Alteration
Today, I started down a road that I'd been curious about and yet avoided for over 15 years. My doctor has put me on the path to being diagnosed with ADD, and with that, I have started my own personal trial run of the drug Adderall, the first dosage of which I took today. I was going to keep it on the DL but then realized very quickly that it wasn't something that was really going to cause people to look at me differently, since I think most people assume I have ADD without being prompted.
I'm probably over-dramatizing this and blowing up its significance far past the level that it deserves, but for me, taking my first pill was a major moment in how I handle myself every day and even how I view myself. I have historically held the perspective that I would prefer to not have to use "brain meds" to get through my day. I don't like the idea of how I act or feel being fundamentally different than my normal state because of something I'm taking. This attitude has been challenged multiple times by a wide variety of sources: Friends, relatives, people I generally respect, and even my own internal struggle to understand what I need to be at my best.
I have exhibited symptoms of ADD since I was old enough to be diagnosed, but never was. I was an intelligent kid and whatever setbacks that they caused were compensated for by my smarts hiding the lack of hard work that went into the final product. I also never really sought out the authority figure that would make it official, because I didn't think that it would lead to anything that would make me better. I had friends with ADD and ADHD that were medicated, but almost all were at a level of severity that there was a clear separation between the struggles of their daily lives and whatever minor issues I might be saddled with. It was very easy to say "Well, I'm not *that* bad," and go on with my life. My pediatrician (rightly, IMO) hesitated to fill me with pills when I didn't need them to function.
Throughout High School, College, and my life thereafter, however, I have continued to have problems with my ability to focus. It has manifested in my work, my hobbies, my time management, and my general ability to perform. I would have days where I would be in an amazing productivity zone, and could do no wrong. But that was always enjoyed with the asterisk that it was almost a guarantee that the next day would not be so kind, and I would be back to having to work hard to start and finish a basic task. It makes things that I enjoy transform into terrible chores. Add having internet access into that equation and you can have a day where instead of completing a task, you get 10% of the way through 20 and feel like crap.
And then came the day I walked into someone else's apartment.
It was May, and we had just moved into our new place in Orange County a couple months prior. We live on the third floor of a cookie-cutter layout that is duplicated 15 times over throughout the property, with the second and third floors being completely identical. Off in my own world while carrying lunch for the wife and I, I opened the door and stepped into an apartment that I immediately realized was not my own. I distinctly remember saying "Why are there plants next to the TV?" while my brain tried to catch up with the truth of the matter. A man I'd never seen before poked his head around the corner, looking more confused than I was. And that was when I immediately started to apologize profusely and back out of the apartment. He seemed slightly amused at the situation, if not worried for my well being. I could barely get out a complete sentence, I was so embarrassed. I went up to the third floor, lunch in hand, with my heart beating out a rhythm to a tune called "I WILL NEVER DO THAT AGAIN, IN D MINOR."
Only I did do it again. Just two weeks later. I walked past some greenery that doesn't exist on my floor, a welcome sign that we don't have, attempted to open the door, and finding it locked, began to look through my keys while assuming that Kori would most likely beat me to opening the door. The door did, in fact, open before I could move to open it myself, and greeting me through the crack was the same gentleman as before. Instead of bemusement, however, his look was one of genuine frustration and worry. "Are you *okay*?" he said, and I honestly didn't know how to respond as I left the scene. Upon returning to apologize, I was greeted by his wife who was not amused at all by my foibles. She made it plain to see that whatever apologies I could make were not as preferable as simply leaving them alone and never bothering them again. Which I haven't. Half the time I reach the steps that lead up to our apartment, I audibly say "Go all the way up, moron" to myself.
But the damage was done, and I finally felt I needed to talk to someone.
Since we had just relocated from halfway across the country, we needed a new doctor, and upon going in for our initial appointment to get to know each other, I told her my history and recent troubles, including the apartment issue. She immediately started talking about ADD and my options for treatment. I mentioned my apprehension about medication and she brought up a point that I am ashamed to admit hadn't even occurred to me.
"How much caffeine do you drink?"
"More than I should probably be comfortable with, and it used to be more."
"You've been self-medicating yourself for years. It's okay to try and find a better solution."
