Gamer Philosophy pt. 1

Been playing Diablo II Classic again lately, since World of Warcraft has been somewhat depressing to play lately. With a friend’s account getting hacked, other friends hiding from other overbearing friends on the alliance side, other people going MIA or moving to other servers, others having loyalties to other friends, it sometimes just gets to be too much and I decided to take a break from it every once in a while by decimating hordes of demons in Chaos Sanctuary with a sword barbarian. I started a few days ago and now I’m level 54 (thanks to an awesome dual leech sword that found me at just the right time) and made it to the insanely difficult “hell” mode. After a few minutes there I remembered how ridiculously hard they made it, and have been running “nightmare” mode Chaos Sanctuary in hopes the required uber sword and armor I need to survive in hell. I would play expansion due to the awesome gear and more universal form in currency in the form of runes, but I don’t really feel like making the run through levels and artwork that look like they were designed by a five year old kid seriously lacking in talent.

After going back to Diablo II, I kind of realized what possibly makes Blizzard so appealing, and it’s the fact that the games they make are so similar to real life. Not that I’m literally slaying dragons and demons, but there are some parallels that I can’t help but notice.

Anything seen through my gamer eyes can been seen as metaphor, but where Diablo II is most similar to life is in dying.

Now, in Diablo II, starting in nightmare mode it gets very annoying to die. Not only do you lose a bunch of gold, but you lose experience too. If you can get back to the spot where you died and click on your corpse, you can get back most of the experience you lost, but if it’s in a particularly difficult spot, you’ll end up dying again and again, losing more and more experience and gold impeding your progress, and will have you saying “I HATE YOU BLIZZARD WHY DO YOU MAKING THIS GAME SO DAMN ANNOYING WHERE AM I GONNA GET AN UBER EXECUTIONER SWORD WHY DO YOU MAKE IT SO HARD TO PLAY WOW WITH MY FRIENDS???” I try to get back to my body when I can so I can at least minimize the damage to my in-game life, but my corpse is usually surround by a LEGION ready to kill me again in my naked weakness. Other classes can fight their way back, but a sword-barb is useless without a sword. So, I usually just give up and accept it as a loss, since I have no one to help me out when I die. All the gold I quickly collected from my rapid success is just as suddenly gone, and I end up a bit poorer, with less XP, and back to square one with me once again hitting the “create game” button. Ending up frustrated by the rules of the game and the lack of anyone to help me, I end up bowing out in defeat and start over. And it only starts with a small mistake. A tiny, miniscule, infinitesemal, Lilliputian mistake. Oh how is this different from my life, it is my life.

But, I realized that if I had someone to help me, it wouldn’t be AS bad. So as romantic (think Byron or Keats, not St. Valentine) as the life of a solo gamer can be, the way the gameworld works, it helps to have someone to help you get back on your feet. But moving on…

As much as I like to say I hate Blizzard for some of the ANNOYING things they do, I can honestly say that without these frustrations my (gaming) life would be pretty boring.

For instance, in Chaos Sanctuary, the only real danger I face is Iron Maiden. For those of you who don’t know what this is, it’s a curse put on you that hurts you when you deal any damage. So if you hit hard, it hits you back harder. If you’re a whirlwind barb, it means if you attack anyone, you’re DEAD. Because if you’re in the middle of a whirlwind, you can’t stop. You’ll just keep attacking and spinning until it’s done and you’re dead.

Basically right now in nightmare mode I’m godlike, spinning and cutting through a huge mass of demons leaving a trail of pixelated beauty (those glorious death animations from Diablo II Classic of bone, blood and fire). Nothing can stop can stop me when I’m strong, well geared and spec’ed right–the only thing that can hurt me, that can cause me to fail is MYSELF.

So, after failing constantly, I got into a curious state of mind. Instead of losing it in frustration I knew I had to get back on my feet. In my mind is “it’s only a damn AI I can’t let it beat me AI’s are NOT human I don’t care how sophisticated they get…or are they? n/m just get up get up I’m not done yet it’s not over my enemy can be defeated it’s possible it’s in the rules of the game.”

