This semester in review

I’ve come to notice that around the end of each semester, lots of people like to review their semester; much like a food critic would review a restaurant and their food. These people usually have had excellent experiences in that semester; maybe they obtained a new girlfriend/boyfriend, maybe they made all As, maybe they accomplished something with an extra-curricular club they’re apart of, or maybe they learned how to not suck at school! All of these are valid reasons to celebrate, and they all make for a very tasty semester. Just sprinkle some garlic and oregano, leave to simmer for a few minutes, and you have a semester that’s ready for the menu that ANY food critic would be lucky to taste!  

I, however, had a relatively lackluster semester, and will therefore be talking about video games! Again. Sorry.

Over the past year or so, I’ve started to notice a shift in my interests. If someone were to ask me what I was interested in around the time I graduated high school, I would’ve probably said drumming, music, video games, and drum corps. Nowadays, the interest in video games has gotten much stronger, and the interest in drum corps has decreased. I can’t say that I’m pleased with that, but if I’m being honest with myself, that’s where it all is. I could blame any number of factors, but in reality, we feed our interests through our daily actions, and this semester I didn’t do much except homework, studying, and video games. Kinda lame, I know.

However as a result of this shift, I noticed something about my video game choices that’s made me notice something about myself, and something about the state of video gaming today in general: I appreciate a good story over most other things. My favorite games at the moment include games such as Bioshock, Bioshock: Infinite, The Walking Dead, and Silent Hill 2. However when I say my favorite games, I don’t really mean games that I play every day, but instead I mean games that I find myself thinking about often, because they have extremely interesting stories.

Bioshock contains lots of themes of objectivism, elitism, whether we control our own fate or not, and even some conniving commentary about video games themselves. Bioshock: Infinite deals with themes of cognitive dissonance, denial, extreme guilt, and racism. The Walking Dead and Silent hill 2 are both heart-breaking stories about loss, grief, and in the case of Silent Hill 2, the question of whether one is really capable of lying to themselves or not.

It's also got this nice gentleman.

All of these games contain some amazing moments that really stick in my mind even after I’ve seen them, and yet none of them really relate to the gameplay (except for some instances in The Walking Dead). Why? If the memorable parts of a game to me don’t involve gameplay itself, why even play a game? I might as well watch a movie or read a book, right?

Well, the cool thing about video games is that if they’re good at immersion, then the experience can be greater than that of a movie or a book sometimes. This is especially true in the case of The Walking Dead, where you yourself are making all the choices within the game, and therefore feel like you have a stake in all of the madness as well. If you let yourself, you were able to feel like you were Lee, and you were fully responsible for taking care of Clementine, who is easily one of the most likeable characters ever created in any video game.

She could've turned Hitler into father of the year.

Therefore, good video game writing (in my opinion) hinges on a few things. The biggest, is the availability of player-made decisions. This is one of the major things that video games can do which movies and books cannot, and needs to be used more often (though in a way that matters and which impacts the story or the characters, unlike with the Mass Effect series). Two, is creating well-designed, effective characters. Too many games I’ve played have had an abundance of highly forgettable characters, walking stereotypes, and one-dimensional personalities. The cocky soldier, the maiden who despises violence, the weird kid who day dreams all the time (looking at you, Zelda games), and the generic asshole; these are some of the most common characters I’ve come across in the games I’ve played, and holy shit are they boring. They might as well be cardboard cutouts! The games I previously mentioned do characters right, in addition to The Witcher series, the Mass Effect series, and Red Dead Redemption, among others I’m probably forgetting.

The last thing writers can do to make a video game’s story worth caring about is just that: write a story that will intrigue people. I love pokemon to death, but save for the last 2 games, the stories might as well be non-existent.  I really couldn’t care less about the story in pokemon games, and what I loved about the most recent games is that they actually made an effort to produce a story that was interesting. In too many games, the story is an after-thought, which is sad to me. My fondest memories of video games that I’ve enjoyed have mostly all been plot-based, so it’s hard for me to get attached to a game whose writers obviously didn’t try very hard. Write better stories people! The effort will show, and your game will be better remembered for it.

Don't get me started on this game, because I will never stop.

