It's been a little while

I have my laptop dual-booted with OSX and Windows. I've been participating in the League of Legends closed beta for a month or so now and, as it only runs in Windows, I haven't been switching over to OSX much lately. That happens to be the only time I find myself able to write. I guess the atmosphere just feels better.

But I'm here now and you're probably wondering what's been going on in my life. What's that you say? You don't care? Neither do I. I'll tell you about a dream I had instead.

I was at a McDonald's for some reason and ordered what I thought were chicken nuggets. At some point while eating them I realized they were actually little red iPod Shuffles covered in ketchup. I'm pretty sure I ate two or three before deciding it must not be healthy. Then again, neither are the actual chicken nuggets.

I have student loan payments to make starting in 3 weeks. At the moment I don't have the money for the first payment. I need a second job.

People suck

I'm visiting my friend at 711 yesterday when some customer decides to throw a hissy fit. He had $19 worth of lottery winnings to redeem and said he wanted $5 back and to spend the rest on more tickets. My friend asked which tickets he wanted and the guy began naming off each one he wanted. The total came out to $19. When he wasn't handed a $5 bill alongside his $19 in ticket, things got fun.

My friend explains to him that he just rang him up for what he asked for but the guy won't hear it. He says it's my friend's job to keep track, that he should have said something. It might have been courteous to say something but it's definitely not his responsibility. The guy says he would have been keeping track if he had a computer (computers and cash registers are synonymous now), to which I wonder who needs a computer to count to 19 by 1s and 2s?

Well the guy starts dropping all sorts of foul words and making this convulsing clench that was supposed to let everyone know just how much rage was bottled inside him. He was about 5'9" and 155lbs. He would have gotten stomped by either me, my friend or the large man standing behind him in line if he had made any kind of move. So instead he just screamed and swore in front of young children for 5 minutes until threatening my friend and leaving.

How insecure does someone have to be to pick a fight with a 711 clerk over their own mistake?

It reminds me of a time I was at a White Hen downtown this year. A white guy comes in with missing teeth and a wifebeater and makes a beeline for the door that says "Employees only". The hispanic woman behind the counter calls out to him to stop. His face immediately gives away that he was up to something but he's feelin ballsy so he says "Oh I was just using the bathroom".

Well, friend, White Hens don't have public bathrooms. And if one of them decides to do so they're surely not going to keep it behind a door that says 'Employees only'. So the lady tells him no dice but he's relentless. "Naw, you don't understand. I really have to go. Like I REALLY have to go" He leans and twists as he says it like he's a small child.

The lady doesn't buy it though and tells him to go to the fire department around the corner, that they'll let him use their bathroom. This exchange continued for about thirty seconds until the guy decide to start calling the woman a dumb spic and all sorts of similarly witty retorts.

It really irritates me to know that no matter how dumb that slob is, he's still convinced in his mind that he's better than people that aren't white.

And now for something completely different

Let me preface this by saying I think it's a terrible thought to have and I feel guilty thinking about it. I'm not trying to devalue these circumstances. But while Philosophy classes waste time on rhetorical questions we'll never have to answer, I consider how we would deal with things that could actually happen, however unlikely.

A couple summers ago I heard of a boating accident involving a seventh grader from the next town over. The child had jumped off the back of family's speedboat without knowing the propeller was still running. Her hair became entangled and she was dragged into the blades. It was a fatal accident.

When I heard about this I pictured the scene of the accident. I imagined the transition from careless fun to pure terror. There would be a moment of confusion right in between. But somebody had to look over the back of the boat to confirm it.

I hope it wasn't one of the kids. If a parent had looked over they would have, though emotionally devastated, made sure the siblings didn't see it. Something like that could scar a kid for life. But if a child did look over first, the parent would have looked too anyway. They're not gonna take their kids' screams as confirmation of fatality. I guess I'm just saying I hope as little people as possible had to see it.

But what I always wonder when this thought crosses my mind, is what the family did at that point. When something awful happens at a kid's sporting event the child will be whisked away in an ambulance and the parent will ride along or follow. When something terrible happens in your own house you'll call 911 and all sorts of uniforms show up. If someone has died, the cops will direct you away from the body as the paramedics load it into a body bag and bring it to the ambulance.

In both of these cases there's an act of finality. The body is taken away. I don't think people appreciate that action. What would it be like if someone didn't take the body away?

