Mental Cobwebs

Things Emmy Says, Part 6

2011-05-16T06:17:00.000-07:00

As she was putting on her Easter dress: "The Easter Bunny is gonna see me and say, "Look at that fancy girl!""

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Singing on the toilet: "Pooooop is coooooming. Poooooop is coooooooming."

Me: "Emmy, don't sing about your poop."

Emmy: "OK. Your pooooop is coming. Your pooooop is coooooming."

Me: "Em, don't sing about poop at all."

Emmy: "Peeeeee is cooooooming. Peeeeee is coooooooming."

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When I grab her and hang her upside down over my back she likes to yell, "NOBODY WANTS TO BE NEAR YOUR BUTT!"

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When watching coverage of the Royal Wedding Emmy saw when Kate Middleton drove by in the car and waved toward the camera. Zoe told her to wave back and she got really excited and waved to the TV. Then she said, "I didn't think people on the TV could wave to people not on the TV but they can!"

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We were picking up sticks in the yard and I found a chunk of a ball that the dog must have chewed up. I threw it up onto the porch and a minute or so later Emmy walked up to Zoe holding it and said, "This came from the sky."

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Em: "A long time ago I was a baby rat and I was in Mommy's stomach then I came out."

Me: "Um, yeah you were in Mommy's stomach, but you weren't a rat."

I didn't realize until days later that she was talking about several days before when we went to eat chinese and I told her she was a rat because she was born in the year of the rat.

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She was eating a handful of Cheerios and it looked like she was trying to hide them. Zoe told her she knew she had them and it was fine so she said, "I know I was just covering my mouth so they didn't fall out on the floor, the couch, and all over you, and the chairs, and the cats, and the dogs."

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Em: "I've never been to the ocean."

Zoe: "I have."

Em: "You have?! Did you ride a shark?!"

Game You Plan on Playing | 30 Days of Gaming, Day 25

2011-05-04T06:14:00.000-07:00

Right now the gaming community won't shut up about Portal 2. Not that I think they should, but they're really making it hard for me to hold out for awhile. See, I usually wait until I can pick a game up for $20 or less before I play it. Even games I'm pretty interested in, like Portal 2. Sixty dollars is just way more than I would ever think to pay for a game, and I play games so little these days that it doesn't really bother me much to wait.

Of course I plan on playing Portal 2, I just haven't gotten around to it. But all this talk right now lead me to swing by the rental store to pick it up. Unfortunately it was out, so I couldn't really do that.

I didn't actually get to the first Portal until years after its release. I got it off of Steam when they were offering it for free, so that tells you something about how late to the party I was. Though, because I'm able to game so little, Portal was a perfect title for me. It took me about four hours to beat, which is probably my ideal length of time for a game.

Most people hate it when games are that short but I hate it when a game passes the six hour mark, am completely annoyed after the seven hour mark, and have trouble not just giving up after the eight hour mark. I suppose if I was paying $60 for it I would want it to last longer than four hours, but since I always pick them up so cheap I don't really care.

I'll probably try to rent Portal 2 again soon and attempt to knock it out in a day or two. If only so I don't get spoiled by all the talk.

Fourth Anniversary

2011-04-28T07:16:00.000-07:00

Today marks my 4th year of being married to my lovely wife, and my 9th year of being with her in general.

I've gotten comfortable in our relationship, but when I stop to think back on the kind of person I was when I met her I realize how much I owe her. If she hadn't taken a chance on me I would probably be a wreck of a human being living with my parents and crying myself to sleep every night.

I was immensely lucky that such a perfect woman went to the same high school as me and saw through all of my stupidity back then to even give me the time of day. She started everything good in my life, ushering forward a much more stable mental state, as well as convincing me that having a child was something I wanted.

I was young and immature and never really imagined having kids, but I knew that I wanted to spend my life with Zoe, and she didn't want to wait until we were pushing 30 to have kids so we got started right away. Now imagining my life without Emerson in it is almost impossible.

I've struggled with what I want to be in life for a long time. I stopped going to college because I had no idea what direction I wanted to take. If it wasn't for Zoe I would probably still have no idea that all I really want to be in life is a parent. Everything else is inconsequential. Jobs are ways to support my wife and kid, not a way of life. Zoe and Emmy are my life, and I'm the luckiest guy in the world that they came along and gave my life meaning.

I love you, Zoe! Happy Anniversary! Thanks for giving me everything.

Favorite Classic Game | 30 Days of Gaming, Day 24

2011-04-28T06:40:00.000-07:00

This should come as no surprise to anyone whose been reading my Twitter feed lately, but I really like Shining Force 2. I'm replaying it right now because of the portable Genesis emulator I bought, the Sega RetroGen, and it's probably near my sixth or seventh time replaying it.

Part of my obsession likely stems from the fact that I preferred RPGs as a kid but made the mistake of asking for a Genesis instead of a Super Nintendo, but there are a lot of reasons beyond nostalgia that I like the game so much. I haven't played many tactical RPGs, but I probably should given how much I like Shining Force.

Apart from the tactics angle though, it also combined another element that I absolutely love: building an army. There are 30 characters you can recruit on your team, but your battle party can only hold 12 at one time. Every single time I play through the game I tweak my team a little bit, trying out new members for my final battle force. Plus several of them can be promoted to different classes than normal using hidden items, so I like holding onto those items and giving them to different members each game.

There is probably a better answer, like if I analyzed the stats of certain characters then it would only make sense to use one of the Sorcerers over another, or promote one of my centaurs to a Pegasus Knight because they have the best movement already and being able to fly over terrain would improve it even more, but I mostly ignore that stuff.

Which is why normal tactical RPGs might not appeal to me in the same way that Shining Force 1 and 2 do. I'd rather raise an army because I think the characters are cool then because of someone having 2 points better in stamina. I'm not a number cruncher, but the Shining Force games don't really require it. I can usually make my way through the whole game just fine with whatever party I choose by being careful in battle.

But after an entire childhood of playing Shining Force 2, and sometimes the first game, way more times than needed, I'll never give up on it. There are plenty of Shining games, but not since Shining Force 3 on the Sega Saturn has there been one with Force in the title. I paid $100 for SF3 and then realized my Saturn was broken. That's dedication. I sure do wish they'd make a new proper Force game.

Best Art Style | 30 Days of Gaming, Day 23

2011-04-28T06:08:00.000-07:00

The best time for graphics in video games is when we reached the point that many developers decided they didn't need to try to compete in the graphics race and instead created interesting and unique art styles. I've never been up to date on the newest and coolest electronics, I mean, I just entered both the HD generation as well as got a PS3 toward the end of last year. So seeing those art teams step forward and have a significant part in making a look and style for games was something I immediately took interest in.

The first round of game machines that really did this was the PlayStation 2 era. I never owned an XBox and only played a handful of games on my wife, then girlfriends, GameCube so I'll only speak to the PS2, but there are plenty of examples on that system alone. Just look at Odin Sphere's choice to put out a 2D game on such a new system, making everything pop with an immense color and brightness we've never really had in games. Or ICO and Shadow of the Colossus and their washed out, hazy sort of worlds that make the atmosphere fit the somber moods they're trying to convey. But if you wanna talk about one game that I think has the best art style, let's talk about Okami.

Sure, cel-shading might not seem very original nowadays, but when Okami came along I hadn't yet experienced it in a video game, at least to that extent. But it's more about how Okami used the art style. They were one of the first games I can remember that melded the look with the plot, and feel of the game. Okami looks like a beautiful painting, which is perfect considering your means of attack is to alter things with your "celestial paintbrush" and restore color to the world. I'd never really played a game where the design took such an integral part in what the game was about before, but I loved it.

Video games have long been about the rush forward in technology. Developers often try to have the next great engine and the best graphics possible, and I couldn't really care less. Okami helped show me that a game can instead choose a unique art style that might not be the best of the best in graphics but it better fits with the game itself. When video games use every single one of their elements to help further the plot, feel, and atmosphere of the game, it really shows the strength of the medium. All of that stuff has to come together to form something so much better than what we'd get with just a few of those elements. That's when I really love video games.

Bad Father, Bad Grandpa

2011-04-27T18:15:00.000-07:00

I went through the pictures of when Emmy was born to see if there was one of my dad holding her. Unsurprisingly there was one of almost every one but him.

The other night Emmy ask my wife why Grandpa won't ever read stories to her. She was asking about my father, and it was due to the fact that when she brings him a book he just tells her to go ask someone else and continues watching TV. She doesn't know this now, but she's probably just going to have to get used to that.

I can hardly claim that my father was a terrible father, but he certainly wasn't...isn't, a very good one. Growing up I always felt like I was being ignored by him, and I mostly was. Adam Corolla was on Marc Maron's WTF podcast awhile ago and talked about how his parents weren't abusive or neglectful, they just didn't really interact or seem to care about him. That's pretty much my father in a nutshell.

Since you've likely never met him, you don't know that he has been a Track and Cross Country coach for over 30 years. If you didn't know that then you clearly haven't ever met him, because that's pretty much all he's ever cared about in life. No, I'm 100% serious here. Did you know I've never once seen my parents kiss? Like, no pecks goodbye or friendly "I love you"s throughout the day. That's not really my dad's style, I suppose.

So, growing up I become accustomed to the fact that running was the only thing he really loved, and the kids that ran for him were more his children than I ever would be. He doesn't really go out of his way to show any interest in anything else, so if you don't line up he'll probably just ignore you. That's where I fell as a child because my brother was always the more athletic son and my father didn't give a shit about whatever video game or movie I liked.

I ran Cross Country for two years, probably in some sort of vain attempt at making him happy. When I realized in my sophomore year of high school that I didn't really care if he paid me any attention I neglected to sign up. He wasn't very happy then, and hasn't been since. Almost every trip to visit my parents results in at least one comment about how I should start running or how Emmy is going to be a runner. The day I let him force my daughter into running is the day I've given up entirely on life, so, not very likely.

You know, I've said something like this to him before and he defended that he played with me when I was younger all the time. Seeing his refusal to change his interests to that of my three year old daughter proves to me that that was a load of crap. Honestly, if he can't be bothered to read to his granddaughter, I'm not really sure why I bother going over there in the first place. I know if I'm in the room next time he tells her to go ask someone else I probably won't keep my mouth shut.

Overboard on Easter

2011-04-24T08:59:00.000-07:00

Emmy was born on February 1st, so Easter was the first kid-oriented holiday to come along. After you have your first child you tend to get a little bit excited when those sorts of things come around for the first time, so we went pretty overboard.

As a parent it's fun to try to make holidays as magical as possible for your child. We still try to stick to a budget, and we usually do fairly well. But even if we don't, I think it's worth it to see the excitement on her face.

Look, we're poor. We don't get many chances to spoil our kid. When we do, it's with pretty small and inexpensive things. Sometimes the little things add up and we find we went too far, but I don't really mind. We live with my in-laws and we have no way to afford any sort of costly gifts for Emmy. A majority of her clothes come from mom-2-mom sales (like a garage sale but on a grand scale and with all moms), and a lot of her toys have been purchased at yard sales, so it's not like we're spoiling her too much.

Sometimes I start to feel a little bit guilty that she'll probably always grow up somewhat poor. Sure, that's not whats important, but it's still a factor. A happy childhood is dependent on having good parents that encourage you to be glad you have whatever you do. If a kid has everything in the world they'll likely just want more. Still, I'd want to give my kid everything in the world if it didn't cause any negative effects and I had the means to do it. Right now, what we can afford is everything in the world to her, and that makes me smile. When she's older and understands that she can't have that expensive toy she wants because we can't afford it, it won't be as fun. But if I raise her right she'll still be happy with whatever it is she has.

A Shit List, for the Future

2011-04-22T18:16:00.000-07:00

I don't often get days off of work. In fact, I usually never do unless I pay someone else to fill in for me. Every once in awhile though, my father-in-law has some time off of his own work and covers for me. Usually he has to really push it because I'd rather just do it myself, but that's besides the point. Today he had the day off and he told me he'd do one of my routes for me.

So, I relaxed a little bit instead of rushing to start work right away. I spent some more time in the morning with my wife and kid, and got a little bit of writing done. When I headed out to start up the route I was about and hour and a half later than I normally am. No big deal at all because I usually finish the route three hours before I have to be done -- time I use to go and do the second route which my father-in-law had covered.

Of course, people get accustomed to having things a certain way, and they don't really like change. Multiple people were standing around waiting for their papers as I pulled up, and I even fielded a call from someone I hadn't yet gotten to saying they didn't get a paper, most likely because they tried calling my employer first and were told they can't complain about not getting a paper until after 5 o'clock. But the real kicker was the guy that had the nerve to inform me I was late as I pulled up to hand him his paper.

I first responded in a friendly manner, informing him that my father-in-law was covering my second route so I didn't have to rush off right away today. He seemed annoyed by that, as if my entire life was only to deliver his paper. He told me that I was normally there at 2:30 (it was quarter to 4 at that time). I said yes, because I normally had to be so I could do my second route, but I wasn't late because it wasn't after 5. This didn't exactly satisfy him, but he grumbled and walked off.

You know, some people are so privileged that they seem to think the world plans itself around them. If the paper carrier is late, it must be because he's lazy. He should be delivering the paper at the exact same time every day, because surely he doesn't have a life outside of this one minuscule task which directly involves me!

I should start keeping a list of everyone that has shown behavior that proves they think like that. However long it is that I am stuck still delivering newspapers, I'll keep a file of their names and addresses. The day that I finally find a new job, I could then go and knock on every one of their doors and tell them exactly why they are awful people who can think of nobody but themselves.

Of course, I won't do that, but it'd be supremely satisfying if I did. I've said this before and I'll say this again: tip your paper carrier, mail carrier, pizza delivery boy, or whatever other person you have providing you with a service. You might not treat them like shit, but chances are there are a bunch of people that do.

Sequel You Were Disappointed In | 30 Days of Gaming, Day 22

2011-04-21T20:13:00.000-07:00

The Suikoden series has been one of my favorites for a long time. I don't even remember how I found out about it, but I had and played the first back on the PS1, and anticipated the second. Once that one came out I was in love. Suikoden 2 is easily one of my favorite games of all time and cemented my devotion to the series at the time.

Many fans disliked Suikoden 3, but not me. The "Trinity Sight System" might have grown tiresome very quickly, but once you slogged your way through it you were rewarded with what I think is the best storyline of the entire series. You get an extremely rewarding ending to a character you've followed through all three games at that point, and I loved the way they twisted the normal "108 stars of destiny come together" structure at the end.

Of course, that leads me to Suikoden 4. Oh, how I hate Suikoden 4.

I fell in love with the series because I grew attached to characters and would always look forward to seeing which ones would return in the next installment. So what'd Suikoden 4 do? It was set 150 years before the first and had no return characters apart from the few normal ones and a non-team member who was integral to the plot line of the first game. Alright, that's shitty, but I'm willing to buy in based solely on the fact that I would love to learn more about Ted, that one character that was key to the first game of the series.

Problem is, Ted turns out to be a pretty hidden character to recruit, and once you find him he has virtually zero lines of dialogue or missions to help flesh out his story. So I bought and played the game for one stinking character and they can't even be bothered to use him in a satisfying way.

Add onto that annoyance the awful plot, horrible dialogue, bland environments, and an unbelievably boring means of transportation around the world, and you've got the makings of one truly terrible video game. Suikoden 4 was so bad, in fact, that I've all but abandoned the series I once loved because of it. I was extremely wary to pick up the 5th game after playing that trash heap, and I didn't even make it through the whole thing. It just couldn't make up for the huge disappointment that was Suikoden 4, and that's really saying something.

Best Story | 30 Days of Gaming, Day 21

2011-04-21T18:54:00.000-07:00

A lot could be -- and has been -- written about video games and how they have and can tell stories. For the most part people aren't very impressed with what has come along so far. Even gamers often say that video games are pretty amateur at best when it comes to weaving their tales, so it's hard for me to highlight one as having the best story.

Instead, I'll talk about two games that told their stories in incredibly interesting ways that were only able to be done in the medium of video games. Of course, if you know me at all you've already guessed that I'm talking about ICO and Shadow of the Colossus.

I haven't been shy about how much I loved those two games, and one of the biggest reasons why is the way in which they told their stories. They didn't have a lot to tell, and what little they did was very vague and not particularly amazing, but they used their medium to wonderful effect and emerged a million times better for it.

Too often video games fall into the trap of using cut scenes to convey the plot, which is basically just copping out and turning to what they know will work. Movies and TV already do what a cut scene does, so it doesn't exactly show the video game's strength as a storytelling medium when we do the same thing. ICO and Shadow of the Colossus had cut scenes, but they weren't nearly like most games.

Most of the time a game cut scene is a very literal attempt to deliver dialogue and show action that would be more difficult to deliver in-game. In ICO, one of the most affecting points of storyline advancement came as I was doing battle. I slowly realized throughout the battle just what the things I was fighting were, and it worked incredibly well.

If I had just been told outright by some other character in a awfully voice-acted cinematic about that plot point, it never would have hit on the same level. More video games need to learn how to use their own unique abilities in creative ways, and they likely will, but right now ICO and Shadow of the Colossus stand apart from a majority of gaming. And in that sense they deserve a ton of praise.

Favorite Genre | 30 Days of Gaming, Day 20

2011-04-21T18:21:00.000-07:00

If I had to pick a favorite game genre, I would probably go with RPGs. I don't really play many of them nowadays due to time constraints, but they will always hold a special place in my heart.

When I was a kid I didn't exactly connect with video games as much as I do today. Most of my time at home was spent running around the woods swinging sticks around, but when my best friend and I got together, we bonded over RPGs. Mainly all of those amazing SNES ones by a company that was then known as Squaresoft.

His parents bought him a lot more video games than mine did, and I'd gambled on begging my parents for a Genesis instead of an SNES. Once we'd been lured in by role-playing games I somewhat regretted only having a Genesis, but now I sort of treasure that.

When I think back on those times now I smile. We would spend hundreds of hours in his bedroom passing the controller back and forth. Most of the time one of us would play the game and the other would read the text. When we had to grind out some levels in order to advance the story the non-player would lay bored on the bed trying to find something else to occupy their time until the controller was passed off again. If he wanted to play the game when I wasn't over a gentlemen's agreement was made that he couldn't do anything to advance the story, only grind.

I have never owned an SNES in my entire life, but through long weekend afternoons with my friend I played through/watched the entirety of countless classic games like Final Fantasy 4 and 6, Chrono Trigger, Super Mario RPG, and plenty more. In fact, that's probably what started my love affair with video games because I went on to beg my parents for a Playstation which I used to play Final Fantasy 7, 8, and 9, Suikoden 1, and 2, and a bunch of other RPGs on my own.

So even though I don't have a lot of time to beat a 50+ hour game these days, I'll always look back on the RPG genre with an incredible sense of nostalgia.

Setting You Wish You Lived In | 30 Days of Gaming, Day 19

2011-04-20T20:08:00.000-07:00

I haven't actually played Red Dead Redemption, but I'm going to pick its setting as the one I'd most like to live in.

We live in an age of convenience, sure, but sometimes all of this technology weighs on my mind a little bit too much. It's made so much more responsibilities for me to have to worry about. I've always got something that I feel guilty about not having gotten to. Some article I told myself I'd write or some other duty I volunteered for online.

Living in the wild west would mean none of those things weighing on my mind. Granted, I'd instead be worrying about wild animals and diseases we scoff at these days, but still, it was simpler times back then and I think I'd prefer that.

