The Cruelest Holiday Season

Oh hey, it's already December. And not only December, but Christmas Eve. An exciting time of the year, if there ever was one. But arguably, all times in any and all years are both exciting and unexciting at once. Depends on where you are, who you're with, and countless other variables. Predicable opening paragraph, predictable opening paragraph filler. The opposite of exciting.

And I haven't even remarked yet about how I still need to write here on a more regular basis. Good thing I just got that out of the way. 2011 is a year I've spent mentally congested. Exceedingly so. This was my most inactive year yet writing here on Spiral Reverie. One of my 2012 goals is to change that. This inactivity on my part certainly hasn't been for a lack of trying. I have piles of blog posts sitting here unfinished - many things I wanted to say, or to finish saying, but then that mental congestion struck. Not that it's much of an excuse.

I'll be getting a few more of these things out of the way over the course of the remaining week of the year, at any rate. With any luck, perhaps I'll be a more exciting writer worth your following in 2012. Should I fail at that, in the least, there'll be more juicy little morsels entailing various strings of words that may or may not form thoughts that make some kind of sense for you to sink your mind-fangs into in the next year

All that yammering aside, I'll catch the few of you passing internet tumbleweeds up on all things interesting and uninteresting in a post I'll end the year with in another week or so, the salvaging of a post I intended to complete about four months ago. Funny, that. (And there will be a funnier Xmas story later tonight. I promise. I won't break this one.)

On to the purpose of this post. These prior paragraphs? An appetizer - probably some bread you've filled up on enough as so to lose interest in what lies ahead - before the mass of somber that follows as the substance of this post. You guys like somber, right? Statistically, a lot of you aren't feeling too wonderful at this purportedly festive time of year, after all. I've actually got some legitimate excuses for my latest bout of lethargy and malaise.

This one's for you, sad people. Relatively raw, just the way you like it. Always gluttons for punishment.

The Restaurant at the End of Remembrance

Everything I write about lately is death related. These brief thoughts won't be any different. One of these days, I still need to write about JD Salinger's passing, and we lost him nearly a year and a half ago now. At any rate, moving on -

10 years ago today, Douglas Adams passed away. We lost a brilliant, hilarious author, a humanist, activist, an atheist who didn't make the rest of us look bad, and a truly wonderful human being whose life's work only bettered the world. We lost him at the tragically young age of 49 to, of all things, exercise - the stress of something intended to only improve our health and extend our lives can, at times, have the opposite effect. I imagine he would have appreciated the irony.

Cheesy a thought as this is to end on - So long, and thanks for all the laughs. Also, a pity that we'll never know what was going on with the rhino in The Salmon of Doubt.

More Like Osama Bin Awkward Joke About Somebody Dying

So, as you've all heard by now, Osama Bin Laden has kicked the proverbial bucket, bitten the proverbial dust, and tripped over the only-halfway-metaphorical toad. Not at all shockingly, theories that he had died years ago were proven untrue. Not quite ten years after the September 11th attacks, the big bad al-Qaeda head honcho we've devoted so much time, so many resources, and so many lives - not only our own, but the countless civilian lives lost in our not-wars-but-great-ways-for-contractors-to-make-money in Iraq and Afghanistan. Should we take to the streets and start singing 'War is Over,' as out of season as that would be? Break out the giant foam hands and wave them while chanting that America is number one until our voices give out and we tire of the redundancy?

The Places We Leave Behind

My current novel, Project Princess, begins in ruins. Not the ruins of some ancient civilization - 遺跡 【いせき】, iseki, or 'historic ruins/remains/relics' - but 廃虚 【はいきょ】, haikyo. The ruins of an abandoned building, or something more recent. In the case of my novel, the ruined building in question had been functional and inhabited mere weeks to months prior to where we join the protagonist, at a time in which the passage of time has not only become unclear, but relatively meaningless. Ruins have spent quite a bit of time on my mind in the past year.

The 'Stairway to Hell' within Hashima Island/Gunkanjima.

One-Note

So, addicted as you all are to my monthly short stories, I'm sure you've been wondering what happened to my end of May story. Here it is at last, a week into June. It's taken me a little while to get back into writing as much as I've wanted to, having spent nearly a full month dealing with illness. In the least, I can now report that I'm mostly better and starting to eat somewhat normally now. Progress is progress.

I've got a lot to do this month between needing to find a bunch of agents to get another 5-6 queries out, another short story here later this month (ON TIME), and ideally a decent short story submitted to a publication, since if I'm going to find representation, I probably need to focus on building my portfolio of published work beyond the one story and growing body of self-published little experimental stories here on this very amateur-looking blog. My usual E3 video game babbling is coming up next week, too, so I'll try to put together some non-gaming material to make that up to those of you reading who aren't interested in that topic. At any rate, following a month of illness, get ready to enjoy my warm, fuzzy first written work in nearly a month! (You always write about cheery things after long term illness.)

The Sun is Your Enemy, You Realize

This may come as a shock to you, but it shouldn't.

