You know what? Fuck you. I’m so sick of your shit. Every time you open your stupid mouth, you need to stop, seriously consider what you are about to say, then don’t say it, because even if you think it sounds intelligent or funny to you, you’ve proven yourself completly unable to produce a single thought that is either, so do me and anyone else in earshot a favor and just shut your sound-hole. Stop laughing. I’m serious. Nobody likes you or cares about your asinine opinions. Every time you speak I want to shoot myself in the head; not because I want to kill myself (I’d much rather kill you first), but because I’m not totally sure that firing a gun next to my ears will sufficiently damage my eardrums to the point that I can no longer hear you. I’d much rather make sure that the bullet punctures both eardrums (and risk accidentally killing myself) than to take a change that I will have to listen to you finish you’re long, boring, pointless story. You have no redeeming qualities save the fact that you make everyone else seem to possess a Chuck Norris-caliber of awesome when compared to you. It terrifies me that you were produced by the union of two human-beings, that someone like you could potentially happen again, and that you have the slight potential to procreate and spread your genes. The only way I can keep that thought from driving me mad with fear and dread for the human race is to know that no one would ever sleep with you. So shut up, okay? Shut the hell up. Do yourself a favor and silence yourself. Be quiet. Shut your mouth. Stop making noise.
Nah, I’m just kidding. You’re alright.
Shhh,
-Zac
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Of Lasik and Crucibles
I went to the optometrist's the other day so that I might be able to get new tiny plastic disks to shove in my eye. According to the doctor, my cataracts are "ridiculously bad." I'm sure that's a medical term. Despite the fact that neither he, nor his clinic perform Lasik surgery, he strongly recommends the procedure once I turn 25. The idea of being able to roll out of bed in the morning and being able to see more than larger, colorful blurs without having to poke myself in the eye is an exciting prospect, and I understand that the procedure is relatively safe. So I'll let someone shoot a laser in my eye to fix it.
Which leads me to a tangent on interesting contradictions! What the doctors plan to do is shoot my eye with an Excimer laser, which is basically a real-life disintegration ray. The light beam is designed to disrupt the molecular bonds that make up MY FUCKING EYE. So the doctors are going to make my eye better by selectively destroying it on a molecular level. But the idea of destroying something to make it better is not new. Martial artists who practice breaking things with their fists have stronger bones in their hands because when they hit something hard enough, it damages their bones, and when the body repairs that section of bone, it makes the bone denser than it was before, making the fist stronger through damaging it. Nietzsche's truism "what does not kill me makes me stronger" is derived from this notion but applies to psychological trials so that when life gets painful, but we overcome our trials, we become better for having faced them. This positive destruction is often linked with the icon of a crucible, in which metal is melted down so that the imperfections rise to the top. The imperfections are skimmed from the top and the metal is stronger for having undergone the process even though it involved its liquidation. It is an heroic image to think of someone going through some sort of trial as being put into a crucible, so that he or she may come out of it stronger than before, as if they have transcended somehow into something greater that what that person was before. But I'm not sure that I really like the idea of my eye being dropped into a bowl of molten metal.
Coo Coo Kachoo mother fucker,
Zac
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Of This Blog
I have chosen to abandon any pretense in doing something particular with this blog. Until this point, most of what I have done has been forced, which doesn't help me find my voice. So now I'm looking into doing something more experimental.
So here I will write. I will update when I feel like and not before or after, and I will write what I want. Patters I start with may shift to create patters all of their own. This should be an exercise in allowing chaos to create order. I hope you enjoy such contradictions, because I do, and I'll play with them at length. For example: we will see, I imagine, the paradoxical relationship that Shakespeare shows us, between the foolish and the wise. If I sit here and try to spout wisdom, I will look the fool, but if I write in jest, I may unintentionally impart a measure of wisdom. Thus the Philosopher is made the fool and the Clown is made wise. The question I ask now is if I act foolish so that I may impart wisdom, am I the Fool or the Philosopher?
You may also notice many grandiose statements that mean nothing. Or are they throw-away statements that mean everything?