I can handle manual labor just fine, and it'd be easier to make a good living for my family without so many bills to pay. I'd just have to watch out for rattlesnakes.

Denied Again

2011-04-20T19:51:00.000-07:00

Turns out I failed pretty hard at not getting my hopes up for that job. And of course it fell through, like they always do.

After weeks of waiting for a call back after my interview, I started to call them. Every day for over a week I'd just be told that someone would call back in a few hours and they never did. Finally I got through to one of the hiring managers who told me very matter-of-factly that they had decided that I wasn't right for the job.

I'm not entirely sure how you can't be right for filling boxes and loading them onto a truck. Obviously I'd screwed up the interview, though, it probably didn't help that the guy who interviewed me was a royal douchebag. If the woman who was actually scheduled me for the interview had been around when I showed up things might have turned out differently, but I guess I'll never know for sure.

This whole job hunt thing is getting frustrating. The hardest part is working up the motivation to try again after your hopes are crushed.

A Bygone Era

2011-04-16T14:33:00.000-07:00

It's a little odd that my daughter's first obsession with a show was Thomas the Tank Engine. I've never ridden on a train in my entire life. Considering I see them tearing up old tracks constantly it's extra likely that she won't ever ride in a train as well, unless it is older-looking one for attractions and such.

They've been tearing up the tracks on one of my paper routes out in the country. Early this morning when I came through I stopped and grabbed one of the railroad spikes from the pile they'd left. I'm not entirely sure why, but I thought Emmy might like to see it. A souvenir I guess.

When she was talking about it with me she said she would never be able to ride on a train and I had to explain to her that trains still exist but she will likely ride on a very different kind of train. They won't use metal spikes pounded into huge blocks of wood, but all metal tracks.

Part of me wants to find the oldest train still running and get my family onto it before they break it up for scrap metal. It's not even nostalgia, just a weird sense of regret over the passing of an era in transportation. Things get old and lose their usefulness, man. It's kinda sad.

Um, uh, you know, like

2011-04-15T20:35:00.000-07:00

Earlier when the power went out for three and a half hours, I used the time to edit a podcast I'd recorded with a friend more than a month ago and had been sitting on. Most of the time when I record a podcast it is only me. I sit down, talk about five different bands, and then stop. After I cut out the large gaps of silence where was thinking about what to say about the next song the entire thing is maybe five minutes. I do a little bit of editing to cut out any egregious moments of awkwardness or long pauses, but for the most part I just make sure it sounds good and start to edit in the music.

This time, though, it had been so long since we'd recorded and we were a good six minutes over the normal length of my podcast, so I decided to go through the entire thing and cut unnecessary stuff as I went. I've gotta tell you, I was not expecting to discover just how stinking much I say, "Um." It's a lot. Like, a lot a lot. If it isn't um there is also a healthy peppering of "Uh," "you know," and the occasional "like." It's pretty awful.

I knew I filled in gaps with those annoying words, but going through a half an hour's worth of my speech over the course of several hours just threw a magnifying glass on exactly why I do it. When I talk my mind wanders ahead of my mouth and I get side-tracked. The "Um" fills the gap between the time I realize my brain has gotten off course and when I get it back on the path. That's pretty clear because the other annoying habit I have that makes for more editing work is leaving significant gaps in between words.

If I'm going to be recording and editing more talk-centric episodes of my podcast I really should learn to stop trying to fill in these gaps. My first idea was shock collar based but I'm not sure if that would help keep my brain on the right track. I'd likely just be thinking about getting shocked the whole time.

Anxiety of Speech

2011-04-14T17:49:00.000-07:00

From a young age I was conditioned to be wary of putting myself out there. I never had very high self-esteem and when I stuck my neck out there to say something or make a joke I was either cut down by my father or mocked by my brother.

In my mind everything is magnified a thousand times. When I jump out there and make a joke about something on TV, and it is met with people joking back that I'm being anal about something or that I am in someway wrong, I suddenly feel like I'm in line on a firing squad. I feel singled out and under attack, and I hate that feeling more than anything.

That's why I've learned to just not speak. I rarely mutter responses to people and generally just ignore others unless I'm one on one with someone and feel a bit safer. Most of the time just yelling goodbye as I head out the door, or goodnight as I head upstairs for bed seems like a huge hurdle that I just can't get over. So I don't try.

This practice causes friction some times, like from my mother-in-law who assumes it's something I only do to her. This morning I blew a reaction from my wife out of proportion and got really upset. It's always the worst for her because I feel the safest saying anything to her, so if she reacts at all like I'm being annoying I take it pretty hard.

I'm not entirely sure how to fix something like this, other than never talk. I guess I just need to stop taking things so personally, but that's easier said than done.

Names Aren't Logical

2011-04-14T08:40:00.000-07:00

We're being raised in a time when people are trying their best to make their children's names as unique as possible. No one seems to want to name their kids something boring and common, I get that. But when someone has free reign to ignore all that has come before them, it gets a bit out of hand.

You could technically name your child a random stream of symbols and tell everyone it's pronounced Bob and that's perfectly legal. I think. The point is, no one has to pay attention to any logic in the way a name should be spelled in order to be pronounced the way they want it pronounced. This has led to plenty of people completely ignoring logic and question every name they come across.

Emerson is a name. Quite an old name. We didn't make it up. It might not be very common for a girl until more recently, but it's certainly a name and that is most definitely the way it should be spelled. Mostly, we call our daughter Emmy, but I couldn't even tell you how many times people misspelled that nickname or asked about how to spell it. For awhile my sister kept spelling it "Emi" and I had to hold myself back from telling her that was the stupidest thing I'd ever seen. Emi wouldn't be pronounced as Emmy, it would be pronounced like Eli.

That doesn't really matter though, because if we wanted to say her nickname was spelled Emi, we easily could. With a name, the only thing that matters is how the parent says it's spelled or pronounced, and that is borderline crazy talk. You need to add a second 'm' to Emerson when turning it into Emmy, or else it just wouldn't make any sense. Somehow this rule of grammar proves me right, I just can't get my head around explaining it right now:

Rule #4: “Doubling Final Consonants”

When adding an ending to a word that ends in a consonant, we double that consonant in many situations. First, we have to determine the number of syllables in the word.

Double the final consonant before adding an ending that begins with a vowel when the last syllable of the word is accented and that syllable ends in a single vowel followed by a single consonant.

- submit is accented on the last syllable and the final consonant is preceded by a vowel, so we double the t before adding, for instance, an -ing or -ed: submitting, submitted.
- flap contains only one syllable which means that it is always accented. Again, the last consonant is preceded by a vowel, so we double it before adding, for instance, an -ing or -ed: flapping, flapped. This rule does not apply to verbs that end with "x," "w," "v," and "y," consonants that cannot be doubled (such as "box" [boxing] and "snow" [snowing]).
- open contains two syllables and the last syllable is preceded by a single vowel, but the accent falls on the first syllable, not the last syllable, so we don't double the n before adding an ending: opening, opened.
- refer contains two syllables and the accent falls on the last syllable and a single vowel precedes the final consonant, so we will double the r before adding an ending, as in referring, referral. The same would apply to begin, as in beginner, beginning.
- relent contains two syllables, but the final consonant is preceded by another consonant, not a vowel, so we do not double the t before adding an ending: relented, relenting.
- deal looks like flap (above), but the syllable ends in a consonant preceded not by a single vowel, but by two vowels, so we do not double the final l as in dealer and dealing. The same would apply, then, to despair: despairing, despaired.

Thanks to Alex Martin, Jonathan Cole, and Jay Henningsen for the grammar help on this post.

The Night Fight: Rounds 2 & 3

2011-04-13T18:30:00.000-07:00

So, I'm not entirely sure what to do at this point.

The night before last I had an awful time getting Emmy to sleep in her own bed. You might recall that this was one of her first nights with the stuffed owl we let her make to help her feel safe sleeping in her bed. Well, it didn't really work.

I spent an hour and a half trying and failing. First I tried to convince her to stay over there but despite several books being read, me lying in the bed with her, and promises being thrown around, she'd still immediately get out of her bed once it came to going to sleep.

I asked her all about why she wouldn't sleep in her own bed and she had all manner of excuses that hardly seemed to be the truth. She pointed to things in the closet and said she was scared of them so I pulled each of them out to show her what they were. Confronted with this knowledge she'd just move onto another one. I got the sense that she wasn't actually scared of any of these things as she seemed to just casually say that she was.

I decided it was time to be hard about it and refused to even let her get up on our bed, so she started lying on the floor. After awhile I got up, picked her up, and put her in her bed. She started crying and got back out. Remembering all of those nanny shows that solved this issue by just continuously putting the kid back in their bed until they gave up trying, I did just that. She was screaming bloody murder after six or seven times, so I just picked her up and held her in front of her bed until she calmed down.

Once she'd stopped crying completely I laid her back down in her bed. She got a little fussy about not wanting the blanket but then she rolled over and went to sleep. That victory lasted until five or so in the morning when she woke up and climbed into our bed. Zoe was sick and I was un-wakeable so she was still there when I woke up at eight.

Round 3 was barely a fight at all. Last night I'd all but given up the war and chose to get plenty of snuggles instead of losing sleep.

I guess I'll be re-entering the battlefield tonight. Wish me luck.

Scaredy Cat

2011-04-11T14:58:00.000-07:00

I'm not exactly the bravest person in the world. There are very few rides that I can go on at the fair each year without getting more than a little freaked out and panicking a bit inside my head. Apparently I passed some of that onto Emerson.

This weekend we met up with all of Emmy's cousins of the same age at some place called Play World. It was basically just a big building filled with McDonald's playplace-like structures, inflatable bouncy houses, and other child-sized amusements.

Emmy mostly stayed in the area with those plastic houses you can buy your kid to put in the yard, and the Flintstones type cars. Every time she ventured toward something bigger an obstacle would scare her away. She'd follow one of her cousins until it came to climbing through a tube and then she'd back away. A couple times I coaxed her into climbing up onto the second level of one of the structures via the nets but every time she would panic and slowly climb back down the way she came, close to tears.

The first time she got onto the giant blow-up slide she climbed up to the top because of the other kids getting on behind her. She actually went down but I could see the fear on her face as she did. Every other time she was pulled onto the slide she only climbed about halfway up and then held up the line of kids as she made her way back down.

It's probably safe to say Emmy won't lead a very exciting life, but I've found that doesn't really matter. I've gotten by just fine without feeling left out by not taking risks like a lot of others. We might be a little boring, but I'm happy with that.

Bunny and Her Magic Powers

2011-04-10T18:57:00.000-07:00

Our state tax return check came in the mail the other day and it was a glorious time of celebration. On top of using it to pay off all of our bills for this month, we had a little extra to use on something a bit more frivolous. Upon weighing the options, there was only one real choice.

As I've written about before, Emmy is having a little bit of trouble adjusting to the next step of growth: her own bed. She has yet to make it through an entire night in her bed, and hasn't once fallen asleep in it of her own free will (we usually just transfer her after she's conked out). She's told me she isn't big enough for her own bed and refuses to believe me when I say a lot of babies have sleep by themselves. She is convinced that there are monsters, or scarecrows, or that the wall is scary over there, and it doesn't matter even if I check for all of those things and curl up in the tiny bed next to her. Nothing has worked.

So, we told her we were going to take her to a special store. We drove over to the nearest Build-A-Bear Workshop and had her pick out her own animal. We recorded us saying, "I love you" with each of our special nicknames for her onto a sound button to put into the foot of the owl she'd picked out. If you're unfamiliar with the store, the next step is for the kid to help pump the stuffing into the animal. They pick out a heart and go through a series of spins, jumps, nose touches, and a final kiss before it goes into the back of their new friend and is sewn shut.

After we picked a name for her new owl -- which she decided should be Bunny -- and got her an outfit to wear, we left the mall and headed for home. On the drive back I told Emmy all about Bunny. I told her that when she spun in circles, touched her nose, jumped up and down, and then kissed Bunny's heart, she gave her magic powers. I told her how she could use those powers to make a shield around her bed to protect her at night. Then I told her that Bunny's magic was weak right now and she could only protect her in her bed, but if she gets a lot of practice protecting her in her bed that she could keep her safe other places as well. Incentive for the future, I guess.

I'm not sure how much it will help, but even if it doesn't it was worth a shot. I can't think of any better way to have spent our rare bit of extra money.

Calm, Peaceful Nights

2011-04-10T17:49:00.000-07:00

It's easy for me to complain about my job -- and I've done it plenty of times -- but there are several things I love about it as well. I wrote about being trusted and left to do my job without being micromanaged already, which is something I love about it, but there's more. Particularly the weekend night-time deliveries.

Saturday and Sunday papers are both in the morning. The way my schedule works out there isn't very much magic in dragging myself out of bed on Saturday morning and going to work, but something else comes along later. I go to bed at about 5pm and wake up again at 11pm. While every other day of the week takes about four to five hours, a Sunday paper takes me at least seven, if not eight. Meaning the entirety of my night is spent out delivering.

This might sound like a negative, but it's become one of my favorite times of the week. Imagine setting aside eight straight hours of your day away from the computer or TV screen. No contact with other human beings, save for a stop at a depot to load the second route. It's calm, quiet, and amazingly enjoyable.

After I finish my first route I sometimes stop at the grocery store to get some food. Even there I see maybe one employee the entire time. I grab some of the prepared food or something out of the freezer aisle, warm it up with the microwave over in the cafe area, and pay for it in the self-checkout lane without ever taking my headphones out to make small talk with a cashier.

The entire night is just me, music, podcasts, and my thoughts. On winter nights the cold air sets adds to the ambiance; On summer nights it's a cool escape from the daytime heat. I'm willing to bet you haven't had a block of time to yourself that sizable and that quiet for a very long time. Some people might complain about having to work all night long, but I cherish that time. It would be one of the biggest things I'd miss if I ever got a new job. So much time to just relax and enjoy life without being distracted by the thought that you should be doing something else. It's magical.

Modding Aspirations

2011-04-08T20:30:00.000-07:00

As if I needed anything else to occupy my time, I've decided I want to start making modded game gadgets. Now, I know what you're going to say. I constantly set goals for myself that I never follow-through on, but maybe if I actually write these aspirations out this time I'll make good on them.

I've thought a lot about a possible career path for my life, and one of the front runners has always been an electrician. I don't have a lot of electrical experience apart from a college prep class I took in high school, but I think I'd take to it pretty well. Making a hobby out of tinkering with that kind of thing would surely help me out when I started to take new classes to brush up on it before pursuing it as a career.

So, here are some projects I hope to get started on soon, provided I can find all the necessary parts and figure out a way to afford a soldering iron and dremel.

Portable NES with games on chip:

Awhile back I found this site, which details how they built a portable NES with 50 or so built-in games using one of those Mega Joy/Power Player/Play Joy/Whatever plug-and-play things you find at booths in the center of the mall during Christmas time. Mine would be a little bit different, given that the screen and plug-and-play unit she used are impossible to find now, plus I'd use one of my old GameBoys and take a dremel to a crappy game to fit in the cartridge slot and keep it plugged up without taking up real estate inside. But provided I can find a plug-and-play unit with sufficient games on it I think this would be a fun and easy enough project to tackle.

Portable SNES

This project will require a little bit more tweaking but I think it's fairly simple enough for me to figure out. This walkthrough is for building a handheld NES, but I might change it up and do an SNES instead so I can play some awesome RPGs from that era while taking poops. Of course, I don't own an SNES with which to hack apart, so I might just go at one of the multiple NESs I have so I've got a portable version to play all my cartridge games on. I'd also probably find a cooler case to cut up and craft to my needs then what that guy used.

Something with my PSP?

My PSP-1000 is pretty much boned at this point -- just freezing about 10 seconds after turning it on. There has to be something awesome I can make out of that. At the very least I could take that awesome screen and use it for another project, but there's gotta be some way I can turn it into an emulation machine. That may be a bit over my head at this point, but it's on the table.

MAME Cabinet

I've got a refurbished Captain America arcade cabinet wasting space in my parent's basement. I'd love put it to use as a MAME machine. The monitor works great already, so that and the cabinet are two huge expenses saved. I'd probably see if I could take my really old computer, wipe the hard-drive, get a slightly better video card and slightly more memory and storage, then see it I could hook it up. The person who adapted the cabinet to Captain America put in two joysticks but only four buttons, so I'd probably add more as well as a trackball. Then I'd make a slide out underneath the controls for the keyboard and mouse. This is, of course, the ultimate culmination of my fantasy modding hobby, but I think I could handle it.

So there you go, those are the goals and aspirations that I've created for myself after a couple of days of thinking. Feel free to hold my feet to the fire on this stuff, because I could probably use the help.

Expendable Incomes

2011-04-07T19:20:00.000-07:00

In this struggling economy I really can't complain much about my job, because I actually have one. Still, there's something that I kind of miss having: an expendable income.

We get by. Sometimes it's a little tight, but we get our bills paid on time and have enough to buy birthday and Christmas gifts when the time comes. But there isn't anything left over afterwards and it's getting a little tiring.

I'm still wearing most of the clothes I had in high school that have started to get holes, and Zoe still wears all of her maternity clothes as well as my t-shirts. We don't spend any money on ourselves, really. To the point that $30 for a year of hosting for my podcast is way too much. Most people my age don't think twice about picking up at least a couple new $60 games each year, but I can't even fathom being able to do that. 60 bucks is a lot of money!

This is one of the biggest reasons I want a new job. It sure would be nice to be able to buy a small indulgence every once in awhile without making sure we had enough.

The Night Fight

2011-04-06T16:11:00.000-07:00

Emmy has slept in between my wife and I since she was born. A habit that has been reinforced for three years is pretty hard to break.

Last night the kid and I went up to bed at about 11:30. We got in our bed and I read her a few books, then I told her she needed to go get in her bed. After some coaxing she gave in and I turned out the light. She immediately started crying and got out of her bed, but we agreed if I read her one more book she'd try again. I was expecting to read it in my bed but she went and got back in hers and I read it to her across the room. Then I turned off the light and we talked about animals for awhile until there were long pauses in the conversation and I fell asleep.

I awoke with her crying at the edge of the bed again. Half asleep I just pulled her up onto the bed, she snuggled up and we both dozed off. I woke again a little while later and moved her over to her bed but she awoke when I set her down, so, I awkwardly curled up in her bed with her for about 10 minutes until she was asleep again and then climbed out. That was at one in the morning.

That hour and a half struggle to get her to sleep in her own bed was successful until 5:30 when she woke up again. Zoe took her to the bathroom and let her get back in our bed instead of going through the fight again. It was a pretty good run I suppose. Four and a half hours on her own isn't bad, but I get the feeling getting through the whole night is going to take awhile.

Favorite Protagonist: Suikoden 2's Hero - 30 Days of Gaming, Day 18

2011-04-05T20:21:00.000-07:00

Alright, if I pick one of the villains of Suikoden 2 as my favorite antagonist I might as well pick the hero as my favorite protagonist. I don't have a good argument for why because he's one of the many silent protagonists common in older JRPGs, but there's something inherently awesome in commanding a ragtag army of people against the big empire of the land.

That was always one of my favorite parts of that game was finding new people to recruit, building up my castle, and just exploring it. The castle from the second game might not be as cool as the castle on the lake you found in the first, but having a castle would always be cool. Plus there were a lot more crazy additions to the castle like mini-games and other fun stuff.