Now, all of this isn’t to say that game developers should throw gameplay out of the window in favor of plot, far from it actually. Essentially, I just want more well-rounded games. Is it such a bad thing to want games that are fun to play AND have characters that I care about? Maybe a plot twist or some lore? No, it’s not. It’s not too much to ask for. So do it guys.  

Joaquin the Marble Kid, Part 2

As the tournament officials wrapped up the first round, a rather monstrous, mangled-looking man waddled in Joaquin’s direction. When he arrived in front of Joaquin about 3 minutes later, he told the boy something that he would never forget, perhaps for the wrong reasons.

“Now listen here ya dirt-sniffer, I don’t care how much guts ya think ya got, it’s how many guts ya can put forth on that there marbles table. Ya comprend?” Joaquin took a minute to try to understand exactly what the hell the old guy was trying to say, and gave up after running the sentence through his head about ten times.

“So I don’t know how that sounded in your head, but it made no sense, at all. I’m pretty good with words, and I know for a fact that the mangled mess of letters that just came out of your mouth wouldn’t have made sense to a schizophrenic guy. Wanna try again?”

The man looked at him, somewhat surprised by the kid’s fighting spirit. “Just…be ready. Asshole-punk.” He waddled away, taking roughly 3 minutes to return to his group of veteran friends.

Joaquin paid him no mind; as intimidating as the man seemed, he knew that marbles was not a game of physicality, but rather one of wit, and marble size. Besides, he was fairly confident that his prior strategy of triggering PTSD flashbacks would stay faithful through him throughout the tournament. There was nothing to worry about, the plucky adolescent concluded.

“Contestants ‘Joaquin’ and ‘Georgio the Goblin’, please make your way to the marbles table for round two!”

“Georgio the Goblin…an interesting name. Wonder how he got it.”, Joaquin mumbled to himself. “Maybe he plays World of Warcraft, I hear there’s goblins in that game. Sometimes.” He kept these thoughts to himself as he walked towards the table, curious and ready to face his new opponent.

If the name “Georgio the Goblin” evoked any images for Joaquin, then every single one of them was wrong. The man who stood before Joaquin resembled not a single image that Joaquin would have imagined. What was in front of him instead, was a relatively small person, roughly 5’4, slim physique with short curly black hair and a thin goatee. On his head was a sweat band that looked to have not seen any action whatsoever. He wore a t-shirt with the sides cut off, and on the t-shirt read the words “Ain’t gonna get none till you work son”, clearly meant to intimidate the larger members of the pack.

Georgio calmly stepped towards Joaquin until they could smell each other’s breaths. The man opened his mouth, and almost inaudibly, three words came out: “You don’t win.” In response, Joaquin whispered at a similar volume, “Why do you and your friends have such a problem with the English language?” In lieu of a come-back, Georgio took his place at the marbles table, and Joaquin followed suit.

They both chose their marbles methodically, attempting to seem as if they cared very much which marbles to use for this round (they didn’t). Finally, once all the marbles were set up, the tournament official took his place in front of the arena.

“Are both contestants ready?” The responding “Yes” was unanimous. “We will now flip a coin to determine who will go first. Georgio will call.” The coin flipped, and Georgio called heads, only to have his call favored.

“This might not be good…”, Joaquin decided. “The first strike in a marbles game can easily determine the victor depending on how good the player doing the striking is…I better be ready.”

Joaquin glanced at Georgio, and a smug smile rested the man’s lips. 

Joaquin the Marble Kid, Part 1

Joaquin was the odd sort of fellow. He was a 16 year old from a poor Korean family, with an earring and bleached hair, thus immediately signaling to everyone that he was a huge douche but woah hold up there! The kid had a little more to his nature. His favorite song was Chopin’s Nocturne in Eb, and his favorite artist was Georgia O’Keefe (“yes, they look like vaginas hahahahaha Joaquin that’s SO FUNNY”), and his preferred book was Ender’s Game, because who doesn’t love plot twists? The defining feature of this young boy however, was his proficiency in not only History, but in the game of marbles.

In fact, Joaquin was so good at these two things that he could easily win any game of marbles by spouting facts about the American Civil War during the match, thus distracting his opponent and allowing Joaquin to throw his biggest marble at their eye, incapacitating them and letting Joaquin steal all the marbles on the field. A winning strategy to be sure; so much so, that his friends and acquaintances were constantly badgering him to participate in a regional marbles tournament. Since the boy didn’t have much else to do , he decided to enter the tournament. In his mind, not only would he be able to win the prize ruby marble, but also teach some ignorant people a good amount of history! “God everyone except me is so ignorant” thought Joaquin (and every other 16 year old) every day. This was his chance! This was his opportunity to seize the Golden Fleece! Then probably go back to smoking weed and watching Netflix every day afterwards.

