Month: January 2013

I never played the text adventure game called Zork. I still haven’t, but I plan to address this in the coming week. I’m just not too familiar with the stuff from the 70s and early 80s. Some of it seemed pretty goddamn boring, you know? Not the kind of thing that’d hold my interest. Games like Pong, Ms. Pac-Man, Asteroids, and Galaga—which I have haphazardly played while waiting for a sandwich or a beer at some bar—were just a bit too simplistic when compared to a game like Super Mario Bros. Hell, games like those are now homework for game design students on their way to more ambitious projects. There was just something about playing a video game story and exploring a world in an interactive way that was more appealing. To quote a game programmer whose love of video games began with SMB:

I realized when I played Super Mario Bros. that […] someone made up this little world for other people to experience and to see. You didn’t even have to be there! It was just magical… Magical technology.

They also lack the instant nostalgia that I acquired from memories of my dad hooking up the Nintendo for the first time, or my uncle completing all of Super Mario Bros. 2 on Christmas Eve. Even my favorite aunt playing SMB because I was too sick to get out of bed and reach the controller. In essence, those older games—while iconic—were before my time. To me they are as silent films and music produced before 1900. I don’t know if I’ll discover the video game equivalent of other late personal discoveries like Man with a Movie Camera orTocatta and Fugue in D Minor, but it begins somewhere. The research alone is worth the effort. A great discovery is the best one can hope for.

In the meantime I’ve been enjoying something called Zork: The Cavern of Doom. Not exactly my kind of writing, but it harkens back to a time in the 90s when choose-your-own-adventure books allowed us to explore non-linear storytelling. And, best of all, look at that GUI. It’s fuckin’ beautiful in its simplicity. A text adventure game for the modern age.

I never played the text adventure game called Zork. I still haven’t, but I plan to address this in the coming week. I’m just not too familiar with the stuff from the 70s and early 80s. Some of it seemed pretty goddamn boring, you know? Not the kind of thing that’d hold my interest. Games like Pong, Ms. Pac-Man, Asteroids, and Galaga—which I have haphazardly played while waiting for a sandwich or a beer at some bar—were just a bit too simplistic when compared to a game like Super Mario Bros. Hell, games like those are now homework for game design students on their way to more ambitious projects. There was just something about playing a video game story and exploring a world in an interactive way that was more appealing. To quote a game programmer whose love of video games began with SMB:

I realized when I played Super Mario Bros. that […] someone made up this little world for other people to experience and to see. You didn’t even have to be there! It was just magical… Magical technology.

They also lack the instant nostalgia that I acquired from memories of my dad hooking up the Nintendo for the first time, or my uncle completing all of Super Mario Bros. 2 on Christmas Eve. Even my favorite aunt playing SMB because I was too sick to get out of bed and reach the controller. In essence, those older games—while iconic—were before my time. To me they are as silent films and music produced before 1900. I don’t know if I’ll discover the video game equivalent of other late personal discoveries like Man with a Movie Camera orTocatta and Fugue in D Minor, but it begins somewhere. The research alone is worth the effort. A great discovery is the best one can hope for.

In the meantime I’ve been enjoying something called Zork: The Cavern of Doom. Not exactly my kind of writing, but it harkens back to a time in the 90s when choose-your-own-adventure books allowed us to explore non-linear storytelling. And, best of all, look at that GUI. It’s fuckin’ beautiful in its simplicity. A text adventure game for the modern age.

He’s looking for the name to use for himself when he doesn’t care to hear your opinion of any damn thing. An outcast troglodytic. It’s like the living in a cave they used to do. Dead at twenty. He looks down at the book even as his neck whiskers poke into his upper chest. He doesn’t like it anyway, and shakes his head off at you.

“Just don’t say anything right now. Nothing, please.”

You’re confused and want to be angry. He seemed relatable earlier in the day. You stand and take the pack of cigarettes and lighter out onto the balcony.

He’s still looking for something to call himself. Sapient. Murgatroyd. The man who knew as much. His head aches with all the thinking. He looks at you through the glass. He sets the book down in the folds of the floral comforter.

“I don’t know,” he says. “I can’t find it. I’m really tired.”

