Well, my book fell into development hell and when offered a huge gob of cash to sell the IP straight up, my spidey sense kicked in and I opted to maintain control of the characters and situations I'd created.
I'll be missing that $20k, but at least now I have an excuse to go knock on Stan Lee's door and offer him a crack at my stuff.
Excelsior motherfucker!
That's not just a clever headline, it's a valid statement on the current weather here in the city of meth n' roses.
Yesterday it was nearly 100 degrees outside. Today it was 80 degrees at 9am. Tomorrow I assume trees will begin bursting into flames and we'll all melt into puddles of goo and teeth.
I'm not going to be one of those people to blame global warming, or all those people who spent decades ruining the environment and ensuring my slow demise by cooking, but really, I hate those dudes.
And assuming global warming is all bullshit and the Earth is just experiencing a natural climate shift, well, fuck the Earth then. Who said you could climate shift?
Just for that I'm totally punching a squirrel.
Oscar Wilde was a genius.
I don't mean that in the typically glib internet way of idolizing dead people merely because their names are vaguely odd -- no, the man was truly the epitome of wit. I'm clever as all fuck, and generally have a rejoinder for any situation, but Mr. Wilde would no doubt talk circles around me were he still alive.
And that's not even mentioning how his fame as a writer will probably dwarf my own for eons.
To wit:
"All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his."
Yeah, it's a simple statement, but how profound is that? Extremely! That's how! And the thing about Wilde is that his entire life is full of such statements. Yeah, he's an author of great renown, but I think his greatest legacy is almost certainly his reams of clever quotations.
With that in mind, I've decided I need to start working up some great quotations if I'm going to be remembered millennia after my passing.
Ok. Got one. How's this sound?
"No duck is ever as ugly as the egg it leaves behind."
Yeah. That's right. Let that shit percolate in your brain for a few seconds.
Suck on that one Wilde!
If Robert Smith drew a picture of a crow in charcoal on the back of Ian Curtis would the entire world weep in unison?
I think it just might.
Thanks to the prettiest girl I know, I've found the antithesis of the existential ennui I've been experiencing thanks to the soul-crushing, if widely coveted job I hold: Neave Television.
It seems that taking clips from random, out-of-context bits of television from all over the cathode ray landscape makes for some pretty compelling modern art, if you want to call it that.
More realistically I'd call it an experiment in contextualism, and proof that none of the shit we watch on TV has any innate importance or meaning.
Besides, once my eventual plan to cover an entire wall of my apartment with a 24/7 feed of the Neave Flash applet comes together I'll be able to confuse and bewilder animals and people alike at a moment's notice.
Forewarning: If you're allergic to anything pompous and/or pretentious, walk away now. You're only going to hurt yourself reading this post (or most of this page, for that matter).
It seems like such a fucking dream snagging a job in a creative field, right? You get to sit at home all day and just think about stuff, then people pay you obscene amounts of money to elucidate your feelings on things using words like "elucidate" and "things."
But they never tell you about the problems with it.
Problem number one is that you are never supposed to start sentences with the word "but." But you do. And then people get pissed (even more so when you start sentences with the word "and").
Problem number two is that all creativity is derived from some kind of conflict. Whether that be a drug addiction or a dog who died when you were 12 -- whatever it is you're always trying to work through and draw creative power from these issues in life and eventually you run out of issues.
At least I do.
Then when I do, I lose all motivation to complete whatever project I was working on. That might be a screenplay or a comic book or my current job. Does that make it difficult to keep doing that shit? Hell yeah! At least youre sorta forced to do your job or you starve -- yay for motivation! -- but it also leaves a ton of projects half finished. Who knows how many of these things I've abandoned could have been sold for bags of cash?
Problem number three is other people. There is always some douche (most often the douche who hands you said bags of cash) who thinks his ideas are better than yours. Why, if he thought that, is he offering you bags of cash to begin with? Who the fuck knows!
So you're always stuck fighting with some twat over how things should be in every piece you create. Of course, that's sorta the reality for all of life, but I wonder if everyone won't eventually get to a point where its easier to just murder the contrarian assholes instead of trying to reason with them.
It would save a lot of time at least.
Yes, I realize I forgot to actually reveal the big news I alluded to here, but now that I've remembered, I figure I may as well actually fill you in.