And she was right. I took my first dosage this morning, and I found a level of zen I hadn't experienced in a long time. Granted, I have taken exactly *one* pill. I have no idea what the long term will be, or if there will even be a long term at all. After two weeks I go back for a follow-up and see if I'm going to see someone about supplemental therapy or dosage adjustment or neither or both. But it's exciting to see a glimpse into the level that I'm capable of functioning at without having to guzzle liters of soda every week. Getting on this medication almost certainly means lowering or eliminating my soda intake, and being serious about it. Before, it was a point of pride. Now, I can't mix the two without throwing everything off. Maybe the new stuff will help compensate and make coming down off caffeine that much easier to do, we'll see.
I had the depressing thought at one point that had I found such a solution much earlier, would I have found the focus to finish other things that I'd started? Graduate with better grades in high school? Finish college, or at least complete more of it? What projects that remain half finished might have discovered the attention they'd deserved? Is my rudimentary understanding of how ADD works coloring my retroactive expectations of what I could have achieved? What did I miss out on?
The answer to all of that, however, is that it's not important. What I needed then was to finish things for myself and find the way to cope, and that's made me a stronger person. Right now, though, I need a different solution, and that's not some form of defeat or sign of weakness. It's simply how things are. I'm excited to see what the near future holds with this new tool, and I hope it fulfills the promise that it seems to provide for helping demonstrate the individual that I'm capable of being when I'm not trespassing onto other people's property.
Quarter
Those of you who are of a younger bent might be shocked to know that, once upon a time, you had to leave your house for the finest in video game entertainment. You could have a Nintendo in your home and stack thirty of the finest titles next to it, and if I asked you where the best video games were, you would give an answer that would never make sense today. The bowling alley. The place at the mall. The gas station. Or, if you were lucky, the Arcade.
I was not lucky enough to have a full arcade nearby. Living in a quiet suburb, the closest mall was not in reach on my bicycle, let alone somewhere my parents would let me venture alone as a child. I did have quite a bit of leeway in the local neighborhood, though, and so one of my favorite haunts was the Kum-n-Go a few blocks away. It was awkwardly attached to a T-shirt shop that our next door neighbor owned and operated, with an interior hallway needlessly attaching the two. Within that hallway, the manager had tucked in two arcade cabinets that were guaranteed to not be maintained properly. It was a revolving door of familiar titles: Smash TV, 1942, NARC, Mortal Kombat, and some other SHMUP games whose names escape my memory. All of them demanded my respect and hard earned playing time. But as a kid without an allowance, this was not a simple task. Sometimes random change would be found in the convenience store parking lot, or loose coins would be found on the kitchen table that nobody had claimed in a few days. I would frequently claim salvage rights and then find an excuse to get on my bike and go for a ride. My parents were probably happy I was getting out of the house for exercise. And while I was, my dark intent was much different. I was off to practice Fatality moves that I'd hastily written on a scrap of paper.
Finally, my parents figured out where I was always off to. My mom turned it into a game for awhile. She wouldn't just give me money to go play, though. Instead, she turned it into a task. Handing me a dollar, she'd tell me to run to the Kum-n-Go to buy her a bottle of Mountain Dew, and I would be allowed to use the change to play a game of Smash TV. Suddenly becoming the eager errand boy, I would take off for the store, buy the soda, ask for a bag to put it in, set it by the machine, and stretch my quarter for as long as I could. Any time my mom would have to ask where I'd wandered off to when I returned was a victory. It meant I'd truly put in an epic session of high-level gaming.
Then, one magical day, the store installed a Street Fighter II machine. Unblemished and perfect, the machine gave off a glow of authority that made the Arch Rivals cabinet next to it shrink into the corner in submission. I had to play it. I became focused solely on beating it on a single quarter, because that was the only way I could.
The next day, my mom needed a soda. Not because she asked, but because I insisted. Looking back, the hard sell must have been adorable coming out of the mouth of an 11 year old, doing his best impression of a used car salesman. My mom was won over. There probably was a whole 12-pack of cans in the refrigerator, but she knew what I was after and wasn't going to stand in my way. Off I went to the Kum-n-Go, ready to meet my destiny as a Street Fighter champion.
Bounding through the door and waving to the clerk, I rudely cut past a couple in the candy bar aisle to grab a bottle of Dew. Not even breaking my stride, I sprinted back to the counter before the couple couple put down their items. I understood their annoyance, but it would take too long to explain. It was better that I just get this over with now. Placing my dollar on the counter, I vibrated with anticipation, the Street Fighter cabinet peeking from around the corner, taunting me and making the whole process that much slower in my head.
Receipt already balled up in her hand to be disposed, she handed me my change and slid the Dew in my direction, wrapped in its customary brown bag. I glanced down at the change as I said thank you and then realized that something was amiss.
