The lows are low, but the highs are home
Month
I haven’t uploaded anything yet, because I want it to be pretty, but I’m setting up a system where I’ll upload lecture notes and study notes to my own little BCN site for those of you who want to read them, and for the random people who bum their notes off of people. They’ll be in .pdf format from OneNote, though if there’s a demand I can put up the OneNote files themselves, but I plan on uploading individual lectures and textbook chapters. That way, if someone missed class on September 28th, they can get the notes for September 28th. If there’s a mid-term coming up and they haven’t so much as opened their textbook, they can grab chapters 1-3.
I’ll break it down by subject, then by course, then have one section for textbook notes and one for lecture notes. And I’ll even name the courses for those of you not attending my university, alongside the regular course codes for those in the know. You want to learn about phonetics, for some stupid reason (trust me, you don’t want to learn about phonetics)? Then grab Chapter 2, Phonetics, from the Introduction to Linguistics folder. You want to learn about the biological basis of behaviour? Chapter 3 from Introduction to Psychology I.
I’m excited about this stuff, so I hope you’re all excited to get my university education for free. I’ll link it when I’ve got everything ready!
Hoo boy. I read this some time ago, but I’ve never really felt like writing anything about it. I’m cleaning up my bookmarks today, though, so I’m getting this out of there and throwing out another, slightly related, link I’ve had kicking around. I’ll start with that one because it’s a lot shorter, then we’ll move onto the main event. As a cautionary measure, if my life bores you, you have my permission to skip this post and buy Recettear instead. It’s on Steam, and available completely DRM-free (if I remember right) through Impulse and GamersGate.
If you’re still here, the first link is something vael tossed out once upon a time, so it may seem familiar to you. It’s simply the wikipedia article for anhedonia, which is a possibly theoretical? thing suggesting a chicken/egg relationship between depression and not feeling happiness. Does not feeling any pleasure come from the depression, or do you get depressed because you don’t feel any pleasure? There’s not enough info on it to really say for sure, but at any rate it’s something that feels extremely familiar to me. Regardless of which came first, not feeling the kind of pure joy a lot of people get from, well, everything has had a huge effect on my hobbies and my personality. The games I play, books I read, why I do it at all - it kinda comes back to what I get out of it and how I can get motivated to play or read them in the first place. It sounds very depressing, but that depends on how much I’m enjoying my current project. At the moment, I don’t have one, because I’ve been working on homework and will be for some time. Ah well.
But back to the main link, which as I’m looking at it again… I think I might have mentioned it somewhere because I remember half of it making no sense. At any rate I will scroll through it and see what I have to say about it. I’ll let you know if it’s worth reading as well.
We start with some numbers, for the sake of referring to research, and it basically says “no one knows the truth about this, oh well!” That seems to be the purpose of all the numbers in here, so keep on truckin’ even if you have no idea what exactly you’re reading at the moment.
Anyway, the fact that depression in children leads to a lot of the symptoms of ADHD is interesting to note. Also the question of whether ADHD is even a valid thing or just a label we slap on kids when we don’t know what to do with ‘em. For the record, I’m no longer identifying myself as having had a learning disorder for official university purposes, despite the general idea that I was mega-ADHD as a kid. I’d have to get tested and have them tell me “no you are fine” and that would just be a waste of time. So, did I even have ADHD, or do I just have things that are associated with ADHD? Good question.
They mention externalizing (taking things out on other people) and internalizing (taking things out on yourself) disorders, and then make slight mention of the fact that, actually, people who are depressed and have other internalizing disorders might still externalize things. I can guarantee that’s true and I wonder if it’s possible to even classify things that way except for the most absolutely simple diseases. Well, by that I mean, anxiety is internalizing there’s no way you could bring that onto other people. Because you are anxious and likely having trouble interacting with them. Generally it isn’t that clear-cut.
Actually that’s the only thing I’ve found of note until the treatment issues part. Yeah, I knew there was a reason I hadn’t written anything about this article. What’s interesting about that is that they refer only treatment via medication - this being the Psychiatric Times, and not the Psychological Times. So their question is, when we’re sending them on their way with a bottle of drugs, how do we guarantee the maximum effectiveness before they come back in four weeks? No thought is even given to other forms of treatment. Which pill should we use… Hmm… Well this one is good for one thing, and that one is good for another… Maybe if we give them both…
Comorbid depression in patients with ADHD suffers from an “attention deficit” by both researchers and clinicians, compared with other comorbidities (eg, ODD, anxiety).
Yeah they said that.
On further review I’ve decided this article is kinda shitty. There isn’t much redeeming value in it aside from the idea that ADHD and depression could affect/cause eachother and really it’ll have to all come down to what I have to say about myself and the concept. What do I have to say about it? I’m not really sure, mainly stemming from a lack of motivation to say anything at all. I mean, ADHD and depression are two things I dealt with at a very young age. The depression is something that, clearly, I haven’t conquered permanently, but I hope I have a better handle on it now. Same with the ADHD.
I was diagnosed with ADHD, hmm, as early as 7 or 8. I couldn’t swallow the pills, or chose not to, or whatever, and likely that alone has strengthened my physical inhibition against it - I have to choose my medication (vitamins, or when I was getting my wisdom teeth out, antibiotics and whatnot) around the fact that swallowed pills aren’t an option for me. Actually, that’s probably why I never take ibuprofen or anything like that. They don’t tend to be available otherwise.
At any rate, I took my ritalin by sticking it inside an Oreo cookie and chewing that, which was still disgusting, but it worked. I took it for three or four years before I decided I didn’t want to depend on it anymore, and out of stubborn rebellion avoided taking it and learned how to control myself. This places us around fifth grade, meaning it coincides with my decision to be mature and quiet and generally get rid of all the things I hated about myself - most of which were things I was taking the ritalin for. I felt that I spoke too much (not really my imagination, people complained), that I was too excited all the time, too childish, stuff like that. I didn’t want to depend on the ritalin anymore, and I hated the side effects as much as I could bring myself to care while it was in my system. So over time I got rid of all of that, maybe even went too far in the other direction, but I didn’t need the ritalin anymore and for all intents and purposes my ADHD was miraculously cured in a very short period of time. It was amazing, the medication was so fucking effective that rather than controlling the symptoms it made them go away! Wow!
So the part where this article becomes interesting to me is the side effects of the ritalin. I felt nothing. No joy, no real sadness either, but then that’s just plain sad. It was emptiness, which was worse in a whole lot of ways than being a pain in everyone else’s ass. I didn’t start getting depressed until after I started taking the ritalin. After I stopped having fun playing video games, after I stopped laughing and smiling except in the best of circumstances. Maybe it was just a matter of time anyway, like I would be depressed now regardless of what happened then. But that’s some damn good timing.
It’s interesting, as well, that the games I fell in love with are all games I played not long after getting off of the ritalin and not being as deeply depressed yet. Final Fantasy IX, the Ratchet & Clank series (which I still think of as extremely fun, despite not enjoying them much anymore), even Final Fantasy X-2, and of course a number of browser based games. Heh, I used to spend hours, every single day, playing daily browser based games. Before you could pay for more play time, I’d just find more games. My current set of webcomics (18 of them) is about what I would have had for browser based games at the very peak. There were plenty of flash games as well, a lot of stuff that’s probably terrible by today’s standards but entertained me a fair bit at the ages of 10-12.
I think about that age range in years, 2002-2004, and think “where would I have found flash games that far back?” but of course Newgrounds was there, sites like AddictingGames were around, Armor Games might even still have been Games of Gandor (fact check: Games of Gandor existed from 2004-2005). Kids these days wouldn’t even know that all their bases are belong to us…
/nostalgia
Even though I own a physical copy of Final Fantasy IX, rented and played for 50 hours when it was initially released, then rescued from an EBGames bargain bin some years later (and finished with that same save file, thanks to the glory of memory cards), I bought it for $10 from the PlayStation Network so I could replay it eventually. No disc switching, no wonkiness, just ten bucks straight to Square Enix and (hopefully) a bundle of nostalgic joy for me. Will I get the same feeling for the game now that I’m more or less in the same joyless state as I was while taking ritalin? Good question. Will I still like the game without the pure joy of VIDEO GAMES flowing through my veins? Also a good question. I’ll let you know if and when I get back to playing it.
You know those magazine things that are all going out of business because nobody buys them and they make little to no money from the ads on their websites? I’ve started seeing a lot of them lying around in various bookstores or bus stop convenience stores here in The Big City. Used to be I’d never see actual, physical magazines. At any rate, I posted about something from the cover of Wired not long ago, and now I’ve got another sensational magazine cover to share with you.
This time it’s Psychology Today, with a cover promoting the “Revenge of the Introvert.” Sounds interesting, but once again, I ran home to look the article up online rather than drop cash on a magazine. Sorry, guys. At any rate, the article is wonderful, and there are too many great quotes for me to actually single any out. If I did, I’d have to pick out all of the good ones, and this post would rival the length of the original. But please do read the article itself, as you’ll get some good value out of it whether you’re introverted or not. Maybe you’re severely extroverted, but in that case, you’ll learn how not to bulldoze over the introverts in your life. If you’re introverted, I’m sure this will give you plenty to think about.
So go read it!
I’m going to assume everyone reads that. You’d better, because I won’t have any incredibly lengthy posts to keep you busy today.
There’s also the… “interesting” (and I write it that way for emphasis of it’s questionable value) Highly Sensitive Introvert Survival Guide. I didn’t know there were introverts and Highly Sensitive (abbreviated HSP…? Highly Sensitive Person, perhaps? Highly Sensitive Perhaps?) Introverts. But if you’re beyond regular introversion, maybe you qualify. I do know what she means by hating people getting in my space and ruining my planned relaxation time. Her suggestions are pretty good, though: get noise cancelling headphones, enjoy your alone time as much as possible. Go for a run if things get too hectic. This isn’t even on the required reading scale, so it’s just bonus material if you want. You won’t be tested on this one.
Did I mention there would be a test on all the awesome things I link to? Because there will be. So I hope your interests coincide perfectly with mine and you read absolutely everything I put up.
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Listened to Hollow Place by Polar Bear Club (not the song my tumblr’s title comes from, but a favourite nonetheless) while writing this post, and went to check out their myspace to see if I could catch them live now that I live in a real place. Turns out they’re playing in Toronto on November 21st and Quebec City on the 22nd. Both of those are very possible. Tickets are a little under $30, which is not bad at all, though transportation costs will be where the real expenses lie. They’re also playing with August Burns Red, who I do listen to, and a few other names I recognize but can’t remember liking. It’s possible I hate them. At any rate, there’s also Bring Me The Horizon, Emarosa, and This Is Hell.
The moral of the story is I might make plans to go to one of those shows. November 21st is a sunday, so I could do a weekend trip. That means the 22nd is a monday, which is a day I have two classes (and a tutorial) so that wouldn’t be possible would be a bad idea.
I guess I like living near interesting things.
I read both Destructoid and its anime-centric sister site, Japanator, on a daily basis. I learn and see a lot of things. This is one of those rare things that is so amazing I must share it with you.