Oh, and the hero had some kind of weird wood things as weapons, so, that was weird.

Bratty Behavior

2011-04-04T20:08:00.000-07:00

Despite our best efforts to be the best parents we can be, I feel like Emerson has started to turn into a royal terror as of late. Most of the time she just completely ignores us we tell her to stop doing something or to come here or pick something up.

You know, I used to watch those nanny shows and scoff at how obvious solutions were. I'm beginning to think I'm actually an awful parent and my kid is going walk all over me. There's good evidence of that in the fact that my wife seems to believe that everything I do it too far.

When threatening to punish my Emmy she'll actually smile back at me. She doesn't give a shit and it's apparent, yet everything I do gets a response back from Zoe about it being too much. She complains to me in text messages all day about Emmy's horrid behavior but I try to escalate a punishment to make it end I am immediately undermined right in front of the kid.

I'm sick of parenting. Someone pay for one of those nannies for me because I can't handle it right now.

Growing up with Music, From the Parent's Perspective

2011-04-03T19:17:00.000-07:00

This morning when Emmy came downstairs I pulled out the headphones on the World/Inferno Friendship Society I was listening to, scooped her up, and started dancing like a fool around the room. She thought it was fun for one song but then she wanted me to hurry up and take a shower so we could go shopping for her Easter dress.

While I was just sitting here trying to think of what to write about Emmy came up and asked to hear what was on my headphones. I was listening to Beach House, which is pretty much safe unless she really analyzes the depressing relationship lyrics, so I handed them over. She listened for at least 15 minutes before somebody left the room and she decided to go see what they were doing.

You know, I've always felt a little bit robbed of a childhood full of music. My dad has pretty good taste in music. I mean, kind of. He really likes The Beatles and The Who, but then he also enjoys, like, Foreigner and shit. Either way he never played any of it out loud in the house. Actually, probably the only time he listened to music was during the one mile drive to work and back each day. I guess he just didn't have as much of a connection with music as I did.

Life would be awful if it wasn't for music. When I'm in the dumps it helps pick me up. When I'm feeling nostalgic it helps me remember. When I need to stay awake, it gives me something to belt out at the top of my lungs. I've just been wondering lately, will Emmy share that same love of music?

I've been trying to make a conscious effort to play more music out loud for Emmy to grow up hearing. That might get a little bit easier once we have our own house and I have a working CD player and auxiliary cable hookup in my car. She seems to have taken an interest to my blatant attempts, so I guess I'll keep at it.

Just a Little Respect

2011-04-02T07:23:00.000-07:00

Alright, I'll try to start off this blog without seeming in the least bit full of myself. If you've read any of my other posts then you'll know I'm hardly my own biggest fan, but I can say with absolute certainty that I when a job is put in front of me I work my ass off to do it the very best I can.

I take pride in the fact that I always complete my job no matter how many hurdles I have to overcome. I work 365 days a year right now delivering papers and when my father-in-law offers to cover my routes for me for a couple of days I'm still hesitant. I usually have to be forced because I'd rather do the job myself so that I know it's done. I can't divorce myself from it long enough to not worry about it even though he's more than capable of doing it.

When I arrived to find an entire subdivision being repaved, I parked my car and walked down to the very end of it for just one paper. When the biggest snowstorm in 40 years hit I was out there doing it thanks to my parents and their 4-wheel truck. Apartment parking lots were completely unplowed so I trudged through snow up to my knees to get inside for one or two papers.

Like I said, I'm a hard worker. It might not be in a job that those with college degrees would see as meaningful but I'm not too concerned with my lot in life, just that I can pay the bills. All I really ask for is a little respect from my employers. That's one of the reasons I really like doing papers: the manager at the depot where I pick up my second route has complete trust in me. He knows I do my job well and I'll get it done. It's his job to hang out in that depot and make sure everyone picks up their routes within a certain time, but if I'm running later than normal he sets my papers just outside the door. If he was concerned that I wasn't going to be there he'd want to call me and make sure, but he knows full well that I've finished my job every day for eight years and he trusts that I'll do it again.

I quit my first job at 16 because they hovered over my shoulder constantly to make sure I was always doing my job. I worked at an Arbys for awhile and they quickly learned that I was a good worker and if they left me alone I'd keep myself busy. They gave me the morning maintenance shift, I'd put on my headphones and spend the next several hours scrubbing floors, cleaning drains, unloading trucks, or whatever else needed to be done. They didn't have to bother me every five minutes, which I liked and I'm sure they liked as well.

I've never been one of those employees that asks about everything and is constantly unsure of how they should do their job. You know those types of people. I'm not sure if it's because they always want their boss to know what they're working on or if they just have no confidence in themselves to make their own decisions, but every tiny little thing they ask about. I don't do that, I just see what needs to be done and make what I feel is the right decision. If I'm unsure of the situation than I'll ask, sure, but people shouldn't ever be hired to be micromanaged like Lemmings.

So here's the rub of this whole thing: I hate not having that respect between an employer and employee, and when you start a new job it takes awhile to build that up. There was a harsh realization of that for me a couple weeks ago when I made what should have been a very small decision in my online work and was completely undermined by my superior. I hate that, because that is never an effective way to manage someone. If you hired me you should have some amount of respect for my ability to do the job without hovering over my shoulder, so just let me do it.

Of course, this is my big hurdle with the job hunt. Not having a college education means I'm applying for manual labor positions. The employers I'm interviewing with have likely found that a majority of their employees need to be micromanaged, so they treat me with little respect even in an interview situation. I've assumed it's probably best to just stay silent and let that respect build up over time should I get the job, but I'd really love to just tell them that acting like a dick to me won't go over well but if they trust me I'll work my ass off for them.

Well, if they do Google searches on their potential hires I guess they'll read it right here.

I'm Sick of People Being Sick of [...] Shit

2011-04-01T16:53:00.000-07:00

I am sick of people being sick of my shit.
If you are not into the wacky hi-jinks then why the hell are you into this?
Information wants to be free
charged particles expand through space
then bleed through greedy fingers
and explode in your face
I can't wait.

Alright, so World/Inferno Friendship Society were singing about their own things, but I think the sentiment fits for what I'm going to be writing about. Here, enjoy the song while you're reading:

You know what? You're entitled to your own opinion, sure, but that does not mean you're expected to voice it. People seem to think that the Internet demands of them to voice their like or dislike for every goddamn thing that comes along, and I'm sick of it.

Every time anyone is having any fun with anything there will always be someone there to pop up and kill the joy by announcing their hatred for whatever is causing that joy. An Internet meme that everyone is having a good time making jokes about? Well, surely you're going to hear about how much it is bothering someone else. Look, I'm over that whole Rebecca Black thing too, but for awhile it was really funny to me, and whenever someone popped up saying something about wanting everyone to shutup about her it killed the amusement just a little bit. It's been a few weeks now and she's still around. Every once in awhile someone still makes a joke about her on Twitter and I roll my eyes. What's the difference? I DON'T FUCKING @ REPLY THE PERSON AND TELL THEM HOW OLD AND UNFUNNY THAT THING THEY ARE CURRENTLY ENJOYING IS! (No one did that to me, just saying.)

That hot new game that came out that everyone is talking about? The whole world desperately wants to hear about how you don't like it without any reasoning to back it up! Please! Tell us! We don't want you to take any actual time to formulate your thoughts into a well-reasoned dissenting opinion and write them out somewhere for us to read and get into a spirited debate in the comment field. Fuck that! We just want to read "Ugh, sick of hearing about ShinyNewCoolGame! It's a piece of shit!"

You might be wondering why I'm ranting about this today. Every single year the good-natured fun of April Fool's Day is inevitably soiled by a bunch of uppity jerks that feel like they need to inform everyone how much they dislike the day and how unfunny everything is. I'm not asking you to find it funny, I'm just saying you don't have to tell everyone that you don't. Let people have fun for christs sake! You aren't coming across as the one person too cool for the whole thing, you're coming across as the dick that needs to shove his opinion in the face of everyone's fun. Just calm down and mutter to yourself. (This isn't about anyone really, just something that always bothered me and a few tiny comments from people today reminded me of it.)

Favorite Antagonist: Luca Blight - 30 Days of Gaming, Day 17

2011-03-31T19:27:00.000-07:00

*Spoilers for the first half of Suikoden 2*

Luca Blight is easily one of the most evil villains in all of video game history. He wasn't just evil, he was psychotic, and the game showed you just how awful he was.

Sephiroth burned down a village and sliced through some of it's inhabitants carelessly, sure; But Luca Blight seemed to take pleasure in doing the same. Sephiroth was detached and didn't care about the world, so he went crazy and killed some people. Big deal. He couldn't handle some news and he threw a hissy fit.

Luca wanted power, and he did what he had to do to get it. He set fire to a village just like Sephiroth, but as the village burned he tortured the people. He made them act like pigs saying he would spare their lives, then forced his sword down into their backs screaming, "Die piggy! Die!"

The final battle with Luca Blight is the most epic video game event I have ever played. You've built up a sizable party by the time you have to face him, so you have to break off into three teams. The first team cuts him off in the woods just past the burning village, and you get your asses thoroughly kicked. The second team swoops in and chances are they also get destroyed. Finally your team full of full-powered warriors that you've saved for the end confronts him and you're still left with the fight of your life.

It takes three teams full of six fighters each to take this guy down and you're on the edge of your seat the whole time. The damage you do with each of the first two teams transfers over with each fight but you still struggle to beat him. It is absolutely perfect. The thing is, that's only halfway through the game.

You beat him, but he doesn't end up being the main bad guy. Still, I've never been so tense taking down a video game baddie, and when I finally conquered him I'm pretty sure I sprung to my feet and yelled. If you haven't played Suikoden 2, correct that. If you don't want to pay $100 on ebay for a copy, just go buy the first game on PSN for $6 and then join me in crossing my fingers for a PSN release of the second one.

Game with the Best Cut Scenes - 30 Days of Gaming, Day 16

2011-03-31T19:00:00.000-07:00

I guess I'm going to go with the entirety of the Final Fantasy series here, and I have a bit of an embarrassing confession to make in order to explain why.

You see, back in late middle school, early high school, there was this website called CHV, or Cyber Hippy Vision. Don't ask me why it was named that, but basically it collected the cut scenes, or FMVs, from an assortment of video games and put them up online for downloading and watching.

This was one of my favorite sites ever. I would download, store, and watch all of the cut scenes from the Final Fantasy games out at the time and watch them over and over again. I'm not really sure why, but I guess it was mostly just the fact that my ability to do something like this on the Internet made the videos seem that much more amazing.

Previously you'd have to actually play through the game to see the different cut scenes, or at least use a GameShark to glitch your way into one of those debug rooms that they used to put into games for easy testing of everything. Of course, with the advent of YouTube that site has become completely useless. Still, I have a fondness for Final Fantasy cut scenes because of it.

Game You're Playing Right Now - 30 Days of Gaming, Day 15

2011-03-31T18:35:00.000-07:00

Uh, nothing really.

Here's the thing, I don't actually play very many video games these days. I am deeply invested in the gaming community and all, but I don't really get around to playing very much at all.

One, I keep pretty busy what with work, writing, and a kid, but I also have some sort of complex. I finally sit down and start playing a game. I carve out a little bit of time each day to actually make some progress and I get pretty far into it. Then I hit some sort of wall. I forget about it for an entire week, choosing to spend my time writing stuff or playing with the kid or whatever else comes along.

Eventually I start to feel guilty for not getting back to finish it and I force myself back upstairs into the bedroom to complete the game. After what seems like forever I finally cross the finish line. I feel a sense of pride. I feel a sense of accomplishment. I feel like I never want to do it again.

I mean, I love video games, but sometimes I just feel like I want to slog my way through them to get to the end so I can talk about how much I loved the experience. I have the same thought process with music concerts. I love going to them, but about halfway through the concert my mind starts to wander. About two thirds of the way through I'm just waiting for the whole thing to be over so I can remember loving it.

I might have some problems with my attention span. I guess I just can't stop thinking about the next thing and just enjoy the thing happening right then. But with video games, once I finish the "right then" game it takes me at least a month, often more, to force myself to start up another one. This is mostly why I love downloadable games lately. Three to five hours of playtime is perfect for me.

Oh, I do play a little bit of Shining Force 2 every time I poop, though. So I guess I'll say that for my answer.

Current Gaming Wallpaper - 30 Days of Gaming, Day 14

2011-03-31T18:14:00.000-07:00

This is actually a point of contention between my wife and I. My laptop backgrounds have been mostly band-related since I bought it, but the most recent one is some video game-themed art. I was thinking of a way to feature some of my favorite games as my background. I ended up just searching for A Life Well Wasted on Google Images thinking I might be able to use some of the awesome art Olly Moss made for Robert Ashley's podcast of the same name. What I found instead was the drawing you see above that I thought fit perfectly.

Zoe thinks I should have a picture of Emmy up there but I haven't found one that I think would work perfectly and they don't always look good blown up to that size. So, I've stuck with this one. I like it.

Game You've Played More than Five Times - 30 Days of Gaming, Day 13

2011-03-30T17:19:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure there's any game I've played five times. Not that I'm opposed to it or anything, I just need time. If I really love a game, I definitely play through it again, but I wait at least a year if not more to replay it. I like to forget as much of it as I can before I start it over again. I could never immediately start back up a game right after I finished it.

I've probably played through Shining Force 2 at least five times though, just because it's been in my collection the longest. I've played through Grandia at least three times, Shadow of the Colossus three times, Suikoden 1 maybe four, Suikoden 2 probably three, and Ico at least a couple of times. So yeah, I love replaying them, I just have to wait until the mood strikes me.

It also helps when some fancy new way to play them comes along. I'm playing through Shining Force 2 again right now because I bought a Sega RetroGen for portable Genesis gaming. Remakes and digital releases of games I loved also cause me to feel the itch to return. I recently played through Final Fantasy 4 again with the DS remake, and my last round with the original Suikoden was thanks to the PSN release and my PSP. Actually, if they could just put all of my favorite old games on some sort of handheld I would gladly pay for them. Get on that, game industry.

Game Everyone Should Play - 30 Days of Gaming, Day 12

2011-03-30T16:51:00.000-07:00

I'm tempted to just say Shadow of the Colossus and begin another gush session about why I fell in love with that game and in turn gaming in general. But, we're talking everyone, right? I don't expect someone who has never touched a game before to be able to pick up and understand Shadow of the Colossus, let alone forgive it for it's failings. So, I guess I'll turn my focus onto Flower.

Look, I'm not agonizing over this decision. I know that articles have been written about Flower failing to be the go-to introduction to gaming for all the non-gamers of this world. I don't expect it to convert the masses, I just think that it might do well at this given task. Really, I just hope it could convince a few more people to take games seriously.

It's got a few things going for it. One, it's pretty easy to pick up and figure out. There aren't a lot of buttons to memorize, just press any button you want to speed up and tilt the controller to turn. Two, it's short. I could probably force most people see it through to the end given it only clocks in at maybe three hours. Three, it's pretty fun and not very frustrating. More relaxing, really.

There's something even better that it has going for it, though: it's not about space marines, knights and dragons, or any other form of immature male-power-fantasy escapism. We all know that all games aren't about those kind of things, but Fox News isn't out reporting on a game like Flower, they're reporting on a game like Bulletstorm. If I'm hypothetically meant to make everyone play a game, I might as well make it one that might change a few people's minds on the gaming in general.

Of course, it probably doesn't matter what game you put in front of some people, they likely won't be interested. Video games don't appeal to everyone, and I accept that. I would be curious to see what my parents said if I sat them down and made them play Flower, but chances are they wouldn't come away with a newfound love of gaming. At best they'd just be more aware that not all games are like Pac-Man or Space Invaders -- never-ending quests for the elusive high score -- which I guess would be some kind of victory.

Gaming System of Choice: PS3 - 30 Days of Gaming, Day 11

2011-03-30T16:04:00.000-07:00

The real selling point of any system is always the games. It doesn't matter how cool the system looks or what kind of fancy features it has, it always comes down to the what you'll actually be playing. I leaped into the current console generation the day the Wii was launched, mostly because we still had an expendable income and my wife actually said she wanted one as well. After awhile though, I began eyeing the other two systems.

For me, the 360 was always a matter of quantity over quality. It had more games that were solid and I would likely find plenty of enjoyment out of to warrant playing through them, but there were hardly any exclusives that I personally felt I needed to play. The PS3, however, intrigued me with interesting artsy type games like Flower and the PixelJunk series, as well as continuations of series I was already invested in like God of War. And even though there were less of them, I no longer had a ton of gaming time so that didn't bother me.

So the PS3 has mostly been my go-to console for gaming at the moment. Coming into it so late means I could easily pick up a bunch of great games for pretty cheap. I've got more games to get through than I can handle. It'll take me awhile to catch up.

Best Gameplay - 30 Days of Gaming, Day 10

2011-03-29T17:10:00.000-07:00

When I was younger I would go over to my friend's house and play through all the great SNES RPGs with him. We didn't have one at my house and my mom was not about to buy it. I just had a Genesis, which while constantly trying to justify as so much cooler to my friend, still had me feeling left out. But the one game that helped me feel better was Shining Force 2.

I don't even know how I came across that game, but I was hooked. It was the first game that I ever played through multiple times and likely helped start my gaming obsession that Shadow of the Colossus later cemented in place.

I knew everything about that game. Part of the fun for me is the strategy in planning out the battles. I'm actually playing through it again right now since I bought a RetroGen for portable Genesis playing a while ago. I just finished the battle with the kraken after using it to grind out some levels for at least two month's worth of poops (I play it on the toilet, duh).

Even after gaining a bunch of levels I was still pretty weakened by the end of the battle. The fights are all about trying to find a way to lure the enemies closer so that you can attack without them overwhelming one of your characters. The trick to the kraken battle is that you're on a raft and you only have two party members who can fly. You've gotta try to get each of the legs over to the raft, but one of their attacks can easily take out half of your stronger fighters health, and then you're left with him in the way of letting everyone else get in a swipe.

I absolutely love that type of gameplay, but I haven't played a ton of strategy RPGs. If you've got any suggestions feel free to let me know. I just wish they would make a new Shining Force game.

Saddest Scene: 30 Days of Gaming, Day 9

2011-03-29T16:14:00.000-07:00

Video games have a problem getting you to convey emotions. They have just as much trouble making you laugh as they do making you cry. I think that's mostly because they go about it in such ham-fisted ways that it's abundantly obvious they're trying to make you sad so it's more cheesy than it is heartfelt.

One of the few games that ever made my eyes well up with tears was one that you might not be expecting. I was unphased by the sword slicing through Aeris' chest, or the mournful-looking colossus tumbling to the ground in pain. No, one of the few games that ever affected me on an emotional level was Okami.

I really attached to that game. At the time I was in high school and had plenty of time to play games. I'd ride the bus home every day (I didn't get my license until I was 18, basically because I just didn't want to. Another story I guess.) plop down in front of whatever game I was playing and pound out a few hours of gaming before getting a ride or walking over to my girlfriend (now wife)'s house. After a couple hours a day of Okami for probably close to a month I'd become pretty attached to the characters. So when I reached the final level of the game and was forced to part ways with my companion, I almost didn't want to go through with it. Sure, the dialogue was still somewhat cheesy, and it was abundantly obvious they were going for some emotional resonance, but somehow it worked for me.

