A Conversation With The Infinite



(As composed while a cat stares imperiously from a lap, demanding food she knows she’s already eaten)



Me: So you’re The Infinite?



Infinite: Yup, that’s about the size of it.



Me: That size being infinite.



Infinite: As you say.



Me: Wow. Cool.



Infinite: A somewhat underwhelming response, but I’m in a good mood today, so you can keep your sanity.



Me: Can I ask you a question?



Infinite: You just did.



Me: Can I ask you another?



Infinite: You just did.



Me: Can I ask you a question after this one has been asked, which will actually be the true question, this first one merely being a prelude to it for politeness’ sake?



Infinite: What the heck. Shoot.



Me: Destiny or Randomness. Which is it?



Infinite: For the universe?



Me: Nah, just for me in particular.



Infinite: Ah, for you it’s destiny.



Me: Damn. I hate destiny.



Infinite: That’s why it’s for you. You should see your neighber, the overzealous Christian who believes everything that happens to him is preordained by the Christian God.



Me: What about him?



Inifinite: His life is all random. He just doesn’t know it. His last failed relationship wasn’t because God is testing him, he just has foul body odor and doesn’t know it because his olfactory nerves are fried.



Me: That’s sick.



Infinite: More interesting that way though, yes?



Me: So I have a purpose in life then?



Infinite: Do you want one?



Me: Oh, hell no.



Infinite: Then yeah, you have a purpose in life and try as you might to escape it, you’ll be rail-roaded into an inevitable destiny.



Me: That’s not fair!



Infinite: More interesting though.



Me: What about that Christian guy?!? HE wants to save the world, HE wants to aspire to sainthood, HE wants to make a difference, I just want to play video games, why don’t you get HIM to fulfill a destiny?



Infinite: ‘Cause that’s what he wants. Hence, his entire life is one random, meaningless accident after another with no connection between events, a string of years that is ultimately senseless and futile.



Me: And the Zen Buddhists?



Infinite: Oh man, I don’t even want to think about them… You ever try making a tree mad?



Me: No.



Infinite: Go try it some time. That’s the way it is trying to annoy them. Always smiling all the time, don’t want anything from the universe. Pisses me off…



Me: All I want to do is play video games and write.



Infinite: Not gonna’ happen. You’re going to end up being trusted advisor the reincarnation of Adolph Hitler we have coming up. Except this time he’s going to be a transvestite girl with a thing for Robert Smith and The Cure.



Me: Hm… Could be worse…



Infinite: Well, there’s that Kill All White People Genocidal program, but you can worry about the press conference for that later.



Me: WHAT?!?



Infinite: Nothing…

Neil Is Soooo Cooooool…



I recently picked up a copy of Hanging Out With The Dream King: Conversations With Neil Gaiman And His Collaborators and though I’ve only dug a few interviews into it, I am once again siezed with the wholly irrational impulse to try and figure out exactly how I can go about being Neil Gaiman.



As a writer and as a professional career, Neil is one of those pedastals I look up to now and again and think “Man, that’s what I’d love to shoot for.” To be this supremely talented, affable, no ego, certifiable artistic genius that manages to produce work to be proud of, in multiple mediums and rub shoulders with some really talented and cool people, not just collaborating, but becoming friends.



There’s something quite magical and frightening about the way Neil has come into his own. Personally for me, there’s no doubt as to his talent, what I find bewildering is just how readily it has come to be accepted by others, the timing of it, how he meets the right editors when he’s ready to do a comic, how he meets the right artists when he has a particular project in mind, how he gets the right publishing house 100% behind when it’s time to do a novel, a children’s book, or even a crew for a full blown movie.



Part of its admiration, part of it is envy, part of it is an appreciation for just how difficult any entertainment industry can be to break into, but I am glad–and hugely baffled–at the confluence of circumstance that surrounds Neil and the way his imagination–and by association, Dream, Death, et al–came to a generation that badly needed some kind of myth, some kind of story, some kind of narrative commentary about the human condition… And he gave it to us in the most unlikliest of forms, the burgeoning art of comics, rather than cinema or something.



Damn, I wish I could be Neil Gaiman.