Did you like Baccano? Did you like Inception? This has both. It was created by one of the Japanator writers (double checking reveals him to be an intern) and it’s great in every way. The credits and everything are all from the anime itself, so it is actually a “legitimate” movie poster style advertisement for Baccano.
But the tag line is the best part.
“A life of crime can last forever…”
YES!
Through my university, there’s some Microsoft thing where they can give us Microsoft software and other stuff for free, except Microsoft Office which they think we’ll be willing to pay for. So the end result is that I downloaded Windows 7 for free, and that’s great, and then I torrented Microsoft Office on the university wi-fi. At the time I didn’t install Microsoft OneNote (part of the greater Office suite) because I had no idea what it was, then I was at a bus stop yesterday and saw an ad for it. Essentially, it’s supposed to be a “virtual notebook,” allowing you to type wherever you want on the page, draw/write if you have a tablet, paste pictures, whatever.
I’ve been taking notes in WordPad thus far, just typing as my professor speaks basically, and so far this hasn’t been a problem because I haven’t actually had to read over my notes. I do have a folder for each of my classes, but each has a simple “COMP1005” text file where the class number and date are the only thing to distinguish where and when something happened.
As a form of self-promotion, I guess, and because it’s meant to be really useful to us, OneNote is offered for free through the school without any of the other Office programs. I guess I would have had an older version with the Office that I torrented, but that’s alright. I got it and installed it, and here’s the surprising part: it seems really damn good. I’ve seen Mac users with a similar program that looks a whole lot snazzier, so likely that’s where they got the idea, but either way: this is an awesome idea.
Here’s how it’s set up: you create as many “notebooks” as you like (which are a lot like folders, used just for OneNote) displayed along the left side. Inside each notebook are a number of tabs along the top, which could be your to do list or your different classes or what have you. Then inside each tab, you add as many pages as you like, displayed along the far right side. This sounds confusing, but imagine your notebook or binder: you may have one for each class, or each day of classes. If you’re well-organized, you may have separators (tabs) to separate your homework from your notes or something like that. Then each of those tabs has as many pages as you need. Currently, I’ve got two binders: one for my monday/wednesday classes, and one for tuesday/thursday. Then I have separators labelled for my classes in chronological order.
OneNote, then, managed to replicate that perfectly, with the bonus of to do lists per day. I could also have a universal to do list in a miscellaneous folder, for the long term. Or I could add in a calender. I can do this shit, unlike WordPad or MS Word. I add a new page for each day of classes (under the tab of the class itself) and go on my way. Add a tab for important projects. Tada! Everything in one place.
Moral of the story is that this is infinitely better than text files or .pdfs or whatever else you might have been using on the computer, and likewise it has many advantages over your physical pen and paper. If you’re allowed to take notes on your computer, this would be wonderful. If you can’t, that’s a shame. At any rate I love this program, and I never thought I’d say that about a Microsoft program. It uses nearly the same amount of memory as MS Word (20k), and about a third more than simple WordPad (15k), so it’s not like it’s a huge memory drain either. I just have to convert the notes I’ve already taken and then we’ll be golden.
GOLDEN.
Two things: one, I am busy sometimes because life screws up and homework piles up instead of getting done. Two, I am sad/tired, and this makes me forgetful and disinclined to write.
I had things to say but I no longer remember them because I’ve been away from the internet for so long because of life.
I don’t even know, man.
Actually, it’s cooler than you might think. Yes, BioWare is anonymously collecting data from you, without your permission or knowledge. But aside from being anonymous, the whole idea is to make Mass Effect 3 better. I doubt anyone will complain about that.
Weird that PC players all wanted to bang Miranda and 360 players all wanted to chill with Grunt. Note that I haven’t played either Mass Effect so this means nothing to me. That’s why I have nothing much to say about it. But it was worth linking.
Oh wait it’s the sunday something! Hey yeah alright one second.
Privates: It’s a game starring condom-wearing things who are specially trained to eliminate STIs and whatnot. What’s not to like?! It’s free, it’ll take you about an hour to play, and you get to see chlamydia as an invisible tentacle monster and shoot anti-herpes ammo at abundant amounts of herpes. Strangely enough, no matter which level you are in, there are swarms of giant sperm… Including a boy’s anus. You also have to deliver a morning-after pill in the form of a nuke inside the womb.
MORNING-AFTER BOMB. IN THE WOMB.
Also cancer of the penis. You don’t want that.
If you knew of GOG already, this will probably make you sad. If you didn’t, watch out for it when it comes back up.
I hope they didn’t run themselves out of business by being amazing. I hope they can still do the no-DRM thing. I can’t say I’ve seen GOG releases on torrent sites, but then I haven’t been looking for the games either, so the point may be moot. From what I remember, I think the policy on Blackcats Games (which has recently stopped being a walled fortress) was that they weren’t allowed to be uploaded. Not that they’re the biggest source of VIDEO GAMES on the internet, but I’d hope the same appreciation for the service would exist elsewhere as well.
At any rate, no matter what it comes down to, if they have the same prices it will still be amazing. Compatibility is less of an issue now that Windows 7 can mostly take care of things, but trying to get some of that stuff to work on XP and Vista would have been a nightmare.
We’ll just have to wait and see.
Closure by Evergrey, from their album Monday Morning Apocalypse.
The whole album is great, of particular note being all of them. Alright, alright, check out The Dark I Walk You Through and Unspeakable. I want to quote them as well, and you can’t stop me, so hah! I post Closure simply because I just listened to it and couldn’t believe I hadn’t posted them before. Or, if I have, I didn’t tag it or mention the word “Evergrey” in the post. So somehow I doubt I have. Anyway, in order. First The Dark I Walk You Through.
Unspeakable:
HAHA SAD LYRICS I HOPE YOU ARE SAD
But no, I kid. I like Evergrey a lot. Makes it hard to choose one single song. Also I keep coming back to that image of “a fist full of tears.” I seriously loved that quote. So great.
Anyway things are very sad over in La Matt Grind. Specifically, it is very grindy. Maybe if a good movie comes out I can invite someone I’ve met to see it and then force them to be friends with me. But as charmingly as possible so they’re fooled into thinking they would want to befriend me. The poor fools.
Roughly two years ago now, my girlfriend of nearly a year and I broke up. The stress from school and what I was feeling because of that got to the point where I felt justified in giving up, and so I did. I caved under the pressure, and I let myself go for a long time. I can’t say, really, when it was that I collected the scattered pieces of myself. Maybe it was later that year (end of 11th grade), or maybe it wasn’t until the middle of last year (12th grade) when AP English grabbed me and shook me around a little. Either way, my average slipped in 11th grade, before ending strong in 12th.
Entrance scholarship money at my university is based on your marks for the first semester of grade 12 and all of 11th grade. Basically, my 90% average meant nothing, because their calculations left it in the 85-90% range. At 85%, you received $2000. At 90%, you received $3000. If that were a one-time sum, that wouldn’t be so bad. But it’s renewable every year, provided you have the right grades, and so that’s a “potential” loss of $4000. If I don’t manage the A- required to keep it (something like 83%, which I feel relatively comfortable with), sure, I decrease that potential loss of money, as if that’s a good thing. The end result is that I lost out on at least a thousand bucks because I wanted to be miserable.
I cried when Britt and I broke up, which is something I don’t do often. Never with anyone around, though, because I had to put on a strong face to keep people from knowing just how little they really knew about our relationship. Sure, they knew I put too much importance on her, but they didn’t know just how bad it was. So I didn’t let them find out.
I cried in public on saturday, and that’s something I haven’t done since I was eleven.
But I can’t afford to let myself slip this time. I know the stakes now, and I know the consequences for even momentary lapses in commitment.
I don’t expect I’ll go for professional treatment, though my parents have offered it repeatedly. It may be biased, it may be unfair, but I’ve always had a feeling that I don’t need that kind of stuff. In my mind, I think of it as meant for “other people.” There’s nothing wrong with the “other people,” really, and I have nothing against them. If that’s what floats their boat, then everyone’s happy. I just like to build my own little raft and set off into the unknown.
It’s rough learning this stuff on the fly, but experience is a wonderful teacher. I gots my little raft a-floatin’ just fine.
In retrospect, I realize that I hold an untraceable prejudice against psychiatry that has always been prevalent and problematic for the profession. It’s not something I’ve been taught or otherwise told, it’s just there in my head. I certainly don’t judge people who go for professional help, but it’s quite possible I’ve ultimately hurt people by unconsciously spreading my unrealistic philosophy of independence. Ho-hum. Something to think about.
Look, I know I should tell you what this is, but the title alone made me drop everything and read the article myself and I want you all to be that excited about it. Solely based on the phrase “quarter-life crisis.”
Are you excited?
Is there any one of us who looks back at life and wished we could have done something different?
Most of us realize this is a futile way of thinking and move on. But if we had incredible angst and the ability to time travel, our lives might look a bit like The Tatami Galaxy, noitaminA’s Spring 2010 anime series.
Alright, there. Now you know what it is without even having to read about it. Go on with your lives or check it out. I sincerely plan on watching it. Eventually. It seems great.
It’s been pretty lonely the last couple of days. The odd time I end up on the computer, nobody is around! It is very sad. I am busy, you are busy, everyone is busy. Terribly sad.
Using the bus and walking around campus, as opposed to driving everywhere, has been pretty nice so far. I am building copious amounts of muscles, which may or may not have easily recognizable names. They are the muscles involved in carrying heavy things on your back and walking up a lot of stairs, as well as standing on a bus and balancing your entire body via a pole above your head. These are complex muscles groups, certainly, but they will be very important in the days ahead.
Anyway, I’m going to fencing tonight at 9 pm. Might not be able to get a bus depending on when it ends. I have a drive if need be, anyway. Hooray! Should be a good time.
He’s got a shiny red American sports car, so the speedometer reads in mph with km/h underneath. We get onto the 100 km/h highway, and he goes 100 mph. This is equivalent to 160 km/h, which is like an instant loss of your license if you get caught plus a huge fine.
Neato!
It’s also time for the Sunday Something! I have two somethings for you this sunday. Both are from Art of Manliness, and this is basically the end of my reading list. I have yet to post the comorbid ADHD and depression article, but all in due time.
Our Disembodied Selves and the Decline of Empathy: Kids these days are assholes and don’t connect very well to other people. Once upon a time, kids were not like that. In those days, they had to interact with people in person rather than over the internet and that probably has a lot to do with it. Know anybody who forgets sometimes that the Internet has different social rules from meatspace?
How to Firmly Say No Without Coming Off Like a Jerk: Don’t be the person who says yes when they’re secretly screaming no on the inside. It’ll be useful eventually, and everyone can do with some good manners.
Also goddamnit vossk’s Sadurday. Goddamnit.
It did, however, add to the realization that few people probably want all the details on how my dog died. So I won’t detail the whole story here on tumblr, because putting it into words will probably only make it worse for me. At any rate, here’s the basic version.