I couldn't tell you what exactly Okami did differently, but I'm not being paid to advance gaming to a new emotional plain. Hopefully developers will figure things like that out and games will make us cry and laugh all the time in the future.

Favorite Soundtrack: Chrono Trigger - 30 Days of Gaming Day 8

2011-03-29T15:53:00.000-07:00

I'm not really a connosieur of video game soundtracks, but one that has always stuck in my mind is that of the SNES classic Chrono Trigger. It's been years since I've played that game, but I could still hum multiple songs from it. For starters, this is one of the most epic songs I've ever heard even if it's held back a little by the limitations of the console for which it was created.

That song was made for proper instrumentation. Which is why I like this version of it so much, in all of its jazzy gloriousness.

Parental Corner Cutting

2011-03-27T20:06:00.000-07:00

Three is a magical age when it doesn't matter to a child where their new toy came from, or even if it's new.

This morning as I approached the end of my paper route, I came upon a motorized, kid-sized Gator (those oversized go-karts that people use to drive around fairgrounds and farms and stuff when they want to drive a go-kart but have to act like they're doing work). My curiosity was piqued, but when I saw the "Free" sign on it I was sold.

I set about trying to shove it in my trunk, mostly failed, tried my back seat, really failed, and went back to the trunk. After taking a screwdriver to the plastic windshield I'd jammed most of the front end in. I found a piece of twine I had in my car and used it to tie the hood of the trunk down, though I couldn't reach anything solid with the other end so I just tied it to my heavy post driver. Somehow this shoddy job last all the way to the next town over when I stopped to get some gas and realized I could use my tow strap to better tie everything down. Now confident I wouldn't lose it the rest of the way home I set out.

When I got back I took it out and set it in the yard where I knew Emmy could see it from the window, then went up to grab another hour or two of sleep while the wife and kid were still doing so. Emmy woke me up a little bit later and I told her I had a surprise for her. We went downstairs and I pointed it out to her from inside. From then on the day became about making sure it worked for her to give it a test drive later.

I went out and tore open the back end to make sure the motors were actually turning still. They were, but once the wheels touched the ground it wasn't really going very far. So I found the battery and set to work finding a way to recharge it without any of the plugs and accessories it would have come with brand new. After several hours of stripping an old fan cord and finding electrical connectors that could fit down into the plug, I'd fashioned a make-shift charging cord. I grabbed the car battery charger, set it to the lowest setting, and hooked it up.

After an hour of charging Emmy was ready to go outside and the battery was ready for testing. I shoved it back in and pressed the pedal: It took off. Emmy quickly got adjusted to driving it and was shifting into reverse and drive like a pro.

Some parents can go out and pay the likely 200 or so dollars that one of those things would cost, but I have to cut corners. When those parents set it in their yard with a "Free" sign because they lost the charging cable, I snatch it up and begin work. It still brought a smile to Emmy's face even if it was slightly used. Maybe when she's a teenager something like that won't fly, but for now we had a fun day with a new toy for absolutely no money. It's a win-win for me.

Favorite Couple: Cecil and Rosa - 30 Days of Gaming Day 7

2011-03-25T19:13:00.000-07:00

No matter how good the storyline of a video game is, they still often fit right along side the most cliche of movie plots. Romance is usually the worst culprit of all. Most of the time we're introduced to a female character that is clearly supposed to be the love interest of the hero, and we have to endure a bunch of ham-fisted bonding moments until they ultimately fall in love way sooner than anyone realistically would.

That's why I like the example of Rosa and Cecil so much. The game begins and they're already engaged to be wed. We don't need to read or hear a slew of awful dialog exchanges that try to show them falling in love, we just know that they're already in love. It actually comes across really well.

Once that is established, the relationship isn't really played for much of a plot point. There aren't any stupid struggles that tests their love, they just go on an adventure and we get to see them go through everything together, as a couple. Games could use more couples like them.

Most Annoying Character: Cait Sith - 30 Days of Gaming Day 6

2011-03-25T17:00:00.000-07:00

Cait Sith is the worst video game character ever created. We're introduced to him as a cat riding a giant, stuffed moogle doll. As if that wasn't stupid enough, they try to apologize later by saying it's really a robot thing being controlled by a Shinra member.

Once the jig is up, everyone completely forgets about the fact that some dude is still sitting in a room controlling this thing. Everyone forgives the giant robot and doesn't even mention that it is now completely pointless for this stupid thing to still follow you around. When introduced with the knowledge that they've been talking to a child's toy being remotely controlled by some old dude they've never met, they have no problem continuing that relationship.

You'd think maybe they'd feel a little silly talking to something once they realized it wasn't alive (even if they didn't already feel silly enough that they believed a talking cat that rode on a big stuffed animal was feasible). But nope, they're perfectly fine keeping up that ruse. Why doesn't the actual human being just come out of his hole and follow you around instead? Oh, right. Everyone forgot he existed five minutes after he told them. I guess I'd wanna hide in my room controlling a stuffed animal if people cared that little about me.

Character You Feel You Are Most Like - 30 Days of Gaming: Day 5

2011-03-24T19:39:00.000-07:00

Fine, I guess I'm Luigi.

It's not that I'm a skinny, bumbling fool, it's just that I've always lived in my brother's shadow when it comes to my father.

The thing is, I'm not all that different from my brother. I guess it's just that my dad stopped paying attention by the time I was born. Aside from sports, I know about most everything my sibling does. I'm just as well-versed in politics as him. I have a basic knowledge of car repair and work on most of it myself now. And despite the fact that my brother and I listen to the same types of music, my dad seems to be under the impression that everything I listen to is "screaming stuff" and my brother listens to the good stuff.

Mario gets all the attention, but Luigi is pretty much the same.

You're the Reason I'm not Religious

2011-03-24T19:13:00.000-07:00

Back when that giant earthquake and subsequent tsunami hit Japan, stupid people came out of the woodwork. An alarmingly large amount of them decided they were clever to relate the earthquake as some sort of karmic retribution for Pearl Harbor (as if those bombs weren't enough). I took one of these people to task on Facebook, as he had most uncleverly left his account completely open to any stranger that happened by.

Here was his argument: On the 70th day of 2011, an 8.9 earthquake hit Japan. The Bible has 1189 chapters and 66 books; this earthquake happened 1189 days after the 66th anniversary of Pearl Harbor.

It's always been funny to me the ways in which religious people decide to try to convert non-believers, but this one really blew my mind. See, I'm not a staunch atheist. If anything I'd classify myself as agnostic, in that I'm not entirely sure what I believe. The only thing I know for sure is that I will never be a part of an organized religion, and these sorts of situations cement that fact for me daily.

Every time I drive past a group of Baptists screaming at people on a street corner, I wonder why they've decided that acting like crazy homeless people will be a good way to recruit people to their belief system. This is the exact same to me. Why on Earth would you want people to believe that God planned this earthquake as some sort of retribution to the people of Japan? That is not the kind of god I would want to believe in.

Years ago, back when I was struggling even more to find what exactly I chose to have faith in, my sister (someone who has clung to religion for awhile now to help her regain control of her life) brought over her friend to talk this out with me. It wasn't said so upfront, but more or less sprung upon me in the guise of her needing to "interview" someone. I quickly deduced that this "someone" was a person she hoped to convert. I didn't tell her to leave me alone, I just embraced the conversation and started asking questions.

I asked her what would happen to Buddhists, or Hindus. Would they go to hell just because they didn't practice Christianity? "Yes," she said, "because they haven't accepted Jesus." That struck me as a tad ridiculous so I reasoned that they were good people who have likely led honest and respectful lives. If they haven't committed egregious sins, did they still go to hell simply because they didn't believe in Jesus?

"Look," she began. "Ultimately it doesn't matter what kind of life they led, as long as they accept Jesus then their sins will be forgiven and they'll be allowed into Heaven."

So Hitler could have gone to Heaven? More or less the answer was yes. That was my out, and my overall answer to whether or not I should be religious. I told her that if there's a God, I choose to believe that he will judge our lives based on what we did and what type of person we were. If we were good people, then we can get into Heaven no matter what religion we were. I told her it didn't make sense for a god to condemn a group of people from an entirely different country just because they hadn't ever been confronted with "the right religion." I told her if that's how God chose to run things then God didn't make any sense to me and I didn't really want to believe in that type of God.

Christians, Baptists, Catholics, Whatevers: If you are trying to convert people, you're failing. That guy on Facebook tried to convert me numerous times during the course of our argument, despite the fact that he was trying to sell me on a God that would devastate a country just because of a grudge. If you say things like that, or if you believe that good people will end up in Hell just because of their specific religion, or if you yell at me from the street corner, then I'm not going to buy what you're selling. YOU'RE the reason I'm not religious. Stop it. Now!

Ice Storm

2011-03-24T18:18:00.000-07:00

We've had some interesting weather on account of Michigan not being able to figure out what season it is. After a few days of a warm 60 degrees and sun, it plummeted back down to the 20s and started raining. For the most part I hate freezing rain and ice storms as they've become common here and are usually awful to drive in, but this one wasn't too bad. It did still bring with it the one thing I like about ice storms: all the beauty of ice-covered nature and objects. Something always struck me with that, so I thought I'd take a bunch of pictures this morning while feeding the horses. Now, I'm not a photographer, and I only used my phone's crappy 3.2 megapixel camera, but maybe you'll enjoy them as well.

The slippery walkway to the barn.

The ice-covered tree in front of the barn.

Out by the horses the rain apparently froze as it bounced off the ground.

The ice had weighed down the electric fence significantly. I had to yank the bottom rung up from the ground and put it back on the plastic holder, which snapped off as I tried.

The water running off the roof made an icy mess of this corner.

A close-up of the tree branches.

And the old truck.

Speed is Relative

2011-03-23T07:18:00.000-07:00

Some time back when I was in middle school my family took a vacation up to a campground somewhere in the thumb part of Michigan. We set off in a convoy of rented RVs like some kind of awful Robin Williams movie off for an adventure of some kind. More than halfway through the trip we came behind a truck pulling a camper of it's own. As a car blew past both of us, my dad peeked around him preparing to pass when he stopped and settled back into his spot behind. "I was going to pass him, but I just realized he's going five over the speed limit already. I'm happy with that." my dad said to me.

When we come up behind that hulking camper, semi-truck, or other large vehicle on the highway, we're inclined to believe that we're going sooooooo slooooooooow, when in reality we're probably travelling the speed limit. It's just easy to perceive things as going much slower or faster depending on the situation we're in.

This has been thoroughly cemented in my mind because I now deal with it every single day. I'm firmly of the belief that just like a large camper in front of you on the highway will make you think you're going very slow, a 20-something delivering mail or newspapers in your rich neighborhood will make you think they are SPEED DEMONS OMG SLOOOW DOOOWN! That was a long sentence. Oh well.

As a newspaper carrier I've heard this constantly. Funnily enough, only when I drive through one of those little subdivisions with the culdesac at the end. People live on those for the very reason that they can let their children run wild without respecting the road or the cars on it at all. On more than a few occasions I have been stuck barely crawling behind a group of kids walking down the middle of the street without ever noticing me behind them. They don't teach their children to be wary of the road, and then they get pissed off at you for even entering their neighborhood.

The first time they yelled at me to slow down as I passed I was befuddled. I looked down and confirmed that I was going just over 20 mph. Well, I guess that's why they never wave back to me. So I specifically kept my speed to exactly 20 mph from then on, so that if they said anything again I could throw it back in their face. I'd turn in behind one of their neighbors in a big SUV and they would be completely down the street before I even made it halfway, but I kept to 20.

A little while ago as I went to pass the group of snobby broads one of their husbands stepped out into the road and held up his hand. I rolled down my window and he asked me to slow down. I let it all loose. I was going 20 mph and was making sure of it. One of the bitches let out, "The speed limit is 15 through here." from the back. "Alright," I said, "You wanna tell me your neighbors are going 15 when I'm making sure to go 20 and they fly ahead? I stick at 20-25 until I see a child and then I crawl past them, watching to make sure they don't run out."

The husband seemed satisfied. Actually, he seemed upset he'd even been forced into this confrontation in the first place. He was literally backing away with his hands up saying that all sounded fine and he just wanted to make sure. The gabbing bitches behind him seemed completely unconvinced, but unless I get rich, buy an SUV, and move into the neighborhood I think they always will. If I ever come across a large sum of money, the first thing I'm going to do is build a highway through the middle of their neighborhood. Maybe then they'll stop judging people and teach their kids to be careful of the roads.

Developing That Thick Skin

2011-03-22T07:27:00.000-07:00

I've never taken well to criticism, and when writing online that's kind of a big issue. The real issue is that I blow things out of proportion and perceive them as an insult when they likely weren't meant that way. This unhelpful character trait would have likely helped to cripple my advancement into adulthood, were it not for Zoe coming along and helping to talk some sense into me.

It really helped having someone I trusted and loved around that could convince me that my perception of the world around me was much worse than what was actually happening. I needed to stop being so offended by things and flying off the handle in response, because it was only hurting myself. Prior to her I'd always sort of known I needed to stop taking things so harshly, I just couldn't bring myself to change. It was much easier to fall into the trap of believing that everyone else in the world hated me.

Though, that little issue likes to pop it's ugly head up from time to time and if I'm not careful I buy into it for long enough that I go off on someone and start a feud. Here's the thing I've noticed about the Internet. For someone like me, it's even easier to misconstrue something as a personal attack even if that's not at all what it was. When my wife and I text each other we have a code for when someone gets mad at something that wasn't meant to be mean. If she asks if tonight is alright for us to go visit my parents, and I respond with, "Fine" because I don't have anything else to say about it, but she reads that as, "Ugh, that doesn't work at all but fiiiiine, whatever!" and texts back that I don't need to be snotty, well, I just respond with MTMT. Misreading Text Message Tone. "MTMT. I actually am fine with that."

That sort of thing is common when text is your only means of communication, and it has led to more than a few situations online that I am now embarrassed by. I've come to realize I am never in the "right" when it comes to arguing online. It is impossible to know every detail about the situation, and I have likely assumed the worst about the person with whom I'm arguing.

Besides, there are two major hurdles to having a writing career in the online world. The first is actually being able to write, and the second is respecting and being friendly to people. You never win an Internet argument. Even if your assumptions of the person were correct, you were the asshole for bringing them up when you don't truly know for sure. And you might be able to make something of yourself if your self esteem is high enough that you can really sell your writing to people, but eventually acting like you're better than other people or flying off the handle and attacking others that you don't even really know will come back to bite you in the ass one day.

Job Interview: Round 2

2011-03-17T07:57:00.000-07:00

Tonight I will be returning to the Meijer warehouse where I was supposed to be interviewed last week an attempt once again to actually be interviewed. Hopefully the person who scheduled my interview will actually be there this time to interview me. And if so, I will try my best to make a good impression.

Look, it's not that I'm being pessimistic when I don't expect much from these types of things, I just don't like to get my hopes up. In the last few years while searching for a better job -- one that might actually allow us to get our own house -- I've been disappointed frequently. I've had several job prospects that seemed to be sure-fire, and as soon as I let myself believe that everything was going to work out and our lives were going to improve, it blew up in my face.

So, I take good news with a grain of salt nowadays. Zoe thinks I'm being negative and I need to have a positive attitude. It's not that I'm going into the job interview all mopey and depressed and telling them I don't expect them to hire me, I'm just giving my emotional state a parachute in case I fall on the climb to success.

I do things like this a lot and I've learned that it does pretty well for me. I disassociate with things that might cause me to plummet emotionally, because it's too hard for me to climb back up from that pit of depression. When I have a big fight with someone, I distance myself from them and never again invest myself in them emotionally. Should they say or do something hurtful again, it's cool because I was expecting it and wasn't attached to them anymore anyway.

When I allow myself to get too attached to a relationship or idea and it blows up in my face, I'm a useless lump of flesh for weeks afterwards. I don't want to do anything productive, I just want to lay around, play video games, and snuggle with my kid. When the last "sure thing" jobs fell through, I fell into a pit of not wanting to do anything related to job hunting for a long time. In not letting myself get my hopes up I'm trying to prevent that from happening again.

Unfortunately my wife doesn't really understand that I'm well aware this strategy works for me and will not adversely effect the interview, so she's been running around acting excited about it and buying me new dress shirts and ties to use on the interview. It's been pretty hard to not expect much when she's so excited for it, so if it blows up in our face I will likely not spring back very well. Now I want it, for her. I don't want her to be disappointed. I tried my best to keep my emotional investment in this potential job as far back as possible, but my emotional investment in my wife did a sneak attack.

So, if I seem particularly grumpy and annoyed with things in the next few days, you'll know I didn't get the job and I failed to keep myself from getting too invested in it. I apologize in advance.

Deer are Morons

2011-03-16T07:54:00.000-07:00

I don't get deer. I mean, I know they have a much smaller brain than we do, but it seems like they should be able to figure out that a car will kill them. Imagine a gazelle hidden behind some brush when suddenly a lion comes running past. Would that gazelle decide to make a mad dash right in front of the path of that lion, or would they wait for it to pass, or run another way? They would obviously do the latter, because the lion is a predator and they have enough mental capability to understand that it would kill them.

So why don't deer have that same mental capability?

On Saturday morning I was coming up over a hill on a dirt back road. Just as I reached the crest of the hill, two deer came dashing across the road. I hit my brakes, attempting to not slam them down and send myself careening off the road, but still slow enough so I wouldn't hit the deer that decided to run right in front of me. It was within inches, and luckily the second deer took a leisurely path behind my car. Both of them made it across the road, and I began fish-tailing on the loose dirt. I tried twice to steer out of it but it only got worse, so I hit my brakes and let myself spin out, knowing I wasn't going fast enough to roll or anything bad like that.

Surely they must be able to understand that the giant metal beast barreling down the road could crush them if they ran in front. I know they understand this, because when they make a last-minute attempt to get across the road right in front of your car, their ears are back and they are hauling ass as fast as they can with a look of fear in their face. So why can't they get it through their stupid deer heads that they could just wait one more second for me to pass before attempting their cross?

I have a huge amount of respect for opossums. I did a report on them in high school and developed a bit of a fascination. Did you know that opossums lived with the dinosaurs 70 million years ago and have changed very little since then? They have forked penises and a two-channel vagina so it's impossible for them to breed with any other species. How have they survived this long? They've ADAPTED to new surroundings. You might think they're dirty scavengers but what else should they do when we've built up cities all around their homes? They're survivors and they're gonna survive no matter what happens.

Deer? I give them another 200 years, tops. Morons.

Things Emmy Says Part 5

2011-03-15T15:54:00.000-07:00

The weather is warmer and some of the snow is melted, and as we were driving down the road she started yelling, "SNOW! GRASS! GRASS! SNOW! SNOW! GRASS! SNOW!"

When I was sitting down at the laptop she picked up a toy whale and stuck it just over the top of the screen and started saying in a low voice, "Giiiiive me baaack my compuuuuuteeeeer."

Just when I was thinking my car sounded kind of loud I started it up with her inside and heard, "Daddy! There's an airplane somewhere!"

For some reason she started singing the the ABC's but added "eep" to the end of everything. "Ayyeep, Beep, C-eep, Deep, E-eep, F-eep," all the way to "Now-eep I-eep knoweep my-eep ABC's-eep. Nexteep time-eep won't-eep you-eep sing-eep with-eep meeeeee-eep."