There was only 19 cents in my hand instead of the normal 26. There were six coins in my hand, none of which were quarters. The world stopped. Already my lip was quivering as I looked up to the clerk, who had most likely been mentally preparing for this moment since I'd entered the store.
"The price on soda went up," she said, seeing I was about to turn into a mess. I tried to eek out a response, maybe some attempt to beg for more change, but it didn't come. Instead, I bit my lip, looked back at her, offer her the bravest "Thank you" that I could, and walked out of the store... bawling my eyes out as the couple I'd cut in front of offered their best confused look.
I wiped my face as I gripped the brown bag holding my mom's soda, getting back on my bike and blubbering all over myself as I attempted to disembark. Being emotional, riding a bike and holding a small bag at the same time is not simple, and it took me a minute to get going. Going over the curb of the sidewalk, my hand, wet with tears, lost the bag and the bottle shattered on the pavement below. (Yes, remember when 20 oz. sodas were glass?) I was now a complete basketcase. No video game Valhalla, and now I had failed in my task for my mother, and strewn broken glass all over the parking lot. My duty overruled all other action, and still attempting in vain to stop crying, I walked back into the store.
The clerk had to have been a mom. In comes a kid in tears holding the top of a broken glass bottle as if to demonstrate all that is wrong in the world, and she immediately ran around to remove it from my grasp before I could cause a medical accident. As she took it from me, I pointed back out into the lot, praying that the devastation would be cleared before a car would almost certainly explode upon running over the broken glass. Upon disposing of the glass, she came back to where I was frozen in place, and knelt down and asked if I needed another Dew. I sniffled in the affirmative, saying it was for my mom, and she walked to the shelf and grabbed me a replacement, placing it in a larger plastic bag with handles.
"Don't drop this one, okay?" she offered encouragingly. I nodded over the pout I was still trying to remove from my face, and pulled myself together for the ride back home.
I still had not been able to play Street Fighter. It remained back at the store, almost certainly being violated by some other kid who would immediately beat it before I could claim my rightful place as champion. But I pushed those thoughts to the back of my mind as I delivered my mom's soda and handed her the 19 cents in change. The amount made my mom ask why there was so much, which almost set off another round of tears, but I was able to keep most of it in as I explained that the price had changed. My mom, empathetic to the end, expressed how horrible of luck this was, placed a quarter in my hand, and told me to head back and play the game that I'd wanted.
I did not suddenly spaz in joy. I didn't run around the room shouting THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU like I totally did when my parents bought me a Game Boy for Christmas. Instead, I became a warrior, suddenly realizing that playing this game was clearly destiny. I went back to the convenience store, sizing up the Street Fighter cabinet while the clerk still worked to remove the rest of the broken glass from the parking lot. I could stand nearby making polite gestures to offer to help, knowing they would be refused, but there was no time for that now. I had a game to destroy.
It was then that I learned a very valuable lesson: The AI in that game was cheesy as *fuck*.
What I’m Playing: Fallout New Vegas
I had an interesting experience with New Vegas on the 360 that I had to write about, because it delves into the game design rabbit hole that I've been focusing on as of late. (To make a full disclaimer, I haven't finished Fallout 3 yet. I'm probably about 75% of the way through, but being able to grab New Vegas at a nice discount compelled me to pick it up and try it out. The fact that it wasn't a "true sequel" also helps alleviate the guilt, so I popped it in anyways.)
Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas both are built on the faceless protagonist. You can be whatever you like, whoever you like, as good or as evil as you like, and run with it for the duration of the game. Your choices have mechanical consequences for sure, but there are certain moments where a payoff seems to be missing as a result. For example:
(Warning: Mild spoilers ahead. Everything I'm writing about is within the first few hours of gameplay.)
1. Goodsprings, the first town your player inhabits, has hidden away Ringo, a cocky guy who is on the run from local Powder Gangers who would just as soon destroy the city in the process of looking for their target. You have the choice of helping rat out Ringo and turn him over, or protect him from the bandits by recruiting the town to your side. Now, it's a general rule that the first time I play through an RPG where you have the Good/Evil paradigm, I always turn into the Boy Scout. I pull together a few NPC's including the Resident Incredibly Cute Girl With Shotgun, Wizened Doctor, and Matronly Bartender who Runs the Town. We make a plan, ambush the bandits, and save Ringo in the process. Losses? The Matronly Bartender. She's dead in the middle of the street.
