Haiku Review

Media reviews,
written in haiku form.
Nothing else to do.

Music Reviews:
My Chemical Romance, "The Black Parade"

A bit different,
little bit over the top
but in a good way.

Audioslave, "Revelations"

Better than Exile -
more funk and soul, more focus,
but I still miss Rage.

Evanescence, "The Open Door"

Beyond the mainstream
They've grown up musically,
but trite lyrics.

Lupe Fiasco, "Food & Liquor"

His flow sounds clumsy,
but he's deliberate, smart
and full of substance.

The Procussions, "5 Sparrows for 2 Cents"

Haven't heard of them?
Shame -- they're a great hip-hop group -
progressive beats, thoughts.

Panic at the Disco, "A Fever You Can't Sweat Out"

Diposable? Huh.
Most fun I've had in a while.
Nothin' wrong with that.

Game Reviews:
Okami

Beautiful, touching.
An engaging fairy tale
that plays like Zelda.

Bully

A novel approach,
but Grand Theft's showing its age
in concept and graphics.

Guitar Hero II

Take an awesome thing,
and add a lot more awesome.
This game fucking rocks.

Final Fantasy XII

Best one in a while.
Strong story, fun combat, but
too much MMO.

Writing Things Down

I need to start writing things down. At least once a day, I'll have some idea and think "Hey, that'd be a good thing to blog about." By the time I actually get around to blogging I've completely forgotten every idea I had in the last week. In some strange way, it's kinda sad, as if those ideas have died and there's no one to remember them. How totally emo.

Too much video games lately. I played the hell out of Guitar Hero II today. Vicki was nice enough to pick it up for me at Walmart after midnight last night, so lucky me (in so many ways). It's as much of a blast as I expected, but hard as hell. I could beat almost every song on the original Guitar Hero on Expert, but on GHII I'm failing some of the earlier ones on expert. Some of the songs on Hard seem as hard, if not harder, than the hardest songs on the original's song list. It's good though -- I wouldn't want to just tear through the game the whole game the first time through, anyway.

Been spending a lot of time with Final Fantasy XII as well. It's pretty awesome, I don't think I've been able to dive into a Final Fantasy game like this for years... then again, I haven't not had a job in years, so that may have something to do with it. Still, the game has gotten away from the high-fantasy "Save the world from ultimate apocalypse wrought by super-mysterious, indescribably evil bad person." The story is much more human -- although there's a lot of high magic and what-have-you running around, the villians and the heroes are just humans, with real personalities and codes. It adds a lot of weight to a story when you're fighting against a villain who actually stands for something and isn't just a generic evil incarnate type.

FFXII is also much harder than the previous games, which works to its credit. In most FF games, I rarely have to restart the game unless I've missed something and just need to go back. In this game, I've had to try most of the boss fights at least three times before I could handle them. Similarly, in old FF games I always had more money than I knew what to do with, and I never bought consumables because I simply didn't need them -- not so in XII, I'm strapped for cash at every turn, and I've been forced to use several consumable items in almost every boss fight. It makes for some really intense battles and tough decision making... very refreshing from a console RPG. The game as whole reminds me in some ways of an MMO -- which makes sense, as some of its design is likely borrowed from FFXI, which was the series foray into the massively-multiplayer world.

Planning on going to New Jersey with Tim soon for the Magic: the Gathering Grand Prix there this weekend. I've been playing Magic quite a while, but this will be my first really big event. I don't hold out much chance of winning -- it's a long event and there'll be no shortage of pros there. Not to mention that I've not practiced the format at all. Then again, I managed to squeeze into the Top 8 at a recent 30-something person tournament without practicing, so I guess there's some hope. Big difference between 30 random people and 1,000 randoms plus a bunch of pros, of course. I believe they give out amateur prizes as well, even if you don't place in the Top 8, so I might have a shot at that. In any case, I'll never get anywhere doubting myself. Wish me (and Tim, too) good luck.

Keeping with the day's theme of invisible segues, I've been working through a big review of the entire first set of the World of Warcraft TCG. It's quite an undertaking -- at least 6 articles, roughly 5,000 words apiece. That'll be 30,000 words all told... long enough to qualify as a novella. I'm hoping to have it finished within the course of a month. It's certainly a lot of work, but not so much that I won't be able to finish it. It seems easy enough, perhaps I ought to try my hand an actual novella? No idea what I'd write it about, though. I don't know that I have the focus to see it through. With these articles I have a set number of different topics. While they're generally unified, they're different enough that they just naturally don't get stale. Having to develop a single idea over that many words seems daunting by comparison.

I was talking to NB when I was last in Geneseo, and he's got a talent I envy. He was telling me about this daydream that he'd had, and explaining this whole story that he'd worked up around this daydream. He explained the whole thing to me, and it was incredibly detailed... just on a whim, he'd practically written this entire story in his head. It was impressive, something I wish that I could do.