As I was arriving home from a job interview, feeling stupid for being in a dress shirt and tie, I walked into the house and was told by my niece that she "liked my costume" and by Emmy that "I was wearing a bow."

Me: Did you see anyone on your walk?
Em: Uh huh, there was a man that was walking.
Me: Oh, did he say hi?
Em: No.
Me: So you don't know his name?
Em: No. Do you know his name?
Me: No. Maybe, but I don't know what he looks like.
Em: Um, he has a circle face. His face is like a circle.
Me: Oh good, that narrows it down.
Em: Owa and Brea (Her imaginary friends) have a circle face too.
Me: Oh, do they?
Em: Um, actually, Brea has a triangle face.

Guilty Pleasure Game: Scrabble | 30 Days of Gaming Day 4

2011-03-14T15:42:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure why I should feel guilty for Scrabble, but that game is somewhat an addiction of mine. I can't just make a move without thinking too much, I have to analyze every possible move and find the very best one each turn. This isn't as much of an issue in real life because I am limited to the words I actually know for a fact are words, though, it might be why people get mad at me for taking a long time to move still.

In Facebook games with friends, or games against the computer on my phone, though, it makes things take a long time. I look for ridiculous lengths of times for any possible way to play off of any nearby triple word squares, and only after exhausting every possibility do I move on to exhaustively trying to fit good words somewhere else. I just tirelessly try out letter combinations that kind of sound like they might be a word until I find a really awesome one that fits.

Thankfully the three or four games I had going at once on Facebook have all run out of steam, because it used to take up a lot of my time every day. Now the problem is that I downloaded Scrabble Blast on my phone and have been unable to resist playing it while I'm working. Since my job involves driving, this means I'll often find that I've been sitting at a mailbox for several minutes just zoned into the game before I shake myself back into reality, press pause, and move on.

I guess if I start finishing work extremely late I'll have to delete it from my phone or something. That word forming game is just too damn addictive.

GIVEAWAY! Saboteur, an Underrated Game: 30 Days of Gaming Day 3

2011-03-13T17:40:00.000-07:00

When I received The Saboteur as a gift, I wasn't really expecting much. I sat down one Saturday when my wife had left for the day and had the kid in tow. I bought a bag of pizza rolls, two 20 oz. bottles of cheap pop, and a bag of awful snacks of some kind from the local Save-A-Lot to accompany my time with the game. Basically, I thought I was getting myself into something like the Michael Bay of video games. It would provide me with a lot of stupid fun and then dry up and end before I had time to think about how awful it was, quickly exit my brain, and never return.

I didn't think I would get slowly sucked into the game and grow to really enjoy it. In fact, I might cite it for years to come as an example of art style and gameplay merging to a wonderful effect -- something that really sets video games apart from other forms of media. The way that the color restoration mechanic works in conjunction with your completion of missions really gives you a sense of progression. You not only notice a greater presence by the resistance in areas you've helped "inspire," but you feel some sort of accomplishment when you bring a bit more color back to the world.

I'm not saying it's a great game, but it's interesting enough to warrant playing it through. So, here's the thing; I got it for free from a friend and enjoyed it a lot. I wrote this article about it, in fact. Then my friend Evan got it for free and also enjoyed it enough to record this podcast about it.

Maybe you'll enjoy it as well if you get it for free? I think it'd be fun to do a sort of pass-it-along campaign for the game. If you have a PS3 and haven't played the game, well, let me know in the comments. Tell me about a game you thought was really great that everyone else seemed to have ignored, and I'll send my copy to someone whose answer I liked (or I'll draw a random number, we'll see).

Inside the case I'm going to put a piece of paper with links to some articles/podcasts/etc. that people I know have made about the game. Should you enjoy it, hate it, or feel completely neutral about it, consider writing/talking into a microphone/recording a video/drawing/whatever your thoughts and adding them to the sheet of paper, then sending the game on to someone else that might enjoy it.

Seems like it could be fun. Maybe the developers will catch wind of it and it will bring a smile to their face. Might as well give it a chance and see if you like it. So, comment below, and good luck! If you don't win it from me, consider picking it up the next time you're out. It's pretty cheap at this point anyway.

Favorite Character: 30 Days of Gaming Day 2

2011-03-10T18:09:00.000-08:00

Alright, here's where I admit I have the worst taste in video game character design. You know that ridiculously cliché loner character in every single JRPG ever? Yeah, they were always my favorites.

The most prominent is probably Vincent Valentine. I'm not entirely sure why I wasn't able to see through how incredibly lame Vincent really was, but I just thought he was the coolest thing ever. Maybe it was because I was only 12 when Final Fantasy 7 came out, and my friend and I had a habit of devouring any and every JRPG that hit store shelves in those days.

I couldn't have been expected to know the difference between a really complex and deep character and a meatbag full of faux-mystery and loner clichés back then, right?

Very First Video Game: 30 Days of Gaming Day 1

2011-03-10T17:47:00.000-08:00

This 30 Days of Gaming thing is making the rounds with some of my Twitter friends, and since I'm having trouble finding personal things to write about every day, I thought I'd borrow some of these. I'm not saying I'm going to do it for 30 days straight as I'd like to still be able to write about my thoughts and feelings on everyday life, but I'll use these 30 topics to fill in days when I have no ideas. Let's face it, video games are a huge part of my life, so this is still personal stuff for me.

I'm not entirely sure what my very first video game was, but the ones I have the earliest memories of are River Raid, Joust, Kangaroo, and Freeway. Of course, I was too young to really remember their names, so Freeway was known as "Chicken Cross the Road" to me.

The Atari 2600 served as my introduction to video games, because for a big part of my childhood we only owned that and the same 10 or so games for it. After that my brother received an NES, but we always seemed to avoid the games that are considered classics. I don't even think we had that copy of Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt that everybody and their grandmother owned. So I made due with what I had whenever I wanted to play a game, but as a result I was somewhat turned off from games.

None of the Atari games were deep enough to keep me interested once I was older, and the NES games we had were all pretty crappy, completely confusing to me as a child, or grew tiresome after repeated play. So, my childhood was spent finding awesome sticks that I thought looked like swords and running around the woods fighting imaginary enemies and risking poison ivy.

Still, those four 2600 games hold a great deal of nostalgia for me, because I have fond memories of trying my damnedest to figure them out and get further than the first level.

American Owned: Stupid People in my Home Town

2011-03-08T19:34:00.000-08:00

There is a restaurant in my town with the words "American Owned" on the signboard out front. This, of course, could only mean "White Owned" because you'd have to be an American citizen in order to own a business in the country. It is an obvious response to the fact that there are two Indian families that have each bought a couple of failing gas stations or party stores in town, and the racists think this is some sort of hostile takeover.

The owner of that restaurant is the girlfriend of a well-known racist. His brother owns a towing business on nearby highway and got in some hot water when he showed up to tow a woman and refused when he saw she was black. She was a judge. It did not end well for him. Still, his towing business is around, and he is likely a stupid racist. Just like his mom that co-owns the disgusting strip club next to it, and his brother that has seized control of that stupid signboard of that restaurant.

I've heard so many comments about the Indian people taking over the town. They bought businesses from people who couldn't afford to keep them running, so I don't really understand why they're demonized. Oh yeah, racism. You know, I love my town sometimes. This is not one of those times.

Resisting the Douchebaggery of Parenthood

2011-03-07T06:58:00.000-08:00

"Little Timmy just took his first steps!"

"Oooooh, that's so wonderful! He's gonna get in all sorts of trouble now! Better keep an eye out! How old is he now? 15 months? Oh good. Billy took his first steps at 10 months."

This sort of thing is exactly the kind of person I do not want to become now that I'm a parent. It's pretty easy to not say stupid things like that out loud, but thinking them is a different story.

I guess it's not inherently snobbish to compare your child's development to other kids close to them in age, but I still feel a little guilty when I do it. I guess as parents we're just always looking for some kind of point of reference we can use to make sure our kids are growing and learning properly. It sure would suck to have to go to school for the first time and discover they know significantly less than all of their classmates, because at that point you've gotta play catch up.

I've been trying my best for three years now to teach Emmy an assortment of things. Last night I explained the concept of opposites to her, which is actually pretty hard to do if you really think about it. Go ahead, try to think of an explanation of what "opposite" means without actually using the word opposite. Hard, aye? But after a little bit she'd gotten a good idea of it.

Now, the next time I see one of the kids my sister babysits for, or one of Emmy's cousins, I'm not going to start grilling them on opposites, but if the topic comes up I will certainly be listening closely. It's some form of validation that I'm doing a good job as a parent. I really want to give her a jump start on learning so that she'll have an easier time in school, because I'm not sure what areas she'll take to quickly and which she won't. I often had a difficult time learning certain subjects at the pace with which they were taught in school, and I'd love for her to fall behind like I did.

Of course, I still feel like a douchebag for comparing her to the other children she meets. I just like knowing that I'm doing a good job at this whole parenting thing, because it certainly took some getting used to.

The Job Hunt: Disappointment Manifested

2011-03-07T06:21:00.000-08:00

I'm not good at searching for jobs. It's too easy for me to get discouraged and stop being productive about it. Searching for openings and filling out applications and calling in to check up on them and going in for interviews, only to never hear back from them really turns me off from the whole process.

I've had several "sure-fire" connections to a new job that eventually fell through anyway. I spent a good amount of money and time jumping through all the necessary hoops needed to drive school buses only to have them tell me I had to come in to take a test at a time that I couldn't do. No negotiations, it could only be that time. So they hired someone else and I was out all that time and money.

As I've said before, my only sell-able trait is the fact that I work really hard once I'm in the job. Getting the job, well, that's a different story. I'm too easily put off by the tiresome and frustrating process. Yet, somehow I have an interview this Friday. Strangely, Zoe had only started filling out an application for me there, so either they liked that portion of the application enough to find it in their system and call me, or her cousin that works there gave me a good word.

My in-laws and wife are excited at the very chance of an interview, but I know better. There's no point in getting my hopes up here. If it happens, great, but until it happens I'll expect to be shot down. That's what I've come to know of the job hunting field. Disappointment.

Things Emmy Says, Part 4

2011-03-07T06:01:00.000-08:00

She walked up to me with her motorized Thomas train and said it wasn't working well. I looked and there was hair or a string or something wrapped around the wheel, so I told her I'd warned her about using it on the carpet and I wasn't going to fix it right now. She came back awhile later and told me she had fixed it. She had taped over all of the wheels.

"Now the hair has tape over it! It's fixed!"

She wanted cocoa and Zoe told her she didn't know because her cousins were going to be over soon.

Emmy: "Well hurry, we're wasting time!"

That JG Wentworth commercial came on where people yell "It's my money and I need it now!" about a billion times. Emmy watched it quietly, and after it was over turned to me and said, "It's their money and they want it now." very matter-of-factly.

Zoe and Emmy were getting ready to go to Cosco and she handed her a purple shirt with frog heads all over it.

Emmy: "If I wear my frog shirt, all the people at Cosco will know how very funny I am!"

She has interpreted sounding things out as merely saying the first letter a few times before saying the word. She'll say D-D-Daddy, E-E-Emmy, and more whenever she feels like "sounding things out."

Our cat, Jack, was sitting between a set of plastic bins and the bathroom counter and Em walked in and said "Jack's a g-g-genius!"

Zoe asked her if she wanted to watch Up, she said, "No, I think we should watch Pawn Stars."

Funny Names
Emmy calls things by weird names occasionally. Here are some of them.

She calls her trampoline her jumpolene despite frequent corrections. She's quite aware that it is supposed to be called a trampoline, she just doesn't seem to like that name much.

She calls two of the cats her "Lovey Doveys" and the other two cats her "Boops." I have no idea where she came up with those.

Nope, March Sucks Too

2011-03-02T19:04:00.000-08:00

Well, I was hoping things would start getting better now that February was over. I should have known better to believe a month had magical powers over my life. Things just like to go wrong no matter what month it is.

Before I even got to fixing the shocks that I need to replace, the wheel cylinder busted on my rear passenger tire. This is the second time that has happened to me. The wheel cylinder is the thing that takes the brake fluid and uses it to press the brakes out and into the drum, causing you to stop. When it breaks, you suddenly lose all pressure in your brakes because the brake fluid drains out. Meaning your brake pedal goes down to the floor and you can no longer stop effectively.

Luckily, both of the times this has happened to me I was on a back road with no other cars around. This time I was going down an icy hill, and was promptly spun around 180 degrees before I came to a stop. Unable to effectively stop was an obvious hindrance to finishing my paper route, so I called my mother to see if she could drive over to help me finish and get the car home.

Upon getting in the car to start slowly heading home, I found that it didn't want to move. I'd used the parking brake to see if that was feasible for stopping, and despite the fact that the pedal was un-pressed, the brakes were still engaged. This meant getting at the release wire directly to try to get them to come off. We finally got it and began the sloooooow drive home.

Now I have brakes and a wheel cylinder to change tomorrow morning, on top of the shocks that need to be changed before they wear my tires down to the rim. Unfortunately, March isn't looking good for my wallet either.

Making it Through February

2011-03-01T16:15:00.000-08:00

I used to laugh when people said things about certain months being particularly unlucky, but February has come to be a time of great stress in my life. Now sure, three years ago I was lucky enough to see my first child born on the first of February, but that may have come to haunt me later.

After barely making it through Christmas each year, we have to turn around and get ready for a birthday party in just one month's time. This has been made all the more difficult by the fact that we purchased a piece of shit car that has had a transmission fail the last two years in a row; in February.

This year the money has been so tight that we've come down to below $50 left in our bank account each and every week of that accursed month just trying to keep up on the bills. The very last week of the month we finally had a couple hundred dollars left over that we might have been able to use to pay back some of the money we've had to borrow. Of course, I suddenly learned I'd need to spend that on control arms to once again fix my car.

It is now the first day of March, and we're entering the new month with sizable debts to family members who graciously helped us to get through. I'm crossing my fingers that this month goes MUCH better for us, but on the last day of the devil month I found out I'd need to replace the shocks and possibly struts on my car as well if I didn't want my tires worn to nothing.

February just won't let us go. March is going to have to be one hell of a great month in order to make up for all the shit we've got coming into it.

Interview with Emmy #2

2011-03-01T15:35:00.000-08:00

I've gotta catch up on my One A Day posts, so I put it to Twitter to ask Emmy some more questions. This time I recorded her responses. Commence with your "Aaaaawwwww"s and such.

Cops Can Be Real Dicks When They Wanna Be

2011-03-01T07:02:00.000-08:00

See, I mostly have a very prominent dislike for cops. Not because I'm a criminal, but because it seems like it is a cops job to treat you like a criminal at all times. To me, the sight of a cop should make me (someone who doesn't ever commit crimes) feel safe. How did you feel the last time you saw a cop? Chances are you got a little nervous and started thinking about exactly how you were driving. That is always the way I feel when I see a cop. Did I stay at that stop sign for long enough or was that a "rolling stop?" Am I staying completely in my lane or drifting a little bit out of it? Does that make me look drunk?

Let me be clear, I have never once been drunk in my entire life. This thought process is completely irrational, but with the way cops analyze you for any slight mistakes, it breeds paranoia. I should never have to be paranoid about a cop pulling me over because I don't commit crimes, but they will find something you did wrong. One of the lights above your license plate is out, better check if you're drunk. Why else would you be out driving in the middle of the night? Well, the license plate light seems to be working fine once we got home, so I guess that was just a load of bullshit.

Delivering newspapers has put me up against cops on plenty of occasions. The thing is, it's actually made me kind of like them. I usually pass them when I am driving down the shoulder of the road, the wrong way. Or I'm doing a u-turn right in front of where they are parked so that I can deliver a paper out my window and then continue down the road in the wrong lane. One time when I did that last thing right in front of a cop, he pulled out and drove up next to me at the next box. I rolled down my window and he asked if I was delivering something. I said yes and held up one of the papers, and he replied "Oh, that's fine then. Just making sure." and drove off.

The other day when I slid off the road a bit in front of someone's mailbox and a man in a truck stopped to help pull me back up, a cop who was driving past stopped. He asked how I'd gotten there and I told him I was delivering papers. He took my license, then stopped traffic while we worked on pulling me back onto the road. Afterwards, he told me he was giving me a verbal warning because I needed to rotate my tires and I was improperly using the lane by being on the wrong side of the road. I was a bit confused. I said, "Even with the paper delivering?" He said yes. So, that means that all the cops I've passed while driving down the wrong side of the road could have pulled me over and given me a ticket, they just aren't dicks and they understand I'm just trying to do my job. That cop that drove up next to me and asked if I was delivering just wanted to make sure before he gave me a free pass to bend the rules.

So, really, it's entirely in their hands whether they want to be a dick about it or not. Back when I delivered papers in town, I would drop papers off at stores and in the big metal paper machines around town. This meant I usually double parked in front of the stores when there weren't any available parking spots, because I was only going to be there a minute at the most. Of course, one day a cop pulled up within the minute it took me to reload the box in front of a local coffee house.

I explained to him that I was just filling the paper box, but he didn't really care. "It doesn't matter if you're delivering anything, you need to park in an actual spot." Of course, this was complete bullshit, because several times a week I would have to maneuver around the beer trucks that were double parked in front of the bars downtown for at least a half an hour at a time. I mentioned this to the cop, and he informed me that they delivered to the back of the bars. Funny, every time I've seen them it has been in the street, so I guess he's just never come across that despite the fact they're sitting there for much longer than I ever do. Or maybe it's just that he decided he wanted to be a dick to me right then, and he valued the beer trucks more than the newspaper. His choice I guess.

In a small town the police force is usually full of the dumb jocks from high school that couldn't achieve anything better in their life. Of course, in a big city you come across more serious issues like racial profiling and bribing. Cops should make you feel safe, but when it seems to be completely up to their mood that particular day whether or not you get a ticket -- or worse -- well, it's hard to feel safe, and not just paranoid.

Point Proven

2011-02-28T06:01:00.000-08:00

It's no secret I don't have a ton of confidence in my ability to actually achieve things by myself, but I'm usually determined enough to successfully finish anything that I happen to start.

This weekend I set forth to tackle my first car repair (besides brakes) entirely on my own, because I didn't want to bother anyone else with my incessant need for fixing cars. Also partly to prove to some people that I'm perfectly capable as they'd been doubting it. Suddenly, my confidence in repairing a car on my own has skyrocketed.

In the last nine years that I've been delivering papers I've employed the help of my father-in-law quite a bit to save money when things on my car break. Mostly I've just watched and helped him when he needed it, which has given me some amount of knowledge but not really made me fluent. This time I wanted to set out to replace the control arms by myself, to prove that I could and to not waste his time.

The first one took me the whole day, though, I was quite lackadaisical about it. I was nervous to go about each of the steps right away and much more cautious about it since I didn't really know what I was doing. I also made a few mistakes that took awhile to correct. But by the time I had to hit the sack Saturday afternoon so that I could wake up at midnight for papers, I'd finished one side of the car by myself.

That was the confidence boost I needed, and I also knew what I was doing at that point. I started back up after papers on Sunday with renewed vigor. My father came out to the garage to say he was going to pick something up at the store and get breakfast at McDonalds. Before he even got back I'd gotten the old control arm off. I came inside to eat some breakfast and he asked how it was going. He looked amazed when I told him I'd already gotten the old one off. It's not often my father is impressed with something I do.