Our six-year old black lab, Shadow, loved going for rides in the car. She also didn’t get much exercise, and so when she got outside and hadn’t had much exercise recently, she would make us chase her around until she felt like going back inside. The easy solution to this was to unlock the car and let her in, then go inside to grab her leash so she would come inside. It literally never failed, she knew she was about to be brought inside but she still held out hope that we’d go for a drive anyway.
Yesterday, we were cleaning the house (vacuuming the dog hair, cleaning nose prints off of the windows, etc.) and she got out the front door when I was bringing something out to the garbage. I let her into the van like I’d done a hundred times before, and she hopped right in to wait for a drive. This was sometime before lunch. I even put her leash on the seat so it would be right there for me to bring her in. I threw out the garbage, then went back inside and got distracted cleaning the house.
Sometime after 4 pm, my mom asked my brother and I if she was with us. We said no, and that we thought she’d been with her. I joked to my brother that she was probably hiding in his closet again, because I spent fifteen minutes scouring the house for her the other day only to find her in there. A few minutes later, my mom yelled down “did you get her out of the car?”
It was a hot day. Probably 30+ Celsius. You don’t leave anything that can’t get out on its own (babies, pets) in cars in the summer. But we did, because we all assumed she was hanging out inside somewhere.
It was far too late at that point. The body is to be cremated, and the ashes will be spread in a pet cemetery. We kept her collar. My dad, who hasn’t seen her a whole lot in the past year since he accepted the new job in Ottawa, agreed to gather up her things from our house and take them to his. Hopefully it isn’t painful for him to see her blankets and her food dishes.
In a weird way, I’m glad that all I had to do was sweep some corners in the basement to finalize it all. You’d be surprised where you find dog hair when you own a dog that sheds.
She destroyed the blind and drapes for our living room window, which spans the wall there. Something like a thousand dollars worth of damages. That was… Monday.
While in the van, she chewed through the three seatbelts on the driver’s side, so it’s illegal to drive until we spend at least $300 on the driver’s side seatbelt. $200 for the middle seatbelt, and $100 for the back seatbelt. However all we need are the belts themselves, which could easily be found at a junkyard. So the installation could be far cheaper, or it’s possible we could even do it ourselves. I don’t know what other damage there might be on the inside.
We were going to spend about $1500 on completing the fencing around our yard so she’d be able to enjoy the backyard without having to be on a leash or a chain. We never finalized the details, and it’s possible we may not bother now.
But the money doesn’t even matter. She lived with us from six weeks through to six years. She had easily that many more left to go. I still expect her to come running to the door when I come back into the house. I still expect her to lick my face and get me out of bed so she can go out to pee.
I loved that dog.
My mom says she doesn’t blame me, but I’ll never know for sure.
I’m crying, and I’m shaking.
You ought to know that’s a big deal.
Recently, an epidemic has been clawing its way through our glorious nation of the United Internets of The Web. It began slowly, in an isolated corner of the UItW. But one by one, new cases were discovered, making a clear case for a classification of this contagious new menace to our hearts and minds. Preliminary results are reproduced below, and have been submitted for inclusion in the DSM-V. Researchers around the nation are doing further research as we speak, and it is certain that much more is left to uncover about the disease tentatively titled “Utopianism Disease.” We can only hope that methods of treatment reveal themselves for inclusion in the print release of the DSM-V.
Utopianism Disease, or UD, has been classified as contagious, as it spreads from those who exhibit the most extreme symptoms to new, impressionable hosts. The symptoms are painted as positive ways to improve quality of life, and the new host seems to realize that they have always been there and put a new level of importance on them. Eventually, the symptoms take over their life, and they too become yet another victim of UD. As the disease progresses, they begin to spread it to their friends and acquaintances. Some even offer the disease to strangers, claiming it will bring enlightenment.
UD is characterized mainly by abnormalities of emotion and thought. Unlike many traditional diseases, the simple idea of it can spread it to others. No bacteria or germ is involved. It can be spread verbally, or it can be spread through written text. In fact, it can be spread by any form of communication. This is what makes it so terrifyingly effective, and so frightening to contain. No human being can reasonably be detained indefinitely, for the protection of all others. If they need to be guarded, eventually the guards may succumb. Treatment must begin with the worst sufferers and work down to those who hold the idea at arm’s length and avoid further infection.
Sufferers share no easily defined physical link, and so it must be assumed that no one is immune. No race, gender, or creed is safe. Age does not appear to grant any immunity; however, it seems that young people are especially at risk. This vulnerability makes it even more important than ever to protect our children from online predators. Freedom will only harm them. Glob bless the United Internets of the Web.
The list of symptoms has not been finalized, as UD seems to manifest in a wide variety of ways. However, a preliminary list follows.
It is very important that if you, anyone you know, appears to have any of the above symptoms, you proceed immediately to the highest-paid psychiatric help available in your area. If symptoms have yet to appear, you may still want to consult a well-paid psychiatrist to make sure you have the right medication to keep your family safe. Big Pharma Inc. has promised a vaccine will be available within the next few months, and it is expected to create a full immunity to UD. Waiting lists will soon be available on their website, and it is recommended that you pay by cheque or credit card to make sure you have early access to this life-saving vaccine.
Glob bless the souls of these poor, poor victims, and long live the glory of the United Internets of the Web.
Why, I’m so glad you asked without any solicitation whatsoever! I was just about to post about a few things I was told the other day during some presentations at university.
I’ve also learned that taking notes on a laptop is far easier than writing them by hand, but it can come down to personal preference as well. I plan on copying my notes out by hand when I start studying for tests and exams, as an initial review of what I’ve got before I start the real studying. I’ve heard from some people that they can visualize the notes they’ve written, down to the colour of pen used, so obviously taking notes on a laptop would be bad for those people.
So that’s what I’ve learned in one day of class and one day spent at various presentations! Actually going to the presentations put me in a draw to win a Kobo eReader so that’s kinda why I did them. But hey aren’t you all glad that I went?!
I love being a leader sometimes. To show people the light and stuff. When I got to my linguistics course, about fifteen minutes early, I saw a lot of people inside and assumed it was another class finishing up, as they run ten minutes apart. I didn’t want to walk into the end of a class and wait for the next one, and there were a few other people outside as well, so we all waited around a bit.
More people showed up, and seeing other people waiting outside, they assumed the same thing as we had and sat around. I realized before very long that it had to be people who’d arrived early for linguistics in there, but out of complacency I waited anyway. A minute or two before class would normally start, I picked up my stuff and walked in the door. One look at the screens up front was all I needed: they simply said “Introduction to Linguistics.”
All I had to do was lean out the door and soberly say “hey guys class is about to start so we should probably make our way in.” It was all I could do to suppress a big, idiotic grin.
I received this a while ago, but I’d been posting a lot of text so I thought I’d save it for later. Some quality e-mail from the fine folks behind Kingdom of Loathing, for sure. It’s too bad I got stuck in the midst of the endgame changes and can never go back to the game. I encourage you to check it out if you haven’t previously, though.
Dear [username],
Okay, I’m not good at this kind of thing, but I feel like I have to give it a try. So, here goes:
I was hanging out the other night, listening to some old mp3s, and I was just overcome with memories of when we used to hang out all the time. Remember? You were an intrepid, fearless adventurer, and I was the free-to-play, fun-and-funny online role-playing game that won your heart. Do you still remember those good times? I can’t stop thinking about them.
I mean, I know things got kind of messed up at the end, and believe me, I’m sorry. If I could take any of that back, I totally would. And I know people grow and change, and you’re not the same person you were then, but hey – I’ve changed, too! I thought and thought about how to win you back. I figured I’d make you a mix CD, but I couldn’t decide what “our song” was. So I just concentrated on becoming a better game for you, and here’s what I came up with:
Remember how much fun you used to have with your clan? Alternately, remember how you never joined a clan because you didn’t see the point? Either way, clans now have clan dungeons, group zones where your whole clan can work together. Crawl through sewers to Hobopolis, a vast underground vagrant vacation vista! Slide into the slime tube, and stir-fry sassy slimes!
I know I wasn’t the prettiest game when we were together, so I had some work done. Almost every interface got an interface-lift. You can even manage most of your inventory via chat commands! I also came up with a way for you to automate most of the things you don’t love about the game, so you can spend more time with the parts you do love.
Not only that, but there are way more animated .gifs than there were before. Don’t worry; I haven’t lost that low-fi edginess that you love, but I’m a lot easier to play with now.
You can also have a custom title now, just in case you didn’t feel like I appreciated what made you unique as an individual.
I should also say
Haiku Dungeon’s been revamped.
See what I did there?
Maybe you quit because you got sick of always adventuring above the water. I admit that seems unlikely, but I fixed that, too – there are a bunch of underwater zones with new food, equipment, mechanics, and challenges.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, trust me. I’m still the silly, clever, deceptively-complex game you fell in love with, only with about 95% more awesome.
So, I’m just sayin’, if you can find it in your heart to give me another change, I won’t disappoint you.
If you don’t drop by, I promise I won’t bother you again. I just really felt like we deserved one more try.
Love,
Here’s an interesting interview with the general manager from Eidos Montreal, the guys working on the new Deus Ex game. I guess the general manager is the guy who hires people or something? At any rate, he talks about the specifics of actually making a studio work, from hiring the right people to making sure the right people sit together for optimal productivity. It’s not the kind of details that often emerge about a studio, so if you’ve been absolutely strapped for info about Deus Ex: Human Revolution, worry not. I’ve got you covered.
I’m not sure how many times I’ve link dumped on a sunday, and I’m not sure if I’ll make it a weekly event. But it’s sunday, and this is something, so without further ado, I present several things for your reading pleasure. I’ve been cleaning out my Read It Later list, so for that reason you also get to read the things I’ve picked up over the last couple of months.
First we have a number of Gamasutra articles, beginning with MMOs and moving gradually into the mainstream:
Next, on an entirely different spectrum, we have an article about the future of books. However, there’s a hilarious quote from a man who doesn’t know video games other than them Grand Auto Thefts and Modern Wars, so for that reason it’s the logical follow-up to articles about video games.
Moving from books to writing for anime, we have a rant from the writer behind well-known anime like Ergo Proxy, Samurai Champloo, Eureka 7, Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex, and the biggest one of all - Cowboy Bebop. Then a roundtable discussion on his rant from the wonderful folks at Japanator. Following that is a discussion of the American meaning of the word “otaku.”
If you have no idea about my interests, there’s your crash course. Hope you enjoyed something up there!
“Emergent gameplay refers to complex situations in games that arise from simple mechanics. For example, in many FPS games the physics of a rocket launcher will cause things to be pushed away from it. For years gamers have been using the propulsion of a rockets explosion below them to increase jump height.”
There’s a simple explanation, but the article goes on to really neat thing like AI and how awesome AI can affect how you react to the world of the game you’re playing. Hearing a guard talk with his buddy, then crawl away from you after you mercilessly begin gunning them down, makes a game feel less like a game and more like a world. When a game feels like a world, as in Far Cry 2 and STALKER, it lends itself to “living” in that world rather than merely “playing” it as a game. You can play Far Cry 2 as a game by messing around, reloading if you die, etc. etc. The usual stuff. You can “live” in the world by doing a perma-death run: if your character dies, you start over. No questions asked. So instead of just shooting rocket launchers at your feet, you have to pay attention, sneak through the jungle, and be sure not to piss anyone off too badly.