Sol, taiyou, tài yáng, the sun. All names used to identify the yellow dwarf star at the center of our solar system. (Even the term solar system itself was derived from the star's original Latin name!) Sure, we rely on the sun for far more on a daily basis than any mere blog post could cover, and it could be reasonably argued that we wouldn't exist if not for the sun. But the truth is - you know it as well as I do - the sun is our enemy.

Basal Cell Carcinoma, Squamous Cell Carinoma, Melanoma. The three most common types of skin cancer. For much of human history, the sun has waged war with our very existence as a species through all forms of this particular cancer - largely suffered as a result of excessive exposure to the sun and the resulting DNA damage. Granted, skin cancer can generally be prevented through proper use of sunblock and efforts to avoid exposure to an excess of ultraviolet light. But then, we human beings are creatures of excess. We love to go outside and bake ourselves in the sunlight until we're extra crispy (Sometimes applying a secret recipe of 11 different herbs and spices for flavor), and to generally absorb every bit of the sun's rays we can. Bad idea. Perhaps, to the sun, we are the cancer.

But that's not the main focus of this post.

Last summer, director M. Night Shyamalan released yet another terrible film, The Happening, which focused on tree gas turning off the one chemical in the human brain that disabled our innate natural desire to immediately kill ourselves at all times. Because we've got a long ways to go in creating a more environmentally friendly society. Good message, terrible movie, terrible neuroscience, terrible basic concept. (If you want to make a good movie about nature taking revenge on humanity, it needs to be more of a modern day battle of Isengard from the Lord of the Rings - yes, trees uprooting themselves, walking into our cities, and beating the everloving crap out of everything. That would be a phenomenal terrible movie. (Note: As of my writing this, I'm staking my claim on this premise as my own intellectual property now. Take that, internet script thieves! You'll never have my idea that will never be made into an actual movie now!))

In reality, studies have recently indicated that excessive sunlight can increase risk of suicide - particularly as a result of the insomnia resulting from long summer days in countries like Greenland, where the sun doesn't set at all between the end of April and the end of August in parts of the country.

People like sunlight, and most tend to prefer it to the darkness of night. As such, it's a commonly held belief that suicide rates rise during fall and winter as a result of the lengthening of night and the coldness of its darkness. Constant sunlight like Greenland suffers for a significant portion of each year interferes with natural circadian rhythms. And sleep deprivation can easily wreck anyone's mental health.

When distressed, you'd be hard-pressed to find a quick fix more effective than suicide. By WHO measures, 877,000 people commit suicide every year. And for each of these deaths, 10-40 attempts are made. Puts things into perspective in regards to just how many people look for a way out each year, no?

Scientists have previously linked sleep disturbance with suicidal tendencies in adolescents and people with psychiatric disorders, though no clear findings have been made linking these issues all the way to the general populace. (Yet.)

A team of Swedish scientists studied the seasonal variation of suicides in Greenland from 1968 to 2002 and discovered that suicides tended to notably cluster in the summer - especially in the north, where the populace suffers through the aforementioned three months of incessant sunlight. Said suicides make up 82% of the yearly suicides in that region, are usually committed by young men, and are almost exclusively violent, including: shooting, hanging, and jumping from high places. These deaths accounted for nearly 95% of suicides at that time of the year.

Neuroscientific speculation is that the excessive sunlight exposure creates an imbalance in serotonin - a brain chemical linked to mood - which could lead to impulsiveness that, when paired with severe sleep deprivation, could lead to suicidal behavior. But in this case, light itself seems to just be one of many affecting factors in the tragic circumstances of suicide.

So yes, while the sun can technically be your friend and healthy for you - we all need Vitamin D, after all - it's still our enemy. We need the sun to live and maintain our health, but that which sustains us can also destroy us. Be wary of the Deathsphere! Always be wary. And wear lots of sunblock. Tanning doesn't really seem to be a good idea, either, from the health perspective. No matter how much you may like the extra color.

Yes, I'm positive you guys were just dying for another consecutive death-themed post. I'll try to find a different topic for the next one. (And try to post a bit more often again soon.)

This is the End, My Only Friend, The End

May has arrived, time flying by as quickly as ever, and here we are - my 100th blog post here on Spiral Reverie. Yes, there's nothing else of merit to discuss, nothing else going on in the world, and nothing else of real import ever happening in May.

Except for that, to estimate conservatively, we're all going to die. Me, you, ALL OF US. Because what better theme could there be for a 100th entry than a discussion of our approaching demise? There's no avoiding it, you know.

So let's find ways to cope with the imminent arrival of the reaper, who will soon wipe out all human life on Earth! (To be clear, yes, I'm talking about the pig bug everyone's afraid of. Which also happens to actually be killing some people. Which obviously only makes it an even riper subject for comical discussion.)

We're all going to die. How does that make you feel? You might consider seeing a therapist to learn the best methods to cope with these trying times, in which most people who contract the H1N1 recover just fine, almost as though this particular strain wasn't much more debilitating then the usual influenza viruses we're used to. (Shocking!) If a therapist's too much, as may well be for most in these financial crunch times, a paper bag's just as good. You can breathe into it during panic attacks. You might consider drawing a smiley face on it somewhere - ideally upside down so you could see it as you inflate the bag with your panicked exhalations - so it's kind of like seeing a therapist, or at least getting a supportive pat on the back. (Despite the fact that it is neither and you're probably dying alone.)