The day of the event, Joaquin arrived early to scout out his opponents in order to determine who would be the biggest threat, kind of like a jaguar would if it decided to steal food from a pride of lions (a horrible idea). One by one the opponents filed in, each one seemingly looking meaner than the last. There were eye patches, scars, suggestive tattoos, and buzzed haircuts everywhere Joaquin looked…as confident as he was in his abilities, he knew one thing for sure: these guys were veterans. Korean War veterans to be exact, as they all probably carpooled and all looked to be around the same age.  Maybe they even went to Denny’s beforehand and all got a Grand slam to celebrate their anticipated victories? “Probably”, Joaqin thought; that’s a pretty old guy thing to do.

Eventually it was time for Joaquin to meet his first opponent. His name was Tyrone; “Twistie Tie Tyrone” to be exact, as that was his name given to him during the war, because of his ability to consistently untie ANY twisty tie every single time without any problems. “Damn impressive” thought Joaqin to himself, “but in a game of marbles, you’re gonna need more than that, old guy.” Tyrone gave Joaquin a pensive look that suggested just by looking at his bleached hair and Ed Hardy Jacket, he already knew everything about the kid that there was to know. He was probably right, Joaquin knew, but what Tyrone didn’t know was that you can’t prepare for history facts during a game of marbles. Oh, how Joaquin intended to deliver.

As the announcer started the match, and Joaquin lined up his first shot, he announced “The Korean War started on June 25^th, 1950. Over 2.5 million South and North Korean civilians were killed during the course of the war”. The marble flew at Tyrone, but he gave no reaction, instead letting the marble hit him square in the face. His eyes had glazed over, and he had begun trembling, clearly going through some form of PTSD flashback. Quickly, Tyrone’s veteran friends came and took him away to sit down and recover, giving Joaquin some choice words in the process, such as “Juvenile prick”, and “Bitchy McDickface”. Joaquin won the match by default, thus proving that jerks can succeed in the right conditions. However, the results of the rest of the tournament have yet to be seen! 

So you're a Superbowl

Apparently the Super Bowl's on Sunday, which I didn’t really know untill about three days ago. I don’t know who’s playing who, but I’m sure the commercials will be entertaining? Every year I always try to make an effort to watch the commercials, but I honestly just can’t stay focused. American advertising is about as convincing as a clown scientist anyway, which I already know, but I always like to give the benefit of the doubt and assume they put out better stuff each year. Which they don’t!

But commercials and crushing disappointment aside, I hope the teams make lots of touchdowns and please their respective homelands and stuff, and if no one was killed, that’d be pretty cool too. I figured that in the spirit of football (I didn’t even know those words were in my vocabulary!), I’d explain football to various interest groups who normally wouldn’t know what football is. It seems like it should be our American duty to expose football to those less fortunate, right? Should be fun! Also, if the content of this article doesn’t please or humor you, you can always 1) punch a porcupine, or 2) Let me know! ONWARD STALLIONS

Toddlers:

So you’re 4 years old! You know when your dad ignores you for hours at a time because he’s sitting in front of the flashy screen? When he does that, he’s watching football! You see, in order to play football, you have to be big and strong, but it’s different than the big and strong your parents tell you you’ll be when they try to get you to eat vegetables. No, to get this big and strong, you have to inhale LOTS of meat and LOTS of steroids! What are steroids you ask?

Steroids are special, magical things you can inject into your body to rapidly make you big and strong! Usually, you have to inject them using a shot, which-yeah, ok, I get it, you don’t like shots. Please stop crying. Seriously, I’m not your parents, I don’t know what the hell to do. Go fetch? Shit. Uhhh...candy! Ok, now we can continue. 

Finding this image may have put me on several lists.

So anyway, in football, the teams try to get a ball to their side of the field, and if they do  so without the other team stopping them, they get a touchdown! Whooooo touchdown YEAH What? You want me to stop yelling so you can play with your legos? Yeah ok, sorry for trying to teach you. By the way, leaving those legos out on the floor at night makes dad really happy!