You take a drag and offer your cigarette. He steps outside with you and listens to the freeway.

“You’re a real prick,” you say.

He inhales some smoke, coughs violently. His cheeks swell and his throat weezes.

“I’m a real prick,” he says. He returns the cigarette to you. “As long as it’s about me. I’m gonna go look for some more jobs.”

The light is faint but constant. It keeps you company while he derides your act. Your schtick. The mode of being.

“What’s worse than this? How can I be any less to you? Should I suck a dick while you think of the Queen?” You pace to the other end of the balcony, obstructed by the heavy curtain drawn across the glass.

He reaches underneath the torn lamp shade. You hear him click a plastic nub and the light turns on. His papers and computer are scattered across the faded surface. “It’s easier if you’re good for nothing else. You or the queen. All of you. It’s just the only way.”

You shove the remaining cigarette into the wall. You see a shadow of your reflection in the framed painting on the wall beyond him.

“Who am I?” you say.

He sits down on his towel placed over the chair. When he looks toward you again you don’t exist.

He’s looking for the name to use for himself when he doesn’t care to hear your opinion of any damn thing. An outcast troglodytic. It’s like the living in a cave they used to do. Dead at twenty. He looks down at the book even as his neck whiskers poke into his upper chest. He doesn’t like it anyway, and shakes his head off at you.

“Just don’t say anything right now. Nothing, please.”

You’re confused and want to be angry. He seemed relatable earlier in the day. You stand and take the pack of cigarettes and lighter out onto the balcony.

He’s still looking for something to call himself. Sapient. Murgatroyd. The man who knew as much. His head aches with all the thinking. He looks at you through the glass. He sets the book down in the folds of the floral comforter.

“I don’t know,” he says. “I can’t find it. I’m really tired.”

You take a drag and offer your cigarette. He steps outside with you and listens to the freeway.

“You’re a real prick,” you say.

He inhales some smoke, coughs violently. His cheeks swell and his throat weezes.

“I’m a real prick,” he says. He returns the cigarette to you. “As long as it’s about me. I’m gonna go look for some more jobs.”

The light is faint but constant. It keeps you company while he derides your act. Your schtick. The mode of being.

“What’s worse than this? How can I be any less to you? Should I suck a dick while you think of the Queen?” You pace to the other end of the balcony, obstructed by the heavy curtain drawn across the glass.

He reaches underneath the torn lamp shade. You hear him click a plastic nub and the light turns on. His papers and computer are scattered across the faded surface. “It’s easier if you’re good for nothing else. You or the queen. All of you. It’s just the only way.”

You shove the remaining cigarette into the wall. You see a shadow of your reflection in the framed painting on the wall beyond him.

“Who am I?” you say.

He sits down on his towel placed over the chair. When he looks toward you again you don’t exist.

It still took years for me to let go of learned patterns of behavior that negated my capacity to give and receive love. One pattern that made the practice of love especially difficult was my constantly choosing to be with men who were emotionally wounded, who were not that interested in loving, even though they desired to be loved. I wanted to know love but was afraid to be intimate. By choosing men who were not interested in being loving, I was able to practice giving love but always within an unfulfilling context. Naturally, my need to receive love was not met. I got what I was accustomed to getting. Care and affection, usually mingled with a degree of unkindness, neglect, and on some occasions, out right cruelty.

bell hooks

It still took years for me to let go of learned patterns of behavior that negated my capacity to give and receive love. One pattern that made the practice of love especially difficult was my constantly choosing to be with men who were emotionally wounded, who were not that interested in loving, even though they desired to be loved. I wanted to know love but was afraid to be intimate. By choosing men who were not interested in being loving, I was able to practice giving love but always within an unfulfilling context. Naturally, my need to receive love was not met. I got what I was accustomed to getting. Care and affection, usually mingled with a degree of unkindness, neglect, and on some occasions, out right cruelty.

bell hooks

What if, what if.

Being jobless is a very real and unfortunate state to be in. I feel most for men and women who’ve lost their jobs and are having difficulties providing for a family. I still recall a couple of bouts of joblessness my father went through and I don’t think I’d ever seen someone so despondent over something. I didn’t understand the importance of a steady income and how it correlates to the survival of a family in this modern world. But it matters. Jesus, does it matter.