Coo Coo Kachoo mother fucker,
Zac
Monday, April 6, 2009
On the lack of updates
I hope someone has noticed that this blog hasn't been updated for the better part of a month. I'm sorry about that, but school has become very pressing recently, and I have not been able to devote as much attention to this as I should be. I will resume posts after I graduate in early May.
Thank you for your patience and your attention.
-Zac
Thank you for your patience and your attention.
-Zac
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Neverwinter Nights 2: I...Can't...Stop...Playing!
I've been playing Neverwinter Nights 2 recently. I was looking for a D&D video game that actually has a combat system like D&D. Who would have thought that that would be so fucking hard? At this point, I'm reasonably certain that no such game exists, but Neverwinter Nights 2 comes pretty damn close. I'm not saying that I'm satisfied, but for some reason I can't stop playing it!
Anyone who has ever played D&D 3.5 will immediately recognize the classes, races, skills, weapons, spells, etc... which is really cool. It allows for some really great customization, and the player can even select alignment and background benefits. There is even a space where the player can write the character's backstory which will be completely ignored because you were born in West Harbor and were raised by an elven step-father and led an uninteresting life until the game starts.
The combat system has one major flaw: It isn't turn-based. When I play D&D, I have as long as I need to figure out what I want to do in my turn and how I want to go about doing it. I also can direct my character's steps so that I can move him without taking eight attacks of opportunity from every fucking enemy on the board. The game may not be turn-based, but you can pause it with the space-bar to issue commands to the player-character and the party-members. This works okay for fighting characters like Fighters, Barbarians, and Rangers, but it sucks entire crates of cock for casters who have to pause the combat every turn to cast a spell. This feels very jarring and aggravating, but if the whole combat system were simply turn-based in the first place, it wouldn't make the player feel as if he or she were slowing the whole system down. It makes me wonder why. Why the fuck would they do that? Did one of the designers take a D&D book, and say: “Hey, let's make this a videogame, and keep everything except this major gameplay mechanic that works perfectly well.” That's what happened, didn't it, Obsidian. It's great that you hire the mentally handicapped, but you shouldn't let them make the decisions from now on, okay?
The story works fairly well. You have, in your possession, a powerful artifact that very bad people want desperately: go. It's overdone, but there's a reason for that: it works well. This gives the player a reason to do stuff, and it gives him/her a powerful artifact that does cool shit, what's not to like? The only problem I have is that of the alignment system. RPGs encourage the player to come up with a personality to imbue in the character that is being played. That personality comes out in the decisions they player makes in game and especially through dialogue. Naturally, it is impossible to cover any type of personality that the player may come up with in only a few dialogue options, so I'm willing to cut most games some slack, but Neverwinder Nights 2 pushes my limits. One of the characters that I tried to play was a fighter that thought ruling the world should be his birthright. I labeled him Lawful Evil, meaning that he follows the law and ruins people anyway (like a lawyer). I imagined that this character would be a charismatically evil person, one that many people like, even while he is ruining their lives (like a lawyer). Unfortunately, I can't play a likable fiend because all the evil dialogue options are more assholey than evil. So I can't be a forked-tongued charmer, because apparently no everyone has to be overtly evil.
The action choices need work too. There comes a point where the player must choose one of two organizations to advance the plot. The player will stay in these organizations quite a bit of time and spend several hours completing quest on their behest. These organizations are the City Watch (Lawful Good) or a crime ring (Chaotic Evil). The two characters I created are Lawful Evil and Chaotic Good (think: Robin Hood). Neither group makes sense for either character, yet those are the only options available to me.
Despite these seemingly massive problems in the game, I still found myself playing it for hours on end and really enjoying the gameplay. Neverwinter Nights 2 grasps the most important aspects of gameplay in D&D and implements them perfectly: Leveling up and looting. I will play for a long time looking for the next level so I can take that awesome feat or even take the first level of my prestige class, and so that I can get a shiny new sword that flashes with pretty lightning when I disembowel something. These aspects are done so well, that I can ignore the hiccups to a degree.
Then there is the user-created content. Neverwinter Nights 2 does this better than most. With the in-game tools, a player has everything he or she needs to create a D&D campaign of any length. The player can even write the dialogue for the NPCs and the PC options. In this way, the player can create a game that can be played by other players, but it would probably be faster, more fun a hell of a lot easier to modify for player preference to just create a D&D campaign and play it tabletop.
