Some overdue updates and recent realizations (and minor ranting)

Let’s see if I can get this down coherently. A good chunk of it is taken from scribblings at 2 a.m., so I wouldn’t forget it now.

Well, to start, I’ve been attending the Culinary Institute of America for about 3 weeks, now. I don’t count the Thanksgiving break in between, obviously. They run us ragged. One of my classes (my only kitchen class, currently) runs from 2 p.m. to 9 p.m., with 45 minutes for dinner. I think we technically are supposed to get out around 8:45, but we are slow with setup and cleanup, so we’re often walking out around 9:15.

Going back earlier (must be almost a year, now), I determined I’m transgender. Especially of late, with so much time to myself, this has been worrying me. When my therapist and I first came to this explanation (conclusion is NOT the word for it, since the problems are far from over), it caused me relief. I had a word for “it.” I had an answer to these stupid questions. But as time went on, I started feeling unsure, and anxious about this “answer.” The more I heard about transgenderism, the more often I caught myself thinking, “I don’t do that. I don’t think that. I don’t feel that.” And I started thinking that maybe I’m just imagining things. Maybe I don’t really feel that way, and I just misinterpreted something else.

A lot of my friends tell me I shouldn’t bother with trying to label myself or my behavior. But maybe I want a label. Not to fit in, but to UNDERSTAND. I’ve grown up with bipolar disorder. Before that, they thought it might have been depression. Before that, who knows? I am tired of vague symptoms that might be any disease, 1 through 2,000. That might be stress. That might be lack of exercise. I just want some certainty. I want to have a cat scan, and have the doctor point at my brain and say, “See that dark, *physically present* spot? That means you’re transgender. It also shows in this blood test we took. You can stop asking yourself now, and actually get stuff done about it.”

Oh wow. I just looked down at what I had written last night, and it pulled me right out of that little sulk. It says:

“I’ve never quite felt sure that I’m trans. I’ve been waiting for some feeling to ‘click,’ and suddenly everything will feel right. Now I know it will never ‘click.’ If it was that easy, this wouldn’t be a plunge into the unknown. Nothing will feel right. I will make it right. I am not a formula. I am not a standard. I am not ‘the recipe for trans.’ I am me.”

Of course, now all I can think of is “I am vengeance. I am the night. I… am… BATMAN!” Anyway, I suppose this is just “don’t label yourself,” reworded, but this is catchier. Copyright Alexandra Pollard, by the way.

Another thing I wrote down was the following, and once again, it helps me to reread it.

“Lack of progress led to complacency. I thought this content state meant I wasn’t really trans. What it actually means is that I’m scared of moving forward, and I take comfort in the safety of not doing so.”

It’s true I don’t look like most people’s conception of a trans-woman. Actually, I just look like a guy. I still have facial hair, I don’t wear makeup, my hair is long, but certainly not feminine by any means, and my clothing is mostly male, and not noticeably otherwise. And although that bothers me immensely, it’s far easier than the alternative: actively transitioning. Like a warm, comfortable safety blanket… that smells like cat pee.

Moving on,  I’ve ditched my pill case. I used to use a special case for my pills, that had compartments for AM and PM for seven days. But not anymore. A couple weeks ago, I realized I don’t need it anymore. I’ve gone down on or just stopped so many medications over the years, I don’t need it anymore. Anyone who’s had to take half a dozen kinds of pills, twice a day for years on end, or still does, will probably understand the liberation I feel from such a simple change. Hell yeah!

And that’s all I have to say about that.

Your actions haven’t affected your morality at all.

I beat Infamous last night. I won’t argue it was a lot of fun, but I have a huge problem with the Karma system. I guess this applies to every game that tries to use a good/evil system. And I know I’m not alone in thinking this (check out Zero Punctuation; he even reviews this game).

For those of you who don’t play video games, or haven’t played one that involves Karma, here’s the deal: Do bad things (steal, murder, commit selfish acts, etc), and there are consequences. Some games will have characters interact with you differently, or even refuse to associate with you. There are often powers, items and missions that only characters with enough bad deeds can use or access. Doing good things, as you can imagine, is essentially the inverse of those things. You can talk to Fred McSaintly, but Tony Stabyouintheface is more likely to… you know.

Anyway, in the case of Infamous, I saw some things that were really annoying.

Good or bad, your choices lead to the same results – True, I haven’t played all that far into my evil path file (I think I’m about halfway done with the Neon District), but I haven’t sensed much of a difference so far.

SPOILERS!