Simpler, linear games don’t lend themselves to this kind of gameplay. Could you really “live” in the world of Final Fantasy XIII? Not really. The story just doesn’t allow you to do that. You might look at a game with a modern setting, like Grand Theft Auto, and think you could live in that world - but when you try to follow the traffic laws in Grand Theft Auto, you suddenly realize that the game was designed for you to speed through traffic because everything is so incredibly far away. That’s why it’s so special that you can sit down with Far Cry 2 and simply be a mercenary in Africa. Whether or not it was designed that way, we’ll never know, but much like rocket jumping, chances are it wasn’t something the developers thought about as they were making the game. It’s just something that happened to pop up.
So the fact that Far Cry 2 and STALKER have that kind of gameplay are why, in his opinion, they’re some of the most important games of this generation. I absolutely believe that we’ll see more sophisticated games in the same vein, with even more random realism (like guards helping their wounded comrades, or freaking out when they see you and you suddenly disappear into the trees) where simple little pieces of code change the game in a huge way. It’s just a question of when. I don’t know if it will be the norm, though, because it takes a lot less work to carefully restrict a player’s control and influence over the world so that you know exactly what they’ll experience. Pretty much everyone who plays Final Fantasy XIII will have the exact same experience as I did. But no playthrough of Far Cry 2 or STALKER will be exactly the same, and it has nothing to do with things like picking a different character class, race, or gender in the RPG vein. Some people may rush through the game and just play the key storyline missions, while others will do things like perma-death runs and enjoy the game in completely different ways.
If you think about the way people react differently to novels, or paintings - socially accepted forms of “art” - based on their own personal experiences, you’d be hard-pressed not to qualify these games as art.
Well, it was inevitable, although I’m hoping to reverse it for tomorrow and the next few days. I forgot about my video games and got caught up in the internet again. You know what that means: link dump! I’ll try to provide a bit of a summary so you don’t have to read it all and stuff. I just can’t not share it, that’s all. And I have stuff I want to write for you and for someone specific but I can’t do that if I write an essay about the internet, so I’ll let the guys who wrote about it already take care of that. Without further ado, today’s topic is basically The Web vs The Internet.
The Web: Your Firefox or your Chrome or your Opera or even Internet Explorer, working through your desktop, or possibly your phone, or laptop, or other somewhat mobile device. This is the HTML and the websites, the facebook and the google and all that. Increasingly, people are just using iPhone apps rather than using their computers for the easy stuff.
The Internet: The stuff behind the web pages. The ability to transfer data, being connected, the thing that gets your iPhone apps and makes them work.
So Wired has a bright orange magazine this month declaring that “The Web Is Dead.” Despite the sensationalist cover (how could I possibly avoid looking at that?), when I went online to check out the articles (while I had to look, it was very easy not to buy - sorry, guys) I found out that their true headline was “The Web Is Dead. Long Live The Internet.” Their argument is that people using iPhone apps rather than an iPhone internet browser to get what they want (facebook, twitter, RSS feeds, whatever online content) proves that The Web is over and the infrastructure of The Internet is the true innovation. I’m not sure where I stand on that. I find the debate over open innovation (open-source, free stuff) vs closed walls (careful control, paying for stuff) much more interesting than their shambling almost-an-argument about how the simple iPhone and iPad somehow disprove The Web as a thing that has value. Read what you like, judge it yourself, and carry on with your life.
The Web Is Dead. Long Live The Internet - split into two columns of “we are to blame” and “they are to blame,” which probably looks really nice in print, this article tries to go at their argument from both (?) points of view. Blame ourselves for choosing the iPhone over our PCs, or blame Steve Jobs for being a big fat greedy jerk and making the iPhone. Or something. I don’t recall this even being a debate, or there being any point of view, so this article tries to say some things but ultimately it’s probably more valuable as a source of debate than an actual article. Maybe you’ll see some gleaming diamond of an argument in there that went completely over my head after an hour spent reading other articles.
The Web Is Dead? A Debate - an e-mail conversation/argument that circles itself, develops a third head, and yet somehow continues to be engaging throughout, this debate (article?) spans a whole host of topics from “open Web” and “closed Internet” to economic factors and the inability of old-school sensibilities to thrive online. I wonder if an important (or so I assume) magazine guy is the right person to debate a paid iPhone magazine app vs a free online website paid for by advertising dollars. He wouldn’t participate in their rush to make money off of an app if he hadn’t already been disappointed with the way TV advertising ideas have failed to turn a profit online. But that’s just a small section of this; I think the core idea is the “dance” or cycle between open and closed, innovation and profit, where too much of either leads to a surge in the other. Too much open, non-profit development and you get a lot of people making money on iPhone apps. Too much closed iPhone development, you get a lot of people throwing their stuff out for free and trying new things.
How the Web Wins - amidst a radical declaration that The Web is now archaic, one man steps out to let everyone know that people are developing The Web so that it can compete with those crazy kids in the app store. He says that The Web will grow from competition, and simply by knowing someone developing a browser-based game I know he’s telling the truth. Not to mention, as a player of browser-based games, I’ve seen stuff like Ruby On Rails that would boggle the mind of a boy who grew up on HoboWars and other html driven games. It’s a quick read, but he has a point.
So there you go. You be the judge. I don’t own an iPhone, and I probably won’t for a very long time, so I’m almost entirely removed from this big debate. I still use The Web, and I will for the conceivable future. I know that a lot of people are making a lot of money with apps, but that’s just the way that it goes. I like what I’ve got going here, and I’m not going to spend a large sum of money to change that.
I would title this post after the name of the article, but I don’t want to give anyone the wrong idea. This post is, really, about The Witcher and that’s the important bit. The Witcher was a great PC RPG meant to hearken back to the “good old days” of PC gaming. The Witcher: Enhanced Edition was a free update for anyone who had bought the original game, making the game even better and working in user feedback. Now The Witcher 2 is meant to incorporate user feedback even more, to make a bigger, better game and give the people what they want.
In this case, the people seem to want an amazing story with nothing but grey morality choices. No good faction and evil faction, no karma system, no imaginary numbers that tell you just how terrible or nice you are. The first game did this pretty well. But it’s the writing that’s really special. They actually have writers writing this stuff, and writing it in the original Polish and in English more or less at the same time rather than slapping together a translation later on. I know big games like Mass Effect and whatnot have dedicated writers, but for these guys to dedicate their limited resources on some damn fine dialogue and plot sequences is great to hear.
I never buy PC games, simply because I find very few I want to play. It’s just not the form of input I grew up with, I guess. But I’m going to buy The Witcher 2 anyway because I want these people to have my money and make good games and listen to their fans and continue to be awesome.
Well, Rogers, you win. Your bandwidth limits have taken away my flash games, but admittedly I don’t really mind. Your bandwidth limits have taken away my torrenting, which is annoying, but I’ll find a way. Just you wait.
But this is the final cruelty. This is the one that hurts.
With bandwidth limits, I can no longer afford to have 12 characters in Dragon Tavern.
Or maybe I could. But they’re already gone. It’ll save me time anyway. I kept my original two, but the extra ten that I’ve been working on since the middle of april (almost five months o.0) had to go. Admittedly, the amount of time it took to use all my daily action points was keeping me from playing the game on a regular basis, but I’d managed to get them all up to level 35, only 20 away from becoming Immortals, which was why I created them in the first place. I wanted to see what all of the different paths had to offer. At the same time. Turns out, all I’d really get is a couple of cool paragraphs, but five months ago I figured, what the hell, it’ll be awesome.
I was a little sad when I started writing this, but the more I think about it, the more this comes back to me wanting to spend my time on things I actually like. No more grinding for hours in the hopes of having fun later. No more practising some dumb minigame just so I can unlock some ultimate weapon or whatever. Just play the damn content and enjoy it, or get it over with. If it’s absolutely horrible, quit and stop wasting my damn time. As Vael put it, if the chase is fun, who cares about the catch? Only I’ve come to realize there are a million chases, and hardly ever is the catch a sufficient reward. Five hours for a thirty second victory scene, and an item that only has value as long as I continue to play the same game I’ve been playing for a week straight? Even spending twenty minutes searching for treasure in the final dungeon seems silly, when you realize that the items you’ll find are no good to you when you take down the final boss. Even if there’s a New Game+ option or something, you probably already have all the good stuff before you get there.
So now I’m going to go play FF X-2 because I have so much fun with its class system and battle system. If something else grabs my fancy I’ll play that, but if not, I may replay FF IX and just enjoy myself.
And I’m not even going to worry about whether I’ve missed a 0.3% completion rate cutscene, because I can just watch the perfect ending on youtube if I miss some dumb conversation you can never access again.
Why the hell would I press X in the middle of a cutscene? Don’t you know that pressing buttons during cutscenes tends to lead to a “skip scene” feature? Screw whoever thought to assign completion percentage to such arbitrary and entirely forgettable stuff.
A harrowing tale of what it’s like to be a Microsoft customer. Strangely well-timed, come to think of it.
Do you like A Game of Thrones yet? I certainly hope so. However, if gigantic fantasy books aren’t your thing, HBO is working on a television series. Please watch it and then you will like A Game of Thrones and then you can come back to these links.
Alternatively if you really like languages you’d also be interested in these. The basic gist is that a guy was hired to create a language for the Dothraki people (which didn’t exist in the books per se) for the TV series. Many people are the kinds of nerds who’d want to learn a fantasy language (or probably another, to supplement their in-depth knowledge of Klingon), and so they have rallied to support this new and exciting language. One guy in particular wants to challenge those people by creating an inhuman language that breaks as many of the natural human language patterns as possible. Amazingly enough, the guy who created the language responded, basically just saying that it was too little, too late and also that humans should speak like humans. It wouldn’t really make sense to create an abnormal human language for normal humans.
Fantasy TV in the service of science (part one - the challenge)
The Dothraki response to a call for science in a created language (part two - the reply)
Life events which can accumulate into an illness.
The strange thing to me is the non-adult scale. By beginning to date, and subsequently breaking up (likely within a few weeks), you’re at 100 points already, thus putting you well on the way to illness.
Likewise, do the points magically disappear upon reaching adulthood? Ah well. Under-researched ideas tend to fall apart upon closer examination.
Let me make this abundantly clear: I want you to read this, eventually, if you have any interest in the gaming industry, or even any entertainment industry.
I don’t care if you don’t have time for it today. Bookmark it. Check it out tomorrow.
I haven’t been saying much lately but I’ll be back. I’m working on finally finishing FF X. It’ll be the third Final Fantasy game I stopped playing 10-15 hours short of its conclusion that I’ve finished in the past couple of weeks, and honestly, I’m kinda proud of myself. I’ll see how far I am in FF X-2, and decide from there whether I want to move to handheld games or finish that. FF IV Advance needs to be finished off, and I found my copy of FF V Advance that was lost in our couch for five years. I might actually finish them before turning 85.
Link dump for now folks. Post coming later. I’ll try not to make this too long, because there’s plenty for you to read here.