That's what I think about. What if there was no one else on the lake when this accident happened. The family witnesses the tragic slaughter of one of their own and then what? Do they just drive away? Do they wait for someone to show up? Do they call 911 when they know she's clearly dead? Do they bring the body into the boat?

In moments of death our instinct is to fight for survival, be it ourselves' or others'. Rarely do people calmly assess sudden mortality. Even after all hope is lost we look for something we can do for the victim. We close their eyes, we clean them off, cover them up and lay them in a respectable position.

I just wonder what it felt like to not be able to do any of that. The circumstances of that boating accident have made me think a lot about how we react to death. I've never really experienced the death of someone close to me (I'm not close to many people) so it's something that intrigues me.

On racism in games

I've just read an article on Kotaku about the modern non-white gamer's reaction to today's videogames. However, 'read' means 'got about halfway through before my eyes hurt from rolling so much". I hate prejudice in all its forms but when people go out of their way to feel victimized I have no sympathy. There are so many double standards in racism that it makes me sick. Hence why I can never give a 'racism in games' article any serious consideration.

The Latino man from the article complained that his Xbox Live avatar didn't move like he did. "I can make him look like me, but have you noticed, when he's standing right there, the way he moves? It's ... weird," Mills said. "He puts his hand on his hip. He twirls his head." No shit, Sherlock. It's a crappy caricature of a person. Mine doesn't move like I do either. What the fuck does this have to do with your race?

Later on, a black man talks about a lack of marketing to non-whites because it's assumed that whites are where the money's at (sounds like a racist assumption to me). Then a hispanic man explains how games could be better targeted to his ethnicity: "Well, racing games," ... "We love getting into the car industry, love customizing our cars. I think the gaming industry, like [with] Midnight Club and Need for Speed, have tapped into something. I just wish they would take it a bit further."

Now hold on one second. Did he just claim that a race of people share a common characteristic? Hispanics like customizing their cars? Why are throngs of hispanics not frothing at the mouth over this comment. I wonder what would happen of a non-hispanic said something like that.

Now I'm thinking back to when some woman claimed Castle Crashers was racist because the red, blue, green and orange characters hit the black, brown and white characters. Yes, you heard me correctly, folks. When colored characters beat white characters it's racist against blacks.

It doesn't just happen on the fringe of the industry though. (Formerly, I believe) Newsweek's own, N'gai Croal, claimed that it was clear that no black people worked on Resident Evil 5. This comment has two layers of insanity to it. One at a time, here we go.

The first 12 Resident Evil games had you killing whites, a mix of races that was mostly white and eventually there were Spaniards. None of this was racist. But set the latest installment in Africa and suddenly Capcom is a racist company. Secondly, who the fuck does he think he is claiming no black people worked on Resident Evil 5? How would he like it if I said "Clearly, no black people worked on Jeopardy: the game".

You can't have racism both ways, folks. It can't only be an issue when it's convenient for you. Grow up and stop making things worse for everyone. With attitudes like these you're only going to turn more people prejudice

http://kotaku.com/5358562/minority-report-the-non+white-gamers-experience

In acknowledgement of 9/11

Writing about September 11th seems tacky. I can't think of much to say that has any value and I sure don't wanna force anything. I wasn't personally affected by it so, in a shallow sense, it didn't really upset me.

I was also in 8th grade at the time and didn't quite understand the impact. My class happened to be on a team-building field trip in the woods somewhere when I heard. None of us really knew what the World Trade Center was. We just carried on with our business.

Then on the way home we noticed a lack of traffic and all the flags were at half mast. When we got back to school they had the building on lockdown (apparently because, after the Twin Towers and Pentagon, the terrorists were likely targeteting my grammar school). Then we watched the news footage of the plane crashing over and over. Still, we didn't quite grasp what it meant. That city scape might as well have been a foreign country for all I knew.

But the more I watched the more I realized what was happening. Seeing people run through the streets with looks of true panic on their face was just chilling. I had never before seen the face of someone who believed they were about to die. That day I saw dozens.

The fear slowly made its way into me and I realized just how scared I was once I got home. I had been listening to music on my headphones when I heard a loud, low rumbling. It was getting louder and I could feel vibrations in the ground. My heart stopped and I ran to the window expecting to see a passenger jet barreling into my house. It was a schoolbus.