I don’t think I’d much enjoy the fame aspect–and I suspect while he accepts it, he’s not particularly fond of it himself–but I relish that opportunity he has. The ability to exercise that kind of creative control when you know you have the imagination AND the talent to pull it off (Something I have yet to prove to myself, but oh well…) and then know that there are really good people out there willing to jump on and say “What can we do to make this happen?” is an artistic dream. But best of all, I think what I really would like about being Neil Gaiman is knowing that you make a difference somehow to people.



A lot of my friends (Or at least the ones that didn’t think they were too good for comics) have a deep and abiding love for the story of Dream. It’s been many things to them; the first intelligent comic they’ve ever read, a pushing of the genre’s boundaries they never thought possible, an inspiration that drove them to want to be artists or writers, or, perhaps best of all, a story that touched them, stayed with them, and somehow, in some way, maybe made them a better person for the lessons, stories and sheer humanity embedded in the tale. In a funky sort of way, it was the really deep love for the Sandman stories that even made my relationship with my fiance possible, since it was a kind of a signal, a secret handshake amongst readers. It was as if you knew that if someone else loved the Sandman the way you did, then you were both privy to the secret Neil was trying to whisper to everyone.



That’s something that I’d like to aspire to with stories someday. I don’t presume to ever write with the same intelligence and complexity as Neil, but I would love to be able to have the same effect. I would love to sit at a table at some convention after my books had come out and have someone come up to me and be unnecessarily nervous (‘Cause there is NOTHING about me to be nervous about, I’m probably the least intimidating human being on the planet) and try to communicate to me that somehow my stories and my characters reached out to them. The writing touched them. The writing found a quiet spot in their heart and said them “You are not alone, this has been survived through before, and you too shall make it,” and made some kind of difference. Helped them. Or at the very least let them feel not so alone and maybe a little bit more understood for a while.



Is that art?



I dunno, but that’s what I’d really like to do. ‘Cause that’s what Neil did for me.



Now About That Music



Things are starting to move a little faster now, true believers, much to my relief.



Yesterday I finally had a sit down and talked with the music guy that will be involved in the CG series that I still cannot talk about. He immediately scored HUGE brownie points with me by letting me rant about art, sociology, psychology, politics and cultural evolution without ever telling me to shut the hell up. Then he showed me his nice, shiny new music set up and play around with keyboard, which resulted in me tinkering out the opening notes to the Katamari Damacy theme song and then watching him riff off a few jazz and drum samples.



It’s really cool for me because there’s so much here to LEARN.



My normal exposure to the sound side of things in television has been mostly just doing voice-over sessions, and inserting “canned” license free music tracks here and there. This is the first time I’ll be working with a musician to create wholly original new tune-age, and I’m really looking forward to it. My initial perception of how music in film works has been shaped entirely too much by watching DVD extras on how sound tracks are created, and watching films like Almost Famous over and over again, so to actually see how modern musicians do their thing with high tech equipment when you DON’T have access to the London Philharmonic is looking to be quite educational. It helps that I still have some basic background in music (Guess those piano lessons were good for something after all) so I was able to at least communicate at a rudimentary level on his plane of understanding, although the important thing will always be MOOD.



Writing music for narrative television is, like film, an entirely different animal from creating jingle for advertising or creating songs for a straight up vocal/music performance. It is not about showcasing some vocal talent, it is not about layering sound so that you can explode the bass and make the crowd go nuts at the club, this is all about watching the moment on screen and then working with the musician to answer the question, “How, in tonalities and harmonies, can we carry the emotion, or even magnify and sharpen it? How can this music be part of the story? How can the music push the story along?”



It requires a certain way of thinking that I’ve ALWAYS wanted to mess around with, because I’ve always loved what music–when done right–can do for a story as a favorite melody rises up into the aural consciousness becomes this 4/4 time signature that instantly identifies the story, the characters, the feelings the story generates… in a simple collection of sounds.



I’m going to be making mistakes all over the place, that goes without saying, since this is my first time, but I’m looking forward to understanding how those mistakes occurred and what I can do expand my story telling sensibility to include the ear as much as the eye with the CG visuals, or the heart and brain with the characters and story.



Should be frustrating. But fun too.