Then………………………………………………I got up.

The End.

the world

Note: I don’t usually curse, but I just had use the word ****, because nothing else is strong enough.

Ahem. Now, after experiencing a 40-hour-per-week immersion in the world for the last few months, I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t want any part of it. Now, before my non-existent audience misinterprets this as an e-suicide note, listen to what I have to say.

Now, many of us know that the world is pretty ****ed up, but that’s not even the tip of the tip of the iceberg. Most of us would say that the most ****ed up stuff happens somewhere else in the world, but little do we know that even worse things go on right in our backyard. I only have to say a few words to make my point, such as health insurance, serial killers, oil companies, George W., Dick Cheney or even Barry Bonds (j/k, I just like making fun of him). Now, if one were investigate any of these issues or people, you would immediately come to the conclusion that America is a pretty ****ed up place, and that scraping the bottom of the barrel, or even scum-bag wouldn’t even come close to describing the quality of certain individuals, I can unabashedly say. And there’s a lot I don’t know, and I probably don’t want to know for fear of completely losing faith in humanity.

People who sometimes tell other people they shouldn’t do certain things (videogames, t.v., etc.) because it’s only “an escape” don’t really know much about the world, because if they REALLY knew, they’d lose themselves in their own addictions if only to escape for a few more seconds from the aforementioned ****ed up quality of the world. No joke. And calling the escapists naive only highlights their own lack of understanding, which is perhaps the most dangerous thing about these people. It creates a rift between them and the escapists (many of which are the coolest people around), among many other possibly worse effects, and it keeps them living their lives in their own naive little way, with no possibility for change (dangerous).

We are all afraid of change sometimes, but sometimes it’s a good thing, especially when things have gotten ****ed up to the point that they have. Maybe things will get worse behind the veil to the point where the destruction of mankind is the only viable option, but I’m hoping it won’t get to that point. Because, in my opinion, there are at least a few cool people, untouched by the world, apart from the world.

The problem with these people who do whatever they want is that they didn’t have their daddies smack them around enough when they were doing something bad. Which may lead me to one of the purposes of my blog. No, it’s not to give George W. a spanking, though maybe that’s close. No, it’s just to give the world a slap in the face. A nice, hard, slap in the face, followed maybe by a pile driver and German suplex followed by a submission hold ’til it cries uncle (if anyone says that anymore). Because, really, it’s ****ed up. Figuratively violated by these liars and thieves and false ideologies and false beliefs.

But is it wise for me to pick a fight with something way bigger than I am, that can crush me like a bug, assassinate me, take all my friends and family and everything I own, or sell me into slavery? Maybe. But the world knows, one-on-one between me and it, I’ll win. David and Goliath, I’ll win. North vs. South, I’ll win.

Me vs. the World. I’ll win.

economics pt. 1

There’s nothing that scares me, really. Well, except for economics: studying it, reading about it, etc. It’s kind of scary that the physical well-being of so many people rests on the symbolic value of numbers and pieces of green paper which is capable of fluctuating greatly and is controlled and kept in balance by fallible human beings, and that’s just within your own country.

Economic theorists try their best, but if they saw what was coming they would’ve done their best to prevent it, because while they say the so-called “invisible hand” works for the best interests of everybody, they’ll think differently if the United States ends up in poverty on a global scale.

What initially scared me was reading about something China did that made the value of our currency drop more sharply than it has for a long time. Why this scares me is when I put the words “China” and “economics” together I can only think “juggernaut“–both the X-men character and the word that inspired his name. I don’t know much about China’s government and policies, it’s leaders, but juggernaut is the first word that comes to mind.

Everything is made in China. Just about everything except clothes and cars. We bought their labor because it was cheap. Their stuff used to be crap, but now I guess they can make anything almost as well as or as well as we can. Who gave them this power? We did. Is this much different than us giving Sadam the weapons that used to fight with us? Maybe. Or maybe not.

