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Friday, January 1st, 2010
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skankinclams
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12:16a
2010
The dogs barking and the blaring of fireworks inform me that every number on the calender have changed. Walking outside to let the dogs be outside inform me that it's a cold 2010. My nose is telling me that I might want to take allergy medicine. The cold makes me think I can wait it out.
I'm spending 2010 at a house I had left only a day before 2009. I ended up celebrating 2009 in my own apartment, while my girlfriend woke me up to inform me that it was 2009. It turned 2009 in Texas time while at my favorite temple. I probably called my parents that evening to tell them I was alive.
Now I'm here in 2010, in Texas. I'll be having a visit back to Tokyo that'll be painful for all sorts of weird reasons very soon. I'm stuck trying to figure out what to do with my life while in Texas, wishing my life was in Tokyo. My life in Tokyo could happen if I wanted it, but some sense of responsiblity tells me no.
Maybe it's the dog at my feet right now who keeps barking at the fireworks, and almost bit me earlier tonight.
Earlier this evening, in this town where I know almost no one, and haven't made an effort to differ, I was playing D2. Which has a mindblowingly middle finger pulling of an ending. In a game that was made up of going to different houses and watching people talk about their problems (the avatar is a silent protagonist (Until she isn't)) the ending is just so bizarre.
The ending made me angry, the game's opening and closing moments are brillant. The first action you take in the game is the main character is thrown a gun, and then YOU aim it. The last thing the game does after the terrible ending that I don't know how to feel about it, but I definitely don't feel an erection, is almost gorgeous.
It almost made me reverse my position on life, for a second.
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(comment on this) Thursday, December 31st, 2009
90negroes
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11:25p
2010 > 2009
it will be better by default.
if it's not, I will MAKE it better by default.
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(comment on this) Friday, January 1st, 2010
(1 comment | comment on this) Thursday, December 31st, 2009
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ferricide
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4:44p
some weird meme i am making up
i think i did something like this last year but since i don't want to hew to any previously devised formula, i am just going to glance over the blog posts from every month of 2009 and try to synthesize some reflection on whatever the fuck was going on. this is for my own brain more than it's for anybody else, but it might be entertaining. let's see!
i am just doing this via subjects, so let's see what catches my eye...
january: egm went to its death. i finished crisis core and moved onto FF7. somehow those both seem like two of the most interesting things in 2009. i didn't like many games in 2009 very much, as we are all well aware by now, and i am realizing that is permanent and is actually a major part of my interest on getting into making them. i mean, i think i maybe just have grown beyond playing them.
the way i am feeling about the game industry can be (a little bit) summed up by this: i have been thinking about assassin's creed 2 and i can't think of a reason to be interested in it. on one hand it is an amazing achievement on technical levels (and maybe artistic levels!) on the other hand i can't imagine why i wouldn't just put the $60 i could spend on it into a jar as a starter fund on airfare to venice instead.
i made a list of my five favorite songs. like, ever. this will never work but those things are fun.
february: i got extremely drunk in vegas. 2009 was the year i got bored with getting drunk. i guess it was a good run (2002 to 2009!) i don't have a lot of regrets about drunken behavior (that's probably relatively novel for a human being) but i have sort of mini regrets about what could have easily gone a lot wronger if i weren't so lucky or so surrounded with helpful friends (and strangers!)
never forget: the pepsi ratio is aesthetic geometry.
retro game challenge was by far my GOTY. nothing even comes close. it was borderline idyllic, and until FF13 came along, the only time i played games in 2009 the way i think of playing games: just pouring myself into it. i can't play games in dribs and drabs; they need to consume me or i'm not satisfied.
march: gamasutra became like a fact of life. the last job to do that was gamespy. gamesradar and GMR never got there. the former sucked too much and i always knew i would quit sooner or later. the latter just didn't last long enough. not sure when it did, but the fact that it redesigned while i was there seems factoidy. my 2 year anniversary was in august, making gama the official longest place i've ever worked.
i replayed ys I & II and it was awesome. still pretty much my favorite game ever. i took hundreds of screenshots and never did anything with them really.
in fact i think my GOTY list for 2009 really reads like:
1. retro game challenge
2. ys I & II
3. FF13?
4 - 10. TBD
i bought a mac and it's nice but it has problems and i don't want to be a fucking mac person. i am not into cults of personality and i am going to buy a win 7 desktop in 2010, for work-at-home purposes.