Now I'm gonna go play The Last Remnant,
Zac.
Anyone who has ever played D&D 3.5 will immediately recognize the classes, races, skills, weapons, spells, etc... which is really cool. It allows for some really great customization, and the player can even select alignment and background benefits. There is even a space where the player can write the character's backstory which will be completely ignored because you were born in West Harbor and were raised by an elven step-father and led an uninteresting life until the game starts.
The combat system has one major flaw: It isn't turn-based. When I play D&D, I have as long as I need to figure out what I want to do in my turn and how I want to go about doing it. I also can direct my character's steps so that I can move him without taking eight attacks of opportunity from every fucking enemy on the board. The game may not be turn-based, but you can pause it with the space-bar to issue commands to the player-character and the party-members. This works okay for fighting characters like Fighters, Barbarians, and Rangers, but it sucks entire crates of cock for casters who have to pause the combat every turn to cast a spell. This feels very jarring and aggravating, but if the whole combat system were simply turn-based in the first place, it wouldn't make the player feel as if he or she were slowing the whole system down. It makes me wonder why. Why the fuck would they do that? Did one of the designers take a D&D book, and say: “Hey, let's make this a videogame, and keep everything except this major gameplay mechanic that works perfectly well.” That's what happened, didn't it, Obsidian. It's great that you hire the mentally handicapped, but you shouldn't let them make the decisions from now on, okay?
The story works fairly well. You have, in your possession, a powerful artifact that very bad people want desperately: go. It's overdone, but there's a reason for that: it works well. This gives the player a reason to do stuff, and it gives him/her a powerful artifact that does cool shit, what's not to like? The only problem I have is that of the alignment system. RPGs encourage the player to come up with a personality to imbue in the character that is being played. That personality comes out in the decisions they player makes in game and especially through dialogue. Naturally, it is impossible to cover any type of personality that the player may come up with in only a few dialogue options, so I'm willing to cut most games some slack, but Neverwinder Nights 2 pushes my limits. One of the characters that I tried to play was a fighter that thought ruling the world should be his birthright. I labeled him Lawful Evil, meaning that he follows the law and ruins people anyway (like a lawyer). I imagined that this character would be a charismatically evil person, one that many people like, even while he is ruining their lives (like a lawyer). Unfortunately, I can't play a likable fiend because all the evil dialogue options are more assholey than evil. So I can't be a forked-tongued charmer, because apparently no everyone has to be overtly evil.
The action choices need work too. There comes a point where the player must choose one of two organizations to advance the plot. The player will stay in these organizations quite a bit of time and spend several hours completing quest on their behest. These organizations are the City Watch (Lawful Good) or a crime ring (Chaotic Evil). The two characters I created are Lawful Evil and Chaotic Good (think: Robin Hood). Neither group makes sense for either character, yet those are the only options available to me.
Despite these seemingly massive problems in the game, I still found myself playing it for hours on end and really enjoying the gameplay. Neverwinter Nights 2 grasps the most important aspects of gameplay in D&D and implements them perfectly: Leveling up and looting. I will play for a long time looking for the next level so I can take that awesome feat or even take the first level of my prestige class, and so that I can get a shiny new sword that flashes with pretty lightning when I disembowel something. These aspects are done so well, that I can ignore the hiccups to a degree.
Then there is the user-created content. Neverwinter Nights 2 does this better than most. With the in-game tools, a player has everything he or she needs to create a D&D campaign of any length. The player can even write the dialogue for the NPCs and the PC options. In this way, the player can create a game that can be played by other players, but it would probably be faster, more fun a hell of a lot easier to modify for player preference to just create a D&D campaign and play it tabletop.
Now I'm gonna go play The Last Remnant,
Zac.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Fuck off, Open Office
I had a very well-worded (but probably a bit boring) post on why Nintendo may have made a good choice in not sending enough Wiis to America, but as I was saving it, Open Office closed for NO GODDAMN REASON thereby wasting more time than I really want to mention here. If I can find a way to blame this on a person, murder will directly ensue, and be assured: it will be slow and painful.
