I Could Be An Accident

No one blogs anymore. I guess I'll take it upon myself to break the silence.

Before I get underway, I just want to say that I write this blog more for myself than for anyone else. I realize that. I don't want to sound like some self-important peddler of internet wisdom talking down to anyone who reads it. But at the same time, I figure if I can sort things out and reach seemingly reasonable conclusions, then maybe someone else could take something useful away from my conclusions as well, which is why I post this stuff online rather than just writing it down in some notebook somewhere that no one will ever read.

The reason I've been stealth-blogging lately is because, when I first started writing this blog, almost every post had a point I felt I could share with people, some bit of insight I'd gleaned from my experiences that I felt was worth passing along. In the last few months, it's been very introspective, and there's a solid chance that no one would take anything useful from them at all. There's a pretty good chance some of the stuff makes no sense to anyone who doesn't know exactly what's going on in my life, and an even better chance that the people who do will make fun of me for what I have to say. I will say this, though: I know the difference between a witch and a Little Sister. I've encountered a witch before. The crying is the telltale sign.

I'm not wrong about Little Sisters. I'm certain of that. Maybe I'm a little too forgiving, but if more people shared that trait, the world would be a better place. Heck, even the witch wouldn't really have been a problem if we hadn't startled her.

But I'm not a genetic experiment. I'm not a Big Daddy. I don't have weapons or plasmids, or a penitent doctor to guide me. To mix my metaphors and toss in a simile, it's like Nick Fury without an Agent Coulson. The Avengers are all there... but they have no motivation.

And that's where everything stands. If it doesn't make sense, that's probably for the best.

New Year, New Perspective

I just had a moment of quasi-transcendent thought. Naturally it came, like most moments of its kind, right as I was laying down to try and go to sleep, but such is the nature of the beast.

Before I went to bed tonight, I sat at my computer watching some old videos from different points in my college life. As usual, it was both gratifying and somewhat disheartening to look back at some of my finer moments, in the sense that those were great times, but now they're over. I'm a very nostalgic individual, which is why I have so many videos in the first place. I like remembering. As I laid my head down upon my pillow, I had one of those interchangeable thoughts along the lines of "why did I take _____ for granted back when _____?"

*Lightbulb*

Probably at least in part because I spend too much time thinking about how awesome things were "back then." Instead of wishing I could go back to a given point in the past, I should be focusing on having a good time with what's going on now, because at some point in the future I will inevitably look back on my life as it is now and say "man, that was awesome. Why didn't I take more advantage of that situation?" Simply put, today is the yesterday of tomorrow. Everything always looks better in retrospect, so I should try to squeeze as much enjoyment out of the present as I can while keeping in mind that the past wasn't as sparkly as I remember it. That's probably the best way to keep a solid grip on reality.

So here we go. Welcome to 2013. Let's DO this!

Sierra Delta

And so it was that a great time to write a post was on a snow day. It was also evidently a good idea to begin the post as though it were a book of the Bible. Today was a snow day of sorts; not for me, because in radio, it could be snowing fireballs and the show must go on. But my roommates took the day off rather than brave the elements, and Ned is on Christmas break anyway. Unable to resist the call of AM EDH, I was roused from my slumber at 9:30. Following three games, we set out, a ragtag band of four young lads, and emerged from the fray as FIRE TEAM SIERRA DELTA: The Power Rangers of Snow Removal.

It was reminiscent of Fire Team Alpha and Fire Team Bravo, two similarly elite strike forces set out to retrieve items on a post-Hobbit excursion to Walmart on Christmas Eve. Fire Team Alpha's mission was to escort a few boxes of dishes, purchased by my dad as a Christmas gift for my mom, out to the van (Alpha for "automobile"), and I was proud to be a member alongside my dad and my brother Michael. Chris, Ned, and Mark comprised Fire Team Bravo, combing the bowels of Walmart's grocery underbelly in search of a loaf of bread (Bravo for "bread"). Both missions were successful.