I’m Having Trouble With The Latest Script



Not because I don’t know what to write, so much as because it’s a fairly dialogue intensive storyline (Yeah, I’m talking about the CG Animated series again) and, if it hasn’t been made abundantly clear by this point, I like dialogue. A LOT.



So my basic problem is pulling my own leash and saying in Shatner-esque, stilted, broken sentences, “Too… many… words… Must… cut… down.”



I’m sure this problem will resolve itself once I remind myself that these lines will eventually have to be uttered by actual human beings that have oxygen requirements and need to stop and breathe once in a while.



It’s the little considerations like that which make writing an art.



Yup. Clearly I’ve been up to long. And I just watched Jacob’s Ladder again.



Memo to self: Not everyone blathers on at 100 words per minute the way you do…



‘Night all…

More Pop Culture Musings



I’m beginning to think I’m one of the most shallow people on the Earth, the way the simple things like video games, movies, comic books, novels, animation, and my fiancee make me extremely happy. While the rest of the cool kids are dressing all Goth and reading Nietzsche in the cafe while expounding about the miseries of the world and how no one can understand their pain…



I am at home having fun with no complaints.



Oh, I used to have complaints. Plenty. Close friends will remember the dread that rolled around at Valentine’s Day, knowing that yet another venemous “Fuck You” mail was on the way from me since I was so miserable at being alone and stuck in a far flung corner of the world while everyone else was living the life of an urban sophisticate, hanging out at swanky restaurants, trading amusing bon mots and generally being TV People who were smart, interesting and always good company. Of course over the last few years things have evened out some. Finding The One (Or at least I’ll tell myself she’s The One) and realizing that aside from her, my life was hunky dory has brought me to an almost Buddha-like state of sublime indifference where it is nearly impossible to anger me. It would seem that I now have a reputation for being the rational, chilled out one that usually has something sensible (Or at the very least inanely entertaining) to say. I have to admit, it’s a nice head space to be when NOTHING bothers you and you’re more or less at peace with the world.



Mind you, it also makes for incredibly boring posts such as this one, which lack any kind of drama whatsoever, but I figure something juicy will happen at some point like I’ll lose a limb or something and then I can make posts about physiotherapy and how I was ready to quit until my therapist screamed at me and I swear to God, I heard the Eye of the Tiger theme song playing as he shouted “GO! MOVE! WIIIIIN!!!”



Okay, so I’m vacuous. I can live with it.



Anyway, here are the toys that I am currently enamoured with.



Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas



Yeah, I actually finished this (And when I say finished, I mean I was stupid enough to go for 100% completion) quite some time ago, having mainlined it like heroin right from tearing open the gift wrapping on Christmas (I have the coolest fiance in the world), but it bears repeating:



THIS MAY VERY WELL BE THE BEST GAME FOR THE PLAYSTATION 2.



The sheer epic size of the environment, the sandbox mentality of allowing you to do practically anything from gamble to shoot hoops, to mugging people to visiting a strip club, to carjacking, to strafing a street with an attack helicopter or harrier jump jet… It’s almost frightening how much fun–and frustration–I had while obsessively playing this game. If I had to level any one criticism at this game, it would be my usual hobby horse–story.



Not that the story was bad, and not that there even wasn’t enough of it, so much as it occasionally wandered into areas that left me thinking there would be more exploration of a particular storyline (I’m thinking now in particular of the missions for the government agent) only to have it abruptly end. Ultimately, it was a matter of closure. I think that the way the various storylines concluded had an unsatisfying emotional payoff, compared to the build up. The government agent was one. The resolution of the OG Loc (Or Ogloc, as Lazlow calls him) was an ENORMOUSLY frustrating let down, since I had a lot of pent up anger at his terrible rap that I was hoping to personally show him, but alas, it wasn’t meant to be. Even the final showdown, which, as a game, was very satisfying, was, as a concluding cutscene, not quite as satisfying as I had hoped. But aside from that one nitpick, the emotional payoff, this is one of those games that has cemented itself in my personal list of all time greats, the one that I would reccomend without hesitation to anyone that has a PS2.