GDC was fucking awesome. looking back at my posts about it, i am looking forward to GDC 2010 so much. i need to meet people this year!
april. i went to japan again and the trip was this bizarre mixture of awesome and terrible. day to day and even hour to hour ratings went from like 10/10 to 1/10. nuts. i was lonely and bored and together and ecstatic. and i was a mess because my tonsils were the size of beachballs and i couldn't breathe or sleep.
may. i had my tonsils out early in the month. this fucking sucked so much. but it was worth it. and my mother came out to CA for the first time in years to nurse me, and i realized i had to come out to her, but i didn't (for more on that we'll come back in like, october?)
i had a shitload of fun following idol obsessively with raymond. i wish we still lived together -- but can the show possibly top glambert and iraheta? no way.
i played a ton of star ocean 4 thereby ensuring that 2009 was the Year Of Disappointing games. other pieces of shit i wasted varying amounts of time on include killzone 2 and bionic commando.
june. this is the month i started to go insane with stress, i think. i had a stressful year. every month brought something new. i made the decision to not go to the london blur reunion show in july, which was sound but sucked sucked sucked. i am still mixed about that.
my birthday is in june. 32 in 2009. i got together with randy over my birthday weekend and it was incredible -- the most romantic experience of my life. but we didn't get together officially till august.
i got rid of my XP box and so far i haven't liked that decision much. the macbook is totally great as a computer for main use, power wise, but i don't like not having a home base. it's like living out of a suitcase. i need a bedroom.
july. i started wearing jeans again after a decade. okay!
august. i wrote an editorial on shadow complex which i would easily describe as the most significant thing i've ever written profesionally and may become the defining moment of my career. which seems odd on some level.
i got together with randy and came out to my mom pretty much simulatenously. i think if you take all three of these things together this is the point in 2009 where my brains started to liquify and leak out of my ears.
september. i flew to michigan to be with randy and it was idyllic -- the early days of relationships are so fucking amazing it's not hard to understand why lots of people throw themselves right back into them whenever they break up.
the hard part is continuing to make it work, as i have discovered. it's not easy, and it's not idyllic, and it involves getting to actually know the person you're dating at a level consummate with your intimacy level, which given that the person is essentially a stranger when you get together is not easy.
i saw rannie for the last time. i went from GDC austin to tokyo with one day in between. my brains continued to drip out of my ears, and i started to notice.
october. rannie died. seriously, nothing can compare to this, even my trip to shanghai. it was the defining moment of 2009, which sounds fucked up given that randy is here and alive. and he's doing his best, and has consistently done his best. life and death, e'er intertwined.
the defining theme of 2009 is that i realized that i am an adult. rannie's death isn't the entirety of why. being with randy isn't the entirety of why. coming out to my mom isn't, either. a lot went into it. those were some of my clues, though.
hikaru utada hikaru utada hikaru utada.
november. i was down at the bottom of a fucking well.
i started to realize some of what i needed to do to get out, though.
i think getting my rockman 3 box framed is like accidentally symbolic, in retrospect: freezing the way i felt about games at the moment where i was forced to confront that you can't go back home and things need to pivot. i need to become creative, not consumptive, in other words, and i am realizing that more and more. and i am starting to face up to it. that began in november.
i mean let's face it. FF13 is kind of an anomaly in that it both continues contemporary design philosophies and is in step with current prodcution values yet interests me in a direct lineage from the old days. watch me struggle with a remake of one of my FAVORITE FUCKING GAMES. watch me not care about modern warfare 2 or not even really do a convincing job of pretending to. &c.
mmm, gravy.
december. hey that's now!
for the first time in ages i gave a shit about christmas, because it was both cold in san francisco and because i had someone to share it with. which i did, just a few days ago, and which was fantastic. more becoming an adult: stepping into your own way of celebrating the important things.
i dunno, this is all fresh so i don't have much more to say. my friends who live in japan and europe are already in 2010. so hi guys, i'll be there soon! just ahead of the californians.