Nothing better to do than panic over your inevitable doom? There are better hobbies out there than wallowing in the anxiety of existential crises. Like Chinese checkers. Have you tried Chinese checkers yet? No? Yes? If that doesn't work, I'm out of suggestions.

So now you've sunk into a bottomless pit of despair. This is not my fault. You were the one looking to the "blogosphere" for relief. Since when has the internet ever been good for anything like that? Even the stock market has abandoned you. (But pork bellies seemed like a sure thing! YOU WERE WRONG.)

With nothing left but to resign yourself to the cold, unloving embrace of oblivion, what can you do? You could always keep calm like a rational adult, wash your hands, and maybe try to avoid getting coughed on by people in public. (Going out of your way to have that happen is an example of a hobby you might want not to pursue.) If all else fails, trying being too fast for it to catch you. It's possible, you know, to outrun germs. They don't want you to know that.

Sorry for the delay on this one, everybody - trying to keep myself motivated while juggling other projects still. I know this was technically about a week late, given that last week was pretty much the prime time for swine flu panic comedy.

Life Sucks, and then You Die. And then it still sucks.

Funny. I intended to slow things down considerably this week, and here I am typing out a second entry, with a third one planned for the end of the week. The wonders of actually having material I feel like blogging about.



This time, I'm actually right back to movie talk. But not just any movie talk. Specifically, Dead Like Me: Life After Death. This isn't the first time I've blogged about the movie, though the last time I did was over a year and a half ago, back in the very early days of activity on this blog in summer '07. Specifically, I had some concerns about the film based on some information they announced during filming back then. Having picked up and watched the film in the past 24 hours - in fact, having finished watching the film and behind the scenes featurette less than an hour ago as of my beginning work on this post - this is going to be a discussion of the film, particularly in addressing the mixed reception it's received. (Some fans love it, some fans hate it - there's a pretty even split, with a scattering of viewers in the middle.) I'm also going to make an effort to keep this post relatively spoiler-free. I'll be talking about major story elements, changes, and the characters, but avoiding any bombshells as best I can. But if you're a fan of the series who hasn't seen the movie yet, you may want to consider holding off on reading this, just in case.

At any rate, Dead Like Me: Life After Death is a direct-to-DVD movie developed by MGM as a follow-up to the brilliant Dead Like Me TV series about the afterlives of grim reapers that ran for two seasons before Showtime before it was axed. (In a very questionable executive decision, to put it kindly, considering the show's strong ratings and high quality writing and concept.) Bryan Fuller's shows (Which also include Wonderfalls and Pushing Daisies) are pretty much cursed - wonderful, but cursed. Fans weren't happy, Showtime saw protests (And the guy who canceled the show only ended up producing one quality, lasting show in the wake of his taking over as Showtime head of programming. Said quality show? Weeds, which is also worth your time.), and MGM made it clear that they were aware that fans wanted more, and that they would work to bring the series back in some capacity. We'd more or less lost hope when the movie was announced, and then people started to get concerned when the details in my linked previous post emerged.

Cue the Dissection!

The movie was headed up by John Masius and Stephen Godchaux, who were heavily involved in the show's writing and production following Fuller's departure from the series after the first several episodes. (Fuller himself has basically disowned the show since they took it in a different direction from his vision and didn't follow several plotlines he'd intended to set up. Though that didn't exactly stop the series from still being fantastic overall.) They wrote the film - I'll be addressing the writing in a bit - and got director Stephen Herek (Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, Mr. Holland's Opus) on board with the project. In regards to the direction, Herek wasn't a bad choice. They discuss his approach to the film in the behind the scenes featurette on the DVD, and his efforts to effectively reimagine Dead Like Me - to give us something both familiar and fresh, that both fans and new viewers could enjoy. And like with Joss Whedon's Serenity a few years back, I could certainly see newcomers getting something out of Life After Death, but similarly, not getting the full experience without having watched the series and familiarized themselves with the characters. (As such, it's highly recommended that you watch the series before the movie.)

On the whole, the tone of the film is both familiar and new - the overall approach to the direction makes it clear that Herek's a fan of the show, and made some effort to carry many of the recurring styles of shots from the series over to Life After Death. But the feeling's definitely different - the more TV-oriented style of humor is downplayed (Though there's still plenty of humor in the film), with a more cinematic balance of the humorous and serious moments. The emotional core of the film - which revolves around George and Reggie, as I'll get to in a bit as well - is more serious in nature than the TV series consistently was. (As it balanced sharp, biting humor with its more poignant moments and bits of seemingly hopeless family drama.) American Beauty in particular was cited in the behind the scenes featurette as an inspiration drawn from in some of the more dramatic and melancholy shots throughout Life After Death. Overall, Herek did a fine job presenting something familiar with a fresh spin. (As in the near five years it's been since the show's cancellation, there was no bringing the exact same universe and show back.) The one complaint I have with his direction is a particular awkward effect he uses a few times: taking a shot originally recorded at normal speeds and blatantly slowing it down for dramatic effect. It's only used a few times, but it can take you out of the film for a few seconds when it's used. Interesting bit of trivia: Herek was initially going to direct the series pilot before he had to back out, back in 2003.