I think part of my problem is that I'm obsessed with purpose. Whenever I write something serious, I want it to have meaning, but then half the time I scrap it because I feel like I'm being preachy or heavy-handed. The rest of the time, I scrap it because I feel like I'm being too obtuse and pretentious. I can never find a tone I'm perfectly comfortable with. It's kinda sad, so many ideas I've abandoned, like they had never been born. How tragic.

Maybe

I used the word "maybe" and similar terms, such as "likely," or "probably" too much. I've never really noticed it when I'm speaking, so perhaps I do it only when I'm writing. Well, I know that I do it a lot when I'm fighting with Vicki, too. It's a habit I've been consciously trying to break recently, because sometimes, I read what I write and I'm not even convincing myself. I'm not sure why or when I started to express this self-doubt. Maybe when I was younger, I had my own words used against me a few too many times? See, there it is again... I say maybe in that last sentance because I'm honestly not sure. That's the thing, though... I'm honestly not sure about a lot of things.

I don't want to present the idea that Vicki and I fight a lot (we passed the honeymoon phase long ago, but we also seem beyond the "rocky" phase and firmly into the "practically married" stage), but I wanted to use this as an general example. Guys, I'm sure you've heard your woman throw a hyopthetical role reversal scenario at you, and then give you the classic line, "How would that make you feel?" As often as not, I'd answer that question with an "I don't know." Not because I'm intentionally being difficult. Sure, I can imagine how I'd feel, and usually, I know how she wants me to say I'd feel. Most of the time those are the same thing, but regardless, I'm always hesitant to really commit. Maybe I imagine I'd feel one way, and then when such an event actually came to pass, I'd feel something entirely different. Then my entire world would just come crashing down, you know?

Of course, it's nothing really that severe. Which is why I can't figure out why I can't get rid of this habit. It's funny too, because when it comes to certain things I'm so damned cocky that I get myself into trouble (see: college), but on some of the simplest things, I just can't make a firm decision. I'm apparently afraid to be wrong, even if are no consequences. Hell, even if the consequences for being indecisive are worse than the consequences for being wrong, I still won't come up with a certain answer.

Call the angst department, 'cause this post seems to be going downhill fast. If I write and then erase one more line, I'll just scrap the entire thing (too many posts have met such a fate). So I'm just going to stop here.

EDIT: I randomly decided to look back at earlier blog posts. Turns out I already wrote about this (briefly) in my very first blog post (scroll down), two or so years ago. Worse yet, I said it more cleverly and succinctly then. Good thing I ended where I did. Here's an excerpt:

"Vicki is always on my case about that sort of talk, too. "I suppose", "I guess." Maybe I'm weird, but I'm almost never 100% sure of anything. Even if I'm 99.9% sure of something, I'll say "That sounds right," or "I'm pretty sure." In my mind, there are no absolutes, no black and whites. I often don't even trust my own memory. It's a sort of comfortable uncertainty. Of course, it is difficult for people to trust what you say when you don't completely trust yourself."

There's more passion in this writing. I need to get back on track.

Denied!

I really wanted to be done with this whole "getting fired" thing, but of course, if something looks to good to be true, it probably is. To wit, I guess you don't get unemployment insurance when you're fired. Of course, if you think about it, it kinda makes sense, right? I'll mention that I had grown concerned when I read on the enemployment website that your employment benefits may be "delayed" if you were terminated for reasons other than "lack of work" (laid off). I passed it off -- after all, when I was let go, they specifically handed me this piece of paper and said I'd need to bring it to the unemployment office. Seems they neglected to add "... except, don't bother, because you're not going to get any benefits."

Silly me for resting on my laurels. I'd slacked off a bit on the job search front because, well, for one, I don't like working and also because I wasn't sure if Vicki and I'd be moving soon. Now it seems my bank account will be left hanging a bit longer than expected. D'oh.

Not that I'm just going to leave it at that, mind you. I'm very persuasive when the chips are down, and there are these wonderful little thing called appeals. I wouldn't bother if I didn't have any ammunation in my metaphorical cannon. I did a little research, and it seems that to deny me benefits, it's on Tribune to prove that my "wilful misconduct" vis a vis being late was a "knowing rule violation." That basically means that I understood being late was against policy... and of course, I did. But, there's a few little clauses to consider. It's not considered a "knowing rule violation if":

1) Other employees must have been punished when they broke the same rule or policy (this is the big one)
2) If the rule was considered broken despite all instructions being followed and all work completed

...at least that's how it works in the state of Connecticut (I couldn't find the correct information on New York state, but here's hoping). There's a few more, but those are my key points. There's another one about the rule being "reasonable" that kinda ties in with number 2 above. I believe I've mentioned it before, but my arrival time at work had no impact on my performance there. I'm not sure if I can necessarily prove that, but I don't think they can disprove it, either. Now, the big gun for me is the other clause. I believe I mentioned this, too, but the guy who worked across from me practically worked whatever schedule he wanted -- he was doing it when I arrived, and likely is still doing it today. Hopefully, between the two, I can prove that my termination was unjust.