Aliens:

So you’re from the Saturn’s sixth moon, Enceladus! Welcome to Earth, I hope you enjoy your stay and that you enjoy many of our entertainment offers, including FOOTBALL AWW YEAH! What’s football you ask?

Well first off, please observe my fleshy form, if you will. If you can believe it, I am not the biggest or well-defined individual of my species. Hard to swallow, I know, but it’s true. Human males who are much bigger and have much more muscles than I do all join various factions and, for months at a time, do their best to get a ball from one side of a field to another. They stop the other team from doing so by throwing their bodies into the each other, and sometimes injuries happen, but our species can’t get enough of it!

Why? Well I don’t know, we all like to align ourselves with the various teams and pretend that we’re part of something bigger than we are or something like that, don’t judge us. I doubt what you do on your planet for entertainment is much better...you write philosophical books and create new planets for those who have none? Aren’t you special. Let us tackle each other and throw a ball around, you go back to your saving each other crap ok? Klaatu barada nikto, bitch.

Penguins

So you’re a penguin! Yes you are! WHO’S A WITTLE PENGUIN WITH WITTLE FEETS AND WINGS? YOU ARE! YES YOU ARE! 

There's never a bad time to talk about penguins.

What’s that? You wanna know what us humans like to do the most? Well the answer to that, little buddy who's now my best friend, is a big thing called football. We take some of our biggest, scariest guys and pit them against each other in a game of brutality, honor, and possibly repressed-homosexuality (depending on who you ask). They take a ball roughly the size of your baby chick, and throw it at each other and try to get it to the other side of the field the most times! It’s a journey from one side of the field to the other, kind of like when you travel for 2 weeks to retrieve food for your baby! Except, well, our players are really well fed and don’t have to worry about them or their kids starving to death...but the long journey part is still the same! Kinda!

Europeans

AMERICA BITCH! Oh I’m sorry, what’s that? You DO have football? No you don’t. Haha. I’m sure you all are so happy and content with your little round-ball-ass, kicking-only football, but over in America (where we have real men), we like to plow into each other, like actual men did in the 40s.

I actually feel sorry for all of you on the other side of the lake, I really do. You’ll never really get what it’s like to eat a hotdog that’s the size of your forearm as you watch a man that may or may not be able to pass for a laboratory experiment throw a ball across the distance of two school buses. You can make all the scientific advances all you want, but that will always be a purely American feeling! NUMBER ONE COUNTRY YOU BUNCH OF BETAS WHOOOOOO MERCA

Sorry that you can't take the immense lack of size our government has.

Why we need to elect a penguin as president in 2016

Upon having a political conversation with my mom, I came to a realization: People don’t like politicians. I wasn’t aware of this! Is there anyone reading this who was? Why didn’t you tell me?! Until now I lived my life thinking that people were happy with whom they elected to office, and that concept’s been completely shredded now.

Why aren’t we trying to solve this? If this is something that’s been going on for a long time then I’m very sad, because guess how long it took me to think of a solution? About 10 minutes. Ten whole minutes is all it took for me to solve this issue, and I did it all by myself. What do we do?

It’s obvious! We just elect someone who’s more likeable. A simple concept, yes, but I think that it will work. The only question though, is “What do people like SO MUCH that they will elect them over a real politician?”. And the answer, is this cool dude right here. 

AH'M PROUD TO BE AN 'MURICAN

Since I know at least 20 of you reading this are currently face-palming in jealousy, let me just say that it was obvious, and that anyone who applied themselves to the subject for at least 2 minutes would also think of this! I was just the first to do so. I’m not sorry. However, since our culture dictates that we have to support our claims with evidence, no matter how genius those claims may be (in my case, super genius level claims). Therefore, I’ll give 3 good reasons why a penguin should be elected president of the United States in 2016.

1. Patriotism and morale would be off the charts

Has anyone ever been around a penguin and been sad? I think it’s impossible. They are the best animals in existence, hands down. Everything about a penguin is engineered to induce the maximum amount of happiness, awe, and “awww”. Let’s break that down a little further!