Now let's look at the writing. Masius and Godchaux did a good job, overall. The entire film feels more like an episode of the TV series than a completely separate film, and in the humor, character growth, and overall story development throughout the film, the heart and soul of the TV series are absolutely intact. The magic's still there. That said, they tried to cram a good several episodes' worth of plot into about 90 minutes - that's one of the flaws that stands out more. A ton of story threads are thrown at the viewer, and the characters take and run with them in all directions. Only a few of these threads are actually fully realized, while the others seem woefully underdeveloped. And one of the most important ones suffers a little from some heavier melodrama than the main series itself generally let itself fall into.

At any rate, to fully elaborate, let's take a look at the characters:

George - It wouldn't be Dead Like Me without George, played by the ridiculously talented Ellen Muth. She's uncharacteristically flat and lacking in her usual brilliance in the film's opening recap of the universe and its rules that reapers have to deal with. That was something that could have used rerecording. Beyond that, I have no complaints. She's the all-important lead we grew to know and love in the TV series, a few years older and a few years wiser. The film focuses on showcasing George's growth as a character and does it effectively. She's pretty much the biggest reason to see the film. The most jarring part about her character otherwise was the recasting of UnGeorge/Millie as living human beings see her. That was an element of the series they'd more or less dropped in the second season of the show (Which may explain why they weren't able to get Laura Boddington, who originally played her alter ego, back). They naturally also had to recast the little girl who played George in flashbacks to her childhood for obvious reasons.

Mason - Callum Blue's spot-on as Mason again in the years since the show's cancellation. He brings the same sort of reckless, hedonistic energy to his performance as he did in the TV series. Sadly, beyond a joke character, he's sorely underused in Life After Death, with Mason largely remaining two-dimensional throughout the film. (Beyond a moment nodding back to the tension between the characters of Mason and Daisy that received a great deal of focus back in season 2.) If they're able to revive the series with a third season or another movie as everyone's hoping, one hopes Mason will get a little more screentime and development in the future.

Daisy - Daisy, unfortunately, is not the Daisy we knew and loved in this film. Laura Harris - who'd formerly played the character - was unavailable for the project, and after considering writing Daisy out (As could have been the better way to go), the character was recast. Australian actress Sarah Wynter took on the role as her first comedy performance, and while she shows she has the chops for comedy, you can also tell she's not a seasoned comedic actress either. While you can see hints of the Daisy we knew in her performance, that she's drawing on the same character, she comes off like a clumsy understudy. She's one of the film's weaker links overall, between her woefully underdeveloped subplots - again, they tried to do too much in a 90-minute film to fully realize everything they began - and very mixed performance. One would hope that if the series continues in the future, they'll either get Laura Harris back, or Wynter will have more time to fine-tune her interpretation of the character. She could potentially give us a take on Daisy of a caliber not unlike Harris', but sadly, she doesn't in this film.

Roxy - Jasmine Guy's right at home back in character as Roxy again, like Muth and Blue. The best parts of the movie aside from George's central story are the returning reapers from the original show, easily. Roxy doesn't get the kind of screentime and development in the film that she deserved. (Especially in the wake of the former head reaper in their division's departure (Rube, played by the great Mandy Patinkin back in the show, who sadly declined to join the rest of the cast in Life After Death), and the assumption that she would be taking over upon his departure. Rube's departure in general didn't get the kind of focus it needed, and his loss can be felt throughout the film - it's a different universe without Patinkin. Not bad, but different.) We did, however, get to see a little more of her humanity than we usually did in the series under her rough exterior, as well as her character expressing more femininity than she'd explored in the series.

Cameron Kane - Replacing Rube, they brought in Henry Ian Cusick from ABC's Lost to play a new high powered businessman who'd died jumping out a window on 9/11 as the new head reaper in the characters' external influence division. He's amusing when on-screen, but his character has no real depth and is largely only brought in as a bit of a comical antagonist, getting little screentime.

Reggie - George's younger sister Reggie - played by Britt McKillip, who's grown up a lot since the original series - plays a pivotal role in the movie, as she did in the TV series. McKillip's up to the task, as she was when she was younger, fortunately. Her storyline focuses more on elements of a secret love affair and a reconnection with her deceased sister - the former part of the story felt more melodramatic and somewhat clumsily executed in the plot, but the latter was very well done, and echoed a number of the themes running between their characters in the TV series. So while part of her storyline comes off as wasted potential, the rest more than makes up for that.

Joy - George and Reggie's mother (Played by Cynthia Stevenson) doesn't get much screentime in Life After Death. But from what of her we see, she's easily one of the characters who's grown the most since the original series, and brings a pleasant dynamic to the film with her relationship with Reggie. Definitely refreshing, after how much of the series came down to Joy and Reggie going in circles and seeming hopelessly broken as a family in the wake of George's death at the beginning of the series.