I headed back out and in another half an hour I'd put the new one in place. I tightened everything up properly and set to cleaning up all the tools. My mother popped her head out to see if I needed anything and was shocked that I'd already finished. Soon my father as well came out to marvel at my handiwork.

Look, I know this sounds like I'm gloating, but I'd grown tired of my father's way of talking down to my abilities. When my car needed it's transmission replaced, and he called upon my future brother-in-law to help fix my wife's car for us, he'd taken to frequently talking up how great he was at fixing cars. Honestly, it got pretty annoying. Yeah, yeah, Sean is brilliant and wonderful and I'm so lucky to have him helping me.

Well, maybe now my dad will think of me a little bit differently. I'm not completely inept, I just don't have the time to try to do it completely by myself when someone else can help me do it faster. It may seem weird to be so proud of successfully achieving that little goal I set for myself, but it feels pretty good anyway, so I'll just pat myself on the back a little bit and allow myself the good feelings for once. Much better than not having confidence in my own abilities.

Something to Prove

2011-02-25T18:32:00.000-08:00

Nine years ago I didn't know the first thing about repairing cars, but when you deliver papers for so long you pick a few things up. Trying to fix things as cheaply as possible means I've employed the help of my father-in-law as often as I can, and I've watched him every time. Of course, there's a big difference between watching and actually doing.

The lower ball joints are so bad in my car that my brand new tires went completely bald on the inside part of the tread in about a month. Already owing a bunch of money to my parents and future brother-in-law to fix my wife's car (which I can't even use because the window doesn't go down), I'm not about to pay a mechanic to fix it.

I would ask my future brother-in-law to help, given he doesn't have a job at the moment and is more experience than me, except my father pretty much used him as free labor for working on the last car. Now he just ignores my text messages, so I guess he's sick of helping out.

And that's the thing, when my father was using him, he wouldn't shut up about how great he was at working with cars. He just assumes I don't know anything, because that's what he does. Fixing it myself is a bit of a screw you to him. Though, he won't care.

Mainly it's that I don't have another $200 to pay a mechanic, though. Tomorrow it all goes down. The parts are in my trunk now. Wish me luck.

Cautiously Helpful

2011-02-24T18:01:00.000-08:00

As I climbed down into the ditch to shovel away the snow packed up under my car so as to hopefully drive away without sliding further in, a man in a truck pulls into the driveway across the street and gets out. I assume he is the owner of the house I was delivering the paper to.

"Hey. I'm kind of in a precarious situation here with your metal mailbox." I say as he walks up.

"Oh, it's not mine. I just stopped to help." he replies.

"Oh great. Well, I've got a tow strap, I think you can pull me away from the mailbox if we hook it up there on the passenger side."

"Yeah...have you hooked it up before?" he asks awkwardly.

"Yeah, plenty of times." I say.

"Could you hook it up then?"

I've become very accustomed to that kind of exchange. Doing papers in Michigan means I've gotten stuck countless times throughout the years. It's why I carry a tow strap with me in my trunk. The first time a helpful stranger stopped to give me a hand, that back and forth left me a little confused. I didn't have my own tow strap at that point in time, and didn't have the first clue about where would be the best place to hook one. He'd stopped because he was in a truck and had his own tow strap. Surely he must have a better idea of where to hook one up, so why was he so adamant that I do it myself?

After I fumbled around and found someplace I could wrap it around the frame, it struck me. He was worried about getting sued if it had somehow damaged my car. Well, that got must have been a tad too paranoid for his own good I thought, and scoffed it off.

It didn't stop with him though. Every single person that has ever stopped to help pull me out of a snowbank has made the same demand. Not that I'd expect they lay down on the ground and hook it up themselves when I'm the one that needs help, but they always lead off with that request. If I didn't know any better, I'd swear that everyone was put through a strict course upon purchasing a truck where it is pounded into their heads to never hook up a tow strap to someone else's car.

The more likely scenario is that our society has made everyone scared shitless of being sued. The kind stranger stopping to help someone in need on the side of the road is often rewarded with a big fat lawsuit when the flimsy plastic body of the needy person's car is cracked in the process. It's sad, really. Even the few helpful people still out there have to be cautious about it.

I Apologize for Filler

2011-02-23T06:39:00.000-08:00

Doing this One A Day thing has left me completely without ideas sometimes. So, I just write some filler content and call it good. I'm not proud of it, but it gets the day done.

I've had this personal blog for as long as I've had Cerebral Pop, and even longer than I've been writing for Bitmob, yet, it mostly sat unused. Something would happen to me, or I'd want to get my feelings about something off of my chest and into words, and I would procrastinate doing it until the words had long since passed me by.

When I started writing it was entirely for myself and it made me feel good when I was down in the dumps. But as Cerebral Pop grows its stopped scratching that itch, as I have weekly features to tackle and reviews to write and deliver back to PR companies. So, over time I've stopped thinking of writing as something I do for myself to get things off my chest, and something more like a job (even though it has yet to pay me).

Signing up for the One A Day Project was my way of forcing myself to stop procrastinating and actually write about personal stuff as it happens to me. That being said, I have a boring life. Sometimes I have no idea what I can write about. I stared at the screen for hours last night trying to come up with something and I only ended up with those two sentences of pure filler. I guess I could just write about video games or something, but I always envisioned my One A Day posts as being completely about my life or how I feel about other things going on in the world, and if possible I'd like to keep them that way.

That might mean that I write pointless filler sometimes because I'm out of ideas, but the simple fact that I have to write every single day means that when something actually does happen I'll have it cataloged. I'm proud of a lot of the posts I've written for the One A Day Project. Not because they are expertly written, because editing and grammar is the last thing I care about on this blog, but because they are a still frame of my life. They capture a moment that my stupid forgetful brain would normally just let fade away. It's like a public diary; Even if no one else is interested, I'd like to look back at this stuff in the future.

So, if for some reason you're also interested in my personal life and feelings about things, then I apologize for all the filler. At least a couple times a week I tend to write something that I'm really glad I put to words, and maybe you'll enjoy that as well. In the future, I'll try to keep the filler a bit more relevant by peppering in things like "Things Emmy Says" or an "Interview with Emmy." Something that doesn't require a lot of thought, but I can still look back on and get something out of it.

Sue Me

2011-02-22T18:22:00.000-08:00

I've starting trying to write my one a day article at about 6 pm. It is now almost 9:30 pm and I haven't written a thing. I might be out of ideas. I'll get back to you tomorrow.

Wishing Winter Would End

2011-02-21T19:36:00.000-08:00

After we finished cleaning up from the biggest snowstorm since the seventies, a solar flare gave us all a much needed break from dealing with the snow. Almost all of the snow melted away last week, and I got to enjoy driving down a road without worrying about sliding off of it. Sadly, on Sunday morning we were dealt a harsh reality; it isn't Spring quite yet.

There wasn't as much of a fuss about this snowstorm, but based on the shoveling I had to do after both storms I'd say we got near the same amount of snow. The real problem is that our county barely has any money for snow removal this year, and the storm decided to come around on a Sunday when they'd have to pay overtime to all the plow drivers. Couple that with the fact that today is President's Day and they probably assumed not many people would have to work, and I had a rough time of delivering my paper routes.

I approached the first street I normally turn on and hesitated, but turn I did. I barely made it to the first driveway, where I wisely decided to bail out while I still could. I passed by the the three customers on that street and moved onto the next ones. After I got past the last possible place for me to give up and turn around, I realized I probably shouldn't have come this way either. I slowed to a stop in the middle of the road, with snow packed up under my car. I could move forward and backward, but not for more than a couple of feet. I was stuck.

I called my father-in-law, and waited to be rescued. He had to pull me at least a mile before we reached a road that hadn't been completely drifted over. I told him I was just going to skip the rest of the country roads and head straight into town to deliver those papers. I gave him enough papers to finish the country should he feel so inclined and ventured off.

Luckily the rest of the day went much better, and my father-in-law finished the country before I could get back to help him. I got home and started shoveling. Two hours later the driveway was finished, and I was exhausted.

It's not even that today was that much worse than some days I've had this winter, it was just that week's reprieve that got feeling fond of the springtime weather to come. Now that I've been thrown back into the harsh reality of winter, I want out. Really bad.

Having a Kid Made me a Sucker

2011-02-20T20:01:00.000-08:00

*Spoilers for Benjamin Button, unless you took a minute to think logically about how that plot would logically end.*

As we sat and watched the end of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and that little baby closed it's eyes for the last time, my eyes welled up. It wasn't even the quality of the movie, I just immediately thought of my daughter when she was a baby, and it crushed me.

Recently a trailer was released for the upcoming Dead Island video game, and while most games shy away from including children in any sort of chaos, this one had one at the forefront of it all. Now, of course, the actual game might not be anything like that trailer, but either way, that trailer got to me in a way that a majority of gamers overlooked.

It starts with a little girl lying dead on the the ground and zooms out from her eye. In reverse, she flys upwards through the air, into a window, and onto a mans back where she takes to biting his flesh off. Inter-cut with the reversed drama inside the hotel room, is the normal forward-moving panic of the little girl trying to outrun a horde of zombies to get to the hotel room. She stumbles in front of the door, and the man who we've by now assumed is her father runs to pull her to safety. As the camera slows and focuses on his look of horror while he tries in vain to rescue his already doomed daughter, I turn into a sucker.

When any sort of media involves a child in danger, or dying of any cause, I inevitably think of my own. I live for that kid, and any thought of harm coming to her tears me up inside. When the window crashed down on her and cut open her nose, I was the most scared I've ever been. I clutched her against my chest as she bled on me and rushed downstairs yelling for Zoe. I've never felt that way before, but it's par for the course when it comes to parenthood.

I've always had a weird sort of complex. As I sit on the toilet in a truck stop bathroom, I start to think about what I would do if someone busted into my stall with a weapon, ready to mug me. I imagine that the best way to fight them off in that situation would be to use the top of the toilet tank to bash over their heads. Where I was, that'd easily be the best weapon at my disposal.

Since Emmy was born, that odd thought process has only increased, only now it revolves around Emerson. I constantly run through worst-case scenarios in my head. Hopefully one of those never comes to pass, but I guess I'll be prepared if they do. Because as a parent it is my job to make sure that the stuff I watch in movies and play in video games never happens to my kid.

Present Bias

2011-02-20T18:06:00.000-08:00

On a past SModcast, Kevin Smith talked at length about people having a "present bias." They would assign so many tasks to the future, but once the future came they'd slack off. It's the classic "I'll start my diet tomorrow" issue that almost everyone has found themselves in. This is my problem every single day.

The bad part about delivering papers is that I have a lot of time to think, and absolutely no ability to do. Every day I craft long lists of everything I'm going to finish once I get home from work, and almost every day I fail to finish them. I'll open a new blog, and then I'll stare at it for awhile. Then I'll check Reddit. Then I'll get distracted by the TV.

Before you know it, the computer tells me it's bed time. I pump out my one a day post as fast as I can and close the laptop. Usually my biggest problem is how hard it is for me to concentrate with people talking, the TV on, and a child that either needs something or wants to watch cat videos on the computer that I'm trying to use to write.

The best way I've found so far is to put on headphones and play some sort of ambient background music loudly enough to drown out the distractions. Of course, this doesn't work for the visual distractions. Inevitably something will catch my eye and my "present bias" will kick in. "I kind of want to watch what's happening on this show instead of finishing this article." my mind foolishly thinks.

If only I could build some sort of chamber around my chair.

This One A Day Thing is Hard

2011-02-18T19:56:00.000-08:00

When deciding that I would write one post a day on my personal blog for the entirety of 2011, I knew it'd be hard. I wanted a sort of snapshot of a year in my life. A catalog of what it was like raising Emmy, frustrations, triumphs, and all.

Of course, in order to have something to write about every single day, something somewhat significant needs to happen to me every single day. I live my life doing the same things and going in the same directions every day. I drive 130 or so miles in every 24 hour period, and it is literally the exact same path each time.

Makes it kind of hard to write about. If I make it through the entire year, I get the feeling I'm not even going to want to look back through these posts. Maybe I'll just start writing every single thing that Emmy does throughout the day.

On the Detroit RoboCop Statue

2011-02-17T17:06:00.000-08:00

It is now official; Detroit is getting a statue of RoboCop. Of course, the fact that a ragtag band of Internet jokesters have managed to succeed in their somewhat ridiculous goal has angered many people.

Of course that 50,000 dollars could be used for something much better, but you don't have to all of a sudden come to that realization when people are having fun. A statue of RoboCop is a stupid way of spending that much money, but the people that put forth the money most likely wouldn't have spent it otherwise. You, the whiny complainer, could use the effort it takes to whine about it and actually attempt to raise money for something positive.

Start your own KickStarter campaign that piggybacks off of the Internet buzz from the RoboCop statue and presents a goal for something more deserving in a fun way. Chances are everyone else that thinks the statue is dumb will jump on top of it. At the very least just find a better cause and pass that link around on the net in place of your stupid complaining.

If you really want to get into it, what else does Detroit have? I live a mere two hours from there, and I have never once driven over for anything other than a concert. There's a zoo, and some other things that my kid might enjoy, but it doesn't really seem like a worthwhile trip. A funny statue based on a movie just adds one more thing to that list. It's probably worth it just for the stupid TwitPics and Facebook profile pics I can get out of the whole experience.

In a town that is filled with houses like the one above, abandoned and forgotten to run down neighborhoods, they could use a little bit of fun. The mayor is doing things to take care of the serious issues, like paying people to take and restore those dilapidated houses. Sure, the Internet's power could be used for good, but more often than not it is used for fun. It's up to you to throw a good cause in front of that wave of fun.

Here, I did a Google search for you:
Charity Motors takes donated cars, repairs them, and sells them for cheap to poor car-less folks in Detroit.
The Society of St. Vincent de Paul provides food, clothing, and shelter to the poor.
Maybe The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History is a tourist destination you'd approve of.
Here's the Ronald McDonald House of Detroit.

Ruining a Life (For the Children!)

2011-02-16T19:28:00.000-08:00

She's just begging to have her innocence exploited.

Local news sources are buzzing about the case of Evan Emory and his "disturbing" YouTube video. The 21-year old musician asked a teacher if he could play in front of her classroom of first graders and record it for his portfolio. He then replaced the audio with another one of his songs, which included sexual situations, and put it up on YouTube.

Now, I'm not completely defending the guy, because it was pretty stupid of him to go about it that way, but the way it's being handled makes me a thousand times more sick than the video itself. Honestly, I've seen the joke a thousand times from professional comedians. To open his set on his Bigger and Blackerer DVD, David Cross had a child come out on stage dressed as him and start to tell jokes, only to go off on someone taping in the audience and let out a stream of f-bombs then storm off stage. I'm fairly certain that I there were skits of Dave Chappelle and Sarah Silverman saying inappropriate things in front of little kids on their respective shows. The only difference is that those people likely had parents sign contracts before they hit record.

Did ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead get arrested when they edited children into their song and then cussed at them? Of course not.

If my child was in his video, I would be upset. Only, all I would demand is that he took the video down, if that. Some people have a lot of problems with their little kids appearing on video, though I've never been 100% sure why. Is some sicko honestly going to track down your kid because he saw them on a video? Calm down a little.

You might be asking yourself why this whole thing bothers me so much. They're saying that he could get 20 years in prison. At the arraignment there was talk of him not being allowed to be in the vicinity of children without supervision. Seriously people, he looks like a frat douchebag, but let's not ruin his entire life over a joke.

BUT WE HAVE TO PROTECT THE CHILDREN! I'm honestly sick of this shit. Just like neutering recess of everything fun, and slapping "Adults Only" warnings on Sesame Street, we're blowing everything out of proportion. I'm scared to be raising a child in this day and age. Not because of the things that can hurt her, but because of our constant obsession with keeping kids away from things that could hurt them.

It's stupid to be so scared of bumps and bruises that we remove things that they use to have fun, but it's even more insane that we've now graduated to pretend threats. YOUR CHILD WASN'T EXPOSED TO VULGAR LANGUAGE, IT WAS EDITED! Congratulations on successfully protecting your child from something that wouldn't have negatively affected them at all, though. Just remember, Evan is 21 years old. He's still a child, really. 21-year olds do stupid things sometimes, I'm sure you did as well. What happens when your kid is twenty something and somebody deems something stupid they did as "disturbing" and chooses to ruin their lives? Will you think back to how you crusaded against Evan and see the irony, or will that fly right over your head? I'm guessing the latter.

Making My Own Future

2011-02-15T06:47:00.000-08:00

I'm not good at looking for jobs. After numerous seemingly sure-fire positions fell through, I've gotten pretty discouraged. Sitting down to fill out applications seems almost pointless. In fact, according to NPR it probably is because some 70% of jobs out there are never listed, you just have to ask around and get in from people you know. They recommend contacting old employers.

When I was 16 I worked at a grocery store for maybe eight months. It's now closed. After that I worked at Arbys for, like, five years. All the managers out there liked me a lot, and I'm sure I could easily get hired again, but even if I could get a managerial position it probably wouldn't pay more than what I'm already making. Mostly, my entire working career has been for the Grand Rapids Press, jumping between new routes as they open up. I've had a total of six routes, trading them for higher paying ones when I can, but all its left me is a lifetime of minimal connections and very little experience in any field that might prove useful.

So, I've started to wonder about striking out on my own. My father and his brother both owned their own businesses, and I got that same bug. The problem is having the balls to dive-in headfirst when I still have a family to support.

For awhile I've wanted to open an arcade. It might not seem like a great idea nowadays, but in our tiny town the kids don't really have anything to occupy their time. I could have a stage for bands to play, and hold tournaments and such to help keep kids coming. Hopefully it'd become the go-to hang out place in town. I'm just not sure about taking out a big loan to buy a bunch of machines and a building when those upfront costs might take forever to pay back.

Enter my future brother-in-law. His parents bought the old lumber business in town. It's a huge lot with a bunch of different buildings, and they actually own the entire section of street between them all. They plan on opening a styrofoam recycling business, though, that wouldn't take up very much of the space they have. When I half-jokingly suggested him and I start an arcade there, he was on board. Of course, I'm not entirely sure if he'd actually do it should it come time to actually start it up.

Maybe a slow build would be best. Drop some of our tax return on a couple of good machines, and go around town looking for businesses that will let us set them up. After those start bringing in some money, buy a few more machines. Once machines start breaking down, or I have more than I do places to put them, I bring in the future brother-in-law. Offer him a cut of the money for a place to work on and store the extra machines. By the time I have enough to actually start a full-fledged arcade, it'll just make sense for us to open the doors of his building to the public and actually start our own business.

To me it makes sense, but I'm not sure it would go down as easily as it does in my head. So maybe I'll make some repairs on the games I already own (Space Invaders, Hyperball, OXO, Captain America), and find a place around town to put those. NPR mentioned using contacts from old jobs, well I used to deliver papers to almost half the stores in town, so I know a lot of people that might allow me a small part of their store.

That's my idea. I just don't know if I have enough balls to actually do it.

Love

2011-02-14T20:43:00.000-08:00

When my friend called me, it was a Friday night, sometime around 7pm, and I had fallen asleep watching TV on the couch. Suffice it to say I didn't lead a very exciting life back in high school, and I still don't. But that night I met up with my friend, a girl he was friends with, and her friend; my future wife.

She was my first girlfriend, and has earned the title of being my only girlfriend, because after five years of dating, we married. And almost four years into our marriage, I know I'm not going anywhere, so long as she doesn't.