In all the confusion during the fight, I didn't see how she died. I wasn't sure whether it was the natural result of combat or if it was scripted. That got answered for me, however, in the reaction from the city: Nothing. No mourning, no dialogue confirming the death, not even a change in management at the bar. The Bartender's body lay there amongst the bandits, and I can only assume that it will continue to lay there for the rest of my playing time.
Something like this kills part of the mystique of the game for me, and illustrates the problem with designing a game where you want to leave as much open to the player as possible. It would be impossible for the developers to script every possible reaction to whatever combination of cityfolk die as a result of this mass combat. There isn't even a guarantee that the combat happens in the first place, considering I had to make active choices just to trigger it. So, we're left with the Bartender lying in the street and for me as a player to make my own conclusions. Meanwhile, the old Prospector sits 5 feet away from the body, not blinking an eye at the fact that the matriarch of the community is most likely beginning to smell. Thank god Nevada is a dry heat, am I right?
2. Despite everything being open, the game seemed to start to want to stress some narrative facts for me. These are the things I felt confident about:
-Your current collection of weapons suck.
-Enemies are a lot stronger than you right now.
-The next step in your quest will always be pretty spelled out.
So, after dealing with the Powder Gangers, I'm encouraged to seek out the manager of the Mojave Express in Primm to discuss the delivery I was almost killed over. I begin walking towards the huge roller coaster and immediately, I'm shot at from long range by multiple bandits. Realizing there's a fence around the area, I begin backing up and try to find the entrance, finally doing so with barely a couple ticks of HP left.
Here, I find my first NCR troopers, who tell me a few more things:
-Convicts have taken over Primm
-Everyone is dead or missing
-The current contingent of NCR troops are not capable of taking back the town.
So, considering what I already know, I'm pretty screwed here, right? There's a dozen troops here and my weapons suck. Clearly, I'm not supposed to go in guns blazing. The game is doing everything it can to tell me that there is another solution other than trying to be a hero. But after talking to every NPC I can find, there is nothing to follow up on. My quest still remains to talk to this NPC, which this other NPC is telling me that they're most likely dead. I stumble around some more in desperation, head back to Goodsprings to see if I've missed something (nope), and raise my eyebrow before turning off the game for the night.
The next day, I fire it back up and have one of those "Eh, what the hell" moments that come after you decide that you can just restore your game if everything goes to shit, and charge the zone.
(Aside: I hate frequent or unlimited save points for this very reason. Where's the stakes? If there's no consequence for dying, how can there ever be tension? Anyways, I digress over what is really a common design issue.)
Charging into Primm, I actually make quick work of the 3 bandits I find and discover that there's a whole casino full of people, perfectly healthy and armed to the teeth! The narrative of the game has failed me and is lucky that I gave up on trusting its lessons. I humiliate the NCR by doing their job for them, and then they still insist they can't run the town without more troops. For a bunch of guys supposedly in control of things, they certainly act like a bunch of ninnies when it comes to their jobs.
Despite all of this, am I enjoying myself? Yes, for the most part. I'm getting annoyed by things that line up pretty neatly with issues I had with Fallout 3. Top of my list? The auto-save every time you go through a doorway, meaning the one time you run out a door while being pursued by 6 enemies is going to be repeated over and over until you're lucky enough to beat them without dying, unless you had an earlier savepoint, which I frequently do not, because tightrope walking isn't any fun when the net is immediately below you. I'm still not very far into the game from what I can tell, and I'm trying to suck the sidequests dry before moving into the chunk of the main storyline.
I'm interested to see if more of what I'm experiencing is as related to the game engine's strenghts and weaknesses as it is to the quest design itself. This will almost certainly come more into focus as I play longer. Now, if I only didn't have nine other games also demanding my attention...
-Chris
My Favorite Poem
From a video series in high school, "The United States of Poetry". Saving it here for record keeping just as much as anything else, as the website for the show is 10 years old and might disappear at any minute.
James Joyce - by Matt Cook
He was stupid
He didn't know as much as me
I'd rather throw dead batteries at cows than read him
Everything was going fine before he came along
He started the Civil War
He tried to get the French involved, but they wouldn't listen
They filled him up with desserts
He talked about all the great boxers that came from Ireland
Like he trained them or something
Then he started reading some of his stuff
Right as we told him to get lost
He brought up the potato famine
We said "Your potatoes are plenty good"
"Deal with it"
"Work it out somehow"
Then he said "America must adopt the metric system,
it's much more logical"
We said "No ! We like our rulers, go away"
Thomas Jefferson said you always get the rulers you deserve
A Standard Saturday Night
I had no plans to go to Iowa City game. The wife and I had just returned victorious from parts North; having made the major purchase of a Nikon D90 DSLR camera; a purchase that is at the level of value that we do such things once a year at best. In the past it had been the TV we now have, or a cruise to the Bahamas that we'd taken with Matt & Colleen. This year, it was this camera: The thing that we probably should have bought first so that we could record the joy and happiness that those other purchases had brought us, for we are CONSUMERS and goddammit, we brought cash and we mean business.