Happy Time - Christine Willes reprises her role as Delores Herbig, who runs the Happy Time temp agency where George has been working since the original series. They had to build a completely new set, which in no way resembles the original, but it works. (Much of the film is this way. Der Waffle Haus is gone, since the original set had been taken apart, and the entire film was shot in Montreal, though the TV series had been shot in Vancouver, and the fact that the show and movie were filmed in completely different places is very noticeable, and contributes to the overall feeling of hte film being different.) Delores has a fairly sizable subplot throughout the film, which manages to be entertaining and continue an element of her character from the original series. Crystal Dahl also reprises her role as the Happy Time secretary, Crystal, though she's mostly just there as a nod to the fans.

There's a lot for the fans to be happy about in the writing, but overall, the film's a definite mixed bag on that front between the changed tone - with its humor less sharp and biting, though the language was thankfully still as over the top as in the series (They're quite fond of the word "fuck." You might say they used it quite e-fucking-ffectively.) - and the fact that they just tried to do too much in an hour and a half to fully realize the potential of the film. But in many regards, fans have had such polarized reactions no doubt as a result of expectations they'd built up for the film without knowing what exactly they were getting into. Life After Death isn't intended to tie up all the loose ends and give the fans the fuller closure they've been asking for to end the series completely - it's intended to give the fans the characters again and showcase their growth, while working to relaunch the series rather than end it. Though if Life After Death is all we end up getting in the end, it does end on a perfect note (Not unlike how season 2 had) with which to conclude the series. Métisse fans will also be happy with the end credits.

After reading a mix of reviews from all perspectives, I popped the DVD into my player a few hours ago now, going in with no expectations beyond that I would be entertained and enjoy seeing the characters again. And having finished it and watching the behind the scenes featurette, I have to say, I'm not one of the fans clinging to one extreme or the other about the film. It's a very mixed bag - neither stellar nor terrible cinema, and certainly not bad for a series canceled nearly half a decade ago finally getting a DVD movie follow-up. It's not brilliant, but it's still a fresh and fun take on the Dead Like Me universe that retains the heart and soul of the series and should give fans hope. It shows that the cast can still play these characters as effectively as they once had. An additional movie or relaunched show could potentially open the door to bringing back Mandy Patinkin (If only for a guest stint to fully flesh out Rube's departure) and Laura Harris, or at least giving Sarah Wynter time to get better at playing Daisy. If we can get another series, they've shown us that they can bring back the kind of magic we knew and loved in the original series. (And fortunately, they managed to retain the series' visual effects guy for Life After Death, allowing the mischievous gravelings to remain visually identical.) It's a fun movie, and it's well worth buying to support efforts to bring Dead Like Me back. It never should've been canceled, and the kind of brilliance the series embodied is in no way something they can't bring back. Like Life After Death, it wouldn't be exactly the same, but it could still be fantastic, and with more time to pace their writing, another season would be far more ideal than another movie.

Technical Difficulties

Lovely times as of late, lovely times.

PS2? On the verge of death. Wiimote rechargeable batteries? Really need replacing. Computer I've effectively half life my life through for the past six years and a couple of months? Effectively dead as of a few hours ago.

Arbitrary blog update to complain about the current aggravating situation with an excuse at last for my not delivering as much content as of late? You betcha. But let's do this COMEDY-STYLE. (Since I still technically have internet access, in using a borrowed MacBook at the moment (Which isn't exactly the easiest thing for me, in never really having been a big Mac user before.), do continue to look forward to the upcoming Halloween comedy short story on friday. I will be finishing and posting that in time, one way or another.)

The skinny - Enma-sama, my PC since August 2002 (One of my graduation gifts, and new computer for college) had been sick for long time. There were probably a lot of things eating away at it inside from the software standpoint - likely some mild viruses (I was generally very careful to avoid those, but it's hard to prevent them entirely when you haven't been able to get a paid content update for Norton Antivirus in years.) and doubtlessly too much spyware for content. (Though I did make an effort to combat that with Spybot and Adaware.) But while I ultimately was able to prevent Enma-sama's demise prematurely in terms of internal software, it was already dying of old age. HP Pavilions only last so long. (And they really just HAD to solder the core of the computer in the motherboard, power source, and fan to the case, didn't they?) The computer had been groaning rather loudly for some time as to alert the world to its forthcoming demise - it did this for around a year, if not longer. (And there's nothing like writing while dealing with loud, angry mechanical noise from within the machine.) Halfway through the Daily Show in these past 24 hours, Enma said no more and abruptly shut itself off after overheating - though it felt no warmer than normal - following not quite 3 hours of use. The fan stopped working entirely, and the machine seems to be effectively dead.