I’m not sure if America offers anything that anyone wants. Our cars? No (not anymore). Education? Maybe. Lord of the Rings? Yes. Will Smith? Sure. Basketball, baseball? Yes. Guns? I think so. I think we make bigger, or better guns than anyone else. But soon we won’t be able to afford them. We’ll sell them to someone else, because we need the money, so they can shoot us in the face.

So who saw this coming? People in high places. Why didn’t they tell us? Because they were busy saving themselves and their genetic spawn.

Of course everyone already knows this–people die every day because of the deception of others who care about no one but themselves and their own genetic spawn.

Angels pt. 2

“Once upon a time, there was a people, and they were a very wasteful and destructive people. They were not only wasteful with what little that they had, but they were greedy and would lie and manipulate people to get what they wanted, which was usually what other people had. Sometimes, they would even manipulate people to fight for them to get what they wanted, even though the people they sent didn’t know what they were fighting for. And even worse, sometimes these powerful people would send people to fight for something they believed in but wasn’t true. This was when the worst things would happen. But to get to the matter of the story, these people were a wasteful people, and a greedy people.But not all of them were a wasteful and greedy people. There were a few that were a good and thankful, but poor people. They were poor because of the wasteful and greedy people would take what they had, so they thought that moving to a new land away from the bad people would make things better. They only had to find this new land.

And find it they did! A rich, abundant land, with rivers full of fish and land good for growing.

The people in the new country were not wasteful at first. They were thankful for what they had, because they had so little in the old land. They even had a day to show how thankful they were!

And in this new land, many people came because of the riches they heard of, and many became rich because of the abundance of land. And because of the abundance of land, they had to find new ways to travel it, because it was so big. They found ways to travel across the land, and even across the sky! And they found new ways to work the land, and grew richer and richer. But as the years past, they got used to having so many things, and they became wasteful again.

Angels

We live in the age of science fiction: read the headlines of The Daily Galaxy and what you’ll see more resembles the visions of science fiction writers rather than the unimaginative gatherings of those “paper” writers whose bottom line is more likely a bottom line (maximum profit), rather than a source of information meant to educate, illuminate, and enlighten the masses of what is really going, or what is really going to go on, in the world. Artificial intelligence, advanced robotics, space travel, virtual reality, are all becoming a reality, and the “fiction” epithet becomes more of a temporary label, a post-it, rather than the set-in-stone epitaph it was once thought to be. Of course this doesn’t have much to do with the subject at hand, but I thought it would make a nice introduction to, something…

Anyway, most of us are all aware of the worldwide phenomenon of alien abduction cults, which probably gained most of its momentum from the alleged government coverup at Roswell, and still continues from the many accounts of unexplained light formations, cattle mutilations, crop circles, etc. Recently, the death of a PR officer of the Roswell Base made the confession of what he saw, which consisted not only of an unidentified “craft” but the bodies of aliens as well. This statement coincides with the testimony of others on which the whole conspiracy theory was/is based.

To even begin to think about the existence of extraterrestrials boggles the mind. One only has to wonder “how the hell they got here” (technology aside, in the galaxy, or universe, which is relatively quite large, how would they possibly know where to go? Nothing short of divine intervention, or previous knowledge). One would consequently have to wonder, “why are they so stupid?” (cattle mulilations? anal probes? crop circles? …abductions?).

Of course, this all could be a major deception, as many people have been known to collectively believe the same falsehoods, and with the little evidence available, it’s no wonder that people can attribute anything unexplainable to the existence and intervention of extraterrestrial beings. And there’s the possibility that at least some of the phenomena are caused by other unknown factors, as some of the happenings (abductions, cattle mutilation, etc.) are very similar to other conspiracy theories, such as the existence of Satanic ritual abuse.

Then of course, there’s the possibility that what these people saw is what they thought they saw, and there do indeed exist “aliens.” I won’t even venture to explain the how’s or why’s.

The existence of another sort of “humanity” would make most people’s heads explode, as the existence of any sort of being that had a sense of right and wrong, or the ability to commit suicide, would completely change the worldview of most freethinking individuals.