The Citizen Kane of Gaming: a debate that has been raging across the internet, though you may not have noticed because you may not spend time around people who care about Citizen Kane. Arguments on the subject have largely died down, and I haven’t read anything so amazing it HAD to be shared (in fact I’ve been avoiding the subject because it is a stupid argument often full of stupid people - METROID PRIME TRILOGY IS CITIZEN KANE OF GAMING, SERIOUSLY) but I’ll share these two with you today because they’re not dumb.
The Disc Is Not Enough: trying to combat used game sales by making a new game worth more than a used one, and how on-disc DLC is a nice bonus, but not the greatest solution.
Size Doesn’t Matter Day: indie devs declare that short games are good too, some even admit that they may be wrong and that it’s possible gamers at large really do think short games are bad and will hate any game that only lasts a few hours no matter how good it is. There’s a lot to read here and maybe your favourite indie dude wrote about it. Most of these posts contain links to every other post on the subject, so it shouldn’t be too hard to find others to read. I’ll link the ones I read, starting with the one that sent me off to read all of these things in the first place. Check out others and let me know if they’re great!
There’s what I read this morning! Now I stop reading for the rest of the day! Goodbye for now!
Apparently his underwear fit like a glove.
That’s pretty much the best thing I have to say about my white water rafting trip today. Literally I went white water rafting today and I’m just like yeah cool that happened. I went last year, and it was the same then.
Get up for 6 am, pick up the other people who are going with us, drive an hour and a half over to where we’re meeting our guides and everyone else going rafting today. Hop on a bus with a guy from Switzerland named Martin, who has an amazing beard. Have a long bus ride to where we’re getting into the river. Sleep on bus, fake it for the camera and get myself a moment of glory in our $55 DVD of the day. I’ll share when I get it.
Our guide, Matthew, was a pretty cool guy from South Africa. For the record, last year I was with a man named Kelly. He was here this year, according to our video, but I didn’t remember his name until it was too late. Anyway, our guide this year. He was the guy in charge of everything. So we left last, because he had to make sure everything was good to go.
Then we had to be FIRST in line, meaning we had to paddle hard all the way up to the front. I forgot how to paddle over the last year, so my biceps were sore when we got there. Then he taught us how to paddle (leaning backwards as you paddle to use your weight) and it was all good.
We went down some rapids, wee, we get wet, yay. It was supposedly 20 degrees (though at 9 am when we started, maybe not) but it was so cloudy you wouldn’t know it. The threat of rain has been very aggressive for the past few days, and it’s going to be bad when it finally starts. Not a very good choice of weekend, I guess. But by the time lunch time came around, my brother and I were freezing because we didn’t have wet suits or magic waterproof clothing like our father. We cultivated a fire, had hot chocolate and warm soup (as well as wraps and some other food stuffs) and just barely started to feel our fingers again and get dry when the call came to leave.
Probably around 12:30, we have a 45 minute bus ride back to the beginning so that we can run a different channel of the river now that the water levels have risen a little. We make a tour of the bus, shouting out our name, where we’re from, and a joke/embarrassing story (can be about anyone on the bus!)/whatever. Many people had nothing. I spoke my name and location loudly, and shared a story about a bus full of awkward people who couldn’t come up with anything funny off the tops of their heads. Some awkward chuckles were had and then we moved on. Eventually people started yelling out jokes, and that’s where that gem comes from.
Early in the afternoon, we begin the hard rapids. The ones where you have to paddle instead of hide in the boat. The ones where one side of the river is a bunch of pointy rocks and you don’t want to go over there. Starts off with one to get us nice and wet (great, now we’re cold again) and then a little bit later we get to The Butcher’s Knife. Inside The Butcher’s Knife is a wave called The Chopping Block. There are three options for proximity to The Chopping Block: far, medium, or close. My dad volunteered us for close. We went straight for it.
The wave “hit [him] like a literal punch to the chest,” and the left side of the boat plus the guy in the front on the right were all pushed off of the raft. I was nearly pushed, from the middle right side, off of the left side. I caught myself on the side of the raft and managed to stay in, leaving myself, our guide, and an incredibly tiny, incredibly frightened woman from our group behind to manage a rapid aptly named The Butcher’s Knife. He handles it like a pro, while I react instantly and rescue people as they appear. My brother pops up first, then my father, then another from our group, then the guy from the front right is rescued by my dad as I rescue the third person. Scared woman, not so much on the reaction times. We managed to keep all of our paddles and recovered quite well. Life went on.
The part where 4/7 passengers (guide included) fall out of our raft is on video, so you can see that in a couple of weeks. The rescue, not so much, because rescues are ugly and not good on film. But I’m proud of myself at least, both for staying in and being useful to the rescue. I paddled until there was no longer water beneath my paddle, and then I was almost dying and then I was rescuing. In the span of a few seconds. Some people might have been terrified, or felt an awesome adrenaline rush, or whatever. Nah, not me. I just liked the rescue part, from a strategic point of view.
We did some more rafting in the afternoon and went back and I didn’t have a beer even though I’d be old enough there, so one was available for me. It was across the border of Quebec, not that most of you will understand that, but the important thing is that I was in another province and the drinking age is 18 there. I drove us home because my dad figured, sweet, I can have some since we have another driver.
I drove us home, we had two bits of difficulty, but we got home safe and sound. White water rafting: completed. I’ve done my duty. The end.
It’s not that I’m a boring person, but that I’m not a physical, adrenaline person. I don’t need something more exciting than rafting to get my blood pumping. It just doesn’t pump that way. I could jump out of an airplane, or go bungee jumping, or go on a crazy hiking trip. I could do all kinds of crazy adventurous things, I’m not afraid of it, because I’ve faced my fears before and I have yet to regret it. These people are mega safe. That’s their job. It would not be an option for you if there were any serious danger. I just wouldn’t enjoy it enough to justify the cost, or even the time. I wish I could go adventuring for a living (as some of the raft guides do, and I’m not kidding) but it’s just not my life. Mother Nature won’t keep me company at night, unlike some of those dudes.
I’d love to do that stuff with a friend though. It’d be fun with someone else, especially if we’re both terrified. Or in the case of week long expeditions, starving and cold and devoured by tiny, tiny predators. Someone to keep me company, right? That’s more like my life.
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So with a move to a place with actual facilities comes the questions about why I don’t take advantage of them. Why not come to the gym with me? Why don’t you go bungee jumping? Why don’t you go ride the public transit around, as if that’s important when I’m not going anywhere? The problem is that I would rather be me, than go out of my way to please other people.
This is something that’s been on my mind recently, as my dad revs his Be Like Me Machine, and even more so the gym thing. My dad used to be tiny like I am. Then he gained a hundred pounds of muscle. Then his metabolism got old and he suddenly had a hundred and fifty pounds of fat instead. I don’t want that. I’m underweight, but I’m fit enough and I work on that in my own way. If I start going to the gym, and try to beef up like he did about ten years ago, I do fear that I’ll end up old and fat. My main issue comes back to preferring a leaner body for myself, and not feeling the need to go out and beef up at all. I don’t need fifty more pounds of muscle on my frame. I’ll do definition, so I look pretty, but I (me, as a person, Matt, Demi, the core of what is me) do not need to have muscles like my father, or even like a friend of mine with a similar build. He’s tall and lanky, but from all the physical labour and sports he’s done over the years, he’s lean and wiry. He doesn’t have bulging muscles, because of his height, but he has the strength. I’d be alright with that, but it’s not me. It’s not who I am. It’s not even something I need to be.
I’ve just come off of an argument with my friend Max about whether or not I’m fit, where he judged me to be unfit because I’m underweight and my ribs stick out. Instead, I should be doing those triangle push-ups and gaining weight/muscle mass enough to cover all (most) of my protruding bones (har har), in his opinion. He’s an adventure guy. He’ll go biking for hours and just love it. Run so long and far that he pukes, and just shiver from excitement. Or dehydration, but don’t tell him the difference. The thing is, that’s not me. That’s who he is. His definition of fit is someone who feels fat if they sit around playing video games all day, and gets so sick after doing that for a while that they NEED physical activity.
That’s not me. I will never, in my entire life, be able to cultivate a feeling like that in the core of my essence. I forget about not dong my crunches (didn’t have time for those today, but I don’t like to do it right before bed either because I have a hard enough time settling in to sleep as it is) far easier than I forget about all of the things I haven’t done yet when it comes to video games/anime/articles to read/whatever. Of course an hour or two each day, or even most days, is a paltry amount to dedicate to physical activity. Seven hours a week or something? There are plenty more in there. But how high is it on the priority scale? Do I sacrifice my workout (or gym time, which could be the same thing) or do I sacrifice whatever else I need the time for?
For me, it’s quite low. Low enough that making a dedicated routine would be pointless as it wouldn’t last. Not because I’m incapable of getting off of my fat ass to do it, because I did it for a long time, every single day, when I wanted to impress a special someone. Eventually I slowed down because I realized I wasn’t even doing it for my benefit, and she wasn’t really looking anymore to begin with. I just end up doing other things that I value and it’s like eh I’ll write a nice tumblr post tonight instead of doing crunches and flicks. Even though the tumblr post takes longer. To illustrate what I mean about the priority thing: I couldn’t convert tumblr time into workout time. I couldn’t dedicate the same amount of time to it. I’d just end up doing other things with most of it.
I spend, oh, half an hour to 45 minutes on the computer in the morning running through a routine of daily browser based games and a few news sites. Nothing super disruptive, and I can do it later in the day obviously. But if I stopped doing that, I doubt I’d convert the time into early morning workouts instead. I value the games for different reasons and I like to know stuff, but I value those on different levels than I value being fit when no one will even see nor will I need to apply the fitness. I can get by a day or two without working out. But how could I possibly miss a day in my daily games! That would be inefficient!
Anyway I hope I made my point. I already knew what my point was. But I wanted to think out loud a little so I can respond better to the inevitable returns to this subject. The basic idea (me trying to be me) was there, but I hadn’t needed it yet so I never really expanded on it.
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Also I just quit Opus Deorum (probably only took a minute per day, but I wasn’t getting anything out of it - just grinding stats) and Freewar (idle grinding a passive skill in a game I don’t care for - simply because I could) but I can’t bear to part with any others. Billy Vs SNAKEMAN, Dragon Tavern, and The Ruins Of are all games I spent money on for a damn good reason. I’m about to spend $50 more on Billy Vs SNAKEMAN to get myself 17 months worth of tiny bonuses. Nearly three bucks a month. Nothing wrong with that, and the guy deserves my money. I love the game and I have a friend who loves the game and we spend twice as much time talking about it as we do playing it, if not more. The Ruins Of is just a cool little thing, and for that the money spent on it is far lower ($10 so far, and probably forever - I doubt the future involves spending on it) but the guy deserves that too. Dragon Tavern is raking in the cash, and it’s also the heaviest time investment, and it’s also where I’ve spent the most money. Jeez. More than a hundred and fifty dollars, for sure, but I have no definite number. It sounds really bad as a lump sum, but at one point it was 2x the credits, and in general I’ve built up bit by bit. I don’t regret it, though. Psychological tricks though they may be, I’m ok with spending that money. It is nothing when you consider all of the money I have held and spent in the last two years-ish of playing it?