That said, though, I’ve been without wife and children since I started working at 17. And I’ve never been fired, laid off, or otherwise released from a position. I was always the one in charge of that particular aspect of my destiny. I chose to leave or stay. Years later, now, I’m the one who thinks they’re lucky to have me. I could be anywhere, but I’m here. Enjoy your good fortune.

So imagine trying to shake this off in favor of notions of being on contract, with the risk for being laid off far increased. Or, damn, freelance… self-employed. That kind of risk, man. It’s unfamiliar territory. A new adventure.

The first thing I think of in relation to being laid off is “vacation!”, but that’s corporate mentality. I’m full aware that it’d be a matter of days before the exasperation wore me down. I’d do what I’ve done in the last week: apply. Apply everywhere. San Francisco, Austin, New York, Seattle, Los Angeles, Munich. Go where the jobs are. Someplace new and fresh. Someplace with the job I want, where I can settle. Something about that—being flexible.

I once considered following a girl to Germany. The risk didn’t seem worth it. I wouldn’t have a job lined up before I got there.

“Munich, Munich, where have you been all my life? Mein Gott!”

That’s a thing, I hear. Falling in love with places. Planning to go from A to Z and settling down somewhere between M and N. The locale brings about some resurrection of the soul that was buried at the height of heartless city livin’.

And if I couldn’t any job? Sell it all. There’s not much to own living on a boat. Sell what’s left and keep the Jeep. Visit the folks before I go through another long run of not visiting. See my brothers, the lazy fucks. Good guys. Among the few people I trust.

That’s all a-wishin’ and no doin’, so in the meantime I’ll continue to apply like a mad man. I just found a gig out in New York working with Kickstarter, which sure is something. They say if you make it there you’ll make it anywhere. Single, family man, whatever.

Just one more day dream: a life as someone who helps others find work. Everyone needs something to do.

What if, what if.

Being jobless is a very real and unfortunate state to be in. I feel most for men and women who’ve lost their jobs and are having difficulties providing for a family. I still recall a couple of bouts of joblessness my father went through and I don’t think I’d ever seen someone so despondent over something. I didn’t understand the importance of a steady income and how it correlates to the survival of a family in this modern world. But it matters. Jesus, does it matter.

That said, though, I’ve been without wife and children since I started working at 17. And I’ve never been fired, laid off, or otherwise released from a position. I was always the one in charge of that particular aspect of my destiny. I chose to leave or stay. Years later, now, I’m the one who thinks they’re lucky to have me. I could be anywhere, but I’m here. Enjoy your good fortune.

So imagine trying to shake this off in favor of notions of being on contract, with the risk for being laid off far increased. Or, damn, freelance… self-employed. That kind of risk, man. It’s unfamiliar territory. A new adventure.

The first thing I think of in relation to being laid off is “vacation!”, but that’s corporate mentality. I’m full aware that it’d be a matter of days before the exasperation wore me down. I’d do what I’ve done in the last week: apply. Apply everywhere. San Francisco, Austin, New York, Seattle, Los Angeles, Munich. Go where the jobs are. Someplace new and fresh. Someplace with the job I want, where I can settle. Something about that—being flexible.

I once considered following a girl to Germany. The risk didn’t seem worth it. I wouldn’t have a job lined up before I got there.

“Munich, Munich, where have you been all my life? Mein Gott!”

That’s a thing, I hear. Falling in love with places. Planning to go from A to Z and settling down somewhere between M and N. The locale brings about some resurrection of the soul that was buried at the height of heartless city livin’.

And if I couldn’t any job? Sell it all. There’s not much to own living on a boat. Sell what’s left and keep the Jeep. Visit the folks before I go through another long run of not visiting. See my brothers, the lazy fucks. Good guys. Among the few people I trust.

That’s all a-wishin’ and no doin’, so in the meantime I’ll continue to apply like a mad man. I just found a gig out in New York working with Kickstarter, which sure is something. They say if you make it there you’ll make it anywhere. Single, family man, whatever.

Just one more day dream: a life as someone who helps others find work. Everyone needs something to do.