So, I'm not getting my hopes up or anything... and really, who knows how long it'll be before I have the hearing. That said, I'm ready for battle. The beauty of fighting a corporation is that, if you win, you're David and you've just slain goliath... but if you lose, then you're just another victim of corporate America and you can't feel too bad. I'll keep posting as the situation develops.

Fired, Part Two

I've made a huge mistake. But more on that in a moment.

I forgot to mention in my last post an interesting little tidbit about my firing. It was very... clean. After they told me the news, they asked if I had any personal items that I needed right away. Apparently, they wanted me to come back and clean out my deck after everyone else had left the building. Didn't want to create any "uncomfortable" feelings. I told them I didn't really care... hell, not like I'd ever be seeing these people again, I couldn't care less what they think. After that, they apparently didn't trust me to, y'know, leave, because my manager had to walk me out. And after all that about not creating uncomfortable situations... I can find my own way out, thanks.

But anyway... It's strange. The first week after I lost my job absolutely dragged. It seemed as if I had a million years before I really had to worry about finding a new job. The next two weeks flew by, and now I'm feeling tremendously lazy, since I've done very little to find a new job. I had come up with about 3 opportunities in that first week, so I sorta rested on my laurels, confident one of them would pan out. Turns out, however, that two of them were scams and one of them likely requires more entrepreneurial effort than I'm willing to commit.

So it's back to the drawing board. Problem is, there's not a damn thing that I want to do. Every job that I look at, I can't help but think that I'll do it for about 6 months to a year, get bored as fuck and find myself right back in that slump that I felt at Tribune. There's just nothing compelling out there... at least not something that'd stay compelling for more than a month or two. Even the jobs I'm not even close to qualified for, I just can't imagine doing any of those things for the rest of my life.

You hear your whole life that people are miserable in their jobs. My sister was pissed at me over the whole firing and gave me the line "You know how many days I didn't want to go to work?" Responsibility is something that can't be discounted, but are we really all that fucking miserable? And do none of us care enough? Do we just accept being miserable because there truly are no other options? Call me childish, call me irresponsble, but fuck it, I don't want to live that way.

So, I'll have to just do something about it. Don't have a damn clue what that'd be. I have this bad habit of not finishing projects that I've started. Now that I've got an excess of time, no excuse for that, at least until I find a new job. NB wants to try the D&D Module writing thing again, but I have my doubts. I'm too much of a control freak to collaborate all that well with people who have similarly strong opinions. I do want to get back to podcasting with Tim, but that's not worth much, money-wise. I'm going to be churning out plenty of articles for TCGPlayer in the coming weeks, but they pay a pittance. I've seen some opportunities for paid blogging, but they seem kinda whore-ish. But hey, if the price is right...

That's all the pensive I've got in me for today. More soon.

Fired

Well, I guess I was technically "let go." Seems you've gotta do something really bad to warrant a full-on "firing." Why was I let go? Well, the official notice reads: "Your employment is terminated effective today, October 10, 2006 due to your failure to arrive on time for your shift as outlined in the Last and Final Warning reviewed with you on September 29, 2006."

Allow me to explain. Now, don't get me wrong -- I'm not trying to excuse myself, I'm just trying to explain my reasons for doing what I've done. I believe I was "right" (I use the term loosely) on a fundamental level, but I'm not so haughty as to believe that everyone (or anyone) will agree with me and think I'm not just lazy.

Really, the reason I lost this job isn't so much different from the reason I got booted from college. Despite all the dumb shit I've done, I still think I'm smarter than everyone else. I still think I'm above the rules. The bottom line with Tribune is that whether I arrived for my shift at 1pm, 1:15pm or 2:00pm, it didn't make an ounce of difference to quickness or quality with which my work was completed. Working at Tribune wasn't like most jobs - each person has their own workload that they are responsible for. If I arrive early or late (within a reasonable timeframe, of course, I don't mean like 4 hours late), no one else's workload is affected. It's a pure policy issue. You have to be on time because, "They said so."

The first time they really warned me about being late, they tried to convince me that it somehow affected my relationship with my co-workers. Since I already worked the late shift (1-9:30pm), and everyone else left at around 3:30, arriving late meant I had less time to bond with my co-workers. Please. Forgiving the fact that I have nothing in common with my co-workers -- most them being women in their late 30s, showing up at 1:30 vs. 1pm meant I maybe said another word to them.