But yes, we sat happy in our apartment while I read through all the things internet-wise that had transpired while we were away, and followed with a few rounds of Bejeweled Blitz before switching over to LiveJournal to see Wasta posting that he was coming to the Iowa City game as his new Ventrue character, magical suit in tow, ready to set the city on fire. Due to my lack of opportunity to see Wasta lately, I jumped into Reggie clothes, hopped in the car, and came downtown.
Now, this was around 9:15, yet it wasn't until I pulled into the Masonic Temple parking lot that I realized how silly it was of me to expect any parking spots being open. I pulled into the last row closest to the door, like some psycho optimist praying that everyone else just hadn't bothered looking and that there was a Bermuda Triangle of parking spots somehow visible only to me. Sadly, there wasn't, and now I had the wonderful job of trying to back my car out of this tight spot with all the precision and accuracy I could possib-- THWAM.
I had just run into something with the back of the car. Fuck. I pulled forward the few inches I could afford, got out of my car and went to survey the damage. At the same time, a rather interesting looking fellow, who had more holes in his face than a golf course, came bounding towards my car.
"Dude, are you okay?" he asked, in the most unexpectedly polite manner. For a brief moment, I thought about inviting him into play an Anarch and instantly win costuming for the evening, but my mind shifted back to the insane amounts of trouble I was going to be getting into for not being careful with the car. But the rear bumper of the car was completely in shadow, and I couldn't see just what the damage was. The eyewitness on scene noticed my concern and started to grope through his jacket. "Hold on, I have a flashlight." I stared dumbfounded at his apparent preparedness while wondering just how much Vic's Auto Body was going to screw me fixing whatever damage there was.
A flashlight didn't appear, but he managed to find a lighter and he held it up to the rear bumper while we strained to see the damage. For a few seconds, we couldn't find it, and I finally exclaimed, "Fuck, I think I lucked out." We started to laugh before he moved our light source left a bit, revealing a quarter-sized scratch and a bump. I sighed, torn between my lack of luck after all, and the relief that the damage wasn't nearly as bad as I'd thought. I thanked the Anarch for his help, he smiled, exclaimed his hopes that the rest of my evening would be better, and loped off into the darkness in the expectation that he would still be on time to meet his weed connection.
I hopped back in my car with the foreknowledge that I was in for a night of failing to find a decent parking spot, walking into game with no real IC reason to be there (oh well), and returning home to inform my dear and patient wife that I have failed to return our automobile in the condition that it was in when I left. Despair set in, and the lone silver lining was that this made slipping into the character of Reggie Brooks that much easier.
I ran into Wasta who was outside game, talking with Dan and wearing a blue pinstripe suit. I snuck up behind him, jumping on his back and scaring the ever living fuck out him, something I don't get to accomplish too often outside of when we lived together and I ate ramen for 13 days straight.
"Nice Suit. Rip that fabric off a couch?"
"Yeah, your mom's. She gave it to me as a tip."
And with the customary pleasantries out of the way, I entered into game.
Where’d Hitler Go?
As some of you have noticed, my Hitler parody video was one of the ones taken down in the takedown blitz that Constantin film made against YouTube. I'm trying to figure out alternative options, but for now, my film will remain taken down. I don't believe that my video was outside of Fair Use, but I'm not willing to expose myself to a lawsuit over a funny video that I made on a lark 2 years ago.
When Hitler Goes Viral – A Report
How do I put this? I've been putting crap online for entertainment purposes for almost a decade, and I've never had something happen like what took place today. Hitler Makes a YouTube Video, a short that I posted almost a year ago, picked today to go viral. As of this writing, YouTube shows the video as having almost 70,000 views within the last 24 hours.
From what I can put together, here is the sequence of events that led to where we are now:
- February 26, 2009 - I scramble (and succeed) in finding a caption-less version of the iconic scene from Der Undertang. Edit and render video in a couple hours. Upload. Await my internet dollars and supermodels.