And would they, if they existed, even have a sense of right and wrong? Maybe they’d be just as extremely intelligent animals, with only the drive to eat, drink, and procreate to drive them? Thus we’d see an alien invasion scenario that destroys humanity with no remorse in order to take over the resources of our planet (not that we have much).

Or, have any of the alien abduction cult considered that “they” could be human? Albert Einstein entertained the idea of the possibility of bending time, or something to that effect, which makes time travel a possible reality. The alleged “craft” was said to be fairly small (3.6-4.5m long), which doesn’t seem to be something well suited for a long journey through space. Maybe it was a literally time capsule, with humans so genetically altered as to be unrecognizable?

That would be hilarious. The angels that so many want to believe in turned out to be anything but the technologically advanced, morally enlightened, progressive civilization–no, they’re just the same, old, us.

Links:

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2007/07/war-of-the-worl.html

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2007/07/weird-science-2.html

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2007/06/the-worldwide-u.html

Ponytails (thoughts on Apple)

So a I have a few little inspired thoughts on Apple, whose main office I work across the street from. I’m a valet, remember, and I work at a restauraunt where I can see what goes on outside the building, which can reveal quite a bit of what probably goes on inside the the building.

I myself haven’t join the cult of Apple yet, no matter how intuitively or prettily designed their products may be, as though I’d like to be able to scroll through my mp3 collection with amazing speed and precision I cannot support any company that makes commercials as annoying as this:

In its heyday its saturation of the airwaves made it hard for me not to wretch whenever this ad assaulted my senses, as being forced to consume the same thing for too long can only bring about a such a response, sort of a mental or spiritual nausea. I heard the song on the radio a few times bringing on an immediate sense of revulsion–perhaps a manifestation of the “Pavlov’s dog” phenomenon.

Personally I found the song more annoying than the commercial, but maybe just because of the association. But as for my response to the commercial in general I tend not to like things that everyone else likes, or that every single person knows about. Something that catches on like a virus is something that I’d like to avoid, not embrace. Hence I’m also somewhat disturbed by the term “viral marketing” and would prefer not to associate myself with these things. And actually, now that I think about it, saying that song is “catchy” is somewhat similar? But now I’ll move forward. In any case, I haven’t joined the Apple cult, nor do I really want to. But that doesn’t mean other people haven’t.

Every once in a while I see idiots fans of Apple posing for pictures in front of the company sign that’s outside the office buildings. I don’t even know what to think of that or say about that…

I also occassionally see a whole bunch of people jogging around the buildings in some sort of mass exodus. Some part of the corporate culture?

Sometimes I’ll see the employees, and a lot of the males look like this (all pictures copyright original owner):

[need an image of a dude with a beard and ponytail]
This looks like your average computer geek, or environmental activist, or any pseudo-intellectual that knows a lot about one person’s ideas or philosophies or code or scripting language but doesn’t possess the intelligence or ability to come up with anything original. I’d say a good percentage of the techies are like this, there of course being exceptions.

What do I mean to say by all this? I don’t know. I was just gonna talk about ponytails.

Robots, Nanotechnology, and Other Scary Forms of the Self-Destruction of Humanity

Well technology continues to grow at an alarming rate, of course too fast for humanity to discover the moral implications of it all, but there’s nothing we can really do to stop it, as we have no other regions left to explore (the sea and space being among the exceptions) and being that we, the people, or at least those of an explorer mindset, have a need to be pioneers into unknown regions (or at least unknown to us, as these regions tend to be previously inhabited), we have no choice but to press on in our journey of scientific discovery.

What brought on this topic of discussion were a couple articles on robotics and the various ways the world is likely to be destroyed (which seems to be a common topic of discussion among the scientists). Of course, scientists are usually too wrapped up in their studies of the physical world to even think about the human implications of it all, so I leave it up to the science-fiction writers, not the scientists, to be the prophets of our age.

So it seems now that the Japanese are creating robots to take care of children and the elderly; Americans, in typical American fashion, are constructing robots for military use–both nations seeming to exacerbate their cultural weaknesses by utilizing their ingenuity for something self-destructive rather than constructive.