This is one of those times when I wonder if something is wrong with me. If a rule is stupid, I won't follow it. Please, don't treat me like a child. Don't bullshit me. Just give me a real reason. At the same time, I know that these things will only end up hurting me in the end. It's not like you can beat the establishment. I'm essentially fighting for a principle that means nothing to anyone but me.

So, I'm not really bitter. Not entirely anyway. I knew I could've put in the effort to save my job. Honestly, I didn't want to. I know everyone has their days, maybe every day, that they just don't want to go to work. I'm not convinced that financial security is worth being miserable. But here's the shady thing, and the part that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Right on the other side of the cubicle wall from me, one of my co-workers literally made his own schedule. He worked 40 hours a week, but pretty much any damn time he wanted from week to week. Similarly, a guy from another department who shared my schedule, and who I drove to work every day was never spoken to for being late. Hell, I got away with being late for damn near a year with barely a word. Not sure why, but something shifted in my department. That bit of bitterness in me hopes that my department -- which was already understaffed -- is hurting without me. My workload was at least 30% larger than it was when I moved to a full-time position. Not to mention my extra training, etc. that most of the new folks don't have. I don't really blame them for getting rid of me, but it seemed like a really bad time to do it, on their part.

Now obviously, I should've been looking for another job when this one got tiresome. Vicki and I are still in the process of making plans to return to western New York, so I was sorta hoping to just ride this one out until the end of the year. Now, I'm not so sure. Vicki seems undecided still, as her job still ties her to this place.

Unbelievably, I make about as much from Unemployment as I did at my job. Well, thanks for the paid vacation, Tribune. More time to chill, more time to hang out with Vicki. More time to write, hopefully. All in all, not a bad turn of events.

Two outta t'ree niggas is ig'nant.

So I was watching Attack of the Show last night, and on their "The Loop" segment the topic was "Has rap music gone to shit?" For those who haven't seen the show or seen it since it's revamp, they basically call in three "experts" on the topic in question and have a brief panel discussion, prompted by questions from the host.

So last night, to discuss the topic at hand, the panel consists of rapper and author Luther Campbell, rapper and Co-CEO of Diplomat Records Jim Jones and Grammy winning producer Kerry 'Krucial' Brothers. What a disaster. It started off reasonably enough, as Campbell pointed to the underground rap community as a sign of the art form's integrity. After that, it pretty much fell apart. Jim Jones, looking high as a fucking kite, looked the part of the walking stereotype. His contributions amounted to the all-too-common "this is all we know" and the just plain ignorant sounding "we're just making money, and that's all anyone's goal is."

Aside from Brothers, the panelists pretty much dodged the core of the issue -- the pervasiveness of the avarice, misogyny and machismo in modern rap -- and harped on the "this is what we know" and "you just don't get it" defenses. To top it off, when host Kevin Pereira referred to Elton John's recent claim that he wanted to make a hip-hop album, it was met with a storm of homophobia (once Jones figured out who Elton John was and that he was, in fact, gay).

Vicki and I had an interesting discussion last night about stereotypes. She made a good point -- in our attempts to be PC, we overlook the fact that stereotypes are too often true. Obviously, not every black man comes off looking as ignorant as Jim Jones, but you gotta admit, a lot of them do. What's funny, is that I'd be terrified to say that if I wasn't half-black, for fear of being called a racist.

I'm not trying to say that judging people by stereotypes is the right thing to do. You've gotta give everyone a fair shake. But honestly, sometimes black people make black people look bad. Or, to steal from Chris Rock, niggas make black people look bad. Unfortunately, the media seems to have at least as many prominent niggas as it does prominent black people, so there's just no way to come out looking clean. You know, Tom Cruise can get away with being a fucking nut-job because 90% of other white people on TV are at least halfway normal. Besides, Tom Cruise is a unique brand of crazy -- gangsta culture is just that: a culture. So, for every Denzel Washington we've got a pair of Wayans brothers (the dumb ones, see: White Chicks, Little Man). For every positive rap troupe like The Roots, we've got a G-Unit. For every intelligent innovator like Kanye West (off-the-cuff GWB comments notwithstanding), there's a Lil' Jon who may evolve music but pushes it in all the wrong directions. And for every working class, just-tryin'-to-get by black man in America, we've got a crackhead locked up behind bars.

So what now? Spoiled suburban white kids relate to the carefree ice-rapper and ghetto kids want to emulate him. Somehow, I doubt that introspection and social movement are gonna appeal to those audiences. Rich kids have no reason to care, and poor kids are too busy trying to get by. Besides, it's like Red says in The Shawshank Redemption: "Hope is a dangerous thing." It seems that MLK's legacy was all dreams but not enough hope... play the lottery much? What, then, do we do? What do we do? I don't have the answers. Just a flaint glimmer of hope.