- February 27, 2009 - Plaster the video link on Facebook, Twitter, company email, and on forums that I frequent, because clearly this will generate enough word of mouth to set the world ablaze. Confirm that my personal info on my YouTube account is correct so that they know where to deliver my internet dollars and supermodels.
- February Through November - Forget about the video for the most part. Convince myself that internet dollars work like Google Adsense, and they won't send me a check until I reach a certain threshhold.
- December 1st, 2009 - Inexplicably, a Polish website posts the video in a collection of Hitler parodies. The video's hit count doubles, a modest success. I begin bragging to friends that I'm "huge in Poland". Take solace in the fact that of all places, Poland is probably one that deserves to take the most satisfaction from such a meme. Start looking online for the exchange rate on Polish internet dollars.
- February 2010 - Start using Reddit.com to help promote The Daily Blink, and I feel guilty that my account's history is a list of every comic strip we've done and little else. So, I start trying to create other content and give upvotes to other articles I like. Somehow, I turn this in my head to finding other content to submit. I decide to throw the Hitler video on and see what happens.
- February 15th, 8AM - I post the Hitler video and it immediately gets two downvotes, thus almost assuring nobody will see it. I pout, realize that everyone's probably sick of Hitler parodies by now, shrug, and go on with my day.
- 6:30 PM - Check back and notice that the reddit submission somehow survived and stuck around on the funny section the entire day. A few hundred hits on the video and a couple comments. I deem this awesome.
Now, SOMEWHERE in this time frame, as far as I can tell, a reddit reader bothered to share the video outside the website. I'm making some assumptions, but the chain that I find is that the first blog to link to it was Grrl Scientist on her blog, Living the Scientific Life. If I'm wrong about that and am skipping a step in the chain, I apologize, but right now that's where the footprints start, because...
- February 16th, 3:26AM - Cory Doctorow links to the video on BoingBoing, and we're off to the races.
- 9:20 AM - Kotaku gets in on the action. Despite the video getting a lot more comments than normal, I am oblivious to any of this happening.
- 11:00 AM - A Co-worker says, "Hey, your video is on Kotaku!" I check out the site and squee. I then realize that Kotaku got the link from BoingBoing and become incredibly annoying to any and all who interact with me for the rest of the day, because they MUST BE TOLD HOW I JUST WON THE INTERNETS.
I spent the rest of the day attempting to concentrate on work and mostly succeeding, though when I found out the video was on The Huffington Post, my head finally exploded. I don't know why The Huffington Post would qualify more as a head-combustible than BoingBoing. Most likely it was the rule of threes working its magic.
Once I got home and was able to earnestly sit down, read tweets, catch up on email, and do a bit of digging, I wrapped my head around several observations that I would now like to share.
1. I now have personal experience in the fact that the success and failure of a "viral video" is completely unpredictable. As I said up top, I've been putting media online in different forms since 2001, and some of it hasn't been half bad. I worked on Return of Pink Five, and I once had George Takei dancing around with a balloon hat on his head while he asked about the color of my co-hosts pubic hair. This was on YouTube for all to see, and instead, it's the extremely derivative Hitler parody that screams across the internet at the speed of light.
The director of Pink Five, Trey Stokes, has thought long and hard about the concept of viral videos, mostly because people have tried to hire him with the hopes that he will make one for them. Trey realized from the start that the idea was silly, and that no amount of money or resources can guarantee or manufacture word-of-mouth success. If there's anything we learned on Return of Pink Five, it was that our goal was clearly to make the film we wanted to, and not to make a viral hit, otherwise we would have spent 10% of the energy and money on it since it would have just as good of a chance of exploding. Case in point: While we were trying to wrap up the last volume, The Guild came onto the scene, and we all nodded with silent appreciation for Felicia Day and her ability to show everyone how it should be done.
2. Cory Doctorow is much more considerate than the rest of the internet. I say this because only he and one other blog that I saw bothered to give credit to the author of the video that they were plastering on their site. I ended up embedding an annotation at the end when I realized that 95% of people seeing the video were doing so at websites other than youtube.com. Add the fact that I didn't use my own personal YT account to upload the video, and it could be slightly more difficult for someone to get a hold of me if they were interested in the work. If you went to the YT site and looked, you'd see my name right in the description, but most people wrote their blogs describing "some guy" or not bothering at all. I think in the end I don't care that much, but Cory obviously gets extra brownie points for taking the extra 10 seconds to do so. I sent him an email just to thank him for this.