I know what it’s like to care for someone I don’t really love, so I can only imagine the social horrors of children being raised by a being hardly capable of self-expression or free will (which oddly seems to describe most humans). I mean, most of us are already social cripples, being unable to express our love or hatred of other human beings, or masking our true emotions with a plastic smile, and I can only imagine that being raised by something resembling an inanimate object incapable of love will only make the problem worse.

And with the American development, the killing robot, I can only imagine a killer more stone-faced than the worst serial killer, with no remorse whatsoever, doing what it was programed to do.  And who programs these things? I could understand if they were programed by some great being with infinite intelligence and wisdom, but no, they’re being programed by human beings, and quite possibly the kind of human being that creates without thinking about the implications of what he is creating, or doesn’t think about the kind of human being who will use what he is creating, or hasn’t read Frankenstein.

Of course, things don’t always go as we planned, and things might even turn out for the better through our human error. So maybe an artificial intelligence can come about that can actually benefit humanity rather than harm it, though it certainly won’t be our doing.

pathetic pt. 1

Due to my brother and his family taking a vacation, I’ve had the duty of taking care of their dog for them. This aforementioned dog previously had an extreme aversion to anyone but the family, which made it quite an annoyance whenever I was in the vicinity as it would endlessly and tirelessly bark at me, much to the annoyance of anyone and everyone around. I made it a point just to avoid the damn dog just so everyone else wouldn’t be annoyed by the noise.

Let it be said that I don’t really like dogs all that much, as the whole “bark louder than bite” thing doesn’t really appeal to me all that much (this dog is pretty small), as well as their tireless enthusiasm and excitement whenever someone they like is around is a bit too much for me and I can only look at them in confusion…or maybe I’m just jealous that that part of the child in me has been suppressed and I only wish that I all adults could express themselves by running in circles in an extreme (and I mean EXTREME) frenzy, or jump up and push at targets with their forepaws as an expression of their happiness to see you. There are some exceptions, but so far as is the case there are two dogs that have been in my life that act the same way (they surprisingly have the same name too), and let it be said that it doesn’t really warm my heart wheneverI see them.

Of course, after a while, the dog did get somewhat used to me, and the extremely annoying barking stopped. And now that I’m the only living thing around to keep him company, he’s actually happy whenever I get home. As soon as I arrive from work, he’s jumping and wagging and hanging his tongue out and ready to play with his little toy ball for hours on end.

Of course, when I get home, I seriously DO NOT want play with this guy at all, as there are many other things on my mind and things I need and want to do (laundry, dishes, bills, games, internet, eat) that don’t involve fellowship with this pathetic little being .

And his existence is without a doubt pathetic. I do look down with pity at times at this poor guy and go play with him for a little while, but his energy and appetite for playing with that ball is endless, and I can by no means justify spending so much time and energy pleasing him. I have many other ways of wasting my time, that maybe I can’t justify to other people but I know are leading me to what I’m going to be. But that’s not why he’s pathetic. I just have to wonder who loves this guy.

So at first all of my brother’s kids were enamored with him, and would play with him all the time. Of course, after about a week they kinda “got over” him, and spent much less time with him than before. They would occasionally play with him and torture him and pay some attention to him, but most of the time when I would look at him he’d be on the ground depressed, and seemingly looking for pity. You could see it in is whole being that he’d been crying, and wallowing in his own self pity until someone finally came home. Then of course they wouldn’t have much time for him, so he’d spend most of his time hopelessly alone. And I have to add that the look in his face, the positioning of his body, everything spoke that he was depressed. When no one was around, he was crying in his sad little heart.

So now when I’ve been taking care of him I see the same sort of thing. I come home and he’s hoping someone can play with him, but there’s only so much I can do before I start to get mad. But I can’t help it anyway. I can’t devote my whole life to playing with this damn dog.

Sleep

This is an old post that I wrote on another blog, which I’ll label “repost.”