I can hardly believe it's been 8 years. It feels like half that. This is going to be one of those things that children 20 years from now just don't understand or care about. I'm not sure if I'm jealous or sorry for them.

I'm sorry but I don't know where that photo is from. I found it online

On Vegetarianism

I'm thinking about becoming a vegetarian. It wouldn't be the easiest or most enjoyable thing I could do but I have a few good reasons to consider it.

I've read enough articles and seen plenty of footage that make it clear that our livestock is treated worse than I'd ever thought possible. If you want to see if for yourself go look it up because I'm not gonna explain the horrible shit I'm talking about. The point is that these animals are abused their entire lives before suffering a torturous death.

I've never been against the idea of eating animals but I am against animal abuse and I just don't know how I can tell if the chicken I'm eating was treated well or not. I'm sure there are higher-end brands of meat that are stamped with a seal of approval but they're sure to carry a steep price tag.

Then I consider all the steroids and crap that's squeezed into these animals to maximize their output. And what about all the preservatives and dyes and other chemical crap we're eating every day? Scientists can't find the causes of cancer? You're fucking eating unnatural chemicals every day! We don't need to spend billions researching a cure if we can just stop giving ourselves the disease.

This applies to non-meat food as well. It sucks. I'd really prefer to eat something that I know isn't harmful but the stuff that claims to be, again, is much more expensive.

People always talk about the things they'd do if they were rich. One of my top concerns would be hiring a vegan chef. Hopefully it'd be a chick and I could just marry her eventually to save some money. I have a feeling a personal vegan chef is pricey.

So yah. This isn't the first time I've considered vegetarianism. One of the main issues I've had with it is the idea of becoming a scrawny, malnourished guy. I remember reading an article about how Toby McGuire took forever to bulk up for Spiderman because he's a vegetarian.

But then, as I spoke with a friend about this last night, I realized that all the most badass animals on the planet are vegetarians. Gorillas, rhinos, hippos, etc. Sure, lions and gators are tough but could they take on an elephant? Could a Great White take on a Blue Whale? Doubt it. As long as I ate enough of the right stuff (peanutbutter, spinach, granola, yogurt.. all that shit is fantastic for you) I'll be alright.

Some more things that have me considering this change are two instances where I've heard vegetarianism being lauded by scientists as a superior lifestyle. Once was in a speculative documentary on what aliens might be like. It was claimed that they'd be 'less physically powerful but significantly more intelligent from having realized the benefits of a vegetarian diet.' That's cool and all. Brains over braun any day. But remember that I want both.

The second quote is much more meaningful. Some guy named Einstein said "Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances of survival for life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet." The fact that he called it an 'evolution' rather than a 'switch' really caught my attention.

And when you think about it he has a great point. All life relies on other life for survival. We can't keep pumping hormones into cattle forever. Our population is getting larger and sicker all the time and our livestock won't be able to keep up. We'll end up making more animals extinct than we already have.

So I don't know. I need to do more thinking about it.

I'm afraid I must continue

Have you ever had a recurring dream? Off the top of my head I can recall two. In a way, they relate. They're both about flight. But that's where comparisons end.

I've dreamt more than a dozen times about plane crashes. I'm always on the ground, watching the plane fall out of the sky. It always seems to be caused by extreme wind. The plane just starts to struggle and waver more intensely until it loses control.

Do you ever stop to wonder how graceful planes look in the air? These hulking masses of metal that weigh more than my house are just gliding through the air with ease. They look so small and are so quiet up in the sky.

When a plane is crashing.. when it's struggling to stay in the air.. it starts to look wrong. That grace and elegance are replaced with panic and clumsiness. You don't want anything bad to happen but if it does happen you want to see it. Why? Who knows? It'll probably haunt your dreams until you die. It haunts mine and I've never seen it.

The other recurring dream is much less unpleasant. In fact it's fantastic. I fly slowly through the air just about 6 feet off the ground. I can swoop up and down a bit and adjust my speed. It feels incredibly real and every time I'm convinced that it's real life. I'll think to myself "All this time I could have been doing this if I had just known how! This rules. I'm gonna do it all the time now"

When I wake up I'm so disappointed to realize it wasn't real and I try as hard as I can to remember how great it felt. At the moment I can't remember.

Fascinated with flight but afraid of height. It's just not right. Kite