I've never had a lot of confidence in life, but since I was 16 years old she's been there to help me along. If it wasn't for her, I would probably be a gigantic loser on his parents couch, falling asleep to some crappy reality show.

This Valentine's Day wasn't exactly special. We both got each other cards, and I got her a Toblerone and Peanut Butter Twix (her two favorites), but otherwise we're dead broke, trying to pay back borrowed money from family to catch back up from the car apocalypse we just fended off. I could quote a thousand songs:

"Even though we ain't got money, I'm so in love with you honey."

"I'm sorry, I can't afford a Ferrari, but that don't mean I can't get you there."

But no matter what life throws at us, we'll pull through together. Because I know I sure as hell couldn't pull through by myself. If it wasn't for Zoe, I'd have no ambition. I live so that I can make her happy. I may not be able to afford a big Valentine's Day present for her, but that's not what's important. Love is important, and good lord, I love her immensely.

Bath Time

2011-02-13T18:57:00.000-08:00

Bath time has always been my duty, and despite the some annoyances I enjoy it. Mostly it involves filling the tub, dumping the toys out and then letting Emmy play for at least an hour while I sit on the toilet (not using it) and get some writing done. After awhile I quick wash her hair and body and get her out, though, I still have to almost force her to get out.

She's told me on multiple occasions that she wants to live in the bathtub. I tell her she wouldn't be able to sleep and she acts like she's sleeping. I tell her it's morning and she has to make breakfast, so she designates part of the tub as the kitchen and pretends to make food. After an hour or more the water that I purposely made quite warm has turned cool, but it always takes convincing to get her out of the tub.

We recently bought her a bathtub paint set, which basically amounts to extremely watered-down paint and some crappy foam brushes. It also came with a stencil of a heart, and the first time she used it I wiped it off the edge of the tub when I went to wash her. It was like I'd stabbed a puppy in front of her. She was screaming "I made that heart for you!" and balling her eyes out. I felt so terrible. I grabbed her and hugged her, soaking my shirt, and told her I didn't know and we could make another one. She calmed down and we painted together.

Sometimes she drives me crazy when she insists on filling up toys with water while they're on the edge, inevitably dumping water out on the floor, but I'm sure I'll look back on bath time with fondness.

Away

2011-02-12T14:21:00.000-08:00

I spent almost the entire day off of the Internet and without Twitter on.

That was weird, huh?

I mostly worked on a car. Like, I was manly or something. Don't worry, I don't get it either. I'm just gonna go to sleep now.

Becoming a Polar Bear

2011-02-11T20:09:00.000-08:00

As a result of my broken-down car, I've been forced to drive my wife's seldom used vehicle for what will likely be several weeks. Fortunately, GM is paying to replace my transmission, but that sort of thing means they're going through the entire process with a fine-toothed comb. They don't just yank it out and put in a new one, they take it apart piece by piece to figure out if they can save money by fixing it, so it can be a long process.

Unfortunately, the first day I started driving her car I put the window down and I haven't been able to get it back up. That means I've been driving around in 20 degree weather with the driver window down for a couple days now, and will have to probably all next week.

The thing is, I've kind of gotten used to it. After 20 minutes or so, I adjust and don't have much of a problem. I've begun to think I could probably hang with those Polar Bear people that jump in lakes in the middle of winter. I'm sure it would take some getting used to, but I could probably handle it.

Pooping

2011-02-10T20:49:00.000-08:00

I enjoy sitting down to take a load off just as much as any other man, but I might go overboard sometimes. Often, I sit on the toilet until my legs fall asleep, reading a magazine, playing a handheld game, or surfing the Internet. When I got my laptop, there was a good month where I refused to have it cross the line into the bathroom with me. Eventually, I broke that rule, and I've never looked back.

Now I have the entire world at my fingertips while I expel the evil from my rectum. I just hope none of the process transfers from my fingertips to the entire world.

The only bad thing about pooping is the clean-up process, and that's the part I like to put off for as long as possible. It's like prolonging an orgasm. I sit down and have an immensely satisfying poop, then I put off the unsatisfying part of it until the act of putting it off actually becomes a nuisance. When the tingling in my legs is too much, the cleaning up of my bottom no longer seems that bad of a task.

Look, we all know that you watched that episode of Home Improvement where Tim Allen shows of the Man's Bathroom and thought, "Hell yes!" Don't even try to judge me.

By the way, I wrote all of this while I was putting off the clean-up process. Now, to get to work.

Piling IOUs

2011-02-09T20:30:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, even though a lot of things are happening, you don't always feel like sitting down to write about them all. Every day is a slew of new tasks to get a car running, or to get it properly covered by insurance, or to find the appropriate paperwork so that the car company will pay for the repair of one. It's not exactly fun or exciting. Mostly it is just a growing pile of IOUs.

I owe $85 to my dad for paying the dealership to look over my car to see what is wrong, even though he took my car there without my knowledge. Now I owe my future brother-in-law for working on my wife's car, even though I didn't want to get that running, I just got shoved into it by my father who seems to think helping means taking complete control.

Now I owe even more money to my sister's boyfriend for tires to put on the car that I didn't want repaired because it's got 190,000 miles on it and the struts are going. If we were going to repair a car, it should be my old car. Sure, it's got more problems to fix, but it had a transmission put in it right before the head gasket went and I was forced to buy the current car which is about to get it's third transmission. But, I can't really say anything when they want to fix the car that will take the least amount of work so that I can stop borrowing theirs. It just means I have to drive around in the middle of the winter with a window that takes an hour of fussing to get up or down.

$85 for the dealership. $200 for the tires and rims I didn't really need. 200 something to get the car I didn't want repaired insured. 60 something for the parts to fix the car that will likely break down again in a month or less. I got paid 550 dollars this week, and 200 went onto the empty gas card so I could fill up whatever random tank I happened to be using each day. Then there are those pesky bills. It's hard to not be annoyed that we haven't even touched my old car, the one that I could drive for another few years on that new transmission if we'd only fix the problem I've been trying to get someone to fix for over two years now.

But I can't complain, because that would be rude. They're trying to help, and without the help I wouldn't be able to do my job. This is sort of par for the course with my father. When he helps you, he mostly just takes control of the situation. Somehow my future brother-in-law became the god of car repairs, despite the fact that I've brought him directions supplied by my father-in-law every single time he's fixed something.

My father doesn't see every car repair I've done myself, so he assumes I'm bad at repairing cars. He talks to my brother about music because he assumes my brother likes better music than I do, but we listen to the same stuff. My father isn't even aware that I write. Par for the course. He doesn't listen, because he knows best. He just does it. My wife and I joke about when he says something that is factually wrong, and we point that out. His back-tracking mumbling is well known.

I try to say that it'd be a much better choice to fix my Taurus, but he really doesn't listen. So I just go with it. When I was a teenager I'd bash my knee through the basement door causing a ceiling tile to fall on his head and the situation to escalate. It's not worth it anymore. I just watch the IOUs pile up because it's certainly well within his rights to want me to stop borrowing his car. I'd be selfish if I pointed out that I can't afford to fix a car that'll likely break down again in a month if it doesn't cause me to freeze to death before then. Most people seem to think I'm selfish already, so I guess I shouldn't press the issue.

Not Enough Time

2011-02-08T20:33:00.000-08:00

I barely have enough time to do my online duties these days what with all the car stuff going on, so this is going to be extremely short and completely random.

Emmy opened her little mini-trampoline tonight. She seems to like it alright.

Um, I'm just going to go to bed and regroup in the morning. I'm sorry you had to read this.

It Was the Transmission

2011-02-07T19:59:00.000-08:00

You know when you get really bad news, and you have that sick feeling? I've become accustomed to that feeling when it comes to money. After only one year of having to fight to get the dealership to replace a transmission that only lasted me a couple months, I have to do it again.

If they choose to ignore me this time, I guess I owe almost $10k on a gigantic paperweight. It's never even a feeling of anger, more helplessness. This is going to be short, because honestly, I'm kind of in the middle of a whirlwind of activity right now and I'm not entirely sure how I feel about everything. I'm sure there will be plenty of ranting at a future date.

SuperBowl Snacking

2011-02-06T20:14:00.000-08:00

My favorite part of the SuperBowl is gorging on a bunch of food that I really shouldn't be stuffing down my throat when I'm already so pudgy. Either way, a plate full of buffalo wings, mini tacos covered in Frank's Red Hot, mozzarella sticks, pizza rolls, and chips sits before me, and I feast.

This year, something made me feel a little bit shittier than normal about the whole thing, even before I was on the toilet that night. Venturing to the store to get more food supplies, I figured I'd stop at McDonalds and get one of those 50 packs of chicken nuggets for the ridiculously low price of $10, because, why the hell not.

I was handed a box with 50 chicken nuggets, and a bag with six packets of sauce. Six. There is no way that is enough sauce. You get, maybe five nuggets out of a sauce packet. How many people are eating those 50 nuggets. Hopefully at least three people, meaning each gets two packets of sauce and there are 20 nuggets left over without any sauce. Eating a chicken mcnugget without any sauce is like chewing on styrofoam.

But let's really get into the nitty-gritty here. 50 chicken nuggets for $10 means each nugget costs 20 cents. Ignore the fact that you're eating a piece of "meat" that only cost you 20 cents for a moment. After they give you six packets of sauce, McDonalds charges for any more sauce you might want. How much do they charge for each subsequent sauce packet? 20 cents.

Yes, we've arrived, America. The food we are eating is now worth as much as the condiments we dip it in. Feel the pride, we've earned it. It took a lot of work to make our food products so cheaply. I'd like to congratulate the giant labs filled with people in white lab coats that made this all possible. You guys are what makes America great.

The Handheld Wars: Which to Choose?

2011-02-05T09:38:00.000-08:00

It used to be I never played handheld games. Nowadays it's much easier for me to play a handheld game than it is a console game, given my work schedule, the child, and everything else I've elected to do with my free time. It's so much easier to be able to play a game on the couch, on the can, or while walking out to the kitchen to make sure Emmy isn't making a mess than it is to confine myself upstairs for an hour or more.

Only, my PSP-1000 is broken, and my old, ugly, fat DS leaves much to be desired, and is also falling apart. So this year I want to spend my Speedway Rewards points, or maybe a small part of our tax return, on a new, shiny handheld to do my gaming on. Problem is, I can't decide. Here are the pros and cons of all the possibilities I've thought about. Feel free to help me decided by adding your own perceived pros or cons in the comments. If I agree, I'll add them. HELP!

Nintendo 3DS

Pros
Concrete price that I can manage.
Should have enough Speedway points by the time it's released.
New. Shiny.

Cons
The 3D might annoy me until I turn it off, making it pointless.
No games in launch window that I need to have.
I didn't actually buy and play a lot of DS games with my DS Fat.
$40 - $50 games is something I'd always avoid. I'd wait for them to be $20 and then forget.

Sony NGP

Pros
Newer. Shinier.
I loved my PSP because of the downloadables. $6 PS1 RPGs were great.

Cons
My 30-40 UMD games will be useless.
If it's more than $250, I'd feel like shit for paying it.

Used PSP-3000

Pros
I already have a ton of UMD games, many that I haven't played.
Cheap.
Tons of cheap UMD games I never bought.
Can still play new games put up on PSN.

Cons
Not new. Probably not shiny.

iPod Touch

Pros
Possibly cheap if I buy used old model.
Bunch of super cheap games.

Cons
I'm completely sick of having to get my current iPod fixed.
Unlike some people, I like having a full-blown game experience on a handheld.

Interview with Emmy

2011-02-04T18:49:00.000-08:00

As I was sitting here trying to think of what to write about, Emmy was pestering me to watch videos on YouTube of that talking dog, Mishka. So I thought I'd just ask her some questions and write down the results. Bonus questions from Twitter!

What's your favorite color?

I can't tell you.

Why can't you tell me?

Because.

Because why?

Because I can't.

Is it a secret?

Uh uh, it's a surprise.

What's it a surprise for?

It's for that we come up and give somebody it.

Um ok, can you tell me your favorite toy?

Um yes, my favorite toy is a duck. A present duck.

What's the difference between a boy and a girl?

I don't know.

You don't know?

Uh uh. Please can I watch the dog talking?

OK, fine.

Twitter Questions

Why can't you look at the sun?

Because it's dark.

What is a Unicorn made of?

I don't want to say a unicorn!

Why not?

Because.

You don't like unicorns?

I like some but not a lot.

What's it like to be happy?

What's more awesome, bunnies or kittens?

Why? Bunnies or kittens. I don't know.

Where do fairies come from?

No one.

I'm Switching to Horses

2011-02-03T19:12:00.000-08:00

Remember that $15 part that I hoped would fix the car problems that started the other day? It didn't. My car is now playing games with me. Sometimes it moves, sometimes it doesn't. Here's the thing, I've been trying my best to ignore the fact that it has the exact same symptoms it had almost exactly a year ago; when I needed a new transmission.

One year ago -- a mere 3 months after I'd bought the car -- I had to replace a transmission that only had 40,000 miles on it. I had to fight tooth and nail, making countless phone calls and sending angry emails to anyone and everyone I could find at the car dealership to get them to replace it for me, but eventually they did. Now, a mere year later it probably needs to be replaced again. Clearly I bought a car that couldn't handle the paper delivery business.

We still owe almost 10 thousand dollars on it still, and I honestly have no idea about selling a car before you've even paid it off. That's not how I function. So, I'm clinging to the false hope that maybe it is a smaller problem, because I'm not really sure what my next step should be if it's the transmission. I guess I'll start experimenting with ways to strap bundles of papers to a horse.

Determination is All I Have

2011-02-02T19:30:00.000-08:00

Last night Michigan got hit with the worst blizzard it has seen since 1978. Right before that storm hit, my car crapped out in the middle of my paper route. It limped it's way all the way to my parent's house, and I took my mother's car off to finish papers.

We barely finished in time to rush back to town and make the city council meeting where my dad was getting a lifetime achievement award for his coaching. Of course, the winds had already started, and the sudden whiteouts on the way home were nothing to trifle with. After the meeting, we celebrated Emmy's birthday as the snow fell outside.

I woke up to more than a foot of snow, and the shoveling began. Before we could even finish the driveway I had to go do papers. My mom's car could never handle all that snow, so they picked me up in my dad's truck. We fought through barely plowed roads, I trudged across parking lots that hadn't been touched and down roads that we were worried we wouldn't make it back up, and some six hours late we had about 75% of my papers delivered.

We called it quits since it was already past the normal delivery time, and people would most likely just assume the paper wasn't coming at that point. I turned my focus to figuring out what was wrong with my car, but I couldn't even get it out of the spot in the driveway where I'd left it last night. So I plopped down $150 deposit on one of AutoZone's little code-reader doodads and took it back. According to the codes, it is likely some sort of sensor that will cost $15. Tomorrow morning I'm gonna pick one up and meet my future brother-in-law at my car to get it replaced. Hopefully it fixes everything.

I found it funny that a little computer thingamajig can cripple your entire car when it malfunctions. Seems like when cars were more simple they didn't nickel and dime us to death. Aah, the good old days.

A lot of the other carriers hadn't even picked up their papers when I got to the depot to grab my second route, so I assume they weren't even trying. The mail certainly didn't come, and the paper I deliver gave out a free online version to all customers in case they couldn't get their papers, so I guess they had every right to just give up. Somehow, I never learned to function that way.

I've driven through some pretty awful weather. One night a few years ago we had an really bad storm that melted all the snow and caused flooding. On top of that, trees were being blown down everywhere. I drove through water that came halfway up my car door, and helped other drivers move full-sized trees out of the road so both of us could keep going.

Another time we had an icestorm and even the slightest hill proved impossible for my car to manage, so I got out and walked down every hill and got everybody their papers on time. I never really even questioned it. Usually if the weather is going to be bad, Zoe tells me I shouldn't go, and should tell them it's too bad out and my car got stuck or something. I just can't do that. I have to do the job the best I possibly can, no matter what the situation.

I don't have a degree. I don't have any experience in anything that an employer might be looking for. The only thing I have is my determination, and hopefully in the eight years of working my ass off to do my job as best I can, I've impressed a few people that can vouch for me. Otherwise, I don't have much else to offer up when trying to impress a potential employer. I just hope they'll listen long enough for me to get that across.

Emmy Turns Three, Still No Baby

2011-02-01T07:45:00.000-08:00

Today is Emerson's third birthday. Most people say something like "They grow up so fast!" at this point, but to me it seems like she's always been this age. Watching someone grow day by day leaves you unable to really see what big jumps they're making. When I look back at pictures of her when she'd just turned two, I'm amazed that she looks so different than she does now. To me, she looks exactly the same.

The one thing that hasn't come about so far, is a new sibling for her. My sister is two and a half years older than me, and my brother is two and a half years older than her. Maybe when we were young that didn't make as much of a difference, but probably somewhere near middle school it started to seem like we were light years apart. Five years seemed like an eternity, and the disconnect between my brother and me was too much to overcome on a regular basis. We liked each other just fine, but we certainly couldn't relate to each other's interests with that sort of age gap, much less hang out with each other.

That's why Zoe and I always talked about getting started on our kids young, and pumping them out maybe only a year and a half apart, or at least only a little bit more than that. So the day we signed our marriage certificate, we started trying. Amazingly, Emmy was conceived on our honeymoon. It seemed like this was going to be incredibly easy. The rush of our first-born child was a brand-new experience, but one that we adapted to quickly. I soon learned what it felt like to be living for people other than yourself. I had a family, and that is the best feeling I've ever felt in the world.

More than a year ago -- when Emmy wasn't even two years old -- we decided we really had to get to work on the next kid. It had already been longer than we had originally planned for it to be, but adapting to that first child was a rollercoaster ride of emotions that we weren't necessarily expecting. So we sat down with my parents and hers, and informed them we were going to start trying for a second child. The birth control pills got shoved away somewhere in the medicine cabinet, and the next installment of our lives lie ahead.

Remember how I said Emerson was ridiculously easy? I guess that kind of spoiled us. The last year has been kind of tough, because at this point, when I think of sex, I think of the best time of the month, and the position that yields the greatest likely percentage, and a drawer filled with dollar-store pregnancy tests.

It's hard not to feel a little defeated. What once seemed like the easiest thing in the world, now seems almost impossible. Don't get me wrong, people like my cousin Alison -- who tried for years to conceive, only to have complications late in her eventual pregnancy that led to the little child she'd worked so hard to create dying after only a few days on this Earth -- are the people that have truly struggled. Eventually she was able to get pregnant again, and now has a healthy baby girl that she will no doubt treat like the blessing that she is.

So when I think about our situation, I find it hard to talk about. I feel like I'd be whining about something that isn't really that big of a deal. We already have Emerson, and she makes me happier than I ever knew I could be. Coupled with my amazing wife, I really should feel like the luckiest guy in the world. But I can't help but put my head in my hands every once in awhile and think, "Goddammit, where is the rest of our family? Why is this so hard?!"

Ultimately, if the rest of our family never comes, I'll still be the luckiest guy in the world. Zoe and Emmy transformed my life, and I would be a complete loser without them. Still, I want another baby so much.

Things Emmy Says, Part 3

2011-01-31T18:49:00.000-08:00

I like catalogging the weird, crazy, and funny things that Emmy says. I can't even remember things that she said the next day, so having a place to write them all down is nice. Hopefully they aren't groan inducing to everyone else, but I never said my One A Day blogs were for anyone else. There are a bunch at the bottom that my wife had been collecting for awhile.