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(comment on this)
daphaknee
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4:00p
blowing up 1008394824902384 balloons for my last minute balloon popping party
if you're reading this and you're local and for some retarded reason i havent invited you and youre not doing anything better tonight you can come by and get hyphy and pop hella balloons
YEAR END RECAPPPPPp i was gonna put this behind a cut but guess what fuck you
first sentence (OF CONTENT) and picture of every month
JANUARY:
i have a trip planned to new york, the double discO salO criterionO collectionO, a cut on my toe from CHRISTOPHERS TOENAIL, a pass to macworld, and a lot of dirty laundry
FEBUARUAURY
i missed everythign this weekend
MARCH:
MY ASSHOLE HURTS
BUT WHO CARES I JUST ADDED KAGO SHINTARO AS A FRIEND ON YOUTUBE
APRIL:
MY WORKS CHECK BOUNCED THREE TIMES AHHHHH
MAY:
hitachi magic wands come in two speeds, jizz and jizz RIGHT NOW
JUNE:
dear anonymous gift giver
i have recieved the shirt you got me for my birthday in the mail today
JULY:
i dont know if any of you read dess's site and i hate plugging shit but if you care at all about how games work or are put together she knows a SHIT TON about level design and just blew me the fuck away with this post http://www.auntiepixelante.com/?p=459
AUGUST:
whoa my new apartment is pretty sweet
SEPTEMBER:
touchmaster 1 is the best nongame touchmaster 2 is TERRIBLE IN COMPARISON DO NOT PURCHASE THIS GAME IF YOU'RE EXCITED ABOUT HOW AWESOME 1 IS
OCTOBER:
filtered my friends list, now i can read this clusterfuck
NOVEMBER:
going to new york to hang out with cactus and messhoff isfet and bytejacker and mary burgers and then go to a dumb wedding
DECEMBER:
goshi want to make an entry about all sorts of stuff including feelings, the picard song, riker's dramatic look, ketchup spaghetti, dramabombs, double dommeing, camwhoring, the flu, resentment, butterflies, tom robbins, work and THINGS THAT DONT MATTER AT ALL but i have all this work to do!
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ferricide
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3:56p
things i want to do in the 2010
these aren't resolutions, or even goals. they are things i want to do.
- travel somewhere that i have never been
- learn to make and start to make games
- move
- continue to build my relationship with randy
- read more
- internet less, or rather, take back some control over it
- eschew tunnel vision, learn to see things in a bigger picture sense
- trust my gut more (just to reiterate that)
- stop buying shit the way i buy shit, but instead, buy shit only after i've thought about it
- pay off my CC debt and
- save more money
- not be as distractable
- stop feeling guilty about not giving a shit about games either (a) the way i used to or (b) the way i feel like i am supposed to as a Serious Journalist, it's another example of trying to live up to nonexistent ideals
- deal with my mother and my father and coming out in an effective way that leaves everyone with the least emotional damage
- stop dreading everything
- not worry about things like airline mileage programs, AT&T, apple, JP Morgan Chase or other corporate irrelevancies
- figure out if there is any way to participate in the political process on any level meaningfully
- not bow to the zeitgeist. fuck the zeitgeist. but
- harness and exploit the zeitgeist when it's on my side
- get in on the ground floor of something
- figure out more and better ways to use my facility with language, i.e. less glib, more meaningful
- realize that putting something to the side for right now is not abandoning it
- see the medium and long term and not just Right Now
- don't become a curmudgeon, but don't feel pressure to stay with the times either
- have more sex
- keep moisturizing my hands, they're dried out!