A penguin’s waddle is un-arguably the funniest way to get anywhere, so much so that we emulate penguins when we try to be funny (don’t deny it. I know who you all are), and we hold the waddle above all other forms of transportation. Or, I do at least. If you aren’t waddling at least once a day then you’re really missing out, seriously this stuff is fun. Furthermore, have you ever heard what sounds a penguin makes?! It purrs. It purrs! Yes, pretty much just like a cat, and it’s two times more cute. Personally, I don’t see why penguins are more accepted as domestic pets, I’m sure they’d get along with children better than any other pet out there. 

That seal represents every other country in the world.

Now, the point of all this cuteness, is that I’m sure the American people would be PROUD to serve a penguin. People love to know that the person they’re working for is a person who has widespread appeal, and nothing has more widespread appeal than a damn penguin. Even the most terrorist-y of terrorists can’t argue that a penguin would win them over. They can’t! If a penguin asked you to do something, you can be sure that you’d do it, and you’d do it well, because you’d rather lose to the communists than disappoint that penguin. That’s the kind of dedication and loyalty that this country needs to come together and prosper in this day and age.

2. Race and party relations would be at an all time high

Another great thing about having a penguin president would be the subtle symbolic importance that a penguin would bring with it. What colors are on a penguin? Black and white. The two opposite colors, yin and yang. To have a president that embodies the two opposites of the world would do a lot of good for our country right now, it would enable black and white people to look and say “Hmm. Our president is both black AND white...clearly we can all get along. What an adorably inspiring president, YES YOU ARE! YES YOU ARE!” and then all race relation problems would forever be solved. Nevermore would the question of “Why is it ok for me to like fried chicken?”, or “Why do I enjoy dancing like a flamingo having a seizure?” pass our minds, because we’d understand that, with the grace of our president penguin, all these things are accepted.

Republicans and Democrats would be able to look at this disparity in color schemes and realize that they’re not so different after all. President Penguin just wants what’s best for America, and he’s not gonna let his color contrasts get in his way, therefore neither should the political parties. They’re gonna look at him and say “Hmm. Our president is both black AND white...obviously we’re not so different after all! COME HERE YOU ADORABLE REPUBLICAN YOU”, and then all the bills would pass. All because we’d have a president who represents what happens when two opposites come together: you get cuteness incarnate. 

It's just so damn American. 

With these things in mind, it’s obvious that a penguin would help bring this country together in a way that no human could ever do. If a person could say “Well, I don’t like you, but we live under the same penguin president, so I’ll help you out!”, then I think that’s a giant step forward for this divided country we currently live in. Think about it America.

3. Productivity would be crazy, no more crappy economy guys

Now, the question I know you’re all asking yourselves at this point is “Well, I know that a penguin would tremendously help the US, and you’re probably right that it’d be our best choice right now, but I still have to ask...how would he fix the economy?” I’m gonna goddamn tell you how, just watch this video. I hope you’re ready for this. 

See that? Penguins love their kid so much that they travel, hunt, and travel back in the course of 2 weeks, all to feed their little baby penguin. The penguin who starred in this video in particular! He got bitten and almost eaten by a damn seal, but managed to wit his way out, belly-slide all the way back to the colony, find his little kid, and feed him/her the meal that he worked so hard to get.

That’s basically the embodiment of America right there. We are a nation full of people who work hard every single day, making sacrifices, so that they can come home and have food to feed their children. Even if they get in a car wreck, or almost get eaten by a seal, our people can’t give up; they must endure, for the sake of the future of the country. The lazy among us would look at our magnificent avian president, and realize how selfish they're being through their laziness, and thus would get a job pronto. Because of these parallels in work ethic, it’s no doubt that a penguin is the most American animal in existence, and thus should be elected as our president.

All in all-you know what? I don’t even need to summarize this. With all things considered, you know what you have to do America. It’s our best option. 

Accept your new leader.

ELECT PENGUIN 2016

If you would, please.

If you would please, just for a second, imagine yourself in a concert hall.

Imagine the shuffling of well-groomed shoes as the orchestra members make their way onto stage, filing into line as the chairs become filled. The hall starts to fill up with white noise as the brass players begin to blow warm air into their instruments, preparing themselves for the performance that is to come. Then the percussionists enter, putting themselves behind their respective instruments, their faces full of confidence and purpose. You notice the conductor off to the side of the stage, his eyes closed...praying? Relaxing? It’s hard to tell, but by the next time you blink he walks to the center of the stage and bows. His bow is a practiced one, one that betrays the youthful shine of his meticulously groomed hair. As he turns his back to the audience and raises his conductor’s baton to begin the experience, you start to wonder to yourself...