I came to a door that was barred by some poor guy. A gang took his wife hostage, and threatened to kill her if he didn’t lock down the gate (since he’s the engineer). He didn’t know they had already killed her. The Good option was to tell him the truth, which causes him to open the gate and ask you to get revenge for him. The Evil option was to blast him through the gate. I’m not sure why it automatically opened after he was dead. Either way, I got though the gate, and never saw the engineer again. See? The only consequence of that choice was which column the Karma points were added to. Bleh.

/SPOILERS.

Another problem I see is motivation. Why does the character make these choices? Infamous starts out well. Your first mission is to retrieve food provisions that were just dropped via plane into the city you’re quarantined in. When you (Cole) get there, your first Karma Kodak Moment comes up. Cole’s internal dialogue is debating whether to share the food with other citizens, or grab it all for himself, his girlfriend, and his annoying best bud. He would just have to zap one of the strangers with his cool new electricity powers, and they’d scatter. The food would allow Cole and co to live comfortably for a few months, but others would probably starve to death.

That’s a good start. Cole doesn’t strike me as a bad person, but he’s starving, desperate, and now has the power to take what he wants with relative ease. You don’t need a history of puppy kicking and stealing candy from babies, to screw the high ground in this situation. The problem is, he doesn’t change. It’s hard to go through the same game again, doing horrible, evil things, through a character that is as reluctant to do evil as he was when the game started. Seriously, he’s not just “not a bad person.” He has a good heart. He’s no saint, but he downright WOULDN’T do some of the things I’m choosing to do.

There is character development (well, somewhat), but it’s based on the story, not my choices. No matter what choices I make, good or bad, the story doesn’t really change in nature, so neither does Cole. I don’t want a different ending alone. I want more. If a game claims it has replayability, I expect to see something fresh all the way through my second playthrough. If all I get is a different ending, then all the time I spent working my way to the end again does not count towards replayability. Besides, I have a bad feeling that this game falls prey to the mistake I’ve seen other Karma games make (KotOR, for instance). The last choice. The last. God. Damn. Choice.

At least in terms of which ending you get in KotOR (save the galaxy and let peace reign, or become ruler of the Sith and kill all the Jedi), nothing you do matters, except the final choice. Seriously. Be a sadistic freak who feeds his allies to the rancor. Collect protection money from people so poor they have to pay with the money they get their diabetes medication with, and then kill them anyway. In the end, you can still say, “Come on, let’s go save the galaxy!” That pisses me off so much. What was the point of everything else, if in the end it’s all negated?

Ben Croshaw (the guy who does Zero Punctuation) once said something about games while reviewing The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, that I like a lot. He stressed the importance of immersion. If there are things in a game that are so wrong, that they pull you out of the experience, and you remember “Oh yeah, I’m sitting in my living room, playing a video game, NOT flying off rooftops, dodging bullets and shooting lighting from my fingertips,” then it fails.

And before you say it, no, the things in that last line do not break immersion. That’s what exposition is for. While giving you backstory and describing the setting, it’s also telling you the RULES of the world you’re about to experience. Sometimes it will use words. Other times, it will be images, or just be implied. Did you get pissed and stop watching The Lion King because lions can’t really talk, or did you just sort of accept it without giving it too much thought? In Infamous, phenomena (how often do you get to use that word?) such as channeling electricity through one’s body, telekinesis, and telepathy, exist, though they are extremely rare. “Gotcha, time to play.”

Let’s say your best friend, whom you’ve known all your life, was a saint (because no one’s perfect in the real world… that’s why there’s Walgreens). One day, he comes into your house, destroys everything, and mugs you. Wouldn’t your first thought be that something weird was going on? Has he gone crazy? Was he drugged? Is someone making him do this? Or is that not Fred at all? That’s how I feel about Cole. Rather than feeling like I am Cole, the main character, I feel like I’m someone with mind control powers, following Cole around and making him do things he wouldn’t do.

Maybe I’m asking too much. I’m essentially demanding a character that starts off totally neutral and apathetic to the world around him, but once the story starts, can be swayed EITHER way in a couple days. That would be even harder to believe. Hmph.

Fu out.

A rather boring ramble.

Fun fact: Apparently “ramble,” as a noun, means “a walk taken for pleasure, esp. in the countryside.” I guess I’m using it incorrectly. Moving on.