- buy the TNG box instead of getting cable, once i've moved
- keep working on my ideas, find a process for getting around creative walls instead of running into them
- not feel bad about limiting my infovore tendencies, i can't pay attention to everything
- realize my limitations are not defeats, they're just my limits
- tighten up the graphics on level 3
- stop being so fucking negative, jesus
- not worry about whether or not i need to get rid of shit. it's here now and it's easy to get rid of it and it's easy to not
- sausage soup
- cat?
- accept that it's often serendipity, not intent
- on the other hand, effort works
- remember: symbols aren't the thing they symbolize
- get better at getting up and getting to work on time. i mean, jesus
- develop my time organizational scheduling skillz, i am predisposed to this, but also extremely moody
- maybe go back to therapy?
- care less about what people think about me. this also means putting less effort into my image (haha)
- that's online (mental) image; put more effort into my physical image because i'm enjoying it
- comfortable chair, reading lamp
- europe!
- make the most of what i've got, not worry about what i don't
- eat at home more
- take care of stuff instead of ignoring it! that hasn't worked out great
- communication communication communication
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(2 comments | comment on this) Friday, January 1st, 2010
(comment on this) Thursday, December 31st, 2009
ferricide
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3:03p
i don't do the resolutions thing.
but i think if i have a goal, it's to listen to my gut, more. i tend to overthink things dramatically and can convince myself into and out of any decision a million times before i make it. but i have to listen to my gut more.
so, i'm going to move out of san francisco in the new year. it's what i want. if it doesn't work out, i can always move back.
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zerochan
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11:26a
Listmania!
It seems like the popular thing to do right now is to make a personal "Top 10 Games of the Decade" list. As weird as it might sound for someone who writes about video games for a living to say, I honestly don't think I could do this. There's just too much I haven't properly played, and too many excellent games I just discovered this decade that are actually much older.
So instead, I propose a new semi-meme: Top 10 Game Characters of the Decade!
I think this list better suits a big ol' fangirl like me - I'd struggle for days to organize a list of favorite games, but making a list of favorite characters is considerably easier. And while #1 should be obvious, we can still enjoy the rest, right? :D
I'll post my list up tonight. I invite everyone else who's keen on the concept to join the fun, and feel free to change it up if you want (i.e. anime/manga characters). :D
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(comment on this) Wednesday, December 30th, 2009
ferricide
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8:09p
hang on hang on!
my last post obviously came over way more down on lj than i am. i actually love lj and want it to never go away.
i love having a place for my thoughts, feelings, insights, and game posts. there's nowhere else for that. like i said, fb and twitter are blips. fb is starting to just full-time annoy me, kind of, because of the weird mix of people i have on there. i am not sure what to do about it and i'm kinda ignoring it for now. the problem, not fb. i use it off and on, but fairly on.
anyway, lj is awesome. i just feel like writing The Rundown of My Day is not a place where lj excels, but it is a place where twitter excels, and in fact i think surpasses, because you just get the chosen highlights (complete with at-the-time pictures.) in fact, if you want to know what i am up to, i recommend you just check in on my twitter sometimes. you don't need to sign up, you don't need to respond, but you can find out what is going on -- really quickly! -- by checking there.
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ferricide
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4:37p
chic
today was a bit of a chicago adventure. i had caribou coffee for breakfast and chicago pizza for lunch. i bought some CDs and a scarf. it's cold.
i can see why people are leaving LJ for things like FB and twitter. updating your step-by-step life isn't as much fun in retrospect as it was at the time. nor are these posts fun to read, are they? i find myself mostly motivated so i can look back at this later and remember what i was doing. the "journal" in livejournal is coming to the fore more than it used to.
which is okay; and i still do love to blog. and where else would i post about FF13? or my real thoughts, as twitter and FB don't really cater too much to more than blips? but...
- rental car return
- caribou coffee
- walk through downtown
- CDs and scarf buying adventures
- tim cancelled our lunch plans after i'd waited 30 minutes -- i.e. 30 mins after he was supposed to be there
- pizza
- train back
i could make a real effort and add all sorts of color and texture to that bullet pointed list. but then you'd be met with a wall of text. who wants that?
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