Thursday, October 15, 2009
Book
I set out on a quest to write a collection of funny and witty little things I've said or thought. It instead became a cynical manifesto. The working title is 'It's OK to lie to children."
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
WIP
“Something is wrong with reality. There is some kind of flaw in the universal laws that dictate what can and cannot happen. But I can’t prove it because I’m not a physicist. There are moments of perfect clarity when everything seems to make sense. Brief pockets where for fleeting microseconds everything is connected and I know what is going to happen next. All the words, thoughts, ideas, physical bodies, matter and matter beyond matter, all has some place in some kind of giant jigsaw puzzle!”
“Did you watch the Matrix again?” Meredith questions cautiously.
Aaron lifts his arms slightly, “It’s a coincidence that there is no such thing as coincidences! Or is it? Time is an illusion, a human construct to explain the passage of objects from one state to another. Our perception is wrong somehow. It doesn’t make sense.”
“Or maybe Watchmen, are you on another Manhattan binge?” The young woman seems oblivious to the mind shattering truths the scruffy Aaron seems to be sharing. As though completely unaware of how it could change EVERYTHING! Or at least Aaron thinks so. “Never do drugs.”
He just stands there with his hands out to his sides. Aaron scratches the thick scruff on his chin before collapsing onto the sofa next to where Meredith sits. “I mean, it’s just weird. So many things happen that don’t make sense. Brief and minor miracles against astronomical odds. It’s just a feeling.”
“Definitely a Manhattan binge.” She says in a sort of confirming tone.
“No.” Aaron scolds. “..I haven’t seen Watchmen recently. Crazy things happen! Bizarre coincidences that logic and reason can’t explain!”
Meredith scowls, “You said that when a youtube video mistakenly played while you were listening to a song and didn’t realize it because it was such a perfect fit. You went on for weeks about how it was magical.”
“IT WAS!” Aaron says defensively. “What really makes it strange was that I wasn’t able to reproduce it. How do you explain that?”
“It was a song you listened to all the time.”
“So?”
Meredith looks cross as all get out. She turns on the sofa slightly shifting one of her knees to get more comfortable. Stylish black rimmed glasses slip to the tip of her nose as her green eyes face Aaron. “So? You’re used to hearing it. You unconsciously blocked out anything extraneous until you finally noticed it. What you thought sounded good was probably lousy, but you had no idea.”
“Oh yeah? What about my déjà vu, I get that all the time. And I always seem to know things. Left or right, I always make the right choice!” He’s on the full defensive now. “You can’t explain them all away with logic, it’s impossible.”
“You have the worst memory out of everybody I know, but at the same time you know a crazy amount of useless stuff. Is it strange to assume you’ve forgotten how you learned a particular bit of information? Or to assume you’ve just got an unnaturally good sense of direction? It’s not impossible to reason through it, you’re just not willing to half the time.”
Defeat. Aaron’s posture suffers and he falls silent. A few moments pass before Meredith talks again, feeling kind of guilty. “I mean, sure. You’re especially lucky. How many times have you narrowly avoided serious injury or death or guessed a solution correctly without actually knowing the answer.”
“That’s what I’m saying. Is it really just luck, or coincidence?” His eyes light up again. Maybe Meredith is actually onto something. The brightness is brief, however.
“Have you ever considered that it’s, I don’t know, God?”
Thpppt. “No.” Aaron says incredulously.
“Why not?”
“Cmon. Do you know who you’re talking to?”
“Well yeah, that doesn’t mean He isn’t trying to reach out to you or anything.” Meredith shrugs and pushes the glasses up on her face. “Stranger things have happened.”
Aaron waves a hand dismissively. “I’m not a young French girl tasked with defeating the English or waging some kind of ridiculously holy war. If it were God trying to communicate with me he would do it in some fashion that I wouldn’t immediately dismiss. Being all omnipotent and all.”
“An atheist who supports strong logical fallacies.” Meredith is on the verge of laughter.