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Also my backspace and space bar keys are getting a little squeaky on my laptop already. Space bar, not sure about that one, probably just hitting it badly or something but it’s not like it’s been receiving heavy use. Backspace, though… Well… Just how I write, and this includes instant messaging.
edit: also I included the square brackets thing like a proper journalist because I realized what they mean. It’s when you’re rephrasing someone to put the sentence into proper context. If they say it, you quote “[the wave] was like” instead of using something unspecified, or in the wrong person if they say I or whatever.
Sorry here is the proper link! Tumblr broked on me.
I haven’t felt so much like an angry, rebellious teenager since my parents disapproved of my girlfriend in 9th grade. I want to act on that and rant and insult and fight da powah, but no. I am better than that now.
Instead, I will link to a Cracked article because that is how mature people do immature things. This article, 6 Of Your Favourite Things That Are Secretly Making You Fat, comprises my mother, essentially. Except the caffeine one. Especially the saving money one. But we’re getting to that.
My mother has begun doing her grocery shopping at Costco (BJ’s or Sam’s Club or whatever for you Ah-meh-ree-kan types) because now we live near one. As a result, it takes her three hours and hundreds of dollars to go out and buy some milk and a loaf of bread.
I mean, we had half a loaf of bread left. No milk, but we did have cereal. It’s not like we were going to starve.
And now we’ve acquired so much food, much of it will go bad, or be eaten simply because it WILL go bad, rather than for sustenance. “That chicken’s going to go bad soon, I may as well have another sandwich…” And suddenly it all makes sense.
I’m going to have to take over grocery shopping duties. Hopefully the responsibility doesn’t crush my will to live. We’ll implement a “grocery list” system whereby I buy the things on the list, and everything else is left in the grocery store.
Meanwhile my mother has 16 large plates (sneaky large portions) and 4 small ones, but it’s ok because we have a lot of big plates, right? And hey, are you already full? You didn’t take very much, you know, and there’s plenty left and it might not be very good as leftovers…
Then she watches Big Brother After Dark (in case you want to watch boring people sit around and be bored for your entertainment) all night out of boredom. Complains that the house is a wreck and nobody is helping her keep it clean.
PS: That article is a dirty lie because it says misery makes you burn calories, which is patently not true. Also try not to be overly offended by single, one-off sentences and forget the meaning of everything else that was written.
The point of that long explanation (last time, on my tumblr…) was to lead into my discussion of “worth” or “value” in terms of how free time is spent. As much as I try to do things like “relax” or “have fun,” the efficiency that has ruled my life so far can’t help but extend into my free time. It’s always a to do list of accomplishments, things to finish and then things to start after that. The two contributing factors to this are that the list grows far faster than I can work on it (12, 25, 40, 60, etc. hour games coming out before I’ve finished the last) and I’ve always been able to afford the next shiny game to release. Even then, I’ve looked for ways to make my money go further - efficient to the last - so that I can now download games for every system I own save the PS3. Well, and the Wii. So, theoretically, I have access to infinite video games, infinite books (assuming someone has uploaded them online), infinite amounts of manga, infinite episodes of anime to watch, infinite amounts of data and ideas to mentally digest… Never will I lack for entertainment, surely, but rarely am I truly entertained. The calculation of where to spend my time drains all of the fun from the media I consume voraciously, incessantly.
I try to see the world, and especially all the digital worlds I experience, with a little sense of wonder to keep from getting too jaded. It’s difficult to do that when I’m rushing from one game to the next, almost always picking the game to play based on how guilty I feel over not finishing it yet, and secondarily how much is left to play. When I finished Portal a month or two ago, when it was free for a couple of weeks on Steam, all I could think was “finally, I can say I’ve done it.” Most people will tell you it’s something you “have” to play, and I’d gone a long time without playing it simply out of indifference. I’d already absorbed most of its content through osmosis anyway, it was just a technicality that I hadn’t actually put my hand on the mouse and done it myself. I did it, though, but for me it just wasn’t the amazing, joyous experience I know many others have had with it. It was just one thing crossed off an endless to-do list, another example that I’m eternally catching up on gaming history. I think the fact that I saw two or three hours invested in Portal as practically a waste because there would be nothing new there for me is bad enough, but the fact that I played it and didn’t enjoy doing so says everything about the problem I have with my free time.
Portal is pretty much a sacred lamb of gaming at this point, but perhaps the worst offence I’ve committed as a gamer, in my mind, is to not like multiplayer gaming. Party games, yes. Local co-op with friends, yes. But competition against faceless strangers? Count me out. Not in an RTS, not in an FPS, not in an MMO, not in a flash game, not even in a browser-based game. Yet all of the most hardcore gamers thrive on these kinds of games. Final Fantasy XIII and Dragon Quest IX may be huge, expansive games, but when I finish them, that’s pretty much it. It might take 60 hours, or it might take 100. But StarCraft II, Modern Warfare 2, Team Fortress 2 - funny how they’re all sequels - as well as World of Warcraft and all the other MMOs, they’ll consume countless hours far beyond the sixty or one hundred hour mark. When the vast majority of the medium lives on the crushing - or being crushed by - your opponent, how could I possibly be allowed to simply “not like” multiplayer? It doesn’t help that I see very few people saying the same thing. It seems as though I must be wrong, spending my time finishing Persona 4 or actually playing through Final Fantasy X when I could be shooting people in the face day after day.
Yet this ties into my problem with having too much media available, and the question of what it’s worth to spend my time on something. Perhaps some people will get far more time out of their $60 purchase of StarCraft II or Modern Warfare 2 than I ever could out of the games I buy. Perhaps they only had $60 and had to find a game that wouldn’t just end. It’s hard for me, with my rather large collection of games, to imagine playing a game because I have nothing else to play. But then, would I really want to spend all of that time just to feel as though I accept the largest portion of gaming today? Would it be “worth” my time to be a master of unscoped headshots, or would I just be “wasting” my time when there are so many other things to experience? I wanted to write this as a way to find the answer to that, and yet I still don’t know. It seems almost rude to dismiss something as a “waste,” to say that a form of entertainment is completely invalid because I don’t enjoy it or don’t partake in it. In theory, to spend my time doing the same thing over and over again would be inefficient when I could be working on something shiny and new. In practice, fun is fun, and there’s really nothing wrong about finding fun in a different place.
If I hadn’t just rediscovered some small measure of why I love single player games and why I love playing through the beautifully crafted environments and stories that my $60 unlocked for me, I might still be worried about all of that. But now I’ve got things to do, and I have a stack of games in front of me that I could, if I’m lucky, finish before going back to university. It’ll take some dedication to righting my wrongs - how could I stop playing Persona 4 in the middle of the last dungeon in the entire game?! - but I don’t know when I’ll find the time again. So I’m going to use it properly and remind myself why I go hunting for PS2 games in the bargain bins in the first place. Why, you might ask? They’re games I can’t imagine I’d regret playing, and I want to give my money to anyone who will take it in exchange for them. I want more of these games to exist, and so even if I never even play this instalment, perhaps I’ll play the next. It would be a shame if we ever lost Atlus or Grasshopper Manufacture, or even Insomniac, so I will gladly throw my money at them. And I will gladly throw my time into their churning machines of glorious entertainment.
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On an entirely different level, but loosely related by the main “theme” of this post is the matter of writing, and this tumblr itself. Its value. The time I spend on it. I’m above a hundred posts now, at least a dozen of those long, rambling trains of thought much like this one. I’ve spent hours writing for a few close friends and a handful of their friends. Yet I don’t feel that it’s been wasted time. Perhaps it’s a legacy of my ADHD, but I don’t often sustain trains of thought as long as posts like this would have you believe. Writing makes the foundation solid enough for me to keep building, to keep writing and communicating and thinking instead of running in circles all the time. If I forget where I was going, I just scroll up. If that doesn’t help, either I stop or I forge ahead and let the words take their own course. But the act of sharing all of this, making it public and available for anyone who cares to read it, is a marked improvement in transparency for me. It used to be that I had few close friends, only as many as necessary to stave off loneliness and disappointment, and only they could know what really went on inside my head. Even then, I couldn’t always force myself to express what I wanted to tell them, and plenty of half-formed conversations went forgotten because I wasn’t satisfied that they would be… well, good enough. That by starting them in truth I would end up exposing something wrong or displeasing about myself and sour my few solid relationships.
So to write and share everything about myself is thrilling, terrifying, and satisfying all at the same time. I feel perfectly content saying that this tumblr is all of what I am. That it’s available to all, if they want to read it. I used to hide behind a plethora of personas, and now they’re unified across all of the content I put here. All of the facets of me, converging in one little part of the internet. If I try to put on an act of being “just” a gamer, or “just” a metalhead, or otherwise put the spotlight on any one of those facets - all it takes is this tumblr to shatter that illusion. I like the idea of forcing myself to change for the better. I like the idea of bringing more people into my Precious Little Life. If they don’t deserve to be here, chances are they won’t bother to read any of this, and the point is moot in the end.
I would bring up the matter of writing fiction, but then I do it so rarely that it would be… yes, a waste of time. I’ve only written two letters so far, and I’m supposed to be writing again, but I have yet to start. I haven’t been able to figure out what time in my schedule to dedicate to it. Soon, I’ll start. When I run out of things to write about for my tumblr, I think. But then I won’t have anything to put into the letter, so it may have to wait until the excitement level rises a little here in my new home. But then I already know that’s a worth investment of time, so long as I have something to write about.
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Like most of my posts, this one would be “selfish” if I believed you would all feel compelled to actually read it. Thankfully, I know that you’re a human being and will happily stop reading if you find it too long and boring. Like every other post I’ve written for my own benefit and shared for yours (at least if you want to learn more about me), I’m glad that I’ve written it. It comes as a result of several conversations with vael about multiplayer gaming (something he enjoys a lot), which tended to go in circles as he stated his case and I proceeded to ignore it and say what I really wanted to say. For the benefit of us all, then, I hope that I’ve managed to put that to rest for now. If you’ll excuse me, I have some beautiful ruins to explore.
On the 26th of January, 2010, No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle was released in North America for the Wii. I purchased it with glee, and played it for around ten hours before realizing that I simply could not complete the strength training minigames near the end of the game with the basic Wiimote. It didn’t feel smooth enough, the buttons were awkward. So I stopped playing the game and waited for the release of the black Classic Controller Pro on April 20th, the release date of Monster Hunter Tri. This I also purchased gladly, an investment perhaps. Yet I never picked up No More Heroes 2 until this afternoon. August 17th, 2010, I managed to finish No More Heroes 2 in a matter of hours. An hour, or more, of that was spent collecting money to pay for strength training, and then practising constantly in 30 second bouts of painful 8-bit torture. When I finally maxed out my strength, the remaining bosses fell in quick succession. The second form of the final boss was brutally irritating, but not difficult. Certainly nothing compared to the true final boss of the first game. Thus, with sore biceps from hours of frantic waggling, I’ve finished a game I’ve owned for nearly eight months.