3. The John Williams Barbershop Kid apparently has a sense of humor. He added the video to his favorites. I still wanna sit the guy down and just talk for an hour about being a "YouTube personality". It mystifies me on every level. I'm probably not justified in calling him "kid", but I'll stick with it because it's my petty version of sticking it to the man. (Yes, Corey: 100k suscribers makes you "the man". Or, in your case, "the kid.")
4. This will probably go on for a couple more days. I am incredibly curious to see what that looks like, and how far it goes, from a purely analytical perspective.
5. Final Thought: I have no idea what to do next. Seriously. Am I supposed to do something now? Is this like some kind of platform for the next few days from which to step up to something slightly larger? You'd think that after multiple attempts at sharing online media, I would be ready for just such an occasion when people find something that I did to be of value. Nope! I am definitely one that's not afraid to introduce myself and network, but there's something about exploiting something like this that comes off as whorish. It's a Hitler parody. I don't know if that serves as a basis to form a community around, or drive traffic to a website that has absolutely nothing to do with Hitler parodies. I'm pretty sure what I can expect to result from this is slightly more Twitter followers (check) and the chance to be on one or two podcasts (in progress). Nobody is suddenly going to ask me to write a book, start an online webseries, or co-host a legitimate podcast.
Maybe I should be nicer to the John Williams Barbershop Kid so he'll give me advice. Did I say kid? I meant digital media genius.
My Birthday and My New Project
I like to complain a lot about non-milestone birthdays. I've gone on the record a lot about how after a string of milestones (License, Rated-R movies, Adulthood, Decade #3, Alcohol), that there wasn't much left to celebrate save a blip at Year 25 when your car insurance goes down. Well, as of Friday, I will have made it to 29 -- which many like to refer to as the "final birthday". There's something in me that likes that, and I might have to go with calling next year the "2nd Annual 29th birthday" or some such idea.
The Daily Blink!
In any case, the year so far has been fairly calm save for one major initiative on my part to try out a project that I've had on the backburner for a couple years, and that would be the comic known as The Daily Blink. This was an idea I started back in 2007 and it quickly got put aside for other things, but my recent WoW adventures have caused too many ideas to be cast aside again. I've teamed up with my friend CP to put out three strips a week, and now the site is up and purring like a kitten.
We're both pretty excited about this, and it's our hope that WoW players of all stripes get a kick out of what we're up to. If I could make one request of everyone for my birthday, it's that you tell at least one person about the comic strip. Even if you're not into WoW yourself, statistics would seem to dictate that there's a good chance that you know someone that is. That would make my day far more than any gift card.
A Single New Year’s Resolution
Photo by Optical Illusions
I have a bad track record with New Year's resolutions. My problem is that I like to make broad, sweeping statements that affect a solid portion of my daily life. I never fail to touch the big ones: Be a better husband, get in better shape, become a better poker player, be more organized, achieve more at work. I have done some of those things, and I have not done others. These are never resolutions that are done in a day, they are constant battles that start the second I get up in the morning and continue the entire day. They require hard work and determination, something that I like to think I posses in most of the tasks I take on, but become easy to shrug off when other priorities demand attention and I take the easy out of pretending that it's an either/or situation. "No gym tonight, work was exhausting." That's a statement I like to toss off.
So this year I've researched - trying to find a different spin on my New Year's resolutions. Not to avoid picking the hard ones, but trying to find a better way to wrap my head around them. I've poked my head around the internet to see how others would set their goals, and not been satisfied to mirror their methods.
I found my answer while I was doing my daily browse of The Huffington Post today and stumbled across the story of Joey Graziano - the son of a NYC Firefighter who went from being the first in his family to attend college to playing baseball through multiple injuries, tutoring fellow students, being responsible to his family, and winning the prestigious Mitchell Scholarship while attending Georgetown Law. Throughout the entire article, Joey's peers and mentors laud his time management and work effort, and questioning how it was possible for him to take on his daily life and still earn a 3.9 GPA. Upon concluding the article, I was forced to sit back and ask myself the question, "Do I really know what true hard work is like?"
There are countless anecdotes from business leaders and politicians alike which beat into our brains that it isn't always the most privileged or cerebral that achieve the most, rather those that see the road ahead of themselves and take it on head first. Being a person that always desires to be something resembling a junior polymath (and holding a job title that requires it to survive), it can be difficult to find that extra focus to go the additional step in the goals I hope to get closer to and eventually attain.