“Not an atheist.” Aaron is quick to correct. “Agnostic. It takes just as much blind faith to believe that despite everything we’ve observed in our short stay on this little blue rock that there isn’t some kind of never ending, all powerful source. Maybe the laws that govern existence is God.”
“The same laws that you claim are somehow flawed.”
“Yeah.” Aaron says, sounding satisfied.
Meredith stares at him for a moment, as though expecting more. “Well?”
“What?”
“You’re impossible.”
------
What? You expected more? I think my block is breaking. I was on fire, but then got distracted. GDI.
“Did you watch the Matrix again?” Meredith questions cautiously.
Aaron lifts his arms slightly, “It’s a coincidence that there is no such thing as coincidences! Or is it? Time is an illusion, a human construct to explain the passage of objects from one state to another. Our perception is wrong somehow. It doesn’t make sense.”
“Or maybe Watchmen, are you on another Manhattan binge?” The young woman seems oblivious to the mind shattering truths the scruffy Aaron seems to be sharing. As though completely unaware of how it could change EVERYTHING! Or at least Aaron thinks so. “Never do drugs.”
He just stands there with his hands out to his sides. Aaron scratches the thick scruff on his chin before collapsing onto the sofa next to where Meredith sits. “I mean, it’s just weird. So many things happen that don’t make sense. Brief and minor miracles against astronomical odds. It’s just a feeling.”
“Definitely a Manhattan binge.” She says in a sort of confirming tone.
“No.” Aaron scolds. “..I haven’t seen Watchmen recently. Crazy things happen! Bizarre coincidences that logic and reason can’t explain!”
Meredith scowls, “You said that when a youtube video mistakenly played while you were listening to a song and didn’t realize it because it was such a perfect fit. You went on for weeks about how it was magical.”
“IT WAS!” Aaron says defensively. “What really makes it strange was that I wasn’t able to reproduce it. How do you explain that?”
“It was a song you listened to all the time.”
“So?”
Meredith looks cross as all get out. She turns on the sofa slightly shifting one of her knees to get more comfortable. Stylish black rimmed glasses slip to the tip of her nose as her green eyes face Aaron. “So? You’re used to hearing it. You unconsciously blocked out anything extraneous until you finally noticed it. What you thought sounded good was probably lousy, but you had no idea.”
“Oh yeah? What about my déjà vu, I get that all the time. And I always seem to know things. Left or right, I always make the right choice!” He’s on the full defensive now. “You can’t explain them all away with logic, it’s impossible.”
“You have the worst memory out of everybody I know, but at the same time you know a crazy amount of useless stuff. Is it strange to assume you’ve forgotten how you learned a particular bit of information? Or to assume you’ve just got an unnaturally good sense of direction? It’s not impossible to reason through it, you’re just not willing to half the time.”
Defeat. Aaron’s posture suffers and he falls silent. A few moments pass before Meredith talks again, feeling kind of guilty. “I mean, sure. You’re especially lucky. How many times have you narrowly avoided serious injury or death or guessed a solution correctly without actually knowing the answer.”
“That’s what I’m saying. Is it really just luck, or coincidence?” His eyes light up again. Maybe Meredith is actually onto something. The brightness is brief, however.
“Have you ever considered that it’s, I don’t know, God?”
Thpppt. “No.” Aaron says incredulously.
“Why not?”
“Cmon. Do you know who you’re talking to?”
“Well yeah, that doesn’t mean He isn’t trying to reach out to you or anything.” Meredith shrugs and pushes the glasses up on her face. “Stranger things have happened.”
Aaron waves a hand dismissively. “I’m not a young French girl tasked with defeating the English or waging some kind of ridiculously holy war. If it were God trying to communicate with me he would do it in some fashion that I wouldn’t immediately dismiss. Being all omnipotent and all.”
“An atheist who supports strong logical fallacies.” Meredith is on the verge of laughter.