Suikoden IV



Man, the Suikoden series… What can you say about a game that bases itself on the Chinese legend of 108 stars of destiny (aka extraordinary people with amazing talents) and puts it into Japanese RPG form? Though Konami has never seen fit to throw the kind of budget at it that they’ve given to games like Metal Gear Solid, the Suikoden series has always been a minor favorite with me largely because it seemed like the budgetary constraints always forced the game developers to concentrate on characterization and storyline. Suikoden I and II were amazing games on the PS1, and Suikoden III is one of my favorite RPGs on the PS2 because of the three storylines (GEDDO IS THE MAN!) that eventually converged into one immensely huge and very satisfying story that left me thinking, “Man, what a great experience that was.”



Sadly, this newest installment failed to live up to that.



The gameplay itself took a bit of a retro approach, simplifying itself and hearkening back to Suikoden I/II (And perhaps even FFVI on the SNES) simplicity. The story itself was unevenly paced, with a not terrific ending and final boss encounter, and perhaps most disappointing of all, the characters were nowhere near as fleshed out as they were in the previous game. Partly I think this is because Suikoden III had those initial three storylines, and thus PLENTY of space and time to give the characters a complexity and history that a single, fast moving storyline cannot. This is by far the shortest Suikoden game I’ve played, even with getting all 108 stars to join my forces. Though this game was still FUN to play. I can’t really complain too much about the actual mechanics of the game, I was simply let down by the narrative aspects. On the other hand, Suikoden IV is now tagged by me as a special game since it was the one I mostly sat and watched MY FIANCE sit and play. She creamed through the game while I sat back as gaming strategist, lending her newbie gaming enthusiasm with my decades of gaming knowledge so that together we made short work of a game that, while fun, still left the both of us thinking it might be time to dust off Suikoden III and let HER have a go at it this time…



Katamari Damacy



GENIUS.



Let me say that again, this time with swearing for emphasis.



SHEER.



FUCKING.



GENIUS.



My favorite geeky website, IGN, has described this game as “Happiness in a box,” and I have to agree, that hyperbolic description fits this to a tee.



The premise is simple. You are the Prince of the cosmos, which means apparently that you’re an engagingly simple looking cartoon character with a cylinder for a head and sticks for limbs. Your father, the King Of All The Cosmos, had some brief seizure of insanity that resulted in him wiping out the stars from the sky. He puts the task to you, his tiny, tiny offspring (And I mean, like, you’re only about 1 cm tall) to take a Katamari to Earth, and use it to gather up enough materials to repopulate the sky with stars, constellations, stardust and comets.



So, you roll around a ball with “gravity” properties in that it attracts objects smaller than itself to it. As these objects add to its mass, its gravitational properties increase. So you can start out with a tiny ball that can only pick up thumbtacks and buttons, and eventually end up with something that rips buildings right out of their foundations and has islands adorning it like fridge magnets.



It sounds simple and insane, and yet I can’t remember a game I’ve ever had so much fun playing. The incredibly hypercute J-Pop soundtrack goes beyond being inanely happy and reaches a nirvana-like state of True Joy. You CANNOT play this game without grinning and laughing. There’s something infectious, something maddeningly joyful about rolling this damn ball around, with elephants, cars, and schoolchildren stuck to it, while a chorus of happy Japanese children sing about being Happy Rollers in the background.



This is one of those experiences that simply cannot be communicated. You have to sit down. You have to play this game. And once you’ve played it, you have to have it. Play it when you’re in a bad mood, it will make you feel better. Play it when you’re in a good mood, it will make you happier still. Hell, I’ve got some of the music playing in the background as I write this, and my feet are happily tapping away.



Kill Bill Volumes I and II



This may very well be my favorite Tarantino work.



I didn’t watch them both back to back. I actually watched Volume I then got around to purchasing Volume II a day or two later and completing the story. The fight at the House of Blue Leaves was one of the most fun (Damn, but I use that adjective a lot…) and impressive looking fights I’ve ever seen, even without bullet time or camera angles/tracking shots you KNOW could only be done with a computer. The energy, the vicious glee, the sheer enthusiasm Tarantino showed for spilling blood–elevating it to a scale where it could no longer be taking seriously and you almost had to judge it like you would a gymnastics event, “Ooh! Three decapitations in a single stroke! Straight nines except for one 6.0 from the Russians!”–brought the fight a surreal level of artistry that transcended typical macho fist or gunplay and took you to a headspace where the movement and death was a poem. A fun poem. With screaming. And Japanese schoolgirls. And fountains of blood.