As the storm beset the Capital Region in the twilight hours of 2012, we were dispatched to help shovel out our respective parents' driveways, stopping first at the abode of my progenitors, where our training was held and we acquired our weapons: snow shovels, each of a different color, to match our... well I don't know what they matched, but they were all different, like Power Rangers. Mine was black, Chris's was blue, Ned's was red, and Anthony's was green. I'm not making this up.

Following swift completion of our task, we then made the trek to Anthony's parents' residence, whereupon we, combined with his brother's silver shovel, cleared out the entire driveway in less than 15 minutes. At that point, we realized our true potential and began naming our trusty shovels. My first inspiration was Mjolnir, in honor of the mighty Thor's hammer. But I realized a more appropriate term was be Elbrus, the Binding Shovel, a homage to a legendary equipment from Magic. And then, the conversation devolved into the dorkiest exchange I've had in a long time, and we just went back and forth substituting the word "shovel" in the names of different Magic cards. For instance: Shovel, the Risen Deep. One of my personal favorites was It that Shovels, but seriously, it was nerdy to the max.

Anyway, the moral of the story is we shoveled really fast.

They Don't Know What Dope Is

In Bioshock 2 (which I recently finished), there's an audio diary recorded by a little boy named Billy Parson in Dionysus Park:



In case you've never played a Bioshock game, Little Sisters are genetically modified little girls who collect Adam (itself a substance that can modify DNA) from corpses in the undersea city of Rapture, and they have glowing yellow eyes. Most of the population of Rapture regarded the Little Sisters as monsters, deplorable abominations to be feared and avoided. But to Billy, this one particular Little Sister was no monster, she was beautiful. And in reality, she was in fact just a poor, impressionable little girl, conditioned, manipulated, and subverted by someone willing to take advantage of her. Altered, but not irredeemable.

There's indication in the game that the Little Sister Billy was in love with was Cindy, Mark Meltzer's daughter. I rescued her. Ultimately, that's the whole point of both Bioshock games: to save the Little Sisters. Unless you want the bad ending, but nobody wants the bad ending.

Billy loved this Little Sister even though he didn't know any more about her than anyone else in Rapture did. He just had a feeling, a feeling that didn't remotely touch on the possibility of her being evil or a lost cause. And she was neither of those things.

I Could Make A Demi Lovato Song Title Joke Too, Among Other Things

I've never posted a blog in December before, so here we go, forging ahead into uncharted territory. Just a heads up, this blog isn't going to be about anything in particular.

Last December, my video game of choice was Saints Row: The Third, which had, in my opinion, two of the greatest set pieces in video game history. One of those scenes featured "Holding Out For a Hero" by Bonnie Tyler, so naturally, having been reminded of that, I have to play the song now. Currently, I'm working my way through Bioshock 2, an event nearly three years in the making (since it came out in early 2010, just after I finished the first Bioshock), and the game does not disappoint. It's good to have a game in which to lose myself again; sleepless nights are much better spent with engaging activity than in the sole company of a wandering mind.

Of course, the reason I'm able to play Bioshock 2 in the first place is because Missy got it for me as a birthday present. Two years ago in December, Missy was Lauren's friend from Greene who came up to visit every so often and who then helped inspire one of the most oft-repeated lines in Highland Ave Era history: "I'M NOT DRUUUUUUNK!" At that point, I never would have imagined that someday she'd be bugging me to do the dishes all the time. I did always think you were cool though Missy, in case you're reading this. But I'm pretty sure you know that already.

And then if you go back to December three years ago, Taylor Swift was just dumping Taylor Lautner, and then she wrote a song about it, called "Back To December."  That was when I had my first designs on Bioshock, which has absolutely nothing to do with Taylor Swift (I just wanted to do the "back to December" thing). I didn't pick it up until after Christmas though, when I bought it in a two pack with Oblivion for 20 bucks. I still haven't tried Oblivion because it just doesn't interest me at all. The same goes for Skyrim.