At the moment, I'm typing on a borrowed MacBook from my older brother (Who lent me this one after purchasing a newer one recently to further his work on a particular iPhone/iPod Touch game project we're working on.), hooked up to my PC's C drive in an external enclosure. Fortunately, all of my data is intact - Project 27 Days and all. I'm not sure if the MacBook has Word-compatible software or not, so Project 27 Days work may be depressingly stunted this week. (Especially considering that I was about to finish chapter 23 of the 28 the other night, and planned to finish the job within the next hour or two now.) We'll be figuring out what's to be done in the next day or two - the horrible mooch I am in still being financially dependent on my parents at 24 - but we'll likely hit a local Intrex and see what can be worked with of Enma-sama. And side from that, there's a good chance Enma-sama will be fully laid to rest and replaced by a new Dell PC. (As theirs are known for reliability and affordability these days, apparently. Not quite as much for the commercials they used to do with that one scab whose career is now long over. He was busted for possession, as I recall.) With any luck, if things work out, whether it's some entirely new and far more powerful (As Enma was very outdated in many regads) hardware or a Frankensteinian patchwork, I should hopefully have a new machine by the end of this week - the name of which, I haven't even begun to think about yet. Suffice to say, this has been a very frustrating, stressful day - and time in general, with the way my daily electronics've been lately - but at least there's something of a silver lining.

And now, for an attempt at something to amuse you - the final conversation (IM-style, of course) between myself and my deceased PC:

Spirald00d469: Hey man, why you gotta be like that?
ENMASAMMER: You know why, motherfucker. YOU KNOW WHY.
Spirald00d469: Yeah yeah, you told us you was gonna die at any time forever. Why'd it have to be now?
ENMASAMMER: Trick or treat, bitch.

And that's it. I'm too tired and let's be honest, the joke'd just be repetitive and redundant beyond that. I'm not sure why both the computer and myself opted to co-opt a stereotypical urban black style of speech there, but suffice to say, we probably both deserve to be stabbed for it. Except the PC has the benefit of being the one already dead.

You served me well, Enma-sama. Here's hoping the next PC works out even better.

Can I interest you ladies in some dungeons and mayhaps even some sort of dragons?

Feels like it's been forever, eh? (Just pretend.) I've been kind of burnt out and uninspired when it comes to blogging this past week after an unusually productive February in that regard. (Not to mention a rather messy GRE day last week.)

Like most nerds, I've been in a state of mourning of sorts as well - a very special tired tabletop gaming kind of mourning. Last week, geeks of the world lost one of the greats, the influential creator of Dungeons & Dragons, Gary Gygax.

Yes, ever since his death, everyone's been beating those failed saving throw jokes into the ground - including myself. But I'm not going to do that here. For this is a serious blog, and I am a serious blogger. (I'm seriously trying to keep a straight face here, if that counts for anything.)

Of course, beyond that he was a king amongst nerds, there's not much else to be said about Gygax (At least, that's my excuse for not focusing on his personal life here.), but that he was a great influence on the "thinking nerd's" favorite genre of game - the role-playing game. (The kind with lots of character statistics and dice when playing a tabletop one - not the kind of "role-playing" when your ex-husband wanted to keep dressing up like a giant baby in the bedroom. What was wrong with that guy?) This genre is often referred to - particularly among computer and video gamers - as an "RPG." (No, not the gun. How are you not getting this?)

Dungeons & Dragons was Gygax's gaming offspring, taking over nerds' lives upon first launching in 1974, and filling parents with dread. Little Johnny's becoming a satanist! Again! This was a common train of thought back in the 1970s, in part due to the fear of Communism the government had verbally beaten into Americans back then, and in part due to the fact that everybody was still doing acid all the time back then. (They hadn't put enough distance between themselves and the '60s yet.) Gygax left the gaming company he'd co-founded, TSR (Tactical Studies Rules) in 1985 during a management shakeup while he was involved in the production of the mid-80s Dungeons & Dragons cartoon. TSR would go on to create all sorts of abortions (And I'll admit it, I actually own this game, VHS and everything.) of the franchise before they were bought out by Wizards of the Coast in 1997 and they opted to update (See: Butcher) Dungeons & Dragons' core rules for the sake of making the game more accessible to new generations of geeks. What do you mean we don't have THAC0 anymore!?

Inspired by tabletop RPGs, in 1980, Richard Garriott brought the genre to PCs with the original Ultima, his long-running series of adventures in the fantasy world of Britannia, starring the Avatar. (A blatant intentional analogue for the player, a trend we would continue to see in RPGs on the PC and video game consoles/portables, which has taken something of a downturn in recent years.)

Ultima, in turn, would lead to Japanese game director Yuji Horii of Enix to create his own take on the genre, working with composer Koichi Sugiyama and artist Akira Toriyama. (Best known for his Dragon Ball comics and animated series, now being hilariously made into a doubtlessly terrible Hollywood film slated for a 2009 release, with a now white protagonist! ... Stephen Chow, what the hell have you agreed to produce?) This series, Dragon Quest, would launch on the MSX and NES in Japan in 1986 - and later in the west in 1989 as Dragon Warrior. The series continues even today, with its 9th installment slated for a release on the Nintendo DS this year, and a first person spin-off, Dragon Quest Swords, having hit the Wii just last month. Of course, the greatest accomplishment made in this series - beyond introducing RPG video games to Japan - was the creation of one of the greatest gaming mascot characters of all time - Slime. Bow before Slime. He will be your friend. (And you will inevitably spend the first few hours of every game in the series killing lots of them.)