Next step is to read the four Destructoid articles I bookmarked analyzing the metaphors in the game.
After that? Looks like I might be exploring the abandoned ruins of an advanced civilization in Final Fantasy XIII. Last night, I thought I was done with the game, and felt that another dozen hours of grinding on top of the sixty I’d already spent on the core storyline might simply be a waste. Sure, there were missions and bits of flavour text to collect, but why would I spend time increasing numbers in a digital world I hardly care about? Trophies aside, there would simply be no reward. Not to mention the guilt over time wasted. Yes, I know I haven’t unlocked any of the ultimate weapons. I haven’t even killed a nigh-on immortal dinosaur whose little toe is twice my height. Fighting ten random battles to gain one stat boost, one out of some two dozen left, would be such a huge waste of time in exchange for being able to say that I had nothing better to do than collect digital trinkets. There are, to my knowledge, no flashy, secret bosses in Final Fantasy XIII. At least not like the secret bosses of old. There are enemies with obscene amounts of health, and there are missions that require you to defeat enemies with obscenely high stats, but aside from the correct choice of party members there is rarely any preparation involved. The fact is that these things aren’t difficult; they don’t require any amount of skill. Just an investment of time, so that your numbers are big enough to take on the numbers of the enemy.
Thinking of the endgame in such a negative way was depressing for me, especially because I really liked the rest of the game. Fully prepared to hate it and shut the game off for good, I looked up a guide to the endgame content to see what I had left to do. I knew there was a mission that unlocked chocobo riding, so I tried to look for that. Only it was in an area I had never heard of. Wait a second - in an almost exclusively linear game, I missed an area? It must just be that it was so unimpressive that I forgot its name. So I set out to find this area and complete the couple of missions I actually wanted to do.
Imagine my surprise when I walk over the top of a hill and see the sun rising over the cracked and shifted concrete remains of a Gran Pulsian city. Imagine New York City after a devastating, cataclysmic earthquake. Roads thrown upwards to create cliffs, buildings toppled, street signs sticking out randomly from the ground. Flying above it all, giant birds, larger than a full grown man. If you’ve seen Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, take some of the ruins of Midgar, mix it with the desolation and industrial look of Edge, and then craft a playable area out of that. That’s what I would have missed if I had quit Final Fantasy XIII without giving it another chance.
I didn’t even go in to complete my mission. I back out, saved my game, and turned off the system and went to go run errands. I’m saving it for tomorrow when I have more time.
I don’t believe I’ll grind my way through all of the post-game content, but I will do what I can at my current power level. When I run into an enemy that’s just too powerful for me, I’m done. If I’m lucky, I’ll get enough experience points from the missions up to that point to pull through without having to spend time grinding.
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Yesterday, I planned for this to lead into a discussion of “worth” and “value” in terms of how free time is spent, but a bit of work on that topic has led me to believe that this is better split up so it isn’t excessively long. I will work on posting that tonight, or sometime tomorrow. It’s all very meta because then the worth of time spent on writing for tumblr comes into play and stuff. See you next time, folks.
Oh, and I read those articles about No More Heroes 2 and that was cool but there were supposed to be seven and only four were finished. Oh well. I know what that’s like. I also read about comorbid depression in children with ADHD, which will get its own post after I post fewer giant posts, and about the impossibility of “converting” homosexual into heterosexuals. Also has a sentence about the belief that homosexual relationships are somehow different from heterosexual ones. Article from Psychiatric Times here.
Oh, and if you actually read what I wrote about essays a few days ago - note the passive voice. Note it and notice how hard it can be to figure out what they’re saying, how you may feel tempted to skip through the fluffy bits that don’t actually present or evaluate any actual information.
I had that post set to private so I could double check stuff and have people read it to correct some of its fault (I got very tired while writing it, and started to write it lazily) so I’m linking to it now like a lazy bastard. Rather than just reposting the updated version. Perhaps if no one notices, I will do that.
Title quote courtesy of a Penny Arcade strip I have loved forever and ever. Link here.
Hey there kids! It’s Demi, back again for writing tips! It’s almost time for school to start, so you know what that means - essays! Oh boy! Here are my very own notes on writing essays, for my own reference while writing and compiled through experience and by express instruction of my amazing AP English teacher. You can look at them and try to keep them in mind, or alternatively print them out and keep them around for reference while writing and editing. I have more for my own reference in my handy-dandy file folder, like essay rubrics and commentary on other essays so I wouldn’t make the same mistakes again. Most of the key elements from those things have been used in my essay writing tips. Moving on, first the tips if you’re confident in your method, and then I’ll outline some steps for writing a literary essay. If you’re writing a research paper, you’ll want to do things a little differently, but that’s not too hard when you know your way around a good essay.
- Start with a strong thesis. Don’t use something obvious; try to have a little creativity and insight. Don’t go overboard (Ross from MacBeth is secretly a witch!) but look for a way to make your own interesting conclusions. Your thesis should also be very clear and extremely well written. Your thesis should be the strongest sentence of your entire essay. It is the most important one, so pay attention to it. Rewrite it as many times as necessary.
- Start your paragraphs with topic sentences. These are basically a mini-thesis that introduce the subject of your paragraph. To test your topic sentences, combine them with your thesis to create a small paragraph. If this paragraph works well and sums up the major points of your essay, congrats! You’ve got nice, strong arguments to support your original thesis.
Example from a short essay I wrote comparing Jane Eyre and Elizabeth Bennet, from Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice respectively: While the author’s styles of writing may differ, the protagonists of Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice share many common features. First and foremost, Jane Eyre and Elizabeth Bennet are strong female characters, both self-assured and determined to be the equal of the men in their lives. After initially rejecting the advances of their future soul mates, Jane and Elizabeth are unable to forget the chances they were given. When they are finally married to their respective husbands, both characters are sublimely happy.
There’s a slight jump between the second topic sentence and the third, but overall I think that’s a pretty decent paragraph to sum up the main points of my essay. It flows well enough, and it establishes what I’m going to write about, and then elaborates my key arguments. If you have something like this, you know for sure that you’ve got good topic sentences. Then you just need to add good paragraphs onto them!
- Have textual support for your arguments - plainly put, use direct quotes to prove you aren’t pulling things out of your butt. You can use quotes from your source material (book, play, whatever you may be writing about) or quotes from things you’ve researched - as long as it’s related to what you’re trying to prove. Being able to back up your argument with real references will make you look smart, and smart people are sexy.
- Analyze the quotes you’ve sprinkled throughout your essay. Don’t just throw them in there - explain why you picked them, or what they mean and whether or not you agree with them. That’s a little secret - you can quote someone making the opposite argument that you are, and then proceed to prove them wrong. You don’t need to, and in fact shouldn’t, just research things that go along with your argument. Providing a counterpoint, and why it’s wrong, will improve the overall argument of your essay. It’s very easy to make a biased essay, so researching the opposite point of view will help tie things together. You’ll be able to refer to every other point you’ve made, and then make a few new ones.
Secret PROTIP: You don’t need to quote an entire block of text, or even an entire sentence. You can grab pieces of a quote and integrate them into a sentence just to avoid having to think and sound like you know your stuff.
Example from the introduction of my Animal Farm essay: The other animals believe that “with their superior knowledge it was natural that the pigs assume leadership” (17), yet they never question the decisions made by the pigs. By following the pigs like figurative (and literal) sheep, the residents of Animal Farm allow the totalitarian regime to flourish unquestioned and unopposed.
First sentence: Quote integration. See how I got out of actually writing a sentence by quoting the novel? Shows I know the book well enough to incorporate it, and just sounds nicer than whatever I would have written. Also sets up an argument for later.
Second sentence: Thesis. The topic was the importance of questioning leadership. Important things to note: literary devices. Always a plus for making a shiny thesis statement. Your thesis statement should be catchy and flashy, enough to stand out in your reader’s mind. They should know it’s your thesis, and remember it too.
- Use transitions. Don’t just go straight into a new topic without any kind of obvious connection between the two. This will also help your essay’s organization - if you can’t connect two topics, don’t put them beside one another. Your essay should flow naturally from one thing to another. The final sentence of your paragraph should end things in a way that brings it into the first of your next paragraph. Sentences should also have transitions - however, yet, honestly, moving on, things like that. Google it if you don’t know what they are. Don’t overuse the same transitions repeatedly - every second sentence shouldn’t start with “however, …”, so have a bit of variation. Google a list of transitions if you want to add some variety.
- There are two components to the “sound” of your essay: the style, and the voice. The voice is simple enough, and something to be determined by the purpose of your essay: there is the academic voice, the jovial voice, the sarcastic voice, etc. Your audience determines your voice. This should stay the same throughout your entire essay, and you’ll notice that any time you stray from that it will be very strange for your readers. If you’re writing a serious, academic paper, don’t try to make a joke like you would with your friends. If you’re writing a funny internet article for your funny internet friends, don’t try to sound like a genius.
Style, however, is something that can vary from sentence to sentence. A short sentence with simple words, or a long, overly wordy sentence. You can use both in your essays, and in fact, you should, because if you have a three page essay with only twenty sentences, you’ve done something wrong. Likewise, you shouldn’t split each of your sentences into three tiny ones because you think it looks cooler to have that many periods. Mix it up and show that you’re capable of writing the way you need to, rather than just the way you want to. Sometimes, a long, flowery sentence is perfectly called for. Other times, tiny, choppy sentences are the way to go. Experiment enough and you’ll find the proper times for both.
- Avoid hyperbole. Should be pretty obvious; don’t exaggerate. Don’t claim that the book you’re writing about is the best book ever, or that Shakespeare is the “most famous playwright of all time” (actually Shakespeare I’m really happy for you and Imma let you finish but x was greatest playwright of all time - OF ALL TIME) or whatever. This is something most people do by default to kiss their teacher’s bum and try to get a good grade, or at least increase their word count. But it sounds better if you rewrite it realistically, I swear.
- Avoid clichés. You may think that it sounds cool to say something your dad says, like “it’s better than a kick in the butt with a frozen boot, you know!” but it doesn’t really add anything to your essay. Usually you can take them out and replace them with something shorter and clearer, which will be better for your essay in the long run. Trust me on this one.
- Take out extra adjectives/adverbs. You don’t need to fully describe the darkness of Grimdark Depthless Land of Eternally Black and Sunless Darkness. Something is not both large and huge. Few things are hugely large. See what I’m getting at? Don’t repeat yourself for the sake of word count or emphasis, at least in this way. Repetition is still a literary device and you can use it that way if you want. But extra adjectives aren’t really a good way to write and make a point, rather you’re over-emphasizing a point you’ve already made.
- Take out extra prepositions. At, under, on, in, of, in the, etc. “In the bedroom under the bed that’s on the floor in the house of the murder.” It makes it very hard to understand what exactly is going on, so try to rewrite your sentence and avoid having multiple prepositions unless you absolutely have to.
