The Walking Dead

…I just finished watching it – took me all of three days basically.

I want to start by saying that, despite the things I am about to say here, I really do like the show: my heart has been broken more times by this than any other TV show I know, and I really care about the characters, even the ones I didn’t think I cared about I ended up caring about after they died. It’s truly a credit to the writing that I ended up having feelings about certain people. You know who I mean.

However, something about it bothers me, extremely much so. Not so much that I’ll stop watching (again, I stress, I care about these characters and want to see them survive) but enough to make a blog post about it and structure a final paper on it.
Granted this comes out of an East Coast liberal college education, so if you know what that entails and you have automatically disengaged from this because of that then feel free to stop reading: everything I’m about to say is nothing you haven’t heard before, whether it be about video games, movies, or other TV shows and you disagree with it being a problem. I won’t sway you, nor am I trying to. I’m merely stating the things that I see that bother me, personally, in the writing of this (otherwise great) show.

This is the Post Where I Talk About Cooking and Weight Loss

I’m about to say something that I think is one of the most pretentious, hackney, idiotic things I have every said, or typed, since I described my 5 years post dropping out of school as “finding myself”:

This past year, I’ve been on a journey. A food journey. Since my dad died, I began cooking more. I don’t know if it’s in a effort to somehow connect with him because he used to cook amazing food all the time, or because when I was little we used to watch the Frugal Gourmet together. Or if it’s because now that he’s gone, someone has to make the food.

I know in part it’s because of me wanting to start eating healthier – and part of that means cooking for myself. But my opinion on food is different than other peoples, it seems.

I truly enjoy cooking and baking for myself. Going to the grocery store and thinking about all the food I’m going to make and share and get to enjoy in the coming week or two is a small joy in an otherwise dull or stressful week. And because, for me, food is something that I can never associate with anything other than joy, I want my food to always be delicious.

Always.

I’ll be quickish, Jeopardy’s on…

Understand I speak about this from a purely outsider’s perspective, I am neither a fan of Amanda Palmer, nor a musician of any sort (well, I can play the piano if the song isn’t that complicated, and you give me a month to learn 1 song), so this whole thing could have just passed me by, if it weren’t for a musician I’m a fan of, and friends with, mentioning it on his twitter.

The only thing I know of Amanda Palmer is that she married Neil Gaiman, making me predisposed to hate her out of sheer jealousy. I tried to listen to her music and I wasn’t a fan, but again, predisposition to jealousy.

So I did a little reading about it, and I wasn’t too bothered by it at all, really. I always think it’s a great idea when celebrities reach out to their fans in a very real, and interactive way. When I was a teenager, if there had been an opportunity for me to make or do something, that, not only would Hanson be able to use in their music, but allow me to meet, hang out, and get to know them, even for a few hours, I would have jumped at that opportunity (admittedly I was so positive that I would marry Taylor Hanson, that I just assumed I’d somehow meet him and we’d fall in love. Providence would make it so that I’d run into him on the street, or faint at a concert, or… you know what, I digress)*.

So, let me go on the record as saying that “I have no problem with a celebrity calling out to their fans to help them in a very real, and physical, way.”

What Controversy?

I’m angry, nerds. I’m angry at you.

Well, ok, not all of you, just some of you, some of you I have to forver be associated with, and the rest of us would really wish you’d just go away already. Honestly, you’re making the rest of look bad… we look bad enough, carrying on adamantium vs lightsaber debates, and wearing our vintage 1980s Transformers t-shirts with exactly 0 sense of irony.

You see, I have class tomorrow, and so, like a responsibly 27-year old who, in no way at all acts like an agitated toddler when she’s stayed up well beyond being tired, I was about to go to bed when I read about DC making an Arab-Muslim Green Lantern. “Cool” I thought, and then I did he thing I always tell myself to never do, I looked at the comments.

(though I should mention that on the article itself there are no comments, however the facebook feed I read this from is a different story altogether).

An Open Letter: Assassins Creed 2

Dear Assassins Creed 2,

Forgive me if this is a bit presumptuous, I haven’t played your sequels so perhaps  this letter will seem redundant to you, but may I ask what the hell is up with the camera and controls?

