRPORT? Do you know what that implies about your city and how it is planned?
Traffic is a nightmare of epic proportions. I could get from my hotel to the office in about 10-15 minutes if there were no cars on the road. But there are always cars on the roads and almost always at least one or two traffic jams due to constant construction and violent drivers. I wake at 6:30 to be able to be in by 9. Semi-trucks here have no issue driving a solid 65 mph through heavy construction, or cutting you off. There is no parking. None. No parking in Los Angeles. Go park in Burbank, there are a few spots open over there.
All of the above would be easily stomached if the people themselves were nice, but they aren’t. The people in Los Angeles and Santa Monica especially are plastic individuals, and the zero stratification persists even to the pedestrian levels. My deep senses of south-eastern morality are offended daily walking down 3rd Street Promenade, where the most sickeningly rich and hopeless poor walk side by side.
I saw a plastic woman, the kind with the big-shot corporate husband who works so she can fritter her days away at the spa or buying things she sees in windows, literally walk over a homeless grandmother bundled up on the sidewalk without so much as a second glance. How can one do that? How can one seriously have so ridiculously much and pass by those with ridiculously nothing without doing something reflexive, something so basically human nature? It offends, and I do what I can, but I do imagine that those plastic ladies hunting for Gucci must have to manufacture their own personal rose-tinted realities in order to see the world as selectively as they do.
Didn’t mean to get off on a rant about social responsibility (too late), but the people of this city are out of their damned minds. You know a giant earthquake which IS going to happen is going to kill you all, right? A very large earthquake is going to dump the majority of you into the ocean, and many will die. Los Angelesians know this, and they live with that looming over their heads. If LA was a Shadowrun character, it would have the “Borrowed Time” character flaw. It will die, but many just hope it won’t be while they are here. Is that why things cost +40% more here than they do in the rest of the country? Because they do.
I’ll spare you the rest of my inane prattling and whining about this hideous city of unfulfilled hope. I’ve been lucky, and I’m not one to whine when fortune smiles on me, but I’m truly glad I’m just visiting. This may be the City of Angels, but for the life of me I haven’t seen a single one.
Friday, October 26th, 2007
No Place Like Home
Dorothy wasn’t yanking our collective chains when she said “There’s no place like home.” The Sunshine State is less than sun-shiny since I arrived on Wednesday, as it is coldish in the rest of the country and Florida isn’t pleased with that, being hot as per usual, and when the two meet they make the mucho wetness. The ride from Austin to here was an epic journey of nigh nightmarish proportions, involving a jackknifing U-Haul trailer and one inconsiderate semi-tractor truck driver after the other.
But I’ve arrived safe and sound, and family is in good sorts, except for the minor expected drama that all families produce from time to time. My job prospects are really quite wonderful at the moment, and all the folks I’m talking to are top-notch people who really seem to get what community management can do for them. In fact, I’d venture to say that my prospects have been so good that I’ve actually been able to pick and choose which potential vacancies to pursue instead of the usual “toss the CV out there and go with what bites” common to the industry.
I’m eager to start gaming again, maybe see what’s happening in Ultima Online, or finish acing imperial piloting in SWG (must remember to eventually look into account related things, re-upping, etc.). Ooo, and Empire Earth III should be out soonish and certainly looks like it bojacked enough of the “Conquer the World” style from Rise of Nations to be 10x more playable than the misery that was EE2.