I suppose what I most liked about the movie(s) was the fact that Tarantino wasn’t trying to create a film that was… anything more than it was. It was a revenge story, simple as that, and when he decided to create a sleek, streamlined, purposeful movie around that one premise, with no ambitions to teaching life lessons, communicate a political agenda, or make a social commentary, it lent the movie a purity and sense of purpose that I really haven’t seen since the original Star Wars trilogy. When a movie Is What It Is, rather than an excuse for merchandising, or cashing in on a particular trend (Hey! Comic books are in! Let’s do John Constantine: Hellblazer, but make him American and cast Keanu as the the title character (WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU THINKING?!?)) it gets down to what art is all about, a mixture of talent, imagination and desire to create something personal that perhaps other people will respond to. Kill Bill does that. It was entertaining, it was gorgeous to look at, it had some terrific pacing, action, memorable characters and sequences, and even had a mindblowing interpretation of Superman that I’d never considered before. It is, in every single way, a labor of love on Tarantino’s part, and when a project takes on that importance for the creator, it always has an effect on the audience. Speaking of projects…



The Computer Animated Series



Nope, still can’t talk about it too much in detail, but I figure that THIS, at least, might be interesting to readers, since I am obviously not.



We’re now moving into the stage where we’re seeing some preliminary models for a test. All around, I’m quite impressed with the level of talent by the people involved. It’s pretty scary to see a CG sequence in a videogame or a movie and then hop over to the office and have a guy show you something that’s pretty much like what you just saw, except it’s YOUR idea.



The kicker is, then instead of saying, “Wouldn’t it be cool if he looked like this, or had this kind of weapon…” You just say, “Make him look like this, and give him this kind of weapon…” And voila, it happens.



That is a trip.



We’re still probably a few months away (If we’re lucky) from having anything that we can show to the public, but things are still moving along fairly smoothly at this point and once it happens, yes, I’m sure this blog will generate more interest as the flack begins to build and every armchair critic who is convinced that he or she has better ideas will start blasting me for being in a position to do what they cannot. To those future angry writers, I have only this to say if you bother going through archives…



GET YOUR FILTHY PAWS OFF ME, YA’ DAMN DIRTY APE…



Okay, that’s not what I wanted to say, but I’ve always wanted to say that. What I meant was…

GET YOUR OWN DAMN COMPUTER ANIMATED SERIES AND THEN MAYBE I’LL START TAKING YOU MORE SERIOUSLY…



And that, I think, is all for today.



Again, apologies for not being a particularly interesting person, but then that’s the price you pay for being happy. Oh well.

So I Finally Got Around To Watching Kill Bill



Wow.



I’ll say something more coherent when I pick my brain up off the floor and tighten the slack that built up in my jaw…

Mercy For Michael



I am thinking that if I ever had the chance, I would do Michael Jackson the favor of giving him a time machine and allowing him the chance to visit himself on the cusp of his great success to warn him of the fate that awaits him in the years to come…



Young Michael: Wow! Thriller is selling better than I’d ever hoped! I have more money than I know what to do with! I wonder what I should do first? Maybe get a new look? I’ve never been fond of this nose…



[Bright lights flash as a DeLorean car equipped with a flux capaciter breaks through the space time continuum to power slide right in front of young Michael Jackson. Old Michael Jackson steps out, white as a sheet, wearing black clothing, a surgical mask and sunglasses]



Old Michael: Mike, don’t do it! There are so many things you can avoid right NOW if you just listen to me!



YM: SHAM ON! Who are you?!!?!



OM: I’m you from the 21st century!



YM: Get out! You can travel through time?!?



OM: Yeah, a kindly geek who talks about Grand Theft Auto San Andreas all the time gave it to me out of the kindness of his heart. Well, after I gave him 25 million dollars for it.



YM: (In trademark Jackson style) OOOooo! You… I mean WE… have that much money?!?



OM: You know it. We’d have more except that certain mistakes were made. I’m here to warn you so you can avoid the awful destiny we have in store.



YM: What destiny?