And so, knowing the multiple goals I already have for myself for 2010, I will not recite them here, or bore you with numbers related to weight gain, bankroll growth, life savings, or salaried income. Instead, I will encompass them into one driving hope-
This year, in all things I will try harder.
At the end of the year, I won't have to make a recap post explaining the results. No matter whether I succeed or fail, it will be evident to both you and I just how well I did.
From the Old Blog: Six Sigmas Straight to Hell
Photo - Morten A. Lines
(As time goes on I'll be sharing some of my best content from my old hangout, This is Not a Poker Blog. Enjoy.)
Six Sigmas Straight to Hell
April 20, 2006
When dealt two cards in Texas Hold’em, your odds of having pocket Aces are 220:1. Once every 22 orbits, you should pick up Bullets.
I’m on hand 1,000 and I still haven’t seen them. I’ve been playing .50/1 NL for the last two days, and despite having tons of pocket pairs and AK more times than I can keep track of, AA has eluded me, and I’ve began to announce it to the table.
“We’re on 1,000 now boys, any minute now,” I type. Coyote, a solid player who won 5 buyins the night before, has been witness to this entire chain of events.
“Just wait, you’ll get it twice in a row to compensate,” he offers.
“Nah, just watch, I’ll raise and pick up the blinds,” is my retort.
Right now, I’ve been playing pretty tight, so there’s the fear that I might not be too far off. I’ve made a few blind steals and people have believed my continuation bets. I called Coyote’s raise on the button with QJs and after he bet out on a queen-high flop, I raised him a nice amount. He showed KQ and mucked, and I obliged and showed mine.
Just in case those Aces come, I reason.
Yesterday was another futile situation. Besides the AA drought, I must have had 26 pocket pairs and only one flopped set. However, I got my mileage out of it: 44 hit a 455 flop against KK and I doubled up. You better believe I almost broke my Caps lock on that one.
Hand 1,025 and I’m pleased to see a free flop in the BB with Q9. I’m even happier when the flop comes JT3, but there’s 4 people in the hand besides me so I’m forced to check. But everyone follows.
The turn is a 5, and puts a 2nd heart in the board. I wonder what’s going on and make a bet. 4 bucks into a 5 dollar pot. If someone raises me i’m done with it, if not I’ve built something nice to possibly hit on the river. Two guys come along, and now the pot is something worth caring about.
The river’s a glorious eight, but wait — It’s a third heart. God, now what to do? If i bet out, and I get raised, I can’t call. At this limit, someone chasing is more than conceivable, and the guy in LP i’ve seen make some really bad chases in the past. I check.
The more solid guy bets out 10 bucks, and LP raises up to 40. I swear audibly, almost waking Kori up in the process. I know I’m making a good laydown here, but I feel like a pussy. Fold. For some reason it doesn’t on the first click, and I slam my finger down on the mouse on the second try, which works.
The guy in early position thinks for a very *very* long while and calls — and LP shows TJ for a flopped two pair. EP mucks.
I look up and at that exact moment, Bill Gazes is on TV, watching the AIS crack his aces with a flopped straight and cheat him out of a few hundred thousand dollars. Despite the situation, it actually takes me a few minutes to admit that mayyyyybe Bill has it worse than I do, kinda sorta.
Well, this is prerecorded, so at *this* exact moment…
“I folded the straight.”
“Q9?” Coyote asks.
“Yep. Queen Freakin’ Nine.”
“Shoulda bet the river.”
“Thanks, Mr. Hindsight.”
A few minutes later I’m busy watching a guy four years younger than me take down a WPT title on TV, so I almost miss Hand 1,033: Pocket Aces. I quickly do the math in my headfigured it out later, there’s a .9% chance that you can go that long without getting Aces. But now, I have them, and I’m in the big blinds.
And there’s a fold.
And another fold.
And a few more after that.
And it’s folded to the button, who takes 15 seconds to decide that stealing isn’t a good idea.
And then there’s the whiny bitch dude who screamed for 20 minutes last night because someone hit his gutshot, and I haven’t let him forget how much of a whiny bitch he is. Perhaps he’ll take his revenge now. Perhaps I’ll receive that which I now desire most, now that I have aces: Action to go with it.
He folds, and I show my Aces to the table with an extreme amount of pride. Coyote laughs.
“Dude, you were right, you got the blinds.”
“Bow to the intimidation of my posted big blind.”
“Yeah, I read you for strength the way the animation did it.”
I played maybe an orbit before signing off, as I’d cleared my bonus.
Would you ever guess from the tone of this post that I was up for the last three days?
Who am I?
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