How did I get here?

Did you even drive to the concert? It’s all kind of cloudy in your head. Trying to find the way you got here is becoming more and more like trying to find a piece of foreign hair inside a jar of peanut butter, because that’s just how paranoid you are (Trust me, it’s there). Maybe someone drove you there, because you certainly don’t own a car, not since the accident.

It was as if an occult hand had picked you up and dropped you into this orchestra performance (which by the way, they’re in the middle of Beethoven's 9th and you are NOT disappointed). You consider getting up and walking out of the concert to figure out exactly where you are, but the stares of the other concert-goers quickly bomb that idea out of your head. The look in their eyes gives you feelings of alienation and anxiety...why is there so much hate? Upon looking around, you realize that these stares are shared by everyone else in the room, and immediately you become very self-conscious. Your hands start shaking enough to generate heat to warm a small family of anthropomorphic mice for the winter. Your sweat glands become more productive than a college student during the four hours before an exam. Is this an anxiety attack? No, you recognize these feelings...you’ve been in this situation before.

As your breathing catches up to your sympathetic nervous system, you manage to take control of your body. You slow your breathing down and manage to control the loud shaking of your hands, and as this process happens, you slowly start to put the pieces together:

1. You have no recollection of arriving at this concert.
2. The other concert goers share a large amount of contempt for your presence.
3. Despite everything, you highly enjoy the music being played.

And then all the memories come rushing back to you as you realize what happened...you look down to examine yourself, and find that you’re wearing a Stravinsky shirt. At a concert featuring the works of Beethoven.

Furthermore, you don’t remember getting into this situation because you had gotten mugged and given a dose of Rohypnol by a gang of music composition majors, up to no good. Their plan was to ambush you, drug you, dress you in Stravinsky attire, and drop you off in a Beethoven concert, in order to put you in the most uncomfortable situation possible.

Those bitch sacks.

To the citizens of my neighborhood:

I address my fellow citizens of Generic Neighborhood Estates in hopes of coming to a reconciliation. I’m of the understanding that we are all mature, responsible, well-off adults (of the favored ethnicity and religion of course), therefore I’m sure we can all come to an understanding regarding the incident that happened last week. As long as no authorities have been contacted, then I believe that there’s still hope in maintaining this Stockholm-syndrome esque relationship I share with all of you!

Now at this point, some of you may be wondering: what incident could this frighteningly good-looking man be talking about? “I experienced no such incident last week, all I heard was the melodious and beautiful sounds of a musician on their drum”, to which I say to you: you are a saint. I hope that your Christmas is filled with hookers, cocaine, and rave music (assuming you’re into that. If you’re not into those things, why not?). I hope that your children become the next George Clooneys/Betty Whites of the world, and that I have the privilege of being their loyal servant one day. I hope this all happens to you amazing people, who had no problems with me making beautiful music last week. You may stop reading now. I love all of you. Call me.

It’s at this point in my letter when I address the rest of you sacks of bitch.

Of course, I’m referring to those of you who did not appreciate what I had to offer our small community. It’s been proven in many, many studies that the sounds of music can only enhance the quality of living in any population of people, and this special relationship we all have definitely falls into that category, I think. You are all human, right? I only wonder because I can’t imagine what genuine human would hate the beautiful sounds of banging drums.

Was it the resonance that made you turn your head? The tone? The impact of the sticks on the beautiful drum head? Or was it the obvious passion, the pure emotion that resonated from my heart the day I beat that drum in the middle of our neighborhood park?

No matter what your reason was for sending me hateful letters after the fact, just know this: I very much dislike you. It is because of people like you that the fine arts are frowned upon in today’s society, the reasons why poor trumpet player Johnny will get his trumpet shoved up the ass of another poor trumpet player Johnny, and no one will raise a finger to stop it. I hope that you eventually develop arthritis, and spend the twilight years of your life in uncomfortable, yet non-lethal pain.

Just to spite you poor vegetable-people, I present this recording of my performance that day, hopefully for future reference of what can be accomplished when passion and a love of performing change the world.

Sincerely,

Dat mane