6/17/07

sleep

sleep can be scary

and I need to get a lot more of it

but it’s understandable why some people can’t sleep

for me it’s geography, as there are lawnmowers doing their thing while I want/need to be asleep

or frogs keeping me awake

it’s always something. I sometimes would like not to be bothered.

I do like to be awake, but I’d rather be

Wide Awake.

And this is random:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_terrors

It’s never happened to me, and I hope it never will.

But the part about the doppleganger scares the crap out of me, even though it’s so interesting. But then you can learn so much about human nature by reading the things that the psychologists and scientists who are so good at writing the facts down yet don’t grasp fully the implications of what they just said. Of course what people are most scared of is their own shadow. That’s usually the only thing that makes me jump when walking through dark alleyways.

All this came from having an episode of sleep paralysis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis

It never happened to me before, and though I wasn’t scared when it was happening (I prayed), I got more scared when reading about it. Especially when reading about the cultural references, which are all quite similar.

The phenomenon is called “scissor lock” in the Western United States.

In Korea it’s called “Gawinullim,” which means literally “to be pressed by Gawi.” I’ve always known “Gawi” to mean scissors. It also means “spirits” or “demons.”

Man people should pay me to write all this stuff.

This research then in turn led me to read up on succubi, which are in enemies in the first Diablo game, but were also referred to in medieval times to possibly be causes of sleep paralysis. People in England believed that “witches or hags rode on men’s chests as they slept, and the feeling of being unable to breathe was attributed to a hag.”

this led me to look up “hag”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hag

“Hags as sovereignty figures abound in Irish mythology. The most common pattern is that the hag represents the barren land, who the hero of the tale must approach without fear, and come to love on her own terms. When the hero displays this courage, love, and acceptance of her hideous side, the sovereignty hag then reveals that she is also a young and beautiful goddess.”

And I’m the frog prince. So kiss me.

Now I’m gonna get some sleep. And hopefully I’ll have sweet dreams.

P.S.

And this is random.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_awakening

I could read this crap all day. But I need to sleep.

The beginning of the blogger

Howdy.

These are thoughts, mostly little ones, coming from the mind a male mid-twenty-something gamer/valet parker/media aficionado/never-had-a-real-job from San Jose, CA, concerning many subjects, most of them being quite miniscule and nowhere near worthy enough to grace the headlines of our honorable sources of information, wisdom, and opinion, i.e. the newspapers, magazines, television news programs, and other forms of mass media that shed light on the state of our existence.

The subject matter will be fairly broad, covering subjects from the latest movie I’ve seen or music I’ve heard, to simpler topics such as the global state of the economy to the meaning of life. It will all be covered in due time, as long as I have the time, energy, and money to devote to this task.

I made this blog for a number of reasons: one, write down my thoughts so others can see them and either benefit from them or be glad that they aren’t me; two, because I wanted to; three, to make lots and lots of money, so I can live my life the way I live it without wallowing in my own filth or self pity or the crushing weight of responsibility–or getting a job that will save my life but not my soul.

Ahem. And I suppose I should tell you a little bit about myself. Let’s see, I’ve lived most of my life in Southern California, but have chosen the South Bay (San Jose, etc.) as my home of choice. I have some formal education (college grad), but most of my time up to this point has been spent in worlds created by other human beings (video games) and consider this time spent as just as large or a larger contributor to my education than my time spent in classrooms crunching numbers and reading plays. So let’s just call Shigeru Miyamoto “Shakespeare” and The Legend of Zelda “Hamlet” or Shinji Mikami as “Hitchcock” and Resident Evil as “Psycho.” Even further you could say World of Warcraft is “Macroeconomics,” etc. etc. etc. So I guess you can say I’ve spent much of my time with my nose buried in these metaphorical books, but I do like to get out and smell the flowers and fumes when I get the chance.

I have also wasted much of my time online (or the internet, or intarweb, or whatever you call it), with games and without, and plan to waste much more of my life there, especially now with this “blog” and other commitments I have made to spend in this space some call “cyber.” I have met many beautiful people there, and expect and hope to meet many more.

And so…that’s all for now. If this seems incomplete, that’s because it is.