Anyway, here's the nutshell: Nintendo didn't saturate the market with Wiis when they were first released, so they now sell steadily and Nintendo never had to drop the price for its console like Microsoft and Sony had to do for theirs.
I'm so pissed off right now that I can't even come up with a colorful way to tell you how pissed off I am,
Zac
Anyway, here's the nutshell: Nintendo didn't saturate the market with Wiis when they were first released, so they now sell steadily and Nintendo never had to drop the price for its console like Microsoft and Sony had to do for theirs.
I'm so pissed off right now that I can't even come up with a colorful way to tell you how pissed off I am,
Zac
Sunday, February 22, 2009
An Observation on Authorization
I saw, today, that a book has been released recently by an author that I know to be (for lack of a more sensitive term) a hack. He is not a very popular writer, and I'm not going to release his name here because that feels, somehow, tacky and this person's identity isn't actually the point of this blog entry.
I have read several examples of this author's work over several years and was unimpressed even before I began studying literature from the perspective of a writer. I have noticed consistent mistakes on the author's part to which I was once unable to give words. Now, though, I have the training and the experience to no exactly what was wrong with this author's work and why it doesn't work. The mistakes that this author makes in the works that I have seen are, frankly, amateur.
I realize how pompous this sounds, but please bear with me for two reasons. One: I plan on explaining myself in a moment, and two: some people get to earn fat wads of cash for the knowledge they attain with their degrees, but all I get is this, so don't take it from me.
Experienced writers use certain guidelines in their works. These guidelines change depending on the type of fiction being written (i.e. short story or novel) and by the genre (i.e. fantasy or western). These guidelines serve as a basis for how the story should go, but they are violated often by authors so that they can tell a better story. These violations of conventions are conscious decisions on the part of the author to deviate from what is proven to work for a particular type of story so that this particular story can work and benefit from the change it represents. This typically results in a strong piece of fiction that it would had the author simply stuck to some sort of formula.
The hack author in question violates certain typical rules, which would be okay, but his story suffers for it. This author seems to violate these guidelines not out of a conscious decision, but because he doesn't realize that they are there. This makes him look like an amateur.
Today, I can look at a piece of work by this author and pick out the specific details of why the work isn't good, but even before I started attending college, where I was trained to look for these things, I could look that this person's work and tell that it was not good writing, yet on the back cover of his book, there is a small blurb that tells me a little about this author. One of the things that it said was that he lives off of his writing. As a perspective author, I find this very comforting.
Maybe I'll be able to eat once I graduate from college after all,
Zac
I have read several examples of this author's work over several years and was unimpressed even before I began studying literature from the perspective of a writer. I have noticed consistent mistakes on the author's part to which I was once unable to give words. Now, though, I have the training and the experience to no exactly what was wrong with this author's work and why it doesn't work. The mistakes that this author makes in the works that I have seen are, frankly, amateur.
I realize how pompous this sounds, but please bear with me for two reasons. One: I plan on explaining myself in a moment, and two: some people get to earn fat wads of cash for the knowledge they attain with their degrees, but all I get is this, so don't take it from me.
Experienced writers use certain guidelines in their works. These guidelines change depending on the type of fiction being written (i.e. short story or novel) and by the genre (i.e. fantasy or western). These guidelines serve as a basis for how the story should go, but they are violated often by authors so that they can tell a better story. These violations of conventions are conscious decisions on the part of the author to deviate from what is proven to work for a particular type of story so that this particular story can work and benefit from the change it represents. This typically results in a strong piece of fiction that it would had the author simply stuck to some sort of formula.
The hack author in question violates certain typical rules, which would be okay, but his story suffers for it. This author seems to violate these guidelines not out of a conscious decision, but because he doesn't realize that they are there. This makes him look like an amateur.
Today, I can look at a piece of work by this author and pick out the specific details of why the work isn't good, but even before I started attending college, where I was trained to look for these things, I could look that this person's work and tell that it was not good writing, yet on the back cover of his book, there is a small blurb that tells me a little about this author. One of the things that it said was that he lives off of his writing. As a perspective author, I find this very comforting.
Maybe I'll be able to eat once I graduate from college after all,
Zac
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