I know this is nothing new for most people, but I want to write down my thoughts, anyway. I was copying a file to my flash drive, in Vista, and I started watching the estimated time remaining number. As I see it, the number depends on both the size of the file (or bytes remaining, I suppose), and the rate at which the file transfers. This seems to be true for both PCs and Macs. I can’t speak for Linux users, but I imagine it’s the same. Where they differ is what interests me.

On a Mac, if the transfer speed changes, the time remaining jumps higher or lower to reflect the change. On a PC, the number doesn’t “jump”, but rather takes longer to count down. If a file is downloading insanely quickly (say, 1 gig a second), and the original estimation is 5 minutes, 1 second in “realtime” (as in one second on your watch) will be 60 seconds (I did no math on that, it’s a wild guess) on the countdown. However, if the transfer suddenly changes to 1 mB per second, the number will decrease to .016 seconds every realtime second.

On a Mac, it’s different. When the rate changes, the number adjusts, ala GPS “Recalculating” style. What was 4 minutes 35 seconds might change to 5, 6, 7, 8… until it reaches a closer estimation.

I believe the Mac way is more accurate. With a .016 second drop per realtime second, you’ll only see a change in the reading every 62.5 seconds on a PC. On a Mac, you will see a more timely change, even if it’s not counting DOWN. However, I feel the PC, even if it’s less efficient or accurate, has a better method. Hypothetically assuming the file will take the same amount of time on either OS, I would rather see a number count down more slowly than watch it rise. The Mac way causes me anguish, as I feel like my progress is in fact backtracking (which it isn’t, it’s just reestimating), like some of the file was un-copied. The PC way is frustrating, but much less so, as I can tell myself “It’s still going down, so I’m making progress, not losing it.” Me and my silly subconscious.

Disclaimer: The numbers are way out of proportion, have very little method of calculation (if any), and are complete exaggerations. Also, these views are mine, and not implying people who feel otherwise are wrong. Besides, I am speculating on many parts of this theory, which is based on my own experiences (meaning other people may find that without referencing a single bias or opinion, the facts they have witnessed prove me wrong).

Goodnight, folks.

PS

Did, “I’m here Wednesdays. Try the veal!” go out of style? I kind of miss that.

Catchy title involving minding one’s manners

This post was previously ignorant and hypocritical. Hopefully I can say what I want to say, intelligently, this time around.

—————————————

This post is addressed to people on the internet (though it applies to real-world socializing, as well) who, for some reason, insist on insulting people and/or their creative efforts.

If the only thing you can contribute to a discussion is negativity, please leave. If I want to read a long argument about who’s stupid for liking the content, or an ass for telling flamers to stop flaming, then I’ll go read YouTube comments.

I’d like to clarify that I don’t see “I don’t like this,” by itself, as negativity. It’s not particularly constructive, but it’s not insulting, either. You’re being honest, and maybe a little blunt. It’s what you add to it that makes it a good or bad comment.

ALLCAPS and punctuation changes aside (it really is amazing how differently it sounds in our heads when those tools are applied), using words that change the meaning of your sentence from, you personally not liking it, to, the piece itself somehow being inferior, means you are being inconsiderate of the artist’s feelings.

I suppose it’s easy to do this by accident. You write something, and in your own head it sounds critical, but fair and constructive. However, when other people read it, without hearing your voice, or seeing your face, they might see some punk with a sneer on his or her face, laughing about how subtle they are with their insults.

Wow. I think the meaning of this entire blog might be changing. I feel like it’s gone from “Stop being a pretentious jerk. You’re not funny or clever,” to “Post constructively,” to “Type carefully. People don’t always hear it how you say it.” Hell, maybe I’ve been too judgmental all this time. Maybe the people I assumed were trying to be jerks were actually just victims of misunderstandings (though it’s undeniable that some of them were a little more defensive than necessary, and quick to shout insults).

As for a way to turn “I don’t like this,” into a positive comment, try adding, “because…” Maybe, “I don’t like this, because the characters’ outlines are too faint, so I’m having trouble telling them apart from the background.” Or maybe, “I don’t like this, because it uses too much purple, and I have had nightmares about Grimace from McDonald’s since I was 7. Now I’m reminded of them.”

…Maybe you shouldn’t use that second one.

I am getting the About To Start Talking In Circles signal in my brain, so I’ll end it here.

Fu out.

The fact is, I have an opinion.

You know, Joseph Walter got me to thinking. He expressed on his tumblr, “The Omnipotent Joe’s Irrefutable Reviews,” how he views film. He doesn’t analyze cinematography, he doesn’t fawn over directors, and he doesn’t believe independent films are better than mainstream, simply because they’re independent. What makes a good film for him is how much he enjoys it. I have to agree with that. Everyone else can talk about a film’s deeper meaning, how it affects the world, how it utilizes film techniques A, B and C, but I don’t care.