“Not an atheist.” Aaron is quick to correct. “Agnostic. It takes just as much blind faith to believe that despite everything we’ve observed in our short stay on this little blue rock that there isn’t some kind of never ending, all powerful source. Maybe the laws that govern existence is God.”
“The same laws that you claim are somehow flawed.”
“Yeah.” Aaron says, sounding satisfied.
Meredith stares at him for a moment, as though expecting more. “Well?”
“What?”
“You’re impossible.”
------
What? You expected more? I think my block is breaking. I was on fire, but then got distracted. GDI.
Friday, August 7, 2009
I squee when famous people either retweet me or respond to my tweets.
Yes. I am a little girl.
That is all.
Yes. I am a little girl.
That is all.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
The Matrix, Unplugged
So the mmorpg The Matrix Online is going to be shut down after four years of running. To be honest the game wasn't that great in the first place, but I am still pretty sad to see it go. I played from the end stages of the friends and family alpha to the every end of beta. It was a different game before release. There wasn't as many people, obviously, and we were much closer to the development team and the live event staff. Some pretty cool stuff went down.
I got to meet privately with Morpheus before his ultimate demise. He told me that things were going to get worse before they got better. I attended his funeral as one of Zion's soldiers and even prevented the Merovingian from entering the church where the service was being held. In the very same plaza that the Burly Brawl between Neo and the Smiths took place, I dueled with Seraph so that he may get to know me. Then he took me into the hall with the doors to meet the Oracle. I fought alongside Niobe and had countless run-ins with the Matrix.
When the Beta shut down every live event member and developer ran around as Agents 'deleting' those still plugged into the Matrix. 'Mr. Forbes!' One yelled out to me after landing heavily from a hyper-jump. I momentarily forgot that my character, AcidicPlague, had a bluepill name and I gave him mine. 'We've been looking for you.'
I fought them off for what seemed like hours. I would kill one and then two more would show up. At one point when I started to run I had five agents chasing me. When they finally caught me one said, "It's time to sleep now, Mr. Forbes."
Before it all ended everyone who was still plugged into the Matrix had their RSI crumble up into non-existence before being booted out of the Matrix. And it's all happening again, just like before. I've spent the last few days jumping around, desparately wishing the game had done better. I love the Matrix. It's just something that I can really dig. A virtual world where computer hackers and neo-philosophers can jump over buildings, dodge bullets, and learn virtually anything with a simple upload to the brain? How can I not dig that?
Even now, with a mere two days before the servers shut down forever, I want the game to be good. I want it to be more than just some stupid grinder with a Matrix skin. There is so much potential in a Matrix game I can't even begin to understand why they've all sucked. It depresses me to no end that this is probably going to be the last Matrix game in a long time, if not forever.
Sad stuff. And I don't think I am going to be able to be around to see her off. A shame, a damn shame.
---
What is the Matrix?
It’s a question that gets asked more often than the system would like. For so many it’s the kind of question that keeps them up at night. I know I lost quite a bit of sleep over it. Though in reality I guess I was sleeping in the first place. Since it’s difficult to explain to someone what the Matrix is, most people have to be shown. Those people react in a variety of ways. Some slip into denial and then madness, some remain frozen in disbelief until acceptance overcomes them, some others still lose their lunch. But me?
All I could say was, “I knew it.”
Being told that everything I knew and loved was a lie, that my entire existence was the result of carefully calculated formulas didn’t phase me at all. Somewhere deep inside I knew all along that I was in a prison trying to break free. I knew all along that none of it was real. All I needed was a little encouragement to wake up. Even though the real world is nothing more than a pile of slag it’s better than living a lie. Anything is better than pretending.
So I became a soldier in Zion’s war against the machines. Trying to free the minds of those still trapped in the clutches of the Matrix. I saw some incredible things in my time, but nothing as incredible as some of the stuff that came to be after the truce. Instead of a prison it became a playground. I couldn’t believe it. Free minds began to work against everything Zion stood for, acting on behalf of the machines or the exiled programs pitted against us both.