Following the many Dragon Quest clones other companies released in Japan in the '80s, Squaresoft, a game developer failing after an over-investment in Nintendo's unsuccessful Famicom Disk System, released what was to be their swan song in 1987 - Final Fantasy. The game was a hit and reversed Square's fortunes, ultimately becoming nearly synonymous with the RPG genre by the early 1990s. They were enjoyed for their imaginative universes, intriguing casts of characters, and battle system that bucked the Dragon Quest trend, displaying the player's party of characters on screen during battle. Polished by translator and localizer Ted Woolsey, Final Fantasy VI on the Super Nintendo proved to be the series' shining gem, with a cast of (Mostly) well-developed three-dimensional characters and storylines that touched on real world issues - such as teen pregnancy and genocide.

Then Square decided they wanted to take the series mainstream during the shift from the Super Nintendo to the Playstation as the dominant console in the late 1990s. This is where everything went to hell. RPGs had been long enjoyed on game machines largely by a minority of geeks who enjoyed the slower-paced, deeper gameplay that required us to think our way through the game and immerse ourselves in a brilliant new world with new adventures to be had. Final Fantasy VII exploded onto the Playstation scene to ridiculous -and in many cases bankrolled - amounts of praise. (The greatest game ever made, my ass.) The game was a smash hit, bringing the genre to its first mainstream success - without truly making the genre mainstream, as every RPG that didn't have Final Fantasy in its title "sucked" by default to the new generation of kids the game introduced to RPG video games. The gameplay was shallow, the story was nearly incoherent, and the translation was abysmal, Ted Woolsey having departed prior to its localization. Rather than telling an interesting story with compelling characters, it was time to appeal to a new generation of gamers - with attitude. The game's design largely focused around trying to be much "darker" than before. (Which largely amounted to a well designed dystopic city where the game began, and the story falling apart shortly after leaving it several hours in, with the rest of the game's massive world a bland, forgettable place, seemingly an afterthought. The story itself was painful cliche to its core, and its characters amongst the worst gaming has seen - setting a depressing trend. From then on, Final Fantasy was all about moody, effeminate young men for its protagonists, who are neither sympathetic nor likable, yet still played up by fans as some sort of ultimate badasses. Every protagonist from then on would be more of the same. The supporting cast? Two female romantic interests - one who receives little development and is summarily killed off in an effort to provoke an emotional response in the player (At which they fail, horribly.), and another who exists to essentially be a pair of giant breasts - a borderline racist stereotype, a couple of talking animals, and a couple of extra optional characters who add nothing to the story whatsoever. The dialogue? Poorly translated teen angst.) In a matter of a couple of years, Final Fantasy went from intelligent, enthralling fantasy to F-grade teen drama. Ever since, any RPG that features a silent protagonist intended to act as an analogue for the player is immediately berated - why not have an angsty pretty boy whine at us for 50 hours instead? And now, what Final Fantasy stands for - at least in its newest numbered releases, the spin-offs capture at least some of the imagination and adventure of the old days - is just depressing. They're overhyped cinematic messes that have largely abandoned their genre roots in lieu of delivering a shallow, style-over-substance experience for today's ADD gaming generation. Truly disheartening for those of us who grew up enjoying the series when it actually held some redeeming value.

I kind of got off topic as usual, but all these games are, ultimately, a part of Gygax's legacy in many regards. He created the RPG that kicked off the genre before we were even playing games on computers, and decades later, many of us still play in our parents' basements and local comic and game stores.

Farewell, Mr. Gygax. You will be missed, and certainly not forgotten.

Yes, this was the entry in which I inevitably outed myself as the ultra-geek that I am. I feel kind of dirty. In my defense, I haven't played any tabletop RPGs in at least a decade now. (Though granted, that's mostly for a lack of opportunity.)

This Week on Celebrity Autopsy

Thrills! Spills! Chills!
Looks like that baby bump was a tumor after all!
All the news you never wanted on your favorite celebrities and more - from beyond the grave!

Naturally, you realize that give or take another year or two, a real TV show like this is inevitable. You thought you loved them before? Love them more as we make the lifeless meat puppets they've been reduced to dance around for your entertainment and pantomime public service announcements! Prepare to save 15% on your car insurance - OR ELSE.

Did you get chills? Did you?

So, America has one thing occupying its mind as of late, and it's a heavy, heavy matter - celebrity deaths. Yeah, gnarly, right? (Well, there's also the effective Political Fistfights! the news media's trying to make the primary process out to be, when what we're seeing is the usual political bickering and some worthwhile commentary on how ridiculously oversensationalized election coverage is becoming - to the point at which it's hurting our democracy. But then, let's face it, democracy's been essentially dead in America for some time now. But don't worry, world! If you feel like criticizing us, we'll come "liberate" you with our increasingly-exhausted military and try to force you to be just like us with our broken patchwork government system! The future is bright! Democracy flourishes when you wave around a bunch of guns and say it does! Also, much of America is still laughing about some dangerous cult.) Sure, we could be focusing on more meaningful things, like finding a real answer to our economic crisis (Yes, Bush, all we need is another tax cut for the rich and for you to flip the rest of us the bird, that'll slap a band-aid on our problem.) or actually paying attention to just how much this administration has lied to us to push this war alone, maybe start calling for actual accountability and oversight, maybe a little of those old-fashioned laws that used to apply to the people in power. But then, what do I know? Hey, look, a dead celebrity, let's mourn their passing as though it's 9/11 all over again! If only we had another nation to blame and bomb!