If a movie entertains me, then I’m satisfied. I won’t say it’s good or bad, because that leaves room for people to tell me I’m wrong. Saying “It entertains ME, so I PERSONALLY like it,” shouldn’t be a problem for anyone else. If you think that’s naive, because I’m refusing to hear why I shouldn’t like it, then answer me this: Where, in the sentence, “I like this film,” do you hear “Your opinion is wrong” ? Don’t get me wrong. When I say, “I like it,” I have no problem with you telling me why you didn’t like it. Discussion is a wonderful thing. It’s when you say I’m wrong that you lose me. That’s like saying I’m wrong when I tell you I have a nose. Sure, you CAN disagree, but arguing a fact is stupid (unless you’re joking). You will never be right. I know we like things based on our opinions, but the FACT that we like things is… well, a fact. Why I like a movie has to do with my opinion, but… screw it. I’m talking in circles. You get the idea. You’re not idiots.

PS

Link to Joe’s tumblr

I got myself an account over on SmackJeeves.

If you don’t know, SmackJeeves is a site that hosts web comics. I’ve found a lot of great stories (and people) over there, and I was getting tired of having to comment as a Guest. Plus, my Comics folder on my Bookmarks Bar was getting way too crowded. So I made an account and gathered them all up. But, soon after, I was overcome with the urge  to make a comic. That means learning to draw better than a two year old, first, but how hard could that be? I’ve put my first attempt up there. To see it, go to:

Pocket Lint: Leezards don’t like Winter.

Peace out, and all that.

Time to post SOMETHING.

Please don’t look for a format or order to this post. There is none.

I recently find myself singing along to a few songs in my iTunes library. The most frequent are:

Old Yellow Bricks – Arctic Monkeys

Amnesia – Chumbawamba

Breakfast At Tiffany’s – Deep Blue Something

We Are Happy Landfill, Hong Kong, El Manana (which is bloody hard since my voice doesn’t go as deep as I’d like), 19-2000 – Gorillaz

Boulevard of Broken Dreams – Green Day

Engrish Bwudd – Man Man

Dani California, Snow ((Hey Oh)) – Red Hot Chili Peppers

A-W-E-S-O-M-E, Give it to Me (which got a little awkward after I realized the entire song was about getting laid) – Reel Big Fish

Boss of Me – They Might Be Giants

So Happy Together – The Turtles

That’s been fun. I don’t know if I’m getting any good, and even if I was sure I wouldn’t say it, since that would sound pretentious. I’m trying to memorize most of them, but some of them, like the Red Hot Chili Peppers (especially Snow) are way too complicated. Check it out. Still, I’ve got Boulevard of Broken Dreams, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Amnesia down, among others.

By James’s recommendation, I got my hands on a DVD copy of Hardwired. I haven’t watched it yet; I want to watch it with another person. I’ll probably get Zack over here, after he gets back from Maine. I also have to show him the new episode of Dragon Ball Z Abridged. Best part by far:

(Gay) Zarbon: “I should warn you though, this form is entirely different from me in every way.”

*super-awesome transformation involving bulging muscles and scary teeth, eyes and claws*

Zarbon (on crack): “IMA RAPE YA, BITCH!”

Vegeta: “To be perfectly honest, you’re not that different, you’re just alotlesssubtleaboutitOHMYGOD” *crack* *wham* *smash* *repeated head-butt*

Oh, he’ll be feeling that tomorrow. Or, you know… right now. Good times (for me, not him).

Great, now I can’t get that “IMA RAPE YA, BITCH” line out of my head. Sure, it was funny, but I don’t want to go to sleep thinking about it. Yeek.

I got a new desktop picture a little while ago. As fun as it is having a rotation of anime wallpapers swing through, switching every five minutes, I got sick of it, even though I hunt down new pictures to add to the list every now and then. So, thinking of the new Gorillaz album, Plastic Beach (which I heard kinda sucked, actually), I found this on Google. It’s an alternate version of the album cover. Purdy.