And now It’s over. After all this time the war is going to end for real. The Matrix is going to be shut down and the human race is going to be free again. But will we really be free? I’m not even sure. We’ve suffered so much these past generations that I don’t know what to feel. I’ve been a soldier the whole of my life ever since I freed my mind. And ever since then I’ve been fighting the system, trying to beat the Matrix at its own game and now it’s over. What am I going to be after it’s all said and done? What use is there in the real world for somebody like me?
The Oracle told me that all things must come to an end, but I never imagined anything like this. Each and every day the stability of the Matrix crumbles. The illusion shimmers and in some instances shatters entirely. It’s like the code can’t make up its mind about the season, it’s on some sort of hyperloop. One day it’s winter and the next spring.
Even some of the simpler process are beginning to run haywire. The sky, how can you get the sky wrong. A dull grey with a bit of green undertones suddenly becomes vibrant and blue one moment with Sati’s prayer for Neo and then the next it’s stark red with hundreds upon thousands of eyes staring down below crying red snowflakes.
Is this it? Is the Matrix shutting down? After all these years, after all our fighting, is the big plug finally going to be pulled? I'm gonna miss it.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Where I want to be
At this very moment, like no other moment in the entire history of moments, I desperately wish I were in San Diego. Even now I can feel the beautiful call in vain attempts to lure me like a siren lures a lovestruck sailor. It is my Mecca but 3139.96 miles separate me, a distance I can't afford to traverse. Could I be any further away from my true home? I suppose I could be on another continent.
Ever since I first learned of the San Diego comic-con I've wanted to go. Every single molecule and fiber in my body desires to go to this place saturated with people I want to meet, people who like and do the same things I like and do. Gamers, designers, artists, grown men and women who like me refuse to give in to this whole growing up business. Cartoons, comics and games can be adult things too. People are there that I've looked up to since as long as I can remember, hands that I want to do nothing more than shake. There are some people that I've already decided what I would say to them if I got the chance to meet them.
Guys like Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik, writer and artist respectively of the webcomic Penny-Arcade. I first discovered these guys A mere few months after they first showed up on loonygames in 1998 and I've been a follower ever since. That's eleven years that I've grown up as an isolated gamer reading and taking interest in their opinions. Mike is a brilliant cartoonist and I look up to Jerry, I hope to appear one fourth as intelligent as that man. I almost had an opportunity to meet them in 2003 when they were scheduled to show up at Otakon in Baltimore but had last minute issues that prevented them from showing up at all. I was crushed, but I still got to meet quite a few cool people. I am twenty years old, twenty one in just a few months. I aim to make them feel old when I meet them.
I would say .. I've grown up with them. Though I've never got to game or speak with either of them directly, they're kindred that taught me not to feel embarrassed or ashamed for having the hobbies I do. I've laughed at their jokes and played mostly the same games they did. I was there when Mike proposed to his girlfriend. I was just as elated when Jerry convinced Mike to play D&D even though I'll never get to sit down for a game with them.
At least, I didn't think so until their WoTC Podcasts. I may not actually get to play, but sitting down and listening to them play is about as close to the real thing as I'll ever get. Not to mention they got to game with another guy I am a huge fan of - Wil Wheaton. Frankly I idolize these guys and they're living the life. One of these days I am going to make it to PAX if only to hang out with them for a moment and exchange intelligent quips with Jerry and get a funny sketch from Mike.
And they're just some of the people I want to meet. There are countless other writers, artists, actors and actresses that I just want to meet. Geeks like me, but with talent. Not to mention just regular old geeks. I've grown up predominantly in Virginia and I spend my summers in Maine, and I've never really had a geek friend who liked the same things I do. Don't get me wrong, I've got geek friends. There is a tradition that a handful of us go over to this dude's house and play risk until all hours in the morning. But nobody is into computers like I am. I don't have any friends who know how to build their own rigs. I certainly know knowledgeable people, but still. Nobody I've ever been able to LAN with, nobody I've ever been able to geek out with over Dungeons and Dragons. A common bond through video-games was good enough when I was younger but the vast majority of my friends have grown out of it.