You have to know that you are not an action game, and so your jumping and camera controls are the most vital aspect of your game; they are your core, and everything else is built around it. You may think that your camera a and controls work fine, and I am being a crazy bitch, but no. I’m not. Your controls like to do their own thing from time to time: jumping in a direction I wasn’t indictating, dropping down or climbing up when I’m not pressing the proper button, and the camera suddenly shifting perspective for certain jumps, or turning ever so slightly while I jump so that I am now jumping at an angel I didn’t want to. I don’t blame all of my failed jumps on these, of course: I am as big a factor in my falling to my death as anything. But, seriously? YOUR ENTIRE BEING IS PREDICATED ON RUNNING AND JUMPING, AND TO DO THAT YOUR CONTROLS NEED TO BE REALLY ETREMELY TIGHT. THIS IS NOT AN OPINION. IT IS BASIC DESIGN: PRECISION JUMPING REQUIRES PRECISION CONTROLS. CONTROLS THAT DO THE SAME EXACT THING THE SAME EXACT WAY UNDER THE SAME EXACT CIRCUMSTANCES.

Like I said, perhaps your sequels have these issues taken care of and this is me being very much behind the times. I hope that is the case, because your reputation as a game that is fun to play hangs on it.

Sincerely, and with much hope,

Caterjillar

You are being loud

As I explained to someone on twitter, I don’t perceive their behavior to be bad, I perceive their conversation to be stupid. These are just some of the highlights of the conversation I couldn’t help but overhear, because it was so loud, today during work. I figure if you’re being so loud about it, you don’t mind if everyone knows your business about hamsters, Mexicans, and coffee.

Chalk this up as further evidence that I am a cranky old curmudgeon who hates young people.

Old Dream

I was going through old blogs and diaries because…nostalgia? Boredom?… whatever….

anyway, I was doing THAT and I ran across this gem of a dream.  Below features a vomiting robot, shriners, and Richard Nixon(s).

Copied verbatim from September 3rd, 2008.

Old School is the New School

I have to admit, it’s been an exciting time for me. See, I grew up in the late  80’s/early 90’s, and I grew up playing video games. I blame my dad for this, of course (being a nerd seems to be an inherited trait), he’s the one who brought video games into the house, he’s the one that monitored the new ones coming out, and he was the one with the money to buy them.

For the most part we were Nintendo people – a phrase that used to carry just as much weight as proclaiming the superiority of the 360 or the PS3; Legend of Zelda, Mario Bros, Final Fantasy, all those beloved pixels with their simple catchy melodies (and by simple I don’t mean they weren’t complex and well crafted).

But, we were also PC gamers – a term that simply didn’t exist back then. Much like today, if you played games on the computer the general populous was confused, but oh man was it the place to be for a little girl who had a very active imagination and was just learning to read and comprehend. I think my love of writing and story telling came specifically from the computer gaming days.

As high in regard as I hold ye olde console games, they cannot hold a candle to my beloved adventure games, games that taught me to think outside the box, games that made me engage in characters, games that were simply capable of more things than our very dear NES could ever dream (though it tried,  King’s Quest V on the NES).

Back in the day we would gladly gather around whoever was playing a game at the time, we sat, or stood, or leaned, to watch the player try and figure out the world, the puzzles, everything. If my dad was playing, I was often on his lap. And we would spend HOURS like this, the players switching in and out, saying “try this on that” or “can you look at that thing there?” and I learned to write simple sentences “Look at tree”, “Use broom on floor”, “Take bow and arrow”. I always had an advanced reading level in school, and I don’t doubt that these games were the cause of it – of course I knew what perilous was, I had already played Perils of Rosella. I could put 2 and 2 together.

Sarcasm? Sarcasm is practically my mother tongue: Space Quest raised me well.

So it goes…

I have been avoiding this post, I really have.

January 25th, my dad died. He wasn’t sick or injured, he wasn’t suffering from a terminal disease… he just went to bed on the 24th and never woke up.

There is something you need to understand about this: my father was a good man. Good nothing, he was great. When I think back to anything bad he ever did, anything that could make the hurt less, it doesn’t exist. Yes, I was mad at my father in high school, but who wasn’t?

Mass Effect 3 and the blog post no one will remember

Hey person reading this. If you haven’t played the game and fully intend to, don’t read this. I have a medical problem that makes it impossible for me to avoid spoilers. It’s ok if you read it mom. Most of this won’t make sense to you anyway.