Maybe looking back like this is my brain's way of setting itself up to finally write the all-encompassing recap of 2011. A few months ago I said I was gonna do it, and I started it, but never finished. And of course of all of these past Decembers, the one that sticks in my mind the most is 2010, probably because I was on the precipice of that life-changing perfect storm of events. Or maybe that was just a particularly awesome December. Maybe I'm wrong about everything, and we're all just bumbling through life without any particular trajectory. I can't bring myself to believe that, though.

I apologize if you read this far looking for a nugget of wisdom. Then again, I did warn you in the second sentence of the post that this wouldn't be about anything. Sometimes, I just like to write. And I'm not really the wisdom nugget authority anyway.

$1.05 Surcharge

Earlier today, I made some tentative plans to get together with some guys and play EDH this Sunday. It's funny the things you take for granted. Or maybe it's just me. Something simple like having free time and using it to do something I'm interested in, and being able to make uncontested plans without consequence... when I was in a relationship, that's all I wanted to be able to do; my own thing, without having to report to anyone or make sure there weren't any other plans I was violating before I went ahead and said "yeah, let's play Magic on this day at this time, that'd be fun." That was the thing that was missing from my life, and now I've got it back.

So there's that.

Like I said, funny the things you take for granted. I think sometimes life gives you what you want because you're supposed to have it. Other times, it gives you what you want because... well, it'll take any sucker's money.

YATTA!

One of the best ways to ruin a movie (or a book, or any kind of story) is to have the ending spoiled. It's almost like there's no point wasting time with the details when you already know what's going to happen at the conclusion. The reason I say this is because, like any person on the planet, I have a reasonable degree of uncertainty in my life, and just like anyone else, I try as much as possible to reduce that uncertainty at every turn. I often find myself thinking "if I just knew how ____ was going to turn out, everything would be okay."

No. No, it wouldn't. That would absolutely suck. The ending would be ruined, and there'd be no point in even trying to get from point A to point B, especially if the ending is (or seems from the current perspective) unfavorable.

Which brings me to my next point: I do believe that the story is written and has an ending. Why? Because I believe in Destiny. I'm talking Hiro Nakamura style Destiny. Why a capital D? Because it's something awesome that you should strive to achieve, and in fact have to strive to achieve, because the concept of Destiny doesn't preclude free will. You've got choices to make, and you have to make them, but they're all leading up to something. "Save the cheerleader, save the world." The world isn't going to save itself, you still have to make decisions and take action, but when you do, things will happen. You're working towards an end, even if you don't know what the end really is. 

Man, if you haven't seen Heroes (or at least the first season), you're really missing out. One of the things I loved most about that show was that they devoted an entire episode in the first season to what was coming five years down the road, and as a result, the characters who've seen it set off to try and stop that apocalyptic future from happening. In so doing, they change a few small details along the way, but over the course of the seasons, you can see the characters slowly start to become the people they had seen in the future regardless of their intentions. In essence, they could alter the path, but couldn't change the ending. 

If you're wondering how destiny and free will can coexist, I don't blame you. I could probably spend another entire post on that subject (and perhaps I will someday soon), but I can sum it up for you like this: it's the same way Jesus could be fully God and fully man. Yeah, try and wrap your brain around that. Doesn't really make sense, does it? No. You either buy it or you don't. Yeah yeah, I'm a Grade A apologist for sure. But hand in hand with the concept of destiny is the notion of purpose. Some people are soldiers, some are medics; some are meant to fight the battles, some are meant to tend to the wounds of those who fight. Me? I'm just here to entertain the troops. But again, I don't think the importance of entertainment should be downplayed. To quote the wise teacher Roger Rabbit, "A laugh can be a very powerful thing. Why, sometimes in life, it's the only weapon we have!" We're not always facing down physical enemies. But I digress.

My point is, life is a journey. Part of what makes it interesting is not knowing what comes next. So if you find yourself wishing you had all the answers and the rest of your life was mapped out, just think of the last time a movie was ruined for you. You don't want to know the end. Half the fun is in the process of getting there. Take each step one at a time, and you'll get where you're going, whether you know where that is or not.