Old Michael Jackson pulls off surgical mask to reveal cavity where a nose should be.



YM: AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!! OUR NOSE!! WHERE IS IT??!!?



OM: You know how much we like Diana Ross?



YM: Yeah?



OM: Like her less. A LOT less. You’re Michael Jackson, not Diana Ross. You’ll keep your nose if you remember that.



YM: What about the rest of us?



OM: Don’t ask. Just believe me when I say this… If a plastic surgeon tells you it’s not a good idea to do something, LISTEN TO HIM. Don’t go off and find another plastic surgeon who’ll do the procedure because you threw enough money at him.



[Old Michael Jackson sneezes. His ear falls off. He casually reaches down and affixes it to his head, the sound of velcro heard in the air.]



OM: Just trust me on this, okay?



[Young Michael Jackson nods stunned]



YM: What else?



OM: You know Elvis’ kid?



YM: Lisa? She’s GREAT! WE LOVE LISA!



OM: Not after the divorce you won’t. She’ll break you. Believe me, she’ll BREAK you. Oh and you know those sleep overs you have with guys? You know how you always wished the sleep overs could be with more folks, and how it would be really nice to have some kids over?



[Young Michael nods cautiously. Old Michael produces a Playstation Portable that plays some of the court video footage where his on the witness stand]



YM: What’s this?!?



OM: Trial. Seems playtime with the kiddes gets us into some legal hotwater. It gets ugly.



YM: Uglier than you?



OM: [Frowning] This is YOU, you know, so laugh it up…



[Young Michael Jackson looks about to burst into tears, his lower lip trembling]



YM: What about monkeys? Are monkeys still okay?



OM: Yeah, monkeys are okay, but you’re gonna’ get punched out by one [He stops to rub his nose in bitter remembrance than remembers he doesn't have one anymore]



YM: Geez, this sounds pretty bad… Does ANYTHING good happen?



OM: Like the Beatles yet?



YM: No.



OM: You will. That’ll pay off pretty well when you buy their songs….



YM: I can’t do that! They own it, it would be wrong to take something they made!



OM: When you talk to Bill Gates, he’ll change your mind about that.



YM: Liz Taylor protect me…



OM: I’d give up on the Liz stuff too. The shrine? It won’t do you any good. And neither will she.



YM: This is TERRIBLE!



OM: That’s what I’m saying! Forget about this future and beat it! It’s just a thriller night! All those girls, they’re not your lovers, they’re just the girls who think that you are the one, but the kids are not your sons.



YM: Hey, you’re ripping me off!



OM: Everyone will, young Padawan. Big, big pieces…



YM: What’s a Padawan?



OM: You’ll see…

Okay, So Spiderman 2 Made Me Cry…



Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s the geek in me…



It’s probably not the most professional attitude for a critic to have (Then again I’m a game critic, not a film critic, so in the immortal words of Sage, the Grand Theft Auto alternative music DJ, “Screw you.”) but I tend to get somewhat emotional when watching films, particularly ones that you can tell are a labor of geeky love.



Spiderman 2 is one such film.



The reason I’m spouting this all off is because I finally got around to purchasing the DVD and watching it again. It’s a far, far finer film than the original and I think one of the reasons it resonated so heavily with me is because it went at my favorite hobby horse in stories; characterization. I’ve always been interested in the dilemma the comic books presented of Peter Parker not being an all-American athlete who was a successful news reporter, or a Goth millionaire with access to unlimited funds. He was just an ordinary guy, a geeky, loserly guy (Like about 95% of the people who identify with him, myself included) that happened to have a life in a shambles while at the same time being tossed into the ethical crossroads of having abilities that allowed him to perform acts of great good. What I loved about the comics–when they were good, which they weren’t always–was the fact that Peter tried to do the right thing despite the enormous cost it took on his life. Spiderman 2 finally addressed this, and though there were certain mechanisms of coincidence used to drive the point home (Such as the police chase with bank robbers that took place just as he was trying to make a do-or-die date with Mary Jane) the emotional weight of those consequences rang true.



Peter Parker was a good guy. He wanted to do the right thing. And as so often happens in real life, it cost him dearly.