Comics too. The only person I knew growing up who was as into comics as I was turned out to be someone I didn't really get along with. For my entire life my dad has been my geek friend and I his.
Once I figure out what I want to do with my life, I am going to live in California. I am going to go to San Diego on an annual basis and I will drive up to Seattle on an annual basis as well. These things are as essential to me as air and sustenance. Were it not for the internet I'm pretty sure I would've gone crazy a long time ago.
And for the love of god, SWTOR is going to be there. And DAO. You're a frigid bitch, fate.
Ever since I first learned of the San Diego comic-con I've wanted to go. Every single molecule and fiber in my body desires to go to this place saturated with people I want to meet, people who like and do the same things I like and do. Gamers, designers, artists, grown men and women who like me refuse to give in to this whole growing up business. Cartoons, comics and games can be adult things too. People are there that I've looked up to since as long as I can remember, hands that I want to do nothing more than shake. There are some people that I've already decided what I would say to them if I got the chance to meet them.
Guys like Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik, writer and artist respectively of the webcomic Penny-Arcade. I first discovered these guys A mere few months after they first showed up on loonygames in 1998 and I've been a follower ever since. That's eleven years that I've grown up as an isolated gamer reading and taking interest in their opinions. Mike is a brilliant cartoonist and I look up to Jerry, I hope to appear one fourth as intelligent as that man. I almost had an opportunity to meet them in 2003 when they were scheduled to show up at Otakon in Baltimore but had last minute issues that prevented them from showing up at all. I was crushed, but I still got to meet quite a few cool people. I am twenty years old, twenty one in just a few months. I aim to make them feel old when I meet them.
I would say .. I've grown up with them. Though I've never got to game or speak with either of them directly, they're kindred that taught me not to feel embarrassed or ashamed for having the hobbies I do. I've laughed at their jokes and played mostly the same games they did. I was there when Mike proposed to his girlfriend. I was just as elated when Jerry convinced Mike to play D&D even though I'll never get to sit down for a game with them.
At least, I didn't think so until their WoTC Podcasts. I may not actually get to play, but sitting down and listening to them play is about as close to the real thing as I'll ever get. Not to mention they got to game with another guy I am a huge fan of - Wil Wheaton. Frankly I idolize these guys and they're living the life. One of these days I am going to make it to PAX if only to hang out with them for a moment and exchange intelligent quips with Jerry and get a funny sketch from Mike.
And they're just some of the people I want to meet. There are countless other writers, artists, actors and actresses that I just want to meet. Geeks like me, but with talent. Not to mention just regular old geeks. I've grown up predominantly in Virginia and I spend my summers in Maine, and I've never really had a geek friend who liked the same things I do. Don't get me wrong, I've got geek friends. There is a tradition that a handful of us go over to this dude's house and play risk until all hours in the morning. But nobody is into computers like I am. I don't have any friends who know how to build their own rigs. I certainly know knowledgeable people, but still. Nobody I've ever been able to LAN with, nobody I've ever been able to geek out with over Dungeons and Dragons. A common bond through video-games was good enough when I was younger but the vast majority of my friends have grown out of it.
Comics too. The only person I knew growing up who was as into comics as I was turned out to be someone I didn't really get along with. For my entire life my dad has been my geek friend and I his.
Once I figure out what I want to do with my life, I am going to live in California. I am going to go to San Diego on an annual basis and I will drive up to Seattle on an annual basis as well. These things are as essential to me as air and sustenance. Were it not for the internet I'm pretty sure I would've gone crazy a long time ago.
And for the love of god, SWTOR is going to be there. And DAO. You're a frigid bitch, fate.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