- Avoid using a “passive voice.” Try not to use words such as: am, are, was, were, be, been, being. Typically, words like that are used to make a sentence overly formal and make your point sound weak. “The poetry of the 18th century was typically written by aristocrats, but now it is being written by people who are far less well off, many of whom have never even been waited on hand and foot.” What, exactly, am I trying to say there? Who knows? You may not want to go to this level of nitpicking over your vocabulary, but removing these words and rewriting the sentence will be a rewarding challenge if you can find a better way. It makes your arguments tighter and just… it’s something you only notice as a complete overhaul. Entirely passive to none at all.
- Some word nitpicking. Much like passive voice, these are words to avoid using if you can. Much like passive voice, you can use them if you can’t possibly rewrite the sentence. Much like passive voice, your entire essay will sound better if you can avoid using them. Words to avoid forever: is, has, there, it, this, thing, have, had. It can be really hard to avoid them, and especially at first you will find them EVERYWHERE. But the more you work at removing them the less they’ll even work their way in. You will, in all honesty, become a better writer in the course of a few essays if you can rewrite your sentences to avoid them. Much like passive voice. Compare your passive, it this thing have had, essays to your ultra essays and you’ll be so happy inside.
- Something you can always add is literary devices. Some choice ones that won’t be out of place are parallel syntax (that whole “much like passive voice” thing up there), metaphors, allusions. Actually that’s pretty much it on the list of literary devices that aren’t too literary for an essay. So use those if you can.
1. Pick a topic without being too broad or too narrow in your focus. If you aren’t very particular on your subject, you’ll get too much useless information. if you’re too specific, you won’t find enough information to make good arguments. Use your own judgement.
2. Do a small amount of preliminary research, enough to have a slight idea of your subject. Chances are you already know something about it. Use this to create a very rough initial outline. First, create a basic thesis, with a little originality. Then give three example supporting arguments you could use for that thesis. Having an idea of what you can write about will help you pick out key information when you do your research.
3. Armed with your outline, do in-depth research on your topic. There are two strategies here, depending on your time management skills and how early you’ve started to work on your essay. The long-term strategy is to find a lot of sources of information, without reading them until you believe you have enough to pull you through your essay. The short-term strategy is to check out each source and then find another as soon as you’ve finished with what you’ve found. With the long-term strategy, you won’t actually look like you’ve accomplished much until you start working on your information. With the short-term strategy, you know exactly how much information you have and how much you’ve accomplished at any given point in time. The main difference is that with the long-term strategy your essay will come together all at once, while the short-term essay will be a work-in-progress at all times.
Regardless of what order you plan to gather your information in, when you do start looking into your sources, you will have to take extremely good notes so that you can actually use them to write with. Read through the article (or section in a book, or whatever) and jot down some small notes, then on your second pass write down everything that could possibly be useful in your essay. Copy down quotes that could be useful in your essay, and small phrases that could fit easily into what you write. Repeat the process with all the sources you’ve found. The basic structure of your essay should revolve around these notes. You will be relaying and explaining the information you find, so look at it like a painted Easter egg or something. The squishy insides are the information you’ve found, while the pretty shell around it is what you’ve written using that information. Nothing in your essay should come without information to back it up, and there should be some sort of reference to your research quite frequently. You didn’t make this stuff up, so your writing shouldn’t be the most important part of the essay. All you’re doing is collecting it and putting it in a nice little package, so make sure you wrap it up nice and neat.
If you’re writing an essay about a book, your process should be slightly different. You probably won’t have time to read the book twice, and even if you do you probably won’t feel like writing afterwards. Your goal then should be to identify and isolate as much useful information as possible on your first read. Use highlighters, post-it notes, write chapter summaries, whatever works for you, so long as you can find the information you need. The more you identify as being useful, the easier it will be to write your essay. So take your time reading, and even if you don’t know what your essay will be about, pick out things that could be useful. You may end up needing it, or you may not. But the more attention you pay, the better your essay will be.
4. After you’ve finished your research, you will likely have several pages filled with notes and scribbles on your various sources. That’s good. Now, you should have all the information you’ll need for your essay. All that’s left is to put it together. So, now that you have all your information, go back to your outline and evaluate the information you found. If you have a better thesis, start with that. Then look at your arguments and build as many as you need, based on the information you have to work with. If you can’t prove a point, don’t make it. This may not be your final outline, because you may start writing and find it doesn’t make sense, or you can’t argue a point as well as you might like. If you do decide to change your outline again, congrats, you know what you’re doing. Don’t try to fluff up a paragraph just because you need to write a certain amount, because it’s only going to bring your mark down. If 5% of your essay is based on having x paragraphs, you’d be better off losing some of those marks than writing a crappy essay. Of course, you shouldn’t need to worry about that, but what I’m trying to say is that you should write a good essay, whether it’s too short or too long. If it’s good enough, your teacher shouldn’t care whether you met the proper criteria.
5. Now that you know what you’re going to write, it’s time to decide how you like to write. There are two different strategies here, and I would suggest trying them both to see what works for you, but if you have a gut feeling about it, go for what you like best. One strategy is to write your body paragraphs first, and then complete an introduction and conclusion afterwards. The other is to start with your introduction and write your essay in the order it will be read. I’ve done both, and each has its own benefits and drawbacks. I’ve had good and bad essays with each: waiting to write your introduction and conclusion can mean you have a really strong intro and conclusion that go well with your body paragraphs, or it can mean you have amazing body paragraphs but no strong thesis or conclusion to tie them together. If you get tired when you finish writing your essay, or run out of time, you don’t really want your intro and conclusion to suffer for it. If you write your introduction first and your conclusion last, you may end up having to change your introduction or having a weak conclusion that doesn’t fit what you’ve written. On the other hand, it may help to direct you when you’re writing your body paragraphs. It’s honestly up to you based on your writing style, so try them both and see what you like.
6. When writing your introduction, your thesis should be absolutely clear to the reader as it should make an obvious point and establish the goal of your essay. The rest of your introduction should briefly outline your body paragraphs, and make a few observation that you’ll revisit in your conclusion. You want to get people interested in what you’re writing, so be interesting.
The basic format for your body paragraphs should be: topic sentence, lead in to some kind of proof or example, your proof/example, then an explanation and analysis of your quote or reference. Add more proof as needed. The analysis is important, because it’s what your essay is really about; it’s you explaining what you’re actually talking about, and why you included the information you’ve included. Organize your body paragraphs in a way so that they flow nicely into eachother.
Your conclusion is like a modified version of the introduction, now that you’ve tried to prove your point. Restate your thesis in a slightly different format, and explain the observations you’ve drawn from the information presented. This is where you make everything click, if it hasn’t explained itself yet. By reading your intro and conclusion, someone should get the key points even if they don’t really have all the information. If you think it’s incredibly important, mention it in both the introduction and conclusion.
7. Now, your essay is done! This final step is optional, but highly recommended. You could just call it a day and hand it in, but I would recommend reading through it yourself and editing it as you see fit, then passing it around to anyone you know who might be able to help you proof-read it before handing it in. If your teacher will do this for you, get them to do so as well before you finalize your essay. The more input you get on your essay, the better it will be. When you have a finished product, the heavy lifting is basically done. Edit and revise as you see fit. Then hand it in and wait for the good news!
Some other things you could research to improve your arguments in your essays are logical fallacies, annotation strategies (for writing essays on books or other long material), poetic devices (for literary essays), writing style problems (for adjusting your style based on your needs; one example is that passive voice is good for writing lab reports, while not so good for an english essay) and, well, anything you find your lose marks for repeatedly. Your goal should be to identify problems in your writing and correct them in the future. That’s why I’ve kept all my essays from this past year, to compare my original, less-than-stellar attempts to my later essays. Examining my older essays shows the problems with my writing style and mistakes I make repeatedly, so now I know to avoid them in the future. When you can do the same, well, you no longer need anyone else’s help to improve your writing.
I almost bought a shirt last night saying BE EXCELLENT TO EACH OTHER, and nothing else. Either a black shirt or a red shirt, with white text on both. But the text was the ugly “metal” kind so I didn’t end up wasting $25 on it.
I do agree with the sentiment, though.
Today was pretty good day. I felt better this morning, after yesterday stopped existing, and even got to sleep in a little. When I got out of bed, I had sausages and a bagel and it was pretty good. Then I had some pizza and leftover cake (from someone else’s party, even) for lunch and that was pretty good too. Then I played some more Scott Pilgrim with my brother, or occasionally without him because I was able to pwn everything by myself. That was pretty good.
Shortly after four, I left home to get to the club (or bar? how do we distinguish between the two?) where I’d be seeing The Holly Springs Disaster along with Architects and Structures. I was led to believe the doors opened at 5 pm, so I arrived around 4:30 pm. There was a small group of people waiting outside, but they were clearly not getting in soon. So I sat outside for an hour, before deciding I should probably get in line. It had doubled in size at this point, but that wasn’t saying much. I proceeded to wait in line for another hour and a half, until they started letting people in a bit before 7 pm. That was pretty not good, actually, but apparently things were going according to schedule so I just had the wrong schedule. In the end, the line stretched around the corner and down a fair ways on the next street, so it was pretty good that I got there when I did.
Once inside, I waited for half an hour while Structures got their stuff together. They’re from Toronto, so I’m willing to bet most of the people in the building had seen them six times before, and nobody was all that excited just yet. They played, oh, four or five songs before leaving the stage. Less than half an hour in total. They tried to encourage a circle pit at one point, but that was quickly ruined by hardcore dancers. There were plenty of people already wearing their shirts, but that didn’t equate to interest I guess. Their vocalist was pretty ok live.
Another half hour of setup before Architects started to play. Hailing from Brighton, UK, their vocalist was pretty good live. Many people were excited for them, so I guess they’re decently well known. So in their little British accent, they encouraged everyone to sing along and get excited. And they did. At one point, the entire basement of the place was shaking from the music and everyone jumping almost magically in unison. Again, they called for a circle pit, which once again quickly dissolved under the assault of windmilling arms and floor punches. While they also only played for a little over half an hour, it was still pretty good.
Shortly before 9 pm, The Holly Springs Disaster began their setup. Everyone chanted their name, and because we’re Canadian, we said “eh” instead of “oi” to space things out a little. This was pretty good. When they started to play, the crowd took over singing duties and this was pretty good. I ended up beside a huge guy with enough enthusiasm to match his size, and he basically used up all the space available. If someone was in front of him, he’d lean backwards to headbang and pump his fists over the shoulder of whichever random person was unfortunate enough to be ahead of him. But this was still pretty good. They basically played every song they ever wrote, if you count a medley of their original EP as multiple songs. They did a cover of My Hero by Foo Fighters, a couple more songs, and then pretended to leave the stage. The crowd called for one more song, so they finished the night with Up In Smoke, which I’m pretty sure was literally the only other song they had to play. They did play one of their unreleased songs, Godzilla, which may once have been named King Kong, or could be something entirely different. But the moral of the story is that it was pretty damn good.
I bought shirts for Structures and Architects that are pretty good.
Pretty good kind of day.
This is an important article and if you haven’t read it or heard of the concept it would behoove your monkey brain to have this idea stored away. You’d be surprised how often it makes sense.