His career was falling apart, money to pay the rent was scarce, his relationships–of his own decision–were non-existent to protect those he cared about, and even his grades were slipping as the agenda to protect the innocent, stop the evil doers, and save lives in jeopardy cost him any chance at happiness in his own.



What makes it so painful is that Parker, as played by Toby MacGuire, is an extremely vulnerable, awkward, self-conscious and ultimately very likeable guy. You know there’s a good heart in there, you know he does the right thing out of a sense of justice and an everlasting guilt over his uncle’s death, you know after all the good he’s done, he, more than most people you probably know, deserves a shot at happiness, for his kindness, his courage, his willingness to sacrifrice himself, his love for his family and his friends, his nobility…



And that’s why it hurts when you see he doesn’t get it. When you see him get punished by life and others because he’s trying to do the right thing.



There’s one scene in particular that encapsulates everything about why I like Peter Parker so much in this movie. It’s the one that gets me every single time, when he has a quiet moment with his Aunt May, and she’s just confessed that she feels responsible for what happened to Uncle Ben. Peter finally sits her down and bites the bullet; he tells her that the criminal that shot Uncle Ben was within his grasp and he let him go just to spite the people that didn’t pay him his money. The moment is perfect because you can see the guilt, the regret, the pain in Peter’s eyes as he finally tells his mother figure that his simple act of pettiness cost them both the life of the man they both dearly loved, teaching Peter the brutal lesson of “With great power, comes great responsibility,” the lesson that would drive him to become Spiderman and spend his life trying to do so many rights to erase that wrong from his heart.



But in that moment, as he confesses his darkest, guiltiest secret to the one person he loves most, in shock, she pulls back her hand away from his and withdraws her love.



At which point I usually lose it and want to scream, “WAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!”



Emotionally that moment is perfect for me, because there is a cost to this confession. It cost Peter something dear to finally tell the truth, it costs Aunt May something dear to finally hear it, and it pains Peter even more because he cannot tell her that Spiderman was born from that moment, and that even though Spiderman is doing great good for the city of New York, he is also tearing Peter’s life to pieces.



I still feel kind of emotionally drained after watching that movie, but then I tend to identify with Peter Parker a little too heavily. The whole outsider thing and wanting to do the right thing but get punished for it rings true to a lot of people I think…

Yup, It’s The New Year Blog

After a long hiatus, it is time to once more foul the airwaves with the rather undramatic events of my life, dramatized with much narrative license so as to make myself sound more interesting.

But first off:

Why I Have Been Silent

Truth to tell, mostly because I didn’t have much to say, nothing much interesting was going on, and I was distracted with games. Lots of games. Tons of games. In fact I’m still playing games at the moment, the current one being the amazing Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, but I’ll save that for a bit a later. Suffice to say that I was going to make an entry at a regularly appointed time when blogger suddenly went through a spate of eating my posts (There was an entry I had typed out about how I felt David & Goliath was actually handled by Hassidic PR managers that spin doctored the entire affair, I was rather proud of that…) that got sucked into the ether of the ‘net and shall remain unwritten unless someone bugs me to do it again. I’ve always been a sucker for requests…

Anyway, after having a few such posts eaten, I got a little fed up with blogging for a while and decided to take a break, which got swallowed up into months as work, gaming, DVD viewing, movies and of course, the girlfriend all took up their appropriate hours and days. But here’s what you’ve been missing, which is, admittedly, not much.

The Impossible Has Happened

On October 19th, of 2004, I proposed to my girlfriend and she said yes, so for people that have known me since childhood, or, worse yet, highschool, I am now in a position to have never been so happy to have been wrong. There is at least ONE person on this planet that doesn’t vomit at the thought of spending the rest of her life with me.

No actual date has been set for a wedding, it’s one of those things we’ll probably just sort of do when we feel like it. However, after having lived together for over two years, it’s a safe bet that there won’t be any unpleasant surprises we’ll discover about each other that most couples only come across after they’re married and are forced to see each other everyday. We’ve been doing it for quite a while now and so far no major problems have cropped up.