This chaotic streak of mine almost forces me to constantly change jobs which doesn't work so well in the real world, but in the world of getting paid to reveal my thoughts in written word it's a hell of a motivator to constantly climb higher and higher through the professional ladder. As such, my next project is big. Like, bigger than a thousand Mecha Godzillas. Not literally, both because Mecha Godzilla is a fictional robot and because concepts have no physical size or shape, but metaphorically it dwarfs every piece of news you've heard since those towers got knocked down by those Arab fellows.
Ready?
I'm writing a comic book for Dark Horse Comics.
It's in the very early stages of the whole thing so that's about the extent of what I can reveal, but know this: I'm being paid very well, it's all my own idea, and it too glorifies suicide in a way not seen since 1994.
After that? Well, let's just say I've always wanted to take a crack at puppetry.
Is that a joke? Honestly, I don't really know anymore.
I'm going to make this short in an effort to convince you all to read my soon-to-be-released full review of hyper-stylish PlayStation 2 RPG Persona 3: FES, but I really need to spray the title with verbal affection as soon as humanly possible.
Ever since Final Fantasy VII launched a million RPG ships filled to the hulls with angst-ridden, spiky-coifed heroes, I've simply lost interest in beating them. The entire Japanese anime style that the American otaku cites as the key reason why Japan is so much better than the country that has allowed their fat asses to remain sedentary for the last 15 years has become so cliche and dull that even the Japanese are growing tired of it. Still, Persona 3: FES takes that same style and through a clever combination of hyper-stylished aesthetics and gorgeous artwork breathes new life into the style, the genre and the dying PlayStation 2.
A lot of people are going to be under the impression that if you've played the original Persona 3 you'd be wasting money picking up FES.
Those people are idiots.
Not only do you get a new version of the original game with epic scads of additional content added, but you get an entirely new expansion pack, pseudo-sequel that adds 30 hours of gameplay and concludes the story. Since Persona 3 already contained 100+ hours of gameplay, you're looking at a few months of gaming if you opt to see everything in FES.
In short, unless you're adamantly against RPGs, the Japanese people or teens who can only release their full potentional by capping themselves in the noggin with a handgun, you absolutely must buy this game. It's easily one of the best RPGs on the PlayStation 2, and has just assumed a spot on my Top 5 RPGs of all time.
Take that Cloud!
The nominees for this years Webby Awards finally hit the 'net and Game|Life is one of the five nominees for best gaming related website.
Yes, that's sort of a vague categorization and they never really specify what they mean by it, but since it includes both us, some completely unknown site on mobile gaming and the promotional website for Rock Band, I think it's safe to say it includes absolutely ANY site having to do with games -- a group of which I apparently work for one of the five best in the entire land of Internet.
Last year Destructoid received a Webby honoree (an achievement earned by having enough random people vote for you, but not enough to be chosen as a nominee for the actual award), which at the time was kinda cool, but realistically it's just a result of that site's overly zealous fan base. This year's nomination is actually the sort of thing that might go on my resume, as it's based entirely on the merit of our work -- which, again, is apparently amongst the five best gaming sites on the 'net.
Do I think we'll win? No. But that's only because I have no idea how they choose these things, and in most easily quantifiable ways, we're not the top of that nominee list. Or, at the very least, the Gamasutra kids cover a hell of a lot more boring material, and if this thing works at all like the Oscars, that's a feather in their cap.
Thanks to Boing Boing I came across two new examples of how damn amazing the Internet can be:
First up is this Flash version of an adorable CGI woman. It's entirely created via computer graphics work, but the woman looks uncannily realistic. Though her eyes are a bit bloodshot, she's still tres adorable and I'd buy her a pony if she wasn't completely fictional.
Next is this adorable anime-ization of the world's favorite constantly embattled, sand-dune riddled countries. Sure, they must be utter shitholes to live in, but they're so adorable when given huge eyes and cutesypoo descriptions.
http://rubbersoul1967.googlepages.com/afghan-tan
Go Team Internet!
Links
Portland's hippest publication, and my current employer.
A former employer. That link takes you to the archive of ...
Wired's gaming-centric website, and my current employer.
Cute kittens and puppies. Did you really need an explanat...
Why? Because the English do whimsical, surrealist humor m...