I read a lot of comics, both manga (or the Chinese and Korean versions, which I forget the names of), and web comics. I don’t read many printed graphic novels, save those recommended to me or under other circumstances. I never go to comic shops, and I prefer material I can access for free. Hence manga, since there are plenty of sites which translate and upload scans of  manga. Yay! Still, web comics are fun. One of my favorites is called Flipside. You can tell it’s for mature audiences right from the first page, what with the ads for pornography on the side and bottom of the page. It’s actually more violent than sexually explicit, but I guess whatever program the owner of the site informed that this was a mature comic classifies extreme gore with BOW CHIKA BOW WOW! Or maybe the author/artist just liked the idea of having porn links on his site. I dunno, whatever floats your boat.

I also like this, a lighter, sillier story called Slightly Damned. It’s about some weird, catlike person who dies, but apparently wasn’t pious enough to get into heaven. However, she didn’t sin enough to make it all the way into hell, either. Therefore, she is sent to the Ring of the Slightly Damned, to live with the childlike, incompetent demon, Buwaro. Funny stuff happens. It is funny. Ha ha. Anyway…

“IMA RAPE YA, BITCH!” God damn it.

I guess I should’ve mentioned it earlier, but I’m living on my own right now. I live with my dad in his apartment, but he’s at a conference in Beijing right now. I’m not sure where Beijing is exactly; I believe it’s somewhere in Idaho. Heh, just kidding. I got an email from him a few days ago, saying it’s good that we don’t live in China, since Sydney would be in danger. After all, he went to a restaurant in which dog, as well as monkey and bullfrog, were on the menu. Hee hee, I checked the email he sent me to make sure I was remembering correctly, and when I said out loud, “Dog monkey bullfrog,” to me it sounded like something you’d shout when you wanted to swear, but didn’t want to offend anybody or get in trouble. Strange.

I just remembered something from a manga I read, called Hellsing. It’s about vampires in Britain. Woo! At one point, there’s a flashback in which Seras remembers getting raped by a guy whom she just watched kill her parents. But see, she was less than ten years old at the time. Yeah, kinda freaky. Now the anime that stemmed from the manga got to that part, but the killer raped the corpse of Seras’s mother, right in front of her. Well, I guess it’s not rape if she’s dead. Still, who’d have thought that it’d be different? I guess, even in Japan, you can’t get away with putting certain things on TV that you could put in a comic book. The moral of the story is, necrophilia is better than pedophilia.

That reminds me of something a friend of mine showed me. It was one of those demotivator knockoff posters, and it showed two young anime girls, scantily clad, looking oh so innocent. The caption was, “Lolicon; because it sounds so much better than pedophile.” That cracked me up. It’s ridiculous how common it is in manga though. They don’t have sex or anything, which is a relief, but go read something like “Mahou Sensei Negima!” The action in the current chapters is cool (I’m a sucker for demons and magic and stuff), but in the beginning, there’s a crap-load of fan service. It’s not all that weird, until you remember that these are supposedly fourteen and fifteen year old girls. Yeah, they look seventeen or eighteen, but still, it kinda screws with your head.

Moving on from the awkwardness, let’s talk about… cake! Everybody likes cake. Er, wait. Damn you, Eddie Murphy! You have distracted me! Hmm. I want to talk about what I’ve been looking at on YouTube, but I suddenly forgot. Oh wait, there was this regular series. What was it called? Oh yes, it was called “=3″. I don’t know if you should search “equals 3″ or just “=3″, but either would probably work. What? Link? Sorry, I’m sick of linking. It takes waaaaayy too much effort. Yeah.

…

Okay, got distracted watching YouTube videos for about ten minutes. Maybe I don’t have anything to write about anymore.

So lately, I wear these green tinted glasses when I go outside. They don’t really fit, which is why they tend to slide down my nose. Now I understand why so many anime characters who wear glasses are constantly adjusting their specs by pushing them up their nose with their middle and/or index fingers. It’s not to indicate they’re saying something intellectual or insightful. It’s because the fucktards were too busy buying glasses that made them look sly and classy, to notice that they were buying pairs two sizes too big for their heads. Nice going, ya classy morons.

Now I, on the other hand, didn’t go out to buy these, so I am clearly excluded from this fuck-up. I found these sitting on a bookshelf in my room a while ago. They don’t do much to dim the sunlight, but they do slightly help keep my hair out of my face. That’s a plus. I also like them cause they look sly and… God damn it.

It’s two minutes of 1, and I am kind of tired. Still, I know if I lie down now, I won’t fall asleep until around 3. It sucks, but it just seems to be happening lately. What can you do? I guess I’ll just listen to So Happy Together. Bye bye.

Crap, I have to preview this post.

Well, the preview looks good. Bye bye… again.