As a special note, I’d like to add that to childhood friend Francis, I must remind you that I am a man of my word. We once made a bet that I would never get married, and if I ever did find someone crazy enough to do it, you would find yourself $1,000 richer on my wedding day. Well, I’ll pay up to be sure, but since we’re not exactly the richest couple in the world, you’ll have to collect on the bet sometime in distant future, but don’t worry, you’ll get it. That’s $1,000 I’m glad to give away.

On Work

Things professionally have been moving slowly but steadily. I still write reviews and other articles for the Singapore gaming magazine Hardware Zone. Some writing has been met favorably, such as my article on the history of Nintendo. Others have been met not so favorably, with one angry reader calling me a “Moronic Halo fanboy” for giving Halo 2 a perfect score. Oh well, can’t please everybody. I’d be interested to see, however, if the fellow who made such a comment would be willing to say it to my face with other people around, but that’s the ‘net for ya’…

On the Computer Animated series, things are gearing up. We’re working on some early production stuff–and no, I STILL can’t talk about what it is exactly–and for once, it looks like my skepticism about the project may be wrong and that it will actually see the light of day. We’re still going to need a ton of work before we have anything presentable, but it looks like 2005 is the year of the CGI cartoon. I’m curious about how it’ll all turn out. I always said I thought it would be neat to work on such a series and now that I am, I’m finding that my production experience in television over the last few years has actually proved marginally useful. Hopefully by next year there will be more talk about it on the internet and I can actually discuss here what’s been going on, thus dragging in a whole new legion of geeky readers who will want to throw in helpful suggestions on how to improve the show such as “Make it cooler!“

On Writing

Sadly, this has taken a turn for the not so great, but there is still hope.

The novels got turned down by Ace Science Fiction, on the grounds that while they were well written, they were a bit risky as a publishing venture because A) They were huge, B) The storylines felt a bit too “complex and metaphysical” for readers to readily accept.

This greatly amused me–and confounded me–since I had thought the plots were entirely too simplistic what with guys jumping 30 feet into the air shooting lasers out of their eyes and all, but it would seem that first Tor and now Ace Science Fiction have both felt that the story, while interesting and well told, is not mainstream enough to guarantee the sales they’d feel comfortable with.

Oh well, my agent continues to peddle the books and after comments like that (Nice read! Too weird!) I have a feeling they will eventually see the light of day once marketing trends swing the other way around and people are looking for something a little different again.

On Games

I have to admit, I may be losing some steam in the Star Wars Galaxies department. I haven’t regularly played it in a month or so, despite the fact that I got the Jump To Lightspeed expansion, which was very fun. Perhaps it’s my antisocial tendencies taking hold once more, but I’ve found myself of late really enjoying console and offline PC games. Vampire the Masquerade was a novel experience. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater may have the best ending for a video game I have seen to date. And trying to get 100% completion on Final Fantasy X-2 has reminded me of how much I love Square and RPGs in general. But the big kahuna, the one that may very well be the single best game the PS2 will ever see is Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The sheer scope, brutality and relentlessly vicious humor of this game has elevated the game to near god like status in my eyes. One of the big draws of the GTA series in general has always been the idea of a big, living, breathing world that let you
be an amoral bastard who ran amuck and wreaked senseless death and destruction everywhere. Only GTA let you get a sniper rifle, park yourself at the top of a car park, wait for the lunch time crowd of business men and secretaries to start gathering, and blow them all to pieces.

San Andreas takes this to whole new levels. Now I can go to the airport, steal a Lear jet, fly over to the next city, say Los Venturas (ie, Vegas) jump out of the plane to skydive, then parachute onto the top of a building, pick people off with the sniper’s rifle, run from the cops, steal a bike, drive to an abandoned airfield, grab a jetpack, hop over to San Fierro (ie, San Francisco) grab something to eat from the local burger joint, then meet up with my girlfriend to take her dancing go back to her place for sex, then steal someone else’s car to beat up hookers before going back to the casinos to gamble or maybe shoot some pool.

It is, frankly, amazing what you can do in this game.

And that is the update of the rather mundane events of my life. Unfortunately, due to the fact that life is pretty okay right now, my world is monumentally boring, devoid of really good Gothy angst, but that’s the price you pay for waking up in the morning and being more or less okay with the world.

And YES, I will be updating the blog again more regularly, this won’t be another hit and run post that will sink into obscurity for a few more months…