Was that overdramatic of me? Maybe a little, maybe a little, but what cynic isn't fuming these days?

Earlier this month, Brad Renfro was found dead, with the cause of death still undetermined. Some sort of drug overdose is commonly speculated to be the cause, as he fought his own addiction demons throughout his life, and like many, it looks as though he may have succumbed to them. It's a shame, as he wasn't a bad actor - I'll just remember him for playing one of the few relatively sane characters in Ghost World, which was a fantastic movie. His fans continue to mourn, the media gave him a little time, and then moved on.

A week later, and now just a week ago, Heath Ledger was also found dead in his own apartment, with an official cause undetermined as well. Going on report and talks, however, it seems he either overdosed on sleeping pills or took them with something he shouldn't have by accident, as it seems more likely it wasn't a suicide. Ever since one of the world's favorite bisexual cowboys kicked it, little else in the news has mattered. Admittedly, I was never a particular fan of Ledger's, though I have nothing but sympathy for his family and friends, and on a more human level, there's no denying the tragedy of his passing. (On a professional level, I'm admittedly feeling particularly sympathetic to Terry Gilliam, who was nowhere near finished with the film he was working on with Ledger.) I'm especially sympathetic to Michelle Williams and their kid, as what they're going through now is a kind of pain I know I'm not familiar with, but that it must be devastating. Even now, a hate group's planning to picket his funeral. (A church hate group - y'know, that special kinda hate Jesus gets behind. At least, according to these depressing loonies.) And hey, Brokeback Mountain may not have been the end-all, be-all of cinema by any stretch of imagination, but it introduced something positive into the mainstream here. Sadly, it figures we'd see something like this even in Ledger's untimely death, simply because some hate-filled individuals have no sense of respect or human decency.

Both of these guys weren't that much older than myself, certainly still in their prime in life. Going on what seems most likely, one simply couldn't beat his own addictions before it was too late, while the other's death was an accident that any of us could easily make - especially when exhausted. When young and living such an active life, it's not uncommon for many to feel like they're immortal. But in the end, those of us in our youth have been given something of a memento mori by these two - a reminder that we're still human, that we still not only can, but inevitably will die.

There's no thinking on this without reflecting on one's own mortality some, never knowing where Death lurks upon his pale horse, ever vigilant to our various personal deficiencies. As humans, we're all inherently flawed creatures on many levels, and death comes far more easily than we like to think about or appreciate. In and of itself, death is inherently tragic, but without death, life loses much of its definition. Life itself is precious by the very token of the fact that it can and will end. We don't know the when, where, or how until it's too late in nearly all cases. But we can learn this much from all this - don't take your life for granted. Death may have taken two talented actors from cinema in recent weeks, but you? You're still alive. Take time out to appreciate everything and everyone you can. Even the little things, like hot chocolate in winter, or a cheesy in-joke between friends - especially things like the curve of a loved one's smile. These are things to cherish and remember, for someday, we shall all be gone. It is best, if you can, to live as openly, honestly, and fully until that time. To enjoy all that you can and die with as few regrets as possible, given that it's virtually impossible to pass on without at least some regrets. Human existence is in and of itself a flawed and bittersweet symphony, after all. Get out there and celebrate.

Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt.

This blog still isn't exactly active yet. Project 27 Days is coming along, though. The first draft should be done within the next two months. With good editing - and hopefully, some luck in finding an agent and publisher - maybe I'm setting a goal of getting it on shelves by somewhere in the large window of this Autumn through next Spring. A lofty goal I'm setting there, I know, but what shot do I have if I don't try to really nail something down and keep myself as motivated and determined as possible? It'll be something worth reading when I'm through with it. I'll be making sure of that.

Anyway, onward to the point of this post. Kurt Vonnegut. Fantastic author, top notch humorist, and one hell of a guy. One of my personal literary heroes, and a big influence. And as everyone knows by now, he passed away the other day. Obviously, I never knew the guy or even came close to it, just having read a few of his books - and planning on reading the rest - so it's frankly difficult to find appropriate words to really say what needs to be said. But the literary world just took a major loss, and he is one who will not be forgotten by all who enjoy writing that captures the human spirit, bitch-slaps us when we've got it coming - as we so often do - and gives us something to all laugh at together. In effect, through all the writing he's produced, like old Billy Pilgrim, through his literature Kurt Vonnegut Jr. himself has become unstuck in time, to be remembered and enjoyed by all, human and Tralfamadorian alike.

Not much of a eulogy, but -
So it goes.