She was watching the Saturday morning cartoons and playing with Play-Doh when I went downstairs to check on the laundry. When I came back up an infomercial was on, so I started to put in a kid's DVD. As I was opening the case the woman on the infomercial said, "Oh! Look at that grilled sandwich!" and Emmy responded, "Oh! That's a grilled sandwich!" Apparently infomercials work well on three year-olds.

Emmy and I were in bed watching Conan. Comedian Nick Thune came on and said, "C-Sections are like Digiorno. They aren't delivery." Emmy followed along with the audience and me and started laughing hysterically, then said, "He's weird!"

I think it's even more appropriate that she found that funny as she was delivered via C-Section.

About 2 ¼ She was up at 3:00 am after a late nap trying to convince me that she needed to go downstairs. When I asked her why she said “I need to make a phone call, I need to call Aunt Pcam”

July 18, 2010- Emmy while holding the remote “Do you want the TV off everyone?” Me: “No” Emmy: “Yes?” Me: “No” Emmy: “You don’t?” Me: “No, we don’t” Emmy: “Whatever People”

Around 2 ½ “We are all people, we are all different people”

Around 2 ½ She calls Chicken Tenders, Chicken Nummers.

Around 2 ½ She started calling the dining room the “diamond room” and the living room the “lemon room”

09-03-2010- Alex- "Daddy's birthday is next week. Do you know how old I'll be?" Emmy: "13?" Alex- "No. 25." Emmy: "I don't know what 25 is.”

August 2010- She was doing something she wasn’t supposed to be so I said “Emmy, pause” she just looked at me and said “I don’t have paws”

October 2010- Nemi asked Emmy if Nemi was funny. Emmy: No Nemi must have looked sad because then Emmy said she was Awesome!

One of Those Days (or Nights, Rather)

2011-01-30T10:19:00.000-08:00

R.I.P. my faithful headphones. You provided me with hundreds of hours of joy.

You know those days when everything goes wrong? They are the reason the phrase, "When it rains, it pours" exists.

I woke up last night at 11pm, tired from getting just under four hours of sleep, but ready to start a night of paper delivery. As I got on the laptop to sync my iPod, I noticed that it was displaying a big red X on the screen, instead of my list of music. Annoyed, I looked up on Apple's site exactly what that symbol meant. The directions told me to put it into "disk mode," though, no matter how many times I attempted to follow them to the letter I'd fail to actually achieve the desired effect. So I gave up, loaded my wife's old 1gb nano with my night's podcasts and set out.

After loading the papers into my car and buying the needed energy drinks, I went to put on my trusty headphones, only to have the the right side snap off. My attempt to tape it back together left much to be desired, but it had to do.

I got through my first route nearly finished when I discovered I was going to be significantly short on one of the three sections of the paper. 17 short, to be exact -- and just as I was realizing this, the podcast I was listening to abruptly ended. The iPod battery had died and I had no way to recharge it. Still half the night ahead of me and I was stuck with NPR/BBC and shitty music stations.

I trudged on and finished my second route. The caffeine was fading, but it was finally time to head home. Cue the unexplained car problems. As I left the gas station I noticed my speedometer was going a little haywire. I pulled over and it went back to 0, then I started up again and as I reached what felt like a normal speed it told me I was going 110 mph.

Apparently there are a couple things that could be wrong. One is a loose battery connection, which I pray is the problem. The other is a faulty powertrain control module. Hopefully that's not an expensive part to replace if it ends up being that one.

So, in one night I'm left headphone-less, with an iPod that I can't seem to repair, and a new car thing to have to fix. When it rains, it pours.

No Inspiration

2011-01-29T14:50:00.000-08:00

This one blog a day thing is getting kind of hard to do. I'm running out of ideas to write about and my life is like a never-ending circle that never deviates, so nothing new really ever happens. My goal was to write something specifically for my personal blog -- whether it be about my life or just something that happened to me -- every single day.

I've already written two things today, but they weren't personal things. I wanted to have an account of my life for the entire year. I could easily write something every single day if I just copy and pasted the stuff I write about music and games and such, but I don't really want to cheat.

I'm not really sure why I want an account of a year in my life, because it will likely never be interesting. Remember that New Year's Resolution I made to change my family's life for the better in some way? I think it's about time to start working on that. Problem is, I have no degree and little experience, and submitting an application in this economy seems pointless. I know a lot of people more qualified then me that have had no luck after years of trying. I'd like to stop living my life driving the same path every day, it's just a little intimidating to even bother trying.

Adventures While Sleeping

2011-01-28T16:00:00.000-08:00

Last night Emmy kept kicking the blanket we were sharing off, which meant she was kicking it off from me as well. The first several times she did it I yanked it back up in my sleep. Apparently at some point I yelled about it. With each subsequent blanket removal I woke up a little bit more. By the point that Zoe started yelling at me I was wide awake, but when I'm awoken out of the state I'm incredibly annoyed.

She started telling me I was doing it myself and that Emmy hadn't kicked the blanket off, but I knew very well she had at least the last time because I was awake enough by that point to realize what had woken me up. Thing is, she was telling me all this with a huge smile on her face, because my sleep antics are apparently hilarious to all who hear of them. Maybe I can laugh about them later that day, but when I've just been harshly yanked out of that deep of a sleep, the situation at hand is the most deathly serious situation I have ever been in. So I don't often react well to being told it was all a fantasy in my head, and that it is incredibly funny to someone else.

Quickly losing the argument that she was indeed kicking off the blanket, and being laughed at while I was arguing it, I told my wife she was being something that you should never say to your wife, and rolled over. Of course, this whole ordeal left me unable to sleep, and after awhile I rolled back over and voiced my frustrations. I apologized and went to sleep. Today we hashed it out further, because wives don't let you forget about things like that.

I've always done strange things while sleeping. They've very rarely escalated to actually getting up out of bed and venturing forth on a mission that I'm unaware of the purpose of, but some form of talking or moving happens probably once a week. I don't like it. Usually when you tell people about it they find it the funniest thing in the world, but by this point it just annoys me. My dad gave me all sorts of anger problems that I've worked very hard to squash, and when I'm asleep the cage door is wide open.

I'm not afraid of becoming violent towards anyone when I'm asleep, but on more than one occasion I've woke Emmy up by yelling at her to stop doing something that I'd imagined in my head. The next half hour is spend comforting her back to sleep, though I'm not entirely sure that she understands why I was yelling in the first place. I've always told myself I would look into solutions if I ever started wandering around the house doing dangerous things, but perhaps I shouldn't wait. If only so that Zoe and Emmy can get a good night's sleep every once in awhile.

The Parent's Great Sacrifice

2011-01-27T17:50:00.000-08:00

Sometimes kids like really annoying things. As a parent, you are forced to put up with it. I've written before about how I kind of enjoy Thomas the Tank Engine, so Emmy's obsession with it wasn't too big of a deal. Now, however, she has discovered Dora the Explorer.

I kind of want to gouge my eyes out and stabs pencils into my ears when that show comes on, but I suffer quietly through it. Since we watch it at night I usually just put the show on and roll over to go to sleep. I have never made it through an entire episode of that show.

In a recent episode of the Film Junk Podcast -- one of my favorites -- one of the hosts talked about how he used to watch the Police Academy movies all day long as a kid. He has since revisited them and realized how awful they are and what amazing parents he had to put up with it. That is unfortunately what I am likely to endure from now on. I never used to watch stuff repeatedly, but Emmy is already doing that. The things we put up with.

This post was rushed because I want to go play DC Universe Online. Sorry about that.

Religion and Death: Tackling the Tough Issues with a Kid

2011-01-26T19:52:00.000-08:00

A while ago that Parenthood show had an episode that tackled a parents trying to explain death to their daughter. Honestly, I've never really been sure why this is a hard thing for a lot of parents.

Early last year one of our horses gave birth in the middle of the winter. Despite our best efforts the baby didn't survive. We took Emmy to see the baby when it was born, so we also took her to say goodbye when it died. We didn't jump around and find a silly way to explain it to her, we just told her it had died. Dying meant that you weren't alive anymore. She didn't have trouble understanding. She told us she was sad that it had died and she said goodbye to it.

Later I bought her some pet goldfish because she'd hurt herself and...well, I wanted to. They didn't last very long, most likely due to the fact that they were grocery store goldfish. I didn't hide them from her or run to the store to buy new ones that looked just like the dead ones. I told her they had died, we walked down the hallway together to put them in the toilet, and she waved goodbye to them as I flushed it. I bought her some new ones and they also died after a few weeks. We went through the same routine and I told her we'd wait awhile and buy her some better pets in a few years.

In that episode of Parenthood, the parents of the little girl weren't religious and didn't want to use the concept of heaven, which they didn't even really believe in themselves, to comfort their daughter. After a few minutes of consoling her, the mother cracked and told her about heaven. Maybe some kids take the idea of death harder than others, but this wasn't an issue at all for us.

I'm agnostic. I don't adhere to any religion whatsoever. If there is a higher power, than I'd prefer he judge me based on how I've lived my life and not whatever hoops I jumped through in a church. Zoe is probably agnostic as well, I'm not entirely sure. The point is, I'm not hiding the idea of heaven of a god from Emmy, I'm just purposely avoiding it until she is old enough to make her own decisions. Telling a two year old about God and heaven pretty much assures that is what they will believe. They don't question things at that age, you're just heaping a belief onto them. How do you think the Westboro Baptist Church gains new members? They have kids and raise them with their stupid beliefs.

When Emmy is older I'll tell her what I believe and what other people believe. It's up to her to make that choice. My sister is very religious, despite my father being staunchly atheist and my mother being numb to the whole issue on account of a crazily-over-the-top Baptist Church she was forced to attend at a young age. That's her decision and I'm fine with it.

I'd be just as upset with my dad if he started pushing Emmy towards atheism as I would my mother-in-law if she pushed her to be religious. I don't think anyone can even start making that decision until at least their late teens.

The Internet Thinks it is Better than You

2011-01-25T18:45:00.000-08:00

Recent hubbub surrounding IGN's Greg Miller and his poorly written review of Dead Space 2 has got me thinking. Admittedly I laughed and thought "I can write so much better than this" when I first read his review. That's something I normally avoid doing, because it bothers me how quickly aspiring writers are bashed and put off from trying to improve themselves because of the inclusive world of writers.

Now sure, there is a bigger issue with the fact that IGN apparently has no copy editors to run their articles past, but that seems to be the way of things nowadays. I couldn't do it justice if I tried to tackle that monumental issue. I'm more concerned with the way the Internet reacted to it; by bashing his intelligence and making jokes.

Maybe Greg Miller is a bad example because he's been writing at IGN for four years now, but I've always been of the mind that everyone can always improve their writing if they have some help and put in the work. Unfortunately most writers don't seem to have this belief. A lot of talented wordsmiths see a poorly written article and choose to make jokes, and it always bothers me a little.

I'm not proposing they reach out to the author and tell them what they could do to improve, I just wish more people would remember where they came from. I know I have a lot of improving to do with my writing, but I've come lightyears in the last three years that I've been doing it regularly on the Internet. Every small step I've made was because of a desire to grow and the help of someone better. I've always crammed writing into the little free time I have, so scouring for answers myself or taking classes just wasn't feasible. It was only when I read a comment from one of the editors at Bitmob, or someone told me on Twitter, that I realized mistakes I had been making and corrected them accordingly.

Of course, the mocking of Greg Miller's writing is more a comment on the fact that IGN doesn't seem to have editors that can help their writers improve, so I understand it. I'm glad Miller has a thick skin and can handle the abuse. I guess this whole blog is just a long-winded way for me to say I feel bad for the guy because I've made all the same mistakes he made and I know how long it took me to stop making them.

If you want to make it as a writer but keep getting discouraged, hang in there. You can improve if you just hold on and try your best. A huge part of why I'm taking a break from my attempts to become a professional writer is because I feel like I need to slow things down a little. I got overwhelmed when I finally got hired in at Bitmob because instead of slowing improving over several years I was suddenly at a break-neck speed. I haven't so much given up as I have slowed things down. Some people take a little longer than others.

Emmy Pics and Captions

2011-01-24T20:37:00.000-08:00

I have a lot of pictures and videos of Emmy. Like, more than 365. So I figured I'd cheat a little and just share those today.

Just after she was born. She's only a day old in this video.

I'm reminded of that one scene from A Christmas Story.

"A citizen in distress! I'm off!"

"My toupee looks like what?"

"Why of course I'll give you a hug, Mr. President! There's no need to give me an award."

TV Remote pictured with baby, for size comparison.

"You're only just now feeding me this?!"

"CAN I GET A PRICE CHECK ON A TRANQUILIZED BABY ELEPHANT?!"

"Know what I mean? *wink* Hold up, gotta sneeze."

Sunday Free Writing: Sub-Zero and Long Games

2011-01-23T19:24:00.000-08:00

I never have anything good to write about on Sundays, and even when I do it gets lost in the deadzone that is weekends on the Internet, so I'm going to do free writing most Sundays from now on. It's nice and easy because then I have an excuse to jump between topics seemingly at random. Plus, I never edit these one a day posts anyway.

Last night it was -13 degrees Fahrenheit almost the whole time I was delivering papers. It was cold enough that my car couldn't seem to handle the cold and puttered a little bit at stops until a ways through my route when it had more time to warm up. My father-in-law keeps saying I should already be thinking of trading it in for another car, just over a year since I got it. What with all the abuse I put it through doing papers it might be a good idea, but I just can't wrap my head around getting another car before I've even paid off the loan on the one I own. I tend to hold onto my cars until the last part falls off. But then, I haven't really liked this car since the day I got it, so I wouldn't mind getting a new one so soon.

I've finally started that one resolution to make a dent in my backlog of games and popped in Dead Space. I'm enjoying it, but was a little put off when I realized that it's been taking me about an hour to get through each chapter in the game, and according to the trophies there are 12 chapters to finish. I wrote about having trouble finding time to play games the other day, so I'm kind of worried I'll get bored with the game if I can't beat it quick enough. Most people take a week or two to play through a game of that length, but with my sporadic gaming schedule it can take me more than a month sometimes. Now that Emmy is older it's a little easier, but sometimes I feel like the last 3 or 4 hours in a game is just a slog to the end that I'm not enjoying, I just want to finish it. Hopefully I can put a bow on Dead Space before that ends up happening.

Gaming with a Family

2011-01-22T11:00:00.000-08:00

There was a time when I could play video games for several hours a day if I wanted to, no problem. Long RPGs and action games like Okami that took 40 or 50 or even 60 hours to beat were no problem because I could make sizable dents in them on a regular basis. Nowadays? Not so much.

I guess it takes all parents some time to adjust to their new schedule, and fitting in time for their hobbies is always the last thing on the list. Obviously the duties of being a father should always come first, but I'd really like to be able to carve out a small part of my day for video games so that I'm not always hopelessly left behind in the gaming community.

Most people in this situation suggest staying up after the kids go to sleep, but Emerson has always gone to bed with me at 11 or so, and Zoe comes up a little later. I wake up earliest each morning so I can check emails and maybe write a little bit before I head out to work. Being that the video games are all in our bedroom with my sleeping wife and child, I can't really play then either.

Once I'm home from work, it's always hard to sneak upstairs to play games because I'm basically abandoning Zoe to take care of Emmy by herself, which she's done all day long already. I sometimes bring Emmy upstairs with me, but all of her toys are downstairs and she usually gets tired of staying in the bedroom and starts making mischief out in the hallway, bathroom, or other bedrooms. Plus, I'm never sure if a game is going to cuss, become overly violent, or do any number of other things she really shouldn't see.

The other day I had the idea of playing with headphones on while Zoe and Emmy slept in the morning, but for some reason the headphone jack on our TV doesn't work. Someone said I could get an adapter to possibly make the headphones a possibility so I'll have to look into that. Until then I've mostly found myself gaming on my laptop because I can do it downstairs while Emmy plays. That'll have to do unless I can get the headphones working. Maybe I can get through Dead Space by pecking away at it whenever I can sneak upstairs. Ah, the sacrifices of parenting.

Things Emmy Says, Part 2

2011-01-21T19:07:00.000-08:00

It was my mother's birthday today and we just got home, so here's some more silly things Emmy has said that I've been saving up for a little while. I need to get to bed so I can wake up and do papers.

*When entering our room for bed*

Emmy: "It's dark in here! I want the light off."
Me: "Alright."
Emmy: "Now let's watch Thomas."
Me: "Oh, I thought we were going to keep it dark. How about I tell you a story?"
Emmy: "Uh, no."
Me: "I can tell you a Thomas story."
Emmy: "OK!"

*I began repeating the entirety of a Thomas episode that I've seen far too many times. After finishing:*

Emmy: "Let's watch Thomas now!"
Me: "My story wasn't good enough?"
Emmy: "No.""
Me: "Oh, that's mean."
Emmy: "Um, your story was really good, but the show is really good too."

*After we climbed into bed and turned on an episode of Thomas I took off my glasses and snuggled up to her. She pushed me away.*

Me: "Hey, I wanted to snuggle."
Emmy: "Not now."

*She climbed further over to Zoe's side of the bed.*

Me: "Well that hurts my feelings."
Emmy: *She sighs and climbs back* "One minute." *She holds up a finger*
Me: "For what?"
Emmy: "For nuggling."
Me: "Oh, alright."

I walked out into the kitchen and found Emmy up on a chair reaching for a box of cookies. I grabbed the box and opened it to show her there was nothing inside.

Me: "They're all gone."
Emmy: "Oooh, then what can I put in my mouth?"

One night I was playing with Emmy before bed, rolling around and such. Apparently I somehow touched her neck at some point and this is what followed:

Emmy: "That hurts my throat."
Me: "Oh, sorry."
Emmy: "My throat is in my mouth."
Me: "Yeah, at the back of your mouth."

*She then started to jump on the bed as I was getting ready to get into bed.*

Me: "Em, can you lay down now? It's bed time and I don't feel very well."
Emmy: "OK. I'll make you feel better by giving you another throat."
Me: "What? You're going to give me a new throat?"
Emmy: "On top of your old throat. It will make you feel better!"

Podcasting Professional

2011-01-20T19:04:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I officially released the first episode of my own real podcast. Yeah, I know, everyone has one of those, but it still feels kind of cool. Think of it like a personal goal of mine. A small goal. It wasn't a life goal or anything, just something I thought might be cool. You know?

Back when I started papers I had to find something to help pass the time. For awhile it was music. I'd download several albums a day, but finding stuff that I liked enough to keep listening to wasn't as common as finding something that was exhausted by the end of the day. So I moved onto audiobooks, which worked for awhile but on the weekends when I was tired they just weren't cutting it for keeping me awake.

The day I discovered podcasts was like the day Stone Cold Steve Austin discovered the Bible. I was hooked. If it wasn't for podcasts I would have quit my job out of pure insanity long long ago. So it wasn't long before I started thinking about giving back to the podcasting world. After guesting on several other podcasts the urge to create my own grew.

Now that I have my own, I'm kind of addicted. I've been thinking about several others that I could make. I should probably just settle for the one right now, but we'll see how it goes.

P.S. You can subscribe, rate, and heap praise upon my podcast via this handy iTunes link right here, or this handy link to the write-up of the first episode.